Lionel was both embarrassed and had a headache, but at this moment, he couldn't ask Alice anything directly, so he simply said,
"Oh... did you get it? Let's have dinner first."
With that, he turned and closed the door behind him, and immediately heard a flurry of drawer-opening, drawer-closing, and chair-dragging sounds from the study.
A short while later, the three sat down at the dining table, Lionel at the head, Alice and Petty on either side.
The dinner Petty prepared was surprisingly rich and delicious for her age—the oxtail tomato soup Lionel had smelled upon entering was the main course, placed in the center of the table, emitting a rich meaty aroma;
Each person's plate also held a pan-fried pork chop, slightly charred at the edges but with an inviting golden-yellow heart, and a rich sauce made from coriander and onions;
The staple was two slices of pre-cut baguette per person, toasted golden and crispy on the surface, with a fragrant wheat aroma, and filled with Camembert cheese in the middle;
For dessert, there was lemon honey custard pudding, which Lionel had picked up on his way home.
As it wasn't a holiday or weekend, no red wine was prepared, but rather a glass of low-alcohol cider for each person.
Lionel couldn't help but praise Petty again:
"Your culinary talent is outstanding.
In a few years, you might be able to open a restaurant on the Champs-Élysées."
Petty, flushed with compliments, raised her head high:
"That's also because Young Master Sorel, you taught me so well!"
After months of good food and drink, Petty's face had visibly brightened, her cheeks blooming like two small flowers.
Alice, however, was lost in thought and only managed a faint smile along with the two of them.
Before officially starting the meal, Alice and Petty clasped their hands in front of their chests for a pre-meal prayer; Lionel had long declared his atheist stance, but he waited for them to finish their prayers before picking up his knife and fork.
After dinner, Alice helped Petty wash the dishes and clean the kitchen, while Lionel returned to his study.
He quickly realized that today's awkwardness stemmed from his forgetting to lock the middle drawer.
Beneath a stack of blank manuscript paper, he pulled out the manuscript of Decadent City, which Alice had re-hidden, and after a quick glance to confirm, he felt a slight relief.
Since he had only sent the first part of the manuscript to Gabriel a week ago, the drawer before him contained only the most recently written sections.
He had just managed to write out the main plot of the novel; as for the "□□□ (XX lines deleted here)" within it, he hadn't yet begun to write.
So Alice... might not have understood?
While he was still vexed and speculating, there was a knock on the study door.
Lionel quickly put the manuscript back in the drawer:
"Come in."
Alice pushed the door open, her face red, and walked in:
"Lionel, I'm sorry, your drawer wasn't locked, and I was in a hurry to find paper... so I..."
Seeing Alice nervously wringing her hands, Lionel could only sigh:
"I'll leave all the manuscript paper on the desk from now on."
Alice was, after all, a "true 19th-century person," from a farm at the foot of the Alps.
Although she later spent a year at the Convent of Our Lady of Lourdes, it's likely she hadn't received personal conduct education closely related to city life.
It was already commendable that she recognized her mistake and apologized.
Alice, seeing that Lionel wasn't angry, also breathed a sigh of relief, then immediately looked puzzled:
"Lionel, is this how you earn money by writing... 'novels'?"
Lionel's expression grew serious at her words:
"No one must ever know about this, understand?"
Alice nodded vigorously, like a chicken pecking at rice, but then became worried:
"Lionel, is it really alright for you to write these things?
The nuns at the convent said that people who read novels go to hell... and you even wrote..."
Although Alice didn't want to be a nun, it didn't mean she didn't believe in God.
After all, having experienced a year of convent life, with morning prayers and evening blessings daily, and practicing copying the Bible, some ideas were already ingrained in her mind.
In French society outside Paris, reading novels, especially for women, was widely considered the beginning of moral corruption.
Novels brought women too many romantic fantasies, much like Emma in Madame Bovary, who, educated in a convent school, loved reading romance novels like Paul et Virginie.
Eventually, she cheated on her husband with a dashing man—a man named Léon—who read her poetry daily.
Lionel spread his hands:
"Writing novels allows me to live in an apartment that costs 90 francs a month, to eat a 2-franc dinner like tonight's, and to take a public carriage to the Sorbonne every day instead of walking for an hour in the cold wind, and of course—
It's the only way to make up for the family's deficit.
I send my father 150 francs every month now."
Alice quickly waved her hands:
"Lionel, I'm not blaming you, I'm just worried..."
Lionel chuckled:
"Worried?
Worried that I'll go to hell?
I told you, I'm an atheist now.
I don't attend mass, nor do I go to confession at church.
According to doctrine, I'd go to hell even if I didn't write novels.
I don't care."
Alice hastily denied again:
"No, I'm not worried about that either..."
Lionel was puzzled too:
"Then what are you worried about...?"
Alice's face turned red again, and after a long moment, she stammered:
"I'm worried about your body... after all, writing such... stories every day..."
Lionel: "..."
He could only cough awkwardly:
"...What do such stories... have to do with my body?"
Alice looked up with her pretty Southern French face, her expression serious, and said:
"Even though you deleted them, I can guess...
Don't forget, we raised a lot of livestock at home.
My father used to say that if bulls and boars..."
Lionel: "..."
He was so embarrassed his toes wanted to dig a two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment for him in the floor.
No wonder there were so many farm girls rolling in haystacks with landlords in French novels; this really had a strong social basis.
Without waiting for Alice to finish her "improper words," Lionel, disregarding her protests, pushed her out of the study:
"Alright, you haven't finished copying Mr. Ranier's 30-page ledger, it's due the day after tomorrow..."
Only when the study door slammed shut did Lionel breathe a sigh of relief, then he heard Alice's unrestrained laughter from outside the door.
This girl from the Alps had finally shown a bit of her true personality.
Lionel had a throbbing headache—he wasn't a saint, but he wasn't desperate to that extent either.
Alice's status as a novice nun was already a ticking time bomb, not to mention the relationship between two families across two generations; either of those would be a huge trouble to handle.
Lionel massaged his temples and slumped into his chair.
——————
A new week began, but Lionel wasn't the only man in distress because of "women"; almost half of Paris was too.
They were all eagerly searching for a mysterious novel, said to bring men to the peak of ecstasy.
(End of Chapter)
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