Chapter 290: Not Ordinary and Extraordinarily Confident (K8)

Chapter 289: Not Ordinary and Extraordinarily Confident (5K8)

In the tavern facing the street, Arthur and Louis Bonaparte savored the beer in their cups, the pure white beer-foamy drink tasted slightly bitter, so Arthur fished out a piece of colorfully wrapped candy from his pocket, peeled off its coat and put it into his mouth.

Heine, who was drinking heavily at the side, saw this action of Arthur, and he couldn’t help frowning and asking, “Are you afraid of bitterness?”

Arthur smiled and shook his head, “Not afraid, but I still prefer the taste of light sweetness. Why go and make yourself suffer if you can eat candy?”

Louis heard the strings in Arthur’s words, understanding the purpose of this trip, he did not move to catch the words, “That’s right, but the problem is that it’s not always possible to taste sweet candies all the time. Usually, suffering is because there is no choice. Look at Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, as soon as they caught the chance didn’t they steal a taste of the forbidden fruit, even God’s counsel to them was thrown to the winds.”

When Agares heard this, he rolled his eyes, and the eyewitness couldn’t help but curse, “God’s old man is just looking for trouble, it’s just eating two rotten apples, isn’t it? What’s the big deal? If he hadn’t planted apples in that area, there wouldn’t be so much shit going on back there. Maybe I should have forked that Samael snake in the first place, and blamed Lucifer for those fuckers having to bet on whether or not Samael would be able to seduce Adam and Eve, those two idiots. This is good, the group ended up losing their jobs together, if not for this, I can’t say that I’m still in …… this moment.”

Agareth said here suddenly stopped his words, his sight turned, just in time to meet Arthur’s drifting gaze.

The red devil glared and cursed, “What are you looking at? I didn’t lure you to eat apples! Don’t you have to pay money to listen to stories? Arthur, you little bastard must understand that not everyone is willing to let you whore yourself out for nothing, at least here in Devil, if you don’t pay something, our business is non-negotiable!”

Arthur looked at the red devil this kind of furious appearance, also know that he is estimated to be hooked up again which section of unpleasant memories.

His eyes turned back to Heine’s body, and Arthur knowingly asked, “So Mr. Heine, listening to your accent, you don’t seem to be a Briton?”

Heine did not shy away from answering this question as he spoke, “What? I can’t believe you heard that. I thought my English accent had improved greatly after sojourning in London for so long.”

Hearing this, Louis could not help but look at Arthur in surprise.

Arthur also understood what he was wondering, if a guy like Heine had a long history of sojourning in London and Scotland Yard didn’t have any semblance of information about him, then this should be considered a dereliction of duty.

And judging from the archive documents that the Police Intelligence Bureau had inherited from Scotland Yard, it seemed that they had indeed been derelict in their duties, and Scotland Yard’s records on Heine were almost completely blank, as if they didn’t know this person at all.

But the good thing is that Scotland Yard has enough dereliction of duty, and adding the Heine one doesn’t seem to be a big deal.

If Rothschild hadn’t approached Arthur a while back, Scotland Yard’s records on Heine would have continued to be blank for a few more years, I don’t know.

Arthur was not flustered as he hedged his bets, “You have lived in London before?”

Heine nodded: “More than lived, I lived in London for two years.”

Arthur raised his hand and asked for a cup of black tea, then asked, “Two years? That’s not a short time. Are you here in Britain on a study trip? Or just simply want to come to London to experience the exotic?”

“Good question!”

Heine hummed, “Regarding the matter of why I’ve been in London for two years, that’s a long story. First of all, I have to introduce myself. If we go by the current territorial division, my homeland is supposed to be the Kingdom of Prussia. Privately, however, I identify myself more as a citizen of the Kingdom of Westphalia, even though it is now extinct.

You know what? I saw Napoleon with my own eyes when I was a child. I rode on my father’s shoulders and watched as Napoleon rode into the city on his high horse and led the army, which was unbelievable to me because there was no riding allowed in the city, and all the guys who rode in the streets had to be fined. Yet I didn’t see anyone arrest the guy or see him pay the fine. From that time on, I knew that he must not be an ordinary man.

It wasn’t long after that that the Kingdom of Westphalia was proclaimed, and after another six years it fell again. Although the history of this country is short, I kinda miss it. Of course, if you guys find my identity hard to understand, you should not be stuck on which German state I come from forget it, anyway, most of the states in Germany are the same death, so you should simply think of me as a German, I don’t resent you calling me that.”

Louis Bonaparte, who was on the side, couldn’t help frowning when he heard this.

From the moment he first saw Heine just now, he felt that this guy’s way of speaking was really lacking in beatings, if it wasn’t for the fact that this guy fancied himself as a citizen of the Kingdom of Westphalia, a servant state of the French Empire, Louis felt that he would have to fight a duel with him at a high and low level.

He turned his head to look at Arthur beside him, only to find that he actually maintained a polite smile on his face. While marveling at Arthur’s good personal culture, Louis also had to secretly resolve that he still needed to improve his posture level in terms of expression management and learn one more from the young officer beside him.

Heine continued to narrate, ”To tell you the truth, in fact, when I left from Prussia, I hadn’t thought that I would stay in London for that long, after all, while I was traveling, I was also looking around for a local publisher to publish my collection of poems. I’ve been lucky, and my poetry has been well received by readers all over Europe, and I’ve always made the publishers I’ve worked with rich and famous wherever I’ve gone. But when I wanted to get ready to end my London trip by heading to Austria for a stroll, I realized that I didn’t seem to be welcome there.”

“Not welcome?” Arthur asked, “Why is that?”

Heine took a sip of her beer and spoke, “Probably because I am too fond of using a string of florid adjectives when describing Metternich? But you should know that I am a poet, and the language of poets has always been magnificent and gorgeous.”

Louis asked, “What adjectives have you used in Metternich?”

Heine cut the sausage seriously, “I just paraphrased the words of Tsar Alexander I of Russia.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow, “So what exactly did you say?”

Heine put down her fork and spoke impatiently, “I said he was simply lower than a dog.”

Arthur pressed, “Is that all?”

Heine scratched his cheek and continued to add, “I also praised the Austrian police in passing.”

Louis asked, “Praised how?”

“Nothing, just some old fashioned blessing.”

Louis was relentless, “So what was it, exactly?”

Heine resumed picking up her knife and fork and eating her sausage, “I said: I give the Austrian police all the bouts of abdominal pain that are like pliers on the bowels, and incidentally all the tricky Prussian hemorrhoids and the difficulty in urinating.”

After hearing this, even Louis, who had just resolved to exercise his culmination, could not help slapping his forehead, and he exclaimed, “How can you say that?”

Heine held his head in one hand and chewed, “I was just going to try them out, but what I didn’t expect was that Metternich and the Austrian police officers actually admitted to all this with alacrity.”

“They admitted it?”

“Well, they admitted it very readily.”

Heine took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth: “Those guys banned all the Poetry Collections that I had published in Austria, that speed and efficiency was really high, if they were usually so diligent they wouldn’t have hemorrhoids. At that time, I had spent almost all of my payment, and I thought I could make another profit in Austria, but I didn’t realize that they would show no mercy to the publications under my name.

The Czar was right, Metternich is a dog. Uh …… sorry, I usually don’t speak so vulgarly, but for this guy Metternich, I really can’t hide what’s in my heart.” Louis’ eyebrows jumped as he listened, he suddenly raised his elbow and pestled Arthur, “Maybe we should have Alexander meet him, the two of them might hit it off.”

Arthur just smoked one cigarette, “It’s better to wait for Monkey to come back from South America. I suddenly feel like training Monkey up a bit, he might have a big future ahead of him.”

Arthur and Louis were talking when suddenly he noticed Heine again looking around somewhat nervously at the glass window of the tavern, as if she was looking for something.

Arthur asked, “What is the matter with you?”

Heine leaned back in his chair and spoke, “I’m not welcome in Austria, and the same goes for my home country of Prussia, they’re afraid of me, afraid that I’m going to spill the beans about the fact that they have hemorrhoids. So, when I was living in my old home country, I could often spot a few familiar faces outside my own apartment, they stayed there almost every day and they followed me wherever I went. Though they thought they were well disguised, it didn’t fool me, and I knew that they were sent by the authorities to follow and spy on me, and that they were a bunch of lapdogs of the Prussian government.”

Saying this, Heine tugged the blinds covering the front of the glass window downwards again, he gouged out a small slit that could only accommodate two eyes to peer out, “And I’ve noticed that lately this gang of lapdogs is really getting more and more arrogant. When I was in Prussia, they would spy on me, and now that I’m in London, there are actually people spying on me. It seems like I’ve become a big problem for Prussia now.”

Prussia of course could not have traveled across the ocean to London to spy on Heine, as for Heine’s words about where exactly those dog legs that were spying on him in London came from, Arthur of course knew.

He just lightly snapped his fingers and twisted his head again to exchange glances with Louis.

Louis Bonaparte understood and fished out the small notebook from his pocket, and added a sentence on it with precise precision – this person has strong anti-surveillance ability, and is also a narcissist.

After writing this, Louis didn’t forget to hold the notebook out in front of Arthur and asked, “What do you think?”

Arthur gently shook his finger at the ‘narcissist’ on the notebook, as he pointed out, “It’s really too impolite to say that, although we’re not poets, we should still try to be a bit more civil in our wording, what do you think of Narcissist?”

“Narcissus? The guy in ancient Greek mythology who fell in love with his reflection in the water?” Louis cupped his chin and pondered, “Arthur, you really don’t say, that’s quite an apt word, I’ll just remember it like that.”

Heine let go of the blinds and whipped her head around to ask, “What are you two talking about?”

Arthur smiled and spoke, “Don’t worry, Mr. Heine. If the Prussian government really dares to send someone to spy on you in London, we will definitely give them a taste of their own medicine. As you know, Louis and I are Scotland Yard police officers, and just last year we solved a French kidnapping case on the high seas. In matters of sovereignty, Britain will concede nothing to anyone, and the Prussians can’t do anything to you as long as your feet are on London soil.”

Heine bristled, “I don’t think they can do anything to me either. I came to London this time to publish Travel Sketches, a travelogue of my travels through the countries of the European continent, and I didn’t mention much about Prussia in there. I’ve left most of my Prussian-bashing in my apartment in Paris. Most of the Travel Sketches are in there bashing Britain and France, and of course I mention Prussia a little bit.”

Seeing that the padding was almost done, Arthur spoke up, “Mr. Heine, while I feel that creativity is a rather private matter and outsiders have no right to tell you how to write. But as a friend, if you need to be paid for your work, perhaps you could be a little more flexible in your creative skills. You can’t criticize Prussia when you’re in Prussia, France when you’re in France, and Britain when you’re in Britain.

Lord Byron’s “Don Juan” broke this taboo when he scolded all his Excellencies in the Cabinet, so that the road to publication became a series of twists and turns, and it is only in recent years that it has been able to pass the publishing license. And the Austrian affair should have given you a little taste of Lord Byron’s depression in his day, shouldn’t it?”

“Hmm?” Heine frowned when she heard this, “But I heard that Britain is not free to publish now?”

Arthur nodded slightly, “Newspapers and magazines really don’t need to be censored now, the newspaper company only needs to get a publishing license certificate, and then they can distribute the newspaper as much as they want within the term of the license certificate. Although the distribution of general publications in the open is also free, but if your work displeases the Excellencies, even though they can’t ask for revisions or outright refuse you to publish your writings, they can give you a grinding slow drag.”

“This ……” Heine heard this and was a little shaken for a moment, he thought for a moment and spoke, “If that’s the case, then why don’t I simply publish only the first three volumes of Traveling Sketches in Britain. The fourth volume of ‘British Breakdown’ will be pressed for the time being, until I finish revising it. Although I don’t want to bow down to these conservative and authoritarian forces, some minor adjustments are acceptable to me in order to enable readers to see my writings as soon as possible. The first edition puts the revised version, the second edition goes on the original version, and it’s not the first time I’ve done this kind of thing anyway.”

Arthur originally thought that a grumpy person like Heine would definitely be upset by his words, but what he didn’t expect was that the original venomous addicted great poet was actually a flexible and versatile recidivist. It seemed that the censorship incident in Austria had not only given Metternich an extra hemorrhoid, but had also given Heine an extra mind.

But if you think about it, it seems quite reasonable. After all, people need to eat, and poets are certainly no exception.

In a sense, Arthur was even kind of happy about it, at least it made his job less difficult.

But the purpose of Arthur’s trip had not been fully accomplished, and he certainly had not forgotten what Lionel had asked him to do.

He racked his brain to think about the information he had gathered about Heine these days, and asked with a smile, “It’s great that you’ve figured all this out, I’m sure your book will be a big seller. But before that, you’d better make sure again that there is nothing about the Kingdom of Hanover in your book ‘Travel Sketches’. As you know, our king sits on the throne of Hanover under his ass in addition to the crown of Britain.”

“The Kingdom of Hanover?” Heine cupped his chin and pondered for a moment, “I forgot about it if you didn’t mention it. But you really guessed right, I did write a little bit about the Kingdom of Hanover, it’s in the first volume of Travels to the Harz Mountains, after all, it’s part of the German Confederation, and I went to the University of Göttingen in Hanover, so I’m afraid it was a bit difficult for you to get me not to mention it.”

Arthur pretended to be surprised, “Did you originally graduate from the University of Göttingen?”

Heine smiled and said, “Yes! Graduated from the University of Göttingen! Graduated!”

Louis also asked curiously, “How is this place in Göttingen? I’ve always heard that the quality of education there is very high, after all, it was a university set up by George II of Britain modeled after Oxford and Cambridge. Many people say that it is the best of the German universities, with a better environment and conditions, and compared to other German regional universities, Göttingen is also free from the interference of the government and the church, with a very liberal academic atmosphere.”

“Set up on the Oxford and Cambridge model?” Arthur lifted his cup of black tea and gently took a sip, “Then I guess their education is not much stronger.”

Heine was like finding a confidant when he heard this, he exclaimed, “That’s right! You are right! It’s true that it’s still the Britons who know Göttingen the best! I am simply speechless about the city of Göttingen, which I guessed must have a long history when I first arrived there.

And why do you think that is? Because I remember that old, world-weary look she had when I enrolled there seven years ago and was ordered suspended shortly thereafter. It was filled with night watchmen, curly-haired dogs, dissertations, dancing tea parties, washerwomen, syllabi, roasted pigeons, the Order of the Guelph, carriages for those who had earned their doctorates, smoky potpourri, privy councilors, judicial advisors, members of expulsion committees, professors, and other contraptions.

Freedom? Göttingen actually has the nerve to call himself free! Let me put it this way: the population of Göttingen is rather simple, and it can be divided into four distinct classes: the common people, the university students, the professors, and the brutes. Of course, just for my own opinion, I think that the role of the brutes in Göttingen is probably the most important.

Of course, professors are not entirely useless, and at some point I would even have to defend them. Do you know why German professors always write their books in an obscure manner, as if they were afraid to ask others to read them? I can tell you the reason right here, because they are afraid that if their assertions are read by the brutes, their own lives may not be saved.”

Hearing this, Arthur smiled and picked up, “That is what worries me about you.”

Hearing this, Heine, who was already hot-blooded, directly took Arthur’s hand and shook it, “Then you are quite a friend. But the fact that you compared me to professors is putting me down too much.”

Arthur rubbed his temples in distress, “Mr. Heine, I agree with you completely. But the problem still has to be solved doesn’t it? I’m afraid it would be difficult to make a good impression on Your Excellencies, especially His Majesty the King of Britain, if you are sharply critical of the Kingdom of Hanover in the first volume of your book.”

Heine was also a little out of ideas, “But there’s nothing I particularly want to say in the first volume if Göttingen is deleted. And since I began my journey there, I can’t tell the readers that I began my travels in Paris, can I?”

When Arthur heard this, he pretended to meditate for a moment, and he said, with a pretense of illumination, “There. Mr. Heine, in my opinion, you should simply not publish Travel Sketches as a whole. You could perhaps try publishing it in chapters, like serializing it in a magazine or something. The press wouldn’t have to wait for a license, and by publishing it in chapters, you could keep trying to find out to what extent His Excellency of Britannia would accept it. In that case, there would be no delay in maximizing the expression of your ideas, so what do you think?”

“Serialization?” Heine froze for a moment, “This …… I think I’ve heard that this way is indeed quite fashionable, but I don’t know anyone from the Britannia newspaper!”

Hearing this, Louis on the side exchanged a glance with Arthur, who just lifted his wine glass and smiled, “Count yourself lucky today, I know the editor of The Britannica, you know The Britannica, don’t you? They can’t be considered a small magazine in Britain, and they sell quite a lot of copies of each issue. And their layout content is quite inclusive and diverse in my opinion.”

(End of chapter)