Does anyone know Arthur Rimbaud?
From “Foolish Virgin”:
“He says: ’ I don’t like women: love must be reinvented, it’s obvious. All
they can hope for is a secure position. Once that’s achieved, heart and
beauty are put aside. Nothing left but cold disdain, the food of
marriage nowadays. Or else I see women with the signs of happiness,
women I could have made my friends, devoured instead by brutes with as
much feeling as a log…”
From “A Season in Hell - Prologue”:
(Une Saison en Enfer)
"Once, if I remember rightly, my life was a
feast where all hearts opened, and all wines flowed.
One evening I sat Beauty on my knees – And I found her bitter – And I reviled her.
I armed myself against Justice.
I fled. O sorceresses, O misery, O hatred, it was to you my treasure was entrusted!
I managed to erase all human hope from my mind. I made the wild beast’s silent leap
to strangle every joy.
I summoned executioners to bite their gun-butts as I died. I summoned plagues, to
stifle myself with sand and blood. Misfortune was my god. I stretched out in
the mud. I dried myself in the breezes of crime. And I played some fine tricks
on madness.
And spring brought me the dreadful laugh of the idiot.
Now, just lately, finding myself on the point of uttering the last croak, I thought of seeking the key to
the old feast, where I might perhaps find my appetite again!
Charity is the key – This inspiration proves I have been dreaming!
‘You’re a hyena still…’ the demon cries who crowned me with such delightful poppies.
‘Win death with all your appetites; your egoism, all the deadly sins.’
Ah, I’ve practised too many! – But, dear Satan, I beg you, an eye a little less
inflamed! And while awaiting my few cowardly little deeds, for you who prize in
a writer the lack of descriptive or instructive skill, for you, I tear off
these few hideous pages from my notebook of a damned soul."