It was five days later that he returned from Jersey.
At Maupassant's generous invitation and with all expenses reimbursed, Lionel, Alice, and Petty stayed for a night and two days, taking boats to the nearby islands of Guernsey and Alderney.
By the time they saw the tall bell tower of Notre Dame again, the Seine's pollution crisis had come to an end.
The pure water rushing down from upstream had washed away all the filth, and the Seine had regained its former clear color and cheerful flow.
Newspapers like Le Figaro were no longer concerned with whether Paris's sewage project budget had arrived, but were instead arguing over the latest education bill.
Feces, sewage, garbage, corpses, plague... seemed to have been driven from the memory of Parisians.
Pedestrians and carriages reappeared on the streets, the markets regained their prosperity, and the price of an egg dropped from 15 centimes back to 5 centimes.
Time always flows onward, the streets remain peaceful, and a few limited lives are nothing in France.
The tap water at 12 Antoine Street finally had no strange odor, and Petty could return to her beloved kitchen, beginning to cook the "English dishes" she had sampled on the trip for Lionel.
So when Lionel saw the fish and chips on the table, he felt a bit helpless.
This food, originating from the British working class, wasn't unpleasant and was simple to make; aside from being a bit monotonous and a calorie bomb, it was acceptable.
Petty fully leveraged the extraordinary French passion for cooking, modifying the fish and chips by adding various spices.
The final taste...
...was hard to describe.
However, Lionel calmly finished his meal, then seriously told Petty,
"You did very well. Don't make it again next time."
Petty pouted; it was the first time Young Master Sorel hadn't praised her new dish.
After dinner, Lionel returned to his study and began to deal with the recent letters.
First was Mrs. Rothschild's letter, bearing the family crest and sealed with golden sealing wax.
From the slightly trembling handwriting and the undisguised excitement in the tone, Lionel knew that Letter from an Unknown Woman was sure to achieve unexpected success.
It must be said, Mrs. Rothschild was a sensitive and empathetic woman.
The woman in the novel, who was infatuated with writer L, was worlds apart from her noble background, yet she couldn't help but identify with her.
As a member of the Rothschild family, she was at the center of wealth and power, enjoying a life of honor unimaginable to ordinary women.
But she also understood, more profoundly than anyone, the loneliness and pain of being an "accessory."
She was the daughter of an aristocratic family, the wife of a banker, a renowned art patron...
But beneath these labels, "Eleonore," as an independent individual, had never truly been "seen."
The unknown woman in Lionel's story, in the most extreme way, defended her last shred of dignity as a "person" rather than an "accessory."
This light of dignity, erupting from absolute humility like an indiscriminate burning of jade and common stone, was more impactful than any flowery prose or fierce resistance.
When Lionel began writing this novel, he had not yet met Mrs. Rothschild; but upon its completion, it unexpectedly became a footnote to her life.
Indeed, it was also a footnote to the lives of many upper-class women of this era.
What surprised and delighted Lionel, however, was her commitment to sponsor the full-length novel he would publish in the future—this was immensely important for a rising star in the literary world.
Lionel thought for a moment, took out stationery and a quill, and wrote a polite reply to Mrs. Rothschild, thanking her for her praise of Letter from an Unknown Woman.
However, he hadn't yet decided what his first full-length novel would be about.
In the 19th century, a novelist who hadn't produced a sensational full-length novel was often not considered truly "outstanding."
Maupassant became famous for his short stories, and this light, convenient method of creation also brought him great creative freedom and generous income; however, A Life and Bel-Ami received lukewarm responses, a persistent pain in his heart.
Therefore, Lionel had to approach his first full-length novel with caution, determined to avoid producing a dud.
Next, he checked the letter from Modern Life, written by its editor-in-chief, Emile Bergerat.
He also highly praised Letter from an Unknown Woman, but more from a literary perspective.
He particularly lauded the novel's opening, even stating:
[This will revolutionize people's understanding of the French novel, letting poets know that the secret of the French language is also hidden within novels...]
Seeing this sentence, Lionel smiled.
French poetry in the latter half of the 19th century was perhaps the modern poetry in the world that went furthest in formal exploration, incorporating puns, broken sentences, line breaks, misaligned rhymes, capitalization...
Every element of rhythm and meter that an alphabetic language could involve underwent revolutionary and innovative use, almost to the point of being incomprehensible.
Stéphane Mallarmé's Afternoon of a Faun was a representative work among them—a poem that Lionel, even with a Sorbonne student's mastery of French, could not fully understand.
But the line [Years later, facing the woman on the bed, novelist 'L' would recall that distant afternoon when he read a letter from an unknown woman] subtly connected with the path of French poetry.
However, the following content was somewhat "sensitive": Emile Bergerat proposed a fee of 15 sous per line for Lionel's manuscript.
For a fledgling young writer like Lionel, this was already quite generous.
But Lionel was furious:
"I get 13 sous a line for writing obscene jokes for Le Brouhaha, and your esteemed Monsieur Charpentier's Modern Life only offers two more sous?"
"I might as well submit this novel to Le Petit Parisien!"
Lionel once again took out paper and pen, and in a calm, restrained, but firm tone, wrote a reply to Emile Bergerat, proposing that he required a fee of 30 sous (or one and a half francs) per line.
He believed this price was perfectly fair—though he was young, his works had already appeared in major newspapers like Le Petit Parisien, causing a stir, and he couldn't humble himself by acting like a novice anymore.
Established writers' fees were typically 2 to 3 francs per line, so asking for one and a half francs was very reasonable for him.
He wasn't afraid of Emile Bergerat's refusal; with Mrs. Rothschild's sponsorship commitment, he had no shortage of places to publish.
However, at this moment, Lionel was startled: when did he start taking patronage for granted, and using it as leverage in negotiations?
A young man still needs to strive on his own! How can he rely solely on an aunt/patroness?
He quickly pulled out a stack of paper and began to write down My Uncle Jules, which he had dictated aboard the Saint-Michel, preparing to send it to Le Petit Parisien.
Just then, a knock came at the apartment door.
(End of chapter)
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