Lionel did not immediately agree to Albert's invitation, because this kind of ball, unlike previous masquerade balls, carried strong political implications.
Especially since Count Rohan was about to become the Deputy Minister of the "Ministry of Public Education and Fine Arts," which was effectively France's "Ministry of Culture" plus "Ministry of Education."
Writers and artists who attended his ball, even if not considered "his people," would still be clearly associated with a particular faction.
Before understanding the pros and cons, Lionel would certainly not rashly attend.
Albert, however, was not anxious; Lionel's reaction was normal—as the most dazzling literary star in all of Paris this year, a certain reserve was a necessary demeanor.
However, he left Lionel with a very tempting bait:
"Minister Ferry is preparing to reform the existing public education system. In the future, France will implement free primary education and compile unified textbooks for French, arithmetic, history, and other subjects.
My father happens to be the chairman of the editing committee for the French textbooks… He highly praised your 'my uncle jules,' considering it the most suitable novel for elementary school students to read, teaching them sympathy and compassion…"
If Lionel said he wasn't interested in this, it would certainly be insincere.
Public education in France had previously been monopolized by local churches, and there was no nationally unified French textbook.
If 'my uncle jules' could be selected, it would mean that Lionel would become a shared memory for a generation, or even several generations, of French people.
This was an irresistible temptation for any writer.
From Mr. Flaubert's salon on Sunday, to the criticism in "Le Figaro" today, and now to Count Rohan's invitation via his son, Lionel finally felt the true taste of "fame" in this era.
Not only were the manuscript fees growing increasingly generous, but they were also accompanied by increasingly complex social relationships.
Both the literary and political circles seemed to have eyes on him, watching to see which chair he would sit in.
Yet in this era, as long as you pursued art, whether it was literature, painting, drama, or music, you could not truly be "free"; you inevitably had to make choices.
If you were a writer, the owners of every newspaper and every publishing house at that time had their own distinct lineage, background, and political affiliation.
If you were a playwright or painter, then whether it was the Paris Opera, the Comédie-Française, or the Louvre, the Paris Salon exhibition, almost all depended on state subsidies and official permission.
Royalist salons gathered nobles, church figures, and academic masters;
Republican salons, on the other hand, gathered journalists, parliament members, secular writers, and Impressionist painters.
Lionel had previously been able to largely avoid such alignment by virtue of his status as a Sorbonne student.
But when his "first" full-length novel was published, everyone wanted to clearly see his spectrum.
The criticism in "Le Figaro" was a sharp signal.
And Lionel was not going to avoid it anymore.
When he returned home, he took out manuscript paper and began writing his rebuttal to Jules Claretie.
In an era without television or radio, where all information was spread through text, only this method could most effectively express one's views.
Lionel carefully recalled the "achievements" of that young man in his previous life who was most skilled at debating, pondering how he would write this piece…
Before long, Lionel pulled out the quill from the ink bottle, drained the excess ink, and wrote this article—
[ To Mr. Claretie, Editor-in-Chief of "Le Figaro"
—And a Reply to "Beware! A Literary Freak Show is Unfolding in Paris"
Mr. Jules Claretie:
You called Benjamin Button a "circus freak," your tone as sharp as a knife. However, please forgive the stubbornness of a young author—I must thank you, for you, inadvertently, handed the most moving key to this novel to its readers.
Yes, Benjamin Button is a "freak"; he enters the world born with the wrinkles of an eighty-year-old and grizzled baby hair.
You consider this an offense against human nature, but I say that precisely because he is a freak, he can better reflect the abyss beneath what we call "normality" than any well-behaved infant.
On this land repeatedly hammered by unforeseen fate, the cry of a freak can shake our conscience more than the cry of a holy infant.
…
In the specimen room of the Paris Medical School, there are countless "freaks" who never fully developed: those with spina bifida, exposed hearts, collapsed skulls. Gazing at them, everyone holds their breath—not out of fear, but out of awe—that even nature can err in creating life.
However, it is precisely these errors that allow young medical students to see for the first time that what is called "normal" is merely one of countless mistakes that happened to be preserved. Without these specimens, we might spend our entire lives taking life for granted, mistaking "should be so" for "must be so."
Benjamin Button, "born old," spares us the long process of aging, pushing the cruelty of "living towards death" before our eyes in an instant at birth. You call him a "freak," yet forget that all humans will eventually become such freaks; most are slowly wrinkled by time, while he merely experienced it early by fate.
…
As for the circus—have you ever considered why, in the winter of Paris, those temporarily erected canvas tents are always surrounded by dense crowds of the poor? They pay two sous, not just to see dwarfs or giants, but to reaffirm their own "completeness" amidst shock and pity.
Some hide it with laughter, some redeem it with coins, some quietly shed tears. The mockers see their own cruelty, the tearful see their own compassion—just as literature should awaken the numb, humble the proud, and make the gentle smile.
…
Since the day the Bastille fell, France has been accustomed to interrogating itself amidst ruins. Our ancestors sent kings to the guillotine, then knelt again under the emperor's eagle banner; they threw holy images into the Seine River, then wept in the echoes of Notre Dame Cathedral.
Such repetition, is it not a ninety-year-long freak show? Each of us is a freak born of this deformed history, bearing the birthmarks of the old regime and the scars of revolution, yet still pretending to be reborn in the dawn of the Third Republic.
…
You also said that literature should pursue "truth, goodness, and beauty"—I have no intention of refuting this sacred trinity, I only wish to ask: Does truth only accommodate symmetrical features? Does goodness only favor healthy limbs? Does beauty inevitably turn away from deformity? If so, then beauty is too timid, goodness too vulgar, and truth too impoverished.
Mr. Hugo had Quasimodo ring the bells in "Notre Dame Cathedral"; Gautier, in "Mademoiselle de Maupin," used the words of a cross-dresser to mock pedantry; Mr. Zola made the consumptive miners wail. When did they ever fear freaks? On the contrary, they knew that only by bringing freaks into the light could the shadows of ordinary evil have nowhere to hide.
…
You may worry that such literature will lead society to "sensory indulgence" and "degradation of taste." With all due respect, the taste of Paris has long been degraded—in the stench of money in the stock exchange, in the fawning smiles of officialdom, in the refined yet hollow compliments of salons. Rather than worrying about literature degrading taste, it is better to worry about taste degrading literature.
If we cannot even tolerate a fictional freak infant, how can we accommodate those in reality—the weavers hunched over from poverty, the soldiers rotting from syphilis, the children with sunken eyes from hunger? Freaks do not create ugliness; they merely expose it.
…
Finally, allow me to return to the circus. On a night when the circus had closed, I once saw a dwarf pick up a bouquet left behind by an audience member, weave it into a small wreath, and give it to the old woman selling chestnuts at the entrance. In that moment, I understood what nobility meant: nobility is not refusing freaks, but recognizing oneself in freaks; it is not covering one's eyes, but still extending a helping hand amidst horror.
…
Benjamin Button is also like this. All Parisians will see that he will be abandoned in the novel, then picked up again by love; he will gaze with infant-like clear pupils at those souls that are old, greedy, cowardly, yet still shimmer with the light of tenderness.
A so-called freak is merely a line of poetry written incorrectly by fate; and love, with clumsy rhymes, will set it right.
…
If you still insist on banishing Benjamin Button from the temple of literature, then so be it. Paris can accommodate him! When night falls, noblewomen in carriages and workers just off duty will talk about the same freak infant with different accents—some will curse him, some will love him, but no one will ever be indifferent to him again.
For a newly born novel, is there a more luxurious fate than this?
And I, from the side, will doff my hat to you—thank you for making the freak a key; thank you for teaching Paris to find humanity's place again between horror and compassion.
Lionel Sorel
May 16, 1879, Paris ]
After finishing, Lionel handed it to Alice: "After you transcribe it, send it out."
Alice took the manuscript: "Where should I send it?"
Lionel thought for a moment: "'Le Figaro'."