#fatal rocher

Welcome to the 54th installment of 15 Weeks of Phantom, where I post all 68 sections of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, as they were first printed in Le Gaulois newspaper 115 yeas ago.

In today’s installment, we have Part II of Chapter 23, “Intéressantes et instructives tribulations d’un Persan dans les dessous de l’Opéra: Recit du Persan” (Interesting and Informative Tribulations of a Persian in the Underside of the Opera: The Persian’s Narrative).

This section was first printed on Monday, 20 December, 1909.

For anyone following along in David Coward's translation of the First Edition of Phantom of the Opera (either in paperback, or Kindle, or from another vendor -- the ISBN-13 is: 978-0199694570), the text starts in Chapter 22, “It followed me, went where I went, and it was so silky-smooth on the ear that I felt no fear,” and goes to, “On that occasion, I also discovered the secret tunnel which led to the spring which trickled out of the wall, the cell dug out by the Communards and the trap which acted as Erik’s short cut down to the third level.”

There are some differences between the Gaulois text and the First Edition. In this section, these include (highlighted in red above):

1) Each chapter in the Gaulois publication is one number ahead of the chapters in the First Edition, due to the inclusion of “The Magic Envelope” chapter in the Gaulois.

2) Compare the Gaulois text:

…je l'avais moi-même trop étudié jadis avec Erik pour ignorer combien quelquefois, avec les trucs les plus simples, quelqu'un qui connaît son métier peut fair travailler la pauvre imagination humaine.

Translation:

…I myself had studied the subject too much in days past with Erik to remain unaware of how much, with the simplest of tricks, one who knows his trade can manipulate the weak human imagination.

To the First Edition:

…je l'avais moi-même trop étudié jadis : avec les trucs les plus simples, quelqu'un qui connaît son métier peut fair travailler la pauvre imagination humaine.

Translation:

…I myself had studied the subject too much in days past: with the simplest of tricks, one who knows his trade can manipulate the weak human imagination.

3) Compare the Gaulois text:

cet air terrible

Translation:

that terrifying look

To the First Edition:

cet air de menace enfantine 

Translation:

that look of childish menace

4) Compare the Gaulois text:

demanda-t-il en reprenant son air enjoué 

Translation:

he asked, regaining his cheerful air

To the First Edition:

demanda-t-il en prenant un air aimable 

Translation:

he asked, taking on an amiable air

5) Compare the Gaulois text:

fin juillet 1909 

Translation:

late July, 1909

To the First Edition:

fin juillet 1900* 

Translation:

late July, 1900

* NOTE: The First Edition incorrectly states that the newspaper article in question was dated July, 1900. The article that Leroux was likely referencing was this front-page piece, "Le Dé-Tham vient de nous tuer,“ which appeared in Le Matin on 28 July, 1909.

6) This text appeared in the Gaulois, but was removed from the First Edition:

au bord d'une rivière 

Translation:

on a riverbank

7) The text highlighted in blue above indicates an anachronism in Leroux’s narrative. As we recall from Chapter 8, Erik abducted Christine on the same night that he caused the chandelier to crash. In this chapter, however, the Persian accuses Erik of causing the chandelier crash some time before he abducted Christine.

8) Compare the Gaulois text:

Ah ! ricana-t-il, ça, le lustre… je peux bien te le dire !… Le lustre, ça n'est pas moi !… Il était très usé, le lustre… et je n'étais pas chargé, n'est-ce pas ? de le réparer.

Translation:

"Ah!” he laughted, “the chandelier… I can tell you about that!… The chandelier, that wasn’t to do with me!… It was very worn, the chandelier was… and I wasn’t responsible for fixing it, was I?”

To the First Edition:

Ah ! ricana-t-il, ça, le lustre… je veux bien te le dire !… Le lustre, ça n'est pas moi !… Il était très usé, le lustre…

Translation:

“Ah!” he laughted, “the chandelier… I will tell you about that!… The chandelier, that wasn’t to do with me!… It was very worn, the chandelier was…”

9) Compare the Gaulois text:

fatal nocher

Translation:

grim ferryman of the Underworld

To the First Edition -- NOTE: this is a typo:

fatal rocher** 

Translation of this typo:

grim rock

** NOTE: This is the typo to end all typos! Read more about it here.

ALSO NOTE: Coward (mis)translated this typo literally as “wrecking rock.” In fact, the other major English translators who worked from the First Edition text also (mis)translated this phrase.

A notable exception is Lowell Bair, who based his 1990 translation of The Phantom of the Opera on a later abridged French edition of Leroux's novel, which corrected several of Leroux's First Edition typos, including "fatal rocher." Bair translated "fatal nocher" correctly as "the grim ferryman from the Styx." Unfortunately, since the French edition that Bair was translating from was abridged, Bair's translation is also abridged. Other than being abridged, it is one of the better English translations of Leroux's novel.

It is baffling why the First Edition translators didn’t sense that this was a typo, because "fatal nocher" was a common French literary phrase used to describe Charon, the grim ferryman of Hades in Greek mythology. It should have been easy enough to guess that the First Edition had misprinted the "n" as an "r".

The job of a translator isn’t to highlight an author’s mistakes; it is to make the author look their best in another language. It is not ethical for a translator to translate a typo literally without context. The First Edition translators should have rendered the phrase correctly, and then mentioned the "fatal rocher" typo in a footnote.

As it is, all the First Edition translators have transformed Erik from the "Grim Ferryman" into into a "Grim Rock." It would be a cool band name -- Erik could be the "Grim Rocker" -- but it's still not what Leroux wrote or intended.

10) Compare the Gaulois text:

S'ils avaient vu seulement ce dont Erik était capable

Translation:

If they had only seen what Erik was capable of

To the First Edition:

S'ils avaient su seulement ce dont Erik était capable

Translation:

If they had only known what Erik was capable of

11) Minor differences in punctuation, capitalization, and italicization.

Hi there! Thanks for your question. I’ve done some research, and I believe that the Bibliothèque du Collectionneur edition of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra that you own is lightly abridged from the first edition text. “Texte intégral” does mean “unabridged,” but that statement in itself doesn’t indicate much – it’s actually just a tautology, meaning that it is an unabridged version of itself. Even the de Mattos version is listed as being “unabridged.”

Does the cover of your book look like this one? If it does, then the text is different from the first edition:

If the cover doesn’t look like this, there’s still an easy way to find out which text the book is using. Turn to chapter 22, the beginning of the Persian’s narrative, and go several pages into the chapter where Erik is talking to the Daroga about the chandelier (le lustre). Look for this phrase:

Ce disant et ricanant, il était debout à l’arrière de sa barque et godillait avec un balancement de singe. Il avait bien l’air alors du fatal nocher, avec ses yeux d’or en plus.

If the phrase I’ve bolded reads “fatal nocher,” it is the abridged text. If the phrase reads “fatal rocher,” it is the first edition text. 

“Fatal rocher” (aka “ghastly rock”) is a typo that was introduced in the first edition, and was corrected to “fatal nocher” (i.e. ”infernal ferryman” aka “the grim Ferryman of Hades”) in the later edited/abridged edition. To read more about fatal rocher vs fatal nocher, click here.

This edited/abridged text of Le Fantôme appeared in many subsequent editions of the novel, such as the abridged 1926 French Photoplay edition. Lowell Bair also used a further abridged version of this text on which to base his 1990 translation of Le Fantôme.