Alcoholism softens the flesh - or at least, the 19th-century French variety did. When Verlaine died, Mallarmé watched a cast being taken of the face of this staunchly self-destructive drinker. He reported to the poet Georges Rodenbach that he would never forget 'the wet, soggy sound made by the removal of the death-mask from his face, an operation in which part of his beard and mouth had come away too'.

LRB 4 May 1989 | PDF Download