Instigations Part 4

It is not long since a "strong, silent" American, who had been spending a year or so in Paris, complained to me that "all French poetry smelt of talc.u.m powder." He did not specifically mention Corbiere; who, with perhaps a few dozen other French poets, may have been outside the scope of his research. Corbiere came also to "Paris."

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Batard de Creole et Breton, Il vint aussi la--fourmiliere, Bazar ou rien n'est en pierre, Ou le soleil manque de ton.

--Courage! On fait queue.... Un planton Vous pousse a la chaine--derriere!-- --Incendie eteint, sans lumiere; Des seaux pa.s.sent, vides ou non.--

La, sa pauvre Muse pucelle Fit le trottoir en _demoiselle._ Ils disaient: Qu'est-ce qu'elle vend?

--Rien.--Elle restait la, stupide, N'entendant pas sonner le vide Et regardant pa.s.ser le vent....

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La: vivre a coups de fouet!--pa.s.ser En fiacre, en correctionnelle; Repa.s.ser a la ritournelle, Se depa.s.ser, et trepa.s.ser!--

--Non, pet.i.t, il faut commencer Par etre grand--simple ficelle-- Pauvre: remuer l'or a la pelle; Obscur: un nom a tout ca.s.ser!...

Le coller chez les mastroquets, Et l'apprendre a des perroquets Qui le chantent ou qui le sifflent--

--Musique!--C'est le paradis Des mahomets ou des houris, Des dieux souteneurs qui se giflent!

People, at least some of them, think more highly of his Breton subjects than of the Parisian, but I can not see that he loses force on leaving the sea-board; for example, his "Frere et Sur Jumeaux" seems to me "by the same hand" and rather better than his "Roscoff." His language does not need any particular subject matter, or prefer one to another.

"Mannequin ideal, tete-de-turc du leurre," "Fille de marbre, en rut!", "Je voudrais etre chien a une fille publique" are all, with a constant emission of equally vigorous phrases, to be found in the city poems. At his weakest he is touched with the style of his time, i.e., he falls into a phrase _a la Hugo_,--but seldom. And he is conscious of the will to break from this manner, and is the first, I think, to satirize it, or at least the first to hurl anything as apt and violent as "garde nationale epique" or "inventeur de la larme ecrite" at the Romantico-rhetorico and the sentimento-romantico of Hugo and Lamartine.

His nearest kinships in our period are to Gautier and Laforgue, though it is Villon whom most by life and temperament he must be said to resemble.

Laforgue was, for four or five years, "reader" to the ex-Kaiser's mama; he escaped and died of _la misere._ Corbiere had, I believe, but one level of poverty.

Un beau jour--quel metier!--je faisais, comme ca Ma croisiere.--Metier!....--Enfin. Elle pa.s.sa.

--Elle qui,--La Pa.s.sante! Elle, avec son ombrelle!

Vrai valet de bourreau, je la frolai....--mais Elle Me regarda tout bas, souriant en dessous, Et--me tendit sa main, et....

m'a donne deux sous.

ARTHUR RIMBAUD

(1854-1891)

Rimbaud's first book appeared in '73. His complete poems with a preface by Verlaine in '95. Laforgue conveys his content by comment, Corbiere by e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, as if the words were wrenched and knocked out of him by fatality; by the violence of his feeling, Rimbaud presents a thick suave color, firm, even.

_Cinq heures du soir_

AU CABARET VERT

Depuis huit jours, j'avais dechire mes bottines Aux cailloux des chemins. J'entrais a Charleroi, --_Au Cabaret Vert_: je demandai des tartines De beurre et du jambon qui ft a moitie froid.

Bienheureux, j'allongeai les jambes sous la table Verte: je contemplai les sujets tres nafs De la tap.i.s.serie.--Et ce fut adorable, Quand la fille aux tetons enormes, aux yeux vifs,

--Celle-la, ce n'est pas un baiser qui l'epeure!-- Rieuse, m'apporta des tartines de beurre, Du jambon tiede, dans un plat colorie,

Du jambon rose et blanc parfume d'une gousse D'ail,--et m'emplit la chope immense, avec sa mousse Que dorait un rayon de soleil arriere.

The actual writing of poetry has advanced little or not at all since Rimbaud. Cezanne was the first to paint, as Rimbaud had written,--in, for example, "Les a.s.sis":

Ils ont greffe dans des amours epileptiques Leur fantasque ossature aux grands squelettes noirs De leurs chaises; leurs pieds aux barreaux rachitiques S'entrelacent pour les matins et pour les soirs

Ces vieillards ont toujours fait tresse avec leurs sieges.

or in the octave of

VENUS ANADYOMENE

Comme d'un cercueil vert en fer-blanc, une tete De femme a cheveux bruns fortement pommades D'une vieille baignoire emerge, lente et bete, Montrant des deficits a.s.sez mal ravaudes;

Puis le col gras et gris, les larges omoplates Qui saillent; le dos court qui rentre et qui ressort, --La graisse sous la peau parait en feuilles plates Et les rondeurs des reins semble prendre l'essor.

Tailhade has painted his "Vieilles Actrices" at greater length, but smiling; Rimbaud does not endanger his intensity by a chuckle. He is serious as Cezanne is serious. Comparisons across an art are always vague and inexact, and there are no real parallels; still it is possible to think of Corbiere a little as one thinks of Goya, without Goya's Spanish, with infinite differences, but with a macabre intensity, and a modernity that we have not yet surpa.s.sed. There are possible grounds for comparisons of like sort between Rimbaud and Cezanne.

Tailhade and Rimbaud were both born in '54; there is not a question of priority in date, I do not know who hit first on the form, but Rimbaud's "Chercheuses" is a very good example of a mould not unlike that into which Tailhade has cast his best poems.

LES CHERCHEUSES DE POUX

Quand le front de l'enfant plein de rouges tourmentes, Implore l'essaim blanc des reves indistincts, Il vient pres de son lit deux grandes surs charmantes Avec de freles doigts aux ongles argentins.

Elles a.s.seoient l'enfant aupres d'une croisee Grande ouverte ou l'air bleu baigne un fouillis de fleurs, Et, dans ses lourds cheveux ou tombe la rosee, Promenent leurs doigts fins, terribles et charmeurs.

Il ecoute chanter leurs haleines craintives Qui fleurent de longs miels vegetaux et roses Et qu'interrompt parfois un sifflement, salives Reprises sur la levre ou desirs de baisers.

Il entend leurs cils noirs battant sous les silences Parfumes; et leurs doigts electriques et doux Font crepiter, parmi ses grises indolences, Sous leurs ongles royaux la mort des pet.i.ts poux.

Voila que monte en lui le vin de la Paresse, Soupir d'harmonica qui pourrait delirer; L'enfant se sent, selon la lenteur des caresses, Sourdre et mourir sans cesse un desir de pleurer.

The poem is "not really" like Tailhade's, but the comparison is worth while. Many readers will be unable to "see over" the subject matter and consider the virtues of the style, but we are, let us hope, serious people; besides, Rimbaud's mastery is not confined to "the unpleasant"; "Roman" begins:

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