He could sip his port and enjoy every drop of it, and when the glass should be empty he would walk through into the drawingroom where Barbara would be sitting reading, and waiting for him, beside another roaring fire. He had a wife who loved him, a wife whom the advancing years had strangely made more beautiful than in youth, the sinking of her cheeks calling attention to the magnificent modelling of the bones of her face, just as her white hair was in strange and lovely contrast with her straight back and effortless carriage. She was so beautiful, so gracious, and so dignified. It was the perfect final touch that lately she had had to wear spectacles for reading, which modified her dignity profoundly so that she always whipped them off when there was a chance of a stranger seeing her. Hornblower could smile again at the thought of it and take another sip of his port; it was better to love a woman than a goddess.

It was strange that he should be so happy and so secure, he who had known so much unhappiness, so much harassing uncertainty, so much peril, and so much hardship. Cannon ball and musket shot, drowning and disease, professional disgrace, and military execution; he had escaped by a hair’s breadth from them all. He had known the deepest private unhappiness, and now he knew the deepest happiness. He had endured poverty, even hunger, and now he had wealth and security. All very gratifying, said Hornblower to himself; even in his old age he could not address himself without a sneer. ‘Call no man happy until he is dead,’ said someone or other, and it was probably true. He was seventytwo, and yet there was still time for this dream that surrounded him to reveal itself as a dream, to change to a nightmare. Characteristically he had no sooner congratulated himself on his happiness than he began to wonder what would imperil it. Of course: full of good food and before this warm fire he had forgotten the turmoil the world was in.