Around
the World in 80 Days
By Jules Verne
Around the
World in 80 Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is a classic
adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In
the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet
Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager
set by his friends at the Reform Club.
Source: Verne, J. (1873) Around
the World in 80 Days Paris, France: Routledge
Chapter 1:
In Which Phileas Fogg and Passepartout Accept Each Other, the One as Master, the Other as Man Around the World in 80 Days
Mr.
Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the
house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members
of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an
enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a
polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron—at least that
his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a
thousand years without growing old.
Certainly
an Englishman, it was more doubtful whether Phileas Fogg was a Londoner. He was
never seen on 'Change, nor at the Bank, nor in the counting-rooms of the
"City"; no ships ever came into London docks of which he was the
owner; he had no public employment; he had never been entered at any of the
Inns of Court, either at the Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn; nor had
his voice ever resounded in the Court of Chancery, or in the Exchequer, or the
Queen's Bench, or the Ecclesiastical Courts. He certainly was not a
manufacturer; nor was he a merchant or a gentleman farmer. His name was strange
to the scientific and learned societies, and he never was known to take part in
the sage deliberations of the Royal Institution or the London Institution, the
Artisan's Association, or the Institution of Arts and Sciences. He belonged, in
fact, to none of the numerous societies which swarm in the English capital,
from the Harmonic to that of the Entomologists, founded mainly for the purpose
of abolishing pernicious insects.
Phileas
Fogg was a member of the Reform, and that was all.
The
way in which he got admission to this exclusive club was simple enough.
He
was recommended by the Barings, with whom he had an open credit. His cheques
were regularly paid at sight from his account current, which was always flush.
Was
Phileas Fogg rich? Undoubtedly. But those who knew him best could not imagine
how he had made his fortune, and Mr. Fogg was the last person to whom to apply
for the information. He was not lavish, nor, on the contrary, avaricious; for,
whenever he knew that money was needed for a noble, useful, or benevolent
purpose, he supplied it quietly and sometimes anonymously. He was, in short,
the least communicative of men. He talked very little, and seemed all the more
mysterious for his taciturn manner. His daily habits were quite open to
observation; but whatever he did was so exactly the same thing that he had
always done before, that the wits of the curious were fairly puzzled.
Had
he travelled? It was likely, for no one seemed to know the world more
familiarly; there was no spot so secluded that he did not appear to have an
intimate acquaintance with it. He often corrected, with a few clear words, the
thousand conjectures advanced by members of the club as to lost and unheard-of
travellers, pointing out the true probabilities, and seeming as if gifted with
a sort of second sight, so often did events justify his predictions. He must
have travelled everywhere, at least in the spirit.
It
was at least certain that Phileas Fogg had not absented himself from London for
many years. Those who were honoured by a better acquaintance with him than the
rest, declared that nobody could pretend to have ever seen him anywhere else.
His sole pastimes were reading the papers and playing whist. He often won at
this game, which, as a silent one, harmonised with his nature; but his winnings
never went into his purse, being reserved as a fund for his charities. Mr. Fogg
played, not to win, but for the sake of playing. The game was in his eyes a
contest, a struggle with a difficulty, yet a motionless, unwearying struggle,
congenial to his tastes.
Phileas
Fogg was not known to have either wife or children, which may happen to the
most honest people; either relatives or near friends, which is certainly more
unusual. He lived alone in his house in Saville Row, whither none penetrated. A
single domestic sufficed to serve him. He breakfasted and dined at the club, at
hours mathematically fixed, in the same room, at the same table, never taking
his meals with other members, much less bringing a guest with him; and went
home at exactly midnight, only to retire at once to bed. He never used the cosy
chambers which the Reform provides for its favoured members. He passed ten
hours out of the twenty-four in Saville Row, either in sleeping or making his
toilet. When he chose to take a walk it was with a regular step in the entrance
hall with its mosaic flooring, or in the circular gallery with its dome
supported by twenty red porphyry Ionic columns, and illumined by blue painted
windows. When he breakfasted or dined all the resources of the club—its
kitchens and pantries, its buttery and dairy—aided to crowd his table with
their most succulent stores; he was served by the gravest waiters, in dress
coats, and shoes with swan-skin soles, who proffered the viands in special
porcelain, and on the finest linen; club decanters, of a lost mould, contained
his sherry, his port, and his cinnamon-spiced claret; while his beverages were
refreshingly cooled with ice, brought at great cost from the American lakes.
If
to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is
something good in eccentricity.
The
mansion in Saville Row, though not sumptuous, was exceedingly comfortable. The
habits of its occupant were such as to demand but little from the sole
domestic, but Phileas Fogg required him to be almost superhumanly prompt and
regular. On this very 2nd of October he had dismissed James Forster, because
that luckless youth had brought him shaving-water at eighty-four degrees
Fahrenheit instead of eighty-six; and he was awaiting his successor, who was
due at the house between eleven and half-past.
Phileas
Fogg was seated squarely in his armchair, his feet close together like those of
a grenadier on parade, his hands resting on his knees, his body straight, his
head erect; he was steadily watching a complicated clock which indicated the
hours, the minutes, the seconds, the days, the months, and the years. At
exactly half-past eleven Mr. Fogg would, according to his daily habit, quit
Saville Row, and repair to the Reform.
A
rap at this moment sounded on the door of the cosy apartment where Phileas Fogg
was seated, and James Forster, the dismissed servant, appeared.
"The
new servant," said he.
A
young man of thirty advanced and bowed.
"You
are a Frenchman, I believe," asked Phileas Fogg, "and your name is
John?"
"Jean,
if monsieur pleases," replied the newcomer, "Jean Passepartout, a
surname which has clung to me because I have a natural aptness for going out of
one business into another. I believe I'm honest, monsieur, but, to be
outspoken, I've had several trades. I've been an itinerant singer, a circus-rider,
when I used to vault like Leotard, and dance on a rope like Blondin. Then I got
to be a professor of gymnastics, so as to make better use of my talents; and
then I was a sergeant fireman at Paris, and assisted at many a big fire. But I
quitted France five years ago, and, wishing to taste the sweets of domestic
life, took service as a valet here in England. Finding myself out of place, and
hearing that Monsieur Phileas Fogg was the most exact and settled gentleman in
the United Kingdom, I have come to monsieur in the hope of living with him a
tranquil life, and forgetting even the name of Passepartout."
"Passepartout
suits me," responded Mr. Fogg. "You are well recommended to me; I
hear a good report of you. You know my conditions?"
"Yes,
monsieur."
"Good!
What time is it?"
"Twenty-two
minutes after eleven," returned Passepartout, drawing an enormous silver
watch from the depths of his pocket.
"You
are too slow," said Mr. Fogg.
"Pardon
me, monsieur, it is impossible—"
"You
are four minutes too slow. No matter; it's enough to mention the error. Now
from this moment, twenty-nine minutes after eleven, a.m., this Wednesday, 2nd
October, you are in my service."
Phileas
Fogg got up, took his hat in his left hand, put it on his head with an
automatic motion, and went off without a word.
Passepartout
heard the street door shut once; it was his new master going out. He heard it
shut again; it was his predecessor, James Forster, departing in his turn.
Passepartout remained alone in the house in Saville Row.
Chapter 2: In Which Passepartout is Convinced that He Has at Last Found His Ideal
"Faith,"
muttered Passepartout, somewhat flurried, "I've seen people at Madame
Tussaud's as lively as my new master!"
Madame
Tussaud's "people," let it be said, are of wax, and are much visited
in London; speech is all that is wanting to make them human.
During
his brief interview with Mr. Fogg, Passepartout had been carefully observing
him. He appeared to be a man about forty years of age, with fine, handsome
features, and a tall, well-shaped figure; his hair and whiskers were light, his
forehead compact and unwrinkled, his face rather pale, his teeth magnificent.
His countenance possessed in the highest degree what physiognomists call
"repose in action," a quality of those who act rather than talk. Calm
and phlegmatic, with a clear eye, Mr. Fogg seemed a perfect type of that
English composure which Angelica Kauffmann has so skilfully represented on
canvas. Seen in the various phases of his daily life, he gave the idea of being
perfectly well-balanced, as exactly regulated as a Leroy chronometer. Phileas
Fogg was, indeed, exactitude personified, and this was betrayed even in the
expression of his very hands and feet; for in men, as well as in animals, the
limbs themselves are expressive of the passions.
He
was so exact that he was never in a hurry, was always ready, and was economical
alike of his steps and his motions. He never took one step too many, and always
went to his destination by the shortest cut; he made no superfluous gestures,
and was never seen to be moved or agitated. He was the most deliberate person
in the world, yet always reached his destination at the exact moment.
He
lived alone, and, so to speak, outside of every social relation; and as he knew
that in this world account must be taken of friction, and that friction retards,
he never rubbed against anybody.
As
for Passepartout, he was a true Parisian of Paris. Since he had abandoned his
own country for England, taking service as a valet, he had in vain searched for
a master after his own heart. Passepartout was by no means one of those pert
dunces depicted by Moliere with a bold gaze and a nose held high in the air; he
was an honest fellow, with a pleasant face, lips a trifle protruding,
soft-mannered and serviceable, with a good round head, such as one likes to see
on the shoulders of a friend. His eyes were blue, his complexion rubicund, his
figure almost portly and well-built, his body muscular, and his physical powers
fully developed by the exercises of his younger days. His brown hair was
somewhat tumbled; for, while the ancient sculptors are said to have known
eighteen methods of arranging Minerva's tresses, Passepartout was familiar with
but one of dressing his own: three strokes of a large-tooth comb completed his
toilet.
It
would be rash to predict how Passepartout's lively nature would agree with Mr.
Fogg. It was impossible to tell whether the new servant would turn out as
absolutely methodical as his master required; experience alone could solve the
question. Passepartout had been a sort of vagrant in his early years, and now
yearned for repose; but so far he had failed to find it, though he had already
served in ten English houses. But he could not take root in any of these; with
chagrin, he found his masters invariably whimsical and irregular, constantly
running about the country, or on the look-out for adventure. His last master,
young Lord Longferry, Member of Parliament, after passing his nights in the
Haymarket taverns, was too often brought home in the morning on policemen's
shoulders. Passepartout, desirous of respecting the gentleman whom he served,
ventured a mild remonstrance on such conduct; which, being ill-received, he
took his leave. Hearing that Mr. Phileas Fogg was looking for a servant, and
that his life was one of unbroken regularity, that he neither travelled nor
stayed from home overnight, he felt sure that this would be the place he was
after. He presented himself, and was accepted, as has been seen.
At
half-past eleven, then, Passepartout found himself alone in the house in
Saville Row. He begun its inspection without delay, scouring it from cellar to
garret. So clean, well-arranged, solemn a mansion pleased him; it seemed to him
like a snail's shell, lighted and warmed by gas, which sufficed for both these
purposes. When Passepartout reached the second story he recognised at once the
room which he was to inhabit, and he was well satisfied with it. Electric bells
and speaking-tubes afforded communication with the lower stories; while on the
mantel stood an electric clock, precisely like that in Mr. Fogg's bedchamber,
both beating the same second at the same instant. "That's good, that'll
do," said Passepartout to himself.
He
suddenly observed, hung over the clock, a card which, upon inspection, proved
to be a programme of the daily routine of the house. It comprised all that was
required of the servant, from eight in the morning, exactly at which hour
Phileas Fogg rose, till half-past eleven, when he left the house for the Reform
Club—all the details of service, the tea and toast at twenty-three minutes past
eight, the shaving-water at thirty-seven minutes past nine, and the toilet at
twenty minutes before ten. Everything was regulated and foreseen that was to be
done from half-past eleven a.m. till midnight, the hour at which the methodical
gentleman retired.
Mr.
Fogg's wardrobe was amply supplied and in the best taste. Each pair of
trousers, coat, and vest bore a number, indicating the time of year and season
at which they were in turn to be laid out for wearing; and the same system was
applied to the master's shoes. In short, the house in Saville Row, which must
have been a very temple of disorder and unrest under the illustrious but
dissipated Sheridan, was cosiness, comfort, and method idealised. There was no
study, nor were there books, which would have been quite useless to Mr. Fogg;
for at the Reform two libraries, one of general literature and the other of law
and politics, were at his service. A moderate-sized safe stood in his bedroom,
constructed so as to defy fire as well as burglars; but Passepartout found
neither arms nor hunting weapons anywhere; everything betrayed the most
tranquil and peaceable habits.
Having
scrutinised the house from top to bottom, he rubbed his hands, a broad smile
overspread his features, and he said joyfully, "This is just what I
wanted! Ah, we shall get on together, Mr. Fogg and I! What a domestic and
regular gentleman! A real machine; well, I don't mind serving a machine."
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/55/around-the-world-in-80-days/1046/chapter-1-in-which-phileas-fogg-and-passepartout-accept-each-other-the-one-as-master-the-other-as-man-around-the-world-in-80-days/
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/55/around-the-world-in-80-days/1047/chapter-2-in-which-passepartout-is-convinced-that-he-has-at-last-found-his-ideal/
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