The Shadow of Great Britain

From the teasing of desire, to the destruction of reason.

He sought neither beauty nor harmony.

He was creating a hallucination of frenzy.

When the final chord crashed down, in that moment, it was as if the world was shattered.

The reverberation from the piano lid echoed, and the flames of the candles trembled gently in the airflow, as if fearing something.

What followed was a deathly silence.

The kind of dead quiet that descends only after the smoke of battle has cleared.

The audience widened their eyes, seemingly afraid to breathe.

The noblewomen, who had just been immersed in the melody, held a hand suspended in mid-air, seemingly forgetting to applaud.

The resident envoys to England had their mouths half-open, yet could make no sound.

Only a few listeners, themselves musicians, Mozesales, Kramer, Novello, stood up involuntarily.

What broke the silence was not applause, but a sharp intake of breath.

That sound came from a lady in the front row, her folding fan clattering to the ground.

The light sound was like a spark landing on dry straw.

Applause poured in from the depths of the corridor, from the seats in the front and back rows, from the shadows of the marble columns, surging forward like a tsunami.

Some stood up, some clapped until their palms reddened, others shouted out "Bravo!", "Encore!", nearly pleading for the recital, the desecration of romanticism, to descend once more.

The dome of Buckingham Palace trembled, and the crystal shards of the chandelier scattered in a jump.

A lady-in-waiting couldn’t help but use a fan to cover her face, her shoulders trembling, unsure if it was from fright or being overwhelmed.

Even the Duke of Wellington, sitting beside Leopold, gently shook his head, his hearing poor but hearing Liszt’s performance all too clearly: "That is the voice of Hell."

Leopold smiled to echo: "If this truly is the voice of Hell, then the Devil’s skills are remarkably exquisite."

Before Leopold could finish speaking, he heard his niece Victoria gently inhale, her slender fingers covering her chest, her gaze fixed intently on the stage.

"Oh my..." she murmured, mixing shock with a slight tremble: "I never imagined a piano could produce such sounds. Those hands... so fast, so brilliant..."

Victoria’s voice was almost drowned by the applause: "Sir Arthur must have exerted tremendous effort to invite him, right?"

The applause continued on the stage.

Liszt rose from the piano bench, the candlelight illuminating the sweat-dampened strands of his hair, bright to the point of being dazzling.

He seemed unable to hear the applause, not even cracking a smile.

He just turned around, his gaze crossing the boiling crowd, landing in the shadow behind the curtain.

He knew Arthur was watching him, and he was watching Arthur.

Their gazes met through the curtain for an instant.

It was an extremely short moment, so brief that even the candle flame didn’t have time to flicker.

Today he was not playing "Memories of Don Juan," but challenging the piano coward to a duel from the King of Piano.

The audience continued their fervent applause; if not for the formality of the setting, some would have wanted to stand on the backs of chairs and cheer.

Liszt finally nodded slightly, raised his right hand, drawing an arc in the air before placing it on his chest, and then bowed to the audience.

Then, his long fingers suddenly twisted slightly, as if a conductor indicating that the movement was not yet over.

The audience thought he was going to perform another piece and became excited again.

However, Liszt suddenly revealed a meaningful smile.

He tapped twice lightly on the piano lid with his left hand, so softly yet strangely overpowering the noisy applause.

"Ladies and gentlemen." He said with a Hungarian-accented French, half-jokingly: "Tonight, I fear I dare not monopolize this glory. Please save a little applause, as perhaps... you might need it later."

Flora, standing in the shadows of the curtain backstage, had been clapping with the crowd, her face unable to hide her amazement, but upon hearing those words, she couldn’t help but tighten her grip on Arthur’s hand. Clearly Arthur was about to take the stage, yet she was more nervous than Arthur.

She was acutely aware of Liszt’s tone.

That wasn’t humility but the politeness of inviting an opponent onstage to face torment.

Flora’s fingertips nearly sank into Arthur’s hand, feeling her own palm trembling slightly.

She glanced down at Arthur’s palm, where her grip had left reddish marks, then suddenly looked up, intending to apologize: "I’m sorry, Arthur, I..."

However, before Flora could finish speaking, she froze.

She looked at that familiar figure, Arthur Hastings, the man capable of making all the Scotland Yard officers fall silent at a conference table, now standing quietly at the edge of the curtain.

The light spilling through the stage crevice fell on his shoulders, tracing a layer of pale golden glow.

He showed no panic.

On the contrary, his composure was so profound as to be almost dangerous.

The sea before a storm is always astonishingly calm, but only he himself knows the power hidden beneath that placid appearance.

Those hands of his, those hands that when holding hers, were so gentle she dared not breathe.

Now they seemed so calm, so strong, so distinctly jointed, the veins on the back of his hand faintly surfaced, casting a light blue hue in the candlelight.

Flora’s throat tightened.

She suddenly recalled that night many years ago at the Covent Garden Theater when Arthur first took the stage as a pianist for the third orchestra of the London Philharmonic Association. At that time, she was not who she is now, nor did she know she would have any interaction with this seemingly promising performer on stage.