The Mysterious Island. Jules Verne

at proof stage.¹²

      Guermonprez (“Notes,” 60–61) reports that, after the words “The envelope, except for the tear, was in good condition, and only its lower portion was ripped.” (fo 52—II, 5), Hetzel adds:

      Nevertheless, Cyrus Smith appeared to be plunged in a deep meditation contemplating a gap in the envelope. A piece was missing which had not [been] torn away and which seemed to have been cut out by someone. The material was cleanly cut, as if a tailor’s scissors had been at work. / “It’s unbelievable,” he exclaimed, using his eyes to direct the reporter’s attention to this strange detail.

      Once again Verne crosses out the addition and leaves his text unaltered, presumably since there is no reason for any sane person to perform such an action. The incident therefore illuminates the Verne-Hetzel relationship, implying that many of Nemo’s most pointless actions may have been suggested by Hetzel. One central scene in Twenty Thousand Leagues is very similar, and again is never explained: “The engineers then carried out an inspection of the Scotia, which was in dry dock. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Two and a half meters below the water-line appeared a neat hole in the form of an isosceles triangle.” (I, 1) Without going into Freudian interpretations, the neat cutting by Nemo in both novels parallels Hetzel’s cutting to a remarkable degree.

      Porcq (165) quotes an important scene included only in MS1, involving Smith’s hypnotism of Ayrton:

      “My friend,” he said in a firmer voice, “look at me, I want you to.”

      It seemed that the eyes of the poor creature slowly fixed on him.

      “Listen to me! I want you to!” the engineer then said.

      The savage was apparently listening. He seemed to be under the influence of Cyrus Smith as a hypnotized person is in the power of his hypnotizer.

      Everyone was breathing heavily.

      “Understand me,” Cyrus Smith said at last.

      He held the two hands of the savage. He was squeezing them with force. It looked as though he was transfusing his soul and his intelligence into him, and the other looked at him now, he listened to him, he wanted to understand him. His lips moved, they began to stutter …

      “Speak, speak!” exclaimed Cyrus Smith.

      Several moments passed. The savage’s lips were little by little re-finding that faculty of articulating words to which they were no longer accustomed, and finally these words escaped:

      “Tabor, Tabor!”

      His first words were for that deserted island [where] his reason had disappeared. (II, 16)

      The reason this powerful and dramatic scene was cut might be the echo of Christ’s healing but also the sexual undertones between the two men, including the transfer of fluid implied by the “transfusing.”

      In MS2, a personal description of Dakkar in Stendhalian terms appears, and we may again very much regret its deletion:

      Eghiet Anardill, who was intelligent … / had traveled to all the courts of Europe. His birth and fortune made him sought after, but the temptations of the world, so pretentious and at the same time so empty, never had any attraction for him. Young at that time and handsome, with all the charm adorning Byron’s immortal characters, he remained serious and gloomy, devoured by an implacable hatred riveted to his heart. / Eghiet Anardill hated. He hated the only country where he had never wished to set foot, the only people whose overtures he refused. He hated Britain.¹³ (quoted by Martin, 148)

      In a series of articles, Dumas has emphasized the variants of the ending visible in the manuscripts of MI, although presenting only disappointingly brief extracts, and omitting to indicate whether he is citing MS1 or MS2:

      A single souvenir will remain to you of the Prince Dakkar whose history you now know. A pearl is there, behind that pane. This pearl, the biggest in the world, I left to grow for twenty years in the Tridacna which produced it, at the end of a submarine grotto in the Ocean. It is worth more than ten million. It is yours. (fo 145)

      In the published version the pearl is replaced by a coffer of diamonds, an inappropriate gift from a libertarian disdaining material values and one that removes an elegant link with Twenty Thousand Leagues (II, 3).

      Nemo’s death was originally different: “Finally, a little after midnight, he made a last movement and, not without difficulty, succeeded in crossing his arms on his breast, as if he wanted to die in this attitude.” The following paragraph is identical apart from the published “Then, murmuring these words: ‘God and country!’ he quietly expired.” (III, 17) being originally “Then, murmuring this word: ‘Independence!’ he quietly expired.” (fo 149)

      In the manuscript we read “Cyrus Smith then leaned over and closed the eyes of Prince Dakkar, that great patriot who was Captain Nemo.” In other words, the inappropriate religious sentiments, including “May God receive his soul!” must be Hetzel’s rather than Verne’s. The moralistic and judgmental speech of Cyrus Smith and the idea of prayer are also absent from the manuscript:

      “Do you think me a criminal?” / Cyrus Smith took the captain’s hand, and, on his request, he replied only in these words: / “God will judge you, Prince Dakkar. As for us, we are under an obligation to Captain Nemo, and those under an obligation do not judge their benefactor!” (fo 143)

      The closing scene is also different:

      A fortnight later, the settlers disembarked in America; Ayrton, their courageous and honest companion, wished to stay with them. And never would they forget that Lincoln Island, on which they had arrived poor and naked, which their knowledge and intelligence of all things had civilized, which, transformed by them, had satisfied their needs for four years, and of which there now remained only a piece of granite, the isolated resting-place of Captain Nemo, buried with it at the bottom of the seas! (fo 175)

      This sober passage marks the end of the novel.

      If there is a thread running though Hetzel’s ideas, it is that he keeps wishing to change Nemo’s behavior in strange ways—and thus shows that he has no comprehension of him at all. Verne’s view of the repeated attacks over several years on his most cherished character must, one imagines, have been comparable to Cyrus Smith’s flabbergasted reaction.

C. Publication of The Mysterious Island

      The first page-proofs of Part I were ready on 26 September 1873. L’Ile mystérieuse was published in installments in the MER from no. 217 of Vol. 19 (1 January 1874) to no. 264 of Vol. 22 (15 December 1875). In no. 217, the subtitle “The Castaways from the Sky” was omitted and the text was preceded by Hetzel’s “A Few Words to the Readers of MI” (reproduced on pp. xlvii–xlviii). In volume form the first part was published on 10 or 12 September 1874, the second on 12 April 1875, and the third on 28 October 1875. As was usual, the single large in-octavo volume appeared later, on 22 November 1875, “illustrated with 154 drawings by Férat.”

      The serial publication in the MER contains one rather ugly engraving that has never been reprinted, of a large waterfall descending to the sea from a rock above the level of the surrounding cliffs (I, 22, p. 134). It also includes a phrase missing from the book editions, “and you fought against the present,” after the word “past” in Smith’s (Hetzel-imposed) judgment of Nemo: “Captain, your error was in believing that you could bring back the past” (II, 16). The chapter headings are also sometimes shorter: for instance “The Torn Envelope—Nothing but the Sea in Sight” (I, 1) is omitted. All the captions to the illustrations are missing. Since the grouping of the chapters influences the structure of the novel, with each serial ending persuading the reader to purchase the next issue, it is interesting to note that most chapters appear singly, except for the following pairs: Part I chs 2 and 3, 9