Chapter 3 Our First Weeks Underwater

We stayed, of course.

We walked with Nemo's men to our new bedrooms. Then I had some food with the captain.

“Our food comes from the sea,” he said,“and we eat very well. Our shirts, our shoes, our beds, our pens — we make all of them from sea animals, too. I love the sea! It's our only friend. People can't make problems for us here.”

“But you don't want to listen to me all day. Come and see my submarine.”

We went into a room with thousands of books. “I often read your book about sea animals, Mr. Aronnax,” the captain said. “You write very well. But your time on the Nautilus is going to teach you a lot of new things. A submarine is a good home for a scientist.”

I visited every room on the Nautilus, the first and only submarine in the seas. Captain Nemo was its builder, and he talked about his answers to the problems of an underwater boat. He was a clever scientist and a very interesting man.

Later, Ned and Conseil asked me about Captain Nemo. Who was he?Where did he come from?Why did he stay away from people and live underwater? But I didn't know the answers to their questions.

Then, suddenly, the Nautilus's sea lights came on and we stopped thinking about the captain. The sea looked very beautiful, with fish of every colour, big and small. We didn't take our eyes from the sea all night. Captain Nemo was right: a submarine was a good home for a scientist.

The weeks after that were quiet but interesting. The submarine usually stayed about a hundred metres underwater. But every morning we went up for air, and my friends and I looked across the blue waters of the Pacific.

We didn't often see Captain Nemo. But Conseil and I looked at his books, and the fish in the sea. Only Ned was unhappy. He wasn't a scientist and he didn't like reading. And he didn't like eating fish every day.

One day Captain Nemo said, “There are a lot of animals in the Trees of Crespo. They make good food. Do you want to look for some with me?”

“Trees?” I asked. “Are we near the coast?”

“They're underwater trees,” he answered.

Ned didn't want to come. But Conseil and I dressed in diving suits and walked on the sea floor with the captain and his men. It wasn't difficult. On a boat, diving suits are heavy, but they are light in the water. There was only one problem: I wanted to talk about the tall trees and beautiful fish with Conseil, but you can't hear people in a diving suit.

Captain Nemo and his men killed some big animals, and we went back to the Nautilus with a lot of good food.