Arthur Rimbaud alias Alcide Bava

Charleville, Ardennes, 15 August 1871.

To Monsieur Theodore de Banville

What is said to the poet about flowers

Sir and cher Maitre,

Do you remember receiving from the province, in June 1870, a hundred or a hundred and fifty mythological hexameters entitled Credo in unam? You were kind enough to answer!

The same imbecile is sending you the above verses, signed Alcide Bava--I beg your pardon.

I am eighteen.--I will always love the verses of Banville.

Last year I was only seventeen!

Have I made any progress?

Alcide Bava

A.[rthur] R.[imbaud]

-from Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters translation, introduction and notes by Wallace Fowlie (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975 [6th impression]) p. 313.