fr:Hector Servadac - II - Chapitre IV
CHAPTER IV.THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIENCES.
“Yes, my comet!” repeated the professor, and from time
to time he knitted his brows, and looked around him with
a defiant air, as though he could not get rid of the impression
that some one was laying an unwarranted claim
to its proprietorship, or that the individuals before him
were intruders upon his own proper domain.
But for a considerable while, Servadac, the count, and
the lieutenant remained silent and sunk in thought Here
then, at last, was the unriddling of the enigma they had
been so long endeavouring to solve; both the hypotheses
they had formed in succession had now to give way before
the announcement of the real truth. The first supposition, that the rotatory axis of the earth had been subject to some accidental modification, and the conjecture that replaced it, namely, that a certain portion of the terrestrial sphere had been splintered off and carried into space, had both now to yield to the representation that the earth had been grazed by an unknown comet, which had caught up some scattered fragments from its surface, and was bearing them far away into sidereal regions. Unfolded lay the past and the present before them; but this only served to awaken a keener interest about the future. Could the professor throw any light upon that? they longed to inquire, but did not yet venture to ask him.
Meanwhile Rosette assumed a pompous professional
air, and appeared to be waiting for the entire party to be
ceremoniously introduced to him. Nothing unwilling to
humour the vanity of the eccentric little man, Servadac
proceeded to go through the expected formalities.
“Allow me to present to you my excellent friend, the
Count Timascheff,” he said.
“You are very welcome,” said Rosette, bowing to the
count with a smile of condescension.
“Although I am not precisely a voluntary resident on
your comet, Mr. Professor, I beg to acknowledge your
courteous reception,” gravely responded Timascheff.
Servadac could not quite conceal his amusement at
the count's irony, but continued:
“This is Lieutenant Procope, the officer in command of
the Dobryna.”
The professor bowed again in frigid dignity.
“His yacht has conveyed us right round Gallia,” added
the captain.
“Round Gallia?” eagerly exclaimed the professor.
“Yes, entirely round it,” answered Servadac, and without
allowing time for reply, proceeded:
“And this is my orderly, Ben Zoof.”
“Aide-de-camp to his Excellency the Governour of
Gallia,” interposed Ben Zoof himself, anxious to maintain
his master's honour as well as his own.
Rosette scarcely bent his head.
The rest of the population of the Hive were all presented
in succession: the Russian sailors, the Spaniards, young Pablo, and little Nina, on whom the professor, evidently no lover of children, glared fiercely through his formidable spectacles. Isaac Hakkabut, after his introduction, begged to be allowed to ask one question.
“How soon may we hope to get back?” he inquired, imploringly.
“Get back!” rejoined Rosette, sharply; “who talks of
getting back? We have hardly started yet.”
Seeing that the professor was inclined to get angry, Captain Servadac adroitly gave a new turn to the conversation
by asking him whether he would gratify them
by relating his own recent experiences. The astronomer
seemed pleased with the proposal, and at once commenced
a verbose and somewhat circumlocutory address, of which
the following summary presents the main features.
The French Government, being desirous of verifying
the measurement already made of the arc of the meridian
of Paris, appointed a scientific commission for that purpose. From that commission the name of Palmyrin Rosette was omitted, apparently for no other reason than his personal unpopularity. Furious at the slight, the professor resolved to set to work independently on his own account, and declaring that there were inaccuracies in the previous geodesic operations, he determined to re-examine the results of the last triangulation which had united Formentera to the Spanish coast by a triangle, one of the sides of which measured over a hundred miles, the very operation which had already been so successfully accomplished by Arago and Biot.