Around the World in Eighty Days — Chapter 16 in French
By Jules Verne
Le Rangoon, l’un des paquebots que la Compagnie péninsulaire et orientale emploie au service des mers de la Chine et du Japon, était un steamer en fer, à hélice, jaugeant brut dix-sept cent soixante-dix tonnes, et d’une force nominale de quatre cents chevaux. The "Rangoon"—one of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's boats plying in the Chinese and Japanese seas—was a screw steamer, built of iron, weighing about seventeen hundred and seventy tons, and with engines of four hundred horse-power. Aouda ne fut-elle point aussi bien installée que l’eût désiré Phileas Fogg. She was as fast, but not as well fitted up, as the "Mongolia," and Aouda was not as comfortably provided for on board of her as Phileas Fogg could have wished. Après tout, il ne s’agissait que d’une traversée de trois mille cinq cents milles, soit de onze à douze jours, et la jeune femme ne se montra pas une difficile passagère. However, the trip from Calcutta to Hong Kong only comprised some three thousand five hundred miles, occupying from ten to twelve days, and the young woman was not difficult to please.
Pendant les premiers jours de cette traversée, Mrs. Aouda fit plus ample connaissance avec Phileas Fogg. During the first days of the journey Aouda became better acquainted with her protector, and constantly gave evidence of her deep gratitude for what he had done. En toute occasion, elle lui témoignait la plus vive reconnaissance. Le flegmatique gentleman l’écoutait, en apparence au moins, avec la plus extrême froideur, sans qu’une intonation, un geste décelât en lui la plus légère émotion. The phlegmatic gentleman listened to her, apparently at least,
with coldness, neither his voice nor his manner betraying the slightest emotion; but he seemed to be always on the watch that nothing should be wanting to Aouda's comfort. À de certaines heures il venait régulièrement, sinon causer, du moins l’écouter. He visited her regularly each day at certain hours, not so much to talk himself, as to sit and hear her talk. Il accomplissait envers elle les devoirs de la politesse la plus stricte, mais avec la grâce et l’imprévu d’un automate dont les mouvements auraient été combinés pour cet usage. He treated her with the strictest politeness, but with the precision of an automaton, the movements of which had been arranged for this purpose. Aouda ne savait trop que penser, mais Passepartout lui avait un peu expliqué l’excentrique personnalité de son maître. Il lui avait appris quelle gageure entraînait ce gentleman autour du monde. Aouda did not quite know what to make of him, though Passepartout had given her some hints of his master's eccentricity, and made her smile by telling her of the wager which was sending him round the world. Aouda avait souri ; mais après tout, elle lui devait la vie, et son sauveur ne pouvait perdre à ce qu’elle le vît à travers sa reconnaissance. After all, she owed Phileas Fogg her life, and she always regarded him through the exalting medium of her gratitude.
Aouda confirma le récit que le guide indou avait fait de sa touchante histoire. Aouda confirmed the Parsee guide's narrative of her touching history. Elle était, en effet, de cette race qui tient le premier rang parmi les races indigènes. She did, indeed, belong to the highest of the native races of India. Plusieurs négociants parsis ont fait de grandes fortunes aux Indes, dans le commerce des cotons. L’un d’eux, sir James Jejeebhoy, a été anobli par le gouvernement anglais, et Mrs. Many of the Parsee merchants have made great fortunes there by dealing in cotton; and one of them, Sir Jametsee Jeejeebhoy, was made a baronet by the English government. Aouda était parente de ce riche personnage qui habitait Bombay. C’était même un cousin de sir Jejeebhoy, l’honorable Jejeeh, qu’elle comptait rejoindre à Hong-Kong. Aouda was a relative of this great man, and it was his cousin, Jeejeeh, whom she hoped to join at Hong Kong. Si elle trouverait en lui un protecteur, elle ne pouvait le dire ; mais Mr. Fogg s'efforça de calmer ses inquiétudes, et de l'assurer que tout s'arrangerait mathématiquement—il employa le mot même—. Whether she would find a protector in him she could not tell; but Mr. Fogg essayed to calm her anxieties, and to assure her that everything would be mathematically—he used the very word—arranged. Fogg, ses grands yeux « limpides comme les lacs sacrés de l’Himalaya ! » Mais l’intraitable Fogg, aussi boutonné que jamais, ne semblait point homme à se jeter dans ce lac. Aouda fastened her great eyes, "clear as the sacred lakes of the Himalaya," upon him; but the intractable Fogg, as reserved as ever, did not seem at all inclined to throw himself into this lake.