As agreed, Modern Life immediately received Lionel Sorel's first novel, the extraordinary adventures of benjamin button.
Georges Charpentier paid Paul Pigout an extra 5 sous per line for the manuscript, but he believed it was worth it.
Considering that Modern Life's audience consisted of noblewomen and wealthy middle-class families, they certainly didn't want to read the novel later than ordinary citizens who could only afford Le Petit Parisien for five centimes.
Maintaining this small sense of'superiority' was very helpful in preserving Modern Life's prestige.
At the same time, Charpentier, after discussing with Lionel, decided to market Modern Life in a brilliant way—which is why the weekly's illustrator, Renoir, was sitting beside editor-in-chief Emile Bergerat.
Their heads were close together, both reading the freshly released the extraordinary adventures of benjamin button.
Émile had learned the general outline of the story from Charpentier a few days prior, but upon reading it, he still found it incredible.
The novel did not begin with the protagonist Benjamin Button's birth; instead, it used a flashback.
An old woman named Delphine Villeneuve, in her final moments, amidst the artillery fire of the anti-French coalition fighting the Commune, had her daughter, Caroline, read Benjamin Button's diary, thus beginning the life of this character who 'grew in reverse.'
And his life began with similar turmoil—
[My name is Benjamin, Benjamin Button.
My birth was unusual; it was July 14, 1789, in Paris.
It was said that on that day, the heat wave was like a layer of hot grease, the air filled with the smell of fear, sulfur, and rotting garbage, like a graveyard. The streets became boiling torrents. In the distance, thick smoke billowed from the direction of the Tuileries Palace. From the Pont Neuf, waves of cheers from the Bastille echoed.
My father—Luc de Bouton—was like a fly trapped in a glass jar. He paced fruitlessly in the small, stuffy living room. Sweat soaked the back of his linen shirt, and he clutched the corner of his clothing tightly, as if it were the only lifeline he could grasp. Behind the door, women's screams grew more piercing and short-lived; each time a scream came, Luc's body trembled violently, almost knocking over a chair.
Inside was my mother, Claire.]
"Beginning with one revolution, ending with another? Interesting!" Renoir, being a painter, already had the scenes from the novel forming in his mind—
On one side, an old woman lay dying under a sky reddened by the Paris Commune's barricade fighting;
On the other, a woman in labor struggled to give birth amidst the smoke of the Great Revolution.
One symbolized life nearing its end; the other, a new life about to begin.
Combined with the two great movements in the background that directly determined France's fate, the implications were self-evident and full of imaginative space.
Émile exclaimed in praise, "Charpentier was right; even without the 'growing in reverse' gimmick, this opening alone is enough to captivate readers."
Renoir shook his head, "If that were the case, this novel would be as uninteresting and mediocre as the other novels you've had me illustrate before…"
Émile was furious, "Are you saying my taste is bad?"
Renoir shrugged and didn't reply.
Émile snorted and turned away, continuing to read—
Luc de Bouton, at the doctor's prompting, entered the room and saw his wife:
[His young wife, Claire, his gentle and serene Claire, lay silently on the bed like a leaf torn by a storm, beneath her a dazzling, shocking crimson that almost spread to the floor. Her once vibrant face was lifeless, ashen like a dust-covered plaster statue. The warmth of life was rapidly draining from her body.]
Immediately after, he saw his child—
[It was a small old man who looked at least seventy years old. His skin was covered in wrinkles and age spots, with a few sparse strands of gray hair. His eyelids drooped heavily, almost covering his entire eyes, leaving only a thin slit; his nose bridge was sunken, and shrunken gums encased a few yellowish baby teeth. He also had small hands and legs like withered branches. His skin was terrifyingly loose, like a poorly fitting, tattered coat that could slip off at any moment.
—That was me.
Perhaps sensing his father's gaze, the infant made a sound, not a clear cry, but a broken, hoarse cough, like an old door hinge turning.
—Ha, all of this Luc Bouton told me in the last few years of his life; he would ramble on, repeating every detail to me, so vividly as if it happened yesterday. I hung like a ghost on the ceiling of that delivery room, watching this poor father and son.]
"Ha, if you ask me, children actually look quite ugly when they're born, sometimes like an old man. My first son, Regit, looked pretty similar to him!" Émile joked.
Renoir retorted unhappily, "Did Regit have age spots and gray hair? Did he cry like an old man coughing with laryngitis?"
Émile was left speechless—this was also why he agreed to Renoir working in his studio rather than the editorial office daily.
The two simply couldn't get along.
However, Renoir was also troubled because Lionel's description of the infant as a'seventy-year-old little old man' was difficult to handle.
It wasn't that he couldn't draw an infant that looked like an old man, but he had to consider Modern Life's audience and avoid making the self-proclaimed elegant and tasteful gentlemen and ladies uncomfortable and disgusted.
But this was the illustrator's concern, while Émile focused more on the metaphors behind the novel's plot—
["Monster!" Luc's voice revealed instinctive fear and disgust. He stumbled backward, his back hitting the cold stone wall with a heavy thud.
"No! For God's sake!" Claire woke up, pleading with her last strength, "He's alive! He… he's breathing! It's a boy! Mr. Bouton, promise me, give him a place to live…"
Luc's movements froze. His bloodshot eyes stared intently at the ugly, whimpering mass of wrinkled skin, while Claire's body rapidly cooled, finally losing all color. Outside the window, a more frantic wave of clamor suddenly crashed in, mixed with the crisp sound of breaking glass and the violent shouts of the crowd:
"Hang the aristocrats! Burn their dog kennels!"
…]
Luc Bouton ultimately did not follow his wife's dying wish but chose to abandon the child at the Salpêtrière poorhouse near Châtelet Square.
The reason was not just the child's strange birth; he feared being seen by revolutionaries as an accomplice of the devil, that the child was the product of a decaying aristocratic curse, or even worse!
Sending him to the poorhouse gave both of them a slim chance of survival.
After finishing, Émile asked Renoir, "What do you think?"
Renoir nodded, "It's a good novel. I can illustrate it… Hmm, I think combining 'old woman dying' and 'infant being born' would have a strong visual impact…"
Émile waved his hand, "One illustration? Charpentier said each issue of the extraordinary adventures of benjamin button must have at least four illustrations, all in color print!"
Renoir jumped out of his chair in shock, "Four? You want to work me to death! Color print? Is George crazy? Does he want to lose all of Charpentiers Bookshelf?"
Émile showed a meaningful smile, "No, Charpentier has been enlightened… To be precise, he was enlightened by Lionel Sorel!"