A small attic room in the Rue de Buci; 7 November 1871.
Rimbaud is lying on a divan and Verlaine is sitting in an armchair.
Verlaine You see, I didn’t think it really mattered who I married. I thought anybody would do. Anybody within reason.
Rimbaud I don’t know why you wanted to get married in the first place.
Verlaine I was tired of it all. I was living with Mother then. Only because I was too lazy to live by myself and look after myself. She did everything – and to an extent it was all right. I did what I liked and only went home to sleep or to eat or to change. But in the end it began to wear me down, the office was so boring and home was so boring, and I started to drink more and more and I had to keep slipping off to the brothel, things got worse and worse. Day after day I’d wake up fully clothed, covered with mud or with all the skin off my knuckles, feeling sick and nursing a dim memory of 3½ minutes with some horrible tart who hadn’t even bothered to take her shoes off.
This can’t go on, I said.
It has to stop.
One day I went round to see Sivry, who was doing the music for a farce I was going to write and as he was showing me up to his room we passed through the Mautés main room, you know, and there she was, standing with her back to us, looking out of the window. I think we startled her because she turned round very quickly. I was stunned, she was so beautiful. She was wearing a grey and green dress and she stood in the window with the sun going down behind her. Sivry said, had I met his half-sister, Mathilde, and I said, no, unfortunately I hadn’t. So he introduced me and said I was a poet and she smiled and said how nice, she was very fond of poets.
I tell you, that was it.
A week later, I was in Arras, I woke up in bed with the most grisly scrubber you can imagine, sweaty she was, snoring, I was trying to tiptoe away when she woke up and called me back.
I went back.
Later on that morning I wrote to Sivry and told him I wanted to marry Mathilde.
I thought she was ideal. Plenty of money. Well enough brought up to have all the wifely virtues. Innocent. Beautiful. Sixteen. She would look after me. And be there every night in my bed.
I had to wait over a year before I could have her. It was agony. Delicious. I used to go there every evening and look at her. When the wedding was put off for the third time, I practically went berserk. And when it finally took place, I couldn’t believe it. I felt giddy all day.
The next few months were marvellous, you know. I didn’t care about the war, the Prussians could do what they liked as far as I was concerned. I was otherwise engaged. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. It was a kind of legalized corruption. She was impossibly coy at first, she didn’t like it, she didn’t understand it, it hurt. And then slowly she began to take to it, she relaxed, she became … inventive. And then one night, when I was very tired, she suggested it.
Silence.
Rimbaud And now you have a son.
Verlaine And now I have a son.
Silence.
Rimbaud What happened last night, anyway?
Verlaine Well, I … can’t remember it very clearly. As you know I wasn’t quite myself when I left you last night. My idea was to go to bed with her, as I think I mentioned to you.
Rimbaud Many times.
Verlaine Yes, well I thought, it’s a week since the child was born, it ought to be all right by now. I said I’d be careful, but, I mean, it’s been such a long time. Anyway, it was no good, she wouldn’t.
Rimbaud So what happened?
Verlaine I don’t know, God knows.
Rimbaud Did you hit her again?
Verlaine No, no, not this time. I woke up, as in Arras, with my boots on the pillow, and tiptoed away. But she didn’t call me back.
Rimbaud So you’re still frustrated?
Verlaine nods. Silence.
Why don’t you leave her?
Verlaine What?
Rimbaud Leave her.
Verlaine Why?
Rimbaud Because she’s no good to you.
Verlaine What do you mean?
Rimbaud Do you love her?
Verlaine Yes, I suppose so.
Rimbaud Have you got anything in common with her?
Verlaine No.
Rimbaud Is she intelligent?
Verlaine No.
Rimbaud Does she understand you?
Verlaine No.
Rimbaud So the only thing she can give you is sex?
Verlaine Well …
Rimbaud Can’t you find anyone else?
Verlaine I …
Rimbaud You’re not that fussy, are you?
Verlaine No.
Rimbaud Anyone within reason would do, wouldn’t they?
Verlaine Within reason.
Rimbaud What about me?
Silence. Rimbaud laughs.
Are you a poet?
Silence. Verlaine smiles uneasily.
Verlaine (cautiously) Yes.
Rimbaud I’d say not.
Verlaine Why?
Rimbaud Well, I hope you wouldn’t describe that last volume of pre-marital junk as poetry?
Verlaine I most certainly would. Very beautiful love poetry, that is.
Rimbaud But you’ve just admitted that all you wanted to do was to go to bed with her.
Verlaine That doesn’t make the poems any less beautiful.
Rimbaud Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it matter that they’re lies?
Verlaine They’re not lies. I love her.
Rimbaud Love?
Verlaine Yes.
Rimbaud No such thing.
Verlaine What do you mean?
Rimbaud I mean it doesn’t exist. Self-interest exists. Attachment based on personal gain exists. Complacency exists. But not love. It has to be re-invented.
Verlaine You’re wrong.
Rimbaud Well, all right, if you care to describe what binds families and married couples together as love rather than stupidity or selfishness or fear, then we’ll say that love does exist. In which case it’s useless, it doesn’t help. It’s for cowards.
Verlaine You’re wrong.
Rimbaud When I was in Paris in February this year, when everything was in a state of chaos, I was staying the night in a barracks and I was sexually assaulted by four drunken soldiers. I didn’t like it at the time, but when I got back to Charleville, thinking about it, I began to realize how valuable it had been to me. It clarified things in my mind which had been vague. It gave my imagination textures. And I understood that what I needed, to be the first poet of this century, the first poet since Racine or since the Greeks, was to experience everything in my body. I knew what it was like to be a model pupil, top of the class, now I wanted to disgust them instead of pleasing them. I knew what it was like to take communion, I wanted to take drugs. I knew what it was like to be chaste, I wanted perversions. It was no longer enough for me to be one person, I decided to be everyone. I decided to be a genius. I decided to be Christ. I decided to originate the future.
The fact that I often regarded my ambition as ludicrous and pathetic pleased me, it was what I wanted, contrast, conflict inside my head, that was good. While other writers looked at themselves in the mirror, accepted what they saw, and jotted it down, I liked to see a mirror in the mirror, so that I could turn round whenever I felt like it and always find endless vistas of myself.
However, what I say is immaterial, it’s what I write that counts.
If you help me, I’ll help you.
Verlaine How can I help you?
Rimbaud By leaving your wife. As far as I can see, it’s the only hope there is for you. Not only are you unhappy as you are, it’s not even doing you any good. What are you going to do, write domestic poetry for the rest of your life? Bringing up baby? Epics of the Civil Service? Or will you be forced, you, Verlaine, to write impersonal poetry? Foolish plays and feeble historical reconstructions? If you leave her and come with me, both of us will benefit. And when we’ve got as much from one another as we can, we split up and move on. You could even go back to your wife again.
It’s just a suggestion, it’s up to you.
Verlaine You seem to forget that I have a son now.
Rimbaud On the contrary, that’s what makes it so ideal. If you leave your wife now, you won’t be leaving her alone. She can spend all her time bringing up her son. That’s what my father did, he just upped and left us one day, he couldn’t have done a wiser thing. Except he’d left it a bit late.
Verlaine But how would we live?
Rimbaud You’ve got some money, haven’t you?
Verlaine Ah, now I understand. I help you by supporting you, and you help me by renewing my rusty old inspiration. Is that it?
Rimbaud Not altogether.
Verlaine Well, how else are you going to help me, then?
Rimbaud You name it.