16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
scores, even hundreds of people a day, would
not remember a slight acquaintance of several
years ago – three or four meetings in Madame
Roland's salon before the war, at a time when
his republican principles had already caused
him to change his name from du Tourd to
Dutourd, and then two or three dinners during
the short-lived peace. Yet himself he would
have known Dutourd, a curiously striking man,
more full of life than most, giving the impression
of being physically larger than he was in
fact: an animated face, an easy rapid flow of
speech. Upright: head held high. These
thoughts presented themselves to his mind
while at the same time he registered the desolation
fore and aft, the tangle of sailcloth,
cordage and shattered spars, the demoralization
of the hands. Some few were still mechanically
pumping but most were either
drunk or reduced to a hopeless apathy.