In any event, the account does not fit the concept of a loving master served by an admiring group of acolytes. It does, however, fit the picture of the sybaritic commander of an old-fashioned warship living in luxurious quarters and ruling with an iron hand a crew of tough fighting men whose fear of their captain and expectation of high financial gain may make them willing to put up with physical discomfort.
One or two puzzling events are reported by the professor. The events we can accept, but his interpretation is less reliable. On a very rough day when the captain, the mate, and the professor are on deck, the two officers observe through a telescope an object so distant that the professor (whose vision seems normal) is unable to see even a speck with his naked eye. The officers are greatly excited, the professor and company are heaved into the brig again, doped, and a ship is sunk by the Nautilus (pp. 216-220). These are the facts; the interpretations that we are given is this: Captain Nemo on first sighting the ship immediately recognized it-necessarily by its flag-as belonging to that unidentified nation which he so loathed, and consequently rammed it with the ship spur mounted on the bow of his submarine. Yet a little thought shows us that this cannot be entirely correct: if the ship was so far away that Professor Aronnax was unable to distinguish it at all with the naked eye, how could the man Nemo even with a telescope possibly recognize its colors? The conclusion, therefore, is that the one way Nemo could know that here was the ship upon which he had designs was by being given information that at this date and in this location, just one particular vessel could be expected. Yet our saline recluse could possess up-to-date information concerning shipping only from some source external to the Nautilus. And of this supposition we have confirmation. He appears to have devoted considerable effort to scooping up the treasure from the sunken ships in the Bay of Vigo. About a million dollars in gold (pp. 300-01) he sent ashore in the pinnace after his intermediary, one Nicholas Pesca (an amphibious individual who appears to have devoted most of his time to swimming from one island of the Cyclades to another), had, during an evening dip, swum out to the Nautilus (p. 299). The interpretation which Captain Nemo skillfully plants in the professor’s mind (pp. 326-27) is that he, as a friend to all oppressed groups, has devoted his wealth to the Cretans, who at this time were in revolt against Turkish rule. The facts are that he is in the habit of sending part of his takings ashore and that he does have certain connections with civilization which might supply him with data concerning shipping and cargo schedules.
Now, following Watson’s method (since we dare not arrogate to ourselves the techniques of the Master), let us see what conclusions we can come to concerning the puzzling character of the man Nemo:
1. He had a wide educational background-especially in biology, music, sculpture, painting, and history.
2. He must have been a genius of breathtaking stature in the fields of mathematics, physics, and theoretical engineering to have designed such a submersible as the Nautilus.
3. Yet, strange to say, although Nemo surely had a reasonable acquaintance with the handling of ships by the time Professor Aronnax met him, we cannot be quite so certain that his practical maritime experience is very extensive. There seem to be curious lapses here. As a sailor the worthy captain is constantly-and accidentally-bumping into things: three passenger ships (not to be confused with the deliberate rammings), one iceberg, the Maelstrom, and the island of Gilboa. Furthermore, wonderful though the design of the vessel is, it has features which an experienced marine engineer would hardly incorporate into its design. For example, quite unlike almost all large vessels of the last thousand years or more-submarine or surface-it has no cutwater unless the very slight elevation of the deck provided a most inadequate one, for the bow is completely conical as it tapers to a sharply pointed spur. Since the deck elevation is only about a yard above water level, this means that in anything but a dead calm at any speed above the barest crawl tons of water would be constantly deluging the pilot’s cage whenever the Nautilus traveled on the surface. Walking on deck when the vessel was under way must have been a singularly damp-not to say hazardous-procedure. Indeed, the design of the Nautilus is amazing in its total subordination of the everyday needs of navigation to sheer military utility. It is an armored ram, but such a ram as could never be found in any classical trireme, Venetian war gallery, or nineteenth-century ram. It is a cigar shaped cylinder with pointed ends, one surmounted with a spur, retractable pilot and lantern cages, and collapsible railing-streamlined, in fact, so that the entire submarine may pass completely in needlelike fashion through a hostile vessel. So extreme a design is hardly necessary merely to sink a ship, and it reveals an appalling savagery of purpose in the designer which ill consorts with a bitter and disillusioned yet golden-hearted friend to the oppressed.
4. He is clearly a man of commanding and domineering personality, a man who rigidly draws the caste line. This combination of an arrogant personality and a marked distinction between groups is of course to be observed in many walks of life, but it is particularly noticeable in those who follow two professions: officers in military organizations and teachers. Nemo, however, repeatedly shows an extreme aversion to the human race in general, a quality not exceptionally common in military men, but one which is frequently to be found in members of the pedagogical profession after several years spent in the refreshing experience of purveying sweetness and light to large quantities of Youth.