It was five days later when they returned from Jersey.
At Maupassant's warm invitation and with all expenses reimbursed, Lionel, Alice, and Petty stayed for a two-day, one-night trip, taking separate boats to the nearby Guernsey and Alderney.
By the time they saw the tall bell tower of Notre Dame de Paris again, the pollution crisis in the Seine River had come to an end.
The clean water rushing down from upstream had carried away all the filth, and the Seine River had regained its former clear color and cheerful flow.
Le Figaro no longer focused on whether the budget for Paris's sewage project had arrived, but was instead arguing over the latest education bill.
Feces, sewage, garbage, corpses, plagues… it was as if they had been banished from the memory of Parisians.
The number of pedestrians and carriages on the streets increased again, the market regained its prosperity, and the price of an egg also dropped from 15 centimes back to 5 centimes.
Time always flows, the market remains peaceful, and a limited number of lives are insignificant in France.
The tap water at An Tan Street 12 finally had no strange smell, and Petty could return to her beloved kitchen, beginning to make the "English dishes" she had tasted this time for Lionel.
So when Lionel saw the fish and chips on the table, he felt a bit helpless.
This food, originating from the British working class, was not unpalatable, and it was simple and easy to make; aside from being a bit monotonous and a calorie bomb, it was quite alright.
Petty fully demonstrated the French people's extraordinary passion for cooking, improving the fish and chips by adding various spices, and the final taste…
Was somewhat indescribable.
However, Lionel still ate it with a calm expression, then solemnly told Petty, "It's very well made. Don't make it next time."
Petty pouted; this was the first time Young Master Sorel hadn't praised her new dish.
After dinner, Lionel returned to his study to deal with the recent letters.
First was Madame Rothschild's letter, sealed with a golden wax stamp and bearing the family crest.
From the slightly trembling handwriting and barely concealed excitement in the tone, Lionel knew that A letter from an unknown woman would surely achieve unexpected success.
It must be said that Madame Rothschild was a sensitive woman, easily empathetic.
The woman in the novel who was infatuated with the writer L was worlds apart from her noble birth, yet she couldn't help but empathize with her.
As a member of the Rothschild family, she was at the center of wealth and power, enjoying a life of honor unimaginable to ordinary women.
But she also understood more deeply than anyone else the loneliness and pain of being an "accessory."
She was the daughter of an aristocratic family, the wife of a banker, a renowned art patron…
But beneath these labels, her identity as an independent individual, "Eleonore," had never truly been "seen."
The unknown woman in Lionel's writing, in the most extreme way, defended her last dignity as a "person" rather than an "accessory."
This light of dignity, erupting from absolute lowliness like a jade and stone burning together, was more shocking than any flowery words or fierce resistance.
When Lionel began writing this novel, he had not yet met Madame Rothschild; but after completing it, it unexpectedly became a footnote to her life.
In fact, it was also a footnote for many upper-class women of that era.
However, what surprised Lionel was her commitment to funding his future long novels, which was extremely important for an emerging literary talent.
Lionel thought for a moment, took out stationery and a quill, and wrote a polite reply to Madame Rothschild, thanking her for her praise of A letter from an unknown woman.
However, he hadn't yet decided what his first full-length novel would be about.
In the 19th century, a novelist was often not considered truly "outstanding" without a sensational long novel.
Maupassant became famous for his short stories, and this light, convenient creative method also brought him great creative freedom and generous income, but A Life and Bel Ami received mediocre responses, which was a persistent pain in his heart.
Therefore, Lionel had to be cautious with his first full-length novel, making sure to avoid a dud.
Next, he checked the letter from Modern Life, written by its editor-in-chief, Emile Bergerat.
He also highly praised A letter from an unknown woman, but more from a literary perspective. He particularly admired the novel's opening, even saying:
[This will revolutionize people's understanding of French novels, letting poets know that the secrets of the French language are also hidden in novels…]
Lionel smiled when he saw this sentence.
French poetry in the latter half of the 19th century was probably the most formally experimental modern poetry in the world, incorporating puns, line breaks, enjambment, off-rhyme, capitalization…
All phonetic and rhythmic elements that can be involved in alphabetic languages underwent revolutionary and innovative applications, almost to the point of being incomprehensible.
Stéphane Mallarmé's The Afternoon of a Faun is a representative work among them—it is a poem that Lionel, even with the mastery of French of a Sorbonne University student, could not fully understand.
But this sentence, [Many years later, facing the woman in bed, the novelist "L" would recall that distant afternoon when he read a letter from an unknown woman], was subtly connected to the path of French poetry.
However, the following content was a bit "sensitive"; Emile Bergerat offered Lionel a manuscript fee of 15 sous per line.
This was already quite generous for a young, emerging writer like Lionel.
But Lionel was furious: "I get 13 sous a line for writing dirty jokes for The Clamor, and your Modern Life, Mr. Charpentier, only offers 2 sous more?"
"I might as well submit this novel to Le Petit Parisien!"
Lionel again took out paper and pen and wrote a reply to Emile Bergerat in a calm, restrained, but clear tone, stating that he needed a manuscript fee of 30 sous (which is 1.5 francs) per line.
He believed this price was very fair—although he was young, his work had already appeared in major newspapers like Le Petit Parisien, causing a certain sensation, so he could no longer demean himself as a novice.
The manuscript fees for famous writers were usually 2 to 3 francs per line, so 1.5 francs was very reasonable for him.
He was not afraid of Emile Bergerat refusing; after all, with Madame Rothschild's sponsorship commitment, he had no shortage of places to publish.
However, at this moment, Lionel was startled—when did he start considering accepting sponsorship as a matter of course, and as leverage for bargaining?
"Young man, you still have to work hard yourself! How can you rely solely on your aunt?"
He quickly pulled out a stack of paper and began to write down my uncle jules, which he had dictated on the Saint Michel, preparing to send it to Le Petit Parisien.
Just then, there was a knock on the apartment door.