by Jules Verne
345 He had not gone to bed: MS2 has the equivocal ‘I would have preferred him to be in bed.’
346 ‘God almighty! Enough! Enough!’: Nemo’s final words are not easy to interpret. He is anguished (‘sobbings’); his appeal or protest to the Christian God—or is it just an exclamation?—is surprising; Aronnax’s hypothesis of ‘remorse’ is undoubtedly more telling about his own mood than the captain’s. In sum, it is not clear whether it is his whole life or the recent events that have upset him so much. MS2 has ‘Enough! Enough! Enough!’: more obsessive, but less religious.
347 Maelstrom: Pontoppidan describes the Maelstrom (vol. 1, ch. 77). Verne’s episode may also show a slight influence from the ending of Poe’s ‘MS. Found in a Bottle’ (1833), but significant borrowing from his ‘A Descent into the Maelström’ (1841). This includes such features as the terrifying effect of the name itself, the manner of escape (Poe’s first-person narrator lashes himself to a barrel), the period of unconsciousness, and the aid from Lofoten Islands fishermen. Poe writes ‘Large stocks of firs and pine trees . . . rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks’: a clear source for 20T. Verne carefully planned the surprise: ‘As for the ending, the carrying off into unknown seas, the arrival at the Maelstrom without Aronnax or his companions having any inkling, their idea of remaining when they hear that sinister word, the boat carried away with them despite their efforts, it will be superb, yes superb!’ [11? June 1869].
between Vaeroy and the Lofoten Islands: (Verne: ‘entre les îles Feroë et Loffoden’), the Faroes are a long way away, and there is only one island of Vaeroy, hence the amendment here.
a whirlpool from which no ship has ever been able to escape: the whirlpool is about 5 miles wide, with a current reaching more than 12 knots, with the strong local winds making it more dangerous.
‘navel of the ocean’: expression visible in Les Misérables by Hugo, referring to ‘Paris . . . a maelstrom where all is lost’ (1863—vol. 2, book 5, ch. 10).
engaged by its captain: MS2 adds: ‘It was jibbing at a dizzy speed.’ In addition to the man–machine comparison and phallic and childbirth symbolism, this paragraph is written in the imperfect tense in French. The succession of events is emphasized, as in the adventure novel; but time also drags, giving the impression of being ethereal or drugged, as in the Romantic tradition.
347 as the Norwegian expression has it: Verne sometimes resorts to quotation to get his more daring passages through (e.g. the erotic description of Aouda in Around the World ). Given the similarity with Poe, we may doubt his quoted source, especially as MS2 has ‘a Norwegian author poet has said’.
and us with it: MS2 adds ‘How long this torture went on, I could not say. What happened, I could not recount. A single incident has remained in my mind.’
we can still get out alive: MS2: ‘ “We need to get it over!” said Ned. | “Yes!” I exclaimed. “Go on Ned! Undo the last bolt! And let us die far from the Nautilus!” | The bolts were loosened, and following a violent impact I was knocked unconscious.’ In this version, the three seem to deliberately enter the Maelstrom—Aronnax’s suicidal impulse seems to be a further sign of the horror that he now feels for the Nautilus.
348 We embraced warmly: MS2 adds: ‘I was in a bad state.’
we cannot think of returning to France: using the present tense, the narrator is playing a balancing act, with narrative and fictional time converging precariously.
I am revising the tale of these adventures: MS2: ‘I revised’. Aronnax has become the author of 20T, although he does not name the book.
But what became of the Nautilus?: Verne left the ending open: ‘Then the mystery, the eternal mystery of the Nautilus and its captain!’ [11? June 1869]. Verne’s submarine and its inventor will have many imitators and admirers over the following century. These include Conan Doyle’s The Maracot Deep (1929) and Paul Éluard, with Georges Perec and Philippe Sollers both making direct reference to 20T. Arthur Rimbaud’s ‘Le Bateau ivre’, begun in August 1871, is also derived from this novel, with much borrowing of imagery and themes, including ‘monitors’, ‘phosphorescence’, ‘lactescent’, ‘Floridas’, ‘may my keel explode’, ‘singing fishes’, and ‘Maelstrom’.
Is Captain Nemo still alive?: Nemo reappears in The Mysterious Island, complete with the Nautilus, as the agent who has secretly been protecting the settlers from the dangers of the desert island; and eventually dies. The ‘true’ nationality of Nemo and his crew is ‘revealed’ to be Indian (although at least one of them had been French). His victims were, it seems, British; and so on. But this Nemo bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Nemo we know; and the most basic facts do not tally. His age and all the dates, for instance, are wildly off; and he claims, in a strange echo of Hetzel’s implausible idea, that he sank the warship ‘in a narrow, shallow bay—I needed to get through’. The Mysterious Island is therefore worse than useless in understanding 20T. Even ‘Nemo’s’ actions to help the settlers seem suspect, for they nullify the validity of their utopian experiment. Discoveries about Hetzel’s interventions have further undermined the validity of the 1874 novel. In the published version, we read of the captain’s deathbed remorse and of a bumptious assessment of his life as a ‘mistake’. The captain’s dying words, the absurd ‘God and my country!’, were, criminally, added in Hetzel’s handwriting. The second manuscript originally had in their place ‘Independence!’.
Voyage à travers l’impossible (1882), published under Verne and Adolphe d’Ennery’s joint names, goes even further in betraying the novelist’s thought. ‘Nemo’, for example, has become a reactionary and a bigot, and declaims: ‘you will see emboldened criminals multiplying indefinitely . . . and assassins telling themselves: “We can kill without fear; we will not be executed! . . . remorse is a vain word, for God does not exist! [etc.]” ’
It is preferable in sum to forget the two commercially inspired sequels which travesty the restless anarchist we know; and think of Nemo as still prowling the ocean deeps.
the manuscript containing the story of his whole life: ‘Eternal Adam’ (1910) consists mainly of a manuscript left to fate, recounting a similarly unique experience; and indeed, parallels with 20T abound. A select list includes: the pleasure of smoking; an allusion to the battle between the Merrimack and the Monitor; an overwhelming dominance of the oceans and an exclusive diet of sea-food; biblical language; archaeological remains as a way of investigating the truth of legends; a fascination for Atlantis, with its arches and broken columns giving rise to heady contemplations on human destiny; the word ‘Edom’; an invented language containing teasing hints of European and non-European languages; a new and totally masculine society; a surprising re-emergence of French to convey a heartfelt message; and the contrast between a scientific composition, written by men of superior learning but destined to be lost, and a personal narration, composed by a slow-witted and self-centred author but surviving many vicissitudes and wielding great influence. ‘Eternal Adam’ is therefore a brilliant sequel to, and affectionate pastiche of, Nemo’s story.
349 survived where so many ships have perished: MS2 originally read ‘I also believe, I fear that his powerful machine has overcome the sea in its most terrifying abyss, and that his Nautilus has survived’. This implies that the submarine does escape, considered an undesirable outcome. An addition complicates matters further: the words ‘yet more—for must I hope so?’ are inserted after ‘fear’; and the subjunctive ait is crossed out and replaced with ait again. In sum, the hesitation between believing, fearing, and hoping reflects the complexities of Aronnax’s feelings—and the disagreements between author and publisher.
‘Hast thou walked in the search of the depth?’: Verne has, ‘Qui a jamais pu sonder les profondeurs de l’abîme?’, probably meant to quote ‘hast thou walked in the search of the depth?’ ( Job 38: 16), but translatable as ‘Who has ever been able to sound the depths o
f the abyss?’ But he may also be thinking of ‘That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?’ (Ecclesiastes 7: 24) or ‘Who shall descend into the deep?’ (Romans 10: 7), or even of ‘Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?’ ( Job 38: 16). The title page of Zurcher and Margollé’s Le Monde sous-marin (Hetzel, 1868) has a similar epigraph: ‘Qui sondera les mystères de l’Abîme? Job’ (‘Who will sound the mysteries of the Abyss? Job’). Furthermore, Renard’s Le Fond de la mer (also Hetzel, 1868) begins with the words ‘Qui pénétrera les mystères de l’Océan?’ (‘Who will penetrate the mysteries of the Ocean?’), ascribing it however to the Wisdom of Solomon.
Since the seventeenth century, the date of the Creation had been calculated as 4004 bc; and Verne’s ‘6,000 years’ implies that he ascribes the same age to Ecclesiastes. But in the 1860s, especially following the discovery of ancient fossil remains, doubt was increasingly cast on the traditional age of Creation; and Ecclesiastes is now dated as third century bc.
349 Captain Nemo and I: MS1 is different, closing in particular with a ringing endorsement of Nemo’s way of life: ‘And now what became of the Nautilus? Did it succumb. [sic] Perhaps! But perhaps also its formidable construction allowed it to resist and to escape the abyss. | And what became of Captain Nemo? I do not think anyone will ever know. Perhaps he is continuing. | As for the disappearance of the frigate, it will be found out which government has lost it and so its/his [sa] nationality will be known, and where he [il] comes from, and where he is going! | And I, who have been present at so many scenes, how can I forget him. | And he, if he still lives with his Nautilus and his companions, the man of the waters, in his final homeland. The free man!’ Three general features of the publisher’s interventions are similarly regrettable: a simplification of the geographical presentations; a reduction in the number of British achievements and an increase in those of the French; and the imposition of a conventional ideology, reducing the social and philosophical commentary and promoting modern industry and science.
In the margin: ‘But one should take note, he is impregnable! [imprenable]’.
MS2 ends with ‘Is he not the only man who can reply “I have!” to that question of the Book of Ecclesiastes, “Who has ever sounded [Qui a jamais sondé] . . .” ’ The published text is then substituted in the margin, apart from two variants: it originally read ‘secrets of the abyss’ rather than the published ‘depths’; and ‘loudly and clearly’ instead of ‘now’.
The quotation from Job in MS2 is slightly closer to the original. Also, having Nemo take the curtain solo, as in both manuscripts, seems aesthetically preferable. And finally, the idea of Nemo’s impregnability, perhaps deleted because of Aronnax’s bourgeois values, sounds very much like an ultimate defiance thrown at Hetzel and all conformists.
The conclusion is in fact typical in many ways of the changes visible throughout the process of revision of the novel, from the first draft to the published form. Thus almost all the formal elements, especially the style and the continuity, improve between the uncorrected first manuscript and the published book. At the various stages, a few short passages of lesser interest are also jettisoned or abridged; and one or two mistakes corrected. Some scenes are improved, like the final descent into the Maelstrom.
But in many other cases, the extensive changes, especially those where Hetzel’s pencil remarks, additions, and corrections can be seen, are of doubtful or non-existent utility, including those to the following scenes: the mysterious wounding of the crew member while Aronnax is drugged; the preparations for the underwater funeral; the discovery of Atlantis; the fight with the giant squid; the preparations for reaching the South Pole; the final approach of the warship, originally at night and of great beauty; and Nemo’s deadly riposte.
Similarly, we can regret the fuller earlier versions of many sections, for example: the humorous discussion about cannibalism; two or three instances in the early chapters, where Ned Land already reveals an underlying violent streak, and tries to escape; frequent junctures where Aronnax is more forthcoming about his own movements and conversations, and above all about his great doubts and anxiety; and a dithyramb to the Nautilus, focused on its technical prowess and all-conquering power, and which concludes that Nemo is to be unequivocally praised.
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