Chapter 358: Disraeli’s Ambition
Chapter 355: Disraeli’s Ambition
“That impeachment? How do you expect me to speak for the Poles at this time when you nearly died in Liverpool?”
Speaking of which, Disraeli shot a glance at Arthur out of the corner of his eye, and, not knowing what had gone wrong, he suddenly began to recite aloud chapters from the Book of Revelation.
“There was a white horse, and he that rode it was called Integrity and Truth. He judges and makes war, all according to righteousness. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and upon his head were many crowns, and names written, which no man knoweth but he himself. He is clothed with blood-spattered garments, and his name is the way of God. And the multitude of the armies which are in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.”
Here Disraeli’s words lurched, and he turned to ask: “Arthur, did you see these sights when the Polish gunman’s bullet nearly disintegrated your brain?”
Arthur could only cope with his friend’s off-key response with an equally off-key reply.
“No, I only saw the boiling river of blood. Along the edges of that boiling river of blood, boiled men were screaming shrilly inside. The devil told me that these were tyrants who loved to kill and plunder.
Immediately afterward, I saw a group of dead people wrapped in a gale and constantly crashing against the rocks, people who in their lifetime had lusted after and indulged in the pleasures of the flesh.
Next to them was a gray forest, transformed by the souls of the suicides. In the middle of the forest lay a group of immobilized ogres, who lay there weakly, letting the rubble and sewage fall from the sky and hit them.
And after that passed the land of the demon Plutus, who waved a whip in his hand, urging a group of men to keep pushing boulders like mountains against each other as a punishment for their greed in life.
The Furies gathered on the other side, fighting each other physically, tearing at flesh and flesh, bloodied but never able to stop.
And at the end of the day, Geryon, a monster with a kind human face who stings others with a scorpion’s tail behind their backs, drove me through an area of fire and sand populated by heretics and told me that I had arrived at the end of my journey.
I saw all the people here in strange shapes, some with their heads twisted 180 degrees, some with their bodies buried upside down in the earth, and some with their bodies torn in half to merge with poisonous snakes …….”
Disraeli’s body shuddered as he interrupted Arthur, “Wait, why are you stopping at this place?”
Arthur calmly sipped his tea, “Because this place is specialized in holding gamblers, pimps, and counterfeiters ……”
“You’re not among them, are you?”
“Benjamin, I haven’t finished yet. This place is equally responsible for imprisoning corrupt officials.”
When the Jewish kid heard this, he couldn’t help but turn the corner of his mouth and said with a raised eyebrow, “Then you’ll probably be able to meet quite a few big shots there.”
“You’d be wrong about that.” Arthur lit his cigar and smoke rose in the room, “The big shots usually get off a few stops ahead. So the only ones who can accompany me this far are Alexander and a few others.”
“Huh? What!” Disraeli exclaimed, “Alexander did it too?”
“Or what?”
Arthur fished a guinea out of his pocket and popped it into the goblet in front of Disraeli, “I couldn’t swallow that many gold coins on my own, so I decided to hide all the extra money in his big belly.”
Disraeli sucked in a breath of cool air when he heard this, and he covered his mouth and muttered, “If I had known that working as a police officer was so lucrative, why would I bother electing a councilor?”
“Benjamin, just be content.” Arthur returned, “For Scotland Yard, such a list doesn’t come along very often. But if you can get mixed up in the House of Commons’ Public Works and Construction Committee, then you’ll stumble into a fortune all year round. Even if you just sit in your chair and don’t move, those works construction cases can rub a few thick layers of lard on your vest.”
“That would never happen!”
Disraeli sniffed as he got up and pressed one hand on the tabletop with a straight face and rushed at Arthur to emphasize, “In case you’ve forgotten, your friend is as Jewish as they come! I don’t get lard on me! The only thing that could stick to me would be the money for the project.”
“Wow, sorry Benjamin, I forgot about that.” Arthur replied, full of apologies, “Perhaps I’ve been so impressed by a few of the people I’ve been in contact with lately that it’s made me forget your Jewishness.”
“Hmm?” Disraeli wondered, “Who have you run into lately?”
“A diplomat from an emigrant from the German Duchy of Hesse, who always emphasizes his Britannic identity. And another Jew like a fake, our great poet Heinrich Heine, who always emphasizes that he is an authentic German.”
Disraeli’s expression became a little odd when he heard this, “Was Heine very jealous of being a Jew?”
“Well …… it’s hard to say, but he mostly wasn’t proud of being Jewish.”
“How do you know.”
“When I arrived in Liverpool, the local officials and merchants threw a party in our honor. One of the ladies at the party was very fond of his book of poems, so she found an opportunity to approach our irascible Heinrich and compliment him, saying, ‘Mr. Heine, you and Yeshua are descended from the same people. If I were you, I would be proud of it.'”
“What did Heinrich reply?”
“Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Of course.”
Arthur shook the ashes of his cigarette, “Heinrich replied, ‘I would indeed be proud if none but Jesus were descended from this people.'”
Disraeli’s face turned from black to green to red when he heard this, “He’s hitting that too broadly!”
Arthur soothed, “Benjamin, what’s your hurry? I think he was mostly talking about the loan sharks. Wasn’t your father a literary critic? It’s not like he’s sitting around in Finance City. Even if there had to be a rush, it would be Lionel of the Rothschilds before you. Heinrich’s artillery range doesn’t cover you yet.”
Disraeli sat down and took a sharp gulp of wine, only to almost get a gold coin stuck in the hollow of his throat without paying attention.
He spat out the guinea with a yuk and spoke, “Now I finally understand why Lionel told the editorial department to keep an eye on Heine’s work, this kid is indeed cursing wherever he goes, and it always boils down to one thing – old habits are hard to change, and nature is hard to change. Haven’t we settled his fees? Send him back to Paris quickly; the great poet is better left to the French, and let them have their headache.”
Here he added, as if he were still angry: “I knew it, these Ashkenazi Jews in Central and Eastern Europe are unruly, and they are responsible for more than half of the Jews’ bad reputation.” “Hmm?” Arthur asked, “Aren’t you from the same tribe as them?”
“Of course not.” Disraeli said proudly, “I’m a noble Sephardic Jew, my mother was a Hispanic Jew, the noblest of the Jews. My paternal line, on the other hand, is a Jew of Italian descent, and my grandfather came from Venice, the city of wealth.”
But just as he said this, Disraeli himself felt offended, and he hastened to add, “Of course, my grandfather had nothing to do with Scrooge Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. My pedigree is proof enough that I am an aristocrat among Jews.”
Arthur shifted his glass and returned, “Of course, I’ve known that for a long time. Benjamin, just because of that speech you made in the House of Commons, it is now known throughout Britain that your ancestors were Jewish rabbis in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.”
Disraeli heard this with a rare flash of redness, “Arthur, you know, I’m not that mean. I didn’t mean to insult the group, that was just being pissed off by a certain few uneducated council members.”
Disraeli had expected Arthur to be angry at his speech in the House of Commons, but to his surprise, his friend didn’t care.
Arthur shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t really care about those words, in my opinion, it’s better for a politician to have a personality than no personality at all. Besides, instead of apologizing to me, you should go and take care of Mrs. Sykes’ mood more.”
Disraeli smiled back, “You don’t have to worry about Mrs. Sykes’ side. My relationship with her …… How should I put it? We have a very firm bond. Other than my sister Sara, I can’t find any other woman who treats me better than her.
She admires my work, recognizes my talent, and after learning about that old feud I had with The Blackwoods, was going to go after them for me. Of course, being the courteous gentleman that I am, I couldn’t let her take that risk.
As you know, those scoundrels from ‘Blackwood’ even bite mad dogs, they don’t know how to show mercy. What’s more, it’s only thanks to Mrs. Sykes that I’m on the stage of the House of Commons and the Earl of Lyndhurst that I’ve been able to make the connection. Wow, Arthur, you simply don’t know, she cares for me as if she can’t wait to hold me in her arms!”
Hearing this, Arthur just gave Disraeli a quaint look, “Benjamin, I now feel more and more that Alexander’s words about you are justified.”
“Hmm? What did he say about me secretly behind my back?”
“Nothing.”
Arthur recalled the fat Frenchman’s face with its disdainful expression and mimicked his tone of voice as he spoke, “Instead of looking for a lover, Benjamin is looking for a new mother for himself.”
“Ah!” Disraeli’s eyes widened, but his micro-expression revealed nothing of the weakness of being guessed, “Fuck, how can that fat man be so rude!”
Arthur pressed his hands down, “Calm down, Benjamin. It’s not exactly called a put-down, and you’re not the first successful male I’ve met today who’s desperate to find himself a mother.”
Disraeli’s expletive had just reached his lips, only to be topped off by Arthur’s words, “Fuck me …… huh? How successful was the first successful male?”
Arthur fanned the smoke in front of him, “Remember the hellish light I introduced you to earlier?”
“Of course I remember.”
Arthur raised one eyebrow, “If it were left to me to decide the case, I’d sentence him to ten thousand years in the custody of Plutus.”
“Francis Bacon? You brought him back to life?”
“Hm? What does that have to do with Bacon?”
Disraeli rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t you know? Bacon is a famous giant corrupt in Britain, and back then when he was the Chancellor he often strutted around accepting gifts from litigants in front of him. For this, he was caught in the Tower of London to serve his sentence and was also fined forty thousand pounds.
However, Bacon was quite frank, he did not like other corrupt officials like a hundred times as sophistry, but on the contrary, he confessed in court. Even his declaration of guilty was very personalized, saying, ‘I have been the most just judge in England for these fifty years, but to convict me was the most just decision made by Parliament for these two hundred years.'”
Arthur just smiled at that, “The first guest I ran into today was not quite as candid as Bacon, but he had more power than Bacon ever had.”
“So what exactly is he?”
“Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Empire, Captain of the Court, Prince of Benevento, Grand Deputy Elector of the Empire, President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Bourbon Dynasty, and now the Ambassador of the French July Dynasty to the United Kingdom, Monsieur Talleyrand Périgord.”
“Talleyrand?” Disraeli immediately felt something was wrong when he heard this name: “What are you doing meeting with him?”
Arthur replied in a serious manner, “It is a matter of national security, so I am not authorized to reply to you alone here.”
Although Arthur did not say, but Disraeli has been keenly aware of this must be related to the Liverpool assassination case.
Linking it to the impeachment case against Palmerston that Arthur had brought up earlier intentionally or unintentionally, the Jewish boy who had initially grasped the political capital also finally realized the seriousness of the problem.
“Even the French are involved ……”
Disraeli pondered for a while and suddenly opened his mouth and hinted, “Arthur, in fact, even if you don’t come to me today, I actually intend to go to you. I’ve just entered the House of Commons now, so I haven’t decided which committee I’m going to join to serve for the time being. However, Christmas is coming soon, and Parliament is about to go into recess, so I have to make a decision before then. Do you think it would be better for me to go to the Foreign Affairs Committee to get my bearings, or to join the Liverpool Commission of Inquiry, which has just been set up?”
Arthur just smiled back, “Benjamin, as much as I would like you to do justice to me as a friend. But it seems to me that if you’re striving with the goal of becoming Prime Minister, then you’ll have to rack your brains to get on a couple of committees at the mouth of the exchequer. Here in the assassination case, Alexander and the others will take care of it for me, but there is one thing that has to be yours.”
“What is it?”
Arthur took out that municipal engineering renovation plan brought back from Liverpool from the briefcase at his side: “Although it is not yet possible to fully conclude, through Liverpool’s preliminary control measures, we can almost conclude that there is a certain correlation between the spread of cholera and the dirty environment as well as the unclean water source. Therefore, if we want to completely eradicate the problem, we will have to carry out a large-scale renovation of Liverpool’s slums, and the sewerage system will even have to go through a round of thorough renovation before we can do so.”
Disraeli took that renovation plan and took a look at it, “I don’t know much about medical matters. But even if Liverpool is going to be renovated, what does that have to do with the committee I’m on to get into the financial port?”
Arthur just smiled softly, “Do you know about the matter of the Ministry of Finance presetting a debt ceiling for each local government? The specific body responsible for approving this debt ceiling is the Public Works Committee of the House of Commons.”
(End of chapter)