His African period began in 1880, with a prologue on the island of Cyprus, where he returned to work as a foreman in a construction company in the great port of Limassol. Ever since the British had taken the island, there had been a great deal of public building, and it was easy to find work. He could have stayed and progressed in that position, but young Arthur already belonged to that anxious legion of those who dream every day of being rich the next day. Where did that ambition come from? Perhaps from his mother’s social expectations.
Rimbaud had a somewhat messy relationship with money. For several years, he was maintained by Verlaine and didn’t have to worry; his drinking bouts were paid for, as was his food. Both important things for a poet! When he was left alone, he managed to find small jobs that allowed him to get by, but he did not persevere in any of them. Two weeks, a month, two months at the most. His longing for financial success was such that he saw the passing of time as a prison sentence.
He had to be rich now, this minute!
It was an obsession that led him to hate his employers, who never paid him what he thought he deserved. Because another characteristic of this legion of the anxious is to consider themselves eternally undervalued. Their own estimation of themselves is, alas, never shared by anyone else. Their rebellious dignity conspires against them and leads them to make disastrous decisions. Rimbaud would always end up insulting those above him and slamming the door.
So Rimbaud left Cyprus, with his head held high, but without a cent in his pocket. He crossed the Red Sea and looked for work in a number of ports, eventually arriving in Aden, which today belongs to Yemen, where he found work as a commercial agent for a French coffee exporter named Pierre Bardey.
He settled in the city.
“Aden is the crater of an extinct volcano with the bottom covered in sea sand. Nothing can be seen but sand and lava, incapable of producing any vegetation. The surroundings are a desert of sand, absolutely arid. And inside, the walls of the crater stop the air from coming in so that we roast at the bottom of this hole as if we were in a lime kiln.” (Letter of August 25, 1880.)
This is the fearful description he sends his mother, since even though he wanted to leave Europe forever, excoriating it in his poetry, the truth is that he felt no great love for the places he visited, or at least never expressed it. Perhaps he did not do so in his letters to his mother in order to keep her anxious and on his side.
His modest job in Aden got him a little closer to Abyssinia. Years earlier, in the reading room of the British Museum, he had read Burton’s writings about Harar, the sacred city of Islam, with its eighty-two mosques, walled and shut off from Europeans for decades and opened to trade only since 1875, when it was conquered by Egypt.
I can imagine Rimbaud’s surprise on hearing his employer mention Harar. It was a key city on the trade route from the interior of Abyssinia, and through it coffee, ivory, hides, and rubber circulated. Indeed, Bardey decided to go there and investigate for himself. Enthused by the possibilities, he rented a huge building and transformed it into a store and warehouse. And in November 1880, he sent Rimbaud to take charge of the branch.
The young poet—no longer so young and no longer a poet, as far as he himself was concerned, even though he was already the greatest poet in France—set off.
Harar! Passing through the gates of the walled city and entering that maze of dark streets, Rimbaud once again let himself be carried away by his own dreams of greatness. He was the only Frenchman in the city and had to take advantage of the situation. He could establish a monopoly over what was produced in the area. This fired his imagination, and he asked his mother to send him books about the strangest professions. He wanted to learn it all, to be a merchant and at the same time a builder. But as usual, this sudden enthusiasm faded, and young Rimbaud was left to face reality, which is that he was merely an agent for someone else’s business, while life in Harar was unbearably tedious as soon as darkness fell.
In a letter to Vitalie from February 1881 he says that he is dying of boredom and that he will be leaving very soon, when he has saved enough money, because he has already realized that life in Harar will not lead him to the wealth he longs for. Looking for alternatives, and a place that would allow him to realize his dreams, he remembered that strange Polish sailor with whom he drank Chinese rice liquor in the harbor of Samarang before leaving for Java. Could America be the continent where he would be able to achieve his ambition? Could that young man named Józef Konrad have been right when he told him that it was the “new world?” What is certain is that in the same letter in which he complains about the lack of opportunities offered him by Harar, he asks his mother the following:
“Send me news of the works in Panama. As soon as they begin I’ll go there. I’d like to leave immediately.”
He is referring to the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique in Panama, a French company that had bought the concession and was getting ready to execute the plans conceived by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the engineer of the Suez Canal, who had been in the isthmus since 1879, preparing to start.
This is how Rimbaud learned of the project. Lesseps was to take to Panama many of those who had worked on the Suez Canal, and throughout the region, including in Aden, rumors must have been circulating widely about this new enterprise, which was due to get under way in 1881.
But Rimbaud was incapable of maintaining the morning’s enthusiasms until evening, and the idea was quickly forgotten and replaced by new delusions.
After contracting syphilis—how? from whom?—he again spent some time in Aden. He was already anxious to leave Bardey’s company, but unable to settle on anything else, he found himself reluctantly obliged to continue in his current job.
One of his intentions was to work for the Société de Géographie de France, sending accounts of his travels through as yet unexplored areas. The Société showed no interest in him for the moment, although some years later, in 1884, they did publish a report on his journey to the province of Ogaden, as far as the river Web, on the southern outskirts of Harar.
According to Starkie, the report was very well received and the Société wrote to him asking for biographical information and some photographs to be included in an album of famous explorers, but Rimbaud did not deign to reply. Rather than lack of interest, his attitude concealed something deeper. He was still smarting from the contemptuous reception of A Season in Hell and did not want to be seen as a mere travel writer. He imagined one of the Parisian poets he detested saying sarcastically: “Well, well, look at this, young Rimbaud is now busy writing travel reports!”
His life in Harar continued, although he would never stop complaining and conveying to his mother and sister his feelings of being abandoned, of being the victim of something he did not know. As if he were threatened by some strange, uncontrollable metaphysical conspiracy.
On May 6, he writes to them:
“I am sorry I never married and had a family. ( . . . ) What is the point of all these comings and goings, all this weariness, all these adventures among strange races, all the languages that have accumulated in my memory? What is the point of all these nameless sufferings if it is not going to be possible for me, after a few years, to rest in a place I like, have a family and bear at least one child? ( . . . ) Who knows how long my days in these mountains will continue? I could disappear, in the middle of these tribes, without the news ever reaching the outside world.”
It is far from certain that Rimbaud was sincere in writing this about the place where he lived for ten years and was reasonably happy, but he liked to keep his mother feeling sorry enough for him to help him in his wild schemes. Vitalie continued sending him books on the most varied subjects: not a small expense if one adds in the shipping costs. Curiously, we know the lists of the books he asked for and not one is a literary work. Does that mean that he not only abandoned the writing of literature, but also the reading of it?
This has still to be demonstrated.
He may have come across books in Aden, in the Grand Hôtel de l’Univers, through which many foreigners passed; he might have had a personal library. It is hardly credible that someone like him could really have abandoned literature to the point of no longer reading it. Stopping writing is possible, but stopping reading?
That is more difficult.
On this subject there are, as far as I know, no precedents. Readers who abandon reading? Someone who has read and loved books is like someone who has tried the coolness of water or the pleasures of sex or good food. He may stop cooking, but not eating. A chef may stop inventing delicious and sophisticated dishes, but I doubt he can do without decent food and willingly decide to spend the rest of his life on bread and water.
For now, his great objective, the telltale heart that never stopped beating, was his desire to become rich, perhaps with the idea of returning to Charleville or Paris surrounded with luxuries; repay his family; and take revenge on the Parisian intelligentsia. That must have resonated in the young man’s mind or even in his guts, which was why he decided to go for broke.
The war in Abyssinia was still continuing, and in 1884 Egypt lost control of the area. The British preferred to withdraw, leaving Harar in a chaotic state. Rimbaud quickly moved to Aden, but with a surprise. On this occasion he arrived with a young Abyssinian girl! We do not know her name, just that she was tall and slim, like all Harari women, and with relatively light skin for an Abyssinian. The Europeans who saw her thought she was a slave, but it has been confirmed that Rimbaud led a conjugal life with her, although without children. They seemed happy and Rimbaud sent her to the school of the French mission. After spending some months with her in Aden, he gave her some money and sent her back to her home. Presumably when the situation had settled down in Harar.
Arthur needed all his concentration to undertake his next project, his most ambitious commercial exploit, which consisted of selling a shipment of arms from France and Belgium to King Menelik of Soa, who was at war with the emperor of Ethiopia and king of Tigré. Rimbaud calculated that he could earn five times his investment, and he threw himself headlong into this new scheme. In October 1885, he had a violent argument with his employer, Bardey, and gave up his job with the company.
As he himself told his mother:
“I have performed many services for them and it was assumed, to please them, that I would spend the rest of my life with them. They did all they could to keep me, but I told them to go to hell, with all their privileges, their trade, their awful store, and their dirty city.” (Letter of October 22, 1885.)
That monstrous pride that in its various guises takes the name of “dignity” had again seized Arthur. What did a modest job as a commercial agent matter when he was on the verge of becoming rich? The idea was to buy the arms in Europe, unload them in Aden, and take them to the Somali coast, from where he himself would take them in a caravan to Menelik’s kingdom. He was investing a capital of six hundred pounds. According to Starkie, that amounted to six years’ savings.
No sooner had he started preparations than a thousand problems arose. First, he had to obtain a special permit from the British authorities to unload the rifles, something he managed after an enormous number of difficulties and a great deal of wasted time. Then he decided to start the expedition from the French concession of Tadjoura, an inhospitable and unhealthy little town, famous for its role in the slave trade. He had to wait a year before leaving, a time that must have seemed hellish to him. To speed things up and feel more secure in his dealings with Menelik, he joined forces with another French trader named Labatut, who had relations with Menelik and seemed to be a good ally. At the beginning of 1886, the arms were ready in Tadjoura and Rimbaud took on the task of finding camels for the caravan, but the natives of the area, the Danakils, used them in their daily chores and were not ready to rent them out. It took him several months to gather what he needed, having to incur expenses he had not reckoned with.
Time was passing and things were becoming ever more desperate.
The figures must have been dancing in his mind while the seasons turned. As well as camels, he needed to find porters prepared to make the journey, which was one of the most dangerous in the region. Other caravans had been attacked and one of them, led by the explorer Barral, ended in a bloody massacre, with mutilated bodies left to be devoured by the vultures and the beasts of the desert.
To complete the somber outlook, his partner Labatut fell ill with cancer and died before the expedition could set off. What could he do now? Labatut had been his best link with Menelik, the guarantee that the devious king would pay for the arms they were about to take him. The solution was to join forces with another French arms trafficker, named Soleillet, but once again he was out of luck: in September 1886, Soleillet suddenly died on a street in Aden!
Again, thoughts of a metaphysical conspiracy, anxiety attacks.
Then Rimbaud decided to go alone to see Menelik, and so it was that at the beginning of October 1886, the caravan set off.
I can imagine him in the convoy, on horseback, watching the silhouettes of the camels advance in a line at sunset and thinking that in that moving line lay his destiny, his immediate future. The suppositions he had made regarding these arms that were swaying on the backs of the camels! Now he had to make a final effort, to trust in luck. The most important thing was to get across Danakil territory alive, reach the kingdom of Soa, and hope that Menelik was a man of his word and would do what he had promised more than a year earlier to a partner who was now dead.
No, young Arthur, it wasn’t going to be easy.
The terrain was almost impassible, most of it black volcanic lava. They could only count on the water they carried in their goatskin flasks, which, when warmed up, became poisonous. And then there was the danger of attacks by the Danakil or other tribes considered “savage.” Starkie says that for one of these tribes the greatest reward of war was to cut off the enemy’s genitals, which must have been somewhat unsettling.
Among the curiosities of the journey, which Rimbaud later wrote about, was the crossing of the saltwater Lake Assal, a kind of Dead Sea in Abyssinian—or habesha—territory surrounded by basalt stone and lava. Reaching the river Hawache, Rimbaud already felt close to success, since on coming down from the mountains they again encountered fertile land and greenery. They floated the camels across the river and soon arrived in Ankober, capital of the kingdom of Soa. The journey had lasted four months!
But when they arrived, King Menelik was not there.
A new setback, a new feeling that fate was playing him dirty tricks. Could he not hear the strange language of fate? For some years now, a voice had been pursuing him, telling him: keep calm, take deep breaths, stay in one place.
But nothing could stop this restless young man, so he urged the caravan on to the town of Entoto, where the king now was. When he got there he still had to wait several days to see him. So far, the entire undertaking had consumed a year and a half. And he still didn’t have the money in his bag!
His interview with the king saw his tribulations enter a new phase. The hard journey through Danakil territory had been the easiest part. Menelik proved to be a tough character, a quick-witted and demanding negotiator. Plus, he had an excellent memory. The first thing he did was to confiscate the arms and tell young Arthur that he would not pay for them per unit but would pay an overall price, which reduced the total amount. Then he pointed out that Rimbaud’s first partner, Labatut, had an outstanding debt toward him, which he now deducted from the payment. In fact, Arthur’s ex-partner had contracted debts toward many other people, and he soon found himself besieged by creditors. Even Labatut’s widow demanded her share of the profits. Rimbaud did not know what to do. The final straw came when Menelik told him that he had no cash, but would have to pay in kind, particularly in ivory.
Rimbaud could not accept this and so Menelik told him to go to Harar, since the new governor, Ras Makonen, did have cash available and would be able to pay the balance of what was owed.
This was the sad end of his dreams of wealth. After deducting the countless debts and sharing out the profits, the net earnings were quite meager. He recouped his investment, but had obtained little for the two years of hard work, expense, and red tape.
One fine day, in Aden, Rimbaud woke up to the fact that he had spent seven years in the Red Sea area and his financial situation wasn’t getting any better.
The laconic letter he sent his mother says:
“My life is drawing to a close. Enough of how you’d imagine a person should be after exploits like the following: journeys by land, on horseback, in a rowing boat, without a change of clothes, without food, without water, etc.
“I’m terribly weary. I have no job and it terrifies me to lose the little I have left.” (Letter of August 23, 1887.)
Thanks to his recklessness and his constant abuse of his physical strength Rimbaud was physically weary. There is a testimony about him from the beginning of 1888, provided by Ato Joseph, the consul of Ethiopia in Djibouti, and quoted by the researcher Charles Nicholl: the impressions of a number of travelers and of a French couple named Dufaud who ran a hotel in Obock and knew Rimbaud as a guest.
“Physically, Rimbaud was quite a thin man, of slightly above average height, with an emaciated and not very attractive, even ugly face, which made his hoteliers say: ‘Abyssinia won’t form a very good impression of the French race through him.’”
This was what remained, three years before his death, of that angelic young man with blue eyes and golden curls who had charmed everyone with his intelligence and beauty. The only beneficial result of that crazy expedition was that between August 25 and 27, 1887 the Egyptian French language newspaper, Le Bosphore Egyptien, published his report on the journey from Tadjoura, advising against the route described. That autumn, from Aden, his articles were submitted to newspapers in Paris, such as Le Temps and Le Figaro. Nothing came of it. He also offered his services as a war correspondent—on the conflict between Italy and Abyssinia—but Le Temps did not consider him, even though Rimbaud was already well known in literary circles in Paris. It is worth remembering that one year earlier, in 1886, Verlaine had published the Illuminations with that famous introduction in which he says he does not know if “Monsieur A. Rimbaud is still alive.”
Arthur’s dreams of grandeur did not end there. Something told him that, because of the instability in the region and the growing European military involvement, arms would continue to be a good business. And once again he threw himself into it. He obtained something that was quite difficult to get: a license to import arms to the Kingdom of Soa, in other words, Menelik’s territory, and with this valuable document he went and knocked at the door of the two biggest arms traffickers in Aden. Two Frenchmen named Tian and Savouré.
He now returned to Harar to run a branch of Tian and Savouré’s business in terms very similar to those of his former boss Bardey.
This cheered Rimbaud. After all, Harar had been the place where he had created something, where he’d had a lover, and where the wind from the mountains cooled the air, far from the ferocious heat of the coastal towns in which he’d been forced to spend a large part of those years. In the new Harar there was already trade, alcohol could be obtained, and something he might have considered a sign of a civilized life: brothels. Rimbaud had already contracted syphilis, so he must have been an assiduous visitor. There may have been a great deal of the mystic and the dreamer in him, but when it came down to it, he was a poet.