Crossed Drawings (Rimbaud, Verlaine and Some Others) Author(S): Alain Buisine and Madeleine Dobie Reviewed Work(S): Source: Yale French Studies, No

Home , Arthur Rimbaud, Ernest Delahaye, Germain Nouveau, Isabelle Rimbaud, Paterne Berrichon, Paul Verlaine

Crossed Drawings (Rimbaud, Verlaine and Some Others) Author(s): Alain Buisine and Madeleine Dobie Reviewed work(s): Source: Yale French Studies, No. 84, Boundaries: Writing & Drawing (1994), pp. 95-117 Published by: Yale University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2930182 . Accessed: 19/07/2012 21:00

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http://www.jstor.org ALAIN BUISINE

Crossed Drawings*(Rimbaud, Verlaineand Some Others)

Un jourpeut-6tre il disparaitramiraculeusement -D6lires I, Une Saison en Enferl

He runs,he runs,the ferret,and it reallyisn't easy to catch him, to seize him as he passes by.But where exactlyhas he got to in this year 1876, ArthurRimbaud, the eternal absconder, the indefatigablevagabond? What has become of him? What is he doing? What has happened to him? How is he and how does he live? Is he still on the road, or has he set himself up provisionally,like some merchant or other,before re- turning,once more, to his distant wanderings?In France, his friends, with Paul Verlaine at the fore,speculate about his wild peregrinations and make fun of his misadventures,affabulating his activities and his discourse: Oh la la, j'ai rienfait de ch'mind'puis mon dergnier Copp6e ! I1est vraiqu'j'en suis chauv' commeun pagnier Perc6,qu'j'sens queut' chos' dans 1'gosierqui m'ratisse Qu'j'ai dansle dos comm'des avantgouits d'un rhumatisse, Et que j'm'emmerd'plusseuq' jamais. Mais c'est-n-6gal J'auraiprom'n6 ma gueuleinfecte au S6n6gal Et vu Sainte-H6eln'! (merdea Badingue!) un' rud'noce, Quoi ! Mais tout9a n'estpas s6rieux.J'reve eud' n6goce Maint'nant,et pleind'astuss', j'baluchonn' des vieillesplaqu's D'assuranc',pour revend' cont du rhumaux Kanaks.*

*Becauseof the transfer of the Fonds Doucet to theBibliotheque Nationale, we were regretfullyunable to supplythe relevant pictures for this article. *Inthis rough translation I do notattempt to reproduceVerlaine's slang, his imita- tionof Rimbaud's accent or wordplays such as c'est-n-6gal/S6negal.Wherever possible, I have used publishedtranslations, and all such quotationsare attributed.Where no referenceis supplied,the translation is myown.-Translator's note. 1. ArthurRimbaud, Oeuvres Completes, edited, presented and annotatedby An- toineAdam (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliotheque de la Pl6iade,1972), 106; A Seasonin Hell trans.Enid Rhodes Peschel (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 75.

YFS 84,Boundaries: Writing & Drawing,ed. M. Reid,? 1994by Yale University. 95 96 Yale FrenchStudies Oh dear,I haven'tbeen on theroad since my last Copp6e!It's truethat I'm as bald as I'm Broke,that I feelsomething scratching in mythroat That in myback, I've gotthe beginnings of rheumatism, And thatI'm morefed up thanever. But no matter I'll have shownmy ugly face in Senegal And seen St Helena! (Shitto Badingue!)t A hell ofa time, What?But none ofthat was serious.I've gotbusiness on mymind Now,and, very shrewdly, I pack up old insuranceplates And tradethem for rum with the canaks. It was doubtless the veryend of 1876 or the verybeginning of 1877 when he learned that Rimbaud, having got as faras Javain a round trip that took him via Brussels, Rotterdam,Le Helder, Southampton, Gi- braltar,Naples, Suez, Aden, Sumatra, the Cape, Saint Helen, Ascen- sion, the Azores, Queenstown, Cork, Liverpool and Le Havre-"un petit voyage,presque rien" [a little trip,really nothing to speak of],2 quipped his friend Delahaye-was finally back in Charleville, that Verlaine wrote this ten-line poem, in the center of which he drew an astonishing Rimbaud en canaque. Rimbaud as a Negro, his face tat- tooed, a thicklock ofhair stickingup fromhis skull, with earringsand a huge braceleton his wrist:he is smoking a pipe (ofopium?) and holding a large glass, most likely of rum. But even more remarkable than the pittoresque nature of this figuration is its position: properly,con- cretelyintratextual, the drawing is surroundedby Verlaine's coppee, literallycoiled-up among its verses. As thoughthe disenchantedwords which the poet lends him have the power to evoke his face, to restore his form.*A near-magical evocation like that of the ancient homeric nekuia which brings the dead back fromHell-and the Bridegroom was, in his time, infernal!t It should thereforecome as no surpriseto note that in his poems, however lewd and slangy the coppee, Verlaine also meticulously re- spects Rimbaud's Ardennesaccent. Had he not writtenin the marginof an earlier drawing of 1876, "Dargnieres nouvelles" [Latest News]t

tBadinguewas thenickname of Napoleon III.-Translator's note. *"d'evoquerson visage,de lui rendrefigure" literally: to evokehis face,to ren- der/restorehis form/face.-Translator'snote. tThis is a referenceto the Bridegroomof A Season in Hell, usuallyrendered in Englishas theSatanic Bridegroom.-Translator's note. tAlsoimitating Rimbaud's accent.-Translator's note. 2. Letterto ErnestMillot, 28 January1877, quoted by Fr6d6ricEigeldinger and Andr6Gendre in Delahayetemoin de Rimbaud(Neuchatel: A la Baconniere,1974), 254. ALAIN BUISINE 97 whichrepresented Rimbe stark naked (havingbeen strippedby a cab driverin Vienna): "L'accent parisiano-ardennaisdesideratur?" [The Parisiano-Ardennaisaccent desideratur?] Verlaine, who textualiseshis drawingsby having them emerge from the poems themselves, hopes in thesecoppees to recoverRimbaldian orality, as thoughthe restitution ofthe particularities of his voice could also conjureup his image,and if many of his drawings(including "Ultissima verba" and "La sale bete!"are accompanied by a Coppee,it is in orderthat the words lent to theother also renderhim figurally present.* In this,Verlaine is simply conformingto a deviceof Rimbaud's, if for the author of the Illumina- tions,the joiningof vision is indeed fundamentallysubordinate to sonorityand its auralreception, to musicalityand orality,and thehal- lucinatorycapacity of the poet firstrequires an audio-oralstimulus.3 By a significantreversal, in Verlaine,Arthur Rimbaud's portrait is the phylacteryof reconstitutedorality. However parodic, satiric and derisorythese dizains-doubtless scribbleddown in haste between twostraight absinthes-may be, theynevertheless constitute a magic act, securingan iconic presentationof the poet. To providehimself withan image(far more than an idea) ofRimbaud: this, for Verlaine, is theprimary object in reproducingthe voice of him who was themaster ofthe "Viergefolle" ("the FoolishVirgin"). This passion of Verlainefor Rimbaud's face, his "visageparfaite- mentovale d'angeen exil,avec ses cheveuxchatain-clair mal en ordre et des yeux d'un bleu pale inquietant"[perfectly oval face,that of a fallenangel, with its dishevelledlight-brown hair and troublingpale- blue eyes]4would neverfail. If, in the prefaceto the PoetesMaudits, whichhe added to the 1884 Vanieredition, he insistson the authen- ticityof all theportraits which he suppliesin thevolume, it is appar- entlyArthur's face which most preoccupies him: EtienneCarjat photographiait M. Arthur Rimbaud en octobre 1871.C'est cette photographic excellente que le lecteura sousles yeux,reproduite ... parle proc6d&de la photogravure. N'est-cepas bien "L'Enfantsublime", sans le terribled6menti de Chateaubriand,mais non sans la protestationde k6vresdes

*"Sa presencefigurale:" his figuralor facialpresence or form.-Translator'snote. 3. On thissubject, cf., the rich analyses of Anne-Emanuelle Berger in Le Banquet de Rimbaud.Recherches sur 1'oralitg (tditions Champ Vallon, 1992). 4. Paul Verlaine,"Arthur Rimbaud," les Poktesmaudits, Oeuvres en Prosecom- pletes, editedand withnotes and an introductionby JacquesBorel, (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothequede la Pl6iade,1972), 644. 98 Yale FrenchStudies longtempssensuelles et d'une paired'yeux perdus dans un souvenir tresancien plut6t que dansun ravememe precoce? Un Casanova gosse,mais bienplus expertes aventures,ne rit-ilpas dans ces narineshardies, et ce beau mentonaccident6 ne s'en vient-ilpas dire: "va te fairelanlaire" a touteillusion qui ne doivel'existence a la plus irrevocablevolont6? Enfin, a notresens, la superbetignasse ne put etreainsi mise a mal que parde savantsoreillers d'ailleurs foul6s du couded'un purcaprice sultanesque. Et ce d6daintout viril d'une toiletteinutile a cettelitt6rale beaut6 du diable! EtienneCarjat photographed Mr. Arthur Rimbaud in October 1871.It is thisexcellent photograph which the reader has before him,reproduced . . . throughthe process of photoengraving. Is thisnot the "SublimeChild," without the terribled6menti of Chateaubriand,but not withoutthe protest of lips thathave long been sensualand ofa pairof eyes lost in a veryancient memory ratherthan in a yetprecocious dream? A boy-Casanova,though far moreexpert in love-affairs,does he notlaugh in his boldnostrils, and doesn'this handsome,rugged chin seem to say "go to hell" to any illusionwhich does not owe its existenceto themost irrevocable will?Finally, to mymind, only knowing pillows, crumpled by an elbowin a puresultanesque caprice, could meddle with this superb mop ofhair. And the entirelyvirile disdain for a toilettesuperfluous to thisliterally diabolic beauty! "5 It is known that anyone who came into contact with Rimbaud felt the fascination of his face. Ernest Delahaye, evoking the Rimbaud of 1871, insists on the extremebeauty of his "yeux d'un bleu pale irradie de bleu fonce-les plus beaux yeux que j'ai vus-avec une expression de bravoureprete a tout sacrifierquand il etait serieux, d'une douceur enfantine,exquise, quand il riait,et presque toujours d'une profondeur et d'une tendresseetonnantes" [eyesof a pale blue irradiatedwith dark blue-the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen-with an expressionof gallantry,as ifready for all sacrifices,when he was serious,of exquisite, childlike gentleness when he smiled, and almost always of an astonishing depth and tenderness).6When he saw him again in 1879, he was once again struck,in this face in which the "fraichecarnation d'enfant anglais" [rosy complexion of an English child] had given way to the

5. "Avertissementa proposdes portraitsci-joints," ("Foreword concerning the attachedportraits"), Les PoktesMaudits, op. cit.,635. 6. ManuscritCasals, Bibliothequelitt6raire Jacques Doucet, page 15, quotedin Delahaye t6moinde Rimbaud,op. cit.,159. ALAIN BUISINE 99 "teint sombre d'un Kabyle", [darkcoloring of a Kabyle],by "ses yeux,si extraordinairementbeaux!-a l'iris bleu-clair entoure d'un anneau plus fonce couleur de pervenche" [his eyes, so extraordinarilybeauti- ful!-with a pale-blue iris,ringed by a darkerperiwinkle-blue).7 It was Verlaine,who, more than any other,created this veritablefixation with his formerlover's face. He "commentait et critiquait de pres les portraitsqu'il connaissait de lui-tous insuffisamentresemblants-, en- quetait sur ceux qu'il n'avait jamais vus, essayait d'en faire executer d'autres. Iconographe de Rimbaud, il projetait d'etablir "une edition aussi complete que possible" de ses oeuvres "de grandluxe", dont "la great attraction subsidiaire" devait etrecinq portraitsdu poete par lui- meme, Forain, R6gamey,Manet et Fantin-Latour[commented on and minutely criticized the portraitsof him which he knew-all insuffi- cientlylifelike-made inquiries about those which he had neverseen, and triedto have othersexecuted. Rimbaud's iconographer,he planned to put together "as complete an edition as possible" of his works, an edition de luxe whose "great subsidiary attraction" was to be five portraitsof the poet by himself, Forain, R6gamey,Manet et Fantin- Latour).8 Verlaine, iconographer of Rimbaud-this is an understate- ment: he was manifestlyan iconophile. Everythingwas done as though it were essential, primordial to make Rimbaud visible, to recoverhis nearest likeness, as he emphasizes in his "ArthurRimbaud" "1884," which includes a (posthumous!) portraitof "ArthurRimbaud, Twelve Years-Old" by Paterne Berrichon,dated Roche, 29 April, 1897. Ne pas tropse fieraux portraitsqu'on a de Rimbaud,y comprisla chargeci-contre, pour amusante et artistiquequ'elle soit.Rimbaud, a l'age de seize a dix-septans qui est celui oii il a faitles verset faisaitla prosequ'on sait,6tait plutot beau-et tresbeau-que laid commeen t6moignele portraitpar Fantin dans son Coin de table qui est a Manchester.Une sortede douceurluisait et souriaitdans ses cruelsyeux bleus clairet surcette forte bouche rouge au pli amer:mysticisme et sensualiteet quels! On procureraun jourdes ressemblancesenfin approchantes. [Oeuvres en prosecompletes, 803.1 One shouldnot put too muchfaith in theportraits we have of Rimbaud,including the caricatureopposite, however amusing and

7. ErnestDelahaye, "Rimbaud,"Revue littgrairede Franceet de Champagne (Reims-Paris:1905), 185. 8. H61ene Dufour,Arthur Rimbaud. Portraits, dessins, manuscrits, 53. 100 Yale FrenchStudies artisticit maybe. At sixteen or seventeen, the age at which he composedthe poetry and wrote the prose which we know,he was handsome-evenvery handsome, rather than ugly, as Fantin-Latour's portraitof him in The Cornerof the Table,now at Manchester, suggests.A kindof gentleness shone and smiled in his cruel pale blueeyes and on thatstrong red mouth with its bitter crease: what mysticismand what sensuality! One day we will finally obtain resemblanceswhich come close. In Verlaine'sEyes-the expressionis appropriate-writingabout Rimbaudwas necessarilyto reactivatethe memory of his face,as life- like as possible.For his editionof the Complete Works of Arthur Rim- baud,published by Vanier in 1895,he drewfrom memory two famous portraits.In thefirst, "Arthur Rimbaud: June 18 72, " thepoet, who has hishands in hispockets and is smokinga pipe,resembles, with his long hair,his hat and his smartcardigan, a youngpeasant lad dressedup in his Sundaybest and on his wayto town.His body,somewhat awkward, slenderand evenrather meager and skinny,is exactlythat of a young adolescentjust past childhood.In the seconddrawing (of which there are actuallyseveral versions), we see Rimbaudwearing the same hat, leaningon his elbows at a table, and dreamilysmoking. Why this imperiousnecessity to figurethe poet when publishing his works?Was it merenostalgia on thepart of an inconsolablelover who wouldnever againfind so seductivea companion?In reality,Verlaine, in his desire to graphicallyfreeze and fix"l'homme aux semellesde vent"*is sim- plyplaying out to itsfinal consequences this will toidentify Rimbaud whichno one can avoidfeeling in readinghis work-life.For his many sketches,be theycruelly sarcastic around 1876 or melancholically touchingaround 1895, are identity-drawings,just as we speak of identity-photos.And ifVerlaine seeks an evergreater resemblance to theoriginal, is itnot because he in factfeels that Rimbaud never resembles himself,that he continuallyescapes thenarrow and constraining identificatoryconfiguration of self-resemblance? Always other to the way in which he was imagined . .. elusive, unfigurable...

Duringthe same yearof 1876 in whichVerlaine put his vengefulcop- pees in the nomad'smouth, Ernest Delahaye made threedrawings of Rimbaudas a savage.In the first,"A MissionaryWho Comes from

*AsVerlaine baptized Rimbaud: "The manwith the wind at his heels,"or literally, "theman withsoles ofwind."-Translator's note. ALAIN BUISINE 101 Charleville," one sees Rimbaud,face and chesttatooed, wearing a sort ofloin-cloth and a hat piercedby an arrow,brandishing an enormous bottleof "firewater" and equipped with a "Hottentotdictionary" attachedto his belt by a strap,busy training a ringof boisterous savages,the men starknaked and the womenbare-chested. In the back- groundsome palm trees and a cactusseem to confirmthat Rimbaud is nowin somedistant and exoticelsewhere. In thesecond drawing (pen- ciled on theback ofthe first),Rimbaud Among the Kafirs, wearing a cowboyhat, a braceleton each wrist,his nose piercedby an arrow,and witha tie floatingon his barechest, tatooed with a glass and a bottle (one of his arms is also tattooedwith two crossedpipes), the poet exclaimsto a native:"These Kafirs,wonderful hips!" Lastly,in a third drawing,still from 1876, Rimbaud King of the Savages, the poet, com- pletewith pipe and crownand protectedby two body guards, is curled up absurdlyon the seat ofhis royalthrone while two imploringsub- jects,respectfully prostrate at his feet,await his sovereigndecisions. Still in 1876,Germain Nouveau, in a lettersent to Verlaineon 4 August,drew a youngman runningafter his tophat whichhas blown off.When we recall thatthis lettercontains a poem entitled"Negro Landscape,"it is notimpossible to imaginethat this drawing (there is no needfor supplementary evidence given the very high degree of com- plicitybetween the two poets),refers to Rimbaud,off on his African adventures.All theseimages prefigure the "Rimbaud,Now Kingof a Tribeof Savages," of which Maxime Gaucherwould later speak, very pejoratively,in his Causerieslitteraires, 1872-1888, a workpublished in 1890,in whichhe criticizesthe "decadents,"without, of course, understandingthat this Africandestiny is alreadyinscribed in the workof the poet who "aboutitau negrecomme figure privilegiee de l'alteritevoulue, ou meme la seule alteritepossible mais en meme tempsinterdite" [ends up as Negro-the privilegedfigure of willed alterity,or even, the only alterity possible, but at thesame time, forbid- den]:9"Je suis une bete,un negre"[I am a beast,a Negro]exclaims the poet in Une Saison en Enfer.'0In a contradictorydouble movement, Verlaineand Delahayes'drawings accord Rimbaud (even before he set- tled in Africa)the alterityof negritudewhich he had been claiming

9. MichelCourtois, "Le mythedu negrechez Rimbaud," Litterature no. 11, (Octo- ber1973): 85. 10. "Mauvais Sang," Oeuvres Completes,97; trans.Enid RhodesPeschel, "Bad Blood," A Seasonin Hell, 53. Op. cit.,henceforth in thetext as 0. C. and S.H. 102 Yale FrenchStudies since Mauvais Sang, while in largemeasure annulling it, since the figurationconfers a unique and determinate-andthus reassuring- identityon himwho wouldalways escape both others and himself. By depictingRimbaud as a Negro,Verlaine and Delahayefail to capture him,especially given that, once firmlyestablished in Harar,Rimbaud, relentlesslyworking to amass a small capitaland securea life-income foran improbableold-age, was retransformedinto a White,faithful to the commercialand capitalistvalues ofthe West. It is not inconceiv- able thatin Harar,Rimbaud expended a considerablepart of his energy in eludingall identificationin act, as he had formerlydone in poetry: Life"elsewhere" as thepassage to actionof the poetic. In short,the function(if not the only,then at least one of the principalfunctions) of this epistolary triangle, constituted at thetime byPaul Verlaine,Ernest Delahaye, and GermainNouveau seemsto be thefiguration of Rimbaud, whose wanderingsnever ceased to remove him fromtheir sight. The threecorrespondents send a networkof intersectingillustrated letters to compensatefor Rimbaud's absence. Theyplay at "cross-drawings"so thatthey may hold on to theillusion ofknowing who theirformer friend was. WhenErnest Delahaye writes (28 January1877) that "la debaucheillustratoire ... vaut mieuxque tout commentaire" [of illustrations debauchery . .. is worth more thanany commentary] (0. C., 302),he meansfirst and foremost that it alone harborsany hope of catchingup withRimbaud, of recapturing and sabotaginghim, in otherwords, of unmaskinghim and deter- mininghis identity.On 1 May 1875, Verlaine,who in the firstpart of his letterto Delahaye,has just affirmed(by denial,of course)his superbindifference towards Rimbaud, nevertheless concludes with thissymptomatic post-scriptum: "Ne tardepas tropa m'accablerde paragrapheset de dessinset de nouvelles.Nouveau y compris,puisque Nouveau il y a." [Do nothesitate to bombardme withparagraphs and drawingsand news. Nouveau (the new) includedbecause Nouveau (new)there is.]' 1 In thesame vein,in a letterdated 3 Septemberof the same year,he addressesthis pressing advice to him: "Renseigne,can- canne,dessine" (ibid., 109) [Inform,gossip, draw.] Even though Ernest Delahayewas theauthor of many drawings, it was Verlainewho acted as foreman,requesting, inciting, and activatingtheir production. For, farmore implicated and compromised by his past than either Delahaye

11. Correspondancede Paul Verlaine,published from the originalmanuscripts with a prefaceand notes by Ad. Van Bever,(Geneva-Paris: Slatkine Reprints, 1983), vol.3, 108. ALAIN BUISINE 103 orNouveau, he neededto convincehimself that the " Oestre"was, up to a certainpoint, the same. Stillon thepart of the author of the Fetes Galantes, there was this samedesire to bringRimbaud back through the art of caricature which, accordingto Delahaye, he adored: "Il aimait la caricature-pourla gaiete et l'imaginationqui en fontune sortede poeme-et aussi a cause de son goiuitpour le grotesqueet la contorsion.Gill et AlfredLe Petitetaient ses favoris,.... Puis les chosesd'Edm. Morin, a cause de leur vie intenseet de leur non-pretention"a la ligne" (Delahaye te- moin de Rimbaud,194) [He lovedcaricature-for the gaiety and imag- inationwhich make of it a kindof poem-and also becauseof his taste forthe grotesque and forcontorsion. Gill and AlfredLe Petitwere his favorites.... He also liked Edm. Morin'sthings for their intense life andtheir lack ofpretension "to theline"]. In drawing,Rimbaud appre- ciated"l'attitude, le gestecurieux, ou bienl'interpretation amusante, forc6e,perverse, des traitset des mouvements:r6gal pour le poetedes Assis" (ibid.,194) [posture,the curious gesture or theamusing, forced orperverse interpretation of features and movements:majestic for the poetof the Assis]. We stillpossess a fewcaricatures in Rimbaud'sown hand,notably his Daumieresqueshort-winded, nervous Bourgeois, one ofwhom has just receiveda kick in the behind.Rare drawings,very raredrawings, really no morethan a fewdrawings in lettersto Ernest Delahayeand in theAlbum zutique, as thoughRimbaud himself, for whom creationwas firstand foremosta matterof oral imagination, had wishedto leave as fewproperly figurative traces as possible. Of course,the drawingsof Verlaineand his friendsare derisory mockeries,that one shouldnot be too quick to inflatewith an overly weightymetaphysical significance. In this sense, it is not entirely wrongto considerthem the simplecaricatures of a fewundisciplined schoolboysprolonging beyond adolescence the practices of their schooldays:little sketches in themargins of textbooks or dictionaries or on theback ofthe plates in a GeographyAtlas; marginaliarapidly pencilledalongside the exercises in notebooks;caricatures deeply en- gravedfor future generations in thewood of classroom tables, or circu- latedon littlepieces ofpaper under the master's nose; sketchesmade in real lifesituations, on the cornerof a cafetable, by Verlaine,who alwaysliked to drawin pencilrapidly, nervously the faces and postures of his friends.But this is precisely the point.... This was a practice thatwas carelessand clandestine,swift and humorous.These draw- ingsdo not,strictly speaking, constitute a work,they are not in any 104 Yale FrenchStudies sense monumentalized,like those of a VictorHugo, forexample. Moreover,a goodmany of them belonged to a correspondence.Fragile and threatened,precisely because of theiraleatory postal destiny, whichcould ensureonly a precarioussurvival (and thereis no doubt thatmany of them have been lost),capricious and epidermicbecause theyrepercute the dailymoods of the correspondents,they are all the moresymptomatic because theydo not constitutea work. It is apparentby now thatthe goal ofmy analysis is notto compare thegraphic practice of a writerwith his literarywork, in an attemptto determinethe modesof articulation, aesthetic, phantasmal, or other, of writingand drawing.My concernis ratherto measurehow the graphicinterventions of his friendsliterally symptomatized reaction to the Rimbaldianposture, with all thatwas inconceivableand even unbearablefor those who had by no means decidedto go to such ex- tremesor to takesuch risks. I also wantto examinehow these interven- tions,even if they were burlesque in tone,attempted to normalizehis situationby integrating the ex-poetwithin a relativelycoded destiny which,if not completelybanal and predictable,at least conformedto certainexistential schemas with which othershad alreadyexperi- mented.Thus, when around 1876, Verlaine drew a Rimbaudin suitand top-hat,arriving at the stationand shouting"M . . . a la Daromphe! J'foul'campa "Wien!"" [Sh-to Daromphe!I'm offto "Wien],he re- duces the escapadeto thekind of passing crisis which all adolescents experienceat some timeor other, by entitling his sketch"Les voyages forment1juinesse" [Travel broadens the mind of the young]. So thisis just a case of momentaryrebellion against the mother.... One reas- suresoneself as bestone can!

"Au matinj'avais le regardsi perduet la contenancesi morte,que ceux que j'ai rencontresne m 'ontpeut-etrepasvu, " (Inthe morning, I'd have such a lost look and such a dead countenancethat those whom I en- counteredpossibly did not see me),writes Rimbaud in Une Saison en Enfer(0. C., 97; SH, 53).If Rimbaud takes pains to underscore these few words,it is becausehe is referringto SaintMatthew's Gospel (XIII, 13): "because seeingthey do not see, and hearingthey do nothear, nor do theyunderstand."'2 Rimbaud would remaininvisible to those who encountered,without really seeing him. Alreadyabsent, in other

12. As JeanLuc Steinmetzsuggests in his editionof Une Saison en Enfer(Paris: Garnier-Flammarion,1989), 196. ALAIN BUISINE 105 words,impossible to delimitand to identify,even when he was still physicallypresent ... This beingthe case, one can betterunderstand why, in the only sketchwhich represents the threecomrades, Delahaye, Verlaine, and Nouveautogether, the artist represents himself with a telescopewhich he needs to see the poet. This drawing,Rimbaud "versdes horizons inconnus,"is by farthe most complexof the seriesundertaken by Delahaye.Lazily sprawledon a mountainslope, with his backturned to the scene,Germain Nouveau puffsat his cigar:"Nouveau qui s'en fiche"['Nouveau, not caringless'], specifies Delahaye. Under the sea, just beneaththe surface,floats Rimbaud's face. "La lune qui rigole" "sertde chapeaua Rimbe"['The laughing moon"is a hatfor Rimbe']. A modernversion of Aeolus, the ancient god of the winds, Verlaine blows intohis pipethe lid ofwhich is actuallya "marvellous"steamer, carry- ingthe poet off "vers les horizonsinconnus, " as, fromthe boat's chim- ney,there rises a vastplume of smoke. In otherwords, this subaquatic Rimbaud,as he headsfor the farthest destinations, is no longervisible to his friends:Nouveau has completelygiven up tryingto see him; Delahayepersists with the aid ofa telescope.As forVerlaine, far from tryingfor the umpteenthtime to meet with,to catch up with his friend,he now blows to hasten his flight.And if the solid steamer whichbears Rimbaud away is nothinglike a drunkenship [bateau ivre] it will carrythe poet offall the moresurely on his definitiveexile. He has gone.... But thenwho saw thepoet beforehis departure? Andindeed, was he reallyseen? Yes, he was in factseen, as FelixF6neon findsit necessaryto emphasize,remarking, in a finearticle published in The Symbolistin October 1886 that,"tandis que l'oeuvre,enfin publiee,enthousiasme plusieurs personnes et en effarequelques autres,l'homme devient indistinct. Deja son existencese conteste,et Rimbaudflotte en ombremythique sur les symbolistes.Pourtant des genslont vu,vers 1870. Des portraitsle perpetuent"[while the work, which has at last been published,fills some with enthusiasmand otherswith trepidation, the man is becomingindistinct. His existence is alreadybeing contested, and Rimbaudfloats like a mythicshadow over the symbolists.However, people did see him in around 1870. Portraitsrecall him). 13 Rimbaudwas notyet dead, and it had beenonly six yearssince his definitivedeparture for Africa, yet it was already

13. "ArthurRimbaud, Les Illuminations,"in Oeuvresplus que compltes, texts assembledand presented by Joan U. Halperin(Geneva and Paris: Droz, 1970),vol. 2, 572. 106 Yale FrenchStudies necessaryto giveproof of his existence,to compensatefor his disap- pearance.

The sun, shiningwith all its rayswore a broadsmile that day,the betterto show how generouslyit warmsthe Earth.In a field,a thin, beardedpeasant wearing a tall,pointed hat witha birdperched atop, restsfor a fewminutes, leaning on his spade. Alonga path,another peasantcomes towards him, he too is wearingclogs and a tall,pointed hat.The firstpeasant, noticing the arrival of this acquaintance whom he had doubtlessnot expected to see exclaims:"Well, well! " whilethe otherimmediately replies: "Oh, sh-! " Needless to say,the former is none otherthan Verlaine, at the time whenhe was doinghis best to takecare of his ruralaffairs in Juinville,to thesouth of Rethel, and the latterRimbaud who, scarcely thirty kilometers away, was workingfor his motherat the Roche farm,prior to his imminentdeparture for Cyprus.This drawingby Delahaye, "Rencontreimaginaire de Rim- baud et de Verlaine,"which was executedsome six yearsafter those analyzedabove, is like a fullstop, bringing to a close the attemptat a graphicresurrection of Rimbe. It's over! The poetof The Illuminations has finallytorn himself away, and eventhe sketches of earlier days will no longerserve any purpose.

Is itpure chance that the victim of one ofthe most memorable disputes betweenArthur Rimbaud and one ofhis contemporaries,was thepho- tographerEtienne Carjat, who producedportraits, notably of Rimbaud himself?It was in 1872, at thetime when Verlaine and his friendsheld theirassises* "on the firstfloor of a wine merchantoccupying the cornerof the rue Bonaparte and Place Saint-Sulpice,opposite a second- handbookstore." (Preface, 0.C., 963). One Februaryor Marchevening at the VilainsBonshommes [a literarydinner], Rimbaud, excited from too muchalcohol, apparently punctuated with a resounding"shit" an abusiverecital of an unendingstream of poems. "Sur quoi, M. Etienne Carjat,le photographe-poetede qui le recitateuretait l'ami litteraireet artistique,s'interposa trop vite et tropvivement .. . , traitantl'inter- rupteurde gamin.... Rimbaud,qui se trouvaitgris, prit mal la chose, se saisitd'une canne-epee a moi ... , etpar dessus la tablelarge de pres de deux metres,dirigea vers M. Carjat . . . la lame degainee"[Upon which,M. EtienneCarjat, the photographer-poet ofwhom the reciter

*A roughequivalent would be "heldcourt in.... " Translator'snote. ALAIN BUISINE 107 was a literaryand artisticfriend, intervened too hastilyand withtoo much force..., callingthe offendingspeaker a brat.... Rimbaud, who was drunk,took it badly,seized a sword-stickof mine, and across the table,which was almost two meterswide, aimed the unsheated bladeat M. Carjat. . . .") Reportedly,M. Carjat,horrified by this attack, evenif he had sufferedonly a veryminor graze to his hand,destroyed, withthe exception of the two which still survive,all theother photo- graphicplates of Rimbaudwhich he keptin his studioin rue Notre- Dame-de-Lorette.Even if this is merelegend, it is appealingand satis- fyingbecause it alreadyinscribes an initialeffacement of Rimbaud's face.And how can one notrelate the destruction of these negatives to thedisappearance of the fourself-caricatures of Rimbaud, which Ver- laine was so fondof and which he had leftwith his wifein the rue Nicolet? When these disappearances(accidental or not, this is no longerat issue),begin to forma series,they also shape a destiny. A furtherconsequence of this scandalousoutburst against Carjat was thatsome ofthe artists originally approached by Fantin-Latour to figurein his Coin de Table did not wish to be presentin the canvas besidethe couple formed by Verlaine and Rimbaud. It was thusthat the poetAlbert Merat refused, and that Fantin-Latour compensated for his own defectionwith a hugevase offlowers. The presenceof Rimbaud was thussufficient to createan absence,to erasea face ...

Rimbaud,he is impossibleto figureout and impossibleto figure?But had nothis sisterIsabelle succeeded in representinghim in a drawing whichshe had givento the editorLeon Vanier,A Rimbaudin oriental costume,playing the Abyssinianharp? One mightin truthwonder howsuch a graphicexploit had provedpossible, given that Isabelle had neverbeen to Abyssinia!In reality,Isabelle Rimbaud (as SteveMurphy has demonstrated)had merelytraced a drawingby a certainE. Ronjat, based on a photographtaken by MessieursChefneux and Audon to illustratean articleby Audon, published in theTour du Mondein 1889 and entitled"Voyage au Choa." Thoughit is truethat Audon (one of thecreditors of his associateLabatut) suffered the same misfortunes as Rimbaud,since, following a gangrenousinfection he had to have his rightfoot amputated and return to France, there is absolutelyno reason to thinkthat his harpistwas in factRimbaud. And in any event,this harpistwas actuallya Negro whom Isabelle whitened:her sketch "gardefidelement la positionque le dessindu Tourdu Mondedonnait a la tete,se contentantquant a elle de la rendreplus emaciee,de la doter 108 Yale FrenchStudies d'une moustacheplus europeennequi cache le haut des levreset de reduirel'apparence crepue des cheveux"[faithfully retains the position ofthe head in thedrawing which appeared in Roundthe World, merely renderingit moreemaciated, endowing it witha moreEuropean mous- tachewhich conceals the upper lip, and reducing the kinky appearance ofthe hair].14 But themost astonishing thing is that,having seen this sketchat Vanier's,Verlaine was so convincedby it that he wrotea poem "Des clientsperdus se tanneront.A. Rimbaud:La Saison en enfer"[Lost clients will gettanned. A. Rimbaud:The Seasonin Hell"], dedicated"a ArthurRimbaud, d'apres un dessinde sa soeur"[to Arthur Rimbaud,after a drawingby his sister"]: Toimort, mort! mort! Mais mort du moins tel que tuveux, Ennegre blanc, en sauvagesplendidement Civilise,civilisant negligemment . . . Youdead, dead! dead! But at leastdead as youwish, As a whiteNegro, as a savagesplendidly Civilized,civilizing negligently....15 Therecan be no doubtthat Verlaine wanted nothing more than to be convinced.What a pleasurefor him to see his Rimbaudreincarnated in a lyricalimage, even if deep down he suspectedthat this naive image was a merecounterfeit! Too bad! Whatcounted was thathe manifest himself,that he appearto his worshippers. This initialsketch by Rimbaud's sister was to generatea wholeline offaux-Rimbauds, since PaterneBerrichon's Rimbaud vers trente ans was inspiredby it, and Isabelle herselfreturned to thisfirst matrix in latersketches. Thus, forexample, the drawingsof Rimbaudshortly beforehis death,which she claimed to have done frommemory in 1896,are in factnothing but clumsyvariations on thisinitial tracing. Her ArthurRimbaud mourant conserves the inclinationof the head and a traceof the hair from the drawing which appeared in theTour du Monde.As forher Rimbaud a' Rocheof 1891,which strangely resembles a colonial soldier,one ofPierre Loti's Spahissurprisingly lost in the Ardenneswilderness, it once again has recourseto the same physiognomy. Andas ifthis were not enough, Isabelle would feel herself obliged to

14. SteveMurphy, "'J'ai tous les talents":Rimbaud harpiste et dessinateur,'34. 15. PaulVerlaine, Oeuvrespodtiques completes, ed. Jacques Borel (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothequede la Plkiade,1962), 601. ALAIN BUISINE 109 producedrawings-purported to be in Rimbaud'sown hand!-of the distantcountries in which he had sojourned,and this by the same method-tracing.In fact,as SteveMurphy has shown,these drawings ("Environsde Farre.Abyssinie", "La maisonde Soleillet,""Ankober"), whichhave sometimes been attributed to Rimbaudwere in facttraced by Isabelle fromillustrations which appearedin the Tourdu Monde whichshe had bought to informherself about this mysterious region of Choa whereher brother was trafficking. In short,it was once again,as always,a questionof compensating fora lack,a hauntingabsence. For it doesnot suffice to saythat Isabelle soughtto consolidateand turnto profither brother's growing fame by churningout faux-Rimbauds.In a moreprofound sense, she too symp- tomatizedthe unbearableimpossibility of havinga pictureof her brotheron hand."La vie etrangeet legendairede Rimbaud,son destin hache et les mysteresqu'il exhaleconstituent une veritableprovoca- tionaux identifications"[The strangeand legendarylife of Rimbaud, his fragmenteddestiny and themystery which emanates from it constitutea veritableincitement to identification];16and Isabellewould respondto thisincitement by engendering, with the self-serving assis- tanceof her husband, a whole,reassuring line ofRimbauds, which has comfortablysurvived to thepresent day, a reflectionof our incapacity to figurethe "true" Rimbaud.When Yves Bonnefoyinsists that it is "indecentque l'on s'acharnea suivreles tracesde qui a faitretour a l'existenceanonyme" [it is indecentto pursuethe tracesof someone who has returnedto an anonymousexistence,]17 he is incontestably right,except that in thiscase-and thischanges almost everything- theanonymity, far from being the simpleresult of circumstances and distance,is also a Rimbaldiangesture, a creation.In his case theefface- mentis concerted.

Indeed,all thistrumped-up and inflationaryiconography produced by thefamily would ultimately meet its matchin themost derisory self- portraitimaginable: purely abstract, as we now sayof a certainkind of painting.But beforereaching this extreme, Rimbaud had firsttried to short-circuithis legendthrough his photographicself-portraits. The

16. Alainde Mijolla,'Rimbaud multiple', in Rimbaudmultiple,Colloque de Cerisy (Gourdon,D. Bedou,1986), 223. 17. YvesBonnefoy, Rimbaud parlui-mdme (Paris: Editions du Seuil,coil. "Ecrivains de toujours," 1961),173. 110 Yale FrenchStudies movefrom drawings to photographsis in itselfalready significant: a movefrom the old techniquesof representation to theindustrial age of technicalreproducibility. It is obviouslyalways possible to overinvest, affectivelyand aesthetically,in the threenegatives which we possess ofArthur Rimbaud, to overemphasizetheir dramatic sobriety. It nev- erthelessremains true that they represent a degrezero of exoticism whencompared to the flashinessand picturesquesnessof Orientalist iconography,mass-produced in Francein thewake of the famous plates whichMaxime du Camp broughtback from his journeyto Egyptin the companyof Gustave Flaubert.Nothing could be starkerthan Rim- baud's self-portraits:if one of themrepresents him "les brascroises, dans un jardinde bananes" [armsfolded, in a gardenof banana-trees] whose[very relative] luxuriance could, up to a certainpoint, evoke the fertilityof an oasis, the two others,on the otherhand, select ascetic decors:in the first,he is half-wayup a stonyhillock coveredwith scrawnyscrubs, in the second he is on a terrace,one hand on the railing,the otherpressed to the collarof his jacket.In neitheris there anythingwhich might cause his familyto fantasizeabout the fabulous dimensionof his exoticodyssey. And thiscomplete absence of pictur- esque appears even more pronouncedwhen these self-portraitsare comparedwith any of Rimbaud's other negatives-those which were meant to be sold, commercialized-his douboulas-makerphoto- graphedin Hararin 1883,sitting next to two largecolumns, makes a goodpseudoethnographic post-card, of the kindfavored by the innu- merablephotographers who held swayin the Frenchcolonies at the beginningof the twentiethcentury. In the same way,when Sottirois also photographednext to some banana trees(though this time they werein the foreground,so thattheir indented foliage would givethe effectof an oasis),he takeson an appearancewhich is bothpicturesque andmartial, very Tartarin de Tarascon,complete with hat and his gun. To all appearances,Rimbaud scrupulously reserves for others anything whichcreates a spectacle.As forhimself, he recoilsfrom it ... "Ceci est simplementpour rappeler ma figure,et vous donnerune ideedes paysages d'ici" [Thisis onlyto recallmy face and to giveyou an idea ofthe countryside hereabouts],18 Rimbaud warns in a letterto his familyon 6 May 1883,to whichhe adjoinstwo of his self-portraits.In

18. Oeuvres completes, 365. Trans. Paul Schmidt in Arthur Rimbaud, Complete works(New York:Harper and Row,1967), 259. ALAIN BUISINE 1ll otherwords, from his pointof view, such portraitscontain nothing of the aura thatwas beginningto surroundhim in France.Their only valuewas thatof a "degrezero" offiguration and of the face. A mimetic objectificationof the currentstate of his person,purely mechanical, whichcorresponds to his new dreamsof engineering. He also remarks that "tout cela est devenublanc a cause des mauvaiseseaux qui me serventa laver"[It has all becomepale becauseof the bad waterI have to use forrinsing them] (Rimbaud, 0. C., 396; Schmidt,259), as though the threatof effacementmust inevitably overtake any portraitof Ar- thurRimbaud." . . . I1 me blanchitun cheveupar minute.Depuis le temps que qa dure,je crains d'avoir bientotune tete comme une houppepoudree" [.. . it is turningme whiteat therate of one haira minute.With the time thatit takes,I fearthat my head will soon be likea powder-puff],(ibid., 382), Rimbaud would write to his motherin 1890.The blanchingof negatives and hair.As thoughall thingswere indeedin leagueto preventthe image of Arthur from ever crystallizing. Less thantwo years later, in theletter to hisfamily dated 15 January 1885,Rimbaud abandons even this simple mimeticreminder of his person"Je ne vous envoiepas ma photographie;j'e6vite les fraisinu- tiles.Je suis d'ailleurstoujours mal habille;on ne peutse vetirici que de cotonnadestres legeres" [I am not sendingyou my photograph;I carefullyavoid all useless expenses. Moreover,I'm always badly dressed;all cne can wearhere is verylight cotton].19 But do thecost of the views and the relative,very relative eccentricity of his clothing reallyserve to justifythe abandonmentof these photographicdis- patches?In thiscase, the expense is doubtlessa merepretext, justifying theway in whichhe himselfcontrived his owneffacement by refusing to transmithis image. His refusalof all vestimentarybaroque is in keepingwith this concerted strategy, for it signifiesRimbaud's refusal ofall visiblesigns which might bring him to another'sattention. The result:a virtuallyanonymous Rimbaud, except to themembers of his family,who knewhim beforeand could recognizehim in spiteof his changes.As earlyas 1883, when the SecretaryGeneral of the Geo- graphicalSociety of Paris, which at thetime wished to "collectin its Albumsthe portraits of those people who had made a namefor them- selvesin thegeographical sciences and in travel(Schmidt, 382), asked

19. Ibid.,396. Trans.Wallace Fowlie in Rimbaud,Collected Works, Selected Letters (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1966), 347. 112 Yale FrenchStudies him to sendhis photograph,Rimbaud did not respondto therequest. Andeven if he confidedto hisfamily his fear of disappearing "au milieu de ces peupladesdu Harar,sans que la nouvelleen ressortejamais" [in the midst of these tribes,without news of me ever gettingout] (Schmidt,365, Fowlie,343), he actuallyseemed to do everythingin his powerto programthis forgetting. Rimbaud'slast drawingwould radicalizethis occultationof his body.Since the beginning of the year 1891, his kneehad beenswelling continuously,and was increasinglycausing him atrocious pain. It was absolutelyessential that he returnto Franceto be treated,but the pain was bythen so intense,the ankylosis so debilitative,that he couldno longereither walk orride. He thereforedecided to havehimself trans- portedon a stretcher,and at thebeginning of April he himselfdrew up a planfor its construction.This litterstrangely resembles a coffinawait- ingits corpse. It was actuallya sortof long crate with two shafts for the bearers,simply surmounted at eitherend by stems woven into an upside-downV, bound together by another bar, doubtless supposed to supporta clothwhich would protectthe invalidfrom the oppressive ardorof the sun. An almostabstract geometry of design, an engineer's workingdrawing, bare and aridlike thetravel journal which he would keep duringhis evacuation.L'Itineraire de Harar a Warambotis indeed nothingmore than a minimalistlisting of time-tables,depar- tures,arrivals and namesof places traversed, of a terriblestenographic dryness,in thesame waythat the stretcher is itselfreduced to thebare minimum. Self-portraitof thepoet in the formof an emptystretcher-it was all as thoughRimbaud retained only the emptyframe: frame of the litterand frameof the painting.The bodyhad disappeared.In other words,the Rimbaldiansilence, which has provokedso much discourse,is complemented,reduplicated by his visual effacement.Rim- baud was so forcefullypropelled into all his undertakings,even his catastrophicreturn to Europe,that he leftnothing tangible or visible behindhim: "l'existencede Rimbaudparait comme n'ayantpas de cheminde retour,comme n'6tant pas une construction.Elle ne peutse stabiliser,ne peutprolonger le present,present qui n'existememe pas parcequ'il se consumeavant meme de s'installer,comme une tracequi s'effaceau momentmeme ouielle se marque" [Rimbaud'sexistence appearsto have no returnroad, not to be a construction.It cannotbe stabilized,it cannotprolong the present, a presentwhich doesn't even ALAIN BUISINE 113 exist,for it is consumed beforeit can even take hold, like a trace erased in the verymoment that it is made].20 "Tout ecrivainlaisse apres lui, aux yeux de son lecteur,une sortede spectre. Mais s'il est tellement difficilede se representerRimbaud (et d'abord physiquement),n'est-ce pas parce que nous eprouvonsa le lire la vaine obsession qui futla sienne: voler un jour, en meme temps que le feu, sa propreimage? " [In the eyes of theirreaders, all writersleave behind them a kind of ghost. But if it is so verydifficult to represent Rimbaud (to begin with, physically),is it not because in readinghim, we feel his own vain obsession of one day stealing,along with fire,his own image?//]21 But steal it from whom? From himself, in order to avoid seeing himself rapidly ageing in his absurd commercial evolu- tion into a shopkeeper?Or fromothers, to preventthem fromcontem- plating his portraitbecause, no longera poet, he is no one? In fact,it is really a matter of stealing it simultaneously from others and from himself.Of fleeingfrom any recognizable image which would involve a congelation, a fixtureof identity.

Is there any need to emphasize that Rimbaud produced the most ab- stractimage ofhimself at a time when his bodywas making its horrible returnin the most caricatural manner possible? He became his very own caricature-Arthur Rimbaud as a pumpkin:

... je suis reduita 1'etatde squelettepar cette maladie de ma jambegauche qui est devenuea presentenorme et ressemblea une enormecitrouille. ... I have shrunkto the stateof a skeletonthrough this sickness in myleft leg whichhas now becomehuge and looks like a huge pumpkin.

["Letter to his mother and sister," O. C., 665; Fowlie, 361.1 ArthurRimbaud as hunchback, as a hopping marionnette: . . . De tempsen temps,je me leve et sautilleune centainede pas surmes b6quilles,et je me rassois.Mes mainsne peuventrien tenir. Jene puis,en marchant,d6tourner la tetede mon seul pied et du

20. LiviusCiocarlie, "Le 'texte'de la correspondanceafricaine de Rimbaud,"Arthur Rimbaud,no. 3, La revuedes lettresmodernes (Paris: Minard, 1976), 33. 21. G6rardMac6, "Rimbaud 'recentlydeserted,"' ex libris (Paris: Gallimard, 1980),74. 114 Yale FrenchStudies boutdes b6quilles,la tfteet les 6pauless'inclinent en avant,et vous bombezcomme un bossu. Voustremblez de voirles objetset les gens se mouvoirautour de vous,crainte qu'on ne vous renversepour vous casserla secondepatte. On ricanea vous voirsautiller. Rassis, vous avez les mains 6nerv6eset l'aisselle sci6e,et la figured'un idiot. ... Everyonce in a whileI getup and hop a fewsteps on my crutchesthen I sit downagain. I can't hold anythingin myhands. WhenI walk,I can't turnmy face from my single foot and the ends ofmy crutches. My head and shoulderssink, I look like a hunchback.You tremblewhen you see thingsand peoplemoving all aroundyou, for fear they'll knock you overand breakthe leg you have left.People laugh to see youhopping around. You sit back down,your hands are wornout, your shoulder is sawedthrough, you look like a lunatic.["Letter to his sisterIsabelle," 15 July1891, O. C., 690; Schmidt,2931 Even in their most malicious sketches, for example, when they imagine Rimbaud in a cellar, lying dead drunk in frontof two barrels, Delahaye and Verlainehad not dared to go so far.Once again, Rimbaud had roundlydefeated them. He himself became the grotesque puppet, the living caricature, even more lopsided than the "doddering old fools" ("gacteux")whom he had mercilessly sketched as a child. Al- ready,with his stay in Harar drawingto a close, he felthimself becom- ing an object of curiosity: Jeregrette de ne pouvoirfaire un toura l'Expositioncette ann6e.... Ce sera doncpour la prochaine;et a la prochaineje pourraiexposer peut-etre les produitsde ce pays,et, peut-etre, m'exposermoi-meme, car je croisqu'on doitavoir l'air excessivementbaroque apres un longsejour dans les payscomme ceux-ci. I'm sorryI can't come to visitthe Exposition this year.... I'll save it forthe next one; and at thenext one maybeI can exhibitthe productsof this country, and maybeexhibit myself; I thinkyou must getto look exceedinglybaroque after a longstay in a place like this.

["Letterto his mother and sister," 18 May 1889, O. C., 543; Schmidt, 274.] In other words, firsta little in Harar, and then verybrutally when his leg swelled monstrouslybefore it had to be amputated in Marseille, Rimbaud took on the appearance of the caricatures which had de- lightedhis friends,but at an inopportunemoment, ten yearslater. Now ALAIN BUISINE 115 thathis workswere more and morewidely circulated, and his fame as a poetwas beingestablished, he becamethe grotesque by which he had once beenportrayed. Yet again,he escapedthe image which might be held ofhim.

By way of an apologia to these few annotatedvignettes whose sole purposeis to markthe effects of impossible identificatory assignation alwaysproduced by the false presence of the poet, I offerthis last return ofArthur Rimbaud, in thesacred form of an icon.It was on 8 June1899 when,in a church,the mother saw, once again,in a kindof hallucina- tion,her Arthur who had been dead forseven long years: Hier donc,je venaisd'arriver a la messe,j'6tais encore a genoux faisantma priere,lorsque arrive pres de moi quelqu'un,a qui je ne faisaispas attention;et je vois posersous mes yeuxcontre le pilier une b6quille,comme le pauvreArthur en avaitune. Jetourne ma tete,et je restean6antie: c'6tait bien Arthur lui-meme: meme taille, memeage, meme figure, peau blanchegrisatre, point de barbe,mais de petitesmoustaches; et puis une jambede moins;et ce garqonme regardaitavec une sympathieextraordinaire. II ne m'a pas 6t6 possible,malgr6 tous mes efforts,de retenirmes larmes,larmes de douleurbien sfir,mais il y avaitau fondquelque chose que je ne sauraisexpliquer. Je croyais bien que c'6taitmon filsbien-aime qui 6taitpres de moi. So yesterday,I had just gotto Mass, I was stillon myknees sayingmy prayer, when someone came up besideme, I wasn'tpaying attentionto him; thenbefore my eyes, I saw a crutchlike poor Arthurhad beinglayed against the pillar. I turnedmy head to look, and was completelyovercome: it was Arthurhimself: same height, same age,same face,his skina grayishwhite, no beard,but a little moustache;and thenhe had one leg missingtoo; and thisboy was lookingat me withsuch extraordinarytenderness. I couldn'tin spite ofall my efforts,hold backmy tears, tears of pain, of course, but deepdown there was somethingwhich I can't explain.I truly believedthat it was mybeloved son who was bymy side.22 Rimbaud,finally resembling himself so thathis mothercould rec- ognizeand bless him. The Assumptionof the hallowed son (cf.,Gerard Mace; "Rimbaud'recently deserted,"' 70-71). The hallucinationthus

22. Letterfrom Mme Rimbaudto her daughterIsabelle, 9 July1899, quoted in MadameRimbaud, essai de biographiesuivi dela correspondancede VitalieRim baud- Cuifby Suzanne Briet (Paris: Minard, Lettres modernes, 1968), 108. 116 Yale FrenchStudies had exactlythe same functionas the earliersketches by Verlaine and Delahaye: thatof givinga faceto the one who had alwaysfrustrated others'desire to capturehim. In thesame guise, when Allen Ginsberg, mythical figure of the Beat generation,told his friendsthat he clearlysaw the ghostof the poet whenin 1982 he sleptat 5 bis, quai de la Madeleine,where Rimbaud had livedwith his mother,what was he sayingif not thatRimbaud, now in theheaven of poetry, is a saint,and can appearto thefaithful? And indeedit sufficesto be a believer,as Verlainealready was. But whenone considersthe relentlessness with which Rimbaldians track Rimbaud,piously collectingthe most minordocuments and testi- mony,to attaina betterknowledge of who he was, arethey not all, are we notall, believers?For this is doubtlessthe only way of coming to an acceptableand bearablecompromise with the Absolute,which sub- sistsonly in its perpetualwithdrawal.23 -Translated byMadeleine Dobie

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Abeles,Luce. Fantin-Latour:Coin de table, Verlaine,Rimbaud et les VilainsBons- hommes.Paris: Les Dossiersdu Mus6ed'Orsay, 18, Editions de la Reuniondes mus6es nationaux,1987. Carr6,Jean-Marie. Autour de Verlaineet de Rimbaud,dessins inedits de Paul Verlaine, de GermainNouveau et d'ErnestDelahaye. Paris: CahiersJacques Doucet, 1949. . Dessins d'6crivainsfrangais auxXIXeme sicle. Paris:Maison de Balzac,1983- 84. Guyax,Andr6, and H6elne Dufour.Arthur Rimbaud. Portraits, dessins, manuscrits. Paris:Les dossiersdu Mus6e d'Orsay,Editions de la r6uniondes mus6esnationaux, 1991.[To date, this is themost complete and reliablevolume devoted to Rimbaldian iconography.] Etiemble,Ren6. "Supplement ou complementaux iconographiesd'Arthur Rimbaud," in Le Mythede Rimbaud:Genese du mythe.Paris: Gallimard, 1954. Houin,Charles. "Iconographie d'Arthur Rimbaud." Revue dArdenne et dArgonne1 1, 1901and Le SagittaireOctober-November, 1901. Matarasso,Henri, and PierrePetitfils. Album Rimbaud. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade,1967. Murphy,Steve. "'J'ai tous les talents!':Rimbaud harpiste et dessinateur,"Parade sau- vage,Bulletin 6, 1990. Petitfils,Pierre. Album Verlaine.Paris: Gallimard, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade,1981. Regamey,Felix. Verlainedessinateur. Paris: Floury,1896, reprint,Geneva: Slatkine, 1981.

23. To reducethe number of notes in thisarticle to a minimum,I am providinghere an alphabeticallyarranged bibliography of the principal books and articles devoted to the drawingsof Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.See SelectBibliography. ALAIN BUISINE 117

Ruchon,Francois. Rimbaud. Documentsiconographiques. Geneva: EditionsPierre Cailler,1947. . Verlaine.Documents iconographiques. Geneva: Editions Pierre Cailler, 1947. Taute,St6phane. Arthur Rimbaud dans les collectionsmunicipales de Charleville- Mezieres.Charleville-Mezieres, 1966,1969. Van Bever,Ad. and MauriceMonda. Bibliographieet iconographiede Paul Verlaine. Paris:Messein, 1926.