Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque

'I thought we might waive the bond in view of the fiddle," said Jack. 'I do assure you he has a wonderfully true ear and the most delicate touch, neither sweet nor yet dry, if you understand me; and since Martin can scrape away pretty well on his viola, it occurred to me that we might try a quartet. What do you say to our having a bowl of punch, and asking him to share it? We will ask Tom and Martin too.'

'I should be very happy to meet the gentleman,' said Stephen. 'But it is long, long since I touched my 'cello, and I must have a word with it first.'

He went into his cabin, and after the squeaks and grunts of tuning he played a few bars very softly and called to Jack 'Do you recognize that?'

'Of course,' said Jack. 'It comes at the end of Figaro, the loveliest thing.'

'I could not sing it quite right,' said Stephen, 'but it comes out better with a bow." Then he closed the door, and some moments later the after part of the ship, usually quiet with a following wind and a moderate sea, was filled with a great deep roaring Dies Irae that went on and on, quite startling the quarterdeck.

Later, much later, after the punch, the introductions and a good deal of talk, the cabin sang again, but this time with none of the same terrible conviction, more quietly, more gently altogether, as the four of them made their tentative way through Mozart in D major.

Stephen went to bed very late that night, his eyes red and watering with the effort of following a little-known score by lamplight, but his mind was wonderfully refreshed, so much so that once he reached the blessed point of sleep he plunged down and down, reaching a world of extraordinarily vivid dream and never rising up until Jack said 'Forgive me for waking you, Stephen, but the wind has veered nine points and I cannot get into Stockholm. There is a pilot-galley alongside that will take you, or you could run across to Riga with me and put in on our return. Which had you rather?'

'The galley, if you please.'

'Very well,' said Jack. 'I will tell Padeen to bring the hot water.'

While he was waiting for it to come Stephen stropped his razor; but when all was ready he found his hand shake too much to attempt shaving. 'I am in a sad foolish way, so I am,' he said, and to pull himself together he reached for his draught. He dropped it before he had poured a single drop into his glass. The cabin was filled with the smell more of brandy than of laudanum, and for a moment he stared at the broken pieces, perceiving the contradiction but lacking the time and mental energy to resolve it. By going below and rousing out a great carboy and a small bottle he could replace what he had lost. 'The hell with it,' he said. 'I shall get some more in Stockholm; and I shall be shaved at a barber's, too.'

'There you are, Stephen,' said Jack, looking at him anxiously. 'You will have a long pull of it, I am afraid. Are you not taking Padeen?' Stephen shook his head. 'I just wanted to say, before you come on deck - I just wanted to ask you to give Cousin Diana our love.'

'Thank you, Jack,' said Stephen. 'I shall not forget.' They walked up the ladder.

'This wind never lasts,' said Jack, handing him over the side, where Bonden and Plaice eased him down into the boat. 'We shall be back from Riga in no time at all.'

CHAPTER NINE

Although the Surprise had stood in as far as ever she could, far in among the countless islands, the pilot-galley still had a long pull before it set Stephen down on the broad quay in the heart of the town.

Once the sun had risen the day was fresh and brilliant, the breeze, though contrary, was full of life; and by the time Stephen reached dry land he had almost entirely detached himself from that other world, the world of his dream with its extraordinary beauty and its potential danger, its half-understood threat of extreme danger to come.

The pilot, a grave, respectable man, fluent in English, took him to a grave, respectable hotel, equally fluent. Here Stephen called for coffee and buns, and much refreshed he went to see his banker's correspondent, who, having received him with the deference that he was now beginning to think his due (or at least that he no longer found particularly amusing), provided him with Swedish money and the address of the best apothecary in the capital, 'a learned man, a man of encyclopaedic knowledge, a pupil of the great Linnaeus himself, whose shop was not a hundred yards away. Dr Maturin had but to turn twice to the right, and he was there.

Dr Maturin turned twice to the right and there indeed he was: the window was quite unmistakable, being filled not only with the usual great jars of green, red and blue liquid, clear and jewel-like, and with bunches of dried herbs, but also with a large variety of monsters and uncommon animals in spirits, together with skeletons, one being that of an aardvaark. Stephen walked in. There appeared to be nobody in the shop, and he was looking attentively at the foetus of a kangaroo - he had in fact reached out his hand to turn the jar - when a very small man stepped from behind the counter and asked him his business in a sharp, troll-like voice.

Stephen felt certain that the encyclopaedia's knowledge embraced neither English nor French, so he said 'I should like some laudanum, if you please: a bottle of moderate, portable size,' in Latin, to which the apothecary replied 'Certainly,' in a more benevolent tone. While the tincture was preparing Stephen said 'Pray, is the aardvaark in the window for sale?'

'No, sir,' said the apothecary. 'He belongs to my own collection.' And after a pause, 'You recognized the animal, I perceive.'

'At one time I was well acquainted with an aardvaark,' said Stephen. 'A most affectionate creature, though timid. That was at the Cape. And I saw a skeleton belonging to Monsieur Cuvier, in Paris.'

'Ah, sir, you are a great traveller, I find,' said the apothecary, clasping the bottle with both hands and raising it to head-height.

'I am a naval surgeon, and my profession has carried me to many parts of the world.'

'It was always my dream to travel,' said the apothecary, 'but I am tied to my shop. However, I encourage the sailors to bring me what falls in their way, and I commission the more intelligent surgeon's mates to find me botanical specimens and foreign drugs, curious teas, infusions and the like; so I travel vicariously.'

'It may well be that you travel better than I. Until you have experienced it, you cannot conceive the frustrations that attend the naturalist in a ship. He has no sooner started to get some order among, let us say, the termites, than he is told that the wind has changed, or that the tide serves, and he must repair aboard, or he will infallibly be left behind. I was in New Holland once, and I saw these creatures' - pointing to the kangaroo - 'sporting on a grassy plain: but was I indulged in a horse to approach them, or even the loan of a perspective-glass? No, sir, I was not: I was told that if I was not on the strand in ten minutes a file of Marines should be sent to fetch me. Whereas you, sir, have a hundred eyes and only the single inconvenience of remaining physically in the same place while your mind roams abroad. You have some remarkable collections,' looking at the walls.

'Here is the true balm of Gilead,' said the apothecary. 'And here salamander's wool: here the black mandrake of Kamschatka.' He showed many more rarities, chiefly of a medical nature, and after a while Stephen asked, 'Have any of your young men ever brought you back the coca or cuca leaf from Peru?'

'Oh yes,' said the apothecary. 'There is a small sack behind the camomile. It is said to dissolve the gross humours and do away with appetite.'

'Be so good as to put me up a pound,' said Stephen. 'And lastly, can you tell me where the district of Christenberg lies? I should like to walk there, if it is not too far.'