Chapter 31: Confused Absolute Neutrals

Chapter 31 – The Confused Absolute Neutral

Dickens was also taken aback when he saw Arthur’s emotional outburst.

But it wasn’t a sudden whim on Arthur’s part; he had been in this world for close to five years.

In five years he had walked the dirt roads of the Yorkshire countryside, he had attended that atheist college on London’s Gower Street, he had walked the hustle and bustle of the Theatre Royal, and he had delved into the darkest and most lightless corners of London’s East End.

In York he saw the lavish estates of the nobility, and viewed from afar the imposing York Minster, built in 627 AD.

But he has also seen the muddy wheat fields of the rainy season, where hired farmers braved the rain in toe-baring shoes and socks to harvest their grain, trying to hold on to the last of their meager incomes.

In the family workshop, the spinning machine was running and creaking, yet the most skillful woman could produce only half a meter of fabric in a day.

In the spinning mills that have been built along the river, it takes only a few moments for the women’s hard work to fall apart.

In London, he had seen the London docks in April and September during the peak shipping season.

They were full of dockworkers carrying bags of hundreds of pounds of tea and spices, their heavy feet carrying the goods down the trestle boards, which, from a distance, looked like swarms of ants.

I’ve also seen the winter harbor slump, where thousands of laborers gather in front of a handful of cargo ships, fighting over each other’s heads for the sole purpose of waiting for a chance to work for two shillings a day.

He didn’t want to see these things, but as long as he still lived in this world, there were things that just couldn’t be escaped.

The Whigs?
The Tories?
As far as Arthur was concerned, it was just a name used as a proxy.

What was the difference between them?

I’m sorry.

He really can’t tell the difference.

There are a lot of house rules at Scotland Yard.

But there was only one that Arthur was abiding by out of sincerity.

Scotland Yard’s police should be politically neutral at all times, favoring neither Pfleger nor Tory.

Of this he had no question.

He smoked in silence, the mood he had managed to sort out over the last two days falling back into a dead silence.

Seeing him in this state, Dickens couldn’t help but speak on his shoulder, “Arthur, are you interested in hearing my story?”

Arthur gave him a look and snapped the ashes from his pipe to the ground.

“I’ve read your writing many times, but it’s the first time I’ve heard you tell a story.”

Dickens smiled and said, “To say that you may not believe me, in fact, my family was quite good when I was a child. Although it can’t be said to be rich, it can be said to be substantial. My father was a clerk in the Quartermaster’s Office of the Ministry of the Navy, and my mother also came from a middle-class family.

Though later on, because of my father’s debts that led to bankruptcy, our family’s condition quickly declined.

However, as the second of eight children, I was fortunate enough to go to school and receive a certain level of education in my early years.

I remember when I was about twelve years old, my father was put in debtor’s prison because he could not afford to pay his debts.

He wrote home for money while he was in jail, but the family had run out of money, so it wasn’t long before my mother, along with a few of our siblings, was put in jail as well.

But I was more fortunate, I was working as a child laborer in a shoe polish workshop at that time, so the debtor let me continue to work there to pay off the family’s debt and didn’t ask the judge to put me in jail.

After a few months, my father was able to borrow a sum of money from a relative, and my family was finally able to be released from prison.

After that, I worked to pay off my debts while studying at a middle school.

When I was 14 years old, because of my good memory and good handwriting, I was given an opportunity to join the Britannia News Agency, and I was sent by them to the Parliament as an interviewer.

I thought that was the way things were going to be, but not long after that, our family was blown out by the landlord again because of unpaid rent, and I dropped out of school.

What happened after that, I did a lot of work, I went selling newspapers, I went doing odd jobs for people, I did street work.

With hard work, I was able to get an apprenticeship at a law firm.

I learned the basics of the law and shorthand, and with these skills I got myself a job as a court clerk, and continued to work as a part-time tabloid interviewer.

And then I met you, Arthur.

I don’t know how in the world you could be so handsome.
Your speech that day really touched me, you said a lot of things I wanted to say, you did all the things I wanted to do.

All along, I have been enduring the world and my fate in silence, and I feel that perhaps this is the ordeal I am destined to suffer.

I thought I was the only one, until I realized that many of the ladies and gentlemen on the original jury actually felt the same way. Everyone is not happy with the world and all that bullshit legalese, but you are the only one who dares to stand up in court and present it all to everyone.

I’m not saying this because I want to brag about you as the new police inspector, not because I want to compliment you to get any favors.

Arthur, you’re a good man, you really are.

You obviously, you obviously didn’t have to do those things, but you just did.

I’m talking to you so much just to tell you that those things you did were not useless.

Arthur, there are a lot of things that you don’t like to see, that everybody doesn’t like to see, but that’s not your fault, that’s the way the world is.

Maybe you didn’t change much, but you at least tried to do it.

So don’t feel bad and don’t beat yourself up.

At least you changed the fate of some people, including little Adam, and including me.

Seriously, until now I thought you were sent by God to favor me, you made my article published in the Times, you made me …… you made me earn a lot of money ……

You, you made me pay off my family’s debts and still have some left over to be able to pay for my siblings’ education.

I’m very grateful to you, I’m really grateful to you.”

As Dickens spoke, his words had choked up a bit, and the tears in the corners of his eyes looked like a line of streams flowing across his cheeks.

He raised his hand to wipe away the tears and smiled, “I’m sorry, I obviously meant to comfort you, but I ended up making myself cry instead.

I just wanted to learn to do what you did, that’s why I came to a place like this, and as a result, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have even been able to keep my own interview script.

Arthur, I’m such a useless reporter, I’ll probably never be as good as you are.”

Arthur looked at Dickens’ tearful smiling form and shook his head slightly.

In the end, the one standing in front of him was still only an eighteen year old youngster, he didn’t have such a deep thought as in a few decades later, nor did he have the insight so sharp that he could see through everything, what he had was nothing more than a fiery beating heart.

But ……

For a person, this is probably enough.

After all, he, the guy who was judging Dickens, was only a brat who had just turned twenty.

He took off his own yarmulke and snapped it over Dickens’ head, covering his tearful eyes.

“Elder is a man who is not in tune, but he is really right about one thing, you are still far from being a great writer.”

Dickens’ eyes were covered and it was impossible to see his expression, but through the corners of his mouth, his gentle smile could be seen.

“Arthur, a person like me probably won’t be a great writer for the rest of my life.”

“No.” Arthur denied, “It is precisely people like you who are most likely to become a great writer. As we part, let me send you a message.”

“What word?”

Arthur gently patted his shoulder, “No matter what others say or do, I myself must be a good person. Just like a piece of emerald, or a gold or purple robe, not because of how noble they are in themselves, but because I want to keep the luster I was born with.”

At these words, Arthur rose and left the scene with a subdued stride.

Dickens hastened to his feet, and he asked, at the top of his voice, “Did you say that?”

Arthur did not stop with his back to Dickens; he put one hand in his pocket and waved it high in the air.

“I can’t say anything so level-headed. Read more of Marco Aurelius’s Meditations, boy!”

Dickens thought thoughtfully, and after a while he remembered the hat Arthur had fastened on his head.

“Arthur, your hat!”

This finally stopped Arthur, and he struggled for a few moments before he gritted his teeth and returned.

“Don’t want it, it’s only a two shilling hat, it’s yours!”

Agareth saw this, and the Red Devil snickered, “Just for the sake of being handsome, are you tired?”

Arthur glanced at him, “Not to be handsome, I dedicate it to the new century.”

(End of chapter)