Journey Through the Impossible Read Online Free PDF

Traventhal: Yes, of course.
    Ox: And to you also, miss.
    Eva (coldly): George is my fiance, sir.
    Ox (aside): Your fiance. (Aloud) Now, his mind harbors dreams that
seem insane to you, and you want to cure him of the grandiose
ideas that are simmering in his brain.
    George: So that's it. They brought you here to see me.
    Ox: You, and no one else.
    Mme de Traventhal: Who told you that, sir?
    Ox: In this country, madam, everyone knows your name, and this
young man's story is known to everyone but himself.
    George: What is he talking about?
    Ox: You expect me to make him well. All right, I'll undertake to cure
him. But don't expect me to turn his thoughts away from the glorious goal he's been pursuing for so long.
    Eva: What do you mean?
    Ox: Do you think that by compressing a gas you can prevent it from
exploding? Of course not. On the contrary, let him give free rein
to his ambition. Don't stifle his noble rapture. Let him say how far
he wants to go, and then let us try to prepare the way for him.
    George: What I want, doctor, is to surpass what has been done by the
heroes whose names are written in these books, to go beyond the
frontiers that they could not cross. Professor Lidenbrok penetrated into the bowels of the earth. I want to go all the way to its
central fire. Captain Nemo, in his Nautilus," sought independence in the depths of the sea. I want to live in that element, and
travel through it from pole to pole. The daring Michel Ardan
enclosed himself in a capsule and went into orbit several thousand
leagues above the earth. I want to fly from one planet to another.
That's what I want, doctor. Is it impossible?

    Ox (in a powerful voice): No!
    Eva: How dare you say that, sir!
    Ox: No! A thousand times no! You will know what you aspire to know,
and your eyes will see what you aspire to see, if your courage does
not fail.
    George: It will never fail. Go on-but isn't this all an empty dream?
    Ox: I will lead you into reality itself.
    George: Into reality!
    Ox (taking a vial from his pocket): See this vial. Anyone who drinks a
few drops of this potion will be carried away with the speed of a
thunderbolt, and under conditions of a new life, to regions where
man is forbidden to go. There will be no more intervals of time
and distance. Men will fly as fast as lightning. Days will go by in
a few seconds, years in a few minutes.
    George: And will I reach the earth's central fire?
    Ox: Yes!
    George: And the bottom of the ocean?
    Ox: Yes!
    George: And go as far into outer space as I want?
    Ox: Yes!
    George: Ali! That would truly be an impossibility.
    Ox: An impossibility that you will accomplish, because I will make
your body capable of going unharmed to places where men burn,
to places where they drown. You'll be able to breathe even where
there is no more air to breathe. You'll be carried away as if by a
whirlwind, and return as the hero of the impossible, the hero who
explored the most unfathomable mysteries of nature.
    Eva: To try to do something like that is not only insane, George, it's
criminal, it's sacrilegious.

    Mme de Traventhal (terrified): Yes, my daughter is right. In heaven's
name, sir, say no more.
    George: Let him speak, grandmother, let him speak. Doctor, I
believe in you. I'm ready to follow you.
    Eva: George, you'd be deserting us, deserting the woman who took
you in and loved you as her own child. And deserting me, too,
George!
    Ox (shouts): Go ahead, beg, weep, soften his heart, weaken his soul,
cast him back into his childhood, this son of Hatteras, just when I
was about to make a man of him.
    Mme de Traventhal (to Eva): Good God!
    George (shouts): Son of Hatteras, did you say? I'm the son of Hatteras, the son of the daring navigator who made his way to the
North Pole?
    Ox: Yes, yes, that illustrious man was your father.
    George: My father! The man whose wonderful tales I read so avidly.
The man I always wanted to imitate.
    Ox: And you will surpass him if you want