The confounding, chilling, magnificent aspect of humour as we envision it, the ability it presupposes to have the most disinterested and paradoxical reactions, can hardly be said to find hospitable soil in Rimbaud. Never, we must admit, does this kind of humour come through in his work in anything but sporadic fashion, and even then it corresponds only partially to our general notion of it. Rimbaud’s physical expression, as revealed in the photograph by Carjat or the ones from Ethiopia, is enough to eliminate all doubt on the subject. The filtering gaze of the visionary, the all but deadened one of the adventurer, reveal nothing of the profound mischief that can never entirely be masked in the eyes of born humorists. This is perhaps his weak point: the concept we have today of poetry and art, insofar as it is determined by the needs of a given era and as it overdetermines them, has granted humour an importance that it could not claim before. Our whole modern sensibility is attuned to it, and we cannot truly say that Rimbaud satisfies this need – as Lautréamont does, for example. For one thing, his inner and outer selves never managed to coexist in harmony. They alternated with each other and even, in the early part of his life, constantly interfered with each other. We shall ignore his later years, in which the puppet gained the upper hand, in which a pathetic buffoon waved his golden sash every other minute, and consider only the Rimbaud of 1871–72, a veritable god of puberty such as no mythology had ever seen. Here, emotional trauma offers sublimation such fertile paths on which to flower that in one stroke the external world comes to occupy no more space than it does for the zealots of the Japanese Zen sect. ‘The man with the wind at his heels’ reminds us of all the ‘flying carpets’ from the Orient, which, they say, if you are chaste and abstinent, will allow you to beat any automotive or other kind of speed record. Maybe, maybe not: both are true, like Rimbaud writing his poems and selling keyrings on the sidewalks of Rue de Rivoli. The only flashes of humour that Rimbaud ever showed, the only illuminations of a type quite beyond the Illuminations – let’s not forget that to a professional humorist (as one might say ‘professional revolutionary’) such as Jacques Vaché, he seemed childish and disappointing – are almost always clouded by blots of desperate sarcasm, the exact opposite of humour. With Rimbaud, the seriously threatened ego generally cannot make the leap to the superego, which would allow for a displacement of psychic accent, but rather persists in defending itself by its own means, taking its weapons from the intellectual and moral indigence of the individuals surrounding it. Faced with its own suffering, it attacks others instead of being resolved in them. And thus it loses its only chance of dominating this suffering and of reaching us intact.
Still, these reservations, serious as they may be, cannot lessen the value – on the contrary – of certain shattering confessions from ‘Alchemy of the Word’: ‘I liked stupid paintings, door panels, stage sets, backdrops for acrobats, signs, popular engravings, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books with bad spelling’; and especially of the admirable poem ‘Dream,’ from 1875, which constitutes Rimbaud’s poetic and spiritual legacy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Une saison en enfer, 1873. Les Illuminations, 1886. Poésies complètes, 1895. Un coeur sous une soutane, 1924, etc.
BIBLIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH: A Season in Hell. Illuminations. Complete Works (various editions).
I opened my eyes again slightly.
Césarin and the sacristan each smoked a thin cigar, with every possible delicate mannerism, which made them seem terribly ridiculous. The sacristan’s wife, on the edge of her chair, her hollow chest leaning forward, spreading behind her the waves of her yellow dress which enveloped her to her neck, and her one flounce in full bloom around her, was amorously pulling the petals from a rose. A frightful smile half opened her lips and revealed on her thin gums two black and yellow teeth like the stoneware of an old stove. – But you, Thimothina, you were beautiful with your white collar, your lowered eyes, and your flat braids!
‘He is a young man with a future. His present inaugurates a future, the sacristan said as he exhaled a wave of grey smoke …’
‘Oh! Monsieur Léonard will bring honour to the cloth, said his wife with a nasal twang, and her two teeth were visible! …’
I blushed in the manner of a well brought up boy. I saw that the chairs were moving away from me and that I was the subject of their whispering …
Thimothina still looked at my shoes … the two dirty teeth threatened … the sacristan laughed ironically … I still kept my head down! …
‘Lamartine is dead, …’ said Thimothina suddenly.
Dear Thimothina! It was for your worshipper, for your poor poet Léonard, that you cast into the conversation the name of Lamartine. Then I raised my head, I felt that the thought of poetry alone would restore virginity to these profane people, I felt my wings quiver, and I said joyously, with my eyes on Thimothina:
‘The author of the Méditations poétiques had beautiful flowers in his crown!’
‘The swan of poetry is dead! said the sacristan’s wife.’
‘Yes, but he sang his death song’, I replied ardently.
‘But’, said the sacristan’s wife, ‘Monsieur Léonard is a poet also! Last year his mother showed me some attempts of his muse …’
I made bold to say:
‘Oh! Madame, I brought neither lyre nor cithara, but …’
‘Oh! you must bring your cithara another day …’
‘But, if it is not displeasing to you, I will read you a few verses … I dedicate them to Mademoiselle Thimothina.’
‘Yes! yes! young man! very good! do recite them. Go to the other end of the room …’
I moved there … Thimothina looked at my shoes. The sacristan’s wife played the Madonna. The two gentlemen leaned toward one another … I blushed, coughed, and said, marking the rhythm tenderly:
In its cotton retreat
Sleeps the zephyr with sweet breath …
In its nest of silk and wool
Sleeps the zephyr with the gay chin.
Everyone present guffawed. The men leaned toward one another making coarse puns. But what was especially frightful was the behaviour of the Sacristan’s wife who, her eyes raised to heaven, played the mystic and smiled with her ugly teeth! Thimothina, Thimothina roared laughing. This was a mortal blow to me: Thimothina held her sides! … – A sweet zephyr in cotton, why that’s very pleasant! … Père Césarin said as he sniffed the air …
I thought I saw something, but the laughter lasted only a second. They all tried to recover their seriousness, although it still broke out from time to time …
‘Continue, young man, it’s very good!’
When the zephyr raises its wing
In its cotton retreat …
When it hastens to where the flower calls it,
The sweet breath smells so good …
This time heavy laughter shook my listeners. Thimothina looked at my shoes. I was warm, my feet burned as she watched them, and they swam in their sweat; for I said to myself: these socks I have been wearing for a month are a gift of her love, the glances she casts on my feet are a token of her love. She worships me!
Then some slight smell seemed to come from my shoes. Oh! I understood the horrible laughter of those people! I understood that Thimothina Labinette, out of place in that wicked group, Thimothina would never be able to give free reign to her passion! I understood that I too would have to abolish that sorrowful love which had been born in my heart one May afternoon, in the Labinettes’ kitchen as I watched the wriggling posterior of the Virgin with the bowl!
Four o’clock, the time for my return, rang from the parlour clock. Bewildered, burning with love, crazed with grief, I picked up my hat, upset a chair as I fled, crossed the hall as I murmured: I worship Thimothina, and fled to the seminary without stopping …
The tails of my black habit flapped behind me in the wind like sinister birds! …
(translated by Wallace Fowlie)
* * *
14 October 1975
Dear friend,
Got the Postcard and V.’s letter a week ago. To make life easier, I told the mailman to send the gen’l. deliv. letters to my house, so you can write me here if you still can’t get anything through gen. deliv. I won’t comment on Loyola’s latest vulgarities, and anyway I’ve got nothing more to do with all that: it seems the second ‘portion’ of the ‘contingent’ of the ‘class’ of ’74 is going to be called up on 3 November or just after. Here’s what it’s like in the barracks at night:
‘DREAM’
In the barracks stomachs grumble –
How true ……………..
Emanations, explosions,
An engineer: I’m the gruyere!
Lefebvre: All clear!
The engineer: I’m the brie!
Soldiers hack at their bread.
That’s Life, see?
The engineer: I’m the bleu!
– It’ll be the death of you.
– I’m the gruyere
And the brie … etc.
WALTZ
They’ve paired us up, Lefebvre and I … etc … !
You can get totally wrapped up in thoughts of that kind. Still, it would be good if you could send along any ‘Loyolas’ that might turn up, when you have the chance.
One favour: can you tell me clearly and concisely what the current requirements are for a science degree: classics, maths, etc … – Tell me what grade you’ve got to get for each part: maths, phys., chem., etc., and then what books (and how to get them) they use in your school, for ex. for the degree exam, unless it changes with the different universities: in any case try to find out what I’ve asked you from some professor or student in the know. I need to know as precisely as possible, since I’ll have to buy the books soon. As you see, I’ve got two or three pleasant seasons in store, what with military instruct. and this degree business! Anyway, to hell with that ‘noble labour.’ Only, be kind enough to let me know the best way to get started.
Nothing going on around here.
– I like to think the Pharthounds and stinkpots full of patriotic beans (or not) aren’t distracting you any more than you need. At least it doesn’t snow in dumps, the way it does here.
Yours ‘to the best of my humble abilities.’
You write:
A. RIMBAUD
31, rue Saint-Barthélemy
Charleville (Ardennes), goes without saying.
PS: The ‘official’ mail has gotten to the point where the P.O. gets a policeman to deliver Loyola’s newspapers to me!