Rimbaud In Africa
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A letter from the French consul at Massoauh, on the Red Sea:
"Dear sir, A certain Sieur Rimbaud, who claims to be a trader at Harar and Aden, arrived in Massaouah yesterday, on board the weekly mailboat from Aden. This Frenchman is tall and skinny, with grey eyes and a small moustache, almost blond. He was brought in by the police. M. Rimbaud has no passport, and no means of proving his identity to me. I would be much obliged, Monsieur le Consul, if you could give me some information about this individual, who appears to be a rather shady character."
For the last decade of his short life, Rimbaud worked as a trader in Harar, an ancient Ethiopian trade center and one of the holiest cities in Islam. He exported animal skins, ivory and feathers and imported cloth and guns. He never spoke about his life as a poet. We will never know what led Rimbaud to such a radical reinvention. Perhaps he was trying to escape a past he found painful. Or perhaps, rather than write poetry about a life of travel and exploration, Rimbaud wanted to live that life in person. The biographer Charles Nicholl writes about:
"Rimbaud’s championing of the trader over the rather showier explorer, who really understands little of the land he is travelling in. The explorer holds aloof, speciously confident in his European identity, in his superior sciences. It is the trader who enters into the nature of the place, who becomes a part of it."
Or as Giuseppe Raimondi put it:
"After the poetry of the word, the poetry of action."
Rimbaud's employer, Alfred Bardey, wrote:
"I have learned of the death of M. Arthur Rimbaud. He is better known in France as a decadent poet than as a traveller, but under this latter title he also deserves to be remembered. Because of his love of the unknown, and because of his personality, he avidly absorbed the mentality of the regions in which he travelled. He learned languages to the point where he could freely converse in each region; and he assimilated himself, as much as possible, to the manners and customs of the native people. He was one of the first pioneers at Harar, and all who have known him over the last eleven years will tell you that he was an honest, capable and courageous man."
All reports point to Rimbaud being an unusual character. Again from Alfred Bardey:
"Habitually taciturn and tranquil, Rimbaud became exaggeratedly surly in moments of difficulty, spraying out such epithets as ‘that filthy place X’, ‘that idiot Y’ or ‘that imbecile Z’, not with the idea of making himself seem superior —something that all sorts of people do without fooling anyone —but out of pure mania.
His mordant and caustic spirit made him many enemies. He never knew how to drop that unfortunate and mischievous satirical mask which concealed the real qualities of his heart. He needled people a lot but never did any great harm, or only to himself, as a repercussion of his own cruel mockers, of which certain travellers in Shoa and Harar still seem to retain a bad memory.
"I’m sure you know that Rimbaud was often utopian and that he didn’t pay for the damages. He was good, naturally and without show, to the meskines and sometimes also to travellers who had lost everything in some venture and were in need of repatriation. In our office and warehouses I saw some unexpected instances of this, which were not in themselves extraordinary but which nonetheless surprised me because they did not seem to accord with his cold and rather closed-up manner."
Ugo Ferrandi, an Italian explorer:
"Around the middle of 1886 I found Rimbaud at Tadjourah; he had not yet been able to set off for the interior. A tall, thin man, his hair already beginning to go grey at the temples, he was dressed very simply, in European clothes: a pair of rather baggy trousers, a vest, and a loose-fitting, grey-khaki jacket. On his head he wore nothing but a little skullcap, also grey, and he braved the torrid Danakil sun like a native.
"Franzoj, a well-known journalist and polemicist, was an enthusiast of French and Latin literature (he was constantly reading Horace, in the original, not something most of us could manage) and he and Rimbaud had long literary discussions, ranging from the Romantics to the Decadents. For my part, I bombarded Rimbaud with questions of a geographical nature, and also questions about Islam. It must be remembered that Rimbaud had, some years earlier, during the Arab occupation of Harar, tried to penetrate into the Ogaden. He was an Arabist of the first order, and at his house he would have learned discussions about the Koran with the local elders."
Ottorino Rosa:
"He lived like a native, very carelessly dressed. I remember that the English Resident at Zeilah, Lieutenant Harrington, seeing him dressed so oddly, took him for a simple building-worker. He used to make his own clothes, out of white American cotton, and to simplify things he had ingenious ways of avoiding the tiresome need for buttons."
Armand Savouré:
"I spent a lot of time with your esteemed brother, both in Harar and here. I hardly ever saw him laugh, though he could make all of us laugh until we cried with the stories he told. He was one of the most delightful raconteurs I have ever met. I can assure you he was also a very serious man, experienced in business affairs, and highly trusted and esteemed by the Abyssinian authorities in Harar, especially by Ras Makonnen. Even Mgr Taurin, who certainly abhorred his ideas, had great respect for him, I am sure. All who know him out here were deeply saddened by his untimely death. It is true he was sometimes rather surly in his manner, but not, as far as I am aware, in a way that made anyone bear a grudge against him."
Mgr Jarousseau:
"Yes, I knew Monsieur Rimbaud well. I remember his large clear eyes. What a gaze!"
Jules Borelli:
"I knew Rimbaud in Aden, and immediately felt drawn towards him. His way of life, which some saw as grotesque and others as an obscure kind of originality, was essentially the product of his independent and rather misanthropic personality. It seemed to me that Rimbaud must have had setbacks in his previous life and that his character must have been changed by some of these misfortunes which leave an indelible mark on you; — I say, but I know nothing about it; because, despite the long hours spent together, I never asked him anything relating to his previous life, and he never told me anything about it.
He certainly didn’t get into this business for the love of it, but his extraordinary attainments meant that, without even wanting to, he immediately understood the right way to deal with the natives. At Shoa, purely in his capacity as a trader, Rimbaud won the respect of the chief Abyssinians by his upright dealing and strength of character."
Marcel Cohen later interviewed those who knew him:
"His favourite meals, when he came down to the coast, were peppery dishes, outrageously spicy. He liked shrimps, lobster, crab à l’américaine, clams, cod rouguaie, curried rice, and always had on his table some of the powdered red pepper which the Abyssinians call Berberi, much hotter than all the pickles and mustards of Europe. This was a taste that Rimbaud’s stomach had not quite got used to; like many, he sometimes repented afterwards for having tasted these spices of the devil!"
Rimbaud, in a letter to his family:
"I might come [to the Paris Exhibition] next year, and exhibit some of the products of the region. Perhaps I could exhibit myself, as I’m sure I look excessively baroque after so long here."
After his death, when the arc of his life came out, all who knew him were surprised. Ottorino Rosa:
"Entirely devoted to commerce, he never spoke of his past, and behind that extravagant and somewhat spiky shell of his there was no reason to suspect his genius as a poet and man of letters. Of Verlaine he never spoke a word. Only once did he tell me that, disgusted by the Bohemian life to which his restless and adventurous spirit had led him, and the milieu to which he devoted himself very young, he had suddenly and definitely decided to abandon France."
Pierre Mille:
"It was easy to find traders in the cafés [of Djibouti] who remembered the poet. But when I told them about the young genius, they were astonished. They had never considered him anything but a good merchant, somewhat adventurous in business, even having ‘ideas’ (which in their minds was not altogether a compliment). They added that they could never have known about the poetic career of their former colleague: Rimbaud never spoke to them about his previous existence, nor about literature."
Mgr Jarosseau:
"In Harar, where I was acquainted with Monsieur Rimbaud in 1882 and also in 1888, his life was no longer that of the poet who had, while still young, offered up to the French Muses certain inspirations which announced the birth of a superior talent. Many have wondered why Arthur Rimbaud had deserted Parnassus to come to Harar, and spend his life in obscurity as a simple man of commerce. The carelessness of his dress, the sobriety of his life, his charity toward the impoverished natives, showed clearly enough that M. Arthur Rimbaud was not chasing the allures of wealth. If he had adopted this life as a commission-agent it was doubtless because in Africa it brought him into contact with the great contrasts of Nature: the solitude of the desert, where the absence of men brings one closer to God; the high fertile plateaux of the interior, where all the living creatures fill the air with sound."
"Dear sir, A certain Sieur Rimbaud, who claims to be a trader at Harar and Aden, arrived in Massaouah yesterday, on board the weekly mailboat from Aden. This Frenchman is tall and skinny, with grey eyes and a small moustache, almost blond. He was brought in by the police. M. Rimbaud has no passport, and no means of proving his identity to me. I would be much obliged, Monsieur le Consul, if you could give me some information about this individual, who appears to be a rather shady character."
For the last decade of his short life, Rimbaud worked as a trader in Harar, an ancient Ethiopian trade center and one of the holiest cities in Islam. He exported animal skins, ivory and feathers and imported cloth and guns. He never spoke about his life as a poet. We will never know what led Rimbaud to such a radical reinvention. Perhaps he was trying to escape a past he found painful. Or perhaps, rather than write poetry about a life of travel and exploration, Rimbaud wanted to live that life in person. The biographer Charles Nicholl writes about:
"Rimbaud’s championing of the trader over the rather showier explorer, who really understands little of the land he is travelling in. The explorer holds aloof, speciously confident in his European identity, in his superior sciences. It is the trader who enters into the nature of the place, who becomes a part of it."
Or as Giuseppe Raimondi put it:
"After the poetry of the word, the poetry of action."
Rimbaud's employer, Alfred Bardey, wrote:
"I have learned of the death of M. Arthur Rimbaud. He is better known in France as a decadent poet than as a traveller, but under this latter title he also deserves to be remembered. Because of his love of the unknown, and because of his personality, he avidly absorbed the mentality of the regions in which he travelled. He learned languages to the point where he could freely converse in each region; and he assimilated himself, as much as possible, to the manners and customs of the native people. He was one of the first pioneers at Harar, and all who have known him over the last eleven years will tell you that he was an honest, capable and courageous man."
All reports point to Rimbaud being an unusual character. Again from Alfred Bardey:
"Habitually taciturn and tranquil, Rimbaud became exaggeratedly surly in moments of difficulty, spraying out such epithets as ‘that filthy place X’, ‘that idiot Y’ or ‘that imbecile Z’, not with the idea of making himself seem superior —something that all sorts of people do without fooling anyone —but out of pure mania.
His mordant and caustic spirit made him many enemies. He never knew how to drop that unfortunate and mischievous satirical mask which concealed the real qualities of his heart. He needled people a lot but never did any great harm, or only to himself, as a repercussion of his own cruel mockers, of which certain travellers in Shoa and Harar still seem to retain a bad memory.
"I’m sure you know that Rimbaud was often utopian and that he didn’t pay for the damages. He was good, naturally and without show, to the meskines and sometimes also to travellers who had lost everything in some venture and were in need of repatriation. In our office and warehouses I saw some unexpected instances of this, which were not in themselves extraordinary but which nonetheless surprised me because they did not seem to accord with his cold and rather closed-up manner."
Ugo Ferrandi, an Italian explorer:
"Around the middle of 1886 I found Rimbaud at Tadjourah; he had not yet been able to set off for the interior. A tall, thin man, his hair already beginning to go grey at the temples, he was dressed very simply, in European clothes: a pair of rather baggy trousers, a vest, and a loose-fitting, grey-khaki jacket. On his head he wore nothing but a little skullcap, also grey, and he braved the torrid Danakil sun like a native.
"Franzoj, a well-known journalist and polemicist, was an enthusiast of French and Latin literature (he was constantly reading Horace, in the original, not something most of us could manage) and he and Rimbaud had long literary discussions, ranging from the Romantics to the Decadents. For my part, I bombarded Rimbaud with questions of a geographical nature, and also questions about Islam. It must be remembered that Rimbaud had, some years earlier, during the Arab occupation of Harar, tried to penetrate into the Ogaden. He was an Arabist of the first order, and at his house he would have learned discussions about the Koran with the local elders."
Ottorino Rosa:
"He lived like a native, very carelessly dressed. I remember that the English Resident at Zeilah, Lieutenant Harrington, seeing him dressed so oddly, took him for a simple building-worker. He used to make his own clothes, out of white American cotton, and to simplify things he had ingenious ways of avoiding the tiresome need for buttons."
Armand Savouré:
"I spent a lot of time with your esteemed brother, both in Harar and here. I hardly ever saw him laugh, though he could make all of us laugh until we cried with the stories he told. He was one of the most delightful raconteurs I have ever met. I can assure you he was also a very serious man, experienced in business affairs, and highly trusted and esteemed by the Abyssinian authorities in Harar, especially by Ras Makonnen. Even Mgr Taurin, who certainly abhorred his ideas, had great respect for him, I am sure. All who know him out here were deeply saddened by his untimely death. It is true he was sometimes rather surly in his manner, but not, as far as I am aware, in a way that made anyone bear a grudge against him."
Mgr Jarousseau:
"Yes, I knew Monsieur Rimbaud well. I remember his large clear eyes. What a gaze!"
Jules Borelli:
"I knew Rimbaud in Aden, and immediately felt drawn towards him. His way of life, which some saw as grotesque and others as an obscure kind of originality, was essentially the product of his independent and rather misanthropic personality. It seemed to me that Rimbaud must have had setbacks in his previous life and that his character must have been changed by some of these misfortunes which leave an indelible mark on you; — I say, but I know nothing about it; because, despite the long hours spent together, I never asked him anything relating to his previous life, and he never told me anything about it.
He certainly didn’t get into this business for the love of it, but his extraordinary attainments meant that, without even wanting to, he immediately understood the right way to deal with the natives. At Shoa, purely in his capacity as a trader, Rimbaud won the respect of the chief Abyssinians by his upright dealing and strength of character."
Marcel Cohen later interviewed those who knew him:
"His favourite meals, when he came down to the coast, were peppery dishes, outrageously spicy. He liked shrimps, lobster, crab à l’américaine, clams, cod rouguaie, curried rice, and always had on his table some of the powdered red pepper which the Abyssinians call Berberi, much hotter than all the pickles and mustards of Europe. This was a taste that Rimbaud’s stomach had not quite got used to; like many, he sometimes repented afterwards for having tasted these spices of the devil!"
Rimbaud, in a letter to his family:
"I might come [to the Paris Exhibition] next year, and exhibit some of the products of the region. Perhaps I could exhibit myself, as I’m sure I look excessively baroque after so long here."
After his death, when the arc of his life came out, all who knew him were surprised. Ottorino Rosa:
"Entirely devoted to commerce, he never spoke of his past, and behind that extravagant and somewhat spiky shell of his there was no reason to suspect his genius as a poet and man of letters. Of Verlaine he never spoke a word. Only once did he tell me that, disgusted by the Bohemian life to which his restless and adventurous spirit had led him, and the milieu to which he devoted himself very young, he had suddenly and definitely decided to abandon France."
Pierre Mille:
"It was easy to find traders in the cafés [of Djibouti] who remembered the poet. But when I told them about the young genius, they were astonished. They had never considered him anything but a good merchant, somewhat adventurous in business, even having ‘ideas’ (which in their minds was not altogether a compliment). They added that they could never have known about the poetic career of their former colleague: Rimbaud never spoke to them about his previous existence, nor about literature."
Mgr Jarosseau:
"In Harar, where I was acquainted with Monsieur Rimbaud in 1882 and also in 1888, his life was no longer that of the poet who had, while still young, offered up to the French Muses certain inspirations which announced the birth of a superior talent. Many have wondered why Arthur Rimbaud had deserted Parnassus to come to Harar, and spend his life in obscurity as a simple man of commerce. The carelessness of his dress, the sobriety of his life, his charity toward the impoverished natives, showed clearly enough that M. Arthur Rimbaud was not chasing the allures of wealth. If he had adopted this life as a commission-agent it was doubtless because in Africa it brought him into contact with the great contrasts of Nature: the solitude of the desert, where the absence of men brings one closer to God; the high fertile plateaux of the interior, where all the living creatures fill the air with sound."
