Fourteen
When Jules Verne returned home to his concerned siblings and a tearful mother, Pierre Verne gave him the worst caning in his life. He was exiled to his room and locked inside, as if he might attempt to escape.
For three days Jules received only bread and water. Worse, his father did not even lecture him. The silence was far harder to endure. The young man had no opportunity to explain himself, could not say what he was feeling. No one gave him a chance.
At times he sensed his mother outside the closed door, but she refused to comfort him. Then the stairs would creak softly as she went back down to the lower levels of the house. Instead, he sat alone staring at Caroline’s colorful green hair ribbon tied around his wrist.
After an interminable time, his father opened the door and stood there, looking deathly solemn. He stared at his son while Verne sat on his bed in terror, still bruised and aching from the whipping he’d endured days before.
“I want your vow, your solemn vow, and then I’ll let you out of this room,” Monsieur Verne said.
Verne swallowed hard, but he could endure his imprisonment no longer. He knew what the older man was asking of him.
As if he were ripping his own soul out of his chest and handing it to his father, Jules Verne said, “From now on, I promise to travel only in my imagination.”