"Jules Verne - Around The World In 80 Days" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

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AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS 4


He often corrected, with a few clear words, the thousand conjectures
advanced by members of the club as to lost and unheard-of travellers,
pointing out the true probabilities, and seeming as if gifted with
a sort of second sight, so often did events justify his predictions.
He must have travelled everywhere, at least in the spirit.

It was at least certain that Phileas Fogg had not absented himself
from London for many years. Those who were honoured by a better
acquaintance with him than the rest, declared that nobody could
pretend to have ever seen him anywhere else. His sole pastimes
were reading the papers and playing whist. He often won at this game,
which, as a silent one, harmonised with his nature; but his winnings
never went into his purse, being reserved as a fund for his charities.
Mr. Fogg played, not to win, but for the sake of playing.
The game was in his eyes a contest, a struggle with a difficulty,
yet a motionless, unwearying struggle, congenial to his tastes.

Phileas Fogg was not known to have either wife or children,
which may happen to the most honest people; either relatives
or near friends, which is certainly more unusual. He lived alone
in his house in Saville Row, whither none penetrated. A single
domestic sufficed to serve him. He breakfasted and dined at the club,
at hours mathematically fixed, in the same room, at the same table,
never taking his meals with other members, much less bringing
a guest with him; and went home at exactly midnight, only to retire
at once to bed. He never used the cosy chambers which the Reform
provides for its favoured members. He passed ten hours out of the
twenty-four in Saville Row, either in sleeping or making his toilet.
When he chose to take a walk it was with a regular step in the
entrance hall with its mosaic flooring, or in the circular gallery
with its dome supported by twenty red porphyry Ionic columns,
and illumined by blue painted windows. When he breakfasted or dined
all the resources of the club--its kitchens and pantries,
its buttery and dairy--aided to crowd his table with their most
succulent stores; he was served by the gravest waiters,
in dress coats, and shoes with swan-skin soles, who proffered
the viands in special porcelain, and on the finest linen;
club decanters, of a lost mould, contained his sherry,
his port, and his cinnamon-spiced claret; while his beverages
were refreshingly cooled with ice, brought at great cost
from the American lakes.

If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be