Jules Verne · a new plain-English translation from the original language
The next day, the inhabitants of Saville Row would have been quite surprised to be assured that Mr. Fogg had moved back into his home. Doors and windows, all was shut. No change had occurred on the outside.
Indeed, after leaving the station, Phileas Fogg had given Passepartout the order to buy some provisions, and he had gone back into his house.
This gentleman had received with his customary composure the blow that struck him. Ruined! and through the fault of that clumsy police inspector! After marching with a sure step throughout this long course, after overturning a thousand obstacles, braving a thousand dangers, having even found the time to do some good along his way, to founder within sight of port before a brutal fact, which he could not foresee, and against which he was defenseless: that was terrible! Of the considerable sum he had taken away at his departure, there remained to him only an insignificant remnant. His fortune now consisted only of the twenty thousand pounds deposited with Baring Brothers, and these twenty thousand pounds he owed to his colleagues at the Reform Club. After so much expense laid out, this wager, won, would surely not have made him a richer man, and in all likelihood he had never sought to grow rich—being one of those men who bet for honor's sake—but this wager, lost, ruined him totally. In any case, the gentleman's mind was made up. He knew now what he had to do.
A room in the Saville Row house had been set aside for Mrs. Aouda. The young woman was in despair. From certain words spoken by Mr. Fogg, she had understood that he was brooding over some fatal plan.
One knows, indeed, to what deplorable extremes these monomaniac Englishmen sometimes carry themselves under the pressure of a fixed idea. And so Passepartout, without appearing to, kept watch on his master.
But, first of all, the honest fellow had climbed to his room and put out the gas-jet that had been burning for eighty days. In the letter-box he had found a Gas Company bill, and judged it was more than time to stop these charges for which he was responsible.
The night passed. Mr. Fogg had gone to bed, but had he slept? As for Mrs. Aouda, she could not take a single instant's rest. Passepartout, for his part, had kept watch like a dog at his master's door.
The next day, Mr. Fogg sent for him and instructed him, in very brief terms, to see to Mrs. Aouda's breakfast. For himself, he would content himself with a cup of tea and a piece of toast. Would Mrs. Aouda kindly excuse him for lunch and dinner, for all his time was given over to putting his affairs in order. He would not come down. Only in the evening would he ask Mrs. Aouda's leave to talk with her for a few moments.
Passepartout, having been given the day's program, had only to conform to it. He looked at his master, ever impassive, and could not bring himself to leave the room. His heart was heavy, his conscience racked with remorse, for he blamed himself more than ever for this irreparable disaster. Yes! had he warned Mr. Fogg, had he disclosed to him the schemes of the agent Fix, Mr. Fogg would certainly not have dragged the agent Fix all the way to Liverpool, and then...
Passepartout could hold out no longer.
"My master! Mr. Fogg! he cried, curse me. It is through my fault that...
—I accuse no one, replied Phileas Fogg in the calmest tone. Go."
Passepartout left the room and went off to find the young woman, to whom he made known his master's intentions.
"Madame, he added, I can do nothing by myself, nothing! I have no sway over my master's mind. You, perhaps...
—What influence would I have, replied Mrs. Aouda. Mr. Fogg is subject to none! Has he ever understood that my gratitude toward him was ready to overflow! Has he ever read within my heart!... My friend, we must not leave him, not for a single instant. You say he has shown the intention of speaking to me this evening?
—Yes, madame. It is no doubt a matter of safeguarding your position in England.
—Let us wait," replied the young woman, who remained deep in thought.
Thus, throughout that Sunday, the Saville Row house was as though uninhabited, and, for the first time since taking up residence in that house, Phileas Fogg did not go to his club when half past eleven struck at the Parliament tower.
And why should this gentleman have presented himself at the Reform Club? His colleagues no longer expected him there. Since, the evening before, on that fatal date of Saturday, December 21, at eight forty-five, Phileas Fogg had not appeared in the drawing-room of the Reform Club, his wager was lost. It was not even necessary for him to go to his banker to draw out that sum of twenty thousand pounds. His adversaries held in their hands a check signed by him, and a simple entry to be passed at Baring Brothers would be enough for the twenty thousand pounds to be carried to their credit.
Mr. Fogg therefore had no need to go out, and he did not go out. He remained in his room and put his affairs in order. Passepartout never stopped going up and down the stairs of the Saville Row house. The hours did not move for this poor fellow. He listened at the door of his master's room, and, in doing so, did not think he was committing the slightest indiscretion! He looked through the keyhole, and imagined he had that right! Passepartout dreaded at every instant some catastrophe. Sometimes he thought of Fix, but a change had come over his mind. He no longer bore the police inspector any grudge. Fix had been mistaken like everyone else regarding Phileas Fogg, and, in shadowing him, in arresting him, he had only done his duty, whereas he... This thought overwhelmed him, and he held himself for the lowest of wretches.
When, at last, Passepartout found himself too unhappy to be alone, he knocked at Mrs. Aouda's door, entered her room, sat down in a corner without a word, and looked at the young woman, ever pensive.
Toward seven-thirty in the evening, Mr. Fogg had it asked of Mrs. Aouda whether she could receive him, and a few moments later the young woman and he were alone in that room.
Phileas Fogg drew up a chair by the fireplace and sat down, facing Mrs. Aouda. His face reflected no emotion. The Fogg of the return was exactly the Fogg of the departure. The same calm, the same impassivity.
He remained without speaking for five minutes. Then, raising his eyes to Mrs. Aouda:
"Madame, he said, will you forgive me for having brought you to England?
—I, Mr. Fogg!... replied Mrs. Aouda, holding down the beating of her heart.
—Allow me to finish, resumed Mr. Fogg. When the thought came to me of taking you away from that country, grown so dangerous for you, I was rich, and I counted on placing part of my fortune at your disposal. Your life would have been happy and free. Now, I am ruined.
—I know it, Mr. Fogg, replied the young woman, and now I must ask you in return: Will you pardon me for having come after you, and—who knows?—for perhaps, by delaying you, having had a share in your ruin?
—Madame, you could not stay in India, and your safety was assured only if you went far enough away that these fanatics could not seize you again.
—So, Mr. Fogg, resumed Mrs. Aouda, not content with tearing me from a horrible death, you believed yourself still bound to secure my position abroad?
—Yes, madame, replied Fogg, but events have turned against me. Nevertheless, of the little that remains to me, I ask your leave to dispose in your favor.
—But you, Mr. Fogg, what will become of you? asked Mrs. Aouda.
—I, madame, the gentleman replied coldly, I need nothing at all.
—But how, sir, do you then look upon the fate that awaits you?
—As it befits one to do, replied Mr. Fogg.
—In any case, resumed Mrs. Aouda, want could not reach a man such as you. Your friends...
—I have no friends, madame.
—Your relatives...
—I have no relatives left.
—Then I pity you, Mr. Fogg, for to be alone is a sad thing. What! not one heart to pour your sorrows into. Yet they say that even misery itself, shared between two, is still bearable!
—So they say, madame.
—Mr. Fogg, said Mrs. Aouda then, rising and holding out her hand to the gentleman, do you want both a kinswoman and a friend? Will you take me for your wife?"
Mr. Fogg, at these words, had risen in his turn. There was a kind of unwonted gleam in his eyes, a kind of trembling on his lips. Mrs. Aouda looked at him. The sincerity, the uprightness, the firmness and gentleness of that lovely gaze of a noble woman who dares everything to save the one to whom she owes everything, first astonished him, then went to his heart. He shut his eyes a moment, as if to keep that gaze from sinking any deeper... When he reopened them:
"I love you! he said simply. Yes, in truth, by all that is most sacred in the world, I love you, and I am wholly yours!
—Ah!..." cried Mrs. Aouda, putting her hand to her heart.
Passepartout was rung for. He came at once. Mr. Fogg still held Mrs. Aouda's hand in his. Passepartout understood, and his broad face beamed like the sun at the zenith of the tropical regions.
Mr. Fogg asked him whether it would not be too late to go and notify the Reverend Samuel Wilson, of the parish of Mary-le-Bone.
Passepartout smiled his very best smile.
"Never too late," he said.
It was only five past eight.
"It would be for tomorrow, Monday! he said.
—For tomorrow, Monday? asked Mr. Fogg, looking at the young woman.
—For tomorrow, Monday!" replied Mrs. Aouda.
Passepartout went out at a run.