"Madam, who exactly are you?
I truly have no recollection!"
"Oh, Lucian, how can you say that!
You said you'd love me forever!"
"I'm truly sorry, I seem to have said such things to many women... both on and off the stage."
"Good heavens!
How could you be so cruel as to bestow such a man, such a fate, upon me!"
"Madam, if you have nothing else, may I go upstairs?"
"It's alright if you don't accept me, but we have a son...
I'm dying, and he still needs care."
"Madam..."
"Please call me Helena, Helena Richard—do you truly not remember this name?
You said I was your only true love!"
"Alright, Helena, as you just said, that's God's responsibility... so perhaps you should send him to the poorhouse?"
"My God, how can you be so heartless!
Lucian... you cad..."
"Hey, Bernard, do I pay 90 francs in rent every month just for you to stand here and watch this woman go mad at me?"
...
Amidst the woman's screams, Bernard, the tall and burly doorman of 12 Rue d'Antin, dragged her out of the hall and pushed her down the steps.
The woman's clothes were already tattered and old; they were torn in several places by the gravel, but luckily she had inner garments so she wasn't exposed on the street.
Leonel watched all of this unfold before his eyes, dumbfounded.
His neighbor from the fifth floor—and the protagonist of this drama, Lucian de Pancey—smiled faintly at him:
"Leon, I'm truly sorry to make you witness such a spectacle.
You know, there are too many women like this; they used to block me at the theater.
This madwoman somehow got hold of my address..."
Leonel: "..."
Then he asked what was on his mind:
"You really don't know this Helena Richard?"
Lucian shrugged:
"Maybe I know her, maybe I don't... does it matter?
There are too many women in Paris—let's go upstairs."
Leonel looked back at the apartment door; the two dark oak panels were tightly shut, with only a few faint, mournful cries from the woman seeping through the crack.
As Lucian and Leonel ascended the stairs, Lucian launched into an endless discourse on his "philosophy of women":
"Leon, let me tell you, women, they're always the same.
When you first meet them, they're like daisies, shy, fragrant, and lovely, blooming wonderfully with a little watering.
But once you pluck them, they become poppies, clingy, intense, and finally give you a splitting headache."
"Didn't you just see it?
She said we had a child?
Ha!
Do you believe such things?
In Paris, among women who say 'we have a child,' nine out of ten have no idea who the father is, and the other one is taking you for a fool!"
"I joined the theater troupe when I was seventeen, and I've never been without women.
You have to understand, people on stage have great charm, and women in the audience fall fast and cool down fast."
"I'm not saying they're all bad, Parisian women, they just get too easily moved by sweet talk, too easily mistake a bed for a vow.
The problem is, us men... how can we remember all the lips we've kissed?
What kind of memory would that take?"
"I never actively deceive women, Leon.
I merely allow them to misunderstand—it's they who choose to believe.
I say 'I'll love you forever,' and she truly believes it; I say 'you are the only one,' and she truly thinks she's a queen.
But I have hundreds of 'only ones' in Paris, which one am I supposed to remember?"
"I'll tell you from experience—the more fiercely a woman argues, the more tattered her clothes, the more miserably she cries, the more it proves she's worthless.
Truly respectable women would never come wailing at your doorstep.
They would make you regret, but they wouldn't let you see their tears."
"So I say, in Paris, women are as plentiful as raindrops.
When it rains, find shelter, and when the sun comes out, go bask in it.
But if you stand in the rain pretending to be deeply emotional, you'll only end up soaking wet and ridiculed."
"Damn it, she said her name was 'Helena,' I really don't remember—but there's a recent novel where the heroine is also named 'Helena,' and the male protagonist, guess what his name is?
And what does he do?"
Just as Leonel was about to answer, they reached the fifth floor where they lived.
Lucian had no intention of waiting for Leonel to speak, nor did he intend to reveal the answer to Leonel.
Instead, he walked directly to room 503 and gently knocked on the door.
Soon after, the door to room 503 opened, and a woman's voice came from inside:
"It's a wonder you still remember me..."
Lucian stepped into room 503, and amidst the woman's surprised cry, he lifted her into his arms—from Leonel's perspective, he could only see continuously kicking white calves and red women's shoes on her feet.
"Petite, how could I forget you?
You are my only one!
You are the love of my life!
It's just that the theater troupe has been a bit busy lately..."
"Greenheath will be back in an hour..."
"An hour?
My goodness, not even enough time for me to savor your dessert..."
With a bang, the door closed, and the rest of the conversation could no longer be heard.
"Is this Paris?"
Leonel could only marvel that in the late 19th century, Paris's openness was absolutely at the forefront of the world; even a hundred years later, few countries could catch up.
However, all of this also gave him a huge inspiration—an inspiration perfectly suited for Georges Charpentier's commission for Modern Life.
After dinner, Leonel sat down at his desk, spread out his manuscript paper, drew a quill pen from the inkwell, let the ink drip, and then wrote the title of his new work in the center of the top line:
Letter from an Unknown Woman
Helena Richard, who had just been clinging to Lucian, craved recognition and pity from him.
Her chosen method was to cast aside all her dignity, embrace Lucian's leg in public, hoping to stir a flicker of his sympathy.
And her opposite, wasn't that the protagonist in Stefan Zweig's novel Letter from an Unknown Woman?
She too fell in love with a passionate and forgetful man, the man likewise never remembered who she was throughout, she also had a child with this man, and she too revealed everything to the man at the final moment of her life—
However, the protagonist of Letter from an Unknown Woman stubbornly preserved her dignity until her last breath, and delivered a "fatal blow" to the writer 'R', who she had loved unrequitedly all her life, thereby inscribing herself indelibly upon his cold heart, becoming an inescapable nightmare for the rest of his days.
Although Zweig was Austrian and Letter from an Unknown Woman took place in Vienna—Leonel felt that this story might be even more suitable for present-day Paris.
This licentious Paris, this fickle Paris, this Paris where love is unrequited or even unrecognized!
This is Paris!
(End of Chapter)
---------------------
Support me on P@treon
[email protected]/charaz
$10 -> 300+ chapters in advance
Check my pinned post on P@treon