Off on a Comet Book 1 Chapter 2

**Jules Verne** (0:23)
CHAPTER II.
At the time of which I write, there might be seen in the registers of the Minister of War the following entry. Servadac, Hector. Born at St. Treledy in the district of Lespar, Department of the Gironde, July 19, 18 blank. Property. Twelve hundred francs in rentus. Length of service. Fourteen years, three months, and five days. Service. Two years at school at St. Cyr. Two years at la Collée de l'Application. Two years in the Eighth Regiment of the Line. Two years in the Third Light Cavalry. Seven years in Algeria. Campaigns. Sudan and Japan. Rank Captain on the Staff at Mostegnam. Decorations. Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. March 13, 18 blank.
Hector Servadac was thirty years of age. An orphan, without lineage, and almost without means. Thirsting for glory, rather than for gold. Slightly scatterbrained, but warm-hearted, generous, and brave. He was eminently formed to be the protégé of the god of battles.
For the first year and a half of his existence he had been the foster child of the sturdy wife of a vine-dresser of Medoc, a lineal descendant of the heroes of ancient prowess. In a word, he was one of those individuals whom nature seems to have predestined for remarkable things, and around whose cradle have hovered the fairy godmothers of adventure and good luck. In appearance Hector Servadac was quite the type of an officer. He was rather more than five feet six inches high, slim and graceful, with dark curling hair and moustaches, well-formed hands and feet, and a clear blue eye. He seemed born to please without being conscious of the power he possessed. It must be owned, and no one was more ready to confess it than himself, that his literary attainments were by no means of a high order. We don't spin tops, is a favorite saying amongst artillery officers, indicating that they do not shirk their duty by frivolous pursuits. But it must be confessed that Servadac, being naturally idle, was very much given to spinning tops. His good abilities, however, and his ready intelligence, carried him successfully through the curriculum of his early career. He was a good draftsman, an excellent writer, having thoroughly mastered the successor to the famous Uncle Tom at the writing school of St. Cyr. And in the records of his military service his name had several times been included in the order of the day.
The following episode may suffice in certain degree to illustrate his character. Once, in action, he was leading a detachment of infantry through an entrenchment. They came to a place where the sidework of the trench had been so riddled by shell that a portion of it had actually fallen in, leaving an aperture quite unsheltered from the grape shot that was pouring in thick and fast. The men hesitated. In an instant Servadac mounted the sidework, laid himself down in the gap, and thus filling up the breech by his own body, shouted, March on!
And through a storm of shot, not one of which touched the prostrate officer, the troop passed in safety.
Since leaving the military college, Servadac, with the exception of his two campaigns in the Sudan and Japan, had always been stationed in Algeria. He had now a staff appointment at Mostaganim, and had lately been entrusted with some topographical work on the coast between Tennis and the Shelf. It was a matter of little consequence to him that the gorby in which of necessity he was quartered was uncomfortable and ill-contrived. He loved the open air, and the independence of his life suited him well. Sometimes he would wander on foot upon the sandy shore, and sometimes he would enjoy a ride along the summit of the cliff, altogether being in no hurry at all to bring his task to an end. His occupation, moreover, was not so engrossing but that he could find leisure for taking a short railway journey once or twice a week, so that he was ever and again putting in an appearance at the general's receptions at Oran, and at the fetts given by the governor at Algiers.
It was on one of these occasions that he had first met Madame de Laye, the lady to whom he was desirous of dedicating the rondo, the first four lines of which had just seen the light. She was a colonel's widow, young and handsome, very reserved, not to say haughty in her manner, and either indifferent or impervious to the admiration which she inspired. Captain Servadac had not yet ventured to declare his attachment. Of rivals he was well aware he had not a few, and amongst these not the least formidable was the Russian count Timoshev. And although the young widow was all unconscious of the share she had in the matter, it was she, and she alone, who was the cause of the challenge just given and accepted by her too ardent admirers.