Verlaine's wife
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Total Eclipse
am_buglet_82 — 18 years ago(May 19, 2007 11:17 AM)
Near the beginning of the movie Paul says his wife is still basically a child, and Arthur says "So am I".
How old is she supposed to be?
Is she supposed to be around Arthur's age?
Also, do you suppose the Verlaine marriage was arranged?
Or is it possible they really were in love at the time of their marriage?
Paul does say he loves her bodycould that mean their baby was just a product of his lust and her love?
I believe she loved him, even if he didn't really love her.
-Amanda
"She will remember your heart when men are fairy tales in storybooks written by rabbits" -
Aulic Exclusiva — 18 years ago(May 20, 2007 01:02 PM)
I believe she was 18 when the baby was born. She was a couple of years older than Arthur and long survived both him and her husband.
It was supposedly a love match. Verlaine was 26 at the time of his marriage and 28 when he met Rimbaud.
She may have loved him, but in a very, very conventional way. She was a very conventionl girl from a very stodgy, upper middle class, pious family. That conventionality, as well as his many repressed needs, drove Verlaine to drink.
If the Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard, It can also be like a chicken-pox mark. -
fishermi2 — 18 years ago(January 27, 2008 11:58 AM)
I do believe that Verlaine loved her when he married her, as he wrote many beautiful love poems to her when they were engaged. However, he seems to have preferred boys to women, and his love, or perhaps infatiaton, for Mathilde was rather short-lived. But whether
she
loved
him
, that's another question -
redmama13 — 17 years ago(April 10, 2008 02:09 PM)
Yeah, I think she loved him as well. Otherwise she wouldn't put up with him for so long. I have no doubts though, that HE didn't love her, or their baby. He punched the poor little guy for God's sake! As for the beginning, it may have been infatuation, or lust, combined with her being the means of helping him out in his situation.
