shadow of britain

Chapter 583 Power Arsonist

If you want to control the chess game, you must first bend under the chessboard. The real winner is not to make a brilliant move, but to make the opponent voluntarily choose the path to defeat in the intricate puzzle. The essence of power is not how to obtain it, but how to make others unaware of its existence. When everyone thinks they have the right to choose freely, that is the day you control everything.

—Arthur Hastings

His eyelids felt heavy as if they were pressed down by the Alps, and Bismarck's consciousness was like a fish pulled back to the shore, struggling to resurface.

My head felt like it was being stabbed with needles, my throat was dry as if I had just been through a long battle, and in my ears I could hear the rumble of wheels rolling over gravel.

He tried hard to open his eyes. After a moment's blur, his vision gradually became clear. What came into view was the slightly shaking interior of the carriage. The sunlight slanted in through the gaps in the curtains, dazzling him.

The carriage was shaking, the scenery outside the window was blurring in the morning mist, and the carriage was running briskly.

He tried to sit up, put his fingers to his forehead, and felt a dull pain.

Last night's revelry seemed like a dream. He tried to recall what happened last night, but only a few fragments emerged in his mind: the sound of wine glasses clinking, noisy laughter, and a few unclear words of argument. Arthur's face with a sly smile, Dumas's hearty laughter, Heine's sharp sarcasm, and the excited expressions on Motley and other students' faces. Glass after glass of wine, whispers between glasses, until finally Bismarck fell into the quagmire of alcohol in the hustle and bustle.

Bismarck muttered and tried to recall how last night ended, but everything seemed to be engulfed by alcohol and fell into a deep quagmire.

"Damn it." He cursed under his breath, sat up with difficulty, and held onto the window, his head still a little dizzy.

The scenery outside the window flows slowly, with a slowly flowing stream in the distance and the golden pastoral scenery of autumn harvest.

Bismarck frowned, and after a while he realized that he was no longer in Göttingen.

"Where are we going?" he murmured, his voice low and mixed with the drunkenness that had not yet completely subsided.

Just as he was sorting out his thoughts, the voice of Arthur Hastings came from the side of the carriage. The tone that seemed gentlemanly but also carried a hint of sarcasm was something Bismarck was very familiar with.

"It seems that our 'Iron Man' has finally woken up." Arthur leaned over from the other side with a playful smile on his face. "Last night was a rare spectacle. You were carried out lying on the table."

Bismarck raised his eyelids and glanced at Arthur with a weary look in his eyes: "Where are you going to take me when you put me in this carriage?"

His voice was hoarse and low, and it was obvious that he had not yet fully recovered from his hangover.

Dumas, who was thinking about the plot of his novel with a pen and paper, saw Bismarck wake up and couldn't help laughing. "It seems that you have had enough of being the protagonist. Everyone was watching your one-man show last night, so today it's our turn to perform on stage, and you have to sit in the audience."

"Performance?" Bismarck asked, holding his head, which was shaking uncontrollably from side to side, with one hand. "What did I do last night?"

Heine, the senior student sitting next to him, coughed and said, "You have done a lot of things. Of course, the most noteworthy thing is that you have made a lot of jokes."

"What a joke?" Bismarck obviously did not realize the seriousness of the problem, and he even wanted to find out if it was a joke.

Heine counted on his fingers and said, "At that time, your friend Mr. Motley asked me what it felt like to study law at the University of Göttingen. I told him that it felt like being locked up in the cattle pen of the Digest. But you disagreed with me. You insisted that studying law in Göttingen was not like being locked up in a cattle pen, but in a pig pen. I asked you why, and you told me that this was based on your analysis of the early career of the current academic director of the University of Göttingen."

"Hmm?" The fresh morning breeze blew through the car window and blew on Bismarck's head, not only removing the smell of alcohol from his body, but also making him sober up immediately: "Did I...did I say such a thing?"

Arthur looked at the guilty Bismarck and waved his white gloves nonchalantly: "Don't worry about it, Otto. Actually, I think you are right. There is no difference between being a swineherd and being a school supervisor. Oh, no, maybe there is some difference."

Bismarck asked curiously, "What's the difference?"

Arthur answered casually, "As a swineherd, you need to work hard every day to take care of them, make sure they are well fed and well slept, and finally sell them for a good price. As a school supervisor? You just need to stand on the stage and tell everyone loudly that you can make all the pigs live a better life, and then let others work hard to take care of them, and you can just sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor."

Heine almost laughed out loud when he heard this: "Isn't that just letting others be the swineherds and you being the owner of the pigs?"

Disraeli, who had been silent, could not help but smile and said, "It seems that there is not much difference between a swineherd and a congressman."

Unexpectedly, Arthur was shocked when he heard this and said, "Benjamin, please don't say that. At least the swineherd's dirty hands never need to be raised in parliament."

Arthur's words immediately drew laughter from the audience. Bismarck shrugged helplessly: "I said I'm not suitable to be a member of parliament. I'd better be a diplomat."

"Oh, a diplomat..." Arthur raised his eyebrows: "Otto, although I don't want to discourage your enthusiasm, but if you want to become a good diplomat, the conditions are very harsh."

Bismarck said nonchalantly: "I have been studying various foreign languages ​​very hard."

"That's not what I meant." Arthur pointed to the back of the carriage. "In the car behind sits the best diplomat of the British Foreign Office, Mr. August Schneider. Do you know what Mr. Schneider's criteria are for judging whether a diplomat is qualified?"

"What is it?"

"Mr. Schneider believes that an excellent diplomat must be able to predict what will happen tomorrow, next month, next year, and in the future."

Bismarck could not help but complain after hearing this: "It seems that you should ask a group of charlatans to do diplomatic work. However, even the most experienced charlatans can make mistakes in their predictions sometimes."

"Mistakes in predictions? That happens all the time. It's not important."

"Really? Then what's important?"

"What's important is that you can come up with another reason why your predictions were inaccurate, so that you can give an explanation to your superiors and the public."

"Hahaha!"

Most people present took Arthur's comments as a flare-up of his playful nature.

But Bismarck was the only one who couldn't laugh no matter what, because as one of the few people who knew the real reason for the failure of the Young Italy Uprising, he knew that Arthur was serious.

He incited Young Italy, deceived the British Foreign Office, concealed the German Confederation, and at the same time played tricks on the French government and Austrian intelligence agencies.

Bismarck thought he was a very bold man, but compared with what the respected Hastings Dean had done, it was nothing. As for why Arthur had to turn the topic to such suggestive words?

Bismarck knew with his ass that the proctor was warning him not to talk too much.

Arthur looked at Bismarck, who was sweating profusely, and said, "Otto, why don't you smile? Don't you like it?"

Bismarck cooperated with an expression that seemed to be neither smiling nor crying: "Of course not, I just feel that I have learned a lot of new experiences from you."

After a series of bumps, the carriage finally came to a stop. The driver pulled the reins tight, and the horse snorted and stopped in front of a country inn on the roadside.

The exterior of the hotel was painted light yellow, and a rickety wooden sign hung in front of the door, swaying gently in the breeze.

The car door opened, and Dumas was the first to jump out, stretch, and look into the hotel with a smile on his face: "It's time for lunch!"

He loudly called out to his companions in the carriages behind to come out and take a breath. Motley and other students, Garibaldi and Young Italy's companions got off the carriages one after another, and walked towards the hotel in twos and threes, chatting and laughing.

However, Heine was in no hurry to get off the car. He just leaned lazily against the window, as if he was still immersed in some mood.

Arthur patted Heine's shoulder: "What's wrong? Heinrich?"

Heine shook his head slightly: "It's just that the scene brought back some memories."

Arthur didn't understand what it meant at first and just thought it was the poet's usual rich emotions.

He was about to lead Bismarck out of the car when he suddenly saw a female owner wearing a headscarf and a blue apron walking out of the hotel.

The female shop owner enthusiastically invited the guests to come into the shop to rest, but when she looked through the car window and saw Heine's face, the female shop owner with a little silver hair on her temples suddenly showed a happy smile. She complained in a rather reproachful manner: "Heinrich, I love you so much, but how long have you not come to see me?"

"I'm sorry, Busenia." Heine took off his hat and shook it at the female owner. "I didn't mean it. But you must first understand that I didn't come back not because I didn't love you, but because I graduated from Göttingen. Secondly, I am a poet, and the kind of poet hated by the German Confederation government. Even if I wanted to come back, Metternich would find ways to separate me from your hotel."

The female shop owner courteously welcomed Heine down from the carriage and said, "You are always like this, young man. But I understand that talented young people like to go against the big men. But if you are willing to say a few good words, I think whether it is Metternich of Austria or Stein of Prussia, they will forgive you. You can get a good position from them, and maybe even become a minister."

"Maybe." Heine smiled, "But if I really did that, would I still be as popular as I am now? Busenia, I know you are thinking about me, but now, please help me and my friends solve the problem of hunger first."

The female shop owner asked with a smile, "Still the same as before? Hot buttered bread, celery soup, and a vegetable salad?"

"Busenya, you always understand me so well. I trust your cooking skills. You can cook anything you want, as long as you don't serve the boring campus food at the University of Göttingen. I never want to eat those saltless dried fish and old cabbage stalks that hurt my teeth again in my life."

Arthur watched Heine and the hostess walk happily into the hotel, and then he asked Bismarck beside him: "Is the food in the school cafeteria really that bad?"

Bismarck just shrugged and said, "No, although the dried fish and cabbage stalks are indeed unpalatable, I don't think this is the worst. The worst lunch should be the public meals eaten by poor seminarians. Do you know what the soup of the public meals tastes like?"

"like what?"

"You can imagine the feeling of drinking from a spittoon that was left overnight. The dense and sticky taste, the indescribable strange smell, and... ugh, sorry, I drank too much last night, and now I feel a little nauseous when I mention this."

Arthur patted Bismarck on the back to help him calm down, and joked, "If it weren't for today's trip, I really wouldn't know these stories. I used to think Heinrich was not good at dealing with women, but I didn't expect that he had such a good relationship with the female shop owner."

Bismarck spat out two mouthfuls of leftover food and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. “Busenia has a good relationship with every student. If students from Göttingen go on a trip, most of them will take this road to rest. Besides entertaining nearby villagers, Busenia’s inn’s biggest income comes from the University of Göttingen. Of course, I don’t rule out the possibility that she does have a preference for Mr. Heine, because from the perspective of appearance, he is a handsome guy in the usual sense, and he is also a poet, so it is normal for everyone to like him. I heard that there are even several princesses in the small German states who are his admirers.”

When it comes to studying, Bismarck might not be considered a good student.

But when it comes to his dedication to eating, drinking and having fun, Bismarck can definitely be called a competent dandy.

Of course, for people who work in intelligence, studying, eating, drinking and having fun are obviously much more popular than being able to study.

Bismarck exposed Heine's past in just a few words, which was enough to show how capable this guy was.

Bismarck finally recovered and then remembered to ask the reason for this inexplicable trip today: "Mr. Dumas said before that we are going to see a play today?"

Arthur stood by the car, straightened his coat, then glanced around casually, his eyes stopping on Bismarck.

He smiled slightly, raised the cigar in his hand, and motioned Bismarck to follow: "Otto, I think we need a cigarette to relieve our fatigue from the journey."

"You know what, Otto." Arthur took out a cigar, lit it skillfully, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled the smoke. He watched the smoke gradually dissipate in the air, and squinted his eyes and relaxed. His voice was particularly clear in the fresh air of the countryside: "Sometimes, it is more important to stop and rest than to keep moving forward. Especially when you are not sure where the road ahead will lead you."

Bismarck frowned, took a cigar from Arthur, lit it, and leaned against the wall of the hotel, but his eyes never left Arthur's face. "Are you giving me some hints? Or are you planning to say those ambiguous words again?"

His voice was as low and impatient as usual, as if he was already used to Arthur's beating around the bush.

Arthur chuckled, the sparks from his cigar flickering. "Hint? No, Otto, I never make unnecessary hints. I was just thinking that since we met, you rarely seem to relax in front of me, as if you are always worried about something. And sometimes, I find that when a person is tense, he often misses some interesting scenery."

Bismarck took a deep puff of his cigarette, as if using the smoke to hide his expression. "Interesting scenery? If you mean those seemingly harmless revelries and so-called 'performances' last night, then I don't think they are much different from tonight's journey."

"There really is no difference." Arthur smiled and shook his head. "If you hadn't cried and shouted last night that you wanted to join Young Italy, and volunteered to escort Garibaldi and the others out of the country, I wouldn't have planned to take you on this trip."

"Ahem!" Bismarck was choking on his cigar and smoke was coming out of his nose and mouth. "What did you say? I joined Young Italy?"

Arthur nodded slightly and pointed at Bismarck's chest: "Of course, didn't you find something extra on your body after you woke up?"

Bismarck looked down at his chest, on which was pinned a red, white and green tricolor flag badge, which was the symbol of Italy's independence.

Arthur shook his head in disappointment. "Otto, to be honest, I never thought you were a liberal. It seems that the saying is true, true feelings can only be seen after drinking."

(End of this chapter)