Captain Nemo_ The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius - Kevin J Anderson [158]
In the household, with her daughters visiting their grandparents again, Honorine’s task was to keep the infant as quiet as possible so her husband could concentrate on his writing. Later, after he had trudged off to the dreary stock exchange, Michel could wail to his lungs’ content.
As his creative frustration built, Verne became a more impatient person, sharper tempered. The stamina he needed to continue his unflagging (and unrewarded) writing efforts began to wane. The noise and disruptions at home made concentration even more difficult. Even the plots of his own adventures gave him diminished enjoyment.
Still, Verne had been proud to complete his exhaustive balloon manuscript, convinced that he had found his path to success. Honorine could sense her husband’s excitement about the project, and she smiled at him whenever he bothered to give her a glance.
Full of optimism, he had selected the best Parisian publisher and submitted the completed manuscript. Surely, the hungry minds in France would want to read everything there was to know about lighter-than-air travel. And the book came back -- rejected.
Undaunted, silently dubbing the editor a blind fool who could not recognize talent, Verne sent the balloon treatise to his second choice, an equally reputable and impressive publisher. Again the book was returned to him.
Angry, but still determined, he submitted the manuscript over and over . . . and waited for the return post. Each morning, like a sleepwalker, he went to the Bourse, uninterested in the endless routine of selling and buying shares. Days, sometimes weeks, passed -- but always his manuscript came back with similar verdicts. “Too long.” “Too dull.” “Too unfocused.”
Verne’s coworkers knew of his ambitions and joked about him being a lightheaded dreamer. While they thought he wasted his time at writing, they themselves spent extra hours in the stock exchange, making (and losing) fortunes.
As the balloon book repeatedly failed to find a home, Verne’s mood soured, and coworkers stopped teasing him. In fact, they stopped conversing much with him at all. . . .
Now, with his palms sweating, he unwrapped the parcel and closed his eyes. He drew a deep breath and removed the handwritten note on top of his fastidiously produced manuscript. Deemed unpublishable.
Again.
Verne had lost a substantial sum in the stock market that day, and the baby’s loud crying exacerbated his headache. The letter from yet another ignorant publisher only reinforced his doubts and his foul mood. Rejected seventeen times. How could an 800-page manuscript about the history and engineering of ballooning possibly be boring? It went beyond all reason.
Giving in to frustration, Verne strode across the room with the heavy manuscript in hand, his only copy of the work that had taken him a year to complete. He threw open the iron door of the stove where a fire burned, warming the house against the autumn chill. With a wordless gesture of disgust and a dramatic flair, he tossed the thick manuscript into the fire and slammed the door with a nod of petulant satisfaction.
Honorine froze in place, and her dark brows furrowed with concern. “Jules?” She looked from him to the torn brown postal wrapping, to the letter from the returned manuscript. Then she noticed his smug expression directed at the stove. “Jules, don’t you dare!”
Stern and uncompromising, she shouldered her husband aside and flung open the stove door. Without a moment’s hesitation, she reached into the fire, burning her own fingertips, and yanked out the stack of manuscript pages. She dropped it onto the floor and stamped on the edges to extinguish the flames.
“You are even more a child than Michel,” she said. When he reached for the manuscript, confused and guilty but still full of rage, Honorine snatched it up and