16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
up. His advance had brought the door directly
in front of him, with the whole dispensary lit,
clear, and as it were in another world: there
was Martin, gravely mixing the last of his row
of draughts, and as Stephen watched he
raised the glass and drank it off.
Stephen rose to his feet and coughed. Martin
turned sharply. 'Good morning, sir,' he said,
whipping the glass under his apron. The greeting
was civil, but mechanically so, with no
spontaneous smile. He had obviously not forgotten
yesterday's unpleasantness and he appeared
both to resent his exclusion from the
passage to the Franklin and to expect resentment
on Stephen's part for his offensive remarks.
Stephen was in fact of a saturnine
temperament, as Martin knew: he could even
have been called revengeful, and he found it
difficult to forgive a slight. But there was more
than this; it was as though Martin had just es-