Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

Chapter 78 Men Turn Bad When They Come to Paris (First Update, Requesting Monthly Tickets)
Lionel slept until noon and skipped his last morning class before the Easter holiday.

After drinking a glass of water, he decided to skip his afternoon classes and officially begin his Easter holiday.

However, not many students went to class at the Sorbonne today, and the professors tacitly approved of this situation—after all, many students managed to turn this two-week holiday into four weeks.

During lunch, Lionel noticed that Alice's eyes were red and asked with concern, "What's wrong? Missing home?"

Alice wiped her eyes and shook her head: "No... Leon, how could you be so cruel?"

Lionel: "Hmm?"

Before Alice could speak again, Patty raised her hand and finished speaking for her: "Sister Alice cried for almost an hour after reading the young master's novel!"
She said the young master had arranged such a tragic fate for the heroine of the novel; she loved a man all her life, but he never remembered her…

Upon hearing Patty's words, Alice couldn't help but feel her eyes redden again, and she looked like she was about to cry.

Lionel quickly comforted her: "Novels are fiction, don't take them seriously—how could there be such a miserable woman and such a heartless man in real life?"

"This is all market demand, Alice. Female readers need to satisfy their fantasies of a love story marked by life and death, while male readers need to satisfy their yearning for the life of a dashing, carefree playboy..."

To be honest, "Letter from an Unknown Woman" is still too stimulating for readers of this era!
Most people's experience with "sadomasochism" is limited to the extreme love and hate that a landlord's eldest son has for a maid after seducing her. They absolutely cannot imagine that someone could love another person for a lifetime like the heroine in "Letter from an Unknown Woman," while the other person remains completely unaware.

This novel, in a way, redefines "love".

In traditional thinking, love, regardless of the process and the outcome, always requires a process of getting to know each other.
This novel tells readers that love can also be purely unrequited, where one party is willing to die for the other, while the other remains completely unaware.

Alice looked at Lionel with suspicion: "Really? Lionel, don't lie to me... I think you've changed."

The Lionel in Paris and the Lionel in the Alps are completely different people!

She struggled to keep from uttering the proverb, "Men go bad when they come to Paris."

Lionel didn't rush to refute, but instead smiled gently: "Oh? What's Lionel like in the Alps?"

Alice seemed lost in memories, and after a long while she said, "Lionel of the Alps... intelligent, polite, spoke slowly, shy, and always walked with a hunched back, as if afraid that others would think he was too tall..."

As Lionel listened, he cut a piece of meat from his plate and put it in his mouth. With one bite, the rich juices filled his mouth.

“So, is my change not a good thing?” Lionel asked her.

Alice shook her head: "I don't know... You're still so smart, so polite... even smarter, able to write such a good novel. But... but..."

She didn't finish her sentence and silently lowered her head to eat.

But Lionel didn't ask what came after "but," because such questions are inherently unanswerable.

However, to ease the awkward atmosphere, Lionel suggested, "How about we go on a picnic tomorrow? Saint-Clue Park? Bois de Boulogne? Versailles? Or would you like to go boating on the Seine?"

This topic finally dispelled the gloomy atmosphere at the dinner table, and Petty smiled.

Alice thought for a moment and said, "How can the parks and forests of Paris compare to the Alps... I want to see the Seine. I've read about it many times in books, but I've never really seen it properly."

Lionel snapped his fingers: "Alright, let's go to the Seine!"

— Not everyone was as relaxed and cheerful as Lionel, such as Gabriel, the owner of Le Bourgeois.

Because he was busy dealing with various parties, he only received a reply from "an honest Parisian" this morning, two letters in total.

One letter was a rejection, and the other was also a rejection.

Gabriel hadn't expected the other party to be so cautious, refusing to take the 3000 francs in front of him and even returning the 300 francs he had prepaid.

He even wrote another letter immediately, but received a bounced letter that afternoon. The post office's bounced receipt said: "Address cancelled."

“What a cunning old fox!” Gabriel commented, then asked his personal valet Pierre, who was standing before him, “Are you sure it was only that young man from beginning to end?”

Pierre nodded and added, "I followed him twice. The first time was two months ago when he went to an old, run-down apartment in District 11. The landlady there was like a witch who had crawled out of a chivalric romance novel."

This time he didn't go to District 11, but headed towards District 5. However, there were too many carriages on the way, and I was stuck in traffic for a while. His public carriage disappeared.

I could only deduce from the route of the horse-drawn carriage that he probably went to Boulevard Saint-Germain, Rue António, or Boulevard Haussmann.

Gabriel then asked, "Are you sure he's a student at the Sorbonne named Lionel?"

Pierre replied, "His neighbor in that apartment in District 11 told me! But I was about to ask more questions when that old witch kicked me out."

Gabriel fell into deep thought. The 11th arrondissement was basically a slum, so it wasn't surprising that poor college students lived there; Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue António were middle-class areas, so he certainly couldn't afford to live in "Lionel".

The only possibility is that "an honest Parisian" lives there, or at least they meet there.

Paris has 20,000 cafes; you can easily send messages or emails at any one of them without anyone noticing.

Gabriel has been under a lot of pressure these past two days.

He visited Bishop Gilbert twice, but was told both times that the bishop was accompanying the cardinal on a tour of the diocese and was not in the church.

He then visited Director Gigo, and was not turned away, but the meeting took place in a public reception room rather than in his office.

In addition, he went to see several members of parliament he knew, but they either avoided him or only gave him official responses. Only one person was very frank and said, "Why don't you go to London or Berlin and hide out for a while?"

All the signals pointed in the worst possible direction.

However, the Easter holiday gave him two weeks to catch his breath; during these two weeks, even if Napoleon IV led the British army across the Channel, French civil servants would not give up their holidays.

Gabriel could leave Paris with his money without any trouble—his only regret was that he couldn't take the second part of "Decadent City" with him.

It's uncertain when he'll return, and whether we'll even be able to contact "an honest Parisian" by then.

He then took out a piece of stationery, quickly scribbled a few lines on it, stuffed it into an envelope, and handed it to Pierre:

"I'll be heading to England in a few days. As for the newspaper, you can keep it running for a while, and if it really doesn't work out, you can close it down."
If the police come to my door, give them this letter.

Pierre was already used to this. He put the letter in his pocket and bowed to Gabriel: "Yes, sir!"

(End of this chapter)