Franz's Freaky Trip - The Alternate Version

Hi folks, as I mentioned in my last  “Lost in (English) Translation” post, there exists an alternate version of Franz’s hashish trip that was not published in The Count of Monte-Cristo. At the start of chapter XXXI, “Italy - Sinbad the Sailor”, the folio classique edition notes:

This is where Dumas begins his use of the text originally written as Impressions de Voyage (travel impressions). The Villers-Cotterêts manuscript allows for variations. Some correspond to a new draft, others simply mark the shift from first-person to third-person narration.

I haven’t read the introduction to the folio classique version since it contains spoilers, but from what I can gather, Dumas had been publishing a series of books describing his extensive travels before and after The Count of Monte Cristo was published*,* and it seems that the “Sinbad the Sailor” chapter was originally written in the first person, in the style of these “travel impressions” books. Dumas then repurposed the draft for The Count of Monte Cristo by simply changing “I” to “Franz”.  It’s not clear to me if the account that Dumas originally wrote in the first person was based on his actual experiences, a work of fiction, or some combination of the two.  According to the folio classique, the Villers-Cotterêts manuscript and chapter XXXI of the novel are identical, except for the substitution of “I” with “Franz”, until the end of the following paragraph:

As for Franz, a strange transformation was taking place in him.  All the physical tiredness of the day, all the concerns awakened in the mind by the events of the evening were disappearing as in that first moment of rest when one is still conscious enough to feel the arrival of sleep. His body seemed to acquire the lightness of some immaterial being, his mind became unimaginably clear and his senses seemed to double their faculties. (Buss, 321)

The folio classique edition notes that the “Villers-Cotterêts” manuscript diverges at this point into an alternate narrative, which converges again when Franz wakes up alone on the bed of heather in the morning. It provides the alternate narrative in full in the notes, which I’ve translated below in English, with some help from Google Translate.

Through the walls, I could see the table set in the next room. Ali was squatting on cushions, awaiting his master's orders, and the two marble statues, which had become flesh, descended from their pedestals, entered our room, and began an ancient dance full of grace and sensuality. Through the thick granite vaults I could hear the songs of our sailors and smugglers reaching me, sweet as any distant melody. I felt the night breeze pass over my face so hardy and so invigorating to breathe, laden as it was with salt molecules and unfamiliar scents. As for those who were near, I gradually detached myself from them in thought and isolated myself in an egoism full of ineffable sweetness. 

Moreover, I, the quintessential anti-musical being, I, the man for whom the Opera orchestra is nothing but noise, only more expensive and more tiring than other noise, I who, thank God, play no instrument, found myself seized by an unknown fury of music-mania, and by an extraordinary faculty of improvisation. That was not all. I felt endowed with a superior power. It seemed to me, as in those marvelous tales with which we are lulled to sleep in our childhood, that I only had to will something to accomplish it - more powerful than a fairy who operates only with her wand, or an enchanter who commands only with the aid of his talisman. I felt that my magic was within me. I picked up a fox skin on which my feet were resting, and I commanded it to transform into a guitar. At that very moment, the transformation took place. The undulating, bushy tail of the cunning quadruped became covered with strings, the skin on its flanks rounded and drew closer, its head folded back onto its chest and, with its teeth, secured the other end of the strings. I ran my fingers over the improvised instrument, and a chord so sweet, so smooth, and so melodious resounded beneath the vaulted ceiling that I saw my host, who certainly hadn't expected such a surprise from me, clapping his hands enthusiastically.

That was not all: I, who in my life had never been able to play a proper scale, began to sing with such perfection that the two statues, or rather the two women who were dancing before me stopped, and forming a graceful group began to listen, while all the animals whose pelts adorned the room resumed their forms, then after their forms, life, and finally, as if emerging from a long sleep, awoke to the magical Harmony, and, softened, tamed, vanquished, rose up, crouching like sphinxes, moving their heads in time with the music, or slithered silently up to me, to lick my feet like those of an all-powerful master who had received from heaven the power to command them.

As for the words, I retained no other memory than the satisfaction they gave me.  They seemed to me to possess a poetry that was both brilliant and limpid, rich in thought and harmony, and it seemed to me that as they left my mouth, my host was writing them down on tablets.

However, this poetry and this music faded away, like distant harmonies, like words repeated by an echo; it seemed to me that, although it was I who played the guitar and sang, the sound and the song came from another to me instead of going from me to another.  Finally, at the last verse, amidst infinite well-being and profound delight, I let the instrument slip from my fingers, I let the syllables die on my lips. I leaned back, resting on the shoulder of one of the two women who had somehow fashioned a cushion for me from her breast, and I gently closed my eyes to the gentle breeze from a fan of peacock tails that the second statue, naked and blushing, like a living Venus de Medici, was softly waving above my brow.

Then I seemed to see in the final twilight that separates the day of thought from the night of intellect, the eve of sleep, I seemed to see our host withdrawing while giving new orders to Ali, who in turn went to lie down in the first room we had entered, on his divan of crimson fabric with gold flowers.

This was the last sensory perception I experienced, and it seemed to me that I fell into a deep sleep.

Then I had no further sense of my own existence.

When I came to, it seemed to me that I was enclosed in a great tomb where daylight barely penetrated. I stretched out my hand [...]

... and here the manuscript converges again with chapter XXXI.