Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas

by Jules Verne

  betray the captain’s secrets: the first manuscript reinforces the captain’s sombre mood. Aronnax wonders if the reason may be because he is close to his homeland; that he may be French; but rejects the idea, without giving any reason; then implicitly supports it, by citing the nationality of the sailor carried off by the squid. Such manoeuvring, which happens elsewhere in the novel, seems to be a stratagem both to undermine Aronnax’s credibility and to slip ideas in which, if openly expressed, might be vetoed by Hetzel.

  334 the Marseillais . . . Admiral Van Stabel: naval officers. La Poype-Vertrieux: Jean-François de (1758–1851); Admiral d’Estaing: Charles Hector (1729–94), guillotined; Count of Grasse: François-Joseph-Paul, Marquis de Grasse-Tilly (1722–88), admiral. His decisive blockade of Chesapeake Bay cut off Cornwallis’s retreat in the American War of Independence (1775–83); Villaret de Joyeuse: (Verne: ‘Villaret-Joyeuse’), Louis-Thomas (1750–1824), admiral who fought courageously in the battle Verne describes, and was later able to escort the convoy of wheat into Brest. In 1802, however, the same officer refused Fulton’s request to use his Nautilus to attack a British warship positioned off Brest; Admiral Van Stabel: Pierre-Jean (1746–97).

  rather than surrender: Verne is following the exaggerated French press. In reality, the Vengeur, on the point of sinking, surrendered and, out of the 600 or so crew, 367 sailors and seven officers were saved by British ships. However, the huge food convoy, vital for French supplies, did get through.

  ‘The Vengeur!’: this warship, built in Toulon, played an important role in the War of Independence. The main message of the episode is Nemo’s support for ‘the people’, the underdog, the Revolution, Republicanism, and left-wing values. Surprisingly, Verne omits to mention that the submarine is off the coasts of France and England.

  Yes, monsieur: MS2 has: ‘But give it back its real name: Le Vengeur du peuple!’ Nemo is at this point opposed to all the great powers; with indications of anti-Turk, anti-Confederate, anti-Russian, and anti-British sentiments. Aronnax surmises that there is a ‘coalition of nations against him’.

  A fine name: Verne often inserts anagrams of his surname; here ‘Vengeur’ gives ‘Verne’ and ‘gu’ with a soft g: a fine name indeed!

  the glorious wreck: MS2 has ‘the Republican wreck’. The R word is absent from Verne’s major works, even though the novelist, despite becoming increasingly conservative, and even reactionary, would later be elected to Amiens Council on a Republican list.

  a monstrous or sublime hatred that time could not diminish: Hetzel imposed drastic alterations on the endings of nearly all the novels, but especially Captain Hatteras, From the Earth to the Moon, The Mysterious Island, and Hector Servadac, in each case inserting an implausible happy ending that altered the meaning and structure of the novel. In 20T similarly, he insisted on radical changes to the second manuscript, especially the final chapters. Verne protested, writing an important account of Nemo’s character and motives: ‘I can see full well that you’re picturing a very different fellow from mine . . . We have agreed on two main points: | 1. to change the horror that the captain inspires in me [sic] after his great execution, in the interest of the character. | 2. to speed up the action after the sinking of the double-decker. | This will be done, but, for the rest, all I need to do is to justify the captain’s terrible action in terms of the provocation he undergoes. Nemo doesn’t run after ships and sink them, he doesn’t attack, he responds to attacks. But nowhere, whatever your letter says, have I made him a man who kills for killing’s sake. He has a generous nature and his feelings are on occasion brought into play in the environment he lives in. His hatred of humanity is sufficiently explained by what he has suffered, both he and his family . . . I am sure I have followed a very natural crescendo. There are generous sentiments, especially in the second volume, and only the force of events makes our hero into a sombre lawgiver . . . when you read this second volume you were very pleased at the improvement it had undergone and it was the last few pages that appalled you; you are right about the effect produced on Arronnax [sic], and I will change it. But vis-à-vis Captain Nemo it’s not the same, and when you explain him in a different way you change him to the point that I can’t recognize him. | What I mean is that if he was a fellow to be done again—which I feel perfectly incapable of, for I’ve been living with him for two years, I couldn’t imagine him otherwise—it wouldn’t be a day that needed spending in Paris, but a month . . . In sum, your letter has tortured me’ [17 May 1869].

  Reading this letter, one can sympathize with the author, for the essence of Nemo’s character seems to have been lost on the publisher, who falls into the trap of judging Nemo’s actions without taking into account the reasons. The climax is so much a product of the previous 600 pages that Hetzel’s quick-fix changes do seem of a nature to ‘torture’ his author.

  335 a great warship with a ram: an armour-plated double-decker: the two French vessels of the Solférino type (or Magenta class) were the only two such ships worldwide; their armour-plating extended more than two metres below the waterline.

  336 had he not attacked some ship?: MS2 has ‘of a certain nation which he pursued with hatred’, implying that Nemo’s attacks are against a particular country—although it is not considered prudent to name it. If Aronnax is drugged and imprisoned for the events in the Indian Ocean, why are the panels not even closed now? If a correlation between drugs and attacks is established, why does Nemo administer them when Aronnax first arrives—is he perhaps attacking the Abraham Lincoln?

  337 floored by an iron hand and thrown to the deck: MS1: ‘held him bent down to the ground’.

  ship of an accursed nation: at an early stage Nemo was Polish, and his enemies Russian—an allusion to the Polish insurrection of 1863 against Russian despotism. Although this would have been popular in France, Hetzel vetoed it as he did not want to upset the Russian government and hence lose sales. Verne protested repeatedly: ‘suppose Nemo to be a Pole, and the ship sunk a Russian one, would there be the shadow of an objection to raise? No, a hundred times no! . . . the first idea of the book, true, logical, complete: a Pole—Russia. But since we cannot say it . . . let’s imagine that it can be that.’ [April? 1869]. ‘But, to be frank, I regret my Pole, I had got used to him, we were good friends, and what is more, it was more straightforward, more sincere’ [29 July 1867]. In MS1, Nemo uses stronger language: ‘an accursed, disgraced, nation’.

  The attack has come: MS2: ‘It would be the act of a barbarian’, producing the response ‘ “Keep quiet, sir,” replied the captain in an irritated tone, “Keep quiet, sir . . . The attack has come! From them! . . .” ’ The ‘From them’ emphasizes that Nemo ripostes to attacks, not launches them himself, ensuring that no one assails him with impunity.

  338 Go down: MS2: ‘Go down, I tell you.’

  ‘I am the law, I am the justice’: perhaps a mocking, anarchistic echo of God’s ‘I am the first, I am the last’ (Isaiah 44: 6) and of Jesus’s ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ at the Last Supper ( John 14: 6).

  country, wife, children, parents—perished as I watched: by speaking of his country (‘patrie’) which has ‘perished’, Nemo seems to imply that it is a European one, Poland being the obvious example.  In the face of Hetzel’s obduracy, Verne feels obliged to re-emphasize the reasons for Nemo’s actions and his own support for them: ‘I refuse to write the letter in question concerning Captain Nemo if I cannot explain his hatred, or I will remain silent about the reason for the hero’s hatred and life, his nationality, etc. Or, if necessary, I will change the ending . . . You say: but he performs an evil act! I reply no; imagine again—this was the original idea for the book—a Polish nobleman whose daughters have been raped, wife killed with an axe, father killed with a knout [a whip with leather thongs, used on Russian criminals], a Pole whose friends all die in Siberia . . . In such a situation, I would sink without hesitation. In order not to feel as I do on this matter, one would need to have never hated . . . Af
ter all this, I repeat I will act for the best, and if necessary, I will change the ending of the sunk ship’ [11? June 1869]. Verne was clearly being told to write a letter to the press to ‘explain’ Nemo’s behaviour—a preposterous idea after 600 pages of justification.

   Miller and Walter suggest that Nemo is Indian. It is true that previous hints had included: the ambiguous ‘That Indian, Professor, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country. I am his compatriot, and shall remain so to my very last breath!’ (II 3); and Aronnax’s speculation that Nemo was ‘born in the lower latitudes’ (I 8). However, Nemo’s art collection, preferred composers, and other cultural references are exclusively European—there is little trace of oriental influence in his allusions. Given the attack by the Abraham Lincoln, one could as plausibly argue that Nemo was anti-American. Also, the correspondence and the manuscripts seem to preclude any specific interpretation—apart from one (see Appendix 1: Inception). In the same letter, Verne himself wrote: ‘Readers will suppose what they want, depending on their character.’

  338 sunk before nightfall: in fact, it will only sink at dawn.

  339 easy to escape: how, if the warship is to be sunk? More generally, nearly all of Aronnax’s surmisals in this chapter prove misguided.

  340 so as to form a unified line with it: MS2 has ‘to my great surprise’.

  five o’clock . . . the Nautilus was slowing: this time is inconsistent with the earlier ‘six a.m.’. The location of the final events is not indicated. At noon the day before, the Nautilus had found the wreck of the Vengeur, at 47° 24´ N and 17° 28´ W. Until six in the morning, it draws the ship eastwards: a distance of about 400 kilometres, since the maximum sustained speed of a double-decker was about 14 knots. The place is, in sum, some 200 kilometres west of Finistère, not far from the naval centres of Le Havre and La Rochelle—a sign of the nationality of the ship?

  it was allowing itself to be approached: Hetzel suggested that Nemo ‘back the Nautilus into a cul-de-sac from which he cannot escape except by sinking the ship’. Verne riposted that the Nautilus was too quick and too strong to allow that to happen; and that if it was cornered, it would mean there wasn’t enough water to sink the ship’ [29? April 1869].

  341 through the vessel: being eight metres high, against a draft of less than nine metres in armour-plated warships, only part of the Nautilus will pass ‘through’ the vessel—in any case an implausibility, even if it has almost infinite power.

  the decks: this plural is an allusion to the ship’s class, the Solférino.

  342 the portrait of a woman . . . knelt down sobbing: a portrait apparently absent on Aronnax’s first visit, perhaps an addition after Hetzel’s reading of the manuscript. With, a few pages above, ‘country, wife, children, my father—perished!’, this is a rare reminder of the theme of a Polish Nemo, opposed to Russian tyranny. The closing words of the chapter in MS1, although partly illegible, differ from the book version and MS2, for Nemo shouts rather than sobs, and his dominant sentiment is disappointment rather than remorse: ‘Horrible. | The double-decker cried out . . . to wonder . . . We have experienced a setback. | Woe! Woe!’

  at unsurpassed speed: in the published version, this sentence is all we know about the Nautilus’s route. It is a frustrating void, since the submarine will pass near Verne’s beloved Brittany and Picardy—unless it goes through the Irish Sea—to leave the Channel and the North Sea without a single mention. MS2, in contrast, has the following passage (most of which is crossed out): ‘I saw that we had entered the English Channel, which could not help but reassure me. At this phase of the moon, the tides already displayed some movement. Their current which is 75 centimetres per second between Ouessant and Land’s End, must have been 2.50 metres [per second], and carried us on ever more quickly. | The bottom of the Channel is on average 170 metres deep. It is relatively flat, and forms a sandy valley, sunk between Britain and France. That day, the Nautilus remained quite close to the coast of north-west France.’ Verne cannot resist taking his submarine near his birthplace and demonstrating his familiarity with the Channel.

  then the moon rose: in MS2 Verne shows his knowledge of the area round Le Havre (two lighthouses stood at Cap de la Hève; Cap d’Antifer will later be alluded to in the title Captain Antifer). He also reveals his powerful visual imagination, stimulated by paintings and by natural complexities (the passage is again largely deleted): ‘The condition of the sea would not have allowed it. | By evening, we had covered the whole of the Channel between Brest and the mouth of the Seine [words replaced by: 200 leagues of the north Atlantic]. The clock read seven o’clock, when the light of la Hève sent us its electric brilliance. I recognized the magnificent cliffs of Cap d’Antifer, which took on a fantastic appearance as night fell: their limestone surface, dotted with small patches of grass, produced an interminable procession of strange figures, queens of the Middle Ages arranged with the robustness of the old painters, a Cimabue, a Mantegna, bishops in tall mitres blessing lords in helmets and armour, ladies with long head-dresses draped in their robes with broad folds, squires standing behind vast feasting tables; castles with turrets and machicolations, too small and not in the proper perspective, as in the bas reliefs of old cathedrals. Yes, I saw them coming back to life. Then shadows came, the vision melted into the mists of evening.’ Cimabue (1240?–1302) was an Italian artist of lifelike New Testament frescoes; Andrea Mantegna (c.1436–1506), an engraver and painter who experimented with perspective and spatial illusion.

  343 The time of the clocks on board had been suspended: perhaps an allusion to Lamartine’s ‘Oh time! Suspend your flight!’, apparently meaning that the clocks have stopped—Verne often takes metaphors literally. Time itself has accelerated dramatically, and indications of date have also disappeared as Aronnax becomes more distraught.

  At each moment I expected to see, like the fabulous Gordon Pym, ‘a shrouded human figure . . . which defends the approaches to the Pole’: Verne is quoting Baudelaire’s translation at the end of the main body of Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). However, Poe does not include the phrase ‘thrown across the cataract which defends the approaches to the Pole’, the final words being: ‘And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow.’ Verne wrote only one literary study: ‘Edgar Poe et ses œuvres’ (Musée des familles, April 1864, 193–208). This article refers to Baudelaire’s translation and preface and explores ‘A Descent into the Maelström’ (‘a vertiginous excursion embarked upon by fishermen from Lofoten’) and especially Arthur Gordon Pym. Verne’s The Sphinx of the Ice Realm (1897) is a sort of interpretation, adaptation, and sequel to Poe’s only novel.

  343 Not one crew member appeared for a single moment: how do Aronnax and company receive their meals?

  When it went up again to replenish its air, the hatches opened and closed automatically: Verne uses ‘panneaux’ for both the panels on the windows and the hatches leading to the platform or the dinghy. Here he must be thinking of the hatches, with ‘automatically’ meaning ‘without visible human intervention’ or ‘by remote control’. Why did we not know about this before? And why was it not used to keep the Papuans and the squid out?

  no longer tenable: the last four paragraphs, beginning with ‘Starting from . . .’, appear in the margin of MS2, replacing a crossed-out visit to the bay on which Le Crotoy is located: ‘At about midnight, we passed near the Baie de Somme whose 10,000 hectares of sand are covered by the rising tide.’

  what date I cannot say: the date is ‘fifteen or twenty days’ (II 22) after ‘2 June’ (II 21), or between 17 and 22 June 1868. In MS1, the weeks of wandering are absent, the escape from the submarine taking place the day after leaving the Channel, as confirmed by the date in the margin, ‘3 June’.

  344 find shelter there: MS2 has: ‘Ned Land who was watching for me to wake up’. Aronnax then replies to Ned, who refers to Great Yarmouth in another deleted passage: ‘ “We must seize the opportunity.” . . . “We’re past
the Straits of Dover. We’ve sighted the lights of Great Yar and North-Foreland. We’re entering the North Sea. No time to be wasted! Who can say where we’ll be carried off to.” ’

  without the crew realizing: MS2 adds: ‘Depending on the wind, we will land in Scotland or Holland.’ Scotland does not really seem to be on their route, but Verne cannot resist the idea of heading back to his ancestral homeland.

  I went out . . . a day or even an hour: instead of these three sentences, MS2 has: ‘The Nautilus was floating a few miles from land, which lay to starboard. A hot day was in store . . . The weather looked as though it was going to favour us. The Nautilus stayed close to land as it headed north. Unfortunately it was moving very fast. Would it find the narrow passes of the Kattegat or the Sound? Would it enter that Baltic Sea which has no way out? I did not know what to think. But I imagined that in the event it would move up the west coast of Norway. | Yes, Ned was right . . . After the bearings at noon, the Nautilus dived back down.’ The only coast aligned north–south is that of Denmark; Verne knows the area: on 5 June 1861, en route for Ystad in Sweden then Norway, he embarks in Lubeck on the steamer Svea, a sea-crossing which delights him. ‘Crotoy, 15 May 1869 . . . Agreed. The end of the voyage through the English Channel between Calais, Boulogne, and Dover is like the Place de la Bourse in Paris. It needs redoing. You mustn’t know where you are. It will be terrifying, and the bombshell of the Maelstrom even more terrifying. | As for a slaver, corsair, or pirate ship, you know full well that they don’t exist any more. And if we’re sticking as much as possible to contemporary reality, it would be a mistake to suppose the existence of things which do not exist in reality. I’m constantly telling you this, from the point of view of logic. | The best was Nemo battling against the whole of society. A fine situation but difficult to make people believe in, since there was no motive for such a fight.’