Jules Verne · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Yes! Phileas Fogg in person.
It will be recalled that at five past eight in the evening—about twenty-five hours after the travelers' arrival in London—Passepartout had been charged by his master with notifying the Reverend Samuel Wilson about a certain marriage that was to be concluded the very next day.
Passepartout had therefore set off, delighted. He went at a rapid pace to the dwelling of the Reverend Samuel Wilson, who had not yet come home. Naturally, Passepartout waited, but he waited a good twenty minutes at least.
In short, it was eight thirty-five when he came out of the reverend's house. But in what a state! His hair in disorder, hatless, running, running as no one had ever been seen to run in the memory of man, knocking over passersby, hurtling like a waterspout along the sidewalks!
In three minutes, he was back at the Saville Row house, and he fell, breathless, into Mr. Fogg's room.
He could not speak.
"What is it? asked Mr. Fogg.
—My master... stammered Passepartout... marriage... impossible.
—Impossible?
—Impossible... for tomorrow.
—Why?
—Because tomorrow... is Sunday!
—Monday, replied Mr. Fogg.
—No... today... Saturday.
—Saturday? impossible!
—Yes, yes, yes, yes! cried Passepartout. You are wrong by a whole day! We got here twenty-four hours early... but there are only ten minutes left!..."
Passepartout had grabbed his master by the collar and was hauling him off with irresistible force!
Phileas Fogg, swept off in this way, without time to reflect, left his room, left his house, sprang into a cab, promised the driver a hundred pounds, and, after running over two dogs and clipping five carriages, reached the Reform Club.
The clock marked eight forty-five when he appeared in the great drawing-room...
Phileas Fogg had accomplished this tour of the world in eighty days!...
Phileas Fogg had won his bet of twenty thousand pounds!
And now, how could a man so exact, so meticulous, have committed this error of a day? How did he come to believe himself at Saturday evening, December 21, when he landed in London, whereas it was only Friday, December 20, seventy-nine days only after his departure?
Here is the reason for this error. It is quite simple.
Phileas Fogg had, "without suspecting it," gained a day on his itinerary—and that solely because he had made his tour of the world going toward the east, whereas he would, on the contrary, have lost this day going in the opposite direction, that is toward the west.
Indeed, in traveling toward the east, Phileas Fogg was going to meet the sun, and consequently the days shortened for him by four minutes for each degree he crossed in that direction. Now, one counts three hundred and sixty degrees on the earth's circumference, and those three hundred and sixty degrees, taken at four minutes each, give exactly twenty-four hours—that is to say this day unwittingly gained. In other words, while Phileas Fogg, traveling toward the east, saw the sun pass eighty times across the meridian, his colleagues remaining in London saw it pass only seventy-nine times. That is why, on that very day, which was Saturday and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg believed, they were waiting for him in the drawing-room of the Reform Club.
And this is what Passepartout's famous watch—which had all along kept London time—would have shown, if, along with the minutes and the hours, it had marked the days!
Phileas Fogg had thus won the twenty thousand pounds. But since he had spent about nineteen thousand of them along the way, the pecuniary result was slim. However, as has been said, the eccentric gentleman had sought in this wager only the contest, not the fortune. And even the thousand pounds remaining, he divided between the honest Passepartout and the unfortunate Fix, whom he was incapable of holding anything against. Only, and for regularity's sake, he deducted from his servant the cost of the nineteen hundred and twenty hours of gas consumed through his fault.
That very evening, Mr. Fogg, as impassive, as phlegmatic as ever, said to Mrs. Aouda:
"Does this marriage still suit you, madame?
—Mr. Fogg, replied Mrs. Aouda, it is for me to put that question to you. You were ruined, and here you are rich...
—Forgive me, madame, this fortune is yours. Had you not conceived the thought of this marriage, my manservant would never have gone to the Reverend Samuel Wilson's, I would not have been warned of my error, and...
—Dear Mr. Fogg..., said the young woman.
—Dear Aouda...," replied Phileas Fogg.
It is easily understood that the wedding took place forty-eight hours later, and Passepartout, superb, resplendent, dazzling, stood in it as the young woman's witness. Had he not saved her, and was this honor not his due?
Only, the next day, at the very break of dawn, Passepartout knocked with a clatter at his master's door.
The door opened, and the impassive gentleman appeared.
"What is it, Passepartout?
—What is it, sir! It is that I have just this instant learned...
—Learned what?
—That we might have made our tour of the world in seventy-eight days only.
—No doubt, replied Mr. Fogg, by leaving India out. But had I not crossed India, I would never have saved Mrs. Aouda, she would not be my wife, and..."
And Mr. Fogg quietly closed the door.
And so Phileas Fogg had won his wager. He had accomplished in eighty days this journey around the world! He had made use, to do it, of every means of transport—steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, merchant vessels, sledges, an elephant. The eccentric gentleman had displayed throughout this affair his marvelous qualities of coolness and exactitude. But afterward? What had he gained by this upheaval? What had he brought back from this journey?
Nothing, one will say? Nothing, granted, unless it be a charming woman, who—however improbable it may seem—made him the happiest of men!
In truth, would one not, for less than this, make the Tour of the World?