Their breakup was violent: Arcimboldi, in a conversation recorded in 1971, acknowledged having slapped Miss Julien twice, first with his open palm and then with the back of his hand. Between the first and second blows there were punches (Arcimboldi ended up with a black eye), kicks, scratches, and strong words that the writer describes as a limit experience. From beneath the hail of blows, he says, he managed to catch a curious and distracted glimpse of pure nothingness. Miss Julien’s hatred was lasting: in a rare interview conducted in 1992 by a pseudoliterary scandal sheet as part of a feature titled “The Long-Suffering Companions of Creative Men,” she referred to the writer as “that loathsome, impotent dwarf.” Arthur Laville, reader for Gallimard and art critic for various European and American trade publications, who saw the main character of The Librarian as a malicious portrayal of himself. Laville, in an uncharacteristic fit of rage, launched a feud with Arcimboldi that lasted from 1966 to 1970.
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