La vuelta al mundo en 80 días

La vuelta al mundo en ochenta días (Around the World in Eighty Days, en inglés) es una novela de aventuras del francés Julio Verne, publicada en francés en 1872. Phileas Fogg de Londres, y su valet francés Passepartout, intentan dar la vuelta al mundo en 80 días por una apuesta de £20.000, lanzada por sus amigos en el Reform Club. Es uno de los trabajos más aclamados de Verne.

Julio Verne intercala personajes históricos y lugares reales con hechos imaginarios. Habla de trapecistas, y artistas reales.

La partida

Phileas y su valet, Passepartout, preparan el viaje y parten inmediatamente. Del clásico de Julio Verne, La vuelta al mundo en 80 días…

-¡Passepartout! -repitió el señor Fogg, sin levantar la voz.

Passepartout hizo su aparición.

-Te he llamado dos veces, observó su jefe.

-Pero no es la media noche, respondió el otro, mostrando su reloj.

-Ya lo sé, no te culpo. Partimos para Dover y Calais en diez minutos.

Una sonrisa perpleja cubrió la cara redonda de Passepartout; claramente no había comprendido a su jefe.

-¿El señor  va a salir?

The Wager

En el Reform Club Phileas Fogg discute con sus amigos sobre un artículo del Daily Telegraph que señala que con la apertura de una nueva vía en India será posible viajar alrededor del mundo en 80 días. De La vuelta al mundo en 80 días, de Julio Verne…

"I would wager four thousand pounds that such a journey, made under these conditions, is impossible."

"Quite possible, on the contrary," returned Mr. Fogg.

"Well, make it, then!"

"The journey round the world in eighty days?"

"Yes."

"I should like nothing better."

Jean Passepartout

El nuevo valet se presenta ante Phileas Fogg. De La vuelta al mundo en ochenta días, de Julio Verne…

Phileas Fogg was seated squarely in his armchair, his feet close together like those of a grenadier on parade, his hands resting on his knees, his body straight, his head erect; he was steadily watching a complicated clock which indicated the hours, the minutes, the seconds, the days, the months, and the years. At exactly half-past eleven Mr. Fogg would, according to his daily habit, quit Saville Row, and repair to the Reform.

A rap at this moment sounded on the door of the cosy apartment where Phileas Fogg was seated, and James Forster, the dismissed servant, appeared.

"The new servant," said he.

A young man of thirty advanced and bowed.

The Mysterious Island

The Mysterious Island, de Julio Verne, narra las aventuras de varios hombres a bordo de un globo azotado por un tornado en medio del océano…

“Are we going up again?”

“No. On the contrary; we are going down!”

“Worse than that, Mr. Smith, we are falling!”

“For God’s sake throw over all the ballast!”

“The last sack is empty!”

“And the balloon rises again?”

“No!”

“I hear the splashing waves!”

“The sea is under us!”

“It is not five hundred feet off!”

Then a strong, clear voice shouted:—

“Overboard with all we have, and God help us!”

Such were the words which rang through the air above the vast wilderness of the Pacific, towards 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the 23d of March, 1865:—

Doubtless, no one has forgotten that terrible northeast gale which vented its fury during the equinox of that year. It was a hurricane lasting without intermission from the 18th to the 26th of March. Covering a space of 1,800 miles, drawn obliquely to the equator, between the 35° of north latitude and 40° south, it occasioned immense destruction both in America and Europe and Asia. Cities in ruins, forests uprooted, shores devastated by the mountains of water hurled upon them, hundreds of shipwrecks, large tracts of territory desolated by the waterspouts which destroyed everything in their path, thousands of persons crushed to the earth or engulfed in the sea; such were the witnesses to its fury left behind by this terrible hurricane. It surpassed in disaster those storms which ravaged Havana and Guadeloupe in 1810 and 1825.