Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne [easy novels to read TXT] 📗
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- Author: Jules Verne
- Performer: 014036711X
Book online «Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne [easy novels to read TXT] 📗». Author Jules Verne
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.
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.
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