About Your Pride and My Prejudice

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After that day, Mr. Maurice came to visit me three times a week, exactly at the same time.

Unlike his straightforward face, he had a shrewdness, so to speak, capable of speaking the perfect Souniare, but ignoring the questions he didn’t want to answer.

Yet, perhaps because he came to teach me, he was distinctly different from the maids who answered like machines. As I chatted with him about one thing or another—albeit somewhat limited—I realized how thirsty I was for a conversation.

Today, he came to my room and sat like an expressionless plaster statue. It was the second day I faced him.

“So…… Mr. Maurice.”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t easy for me to sit face to face with a strange man casually, but I was talking to him quite skillfully. I don’t know if I’ve grown up or if I’m just adapting to this strange environment.

“You’re Alan Leopold’s—”

“You should address him ‘Sir’ Alan, or ‘Mr.’ Leopold. It’s not lady-like.”

Although it often baffles me that he’s unpretentious as a young man.

“Were you Sir Alan’s tutor?”

“……If you ask me anything else, I’ll be happy to answer it. For example, what kind of life did the great writers of the Principality lead and where did they get their inspiration?”

“…….”

I had no desire to learn literature from him because I want to take classes at the academy.

I wanted to have a passionate study life while receiving constructive stimulation from other students. I’m nervous just imagining it, but building friendships little by little.

In addition, it would be great if I could share some feelings close to love while having dinner with someone from time to time and walking the streets together at night.

Those were the things I dreamed of on the ship coming to Lunoa. It’s not an uninspiring routine that goes around like this every day.

“I told you, Mr. Maurice. You can’t make me write again.”

“I expected it to take time, but it’s no problem because you’re staying here much longer than that.”

“……I don’t intend to stay here long.”

He gave a strange look for a moment when I replied back in a bewildering manner. However, he regained his original dry face in an instant, as if it was a mistake that I saw such an expression.

“Miss, I understand you’re uncomfortable with me sitting here.”

“…….”

“Your novel is a masterpiece chosen by the Royal Academy, and you’ve never been properly educated about it.  In other words, you have achieved this wonderful achievement entirely on your own.”

He really spoke like a machine. In a tone that doesn’t feel a bit of emotion or temperature.

“It is no wonder that an unproven stranger suddenly offers to teach literature.”

“I don’t think I’m going to…….”

“However, there must be a reason why you stopped writing.”

Reason why I stopped writing. Does Maurice really want to know that? If I start talking about why, he’ll pretend to be a stranger who doesn’t know Sournaire again.

“Miss, aren’t you in pain, too?”

“Am I in pain?”

“Because you are a writer. Isn’t that why you came to the Principality?  It’s socializing season right now, so if you were still in Sorne, you wouldn’t have had time to focus on writing.”

“………That’s true.”

It’s been months since I didn’t write properly. In early spring, when the wind was still cold, I had not written anything down since I sent my novel to the academy.

The thirst for writing was quenched by reading. It’s also my most noble hobby. But, of course, the act of reading did not fully satisfy me, and Mr. Maurice saw it right through.

“I don’t know how you, Alan Leopold, have a manuscript of my novel, but…….”

“Miss, title” 

[T/N: as in address alan respectfully]

“The academy wouldn’t have given you permission. Are you working behind the scenes?”

“…….”

Yes, I didn’t expect to hear an answer. With the sudden rush of heat, I gently rolled up my blue sleeves that were slightly see-through.

It’s new, but it’s quality and the material is so good that it makes you admire it. So are all the dresses I’ve been wearing since I came here. In addition to clothes, this annex is filled with only beautiful and valuable things, so there is hardly anything lacking. As if a whole town had been moved.

It’s strange to think of Alan, who would have ordered all of these glitzy objects to be brought to the Duchy, but it’s not hard to imagine that he would have enough to fill a few rooms with dresses and shoes for his lover.

His wealth, and such a beautiful lover. There’s no guarantee that his lover is necessarily one person….

“……In any case, it wasn’t just that the novel I was writing went out of hand that stopped me from writing.”

“Is there any other reason?”

Mr. Morris raised his thin-rimmed glasses and asked with a serious face.  Like a detective trying to interrogate me, or a counselor trying to provide professional help.

I was willing to get along with him. I want him to think that I’m more of an ill patient than a suspect.

[T/N: she would rather he pity her then be suspicious of her]

“Have you read my novel?”

“Of course.”

“As you can see, it’s a love story. It’s kind of desperate, and you might have been a little confused because I only wrote the middle part.”

“I’m not confused. The atmosphere was familiar.”

He spoke calmly. Indeed, the author of <The Fugitive> is one of the leading novelists of the Principality of Lunoa, so the dark atmosphere may be familiar.

Thanks to Mr. Maurice’s bluntness, the fact that I was sitting face to face with someone who read my clumsy writing didn’t make me want to run away. More than I thought.

Thanks to this, I was able to continue the story by pretending to be calm.

“It may sound funny, and there is nothing to say if you think it is the limit of a female writer, but I will tell you the truth. I……  I can’t move my pen unless it’s a love story.”

“…….”

His green eyes seemed to linger for a moment on the few hardcover books— all romance novels—piled up on my table.

“You are very reserved, but you know my situation. Who was the character who became the motif of my novel?”

“……I’m not laughing” [at you]

He continued: 

“I don’t even consider it a limitation.”[1]

But that was actually the answer I wanted to hear most from Mr. Maurice. The short answer of an honest man who doesn’t seem to have any talent for making a fuss or sedating a scoundrel can loosen my hardened heart. 

It’s good.

“Mr. Maurice, do you write, too?”

“Yes. And I like love stories the most, too. Both reading and writing.”

“……Ah.”

A love story written by such a stern and stubborn man. Somehow I couldn’t imagine it.

However, the attitude of creating a frame like this and thinking only within it is not like a novelist because the love sentences that Maurice creates may be several times more delicate than mine.

“Then you…… Have you ever written your story?”

“…….”

He didn’t answer for a moment. I couldn’t read a single change of expression, but somehow I thought he was hesitating to answer.

“There is.”

At last Mr. Morris opened his mouth.

“As a writer, I don’t think it’s an option to project one’s life into his work.”

“Hmm….right.”

“For your information, everything I write is about only one person, and only for that one person.”

“…….”

Like many of the servants here, Mr. Maurice was also a person who did not reveal his secrets.  Therefore, I had no idea what his intentions were in revealing his private life to me.

Maybe he thought he could build a deep bond between me and him?

With that in mind, I asked a rather rude question that might make him close his lips again.

“Is she your lover?”

“No, Miss. She’s a woman I wouldn’t dare look at.”

In response, I imagined without difficulty the moment when Mr. Maurice suddenly found a side of himself while reading my manuscript.

“I know what you mean. I’ve felt the same way as you for years. But not now.”

“…….”

“So……

can’t be completed.”

To be exact, I don’t want to complete it.

Before I knew it, I was crumpling my eyebrows. Mr. Maurice was quite calm, perhaps expecting my reaction.

“If you need this kind of conversation until you feel like writing again, I’ll be your partner. You want to write that novel again, too.”

“That…”

Is it because he is also a novelist? Mr. Maurice read my mind perfectly. But there was something he missed.

“But I don’t want to hold onto ‘Paradise on the Moon’ again. The power that made me forget and immerse myself in the novel has disappeared. Now, whatever you put on it will be an empty shell. I’d rather leave it unfinished.”

“…….”

“I don’t know why he is so obsessed with this novel above all else, Mr. Maurice.  The more I think about it, the more terrifying it is to the point that it feels like a kind of retaliation…….  Do you understand what I mean?”

Mr. Maurice had a face as static as his statue.  Still, I thought he would understand my heart.

He is also a writer, and he has a brilliant muse.  If the subject that became the soul of the novel disappears, the story loses its meaning.

I don’t want to write the ending I’ve prepared. I don’t want to complete the story of Troy, who is inspired by Alan Leopold. It is a disgrace to me that I have watched him over the years and had no clue of his ugly side.

“I might be able to do it if it’s a whole new story.”

Alan said that the situation I’m in, exactly where he put me, would be a catalyst, but that’s just bullshit. If I continue writing the back story with this in mind in the first place, it will be nothing more than garbage, let alone

.

“If he needs to complete a novel that he wants to get out of here, I’ll write a new one. I don’t know how long it’ll take to complete.”

“Nothing else, Miss. You can’t write something else

“…Did you lose your target?”

“You must complete this novel.”

I couldn’t hide my bewilderment at his determination.

“I’ll help you, so use me. I can give you a stimulus similar to that target.”

“What the….”

The man in front of me had eyes that seemed to laugh at me for overlooking that he was Alan Leopold’s person.

“I mean, I’ll be your Troy, Miss.”

***

[1] in case readers didn’t understand the above conversation, what he means to say is Melissa is very conserved and doesn’t take too much Pride on her masterpiece. And says, making a person as a motif while writing novels or creating a piece of art isn’t and shouldn’t be considered as a limitation. Every artist takes inspiration from his/her daily life/experiences and he says, never be ashamed or consider that there is limitation while taking inspiration and creating a piece. This applies to authors, singers, painters