Between April 1808 and October 1809, at the age of 22 or 23, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore met a man whose identity remains unknown. He seduced her, their child, born in 1810, died in 1816 at the age of five. After their separation, her lover left for Italy, thus presenting her with ‘a gift of tears. Upon his return, love blossomed once more between the two, but grew cold later on, marking Marceline for life. It would inspire her almost throughout her entire existence; in an emaciated verse, she wrote heartrending poems, which she is famous for to this day. She gave birth to a daughter, Ondine, who was the only one out of her three surviving children to become a poet. Ondine’s poems, free from exaggerated emotional tones, only barely let us catch a glimpse of a potential link to the poetry of her mother, as illness abruptly changed the course of her life.
|
