Chapter 10: The First Payment for My Manuscript (Please Support Early This Month!)

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After classes ended that afternoon, Lionel hurried to the post office on Saint-Martin Boulevard to look up the addresses of the Orby Trading Company and the Panama Interoceanic Canal Universal Company. Naturally, he meant to expose the lies of that “cheap brother-in-law,” Émile.

In those days, there was not only no Internet; even the Yellow Pages, a directory listing the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of businesses, had yet to be invented. Still, any reputable company would leave its address with the post office.

Paris was the most commercially advanced city in France, indeed in all of Europe. Not only French enterprises, but nearly every company that did business with France could have its contact information found there.

He passed the names of the two companies through the window and paid a fee of four centimes. Before long, he had their addresses.

The Orby Trading Company was in the Second Arrondissement, near the stock exchange. The Panama Interoceanic Canal Universal Company, meanwhile, had offices in the Eighth Arrondissement, inside the French Overseas Chamber of Commerce Club.

They both seemed to be perfectly legitimate companies. The question now was whether Émile himself was legitimate.

Lionel planned to take a day off tomorrow or the day after and pay a personal visit to the Orby Trading Company. Since Émile claimed to be someone of managerial rank there, Lionel ought to be able to verify whether that identity was genuine.

Of course, if the name and position were real but the man himself was an impostor, matters would become troublesome.

In France at that time, as throughout Europe, there were no compulsory identity documents.

The papers that could establish a person’s identity included birth certificates, travel passports, letters of introduction or recommendation, professional certificates, proofs of residence, court judgments, and much more. The whole system was extraordinarily complicated, and the documents were linked to one another in various ways.

Moreover, since photography was expensive, documents bearing photographs had not yet become widespread. Forgery was therefore easy, and swindlers abounded.

That was why, when reading European novels from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, one encountered a con man every so often. It was practically a cultural hallmark.

In any case, this step still had to be taken.

Once he had the addresses, he casually asked about the anonymous poste restante service he had registered for that morning. To his surprise, after the clerk checked the registered name and password, an envelope was handed straight to him.

“That was quick.”

Lionel was somewhat taken aback.

Although Paris’s city postal service was highly developed, allowing letters to pass between opposite ends of the city several times in a single day, the promptness of the reply from The Racket still exceeded his expectations.

A little newspaper like this had no custom of sending rejection letters to authors. A reply meant that they had certainly accepted his submissions.

The envelope did not feel thin. Could they have enclosed his payment as well? Money orders and checks were already quite common, but for small sums people still generally preferred to place cash directly inside an envelope and send it through the post.

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Just like the letter from his family, which had contained twenty francs in cash.

Suppressing his excitement, Lionel slipped the envelope into the inner pocket of his coat and hurried out of the post office.

The delay meant that by the time he returned to the lodging house, night had fallen completely. Under the dim glow of candlelight, the tenants were gathered around the dining table in the first-floor dining room, eating the food Mrs. Martin had prepared.

When Mrs. Martin saw Lionel come in with snow and wind clinging to him, she could not resist mocking him again.

“Back already, young Mr. Sorel? Which grand hotel did you dine at today? Looks like you won’t be sitting down to supper with us common folk again!”

Lionel remained unmoved. He lifted the bag in his hand and gave it a little shake.

“I went to the Morris Inn for lunch today. The proprietor was generous enough to let me bring some food back to enjoy later.

“Petty, I brought you some fried sausages sprinkled with black pepper. You can come upstairs and get them in a little while.”

Petty poked her small head out from beneath an adult’s arm and answered cheerfully, “All right, Mr. Sorel!”

Lionel nodded and hurried upstairs beneath the astonished and envious gazes of the others, leaving behind only the clatter of his leather shoes striking the floorboards.

Back in his little attic room, Lionel lit the thickest candle he had, then balanced a thin sheet of iron above the flame.

Only then did he take the food from the bag: fried sausages, roasted chicken breast, and croissants. He placed them on the iron sheet to warm them. This was practically standard fare for poor students in Paris.

It was impossible to make the food steaming hot again as though it had been reheated in a frying pan, but at least it would not feel like chewing on ice.

Before long, the enticing aroma of food had filled the attic.

Meanwhile, Lionel had already opened The Racket’s reply.

As expected, the envelope contained two ten-franc banknotes and a sheet of paper, which explained its unusual thickness.

Lionel was slightly surprised. In this era, authors were paid by the line. “Line” referred to the standard width of a printed line, not the number of lines the writer had put on the manuscript paper. Each line contained roughly ten to twelve words.

The rate per line varied according to the author’s standing.

For an unknown beginner like him, the usual rate was two or three sous per line, or ten to fifteen centimes, equal to 0.1 to 0.15 francs. For an established author, earning more than two francs per line was nothing unusual. Alexandre Dumas, a bestselling author at the very top of the profession, could even command the astronomical sum of five francs per line.

Twenty francs. That was payment for roughly two hundred lines?

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Lionel found that difficult to believe. He had counted the words on his two pages of manuscript and converted them into standard printed lines. At most, they amounted to no more than eighty lines.

He certainly did not believe he could already command more than five sous per line.

The contents of the letter explained why:

“Your work possesses an incomparable humor and satirical spirit. It is a masterpiece of contemporary French literature! The Racket is willing to pay you three sous per line for your stories. The ten francs enclosed here constitute payment for these three pieces.

“The other ten francs are an advance against your future work. I am certain that you have many more such stories in you! If you are willing, we can sign a long-term contract, with payment calculated at the present rate. Believe me, it is a generous offer.

“To my knowledge, The Clown and The Lantern pay new authors one sou per line…”

Lionel snorted and tossed the letter aside, then carefully put away the twenty francs in cash. Three sous per line was a fair rate for a new author, but it was by no means generous.

The ten-franc advance was merely a show of largesse, meant to entice him into signing the so-called “long-term contract.”

Still, it confirmed that his little stories did have a market, and that the money came quickly. There was no helping it: the survival strategy of a small newspaper differed from that of a major publication. Small papers had almost no regular subscribers and relied entirely on sensational content to attract casual buyers.

He was just about to take out pen and paper and write several more stories for The Racket, while discussing the matter of payment with its proprietor, when someone knocked on the attic door.

Petty’s clear voice came from outside.

“Mr. Sorel, are you free at the moment?”

Lionel smiled and rose to open the door.

“Petty, you can eat the sausages here before you go back downstairs.”

He deliberately spoke in a loud voice, loud enough for everyone on the first floor to hear.

Then there came a resounding bang from below. Someone had slammed a door shut.

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