Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
T >>
those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an >> Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15
"It is evident," said he to himself, "that I have been abominably drunk!
What will Mr. Fogg say? At least I have not missed the steamer,
which is the most important thing."
Then, as Fix occurred to him: "As for that rascal, I hope we
are well rid of him, and that he has not dared, as he proposed,
to follow us on board the Carnatic. A detective on the track
of Mr. Fogg, accused of robbing the Bank of England! Pshaw!
Mr. Fogg is no more a robber than I am a murderer."
Should he divulge Fix's real errand to his master? Would it
do to tell the part the detective was playing. Would it not be
better to wait until Mr. Fogg reached London again, and then
impart to him that an agent of the metropolitan police had been
following him round the world, and have a good laugh over it?
No doubt; at least, it was worth considering. The first thing to
do was to find Mr. Fogg, and apologise for his singular behaviour.
Passepartout got up and proceeded, as well as he could with
the rolling of the steamer, to the after-deck. He saw no one
who resembled either his master or Aouda. "Good!" muttered he;
"Aouda has not got up yet, and Mr. Fogg has probably found some
partners at whist."
He descended to the saloon. Mr. Fogg was not there.
Passepartout had only, however, to ask the purser the number
of his master's state-room. The purser replied that he
did not know any passenger by the name of Fogg.
"I beg your pardon," said Passepartout persistently. "He is a tall gentleman,
quiet, and not very talkative, and has with him a young lady--"
"There is no young lady on board," interrupted the purser.
"Here is a list of the passengers; you may see for yourself."
Passepartout scanned the list, but his master's name was not upon it.
All at once an idea struck him.
"Ah! am I on the Carnatic?"
"Yes."
"On the way to Yokohama?"
"Certainly."
Passepartout had for an instant feared that he was on the wrong boat;
but, though he was really on the Carnatic, his master was not there.
He fell thunderstruck on a seat. He saw it all now.
He remembered that the time of sailing had been changed,
that he should have informed his master of that fact,
and that he had not done so. It was his fault, then,
that Mr. Fogg and Aouda had missed the steamer.
Yes, but it was still more the fault of the traitor who,
in order to separate him from his master, and detain
the latter at Hong Kong, had inveigled him into getting drunk!
He now saw the detective's trick; and at this moment Mr. Fogg
was certainly ruined, his bet was lost, and he himself perhaps
arrested and imprisoned! At this thought Passepartout tore his hair.
Ah, if Fix ever came within his reach, what a settling of accounts
there would be!
After his first depression, Passepartout became calmer,
and began to study his situation. It was certainly not
an enviable one. He found himself on the way to Japan,
and what should he do when he got there? His pocket was empty;
he had not a solitary shilling not so much as a penny.
His passage had fortunately been paid for in advance;
and he had five or six days in which to decide upon his future course.
He fell to at meals with an appetite, and ate for Mr. Fogg, Aouda,
and himself. He helped himself as generously as if Japan were a desert,
where nothing to eat was to be looked for.
At dawn on the 13th the Carnatic entered the port of Yokohama.
This is an important port of call in the Pacific, where all the
mail-steamers, and those carrying travellers between North America,
China, Japan, and the Oriental islands put in. It is situated
in the bay of Yeddo, and at but a short distance from that
second capital of the Japanese Empire, and the residence of the Tycoon,
the civil Emperor, before the Mikado, the spiritual Emperor,
absorbed his office in his own. The Carnatic anchored at the quay
near the custom-house, in the midst of a crowd of ships bearing
the flags of all nations.
Passepartout went timidly ashore on this so curious territory
of the Sons of the Sun. He had nothing better to do than,
taking chance for his guide, to wander aimlessly through the streets
of Yokohama. He found himself at first in a thoroughly European quarter,
the houses having low fronts, and being adorned with verandas,
beneath which he caught glimpses of neat peristyles. This quarter occupied,
with its streets, squares, docks, and warehouses, all the space between
the "promontory of the Treaty" and the river. Here, as at Hong Kong
and Calcutta, were mixed crowds of all races Americans and English,
Chinamen and Dutchmen, mostly merchants ready to buy or sell anything.
The Frenchman felt himself as much alone among them as if he had dropped
down in the midst of Hottentots.
He had, at least, one resource to call on the French and English consuls
at Yokohama for assistance. But he shrank from telling the story
of his adventures, intimately connected as it was with that of his master;
and, before doing so, he determined to exhaust all other means of aid.
As chance did not favour him in the European quarter, he penetrated
that inhabited by the native Japanese, determined, if necessary,
to push on to Yeddo.
The Japanese quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the
goddess of the sea, who is worshipped on the islands round about.
There Passepartout beheld beautiful fir and cedar groves, sacred
gates of a singular architecture, bridges half hid in the midst
of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar-trees,
holy retreats where were sheltered Buddhist priests and sectaries
of Confucius, and interminable streets, where a perfect harvest of
rose-tinted and red-cheeked children, who looked as if they had been
cut out of Japanese screens, and who were playing in the midst
of short-legged poodles and yellowish cats, might have been gathered.
The streets were crowded with people. Priests were passing
in processions, beating their dreary tambourines; police and
custom-house officers with pointed hats encrusted with lac and
carrying two sabres hung to their waists; soldiers, clad in blue
cotton with white stripes, and bearing guns; the Mikado's guards,
enveloped in silken doubles, hauberks and coats of mail;
and numbers of military folk of all ranks--for the military
profession is as much respected in Japan as it is despised
in China--went hither and thither in groups and pairs.
Passepartout saw, too, begging friars, long-robed pilgrims,
and simple civilians, with their warped and jet-black hair,
big heads, long busts, slender legs, short stature, and complexions
varying from copper-colour to a dead white, but never yellow,
like the Chinese, from whom the Japanese widely differ.
He did not fail to observe the curious equipages--carriages and palanquins,
barrows supplied with sails, and litters made of bamboo; nor the women--
whom he thought not especially handsome--who took little steps with their
little feet, whereon they wore canvas shoes, straw sandals, and clogs
of worked wood, and who displayed tight-looking eyes, flat chests,
teeth fashionably blackened, and gowns crossed with silken scarfs,
tied in an enormous knot behind an ornament which the modern
Parisian ladies seem to have borrowed from the dames of Japan.
Passepartout wandered for several hours in the midst of this motley crowd,
looking in at the windows of the rich and curious shops, the jewellery
establishments glittering with quaint Japanese ornaments, the restaurants
decked with streamers and banners, the tea-houses, where the odorous beverage
was being drunk with saki, a liquor concocted from the fermentation of rice,
and the comfortable smoking-houses, where they were puffing, not opium,
which is almost unknown in Japan, but a very fine, stringy tobacco.
He went on till he found himself in the fields, in the midst of vast
rice plantations. There he saw dazzling camellias expanding themselves,
with flowers which were giving forth their last colours and perfumes,
not on bushes, but on trees, and within bamboo enclosures, cherry, plum,
and apple trees, which the Japanese cultivate rather for their blossoms
than their fruit, and which queerly-fashioned, grinning scarecrows
protected from the sparrows, pigeons, ravens, and other voracious birds.
On the branches of the cedars were perched large eagles; amid the foliage
of the weeping willows were herons, solemnly standing on one leg;
and on every hand were crows, ducks, hawks, wild birds, and a
multitude of cranes, which the Japanese consider sacred,
and which to their minds symbolise long life and prosperity.
As he was strolling along, Passepartout espied some violets among the shrubs.
"Good!" said he; "I'll have some supper."
But, on smelling them, he found that they were odourless.
"No chance there," thought he.
The worthy fellow had certainly taken good care to eat as
hearty a breakfast as possible before leaving the Carnatic;
but, as he had been walking about all day, the demands of hunger
were becoming importunate. He observed that the butchers stalls
contained neither mutton, goat, nor pork; and, knowing also that
it is a sacrilege to kill cattle, which are preserved solely for farming,
he made up his mind that meat was far from plentiful in Yokohama--
nor was he mistaken; and, in default of butcher's meat,
he could have wished for a quarter of wild boar or deer,
a partridge, or some quails, some game or fish, which, with rice,
the Japanese eat almost exclusively. But he found it necessary
to keep up a stout heart, and to postpone the meal he craved till
the following morning. Night came, and Passepartout re-entered
the native quarter, where he wandered through the streets,
lit by vari-coloured lanterns, looking on at the dancers,
who were executing skilful steps and boundings, and the astrologers
who stood in the open air with their telescopes. Then he came
to the harbour, which was lit up by the resin torches of the fishermen,
who were fishing from their boats.
The streets at last became quiet, and the patrol, the officers
of which, in their splendid costumes, and surrounded by their suites,
Passepartout thought seemed like ambassadors, succeeded the bustling crowd.
Each time a company passed, Passepartout chuckled, and said to himself:
"Good! another Japanese embassy departing for Europe!"
Chapter XXIII
IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT'S NOSE BECOMES OUTRAGEOUSLY LONG
The next morning poor, jaded, famished Passepartout said to
himself that he must get something to eat at all hazards, and the
sooner he did so the better. He might, indeed, sell his watch;
but he would have starved first. Now or never he must use the
strong, if not melodious voice which nature had bestowed upon him.
He knew several French and English songs, and resolved to try them
upon the Japanese, who must be lovers of music, since they were
for ever pounding on their cymbals, tam-tams, and tambourines, and
could not but appreciate European talent.
It was, perhaps, rather early in the morning to get up a
concert, and the audience prematurely aroused from their slumbers,
might not possibly pay their entertainer with coin bearing the
Mikado's features. Passepartout therefore decided to wait several
hours; and, as he was sauntering along, it occurred to him that he
would seem rather too well dressed for a wandering artist. The
idea struck him to change his garments for clothes more in harmony
with his project; by which he might also get a little money to
satisfy the immediate cravings of hunger. The resolution taken,
it remained to carry it out.
It was only after a long search that Passepartout discovered a
native dealer in old clothes, to whom he applied for an exchange.
The man liked the European costume, and ere long Passepartout
issued from his shop accoutred in an old Japanese coat, and a sort
of one-sided turban, faded with long use. A few small pieces of silver,
moreover, jingled in his pocket.
Good!" thought he. "I will imagine I am at the Carnival!"
His first care, after being thus "Japanesed," was to enter a tea-house
of modest appearance, and, upon half a bird and a little rice,
to breakfast like a man for whom dinner was as yet a problem to be solved.
"Now," thought he, when he had eaten heartily, "I mustn't lose my head.
I can't sell this costume again for one still more Japanese. I must
consider how to leave this country of the Sun, of which I shall not retain
the most delightful of memories, as quickly as possible."
It occurred to him to visit the steamers which were about to
leave for America. He would offer himself as a cook or servant,
in payment of his passage and meals. Once at San Francisco,
he would find some means of going on. The difficulty was,
how to traverse the four thousand seven hundred miles
of the Pacific which lay between Japan and the New World.
Passepartout was not the man to let an idea go begging,
and directed his steps towards the docks. But, as he approached
them, his project, which at first had seemed so simple, began to grow
more and more formidable to his mind. What need would they have
of a cook or servant on an American steamer, and what confidence would
they put in him, dressed as he was? What references could he give?
As he was reflecting in this wise, his eyes fell upon an immense
placard which a sort of clown was carrying through the streets.
This placard, which was in English, read as follows:
ACROBATIC JAPANESE TROUPE,
HONOURABLE WILLIAM BATULCAR, PROPRIETOR,
LAST REPRESENTATIONS,
PRIOR TO THEIR DEPARTURE TO THE UNITED STATES,
OF THE
LONG NOSES! LONG NOSES!
UNDER THE DIRECT PATRONAGE OF THE GOD TINGOU!
GREAT ATTRACTION!
"The United States!" said Passepartout; "that's just what I want!"
He followed the clown, and soon found himself once more
in the Japanese quarter. A quarter of an hour later
he stopped before a large cabin, adorned with several
clusters of streamers, the exterior walls of which
were designed to represent, in violent colours
and without perspective, a company of jugglers.
This was the Honourable William Batulcar's establishment.
That gentleman was a sort of Barnum, the director of a troupe
of mountebanks, jugglers, clowns, acrobats, equilibrists,
and gymnasts, who, according to the placard, was giving
his last performances before leaving the Empire of the Sun
for the States of the Union.
Passepartout entered and asked for Mr. Batulcar, who straightway
appeared in person.
"What do you want?" said he to Passepartout, whom he at first
took for a native.
"Would you like a servant, sir?" asked Passepartout.
"A servant!" cried Mr. Batulcar, caressing the thick grey beard
which hung from his chin. "I already have two who are obedient
and faithful, have never left me, and serve me for their nourishment
and here they are," added he, holding out his two robust arms,
furrowed with veins as large as the strings of a bass-viol.
"So I can be of no use to you?"
"None."
"The devil! I should so like to cross the Pacific with you!"
"Ah!" said the Honourable Mr. Batulcar. "You are no more a Japanese
than I am a monkey! Who are you dressed up in that way?"
"A man dresses as he can."
"That's true. You are a Frenchman, aren't you?"
"Yes; a Parisian of Paris."
"Then you ought to know how to make grimaces?"
"Why," replied Passepartout, a little vexed that his nationality
should cause this question, "we Frenchmen know how to make grimaces,
it is true but not any better than the Americans do."
"True. Well, if I can't take you as a servant, I can as a clown.
You see, my friend, in France they exhibit foreign clowns,
and in foreign parts French clowns."
"Ah!"
"You are pretty strong, eh?"
"Especially after a good meal."
"And you can sing?"
"Yes," returned Passepartout, who had formerly been wont
to sing in the streets.
"But can you sing standing on your head, with a top spinning
on your left foot, and a sabre balanced on your right?"
"Humph! I think so," replied Passepartout, recalling the exercises
of his younger days.
"Well, that's enough," said the Honourable William Batulcar.
The engagement was concluded there and then.
Passepartout had at last found something to do. He was engaged
to act in the celebrated Japanese troupe. It was not a very dignified
position, but within a week he would be on his way to San Francisco.
The performance, so noisily announced by the Honourable Mr. Batulcar,
was to commence at three o'clock, and soon the deafening instruments
of a Japanese orchestra resounded at the door. Passepartout,
though he had not been able to study or rehearse a part,
was designated to lend the aid of his sturdy shoulders
in the great exhibition of the "human pyramid," executed
by the Long Noses of the god Tingou. This "great attraction"
was to close the performance.
Before three o'clock the large shed was invaded by the spectators,
comprising Europeans and natives, Chinese and Japanese, men, women
and children, who precipitated themselves upon the narrow benches
and into the boxes opposite the stage. The musicians took up a position
inside, and were vigorously performing on their gongs, tam-tams, flutes,
bones, tambourines, and immense drums.
The performance was much like all acrobatic displays; but it must be
confessed that the Japanese are the first equilibrists in the world.
One, with a fan and some bits of paper, performed the graceful
trick of the butterflies and the flowers; another traced in the air,
with the odorous smoke of his pipe, a series of blue words,
which composed a compliment to the audience; while a third juggled
with some lighted candles, which he extinguished successively
as they passed his lips, and relit again without interrupting
for an instant his juggling. Another reproduced the most singular
combinations with a spinning-top; in his hands the revolving tops
seemed to be animated with a life of their own in their
interminable whirling; they ran over pipe-stems, the edges of sabres,
wires and even hairs stretched across the stage; they turned around
on the edges of large glasses, crossed bamboo ladders, dispersed into
all the corners, and produced strange musical effects by the combination
of their various pitches of tone. The jugglers tossed them in the air,
threw them like shuttlecocks with wooden battledores, and yet they kept
on spinning; they put them into their pockets, and took them out
still whirling as before.
It is useless to describe the astonishing performances of the acrobats
and gymnasts. The turning on ladders, poles, balls, barrels, &c.,
was executed with wonderful precision.
But the principal attraction was the exhibition of the Long Noses,
a show to which Europe is as yet a stranger.
The Long Noses form a peculiar company, under the direct patronage
of the god Tingou. Attired after the fashion of the Middle Ages,
they bore upon their shoulders a splendid pair of wings;
but what especially distinguished them was the long noses
which were fastened to their faces, and the uses which they made of them.
These noses were made of bamboo, and were five, six, and even ten feet long,
some straight, others curved, some ribboned, and some having imitation warts
upon them. It was upon these appendages, fixed tightly on their real noses,
that they performed their gymnastic exercises. A dozen of these sectaries
of Tingou lay flat upon their backs, while others, dressed to represent
lightning-rods, came and frolicked on their noses, jumping from one to another,
and performing the most skilful leapings and somersaults.
As a last scene, a "human pyramid" had been announced, in which
fifty Long Noses were to represent the Car of Juggernaut.
But, instead of forming a pyramid by mounting each other's shoulders,
the artists were to group themselves on top of the noses.
It happened that the performer who had hitherto formed the base
of the Car had quitted the troupe, and as, to fill this part,
only strength and adroitness were necessary, Passepartout
had been chosen to take his place.
The poor fellow really felt sad when--melancholy reminiscence
of his youth!--he donned his costume, adorned with vari-coloured wings,
and fastened to his natural feature a false nose six feet long.
But he cheered up when he thought that this nose was winning
him something to eat.
He went upon the stage, and took his place beside the rest
who were to compose the base of the Car of Juggernaut.
They all stretched themselves on the floor, their noses pointing
to the ceiling. A second group of artists disposed themselves on
these long appendages, then a third above these, then a fourth,
until a human monument reaching to the very cornices of the theatre
soon arose on top of the noses. This elicited loud applause,
in the midst of which the orchestra was just striking up a deafening air,
when the pyramid tottered, the balance was lost, one of the lower
noses vanished from the pyramid, and the human monument was
shattered like a castle built of cards!
It was Passepartout's fault. Abandoning his position,
clearing the footlights without the aid of his wings, and,
clambering up to the right-hand gallery, he fell at the feet of
one of the spectators, crying, "Ah, my master! my master!"
"You here?"
"Myself."
"Very well; then let us go to the steamer, young man!"
Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and Passepartout passed through the lobby
of the theatre to the outside, where they encountered
the Honourable Mr. Batulcar, furious with rage. He demanded damages
for the "breakage" of the pyramid; and Phileas Fogg appeased him
by giving him a handful of banknotes.
At half-past six, the very hour of departure, Mr. Fogg and Aouda,
followed by Passepartout, who in his hurry had retained his wings,
and nose six feet long, stepped upon the American steamer.
Chapter XXIV
DURING WHICH MR. FOGG AND PARTY CROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN
What happened when the pilot-boat came in sight of Shanghai will
be easily guessed. The signals made by the Tankadere had been
seen by the captain of the Yokohama steamer, who, espying the flag
at half-mast, had directed his course towards the little craft.
Phileas Fogg, after paying the stipulated price of his passage to
John Busby, and rewarding that worthy with the additional sum of
five hundred and fifty pounds, ascended the steamer with Aouda
and Fix; and they started at once for Nagasaki and Yokohama.
They reached their destination on the morning of the 14th of November.
Phileas Fogg lost no time in going on board the Carnatic, where he learned,
to Aouda's great delight--and perhaps to his own, though he betrayed
no emotion--that Passepartout, a Frenchman, had really arrived on her
the day before.
The San Francisco steamer was announced to leave that very evening,
and it became necessary to find Passepartout, if possible, without delay.
Mr. Fogg applied in vain to the French and English consuls, and,
after wandering through the streets a long time, began to despair
of finding his missing servant. Chance, or perhaps a kind of presentiment,
at last led him into the Honourable Mr. Batulcar's theatre. He certainly
would not have recognised Passepartout in the eccentric mountebank's costume;
but the latter, lying on his back, perceived his master in the gallery.
He could not help starting, which so changed the position of his nose
as to bring the "pyramid" pell-mell upon the stage.
All this Passepartout learned from Aouda, who recounted to him
what had taken place on the voyage from Hong Kong to Shanghai
on the Tankadere, in company with one Mr. Fix.
Passepartout did not change countenance on hearing this name.
He thought that the time had not yet arrived to divulge to his
master what had taken place between the detective and himself;
and, in the account he gave of his absence, he simply excused himself
for having been overtaken by drunkenness, in smoking opium
at a tavern in Hong Kong.
Mr. Fogg heard this narrative coldly, without a word; and then
furnished his man with funds necessary to obtain clothing more
in harmony with his position. Within an hour the Frenchman had
cut off his nose and parted with his wings, and retained nothing
about him which recalled the sectary of the god Tingou.
The steamer which was about to depart from Yokohama to San Francisco
belonged to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and was named
the General Grant. She was a large paddle-wheel steamer
of two thousand five hundred tons; well equipped and very fast.
The massive walking-beam rose and fell above the deck;
at one end a piston-rod worked up and down; and at the other
was a connecting-rod which, in changing the rectilinear motion
to a circular one, was directly connected with the shaft of the paddles.
The General Grant was rigged with three masts, giving a large capacity
for sails, and thus materially aiding the steam power. By making
twelve miles an hour, she would cross the ocean in twenty-one days.
Phileas Fogg was therefore justified in hoping that he would reach
San Francisco by the 2nd of December, New York by the 11th,
and London on the 20th--thus gaining several hours on the fatal date
of the 21st of December.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15