Over the threshold to the world

Because of his mother's expectation, Guy De at a very young age under the French famous writer Gustaff, learning to write.

This master was very strict, even harsh, with Guy De. At the end of every week Guy De brought his work in for the teacher to correct. But most of his work did not satisfy the teacher. For this reason, Guy De had to revise it repeatedly under the guidance of his teacher.

One day Gustaff said to Guy De: "Go to the Ninth Avenue in Paris, turn left at the second crossing, and see who is the first person on the right side of the road?"

Guy De came to the junction and saw a statue of an old woman in the distance. He rushed back and told his teacher, "It's an old woman."

The teacher shook his head and said disapprovingly, "What you see, others can see. What kind of old woman is she?" Guy D had to come to the junction again. This time, he went closer to the statue and looked at it for a while. Then he came back and told the teacher, "That old woman is very dirty. Her face is dusty and her hair is as messy as a hen's nest." When Gustaff heard this, he said with a smile, "There is progress, but what you see is still visible to others. You should use your third eye to see what others cannot." Guy D had to come to the junction a third time. This time he went to the statue and looked at it very carefully. When he came back, he told the teacher excitedly, "I found that the nose of that old woman was made by the worst carpenter in the world who took a piece of wood and cut it into her face." At this moment a satisfied smile came over Gustaff's face.

With the gradual deepening of writing training, Guy De's writing skills improved by leaps and bounds. During this period Guy De wrote a great deal of work which seemed too high for his peers to publish, and many of which were admired by his teachers. But Gustaff advised him not to publish it yet.

The teacher's words puzzled Guy De for a moment. "Why can't I publish these works?" In 1875, at the age of 25, Guy De secretly published his first novel, The Human Hand Model, behind his teacher's back. This is a novel of strange conception: a model of a murderer's hand comes back to life and begins to plot evil again, only to be "severed and replanted" to calm down. When it was published, many people read it and admired it, but Guy De was severely criticized by his teacher. "All of your baby steps are scrap paper, so please don't publish them." Finally, Gustaff solemnly said to Guy Decu, "I am a threshold through which you can go out."

Guy De was a little hurt by this, but he did as he was told, and from then on he practiced and thought no more about the publication. And the ones that had been written before, he put them on the shelf.

And so it went for another four years. In 1879, Guy De finished a novel. He carefully showed it to the teacher for review, and waited for the teacher's criticism and advice. A few days later Guy De went to see his teacher with a lot of trepidation. The teacher saw him, but uncharacteristically, ecstatic to take his hand, excitedly said: "Congratulations to you, your article mature, can come out."

When Guy De heard this, he burst into tears. The day he had been waiting for finally came. Guy De was nearly thirty this year. The previous efforts in writing, more than 10 years.