Halfway through writing the letter, he heard Mrs. Martin's shrill voice pierce through the floorboards, urging the lodgers downstairs for dinner.
Lionel hadn't fully digested his afternoon meal and had no desire to eat Mrs. Martin's tongue-offending food, so he chose to ignore her.
Anyway, he still had a piece of bread and a slice of cured meat, which he could snack on if he got hungry later.
After carefully considering his wording, he finally wrote the last sentence of the letter:
[...In short, please thank Mr. Emile for me. However, necessary caution is still required.
If possible, Father could send a letter to "Orbi Trading Company," and I will also inquire about the Panama Canal in Paris.
Your loving Léon
...]
After finishing, Lionel checked it once more.
Confirming there were no issues, he carefully folded it and placed it in the inner pocket of his coat, planning to mail it on his way to school tomorrow.
Next was the matter of how to make money.
Including the 20 francs just sent from home, his total assets were only a little over 110 francs.
In Paris, a place where every inch of land is worth an inch of gold, this could at most sustain him for two months, covering rent, food, stationery, newspaper and book rentals, and various miscellaneous expenses.
If he couldn't quickly find a way to earn money, he would have no choice but to return to the Alps, even if he didn't want to.
Lionel pondered a bit.
Without affecting his studies, the suitable part-time jobs for him were essentially a few types:
One was to be a tutor for middle-class families, teaching on weekends.
With good luck, he might earn about 40 to 60 francs a month.
The second was to be a scribe, copying manuscripts, working every evening, paid by the page.
Each page would yield about 3 to 5 sous, potentially earning around 20 francs a month.
This would barely allow him to survive in Paris.
As for other jobs, such as bookstore assistant or coffee shop waiter... as a poor student from the provinces, he would likely not be hired without a guarantor.
Of course, there was a third path—submitting his work, becoming a writer!
This was the Golden Age of French literature.
From Victor Hugo to Balzac, then to Flaubert and Zola, all had accumulated wealth and risen in class through writing.
Including Maupassant, whom he had just met today—don't let his current status as an obscure government clerk, only able to afford "public tables" for guests, fool you.
Once the immortal Boule de Suif is published, he will quickly resign from his job and become a full-time writer.
Soon after, he would move to the expensive Rue de Douai; a few years later, he would even buy a yacht and sail all the way to Italy for vacation.
Lionel's original self was also a well-known bright student in the Alps.
His choice to study in the Faculty of Arts at the Sorbonne naturally harbored the dream of becoming a great writer.
However, no matter how many times he submitted, his efforts were always like a stone sinking into the sea, without any news.
Lionel took a stack of papers from the desk drawer—these were manuscripts left by his original self.
After his rebirth, there were too many memories to sort through, and he had been muddled for a long time, so he hadn't had a chance to read them carefully.
As a young lecturer in the Chinese Department of Yenching University—Zhang Chaohua—now Lionel, he felt a headache seeing the titles of these manuscripts:
The Ideal Education, Love and Reason, The Holy Maiden, Echoes from the Depths of the Alps...
Each piece bore a serious, prematurely old-looking face.
Looking at the content, most were academic poems, essays, and literary criticisms.
Although the writing was decent, the values were strongly religious, which had long been outdated for this era.
Furthermore, the original self's aspirations were extremely high, only submitting to major newspapers like Le Figaro, Le Siècle, and Revue des Deux Mondes, naturally leading to no results.
One must remember that in the 1850s, after the great Monsieur Hugo became a wealthy man and the "Conscience of France" through his writing, this particular path became exceptionally crowded.
Every newspaper, every publisher, received a vast number of submissions.
Behind each submission was an ambitious young person hoping to become the next Hugo or Balzac.
As the editor-in-chief of Le Figaro sarcastically put it:
"More numerous than flies in a public latrine!"
So, without a doubt, the manuscripts submitted by Lionel's original self, like most others, were quietly piled in the corners of newspaper offices and publishing houses, only to be uniformly discarded once a certain quantity accumulated.
This was quite similar to the Chinese literary scene from the 1990s to the early 21st century.
For a young writer without connections to make a name for themselves, there were only a few avenues:
If France were still in the imperial era, the best shortcut would be to participate in the poetry contests held by the French Academy, write a hymn praising an emperor that pleased him, and thus gain an opportunity to enter the literary world.
Of course, there was also a universal path for every era: networking.
Start by mingling in local literary circles, publishing some awkward poems and short stories in small newspapers, then write letters flattering established writers and attaching one's own work.
If positive and praising replies were received, those letters could then be used to frequent the offices of newspaper and publishing house owners.
Naturally, it would be even better to become a student or simply an aide to a great writer; opportunities for recommendations would always arise.
Furthermore, starting as a journalist, building a reputation and network in the publishing industry before choosing to become a writer, was also a viable option.
But for any of these paths, Lionel's original self clearly had accumulated no experience or social connections.
He merely foolishly wrote outdated articles, hoping a miracle would one day appear.
Now, Lionel was strapped for cash, facing potential hunger at any moment, and had no means to engage in more social activities.
If he did find a job as a scribe or tutor, all his free time would be squeezed dry.
Therefore, he would certainly not continue to stubbornly pursue Le Figaro or Le Siècle.
He pulled a stack of newspapers from a corner of the room—newspapers with extremely poor print quality, leaving his hands smudged with ink if he touched them too hard—Le Lanterne, Le Polichinelle, Le Charivari...
These newspapers published scandalous news and jokes, the cheapest ones selling for as little as 3 centimes a copy, and all were months-old, outdated papers.
Lionel's original self collected these newspapers, of course, not to read their articles, but to wipe his backside—although there was a communal toilet at the turn of the apartment staircase, the stingy Mrs. Martin clearly wouldn't provide toilet paper.
So these outdated tabloids became the cheapest substitute.
Spending 3 sous could solve a month's worth of "wiping problems," and apart from making a certain area dark and shiny, there were no other side effects.
And now these "toilet papers" became Lionel's lifeline.
He devoured the various jokes and anecdotes within, analyzing what kind of entertainment Parisian fun-lovers enjoyed...
If there was any newspaper editor willing to immediately open a submission, it would undoubtedly be those of these small tabloids, not the major papers selling 100,000 or 200,000 copies daily.
After flipping through these "toilet papers," Lionel had a plan in mind.
He picked up paper and pen and began writing diligently, completing two full pages in a short while.
This could be considered "testing the waters," right? Not too much, lest the sunk cost be too high.
Only the signature was tricky.
Using his real name might cause trouble later, and a pseudonym... Lionel pondered for a moment and then wrote down a few words:
"An Honest Parisian"
(End of Chapter)
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