Chapter 6: Submission

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He had only written half the letter when Mrs. Martin’s shrill voice pierced through the floorboards, urging the lodgers downstairs to eat.

Lionel had not yet fully digested his afternoon meal, and he had even less desire to eat the food Mrs. Martin served—food that insulted the dignity of the tongue—so he chose to ignore her.

In any case, he still had a piece of bread and a slice of salt pork in his coat. If he grew hungry later, they would at least serve to tide him over.

After weighing his words as carefully as he could, he finally wrote the last sentence of the letter:

“...In any case, please thank Mr. Emil on my behalf. But we must still exercise the necessary caution. If possible, Father, you might send a letter to the Orbi Trading Company. I will also make inquiries about the Panama Canal here in Paris.

Your loving son,
Leon

...”

When he had finished, Lionel read the letter through once more. Only after making certain that nothing was amiss did he fold it carefully and slip it into the inner pocket of his coat, intending to post it on his way to school the following morning.

Now came the question of how to make money.

Including the twenty francs his family had just sent, he possessed little more than one hundred and ten francs in total. In a place as exorbitantly expensive as Paris, that sum would cover rent, food, paper and ink, newspaper and book rentals, and various incidental expenses for no more than two months.

If he could not find a way to earn money soon, he would have no choice but to return to the Alps.

Lionel considered his options. Without interfering with his studies, there were only a few part-time jobs suited to him—

The first was tutoring children from middle-class families. He would teach on weekends and, with luck, earn perhaps forty to sixty francs a month.

The second was working as a copyist, transcribing manuscripts in the evenings and being paid by the page. At three to five sous per page, he might earn around twenty francs a month.

That would just about allow him to survive in Paris.

As for other jobs—an assistant in a bookshop, a waiter in a café, and the like—no one was likely to hire a poor student from the provinces without a guarantor.

Of course, there was a third path: submitting his work and becoming a writer.

This was the golden age of French literature. From Victor Hugo to Balzac, and from Flaubert to Zola, every one of them had amassed wealth and risen through the social ranks by means of writing.

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That included Maupassant, whom he had met for the first time that very day. Though at present he was merely an obscure government clerk who could afford to entertain guests only at the Public Table, after the publication of his immortal story “Boule de Suif,” he would soon resign his position and become a full-time writer.

Before long, he would move to the expensive Rue de Dourdan. A few years later, he would even be able to buy a yacht and sail all the way to Italy for a holiday.

Lionel’s former self had also been a locally renowned young scholar in the Alps. Naturally, anyone capable of entering the Faculty of Letters at the Sorbonne would harbor dreams of becoming a great writer.

Unfortunately, no matter how often he submitted his work, his efforts sank like stones into the sea, never to produce the slightest response.

Lionel took a bundle of papers from the drawer of his desk. They were all manuscripts left behind by his former self. After his rebirth, he had possessed too many memories to sort through and had spent a long time in a daze, so he had not yet had the chance to examine them closely.

As Zhang Chaohua—a young lecturer in the Chinese Department of Yanjing University, and now Lionel—he felt a headache coming on the moment he saw the titles:

“The Ideal of Education,” “Love and Reason,” “The Sacred Maiden,” “Echoes from the Heart of the Alps”...

Every piece wore the grave, prematurely solemn face of an earnest young man.

The contents were much the same: academic poetry, essays, and literary criticism. The writing itself was not bad, but its values were steeped in religion and had long since been cast aside by the present age.

Moreover, his former self had aimed far too high. He submitted his work only to major newspapers such as Le Figaro, La République, and the Revue des Deux Mondes. Naturally, nothing ever came of it.

One had to understand that in the 1850s, after the great Victor Hugo had become both a wealthy man and “the conscience of France” through his writing, the field had grown extraordinarily crowded.

Every newspaper and publisher received mountains of submissions. Behind each manuscript stood an ambitious young person dreaming of becoming the next Hugo or Balzac.

To quote the spiteful remark of Le Figaro’s editor in chief, they were “more numerous than flies in a public lavatory!”

So there was no need to wonder. Like the vast majority of submissions, the manuscripts Lionel’s former self had sent were quietly piled up in corners of newspaper offices and publishing houses. Once the stacks reached a certain height, they would all be thrown away together.

In that respect, it was not so different from China’s literary world in the 1990s and early 2000s.

For a young writer with no connections to make a name for himself, there were only a few possible routes—

If France were still under the Empire, the best shortcut would be to enter the poetry competition held by the French Academy. Write an ode praising the emperor that pleased His Imperial Majesty, and one might win the chance to enter the literary world.

Of course, there was one method that worked in every era:

Cultivate the right circle.

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One could begin in the literary circles of the provinces, publish a few clumsy poems and stories in small newspapers, then write flattering letters to famous authors with one’s own work enclosed. If a favorable or complimentary reply arrived, one could carry that letter into the offices of newspaper editors and publishing-house owners.

Naturally, it would be even better to become a great writer’s student—or simply his hanger-on. Sooner or later, one would find an opportunity to ask for a recommendation.

Another option was to begin as a journalist, build up a reputation and a network in the publishing industry, and only then become a writer. That, too, was a perfectly viable path.

But whichever route one chose, Lionel’s former self had clearly accumulated neither experience nor connections in any of these areas. He had done nothing but foolishly write outdated pieces, hoping that a miracle would one day occur.

Now Lionel was so short of money that he might be forced to go hungry at any moment. He had even less opportunity to engage in extensive socializing. If he truly found work as a copyist or tutor, every scrap of free time would be squeezed out of him.

So naturally, he had no intention of continuing to batter at the doors of Le Figaro or La République.

From a corner of the room, he pulled out a bundle of newspapers printed so poorly that a firm touch left one’s fingers black with ink: The Lantern, The Jester, The Hubbub...

These papers were filled with scandalous tidbits and jokes. The cheapest sold for only three centimes a copy, and all of them were several months out of date.

Lionel’s former self had not collected them for the sake of reading, of course, but for wiping himself after using the toilet. There was a communal lavatory at the bend of the apartment staircase, but the miserly Mrs. Martin evidently had no intention of providing toilet paper.

And so these obsolete tabloids had become the cheapest substitute. Three sous could solve a month’s toilet-paper needs. Apart from leaving one particular place pitch-black and gleaming with ink, they had no real side effects.

Now, however, that “toilet paper” had become Lionel’s lifeline. He read the various jokes and anecdotes with ravenous attention, analyzing what, exactly, the city’s pleasure-loving readers enjoyed.

If there were any newspaper proprietors willing to open submissions at once, they were certain to be the owners of these little tabloids—not the great newspapers that sold one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand copies a day.

By the time he had finished going through the “toilet paper,” Lionel was fully prepared. He picked up pen and paper and began writing with all his might. Before long, he had filled two whole pages.

This was a sort of “testing the waters,” wasn’t it? He should not submit too much, or the sunk cost would become too high.

The signature was a problem, though. Using his real name might cause trouble later; as for a pseudonym...

After a moment’s thought, Lionel wrote down a few words:

“An Honest Parisian”

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