Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Uncle is also confused

"It's obviously Luniven," said the professor, frowning, "but there's a secret here, and I'm going to discover it unless...," With one violent movement, he made up his mind. "Sit there," he went on, pointing to the table with his fist, "and start writing." I'm ready in no time. "Now, I'm going to pronounce each letter equivalent to these Icelandic words, and you will write it down. We'll see what the result is. But I speak in the name of the name: you must be careful not to make mistakes!" Silent writing has begun.I did my best; the letters were read individually one by one, and the following incomprehensible text was produced: mm.rnlls esreuel seecJde sgtssmf unteief niedrke kt,samn atrateS Saodrrn emtnaeI nuaect rrilSa Atvaar . ,iac oseibo KediiY (Correction Note: The third word in the first line of the original book is seecFde, I didn’t understand the picture, but when it is mentioned here later, it is J, so it is changed to J in the following text. The first word mm is a letter.)

When the work was over, my uncle immediately grabbed the paper I had written on and studied it for a long time with great concentration. "What's this about?" he said mechanically to himself. To be honest, I can't answer his question.But he didn't ask me either, he continued talking to himself: "This is what we call a cipher," he said, "in which the meaning is hidden in some deliberately jumbled letters, and if we arrange them properly, we can arrange them in a way that people can understand. If you think about it, here may be There is an explanation or implication that can lead to great discoveries!" In my opinion, there is no meaning here, but I carefully conceal my opinion.The professor took the book and the parchment again, and compared them.

"These two documents were not written by the same person," he said. "The cipher is after the time of this book, and I have found an undeniable proof. The first letter of the cipher is 'double m', which is Not found in the Tullesin book, because the new alphabet was not added to the Icelandic script until the fourteenth century. So there is at least two hundred years of discrepancy between this manuscript and this document." This, I admit, seems reasonable. "So it occurred to me," continued my uncle, "that some collector of this book probably wrote these mysterious characters. But, damn it, who is this collector? He won't write his name Is it somewhere in this manuscript 2"

Uncle pushed his spectacles up to his forehead, picked up a powerful microscope, and carefully examined the first few pages of the book.On the back of the second page, the one with the subtitle, he found some blotches that looked like blotches of ink.However, after continuing to look closely, some letters that are mostly erased can still be seen.My uncle thought it worth studying; he studied the blot desperately, and with the help of his large microscope, at last recognized the marks, also in Looney script, and read without hesitation: "Arn Saconusan!" he cried triumphantly, "that's a man's name, and an Icelandic one at that! It's a scholar of the sixteenth century, a famous alchemist! "

I looked at my uncle and admired him very much. "These alchemists," he went on, "Avesina, Bacon, Luna, Balagius, were all wonderful men, the only scholars of their time, whose discoveries deserve our astonishment. Why didn't Knusan hide some great invention in this incomprehensible code? It should be so. It must be." The professor's imagination was stirred by this hypothesis. "No doubt so," I answered courageously, "but why does the scholar want to hide some marvelous discovery?" "Why? Why? Ah! How do I know? Didn't Galileo (Galileo?) hide the discovery of Saturn in this way? Anyway, we shall know; I want to know the secret of this document; I will not Eat and don't sleep until you find it."

"Oops!" I thought to myself. "It's the same with you, you don't eat or sleep, Aksai." He continued. "My God!" I said to myself, "I'm lucky I had a double!" "Now," said the uncle again, "we must find the original text of the code, and it should not be difficult." Hearing this, I quickly raised my head.The uncle went on talking to himself: "There is nothing easier. There are one hundred and thirty-two letters in this document, of which there are seventy-nine consonants and fifty-three vowels. This corresponds almost to the The general proportion of the Nordic script, the consonant would be much richer. So it should be a southern European language."

There are good reasons for this conclusion. "But what language is it?" This is a question for my teacher to answer, but I admire his profound analytical ability. "This Saconusian," he went on, "is a man of learning; therefore, when he does not write in his native language, he must have chosen the common language among the cultured men of the sixteenth century, Latin, I dare say. .If I'm wrong, I can try Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, and Hebrew. But sixteenth-century scholars generally wrote in Latin. I can be sure beforehand: it's Latin." I jumped up from my chair.My fondness for Latin led me to rebel against the assumption: "How can these queer words be the poet's beautiful language?"

"Yes! It's Latin," continued the uncle, "but it's garbled Latin." "Well," I thought to myself, "if you can keep it out of the way, you'll be pretty good at it." "Let's study it," he said, holding the paper I had written on. "Here are the one hundred and thirty-two letters, and they are obviously jumbled up. Some words have only consonants in them, such as the first letter mm.rnlls , on the contrary, there are quite a lot of vowels in some words, such as the fifth word unteief, or the penultimate word oseibo. This arrangement is obviously wrong; these are arranged mathematically according to laws that we do not know. See It seems certain that the correct words are first written down, and then rearranged according to the rules we have not yet discovered. If you can find the key to solve this mystery, you can read it smoothly. Aksai, do you have this key?"

I did not answer the question; I had my reasons, and my eyes were resting on a wonderful portrait on the wall, that of Graubin.This student of my uncle is in Altona, with a relative of hers; her absence makes me very sad, because, I can say now, this pretty Villand girl is in love with this nephew of the professor, like a German So patiently and quietly in love, we were engaged behind our uncle's back, who was too absorbed in geology to understand other emotions.Grauben is a lovely girl, with yellow hair and blue eyes, a little serious, a little serious, but she loves me very much; and for my part, I adore her, if I can describe it in German. : The beautiful image of my little girl brought me from the real world to the world of hallucinations and memories for a moment.

I think back to my partner at work and at play.She helps me arrange these precious stones of my uncle every day; she labels them with me, Miss Grauban is a great mineralogist!She likes to delve into difficult scientific problems.What a sweet time the two of us had studying together!I have often envied those ignorant stones that are caressed by her lovely hand; how happy are they! Then, when the time for respite came, we went out the two of us; we walked along the avenues of Arce, and we came to the meadows where the old dark mill looked so beautiful by the lake; Talking, holding hands, I told her stories and made her laugh; then we walked to the banks of the Elbe, and after saying good night to the swans swimming among the giant white lotuses, we went back in the steamboat.I was daydreaming when my uncle hit the table with his fist and brought me back to the real world.

"Let's see," said he, "in order to jumble up the letters, I think the first natural way is to write these parallel letters from top to bottom." "My God!" I thought. "We can see how that turns out. Aksai, write a sentence on this piece of paper at will, but don't write one letter after another, but write them straight down one after the other, and write them in five or six lines." As soon as I figured out what to do, I wrote it down: J mne , bee , t G e t'b mirnaiata ! iepeu "Okay," said the professor without looking at it, "now, write these letters in a row." I did so and got the following result: Jmne,b ee,tGe t'bmirn aiata! iepeu "Excellent," said the professor, taking the paper from my hand, "this is just like that old document; the consonants and vowels are all arranged in the same chaotic pattern; In the middle, the punctuation is the same, exactly like the parchment of Saconusan!" I also have to admit that what he said makes sense. "Now," my uncle said to me, "to read what you wrote, I don't know what you wrote in advance. All I have to do is put the letters in order." My uncle started to read it, but he was very surprised, and I was also very surprised. "I love you so much, my little Grauben!" "What?" said the professor. Yes, I wrote this revealing line myself unconsciously and in a daze. "Ah, you are in love with Grauben!" my uncle asked me in the stern tone of a teacher! "Yes...no..." I hesitated to answer. "Ah, you love Grauban," he repeated mechanically, "well, let's apply the method to the documents concerned." Uncle returned to the research he was most interested in, and had already forgotten what I said accidentally.It is inappropriate for me to say that, because a scholar's mind cannot comprehend anything about love.But fortunately, the importance of this document attracted him.When he was about to make this great experiment, Professor Liedenbrock's eyes shone through his glasses, his fingers trembled, he grabbed the old parchment again, he was very excited, and finally he coughed hard, Just read it word by word in a serious tone, and he asked me to write the following words: mmessunkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamurtn ecertserrette, rotaivsadua, ednecsedsadne lacartniiiluJsiratracSarbmutabledmek meretarcsilucoYslevfenSnI When I was done, I must admit I was agitated. The words seemed meaningless in sequence, and I waited for the professor to utter a beautiful Latin line with dignity. But it was unexpected: his heavy fist shook the table.Ink was spilled, and the pen fell from my hand. "That's not right," cried the uncle, "it doesn't make any sense!" Then he shot through the study like a bullet, descended the stairs like an avalanche, rushed to Koenigstrasse, and ran along Koenigstrasse as fast as he could.

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