Post Captain (Aubrey & Maturin, #2)

by Patrick O'Brian

‘Get over, you – ,’ said the girl, in her pure clear young voice. Jack had never heard a girl say – before,

And then I fear he may not attend to the fifth commandment quite as he should.’ The girls’ faces took on an inward look as they privately ran over the Decalogue: in order of intelligence a little frown appeared on each as its owner reached the part about Sunday travelling, and then cleared as they carried on to the commandment the Admiral had certainly intended.

Frankie, you have dribbled chocolate all down your front; and if you eat so many rich pastries you will come out in spots, and then where will you be? No man will look at you.

‘Good morning, Maturin,’ said Diana, coming down the steps. ‘I hope I have not kept you waiting. What a neat cob you have there, upon my word! You never found him in this part of the world.’ ‘Good morning, Villiers. You are late. You are very late.’ ‘It is the one advantage there is in being a woman. You do know I am a woman, Maturin?’ ‘I am obliged to suppose it, since you affect to have no notion of time – cannot tell what o’clock it is. Though why the trifling accident of sex should induce a sentient being, let alone such an intelligent being as you, to waste half this beautiful clear morning, I cannot conceive. Come, let me help you to mount. Sex – sex . . .’ ‘Hush, Maturin. You must not use words like that here. It was bad enough yesterday.’ ‘Yesterday? Oh, yes. But I am not the first man to say that wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas. Far from it. It is a commonplace.’ ‘As far as my aunt is concerned you are certainly the first man who ever used such an expression in public.’

I will tell you a thing about women. They are superior to men in this, that they have an unfeigned, objective, candid admiration for good looks in other women – a real pleasure in their beauty.

How helpless a man is, against direct attack by a woman. As soon as she leaves the schoolroom a girl learns to fend off, ward off wild love; it becomes second nature; it offends no code; it is commended not only by the world but even by those very men who are thus repulsed. How different for a man! He has no such accumulated depth of armour; and the more delicate, the more gallant, the more “honourable” he is the less he is able to withstand even a remote advance. He must not wound: and in this case there is little inclination to wound.

Any innocent pleasure is a real good: there are not so many of them.’

‘Domestique, monsieur,’ said Jack, still blushing as far as his shirt. ‘Penhoët? Je préserve – je ai – le plus vivid rémembrance de vos combatte à Ushant, à bord le Pong, en vingt-quatre neuf.’ A second of attentive, polite but total blankness followed this, and turning to Christy-Pallière he said, ‘How do you say I have the liveliest recollection of Captain Penhoët’s gallant action off Ushant in ’99?’ Captain Christy-Pallière said this in another kind of French – renewed, far warmer smiles, another British shake-hand – and observed, ‘But we may all speak English. My colleague is one of our best translators.

‘You speak of loss of weight. But I find that you yourself are thin. Nay, cadaverous, if I may speak as one physician to another. You have a very ill breath; your hair, already meagre two years ago, is now extremely sparse; you belch frequently; your eyes are hollow and dim. This is not merely your ill-considered use of tobacco – a noxious substance that should be prohibited by government – and of laudanum. I should very much like to see your excrement.’ ‘You shall, my dear sir, you shall.

‘Privateers,’ said Jack, trying to shrug. ‘But what about those girls? What about the Miss Lambs?’ ‘They are dressed as men – as boys. I am not sure that they are altogether pleased with the success of their deception.’

‘It is dreadful to be unkind: one keeps remembering it.’

What are you drinking, Stephen?’ ‘Gin and water, cold.’ ‘What a God-forsaken melancholy tope. Let us call for champagne:

My mind, I say, wanders in this region, lost. I have no acquaintance with English family life, with English female family life: it is to me a region quite unknown.’

‘Sais pas, commandant. II parle plus: je crois bien que c’est un macchabée à présent. Y à du sang partout. Vous voulez pas me faire passer une élingue, commandant?’

But I am glad to hear what you tell me, about these sails. Perhaps now we shall hear less of selvagees and booms – the inner jib, the outer jib – nay, to crown all, the jibs of jibs, God forbid. Your mariner is an honest fellow, none better; but he is sadly given to jargon.

‘I hate women. They are entirely destructive. They drain a man, sap him, take away all his good: and none the better for it themselves.’ After a pause, ‘Nasty, nasty queans.’

There is so much ignorant prejudice against bees in a dining-room.’

he is only a man, and celibacy will never do for him.