Although color printing was already very mature in this era, its price remained stubbornly high.
Newspapers aiming for widespread circulation naturally couldn't afford a high-end item like "color lithography," which was time-consuming, labor-intensive, and expensive.
While Modern Life's 10-sou price was indeed not cheap, could it cover the costs after adopting color printing?
Nevertheless, this newspaper gave Lionel a feeling of being in another world, as if "yesterday" had reappeared, making him lose track of time.
He flipped through it and found that not only the first, second, and third pages… but all of them were dedicated to Letter from an Unknown Woman. Modern Life had published it completely in one go.
He had initially expected this novella of over a thousand lines to be serialized in at least two parts, "Part One" and "Part Two."
He never thought Modern Life would be so bold as to publish it all at once.
However, this also led to an excellent reading experience, as cliffhangers were unwelcome by readers in any era.
Before the Easter holiday ended, a new issue of Modern Life quietly appeared in exquisite newsstands, member-only club reading rooms, and salons with heavy velvet curtains.
What first stunned readers was, naturally, the colored illustration.
Astonishing color saturation, dramatic light-and-shadow contrasts, and the complex micro-expressions of the characters instantly captivated all eyes.
Naturally, their attention then focused on the novel accompanying this illustration...
————
"'Letter from an Unknown Woman'?"
Marquise de Luné softly read the words.
She habitually sat in her small living room facing the garden after breakfast, reading newly arrived newspapers and magazines in the morning light.
When she read the opening sentence of the letter from the "unknown woman" to "L," it struck her heart like a cold iron hammer:
[My son died yesterday—for this life as frail as a reed, I have fought with death for three days and three nights...]
The Marquise's hand trembled, and hot coffee splashed onto her expensive lace cuff, but she didn't notice.
Her breathing quickened, and her gaze greedily, almost with a masochistic urgency, swept over the scrawled, fervent words.
The unknown woman's love, humble to the dust, the countless unacknowledged moments of watchful waiting, the solitary courage of conceiving and raising the child, the symbol of their love, and finally, the immense grief of the child's death...
Every word was like a red-hot needle, scorching her already numb heart.
When she read that the woman, at the end of her life, chose to declare her existence and her love and hate through this long letter rather than through tears and clinging, the Marquise felt a strong dizzy spell.
She slammed the magazine shut, pressing it tightly against her chest, as if to calm her wildly beating heart.
She thought of the secret stirrings of her youth; she thought of the glances, hidden by a fan, cast toward a favored man only to be quickly withdrawn; she thought of countless nights when her husband was absent-minded...
An unprecedented, immense resonance and sorrowful indignation swept over her...
————
Madame Fuli Lian, the wife of pharmacist Monsieur Michel, escaped into their small, herb-scented dispensing room while her husband was in the pharmacy for his consultations.
This was the only place she could temporarily escape from trivial household chores and crying children.
She eagerly opened Modern Life—it was one of the great pleasures in her dull life.
After being shocked by the colored illustration, she read the novel with an excitement bordering on prying into privacy.
But soon, this excitement was replaced by an overwhelming sense of suffocation.
[You, you who never knew me!]
The opening address of the "unknown woman's" letter to "L" made her heart tremble.
She read how the woman lived like a ghost on the periphery of the man's world, how she remembered every tiny detail related to him, how she consumed herself during countless lonely nights...
Fuli Lian's tears silently streamed out, dripping onto the rough paper of the newspaper, even blurring the ink.
She seemed to see herself.
Did she love her husband? Perhaps.
But married life had long since worn away all passion, leaving only responsibility and day-to-day toil.
Had she ever experienced such burning, unrequited, even self-destructive love?
Perhaps in some fleeting moment of her girlhood, there had been a vague shadow.
But the woman in the novel displayed her deepest, never-acknowledged, and unspoken humble desires and great sacrifices in such an extreme, tragic, naked way.
When she read about the woman raising her child alone, seeing him as her only link to her beloved, and then ultimately losing him, Emily could no longer control herself and began to sob, suppressed.
She thought of her young children, who were the entire focus and meaning of her life.
Losing him?
She couldn't imagine such despair.
And when the woman chose, at the brink of death, to declare her existence with a long letter, rather than like the hysterical women she had seen, Emily felt a tremor and admiration from the depths of her soul.
What desperate dignity this was!
She looked at the man's confused, bewildered face with a hint of mockery in the illustration, and a strong surge of anger and sorrow welled up in her heart...
————
In a crowded, dimly lit tailor shop in Montmartre, seamstresses were buried in needles and fabric.
Madame Malvina, the proprietress, held a copy of Modern Life—she had initially picked it up to study the latest fashion illustrations, but was firmly captivated by the colored illustrated novel.
As lunchtime approached, she uncharacteristically didn't talk about fashion or client gossip.
Instead, she hesitated, then cleared her throat and said to the room full of female workers:
"Girls, quiet down for a moment.
I… I'll read something to you."
She opened Letter from an Unknown Woman.
At first, the seamstresses were a bit absent-minded, continuing to sew buttons; but as Madame Malvina read the opening declaration about the son's death, the sound of the sewing machines gradually stopped, and their needles and threads were put down.
In the cramped space, only the proprietress's voice remained, and increasingly heavy breathing.
They heard how a humble woman loved a man who didn't even remember her, how she lived like a shadow, how she alone bore the burden of conception and upbringing...
These plots were too close to their lives.
Many of them had experienced or were experiencing emotional loss, a destiny of being overlooked.
The unknown woman was like a cruel mirror, reflecting their own shadows.
When Madame Malvina read about the woman writing her letter in despair, only to "be seen" before she died, a young worker in the corner could no longer hold back.
She suddenly covered her face, her shoulders convulsing violently.
She remembered the lover who had abandoned her, and the child she had secretly aborted.
No one laughed at her.
The entire tailor shop fell into a heavy, suffocating silence, with only suppressed sobs rising and falling.
From time to time, someone cursed under their breath:
"Damn it! These men…"
Madame Malvina finished reading the last line, herself already in tears.
She closed the newspaper, looked at the women before her—roughened by life but deeply struck at this moment—and after a long while, hoarsely said:
"Everyone… everyone get back to work."
————
Meanwhile, in a cozy, luxurious, palace-like manor living room, a group of young, fashionable aristocratic ladies sat together.
The usual lighthearted chatter, art critiques, and political gossip had disappeared, because almost every arriving lady and young woman held a copy of Modern Life in her hands.
Many had red-rimmed eyes and dazed expressions, as if they had not yet recovered from the tremendous emotional shock.
A slightly older noblewoman, teary-eyed, asked,
"That child… Oh God, when I read 'my son died yesterday,' my heart… was gripped by a cold hand.
Why did she start that way? Why?"
Madame Rothschild, who had already read the novel, replied in a calm tone:
"Because that was her only 'collateral'!
No one can question what a mother says when she loses her only child!
She used this greatest pain to gain that indifferent man… to gain a few minutes of listening from all of us!"
Hearing this answer, the noblewomen's hearts broke again, and their eyes reddened even more.
Madame Rothschild looked at the others' pained expressions and their adoring gazes towards her, and an infinite sense of satisfaction surged within her.
This secret pleasure almost made her ambiguously moan aloud on the spot.
She practically wanted to send a servant to immediately bring Lionel here by carriage and announce to everyone:
"This is my boy!"
(End of Chapter)
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