There were readers who wrote to the paper to praise his poems, yes. But there was also a black box where all the letters from his detractors went—those who disagreed with his artistic opinions or thought his verses were superfluous.

People like Francis, in short.

Well, maybe not quite like him. Francis had taken his jabs in the rival newspaper, true. And his remarks were sharp enough to cut, but they never crossed the line into outright insult, nor did he ever flagrantly tell Julien to quit journalism.

No, Francis’s comments clearly came from someone annoyed by the content of a paper, not from someone attacking a specific author. That was why, though Julien had feared at first that he had written something unforgivable, he soon realized the damage hadn’t been so grave, at least where Francis was concerned. And from there, in part, he began to enjoy their back-and-forth.

The main problem lay with the rest of those readers who did seem to take everything he wrote as a personal affront.

Would things change if he had fewer detractors? Julien was skeptical. More than one colleague at the paper had advised him to ignore negative criticism and just focus on doing his job. After all, the editor would never fire someone over a less-than-inspired piece.

It was better not to let it get to him.

Though for Julien, that was easier said than done—he had always been sensitive to such things.

“You’ve been sitting here motionless for twenty minutes, staring at the same point on the altar,” observed Francis, who had somehow sat down beside him without Julien noticing. “Either you’ve just had a divine revelation, or you’ve got a lot of sins to atone for.”

“Have you been timing me to see when it would be propitious to run out of here?”

“No. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t bother to warn you. Although now that you mention it… how long until the next mass? I’d really like to avoid it.”

“I don’t think it’ll be long, if the plan is to hold another service tonight,” Julien mused, glancing around and noticing that quite a few more worshippers had entered the church since he had been there. “Sorry, I hadn’t realized how much time had passed.”

“It’s fine. I probably shouldn’t have come over and interrupted your prayer, but I wanted to make sure you were still in this plane of existence, in case I decided to wait outside.”

“You’re very considerate lately.”

“Must be from that knock on the head during the sledding incident. Don’t get used to it.”

Julien smiled to himself. He wasn’t sure if Francis had noticed, but despite his bitter demeanor, he had shown him small kindnesses from the very start. So, with or without violent mishaps in between, it seemed unlikely he was perpetually bad-tempered.

“I wasn’t praying,” Julien admitted. “Since childhood I’ve had trouble remembering the required prayers. No matter how hard I try, I always end up distracted by something.”

“That happened to me too—though I suspect for a different reason.”

“What I was doing was thinking things over, and… How did you manage to get where you are now?”

“You dragged me here yourself—quietly, but with full intent… Oh, you didn’t mean the church, did you?”

“I meant your work at Le Progrès.” Seeing that Francis didn’t quite follow the sudden change of topic, Julien elaborated: “Your columns are quite popular, that’s why…”

“It’s a mix of luck and having the right connections,” Francis replied without a moment’s hesitation, which surprised Julien.

“I thought you’d say it was a matter of talent and hard work.”

“Hard work helps, sure. And talent… what even is talent, anyway? I’ll just tell you, I’ve known utter fools at Le Gaulois whose only reason for holding their posts was that they were friends with the boss—or belonged to families with some standing in the higher echelons of Parisian society. And I can assure you, in my early days I spent more time fixing what they messed up than working on my own texts.”

“I see. I suppose nepotism reaches everywhere,” Julien reflected. Truth be told, he also knew two or three characters in his own office whom the director had placed there entirely by favoritism. “But in your case, how did you end up at Le Progrès?”

“How do you think?”

“I doubt you were chosen for those connections you mentioned. Sure, there may be aristocrats with talent who actually do their jobs well despite being appointed almost at random, but you don’t strike me as one of them.”

Besides, the little Julien knew about Francis was that he came from the same town, Chambéry. And most people there did not exactly belong to any high caste of rich and powerful families.

“I studied and worked hard at the time, but I’d be lying if I said I earned my position because of that,” Francis confessed. “I had studied law and, though I liked writing, I had never considered doing it professionally. If I ended up at Le Gaulois, after a long stint in other offices, it was only because a journalist from that paper discovered an article I had written once—just once—for a much smaller newspaper. That’s when he decided to put me in touch with his editor, and… that’s all. Had I not been living in Paris at the time, and had I not spent my free hours writing a few articles for various press pamphlets, I can guarantee you I never would have landed the job at Le Gaulois.”

“I always thought you studied journalism with that sole goal in mind—being part of that paper, or of any other with such reach.”

“I’m afraid I’m not that ambitious. But I won’t bite the hand that feeds me either: Le Gaulois was never part of my original plan, yet I’m comfortable there.”

“It’s good they ended up hiring you. You have the talent, and your articles are always interesting,” Julien declared, convinced. “I’ve been following you closely ever since that article you wrote about the colonies in Africa.”

“What? You’ve been reading my work since before we started that absurd public feud in the press?”

Of course Francis would notice that the article mentioned had been written at least five years earlier, long before the two of them began exchanging jabs. Julien felt slightly flustered as he realized his slip—and what it implied.

“One has to read a lot if one intends to work in this field. It’s not like I was buying Le Gaulois month after month just to see what you had written in particular.” Noting Francis’s well-earned incredulous look, Julien ventured to add: “All right, fine—I did! So what? Don’t write such interesting things if you don’t want me to read them. Have less talent!”

That made Francis smile, though he had the good sense not to comment on it. In truth, it was lucky he wasn’t the kind of man who constantly needed to flaunt his own achievements or bask in every bit of praise.

Francis seemed rather discreet, accepting compliments politely without making a show of them. That was why Julien sighed in relief: he had no desire to wheel out the heavy artillery and explain how, ever since arriving in Lyon, he had been an avid follower of those blasted political columns. So the silence that followed his admission was most welcome.

Shame it didn’t last long.

“Since we’re in a church, I think it’s a good time for me to make a confession too.”

“You’ve secretly been reading my poems for half a decade?” Julien guessed, though he already suspected that wasn’t it.

“No, actually… well… how should I put it? I hadn’t read anything.”

“Anything?”

Impossible. How else could Francis have answered his barbs all that time? There had been dozens of clear references to specific stanzas in his poetry!

“Obviously I’ve read you now—otherwise I couldn’t have had those exchanges with you!” Francis exclaimed, sounding almost indignant with himself for failing to explain. “I mean at the beginning, when I wrote that very first opinion piece with veiled jabs at you.”

“You picked a fight with me out of nowhere—without even reading my work?”

“Well, I said ‘nothing,’ but… I did read the title and the first stanza. Don’t ask me what it was about—I don’t remember anymore. The thing is, I was having a terrible day at the office, deadlines were piling up, and I got bad news from my landlord, so I took it out on you as I could have on anyone else.”

It was outrageous—over three years of rivalry reduced to a bad day and a few misplaced sharp words! Julien wanted to be angry, to reproach Francis for wasting so much time in a pointless feud born of an ill-tempered moment.

But at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to be upset. Seen coldly, now that he knew the man in person—and couldn’t deny that he actually liked him—the whole thing was downright hilarious.

“A few days after writing that column, things started to improve for me, and my anger passed,” Francis continued, serious as ever, as though determined to clear the air once and for all and prevent further misunderstandings. “I planned to write a few words in my next article retracting what I’d said, and also to send you a letter of apology, but… that’s when your column came out. I saw you’d fired back at me tenfold. So I thought, no, I won’t bow my head either, because that wouldn’t be right. Better that I give him a proper piece of my mind!”

At that, Julien couldn’t hold back a laugh, which drew the attention of some nearby worshippers, who glanced at them curiously—perhaps wondering what on earth could be so funny inside the parish.

“I know it sounds childish, and I should have stuck to my original idea of apologizing and ending the squabble there,” Francis murmured, visibly embarrassed. “So forgive me. I don’t know what came over me, but whatever it was, it’s no excuse.”

“You’re forgiven—and I’m sorry too: I shouldn’t have answered that article the way I did,” said Julien, once he had recovered. Without even realizing it, he felt as if a weight had been lifted. “The right thing would have been to ignore you—or better yet, to write to you privately and ask what the problem was. And if I didn’t… maybe it was because at the time I was still very new at the paper and had no idea how to handle criticism.”

That, and because it had been a heavy blow to discover that one of the people he admired most in the profession didn’t approve of his work.

And though in time Julien had managed to relax, to see the situation more objectively and realize that Francis’s jabs didn’t even make much sense in the way they were phrased, that didn’t change the fact that the first time it had felt like a kick to his ego.

“At least this initially unpleasant experience has served some purpose.”

“To make you read more poetry?” Julien offered with a faint smile. “Because if so, I’d say it’s been worth it—insults aside.”

“That too, but what I mean is… I don’t know what kind of relationship you had with your manuscripts back then, or what obstacle you’re facing with them now, but you should trust your process more: you don’t write badly at all.”

“Is that… are you saying that just to console me, or because you really believe it?”

“Do I seem like the kind of man who lies just to comfort someone?”

“Yes.”

The monosyllable was blunt—and as surprising to Julien as it was to Francis. Perhaps at the start of the trip Julien would never have thought that of him, but things were changing quickly now. And it no longer seemed so easy for Francis to maintain a shield of impassivity.

“Fine, sometimes I lie for the greater good. But it’s rare for me,” Francis concluded. “And this time, I assure you, I’m telling the truth: after you started replying to me in your columns, I felt obliged to read everything you had written up to that point, to have grounds for… well, you know. The thing is, at first it wasn’t hard to find ways to pick at you, since I had no habit of reading poetry—and my ignorance was considerable.”

“You’d never read poetry before?” Julien interrupted, with a mix of curiosity and outrage.

The audacity! To dare critique a poem when one’s experience consuming such work was so scant!

“I’d read some in school,” Francis defended himself, though he didn’t sound entirely convincing. “My point is, a few years ago I had to start reading again. Not only your work, but I also borrowed poetry by other authors. I researched on my own, and after a few months… I had nothing left to criticize in your writing.”

“Nothing?”

“As I said, your work is perfectly reasonable. I actually like it. I enjoy reading it. That’s why it became harder and harder to find faults, because I simply don’t see any. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve never attacked the structure of your poems or the emotions you express through them. I still don’t fully understand how all that works, and even if I did—well, even I have my limits.”

“I suspected poetry wasn’t your thing—precisely because your criticisms always felt superficial, focused more on what I might have written before than on what was actually on the page.” Realizing something, Julien added: “Now that I think about it, I don’t recall you saying anything bad about my work over the past year.”

Lately it had just been the usual playful barbs, where Francis would compare some sensitive current event to something trivial and harmless in Julien’s poems. No more serious critiques or bloody battles in the open press. The more time passed, the more it felt like a friendly squabble with no real weight behind it.

“I’m losing my touch,” Francis sighed. “One of these days I’ll lose my ability to judge political and social issues too, and they’ll fire me.”

“No, I’m sure they won’t.”

Francis was far too good at what he did. And Julien thought, if he himself kept working hard, why shouldn’t he be able to follow in those footsteps?

Their rivalry was fun—but couldn’t it be even better if it turned into something else?