Before Lionel now lay 100 francs in cash and a telegram.
The 100 francs was an advance payment for his royaltiesfrom The Clamor for the coming week. Gabriel had eagerly serialized the submissions of An Honest Parisian as a column in The Clamor, even moving its position from the back page to the second page.
Since the publication of the "Priest Trilogy," The Clamor had successfully suppressed toilet reads like La Lanterne and Le Polichinelle, growing at a rate of over 20,000 copies per issue and becoming the favorite of Parisians during their bathroom breaks.
Those short stories, one after another, combined elements like eroticism and homosexuality, which were popular and well-liked, while being subtle and clever, making everyone who read them unable to put them down.
These French people couldn't imagine that such things could be expressed with so many roundabout hints, and everyone truly enjoyed the pleasure of "sudden realization."
But this also had side effects—
Parisian doctors had recently treated a large number of patients with ruptured hemorrhoids, all due to laughing too hard while on the toilet, causing the affected area to rupture.
For a time, the toilets of Paris were a scene of "bloodshed and chaos."
Under these circumstances, Gabriel not only agreed to increase An Honest Parisian's royaltiesto 13 sous per line but also agreed to pay it in the form of a weekly advance of 100 francs.
An Honest Parisian, however, had to provide no less than 150 lines of manuscript to The Clamor by every Tuesday.
The Clamor knew that since the other party was using "poste restante" to collect his royalties, if they didn't agree to these terms, An Honest Parisian could at any time submit his manuscripts to competitors like La Lanterne.
This was the characteristic of tabloids—royaltiesoften had no "middle ground." On one hand, they extremely exploited and withheld payments from budding young authors, while on the other, they could pay high remuneration for good works that boosted sales.
A price of 13 sous per line was already the standard for authors of "minor renown" in the Parisian publishing world.
Maupassant, who established Lionel's reputation for being "poor" and "upright," currently had a royaltiesof no more than 10 sous per line, and his published works could be described as "few and far between."
But Lionel couldn't be happy at all, because a telegram from the Alps brought bad news—
Just one day before Lionel's telegram reached home, Sorel Family had already handed over a full 5,000 francs in cash to the swindler named Émile, for him to bring to Paris to purchase "Panama Canal" bonds.
Lionel's actions were already fast enough. After receiving the previous letter from home, he had investigated Émile's background within just three days and sent a telegram back to dissuade his family.
But in this era, even telegrams were not yet common in every town.
Lionel's telegram was first sent to "Lalagne," the largest city near his hometown. Then, the Lalagne telegraph office would notify the recipient through the postal system, and the recipient would have to travel to Lalagne to collect the telegram.
Back and forth, 3 days had passed.
By this time, Émile had disappeared with Lionel's sister's dowry and most of the family's savings.
Sorel panicked after receiving the telegram. They first checked the gifts Émile had given their daughter and found that whether it was the rings, necklaces, or those dazzling jewels, they were all fakes.
They then went to the provincial capital, "Gap," and visited the Orby Trading Company office. The company flatly stated that they had never heard of any "Émile" and that no such person existed.
As for the large farm in Guyane, Sorel Family had neither the ability nor the need to verify it.
Sorel Family was almost on the verge of collapse—the father was so struck by the bad news that he was in a daze all day and had no heart for work; the mother, though still able to manage household chores, secretly wept whenever she thought of it.
His sister, needless to say, cried every day and no longer left the house.
At the end of this long telegram, his father, with great difficulty, made a "request" to him, just like in the previous letter: drop out of school and come home.
However, this time, there would certainly be no office job paying 260 francs a month. What awaited him would probably be the same as his father, starting as a small clerk earning 120 francs a month in some company or large farm, toiling until his father's age, with both eyes ruined, and still only managing to increase his salary to 200 francs.
Lionel sighed, folded the long telegram, and put it away.
He was even less likely to return to the Alps now.
It wasn't that he had no deep emotional connection with these "stranger" family members, but returning now would only ruin his own future and do nothing to help the situation.
If The Clamor didn't renege, he could now earn almost 400 francs a month, which would be nearly 5,000 francs a year, allowing him to live what could be called a "decent" life within the "commoner" class—of course, this was not stable.
Once The Clamor was banned (which was common), or if his stories lost their appeal, this money could be halved at any time.
Furthermore, there was another hidden danger: "anonymity" on one hand could ensure his safety, maximally avoiding being exposed and standing in the dock to face a trial for moral corruption.
On the other hand, it also meant he did not have control over the pseudonym "An Honest Parisian." Paris had many talented but down-and-out writers, and The Clamor could replace him at any time, saving at least 50 francs a week!
After all, The Classic of Jokes contained only short jokes, and the genre's capacity was limited. In terms of technique, for the French, it could only be considered "novel," but certainly not "profound."
And this novelty would last at most two or three months, after which "An Honest Parisian," "A Simple Parisian," "A True Parisian," "A Robust Parisian," etc., would likely spring up like mushrooms after rain.
But in any case, to solve Sorel Family's crisis, the opportunity was not in the Alps, but in Paris.
Lionel first wrote a letter home, stating that he had found a part-time job as a tutor for a noble family, earning 200 francs a month, which was enough to cover his personal living expenses and Sorbonne tuition. He also enclosed 100 francs in cash to prove his words were true.
Then he asked his family to describe Émile's appearance in detail, preferably by having an artist draw it and send it to him; he would look for clues about this swindler in Paris.
Finally, he sincerely stated that although the family had lost a huge sum of 5,000 francs, the most important thing was that the family must not be defeated; as long as he and his father could still work, Sorel Family would have hope of "making a comeback."
After finishing the letter, the bright moonlight was already streaming through the round skylight. He sighed, tucked the letter into an envelope, and then pulled out a stack of manuscript paper.
He first wrote a full page, then took a second sheet of paper, but only wrote one line—
[Dear Mr. Gabriel, this is a section from a novel I am conceptualizing. If you are interested, we can discuss its publication plan in detail…]