16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
however, nor was she apt to confide in anyone
but her physician, and she was packed off with
her husband in a prize bound for Batavia
amid general disapprobation. They were to go
home in an Indiaman, and there, perhaps,
Mrs Oakes would stay with Diana while her
husband returned to the sea: he was passionately
eager to succeed in the Navy.
Stephen thought about her most affectionately:
it was her courage that he most admired
– she had had a very hard life in London and
an appalling one in the convict settlement of
New South Wales, but she had borne up admirably,
retaining her own particular integrity:
no self-pity, no complaint. And although he
was aware that this courage might be accompanied
by a certain ferocity (she had been
transported for blowing a man's head off) he
did not find it affected his esteem.
As for her person, he liked that too: little evi-