Lionel did not immediately agree to Albert's invitation, as this kind of ball, unlike previous masquerade balls, carried strong implications of taking sides.
Especially since the "Ministry of Public Education and Fine Arts," which Count Rohan was about to join as Vice Minister, was essentially France's "Ministry of Culture" plus "Ministry of Education."
Literati and artists who attended his ball, even if not considered "his people," would still be labeled with distinct political alignments.
Before understanding the pros and cons, Lionel would certainly not rashly participate.
Albert, however, was not in a hurry.
Lionel's reaction was normal—as the most dazzling literary star in Paris this year, a certain reserve was a necessary demeanor.
But he left Lionel with a very tempting lure:
"Minister Ferry is preparing to reform the existing public education system.
In the future, France will popularize free primary education and compile unified textbooks for French, arithmetic, history, and so on.
My father happens to be the chairman of the editing committee for the French textbooks...
He greatly praised your My Uncle Jules, deeming it the most suitable novel for elementary school students to read, teaching them sympathy and compassion..."
If Lionel were to say he wasn't interested in this, it would surely be disingenuous.
France's public education had previously been monopolized by local churches, with no nationally unified French textbooks.
If My Uncle Jules could be selected, it would mean Lionel would become a shared memory for a generation, or even several generations, of French people.
This was an irresistible temptation for any writer.
From Mr. Flaubert's salon on Sunday, to today's criticism in Le Figaro, and now Count Rohan's invitation conveyed through his son, Lionel finally experienced the true taste of "fame" in this era.
Not only were there increasingly generous manuscript fees, but also increasingly complex social relations.
It seemed that eyes from both the literary and political circles were watching him, seeing which chair he would choose to sit on.
Yet, in this era, as long as you were involved in art—be it literature, painting, drama, or music—you could not truly be "free."
You inevitably had to make choices.
If you were a writer, every newspaper and publishing house owner at the time had their own distinct lineage, background, and political affiliation.
If you were a playwright or painter, then whether it was the Paris Opera, the Comédie-Française, or the Louvre, the Paris Salon exhibition, almost all depended on state subsidies and official permits.
Royalist salons gathered nobles, clergy, and academic masters;
Republican salons, on the other hand, featured journalists, parliamentarians, secular writers, and Impressionist painters.
Before, Lionel could somewhat avoid such alignments by virtue of being a Sorbonne student.
But when his "first" full-length novel was published, everyone wanted to clearly see his ideological spectrum.
The criticism in Le Figaro was a sharp signal.
And Lionel was not going to avoid it.
Back home, he took out manuscript paper and began writing a rebuttal to Jules Claretie.
In an age without television or radio, where all information was disseminated through text, this was the most effective way to express one's views.
Lionel carefully recalled the "achievements" of that young man from his previous life, the one most skilled at debating, pondering how he would write this piece...
Before long, Lionel pulled the quill from the inkwell, drained the excess ink, and wrote the article—
[To Mr. Claretie, Editor-in-Chief of Le Figaro
—A Reply to "Beware! A Literary Freak Show is Playing in Paris"
Mr. Jules Claretie:
You refer to Benjamin Bouton as a "circus freak," your words sharp as a blade.
However, please forgive the obstinacy of a young author—I must thank you, for unwittingly, you have placed the most moving key to this novel into the hands of its readers.
Yes, Benjamin Bouton is a "freak."
He entered the world with the wrinkles of an eighty-year-old and grizzled fetal hair.
You perceive this as an offense to human morality, yet I assert that precisely because he is a freak, he reveals the abyss beneath our so-called "normality" more profoundly than any conventionally born infant.
On this land repeatedly forged by unforeseen fate, the cry of a freak shakes our conscience more profoundly than the cry of a holy infant.
...
In the specimen room of the Paris Medical College, there are countless undeveloped "freaks": those with spina bifida, exposed hearts, collapsed skulls.
Gazing at them, everyone holds their breath—not out of fear, but out of awe—that nature, too, can err in creating life.
However, it is precisely these errors that allow young medical students to see for the first time that "normal" is merely one outcome preserved by chance amidst countless mistakes.
Without these specimens, we might, throughout our lives, take life for granted, mistaking "what ought to be" for "what must be."
Benjamin Bouton, "born old," spares us the lengthy process of aging, thrusting the cruelty of "living toward death" before us at the very moment of birth.
You call him a "freak," yet forget that all humans will eventually become such freaks; most are simply slowly wrinkled by time, while he merely experienced it earlier by fate.
...
As for the circus—have you ever considered why, in the Parisian winter, those makeshift canvas tents are always surrounded by dense crowds of the poor?
They pay two sous, not just to see dwarves or giants, but to reconfirm their own "wholeness" amidst horror and pity.
Some conceal it with laughter, some redeem it with coins, some quietly shed tears.
Those who laugh see their own callousness, those who weep see their own compassion—just as literature is meant to awaken the numb, humble the proud, and bring smiles to the gentle.
...
Since the fall of the Bastille, France has been accustomed to self-interrogation amidst ruins.
Our ancestors sent kings to the guillotine, only to kneel again beneath the emperor's eagle standards; they cast holy icons into the Seine, only to weep in the echoes of Notre Dame.
Is not such repetition precisely a ninety-year-long freak show?
Each of us is a freak born of this deformed history, bearing the birthmarks of the old regime and the scars of revolution, yet still pretending to be reborn in the dawn of the Third Republic.
...
You also claim that literature should pursue "truth, goodness, and beauty"—I have no intention of refuting this sacred trinity, but merely wish to ask:
Does truth only accommodate symmetrical features? Does goodness only favor healthy limbs? Does beauty inevitably turn away from deformity? If so, then beauty is too cowardly, goodness too mercenary, and truth too impoverished.
Mr. Hugo had Quasimodo ring the bells in Notre-Dame de Paris; Gautier, in Mademoiselle de Maupin, mocked moralism through the mouth of a cross-dresser; Mr. Zola let the consumptive miners utter their laments.
When did they ever fear freaks? On the contrary, they knew that only by placing freaks in the light could the shadows of ordinary evil find no place to hide.
...
You may worry that such literature will lead society towards "sensory indulgence" and "corruption of taste." With all due respect, Parisian taste is already corrupt—in the stench of money at the stock exchange, in the fawning smiles of officialdom, in the exquisite and hollow compliments of salons.
Rather than worrying about literature corrupting taste, we should worry about taste corrupting literature.
If we cannot tolerate even a fictional monstrous infant, how can we accommodate the hunchbacked weavers bent by poverty, the soldiers rotting from syphilis, the children with sunken eyes from hunger in reality?
Freaks do not create ugliness; they merely expose it.
...
Finally, allow me to return to the circus. One night, after a circus performance, I saw a dwarf pick up a bouquet dropped by a spectator, weave it into a small wreath, and give it to the old woman selling chestnuts by the entrance.
In that instant, I understood what nobility means: nobility is not rejecting freaks, but recognizing oneself in them; not covering one's eyes, but still extending a helping hand in the face of horror.
...
So too with Benjamin Bouton. All Parisians will see that he will be abandoned in the novel, only to be rediscovered by love; he will gaze with the clear pupils of an infant at those souls—old, greedy, cowardly, yet still gleaming with a gentle light.
A so-called freak is merely a line of poetry fate miswrote; and love, with clumsy rhymes, will set it right.
...
If you still insist on banishing Benjamin Bouton from the temple of literature, then so be it.
Paris will accommodate him! When night falls, noblewomen in carriages and workers fresh from their shifts will discuss the same monstrous infant in different accents—some will curse him, some will love him, but no one will ever again be indifferent to him.
For a newly born novel, is there a more luxurious fate than this?
And I, standing aside, will doff my hat to you—thank you for making the freak a key; thank you for teaching Paris anew to find man's place between horror and compassion.
Lionel Sorel
May 16, 1879, Paris]
After finishing writing, Lionel handed it to Alice:
"After you transcribe it, send it out."
Alice took the manuscript paper:
"Where should I send it?"
Lionel thought for a moment:
"Le Figaro."
(End of chapter)
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