"Jules Vernes - Off on a Comet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

have given free rein to fancy, to dreams of what might be found. Verne has
endeavored to impart only what is known to exist.
In the same year with "Off on a Comet," 1877, was published also the
tale variously named and translated as "The Black Indies," "The
Underground City," and "The Child of the Cavern." This story, like "Round
the World in Eighty Days" was first issued in "feuilleton" by the noted Paris
newspaper "Le Temps." Its success did not equal that of its predecessor in
this style. Some critics indeed have pointed to this work as marking the.beginning of a decline in the
author's power of awaking interest. Many of
his best works were, however, still to follow. And, as regards imagination
and the elements of mystery and awe, surely in the "Underground City"
with its cavern world, its secret, undiscoverable, unrelenting foe, the
"Harfang," bird of evil omen, and the "fire maidens" of the ruined castle,
surely with all these "imagination" is anything but lacking.
From the realistic side, the work is painstaking and exact as all the
author's works. The sketches of mines and miners, their courage and their
dangers, their lives and their hopes, are carefully studied. So also is the
emotional aspect of the deeps under ground, the blackness, the endless
wandering passages, the silence, and the awe.'.CHAPTER I A CHALLENGE
Nothing, sir, can induce me to surrender my claim."
"I am sorry, count, but in such a matter your views cannot modify
mine."
"But allow me to point out that my seniority unquestionably gives me a
prior right."
"Mere seniority, I assert, in an affair of this kind, cannot possibly entitle
you to any prior claim whatever."
"Then, captain, no alternative is left but for me to compel you to yield at
the sword's point."
"As you please, count; but neither sword nor pistol can force me to
forego my pretensions. Here is my card."
"And mine."
This rapid altercation was thus brought to an end by the formal
interchange of the names of the disputants. On one of the cards was
inscribed:
Captain Hector Servadac,
Staff Officer, Mostaganem.
On the other was the title:
Count Wassili Timascheff,
On board the Schooner Dobryna.
It did not take long to arrange that seconds should be appointed, who
would meet in Mostaganem at two o'clock that day; and the captain and the
count were on the point of parting from each other, with a salute of
punctilious courtesy, when Timascheff, as if struck by a sudden thought,
said abruptly:
"Perhaps it would be better, captain, not to allow the real cause of this
to transpire?"
"Far better," replied Servadac; "it is undesirable in every way for any
names to be mentioned."
"In that case, however," continued the count, "it will be necessary to
assign an ostensible pretext of some kind. Shall we allege a musical