The Last Days of a Condemned Man, 1829
Original title: Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné
On 3 February 1829, a small, harrowing novel in prose was published, unsigned. It was written in the form of a condemned man's reflections upon the last days before his execution - it was supposed to have been found after the sentence had been carried out. Though unsigned, it was no secret that Hugo had written it. The issue of capital punishment had troubled him since childhood, having the images of corpses hanging from trees along the roads of Spain forever engraved in his memory.
Hugo's research for the novel was thorough; he had visited a prison and studied how the convicts were treated. He had also learned the chain gang vocabulary.
This contribution to public debate was also an answer to those critics who blamed him for his frank virtuosity. But this strategy was secondary - he was sincere in his wish to contribute to the abolition of the death penalty, which he considered more cruel than beneficial.
Last Days of a Condemned Man influenced Albert Camus, Charles Dickens, Fjodor Dovstojevskij and many others, and when reading it today, even an early edition as the one quoted below, it feels very modern and still - for many corners of the world - very valid.
In the first Swedish edition, printed in 1830, the following epilogue was added by the publisher:
The Reader asks the Translator: why have you translated this writing?
He answers: Since you should guide your country with good foreign works rather than wretched of your own; every people would gain from this rule; they would get a greater number of superior works and a lesser number of miserable.
- Do you then really consider this work to be a classic?
- Far from it! I am brought up within a domesticity, which, with life's usual set-backs, nevertheless had happiness; even as a child I had my human faults, but nevertheless innocence, and I was taught the clear and magnanimous thoughts of the ancient, came to know people who had lived with pleasure without extravagance, who died in devotion without fear, and who's writings, eternal patterns of true beauty, bear the same impression of purity, deep and tranquil. - I loathe this book!
- You loathe and leave it in the hands of your fellow countrymen!
- Yes! I leave it to an Era, who's soul is ill, sometimes delirious, sometimes trembling, always discontent, excess and full of disgust, annoyed and annoying; to an age that enjoys and complains, that is melancholic without thoughts, stormy without rejoice, and that raises a single unison cry over the corruptible that is and the hopeless to come. From this cry of a new age, I have discerned a voice that have found its way through all others; the voice of Victor Hugo.
- That may be! We cannot agree on this issue. But your translation is full of mean phrases and vulgar words.
- Naturally! These feelings, our contemporaries know them well, have nevertheless not yet found words fit for the drawing room. The author has been compelled to fetch his in narrow dungeons, as have the translator.
- In addition, in all, your translation is no good. You should have avoided some Gallicisms.
- Reader, do it better! Fear not that I have forestalled you; this book will be renown for a long and sad time; more than one edition will be called for: make the next one better!
- Farewell!
- Farewell! Hold on, yet another word! I have excluded the original lithographic facsimile of the gruesome ballad, which should also have been excluded from the text, had it been possible, as well as the authors preface, which he calls: A Comedy in view of a Tragedy, and which can be considered replaced by this epilogue.
- A poor exchange, farewell!
Perhaps I would have preferred it with Hugo's preface, but it is interesting to see that not only the Hugo name reached such dark corners of the world as Sweden, but the Hugo style of writing too. Noteworthy - or just a sign of the times - is also the publisher's judgment that the novel needed this ill-concealed apology.
Notes:
-
The Last Days of a Condemned Man has been adapted for television. Read more about it here!
