for us to see the destination we wish to reach, than the point
of departure.”
“You are right, Barbicane,” replied Captain Nicholl; “and,
besides, when we have reached the moon, we shall have time
during the long lunar nights to consider at our leisure the
globe on which our likenesses swarm.”
“Our likenesses!” exclaimed Michel Ardan; “They are no more our
likenesses than the Selenites are! We inhabit a new world,
peopled by ourselves– the projectile! I am Barbicane’s
likeness, and Barbicane is Nicholl’s. Beyond us, around us,
human nature is at an end, and we are the only population of
this microcosm until we become pure Selenites.”
“In about eighty-eight hours,” replied the captain.
“Which means to say?” asked Michel Ardan.
“That it is half-past eight,” replied Nicholl.
“Very well,” retorted Michel; “then it is impossible for me to
find even the shadow of a reason why we should not go to breakfast.”
Indeed the inhabitants of the new star could not live without
eating, and their stomachs were suffering from the imperious
laws of hunger. Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared
chief cook, an important function, which raised no rival.
The gas gave sufficient heat for the culinary apparatus, and
the provision box furnished the elements of this first feast.
The breakfast began with three bowls of excellent soup, thanks to
the liquefaction in hot water of those precious cakes of Liebig,
prepared from the best parts of the ruminants of the Pampas.
To the soup succeeded some beefsteaks, compressed by an hydraulic
press, as tender and succulent as if brought straight from the
kitchen of an English eating-house. Michel, who was imaginative,
maintained that they were even “red.”
Preserved vegetables (“fresher than nature,” said the amiable
Michel) succeeded the dish of meat; and was followed by some
cups of tea with bread and butter, after the American fashion.
The beverage was declared exquisite, and was due to the
infusion of the choicest leaves, of which the emperor of Russia
had given some chests for the benefit of the travelers.
And lastly, to crown the repast, Ardan had brought out a fine
bottle of Nuits, which was found “by chance” in the
provision-box. The three friends drank to the union of the
earth and her satellite.
And, as if he had not already done enough for the generous wine
which he had distilled on the slopes of Burgundy, the sun chose
to be part of the party. At this moment the projectile emerged
from the conical shadow cast by the terrestrial globe, and the
rays of the radiant orb struck the lower disc of the projectile
direct occasioned by the angle which the moon’s orbit makes with
that of the earth.
“The sun!” exclaimed Michel Ardan.
“No doubt,” replied Barbicane; “I expected it.”
“But,” said Michel, “the conical shadow which the earth leaves
in space extends beyond the moon?”
“Far beyond it, if the atmospheric refraction is not taken into
consideration,” said Barbicane. “But when the moon is enveloped
in this shadow, it is because the centers of the three stars,
the sun, the earth, and the moon, are all in one and the same
straight line. Then the _nodes_ coincide with the _phases_ of
the moon, and there is an eclipse. If we had started when there
was an eclipse of the moon, all our passage would have been in
the shadow, which would have been a pity.”
“Why?”
“Because, though we are floating in space, our projectile,
bathed in the solar rays, will receive light and heat.
It economizes the gas, which is in every respect a good economy.”
Indeed, under these rays which no atmosphere can temper, either
in temperature or brilliancy, the projectile grew warm and
bright, as if it had passed suddenly from winter to summer.
The moon above, the sun beneath, were inundating it with their fire.
“It is pleasant here,” said Nicholl.
“I should think so,” said Michel Ardan. “With a little earth
spread on our aluminum planet we should have green peas in
twenty-four hours. I have but one fear, which is that the
walls of the projectile might melt.”
“Calm yourself, my worthy friend,” replied Barbicane; “the
projectile withstood a very much higher temperature than this as