chronicled but as follows: "The country is situated at a high altitude, but is not infertile. The climate is cool and not unhealthy. European goods reach here on camel back. There is much to be done in this district."

15

In 1891, while still at Harrar, he began to suffer from a swollen knee-cap. The infection, which was probably tubercular and not syphilitic, spread rapidly. He became incapable of all movement, and was borne in a litter to the coast. At Aden the English doctor diagnosed acute synovitis and advised an immediate return to Europe. Rimbaud was carried in agony to the steamer: on arrival at Marseilles his leg was at once amputated. For months he remained in the hospital at Marseilles, trying pitiably to adapt himself to crutches, and eventually to an artificial limb. The crutches only caused him acute pain under the arms; the artificial leg inflamed the amputated stump. In despair he went back to his mother's farm near Charleville, hoping there to recover his moral, if not his physical, health. But gradually the pain spread to all his limbs. He could not sleep. He was in constant agony. By July his right arm began to stiffen: by August he decided to return to Marseilles. The horror of this, his last, journey has been pathetically described by his sister in the biography produced by Monsieur Paterne

Berrichon. For a moment, when changing trains in Paris, he seems to have wished to die in the city which had seen his first bitter adventures. But the evening was gloomy with summer rain, and the South was calling him. On arrival at Marseilles he entered the Hospital of the Conception, and from the first the doctors realised that his case was hopeless. After three months' useless agony he died on November 10, 1891, at the age of thirty-seven. He was buried at Charleville.

The night before he died he had dictated a letter to the Agent of the Messageries Maritimes, asking to be carried on board the next boat leaving for Egypt.

Le bonheur de saigner sur le cœur d'un ami,
Le besoin de pleurer bien longtemps sur son sein,
Le désir de parler à lui, bas à demi,

Le rêve de rester ensemble sans dessein!

Le malheur d'avoir tant de belles ennemies, La satiété d'être une machine obscène, L'horreur des cris impurs de toutes ces lamies, Le cauchemar d'une incessante mise en scène !