Around the World in Eighty Days. Жюль Верн
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he had an open credit. Thence a certain appearance due to his cheques being regularly paid at sight by the debit of his account current, which was always to his credit.
Was this Phileas Fogg rich? Undoubtedly. But the best informed could not say how he had made his money, and Mr Fogg was the last person to whom it would have been proper to go for information. He was by no means extravagant in anything, neither was he avaricious, for when money was needed for a noble, useful, or benevolent purpose, he gave it quietly, and even anonymously. In short, no one was less communicative than this gentleman. He talked as little as possible, and seemed much more mysterious than silent. But his life was open to the light, but what he did was always so mathematically the same thing, that the imagination, unsatisfied, sought further.
Had he travelled? It was probable, for none knew the world better than he; there was no spot so secluded that he did not appear to have a special acquaintance with it. Sometimes, in a few, brief, clear words, he would correct the thousand suppositions circulating in the Club with reference to travellers lost or strayed; he pointed out the true probabilities, and so often did events justify his predictions that he seemed as if gifted with a sort of second sight. He was a man who must have travelled everywhere, in spirit at least.
One thing was certain, that for many years Phileas Fogg had not been from London. Those who had the honour of knowing him more intimately than others, affirmed that no one could pretend to have seen him elsewhere than upon the direct route, which he traversed every day to go from his house to the Club. His only pastime was reading the papers and playing whist. He frequently won at this quiet game, so very appropriate to his nature; but his winnings never went into his purse, and made an important item in his charity fund. Besides, it must be remarked, that Mr Fogg evidently played for the sake of playing, not to win. The game was for him a contest, a struggle against a difficulty; but a motionless, unwearying struggle, and that suited his character.
Phileas Fogg was not known to have either wife or children—which may happen to the most respectable people—neither relatives nor friends—which is more rare, truly. Phileas Fogg lived alone in his house in Saville Row, where nobody entered. There was never a question as to its interior. A single servant sufficed to serve him. Breakfasting and dining at the Club, at hours fixed with the utmost exactness, in the same hall, at the same table, not entertaining his colleagues nor inviting a stranger, he returned home only to go to bed, exactly at midnight, without ever making use of the comfortable chambers which the Reform Club puts at the disposal of its favoured members. Of the twenty-four hours he passed ten at his residence either sleeping or busying himself at his toilet. If he walked, it was invariably with a regular step in the entrance hall with its Mosaic floor, or in the circular gallery, above which rose a dome with blue-painted windows, supported by twenty Ionic columns of red porphyry. If he dined or breakfasted, the kitchens, the buttery, the pantry, the dairy of the Club furnished his table from their succulent stores; the waiters of the Club, grave personages in dress-coats and shoes with swanskin soles, served him in a special porcelain and on fine Saxon linen; the Club decanters of a lost mould contained his sherry, his port, and his claret, flavoured with orange flower water and cinnamon; and finally the ice of the Club, brought at great expense from the American lakes, kept his drinks in a satisfactory condition of freshness.
If to live in such conditions is to be eccentric, it must be granted that eccentricity has something good in it!
The mansion on Saville Row, without being sumptuous, recommended itself by its extreme comfort. Besides with the unvarying habits of the occupants, the number of servants was reduced to one. But Phileas Fogg demanded from his only servant an extraordinary and regular punctuality. This very day, the second of October, Phileas Fogg had dismissed James Forster—this youth having incurred his displeasure by bringing him shaving-water at eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit, instead of eighty-six—and he was waiting for his successor, who was to make his appearance between eleven and half-past eleven.
Phileas Fogg, squarely seated in his armchair, his feet close together like those of a soldier on parade, his hands resting on his knees, his body straight, his head erect, was watching the hand of the clock move—a complicated mechanism which indicated the hours, the minutes, the seconds, the days, the days of the month, and the year. At the stroke of half-past eleven Mr Fogg would, according to his daily habit, leave his house and repair to the Reform Club.
At this moment, there was a knock at the door of the small parlour in which was Phileas Fogg.
James Forster, the dismissed servant, appeared.
“The new servant,” said he.
A young man, aged thirty years, came forward and bowed.
“You are a Frenchman, and your name is John?” Phileas Fogg asked him.
“Jean, if it does not displease Monsieur,” replied the newcomer. “Jean Passepartout, a surname which has clung to me and which my natural aptitude for withdrawing from a business has justified. I believe, sir, that I am an honest fellow; but to be frank, I have had several trades. I have been a travelling singer; a circus rider, vaulting like Leotard, and dancing on the rope like Blondin; then I became professor of gymnastics, in order to render my talents more useful; and in the last place, I was a sergeant fireman at Paris. I have among my papers notes of remarkable fires. But five years have passed since I left France, and wishing to have a taste of family life, I have been a valet in England. Now, finding myself out of a situation, and having learned that Monsieur Phileas Fogg was the most exact and the most settled gentleman in the United Kingdom, I have presented myself to monsieur with the hope of living tranquilly with him, and of forgetting even the name of Passepartout.”
“Passepartout suits me,” replied the gentleman. “You are recommended to me. I have good reports concerning you. You know my conditions?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, what time have you?”
“Twenty-two minutes after eleven,” replied Passepartout, drawing from the depths of his pocket an enormous silver watch.
“You are slow,” said Mr Fogg.
“Pardon me, monsieur, but it is impossible.”
“You are four minutes too slow. It does not matter. It suffices to state the difference. Then, from this moment—twenty-nine minutes after eleven o’clock a.m., this Wednesday, October 2, 1872, you are in my service.”
That said, Phileas Fogg rose, took his hat in his left hand, placed it upon his head with an automatic movement, and disappeared without another word.
Passepartout heard the street door close once; it was his new master going out; then a second time; it was his predecessor, James Forster, departing in his turn. Passepartout remained alone in the house in Saville Row.
In which Passepartout is Convinced that he has Found his ideal
“Upon my word,” said Passepartout to himself, “I have known at Madame Tussaud’s good people as lively as my new master!”
It is proper to say here that Madame Tussaud’s “good people” are wax figures, much visited in London, and who, indeed, are only wanting in speech.
During the few minutes that he had interviewed Phileas Fogg, Passepartout had examined his future master, rapidly but carefully. He was a man that might be forty years old, of fine handsome face, of tall figure, which a slight corpulence did not disparage, his hair and whiskers light, his forehead compact, without appearance of wrinkles at the temples, his face rather pale than flushed, his teeth magnificent. He appeared to possess in the highest degree what physiognomists call “repose in action,” a quality common to those who do more work than talking. Calm, phlegmatic, with a clear eye and immovable eyelid, he was the finished type of those cool-blooded Englishmen so frequently met in the United Kingdom, and whose somewhat academic posture Angelica Kauffman has marvellously reproduced under her pencil. Seen in the various acts of his existence, this gentleman gave the idea of a well-balanced