16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
Dear bed again, a remote sense of prime being
sung; then an Indian lay-brother with a
basin of quite warm water; early Mass: and
breakfast in the small refectory. His
neighbours were the Vicar-General, who
greeted him kindly but who was taciturn at
most times and even more so in the morning,
and Father Gómez, who was not taciturn at
all, though from his impassive, markedly Indian
face – a brown Roman emperor – he
might well have been. He drank a large quantity
of maté from a gourd, observing, 'I know,
my dear sir, that it is a waste of time trying to
wean you from your coffee; but allow me to
pass you these dried apricots from Chile.
These dried Chilean apricots.' And after another
gourd he said, 'I remember too that you
spoke of your wish to see the high mountain,
and some of the great Inca buildings. This, of
course, is not the high mountain; yet it does