Shadow of great britain

"That impeachment case? You almost died in Liverpool. How do you ask me to speak for the Poles at this time?"

At this point, Disraeli glanced at the corner of Arthur's eyes. Not sure which muscle was wrong, he suddenly began to recite chapters of "Revelation" aloud.

“There was a white horse, and the one who sat on it was called Faithful and True. He judged and fought in righteousness. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and his name was written, and there was no one except himself. Men know it. He is clothed in clothes splattered with blood, and his name is the Word of God. And all the armies in heaven follow him, riding on white horses and clothed in fine linen, white and clean."

At this point, Disraeli's voice suddenly stopped, and he turned to ask: "Arthur, when the Polish gunman's bullet almost exploded your brain, did you see these scenes?"

Arthur could only respond to his friend's incoherence with the same incoherent answer.

"No, I only saw the boiling river of blood. Along the edge of the boiling blood river, the boiled people were screaming inside. The devil told me that these are tyrants who love to kill and plunder.

Immediately afterwards, I saw a group of dead people who were carried by the strong wind and kept hitting the rocks. These people were greedy for lust and indulged in physical pleasure.

Next to it is a layer of gray woods, transformed by the souls of those who committed suicide. Lying in the middle of the forest were a group of gluttons who could not move. They lay there weakly, allowing themselves to be hit by the rubble and sewage falling from the sky.

What they passed next was the territory of the demon Plutus. He waved a whip in his hand and urged a group of people to continuously push the mountain-like boulders to collide with each other as punishment for their greed in life.

The ragers gathered on the other side, fighting each other hand-to-hand, tearing at flesh and blood, but they could never stop.

And at the end, Glion, a monster with a kind face but secretly stinging others with his scorpion tail, drove me through a land of fire and sand inhabited by heretics, and told me that I had reached the end of my journey.

I saw that the people here are all weird. Some of their heads were twisted 180 degrees, some of their bodies were buried upside down in the soil, and some of their bodies were torn in half and merged with poisonous snakes..."

Disraeli's body trembled when he heard it. He interrupted Arthur and said, "Wait a minute, why did you stop here?"

Arthur calmly took a sip of tea: "Because this place is specially used to detain gamblers, pimps, and counterfeit money dealers..."

"Are you not among them?"

"Benjamin, I'm not finished yet. This place is also responsible for imprisoning corrupt officials."

When the Jewish boy heard this, he couldn't help curling his lips and raising his eyebrows and said, "Then you can probably see a lot of big shots there."

"You're wrong." Arthur lit his cigar and smoke rose in the room: "The big shots usually get off the bus at the first few stops. So the only ones who can accompany me here are Alexander and the others."

"Ah? What!" Disraeli exclaimed: "Alexander did it too?"

"if not?"

Arthur took out a guinea from his pocket and flicked it into the goblet in front of Disraeli: "I can't swallow so many gold coins by myself, so I decided to hide all the extra money in his big belly. inside."

When Disraeli heard this, he took a deep breath. He covered his mouth and muttered: "If I had known that being a police officer would make such a huge amount of money, why would I have elected a member of Parliament?"

"Just be content, Benjamin," Arthur replied. "For Scotland Yard, such orders don't come around very often. But if you can sneak into the Public Works Committee of the House of Commons, you can meet them all year round. Opportunities to make a fortune. Even if you just sit on the chair and don't move, those construction projects will rub a few thick layers of lard on your vest."

"That's impossible!"

After hearing this, Disraeli stood up and put his hand on the table and emphasized to Arthur with an upright face: "You may have forgotten that your friend is a real Jew! I will not get lard on me. ! The only ones that stick to me are engineering ones.”

"Oh, I'm sorry, Benjamin, I forgot about this." Arthur replied apologetically: "Maybe the few people I have been in contact with recently have left such a deep impression on me that I forgot about you. Jewish identity.”

"Huh?" Disraeli asked curiously: "Who have you met recently?"

"A diplomat who immigrated from the Principality of Hesse in Germany always emphasized his British identity. And another real Jew, our great poet Heinrich Heine, always emphasized that he was a British Authentic German.”

Disraeli's expression suddenly became strange when he heard this: "Is Heine very taboo about being a Jew?"

"Well...it's hard to say, but he probably wasn't proud of his Jewish identity."

"How did you know."

"After I arrived in Liverpool, local officials and businessmen held a banquet for us. There was a lady at the banquet who loved his collection of poems very much, so she found an opportunity to approach our grumpy Heinrich and compliment him. Said: 'Mr. Heine, you and Jesus are descendants of the same ethnic group. If I were you, I would be proud.'"

"How did Heine answer?"

"Are you sure you want to listen?"

"certainly."

Arthur shook off the ashes: "Heinrich replied: 'If no one except Jesus is a descendant of this nation, I will indeed be proud.'"

When Disraeli heard this, the expression on his face turned from black to green and then to red: "The impact of his words is too broad!"

Arthur comforted: "Benjamin, why are you so anxious? I think he is probably talking about those loan sharks. Isn't your father a literary critic? He is not sitting in the Financial City. Even if he must Be anxious, Lionel of the Rothschild family should be more anxious than you are. Heinrich's artillery range has not yet reached you."

Disraeli sat down and took a swig of wine, and almost got the gold coin stuck in his throat.

He spit out the guinea with a loud sound and said: "Now I finally understand why Lionel gave the editorial department so many instructions to keep an eye on Heine's works. This kid really scolded him wherever he went. Wherever he goes, the bottom line is that old habits die hard and nature die hard. Didn’t we pay off his royalties? Send him back to Paris quickly. It’s better to leave this great poet to the French and let them have a headache.”

At this point, he seemed not to be relieved, and added: "I knew that these Ashkenazi Jews living in Central and Eastern Europe are unruly, and they are responsible for more than half of the bad reputation of the Jews. .”

"Huh?" Arthur asked, "Aren't you on the same team as them?"

"Of course not." Disraeli said proudly: "I am a noble Sephardic Jew. My mother is a Sephardic Jew, which is the noblest group of Jews. And my father's line is Italian Jew. My grandfather came from Venice, the city of wealth.”

But when he just said this, Disraeli himself felt something was wrong. He quickly added: "Of course, my grandfather has nothing to do with the miser Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. My bloodline is enough to prove it. , I am an aristocrat among the Jews.”

Arthur swung his glass and replied: "Of course, I have known this for a long time. Benjamin, because of your speech in the House of Commons, the whole of Britain now knows that your ancestor was a Jewish rabbi in Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. .”

When Disraeli heard this, he blushed rarely: "Arthur, you know, I'm not that mean. I didn't mean to humiliate everyone, it was just the result of some uneducated people. The congressman is angry."

Disraeli expected Arthur to be angry at his speech in the House of Commons, but his friend didn't care at all.

Arthur shrugged and said: "I don't care much about these words. In my opinion, it is better for politicians to have personality than no personality. Moreover, instead of apologizing to me, you should take more care of Mrs. Sykes." mood."

Disraeli smiled and replied: "You don't have to worry about Mrs. Sikes. My relationship with her...how should I put it? Our relationship is very strong. Apart from my sister Sarah, I have I couldn't ask for a better woman than her.

She admired my work and recognized my talent, and after learning about my old feud with "Blackwood", she planned to find trouble for them on my behalf. Of course, as a polite gentleman, I couldn't let her take such a risk.

You also know that the gang of villains in "Blackwood" can even bite mad dogs, and they don't know how to show mercy to women. What's more, the reason why I was able to get on the stage in the House of Commons was thanks to Mrs. Sykes who helped me connect with the Earl of Lyndhurst. Oh, Arthur, you have no idea, she loves me so much that she just wants to hold me in her arms! "

When Arthur heard this, he just glanced at Disraeli strangely: "Benjamin, now I feel more and more that Alexander's evaluation of you makes sense."

"Huh? What did he secretly say about me behind my back?"

"nothing."

Arthur recalled the French fat man's face with a disdainful expression, and imitated his tone and said: "Rather than saying that Benjamin is looking for a lover, it is better to say that he is looking for a new mother for himself."

"Ah!" Disraeli's eyes widened, but his micro-expressions all revealed his guilty conscience: "Damn it, how could that fat man be so rude!"

Arthur pressed his hands down and said: "Calm down, Benjamin. This cannot be called a disparagement of you, and you are not the first successful man I met today who is eager to find a mother for himself."

As soon as Disraeli's curse words came to his lips, he was pushed back by Arthur's words: "Fuck...huh? How successful was the first successful man?"

Arthur fanned the smoke in front of him: "Do you still remember the hell scene I introduced to you before?"

"of course I remember."

Arthur raised his eyebrows: "If it were left to me to decide the case, I would sentence him to ten thousand years of imprisonment under the supervision of Plutus."

"Francis Bacon? You resurrected him?"

"Huh? What does this have to do with bacon?"

Disraeli rolled his eyes and said: "Don't you know? Bacon is a famous corrupt man in Britain. When he was the chief justice, he often accepted gifts from litigants in person. For this reason, he was arrested. He served time in the Tower of London and was fined 40,000 pounds.

However, Bacon is quite honest. He does not make excuses like other corrupt officials. Instead, he pleads guilty in court. Even his plea statement was very personal. He said: 'I have been the most just judge in Britain in the past fifty years, but convicting me is the most just decision made by Parliament in the past two hundred years. ’”

Arthur just smiled when he heard this: "The first guest I met today is not as honest as Bacon, but his power is even worse than Bacon."

"So, who is he?"

"Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Empire, Chief of the Palace Guard, Prince of Benevento, Grand Vice-Elector of the Empire, Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Bourbon Dynasty, and currently Ambassador of the French July Dynasty to Britain Talleyrand - Monsieur Périgord."

"Talleyrand?" When Disraeli heard the name, he immediately felt something was wrong: "Why are you meeting him?"

Arthur replied seriously: "It is a matter of national security, so I have no right to reply to you here alone."

Although Arthur didn't say anything, Disraeli was keenly aware that this must be related to the Liverpool assassination.

Coupled with the previous impeachment case against Palmerston that Arthur had brought up intentionally or unintentionally, the Jewish boy who had initially gained political capital finally realized the seriousness of the problem.

"Even the French are involved..."

Disraeli pondered for a while, then suddenly hinted: "Arthur, even if you don't come to me today, I actually plan to come to you. I have just entered the House of Commons, so I haven't decided yet which committee I want to join. . However, Christmas is coming soon, and Parliament is about to enter its recess. Before that, I must make a decision. Do you think it is better for me to go to the Foreign Affairs Committee to receive experience, or to join the newly established Liverpool Committee of Inquiry? "

Arthur just smiled and replied: "Benjamin, although I very much hope that you can seek justice for my friend. But in my opinion, if you are striving to become the prime minister, you must rack your brains to focus on finance." Several committees are talking about it. Alexander and the others will help me solve the assassination case, but there is one thing that must be done by you."

"What's up?"

Arthur took out the municipal engineering renovation plan brought back from Liverpool from the briefcase beside him: "Although it is not yet completely certain, through the preliminary prevention and control measures in Liverpool, we can almost confirm that the spread of cholera is related to the dirty environment and There is a correlation with unclean water. So if you want to completely eradicate this problem, Liverpool's slums will have to be overhauled, and the sewerage system will have to undergo a complete overhaul."

Disraeli took the renovation plan and glanced at it: "I don't know much about medical matters. But even if Liverpool is to be renovated, what does this have to do with the committee I am appointed to the treasury?"

Arthur just smiled lightly: "Did you know that the Ministry of Finance has preset a debt ceiling for local governments? The specific authority responsible for approving this debt ceiling is the Public Works Committee of the House of Commons."