The Cunning Girl

A youthful poem by Rimbaud, "The Cunning Girl" depicts a domestic scene in which a child at the table observes the servant. From the opening, the setting is established: "In the brown dining room," the poet creates an intimate and fragrant atmosphere, that of a bourgeois interior. The young boy, "at my ease," lolls in an "immense chair," a sign of childish comfort and a kind of happy laziness.

The second quatrain introduces a sound element: the clock, which marks the rhythm of time. Then the door opens "with a puff of air," and the servant appears. Her description is both precise and light: "Her kerchief half undone, cunningly coiffed." The adverb "cunningly" announces the title and suggests a calculated coquetry, a cunning that is not innocent.

The following tercets detail the servant's gestures. She runs "her little trembling finger" over her cheek, "a velvet peach of pink and white," and her childish lip forms a pout. These sensual, almost pictorial notations show a game of seduction. "She arranged the dishes, near me, to put me at ease," writes Rimbaud, blending service and sensory disturbance.

The ending is reported speech, murmured "Very softly": "Just smell, I've caught 'a' cold on my cheek..." The grammatical error – "a cold" instead of "a cold" – is a comic and realistic find. It betrays the servant's social background, but also her strategy: under the pretext of having him feel her cheek, she invites a kiss. The cunning is therefore double: that of the servant who provokes, and that of the poet who stages her.

Thus, this brief and seemingly trivial poem hides a fine observation of social relations and games of desire. Rimbaud captures an instant of daily life, where popular language and childish sensuality meet, not without irony. The "cunning girl" is not only the servant: it is also the writing that, through exact notation, makes one smile and think.