Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud [translation]: I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, and keeps only their quintessences. This is an unspeakable torture during which he needs all his faith and superhuman strength, and during which he becomes the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed – and the great learned one! – among men. – For he arrives at the unknown! Because he has cultivated his own soul – which was rich to begin with – more than any other man! He reaches the unknown; and even if, crazed, he ends up by losing the understanding of his visions, at least he has seen them!
Jean settled in Aden, Yemen, going on to manage an agency in Gey, Ethiopia. He struck up a close friendship with Ras Teferi Makonnen, father of future Ethiopian emperor Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael. He maintained a friendly relationship with the official tutor of the young heir. He worked in the coffee trade.
