shadow of britain

Chapter 564 German Witchcraft

"H-Hoo (Heinrich), sorry, my German is not very good, is this how your name is pronounced? It sounds almost like calling a donkey."

"What?! How dare you call me that, you damned English Jew!"

Soon, the quarrel outside the door turned into the sound of fighting, followed by the sound of Dumas trying to stop the fight.

"Gentlemen, this is a university campus. It would be disrespectful for you to fight here! A duel is an elegant act. Even if you really want to fight it out, you should at least get a sword first, right?"

"What a bullshit respectability! I've only been away from Göttingen for seven or eight years. Has the school already enacted a law to ban dueling?"

Although Arthur did not see the fighting scene, even through a door, Arthur could still analyze from the sound of fists colliding that the two Jewish friends had definitely exhausted all their skills and were fighting for their lives.

The Duke of Sussex also frowned upon hearing this. He pondered for a moment before guessing uncertainly, "This voice... why does it sound like Mr. Benjamin Disraeli?"

Arthur quickly stood up and left the table: "Your Highness, it seems that I have to take care of the school's internal affairs first."

The Duke of Sussex didn't take it seriously. As a graduate of the University of Göttingen thirty years ago, when he was studying in Göttingen, the atmosphere on campus was much more violent than it is now. Every now and then, you could see students dueling with swords on the school lawn. If you were lucky, you might even see a few group fights.

Moreover, the scope of student fights was not limited to the school. Sometimes they would even go to the nearby University of Marburg and University of Halle in groups to drink, cause trouble and destroy the place, competing for the title of "No. 1 in Germany" which now seems ridiculous.

Because of the students' long-term misbehavior, college students have been classified as a derogatory term for a long time for citizens living in university towns.

Perhaps because he remembered the absurd experiences in his youth, the Duke of Sussex did not blame, but joked: "This is my first day back at the University of Göttingen, but as soon as I breathe the air here, I immediately feel 30 years younger."

Arthur smiled and agreed with a few words, then took a few steps back towards the Duke of Sussex, then quickly opened the door, used his body to cover the scene behind him, and walked out.

As soon as Arthur went out, he found that the battle had entered a fierce stage. First, Heine rode on Disraeli and performed a set of Prussian military boxing. Heine's fists were powerful and every move showed the profound heritage of the German martial arts school that had been passed down for 800 years.

But Heine's good days did not last long. Soon, Disraeli found the right opportunity and hugged Heine's waist tightly. With the style of a member of the House of Commons in Westminster Palace, he knocked Heine to the ground, showing the style of traditional English martial arts.

Seeing this, Arthur rushed forward and separated the two together with Dumas.

Although Heine and Disraeli were forcibly separated, as the Dante of German literature and the Caesar of British fashion novels, their mouths were still busy.

"Arthur, I can listen to you on other issues, but this time, I must teach this miser Shylock's offspring a lesson. You know, I am a person who values ​​promises. I swore to heaven when I was eight years old that from now on, no one can call me a derogatory name like Ha-whoosh!"

"Huh? It seems I was right. Your name does have something to do with a donkey. Heinrich, in Italian it's Enrique, in French it's Heinrich, in English you can call you Henry or Harry, which does sound like ha - woo! A donkey!"

Arthur heard Disraeli's mocking voice and said helplessly: "Benjamin, you don't need to show off your knowledge of foreign languages."

Dumas couldn't help but try to stop the quarrel after hearing this: "Benjamin, calling Heinrich like that is actually the same as scolding yourself, you know that?"

Disraeli tugged at his tie and dusted off his clothes: "Alexander, you damned traitor, you actually sided with him!"

Dumas explained: "It has nothing to do with which side I stand on. But Heinrich once told me that the reason why he hated the name "Ha-yu" was related to his childhood experience.

In his hometown lived a man called 'Garbage Michel' because every morning he drove a donkey cart through the streets of the city, stopped in front of every house, loaded the garbage that the women swept into small piles onto the cart, and transported it to the garbage dump outside the city.

The man looked like the man who did what he did, and the donkey looked like its master. The donkey would either stand still at the door of each house or trot away, depending on the tone of the "Ha-hoo" that Michel called to it.

As the sound was very similar to Heinrich's name, the neighborhood kids soon learned to call him by his name, and they started calling him by his name just like Michel the Garbage called his donkey.

Sometimes these little bastards would pretend to be innocent and ask Heinrich to teach them how to pronounce my name and the donkey's name in order to avoid confusion. But the little rascals pretended that they could not learn and deliberately imitated Heinrich's name in the same way..."

When Heine heard that Dumas had exposed his past in front of his enemies, he was furious and said, "Alexander, I'm telling you this because I treat you as a friend. How could you reveal everything?"

Unexpectedly, Disraeli couldn't help laughing when he heard this and said, "You actually believed Alexander. I shared some little secrets with him at the beginning, and it didn't take long for The Red and the Black to be published!"

Heine glared at him fiercely: "Then it seems that you are also a donkey."

Disraeli's laughter stopped abruptly when he was scolded, but before he could retort, he heard Heine speak again.

"Mr. Disraeli, don't be so quick to scold me, because what I just said is all based on facts. You called me ha-hoo, thinking that this is an insult to me personally, but in fact it is an insult to all Jews, including you and me."

Heine went on to say: "When I was little, the guys used to call me that all the time, and they laughed so hard and I cried so hard. I went home to complain to my mother, but she told me that I should study harder and become smarter so that people wouldn't confuse me with a donkey.

But she has no idea that it has nothing to do with studying. And a Jew like you would think that the ridicule is directed at me personally. In fact, at school, the older kids would come up to me and say hello to me. The younger kids would greet me the same way, but they would stay away from me because they were afraid of being beaten.

In class, whenever the topic involved donkeys, everyone would look at me sideways. And they would deliberately make up all kinds of jokes and insults to laugh at me. For example, one of them would ask another: "How do you tell the difference between a zebra and the donkey of Balaam, son of Boer?" The answer was: "The former speaks Zebran (German for Zebra), and the latter speaks Hebrew (Balaam was an Israelite in the Bible). "

Then they asked, 'What's the difference between that garbage Michelle's donkey and its namesake? ' The shameless answer was, 'We don't know the difference! '"

When everyone present heard this joke, they couldn't help laughing out loud, even Disraeli, who was also a Jew.

Heine was furious when he saw this, but soon he seemed to accept his fate and shook his head, saying, "I really don't know what's so funny about this joke. You are like this, and so were my childhood playmates. Even my best friend had to make fun of my name."

After saying this, Heine stared at Disraeli fiercely and warned him, "Don't blame me for not reminding you, Mr. Disraeli, I know a witch who knows magic."

Disraeli was laughing happily, but when he heard that Heine was going to curse him, Disraeli, a pseudoscience fan and agnostic, was suddenly shocked.

Everyone knew that German witches, like Prussian soldiers, were notorious throughout Europe.

Not only Disraeli, but Alexandre Dumas, who was standing beside him, was also immediately attracted by the important information revealed by Heine: "Magic... magic, do you mean black magic? Witchcraft?"

Seeing that the two of them were frightened, Heine added mysteriously, "Of course, the witch lives in my hometown of Düsseldorf. I have known her since I was sixteen. Although I am not a wizard, I know how she performs witchcraft."

Arthur also became interested when he heard this. Although he always thought it was feudal superstition, there was a devil following him, so what could be more superstitious than this?

Arthur asked, "How does she perform witchcraft?"

Heine glanced at them, then put his finger across his lips and said, "Shh! Let's go to a quiet place and talk."

The four of them found a quiet office, drew the curtains, and locked the door. Heine then sat down on the chair, cleared his throat, and said, "The witch I know, her husband was a despised executioner when he was alive, so everyone knows that her husband left behind all kinds of unspeakable secret recipes after his death. Her best customer is the owner of the beer hall, and she sells the fingers of the dead to the beer hall. According to her, these fingers are her husband's relics, and they can make the beer in the barrel taste more delicious..."

When Arthur heard this, he felt sick to his stomach. He glanced at the Red Devil at the table, as if he wanted to get an answer from him.

Agares didn't hide his secrets. He just curled his lips in disdain and said, "It's just a trifle. Soaking cat's claws and bear's paws, using dried firewood to pretend to be dead people's fingers. This business is still so retro even now."

Dumas couldn't help swallowing his saliva when he heard this: "This... if that's the case, if I go to Düsseldorf to drink, the beer there might have been soaked in dead people's fingers?"

"Isn't it?" Heine said solemnly: "But selling dead people's fingers is not her most important business. This female master is also very popular among passionate young lovers. She provides lovers with the magic soup of love..."

"Magic soup of love?!"

"Oh my God! There is such a good thing?"

When Disraeli and Dumas heard the name, the eyes of the two veterans in the social scene lit up.

Heine coughed. "This magic potion is called Feltralium. Of course, it doesn't work in all cases. Sometimes it can even cause the opposite effect. For example, a young man who failed to win the favor of a beauty persuaded his cold beauty to drink a bottle of wine with him and secretly poured Feltralium into her glass.

As soon as she drank the magic potion, he noticed a strange change in her behavior and a certain shyness and embarrassment on her face. The young man thought this was a sign of arousal and that the moment of ecstasy was just around the corner. But, alas! When he hugged the blushing beauty tightly in his arms, a strong smell hit his nose, and he slowly realized that it was not the rich fragrance of the god of love. This young man, he was in trouble. "

When Arthur, Dumas and others heard this, they immediately understood the protagonist of the story Heine was telling.

This matter was much more embarrassing than Ha-Yu, so they knew it well and did not expose Heine. Everyone pretended to be kept in the dark and listened to this guy continue to tell the story of "I have a friend".

"After this incident, the female master, in order to redeem the reputation of her magic, claimed that she had misunderstood the unfortunate young man's intentions, thinking that he wanted to cure her lovesickness and completely sever her ties with love. When the young man asked her for the real magic potion, she finally took out her best trick."

Dumas asked expectantly, "Did she take out the potion?"

"Do not."

Heine shook his head: "She gave the young man a piece of advice, which is more valuable than the magic potion."

"What advice."

Heine scratched his ear. "She advised her young followers to always carry some money in their pockets. Gold is very healthy and will bring good luck to the men they love."

"It's gone. It's gone."

"This witch is a complete fraud. I suggest that the Vatican should send someone to burn her at the stake."

"You two are changing your attitudes too quickly." Heine emphasized, "I assure you, she does have magical powers. Although this magic has not been used on me, I have seen with my own eyes that she once cast a spell to make someone and his newlywed wife infertile. They have been married for several years and have no children."

(End of this chapter)