Patrick O'Brian - The surgeon's mate

'You are much attached to those diamonds, Villiers,' he said kindly.

'Yes, I am. I truly love them,' she said. 'Above all the Blue Peter.' She detached the pendant stone and put it into his hand, where it lay, strangely heavy, sending out countless prismatic flashes at the slightest movement. 'I don't give a damn where they come from,' she went on, raising her chin. 'I love them passionately. I should not part with them for anything on earth and I shall certainly be buried in them. You will remember that, Stephen? If things do not go well this autumn, I am to be buried in them. I may rely on you?'

'Certainly you may.'

'I liked my pearls,' she went on, after a pause. 'You remember the pearls the Nawab gave me? But that was quite different: I let some of them go for the dressmaker without a qualm, almost. La Mothe took me to Charon's, and they gave me a very honest price. He is coming with the Clermonts, and then we are all to come back here for supper. Oh, and they valued those unmounted rubies I showed you, the ones I never really cared for, like great drops of blood: I was absolutely amazed ...' Stephen's attention wandered; his anxious eyes were fixed on the clock, and he heard the footman's hurrying feet even before the wig appeared.

He clapped it on at once, fitted his spectacles under the side-curls, and said, 'We must be away.'

'There is plenty of time yet,' said Diana. 'This clock is half an hour fast. It would never do to be early. Sit down again, Stephen. Lord, my dear, how those blue spectacles do change your face! I should never have recognized you.'

'They are green.'

'Blue or green, pray take them off. They make me feel quite uneasy, as though you were a stranger.'

'Never,' said Stephen. 'Once I have them on, fairly fixed under my wig, I cannot take them off without disturbing its symmetry.'

'Why do you wear them? They make you look dreadfully old, and even, my dear, quite horribly plain. You can see perfectly well without.'

'Not always, when I have to read notes under a powerful reading-lamp. But the main reason I wear them is that I am nervous, and they give me countenance.'

'Nervous, Stephen?' cried she. 'I should never have thought it possible. Though now I come to think of it, you have been sitting on the edge of your chair this last age, glaring at the clock like a man due to be hanged. Pray do not be so absurd; you are a very distinguished creature. Everybody here says you have a most prodigious mind, and I have known it for ever. Come, drink a small glass of brandy; that will calm your spirits. Let us both drink a small glass of brandy.'

'You are very good, dear Diana: but the truth of the matter is, I am not at all used to addressing so large a gathering. And such a gathering! The Cuviers will be there, Argenson, Saint-Hilaire ... or at least, I hope they will.'

'I am sure they will. I know the Cardinal is coming; La Mothe told me so.'

'Oh, him," said Stephen.

'I thought you would be pleased. Surely a cardinal is next door to the Pope; and you are a Catholic, my dear.'

'There are cardinals and cardinals; and even some Popes have not always been exactly what one might wish. However, thank you for telling me, Villiers: I must begin with a Your Eminence. For although he is related to those vile Buonapartes I understand he is on bad terms with the chief malefactor; and in any case he is a prince of the Church. Come, Villiers, we must go.'

The great room was full, even fuller than he had expected: full of people and full of eager talk about the reported engagement in Moravia, or perhaps just in Bohemia - the Russian right wing had been entirely destroyed - the Prussians had fallen back on Polobsk -Vandamme's corps had suffered terribly - not at all, Vandamme was a day's march away, and the Prussians had held their ground - the Emperor had not been present - the Emperor had directed all. The noise died away as the Perpetual Secretary led him to the rostrum: here he laid his notes by the water-carafe, drew a deep breath, glared round the assembly in the expectant silence and began, 'Your Eminence,' in a voice so loud and aggressive that its returning echo shocked him extremely - shocked him almost fatally.

Most of the rest of his discourse was delivered in a low mumble: those who were most deeply interested in Pezophaps solitarius craned forward, cupping their ears; the remaining five hundred or so gradually resumed their conversation, whispering at first, then more audibly by far. It was exceedingly painful for his friends; the beginning was bad, the continuation worse. It was clear that he neither saw nor heard his audience; from the inauspicious start he kept rigidly to his notes, his head bowed and his eyes fixed upon the paper. Occasionally he made a cataleptic gesture with his right hand and Diana was in an agony that he should dash the carafe to the ground. Once he turned over two pages, so that remarks on the dodo seemed to apply to the wombat of New Holland.

He was scarcely into the Ratitae when an officer came tiptoeing in to whisper into the ear of the minister of police: the minister left at once, also bowed and on tiptoe, and it was seen that he was grinning all over his false sly face. The talk redoubled. Stephen ground on, page after dogged, closely-reasoned page. He had dealt with the anastomosis of the carotid in Didus ineptus, and now he came to the loves of the solitaire. 'For the purpose of comparison, let us consider the intromittent organ of the raven,' he said, raising his spectacles and looking up for the first time. His eyes met those of Madame d'Uzes, sitting there in the front row: she leant forward and asked in her loud, deaf voice, 'What is an intromittent organ?'

Her neighbour told her. She said, 'Oh? Like a stallion? I had no idea. So much the better,' and laughed very cheerfully.

Stephen stared straight at her, repeating, 'Let us consider the intromittent organ of the raven.' She looked down, folding her hands in her lap, and returning to his notes he considered the organ at length, in a stronger, sterner voice than before, rhythmically waving a mummified example as he did so.

The minister's assistants, who had remained behind, leant over their chief's empty chair in quiet conversation. 'If that man has anything to do with intelligence, near or far,' said one, 'I am the Pope.'

'It was only a vague rumour,' said the other.

'The army sees spies everywhere. I checked, of course, but neither Fauvet nor Madame Dangeau could move him an inch: he was a mere natural philosopher, he said, knew nothing of politics, cared less, and must obey the rules. Madame Dangeau is sure he is a paederast, and I think she is right. He is a friend of La Mothe's.'

'What is his relationship with that woman sitting next to La Mothe, the woman with the amazing diamonds? They crossed together, but surely there could be no question of any liaison between such an individual and that magnificent creature?'

'He is her doctor. Her maid reports that he examines her - perfectly decent - quite unmoved. He must certainly be a paederast. Such a woman, and to be unmoved!'

'Poor brute: he is coming to an end at last.'

'A pitiful exhibition.'

Pitiful it might have been, but as far as foreign guests were concerned the standard of oratory was often in inverse proportion to the speaker's scientific worth; it was very usual for those who were not used to university chairs to blunder and mumble, and the Perpetual Secretary had seen far worse; so had the savants who had come to hear Dr Maturin rather than the gossip of the town. He had not flung his notes, exhibits and specimens to the ground; he had not come to an anguished halt in mid-career like the learned Schmidt of Gottingen, nor had he swooned away like Izibicki; and those in the front ranks had learnt a very great deal about the extinct avifauna of the Mascarenes. Their sincere congratulations, strong coffee, and the knowledge that the ordeal was over revived him. Diana and La Mothe and their friends assured him that he had done splendidly; they had heard every word; they even mentioned Pezophaps solitarius once or twice by name, and, more frequently, the dodo. 'It was very far from brilliant,' said he, smiling shyly. 'I am no Demosthenes. But I did what little my means allowed, and I flatter myself that we now have the solitaire's reproductive and digestive processes on a sounder basis than before.'