Robur the Conqueror. Jules Verne

left his side.

      “Speak! Speak!” replied ninety-nine voices—as chance would have it, all in agreement on this point.

      “A stranger, my dear colleagues, asks to be introduced into our meeting hall.”

      “Never!” returned all the voices.

      “He wishes to prove to us, it seems,” Uncle Prudent went on, “that to believe in the navigability of balloons is to believe in the most absurd utopia.”¹⁴

      A groan greeted this declaration.

      “Let him enter! … Let him enter!”

      “What’s the name of this singular personage?” asked the secretary Phil Evans.

      “Robur,” replied Uncle Prudent.¹⁵

      “Robur! … Robur! … Robur!” bellowed the whole assembly.

      And, if agreement was so rapidly given to this singular name, it was because those in the Weldon Institute had high hopes of unleashing their rage on the man who bore it in an outpouring of exasperation.

      So the storm was calmed for an instant—in appearance at least. Besides, how could a storm really be calmed among a people who send two or three of them every month toward Europe, in the form of squalls at sea?

      CHAPTER

       3

       In which a new character does not need to be presented, for he presents himself

      “Citizens of the United States of America, my name is Robur. I am worthy of the name. I am forty years old, though I look younger than thirty; I am possessed of an iron constitution, indestructible health, remarkable muscular force, and a stomach that would pass for excellent even among ostriches. So much for the physical side.”

      And they listened. Yes! The noisemakers were taken aback at once by the unexpectedness of this speech pro facie suâ.¹ Was he a madman or a swindler, this personage? In any case, he both interposed and imposed. Not so much as another breath of air from the midst of the assembly, where a hurricane had previously been unleashed. The calm after the storm.

      More than that, Robur really seemed to be the man he said he was. Average height, of geometric build—which is to say, a regular trapezoid, with the longer of its parallel sides formed by the line of the shoulders. On that line, attached by a robust neck, an enormous spheroidal head. What animal’s head would it resemble according to the theory of Passionate Analogy?² That of a bull, but a bull with an intelligent face. Eyes that the slightest contradiction would set ablaze, and, above them, forehead muscles permanently contracted, indicating extreme energy. Short, slightly frizzy hair, of metallic sheen, as if it were a quiff of steel wool. Wide chest rising and falling with the movements of a blacksmith’s bellows. Arms, hands, legs, feet worthy of the torso.

      No mustache, no sideburns, a large sailorly beard in the American style—revealing the joints of the jaw, whose masseter muscles must have been formidably powerful. It has been calculated—what has not been calculated?—that the pressure of the jaw of an ordinary crocodile can attain four hundred atmospheres, while that of a big hunting dog can reach only one hundred. The following curious formula has even been deduced: if one kilogram of dog produces eight kilograms of masseter force, one kilogram of crocodile will produce twelve. Well then, one kilogram of this man Robur must have produced ten at least. He was therefore situated between dog and crocodile.

       “My name is Robur.”

      From what country came this remarkable character? That was difficult to say. In any case, he expressed himself fluently in English, without that rather drawling accent that distinguishes Yankees from New England.

      He continued in the same vein:

      “And now for the mental side, honorable citizens. You see before you an engineer whose intellectual strength is in no way inferior to his physical. I fear nothing and nobody. My willpower has never ceded to another. When I am fixed on a goal, all America, all the world, would unite in vain to prevent my attaining it. When I have an idea, I intend my views about it to be shared, and I will not accept contradiction. I emphasize these details, honorable citizens, because it behooves you to know me well. Perhaps you find I talk too much of myself? No matter! And now, think carefully before interrupting me, for I have come to tell you things that may not happen to please you.”

      A noise like recoiling waves began to spread along the first ranks of the hall—a sign that the sea would soon become rough.

      “Speak, honorable stranger,” said Uncle Prudent simply, though he had difficulty restraining himself.

      And Robur spoke as before, paying no mind to his listeners.

      “Yes! I know! After a century of experiments all leading to nothing, of tests giving no results, there are still some unbalanced minds so pigheaded as to believe in the navigability of balloons. They imagine some sort of motor, electric or otherwise, attached perhaps to their pompous balloon bladders, that could offer enough resistance to atmospheric currents. They imagine they will master an aerostat the same way one masters a boat on the surface of the sea. Because a few inventors, in still weather or something very like it, have succeeded, whether by tilting with the wind or heading into a light breeze, will the steering of lighter-than-air apparatuses be made practical? Come now! You here are a hundred people who believe your dreams will be made real, and who have thrown away thousands of dollars—not into the sea, but into space. Well, all of that is to fight against the impossible!”

      Singularly enough, faced with this assertion, the members of the Weldon Institute moved not a single muscle. Had they become as deaf as they were patient? Were they holding back, wanting to see how far this bold contradictor dared to go?

      Robur went on:

      “What, a balloon—when to obtain a kilogram of lift, you need a cubic meter of gas! A balloon, which claims it can resist the wind using its motor, when the power of a stiff breeze on a sail is equal to the strength of four hundred horses, when it has been shown that the hurricane in the Tay Bridge accident exerted a pressure of 440 kilograms per square meter!³ A balloon, when nature has never constructed any flying creature on such a system, whether that creature is fitted with wings like the birds, or with membranes like certain fish and certain mammals—”

      “Mammals?” shouted a member of the club.

      “Yes! The bat, which can fly, if I’m not very much mistaken! Is the interrupter unaware that the bat is a mammal? Has he ever seen an omelet made of bat’s eggs?”

      At this, the interrupter gave up his future interruptions, and Robur continued with the same bravado:

      “But is this to say that man must renounce the conquest of the air and the transformation of the civil and political habits of the Old World by the use of that admirable means of locomotion? Certainly not! And just as he became master of the seas with vessels, by oar, sail, paddlewheel, or propeller, just so he will become master of the atmosphere with heavier-than-air machines—for one must be heavier than air to be stronger than air.”

      This time, the assembly went to pieces. What a salvo of shouts from every mouth, all aimed at Robur, as if they were so many muzzles of rifles or cannons! But wasn’t this the inevitable reply to a true declaration of war, shot into the balloonians’ camp? Wasn’t the battle about to begin again between “Lighter” and “Heavier-Than-Air”?

      Robur did not bat an eyelid. Arms crossed on his breast, he stood undaunted, waiting for silence.

      Uncle Prudent, with a gesture, ordered a ceasefire.

      “Yes,” resumed Robur. “The future belongs to the flying machines. Air is a solid point of support. Send a column of that fluid moving upward at forty-five meters