The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1527: Chapter 258: Herzen Group’s Acknowledgments (2)

The officer, having obtained intelligence on the landlord’s hiding place, led a troop there, surrounding the house and entering with two constitutional soldiers.

The house was empty. They searched every room but found no one, yet several signs indicated that someone had been there just moments before.

The young man left the two soldiers downstairs and went to the top floor a second time; upon careful observation, he discovered a small door leading to a storeroom or some other small chamber. The door was locked from the inside, and he kicked it open with one move, immediately spotting a tall woman standing inside, quite beautiful. She made no sound and pointed to a man beside her, who was holding an eleven or twelve-year-old girl, nearly unconscious.

This was him and his family. The officer did not know what to do. The tall woman saw this and asked him, “Can you bear to kill them?”

The officer expressed his apologies and mumbled some banal clichés about a soldier’s unconditional obedience and responsibilities. However, seeing that his words had no effect, he felt helpless and so the young officer had to ask, “Then what should I do?”

The woman looked at him proudly and pointed outside the door, saying, “Go down and tell them no one is here.”

At this point, the officer sighed, “Honestly, I don’t know what was happening, what I was thinking at the time. But I walked down from the top floor and ordered the sergeant to assemble the team. Two hours later, we went to another estate to thoroughly search for that Polish landlord, but he had already slipped across the border. Ah, women! Is such a thing truly possible in the world!”

Whenever Herzen thought of these stories, a variety of wondrous feelings surged in his heart. If someone spoke to him of the Third Bureau or the constitutional soldiers, he would surely grit his teeth in hatred, but if they spoke of old Filimonov and that young officer, he simply could not bring himself to hate them.

This reminded him of the feeling he had when he read the writings of Pushkin, when he saw Pushkin talking about the brutal suppression of the London poor by Scotland Yard, he could hardly help wishing to drink the blood and eat the flesh of these uniformed ruffians.

But it so happened that the one who issued the suppression order was Sir Arthur Hastings, who had helped him escape from the prison.

He really found it hard to imagine that this elegant, peaceful English gentleman would do such a thing, and even after doing such a thing, he could maintain good relationships with progressive figures like Heinrich Heine and Alexander Dumas…

Perhaps, he was just following orders like the young officer and old Filimonov?

Perhaps, there were many hardships behind this that he could not understand?

Since leaving the prison, Herzen felt for the first time that categorizing people based on moral concepts, industry traits, labeling them indiscriminately, was such an unperceiving, inhumane thing to do.

Jean-Paul Richter was right: when a child lies, he should be warned that it is a bad deed, told he has deceived people, but not called a liar.

Because if you define him as a liar, you deprive him of his spiritual confidence.

Most people, upon hearing “this person is a murderer,” immediately think of hidden daggers, savage appearances, and scheming tricks, as if killing is his craft and profession, while in fact, this person has only accidentally killed someone once in his life.

Indeed, an Englishman cannot be both a secret agent who trades on others’ degradation and a gentleman.

But he can be a constitutional police officer without having completely lost his human dignity, just as we often see in victims of corrupt societies a gentle temperament, a kind heart, and sometimes even straightforward actions.

The carriage had long entered the main street of St. Petersburg and stopped in front of Arthur’s rented apartment on Neva Street.

When Arthur heard from Herzen’s mouth this young man’s comments on recent life, old deceiver York uncharacteristically stiffened for a moment.

For someone who had firmly decided to be a villain from now on, nothing was more devastating than the words “you must have your troubles.”

Being condemned by everyone was an expected occurrence, thus Arthur was not afraid.

He did not even worry about the series of diplomatic impacts that might follow once the truth of the Caucasus incident was revealed, nor did he fear offending Viscount Palmeston or even Tsar Nicholas I.

But such an unexpected twist, being suddenly forgiven by someone, was something he could not bear.

Herzen, this graduate of the mathematics and physics department of Moscow University, was budding with the sapling of a philosopher.

He held a warm teacup, muttering to himself, “There are those who cannot, will not or refuse to break through the constraints of titles, to look forward a bit more, to see through the crimes, the illusion of confusion, and recognize the facts, yet adopt a lofty avoidance attitude, or a crude denial attitude, whom I dislike. Such people are often out of touch with reality, impractical, or extremely selfish, or nauseatingly noble. Otherwise, they are those despicable scoundrels who haven’t been exposed yet and don’t plan to tear off their masks publicly. These people mingle in the filthy bottom by their own choice, thriving there, stirring trouble, unlike other bottom dwellers who fell down by accident.”