Inside the salon, one transcendent after another waited eagerly for the drama to unfold.
Some were acquaintances of Arthur Rimbaud, while others had admired him as a fellow Transcendent. Even those who had never heard of Baudelaire's student were quickly filled in by the people around them. Arthur Rimbaud—the youngest transcendent France had ever produced, and the partner of Paul Verlaine.
At seventeen, most people were still stumbling through adolescence, trying to find their place in the world. Arthur Rimbaud, however, had already defeated countless powerful ability users, elevating his Ability to the rank of a Transcendent in a single breathtaking leap.
Mallarmé stepped out into the garden to call Verlaine.
While everyone waited for him to arrive, Alexandre Dumas Sr. finally broke the silence.
"Charles, don't be so harsh."
Charles Pierre Baudelaire cast him a sidelong glance with those unsettling eyes of his. It was only the slightest movement, yet it carried the unmistakable air of a spoiled, extravagant French aristocrat.
When it came to spending money, even the old nobility could hardly rival him.
"You have a fine son. Of course you wouldn't care."
"Are you jealous, Charles?" Dumas Sr. laughed heartily. "You could always have a child with your lover."
The famously amorous Dumas Sr. wore his pride openly. He draped an arm around the son seated beside him without the slightest embarrassment. Alexandre Dumas Jr. curled his lips in mild annoyance, but at his father's unabashed praise, a faint blush still crept across his face.
"My son is the greatest masterpiece of my life!"
"Both father and son are Transcendents!"
Without a doubt, they were the most envied family in all of France's ability-user community.
Among France's Transcendents, there were scarcely any ascetics. Every one of them was strikingly attractive and possessed unparalleled charisma. They had countless lovers, yet very few had either illegitimate or legitimate children.
Paul Verlaine arrived half an hour later.
Under the teasing gazes of his fellow Transcendents, the blond-haired young man walked over to the black-haired Baudelaire. Without looking too closely at the other's face, he could already see traces of Rimbaud in him.
To be more precise, many of Rimbaud's bad habits had been learned from Baudelaire.
Spending money recklessly. Paying little attention to family. Loving to travel. Pursuing a carefree, bohemian life.
The teacher and student had never spent much time together, yet they had gotten along with each other remarkably well.
"Monsieur Baudelaire."
Verlaine took a seat beside Baudelaire's sofa, a light smile gracing his face. He even poured him a glass of wine as a gesture of respect, as though he hadn't been avoiding Baudelaire whenever possible.
Baudelaire, however, abandoned his usual aggressive demeanor. He reached out, took Verlaine's hand, and raised it before his eyes.
His fingers slowly traced the ring on Verlaine's middle finger.
"Keep me company for a drink."
Turning his head, Baudelaire spoke in a reserved tone.
"You should all leave. Don't interrupt my long-overdue reunion with Verlaine."
His gaze shifted to the other "Paul" attending the salon.
The name was simply too common in France.
"Every time he sees you," Baudelaire said dryly, "Verlaine refuses to let anyone call him by his first name."
Laughter rippled through the salon.
The man who had been singled out, Jean-Paul Sartre, shrugged helplessly. "I can't help it. I heard 'Jean' was also Rimbaud's baptismal name when he was a child. I've managed to make two Transcendents avoid me all at once."
Paul Verlaine's expression remained indifferent. He offered Sartre no response.
One by one, the guests took their leave. Mallarmé saw them out, and when he returned, he found the atmosphere in the drawing room had plunged below freezing. The two men sitting there made him shiver involuntarily.
"Monsieur Baudelaire, you and Verlaine..."
"Go upstairs. Stop getting in my way down here." The mocking smile curling at Baudelaire's lips was enough to make any French ability user break out in a cold sweat. "I'm going to have a proper talk with Arthur's partner."
Paul Verlaine remained completely unfazed, smiling pleasantly like a charming escort accompanying someone over drinks.
For the first time, Stéphane Mallarmé felt a flicker of regret.
Had arranging this meeting solved a problem... or simply created even more?
Left with no choice and unwilling to offend Baudelaire, Mallarmé went upstairs. He instructed the maids not to concern themselves with whatever happened downstairs for the time being, then retired to his study and peacefully resumed his reading.
In a lazy voice, Verlaine remarked, "Mallarmé hasn't changed at all. He's still too timid to say an extra word."
People with families and responsibilities were always so careful, so afraid of having their peaceful lives thrown into chaos.
Ignoring the comment entirely, Baudelaire fixed his gaze on Paul Verlaine, then on the ring adorning his hand.
"You certainly have a talent for irritating me. Instead of wearing the ring Arthur gave you, you're wearing one you picked up from who knows where while fooling around?"
Paul Verlaine sighed in mild exasperation. Slipping his hand free from Baudelaire's grasp, he spread his fingers, displaying the fashionable ring.
"It's really just a random accessory I bought. What exactly is it that bothers you so much, Monsieur Baudelaire?
Even Arthur wouldn't mind."
Verlaine wore his blond hair short, his handsome, youthful features unchanged from years ago. Unlike most French ability users, who favored long hair, his pale blond locks resembled frost hanging upside down, each strand gleaming with an icy luster. No one could ever tell what the ever-smiling Verlaine was truly thinking—or how he could still find it in himself to smile.
"I've already said this before. I'm deeply saddened by the deaths of my friends and loved ones, but I can't spend the rest of my life drowning in grief. Why do you insist on holding on to the fact that I failed my mission and couldn't save them?"
Emotion flickered in Baudelaire's eyes. They were as intoxicating as Paris itself, like a pearl glittering in the heart of the night.
"I thought... he would be able to hold on to you." His voice softened. "You, Fleur du mal."
Verlaine froze for a moment.
Flower of evil?
Why would Baudelaire use such an ominous epithet for him...?
"What a pity," Baudelaire said quietly.
France seemed to have many Transcendents, but their numbers were still nowhere near Britain's.
When he had taken the young Arthur Rimbaud as his student, recognizing his potential to become a Transcendent, Baudelaire had carefully paved the way for his future. Originally, the opportunity to partner with France's "Artificial God," Paul Verlaine, had never been meant for a sixteen-year-old Arthur Rimbaud. Pairing two space-type ability users together meant overlapping abilities and wasted resources.
It was Baudelaire who had believed in Verlaine's future. Calling in every favor at his disposal, he secured that partnership for Arthur. With Verlaine's ability and Illuminations supporting him, Arthur's missions would be far safer, and the two of them would have the chance to build the trust and bond that true partners needed.
Who could have predicted that, before the war had even ended, his student who had been carrying out a simple intelligence-gathering mission overseas, would meet with disaster?
France had invested an immeasurable amount of time and effort to create its "Artificial God." Yet in the end, he was still a selfish being unlike any ordinary human—he had preserved his own life while abandoning the partner who had fought beside him through three years of life and death.
Baudelaire had spent years investigating Verlaine. He had even secretly traveled to Japan once, personally visiting the site of the explosion in Yokohama's foreign settlement, where he confirmed that nothing remained of his student's body.
Only recently had he noticed the faint trace of lingering attachment Verlaine still held for Arthur, and it filled him with bitter irony.
"If only you had brought back even a single keepsake..." Baudelaire said quietly. "I wouldn't have been this furious. Instead, you left every trace of him in that country."
"You let one of France's Transcendents die on foreign soil.
He died unknown.
Do you have any idea how lonely that must have been?"
His student had loved a lively world. He had loved the warmth of summer.
Yet he had died in the spring, in a remote corner of a foreign land. He never lived to see the height of summer, nor the day the war finally came to an end.
"Paul Verlaine.
Because of your dereliction of duty, France suffered losses in the Great Ability War.
As one of the leaders of the Paris Commune, I hereby banish you from Paris. Leave my sight."
At last, the calm composure Verlaine had maintained finally cracked.
It was as though a massive stone had been hurled into the still waters of his heart.
Banished from Paris?
He stared at Baudelaire in disbelief.
"On what grounds can you call it my dereliction of duty? Just because I was the one who came back alive?!"
"Exactly."
Baudelaire's voice was utterly devoid of emotion.
"If you had died, France could have recovered the power within your body and create another Transcendent."
"But what does the death of a natural Transcendent mean? You know the answer as well as I do. This world is simply that cruel."
"His life was worth more than yours, because his potential was simply greater."
"What are you so angry about?"
Baudelaire laughed. His hoarse laughter sounded like a sorcerer's curse.
"When you chose to betray Arthur, was he ever as angry as you are now?"
Verlaine's pupils trembled for an instant. Suppressing the turmoil in his heart, he rose to his feet, no longer interested in continuing this pointless exchange with the old man.
"You were the one who believed in me from the very beginning. Now you're the one who's prejudiced against me. Your orders mean nothing to me. I serve the French government, not just the Paris Commune."
Just as Verlaine was about to leave, Baudelaire's quiet voice drifted after him.
"How I wish it had been you who betrayed France, instead of Verne. Then I could have killed you with my own hands.
What a pity.
You don't have that kind of courage.
You've never possessed any faith in peace.
The French government created a heartless, emotionless monster.
And that monster is you.
You are neither human nor a true god. You exist somewhere between the two... but in the end, you are neither.
The moment you abandoned my student, you also cast away the most precious part of your humanity.
What a tragedy.
What a sorrow.
Beneath that beautiful exterior lies nothing but an empty soul. There isn't a single person willing to truly look at you. You are both beautiful and hideous, and one day you will slowly wither away in barren soil, with no one left to cherish you."
Verlaine stood frozen, his figure as motionless as a stone statue.
His blue eyes, concealing an icy sea beneath their tranquil surface, remained silent. Invisible waves crashed against hidden reefs, slammed into sheer cliffs, while ships sailed farther and farther away, and even the clamor of the city abandoned him.
It was as though something had hurled itself against the rocks and died there, letting out a mournful, grief-stricken cry.
Was it a seagull?
Or was it a heart that longed for freedom, yet would remain forever bound to France?
The blond-haired young man let out a mocking laugh.
"So this is your lesson to me?
What a pity—you were never my teacher. I was born a Transcendent. I had no childhood, no family. No one is qualified to be my teacher.
The only connection between us was Rimbaud. But he is dead. So live your own life in peace. It's not your place to tell me how I should live mine."
I've always been alone.
No one will ever understand me."
Like a cold, romantic god of the North, Verlaine departed, existing almost parallel to reality itself. No one could keep him from leaving.
The lively salon became a lonely one. Once the guests had dispersed, the warmth of gathering together vanished with them.
A flower bloomed at Baudelaire's fingertips—the crystallization of the malice lurking within human hearts. It was a beauty so exquisite that it inspired despair.
France still needed Verlaine.
Baudelaire had concluded that Verlaine had betrayed Rimbaud, yet he could not kill him.
He gazed at the Flower of Evil blooming upon Verlaine, unable to look away. His eyelashes quivered, moisture shimmering in his eyes, and at the corners of them lingered a sorrow born of fascination—a melancholy intoxicated by beauty itself.
"Arthur..."
"May you never know the cold again."
"...Your teacher will never have another student willing to help him pay off his debts."
...
Mallarmé pushed open the ornately carved wooden window of his study and looked out over the garden, veiled beneath the moonlit night.
Not far away, the Champs-Élysées glittered with brilliant lights.
Verlaine was gone. Baudelaire did not remain much longer either, choosing to return to his residence in Paris to rest.
Mallarmé had not listened to their argument. There were only a handful of reasons the two could have quarreled, and what interested him was not the argument itself, but how Baudelaire would deal with Verlaine.
From that, he would be able to discern the attitude of France's leadership.
Then he understood.
Despite facing Monsieur Baudelaire's condemnation, Paul Verlaine had left the estate completely unscathed.
Mallarmé slowly closed his eyes, quietly feeling the beauty and chaos of the world around him. In a voice so soft it was almost inaudible, he murmured,
"André Gide… if only you possessed his strength, why would returning to France be impossible?
The only thing that has ever stood in your way… is your own weakness."
André Gide's ability, Strait Is the Gate, allowed him to foresee danger a few seconds before it occurred.
But in the eyes of a Transcendent, an ability like that was simply too weak.
If they intended to kill you, you would never be able to evade them.
In the end, only strength was the true foundation for survival in this world where the strong preyed upon the weak.
I'm sorry.
I can't save you.