Latest / Classic Adventure Books Collection / 22 - Around The World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne

Transcript

22 - Around The World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne · Classic Adventure Books Collection

• 0:00
  Chapter twenty two, in which Passepartou finds out that even at the antipodes,
• 0:06
  it is convenient to have some money in one's pocket. The carnatic setting sail
• 0:14
  from Hong Kong at half past six on the seventh of November, directed her
• 0:18
  course at full steam towards Japan. She carried a large cargo in a well
• 0:23
  filled cabin of passengers. Two state rooms in the rear were, however,
• 0:28
  unoccupied, those which had been engaged by Phileas Fogg. The next day,
• 0:34
  a passenger with a half stupefied eye, staggering gait, and disordered hair was
• 0:40
  seen to emerge from the second cabin and to totter to a seat on deck.
• 0:45
  It was past Partou, and what had happened to him was as follows.
• 0:50
  Shortly after Fix left the opium den, two waiters had lifted the unconscious
• 0:55
  passepartout and had carried him to the bed reserved for the smokers. Three hours
• 1:00
  later. Pursued even in his dreams by a fixed idea, the poor fellow
• 1:04
  awoke and struggled against the stupefying influence of their narcotic The thought of a duty
• 1:11
  unfulfilled shook off his torpor, and he hurried from the abode of drunkenness,
• 1:18
  staggering and holding himself up by keeping against the walls, falling down and creeping
• 1:23
  up again, and irresistibly, impelled by a kind of instinct, he kept
• 1:29
  crying out the Carnatic, the Carnatic. The steamer lay puffing alongside the quay.
• 1:37
  On the point of starting. Passepartout had but a few steps to go,
• 1:41
  and, rushing upon the plank, he crossed it and fell unconscious on
• 1:45
  the deck. Just as the Carnatic was moving off. Several sailors, who
• 1:49
  were evidently accustomed to this sort of scene, carried the poor Frenchman down into
• 1:55
  the second cabin, and Passepartout did not wake until they were one one hundred
• 2:00
  and fifty miles away from China. Thus he found himself the next morning on
• 2:05
  the deck of the Carnatic, and eagerly inhaling the exhilarating sea breeze. The
• 2:09
  pure air sobered him. He began to collect his sense, which he found
• 2:15
  a difficult task, But at last he recalled the events of the evening before
• 2:20
  Fix's revelation and the Opium house. It is evident, said he to himself,
• 2:27
  that I have been abominably drunk. What will mister Fogg say? At
• 2:31
  least I have not missed the steamer, which is the most important thing.
• 2:37
  Then, as Fix occurred to him. As for that rascal, I hope
• 2:40
  we are well rid of him, and that he has not dared as he
• 2:45
  proposed to follow us on board the Carnatic, A detective on the track of
• 2:49
  mister Fogg accused of robbing the Bank of England Pshaw. Mister Falk is no
• 2:57
  more a robber than I am a murderer? Should he divulge Fix's real errand
• 3:01
  to his master? Would it do to tell the part the detective was playing?
• 3:07
  Would it not be better to wait until mister Fogg reached London again and
• 3:10
  then impart to him that an agent of the Metropolitan Police had been following him
• 3:15
  round the world and have a good laugh over it. No doubt, at
• 3:20
  least it was worth considering. The first thing to do was to find mister
• 3:24
  Fogg and apologize for his singular behavior. Passparteu got up and proceeded as well
• 3:31
  as he could with the rolling of the steamer to the after deck. He
• 3:35
  saw no one who resembled either his master or Aouda good muttered, He Aouda
• 3:43
  has not got up yet, and mister Fogg has probably found some partners.
• 3:46
  At whist he descended to the saloon. Mister Fogg was not there. Passepartout
• 3:53
  had, only, however, to ask the purser the number of his master's
• 3:58
  stateroom. The purser reply that he did not know any passenger by the name
• 4:01
  of Fog. I beg your pardon, said Passepartout, persistently. He is
• 4:08
  a tall gentleman, quiet, not very talkative, and has with him a
• 4:13
  young lady. There is no young lady on board, interrupted the purser.
• 4:18
  Here is a list of the passengers. You may see for yourself. Passepartout
• 4:24
  scanned the list, but his master's name was not upon it. All.
• 4:28
  At once an idea struck him. Ah am I on the Carnatic. Yes,
• 4:34
  on the way to Yokohama. Certainly, Passepartout had for an instant feared
• 4:42
  that he was on the wrong boat. But though he was really on the
• 4:45
  Carnatic, his master was not there. He fell thunderstruck on a seat.
• 4:50
  He saw it all now. He remembered that the time of sailing had been
• 4:55
  changed, that he should have informed his master of that fact, and that
• 4:59
  he had not done so. It was his fault then, that mister Fogg
• 5:03
  and Aouda had missed the steamer. Yes, but it was still more the
• 5:08
  fault of the traitor, who, in order to separate him from his master
• 5:13
  and attained the latter at Hong Kong, had inveigled him into getting drunk.
• 5:17
  He now saw the detective's trick, and at this moment mister Fogg was certainly
• 5:23
  ruined. His bet was lost, and he himself perhaps arrested and imprisoned.
• 5:29
  At this thought, Passepartout tore his hair. Ah, if fix ever came
• 5:33
  within his reach, what a settling of accounts there would be. After his
• 5:40
  first depression, Passepartout became calmer and began to study his situation. It was
• 5:46
  certainly not an enviable one. He found himself on the way to Japan.
• 5:50
  And what should he do when he got there? His pocket was empty.
• 5:55
  He had not a solitary shilling, not so much as a penny. His
• 6:00
  passage had fortunately been paid for in advance, and he had five or six
• 6:03
  days in which to decide upon his future course. He fell to at meals
• 6:09
  with an appetite and ate for mister fogg Aouda and himself. He helped himself
• 6:15
  as generously as if Japan were a desert where nothing to eat was to be
• 6:19
  looked for. At dawn on the thirteenth, the Carnatic entered the port of
• 6:25
  Yokohama. This is an important port of call in the Pacific, where all
• 6:30
  the mail steamers and those carrying passengers between North America, China, Japan,
• 6:35
  and the Oriental Islands put in. It is situated in the Bay of Yedo,
• 6:41
  and at but a short distance from that second capital of the Japanese Empire
• 6:45
  and the residents of the Tycoon, the civil Emperor before the Mikado, the
• 6:49
  Spiritual Emperor, absorbed his office in his own. The Carnatic, anchored at
• 6:55
  the quay near the custom house, in the midst of a crowd of ships
• 6:59
  bearing the flags of all nations, passepartout went timidly ashore on this so curious
• 7:04
  territory of the sons of the Sun. He had nothing better to do than
• 7:10
  taking chance for his guide to wander aimlessly through the streets of Yokohama. He
• 7:15
  found himself at first in a thoroughly European quarter, the houses having low fronts
• 7:21
  and being adorned with verandas beneath which he caught glimpses of neat peristyles. This
• 7:28
  quarter occupied with its streets, squares, docks and warehouses all the space between
• 7:33
  the promontory of the treaty and the river. Here, as at Hong Kong
• 7:40
  and Calcutta, were mixed crowds of all races, Americans and English, Chinamen
• 7:45
  and Dutchmen, mostly merchants ready to buy or sell anything. The Frenchman felt
• 7:50
  himself as much alone among them as if he had dropped down in the midst
• 7:55
  of Hottentots. He had at least one resource to call off the French and
• 8:00
  English consuls at Yokohama for assistance, but he shrank from telling the story of
• 8:05
  his adventures, intimately connected as it was with that of his master, and
• 8:11
  before doing so he determined to exhaust all other means of aid, as chance
• 8:16
  did not favor him. In the European quarter, he penetrated that inhabited by
• 8:22
  the native Japanese, determined, if necessary, to push on to Yeddo.
• 8:26
  The Japanese quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the goddess of the sea,
• 8:31
  who was worshiped on the islands. Round About there passepartout beheld beautiful fir
• 8:37
  and cedar groves, sacred gates of a singular architecture, bridges half hid in
• 8:43
  the midst of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar trees. Holy
• 8:48
  retreats were sheltered Buddhist priests and sectories of Confucius, and interminable streets where a
• 8:56
  perfect harvest of rose, tinted and red cheeked children who looked as if they
• 9:01
  had been cut out of Japanese screens, and who were playing in the midst
• 9:05
  of short legged poodles and yellowish cats might have been gathered. The streets were
• 9:09
  crowded with people. Priests were passing in processions, beating their dreary tambourines.
• 9:16
  Police and custom house officers with pointed hats encrusted with lock and carrying two sabers
• 9:22
  hung to their waists, Soldiers clad in blue cotton with white stripes and bearing
• 9:28
  guns, the Mikado's guards enveloped in silken doubles, hauberks and coats of mail,
• 9:35
  and numbers of military folk of all ranks for the military profession is as
• 9:41
  much respected in Japan as it is despised in China, went hither and thither
• 9:46
  in groups and pairs. Passepartouts saw too begging friars, long robed pilgrims and
• 9:54
  simple civilians with their warped and jet black hair, big head, long busts,
• 10:00
  slender legs, short stature, and complexions varying from copper color to a
• 10:03
  dead white, but never yellow. Like the Chinese from whom the Japanese widely
• 10:09
  differ, he did not fail to observe the curious equipages carriages and palanquins,
• 10:16
  barrows supplied with sails, and litters made of bamboo, nor the women,
• 10:22
  whom he thought not especially handsome, who took little steps with their little feet,
• 10:28
  whereon they wore canvas shoes, straw sandals, and clogs of worked wood,
• 10:33
  and who displayed tight looking eyes, flat chests, teeth fashionably blackened,
• 10:39
  and gowns crossed with silken scarves tied at an enormous knot behind an ornament which
• 10:46
  the modern Parisian ladies seemed to have borrowed from the names of Japan. Pstpartout
• 10:50
  wandered for several hours in the midst of this motley crowd looking in at the
• 10:54
  windows of the rich and curious shops, the jewelry establishments glittering with quaint Japanese
• 11:01
  ornaments, the restaurants decked with streamers and banners, the tea houses where the
• 11:07
  odorous beverage was being drunk with saki, a liquor concocted from the fermentation of
• 11:11
  rice, And the comfortable smoking houses where they were puffing not opium, which
• 11:18
  is almost unknown in Japan, but a very fine, stringy tobacco. He
• 11:24
  went on till he found himself in the fields, in the midst of vast
• 11:28
  rice plantations. There he saw dazzling camellias expanding themselves with flowers, which were
• 11:33
  giving forth their less colors and perfumes, not on bushes, but on trees
• 11:39
  and within bamboo enclosures, cherry, plum and apple trees, which the Japanese
• 11:46
  cultivate rather for their blossoms than their fruit, and which queerly fashioned grinning scarecrows
• 11:52
  protected from the sparrows, pigeons, ravens, and other voracious birds on the
• 11:58
  branches of the cedars were perched low large eagles amid the foliage of the weeping
• 12:01
  willows, were herons solemnly standing on one leg, and on every hand were
• 12:07
  crows, ducks, hawks, wild birds, and a multitude of cranes,
• 12:13
  which the Japanese consider sacred, and which to their minds symbolize long life and
• 12:18
  prosperity. As he was strolling along Passepartout espied some violets among the shrubs.
• 12:26
  Good said he, I'll have some supper. But on smelling them he found
• 12:31
  that they were odorless. No chance there, thought he. The worthy fellow
• 12:37
  had certainly taken good care to eat as hearty a breakfast as possible before leaving
• 12:43
  the Carnatic, But as he had been walking about all day, the demands
• 12:46
  of hunger were becoming importunate. He observed that the butcher's stalls contained neither mutton,
• 12:52
  goat, nor pork, And knowing also that it is a sacrilege to
• 12:58
  kill cattle which are preserved solely for farming, he made up his mind that
• 13:03
  meat was far from plentiful in Yokohama. Nor was he mistaken, And in
• 13:07
  default of butcher's meat, he could have wished for a quarter of wild boar
• 13:11
  or deer, a partridge, or some quails, some game or fish,
• 13:16
  which, with rice the Japanese eat almost exclusively, but he found it necessary
• 13:22
  to keep up a stout heart and to postpone the meal he craved till the
• 13:26
  following morning. Night came and Passepartout re entered the native quarter, where he
• 13:33
  wandered through the streets lit by very colored lanterns, looking on at the dancers
• 13:39
  who were executing skillful steps and boundings, and the astrologers who stood in the
• 13:43
  open air with their telescopes. Then he came to the harbor, which was
• 13:48
  lit up by the resin torches of the fishermen who were fishing from their boats.
• 13:54
  The streets at last became quiet, and the patrol, the officers of
• 13:58
  which, in their splendid costumes and surrounded by their suites, Passepartout, thoughts
• 14:05
  seemed like ambassadors, succeeded the bustling crowd. Each time a company passed,
• 14:11
  Passepartou chuckled and said to himself, good Another Japanese embassy departing for Europe.
• 14:20
  End of chapter