pulled in their horns as they did over the Falklands some time before. But it all began in eighty-nine. A precious date for me: a wonderful year and I had great hopes of it as soon as the news came home.' He paused for a while, sipping his port and smiling at his recollections; then he said 'Tell me, Stephen, what were you doing in eighty-nine?'
'Oh,' said Stephen vaguely, 'I was studying medicine.' With this he set down his glass and walked into the quarter-gallery. He had been studying medicine, it was true, walking the wards of the Hotel-Dieu, but he had also spent a great deal of the time running about the streets of Paris in the headiest state of happy excitement that could be imagined, or rather exaltation, in the dawn of the Revolution, when every disinterested, generous idea of freedom seemed on the point of realization, the dawn of an infinitely finer age.
When he came back he found Jack arranging the score of their next duet on their music stands. Like many other heavy men Jack could be as sensitive as a cat on occasion: he knew that he had touched on some painful area - that in any case Stephen hated questions - and he was particularly attentive in laying out the sheets, pouring Stephen another glass of wine, and, when they began, in so playing that his violin helped the 'cello, yielding to it in those minute ways perceptible to those who are deep in their music if to few others.
They played on, and only once did Jack raise his head from the score: the ship was leaning half a strake, and beneath their strings the sound of the rigging could just be heard. At the end of the allegro he said, turning the page with his bow, 'She is making four knots.'
'I believe we may attack the adagio directly,' said Stephen. 'The wind is in our poop, and we have never played better.'
They swept into the next movement, the 'cello booming nobly, and carried straight on without a pause, separating, joining, answering one another, with never a hesitation nor a false note until the full satisfaction of the end.
'Well done, well done,' said Dutourd: he and Martin were standing in the warm darkness abaft the lit companion, alone on the quarterdeck apart from Grainger and the men at the wheel. 'I had no idea they could play so well - no contention, no striving for pre-eminence - pray which is the 'cello?'
'Dr Maturin.'
'And Captain Aubrey the violin, of course: admirable tone, admirable bowing.'
Martin did not care for Dutourd in the gunroom: he thought that the Frenchman talked far too much, that he tended to harangue the company, and that his ideas though no doubt well-intended were pernicious. But en tete-a-tete Dutourd was an agreeable companion and Martin quite often took a turn on deck with him. 'You play yourself, sir, I collect?' he said.
'Yes. I may be said to play. I am not of the Captain's standard, but with some practice I believe I could play second fiddle to him without too much discredit.'
'Have you a violin with you?'
'Yes, yes. It is in my sea-chest. The man who repaired your viola renewed the pegs just before we set off from Molokai. Do you often play in the cabin?'
'I have done so, though I am an indifferent performer. I have taken part in quartets.'
'Quartets! What joy! That is living in the very heart of music.'
Chapter Four
The next morning Jack Aubrey came up from a conference, a pursers' conference with Mr Adams: Jack, like Cook and many a far-ranging captain before him, was nominally his own purser, just as Adams was nominally the captain's clerk; but by dividing the work between them they accomplished both it and their own specific duties quite well, particularly as the anomalous status of the Surprise meant that her accounts would never have to pass the slow, circumspect eyes of the Victualling Office, for whom all persons in charge of His Majesty's stores were guilty of embezzlement until with countersigned dockets of every conceivable nature they could prove their innocence. At this conference they
'Oh,' said Stephen vaguely, 'I was studying medicine.' With this he set down his glass and walked into the quarter-gallery. He had been studying medicine, it was true, walking the wards of the Hotel-Dieu, but he had also spent a great deal of the time running about the streets of Paris in the headiest state of happy excitement that could be imagined, or rather exaltation, in the dawn of the Revolution, when every disinterested, generous idea of freedom seemed on the point of realization, the dawn of an infinitely finer age.
When he came back he found Jack arranging the score of their next duet on their music stands. Like many other heavy men Jack could be as sensitive as a cat on occasion: he knew that he had touched on some painful area - that in any case Stephen hated questions - and he was particularly attentive in laying out the sheets, pouring Stephen another glass of wine, and, when they began, in so playing that his violin helped the 'cello, yielding to it in those minute ways perceptible to those who are deep in their music if to few others.
They played on, and only once did Jack raise his head from the score: the ship was leaning half a strake, and beneath their strings the sound of the rigging could just be heard. At the end of the allegro he said, turning the page with his bow, 'She is making four knots.'
'I believe we may attack the adagio directly,' said Stephen. 'The wind is in our poop, and we have never played better.'
They swept into the next movement, the 'cello booming nobly, and carried straight on without a pause, separating, joining, answering one another, with never a hesitation nor a false note until the full satisfaction of the end.
'Well done, well done,' said Dutourd: he and Martin were standing in the warm darkness abaft the lit companion, alone on the quarterdeck apart from Grainger and the men at the wheel. 'I had no idea they could play so well - no contention, no striving for pre-eminence - pray which is the 'cello?'
'Dr Maturin.'
'And Captain Aubrey the violin, of course: admirable tone, admirable bowing.'
Martin did not care for Dutourd in the gunroom: he thought that the Frenchman talked far too much, that he tended to harangue the company, and that his ideas though no doubt well-intended were pernicious. But en tete-a-tete Dutourd was an agreeable companion and Martin quite often took a turn on deck with him. 'You play yourself, sir, I collect?' he said.
'Yes. I may be said to play. I am not of the Captain's standard, but with some practice I believe I could play second fiddle to him without too much discredit.'
'Have you a violin with you?'
'Yes, yes. It is in my sea-chest. The man who repaired your viola renewed the pegs just before we set off from Molokai. Do you often play in the cabin?'
'I have done so, though I am an indifferent performer. I have taken part in quartets.'
'Quartets! What joy! That is living in the very heart of music.'
Chapter Four
The next morning Jack Aubrey came up from a conference, a pursers' conference with Mr Adams: Jack, like Cook and many a far-ranging captain before him, was nominally his own purser, just as Adams was nominally the captain's clerk; but by dividing the work between them they accomplished both it and their own specific duties quite well, particularly as the anomalous status of the Surprise meant that her accounts would never have to pass the slow, circumspect eyes of the Victualling Office, for whom all persons in charge of His Majesty's stores were guilty of embezzlement until with countersigned dockets of every conceivable nature they could prove their innocence. At this conference they
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