CHAPTER III.

EFFECT OF PRESIDENT BARBICANE’S COMMUNICATION.

It is impossible to depict the effect produced by the last words of the honourable president.  What cries! what vociferations!  What a succession of groans, hurrahs, cheers, and all the onomatopoeia of which the American language is so full.  It was an indescribable hubbub and disorder.  Mouths, hands, and feet made as much noise as they could.  All the weapons in this artillery museum going off at once would not have more violently agitated the waves of sound.  That is not surprising; there are cannoneers nearly as noisy as their cannons.

Barbicane remained calm amidst these enthusiastic clamours; perhaps he again wished to address some words to his colleagues, for his gestures asked for silence, and his fulminating bell exhausted itself in violent detonations; it was not even heard.  He was soon dragged from his chair, carried in triumph, and from the hands of his faithful comrades he passed into those of the no less excited crowd.

Nothing can astonish an American.  It has often been repeated that the word “impossible” is not French; the wrong dictionary must have been taken by mistake.  In America everything is easy, everything is simple, and as to mechanical difficulties, they are dead before they are born.  Between the Barbicane project and its realisation not one true Yankee would have allowed himself to see even the appearance of a difficulty.  As soon said as done.

The triumphant march of the president was prolonged during the evening.  A veritable torchlight procession—­Irish, Germans, Frenchmen, Scotchmen—­all the heterogeneous individuals that compose the population of Maryland—­shouted in their maternal tongue, and the cheering was unanimous.

Precisely as if she knew it was all about her, the moon shone out then with serene magnificence, eclipsing other lights with her intense irradiation.  All the Yankees directed their eyes towards the shining disc; some saluted her with their hands, others called her by the sweetest names; between eight o’clock and midnight an optician in Jones-Fall-street made a fortune by selling field-glasses.  The Queen of Night was looked at through them like a lady of high life.  The Americans acted in regard to her with the freedom of proprietors.  It seemed as if the blonde Phoebe belonged to these enterprising conquerors and already formed part of the Union territory.  And yet the only question was that of sending a projectile—­a rather brutal way of entering into communication even with a satellite, but much in vogue amongst civilised nations.