The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 909: Chapter 23: On the way to the Paris Concert Hall, please invite Sir Hastings to come forward.

To Heinrich Heine, reality is merely a coin, which he can both conceal and reveal its true nature. He is never easy to understand, yet his many facets are permeable.

Admirers call him a passionate and charismatic wanderer, while conservatives attack him as paranoid and combative, inhuman; leftists, on the other hand, elevate him to a hot-blooded revolutionary icon.

He is a contradiction born of a complex era, an outsider of the times, but his friendship with Sir Arthur Hastings made his complicated life simple and clear.

— Fritz Radatz, ”The Biography of Heinrich Heine”

In the market area of Paris, there is a street named St. Denis.

As one of the oldest streets in Paris, St. Denis Street carries many historical traces.

The street remains bustling as always, with carriages, pedestrians, peddlers, taverns, and cafes; as noisy as it was centuries ago.

However, if you observe closely, you can notice the ’fresh wounds’ on both sides of the street that have not yet scabbed over.

A small portion of the street lamps remain unfixed, some houses have windows bearing subtle scars, and even walls show many gray-white bullet marks.

Indeed, last June, this was one of the main battlegrounds for the uprising, and even earlier, cholera swept through here with the foul winds of the market.

All the residents of St. Denis Street remember those nights with unforgettable recall.

Barricades everywhere, stretching from the street’s entrance to its end; all street lamps shattered, every window tightly shut. After dark, all windows with lights faced bullet attacks. A ghostly scene overpowered everything. Everything turned black, whether rows of windows, mismatched chimneys and rooftops, or muddy roads, all plunged into darkness.

Around these desolate, disquieting, maze-like streets, you could occasionally see areas sparsely lit. By the faint light, you could vaguely see the cold glint of sabers and bayonets, hear the silent rolling of cannon wheels, see regiments like ant colonies, expanding silently and slowly closing in on St. Denis Street.

They were like fearsome, slowly tightening nooses, strangling every insurgent’s throat, squeezing their eyes until they bulged and silencing their tongues, with the night’s darkness acting as their shroud.

A timely downpour washed St. Denis Street’s filthy road, erasing the black of mud and the red of blood, leaving only merchants and pedestrians hurriedly avoiding the rain and shouting complaints.

A carriage stopped at the entrance of St. Denis Street, the coachman wiped his rain-soaked face, shivering with cold.

He first blew into his palms, then turned his head to the passenger and said, ”Sir, the fare is sixteen Sous.”

The passenger retrieved a one Franc silver coin from his pocket and handed it over: ”Keep the extra for coffee, and please wait a while for me; I still need your carriage later.”

The coachman received the silver coin, wiped it with his sleeve, and nodded with a smile: ”Sir, you seem to be here for business from the provinces, yes? How about you hire my carriage; only 10 Francs a day, and if you rent for a week, I can also offer a discount.”

Arthur found it indeed quite reasonable and retrieved a Louis d’or: ”Then I’ll hire it for two days.”

”All right, then I’ll wait for you here.”

With a great job in hand, the coachman’s previously foul mood due to the rain improved considerably.

He helped Arthur down from the carriage and then drove the carriage into a little alley to shelter it from the rain.

Arthur opened the Fox’s umbrella brought from London, first glancing at the door numbers of St. Denis Street’s houses, quickly pinpointing his destination.

No. 23 St. Denis Street, an apartment, also a dwelling place for an old friend in Paris.

Arthur took out his pocket watch for a look, finding that it was close to the arranged meeting time, thinking that the friend should now be at home waiting for him.

As it happened, just as Arthur suspected, when he reached the apartment downstairs, a playful whistle sounded above his head.

Heine leaned against the window, jokingly said to him: ”Should I address you as Sir Arthur Hastings, or the ’British’ famous novelist Mr. Arthur Sigma? Hmm... perhaps you should appear in Paris as the pianist Arthur Hastings. Parisians are practically defenseless against handsome, talented young pianists; look at Lisi, they all flatter him.”

Arthur sensed something amiss in Heine’s words, and raised his head to reply: ”Heinrich, it sounds like you’re dissatisfied with Lisi? But when I visited Frederick earlier, he strongly recommended Mr. Lisi to me. He told me Lisi, like me, passionately adapts Paganini’s violin compositions for piano.”

Heine sniffed at this: ”I have no issue with Mr. Chopin; he’s a decent person, and his piano skills are top-notch. But I disagree with him regarding opinions on Lisi. Arthur, Lisi is nothing but a charlatan; though his piano skills may be quite good, in terms of talent, character, and ability, he doesn’t hold a candle to you.”