Title: Journey to the Ice

Author: Alison Glenny

In: Sport 29: Spring 2002

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, October 2002

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Prose Literature

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Sport 29: Spring 2002

Alison Glenny — Journey to the Ice

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Alison Glenny

Journey to the Ice

Whenever Jules Verne goes to sea in the San Michele, he spends most of his time in the library. For Verne, this room is the heart of the San Michele, the centre from which its multiple journeys unfold across the ocean's blank page (Gravesend, 1868; Algeria, 1878; Scotland, 1879; Copenhagen, 1880). It pleases him to think that wherever his ship takes him, he travels within the space of the library. For these navigations take place upon an ocean already traversed by the journeys of others, and filled with their ghostly reverberations. And yet the ocean holds no roads but becomes, almost at once, itself. It is a space that is always mysteriously virginal. The sea-routes ploughed by the restless close, like the pathways of memory, behind the voyager. It is the home of an emptiness that is endlessly renewed.

Verne's thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door.

Entrée.’

The visitor is Captain Ollive. He stands inside the library and asks to speak to Monsieur Verne on a ‘matter of importance’.

‘By all means, my good Captain.’

‘Then, sir, I must tell you that I am not happy with our present route. The fact is that, if we keep going as planned, we shall miss Scotland altogether and ascend into Arctic waters.’

‘You perceive some danger in our course, Captain?’

‘There is always a danger involved in sailing so far north. As we travel towards the Arctic Circle, our risk increases.’ Captain Ollive clears his throat. ‘There is also the matter of what you are pleased, sir, to refer to as “the alimentary question”.’

‘We are hungry?’

‘We soon shall be, sir.’

‘We lack opportunities to re-provision?’

‘There is little chance of doing so, sir, on our present route.’

Verne strokes his beard thoughtfully. ‘But our situation is not page 101 immediately perilous?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then I shall examine our charts and give you an answer by lunchtime tomorrow.’

‘Very good, sir.’ The two men bow. Captain Ollive clicks his heels and departs for the deck, where he resumes his position scanning the lonely seas through binoculars.

When the Captain has gone Verne goes to the desk where the draft of his latest novel, tentatively entitled Journey under the Waters lies open, awaiting his additions. It recounts the adventures of Dr Arronnax, renowned ichthyologist and author of The Mysteries of the Ocean Depths, as he attempts to circumnavigate the globe by the novel means of submarine transport. The expedition is financed by Arronnax's employer, the Museum of Natural History in Paris. There will be complications: a woman in need of rescue, a complicated wager, a mysterious, unseen marauder who will attempt to sabotage Arronnax's journey. The work exists in that delicious state of possibility, in which the details have not yet been finalised. Verne has reached the point at which Arronnax, in an attempt to escape his unseen enemy, is about to take his submarine beneath the polar ice.

He dips his pen in ink. I cannot explain, he writes, how the beauty of these new regions entranced me. The ice adopted fantastic attitudes. Here it seemed to form an oriental town with its countless minarets and mosques, there a city that had collapsed, thrown down by an earthquake. Views were constantly varied by the oblique sunlight, or became lost in the grey mists of snowy dawns. From every direction, explosions, landslides, and great inversions of icebergs changed the view, like the countryside in a dream.

If asked, Verne would describe himself as a seeker of souls, of delicate subtleties of meaning, of emotional states, of fugitive, frequently sorrowful and significant images. It is his ambition to unite science and the dream. To fill the voids of the universe with words; to discover L'Ile Mysterieuse. In short: he is a poet of the sea.

But the sea is voracious. It swallows everything. A buffalo head, an entire calf, two tuna fish and a uniformed sailor; a soldier with his sword; a horse and its rider.

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How else does one create a landscape, except by travelling through it? It is his task to scatter the ocean with relics, to spell out its unknown regions in names, fathoms, and the intricate detail of its underwater shelves and coastlines.

He turns his attention back to the library. To the unrivalled collection, destined to perish one day at the bottom of the sea, together with the man who has assembled it.

What does Verne keep in the library of the San Michele (that beautiful engine, with a cruising power of 100 horsepower and an acceleration of two)? Names and maps; encyclopaedias and lists; masterpieces of the modern and the ancient authors: Homer and Victor Hugo; Xenophon and Michelard; Rabelais and Mme Sand. Volumes of mechanics, ballistics, hydrology, meteorology, geology, geography and natural history. On this voyage, the volumes in which Verne has assembled all that is currently known on the topic of submarine travel: Submarine Locomotion, The Depths of the Sea, Submarine Adventure, and La Voyage Sous les Flots. An encyclopaedia of ichthyology; the mute but eloquent archive of the sea. There are noble efforts and sublime martyrdoms. Catastrophes, an entire history of disappearances. Burials at sea, storms, encounters with sharks, whales, and the giant squid. There is the shadow of the maelstrom, that phenomenon fittingly called the navel of the ocean and credited with a power of attraction stretching over a distance of 15 kilometers, and which has been known to draw into itself not only ships, but also whales and even polar bears. There are chasms, gulfs and tropiferous isles. There is the mystery, the eternal enigma of the sea. There are the different varieties of ice. On every journey there is, without fail, the legendary city of Atlantis. There is beauty and violence. And, running beneath them, like the basso notes of organ or cello, there is the dark counterpoint of regret, of silence and missed opportunities. Thus Verne describes his encounter with a family of acanthopterygians:

A few authors—more poets than naturalists—have claimed that these fish sing harmoniously, and that their assembled voices form a concert that a choir of human voices could never equal. I am sure that this is true but, to my regret, these sciaenas did not serenade us as we passed.

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Verne can remember dreaming of a woman, or was it a ship? He wakes from the dream as he is leaving behind the limits of submarine life, just as a balloon rises in the air above zones where breathing is possible.

The Captain snores nearby, having fallen asleep over his charts. But it is not this sound which has awakened Verne from his reverie, but a fainter and more eerie music whose source seems to him to lie outside the vessel. As he tiptoes from the library so as not to awaken the Captain, he congratulates himself that on this, his eighth voyage, the world can still reward him with new enchantments.

While he slept, the San Michele has entered into a region of floating islands. The outside thermometer shows two or three degrees below zero, and the air is pure and fresh, with a salty fragrance. Verne breathes deeply, saturating his lungs with the fresh molecules. He lifts his binoculars to scan the closest of the islands and discovers them to be silvered with snow, ice and the white droppings of the polar-birds which have built their nests on them: petrels, black and white gulls, and puffins, whose raucous cries fill the air. But these are not the sounds that awoke him from his reverie.

A faint chord fills the air and Verne, turning in its direction, fixes his binoculars on a vision as enticing as it is improbable. On a small island, where the breath of icebergs stains the air with the expectation of a yet deeper chill, a woman is seated at a piano with her back to him. Strange sounds issue from her wandering fingers; distant chords and sad harmonies: an indefinable tune. Her gown of dark plaid forms a startling contrast with the ice. To protect her from the chill, she wears fingerless mittens; an enormous fur hat, like a Russian's, sits atop her head. She sways in private ecstasies, as if unaware of his presence, or of the vessel that has strayed into her strange fiefdom. Her streaming breath rises in the frosty air with an effect like fog.

Verne gives the order for the anchor to be dropped. He gazes at this vision through his binoculars, lost in admiration. Indeed, there is something at once dramatic and enchanting in the contrast between the dark piano and its similarly hued musician against the brilliance and purity of the ice. Black and white, thinks Verne, are they not the essential elements of the writer's craft as well as the pianist's: the frozen melody of the page?

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‘Lower the ship's boat.’ The crew obey and Verne descends into the fragile craft, which he proceeds to row the short distance to the island. By the time he sets foot on its shore, the woman has risen from her piano and advanced to greet him. The features of the solitary musician are, he observes, delicate. Her hair is the colour of reddish straw, her skin pale, with a scattering of freckles, like nutmeg.

‘You are welcome, Monsieur. Permit me to offer you some refreshment.’

Verne cannot conceal his surprise. ‘You expected my arrival?’

‘We—my father and I—were informed of the approach of your vessel. If I am not mistaken, I have the honour to address Monsieur Jules Verne, the renowned author of The Extraordinary Journeys. Your books, Monsieur, are favourites of mine.’

In response to his unspoken enquiry she says, ‘My pigeons bring me all the reading matter I consider essential.’ Indeed, there is a dovecote nearby, neatly insulated to protect its feathered inhabitants from the icy winds.

To Verne, all is equally marvellous. He follows his enigmatic hostess, as if still in a reverie, as she leads him towards a small chateau of grey stone, built in a baronial style, but fallen into dilapidation. To make conversation, he observes ‘You play only on the black keys, Mademoiselle?’

‘Only thus is it possible to reproduce the distinctive tonalities of Scottish melody.’

‘You are a native of Scotland, Mademoiselle?’

‘My father is the last of the barons of Rothspey, Monsieur. Exiled after the defeat of Charles Stuart, his ancestors made their home on this island. I am his only child. On my mother's side, I am descended from the novelist, Sir Walter Scott.’

The entrance to the ancestral hall passes beneath the mighty jawbone of a whale. Inside the chateau wolfhounds lay their long noses across the padded arms of sofas and gaze at him with unblinking eyes. The room is decorated in an austere style. Tall oak dressers rise at both ends of a long table. Turkey rugs in faded colours, slender ebony ornaments and tall candlesticks contribute to the air of melancholy grandeur.

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‘The Baron, alas, is unable to join us. He is on an expedition to hunt sturgeon. However, I would be pleased if you would take breakfast with me.’ She invites him to seat himself at the table, and lifts the covers on a variety of dishes.

‘Most of these foods are unknown to you,’ she says. ‘But I assure you that you may eat them without fear, for they are good and nourishing. To begin, I have prepared a turtle soup, made from the most delicate hawkbills. To follow there is red mullet, and a dish of dolphin livers. Finally, let me offer you some anemone jam, which is the equivalent of the most savoury fruits.’

As Verne helps himself, he observes the silver, which is monogrammed with the entwined initials of the Rothspey family.

‘Is all your food provided by the sea, mademoiselle?’

‘Yes. The sea provides for all our needs. My father's flocks gaze without fear on the immense ocean plains. There we have vast properties which we alone farm.’

‘You love the sea, mademoiselle.’

‘Yes! I do love it. The sea is nothing but movement and love; it is a living infinity. Here, we enjoy a self-sufficiency of which others can only dream. We have only to put my nets down, to have them return, filled by the sea. These gloves'—she holds out her hands which are encased in mittens—‘are made of byssus, the glossy, silky thread which attaches fan mussels to the rocks. I write on paper made of sea-wrack; my ink is derived from cuttlefish. The sea provides me with all of my necessities, my luxuries, and my entertainments. More than that, it provides me with my occupation, my passion!’

‘You are never lonely, mademoiselle?’

‘No one can be lonely who has the sea for a companion. Not only a companion, but a muse.’

‘A muse, mademoiselle?’

‘I am a scientist, Monsieur Verne, or perhaps a linguist. That is to say, I belong to a profession that has as yet no name and no other practitioners. I would describe myself as a translator of the ocean, a transcriber of its many moods. Here, at the margins of the sea, I have dedicated myself to the task of learning its dialects and recording its utterances.’

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‘The sea has a voice, mademoiselle?’

‘Many voices! How else could it have told me of your coming?’

‘I confess, it is a mystery to me. And yet—’

‘I know. You suspect me of a fantasy. Come, allow me to show you my study.’

They have finished eating. Verne dabs his lip with a napkin, woven from a finer version of the gossamer threads used in the manufacture of his hostess's mittens. The languid, gentle eyes of the wolfhounds follow him as he follows her into a room which, in shape and size, might be the double of his library on board the San Michele. A table overflows with papers and leather-bound volumes. Above it, a row of shelves is filled with gramophone records in brown paper envelopes. A gramophone with a flaring blue trumpet occupies one corner of the desk.

The Baron's daughter gestures to the scattered volumes. ‘These contain a rudimentary grammar and syntax, the beginnings of a vocabulary.’

‘And the recordings?’

‘They are my record of the sea. Of many seas. Permit me.’ Selecting an envelope at random, she slips the disc from its paper sleeve and places it on the gramophone. Having first wound the handle vigorously, she steps back, closing her eyes in the attitude of an opera-lover awaiting the first, haunting notes of an aria.

Verne hears a strange collocation of clicks and groans and, as if from a distance, a whirring sound that might be dolphins.

‘Is it not moving and mysterious?’ his hostess asks him as the last sounds die away. She consults the paper sleeve. ‘I recorded it last year in the Laptev Sea.’ Her features, Verne decides, are infused with the luminous intensity of a religious zealot, or of those who dedicate themselves to the discovery of an obscure truth. As he smokes the cigar which she offers him, his hostess selects extracts from her favourite seas and plays them in rapid succession. Later, he will remember the Sea of Faith (as sonorous as organ pipes), the Sea of Okhost, which speaks of the grinding of ice, and of solemn concentrations of fog and darkness overlaid by the faint whistling of seals, and the South China Sea, which is filled with the melodious sounds of gongs and wood-chimes.

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Listening to the voice of the oceans, a language whose meaning seems to hover just beyond the veil of the static that obscures his ability to fully grasp it, and watching the smoke from his cigar wreathe in the cool air, Verne experiences one of those moments of ecstatic clarity which is destined never to be repeated and, once experienced, is almost invariably forgotten. A moment at which future, past and present seem to inhabit the same frozen instant; a moment etched in consciousness as sharply as a monument sculpted in ice. He knows, before it has occurred, how the remainder of his encounter with this strange and aerial creature will proceed. He has already glimpsed it, rising and taking from like one of the incomparable cities of the ice with its spires and minarets, in the smoke that curls from the tip of his cigar. He has anticipated, before it occurs, their journey into the deep harbour where his fair companion will present him with a cup of whale milk, still warm, from between her mittened hands, explaining how the milky substance, in the form of salted butter and cheese, brings pleasant variety to their ordinary fare.

For a moment he longs to linger in this icy paradise, with its two self-sufficient inhabitants! And yet, he must depart. He looks at his watch.

‘You have a schedule, Monsieur?’

‘I promised my Captain that I would return to the ship by lunchtime.’

‘Ah—I regret that you could not have stayed until the Baron's return. My father will be disappointed not to have met the incomparable author of The Extraordinary Journeys.’

‘You are too generous, mademoiselle.’ Already he too experiences regret, nostalgia. Yet the solitary pleasures of his bachelor existence beckon to him. He looks forward to a cigar with Captain Ollive.

The Captain is waiting to greet him on his return to the San Michele.

‘Have you any other wishes, sir, before we depart?’

‘Nothing my good Captain, except to record the situation of these islands. They must be written in memory and on the charts.’

‘We will add them to the map, sir.’

‘Then let us continue our voyage.’