Comedy in Three Kisses

A youthful poem by Rimbaud, "Comedy in Three Kisses" presents itself as a gallant little play in eight quatrains of octosyllables with alternating rhymes, the last of which exactly repeats the first: the refrain closes the loop of a game of seduction. From the outset, the setting is established: a woman "very much undressed," "indiscreet" trees that lean their foliage to the windowpanes, very near, very near. Nature itself becomes an accomplice and a voyeur, establishing an intimacy both tender and mischievous.

The second stanza fixes the scene: seated on a "big chair," half-naked, she clasps her hands, and her little feet quiver "with delight." The poet then observes a "truant" ray fluttering on her breast, compared to a fly on the rosebush. Light caresses what the gaze scarcely dares, and the kiss on her ankles triggers a "three-times-wicked" laugh that scatters in crystalline trills. This laugh is not mockery, but a barely veiled invitation.

The little feet flee under the chemise, and the protest "Will you stop!" sounds like a feigned reprimand: "The laugh pretended to punish!" The comedy continues with a kiss on the eyes, which draws a "Oh that's even better!..."; the head tips back, dainty, offered. The amorous game progresses by stages, each permitted boldness immediately covered by laughter.

The seventh stanza changes tone: "Sir, I have two words to say to you..." The abrupt apostrophe breaks the caress, but the poet responds by throwing "the rest to her breast" in a kiss that makes her laugh "with a good laugh that was willing." The simulated refusal dissolves into surrender, and the poem closes on the repetition of the initial setting: the undressed woman, the indiscreet trees. This circular return emphasizes that the scene is merely an eternal recurrence, a comedy without end.

Thus, beneath the apparent lightness of badinage, Rimbaud makes the kiss an art of deception: laughter serves as both modesty and consent, and the accomplice nature gives the whole a tone at once sensual and ironic.