"Sometimes he speaks in a kind of tender dialect... of the death which causes repentance... of the unhappy men who certainly exist... of painful tasks and heartrending departures." "In the hovels where we got drunk... he wept looking at those who surrounded us... a cattle of poverty." "He lifted up drunks in the black streets." "He had the pity a bad mother has for small children." "He moved with the grace of a little girl at catechism." "He pretended to know about everything... business, art, medicine." "I followed him." "I had to." "Someone for you, sir." "Over there." "Do I know her?" "She gave me her card." "Please..." "Please sit down." "Has Andre been looking after you?" "Can I get you something to drink?" "No, thank you." "Please." "It's really a business matter..." "I want to discuss with you, Mr. Verlaine." "This was published a few months ago... an unauthorized selection of my brother's poems." "My mother and I are anxious to prevent... anything like this from happening again." "We thought you might be able to help us." "I?" "How?" "I understand you have a large number... of my brother's manuscripts." "I have some, yes." "My mother and I would be very grateful... if you would return them." "I've always tried to use the utmost discretion... in everything concerning your brother." "I think I can say I've always defended his interests." "Sometimes I wonder why, since in many ways... they're diametrically opposed to my own." "I don't see how." "It took many years for his work to be understood... but once his name began to be known... it soon became clear that our ways were numbered." "The music of old-fashioned verse was no longer enough." "He swept us away." "Not that I mind, you understand." "I know I was once a good writer." "I didn't know his name was so well-known." "Yes." "The young understand him now." "He's the voice of the future." "What matters to me most... is that we did our best work together." "Both of us." "Morning!" "I'm looking for Paul Verlaine." "Are you Monsieur Rimbaud?" "Yes." "Monsieur Verlaine is not with you, then?" "No." "He went to the station to meet you." "He doesn't know what I look like, does he?" "I am Mrs. Maute de Fleurville..." "Monsieur Verlaine's mother-in-law, and this is my daughter..." "Mrs. Verlaine." "How did you get from the station?" "Walked." "Perhaps you'd like a wash." "No." "You're even younger than we imagined." "How old are you?" "Darling, it's not polite to ask people their ages." "I need a piss." "How old are you, if you don't mind?" "He does." "Sixteen." "You did say in your letter you were twenty-one." "I noticed you at the station... but I didn't think it could be you." "Likewise." "Those poems you sent me... were remarkable for someone of twenty-one." "For someone of sixteen, they're unprecedented." "That's why I told you I was twenty-one." "I didn't want you to feel patronizing... before you'd read them." "Of course." "I hope your mother isn't too angry with me." "Once she'd found out you'd sent the fare... she seemed quite happy." "You come from the Ardennes, don't you, Monsieur Rimbaud?" "Yes." "Pleasant town, Charleville, isn't it?" "Last place on God's earth." "What does your father do?" "Drinks mostly, I believe." "We haven't seen him for ten years." "I'm sorry." "No need." "He's very well out of it." "Perhaps you'd like to read something to us after dinner." "No." "I don't think so." " Why not?" " Don't want to." "I never read out my poetry." "All the other poets do." "I'm not interested in what they do." "We have soirees." "And you think poets can learn from one another?" "Only if they're bad poets." "You know about this?" "I know what it is." "It's the poet's third eye." "Melts glasses." "What do you think of my wife?" "I don't know." "What do you think of her?" "She's still only a child, of course." "So am I." "Absinthe, two." "You should do something about getting it published." "Why?" "Because that's what writers do." "I couldn't care less about being published." "The only thing that matters is the writing itself." "Everything else is literature." "Your last book wasn't good enough." "You don't think so?" "Premarital garbage." "No." "Love poems." "A lot of people found them very beautiful." "But they're all lies." "They're not lies." "I love her." " Love?" " Yes." " No such thing." " What do you mean?" "Whatever binds families and married couples together... that's not love." "That's stupidity or selfishness or fear." "Love doesn't exist." "You're wrong." "Self-interest exists." "Attachment based on personal gain exists." "Complacency exists." "But not love." "Love has to be reinvented." "Why did he want so much to escape from reality?" "There never was a man with such an aim." "Did he perhaps know secrets to change life?" ""Sometimes I've seen..." ""what people think they've seen."" "He's not how I imagined him." ""I've wept too many tears..." ""heartbreaking dawns."" "I prefer your poems." "I don't really understand that kind of thing." "No." "No." "This is something new." ""I've wept too many tears..." ""heartbreaking dawns."" "What is it?" "He's kicking." "You see?" "There." "Don't you think it would be more sensible... to get one of your friends to put him up?" "People don't understand him." "I'm the only one who understands him." "Well, Daddy certainly won't understand him." "We had a revolution this year which I supported." "I could have been shot." "If I hadn't been thrown out of my job... you think I would have accepted your father's damn charity?" "For God's sake, all I'm doing is helping a friend!" "Why must we go through all this?" "I'm your husband!" "I'm sorry, Paul." "Are you trying to annoy me?" "No." "Well, don't." "Evening!" "Everyone's in bed, I'm afraid... unless you've come to see the old boy." "The old boy?" "Maute de Fleurville." "A friend of his?" "No." "You wouldn't like to buy a crucifix, would you?" "I can let you have this one on extremely reasonable terms." "It's made with real pearls, I think." "Who the hell are you?" "I might ask you the same question... except I'd be more polite." "I am Maute de Fleurville." "Then this is your dog I just broke." "What?" "Why?" "Dogs are all liberals." "Since when have you had the right... to invite people into this house without my permission?" "If I can't put up a guest in my own home..." "I might as well live somewhere else." "If you weren't so idle, you could afford to." " You know very well..." " Any excuse." "I don't notice you working your fingers to the bone." "When you next see that hooligan... kindly ask him to return the objects he's pilfered." " What are you talking about?" " He'll know." "Ask him yourself." "I'm happy to say, he's left the house." "What?" "Thank God." "I thought I would never find you." "I don't know what that bastard thought he was doing." "It's his house." "Yes." "Come on." "We'll find you somewhere." "It's not much, I'm afraid." "Just for a few days." "It's fine." "So do you love her?" "Of course." "She's ideal." "Eighteen, beautiful, plenty of money... all the wifely virtues, and she's giving me a baby." " Do you have anything in common?" " No." " Is she intelligent?" " No." "Does she understand you?" "No." "Then the only thing she can give you is sex." "Hi!" "Hey!" "Did you find him?" "I did." "And did he give you back Daddy's crucifix?" "If your father's capable of throwing that boy out... he's got no right having Christ hanging all over his walls." "You people don't understand what poverty is." "In Charleville, if he wanted a book... he had to steal it." "That proves what kind of person he is." "I'm sorry." "You shouldn't have said that." "I'm sorry." " What's going on?" " Nothing." "Are you all right, my dear?" "Yes, I'm all right." "It was last summer during the war... one of the many times I ran away from home." "I came down to the river to fill my water bottle... and there was a Prussian soldier not much older than me... asleep in the clearing." "I watched him for a long time before I realized... he wasn't asleep." "He was dead." "And somehow that clarified things for me." "I understood that what I needed... to become the first poet of this century... was to experience everything in my body." "It was no longer enough for me to be one person." "I decided to be everyone." "I decided to be a genius." "I decided to originate the future." "Thank you." "The principle is very like photography... only instead of photographing a man's face... you photograph his voice." "Then twenty years later... just as you'd open a photograph album... you put the relevant cylinder into the paleophone... and you listen to a poet reading his poems... or singing his songs." "And you think you could invent... a machine like that which worked?" "For Christ's sake, let's get the fuck out of here." " We can't." " Why not?" " He's about to read." " Which one?" "Aicard." "Over there." "I don't think I'll like him very much." "Verlaine showed me some of your poems." "Yes?" "Remarkable." "Very promising." "Only, it seems all that ingenuity is marred by..." "Well, not exactly a juvenile urge to shock... but something of the sort." " And were you shocked?" " No, I wasn't." "Then why would you suppose I intended you to be?" "That's not really the point." "Seems fair enough to me." "I could object to your technical approach." "I could object to your tie." "He doesn't like discussing his poetry." "I see." "A surprise for our friend." "Thank you." "Thank you, gentlemen." "Sulfuric acid." "I would ask you to bear this in mind... although, as with all worthwhile work for children... it's hoped what is said is of relevance to adults." "The poem is called "Green Absinthe."" "Green absinthe is the potion of the damned... a deadly poison silting up the veins... while wife and child sit weeping in their slum..." "I don't believe it." "...pours absinthe into his brains." "Shit." "O drunkard, most contemptible of men..." " Shit!" " Be quiet." "It's authentic shit!" "Please!" "...degraded, fallen, sinful, and obtuse..." "I like it!" "...to beat your wife and child..." "For trying to deprive you of the juice!" " Get out!" " Me?" "Yes, you offensive little bastard." "Get out." "I think I may be permitted to raise some objection... against the butchering of French poetry." "No, you may not." "Apologize and get out!" "Don't come near." "Be careful!" "You think you can frighten me with that thing." "Careful!" "Careful, I say!" "Get out!" "Come on." "Now you, you fucking..." "Come here!" "Come here!" "In the days of Francois I... wise and benevolent giants roamed the countryside... and one of their primary functions... was to rid the world of pedants... fools... and writers of no talent... by pissing on them from a great height." "How to make your way in the literary world." "The depressing thing about this city... is that the artists are even more bourgeois... than the fucking bourgeoisie." "We should make a bargain." "You help me, and I'll help you." "If we go away together..." "I'm sure you'll be able to do good work again." "And when we've taken as much as we can from each other... we simply split up and move on." "And how would we live?" "You have some money, don't you?" "I understand." "I help you by supporting you... and you help me by renewing my rusty old inspiration." "Is that it?" "Not altogether." "Where have you been?" "I thought I'd probably just get in the way." "Don't shout." "You'll wake the baby." "Is it a boy?" "Yes." "Funny-looking little bugger." "Don't." "All right." "All right." "Thank you." "Thank you." "Please." "Why not?" "The baby was born." " Isabelle!" " I didn't know you were coming." "Where is the mouth of darkness?" "Mother?" "She's in the fields with Vitalie." " Do you want to see her?" " No." "Thanks." "Are you back for good?" "For good I don't know." "For better or worse." "There's work to be done in the fields." "There's work to be done here." "I thought you were getting on well in Paris." "Verlaine's wife started to make trouble." "What kind of trouble?" "Threatening a divorce." "She thought we were spending too much time together." "Spoiled rich girl, I suppose." "That's right." "This work you're doing... is it the kind of thing that will lead to anything?" "I don't know." "Nevertheless, it's the kind of work I do." "I don't suppose Paris ever gets as exciting as this." "You look like a fucking saint." "Except you haven't got your halo." "I'll give you your halo." "He's back, isn't he?" "I can't leave Mathilde at the moment." "She's not very well." "I'm not surprised if you keep setting fire to her." "I haven't set fire to her since Thursday." "No, it's not very funny." "It's pathetic." "Your acts of violence are always curiously disgusting." "What do you mean?" "They're not clean." "You're always in some sort of a drunken stupor." "Then you start apologizing and groveling." "I don't like hurting people." "Then don't." "But if you do, do it coolly." "Don't insult your victims by feeling sorry afterwards." "I love her, you see." "You can't possibly." "I love her body." "There are other bodies." "I love Mathilde's body." "But not her soul?" "I think it's less important to love the soul." "After all, the soul may be immortal." "We have plenty of time for the soul... but flesh rots." "It's my love of flesh which keeps me faithful." "Faithful." "What do you mean?" "I'm faithful to all my lovers... because once I love them..." "I will always love them... and when I'm alone in the evening... or in the early morning..." "I close my eyes... and I celebrate them all." "That's not faithfulness." "That's nostalgia." "If you don't want to leave Mathilde... it's not because you're faithful." "It's because you're weak." "If strength involves brutality, I prefer to be weak." "With you, weakness involves brutality as well." "Don't expect me to be faithful to you." "Why are you so harsh with me?" "Because you need it." "Isn't it enough for you to know... that I love you more than I've ever loved anyone... and that I will always love you?" "Shut up, you sniveling drunk." " Tell me that you love me." " For God's sake!" "Please." "It's important." "Just say it." "You know I'm very fond of you." " Do you love me?" " What?" " Do you love me?" " Yes." "Then put your hands on the table." "What?" "Put your hand on the table." "Palm upwards." "The only unbearable thing is that nothing is unbearable." "On..." "On..." "We have to leave." "I don't know." "Yes." "It's time." "The happiest days of my life was last year... when I ran away from home." "Didn't know where I was going." "I just carried on." "I've never seen such long and colored days... and I could never get far enough." "I've never seen the sea." "I wanted to walk to Africa... and cross the desert." "I wanted the sun." "I wanted the sun." "I want the sun." "Do you understand me?" "I want the sun!" "Where do you want to go?" "I don't know." "I don't care." "Just away." "I can't leave Mathilde right now." "She's not very well." "Then don't." "What?" "Don't leave her." "Wait!" "To life." "Come on!" "Do you remember happier times?" "Why did you leave us?" "I had a tip-off I was going to arrested for my work... in the propaganda press during the Commune." "But that was over a year ago." "Well..." "the police may be slow... but they're methodical." "I couldn't bear to go to jail." "I think it's best to stay out of the country for a few months." "With Rimbaud?" "Well..." "I suppose he's wanted by the police as well." "No." "Why do you prefer him to me?" "I don't." "Don't have to get dressed right away, do you?" "I told Mummy I'd meet her for breakfast." " What's she doing here?" " She came with me." "That's another thing." "I certainly can't stand living with your parents anymore." "It's not safe anywhere else." "What do you mean?" "You know what I mean." "Listen..." "I had this idea." "I thought of this idea." "I thought we might emigrate." "Emigrate?" "Where to?" "New Caledonia." "A lot of your friends from the Commune are there." "You'd be able to write." "It would be like it was when we were first married and..." "What?" "Nothing." "No." "Go on." "I was only going to say that you could stop..." "If you wanted..." "It would be easier for you if you wanted to stop drinking." "You're frightened of me, aren't you?" "Don't think that I like getting drunk." "I mean, I do like getting drunk." "I don't like being drunk." "Anyway... when I hit you..." "I feel so terrible all I can think of... is to get drunk again and forget about it." "Can you see us living in a grass hut?" "Why not?" "Let's go, for Christ's sake." "Let's go before it's too late." "We can go whenever you like." "Not now!" "Why not?" "Help me with this." "No." "Help me with this." "Stop!" "Why are you doing this to us?" "Don't worry." "You can have him back quite soon... and only slightly damaged." "He's coming back now." "What are you doing here?" "What's this?" ""My poor Mathilde..." ""Don't be upset." "Don't cry." ""This is a bad dream." ""One day, I'll wake up." "Love, Paul."" "Nice, was it?" "Scene of conjugal bliss?" "I'm going back to Paris with her." "Right." " Wait!" "Let me explain." " Why should I?" "It's not what you think." "It's something else." "She suggested we emigrate to New Caledonia." "It would be a change." "A quiet life." "I could stop drinking." "It's a good idea." "No." "Don't you care about my happiness?" "No, and neither should you." "You don't understand how much I love her." "This morning, she was lying there naked." "She looked so beautiful, so young and so..." "What's so funny?" "Was she really lying there naked?" "Yes." "My estimation for her goes up a long way." "Why?" "For realizing what was needed and providing it." "What does it matter?" "You love her, right?" "Go back to her." "All change!" "Border patrol!" "Please have your passports ready for inspection." "Border patrol!" "Please have your passports ready for inspection." "Thank you." "I'm just going to find a newspaper." "Don't be long." "Look there." "See white?" "See?" "It's England." ""I became a fabulous opera." ""I saw that all creatures are condemned to happiness."" "What's this?" "Are you going back to rhyme?" ""I have researched the magic shapes..." ""of the happiness no one escapes."" "That's wonderful." "I've often wondered why you chose to write to me." "You're so far up ahead..." "I can never understand the signs you're making." "You make me feel I'm from another century." ""I've researched magic shapes... of the happiness no one escapes."" "It's wonderful." "I chose you for a very good reason." "You see..." "I've always known what to say... but you... you know how to say." "I thought I could learn from you... and I have." "What's your greatest fear?" "I wouldn't like to mislay my balls." "What's your greatest fear?" "That other people will see me as I see them." "Getting quite short of money, you know." "So you keep saying." "Perhaps it's time we took a job." "I have no intention of taking a job." "My work is going far too well." "I can't afford to waste time earning money." "I..." "I had a letter this morning... from Mathilde's lawyer." "And?" "She's applied for legal separation on grounds... that you and I are indulging in immoral relations." "And?" " Like a hat, sir?" " Possibly." "There you are." "Take a look." "He wants to know if we're prepared... to submit to a medical examination." "What?" "How can they make such outrageous accusations?" "I'm going to write and say as far as I'm concerned... all of them can look up our asses." "What are you, insane?" "They can give her a divorce on desertion alone." "If it's desertion and sodomy, they can throw us both in jail." "I'm not going to jail." "I don't know." "Would it be so bad?" "Latavia..." "I can hear the wind rustling in the palm trees." "What's the matter?" "It's so difficult." "Who would have imagined it would be so difficult?" "I wrote to the lawyer today." "I explained it's her father who's in the wrong." "How many times have I asked for my things from that house... and he takes no notice whatsoever?" "You're in the wrong." "All right." "All right." "I'm in the wrong." "I'm in the wrong, if you say so." "That's established, isn't it?" "So..." "I don't know." "What..." "What is it?" "You seem different." "Yes." "It's the writing." "The writing has changed me." "On." "On." "On." "I suppose you think I've been just lying here... all these weeks in a state of paralyzed sloth." "Well, not necessarily." "Well, I have." "But bubbling beneath the surface... and rising slowly through the layers of indifference... has come a new system... harden up, reject romanticism... abandon rhetoric..." "Get it right." "And finally I've seen where my attempt... to conquer the world has led me." "Where has it led you?" "Here." "My search for universal experience has led me here... to live an idle, pointless life of poverty... as the minion of a bald, ugly... aging, drunken lyric poet... who clings to me because his wife won't take him back." "How can you bring yourself to say a thing like that?" "It's easy." "It's the truth." "You're here living like this because you have to... drink and sex and a kind of complacent melancholy... and enough money to soak yourself oblivious every night." "But me..." "I'm here because I choose to be." "Yes?" "Yes." "And why exactly?" "Why did you choose to come to London with me?" "No doubt you regarded it as another stage in your odyssey... only by plunging ever deeper, if I may mix my myths... will you gain the right to graze on the slopes of Parnassus." "Of course there are less subtle reasons... for putting up with me." "Such as?" "Such as the fact that I support you." "Your mind is almost as ugly as your body." "Where are you going?" " Are they fresh?" " Yes." "This one." "God, you look such a cunt." "Where are you going?" "Where are you going?" "Wait!" "Paul, wait!" "Move!" "Don't go!" "Come back!" "Don't leave me!" "Come back!" "I'm sorry!" "I'm sorry!" "How am I supposed to live?" "Come back." "Please come back." "You're my only friend." "I promise you I'll behave myself." "It was only a stupid joke." "Sir?" "I can't tell you how sorry I am." "When I called you, why didn't you get off the boat?" "We lived together for two years to finish like this?" "Think back to what you were before you met me." "Listen to your heart." "Yours for always." "I'll go back to Paris tomorrow." "Look... it won't happen again." "I'll never walk out on you again, I promise." "No, you won't." "I'm not going to give you the chance." "What was I supposed to do in London with no money?" "I'm sorry." "I was very hot." "For God's sakes, why?" "I've said far worse things to you than that." "You really did look like a cunt." "Where have you been?" "Out." "I went to the Spanish embassy again... to see if they'd change their minds, but they wouldn't." "It's fucking ridiculous." ""I'm willing to fight and die for your cause." ""You can't afford to turn away volunteers."" "They said they weren't taking on any foreigners." "Then I said, "You deserve to lose the fucking war..." ""and I hope you do."" "You were at the Spanish embassy all morning?" "No." "You're drunk." "I have, yes, had a few drinks." "What are you doing?" "Packing." "Where are you going?" "I'm going back home to Roche." "I'm going to finish my book and have it published." "Oh, publish." "I thought you were far too important for that." "Anyway, I've decided." "We're going back to London." "We're not going back to London." "It's by far the best idea." "Then why did you go to the Spanish embassy?" "I didn't." "Don't go." "Think it over." "I've thought it over." "Do you know what day it is tomorrow?" "Friday." "It's my wedding anniversary... and I haven't seen her, my wife... since we made love here in Brussels nearly a year ago." "She won't answer my letters." "I wrote her if she didn't come to Brussels within 3 days..." "I'd commit suicide, and she didn't even reply." "But then you didn't commit suicide." "I suppose you think that's funny." "No, it's pitiful." "How many people did you tell you were committing suicide?" "I'm surprised you didn't send out invitations." "How can you be so callous?" "Callous?" "You abandon me in London... then summon me to Brussels and expect me to hang around... while you decide whether to leave your wife... join the army, or shoot yourself?" "Then when you fail to achieve any of these aims... as you undoubtedly will... you want me to go back to London with you!" "It's not gonna happen!" "I'm leaving you!" "You can't." "You can't!" "Look, look." "Look, this summer..." "Remember last summer when we set out... how wonderful it was?" "Remember?" "Why don't we go south?" "Late summer on the Mediterranean... we could dedicate ourselves to warmth." "Or Africa." "You've always wanted to go to Africa." "Just for a month, then make up your mind." "Look at the sun." "No." "Why not?" "I can't." "It's no good." "It's too late." "It's not!" "I promise you, it's not." "You know if you leave me, you'll kill me." "I can't bear to be alone." "I don't exist without someone else." "I don't care if you stay with me out of pity, just stay!" " I can't." " Why not?" "You don't care." "You have no idea what this means." "For God's sake, stop whining!" "It's very hot." "Take off your coat." "I will." "I did some shopping this morning." "I bought a gun." "What for?" "For you, for me..." "for everybody." "I hope you bought plenty of ammunition." "I'm not going to let you go, you know." "This is a rather entertaining number." "We haven't seen this one before." "I'll kill you!" "For God's sake, pull yourself together." "I read your letter." "You begged me to come back." "You said you were crying as you wrote it." "I could see your tears on the paper." "That was before I thought of pawning your clothes." "I didn't mean to." "Look what you've done." "I didn't mean to." "I'm sorry." "Look." "Oh, my God." "Kill me." "Shoot me." "Shoot me!" "How can I, you stupid fuck?" "You've just blown a hole in my hand." "Oh, God." "What have I done?" "You missed." "Open up!" "Open up in there!" "What exactly are you doing in Brussels?" "I was hoping my wife might come and join me here... as she had done on one occasion since our separation." "I fail to see how the departure of a friend... could have cast you into such despair." "Did there perhaps exist between you and Rimbaud... other relations besides those of friendship?" "No." "This is a suggestion slanderously invented... by my wife and her family." "Take off your trousers and lie down on this, face down." "Both doctors have testified... that on the basis of their examination... they are satisfied you have recently indulged... in both active and passive sodomy." "Have they?" "Do you deny you're a practicing sodomist?" "The word is sodomite." "Whatever the word may be, the activity it describes... is not one which is encouraged in Brussels." "Paul Verlaine, the court finds you guilty... under Article 399 of the penal code... of grievous bodily harm and sentences you... to a fine of two hundred francs and two years imprisonment." "Now what's the matter?" "Eat." "God." "What does it mean?" "I don't understand what it's supposed to mean." "It means exactly what it says." "Word for word." "No more, no less." "How are you?" "Where's your rosary?" "I thought you'd have a rosary." "Is it true in prison they called you Jesus Christ?" "It happened quite suddenly." "When the governor said Mathilde had been granted her divorce..." "I lay down and looked at my life... and saw there was nothing." "The only thing I could do was submit myself to God... ask him to forgive me... and help me face my situation and He did." "I promise you He did." "Now you want us to love each other in Jesus?" "I want you to follow my example." "I hope you didn't think I might be angry with you." "No." "You didn't know I'd be put away so long." "I certainly forgave you for it." " I didn't forgive you." " What for?" "For missing." "Tell me." "Why did you come here?" "I want you to find some direction in your life." "I want God to help you achieve your aims." "Aims?" "I have no aims." " Your writing." " I've stopped writing." "I don't understand." "Let me put it another way." "I no longer write." "Why not?" "Because I have nothing more to say." "If I ever had anything to say in the first place." "Nonsense." "I thought that what I did would make a difference... change the world." "I thought nothing would ever be the same again." "But it's no good." "The world is too old, and there's nothing new." "It's all been said." "Not in the way you can say it." "You have a gift." "It's no good throwing it away... because your expectations were unrealistic." "It's the expectations you should change." "It's my gift." "I can do what I like with it." "But you can't give up." "You've hardly begun." "Don't worry." "I'll be very good at it." "No one will be able to touch me." "The master of silence." "But if we don't, who's going to tell the truth?" "Three years ago, you said the truth was this and that." "Then along comes the angel of the Lord... and the truth is something completely different." "But I've changed." "Change..." "I thought that was what you wanted." "You've changed, have you?" "Yes." "Then here, in the wilderness..." "I offer you an archetypal choice... a choice between my body... and my soul." "Choose." "Choose." "Your body." "Let the ninety-eight wounds of our Savior burst and bleed." "Don't." "Listen..." "I sat in my cell... and thought how happy we could be." "It should be the easiest thing in the world." "Why isn't it?" "Because it never worked for us." "It will never work for either of us." "I wanted us to go away together." "Yes." "What am I going to do?" "You'll have to find somebody else." "No." "No, no, I can't, please." " Let go." " Please." "Let go!" "Let go!" ""I shall return with limbs of steel..." ""And dark skin and wrathful eye." ""I shall have money." ""I shall be cruel and idle." ""I'll be saved."" "What?" "Something he wrote." "The point is, Mr. Verlaine, to speak frankly... a number of poems he wrote in extreme youth... were quite indecent... and in some cases, even profane." "He wouldn't have wished to be remembered for them." "My mother and I plan to destroy those works... he would have destroyed himself." "I see." "What you may not know... is that Arthur was converted." "Converted?" "I reasoned with him... and prayed for him for weeks while he was ill... and eventually he asked to be confessed." "God kept him alive long enough to repent... so that he could be saved." "What was the matter with him?" "He had a tumor on his knee." "That's very strange." "Why?" "That's what I have..." "a tumor on my knee." "He spent ten years in Abyssinia." "He explored the whole country... places no white man had ever been... and he ran a trading post in Harar." "There was no doctor there... but he wouldn't leave his work." "He insisted on staying until the pain became unbearable." "Then he designed himself a litter... and hired ten men to carry him to the coast." "The journey took more than two weeks." "In Africa... did he write poetry?" "No." "On." "On." "First, as soon as he arrived... he went into the hospital in Marseilles... and they cut off his leg." "What's the matter?" "Don't you see the carriages driving in the sky?" "I have to help people, you see." "It's my duty." "I know you do." "I don't want money unless it's drenched in blood." "Maybe the sea will wash away the stains." "Maybe." "There's one thing, Isabelle, you must promise me." "It's very important." "Will you promise?" "What?" "Never let them amputate." "He would only stay at home a month." "He kept saying he had to travel back towards the sun... that the sun would heal him." "Please, don't get up." "Let me see you to your hotel." "No, no." "It was an honor... to meet such a distinguished poet." "A pleasure to meet you." "You have my card, don't you?" "Will you send the manuscripts to that address?" " Of course." " Please don't forget." "We shall make a very careful selection of what is to survive." "Good-bye." "Absinthe... two." "Tell me if you love me." "You know I'm very fond of you." "Do you love me?" "Put your hand on the table." "What?" "Put your hand on the table." "Palm upwards." "Since he died, I see him every night... my great and radiant sin." "We were always happy... always." "I remember." "I found it." "What?" "Eternity." "It's the sun mingled... with the sea."