shadow of britain

Chapter 683: Thanks from the Herzen Group
Herzen lifted the woolen curtain of the carriage, and in the morning mist of the Russian winter were wrapped several young faces that had become thin due to long-term prison meals and hard life.

Who would have thought that a few days ago the Third Bureau called this group of young people "the poisonous mushroom of liberalism", but now this poisonous mushroom is riding in a carriage directly from Moscow to the imperial capital, St. Petersburg.

The carriage rocked and swayed, and the glass bottles under the ermine cloaks clinked.

"Gentlemen, remember to hide the vodka bottles in the carriage blankets." Herzen knocked on the window with his red, frozen fingers. "What we are delivering is forbidden liquor produced in the Vologda Monastery. We can't let the military police seize it as tribute."

Just as the carriage passed the Tver checkpoint, Herzen suddenly opened the window.

The cold wind brought in the smell of the vodka distillery, making everyone sneeze.

Herzen saw a cavalry lieutenant carrying a carbine coming out of the sentry post. Before the guy came close, he had already taken out a few banknotes from his pocket as if he was familiar with the process.

The cavalry lieutenant wrapped in a bearskin cape kicked the floor of the carriage with the tip of his boot, his Adam's apple rolling slowly between the fur collar: "I say..."

Before he could speak, Herzen handed over his pass and said casually, "Lieutenant, you dropped something."

"Did I drop something?" The cavalry lieutenant lowered his head and found two ten-ruble bills lying in the snow pile at his feet.

The lieutenant, who had a stern face just now, suddenly had a sincere smile on his face: "Why didn't I notice it? You are such an honest young man. Well, you guys go first, I wish you a safe journey!"

The lieutenant glanced at the certificate and returned it to Herzen. Then he saluted solemnly, turned his head and waved to the checkpoint ahead to let him pass.

"I wish you a safe journey too." Herzen smiled and waved goodbye to the other party. He had been in prison for two months, but he did not gain nothing. In addition to memorizing the "Italian Grammar Dictionary" by heart, what he learned the most was how to solve the problems of human relations and worldly affairs.

In fact, all in all, Herzen's imprisonment life went relatively smoothly.

Whether in the Moscow Police Headquarters or while imprisoned in the Krutits Barracks, he did not suffer too much unfair treatment, and he even got along quite well with the gendarmes who were responsible for guarding him.

After the officers became acquainted with Herzen, they were even willing to always give the young man some small favors and conveniences within their ability.

Once he was smoked by the fire in the room and fainted from gas poisoning. Thanks to a white-haired old gendarme, he was properly treated.

It's called treatment, but in fact it's just some commonly used folk remedies. Carbon monoxide poisoning is not uncommon in Russia. The cure is nothing more than letting the patient smell some salt mixed with ginger, and then drink a cup of boiling kvass after waking up.

Although no one knew the exact principle behind this recipe, fortunately it was quite effective. The old gendarme used traditional methods to save Herzen's life, saving him from the fate of almost dying young due to such a ridiculous reason.

More than two months in prison even changed Herzen's impression of the entire gendarmerie group. Although he never concealed his disgust for this secret agency, he was surprised to find that most of them were quite kind. These people were not spies at all, but had gone astray and entered the gendarmerie camp.

Most of the gendarmes responsible for guarding political prisoners such as Herzen were old. This was because Colonel Semenov of the city defense headquarters, in order to show his concern for his subordinates, usually arranged some veterans to manage the prisoners and do some labor-saving work to save them from standing in line for drills. He also sent a corporal, a spy and a liar, to be their leader.

The old gendarme who helped Herzen cure gas poisoning was particularly simple and honest. Old Filimonov was so grateful when people treated him well that he would burst into tears. It seemed that his life was full of ups and downs and misfortunes.

He fought in the war against the Ottoman Turks in 1805 and in the Patriotic War against Napoleon in 1812.

His chest was covered with medals. Logically speaking, as a combat hero who had served for far more than the 25-year term, this man in his sixties should have been able to apply to return home long ago.

Herzen once asked him why he didn't go home, but old Filimonov just blinked and replied: "I sent letters to my hometown in Mogilev Province twice, but there was no reply. I guess there is no one at home. Sometimes, returning to your hometown is so terrible. You get there, but you are homeless and end up wandering around. So forget it, just stay."

If old Filimonov was the representative of ordinary soldiers in the gendarmerie, then the middle and lower-level gendarmerie officers that Herzen knew were the embodiment of another kind of tragedy.

Most of these people were children of wealthy families who had not received education or had insufficient education. They had no property or means of livelihood, and could not find other jobs, so they had to join the army as military police. They performed their duties according to military discipline, but their behavior was not conscious in any way.

Of course, we must exclude those cold-as-ice gendarmerie adjutants, because they became adjutants precisely because of their bad nature and cunning means.

A young lower-level officer who had a good relationship with Herzen once secretly told Herzen that in 1831 he received a mission to capture a Polish landlord who was lurking near his estate. His crime was having connections with the secret envoys of the Polish rebel government.

Based on the intelligence he had gathered, the officer learned where the landlord was hiding, led a team there, surrounded the house, and entered the house with two gendarmes.

The house was empty. They searched all the rooms but could not find anyone. However, there were some signs that someone had been in the house just now.

The young man left the two gendarmes downstairs and went up to the attic for the second time. After careful observation, he found a small door that led to a storage room or some other small room. The door was locked from the inside. He kicked it open and saw a tall woman standing inside. She was very beautiful. She didn't say anything, but pointed to the man next to her. The man held in his arms a little girl of eleven or twelve who was almost unconscious.

This is him and his family. The officer didn't know what to do. The tall woman saw this and asked him, "Can you bear to kill them?"

The officer apologized and spoke some vulgar nonsense about the unconditional obedience and responsibility of the military, but seeing that his words had no effect at all, he felt helpless, so the young officer had to ask: "Then what should I do?"

The woman looked at him proudly, pointed outside the door and said, "Go down and tell them there is no one here."

The officer sighed at this point: "Really, I don't know how this happened, what I was thinking at the time. But I went downstairs and ordered the sergeants to assemble the team. Two hours later, we went to another manor to search for the Polish landowner, but he had already crossed the border secretly. Oh, women! This kind of thing really exists in the world!"

Whenever he thought of these stories, all kinds of strange feelings welled up in Herzen's heart. If others talked to him about the Third Game and the gendarmerie, he would definitely hate them with gnashing teeth, but if they talked to him about old Filimonov and the young officer, he really couldn't bring himself to hate these people.

This reminded him of his feelings when he read Pushkin's article before. When he saw Pushkin talking about Scotland Yard's brutal suppression of the London poor, he simply wanted to drink the blood and eat the flesh of this group of uniformed thugs.

However, the guy who gave the order to suppress it was Sir Arthur Hastings, who helped him escape from prison.

It was really hard for him to imagine that this elegant and peaceful British gentleman would actually do such a thing, and after doing such a thing, he could still maintain a good relationship with progressive people such as Heinrich Heine, Alexandre Dumas, etc.... Perhaps, he was just following orders like the young officer and old Filimonov?

Perhaps, behind this, there are many difficulties that he cannot understand?

For the first time since he had left prison, Herzen felt how ignorant and inhumane it was to classify people according to moral concepts and the main characteristics of their professions, to label them, and to treat them all the same without distinction.

Jean-Paul Richter said it well: if a child tells a lie, he should be warned that it is a bad thing to do and told that he has deceived others, but not that he is a liar.

Because if you define him as a liar, he will lose his spiritual self-confidence.

When most people hear "this man is a murderer", they immediately think of hidden daggers, brutal looks and conspiracy, as if killing is his profession and occupation. In fact, this person has only killed one person accidentally in his life.

It is true that the British could not be both spies, agents who traded on the degradation of others, and honest men.

But he could be a gendarmerie officer without completely losing his human dignity, just as we can often see gentle character, kind heart and even upright behavior in the unfortunate victims of a corrupt society.

The carriage had already entered the main street of St. Petersburg, and drove along Nevsky Avenue to stop in front of the rented house with Arthur in St. Petersburg.

When Arthur heard from Herzen the young man's evaluation of his recent life, the old York swindler stiffened uncharacteristically.

For a guy who is determined to be a bad guy from now on, nothing can be more hurtful than the words "You must have your reasons".

Being criticized by the public was something he expected, so Arthur was never afraid.

He was not even worried about the series of diplomatic impacts that might be caused when the truth of the Caucasus incident came to light, nor was he worried about falling out with Viscount Palmerston or even Tsar Nicholas I.

However, he could not tolerate such an unexpected change and being forgiven so suddenly.

Herzen, a graduate of the Department of Mathematics and Physics of Moscow University, had the buds of a philosopher sprouting in him.

He held the hot cup of tea and muttered to himself, "Some people cannot, are unwilling or unwilling to take the trouble to cross the shackles of names, to look one step further, to see through the crimes, through the illusions of disorder, to see the facts clearly, but adopt a lofty evasive attitude or a rude negative attitude. I hate such people. The guys who do this are usually out of touch with reality, unrealistic, or selfish, and occasionally noble enough to make people sick. Otherwise, they are the kind of despicable and shameless people who have not been exposed yet and are not prepared to tear off their masks publicly. Such people are mixed in the dirty bottom completely of their own accord, where they thrive and stir up trouble, unlike other people at the bottom who fall into it by mistake."

Arthur used a silver teaspoon to stir the Ceylon black tea powder in the cup. The sound of bone china colliding was very similar to the reverberation of the gavel in a London court.

He stared at the swaying reflection on the tea surface, and suddenly smiled as if relieved. "I have seen too many people in Scotland Yard using compasses to find the north, and in the end they all fell into the Thames and drowned. You have such insights at your age. It seems that the sudden changes in life are not completely without benefits to you. The setbacks and ups and downs have made you mature a lot."

Herzen did not deny Arthur's words, because he thought so too: "In short, you should have guessed it. We came here to thank you."

As he spoke, he asked the servants to take down various local specialties brought from Moscow from the carriage.

Through the window, you can see several servants unloading several bundles of birch bark packages that smell of tar from the carriage. When you unwrap the first layer of waterproof cloth, the sweet smell of monastery honey mixed with the smell of Vologda's special alcohol hits your nose.

Arthur just shook his head slightly and replied half-truthfully: "You should thank the city defense commander General Staal and the Governor of Moscow, Duke Dmitry Golitsyn."

"General Staal would be fine, but why should we thank Golitsyn?" Sagin, who came with Herzen, took off his hat, revealing that half of his scalp was bald during the interrogation. Just from his appearance, it can be seen that he should be the one who suffered the most among this group of young people.

Not only had he lost some of his hair since their initial meeting in Leipzig, but he had also become visibly thinner.

According to this guy, he was at his mother's farm in Tambov Province when the Herzen-Ogarev group was arrested.

Sagin was a filial son. When he heard the news, he said goodbye to his mother and returned to Moscow overnight without telling her. This was only to prevent the gendarmes from visiting the farm and scaring his mother.

But unfortunately, he caught a cold on the way and had a high fever when he returned home to Moscow.

If the military police and police had not arrived in time to arrest him, he would probably have passed out on the bed and died in his sleep.

Because he was too ill to be taken to the police station, he was detained at home, with a policeman standing guard at the bedroom door and a military policeman sitting next to the couch. These two people were both his jailers and his nurses.

Whenever Sakyo woke up from his coma, all he saw was either the prying eyes of the police or the drunken faces of the military police.

Later, he was transferred to the Lefort Military Hospital for hospitalization, but because so many people were arrested during that period, there was not even one empty secret ward left for prisoners. Poor Sagin was placed on the south terrace without a fire, where a separate corner was separated and a sentry was posted.

Patients with severe colds and fevers living on the terrace in Moscow in March and April, it is easy to imagine what the final outcome would be.

Fortunately, the hospital authorities finally realized that it was impossible to have tropical temperatures so close to the North Pole. So before Sakyo was completely tortured to death, they made special arrangements to change his room, moving him from the terrace to a room next to the one where they warmed up the bodies of frozen patients.

In hindsight, Sa Kyung's intention of not wanting to worry his mother was good, but his failure to let his mother know that he was arrested also indirectly led to his poor treatment.

After all, no matter whether it was Herzen, Ogarev, Sokolovsky or other members of Herzen's group, as soon as these guys were arrested, their families immediately took action. Even if their family activities could not get them released, at least they could ensure that they would not suffer too much in prison.

If it weren't for Sa Jing's good luck and their release order coming in time, this young man would have suffered more than just losing some hair.

(End of this chapter)