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More missing bits
I'm afraid I really am going to have to go back and read "Vingt Ans Après" in French, because it turns out there are so many little character moments left out of the translation; in the scene where they all cut their hair in an attempt to pass as Puritans, for example, where the English version says simply that "After some discussion this was agreed to", but the French version reveals that Aramis objected strongly to the suggestion, being very vain about his carefully-tended shoulder-length locks, and it was not until Athos -- to whom such concerns were a matter of complete indifference -- set him the example by going first that he would consent to be duly shorn :-p Meanwhile d'Artagnan opted to cut his own hair, and contrived to end up with a style reminiscent of coins from a hundred years earlier...
And then there is the fist-fight outside the King's trial, which the English version summarises as "The throng was terrific, and it was not till after much pushing and some fighting that our friends reached their destination", whereas the original describes Porthos raising his fist to a sturdy citizen who shoved Aramis violently, an episode which ends up in Athos, d'Artagnan and Porthos flooring a man each, and in such neat style that the English crowd, who are of course great admirers of the pugilistic art, offer to chair them on their shoulders in admiration, and they have some difficulty extracting themselves from this unwelcome public prominence :-P
And such tiny details as the scene on board the ship (where, in canon, it is *not* d'Artagnan but Grimaud -- who of course does not exist in the Soviet film universe -- who discovers the barrels of powder while attempting to tap one for wine) where they all follow the example of Porthos and fall asleep. The English version says simply "On this assurance the two friends fell asleep; and D’Artagnan, who was very weary, bade good-night to Grimaud and laid himself down on his cloak", whereas the French version, in which a drowsy Athos and Aramis raise their heads as d'Artagnan enters the cabin, only to be reassured that all is well, says the same thing, but in a wealth of greater character detail: Sur cette assurance, Aramis laissa retomber sa tête; Athos fit de la sienne un signe affectueux, et d’Artagnan, qui, comme Porthos, avait encore plus besoin de dormir que de manger, congédia Grimaud et se coucha dans son manteau (and incidentally makes it plain that d'Artagnan is not so much wishing Grimaud a good night before they all fall asleep, but is sending him out of the cabin to rejoin the other servants!)
Basically the bottom line is that you need to read it in French to write fic (and yes, I have started another one... complete self-indulgence, as it's based on a mis-recollection), but can probably get by on the abridged version for film crib purposes, given that none of these details are likely to make it into the far more abridged film in the first place.
(So far as the Roundhead hair-cutting goes, Dumas himself appears to have very rapidly forgotten about it -- is Aramis really passing himself off as Bishop Juxon with the cropped head of a Puritan preacher? -- since he describes Athos as sinking beneath the waves until there was nothing to be seen "save for his long floating hair". Having, as we have just observed, already written that it was Athos who had led the way in having it cut short earlier on :-P)
And then there is the fist-fight outside the King's trial, which the English version summarises as "The throng was terrific, and it was not till after much pushing and some fighting that our friends reached their destination", whereas the original describes Porthos raising his fist to a sturdy citizen who shoved Aramis violently, an episode which ends up in Athos, d'Artagnan and Porthos flooring a man each, and in such neat style that the English crowd, who are of course great admirers of the pugilistic art, offer to chair them on their shoulders in admiration, and they have some difficulty extracting themselves from this unwelcome public prominence :-P
And such tiny details as the scene on board the ship (where, in canon, it is *not* d'Artagnan but Grimaud -- who of course does not exist in the Soviet film universe -- who discovers the barrels of powder while attempting to tap one for wine) where they all follow the example of Porthos and fall asleep. The English version says simply "On this assurance the two friends fell asleep; and D’Artagnan, who was very weary, bade good-night to Grimaud and laid himself down on his cloak", whereas the French version, in which a drowsy Athos and Aramis raise their heads as d'Artagnan enters the cabin, only to be reassured that all is well, says the same thing, but in a wealth of greater character detail: Sur cette assurance, Aramis laissa retomber sa tête; Athos fit de la sienne un signe affectueux, et d’Artagnan, qui, comme Porthos, avait encore plus besoin de dormir que de manger, congédia Grimaud et se coucha dans son manteau (and incidentally makes it plain that d'Artagnan is not so much wishing Grimaud a good night before they all fall asleep, but is sending him out of the cabin to rejoin the other servants!)
Basically the bottom line is that you need to read it in French to write fic (and yes, I have started another one... complete self-indulgence, as it's based on a mis-recollection), but can probably get by on the abridged version for film crib purposes, given that none of these details are likely to make it into the far more abridged film in the first place.
(So far as the Roundhead hair-cutting goes, Dumas himself appears to have very rapidly forgotten about it -- is Aramis really passing himself off as Bishop Juxon with the cropped head of a Puritan preacher? -- since he describes Athos as sinking beneath the waves until there was nothing to be seen "save for his long floating hair". Having, as we have just observed, already written that it was Athos who had led the way in having it cut short earlier on :-P)
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In the case of "Twenty Years After", however, I would assume they expected it to be a reliable hit in advance. (I haven't actually looked into the history of Dumas' publication in England at all, but I'm assuming that "The Three Musketeers" was a success at the time of original publication, while I know from my rather deeper involvement in the Leroux 'fandom' that POTO wasn't!) On the other hand it is a very long book; even the abridged Project Gutenberg file (the only one I can run a quick text count over) is about 200,000 words, which puts it into "Crime and Punishment" territory, and the 1846 French edition on Wikisource runs to six hundred pages.
So it's entirely possible that the publishers in this case were trying to hit physical constraints in terms of the number of volumes the edition would have to be brought out in, etc. Unfortunately Project Gutenberg, unlike Wikisource, doesn't appear to credit the specific edition on which this particular e-text was based.
I just hit another weirdly random change between the two editions while re-reading the initial reunion between d'Artagnan and Athos: in the French version Athos says that he is forty-nine (Je suis encore jeune, n’est-ce pas, malgré mes quarante-neuf ans ? ) and in the English version he is only forty-eight ("in spite of my eight-and-forty years of age")... Oh well, for fic purposes I shall just have to fudge it :-p What I was actually looking for was Athos' observations on Milady, and that remark about 'blood calling for blood'.
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In fact it turns out that this is a case where the English text has introduced *extra* invented(?) material that doesn't exist in the French edition! Possibly because it was felt that the moral was not being sufficiently drawn?
She is referred to as "that unhappy woman" instead of cette femme (a small but in the context possibly significant difference), and there is a whole extra sentence in the middle of Athos' answer:
"Yes and no. I do not feel remorse, because that woman, I profoundly hold, deserved her punishment. Had she one redeeming trait? I doubt it. I do not feel remorse, because had we allowed her to live she would have persisted in her work of destruction." (Oui et non, je n’ai pas de remords, parce que cette femme, je le crois, méritait la peine qu’elle a subie. Je n’ai pas de remords, parce que si nous l’eussions laissée vivre, elle eût sans aucun doute continué son œuvre de destruction)