And poor Martha had to go away unanswered. As for me, after long
resistance, I was overcome by sleep, and fell off at the end of the
sofa, while uncle Liedenbrock went on calculating and rubbing out his
calculations.

When I awoke next morning that indefatigable worker was still at his
post. His red eyes, his pale complexion, his hair tangled between his
feverish fingers, the red spots on his cheeks, revealed his desperate
struggle with impossibilities, and the weariness of spirit, the
mental wrestlings he must have undergone all through that unhappy
night.

To tell the plain truth, I pitied him. In spite of the reproaches
which I considered I had a right to lay upon him, a certain feeling
of compassion was beginning to gain upon me. The poor man was so
entirely taken up with his one idea that he had even forgotten how to
get angry. All the strength of his feelings was concentrated upon one
point alone; and as their usual vent was closed, it was to be feared
lest extreme tension should give rise to an explosion sooner or later.

I might with a word have loosened the screw of the steel vice that
was crushing his brain; but that word I would not speak.

Yet I was not an ill-natured fellow. Why was I dumb at such a crisis?
Why so insensible to my uncle's interests?

"No, no," I repeated, "I shall not speak. He would insist upon going;
nothing on earth could stop him. His imagination is a volcano, and to
do that which other geologists have never done he would risk his
life. I will preserve silence. I will keep the secret which mere