'Oh, clearly I must go,' said Stephen. 'There can be no question of that. Indeed, I have already taken the liberty of mentioning this possibility to my friend Aubrey: that is why I was so late - I stopped at his house for the purpose. I had much rather sail with him; I had much rather have him in the background than any stranger. He is a man of great experience, which as you so rightly observed is essential for an operation of this kind, a Ulysses by sea, whatever he may be by land; and he is at present both willing and able to go with me.'
'I am sure we are very much obliged to you, dear Maturin,' said Sir Joseph, shaking his hand. 'Very much obliged indeed. As for Aubrey, he would be ideal, always providing we can get round the difficulties of rank; sea- officers, you know, are wonderfully tenacious of their prerogatives, and the vessel we had in mind was only a sloop - but that is a mere detail. I am sure it can be dealt with.'
'Tell me,' said Stephen, after a silence, 'did Ponsich impose any conditions when he agreed to go to Grimsholm?'
'Yes, he did.'
'I wonder whether they were the same as mine. For I should require a clear understanding that in the event of my succeeding in the negotiation, the Catalan troops should not be regarded as prisoners of war, but that they should be carried to Spain as free men with their arms and baggage, and treated with proper regards. I should in any case need to be able to promise this, and I should be most unwilling to be disavowed: in fact, I should insist upon a categoric assurance.'
'I understand you perfectly. Of course, I cannot give the assurance: that must come from on high. But as Ponsich received an almost identical promise, I have no sort of doubt that it will be forthcoming.'
'Good. Very good. Have you any more documents that I should see?'
'Plans, plans and appreciations of the military position: nothing of real interest to you or me. Perhaps we might leave them until tomorrow, when the young man I have mentioned can explain his annotations: he has many talents, but writing a clear hand is not among them. In the meantime let us have a pot of coffee: I am longing to hear of Paris and your reception there.'
While he was away Stephen looked round the room. It had changed in some way, and after some moments he realized that the erotic bronzes and pictures had disappeared, and that vases of flowers stood here and there. 'Past three o'clock, and a dirty threatening night,' called the watchman in the street below, just as Blaine returned, 'looks mighty like a storm.'
They drank their pot; they drank the best part of a bottle of old pale brandy and talked of Paris. Stephen conveyed their friends' greetings and their presents. Sir Joseph asked civilly after the progress of Captain Aubrey's legal affairs, and rejoiced to hear that his suggestion had been of some use. And then, as Stephen was gathering himself to rise, he said, 'I wonder, Maturin, I wonder whether I might consult you as a physician?'
Stephen bowed, settled back in his chair, and said he should be happy.
'For some time past,' said Sir Joseph, fixing the coffee-pot with his gaze, 'for some time past, I have been contemplating marriage.'
'Marriage,' said Stephen in a neutral tone; for his patient seemed unable to get along - seemed almost to suppose that this was a sufficient description of his complaint.
'Yes,' said Blaine at last. 'Marriage. Liaisons are very well; indeed, very agreeable at times; but there is a certain shall I say restless sterility about them and in any case the lady in question is strictly virtuous. Yet perhaps I may have left it too late. Of recent months I have become most painfully aware of a certain - how shall I put it? Of a certain want of vigour, of a certain debility, as though I too should sing vixi puellis nuper idoneus. Is there nothing that physic can do in such a case, or is it inevitable at my age? I have passed Horace's lustra decem; yet I have heard tell of elixirs and drops.'
'It is not inevitable at all,' said Stephen. 'Consider Old Parr, the old, old, very old man. He married again, fruitfully, I believe, at a hundred and twenty-two; and if I do not mistake he was prosecuted for rape at an even later date. My colleague Beauprin, whom I had the pleasure of knowing in France, was only eighty when he married again, but his wife brought him sixteen children. Yet before I speak as a physician, may I ask you as a friend whether you have fully considered the wisdom of reviving these fires? When a man looks about him, surely he sees that in general the pain outweighs the pleasure? Your own Horace begged Venus to spare him - parce, precor, precor. Is not peace the greatest good? Calm rather than storms?
I once sailed with a young man well versed in Chinese, and I remember his quoting a passage from the Analects of Confucius in which the sage congratulated himself on having reached the time of obedient ears, the time at which he could do whatever his heart moved him to do without the least transgression of the moral law. And Origen, as you recall, struck off the offending member, and returned to purer contemplations, undisturbed.'
'I quite take your point, and a very cogent point it is; but you forget that I am speaking not of a loose, irregular connexion - it is marriage that I have in mind. Yet even if that were not the case, I should still ask for your help. I do not think that I am a man of an unusually warm temperament, a particularly amorous man; when I take off my shoes and stockings I do not see a satyr's leg. But since this weakness came upon me I find that I must always have looked at the more personable members of the sex with a certain eye, an appreciative, even a remotely concupiscent, a faintly hopeful eye; and with that eye extinguished, it is as though the spring of life were gone. I had no conception of its importance. You are younger than I am, Maturin, and it may be that you do not know from experience that the absence of a torment may be a worse torment still: you may wish to throw a hair-shirt aside, not realizing that it is the hair-shirt alone that keeps you warm.'
'A Nessus' shirt might be more apt,' said Stephen, quite unheard.
'And I must remind you that Origen's rash gesture was condemned by the second Council of Constantinople, together with many of his pernicious doctrines; that although St Augustine prayed for the gift of chastity he added the rider but not yet, oh Lord, doubtless feeling that where there was no temptation there was no corresponding virtue; and that the peace of which you speak has a close resemblance to death. We are all Stoics in the grave.'
'It shall be as you wish,' said Stephen. 'Yet before the consultation proper begins, I beg leave to observe, that the spectacle of a swimmer who has reached the edge of the Maelstrom, who can leave the vexed waters, the whirling turbulence, and who voluntarily plunges back again, is one that would have made my philosopher cry out in wonder.'
'Even if we grant that your sage knew the Maelstrom, which is extremely unlikely, we cannot push credulity so far as to suppose that he ever met anyone like Miss Blenkinsop: otherwise we should never have heard so much about these ears of his.'
Jack and Stephen did not meet for breakfast. There was no sign of Dr Maturin at all, and when Jack had twice
