Around the World in Eighty Days. Жюль Верн
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the time to arrive.
But after the last orders which his master had given him on leaving the Mongolia, Passepartout had understood very well that it would be the same with Bombay as with Suez and Paris, that the journey would not stop here, that it would be continued at least as far as Calcutta, and perhaps farther. And he began to ask himself if, after all, this bet of Mr Fogg was not really serious, and if fatality was not dragging him, he who wished to live at rest, to accomplish the tour of the world in eighty days! Whilst waiting, and after having obtained some shirts and shoes, he took a walk through the streets of Bombay. There was a great crowd of people there, and among them Europeans of all nationalities. Persians with pointed caps, Bunyas with round turbans, Sindes, with square caps, Armenians in long robes, Parsees in black mitres. A festival was just being held by the Parsees, the direct descendants of the followers of Zoroaster, who are the most industrious, the most civilised, the most intelligent, the most austere of the Hindus—a race to which now belong the rich native merchants of Bombay. Upon this day they were celebrating a sort of religious carnival, with processions and amusements, in which figured dancing girls dressed in rose-coloured gauze embroidered with gold and silver, who danced wonderfully and with perfect decency to the sound of viols and tam-tams.
It is superfluous to insist here whether Passepartout looked at these curious ceremonies, whether his eyes and ears were stretched wide open to see and hear, whether his entire appearance was that of the freshest greenhorn that can be imagined. Unfortunately for himself and his master, whose journey he ran the risk of interrupting, his curiosity dragged him farther than was proper.
In fact, after having looked at this Parsee carnival, Passepartout turned towards the station, when passing the splendid pagoda on Malebar Hill, he took the unfortunate notion to visit its interior. He was ignorant of two things: First, that the entrance into certain Hindu pagodas is formally forbidden to Christians, and next, that the believers themselves cannot enter there without having left their shoes at the door. It must be remarked here that the British Government, for sound political reasons, respecting and causing to be respected in its most insignificant details the religion of the country, punishes severely whoever violates its practices. Passepartout having gone in, without thinking of doing wrong, like a simple traveller, was admiring in the interior the dazzling glare of the Brahmim ornamentation, when he was suddenly thrown down on the sacred floor. Three priests, with furious looks, rushed upon him, tore off his shoes and stockings, and commenced to beat him, uttering savage cries. The Frenchman, vigorous and agile, rose again quickly. With a blow of his fist and a kick he upset two of his adversaries, very much hampered by their long robes, and rushing out of the pagoda with all the quickness of his legs, he had soon distanced the third Hindu, who had followed him closely, by mingling with the crowd.
At five minutes of eight, just a few minutes before the leaving of the train, hatless and barefoot, having lost in the scuffle the bundle containing his purchases, Passepartout arrived at the railway station. Fix was on the wharf. Having followed Mr Fogg to the station, he understood that the rogue was going to leave Bombay. His mind was immediately made up to accompany him to Calcutta, and farther, if it was necessary. Passepartout did not see Fix, who was standing in a dark place, but Fix heard him tell his adventures in a few words to his master.
“I hope it will not happen to you again,” was all Phileas Fogg replied, taking a seat in one of the cars of the train. The poor fellow, barefoot and quite discomfited, followed his master without saying a word.
Fix was going to get in another car, when a thought stopped him, and suddenly modified his plan of departure. “No, I will remain,” he said to himself. “A transgression committed upon Indian territory. I have my man.”
At this moment the locomotive gave a vigorous whistle, and the train disappeared in the darkness.
In which Phileas Fogg buys a Conveyance at a Fabulous Price
The train had started to time. It carried a certain number of travellers, some officers, civil officials, and opium and indigo merchants, whose business called them to the eastern part of the peninsula.
Passepartout occupied the same compartment as his master. A third traveller was in the opposite corner.
It was the brigadier-general, Sir Francis Cromarty, one of the partners of Mr Fogg during the trip from Suez to Bombay, who was rejoining his troops, stationed near Benares.
Sir Francis Cromarty, tall, fair, about fifty years old, who had distinguished himself highly during the last revolt of the Sepoys, had truly deserved to be called a native. From his youth he had lived in India, and had only been occasionally in the country of his birth. He was a well-posted man, who would have been glad to give information as to the manners, the history, the organisation of this Indian country, if Phileas Fogg had been the man to ask for such things. But this gentleman was not asking anything. He was not travelling, he was describing a circumference. He was a heavy body, traversing an orbit around the terrestrial globe, according to the laws of rational mechanics. At this moment he was going over in his mind the calculations of the hours consumed since his departure from London, and he would have rubbed his hands, if it had been in his nature to make a useless movement.
Sir Francis Cromarty had recognised the originality of his travelling companion, although he had only studied him with his cards in his hand, and between two rubbers. He was ready to ask whether a human heart beat beneath this cold exterior, whether Phileas Fogg had a soul alive to the beauties of nature and to moral aspirations. That was the question for him. Of all the oddities the general had met, none were to be compared to this product of the exact sciences. Phileas Fogg had not kept secret from Sir Francis Cromarty his plan for a tour around the world, nor the conditions under which he was carrying it out. The general saw in this bet only an eccentricity without a useful aim, and which was wanting necessarily in the transire benefaciendo which ought to guide every reasonable man. In the manner in which this singular gentleman was moving on, he would evidently be doing nothing, either for himself or for others.
An hour after having left Bombay, the train, crossing the viaducts, had left behind the Island of Salcette and reached the mainland. At the station Callyan, it left to the right the branch which, via Kandallah and Pounah descends towards the south-east of India, and reaches the station Panwell. At this point, it became entangled in the defiles of the Western Ghaut mountains, with bases of trappe and basalt, whose highest summits are covered with thick woods.
From time to time, Sir Francis Cromarty and Phileas Fogg exchanged a few words, and at this moment the general, recommencing a conversation which frequently lagged, said:
“A few years ago, Mr Fogg, you would have experienced at this point a delay which would have probably interrupted your journey.”
“Why so, Sir Francis?”
“Because the railway stopped at the base of these mountains, which had to be crossed in a palanquin or on a pony’s back as far as the station of Kandallah, on the opposite slope.”
“That delay would not have deranged my programme,” replied Mr Fogg. “I would have foreseen the probability of certain obstacles.”
“But, Mr Fogg,” replied the general, “you are in danger of having a bad business on your hands with this young man’s adventure.”
Passepartout, with his feet wrapped up in his cloak, was sleeping soundly, and did not dream that they were talking about him.
“The British Government is extremely severe, and rightly, for this kind of trespass,” replied Sir Francis Cromarty. “It insists, above all things, that the religious customs of the Hindus shall be respected, and if your servant had been taken—”
“Yes, if he had been taken, Sir Francis,” replied Mr Fogg, “he would have been sentenced, he would have undergone his punishment, and then he would have quietly returned to Europe. I do not see how this matter could have delayed his master!”
And, thereupon, the conversation stopped again.