Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne [easy novels to read TXT] 📗

Chapter I

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PASSEPARTOUT ACCEPT EACH OTHER,

THE ONE AS MASTER, THE OTHER AS MAN

 

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.