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IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT PHILEAS FOGG GAINED NOTHING BY
HIS TOUR AROUND THE WORLD, UNLESS IT WERE HAPPINESS
Yes; Phileas Fogg in person.
The reader will remember that at five minutes past eight in
the evening-- about five and twenty hours after the arrival of
the travellers in London-- Passepartout had been sent by his master
to engage the services of the Reverend Samuel Wilson in a certain
marriage ceremony, which was to take place the next day.
Passepartout went on his errand enchanted. He soon reached
the clergyman's house, but found him not at home. Passepartout
waited a good twenty minutes, and when he left the reverend gentleman,
it was thirty-five minutes past eight. But in what a state he
was! With his hair in disorder, and without his hat, he ran along
the street as never man was seen to run before, overturning passers-by,
rushing over the sidewalk like a waterspout.
In three minutes he was in Saville Row again, and staggered
back into Mr. Fogg's room.
He could not speak.
"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Fogg.
"My master!" gasped Passepartout--"marriage--impossible--"
"Impossible?"
"Impossible--for to-morrow."
"Why so?"
"Because to-morrow--is Sunday!"
"Monday," replied Mr. Fogg.
"No--to-day is Saturday."
"Saturday? Impossible!"
"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" cried Passepartout. "You
have made a mistake of one day! We arrived twenty-four hours ahead
of time; but there are only ten minutes left!"
Passepartout had seized his master by the collar, and was dragging
him along with irresistible force.
Phileas Fogg, thus kidnapped, without having time to think,
left his house, jumped into a cab, promised a hundred pounds to
the cabman, and, having run over two dogs and overturned five
carriages, reached the Reform Club.
The clock indicated a quarter before nine when he appeared
in the great saloon.
Phileas Fogg had accomplished the journey round the world in
eighty days!
Phileas Fogg had won his wager of twenty thousand pounds!
How was it that a man so exact and fastidious could have made
this error of a day? How came he to think that he had arrived
in London on Saturday, the twenty-first day of December, when
it was really Friday, the twentieth, the seventy-ninth day only
from his departure?
The cause of the error is very simple.
Phileas Fogg had, without suspecting it, gained one day on
his journey, and this merely because he had travelled constantly
eastward; he would, on the contrary, have lost a day had he gone
in the opposite direction, that is, westward.
In journeying eastward he had gone towards the sun, and the
days therefore diminished for him as many times four minutes as
he crossed degrees in this direction. There are three hundred
and sixty degrees on the circumference of the earth; and these
three hundred and sixty degrees, multiplied by four minutes, gives
precisely twenty-four hours--that is, the day unconsciously gained.
In other words, while Phileas Fogg, going eastward, saw the sun
pass the meridian eighty times, his friends in London only saw
it pass the meridian seventy-nine times. This is why they awaited
him at the Reform Club on Saturday, and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg
thought.
And Passepartout's famous family watch, which had always kept
London time, would have betrayed this fact, if it had marked the
days as well as the hours and the minutes!
Phileas Fogg, then, had won the twenty thousand pounds; but,
as he had spent nearly nineteen thousand on the way, the pecuniary
gain was small. His object was, however, to be victorious, and
not to win money. He divided the one thousand pounds that remained
between Passepartout and the unfortunate Fix, against whom he
cherished no grudge. He deducted, however, from Passepartout's
share the cost of the gas which had burned in his room for nineteen
hundred and twenty hours, for the sake of regularity.
That evening, Mr. Fogg, as tranquil and phlegmatic as ever,
said to Aouda: "Is our marriage still agreeable to you?"
"Mr. Fogg," replied she, "it is for me to ask
that question. You were ruined, but now you are rich again."
"Pardon me, madam; my fortune belongs to you. If you had
not suggested our marriage, my servant would not have gone to
the Reverend Samuel Wilson's, I should not have been apprised
of my error, and--"
"Dear Mr. Fogg!" said the young woman.
"Dear Aouda!" replied Phileas Fogg.
It need not be said that the marriage took place forty-eight
hours after, and that Passepartout, glowing and dazzling, gave
the bride away. Had he not saved her, and was he not entitled
to this honour?
The next day, as soon as it was light, Passepartout rapped
vigorously at his master's door. Mr. Fogg opened it, and asked,
"What's the matter, Passepartout?"
"What is it, sir? Why, I've just this instant found out--"
"What?"
"That we might have made the tour of the world in only
seventy-eight days."
"No doubt," returned Mr. Fogg, "by not crossing
India. But if I had not crossed India, I should not have saved
Aouda; she would not have been my wife, and--"
Mr. Fogg quietly shut the door.
Phileas Fogg had won his wager, and had made his journey around
the world in eighty days. To do this he had employed every means
of conveyance--steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, trading-vessels,
sledges, elephants. The eccentric gentleman had throughout displayed
all his marvellous qualities of coolness and exactitude. But what
then? What had he really gained by all this trouble? What had
he brought back from this long and weary journey?
Nothing, say you? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman,
who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men!
Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around
the world?
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