Patrick O'Brian - The Wine-Dark Sea

Dr Maturin had curiously pale eyes, which he often covered with blue spectacles. He was not wearing them at present, and this pallor was much accentuated by the mahogany tan of his face on the one hand and on the other by the cold displeasure with which he reflected upon his assistant, now sitting by him in dogged silence.

He was gazing straight before him in one of these reveries when Dutourd, pouring himself yet another glass of port, caught his eye and taking the glare as a personal reflexion he said, 'But I am afraid, Doctor, that you do not share our opinion of Jean-Jacques?'

'Rousseau?' said Stephen, returning to the immediate present and composing his features to a more sociable amenity or at last adopting a less grim and even sinister expression. 'Rousseau? faith, little do I know of him, apart from the Devin du Village, which I enjoyed; but his theories have been floating about me for ever, and once an admirer made me swear to read the Confessions. I did so: an oath is sacred. But all the time I was reminded of a cousin, a priest, who told me that the most tedious, squalid and disheartening part of his duty was listening to penitents who having made the act of contrition recounted imaginary, fictitious sins, unclean phantasms. And the most painful was the giving of an absolution that might be blasphemous.'

'You surely did not doubt Rousseau's truthfulness?'

'Out of common charity I was obliged to do so.'

'I do not understand you, sir.'

'You will recall that in this book he speaks of four or five children his mistress bore him, children that were at once dismissed to the foundling hospital. Now this does not agree very well with his praise of the domestic affections, still less with his theories of education in Emile. So unless I was to think of him as a hypocrite where bringing up the young was concerned, I was compelled to regard him as a begetter of false babies.' The ransomer merchants at the end of the table, earthy creatures who unlike their serious hosts had been growing more and more restless, burst into a great horse-laugh at the words false babies, and clawing one another on the back they called out, 'Hear him. Very good. Hear him.'

'Those children can perfectly well be explained to a candid mind,' cried Dutourd over the hubbub, 'but where there is a fixed prejudice, an evident hatred of progress and enlightenment, a love of privilege and outworn custom, a denial of the essential goodness of man, a settled malevolence, I have nothing to say.'

Stephen bowed, and turning to the troubled acting first lieutenant he said, 'Mr Grainger sir, you will forgive me if I leave you at this point. Yet before I go, before I sling my hook, allow me to propose a toast to Shelmerston. Bumpers, gentlemen, if you please; and no heel-taps. Here's to Shelmerston, and may we soon sail in over her bar with never a scrape.'

'Shelmerston, Shelmerston, Shelmerston for ever,'they cried as he walked off, returning to the great cabin and feeling the ship's much stronger pitch and roll as he went. He found Jack well into his dinner and sat down beside him. 'Will I confess a grave sin?" he asked.

'Do, by all means,' said Jack, looking at him kindly. 'But if you managed to commit a grave sin between the gunroom and here you have a wonderful capacity for evil.'

Stephen took a piece of biscuit, tapping it mechanically, brushed away the weevil-frass, and said, 'I was in a wicked vile temper, so I was too, and I flew out at Dutourd and Rousseau.'

'He was in an ugly frame of mind as well, very willing to have a fight. He could only just be civil when I made him give up the Franklin's money; yet God knows it was natural enough.'

'So you took his money away? I did not know.'

'Not his money - we left him his purse - his ship's money: booty from her prizes, cash carried for stores and supplies. It is always done, you know, Stephen. You must have seen it scores of times. The chest came aboard in the forenoon watch.'

'Oh certainly, certainly. Only I was not on deck at the time, and I do not believe anybody mentioned the fact. Yet I did observe a general gaiety; and Sarah stated that Dutourd's nose was out of joint.'

'Indeed he took it very ill. He had a great deal of money aboard. But what could he expect? We are not a philanthropic institution. Adams and I and two of the hands were telling it all the morning: there were some very curious pieces, particularly among the gold. I kept this little heap to show you.'

'Little do I know of money,' said Stephen, 'but these are surely bezants; and is not this very like an archaic gold mohur? Pierced and worn as a charm, no doubt.'

'I am sure of it,' said Jack. 'And what do you make of this broad piece? It is rubbed almost smooth, but if you hold it sideways to the light you can make out a ship with a forward-raking mast, very heavy shrouds, and an absurd high-perched poop or after-castle.'

In time Jack finished his dinner, and when they were drinking their coffee Stephen said, 'I made a remarkable discovery this morning. I believe it will make a great stir in the Royal Society when I read my paper; and Cuvier will be amazed.' He described the extraordinarily unyielding nature of the frigate-bird's bosom, contrasting it with that of other fowl, no more rigid than an indifferent wicker basket, and spoke of its probable connexion with the creature's soaring flight. As it was usual with them when they spoke of the lie of the land, naval manoeuvres or the like he traced lines on the table with wine, and Jack, following with keen attention, said, 'I take your point, and I believe you are right. For this, do you see' - drawing a ship seen from above - 'is the mainyard when we are close-hauled on the starboard tack. It is braced up sharp with the larboard brace - here is the larboard brace - the sheet hauled aft, the weather leeches hauled forward with bowlines twanging taut, and the tack hauled aboard, brought down to the chess-trees and well bowsed upon. When all this is done in a seaman-like manner there is precious little give - flat as a board - and a stiff, well-trimmed ship fairly flies along. Surely there is a parallel here?'

'Certainly. If you will come next door I will show you the bones in question and their coalescence, and you will judge the degree of rigidity yourself, comparing it with that of your sheets and chess-trees. I was called away before the dissecting was quite complete - before everything was as white and distinct as a specimen or example mounted for an anatomy lesson - but you will never dislike a little blood and slime.'

Stephen was not a heavy, impercipient man in most respects, yet he had known Jack Aubrey all these years without discovering that he disliked even a very little blood and slime extremely: that is to say, cold blood and slime. In battle he was accustomed to wading ankle-deep in both without the least repulsion, laying about him in a very dreadful manner. But he could scarcely be brought to wring a chicken's neck, still less watch a surgical operation.

'You will take the exposed furcula between your finger and thumb,' Stephen went on, 'and all proportions guarded you will gauge its immobility.'

Jack gave a thin smile: seven excuses came to his mind. But he was much attached to his friend; and the excuses were improbable at the best. He walked slowly forward into what had once been his dining-cabin and was now, to judge from the reek, a charnel-house.

He did indeed take the exposed furcula as he was desired to do, and he listened to Stephen's explanations with his head gravely inclined: he looked not unlike a very large dog that was conscientiously carrying out an unpleasant duty: but how happy he was when the duty was done, when the explanations came to an end, and when he could walk out into the fresh air with a clear conscience!

'Everything is laid along, sir,' said Vidal, meeting him at the head of the companion-ladder. 'The chest is up, the Frenchmen ordered below, and Mr Adams is by the capstan with the muster-book.'