shadow of britain

Chapter 549 King of Electronic Music
The establishment of the German Customs Union has transformed German national sentiment from pure hope and fantasy into positive material interests. Highways and railways are being built rapidly under the leadership of the Prussian government. In the foreseeable future, we can foresee that the German region will quickly develop a transportation system centered on Berlin.

The German people generally believe that the Customs Union is the first step in the process of unification of the German states. This alliance will greatly break down the barriers caused by alienation and hostility. By realizing the common interests of trade and commerce, the Customs Union paves the way for the political unification of the German nation. This deserves our attention.

—Arthur Hastings, Routine Diplomatic Reports for 1833

As mentioned earlier, for a small town like Göttingen, there are not too many pubs to choose from.

But even so, the tavern chosen by Arthur and others was still carefully selected.

It was neither the Black Bear Tavern, a gathering place for students, nor the Paulin Club Tavern, Bismarck's favorite, but the only underground tavern in the town hall in Göttingen that could barely be described as classy.

However, the reason why Arthur and his friends chose this tavern was not because the drinks here were more delicious than those in other taverns, but because the Town Hall Underground Tavern was the only tavern in Göttingen with small private rooms.

Neither Krupp, Arthur, nor Disraeli wanted to make the conversation tonight known to everyone in Göttingen.

However, it was not known whether it was God's intention to tease these evil-hearted people. As soon as Arthur opened the door of the tavern, he saw an old acquaintance.

Even more unfortunately, this old acquaintance was not a student who could be easily dismissed by Bismarck, but a musician, Mr. Felix Mendelssohn, who had a close relationship with Arthur and had helped him capture the French detective Vidocq.

As Arthur walked in, Mendelssohn, who was about to place his order, spotted his old friend.

He took off his gloves enthusiastically and greeted Arthur: "Arthur, ah... Mr. Disraeli is here too!"

Disraeli and Mendelssohn were old acquaintances, not only because they were both Jewish, but also because Disraeli's lover, Mrs. Sykes, was an avid fan of Mendelssohn.

A few years ago, when Mendelssohn was the pianist of the London Philharmonic Society in London, whenever he had a performance in the evening, Mrs. Sykes would drag Disraeli to support this inheritor of Bach.

The handsome young man sitting next to Mendelssohn heard this and asked him with a smile: "Are they your friends?"

Mendelssohn smiled and introduced him: "John, let me introduce you. The man on the right with chestnut wavy hair is Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, a member of the British House of Commons. As for the tall and strong man on the left, I only need to say his name, and I don't need to introduce his identity. That person is Sir Arthur Hastings."

"Arthur Hastings?"

The young man looked at Arthur seriously, then smiled and stretched out his hand and greeted him humorously: "Hello, sir. The last time I saw you was when I read your paper "The Dynamic Effects of Electric Current: The Movement and Reaction of Electric Current in a Magnetic Field."

Arthur was very nervous about this way of greeting, where he started by telling the title of his paper. He shook the other person's hand, but his eyes drifted to Mendelssohn who was standing beside him: "Felix, who is this?"

Mendelssohn introduced with a smile: "This is my brother-in-law, Mr. Johann Dirichlet, a mathematics professor at the University of Berlin. He is also a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He originally accompanied my sister to Frankfurt to visit relatives during the holidays, but I happened to come back from Paris, and we talked about the University of Göttingen. I said that my friend Mr. Hastings was having a great time in Paris, but was transferred to the position of academic supervisor at the University of Göttingen by a transfer order from the king. And my brother-in-law told me that when he was studying at the University of Göttingen, his teacher was Mr. Gauss. So we hit it off and thought about coming to Göttingen to meet our friends and teachers."

He studied under Gauss, a professor of mathematics and a member of the Academy of Sciences.

Any of these three identities would be difficult to deal with individually, but if they are piled together, then I can only say goodbye.

However, after training in Paris and Göttingen over the past few months, Arthur's psychological quality has improved.

He intentionally or unintentionally changed the subject and asked, "Brother-in-law? Is Mr. Dirichlet also a Jew?"

"That's not the case." Mendelssohn replied with a smile, "Not all Jewish families strictly abide by the rules of Halachic law. My family hasn't paid much attention to Jewish law since my grandfather's generation. After all, he was a philosopher who disliked religion, so he naturally wouldn't use religious etiquette to restrict his descendants."

Arthur turned his head and looked at Disraeli beside him: "What about your family?"

"Our family? Why? Are you interested in my sister?"

Disraeli replied seriously: "If you really like her, you can pursue her. Our family situation is similar to Felix's family. Although my father is a Jew, he hates the Jewish people in the same community, so he made us children convert when we were very young. Since my sister and I are not Jewish, we naturally have no reason to abide by the provisions of Jewish law."

Disraeli paused for a moment, then solemnly warned, "But before you pursue Sarah, you must swear to God that you are sincere. I don't want us to lose our friendship because of your marital discord."

The Red Devil stood behind the bar, holding a bottle of wine in his hand and burping, "Come on! I finally know why this little bastard has a special liking for older women! After all this fuss, it turns out he's a sister-lover!"

Arthur glanced at Agares who had revealed the secret, and replied calmly: "I have only met Miss Sarah a few times, and most of the time during those meetings, we talked about the works of her proud brother. Benjamin, your imagination is too rich."

When Disraeli heard this, he was relieved at first, but then he felt a little worried.

He felt sad at the thought that his sister might get married.

But from another perspective, he really hopes that his sister can have a good home.

In order to worry about his sister's life-long affairs, he even introduced his sister to several young aristocrats who he thought had great prospects after he was elected as a member of parliament.

But unfortunately, Miss Sarah Disraeli looked down on none of those guys. According to her own words, her ideal husband must be more talented than her brother. In Mr. Disraeli's opinion, this standard is indeed a bit high.

However, although he could not find anyone more talented than him, Disraeli felt that his old friend Arthur was at least of the same level as him. Moreover, he thought his sister probably thought so too. Because the noble young men he introduced to his sister only met her once, but Arthur met her several times, which was enough to explain some truths that could not be said too clearly.

Disraeli was thinking about his sister's thoughts and his mind was suddenly wandering.

Arthur also noticed something wrong in Disraeli's expression. The Scotland Yard cop's sixth sense was alerting him that the danger level on this side seemed to be no less than facing the mathematics professor.

At this moment, it was Dirichlet who rescued Arthur. He looked at Krupp who was following closely behind Arthur and asked, "Who is this?" "This is Mr. Alfred Krupp, a friend we just met today."

Krupp, who had been observing the group, stepped forward and said hello: "Hello, gentlemen."

Mendelssohn smiled and shook his hand: "Not two, but three."

He pointed to a middle-aged man who was walking towards them with three glasses of beer not far away and said, "Tonight we are three against three, and Mr. Lister will be included."

"Lister?" Arthur turned his head and looked behind him.

But what surprised him was that this Liszt was not the "Paris Piano King Franz Liszt" who was blacklisted by Heine, but a middle-aged scholar with a very unfavorable hairline, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a briar beard.

Arthur asked, "Is this the father of Franz Liszt?"

"Hahaha, Arthur, stop joking."

Mendelssohn waved his hands and said, "He has nothing to do with Franz. He is Mr. Friedrich List, the American Consul General in the Grand Duchy of Baden. In addition, he is also a great political economist. Do you know the German Customs Union? This idea was first proposed by him, but this concept was not accepted by the Germans ten years ago."

Arthur was confused by Mendelssohn's words: "Isn't he the American consul? How could an American consul propose the German Customs Union?"

Mendelssohn apologized repeatedly, "I didn't make it clear. Mr. List was originally a German. In 1820, he was not only the editor-in-chief of the German Commercial and Trade Organ, but also a member of the Württemberg Parliament. However, not long after he was elected as a member of parliament, he was deprived of his parliamentary status by order of the Grand Duke of Württemberg because he said some inappropriate words in a petition, and was sentenced to ten months in prison. In exchange for judicial pardon, Mr. List had to accept the release condition of emigrating to the United States."

Liszt, holding a beer, just walked up to the crowd at this time. The serious political prisoner of the Principality of Württemberg explained in his low voice.

"I don't think I said anything out of place. Even those who have only made a cursory observation of Württemberg's internal affairs can easily conclude that there are fundamental flaws in Württemberg's national legislation and administration. There are visible and growing bureaucratic systems everywhere. These bureaucratic worlds, which are separated from the people, spread across the country and concentrated in various places, not only do not understand the needs of the people and the state of social life, but also regard any interference from citizens as a threat to the country."

He put down his beer glass and continued: "I don't want to boast about how smart I am, so I usually just talk about historical experience. All unbiased observers can clearly see that my previous observations on German politics are coming true one by one. I said that they regard citizen intervention as a threat to the state, and then they immediately banned my newspaper, dismissed my parliamentary qualifications, and deprived me of my political immunity.

I said that Germany's 38 tariffs and toll routes hindered internal transportation, just like tying up every part of the human body to prevent blood from flowing to other parts, so it was urgent to form a customs union. Eliminating the tariff barriers of each state and creating a large German internal market was a necessary prerequisite for Germany's industrialization. As a result, now they have three German customs unions in one go: North, Central and South. Whether they admit it or not, history will eventually prove me right. "

At this point, Liszt took off his gloves, leaned forward and extended his hand to Arthur respectfully: "Mr. Hastings, in fact, we should have met in Paris. My residence in Paris is on Martyrs Street, not far from Mr. Heine's residence. He lives at No. 23 and I live at No. 43. We often have dinner together. Mr. Heine often mentioned your name to me and joked with me that if I had said those things in London, you would definitely not have put me in jail or sent me to the United States."

Arthur joked, "Heinrich probably told you about Bernie Harrison's case, right? He was right. In London, Scotland Yard didn't dare to go after the MP, let alone close down the MP's newspaper and put him in jail. However, even though I was so humble when investigating the case, Mr. Bernie Harrison still didn't intend to let me go. He even hired a killer in Liverpool to assassinate me, but when he failed, he was so angry that he committed suicide out of fear of punishment."

Liszt couldn't help but sighed when he heard this: "That story is so bizarre. If it weren't for the news report, I would have thought that Mr. Heine was making up a story to deceive me. Oh, by the way, I almost forgot the main thing. I came to Göttingen this time because Mr. Heine asked me to bring you a letter."

After saying this, Liszt took out the warm letter that he had kept in his arms for a long time.

Arthur did not hide it from the people present. He tore open the envelope casually, pinched it with two fingers, and pulled out a corner of the bill from it.

"Ahem..." Arthur just glanced at the beginning of the bill and the corners of his mouth couldn't help twitching.

But even so, the money still had to be paid, because Heine was the opinion leader of the students in Göttingen.
As long as Heine is willing to speak for him, there will be no trouble in Göttingen for a while.

What's more, the money paid to Heine was sponsored by Young Italy, 2500 pounds, a full francs, which was enough for Heine to write several autobiographies for Arthur immediately.

Arthur had just put the letter in his pocket when he heard Lister in front of him speak again.

"Sir, in fact, I came to Göttingen not only to deliver the letter. I heard from Felix that you are not only a police star and a natural philosophy researcher, but also a piano master who is on par with him? In terms of the passion of your performance, you are on par with Franz Liszt in Paris?"

Arthur smiled and denied, "That's really an exaggeration. Both Felix and Liszt's performances are far superior to mine. As for passion, The Bells is indeed a passionate piece. But that should be attributed more to Mr. Paganini, the 'Apennine Violin Devil', because The Bells was adapted from Mr. Paganini's piece."

"It's you!" Liszt couldn't help but said happily: "The Bells is indeed your song!"

Arthur was confused by what he said.

He also didn't know why he had only composed this one song in his life, but why so many people were still flocking to him.

He asked: "What's wrong?"

Liszt smiled and handed him a beer. "To be honest, my daughter Elisa is a singer. She has been taught by Robert Schumann's girlfriend, Miss Clara Wieck, in Leipzig in recent years. Both girls are your loyal fans. After a while, the two girls plan to make their debut performance with the Leipzig orchestra. There are two candidates they most hope to play the pianist in this performance. One of them is Franz Liszt, the piano king in Paris, and the other is Arthur Hastings, the electric music king in London."

Putting aside the fact that the other party treated him as a backup, even the nickname of the King of Electronic Music made Arthur feel that if you don't know how to give nicknames, don't mess around.

Although he did know something about electromagnetism, happened to be able to play the piano, and had the title of King of Scotland Yard, this did not mean that others could just put these three things together.

A Yorkshire pig farmer sounds more fashionable than the king of electronic music!
But Arthur also knew that the other party had no ill intentions, so he could only smile helplessly, and then turned his head to look at Krupp: "Alfred, you should not mind leaving the official business for the second meeting?"

Krupp understood and said, "Of course I don't mind. It's a rare gathering with so many friends. Talking about business would be a real bummer."

Arthur nodded slightly, then walked to his side, put his arm around Krupp's shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "As for the contract, it depends on whether you can make the gentlemen happy today."

(End of this chapter)