Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

Chapter 580 The Gentlemen Go First!
In the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district, in the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank of the Seine, a group of young people were having an even more heated discussion at the café "Double".

A student stood on a chair, waving his hands: "This is a metaphor! The Titan is the British Empire, huge, luxurious, and self-righteous."

But its observation system is outdated—it's still observing the world with the naked eye!

Another student continued, “But the world has changed. The iceberg is there, but you can’t see it. Because you don’t have the tools, or you have the tools but don’t use them.”

“Lionel gave them the tools in 1984, but they didn’t want them. They said the book was incitement and an insult.”

They'd rather lock up their binoculars than see the truth!

"Now the truth is coming out on its own. An iceberg doesn't cease to exist just because you don't look at it."

These young people felt that this description was a fable tailor-made for Britain.

They read with great interest, mentally constructing various political metaphors as they read.

Each successful analogy brings a greater sense of intellectual satisfaction.

This is typical French reading – not just reading the story, but also the symbolic meaning behind it.

--------

The Titan's helmsman, Hitchens, turned the helm fully to left.

The rudder blades rotate underwater, attempting to change the direction of the bow.

But the Titan's rudder was too small.

When designing this ship, the engineers chose a relatively small rudder for aesthetic and aerodynamic efficiency.

During normal navigation, this rudder is perfectly adequate. However, it proves inadequate during emergency turns.

Murdoch's eyes were fixed on the iceberg getting closer and closer, his ears heard the roar of the engine reversing, and his body felt the ship's speed decreasing.

But he knew that the enormous inertia was still propelling the giant ship forward.

Three hundred meters... two hundred meters... one hundred meters...

The bow of the ship turned once, then again.

But the iceberg was enormous! The part above the water was already thirty meters high, and there were probably hundreds of meters more underwater, like a white wall blocking the Titan's path.

Murdoch closed his eyes.

The impact occurred.

Instead of the expected violent shaking, a dull scraping sound came from the hull, like countless nails scraping against it.

Then the ship shook slightly, but quickly regained its stability.

Murdoch opened his eyes. An iceberg was gliding past the ship's starboard side, its white ice gleaming coldly in the moonlight. Some ice chips had fallen onto the deck.

"Did we just glide past it?" one of the crew members asked.

Murdoch did not answer. He rushed out of the bridge, ran to the starboard side, and looked down.

A large amount of ice floes floated on the sea. In the moonlight, he could see a long, black gash near the waterline of the ship.

Not just one, but many! The underwater portion of the iceberg resembled a giant file, carving a gash tens of meters long into the starboard side of the Titan.

Seawater was surging in.

--------

In a small bar near the stock exchange in Paris.

Several stockbrokers got together for drinks after get off work and discussed "The Sinking of the Titan".

One person shook his head: "The rudder is too small. Such a big ship, such a small rudder. It's simply not enough to turn."

Another person nodded: "Just like the British government. The empire is so big, with so many colonies, but the actual decision-making mechanism is only a few people."

"And they were arrogant. They thought the Titan would never sink, so it didn't need a large rudder; they thought the British Empire would never decline, so it didn't need a revolution."

"And the result? When the iceberg comes, you can't turn it. When the crisis comes, you can't react in time."

The group took a sip of their drinks and all felt that this description was a blatant satire of the current state of England.

As financial professionals, they are all too familiar with the rigidity of the system. Banks, exchanges, the government…

Everywhere there were behemoths like the Titan, and rudders that were far too small.

“Lionel was right. He’s no longer in England, but he knows England better than the English themselves!”

--------

At Zola's Villa Médan, Maupassant and Huysmann, among others, were also reading this passage.

Émile Zola put down *Modern Life* and exclaimed, "Insufficient turning. This is not just a problem of the ship, it is a problem of all the great systems."

You built a behemoth, and you're proud of its size, but you didn't consider how it would turn.

Maupassant shook his head: "How can history turn around? When the world changes, how can an empire turn around? It can't. It can only move forward along inertia until it hits an iceberg."

Yusman smiled: "So the Titan was destined to sink. Not because it encountered an iceberg, but because it was destined to be unable to avoid icebergs from the moment it was built."

Zola paused for a moment before saying, "The same goes for England. Its system, its culture, its arrogance—these are all written in its very flesh and blood."

So when it encounters an iceberg like 1984, it can't turn back; it can only crash into it.

"What about France? Can France make the turn?"

No one in the living room answered the question.

These writers felt that Lionel was not just writing about shipwrecks, but about history.

They were immersed in an aesthetic experience unique to watching classic tragedies—

There's a cruel kind of poetry in watching something that was bound to happen.

----------

Chaos has begun, starting in first class.

It was only when the crew began deploying the lifeboats that the well-dressed gentlemen and ladies realized that the end of the world was nigh.

They surged onto the deck and onto the lifeboats.

A crew member shouted, "Ladies and children first!"

But some people don't listen.

Someone pushed aside a woman holding a child and tried to climb onto the lifeboat.

"I have important business!" he shouted. "I must live!"

The crew pulled him down. He pulled out his wallet: "I'll give you the money! £200! Let me up!"

"No, sir."

"I have checks, how much do you want?"

"Ladies and children first." He was dragged away, struggling and cursing, "You British idiots! Do you know who I am?!"

……

As the ship began to tilt, third-class passengers heard a loud noise and felt the floor tilting.

Some people wanted to go up and take a look, but the staircase leading to the upper deck was locked.

Several crew members stood there, holding keys in their hands.

"Go back!" a crew member said. "The higher-ups are organizing an evacuation. Wait for further instructions."

“But the ship is listing!” said an Irish man.

"go back!"

"Let us go up! Our families are still up there!"

"I said I went back!"

A young man tried to rush over, but was blocked by the iron fence. He stretched out his arm as far as he could, as if trying to grab the key or as if he was begging for help.

The crew member said, "This is to maintain order. If you all go up, the deck will be chaotic. We will let you up after the first and second class cabins have been evacuated."

"When will that be?"

"Wait for further instructions!"

The third-class passengers were blocked below. They could hear the sounds coming from above—

The sound of lifeboats being lowered, people shouting, and engines roaring.

But they couldn't get up there...

----------

When readers in Paris reached this point, they were outraged, genuinely outraged.

In a small tavern, a group of workers gathered to listen to someone read aloud. When they read that the third-class cabins were locked up, an old worker slammed his fist on the table.

"These bastards!"

"They locked the door! They won't let the poor people up!"

"Because the lives of the poor are worthless. The gentlemen in first class go first, followed by the middle class in second class. By the time the poor get on, the lifeboats are gone."

"It's the same everywhere! We talk about equality and civility in normal times. But when it comes to life and death, the differences are revealed."

"Gentlemen? Bah! When it comes to scrambling to get on the lifeboats, they're more barbaric than anyone else."

These workers understand this feeling all too well. In factories, in mines, in life—they are always the last to be considered.

When accidents happen, it's the workers who die; when there's an economic crisis, it's the workers who lose their jobs; and now, in novels, it's the workers who are locked underneath when a ship sinks.

“Lionel is still on our side. He’s seen the true face of ‘decent people.’ Etiquette is all a facade; class is what matters!”

"British society is built on class. In normal times, etiquette is used to cover it up, but when disaster strikes, the disguise falls away."

"But what about France? Doesn't France have classes?"

"Yes. But France at least acknowledges the existence of classes. We've experienced revolution, we know what classes are. The British pretend there are no classes, they're more hypocritical."

“Look at those gentlemen on the lifeboats. They usually talk big in the club, talking about honor and responsibility.”

When it came to the crucial moment, they pushed women and children to the ground and bribed the crew. This is the true face of the British upper class!

"That's what Lionel wrote in '1984.' 'Old lady is watching you.'"

Surveillance, control, maintaining a semblance of order. But once order collapses, barbarity descends.

Everyone felt that this description confirmed that the Titan was a microcosm of British society.

A glamorous exterior, a rigid hierarchy, and utter collapse in the face of disaster.

----------

On a chaotic deck, a small band is playing.

The band's conductor, Claude Debussy, and his band did not run away; they continued to play.

At first they played lively dance music, but as the ship tilted more and more severely, Debussy changed the program.

He chose Sarah Adams's "Closer to My Lord".

The gentle, sacred music echoed amidst the chaotic shouts, like a thin thread barely maintaining the dignity of art.

Some passengers stopped to listen. A mother holding a child, a man supporting an elderly person, a lonely young woman—

They paused for a few seconds during the music, as if to confirm that beauty still exists in this world.

Then they continued their escape.

But Debussy kept waving his arms, as if nothing around him existed.

A crew member ran over: "Sir! It's time for you to get on the lifeboat!"

Violinists, cellists, clarinetists… no one stopped.

When readers in Paris read this passage, they were moved—truly moved.

Readers who were just indignantly criticizing the hypocrisy of British gentlemen began to shed tears at this scene.

"He stayed. When everyone else ran away, he stayed. He was playing."

"Music lasts until the very end; this is the spirit of France. Art is above life!"

"When disaster strikes, art is the last vestige of dignity. Debussy knew this. That's why he didn't run away; he played."

These young people thought the description was too romantic, and that only a French artist would do such a thing—choosing to complete life through art in the face of death!
This is not romance, this is not sentimentality, this is a philosophy: if everyone has to die, then die like an artist!
In Montmartre, the painters, poets, and musicians were even more excited.

"Debussy was a hero! Not a hero with a gun, but a hero with sheet music. He used music to fight against chaos and death."

"Next time he comes, let's all raise a toast to him!"

"That is the meaning of art—to prove that people are still human even in the darkest of times."

------

Claude Debussy suddenly sneezed, and his fingers flicked out a wrong note.

Marie Vasnier, standing by the piano, stopped singing and looked at her young lover.

Claude Debussy apologized sheepishly, "It's probably too cold. Let's start over."

At that moment, Mary's husband, Henri Vasnier, pushed open the door to the music room and walked in, holding a copy of "Modern Life".

"Hey, Claude, do you know how Mr. Sorel wrote about you?"

(Second update, there will be another update tonight, it will be quite late, please vote with monthly tickets.)
　In early 1883, Debussy began compiling a collection of 13 songs for Marie-Blanche Vasnier, an amateur singer and Debussy's love interest at the time. This collection later became known as the "Vasnier Song Collection." Marie-Blanche Vasnier was the wife of Henri Vasnier, a wealthy Parisian construction contractor and an intellectual with refined artistic taste. He was aware of, or at least tolerated, the affair, maintaining a good relationship with Debussy and even offering him professional support. Henri provided Debussy with a piano and practice room, alleviating his financial burden, and introduced him to the works of important French composers of the time.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)