He did not think of his neighbour again until the end of the movement, and then he avoided looking in his direction. 'The ill-looking son of a bitch, to give himself such airs.' With this almost the whole of his attention went back into the music he found his place in the pattern and followed it through its convolutions and quite charming arabesques to its satisfying, logical conclusion. 'About my own age, in fact, however,' thought Jack. It was difficult to tell his age, for not only had he that kind of face that does not give anything away, but he was wearing a wig, a grizzled wig, apparently made of wire, and quite devoid of powder: he might have been anything between twenty and sixty. A covert glance showed that he was a small, dark, white-faced creature in a rusty black coat – a civilian.
Only part of Jack's mind paid attention, for the rest of it was anchored to the man at his side.
The ruminative 'cello uttered two phrases of its own and then began a dialogue with the viola. His colour mounted he fixed his neighbour's pale eye for a moment, said, 'I trust… ',and the opening notes of the slow movement cut him short. Jack Aubrey's face instantly changed from friendly ingenuous communicative pleasure to an expression of somewhat baffled hostility: he could not but acknowledge that he had been beating the time and although he had certainly done so with perfect accuracy, in itself the thing was wrong. The words 'Very finely played, sir, I believe' were formed in his gullet if not quite in his mouth when he caught the cold and indeed inimical look and heard the whisper, 'If you really must beat the measure, sir, let me entreat you to do so in time, and not half a beat ahead.' He leant back in his chair, extinguishing it entirely, sighed happily and turned towards his neighbour with a smile. The high note came, the pause, the resolution and with the resolution the sailor's fist swept firmly down upon his knee. He was wearing his best uniform – the white-lapelled blue coat, white waistcoat, breeches and stockings of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, with the silver medal of the Nile in his buttonhole -and the deep white cuff of his gold-buttoned sleeve beat the time, while his bright blue eyes, staring from what would have been a pink-and-white face if it had not been so deeply tanned, gazed fixedly at the bow of the first violin. The listener farther to the left was a man of between twenty and thirty whose big form overflowed his seat, leaving only a streak of gilt wood to be seen here and there. And on the little gilt chairs at least some of the audience were following the rise with an equal intensity: there were two in the third row, on the left-hand side and they happened to be sitting next to one another. The players, Italians pinned against the far wall by rows and rows of little round gilt chairs, were playing with passionate conviction as they mounted towards the penultimate crescendo, towards the tremendous pause and the deep, liberating final chord. The music-room in the Governor's House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli's C major quartet. This brilliant historical novel marked the debut of a writer who grew into one of our greatest novelists ever, the author of what Alan Judd, writing in the Sunday Times, has described as 'the most significant extended story since Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time'. His power of characterisation is above all masterly. O'Brian's portrayal of each of these is faultless and the sense of period throughout is acute. It contains all the action and excitement which could possibly be hoped for in a historical novel, but it also displays the qualities which have put O'Brian far ahead of any of his competitors: his depiction of the detail of life aboard a Nelsonic man-of-war, of weapons, food, conversation and ambience, of the landscape and of the sea. It establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey RN and Stephen Maturin, who becomes his secretive ship's surgeon and an intelligence agent.
#Adze ship wing commander privateer series
Master and Commander is the first of Patrick O'Brian's now famous Aubrey/Maturin novels, regarded by many as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. Series: Aubrey-Maturin Master & Commander Patrick OBrian
0 kommentar(er)
