H. M. S. Surprise by Patrick O'Brian

Author:Patrick O'Brian [O'Brian, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780393088465
Amazon: B006C3QKQW
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2011-11-01T06:00:00+00:00

STEPHEN WALKED into the silversmiths’ alley, a lane even narrower than most, with awnings spread against the fierce declining sun; the heat was filled with an incessant clicking, not unlike an insect stridulation. On either side of the alley the smiths worked at filigree, nose-rings, anklets, bracelets, stomachers, each in his open cupboard of a shop: some had braziers with pipes to direct the flame, and the smell of charcoal drifted along the ground.

He sat down to watch a boy polishing his work on a crazy wheel that splashed red liquid into the lane. ‘I am extremely unwilling that Dil should accompany me,’ he reflected, ‘and myself dressed in European clothes.’ The shadow of a Brahmin bull fell over him and the stall, making the brazier glow pink; it thrust its muzzle into his bosom, snuffled, and moved on. ‘I get so sick of lies: I have been surrounded with them and with deception in one form or another for so long. Disguise and subterfuge – a dangerous trade – the taint must come through at last. There are some, and Diana is one I believe, who have a separate truth of their own: ordinary people, Sophie and myself for example, are nothing without the ordinary truth, nothing at all. They die without it: without innocence and candour. Indeed the very great majority kill themselves long long before their time. Live as children; grow pale as adolescents; show a flash of life in love; die in their twenties and join the poor things that creep angry and restless about the earth. Dil is alive. This boy is living.’ For some time the boy, a creature with huge eyes, had been smiling at him between bracelets; they were well acquainted before Stephen said, ‘Boy wilt thou tell me the cost of those bracelets?’

‘Pandit,’ said the boy, his teeth flashing, ‘the truth is my mother and my father; I will not lie to thee. There are bracelets for every degree of wealth.’

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