In which Passepartout grows an exceedingly long nose

The following day an exhausted, starving Passepartout said to himself that he had to have something to eat at all costs, and the sooner the better. He did have the option of selling his watch, but he would rather have died of hunger. Now was the ideal opportunity for the dear fellow to use the loud if not harmonious voice with which nature had endowed him.

He knew a few French and English popular songs and he made up his mind to try them out. The Japanese must certainly be keen on music since they did everything to the accompaniment of cymbals, drums and tambourines, and they were bound to appreciate the talents of a European virtuoso.

However, it was perhaps too early in the morning to organize a concert and the music lovers, if awakened unexpectedly, might not have shown themselves too grateful for the privilege.

Passepartout decided therefore to wait a few hours, but as he walked around the thought struck him that he looked too well dressed for a travelling musician, so he had the idea of exchanging his clothes for a get-up more in keeping with his position. In addition this exchange would produce a small profit, which he could immediately put to use to satisfy his appetite.

Once he had taken this decision, all that remained was for him to put it into practice. After a considerable amount of searching he eventually found a local second-hand dealer, to whom he made his proposal. The second-hand dealer liked the European clothes and soon Passepartout left the shop wearing old Japanese robes and a sort of ribbed turban, which had faded over time. But in exchange he had a few silver coins jangling in his pocket.

‘Good,’ he thought, ‘I’ll just pretend to myself that it’s carnival time.’

Passepartout’s first concern, now that he had been ‘Japanesed’, was to go into a modest-looking tea-house, and there he ate chicken leftovers and a few handfuls of rice like a man who didn’t know where his next meal was coming from.

‘Now,’ he said to himself after his hearty meal, ‘the main thing is to keep a cool head. I no longer have the option of selling this get-up for an even more Japanese-looking one. So I’ll have to devise the quickest means I can of getting out of the Land of the Rising Sun, which I won’t have very fond memories of.’

Passepartout then had the idea of going to see the steamers due to leave for America. He was planning to offer his services as a cook or servant, and wanted in return only his food and passage. Once he’d reached San Francisco he’d see about sorting out his other problems. The main thing was to get across the 4,700 miles of Pacific Ocean that lay between Japan and the New World.

Passepartout was not the type who would let an idea go to waste and so he headed for Yokohama harbour. But the closer he got to the docks, the more his plan, which had looked so simple on the spur of the moment, seemed impractical. Why would they need a cook or servant on board an American steamer, and how would anyone trust him in his present get-up? What recommendations or references did he have?

Just as these thoughts were going through his mind, he noticed quite by accident a huge poster that a sort of clown was carrying through the streets of Yokohama. The poster, written in English, read as follows:

THE JAPANESE ACROBATICS TROUPE

OF THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM BATULCAR

LAST PERFORMANCES

Before their departure for the United States of America

OF THE LONG-NOSES-LONG-NOSES

DEDICATED TO THE GOD TENGU1

Great Attraction!

‘The United States of America!’ exclaimed Passepartout. ‘That’s right up my street!’

He followed the sandwichman and by doing so soon found himself back in the Japanese quarter. Fifteen minutes later he stopped in front of a large square building decorated on top with several garlands of streamers. On the outside wall was a painting, lacking all sense of perspective but with gaudy colours, showing a large group of jugglers.

It was the establishment belonging to the Honourable Batulcar, an American showman who was the director of a troupe of tumblers, jugglers, clowns, acrobats, tight-rope walkers and gymnasts who, according to the poster, were giving their last performances before leaving the Land of the Rising Sun for the United States.

Passepartout entered the colonnade in front of the building and asked for Mr Batulcar. Mr Batulcar appeared in person.

‘What do you want?’ he said to Passepartout, taking him at first for a native.

‘Do you need a servant?’ asked Passepartout.

‘A servant!’ exclaimed the showman, stroking the bushy grey beard under his chin. ‘I’ve got two of them, obedient and trusty. They’ve never left me and they work for nothing provided I feed them. There they are,’ he added, pointing to his two sturdy arms, scored by veins as thick as the strings of a double-bass.

‘So I can’t be of any use to you, can I?’

‘None at all.’

‘Damn! It would’ve been really convenient for me to travel with you.’

‘Well, well,’ said the Honourable Batulcar. ‘If you’re Japanese, then I’m a monkey. Why are you wearing that get-up?’

‘You wear what you can get hold of.’

‘That’s true. Are you French?’

‘Yes, I am. A Parisian through and through.’

‘Well in that case you must know how to pull funny faces.’

‘Wait a minute,’ replied Passepartout, annoyed at this reaction to the discovery of his nationality. ‘We French people may know how to make funny faces, but no more so than you Americans.’

‘Fair enough. Well, if I don’t take you on as a servant, I can take you on as a clown. Do you understand, my dear fellow? In France they use foreigners to make people laugh and abroad they use Frenchmen.’

‘Oh!’

‘Are you strong, by the way?’

‘Especially after I’ve had a good meal.’

‘Can you sing?’

‘Yes,’ answered Passepartout, who in the past had taken part in some street concerts.

‘But can you sing upside down, spinning a top on the sole of your left foot and balancing a sword on the sole of your right foot?’

‘You bet,’ replied Passepartout, with memories of the first tricks he performed in his youth coming back to him.

‘That’s what it’s all about,’ said the Honourable Batulcar. The deal was done there and then.

At last Passepartout had found himself a job. He’d been taken on as a dogsbody in the famous Japanese troupe. It was a bit demeaning, but it meant that within a week he would be on his way to San Francisco.

The performance, loudly advertised by the Honourable Batulcar, was to begin at three o’clock, and soon the noisy instruments of a Japanese orchestra, drums and tam-tams were blaring away at the door. Understandably, Passepartout hadn’t been able to prepare for the performance, but he was supposed to lend the support of his sturdy shoulders to the famous act known as ‘the human pyramid’ performed by the Long-Noses of the god Tengu. This ‘great attraction’ was the climax of the whole show.

By three o’clock, the audience had filled the huge building. Europeans and Asians, Chinese and Japanese, men, women and children rushed in to occupy the narrow benches and the boxes opposite the stage. The musicians had come inside and the complete orchestra, with gongs, tam-tams, castanets, flutes, tambourines and bass drums, was playing away for all it was worth.

It was the usual sort of acrobatic display, but it must be admitted that the Japanese have the best balancing acts in the world. One of the performers, equipped with his fan and small pieces of paper, gracefully imitated the movement of butterflies and flowers. Another, using the sweet-smelling smoke from his pipe, traced a rapid series of blue-coloured words in the air, spelling out compliments to the audience. Another juggled with lighted candles, which he extinguished one by one as they passed in front of his lips and then relit one from the other without interrupting for a moment his wonderful feat of juggling. Another managed to make spinning-tops perform the most amazing figures. In his hands these whirring machines seemed to take on a life of their own in their unending girations. They ran along pipe-stems, sabre blades and wires as thin as wisps of hair, which stretched from one side of the stage to the other. They went around the rims of large crystal vases, climbed up bamboo ladders and then scattered to every corner, producing strange sound effects by the combination of their different tones. The jugglers juggled with them and they spun in the air. They threw them up like shuttlecocks by means of wooden rackets and they continued to spin. They stuffed them in their pockets and when they took them out the tops were still spinning – until the moment when, at the release of a spring, they burst out into a dazzling firework display.

There is no need here to describe the astonishing acts performed by the acrobats and gymnasts of the troupe. The tricks they did with a ladder, pole, ball, barrels, etc., were carried out with remarkable precision. But the main attraction was the appearance of the Long-Noses, an astonishing balancing act that has not yet been seen in Europe.

The Long-Noses made up a special corporation dedicated to the god Tengu. Dressed like heralds in the Middle Ages, they wore on their shoulders a magnificent pair of wings. But their most distinctive feature was a long nose and in particular the use they put it to. Their noses were made of bamboo and were about five, six or even ten feet long, some straight, others curved, some smooth, others knobbly. These firmly fixed appendages were in fact what they used for all their balancing acts. A dozen or so of these followers of Tengu lay on their backs and their companions sported themselves on their noses, which stuck up in the air like lightning conductors, leaping about and vaulting from one tothe other, performing the most extraordinary tricks.

The show was to end with a special performance of the human pyramid, in which about fifty Long-Noses were supposed to represent the Car of Juggernaut. But, instead of forming this pyramid by standing on one another’s shoulders, the Honourable Batulcar’s artistes were to be linked to one another only by their noses. As it happened, one of those who formed the base of the cart had left the troupe and, since all that was needed was to be strong and agile, Passepartout had been chosen to replace him.

Admittedly, the dear fellow felt rather sorry for himself after putting on his medieval costume, decorated with multicoloured wings, and a six-foot-long nose that was fixed on to his face. It all reminded him too much of his youth. But in the end this nose was his livelihood, so he put up with it.

Passepartout came on stage and went to stand with the other performers who were to make the base of the Car of Juggernaut. They all lay down on the floor with their noses pointing upwards. A second group of performers got into position on top of their long appendages, a third group formed another layer, then a fourth group, and with these noses that only touched one another at the ends they built up a human structure that soon reached almost up to the ceiling of the theatre.

By now, the applause was getting louder and louder and the instruments in the orchestra were blasting out when suddenly the pyramid wobbled, lost its balance, one of the noses at the base disappeared and the whole structure came tumbling down like a pack of cards.

The cause of it all was Passepartout, who abandoned his post, got across the floodlights without even using his wings, climbed up to the right-hand gallery and then threw himself down at the feet of someone in the audience, shouting, ‘Oh, my master, my master!’

‘Is it you?’

‘Yes, it’s me!’

‘Well, in that case let’s get to the steamer, my fellow!’

Mr Fogg, Mrs Aouda, who was accompanying him, and Passepartout had rushed along the corridors and out of the building. But there they came upon a furious Honourable Batulcar, who was asking for compensation for the ‘breakage’. Mr Fogg calmed him down by stuffing some banknotes into his hand. And so, at half past six, just when the ship was about to leave, Mr Fogg and Mrs Aouda set foot on the American steamer, followed by Passepartout with his wings on his back and a six-foot-long nose that he hadn’t yet been able to remove from his face.