RIMBAUD Arthur (1854-1891). French poet. - Lot 82

RIMBAUD Arthur (1854-1891). French poet. L.A.S to "Mes chers amis" [his family], Aden, January 15, 1885. 4 pp. in-4. A few slight tears at the folds (outside text). Long, magnificent letter from which everything must be quoted! "I received your letter of 26 Xbre 84, thank you for your wishes, may the winter be short and the year happy. I'm still doing well in this dirty country. I have reengaged for one year, that is until the end of 85, but it is possible that this time again business will be suspended before that term. These countries have become very bad since the events in Egypt. I'm staying on the same terms. I get 300 francs net per month, not including my other expenses which are paid and which represent another 300 francs per month. So this job is worth around 7,000 francs a year, leaving me with a net salary of between 3,500 and 4,000 francs at the end of the year. Don't think I'm a capitalist, all my capital now is 13,000 francs, and will be around 17,000 francs at the end of the year. I'll have worked for 5 years to collect that sum. But what else could I do? I was better off waiting where I could live by working, because what are my prospects elsewhere? But it doesn't matter, the years go by and I don't amass anything, I'll never manage to live off my income in these countries. My work here consists of buying coffee, I buy about 200,000 francs a month, in 1883 I bought more than three million in the year, and my profit on that is nothing more than my miserable salary, three four thousand francs a year, you see that jobs are poorly paid everywhere. It's true that the old company went bankrupt to the tune of nine hundred thousand francs, but that's not attributable to the Aden business, which, if it didn't make a profit, at least didn't lose anything. I buy a lot of other things too: gums, incense, ostrich feathers, ivory, dry hides, cloves, etc., etc, I'm not sending you my photograph, I'm carefully avoiding all unnecessary expenses; besides, I'm always poorly dressed, you can only wear very light cotton garments here; people who have spent a few years here can no longer spend the winter in Europe, they'd die of chest pains. If I come back, it will only be in summer, and I'll have to go back down to the Mediterranean in winter at least. On the contrary, if I had the means to travel, without being forced to stay to work and earn a living, I wouldn't be seen for two months in the same place. The world is very big, and full of magnificent lands that the existence of a thousand men would not be enough to visit. But on the other hand, I wouldn't want to wander around in misery, I'd want to have a few thousand francs in income, and be able to spend the year in two or three different countries, living modestly, and doing a few small deals to pay my expenses. But to live always in the same place, I will always find myself very unhappy. Finally, the most likely thing is that you go where you don't want to go, and that you do what you wouldn't want to do, and that you live and decide quite differently than you would ever want to, without hope of any kind of compensation. As for the Korans, I received them a long time ago, just a year ago, in Harar itself. As for the other books, they must indeed have been sold. I'd like to send you some books, but I've already lost money on that. However, I have no distractions here, where there are no newspapers or libraries, and where we live like savages. Write to the Hachette bookshop, I believe, and ask for the latest edition of Guillaumin's "Dictionnaire de commerce et de navigation". If there is a recent edition, from after 1880, you can send it to me - there are two large volumes, they cost a hundred francs, but you can get them at a discount from Sauton. But if there are only old editions, I don't want them. Please wait for my next letter. Yours faithfully Provenance: "Quatre pages de format in-quarto", Sale of January 26-30, 1926 from the Georges-Emmanuel Lang collection, nº 1340; va November 16, 1983 at Drouot; September 1990 catalog of the bookshop Les Neuf Muses. Then from the Abbaye bookshop to Monsieur M's collection and to the current owner by inheritance. Literature : Letter published in Rimbaud's correspondence, Fayard, p 416 and 417. The notes in the correspondence tell us: "First publication: by Berrichon, extracts (very approximate) in La Revue blanche of September 1.