Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

Chapter 65 Is this Paris? This is the real Paris!
"Madam, who are you? I really have no recollection of you!"

"Oh, Lucian, how could you say that! You said you would love me forever!"

"I'm so sorry, I seem to have said this to many women...on stage and off stage."

"God! How could you be so cruel as to bestow such a man and such a fate upon me!"

"Ma'am, if you have nothing else to do, may I go upstairs?"

“It’s okay if you don’t accept me, but we have a son… I’m dying, and he needs someone to take care of him.”

"Miss……"

“Please call me Elena, Elena Richard—don’t you really remember that name? You said I was your one and only true love!”

“Okay, Elena, you just said it yourself, that’s God’s responsibility… so perhaps you should send him to Tzu Chi Hospital?”

"My God, how could you be so heartless! Lucien...you faithless man..."

"Hey, Bernard, do you think I pay 90 francs a month in rent just so you can stand here and watch this woman go crazy on me?"

……

Amid the woman's screams, Bernard, the tall and imposing doorman of 12 Antanne Street, dragged her out of the hall and pushed her down the steps.

The woman's clothes were already tattered and old, and they were torn in several places by the stones. Fortunately, she was wearing clothes underneath, so she wasn't exposed in the street.

Lionel stared in disbelief as all of this unfolded before his eyes.

His neighbor on the fifth floor—Lucian de Pance, the protagonist of this whole drama—smiled at him and said, “Leon, I’m so sorry to have made you laugh.”

You know, there are too many women like this. They used to wait for me near the theater, but this crazy woman somehow got my address..."

Lionel: "..."

Then he asked the question that had been bothering him: "You really don't know this Elena Richard?"

Lucian shrugged: "Maybe we know each other, maybe we don't... does it matter? There are too many women in Paris—let's go upstairs."

Lionel turned to look at the apartment door, where the two dark oak doors were tightly shut, with only a few piercing cries of a woman coming through the cracks.

As Lucian and Lionel ascended the stairs, Lucian launched into a long-winded discourse on his "women's philosophy":
“Leon, let me tell you, women are all the same. When you first meet them, they are like daisies, shy, fragrant, and lovely. With a little watering, they will bloom beautifully. But once you pick them, they become poppies, clinging and intense, eventually giving you a splitting headache.”

"Didn't you just see it? She said we have a child? Ha! You believe that? In Paris, nine out of ten women who say 'we have a child' have no idea who the father is, and the other one is just taking you for a fool!"

“I joined the theater troupe when I was seventeen, and I’ve never stopped wearing skirts. You know, the people on stage are very charismatic, but the women offstage get excited quickly and cool down just as fast.”

“I’m not saying they’re all bad. Parisian women are just too easily swayed by sweet words, too easily taking a bed as a vow. The problem is, we men… how can we remember every kiss we’ve ever given? What kind of memory would that take?” “I never intentionally lie to women, Léon. I just let them misunderstand—it’s their own choice to believe. I say ‘I’ll love you forever,’ and she truly believes it; I say ‘You are the only one,’ and she truly feels like a queen. But I have hundreds of ‘only ones’ in Paris. Which one do you think I should remember?”

"Let me tell you a piece of advice—the more a woman argues, the more shabby her clothes, and the more she cries, the more worthless she is. A woman of true status will never come to your doorstep and wail. She will make you regret it, but she won't let you see her shed a tear."

"That's why I say, in Paris, women are as plentiful as rain. When it rains, take shelter, and when the sun shines, go out and bask in the sun. But if you stand in the rain pretending to be sentimental, you'll only end up getting soaked and being laughed at."

"Damn it, she said her name was 'Elena,' which I honestly don't remember—but there's a novel recently with a female protagonist also named 'Elena,' and guess what the male protagonist's name is? And what does he do?"

Just as Lionel was about to answer, they arrived at the fifth floor where they lived.

Lucian had no intention of waiting for Lionel to speak, nor did he intend to reveal the answer to Lionel. Instead, he went straight to room 503 and gently knocked on the door.

A moment later, the door to room 503 opened, and a woman's voice came from inside: "It's a wonder you still remember me..."

Lucien stepped into room 503 and, amidst the woman's screams, scooped her up in his arms—from Lionel's angle, all he could see were her kicking, white legs and the red women's shoes on her feet.

“Pettit, how could I forget you? You are my one and only! You are the love of my life! I’ve just been a bit busy with the theater company lately…”

"Greenheit will be back in an hour..."

"An hour? Good heavens, that's not even enough time for me to finish enjoying your dessert..."

With a bang, the door slammed shut, and the rest of the conversation could no longer be heard.

"This is Paris?" Lionel could only marvel at how, at the end of the 19th century, Paris was absolutely at the forefront of openness in the world, and even a hundred years from now, few countries could catch up.

However, all of this also gave him a great inspiration—an inspiration that would just be enough to meet George Charpentier's commission for a piece in Modern Life.

After dinner, Lionel sat down at his desk, spread out his manuscript paper, took out a quill pen from the ink bottle, drained the ink, and then wrote the title of his new work in the center of the top line:
"Letter from a Strange Woman"

Elena Richard, who had just been pestering Lucien, longed for his approval and pity. Her chosen method was to abandon all her dignity and hug Lucien's leg in public, hoping to arouse even a shred of his sympathy.

And isn't her opposite the protagonist in Stefan Zweig's novel "Letter from an Unknown Woman"?

Both women fell in love with a passionate but forgetful man; both men never remembered who she was; both had a child with this man; and both revealed everything to him in their final moments.

However, the protagonist of "Letter from an Unknown Woman" stubbornly preserved his dignity until the last moment of his life, and delivered a "fatal blow" to the writer "R" who had been in unrequited love all his life, completely engraving himself on his cold heart, becoming a nightmare that he could not get rid of for the rest of his life.

Although Zweig was Austrian and "Letter from an Unknown Woman" is set in Vienna, Lionel felt that the story might be more suited to being set in Paris today.

This Paris, so promiscuous, so heartless, so full of unrequited love, so devoid of even true love!

This is Paris!
(End of this chapter)