The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures (13 page)

On he climbed, using the
cigarette-smoking bas-relief figures on the billboard as his rockface,
ascending by means of handholds and toeholds found in their pitted steel
surfaces, the ridges of their fingers, the contours of their faces and hair,
till at last he gained the summit and the whole of London seemed spread out at
his feet, man’s fantastic creation, an epic of brick and metal and glass.

He wanted to shout his
ecstasy across the rooftops but he was out of breath and dizzy with vertigo. He
hung on to the billboard’s top edge while the shadows of whirring airships
passed over him and the wind whipped at his clothes. He could let go, he could
fall, he could die, and perhaps he would, but not now, not yet, not till this
moment of triumphal revelation had passed, and maybe it would not, maybe it would
never pass, maybe it would last forever.

For London was different
now, new life crackled in its electric nervous system, new blood pulsed along
its roadway arteries. One could tell. One could smell it. The citizens who had
deserted the city were back in their droves, and more besides, foreigners who
had ridden in with the returning wave, scenting a wiped-clean slate and fresh
opportunities. Of the forty million and more who lived in the capital these
days, a quarter at least were immigrants from other lands who brought with them
their own mores and traditions. Now there were Turkish markets on the streets
of Islington, Mongolian restaurants in the borough of Richmond, Latvian vendors
hawking their wares on the paths of Hyde Park, Nigerians and Congolese playing
music down at the Wapping docks and the Isle of Dogs, Polynesians setting up
cafés on every bridge from Tower Bridge to Teddington, Argentines touting their
services as rugby coaches to the children of the well-heeled, artists from
Montmartre erecting their easels on the South Bank (coming to be known as the
Rive
Sud),
and London was welcoming and subsuming them all, happy again to be a
place where people wanted to be, glad to have a plenum of inhabitants once
more.

Possibly no one saw this
— truly saw this — but Dufrénoy. He alone of all Londoners, a one-time
immigrant himself but now more of a native than most, understood his home city’s
renaissance. This New Jerusalem! And the old man atop the billboard need never
write another line of verse again, because all around him/

[
Editor’s Note:
There is no more. This last passage occupies the anteprepenultimate,
prepenultimate and penultimate pages of the ruined manuscript. The final page
is unreadably singed, with just a single word legible at the foot:
“Fin”.
It
can only be speculated whether Dufrénoy throws himself from the billboard after
all or else remains there in perpetual suspense at the novel’s close. The
reader may choose Dufrénoy’s fate according to his/her own inclination.

Londres au XXI
^e
siècle
is barely even a footnote in the Verne canon. There are Vernian
scholars who reckon it is not actually the master’s work at all but rather his
son’s, for in Verne’s declining years Michel assisted with the writing of the
novels and may well have authored some of them wholly by himself. In the light
of this, the section which details the father’s being a disappointment to the
son can be seen, perhaps, as a riposte by Michel to Verne’s anguish over the
waywardness and lack of achievement of Michel’s early years — Verne junior
getting his own back in literary form. In which case, one might go so far as to
venture that it was out of guilt that Michel set fire to the manuscript, if
indeed he was the culprit — guilt brought on by the death of his father in 1905,
not long after
Londres . . .
was completed. Could Michel have come to
regret creating that closing image of an elderly writer who has all but
abandoned his craft, hanging on to a vast billboard by his fingertips while a
post-apocalyptic vision of a “New Jerusalem” feverishly fills his head?

Were there more of
Londres
. . .
in existence, one might be able to form a cogent opinion. As it is,
an unmistakable whiff of mortality and remorse permeates the few crisp-edged
clusters of pages we have. As with every burned work of art, it is as if the
creator has been immolated along with the creation. This much, in the end, is
all we can assume — that Michel Verne, grief-stricken, consigned the manuscript
to the pyre and then had a last-minute change of heart and rescued what he
could before the artefact was fully destroyed. He thereafter kept hold of the
remnants as though they were relics of his own father. Even the loved ones whom
we haven’t loved as much as we should, should be remembered as if we loved them
completely.]

After his failure to
sell
Paris au XX
^e
Siècle,
Verne returned first to the war
novel, with
Les Forceurs de blocus
(not published until 1865), better
known as
The Blockade Runners,
and to the adventure novel with
Les
Anglais au Pole Nord
(1864), the first of the Captain Hatteras stories
featuring a highly atmospheric journey into the far North. While writing this
novel Verne became intrigued by the theory propounded many years earlier by
Captain John Symmes of Ohio that the Earth was hollow and that there were
entrances into the Earth at both the North and South Poles. The idea had led to
a satirical science-fiction novel,
Syrnzonia
(1820) by the pseudonymous
Adam Seaborn and, more importantly, had inspired Edgar Allan Poe, who used the
idea in
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
(1838), which Verne had
recently read and would later continue with the sequel
Le Sphinx des glaces
(1897). Verne approached the concept of a hollow Earth with his usual
scientific thoroughness and produced one of his best novels,
Voyage au
centre de la terre
(1864). Here Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel
follow clues left by the explorer Arne Saknussemm and descend into the bowels
of the Earth via a volcano in Iceland. Far below the surface they discover a
vast subterranean sea and witness sea monsters and a giant humanoid. For the
first time Verne had
allowed himself to go beyond
the facts into the fanciful and produced his first great novel of science
fiction. It launched what became known as Verne’s “Voyages Extraordinaires”.

The next two stories
reconsider the novel from two entirely different perspectives.

Twenty-five leagues
beneath the surface of the Earth, I certainly never expected to be rescued from
troglodytes by
Germans.
My amazement would grow the greater as I became
acquainted with those same Germans! Ah but whatever my reservations about
Monsieur Verne’s character I should take a leaf out of his book and begin at
the beginning of the tale . . .

In the Dordogne, some
thirty-five leagues inland from Bordeaux, Pierre and I were cantering across
grassy upland near the village of Montignac-sur-Vézères when all of a sudden
his chestnut stallion Pompey collapsed and Pierre was thrown right over the
horse’s head. Immediately I reined Diana in, jumped down and ran to Pierre,
crying, “My love!” Pompey was squealing horribly. I could see that his front
legs had disappeared into the ground, into a crevice that had opened up. Pierre
was already scrambling to his feet.

“Be damned!”

He seemed winded, for he
paused to collect himself — by stroking his moustaches. What an elegant figure
of a man. I loved his wavy brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Captain Pierre
Marc-Antoine Dumont d’Urville, soldier, —explorer, adventurer.

“Are you all right, my
love? Your ribs, your everything?” “My pride is injured, that’s all, Hortense.
Mark you, this was not Pompey’s fault.”

We’d had some spirited
discussion about the respective merits, or demerits, of Pompey and Diana. Poor
Pompey, he was suffering such pain.

So far as Pierre could
tell by peering then reaching into the hole, both of the horse’s trapped legs
seemed badly broken. Pierre stood up decisively.

“He’s ruined — and in
misery.” He unholstered his bulky revolver.

Monsieur Verne was later
to study that revolver with some interest, and it plays a subsequent role in
this narrative too (all be it only as a cosh), so maybe I should say something
concerning it. Our genius of an author loves to describe in detail technical
and scientific matters. I should match my humble story-telling skills to his
redoubtable ones. Seriously, I mean it. I’m always willing to learn.

A thousand of the
unusual revolvers had recently been manufactured in Paris, where Pierre had
managed to procure one. Although I wasn’t previously much interested in guns,
Pierre had been keen to show off his acquisition to me, like a child with a new
toy — and I have a very retentive memory for facts. The invention of a
French-born doctor named le Mat — in support of the Confederate army in the civil
war currently raging in America — the revolver in question sported two barrels.
The larger central barrel would fire grapeshot. A slimmer barrel would fire
bullets coming from a nine-chamber cylinder revolving around the central
barrel. The nose of the hammer was movable to accommodate this double action.
Should you happen to be faced by a mob, Pierre had explained, the spread of
shot would cause multiple damage and cool ardour. Such a revolver would be
valuable in penal colonies, not to mention should you suddenly come upon
several partridges feeding together and wish to bag them all.

“Look away, Hortense!”

“Certainly not,” I
replied. “Do you think I will faint or have hysterics, like your wife?”

Pierre shrugged and
fired a single bullet. Some blood and tissue sprayed from Pompey’s head, which
promptly slumped.

Just as well I did not
look away, for it was as if the detonation was a trigger. Or the reason may
have been that Pompey’s now dead weight shifted. The ground gave way more so.
Pierre and I both needed to jump back. Pompey’s entire body slid into the
widening hole, disappearing from sight. Moments later, a muted thump sounded
from underground.

What I now know to be
called a
doline
had opened up, a “swallow-hole”
through which rainfall would in future drain into a subterranean cave. That is
the geological explanation for what had happened: we had been riding the horses
on top of a system of caves and part of a cave roof had given way.

Since no further
collapse seemed imminent, Pierre lay down and inched forward cautiously to
inspect. Of course I joined him in this.

“Go back, Hortense. Our
combined weights may —”

“I wish to see.”

In fact there was little
to be seen. The sun shone brightly from a sky containing only a few white
woolly clouds, but below was darkness. Soon we both withdrew, stood up, and
brushed our clothes. By now the dark brown mare had ambled over, and was
staring at the hole from a safe distance. Diana pawed with one hoof. Her
nostrils flared. What might she be thinking or feeling? At its best the
Tarbenian breed is very intelligent as well as brave, with graceful action,
elegance and endurance — quite like myself, perhaps? The trouble is that the
breed requires constant infusions of English thoroughbred blood alternating
with Arab blood, or else it tends to degenerate, retaining of its ancestral
magnificence little but a thick heavy Andalusian neck. My grandfather bred
horses, so I know more than a little about the matter, not to mention being
acquainted with the saddle — a
nd
with bare-back riding — from an early
age when most girls would play with dolls.

“Alas,” said Pierre, “it
seems that Pompey now has a grave, a natural one. However, I’m not some
primitive chieftain who buries an expensive saddle along with his steed! We
need a long rope and a strapping farmboy to assist me.” He eyed my mount.

Promptly I said, “Diana’ll
carry us both, if I take it easy —she isn’t slack-backed. We’ll leave her
saddle here, and you can hold on to me.”

“My dear, surely I shall
take the reins!”

“Have you ever ridden
bare-back before? Besides, I did not lose my mount!”

“Oh Hortense, you
mettlesome filly!” Pierre burst out laughing — quite lasciviously. Doubtless he
was remembering the previous night when he had ridden me, and vice versa. Of
course Pompey’s death was shocking and sad but we must retain our spirits and
good humour. Pierre and I were well suited in this regard. Oh was I to remain
forever merely a mistress? Of course there was the matter of his wife’s large
inheritance to which he would lose access — that inheritance had paid for his
various adventures in exotic places.