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Around the World in Eighty Days
Chapter 23. IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT'S NOSE BECOMES OUTRAGEOUSLY LONG
The next morning poor, tired, hungry Passepartout said he must get food at all costs, and soon.
He might, indeed, sell his watch, but he'd have gone hungry first.
Now or never he must use the strong, if not pleasant, voice that nature had given him.
He knew several French and English songs and decided to try them on the Japanese.
They must love music, since they were always beating their cymbals, drums, and tambourines, and couldn't but like European talent.
It was too early to start the concert, and people woken too soon might not pay with money bearing the Mikado's face.
Passepartout decided to wait a few hours, as he walked, he saw he would look too well dressed for a wandering artist.
He decided to change his clothes to ones that fit his plan.
By doing this, he could get a little money to buy food for his hunger now.
The decision taken, he only had to do it.
It was only after a long search that Passepartout found a local dealer in old clothes, to whom he asked for an exchange.
The man liked the European outfit, and soon Passepartout left his shop wearing an old Japanese coat and a worn one-sided turban.
A few small pieces of silver also rattled in his pocket.
"Good!" he thought.
"I'll pretend I'm at a festival!"
His first care, after being thus "Japanesed," was to enter a small tea house.
There he breakfasted on half a bird and a little rice, like a man for whom dinner remained a problem to be solved.
"Now," he thought, when he had eaten well, "I mustn't lose my head."
"I can't sell these clothes again, and I must find a way to leave this land of the Sun fast. I won't remember it happily".
It occurred to him to visit the steamers that were about to leave for America.
He'd offer himself as a cook or servant in payment for his passage and food.
Once at San Francisco, he'd find a way to go on.
The problem was how to cross the four thousand seven hundred miles of the Pacific that lay between Japan and the New World.
Passepartout wasn't the man to let an idea go, he went toward the docks.
But, as he came near them, his plan, which at first had seemed so simple, began to seem more and more difficult to him.
Why would an American steamer need a cook or servant, and why trust a man dressed like that?
What references could he give, and who would say he had done that work?
As he was thinking in this way, his eyes fell on a huge poster that a sort of clown was carrying through the streets.
This poster, in English, read as follows.
ACROBATIC JAPANESE TROUPE, HONOURABLE WILLIAM BATULCAR, PROPRIETOR, LAST REPRESENTATIONS, PRIOR TO THEIR DEPARTURE TO THE UNITED STATES, OF THE LONG NOSES!
LONG NOSES! UNDER THE DIRECT PATRONAGE OF THE GOD TINGOU! GREAT ATTRACTION!
"The United States!" said Passepartout.
"That's just what I want!"
He followed the clown, and soon found himself once more in the Japanese quarter.
A quarter of an hour later he stopped before a large cabin with several groups of streamers.
The outer walls were painted in bright colours to show a company of jugglers.
This was the Honourable William Batulcar's place.
That gentleman was a sort of Barnum.
He was the director of a troupe of mountebanks, jugglers, clowns, acrobats, tightrope walkers, and gymnasts.
According to the poster, they were giving their last shows before leaving the Empire of the Sun for the United States.
Passepartout went in and asked for Mr. Batulcar, who soon came in person.
"What do you want?" he said to Passepartout, whom he first took for a local man.
"Would you like a servant, sir?" asked Passepartout.
"A servant!" cried Mr. Batulcar, touching the thick grey beard that hung from his chin.
"I already have two who are obedient and faithful."
"They have never left me and serve me for their food."
"Here they're," He added, showing his two strong arms, veined like the strings of a bass viol.
"So I can be of no use to you?"
"None."
"The devil! I'd so like to cross the Pacific with you!"
"Ah!" said the Honourable Mr. Batulcar.
"You're no more a Japanese than I'm a monkey! Who are you dressed up that way?"
"A man dresses as he can."
"That's true. You're a Frenchman, aren't you?"
"Yes, a Parisian of Paris."
"Then you ought to know how to make faces?"
"Why," replied Passepartout, a little annoyed that his nationality should cause this question.
"We Frenchmen know how to make faces, it's true, but not any better than the Americans do."
True. If I can't take you as a servant, I can take you as a clown. In France they show foreign clowns, abroad, French clowns.
"Ah!"
"You're pretty strong, eh?"
"Especially after a good meal."
"And you can sing?"
"Yes," said Passepartout, who had used to sing in the streets.
"But can you sing standing on your head, with a top spinning on your left foot, and a sword balanced on your right?"
"Humph! I think so," replied Passepartout, remembering the exercises of his youth.
"Well, that's enough," said the Honourable William Batulcar.
The deal was made then and there.
Passepartout had at last found work.
He was hired to act in the famous Japanese troupe.
It wasn't a very dignified job, but within a week he'd be on his way to San Francisco.
Announced by the Honourable Mr. Batulcar, show began at three, and the loud drums of a Japanese orchestra sounded at the door.
Passepartout, though he hadn't been able to study or practice a part, was chosen to lend the aid of his strong shoulders.
The display was the great "human pyramid" made by the Long Noses of the god Tingou.
This "great attraction" was to close the show.
Before three o'clock the large shed was full of spectators, including Europeans and natives, Chinese and Japanese.
Men, women, and children rushed to the narrow benches and into the boxes opposite the stage.
The musicians took their place inside, and were loudly playing on their gongs, drums, flutes, bones, tambourines, and huge drums.
The show was much like all acrobatic displays.
But it must be said that the Japanese are the best tightrope and balance artists in the world.
One, with a fan and some bits of paper, did the graceful trick of the butterflies and the flowers.
Another drew in the air, with the scented smoke of his pipe, a series of blue words which made a compliment to the audience.
A third juggled lighted candles, putting them out in turn in his mouth and lighting them again without stopping.
Another made the strangest moves with a spinning top.
In his hands the spinning tops seemed alive in their endless turning.
They ran over pipe stems, the edges of swords, wires, and even hairs stretched across the stage.
They turned on the edges of large glasses, crossed bamboo ladders, and went into every corner.
They made strange musical sounds from the mix of their different tones.
The jugglers tossed them up and hit them like shuttlecocks with wooden bats, and they still kept spinning.
They put the tops in their pockets and took them out still turning as before.
It's useless to describe all the amazing acts of the acrobats and gymnasts.
The turns on ladders, poles, balls, barrels, and so on, were done with wonderful skill.
But the main attraction was the show of the Long Noses, a sight unknown to Europe.
The Long Noses make a special company, under the direct support of the god Tingou.
Dressed in the fashion of the Middle Ages, they had on their shoulders a fine pair of wings.
What really marked them was the long noses fixed to their faces and the uses they made of them.
These noses were bamboo, five, six, even ten feet long, some straight, others curved, some tied with ribbons, others with false warts.
It was on these pieces, fixed tightly to their real noses, that they did their gymnastic acts.
A dozen of these followers of Tingou lay flat on their backs.
Others, dressed like lightning rods, came and played on their noses, jumping from one to another and performing the most skilful jumps and somersaults.
As a last scene, a "human pyramid" was announced, in which fifty Long Noses were to represent the Car of Juggernaut.
But, instead of forming a pyramid by standing on each other's shoulders, the artists were to stand on top of the noses.
The performer who had until then been the base of the Car had left the troupe.
Since filling that place required only strength and skill, Passepartout was chosen to take his place.
The poor fellow really felt sad when, remembering his youth, he put on his costume decorated with many coloured wings.
He fixed to his nose a false nose six feet long.
But he cheered up when he thought that this nose was getting him something to eat.
He went on the stage, and took his place beside the others who were to make the base of the Car of Juggernaut.
They all stretched on the floor, their noses pointing to the ceiling.
A second group of artists placed themselves on these long pieces.
Then a third group climbed above them, and a fourth followed.
Soon a human monument reached to the very cornice of the theatre, rising on top of the noses.
This caused loud applause, while the orchestra was just starting a deafening tune.
Then the pyramid shook and the balance was lost.
One of the lower noses disappeared from the pyramid, and the human monument fell like a house of cards!
It was Passepartout's fault, for he had left his place and climbed away.
He left his place, went past the footlights without his wings, and climbed up to the right gallery.
"He fell at the feet of one of the viewers, shouting "Ah, my master! my master!
"Ah, my master! my master!"
"You here?"
"Myself."
"Very well, then let's go to the steamer, young man!"
Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and Passepartout went through the lobby of the theatre to the outside, where they met the Honourable Mr. Batulcar, furious with anger.
He asked for payment for the "breakage" of the pyramid, and Phileas Fogg calmed him by giving him a handful of banknotes.
At half past six, the very hour of departure, Mr. Fogg and Aouda stepped onto the American steamer.
They were followed by Passepartout, who in his hurry had kept his wings and his nose six feet long.