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Vagabonds
Rimbaud by Verlaine in a letter to Delahaye, Octobre 26, 1875.
From the book "Passion Rimbaud" by CLaude Jeancolas.
Pitiful brother! What frightful nights I owed him! "I have not put enough
ardor into this enterprise. I have trifled with his infirmity. My fault
should we go back to exile, and to slavery." He implied I was unlucky and
of a very strange innocence, and would add disquieting reasons.
For reply, I would jeer at this Satanic doctor and, in the end, going
over to the window, I would create, beyond the countryside crossed by
bands of rare music, phantoms of nocternal extravegence to come.
After this vaguely hygenic diversion, I would lie down on my pallet and
no sooner asleep than, almost every night, the poor brother would rise,
his mouth foul, eyes starting from his head, - just as he had dreamed he
looked! - and would drag me into the room, howling his dream of imbecilic
sorrow.
I had, in truth, pledged myself to restore him to his primitive state of
child of the Sun, - and, nourished by the wine of caverns and the biscuit
of the road, we wandered, I impatient to find the place and the formula.
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