Sublime

À l’époque, on ne sait pas grand-chose de ses profondeurs, il les imagine en miroir, un monde inversé de l’autre côté de la surface où l’on pourrait marcher comme le professeur Aronnax et Ned Land derrière le Capitaine Nemo, fusil électrique à la main, casque étanche sur la tête et semelles plombées pour ne pas flotter, explorant à pied les forêts

The ship was a mountain gliding across solid earth.

She was designed by Aanderud Larsen so that every joint and every fitting cross-braced something else for the maximum strength. Her construction was meticulously supervised by a master wood shipbuilder, Christian Jacobsen, who insisted on employing men who were not only skilled shipwrights, but had been to sea themselves in whaling and sealing ship

Perhaps a glass of Madeira? They have an excellent sercial here, that I can conscientiously recommend.’

Or more probably, he had started with realism and been hunting for the abstract essence of the seaside experience.