The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1402: Chapter 209: The Oriental Society of St. Petersburg

Compared to the luxurious houses near the British Embassy, Bichulin’s rented place in St. Petersburg seemed quite modest.

It was an old two-story building with walls painted in a gray-white lime wash. The mottled walls and somewhat outdated window frames revealed the house’s age. The snow piled on the window sills during winter and the icicles hanging from the eaves made me feel frozen just looking at it.

However, the location of this house was quite good, situated on Pea Street which ran through the center of Peterburg City.

Although Pea Street had no notable noble residences, merchant houses, or luxury boutiques, it was filled with small shops and budget hotels, making it a great place for ordinary citizens to live.

Because it was close to the station and Winter Palace Square, and life was convenient here, small middle-to-low-level civil servants like Bichulin liked to rent houses in this area.

Arthur followed Bichulin up the stairs, and when passing through the corridor, he noticed an old iron lantern hanging overhead.

The lantern’s shade had turned yellow, and the dim light showed it hadn’t been replaced in a long time to save oil.

Outside Bichulin’s room hung a wooden cross, which was both a religious symbol and an indication that this was a priest’s residence.

However, when Arthur thought about Bichulin’s life experiences, he felt that hanging a cross at the door had a touch of hypocrisy.

While Bichulin was opening the door, Arthur noticed a few logs stacked on the ground beneath his feet.

The logs were unevenly cut, likely chopped by Bichulin himself with an axe, as professionally sold logs wouldn’t be so irregular.

Bichulin unlocked the door with a key and quickly put down the ”Bible” he was holding, then hurriedly went to start a fire to brew some tea.

While bustling around, he explained, ”Although this house doesn’t look like much from the outside, it’s actually quite comfortable to live in.”

Arthur smiled but did not respond directly. Instead, he looked around at the room’s layout.

The room wasn’t large, but Bichulin had clearly done his best to arrange it neatly.

The foyer faced the living room, where a simple wooden bookshelf stood in the corner, filled with books and manuscripts, even a few rolls of yellowed parchment.

On the floor beside the bookshelf were some miscellaneous items, a few wooden boxes of unknown contents, a worn-out pipe box, and a fur cap that seemed quite useful in winter.

A square table occupied the center of the living room, covered with an old tablecloth, and surrounded by a few wooden chairs, their armrests worn to reveal the wood grain.

Arthur casually pulled out a chair and sat down, noticing that the teapot and ceramic cups on the table were evidently brought back from the East, with the cup’s glaze painted with colorful and intricate designs.

”Are these brought back from Beijing?” Arthur asked while examining a cup, his tone somewhat teasing, ”It seems you lived quite luxuriously there.”

Bichulin peeked from beside the stove, holding an old pipe, with a grin at the corner of his mouth, ”Luxurious? Not at all. These things were just casually bought at the market, very cheap, even more affordable than this rented house.”

As he spoke, the stove was already blazing with flames. Bichulin skillfully placed a small iron kettle on the rack, and soon steam rose, while the warmth of the stove and the tea’s aroma dispelled much of the room’s chill.

Arthur’s gaze shifted from the stove to the wall, noticing a portrait of Bichulin wearing a Qing Dynasty official’s hat, alongside a hand-drawn map pinned to the wooden board, with several pieces of paper covered in Chinese characters nailed beside it.

”Yajin Fu Bichulin in Chinese attire” Alexander Orlovsky, 1828

He went over for a closer look and found many sentences recorded in neat Chinese and Russian, along with several familiar Confucian classic translations.

Placed most prominently was a quote from the ”Analects” — ”In the cold season, one knows that the pine and cypress are the last to wither.”

Considering Bichulin’s past exile and his current cheerful demeanor despite adversity, it’s not surprising he liked this quote.

Everyone likes to befriend resilient individuals, even British spies are no exception.

Although they hadn’t known each other long, it didn’t prevent him from liking this Russian ’pine and cypress’ who seemed to stand apart from the mainstream.

As his gaze shifted to another part of the wall, it was adorned with a few pieces of Chinese calligraphy written in elegant script. Below the calligraphies, the desk was covered with an old cloth held down by several pebbles, clearly to keep the pages from being blown away. On the desk laid an oil lamp, a pile of books, and unfinished manuscripts, including annotations on the ”Four Books and Five Classics” and some untranslated Sinology materials, even a few volumes of Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan texts bound with silk threads.

There’s no need to say it, these books must be the reason Bichulin lived in this small house.

Arthur knew very well how extravagant it was to own so many books at that time.

When he was working as a street patroller in London, trying to find an old novel with missing pages and a damaged cover at a used bookstore took him a week’s worth of savings.

And if he fancied a quarto deluxe edition old book, living frugally would still require saving for a month.