SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS STEFAN ZWEIG'S COPY OF RIMBAUD, UNE SAISON EN ENFER (1873) Chris Michaelides IN 1908 Stefan Zweig was given a copy of the baud through his contacts with Verlaine's first edition of Rimbaud's Une Saison en enfer; socialist friends in London and Brussels.** the volume now forms part of the Zweig Rimbaud distributed half a dozen copies to Collection in the British Library.^ The verso friends: four went to J-L. Forain in Paris, for of the front wrapper bears the inscription: Forain himself, Jean Richepin, Raoul Ponchon, A Monsieur and possibly Raoul Gineste; two were given Stefan Zweig, to friends in Charleville, Ernest Delahaye and en souvenir des journees Ernest Millot, and one was sent to Verlaine, passees avec E Verhaeren by then in prison at Mons for his attack on au Caillou & a Angre Rimbaud.^ Mons, le 8. X. '08 In 1883, in his 'Poetes maudits', Verlaine Bien cordialement, wrote that Une Saison en enfer had been O. Van den Daele completely forgotten because its author, having Aware of the rarity of this item, Zweig wrote lost interest in it, had not taken the trouble to on the inside of its box: promote it:'^ Verlaine himself tried to remedy Originalausgabe. Die gesammte Auflage wurde bis this neglect by publishing the work in La Vogue auf ungefahr sieben Exemplare vom Verfasser ver- in 1886.^ Verlaine's view was elaborated when, nichtet: dies eines der erhaltenen Rarissimum [sic] after Rimbaud's death in 1891, a legend that der franzosischen Literatur.^ the poet had destroyed the entire edition began Une Saison en enfer has the peculiar distinc- to gain currency, the gesture being interpreted tion of being the only book that Rimbaud as a youthful renunciation of literature on the himself had published. The work was written part of the eighteen-year old poet.® This legend between April and August 1873, the turbulent was created at first by the bibliophiles who period which saw his disastrous last stay in owned one of the rare copies and reinforced London with Verlaine, and their final separa- by the recollection of Rimbaud's youngest tion after the incident in Brussels in which sister, Isabelle, that, soon after the printing of Verlaine shot and wounded Rimbaud; it was the work, Rimbaud returned to Roche and completed by Rimbaud at Roche, his family's burned all the copies in his possession, together farmhouse near Charleville.-* The volume was with all his manuscripts.^ Paterne Berrichon, printed in Brussels during September and who published the first full-length biography October by the Alliance typographique, a wor- of Rimbaud in 1897, the year of his marriage kers' co-operative probably known to Rim- to Isabelle, takes up this story but adds that 199 Rimbaud saved a few copies for distribution to realizing their importance.^^ When this was triends in Paris.'** In his 1912 study of the poet, revealed to him: Berrichon places the holocaust after Rimbaud's . il lacha les exemplaires de la precieuse edition return from Paris, the indifference and hostility au compte-goutte.'^ J'en detiens un—comme il s'en which he had met there determining him to doit. Emile Verhaeren, Stefan Zweig, Viele-Griffin abandon literature." ^^ quelques autres ecrivains ou amateurs de ma This was the accepted view until 1914, connaissance en ont re9u un'cadeau'. when, in a lecture delivered to the Societe des Pierard's version would seem to be more bibliopbiles et iconophiles de Belgique, Leon convincing as an explanation ofthe long interval Losseau, a lawyer from Mons, announced his between Losseau's discovery in 1901 and its discovery in 1901 ofthe entire print-run ofthe revelation in 1914. Losseau's explanation ofthe original edition of Une Saison en enfer in delay is hardly helped by his expressed in- the workshop of the Alliance typographique in tention of distributing copies to the Societe des Brussels.'^ Losseau claimed that, by checking bibliophiles beiges seant a Mons and this body the printer's account books, he had established was, in any case, limited by its rules to fifty that Rimbaud had made an initial payment for members.^'' However, if Pierard's account is the printing but had failed to settle the account the right one, the inscription on Zweig's copy and that, of the five hundred copies printed, demonstrates that the discovery ofthe edition he had received no more than a dozen author's must have occurred in or before October 1908. copies. The rest remained forgotten in the Whatever the exact sequence of events, both printer's storeroom until they were accidentally accounts agree that the presentation of a copy discovered twenty-eight years later. After an of Une Saison en enfer to Zweig was made at unspecified number of copies, badly damaged the instance of a third party, and Pierard more by water, had been burnt, Losseau was left or less names himself as the instigator of with 425 copies, which, with the half dozen Losseau's gifts. Here Pierard's claim is borne given away to friends by Rimbaud, comprised out by the signature 'O. Van den Daele' in the surviving edition. Zweig's copy. Van den Daele was Pierard's Losseau states, rather unconvincingly, that teacher and friend, and the dedicatee of Pier- his main reason for buying the edition was to ard's first poems,'London Sketches';'^ perhaps present copies of it to his fellow members of he was also the friend with whom Pierard the Societe des bibliophiles beiges seant a Mons discovered the edition in Losseau's attic. when they next met at his house. To do this Zweig's copy was given to him as a souvenir he had had to wait until 24 November 1912!^^ ofthe days spent in the company of Verhaeren In the meantime he gave copies to a few close at Caillou qui Bique, a hamlet near Angre, in friends, whom he swore to secrecy, and, upon the Walloon district (fig. i). Zweig first met a request made to him, distributed others to Verhaeren in 1902 and soon became his close Emile Verhaeren, Maurice Maeterlinck, Viele- friend and disciple.'^ Their friendship, which Griffin, and Stefan Zweig.'"^ was to last until the outbreak of the First World This account by Losseau has been contested War,^^ was mutually beneficial: Zweig, through by Louis Pierard, the Belgian journalist, poet, his translations of Verhaeren's poems and plays and art critic. In an article published in 1942, made his name, hitherto confused with that of Pierard claimed that 'around 1912' he and a Verlaine, familiar to German readers,^^ while friend discovered, in the attic of Losseau's Verhaeren introduced his young disciple to house, over 250 copies of Une Saison en enfer Parisian literary and artistic circles. During the which'Losseau had bought as part ofthe entire period of their friendship, Verhaeren spent the stock of the Alliance typographique, without winter months in Paris and the rest of the year 200 qui ne faisait que passer, fugitif, mais devenait partie de la maison, partageait le pain, les heures et le silence." Pierard, a native of near-by Frameries, lived until 1911 at Mons, where he was involved in the publication of Antee and La Societe nouvelle, both of them reviews to which Verhaeren was an occasional contributor. He was introduced to Verhaeren while still at school, probably by Van den Daele, and, like Zweig, he quickly became a privileged visitor at Caillou.^ In 1907 he dedicated his Images boraines to Verha- eren and, in an article published in La Societe nouvelle in 1908, he describes Verhaeren recit- ing his recently completed play Helene de Sparte to a gathering of friends at the cottage: . et Verhaeren commence sa lecture, le corps arque, le cou aux veines saillantes tendu, le bras allonge, ainsi que !e representerent Van Ryssel- berghe et Montald. C'est surtout la main nerveuse, fine et agile, qui lit Helene de Sparte cependant que les mots ^emissants, que les vers fougueux se pressent aux levres du poete. L'oeuvre, que M. Valere Brussov traduit en russe Fig. I. Zweig (centre) with the Verhaerens at pour Viessy et, en allemand, M. Stefan Zweig, est Caillou qui Bique, from E. Rieger, Stefan achevee depuis peu . .^^ Zweig (Berlin, 1928) One of Zweig's most precious memories from Caillou is of an amusing incident during a reading of this play, possibly the same at Caillou. Zweig admired this equilibrium of occasion.^"^ a life shared between the big city and the Zweig's friendship with Pierard began at countryside, Verhaeren the citizen ofthe world Caillou but continued long after Verhaeren's complementing the hermit of Caillou qui Bique death in 1916. The choice of Zweig as one of in total communion with Nature. In his Erin- the privileged recipients of copies of the first nerungen an Emile Verhaeren, written soon after edition of Une Saison en enfer was an appropri- the poet's tragic death in 1916 and privately ate one, and Pierard must have known of printed in 1917, Zweig lovingly evokes Ver- Zweig's interest in Rimbaud. In 1905 Zweig haeren's house at St. Cloud, near Paris, and had published a study of Verlaine, which his cottage at Caillou,^^ He spent five summers included a chapter on his relationship with at Caillou as Verhaeren's guest and these he Rimbaud,^*^ and in 1907 he wrote a critical- always remembered with a gratitude close to biographical foreword to a German translation veneration, the more so after the destruction of Rimbaud's poems.^^ In these works Zweig, of the cottage in 1917. He relates that the who had read Berrichon's biography and his cottage at Caillou became a place of pilgrimage edition ofthe poet's letters,^^ and who had also for Verhaeren's friends and that met Georges Izambard, Rimbaud's school- celui qui etait re^u ici, etait un ami et un hote master, in Paris, seems to be familiar with the 201 theory that Rimbaud had abandoned literature 5 Petitfils, Rtmbaud, p.