A Season in Hell by Jean-Marie Carré

Author:Jean-Marie Carré
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590774861
Publisher: M. Evans & Company

There is only one difficulty with his thesis; that is that these verses are not by Rimbaud, who wrote no poetry after 1873, but probably by Germain Nouveau. Besides, how was Verlaine in a position to receive Rimbaud’s confidences? At this time he inspired only contempt in Rimbaud, to whom his pious fervor, his conversion, seemed an abdication, a defeat, a lot of mummery.

While he was in Milan, at the beginning of the summer of 1875, Rimbaud suddenly decided to go to see one of his friends, a soap manufacturer in the Cyclades, and set out, on foot, on the road to Brindisi. On the way he had a sunstroke, and was sent back to his own country by the French consul at Leghorn. In Marseilles, his port of debarkation, he made his living by performing the most menial tasks, unloading trucks in the old port, helping the dock-hands of the Messageries Maritimes, vegetating in the busy seaport until he finally met a crimp of the Carlist army who tried to get him to go to Spain. It must have been a very brief enrollment, a passing whim, since we find him in Charleville in October 1875.

At this date, he writes to his friend Delahaye, then teaching at Rethel: “Received a postcard and letter from V. a week ago. In order to simplify matters I have asked the postoffice to forward all my mail here (rue Saint-Bartholémy, Charleville). You may write me here also, if you haven’t already sent a letter to the other postoffice. I will not comment on the latest vulgarities of the Loyola, and I intend to do nothing about him at present, as it appears that the second ‘portion’ of the ‘contingent’ of the ‘class’ of 74 will be called on the 3rd of November following, or soon after.”

What are these vulgarities of Loyola? They are the Catholic poems from Sagesse, that Verlaine persists in sending him through the intercession of Delahaye. Mercy! Can’t he be left in peace? Poetry disgusts him, and religious poetry more than any other. He is already too far detached from literature to find any interest in Verlaine’s productions, and for himself “has nothing more to do in that direction.” Besides, the army is waiting for him. He has completed his twentieth year, is strapping, well-built, ripe for military service.

Rimbaud in a “képi” and red breeches! It is hard to picture this rebel performing automatically in the barracks courtyard or the parade ground. Fortunately, as his elder brother Frederic is still in service (active service at that time lasted five years), he is exempt,2 and plans to profit from this respite by working. Although he has renounced letters, he applies himself to the study of languages and the sciences. He learns Spanish, buys an Arabian grammar and dictionary, and plunges passionately into the study of Arabian. In order to be free from interruption, relates M. Louis Pierquin, he would shut himself up in a huge cupboard, a kind of ancient chest, and there he would remain, often for twenty-four hours at a time, without food or drink.

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