Philip Farmer - The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

“One of our spies learned of the orders Nemo had placed with various industries all over the civilized world, including the States. After all, the Americans, whatever their other deficiencies, are splendid engineers. Nemo was bringing these specially made parts to a remote island and putting them together there. Our chief told me to get admitted into Nemo’s confidence and to sabotage the vessel. I obeyed the first and expected to be able to do the second. Through certain channels, I learned that Nemo was recruiting a crew from different countries. Most of these, poor deluded fellows, were patriots. They came from countries which lay under the heels of oppressors. Nemo told them that he would be waging a deadly war against the oppressors. He hinted that he himself came from a land which was suffering under British rule. To make it appear that he was an Asiatic Indian, he wore glass lenses which gave his eyes a black color, and he often talked as if he had been exiled from his native country after an unsuccessful revolt against the British.

“He even had a common ship’s language which he taught the crew to master enough to obey commands in this tongue. This, I believe, was the dialect of Bundelcund. Nemo had spent much time in Bundelcund, a good part of it as the aide to the rajah before the rajah became a traitor to the Capelleans. In fact, I would not be surprised to learn that Nemo had talked the rajah into becoming a renegade. Nemo’s motto should be, not Mobilis in mobili, the swift among the swift, but Aut Nemo aut nemo. Either Nemo or nobody.

“Be that as it may, I was enlisted as Patrick M’Guire, an Irishman who hated the English. I was part of the crew that terrorized the seas from 1866 through 1868. I was equally guilty of sinking all those ships, since I had to play out my role. I told myself that these would have been sunk anyway. I had to cooperate in this so that I could sooner or later stop Nemo’s nefariousness. In fact, without me aboard, the Nautilus might operate for decades. Nevertheless, I felt guilty.

“And imagine my state when I learned, after the affair was over, that I had participated in sinking a vessel on which my own father was a passenger. I was guilty of patricide.”

At this point, Aouda, tears coursing down her cheeks, put her hand on Fogg’s. He did not seem to notice it. At least, he did not withdraw his hand.

“That it was not intentional did not ease my conscience one bit.

“From the time that the Nautilus plunged into the sea on her maiden cruise, I looked for an opportunity to sink her and with her its commander. But in those crowded quarters, where a dozen eyes are always on you, I had no chance. After we rammed the U.S. Abraham Lincoln, we picked up Arronax and his companions. Events went much as the professor described them, though much happened of which he was ignorant.

“And then we were pulled into the maelstrom off the Lofoten Islands. Even that mighty whirlpool might not have defeated us if I had not had my first chance to act. While the others were occupied at their posts, and frozen with the terror of the maelstrom, I destroyed the circuits which controlled the steering.”

“Ah, then it was you who was responsible for sinking that accursed submersible!” Passepartout said.

He had completely abandoned his original concept of Nemo as a battler against evil, a tortured and lonely genius whose only mission in life was revenge against the oppressor.

“Yes. But I should have blown it up long before that, even though it meant that I, too, should die. Arronax, Conseil, and Land, as you know, escaped. So did I. So did Nemo. Perhaps others did. I do not know. I thought at the time that I was the only survivor. Several months later, I was back in London. The chief and I assumed that Nemo had died. Then I saw him on the second of October in the shade of that doorway near the Reform Club.”

“But,” Passepartout said, “is this man all bad? What about the portrait of the woman and two children which Arronax said hung on the wall of Nemo’s cabin? Did not the good professor see Nemo stretch out his arms to the portrait, kneel before it, and sob deeply? Does a man with no heart behave so?

“He undoubtedly does not lack all sentiment,” Fogg said. “It has been established that even the most hardened criminal may love his mother, his wife, his children, or his dog. I do not know the history of his familial connections. To tell the truth, I was surprised to learn that he had a wife and children. But I do not think that his marriage could have lasted long. His intellect is so lofty that he regards all others, man or woman, as mental pygmies. And he is an excessively imperious and moody man. Perhaps his wife left him, taking the children with her. That may be why he wept. His self-image was bruised; if anyone were to leave, it should be he.

“At any event, he did not always have the portrait on the wall. You may have noticed, in Arronax’s account, that he himself observed the portrait only after being on the Nautilus almost a year and a half. Surely, if he had seen it before, he would have commented on it? Now I, who was aboard from the beginning, only saw it put up twice. Both times were on July second; it was a second of July when Arronax witnessed the sad scene. This date must have some significance to Nemo, but of what only he knows.”

“Then, sir, if I understand you aright,” Passepartout said, “Nemo was not an Indian patriot who gathered a crew from all over the world to fight oppressors. He was a pirate.”

“Most of his crew were patriots, yes. But Nemo was using them. They believed that he was turning his treasures over to underground organizations to finance their revolutions. No such thing. Most of the wealth went either to the Capellean exchequer or into his own bank accounts.

“As for the portrait, the woman and children looked very European; they looked far more English than Hindu.”

“But Aouda looks European.”

“She could pass for a Provençal or an Italian, true.”

“Pardon me, if I persist, sir,” Passepartout said. “What about the professor’s final scene with Captain Nemo? Did he not hear Nemo sobbing, were not his last words, ‘God Omnipotent! Enough! Enough!’ Did not Arronax wonder if this was an outburst of sorrow or a confession of remorse?”

“You observed the fit suffered by Nemo while we were disarming on the Mary Celeste ? Nemo looks, and is, a giant in stature and strength. And he has, like all Capelleans, the elixir which should enable him to live to a thousand years. This, as you know, increases resistance to disease. But it does not make us invulnerable to disease. I am certain from my observations that Nemo is doomed to last no longer than most men. He is inflicted with some sort of nervous malady. Its effects have been few so far. But they will increase. And part of this affliction is an infrequent but blinding and sickening headache. Perhaps this is caused by a tumor, though I suspect that damage caused by undischarged traumas is responsible. But when he was crying out ‘Enough! Enough!’, he was, I believe, calling for a cessation of his pain. That he, a zealous atheist, called on God indicates the extent of his torture. And that he spoke English in this painful moment, when a man is likely to revert to his native language, is significant.”

“He did not speak in French? But Arronax…”

“Failed to mention that it was in English. No, Nemo is a native of some English-speaking land, most probably of Ireland. He could speak Gaelic fluently when talking to one of his Irish crewmen, though it was evident that it was not the speech he learned from his parents. I, though, posing as an Irishman, claimed to be from Dublin and ignorant of all but a few phrases of the Celtic.”