Moby Dick

Herman Melville

Texts obtained from paragraph aligned version from Cybertextos, thanks to Miguel Garci-Gomez

Moby Dick

Herman

Melville

Chapter 1. Loomings

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs — commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see? — Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster — tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling And there they stand — miles of them — leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets avenues — north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?

Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries — stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies — what is the one charm wanting? — Water — there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick — grow quarrelsome — don’t sleep of nights — do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing; — no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook, — though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board — yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls; — though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bakehouses the pyramids.

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the fore-castle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about — however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way — either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid, — what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way — he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

“Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.

“WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.” 
“BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.”

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces — though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.

Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it — would they let me — since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.

Chapter 2. The Carpet-Bag

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolizing the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original — the Tyre of this Carthage; — the place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones — so goes the story — to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?

Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver, — So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the towards the north with the darkness towards the south — wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don’t be too particular.

With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of “The Crossed Harpoons” — but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further on, from the bright red windows of the “Sword-Fish Inn,” there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement, — rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t you hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns.

Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But “The Crossed Harpoons,” and the “The Sword-Fish?” — this, then must needs be the sign of “The Trap.” However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.

It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath — “The Spouter Inn: — Peter Coffin.”

Coffin? — Spouter? — Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.

It was a queer sort of place — a gable-ended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul’s tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. “In of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,” says an old writer — of whose works I possess the only copy extant — “it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier.” True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my mind — old black-letter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn’t stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it’s too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken wrapper — (he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.

But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in order to keep out this frost?

Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.

But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet, and see what sort of a place this “Spouter” may be.

Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn

Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.

But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through. — It’s the Black Sea in a midnight gale. — It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements. — It’s a blasted heath. — It’s a Hyperborean winter scene. — It’s the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture’s midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?

In fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.

The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping round like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon — so like a corkscrew now — was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the hump.

Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way — cut through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with fireplaces all round — you enter the public room. A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft’s cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide world’s remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den — the bar — a rude attempt at a right whale’s head. Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale’s jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums and death.

Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true cylinders without — within, the villanous green goggling glasses deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads’ goblets. Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a penny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass — the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for a shilling.

Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander. I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house was full — not a bed unoccupied. “But avast,” he added, tapping his forehead, “you haint no objections to sharing a harpooneer’s blanket, have ye? I s’pose you are goin’ a-whalin’, so you’d better get used to that sort of thing.”

I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with the half of any decent man’s blanket.

“I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper? — you want supper? Supper’ll be ready directly.”

I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but he didn’t make much headway, I thought.

At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland — no fire at all — the landlord said he couldn’t afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each in a winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey jackets, and hold to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half frozen fingers. But the fare was of the most substantial kind — not only meat and potatoes, but dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful manner.

“My boy,” said the landlord, “you’ll have the nightmare to a dead sartainty.”

“Landlord,” I whispered, “that aint the harpooneer is it?”

“Oh, no,” said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, “the harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don’t — he eats nothing but steaks, and he likes ‘em rare.”

“The devil he does,” says I. “Where is that harpooneer? Is he here?”

“He’ll be here afore long,” was the answer.

I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this “dark complexioned” harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into bed before I did.

Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when, knowing not what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the evening as a looker on.

Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord cried, “That’s the Grampus’s crew. I seed her reported in the offing this morning; a three years’ voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now we’ll have the latest news from the Feegees.”

A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, all bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the whale’s mouth — the bar — when the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the weather side of an ice-island.

The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously.

I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise as the rest. This man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a sleeping partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favorite with them, they raised a cry of “Bulkington! Bulkington! where’s Bulkington?” and darted out of the house in pursuit of him.

It was now about nine o’clock, and the room seeming almost supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance of the seamen.

No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don’t know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin.

The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woolen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight — how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?

“Landlord! I’ve changed my mind about that harpooneer. — I shan’t sleep with him. I’ll try the bench here.”

“Just as you please; I’m sorry I cant spare ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and it’s a plaguy rough board here” — feeling of the knots and notches. “But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I’ve got a carpenter’s plane there in the bar — wait, I say, and I’ll make ye snug enough.” So saying he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven’s sake to quit — the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study.

I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher than the planed one — so there was no yoking them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night.

The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn’t I steal a march on him — bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down!

Still looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending a sufferable night unless in some other person’s bed, I began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I’ll wait awhile; he must be dropping in before long. I’ll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after all — there’s no telling.

But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.

“Landlord! said I, “what sort of a chap is he — does he always keep such late hours?” It was now hard upon twelve o’clock.

The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. “No,” he answered, “generally he’s an early bird — airley to bed and airley to rise — yea, he’s the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out a peddling, you see, and I don’t see what on airth keeps him so late, unless, may be, he can’t sell his head.”

“Can’t sell his head? — What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are telling me?” getting into a towering rage. “Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town?”

“That’s precisely it,” said the landlord, “and I told him he couldn’t sell it here, the market’s overstocked.”

“With what?” shouted I.

“With heads to be sure; ain’t there too many heads in the world?”

“I tell you what it is, landlord,” said I quite calmly, “you’d better stop spinning that yarn to me — I’m not green.”

“May be not,” taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, “but I rayther guess you’ll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears you a slanderin’ his head.”

“I’ll break it for him,” said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord’s.

“It’s broke a’ready,” said he.

“Broke,” said I — “broke, do you mean?”

“Sartain, and that’s the very reason he can’t sell it, I guess.”

“Landlord,” said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a snowstorm — “landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow — a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I’ve no idea of sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly would thereby render yourself liable to a criminal prosecution.”

“Wall,” said the landlord, fetching a long breath, “that’s a purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin’ you of has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of ‘balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and he’s sold all on ‘em but one, and that one he’s trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow’s Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin’ human heads about the streets when folks is goin’ to churches. He wanted to last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin’ out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions.”

This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me — but at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolators?

“Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.”

“He pays reg’lar,” was the rejoinder. “But come, it’s a nice bed: Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There’s plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed; it’s an almighty big bed that. Why, afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. Arter that, Sal said it wouldn’t do. Come along here, I’ll give ye a glim in a jiffy;” and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a clock in the corner, he exclaimed “I vum it’s Sunday — you won’t see that harpooneer to-night; he’s come to anchor somewhere — come along then; do come; won’t ye come?”

I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four harpooneers to sleep abreast.

“There,” said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; “there, make yourself comfortable now; and good night to ye.” I turned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared.

Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a large seaman’s bag, containing the harpooneer’s wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed.

But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck.

I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought a little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now, half undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about the harpooneer’s not coming home at all that night, it being so very late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to the care of heaven.

Whether that mattress was stuffed with corncobs or broken crockery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room from under the door.

Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on the floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time while employed in unlacing the bag’s mouth. This accomplished, however, he turned round — when, good heavens; what a sight! Such a face! It was of a dark, purplish, yellow color, here and there stuck over with large blackish looking squares. Yes, it’s just as I thought, he’s a terrible bedfellow; he’s been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of a white man — a whaleman too — who, falling among the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all! It’s only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun’s tanning a white man into a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in the South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in the middle of a room, he then took the New Zealand head — a ghastly thing enough — and crammed it down into the bag. He now took off his hat — a new beaver hat — when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head — none to speak of at least — nothing but a small scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner.

Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this headpeddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.

Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were checkered with the same squares as his face, his back, too, was all over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years’ War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still more, his very legs were marked, as a parcel of dark green frogs were running up the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it. A peddler of heads too — perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might take a fancy to mine — heavens! look at that tomahawk!

But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactly the color of a three days’ old Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby preserved some similar manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board, sets up this little hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the andirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel for his Congo idol.

I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but ill at ease meantime — to see what was next to follow. First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places them carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit; then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock.

All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time, now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which I had so long been bound.

But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one. Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for an instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment the light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now; and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me.

Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my meaning.

“Who-e debel you?” — he at last said — “you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e.” And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the dark.

“Landlord, for God’s sake, Peter Coffin!” shouted I. “Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me!”

“Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!” again growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.

“Don’t be afraid now,” said he, grinning again, “Queequeg here wouldn’t harm a hair of your head.”

“Stop your grinning,” shouted I, “and why didn’t you tell me that that infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?”

“I thought ye know’d it; — didn’t I tell ye, he was a peddlin’ heads around town? — but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look here — you sabbee me, I sabbee — you this man sleepe you — you sabbee?”

“Me sabbee plenty” — grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and sitting up in bed.

“You gettee in,” he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal. What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself — the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

“Landlord,” said I, “tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will turn in with him. But I don’t fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. It’s dangerous. Besides, I ain’t insured.”

This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely motioned me to get into bed — rolling over to one side as much as to say — I won’t touch a leg of ye.”

“Good night, landlord,” said I, “you may go.”

I turned in, and never slept better in my life.

Chapter 4. The Counterpane

Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of odd little parti-colored squares and triangles; and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise shade — owing I suppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times — this same arm of his, I say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was hugging me.

My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me; whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other — I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless, — my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to bed, though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, the longest day in year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But there was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time, and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets.

I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too; the sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse and worse — at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself at her feet, beseeching her as a particular favor to give me a good slippering for my misbehaviour: anything indeed but condemning me to lie abed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and slowly waking from it — half steeped in dreams — I opened my eyes, and the before sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself with it.

Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in the strangeness, to those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg’s pagan arm thrown round me. But at length all the past night’s events soberly recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm — unlock his bridegroom clasp — yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse him — “Queequeg!” — but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleeping by the savage’s side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange house in the broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! “Queequeg! — in the name of goodness, Queequeg, wake!” At length, by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if he did not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim consciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature. When, at last, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon the floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness; staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, a man like Queequeg you don’t see every day, he and his ways were well worth unusual regarding.

He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one, by the by, and then — still minus his trowsers — he hunted up his boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his next movement was to crush himself — boots in hand, and hat on — under the bed; when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was hard at work booting himself; though by no law of propriety that I ever heard of, is any man required to be private when putting on his boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition stage — neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At last, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over his eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not being much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide ones — probably not made to order either — rather pinched and tormented him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning.

Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on; I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time in the morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg, to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers’s best cutlery with a vengeance. Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came to know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept.

The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting his harpoon like a marshal’s baton.

Chapter 5. Breakfast

I quickley followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my bedfellow.

However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more’s the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and to be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.

The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning gowns.

You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This young fellow’s healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and would seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been three days landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades lighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In the complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached withal; he doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who could show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints, seemed like the Andes’ western slope, to show forth in one array, contrasting climates, zone by zone.

“Grub, ho!” now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went to breakfast.

They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though: Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch one; of all men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the negro heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo’s performances — this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social polish. Still, for the most part, that sort of thing is to be had anywhere.

These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance that after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise nearly every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas — entire strangers to them — and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here they sat at a social breakfast table — all of the same calling, all of kindred tastes — looking round as sheepishly at each other as though they had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains. A curious sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen!

But as for Queequeg — why, Queequeg sat there among them — at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. But that was certainly very coolly done by him, and every one knows that in most people’s estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly.

We will not speak of all Queequeg’s peculiarities here; how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew like the rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied out for a stroll.

Chapter 6. The Street

If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors; in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare.

But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife. Here comes another with a sou’-wester and a bombazine cloak. Pero, además de los fidjianos, tongotaburianos, erromangoanos, pannangianos y brighgianos, y además de los disparatados ejemplares de la ballenería que se bambolean inadvertidos por las calles, se ven otros espectáculos aún más curiosos, y ciertamente más cómicos. Todas las semanas llegan a esta ciudad docenas de hombres de Vermont y New Hampshire, aún muy verdes, y llenos de sed de ganancia y gloria en la pesquería. Suelen ser jóvenes, de tipos macizos; mozos que han talado bosques y ahora pretenden dejar el hacha y empuñar el arpón. Muchos están verdes como las Montañas Verdes de que proceden. En algunas cosas, se creería que acaban de nacer. ¡Mirad ahí, ese muchacho que presume en la esquina! Lleva un sombrero de castor y una levita de cola de golondrina, ceñida con un cinturón de marinero y un machete como vaina. Ahí viene otro con un sueste y un capote de alepín.

No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one — I mean a downright bumpkin dandy — a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps, buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest.

But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?

Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples — long avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces ot flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation’s final day.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.

Chapter 7. The Chapel

In the same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman’s Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not.

Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors’ wives and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not pretend to quote:

Sacred To the Memory of 
JOHN TALBOT, 
Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard 
Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia 
November 1st, 1986. 
This Tablet Is erected to his Memory 
By his Sister. 
Sacred To the Memory of 
ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, 
NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, 
SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, 
Forming one of the boats' crews of 
the Ship Eliza 
Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, 
On the Off-shore Ground in the Pacific, 
December 31st, 1839. 
This Marble Is here placed by their surviving 
Shipmates. 
Sacred To the Memory of 
The late 
CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY,l. 
Who in the bows of his boat was killed by al. 
Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, 
August 3rd, 1833. 
This Tablet Is erected to his Memory by 
His Widow.

Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not; but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh.

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flowers can say — here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here.

In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands! how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems — aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling — a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.

Chapter 8. The Pulpit

I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he was a very great favorite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom — the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No one having previously heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner; when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit.

Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the floor, seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and stained with a mahogany color, the whole contrivance, considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel.

The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship, these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his little Quebec.

I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this. Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober reason for this thing; furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen. Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold — a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the walls.

But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place, borrowed from the chaplain’s former sea-farings. Between the marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel’s face; and this bright face shed a distant spot of radiance upon the ship’s tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into Victory’s plank where Nelson fell. “Ah, noble ship,” the angel seemed to say, “beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling off — serenest azure is at hand.”

Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed beak.

What could be more full of meaning? — for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

Chapter 9. The Sermon

Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered the scattered people to condense. “Star board gangway, there! side away to larboard — larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!”

There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women’s shoes, and all was quiet again, and every eye on the preacher.

He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit’s bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.

This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog — in such tones he commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy —

The ribs and terrors in the whale, 
Arched over me a dismal gloom, 
While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by, 
And lift me deepening down to doom. 
I saw the opening maw of hell, 
With endless pains and sorrows there; 
Which none but they that feel can tell- 
Oh, I was plunging to despair. 
In black distress, I called my God, 
When I could scarce believe him mine, 
He bowed his ear to my complaints- 
No more the whale did me confine. 
With speed he flew to my relief, 
As on a radiant dolphin borne; 
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone 
The face of my Deliverer God. 
My song for ever shall record 
That terrible, that joyful hour; 
I give the glory to my God, 
His all the mercy and the power.

Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: “Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah — ‘And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.’”

“Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters — four yarns — is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul Jonah’s deep sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging over us, we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God — never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed — which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do — remember that — and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

“With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men, will carry him into countries where God does not reign but only the Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that’s bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That’s the opinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God? Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, self-condemning in his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he’s a fugitive! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag, — no friends accompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger’s evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious way, one whispers to the other — “Jack, he’s robbed a widow;” or, “Joe, do you mark him; he’s a bigamist;” or, “Harry lad, I guess he’s the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom.” Another runs to read the bill that’s stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the apprenhension of a parricide, and containing a description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frightened Jonah trembles. and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected; but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it; and when the sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin.

“’Who’s there?’ cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers for the Customs — ‘Who’s there?’ Oh! how that harmless question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. But he rallies. ‘I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon sail ye, sir?’ Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah, though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. ‘We sail with the next coming tide,’ at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing him. ‘No sooner, sir?’ — ‘Soon enough for any honest man that goes a passenger.’ Ha! Jonah, that’s another stab. But he swiftly calls away the Captain from that scent. ‘I’ll sail with ye,’ — he says, — ‘the passage money how much is that? — I’ll pay now.’ For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, ‘that he paid the fare thereof’ ere the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning.

“Now Jonah’s Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah’s Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah’s purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it’s assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any way, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his passage. ‘Point out my state-room, Sir,’ says Jonah now, ‘I’m travel-weary; I need sleep.’ ‘Thou lookest like it,’ says the Captain, ‘there’s thy room.’ Jonah enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly to himself, and mutters something about the doors of convicts’ cells being never allowed to be locked within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds the little state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship’s water-line, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bowels’ wards.

“Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly oscillates in Jonah’s room; and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity with reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. ‘Oh! so my conscience hangs in me!’ he groans, ‘straight upwards, so it burns; but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!’

“Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there’s naught to staunch it; so, after sore wrestling in his berth, Jonah’s prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep.

“And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will not bare the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah’s head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship — a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, ‘What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!’ Startled from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the tormented deep.

“Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, they all-outward to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah’s; that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their questions. ‘What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him.

“’I am a Hebrew,’ he cries — and then — ‘I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!’ Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts, — when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.

“And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea is as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out of the fish’s belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah.”

While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, when describing Jonah’s sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.

There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself.

But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these words:

“Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along ‘into the midst of the seas,’ where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and ‘the weeds were wrapped about his head,’ and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet — ‘out of the belly of hell’ — when the whale grounded upon the ocean’s utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and ‘vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;’ when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten — his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean — Jonah did the Almighty’s bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!

“This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!

He drooped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm, — “But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to him — a far, far upward, and inward delight — who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight, — top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breath — O Father! — chiefly known to me by Thy rod — mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world’s, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?”

He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, and he was left alone in the place.

Chapter 10. A Bosom Friend

Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish way.

But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth page — as I fancied — stopping for a moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was only by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited.

With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face — at least to my taste — his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington’s head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.

Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my presence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems as Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is — which was the only way he could get there — thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he must have “broken his digester.”

As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last night’s hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented.

We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it regularly passing between us.

If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan’s breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those old rules would not apply.

After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers’ pockets. I let them stay. He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed the paper firebrand. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise.

I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth — pagans and all included — can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship? — to do the will of God? that is worship. And what is the will of God? — to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me — that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat.

How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg — a cosy, loving pair.

Chapter 11. Nightgown

We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future.

Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the headboard with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if our knee-pans were warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blankets between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated twelve-o’clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; and besides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord’s policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp.

Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island; and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give.

Chapter 12. Biographical

Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down on any map; true places never are.

When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins — royal stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth.

A Sag Harbor ship visited his father’s bay, and Queequeg sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father’s influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.

In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage — this sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain’s cabin. They put him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening his untutored countrymen. For at bottom — so he told me — he was actuated by a profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his people still happier than they were; and more than that, still better than they were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon convinced him that even Christians could be both miserable and wicked; infinitely more so, than all his father’s heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailors did there; and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it’s a wicked world in all meridians; I’ll die a pagan.

And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from home.

By hints I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return, — as soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.

I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap; with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as known to merchant seamen.

His story being ended with his pipe’s last dying puff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were sleeping.

Chapter 13. Wheelbarrow

Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my comrade’s money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between me and Queequeg — especially as Peter Coffin’s cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person whom I now companied with.

We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg’s canvas sack and hammock, away we went down to “the Moss,” the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at Queequeg so much — for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their streets, — but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet he had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In short, like many reapers and mowers, who go into the farmer’s meadows armed with their own scythes — though in no wise obliged to furnish them — even so, Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.

Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the thing — though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrow — Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. “Why,” said I, “Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would think. Didn’t the people laugh?”

Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander — from all accounts, a very stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain — this commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg’s sister, a pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding guests were assembled at the bride’s bamboo cottage, this Captain marches in, and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself over against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the King, Queequeg’s father. Grace being said, — for those people have their grace as well as we — though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such times look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying the ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts — Grace, I say, being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers into the bowl before the blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking himself — being Captain of a ship — as having plain precedence over a mere island King, especially in the King’s own house — the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the punch bowl; — taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass. “Now,” said Queequeg, “what you tink now? — Didn’t our people laugh?”

At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.

Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air! — how I spurned that turnpike earth! — that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records.

At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed teeth. On, on we flew, and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so companionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who, by their intense greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin’s hour of doom was come. Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost miraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the air; then slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a puff.

“Capting! Capting! yelled the bumpkin, running toward that officer; “Capting, Capting, here’s the devil.”

“Hallo, you sir,” cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking up to Queequeg, “what in thunder do you mean by that? Don’t you know you might have killed that chap?”

“What him say?” said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me.

“He say,” said I, “that you came near kill-e that man there,” pointing to the still shivering greenhorn.

“Kill-e,” cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly expression of disdain, “ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!”

“Look you,” roared the Captain, “I’ll kill-e you, you cannibal, if you try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye.”

But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done; those on deck rushed toward the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at the grand and glorious but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Queequeg, now took an instant’s glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the other dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive.

Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He only asked for water — fresh water — something to wipe the brine off; that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying to himself — “It’s a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians.”

Chapter 14. Nantucket

Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.

Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it — a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don’t grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day’s walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up, belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by the ocean, that to the very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering as to the backs of sea turtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.

Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle swooped down upon the New England coast and carried off an infant Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket, — the poor little Indian’s skeleton.

What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quahogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world; put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at Behring’s Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea, Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious assaults!

And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer’s. For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right of way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road. they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home; there lies his business which a Noah’s flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.

Chapter 15. Chowder

It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the directions hc had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was; these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse — our first point of departure — must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceful inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking.

Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses’ ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It’s ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel, and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?

I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt.

“Get along with ye,” said she to the man, “or I’ll be combing ye!”

“Come on, Queequeg,” said I, “all right. There’s Mrs. Hussey.”

And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said — “Clam or Cod?”

“What’s that about Cods, ma’am?” said I, with much politeness.

“Clam or Cod?” she repeated.

“A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?” says I, “but that’s a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time, ain’t it, Mrs. Hussey?”

But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple shirt who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word “clam,” Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out “clam for two,” disappeared.

“Queequeg,” said I, “do you think that we can make a supper for us both on one clam?”

However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey’s clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word “cod” with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.

We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? What’s that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? “But look, Queequeg, ain’t that a live eel in your bowl? Where’s your harpoon?”

Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account books bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen’s boats, I saw Hosea’s brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod’s decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assure ye.

Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. “Why not? said I; “every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon — but why not?” “Because it’s dangerous,” says she. “Ever since young Stiggs coming from that unfort’nt v’y’ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found dead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg” (for she had learned his name), “I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men?”

“Both,” says I; “and let’s have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety.”

Chapter 16. The Ship

In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been diligently consulting Yojo — the name of his black little god — and Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg.

I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great confidence in the excellence of Yojo’s judgment and surprising forecast of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs.

Now, this plan of Queequeg’s or rather Yojo’s, touching the selection of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little relied upon Queequeg’s sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce; and accordingly prepared to set about this business with a determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up with in our little bedroom — for it seemed that it was some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that day; how it was I never could find out, for, though I applied myself to it several times, I never could master his liturgies and IX Articles — leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After much prolonged sauntering, and many random inquiries, I learnt that there were three ships up for three-years’ voyages — The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. Devil-dam, I do not know the origin of; Tit-bit is obvious; Pequod you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for us.

You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I know; — square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull’s complexion was darkened like a French grenadier’s, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts — cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale — her masts stood stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to the wild business that for more than half a century she had followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one of the principal owners of the Pequod, — this old Peleg, during the term of his chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device, unmatched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake’s carved buckler or bedstead. She was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller; and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.

Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem’s head. A triangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded a complete view forward.

And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and the ship’s work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all over with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was constructed.

There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style; only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest wrinkles interlacing round eyes, which must have arisen from his continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to windward; — for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.

“Is this the Captain of the Pequod?” said I, advancing to the door of the tent.

“Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of him?” he demanded.

“I was thinking of shipping.”

“Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer — ever been in a stove boat?”

“No, Sir, I never have.”

“Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say — eh?

“Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I’ve been several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that-”

“Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that leg? — I’ll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of the merchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh? — it looks a little suspicious, don’t it, eh? — Hast not been a pirate, hast thou? — Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou? — Dost not think of murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?”

I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the Vineyard.

“But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of shipping ye.”

“Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world.”

“Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?”

“Who is Captain Ahab, sir?”

“Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship.”

“I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself.”

“Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg — that’s who ye are speaking to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one leg.”

“What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?”

“Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a boat! — ah, ah!”

I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I could, “What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident.”

“Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d’ye see; thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye’ve been to sea before now; sure of that?”

“Sir,” said I, “I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the merchant-”

“Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant service — don’t aggravate me — I won’t have it. But let us understand each other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is! do ye yet feel inclined for it?”

“I do, sir.”

“Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale’s throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!”

“I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to be got rid of, that is; which I don’t take to be the fact.”

“Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the weather bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there.”

For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow’s feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand.

Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I could see.

“Well, what’s the report?” said Peleg when I came back; “what did ye see?”

“Not much,” I replied — “nothing but water; considerable horizon though, and there’s a squall coming up, I think.”

“Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can’t ye see the world where you stand?”

I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the Pequod was as good a ship as any — I thought the best — and all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness to ship me.

“And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off,” he added — “come along with ye.” And so saying, he led the way below deck into the cabin.

Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad who along with Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest.

Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.

So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture names — a singularly common fashion on the island — and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature’s sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language — that man makes one in a whole nation’s census — a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another; and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances.

Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg — who cared not a rush for what are called serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the veriest of all trifles — Captain Bildad had not only been originally educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn — all that had not moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common consistency about worthy Captain Peleg. Though refusing, from conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a little cabin boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header, chief mate, and captain, and finally a shipowner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income.

Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew, upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used to swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-colored eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something — a hammer or a marrling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like that worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.

Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks was small; and there, bolt upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, and never leaned, and this to save his coat-tails. His broad-brim was placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a ponderous volume.

“Bildad,” cried Captain Peleg, “at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?”

As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate, Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.

“He says he’s our man, Bildad,” said Peleg, “he wants to ship.”

“Dost thee?” said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me.

“I dost,” said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.

“What do ye think of him, Bildad?” said Peleg.

“He’ll do,” said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.

I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg, his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest, and drawing forth the ship’s articles, placed pen and ink before him, and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time to settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for the voyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship’s company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own lay would not be very large; but considering that I was used to the sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay — that is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was what they call a rather long lay, yet it was better than nothing; and if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out on it, not to speak of my three years’ beef and board, for which I would not have to pay one stiver.

It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely fortune — and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those who never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought the 275th lay would be about the fair thing, but would not have been surprised had I been offered the 200th, considering I was of a broad-shouldered make.

But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad; how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship’s affairs to these two. And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth-”

“Well, Captain Bildad,” interrupted Peleg, “what d’ye say, what lay shall we give this young man?”

“Thou knowest best,” was the sepulchral reply, “the seven hundred and seventy-seventh wouldn’t be too much, would it? — ‘where moth and rust do corrupt, but lay-’”

Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust do corrupt. It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and though from the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a teenth of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and seventy-seventh part of a forthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time.

“Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,” cried Peleg, “thou dost not want to swindle this young man! he must have more than that.”

“Seven hundred and seventy-seventh,” again said Bildad, without lifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling — “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

“I am going to put him down for the three hundredth,” said Peleg, “do ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say.”

Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said, “Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship — widows and orphans, many of them — and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those orphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg.”

“Thou Bildad!” roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the cabin. “Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn.”

“Captain Peleg,” said Bildad steadily, “thy conscience may be drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can’t tell; but as thou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg.”

“Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye insult me. It’s an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that he’s bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and start my soulbolts, but I’ll — I’ll — yes, I’ll swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-colored son of a wooden gun — a straight wake with ye!”

As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.

Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. “Whew!” he whistled at last — “the squall’s gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs the grindstone. That’s he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, Ishmael’s thy name, didn’t ye say? Well then, down ye go here, for the three hundredth lay.”

“Captain Peleg,” said I, “I have a friend with me who wants to ship too — shall I bring him down to-morrow?”

“To be sure,” said Peleg. “Fetch him along, and we’ll look at him.”

“What lay does he want?” groaned Bildad, glancing up from the Book in which he had again been burying himself.

“Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad,” said Peleg. “Has he ever whaled it any?” turning to me.

“Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg.”

“Well, bring him along then.”

And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I had done a good morning’s work, and that the Pequod was the identical ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape.

But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though, indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and receive all her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by arriving to take command; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the shore intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain have family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he does not trouble himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to have a look at him before irrevocably committing yourself into his hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found.

“And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It’s all right enough; thou art shipped.”

“Yes, but I should like to see him.”

“But I don’t think thou wilt be able to at present. I don’t know exactly what’s the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the house; a sort of sick, and yet he don’t look so. In fact, he ain’t sick; but no, he isn’t well either. Any how, young man, he won’t always see me, so I don’t suppose he will thee. He’s a queer man, Captain Ahab — so some think — but a good one. Oh, thou’lt like him well enough; no fear, no fear. He’s a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn’t speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab’s above the common; Ahab’s been in colleges, as well as ‘mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he ain’t Captain Bildad; no, and he ain’t Captain Peleg; he’s Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!”

“And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did they not lick his blood?”

“Come hither to me — hither, hither,” said Peleg, with a significance in his eye that almost startled me. “Look ye, lad; never say that on board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself .’Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It’s a lie. I know Captain Ahab well; I’ve sailed with him as mate years ago; know what he is — a good man — not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing good man — something like me — only there’s a good deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on the passage home he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought that about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he’s been a kind of moody — desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one. So good-bye to thee — and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife — not three voyages wedded — a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that old man had a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!”

As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then. However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.

Chapter 17. The Ramadan

As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name.

I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan; — but what of that? Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all — Presbyterians and Pagans alike — for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.

Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and rituals must be over, I went to his room and knocked at the door; but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened inside. “Queequeg,” said I softly through the key-hole: — all silent. “I say, Queequeg! why don’t you speak? It’s I — Ishmael.” But all remained still as before. I began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant time; I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through the key-hole; but the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the key-hole prospect was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the foot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of Queequeg’s harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous had taken from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That’s strange, thought I; but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he seldom or never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside here, and no possible mistake.

“Queequeg! — Queequeg!” — all still. Something must have happened. Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornly resisted. Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the first person I met — the chamber-maid. “La! la!” she cried, “I thought something must the matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was locked; and not a mouse to be heard; and it’s been just so silent ever since. But I thought, may be, you had both gone off and locked your baggage in for safe keeping. La! la, ma’am! — Mistress! murder! Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy!” — and with these cries she ran towards the kitchen, I following.

Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime.

“Wood-house!” cried I, “which way to it? Run for God’s sake, and fetch something to pry open the door — the axe! — the axe! he’s had a stroke; depend upon it!” — and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance.

“What’s the matter with you, young man?”

“Get the axe! For God’s sake, run for the doctor, some one, while I pry it open!”

“Look here,” said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegar-cruet, so as to have one hand free; “look here; are you talking about prying open any of my doors?” — and with that she seized my arm. “What’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with you, shipmate?”

In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant; then exclaimed — “No! I haven’t seen it since I put it there.” Running to a little closet under the landing of the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told me that Queequeg’s harpoon was missing. “He’s killed himself,” she cried. “It’s unfort’nate Stiggs done over again there goes another counterpane — God pity his poor mother! — it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister? Where’s that girl? — there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with — “no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;” — might as well kill both birds at once. Kill? The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What’s that noise there? You, young man, avast there!”

And running after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force open the door.

“I won’t allow it; I won’t have my premises spoiled. Go for the locksmith, there’s one about a mile from here. But avast!” putting her hand in her side pocket, “here’s a key that’ll fit, I guess; let’s see.” And with that, she turned it in the lock; but alas! Queequeg’s supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within.

“Have to burst it open,” said I, and was running down the entry a little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her, and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark.

With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob slamming against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; and there, good heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool on his hams, and holding Yojo on top of his head. He looked neither one way nor the other way but sat like a carved image with scarce a sign of active life.

“Queequeg,” said I, going up to him, “Queequeg, what’s the matter with you?”

“He hain’t been a sittin’ so all day, has he?” said the landlady.

But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally constrained; especially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upwards of eight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals.

“Mrs. Hussey,” said I, “he’s alive at all events; so leave us, if you please, and I will see to this strange affair myself.”

Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all he could do — for all my polite arts and blandishments — he would not move a peg, nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice my presence in the slightest way.

I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan; do they fast on their hams that way in his native land. It must be so; yes, it’s a part of his creed, I suppose; well, then, let him rest; he’ll get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can’t last for ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes once a year; and I don’t believe it’s very punctual then.

I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the long stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage, as they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig, confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only); after listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o’clock, I went up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no; there he was just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch. I began to grow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane to be sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold room, holding a piece of wood on his head.

“For heaven’s sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and have some supper. You’ll starve; you’ll kill yourself, Queequeg.” But not a word did he reply.

Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep; and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw it over him, as it promised to be a very cold night; and he had nothing but his ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could not get into the faintest doze. I had blown out the candle; and the mere thought of Queequeg — not four feet off — sitting there in that uneasy position, stark alone in the cold and dark; this made me really wretched. Think of it; sleeping all night in the same room with a wide awake pagan on his hams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan!

But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break of day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as if he had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff grating joints, but with a cheerful look; limped towards me where I lay; pressed his forehead again against mine; and said his Ramadan was over.

Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.

And just so I now did with Queequeg. “Queequeg,” said I, “get into bed now, and lie and listen to me.” I then went on, beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the spirit caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be half-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.

I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a great feast given by his father the king on the gaining of a great battle wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o’clock in the afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening.

“No more, Queequeg,” said I, shuddering; “that will do;” for I knew the inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a sailor who had visited that very island, and he told me that it was the custom, when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all the slain in the yard or garden of the victor; and then, one by one, they were placed in great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau, with breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with some parsley in their mouths, were sent round with the victor’s compliments to all his friends, just as though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys.

After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered from his own point of view; and, in the second place, he did not more than one third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would; and, finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety.

At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones.

Chapter 18. His Mark

As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, unless they previously produced their papers.

“What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?” said I, now jumping on the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf.

“I mean,” he replied, “he must show his papers.”

“Yes,” said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from behind Peleg’s, out of the wigwam. “He must show that he’s converted. Son of darkness,” he added, turning to Queequeg, “art thou at present in communion with any Christian church?”

“Why,” said I, “he’s a member of the first Congregational Church.” Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at last come to be converted into the churches.

“First Congregational Church,” cried Bildad, “what! that worships in Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman’s meeting-house?” and so saying, taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at Queequeg.

“How long hath he been a member?” he then said, turning to me; “not very long, I rather guess, young man.”

“No,” said Peleg, “and he hasn’t been baptized right either, or it would have washed some of that devil’s blue off his face.”

“Do tell, now,” cried Bildad, “is this Philistine a regular member of Deacon Deuteronomy’s meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass it every Lord’s day.”

“I don’t know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,” said I; “all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is.”

“Young man,” said Bildad sternly, “thou art skylarking with me — explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me.”

Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied, “I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother’s son and soul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in that we all join hands.”

“Splice, thou mean’st splice hands,” cried Peleg, drawing nearer. “Young man, you’d better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast hand; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy — why Father Mapple himself couldn’t beat it, and he’s reckoned something. Come aboard, come aboard: never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there — what’s that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what a harpoon he’s got there! looks like good stuff that; and he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?”

Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his harpoon, cried out in some such way as this: —

“Cap’ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well, spose him one whale eye, well, den!” and taking sharp aim at it, he darted the iron right over old Bildad’s broad brim, clean across the ship’s decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight.

“Now,” said Queequeg, quietly, hauling in the line, “spos-ee him whale-e eye; why, dad whale dead.”

“Quick, Bildad,” said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway. “Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship’s papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, we’ll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that’s more than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket.”

So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon enrolled among the same ship’s company to which I myself belonged.

When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for signing, he turned to me and said, “I guess, Quohog there don’t know how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name or make thy mark?

But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so that through Captain Peleg’s obstinate mistake touching his appellative, it stood something like this: —

Quohog. 
his X mark.

Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg, and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his broadskirted drab coat took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one entitled “The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose,” placed it in Queequeg’s hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, “Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit!”

Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad’s language, heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases.

“Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,” Peleg. “Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers — it takes the shark out of ‘em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case he got stove and went to Davy Jones.”

“Peleg! Peleg!” said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, “thou thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can’st thou prate in this ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did’st thou not think of Death and the Judgment then?”

“Hear him, hear him now,” cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets, — “hear him, all of ye. Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! Death and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to think about death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking of; and how to save all hands how to rig jury-masts how to get into the nearest port; that was what I was thinking of.”

Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which otherwise might have been wasted.

Chapter 19. The Prophet

“Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?”

Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent smallpox had in all directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up.

“Have ye shipped in her?” he repeated.

“You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose,” said I, trying to gain a little more time for an uninterrupted look at him.

“Aye, the Pequod — that ship there,” he said, drawing back his whole arm and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him-, with the fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object.

“Yes,” said I, “we have just signed the articles.”

“Anything down there about your souls?”

“About what?”

“Oh, perhaps you hav’n’t got any,” he said quickly. “No matter though, I know many chaps that hav’n’t got any, — good luck to ‘em; and they are all the better off for it. A soul’s a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon.”

“What are you jabbering about, shipmate?” said I.

“He’s got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that sort in other chaps,” abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis upon the word he.

“Queequeg,” said I, “let’s go; this fellow has broken loose from somewhere; he’s talking about something and somebody we don’t know.”

“Stop!” cried the stranger. “Ye said true — ye hav’n’t seen Old Thunder yet, have ye?”

“Who’s Old Thunder?” said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness of his manner.

“Captain Ahab.”

“What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?”

“Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye hav’n’t seen him yet, have ye?”

“No, we hav’n’t. He’s sick they say, but is getting better, and will be all right again before long.”

“All right again before long!” laughed the stranger, with a solemnly derisive sort of laugh. “Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then this left arm of mine will be all right; not before.”

“What do you know about him?”

“What did they tell you about him? Say that!”

“They didn’t tell much of anything about him; only I’ve heard that he’s a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew.”

“That’s true, that’s true — yes, both true enough. But you must jump when he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go — that’s the word with Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights; nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in Santa? — heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn’t ye hear a word about them matters and something more, eh? No, I don’t think ye did; how could ye? Who knows it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows’ever, mayhap, ye’ve heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare say. Oh, yes, that every one knows a’most — I mean they know he’s only one leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off.”

“My friend,” said I, “what all this gibberish of yours is about, I don’t know, and I don’t much care; for it seems to me that you must be a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about the loss of his leg.”

“All about it, eh — sure you do? all?

“Pretty sure.”

With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting a little, turned and said: — “Ye’ve shipped, have ye? Names down on the papers? Well, well, what’s signed, is signed; and what’s to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it won’t be, after all. Any how, it’s all fixed and arranged already; and some sailors or other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity ‘em! Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I’m sorry I stopped ye.”

“Look here, friend,” said I, “if you have anything important to tell us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are mistaken in your game; that’s all I have to say.”

“And it’s said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way; you are just the man for him — the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates, morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell ‘em I’ve concluded not to make one of ‘em.”

“Ah, my dear fellow, you can’t fool us that way — you can’t fool us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.”

“Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.”

“Morning it is,” said I. “Come along, Queequeg, let’s leave this crazy man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?”

“Elijah.”

Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each other’s fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us, though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner that we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us, but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments and half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain Ahab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver calabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship the day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy things.

I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg, and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.

Chapter 20. All Astir

A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything betokened that the ship’s preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing and providing at the stores; and the men employed in the hold and on the rigging were working till long after night-fall.

On the day following Queequeg’s signing the articles, word was given at all the inns where the ship’s company were stopping, that their chests must be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps, resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail for several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be done, and there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod was fully equipped.

Every one knows what a multitude of things — beds, sauce-pans, knives and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling, which necessitates a three-years’ housekeeping upon the wide ocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And though this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote harbors usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whaling vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and especially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare Captain and duplicate ship.

At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread, water, fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and ends of things, both large and small.

Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain Bildad’s sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if she could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a jar of pickles for the steward’s pantry; another time with a bunch of quills for the chief mate’s desk, where he kept his log; a third time with a roll of flannel for the small of some one’s rheumatic back. Never did any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity — Aunt Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of well-saved dollars.

But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring back into his wigwam.

During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and when he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected aboard every day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing, and tried to think nothing.

At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early start.

Chapter 21. Going Aboard

It was nearly six o’clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we drew nigh the wharf.

“There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right,” said I to Queequeg, “it can’t be shadow; she’s off by sunrise, I guess; come on!”

“Avast!” cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating himself between us, stood stooping forward a little, in the uncertain twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was Elijah.

“Going aboard?”

“Hands off, will you,” said I.

“Lookee here,” said Queequeg, shaking himself, “go ‘way!”

“Aint going aboard, then?”

“Yes, we are,” said I, “but what business is that of yours? Do you know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?”

“No, no, no; I wasn’t aware of that,” said Elijah, slowly and wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable glances.

“Elijah,” said I, “you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing. We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to be detained.”

“Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?”

“He’s cracked, Queequeg,” said I, “come on.”

“Holloa!” cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed a few paces.

“Never mind him,” said I, “Queequeg, come on.”

But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my shoulder, said — “Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that ship a while ago?”

Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, “Yes, I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be sure.”

“Very dim, very dim,” said Elijah. “Morning to ye.”

Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us; and touching my shoulder again, said, “See if you can find ‘em now, will ye?

“Find who?”

“Morning to ye! morning to ye!” he rejoined, again moving off. “Oh! I was going to warn ye against — but never mind, never mind — it’s all one, all in the family too; — sharp frost this morning, ain’t it? Good-bye to ye. Shan’t see ye again very soon, I guess; unless it’s before the Grand Jury.” And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence.

At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in profound quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within; the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his face downwards and inclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slumber slept upon him.

“Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?” said I, looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when on the wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to; hence I would have thought myself to have been optically deceived in that matter, were it not for Elijah’s otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the thing down; and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to establish himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper’s rear, as though feeling if it was soft enough; and then, without more ado, sat quietly down there.

“Gracious! Queequeg, don’t sit there,” said I.

“Oh; perry dood seat,” said Queequeg, “my country way; won’t hurt him face.”

“Face!” said I, “call that his face? very benevolent countenance then; but how hard he breathes, he’s heaving himself; get off, Queequeg, you are heavy, it’s grinding the face of the poor. Get off, Queequeg! Look, he’ll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don’t wake.”

Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them around in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on an excursion; much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible into walking sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place.

While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the tomahawk from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the sleeper’s head.

“What’s that for, Queequeg?”

“Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy!

He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. The strong vapor now completely filling the contracted hole, it began to tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness; then seemed troubled in the nose; then revolved over once or twice; then sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“Holloa!” he breathed at last, “who be ye smokers?”

“Shipped men,” answered I, “when does she sail?”

“Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. The Captain came aboard last night.”

“What Captain? — Ahab?”

“Who but him indeed?”

I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab, when we heard a noise on deck.

“Holloa! Starbuck’s astir,” said the rigger. “He’s a lively chief mate that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must turn to.” And so saying he went on deck, and we followed.

It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and threes; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates were actively engaged; and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly enshrined within his cabin.

Chapter 22. Merry Christmas

At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship’s riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with her last gift — a nightcap for Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward — after all this, the two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to the chief mate, Peleg said:

“Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain Ahab is all ready — just spoke to him — nothing more to be got from shore, eh? Well, call all hands, then. Muster ‘em aft here — blast ‘em!”

“No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg,” said Bildad, “but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding.”

How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage, Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign of him was yet to be seen; only, they said he was in the cabin. But then, the idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in getting the ship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed, as that was not at all his proper business, but the pilot’s; and as he was not yet completely recovered — so they said — therefore, Captain Ahab stayed below. And all this seemed natural enough; especially as in the merchant service many captains never show themselves on deck for a considerable time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the cabin table, having a farewell merry-making with their shore friends, before they quit the ship for good with the pilot.

But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and commanding, and not Bildad.

“Aft here, ye sons of bachelors,” he cried, as the sailors lingered at the main-mast. “Mr. Starbuck, drive aft.”

“Strike the tent there!” — was the next order. As I hinted before, this whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port; and on board the Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was well known to be the next thing to heaving up the anchor.

“Man the capstan! Blood and thunder! — jump!” — was the next command, and the crew sprang for the handspikes.

Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the pilot is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be it known, in addition to his other officers, was one of the licensed pilots of the port — he being suspected to have got himself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any other craft — Bildad, I say, might now be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will. Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that no profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in getting under weigh; and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice copy of Watts in each seaman’s berth.

Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought he would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up; involuntarily I paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a pilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the art of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first kick.

“Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?” he roared. “Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don’t ye spring, I say, all of ye — spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the red whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants. Spring, I say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!” And so saying, he moved along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I, Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day.

At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows.

Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady notes were heard, —

“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, 
Stand dressed in living green. 
So to the Jews old Canaan stood, 
While Jordan rolled between.”

Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.

At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging alongside.

It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet; very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a voyage — beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which some thousands of his hardearned dollars were invested; a ship, in which an old shipmate sailed as captain; a man almost as old as he, once more starting to encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw; loath to say good-bye to a thing so every way brimful of every interest to him, — poor old Bildad lingered long; paced the deck with anxious strides; ran down into the cabin to speak another farewell word there; again came on deck, and looked to windward; looked towards the wide and endless waters, only bound by the far-off unseen Eastern Continents; looked towards the land; looked aloft; looked right and left; looked everywhere and nowhere; and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, for a moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say, “Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can.”

As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but for all his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the lantern came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from the cabin to deck — now a word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the chief mate.

But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look about him, — “Captain Bildad — come, old shipmate, we must go. Back the mainyard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close alongside, now! Careful, careful! — come, Bildad, boy — say your last. Luck to ye, Starbuck — luck to ye, Mr. Stubb — luck to ye, Mr. Flask — good-bye and good luck to ye all — and this day three years I’ll have a hot supper smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and away!”

“God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men,” murmured old Bildad, almost incoherently. “I hope ye’ll have fine weather now, so that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye — a pleasant sun is all he needs, and ye’ll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don’t stave the boats needlessly, ye harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent within the year. Don’t forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind that cooper don’t waste the spare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in the green locker. Don’t whale it too much a’ Lord’s days, men; but don’t miss a fair chance either, that’s rejecting Heaven’s good gifts. Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Good-bye, good-bye! Don’t keep that cheese too long down in the hold, Mr. Starbuck; it’ll spoil. Be careful with the butter — twenty cents the pound it was, and mind ye, if — ”

“Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering, — away!” and with that, Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat.

Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic.

Chapter 23. The Lee Shore

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter’s night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years’ dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that’s kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights ‘gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea’s landlessness again; for refuge’s sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God — so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing — straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

Chapter 24. The Advocate

As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of whales.

In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society, it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were he presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation of the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale Fishery) to his visting card, such a procedure would be deemed preeminently presuming and ridiculous.

Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring us whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honor. And as for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally unknown, and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-ship at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even granting the charge in question to be true; what disordered slippery decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those battle-fields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies’ plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit of the soldier’s profession; let me assure ye that many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, would quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale’s vast tail, fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God!

But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory!

But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been.

Why did the Dutch in De Witt’s time have admirals of their whaling fleets? Why did Louis XVI of France, at his own personal expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in bounties upwards of L1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of America now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world; sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by eighteen thousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth, at the time of sailing, $20,000,000! and every year importing into our harbors a well reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if there be not something puissant in whaling?

But this is not the half; look again.

I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life, point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves, and so continuously momentous in their sequential issues, that whaling may well be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves pregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes which had no chart, where no Cooke or Vancouver had ever sailed. If American and European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage harbors, let them fire salutes to the honor and glory of the whale-ship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted between them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes of Exploring Expeditions, your Cookes, your Krusensterns; but I say that scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were as great, and greater, than your Cooke and your Krusenstern. For in their succorless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cooke with all his marines and muskets would not have willingly dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages, those things were but the life-time commonplaces of our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the ship’s common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world!

Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whalemen who first broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.

That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given to the enlightened world by whaleman. After its first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships, long shunned those shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she is on the threshold.

But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time.

The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you will say.

The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler? Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job? And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!

True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no good blood in their veins.

No good blood in their veins? They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and harpooneers — all kith and kin to noble Benjamin — this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other.

Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not respectable.

Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory law, the whale is declared “a royal fish.”

Oh, that’s only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any grand imposing way.

The whale never figured in any grand imposing way? In one of the mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world’s capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.[1]

[See subsequent chapters for something more on this head.] Grant it, since you cite it; but say what you will, there is no real dignity in whaling.

No dignity in whaling? The dignity of our calling the very heavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the south! No more! Drive down your hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I know a man that, in his lifetime has taken three hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more honorable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns.

And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

Chapter 25. Postscript

In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause — such an advocate, would he not be blame-worthy?

It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt, precisely — who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king’s head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can’t amount to much in his totality.

But the only thing to be considered here is this — what kind of oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?

Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff!

Chapter 26. Knights and Squires

The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which his state is famous. Only some thirty and summers had he seen; those summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eves, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organization seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his. And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. “I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.

“Aye, aye,” said Stubb, the second mate, “Starbuck, there, is as careful a man as you’ll find anywhere in this fishery.” But we shall ere long see what that word “careful” precisely means when used by a man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter.

Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was his own father’s? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn limbs of his brother?

With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck, which could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such terrible experiences and remembrances as he had; it was not in nature that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in him, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man.

But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete abasement of poor Starbuck’s fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to write it; but it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valor in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but, man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight, completely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But this august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God; Himself! The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!

If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave around them tragic graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch that workman’s arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from the kingly commoners; bear me out in it, O God!

Chapter 27. Knights and Squires

Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable arrangements of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner.

What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world fail of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth.

I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least of his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this early air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.

The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha’s Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible danger encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a three years’ voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of time. As a carpenter’s nails are divided into wrought nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long. They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions of those battering seas.

Now these three mates — Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, were momentous men. They was who by universal prescription commanded three of the Pequod’s boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.

And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the Pequod’s harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of them belonged.

First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected for his squire. But Queequeg is already known.

Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly promontory of Martha’s Vineyard, where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of Gay-Headers. Tashtego’s long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding eyes — for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their glittering expression — all this sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of the earlier Puritans and half-believed this wild Indian to be a son of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second mate’s squire.

Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black negro-savage, with a lion-like tread — an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called them ringbolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never having been anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors most frequented by the whalemen; and having now led for many years the bold life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod’s company, be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these cases the native American literally provides the brains, the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenland whalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland Islands, to receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage homewards, they drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling, but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the isles of the sea, and all the ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the world’s grievances before that bar from which not very many of them ever come back. Black Little Pip — he never did — oh, no! he went before. Poor Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod’s forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, beating his tambourine; prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, to the great quarter-deck on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there!

Chapter 28. Ahab

For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they but commanded vicariously. Yet, their supreme lord and dictator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin.

Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face was visible; for my first vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the sea became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah’s diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or uneasiness — to call it so — which I felt, yet whenever I came to look about me in the ship, it seemed against all warranty to cherish such emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed this — and rightly ascribed it — to the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colorless misgivings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. Three better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to the southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.

There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say. By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates. But once Tashtego’s senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew, superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out — which might hardly come to pass, so he muttered — then, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole.

So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale’s jaw. “Aye, he was dismasted off Japan,” said the old Gay-Head Indian once; “but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of ‘em.”

I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of the Pequod’s quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship’s ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe.

Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon.

Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such gladhearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.

Chapter 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb

Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which at sea, almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up — flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! For sleeping man, ‘twas hard to choose between such winsome days and such seducing nights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab’s texture.

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. “It feels like going down into one’s tomb,” — he would mutter to himself — “for an old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my grave-dug berth.”

So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below; and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step, that their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below, with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay; but there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then.

“Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,” said Ahab, “that thou wouldst wad me that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last. — Down, dog, and kennel!”

Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, “I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half like it, sir.” S

“Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation.

“No, sir; not yet,” said Stubb, emboldened, “I will not tamely be called a dog, sir.”

“Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or I’ll clear the world of thee!”

As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.

“I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,” muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. “It’s very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don’t well know whether to go back and strike him, or — what’s that? — down here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray. It’s queer; very queer; and he’s queer too; aye, take him fore and aft, he’s about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me! — his eyes like powder-pans! is he mad! Anyway there’s something’s on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don’t sleep then. Didn’t that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man’s hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it? A hot old man! I guess he’s got what some folks ashore call a conscience; it’s a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say — worse nor a toothache. Well, well; I don’t know what it is, but the Lord keep me from catching it. He’s full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what’s that for, I should like to know? Who’s made appointments with him in the hold? Ain’t that queer, now? But there’s no telling, it’s the old game — Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it’s worth a fellow’s while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that’s about the first thing babies do, and that’s a sort of queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ‘em. But that’s against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth — So here goes again. But how’s that? didn’t he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that! He might as well have kicked me, and done with me. Maybe he did kick me, and I didn’t observe it, I was so taken aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil’s the matter with me? I don’t stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though — How? how? how? — but the only way’s to stash it; so here goes to hammock again; and in the morning, I’ll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by daylight.”

Chapter 30. The Pipe

When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked.

In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and a king of the sea and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab.

Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. “How now,” he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, “this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring — aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I’ll smoke no more-”

Chapter 31. Queen Mab

Next morning Stubb accosted Flask.

“Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man’s ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flask — you know how curious all dreams are — through all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that kick from Ahab. ‘Why,’ thinks I, ‘what’s the row? It’s not a real leg, only a false one.’ And there’s a mighty difference between a living thump and a dead thump. That’s what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The living member — that makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I to myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against that cursed pyramid — so confoundedly contradictory was it all, all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, ‘what’s his leg now, but a cane-. a whale-bone cane. Yes,’ thinks I, ‘it was only a playful cudgelling — in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me — not a base kick. Besides,’ thinks I, ‘look at it once; why, the end of it — the foot part — what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed farmer kicked me, there’s a devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled down to a point only.’ But now comes the greatest joke of the dream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of badger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the shoulders, and slews me round. ‘What are you ‘bout?’ says he. Slid! man, but I was frightened. Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was over the fright. ‘What am I about?’ says I at last. ‘And what business is that of yours, I should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do you want a kick?’ By the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned round his stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for a clout — what do you think, I saw? — why thunder alive, man, his stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I on second thought, ‘I guess I won’t kick you, old fellow.’ ‘Wise Stubb,’ said he, ‘wise Stubb;’ and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of eating of his gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn’t going to stop saying over his ‘wise Stubb, wise Stubb,’ I thought I might as well fall to kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my foot for it, when he roared out, ‘Stop that kicking!’ ‘Halloa,’ says I, ‘what’s the matter now, old fellow?’ ‘Look ye here,’ says he; ‘let’s argue the insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn’t he?’ ‘Yes, he did,’ says I — ‘right here it was.’ ‘Very good,’ says he — ‘he used his ivory leg, didn’t he?’ ‘Yes, he did,’ says I. ‘Well then,’ says he, ‘wise Stubb, what have you to complain of? Didn’t he kick with right good will? it wasn’t a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It’s an honor; I consider it an honor. Listen, wise Stubb. In old England the greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen, and made garter-knights of; but, be your boast, Stubb, that ye were kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say; be kicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no account kick back; for you can’t help yourself, wise Stubb. Don’t you see that pyramid?’ With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion, to swim off into the air. I snored; rolled over; and there I was in my hammock! Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask?”

“I don’t know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.’”

“May be; may be. But it’s made a wise man of me, Flask. D’ye see Ahab standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the best thing you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never speak to him, whatever he says. Halloa! What’s that he shouts? Hark!”

“Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales hereabouts!

If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him!

“What do you think of that now, Flask? ain’t there a small drop of something queer about that, eh? A white whale — did ye mark that, man? Look ye — there’s something special in the wind. Stand by for it, Flask. Ahab has that that’s bloody on his mind. But, mum; he comes this way.”

Chapter 32. Cetology

Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored harborless immensities. Ere that come to pass; ere the Pequod’s weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to follow.

It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera, that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down.

“No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled Cetology,” says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820.

“It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and families.... Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal” (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839.

“Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters.” “Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea.” “A field strewn with thorns.” “All these incomplete indications but serve to torture us naturalists.”

Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and Lesson, those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of real knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and so in some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many are the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who have at large or in little, written of the whale. Run over a few: — The Authors of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne; Gesner; Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson; Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what ultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the above cited extracts will show.

Of the names in this list of whale authors only those following Owen ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy mentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the profound ignorance which till some seventy years back, invested the then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all, — the Greenland whale is deposed, — the great sperm whale now reigneth!

There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale’s and Bennett’s; both in their time surgeons to the English South-Sea whale-ships, and both exact and reliable men. The original matter touching the sperm whale to be found in their volumes is necessarily small; but so far as it goes, it is of excellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific description. As yet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete in any literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an unwritten life.

Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the present, hereafter to be filled in all-outward its departments by subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete must for that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the various species, or — in this space at least — to much of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.

But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea after them; to have one’s hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful tauntings in Job might well appal me. “Will he (the leviathan) make a covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam through libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do with whales with these visible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There are some preliminaries to settle.

First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, “I hereby separate the whales from the fish.” But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnaeus’s express edict, were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the Leviathan.

The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the whales from the waters, he states as follows: “On account of their warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their moveable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem,” and finally, “ex lege naturae jure meritoque.” I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug.

Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief they are these: lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.

Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as conspicuously to label him for all time to come. To be short, then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There you have him. However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal position.

By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on the other hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as alien. [2] Hence, all the smaller, spouting and horizontal tailed fish must be included in this ground-plan of cetology. Now, then, come the grand divisions of the entire whale host.

[2]I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and have presented them with their passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology.

First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them all, both small and large.

I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE.

As the type of the FOLIO I present the Sperm Whale; of the OCTAVO, the Grampus; of the DUODECIMO, the Porpoise.

FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters: — I. The Sperm Whale; II. the Right Whale; III. the Fin Back Whale; IV. the Humpbacked Whale; V. the Razor Back Whale; VI. the Sulphur Bottom Whale.

BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER I. (Sperm Whale). — This whale, among the English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale and the Physeter whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe; the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being the only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the sperm whale was almost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil was only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a creature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was still retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a notion so strangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation must at last have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this spermaceti was really derived.

BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER II. (Right Whale). — In one respect this is the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or baleen; and the oil specially known as “whale oil,” an inferior article in commerce. Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated by all the following titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale; the Black Whale; the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right Whale. There is a deal of obscurity concerning the Identity of the species thus multitudinously baptized. What then is the whale, which I include in the second species of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the English naturalists; the Greenland Whale of the English whaleman; the Baliene Ordinaire of the French whalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whale which for more than two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas; it is the whale which the American fishermen have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor’ West Coast, and various other parts of the world, designated by them Right Whale Cruising Grounds.

Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of the English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree in all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented a single determinate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate. The right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with reference to elucidating the sperm whale.

BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER III. (Fin-Back). — Under this head I reckon a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less portly girth, and a lighter color, approaching to olive. His great lips present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back. The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters. Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters; his straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man; this leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that style upon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is sometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic species denominated Whalebone whales, that is, whales with baleen. Of these so-called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be several varieties, most of which, however, are little known. Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fisherman’s names for a few sorts.

In connexion with this appellative of “Whalebone whales,” it is of great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that those marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales, without any record to what may be the nature of their structure in other and more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the humpbacked whale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases. Then this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these has baleen; but there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the same with the other parts above mentioned. In various sorts of whales, they form such irregular combinations; or, in the case of any one of them detached, such an irregular isolation; as utterly to defy all general methodization formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the whale-naturalists has split.

But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the whale, in his anatomy — there, at least, we shall be able to hit the right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in the Greenland whale’s anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as available to the systematizer as those external ones already enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted; and it is the only one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed.

BOOK I. (Folio) CHAPTER IV. (Hump Back). — This whale is often seen on the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there, and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not very valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any other of them.

BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER V. (Razar Back). — Of this whale little is known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody else.

BOOK I. (Folio), CHAPTER VI. (Sulphur Bottom). — Another retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen; at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer.

Thus ends BOOK I. (Folio), and now begins BOOK II. (Octavo).

OCTAVOES.[3] These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which present may be numbered: — I., the Grampus; II., the Black Fish; III., the Narwhale; IV., the Thrasher; V., the Killer.

[3]Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder’s Quarto volume in its dimensioned form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does.

BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER I. (Grampus). — Though this fish, whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised him for one. He is of moderate octave size, varying from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist. He swims in herds; he is never regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light. By some fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale.

BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER II. (Black Fish). — I give the popular fishermen’s names for all these fish, for generally they are the best. Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so, and suggest another. I do so now touching the Black Fish, so called because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him the Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known and from the circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employment — as some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone by themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. Though their blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you upwards of thirty gallons of oil.

BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER III. (Narwhale), that is, Nostril whale. — Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would be hard to say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the sword-fish and bill-fish; though some sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin said it was used for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his horn up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these surmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided horn may really be used by the Narwhale — however that may be — it would certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets. The Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and the Unicorn whale. He is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism to be found in almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn’s horn was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies the same way that the horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; “when Sir Martin returned from that voyage,” saith Black Letter, “on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle at Windsor.” An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature.

The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a milk-white ground color, dotted with round and oblong spots of black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it, and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas.

BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer). — Of this whale little is precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed naturalists. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage — a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.

BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER V. (Thrasher). — This gentleman is famous for his tail which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes. He mounts the Folio whale’s back, and as he swims, he works his passage by flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both are outlaws, even in the lawless seas.

Thus ends BOOK II. (Octavo), and begins BOOK III, (Duodecimo.)

DUODECIMOES. — These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza Porpoise. II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise.

To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five feet should be marshalled among WHALES — a word, which, in the popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures set down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my definition of what a whale is — i.e. a spouting fish, with a horizontal tail.

BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER 1. (Huzza Porpoise). — This is the common porpoise found all over the globe. The name is of my own bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward. They are the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted a lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly gamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will yield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put in on their hones. Porpoise meat is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very readily discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him; and you will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature.

BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER II. (Algerine Porpoise). — A pirate. Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make. Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him many times, but never yet saw him captured.

BOOK III. (Duodecimo), CHAPTER III. (Mealy-mouthed Porpoise). — The largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far as it is known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been designated, is that of the fisher — Right-Whale Porpoise, from the circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio. In shape, he differs in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being of a less rotund and jolly girth; indeed, he is of quite a neat and gentleman-like figure. He has no fins on his back (most other porpoises have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indian eyes of a hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils him. Though his entire back down to his side fins is of a deep sable, yet a boundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship’s hull, called the “bright waist,” that line streaks him from stem to stern, with two separate colors, black above and white below. The white comprises part of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which makes him look as if he had just escaped from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. A most mean and mealy aspect! His oil is much like that of the common porpoise.

Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive, half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their fore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable to future investigators, who may complete what I have here but begun. If any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then he can readily be incorporated into this System, according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude: — The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale; &c. From Icelandic, Dutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted other lists of uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit them as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing.

Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the cranes still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught — nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!

Chapter 33. The Specksynder

Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the whale-fleet.

The large importance attached to the harpooneer’s vocation is evinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries and more ago, the command of a whale-ship was not wholly lodged in the person now called the captain, but was divided between him and an officer called the Specksynder. Literally this word means Fat-Cutter; usage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In those days, the captain’s authority was restricted to the navigation and general management of the vessel; while over the whale-hunting department and all its concerns, the Specksynder or Chief Harpooneer reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but his former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain’s more inferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the harpooneers the success of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since in the American Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat, but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground) the command of the ship’s deck is also his; therefore the grand political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart from the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their professional superior; though always, by them, familiarly regarded as their social equal.

Now, the grand distinction between officer and man at sea, is this — the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships and merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain; and so, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in the after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in the captain’s cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating with it.

Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the longest of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils of it, and the community of interest prevailing among a company, all of whom, high or low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their common luck, together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and hard work; though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a less rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind how much like an old Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some primitive instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, and in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in which you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost as much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the shabbiest of pilot-cloth.

And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the least given to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though the only homage he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience; though he required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere stepping upon the quarter-deck; and though there were times when, owing to peculiar circumstances connected with events hereafter to be detailed, he addressed them in unusual terms, whether of condescension or in terrorem, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahab was by no means unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea.

Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself; incidentally making use of them for other and more private ends than they were legitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested; through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible dictatorship. For be a man’s intellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever keeps God’s true princes of the Empire from the world’s hustings; and leaves the highest honors that this air can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass. Such large virtue lurks in these small things when extreme political superstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even to idiot imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian herds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his art, as the one now alluded to.

But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!

Chapter 34. The Cabin-Table

It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord and master who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking an observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But presently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself to the deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying, “Dinner, Mr. Starbuck,” disappears into the cabin.

When the last echo of his sultan’s step has died away, and Starbuck, the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness, “Dinner, Mr. Stubb,” and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to see whether it will be all right with that important rope, he likewise takes up the old burden, and with a rapid “Dinner, Mr. Flask,” follows after his predecessors.

But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck, seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right over the Grand Turk’s head; and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so far at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other processions, by bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into the cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab’s presence, in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave.

It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that same commander’s cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of the table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore this difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously, therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own private dinner-table of invited guests, that man’s unchallenged power and dominion of individual influence for the time; that man’s royalty of state transcends Belshazzar’s, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. Who has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Caesar. It is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding. Now, if to this consideration you super-add the official supremacy of a ship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of that peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned.

Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his war-like but still deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind, their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man’s knife, as he carved the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck’s plate towards him, the mate received his meat as though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little started if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed it noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly dines with the seven imperial electors, so these cabin meals were somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old Ahab forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. And poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary family party. His were the shin-bones of the saline beef; his would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. Had he helped himself at the table, doubtless, never more would he have been able to hold his head up in this honest world; nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask helped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it. Least of all, did Flask presume to help himself to butter. Whether he thought the owners of the ship denied it to him, on account of its clotting his clear, sunny complexion; or whether he deemed that, on so long a voyage in such marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and therefore was not for him, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man!

Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and Flask is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask’s dinner was badly jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him; and yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb even, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small appetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask must bestir himself, he will not get more than three mouthfuls that day; for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck. Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that ever since he had arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he had never known what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him. Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from my stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of old-fashioned beef in the fore-castle, as I used to when I was before the mast. There’s the fruit of promotion now; there’s the vanity of glory: there’s the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask’s official capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample vengeance, was to go aft at dinnertime, and get a peep at Flask through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before awful Ahab.

Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table in the Pequod’s cabin. After their departure, taking place in inverted order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the three harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its residuary legatees. They made a sort of temporary servants’ hall of the high and mighty cabin.

In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless invisible domineerings of the captain’s table, was the entire care-free license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior fellows the harpooneers. While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid of the sound of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed their food with such a relish that there was a report to it. They dined like lords; they filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading with spices. Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise. And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted Dough-Boy’s memory by snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into a great empty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, began laying out the circle preliminary to scalping him. He was naturally a very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced steward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. And what with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and the periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages, Dough-Boy’s whole life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly, after seeing the harpooneers furnished with all things they demanded, he would escape from their clutches into his little pantry adjoining, and fearfully peep out at them through the blinds of its door, till all was over.

It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego, opposing his filed teeth to the Indian’s; crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on the floor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the low carlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin framework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in a ship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, not to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through his dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating — an ugly sound enough — so much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might be picked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery hanging round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they would ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did not at all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget that in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretion. Alas! Dough-Boy! hard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to his credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them at every step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards.

But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time, when they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters.

In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights the ship’s cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy alone that anybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that, in real truth, the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to have lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it was something as a streetdoor enters a house; turning inwards for a moment, only to be turned out the next; and, as a permanent thing, residing in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby; in the cabin was no companionship; socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!

Chapter 35. The Mast-Head

It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the other seamen my first mast-head came round.

In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost simultaneously with the vessel’s leaving her port; even though she may have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years’ voyage she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her — say, an empty vial even — then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last! and not till her skysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more.

Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them. For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all Asia, or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the dread gale of God’s wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stairlike formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the look-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless stander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be driven from his place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out to the last, literally died at his post. Of modern standers-of-mast-heads we have but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who, though well capable of facing out a stiff gale, are still entirely incompetent to the business of singing out upon discovering any strange sight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of the column of Vendome stands with arms folded, some one hundred and fifty feet in the air; careless, now, who rules the decks below, whether Louis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high aloft on his towering main-mast in Baltimore, and like one of Hercules’ pillars, his column marks that point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral Nelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in Trafalgar Square; and even when most obscured by that London smoke, token is yet given that a hidden hero is there; for where there is smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be shunned.

It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head standers of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is not so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole historian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us, that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly launched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected lofty spars along the seacoast, to which the look-outs ascended by means of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house. A few years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh the beach. But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we then to the one proper mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads are kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking their regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every two hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant the mast-head: nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner — for all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.

In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years’ voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the mast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute of anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your most usual point of perch is the head of the t’ gallant-mast, where you stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called the t’ gallant crosstrees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull’s horns. To be sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in the shape of a watch-coat; but properly speaking the thickest watch-coat is no more of a house than the unclad body; for as the soul is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no more can you make a convenience closet of your watch-coat.

Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents or pulpits, called crow’s-nests, in which the look-outs of a Greenland whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled “A Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;” in this admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented crow’s-nest of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet’s good craft. He called it the Sleet’s crow’s-nest, in honor of himself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we may beret. In shape, the Sleet’s crow’s-nest is something like a large tierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is furnished with a movable sidescreen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this crow’s-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the little detailed conveniences of his crow’s-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a very scientific account of his experiments in this crow’s-nest, with a small compass he kept there for the purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called the “local attraction” of all binnacle magnets; an error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship’s planks, and in the Glacier’s case, perhaps, to there having been so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his learned “binnacle deviations,” “azimuth compass observations,” and “approximate errors,” he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail being attracted occasionally towards that well replenished little case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his crow’s nest, within easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and even love the brave, the honest, and learned Captain; yet I take it very ill of him that he should so utterly ignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend and comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded head he was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird’s nest within three or four perches of the pole.

But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there; then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimate destination.

Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how could I — being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering altitude — how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all whaleships’ standing orders, “Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time.”

And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who offers to ship with the Phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware of such an one, I say: your whales must be seen before they can be killed; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgusted with the corking care of earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches himself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, and in moody phrase ejaculates: —

“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!  Ten thousand blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain.” ¡Sigue moviéndote, hondo, sombrío mar azul !  Vanamente diez mil balleneros te cruzan.

Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient “interest” in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses at home.

“Why, thou monkey,” said a harpooneer to one of these lads, “we’ve been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen’s teeth whenever thou art up here.” Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Crammer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gentle rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!

Chapter 36. The Quarter-Deck

(Enter Ahab: Then, all)

It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in the garden.

Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints — the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.

But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of every outer movement.

“D’ye mark him, Flask?” whispered Stubb; “the chick that’s in him pecks the shell. ‘Twill soon be out.”

The hours wore on; — Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect.

It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody aft.

“Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on ship-board except in some extraordinary case.

“Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mast-heads, there! come down!”

When the entire ship’s company were assembled, and with curious and not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew, started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried: —

“What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?”

“Sing out for him!” was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices.

“Good!” cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically thrown them.

“And what do ye next, men?”

“Lower away, and after him!”

“And what tune is it ye pull to, men?”

“A dead whale or a stove boat!” -¡Una ballena muerta, o un bote desfondado !

More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.

But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus: —

“All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white whale. Look ye! d’ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?” — holding up a broad bright coin to the sun — “it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D’ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul.”

While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke — look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!”

“Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.

“It’s a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: “a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.”

All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was separately touched by some specific recollection.

“Captain Ahab,” said Tashtego, “that white whale must be the same that some call Moby Dick.”

“Moby Dick?” shouted Ahab. “Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?”

“Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?” said the Gay-Header deliberately.

“And has he a curious spout, too,” said Daggoo, “very bushy, even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?”

“And he have one, two, three — oh! good many iron in him hide, too, Captain,” cried Queequeg disjointedly, “all twiske-tee be-twisk, like him — him-” faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle — “like him — him-”

“Corkscrew!” cried Ahab, “aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen — Moby Dick — Moby Dick!”

“Captain Ahab,” said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. “Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick — but it was not Moby Dick that took off thy leg?”

“Who told thee that?” cried Ahab; then pausing, “Aye, Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye,” he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; “Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!” Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out: “Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look brave.”

“Aye, aye!” shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the excited old man: “A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for Moby Dick!”

“God bless ye,” he seemed to half sob and half shout. “God bless ye, men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale! art not game for Moby Dick?”

“I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.”

“Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a little lower layer. If money’s to be the measurer, man, and the accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!”

“He smites his chest,” whispered Stubb, “what’s that for? methinks it rings most vast, but hollow.”

“Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, “that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.”

“Hark ye yet again — the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike though the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ‘tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn — living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards — the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. ‘Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone. Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak! — Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion.”

“God keep me! — keep us all!” murmured Starbuck, lowly.

But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh from the hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage; nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck’s downcast eyes lighted up with the stubbornness of life; the subterranean laugh died away; the winds blew on; the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, as verifications of the fore-going things within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on.

“The measure! the measure!” cried Ahab.

Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship’s company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eves of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian.

“Drink and pass!” he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the nearest seaman. “The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short draughts — long swallows, men; ‘tis hot as Satan’s hoof. So, so; it goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this way it comes. Hand it me — here’s a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill!

“Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some sort revive a noble custom of my fishermen fathers before me. O men, you will yet see that — Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, wert not thou St. Vitus’ imp — away, thou ague!

“Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me touch the axis.” So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile glancing intently from Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest eye of Starbuck fell downright.

“In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ‘tis well. For did ye three but once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, that had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there — yon three most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension, that shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!”

Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs up, before him.

“Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers, advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!” Forthwith, slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter.

“Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat’s bow — Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!” The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted; and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew; when, waving his free hand to them, they all dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin.

Chapter 37. Sunset

The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.

I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.

Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun — slow dived from noon — goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. ‘Tis iron — that I know — not gold. ‘Tis split, too — that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!

Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night-good night! (waving his hand, he moves from the window.)

‘Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve willed, I’ll do! They think me mad — Starbuck does; but I’m demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that’s only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and — Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That’s more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies — Take some one of your own size; don’t pommel me! No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!

Chapter 38. Dusk

By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it.

My soul is more than matched; she’s over-manned; and by a madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who’s over him, he cries; — aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office, — to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole clock’s run down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to lift again.

[A burst of revelry from the forecastle.]

Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! ‘tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, — as wild, untutored things are forced to feed — Oh, life! ‘tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but ‘tis not me! that horror’s out of me, and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!

Chapter 39. First Night Watch

(Stubb solus, and mending a brace.)

Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat! — I’ve been thinking over it ever since, and that ha, ha’s the final consequence. Why so? Because a laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer; and come what will, one comfort’s always left — that unfailing comfort is, it’s all predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had the gift, might readily have prophesied it — for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, wise Stubb — that’s my title — well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here’s a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What’s my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out? — Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as a frigate’s pennant, and so am I — fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh —

We’ll drink to-night with hearts as light, 
To love, as gay and fleeting 
As bubbles that swim, on the beaker’s brim, 
And break on the lips while meeting.

A brave stave that — who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir — (Aside) he’s my superior, he has his too, if I’m not mistaken. — Aye, aye, sir, just through with this job — coming.

Chapter 40. Midnight, Forecastle

HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS

(Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning, and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.)

Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! 
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! 
Our captain’s commanded.-

1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR

Oh, boys, don’t be sentimental. it’s bad for the digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! (Sings, and all follow)

Our captain stood upon the deck, 
A spy-glass in his hand, 
A viewing of those gallant whales 
That blew at every strand. 
Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, 
And by your braces stand, 
And we’ll have one of those fine whales, 
Hand, boys, over hand! 
So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail! 
While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!

MATE’S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK  Eight bells there, forward!

2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR  Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d’ye hear, bell-boy? Strike the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me call the watch. I’ve the sort of mouth for that — the hogshead mouth. So, so, (thrusts his head down the scuttle,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y! Eight bells there below! Tumble up!

DUTCH SAILOR  Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I mark this in our old Mogul’s wine; it’s quite as deadening to some as filliping to others. We sing; they sleep — aye, lie down there, like ground-tier butts. At ‘em again! There, take this copper-pump, and hail ‘em through it. Tell ‘em to avast dreaming of their lassies. Tell ‘em it’s the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment. That’s the way — that’s it; thy throat ain’t spoiled with eating Amsterdam butter.

FRENCH SAILOR  Hist, boys! let’s have a jig or two before we ride to anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine!

PIP (Sulky and sleepy)  Don’t know where it is.

FRENCH SAILOR  Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say; merry’s the word; hurrah! Damn me, won’t you dance? Form, now, Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves! Legs! legs!

ICELAND SAILOR  I don’t like your floor, maty; it’s too springy to my taste. I’m used to ice-floors. I’m sorry to throw cold water on the subject; but excuse me.

MALTESE SAILOR  Me too; where’s your girls? Who but a fool would take his left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d’ye do? Partners! I must have partners!

SICILIAN SAILOR  Aye; girls and a green! — then I’ll hop with ye; yea, turn grasshopper!

LONG-ISLAND SAILOR  Well, well, ye sulkies, there’s plenty more of us. Hoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here comes the music; now for it!

AZORE SAILOR (Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle.) Here you are, Pip; and there’s the windlass-bits; up you mount! Now, boys! (The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below; some sleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty.)

AZORE SAILOR (Dancing)  Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!

PIP  Jinglers, you say? — there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so.

CHINA SAILOR  Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of thyself.

FRENCH SAILOR  Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! Split jibs! tear yourself!

TASHTEGO (Quietly smoking)  That’s a white man; he calls that fun: humph! I save my sweat.

OLD MANX SAILOR  I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they are dancing over. I’ll dance over your grave, I will — that’s the bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round corners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled crews! Well, well; belike the whole world’s a ball, as you scholars have it; and so ‘tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads, you’re young; I was once.

3D NANTUCKET SAILOR  Spell oh! — whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a calm — give a whiff, Tash.  (They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky darkens — the wind rises.)

LASCAR SAILOR  By Brahma! boys, it’ll be douse sail soon. The sky-born, high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva!

MALTESE SAILOR (Reclining and shaking his cap)  It’s the waves — the snow’s caps turn to jig it now. They’ll shake their tassels soon. Now would all the waves were women, then I’d go drown, and chassee with them evermore! There’s naught so sweet on earth — heaven may not match it! — as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes.

SICILIAN SAILOR (Reclining)  Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad — fleet interlacings of the limbs — lithe swayings — coyings — flutterings! lip! heart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.)

TAHITAN SAILOR (Reclining on a mat)  Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls! — the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence; now worn and wilted quite. Ah me! — not thou nor I can bear the change! How then, if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from Pirohitee’s peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the villages? — The blast, the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (Leaps to his feet.)

PORTUGUESE SAILOR  How the sea rolls swashing ‘gainst the side! Stand by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell they’ll go lunging presently.

DANISH SAILOR  Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He’s no more afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!

4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR  He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a waterspout with a pistol — fire your ship right into it!

ENGLISH SAILOR  Blood! but that old man’s a grand old cove! We are the lads to hunt him up his whale!

ALL  Aye! aye!

OLD MANX SAILOR  How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there’s none but the crew’s cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at sea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there’s another in the sky lurid — like, ye see, all else pitch black.

DAGGOO  What of that? Who’s afraid of black’s afraid of me! I’m quarried out of it!

SPANISH SAILOR  (Aside.) He wants to bully, ah! — the old grudge makes me touchy (Advancing.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark side of mankind — devilish dark at that. No offence.

DAGGOO (Grimly)  None.

ST. JAGO’S SAILOR  That Spaniard’s mad or drunk. But that can’t be, or else in his one case our old Mogul’s fire-waters are somewhat long in working.

5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR  What’s that I saw — lightning? Yes.

SPANISH SAILOR  No; Daggoo showing his teeth.

DAGGOO (Springing)  Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver!

SPANISH SAILOR (Meeting him)  Knife thee heartily! big frame, small spirit!

ALL  A row! a row! a row!

TASHTEGO (With a whiff)  A row a’low, and a row aloft — Gods and men — both brawlers! Humph!

BELFAST SAILOR  A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! Plunge in with ye!

ENGLISH SAILOR  Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard’s knife! A ring, a ring!

OLD MANX SAILOR  Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring Cain struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad’st thou the ring?

MATE’S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK  Hands by the halyards! in top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef topsails!

ALL  The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (They scatter.)

PIP (Shrinking under the windlass)  Jollies? Lord help such jollies! Crish, crash! there goes the jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower, Pip, here comes the royal yard! It’s worse than being in the whirled woods, the last day of the year! Who’d go climbing after chestnuts now? But there they go, all cursing, and here I don’t. Fine prospects to ‘em; they’re on the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall! But those chaps there are worse yet — they are your white squalls, they. White squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their chat just now, and the white whale — shirr! shirr! — but spoken of once! and only this evening — it makes me ingle all over like my tambourine — that anaconda of an old man swore ‘em in to hunt him! Oh! thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no bowels to feel fear!

Chapter 41. Moby Dick

I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge.

For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied, secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew of his existence; a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen him; while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of whale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any sort; the inordinate length of each separate voyage; the irregularity of the times of sailing from home; all these, with other circumstances, direct and indirect, long obstructed the spread through the whole world-wide whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, has completely escaped them; to some minds it was not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been no other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked; therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded.

And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had every one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any other whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue in these assaults — not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or devouring amputations — but fatal to the last degree of fatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventually come.

Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising terrible events, — as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to. And as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only are whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of all sailors, they are by all odds the most directly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing in the sea; face to face they not only eye its greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you would not come to any chiselled hearth-stone, or aught hospitable beneath that part of the sun; in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth. No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over the wildest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and half-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his jaw.

But there were still other and more vital practical influences at work. Nor even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps — either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North; seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish fireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the preeminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him.

And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former legendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book naturalists — Olassen and Povelson — declaring the Sperm Whale not only to be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood. Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier’s, were these or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are “struck with the most lively terrors,” and “often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death.” And however the general experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in the minds of the hunters.

So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring warfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lances at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are some remarkable documents that may be consulted.

Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater number who, chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the specific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious accompaniments were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if offered.

One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be linked with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous; that he had actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same instant of time.

Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit altogether without some faint show of superstitious probability. For as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, even to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to his pursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious and contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning the mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant points.

It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby, that some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has been declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could not have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been believed by some whalemen, that the Nor’ West Passage, so long a problem to man, was never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the real living experience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of the inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface); and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain near Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy Land by an underground passage); these fabulous narrations are almost fully equalled by the realities of the whalemen.

Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen.

But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out — a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him.

The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings.

Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults. More than all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with every apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known to turn round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave their boats to splinters, or drive them back in consternation to their ship.

Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale’s infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent.

Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the white curds of the whale’s direful wrath into the serene, exasperating sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal.

His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab’s leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced in their statue devil; — Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate, corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more. Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; and so interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun’sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man’s delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once again; and his mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab’s broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one reasonable object.

This is much; yet Ahab’s larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted. But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding far down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where we here stand — however grand and wonderful, now quit it; — and take your way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; where far beneath the fantastic towers of man’s upper earth, his root of grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled royalties; and from your grim sire only will the old State-secret come.

Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely; all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the terrible casualty which had overtaken him.

The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise popularly ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added moodiness which always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the Pequod on the present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is it so very unlikely, that far from distrusting his fitness for another whaling voyage, on account of such dark symptoms, the calculating people of that prudent isle were inclined to harbor the conceit, that for those very reasons he was all the better qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full of rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable idea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man to dart his iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of all brutes. Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge.

Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals — morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invunerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire — by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be — what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life, — all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest ill.

Chapter 42. The Whiteness of The Whale

What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid.

Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man’s soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught.

Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things — the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.

This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.[4]

[4]With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing together two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true; yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified terror.

As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish mass for the dead begins with “Requiem eternam” (eternal rest), whence Requiem denominating the mass itself, and any other funeral music. Now, in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark, and the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him Requin.

Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God’s great, unflattering laureate, Nature.[5]

[5]I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king’s ghost in supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and turning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! never had heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I learned that goney was some seaman’s name for albatross. So that by no possibility could Coleridge’s wild Rhyme have had aught to do with those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet.

I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl.

But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea. At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered, leathern tally round its neck, with the ship’s time and place; and then letting it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-folding, the invoking, and adoring cherubim!

Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished him. A most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god, bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether with his circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening through his cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented himself, always to the bravest Indians he was the object of trembling reverence and awe. Nor can it be questioned from what stands on legendary record of this noble horse, that it was his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him with divineness; and that this divineness had that in it which, though commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror.

But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and Albatross.

What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men — has no substantive deformity — and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so?

Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but not the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces this crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of that passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their faction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the market-place!

Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect of the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering there; as if indeed that pallor were as much like the badge of consternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here. And from that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue of the shroud in which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions do we fail to throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in a milk-white fog — Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that even the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on his pallid horse.

Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest idealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul.

But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to account for it? To analyze it, would seem impossible. Can we, then, by the citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of whiteness — though for the time either wholly or in great part stripped of all direct associations calculated to import to it aught fearful, but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery, however modified; — can we thus hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us to the hidden cause we seek?

Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety, and without imagination no man can follow another into these halls. And though, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about to be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were entirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able to recall them now.

Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but loosely acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the bare mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary, speechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hooded with new-fallen snow? Or to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant of the Middle American States, why does the passing mention of a White Friar or a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul?

Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White Tower of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of an untravelled American, than those other storied structures, its neighbors — the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar moods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare mention of that name, while the thought of Virginia’s Blue Ridge is full of a soft, dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all latitudes and longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a spectralness over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with mortal thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves, followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choose a wholly unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy, why, in reading the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does “the tall pale man” of the Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides through the green of the groves — why is this phantom more terrible than all the whooping imps of the Blocksburg?

Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the tearlessness of and skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards; — it is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest, saddest city thou can’st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions.

I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or universality. What I mean by these two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by the following examples.

First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but under precisely similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to view his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness — as if from encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming round him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in vain the lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm they both go down; he never rests till blue water is under him again. Yet where is the mariner who will tell thee, “Sir, it was not so much the fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so stirred me?”

Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the snowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be to lose oneself in such inhuman solitude. Much the same is it with the backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference views an unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig to break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, beholding the scenery of the Antarctic seas; where at times, by some infernal trick of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering and half shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and solace to his misery, views what seems a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with its lean ice monuments and splintered crosses.

But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about whiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a hypo, Ishmael.

Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful valley of Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey — why is it that upon the sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind him, so that he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild animal muskiness — why will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the ground in phrensies of affright? There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of wild creatures in his green northern home, so that the strange muskiness he smells cannot recall to him anything associated with the experience of former perils; for what knows he, this New England colt, of the black bisons of distant Oregon?

No; but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of the knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of miles from Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending, goring bison herds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of the prairies, which this instant they may be trampling into dust.

Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt!

Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.

But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous — why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows — a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues — every stately or lovely emblazoning — the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge — pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?

Chapter 43. Hark!

“HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?

It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel.

It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon, whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a Cholo, the words above.

“Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?”

“Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d’ye mean?”

“There it is again — under the hatches — don’t you hear it — a cough — it sounded like a cough.”

“Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket.”

“There again — there it is! — it sounds like two or three sleepers turning over, now!”

“Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It’s the three soaked biscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye — nothing else. Look to the bucket!”

“Say what ye will, shipmate; I’ve sharp ears.”

“Aye, you are the chap, ain’t ye, that heard the hum of the old Quakeress’s knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you’re the chap.”

“Grin away; we’ll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the wind.”

“Tish! the bucket!”

Chapter 44. The Chart

Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his purpose with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating himself before it, you would have seen him intently study the various lines and shadings which there met his eye; and with slow but steady pencil trace additional courses over spaces that before were blank. At intervals, he would refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein were set down the seasons and places in which, on various former voyages of various ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen.

While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for ever threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till it almost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and courses on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing lines and courses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead.

But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they were brought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and others were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans before him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul.

Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the leviathans, it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solitary creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not so did it seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents; and thereby calculating the driftings of the sperm whale’s food; and, also calling to mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular latitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to certainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that ground in search of his prey.

So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the sperm whale’s resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe that, could he be closely observed and studied throughout the world; were the logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully collated, then the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to correspond in invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the flights of swallows. On this hint, attempts have been made to construct elaborate migratory charts of the sperm whale.[6]

[6]Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne out by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By that circular, it appears that precisely such a chart is in course of completion; and portions of it are presented in the circular. “This chart divides the ocean into districts of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude; perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each of which districts are three lines; one to show the number of days that have been spent in each month in every district, and the two others to show the number of days in which whales, sperm or right, have been seen.”

Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct — say, rather, secret intelligence from the Deity — mostly swim in veins, as they are called; continuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with one tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the direction taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor’s parallel, and though the line of advance be strictly confined to its own unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary vein in which at these times he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width (more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract); but never exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship’s mast-heads, when circumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at particular seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating whales may with great confidence be looked for.

And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in crossing the widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his art, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be wholly without prospect of a meeting.

There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality, perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the herds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year, say, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were found there the preceding season; though there are peculiar and unquestionable instances where the contrary of this has proved true. In general, the same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the solitaries and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that though Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what is called the Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese Coast; yet it did not follow that were the Pequod to visit either of those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding-grounds, where he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed only his casual stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his places of prolonged abode. And where Ahab’s chances of accomplishing his object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to whatever way-side, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a particular set time or place were attained, when all possibilities would become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every possibility the next thing to a certainty. That particular set time and place were conjoined in the one technical phrase — the Season-on-the-Line. For there and then, for several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically descried, lingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of the deadly encounters with the white whale had taken place; there the waves were storied with his deeds; there also was that tragic spot where the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive to his vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering vigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering hunt, he would not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one crowning fact above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those hopes; nor in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his unquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest.

Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of the Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable her commander to make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn, and then running down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial Pacific in time to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next ensuing season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod’s sailing had, perhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very complexion of things. Because, an interval of three hundred and sixty-five days and nights was before him; an interval which, instead of impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous hunt; if by chance the White Whale, spending his vacation in seas far remote from his periodical feeding-grounds, should turn up his wrinkled brow off the Persian Gulf, or in the Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other waters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor-Westers, Harmattans, Traders; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod’s circumnavigating wake.

But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar snow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but be unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to himself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he would throw himself back in reveries — tallied him, and shall he escape? His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep’s are! And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a weariness and faintness of pondering came over him! and in the open air of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.

Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them round and round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap down among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to burst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab’s case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common vitality to which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the unbidden and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to color, and therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.

Chapter 45. The Affidavit

So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main points of this affair.

I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall be content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from these citations, I take it — the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of itself.

First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I think it may have been something more than that; the man who darted them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the other. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this; that is in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them, afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the last time distinctly recognized a peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale’s eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances, then, which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard of many other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there is no good ground to impeach.

Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became thus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily peculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar in that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about such a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some poor devils ashore that happen to known an irascible great man, they make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for their presumption.

But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual celebrity — nay, you may call it an oceanwide renown; not only was he famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death, but he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of a name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so, O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like a iceberg, who so long did’st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain prose, here are four whales as well known to the students of Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar.

But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with that express object as much in view, as in setting out through the Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in his mind to capture that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the Indian King Philip.

I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.

First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur. One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan — do you suppose that that poor fellow’s name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I will tell you that upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each lost a boat’s crew. For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it.

Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that when narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold enormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt.

But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, and sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale has done it.

First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than “ten minutes” she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never attempted it since. At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.[7]

[7]The following are extracts from Chace’s narrative: “Every fact seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock; to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made were necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings.” Again: “At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion.”

Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a black night an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any hospitable shore. “The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment’s thought; the dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance.”

In another place — p.45, — he speaks of “the mysterious and mortal attack of the animal.”

Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions to it.

Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J — then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks later, the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments’ confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore’s interview with that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense.

I will now refer you to Langsdorff’s Voyages for a little circumstance in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern’s famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter:

“By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An uncommonly large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D’Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured.”

Now, the Captain D’Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.

In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too, of honest wonders — the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier’s old chums — I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a corroborative example, if such be needed.

Lionel, it seems, was on his way to “John Ferdinando,” as he calls the modern Juan Fernandes. “In our way thither,” he says, “about four o’clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground. ... The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!” Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about that time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath.

I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, let me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and secured there! the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, not so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time we say amen with Solomon — Verily there is nothing new under the sun.

In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in some one or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently to be mentioned.

Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis.

In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar substance called brit is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. But I have every reason to believe that the food of the sperm whale — squid or cuttle-fish-lurks at the bottom of that sea, because large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all human reasoning, Procopius’s sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale.

Chapter 46. Surmises

Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman’s ways, altogether to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if this were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more influential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he multiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would prove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which, though not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him.

To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew, for example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual man any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck’s body and Starbuck’s coerced will were Ahab’s, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck’s brain; still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his captain’s quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would elapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his captain’s leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure background (for few men’s courage is proof against protracted meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable — they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness — and when retained for any object remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary interests and employments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the final dash.

Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic object — that final and romantic object, too many would have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash — aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab.

Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod’s voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention to every minute atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be subjected to.

For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod’s voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general pursuit of his profession.

Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three mastheads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward.

Chapter 47. The Mat-Maker

It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-colored waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of revelry lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own invisible self.

I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn; I say so strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage’s sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance — aye, chance, free will, and necessity — wise incompatible — all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course — its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events.

Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen’s look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego the Indian’s.

As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries announcing their coming.

“There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!”

“Where-away?”

“On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!”

Instantly all was commotion.

The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from other tribes of his genus.

“There go flukes!” was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales disappeared.

“Quick, steward!” cried Ahab. “Time! time!”

Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact minute to Ahab.

The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface, mills around, and swiftly swims off in the opposite quarter — this deceitfulness of his could not now be in action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepers — that is, those not appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war’s men about to throw themselves on board an enemy’s ship.

But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air.

Chapter 48. The First Lowering

The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the captain’s, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas; — a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.

While yet the wondering ship’s company were gazing upon these strangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head, “All ready there, Fedallah?”

“Ready,” was the half-hissed reply.

“Lower away then; d’ye hear?” shouting across the deck. “Lower away there, I say.”

Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the blocks; with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship’s side into the tossed boats below.

Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship’s lee, when a fourth keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern, and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread themselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water. But with all their eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not the command.

“Captain Ahab?-” said Starbuck.

“Spread yourselves,” cried Ahab; “give way, all four boats. Thou, Flask, pull out more to leeward!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round his great steering oar. “Lay back!” addressing his crew. “There! — there! — there again! There she blows right ahead, boys! — lay back!

“Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy.”

“Oh, I don’t mind’em, sir,” said Archy; “I knew it all before now. Didn’t I hear ‘em in the hold? And didn’t I tell Cabaco here of it? What say we, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask.”

“Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my little ones,” drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom still showed signs of uneasiness. “Why don’t you break your backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They are only five more hands come to help us never mind from where the more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone devils are good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that’s the stroke for a thousand pounds; that’s the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men — all hearts alive! Easy, easy; don’t be in a hurry — don’t be in a hurry. Why don’t you snap your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, then: — softly, softly! That’s it — that’s it! long and strong. Give way there, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull, can’t ye? pull, won’t ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes don’t ye pull? — pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out! Here,” whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; “every mother’s son of ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth. That’s it — that’s it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits. Start her — start her, my silverspoons! Start her, marling-spikes!”

Stubb’s exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions with his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a tone so strangely compounded of fun most terri and fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsmen could hear such queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so broadly gaped — open-mouthed at times — that the mere sight of such a yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew. Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them.

In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely across Stubb’s bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.

“Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye please!”

“Halloa!” returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face set like a flint from Stubb’s.

“What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!

“Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong, boys! )” in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: “A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There’s hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that’s what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm’s the play! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand.”

“Aye, aye, I thought as much,” soliloquized Stubb, when the boats diverged, “as soon as I clapt eye on ‘em, I thought so. Aye, and that’s what he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long suspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale’s at the bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can’t be helped! All right! Give way men! It ain’t the White Whale to-day! Give way!”

Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship’s company; but Archy’s fancied discovery having some time previous got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some small measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb’s confident way of accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from superstitious surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab’s precise agency in the matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.

Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which periodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and displayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the gunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery horizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a fencer’s, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance any tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar as in a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All at once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained fixed, while the boat’s five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat and crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in the rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily down into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the movement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it.

“Every man look out along his oars!” cried Starbuck. “Thou, Queequeg, stand up!”

Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme stern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.

Not very far distant Flask’s boat was also lying breathlessly still; its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man’s hand, and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little King-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-Post was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this logger head stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.

“I can’t see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me onto that.”

Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty shoulders for a pedestal.

“Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?”

“That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish you fifty feet taller.”

Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to Flask’s foot, and then putting Flask’s hand on his hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a breastband to lean against and steady himself by.

At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him giddily perched upon the logger head itself, under such circumstances. But the sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious; for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider. Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now and then stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby give to the negro’s lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her seasons for that.

Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular soundings, not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case, Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband, where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed home the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had he ignited his match across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensy of hurry, “Down, down all, and give way! — there they are!”

To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it, and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other indications, the puffs of vapor they spouted, seemed their forerunning couriers and detached flying outriders.

All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled water and air. But it bade far outstrip them; it flew on and on, a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the hills.

“Pull, pull, my good boys,” said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp fixed glance from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say much to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him. Only the silence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his peculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty.

How different the loud little King-Post. “Sing out and say something, my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on their black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I’ll sign over to you my Martha’s Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife and children, boys. Lay me on — lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad! See! see that white water!” And so shouting, he pulled his hat from his head, and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up, flirted it far off upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and plunging in the boat’s stern like a crazed colt from the prairie.

“Look at that chap now,” philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a short distance, followed after — “He’s got fits, that Flask has. Fits? yes, give him fits — that’s the very word — pitch fits into ‘em. Merrily, merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know; — merry’s the word. Pull, babes — pull, sucklings — pull, all. But what the devil are you hurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull, and keep pulling; nothing more. Crack all your backbones, and bite your knives in two — that’s all. Take it easy — why don’t ye take it easy, I say, and burst all your livers and lungs!”

But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow crew of his — these were words best omitted here; for you live under the blessed light of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks in the audacious seas may give ear to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of red murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey.

Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allusions of Flask to “that whale,” as he called the fictitious monster which he declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat’s bow with its tail — these allusions of his were at times so vivid and life-like, that they would cause some one or two of his men to snatch a fearful look over his shoulder. But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen must put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usages announcing that they must have no organs but ears; and no limbs but arms, in these critical moments.

It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side; — all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood; — all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man’s host encountering the first unknown phantom in the other world; — neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale.

The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales running dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still rising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to escape being torn from the row-locks.

Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither ship nor boat to be seen.

“Give way, men,” whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet of his sail; “there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes. There’s white water again! — close to! Spring!”

Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: “Stand up!” and Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet.

Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enraged serpents.

“That’s his hump. There, there, give it to him!” whispered Starbuck.

A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapor shot up near by; something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the white curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all blended together; and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped.

Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them across the gunwale, tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom of the ocean.

The wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklers together; the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around us like a white fire upon the prairie, in which unconsumed, we were burning; immortal in these jaws of death! In vain we hailed the other boats; as well roar to the live coals down the chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those boats in that storm. Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew darker with the shadows of night; no sign of the ship could be seen. The rising sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were useless as propellers, performing now the office of life-preservers. So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair.

Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat, we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spread over the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat. Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear. We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled by the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick mists were dimly parted by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang into the sea as the ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down upon us within a distance of not much more than its length.

Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one instant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship’s bows like a chip at the base of a cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was seen no more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam for it, were dashed against it by the seas, and were at last taken up and safely landed on board. Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut loose from their fish and returned to the ship in good time. The ship had given us up, but was still cruising, if haply it might light upon some token of our perishing, — an oar or a lance pole.

Chapter 49. The Hyena

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object.

“Queequeg,” said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water; “Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?” Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he gave me to understand that such things did often happen.

“Mr. Stubb,” said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; “Mr. Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman’s discretion?”

“Certain. I’ve lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off Cape Horn.”

“Mr. Flask,” said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing close by; “you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremost into death’s jaws?”

“Can’t you twist that smaller?” said Flask. “Yes, that’s the law. I should like to see a boat’s crew backing water up to a whale face foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind that!”

Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign my life into the hands of him who steered the boat — oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that the particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck’s driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck’s boat; and finally considering in what a devil’s chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking all things together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will. “Queequeg,” said I, “come along, you shall be my lawyer, executor, and legatee.”

It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical life that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case may be. I survived myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault.

Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.

Chapter 50. Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah

“Who would have thought it, Flask!” cried Stubb; “if I had but one leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! he’s a wonderful old man!”

“I don’t think it so strange, after all, on that account,” said Flask. “If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing. That would disable him; but he has one knee, and good part of the other left, you know.”

“I don’t know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel.”

Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane’s soldiers often argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried into the thickest of the fight.

But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all times of dancer; considering that the pursuit of whales is always under great and extraordinary difficulties; that every individual moment, indeed, then comprises a peril; under these circumstances is it wise for any maimed man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt? As a general thing, the joint-owners of the Pequod must have plainly thought not.

Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think little of his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless vicissitudes of the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of action and giving his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to have a boat actually apportioned to him as a regular headsman in the hunt — above all for Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat’s crew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat’s crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head. Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all that matter. Until Cabaco’s published discovery, the sailors had little foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out of port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the whaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this was observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also the anxiety he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat’s bow for bracing the knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was observed how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee fixed in the semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the carpenter’s chisel gouged out a little here and straightened it a little there; all these things, I say, had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But almost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness in Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve the remotest suspicion as to any boat’s crew being assigned to that boat.

Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck, oars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; that Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable excitement in the forecastle.

But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab’s peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort of a half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even authority over him; all this none knew, but one cannot sustain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent — those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Robbins, indulged in mundane amours.

Chapter 51. The Spirit-Spout

Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly swept across four several cruising-grounds; off the Azores; off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, southerly from St. Helena.

It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. “There she blows!” Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering.

Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the t’gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in her — one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched Ahab’s face that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring. While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.

This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be; disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on.

Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by one selfsame whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.

These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow.

But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, the foamflakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before.

Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred.

Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, as called of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and unvarying; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried.

During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming for the time the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldom than ever addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything above and aloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed hole, and with one hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or snow would all but congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew driven from the forward part of the ship by the perilous seas that burstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks in the waist; and the better to guard against the leaping waves, each man had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax, day after day tore on through all the swift madness and gladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same muteness of humanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed; still in silence the men swung in the bowlines; still wordless Ahab stood up to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he would not seek that respose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget the old man’s aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. On the table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents which have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eves were pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in the ceiling.[8]

[8]The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of the course of the ship.

Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.

Chapter 52. The Albatross

South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean fisheries — a whaler at sea, and long absent from home.

As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred over with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it was to see her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They seemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment that had survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea; and though, when the ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men in the air came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped from the mast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to our own look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being heard from below.

“Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?”

But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing the distance between us. While in various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the first mere mention of the White Whale’s name to another ship, Ahab for a moment paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a boat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But taking advantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet, and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed — “Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them to address them to-”

At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish, that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, darted away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and aft with the stranger’s flanks. Though in the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings.

“Swim away from me, do ye?” murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water. There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced. But turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in the wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice, — “Up helm! Keep her off round the world!”

Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us.

Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of the demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.

Chapter 53. The Gam

The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded her — judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions — if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he cared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, except he could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly sought. But all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not something said here of the peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when meeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a common cruising-ground.

If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually encountering each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and stopping for a moment to interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting down for a while and resting in concert: then, how much more natural that upon the illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling vessels descrying each other at the ends of the earth — off lone Fanning’s Island, or the far away King’s Mills; how much more natural, I say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only interchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and sociable contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of course, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains, officers, and not a few of the men are personally known to each other; and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to talk about.

For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has letters on board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some papers of a date a year or two later than the last one on her blurred and thumb-worn files. And in return for that courtesy, the outward-bound ship would receive the latest whaling intelligence from the cruising-ground to which she may be destined, a thing of the utmost importance to her. And in degree, all this will hold true concerning whaling vessels crossing each other’s track on the cruising-ground itself, even though they are equally long absent from home. For one of them may have received a transfer of letters from some third, and now far remote vessel; and some of those letters may be for the people of the ship she now meets. Besides, they would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable chat. For not only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors, but likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a common pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils.

Nor would difference of country make any very essential difference; that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number of English whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when they do occur there. is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them; for your Englishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American whalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where this superiority in the English whaleman does really consist, it would be hard to say, seeing that the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill more whales than all the English, collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless little foible in the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does not take much to heart; probably, because he knows that he has a few foibles himself.

So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the whalers have most reason to be sociable — and they are so. Whereas, some merchant ships crossing each other’s wake in the mid-Atlantic, will oftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of recognition, mutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a brace of dandies in Broadway; and all the time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism upon each other’s rig. As for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea, they first go through such a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such a ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be much right-down hearty good-will and brotherly love about it at all. As touching Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, they run away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates, when they chance to cross each other’s cross-bones, the first hail is — “How many skulls?” — the same way that whalers hail — “How many barrels?” And that question once answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for they are infernal villains on both sides, and don’t like to see overmuch of each other’s villanous likenesses.

But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a “Gam,” a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it, and repeat gamesome stuff about “spouters” and “blubber-boilers,” and such like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and also all Pirates and Man-of-War’s men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it would be hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on.

But what is a Gam? You might wear out your index-finger running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word, Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster’s ark does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define it.

GAM. NOUN — A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships, generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits hy boats’ crews, the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other.

There is another little item about Gamming which must not be forgotten here. All professions have their own little peculiarities of detail; so has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave ship, when the captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits in the stern sheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat there, and often steers himself with a pretty little milliner’s tiller decorated with gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa of that sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if whaling captains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty old aldermen in patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits of any such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete boat’s crew must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit all standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that being conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him from the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to the importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is this any very easy matter; for in his rear is the immense projecting steering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back, the after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He is thus completely wedged before and behind, and can only expand himself sideways by settling down on his stretched legs; but a sudden, violent pitch of the boat will often go far to topple him, because length of foundation is nothing without corresponding breadth. Merely make a spread angle of two poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, it would never do in plain sight of the world’s riveted eyes, it would never do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers’ pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say — to seize hold of the nearest oarsman’s hair, and hold on there like grim death.

Chapter 54. The Town-Ho’s Story

(As told at the Golden Inn) {b> {b>La historia del Town-Ho (según se contó en la Posada de Oro)

The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet more travellers than in any other part.

It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,[9] was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho’s story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod’s main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.

[9]The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head, still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin.

For my humor’s sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint’s eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time.

“Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days’ sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps according to daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold than common. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But the captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good luck awaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to quit them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, though, indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low down as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals; but no good luck came; more days went by and not only was the leak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the nearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and repaired.

“Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the way, because his pumps were of the best, and being periodically relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the ship free; never mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well nigh the whole of this passage being attended by very prosperous breezes, the Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at her port without the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the brutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from Buffalo.

“’Lakeman! — Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?’ said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass.

“On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but — I crave your courtesy — may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now, gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well nigh as large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-water seas of ours, — Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan, — possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean’s noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by batteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they have heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they yield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buckhorn handled Bowie-knives. Yet was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave’s right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt — but, gentlemen, you shall hear.

“It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing her prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho’s leak seemed again increasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps every day. You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our Atlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their whole way across it; though of a still, sleepy night, should the officer of the deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the probability would be that he and his shipmates would never again remember it, on account of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their pump-handles in full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length! that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other reasonable retreat is afforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is in some very out of the way part of those waters, some really landless latitude, that her captain begins to feel a little anxious.

“Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was found gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by several of her company; especially by Radney the mate. He commanded the upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a coward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or on sea that you can conveniently gentlemen. Therefore when he betrayed this imagine, solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the seamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner in her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water; clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen — that bubbling from the pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at the lee scupper-holes.

“Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ours — watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he had a chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may, gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled housings of your last viceroy’s snorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he been born son to Charlemagne’s father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it.

“Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with his gay banterings.

“’Aye, aye, my merry lads, it’s a lively leak this; hold a cannikin, one of ye, and let’s have a taste. By the Lord, it’s worth bottling! I tell ye what, men, old Rad’s investment must go for it! he had best cut away his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that sword-fish only began the job; he’s come back again with a gang of ship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole posse of ‘em are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom; making improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I’d tell him to jump overboard and scatter They’re playing the devil with his estate, I can tell him. But he’s a simple old soul, — Rad, and a beauty too. Boys, they say the rest of his property is invested in looking-glasses. I wonder if he’d give a poor devil like me the model of his nose.’

“’Damn your eyes! what’s that pump stopping for?’ roared Radney, pretending not to have heard the sailors’ talk. ‘Thunder away at it!’

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. ‘Lively, boys, lively, now!’ And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines; the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping of the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life’s utmost energies.

“Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig to run at large.

“Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship’s deck at sea is a piece of household work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys, if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all these particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair stood between the two men.

“But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will understand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully comprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat still for a moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate’s malignant eye and perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-match silently burning along towards them; as he instinctively saw all this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper passionateness in any already ireful being — a repugnance most felt, when felt at all, by really valiant men even when aggrieved — this nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt.

“Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping the deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then, without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads, as the customary sweepers; who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done little or nothing all day. To this, Radney replied, with an oath, in a most domineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his command; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an unlifted cooper’s club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near by.

“Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the hammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do his bidding.

“Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windless, steadily followed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated his intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had not the slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with his twisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man; but it was to no purpose. And in this way the two went once slowly round the windlass; when, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him that he had now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the Lakeman paused on the hatches and thus spoke to the officer:

“’Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to yourself.’ But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him, where the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch of his teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions. Retreating not the thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye with the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching his right hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his persecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would murder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter by the gods. Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant the lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch spouting blood like a whale.

“Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing their mastheads. They were both Canallers.

“’Canallers!’ cried Don Pedro. ‘We have seen many whaleships in our harbors, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are they?’

“’Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal. You must have heard of it.’

“’Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary land, we know but little of your vigorous North.’

“’Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha’s very fine; and ere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are; for such information may throw side-light upon my story.’

“For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire breadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and most thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room and bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman arches over Indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or broken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk counties; especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly corrupt and often lawless life. There’s your true Ashantee, gentlemen; there howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you; under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronizing lee of churches. For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities.

“’Is that a fair passing?’ said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the crowded plazza, with humorous concern.

“’Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella’s Inquisition wanes in Lima,’ laughed Don Sebastian. ‘Proceed, Senor.’

“’A moment! Pardon!’ cried another of the company. ‘In the name of all us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima for distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look surprised: you know the proverb all along this coast — “Corrupt as Lima.” It but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than billiard-tables, and for ever open-and “Corrupt as Lima.” So, too, Venice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St. Mark! — St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you pour out again.’

“Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked he is. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages through which he floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so many of its most finished graduates, and that scarce any race of mankind, except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling captains. Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter, that to many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole transition between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, and recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas.

“’I see! I see!’ impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha upon his silvery ruffles. ‘No need to travel! The world’s one Lima. I had thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were cold and holy as the hills. — But the story.’

“I had left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down the ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the uproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle. Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm’s way, the valiant captain danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran close up to the revolving border of the confusion, and prying into the heart of it with his pike, sought to prick out the object of his resentment. But Steelkilt and his desperadoes were too much for them all; they succeeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where, hastily slewing about three or four large casks in a line with the windlass, these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves behind the barricade.

“’Come out of that, ye pirates!’ roared the captain, now menacing them with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. ‘Come out of that, ye cut-throats!’

“Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there, defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt’s) death would be the signal for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but still commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty.

“’Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?’ demanded their ringleader.

“’Turn to! turn to! — I make no promise; to your duty! Do you want to sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!’ and he once more raised a pistol.

“’Sink the ship?’ cried Steelkilt. ‘Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us turns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn against us. What say ye, men?’ turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was their response.

“The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these: — ‘It’s not our fault; we didn’t want it; I told him to take his hammer away; it was boy’s business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his cursed jaw; ain’t those mincing knives down in the forecastle there, men? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to yourself; say the word; don’t be a fool; forget it all; we are ready to turn to; treat us decently, and we’re your men; but we won’t be flogged.’

“’Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!’

“’Look ye, now,’ cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him, ‘there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped for the cruise, d’ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim our discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don’t want a row; it’s not our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready to work, but we won’t be flogged.’

“’Turn to!’ roared the Captain.

“Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said: — ‘I tell you what it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for such a shabby rascal, we won’t lift a hand against ye unless ye attack us; but till you say the word about not flogging us, we don’t do a hand’s turn.’

“’Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I’ll keep ye there till ye’re sick of it. Down ye go.’

“’Shall we?’ cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were against it; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him down into their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears into a cave.

“As the Lakeman’s bare head was just level with the planks, the Captain and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing over the slide of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it, and loudly called for the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock belonging to the companionway.

Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered something down the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them — ten in number — leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had remained neutral.

“All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; at which last place it was feared the insurgents might emerge, after breaking through the bulkhead below. But the hours of darkness passed in peace; the men who still remained at their duty toiling hard at the pumps, whose clinking and clanking at intervals through the dreary night dismally resounded through the ship.

“At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck, summoned the prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused. Water was then lowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls of biscuit were tossed after it; when again turning the key upon them and pocketing it, the Captain returned to the quarter-deck. Twice every day for three days this was repeated; but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling, and then a scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered; and suddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they were ready to turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a famishing diet, united perhaps to some fears of ultimate retribution, had constrained them to surrender at discretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain reiterated his demand to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific hint to stop his babbling and betake himself where he belonged. On the fifth morning three others of the mutineers bolted up into the air from the desperate arms below that sought to restrain them. Only three were left.

“’Better turn to, now?’ said the Captain with a heartless jeer.

“’Shut us up again, will ye!’ cried Steelkilt.

“’Oh certainly,’ the Captain, and the key clicked.

“It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection of seven of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice that had last hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a place as black as the bowels of despair; it was then that Steelkilt proposed to the two Canallers, thus far apparently of mind with him, to burst out of their hole at the next summoning of the garrison; and armed with their keen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with a handle at each end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail; and if by any devilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship. For himself, he would do this, he said, whether they joined him or not. That was the last night he should spend in that den. But the scheme met with no opposition on the part of the other two; they swore they were ready for that, or for any other mad thing, for anything in short but a surrender. And what was more, they each insisted upon being the first man on deck, when the time to make the rush should come. But to this their leader as fiercely objected, reserving that priority for himself; particularly as his two comrades would not yield, the one to the other, in the matter; and both of them could not be first, for the ladder would but admit one man at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play of these miscreants must come out.

“Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the same piece of treachery, namely: to be the foremost in breaking out, in order to be the first of the three, though the last of the ten, to surrender; and thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might merit. But when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead them to the last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed their before secret treacheries together; and when their leader fell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in three sentences; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords; and shrieked out for the Captain at midnight.

“Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood, he and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In a few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot, the still struggling ringleader was shoved up into the air by his perfidious allies, who at once claimed the honor of securing a man who had been fully ripe for murder. But all these were collared, and dragged along the deck like dead cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the mizzen rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till morning. ‘Damn ye,’ cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them, ‘the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!’

“At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who had rebelled from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told the former he had a good mind to flog them all round — thought, upon the while, he would do so — he ought to — justice demanded it; but for the present, considering their timely surrender, he would let them go with a reprimand, which he accordingly administered in the vernacular.

“’But as for you, ye carrion rogues,’ turning to the three men in the rigging — ‘for you, I mean to mince ye up for the try-pots;’ and, seizing a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs of the two traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung their heads sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn.

“’My wrist is sprained with ye!’ he cried, at last; ‘but there is still rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn’t give up. Take that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can say for himself.’

“For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion of his cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head, said in a sort of hiss, ‘What I say is this — and mind it well — if you flog me, I murder you!’

“’Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me’ — and the Captain drew off with the rope to strike.

“’Best not,’ hissed the Lakeman.

“’But I must,’ — and the rope was once more drawn back for the stroke.

“Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the Captain; who, to the amazement of all hands, started back, paced the deck rapidly two or three times, and then suddenly throwing down his rope, said, ‘I won’t do it — let him go — cut him down: d’ye hear?’

But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a pale man, with a bandaged head, arrested them — Radney the chief mate. Ever since the blow, he had lain in his berth; but that morning, hearing the tumult on the deck, he had crept out, and thus far had watched the whole scene. Such was the state of his mouth, that he could hardly speak; but mumbling something about his being willing and able to do what the captain dared not attempt, he snatched the rope and advanced to his pinioned foe.

“’You are a coward!’ hissed the Lakeman.

“’So I am, but take that.’ The mate was in the very act of striking, when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused: and then pausing no more, made good his word, spite of Steelkilt’s threat, whatever that might have been. The three men were then cut down, all hands were turned to, and, sullenly worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps clanged as before.

“Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a clamor was heard in the forecastle; and the two trembling traitors running up, besieged the cabin door, saying they durst not consort with the crew. Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive them back, so at their own instance they were put down in the ship’s run for salvation. Still, no sign of mutiny reappeared among the rest. On the contrary, it seemed, that mainly at Steelkilt’s instigation, they had resolved to maintain the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when the ship reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to insure the speediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to another thing — namely, not to sing out for whales, in case any should be discovered. For, spite her leak, and spite of all her other perils, the Town-Ho still maintained her mast-heads, and her captain was just as willing to lower for a fish that moment, as on the day his craft struck the cruising ground; and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his berth for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the vital jaw of the whale.

“But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this sort of passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel (at least till all was over) concerning his own proper and private revenge upon the man who had stung him in the ventricles of his heart. He was in Radney the chief mate’s watch; and as if the infatuated man sought to run more than half way to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he insisted, against the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the head of his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other circumstances, Steelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge.

“During the night, Radney had an unseaman-like way of sitting on the bulwarks of the quarterdeck, and leaning his arm upon the gunwale of the boat which was hoisted up there, a little above the ship’s side. In this attitude, it was well known, he sometimes dozed. There was a considerable vacancy between the boat and the ship, and down between this was the sea. Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his next trick at the helm would come round at two o’clock, in the morning of the third day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his leisure, he employed the interval in braiding something very carefully in his watches below.

“’What are you making there?’ said a shipmate.

“’What do you think? what does it look like?’

“’Like a lanyard for your bag; but it’s an odd one, seems to me.’

‘Yes, rather oddish,’ said the Lakeman, holding it at arm’s length before him; ‘but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I haven’t enough twine, — have you any?’

“But there was none in the forecastle.

“’Then I must get some from old Rad;’ and he rose to go aft.

“’You don’t mean to go a begging to him!’ said a sailor.

“’Why not? Do you think he won’t do me a turn, when it’s to help himself in the end, shipmate?’ and going to the mate, he looked at him quietly, and asked him for some twine to mend his hammock. It was given him — neither twine nor lanyard were seen again; but the next night an iron ball, closely netted, partly rolled from the pocket of the Lakeman’s monkey jacket, as he was tucking the coat into his hammock for a pillow. Twenty-four hours after, his trick at the silent helm — nigh to the man who was apt to doze over the grave always ready dug to the seaman’s hand — that fatal hour was then to come; and in the fore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was already stark and stretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed in.

“But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the bloody deed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had, and without being the avenger. For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven itself seemed to step in to take out of his hands into its own the damning thing he would have done.

“It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of the second day, when they were washing down the decks, that a stupid Teneriffe man, drawing water in the main-chains, all at once shouted out, ‘There she rolls! there she rolls!’ Jesu, what a whale! It was Moby Dick.

“’Moby Dick!’ cried Don Sebastian; ‘St. Dominic! Sir sailor, but do whales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?’

“’A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster, Don; — but that would be too long a story.’

“’How? how?’ cried all the young Spaniards, crowding.

“’Nay, Dons, Dons — nay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let me get more into the air, Sirs.’

“’The chicha! the chicha!’ cried Don Pedro; ‘our vigorous friend faint; — fill up his empty glass!’

“No need, gentlemen; one moment, and I proceed. — Now, gentlemen, so suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty yards of the ship — forgetful of the compact among the crew — in the excitement of the moment, the Teneriffe man had instinctively and involuntarily lifted his voice for the monster, though for some little time past it had been plainly beheld from the three sullen mast-heads. All was now a phrensy. ‘The White Whale — the White Whale!’ was the cry from captain, mates, and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious to capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality pervades the whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out before the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while Radney stood up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken the line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were lowered, the mate’s got the start; and none howled more fiercely with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney sprang to the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. And now his bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale’s topmost back. Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding foam that blent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate. That instant, as he fell on the whale’s slippery back, the boat righted, and was dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the sea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck out through the spray, and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer between his jaws; and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again, and went down.

“Meantime, at the first tap of the boat’s bottom, the Lakeman had slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly looking on, lie thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific, downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He cut it; and the whale was free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose again, with some tatters of Radney’s red woolen shirt, caught in the teeth that had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again; but the whale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared.

“In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port — a savage, solitary place — where no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately deserted among the palms; eventually, as it turned out, seizing a large double war-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for some other harbor.

“The ship’s company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving down the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over their dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both by night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent, that upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a weakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the ship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon from the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the Islanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with him, and setting the sail of his best whale-boat, steered straight before the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a reinforcement to his crew.

“On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from it; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The captain presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam.

“’What do you want of me?’ cried the captain.

“’Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?’ demanded Steelkilt; ‘no lies.’

“’I am bound to Tahiti for more men.’

“’Very good. Let me board you a moment — I come in peace.’ With that he leaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the gunwale, stood face to face with the captain.

“’Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after me. As soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder island, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightning strike me!’

“’A pretty scholar,’ laughed the Lakeman. ‘Adios, Senor!’ and leaping into the sea, he swam back to his comrades.

“Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the roots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due time arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck befriended him; two ships were about to sail for France, and were providentially in want of precisely that number of men which the sailor headed. They embarked, and so for ever got the start of their former captain, had he been at all minded to work them legal retribution.

“Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whale-boat arrived, and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small native schooner, he returned with them to his vessel; and finding all right there, again resumed his cruisings.

“Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses to give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that destroyed him.

“’Are you through?’ said Don Sebastian, quietly.

“’I am, Don.’

“’Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions, this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing wonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me if I seem to press.’

“’Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don Sebastian’s suit,’ cried the company, with exceeding interest.

“’Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn, gentlemen?’

“’Nay,’ said Don Sebastian; ‘but I know a worthy priest near by, who will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised? this may grow too serious.’

“’Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?’

“’Though there are no Auto-da-Fe’s in Lima now,’ said one of the company to another; ‘I fear our sailor friend runs risks of the archiepiscopacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.’

“’Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also beg that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists you can.’

‘This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,’ said Don Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure.

“’Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it.

“’So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told ye, gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.’”

Chapter 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales

I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored alongside the whaleship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there. It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all wrong.

It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For ever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble panellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields, medallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of chain-armor like Saladin’s, and a helmeted head like St. George’s; ever since then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not only in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific presentations of him.

Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to be the whale’s, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephants, in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering of an anaconda, than the broad palms of the true whale’s majestic flukes.

But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter’s portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido’s picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model of such a strange creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting the same scene in his own “Perseus Descending,” make out one whit better. The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be taken for the Traitors’ Gate leading from the Thames by water into the Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah’s whale, as depicted in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of old primers. What shall be said of these? As for the book-binder’s whale winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a descending anchor — as stamped and gilded on the backs and titlepages of many books both old and new — that is a very picturesque but purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures on antique vases. Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this book-binder’s fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so intended when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an old Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the Revival of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a comparatively late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of the Leviathan.

In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all manner of spouts, jets d’eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the title-page of the original edition of the “Advancement of Learning” you will find some curious whales.

But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations, by those who know. In old Harris’s collection of voyages there are some plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671, entitled “A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master.” In one of those plates the whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among ice-isles, with white bears running over their living backs. In another plate, the prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with perpendicular flukes.

Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled “A Voyage round Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries.” In this book is an outline purporting to be a “Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck.” I doubt not the captain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines. To mention but one thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which applied, according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm whale, would make the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out of that eye!

Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of mistake. Look at that popular work “Goldsmith’s Animated Nature.” In the abridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged “whale” and a “narwhale.” I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent public of schoolboys.

Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacepede, a great naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these are not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland whale (that is to say the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long experienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its counterpart in nature.

But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us.

As for the sign-painters’ whales seen in the streets hanging over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage; breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners: their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue paint.

But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have been taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars. Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between a young suckling whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship’s deck, such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself could not catch.

But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at all. For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though Jeremy Bentham’s skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy’s other leading personal characteristics; yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any leviathan’s articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some part of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human fingers in an artificial covering. “However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us,” said humorous Stubb one day, “he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens.”

For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which much remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan.

Chapter 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes

In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, &c. But I pass that matter by.

I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale; Colnett’s, Huggins’s, Frederick Cuvier’s, and Beale’s. In the previous chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins’s is far better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale’s is the best. All Beale’s drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second chapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; but they are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though.

Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; but they are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency, because it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you can derive anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by his living hunters.

But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to be anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed, and taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they represent attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the. air upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon the monster’s spine; and standing in that prow, for that one single incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and true. The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions of affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing down upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I could not draw so good a one.

In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the fore-ground is all raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the inserted into his spout-hole.

Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.

The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England’s experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so far as picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching the profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland whale, and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives, and grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the excellent voyager (I honor him for a veteran), but in so important a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace.

In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself “H. Durand.” One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. It is a quiet noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored, inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the loosened sails of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, both drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine, when considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen under one of their few aspects of oriental repose. The other engraving is quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside; the vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a quay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is about giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and lances lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in its hole; while from a sudden roll of the ship, the little craft stands half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From that ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the excited seamen.

Chapter 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars

On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a crippled beggar (or kedger, as the sailors say) holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg. There are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats (presumed to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years, they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in Wapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on that stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; but, with downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation.

Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies’ busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner’s fancy.

Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.

Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon. For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark’s tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; and it has cost steady years of steady application.

As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage. With the same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark’s tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles’s shield; and full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine Dutch savage, Albert Durer.

Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the forecastles of American whalers. Some of them are done with much accuracy.

At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking whales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of some old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for weathercocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all intents and purposes so labelled with “Hands off!” you cannot examine them closely enough to decide upon their merit.

In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against them in a surf of green surges.

Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be a thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you wish to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, else so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your precise, previous stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery; like the Soloma islands, which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffled Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them.

Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish.

With a frigate’s anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight!

Chapter 58. Brit

Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat.

On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from the attack of a Sperm-Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated from the water that escaped at the lips.

As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.[10]

[10]That part of the sea known among whalemen as the “Brazil Banks” does not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased.

But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea. And even when recognized at last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.

Indeed. in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the deep with the same feeling that you do those of the shore. For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him.

But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas have ever regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment’s consideration will teach that, however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.

The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah’s flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews.

But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.

Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!

Chapter 59. Squid

Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely, alluring jet would be seen.

But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy; when the slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the visible sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.

In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out — “There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale!”

Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time the bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo.

Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness betrayed him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave orders for lowering.

The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab’s in advance, and all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-color, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to catch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.

As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice exclaimed — “Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!”

“What was it, Sir?” said Flask.

“The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it.”

But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; the rest as silently following.

Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale his only food. For though other species of whales find their food above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the surface; and only by inference is it that any one can tell of what, precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy that the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by them to the bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other species, is supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it.

There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond. But much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he assigns it.

By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe.

Chapter 60. The Line La estacha

With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line.

The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general by no means adds to the rope’s durability or strength, however much it may give it compactness and gloss.

Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian to behold.

The whale-line is only two thirds of an inch in thickness. At first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still though, but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded “sheaves,” or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the “heart,” or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take somebody’s arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this business, carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all possible wrinkles and twists.

In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub, nearly three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks are but one-half inch in thickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a concentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the American tubline, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.

Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This arrangement is indispensable for common safety’s sake; for were the lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again.

Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man’s oar, so that it jogs against his wrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately sit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a common squill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp — the rope which is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious to detail.

Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit — strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish? — Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whaleboat, when thus hung in hangman’s nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around every neck, as you may say.

Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for those repeated whaling disasters — some few of which are casually chronicled — of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could never pierce you out.

Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself; for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play — this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, everpresent perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.

Chapter 61. Stubb Kills a Whale Stubb mata un cachalote

If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different object.

“When you see him ‘quid,” said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow of his hoisted boat, “then you quick see him ‘parm whale.”

The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special to engage them, the Pequod’s crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground; that is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the Rio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru.

It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it; in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn.

Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the seamen at the main and mizzen mast-heads were already drowsy. So that at last all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every swing that we made there was a nod from below from the slumbering helmsman. The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests; and across the wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all.

Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved me; with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun’s rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by some enchanter’s wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling brine into the air.

“Clear away the boats! Luff!” cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes.

The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the leeward, but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as he swam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave orders that not an oar should be used, and no man must speak but in whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats, we swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not admitting of the noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase, the monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and then sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up.

“There go flukes!” was the cry, an announcement immediately followed by Stubb’s producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite was granted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the whale rose again, and being now in advance of the smoker’s boat, and much nearer to it than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the honor of the capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had at length become aware of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore no longer of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into play. And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault.

Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy, he was going “head out”; that part obliquely projecting from the mad yeast which he brewed.[11]

[11]It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance the entire interior of the sperm whale’s enormous head consists. Though apparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about him. So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does so when going at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the upper part of the front of his head, and such the tapering cut-water formation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he thereby may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish galliot into a sharppointed New York pilot-boat.

“Start her, start her, my men! Don’t hurry yourselves; take plenty of time — but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that’s all,” cried Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. “Start her, now; give ‘em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy — start her, all; but keep cool, keep cool — cucumbers is the word — easy, easy — only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys — that’s all. Start her!”

“Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!” screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising some old war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained boat involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading stroke which the eager Indian gave.

But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. “Kee-hee! Kee-hee!” yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat, like a pacing tiger in his cage.

“Ka-la! Koo-loo!” howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a mouthful of Grenadier’s steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb, retaining his place in the van, still encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the welcome cry was heard — “Stand up, Tashtego! — give it to him!” The harpoon was hurled. “Stern all!” The oarsmen backed water; the same moment something went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists. It was the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught two additional turns with it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its increased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with the steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and round the loggerhead; so also, just before reaching that point, it blisteringly passed through and through both of Stubb’s hands, from which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy’s sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time striving to wrest it out of your clutch.

“Wet the line! wet the line!” cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into it. [12] More turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place. The boat now flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego here changed places — stem for stern — a staggering business truly in that rocking commotion.

[12]Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the running line with water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most convenient.

From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you would have thought the craft had two keels — one cleaving the water, the other the air — as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at once. A continual cascade played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake; and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gunwale into the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall form of Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order to bring down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened his flight.

“Haul in — haul in!” cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into the flying fish; at the word of command, the boat alternately sterning out of the way of the whale’s horrible wallow, and then ranging up for another fling.

The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun playing upon their crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men. And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth of the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again sent it into the whale.

“Pull up — pull up!” he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale relaxed in his wrath. “Pull up! — close to!” and the boat ranged along the fish’s flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his “flurry,” the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.

And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view! surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frightened air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst!

“He’s dead, Mr. Stubb,” said Daggoo.

“Yes; both pipes smoked out!” and withdrawing his own from his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.

Chapter 62. The Dart El arponeo

A word concerning an incident in the last chapter.

According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat pushes off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs a strong, nervous arm to strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what is called a long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the distance of twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting the chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the uttermost; indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman activity to the rest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeated loud and intrepid exclamations; and what it is to keep shouting at the top of one’s compass, while all the other muscles are strained and half started — what that is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same time. In this straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry — “Stand up, and give it to him!” He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and with what little strength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale. No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some of them actually burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can you expect to find it there when most wanted!

Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant, that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneer likewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of themselves and every one else. It is then they change places; and the headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes his proper station in the bows of the boat.

Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from first to last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no rowing whatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances obvious to any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a slight loss of speed in the chase; but long experience in various whalemen of more than one nation has convinced me that in the vast majority of failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so much the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the harpooneer that has caused them.

To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of toil.

Chapter 63. The Crotch La horquilla

Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.

The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention. It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, which is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow, for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the harpoons, whose other naked, barbed end sloping projects from the prow. Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who snatches it up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from the wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in the crotch, respectively called the first and second irons.

But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with the line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one instantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the coming drag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It is a doubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to the instantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon receiving the first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however lightning-like in his movements, to pitch the second iron into him. Nevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the line, and the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events, be anticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere; else the most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the water, it accordingly is in such cases; the spare coils of box line (mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances, prudently practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended with the saddest and most fatal casualties.

Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is fairly captured and a corpse.

Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is supplied with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are faithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several most important however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be painted.

Chapter 64. Stubb’s Supper La cena de Stubb

Stubb’s whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever they call it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will draw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grand argosy we towed heavily forged along, as if laden with piglead in bulk.

Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod’s main-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab dropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for securing it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman, went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until morning.

Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought from the sound on the Pequod’s decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the deck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the stern, and by the tall to the bows, the whale now lies with its black hull close to the vessel’s, and seen through the darkness of the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two — ship and whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines while the other remains standing.[13]

[13]A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is relatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.

If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.

“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut me one from his small!”

Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body.

About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on whale’s flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp slapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the sleepers’ hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the shark seems all but miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable surface, they contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on the whale, may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking for a screw.

Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other’s live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil.

But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of his own epicurean lips.

“Cook, cook! — where’s that old Fleece?” he cried at length, widening his legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper; and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing with his lance; “cook, you cook! — sail this way, cook!”

The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something the matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep well scoured like his other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb’s sideboard; when, with both hands folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways inclining his head, so as to bring his best ear into play.

“Cook,” said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his mouth, “don’t you think this steak is rather overdone? You’ve been beating this steak too much, cook; it’s too tender. Don’t I always say that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks now over the side, don’t you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to ‘em; tell ‘em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and deliver my message. Here, take this lantern,” snatching one from his sideboard; “now then, go and preach to them!”

Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand drooping his light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that was said.

“Fellow-critters: I’se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin’ ob de lips! Massa Stubb say dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you must stop dat dam racket!”

“Cook,” here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap on the shoulder, — “cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn’t swear that way when you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert sinners, cook!”

“Who dat? Den preach to him yourself,” sullenly turning to go.

“No, cook; go on, go on.”

“Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:” —

“Right!” exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, “coax ‘em to it, try that,” and Fleece continued.

“Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness — ‘top dat dam slappin’ ob de tail! How you tink to hear, ‘spose you keep up such a dam slapping and bitin’ dare?”

“Cook,” cried Stubb, collaring him, “I won’t have that swearing. Talk to ‘em gentlemanly.”

Once more the sermon proceeded.

“Your woraciousness, fellow-critters. I don’t blame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can’t be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred’ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don’t be tearin’ de blubber out your neighbour’s mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o’ you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but then de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can’t get into de scrouge to help demselves.”

“Well done, old Fleece!” cried Stubb, “that’s Christianity; go on.”

“No use goin’ on; de dam willains will keep a scougin’ and slappin’ each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don’t hear one word; no use a-preaching to such dam g’uttons as you call ‘em, till dare bellies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get ‘em full, dey wont hear you den; for den dey sink in the sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and can’t hear noting at all, no more, for eber and eber.”

“Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction, Fleece, and I’ll away to my supper.”

Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his shrill voice, and cried —

“Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill your dam bellies ‘till dey bust — and den die.”

“Now, cook,” said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; “stand just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular attention.”

“All ‘dention,” said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the desired position.

“Well,” said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; “I shall now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, cook?”

“What dat do wid de ‘teak, “ said the old black, testily.

“Silence! How old are you, cook?”

“’Bout ninety, dey say,” he gloomily muttered.

“And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook, and don’t know yet how to cook a whale-steak?” rapidly bolting another mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the question. “Where were you born, cook?”

“’Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin’ ober de Roanoke.”

“Born in a ferry-boat! That’s queer, too. But I want to know what country you were born in, cook!”

“Didn’t I say de Roanoke country?” he cried sharply.

“No, you didn’t, cook; but I’ll tell you what I’m coming to, cook. You must go home and be born over again; you don’t know how to cook a whale-steak yet.”

“Bress my soul, if I cook noder one,” he growled, angrily, turning round to depart.

“Come back here, cook; — here, hand me those tongs; — now take that bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? Take it, I say” — holding the tongs towards him — “take it, and taste it.”

Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro muttered, “Best cooked ‘teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy.”

“Cook,” said Stubb, squaring himself once more; “do you belong to the church?”

“Passed one once in Cape-Down,” said the old man sullenly.

“And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?” said Stubb. “Where do you expect to go to, cook?”

“Go to bed berry soon,” he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.

“Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It’s an awful question. Now what’s your answer?”

“When dis old brack man dies,” said the negro slowly, changing his whole air and demeanor, “he hisself won’t go nowhere; but some bressed angel will come and fetch him.”

“Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch him where?”

“Up dere,” said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and keeping it there very solemnly.

“So, then, you expect to go into our main-top, do you, cook, when you are dead? But don’t you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? Main-top, eh?”

“Didn’t say dat t’all,” said Fleece, again in the sulks.

“You said up there, didn’t you? and now look yourself, and see where your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber’s hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don’t get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It’s a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it’s no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t’other a’top of your heart, when I’m giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there? — that’s your gizzard! Aloft! aloft! — that’s it — now you have it. Hold it there now, and pay attention.”

“All ‘dention,” said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at one and the same time.

“Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, that have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don’t you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for my private table here, the capstan, I’ll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d’ye hear? And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by to get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends of the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go.”

But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.

“Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. D’ye hear? away you sail then. — Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go. — Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast — don’t forget.”

“Wish, by gor! whale eat him, ‘stead of him eat whale. I’m bressed if he ain’t more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,” muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.

Chapter 65. The Whale as a Dish

That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and philosophy of it.

It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth’s time, a certain cook of the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls. The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great porpoise grant from the crown.

The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel — that these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called “fritters”; which, indeed, they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something like old Amsterdam housewives’ dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh. They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly keep his hands off.

But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as the buffalo’s (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that is; like the transparent, half jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the third month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watches of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their ship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many a good supper have I thus made.

In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves’ head, which is quite a dish among some epicures; and every one knows that some young bucks among the epicures, by continually dining upon calves’ brains, by and by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to tell a calf’s head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires uncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with an intelligent looking calf’s head before him, is somehow one of the saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at him, with an “Et tu Brute!” expression.

It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras.

But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand, dining off that roast beef, what is that handle made of? — what but the bones of the brother of the very ox you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty of Ganders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two that the society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.

Chapter 66. The Shark Massacre

When in the Southern Fishery a captured Sperm Whale, after long and weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very soon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a’lee; and then send every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck to see that all goes well.

But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the present case with the Pequod’s sharks; though, to be sure, any man unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.

Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was concluded; and when, accordingly Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid sea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades,[14] kept up an incessant murdering of the sharks, by striking the keen steel deep into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not always hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at each other’s disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg’s hand off, when he tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.

[14]The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; is about the bigness of a man’s spread hand; and in general shape, corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.

“Queequeg no care what god made him shark,” said the savage, agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; “wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.”

Chapter 67. Cutting In

It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officio professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod was turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You would have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods.

In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderous things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, and which no single man can possibly lift — this vast bunch of grapes was swayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head, the strongest point anywhere above a ship’s deck. The end of the hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached. And now suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates, armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the body for the insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two side-fins. This done, a broad, semicircular line is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted, and the main body of the crew striking up a wild chorus, now commence heaving in one dense crowd at the windlass. When instantly, the entire ship careens over on her side; every bolt in her starts like the nailheads of an old house in frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mast-heads to the sky. More and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by a helping heave from the billows; till at last, a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by the windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the water, and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the line called the “scarf,” simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates; and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself, it is all the time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the main-top; the men at the windlass then cease heaving, for a moment or two the prodigious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard.

One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a few sidelong, desperate, lunging, slicings, severs it completely in twain; so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready for lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the blubber-room. Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting and lowering simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers singing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the general friction.

Chapter 68. The Blanket

I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin of the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion remains unchanged; but it is only an opinion.

The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale. Already you know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness.

Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature’s skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale’s body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True, from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin; that is, previous to being dried, when it not only contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I have several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books. It is transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at here is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a new-born child. But no more of this.

Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters of the stuff of the whale’s skin.

In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the seacoast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs — I should say, that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large, full-grown bulls of the species. En vida, la superficie visible del cachalote no es la menor entre las maravillas que presenta. Casi sin falta, está toda ella cruzada y recruzada oblicuamente por innumerables marcas rectas en denso orden, algo así como los de los más finos grabados italianos de línea. Pero esas señales no parecen estar grabadas en la sustancia de colapez antes mencionada, sino que parecen verse a través de ella, como si estuvieran grabadas en el cuerpo mismo. Y no es eso todo. En algunos casos, para una mirada viva y observadora, esas marcas lineales, como en un auténtico grabado, no constituyen más que el fondo para otras delineaciones. Estas son jeroglíficas, esto es, si llamáis jeroglíficos a esas misteriosas cifras en las paredes de las pirámides, entonces ésta es la palabra adecuada para situar en el presente contexto. Por mi memoria retentiva de los jeroglíficos de un determinado cachalote, quedé muy impresionado con una placa que reproducía los antiguos caracteres indios cincelados en las famosas murallas con jeroglíficos que hay en las orillas del Alto Mississippi. Como esas místicas rocas, también, la ballena místicamente marcada sigue siendo indescifrable. Esa alusión a las rocas indias me recuerda otra cosa. Además de todos los demás fenómenos que presenta el exterior del cachalote, no es raro que muestre el lomo, y sobre todo los flancos, con su aspecto lineal regular, borrado en gran parte debido a numerosos arañazos violentos, de aspecto por completo irregular y azaroso. Yo diría que esas rocas de la costa de New England, que Agassiz imagina que ostentan las señales de violento contacto y rozamiento con grandes icebergs a la deriva; a mi juicio, esas rocas deben parecerse no poco al cachalote en ese aspecto. También me parece que tales arañazos del cachalote probablemente están hechos por el contacto hostil con otras ballenas, pues los he notado sobre todo en los grandes toros adultos de esta especie.

A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of the whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, and he dies. How wonderful is it then — except after explanation — that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo negro in summer.

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.

But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!

Chapter 69. The Funeral

Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!

The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal. Slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting poniards in the whale.The vast white headless phantom floats further and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats, what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that hideous sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair face of the pleasant sea, waited by the joyous breezes, that great mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives.

There’s a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or speckled. In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween, if peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral they most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vulturism of earth! from which not the mightiest whale is free.

Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the whale’s unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the log — shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabout: beware! And for years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held. There’s your law of precedents; there’s your utility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There’s orthodoxy!

Thus, while in the life the great whale’s body may have been a real terror to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a world.

Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in them.

Chapter 70. The Sphynx

It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason.

Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck; on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a discolored, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skillfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb’s boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?

When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale’s head embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers’ scales.

The Pequod’s whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was hoisted against the ship’s side — about half way out of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And there with the strained craft steeply leaning over it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm on that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod’s waist like the giant Holofernes’s from the girdle of Judith.

When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.

A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took Stubb’s long spade still remaining there after the whale’s decapitation and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutchwise under one arm, and so stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.

It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”

“Sail ho!” cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head.

“Aye? Well, now, that’s cheering,” cried Ahab, suddenly erecting himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. “That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better man. — Where away?”

“Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze to us!

“Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies; not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind.”

Chapter 71. The Jeroboam’s Story

Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.

By and by, through the glass the stranger’s boats and manned mast-heads proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would be made.

Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at considerable distance, and with no small facility.

The Pequod’s signal was at last responded to by the stranger’s setting her own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod’s lee, and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was being rigged by Starbuck’s order to accommodate the visiting captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat’s stern in token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod’s company. For, though himself and the boat’s crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the Pequod.

But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam’s boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not without still another interruption of a very different sort.

Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam’s boat, was a man of a singular appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.

So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed — “That’s he! that’s he! — the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho’s company told us of!” Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the Jeroboam. His story was this:

He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a trapdoor, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common sense exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the Jeroboam’s whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon the ship’s getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he declared these things; — the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they were afraid of him. As such a man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, especially as he refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous captain would fain have been rid of him; but apprised that that individual’s intention was to land him in the first convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his seals and vials — devoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition, in case this intention was carried out. So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the captain and told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But it is time to return to the Pequod.

“I fear not thy epidemic, man,” said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat’s stern; “come on board.”

But now Gabriel started to his feet.

“Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible plague!”

“Gabriel! Gabriel!” cried Captain Mayhew; “thou must either-” But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings drowned all speech.

“Hast thou seen the White Whale?” demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted back.

“Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible tail!”

“I tell thee again, Gabriel, that-” But again the boat tore ahead as if dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by which by one of those occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale’s head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature seemed to warrant.

When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him.

It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the White Whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardor to encounter him; and the captain himself being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all the archangel’s denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat. With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat’s bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman’s head; but the mate for ever sank.

It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; oftener the boat’s bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, on which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is discernible the man being stark dead.

The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek — “The vial! the vial!” Gabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added influence; because his credulous disciples believed that he had specifically fore-announced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror to the ship.

Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which Ahab answered — “Aye.” Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger — “Think, think of the blasphemer — dead, and down there! — beware of the blasphemer’s end!”

Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, “Captain, I have just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag.”

Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus, most letters never reach their mark; and many are only received after attaining an age of two or three years or more.

Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy.

“Can’st not read it?” cried Ahab. “Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it’s but a dim scrawl; — what’s this?” As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to the ship.

Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, “Mr. Har — yes, Mr. Harry — (a woman’s pinny hand, — the man’s wife, I’ll wager) — Aye — Mr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam; why it’s Macey, and he’s dead!”

“Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife,” sighed Mayhew; “but let me have it.”

“Nay, keep it thyself,” cried Gabriel to Ahab; “thou art soon going that way.”

“Curses throttle thee!” yelled Ahab. “Captain Mayhew, stand by now to receive it”; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck’s hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; the boat drifted a little towards the ship’s stern; so that, as if by magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel’s eager hand. He clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab’s feet. Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.

As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild affair.

Chapter 72. The Monkey-Rope

In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale’s back, the blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster’s back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale till the whole tensing or stripping operation is concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the Highland costume — a shirt and socks — in which to my eyes, at least, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to observe him, as will presently be seen.

Being the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his waist.

It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed.

So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering — while I jerked him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam him — still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg’s monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.[15]

[15]The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man than Stubb, in order to afford to the imperilled harpooneer the strongest possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his monkey-rope holder.

I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the whale and the ship — where he would occasionally fall, from the incessant rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only jamming jeopardy he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent blood which began to flow from the carcass — the rabid creatures swarmed round it like bees in a beehive.

And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed them aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man.

Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to them. Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what seemed a peculiarly ferocious shark — he was provided with still another protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego and Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested and benevolent of them. They meant Queequeg’s best happiness, I admit; but in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from the circumstance that both he and the sharks were at times half hidden by the blood-muddled water, those indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating a leg than a tall. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping there with that great iron hook — poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed to his Yojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods.

Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I drew in and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea — what matters it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks and spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad.

But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For now, as with blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at last climbs up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily trembling over the side; the steward advances, and with a benevolent, consolatory glance hands him — what? Some hot Cognac? No! hands him, ye gods! hands him a cup of tepid ginger and water!

“Ginger? Do I smell ginger?” suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near. “Yes, this must be ginger,” peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the astonished steward slowly saying, “Ginger? ginger? and will you have the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, to kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger! — what the devil is ginger? — sea-coal? firewood? — lucifer matches? — tinder? — gunpowder? — what the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor Queequeg here.”

“There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this business,” he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just come from forward. “Will you look at that kannakin, sir; smell of it, if you please.” Then watching the mate’s countenance, he added, “The steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap to Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by which he blows back the life into a half-drowned man?”

“I trust not,” said Starbuck, “it is poor stuff enough.”

“Aye, aye, steward,” cried Stubb, “we’ll teach you to drug it harpooneer; none of your apothecary’s medicine here; you want to poison us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?”

“It was not me,” cried Dough-Boy, “it was Aunt Charity that brought the ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, but only this ginger-jub — so she called it.”

“Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. Starbuck. It is the captain’s orders — grog for the harpooneer on a whale.”

“Enough,” replied Starbuck, “only don’t hit him again, but-”

“Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of that sort; and this fellow’s a weazel. What were you about saying, sir?”

“Only this: go down with him, and get what thou wantest thyself.”

When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and a sort of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, and was handed to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity’s gift, and that was freely given to the waves.

Chapter 73. Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk Over Him

It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale’s prodigious head hanging to the Pequod’s side. But we must let it continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to it. For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold.

Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit, gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking anywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of those inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to cruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the announcement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if opportunity offered.

Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two boats, Stubb’s and Flask’s, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further and further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at the masthead. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or both the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in plain sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the towing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at first it seemed as if he meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from view, as if diving under the keel. “Cut, cut!” was the cry from the ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being brought with a deadly dash against the vessel’s side. But having plenty of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the struggle was intensely critical; for while they still slacked out the tightened line in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the contending strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few feet advance they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did gain it; when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning along the keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose to view under her bows, snapping and quivering; and so flinging off its drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water, while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once more the boats were free to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering his course, went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after him, so that they performed a complete circuit.

Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance; and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale’s body, rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that poured from the smitten rock.

At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he turned upon his back a corpse.

While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes, and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing, some conversation ensued between them.

“I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,” said Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so ignoble a leviathan.

“Wants with it?” said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat’s bow, “did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale’s head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale’s on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never afterwards capsize?”

“Why not?

“I don’t know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so, and he seems to know all about ships’ charms. But I sometimes think he’ll charm the ship to no good at last. I don’t half like that chap, Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved into a snake’s head, Stubb?”

“Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look down there, Flask” — pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of both hands — “Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in disguise. Do you believe that cock and bull story about his having been stowed away on board ship? He’s the devil, I say. The reason why you don’t see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries it coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of it, he’s always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots.”

“He sleeps in his boots, don’t he? He hasn’t got any hammock; but I’ve seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging.”

“No doubt, and it’s because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging.”

“What’s the old man have so much to do with him for?”

“Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose.”

“Bargain? — about what?”

“Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then he’ll surrender Moby Dick.”

“Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?”

“I don’t know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering into the old flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home. Well, he was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil, switching his hoofs, up and says, ‘I want John.’ ‘What for?’ says the old governor. ‘What business is that of yours,’ says the devil, getting mad, — ‘I want to use him.’ ‘Take him,’ says the governor — and by the Lord, Flask, if the devil didn’t give John the Asiatic cholera before he got through with him, I’ll eat this whale in one mouthful. But look sharp — ain’t you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let’s get the whale alongside.”

“I think I remember some such story as you were telling,” said Flask, when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden towards the ship, “but I can’t remember where.”

“Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded soladoes? Did ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?”

“No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me, Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was the same you say is now on board the Pequod?”

“Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn’t the devil live for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a latch-key to get into the admiral’s cabin, don’t you suppose he can crawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask?”

“How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?”

“Do you see that mainmast there?” pointing to the ship; “well, that’s the figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod’s hold, and string along in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that wouldn’t begin to be Fedallah’s age. Nor all the coopers in creation couldn’t show hoops enough to make oughts enough.”

“But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if he’s so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard — tell me that?

“Give him a good ducking, anyhow.”

“But he’d crawl back.”

“Duck him again; and keep ducking him.”

“Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though — yes, and drown you — what then?”

“I should like to see him try it; I’d give him such a pair of black eyes that he wouldn’t dare to show his face in the admiral’s cabin again for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn the devil, Flask; so you suppose I’m afraid of the devil? Who’s afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn’t catch him and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil kidnapped, he’d roast for him? There’s a governor!”

“Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?”

“Do I suppose it? You’ll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspicious going on, I’ll just take him by the nape of his neck, and say — Look here, Beelzebub, you don’t do it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord I’ll make a grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan, and give him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come short off at the stump — do you see; and then, I rather guess when he finds himself docked in that queer fashion, he’ll sneak off without the poor satisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs.”

“And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?”

“Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home; — what else?”

“Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb?”

“Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship.”

The boats were here halled, to tow the whale on the larboard side, where fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for securing him.

“Didn’t I tell you so?” said Flask; “yes, you’ll soon see this right whale’s head hoisted up opposite that parmacety’s.”

In good time, Flask’s saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply leaned over towards the sperm whale’s head, now, by the counterpoise of both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light and right.

In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the case of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut off whole, but in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed and hoisted on deck, with all the well known black bone attached to what is called the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present case, had been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern; and the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair of overburdening panniers.

Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale’s head, and ever and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his shadow; while, if the Parsee’s shadow was there at all it seemed only to blend with, and lengthen Ahab’s. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish speculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing things.

Chapter 74. The Sperm Whale’s Head — Contrasted View

Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us join them, and lay together our own.

Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod’s side; and as we may freely go from one to the other, by merely stepping across the deck: — where, I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology than here?

In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but, there is a certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale’s which the Right Whale’s sadly lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale’s head. As you behold it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity is heightened by the pepper and salt color of his head at the summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he is what the fishermen technically call a “grey-headed whale.”

Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads — namely, the two most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of the head, and low down, near the angle of either whale’s jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would fancy to be a young colt’s eye; so out of all proportion is it to the magnitude of the head.

Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale’s eyes, it is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale’s eyes corresponds to that of a man’s ears; and you may fancy, for yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects through your ears. You would find that you could only command some thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight; and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to speak; but, at the same time, also, two fronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes the front of a man — what, indeed, but his eyes?

Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of the whale’s eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the impressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct picture on that side; while all between must be profound darkness and nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window. But with the whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the whale’s eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes.

A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a hint. So long as a man’s eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one’s experience will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examine any two things — however large or however small — at one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man’s, that he can at the same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison.

It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.

But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed between the sperm whale and the right. While the ears of the former has an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without.

Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all. — Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind? Subtilize it.

Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant over the sperm whale’s head, so, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling, lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as bridal satins.

But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging straight down at right-angles with his body; for all the world like a ship’s jibboom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon him.

In most cases this lower jaw — being easily unhinged by a practised artist — is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles including canes, umbrellasticks, and handles to riding-whips.

With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an anchor; and when the proper time comes — some few days after the other work — Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists, are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances the gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag stumps of old oaks out of wild woodlands. There are generally forty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed; nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists for building houses.

Chapter 75. The Right Whale’s Head — Contrasted View

Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the the Right Whale’s head.

As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale’s head may be compared to a Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly rounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale’s head bears a rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred years ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a shoemaker’s last. And in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale with the swarming brood, might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny.

But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and look at these two f-shaped spout-holes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its soundingboard. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested, comblike incrustation on the top of the mass — this green, barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the “crown,” and the Southern fishers the “bonnet” of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes solely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak, with a bird’s nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those live crabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost sure to occur to you; unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the technical term “crown” also bestowed upon it; in which case you will take great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a very sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower lip! what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter’s measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and pout that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more.

A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped. The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord! is this the road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half vertical, scimitar-shaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a side, which depending from the upper part of the head or crown bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres, through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes through the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the creature’s age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable.

In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous “whiskers” inside of the whale’s mouth;[16] another, “hogs’ bristles”; a third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language: “There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his upper chop, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth.”

[16]This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts impart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn countenance.

As every one knows, these same “hogs’ bristles,” “fins,” “whiskers,” “blinds,” or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne’s time that the bone was in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as you may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a tent spread over the same bone.

But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, standing in the Right Whale’s mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its thousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest Turkey — the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the mouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting it on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I should say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that amount of oil.

Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started with — that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely different heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale’s there is no great well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale’s. Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely anything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external spout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one.

Look your last now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet lie together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other will not be very long in following.

Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale’s there? It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head’s expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel’s side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.

Chapter 76. The Battering-Ram

Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale’s head, I would have you, as a sensible physiologist, simply — particularly remark its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may be lodged there. Here is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of the most appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history.

You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth were entirely under your chin. Moreover you observe that the whale has no external nose; and that what nose he has — his spout hole — is on the top of his head; you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides of his head; nearly one third of his entire length from the front. Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the front of the Sperm Whale’s head is a dead, blind wall, without a single organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the full cranial development. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one wad. Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of the substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy. In some previous place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange. Just so with the head; but with this difference: about the head this envelope, though not so thick is of a boneless toughness, inestimable by any man who has not handled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by the strongest human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as though the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with horses’ hoofs. I do not think that any sensation lurks in it.

Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indian-men chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming contact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold there a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest and toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that as ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them, capable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, as far as I know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, the otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out of the water; considering the unobstructed elasticity of its envelope; considering the unique interior of his head; it has hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and contraction. If this be so, fancy the irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and destructive of all elements contributes.

Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood is — by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials then? What befell the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess’s veil at Lais?

Chapter 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun

Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated upon.

Regarding the Sperm Whale’s head as a solid oblong, you may, on an inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,[17] whereof the lower is the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an unctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward end forming the expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal wall of a thick tendinous substance.

[17]Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both sides.

The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole extent. The upper part, known as the Case, may be regarded as the great Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is mystically carved in front, so the whale’s vast plaited forehead forms innumerable strange devices for emblematical adornment of his wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily vintages; namely, the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, and odoriferous state. Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed in any other part of the creature. Though in life it remains perfectly fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to concrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when the first thin delicate ice is just forming in water. A large whale’s case generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm, though from unavoidable circumstances, considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish business of securing what you can.

I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh Tun was coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not possibly have compared with the silken pearl-colored membrane, like the lining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm Whale’s case.

It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; and since — as has been elsewhere set forth — the head embraces one third of the whole length of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty feet for a good sized whale, you have more than twenty-six feet for the depth of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a ship’s side.

As in decapitating the whale, the operator’s instrument is brought close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless, untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which is at last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one side, make quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter.

Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous and — in this particular instance — almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm Whale’s great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped.

Chapter 78. Cistern and Buckets

Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm, to the part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts, travelling through a single-sheaved block. Securing this block, so that it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till it is caught and firmly held by a hand on the deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously he lands on the summit of the head. There — still high elevated above the rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries — he seems some Turkish Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches for the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business he proceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house, sounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time this cautious search is over, a stout ironbound bucket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, till it entirely disappears; then giving the word to the seamen at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid’s pail of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a large tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through the same round until the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone down.

Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way; several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once a queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up — my God! poor Tashtego — like the twin reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, dropped head-foremost down into this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight!

“Man overboard!” cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first came to his senses. “Swing the bucket this way!” and putting one foot into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold on the whip itself the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, there was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to which he had sunk.

At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing the whip — which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles — a sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all, one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with a vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship reeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook, upon which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be on the point of giving way; an event still more likely from the violent motions of the head.

“Come down, come down!” yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but with one hand holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should drop, he would still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul line, rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out.

“In heaven’s name, man,” cried Stubb, “are you ramming home a cartridge there? — Avast! How will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on top of his head? Avast, will ye!”

“Stand clear of the tackle!” cried a voice like the bursting of a rocket.

Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass dropped into the sea, like Niagara’s Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering copper; and all caught their breath, as half swinging — now over the sailors’ heads, and now over the water — Daggoo, through a thick mist of spray, was dimly beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, buried-alive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea! But hardly had the blinding vapor cleared away, when a naked figure with a boardingsword in his hand, was for one swift moment seen hovering over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the side, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment, and no sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some hands now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off from the ship.

“Ha! ha!” cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch overhead; and looking further off from the side, we saw an arm thrust upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust forth from the grass over a grave.

“Both! both! — it is both!”-cried Daggoo again with a joyful shout; and soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with one hand, and with the other clutching the long hair of the Indian. Drawn into the waiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck; but Tashtego was long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk.

Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after the slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble; — he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way-head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected.

And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing.

I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header’s will be sure to seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have either seen or heard of some one’s falling into a cistern ashore; an accident which not seldom happens, and with much less reason too than the Indian’s, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the Sperm Whale’s well.

But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We thought the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and most corky part about him; and yet thou makest it sink in an element of a far greater specific gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at all, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had been nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the dense tendinous wall of the well — a double welded, hammered substance, as I have before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of which sinks in it like lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking in this substance was in the present instance materially counteracted by the other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance for performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say. Yes, it was a running delivery, so it was.

Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragment spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled — the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato’s honey head, and sweetly perished there?

Chapter 79. The Prairie

To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this Leviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar, or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the dome of the Pantheon. Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only treats of the various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces of horses, birds, serpents, and fish; and dwells in detail upon the modifications of expression discernible therein. Nor have Gall and his disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the phrenological characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore, though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all things; I achieve what I can.

Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature. He has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central and most conspicuous of the features; and since it perhaps most modifies and finally controls their combined expression; hence it would seem that its entire absence, as an external appendage, must very largely affect the countenance of the whale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire, cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable to the completion of the scene; so no face can be physiognomically in keeping without the elevated open-work belfry of the nose. Dash the nose from Phidias’s marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder! Nevertheless, Leviathan is of so mighty a magnitude, all his proportions are so stately, that the same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were hideous, in him is no blemish at all. Nay, it is an added grandeur. A nose to the whale would have been impertinent. As on your physiognomical voyage you sail round his vast head in your jollyboat, your noble conceptions of him are never insulted by the reflection that he has a nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which so often will insist upon obtruding even when beholding the mightiest royal beadle on his throne.

In some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiognomical view to be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This aspect is sublime.

In thought, a fine human brow is like the East when troubled with the morning. In the repose of the pasture, the curled brow of the bull has a touch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannon up mountain defiles, the elephant’s brow is majestic. Human or animal, the mystical brow is as that great golden seal affixed by the German Emperors to their decrees. It signifies — “God: done this day by my hand.” But in most creatures, nay in man himself, very often the brow is but a mere strip of alpine land lying along the snow line. Few are the foreheads which like Shakespeare’s or Melancthon’s rise so high, and descend so low, that the eyes themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes; and above them in the forehead’s wrinkles, you seem to track the antlered thoughts descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters track the snow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this high and mighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so immensely amplified, that gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living nature. For you see no one point precisely; not one distinct feature is revealed; no nose, eyes, cars, or mouth; no face; he has none, proper; nothing but that one broad firmament of a forehead, pleated with riddles; dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships, and men. Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish; though that way viewed its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In profile, you plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic depression in the forehead’s middle, which, in a man, is Lavater’s mark of genius.

But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever written a book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared in his doing nothing particular to prove it. It is moreover declared in his pyramidical silence. And this reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale been known to the young Orient World, he would have been deified by their child-magian thoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile, because the crocodile is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no tongue, or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of protrusion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical nation shall lure back to their birth-right, the merry May-day gods of old; and livingly enthrone them again in the now egotistical sky; in the now unhaunted hill; then be sure, exalted to Jove’s high seat, the great Sperm Whale shall lord it.

Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man’s and every being’s face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest peasant’s face in its profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale’s brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can.

Chapter 80. The Nut

If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square.

In in full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level base. But in life — as we have elsewhere seen — this inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater — in another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in depth reposes the mere handful of this monster’s brain. The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence.

It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in the creature’s living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world.

If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men’s skulls, and you would involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say — This man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is.

But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale’s proper brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped’s spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebrae to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are absolutely undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relieve, the beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man’s character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.

Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As it passes through the remaining vertebrae the canal tapers in size, but for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course, this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance — the spinal cord — as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. And what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain’s cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be unreasonable to survey and map out the whale’s spine phrenologically? For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord.

But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the Sperm Whale’s hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebrae, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to know.

Chapter 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin

The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, Derick De Deer, master, of Bremen.

At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and Germans are now among the least; but here and there at very wide intervals of latitude and longitude, you still occasionally meet with their flag in the Pacific.

For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her respects. While yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to, and dropping a boat, her captain was impelled towards us, impatiently standing in the bows instead of the stern.

“What has he in his hand there?” cried Starbuck, pointing to something wavingly held by the German. “Impossible! — a lamp-feeder!”

“Not that,” said Stubb, “no, no, it’s a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he’s coming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman; don’t you see that big tin can there alongside of him? — that’s his boiling water. Oh! he’s all right, is the Yarman.”

“Go along with you,” cried Flask, “it’s a lamp-feeder and an oil-can. He’s out of oil, and has come a-begging.”

However curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare.

As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, without at all heeding what he had in his hand; but in his broken lingo, the German soon evinced his complete ignorance of the White Whale; immediately turning the conversation to his lamp-feeder and oil can, with some remarks touching his having to turn into his hammock at night in profound darkness — his last drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not a single flying-fish yet captured to supply the deficiency; concluding by hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is technically called a clean one (that is, an empty one), well deserving the name of Jungfrau or the Virgin.

His necessities supplied, Derick departed; but he had not gained his ship’s side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from the mast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was Derick, that without pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewed round his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders.

Now, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other three German boats that soon followed him, had considerably the start of the Pequod’s keels. There were eight whales, an average pod. Aware of their danger, they were going all abreast with great speed straight before the wind, rubbing their flanks as closely as so many spans of horses in harness. They left a great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling a great wide parchment upon the sea.

Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a huge, humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as well as by the unusual yellowish incrustations over-growing him, seemed afflicted with the jaundice, or some other infirmity. Whether this whale belonged to the pod in advance, seemed questionable; for it is not customary for such venerable leviathans to be at all social. Nevertheless, he stuck to their wake, though indeed their back water must have retarded him, because the white-bone or swell at his broad muzzle was a dashed one, like the swell formed when two hostile currents meet. His spout was short, slow, and laborious; coming forth with a choking sort of gush, and spending itself in torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean commotions in him, which seemed to have egress at his other buried extremity, causing the waters behind him to upbubble.

“Who’s got some paregoric?” said Stubb, “he has the stomach-ache, I’m afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! Adverse winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys. It’s the first foul wind ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so before? it must be, he’s lost his tiller.”

As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with a deck load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. Whether he had lost that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say.

“Only wait a bit, old chap, and I’ll give ye a sling for that wounded arm,” cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line near him.

“Mind he don’t sling thee with it,” cried Starbuck. “Give way, or the German will have him.”

With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this one fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were going with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuit for the time. At this juncture, the Pequod’s keels had shot by the three German boats last lowered; but from the great start he had had, Derick’s boat still led the chase, though every moment neared by his foreign rivals. The only thing they feared, was, that from being already so nigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his iron before they could completely overtake and pass him. As for Derick, he seemed quite confident that this would be the case, and occasionally with a deriding gesture shook his lamp-feeder at the other boats.

“The ungracious and ungrateful dog!” cried Starbuck; “he mocks and dares me with the very poor-box I filled for him not five minutes ago!” — Then in his old intense whisper — “give way, greyhounds! Dog to it!”

“I tell ye what it is, men” — cried Stubb to his crew — “it’s against my religion to get mad; but I’d like to eat that villainous Yarman — Pull — won’t ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye? Do ye love brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man. Come, why don’t some of ye burst a blood-vessel? Who’s that been dropping an anchor overboard — we don’t budge an inch — we’re becalmed. Halloo, here’s grass growing in the boat’s bottom — and by the Lord, the mast there’s budding. This won’t do, boys. Look at that Yarman! The short and long of it is, men, will ye spit fire or not?”

“Oh! see the suds he makes!” cried Flask, dancing up and down — “What a hump — Oh, do pile on the beef — lays like a log! Oh! my lads, do spring — slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my lads — baked clams and muffins — ho, do, do, spring, — he’s a hundred barreler — don’t lose him now — don’t oh, don’t! — see that Yarman — Oh, won’t ye pull for your duff, my lads — such a sog! such a sogger! Don’t ye love sperm? There goes three thousand dollars, men! — a bank! — a whole bank! The bank of England! — Oh, do, do, do! — What’s that Yarman about now?”

At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder at the advancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the double view of retarding his rivals’ way, and at the same time economically accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss.

“The unmannerly Dutch dogger!” cried Stubb. “Pull now, men, like fifty thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. What d’ye say, Tashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty pieces for the honor of old Gayhead? What d’ye say?”

“I say, pull like god-dam,” — cried the Indian.

Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod’s three boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so disposed, momentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of the headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating cry of, “There she slides, now! Hurrah for the white-ash breeze! Down with the Yarman! Sail over him!”

But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the blade of his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber was striving to free his white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick’s boat was nigh to capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage; — that was a good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they took a mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German’s quarter. An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the whale’s immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was the foaming swell that he made.

It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight, and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I seen a bird with clipped wing, making affrighted broken circle in the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him; he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle, and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while still, in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied.

Seeing now that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod’s boat the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick chose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most unusually long dart, ere the last chance would for ever escape.

But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all three tigers — Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo — instinctively sprang to their feet, and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their barbs; and darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three Nantucket irons entered the whale. Blinding vapors of foam and white-fire! The three boats, in the first fury of the whale’s headlong rush, bumped the German’s aside with such force, that both Derick and his baffled harpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three flying keels.

“Don’t be afraid, my butter-boxes,” cried Stubb, casting a passing glance upon them as he shot by; “ye’ll be picked up presently — all right — I saw some sharks astern — St. Bernard’s dogs, you know — relieve distressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keel a sunbeam! Hurrah! — Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on a plain — makes the wheelspokes fly, boys, when you fasten to him that way; and there’s danger of being pitched out too, when you strike a hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he’s going to Davy Jones — all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this whale carries the everlasting mail!”

But the monster’s run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at last — owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of the boat, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue — the gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three sterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more line, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have been taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this “holding on,” as it is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from the back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising again to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the peril of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the stricken whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because, owing to the enormous surface of him — in a full grown sperm whale something less than 2000 square feet — the pressure of the water is immense. We all know what an astonishing atmospheric weight we ourselves stand up under; even here, above-ground, in the air; how vast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the weight of fifty atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated it at the weight of twenty line-of-battle ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on board.

As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths; what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in agony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows. Seems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan was suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and to what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was once so triumphantly said — “Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron as straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!” This the creature? this he? Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength of a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod’s fishspears!

In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad enough to shade half Xerxes’ army. Who can tell how appalling to the wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head!

“Stand by, men; he stirs,” cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every oarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part from the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce upwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are scared from it into the sea.

“Haul in! Haul in!” cried Starbuck again; “he’s rising.”

The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand’s breadth could have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two ship’s length of the hunters.

His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land animals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins, whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose peculiarities it is, to have an entire non-valvular structure of the blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system; and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is the well-springs of far-off and indiscernible hills. Even now, when the boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and the lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets from the new made wound, which kept continually playing, while the natural spout-hole in his head was only at intervals, however rapid, sending its affrighted moisture into the air. From this last vent no blood yet came, because no vital part of him had thus far been struck. His life, as they significantly call it, was untouched.

As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale’s eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all. Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a strangely discolored bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the flank.

“A nice spot,” cried Flask; “just let me prick him there once.”

“Avast!” cried Starbuck, “there’s no need of that!”

But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift fury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask’s boat and marring the bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he by loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had made; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin, then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up the white secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most piteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water is gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled melancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the ground — so the last long dying spout of the whale.

Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled. Immediately, by Starbuck’s orders, lines were secured to it at different points, so that ere long every boat was a buoy; the sunken whale being suspended a few inches beneath them by the cords. By very heedful management, when the ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred to her side, and was strongly secured there by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was plain that unless artificially upheld, the body would at once sink to the bottom.

It so chanced that almost upon first him with the spade, the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured whales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence of any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have been some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron, the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And when? It might have been darted by some Nor’ West Indian long before America was discovered.

What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous cabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to further discoveries, by the ship’s being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways to the sea, owing to the body’s immensely increasing tendency to sink. However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to the last; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the ship would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with the body; then, when the command was given to break clear from it, such was the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which the fluke-chains and cables were fastened, that it was impossible to cast them off. Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the other side of the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house. The ship groaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks and cabins were started from their places, by the unnatural dislocation. In vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the immovable fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads; and so low had the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at all approached, while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to the sinking bulk, and the ship seemed on the point of going over.

“Hold on, hold on, won’t ye?” cried Stubb to the body, “don’t be in such a devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do something or go for it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes, and run one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big chains.”

“Knife? Aye, aye,” cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter’s heavy hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the carcase sank.

Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the surface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and broken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their bones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some reason assert that this sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so sinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it is not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of life, with all their panting lard about them! even these brawny, buoyant heroes do sometimes sink.

Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to this accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable in no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale; his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances where, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this is obvious. Gases are generated in him; he swells to a prodigious magnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon. A line-of-battle ship could hardly keep him under then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among the Bays of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of sinking, they fasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope; so that when the body has gone down, they know where to look for it when it shall have ascended again.

It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from the Pequod’s mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau was again lowering her boats; though the only spout in sight was that of a Fin-Back, belonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of its incredible power of swimming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back’s spout is so similar to the Sperm Whale’s, that by unskilful fishermen it is often mistaken for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were now in valiant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all sail, made after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared far to leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase.

Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend.

Chapter 82. The Honor and Glory of Whaling

There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.

The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its great honorableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fraternity.

The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to the eternal honor of our calling be it said, that the first whale attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Those were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms to succor the distressed, and not to fill men’s lamp-feeders. Every one knows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely Andromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast, and as Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the prince of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and delivered and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit, rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as this Leviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt this Arkite story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, in one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast skeleton of a whale, which the city’s legends and all the inhabitants asserted to be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew. When the Romans took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in triumph. What seems most singular and suggestively important in this story, is this: it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail.

Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda — indeed, by some supposed to be indirectly derived from it — is that famous story of St. George and the Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and often stand for each other. “Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a dragon of the sea,” said Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to a whale.

Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; and considering that as in Perseus’ case, St. George’s whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse; bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself. In fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse’s head and both the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most noble order of St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of that honorable company (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do with a whale like their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowers we are much better entitled to St. George’s decoration than they.

Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long remained dubious: for though according to the Greek mythologies, that antique Crockett and Kit Carson — that brawny doer of rejoicing good deeds, was swallowed down and thrown up by a whale; still, whether that strictly makes a whaleman of him, that might be mooted. It nowhere appears that he ever actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, from the inside. Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary whaleman; at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale. I claim him for one of our clan.

But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story of Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the still more ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; and vice versa; certainly they are very similar. If I claim the demigod then, why not the prophet?

Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named; for like royal kings of old times, we find the head-waters of our fraternity in nothing short of the great gods themselves. That wondrous oriental story is now to be rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine Vishnoo himself for our Lord; — Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified the whale. When Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo before beginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained something in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnoo became incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost depths, rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even as a man who rides a horse is called a horseman?

Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there’s a member-roll for you! What club but the whaleman’s can head off like that?

Chapter 83. Jonah Historically Regarded

Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that.

One old Sag-Harbor whaleman’s chief reason for questioning the Hebrew story was this: — He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles, embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented Jonah’s whale with two spouts in his head — a peculiarity only true with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this saying, “A penny roll would choke him”; his swallow is so very small. But, to this, Bishop Jebb’s anticipative answer is ready. It is not necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale’s belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the Right Whale’s mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and comfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless.

Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body and the whale’s gastric juices. But this objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a dead whale — even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has been divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his escape to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head; and, I would add, possibly called “The Whale,” as some craft are nowadays christened the “Shark,” the “Gull,” the “Eagle.” Nor have there been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver — an inflated bag of wind — which the endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round. But he had still another reason for his want of faith. It was this, if I remember right: Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean Sea, and after three days’ he was vomited up somewhere within three days’ journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much more than three days’ journey across from the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast. How is that?

But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within that short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage through the whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to swim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah’s weathering the Cape of Good Hope at so early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of that great headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make modern history a liar.

But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his foolish pride of reason — a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the sun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah’s going to Nineveh via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of the general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah. And some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris’s Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which Mosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil.

Chapter 84. Pitchpoling

To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is it to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water are hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing his boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation; crawling under its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing in the unctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from the craft’s bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to some particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the event.

Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered flight, as of Cleopatra’s barges from Actium.

Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb’s was foremost. By great exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But to haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and furious. What then remained?

Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced, none exceed that fine manoeuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the harpoon, and also of a lighter material — pine. It is furnished with a small rope called a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be hauled back to the hand after darting.

But before going further, it is important to mention here, that though the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it is seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently successful, on account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks. As a general thing, therefore, you must first get to a whale, before any pitchpoling comes into play.

Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright in the tossed bow of the flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty feet ahead. Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along its length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up the coil of the wrap in one hand, so as to secure its free end in his grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance full before his waistband’s middle, he levels it at the whale; when, covering him with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand, thereby elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon his palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a juggler, balancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid, nameless impulse, in a superb arch the bright steel spans the foaming distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of sparkling water, he now spouts red blood.

“That drove the spigot out of him!” cried Stubb. “’Tis July’s immortal Fourth; all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it were old Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then, Tashtego, lad, I’d have ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we’d drink round it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we’d brew choice punch in the spread of his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff the living stuff.”

Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated, the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and mutely watches the monster die.

Chapter 85. The Fountain

That for six thousand years — and no one knows how many millions of ages before — the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings — that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o’clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. 1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapor — this is surely a noteworthy thing.

Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being’s, the whale can only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm Whale’s mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface; and what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head.

If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words. Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus supply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in having his spoutings out, as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always dodging up again to make good his regular allowance of air. And not till those seventy breaths are told, will he finally go down to stay out his full term below. Remark, however, that in different individuals these rates are different; but in any one they are alike. Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious it is too, that this necessity for the whale’s rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. And not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee!

In man, breathing is incessantly going on — one breath only serving for two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time.

It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole; if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water, then I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of smell seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at all answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so clogged with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power of smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout — whether it be water or whether it be vapor — no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets, no Cologne-water in the sea.

Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting canal, and as that long canal — like the grand Erie Canal — is furnished with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener!

Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along, horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little to one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down in a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words, whether the spout of the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor of the exhaled breath, or whether that exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and discharged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth indirectly communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that this is for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle. Because the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be, when in feeding he accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale’s food is far beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of respiration.

But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.

The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it, when, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all around him. And if at such times you should think that you really perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are not merely condensed from its vapor; or how do you know that they are not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale’s head? For even when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary’s in the desert; even then, the whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under a blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with rain.

Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to this fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into slight contact with the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of the thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to evade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you. The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let this deadly spout alone.

Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; I account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other whales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon; this seems an additional argument for the above supposition.

And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor — as you will sometimes see it — glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye.

Chapter 86. The Tail

Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope, and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial, I celebrate a tail.

Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale’s tail to begin at that point of the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet. The compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat palms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in thickness. At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between. In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across.

The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it: — upper, middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running crosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as anything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman walls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin course of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful relics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the great strength of the masonry.

But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough, the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and largely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point. Could annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it.

Nor does this — its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through a Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied tendons that all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.

Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein no fairy’s arm can transcend it.

Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle; Third, in sweeping; Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes.

First: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan’s tail acts in a different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It never wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the whale his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled forwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is this which gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster when furiously swimming. His side-fins only serve to steer by.

Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless, in his conflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail. In striking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, and the blow is only inflicted by the recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed air, especially if it descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply irresistible. No ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only salvation lies in eluding it; but if it comes sideways through the opposing water, then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the whale-boat, and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a dashed plank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the most serious result. These submerged side blows are so often received in the fishery, that they are accounted mere child’s play. Some one strips off a frock, and the hole is stopped.

Third: I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in the whale the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this respect there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the elephant’s trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft slowness moves his immense flukes side to side upon the surface of the sea; and if he feel but a sailor’s whisker, woe to that sailor, whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch! Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of Darmonodes’ elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with low salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their zones. On more accounts than one, a pity it is that the whale does not possess this prehensile virtue in his tail; for I have heard of yet another elephant, that when wounded in the fight, curved round his trunk and extracted the dart.

Fourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied security of the middle of solitary seas, you find him unbent from the vast corpulence of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays on the ocean as if it were a hearth. But still you see his power in his play. The broad palms of his tail are flirted high into the air! then smiting the surface, the thunderous concussion resounds for miles. You would almost think a great gun had been discharged; and if you noticed the light wreath of vapor from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that that was the smoke from the touch-hole.

Fifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes lies considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely out of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about to plunge into the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment, till they downwards shoot out of view. Excepting the sublime breach — somewhere else to be described — this peaking of the whale’s flukes is perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all beings. For according to King Juba, the military elephants of antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the profoundest silence.

The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two opposite organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they respectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is but a terror to Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan’s tail, his trunk is but the stalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant’s trunk were as the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and crash of the sperm whale’s ponderous flukes, which in repeated instances have one after the other hurled entire boats with all their oars and crews into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.[18]

[18]Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does to the elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of curious similitude; among these is the spout. It is well known that the elephant will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then elevating it, jet it forth in a stream.

The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which, though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these methods intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep. I know him not, and never will. But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will about his face, I say again he has no face.

Chapter 87. The Grand Armada

The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward from the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all Asia. In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others, form a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia, and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are the straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas.

Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping western world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not demand the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from the endless procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries past, by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce their claim to more solid tribute.

Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they have received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.

With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these straits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Java sea, and thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and there by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and gain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season there. By these means, the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to descending upon the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby Dick, in the sea he was most known to frequent; and at a season when he might most reasonably be presumed to be haunting it.

But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his crew drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, now, the circus-running sun had raced within his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what’s in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a whole lake’s contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She carries years’ water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which, when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like themselves. So that did you carry them the news that another flood had come; they would only answer — “Well, boys, here’s the ark!”

Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an excellent spot for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more and more upon Java Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was descried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of singular magnificence saluted us.

But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual assistance and protection. To this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands.

Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.

Seen from the Pequod’s deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.

As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.

Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their yet suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention to something in our wake.

Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in the rear. It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and falling something like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so completely come and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing. Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole, crying, “Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wet the sail; — Malays, sir, and after us!”

As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay. But when the swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how very kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to her own chosen pursuit, — mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they were. As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some such fancy as the above seemed his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their curses; — when all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab’s brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stormy tide had been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its place.

But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so victoriously gained upon the Malays. But still driving on in the wake of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the ship neared them; and the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the boats. But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them, — though as yet a mile in their rear, — than they rallied again, and forming in close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity.

Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash, and after several hours’ pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating tokens that they were now at last under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus’ elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with consternation. In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced such excessive dismay. But this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Though banding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before a solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of a theatre’s pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best, therefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.

Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion, yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor retreated, but collectively remained in one place. As is customary in those cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes’ time, Queequeg’s harpoon was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray in faces, and then running away with us like light, steered straight for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part of the whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated; yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb.

As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer through complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what moment it may be locked in and crushed.

But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering off from this monster directly across our route in advance; now edging away from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while all the time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time to make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to the shouting part of the business. “Out of the way, Commodore!” cried one, to a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant threatened to swamp us. “Hard down with your tail, there!” cried a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed calmly cooling himself with his own fan-like extremity.

All whale-boats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each other’s grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly among gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more whales are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But sperm whales are not every day encountered; while you may, then, you must kill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure. Hence it is, that at times like these the drug, comes into requisition. Our boat was furnished with three of them. The first and second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the towing drugg. They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball. But upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the boat’s bottom as the seat slid from under him. On both sides the sea came in at the wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for the time.

It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale’s way greatly diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs. Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at present afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by small tame cows and calves; the women and children of this routed host.

Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in any one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by the whole multitude, must have contained at least two or three square miles. At any rate — though indeed such a test at such a time might be deceptive — spoutings might be discovered from our low boat that seemed playing up almost from the rim of the horizon. I mention this circumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had been purposely locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the wide extent of the herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause of its stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and every way innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller whales — now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the lake — evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at. Like household dogs they came snuffing round us, right up to our gunwales, and touching them; till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time refrained from darting it.

But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different lives at the time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence; — even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulfweed in their new-born sight. Floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in girth. He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar’s bow. The delicate side-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the plaited crumpled appearance of a baby’s ears newly arrived from foreign parts.

“Line! line!” cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; “him fast! him fast! — Who line him! Who struck? — Two whale; one big, one little!”

“What ails ye, man?” cried Starbuck.

“Look-e here,” said Queequeg, pointing down.

As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of fathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We saw young Leviathan amours in the deep.[19]

[19]The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestation which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a time; though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and Jacob: — a contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously situated, one on each side of the anus; but the breasts themselves extend upwards from that. When by chance these precious parts in a nursing whale are cut by the hunter’s lance, the mother’s pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolor the sea for rods. The milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well with strawberries. When overflowing with mutual esteem, the whales salute more hominum.

And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yes, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats, still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host; or possibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance of room and some convenient retreats were afforded them. But the sight of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to and fro across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly powerful and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or maiming his gigantic tail-tendon. It is done by darting a short-handled cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again. A whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not effectually, as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along with him half of the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of the wound, he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the lone mounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay wherever he went.

But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling spectacle enough, any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed to inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which at first the intervening distance obscured from us. But at length we perceived that by one of the unimaginable accidents of the fishery, this whale had become entangled in the harpoon-line that he towed; he had also run away with the cutting-spade in him; and while the free end of the rope attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in the coils of the harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had worked loose from his flesh. So that tormented to madness, he was now churning through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own comrades.

This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their stationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our lake began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted by half spent billows from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to heave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished; in more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more central circles began to swim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calm was departing. A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then like to the tumultuous masses of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in Spring, the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking the stern.

“Oars! Oars!” he intensely whispered, seizing the helm — “gripe your oars, and clutch your souls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove him off, you Queequeg — the whale there! — prick him! — hit him! Stand up — stand up, and stay so! Spring men — pull, men; never mind their backs — scrape them! — scrape away!”

The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks, leaving a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths. But by desperate endeavor we at last shot into a temporary opening; then giving way rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching for another outlet. After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last swiftly glided into what had just been one of the outer circles, but now crossed by random whales, all violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg’s hat, who, while standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad flukes close by.

Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless; but the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waited. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried by every boat; and when additional game is at hand, are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, should the boats of any other ship draw near.

The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious saying in the Fishery, — the more whales the less fish. Of all the drugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to escape for the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some other craft than the Pequod.

Chapter 88. Schools and Schoolmasters

The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm Whales, and there was also then given the probable cause inducing those vast aggregations.

Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each. Such bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts; those composed almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young vigorous males, or bulls as they are familiarly designated.

In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see a male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm, evinces his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight of his ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and endearments of the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and his concubines is striking; because, while he is always of the largest leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not more than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male. They are comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a dozen yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the whole they are hereditarily entitled to embonpoint.

It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move in leisurely search of variety. You meet them on the Line in time for the full flower of the Equatorial feeding season, having just returned, perhaps, from spending the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all unpleasant weariness and warmth. By the time they have lounged up and down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for the Oriental waters in anticipation of the cool season there, and so evade the other excessive temperature of the year.

When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his interesting family. Should any unwarranted pert young Leviathan coming that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away! High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of his bed; for alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. They fence with their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not a few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters, — furrowed heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and dislocated mouths.

But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at the first rush of the harem’s lord, then is it very diverting to watch that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines. Granting other whales to be in sight, the fisherman will seldom give chase to one of these Grand Turks; for these Grand Turks are too lavish of their strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the sons and daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help. For like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for the bower; and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the world; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as the ardor of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors.

Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so is the lord and master of that school technically known as the schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it. His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils.

The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm Whales. Almost universally, a lone whale — as a solitary Leviathan is called — proves an ancient one. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets.

The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while those females are characteristically timid, the young males, or forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; excepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout.

The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness, tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though, and when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about in quest of settlements, that is, harems.

Another point of difference between the male and female schools is still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a Forty-barrel-bull — poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey.

Chapter 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish

The allusion to the waif-poles in the last chapter but one, necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge.

It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company, a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For example, — after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases.

Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian’s Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People’s Business. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne’s forthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they.

I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.

II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.

But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to expound it.

First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all controllable by the occupant or occupants, — a mast, an oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other recognized symbol of possession; so long as the party wailing it plainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their intention so to do.

These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks — the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and honorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim possession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But others are by no means so scrupulous.

Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it before the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs’ teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.

Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife’s viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to recover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her; yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that subsequent gentleman’s property, along with whatever harpoon might have been found sticking in her.

Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative to each other.

These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very learned Judge in set terms decided, to wit, — That as for the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons and line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards took the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs.

A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two props to stand on.

Is it not a saying in every one’s mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow’s last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain’s marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from the poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone’s family from starvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop of Savesoul’s income of L100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven without any of Savesoul’s help) what is that globular 100,000 but a Fast-Fish. What are the Duke of Dunder’s hereditary towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole of the law?

But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is internationally and universally applicable.

What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.

What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish? What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?

Chapter 90. Heads or Tails

“De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.”

BRACTON, L. 3, C. 3.

Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of that land, the King, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head, and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is no intermediate remainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to this day in force in England; and as it offers in various respects a strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast — and Loose-Fish, it is here treated of in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle that prompts the English railways to be at the expense of a separate car, specially reserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first place, in curious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is still in force, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance-that happened within the last two years.

It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from the shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden. Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so. Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of them.

Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good L150 from the precious oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their wives, and good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their respective shares; up steps a very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and laying it upon the whale’s head, he says — “Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden’s.” Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful consternation — so truly English — knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching about for his ideas, made bold to speak,

“Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?”

“The Duke.”

“But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?”

“It is his.”

“We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is all that to go to the Duke’s benefit; we getting nothing at all for our pains but our blisters?”

“It is his.”

“Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of getting a livelihood?”

“It is his.”

“I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share of this whale.”

“It is his.”

“Won’t the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?”

“It is his.”

In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particular lights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small degree be deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, ali honest clergyman of the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to take the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To which my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published) that he had already done so, and received the money, and would be obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend gentleman) would decline meddling with other people’s business. Is this the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars?

It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the Duke to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally invested with that right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon gives us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs to the King and Queen, “because of its superior excellence.” And by the soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such matters.

But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason for that, ye lawyers!

In his treatise on “Queen-Gold,” or Queen-pin-money, an old King’s Bench author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: “Ye tail is ye Queen’s, that ye Queen’s wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone.” Now this was written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or Right whale was largely used in ladies’ bodices. But this same bone is not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for a sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be presented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here.

There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers — the whale and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown’s ordinary revenue. I know not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there seems a reason in all things, even in law.

Chapter 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud

“In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry.”

SIR T. BROWNE, V. E.

It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day sea, that the many noses on the Pequod’s deck proved more vigilant discoverers than the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell was smelt in the sea.

“I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts are some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they would keel up before long.”

Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the distance lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colors from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an unappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it; notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of attar-of-rose.

Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted whales in general.

The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he recognized his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were knotted round the tail of one of these whales.

“There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in the ship’s bows, “there’s a jackal for ye! I well knew that these Crappoes of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they will get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s wick into; aye, we all know these things; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there. Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s make him a present of a little oil for dear charity’s sake. For what oil he’ll get from that drugged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn in a jail; no, not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It’s worth trying. Yes, I’m for it;” and so saying he started for the quarter-deck.

By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb now called his boat’s crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red color. Upon her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton de Rose,” — Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship.

Though Stubb did not understand the Bouton part of the inscription, yet the word rose, and the bulbous figure-head put together, sufficiently explained the whole to him.

“A wooden rose-bud, eh?” he cried with his hand to his nose, “that will do very well; but how like all creation it smells!”

Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close to the blasted whale; and so talk over it.

Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he bawled — “Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that speak English?”

“Yes,” rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be the chief-mate.

“Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?”

“What whale?”

“The White Whale — a Sperm Whale — Moby Dick, have ye seen him?

“Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale — no.”

“Very good, then; good bye now, and I’ll call again in a minute.”

Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two hands into a trumpet and shouted — “No, Sir! No!” Upon which Ahab retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman.

He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of bag.

“What’s the matter with your nose, there?” said Stubb. “Broke it?”

“I wish it was broken, or that I didn’t have any nose at all!” answered the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very much. “But what are you holding yours for?”

“Oh, nothing! It’s a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain’t it? Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of posies, will ye, Bouton-de-Rose?”

“What in the devil’s name do you want here?” roared the Guernseyman, flying into a sudden passion.

“Oh! keep cool — cool? yes, that’s the word! why don’t you pack those whales in ice while you’re working at ‘em? But joking aside, though; do you know, Rose-bud, that it’s all nonsense trying to get any oil out of such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn’t a gill in his whole carcase.”

“I know that well enough; but, d’ye see, the Captain here won’t believe it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But come aboard, and mayhap he’ll believe you, if he won’t me; and so I’ll get out of this dirty scrape.”

“Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow,” rejoined Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene presented itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked rather slow and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor. All their noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jibbooms. Now and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the mast-head to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly filled their olfactories.

Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from the Captain’s round-house abaft; and looking in that direction saw a fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from within. This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain remonstrating against the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself to the Captain’s round-house (cabinet he called it) to avoid the pest; but still, could not help yelling out his entreaties and indignations at times.

Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter’s office, was to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and as for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost in him during the interview.

By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He was a small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain, with large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton velvet vest with watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now politely introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put on the aspect of interpreting between them.

“What shall I say to him first?” said he.

“Why,” said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, “you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me, though I don’t pretend to be a judge.”

“He says, Monsieur,” said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his captain, “that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a blasted whale they had brought alongside.”

Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more.

“What now?” said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.

“Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him carefully, I’m certain that he’s no more fit to command a whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he’s a baboon.”

“He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, is far more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish.”

Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship.

“What now?” said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to them.

“Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that — that — in fact, tell him I’ve diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody else.”

“He says, Monsieur, that he’s very happy to have been of any service to us.”

Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties (meaning himself and mate), and concluded by inviting Stubb down into his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.

“He wants you to take a glass of wine with him,” said the interpreter.

“Thank him heartily; but tell him it’s against my principles to drink with the man I’ve diddled. In fact, tell him I must go.”

“He says, Monsieur, that his principles won’t admit of his drinking; but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, for it’s so calm they won’t drift.”

By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed the Guernsey-man to this effect, — that having a long tow-line in his boat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out the lighter whale of the two from the ship’s side. While the Frenchman’s boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb benevolently towed away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking out a most unusually long tow-line.

Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale; hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb’s whale. Whereupon Stubb quickly pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of his unrighteous cunning. Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an excavation in the body, a little behind the side fin. You would almost have thought he was digging a cellar there in the sea; and when at length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat’s crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking anxious as gold-hunters.

And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with another, without at all blending with it for a time.

“I have it, I have it,” cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in the subterranean regions, “a purse! a purse!”

Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash color. And this, good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some six handfulls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for impatient Ahab’s loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board, else the ship would bid them good-bye.

Chapter 92. Ambergris

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter’s in Rome. Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.

Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of harm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.

I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors’ trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing, more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.

Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the worst.

I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of the Frenchman’s two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma originate?

I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old city graveyard, for the foundations of a Lying-in Hospital.

I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boding out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale’s flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jeweled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great?

Chapter 93. The Castaway

It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod’s crew; an event most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own.

Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, these shipkeepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats’ crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly.

In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar color, driven in one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks, the year’s calendar should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and New Year’s Days. Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king’s cabinets. But Pip loved life, and all life’s peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off to ten times the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler’s frolic on the green; and at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the clear air of day, suspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences, infernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell. But let us to the story.

It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb’s after-oarsman chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed; and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.

The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness; but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness to the utmost, for he might often find it needful.

Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip’s seat. The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly straightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken several turns around his chest and neck.

Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, “Cut?” Meantime Pip’s blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God’s sake! All passed in a flash. In less than half a minute, this entire thing happened.

“Damn him, cut!” roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was saved.

So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed by yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly permitting these irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, business-like, but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially; and that done, unofficially gave him much wholesome advice. The substance was, Never jump from a boat, Pip, except — but all the rest was indefinite, as the soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, Stick to the boat, is your true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when Leap from the boat, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if he should give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be leaving him too wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command “Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won’t pick you up if you jump; mind that. We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and don’t jump any more.” Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller’s trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous, blue day! the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater’s skin hammered out to the extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip’s ebon head showed like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern. Stubb’s inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest.

Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea — mark how closely they hug their ship and only coast along her sides.

But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; he did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake, and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very quickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations towards oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested by the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances not unfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to military navies and armies.

But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb’s boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip’s ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had leeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.

For the rest blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what like abandonment befell myself.

Chapter 94. A Squeeze of the Hand

That whale of Stubb’s, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the Pequod’s side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.

While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated ere going to the try-works, of which anon.

It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine’s bath of it, I found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times sperm was such a favorite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! such a softener; such a delicious mollifier! After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralize.

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, wove almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as. I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma, — literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, — Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side; the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.

Now, while discoursing of sperm it behooves to speak of other things akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the try-works.

First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It is tough with congealed tendons — a wad of muscle — but still contains some oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first cut into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like blocks of Berkshire marble.

Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the whale’s flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.

There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case, coalescing.

Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.

Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale’s vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman’s nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering part of Leviathan’s tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the rest, is about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities.

But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at once to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its inmates. This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the proper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by a dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They generally go in pairs, — a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The whaling-pike is similar to a frigate’s boarding-weapon of the same name. The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan’s feet are shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one of his assistants’, would you be very much astonished? Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.

Chapter 95. The Cassock

Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous cistern in the whale’s huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone, — longer than a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it is; or rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that found in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for worshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th chapter of the First Book of Kings.

Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office.

That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator’s desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a Pope were this mincer![20]

[20]Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality. 

Chapter 96. The Try-Works

Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship. It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were transported to her planks.

The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all sides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in number, and each of several barrels’ capacity. When not in use, they are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone and sand, till they shine within like silver punchbowls. During the night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil themselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing them — one man in each pot, side by side — many confidential communications are carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod, with the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first indirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from any point in precisely the same time.

Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they open direct from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment.

It was about nine o’clock at night that the Pequod’s try-works were first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee the business.

“All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the works.” This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed for a time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed the flames. Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit.

By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the carcass; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and folded them in conflagrations.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship’s stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s soul.

So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm.

But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship’s stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and how grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being brought by the lee!

Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp — all others but liars!

Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia’s Dismal Swamp, nor Rome’s accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true — not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. “All is vanity.” ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon’s wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly; — not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon.

But even Solomon, he says, “the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain” (i.e. even while living) “in the congregation of the dead.” Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

Chapter 97. The Lamp

Had you descended from the Pequod’s try-works to the Pequod’s forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes.

In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an Aladdin’s lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night the ship’s black hull still houses an illumination.

See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of lamps — often but old bottles and vials, though — to the copper cooler at the tryworks, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game.

Chapter 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up

Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off described from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the fire; — but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of the description by rehearsing — singing, if I may — the romantic proceeding of decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down into the hold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities, sliding along beneath the surface :is before; but, alas! never more to rise and blow.

While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap, rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, ex officio, every sailor is a cooper.

At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up.

In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous masses of the whale’s head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is deafening.

But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this self-same ship! and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil possesses a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the decks never look so white as just after what they call an affair of oil. Besides, from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent lye is readily made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the whale remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly exterminates it. Hands go diligently along the bulwarks, and with buckets of water and rags restore them to their full tidiness. The soot is brushed from the lower rigging. All the numerous implements which have been in use are likewise faithfully cleansed and put away. The great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon the try-works, completely hiding the pots; every cask is out of sight; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks; and when by the combined and, simultaneous industry of almost the entire ship’s company, the whole of this conscientious duty is at last concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own ablutions; shift themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow as bridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiest Holland.

Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and bring us napkins!

But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again soil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot somewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight through for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their wrists with all day rowing on the Line, — they only step to the deck to carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of “There she blows!” and away they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world’s vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when — There she blows! — the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life’s old routine again.

Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage — and, foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope.

Chapter 99. The Doubloon

Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but in the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness.

But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.

Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour passed by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset last left it. For it was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white whale’s talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever live to spend it.

Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun’s disks and stars, ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.

It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes’ summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.

Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now pausing.

“There’s something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things; look here, — three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician’s glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, ‘t is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here’s stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.”

“No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil’s claws have left their mouldings there since yesterday,” murmured Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. “The old man seems to read Belshazzar’s awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain! This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely.”

“There now’s the old Mogul,” soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, “he’s been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long. And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer’s Hook, I’d not look at it very long ere spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing wonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here’s signs and wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the zodiac, and what my almanack below calls ditto. I’ll get the almanack; and as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll’s arithmetic, I’ll try my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar. Here’s the book. Let’s see now. Signs and wonders; and the sun, he’s always among ‘em. Hem, hem, hem; here they are — here they go — all alive: Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull and Jimimi! here’s Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he wheels among ‘em. Aye, here on the coin he’s just crossing the threshold between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You’ll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That’s my small experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch’s navigator, and Daboll’s arithmetic go. Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There’s a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist — hark! By Jove, I have it! Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I’ll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there’s Aries, or the Ram — lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull — he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins — that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path — he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that’s our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales — happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here’s the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There’s a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly’s the word for aye! Adieu, Doubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the try-works, now, and let’s hear what he’ll have to say. There; he’s before it; he’ll out with something presently. So, so; he’s beginning.”

“I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what’s all this staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that’s true; and at two cents the cigar, that’s nine hundred and sixty cigars. I won’t smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here’s nine hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy ‘em out.”

“Shall I call that Wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort of wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old Manxman — the old hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea. He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other side of the mast; why, there’s a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and now he’s back again; what does that mean? Hark! he’s muttering — voice like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!”

“If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when the sun stands in some one of these signs. I’ve studied signs, and know their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the old witch in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And what’s the horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign — the roaring and devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to think of thee.”

“There’s another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg — all tattooing — looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the Cannibal? As I live he’s comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon’s Astronomy in the black country. And by Jove, he’s found something there in the vicinity of his thigh — I guess it’s Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don’t know what to make of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king’s trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual. What does he say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin — fire worshipper, depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way comes Pip — poor boy! would he had died, or I; he’s half horrible to me. He too has been watching all of these interpreters myself included — and look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark!”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Upon my soul, he’s been studying Murray’s Grammar! Improving his mind, poor fellow! But what’s that he says now — hist!”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Why, he’s getting it by heart — hist! again.”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Well, that’s funny.”

“And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I’m a crow, especially when I stand a’top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain’t I a crow? And where’s the scare-crow? There he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves of an old jacket.”

“Wonder if he means me? — complimentary — poor lad! — I could go hang myself. Any way, for the present, I’ll quit Pip’s vicinity. I can stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he’s too crazy-witty for my sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering.” viejos, otros dos encajados en las mangas de una chaqueta vieja. » « ¿Si se referirá a mí ? ¡Un cumplimiento ! ¡Pobre muchacho ! Podría irme a ahorcar. De todos modos, por ahora, dejaré la proximidad de Pip. Puedo aguantar a los demás, porque tienen la cabeza en su sitio, pero éste es demasiado loco y chistoso para mi cordura. Así, así; le dejo mascullando. »

“Here’s the ship’s navel, this doubloon here, and they are all one fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what’s the consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught’s nailed to the mast it’s a sign that things grow desperate. Ha! ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he’ll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey’s wedding ring. How did it get there? And so they’ll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious gold! — the green miser’ll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes ‘mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!”

Chapter 100. Leg and Arm  The Pequod of Nantucket, Meets  the Samuel Enderby, of London

“Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?”

So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colors, bearing down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was standing in his hoisted quarter-deck, his ivory leg plainly revealed to the stranger captain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat’s bow. He was a darkly-tanned, burly, goodnatured, fine-looking man, of sixty or thereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round him in festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of his jacket streamed behind him like the broidered arm of a huzzar’s surcoat.

“Hast seen the White Whale!”

“See you this?” and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it, he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden head like a mallet.

“Man my boat!” cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near him — “Stand by to lower!”

In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the stranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotton that since the loss of his leg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at a moment’s warning. Now, it is no very easy matter for anybody — except those who are almost hourly used to it, like whalemen — to clamber up a ship’s side from a boat on the open sea; for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly hopte to attain.

It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem to bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to use their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute, because the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood, cried out, “I see, I see! — avast heaving there! Jump, boys, and swing over the cutting-tackle.”

As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive curved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end. This was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all, slid his solitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting in the fluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then giving the word, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to hoist his own weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running parts of the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm frankly thrust forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two sword-fish blades) cried out in his walrus way, “Aye, aye, hearty! let us shake bones together! — an arm and a leg! — an arm that never can shrink, d’ye see; and a leg that never can run. Where did’st thou see the White Whale? — how long ago?”

“The White Whale,” said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm towards the East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a telescope; “there I saw him, on the Line, last season.”

“And he took that arm off, did he?” asked Ahab, now sliding down from the capstan, and resting on the Englishman’s shoulder, as he did so.

“Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and that leg, too?”

“Spin me the yarn,” said Ahab; “how was it?”

“It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line,” began the Englishman. “I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time. Well, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat fastened to one of them; a regular circus horse he was, too, that went milling and milling round so that my boat’s crew could only trim dish, by sitting all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches from the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a milky-white head and hump, all crows’ feet and wrinkles.”

“It was he, it was he!” cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his suspended breath.

“And harpoons sticking in near his starboad fin.”

“Aye, aye — they were mine — my irons,” cried Ahab, exultingly — “but on!”

“Give me a chance, then,” said the Englishman, good-humoredly. “Well, this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all afoam into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line!

“Aye, I see! — wanted to part it; free the fast-fish — an old trick — I know him.”

“How it was exactly,” continued the one-armed commander, “I do not know; but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there somehow; but we didn’t know it then; so that when we afterwards pulled on the line, bounce we came plump on to his hump! instead of the other whale’s; that went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters stood, and what a noble great whale it was — the noblest and biggest I ever saw, sir, in my life — I resolved to capture him, spite of the boiling rage he seemed to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard line would get loose, or the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have a devil of a boat’s crew for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I say, I jumped into my first mate’s boat — Mr. Mounttop’s here (by the way, Captain — Mounttop; Mounttop — the captain); — as I was saying, I jumped into Mounttop’s boat, which, d’ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old great-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir — hearts and souls alive, man — the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat — both eyes out — all befogged and bedeadened with black foam — the whale’s tail looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at midday, with a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as I was groping, I say, after the second iron, to toss it overboard — down comes the tail like a Lima tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters; and, flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I seized hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at the same instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down like a flash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near me caught me here” (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); “yes, caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell’s flames, I was thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb ript its way along the flesh — clear along the whole length of my arm — came out nigh my wrist, and up I floated; — and that gentleman there will tell you the rest (by the way, captain — Dr. Bunger, ship’s surgeon: Bunger, my lad, — the captain). Now, Bunger boy, spin your part of the yarn.”

The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had been all the time standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to denote his gentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly round but sober one; he was dressed in a faded blue woolen frock or shirt, and patched trowsers; and had thus far been dividing his attention between a marlingspike he held in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other, occasionally casting a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two crippled captains. But, at his superior’s introduction of him to Ahab, he politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain’s bidding.

“It was a shocking bad wound,” began the whale-surgeon; “and, taking my advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy-”

“Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship,” interrupted the one-armed captain, addressing Ahab; “go on, boy.”

“Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the blazing hot weather there on the Line. But it was no use — I did all I could; sat up with him nights; was very severe with him in the matter of diet-”

“Oh, very severe!” chimed in the patient himself; then suddenly altering his voice, “Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night, till he couldn’t see to put on the bandages; and sending me to bed, half seas over, about three o’clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars! he sat up with me indeed, and was very severe in my diet. Oh! a great watcher, and very dietetically severe, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laugh out! why don’t ye? You know you’re a precious jolly rascal.) But, heave ahead, boy, I’d rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other man.”

“My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected sir” — said the imperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bowing to Ahab — “is apt to be facetious at times; he spins us many clever things of that sort. But I may as well say — en passant, as the French remark — that I myself — that is to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergy — am a strict total abstinence man; I never drink-”

“Water!” cried the captain; “he never drinks it; it’s a sort of fits to him; fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia; but go on — go on with the arm story.”

“Yes, I may as well,” said the surgeon, coolly. “I was about observing, sir, before Captain Boomer’s facetious interruption, that spite of my best and severest endeavors, the wound kept getting worse and worse; the truth was, sir, it was as ugly gaping wound as surgeon ever saw; more than two feet and several inches long. I measured it with the lead line. In short, it grew black; I knew what was threatened, and off it came. But I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there; that thing is against all rule” — pointing at it with the marlingspike — “that is the captain’s work, not mine; he ordered the carpenter to make it; he had that club-hammer there put to the end, to knock some one’s brains out with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. He flies into diabolical passions sometimes. Do ye see this dent, sir” — removing his hat, and brushing aside his hair, and exposing a bowl-like cavity in his skull, but which bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token of ever having been a wound — “Well, the captain there will tell you how that came there; he knows.”

“No, I don’t,” said the captain, “but his mother did; he was born with it. Oh, you solemn rogue, you — you Bunger! was there ever such another Bunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal.”

“What became of the White Whale?” now cried Ahab, who thus far had been impatiently listening to this byeplay between the two Englishmen.

“Oh!” cried the one-armed captain, “oh, yes! Well; after he sounded, we didn’t see him again for some time; in fact, as I before hinted, I didn’t then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick, till some time afterwards, when coming back to the Line, we heard about Moby Dick — as some call him — and then I knew it was he.”

“Did’st thou cross his wake again?”

“Twice.”

“But could not fasten?”

“Didn’t want to try to; ain’t one limb enough? What should I do without this other arm? And I’m thinking Moby Dick doesn’t bite so much as he swallows.”

“Well, then,” interrupted Bunger, “give him your left arm for bait to get the right. Do you know, gentlemen” — very gravely and mathematically bowing to each Captain in succession — “Do you know, gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest even a man’s arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the White Whale’s malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means to swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d’ye see? No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why, in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you shortly, that’s all.”

“No, thank you, Bunger,” said the English Captain, “he’s welcome to the arm he has, since I can’t help it, and didn’t know him then; but not to another one. No more White Whales for me; I’ve lowered for him once, and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he’s best let alone; don’t you think so, Captain?” — glancing at the ivory leg.

“He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He’s all a magnet! How long since thou sawist him last? Which way heading?”

“Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend’s,” cried Bunger, stoopingly walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; “this man’s blood — bring the thermometer! — it’s at the boiling point! — his pulse makes these planks beat! — sir!” — taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing near to Ahab’s arm.

“Avast!” roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks — “Man the boat! Which way heading?”

“Good God!” cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put. “What’s the matter? He was heading east, I think. — Is your Captain crazy?” whispering Fedallah.

But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks to take the boat’s steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle towards him commanded the ship’s sailors to stand by to lower.

In a moment he was standing in the boat’s stern, and the Manilla men were springing to their oars. In vain the English Captain hailed him. With back to the stranger ship, and face set like a flint to his own, Ahab stood upright till alongside of the Pequod.

Chapter 101. The Decanter

Ere the English ship fades from sight be it set down here, that she hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby, merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of Enderby & Sons; a house which in my poor whaleman’s opinion, comes not far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point of real historical interest. How long, prior to the year of our Lord 1775, this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous fish-documents do not make plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted out the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale; though for some score of years previous (ever since 1726) our valiant Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets pursued the Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic: not elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm Whale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the whole globe who so harpooned him.

In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any sort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a skilful and lucky one; and returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm, the Amelia’s example was soon followed by other ships, English and American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were thrown open. But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons — how many, their mother only knows — and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and did some service; how much does not appear. But this is not all. In 1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan. That ship — well called the “Syren” — made a noble experimental cruise; and it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known. The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer.

All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago have slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world.

The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a very fast sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at midnight somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the forecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps — every soul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly death. And that fine gam I had — long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his ivory heel — it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that ship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it at the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it’s squally off there by Patagonia), and all hands — visitors and all — were called to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each other aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the masts did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that we had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it for my taste.

The beef was fine — tough, but with body in it. They said it was bullbeef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know, for certain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but substantial, symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that you could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were swallowed. If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their pitching out of you like billiard-balls. The bread — but that couldn’t be helped; besides, it was an anti-scorbutic, in short, the bread contained the only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very light, and it was very easy to step over into a dark corner when you ate it. But all in all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the dimensions of the cook’s boilers, including his own live parchment boilers; fore and aft, I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of good fare and plenty; fine flip and strong; crack fellows all, and capital from boot heels to hat-band.

But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other English whalers I know of — not all though — were such famous, hospitable ships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the joke; and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing? I will tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers is matter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of historical whale research, when it has seemed needed.

The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders, Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant in the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, touching plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence, in the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural, but incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some special origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated.

During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I knew must be about whalers. The title was, “Dan Coopman,” wherefore I concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was reinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one “Fitz Swackhammer.” But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus and St. Potts, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a box of sperm candles for his trouble — this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he spied the book, assured me that “Dan Coopman” did not mean “The Cooper,” but “The Merchant.” In short, this ancient and learned Low Dutch book treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other subjects, contained a very interesting account of its whale fishery. And in this chapter it was, headed, “Smeer,” or “Fat,” that I found a long detailed list of the outfits for the larders and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen; from which list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following:

400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs. of stock fish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins of butter. 20,000 lbs. of Texel Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs. cheese (probably an inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of beer.

Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer.

At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all this beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, &c., consumed by every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen whale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and Leyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their naturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the nature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game in those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country where the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil.

The quantity of the beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks’ allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that ankers of gin. Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a boat’s head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.

But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers of two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English whalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the decanter.

Chapter 102. A Bower in the Arsacides

Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his unconditional skeleton.

But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been, Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters, ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels.

I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances. Think you I let the chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young cub?

And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted to my late royal friend Tranque, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.

Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores.

Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of its fathomdeep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it.

The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again sent forth its vapory spout; while, suspended from a bough, the terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung sword that so affrighted Damocles.

It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy Glen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the industrious earth beneath was as a weaver’s loom, with a gorgeous carpet on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and woof, and the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their laden branches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying air; all these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver! — pause! — one word! — whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver! — stay thy hand! — but one single word with thee! Nay — the shuttle flies — the figures float from forth the loom; the fresher-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements. Thereby have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world’s loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar.

Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging — a gigantic idler! Yet, as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed the sunning weaver; himself all woven over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.

Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as an object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced before this skeleton — brushed the vine aside — broke through the ribs — and with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid its many winding, shaded colonnades and arbors. But soon my line was out; and following back, I emerged from the opening where I entered. I saw no living thing within; naught was there but bones.

Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton. From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the altitude of the final rib, “How now!” they shouted; “Dar’st thou measure this our god! That’s for us.” “Aye, priests — well, how long do ye make him, then?” But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning feet and inches; they cracked each other’s sconces with their yard-sticks — the great skull echoed — and seizing that lucky chance, I quickly concluded my own admeasurements.

These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied measurements I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where they have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have what the proprietors call “the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or River Whale in the United States.” Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo’s.

In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir Clifford’s whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony cavities — spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan — and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead.

The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing — at least, what untattooed parts might remain — I did not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.

Chapter 103. Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton

In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here.

According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base upon Captain Scoresby’s estimate, of seventy tons for the largest sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length; according to my careful calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least ninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would considerably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one thousand one hundred inhabitants.

Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put to this leviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman’s imagination?

Having already in various ways put before you his skull, spout-hole, jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts, I shall now simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his unobstructed bones. But as the colossal skull embraces so very large a proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it is by far the most complicated part; and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it in this chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under your arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of the general structure we are about to view.

In length, the Sperm Whale’s skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two feet: so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two feet, his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of plain backbone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once enclosed his vitals.

To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected timber.

The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, was nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each successively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay footpath bridges over small streams.

In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the fish which, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of the invested body of this particular whale must have been at least sixteen feet; whereas, the corresponding rib measured but little more than eight feet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion of the living magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I now saw but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with tons of added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for the ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints; and in place of the weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank!

How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely pouring over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out.

But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now it’s done, it looks much like Pompey’s Pillar.

There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton are not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white billiard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they had been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest’s children, who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child’s play.

Chapter 104. The Fossil Whale

From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measured about the waist; only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great cables and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a line-of-battle-ship.

Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves me to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the Leviathan — to an ant or a flea — such portly terms might justly be deemed unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered. Fain am I to stagger to this enterprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer’s uncommon personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author like me.

One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.

Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the earlier geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now almost completely extinct; the subsequent relics discovered in what are called the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate intercepted links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose remote posterity are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil Whales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last preceding the superficial formations. And though none of them precisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet sufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking rank as Cetacean fossils.

Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals, been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon’s time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly unknown Leviathanic species.

But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken credulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. A significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body. So Owen rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted out of existence.

When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks, jaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial resemblances to the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for time began with man. Here Saturn’s grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and in all the 25,000 miles of this world’s circumference, not an inhabitable hand’s breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world was the whale’s; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan? Ahab’s harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh’s. Methuselah seems a schoolboy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after all humane ages are over.

But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to claim for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable print of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah, some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a sculptured and painted planisphere, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe of the moderns. Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; was there swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was cradled.

Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity of the whale, in his own osseous postdiluvian reality, as set down by the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller.

“Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous size are oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine, that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no Whale can pass it without immediate death. But the truth of the matter is, that on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon ‘em. They keep a Whale’s Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel’s Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their Historians affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy’d of Mahomet, came from this Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was cast forth by the Whale at the Base of the Temple.”

In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there.

Chapter 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?  — Will He Perish?

Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether, in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the original bulk of his sires.

But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier ones.

Of all the pre-adamite whale yet exhumed, by far the largest is the Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen, that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a large sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen’s authority, that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of capture.

But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may it not be, that since Adam’s time they have degenerated?

Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For Pliny tells us of Whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in length — Rope Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and Solander, Cooke’s naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three hundred and sixty feet. And Lacepede, the French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page 3), sets down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. And this work was published so late as A.D. 1825.

But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is as big as his ancestors in Pliny’s time. And if ever I go where Pliny is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so. Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks; and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the fattest of Pharaoh’s fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not admit that of all animals the whale alone should have degenerated.

But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient look-outs at the mast-heads of the whaleships, now penetrating even through Behring’s straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff.

Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo, which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and scowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous river-capitals, where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction.

But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a period ago — not a good lifetime — the census of the buffalo in Illinois exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the cause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days of the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need were, could be statistically stated.

Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favor of the gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former years (the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in small pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more remunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, influenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense caravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but widely separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally fallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding with them, hence that species also is declining. For they are only being driven from promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.

Furthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two firm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas and glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes! and in a charmed circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man.

But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions. But though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than 13,000, have been annually slain on the nor’west coast by the Americans alone; yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance of little or no account as an opposing argument in this matter.

Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems no reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted for thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the successive monarchs of the East — if they still survive there in great numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles of the sea combined.

Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity of whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more, therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations must be contemporary. And what this is, we may soon gain some idea of, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children who were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this countless host to the present human population of the globe.

Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah’s flood he despised Noah’s Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies.

Chapter 106. Ahab’s Leg

The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to his own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock. And when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough); then, the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist and wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to all appearances lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy.

And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab, did at times give careful heed to the condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it had not been very long prior to the Pequod’s sailing from Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible; by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured.

Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as the sweetest songster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity, all miserable events do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than equally, thought Ahab; since both tie ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of this: that it is an inference from certain canonic teachings, that while some natural enjoyments here shall have no children born to them for the other world, but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the joy-childlessness of all hell’s despair; whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave; not at all to hint of this, there still seems an inequality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and softcymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.

Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many other particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some, why it was, that for a certain period, both before and after the sailing of the Pequod, he had hidden himself away with such Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness; and, for that one interval, sought speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble senate of the dead. Captain Peleg’s bruited reason for this thing appeared by no means adequate; though, indeed, as touching all Ahab’s deeper part, every revelation partook more of significant darkness than of explanatory light. But, in the end, it all came out; this one matter did, at least. That direful mishap was at the bottom of his temporary recluseness. And not only this, but to that ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, who for any reason, possessed the privilege of a less banned approach to him; to that timid circle the above hinted casualty — remaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted for by Ahab — invested itself with terrors, not entirely underived from the land of spirits and of wails. So that, through their zeal for him, they had all conspired, so far as in them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of this thing from others; and hence it was, that not till a considerable interval had elapsed, did it transpire upon the Pequod’s decks.

But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air, or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took plain practical procedures; — he called the carpenter.

And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him without delay set about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him supplied with all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which had thus far been accumulated on the voyage, in order that a careful selection of the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff might be secured. This done, the carpenter received orders to have the leg completed that night; and to provide all the fittings for it, independent of those pertaining to the distrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship’s forge was ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed.

Chapter 107. The Carpenter

Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. But most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of the high, humane abstraction; the Pequod’s carpenter was no duplicate; hence, he now comes in person on this stage.

Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-hand, practical extent, alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his own; the carpenter’s pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an auxiliary material. But, besides the application to him of the generic remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring in a large ship, upon a three or four years’ voyage, in uncivilized and far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary duties: — repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape of clumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull’s eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails in the side planks, and other miscellaneous matters more directly pertaining to his special business; he was moreover unhesitatingly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes, both useful and capricious.

The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold, was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table furnished with several vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. At all times except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed athwartships against the rear of the Try-works.

A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole: the carpenter claps it into one of his ever ready vices, and straightway files it smaller. A lost landbird of strange plumage strays on board, and is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of right-whale bone, and cross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it. An oarsmen sprains his wrist: the carpenter concocts a soothing lotion. Stubb longed for vermillion stars to be painted upon the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood, the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation. A sailor takes a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears. Another has the toothache: the carpenter out pincers, and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in that, if he would have him draw the tooth.

Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with such liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue some uncommon vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For nothing was this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity as it were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the surrounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity discernible in the whole visible world; which while pauselessly active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was this half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying heartlessness; — yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old, crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now and then with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have served to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle of Noah’s ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a life-long wanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered no moss; but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings might have originally pertained to him? He was a stript abstract; an unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living without premeditated reference to this world or the next. You might almost say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him involved a sort of unintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did not seem to work so much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or uneven; but merely by kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process. He was a pure manipulater; his brain, if he had ever had one, must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers. He was like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful, multum in parvo, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior — though a little swelled — of a common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of various sizes, but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, nail-filers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use the carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part of him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him up by the legs, and there they were.

Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter, was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it had abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the time to keep himself awake.

Chapter 108. Ahab and the Carpenter

The Deck — First Night Watch

(Carpenter standing before vice-bench, and by the light of two lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench. Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith is at work.)

Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft, and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and shin bones. Let’s try another. Aye, now, this works better (sneezes). Halloa, this bone dust is (sneezes) — why it’s (sneezes) — yes it’s (sneezes) — bless my soul, it won’t let me speak! This is what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and you don’t get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don’t get it (sneezes). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let’s have that ferrule and buckle-screw; I’ll be ready for them presently. Lucky now (sneezes) there’s no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little; but a mere shin-bone — why it’s easy as making hop-poles; only I should like to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I’ve seen in shop windows wouldn’t compare at all. They soak water, they do; and of course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with washes and lotions, just like live legs. There; before I saw it off, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that’s the heel; we are in luck; here he comes, or it’s somebody else, that’s certain.

AHAB (advancing)

(During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at times)

Well, manmaker!

Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length. Let me measure, sir.

Measured for a leg! good. Well, it’s not the first time. About it! There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here, carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some.

Oh, sir, it will break bones — beware, beware!

No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this slippery world that can hold, man. What’s Prometheus about there? — the blacksmith, I mean — what’s he about?

He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.

Right. It’s a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a fierce red flame there!

Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for his kind of fine work.

Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what’s made in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell’s probable. How the soot flies! This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter, when he’s through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there’s a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.

Sir?

Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I’ll order a complete man after a desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest modelled after the Thames Tunnel then, legs with roots to ‘em, to stay in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let me see — shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away.

Now, what’s he speaking about, and who’s he speaking to, I should like know? Shall I keep standing here? (aside.)

‘Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here’s one. No, no, no; I must have a lantern.

Ho, ho! That’s it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn.

What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man? Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.

I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.

Carpenter? why that’s — but no; — a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenter; — or would’st thou rather work in clay?

Sir? — Clay? clay, sir? That’s mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.

The fellow’s impious! What art thou sneezing about?

Bone is rather dusty, sir.

Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under living people’s noses.

Sir? — oh! ah! — I guess so; — yes — dear!

Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?

Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard something curious on that score; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?

It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a hair, do I. Is’t a riddle?

I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don’t speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!

Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again; I think I didn’t carry a small figure, sir.

Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises. — How long before the leg is done?

Perhaps an hour, sir.

Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go). Oh, Life. Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I’m down in the whole world’s books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world’s); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I’ll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra. So.

CARPENTER (resuming work).

Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says he’s queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he’s queer, says Stubb; he’s queer — queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all the time — queer — sir — queer, queer, very queer. And here’s his leg. Yes, now that I think of it, here’s his bed-fellow! has a stick of whale’s jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he’ll stand on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and all three places standing in one hell — how was that? Oh! I don’t wonder he looked so scornful at me! I’m a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes, they say; but that’s only haphazard-like. Then, a short, little old body like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep water with tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, and there’s a great cry for life-boats. And here’s the heron’s leg! long and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; oh he’s a hard driver. Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there with those screws, and let’s finish it before the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as brewery men go round collecting old beer barrels, to fill ‘em up again. What a leg this is! It looks like a real live leg, filed down to nothing but the core; he’ll be standing on this to-morrow; he’ll be taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the little oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now!

Chapter 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin

According to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo! no inconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must have sprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went down into the cabin to report this unfavorable affair.[21]

[21]In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it is a regular semiweekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and drench the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying intervals, is removed by the ship’s pumps. Hereby the casks are sought to be kept damply tight; while by the changed character of the withdrawn water, the mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the precious cargo.

Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and the Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from the China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with a general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; and another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the Japanese islands — Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new ivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his old courses again.

“Who’s there?” hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round to it. “On deck! Begone!”

“Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir. We must up Burtons and break out.”

“Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?”

“Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make good in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving, sir.”

“So it is, so it is; if we get it.”

“I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir.”

“And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it leak! I’m all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that’s a far worse plight than the Pequod’s, man. Yet I don’t stop to plug my leak; for who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if found, in this life’s howling ale? Starbuck! I’ll not have the Burtons hoisted.”

“What will the owners say, sir?”

“Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye, my conscience is in this ship’s keel. — On deck!”

“Captain Ahab,” said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin, with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward manifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than half distrustful of itself; “A better man than I might well pass over in thee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye, and in a happier, Captain Ahab.”

“Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me? — On deck!”

“Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir — to be forbearing! Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?”

Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most South-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, exclaimed: “There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod. — On deck!”

For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery cheeks, you would have almost thought that he had really received the blaze of the levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: “Thou hast outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man.”

“He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery that!” murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. “What’s that he said — Ahab beware of Ahab — there’s something there!” Then unconsciously using the musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little cabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck.

“Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck,” he said lowly to the mate; then raising his voice to the crew: “Furl the t’gallant-sails, and close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up Burtons, and break out in the main-hold.”

It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of honesty in him; or mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously forbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient, in the important chief officer of his ship. However it was, his orders were executed; and the Burtons were hoisted.

Chapter 110. Queequeg in His Coffin

Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from that black midnight sending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they go; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost puncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone cask containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards, vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood. Tierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and iron bundles of hoop, were hoisted out, till at last the piled decks were hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under foot, as if you were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was it that the Typhoons did not visit them then.

Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh to his endless end.

Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown; dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the higher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as harpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but — as we have elsewhere seen — mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and finally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all day in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen, the harpooneers are the holders, so called. Es necesario hacer constar que en esta profesión de ballenero no existen las sinecuras. La dignidad y el peligro van de la mano hasta que se llega a capitán, y cuanto más alto el grado, más dura la faena. Esto ocurría con el pobre Queequeg, quien no sólo tenía que hacer frente a la furia de la ballena viva, sino, como ya hemos visto antes, descender finalmente sobre su lomo muerto en un mar agitado, y bajar a la penumbra de la cala para sudar amargamente todo el día, manejando y estibando los más pesados barriles. Para abreviar, a los arponeros se les llama, entre balleneros, los “asideros”.

Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where, stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom of a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor pagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after some days’ suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill of the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few long-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his frame and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller; they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but deeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony to that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And like circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his eyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe that cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of this waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And the drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a last revelation, which only an author from the dead could adequately tell. So that — let us say it again — no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his final rest, and the ocean’s invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and higher towards his destined heaven. ¡Pobre Queequeg! Deberíais haberos asomado por la escotilla para verle, allí abajo, mientras el barco estaba medio destripado: sin otra ropa que sus calzones, el tatuado salvaje se arrastraba entre el fango y la humedad, como un gran lagarto verde y con pintas, en el fondo de un pozo. Y un pozo, más bien una fresquera, resultó ser para él, no se sabe cómo, pobre pagano; pues allí, por extraño que parezca, a pesar de todo el calor de sus sudores, le entró un terrible enfriamiento que se convirtió en fiebre, y por fin, después de sufrir varios días, le hizo caer en su hamaca, cerca del umbral de la puerta de la muerte. ¡Cómo se consumió, cada vez más, en aquellos pocos días lentos, hasta que pareció quedar de él poco más que su esqueleto y su tatuaje ! Pero todo lo demás en él se adelgazó, y sus mandíbulas se pusieron más salientes, aunque sus ojos parecían volverse cada vez más llenos: adquirieron una extraña suavidad y lustre, y, con benevolencia, a la vez que con profundidad, se asomaban a miraros desde su enfermedad, prodigioso testimonio de esa salud inmortal en él, que no podía morir o debilitarse. Y como círculos en el agua, que se expansionan al debilitarse, así sus ojos parecían extenderse en redondo como los anillos de la Eternidad. Un horror que no puede nombrarse os invadía al sentaros al lado de aquel salvaje que se extinguía, tinguía, y veíais tantas cosas extrañas en su cara como las que pudieron observar los que estaban al lado de Zoroastro cuando murió. Pues cuanto es de veras prodigioso y temible en el hombre, jamás se ha puesto aún en palabras o libros. Y el acercamiento de la muerte, que nivela a todos por igual, igualmente infunde en todos una última revelación que sólo podría contar adecuadamente un escritor de entre los muertos. Así que -digámoslo una vez más- ningún caldeo o griego agonizante tuvo pensamientos más altos y sagrados que aquellos cuyas misteriosas sombras veíais deslizarse sobre la cara del pobre Queequeg, tendido tranquilamente en su hamaca oscilante, mientras el mar agitado parecía mecerle suavemente para su reposo final, y la invisible marea desbordada del océano le elevaba cada vez más hacia su destino celestial..

Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself, what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favor he asked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was just breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form the white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at the thought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual sea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks. No: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes were without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and much lee-way adown the dim ages.

Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter was at once commanded to do Queequeg’s bidding, whatever it might include. There was some heathenish, coffin-colored old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took Queequeg’s measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg’s person as he shifted the rule.

“Ah! poor fellow! he’ll have to die now,” ejaculated the Long Island sailor.

Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and general reference, now transferringly measured on it the exact length the coffin was to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities. This done, he marshalled the planks and his tools, and to work.

When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring whether they were ready for it yet in that direction.

Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which the people on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one’s consternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to him, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of all mortals, some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.

Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin with an attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along with one of the paddles of his boat. All by his own request, also, biscuits were then ranged round the sides within; a flask of fresh water was placed at the head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in the hold at the foot; and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a pillow, Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed, that he might make trial of its comforts, if any it had. He lay without moving a few minutes, then told one to go to his bed and bring out his little god, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on his breast with Yojo between, he called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him. The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay Queequeg in his coffin with little but his composed countenance in view. “Rarmai” (it will do; it is easy) he murmured at last, and signed to be replaced in his hammock.

But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by all the while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings, took him by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine.

“Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where go ye now? But if the current carry ye to those sweet Antilles where the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who’s now been missing long: I think he’s in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him; for he must be very sad; for look! he’s left his tambourine behind; — I found it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I’ll beat ye your dying march.”

“I have heard,” murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, “that in violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues; and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their wholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had been really spoken in their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor Pip, in this strange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all our heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there? — Hark! he speaks again; but more wildly now.”

“Form two and two! Let’s make a General of him! Ho, where’s his harpoon? Lay it across here. — Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a game cock now to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game! — mind ye that; Queequeg dies game! — take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies game! I say; game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward; died all a’shiver; — out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles he’s a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he jumped from a whale-boat! I’d never beat my tambourine over base Pip, and hail him General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame upon all cowards — shame upon them! Let’em go drown like Pip, that jumped from a whale-boat. Shame! shame!”

During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip was led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock.

But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter’s box; and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this; — at a critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg’s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.

Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and civilized; that while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing, generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day. So, in good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after sitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a vigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms and legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then springing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself fit for a fight.

With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there. Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought it must have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg — “Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods!”

Chapter 111. The Pacific

When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great South Sea; were it not for other things I could have greeted my dear Pacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my youth was answered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a thousand leagues of blue.

There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seems to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery prairies and Potters’ Fields of all four continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness.

To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld, must ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters of the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms. The same waves wash the moles of the new-built California towns, but yesterday planted by the recentest race of men and lave the faded but still gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine Pacific zones the world’s whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan.

But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab’s brain, as standing, like an iron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles (in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea in which the hated White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at length upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese cruising-ground, the old man’s purpose intensified itself. His firm lips met like the lips of a vice; the Delta of his forehead’s veins swelled like overladen brooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran through the vaulted hull, “Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick blood!”

Chapter 112. The Blacksmith

Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now reigned in these latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly active pursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after concluding his contributory work for Ahab’s leg, but still retained it on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an eager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pikeheads, harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man’s was a patient hammer wielded by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it was. — Most miserable!

A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted questionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every one now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate.

Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter’s midnight, on the road running between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning, dilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth act of the grief of his life’s drama.

He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow’s technicals called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his family’s heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith’s shop was in the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of her young-armed old husband’s hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery; and so, to stout Labor’s iron lullaby, the blacksmith’s infants were rocked to slumber.

Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years; and all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier to harvest.

Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew more and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the last; the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows fell; the forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother dived down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her thither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a vagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to flaxen curls!

Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them — “Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. dome hither! put up thy grave-stone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee!”

Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by fall of eve, the blacksmith’s soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth went a-whaling.

Chapter 113. The Forge

With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin apron, about mid-day, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the latter placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a pike-head in the coals, and with the other at his forge’s lungs, when Captain Ahab came along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last, Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the anvil — the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, some of which flew close to Ahab.

“Are these thy Mother Carey’s chickens, Perth? they are always flying in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all; — look here, they burn; but thou — thou liv’st among them without a scorch.”

“Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab,” answered Perth, resting for a moment on his hammer; “I am past scorching-, not easily can’st thou scorch a scar.”

“Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should’st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can’st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can’st not go mad? — What wert thou making there?”

“Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it.”

“And can’st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard usage as it had?”

“I think so, sir.”

“And I suppose thou can’st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?”

“Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one.”

“Look ye here then,” cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning with both hands on Perth’s shoulders; “look ye here — here — can ye smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith,” sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow; “if thou could’st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes. Answer! Can’st thou smoothe this seam?”

“Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?”

“Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for though thou only see’st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the bone of my skull — that is all wrinkles! But, away with child’s play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!” jingling the leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. “I, too, want a harpoon made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There’s the stuff,” flinging the pouch upon the anvil. “Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses.”

“Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work.”

“I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer these twelve together like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick! I’ll blow the fire.”

When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. “A flaw!” rejecting the last one. “Work that over again, Perth.”

This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then, regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to him the glowing rods, after the other, and the hard pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.

“What’s that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?” muttered Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. “That Parsee smells fire like a fusee; and smells of it himself, like a hot musket’s powder-pan.”

At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab’s bent face.

“Would’st thou brand me, Perth?” wincing for a moment with the pain; “have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?”

“Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this harpoon for the White Whale?”

“For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them thyself, man. Here are my razors — the best of steel; here, and make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.”

For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain not use them.

“Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup, nor pray till — but here — to work!”

Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.

“No, no — no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?” holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale’s barbs were then tempered.

“Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!” deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood.

Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket of the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, “Good! and now for the seizings.”

At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole was then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope was traced halfway along the pole’s length, and firmly secured so, with inter-twistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and rope — like the Three Fates — remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon; the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole, both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his cabin, light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh! Pip, thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the melancholy ship, and mocked it!

Chapter 114. The Gilder

Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising ground the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small success for their pains.

At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.

These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants’ horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure.

The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamless whole.

Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon them prove but tarnishing.

Oh, grassy glades! oh ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye, — though long parched by the dead drought of the earthly life, — in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: — through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’ doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.

And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat’s side into that same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured: —

“Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s eyes! — Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.”

And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scale, leaped up in that same golden light: —

“I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!”

Chapter 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor

And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab’s harpoon had been welded.

It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home.

The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red bunting at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended, bottom down; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colors were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm; above which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of the same precious fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp.

As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most surprising success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in the same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without securing a single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been given away to make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplemental casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met; and these were stowed along the deck, and in the captain’s and officers’ state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself had been knocked into kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of an oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centerpiece. In the forecastle, the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their chests, and filled them; it was humorously added, that the cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and filled it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled it; that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and filled them; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the captain’s pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction.

As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge try-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like poke or stomach skin of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the clenched hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamental boat, firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship’s company were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been removed. You would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed Bastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and mortar were being hurled into the sea.

Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the ship’s elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual diversion.

And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black, with a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other’s wakes — one all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings as to things to come — their two captains in themselves impersonated the whole striking contrast of the scene.

“Come aboard, come aboard!” cried the gay Bachelor’s commander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air.

“Hast seen the White Whale?” gritted Ahab in reply.

“No; only heard of him; but don’t believe in him at all,” said the other good-humoredly. “Come aboard!”

“Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?”

“Not enough to speak of — two islanders, that’s all; — but come aboard, old hearty, come along. I’ll soon take that black from your brow. Come along, will ye (merry’s the play); a full ship and homeward-bound.”

“How wondrous familiar is a fool!” muttered Ahab; then aloud, “Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call me an empty ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!”

And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor’s men never heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket soundings.

Chapter 116. The Dying Whale

Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune’s favorites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed it with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor, whales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab.

It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the crimson fight were done; and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns.

Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales dying — the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring — that strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrousness unknown before.

“He turns and turns him to it, — how slowly, but how steadfastly, his homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun! — Oh that these too-favoring eyes should see these too-favoring sights. Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; in these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the Niger’s unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith, but see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads some other way.

“Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas; thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round again, without a lesson to me.

“Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet! — that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now.

“Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!”

Chapter 117. The Whale Watch

The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to windward; one less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These last three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one could not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab’s.

The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale’s spout-hole; and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale’s broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach.

Ahab and all his boat’s crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A sound like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air.

Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee; and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a flooded world. “I have dreamed it again,” said he.

“Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor coffin can be thine?”

“And who are hearsed that die on the sea?”

“But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America.”

“Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee! — a hearse and its plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a sight we shall not soon see.”

“Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man.”

“And what was that saying about thyself?”

“Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot.”

“And when thou art so gone before — if that ever befall — then ere I can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still? — Was it not so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it.”

“Take another pledge, old man,” said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom — “Hemp only can kill thee.”

“The gallows, ye mean. — I am immortal then, on land and on sea,” cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision; — “Immortal on land and on sea!”

Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the slumbering crew arose from the boat’s bottom, and ere noon the dead whale was brought to the ship.

Chapter 118. The Quadrant

The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when Ahab, coming from his cabin cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the ship’s prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon high noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his latitude.

Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing focus of the glassy ocean’s immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God’s throne. Well that Ahab’s quadrant was furnished with colored glasses, through which to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging his seated form to the roll of the ship, and with his astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he remained in that posture for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun should gain its precise meridian. Meantime while his whole attention was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship’s deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab’s, was eyeing the same sun with him; only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his wild face was subdued to an earthly passionlessness. At length the desired observation was taken; and with his pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at that precise instant. Then falling into a moment’s revery, he again looked up towards the sun and murmured to himself: “Thou seamark! thou high and mighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I am — but canst thou cast the least hint where I shall be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing besides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou must be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is even now beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even now equally beholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!”

Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: “Foolish toy! babies’ plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things that cast man’s eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth’s horizon are the glances of man’s eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!” dashing it to the deck, “no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship’s compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye,” lighting from the boat to the deck, “thus I trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!”

As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself — these passed over the mute, motionless Parsee’s face. Unobserved he rose and glided away; while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, shouted out — “To the braces! Up helm! — square in!”

In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one sufficient steed.

Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod’s tumultuous way, and Ahab’s also, as he went lurching along the deck.

“I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!”

“Aye,” cried Stubb, “but sea-coal ashes — mind ye that, Mr. Starbuck — sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well! I heard Ahab mutter, ‘Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine; swears that I must play them, and no others.’ And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!”

Chapter 119. The Candles

Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spaced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town.

Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas, and bare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck her directly ahead. When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split with the thunder, and blazed with the lightning, that showed the disabled mast fluttering here and there with the rags which the first fury of the tempest had left for its after sport.

Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-deck; at every flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what additional disaster might have befallen the intricate hamper there; while Stubb and Flask were directing the men in the higher hoisting and firmer lashing of the boats. But all their pains seemed naught. Though lifted to the very top of the cranes, the windward quarter boat (Ahab’s) did not escape. A great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling ship’s high teetering side, stove in the boat’s bottom at the stern, and left it again, all dripping through like a sieve.

“Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck,” said Stubb, regarding the wreck, “but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can’t fight it. You see, Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps, all round the world it runs, and then comes the spring! But as for me, all the start I have to meet it, is just across the deck here. But never mind; it’s all in fun: so the old song says;” — (sings.)

Oh! jolly is the gale, 
And a joker is the whale, 
A’ flourishin’ his tail,- 
Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky 
lad, is the Ocean, oh! 
The scud all a flyin’, 
That’s his flip only foamin’; 
When he stirs in the spicin’,- 
Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky 
lad, is the Ocean, oh! 
Thunder splits the ships, 
But he only smacks his lips, 
A tastin’ of this flip,- 
Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky 
lad, is the Ocean, oh!

“Avast Stubb,” cried Starbuck, “let the Typhoon sing, and strike his harp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold thy peace.”

“But I am not a brave man; never said I was a brave man; I am a coward; and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr. Starbuck, there’s no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my throat. And when that’s done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a wind-up.”

“Madman! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.”

“What! how can you see better of a dark night than anybody else, never mind how foolish?”

“Here!” cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and pointing his hand towards the weather bow, “markest thou not that the gale comes from the eastward, the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick? the very course he swung to this day noon? now mark his boat there; where is that stove? In the stern-sheets, man; where he is wont to stand — his stand-point is stove, man! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou must!

“I don’t half understand ye: what’s in the wind?”

“Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to Nantucket,” soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb’s question. “The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it into a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to windward, all is blackness of doom; but to leeward, homeward — I see it lightens up there; but not with the lightning.”

At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness, following the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at the same instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead.

“Who’s there?”

“Old Thunder!” said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his pivot-hole; but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed lances of fire.

Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off the perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod which at sea some ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But as this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may avoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly towing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering not a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the vessel’s way in the water; because of all this, the lower parts of a ship’s lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made in long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require.

“The rods! the rods!” cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished to vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting flambeaux, to light Ahab to his post. “Are they overboard? drop them over, fore and aft. Quick!”

“Avast!” cried Ahab; “let’s have fair play here, though we be the weaker side. Yet I’ll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes, that all the world may be secured; but out on privileges! Let them be, sir.”

“Look aloft!” cried Starbuck. “The corpusants! the corpusants!

All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers before an altar.

“Blast the boat! let it go!” cried Stubb at this instant, as a swashing sea heaved up under his own little craft so that its gunwale violently jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing. “Blast it!” — but slipping backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and immediately shifting his tone he cried — “The corpusants have mercy on us all!”

To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething sea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when God’s burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His “Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin” has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage.

While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a faraway constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed as if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by the preternatural light, Queequeg’s tattooing burned like Satanic blue flames on his body.

The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one. It was Stubb. “What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not the same in the song.”

“No, no, it wasn’t; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all; and I hope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long faces? — have they no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr. Starbuck — but it’s too dark to look. Hear me, then; I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign of good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be chock a’ block with sperm-oil, d’ye see; and so, all that sperm will work up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes, our three masts will yet be as three spermaceti candles — that’s the good promise we saw.”

At that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb’s face slowly beginning to glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried: “See! see!” and once more the high tapering flames were beheld with what seemed redoubled supernaturalness in their pallor.

“The corpusants have mercy on us all,” cried Stubb, again.

At the base of the main-mast, full beneath the doubloon and the flame, the Parsee was kneeling in Ahab’s front, but with his head bowed away from him; while near by, from the arched and overhanging rigging, where they had just been engaged securing a spar, a number of the seamen, arrested by the glare, now cohered together, and hung pendulous, like a knot of numbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. In various enchanted attitudes like the standing, or stepping, or running skeletons in Herculaneum, others remained rooted to the deck; but all their eyes upcast.

“Aye, aye, men!” cried Ahab. “Look up at it; mark it well; the white flame but lights the way to the White Whale! Hand me those mainmast links there; I would fain feel this pulse, and let mine beat against it; blood against fire! So.”

Then turning — the last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot upon the Parsee; and with fixed upward eve, and high-flung right arm, he stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames.

“Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e’en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at best; whenceso’er I came; whereso’er I go; yet while I earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there’s that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee.”

[Sudden, repeated flashes of lightning; the nine flames leap lengthwise to thrice their previous height; Ahab, with the rest, closes his eyes, his right hand pressed hard upon them.]

“I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was it wrung from me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind; but I can then grope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes. Take the homage of these poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it. The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling in some stunning ground. Oh, oh! Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee! The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not? There burn the flames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my genealogy. But thou art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but thine is greater. Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical. Through thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly see it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with haughty agony, I read my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee; I burn with thee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly I worship thee!”

“The boat! the boat!” cried Starbuck, “look at thy boat, old man!”

Ahab’s harpoon, the one forged at Perth’s fire, remained firmly lashed in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat’s bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather sheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there like a serpent’s tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm — “God, God is against thee, old man; forbear! ‘t is an ill voyage! ill begun, ill continued; let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a fair wind of it homewards, to go on a better voyage than this.”

Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to the braces — though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast mate’s thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half mutinous cry. But dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope’s end. Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke: —

“All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye may know to what tune this heart beats: look ye here; thus I blow out the last fear!” And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the flame.

As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts; so at those last words of Ahab’s many of the mariners did run from him in a terror of dismay.

Chapter 120. The Deck Toward the End of the First Night Watch

Ahab standing by the helm. Starbuck approaching him.

We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is working loose and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?”

“Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I’d sway them up now.”

“Sir! — in God’s name! — sir?”

“Well.”

“The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?”

“Strike nothing, and stir nothing but lash everything. The wind rises, but it has not got up to my table-hands yet. Quick, and see to it. — By masts and keels! he takes me for the hunchbacked skipper of some coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft there! I would e’en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!”

Chapter 121. Midnight — The Forecastle Bulwarks

Stubb and Flask mounted on them, and passing additional lashings over the anchors there hanging.

No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but you will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how long ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn’t you once say that whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra on its insurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder barrels aft and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn’t you say so?”

“Well, suppose I did? What then! I’ve part changed my flesh since that time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we are loaded with powder barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have pretty red hair, but you couldn’t get afire now. Shake yourself; you’re Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your coat collar. Don’t you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine Insurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask. But hark, again, and I’ll answer ye the other thing. First take your leg of from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope; now listen. What’s the mighty difference between holding a mast’s lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn’t got any lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don’t you see, you timber-head, that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in a hundred carries rods, and Ahab, — aye, man, and all of us, — were in no more danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten thousand ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose you would have every man in the world go about with a small lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia officer’s skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash. Why don’t ye be sensible, Flask? it’s easy to be sensible; why don’t ye, then? any man with half an eye can be sensible.”

“I don’t know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard.”

“Yes, when a fellow’s soaked through, it’s hard to be sensible, that’s a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind; catch the turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors now as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man’s hands behind him. And what big generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable, though. There, hammer that knot down, and we’ve done. So; next to touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say, just wring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me, a long-tailed coat ought always to be worn in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water, d’ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end eave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and tarpaulins for me; I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a beaver; so. Halloa! whew! there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord, Lord, that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly! This is a nasty night, lad.”

Chapter 122. Midnight Aloft. — Thunder and Lightning Medianoche; arriba.

The Main-top-sail yard — Tashtego passing new lashings around it.

“Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What’s the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don’t want thunder; we want rum; give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!”

Chapter 123. The Musket

During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod’s jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by its spasmodic motions even though preventer tackles had been attached to it — for they were slack — because some play to the tiller was indispensable.

In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the Pequod’s; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is a sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted emotion.

Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb — one engaged forward and the other aft — the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like the feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds when that storm-tossed bird is on the wing.

The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went through the water with some precision again; and the course — for the present, East-south-east — which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile, lo! a good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul breeze became fair!

Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of “Ho! the fair wind! oh-ye-ho cheerly, men!” the crew singing for joy, that so promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portends preceding it.

In compliance with the standing order of his commander — to report immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided change in the affairs of the deck, — Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards to the breeze — however reluctantly and gloomily, — that he mechanically went below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance.

Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it a moment. The cabin lamp — taking long swings this way and that — was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man’s bolted door, — a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. The isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming silence to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of the elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an honest, upright man; but out of Starbuck’s heart, at that instant when he saw the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew it for itself.

“He would have shot me once,” he murmured, “yes, there’s the very musket that he pointed at me; — that one with the studded lock; let me touch it — lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many deadly lances, strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye, aye; and powder in the pan; — that’s not good. Best spill it? — wait. I’ll cure myself of this. I’ll hold the musket boldly while I think. — I come to report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair for death and doom, — that’s fair for Moby Dick. It’s a fair wind that’s only fair for that accursed fish. — The very tube he pointed at me! — the very one; this one — I hold it here; he would have killed me with the very thing I handle now. — Aye and he would fain kill all his crew. Does he not say he will not strike his spars to any gale? Has he not dashed his heavenly quadrant? and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead reckoning of the error-abounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did he not swear that he would have no lightning-rods? But shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s company down to doom with him? — Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer of thirty men and more, if this ship come to any deadly harm; and come to deadly harm, my soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have his way. If, then, he were this instant — put aside, that crime would not be his. Ha! is he muttering in his sleep? Yes, just there, — in there, he’s sleeping. Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again. I can’t withstand thee, then, old man. Not reasoning; not remonstrance; not entreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scornest. Flat obedience to thy own flat commands, this is all thou breathest. Aye, and say’st the men have vow’d thy vow; say’st all of us are Ahabs. Great God forbid! — But is there no other way? no lawful way? — Make him a prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest this old man’s living power from his own living hands? Only a fool would try it. Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would be more hideous than a caged tiger, then. I could not endure the sight; could not possibly fly his howlings; all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason would leave me on the long intolerable voyage. What, then, remains? The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest. I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a whole continent between me and law. — Aye, aye, ‘tis so. — Is heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together? — And would I be a murderer, then, if” — and slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket’s end against the door.

“On this level, Ahab’s hammock swings within; his head this way. A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again. — Oh Mary! Mary! — boy! boy! boy! — But if I wake thee not to death, old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck’s body this day week may sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall I? — The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails are reefed and set! she heads her course.”

“Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!”

Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man’s tormented sleep, as if Starbuck’s voice had caused the long dumb dream to speak.

The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard’s arm against the panel; Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel, but turning from the door, he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.

“He’s too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him, and tell him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know’st what to say.”

Chapter 124. The Needle

Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod’s gurgling track, pushed her on like giants’ palms outspread. The strong unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat.

Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time the teetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye the bright sun’s rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly settled by the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun’s rearward place, and how the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake.

“Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot of the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to ye! Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea!”

But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading.

“East-sou-east, sir,” said the frightened steersman.

“Thou liest!” smiting him with his clenched fist. “Heading East at this hour in the morning, and the sun astern?”

Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very blinding palpableness must have been the cause.

Thrusting his head half-way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West.

But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, “I have it! It has happened before. Mr. Starbuck, last night’s thunder turned our compasses — that’s all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it.”

“Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir,” said the pale mate, gloomily.

Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as developed in the mariner’s needle, is, as all know, essentially one with the electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be much marvelled at, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning has actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars and rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal; all its loathsome virtue being annihilated, so that the before magnetic steel was of no more use than an old wife’s knitting needle. But in either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original virtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected, the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were the lowermost one inserted into the kelson.

Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship’s course to be changed accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair one had only been juggling her.

Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and Flask — who in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelings — likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some of them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab’s.

For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck.

“Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun’s pilot! yesterday I wrecked thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck — a lance without the pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker’s needles. Quick!”

Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents.

“Men,” said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him the things he had demanded, “my men, the thunder turned old Ahab’s needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point as true as any.”

Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow. But Starbuck looked away.

With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then going through some small strange motions with it — whether indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain — he called for linen thread; and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed, — “Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level loadstone! The sun is East, and that compass swears it!”

One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk away.

In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride.

Chapter 125. The Log and Line

While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log and line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance upon other means of determining the vessel’s place, some merchantmen, and many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave the log; though at the same time, and frequently more for form’s sake than anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average of progression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden reel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the railing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and wind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that hung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he happened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet scene, and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his frantic oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing plungingly; astern the billows rolled in riots.

“Forward, there! Heave the log!”

Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman. “Take the reel, one of ye, I’ll heave.”

They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship’s lee side, where the deck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea.

The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to him.

Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the old Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to speak.

“Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have spoiled it.”

“’Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee? Thou seem’st to hold. Oh, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it.”

“I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these grey hairs of mine ‘tis not worth while disputing, ‘specially with a superior, who’ll ne’er confess.”

“What’s that? there now’s a patched professor in Queen Nature’s granite-founded College; but methinks he’s too subservient. Where wert thou born?”

“In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir.”

“Excellent! Thou’st hit the world by that.”

“I know not, sir, but I was born there.”

“In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it’s good. Here’s a man from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man; which is sucked in — by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So.”

The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely.

“Hold hard!”

Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the tugging log was gone.

“I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian; reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and mend thou the line. See to it.”

“There he goes now; to him nothing’s happened; but to me, the skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in, Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and dragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?”

“Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whaleboat. Pip’s missing. Let’s see now if ye haven’t fished him up here, fisherman. It drags hard; I guess he’s holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off we haul in no cowards here. Ho! there’s his arm just breaking water. A hatchet! a hatchet! cut it off — we haul in no cowards here. Captain Ahab! sir, sir! here’s Pip, trying to get on board again.”

“Peace, thou crazy loon,” cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm. “Away from the quarter-deck!”

“The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser,” muttered Ahab, advancing. “Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy?

“Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!”

“And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of thy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to sieve through! Who art thou, boy?”

“Bell-boy, sir; ship’s-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! One hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high — looks cowardly — quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who’s seen Pip the coward?”

“There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen heavens! look down here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have abandoned him, ye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab’s cabin shall be Pip’s home henceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy; thou art tied to me by cords woven by my heart-strings. Come, let’s down.”

“What’s this? here’s velvet shark-skin,” intently gazing at Ahab’s hand, and feeling it. “Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing as this, perhaps he had ne’er been lost! This seems to me, sir, as a man-rope; something that weak souls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth now come and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the white, for I will not let this go.”

“Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come! I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an Emperor’s!”

“There go two daft ones now,” muttered the old Manxman. “One daft with strength, the other daft with weakness. But here’s the end of the rotten line — all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a new line altogether. I’ll see Mr. Stubb about it.”

Chapter 126. The Life-Buoy

Steering now south-eastward by Ahab’s levelled steel, and her progress solely determined by Ahab’s level log and line; the Pequod held on her path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene.

At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch — then headed by Flask — was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly — like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod’s murdered Innocents — that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixed by listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was mermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman — the oldest mariner of all — declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men in the sea.

Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when he came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus explained the wonder.

Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wall. But this only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men.

But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard — a cry and a rushing — and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the sea.

The life-buoy — a long slender cask — was dropped from the stern, where it always hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it, and the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it slowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore; and the studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to yield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one.

And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out for the White Whale, on the White Whale’s own peculiar ground; that man was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a fore-shadowing of evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they had heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay.

The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be; therefore, they were going to leave the ship’s stern unprovided with a buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint concerning his coffin.

“A life-buoy of a coffin!” cried Starbuck, starting.

“Rather queer, that, I should say,” said Stubb.

“It will make a good enough one,” said Flask, “the carpenter here can arrange it easily.”

“Bring it up; there’s nothing else for it,” said Starbuck, after a melancholy pause. “Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so — the coffin, I mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it.”

“And shall I nail down the lid, sir?” moving his hand as with a hammer.

“Aye.”

“And shall I caulk the seams, sir?” moving his hand as with a caulking-iron.

“Aye.”

“And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?” moving his hand as with a pitch-pot.

“Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and no more. — Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me.”

“He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he baulks. Now I don’t like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he wears it like a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he won’t put his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with that coffin? And now I’m ordered to make a life-buoy of it. It’s like turning an old coat; going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I don’t like this cobbling sort of business — I don’t like it at all; it’s undignified; it’s not my place. Let tinkers’ brats do tinkerings; we are their betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, fair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at the conclusion; not a cobbler’s job, that’s at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at the end. It’s the old woman’s tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord! what an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young tinker once. And that’s the reason I never would work for lonely widow old women ashore when I kept my job-shop in the Vineyard; they might have taken into their lonely old heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over the ship’s stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in rigging, ere they would do the job. But I’m made of knotty Aroostook hemlock; I don’t budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing about with a grave-yard tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make bridal bedsteads and card-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We work by the month, or by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask the why and wherefore of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, and then we stash it if we can. Hem! I’ll do the job, now, tenderly. I’ll have me — let’s see — how many in the ship’s company, all told? But I’ve forgotten. Any way, I’ll have me thirty separate, Turk’s-headed life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then, if the hull go down, there’ll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for one coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer, caulking-iron, pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let’s to it.”

Chapter 127. The Deck

The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and the open hatchway; the Carpenter caulking its seams; the string of twisted oakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in the bosom of his frock. — Ahab comes slowly from the cabin-gangway, and hears Pip following him.

Back lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand complies with my humor more genially than that boy. — Middle aisle of a church! What’s here?”

“Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck’s orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the hatchway!”

“Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault.”

“Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does.”

“Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy shop?”

“I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?”

“Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?”

“Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but they’ve set me now to turning it into something else.”

“Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades.”

“But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do.”

“The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a coffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the craters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in hand. Dost thou never?”

“Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I’m indifferent enough, sir, for that; but the reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there was none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark to it.”

“Aye, and that’s because the lid there’s a sounding-board; and what in all things makes the sounding-board is this — there’s naught beneath. And yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter. Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against the churchyard gate, going in?

“Faith, sir, I’ve-”

“Faith? What’s that?”

“Why, faith, sir, it’s only a sort of exclamation-like — that’s all, sir.”

“Um, um; go on.”

“I was about to say, sir, that-”

“Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself? Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight.”

“He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot latitudes. I’ve heard that the Isle of Albermarle, one of the Gallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some sort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. He’s always under the Line — fiery hot, I tell ye! He’s looking this way — come, oakum; quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I’m the professor of musical glasses — tap, tap!”

(Ahab to himself)

“There’s a sight! There’s a sound! The greyheaded wood-pecker tapping the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag, that fellow. Rat-tat! So man’s seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! I’ll think of that. But no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain twilight to me. Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed sound? I go below; let me not see that thing here when I return again. Now, then, Pip, we’ll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous philosophies from thee! Some unknown worlds must empty into thee!”

Chapter 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel

Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the time the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from the smitten hull.

“Bad news; she brings bad news,” muttered the old Manxman. But ere her commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he could hopefully hail, Ahab’s voice was heard.

“Hast seen the White Whale?”

“Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?”

Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question; and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger captain himself, having stopped his vessel’s way, was seen descending her side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the Pequod’s main-chains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was recognized by Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation was exchanged.

“Where was he? — not killed! — not killed!” cried Ahab, closely advancing. “How was it?”

It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous, while three of the stranger’s boats were engaged with a shoal of whales, which had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to leeward; whereupon, the fourth rigged boat — a reserved one — had been instantly lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth boat — the swiftest keeled of all — seemed to have succeeded in fastening — at least, as well as the man at the mast-head could tell anything about it. In the distance he saw the diminished dotted boat; and then a swift gleam of bubbling white water; and after that nothing more; whence it was concluded that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away with his pursuers, as often happens. There was some apprehension, but no positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals were placed in the rigging; darkness came on; and forced to pick up her three far to windward boats — ere going in quest of the fourth one in the precisely opposite direction — the ship had not only been necessitated to leave that boat to its fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance from it. But the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she crowded all sail — stunsail on stunsail — after the missing boat; kindling a fire in her try-pots for a beacon; and every other man aloft on the look-out. But though when she had thus sailed a sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones when last seen; though she then paused to lower her spare boats to pull all around her; and not finding anything, had again dashed on; again paused, and lowered her boats; and though she had thus continued doing till daylight; yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had been seen.

The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were.

“I will wager something now,” whispered Stubb to Flask, “that some one in that missing boat wore off that Captain’s best coat; mayhap, his watch — he’s so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height of the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks-pale in the very buttons of his eyes — look — it wasn’t the coat — it must have been the-”

“My boy, my own boy is among them. For God’s sake — I beg, I conjure” — here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had but icily received his petition. “For eight-and-forty hours let me charter your ship — I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it — if there be no other way — for eight-and-forty hours only — only that — you must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing.”

“His son!” cried Stubb, “oh, it’s his son he’s lost! I take back the coat and watch — what says Ahab? We must save that boy.”

“He’s drowned with the rest on ‘em, last night,” said the old Manx sailor standing behind them; “I heard; all of ye heard their spirits.”

Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel’s the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the Captain’s sons among the number of the missing boat’s crew; but among the number of the other boats’ crews, at the same time, but on the other hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase, there had been still another son; as that for a time, the wretched father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which was only solved for him by his chief mate’s instinctively adopting the ordinary procedure of a whaleship in such emergencies, that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the majority first. But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by Ahab’s iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer’s paternal love, had thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor does it unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will send a son of such tender age away from them, for a protracted three or four years’ voyage in some other ship than their own; so that their first knowledge of a whaleman’s career shall be unenervated by any chance display of a father’s natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and concern.

Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab; and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without the least quivering of his own.

“I will not go,” said the stranger, “till you say aye to me. Do to me as you would have me do to you in the like case. For you too have a boy, Captain Ahab — though but a child, and nestling safely at home now — a child of your old age too — Yes, yes, you relent; I see it — run, run, men, now, and stand by to square in the yards.”

“Avast,” cried Ahab — “touch not a rope-yarn”; then in a voice that prolongingly moulded every word — “Captain Gardiner, I will not do it. Even now I lose time, Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers; then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before.”

Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin, leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment, Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his boat, and returned to his ship.

Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot, however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung around; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs.

But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not.

Chapter 129. The Cabin

(Ahab moving to go on deck; Pip catches him hy the hand to follow.)

Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The hour is coming when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would not have thee by him. There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady. Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired health. Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee, as if thou wert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own screwed chair; another screw to it, thou must be.”

“No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me for your one lost leg; only tread upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain a part of ye.”

“Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless fidelity of man! — and a black! and crazy! — but methinks like-cures-like applies to him too; he grows so sane again.”

“They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip, whose drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his living skin. But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him. Sir, I must go with ye.”

“If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab’s purpose keels up in him. I tell thee no; it cannot be.”

“Oh good master, master, master!

“Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care, for Ahab too is mad. Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck, and still know that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thy hand! — Met! True art thou, lad, as the circumference to its centre. So: God for ever bless thee; and if it come to that, — God for ever save thee, let what will befall.”

(Ahab goes; Pip steps one step forward.)

“Here he this instant stood, I stand in his air, — but I’m alone. Now were even poor Pip here I could endure it, but he’s missing. Pip! Pip! Ding, dong, ding! Who’s seen Pip? He must be up here; let’s try the door. What? neither lock, nor bolt, nor bar; and yet there’s no opening it. It must be the spell; he told me to stay here: Aye, and told me this screwed chair was mine. Here, then, I’ll seat me, against the transom, in the ship’s full middle, all her keel and her three masts before me. Here, our old sailors say, in their black seventy-fours great admirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it over rows of captains and lieutenants. Ha! what’s this? epaulets! epaulets! the epaulets all come crowding. Pass round the decanters; glad to see ye; fill up, monsieurs! What an odd feeling, now, when a black boy’s host to white men with gold lace upon their coats! — Monsieurs, have ye seen one Pip? — a little negro lad, five feet high, hang-dog look, and cowardly! Jumped from a whale-boat once; — seen him? No! Well then, fill up again, captains, and let’s drink shame upon all cowards! I name no names. Shame upon them! Put one foot upon the table. Shame upon all cowards. — Hist! above there, I hear ivory — Oh, master! master! I am indeed down-hearted when you walk over me. But there I’ll stay, though this stern strikes rocks; and they bulge through; and oysters come to join me.”

Chapter 130. The Hat

And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a preliminary cruise, Ahab, — all other whaling waters swept — seemed to have chased his foe into an oceanfold, to slay him the more securely there; now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and longitude where his tormenting wound had been inflicted; now that a vessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually encountered Moby Dick; — and now that all his successive meetings with various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned against; now it was that there lurked a something in the old man’s eyes, which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months’ night sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab’s purpose now fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings, fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a single spear or leaf.

In this foreshadowing interval, too, all humor, forced or natural, vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab’s iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old man’s despot eye was on them.

But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential hours when he thought no glance but one was on him; then you would have seen that even as Ahab’s eyes so awed the crew’s, the inscrutable Parsee’s glance awed his; or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times affected it. Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen being’s body. And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go below. He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan but wondrous eves did plainly say — We two watchmen never rest.

Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now step upon the deck, unless Ahab was before them; either standing in his pivot-hole, or exactly pacing the planks between two undeviating limits, — the main-mast and the mizen; or else they saw him standing in the cabin-scuttle, — his living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step; his hat slouched heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he stood, however the days and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his hammock; yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether he was still intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so in the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp gathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved coat and hat. The clothes that the night had wet, the next day’s sunshine dried upon him; and so, day after day, and night after night; he went no more beneath the planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin that thing he sent for.

He ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals, — breakfast and dinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly grew all gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still grow idly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But though his whole life was now become one watch on deck; and though the Parsee’s mystic watch was without intermission as his own; yet these two never seemed to speak — one man to the other — unless at long intervals some passing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent spell seemed secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck crew, they seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak one word; by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the slightest verbal interchange. At times, for longest hours, without a single hail, they stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his scuttle, the Parsee by the main-mast; but still fixedly gazing upon each other; as if in the Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the Parsee his abandoned substance.

And yet, somehow, did Ahab — in his own proper self, as daily, hourly, and every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates, — Ahab seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave. Still again both seemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant driving them; the lean shade siding the solid rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and keel was solid Ahab.

At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard from aft, — “Man the mast-heads!” — and all through the day, till after sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking of the helmsman’s bell, was heard — “What d’ye see? — sharp! sharp!”

But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the children-seeking Rachel; and no spout had yet been seen; the monomaniac old man seemed distrustful of his crew’s fidelity; at least, of nearly all except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether Stubb and Flask might not willingly overlook the sight he sought. But if these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them.

“I will have the first sight of the whale myself,” — he said. “Aye! Ahab must have the doubloon! and with his own hands he rigged a nest of basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved block, to secure to the mainmast head, he received the two ends of the downwardreeved rope; and attaching one to his basket prepared, pin for the other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with that end yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round upon his crew, sweeping from one to the other; pausing his glance long upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning Fedallah; and then settling his firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said, — “Take the rope, sir — I give it into thy hands, Starbuck.” Then arranging his person in the basket, he gave the word for them to hoist him to his perch, Starbuck being the one who secured the rope at last; and afterwards stood near it. And thus, with one hand clinging round the royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad upon the sea for miles and miles, — ahead astern, this side, and that, — within the wide expanded circle commanded at so great a height.

When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope; under these circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict charge to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such a wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the deck; and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality, if, unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor should by some carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all swooping to the sea. So Ahab’s proceedings in this matter were not unusual; the only strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the slightest degree approaching to decision — one of those too, whose faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat; it was strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman; freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person’s hands.

Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often fly incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his head in a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted a thousand feet straight up into the air; then spiralized downwards, and went eddying again round his head.

But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now almost the least heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every sight.

“Your hat, your hat, sir!” suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing them.

But already the sable wing was before the old man’s eyes; the long hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with his prize.

An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin’s head, removing his cap to replace it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen accounted good. Ahab’s hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on and on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared; while from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea.

Chapter 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight

The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes were fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at the height of eight or nine feet; serving to carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats.

Upon the stranger’s shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but you now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled, half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse.

“Hast seen the White Whale?”

“Look!” replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and with his trumpet he pointed to the wreck.

“Hast killed him?”

“The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that,” answered the other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose gathered sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together.

“Not forged!” and snatching Perth’s levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming — “Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!”

“Then God keep thee, old man — see’st thou that” — pointing to the hammock — “I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only that one I bury; the rest were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb.” Then turning to his crew — “Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and lift the body; so, then — Oh! God” — advancing towards the hammock with uplifted hands — “may the resurrection and the life-”

“Brace forward! Up helm!” cried Ahab like lightning to his men.

But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism.

As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy hanging at the Pequod’s stern came into conspicuous relief.

“Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!” cried a foreboding voice in her wake. “In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your taffrail to show us your coffin!”

Chapter 132. The Symphony

It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s chest in his sleep.

Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.

But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.

Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion — most seen here at the Equator — denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.

Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl’s forehead of heaven.

Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how oblivious were ye of old Ahab’s close-coiled woe! But so have I seen little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around their old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on the marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain.

Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel — forbidding — now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.

Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there.

Ahab turned.

“Starbuck!”

“Sir.”

“Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day — very much such a sweetness as this — I struck my first whale — a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty — forty — forty years ago! — ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain’s exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without — oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command! — when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before — and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare — fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul! — when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world’s fresh bread to my mouldy crusts — away, whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow — wife? wife? — rather a widow with her husband alive? Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey — more a demon than a man! — aye, aye! what a forty years’ fool — fool — old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God! — crack my heart! — stave my brain! — mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearthstone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board! — lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye!”

“Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck’s — wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away! — this instant let me alter the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket.”

“They have, they have. I have seen them — some summer days in the morning. About this time — yes, it is his noon nap now — the boy vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back to dance him again.”

“’Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father’s sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy’s face from the window! the boy’s hand on the hill!”

But Ahab’s glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil.

“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where do murderers go, man! Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and the airs smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year’s scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swarths — Starbuck!”

But blanched to a corpse’s hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away.

Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there, Fedallah was motionlessly leaning over the same rail.

Chapter 133. The Chase — First Day

That night, in the mid-watch when the old man — as his wont at intervals — stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing up the sea air as a sagacious ship’s dog will, in drawing nigh to some barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the living sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane, and then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as possible, Ahab rapidly ordered the ship’s course to be slightly altered, and the sail to be shortened.

The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream.

“Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!”

Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the forecastle deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that they seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear with their clothes in their hands.

“What d’ye see?” cried Ahab, flattening his face to the sky.

“Nothing, nothing sir!” was the sound hailing down in reply.

“T’gallant sails! — stunsails! alow and aloft, and on both sides!”

All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, and while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the main-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the air. “There she blows! — there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!”

Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego standing just beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian’s head was almost on a level with Ahab’s heel. From this height the whale was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the air. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they had so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

“And did none of ye see it before?” cried Ahab, hailing the perched men all around him.

“I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I cried out,” said Tashtego.

“Not the same instant; not the same — no, the doubloon is mine, Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have raised the White Whale first. There she blows! — there she blows! — there she blows! There again! — there again!” he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, methodic tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale’s visible jets. “He’s going to sound! In stunsails! Down top-gallant-sails! Stand by three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay on board, and keep the ship. Helm there! Luff, luff a point! So; steady, man, steady! There go flukes! No, no; only black water! All ready the boats there? Stand by, stand by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck; lower, lower, — quick, quicker!” and he slid through the air to the deck.

“He is heading straight to leeward, sir,” cried Stubb, “right away from us; cannot have seen the ship yet.”

“Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm! — brace up! Shiver her! — shiver her! — So; well that! Boats, boats!”

Soon all the boats but Starbuck’s were dropped; all the boat-sails set — all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness, shooting to leeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up Fedallah’s sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth.

Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowls softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale’s back; and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.

A gentle joyousness — a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.

On each soft side — coincident with the parted swell, that but once leaving him then flowed so wide away — on each bright side, the whale shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all who for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way thou mayst have bejuggled and destroyed before.

And thus, through the serene tranquilities of the tropical sea, among waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his submerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw. But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia’s Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the grand god revealed himself, sounded and went out of sight. Hoveringly halting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls longingly lingered over the agitated pool that he left.

With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift, the three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick’s reappearance.

“An hour,” said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat’s stern; and he gazed beyond the whale’s place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide wooing vacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again his eyes seemed whirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze now freshened; the sea began to swell.

“The birds! — the birds!” cried Tashtego.

In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were now all flying towards Ahab’s boat; and when within a few yards began fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous, expectant cries. Their vision was keener than man’s; Ahab could discover no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down into its depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a white weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it rose, till it turned, and then there were plainly revealed two long crooked rows of white, glistening teeth, floating up from the undiscoverable bottom. It was Moby Dick’s open mouth and scrolled jaw; his vast, shadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea. The glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble tomb; and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled the craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon Fedallah to change places with him, went forward to the bows, and seizing Perth’s harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and stand by to stern.

Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis, its bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale’s head while yet under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that malicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted himself, as it were, in an instant, shooting his pleated head lengthwise beneath the boat.

Through and through; through every plank and each rib, it thrilled for an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in the manner of a biting shark slowly and feelingly taking its bows full within his mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up into the open air, and one of the teeth caught in a row-lock. The bluish pearl-white of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab’s head, and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale now shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse. With unastonished eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms; but the tiger-yellow crew were tumbling over each other’s heads to gain the uttermost stern.

And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were; and while the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench from its gripe.

As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain, and locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the two floating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew at the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast to the oars to lash them across.

At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first to perceive the whale’s intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a movement that loosed his hold for the time; at that moment his hand had made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite. But only slipping further into the whale’s mouth, and tilting over sideways as it slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw; spilled him out of it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell flat-faced upon the sea.

Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body; so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose — some twenty or more feet out of the water — the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves, dazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray still higher into the air. [22] So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to overleap its summit with their scud.

But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly assault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus’s elephants in the book of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale’s insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim, — though he could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless Ahab’s head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock might burst. From the boat’s fragmentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and mildly eved him; the clinging crew, at the other drifting end, could not succor him; more than enough was it for them to look to themselves. For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale’s aspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that he seemed horizontally swooping upon them. And though the other boats, unharmed, still hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into the eddy to strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant destruction of the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that case could they themselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then, they remained on the outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had now become the old man’s head.

Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship’s mast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene; and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her! — “Sail on the” — but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing to rise on a towering crest, he shouted, — “Sail on the whale! — Drive him off!”

The Pequod’s prows were pointed-, and breaking up the charmed circle, she effectually parted the white whale from his victim. As he sullenly swam off, the boats flew to the rescue.

Dragged into Stubb’s boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the white brine caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab’s bodily strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body’s doom for a time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb’s boat, like one trodden under foot of herds of elephants. Far inland, nameless wails came from him, as desolate sounds from out ravines.

But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more abbreviate it. In an instant’s compass, great hearts sometimes condense to one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow pains kindly diffused through feebler men’s whole lives. And so, such hearts, though summary in each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in their life-time aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous intensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls.

“The harpoon,” said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on one bended arm — “is it safe?”

“Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it,” said Stubb, showing it.

“Lay it before me; — any missing men?”

“One, two, three, four, five; — there were five oars, sir, and here are five men.”

“That’s good. — Help me, man; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him! there! there! going to leeward still; what a leaping spout! — Hands off from me! The eternal sap runs up in Ahab’s bones again! Set the sail; out oars; the helm!”

It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked up by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is thus continued with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus now. But the added power of the boat did not equal the added power of the whale, for he seemed to have treble-banked his every fin; swimming with a velocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these circumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely prolonged, if not a hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so long a period, such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing barely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself, then, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate means of overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were soon swayed up to their cranes — the two parts of the wrecked boat having been previously secured by her — and then hoisting everything to her side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretching it with stunsails, like the double-jointed wings of an albatross; the Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby Dick. At the well known, methodic intervals, the whale’s glittering spout was regularly announced from the manned mast-heads; and when he would be reported as just gone down, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing the deck, binnacle-watch in hand, so soon as the last second of the allotted hour expired, his voice was heard. — “Whose is the doubloon now? D’ye see him?” and if the reply was No, sir! straightway he commanded them to lift him to his perch. In this way the day wore on; Ahab, now aloft and motionless; anon, unrestingly pacing the planks.

As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men aloft, or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a still greater breadth — thus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat, at every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped upon the quarter-deck, and lay there reversed; broken bow to shattered stern. At last he paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded sky fresh troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old man’s face there now stole some such added gloom as this.

Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in his Captain’s mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed — “The thistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir, ha! ha!”

“What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear thou wert a paltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a wreck.”

“Aye, sir,” said Starbuck drawing near, “’tis a solemn sight; an omen, and an ill one.”

“Omen? omen? — the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to man, they will honorably speak outright; not shake their heads, and give an old wives’ darkling hint. — Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles of one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold — I shiver! — How now? Aloft there! D’ye see him? Sing out for every spout, though he spout ten times a second!”

The day was nearly done; only the helm of his golden robe was rustling. Soon it was almost dark, but the look-out men still remained unset.

“Can’t see the spout now, sir; — too dark” — cried a voice from the air.

“How heading when last seen?”

“As before, sir, — straight to leeward.”

“Good! he will travel slower now ‘tis night. Down royals and top-gallant stunsails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him before morning; he’s making a passage now, and may heave-to a while. Helm there! keep her full before the wind! — Aloft! come down! — Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand to the fore-mast head, and see it manned till morning.” — Then advancing towards the doubloon in the main-mast — “Men, this gold is mine, for I earned it; but I shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead; and then, whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall be killed, this gold is that man’s; and if on that day I shall again raise him, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye! Away now! the deck is thine, sir!”

And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals rousing himself to see how the night wore on.

Chapter 134. The Chase — Second Day

At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh.

“D’ye see him?” cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light to spread.

“See nothing, sir.”

“Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought for; — the top-gallant sails! — aye, they should have been kept on her all night. But no matter — ‘tis but resting for the rush.”

Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular whale, continued through day into night, and through night into day, is a thing by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For such is the wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket commanders; that from the simple observation of a whale when last descried, they will, under certain given circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both the direction in which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of sight, as well as his probable rate of progression during that period. And, in these cases, somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of a coast, whose general trending he well knows, and which he desires shortly to return to again, but at some further point; like as this pilot stands by his compass, and takes the precise bearing of the cape at present visible, in order the more certainly to hit aright the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be visited: so does the fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for after being chased, and diligently marked, through several hours of daylight, then, when night obscures the fish, the creature’s future wake through the darkness is almost as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the pilot’s coast is to him. So that to this hunter’s wondrous skill, the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake, is to all desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land. And as the mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway is so familiarly known in its every pace, that, with watches in their hands, men time his rate as doctors that of a baby’s pulse; and lightly say of it, the up train or the down train will reach such or such a spot, at such or such an hour; even so, almost, there are occasions when these Nantucketers time that other Leviathan of the deep, according to the observed humor of his speed; and say to themselves, so many hours hence this whale will have gone two hundred miles, will have about reached this or that degree of latitude or longitude. But to render this acuteness at all successful in the end, the wind and the sea must be the whaleman’s allies; for of what present avail to the becalmed or wind-bound mariner is the skill that assures him he is exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his port? Inferable from these statements, are many collateral subtile matters touching the chase of whales.

The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a cannonball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level field.

“By salt and hemp!” cried Stubb, “but this swift motion of the deck creeps up one’s legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I are two brave fellows! — Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me, spine-wise, on the sea, — for by live-oaks! my spine’s a keel. Ha, ha! we go the gait that leaves no dust behind!”

“There she blows — she blows! — she blows! — right ahead!” was now the mast-head cry.

“Aye, aye!” cried Stubb, “I knew it — ye can’t escape — blow on and split your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your trump — blister your lungs! — Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller shuts his watergate upon the stream!”

And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might have felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight through the growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring perils of the previous day; the rack of the past night’s suspense; the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging towards its flying mark; by all these things, their hearts were bowled along. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race.

They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all; though it was put together of all contrasting things — oak, and maple, and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp — yet all these ran into each other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and directed by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities of the crew, this man’s valor, that man’s fear; guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to.

The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to seek out the thing that might destroy them!

“Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?” cried Ahab, when, after the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had been heard. “Sway me up, men; ye have been deceived; not Moby Dick casts one odd jet that way, and then disappears.”

It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had mistaken some other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon proved; for hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed to its pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra, that made the air vibrate as with the combined discharge of rifles. The triumphant halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as — much nearer to the ship than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead — Moby Dick bodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not by the peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the White Whale now reveal his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous phenomenon of breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths, the Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element of air, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the distance of seven miles and more. In those moments, the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, this breaching is his act of defiance.

“There she breaches! there she breaches!” was the cry, as in his immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale.

“Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!” cried Ahab, “thy hour and thy harpoon are at hand! — Down! down all of ye, but one man at the fore. The boats! — stand by!”

Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and halyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped from his perch.

“Lower away,” he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat — a spare one, rigged the afternoon previous. “Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thine — away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!”

As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the three crews. Ahab’s boat was central; and cheering his men, he told them he would take the whale head-and-head, — that is, pull straight up to his forehead, — a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain limit, such a course excludes the coming onset from the whale’s sidelong vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three boats were plain as the ship’s three masts to his eye; the White Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side; and heedless of the iron darted at him from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats were made. But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling like trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while eluded him; though, at times, but by a plank’s breadth; while all the time, Ahab’s unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds.

But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves, warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him; though now for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more line; and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again — hoping that way to disencumber it of some snarls — when lo! — a sight more savage than the embattled teeth of sharks!

Caught and twisted — corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab’s boat. Only one thing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he critically reached within — through — and then, without — the rays of steel; dragged in the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice sundering the rope near the chocks — dropped the intercepted fagot of steel into the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the White Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines; by so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and Flask towards his flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on a surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch.

While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up; and while the old man’s line — now parting — admitted of his pulling into the creamy pool to rescue whom he could; — in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils, — Ahab’s yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards Heaven by invisible wires, — as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its bottom, and sent it turning over and over, into the air; till it fell again — gunwale down — and Ahab and his men struggled out from under it, like seals from a sea-side cave.

The first uprising momentum of the whale — modifying its direction as he struck the surface — involuntarily launched him along it, to a little distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work for that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his leeward way at a traveller’s methodic pace.

As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at, and safely landed them on her decks. Some sprained shoulders, wrists, and ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons and lances; inextricable intricacies of rope; shattered oars and planks; all these were there; but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen any one. As with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging to his boat’s broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy float; nor did it so exhaust him as the previous day’s mishap.

But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him; as instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder of Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter.

“Aye, aye, Starbuck, ‘tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has.”

“The ferrule has not stood, sir,” said the carpenter, now coming up; put good work into that leg.”

“But no bones broken, sir, I hope,” said Stubb with true concern.

“Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb! — d’ye see it. — But even with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living bone of mine one jot more me, than this dead one that’s lost. Nor white whale, nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his own proper and inaccessible being. Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape yonder roof? — Aloft there! which way?”

“Dead to leeward, sir.”

“Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the rest of the spare boats and rig them — Mr. Starbuck away, and muster the boat’s crews.”

“Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir.”

“Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that the unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!”

“Sir?”

“My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a cane — there, that shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him yet. By heaven it cannot be!-missing? — quick! call them all.”

The old man’s hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the company, the Parsee was not there.

“The Parsee!” cried Stubb — “he must have been caught in-”

“The black vomit wrench thee! — run all of ye above, alow, cabin, forecastle — find him — not gone — not gone!”

But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee was nowhere to be found.

“Aye, sir,” said Stubb — “caught among the tangles of your line — I thought I saw him dragging under.”

“My line! my line? Gone? — gone? What means that little word? — What death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry. The harpoon, too! — toss over the litter there, — d’ye see it? — the forged iron, men, the white whale’s — no, no, no, — listered fool! this hand did dart it! — ‘tis in the fish! — Aloft there! Keep him nailed-Quick! — all hands to the rigging of the boats — collect the oars — harpooneers! the irons, the irons! — hoist royals higher — a pull on all the sheets! — helm there! steady, steady for your life! I’ll ten times girdle the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but I’ll slay him yet!

“Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,” cried Starbuck; “never, never wilt thou capture him, old man — In Jesus’ name no more of this, that’s worse than devil’s madness. Two days chased; twice stove to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy evil shadow gone — all good angels mobbing thee with warnings: — what more wouldst thou have? — Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, oh, — Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!”

“Starbuck, of late I’ve felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that hour we both saw — thou know’st what, in one another’s eyes. But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this hand — a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act’s immutably decreed. ‘Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine. — Stand round men, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered lance; propped up on a lonely foot. ‘Tis Ahab — his body’s part; but Ahab’s soul’s a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained, half-stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; and I may look so. But ere I break, yell hear me crack; and till ye hear that, know that Ahab’s hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick — two days he’s floated — to-morrow will be the third. Aye, men, he’ll rise once more, — but only to spout his last! D’ye feel brave men, brave?”

“As fearless fire,” cried Stubb.

“And as mechanical,” muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he muttered on: “The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek to drive out of others’ hearts what’s clinched so fast in mine! — The Parsee — the Parsee! — gone, gone? and he was to go before: — but still was to be seen again ere I could perish — How’s that? — There’s a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line of judges: — like a hawk’s beak it pecks my brain. I’ll, I’ll solve it, though!”

When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward.

So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by lanterns in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and sharpening their fresh weapons for the morrow. Meantime, of the broken keel of Ahab’s wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg; while still as on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle; his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial; sat due eastward for the earliest sun.

Chapter 135. The Chase — Third Day

The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds of the daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost every spar.

“D’ye see him?” cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.

“In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that’s all. Helm there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day again! were it a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here’s food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; that’s tingling enough for mortal man! to think’s audacity. God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that. And yet, I’ve sometimes thought my brain was very calm — frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it’s like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it! — it’s tainted. Were I the wind, I’d blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. I’d crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, ‘tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing — a nobler thing than that. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. There’s a most special, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference! And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that there’s something all glorious and gracious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like them — something so unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d’ye see?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the sun! Aye, aye, it must be so. I’ve over-sailed him. How, got the start? Aye, he’s chasing me now; not I, him — that’s bad; I might have known it, too. Fool! the lines — the harpoons he’s towing. Aye, aye, I have run him by last night. About! about! Come down, all of ye, but the regular look outs! Man the braces!”

Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod’s quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own white wake.

“Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw,” murmured Starbuck to himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail. “God keep us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside wet my flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!”

“Stand by to sway me up!” cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket. “We should meet him soon.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” and straightway Starbuck did Ahab’s bidding, and once more Ahab swung on high.

A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it.

“Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck there! — brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind’s eye. He’s too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there’s time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket! The same — the same! — the same to Noah as to me. There’s a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead somewhere — to something else than common land, more palmy than the palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old mast-head! What’s this? — green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahab’s head! There’s the difference now between man’s old age and matter’s. But aye, old mast, we both grow old together; sound in our hulls, though are we not, my ship? Aye, minus a leg, that’s all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live flesh every way. I can’t compare with it; and I’ve known some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of vital fathers. What’s that he said? he should still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all night I’ve been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou toldist direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good bye, mast-head — keep a good eye upon the whale, the while I’m gone. We’ll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail.”

He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck.

In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop’s stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the mate, — who held one of the tackle — ropes on deck — and bade him pause.

“Starbuck!”

“Sir?”

“For the third time my soul’s ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck.”

“Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so.”

“Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck!”

“Truth, sir: saddest truth.”

“Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the flood; — and I feel now like a billow that’s all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am old; — shake hands with me, man.”

Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck’s tears the glue.

“Oh, my captain, my captain! — noble heart — go not — go not! — see, it’s a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!”

“Lower away!”-cried Ahab, tossing the mate’s arm from him. “Stand by for the crew!”

In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern.

“The sharks! the sharks!” cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; “O master, my master, come back!”

But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the boat leaped on.

Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; and whether it was that Ahab’s crew were all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharks — a matter sometimes well known to affect them, — however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.

“Heart of wrought steel!” murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and following with his eyes the receding boat — “canst thou yet ring boldly to that sight? — lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day? — For when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that thing — be that end what it may. Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant, — fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl; thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between — Is my journey’s end coming? My legs feel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart, — beat it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck! — stave it off — move, move! speak aloud! — Mast-head there! See ye my boy’s hand on the hill? — Crazed; — aloft there! — keep thy keenest eye upon the boats: — mark well the whale! — Ho! again! — drive off that hawk! see! he pecks — he tears the vane” — pointing to the red flag flying at the main-truck — “Ha, he soars away with it! — Where’s the old man now? see’st thou that sight, oh Ahab! — shudder, shudder!”

The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads — a downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the profoundest silence, as the head-bent waves hammered and hammered against the opposing bow.

“Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and no hearse can be mine: — and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!”

Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale.

“Give way!” cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to the attack; but maddened by yesterday’s fresh irons that corroded in him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together; as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more flailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two mates’ boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows, but leaving Ahab’s almost without a scar.

While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round and round to the fish’s back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in which, during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines around him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen; his sable raiment frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab.

The harpoon dropped from his hand.

“Befooled, befooled!” — drawing in a long lean breath — “Aye, Parsee! I see thee again. — Aye, and thou goest before; and this, this then is the hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of thy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to me; if not, Ahab is enough to die — Down, men! the first thing that but offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me. — Where’s the whale? gone down again?”

But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again steadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship, — which thus far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the sea.

“Oh! Ahab,” cried Starbuck, “not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!”

Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck’s face as he leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three mast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats which had just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in repairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he heard the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast.

Whether fagged by the three days’ running chase, and the resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White Whale’s way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly nearing him once more; though indeed the whale’s last start had not been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost every dip.

“Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull on! ‘tis the better rest, the sharks’ jaw than the yielding water.”

“But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!”

“They will last long enough! pull on! — But who can tell” — he muttered — “whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on Ahab? — But pull on! Aye, all alive, now — we near him. The helm! take the helm! let me pass,” — and so saying two of the oarsmen helped him forward to the bows of the still flying boat.

At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along with the White Whale’s flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its advance — as the whale sometimes will — and Ahab was fairly within the smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale’s spout, curled round his great Monadnock hump; he was even thus close to him; when, with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sidewise writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen — who foreknew not the precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its effects — these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two of them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming.

Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air!

“What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks! — ‘tis whole again; oars! oars! Burst in upon him!”

Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it — it may be — a larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam.

Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. “I grow blind; hands! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is’t night?”

“The whale! The ship!” cried the cringing oarsmen.

“Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea that ere it be for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I see: the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! will ye not save my ship?”

But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water.

Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego’s mast-head hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon as he.

“The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman’s fainting fit. Up helm, I say — ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!”

“Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb’s own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet ring glasses with thee, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there’ll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though; — cherries! cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!”

“Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope my poor mother’s drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up.”

From the ship’s bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.

“The ship! The hearse! — the second hearse!” cried Ahab from the boat; “its wood could only be American!”

Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab’s boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent.

“I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow, — death — glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!”

The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves; — ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope’s final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.

For an instant, the tranced boat’s crew stood still; then turned. “The ship? Great God, where is the ship?” Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking look-outs on the sea. And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lancepole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight.

But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying billows they almost touched; — at that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

Chapter 136. Epilogue

“AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE”. Job.

The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth? — Because one did survive the wreck.

It so chanced, that after the Parsee’s disappearance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab’s bowsman, when that bowsman assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So, floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.

FINIS

Espejismos

Llamadme Ismael. Hace unos años -no importa cuánto hace exactamente-, teniendo poco o ningún dinero en el bolsillo, y nada en particular que me interesara en tierra, pensé que me iría a navegar un poco por ahí, para ver la parte acuática del mundo. Es un modo que tengo de echar fuera la melancolía y arreglar la circulación. Cada vez que me sorprendo poniendo una boca triste; cada vez que en mi alma hay un noviembre húmedo y lloviznoso; cada vez que me encuentro parándome sin querer ante las tiendas de ataúdes; y, especialmente, cada vez que la hipocondría me domina de tal modo que hace falta un recio principio moral para impedirme salir a la calle con toda deliberación a derribar metódicamente el sombrero a los transeúntes, entonces, entiendo que es más que hora de hacerme a la mar tan pronto como pueda. Es mi sustitutivo de la pistola y la bala. Con floreo filosófico, Catón se arroja sobre su espada; yo, calladamente, me meto en el barco. No hay nada sorprendente en esto. Aunque no lo sepan, casi todos los hombres, en una o en otra ocasión, abrigan sentimientos muy parecidos a los míos respecto al océano.

Ahí tenéis la ciudad insular de los Manhattos, ceñida en torno por los muelles como las islas indias por los arrecifes de coral: el comercio la rodea con su resaca. A derecha y a izquierda, las calles os llevan al agua. Su extremo inferior es la Batería, donde esa noble mole es bañada por olas y refrescada por brisas que pocas horas antes no habían llegado a avistar tierra. Mirad allí las turbas de contempladores del agua.

Pasead en torno a la ciudad en las primeras horas de una soñadora tarde de día sabático. Id desde Corlears Hook a Coenties Slip, y desde allí, hacia el norte, por Whitehall. ¿Qué veis ? Apostados como silenciosos centinelas alrededor de toda la ciudad, hay millares y millares de seres mortales absortos en ensueños oceánicos. Unos apoyados contra las empalizadas; otros sentados en las cabezas de los atracaderos; otros mirando por encima de las amuradas de barcos arribados de la China; algunos, en lo alto de los aparejos, como esforzándose por obtener una visión aún mejor hacia la mar. Pero ésos son todos ellos hombres de tierra; los días de entre semana, encerrados entre tablas y yeso, atados a los mostradores, clavados a los bancos, sujetos a los escritorios. Entonces ¿cómo es eso ? ¿Dónde están los campos verdes ? ¿Qué hacen éstos aquí ?

Pero ¡mirad ! Ahí vienen más multitudes, andando derechas al agua, y al parecer dispuestas a zambullirse. ¡Qué extraño ! Nada les satisface sino el límite más extremo de la tierra firme; no les basta vagabundear al umbroso socaire de aquellos tinglados. No. Deben acercarse al agua tanto como les sea posible sin caerse dentro. Y ahí se quedan: millas seguidas de ellos, leguas. De tierra adentro todos, llegan de avenidas y callejas, de calles y paseos; del norte, este, sur y oeste. Pero ahí se unen todos. Decidme, ¿les atrae hacia aquí el poder magnético de las agujas de las brújulas de todos estos barcos ?

Una vez más. Digamos que estáis en el campo; en alguna alta tierra con lagos. Tomad casi cualquier sendero que os plazca, y apuesto diez contra uno a que os lleva por un valle abajo, y os deja junto a un remanso de la corriente. Hay magia en ello. Que el más distraído de los hombres esté sumergido en sus más profundos ensueños: poned de pie a ese hombre, haced que mueva las piernas, e infaliblemente os llevará al agua, si hay agua en toda la región. En caso de que alguna vez tengáis sed en el gran desierto americano, probad este experimento, si vuestra caravana está provista por casualidad de un cultivador de la metafísica. Sí, como todos saben, la meditación y el agua están emparejadas para siempre.

Pero aquí hay un artista. Desea pintaros el trozo de paisaje más soñador, más sombrío, más callado, más encantador de todo el valle del Saco. ¿Cuál es el principal elemento que emplea ? Ahí están sus árboles cada cual con su tronco hueco, como si hubiera dentro un ermitaño y un crucifijo; ahí duerme su pradera, y allí duermen sus ganados; y de aquella casita se eleva un humo soñoliento. Hundiéndose en lejanos bosques, serpentean un revuelto sendero, hasta alcanzar estribaciones sobrepuestas de montañas que se bañan en el azul que las envuelve. Pero aunque la imagen se presente en tal arrobo, y aunque ese pino deje caer sus suspiros como hojas sobre esa cabeza de pastor, todo sería vano, sin embargo, si los ojos del pastor no estuvieran fijos en la mágica corriente que tiene delante. Id a visitar las praderas en junio, cuando, a lo largo de veintenas y veintenas de millas, andáis vadeando hasta la rodilla entre tigridias: ¿cuál es el único encanto que falta ? El agua, ¡no hay allí una gota de agua ! Si el Niágara no fuera más que una catarata de arena ¿recorreríais vuestras mil millas para verlo ? ¿Por qué el pobre poeta de Tennessee, al recibir inesperadamente un par de puñados de plata, deliberó si comprarse un abrigo, que le hacía mucha falta, o invertir el dinero en una excursión a pie hasta la playa de Rockaway ? ¿Por qué casi todos los muchachos sanos y robustos, con alma sana y robusta, se vuelven locos un día u otro por ir al mar ? ¿Por qué, en vuestra primera travesía como pasajeros, sentisteis también un estremecimiento místico cuando os dijeron que, en unión de vuestro barco, ya no estabais a la vista de tierra ? ¿Por qué los antiguos persas consideraban sagrado el mar ? ¿Por qué los griegos le dieron una divinidad aparte, un hermano del propio Júpiter ? Cierto que todo esto no carece de significado. Y aún más profundo es el significado de aquella historia de Narciso, que, por no poder aferrar la dulce imagen atormentadora que veía en la fuente, se sumergió en ella y se ahogó. Pero esa misma imagen la vemos nosotros mismos en todos los ríos y océanos. Es la imagen del inaferrable fantasma de la vida; y ésa es la clave de todo ello.

Ahora, cuando digo que tengo costumbre de hacerme a la mar cada vez que empiezo a tener los ojos nebulosos y que empiezo a darme demasiada cuenta de mis pulmones, no quiero que se infiera que me hago jamás a la mar como pasajero. Pues para ir como pasajero, por fuerza se ha de tener bolsa, y una bolsa no es más que un trapo si no se lleva algo dentro. Además, los pasajeros se marean, se ponen pendencieros, no duermen por las noches, y en general, no lo pasan muy bien: no, nunca voy como pasajero; ni, aunque estoy bastante hecho al agua salada, tampoco me hago jamás a la mar como comodoro, como capitán ni como cocinero. Cedo la gloria y distinción de tales cargos a aquellos a quienes les gusten. Por mi parte, abomino de todas las honorables y respetables fatigas, pruebas y tribulaciones de cualquier especie. Todo lo que sé hacer es cuidarme de mí mismo, sin cuidarme de barcos, barcas, bergantines, goletas, y todo lo demás. Y en cuanto a ir de cocinero -aunque confieso que hay en ello considerable gloria, porque un cocinero es a bordo una especie de oficial-, no sé por qué, sin embargo, nunca se me ha antojado asar pollos, por más que, una vez asados, juiciosamente untados de manteca, y legalmente salados y empimentados, no haya nadie que hable de un pollo asado con más respeto, por no decir con más reverencia, que yo. A causa de las manías idólatras de los antiguos egipcios por el ibis a la parrilla y por el hipopótamo asado, se pueden ver las momias de esas criaturas en sus grandes hornos, que eran las pirámides.

No: cuando me hago a la mar, voy como simple marinero, delante del mástil, al fondo del castillo de proa, o allá arriba en el mastelero de juanete. Cierto es que me dan muchas órdenes y me hacen saltar de verga en verga como un saltamontes en un prado de mayo. Y al principio, este tipo de cosas es bastante desagradable. Le toca a uno en su sentido del honor, especialmente si uno procede de una familia establecida desde antiguo en el país, los Van Rensselaer, los Randolph o los Hardicanute. Y más aún si antes mismo de meter la mano en el cubo del alquitrán, ha estado uno hecho un señor como maestro rural, dando miedo a los muchachos más grandullones. La transición es dura, os lo aseguro, de maestro de escuela a marinero, y se requiere una recia infusión de Séneca y de los estoicos para hacerle a uno capaz de sonreír y aguantarlo. Pero hasta eso se pasa con el tiempo.

¿Qué ocurre, si algún viejo tacaño de capitán me manda traer la escoba y barrer la cubierta ? ¿A cuánto asciende esta indignidad, quiero decir, pesada en las balanzas del Nuevo Testamento ? ¿Creéis que el arcángel Gabriel me va a tener en menos porque obedezca con prontitud y respeto a aquel viejo tacaño en ese caso particular ? ¿Quién no es esclavo ? Decídmelo. Bueno, entonces, por más que el viejo capitán me dé órdenes; por más que me den porrazos y puñetazos, tengo la satisfacción de saber que todo está muy bien; que todos los demás, de un modo o de otro, reciben algo parecido, esto es, desde un punto de vista físico o metafísico; y así el porrazo universal pasa de uno a otro, y todos los hombres deberían restregarse la espalda unos a otros, y quedar contentos.

Además, yo siempre me hago a la mar como marinero porque se empeñan en pagarme por la molestia, mientras, que yo sepa, jamás pagan un solo penique a los pasajeros. Al contrario, los propios pasajeros tienen que pagar. Y entre pagar y que le paguen a uno, hay la mayor diferencia de este mundo. El acto de pagar es quizá la aflicción más incómoda que nos legaron aquellos dos ladrones del frutal. Pero que le paguen a uno, ¿qué se puede comprar con esto ? Es realmente maravillosa la cortés premura con que un hombre recibe dinero, si se considera que creemos en serio que el dinero es la raíz de todos los males terrenales, y que de ningún modo puede entrar en el Cielo un hombre adinerado. ¡Ah, qué alegremente nos entregamos a la perdición !

Finalmente, siempre me hago a la mar como marinero a causa del sano ejercicio y del aire puro que hay en la cubierta del castillo de proa. Pues como, en este mundo, los vientos de proa son mucho más dominantes que los vientos de popa (es decir, si no se viola jamás la máxima pitagórica), así, casi siempre el comodoro en el alcázar recibe su atmósfera de segunda mano, procedente de los marineros del castillo de proa. El cree que es el primero que respiraría, pero no es así. De modo muy parecido, la comunidad conduce a sus jefes en muchas otras cosas, mientras que sus jefes lo sospechan muy poco. Pero por qué ocurrió que, después de haber olido la mar muchas veces como marino mercante, ahora se me metiera en la cabeza ir en una expedición ballenera, eso lo puede contestar mejor que nadie el invisible oficial de policía de los Hados que tiene constante vigilancia sobre mí, y me rastrea secretamente, y me influye de algún modo inexplicable. Y no cabe duda de que el marcharme en ese viaje ballenero formaba parte del programa general de la Providencia que estaba trazado hacía mucho tiempo. Llegaba como una especie de breve intermedio de solista entre interpretaciones más amplias. Supongo que esa parte del cartel debía estar hecha de un modo parecido a éste:

Reñidas Elecciones para la Presidencia de Estados Unidos

EXPEDICION BALLENERA, POR UN TAL ISMAEL 
SANGRIENTA BATALLA EN AFGANISTAN

Aunque no sé decir por qué razón precisa esos directores de escena que son los Hados me eligieron para tan mezquino papel en una expedición ballenera, mientras que a. otros les reservaban para esplendorosos papeles en elevadas tragedias, o para breves y fáciles papeles en comedias elegantes, o para papeles divertidos en farsas; aunque no sé decir por qué precisamente fue así, sin embargo, ahora que evoco todas las circunstancias, creo que puedo penetrar un poco en los resortes y motivos que, al presentárseme astutamente bajo diversos disfraces, me indujeron a disponerme a representar el papel que he hecho, además de lisonjearme con la ilusión de que era una elección resultante de mi propio y recto libre albedrío y de mi juicio discriminativo.

El principal de estos motivos fue la abrumadora idea del gran cetáceo en sí mismo. Tan portentoso y misterioso monstruo despertaba toda mi curiosidad. Además, los desiertos y lejanos mares por donde revolvía su masa de isla; los indescriptibles peligros sin nombre de la ballena: todas estas cosas, con las maravillas previstas de mil visiones y sonidos patagónicos, contribuyeron a inclinarme a mí deseo. Quizá, para otros hombres, tales cosas no hubieran sido atractivas, pero en cuanto a mí, estoy atormentado por el perenne prurito de las cosas remotas. Sueño con navegar por mares prohibidos y abordar costas bárbaras. Por no ignorar lo que es bueno, me doy cuenta en seguida de los horrores, pero puedo mantenerme en su compañía, si me dejan, ya que está bien mantenerse en términos amistosos con todos los residentes del lugar en que uno se aloja.

A causa de todo esto, entonces, el viaje ballenero fue muy bien acogido; se abrieron de par en par las grandes compuertas del mundo de las maravillas, y en las locas manías que me arrastraron hacia mi designio, flotaban, de dos en dos, en lo más hondo de mi alma, interminables procesiones de cetáceos, y en medio de todos, un gran fantasma encapuchado, como un monte nevado en el aire. ">

El saco de marinero

Metí una camisa o dos en mi viejo saco de marinero, me lo encajé bajo el brazo, y zarpé hacia el cabo de Hornos y el Pacífico. Abandonando la buena ciudad de los antiguos Manhattos, arribé debidamente a New Bedford. Era una noche de sábado, en diciembre. Muy decepcionado quedé al saber que el pequeño paquebote para Nantucket ya se había hecho a la vela y que hasta el lunes siguiente no se ofrecía medio de alcanzar ese lugar.

Como la mayor parte de los jóvenes candidatos a las penas y castigos de la pesca de la ballena se detienen en el mismo New Bedford, para embarcarse desde allí para su viaje, no está de más contar que, por mi parte, no tenía idea de hacerlo así. Pues mi ánimo estaba resuelto a no navegar sino en un barco de Nantucket, porque había un no sé qué de hermoso y turbulento en todo lo relacionado con esa antigua y famosa isla, que me era sorprendentemente grato. Además, aunque New Bedford, en los últimos tiempos, ha ido monopolizando poco a poco el negocio de la pesca de ballenas, y aunque en este asunto la pobre y vieja Nantucket ya se le ha quedado muy atrás, con todo, Nantucket era su gran modelo, la Tiro de esta Cartago, el sitio donde se varó la primera ballena muerta de América. ¿De dónde, si no de Nantucket, partieron por primera vez aquellos balleneros aborígenes, los pieles rojas, para perseguir con sus canoas al leviatán ? ¿Y de dónde también, si no de Nantucket, partió aquella primera pequeña balandra aventurera, parcialmente cargada de guijarros, transportados -así cuenta la historia- para tirárselos a las ballenas y observar si estaban bastante cerca como para arriesgar un arpón desde el bauprés ?

Ahora, teniendo por delante una noche, un día y otra noche siguiente en New Bedford antes de poder embarcar para mi puerto de destino, me tuve que preocupar de dónde iba a comer y dormir mientras tanto. Hacía una noche de aspecto muy dudoso, mejor dicho, muy oscura y lúgubre, triste y con un frío que mordía. No conocía a nadie allí. Con ansiosas rezones había sondeado mi bolsillo, y sólo había sacado unas pocas monedas de plata. « Así, donde quiera que vayas, Ismael -me dije a mí mismo, parado en medio de una desolada calle con el saco al hombro, y comparando la tiniebla al norte con la oscuridad al sur-, donde quiera que, en tu sabiduría, decidas que vas a alojarte esta noche, mi querido Ismael, ten cuidado de preguntar el precio, y no seas demasiado delicado. »

Con pasos vacilantes recorrí las calles, y pasé ante la muestra de Los Arpones Cruzados, pero allí parecía muy caro y espléndido. Más allá, por las luminosas ventanas rojas de la Posada del Pez Espada, salían tan fervientes rayos que parecían haber fundido la nieve y el hielo amontonados ante la casa, pues en todos los demás sitios la helada endurecida formaba un pavimento duro como el asfalto, de diez pulgadas de espesor; bastante fatigoso para mí, al dar con los pies contra sus empedernidos salientes, porque, del duro e implacable servicio, las suelas de mis botas estaban en situación lamentable. « Demasiado caro y espléndido », volví a pensar, parándome un momento a observar el ancho fulgor en la calle, y a escuchar el ruido de los vasos que tintineaban dentro. « Pero sigue allá, Ismael -me dije por fin-; ¿no oyes ? Quítate de delante de la puerta; estás estorbando la entrada con tus botas remendadas. » Así que continué adelante. Ahora, por instinto, seguía las calles que me llevaban a la orilla, pues así sin duda estarían las posadas más baratas, si no las más gratas.

¡Qué desoladas calles ! Bloques de negrura, no casas, a un lado y a otro, y acá y allá, una vela, como una vela ante un sepulcro. A esa hora de la noche, y en sábado, aquel barrio de la ciudad aparecía desierto. Pero por fin llegué ante una luz que, con mucho humo, salía de un edificio bajo y ancho, cuya puerta estaba invitadoramente abierta. Tenía un aspecto descuidado, como si se destinara a uso del público; así que entré y lo primero que hice fue tropezar con una caja de cenizas en el zaguán. « ¡Ah ! -pensé, mientras las partículas volantes casi me sofocaban-, ¿son estas cenizas de aquella ciudad destruida, Gomorra ? Pero ¿"Los Arpones Cruzados" y "El Pez Espada" ? Entonces es preciso que esto se llame "La Nasa". » Sin embargo, me incorporé, y, oyendo dentro una sonora voz, empujé y abrí una segunda puerta interior.

Parecía el gran Parlamento Negro reunido en Tofet. Cien caras negras se volvieron en sus filas para mirar; y más allá, un negro Angel del Juicio golpeaba un libro en un púlpito. Era una iglesia de negros, y el texto que comentaba el predicador era sobre la negrura de las tinieblas, y el llanto y el rechinar de dientes que habría allí. « ¡Ah, Ismael -murmuré, retrocediendo para salir-, mala diversión en la muestra de "La Nasa' ! »

Siguiendo adelante, al fin llegué ante una débil especie de luz, no lejos de los muelles, y escuché un desesperado chirrido en el aire; y al levantar los ojos, vi una muestra que se balanceaba sobre la puerta, con una pintura blanca encima, representando débilmente un chorro alto y derecho de rociada nebulosa, con estas palabras debajo: « Posada del Chorro. Peter Coffin ».

« ¿El chorro de la ballena ? ¿Coffin, el ataúd ? Bastante fatídico en esta situación precisa -pensé-. Pero es un apellido corriente en Nantucket, según dicen, y supongo que este Peter será uno que ha venido de allí. » Como la luz estaba tan desmayada, y el lugar, a aquellas horas, resultaba bastante tranquilo, y la propia casita de madera carcomida parecía como si la hubieran traído en carro desde las ruinas de algún distrito incendiado, y puesto que la muestra balanceante tenía un modo de rechinar como herido por la miseria, pensé que allí era el sitio adecuado para obtener alojamiento barato y el mejor café de guisantes.

Era un sitio extraño; una vieja casa, acabada en buhardillas en pico, con un lado hemipléjico, por así decir, e inclinándose lamentablemente. Quedaba en una esquina abrupta y desolada, donde el tempestuoso viento Euroclydón aullaba peor que nunca lo hiciera en torno a la zarandeada embarcación del pobre Pablo. « Juzgando ese tempestuoso viento llamado Euroclydón -dice un antiguo escritor de cuyas obras poseo el único ejemplar conservado-, resulta haber una maravillosa diferencia si lo miras desde una ventana con cristal, donde la helada queda toda en el lado de fuera, o si lo observas por una ventana sin bastidor, donde la helada está en los dos lados, y cuyo único cristalero es la inexorable Muerte. » « Muy cierto -pensé, al venírseme a la cabeza ese pasaje-; muy bien que razonas, viejo mamotreto. Sí, estos ojos son ventanas, y este cuerpo mío es una casa. Pero ¡qué lástima que no hayan calafateado las grietas y agujeros, metiendo acá y allá un poco de hilas ! » Sin embargo, ya es tarde para hacer mejoras ahora. El universo está concluido; la clave está en su sitio, y se han llevado en carro los escombros hace un millón de años. Aquí, el pobre Uzaro, castañeteando los dientes, con el borde de la acera por almohada, y sacudiéndose de encima los harapos al tiritar, podría taparse ambos oídos con trapos, y meterse en la boca una panocha, y sin embargo eso no le pondría al resguardo del tempestuoso Euroclydón. « ¡Euroclydón ! », dice el viejo Epulón, en su manto de seda roja -luego tuvo otro cobertor aún más rojo-. « ¡Bah, bah ! ¡Qué hermosa noche de helada; cómo centellea Orión; qué luces al norte ! Ya pueden hablar de los climas estivales de oriente, como perpetuos invernaderos; a mí que me den el privilegio de hacerme mi propio verano con mis propios carbones. »

Pero ¿qué piensa Lázaro ? ¿Puede calentarse las azuladas manos levantándolas hacia las grandiosas luces del norte ? ¿No preferiría Lázaro estar en Sumatra que aquí ? ¿No preferiría con mucho tenderse cuan largo es siguiendo la línea ecuatorial ? ; ah, sí, ¡oh dioses !, ¿descender al mismísimo abismo terrible, con tal de escapar de esta helada ?

Ahora bien, que Lázaro esté tendido, varado en la acera ante la puerta de Epulón, eso es más asombroso que si un iceberg se encallase en una de las Molucas. Sin embargo, el propio Epulón vive también como un zar en un palacio de hielo hecho de suspiros congelados, y, siendo presidente de una sociedad antialcohólica, sólo bebe tibias lágrimas de huérfanos.

Pero basta ya de estos gimoteos; nos vamos a la pesca de la ballena, y todavía habremos de tenerlos de sobra. Rasquémonos el hielo de nuestros congelados pies, y veamos qué clase de sitio puede ser esta Posada del Chorro. ">

La Posada del Chorro

Al entrar en esta Posada del Chorro, coronada de buhardillas, uno se encontraba en un ancho vestíbulo, bajo e irregular, lleno de entablamentos pasados de moda, que recordaban las amuradas de alguna vieja embarcación desechada. A un lado colgaba un enorme cuadro al óleo tan enteramente ahumado y tan borrado por todos los medios, que, con las desiguales luces entrecruzadas con que uno lo miraba, sólo a fuerza de diligente estudio y de una serie de visitas sistemáticas y de averiguaciones cuidadosas entre los vecinos, se podía llegar de algún modo a entender su significado. Había tan inexplicables masas de sombras y claroscuros, que al principio casi se pensaba que algún joven artista ambicioso, en los tiempos de las brujas de New England, había intentado delinear el caos embrujado. Pero a fuerza de mucho contemplar con empeño, y de abrir del todo la ventanita al fondo del vestíbulo, se llegaba por fin a la conclusión de que tal idea, por descabellada que fuera, podría no carecer completamente de fundamento.

Pero lo que más desconcertaba y confundía era una masa negra, larga, blanda, prodigiosa, de algo que flotaba en el centro del cuadro, sobre tres líneas azules, borrosas y verticales, en medio de una fermentación innominada. Ciertamente, un cuadro aguanoso, empapado, pútrido, capaz de sacar de quicio a un hombre nervioso. Pero había en él una suerte de sublimidad indefinida, medio lograda e inimaginable, que le pegaba a uno por completo al cuadro, hasta que involuntariamente se juramentaba uno consigo mismo para descubrir qué quería decir esa maravillosa pintura. De vez en cuando, cruzaba como una flecha alguna idea brillante, pero ¡ay !, engañosa: « Es el mar Negro en noche de galerna », « Es el combate antinatural de los cuatro elementos primitivos », « Es un matorral maldito », « Es una escena invernal hiperbórea », « Es la irrupción de la corriente del Tiempo, rompiendo el hielo ». Pero todas esas fantasías cedían ante aquel portentoso no sé qué había en el centro del cuadro. Una vez averiguado aquello, lo demás estaría claro. Pero, alto ahí: ¿no muestra un leve parecido con un gigantesco pez ? ¿Incluso, con el propio gran Leviatán ?

Efectivamente, la intención del artista parecía ésa: conclusiva opinión mía, basada en parte sobre las opiniones reunidas de diversas personas ancianas con quienes conversé sobre el tema. El cuadro representa un navío del Pacífico, en un gran huracán; el barco, medio sumergido, se revuelve allí en las aguas, con sus tres mástiles desmantelados solamente visibles; y una ballena exasperada, al intentar dar un salto limpiamente sobre la embarcación, se ha empalado en los tres mastelerillos.

La pared de enfrente, en este zaguán, se había decorado toda ella con una pagana ostentación de monstruosos dardos y rompecabezas. Algunos estaban densamente incrustados de dientes brillantes, pareciendo sierras de marfil; otros estaban coronados con mechones de pelo humano; uno tenía forma de guadaña, con un amplio mango que barría en torno como el sector que deja en la hierba recién segada un segador de largos brazos. Uno se estremecía al mirar, preguntándose qué monstruoso caníbal salvaje podría haber ido jamás a cosechar muerte con tan horrible herramienta tajadora. Mezclados con esto, había viejos y enmohecidos arpones balleneros, deformados y rotos. Algunos eran armas con mucha historia. Con aquella vieja lanza, ahora brutalmente torcida, cincuenta años antes, Nathan Swain mató quince ballenas de sol a sol. Y ese arpón -ahora tan parecido a un sacacorchos- se lanzó en mares de Java, y lo arrastró una ballena que años después fue muerta a la altura del cabo del Blanco. El hierro primitivo había entrado junto a la cola, y como una aguja móvil dentro del cuerpo de un hombre, había viajado sus buenos cuarenta pies, hasta que por fin se encontró incrustada en la joroba.

Cruzando este sombrío vestíbulo, y a lo largo de ese pasadizo de arcos bajos abierto a través de lo que en tiempos antiguos debió ser una gran chimenea central con hogares alrededor), se entra en la sala común. Esta es un lugar aún más sombrío, con tan pesadas vigas por encima, y tan agrietadas tablas viejas por debajo, que uno casi se imaginaría que pisa la enfermería de alguna vieja embarcación, sobre todo en tal noche ululante, cuando esa vieja Arca, anclada en su esquina, se balanceaba tan furiosamente. A un lado había una mesa, larga y baja, a modo de estantería, cubierta de recipientes de cristal resquebrajado, llenos de polvorientas rarezas reunidas desde los más remotos rincones del ancho mundo. Asomando desde el ángulo más apartado de la sala, queda una guarida de aspecto sombrío, el bar; tosco intento de semejanza de una cabeza de ballena. Sea como sea, allí está el vasto hueso en arco de la mandíbula de la ballena, tan amplio que casi podría pasar un coche por debajo. Dentro hay sucios estantes, con filas, alrededor, de viejos frascos, botellas y garrafas; y en esas mandíbulas de fulminante aniquilación, como otro maldito Jonás (nombre por el que, efectivamente, le llaman), se atarea un hombrecillo viejo y marchito, que vende a los marineros, a cambio de sus dineros, delirios y muerte.

Abominables son los vasos en que escancia su ponzoña. Aunque por fuera son cilindros verdes, por dentro esos villanos vidrios verdes, como ojos pasmados, se van ahusando engañosamente hacia abajo, hasta un fondo tramposo. Líneas geográficas de paralelos, groseramente grabadas en el cristal, rodean esos cuencos de salteadores de caminos. Llenando hasta esta señal, no hay que pagar más que un penique; hasta aquí, un penique más; y así sucesivamente, hasta el vaso lleno, la medida total, como pasando el cabo de Hornos, que se puede ingurgitar por un chelín.

Al entrar en aquel sitio, encontré cierto número de marineros jóvenes reunidos alrededor de una mesa, examinando, a una luz mortecina, diversas muestras de skrimshander. Busqué al patrón, y al decirle que deseaba que me hiciera el favor de un cuarto, recibí como respuesta que su casa estaba llena: ni una cama sin ocupar. -Pero espere -añadió, dándose un golpe en la frente-; ¿no tendrá inconveniente en compartir la manta con un arponero, eh ? Supongo que va a ir a las ballenas, de modo que es mejor que se acostumbre a esas cosas.

Le dije que no me había gustado nunca dormir de dos en dos; que si lo hacía alguna vez, dependería de quién pudiera ser el arponero, y que si él (el patrón) no tenía de veras otro sitio para mí, y el arponero no era decididamente objetable, en fin, mejor que seguir vagabundeando por una ciudad desconocida en una noche tan dura, me las arreglaría con la mitad de la manta de cualquier hombre decente.

-Ya lo suponía. Muy bien: siéntese. ¿Va a cenar ?, ¿quiere cenar ? La cena estará en seguida.

Me senté en un viejo banco de madera, todo tallado como un banco de Battery. En un extremo, un meditativo lobo de mar seguía adornándolo con su navaja de muelles, inclinado y despachando diligentemente el trabajo en el espacio entre las piernas. Estaba probando su habilidad en un barco a toda vela, pero me pareció que no adelantaba gran cosa.

Por lo menos cuatro o cinco de nosotros fuimos convocados a comer en el cuarto adyacente. Estaba tan frío como Islandia; no había fuego en absoluto: el patrón decía que no se lo podía permitir. Nada más que dos lúgubres candelas de sebo, cada cual envuelta en un papel. Nos apresuramos a abotonarnos nuestros chaquetones, y a llevarnos a los labios talas de té abrasador, con nuestros dedos medio helados. Pero la comida fue del género más sustancioso; no sólo carne con patatas, sino albóndigas: ¡Santo Cielo !, ¡albóndigas de cena ! Un tipo joven de gabán verde se dirigió a estas albóndigas del modo más amenazador.

-Muchacho -dijo el patrón-, como que me tengo que morir, que vas a tener pesadillas.

-Patrón -susurré yo-, no es éste el arponero, ¿no ?

-Oh, no -dijo, con cara diabólicamente divertida-, el arponero es un mozo de color oscuro. Nunca come albóndigas, no; no come más que filetes, y le gustan crudos.

-Demonio de gusto -dije-. ¿Dónde está ese arponero ? ¿Está aquí ?

-Estará antes de mucho -fue la respuesta.

No pude remediarlo; empezaba a sentir sospechas sobre ese arponero « de color oscuro ». En cualquier caso, decidí que si resultaba que teníamos que dormir juntos, él debería desnudarse y meterse en la cama antes que yo.

Terminada la cena, el grupo volvió a la sala del bar, donde, no sabiendo qué hacer de mí mismo, decidí pasar el resto de la velada como observador.

Pero después se oyó fuera un ruido de motín. Levantándose sobresaltado, el patrón exclamó: -Es la tripulación del Grampus. Lo he visto anunciado a lo largo de esta mañana; un viaje de tres años, con el barco lleno. ¡Hurra, muchachos; ahora tendremos las últimas noticias de las Fidji !

Se oyó en el vestíbulo un pisoteo de botas de mar; se abrid la puerta de par en par, y entró en tropel un grupo salvaje de marineros. Envueltos en sus ásperos capotes de guardia, y con las cabezas abrigadas con pasamontañas de lana, remendados y harapientos, y con la barba rígida de carámbanos, parecían una erupción de osos del Labrador. Acababan de desembarcar, y ésta era la primera casa en que entraban. No es extraño, pues, que se lanzaran derechos a la boca de la ballena, el bar, donde el pequeño, viejo y arrugado Jonás que allí oficiaba, pronto les escanció vasos llenos a todos a la redonda. Uno se quejaba de un fuerte resfriado de cabeza, para el cual Jonás le mezcló una poción de ginebra y melaza que parecía pez, y .juró que era una cura soberana para todos los resfriados y catarros, cualesquiera que fueran, sin importar su antigüedad, ni si se habían contraído a la altura de la costa del Labrador, o al socaire de urja isla de hielo.

La bebida pronto se les subió a la cabeza, como suele ocurrir con los más curtidos bebedores recién desembarcados del mar, y empezaron a hacer cabriolas alrededor, del modo más estrepitoso.

Observé, sin embargo, que uno de ellos se mantenía un tanto apartado, y aunque parecía deseoso de no estropear el buen humor de sus compañeros de tripulación con su cara sobria, no obstante, en conjunto evitaba hacer tanto ruido como el resto. Este hombre me interesó en seguida; y como los dioses marinos habían dispuesto que pronto se convirtiera en compañero mío de tripulación (aunque sólo compañero de dormir, por lo que se refiere a esta narración), me atreveré aquí a una pequeña descripción de él. Tenía sus buenos seis pies de alto, con nobles hombros, y un pecho como una ataguía. Rara vez he visto tanto músculo en un hombre. Tenía la cara muy morena y tostada, haciendo resplandecer por contraste sus blancos dientes, mientras que en las profundas sombras de sus ojos flotaban algunas reminiscencias que no parecían darle mucha alegría. Su voz anunciaba en seguida que era un sueño y, por su buena estatura, pensé que debía ser uno de esos altos montañeses del Alleghenian Ridge, en Virginia. Cuando la disipación de sus compañeros llegó a su cumbre, el hombre se deslizó fuera, inadvertido, y no le volví a ver hasta que fue mi camarada en el mar. Al cabo de pocos minutos, sin embargo, sus compañeros le echaron de menos, y como al parecer no se sabe por qué, era su gran predilecto, empezaron a gritar: ¡Bulkington ! ¡Bulkington !, ¿dónde está Bulkington ? -y salieron de la casa como flechas en su seguimiento.

Eran entonces alrededor de las nueve, y como la sala parecía casi sobrenaturalmente callada tras de esas orgías, empecé a felicitarme por un pequeño plan que se me había ocurrido antes mismo de que entraran los marineros.

A ningún hombre le gusta dormir con otro en una cama. En realidad, uno preferiría con mucho no dormir ni con su propio hermano. No sé por qué, pero a la gente le gusta el aislamiento para dormir. Y cuando se trata de dormir con un desconocido extraño, en una posada extraña, y ese desconocido es un arponero, entonces las objeciones se multiplican indefinidamente. Y no es que haya razón en este mundo por la cual un marinero tenga que dormir con otro en una cama, más que cualquier otra persona; pues los marineros no duermen de dos en dos en los barcos más que los reyes solteros en tierra firme. Por supuesto, duermen todos juntos en un solo local, pero cada cual tiene su propia hamaca, y se cubre con su propia manta, y duerme en su propia piel.

Cuanto más cavilaba sobre ese arponero, más aborrecía la idea de dormir con él. Era lícito presumir que, siendo arponero, sus lanas o linos, según fuera el caso, no serían de lo más limpio, ni, desde luego, de lo más delicado. Empecé a sentir picores por todas partes. Además, se iba haciendo tarde, y mi decente arponero debería estar en casa y yendo rumbo a la cama. Supongamos ahora que cayera sobre mí a medianoche, ¿cómo podría yo decir de qué vil agujero venía ?

-¡Patrón ! He cambiado de idea sobre ese arponero. No voy a dormir con él. Probaré este banco.

-Como quiera; siento no poder dejarle un mantel como colchón, y esta tabla de aquí es muy áspera y molesta... -tocando los nudos y bultos-. Pero espere un poco, Skrimshander; tengo un cepillo de carpintero ahí en el bar; espere, digo, y le pondré bastante a gusto. Diciendo así, buscó el cepillo, y con su viejo pañuelo de seda desempolvó primero el banco, y se puso vigorosamente a alisarme la cama, haciendo muecas mientras tanto como un mono. Las virutas volaban a derecha e izquierda, hasta que, por fin, el filo del cepillo chocó contra un nudo indestructible. El patrón estuvo a punto de dislocarse la muñeca, y yo le dije que lo dejara, por lo más sagrado; la cama ya estaba bastante blanda para mí, y no sabía cómo ningún acepillado del mundo podía convertir en edredón una tabla de pino. Así que, reuniendo las virutas con otra mueca, y echándolas a la gran estufa de en medio de la sala, se marchó a sus asuntos, y me dejó en negras reflexiones.

Tomé entonces medidas al banco, y encontré que le faltaba un pie de largo, aunque eso se podía arreglar con una silla. Pero también le faltaba un pie de ancho, y el otro banco del cuarto era unas cuatro pulgadas más alto que el cepillado, de modo que no se podían emparejar. Entonces puse el primer banco a lo largo del único espacio libre contra la pared, dejando un pequeño intervalo en medio para poder acomodar la espalda. Pero pronto encontré que venía hacia mí tal corriente de aire frío, desde el hueco de la ventana, que ese plan no iba a servir en absoluto, sobre todo, dado que otra corriente, desde la desvencijada puerta, salía al encuentro de la de la ventana, y ambas juntas formaban una serie de pequeños torbellinos en inmediata proximidad al lugar donde había pensado pasar la noche.

« El demonio se lleve a ese arponero -pensé-, pero, un momento, ¿no podría sacarle una ventaja ? ¿Cerrar su puerta por dentro, y meterme en su cama sin dejarme despertar por los golpes más violentos ? » No parecía mala idea; pero, pensándolo mejor, lo deseché. Pues ¿quién podría decir que a la mañana siguiente, tan pronto como yo saliera del cuarto corriendo, el, arponero no iba a estar plantado en la entrada, dispuesto a derribarme de un golpe ?

Sin embargo, volviendo a mirar a mi alrededor, y no viendo ocasión posible de pasar una noche tolerable a no ser en la cama de otra persona, empecé a pensar que, después de todo, podía estar abrigando prejuicios injustificados contra ese desconocido arponero. Pensé: « Voy a esperar mientras tanto; no tardará en dejarse caer por aquí. Entonces le miraré bien, y quizá lleguemos a ser alegres compañeros de cama; no puede saberse ».

Pero aunque los otros huéspedes iban viniendo, sueltos, o en grupos de dos o de tres, para acostarse, no había todavía señales de mi arponero.

-¡Patrón ! -dije-: ¿qué clase de muchacho es éste ? ¿Siempre vuelve a tan altas horas ? -Ya eran casi las doce.

El patrón volvió a risotear con su mezquina risita, y pareció enormemente divertido por algo que escapaba a mi comprensión. -No -contestó-, generalmente es pájaro madrugador: se acuesta pronto y se levanta pronto; sí, es un pájaro de los que cogen el gusano. Pero esta noche ha ido a vender, ya ve, y no comprendo qué demonios le hace retrasarse tanto, a no ser, quizá, que no pueda vender su cabeza.

-¿Que no puede vender su cabeza ? ¿Qué clase de embauco me cuenta ? -Y me entró una furia creciente-. ¿Intenta decirme, patrón, que ese arponero se dedica realmente, esta bendita noche de sábado, o mejor dicho, esta mañana de domingo, a vender su cabeza por la ciudad ?

-Eso es, exactamente --dijo el patrón-, y ya le dije que no la podría vender aquí; que hay demasiadas existencias en el mercado.

-¿De qué ? -grité.

-De cabezas, claro; ¿no hay demasiadas cabezas en este mundo ?

-Escuche lo que le digo, patrón -dije, con toda calma-: sería mejor que dejase de contarme esos cuentos; no estoy tan verde.

-Es posible -y sacó un palo y se puso a afilarlo en mondadientes-, pero me imagino que ese arponero le dejaría negro si lo oyera hablar mal de su cabeza.

-Yo se la romperé -dije, volviendo a encolerizarme ante esa inexplicable cháchara del patrón.

-Ya está rota -dijo.

-Rota -dije yo-; ¿quiere decir que está rota ?

-Claro, y ésa es la razón por la que no puede venderla, me parece.

-Patrón -dije, levantándome hacia él, tan frío como el monte Hecla en una tormenta de nieve-: patrón, deje de afilar. Tenemos que entendernos usted y yo, y sin perder un momento. Llego a su casa y quiero una cama, y usted me dice que sólo puede darme media, y que la otra media pertenece a cierto arponero. Y sobre ese arponero, a quien todavía no he visto, se empeña en contarme las historias más mixtificadoras y desesperantes, para dar lugar a que yo tenga una sensación incómoda hacia el hombre que me señala como compañero de cama; un tipo de relación, patrón, que es íntima y confidencial hasta el mayor extremo. Ahora le pido que me explique y me diga quién y qué es ese arponero, y si no hay ningún peligro en pasar la noche con él. Y, para empezar, tendrá la bondad de retirar esa historia de que vende su cabeza, que, si es verdad, entiendo que es suficiente evidencia de que el arponero está loco de atar, y no pienso dormir con un loco; y usted, patrón, a usted le digo, usted, señor, tratando de hacerlo así con todo conocimiento, se haría merecedor de ser perseguido por lo criminal.

-Bueno -dijo el patrón, dando un amplio respiro-, es un sermón bastante largo para un compadre que de vez en cuando gasta un poco de broma. Pero esté tranquilo, esté tranquilo, este arponero que le digo acaba de llegar de los mares del Sur, donde ha comprado un lote de cabezas embalsamadas de Nueva Zelanda (estupendas curiosidades, ya sabe) y las ha vendido todas menos una, que es la que trata de vender esta noche, porque mañana es domingo, y no estaría bien vender cabezas humanas por las calles cuando la gente va a las iglesias. Lo quería hacer el domingo pasado, pero yo se lo impedí en el momento en que salía por la puerta con cuatro cabezas en ristra, que parecían completamente una ristra de cebollas.

Esta explicación aclaró el misterio, inexplicable de otro modo, y demostró que el patrón, después de todo, no había tenido intención de burlarse de mí; pero, al mismo tiempo, ¿qué podía pensar yo de un arponero que se quedaba fuera un sábado por la noche, hasta el mismísimo santo día del Señor, ocupado en un asunto tan canibalesco como vender las cabezas de unos idólatras muertos ?

-Tenga la seguridad, patrón, de que ese arponero es hombre peligroso.

-Paga con toda puntualidad -fue la réplica-. Pero vamos, se está haciendo terriblemente tarde, y sería mejor que volviera la aleta de cola: es una buena cama. Sally yo dormimos en esa cama la noche que nos juntamos. Hay sitio de sobra para que dos den patadas por esa cama; es una cama grande y todopoderosa. Bueno, antes de que la dejáramos, Sally solía poner a nuestro Sam y al pequeño Johnny a los pies. Pero una noche tuve una pesadilla y di patadas y golpes, y, no sé cómo, Sam cayó al suelo y casi se rompió el brazo. Después de eso, Sally dijo que no estaba bien. Venga por aquí, le daré luz en un periquete. -Y diciendo así encendió una vela y me la alargó, disponiéndose a mostrarme el camino. Pero yo me detuve indeciso, hasta que él exclamó, mirando el reloj del rincón-: Ya veo que es domingo; esta noche no verá al arponero: habrá echado el ancla en cualquier sitio; vamos allá, entonces: vamos, ¿no quiere ?

Consideré el asunto un momento, y luego subimos las escaleras, y me hizo entrar en un cuartito, frío como una almeja, y amueblado, desde luego, con una prodigiosa cama, casi lo bastante grande como para que durmieran cuatro arponeros en fila.

-Ahí -dijo el patrón, poniendo la vela en un absurdo cofre de marinero que hacía doble servicio como lavabo y mesa de centro-: ahí tiene; póngase cómodo, y tenga buenas noches. Aparté los ojos de la cama para mirarle, pero había desaparecido.

Echando atrás la colcha, me incliné sobre la cama. Aunque no de lo más elegante, resistía bastante bien la inspección. Luego miré el cuarto alrededor; y además de la cama y la mesa del centro, no pude ver más mobiliario en aquel sitio si no una basta estantería, las cuatro paredes, y una pantalla de chimenea forrada de papel, representando a un hombre que arponeaba una ballena. De cosas que no pertenecieran propiamente al lugar, había una hamaca amarrada y tirada en un rincón por el suelo; y asimismo un gran saco de marinero, que contenía el guardarropa del arponero, en lugar de baúl de los de tierra adentro. Igualmente, había un paquete de anzuelos exóticos, de hueso de pez, en la estantería sobre la chimenea, y un largo arpón erguido a la cabecera de la cama.

Pero ¿qué es eso que hay sobre el cofre ? Lo levanté, lo acerqué a la luz, lo toqué, lo olí, y probé todos los modos posibles de llegar a alguna conclusión satisfactoria referente a ello. No puedo compararlo más que con un amplio felpudo de puerta, adornado en los bordes con pequeños colgajos tintineantes, algo así como las púas teñidas de puerco espín alrededor de un mocasín indio. En medio de esa estera había un agujero o hendidura, como se ve en los ponchos sudamericanos. Pero ¿sería posible que ningún arponero sobrio se metiese en una estera de puerta, y desfilase con esa clase de disfraz por las calles de una ciudad cristiana ? Me lo puse para probármelo, y me pesó como un cuévano, por ser extraordinariamente erizado y espeso, y me pareció que también un poco mojado, como si el misterioso arponero lo hubiera llevado puesto un día de lluvia. Me acerqué con él a un pedazo de espejo pegado a la pared, y nunca vi tal espectáculo en mi vida. Me despojé de él con tanta prisa que me disloqué el cuello.

Sentado en el borde de la cama, empecé a pensar en ese arponero vendedor de cabezas y en su estera de puerta. Después de pensar un rato en el borde de la cama, me incorporé, me quité el chaquetón, y me quedé entonces parado en medio del cuarto, pensando. Luego me quité la chaqueta, y volví a pensar un poco más en mangas de camisa. Pero como ya empezaba a sentir mucho frío, medio desnudo como estaba, y recordando lo que había dicho el patrón de que el arponero no volvería a casa en toda la noche por ser tan tarde, no enredé más, sino que me salí de un salto de los pantalones y las botas, y luego, soplando la vela, me eché de un tumbo en la cama, encomendándome al cuidado del cielo.

No es posible saber si ese colchón estaba relleno de panochas de maíz o de vajilla rota, pero di vueltas un buen rato sin poder dormir durante mucho tiempo. Por fin, resbalé a un sopor ligero, y ya había navegado un buen trecho hacia la tierra de Duermes, cuando oí unos pesados pasos en el corredor, y vi un destello de luz que entraba en el cuarto por debajo de la puerta.

« ¡Válgame Dios ! -pensé-, ése debe ser el arponero, el infernal vendedor de cabezas. » Pero me quedé completamente quieto, decidido a no decir una palabra hasta que me dijeran algo. Con una luz en una mano, y la mismísima cabeza de Nueva Zelanda en la otra, el recién llegado entró en el cuarto y, sin mirar a la cama, puso la vela muy lejos de mí en el suelo de un rincón, y luego empezó a desatar las cuerdas anudadas del gran saco que antes dije que había en el cuarto. Yo estaba ansioso de verle la cara, pero él la mantuvo apartada un rato mientras se ocupaba de desatar la boca del saco. Logrado esto, sin embargo, se volvió y... ¡Santo cielo !, ¡qué visión ! ¡Qué cara ! Era de color oscuro, purpúreo y amarillo, incrustada acá y allá de amplios cuadrados de aspecto negruzco. Sí; es como pensaba, es un temible compañero de cama; ha tenido una pelea, le han hecho unos cortes horribles, y aquí está, recién salido del médico. Pero en ese momento dio la casualidad de que se volvió hacia la luz, y vi claramente que no podían ser en absoluto parches de heridas esos cuadrados negros de sus mejillas. Eran manchas de alguna otra especie. Al principio, no supe cómo tomarlo, pero pronto se me ocurrió un asomo de la verdad. Recordé un relato sobre un blanco -también ballenero- que, al caer entre caníbales, había sido tatuado por éstos. Deduje que este arponero, en el transcurso de sus largos viajes, debía haber pasado por una aventura semejante. ¡Y qué es eso, pensé, después de todo ! Es sólo su exterior; un hombre puede ser honrado en cualquier clase de piel. Pero entonces, ¿cómo entender ese color extraterrenal, esa parte suya, quiero decir, que queda a su alrededor, y que es completamente independiente de los cuadrados del tatuaje ? Desde luego, no puede ser sino una buena capa de curtido tropical, pero nunca he oído decir que el curtido de un sol caliente convierta a un hombre blanco en amarillento y purpúreo. Sin embargo, yo nunca había estado en los mares del Sur, y quizá el sol de allá produjera esos extraordinarios efectos en la piel. Ahora, mientras todas esas ideas cruzaban por mí como un relámpago, el arponero no me observó en absoluto. Pero, después de hallar alguna dificultad para abrir el saco, empezó a hurgar a tientas en él, y por fin sacó una especie de hacha india y una bolsa de piel de foca con pelo y todo. Colocándolas en el viejo cofre de en medio del cuarto, tomó la cabeza de Nueva Zelanda -cosa sobradamente horrenda- y la encajó en el fondo del saco. Luego se quitó el sombrero -un sombrero nuevo de castor- y yo estuve a punto de gritar de sorpresa. No había pelo en su cabeza; al menos, no se podía hablar de él; nada sino un pequeño nudo retorcido en la frente. Su purpúrea cabeza calva ahora parecía completamente una calavera mohosa. Si el recién llegado no hubiera estado entre la puerta y yo, me habría lanzado por ella con más prisa que nunca me he lanzado sobre una comida.

Aun así, pensé un momento en escurrirme fuera por la ventana, pero era un segundo piso. No soy cobarde, pero superaba en absoluto mi comprensión cómo entender a aquel granuja purpúreo que vendía cabezas. La ignorancia engendra al miedo, y yo, completamente abrumado y confundido sobre el recién llegado, confieso que le tenía ahora tanto miedo como si fuera el propio diablo que se hubiera metido así en mi cuarto en plena noche. Efectivamente, le tenía tanto miedo que no fui capaz de dirigirle la palabra para pedirle una respuesta satisfactoria respecto a lo que me parecía inexplicable en él.

Mientras tanto, él siguió el asunto de desnudarse, y por fin mostró el pecho y los brazos. Como que me tengo que morir, esas partes cubiertas suyas estaban salpicadas de los mismos cuadrados que su cara; la espalda, también, estaba cubierta de los mismos cuadrados oscuros; parecía haber estado en una Guerra de los Treinta Años, y acabarse de escapar por ella con una camisa de parches de heridas. Aún más, hasta sus piernas estaban marcadas, como si un montón de oscuras ranas verdes subieran corriendo por unos troncos de palmeras jóvenes. Ahora estaba bien claro que debía ser algún abominable salvaje, o algo parecido, embarcado a bordo de un ballenero en los mares del Sur, y desembarcado así en este país cristiano. Me estremecí al pensarlo. ¡Un vendedor de cabezas, además; quizá las cabezas de sus propios hermanos ! Se le podría antojar la mía. ¡Cielos !, ¡mira aquella hacha india !

Pero no hubo tiempo de temblar, porque ahora el salvaje se dedicó a algo que fascinó por completo mi atención, y me convenció de que debía de ser, en efecto, un pagano. Acercándose a su pesado chaquetón con capucha, el Sobretodo o dreadnaught, que antes había colgado en una silla, hurgó en los bolsillos, y sacó al cabo de un rato una pequeña imagen, extraña y deformada, con una joroba en la espalda, y exactamente del color de un niño congoleño de tres días. Recordando la cabeza embalsamada, al principio creí que ese maniquí negro fuera un niño de verdad, conservado de algún modo semejante. Pero al ver que no era en absoluto blando, y que brillaba mucho, como ébano pulido, deduje que no debía de ser sino un ídolo de madera, como efectivamente resultó ser. Pues ahora el salvaje se acerca al vacío hogar y, apartando la pantalla empapelada, pone esa pequeña imagen jorobada, de pie como un bolo, entre los moribundos. Las jambas de la chimenea y todos los ladrillos de dentro estaban llenos de hollín, de modo que pensé que ese hogar resultaba un pequeño nicho o capilla muy apropiada para su congoleño ídolo.

Fijé entonces atentamente los ojos en la imagen medio oculta, sintiéndome a la vez muy incómodo, para ver qué pasaba después. Primero saca un par de puñados de virutas del bolsillo del chaquetón, y los coloca cuidadosamente ante el ídolo; luego, poniendo encima un poco de galleta de barco, y aplicándole la llama de la lámpara, enciende las virutas en una llamarada sacrificial. Al fin, después de varias metidas apresuradas entre las llamas, retirando los dedos aún más apresuradamente (con lo que parecía quemárselos de mala manera), consiguió por fin retirar la galleta; y entonces, soplándola para enfriarla y para quitarle las cenizas, se la ofreció cortésmente al negrito. Pero no pareció que al pequeño demonio le apeteciera tan seco alimento: no movió en absoluto los labios. Todas esas extrañas gesticulaciones iban acompañadas de sonidos guturales, aún más extraños, por parte del devoto, que parecía rezar en una cantinela, o cantar alguna salmodia pagana, durante la cual contraía espasmódicamente la cara del modo menos natural. Finalmente, apagando el fuego, recogió el ídolo con muy poca ceremonia, y se lo volvió a embolsar en el bolsillo del chaquetón como si fuera un cazador echando al zurrón una becada muerta.

Todas esas raras actividades aumentaron mi incomodidad, y, al ver que ahora mostraba fuertes síntomas de que acababa las operaciones de su asunto, y que se metería de un salto en la cama conmigo, pensé que era más que hora, ahora o nunca, antes que se apagara la luz, de romper la fascinación en que yo había quedado tanto tiempo sujeto.

Pero el intervalo que empleé en deliberar qué decir fue fatal. Tomando de la mesa el hacha india, examinó un momento la cabeza, y luego, acercándola a la luz, sopló grandes nubes de humo de tabaco. Un momento después, la luz estaba apagada, y ese salvaje caníbal, con el hacha entre los dientes, saltaba a la cama conmigo. Lancé un grito, sin poderlo remediar; y él, con un súbito gruñido de asombro, empezó a tocarme.

Tartamudeando no sé qué, me escapé de él hacia la pared, y luego le conjuré, quienquiera o cualquier cosa que fuera, a estarse quieto y dejarme levantar y encender la luz otra vez. Pero sus respuestas guturales me convencieron en seguida de que comprendía muy poco lo que yo quería decir.

-¿Quién demonio usté ? -dijo por fin-; usté no hablar, maldito, yo matarle. Y diciendo así, el hacha brillante empezó a gritar a mi alrededor en la sombra.

-¡Patrón, por Dios, Peter Coffin ! -grité-. ¡Patrón, despierte ! ¡Coffin ! ¡Angeles, salvadme !

-¡Hablar ! ¡Decirme quién ser, o, maldito, matarte ! -volvió a rezongar el caníbal, mientras que, al blandir horriblemente su hacha india, desparramaba calientes cenizas de tabaco sobre mí, hasta que creí que se me iba a incendiar la ropa. Pero, gracias a Dios, en ese momento entró el patrón en el cuarto, vela en mano, y yo, saliendo de un brinco de la cama, corrí hacia él.

-No tenga miedo ahora -dijo, volviendo a sonreír-. Este Queequeg no le va a tocar un pelo de la cabeza.

-Deje de sonreír -grité-: ¿por qué no me dijo que ese infernal arponero era un caníbal ?

-Pensé que lo sabía: ¿no le dije que iba vendiendo cabezas por la ciudad ? Pero vuélvale la cola y échese a dormir. Queequeg, ea; tú entender mí, yo entender tú; este hombre dormir tú; ¿entender tú ?

-Yo entender mucho -gruñó Queequeg, soplando por la pipa y sentado en la cama-.

Usted meterse -añadió, haciéndome un ademán con el hacha india, y abriendo las mantas a un lado. Realmente, lo hizo de un modo no sólo cortés, sino benévolo y caritativo. Me quedé quieto un momento mirándole. Con todos sus tatuajes, en conjunto era un caníbal limpio y de aspecto decente. « ¿A qué viene todo este estrépito que he hecho ? -pensé para mí mismo-. Este hombre es un ser humano lo mismo que yo: tiene tantos motivos para tener miedo de mí, como yo para tener miedo de él. Más vale dormir con un caníbal despejado que con un cristiano borracho. »

-Patrón -dije-; dígale que deje el hacha india, o la pipa, o como lo llame; en una palabra, dígale que deje de fumar, y yo me pondré con él. Porque no me hace gracia tener conmigo en la cama a un hombre que fuma. Es peligroso. Además, no estoy asegurado.

Al decir esto a Queequeg, inmediatamente se avino, y volvió a hacerme un cortés ademán de que me metiera en la cama, enrollándome hacia una orilla, como si dijera: No le voy a tocar ni una pierna.

-Buenas noches, patrón -dije-: se puede ir.

Me metí en la cama, y nunca en mi vida he dormido mejor. 

La colcha

Al despertarme a la mañana siguiente al alborear, encontré que Queequeg me había echado el brazo por encima del modo más cariñoso y afectuoso. Se habría pensado que yo había sido su mujer. La colcha era de retazos, llena de cuadraditos y triangulitos sueltos y abigarrados; y aquel brazo suyo, todo él tatuado con una figura interminable de laberinto cretense, sin dos partes que fueran exactamente del mismo matiz (debido, supongo yo, a que en el mar había expuesto el brazo de modo variable al sol y a la sombra, con las mangas de la camisa irregularmente subidas en variadas ocasiones), aquel brazo suyo, digo, parecía en todo una tira de aquel mismo cobertor de retazos. Efectivamente, como el brazo estaba puesto sobre la colcha cuando me desperté, difícilmente pude distinguirlo de ella, y sólo por la sensación de peso y presión pude comprender que Queequeg me estaba apretando

Mis sensaciones fueron extrañas. Permítaseme tratar de explicarlas. Cuando yo era niño, recuerdo muy bien una circunstancia un tanto parecida que me ocurrió: jamás pude decidir completamente si era una realidad o un sueño. La circunstancia fue ésta. Había estado yo haciendo no sé qué travesura: creo que tratando de trepar por dentro de la chimenea, como había visto hacer a un pequeño deshollinador unos días antes, y mi madrastra que, por una razón o por otra, todo el tiempo estaba dándome azotes o mandándome a la cama sin cenar, mi madrastra, digo, me arrastró por las piernas sacándome de la chimenea y me mandó derecho a la cama, aunque eran sólo las dos de la tarde del 21 de junio, el día más largo en nuestro hemisferio. Mis sentimientos fueron terribles. Pero no había modo de remediarlo, de modo que subí por las escaleras a mi cuartito en el tercer piso, me desnudé todo lo despacio que pude, para matar el tiempo, y, con un amargo suspiro, me metí entre las sábanas.

. Me tendí allí calculando lúgubremente que debían transcurrir dieciséis horas enteras antes que pudiera tener esperanza de resurrección. ¡Dieciséis horas en la cama ! Me dolía la rabadilla de pensarlo. Y además, había mucha luz: el sol brillaba en la ventana, y había un gran estrépito de coches por las calles, y el sonido de voces alegres llenaba toda la casa. Me sentía cada vez peor; por fin me levanté, me vestí, y bajando quedamente, con los calcetines en los pies, busqué a mi madrastra y de repente me eché ante ella, rogándole como un favor especial que me diera una buena azotaina por mi mala conducta; cualquier cosa, menos condenarme a estar en la cama durante tan insoportable lapso de tiempo. Pero ella era la mejor y más concienzuda de las madrastras, y tuve que volver a mi cuarto. Durante varias horas estuve allí completamente despierto, sintiéndome mucho peor que nunca me he sentido después, aun con las mayores desventuras posteriores. Por fin, debí caer en un sopor turbado por pesadillas, y al despertar lentamente de él -medio sumergido en sueños- abrí los ojos, y el cuarto antes iluminado por el sol, ahora estaba envuelto en la tiniebla exterior. Al momento sentí un golpe que me recorría todo el cuerpo: no se veía nada, ni se oía nada: pero parecía haber una mano sobrenatural en la mía. Yo tenía el brazo extendido sobre la colcha, y la innominable, inimaginable y silenciosa forma fantasmal a que pertenecía la mano, parecía sentada muy cerca, en el borde de mi cama. Durante lo que pareció siglos amontonados sobre siglos, me quedé así, congelado con los temores más espantosos, sin atreverme a retirar la mano, pero pensando que sólo con que pudiera removerla una pulgada, se rompería el horrendo hechizo. No supe cómo esta impresión se apartó por fin de mí, pero, al despertar por la mañana, lo recordé todo con un estremecimiento, y durante días y semanas después me perdí en enloquecedores intentos de explicar el misterio. Más aún, incluso en esta misma hora, muchas veces extravío en ello.

Bien, pues quitando el terrible miedo, mis sensaciones al sentir mano sobrenatural en la mía fueron muy semejantes, en su extrañeza, a las que experimenté al despertar y ver el pagano brazo de Queecequeg echado a mi alrededor. Pero, por fin, todos los acontecimientos de la noche pasada volvieron uno por uno, sin embriaguez con realidad fijada, y entonces sólo quedé despierto para el lado cómico. Pues aunque traté de moverle el brazo, de desatar su apretón marital, sin embargo él, dormido como estaba, seguía apretándome estrechamente, como si solamente la muerte pudiera separaros. Intenté sacarle del sueño: -¡Queequeg ! Pero su única respuesta fue un ronquido. Entonces me di la cita, notando en el cuello como una collera de caballo, y de repente sentí un ligero arañazo. Echando a un lado la colcha, allí estaba el hacha india durmiendo al lado del costado del salvaje, como si fuera un niño de cara afilada. « ¡Bonito lío, de veras ! -pensé-, ¡en la cama, en una casa desconocida, en pleno día, con un caníbal un hacha india ! » -¡Queequeg, por todos los Cielos, Queequeg, despierta ! Al fin, a fuerza de mucho retorcimiento, y de sonoras e insistentes exhortaciones sobre la inconveniencia de que abrazara a otro varón con aquel estilo tan matrimonial, conseguí extraerle un gruñido; y por fin, retiró el brazo, se sacudió de arriba abajo, todo entero, como un perro de Terranova recién salido del agua, y se incorporó en la cama, rígido como una pica, mirándome y restregándose los ojos como si no recordara en absoluto de qué modo había llegado yo a estar allí, aunque una vaga conciencia de saber algo de mí parecía amanecer lentamente en él. Mientras tanto, yo estaba tendido, inmóvil y mirándole, ahora sin tener temores serios, y afanoso de observar de cerca a tan curiosa criatura. Cuando, por fin, su mente pareció en claro respecto al carácter de su compañero de Cama, y, por decirlo así, se reconcilió con el hecho, dio un salto hasta el suelo, y por determinados signos y sonidos me dio a entender que, si me parecía bien, él se vestiría primero y luego me dejaría para que me vistiera yo, cediéndome todo el local para mí. Creo yo que en esas circunstancias, Queequeg, esto es un modo de empezar muy civilizado; pero la verdad es que estos salvajes tienen un sentido innato de delicadeza, dígase lo que se quiera: es asombroso qué esencialmente corteses son. Ofrezco a Queequeg este preciso cumplimiento, porque me trató con mucha etiqueta y consideración, mientras que yo era culpable de notable grosería: observándole fijamente desde la cama, y vigilando todos sus movimientos al arreglarse, al prevalecer temporalmente mi curiosidad sobre mi buena educación. No obstante, no se ve todos los días un hombre como Queequeg, y tanto él como sus modales eran muy merecedores de especial atención.

Empezó a vestirse por arriba, tocándose con su sombrero de castor, que por cierto era muy alto, y luego-todavía sin pantalones se lanzó a rastrear sus botas. Para qué demonios lo haría, no sé decir, pero su inmediato movimiento fue aplastarse -botas en mano, y con el sombrero puesto- debajo de la cama, donde, por diversos jadeos y tensiones de gran violencia, deduje que trabajaba duramente en calzarse, aunque no he oído-jamás por qué regla de decencia se requiere a nadie que se aísle para ponerse las botas. Pero Queequeg, ya se ve, era una criatura en fase de transición: ni oruga ni mariposa. Era lo estrictamente civilizado como para exhibir su exotismo del modo más extraño posible. Su educación no estaba todavía terminada. Era un estudiante a mitad de carrera. Si no hubiera estado civilizado en un pequeño grado, probablemente no se habría preocupado en absoluto de las botas; pero, por otra parte, si no hubiera sido todavía un salvaje, nunca se le habría ocurrido meterse bajo la cama para ponérselas. Por fin, emergió con el sombrero muy aplastado y abollado, metido hasta los ojos, y empezó a crujir y cojear por el cuarto, como si, no estando muy acostumbrado a las botas, su par de becerro, húmedas y agrietadas -probablemente tampoco hechas a su medida-, más bien le pellizcaran y atormentaran en el primer arranque en una cruda mañana de frío.

Viendo yo, entonces, que no había cortinas en la ventana y que la calle era muy estrecha, y la casa de enfrente dominaba una vista total de nuestro cuarto, y observando cada vez más la indecorosa figura que presentaba Queequeg al dar vueltas por ahí con poco más que el sombrero y las botas, le rogué lo mejor que supe que acelerase su arreglo como fuera, y, sobre todo, que se pusiera los pantalones en cuanto pudiera. Obedeció, y luego empezó a lavarse. A esa hora de la mañana, cualquier cristiano se habría lavado la cara, pero Queequeg, con extrañeza mía, se contentó con limitar sus abluciones al pecho, brazos y manos. Luego se puso el chaleco, tomando un trozo de jabón duro que había en la mesa de centro que hacía de lavabo, lo sumergió en agua y empezó a enjabonarse la cara. Yo observaba a ver dónde guardaba la navaja de afeitar, cuando he aquí que toma el arpón de la cama, quita el largo mango de madera, desencaja el hierro, lo afila un poco en la bota, y, acercándose al trozo de espejo de la pared, empieza vigorosamente a rasurarse, o mejor arponearse las mejillas. Me parece, Queequeg, que esto es usar como venganza la mejor cuchillería Rogers. Luego llegó a sorprenderme menos esta operación cuando empecé a saber de qué fino acero está hecha la cabeza de un arpón, y qué terriblemente afilados se mantienen sus largos bordes rectos.

El resto de su tocado se acabó pronto, y salió orgullosamente del cuarto, envuelto en su gran chaquetón de piloto, y blandiendo su arpón como un bastón de mariscal. 

Desayuno

Yo le seguí rápidamente, y, bajando al bar, me acerqué muy contento al sonriente patrón. No le guardaba rencor, aunque él se había burlado de mí no poco en el asunto de mi compañero de cama.

Sin embargo, una buena risa es una cosa excelente, y una cosa buena que anda más bien demasiado escasa: lo cual es una lástima. Así que si cualquiera, en su propia persona, concede materia para una buena broma a cualquiera, que no se eche atrás, sino empléese y déjese emplear de ese modo. Y si un hombre lleva en sí algo abundantemente risible, estad seguros de que hay más en ese hombre de lo que quizá imagináis.

El bar estaba ahora lleno de los huéspedes que se habían dejado caer por allí la noche anterior, y a quienes yo no había mirado todavía bastante. Casi todos eran balleneros: primeros, segundos y terceros oficiales, carpinteros, toneleros y herreros de marina, arponeros y guardianes; una gente tostada y musculosa, de barbas boscosas; un grupo hirsuto y rudo, todos con sus chaquetones a modo de batines mañaneros.

Se podía decir claramente cuánto tiempo había estado a bordo cada uno de ellos. Las saludables mejillas de aquel joven tienen un color como de pera tostada por el sol, y parece que han de tener su mismo olor almizclado; no puede hacer tres días que ha desembarcado de su viaje a la India. Aquél de al lado, parece unos pocos tonos más claro; podríais decir que hay en él un toque de áloe. En el color de un tercero dura todavía un bronceado tropical, pero levemente blanqueado, pese a todo: éste sin duda lleva ya varias semanas en tierra. Pero ¿quién podría mostrar unas mejillas como Queequeg, que, listadas en diversas tintas, parecían la vertiente occidental de los Andes, exhibiendo, en un solo despliegue, climas en contraste, zona tras zona ?

-¡A engullir, ea ! -gritó entonces el patrón, abriendo del todo una puerta, y entramos a desayunar.

Dicen que los hombres que han visto el mundo adquieren así gran facilidad de maneras, y tienen gran dominio de sí mismos en compañía. No siempre, sin embargo: Ledyard, el gran viajero de New England, y Mungo Park, el escocés, mostraban menor seguridad que nadie en el salón. Pero quizá el cruzar meramente Siberia en un trineo arrastrado por perros, como hizo Ledyard, o el darse un largo paseo solitario con el estómago vacío, por el corazón negro de Africa, que es la suma de las realizaciones del pobre Mungo, ese tipo de viaje, digo, quizá no sea el mejor modo de alcanzar un alto refinamiento social. No obstante, en la mayor parte de los casos, este tipo de cosas es lo que se suele observar en todo lugar.

Las indicadas reflexiones están ocasionadas por el hecho de que después que todos nos sentamos a la mesa, y cuando me preparaba a escuchar algunos buenos relatos sobre la pesca de la ballena, con no poca sorpresa mía, todos mantuvieron un profundo silencio. Y no sólo eso, sino que tenían un aire cohibido. Sí, allí había un equipo de lobos de mar, muchos de los cuales, sin la menor timidez, habían abordado grandes ballenas en alta mar -absolutamente desconocidas para ellos- y habían entablado duelo con ellas hasta matarlas sin parpadear; y, sin embargo, ahí estaban sentados en la sociedad de una mesa de desayuno -todos del mismo oficio, todos de gustos afines- y volvían los ojos unos a otros tan ovejunamente como si nunca hubieran salido de la vista de algún redil entre las Montañas Verdes. ¡Curioso espectáculo, esos tímidos osos, esos vergonzosos guerreros de las ballenas !

Pero en cuanto a Queequeg...; en fin, Queequeg se sentaba entre ellos, y a la cabecera de la mesa, además, por casualidad, tan fresco como un carámbano. Por supuesto, no puedo decir mucho a favor de su buena educación. Su mayor admirador no podría haber justificado cordialmente que se trajera consigo el arpón al desayuno y lo usara sin ceremonia, alcanzando con él por encima de la mesa, con inminente riesgo para varias cabezas, y acercándose los filetes de vaca. Pero eso es lo que hacía con gran frialdad, y todos saben que, en la estimativa de la mayor parte de la gente, hacer algo con frialdad es hacerlo con elegancia.

No hablaremos aquí de todas las peculiaridades de Queequeg; cómo rehuía el café y los panecillos calientes, y aplicaba su atención fija a los filetes, bien crudos. Basta decir que, cuando se terminó el desayuno, se retiró como los demás a la sala común, encendió la pipa-hacha, y allí estaba sentado, dirigiendo y fumando en paz, con su inseparable sombrero puesto, cuando yo zarpé a dar una vuelta. 

La calle

Si al principio me había asombrado a captar un atisbo de un individuo tan exótico como Queequeg circulando entre la refinada sociedad de una ciudad civilizada, ese asombro se disipó en seguida al dar mi primer paseo a la luz del día por las calles de New Bedford.

En vías públicas cercanas a los muelles, cualquier puerto importante ofrecerá a la vista los ejemplares de más extraño aspecto procedentes de tierras extranjeras. Incluso en Broadway y Chestnut Street, a veces hay marineros mediterráneos que dan empellones a las asustadas señoritas. Regent Street no es desconocida para los birmanos y malayos; y en Bombay, en Apollo Green, yanquis de carne y hueso han asustado muchas veces a los indígenas. Pero New Bedford supera a toda Water Street Wapping. En esos susodichos lugares sólo se ven marineros, pero en New Bedford hay auténticos caníbales charlando en las esquinas de las calles; salvajes de veras, muchos de los cuales llevan aún carne pagana sobre los huesos. A un recién llegado, le deja pasmado.

[]

Ninguna elegante de ciudad se puede comparar con uno de campo, quiero decir, con un elegante auténticamente paleto; un compadre que, en los días de la canícula, siega sus dos hectáreas con guantes de cabritilla por miedo a broncearse las manos. Ahora bien, cuando a un elegante de campo como éste se le mete en la cabeza conseguir reputación de distinguido, y se alista en las grandes pesquerías de ballenas, habríais de ver qué cosas más cómicas hace al llegar al puerto. Al encargar su indumentaria marina, pide botones de campana en los chalecos, y trabillas en sus pantalones de lona. ¡Ah, pobre retoñito, qué amargamente estallarán esas trabillas en la s primera galerna ululante, cuando seas empujado, con trabillas, bo- 'k tones y todo, por la garganta de la tempestad abajo !

Pero no creáis que esta famosa ciudad tiene sólo arponeros, caníbales y paletos para enseñar a los visitantes. Nada de eso. Con todo, New Bedford es un sitio extraño. Si no hubiera sido por nosotros los balleneros, ese trecho de tierra quizá habría seguido hasta hoy en condiciones tan salvajes como la costa de Labrador. Aun tal como está, hay partes del campo de sus alrededores que son capaces de asustarle a uno con su aspecto desolado. La propia ciudad es quizá el sitio más caro para vivir en toda New England. Ciertamente, es tierra de aceite, aunque no como Canaán; tierra, pues, de trigo y vino. Por sus calles no mana la leche, ni en primavera las pavimentan con huevos frescos. Pero, a pesar de todo, en ninguna parte de América se encontrarán más casas de aspecto patricio, parques y jardines más opulentos que en New Bedford. ¿De dónde proceden ? ¿Cómo se han plantado en esta macilenta escoria de comarca ?

Id a mirar los emblemáticos arpones de hierro que rodean aquella altiva mansión, y vuestra pregunta quedará respondida. Sí, todas esas valientes casas y floridos jardines proceden de los océanos Atlántico, Pacífico e índico. Todas y cada una, fueron arponeadas y arrastradas hasta aquí desde el fondo del mar. ¿Puede Herr Alexander realizar una hazaña como ésta ?

Dicen que en New Bedford los padres dan ballenas a sus hijas como dote, y colocan a sus sobrinas con unas pocas tortugas por cabeza. Hay que ir a New Bedford para ver una boda brillante, pues dicen que tienen depósitos de aceite en todas las casas, y a lo largo de ', todas las noches queman sin cesar velas de esperma de ballena.

En verano, es dulce de ver la ciudad, llena de hermosos arces, en largas avenidas de verde y oro. Y en agosto, elevándose en el aire, los bellos y abundantes castaños de Indias, como candelabros, ofrecen al transeúnte sus puntiagudos conos verticales de floración congregada. Tan omnipotente es el arte, que en muchos distritos de New Bedford ha superpuesto claras terraza de flores sobre los estériles residuos de roca arrojados a un lado en el día final de la Creación.

Y las mujeres de New England florecen como sus propias rosas. Pero las rosas sólo florecen en verano, mientras que la fina encarnadura de sus mejillas es perenne, como la luz del sol en los séptimos cielos. Hallar comparación en otro sitio a esa floración suya, os será imposible, si no es en Salem, donde me dicen que las muchachas exhalan tal almizcle que sus novios marineros las huelen a millas de la costa, como si se acercaran a las aromáticas Molucas y no a las arenas puritanas. 

La capilla

En la misma New Bedford se yergue una capilla de los Balleneros, y pocos son los malhumorados pescadores, con rumbo al océano índico o al Pacífico, que dejan de hacer una visita dominical a ese lugar.

Al regresar de mi primer paseo mañanero, volví a salir para ese especial destino. El cielo había cambiado de un frío soleado y claro, a niebla y aguanieve con viento. Envolviéndome en mi áspero chaquetón, del tejido llamado « piel de oso », luché por abrirme paso contra la terca tempestad. Al entrar, encontré una pequeña y desparramada feligresía de marineros y de mujeres viudas de marineros. Reinaba un silencio ahogado, sólo roto a veces por los aullidos de la tempestad. Cada silencioso adorador parecía haberse sentado a propósito aparte de los demás, como si cada dolor silencioso fuera insular e incomunicable. El capellán no había llegado todavía; y allí, aquellas calladas islas de hombres y mujeres se habían sentado mirando fijamente varias lápidas de mármol, con bordes negros, incrustadas en la pared a ambos lados del púlpito. Tres de ellas rezaban algo así como lo que sigue, aunque no pretendo citar:

CONSAGRADA 
A LA MEMORIA 
DE 
JOHN TALBOT 
Que, a la edad de dieciocho años, 
Se perdió en el mar, 
Cerca de la Isla de la Desolación, 
A la altura de Patagonia, 
El 1 de noviembre de 1836 
SU HERMANA 
Dedica a su memoria 
ESTA LAPIDA EN MEMORIA 
DE 
ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, 
NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, 
SETH MACY Y SAMUEL GLEIG, 
Que formaban la tripulación de una de las lanchas 
DEL BARCO {em>ELIZA 
Arrastrados por una ballena hasta perderse de vista 
En las pesquerías del Pacífico, 
El 31 de diciembre de 1839 
Ponen esta lápida 
Sus compañeros supervivientes. 
EN MEMORIA 
del difunto 
CAPITAN EZEKIEL HARDY, 
Que, en la proa de su lancha, 
Fue muerto por un cachalote 
En la costa del Japón, 
El 3 de agosto de 1833, 
DEDICA ESTA LAPIDA 
su recuerdo 
SU VIUDA

Sacudiéndome el aguanieve de mi sombrero y mi chaquetón helados, me senté junto a la puerta, y al volverme a un lado me sorprendió ver a Queequeg cerca de mí. Afectado por la solemnidad de la escena, en su rostro había una mirada interrogativa de curiosidad incrédula. El salvaje fue la única persona presente que pareció darse cuenta de mi entrada, porque era el único que no sabía leer, y, por lo tanto, no leía esas frígidas inscripciones de la pared. No sabía yo si entre los asistentes había ahora algún pariente de los marineros cuyos nombres aparecían allí; pero son tantos los accidentes de la pesca que no se anotan, y tan claramente llevaban varias mujeres de las presentes el rostro, si no el hábito, de algún dolor incesante, que sentí con seguridad que allí delante de mí estaban reunidos aquellos en cuyos corazones incurables la vista de aquellas desoladas lápidas hacía que sangraran por simpatía las viejas heridas.

¡Ah, vosotros, cuyos muertos yacen sepultados bajo la verde hierba; que, en medio de las flores podéis decir: aquí, aquí yace mi ser amado; vosotros no conocéis la desolación que se cobija en pechos como éstos ! ¡Qué amargos vacíos en esos mármoles bordeados de negro que no cubren cenizas ! ¡Qué mortales huecos y qué infidelidades forzosas en las líneas que parecen roer toda fe, rehusando resurrecciones a los seres que han perecido sin sitio y sin tumba ! Estas lápidas podrían estar lo mismo en la cueva del Elephanta que aquí.

¿En qué censo de criaturas se incluyen los muertos de la humanidad ? ¿Por qué dice de ellos un proverbio universal que no contarán historias, aunque contengan más secretos que las Arenas de Goodwin ? ¿Cómo es que a ese nombre que ayer partió para el otro mundo le anteponemos una palabra tan significativa y traidora y sin embargo, no le damos ese título, aunque se embarque para las remotas Indias de esta tierra de los vivos ? ¿Por qué las compañías de seguros de vida pagan indemnizaciones de muerte a cuenta de inmortales ? ¿En qué eterna e inmóvil parálisis, en qué trance mortal y sin esperanza yace todavía el antiguo Adán que murió hace sesenta siglos, en números redondos ? ¿Cómo es que todavía rehusamos consolarnos por aquellos que, sin embargo, afirmamos que residen en inefable bienaventuranza ? ¿Por qué los vivos se empeñan tanto en silenciar a los muertos, de tal modo que el rumor de un golpe en una tumba aterroriza a una ciudad entera ? Todas estas cosas no carecen de sus significados.

Pero la fe, como un chacal, se alimenta entre las tumbas, e incluso de esas dudas mortales extrae su esperanza más vital.

Apenas hace falta decir con qué sentimientos, en vísperas de mi viaje a Nantucket, consideré esas lápidas de mármol, y, a la lóbrega luz de aquel día oscurecido y lastimero, leí el destino de los balleneros que habían partido por delante de mí. Sí, Ismael, ese mismo des- k tino puede ser el tuyo. Pero, no sé cómo, volví a sentirme alegre. Deliciosos incentivos para embarcar, buenas probabilidades de ascender, al parecer: sí, un bote desfondado me hará inmortal por diploma. Sí, hay muerte en este asunto de las ballenas; el caótico y rápido embalar a un hombre sin palabras hacia la Eternidad. Pero ¿y qué ? Me parece que hemos confundido mucho esta cuestión de la Vida y la Muerte. Me parece que lo que llaman mi sombra aquí en la tierra es mi sustancia auténtica. Me parece que, al mirar las cosas espirituales, somos demasiado como ostras que observan el sol a través del agua y piensan que la densa agua es la más fina de las atmósferas. Me parece que mi cuerpo no es más que las heces de mi mejor ser. De hecho, que se lleve mi cuerpo quien quiera, que se lo lleve, digo: no es yo. Y por consiguiente, tres hurras por Nantucket, y que vengan cuando quieran el bote desfondado y el cuerpo desfondado, porque ni el propio Júpiter es capaz de desfondarme el alma. 

El púlpito

No llevaba mucho tiempo sentado cuando entró un hombre de una peculiar robustez venerable: inmediatamente, en cuanto la puerta golpeada por la tempestad volvió a cerrarse tras su paso, el modo vivo y respetuoso como le miró la feligresía atestiguó suficientemente que aquel noble anciano era el capellán. Sí, era el famoso Padre Mapple, llamado así por los balleneros, entre los cuales era muy popular. Había sido marinero y arponero en su juventud, pero desde hacía ya muchos años dedicaba su vida al ministerio religioso. En la época de que ahora escribo, el Padre Mapple estaba en el duro invierno de una sana vejez; esa clase de vejez que parece fundirse en una segunda juventud florida, pues entre las hendiduras de sus arrugas, lucían ciertos suaves fulgores de una floración de nuevo desarrollada; el verdor de primavera asomando incluso bajo la nieve de febrero. Nadie que con anterioridad hubiera conocido su historia podía observar por primera vez al Padre Mapple sin el mayor interés, porque había en él ciertas peculiaridades injertadas en lo clerical, atribuibles a la vida de aventuras marítimas que había llevado. Cuando entró, observé que no llevaba paraguas, y ciertamente, no había venido en coche, pues su sombrero de lona alquitranada chorreaba aguanieve fundida, y su gran chaquetón de piloto parecía casi arrastrarle al suelo con el peso del agua que había absorbido. Sin embargo, sombrero, chaquetón y chanclos fueron extraídos uno tras otro, y colgados en un pequeño espacio de un rincón adyacente: entonces, revestido de modo decente, se acercó silenciosamente al púlpito.

Como muchos púlpitos a la antigua usanza, era muy alto, y, puesto que unas escaleras normales hasta tal altura menguarían seriamente el terreno ya pequeño de la capilla, por su amplio ángulo en el suelo, parecía que el arquitecto había obrado bajo sugestión del Padre Mapple, terminando el púlpito sin escalera y sustituyéndolas por una escalera vertical a un lado, como las escalas de gato que se usan en el mar para subir de un bote a un barco. La esposa de un capitán ballenero había provisto la capilla de un bonito par de guardamancebos de estambre rojo para la escala de gato, que, teniendo por sí una bonita cabecera, y teñida de color caoba, hacía que todo el dispositivo no pareciera de ningún modo de mal gusto, si se tiene en cuenta la clase de capilla que era. Deteniéndose un instante al pie de la escala de gato y agarrando con ambas manos los nudos ornamentales de los guardamancebos, el Padre Mapple lanzó una mirada a lo alto, y luego, con una destreza verdaderamente marinera, pero reveréncial, sin embargo, subió, mano tras mano los flechastes como si ascendiera a la cofa mayor de su navío.

Las partes perpendiculares de esta escala de gato lateral, como suele ser el caso en las suspendidas, eran de jarcia cubierta de tela, sólo que los flechastes eran de madera, así que en cada peldaño había una articulación. Al echar mi primera ojeada al púlpito no me había pasado por alto que, por más que fueran convenientes para un barco, esas articulaciones parecían superfluas en el caso presente. Pues no estaba preparado para ver al Padre Mapple, después de ganar la altura, dar media vuelta lentamente, e inclinándose sobre e1 púlpito, retirar hacia arriba cuidadosamente la escalerilla, flechaste tras flechaste, hasta que toda ella estuvo depositada dentro, dejándole inexpugnable en su pequeña Quebec.

Cavilé un rato sin comprender del todo la razón de esto. El Padre Mapple disfrutaba de tan amplia reputación de sinceridad y santidad, que no podía sospechar que persiguiera la notoriedad por ningún simple truco de escenografía. No, pensé; debe haber alguna razón sensata para esto; además, debe simbolizar algo invisible. ¿Podrá ser entonces que por ese acto de aislamiento físico simboliza su retirada espiritual desde el tiempo, desde todas las ataduras y conexiones externas de este mundo ? Sí, pues reconfortado con la carne y el vino de la Palabra, para este fiel hombre de Dios, el púlpito, como veo, es una fortaleza de autocontención; una altanera Ehrenbreitstein, con una perenne fuente de agua entre sus muros.

Pero la escala de gato no era en aquel lugar el único rasgo extraño tomado de las anteriores navegaciones del capellán. Entre los cenotafios de mármol a ambos lados del púlpito, la pared que le daba respaldo estaba adornada con una amplia pintura representando un valiente navío en lucha con una terrible tempestad a lo largo de una costa a sotavento, toda rocas negras y níveas rompientes. Pero arriba, por encima de la turbonada volante y las oscuras nubes fugitivas, flotaba una pequeña isla de luz del sol, desde la cual irradiaba un rostro de ángel; y ese claro rostro lanzaba una visible mancha de radiosidad sobre la desarbolada cubierta del barco, algo así como aquella placa de plata que ahora está inserta entre las tablas del Victory donde cayó Nelson. « Ah, noble navío -parecía decir el ángel-: sigue luchando, sigue luchando, oh, tú, noble navío, y mantén firme el gobernalle; pues, ¡mira !, el sol irrumpe, y las nubes se disipan: está cerca el más sereno azur. »

Tampoco el propio púlpito carecía de huellas de ese mismo gusto marinero que había dado lugar a la escala de gato y la pintura. Su frontal con paneles era a semejanza de un buque de proa muy llena, y la Santa Biblia descansaba en una pieza prominente en voluta, configurada como el pico de una proa, en forma de cabeza de violín.

¿Podía haber algo más lleno de significado ? Pues el púlpito es siempre la parte más a proa de la tierra, y todo lo demás queda atrás; el púlpito precede al mundo. Desde allí, se da el primer grito de alarma ante la tormenta de la rápida ira de Dios, y la proa debe aguantar el primer envite. Desde allí se invoca por primera vez al Dios de las brisas buenas o malas para que dé vientos favorables. Sí, el mundo es un barco en su viaje de ida, y es un viaje sin vuelta, y el púlpito es su proa. 

El sermón

El Padre Mapple se irguió, y con suave voz de autoridad sin arrogancia, ordenó a la gente dispersa que se apretara: -¡Trozo de estribor, allí ! ¡Fuera de babor ! ¡Trozo de babor, a estribor ! ¡A crujía, a crujía !

Hubo un sordo ruido de pesadas botas marinas entre los bancos, y un roce más ligero de zapatos de mujer, y todo volvió a quedar en silencio, y todas las miradas en el predicador.

El se detuvo un momento; luego, arrodillándose en la proa del púlpito, plegó sus grandes manos morenas sobre el pecho, levantó los ojos cerrados, y ofreció una oración tan hondamente devota que parecía estar arrodillado y rezando en el fondo del mar.

Acabado esto, con prolongados tonos solemnes, como el continuo doblar de una campana en un barco que se hunde en alta mar en la niebla, comenzó a leer así el siguiente himno, pero, hacia las estrofas finales, cambió de acento e interrumpió en una repiqueteante exultación gozosa:

Las costillas de horror de la ballena 
alzaban sobre mí su arco funesto; 
la ola de Dios, con claro sol, pasaba 
me llevaba a lo hondo, a ser juzgado. 
Vi abrirse las quijadas del infierno, 
con penas y dolores que no acaban; 
sólo puede contarlo quien lo sufre: 
oh, en desesperación me sumergía. 
Entre el espanto negro, clamé a Dios, 
al que apenas podía creer mío; 
él inclinó su oído a mis querellas, 
la enorme ballena me soltó. 
En mi auxilio voló deprisa, como 
cabalgando en un fúlgido delfín; 
claro y terrible igual que los relámpagos 
embrilló el rostro de Dios mí salvador. 
Mi canto para siempre contará [br>esa hora de miedo y de alegría; [br>yo doy toda la gloria a mi Señor; [br>suya es toda la gracia y el poder.

Casi todos se unieron al himno, que creció y subió por encima del aullar de la tormenta. Sucedió una breve pausa; el predicador pasó lentamente las hojas de la Biblia, y por fin, plegando la mano sobre la página buscada, dijo: -Amados compañeros de tripulación, remachemos el último versículo del capítulo primero de Jonás... « Y Dios había preparado un gran pez para que se tragara a Jonás. »

»Compañeros, este libro, que contiene sólo cuatro capítulos -cuatro filásticas-; es uno de los cordones más pequeños en el poderoso cable de las Escrituras. Y sin embargo ¡qué profundidades del alma sondea el profundo escandallo de Jonás ! ¡Qué lección más fecunda es para nosotros este profeta ! ¡Qué cosa más noble es ese cántico en el vientre del pez ! ¡Qué grandiosidad y qué estruendo de ola ! Sentimos el flujo que nos cubre, lo sondeamos hasta el fondo algoso de las aguas; nos rodean las algas y la broza marina. Pero ¿qué es esa lección que enseña el libro de Jonás ? Compañeros, esta lección es un cabo de dos cordones; una lección para todos nosotros como hombres pecadores, y una lección para mí como piloto del Dios vivo. Como hombres pecadores, es una lección para todos, porque es un relato del pecado, de la dureza del corazón, de los terrores repentinos, del rápido castigo, el arrepentimiento, las oraciones y finalmente la liberación gozosa de Jonás. Como pasa con todos los pecadores de este mundo, el pecado de este hijo de Amittai estuvo en su deliberada desobediencia al mandato de Dios -no importa ahora cuál fuera ese mandato, ni cómo se lo transmitiera-, que él encontró duro mandato. Pero todas las cosas que Dios quiere que hagamos nos resultan duras de hacer -recordadlo- y, por tanto, más a menudo nos manda que intenta persuadirnos. Y si obedecemos a Dios, debemos desobedecernos a nosotros mismos, y en este desobedecernos a nosotros mismos consiste la dureza de obedecer a Dios.

»Con este pecado de desobediencia en él, Jonás sigue ofendiendo aún a Dios, al tratar de huir de El. Cree que un barco hecho por hombres le va a llevar a países donde no reine Dios, sino sólo los Capitanes de este mundo. Merodea por los muelles de Joppe, y busca un barco rumbo a Tarsis. Aquí nos acecha, quizás, un significado que hasta ahora no se ha advertido. Según toda explicación, Tarsis no podía ser otra ciudad que la moderna Cádiz. Esa es la opinión de los doctos. ¿Y dónde está Cádiz, compañeros ? Cádiz está en España; a tanta distancia por mar, desde Joppe, como podía haber navegado Jonás en aquellos días antiguos, cuando el Atlántico era un mar casi desconocido. Porque Joppe, la moderna Jaffa, compañeros, está en la costa más oriental del Mediterráneo, en la costa siria; y Tarsis o Cádiz, a más de dos mil millas de allí, en la misma salida del Estrecho de Gibraltar. ¿No veis, pues, compañeros, que Jonás trataba de huir de Dios a todo lo ancho del mundo ? ¡Hombre miserable ! ¡Oh, el más vergonzoso digno de todo desprecio; con sombrero gacho mirada culpable, escapándose de su Dios; rondando entre las embarcaciones como un vil ladrón que tiene prisa de cruzar los mares ! Tan desordenado e inquietante es su aspecto, que si en aquellos días hubiera habido policía, Jonás, sólo por la sospecha de algo malo, habría sido detenido antes de tocar cubierta. ¡Qué claramente es un fugitivo ! Sin equipaje ni sombrerera ni maleta ni saco de lona; sin amigos que le acompañen hasta el muelle para despedirle. Al fin, después de mucho buscar vacilando, encuentra la nave para Tarsis, que recibe lo último de su cargamento; y al subir a bordo para ver al capitán de la cabina, todos los marineros dejan un momento de izar las mercancías para observar las perversas miradas del desconocido. Jonás lo ve, en vano trata de tener aspecto de tranquilidad confianza; en vano ensaya su miserable sonrisa. Fuertes intuiciones sobre ese hombre aseguran a los marineros que no puede ser inocente. A su manera, juguetona, pero seria, uno susurra al otro: "Jack, ha robado a una viuda', o: "Joe, fíjate en ése; es un bígamo", o: "Harry, muchacho, me parece que es el adúltero que se escapó de la cárcel en la vieja Gomorra, o uno de los asesinos desaparecidos de Sodomá'. Otro corre a leer el cartel pegado a la empalizada del muelle en que está amarrado el barco, ofreciendo quinientas monedas de oro por la captura de un parricida, y conteniendo la descripción de su persona. Lo lee, y mira a Jonás después de leer el cartel, mientras que todos sus comprensivos compañeros se agolpan ya en torno a Jonás, preparados a echarle una mano. Jonás, asustado, tiembla, y, reuniendo en la cara toda su valentía, no hace sino tener más aspecto de cobarde. No quiere confesar que se sospecha de él; pero eso mismo ya es muy sospechoso. Así que se las arregla como puede, y, cuando los marineros encuentran que no es el hombre que se anuncia, le dejan pasar, y él baja a la cabina.

»"-¿Quién va ? -exclamó el capitán, en su mesa atareada, preparando apresuradamente sus papeles para la Aduana-: ¿Quién va ?" ¡Ah, cómo destroza a Jonás esa inofensiva pregunta ! Por un momento, casi se vuelve para escapar otra vez. Pero se domina. "Quiero un pasaje para Tarsis en este barco; ¿cuándo zarpa ?" Hasta entonces, el afanado capitán no había levantado los ojos hacia Jonás, aunque lo tiene delante; pero en cuanto oye su hueca voz, dispara una mirada de escrutinio. "Zarparemos con la próxima marea", contesta por fin con lentitud, sin dejar de mirarle atentamente. "¿Antes no ?" "Ya es bastante pronto para cualquier hombre honrado que vaya como pasajero." ¡Ah, Jonás ! Ahí tienes otra punzada. Pero rápidamente hace que el capitán se aparte de esa pista. "Zarparé con usted -dice-. ¿Cuánto cuesta el pasaje ? Pagaré ahora." Pues estaba escrito precisamente, compañeros, como si fuera una cosa para no pasarlo por alto en esta historia, "que pagó su pasaje" antes que la nave se hiciera a la vela. Y tomándolo con el contexto, esto está lleno de significado.

»Ahora bien, compañeros, el capitán de Jonás era uno de esos cuyo discernimiento descubre el delito en cualquiera, pero cuya codicia lo denuncia sólo en los pobres. En este mundo, compañeros, el Pecado, si paga el viaje, puede ir libremente, y sin pasaporte, mientras que la Virtud, si es pobre, es detenida en todas las fronteras. Así que el capitán de Jonás se prepara a poner a prueba su bolsa, antes de juzgarle abiertamente. Le cobra tres veces más de lo acostumbrado, y él lo acepta también. Entonces el capitán sabe que Jonás es un fugitivo, pero al mismo tiempo decide ayudar una huida que cubre de oro su retaguardia. Sin embargo, cuando Jonás saca la bolsa tranquilamente, prudentes sospechas molestan todavía al capitán. Hace sonar cada moneda para encontrar si hay alguna falsa. No es un falsificador, en todo caso, murmura; y Jonás queda acomodado para el viaje. "Señáleme mi camarote, capitán -dice entonces Jonás-: Estoy cansado de viajar y necesito dormir." "Tienes cara de ello -dice el capitán-: aquí está el sitio." Jonás entra y querría encerrarse, pero la puerta no tiene llave. Al oírle que palpa aturdido allí, el capitán se ríe en voz baja para sí, y murmura algo de que las puertas de las celdas de los prisioneros no se permite nunca que se cierren por dentro. Vestido polvoriento como está, Jonás se echa en la cama, encuentra que el techo del pequeño camarote casi descansa en su frente. El aire está denso, y Jonás jadea. Luego, en ese oprimido agujero, hundido además por debajo de la línea de flotación, Jonás siente como un heraldo el presentimiento de la hora sofocante en que la ballena le encerrará en la más pequeña de las divisiones de sus tripas.

»Atornillada en su eje contra la pared, una lámpara balanceante oscila levemente en el camarote de Jonás, y el barco, escorándose hacia el muelle por el peso de los últimos fardos recibidos, y la lámpara, con su llama y todo, siguen manteniendo una oblicuidad permanente respecto al camarote; aunque, en verdad, infaliblemente derecha, la propia lámpara no hace sino evidenciar los falsos niveles embusteros entre los que se encuentra. La lámpara alarma y asusta a Jonás; tendido en su litera, sus ojos atormentados dan vueltas al sitio, y este fugitivo hasta ahora con éxito, no encuentra refugio para su mirada inquieta. Pero esa contradicción en la lámpara cada vez le espanta más. El suelo, el techo y las paredes están todos ladeados. "¡Ah, así pende en mí mi conciencia ! -gruñe-; vertical, ardiendo así; ¡pero los cuartos de mi alma están todos torcidos !"

»Como uno que después de una noche de borrachera se apresura a la cama, pero con la conciencia aún remordiéndole, del mismo modo que los saltos de los caballos de carreras romanos no hacían sino clavarles cada vez más los salientes de acero; como uno que en esa miserable situación da vueltas y vueltas en aturdida angustia, rogando a Dios que le aniquile, hasta que se le pasa el acceso, y por fin, en medio del torbellino de dolor que siente, le envuelve un profundo estupor; como al hombre que muere desangrado, pues la conciencia es la herida y no hay nada que la restañe; así, tras dolorosos retorcimientos en la litera, el prodigioso peso de miseria de Jonás le arrastra a ahogarse en sueño.

»Y ahora llega el momento de la marea; el barco suelta amarras; y desde el abandonado muelle, el barco para Tarsis, sin gritos de despedida, carenado todo él, se desliza hacia el mar. Ese barco, amigos míos, fue el primer barco contrabandista que se registra: el contrabando era Jonás. Pero el mar se rebela: no quiere sostener la carga maldita. Se acerca una terrible tempestad, y el barco está a punto de deshacerse. Pero entonces, cuando el contramaestre llama a toda la tripulación a descargar; cuando cajas, fardos y tinajas salen con estrépito por la borda; cuando el viento aúlla, los hombres gritan, todas las tablas truenan de pies que corren por encima de la cabeza de Jonás; entre todo ese enfurecido tumulto, Jonás duerme su horrible sueño. No ve el cielo negro y el mar encolerizado, no nota las tablas agitadas, y bien poco escucha ni atiende al lejano rumor de la poderosa ballena, que ya, con la boca abierta, surca el mar persiguiéndole. Sí, compañeros, Jonás había bajado a lo hondo del barco, a una litera en su cabina, como digo, y estaba completamente dormido. Pero se le acerca el dueño, espantado, y aúlla en sus muertos oídos: "¿Qué haces durmiendo ? ¡Despierta !". Saliendo sobresaltado de su letargo con ese fatídico grito, Jonás se pone de pie tambaleándose, y saliendo con tropezones a la cubierta, se agarra a un obenque para ver al mar. Pero en ese momento salta sobre él como una pantera una ola que salva la amurada. Olas tras olas entran así en el barco, y al no encontrar rápido desagüe, rugen de proa a popa, hasta que todos los marineros están a punto de ahogarse todavía a flote. Y Siempre, mientras la blanca luna asoma su cara espantada por los abruptos barrancos de la negrura de arriba, Jonás, horrorizado, ve el bauprés alzándose a señalar a lo alto, pero luego volviendo a bajar hacia la atormentada profundidad.

»Terrores y terrores corren gritando por su alma. En todas sus actitudes pavorosas, el fugitivo de Dios queda ahora demasiado en evidencia. Los marineros le señalan; sus sospechas sobre él se hacen cada vez más ciertas, por fin, para dar plena prueba de la verdad re mitiendo todo el asunto a los altos Cielos, se ponen a echar a suertes, para ver de quién es la culpa de que tengan encima la gran tempestad. Le toca a Jonás; descubierto esto, le abruman furiosamente con sus preguntas. "¿Cuál es tu ocupación ? ¿De dónde vienes ? ¿De qué país ? ¿De qué gente ?" Pero observad ahora, compañeros, la conducta del pobre Jonás. Los afanosos marineros únicamente le preguntan quién es y de dónde viene, pero no sólo reciben respuesta a esas preguntas, sino asimismo otra respuesta a una pregunta que no han hecho ellos; esa respuesta no pedida se la saca a Jonás por fuerza la dura mano de Dios que está encima de él.

»"Soy hebreo --exclama, y luego-: Temo al Señor, Dios del Cielo que ha hecho el mar y la tierra firme." ¿Temerle, Jonás ? Sí, ¡bien podías entonces temer al señor Dios ! Derechamente, pasa entonces a hacer una confesión completa, con lo cual los marineros quedan cada vez más horrorizados, aunque todavía tienen compasión. Pues cuando Jonás -no suplicando todavía la misericordia de Dios, porque conocía de sobra la oscuridad de sus desiertos-, cuando el miserable Jonás le grita que se le lleven y le tiren al agua; pues sabe que la gran tempestad estaba encima de ellos por culpa suya, ellos, compasivamente, se apartan de él y tratan de salvar el barco por otros medios. Pero todo en vano; la furiosa galerna aúlla más fuerte; y entonces, con una mano elevada en invocación a Dios, echan la otra mano a Jonás, no sin reluctancia, para apoderarse de él.

»Y ahora ved a Jonás izado como un ancla y dejado caer en el mar; entonces, al momento, una calma de aceite cubre la superficie desde el este, y el mar queda tranquilo, mientras Jonás se lleva consigo la tempestad, dejando atrás aguas plácidas. Desciende al corazón arremolinado de una agitación tan incontenible que apenas se da cuenta del momento en que cae bullendo en las mandíbulas bostezantes que le aguardan; y la ballena dispara todos sus dientes marfileños, como otros tantos cerrojos, sobre su prisión. Entonces Jonás rezó al Señor desde el vientre del pez. Pero observad su oración y aprended una importante lección. Pues, pecador como es, Jonás no llora y gime por la liberación directa. Siente que ese terrible castigo es justo. Deja a Dios toda su liberación, contentándose con esto, con que a pesar de todos sus dolores y penas, todavía seguirá mirando hacia Su Sagrado Templo. Y aquí, compañeros, está el arrepentimiento sincero y verdadero; sin clamar por el perdón, sino agradeciendo el castigo. Y cuánto agradó al Señor esta conducta de Jonás, se muestra en su liberación final, del mar y de la ballena. Compañeros, no pongo a Jonás ante vosotros para que le copiéis en su pecado, sino que le pongo ante vosotros como modelo de arrepentimiento. No pequéis, pero, si lo hacéis cuidad de arrepentiros de ello como Jonás. »

Mientras él decía estas palabras, afuera, el aullido de la tempestad rugiente en quiebros parecía añadir nueva fuerza al predicador, que, al describir la tormenta marina de Jonás, se hubiera dicho agitado él mismo por una tormenta. Su hondo pecho se hinchaba como con mar de fondo; sus brazos agitados parecían los elementos en guerra actuando; y los truenos que salían rodando a la altura de su atezada frente, y la luz que se disparaba de sus ojos, hacían que todos sus sencillos oyentes le miraran con un vivo espanto que les era desconocido.

Apareció entonces una calma en su aspecto, al volverse en silencio una vez más sobre las hojas del Libro; y por fin, irguiéndose inmóvil, con los ojos cerrados, pareció por el momento que comulgaba con Dios y consigo mismo.

Pero de nuevo se inclinó hacia el pueblo, y agachando profundamente la cabeza, con el aspecto de la humildad más profunda, pero más viril, dijo así:

-Compañeros, Dios no ha puesto sobre vosotros más que una mano: a mí me aprieta con las dos. Os he leído, con las pobres luces que puedo tener, qué lección enseña Jonás a todos los pecadores; y por tanto, a vosotros, y aún más a mí, pues soy mayor pecador que vosotros. Y ahora ¡con qué alegría bajaría de esta cofa y me sentaría en las escotillas donde os sentáis, y escucharía como escucháis, mientras alguno de vosotros me leyera esa otra más terrible lección que Jonás me enseña a mí, como piloto del Dios vivo. Cómo, siendo un piloto-profeta ungido, un proclamador de verdades, y mandado por el Señor a que hiciera sonar esas ingratas verdades en los oídos de la corrompida Nínive, Jonás, aterrado ante la hostilidad que iba a provocar, huyó de su misión, ¡y trató de escapar a su deber y a su Dios tomando una nave en Joppe ! Pero Dios está en todas partes; jamás alcanzó Tarsis. Como hemos visto, Dios vino sobre é en la ballena, y se le tragó bajándole a abismos vivos de condenación, y con veloces quiebros le llevó « al centro de los mares », donde las profundidades arremolinadas le absorbieron hasta diez mil braza; de hondo, y « las algas estaban enredadas en torno a su cabeza », y todo el mundo acuático de la aflicción rodó sobre él. Pero aun entonces, más allá del alcance de ninguna sonda -« desde el vientre del infierno »-, cuando la ballena se posó en los últimos huesos del océano, aun entonces, Dios oyó al profeta sumergido y arrepentido cuando clamó. Entonces Dios habló al pez; y desde el estremecido frío y la negrura del mar, la ballena subió coleando hacia el sol caliente grato, hacia todos los deleites del aire la tierra; « vomitó a Jonás en tierra firme »; y entonces la palabra del Señor vino por segunda vez, Jonás, herido magullado -con los oídos, como dos caracolas, todavía murmurándole el tumulto del océano-, hizo lo que le mandaba el Todopoderoso. ¿Y qué era ello, compañeros ? ¡Predicar la Verdad frente a la Falsedad ! ¡Eso era !

»Esta, compañeros, es la otra lección; y ¡ay de aquel piloto del Dios vivo que la desprecie ! ¡Ay de aquel a quien el mundo con sus encantos le aparte del deber evangélico ! ¡Ay de aquel que trate de echar aceite en las aguas cuando Dios las ha hecho hervir en una galerna ! ¡Ay de aquel que trate más de agradar que de horrorizar ! ¡Ay de aquel que, en este mundo, no pretenda deshonor ! ¡Ay de aquel que no sea sincero cuando ser falso sea la salvación ! ¡Sí, ay de aquel que, como dijo el gran Piloto Pablo, mientras predica a los demás es él mismo un réprobo !

Se desplomó y se hundió en sí mismo por un momento; luego, volviendo a alzar la cara hacia ellos, mostró en sus ojos un gozo profundo, y exclamó con entusiasmo celeste: - Pero ¡oh, compañeros !, a estribor de toda aflicción, hay un gozo seguro; y la cofa de ese gozo es más alta de lo que es de profundo el fondo de la aflicción. La altura de la perilla, ¿no es mayor que la profundidad de la sobrequilla ? El gozo -un gozo muy alto, muy alto y muy entrañable- es para aquel que, frente a los orgullosos dioses y comodoros de esta tierra, siempre mantiene su propia persona inexorable. El gozo es para aquel cuyos recios brazos todavía le sostienen cuando el navío de este vil y traidor mundo se ha hundido bajo sus pies. El gozo es para aquel que no da cuartel en la verdad, y mata, quema y destruye todo pecado, aunque tenga que sacarlo de debajo de las togas de senadores y jueces. El gozo, gozo hasta el tope del mástil, es para aquel que no reconoce ley ni señor sino al Señor su Dios, y que sólo es patriota del Cielo. El gozo es para aquel a quien todas las olas de los mares de la multitud estrepitosa jamás pueden arrancar de su segura Quilla de las Edades. Y tendrá eterno gozo y delicia aquel que cuando repose pueda decir con su, último aliento: « ¡Oh, Padre ! a quien reconozco sobre todo, por tu vara; mortal o inmortal, aquí muero. Me he esforzado por ser tuyo, más que por ser de este mundo, o por ser mío. Pero eso no es nada, te dejo a ti la eternidad; pues ¿qué es el hombre para que viva toda la edad de Dios ? ».

No dijo más, sino que, lanzando lentamente una bendición, se cubrió la cara con las manos, y permaneció así arrodillado, hasta que todos se hubieron marchado y él quedó solo en aquel sitio. 

Un amigo entrañable

Volviendo de la capilla a la Posada del Chorro, encontré allí a Queequeg completamente solo, pues había dejado la capilla un rato antes de la bendición. Estaba sentado en un banco junto al fuego, con los pies en el hogar de la estufa, y con una mano se había acercado mucho a la cara su idolillo negro, mirándole fijamente la cara, y afilándole la nariz suavemente con una navaja de muelles, mientras canturreaba al mismo tiempo a su manera pagana.

Pero al ser entonces interrumpido, dejó la imagen, y muy pronto, acercándose a la mesa, tomó un gran libro que había allí, y colocándolo en el regazo, empezó a contar las páginas con deliberada regularidad; a cada cincuenta páginas -me pareció- se detenía un momento, mirando con aire vacío a su alrededor y lanzando un silbido de asombro, largamente sostenido y gorjeante. Luego volvía a empezar con las cincuenta siguientes, pareciendo empezar por el número uno cada vez, como si no supiera contar más de cincuenta, y como si el encontrar juntas tal número de cincuentenas le produjese su asombro por la muchedumbre de páginas.

Yo me senté a mirarle con mucho interés. Aun siendo salvaje, y tan horriblemente deformado en la cara -al menos para mi gusto-, su rostro, sin embargo, tenía algo que no era en absoluto desagradable. No se puede ocultar el alma. A través de todos sus fantasmagóricos tatuajes, yo creía ver las huellas de un corazón sencillo y honrado; en sus grandes ojos profundos, ferozmente negros valientes, parecía haber muestras de un espíritu que se atrevería contra mil diablos. Y además de todo eso, había en ese pagano cierto aire altanero que no malograba siquiera su torpeza. Tenía aspecto de hombre que nunca se ha rebajado y nunca ha tenido un acreedor. No me atreveré a decidir si también era por el hecho de que, por tener afeitada la cabeza, la frente resaltaba con relieve más libre claro parecía más amplia que de otro modo: lo cierto es que su cabeza era excelente desde el punto de vista frenológico. Quizá parecerá ridículo, pero me recordaba la cabeza del general Washington, tal como se ve en esos bustos populares suyos. Tenía el mismo largo declive, retirándose en grados regulares desde encima de las cejas, que eran asimismo muy prominentes, como dos amplios promontorios con espesa vegetación por encima. Queequeg era George Washington desarrollado a lo caníbal.

Mientras yo le examinaba con tal atención, medio fingiendo mientras tanto que miraba la tormenta por la ventana, él jamás hizo caso de mi presencia, y jamás se molestó en lanzarme una sola mirada, sino que pareció totalmente ocupado en contar las páginas del maravilloso libro. Considerando de qué modo tan sociable habíamos dormido juntos la noche anterior, y, sobre todo, considerando el afectuoso brazo que yo había encontrado echado sobre mí al despertar por la mañana, me pareció muy extraña esa indiferencia. Pero los salvajes son seres extraños: a veces uno no sabe exactamente cómo tomarlos. Al principio, imponen respeto: su tranquilo dominio, concentrado y sencillo, parece una sabiduría socrática. Yo había notado también que Queequeg no se trataba en absoluto, o muy poco, con los otros marineros de la posada. No hacía ningún intento: parecía no tener deseos de ampliar el círculo de sus conocimientos. Todo esto me chocó como muy singular, pero, pensándolo mejor, había algo casi sublime en ello. Allí estaba un hombre, a unas veinte mil millas de su patria, esto es, por la ruta del cabo de Hornos -que era el único modo de poder llegar allí-, lanzado entre gente tan extraña para él como si estuviera en el planeta Júpiter; y sin embargo parecía enteramente a su gusto, conservando la mayor serenidad, contento con su propia compañía, y siempre a la altura de sí mismo. Seguramente esto era un toque de buena filosofía, aunque sin duda él jamás había oído que existiera semejante cosa. Pero quizá para ser verdaderos filósofos, los mortales no habríamos de ser conscientes de vivir y esforzarnos de esta manera. Tan pronto como oigo que este o aquel hombre se presenta como filósofo, concluyo que, como a la vieja dispéptica, se le debe haber « roto alguna tripa ».

Al sentarme allí en aquel cuarto entonces solo, con el fuego ardiendo lentamente, en esa fase suave en que, después que su primera intensidad ha calentado el aire, sólo refulge para que se le mire; con las sombras y fantasmas del atardecer congregándose en torno a los huecos de las ventanas y observándonos fijamente a nosotros, la silenciosa pareja solitaria, mientras la tormenta mugía fuera en solemnes crecidas, yo empecé a percibir extrañas sensaciones. Sentía en mí algo que se fundía. Mi corazón astillado y mi mano enloquecida ya no se volvían contra este mundo de lobos. Este salvaje suavizador lo había redimido. Allí estaba sentado, con su misma indiferencia proclamando una. naturaleza en que no acechaban hipocresías civilizadas ni blandos engaños. Sí que era salvaje: un auténtico espectáculo para verle, y sin embargo empecé a sentirme misteriosamente atraído hacia él. Y las mismas cosas que habrían repelido a casi todos los demás, eran los imanes que así me atraían. « Probaré con un amigo pagano -pensé-, puesto que la amabilidad cristiana se ha demostrado sólo hueca cortesía. » Acerqué a él mi banco, e hice algunas señales e indicaciones amistosas, esforzándome lo posible para hablar con él mientras tanto. Al principio, notó muy poco esos intentos, pero al fin, al aludir yo a la hospitalidad de la última noche, se decidió a preguntarme si íbamos a volver a ser compañeros de cama. Le dije que sí, ante lo cual me pareció que ponía cara de contento, quizá sintiéndose un poco cumplimentado.

Luego volvimos juntos al libro, y yo intenté exponerle la utilidad de la letra impresa y el significado de las pocas imágenes que había en él. Así capté pronto su interés; y de ahí pasamos a charlar lo mejor que pudimos sobre otras diversas vistas que se podían observar en esa famosa ciudad. Pronto propuse fumar en compañía; y él, sacando la bolsa y el hacha india, me ofreció silenciosamente una bocanada. Y entonces nos pusimos a intercambiar bocanadas de aquella extraña pipa suya, sin dejar de pasarla regularmente de uno a otro.

Si todavía quedaba algún hielo de indiferencia hacia mí en el pecho del pagano, con grata fumada pronto lo derretimos, y quedamos como compadres. Pareció aceptarme de modo tan natural y espontáneo como yo a él, y cuando acabamos de fumar, apretó la frente contra la mía, me abrazó por la cintura, y dijo que desde entonces estábamos casados, queriendo decir, con esa frase de su país, que éramos amigos entrañables, y que moriría alegremente por mí si hiciera falta. En un compatriota, esa súbita llamarada de amistad hubiera resultado demasiado prematura, pero esas viejas reglas no se pueden aplicar a tan simple salvaje.

Después de cenar, de charlar fumar otra vez en compañía, nos fuimos juntos a nuestro cuarto. Me regaló su cabeza embalsamada; sacó su enorme bolsa de tabaco, y, escarbando debajo de él, extrajo unos treinta dólares en plata; luego, esparciéndolos por la mesa, y dividiéndolos en dos porciones iguales, empujó una parte hacia mí, y dijo que era mía. Yo iba a protestar, pero él me hizo callar vertiéndola en los bolsillos de mis pantalones. Yo lo dejé estar. Luego empezó sus oraciones, sacó el ídolo y quitó la pantalla de papel. Por ciertos signos, creí que parecía empeñado en que yo me uniera a él pero sabiendo muy bien lo que iba a venir luego, deliberé un momento si, en caso de que me invitara, obedecería o no.

Yo era un buen cristiano, nacido y criado en el seno de la infalible Iglesia presbiteriana. ¿Cómo, entonces, me podía unir a este salvaje idólatra en la adoración de este trozo de madera ? « Pero ¿qué es adoración ? -pensé-. ¿Vas ahora a suponer, Ismael, que el magnánimo Dios del cielo y la tierra -incluidos todos los paganos- puede estar celoso de un insignificante trozo de madera negra ? ¡Imposible ! Pero ¿qué es adoración ? ¿Hacer la voluntad de Dios ? Eso es adoración. ¿Y cuál es la voluntad de Dios ? Hacer con mi prójimo lo que yo quisiera que mi prójimo hiciera conmigo: ésa es la voluntad de Dios. Ahora, Queequeg es mi prójimo. Y ¿qué deseo yo que Queequeg haga conmigo ? Pues unirse a mí en mi particular forma presbiteriana de adoración. En consecuencia, debo unirme a él en la suya: ergo, debo volverme idólatra. » De modo que encendí las virutas, ayudé a enderezar el inocente idolillo, le ofrecí galleta quemada con Queequeg, hice dos o tres zalemas ante él, le besé la nariz, y hecho esto, nos desnudamos y acostamos en paz con nuestras propias conciencias y con todo el mundo. Pero no nos dormimos sin un poco de conversación.

No sé cómo es eso, pero no hay sitio como una cama para las comunicaciones confidenciales entre amigos. Marido y mujer, según dicen, se abren allí mutuamente el fondo de las almas, y algunos matrimonios viejos muchas veces se tienden a charlar sobre los tiempos viejos hasta que casi amanece. Así, pues, en nuestra luna de miel de corazones, yacíamos o y Queequeg -pareja a gusto cariñosa. 

Camisón de dormir

Así habíamos estado tumbados en la cama, charlando y dormitando a breves intervalos, y Queequeg, de vez en cuando, echándome afectuosamente sus oscuras piernas tatuadas sobre las mías, y retirándolas luego, de tan absolutamente sociables, libres y cómodos como estábamos, cuando, por fin, a causa de nuestros conciliábulos, nos abandonó por completo el escaso sopor que quedaba en nosotros y tuvimos gana de levantarnos otra vez aunque el romper del día todavía estaba a cierto trecho por el futuro adelante.

Sí, nos pusimos muy despejados, tanto que nuestra posición reclinada empezó a hacerse fatigosa, y poco a poco nos encontramos sentados en la cama, con las mantas bien remetidas alrededor, apoyados contra la cabecera, con las cuatro rodillas encogidas juntas, las dos narices inclinadas sobre ellas, como si nuestras rótulas fueran unos calentadores. Nos encontrábamos muy cómodos y a gusto, sobre todo porque fuera hacía tanto frío, incluso, fuera de las mantas, dado que no había fuego en el cuarto. Mas por eso, digo, porque para disfrutar verdaderamente del calor corporal, debe haber alguna pequeña parte nuestra que esté fría, pues no hay cualidad en este mundo que no sea lo que es por mero contraste. Nada existe en sí mismo. Si nos lisonjeamos de que estamos a gusto por entero, y llevamos así mucho tiempo, entonces no podemos decir que estemos ya a gusto. Pero si, como Queequeg y yo en la cama, tenemos la punta de la nariz o la coronilla ligeramente aterida, en fin, entonces claro está que en la sensacion general uno se siente caliente del modo más delicioso e inconfundible. Por esta razón, un local para dormir nunca debería estar provisto de fuego, que es una de las incomodidades lujosas de los ricos. Pues la cima de esta suerte de delicia es no tener nada sino las mantas entre uno mismo, con su comodidad, y el frío del aire exterior. Entonces uno ace como la chispa caliente en el corazón de un cristal ártico.

Llevábamos algún tiempo sentados en esa postura acurrucada, cuando de repente pensé que iba a abrir los ojos; pues entre sábanas, sea de día o de noche, dormido o despierto, tengo costumbre de mantener siempre cerrados los ojos, para concentrar más el deleite de estar en la cama. Porque ningún hombre puede sentir bien su propia identidad si no es con los ojos cerrados; como si la tiniebla fuera efectivamente el elemento adecuado de nuestras esencias, aunque la luz sea más afín a nuestra parte arcillosa. Al abrir los ojos entonces, salir de mi propia tiniebla, grata adoptada, hacia la obligada y ruda sombra de las doce de la noche sin iluminación, experimenté una desagradable revulsión. No objeté a la sugerencia de Queequeg de que quizá sería mejor encender una luz, en vista de que estábamos tan completamente despiertos; y además, sentía un fuerte deseo de fumar unas cuantas bocanadas en su hacha india. Hay que decir que, aunque había sentido tan fuerte repugnancia a que él fumara en la cama la noche antes, sin embargo, ya se ve qué elásticos se vuelven nuestros rígidos prejuicios una vez que viene a plegarlos el amor, pues ahora nada me gustaba tanto como tener a Queequeg fumando a mi lado, incluso en la cama, porque entonces parecía tan lleno de sereno gozo doméstico. Ya no me sentía indebidamente preocupado por la póliza de seguros del posadero. Sólo vivía para la comodidad condensada y confidencial de compartir una pipa y una manta con un verdadero amigo. Con nuestros ásperos chaquetones echados alrededor de los hombros, nos pasamos entonces el hacha india de uno a otro, hasta que lentamente creció sobre nosotros un dosel azul de humo, iluminado por la llama de la lámpara recién encendida.

Si fue que ese dosel ondulante arrastró al salvaje hasta escenas muy remotas, no lo sé, pero ahora habló de su isla natal; y, ávido de oír su historia, le rogué que siguiera adelante y me la contara. El lo hizo así de buena gana. Aunque por entonces yo comprendía mal no pocas de sus palabras, sin embargo, posteriores revelaciones, cuando me hice más familiar con su rota fraseología, me permiten ahora presentar la historia entera tal como puede echarse de ver en el simple esqueleto que aquí doy. 

Biográfico

Queequeg era nativo de Rokovoko, una isla muy lejana hacia el oeste y el sur. No está marcada en ningún mapa: los sitios de verdad no lo están nunca.

Cuando era un salvaje recién salido del cascarón, corriendo locamente por sus bosques natales, con un andrajo de hierba, y seguido por los machos cabríos mordisqueantes como si fuera un retoño verde, ya entonces, en el alma ambiciosa de Queequeg se abrigaba un fuerte deseo de ver algo más de la Cristiandad que un ballenero o dos de muestra. Su padre era un alto jefe, un rey; su tío, un sumo sacerdote; y por parte de madre se gloriaba de tías que eran esposas de invencibles guerreros. Había en sus venas excelente sangre, materia real, aunque me temo que tristemente viciada por la propensidad al canibalismo que había tenido en su juventud sin educador.

Un barco de Sag Harbour visitó la bahía de su padre, y Queequeg buscó un pasaje para países cristianos. Pero el barco, teniendo completas sus necesidades de marineros, despreció su pretensión, y no sirvió toda la influencia del rey su padre. Pero Queequeg hizo un voto. Solo en su canoa, salió remando hasta un lejano estrecho, por donde sabía que debía pasar el barco al abandonar la isla. A un lado había un arrecife de coral; al otro, una baja lengua de tierra, cubierta de espesuras de mangles que se extendían por encima del agua. Ocultando la canoa, todavía a flote, entre esas espesuras, con la proa hacia el mar, se sentó en la popa, con el remo bajo, entre las manos; y cuando el barco pasaba deslizándose se disparó como una centella, alcanzó su costado, con una patada hacia atrás volcó y hundió su canoa, trepó por las cadenas, y echándose todo lo largo que era en cubierta, se agarró a un perno con argolla y juró no soltarlo aunque lo hicieran pedazos.

En vano el capitán amenazó con tirarle por la borda y blandió un machete sobre sus muñecas desnudas: Queequeg era hijo de rey, y Queequeg no se arredró. Impresionado por su desesperada temeridad y su loco deseo de visitar la Cristiandad, el capitán se ablandó por fin, y le dijo que podía acomodarse. Pero este joven salvaje admirable, este Príncipe de Gales de los mares, jamás vio la cabina del capitán. Le pusieron entre los marineros, haciendo de él un ballenero. Pero, como el zar Pedro, contento de trabajar en los astilleros de ciudades del extranjero. Queequeg no desdeñó ninguna aparente ignominia, si con ella conseguía felizmente la capacidad de iluminar a sus incultos paisanos. Pues en el fondo -me dijo- estaba movido por un profundo deseo de aprender entre los cristianos las artes con que pudiera hacer a los suyos más felices de lo que eran; y, más aún, mejores de lo que eran. Pero ¡ay ! la conducta de los balleneros le convenció pronto de que hasta los cristianos podían ser tan perversos como miserables; infinitamente más que todos los paganos de su padre. Al llegar por fin al viejo Sag Harbour, ver lo que hacían allí los marineros, luego al ir a Nantucket y ver cómo gastaban también sus ganancias en aquel sitio, el pobre Queequeg lo dio por perdido. Pensó: « El mundo es malo en cualquier meridiano: moriré pagano ».

Y así, viejo idólatra de corazón, vivía sin embargo entre esos cristianos, vestía sus ropas, y trataba de hablar su jerga. De ahí sus maneras extrañas, aunque ya llevaba algún tiempo lejos de su patria.

Por señas le pregunté si no se proponía volver para ser coronado; ya que ahora podía considerar fallecido a su padre, que estaba muy viejo débil en sus últimas noticias. Contestó que no, todavía no; añadió que temía que la Cristiandad, o mejor dicho los cristianos, le hubieran incapacitado para ascender al puro e impoluto trono de treinta reyes paganos anteriores a él. Pero, un día u otro, dijo, volvería: en cuanto se sintiese bautizado de nuevo. Por ahora, sin embargo, se proponía andar navegando y desahogándose por los cuatro océanos. Le habían hecho arponero, y ese hierro afilado ahora le hacía las veces de cetro.

Le pregunté cuál podría ser su propósito inmediato, respecto a sus futuros movimientos. Contestó que hacerse otra vez a la mar, en su antigua profesión. A esto le dije que mi propio designio era la pesca de la ballena, y le informé de mi intención de embarcarme en Nantucket, como el puerto más prometedor en que podía embarcarse un ballenero amigo de aventuras. En seguida decidió acompañarme a esa isla, subir al mismo barco, entrar en la misma guardia, en el mismo bote, en el mismo rancho conmigo: en una palabra, compartir toda mi suerte, y con mis manos en la suya, sondear atrevidamente en la Olla de la Suerte de ambos mundos. A todo eso yo asentí gozosamente, pues, además del afecto que ahora sentía por Queequeg, él era un arponero experto, y como tal, no podía dejar de ser de gran utilidad para quien, como yo, era totalmente ignorante de los misterios de la pesca de la ballena, aunque familiar con el mar, tal como lo conoce un marino mercante.

Terminada su historia con la última bocanada moribunda de su pipa, Queequeg me abrazó, apretó su frente contra la mía, y apagando la luz de un soplo, rodamos uno sobre otro, de acá para allá, y muy pronto nos quedamos dormidos. 

Carretilla

A la mañana siguiente, lunes, después de deshacerme de la cabeza embalsamada dándosela a un barbero como maniquí para pelucas, arreglé mi cuenta y la de mi compañero, si bien usando el dinero de mi compañero. El sonriente posadero, así como los huéspedes, parecían sorprendentemente divertidos por la repentina amistad que había surgido entre Queequeg y yo; sobre todo, dado que las historias exageradas de Peter Coffin sobre él me habían alarmado tanto previamente sobre la misma persona que ahora era mi compañero.

Pedimos prestada una carretilla, y embarcando nuestras cosas, incluido mi pobre saco de viaje, el saco de lona la hamaca de Queequeg, bajamos al Musgo, la pequeña goleta de línea amarrada en el muelle. A nuestro paso, la gente se quedaba mirando; no tanto por Queequeg -pues estaban acostumbrados a ver caníbales como él en sus calles-, cuanto por vernos a él y a mí en términos de tanta confianza. Pero no les hicimos caso y seguimos adelante empujando la carretilla por turno, mientras Queequeg se paraba de vez en cuando a ajustar la vaina en la punta del arpón. Le pregunté por qué bajaba a tierra consigo una cosa de tanto estorbo, y si todos los barcos cos balleneros no se buscaban sus propios arpones. A eso contestó, en sustancia, que aunque lo que yo sugería era bastante cierto, sin embargo, él tenía un afecto particular a su propio arpón, porque era de material seguro, bien probado en muchos combates a muerte, y en profunda intimidad con los corazones de las ballenas. En resumen, como muchos segadores y recolectores que entran en los prados del granjero armados con sus propias guadañas, aunque no están en absoluto obligados a proporcionarlas, también Queequeg, por sus motivos particulares, prefería su propio arpón.

Cambiando la carretilla de mis manos a las suyas, me contó una divertida historia sobre la primera carretilla que había visto. Fue en Sag Harbour. Los propietarios de su barco, al parecer, le habían prestado una para llevar su pesado baúl a la posada. Para no parecer ignorante sobre la cosa, aunque en realidad lo era por completo en cuando al modo exacto en que manejar la carretilla, Queequeg puso el baúl encima, lo ató sólidamente, y luego se echó al hombro la carretilla y se fue por el muelle arriba. -Vaya -dije yo-, Queequeg, podrías haberlo entendido mejor, cualquiera diría. ¿No se rió la gente ?

Con esto, me contó otra historia. La gente de su isla de Rokovoko, al parecer, en sus fiestas de boda exprimen la fragante agua de los cocos tiernos en una gran calabaza pintada, como una ponchera; y esta ponchera siempre forma el gran ornamento central en la estera trenzada donde se tiene la fiesta. Ahora bien, cierto grandioso barco mercante tocó una vez en Rokovoko, y su capitán -según todas las noticias, un caballero muy solemne y puntilloso, al menos para ser capitán de marina- fue invitado a la fiesta de boda de la hermana de Queequeg, una bonita y joven princesa que acababa de cumplir los diez años. Bueno, cuando todos los invitados estuvieron reunidos en la cabaña de bambú de la novia, entra el capitán, y al serie asignado el puesto de honor, se coloca frente a la ponchera y entre el Sumo Sacerdote y su majestad el Rey, el padre de Queequeg. Dichas las bendiciones -pues esa gente tiene sus bendiciones, igual que nosotros, si bien Queequeg me dijo que, al contrario que nosotros, que en tales momentos bajamos la vista a los platos, ellos, imitando a los patos, levantan la mirada al Gran Dador de todas las fiestas-, dichas las bendiciones, pues, el Sumo Sacerdote comienza el banquete con la ceremonia inmemorial de la isla; esto es, metiendo sus consagrados y consagradores dedos en la ponchera, antes que circule el bendito brebaje. Al verse colocado junto al Sacerdote, y notando la ceremonia, y considerándose -como capitán de barco- en franca precedencia sobre un mero rey isleño, sobre todo en la propia casa del rey, el capitán empezó fríamente a lavarse las manos en la ponchera, tomándola, supongo, por un gran aguamanil. -Entonces -dijo Queequeg-, ¿qué pensar ahora ? ¿No se rió nuestra gente ?

Al fin, pagado el pasaje, y en seguridad el equipaje, estuvimos a bordo de la goleta, que, izando vela, se deslizó por el río Acushnet abajo. Por un lado, New Bedford se elevaba en calles escalonadas, con sus árboles cubiertos de nieve destellando todos en el aire claro y frío. Grandes cerros y montañas de barriles sobre barriles se apilaban en los muelles, y los barcos balleneros, que recorrían el mundo, estaban uno junto a otro silenciosos por fin y amarrados con seguridad, mientras de otros salía un ruido de forjas carpinteros toneleros, con mezcla de ruido de forjas y fuegos para fundir la pez, todo ello anunciando que se preparaban nuevos cruceros; terminado un peligrosísimo largo viaje, sólo empieza otro, terminado éste, sólo empieza un tercero, y así sucesivamente, para siempre amén. Eso es, en efecto, lo intolerable de todo esfuerzo terrenal.

Alcanzando aguas más abiertas, la reconfortante brisa refrescó; el pequeño Musgo rechazaba la viva espuma de la proa, como un joven potro lanza sus resoplidos. ¡Cómo aspiraba yo aquel aire exótico ! ¡Cómo despreciaba la tierra con sus barreras, esa carretera común toda ella mellada con las marcas de botas y pezuñas serviles ! Y me volvía a admirar la magnanimidad del mar, que no permite dejar nada inscrito.

En la misma fuente de espuma, Queequeg parecía beber y mecerse conmigo. Sus sombrías narices se ensanchaban; mostraba sus dientes afilados puntiagudos. Adelante, adelante volábamos; alcanzando altamar, el Musgo rindió homenaje a las ráfagas, se agachó y sumergió la frente, como un esclavo ante el Sultán. Inclinándose a un lado, nos disparamos a un lado; con todas las jarcias vibrando como alambres; los dos palos mayores doblándose como cañas de bambú en un ciclón. Tan llenos estábamos de esta escena estremecida, de pie junto al bauprés que se sumergía, que durante algún tiempo no notamos las miradas burlonas de los pasajeros, una reunión de bobos, que se maravillaban de que dos seres humanos estuvieran en tan buena compañía, como si un blanco fuera algo más digno que un negro enjalbegado. Pero había allí algunos imbéciles e idiotas que, por su intenso verdor, debían haber salido del corazón y centro de toda verdura. Queequeg sorprendió a uno de esos tiernos retoños remedándole a sus espaldas. Creí que había llegado la hora del juicio de aquel imbécil. Dejando caer el arpón, el robusto salvaje le apretó entre los brazos, y con fuerza y destreza casi milagrosas, le envió por los aires a gran altura; luego, golpeándole ligeramente la popa a mitad de su cabriola, hizo llegar a aquel tipo al suelo de pie, con los pulmones estallando, mientras Queequeg, volviéndole la espalda, encendió su pipahacha y me la pasó para darle una chupada.

-¡Capitán, capitán ! -aulló el imbécil, corriendo hacia ese oficial-: capitán, capitán, aquí está el demonio.

-¡Eh, usted, señor ! -exclamó el capitán, enjuta costilla marina, dando zancadas hacia Queequeg-: ¿qué rayos pretende con eso ? ¿No sabe que podía haber matado a este tipo ?

-¿Qué decir él ? -dijo Queequeg, volviéndose suavemente hacia mí.

-Dice que casi mataste a ese hombre -dije yo, señalando al novato que todavía temblaba.

-¡Matar él ! -gritó Queequeg, retorciendo su cara tatuada en una sobreterrenal expresión de desprecio-: ¡ah, el banco peces pequeños ! Queequeg no matar peces pequeños tanto: ¡Queequeg matar ballena grande !

-¡Mira ! -rugió el capitán-: yo matar tú, caníbal, como vuelvas a probar aquí a bordo otro de tus trucos: así que anda con ojo.

Pero ocurrió precisamente entonces que era hora de que el capitán anduviera con ojo. La extraordinaria tensión en la cangreja había partido la escota a barlovento, y la tremenda botavara ahora volaba de un lado para otro, barriendo completamente toda la parte de popa de la cubierta. El pobre hombre a quien Queequeg había tratado tan mal fue barrido por encima de la borda; hubo pánico entre todos los marineros, y parecía locura intentar agarrar la botavara para amarrarla. Volaba de derecha a izquierda, y otra vez atrás, casi en lo que tarda un tictac del reloj, y a cada momento parecía a punto de partirse en astillas. Nada se hacía, y nada parecía poderse hacer; los de cubierta se precipitaron hacia la proa, y se quedaron mirando la botavara como si fuera la mandíbula inferior de una ballena exasperada. En medio de esta consternación, Queequeg se dejó caer de rodillas, y gateando bajo el recorrido de la botavara, agarró un cabo que restallaba, amarró un extremo a la amurada, y luego, lanzando el otro como un lazo, lo prendió en torno a la botavara cuando pasaba sobre su cabeza, y a la siguiente sacudida, la verga quedó capturada de ese modo, y todo estuvo seguro. Se puso la goleta al viento, y mientras todos los marineros desamarraban el bote de popa, Queequeg se desnudó hasta la cintura y saltó disparado desde la borda con un brinco en vivo arco largo. Durante tres minutos o más se le vio nadar como un perro, lanzando los largos brazos por delante, y de vez en cuando mostrando sus robustos hombros a través de la espuma heladora. Miré buscando a aquel tipo presumido y grandioso, pero no vi nadie que salvar. El novato se había hundido. Disparándose verticalmente desde el agua, Queequeg lanzó una mirada instantánea a su alrededor, y pareciendo ver cómo estaba el asunto, se zambulló y desapareció. Pocos minutos después volvió a subir, con un brazo moviéndose, y con el otro arrastrando una forma exánime. El bote los recogió pronto. El pobre imbécil fue reanimado. Todos los marineros declararon que Queequeg era un héroe admirable: el capitán le pidió perdón. Desde aquel momento me pegué a Queequeg como una lapa; sí, hasta que el pobre Queequeg se dio su larga zambullida final.

¿Hubo jamás tal inconsciencia ? No parecía pensar que mereciera en absoluto una medalla de las Sociedades Humanitarias y Magnánimas. Sólo pidió agua, agua dulce, algo con que quitarse la sal: hecho esto, se puso ropa seca, encendió la pipa, e inclinándose contra la amurada y mirando benignamente a los que le rodeaban, parecía decirse: « Este mundo es algo mutuo y en comandita, en todos los meridianos. Los caníbales tenemos que ayudar a estos cristianos ». 

Nantucket

Nada más ocurrió en la travesía digno de mencionarse, así que después de un hermoso viaje, llegamos sanos y salvos a Nantucket.

¡Nantucket ! Sacad el mapa y miradlo. Mirad qué auténtico rincón del mundo ocupa: cómo está ahí, lejos, en altamar, más solitario que el faro de Eddystone. Miradlo: una mera colina y un codo de arena; todo playa, sin respaldo. Hay allí más arena de la que usaríais en veinte años como sustitutivo del papel secante. Algunos bromistas os dirán que allí tienen que plantar hasta los hierbajos, porque no crecen naturalmente: que importan cardos del Canadá; que tienen que enviar al otro lado del mar por un espiche para cegar una vía de agua en un barril de aceite: que en Nantucket se llevan por ahí trozos de madera como en Roma los trozos de la verdadera Cruz; que la gente allí planta setas delante de casa para ponerse a su sombra en verano; que una brizna de hierba hace un oasis, y tres briznas en un día de camino, una pradera; que llevan zapatos para arenas movedizas, algo así como las raquetas para los pies de los lapones; que están tan encerrados, encarcelados, rodeados por todas partes y convertidos en una verdadera isla por el océano, que hasta en sus mismas sillas y mesas se encuentran a veces adheridas pequeñas almejas, como en las conchas de las tortugas marinas. Pero esas extravagancias sólo indican que Nantucket no es ningún Illinois.

Mirad ahora la notable historia tradicional de cómo esta isla fue colonizada por los pieles rojas. Así dice la leyenda: en tiempos antiguos, un águila descendió sobre la costa de New England, llevándose entre las garras un niñito indio. Con ruidosos lamentos, sus padres vieron que su hijo se perdía de vista sobre las anchas aguas. Decidieron seguirle en la misma dirección. Partiendo en sus canoas, tras de una peligrosa travesía, descubrieron la isla, y allí encontraron una vacía cajita de marfil: el esqueleto del pobre niño indio.

¿Cómo sorprenderse, entonces, de que los de Nantucket, nacidos en una playa, se hagan a la mar para ganarse la vida ? Primero buscaban cangrejos quahogs en la arena; volviéndose más atrevidos, se metieron por el agua con redes a pescar caballa; más expertos, partieron en barcos a capturar bacalaos; y por fin, lanzando una armada de grandes barcos por el mar, exploraron este acuático mundo, pusieron un incesante cinturón de circunnavegaciones en torno de él, se asomaron al estrecho de Behring, en todas las épocas océanos, declararon guerra perpetua a la más poderosa masa animada que ha sobrevivido el Diluvio, la más monstruosa y la más montañosa; ese himalayano mastodonte de agua salada, revestido de tal portento de poder inconsciente, que sus mismos pánicos han de temerse más que sus más valientes y malignos asaltos.

Y así esos desnudos hombres de Nantucket, esos ermitaños marinos, saliendo de su hormiguero en el mar, han invadido y conquistado el mundo acuático como otros tantos Alejandros, repartiéndose entre ellos los océanos Atlántico, Pacífico e índico, como las tres potencias piratas lo hicieron con Polonia. Ya puede América añadir México a Texas, y apilar Cuba sobre Panamá; ya pueden los ingleses irrumpir por toda la India, y ondear su refulgente bandera desde el sol: dos tercios de este globo terráqueo son de los de Nantucket. Pues el mar es suyo, ellos lo poseen, como los emperadores sus imperios, y los demás navegantes sólo tienen derecho de tránsito por él. Los barcos mercantes no son sino puentes extensibles: los barcos armados, fuertes flotantes; incluso los piratas y corsarios, aunque siguiendo el mar como los salteadores el camino, no hacen más que saquear otros barcos, otros fragmentos de tierra como ellos mismos, sin tratar de ganarse la vida extrayendo algo de la propia profundidad sin fondo. Sólo el hombre de Nantucket reside y se agita en el mar; sólo él, en lenguaje bíblico, sale al mar en barcos, arándolo de un lado para otro como su propia plantación particular. Allí está su hogar: allí están sus asuntos, que un diluvio de Noé no interrumpiría, aunque abrumase a todos los millones de chinos. Vive en el mar como los gallos silvestres en el prado; se esconde entre las olas y trepa por ellas como los cazadores de gamuzas trepan por los Alpes. Durante años no conoce la tierra: de modo que cuando llega a ella por fin, le huele como otro mundo, más extrañamente que la luna a un terráqueo. Con la gaviota sin tierra, que al ponerse el sol pliega las alas y se duerme mecida entre las olas; así, al caer la noche, el hombre de Nantucket, sin tierra a la vista, aferra las velas y se echa a dormir, mientras bajo su misma almohada se agolpan rebaños de morsas y de ballenas. 

Caldereta de pescado

La noche estaba muy entrada cuando el pequeño Musgo ancló a su gusto, Queequeg yo desembarcamos, de modo que aquel día no pudimos resolver ningún asunto, a no ser la cena y la cama. El posadero de la Posada del Chorro nos había recomendado a su primo Hosca Hussey de « Las Marmitas de Destilación », de quien afirmó que era propietario de uno de los hoteles mejor instalados de todo Nantucket, y además nos aseguró que el primo Hosca, como le llamaba, era famoso por sus calderetas de pescado. En resumen, sugirió claramente que no podríamos hacer cosa mejor que probar la suerte de la olla en las « Marmitas ». Pero las instrucciones que nos dio sobre dejar a estribor un almacén amarillo hasta que avistáramos una iglesia blanca a babor, y luego siguiéramos dejándola a babor hasta que pasáramos una esquina tres cuartas a estribor, y, hecho esto, preguntáramos al primero que viéramos dónde estaba el sitio, esas enrevesadas instrucciones suyas nos desconcertaron mucho al principio, especialmente porque, al zarpar, Queequeg se empeñó en que el almacén amarillo -nuestro primer punto de referencia- debía quedar a babor, mientras que yo había entendido que Peter Coffin decía que era a estribor. Sin embargo, a fuerza de dar muchas vueltas en la oscuridad, y de vez en cuando, de llamar y despertar a algún pacífico habitante para preguntar el camino, llegamos por fin a algo que no deja lugar a confusiones.

Dos enormes marmitas de madera, pintadas de negro y colgadas por « orejas de burro », pendían de los canes de un viejo mastelero, plantado frente a una vieja puerta. Las antenas de los canes estaban serradas por el otro lado, de modo que el viejo mastelero parecía bastante una horca. Quizá yo estaba entonces excesivamente sensible a tales impresiones, pero no pude menos de quedarme mirando a la horca con una vaga aprensión. Una especie de tortícolis me entró cuando levanté la vista hacia las dos antenas que quedaban: así, eran dos, una para Queequeg y una para mí. « Es fatídico -pensé-. Un Coffin como posadero al desembarcar en mi primer puerto ballenero; lápidas mirándome en la capilla de los balleneros; ¡y aquí una horca, y un par de marmitas asombrosas, también ! Estas últimas, ¿están lanzando oblicuas sugerencias sobre Tofet ? »

Me apartó de esas reflexiones ver una mujer pecosa con pelo amarillo y vestido amarillo, plantada en la puerta de la posada, bajo una turbia lámpara roja balanceante, que parecía mucho un ojo golpeado, y manteniendo una vivaz regañina con un hombre de camisa de lana purpúrea.

-¡Anda allá -decía al hombre-, o si no, te doy un repaso !

-Vamos, Queequeg -dije-, está muy bien. Ahí está la señora Hussey.

Y así resultó ser; el señor Hosea Hussey estaba fuera de casa, pero dejaba a la señora Hussey con plena competencia para ocuparse de sus asuntos. Al dar a conocer nuestros deseos de cena y cama, la señora Hussey, aplazando por el momento más regañina, nos introdujo a un cuartito, y sentándonos ante una mesa cubierta de los restos de una comida recientemente concluida, se volvió hacia nosotros y nos dijo: -¿Almejas o bacalao ?

-¿Cómo es el bacalao, señora ? -dije, con mucha cortesía. -¿Almeja o bacalao ? -repitió.

-¿Almeja de cena ? ¿Almeja fría, es lo que quiere decir, señora

Hussey ? -dije-; pero en invierno es un recibimiento mas bien frío, ¿no, señora ?

Pero como tenía mucha prisa de continuar su regañina al hombre de la camisa purpúrea, que la esperaba en la entrada, y no parecía oír más que la palabra « almeja », la señora Hussey se apresuró hacia una puerta abierta que daba a la cocina, y aullando « Almeja para dos », desapareció.

-Queequeg -dije-, ¿crees que podemos hacer una cena para los dos con una almeja ?

Sin embargo, un cálido y sabroso vapor de la cocina vino a desmentir la perspectiva, aparentemente desoladora, que teníamos por delante. Pero cuando llegó la humeante caldereta, el misterio quedó placenteramente explicado. ¡Oh, dulces amigos, prestadme oídos ! Estaba hecho de pequeñas almejas jugosas, apenas mayores que avellanas, mezcladas con galleta de barco machacada y cerdo salado cortado en pequeños copos, todo ello enriquecido con manteca y abundantemente sazonado con pimienta y sal. Aguados nuestros apetitos por el helado viaje, y al ver Queequeg ante él su plato favorito de pescado, y siendo la caldereta notablemente excelente, la despachamos con gran rapidez: entonces, arrellanándome un momento y recordando el anuncio de la señora Hussey sobre almeja y bacalao, decidí probar un pequeño experimento. Me acerqué a la puerta de la cocina y pronuncié la palabra « bacalao » con gran énfasis, volviendo a ocupar mi asiento. En pocos momentos volvió a salir el sabroso vapor, pero con diferente aroma, y oportunamente se puso ante nosotros una hermosa caldereta de bacalao.

Reanudamos nuestra ocupación, y mientras metíamos las cucharas en la cazuela, pensé para mí: « No sé si esto tendrá algún efecto sobre la cabeza: ¿por qué se habla de este guiso en relación con las cabezas estúpidas ? ». -Pero mira, Queequeg, ¿no es una anguila viva lo que tienes en el plato ? ¿Dónde está el arpón ?

El más piscícola de los lugares de pesca era « Las Marmitas », que bien merecía su nombre, pues las marmitas siempre hervían calderetas. Calderetas para desayunar, calderetas para comer, calderetas para cenar, hasta que uno empezaba a mirar si le salían las espinas por la ropa. El terreno delante de la casa estaba pavimentado de conchas de almejas. La señora Hussey llevaba un pulido collar de vértebras de bacalao, y Hosea Hussey tenía encuadernados sus libros de contabilidad en vieja piel de tiburón extrafina. Incluso la leche tenía un olor a pescado que no pude explicarme hasta que una mañana, en que por casualidad me daba un paseo por la playa entre barcas de pescadores, vi a la vaca atigrada de Hosea pastando restos de pescados, y caminando por la arena, con cada pata en una cabeza decapitada de bacalao, con aspecto muy de ir en chancletas, os lo aseguro.

Concluida la cena, recibimos una lámpara e instrucciones de la señora Hussey sobre el camino más corto a la cama, pero, cuando Queequeg iba a precederme por las escaleras, la señora extendió el brazo y le pidió el arpón: no permitía arpones en sus habitaciones. -¿Por qué no ? -dije-: todo auténtico ballenero duerme con su arpón, y ¿por qué no ? -Porque es peligroso -dijo ella-. Desde que el joven Stiggs, al volver de aquel desgraciado viaje, cuando llevaba cuatro años y medio, sólo con tres barriles de aceite, apareció muerto en el primer piso, con el arpón en el costado, desde entonces, no permito a los huéspedes que se lleven de noche a su cuarto armas tan peligrosas. Así que, señor Queequeg -(porque había aprendido su nombre)-, le voy a quitar este hierro, se lo voy a guardar hasta mañana. Pero ¿y la caldereta, muchachos ? ¿Almejas o bacalao para desayunar mañana ?

-Las dos cosas -dije-, y tomaremos un par de arenques ahumados para variar. 

El barco

En la cama preparamos nuestros planes para el día siguiente. Pero, para mi sorpresa y no escasa preocupación, Queequeg me dio a entender entonces que había consultado diligentemente a Yojo -nombre de su diosecillo negro- y Yojo le había dicho dos o tres veces seguidas, insistiendo en ello por todos los medios, que, en vez de ir juntos entre la flota ballenera surta en el puerto y elegir de acuerdo nuestra embarcación, en vez de eso, digo, Yojo había indicado con empeño que la elección del barco debería recaer entera mente en mí, dado que Yojo se proponía sernos propicio, y, para hacerlo así, ya había puesto sus miras en una nave que yo, Ismael, si me dejaban solo, infaliblemente elegiría, igual en todo como si hubiera salido por casualidad; y que debía embarcarme inmediatamente en esa nave, sin ocuparme por el momento de Queequeg.

He olvidado señalar que, en muchas cosas, Queequeg ponía gran confianza en la excelencia del juicio de Yojo y en su sorprendente previsión sobre las cosas, y que apreciaba a Yojo con estima considerable, como un tipo de dios bastante bueno, que quizá tenía intenciones suficientemente propicias en conjunto, pero que no conseguía en todos los casos sus designios benévolos.

Ahora, en cuanto al plan de Queequeg, o mejor dicho de Yojo, respecto a la elección de nuestro barco, ese plan no me gustaba en absoluto. Yo había confiado no poco en la sagacidad de Queequeg para indicar el ballenero más adecuado para transportarnos con seguridad a nosotros y nuestros destinos. Pero como todas mis protestas no produjeron efecto en Queequeg, me vi obligado a asentir, y en consecuencia, me dispuse a ocuparme de este asunto con un vigor y una energía decidida y un tanto precipitada, que rápidamente arreglaría ese insignificante asuntillo. Al día siguiente por la mañana, dejando a Queequeg encerrado con Yojo en nuestra pequeña alcoba (pues parecía que ese día era para Queequeg y Yojo una especie de Cuaresma o Ramadán, o día de ayuno, humillación y oración; de qué modo, jamás lo pude averiguar, pues, aunque me puse a ello varias veces, nunca pude dominar su liturgia y sus Treinta y Nueve Artículos); dejando, pues, a Queequeg en ayuno con su pipa-hacha, y a Yojo al calor de su fuego sacrificial de virutas, salí a dar una vuelta entre los barcos. Tras de mucho y prolongado rondar y muchas preguntas al azar, supe que había tres barcos que salían para viajes de tres años: La Diablesa, El Bocadito y el Pequod. No sé el origen de lo de Diablesa; de Bocadito, es evidente; Pequod sin duda se recordará que era el nombre de una célebre tribu de indios de Massachusetts, ahora tan extinguidos como los antiguos medas. Observé y aceché en torno al Diablesa; desde éste pasé de un salto al Bocadito; y finalmente, entrando a bordo del Pequod, miré un momento alrededor decidí que éste era el barco que nos hacía falta.

Por mi parte, podréis haber visto muchas embarcaciones extrañas; lugares de pie cuadrados; montañosos juncos japoneses; galeotas como cajas de manteca, y cualquier cosa; pero creedme bajo mi palabra que nunca habréis visto una extraña vieja embarcación como esta misma extraña vieja Pequod Era un barco de antigua escuela, más bien pequeño si acaso, todo él y con un anticuado aire de patas de garra. Curtido coloreado por los climas, en los ciclones las calmas de los cuatro océanos, la tez del viejo casco se había oscurecido como un granadero francés que ha combatido tanto en Egipto como en Siberia. Su venerable proa tenía aspecto barbudo. Sus palos -cortados en algún punto de la costa del Japón, donde los palos originarios habían salido por la borda en una galerna-, sus palos se erguían rígidamente como los espinazos de los tres antiguos Reyes en Colonia. Sus antiguas cubiertas estaban desgastadas y arrugadas como la losa, venerada por los peregrinos de la catedral de Canterbury donde se desangró Beckett. Pero a todas esas sus viejas antigüedades, se añadían nuevos rasgos maravillosos, correspondientes a la loca ocupación que había seguido desde hacía más de medio siglo. El viejo capitán Peleg, durante muchos años segundo de a bordo, antes de mandar otro barco suyo, ahora marino jubilado, uno de los principales propietarios del Pequod; ese viejo Peleg, durante el tiempo en que fue segundo, había construido sobre su grotesco ser original, y esculpido en él, con rareza de material y de invención sólo comparable a la del escudo esculpido o la cabecera de Thorkill-Hake. El barco estaba engalanado como cualquier bárbaro emperador etiópico con el cuello cargado de colgajos de marfil pulido. Era un ser hecho de trofeos; un barco caníbal, embellecido con los vencidos huesos de sus enemigos. A su alrededor, sus amuradas abiertas y sin paneles estaban guarnecidas como una quijada continua, con largos dientes aguzados de cachalote insertos allí como toletes en que sujetar sus viejos tendones y ligamentos de cáñamo. Esos tendones no corrían a través de vulgares trozos de madera de tierra, sino que cruzaban hábilmente por vainas de marfil de mar. Desdeñando tener una rueda como de barrera de camino para su reverendo timón, ostentaba allí una caña; y esa caña era de una sola pieza, curiosamente esculpida en la larga y estrecha mandíbula inferior de su enemigo hereditario. El timonel que gobernara con esa caña en la tempestad, se sentiría como el tártaro que refrena su feroz corcel apretándole la mandíbula. ¡Noble embarcación, pero muy melancólica ! Todas las cosas nobles están tocadas de eso mismo.

Entonces, al mirar a mi alrededor en el alcázar de popa, buscando alguien con autoridad a quien proponerme como candidato para el viaje, al principio no vi a nadie, pero no pude pasar por alto una extraña especie de tienda, o más bien cabaña, erigida un poco detrás del palo mayor. Parecía sólo una construcción temporal usada en el puerto. Era de forma cónica, de unos diez pies de alto, construida con las largas y anchas tiras de blando hueso negro sacado de la parte media y más alta de las mandíbulas de la ballena de Groenlandia, plantadas con los extremos más anchos en cubierta, con un círculo de esas tiras atadas juntas, inclinadas mutuamente una contra otra, y la cima unida en una punta con penacho, donde las sueltas fibras peludas oscilaban de un lado a otro como el copete en la cabeza de un viejo sachem de los Potawatomi. Una abertura triangular miraba hacia la proa del barco, de modo que quien estuviera dentro dominaba una vista completa hacia delante.

Y medio escondido en esta extraña construcción, encontré por fin a uno que por su aspecto parecía tener autoridad; y que, siendo mediodía, y estando suspendido el trabajo del barco, ahora disfrutaba su descanso de la carga del mando. Estaba sentado en una silla de roble a la antigua usanza, enroscada toda ella en curiosas tallas, y cuyo asiento estaba formado por un recio entrelazado de la misma materia elástica de que estaba construida la cabaña.

Quizá no había nada igualmente curioso en el aspecto del viejo que vi: era robusto tostado, como la mayoría de la gente de mar, reciamente envuelto en un azul capote de piloto, cortado al estilo cuáquero; solamente tenía una red sutil y casi microscópica de los más menudos, pliegues entrelazados en torno a sus ojos, que debía proceder de sus continuas travesías a través de muchas duras galernas, siempre mirando a barlovento; por tales motivos llegan a apretarse los músculos en torno a los ojos. Tales arrugas de los ojos son de gran efecto para mirar ceñudo.

-¿Es el capitán del Pequod ? -dije, avanzando hacia la puerta de la tienda.

-Suponiendo que sea el capitán del Pequod, ¿qué le quiere ? -preguntó.

-Pensaba embarcarme.

-Ah, ¿conque pensaba ? Ya veo que no es de Nantucket: ¿ha estado alguna vez en un bote desfondado ?

-No, señor, nunca.

-¿Y no sabe nada en absoluto de la pesca de la ballena, supongo ?

-Nada, señor, pero no tengo duda de que pronto aprenderé. He hecho varios viajes en la marina mercante, y creo que...

-El diablo se lleve a la marina mercante. No me hable esa jerga. ¿Ve esta pierna ? Se la arranco de la popa si me vuelve a hablar de la marina mercante. ¡Marina mercante, sí, sí ! Supongo que ahora se sentirá muy orgulloso de haber servido en esos barcos mercantes. Pero ¡colas de ballena !, hombre; ¿por qué se empeña en ir a pescar ballenas, eh ? Parece un poco sospechoso, ¿no ? No habrá sido pirata, ¿eh ? No ha robado a su último capitán, ¿eh ? ¿No piensa asesinar a los oficiales una vez en el mar ?

Protesté mi inocencia en esas cosas. Vi que bajo la máscara de esas insinuaciones medio en broma, aquel viejo navegante, como aislado natural de Nantucket y dado a lo cuáquero, estaba lleno de prejuicios insulares, y más bien desconfiado de todos los forasteros, a no ser que salieran de Cabo Cod o del Vineyard.

-Pero ¿por qué se mete a pescar ballenas ? Quiero saberlo antes de embarcarle.

-Bueno, señor, quiero ver qué es la pesca de la ballena. Quiero ver el mundo.

-¿Conque quiere ver qué es la pesca de la ballena ? ¿Ha echado el ojo alguna vez al capitán Ahab ?

-¿Quién es el capitán Ahab ?

-Claro, claro, ya me lo suponía. El capitán Ahab es el capitán de este barco.

-Entonces estoy equivocado. Creí que hablaba con el capitán en persona.

-Habla con el capitán Peleg: con ése es con quien habla. A mí y al capitán Bildad nos corresponde cuidar que el Pequod tenga de todo para el viaje, y esté provisto de todo lo necesario, incluyendo la tripulación. Somos copropietarios y agentes. Pero, como iba a decir, si quiere saber qué es la pesca de la ballena, como decía que quería, puedo darle la manera de averiguarlo antes de comprometerse sin poderse volver atrás. Ponga los ojos en el capitán Ahab, y encontrará que no tiene más que una pierna.

-¿Qué quiere decir ? ¿Ha perdido la otra con una ballena ?

-¡Que si la ha perdido con una ballena ! Joven, acérquese más: la devoró, la masticó, la aplastó el más monstruoso cachalote que jamás hizo astillas un bote, ¡ah, ah !

Me alarmé un poco ante su energía, y quizá también me conmoví un poco ante el sincero dolor de su exclamación final, pero dije tan tranquilamente como pude: -Lo que dice sin duda es verdad, capitán; pero ¿cómo iba a saber yo que había alguna ferocidad peculiar en esa determinada ballena ? Aunque, desde luego, podría haberlo inferido por el simple hecho del accidente.

-Mire, joven, tiene unos pulmones un poco débiles, ya ve. No habla como un buen tiburón. Pero vamos a entendernos. ¿Seguro que ha estado alguna vez en el mar antes de ahora, seguro ?

-Capitán -dije-: creía haberle dicho que he hecho cuatro viajes en la marina mercante...

-¡Fuera con eso ! ¡No olvide lo que le he dicho de la marina mercante ! No me irrite: no lo voy a consentir. Pero vamos a entendernos. Le he hecho una sugerencia sobre lo que es la pesca de la ballena: ¿sigue sintiéndose inclinado a ella ?

-Sí, señor.

-Muy bien. Bueno, ¿es usted hombre como para meter un arpón por la garganta de una ballena viva, y saltar detrás de él ? ¡Conteste, deprisa !

-Sí que soy, si es decididamente indispensable hacerlo: quiero decir, si no se puede remediar, que supongo que no ocurrirá.

-Está bien también. Bueno, entonces, ¿no solamente quiere ir a pescar ballenas, para saber por experiencia qué es eso, sino que también quiere ir para ver mundo ? ¿No es eso lo que ha dicho ? Ya me lo suponía. Bueno, entonces, vaya adelante, y eche una ojeada por la proa a barlovento, y luego vuelva a contarme qué es lo que ve.

Por un momento, me quedé un poco desconcertado por su curiosa petición, sin saber exactamente cómo tomarla, si en broma o en serio. Pero concentrando todas sus patas de gallo en un solo gesto ceñudo, el capitán Peleg me echó a andar con el encargo.

Adelantándome a mirar por la proa a barlovento, me di cuenta de que el barco, balanceándose sobre el ancla con la marea alta, ahora apuntaba oblicuamente hacia el mar abierto. La perspectiva era ilimitada, pero enormemente monótona e impresionante; ni la menor variedad que pudiera yo ver.

-Bueno, ¿cuál es el parte ? -dijo Peleg cuando volví-; ¿qué ha visto ?

-No mucho -contesté-, nada más que agua; aunque hay un considerable horizonte, y se prepara un chubasco, me parece.

-Bueno, ¿qué piensa entonces de ver el mundo ? Quiere doblar el cabo de Hornos para ver algo más de él, ¿eh ? ¿No puede ver el mundo donde está ahora ?

Me quedé un poco vacilante, pero debía y quería ir a pescar ballenas; el Pequod era tan buen barco como cualquiera -yo pensaba que el mejor-, y todo eso se lo repetí entonces a Peleg. Al verme tan decidido, expresó que estaba dispuesto a enrolarme.

-Y sería mejor que firmara los papeles ahora mismo -añadió--: le acompaño. -Y así diciendo, me precedió a la cabina, bajo cubierta.

Sentado en el yugo estaba alguien que me pareció una figura muy extraordinaria y sorprendente. Resultó ser el capitán Bildad, que, junto con el capitán Peleg, era uno de los principales propietarios del barco, mientras que las demás partes, como a veces ocurre en esos puestos, las tenían multitudes de viejos rentistas, viudas, niños sin padre y tutores judiciales, cada cual dueño de cerca del valor de una cabeza de cuaderna, un pie de tabla, o un clavo o dos del barco. La gente de Nantucket invierte el dinero en barcos balleneros, del mismo modo que vosotros invertís el vuestro en títulos del Estado que producen buenos intereses.

Ahora, Bildad, como Peleg, y, desde luego, muchos otros de Nantucket, era cuáquero, por haber sido la isla colonizada originariamente por esta secta; y hasta hoy día sus habitantes en general conservan en grado insólito las peculiaridades de los cuáqueros sólo que modificadas de modo variado y anómalo por cosas absolutamente extrañas y heterogéneas. Pues algunos de esos mismos cuáqueros son los más sanguinarios de todos los marineros y cazadores de ballenas. Son cuáqueros belicosos, son cuáqueros con saña.

Así que hay entre ellos ejemplos de hombres que, teniendo nombres bíblicos -costumbre muy común en la isla-, y habiendo absorbido en su infancia el solemne modo de tratamiento del habla cuáquera, sin embargo, por las aventuras audaces, atrevidas y desenfrenadas de sus posteriores vidas, mezclan extrañamente con esas particularidades nunca abandonadas mil rasgos atrevidos de carácter, nada indignos de un rey marino escandinavo, o de un poético romano pagano. Y cuando esas cosas se unen, en un hombre de fuerza natural grandemente superior, de cerebro bien desarrollado y corazón de mucho peso, y que por la calma y soledad de muchas largas guardias nocturnas en las aguas más remotas, y bajo constelaciones nunca vistas en el norte, se ha visto llevado a pensar de modo independiente y poco tradicional, recibiendo todas las impresiones de la naturaleza, dulces o salvajes, recién salidas de su pecho virginal, voluntarioso confidente, que, sobre todo con eso, pero también con alguna ayuda de ventajas accidentales, ha aprendido un lenguaje altanero, atrevido y nervioso, ese hombre, que cuenta por uno solo en el censo de una entera nación, es una poderosa criatura de exhibición, formada para nobles tragedias. Y no le disminuye en absoluto, considerado desde el punto de vista dramático, que, por nacimiento o por otras circunstancias, tenga lo que parece una morbosidad predominante y medio arbitraria en el fondo de su naturaleza. Ten la seguridad de esto, oh, joven ambición: toda grandeza mortal no es sino enfermedad. Pero por ahora no tenemos que habérnoslas con uno así, sino con otro muy diferente; y sin embargo, un hombre que, si bien peculiar, resulta a su vez de otra fase del cuáquero, modificado por circunstancias individuales.

Como el capitán Peleg, el capitán Bildad era un ballenero retirado, de buena posición. Pero a diferencia del capitán Peleg, que no se preocupaba un rábano de lo que se llama cosas serias, y, de hecho, consideraba esas mismísimas cosas serias como las mayores trivialidades, el capitán Bildad no sólo hablase educado originariamente conforme a las más estrictas reglas del cuaquerismo de Nantucket, sino que ni toda su posterior vida oceánica, ni la contemplación de muchas deliciosas criaturas isleñas sin vestir, al otro lado del cabo de Hornos, habían movido ni jota su temple cuáquero de nacimiento, ni habían alterado un solo pliegue de su chaleco. No obstante, a pesar de toda esa inmutabilidad, había alguna vulgar falta de coherencia en el digno capitán Bildad. Aunque rehusando, por escrúpulos de conciencia, ponerse en armas contra los invasores terrestres, él mismo, sin embargo, había invadido inconteniblemente el Atlántico y el Pacífico; y aunque enemigo jurado de derramar sangre humana, sin embargo, en su capote ajustado, había vertido toneladas de sangre del leviatán. No sé cómo reconciliaría ahora esas cosas el piadoso Bildad, en el contemplativo atardecer de sus días, pero no parecía importarle mucho, y muy probablemente había llegado hacía mucho tiempo a la sabia y sensata conclusión de que una cosa es la religión de un hombre, y otra cosa este mundo práctico. Este mundo paga dividendos. Ascendiendo desde pequeño mozo de cabina, en pantalones cortos del pardo más pardo, hasta arponero con ancho chaleco en forma de pez: pasando de ahí a jefe de ballenera, primer oficial, capitán, y finalmente propietario de barco, Bildad, como he sugerido antes, había concluido su carrera aventurera retirándose por completo de la vida activa a la excelente edad de sesenta años, y dedicando el resto de sus días a recibir sosegadamente su bien ganada renta.

Ahora, lamento decir que Bildad tenía reputación de ser un incorregible viejo tacaño, y, en sus tiempos de navegación, un patrón duro y agrio. Me dijeron en Nantucket, aunque ciertamente parece una historia curiosa, que cuando mandó el viejo ballenero {em>Categut, la mayor parte de la tripulación, al volver al puerto, desembarcó para ser llevada al hospital, dolorosamente exhausta y agotada. Para ser un hombre piadoso, especialmente para un cuáquero, era desde luego bastante terco, para decirlo de un modo suave. Sin embargo, decían que no solía echar juramentos a sus hombres, pero, de un modo o de otro, les sacaba una desordenada cantidad de trabajo duro, cruel y sin mitigación. Cuando Bildad era primer oficial, tener sus ojos de color grisáceo mirándole atentamente a uno, hacía que uno se sintiera completamente nervioso, hasta poder agarrar algo -martillo o pasador- e irse a trabajar como loco, en cualquier cosa, no importaba qué. La indolencia y la ociosidad perecían ante él. Su propia persona era la encarnación exacta de su carácter utilitario. En su largo cuerpo magro, no llevaba carne de sobra, ni barba superflua, ya que su barbilla ostentaba una blanda y económica pelusa, como la pelusa gastada de su sombrero de ala ancha.

Tal, pues, era la persona que vi sentada en el yugo cuando seguí al capitán Peleg bajando a la cabina. El espacio entre puentes era escaso; y allí, erguido tiesamente, estaba sentado el viejo Bildad, que siempre se sentaba así, sin inclinarse, y ello para ahorrar faldones de la casaca. El sombrero de ala ancha estaba a su lado: tenía las piernas rígidamente cruzadas, el traje grisáceo abotonado hasta la barbilla, y con los lentes en la nariz, parecía absorto en la lectura de un pesado volumen.

-Bildad -gritó el capitán Peleg-, ¿otra vez con eso, eh, Bildad ? Llevas ya treinta años estudiando esas Escrituras, que yo sepa con seguridad. ¿Hasta dónde has llegado, Bildad ?

Como acostumbrado largamente a tan profanas palabras por parte de su antiguo compañero de navegación, Bildad, sin advertir su actual irreverencia, levantó tranquilamente los ojos, y al verme, volvió a lanzar una ojeada inquisitiva hacia Peleg.

-Dice que es nuestro hombre, Bildad -dijo Peleg-: quiere embarcarse.

-¿Eso quieres tú ? -dijo Bildad, con acento hueco y volviéndose a mirarme.

-Quiero yo -dije sin darme cuenta, de tan intensamente cuáquero como era él.

-¿Qué piensas de él, Bildad ? -dijo Peleg.

-Servirá -dijo Bildad, echándome una ojeada, y luego siguió murmurando en su libro en un tono de murmullo muy audible.

Le consideré el más raro cuáquero viejo que había visto jamás, especialmente dado que Peleg, su amigo y antiguo compañero de navegación, parecía tan fanfarrón. Pero no dije nada, sino que sólo miré a mi alrededor con toda atención. Peleg entonces abrió un cofre , sacando el contrato del barco, le puso pluma tinta delante, y se sentó ante una mesita. Yo empecé a pensar que era sobradamente hora de decidir conmigo mismo en qué condiciones estaría dispuesto a comprometerme para el viaje. Ya me daba cuenta de que en el negocio de la pesca de la ballena no pagaban remuneración, sino que todos los tripulantes, incluido el capitán, recibían ciertas porciones de los beneficios llamadas « partes », y esas partes estaban en proporción al grado de importancia correspondiente a los deberes respectivos en la tripulación del barco. También me daba cuenta de que, siendo novato en la pesca de la ballena, mi parte no sería muy grande, pero, considerando que estaba acostumbrado al mar, y sabía gobernar un barco, empalmar un cabo, y todo eso, no tuve dudas, por todo lo que había oído, de que me ofrecerían al menos la doscientos setenta cincoava parte; esto es, la doscientos setenta cincoava parte del beneficio neto del viaje, ascendiese a lo que ascendiese. Y aunque la doscientos setenta y cincoava parte era más bien lo que llaman una « parte a la larga », sin embargo, era mejor que nada; y si teníamos un viaje con suerte, podría compensar muy bien la ropa que desgastaría en él, para no hablar del sustento y alojamiento de tres años, por los que no tendría que pagar un ardite.

Podría pensarse que ésa era una pobre manera de acumular una fortuna principesca; y así era, una manera muy pobre. Pero soy de los que nunca se ocupan de fortunas principescas, y estoy bien contento si el mundo está dispuesto a alojarme y mantenerme, mientras me hospedo bajo la fea muestra de « A la Nube Tronadora ». En conjunto, pensé que la doscientos setenta y cincoava parte vendría a ser lo decente, pero no me habría sorprendido que me ofrecieran la doscientosava, considerando que era tan ancho de hombros.

Pero una cosa, sin embargo, que me hizo sentir un poco desconfiado de recibir tan generosa porción de los beneficios fue ésta: en tierra había oído algo, tanto sobre el capitán Peleg como sobre su inexplicable viejo compadre Bildad, y de cómo, por ser ellos los principales propietarios del Pequoca los demás propietarios, menos considerables y más desparramados, les dejaban a ellos dos casi todo el manejo de los asuntos del barco. Y no podía menos de saber que el viejo avaro de Bildad quizá tendría mucho que decir en cuanto a enrolar tripulantes, sobre todo dado que yo le había encontrado a bordo del Pequod muy en su casa en la cabina, y leyendo la Biblia como si estuviera junto a su chimenea. Ahora, mientras Peleg intentaba vanamente cortar una pluma con su navaja, el viejo Bildad, con no poca sorpresa mía, visto que era parte tan interesada en estos asuntos, no nos prestaba la menor atención, sino que seguía mascullando para sí mismo en su libro. -« No os hagáis tesoros en la tierra, donde la polilla...

» -Bueno, capitán Bildad -interrumpió Peleg-, ¿qué dices, qué parte le damos a este joven ?

-Tú lo sabes mejor -fue la sepulcral respuesta-: la setecientas setenta sieteava no sería demasiado, ¿no ?..., « donde la polilla el gusano devoran... ».

« ¡Qué parte, sí -pensé yo-, la setecientas setenta y sieteava ! Bueno, viejo Bildad, estás decidido a que yo, por mi parte, no tenga mucha parte en esta parte donde la polilla y el gusano devoran. » Era una parte demasiado « a la larga », y aunque por la magnitud de su cifra podría a primera vista engañar a uno de tierra adentro, sin embargo, el más ligero examen mostrará que, aunque setecientos setenta y siete sea un número bastante grande, con todo, cuando se trata de dividir por él, se verá entonces, digo yo, que la parte setecientas setenta y sieteava de un penique es mucho menos que setecientos setenta siete doblones; eso pensé entonces.

-¡Vaya, ya puedes reventar ! -gritó Peleg-: no querrás estafar a este joven: tiene que recibir más que eso.

-Setecientos setenta y siete -volvió a decir Bildad, sin levantar los ojos, y luego siguió mascullando-: « pues donde está vuestro tesoro, allí estará vuestro corazón ».

-Le voy a poner por la trescientosava -dijo Peleg-: ¿me oyes, Bildad ? La parte trescientosava, digo.

Bildad dejó el libro, y volviéndose solemnemente hacia él, dijo: -Capitán Peleg, tienes un corazón generoso; pero debes considerar tus obligaciones respecto a los demás propietarios del barco, viudas huérfanos muchos de ellos, que si compensamos en exceso las fatigas de este joven, quizá les quitaremos el pan a esas viudas a esos huérfanos. La parte setecientas setenta sieteava, capitán Peleg.

-¡Tú, Bildad ! -rugió Peleg, incorporándose de un salto y armando ruido por la cabina-: ¡Maldita sea, capitán Bildad, si hubiera seguido tu consejo en estos asuntos, ahora tendría que halar una conciencia tan pesada como para hundir el mayor barco que jamás navegó doblando el cabo de Hornos !

-Capitán Peleg -dijo Bildad, con firmeza-: tu conciencia quizá hará diez pulgadas de agua, o diez brazas, no sé decir; pero como sigues siendo un hombre impertinente, capitán Peleg, me temo mucho que tu conciencia hace agua, y acabará por sumergirte a ti, hundiéndote en el abismo de los horrores, capitán Peleg.

-¡El abismo de los horrores, el abismo de los horrores ! Me insultas, hombre, más de lo que se puede aguantar por naturaleza: me insultas. Es un ultraje infernal decirle a ninguna criatura humana que está destinada al infierno. ¡Colas de ballenas y llamas ! Bildad, vuelve a decirlo me abres los pernos del alma, pero yo... yo... sí, yo me tragaré un macho cabrío vivo, con cuernos y pelo. ¡Fuera de la cabina, hipócrita, grisáceo hijo de un cañón de madera..., sal derecho !

Tronando así, se lanzó contra Bildad, pero Bildad, con maravillosa celeridad oblicua y resbalosa, le eludió por esta vez.

Alarmado ante esa terrible explosión entre los dos principales propietarios responsables del barco, y sintiéndome casi inclinado a abandonar toda idea de navegar en un barco de tan discutible propiedad y tan efímero mando, me aparté a un lado de la puerta para dar salida a Bildad, quien, sin duda, estaba muy dispuesto a desaparecer ante la despertada cólera de Peleg. Pero con asombro mío, volvió a sentarse en el yugo con mucha tranquilidad, por lo visto sin tener la más leve intención de retirarse. Parecía muy acostumbrado al impenitente Peleg y sus maneras. En cuanto a Peleg, después de disparar la cólera como lo había hecho, parecía que no quedaba más en él, y también se sentó como un cordero, aunque convulsionándose un poco, como todavía con agitación nerviosa. -¡Ufl -silbó por fin-: el chubasco ha pasado a sotavento, me parece. Bildad, tú solías servir para afilar un arpón: córtame esa pluma. Mi navaja necesita piedra de afilar: eso es, gracias, Bildad. Bueno, entonces, joven; tu nombre es Ismael, ¿no decías ? Bueno, entonces, aquí te pongo Ismael, con la parte trescientosava.

-Capitán Peleg -dije-, tengo conmigo un amigo que también quiere embarcarse: ¿le traigo mañana ?

-Claro -dijo Peleg-. Tráele contigo, y le echaremos una mirada.

-¿Qué parte quiere ? -gruñó Bildad, levantando la mirada del libro en que se había vuelto a sepultar.

-¡Ah, no te preocupes de eso, Bildad ! -dijo Peleg-. ¿Ha ido alguna vez a la pesca de la ballena ? -y se volvió hacia mí.

-Ha matado más ballenas de las que puedo contar, capitán Peleg.

-Bueno, tráele entonces.

Y, después de firmar los papeles, me marché, sin dudar de que había aprovechado muy bien la mañana, y de que el Pequod era el mismísimo barco que Yojo había proporcionado para que nos llevara, a Queequeg y a mí, más allá del Cabo.

Pero no había llegado muy lejos, cuando empecé a considerar que el capitán con quien iba a navegar todavía había permanecido invisible para mí, aunque, desde luego, en muchos casos, un ballenero queda completamente acondicionado y recibe a bordo toda su tripulación antes que el capitán se deje ver llegando a tomar el mando: pues a veces esos viajes son tan prolongados, y los intervalos en tierra, en el puerto de origen, son tan desmesuradamente cortos, que si el capitán tiene familia, o algún interés absorbente de esta especie, no se preocupa demasiado por su barco en el puerto, sino que se lo deja a los propietarios hasta que está dispuesto para hacerse a la mar. Sin embargo, siempre está bien echarle una mirada antes de entregarse irremediablemente en sus manos. Volví atrás y me acerqué al capitán Peleg, para preguntarle dónde se encontraría el capitán Ahab.

-¿Y qué quieres con el capitán Ahab ? Ya está de sobra bien: ya estás enrolado.

-Sí, pero me gustaría verle.

-Pues no creo que puedas verle por ahora. No sé exactamente qué le pasa, pero está encerrado dentro de casa, como si estuviera enfermo, aunque no tiene cara de ello. En realidad, no está enfermo, pero no, tampoco está bien. De cualquier modo, joven, no siempre me quiere ver, así que supongo que no te querrá ver. Es un hombre raro, el capitán Ahab, eso dicen algunos, pero bueno. Ah, te gustará mucho: no tengas miedo, no tengas miedo. Es un hombre grandioso, blasfemo, pero como un dios, el capitán Ahab; no habla mucho, pero cuando habla, le puedes escuchar muy bien. Fíjate, te lo aviso: Ahab está por encima de lo común; Ahab ha estado en colegios lo mismo que entre los caníbales; está acostumbrado a maravillas más profundas que las olas. ¡Su arpón ! ¡Sí, el más agudo y seguro de toda nuestra isla ! ¡Ah, no es el capitán Bildad; no, tampoco es el capitán Peleg: es Ahab, muchacho; y el antiguo Ahab, como sabes, era un rey coronado !

-Y muy vil. Cuando mataron a aquel perverso rey, ¿no lamieron su sangre los perros ?

-Ven acá: conmigo, acá, acá -dijo Peleg, con un aire significativo en la mirada que casi me sobresaltó-. Mira bien, muchacho: nunca digas eso a bordo del Pequod Nunca lo digas en ningún sitio. El capitán Ahab no se ha puesto el nombre a sí mismo. Fue una estúpida e ignorante manía de su madre, loca y viuda, que murió cuando él tenía sólo un año. Y sin embargo, la vieja india Tistig, en Gay-Head, dijo que el nombre resultaría profético de un modo u otro. Y quizá otros locos como ella te dirán lo mismo. Quiero avisarte. Es mentira. Conozco muy bien al capitán Ahab; he navegado de oficial con él hace años; sé lo que es, un buen hombre, no un hombre piadoso y bueno como Bildad, sino un hombre bueno que jura, algo así como yo, sólo que con mucho más. Sí, sí, a sé que nunca ha estado muy alegre; y sé que, en la travesía de vuelta, estuvo algún tiempo fuera de quicio, pero eran los dolores agudos y disparados de su muñón sangriento lo que le produjo eso, como cualquiera puede ver. Yo sé también que desde que perdió la pierna en el último viaje, por esa maldita ballena, está un poco raro, con humor desesperado, y a veces como loco; pero todo eso se pasará. Y de una vez para todas, permíteme decirte y asegurarte, joven, que vale más navegar con un buen capitán de humor raro que con uno malo y risueño. Así que adiós, y no ofendas al capitán Ahab porque da la casualidad de que tiene un nombre maldito. Además, muchacho, tiene mujer; no hace tres viajes que se ha casado; una muchacha dulce y resignada. Piensa en eso: con esa dulce muchacha, ese viejo ha tenido un hijo: ¿piensas entonces que puede haber en él algún mal decidido y sin esperanza ? No, no, muchacho; herido, fulminado o como sea, Ahab tiene su humanidad.

Al marcharme, iba lleno de vacilaciones; lo que incidentalmente se me había revelado sobre el capitán Ahab me llenaba de un cierto loco y vago dolor respecto a él. Y al mismo tiempo, no sé cómo, sentía simpatía y pena por él, pero no sé por qué, a no ser por la cruel pérdida de su pierna. Y sin embargo, también sentía un extraño temor de él, pero esa clase de temor, que no puedo describir en absoluto, no era exactamente temor; no sé lo que era. Pero lo sentía, y no me hacía tener desvío respecto a él, aunque sentía impaciencia ante lo que parecía en él como un misterio, a pesar de lo imperfectamente que entonces le conocía. Sin embargo, mis pensamientos acabaron por ser llevados en otras direcciones, de modo que por el momento Ahab resbaló de mi mente. 

El Ramadán

Como Queequeg iba a continuar todo el día su Ramadán, o Ayuno y Humillación, preferí no interrumpirle hasta cerca de la caída de la noche, pues tengo gran respeto hacia las obligaciones religiosas de cualquiera, sin que importe qué cómicas sean, y no cabe en mi corazón menospreciar siquiera a una feligresía de hormigas adorando una seta, o esas otras criaturas de ciertas regiones de nuestra tierra, que, con un grado de lacayismo sin precedentes en otros planetas, se inclinan ante el torso de un fallecido propietario agrícola meramente a causa de las desmesuradas posesiones que todavía se tienen y se arriendan en su nombre.

Digo yo que los buenos cristianos presbiterianos deberíamos ser caritativos en estas cosas, y no imaginarnos tan altamente superiores a otros mortales, paganos o lo que sean, a causa de sus ideas semidementes en estos aspectos. Allí estaba ahora Queequeg, indudablemente manteniendo las más absurdas nociones sobre Yojo y su Ramadán, pero ¿y qué ? Queequeg creía saber lo que hacía, supongo; parecía estar contento, así que dejémosle en paz. De nada serviría todo lo que discutiéramos con él; dejémosle en paz, digo; y el Cielo tenga misericordia de todos nosotros, de un modo o de otro, estamos terriblemente tocados de la cabeza, y necesitamos un buen arreglo.

Hacia el anochecer, cuando me sentí seguro de que debían haber terminado todas sus realizaciones y rituales, subí a su cuarto y llamé a la puerta; pero no hubo respuesta. Traté de abrirla, pero estaba sujeta por dentro. -Queequeg -dije suavemente por el ojo de la cerradura: todo callado-. Oye, Queequeg, ¿por qué no hablas ? Soy yo... Ismael. Pero todo seguía en silencio como antes. Empecé a sentirme alarmado. Le había dejado tiempo de sobra: pensé que habría tenido un ataque de apoplejía. Miré por el ojo de la cerradura, pero como la puerta daba a un rincón desviado del cuarto, la perspectiva del ojo de la cerradura era torcida y siniestra. Sólo podía ver parte de los pies de la cama y una línea de la pared. Me sorprendió observar, apoyada contra la pared, el asta de madera del arpón de Queequeg, que la patrona le había quitado la noche anterior, antes de que subiéramos al cuarto. « Es extraño -pensé-, pero, de todos modos, puesto que el arpón está ahí, y Queequeg raramente o nunca sale fuera sin él, debe estar dentro, por consiguiente, sin posible error. »

-¡Queequeg, Queequeg ! Todo en silencio. Algo debía haber ocurrido. ¡Apoplejía ! Traté de abrir de un golpe la puerta, pero resistía tercamente. Corriendo escaleras abajo, rápidamente declaré mis temores a la primera persona que encontré: la criada. -¡Vaya, vaya ! -exclamó-. Pensaba que debía pasar algo. Fui a hacer la cama, después del desayuno, la puerta estaba cerrada no se oía un ratón; y desde entonces ha seguido igual de silencioso. Pero creí que quizá se habían ido ustedes dos juntos, echando la llave para dejar seguro el equipaje. ¡Vaya, vaya ! ¡Señora, ama, han matado a alguien ! ¡Señora Hussey, apoplejía ! -Y con esos gritos corrió hacia la cocina, seguida por mí.

Pronto apareció la señora Hussey, con un tarro de mostaza en una mano y una botellita de vinagre en la otra, habiendo acabado en ese momento de ocuparse de las vinagreras, y riñendo mientras tanto a su muchachito negro.

-¡La leñera ! -grité-: ¿por dónde se va ? Corran por Dios, y traigan algo para forzar la puerta: ¡El hacha, el hacha ! ¡Tiene un ataque, pueden estar seguros ! Y así diciendo, de modo incoherente volvía yo a subir las escaleras con las manos vacías, cuando la señora Hussey interpuso el tarro de mostaza, la botellita del vinagre y todo el aceite de ricino de su cara.

-¿Qué le pasa a usted, joven ?

-¡Traigan el hacha ! ¡Por Dios, corran por el médico, alguien, mientras yo fuerzo la puerta !

-Mire aquí -dijo la patrona, dejando en seguida la botellita del vinagre como para tener una mano libre-: mire aquí; ¿habla de forzar ninguna de mis puertas ? -Y así diciendo, me agarró el brazo-. ¿Qué le pasa a usted ? ¿Qué le pasa, marinero ?

De modo tranquilo, pero lo más rápido posible, le di a entender todo el asunto. Apretándose inconscientemente el vinagre contra un lado de la nariz, rumió un momento, y luego exclamó: -¡No ! No lo he visto desde que lo dejé allí. Corriendo a un pequeño hueco bajo el arranque de las escaleras, echó una mirada, y al volver me dijo que faltaba el arpón de Queequeg. -Se ha matado -gritó-. Es otra vez el desgraciado Stiggs; otra colcha que se pierde: ¡Dios se compadezca de su pobre madre ! Será la ruina de mi casa. ¿Tiene alguna hermana el pobre muchacho ? ¿Dónde está esa muchacha ? Ea, Betty, ve a ver a Snarles el pintor y dile que pinte un letrero: « Se prohíbe suicidarse aquí y fumar en la sala »; así podríamos matar los dos pájaros de una vez. ¿Matarse ? ¡El Señor tenga misericordia de su alma ! ¿Qué es ese ruido de ahí ? ¡Eh, joven, quieto ahí !

Y corriendo detrás de mí, me sujetó cuando yo volvía a intentar abrir la puerta por la fuerza.

-No lo permitiré: no quiero que me estropeen las habitaciones. Vaya por el cerrajero; hay uno cerca de una milla de aquí. Pero ¡espere ! -metiéndose la mano en el bolsillo-: aquí hay una llave que sirve, me parece; vamos a ver. Y diciendo así, dio vuelta a la llave en la cerradura, pero ¡ay ! el cerrojo suplementario de Queequeg seguía echado por dentro.

-Voy a abrirla de un golpe -dije, y ya me echaba atrás por el pasillo para tomar carrerilla, cuando la patrona me volvió a sujetar, jurando de nuevo que yo no tenía que destrozarle sus habitaciones; pero me desprendí de ella, y con un súbito empujón con todo el cuerpo, me lancé de lleno contra el blanco.

Con tremendo ruido, la puerta se abrió de par en par, y el tirador, golpeando con la pared, lanzó el encalado hasta el techo; y allí, ¡Cielo santo !, allí estaba Queequeg, completamente indiferente y absorto en el centro mismo de la habitación, acurrucado en cuclillas, y teniendo a Yojo encima de la cabeza. Ni miró a un lado ni a otro, sino que siguió sentado como una imagen tallada con escasos signos de vida activa.

-Queequeg -dije, acercándome a él-, Queequeg, ¿qué te pasa ?

-¿No llevará todo el día sentado ahí, eh ? -dijo la patrona.

Pero por mucho que dijimos, no pudimos arrancarle una palabra; casi me dieron ganas de derribarle de un empujón, para cambiarle de postura, pues era casi intolerable parecía tan penosa antinaturalmente forzada; sobre todo, dado que, con toda probabilidad, llevaba sentado así unas ocho o diez horas, pasándose además sin las comidas normales.

-Señora Hussey dije-, en todo caso, está vivo; de modo que déjenos, por favor, y yo mismo me ocuparé de este extraño asunto.

Cerrando la puerta tras la patrona, intenté convencer a Queequeg para que tomara un asiento, pero en vano. Allí seguía sentado, eso era todo lo que podía hacer: con todas mis habilidades corteses halagos, no quería mover una clavija, ni mirarme, ni advertir más presencia del modo más leve.

« No sé -pensé- si es posible que esto forme parte de su Ramadán; ¿ayunarán en cuclillas de este modo en su isla natal ? Debe ser así; sí, es parte de su credo, supongo; bueno, entonces, dejémosle en paz; sin duda se levantará, antes o después. No puede durar para siempre, gracias a Dios, y su Ramadán sólo toca una vez al año, y tampoco creo que entonces sea muy puntual. »

Bajé a cenar. Después de pasar un largo rato oyendo los largos relatos de unos marineros que acababan de volver de un viaje « al pastel de ciruelas » como lo llamaban (esto es, una breve travesía a la caza de ballenas en una goleta o bergantín, limitándose al norte del ecuador, y sólo en el océano Atlántico), después de escuchar a esos pasteleros hasta cerca de las once, subí para acostarme, sintiéndome muy seguro de que a esas horas Queequeg debería haber puesto fin a su Ramadán. Pero no: allí estaba donde le había dejado: no se había movido una pulgada. Empecé a sentirme molesto con él; tan absolutamente insensato y loco parecía al estarse allí sentado todo el día y mitad de la noche, en cuclillas, en un cuarto frío, sosteniendo un trozo de madera en la cabeza.

-Por amor de Dios, Queequeg, levántate y sacúdete; levántate y cena. Te vas a morir de hambre, te vas a matar, Queequeg. -Pero él no contestó ni palabra.

Desesperando de él, por consiguiente, decidí acostarme y dormir, sin dudar de que no tardaría mucho tiempo en seguirme. Pero antes de meterme, tomé mi pesado chaquetón de « piel de oso » y se lo eché por encima, porque prometía ser una noche muy fría, él no llevaba puesta más que su chaqueta corriente. Durante algún tiempo, por más que hiciera, no pude caer en el más ligero sopor. Había apagado la vela de un soplo, y la mera idea de que Queequeg, a menos de cuatro pies de distancia, estaba sentado en esa incómoda posición, completamente solo en el frío y la oscuridad, me hacía sentir realmente desgraciado. Pensadlo: ¡dormir toda la noche en el mismo cuarto con un pagano completamente despierto y en cuclillas, en este temible e inexplicable Ramadán !

Pero, no sé cómo, me dormí por fin, y no supe más hasta que rompió el día, cuando, mirando desde la cama, vi allí acurrucado a Queequeg como si le hubieran atornillado al suelo. Pero tan pronto cómo el primer destello de sol entró por la ventana, se incorporó, con las articulaciones rígidas y crujientes, aunque con aire alegre; se acercó cojeando a donde estaba yo, apretó la frente otra vez contra la mía, y dijo que había terminado su Ramadán.

Ahora bien, como ya he indicado antes, no tengo objeciones contra la religión de nadie, sea cual sea, mientras esa persona no mate ni insulte a ninguna otra persona porque ésta no cree también lo mismo. Pero cuando la religión de un hombre se pone realmente frenética, cuando es un tormento decidido para él, y, dicho francamente, cuando convierte esta tierra nuestra en una incómoda posada en que alojarnos, entonces, creo que es hora de tomar aparte a ese individuo y discutir la cuestión con él.

Eso es lo que hice entonces con Queequeg. -Queequeg -dije-, métete en la cama, y óyeme bien quieto. Seguí luego, comenzando con la aparición y progreso de las religiones primitivas, para llegar hasta las diversas religiones de la época presente, esforzándome en ese tiempo por mostrar a Queequeg que todas esas Cuaresmas, Ramadanes y prolongados acurrucamientos en cuartos fríos y tristes eran pura insensatez; algo malo para la salud, inútil para el alma, y, en resumen, opuesto a las leyes evidentes de la higiene y el sentido común. Le dije también que aunque él en otras cosas era un salvaje tan extremadamente sensato y sagaz, ahora me hacía daño, me hacía mucho daño, al verle tan deplorablemente estúpido con ese ridículo Ramadán. Además, argüí, el ayuno debilita el cuerpo; por consiguiente, el espíritu se debilita, y todos los pensamientos nacidos de un ayuno deben por fuerza estar medio muertos de hambre. Esa es la razón por la que la mayor parte de los beatos dispépticos cultivan tan melancólicas ideas sobre su vida futura. -En una palabra, Queequeg -dije, más bien en digresión-, el infierno es una idea que nació por primera vez de un flan de manzana sin digerir, y desde entonces se ha perpetuado a través de las dispepsias hereditarias producidas por los Ramadanes.

Luego pregunté a Queequeg si él mismo sufría alguna vez de mala digestión, expresándole la idea con mucha claridad para que pudiera captarla. Dijo que no; sólo en una ocasión memorable. Fue después de una gran fiesta dada por su padre el rey, por haber ganado una gran batalla donde cincuenta de sus enemigos habían quedado muertos alrededor de las dos de la tarde, y aquella misma noche fueron guisados y comidos.

-Basta, Queequeg -dije, estremeciéndome-; ya está bien -pues sabía lo que se deducía de ello sin que él me lo indicara. Yo había visto a un marinero que visitó esa misma isla, y me dijo que era costumbre, cuando se ganaba una gran batalla, hacer una barbacoa con todos los muertos en el jardín de la casa del vencedor; y luego, uno por uno, los ponían en grandes trincheros de madera y los aderezaban alrededor como un pilar, con frutos del árbol del pan con cocos; así, con un poco de perejil en la boca, eran enviados por todas partes con los saludos del vencedor a sus amigos, igual que si esos regalos fueran pavos de Navidad.

Después de todo, no creo que mis observaciones sobre la religión hicieran mucha impresión en Queequeg; en primer lugar, porque parecía un poco duro de oído, no sé por qué, en ese importante tema, a no ser que se considerara desde su propio punto de vista; en segundo lugar, porque no me entendía más de la tercera parte, por muy sencillamente que yo presentara mis ideas; y, finalmente, porque él creía sin duda que sabía mucho más de religión que yo. Me miraba con una especie de interés y compasión condescendientes, como si juzgara una gran lástima que un joven tan sensato estuviera tan desesperanzadoramente perdido en la pagana piedad evangélica.

Por fin nos levantamos nos vestimos, Queequeg tomó un prodigioso y cordial desayuno de calderetas de pescado de todas clases, de modo que la patrona no saliera ganando mucho a causa de su Ramadán, tras de lo cual salimos para subir a bordo del Pequod, paseando tranquilamente y mondándonos los dientes con espinas de hipogloso. 

Su señal

Cuando llegábamos al extremo del muelle hacia el barco, llevando Queequeg su arpón al hombro, el capitán Peleg, con su áspera voz, nos saludó desde su cabaña india, diciendo que no había sospechado que mi amigo fuera un caníbal, y anunciando además que no consentía caníbales a bordo de aquella embarcación, a no ser que mostraran antes sus papeles.

-¿Qué quiere decir con eso, capitán Peleg ? -dije, saltando ya a las amuradas y dejando a mi camarada de pie en el muelle.

-Quiero decir -contestó- que debe enseñar sus papeles.

-Sí -dijo el capitán Bildad, con su voz hueca, sacando la cabeza, detrás de la de Peleg, desde la cabaña india-: Debe mostrar que está convertido. Hijo de la tiniebla -añadió, volviéndose hacia Queequeg-: ¿estás actualmente en comunión con alguna iglesia cristiana ?

-¡Cómo ! --dije yo-: es miembro de la Primera Iglesia Congregacionalista. -Aquí ha de decirse que muchos salvajes tatuados que navegan en barcos de Nantucket acaban por convertirse a alguna de las iglesias.

-La Primera Iglesia Congregacionalista -gritó Bildad-, ¡qué !, ¿la que reza en la casa de reunión del diácono Deuteronomy Coleman ? -Y así diciendo, se quitó los lentes, los frotó con un gran pañuelo de seda amarilla con lunares, y, poniéndoselos con mucho cuidado, salió de la cabaña india, y se inclinó rígidamente sobre las amuradas para mirar con toda calma a Queequeg.

-¿Cuánto tiempo hace que es miembro ? -dijo luego, volviéndose hacia mí-: no será mucho, supongo, joven.

-No -dijo Peleg-, y tampoco le han bautizado como es debido, o si no, se le habría lavado de la cara un poco de ese azul de diablo.

-Dime, entonces -gritó Bildad-: ¿este filisteo es miembro regular de la reunión del diácono Deuteronomy ? Nunca le he visto ir allí, y yo voy todos los días del Señor.

-Yo no sé nada del diácono Deuteronomy ni de su reunión -dije-, todo lo que sé es que este Queequeg es miembro por nacimiento de la Primera Iglesia Congregacionalista. El también es diácono, el mismo Queequeg.

-Joven -dijo Bildad severamente-, estás bromeando conmigo: explícate, joven hetita. ¿A qué iglesia te refieres ? Respóndeme.

Encontrándome tan apremiado, contesté: -Quiero decir, capitán, la misma antigua Iglesia universal a que pertenecemos usted yo, y aquí, el capitán Peleg, ahí Queequeg, y todos nosotros, todo hijo de madre todo bicho viviente; la grande y perenne Primera Congregación de este entero mundo en adoración: todos pertenecemos a ella; sólo que algunos de nosotros cultivamos algunas extravagancias que de ningún modo tocan a la gran creencia: en ésa, todos unimos nuestras manos.

-Empalmamos las manos, querrás decir que las empalmamos -gritó Peleg, acercándose-. Joven, mejor sería que te embarcaras como misionero, en vez de ir como marinero ante el mástil: nunca he oído un sermón mejor. El diácono Deuteronomy... bueno, ni el mismo padre Mapple lo podría mejorar, y no es un cualquiera. Ven a bordo, ven a bordo; no te preocupes por los papeles. Oye, dile a ese Quohog; ¿cómo le llamas ? Dile a Quohog que venga acá. ¡Por el ancla mayor, qué arpón lleva ahí ! Parece cosa buena, y lo maneja muy bien. Oye, Quohog, o como te llames, ¿alguna vez has ido a la proa de una ballenera ?, ¿alguna vez has cazado un pez ?

Sin decir palabra, Queequeg, con sus maneras extraviadas, saltó sobre las amuradas, y de allí a la proa de una de las lanchas balleneras que colgaban sobre el costado; y entonces, doblando la rodilla izquierda y blandiendo el arpón, gritó algo así como:

-Capitán, ¿ver gota pequeña de brea allí en agua ?, ¿ver ? Bueno, piense ojo de ballena, y entonces, ¡zas ! Y apuntando bien, disparó el hierro por encima mismo del ancho sombrero de Bildad, y a través de toda la cubierta del barco, hasta dar en la brillante mancha de brea, haciéndola desaparecer de la vista.

-Bueno -dijo Queequeg, recogiendo tranquilamente la lanza-: suponer ojo de ballena; entonces, ballena muerta.

-Deprisa, Bildad -dijo su socio Peleg, que, horrorizado ante la proximidad inmediata del arpón volante, se había retirado hasta la entrada de la cabina- deprisa, digo, Bildad, trae los papeles del barco. Tenemos que tener aquí a ese Hedgehog, quiero decir Quohog, en una de nuestras lanchas. Mira, Quohog, te daremos una parte de noventa, y eso es más de lo que se ha dado nunca a un arponero salido de Nantucket.

Así que entramos en la cabina, y con gran alegría mía, Queequeg quedó pronto enrolado en la tripulación del mismo barco a que pertenecía yo.

Terminamos los preliminares, cuando Peleg tenía todo dispuesto para firmar, se volvió a mí y dijo: -Supongo que este Quohog no sabe escribir, ¿no ? Digo, Quohog, maldito seas, ¿sabes firmar o poner tu señal ?

Pero ante esta pregunta, Queequeg, que ya había tomado parte dos o tres veces en ceremonias semejantes, no pareció de ningún modo cohibido, sino que, tomando la pluma que le ofrecían, copió en el papel, en el lugar adecuado, una exacta reproducción de una extraña figura en redondo que llevaba tatuada en el brazo, de modo que, por la obstinada equivocación del capitán Peleg respecto a su nombre, quedó algo así como:

Quohog 
su + señal

Mientras tanto, el capitán Bildad seguía observando a Queequeg con gravedad fijeza, por fin, levantándose solemnemente hurgando en los grandes bolsillos de su chaquetón grisáceo de anchos faldones, sacó un manojo de folletos y, eligiendo uno titulado « Se Acerca el Día del juicio; o, No Hay Tiempo que Perder », lo puso en las manos de Queequeg, y luego, agarrándoselas con las suyas, junto con el libro, le miró a los ojos y dijo: -Hijo de la tiniebla, tengo que cumplir mi deber contigo; soy copropietario de este barco, y me siento responsable de las almas de toda su tripulación; si sigues aferrándote a tus maneras paganas, como me temo tristemente, te exhorto a que no permanezcas para siempre jamás como siervo de Belial. Desdeña al ídolo Bel y al horrendo dragón; apártate de la cólera venidera; anda con ojo, quiero decir; ¡ay, por la gracia divina ! ¡Gobierna a lo largo del abismo de la condenación !

Algo de sal marina quedaba todavía en el lenguaje del viejo Bildad, mezclado de modo heterogéneo con frases bíblicas y domésticas.

-Deja, déjate de eso, Bildad, deja de echar a perder a nuestro arponero -gritó Peleg-. Los arponeros piadosos nunca son buenos navegantes: eso les quita la fuerza, y no hay arponero que valga una paja que no sea muy fiero. Ahí estaba el joven Nat Swaine, que en otro tiempo fue el más valiente en la proa de todas las lanchas balleneras de Nantucket del Vineyard: empezó a ir a la capilla, no llegó nunca a ser nada bueno. Se puso tan asustado por su alma viciada que se echó atrás se apartó de las ballenas por temor a las consecuencias en caso de que le desfondaran y le mandaran con Davy Jones.

-¡Peleg, Peleg ! -dijo Bildad, levantando los ojos y las manos-, tú mismo, como yo, has pasado momentos de peligro; tú sabes, Peleg, lo que es tener miedo a la muerte: entonces, ¿cómo puedes charlar de ese modo impío ? Mientes contra tu propio corazón, Peleg. Dime, cuando este mismo Pequod perdió los tres palos por la borda en aquel tifón en el Japón, en ese mismo viaje en que fuiste de segundo de Ahab, ¿no pensaste entonces en la Muerte y el juicio ?

-¡Oídle ahora, oídle ahora ! -exclamó Peleg, dando vueltas por la cabina, y con las manos bien metidas en los bolsillos-, oídle todos. ¡Pensad en eso ! ¡Cuando a cada momento pensábamos que se iba a hundir el barco ! ¿La Muerte y el juicio entonces ? ¡No ! No había tiempo entonces de pensar en la Muerte. En la vida, es en lo que pensábamos el capitán Ahab yo, y en cómo salvar a toda la tripulación, cómo aparejar bandolas, y cómo llegar al puerto más cercano; en eso es en lo que estaba pensando.

Bildad no dijo más, sino que, abotonándose hasta arriba su chaquetón, salió a grandes zancadas hasta cubierta, adonde le seguimos. Allí se quedó, vigilando calladamente a unos veleros que remendaban una gavia en el combés. De vez en cuando se agachaba a recoger un trozo de lona o a aprovechar un cabo del hilo embreado, que de otro modo se hubieran desperdiciado. 

El profeta

-Marineros, ¿os habéis enrolado en ese barco ?

Queequeg yo acabábamos de dejar el Pequod y nos alejábamos tranquilamente del agua, cada cual ocupado por el momento en sus propios pensamientos, cuando nos dirigió las anteriores palabras un desconocido que, deteniéndose ante nosotros, apuntó con su macizo índice al navío en cuestión. Iba desastradamente vestido con un chaquetón descolorido y pantalones remendados, mientras que un jirón de pañuelo negro revestía su cuello. Una densa viruela había fluido por su cara en todas las direcciones, dejándola como el complicado lecho en escalones de un torrente cuando se han secado las aguas precipitadas.

-¿Os habéis enrolado en él ? -repitió.

-Supongo que se refiere al barco Pequod-dije, tratando de ganar un poco más de tiempo para mirarle sin interrupción.

-Eso es, el Pequod ese barco -dijo, echando atrás el brazo entero, y luego lanzándolo rápidamente por delante, derecho, con la bayoneta calada de su dedo disparada de lleno hacia su objetivo.

-Sí -dije-, acabamos de firmar el contrato. -

¿Y se hacía constar algo en él sobre vuestras almas ?

-¿Sobre qué ?

-Ah, quizá no tengáis almas -dijo rápidamente-. No importa, sin embargo: conozco a más de un muchacho que no tiene alma: buena suerte, con eso está mejor. Un alma es una especie de quita rueda para un carro.

-¿De qué anda cotorreando, compañero ? -dije.

-Quizá él sea suficiente, sin embargo, para compensar todas las deficiencias de esta especie en otros muchachos -dijo bruscamente el desconocido, poniendo nerviosos énfasis en la palabra él.

-Queequeg -dije-, vámonos; este tipo se ha escapado de algún sitio; habla de algo y de alguien que no conocemos.

-¡Alto ! -gritó el desconocido-. Decís la verdad: no habéis visto todavía al Viejo Trueno, ¿eh ?

-¿Quien es el Viejo Trueno ? -dije, otra vez aprisionado por la loca gravedad de sus modales.

-El capitán Ahab.

-¿Cómo ?, ¿el capitán de nuestro barco, el Pequod ?

-Sí, entre algunos de nosotros, los viejos marinos, se le llama así. No le habéis visto todavía, ¿eh ?

-No, no le hemos visto. Dicen que está enfermo, pero que se está poniendo mejor, y no tardará en estar bien del todo.

-¡No tardará en estar bien del todo ! -se rió el desconocido, con una risa solemne y despreciativa-. Mirad, cuando el capitán Ahab esté bien del todo, entonces su brazo izquierdo vendrá derecho a ser mío, no antes.

-¿Qué sabe de él ?

-¿Qué sabéis vosotros de él ? ¡Decid eso !

-No nos han dicho mucho de él; sólo he oído que es un buen cazador de ballenas, y un buen capitán para la tripulación.

-Es verdad, es verdad; sí, las dos cosas son bastante verdad. Pero tenéis que saltar cuando él dé una orden. Moverse y gruñir, gruñir y marchar; ésa es la consigna con el capitán Ahab. Pero ¿nada sobre aquello que le pasó a la altura del cabo de Hornos, hace mucho, cuando estuvo como muerto tres días con sus noches; nada de aquella esgrima mortal con el español ante el altar de Santa ? ¿No habéis oído nada de eso ? ¿Nada sobre la calabaza de plata en que escupió ? ¿Y nada de que perdió la pierna en su último viaje, conforme a la profecía ? ¿No habéis oído una palabra sobre esas cosas y algo más, eh ? No, no creo que lo hayáis oído; ¿cómo podríais ? ¿Quién lo sabe ? No toda Nantucket, supongo. Pero de todos modos, quizá hayáis oído hablar por casualidad de la pierna, y de cómo la perdió; sí, habéis oído hablar de eso, me atrevo a decir. Ah, sí, eso lo saben casi todos: quiero decir, que ahora no tiene más que una pierna, y que un cachalote se le llevó la otra.

-Amigo mío -dije-: no sé a qué viene toda esa cháchara, ni me importa, porque me parece que debe estar un poco estropeado de la cabeza. Pero si habla del capitán Ahab, de este barco, el Pequod;, entonces permítame decirle que lo sé todo sobre la pérdida de la pierna.

-Todo sobre ella... ¿De veras ?, ¿todo ?

-Por supuesto.

Con el dedo extendido los ojos apuntando hacia el Pequod el desconocido de aspecto de mendigo se quedó un momento como en un ensueño turbado; luego, sobresaltándose un poco, se volvió y dijo: -Os habéis enrolado, ¿eh ? ¿Los nombres puestos en el papel ? Bueno, bueno, lo que está firmado, firmado está; y lo que ha de ser, será; y luego, también, a lo mejor no será, después de todo. De cualquier modo, todo está fijado a y arreglado; y unos marineros u otros tendrán que ir con él, supongo; lo mismo da éstos que cualquier otros hombres. ¡Dios tenga compasión de ellos ! Buenos días, marineros, buenos días; los inefables Cielos os bendigan: lamento haberos detenido

-Mire acá, amigo -dije-: si tiene algo importante que decirnos, fuera con ello; pero si sólo trata de enredarnos, se equivoca en el juego; eso es todo lo que tengo que decirle.

-¡Y está muy bien dicho, y me gusta oír a un muchacho expresarse de ese modo; eres el hombre que le hace falta a él..., gente como tú ! Buenos días, marineros, buenos días. ¡Ah, cuando estéis allí, decidles que he decidido no ser uno de ellos !

-Ah, mi querido amigo, no nos puede engañar de ese modo; no nos puede engañar. La cosa más fácil del mundo es poner cara de que se tiene dentro un gran secreto.

-Buenos días, marineros, tened muy buenos días.

-Sí que son buenos -dije-. Vamos allá, Queequeg, dejemos a este loco. Pero, alto, dígame su nombre, ¿quiere ?

-¡Elías !

« ¡Elías ! », pensé; y nos marchamos comentando, cada cual a su modo, sobre ese viejo marinero andrajoso; y estuvimos de acuerdo en que no era nada sino un impostor que quería hacer el coco. Pero no habíamos recorrido quizá unas cien yardas, cuando, al volverme por casualidad doblando una esquina, ¡a quién vi sino a Elías que nos seguía, aunque a distancia ! No sé por qué, el verle me impresionó de tal modo que no dije nada a Queequeg de que venía detrás, sino que seguí andando con mi compañero, afanoso de ver si el desconocido doblaría la misma esquina que nosotros. Así lo hizo, y entonces me pareció que nos espiaba, pero no podía imaginar por qué, ni por nada del mundo. Esta circunstancia, unida a su manera de hablar, ambigua, embozada, medio sugiriendo y medio revelando, produjo entonces en mí toda clase de vagas sospechas y semiaprensiones, todo ello en relación con el Pequod y el capitán Ahab, la pierna que había perdido, el ataque en el cabo de Hornos, la calabaza de plata, y lo que había dicho de él el capitán Peleg, cuando yo salí del barco, el día anterior, la predicción de la india Tistig, el viaje que nos habíamos comprometido a emprender, y otras cien cosas sombrías.

Estaba decidido a cerciorarme de si ese andrajoso Elías realmente nos espiaba o no, y con esa intención crucé la calle con Queequeg, y por ese lado volví sobre nuestros pasos. Pero Elías pasó adelante, sin parecer advertirnos. Esto me alivió, una vez .más, a mi parecer de modo definitivo, le sentencié en mi corazón por un impostor. 

En plena agitación

Pasaron un día o dos, hubo gran actividad a bordo del Pequod. No sólo se remendaban las velas viejas, sino que se subían a bordo velas nuevas, y piezas de lona y rollos de jarcia; en resumen, todo indicaba que los preparativos del barco se apresuraban a su conclusión. El capitán Peleg rara vez o nunca bajaba a tierra, sino que estaba sentado en su cabaña india manteniendo una estrecha vigilancia sobre los tripulantes. Bildad hacía todas las compras y provisiones en los almacenes; y los hombres empleados en la bodega y en los aparejos trabajaban hasta mucho después de medianoche.

Al día siguiente de firmar Queequeg el contrato, se mandó aviso a todas las posadas donde se alojaba la gente del barco de que sus cofres debían estar a bordo antes de la noche, pues no cabía prever qué pronto podría zarpar el barco. Así que Queequeg y yo llevamos nuestros bártulos, aunque decididos a dormir en tierra hasta el final. Pero parece que en esos casos avisan con mucha anticipación, y el barco no zarpó en varios dias. No es extraño; había mucho quehacer, y no se puede calcular en cuántas cosas había que pensar antes que el Pequod quedara completamente equipado.

Todo el mundo sabe qué multitud de cosas -camas, cacerolas, cuchillos, tenedores, palas y tenazas, servilletas, cascanueces y qué sé yo- son indispensables para el asunto de llevar una casa. Lo mismo ocurre con la pesca de la ballena, que requiere tres años de llevar una casa sobre el ancho océano, lejos de todos los tenderos, fruteros, médicos, panaderos y banqueros. Y aunque esto también es cierto de los barcos mercantes, sin embargo no lo es hasta el mismo punto que en los balleneros. Pues además de la gran duración del viaje de la pesca de la ballena, del gran número de artículos requeridos para llevar a cabo la pesca, y de la imposibilidad de reemplazarlos en los remotos puertos que suelen frecuentarse, se debe recordar que, entre todos los barcos, los balleneros son los más expuestos a accidentes de todas clases, especialmente, a la destrucción pérdida de las mismas cosas de que depende más el éxito del viaje. De aquí los botes de repuesto, las vergas de repuesto, las estachas y arpones de repuesto, los repuestos de todo, casi, salvo un capitán de repuesto un duplicado del barco.

En la época de nuestra llegada a la isla, el aprovisionamiento más pesado del Pequod estaba casi completo, comprendiendo la carne, galleta, agua, combustible zunchos duelas de hierro. Pero, como ya se indicó más arriba, durante algún tiempo hubo un continuo acarreo a bordo de diversas cosas sueltas, tanto grandes como pequeñas.

La más destacada entre las personas que hacían el acarreo era la hermana del capitán Bildad, una flaca anciana de espíritu muy decidido e infatigable, pero no obstante muy benévola, que parecía resuelta a que si ella podía remediarlo, no se echara de menos nada en el Pequod una vez bien metido en el mar. Unas veces llegaba a bordo con un tarro de adobos para la despensa del mayordomo; otras veces, con un manojo de plumas para el escritorio del primer oficial, donde éste llevaba el cuaderno de bitácora; en otra ocasión, con una pieza de franela para la rabadilla reumática de alguno. Nunca hubo mujer que mereciera mejor su nombre, que era Caridad: tía Caridad, como la llamaban todos. Y como una Hermana de la Caridad, esta caritativa Caridad se afanaba de un lado para otro, dispuesta a extender su corazón y sus manos hacia todo lo que prometiera proporcionar seguridad, comodidad y consuelo a cuantos estaban a bordo del barco en que tenía intereses su amado hermano Bildad, y en que ella misma había invertido una veintena o dos de dólares bien ahorrados.

Pero fue desconcertante ver a esta cuáquera de excelente corazón subir a bordo, como lo hizo el último día, con un largo cucharón para aceite en una ¡nano, y un arpón todavía más largo en la otra. Y tampoco se quedaron atrás el propio Bildad ni el capitán Peleg. En cuanto a Bildad, llevaba consigo una larga lista de los artículos necesarios, y, a cada nueva llegada, ponía su señal junto a ese artículo en el papel. De vez en cuando Peleg salía renqueando de su guarida de hueso de ballena, rugía a los hombres en las escotillas, rugía a los aparejadores subidos en los masteleros, y luego terminaba por volver rugiendo a su cabaña india.

Durante esos días de preparativos, Queequeg y yo a menudo visitamos la nave, y también a menudo pregunté por el capitán Ahab, y cómo estaba, y cuándo subiría a bordo de su barco. A esas preguntas me contestaban que se estaba poniendo cada vez mejor y que le esperaban a bordo de un día a otro; mientras tanto, los dos capitanes, Peleg y Bildad, podían ocuparse de todo lo necesario para acondicionar el barco para el viaje. Si yo hubiera sido absolutamente sincero para conmigo mismo, habría visto con toda claridad en mi corazón que no me acababa de gustar comprometerme de ese modo a tan largo viaje sin haber puesto los ojos una sola vez en el hombre que iba a ser su absoluto dictador, tan pronto como el barco saliera a alta mar. Pero cuando un hombre sospecha algo que no está bien, ocurre a veces que, si ya está metido en el asunto, se esfuerza sin sentirlo por esconder sus sospechas incluso ante sí mismo. Y eso es lo que me pasó a mí. No dije nada, y trataba de no pensar nada.

Al fin, se anunció que a cierta hora del día siguiente el barco zarparía con toda seguridad. Así que a la mañana siguiente, Queequeg y yo nos levantamos muy pronto. 

Yendo a bordo

Eran casi las seis, pero sólo con un amanecer a medias, gris y neblinoso, cuando nos acercamos al muelle.

-Hay unos marineros que corren ahí delante, si no veo mal -dije a Queequeg-: no puede ser, una sombra: el barco zarpa al salir el sol, supongo. ¡Vamos allá !

-¡Esperad ! -gritó una voz, cuyo propietario, llegando al mismo tiempo junto a nosotros, nos puso una mano a cada uno en el hombro, y luego, introduciéndose entre los dos, se quedó inclinándose un poco hacia delante, en la penumbra incierta, y lanzando extrañas ojeadas desde Queequeg a mí. Era Elías.

-¿Vais a bordo ?

-Fuera las manos, ¿quiere ? -dije.

-Cuidado -dijo Queequeg, sacudiéndose-: ¡váyase !

-¿No vais a bordo, entonces ?

-Sí que vamos -dije-, pero, ¿a usted qué le importa ? ¿Sabe usted, señor Elías, que le considero un poco impertinente ?

-No, no me daba cuenta de eso -dijo Elías lentamente y lanzando miradas interrogativas alternativamente a mí y a Queequeg, con las más inexplicables ojeadas.

-Elías -dije-, mi amigo y yo le estaríamos muy agradecidos si se retirara. Nos vamos al océano Pacífico y al Indico, y preferiría que no nos entretuviera.

-Conque os vais, ¿eh ? ¿Volveréis para la hora de desayunar ? -Está tocado, Queequeg--dije-, vámonos.

-¡Eh ! -gritó Elías, inmóvil, hacia nosotros cuando nos apartamos unos pocos pasos.

-No te importe -dije-: Queequeg, vamos.

Pero él volvió a deslizarse hasta nosotros, y echándome de repente la mano por el hombro, dijo:

-¿Has visto algo que parecía unos hombres corriendo hacia el barco, hace un rato ?

Sorprendido por esa sencilla pregunta positiva, contesté diciendo: -Sí, me pareció ver a cuatro o cinco hombres, pero estaba demasiado oscuro para tener la seguridad.

-Muy oscuro, muy oscuro -dijo Elías-. Tened muy buenos días.

Una vez más le dejamos, pero otra vez más llegó suavemente por detrás de nosotros, y tocándome de nuevo en el hombro, dijo: -Mirad si los podéis encontrar ahora, ¿queréis ?

-¿Encontrar a quién ?

-¡Tened muy buenos días, muy buenos días ! -replicó, volviendo a alejarse-. ¡Oh ! Era para preveniros contra..., pero no importa, no importa..., es todo igual, todo queda en familia, también...; hay una helada muy fuerte esta mañana, ¿no ? Adiós, muchachos. Supongo que no os volveré a ver muy pronto, a no ser ante el Tribunal Supremo. Y con estas demenciales palabras, se marchó por fin, dejándome por el momento con no poco asombro ante su desatada desvergüenza.

Por fin, subiendo a bordo del Pequod, lo encontramos todo en profunda calma, sin un alma que se moviera. La entrada de la cabina estaba atrancada por el interior; las escotillas estaban todas cerradas, y obstruidas por rollos de jarcia. Avanzando hasta el castillo de proa, encontramos abierta la corredera del portillo. Al ver una luz, bajamos y encontramos sólo un viejo aparejador, envuelto en un desgarrado chaquetón. Estaba tendido todo lo largo que era sobre dos cofres, con la cara hacia abajo, metida entre los brazos doblados. El sopor más profundo dormía sobre él.

-Aquellos marineros que vimos, Queequeg, ¿dónde pueden haber ido ? -dije, mirando dubitativamente al dormido. Pero parecía que, cuando estábamos en el muelle, Queequeg no había adverádo en absoluto aquello a que ahora aludía yo, por lo que habría considerado que sufría una ilusión óptica, de no ser por la pregunta de Elías, inexplicable de otro modo. Pero silencié el asunto, y, volviendo a observar al dormido, sugerí jocosamente a Queequeg que quizá sería mejor que velásemos aquel cuerpo presente, diciéndole que se acomodara del modo adecuado. El puso la mano en las posaderas del durmiente, como para tocar si eran bastante blandas, y luego, sin más, se sentó encima tranquilamente.

-¡Por Dios, Queequeg, no te sientes ahí ! -dije.

-¡Ah, mucho buen sentar ! -dijo Queequeg-, como en país mío; no hacer daño su cara.

-¡Su cara ! -dije-: ¿le llamas cara a eso ? Un rostro muy benévolo, entonces; pero respira muy fuerte: se está incorporando. Quítate, Queequeg, que pesas mucho; eso es aplastar la cara de los pobres. ¡Quítate, Queequeg ! Mira, te derribará pronto. Me extraña que no se despierte.

Queequeg se apartó hasta junto a la cabeza del durmiente, y encendió su pipa-hacha. Yo me senté a los pies. Nos pusimos a pasarnos la pipa por encima del durmiente, del uno al otro. Mientras tanto, al preguntarle, Queequeg me dio a entender en su forma entrecortada, que, en su país, debido a la ausencia de sofás y canapés de toda especie, los reyes, jefes y gente importante en general, tenían la costumbre de engordar a algunos de las clases bajas con el, fin de que hicieran de otomanas, y para amueblar cómodamente una casa en ese aspecto, sólo había que comprar ocho o diez tipos perezosos dejarlos por ahí en los rincones entrantes. Además, resultaba muy conveniente en una excursión, mucho mejor que esas sillas de jardín que se pliegan en bastones de paseo; pues, llegado el momento, un jefe llamaba a su asistente y le mandaba que se convirtiera en un canapé bajo un árbol umbroso, quizá en algún lugar húmedo y pantanoso.

Mientras narraba esas cosas, cada vez que Queequeg recibía de mí la pipa-hacha, blandía el lado afilado sobre la cabeza del durmiente.

-¿Por qué haces eso, Queequeg ?

-Mucho fácil matar él, ¡ah, mucho fácil !

Iba a seguir con algunas locas reminiscencias sobre la pipahacha, que, al parecer, en ambos usos, había roto el cráneo a sus enemigos y había endulzado su propia alma, cuando fuimos totalmente reclamados por el aparejador dormido. El denso vapor que ahora llenaba por completo el angosto agujero, empezaba a hacerse notar en él. Respiraba con una suerte de ahogo; luego pareció molesto en la nariz; luego se revolvió una vez o dos, y por fin se incorporó y se restregó los ojos.

-¡Eh ! --exhaló por fin-: ¿quiénes sois, fumadores ? -

-Vaya, vaya, ¿conque vais aquí de marineros ? Se zarpa hoy. El capitán llegó a bordo anoche.

Hombres de la tripulación -contesté-: ¿cuándo se zarpa ?

-¿Qué capitán ? ¿Ahab ?

-¿Quién va a ser, si no ?

Iba a preguntarle algo más sobre Ahab, cuando oímos un ruido en cubierta.

-¡Vaya ! Starbuck ya está en movimiento -dijo el aparejador-. Es un primer oficial muy vivo; hombre bueno y piadoso, pero ahora muy vivo: tengo que ir allá. -Y así diciendo, salió a la cubierta y le seguimos.

Ahora amanecía claramente. Pronto llegó la tripulación a bordo, en grupos de dos o tres; los aparejadores se movieron; los oficiales se ocuparon activamente, y varios hombres de tierra se afanaron en traer varias cosas últimas a bordo. Mientras tanto, el capitán Ahab permanecía invisiblemente reservado en su cabina. 

Feliz Navidad

Al fin, hacia mediodía, después de despedir por último a los aparejadores del barco, después que el Pequod fue halado del muelle, después que la siempre preocupada Caridad nos alcanzó en una lancha ballenera con su último regalo -un gorro de dormir para Stubb, el segundo oficial, cuñado suyo, y una Biblia de repuesto para el mayordomo-, después de todo eso, los dos capitanes Peleg Bildad salieron de la cabina, Peleg, dirigiéndose al primer oficial, dijo:

-Bueno, señor Starbuck, ¿está usted seguro de que todo está bien ? El capitán Ahab está preparado: acabo de hablar con él. No hay más que recibir de tierra, ¿eh ? Bueno, llame a todos a cubierta, entonces. Póngalos aquí para pasar revista, ¡malditos sean !

-No hay necesidad de palabras profanas, aunque haya mucha prisa, Peleg-dijo Bildad-, pero ve allá, amigo Starbuck, y cumple nuestro deseo.

¡Cómo era eso ! Aquí, a punto mismo de partir para el viaje, el capitán Peleg y el capitán Bildad andaban por la toldilla como unos señores, igual que si fueran a ser conjuntamente los capitanes de la travesía, como para todo lo demás lo eran en el puerto. Y, en cuanto al capitán Ahab, todavía no se veía ni señal de él; solamente decían que estaba en la cabina. Pero, entonces, había que pensar que su presencia no era en absoluto necesaria para que el barco levara el ancla y saliese con facilidad al mar. Ciertamente, todo eso no era en rigor asunto suyo, sino del piloto, y como todavía no estaba completamente recuperado -según decían-, por consiguiente, el capitán Ahab se quedaba abajo. Y todo ello parecía bastante natural, principalmente dado que en la marina mercante muchos capitanes no se muestran jamás en cubierta durante un considerable tiempo después de levar anclas, sino que se quedan en la mesa de la cabina, haciendo un festejo de despedida con sus amigos de tierra, antes que éstos abandonen definitivamente el barco con el piloto.

Pero no hubo mucha ocasión de reflexionar sobre el asunto, pues el capitán Peleg estaba ahora en plena actividad. Parecía que él y no Bildad, hacía la mayor parte de la conversación y las órdenes.

-¡Aquí a popa, hijos de solteros ! -gritó, cuando los marineros se demoraban junto al palo mayor-. Señor Starbuck, échelos a popa.

-¡Derribad la tienda ! -fue la siguiente orden. Como ya sugerí, esa marquesina de ballena no se izaba sino en el puerto, y a bordo del Pequoch desde hacía treinta años, se sabía que la orden de derribar la tienda venía después de la de levar anclas.

-¡Al cabrestante ! ¡Sangre y truenos !, ¡corriendo ! -fue la siguiente orden, y la tripulación saltó por los espeques.

Entonces, al levar anclas, la posición habitualmente ocupada por el piloto es la parte delantera del barco. Y allí Bildad, que igual que Peleg, ha de saberse que era uno de los pilotos licenciados del puerto, en adición a sus demás funciones (y se sospechaba que se había hecho piloto para ahorrarse los derechos de práctico de Nantucket en todos los barcos en que tenía intereses, pues nunca pilotaba otras embarcaciones), Bildad, como digo, se mostraba ahora activamente ocupado mirando por la proa el ancla que se acercaba, y de vez en cuando cantando lo que parecía una lúgubre estrofa de salmo para animar a los marineros en el cabrestante, que lanzaban en rugido una especie de coro sobre las muchachas de Booble Alley, y su buena voluntad. No obstante, no hacía tres días que Bildad les P había advertido que no se consentirían canciones profanas a bordo del Pequod, sobre todo al levar anclas, Caridad, su hermana, había puesto un pequeño ejemplar selecto de Watts en la litera de cada tripulante.

Mientras tanto, inspeccionando la otra parte del barco, el capitán Peleg imprecaba y juraba a popa del modo más espantoso. Casi creí que hundiría el barco antes que pudiera levarse el ancla; involuntariamente me detuve en mi espeque, y dije a Queequeg que hiciera lo mismo, al pensar en los peligros que corríamos empezando el viaje con semejante diablo como piloto. No obstante, me consolaba con la idea de que podría encontrarse alguna salvación en el piadoso Bildad, a pesar de lo de la setecientas sesenta y sieteava parte, cuando sentí un repentino y fuerte golpe en el trasero, y al volverme, me quedé horrorizado ante la aparición del capitán Peleg en el acto de retirar la pierna de mi inmediata cercanía. Era mi primer golpe.

-¿Así es como se leva ancla en la marina mercante ? -rugió-. ¡Salta corre, cabeza de carnero; salta rómpete el espinazo ! ¿Por qué no empujáis, dijo yo, todos vosotros ? ¡Saltad ! ¡Quohog ! Salta tú, el tipo de las patillas rojas; salta, gorro escocés; salta, el de los pantalones verdes. Saltad todos vosotros, os digo, y ¡a ver si os saltáis los ojos ! Y diciendo así, se movía a lo largo del molinete, usando acá y allá la pierna con generosidad, mientras el imperturbable Bildad seguía marcando el compás con su salmodia. Pensé que el capitán Peleg debía haber bebido algo aquel día.

Por fin, se levó el ancla, se largaron las velas y nos deslizamos adelante. Era un día de Navidad, corto frío, cuando el breve día nórdico se fundió en noche, nos encontramos casi en alta mar en el invernal océano, cuya congeladora salpicadura nos envolvía en hielo como en una armadura pulida. Las largas filas de dientes en las amuradas destellaban a la luz de la luna, y, como vastos colmillos marfileños de algún enorme elefante, enormes carámbanos curvados colgaban de la proa.

El flaco Bildad, como piloto, mandó el primer cuarto de guardia, y de vez en cuando, mientras la vieja embarcación se zambullía profundamente en los verdes mares, enviando el hielo ateridor por encima de ella, los vientos aullaban, las jarcias vibraban, se oían sus firmes notas:

Tras las hinchadas aguas, bellos campos 
Revestidos están de verde vivo. 
Tal vieron los judíos Canaán, 
tras el jordán que ante ellos discurría.

Nunca me sonaron tan dulcemente aquellas dulces palabras como entonces. Estaban llenas de esperanza y alegría. A pesar de la noche invernal en el rugiente Atlántico, a pesar de mis pies mojados y mi chaquetón aún más mojado, todavía me parecía que me estaban reservados muchos puertos placenteros, prados claros tan eternamente primaverales, que la hierba brotada en abril permanece intacta y sin hollar hasta el estío.

Al fin alcanzamos alta mar de tal modo que ya no fueron necesarios los dos pilotos. La gruesa barca de vela que nos había acompañado empezó a ponerse al costado.

Fue curioso y nada desagradable cómo se sintieron afectados Peleg y Bildad en aquella ocasión, sobre todo el capitán Bildad. Pues reacio todavía a marchar, muy reacio a dejar definitivamente un barco destinado a un viaje tan largo y peligroso, más allá de ambos cabos tormentosos, un barco en que se habían invertido varios millares de sus dólares duramente ganados, un barco en que navegaba de capitán un antiguo compañero, un hombre casi tan viejo como él, saliendo una vez más al encuentro de todos los terrores de la mandíbula inexorable; reacio a decir adiós a una cosa en todos sentidos tan rebosante de todo interés para él, el pobre Bildad se demoró mucho tiempo, recorrió la cubierta con zancadas ansiosas, bajó corriendo a la cabina a decir otras palabras de despedida, volvió a subir a cubierta y miró a barlovento, miró las anchas e ilimitadas aguas, sólo ceñidas por los remotos e invisibles continentes orientales, miró a la arboladura, miró a derecha e izquierda, miró a todas partes y a ninguna, y por fin, retorciendo maquinalmente un cabo en su tolete, agarró de modo convulsivo al robusto Peleg de la mano, y, levantando una linterna, por un momento se le quedó mirando a la cara con aire heroico, como si dijera: « A pesar de todo, amigo Peleg, lo puedo soportar; sí que puedo ».

En cuanto al propio Peleg, lo tomaba con más filosofía, pero, aun con toda su filosofía, se vio una lágrima brillando en sus ojos cuando la linterna se le acercó demasiado. Y, él, también, corrió no poco de cabina a cubierta; unas veces diciendo una palabra abajo, y otras veces una palabra a Starbuck, el primer oficial.

Pero por fin se volvió hacia su compañero, con un aire terminante: -¡Capitán Bildad ! ¡Vamos, viejo compañero, tenemos que marcharnos ! ¡Cambia la verga mayor ! ¡Ah del bote ! ¡Atención, al costado ahora ! ¡Cuidado, cuidado ! Vamos, Bildad, muchacho; di adiós. Mucha suerte, Starbuck..., mucha suerte, señor Stubb..., mucha suerte, señor Flask... Adiós, mucha suerte a todos... de hoy en tres años tendré una cena caliente humeando para vosotros en la vieja Nantucket. ¡Hurra, y vamos !

-Dios os bendiga, y manteneos en Su santa observancia, muchachos -murmuró el viejo Bildad, casi incoherentemente-. Espero que ahora tendréis buen tiempo, de modo que el capitán Ahab pueda pronto andar entre vosotros; un sol agradable es todo lo que necesita, y ya lo tendréis de sobra en el viaje al trópico adonde vais. Tened cuidado en la caza, marineros. No desfondéis los botes sin necesidad, arponeros; las cuadernas de buena madera de cedro blanco han subido el tres por ciento este año. No olvidéis tampoco vuestras oraciones. Señor Starbuck, fíjese que el tonelero no desperdicie las duelas de repuesto. ¡Ah, las agujas para las velas están en la caja verde ! No pesquéis mucho en los días del Señor, muchachos; pero tampoco desperdiciéis una buena ocasión, que es rechazar los buenos dones del Cielo. Tenga ojo con la caja de la melaza, señor Stubb; me pareció que se salía un poco. Si tocan en las islas, señor Flask, cuidado con la fornicación. ¡Adiós, adiós ! No guarde mucho tiempo ese queso en la bodega, señor Starbuck: se estropeará. Cuidado con la manteca: a veinte centavos estaba la libra, y fijaos, si...

-¡Vamos, vamos, capitán Bildad, basta de cháchara; vamos ! -Y diciendo esto, Peleg le empujó apresuradamente por la banda, y los dos se dejaron caer en el bote.

Barco bote se separaron; la fría húmeda brisa nocturna sopló entre ellos; una gaviota volvió chillando por encima; las dos embarcaciones se agitaron locamente; lanzamos tres hurras con el corazón oprimido, y nos sumergimos ciegamente, como el hado, en el solitario Atlántico. 

La costa a sotavento

Varios capítulos atrás se habló de un tal Bulkington, un marinero alto, recién desembarcado, a quien encontré en la posada de New Bedford.

Cuando, en aquella ateridora noche de invierno, el Pequod metía su vengadora proa en las frías olas malignas, ¡a quién vi, de pie en la caña, sino a Bulkington ! Con respetuosa simpatía y con temor miré a aquel hombre que, recién desembarcado en pleno invierno de un peligroso viaje de cuatro años, podía volver a lanzarse otra vez, con tal falta de sosiego, para otra temporada de tormentas. La tierra parecía abrasarle los pies. Las cosas más maravillosas son siempre las inexpresables; las memorias profundas no dan lugar a epitafios; así este capítulo de seis pulgadas es la tumba sin lápida de Bulkington. He de decir sólo que su suerte era como la de un barco agitado por las tormentas, que avanza miserablemente a lo largo de la costa a sotavento. El puerto le daría socorro de buena gana: el puerto es compasivo: en el puerto hay seguridad, consuelo, hogar encendido, cena, mantas calientes, amigos, todo lo que es benigno para nuestra condición mortal. Pero en esa galerna, el puerto y la tierra son el más terrible peligro para el barco: debe rehuir toda hospitalidad; un toque de la tierra, aunque sólo arañara la quilla, le haría estremecerse entero. Con toda su energía hace fuerza de velas para alejarse de tierra; al hacerlo, lucha con los mismos vientos que querrían impulsarlo hacia el puerto, y vuelve a buscar todo el desamparo del mar sacudido, precipitándose perdidamente al peligro por ansia de refugio; ¡con su único amigo como su más cruel enemigo !

¿Lo sabes ahora, Bulkington ? ¿Te parece ver destellos de esta verdad mortalmente intolerable: que todo profundo y grave pensar no es sino el esfuerzo intrépido del alma para mantener la abierta independencia de su mar, mientras que los demás desatados vientos de cielo tierra conspiran para lanzarla a la traidora esclavizadora orilla ?

Pero como sólo en estar lejos de tierra reside la más alta verdad, sin orilla y sin fin, como Dios; así, más vale perecer en ese aullar infinito que ser lanzado sin gloria a sotavento, aunque ello sea salvación. Pues entonces ¡oh ! ¿Quién se arrastraría cobardemente a tierra como un gusano ? ¡Terrores de lo terrible !, ¿es tan vana toda esta agonía ? ¡Ten ánimos, ten ánimos, oh, Bulkington ! ¡Manténte fieramente, semidiós ! ¡Yérguete entre el salpicar de tu hundimiento en el océano; sube derecho, salta a tu apoteosis ! 

El abogado defensor

Como Queequeg y yo estamos ya lindamente embarcados en este asunto de la pesca de la ballena, y como este asunto de la pesca de la ballena, no sé por qué, ha llegado a ser considerado entre la gente de tierra como una dedicación más bien antipoética y deshonrosa, en vista de eso, tengo el mayor afán de convenceros, oh gente de tierra, de la injusticia que nos hacéis así a los cazadores de ballenas.

En primer lugar, quizá ha de considerarse superfluo indicar el hecho de que, entre la gente que anda por ahí la ocupación de la pesca de la ballena no se estima al nivel de lo que se llama las profesiones liberales. Si entra en una sociedad heterogénea de la capital un desconocido, no mejorará demasiado la opinión común sobre sus méritos el hecho de que le presenten a los reunidos como un arponero, digamos; y si, emulando a los oficiales de Marina, añade en su tarjeta de visita las iniciales R C. (Pesquería de Cachalote), tal iniciativa se considerará sumamente presuntuosa y ridícula.

Sin duda, una razón dominante por la que el mundo rehúsa honrarnos a los balleneros es ésta: se piensa que, en el mejor de los casos, nuestra vocación no llega a ser más que una ocupación parecida a la del matarife; y que, cuando estamos activamente dedicados a ella, nos rodea toda suerte de suciedades. Sí que somos matarifes, es verdad. Pero matarifes también, y matarifes de la más sanguinaria categoría, han sido todos los jefes militares a quienes el mundo se complace infaliblemente en honrar. Y en cuanto a la cuestión de la falta de limpieza que se atribuye a nuestra tarea, pronto seréis iniciados en ciertos hechos, hasta ahora casi universalmente desconocidos, que, en conjunto, situarán triunfalmente al barco ballenero entre las cosas más limpias de esta pulcra tierra. Pero aun concediendo que la acusación susodicha fuera cierta, ¿qué cubiertas desordenadas y resbalosas de un ballenero son comparables a la indecible carroña de esos campos de batalla de que tantos soldados regresan para beber entre el aplauso de todas las damas ? Y si la idea de peligro realza el concepto popular de la profesión del soldado, permitidme aseguraros que muchos veteranos que han avanzado contra una batería retrocederían rápidamente ante la aparición de la vasta cola del cachalote agitando el aire en remolinos sobre sus cabezas. Pues ¿qué son los comprensibles terrores del hombre comparados con los terrores y prodigios entremezclados de Dios ?

Pero aunque el mundo nos desprecie a los cazadores de ballenas, sin embargo, nos rinde inconscientemente el más profundo homenaje, sí, una adoración desbordada Pues casi todos los candelabros, lámparas y velas que arden alrededor del globo, arden a nuestra gloria, como ante nichos sagrados.

Mirad, no obstante, el asunto bajo otras luces; pesadlo en toda clase de balanzas; mirad qué somos y hemos sido los balleneros.

¿Por qué los holandeses, en tiempo de De Witt, tenían almirantes de sus flotas balleneras ? ¿Por qué Luis XVI de Francia, a sus propias expensas, armó barcos balleneros en Dunkerque, y cortésmente invitó a esa ciudad a un par de veintenas de familias de nuestra propia isla de Nantucket ? ¿Por qué Gran Bretaña, entre los años 1750 y 1788, pagó a sus balleneros subvenciones por más de un millón de libras ? Y finalmente, ¿cómo es que los balleneros de América superamos en número al resto de todos los balleneros del mundo reunidos, navegamos en una flota de más de setecientos navíos tripulados por dieciocho mil hombres, consumiendo al año cuatro millones de dólares, mientras que los barcos valen, en el momento de zarpar, veinte millones, y todos los años traen a los puertos una bien segada cosecha de siete millones ? ¿Cómo ocurre todo esto, si no hay algo potente en la pesca de la ballena ?

Pero esto no es ni la mitad: mirad otra vez.

Afirmo francamente que el filósofo cosmopolita no puede, ni aunque le vaya en ello la vida, señalar una única influencia pacífica que en lo últimos sesenta años haya operado más poderosamente en todo el ancho mundo, tomado en un solo conjunto, que la alta y potente ocupación de la pesca de la ballena. De un modo o de otro, ha dado lugar a acontecimientos tan notables en sí mismos, y tan ininterrumpidamente importantes en sus resultados consiguientes, que la pesca de la ballena puede muy bien considerarse como aquella madre egipcia que producía retoños que a su vez llevaban fruto en el vientre. Catalogar estas cosas sería tarea interminable y desesperanzada. Baste un puñado. Desde hace muchos años el barco ballenero ha sido el pionero que ha enlazado las partes más remotas y menos conocidas de la tierra. Ha explorado mares y archipiélagos que no estaban en el mapa, y por donde no habían navegado ningún Cook ni ningún Vancouver. Si ahora los buques de guerra americanos y europeos anclan pacíficamente en puertos antaño salvajes, han de disparar salvas en honor y gloria del barco ballenero, que fue el primero en enseñarles el camino y el primero en servirles de intérprete con los salvajes. Podrán celebrar como quieran a los héroes de las expediciones de exploración, vuestros Cooks y Krusensterns, pero yo digo que docenas de capitanes anónimos que zarparon de Nantucket eran tan grandes o más que vuestros Cooks y Krusen sterns. Pues desamparados y con las manos vacías, ellos, en las paganas aguas con tiburones, y junto a las playas de islas sin señalar, llenas de jabalinas, batallaron con prodigios y terrores vírgenes que Cook no se hubiera atrevido a afrontar de buena gana ni aun con todos sus mosquetes y su infantería de marina. Todo eso que se ensalza tanto en los antiguos viajes al mar del Sur, eran cosas de rutina de toda la vida para nuestros heroicos hombres de Nantucket. A menudo, las aventuras a que Vancouver dedica tres capítulos, esos hombres las juzgaron indignas de registrarse en el cuaderno de bitácora del barco. ¡Ah, el mundo ! ¡Oh, el mundo !

Hasta que la pesca de la ballena dobló el cabo de Hornos, no había más comercio que el colonial, ni apenas más intercambio que el colonial, entre Europa y la larga línea de opulentas provincias españolas de la costa del Pacífico. Fue el ballenero quien primero irrumpió a través de la celosa política de la corona española, tocando en esas colonias y, si lo permitiera el espacio, se podría demostrar detalladamente cómo gracias a esos balleneros tuvo lugar por fin la liberación de Perú, Chile y Bolivia del yugo de la vieja España, estableciéndose la eterna democracia en aquellas partes.

Esa gran América del otro lado del globo, Australia, fue dada al mundo ilustrado por el ballenero. Después de su primer descubrimiento, debido a un error, por un holandés, todos los demás barcos rehuyeron durante mucho tiempo esas costas como bárbaras y pestíferas; pero el barco ballenero tocó en ellas. El barco ballenero es la verdadera madre de la que ahora es poderosa colonia. Además, en la infancia de la primera colonización australiana, los emigrantes se salvaren muchas veces de morir de hambre gracias a la benéfica galleta del ballenero que por casualidad feliz echó el ancla en sus aguas. Las incontadas islas de toda Polinesia confiesan la misma verdad, y rinden homenaje comercial al barco ballenero que abrió el camino al misionero al mercader, que en muchos casos llevó a los misioneros a su primer destino. Si ese país a doble cerrojo, el Japón, alguna vez se vuelve hospitalario, se deberá el mérito solamente al barco ballenero, pues ya está en su umbral.

Pero si, a la vista de todo esto, seguís declarando que la pesca de la ballena no tiene conexión con recuerdos estéticamente nobles, entonces estoy dispuesto a romper cincuenta lanzas con vosotros, y a descabalgaros a cada vez con el yelmo partido.

La ballena, diréis, no tiene ningún escritor famoso, ni la pesca de la ballena tiene cronista célebre.

¿Ningún escritor famoso la ballena, ni cronista célebre la pesca de la ballena ? ¿Quién escribió la primera noticia de nuestro leviatán ? ¿Quién, sino el poderoso Job ? ¿Y quién compuso la primera narración de un viaje de pesca de la ballena ? ¡Nada menos que un príncipe como Alfredo el Grande, que, con su real pluma, apuntó las palabras de Other, el cazador de ballenas noruego de aquellos tiempos ! ¿Y quién pronunció nuestro encendido elogio en el Parlamento ? ¿Quién sino Edmund Burke ?

Es bastante cierto, pero, con todo, los balleneros mismos son unos pobres diablos: no tienen buena sangre en las venas.

¿No tienen buena sangre en las venas ? Tienen en ellas algo mejor que sangre real. La abuela de Benjamin Franklin era Mary Morrel, que luego, por matrimonio, fue Mary Folger, una de las antiguas colonizadoras de Nantucket, y antepasada de una larga línea de Folgers y arponeros -todos ellos parientes del noble Benjamín-, que en nuestros días lanzan el afilado acero de un lado a otro del mundo.

Está bien, también; pero todo el mundo reconoce que la pesca de la ballena no es nada respetable.

¿Que la pesca de la ballena no es nada respetable ? ¡La pesca de la ballena es imperial ! Por una antigua ley estatuida por los ingleses, la ballena se declara « pez real ».

¡Ah, eso es sólo nominal ! La propia ballena nunca ha figurado de manera grandiosa e imponente.

¿Que la ballena nunca ha figurado de manera grandiosa e imponente ? En uno de los magníficos triunfos concedidos a un general romano a su entrada en la capital del mundo, los huesos de una ballena, traídos desde la costa siria, fueron el objeto más sobresaliente en aquella procesión estruendosa de platillos.

Concedido, puesto que lo cita; pero, diga usted lo que quiera, no hay auténtica dignidad en la pesca de la ballena.

¿Que no hay dignidad en la pesca de la ballena ? Los mismos cielos atestiguan la dignidad de nuestra profesión. ¡Ceteo es una constelación del hemisferio sur ! ¡Basta ya ! ¡Encajaos el sombrero en presencia del zar, pero descubríos ante Queequeg ! ¡Basta ya ! Conozco a un hombre que, en toda su vida, ha cazado trescientas cincuenta ballenas. Yo considero a ese hombre más honorable que a aquel gran capitán de la antigüedad que se jactaba de haber tomado otras tantas ciudades amuralladas.

Y en cuanto a mí, si cupiera alguna probabilidad de que hubiera en mí alguna cosa excelente sin descubrir; si alguna vez merezco cierta reputación auténtica en ese mundo, reducido, pero elevadamente acallado, por entrar en el cual podría sentir ambiciones no del todo irrazonables; si en lo sucesivo hago algo que, en conjunto, un hombre preferiría haber hecho en lugar de haber dejado de hacer; si a mi muerte mis albaceas, o más exactamente, mis acreedores, encuentran en mi escritorio algún precioso manuscrito, entonces, desde este momento atribuyo en previsión todo el honor y la gloria a la pesca de la ballena, pues un barco ballenero fue mi universidad de Yale y mi Harvard. 

APENDICE

En sustento de la dignidad de la pesca de la ballena, no querría aducir más que hechos comprobados. Pero después de hacer entrar en combate sus hechos, ¿no sería digno de censura un abogado defensor que suprimiera por entero una hipótesis nada irrazonable que podría hablar elocuentemente a favor de su casa ?

Es bien sabido que en la coronación de los reyes y reinas, incluso de nuestro tiempo, se realiza cierto curioso proceso de sazonarlos para sus funciones. Hay un salero real, así llamado, y es posible que haya unas vinagreras reales. ¿Cómo usan exactamente la sal; quién lo sabe ? Pero estoy seguro de que la cabeza de un rey es solemnemente aceitada en su coronación, igual que una lechuga en ensalada. ¿Será posible, sin embargo, que la unjan con vistas a que su interior corra bien, igual que se unge la maquinaria ? Mucho se podría rumiar aquí, en cuanto a la dignidad esencial de este proceso real, porque en la vida corriente consideramos bajo y despreciable al tipo que se unge el pelo y huele perceptiblemente a ese ungüento. En realidad, un hombre maduro que use aceite para el pelo, a no ser en forma medicinal, probablemente tiene algún punto débil en algún sitio. Por regla general, no puede valer mucho en su integridad.

Pero la única cosa a considerar aquí es ésta: ¿qué clase de aceite se usa en las coronaciones ? Ciertamente que no puede ser aceite de oliva, ni aceite de ricino, ni aceite de oso, ni aceite de pescado, ni aceite de hígado de bacalao. ¿Cuál es posible que sea entonces, sino el aceite de ballena en su estado natural y sin purificar, el más grato de todos los aceites ?

¡Pensad en eso, oh, leales británicos ! ¡Nosotros, los balleneros, proporcionamos a vuestros reyes y reinas la materia de la coronación ! 

Caballeros y escuderos

El primer oficial del Pequod era Starbuck, natural de Nantucket, cuáquero por descendencia. Era un hombre largo serio, , aunque nacido en una costa gélida, parecía muy apropiado para soportar latitudes cálidas, por ser tan dura su carne como la galleta bizcocha. Transportado a las Indias, su sangre viva no se estropearía como la cerveza embotellada. Debía haber nacido en alguna época de sequía y hambre general, o en uno de esos días de ayuno por los que es tan famoso su Estado. Sólo había visto treinta áridos veranos: esos veranos habían desecado toda su superficie física. Pero eso, su flacura, por así decir, no parecía ya señal de ansiedades y cuidados agostadores, ni tampoco indicación de ningún desgaste corporal. Era simplemente la condensación de aquel hombre. No tenía en absoluto mal aspecto; al contrario. Su pura y tensa piel se le ajustaba de modo excelente, apretadamente envuelto en ella, embalsamado en fuerza íntima y en salud, como un egipcio revivido, este Starbuck parecía preparado a soportar largas épocas venideras, y a soportarlas siempre como ahora; pues, con nieve polar o sol tórrido, como un cronómetro patentado, su vitalidad interior estaba garantizada para salir adelante en todos los climas. Mirándole a los ojos, a uno le parecía ver en ellos las imágenes demoradas de aquellos múltiples peligros que había afrontado con calma en toda su vida: hombre firme y sólido, cuya vida, en su mayor parte, había sido una elocuente pantomima de acción, y no un manso capítulo de palabras. Sin embargo, con toda su curtida fortaleza y sobriedad, había en él ciertas cualidades que algunas veces afectaban, y aun en ciertas ocasiones parecían casi contrapesar a todo el resto. Insólitamente concienzudo para ser un marinero, y dotado de honda reverencia natural, la soledad salvaje y acuática de su vida le inclinaba fuertemente, por tanto, a la superstición, pero a esa suerte de superstición que en ciertos caracteres parece proceder más bien de la inteligencia que de la ignorancia. Lo suyo eran portentos exteriores y presentimientos interiores. Y si a veces esas cosas doblaban el hierro soldado de su alma, los lejanos recuerdos domésticos de su joven mujer y su hijo, en el Cabo, tendían mucho más a desviarle de la rudeza originaria de su naturaleza, y abrirle aún más a esas influencias latentes que, en algunos hombres de corazón honrado, refrenan el empuje de la temeridad diabólica tan a menudo evidenciada por otros en las vicisitudes más peligrosas de la pesca de la ballena. Con eso parecía querer decir no solamente que el valor más útil y digno de confianza es el que surge de la estimación realista del peligro encontrado, sino que un hombre totalmente sin miedo es un compañero mucho más peligroso que un cobarde. -No quiero en mi bote a ninguno -decía Starbuck- que no tenga miedo de la ballena.

-Sí, sí -decía Stubb, el segundo oficial-: este Starbuck es un hombre tan cuidadoso como pueda encontrarse en cualquier lado en la pesca de la ballena. Pero no tardaremos en ver lo que significa exactamente esa palabra « cuidadoso » cuando la usa un hombre como Stubb o casi cualquier otro cazador de ballenas.

Starbuck no iba en una cruzada en busca de peligros; en él, el valor no era un sentimiento, sino una cosa simplemente útil para él, y siempre a mano para todas las ocasiones prácticas de la vida. Además pensaba, quizá, que en este asunto de la pesca de la ballena el valor era una de las grandes provisiones necesarias para el barco, como la carne y la galleta, que no se podían derrochar locamente. Por lo tanto, no tenía ganas de arriar las lanchas en busca de ballenas después de la puesta del sol, ni se empeñaba en cazar un pez que se obstinase en luchar contra él. Pues Starbuck pensaba: « Aquí estoy en este crítico océano para ganarme la vida matando ballenas, y no para que ellas me maten ganándose la suya »; y Starbuck sabía muy bien que centenares de hombres habían muerto así. ¿Cuál había sido el destino de su propio padre ? ¿Dónde, en qué profundidades insondables, podría encontrar los miembros despedazados de su hermano ?

Con recuerdos como éstos en él, y además, dado a cierta superstición, como se ha dicho, el valor de este Starbuck, si a pesar de todo podía mostrarse, debía ser extremado. Pero en un hombre así constituido, y con experiencias y recuerdos tan terribles como él tenía, no entraba en lo natural que esas cosas dejaran de engendrar ocultamente en él un elemento que, en circunstancias adecuadas, irrumpiera saliendo de su encierro y quemara todo su valor. Y por valiente que fuera, era principalmente de esa clase de valentía, visible en ciertos hombres intrépidos, que, aunque suelen mantenerse firmes en el combate con los mares, o los vientos, o las ballenas, o cual quiera de los acostumbrados horrores irracionales de este mundo, no pueden, sin embargo, resistir esos terrores, más espantosos por ser más espirituales, que a veces le amenazan a uno en el ceño fruncido de un hombre colérico y poderoso.

Pero si la narración siguiente hubiera de revelar en algún caso el desplome completo de la fortaleza del pobre Starbuck, apenas habría tenido yo ánimo para escribirla, pues es cosa lamentable, e incluso desagradable, mostrar el hundimiento del valor de un alma. Los hombres pueden parecer detestables en cuanto sociedades anónimas y naciones; podrá haber seres serviles, locos y asesinos; pero el hombre, en su ideal, es tan noble resplandeciente, tan grandiosa refulgente criatura, que todos sus semejantes deberían correr a echar sus vestiduras más preciosas sobre cualquier mancha ignominiosa que haya en él. Esa virilidad inmaculada que sentimos dentro de nosotros, tan en lo hondo que permanece intacta aun cuando parezca perdido todo el carácter exterior, sangra con la más penetrante angustia ante el espectáculo desnudo de un hombre hundido en su valor. Ni aun la propia piedad, ante una visión tan vergonzosa, puede ahogar del todo sus reproches hacia las estrellas que lo consienten. Pero la augusta dignidad de que trato no es la dignidad de los reyes y los mantos, sino esa dignidad sobreabundante que no se reviste de ningún ropaje. La veréis resplandecer en el brazo que blande una pica o que clava un clavo; es esa dignidad democrática que, en todas las manos, irradia sin fin desde Dios, desde El mismo, el gran Dios absoluto, el centro y circunferencia de toda democracia; ¡Su omnipresencia, nuestra divina igualdad !

Entonces, si en lo sucesivo atribuyo cualidades elevadas, aunque oscuras, a los más bajos marineros, renegados y proscritos; si en torno de ellos urdo gracias trágicas; sí aun el más lúgubre, y acaso el más rebajado de ellos, a veces se eleva hasta las montañas sublimes; si pongo un poco de luz etérea en el brazo de ese trabajador; si extiendo un arco iris sobre su desastroso ocaso; entonces, contra todos los críticos mortales, ¡sosténme en eso, oh Tú, justo Espíritu de la Igualdad, que has extendido un único manto real de humanidad sobre toda mi especie ! ¡Sosténme, oh Tú, gran Dios democrático, que no rehusaste la pálida perla poética al negro prisionero, Bunyan; Tú que envolviste, con hojas doblemente martilladas del más fino oro, el brazo mutilado y empobrecido del viejo Cervantes; Tú, que elegiste a Andrew Jackson de entre los guijarros, que lo lanzaste sobre un caballo de guerra, y que le hiciste tronar más alto que en un trono ! ¡Tú, que en todos tus poderosos recorridos por la tierra siempre escoges a tus campeones más selectos entre la realeza de los sencillos; sosténme en esto, oh Dios ! 

Caballeros y escuderos

El segundo oficial era Stubbs. Era natural de Cabo Cod, y por ello, según el uso local, se le llamaba un « cabocodense ». Despreocupado, ni cobarde ni valiente, tomando los peligros según venían, con aire indiferente, y, mientras se ocupaba en las crisis más apremiantes de la persecución, despachando el trabajo, tranquilo y concentrado como un carpintero ambulante contratado para el año. Bienhumorado, tranquilo y descuidado, presidía su barco ballenero como si el encuentro más peligroso no fuera más que una cena, y la tripulación, sus comensales invitados. Era tan meticuloso en cuanto a los arreglos de comodidad de su parte de embarcación como un viejo cochero de diligencia en cuanto a lo confortable de su pescante. Al acercarse a la ballena, en el mismísimo apretón mortal de la pelea, manejaba su inexorable arpón con frialdad y al desgaire, como un hojalatero que silba mientras martilla. Canturreaba sus viejas melodías de rigodón mientras estaba flanco a flanco del más furioso monstruo. La larga costumbre, para este Stubbs, había convertido las fauces de la muerte en una butaca. No hay modo de saber qué pensaba de la muerte misma. Podría preguntarse si alguna vez pensaba en ella, en absoluto, pero si alguna vez inclinaba su mente hacia ese lado, después de una grata comida, no hay duda de que, como buen marinero, la consideraba como una especie de llamada de guardia para salir a cubierta y ocuparse allí en algo que ya vería qué era cuando obedeciera la orden, pero no antes.

Lo que quizá, con otras cosas, hacía de Stubbs un hombre tan tranquilo y sin miedo, tan alegre al llevar adelante la carga de la vida por un mundo lleno de serios vendedores ambulantes, curvados todos ellos hacia el suelo con sus fardos; lo que ayudaba a producir aquel buen humor suyo, casi impío, debía de ser su pipa. Pues, igual que su nariz, su pequeña pipa, corta y negra, era uno de los rasgos habituales de su cara. Casi habría sido más fácil esperar que saliera de su litera sin nariz antes que sin pipa. Tenía allí, dispuestas y cargadas, toda una fila de pipas, metidas en una espetera, al fácil alcance de la mano; y siempre que se acostaba, las fumaba todas seguidas, encendiendo una con otra hasta el fin de la serie, y luego volviéndolas a cargar para que estuvieran de nuevo dispuestas. Pues cuando se vestía, Stubbs se ponía la pipa en la boca antes de meter las piernas en los pantalones.

Digo que este modo continuo de fumar debía de ser, por lo menos, una causa de su disposición peculiar, pues todos saben que este aire terrenal, en tierra o a flote, está terriblemente infectado de las miserias sin nombre de los innumerables mortales que han muerto respirándolo; y del mismo modo que, en épocas de cólera, algunos andan con un pañuelo alcanforado en la boca, igualmente el tabaco de Stubbs podría actuar como una especie de agente desinfectante contra todas las tribulaciones mortales.

El tercer oficial era Flask, natural de Tisbury, en Martha's Vineyard. Un joven rechoncho, robusto y rubicundo, muy belicoso en cuanto a las ballenas, que parecía pensar, no sé por qué, que los grandes leviatanes le habían afrentado de modo personal hereditario; por consiguiente, para él era punto de honor destruirlos siempre que los encontrara. Tan absolutamente perdido estaba para todo sentido de reverencia hacia las muchas maravillas de su majestuosa mole y sus místicas maneras, y tan insensible a nada parecido a la conciencia de ningún peligro posible en su encuentro, que, en su pobre opinión, la prodigiosa ballena era sólo una especie de ratón o, por lo menos, de rata de agua vista con aumento, que requería sólo un pequeño rodeo alguna ligera aplicación de tiempo molestia para matarla cocerla. Esta falta de temor, inconsciente e ignorante, le hacía un poco jocoso en cuestión de ballenas: perseguía a estos peces por divertirse, y un viaje de tres años doblando el cabo de Hornos era sólo una broma divertida que duraba todo ese tiempo. Así como los clavos del carpintero se dividen en forjados y cortados, la humanidad se puede dividir de modo semejante. El pequeño Flask era de los forjados, hecho para apretar bien durar mucho. Le llamaban « Puntal » a bordo del Pequod, porque en su forma se le podía comparar muy bien a esa pieza de proa, corta y cuadrada, conocida por tal nombre en los balleneros árticos y que, por medio de numerosas tablas laterales que irradian insertas en ella, sirve para reforzar el barco contra los hielos que golpean en aquellos agitados mares.

Así pues, estos tres oficiales, Starbuck, Stubbs y Flask, eran hombres de peso. Eran ellos quienes, por disposición general, mandaban tres de las lanchas del Pequod. En el gran orden de batalla en que probablemente desplegaría sus fuerzas el capitán Ahab para atacar a las ballenas, esos tres jefes de bote eran como capitanes de compañías. O, estando armados con sus largas y agudas picas balleneras, eran como un selecto trío de lanceros, igual que los arponeros eran los lanzadores de jabalinas.

Y dado que en esa famosa pesca cada oficial o jefe de bote, como los antiguos caballeros godos, siempre va acompañado de su piloto o arponero, que en determinadas ocasiones le provee de una nueva lanza cuando la primera se ha torcido de mala manera, o se ha doblado en el asalto, y, además, dado que generalmente se establece entre ambos una estrecha intimidad amistosa, no está de más que en este punto anotemos quiénes eran los arponeros del Pequod, y a qué jefe de bote correspondía cada cual.

El primero de todos era Queequeg, a quien había elegido de escudero Starbuck, el primer oficial. Queequeg ya es conocido.

Después venía Tashtego, un indio puro de Gay-Head, el promontorio más occidental de Martha's Vineyard, donde todavía queda un pequeño resto de una aldea de pieles rojas que desde hace mucho ha suministrado a la vecina isla de Nantucket sus más atrevidos arponeros. En la pesca de la ballena, se les suele conocer por el nombre genérico de Gay-Headers. El pelo largo, lacio negro de Tashtego, sus altos pómulos huesudos, y sus ojos negros y redondos -para un indio, orientales en su tamaño, pero antárticos en su expresión chispeante-, todo ello le proclamaba de sobra como heredero de la sangre sin adulterar de aquellos orgullosos y bélicos cazadores que, en busca del gran alce de New England, habían explorado, arco en mano, los bosques aborígenes de la costa. Pero sin olfatear ya el rastro de los animales salvajes del bosque, Tashtego cazaba ahora en la estela de las grandes ballenas del mar; y el certero arpón del hijo sustituía adecuadamente a la infalible flecha de los progenitores. Al mirar la atezada robustez de sus ágiles miembros de serpiente, casi se habría dado crédito a las supersticiones de algunos de los primitivos puritanos, medio creyendo que este salvaje indio sería hijo del Príncipe de las Potestades del Aire. Tashtego era el escudero de Stubb, el segundo oficial.

El tercero de los arponeros era Daggoo, un gigantesco salvaje negro como el carbón, con ademanes de león; un Ahasvero en su aspecto. Suspendidos de las orejas llevaba dos aros de oro, tan grandes que los marineros les llamaban pernos de anillo, y hablaban de amarrar a ellos las drizas de gavia. En su juventud, Daggoo se había embarcado voluntariamente a bordo de un ballenero que estaba anclado en una bahía solitaria de su costa natal. Y como nunca había estado en otra parte del mundo sino en Africa, en Nantucket y en los puertos paganos más frecuentados por los balleneros, y como durante muchos años había llevado la valiente vida de la pesca de la ballena en barcos de propietarios insólitamente atentos a la clase de gente que embarcaban, Daggoo conservaba todas sus virtudes bárbaras, y, erguido como una jirafa, daba vueltas por la cubierta con toda la pompa de sus seis pies y cinco pulgadas, sin calzado. Había una humillación corporal en levantar la vista hacia él, y un blanco ante él parecía una bandera blanca acudiendo a pedir tregua a una fortaleza. Es curioso decir que este negro imperial, Ahasvero Daggoo, era el escudero del pequeño Flask, que parecía un peón de ajedrez a su lado. En cuanto al resto de la gente del Pequoch hay que decir que, en el día de hoy, ni la mitad de los varios millares de hombres ante el mástil en las pesquerías de ballenas de América son americanos de nacimiento, aunque casi todos los oficiales lo son. En esto, pasa lo mismo en las pesquerías de ballenas de América que en el ejército americano, y en las flotas militar y mercante, y en las fuerzas de ingeniería empleadas en la construcción de los canales y líneas ferroviarias de América. Lo mismo, digo, porque en todos estos casos los americanos de nacimiento proporcionan el cerebro, y el resto del mundo suministra los músculos con igual generosidad. No escaso número de estos marineros balleneros pertenecen a las Azores, donde tocan frecuentemente los barcos de Nantucket en su viaje de ida para aumentar sus tripulaciones con los curtidos campesinos de aquellas rocosas orillas. De manera análoga, los balleneros de Groenlandia, zarpando de Hull o de Londres, tocan en las islas Shetland para recibir el pleno complemento de su tripulación. En el viaje de regreso, los vuelven a dejar allí. No es posible saber por qué, pero los isleños parecen resultar los mejores balleneros. En el Pequod casi todos eran isleños; « aislados » también llamo yo a los que no reconocen el continente común de los hombres, sino que cada « aislado » vive en un continente propio por separado. Pero ahora, federados a lo largo de una sola quilla, ¡qué grupo eran esos « aislados » ! Una representación, a lo Anacarsis Clootz, de todas las islas del mar y todos los confines de la tierra, acompañando al viejo Ahab a presentar las querellas del mundo ante ese tribunal del cual no volverían Jamás muchos de ellos. El pequeño Pip, el negro, ése no volvió jamás; ¡ah, no !, ése se fue por delante. ¡Pobre muchacho de Alabama En el sombrío alcázar de proa del Pequod le veremos dentro de poco golpeando su tamboril, preludio del momento eterno en que le mandaron subir al gran alcázar de las alturas para unirse en su música a los ángeles, tocando su tamboril en la gloria: ¡aquí, llamado cobarde, y allí, saludado como héroe ! 

Ahab

Durante varios días después de dejar Nantucket, no se vio nada del capitán Ahab a la altura de las escotillas. Los oficiales se relevaban con regularidad uno a otro en las guardias, y en nada que pudiera indicar lo contrario dejaban de parecer los únicos jefes del barco, salvo en que a veces salían de la cabina con órdenes tan súbitas y perentorias, que, después de todo, quedaba claro que sólo mandaban por delegación. Sí, allí estaba su supremo señor y dictador, aunque hasta ahora no había sido visto por ojos que no pudieran penetrar en el retiro ya sagrado de la cabina.

Cada vez que yo subía .a la cubierta desde mis guardias, abajo, al instante lanzaba una mirada a popa para observar si se veía alguna cara desconocida, pues ¡ni primera inquietud vaga respecto al capitán desconocido, ahora, en el encierro del mar, casi se había vuelto una locura. Esto aumentaba extrañamente a veces, cuando las deshilvanadas incoherencias diabólicas de Elías volvían a mí contra mi voluntad, con una sutil energía que antes no habría podido suponer. Pero las podía resistir muy mal; aunque igualmente, con otros humores, casi me sentía dispuesto a sonreír de las solemnes extravagancias de aquel exótico profeta de los muelles. Pero cualquiera que fuese el temor o la incomodidad -por llamarlo así- que sentía, sin embargo, cada vez que miraba a mi alrededor en el barco, parecía que no tenía justificación conservarlos. Pues aunque los arponeros, con la mayor parte de la tripulación, fueran un grupo mucho más bárbaro, pagano y abigarrado que ninguna de las mansas tripulaciones mercantes que yo había conocido en mis experiencias previas, sin embargo, lo atribuía -y lo atribuía con razón- a la feroz singularidad de esa loca profesión escandinava en que me había embarcado con tal abandono. Pero especialmente el aspecto de los tres oficiales del barco era lo más eficazmente calculado para tranquilizar esas sospechas sin forma, e infundir confianza y ánimo en todos los presentimientos sobre el viaje. No sería fácil encontrar otros tres mejores y más apropiados hombres y oficiales de marina, cada cual a su modo diferente, y los tres eran americanos; uno de Nantucket, uno del Vineyard, otro de Cabo Cod. Entonces, siendo Navidad cuando zarpamos del puerto, durante algún tiempo tuvimos un frío polar devorador, aunque todo el tiempo corríamos huyendo hacia el sur; y a cada grado y minuto que navegábamos, poco a poco dejábamos atrás ese invierno implacable y todo su intolerable tiempo. Era una de esas mañanas de transición, menos amenazadoras, pero todavía bastante grises y sombrías, y con buen viento el barco corría por el agua con una especie de vengativa rapidez, brincadora y melancólica, cuando, al subir a cubierta a la llamada de la guardia de la mañana, tan pronto como dirigí la mirada hacia el coronamiento de popa, me invadieron escalofríos de presentimiento. La realidad dejó atrás a la aprensión: el capitán Ahab estaba en su alcázar.

No parecía haber en él señal de una común enfermedad corporal, ni de haberse recuperado de ninguna. Parecía un hombre desatado de la pira cuando el fuego ha asolado e invadido todos los miembros sin consumirlos ni llevarse una sola partícula de su compacta robustez entrada en años. Toda su figura, alta y ancha, parecía de bronce macizo, configurada en forma inalterable, como el Perseo fundido de Cellini. Abriéndose paso desde su pelo gris, y siguiendo derecha por un lado de su atezada y desollada cara, y por el cuello, hasta desaparecer por la ropa, se veía una señal delgada como una vara, lívidamente blanquecina. Parecía esa grieta vertical que a veces se hace en el alto y recto tronco de un gran árbol, cuando el rayo se dispara desde arriba lo desgarra bajando por él, deja el árbol aún vivo verde, pero marcado a fuego. Nadie podía decir con seguridad si esa señal había nacido con él, o si era la cicatriz dejada por alguna herida desesperada. Por acuerdo tácito, a lo largo del viaje se hizo escasa o ninguna alusión a ella, sobre todo por parte de los oficiales. Pero una vez el compañero más antiguo de Tashtego, un viejo indio de Gay-Head, de la tripulación, afirmó supersticiosamente que Ahab no había quedado marcado así hasta después de los cuarenta años, y que no le había venido de la furia de ninguna pelea mortal, sino de una lucha con los elementos del mar. Sin embargo, esa loca sugerencia pareció negada implícitamente por lo que insinuó un canoso viejo de la isla de Man, un anciano sepulcral que, como nunca había embarcado antes en Nantucket, no había puesto los ojos hasta ahora en el extraño Ahab. Con todo, las viejas tradiciones marineras y las credulidades inmemoriales habían atribuido popularmente a ese viejo de Man unos poderes preternaturales de discernimiento, de modo que ningún marinero blanco le contradijo cuando afirmó que cuando el capitán Ahab quedase tendido en tranquilo reposo -lo cual murmuró que difícilmente ocurriría-, entonces quien cumpliera el último deber con el muerto encontraría en él una señal de nacimiento desde la coronilla a la planta de los pies.

Tan poderosamente me afectó el conjunto del sombrío aspecto de Ahab y la lívida marca que le señalaba, que durante unos breves momentos apenas noté que no poco de su abrumador aire sombrío se debía a la bárbara pierna blanca sobre la que parcialmente se apoyaba. Ya me habían dicho que esa pierna marfileña estaba hecha en el mar con el pulido hueso de la mandíbula del cachalote. -Sí, le desarbolaron a lo largo del Japón -dijo una vez el viejo indio de Gay-Head-, pero, como su barco desarbolado, embarcó otro palo sin volver al puerto por él. Tiene una aljaba de ellos.

Me sorprendió la singular postura que mantenía. A cada lado del alcázar del Pequod, y muy cerca de los obenques de mesana, había un agujero de taladro, barrenado una pulgada o poco más en la tabla. Su pierna de hueso se apoyaba en ese agujero; con un brazo elevado, y agarrándose a un obenque, el capitán Ahab se erguía, mirando derecho, más allá de la proa del barco, siempre cabeceante. Había un sin fín de la más firme fortaleza, una voluntariosidad decidida e inexpugnable, en la entrega fija y sin miedo de esa mirada hacia delante. No decía una palabra, ni sus oficiales le decían nada, aunque en sus más menudos gestos y expresiones mostraban claramente la conciencia incómoda, y aun penosa, de que estaban bajo una turbada mirada de mando. Y no sólo esto, sino que Ahab, presa de sus humores, estaba ante ellos con una crucifixión en la cara, con toda la innombrable dignidad real y abrumadora de algún dolor poderoso.

No tardó, después de su primera salida al aire libre, en retirarse a la cabina. Pero después de esa mañana, todos los días se hizo visible a la tripulación, bien plantado en el pivote de su agujero, o sentado en un taburete de marfil que tenía, o paseando pesadamente por la cubierta. Conforme el cielo se puso menos sombrío, y, más aún, empezó a ponerse un tanto grato, él fue siendo cada vez menos un recluso, como si, cuando zarpó el barco del puerto, sólo la muerta negrura invernal del mar le hubiera retenido entonces tan encerrado Y poco a poco llegó a ocurrir que estuvo casi continuamente al aire, pero, sin embargo, aun con todo lo que decía o hacía perceptiblemente, en la cubierta por fin soleada, parecía allí tan innecesario como otro mástil. Pero el Pequod ahora sólo hacía una travesía, no un crucero regular: casi todos los preparativos para las ballenas que necesitaban supervisión estaban bajo la plena competencia de los oficiales, de modo que había poco o nada, salvo él mismo, en que se ocupara o excitara ahora Ahab y que ahuyentara, por aquel único rato, las nubes que, capa tras capa, se amontonaban en su entrecejo, del mismo modo que todas las nubes eligen los picos más elevados para amontonarse sobre ellos.

Con todo, antes de mucho tiempo, la cálida y gorjeante persuasión del buen tiempo a que llegábamos, pareció poco a poco arrancarle con su encanto de sus humores. Pues igual que cuando esas danzarinas muchachas de mejillas rojas, abril y mayo, regresan a los bosques invernales y misantrópicos, incluso el viejo roble más desnudo, más áspero y más herido por el rayo, echa por fin unos pocos brotes verdes para dar la bienvenida a visitantes de corazón tan alegre, así Ahab, por fin, respondió un poco a las juguetonas incitaciones de la brisa doncellil. Más de una vez lanzó el débil germen de una mirada que, en cualquier otro hombre, pronto habría florecido en una sonrisa. 

Entra Ahab; después, Stubb

Transcurrieron varios días, y dejados por completo a popa el hielo los icebergs, el Pequod iba ahora meciéndose por la clara primavera de Quito, que, en el mar, reina casi perpetuamente en el umbral del eterno agosto del trópico. Los días tibiamente frescos, claros, vibrantes, perfumados, rebosantes, exuberantes, eran como búcaros de cristal de sorbete persa, con colmo espolvoreado de nieve de agua de rosa. Las noches, estrelladas y solemnes, parecían altivas damas en terciopelos, enjoyadas, rumiando en su casa, en orgullosa soledad, el recuerdo de sus ausentes condes, los soles de casco de oro. Para dormir, a uno le era difícil elegir entre tan incitantes días y tan seductoras noches. Pero todas las brujerías de ese tiempo sin menguante no se limitaban a prestar nuevos encantos y potencias al mundo exterior. En el interior, afectaban al alma, especialmente cuando llegaban las horas calladas y suaves del ocaso; entonces, la memoria formaba sus cristales igual que el claro hielo suele formarse de crepúsculos sin ruido.

Y todos esos sutiles agentes actuaban cada vez más sobre la contextura de Ahab. La ancianidad siempre está desvelada, como si el hombre, cuanto más tiempo vinculado a la vida, menos quisiera tener que ver con nada que se parezca a la muerte. Entre los capitanes de marina, los viejos de barba encanecida dejan con mucha frecuencia sus literas para visitar la cubierta embozada en noche. Así le ocurría a Ahab, sólo que ahora, recientemente, parecía vivir tanto al aire libre que, para decir verdad, sus visitas eran más bien a la cabina que de la cabina a las tablas de cubierta. « Se siente como si se entrara en la propia tumba -mascullaba para sí-, cuando un viejo capitán como yo desciende por este estrecho portillo para bajar a la litera excavada como una fosa. »

Así, casi cada veinticuatro horas, cuando se montaban las guardias de la noche, y el grupo de cubierta hacía de centinela del sueño del grupo de abajo, y cuando, si había que halar un cabo por el castillo de proa, los marineros no lo tiraban violentamente, como de día, sino que lo dejaban caer en su sitio con cierta precaución, por temor de molestar a sus amodorrados compañeros; entonces, cuando empezaba a prevalecer esta especie de firme silencio, habitualmente, el callado timonel observaba el portillo de la cabina, y poco después salía el viejo, agarrándose al pasamano de hierro para ayudarse en su caminar de mutilado. Había en él cierto toque considerado de humanidad, pues en momentos como éstos solía abstenerse de rondar por el castillo de proa, porque para sus fatigados oficiales, que buscaban descanso a seis pulgadas de su talón de marfil, el golpe y chasquido reverberante de esa pisada de hueso hubiera sido tal, que habrían soñado con los crujientes dientes de los tiburones. Pero una vez, su humor era demasiado radical para consideraciones comunes, y cuando con pesado paso sordo medía el barco desde el coronamiento de popa hasta el palo mayor, Stubb, el viejo segundo oficial, subió desde abajo y con cierta vacilante e implorante jocosidad sugirió que si al capitán Ahab le placía pasear por la cubierta, entonces nadie podía decir que no, pero que podría haber algún modo de sofocar el ruido, aludiendo a algo vago e indistinto sobre una bola de estopa y su inserción en el talón de marfil. ¡Ah, Stubb, no conocías entonces a Ahab !

-¿Soy una bala de cañón, Stubb -dijo Ahab-, para que me quieras poner taco de ese modo ? Pero vete por tu lado; se me había olvidado. Baja a tu sepulcro nocturno, donde tus semejantes duermen entre sudarios para acostumbrarse a ocupar uno definitivamente. ¡Baja, perro, a la perrera !

Sobresaltándose ante la imprevista exclamación final del anciano, tan súbitamente despectivo, Stubb se quedó sin habla un momento, y luego dijo excitado:

-No estoy acostumbrado a que me hablen de ese modo, capitán: no me gusta en absoluto.

¡Basta ! -rechinó Ahab entre los dientes apretados, apartándose violentamente, como para evitar alguna tentación apasionada.

-No, capitán, todavía no -dijo Stubb, envalentonado-: no voy a dejar mansamente que me llamen perro.

-¡Entonces te llamaré diez veces burro, mulo, asno; fuera de aquí, o limpiaré el mundo de ti !

Al decir esto, Ahab avanzó contra él con aspecto tan imponente y terrible, que Stubb se retiró involuntariamente. -Nunca me han tratado así sin que yo diera a cambio un buen golpe -masculló Stubb, al encontrarse bajando por el portillo de la cabina-. Es muy raro. Alto, Stubb; no sé por qué, ahora, no sé muy bien si volver golpearle, o... ¿qué es eso ?, ¿arrodillarme rezar por él ? Sí, ésa fue la idea que me asaltó; pero sería la primera vez que rezara. Es raro, muy raro, y él también es raro; sí, tómeselo por la proa o por la popa, es el hombre más raro con que jamás ha navegado el viejo Stubb. ¡Cómo se me disparó con los ojos como polvorines !, ¿está loco ? De todos modos, tiene algo en la cabeza, como es seguro que debe haber algo en una cubierta cuando cruje. No pasa tampoco en la cama más de tres horas de cada veinticuatro, y entonces no duerme. ¿No me contó ese Dough-Boy, el mayordomo, que por la mañana siempre encuentra las mantas del viejo todas arrugadas y revueltas, las sábanas caídas a los pies, la colcha casi atada en nudos, y la almohada terriblemente caliente, como si hubiera tenido encima un ladrillo cocido ? ¡Viejo caliente ! Supongo que tiene lo que la gente de tierra llama conciencia; es una especie de tic doloroso, como le llaman, peor que un dolor de muelas. Bueno, bueno; no sé lo que es, pero que el Señor me libre de tenerlo. Está lleno de enigmas; no entiendo para qué baja a la bodega todas las noches, como dice DoughBoy que sospecha: ¿para qué es eso, me gustaría saber ? ¿Quién tiene citas con él en la bodega ? ¿No es también raro ? Pero no hay modo de saber; es el viejo juego. Vamos allá, a echar un sueñecito. Condenado de mí, vale la pena de que un hombre venga a este mundo, sólo para quedarse bien dormido. Y ahora que lo pienso, es casi lo primero que hacen los niños, y también eso es raro. Condenado de mí, pero todas las cosas son raras, si se van a pensar. Pero eso va contra mis principios. No pensar, es mi undécimo mandamiento; y duerme cuanto puedas, es el duodécimo. Así vamos ahí otra vez. Pero ¿cómo es eso ?, ¿no me ha llamado perro ? ¡Rayos !, ¡me ha llamado diez veces burro, y encima ha echado un montón de asnos ! Igual me podría haber dado patadas, lo habría hecho. Quizá me ha dado patadas, yo no me he fijado; de tan asustado que estaba de su ceño, no sé cómo. Centelleaba como un hueso blanqueado. ¿Qué demonios me pasa ? No me tengo derecho en las piernas. El ponerme a mal con ese viejo me ha dejado como vuelto del revés. Por Dios que debo haber soñado, sin embargo... ¿Cómo, cómo, cómo ? Pero el único modo es dejarlo; vamos otra vez a la hamaca, y por la mañana ya veré cómo piensa a la luz del día ese condenado titiritero. 

La pipa

Cuando se marchó Stubb, Ahab se quedó algún tiempo inclinado sobre la amurada, y luego, como era su costumbre desde hacía algún tiempo, llamó a un marinero de guardia, y le mandó abajo, por su taburete de marfil y su pipa. Entonces, encendiendo la pipa en la lámpara de bitácora y plantando el taburete en el lado de barlovento de la cubierta, se sentó a fumar.

En los viejos tiempos de los vikingos, los tronos de los reyes daneses, tan amigos del mar, estaban construidos, según dice la tradición, de los colmillos de narval. ¿Cómo podía uno entonces mirar a Ahab, sentado en ese trípode de huesos, sin acordarse de la realeza que simbolizaba ? Pues Ahab era un Khan de la cubierta, un rey del mar y un gran señor de los leviatanes.

Pasaron unos momentos, durante los cuales el denso vapor le salió de la boca en bocanadas rápidas y constantes, que le volvían a la cara con el viento. « ¡Cómo ! Ahora -soliloquizó por fin, retirando el tubo- el fumar ya no me calma. ¡Ah, mi pipa !, ¡mal me debe ir, si tu encanto se ha acabado ! Aquí he estado sufriendo sin darme cuenta, no gozando; sí, y fumando ignorantemente todo el tiempo a barlovento; a barlovento, y con tan nerviosas chupadas como si, igual.

La Reina Mab

A la mañana siguiente, Stubb se acercó a Flask.

-Un sueño tan raro, « Puntal », no lo había tenido nunca. Ya conoces la pata de marfil del viejo: bueno, soñé que me daba una patada con ella y que, al tratar de devolvérsela, ¡por mi vida, muchachito, que se me desprendió la pierna del golpe ! ¡Y luego, de repente, Ahab parecía una pirámide y yo, como un loco furioso, seguía dándole patadas ! Pero lo más curioso, Flask (ya sabes qué curiosos son todos los sueños), es que a través de toda la cólera en que estaba, no sé cómo, parecía pensar para mí que, después de todo, no era mucha ofensa esa patada de Ahab. « En fin -pensaba yo-, ¿por qué es la riña ? No es una pierna de verdad, sino solamente falsa. » Y hay mucha diferencia entre un golpe vivo y un golpe muerto. Eso es lo que hace, Flask, que el golpe de una mano sea cincuenta veces más doloroso de soportar que el golpe de un bastón. Y yo, fíjate, pensaba para mí todo el tiempo, mientras golpeaba mis estúpidos dedos de los pies contra esa maldita pirámide: aun tan condenadamente contradictorio como era todo, mientras tanto, como digo, yo pensaba para mí: « ¿Ahora, qué es su pierna, sino un bastón, un bastón de hueso de ballena ? Sí -pensaba yo-, ha sido sólo una tunda en broma; en realidad, sólo me ha abalienado, no me ha dado un golpe vil. Además -pensaba yo-, míralo un momento; bueno: el extremo, la parte del pie, qué clase de extremo más pequeño tiene; mientras que si me diera una patada un campesino de pies anchos, eso sí que sería una endemoniada ofensa ancha. Pero esta ofensa está afilada hasta no acabar más que en una punta ». Pero ahora viene la mayor broma del sueño, Flask. Mientras yo seguía dando contra la pirámide, una especie de viejo tritón, con pelos de tejón y con una joroba en la espalda, me agarra por los hombros y me hace dar la vuelta. « ¿Qué andas haciendo ? », me dice. ¡Demonios, hombre ! ¡Cómo me asusté ! ¡Qué jeta ! Pero, no sé cómo, un momento después había dominado el susto. « ¿Qué ando haciendo ? -digo por fin- ; ¿Y a ti qué te importa ? Me gustaría saberlo, señor Chepa. ¿Quieres una patada ? » Por lo más santo, Flask, apenas había dicho esto cuando él me volvió la popa, se agachó, y levantándose un matojo de algas que llevaba como un harapo, ¿qué crees que vi ?; bueno, pues, rayos y truenos, hombre, tenía la popa llena de pasadores, con las puntas para fuera. Digo yo, pensándolo mejor: « Me parece que no te voy a dar una patada, compadre ». « Sensato Stubb -dice-, sensato Stubb »; y lo siguió mascullando todo el tiempo, igual que si se comiera sus propias encías, como una bruja de chimenea. Viendo que no iba a acabar de repetir su « sensato Stubb, sensato Stubb », pensé que igual podría volver a emprenderla con la pirámide. Pero apenas había levantado el pie para ello cuando él rugió: « ¡Deja esas patadas ! ». « Eh -digo yo-, ¿qué ocurre ahora, compadre ? » « Ven acá -dice-, vamos a discutir la ofensa. El capitán Ahab te ha dado una patada, ¿no ? » « Sí que me ha dado -digo-, y fue aquí mismo... » « Muy bien --dice-: usó la pierna de marfil, ¿no ? » « Sí, eso es », digo yo. « Bueno, entonces -dice--, sensato Stubb, ¿de qué tienes que quejarte ? ¿No te dio la patada con la mejor voluntad ? No fue una vulgar pata de palo, de pino de tea, con la que te dio el puntapié, ¿verdad ? No, te dio la patada un gran hombre, y con una hermosa pierna de marfil, Stubb. Es un honor; yo lo considero un honor. Escucha, sensato Stubb. En la antigua Inglaterra, los mayores señores consideraban que era una gran gloria ser abofeteados por una reina y ser nombrados caballeros de sus ligas, pero tú por tu parte, Stubb, presumes de que te ha dado una patada el viejo Ahab, haciéndote hombre sensato. Recuerda lo que digo: déjate dar patadas por él; considera como un honor sus patadas, y por ningún motivo se las devuelvas, porque no puedes servirte a tu gusto, sensato Stubb. ¿No ves esa pirámide ? » Y con esto, de repente, pareció, no sé cómo, salir nadando por el aire. ¡Yo di un ronquido, me revolví, y allí estaba en la hamaca ! Ahora, ¿qué te parece ese sueño, Flask ?

-No sé, pero me parece una especie de tontería.

-Quizá, quizá. Pero me ha hecho hombre sensato, Flask. ¿Viste a Ahab ahí plantado, mirando de medio lado por la popa ? Bueno, lo mejor que puedes hacer, Flask, es dejar solo a ese viejo; no hablar jamás con él, diga lo que quiera. ¡Eh ! ¿Qué es lo que grita ? ¡Atención !

-¡A ver, el vigía ! ¡Mirad bien, todos !

¡Hay ballenas por ahí ! Si veis una blanca, ¡a partirse el pecho gritando !

-¿Qué piensas ahora de él, Flask ? ¿No hay un toque de algo raro en esto, eh ? Una ballena blanca; ¿te has fijado, hombre ? Mira; hay algo especial en el aire. Puedes estar seguro de eso, Flask. Ahab tiene en la cabeza algo sangriento. Pero, a callar: viene por aquí. 

Cetología

Ya estamos atrevidamente lanzados sobre la profundidad, pero pronto nos perderemos en sus inmensidades sin orillas ni puertos. Antes de que esto ocurra; antes que el casco lleno de algas del Pequod se balancee flanco a flanco de los cascos llenos de lapas del leviatán; desde el arranque, no estará de más atender a una cuestión casi indispensable para una completa comprensión apreciativa de las variadas revelaciones y alusiones más especialmente leviatánicas que han de sucederse.

Lo que ahora querría poner ante vosotros es una exhibición sistematizada de la ballena en sus amplios géneros. Pero no es tarea fácil. Lo que aqui se intenta es nada menos que la clasificación de los constitutivos de un caos. Escuchad lo que han establecido las mejores y más recientes autoridades.

« No hay rama de la zoología tan enredada como la que se titula cetología », dice el capitán Scoresby, 1820.

« No es mi intencion, aunque estuviera a mi alcance, entrar en la investigación del auténtico método de dividir los cetáceos en grupos y familias... Entre los historiadores de este animal (el cachalote) existe completa confusión », dice el cirujano Beale, 1839.

« Incapacidad para proseguir nuestra investigación en las aguas insondables. » « Un velo impenetrable cubre nuestro conocimiento de los cetáceos. » « Un campo sembrado de espinas. » « Todas estas indicaciones incompletas sólo sirven para torturarnos a los naturalistas. »

Así hablan de la ballena el gran Cuvier, John Hunter y Lesson, esas lumbreras de la zoología y la anatomía. No obstante, aunque hay poco conocimiento real, hay abundancia de libros; y así ocurre en pequeña escala con la cetología o ciencia de las ballenas. Muchos son los hombres, pequeños o glandes, viejos o nuevos de tierra o de mar, que han escrito sobre la ballena, por extenso o en breve. Recorred unos pocos: los autores de la Biblia, Aristóteles, Plinio, Aldrovandi, sir Thomas Browne, Gesner, Ray, Linneo, Rondeletius, Willoughby Green., Artedi, Sibbald, Brisson, Marten, Lacépède, Bonneterre, Desmarest, el Barón Cuvier, Frederick Cuvier, John Hunter, Owen, Scoresby, Beale, Bennett, J. Ross Browne, el autor de Miriam Coffin, Olmstead y el reverendo T Cheever. Pero las citas antes mencionadas habrán mostrado con qué propósito definitivo de generalización han escrito todos ellos

De los nombres que hay en esta lista de autores balleneros, sólo los que suceden a Owen han visto alguna vez ballenas vivas, y, salvo uno, ninguno fue un auténtico arponero ni ballenero profesional. Me refiero al capitán Scoresby. En el tema especial de la ballena de Groenlandia, o ballena propiamente dicha, él es la mejor autoridad existente. Pero Scoresby no sabía nada ni dijo nada del gran cachalote, al lado del cual la ballena de Groenlandia casi no es digna de mención. Y aquí ha de decirse que la ballena de Groenlandia es una usurpadora en el trono de los mares. Ni siquiera es la mayor de las ballenas. Pero, debido a la larga prioridad de sus pretensiones y a la profunda ignorancia que, hasta hace unos setenta años, rodeaba al fabuloso o totalmente desconocido cachalote, ignorancia que sigue reinando hasta hoy en todas partes salvo en unos pocos retiros científicos y puertos balleneros, esa usurpación ha sido completa. La observación de casi todas las alusiones leviatánicas en los grandes poetas de tiempos pasados os convencerá de que la ballena de Groenlandia, sin un solo rival, era entonces la reina de los mares. Pero ha llegado la hora de una nueva proclamación. Aquí es Charing Cross; ¡escuchad todos, hombres de bien; la ballena de Groenlandia queda depuesta; ahora reina el gran cachalote !

Hay sólo dos libros existentes que pretendan de un modo o de otro presentaros al cachalote, y que, al mismo tiempo, tengan el más remoto éxito en su intento. Esos libros son los de Beale y Bennett, ambos, en su tiempo, médicos en los balleneros ingleses del mar del Sur, y ambos hombres exactos y de fiar. La materia original referente al cachalote que se encuentra en sus volúmenes es por fuerza pequeña, pero hasta donde alcanza, es de excelente calidad, aunque en su mayor parte limitada a la descripción científica. Sin embargo, hasta ahora el cachalote, científico o poético, no vive completo en ninguna literatura. Muy por encima de todas las demás ballenas que se cazan, su vida está por escribir.

Ahora bien, las diversas especies de ballenas necesitaban alguna integral clasificación popular, aunque sólo sea un fácil bosquejo por el momento, que después se rellene en todos sus departamentos con los sucesivos esfuerzos de otros estudiosos. En vista de que no hay nadie mejor que se adelante a tomar en sus manos este asunto, ofrezco por tanto mis propios humildes esfuerzos. No prometo nada completo, porque cualquier cosa humana que se suponga completa, debe ser infaliblemente deficiente por esa misma razón. No pretenderé una menuda descripción anatómica de las diversas especies, ni -al menos en este lugar- muchas descripciones. Mi objetivo aquí es sencillamente proyectar el borrador de una sistematización de la cetología. Yo soy el arquitecto, no el constructor.

Pero es una tarea pesada: no hay ningún normal clasificador de cartas en la oficina de correos que esté a su altura. Bajar a tientas al fondo del mar detrás de ellas; meter la mano entre los inefables fundamentos, las costillas y la mismísima pelvis del mundo, es cosa terrible. ¿Quién soy yo para que intente echar un gancho a la nariz de este leviatán ? Los temibles sarcasmos en el libro de Job me podrían horrorizar muy bien. « ¿Hará contigo (el leviatán) un pacto ? ¡Mira, vana es la esperanza de alcanzarlo ! » Pero he nadado a través de bibliotecas y he navegado a través de océanos; he tenido que habérmelas con ballenas, con estas manos visibles; actúo en serio, y lo voy a probar. Hay algunos preliminares que arreglar.

Primero: el carácter incierto e inestable de esta ciencia de la cetología queda atestiguado en su mismo vestíbulo por el hecho de que en diversos círculos todavía sigue siendo cuestión pendiente si la ballena es un pez. En su Sistema de la Naturaleza, 1776, Linneo declara: « De este modo, separo a las ballenas de los peces ». Pero, que yo sepa, me consta que hasta el año 1850, los tiburones y los sábalos, las sabogas y los arenques, contra el expreso edicto de Linneo, se han hallado compartiendo la posesión de los mismos mares con el leviatán.

Los motivos por los cuales Linneo desearía desterrar de las aguas a las ballenas se declaran como sigue: « A causa de su corazón caliente y bilobular, sus pulmones, sus párpados móviles, sus oídos hue cos, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem -y, finalmente-, ex lege naturae jure meritoque ». Expuse todo esto a mis amigos Simeon Macey y Charley Coffin, de Nantucket, ambos compañeros míos de rancho en cierto viaje, y estuvieron concordes en la opinión de que las razones presentadas eran completamente insuficientes. Charley, desvergonzadamente, sugirió que eran tonterías.

Sépase que, eludiendo toda discusión, adopto el punto de vista, pasado de moda, de que la ballena es un pez, e invoco a mi favor al santo Jonás. Decidido este aspecto fundamental, el siguiente punto es en qué sentido interno difiere la ballena de los demás peces. Más arriba, Linneo os ha presentado esos artículos. Pero, en resumen, son éstos: pulmones y sangre caliente, mientras que todos los demás peces carecen de pulmones y tienen sangre fría.

A continuación: ¿cómo definiremos a la ballena por sus signos externos evidentes, de modo que la etiquetemos de modo conspicuo para todo lo sucesivo ? Para ser breves, entonces, una ballena es un pez que lanza chorros y tiene cola horizontal. Ya la tenéis. Aun tan sucinta, esa definición es resultado de una extensa meditación. Una morsa lanza chorros de modo muy parecido a una ballena, pero la morsa no es un pez, porque es un anfibio. Pero el segundo término de la definición es aún más eficaz al acoplarse con el primero. Casi todo el mundo debe haber advertido que los peces conocidos de la gente de tierra no tienen la cola plana, sino vertical, o de arriba abajo. En cambio, entre los peces que lanzan chorros, la cola, aunque puede tener una forma semejante, invariablemente asume posición horizontal.

Con la susodicha definición de lo que es una ballena, no excluyo en modo alguno de la fraternidad leviatánica a ninguna criatura marina hasta ahora identificada con la ballena por los más informados de Nantucket; ni, por otra parte, la vinculo con ningún pez hasta ahora considerado por las autoridades como ajeno a ella'. Por tanto, todos los peces menores que echan chorro y tienen la cola horizontal, deben ser incluidos en esta planta básica de la cetología. Y entonces, ahora vienen las grandiosas divisiones de la entera hueste ballenaria.

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Primero: según el tamaño, divido a las ballenas en tres LIBROS básicos (subdivisibles en CAPITULOS), y éstos comprenderán, a todas, grandes o pequeñas.

1. LA BALLENA INFOLIO; I. LA BALLENA EN OCTAVO; II. LA BALLENA EN DOZAVO.

En cuanto al tipo del INFOLIO, I, presento el Cachalote,- del EN OCTAVO, el Orco; del EN DOZAVO, la Marsopa.

INFOLIOS. Entre éstas, incluyo los siguientes capítulos: I. El Cachalote; I. La Ballena franca, o de Groenlandia; II. El Ballenópte ro; IV. El Rorcual; V La Ballena de panza de Azufre.

LIBRO I (Infolio). CAPITULO I (Cachalote). Esta ballena, conocida vagamente desde antiguo entre los ingleses como la Ballena rumpa, o Ballena Physeter, o Ballena de Cabeza de Yunque, es el actual cachalote de los franceses, Pottfich de los alemanes y Macrocephalus de los Palabras-Largas. Es, sin duda, el mayor habitante del globo, el ballenáto más temible de encontrar; el más majestuoso en aspecto, y finalmente, con mucho, el más valioso para el comercio, siendo él la única criatura de que se obtiene esa valiosa sustancia que es el espermaceti. Sobre sus peculiaridades nos extenderemos en otros muchos lugares. Ahora me ocupo principalmente de su nombre inglés, sperm-whale: filológicamente conssiderado, es absurdo. Hace unos siglos, cuando la sperm-whale era casi desconocida en su auténtica personalidad, y cuando su aceite se obtenía sólo accidentalmente de los ejemplares embarrancados, en esos días parece que el espermaceti se creería vulgarmente derivado de un animal coincidente con el entonces conocido en Inglaterra como Ballena de Groenlandia, o Ballena propiamente dicha. Se tenía también la idea de que ese espermaceti era el esperma fecundante de la Ballena de Groenlandia, según indican las primeras sílabas de la palabra. En estos tiempos, además, el espermaceti era enormemente escaso, no usándose para el alumbrado, sino sólo como unción y como medicamento. Sólo se obtenía de los farmacéuticos, como hoy día se compra una onza de ruibarbo. Cuando, con el transcurso del tiempo, según supongo, llegó a conocerse la verdadera naturaleza del espermaceti, los vendedores conservaron su nombre original, sin duda para realzar su valor con un término tan llamativamente expresivo de su escasez. Y así finalmente debió llegarse a dar esa apelación de sperm-whale a la ballena de que se obtenía realmente el espermaceti.

LIBRO I (Infolio). CAPITULO I (Ballena de Groenlandia o Ballena franca). En un aspecto es el más venerable de los leviatanes: en ser el primero que los hombres persiguieron sistemáticamente. Produce el artículo comúnmente conocido como « ballenas », y el aceite conocido especialmente por « aceite de ballena », un artículo inferior en el comercio. Entre los pescadores, se le designa indistintamente con los siguientes títulos: la Ballena; la Ballena de Groenlandia; la Ballena Negra; la Ballena Grande; la Verdadera Ballena; la Ballena franca. Hay mucha oscuridad en cuanto a la identidad de esta especie tan múltiplemente bautizada. ¿Cuál es entonces la ballena que incluyo en la segunda especie de mis infolios ? Es el gran Mysticetus de los naturalistas ingleses; la ballena de Groenlandia de los balleneros ingleses; la baleine ordinairede los balleneros franceses; la Growlandswalde los suecos. Es la ballena que desde hace más de dos siglos ha sido cazada por los holandeses e ingleses en los mares árticos; es la ballena que los pescadores han perseguido tanto en el océano índico, en los bancos del Brasil, en la costa del Noroeste, y en otras diversas partes del mundo que reciben por ella el nombre de Pesquerías de la Ballena.

Algunos han querido ver una diferencia entre la Ballena de Groenlandia de los ingleses y la « ballena » de los americanos. Pero concuerdan exactamente en todos sus rasgos principales, y hasta ahora no se ha señalado un solo hecho determinado en que basar tan radical distinción. Las subdivisiones interminables basadas en diferencias sin significado es lo que hace tan repelentemente intrincados ciertos departamentos de la historia natural. La ballena franca será tratada en otro lugar con cierta extensión, con intención de distinguirla del cachalote.

LIBRO I (Infolio). CAPíTUL0 II (El Ballenóptero). Dentro de este apartado sitúo a un monstruo que, bajo los variados nombres de Ballenóptero, Chorro Alto, o « Juanito el Largo », se ha visto en casi todos los mares, y es comúnmente esa ballena cuyo distante chorro describen tan a menudo los pasajeros que cruzan el Atlántico en las rutas regulares de Nueva York. En la longitud que alcanza, y en las « ballenas » que produce, el ballenóptero se parece a la ballena propiamente dicha, pero es de circunferencia menos imponente y de color más claro, cercano al aceitunado. Sus grandes labios presentan un aspecto como de cables formados por los pliegues entrelazados y oblicuos de amplias arrugas. Su gran rasgo distintivo, la aleta, de que deriva su nombre inglés de fin-back, es a menudo un objeto muy sobresaliente. Esta aleta tiene tres o cuatro pies de longitud, y crece verticalmente desde la parte de atrás del lomo, en forma angular y con un extremo de punta muy aguda. Cuando el mar está medianamente tranquilo, y levemente marcado por arrugas circulares, y esa aleta se eleva como una varilla y lanza sombras sobre la arrugada superficie, podría muy bien suponerse que el círculo de agua que la rodea parece un reloj de sol, con su índice y sus onduladas líneas horarias grabadas en él. En ese reloj de Ahaz la sombra a menudo marcha hacia atrás. El Ballenóptero no es gregario. Parece detestar a las ballenas, como ciertos hombres detestan a los hombres. Muy huidizo, siempre andando solitario, elevándose inesperadamente a la superficie en las aguas más remotas y sombrías, con su derecho y solitario chorro elevado como una alta lanza misantrópica en una llanura yerma; dotado de tan prodigiosa fuerza y velocidad de natación que desafia todas las actuales persecuciones del hombre, este leviatán parece el desterrado e inconquistable Caín de su raza, llevando como señal esa vara en el lomo. Por tener en la boca las « barbas » de ballena o « ballenas », el ballenóptero a veces se incluye con la ballena propiamente dicha, formando una especie teórica llamada Whalebone whales, o sea, ballenas que producen « barbas » de ballena. De las así llamadas, parecería haber diversas variedades, la mayor parte de las cuales, sin embargo, son poco conocidas: ballenas de nariz ancha y ballenas con pico, ballenas de cabeza de pica; ballenas apiladas; ballenas de mandíbula, y ballenas con hocico, son los nombres de los pescadores para unas pocas variedades.

En conexión con ese apelativo para las que producen « barbas » de « ballena », es muy importante señalar que, aunque tal nomenclatura sea conveniente para facilitar alusiones a cierto tipo de ballenas, es vano, sin embargo, intentar una clara clasificación de los leviatanes fundada en que produzcan « barbas », o en que tengan joroba, o aleta, o dientes, a pesar de que esas partes destacadas parecen más adecuadas para proporcionar la base de un sistema regular de cetología que cualesquiera otras distinciones corporales que presente la ballena en sus variedades. ¿Y entonces qué ? Las « barbas de ballena », la joroba, la aleta en el lomo y los dientes son cosas cuyas peculiaridades están dispersas sin discriminación entre toda clase de ballenas, sin consideración a lo que pueda ser la naturaleza de su estructura en otros particulares más esenciales. Así, tanto el cachalote como el rorcual, o ballena jorobada, tienen joroba, pero ahí termina la semejanza. Y lo mismo ocurre con las demás partes antes mencionadas. En diversas clases de ballenas, forman tan irregulares combinaciones, y tan irregular aislamiento, al separarse en el caso de alguna de ellas, que se resisten completamente a todo método general formado sobre tal base. En esta roca han venido a estrellarse todos los naturalistas de la ballena.

Pero puede concebirse como posible que, en las partes internas de la ballena, en su anatomía, al menos, podamos dar con la adecuada clasificación. No: ¿qué cosa, por ejemplo, hay en la ballena de Groenlandia que sea más llamativa que las « barbas » o « ballenas » ? Sin embargo, hemos visto que por esas « ballenas » es imposible clasificar correctamente a la ballena de Groenlandia. Y si descendemos a las entrañas de los diversos leviatanes, bien, entonces no encontraremos distinciones que sean ni la quincuagésima parte de útiles al sistematizador que las características externas ya enumeradas. ¿Qué queda entonces ? Nada sino tomar a las ballenas corporalmente, en su entero y generoso volumen, y clasificarlas atrevidamente de ese modo. Y ése es el sistema bibliográfico aquí adoptado, y el único que puede tener éxito, pues es el único practicable. Continuemos.

LIBRO I (Infolio). CAPITULO IV (Rorcual). Esta ballena se ve frecuentemente en la costa norte de América. Frecuentemente se la ha capturado allí, remolcándola al puerto. Lleva encima un gran bulto, como un vendedor ambulante; se la podría llamar la ballena « Elefante-y-Castillo ». En cualquier caso, su nombre corriente inglés, Hump-back, o ballena jorobada, no la distingue bastante, ya que el cachalote tiene también una joroba, aunque más pequeña. Su aceite no es muy valioso. Produce « barbas » o varillas de « ballenas ». Es la más juguetona y frívola de todas las ballenas, haciendo por lo general más alegre espuma y más agua blanqueada que ninguna otra.

LIBRO I (Infolio). CAPITULO V (De Dorso de Navaja). De esta ballena se conoce muy poco más que el nombre. Yo la he visto a distancia a lo largo del cabo de Hornos. De temperamento retirado, elude tanto a los cazadores como a los filósofos. Aunque no es cobarde, no ha mostrado más parte que el lomo, que se eleva en un largo filo agudo. Dejémosla pasar. Sé poco más de ella, y nadie sabe más.

LIBRO I (Infolio). CAPITULO VI (De Panza de Azufre). Otra personalidad retirada, con barriga sulfúrea, indudablemente de ese color a fuerza de rascarse por los tejados del Tártaro en algunas de sus zambullidas más profundas. Se ve raramente; al menos, yo no la he visto sino en los remotos mares del Sur, y entonces a distancia demasiado grande como para estudiar su fisonomía. Nunca se la persigue: se escaparía llevándose cordelerías enteras de estacha. Se cuentan prodigios de ella. ¡Adiós, Panza de Azufre ! No puedo decir de ti nada más que sea cierto, ni lo puede decir el más viejo de Nantucket.

Así termina el LIBRO I (Infolio) y empieza el LIBRO I (en Octavo).

EN OCTAVO.' Incluyen las ballenas de magnitud media, entre las cuales se pueden enumerar actualmente: I. El orco; I. El Pez Negro; II. El Narval; IV. El Azotador; V: El Matador.

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LIBRO I (en Octavo). CAPITULO I (Orco). Aunque este pez, cuyo sonoro y ruidoso respiro, o más bien soplo, ha llegado a ser proverbial para la gente de tierra, es un conocido habitante de lo profundo, no suele clasificarse vulgarmente entre las ballenas. Pero poseyendo todas las principales características distintivas del leviatán, muchos naturalistas lo reconocen por ballena. Es de un moderado tamaño en octavo, variando desde quince a veinticinco pies de longitud, y de dimensiones de cintura en proporción. Nada en reba fios; nunca es cazado de modo sistemático, aunque su aceite es considerable en cantidad y bastante bueno para el alumbrado. Algunos pescadores consideran su acercamiento como preludio al avance del gran cachalote.

LIBRO I (en Octavo). CAPITULO I (Pez Negro). A todos estos peces les doy sus nombres corrientes entre los pescadores, pues suelen ser los mejores. Cuando algún nombre, por casualidad, sea vago o inexpresivo, lo diré, y sugeriré otro. Ahora lo haré así, en cuanto al llamado Pez Negro, pues la negrura es la regla entre casi todas las ballenas. De modo que, por favor, llámenle la Ballena Hiena. Su voracidad es bien conocida, y por la circunstancia de que las comisuras de sus labios están torcidas hacia arriba, ostenta en su cara una perpetua mueca mefistofélica. Esta ballena alcanza por término medio dieciseis o dieciocho pies de longitud. Se encuentra en casi todas las latitudes. Tiene un modo peculiar de mostrar su ganchuda aleta dorsal al nadar, que parece algo así como una nariz romana. Cuando no tienen ocupación más provechosa, los cazadores de cachalotes a veces capturan la Ballena Hiena, para mantener el repuesto de aceite barato para uso doméstico, igual que ciertos frugales dueños de casa, en ausencia de visitas, y muy a solas, queman desagradable sebo en vez de olorosa cera. Aunque su capa de aceite es muy delgada, algunas de estas ballenas llegan a dar más de treinta galones de aceite.

LIBRO I (en Octavo). CAPITULO II (Narval). Esto es Nostrilwhale, ballena de nariz; otro ejemplo de ballena de nombre curioso, llamada así, supongo, por su peculiar cuerno, que al principio se confundió con una nariz en pico. Esta criatura tiene unos dieciséis pies de largo, mientras que el cuerno alcanza unos cinco, por término medio, aunque a veces excede de diez, y aun llega a quince pies. Hablando estrictamente, este cuerno no es sino un colmillo alargado, que surge de la mandíbula en línea un poco descendente desde la horizontal. Pero se encuentra sólo en el lado izquierdo, lo que produce un desagradable efecto, dando a su poseedor un aspecto análogo al de un zurdo inhábil. Sería difícil responder a qué propósito exacto responde este cuerno o lanza de marfil. No parece usarse como la de hoja de pez-espada o pez-aguja, aunque algunos marineros me dicen que el narval lo emplea como una badila revolviendo el fondo del mar en busca de alimento. Charley Coffin decía que se usaba como rompehielos, pues el narval, al subir a la superficie del mar polar y encontrarlo cubierto de hielo, mete el cuerno para arriba y se abre paso. Pero no se puede demostrar que sea correcta ninguna de esas hipótesis. Mi propia opinión es que, de cualquier modo que este cuerno unilateral sea usado por el narval, de cualquier modo que `sea, le resultaría muy conveniente como plegadera para leer folletos. He oído llamar al narval la ballena con colmillo, ballena con cuerno y ballena unicornio. Ciertamente, es curioso ejemplo del unicornismo que se encuentra en casi todos los reinos de la naturaleza animada. Por ciertos antiguos escritores claustrales he sabido que este mismo cuerno de unicornio marino se consideraba en épocas pasadas como el gran antídoto contra el veneno, y que, en cuanto tal, los preparados hechos de él alcanzaban precios inmensos. También se destilaba en sales volátiles para damas que se desmayaban, del mismo modo que los cuernos del ciervo se elaboran como amoníaco. Originariamente se consideraba en sí mismo como objeto de gran curiosidad. Letra Negra me dice que sir Martín Frobisher, al volver de aquel viaje en que la reina Isabel le saludó galantemente con su mano enjoyada desde una ventana del palacio de Greenwich, al descender su atrevido barco por el Támesis: « Cuando sir Martín volvió de ese viaje -dice Letra Negra-, arrodillado, presentó a Su Majestad un cuerno prodigiosamente largo de narval, que durante un largo período después colgó en el castillo de Windsor ». Un autor irlandés asegura que el conde de Leicester, de rodillas, presentó igualmente a Su Majestad otro cuerno que había pertenecido a un animal terrestre de naturaleza unicórnea.

El narval tiene un aspecto muy pintoresco de leopardo, por ser de un color de fondo blanco como la leche, salpicado de manchas negras redondas y alargadas. Su aceite es muy superior, claro y fino; pero tiene poco, y rara vez se le persigue. Se le encuentra sobre todo en los mares circumpolares.

LIBRO I (en Octavo). CAPITULO IV (Matador). De esta ballena, los de Nantucket saben poco con exactitud, y nada en absoluto los naturalistas de profesión. Por lo que yo he visto de él a distancia, diría que tenía cerca del tamaño de un orco. Es muy salvaje; una especie de pez de Fidji. A veces agarra por el labio a la gran ballena infolio, y se cuelga ahí como una sanguijuela, hasta que el poderoso bruto muere de dolor. Nunca se caza al Matador. Nunca he oído qué clase de aceite tiene., Se podría objetar al nombre otorgado a esta ballena, por causa de que es poco claro. Pues todos nosotros somos matadores, en tierra y en mar, Bonapartes y tiburones incluidos.

LIBRO I (en Octavo). CAPITULO V (Azotador). Este caballero es famoso por su cola, que usa como fusta para azotar a sus enemigos. Se sube al lomo de la ballena infolio, y mientras ésta nada, él se hace transportar dándole azotes, igual que ciertos maestros de escuela se abren paso en el mundo por un procedimiento semejante. Se sabe aún menos del Azotador que del Matador. Ambos son proscritos, incluso en los mares sin ley.

Así concluye el LIBRO I (en Octavo) y empieza el LIBRO II (en Dozavo).

EN DOZAVO. Estos incluyen las ballenas menores: I. La Marsopa « Hurra »; I. La Marsopa Argelina; II. La Marsopa Hipócrita.

A los que no hayan tenido ocasión de estudiar el tema, quizá les parezca extraño que unos peces que no suelen exceder de cuatro o cinco pies sean puestos en formación junto a las BALLENAS, palabra que, en su sentido corriente, siempre da una idea de grandeza. Pero las criaturas indicadas antes como en dozavo son infaliblemente ballenas, según los términos de mi definición de lo que es una ballena: esto es, un pez que echa chorro, con cola horizontal.

LIBRO II (en Dozavo). CAPITULO I (Marsopa « Hurra »). Es la marsopa corriente, que se encuentra por todo el globo. El nombre es de mi propia concesión, pues hay más de una clase de marsopas y había que hacer algo para distinguirlas. Las llamo así porque siempre nadan en manadas de gran hilaridad, que van por el ancho mar lanzándose al cielo como gorras de marinero en una multitud del Cuatro de Julio. Su aparición suele ser saludada con regocijo por los marineros. Llenas de buen humor, invariablemente vienen de las olas con brisa a barlovento. Son esos tipos que siempre viven viento en popa. Se consideran como señal de buena suerte. Si podéis conteneros y no lanzar tres hurras al observar esos vivaces peces, entonces, el Cielo os ayude; no hay en vosotros espíritu juguetón ninguno. Una Marsopa « Hurra » bien cebada y gorda da un buen galón de buen aceite. Pero el fino y delicado fluido que se extrae de sus mandíbulas es enormemente valioso. Está muy solicitado entre los joyeros y relojeros. Los marineros lo ponen en sus casas. La carne de marsopa es buena para comer, ya saben. Quizá no hayan caído ustedes nunca en la cuenta de que las marsopas echan chorro. Desde luego, el chorro es tan pequeño que no se advierte fácilmente. Pero la próxima vez que tengan ocasión, obsérvenlas, y verán entonces al propio gran cachalote en miniatura.

LIBRO II (en Dozavo). CAPITULO I (Marsopa Argelina). Pirata. Muy salvaje. Creo que sólo se encuentra en el Pacífico. Es algo mayor que la Marsopa « Hurra », pero de forma muy parecida. Si se la provoca, se echará contra un tiburón. He arriado lanchas muchas veces para cazarla, pero nunca la he visto capturada.

LIBRO II (en Dozavo). CAPITULO II (Marsopa Hipócrita). El tipo más grande de la marsopa, y sólo se encuentra en el Pacífico, que se sepa. El único nombre con que hasta ahora se ha designado es el de los pescadores: Marsopa de la Ballena de Groenlandia, por la circunstancia de que se encuentra principalmente en cercanía de ese infolio. En forma, difiere hasta cierto punto de la Marsopa « Hurra », siendo de cintura menos rotunda y jovial; en efecto, es de figura muy esbelta y caballeresca. No tiene aletas en el lomo (la mayoría de las demás marsopas las tienen); tiene una bonita cola y unos sentimentales ojos indios de color de avellana. Pero su boca hipócrita la echa a perder. Aunque todo su lomo, hasta sus aletas laterales, es de un negro profundo, sin embargo una línea divisoria, tan clara como la línea de flotación en el casco de un barco, y llamada la « cintura clara », la marca de popa a proa con dos colores separados, negro por arriba y blanco por abajo. El blanco comprende parte de la cabeza y el total de la boca, lo que le da un aspecto vil e hipócrita. Su aceite se parece mucho al de la marsopa corriente.

Más allá del en dozavo, no continúa el sistema, ya que la marsopa es la más pequeña de las ballenas. Por encima, tenemos a los famosos leviatanes. Pero hay una chusma de ballenas inciertas, fugitivas y medio fabulosas, que yo, como ballenero americano, conozco por reputación, pero no personalmente. Las enumeraré tal como se las llama en el castillo de proa, pues es posible que tal lista sea valiosa para futuros investigadores, que podrán completar lo que yo aquí no he hecho sino empezar. Si en lo sucesivo se capturan y señalan algunas de las siguientes ballenas, podrán incorporarse fácilmente a este sistema, según su formato, infolio, en octavo o en dozavo: la Ballena de Nariz de Botella, la Ballena Junco, la Ballena de Cabeza de Flan, la Ballena del Cabo, la Ballena Conductora, la Ballena Cañón, la Ballena Flaca, la Ballena de Cobre, la Ballena Elefante, la Ballena Iceberg, la Ballena Quog, la Ballena Azul, etc. Según antiguas autoridades islandesas, holandesas e inglesas podrían citarse otras listas de ballenas inciertas, obsequiada con toda clase de nombres grotescos. Pero las omito como completamente extinguidas, y no puedo menos de sospechar que son meros sonidos, llenos de leviatanismo, pero que no significan nada.

Finalmente: se dijo al comienzo que este sistema no sería llevado a término aquí y en seguida. No se dejará de ver claramente que he cumplido mi palabra. Pero ahora haré que mi sistema cetológico quede así inacabado, igual que quedó la gran catedral de Colonia, con la grúa aún erguida en lo alto de la torre incompleta. Pues las pequeñas construcciones pueden terminarlas sus propios arquitectos; las grandes y auténticas dejan siempre la piedra de clave a la posteridad. Dios me libre de completar nada. Este libro entero no es más que un borrador; mejor dicho, el borrador de un borrador. ¡Ah, Tiempo, Energía, Dinero y Paciencia ! 

El « Troceador »

Respecto a los oficiales de un barco ballenero, este momento me parece tan bueno como cualquier otro para anotar una pequeña particularidad doméstica de a bordo, debida a la existencia de la clase arponera de oficiales, una clase, por supuesto, desconocida en cualquier otra marina que no sea la flota ballenera.

La amplia importancia atribuida a la profesión de arponero se evidencia por el hecho de que, al principio, en la antigua pesquería holandesa, hace más de dos siglos, el mando de un barco ballenero no residía totalmente en la persona hoy llamada capitán, sino que se dividía entre él y un oficial llamado el Specksynder, el « Troceador ». Literalmente, esta palabra significa « cortador de grasa », pero el uso la hizo con el tiempo equivalente a arponero en jefe. En aquellos días, la autoridad del capitán se restringía a la navegación y manejo general del navío, mientras que el Specksyndero arponero en jefe reinaba de modo supremo sobre el departamento de la cala de la ballena y todos sus intereses. En la Pesquería Británica de Groenlandia se conserva todavía esta antigua dignidad holandesa, bajo el corrompido título de Specksioneer, pero su antigua dignidad ha quedado completamente menguada. Actualmente, tiene el simple rango de primer arponero, y, en cuanto tal, no es más que uno de los más inferiores subalternos del capitán. Sin embargo, como el éxito de un viaje ballenero depende en gran medida de la buena actuación de los arponeros, y como en la pesquería americana no sólo es un oficial importante del barco, sino que en ciertas circunstancias (guardias nocturnas en aguas balleneras) también tiene a su mando la cubierta, por tanto la gran máxima política del mar exige que viva nominalmente aparte de los marineros del castillo de proa, y se distinga en cierto modo como su superior profesional, aunque siempre es considerado por ellos como su igual en compañía.

Ahora, la gran distinción establecida en el mar entre oficial y marinero es ésta: aquél vive a popa, éste, a proa. Por tanto, lo mismo en barcos balleneros que en mercantes, los oficiales tienen su residencia con el capitán, y así también, en la mayor parte de los balleneros americanos, los arponeros se alojan en la parte de popa del barco. Es decir, comen en la cabina del capitán y duermen en un lugar que comunica indirectamente con ella.

Aunque la larga duración de un viaje ballenero al sur (con mucho, el más largo de todos los viajes que se han hecho, ahora y siempre, por el hombre), sus peculiares peligros y la comunidad de intereses que domina en un grupo en que todos, altos o bajos, dependen de sus beneficios y no de paga fija, sino de su suerte en común, así como de su vigilancia, intrepidez y esfuerzo en común, aunque todas esas cosas en muchos casos tienden a producir una disciplina menos rigurosa que la habitual en los barcos mercantes, sin embargo, por más que estos cazadores de ballenas, en casos primitivos, convivan de modo muy parecido a una antigua tribu mesopotámica, con todo, es raro, por lo menos, que se relajen las exterioridades puntillosas del alcázar, y en ningún caso se abandonan. En efecto, son muchos los barcos de Nantucket en que se ve al capitán pasando revista a la cubierta con una solemne grandeza no sobrepasada en ningún navío militar; más aún, exigiendo casi tanto homenaje exterior como si llevara la púrpura imperial y no el más ajado de los chaquetones de piloto.

Y aunque el maniático capitán del Pequod era el hombre menos dado a esta clase de presunción superficial, aunque el único homenaje que requería era la obediencia silenciosa e instantánea, aunque no requería que nadie se quitase el calzado de los pies antes de subir al alcázar, y aunque había momentos en que, debido a circunstancias peculiares en relación con acontecimientos que se detallarán luego, les dirigía la palabra en términos insólitos, fuera por condescendencia, o in terrorem, o de otro modo, sin embargo, el capitán Ahab no dejaba en absoluto de observar las principales formas y usos del mar.

Y no se dejará quizá de percibir en definitiva que a veces se enmascaraba tras esas formas y costumbres, haciendo uso de ellas, incidentalmente, para otras finalidades más personales que aquellas para las que en principio se suponía que servían. Ese cierto sultanismo de su cerebro, que de otra manera habría quedado en buena medida sin expresar, a través de esas formas se encarnaba en una irresistible dictadura. Pues, sea cual sea la superioridad intelectual de un hombre, nunca puede asumir la supremacía práctica y utilizable sobre otros hombres, sin ayuda de alguna especie de artes y parapetos, siempre más o menos mezquinos y bajos en sí mismos. Ello es lo que aparta para siempre a los auténticos príncipes imperiales por la gracia de Dios, a distancia de las asambleas de este mundo, y lo que reserva los más altos honores que puede dar ese aire a aquellos hombres que se hacen famosos más bien por su infinita inferioridad al elegido y oculto puñado de los Divinos Inertes, que por su indiscutible superioridad sobre el muerto nivel de la masa. Tan gran virtud se oculta en esas cosas pequeñas cuando las afectan las extremadas supersticiones de la política, que en algunos ejemplos egregios han infundido potencia en el caso del zar Nicolás, la redonda corona de un imperio geográfico rodea un cerebro imperial, entonces, los rebaños de la plebe se aplastan humillados ante la tremenda centralización. Y el dramaturgo trágico que quiera pintar la indomabilidad humana en su más pleno alcance y su más directo empuje, jamás deberá olvidar una sugerencia tan importante, de paso, para su arte como la que ahora se ha aludido.

Pero Ahab, mi capitán, todavía sigue moviéndose ante mí en toda su tenebrosidad hirsuta de hombre de Nantucket, y en este episodio que se refiere a emperadores y reyes no debo ocultar que sólo tengo que habérmelas con un pobre y viejo cazador de ballenas como él, y, por tanto, me están negados todos los ornamentos exteriores y decorados de la majestad. ¡Oh, Ahab !, ¡lo que en ti sea grandioso habrá de ser por fuerza arrancado a los cielos, y sacado de la profundidad en zambullida, y configurado en el aire sin cuerpo ! 

La mesa de la cabina

Es mediodía, y Dough-Boy, el mayordomo, sacando su pálida cara de hogaza por el portillo de la cabina, anuncia la comida a su dueño y señor, quien, sentado bajo el bote de pescantes de sotavento, acaba de hacer una observación del sol, y ahora está calculando silenciosamente la latitud en la lisa tableta, en forma de medallón, reservada para esta finalidad cotidiana en la parte superior de su pierna de marfil. Por su completa falta de atención al aviso, pensaríais que el maniático Ahab no ha oído a su sirviente. Pero de repente, agarrándose a los obenques de mesana, se lanza a cubierta y, diciendo con voz igual y sin animación: « La comida, señor Starbuck », desaparece en la cabina.

Cuando se ha extinguido el último eco del paso de su sultán, y Starbuck, el primer emir, tiene todos los motivos para suponer que está sentado, se levanta de su quietud, da unas cuantas vueltas por la cubierta y, tras una grave ojeada a la bitácora, dice, con cierto acento placentero: « La comida, señor Stubb », y baja por el portillo. El segundo emir se demora un rato por los aparejos, y luego, sacudiendo ligeramente la braza mayor, para ver si no le pasa nada a tan importante jarcia, asume igualmente la vieja carga, y con un rápido « La comida, señor Flask », sigue a sus predecesores.

Pero el tercer emir, viéndose ahora por completo a solas en el alcázar, parece sentirse aliviado de alguna singular sujeción, pues, lanzando a todas las direcciones toda clase de guiños entendidos, y quitándose de un golpe los zapatos, se arranca en una brusca, pero silenciosa racha de danza marinera encima mismo de la cabeza del Gran Turco, y luego, lanzando con un diestro golpe su gorra hasta la cofa de mesana, como a una estantería, baja haciendo el loco, al menos mientras queda visible desde cubierta, y cierra la marcha con música, al revés que en todas las demás procesiones. Pero antes de entrar por la puerta de la cabina de abajo, se detiene, embarca una cara totalmente nueva, y luego el independiente y risueño pequeño Flask entra a la presencia del rey Ahab en el papel de Abyectus, el esclavo.

De todas las cosas raras producidas por la intensa artificialidad de las costumbres marinas, no es la menor que muchos oficiales, mientras están al aire libre, en cubierta, se comporten a la menor provocación de modo atrevido y desafiante respecto a su jefe, pero que, en diez casos contra uno, esos oficiales bajen un momento después a su acostumbrada comida en la cabina del mismo capitán, e inmediatamente tomen un aire inofensivo, por no decir suplicante y humilde, hacia aquél, sentado a la cabecera de la mesa: es algo maravilloso, y a veces muy cómico: ¿Por qué tal diferencia ? ¿Un problema ? Quizá no. En haber sido Baltasar rey de Babilonia, y haberlo sido de modo no altivo, sino cortés, en esto sin duda debió de haber algún toque de grandeza humana. Pero aquel que con espíritu auténticamente real e inteligente preside su propia mesa particular de comensales invitados, ese hombre tiene por el momento un poder sin rival y el dominio de la influencia individual; la realeza de rango de ese hombre supera a Baltasar, pues Baltasar no era el más grande. Quien por una sola vez haya invitado a comer a sus amigos, ha probado a qué sabe ser césar. Es una brujería de zarismo social a que no se puede resistir. Ahora, si a esa consideración se sobreañade la supremacía oficial del capitán de un barco, por deducción se obtendrá la causa de esa peculiaridad de la vida marítima recién mencionada.

Sobre su mesa taraceada de marfil, Ahab presidía como un león marino, mudo y melenudo, en la blanca playa de coral, rodeado por sus cachorros, bélicos pero deferentes. Cada oficial aguardaba a ser servido en su propio turno. Estaban ante Ahab como niñitos; y sin embargo Ahab no parecía abrigar la menor arrogancia social. Con una sola mente, todos clavaban sus ojos atentos en el cuchillo del viejo, mientras trinchaba el plato principal ante él. Por nada del mundo supongo que habrían profanado ese momento con la más leve observación, aunque fuera sobre un tema tan neutral como el tiempo. ¡No ! Y cuando, extendiendo el cuchillo y el tenedor entre los cuales se encerraba la tajada de carne, Ahab hacía señal a Starbuck de que le acercara el plato, el primer oficial recibía su alimento como si recibiera limosna, y lo cortaba tiernamente, un poco sobresaltado si por casualidad el cuchillo rechinaba contra el plato, y lo masticaba sin ruido, y se lo tragaba no sin circunspección. Pues, como el banquete de la Coronación en Francfort, donde el Emperador germánico come gravemente con los siete Electores Imperiales, así esas comidas en la cabina eran comidas solemnes, no se sabe cómo, tomadas en temeroso silencio; y, sin embargo, el viejo Ahab no prohibía la conversación en la mesa, sino que solamente permanecía mudo él mismo. ¡Qué alivio era para el atragantado Stubb que una rata hiciera un repentino estrépito en la bodega de abajo ! Y el pobre pequeño Flask era el menor y el niñito de esa fatigada reunión familiar. A él le tocaban los huesos de canilla del salobre buey; a él le tocaban las patas de los pollos, pues para Flask, haberse atrevido a servirse, le habría parecido algo equivalente a hurto de primer grado. Sin duda, si se hubiera servido él mismo en la mesa, jamás se habría atrevido a ir con la frente alta por este honrado mundo; y no obstante, por raro que sea decirlo, Ahab nunca se lo prohibía. Y si Flask se hubiera servido, lo probable es que Ahab ni siquiera se habría dado cuenta. Menos que nada se atrevía Flask a servirse manteca. Si era porque pensaba que los propietarios del barco se lo negaban a causa de que le haría tener pecas en su tez clara y soleada, o si juzgaba que, en un viaje tan largo en tales aguas sin mercados, la manteca debía de estar muy cara, y por tanto no era para un subalterno como él, por cualquier cosa que fuera, Flask, ¡ay !, era hombre sin manteca,

Otra cosa. Flask era el último en bajar a comer, y Flask era el primero en subir. ¡Consideradlo ! Pues de este modo la comida de Flash quedaba apretada de mala manera en cuanto al tiempo. Starbuck y Stubb le llevaban ventaja en la salida, y además tenían el privilegio de entretenerse después. Si sucede además que Stubb, que apenas está a una clavija por encima de Flask, tiene por casualidad poco apetito y pronto muestra síntomas de que va a terminar su comida, entonces Flask tiene que moverse, y ese día no sacará más de tres bocados, pues va contra la sagrada costumbre que Stubb salga antes que Flask a cubierta. Por consiguiente, Flask reconoció una vez en privado que, desde que había ascendido a la dignidad de oficial, no había sabido, ya a partir de ese momento, lo que era no estar más o menos hambriento. Pues lo que comía, más que aliviarle el hambre, se la mantenía inmortal en él. « La paz y la satisfacción -pensaba Flask- han abandonado para siempre mi estómago. Soy oficial, pero ¡cómo me gustaría poder echar mano a un trozo de buey al viejo estilo en el castillo de proa, como solía hacer cuando era marinero ! Ahí están ahora los frutos del ascenso; ahí está la vanidad de la gloria; ahí está la locura de la vida. » Además, si ocurría que algún simple marinero del Pequod tenía algún agravio contra Flask en su dignidad de oficial, a ese marinero le bastaba, para obtener amplia venganza, ir a popa a la hora de comer y atisbar a Flask por la lumbrera de la cabina, sentado como un tonto en silencio ante el horrible Ahab.

Ahora, Ahab y sus tres oficiales formaban lo que podría llamarse la primera mesa en la cabina del Pequod. Después de su marcha, que tenía lugar en orden inverso al de su llegada, el pálido mayordomo limpiaba el mantel de lona, o más bien lo volvía a poner en cualquier orden apresurado. Y entonces se invitaba al festín a los tres arponeros, siendo sus legatarios residuales. Estos convertían en una especie de temporal cuarto de servidumbre la alta y poderosa cabina.

Extraño contraste con la sujeción apenas tolerable y las invisibles tiranías innombrables de la mesa del capitán formaban la licenciosidad y la tranquilidad absolutamente despreocupadas de aquellos compañeros inferiores, los arponeros, en democracia casi frenética. Mientras que sus señores, los oficiales, parecían temerosos del ruido de los goznes de sus propias mandíbulas, los arponeros masticaban su alimento con tal complacencia que se oía el estrépito. Comían como señores; se llenaban la barriga como barcos de la India que se cargan todo el día de especias. Queequeg y Tashtego tenían tan prodigiosos apetitos, que para llenar los huecos dejados por la comida anterior, a menudo el pálido Dough-Boy se resignaba a traer un gran cuarto de buey en salazón, al parecer desgajado del animal entero. Y si no andaba vivo en ello, si no iba con un ágil salto y brinco, entonces Tashtego tenía un modo nada caballeroso de acelerarle disparándole un tenedor a la espalda, como un arpón. Y una vez Daggoo, invadido por un humor repentino, le ayudó la memoria a Dough-Boy agarrándole en peso y metiéndole la cabeza en un gran trinchero vacío de madera, mientras Tashtego, cuchillo en mano, empezaba a trazar el círculo preliminar para arrancarle la cabellera. Este mayordomo de cara de pan era por naturaleza un tipo pequeño, muy nervioso y estremecido, progenie de un panadero en quiebra y una enfermera de hospital. Y con el espectáculo continuo del negro y terrorífico Ahab, y con los periódicos ataques tumultuosos de aquellos tres salvajes, la vida entera de Dough-Boy era un continuo castañeteo de dientes. Normalmente, en cuanto veía a los arponeros provistos de todas las cosas que pedían, se escapaba de sus garras, a la pequeña despensa adyacente, y les atisbaba temerosamente por los postigos de la puerta, hasta que todo había pasado.

Era un espectáculo ver a Queequeg sentado frente a Tashtego, que enfrentaba sus dientes afilados a los del indio: de medio lado, Daggoo, sentado en el suelo -pues en un banco el catafalco de plumas de su cabeza habría llegado a tocar los bajos entremiches-, hacía temblar la estructura de la baja cabina a cada movimiento de sus colosales miembros, como cuando un elefante africano va de pasajero en un barco. Pero, a pesar de todo eso, el gran negro era admirablemente abstemio, por no decir melindroso. Parecía apenas posible que con unos bocados tan pequeños relativamente pudiera mantener la vitalidad difundida por una persona tan amplia, varonil y soberbia. Pero indudablemente este noble salvaje comía de firme y bebía a fondo el abundante elemento del aire, y a través de sus aletas ensanchadas inhalaba la sublime vida de los mundos. Ni de carne ni de pan se hacen y se nutren los gigantes. Pero Queequeg hacía al comer tan mortal y bárbaro chasquido de labios -un sonido realmente feo-, que el tembloroso Dough-Boy casi se miraba a ver si encontraba señales de dientes en sus propios brazos flacos. Y cuando oía a Tashtego gritarle que se asomara para que le recogiera los huesos, el mentecato mayordomo casi destrozaba toda la vajilla que pendía a su alrededor en la despensa, con sus súbitos ataques de perlesía. Y la piedra de afilar que los arponeros llevaban en el bolsillo, para sus lanzas y otras armas, y con las cuales en la comida afilaban ostentosamente los cuchillos, no tendían en absoluto a tranquilizar con sus rechinamientos al pobre Dough-Boy. ¡Cómo podía él olvidar que en sus tiempos en la isla, Queequeg, por su parte, seguramente había sido culpable de ciertas indiscreciones asesinas y banqueteadoras ! ¡Ay, Dough-Boy, mal le va al camarero blanco que sirve a caníbales ! No debería llevar una servilleta al brazo, sino un escudo. Pero en definitiva, para su gran felicidad, los tres guerreros de agua salada se levantaban y se marchaban: ante los crédulos y mitificadores oídos de Dough-Boy, todos sus huesos marciales tintineaban a cada paso, como alfanjes moros en sus vainas.

Pero aunque esos bárbaros comían en la cabina y nominalmente vivían en ella, sin embargo, no siendo nada sedentarios-en sus costumbres, escasamente estaban allí sino a las horas de comer, y justo antes de dormir, cuando pasaban por ella hacia sus alojamientos propios.

En este único aspecto Ahab no parecía ser excepción entre la mayoría de los capitanes balleneros de América, que, en corporación, se inclinan más bien a la opinión de que la cabina del barco les pertenece por derecho, y que sólo por cortesía se permite estar allí a cualquier otro. De modo que, en auténtica verdad, de los oficiales y arponeros del Pequod se podía decir con más propiedad que vivían fuera de la cabina que en ella. Pues cuando entraban era igual que como entra en casa una puerta de la calle, metiéndose dentro por un momento, sólo para ser rechazada un instante después, y, de modo permanente, residiendo al aire libre. Y no perdían gran cosa con ello; en la cabina no había compañerismo; socialmente, Ahab era inaccesible. Aunque nominalmente incluido en el censo de la cristiandad, seguía siendo extraño a ella. Vivía en el mundo como, el último de los osos pardos vivía en el colonizado Missouri. Y lo mismo que, al pasar la primavera y el verano, aquel viejo Logan de los -bosques, sepultándose en el hueco de un árbol, invernaba allí chupándose las zarpas, así, en su vejez inclemente y aullante, el alma de Ahab, encerrada en el tronco ahuecado de su cuerpo, se alimentaba de las tristes zarpas de su melancolía. 

La cofa

Con el tiempo más agradable fue cuando, en debida rotación con los demás marineros, me tocó mi primer turno en la cofa.

En la mayoría de los balleneros americanos se pone gente en las cofas casi a la vez que el barco sale del puerto, aunque le queden quizá quince mil millas o más que navegar antes de llegar a las aguas propiamente de pesca. Y si tras de un viaje de tres, cuatro o cinco años se acerca al puerto llevando algo vacío -digamos, incluso, una ampolla vacía-, entonces las cofas siguen con gente hasta el final, sin abandonar por completo la esperanza de una ballena más hasta que sus espigas de mastelerillo de sosobre avanzan navegando entre los chapiteles del puerto.

Ahora, como el asunto de situarse en lo alto de cofas, en tierra o en mar, es muy antiguo e interesante, extendámonos aquí en cierta medida. Entiendo que los más antiguos habitantes de cofas fueron los antiguos egipcios, porque, en todas mis investigaciones, no encuentro ninguno anterior. Pues aunque sus progenitores, los constructores de Babel, sin duda intentaron con su torre elevar la más alta cofa de toda Asia, y también de Africa, sin embargo, dado que (antes de que se le pusiera la última galleta de tope) ese gran mástil suyo de piedra se puede decir que salió por la borda, en la terrible galerna de la ira de Dios, no podemos por tanto dar prioridad a esos constructores de Babel sobre los egipcios. Y que los egipcios fueron una nación de gente subida a cofas es una aserción basada en la creencia general de los arqueólogos de que las primeras pirámides se fundaron con propósitos astronómicos, teoría singularmente apoyada por la peculiar estructura escalonada de los cuatro lados de esas edificaciones, por la cual, con elevaciones prodigiosamente largas de sus piernas, esos antiguos astrónomos solían ascender a la cima y gritar sus descubrimientos de nuevas estrellas, del mismo modo que los vigías de un barco actual gritan señalando una vela o una ballena recién salida a la vista. En cuanto al Santo Estilita, el famoso ermitaño cristiano de tiempos antiguos, que se construyó una elevada columna de piedra en el desierto y pasó en su cima toda la parte final de su vida, izando la comida del suelo con un aparejo, en él tenemos un notable ejemplo de un intrépido vigía de cofa, que no fue expulsado de su sitio por nieblas ni heladas, granizo o nevisca, sino que, haciendo frente a todo con valentía hasta el final, murió literalmente en su puesto. De los modernos residentes en cofas no tenemos más que un grupo inanimado: hombres de mera piedra, hierro y bronce que, aunque muy capaces de afrontar una recia galerna, son por completo incompetentes en el asunto de gritar al descubrir alguna visión extraña. Ahí está Napoleón, quien, en lo alto de la columna de Vendôme, se yergue con los brazos cruzados, a unos ciento cincuenta pies en el aire, despreocupado, ahora, de quién gobierna las cubiertas de abajo, sea Luis Felipe, Louis Blanc o Luis el Diablo. FI gran Washington, también, se eleva a gran altura en su descollante cofa de Baltimore, y, como una de las columnas de Hércules, su columna marca el punto de grandeza humana más allá del cual irán pocos mortales. El almirante Nelson, igualmente, en un cabrestante de metal de cañón, se eleva en su cofa de Trafalgar Square, y aun cuando está muy oscurecido por el humo de Londres, se nota que allí hay un héroe escondido, pues por el humo se sabe dónde está el fuego. Pero ni el gran Washington, ni Napoleón, ni Nelson contestarán a una sola llamada desde abajo, por más locamente que se les invoque para que sean propicios con sus consejos a las consternadas cubiertas que ellos contemplan; si bien se puede suponer que sus espíritus penetran a través de la densa niebla del futuro, distinguiendo qué bajos y qué escollos han de eludirse.

Puede parecer poco justificado unir en ningún aspecto a los vigías de las cofas de tierra con los del mar, pero que no es así en realidad, queda evidenciado claramente por un punto de que se hace responsable Obed Macy, el único historiador de Nantucket. El digno Obed nos dice que, en los primeros tiempos de la pesca de la ballena, antes de que se lanzaran regularmente barcos en persecución de la presa, la gente de la isla erigía elevadas astas a lo largo de la costa, a las que los vigías ascendían por medio de abrazaderas con clavos, algo así como cuando las gallinas suben las escaleras a su gallinero. Hace pocos años ese mismo plan fue adoptado por los balleneros de la bahía de Nueva Zelanda, quienes, al señalar la presa, daban aviso a botes ya tripulados que estaban preparados junto a la playa. Pero esa costumbre ahora se ha quedado anticuada; volvamos entonces a la única cofa propiamente dicha, la de un barco ballenero en el mar. Se tienen vigías en las tres cofas, de sol a sol, alternándose los marineros por turnos regulares (como en la caña), y' relevándose cada dos horas. En el tiempo sereno de los trópicos, la cofa es enormemente agradable; incluso deliciosa para un hombre soñador y meditativo. Ahí está uno, a cien pies por encima de las silenciosas cubiertas, avanzando a grandes pasos por lo profundo, como si los palos fueran gigantescos zancos, mientras que por debajo de uno, y como quien dice entre las piernas, nadan los más enormes monstruos del mar, igual que antaño los barcos navegaban entre las botas del famoso Coloso de la antigua Rodas. Ahí está uno, en la secuencia infinita del mar, sin nada movido, salvo las ondas. El barco en éxtasis avanza indolentemente; soplan los perezosos vientos alisios; todo le inclina a uno a la languidez. Casi siempre, en esta vida ballenera en el trópico, a uno le envuelve una sublime ausencia de acontecimientos: no se oyen noticias, no se leen periódicos, no hay números especiales con informes sobresaltadores sobre vulgaridades que le engañen a uno excitándole sin necesidad; no se oye hablar de aflicciones domésticas, fianzas de quiebra, caídas de valores; nunca preocupa la idea de qué habrá de comer, pues todas las comidas, para tres años y más, están confortablemente estibadas en barriles, y la minuta es inmutable.

En uno de esos balleneros del sur, en un largo viaje de tres o cuatro años, como a menudo ocurre, la suma de las diversas horas que uno pasa en la cofa equivaldría a varios meses enteros. Y es muy deplorable que el lugar a que uno dedica tan considerable porción del término total de su vida natural, esté tan tristemente carente de cualquier cosa aproximada a una cómoda habitabilidad, o capaz de engendrar una confortable localización de nuestro sentir, tal como corresponde a una cama, una hamaca, un coche fúnebre, una garita, un púlpito, una carroza, o cualquier otra de esas pequeñas y gratas invenciones en que los hombres se aíslan temporalmente. El lugar más habitual de posarse es la cabeza del mastelero de juanete, donde uno se pone sobre dos finas traviesas paralelas (casi exclusivas de los barcos balleneros) llamadas baos de juanete. Allí, zarandeado por el mar, el principiante se siente casi tan a gusto como si estuviera sobre los cuernos de un toro. Desde luego, en tiempo frío uno puede llevar consigo a lo alto su casa, en forma de un capote de guardia; pero, hablando en propiedad, el capote más espeso no es más casa que el cuerpo desvestido; pues del mismo modo que el alma está pegada por dentro a su tabernáculo carnal, y no se puede mover libremente por él, ni tampoco moverse saliendo de él, sin correr gran riesgo de perecer (como un peregrino ignorante que cruza los Alpes nevados en invierno), así un capote no es tanto una casa cuanto un mero envoltorio, o una piel adicional que nos enfunda. No se puede meter uno en el cuerpo una estantería ni un cajón, y tampoco se puede convertir el capote en un armario conveniente.

En referencia a todo esto, ha de lamentarse vivamente que las cofas de un ballenero del mar del Sur no estén provistas de esos envidiables pabelloncitos o púlpitos, llamados « cofa de vigía de tope » o « nido de cuervo », en que los vigías de los balleneros de Groenlandia quedan protegidos del inclemente tiempo de los mares helados. En la hogareña narración del capitán Sleet titulada Un Viaje entre los Icebergs, en busca de la ballena de Groenlandia, e incidentalmente para el redescubrimiento de las Perdidas Colonias Islandesas de la Vieja Groenlandia, en ese admirable volumen, digo, todos los vigías de las cofas están dotados de una explicación deliciosamente detallada del entonces recién inventado « nido de cuervo » del Glacier, que era el nombre de la excelente nave del capitán Sleet. El lo llamó « nido de cuervo de Sleet » en honor a sí mismo, por ser él su inventor original y patentador, y estar libre de toda ridícula delicadeza falsa, considerando que si llamamos a nuestros propios hijos con nuestros propios nombres (puesto que los padres somos sus inventores originales y patentadores), igualmente deberíamos denominar con nuestro nombre cualquier otro artefacto que engendremos. En forma, el « nido de cuervo de Sleet » es algo así como un gran barril o tubo, pero abierto por arriba, donde está provisto de una pantalla móvil lateral para poner a barlovento de la cabeza en una dura galerna. Estando sujeto al extremo del palo, se sube a él por una pequeña escotilla en trampa puesta en el fondo. En la parte trasera, o sea, la más próxima a popa del barco, hay un cómodo asiento, con un cajón debajo para paraguas, bufandas y capotes. Delante hay una bolsa de cuero, donde se guarda el altavoz, la pipa, el telescopio y demás utensilios náuticos. Cuando el capitán Sleet en persona se situaba en la cofa, en aquel nido de cuervo suyo, nos dice que siempre llevaba consigo un rifle (sujeto también a la bolsa) junto con un frasco de pólvora y munición, con el fin de disparar a los narvales errantes, los vagabundos unicornios marinos que infestaban aquellas aguas; pues no se les puede disparar con buenos resultados desde la cubierta, debido a la resistencia del agua, pero dispararles desde arriba es cosa muy diferente. Ahora es evidentemente resultado del amor que el capitán Sleet describa, como lo hace, todas las comodidades detalladas de su nido de cuervo, pero aunque se extienda tanto en algunas de ellas, y aunque nos obsequie con una explicación muy científica de sus experimentos en el nido de cuervo, con una pequeña brújula que guardaba allí con el fin de contrarrestar los errores de lo que llamaba la « atracción local » de todos los imanes de bitácora (error atribuible a la vecindad horizontal del hierro en las tablas del barco, y, en el caso del Glacier, quizá, a que hubiera entre la tripulación tantos herreros en bancarrota), digo que aunque el capitán es aquí muy discreto y científico, con todo, a pesar de sus doctas « desviaciones de bitácora », « observaciones azimutales de la brújula » y « errores de aproximación », sabe de sobra el capitán Sleet que no estaba tan sumergido en esas profundas meditaciones magnéticas como para dejar de ser atraído de vez en cuando hacia la bien provista cantimplora tan lindamente encajada en un lado de su nido de cuervo, a fácil alcance de la mano. Por más que, en conjunto, admire grandemente, e incluso quiera, al valiente, honrado y docto capitán, no obstante, le tomo muy a mal que no haga caso en absoluto a la cantimplora sabiendo qué fiel amiga y consoladora debía haber sido mientras él estudiaba matemáticas, con dedos enmitonados y cabeza encapuchada, en lo alto de aquel nido a tres o cuatro varas del Polo.

Pero si nosotros, los pescadores de ballenas del sur, no estamos tan cómodamente alojados en lo alto como el capitán Sleet y sus hombres de Groenlandia, esa desventaja queda grandemente contrapesada por la serenidad, en gran contraste, de los seductores mares en que solemos flotar los pescadores del sur. Yo, por mi parte, solía subir con gran sosiego y ocio por las jarcias, descansando en lo alto para charlar con Queequeg, o con cualquier otro franco de servicio a quien encontrara allí; luego, ascendiendo un poco más allá, y echando perezosamente una pierna sobre la verga de gavia, lanzaba una ojeada preliminar a las dehesas acuáticas, y así por fin me elevaba a mi destino definitivo.

Quiero descargar aquí mi conciencia y admitir con franqueza que hacía muy mal la guardia. Con el problema del universo dando vueltas en mí, ¡cómo podía yo -quedando tan completamente solo en una altura que tantos pensamientos engendraba-, cómo podía yo observar sino de modo muy ligero mis obligaciones de cumplir las órdenes permanentes de todos los barcos balleneros: « Abre el ojo a barlovento y grita a cada vez ».

Y en este punto, dejadme amonestaros de modo conmovedor, ¡oh armadores de Nantucket ! ¡Cuidado con alistar en vuestras vigilantes pesquerías a ningún muchacho de frente descarnada y mirada profunda, dado a tan inoportuna meditatividad, y que se ofrece para embarcarse llevando en la cabeza el « Fedón » en vez del Bowditch ! Cuidado con semejante persona, digo: vuestras ballenas han de ser vistas para poder ser muertas; y este joven platónico de ojos hundidos os remolcará diez vueltas alrededor del globo sin enriqueceros en una sola pinta de grasa. Y no son del todo superfluas estas admoniciones. Pues hoy día la pesca de la ballena proporciona un asilo para muchos jóvenes románticos, melancólicos y distraídos, disgustados del acerbo cuidado de la tierra, y buscando sentimiento en el alquitrán y el aceite de la ballena. No pocas veces Childe Harold se encarama en la cofa de algún barco ballenero decepcionado y sin suerte, y exclama en melancólico fraseo:

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Muy a menudo los capitanes de semejantes barcos riñen a esos distraídos jóvenes filósofos, acusándoles de no tomarse suficiente « interés » por el viaje; medio sugiriendo que están tan desesperadamente perdidos para toda ambición honrosa, que en lo secreto de sus almas preferirían no ver ballenas en vez de verlas. Pero todo en vano: esos jóvenes platónicos tienen la idea de que su visión es imperfecta: son miopes: ¿de qué sirve, entonces, esforzar el nervio óptico ? Se han dejado en casa los gemelos de teatro.

-Vamos, tú, mono -decía un arponero a uno de esos muchachos-: llevamos ya sus buenos años de travesía, y todavía no has señalado una ballena. Mientras tú estás ahí arriba, las balirnas son tan escasas como los dientes de gallina. Quizá era así o quizá podían haber estado en mana as en el remoto horizonte; pero este distraído joven está adormecido en tal desatención drogada de ensueño vacío e inconsciente, por la cadencia mezclada de las olas y los pensamientos, que finalmente pierde su identidad; toma el místico océano a sus pies por la imagen visible de esa profunda alma azul y sin fondo que penetra la humanidad y la naturaleza; y cualquier cosa extraña, medio vista, elusiva, y hermosa, que se le escapa, cualquier aleta que asoma, confusamente percibida, de alguna forma indiscernible, le parece la encarnación de esos elusivos pensamientos que sólo pueblan el alma volando continuamente a través de ella. En este encantado estado de ánimo, tu espíritu refluye al lugar de donde vino, se difunde a través del tiempo y el espacio, como las dispersas cenizas panteístas de Cranmer, formando al menos una parte de todas las orillas en torno al globo.

No hay vida en ti, ahora, salvo esa vida mecida que te comunica un barco que se balancea suavemente, y que él toma prestado del mar, y el mar, de las inescrutables mareas de Dios. Pero mientras está en ti este sueño, este ensueño, mueve una pulgada el pie o la mano, dejan de resbalar un poco, y tu identidad regresa horrorizada. Te ciernes sobre vórtices cartesianos. Y quizá a mediodía, en el más claro tiempo, con un grito medio estrangulado, caerás por ese aire transparente al mar estival, para no volver a subir jamás. ¡Tened mucho cuidado, oh panteístas ! 

La toldilla

En escena, AHAB; después, todos

Pasado no mucho tiempo desde el asunto de la pipa, una mañana poco después del desayuno, Ahab, como de costumbre, subió a cubierta por el tambucho de la cabina. La mayor parte de los capitanes de marina suelen pasear por allí a esa hora, igual que los hidalgos rurales, después de desayunar, dan unas vueltas por el jardín.

Pronto se oyó su firme paso de marfil, yendo y viniendo en sus acostumbradas rondas, por tablas tan familiares para su pisada que estaban todas ellas marcadas, como piedras geológicas, por la señal peculiar de sus andares. Y también, si se miraba atentamente aquella surcada y marcada frente, se veían, igualmente huellas extrañas, las huellas de su único pensamiento, sin dormir y siempre caminando.

Pero en la ocasión de que hablamos, esas marcas parecían más profundas, del mismo modo que su nervioso paso dejaba aquella mañana una huella más profunda. Y tan lleno de su pensamiento estaba Ahab, que a cada monótona vuelta que daba, una vez en el palo mayor y otra vez en la bitácora, casi se podía ver aquel pensamiento dando la vuelta en él según andaba, y tan completamente poseyéndole, desde luego, que parecía todo él la forma interior de su movimiento externo.

-¿Te has fijado en él, Flask ? -susurró Sub.--: el pollo que lleva dentro golpea el cascarón. Pronto va a salir.

Iban pasando las horas: Ahab se encerró entonces en la cabina, y pronto, volvió a pasear por la cubierta, con el mismo intenso fanatismo de designio en su aspecto.

Se acercaba al caer del día. De repente, él se detuvo junto a las amuradas, e insertando su pierna de hueso en el agujero taladrado allí, y agarrando con una mano un obenque, ordenó a Starbuck que mandase a todos a popa.

-¡Capitán ! -dijo el oficial, asombrado ante una orden que a bordo de un barco se da muy raramente o nunca, salvo en algún caso de excepción.

-Manda a todos a popa -repitió Ahab-: ¡vigías, aquí, abajo !

Cuando estuvo reunida la entera tripulación del barco, mirándole con caras curiosas y no libres de temor, pues su aspecto recordaba el horizonte a barlovento cuando se forma una tempestad, Ahab, después de lanzar una rápida ojeada por las amuradas, y luego disparar los ojos entre la tripulación, arrancó de su punto de apoyo, y, como si no hubiera junto a él ni un alma, continuó sus pesadas vueltas por la cubierta. Con la cabeza inclinada y el sombrero medio gacho siguió caminando, sin tener en cuenta el susurro de asombro entre la gente, hasta que Stubb cuchicheó prudentemente a Flask que Ahab les debía haber llamado allí con el propósito de que presenciaran una hazaña pedestre. Pero eso no duró mucho. Deteniéndose con vehemencia, gritó:

-¿Qué hacéis cuando veis una ballena ?

-¡Gritar señalándola ! -fue la impulsiva respuesta de una veintena de voces juntas.

-¡Muy bien ! -grito Ahab, con acento de salvaje aprobación, al observar a qué cordial animación les había lanzado magnéticamente su inesperada pregunta.

-¿Y qué hacéis luego, marineros ?

-¡Arriar los botes, y perseguirla !

-¿Y qué cantáis para remar, marineros ?

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A cada grito, el rostro del viejo se ponía más extrañamente alegre y con feroz aprobación; mientras que los marineros: empezaban a mirarse con curiosidad, como asombrados de que fueran ellos mismos quienes se excitaran tanto ante preguntas al parecer tan sin ocasión.

Pero volvieron a estar del todo atentos cuando Ahab, esta vez girando en su agujero de pivote, elevando una mano hasta alcanzar un obenque, y agarrándolo de modo apretado y casi convulsivo, les dirigió así la palabra:

-Todos los vigías me habéis oído ya dar órdenes sobre una ballena blanca. ¡Mirad ! ¿veis esta onza de oro española ? --elevando al sol una ancha y brillante moneda-, es una pieza de dieciséis dólares, hombres. ¿La veis ? Señor Starbuck, alcánceme esa mandarria.

Mientras el oficial le daba el martillo, Ahab, sin hablar, restregaba lentamente la moneda de oro contra los faldones de la levita, como para aumentar su brillo, y, sin usar palabras, mientras tanto murmuraba por lo bajo para sí mismo, produciendo un sonido tan extrañamente ahogado e inarticulado que parecía el zumbido mecánico de las ruedas de su vitalidad dentro de él.

Al recibir de Starbuck la mandarria, avanzó hacia el palo mayor con el martillo alzado en una mano, exhibiendo el oro en la otra, y exclamando con voz aguda: -¡Quienquiera de vosotros que me señale una ballena de cabeza blanca de frente arrugada y mandíbula torcida; quienquiera de vosotros que me señale esa ballena de cabeza blanca, con tres agujeros perforados en la aleta de cola, a estribor; mirad, quienquiera de vosotros que me señale esa misma ballena blanca, obtendrá esta onza de oro, muchachos!

¡Hurra, hurra ! -gritaron los marineros, mientras, agitando los gorros encerados, saludaban el acto de clavar el oro al mástil.

-Es una ballena blanca, digo -continuó Ahab, dejando caer la mandarria-: una ballena blanca. Despellejaos los ojos buscándola, hombres; mirad bien si hay algo blanco en el agua: en cuanto veáis una burbuja, gritad.

Durante todo este tiempo, Tashtego, Daggoo y Queequeg se habían quedado mirando con interés y sorpresa más atentos que los demás, y al oír mencionar la frente arrugada y la mandíbula torcida, se sobresaltaron como si cada uno de ellos, por separado, hubiera sido tocado por algún recuerdo concreto.

-Capitán Ahab -dijo Tashtego-, esa ballena blanca debe ser la misma que algunos llaman Moby Dick.

-¿Moby Dick ? -gritó Ahab-. Entonces, ¿conoces a la ballena blanca, Tash ?

-¿Abanica con la cola de un modo curioso, capitán, antes de zambullirse, capitán ? -dijo reflexivamente el indio Gay-Head.

-¿Y tiene también un curioso chorro -dijo Daggoo-, con mucha copa, hasta para un cachalote, y muy vivo, capitán Ahab ?

-¿Y tiene uno, dos, tres..., ¡ah !, muchos hierros en la piel, capitán -gritó Queequeg, entrecortadamente-, todos retorcidos, como eso... -y vacilando en busca de una palabra, retorcía la mano dando vueltas como si descorchara una botella-, como eso... ?

-¡Sacacorchos ! -gritó Ahab-, sí, Queequeg, tiene encima los arpones torcidos y arrancados; sí, Daggoo, tiene un chorro muy grande, como toda una gavilla de trigo, y blanco como un montón de nuestra lana de Nantucket después del gran esquileo anual; sí, Tashtego, y abanica con la cola como un foque roto en una galerna. ¡Demonios y muerte !, hombres, es Moby Dick la que habéis visto; ¡Moby Dick, Moby Dick !

-Capitán Ahab -dijo Starbuck, que, con Stubb y Flask, había mirado hasta entonces a su superior con sorpresa creciente, pero al que por fin pareció que se le ocurría una idea que de algún modo explicaba todo el prodigio-. Capitán Ahab, he oído hablar de Moby Dick, pero ¿no fue Moby Dick la que le arrancó la pierna ?

-¿Quién te lo ha dicho ? -gritó Ahab, y luego, tras una pausa-: Sí, Starbuck; sí, queridos míos que me rodeáis; fue Moby Dick quien me desarboló; fue Moby Dick quien me puso en este muñón muerto en que ahora estoy. Sí, sí -gritó con un terrible sollozo, ruidoso y animal, como el de un alce herido en el corazón-: ¡Sí, sí !, ¡fue esa maldita ballena blanca la que me arrasó, la que me dejó hecho un pobre inútil amarrado para siempre jamás ! -Luego, agitando los brazos, gritó con desmedidas imprecaciones-: ¡Sí, sí, y yo la perseguiré al otro lado del cabo de Buena Esperanza, y del cabo de Hornos, y del Maelstrom noruego, y de las llamas de la condenación, antes de dejarla escapar ! Y para esto os habéis embarcado, hombres, para perseguir a esa ballena blanca por los dos lados de la costa, y por todos los lados de la tierra, hasta que eche un chorro de sangre negra y estire la aleta. ¿Qué decís, hombres: juntaréis las manos en esto ? Creo que parecéis valientes.

-¡Sí, sí ! -gritaron los arponeros y marineros, acercándose a la carrera al excitado anciano-: ¡Ojo atento a la ballena blanca; un arpón afilado para Moby Dick !

-Dios os bendiga -pareció medio sollozar y medio gritar-: Dios os bendiga, marineros. ¡Mayordomo !, ve a sacar la medida grande de grog. Pero ¿a qué viene esa cara larga, Starbuck; no quieres perseguir a la ballena blanca; no tienes humor de cazar a-Moby Dick ?

-Tengo humor para su mandíbula torcida, y para las mandíbulas de la Muerte también, capitán Ahab, si viene por el, camino del negocio que seguimos; pero he venido aquí a cazar ballenas, y no para la venganza de mi jefe. ¿Cuántos barriles le dará la venganza, aunque la consiga, capitán Ahab ? No le producirá gran cosa en nuestro mercado de Nantucket.

-¡El mercado de Nantucket ! ¡Bah ! Pero ven más acá, Starbuck: necesitas una capa un poco más profunda. Aunque el dinero haya de ser la medida, hombre, y los contables hayan calculado el globo terráqueo como su gran oficina de contabilidad, rodeándolo de guineas, una por cada tercio de pulgada, entonces, ¡déjame decirte que mi venganza obtendrá un gran premio aquí !

-Se golpea el pecho -susurró Stubb-, ¿a qué viene eso ? Me parece que suena como a muy grande, pero a hueco.

-¡Venganza contra un animal estúpido -gritó Starbuck-, que le golpeó simplemente por su instinto más ciego ! ¡Locura ! Irritarse contra una cosa estúpida, capitán Ahab, parece algo blasfemo.

-Pero vuelve a oír otra vez, ¿y esa capa más profunda ? Todos los objetos visibles, hombre, son solamente máscaras de cartón piedra. Pero en cada acontecimiento (en el acto vivo, en lo que se hace sin dudar) alguna cosa desconocida, pero que sigue razonando, hace salir las formas de sus rasgos por detrás de la máscara que no razona. Si el hombre ha de golpear, ¡que golpee a través de la máscara ! ¿Cómo puede el prisionero llegar fuera sino perforando a través de la pared ? Para mí, la ballena blanca es esa pared, que se me ha puesto delante. A veces pienso que no hay nada detrás. Pero basta. Me ocupa, me abruma, la veo con fuerza insultante, fortalecida por una malicia insondable. Esa cosa inescrutable es lo que odio más que nada, y tanto si la ballena blanca es agente, como si es principal, quiero desahogar en ella este odio. No me hables de blasfemia, hombre; golpearía al sol si me insultara. Pues si el sol podía hacerlo, yo podría hacer lo otro, puesto que siempre hay ahí una especie de juego limpio que preside celosamente todas las criaturas. Pero ni siquiera ese juego limpio es mi dueño, hombre. ¿Quién está por encima de mí ? La verdad no tiene confines. ¡Aparta tu mirada !, ¡una mirada pasmada es más intolerable que las ojeadas fulminantes del enemigo ! Eso, eso; enrojeces y palideces; mi calor te ha hecho fundirte en llamarada de ira. Pero fíjate, Starbuck, lo que se dice acalorado, se desdice a sí mismo. Hay hombres cuyas palabras acaloradas son pequeñas indignidades. No quería irritarte. Déjalo estar. ¡Mira ! ¡Observa esas mejillas salvajes de bronceado con manchas; pinturas vivas y con aliento, pintadas por el sol, esos leopardos paganos, esos seres vivos sin pensamiento ni piedad, y no busques ni des razones para la vida tórrida que llevan ! ¡La tripulación, hombre, la tripulación ! ¿No están, como un solo hombre, de acuerdo con Ahab, en este asunto de la ballena ? ¡Mira a Stubb, cómo se ríe ! ¡Mira a aquel chileno ! Resopla de pensarlo. ¡Tu único retoño zarandeado no puede seguir en pie en medio del huracán general, Starbuck ! ¿Y qué es ? Calcúlalo. No es sino ayudar a herir, una aleta; no es una hazaña prodigiosa para Starbuck. ¿Qué más es ? Sólo en esta pobre caza, entonces, la mejor lanza de todo Nantucket no se va a quedar seguramente atrás, cuando todos los marineros han agarrado una piedra de afilar. ¡Ah ! Ya te invade un impulso, ya lo veo: ¡la ola te levanta ! ¡Habla, habla nada más ! ¡Sí, sí, tu silencio, entonces, es lo que te manifiesta ! (Aparte.) Algo, disparado de mis narices dilatadas, lo ha aspirado en sus pulmones. Starbuck ya es mío; ya no se me puede oponer sin rebelión.

-¡Dios me guarde, y nos guarde a todos ! -murmuró en voz baja Starbuck.

Pero, en su alegría por la hechizada aquiescencia tácita de su oficial, Ahab no escuchó su fatídica invocación, ni la sorda risa que subía de la bodega, ni el presagio de las vibraciones de los vientos en las jarcias, ni la hueca sacudida de las velas contra los palos, cuando por un momento se desplomaron, como sin ánimo. Pues de nuevo los ojos bajos de Starbuck se iluminaron con la terquedad de la vida; se extinguió la risa subterránea, los vientos siguieron soplando, las velas se hincharon y el barco cabeceó y avanzó como antes. ¡Ah, admoniciones y avisos ! ¿Por qué no os quedáis cuando venís ? Pero ¡oh sombras ! Sois más bien predicciones que avisos; y no tanto predicciones desde fuera, cuanto verificaciones de lo que acontece en el interior. Pues habiendo pocas cosas exteriores capaces de sujetarnos, las necesidades interiores de nuestro ser nos siguen empujando.

-¡La medida, la medida de grog ! -gritó Ahab.

Recibido el rebosante recipiente, y volviéndose a los arponeros, les ordenó que sacasen las armas. Luego, alineándoles ante él, junto al cabrestante, con los arpones en la mano, mientras los tres oficiales se situaban a su lado con las lanzas, y el resto de la tripulación del barco formaba un círculo en torno al grupo, se quedó un rato escudriñando atento a todos los hombres de la tripulación. Pero aquellos ojos salvajes hacían frente a su mirada como los ojos sanguinolentos de los lobos de la pradera a los ojos de su guía, antes que éste, a la cabeza de todos, se precipite por el rastro del bisonte, aunque, ¡ay !, sólo para caer en el escondido acecho de los indios.

-¡Bebed y pasad ! -gritó, entregando el pesado recipiente cargado al marinero más cercano-. Que ahora beba solamente la tripulación. ¡Dadle la vuelta, dadle la vuelta ! Sorbos cortos, tragos largos; está caliente como la pezuña de Satanás. Eso, eso; da la vuelta muy bien. Se hace una espiral en vosotros; se bifurca; se bifurca en los ojos, que se disparan como las serpientes. Bien hecho, casi vacío. Por allá vino, por acá vuelve. Dádmelo: ¡vaya hueco ! Hombres, sois igual que los años; así se traga y desaparece la vida rebosante. ¡Mayordomo, vuelve a llenar !

»Atendedme ahora, mis valientes. Os he pasado revista a todos alrededor del cabrestante; vosotros, oficiales, flanqueadme con vuestras lanzas; vosotros, arponeros, poneos ahí con vuestros hierros, y vosotros, robustos marineros, hacedme un cerco, para que pueda de algún modo resucitar una noble costumbre de mis antepasados pescadores. Marineros, ya veréis que... ¡Ah, muchacho !, ¿ya has vuelto ? Las monedas falsas no vuelven tan pronto. Dádmelo. Vaya, ahora este cachorro estaría otra vez rebosante, si no fueras el duende de san Vito... ¡Vete allá, peste !

» ¡Avanzad, oficiales ! Cruzad vuestras lanzas extendidas ante mí. ¡Bien hecho ! Dejadme tocar el eje. Así diciendo, con el brazo extendido, agarró por su centro cruzado las tres lanzas, formando una estrella al mismo nivel, y al hacerlo, les dio un súbito tirón nervioso, mientras que lanzaba atentas ojeadas, pasando de Starbuck a Stubb, de Stubb a Flask. Parecía que, por alguna inexpresable volición interior, hubiera querido darles un calambre con la misma feroz emoción acumulada en la botella de Leyden de su propia vida magnética. Los tres oficiales cedieron ante su aspecto recio, firme y místico. Stubb y Flask apartaron la mirada a un lado; los honrados ojos de Starbuck cayeron hacia abajo.

-¡En vano ! -gritó Ahab-, pero quizá está bien. Pues si los tres hubierais recibido por una sola vez el calambre con toda su fuerza, entonces mi propia cosa eléctrica quizá habría expirado saliendo de mí. Acaso, también, os habrá hecho desplomaros muertos. Acaso no lo necesitáis. ¡Abajo las lanzas ! Y ahora, oficiales, os nombro, a los tres, coperos de mis tres parientes paganos, esos tres honorables caballeros y nobles, mis valientes arponeros. ¿Desdeñáis la tarea ? ¿Y qué, entonces, cuando el gran Papa lava los pies a los mendigos, usando la tiara como jofaina ? Ah, mis dulces cardenales, vuestra misma condescendencia os plegará a esto. No os doy órdenes; vosotros lo queréis. ¡Cortad vuestras ligaduras y sacad las astas, oh, arponeros !

Obedeciendo en silencio la orden, los tres arponeros quedaron sosteniendo ante él el hierro separado de los arpones, con las barbas para arriba.

-¡No me apuñaléis con ese agudo acero ! ¡Dadles la vuelta, dadles la vuelta ! ¿No conocéis el lado del mango ? ¡Poned para arriba el hueco ! Así, así; ahora, coperos, avanzad. ¡Tomad los hierros; sostenedlos mientras yo escancio ! Y entonces, pasando lentamente de un oficial a otro, llenó hasta el borde el hueco de los hierros de arpón con las ardientes linfas del recipiente de peltre.

Ahora estáis ahí tres frente a tres. ¡Alabad estos cálices asesinos ! Entregadlos, ahora que ya sois partes de una alianza indisoluble. ¡Ah, Starbuck, ya está todo hecho ! El sol aguarda para ratificarlo posándose sobre ello. ¡Bebed, arponeros ! Bebed y jurad, hombres que tripuláis la mortal proa de la lancha ballenera: ¡Muerte a Moby Dick ! ¡Dios nos dé caza a todos si no damos caza a Moby Dick hasta matarla ! Los largos y afilados vasos de acero se elevaron; y con gritos y maldiciones contra la ballena blanca, la bebida fue simultáneamente engullida con un chirrido. Starbuck palideció, se volvió y se estremeció. Una vez más, la última vez, el recipiente de nuevo lleno dio la vuelta entre la frenética tripulación, y luego él les hizo una señal con la mano libre, y todos se dispersaron, mientras Ahab se retiraba a su cabina. 

Atardecer

La cabina, por las ventanas de popa; AHAB, sentado solo y mirando hacia fuera

« Por donde navego, dejo una estela turbia y blanca; aguas pálidas y mejillas aún más pálidas. Las ondas envidiosas, a los lados, se hinchan para ahogar mi rastro; que lo hagan, pero antes paso yo.

»Allá, en el borde de la copa siempre rebosante, las tibias olas enrojecen como vino. El rostro de oro sondea el azul. El sol en zambullida -sumergiéndose lentamente desde mediodía- desciende, mientras mi alma sube y se fatiga con su interminable cuesta. ¿Es, entonces, la corona demasiado pesada, esta Corona de Hierro de Lombardía, lo que llevo ? Pero resplandece con muchas gemas; yo, que la llevo, no veo sus centelleos que llegan a lo lejos, sino que noto sobriamente que llevo algo que deslumbra y confunde. Es hierro, ya lo sé, no es oro. Está partido, además: lo noto; así me atormenta el borde mellado, y mi cerebro parece latir contra el metal macizo; sí, cráneo de acero, el mío; tipo de cráneo que no necesita casco en la lucha más destrozadora de sesos.

»¿Calor seco en mi frente ? ¡Oh ! Hubo tiempos en que el atardecer me aliviaba tanto como el amanecer me espoleaba noblemente. Ya no. Esta deliciosa luz no me alumbra a mí; toda delicia es angustia para mí, pues jamás puedo disfrutar. Dotado de la percepción sublime, me falta el bajo poder de disfrutar; ¡condenado, sutilísima y malignamente condenado en medio del Paraíso ! ¡Buenas noches, buenas noches ! (Agitando la mano, se aparta de la ventana.) »

No fue tarea tan difícil. Creí encontrar por lo menos uno terco, pero mi único círculo dentado se ajusta a todas sus diversas ruedas, y giran. O, si queréis, están todos ante mí como montones de pólvora, y yo soy su fósforo. ¡Ah, qué duro !, ¡que, para pegar fuego a otros, el fósforo mismo tenga por fuerza que gastarse ! ¡Lo que he osado, lo he querido, y lo que he querido, lo haré ! Me creen loco: Starbuck lo cree; pero soy demoníaco, ¡soy la locura enloquecida ! La profecía era que yo fuera desmembrado, y... ¡sí ! he perdido esta pierna. Ahora yo profetizo que desmembraré a mi desmembradora. Ahora, entonces, sean uno mismo el profeta y el realizador. Eso es más de lo que jamás fuisteis vosotros, oh grandes dioses. Me río de vosotros y os abucheo, ¡jugadores de cricket, pugilistas, sordos Burkes y ciegos Bendigos ! No diré como los niños de escuela a los chulos: "Búscate uno de tu tamaño; no me pegues a mí". No, me habéis derribado de un golpe, y de nuevo estoy de pie; pero vosotros habéis corrido a esconderos. ¡Salid de detrás de vuestros sacos de algodón ! Vamos, Ahab os presenta sus respetos; venid a ver si me podéis apartar. ¿Desviarme ? No me podéis desviar, a no ser que os desviéis vosotros: ahí os tiene el hombre. ¿Desviarme ? El camino hacia mi propósito fijo tiene raíles de hierro, por cuyo surco mi espíritu está preparado para correr. ¡Sobre garganta sin sondear, a través de las entrañas saqueadas de las montañas, bajo los cauces de los torrentes, me precipito sin desvío ! ¡Nada es obstáculo, nada es viraje para el camino de hierro ! » 

Oscurecer

Junto al palo mayor; STARBUCK se apoya en él

« ¡Mi alma está más que alcanzada, está superada, y por un loco ! ¡Insufrible punzada, que la cordura rinda armas en tal campo ! ¡Pero él ha barrenado hasta muy hondo, y ha hecho saltar toda mi razón ! Veo su fin impío, pero noto que debo ayudarle hasta él. Quiera o no quiera, esa cosa inefable me ha atado a él; me remolca con un cable que no tengo cuchillo con que cortar. ¡Horrible viejo ! ¿Quién está por encima de él ? Grita; sí, sería un demócrata con todos los de lo alto; ¡mira, cómo señorea a todos los de abajo ! ¡Ah, ya veo claramente mi tarea miserable: obedecer rebelándome, y peor aún, odiar con un toque de compasión ! Pues en sus ojos leo algún espeluznante dolor que me estremecería si lo tuviera. Pero aún hay esperanza. El tiempo y la marea fluyen despacio. La odiada ballena tiene todo el cerco del mundo acuático para nadar, igual que el pequeño pez dorado tiene su globo cristalino. Ojalá Dios desvíe a un lado su propósito injurioso para los Cielos. Elevaría mi corazón, si no fuera como de plomo. Pero se me acaba toda la cuerda, y no tengo llave con que volver a elevar mi corazón, la pesa que todo lo mueve.

(Un estrépito de orgía, desde el castillo de proa.)

» ¡Oh, Dios !, ¡navegar con una tripulación tan pagana que tiene escasa huella de madres humanas en ellos; paridos no sé dónde por el mar, como por una hembra de tiburón ! La ballena blanca es su semidiós diabólico. ¡Atención ! ¡Las orgías infernales ! ¡El estrépito es a proa ¡Nótese el silencio sin interrupción en la popa ! Me parece que es imagen de la vida. Adelante, a través de los centelleantes mares, avanza disparada la alegre proa, combatida y burlona, pero sólo para arrastrar detrás de sí al sombrío Ahab, que cavila dentro de su cabina a popa, construida sobre las muertas aguas de la estela, cada vez más adelante, acosado por sus gorgoteos lobunos. ¡Ese largo aullido me hace temblar de arriba abajo ! ¡Silencio, los de la orgía, y montad la guardia ! ¡Oh, vida ! En una hora como ésta, con el alma abatida y agarrada al conocimiento -como están obligadas a nutrirse las cosas salvajes y sin educación-, ¡oh, vida !, ahora es cuando siento el horror latente en ti, pero yo no soy eso; ese horror está fuera de mí, y con el dulce sentimiento de lo humano que hay en mí, trataré sin embargo de combatiros, ¡oh, futuros sombríos y fantasmales ! ¡Poneos a mi lado, sostenedme, atadme, oh, influjos bienaventurados ! » 

Primera guardia nocturna

[]

« ¡Ja, ja, ja !; ¡ejem !, ¡me aclararé la garganta ! Lo he estado pensando desde entonces, y este « ja, ja" es la consecuencia final. ¿Por qué eso ? Porque una risotada es la respuesta más sensata y fácil a todo lo extraño; y pase lo que pase, siempre queda un consuelo: ese consuelo infalible es que todo está predestinado. No oí toda su conversación con Starbuck, pero, a mi pobre modo de ver, Starbuck entonces parecía algo así como yo me sentí la otra tarde. Pero seguro que ese viejo mongol ya le ha arreglado a él también. Yo lo comprendí, lo supe; había tenido el don, y podría fácilmente haberlo profetizado, pues lo vi cuando eché el ojo a su cráneo. Bueno, Stubb, sensato Stubb; éste es mi título; bueno, Stubb, ¿qué hay con eso ? Aquí hay una carcasa. !Yo no sé todo lo que podrá pasar, pero, sea lo que quiera, iré a ello riendo. ¡Qué mueca sarcástica acecha en todos vuestros horrores ! Me siento cómico. ¡Tralaralará ! ¿Qué estará haciendo ahora en casa mi, perita de agua ? ¿Gastándose los ojos a fuerza de llorar ? Me atrevo a decir que dando una fiesta a los arponeros recién llegados, alegre como un gallardete de fragata, y así estoy yo también...

¡Tralaralará !. Oh... 
Al amor brindaremos esta noche 
con la felicidad de las burbujas 
que nadan por el jarro hasta los bordes 
y estallan en los labios al romperse.

»Valiente estrofa esa... ¿Quién llama ? ¿Señor Starbuck ? Sí, sí, señor. (Aparte.) Es mi superior; también él tiene superior, si no estoy equivocado. Sí, sí, señor, ahora mismo acabo este trabajo; ya voy. » 

Medianoche. Castillo de proa

ARPONEROS Y MARINEROS.

-Se levanta la vela de trinquete y se ve a la guardia de pie, o dando vueltas, o recostada o tendida, en diversas actitudes, todos cantando a coro.

¡Adiós para siempre, damas españolas ! 
Oh damas de España, para siempre adiós, 
manda el capitán !..

PRIMERO DE NANTUCKET.

- ¡Eh, muchachos, no seáis sentimentales es malo para la digestión ! ¡Tomad un tónico, seguidme ! ( Canta y todos le siguen .)

El capitán estaba en la cubierta, 
el catalejo en mano; 
mirando las ballenas valerosas que a lo lejos soplaban. 
Eh muchachos, los cubos a las lanchas, 
cada cual su aparejo, T- 
y una hermosa ballena cazaremos 
si a los remos dais bien. 
¡Animo, pues, muchachos, sin desmayo, 
que el arponero hiere a la ballena !

VOZ DEI. OFICIAL DESDE EL ALCAZAR.  - ¡Eh, en la proa, dad las ocho !

SEGUNDO MARINERO DE NANTUCKET.  - ¡Basta de coro ! ¡Eh, ocho toques !, ¿oyes, campanero ? ¡Pica ocho veces a la campana, tú, Pip !; ¡tú, negro ! Y yo voy a llamar a la guardia. Tengo la boca especial para eso... boca de tonel. Así, así (mete la cabeza por el portillo abajo). ¡Guardia de estri-i-i-ibo-o-o-or, a cubierta-a-a-a ! ¡Ocho campanadas, ahí abajo ! ¡A moverse para arriba !

MARINERO HOLANDES. Mucho dormitar esta noche, compañero; noche sustanciosa para eso. Noto en el vino de nuestro viejo mongol, que a unos les mata tanto como les anima a otros. Nosotros cantamos, y éstos duermen; sí, están ahí tumbados, como barriles de fondo de bodega. ¡A ellos otra vez, vamos, toma esta bomba de cobre, y llámales por ella ! Diles que basta de soñar con sus chicas. Diles que es la resurrección, que deben dar el beso de despedida, y acudir al juicio. Por aquí, así se hace: no tienes la garganta estropeada de comer manteca de Amsterdam.

MARINERO FRANCES.  ¡Oíd, muchachos ! Vamos a bailar un poco antes de echar el ancla en la Bahía de las Mantas. ¿Qué decís ? Ahí viene la otra guardia. ¡Preparadas las piernas ! ¡Pip, pequeño Pip !, ¡hurra por tu pandereta !

Pip (de mal humor y soñoliento). No sé dónde está.

MARINERO FRANCES. ¡Date en la barriga, entonces, y aguza las orejas ! Bailad una jiga, muchachos, os digo; alegres como hace falta, ¡hurra ! Maldita sea, ¿no queréis bailar ? A formar, entonces, en fila india, y galopar en una doble jiga. ¡Echad adelante ! ¡Piernas, las piernas !

MARINERO ISLANDES.  No me gusta este escenario, compañero; rebota demasiado para mi gusto. Estoy acostumbrado a suelos de hielo. Lamento echar agua fría sobre el asunto, pero me excusarás.

MARINERO MALTES.  Lo mismo digo: ¿Dónde están vuestras chicas ? ¿Quién, sino un loco, se va a agarrar la mano izquierda con la derecha, y decirse a sí mismo: « Qué tal estás » ? ¡Parejas ! ¡Tengo que tener parejas !

MARINERO SICILIANO. Eso, chicas y un prado verde, y entonces brincaré con vosotros; ¡sí, me volveré saltamontes !

MARINERO DE LONG ISLAND.  Bueno, bueno, gruñones; nosotros somos muchos más. Recoge el grano cuando puedas, digo yo. Todas las piernas tendrán pronto su cosecha. ¡Ah, ahí viene la música; vamos a ello !

MARINERO DE LAS AZORES (subiendo y tirando la pandereta por el escotillón arriba). ¡Ya estás, Pip; y ahí tienes las bitas del molinete; ve arriba ! ¡Vamos, muchachos ! La mitad de ellos baila con la pandereta; unos bajan; otros duermen o se tumban entre las adujas de cabo. Juramentos en abundancia.

MARINERO DE LAS ATORES (bailando).  ¡Vamos, allá, Pip ! ¡Dale, campanero ! ¡Repica, redobla, resuena, remacha, campanero ! ¡Saca chispas, rompe los badajos !

PIP.  ¿Badajos dices ? Ahí va otro, que se cae; le he pegado fuerte.

MARINERO CHINO.  Castañetea los dientes, entonces, y sigue soñando: hazte una pagoda.

MARINERO FRANCES. ¡Loco de contento ! ¡Sosténme el aro, Pip, hasta que salte por él ! ¡Partid los foques, rompeos vosotros mismos !

TASHTEGO (fumando tranquilamente).  Eso es un blanco: a eso llama divertirse: ¡bah ! Yo me ahorro el sudor.

VIEJO MARINERO DE LA ISLA DE MAN. =  No sé si esos alegres muchachos se dan cuenta de sobre qué están bailando. « Bailaré sobre tu tumba, ya verás »: ésa es la más cruel amenaza de vuestras mujeres de por la noche, que afrontan vientos contrarios por las esquinas. ¡Ah, Cristo !, ¡pensar en las armadas verdes y las tripulaciones de calavera verde ! Bueno, bueno, probablemente el mundo entero es una pelota, como dicen ustedes los sabios; y así está bien convertido en un solo salón de baile. Seguid bailando, muchachos, sois jóvenes; yo lo fui antaño.

TERCER MARINERO DE NANTUCKET.  ¡Alto, eh !, ¡uf !, esto es peor que remar persiguiendo ballenas en una calma; danos una chupada, Tash. Dejan de bailar y se reúnen en grupos. Mientras tanto, el cielo se oscurece y refresca el viento.

MARINEROS LASCAR.  ¡Por Brahma, muchachos ! Pronto habrá que zambullir las velas. ¡El Ganges, nacido de los cielos, en marea alta, se ha vuelto viento ! ¡Muestras tu frente negra, Shiva !

MARINERO MALTES (recostándose y sacudiendo el gorro). Son las olas, esos gorritos de nieve, que ahora bailan la jiga. Pronto agitarán las bolas. ¡Ahora me gustaría que todas las olas fueran mujeres, y entonces me ahogaría y correría con ellas para siempre ! No hay nada tan dulce en la tierra, el cielo no puede igualarlo, como esas ojeadas rápidas a pechos salvajes y calientes en el baile, cuando los brazos levantados esconden maduros racimos que estallan.

MARINERO SICILIANO (recostándose).  ¡No me hables de eso ! Escucha, muchacho; rápidos entrelazamientos de los miembros; flexibles ladeos; rubores; palpitaciones; ¡labios !, ¡corazón !, ¡cadera ! Rozarlo todo; incesante tocar y dejar, pero sin probar, fíjate, porque si no, viene la saciedad. ¿Eh, pagano ? (Dándole un codazo.)

MARINERO TAHITIANO (recostándose en una estera).  ¡Salve, sagrada desnudez de nuestras muchachas bailando ! ¡La Hiva  Hiva ! ¡Ah, Tahití, con velos bajos y altas palmeras ! Todavía descanso en tu estera, pero el suave suelo se ha escapado. Te vi entrelazada en el bosque, ¡oh, mi estera !, verde el primer día que te traje de allí, y ahora gastada y marchita. ¡Ay de mí !, ¡ni tú ni yo podemos soportar el cambio ! ¿Cómo entonces, que así sea trasplantado a ese cielo ? ¿Oigo los rugientes torrentes desde Pirohaiti, la cima de dardos, cuando brincan bajando por las rocas y sumergiendo las aldeas ? ¡El huracán, el huracán ! ¡Arriba, firmeza, y a su encuentro ! (Se pone en pie de un brinco.)

MARINERO PORTUGUES.  ¡Cómo se mece el mar chocando con el costado ! ¡Preparados a tomar rizos, queridos míos ! ¡Los vientos empiezan a cruzar las espadas; pronto se tirarán a fondo entremezclados !

MARINERO DANES.  ¡Cruje, cruje, viejo barco !; ¡mientras crujes, aguantas ! ¡Bien hecho ! Aquel oficial te mantiene firmemente en ello. No tiene más miedo que el fuerte de la isla en el Cattegat, puesto allí para luchar contra el Báltico con cañones azotados por la tormenta y en que se cuaja la sal marina.

CUARTO MARINERO DE NANTUCKET.  E1 tiene sus órdenes, acuérdate de eso. He oído al viejo Ahab decirle que siempre debe romper los chubascos, algo así como se rompe un chorro de agua con una pistola: ¡disparando el barco derecho contra ellos !

MARINERO INGLES. Sangre ! ¡Pero ese viejo es un tío estupendo ! ¡Nosotros somos hombres como para cazarle la ballena !

TODOS. ¡Eso, eso !

VIEJO MARINERO DE LA ISLA DE MAN.  ¡Cómo se sacuden los tres pinos ! Los pinos son la especie más dura de árbol para vivir cuando los trasplantan a otro suelo, y aquí no hay más que la maldita arcilla de la tripulación. ¡Vía, timoneles, vía ! En esta clase de tiempo es cuando los corazones valientes se parten en tierra, y los cascos con quilla se parten en el mar. Nuestro capitán tiene su señal de nacimiento: mirad allá, muchachos, en el cielo hay otra, de color lívido, ya lo veis, y todo lo demás, negro como la pez.

DAGGO.  ¿Qué es eso ? ¡Quien tiene miedo al negro me tiene miedo a mí ! ¡Yo estoy cortado de ello !

MARINERO ESPAÑOL.  (Aparte.) Quiere chulearse, ¡ah !..., ese viejo gruñón me pone nervioso. (Avanzando.) Sí, arponero, tu raza está en el indudable lado de sombra de la humanidad: diabólicamente sombrío, en esto. Sin ofensa.

DAGGO (torvamente). No hay de qué.

MARINERO DE SANTIAGO.  Este español está loco o borracho. Pero no puede ser, o si no, en su caso únicamente, las aguas de fuego de nuestro viejo mongol son bastante largas de efecto.

QUINTO MARINERO DE NANTUCKET  ¿Qué es lo que he visto ? ¿Un relámpago ? Sí.

MARINERO ESPAÑOL.  No; es Daggoo que enseña los dientes.

DAGGO (levantándose de un salto).  ¡Enseña los tuyos, pelele ! ¡Piel blanca, hígado blanco !

MARINERO ESPAÑOL (haciéndole frente).  ¡Te acuchillo de buena gana ! ¡Mucho cuerpo y poco ánimo !

TODOS.  ¡Una pelea, una pelea, una pelea !

TASHTEGO (lanzando una bocanada).  ¡Una pelea abajo, y una pelea en lo alto ! ¡Dioses y hombres, todos peleadores ! ¡Ufl

MARINERO DE BELFAST. ¡Una pelea !, ¡viva la pelea ! ¡Bendita sea la Virgen, una pelea ! ¡Adelante con vosotros !

MARINERO INGLES.  Juego limpio ! ¡Quitadle el cuchillo al español ! ¡Un corro, un corro !

VIEJO MARINERO DE LA ISLA DE MAN.  En seguida está hecho. ¡Ea ! El horizonte en corro. En ese corro Caín hirió a Abel. ¡Dulce trabajo, buen trabajo ! ¿No ? ¿Por qué entonces, oh, Dios, hiciste tú el corro ?

VOZ DEL OFICIAL DESDE EL ALCAZAR.  ¡Hombres a las drizas ! ¡A las velas de juanete ! ¡Preparados a rizar las gavias !

TODOS. ¡El huracán, el huracán ! ¡Saltad, alegres muchachos ! (Se dispersan.)

PIP (encogiéndose bajo el molinete).  ¿Alegres ? ¡Dios valga a esos alegres ! ¡Cric, cras !, ¡allá va el nervio de foque ! ¡Pam, pam ! ¡Dios mío ! Agáchate más. ¡Pip, allá va la verga de sobrejuanete ! Es peor que estar en los bosques azotados el último día del año. ¿Quién iría ahora a trepar en busca de castañas ? Pero allá van, todos maldiciendo, y yo me estoy aquí. Bonitas perspectivas para ellos; están en camino para el cielo. ¡Agarra fuerte ! ¡Demonios, qué huracán ! Pero esos muchachos están peor todavía; ésos son los chubascos blancos. ¿Chubascos blancos ?, ¡ballena blanca !, ¡brrr, brrr ! Aquí acabo de oírles toda su cháchara ahora mismo, y la ballena blanca... ¡Brrr, brrr ! Pero han hablado de ella una vez, y sólo esta tarde, y me hace tintinear todo entero como mi pandereta: esa anaconda de viejo les hizo jurar que la cazarían. ¡Ah, tú, gran Dios blanco, que estás allá en lo alto, no sé dónde, en esa tiniebla, ten piedad de este muchachito negro de aquí abajo; sálvale de todos los hombres que no tienen entrañas para sentir miedo ! 

Moby Dick

Yo, Ismael, era uno de esa tripulación; mis gritos se habían elevado con los de los demás, mi juramento se había fundido con los suyos, y gritaba más fuerte y remachacaba y martilleaba mi juramento aún más fuerte a causa del terror que había en mi alma. Había en mí un loco sentimiento místico de compenetración: el inextinguible agravio de Ahab parecía mío. Con ávidos oídos supe la historia de aquel monstruo asesino contra el cual habíamos prestado, yo y todos los demás, nuestros juramentos de violencia y venganza.

Desde hacía algún tiempo, aunque sólo a intervalos, aquella ballena blanca, solitaria y sin compañía, había sembrado el terror por esos mares sin civilizar, frecuentados sobre todo por los cazadores de cachalotes. Pero no todos aquellos sabían de su existencia; sólo unos pocos de ellos, en comparación, la habían visto conscientemente, mientras que era muy pequeño el número de los que hasta ahora le habían dado batalla realmente y a sabiendas. Pues, debido al gran número de buques balleneros, y al modo irregular como estaban dispersos por el entero círculo de las aguas, algunos de ellos extendiendo valientemente su búsqueda por latitudes solitarias, de tal manera que en un año entero o más no encontraban apenas un barco de cualquier clase que les contara noticias; debido a la desmesurada duración de cada viaje, por su parte, y debido a la irregularidad de las líneas que procedían del puerto de salida; debido a todas estas circunstancias, y otras más, directas o indirectas, se había retardado durante mucho tiempo la difusión, a través de la flota ballenera dispersa por el mundo entero, de las noticias especiales e individuales respecto a Moby Dick. Difícilmente cabía dudar de que varios barcos informaban haber encontrado, en tal o cual momento, o en tal o cual meridiano, un cachalote de extraordinaria magnitud y malignidad, el cual cetáceo, tras de causar gran daño a sus atacantes, se les había escapado por completo; y para algunas mentes no era presunción ilícita, digo, que el cetáceo en cuestión no debía ser otro que Moby Dick. Con todo, dado que recientemente la pesquería de cachalotes se había señalado por diversos ejemplos nada infrecuentes de gran ferocidad, astucia y malicia en el monstruo atacado, ocurría así que los cazadores que por casualidad daban batalla ignorantemente a Moby Dick, quizá se contentaban en su mayor parte con atribuir el peculiar terror que producía, más bien, por decirlo así, a los peligros generales de la pesca del cachalote que a esa causa individual. De tal modo, en la mayor parte de los casos, se había considerado entre la gente el desastroso encuentro de Ahab con la ballena.

Y para aquellos que, antes de oír hablar de la ballena blanca, por casualidad la habían avistado, al comienzo de estos asuntos habían arriado las lanchas, sin excepción, con tanto valor y ánimo como antes cualquier otra clase de ballena. Pero a la larga, ocurrieron tales calamidades en esos asaltos -no limitadas a tobillos y muñecas dislocadas, a miembros rotos ni a mutilaciones voraces, sino fatales hasta el último grado de fatalidad-, y se repitieron tanto esos rechazos desastrosos, acumulando y amontonando sus terrores sobre Moby Dick, que esas cosas llegaron a hacer vacilar la fortaleza de muchos valientes cazadores a quienes había llegado por fin la historia de la ballena blanca.

Y tampoco faltaron desorbitados rumores de todas clases que exageraran e hicieran aún más horribles las historias auténticas de esos encuentros mortales. Pues no sólo crecen por naturaleza rumores fabulosos del cuerpo mismo de todos los acontecimientos terribles y sorprendentes -igual que del árbol herido nacen hongos-, sino que en la vida marítima abundasen los rumores desatados mucho más que en tierra firme, dondequiera que haya cualquier realidad apropiada para adherirse. Y lo mismo que el mar sobrepasa a la tierra en este asunto, así la pesca de ballenas sobrepasa a cualquier otra clase de vida marítima en lo prodigioso y terrible de los rumores que a veces circulan por ella. Pues no sólo están sometidos también los balleneros, en su conjunto, a esa ignorancia, superstición hereditaria de todos los marineros, sino que, entre todos los marineros, ellos son en cualquier sentido los que más directamente entran en contacto con todo lo que haya de asombro y horrible en el mar: no sólo observan cara a cara sus mayores maravillas, sino que, mano contra mandíbula, les dan batalla. Solo, en aguas tan remotas que aunque se naveguen mil millas y se pase ante mil costas, no se llega a ver una piedra de hogar tallada, ni nada hospitalario bajo esa parte del sol; en tales longitudes y latitudes, dedicado a una profesión como la suya, el ballenero está envuelto en influjos que tienden a preñar su fantasía de muchos poderosos engendros. No es extraño, pues, que tomando cada vez más volumen, solamente a fuerza de pasar por los más desiertos espacios de agua, los hinchados rumores sobre la ballena blanca acabaran por llevar consigo toda clase de alusiones morbosas y de semiformadas sugestiones fetales de poderes sobrenaturales, que al fin revistieron a Moby Dick de nuevos terrores que no procedían de nada que tuviera aspecto visible; de tal modo que, en muchos casos, acabó por producir tal pánico, que, de los cazadores que con esos rumores habían oído hablar de la ballena blanca, pocos estaban dispuestos a salir al encuentro de los peligros de su mandíbula.

Pero también actuaban otros influjos, aún más vitalmente prácticos. Ni hasta los días presentes se ha extinguido, en las mentes de los balleneros en corporación, el prestigio original del cachalote, como temerosamente distinto de las demás especies de leviatanes. En nuestros días, hay algunos entre ellos, aunque de sobra inteligentes y valerosos para ofrecer batalla a la ballena de Groenlandia, o ballena franca, que quizá rehusarían -por inexperiencia profesional, o por incompetencia, o por timidez- un combate con el cachalote; en todo caso, hay muchos balleneros, especialmente entre las naciones pesqueras que no navegasen bajo pabellón americano, que nunca se han encontrado en hostilidades con el cachalote, y cuyo único conocimiento del leviatán se limita al innoble monstruo originalmente perseguido en el norte: sentados en las escotillas, esos hombres escuchan con interés y terror pueril, como junto al fuego, los salvajes y extraños relatos de la pesca de la ballena en el sur. Y la preeminente enormidad del gran cachalote no es comprendida con más sentimientos en ningún otro sitio sino a bordo de esas proas que navegan contra él.

Y como si la realidad, ahora puesta a prueba, de su energía hubiera proyectado en tiempos anteriores su sombra sobre él, encontramos a algunos naturalistas librescos -Olassen y Povelson- que declaran que el cachalote no sólo es el horror de todas las demás criaturas del mar, sino que también es tan increíblemente feroz que siempre tiene sed de sangre humana. Impresiones como éstas, o semejantes, no se habían borrado ni aun en un tiempo tan reciente como el de Cuvier. Pues en su Historia Natural, el propio Barón afirma que, a la vista del cachalote, todos los peces (incluidos los tiburones) quedan abrumados por « los más vivos terrores », y « a menudo, en la precipitación de su fuga, se lanzan contra las rocas con tal violencia que se produce la muerte instantánea ». Y de cualquier modo como la experiencia general de la pesca de la ballena pueda enmendar, informes como éste, sin embargo, en algunas vicisitudes de su ofició: los cazadores reviven en su mente esa creencia supersticiosa en todo su pleno terror, incluso en el punto de la sed de sangre de que habla Povelson.

Así que, abrumados por los rumores y portentos que la envolvían, no pocos de los pescadores, recordaban, en referencia a Moby Dick, los días primitivos de la pesca' de cachalotes, cuando a menudo era difícil convencer a expertos cazadores de ballenas de Groenlandia para que se embarcaran en los peligros de esta nueva y osada campaña; protestando dichos hombres que, aunque se podía perseguir con esperanzas a otros leviatanes, acosar y dirigir lanzas a una aparición como el cachalote no era cosa para hombres mortales, y que intentarlo sería inevitablemente ser despedazado en rápida eternidad. En este punto, hay algunos notables documentos que pueden ser consultados.

Con todo, -había algunos que, aun frente a tales cosas, estaban dispuestos a perseguir a Moby Dick, y un número aún mayor de quienes, habiendo tenido ocasión solamente de oír hablar de Moby Dick de modo distante y vago, sin los detalles específicos de una calamidad segura, y sin acompañamientos supersticiosos, eran lo bastante valientes como; para no escapar de la batalla si se les presentaba.

Una de las desorbitadas sugerencias a que se ha aludido entre las que acabaron por unirse a la ballena blanca en las mentes propensas a la superstición, era la convicción sobrenatural de que Moby Dick era ubicuo, y que se le había encontrado de hecho en latitudes opuestas en, un mismo instante de tiempo.

Y, por más crédulas que debían ser tales mentes, esa convicción no carecía por completo de alguna leve vislumbre de probabilidad supersticiosa. Pues, así como no se han dado a conocer todavía los secretos de las corrientes de los mares, ni aun con las más eruditas investigaciones, igualmente, los ocultos caminos del cachalote bajo la superficie siguen siendo, en gran parte, inexplicables para sus perseguidores, y de vez en cuando han dado origen a las especulaciones más curiosas y contradictorias, sobre todo en cuanto a los misteriosos modos como, tras de sondear a gran profundidad, se desplaza con tan enorme rapidez a los puntos más distantes.

Es cosa bien sabida, tanto de los barcos balleneros americanos como de los ingleses, y bien fundamentada en informes autorizados, hace años, por Scoresby, que se han capturado muy al norte del Pacífico algunas ballenas en cuyos cuerpos se han hallado puntas de arpones disparados en los mares de Groenlandia. Ni se puede contradecir que en algunos de esos ejemplos se ha declarado que el intervalo de tiempo entre los dos ataques no podía haber sido de muchos días. De aquí, por inducción, han creído algunos balleneros que el Paso del Noroeste, problema tan antiguo para el hombre, nunca ha sido problema para la ballena. De modo que aquí, en la real experiencia vivida de hombres vivos, narraciones fabulosas como los prodigios relatados antiguamente sobre la sierra de la Estrella en Portugal, tierra adentro (junto a cuya cima se decía que había un lago en que salían flotando a la superficie restos de naves), y la aún más prodigiosa historia de la fuente de Aretusa (junto a Siracusa cuyas aguas se creía que llegaban de Tierra Santa por un conducto subterráneo), quedaban plenamente alcanzadas por las realidades del ballenero.

Obligados a familiarizarse, pues, con prodigios tales como éstos, y sabiendo que, después de repetidos asaltos intrépidos, la ballena blanca había escapado con vida, no puede sorprender mucho que algunos balleneros fueran aún más allá en sus supersticiones, declarando a Moby Dick no sólo ubicuo, sino inmortal (pues la inmortalidad no es sino la ubicuidad en el tiempo), y que aunque se clavaran en sus costados selvas de lanzas, seguiría nadando sin recibir daño, o que si alguna vez se la llegaba a hacer verter densa sangre, el verla sería sólo un espectral engaño, pues, una vez más, en olas sin enrojecer, a cientos de leguas, se volvería a observar su chorro impoluto.

Pero, aun despojándolo de estas hipótesis sobrenaturales, había bastante en la figura terrenal y el carácter indiscutible del monstruo como para herir la imaginación con energía insólita. Pues no era tanto su extraordinario tamaño lo que le distinguía de los demás cachalotes, sino, como se manifestó en otro lugar, una peculiar frente blanca y con arrugas, y una alta joroba blanca en pirámide. Esos eran sus rasgos descollantes, los signos por los cuales, aun en los mares sin límites y sin mapas, revelaba su identidad a larga distancia a aquellos que la conocían.

El resto de su cuerpo estaba tan surcado, manchado y jaspeado, en el mismo color de sudario, que, al fin, había ganado su denominación distintiva de « ballena blanca », un nombre, desde luego, justificado a la letra por su aspecto vívido, al verla deslizarse a mediodía por un oscuro mar azul, dejando una estela en vía láctea, de espuma creemos salpicada de centelleos dorados.

Y no era tanto su insólito tamaño, ni su sorprendente color, ni tampoco su deformada mandíbula inferior lo que revestía a la ballena de terror natural, cuanto esa inteligente malignidad sin ejemplo, que, según los informes detallados, había evidenciado una vez y otra en sus ataques. Más que nada, sus traidoras retiradas producían mayor consternación, quizá, que cualquier otra cosa. Pues después de nadar ante sus jubilosos perseguidores, al parecer con todos los síntomas de la alarma, se había sabido que varias veces había dado media vuelta de repente y, lanzándose sobre ellos, les había desfondado la lancha en astillas, o les había rechazado consternados hacia el barco.

Su persecución ya había ido acompañada varias veces por desgracias. Pero aunque semejantes desastres, por poco que se hablase de ellos en tierra, no eran desacostumbrados en la pesca de ballenas, con todo, parecía tal la infernal premeditación de ferocidad de la ballena blanca, que cualquier mutilación o muerte que causara no se consideraba del todo como producida por un elemento sin inteligencia.

Júzguese, entonces, a qué niveles de furia inflamada y consternada se verían impulsadas las mentes de sus más desesperados perseguidores, cuando, entre las astillas de las lanchas masticadas y los miembros, hundiéndose, de sus compañeros destrozados, salían a nado entre los blancos coágulos de la terrible cólera de la ballena, para hallarse bajo la exasperante serenidad de la luz del sol, que seguía sonriendo, como ante un nacimiento o una boda.

Con sus tres lanchas desfondadas en torno a él, y los remos y los marineros absorbidos por los remolinos, un capitán, agarrando de su proa rota el cuchillo de la estacha, se había lanzado contra la ballena, como un duelista de Arkansas contra su enemigo, tratando ciegamente de alcanzar con su hoja de seis pulgadas la vida de la ballena, que quedaba a la profundidad de una braza. Ese capitán era Ahab. Y entonces fue cuando, pasándole de repente por debajo su mandíbula inferior, en forma de hoz, Moby Dick había segado la pierna de Ahab, como corta un segador una brizna de hierba en el campo. Ningún turco de turbante, ningún veneciano o malayo a sueldo le habría herido con más aspecto de malicia. Pocas razones había para dudar, pues, que desde aquel encuentro casi fatal Ahab había abrigado un loco deseo de venganza contra la ballena, cayendo aún más en su frenesí morboso porque acabó por identificar con la ballena no sólo todos sus males corporales, sino todas sus exasperaciones intelectuales y espirituales. La ballena blanca nadaba ante él como encarnación monomaníaca de todos esos elementos maliciosos que algunos hombres profundos sienten que les devoran en su interior, hasta que quedan con medio corazón y medio pulmón para seguir viviendo. Esa intangible malignidad que ha existido desde el comienzo, a cuyo dominio los cristianos modernos atribuyen la mitad de los mundos, y que los ancianos ofitas de Oriente reverenciaban en su diabólica estatua, Ahab no se prosternó para adorarla, como ellos, sino que, trasladando en delirio su idea a la ballena blanca, se lanzó contra ella, aunque tan mutilado. Todo lo que mas enloquece y atormenta; todo lo que remueve la hez de las cosas, toda verdad que contiene malicia, todo lo que resquebraja los nervios y endurece el cerebro, todos los sutiles demonismos de vida y pensamiento, todos los males, para el demente Ahab, estaban personificados visiblemente, y se podían alcanzar prácticamente en Moby Dick. Sobre la blanca joroba de la ballena amontonaba la suma universal del odio y la cólera que había sentado toda su raza desde Adán para acá, y luego, como si su pecho fuera un mortero, le disparaba encima la ardiente granada de su corazón.

No es probable que esta monotonía suya surgiera instantáneamente en el momento preciso de su desmembración corporal. Entonces, al dispararse hacia el monstruo, cuchillo en mano, no había hecho más que dar rienda, suelta a una repentina y apasionada animosidad corporal; y cuando recibió el golpe que le desgarró, probablemente sólo sintió la angustiosa laceración física, pero nada más. Sin embargo, obligado por ese choque a volver a puerto, y, durante largos meses, de muchos días y semanas, tendido Ahab con su angustia en la misma hamaca, y doblando en pleno invierno aquel temible y ululante cabo patagónico, fue entonces cuando su cuerpo roto y su alma herida sangraron uno en otro, y al entremezclarse le volvieron loco. Que fue sólo entonces, en el viaje de vuelta, tras el encuentro, cuando le invadió su monomanía definitiva, parece comprobado por el hecho de que, en algunos períodos de la travesía, estuvo loco furioso y aunque desprovisto de una pierna, quedaba aún tanta fuerza vital en su pecho egipcio, intensificada además por su delirio, que sus oficiales se vieron obligados a atarle fuerte allí mismo, mientras navegaba, furioso, en su hamaca. En su camisa de fuerza, se mecía al loco balanceo de las galernas. Y cuando, al llegar a latitudes más soportables, el barco, extendiendo levemente las « alas », atravesó los trópicos tranquilos, y, según todas las apariencias, el delirio del viejo parecía haber quedado atrás, con las marejadas del cabo de Hornos, y salió de su oscura madriguera a tomar la luz bendita y el aire; aún entonces, al presentar ese rostro firme y concentrado, aunque pálido, y dar otra vez sus órdenes tranquilas, mientras sus oficiales daban gracias a Dios de que ya había pasado la terrible locura, aún entonces, Ahab, en su intimidad escondida, seguía siendo un loco furioso. La locura humana es a menudo una cosa astuta y felina. Cuando se piensa que ha huido, quizá no ha hecho sino transfigurarse en alguna forma silenciosa y más sutil. La demencia total de Ahab no menguó, sino que se contrajo profundizándose; como el indómito río Hudson, cuando, noble nórdico, fluye angosto, pero insondable, a través de la garganta de la Highland. Pero en esa monomanía de corriente angosta, no había quedado atrás una jota de la ancha locura de Ahab; y de igual modo, en esa ancha locura, no había perecido una jota de su gran intelecto natural. Este, antes ente vivo, se convirtió ahora en instrumento vivo. Si puede mantenerse en pie una figura retórica tan demente, su particular locura tomó al asalto su cordura general, y pudo con ella, y dirigió toda su artillería concentrándola en su propio blanco loco; de modo que, lejos de haber perdido su fuerza, Ahab, para ese único objetivo, poseía ahora mil veces mayor potencia que la que en su cordura había dirigido jamás hacia ningún objetivo razonable.

Esto ya es mucho, y sin embargo, la parte mayor, más oscura y más profunda de Ahab, permanece sin aludir. Pero vano es popularizar profundidades, y toda verdad es profunda. Bajando en espiral desde dentro del mismo corazón de este erizado Hotel de Cluny donde estamos -abandonémoslo ahora, por grandioso y maravilloso que sea-; tomad vuestro camino, almas nobles y tristes, a esas vastas salas de termas romanas, donde, allá lejos, bajo las fantásticas torres de la parte superior de la tierra del hombre, se sienta en barbado esplendor la raíz de su grandeza, su entera y abrumadora esencia; ¡resto antiguo sepultado entre antigüedades, y entronizado sobre torsos ! Así, con un trono roto, los grandes dioses se burlan de ese rey cautivo; y él está sentado, paciente como una cariátide, sosteniendo en su helada frente los acumulados entablamentos de las edades. ¡Bajad hasta aquí, almas orgullosas y tristes ! ¡Qué parecido de familia ! Sí, él os engendró, jóvenes realezas exiliadas, y sólo de vuestro tétrico progenitor saldrá el antiguo secreto de Estado.

Ahora, en su corazón, Ahab entreveía algo de esto, a saber: « Todos mis medios son cuerdos; mi motivo y mi objetivo es demente ». Pero sin tener poder para matar, o cambiar, o esquivar el hecho; sabía igualmente que para la humanidad había fingido largo tiempo, y en cierto modo, seguía haciéndolo. Pero eso de que fingiera estaba sujeto sólo a su percepción, no a su voluntad determinada. No obstante, tanto éxito tuvo en su fingimiento, que, cuando por fin saltó a tierra con su pierna de marfil, ninguno de Nantucket le consideró más que naturalmente herido hasta lo vivo con la terrible desgracia que le había caído.

La noticia de su innegable delirio en el mar se atribuyó también popularmente a una causa análoga. Y lo mismo, también, toda la melancolía añadida que en lo sucesivo, y hasta el mismo día de embarcar en el Pequod para el presente viaje, había estado anidando en su frente. Y no es poco probable que, lejos de desconfiar en su capacidad para otro viaje de pesca de ballenas, a causa de esos sombríos síntomas, la calculadora gente de aquella prudente isla se inclinara a abrigar la idea de que por esas mismas razones estaba más calificado y preparado para una persecución tan llena de cólera y rabia como la sangrienta caza de las ballenas. Roído por dentro y abrasado por fuera por las inexorables garras clavadas de alguna idea incurable, un hombre así, si se podía encontrar, parecería el hombre más adecuado para disparar el arpón y levantar la lanza contra el más aterrador de los brutos. O, si por alguna razón se le consideraba físicamente incapacitado para ello, sin embargo, tal hombre parecería superlativamente competente para animar y jalear a sus subordinados en el ataque. Pero, sea como sea, lo cierto es que, con el loco secreto de su cólera sin tregua bien encerrado en él bajo llave y cerrojo, Ahab se había embarcado adrede en este viaje con el único y absorbente objetivo de cazar a la ballena blanca. Si algunos de sus antiguos conocidos en tierra hubieran sólo medio imaginado lo que entonces se escondía en él, ¡qué pronto sus justas almas horrorizadas habrían arrebatado el barco a un hombre tan diabólico ! Les interesaba travesías beneficiosas, con un provecho que se contara en dólares bien acuñados. El estaba absorto en una venganza audaz, inexorable y sobrenatural.

Ahí, entonces, estaba ese impío anciano de cabeza cana, persiguiendo con maldiciones a una ballena como para Job, alrededor del mundo, a la cabeza de una tripulación, también compuesta principalmente de renegados mestizos, de proscritos y de caníbales; también debilitada moralmente por la incompetencia de la mera virtud y la rectitud sin otra ayuda, en Starbuck, de la invulnerable jovialidad de la indiferencia y el descuido, en Stubb, y de la mediocridad invasora, en Flask. Tal tripulación, con tales oficiales, parecía especialmente emergida y embarcada por alguna fatalidad infernal para ayudarle en su venganza monomaníaca. ¿Cómo era que respondían tan sobradamente a la ira del viejo ?; ¿de qué magia perversa estaban poseídas sus almas que a veces el odio de él parecía ser de ellos, y la ballena blanca un enemigo tan insufrible para ellos como para él ?; ¿cómo ocurría todo esto ?; ¿qué era para ellos la ballena blanca ?; ¿o cómo, para su comprensión subconsciente, también, de algún modo en penumbra y sin sospecharlo, podía haber parecido el gran demonio fugaz de los mares de la vida ? Explicar todo esto, sería bucear más hondo de lo que puede llegar Ismael. De ese minero subterráneo que trabaja en todos nosotros, ¿cómo puede uno decir adónde lleva su pozo, por el sonido desplazado y ensordecido de su piqueta ? ¿Quién no siente que le arrastra el brazo invisible ? ¿Qué bote remolcado por un setenta-y-cuatro cañones puede quedarse quieto ? Por mi parte, yo me rendí al abandono del momento y el lugar; pero, al mismo tiempo que me lanzaba apresurado al encuentro de la ballena, no podía ver en aquel bruto nada que no fuera el más mortal de los males. 

La blancura de la ballena

Lo que era la ballena blanca para Ahab, ya se ha sugerido; lo que a veces era para mí, todavía está por decir.

Aparte de esas consideraciones más obvias respecto a Moby Dick que no podían dejar de despertar ocasionalmente cierta alarma en el ánimo de cualquiera, había otro pensamiento, o más bien otro vago horror sin nombre, que a veces, por su intensidad, dominaba completamente a los demás; y, sin embargo, era tan místico y poco menos que inefable, que casi desespero de presentarlo en una forma comprensible. Era la blancura de la ballena lo que me horrorizaba por encima de todas las cosas. Pero ¿cómo puedo tener esperanzas de explicarme aquí ? Y, sin embargo, de algún modo azaroso y crepuscular, tengo que explicarme, o si no, todos estos capítulos no serán nada.

Aunque en muchos objetos naturales la blancura realza la belleza con refinamiento, como infundiéndole alguna virtud especial propia, según ocurre en mármoles, camelias y perlas; y aunque diversas naciones han reconocido de un modo o de otro cierta preeminencia real en este color -hasta los bárbaros y grandiosos reyes antiguos del Perú, que ponían el título de « Señor de los Elefantes Blancos » por encima de sus demás grandilocuentes atribuciones de dominio; y los modernos reyes de Siam, que despliegan el mismo níveo cuadrúpedo en el estandarte real; y la bandera de Hannover, que ostenta la figura de un corcel níveo; y el gran Imperio Cesáreo Austríaco, heredero de la supremacía de Roma, con el mismo color imperial como color del Imperio-, y aunque esa preeminencia que hay en él se aplica a la misma raza humana, dando al hombre blanco un señorío ideal sobre todas las tribus oscuras; y aunque, además de todo esto, la blancura siempre se ha considerado significativa de la alegría, pues entre los romanos una piedra blanca marcaba un día gozoso; y aunque, en otras simpatías y simbolismos mortales, este mismo color se hace emblema de muchas cosas nobles y conmovedoras -la inocencia de las novias, la benevolencia de la ancianidad-; y aunque entre los pieles rojas de América la entrega del cinturón blanco de conchas era la más profunda prenda de honor; y aunque, en muchos climas, la blancura representa la majestad de la justicia en el armiño del juez, y contribuye a la cotidiana solemnidad de los reyes y reinas transportados por corceles .blancos como la leche; y aunque incluso en los más altos misterios de las más augustas religiones se ha hecho símbolo de la fuerza y la pureza divinas -por los adoradores del fuego persas, al considerar la bifurcada llama blanca como lo más sagrado del altar; y en las mitologías griegas, al; encarnarse el propio gran Júpiter en un toro níveo-; y aunque para el noble iroqués el sacrificio, en mitad del invierno, del sagrado Perro Blanco era con mucho la festividad más santa de su teología, por considerarse a esa fiel criatura sin mancha como el más puro enviado que podían mandar al Gran Espíritu con las noticias anuales de su propia fidelidad; y aunque todos los sacerdotes cristianos derivan directamente de la palabra latina por « blanco » el nombre de una parte de sus vestiduras sagradas, el alba, la túnica que llevan bajo la casulla; y aunque entre las pompas sacadas de la fe romana el blanco se emplea especialmente en la celebración de la Pasión de Nuestro Señor; y aunque en la Visión de san Juan se dan mantos blancos a los redimidos, y los veinticuatro ancianos se presentan vestidos de blanco ante el gran trono blanco, y el santo que se sienta en él, blanco como la lana; sin embargo, a pesar de todo este cúmulo de asociaciones con todo lo que es dulce, honroso y sublime, se esconde algo todavía en la más íntima idea de este color, que infunde más pánico al alma que la rojez aterradora de la sangre.

Es esta alusiva cualidad lo que causa que la idea de blancura, si se separa de asociaciones más benignas y se une con cualquier objeto que en sí mismo sea terrible, eleve ese terror hasta los últimos límites. Testigo, el oso blanco de los Polos, y el tiburón blanco de los trópicos: ¿qué, sino su blancura suave y en copos, les hace ser esos horrores trascendentales que son ? Esa blancura fantasmal es lo que comunica tal suavidad horrenda, aún más' repugnante que aterradora, al mudo goce maligno de su aspecto. Así que ni el tigre de fieras garras, con su manto heráldico, puede estremecer el valor tanto como el oso o el tiburón de blanco sudario.

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Acuérdate del albatros: ¿de dónde vienen esas nubes de asombro espiritual y terror pálido en que ese blanco fantasma navega por toda imaginación ? No fue Coleridge el primero en lanzar ese hechizo; sino el gran poeta laureado de Dios, la Naturaleza sin lisonja.

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En nuestros anales del Oeste y entre las tradiciones indias, es famosísima la del Corcel Blanco de las Praderas: un magnífico caballo de blanco lácteo, de grandes ojos, cabeza pequeña y ancho pecho, y con la dignidad de mil monarcas en su altanero y super despectivo andar. El fue el Jerjes elegido de vastas manadas de caballos salvajes, cuyos pastos, en aquellos días, estaban sólo cercados por las Montañas Rocosas y los Alleghanies. A la cabeza dé ellos, llameante, llevó al oeste su tropel como esa estrella elegida que todas las tardes hace entrar las huestes de la luz. La centelleante cascada de su melena, la cometa curva de su cola, le revestían de gualdrapas más resplandecientes que las que podían haberle proporcionado orfebres y plateros; una imperial y arcangélica aparición de ese mundo del oeste, como anterior a la caída, que ante los ojos de los viejos tramperos y cazadores revivía las glorias de aquellos tiempos prístinos en que Adán caminaba majestuoso como un dios, con ancha frente y sin temor, igual que este poderoso corcel. Bien fuera marchando entre sus ayudantes y mariscales en la vanguardia de innumerables cohortes que se desbordaban sin fin por las llanuras, como un Ohio; o bien mientras sus súbditos circundantes ramoneaban a todo su alrededor hasta el horizonte, el Corcel Blanco les pasaba revista al galope con las cálidas aletas de la nariz enrojeciendo a través de su frío color lácteo; en cualquier aspecto que se presentara, siempre era objeto de reverencia temblorosa y de temor para los indios más valientes. Y no se puede poner en duda, por lo que se halla en el relato legendario de este noble caballo, que era sobre todo su blancura espiritual lo que así le revestía de divinidad; y que esa divinidad llevaba en sí que, aunque imponiendo adoración, al mismo tiempo producía cierto terror sin nombre.

Pero hay otros ejemplos en que la blancura pierde toda esa gloria accesoria y extraña que le reviste en el Corcel Blanco y el Albatros.

¿Qué es lo que en el hombre albino repele tan peculiarmente y a menudo hiere la mirada, hasta el punto de que a veces repugna a su propia parentela ? Es la blancura que le reviste, algo expresado por el nombre que lleva. El albino está tan bien hecho como otros hombres, no tiene deformidad sustancial, y, sin embargo, el mero aspecto de blancura que todo lo invade lo hace más extrañamente horrible que el más feo aborto. ¿Por qué ha de ser así ?

Ni, en otros aspectos, deja la naturaleza de alistar entre sus fuerzas, con agentes menos palpables, pero no menos maliciosos, este atributo coronador de lo terrible. Por su aspecto níveo, el desafiador fantasma de los mares del Sur se ha denominado Chubasco Blanco. Y en algunos ejemplos históricos, el arte de la malicia humana no ha omitido a tan poderoso auxiliar. ¡Qué desatadamente realza el efecto de aquel pasaje de Froissart en que, enmascarados con el níveo símbolo de su fracción, los Encapuchados Blancos de Gante asesinan a su bailío en la plaza mayor !

Y, en ciertas cosas, la experiencia común y hereditaria de toda la humanidad no deja de rendir testimonio de la condición sobrenatural de este color. No se puede dudar de que la cualidad visible del aspecto de los muertos que más horroriza al observador, es la palidez marmórea que queda en ellos; como si, en efecto, esa palidez fuera la divisa de la consternación en el otro mundo, igual que aquí lo es de la trepidación mortal. Y de esa palidez de los muertos tomamos el expresivo color del sudario en que los envolvemos. Ni siquiera en nuestras supersticiones dejamos de poner el mismo manto níveo en torno a nuestros fantasmas: todos los espectros se elevan en una niebla de blancura láctea... Sí, mientras nos invaden esos terrores, añadamos que hasta el rey de los terrores, al ser personificado por el Evangelista, cabalga en un caballo pálido.

Por tanto, aunque, en otros humores, el hombre pueda simbolizar con la blancura cualquier cosa que se le antoje, grandiosa o graciosa, no le es posible negar que en su más profundo significado idealizado evoca una peculiar aparición del alma.

Pero aunque se establezca este punto sin disensión, ¿cómo puede dar razón de ello el hombre mortal ? Analizarlo parecería imposible. ¿Acaso, a fuerza de citar algunos de esos ejemplos en que esa cosa que es la blancura -aunque por el momento despojada por completo o en gran parte de toda asociación directa capaz de comunicarle nada terrible- se encuentra, sin embargo, que ejerce en nosotros el mismo hechizo, aunque modificado de algún modo; acaso, digo, podemos así tener esperanza de iluminar alguna clave azarosa que nos lleve a la causa oculta que buscamos ?

Vamos a probarlo. Pero en una cuestión como ésta, la sutileza llama a la sutileza, y sin imaginación nadie puede seguir a otro por estas salas. Y aunque, sin duda, algunas por lo menos de las impresiones imaginativas que se van a presentar, quizá hayan sido compartidas por la mayor parte de los hombres, puede ser, sin embargo, que pocos se dieran cuenta por completo de ellas en aquel momento, y por consiguiente no sean capaces de evocarlas ahora.

¿Por qué, para el hombre de idealización sin trabas, que no tiene acaso más que un vago conocimiento del carácter peculiar de esta fiesta, la mera mención del Domingo in albis introduce en la fantasía tan largas, silenciosas e impresionantes procesiones de peregrinos a paso lento, con los ojos bajos y encapuchados de nieve recién caída ? O, para el protestante sin lecturas ni sofisticación de los estados centrales de Norteamérica, ¿por qué la mención pasajera de un fraile blanco o una monja blanca evoca en el alma tal estatua sin ojos ?

O ¿qué es lo que, aparte de las tradiciones de guerreros y reyes en mazmorras (lo que no sería una explicación total), hace que la Torre Blanca de Londres hable con fuerza mucho mayor a la imaginación del americano que no ha viajado, que esas otras estructuras historiadas que están al lado: la Torre Byward, y aun la Torre Sangrienta ? Y en cuanto a esas más sublimes torres, las Montañas Blancas de New Hampshire, ¿de dónde, en estados de ánimo peculiares, procede esa gigantesca espectralidad que invade el alma a la simple mención de su nombre, mientras que el recuerdo de la Cadena Azul de Virginia está lleno de una lejanía soñadora, suave y con rocío ? O ¿por qué, prescindiendo de toda latitud y longitud, el nombre del mar Blanco ejerce tal espectralidad sobre la fantasía, mientras que el del mar Amarillo nos arrulla con mortales pensamientos de largas tardes, suaves y latadas, sobre las olas, seguidas por los ocasos más gozosos y a la vez más soñolientos ? O, para elegir un ejemplo totalmente inmaterial, puramente dirigido a la fantasía, al leer, en los viejos cuentos de hadas de Europa central, sobre el « hombre alto y pálido » de los bosques del Hartz, cuya palidez inalterada se desliza sin roce por el verde de la espesura, ¿por qué este fantasma es más terrible que todos los ululantes duendes del Blocksberg ?

Ni es, en conjunto, el recuerdo de sus terremotos derribando catedrales, ni las estampidas de los mares frenéticos, ni la ausencia de lágrimas en áridos cielos que jamás llueven; ni la visión del ancho campo de agujas inclinadas, bóvedas desencajadas, y cruces desplomadas (como penoles inclinados de flotas ancladas), ni sus avenidas suburbanas de paredes de casas caídas unas sobre otras, como un castillo de naipes hundido; no son sólo estas cosas las que hacen de Lima, la sin lágrimas, la ciudad más extraña y triste que puede verse. Pues Lima ha tomado el velo blanco; y hay un horror aún más alto en esa blancura de su pena. Antigua como Pizarro, esa blancura conserva sus ruinas para siempre nuevas; no deja aparecer el alegre verdor de la decadencia completa; extiende sobre sus rotos bastiones la rígida palidez de una apoplejía que inmoviliza sus propias contorsiones.

Sé que la comprensión corriente no confiesa que este fenómeno de la blancura sea el principal factor para exagerar el terror de los objetos que ya son terribles de otro modo; y para la mente sin imaginación no hay nada de terror en esas visiones cuyo carácter terrorífico para otra mente consiste casi solamente en ese único fenómeno, sobre todo cuando se muestran bajo alguna forma que en cierto modo se aproxime a la mudez o a la universalidad. Lo que quiero decir con estas dos afirmaciones quizá sea aclarará con los siguientes ejemplos.

Primero: el marinero, cuando se acerca a las costas de países extranjeros, si oye de noche rugido de rompientes, se precipita a la vigilancia, y siente sólo la agitación suficiente para aguzarle todas sus facultades; pero en circunstancias exactamente semejantes, hacedle llamar de su hamaca para que observe su barco navegando a medianoche a través de un mar de blancura láctea, como si desde los promontorios cercanos vinieran manadas de peinados osos blancos a nadar a su alrededor: entonces sentirá un terror silencioso y supersticioso: el fantasma con sudario de las aguas blanqueadas es para él tan horrible como un espectro auténtico; en vano el plomo le asegurará que todavía está lejos de los bajos; se le caerán a la vez el corazón y la caña del timón, y no descansará hasta que debajo de él vuelva a ver agua azul. Pero ¿dónde está el marinero que te diga: « Capitán, lo que me agitó de ese modo no era tanto el miedo de chocar con escollos escondidos, cuanto el temor de esa horrible blancura » ?

Segundo: al indio nativo del Perú, la continua visión de los Andes, con la nieve encima como el baldaquino sobre un elefante, no le infunde nada de temor, excepto, quizá, en el mero fantasear sobre la eterna desolación helada que reina en tan vastas alturas, y la natural consideración de qué terror sería perderse en tan inhumana soledad. Mucho de lo mismo le ocurre al colonizador de los bosques del Oeste, que con relativa indiferencia observa una pradera ilimitada revestida de nieve extendida, sin sombra de árbol o rama que rompa el inmóvil trance de blancura. No así el marinero, al observar el escenario de los mares antárticos, donde a veces, por algún infernal juego de prestidigitación en los poderes del hielo y del aire, él, tiritando y medio naufragado, en vez de arco iris proclamando esperanza y consuelo para su miseria, observa lo que parece un ilimitado cementerio haciéndole muecas con sus descarnados monumentos de hielo y sus cruces astilladas.

Pero dices: « Me parece que este capítulo al albayalde sobre la blancura no es más que una bandera blanca que asoma desde un alma cobarde; te rindes a una hipocondría, Ismael ».

Dime, este joven potrillo, parido en algún pacífico valle de Vermont, bien apartado de todo animal de presa, ¿por qué será que en el día más soleado, apenas agites detrás de él una piel fresca de búfalo, de tal modo que no la pueda ver, sino que sólo huela su salvaje olor animalesco a almizcle, por qué echa a correr, bufa, y, con ojos que estallan, patea el suelo con frenesíes de espanto ? No hay en él recuerdos de acorneamiento de criaturas salvajes en su verde patria norteña, de modo que el extraño olor almizclado que percibe no puede evocar en él nada asociado a la experiencia de peligros anteriores; pues, ¿qué sabe él, este potro de New England, de los bisontes negros del lejano Oregon ?

No, pero aquí observas, aun en un animal mudo, el instinto del conocimiento del demonismo que hay en el mundo. Aunque a miles de millas de Oregon, sin embargo, cuando huele ese salvaje almizcle, los acorneadores y laceradores rebaños de bisontes están tan presentes para él como para el abandonado potro salvaje de las praderas que quizá en ese momento estarán ellos pisoteando en el polvo.

Así pues, los sofocados balanceos de un mar lácteo; los desolados crujidos de los festoneados hielos de las montañas; los tristes desplazamientos de los niveles de las praderas, llevadas por el viento, todas estas cosas, para Ismael, son como el agitar esa piel de búfalo para el potro asustadizo.

Aunque ni uno ni otro sabemos dónde se extienden las cosas sin nombre de que la mística señal ofrece tales sugestiones, sin embargo, para mí, como para el potro, esas cosas tienen que existir en algún sitio. Aunque en muchos de sus aspectos este mundo visible parece formado en amor, las esferas invisibles se formaron en terror.

Pero todavía no hemos explicado el encantamiento de esta blancura, ni hemos descubierto por qué apela con tal poder al alma: más extraño y mucho más portentoso..., por qué, como hemos visto, es a la vez el más significativo símbolo de las cosas espirituales, e incluso el mismísimo velo de la Deidad cristiana, y, sin embargo, que tenga que ser, como es, el factor intensificador en las cosas que más horrorizan a la humanidad.

¿Es que por su naturaleza indefinida refleja los vacíos e inmensidades sin corazón del universo, y así nos apuñala por la espalda con la idea de la aniquilación, cuando observamos las blancas honduras de la Vía Láctea ? ¿O es que, dado que, por su esencia, la blancura no es tanto un color cuanto la ausencia visible de color, y al mismo tiempo la síntesis de todos los colores, por esa razón es por lo que hay semejante vacío mudo, lleno de significado, en un ancho paisaje de nieve; un incoloro ateísmo de todos los colores, ante el que nos echamos atrás ? Y si consideramos esa otra teoría de los filósofos de la naturaleza, de que todos los demás colores terrenales -toda decoración solemne o deliciosa, los dulces tintes de los cielos y bosques del poniente; sí, y los dorados terciopelos de las mariposas, y las mejillas de mariposa de las muchachas-, todos ellos, no son sino engaños sutiles, que no pertenecen efectivamente a las sustancias, sino que sólo se les adhieren desde fuera, de tal modo que toda la naturaleza deificada se pinta como la prostituta cuyos incentivos no recubren sino el sepulcro interior; y si seguimos más allá y consideramos que el místico cosmético que produce todos sus colores, el gran principio de la luz, sigue siendo para siempre blanco o incoloro en sí mismo, y que si actuase sin un medio sobre la materia, tocaría todos los objetos, aun los tulipanes y las rosas, con su propio tinte vacío; al pensar todo esto, el universo paralizado queda tendido ante nosotros como un leproso; y, como los tercos viajeros por Laponia que rehúsan llevar en los ojos gafas coloreadas y coloreadoras, así el desdichado incrédulo mira hasta cegarse el blanco sudario monumental que envuelve toda perspectiva ante él. Y de todas estas cosas, la ballena albina era el símbolo. ¿Os asombra entonces la ferocidad de la caza ? 

¡Escucha !

-¡Chist ! ¿Oyes ese ruido, Cabaco ?

Era en la guardia de media, con hermosa luna; los marineros estaban formando cadena desde uno de los toneles de agua dulce en el combés hasta el tonel de junto al coronamiento de popa. De este modo se pasaban los cubos para llenar el tonel de popa. Como en su mayor parte estaban junto a los sagrados recintos del alcázar, tenían cuidado de no hablar ni hacer ruido con los pies. De mano en mano, los cubos pasaban en el silencio más profundo, roto sólo por el gualdrapazo ocasional de una vela y el zumbido continuo de la quilla en su incesante avance.

En medio de este reposo fue cuando Archy, uno de los de la cadena, cuyo puesto estaba cerca de las escotillas de popa, susurró a su vecino, un cholo, las palabras antes mencionadas.

-¡Chist ! ¿Oyes ese ruido, Cabaco ?

-Vuelve a coger el cubo, ¿quieres, Archy ? ¿Qué ruido dices ?

-Ahí está otra vez: debajo de las escotillas: ¿no lo oyes ? Una tos..., sonaba como una tos.

-¡Qué condenada tos ni nada ! Pásame ese cubo de vuelta.

-Otra vez está ahí... ¡Ahí está ! ¡Suena como dos o tres hombres dormidos que se dieran la vuelta, ahora !

-¡Caramba ! ¿Has terminado, compañero ? Son las tres galletas mojadas que has cenado, y que te dan vueltas dentro..., nada más. ¡Mira el cubo !

-Di lo que quieras, compañero, pero tengo buen oído.

-Sí, sí, tú eres aquel tipo, ¿verdad ?, el que oyó el ruido de las agujas de hacer media de la vieja cuáquera a cincuenta millas a la altura de Nantucket: ése eres tú.

-Echalo a risa; ya veremos qué resulta. Escucha, Cabaco, hay alguien en la bodega de popa que todavía no se ha visto en cubierta; y sospecho que nuestro viejo mongol también sabe algo de eso. Oí que Stubb le decía a Flask, en una guardia de alba, que había algo de eso en el aire.

-¡Calla !, ¡el cubo ! 

La carta

Si hubierais bajado a la cabina detrás del capitán Ahab después del huracán que tuvo lugar en la noche sucesiva a aquella desatada ratificación de su propósito con su tripulación, le habríais visto ir a un cofre en el yugo, y, sacando un gran rollo arrugado de amarillentas cartas de marear, extenderlas ante él en su mesa atornillada al suelo. Luego, sentándose ante ella, le habríais visto estudiar atenta mente las diversas líneas y sombreados que se presentaban a su vista, y, con lápiz lento pero firme, trazar líneas adicionales en espacios que antes estaban vacíos. De vez en cuando, consultaba montones de viejos cuadernos de bitácora que tenía al lado, donde estaban anotados las épocas y lugares en que, en diversos viajes anteriores de varios barcos, se habían visto o capturado cachalotes.

Mientras así estaba ocupado, la pesada lámpara de peltre colgada de cadenas sobre su cabeza se mecía continuamente con el movimiento del barco y lanzaba destellos y sombras de líneas continuamente desplazados sobre su frente arrugada, hasta que casi pareció que, mientras él estaba trazando líneas y recorridos en las arrugadas cartas, algún lápiz invisible trazaba también líneas y recorridos en la carta, profundamente marcada, de su rostro.

Pero no fue esa noche en particular cuando Ahab caviló así en la soledad de su cabina sobre sus mapas. Casi todas las noches se sacaban; casi todas las noches de borraban algunas señales de lápiz, y se sustituían otras. Pues, con las cartas marinas de los cuatro océanos ante él, Ahab devanaba un ovillo de corrientes y remolinos, con vistas al más seguro cumplimiento de aquella idea monomaníaca de su alma.

Ahora, para cualquiera que no estuviera plenamente familiarizado con las costumbres de los leviatanes, podría parecer una tarea absurdamente desesperanzada buscar así una sola criatura solitaria en los ilimitados océanos de este planeta. Pero no se lo parecía a Ahab, que conocía los sentidos de todas las mareas y corrientes, y calculaba con eso las derivaciones del alimento de los cachalotes, y así, teniendo en cuenta también las temporadas normales y comprobadas para cazarlos en diversas latitudes, podía llegar a hipótesis razonables, casi próximas a ser seguridades, en cuanto al día más oportuno para estar en tal o cual lugar en busca de su presa.

Tan comprobado, en efecto, es el hecho de la periodicidad de la presencia del cachalote en unas aguas determinadas, que muchos cazadores creen que, si se pudiera estudiar y observar de cerca por todo el mundo, y se compararan cuidadosamente los cuadernos de bitácora de una sola campaña de toda la flota ballenera, se encontraría que las emigraciones del cachalote se parecen en lo invariable a las de los bancos de arenques o a los vuelos de las golondrinas. Con esta sugerencia, se han hecho intentos de construir complicados mapas de emigración del cachalote.'

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Además, cuando van en travesía de un lugar de pasto a otro, los cachalotes, guiados por algún instinto infalible -digamos, más bien, por alguna secreta noticia de la Divinidad-, suelen nadar en venas, como las llaman, continuando su, camino por una determinada línea del océano, con exactitud tan infalible que ningún barco ha navegado en su travesía ni con la décima parte de tan maravillosa precisión. Aunque en esos casos la dirección emprendida por un determinado cetáceo sea tan recta como la línea de un agrimensor, y aunque la línea de avance se atenga estrictamente a su propia e inevitable estela derecha, sin embargo, la arbitraria vena en que se dice que nada en esas ocasiones, generalmente abarca varias millas de anchura (más o menos, puesto que se supone que la vena se ensancha o se contrae), pero nunca excede el campo visual de los vigías del barco ballenero al deslizarse de modo circunspecto por esa zona mágica. El resultado es que, en determinadas épocas, dentro de esa anchura y a lo largo de ese camino, se pueden buscar cetáceos emigrantes con mucha confianza.

Y por tanto, Ahab podía esperar encontrar su presa no sólo en momentos averiguados y en bien conocidos parajes de pasto, por separado, sino que, al cruzar las más amplias extensiones de agua entre esos parajes, podía, con sus artificios, colocarse en lugar y hora tales que no le faltaran perspectivas de encuentro.

Había una circunstancia que a primera vista parecía enredar su proyecto, delirante pero metódico; por más que quizá no era así en la realidad. Aunque los gregarios cachalotes tienen sus épocas regulares para determinados parajes, en general no se puede deducir que las manadas que se hicieron visibles, digamos, en tal o cual latitud o longitud este año, resultarán ser exactamente las mismas que se encontraron la época precedente, por más que haya ejemplos peculiares e indiscutibles en que ha resultado cierto lo contrario de esto. En general, esta misma observación se aplica, sólo que en límites menos amplios, a los ejemplares solitarios y eremíticos que hay entre los cachalotes maduros y envejecidos. De modo que, aunque se había visto a Moby Dick en un antro anterior, por ejemplo, en lo que se llama el paraje de las Seychelles, en el océano índico, o en Volcano Bay, por las costas de Japón, no se infería, sin embargo, que si el Pequod visitaba uno de esos lugares en alguna época posterior correspondiente, le encontraría allí sin falta. Y lo mismo ocurría con otros parajes de pasto donde se había revelado a veces. Pero todos ésos parecían sólo sus lugares de detención casual, sus posadas marinas, por decirlo así, no sus lugares de residencia prolongada. Y al hablar hasta ahora de las probabilidades de Ahab de alcanzar su objetivo, se ha hecho alusión a qué otras perspectivas secundarias, antecedentes o extraordinarias, podía tener, antes de alcanzar un determinado momento o lugar, en que todas las posibilidades se convertirían en probabilidades, y, según pensaba Ahab con delicia, toda probabilidad se haría lo más cercano posible a una certidumbre. Ese tiempo y ese lugar determinados se conjugaban en una sola expresión técnica: la temporada del ecuador. Pues allí y entonces, durante varios años seguidos, se había señalado periódicamente a Moby Dick, permaneciendo durante algún tiempo en esas aguas, mientras el sol, en su giro anual, se demora durante un intervalo predeterminado en un signo del zodíaco. Allí era también donde habían tenido lugar la mayor parte de los encuentros mortales con la ballena blanca; allí las olas estaban ilustradas con la historia de sus gestas; allí también estaba aquel trágico lugar donde el monomaniático viejo había encontrado el horrendo motivo de su venganza. Pero con la cauta amplitud e incesante vigilancia con que Ahab había lanzado su alma meditativa a esa persecución incansable, no se permitía descansar todas sus esperanzas en ese único hecho cimero antes mencionado, por más lisonjero que pudiera ser para esas esperanzas, ni, en la vigilia continua de su voto, podía tranquilizar su corazón inquieto aplazando toda búsqueda por el momento.

Ahora, el Pequod había zarpado de Nantucket, en el comienzo mismo de la temporada en el ecuador. Ningún esfuerzo posible, entonces, permitiría a su capitán recorrer la gran travesía al sur, doblar el cabo de Hornos, y luego desandar sesenta grados de latitud para llegar al Pacífico ecuatorial a tiempo de realizar allí su campaña. Por tanto, debía aguardar a la temporada siguiente. Pero el prematuro momento de zarpar el Pequod quizá estaba correctamente elegido por Ahab con vistas a su consecución del asunto. Porque tenía por delante un intervalo de trescientos sesenta y cinco días y noches, intervalo que, en vez de soportar con impaciencia en tierra, ocuparía en persecución variada, si por casualidad la ballena blanca, pasando sus vacaciones en mares muy remotos de sus periódicos parajes de pastos, sacaba su arrugada frente en el golfo Pérsico, en la bahía de Bengala, en los mares de la China, o en cualquier otro mar frecuentado por su raza. Así que monzones, vientos pamperos, noroeste, harmattans, o alisios; todos los vientos, menos el levante y el simún, podían impulsar a Moby Dick al tortuoso círculo en zigzag, alrededor del mundo, de la estela circunnavegadora del Pequod.

Pero, admitido todo esto, sin embargo, y considerándolo de modo discreto y en frío, ¿no parecía una idea loca ésta: que en el amplio océano sin límites una ballena solitaria, aun encontrada, se considerase susceptible de reconocimiento individual por su cazador, lo mismo que si fuera un muftí de barba blanca por las atestadas encrucijadas de Constantinopla ? Sí. Pues la peculiar frente nívea de Moby Dick, y su joroba nívea, no podían menos de ser inconfundibles. « ¿Y no he, marcado a la ballena -murmuraba para sí Ahab, cuando, tras de escudriñar sus cartas hasta mucho después de medianoche, se dejaba caer en ensueños-, no la he marcado ? ¿Acaso se me va a escapar ? ¡Sus anchas aletas están perforadas y festoneadas como la oreja de una oveja perdida ! » Y aquí su mente loca se lanzaba a una carrera sin aliento, hasta que le invadía una fatiga y un desmayo de cavilar, y trataba de recobrar sus fuerzas al aire libre, en cubierta. ¡Ah, Dios !, ¡qué trances de tormento soporta el hombre que se consume con un único deseo incumplido de venganza ! Duerme con las manos apretadas, y despierta con sus propias uñas ensangrentadas en las palmas.

A menudo, cuando le sacaban a la fuerza de su hamaca sueños nocturnos agotadores e intolerablemente vívidos, que, volviendo a tomar sus más intensos pensamientos de a lo largo del día, los llevaban adelante entre un entrechocarse de frenesíes, dándoles vueltas como un torbellino en su cerebro llameante, hasta que el mismo latir de su centro vital se le convertía en angustia insufrible; y cuando, como ocurría a veces, estos sobresaltos espirituales le elevaban en todo su ser desde su base, y parecía abrirse en él un abismo desde el que subían disparadas llamas bifurcadas y relámpagos, y demonios malditos le incitaban a dejarse caer entre ellos; cuando ese infierno de su interior se abría como un bostezo debajo de él, se oía un grito salvaje por el barco, y Ahab salía con ojos centelleantes de su cabina, como escapándose de una cama en llamas. Pero estas cosas, quizá en vez de ser los síntomas incontenibles de alguna debilidad latente, o de miedo ante su propia resolución, no eran sino los síntomas más evidentes de su intensidad. Pues, en tales momentos, el loco Ahab, el planeador, el perseguidor inexorablemente constante de la ballena blanca, este Ahab que se había acostado en la hamaca, no era el mismo agente que le hacía volver así a salir de ella con horror. Este era el eterno principio vivo, el alma que había en él; y en el sueño, al quedar por algún tiempo disociado de la mente caracterizadora, que en otras ocasiones lo empleaba como su vehículo o agente exterior, buscaba escape espontáneamente de la abrasadora contigüidad de aquella cosa frenética de que, por el momento, ya no era parte integrante. Pero dado que la mente no existe a no ser ligada al alma, por tanto, en el caso de Ahab debía de ser que, al entregar todos sus pensamientos y fantasías a su único propósito supremo, ese propósito, por su misma y estricta obstinación de volumen, se obligaba a sí mismo a ponerse contra dioses y demonios, en una especie de entidad propia, independiente y asumida por él mismo. Más aún, podía vivir y arder sobriamente, mientras la vitalidad común, con que estaba conjugada, huía aterrorizada de aquel nacimiento espontáneo y sin paternidad. Por tanto, el atormentado espíritu, que salía centelleando de sus ojos corporales, cuando lo que parecía Ahab se precipitaba fuera de su cuarto, no era por el momento sino una cosa vacía, una entidad sonámbula y sin forma, un rayo de luz, viviente, ciertamente, pero sin objeto que colorear, y por consiguiente, un vacío en sí mismo. Dios te ayude, viejo; tus pensamientos han creado en ti una criatura; y cuando alguien se hace un Prometeo con su intenso pensar, un buitre se alimenta de su corazón para siempre, y ese buitre es la propia criatura que él crea. 

El testimonio

Para lo que pueda tener de novela este libro, y, desde luego, en cuanto se refiere indirectamente a una o dos curiosas e interesantes particularidades de las costumbres de los cachalotes, el capítulo precedente, en su parte inicial, es tan importante como cualquier otro que se encuentre en este volumen, pero su materia básica requiere todavía que nos extendamos y nos familiaricemos más con ella, para que se entienda adecuadamente, y además para eliminar cualquier incredulidad que la profunda ignorancia de todo el asunto pueda producir en algunas mentes, en cuanto a la verdad natural de los principales puntos de esta cuestión.

No me importa ser meticuloso en la realización de esta parte de mi tarea, pero me contentaré con producir la impresión deseada mediante citas separadas de partidas que, como balleneros, sé que son reales y fidedignas; y de esas citas, entiendo que se seguirá naturalmente y por sí misma la conclusión a que apunto con mi intención.

Primero: he conocido personalmente tres casos en que una ballena, después de recibir un arpón, ha realizado un escape completo; y, tras un intervalo (en un caso, de tres años), ha vuelto a ser herida por la misma mano, y muerta, y entonces se sacaron del cuerpo los dos hierros, ambos marcados con la misma marca personal. En el caso en que transcurrieron tres años entre el lanzamiento de los dos arpones -y creo que quizá fuera algo más que eso-, el hombre que los disparó en ese intervalo tuvo ocasión de ir a Africa en un barco mercante, bajando allí a tierra, uniéndose a una expedición de descubrimiento y penetrando mucho por el interior, donde viajó durante casi dos años, a menudo puesto en peligro por serpientes, salvajes, tigres, miasmas venenosos, y todos los demás peligros corrientes que acompañan a un recorrido por el corazón de regiones desconocidas. Mientras tanto, la ballena que él había herido debía haber estado también viajando; sin duda, habría dado tres vueltas al globo, rozando con sus flancos todas las costas de Africa, pero sin consecuencias. Ese hombre y esa ballena volvieron a reunirse, y el uno venció a la otra. Digo que yo mismo he conocido tres casos semejantes a éste: esto es, en dos de ellos he visto herir a la ballena, y en el segundo ataque, vi los dos hierros, con las respectivas señales grabadas en ellos, que se sacaron del pez muerto. En el caso de los tres años, ocurrió que yo estaba en la lancha ambas veces, la primera y la última, y la última vez reconocí claramente una peculiar especie de enorme lunar bajo el ojo de la ballena, que había observado tres años antes. Digo tres años, pero estoy casi seguro de que fue más que eso. Aquí hay tres casos, pues, cuya verdad conozco personalmente, pero he oído otros muchos casos de personas cuya veracidad en el asunto no hay buenas razones para poner en tela de juicio.

En segundo lugar: es bien sabido en la pesca de cachalotes, por muy ignorante de ello que pueda estar el mundo de tierra firme, que ha habido varios memorables casos históricos en que una determinada ballena del océano se ha hecho popularmente reconocible en lugares y momentos distantes. La razón de que una ballena fuese así señalada no era debido de modo total y absoluto a sus peculiaridades corporales, en cuanto diferentes de otras ballenas; pues por muy peculiar que pueda ser en ese aspecto una ballena cualquiera, pronto se pone fin a esas peculiaridades matándola, y concretándola en un aceite peculiarmente valioso. No; la razón era ésta: que, por las experiencias mortales de la pesca, pendía tan terrible prestigio de peligrosidad sobre esa ballena como sobre Rinaldo Rinaldini, hasta el punto de que la mayor parte de los pescadores se contentaban con reconocerla sólo llevándose la mano al sombrero cuando la descubrían vagando por el mar junto a ellos, sin tratar de cultivar una amistad más íntima; como algunos pobres diablos de tierra firme que conocen por casualidad a un gran hombre irascible, y le hacen lejanos saludos en la calle sin estorbarle, no sea que, si llevan más allá su conocimiento, reciban un golpe sumario por su presunción.

Pero no sólo gozaba cada una de esas famosas ballenas de gran celebridad individual, que, mejor dicho, se podría llamar renombre oceánico; no sólo era cada una de ellas famosa en vida, y ahora es inmortal tras de su muerte, en los relatos del castillo de proa, sino que se la admitía a todos los derechos, privilegios y distinciones de un nombre, y tenía en efecto tanto nombre como Cambises o César. ¿No fue así, oh, Tom de Timor, tú, el famoso leviatán, mellado como un iceberg, que durante tanto tiempo acechaste en los estrechos orientales de ese nombre, y cuyo chorro se vio a menudo desde la playa de palmeras de Ombay ? ¿No fue así, Jack de Nueva Zelanda, tú, el terror de todos los navíos que trazaban sus estelas en la vecindad de la Tierra Tatuada ? ¿No fue así, oh, Morquan, rey del Japón, cuyo poderoso chorro dicen que a veces tomaba semejanza de una cruz nívea contra el cielo ? ¿No fue así, oh, Don Miguel, el cetáceo chileno, marcado como una tortuga vieja con jeroglíficos místicos en el lomo ? En sencilla prosa, aquí hay cuatro ballenas conocidas para los estudiosos de la Historia de los Cetáceos como Mario o Sila para el erudito clásico.

Pero eso no es todo. Tom de Nueva Zelanda y don Miguel, después de producir en diversas ocasiones gran agitación entre las lanchas de diversos barcos, fueron al fin buscados, perseguidos sistemáticamente, cazados y muertos por valientes capitanes balleneros, que levaron anclas con ese objeto determinado tan a la vista como, al ponerse en marcha a través de los bosques de Narragansett, el antiguo capitán Butler llevaba la intención de capturar al famoso asesino salvaje Annawon, el principal guerrero del rey indio Felipe.

No sé dónde encontrar un sitio mejor que aquí mismo para hacer mención de una o dos cosas que me parecen importantes, en cuanto que establecen en forma impresa, en todos los aspectos, lo razonable de' toda la historia de la ballena blanca, y más especialmente su catástrofe. Pues éste es uno de esos descorazonadores ejemplos en que la verdad requiere tanto apoyo como el error. Tan ignorantes están la mayor parte de los terrícolas sobre algunas de las más claras y palpables maravillas del mundo, que, sin algunas sugerencias en cuanto a los puros hechos, históricos o de otra especie, sobre la pesca, podrían desdeñar a Moby Dick como una fábula monstruosa, o aún algo peor y más detestable, como una alegoría horrible e intolerable.

Primero: aunque muchos hombres tienen algunas vagas ideas vacilantes sobre los peligros generales de esa grandiosa pesca, no tienen, sin embargo, nada como un concepto fijo y vívido de esos peligros y la frecuencia con que se repiten. Una razón, quizá, es que ni uno de cada cincuenta de los desastres efectivos y las muertes por accidente en la pesca encuentra jamás noticia pública en la patria, ni aun de modo transitorio e inmediatamente olvidado. Este pobre muchacho que aquí, tal vez arrastrado en este momento por la estacha del arpón, a lo largo de la costa de Nueva Guinea, es arrastrado al fondo del mar por el leviatán zambullido, ¿suponéis que su nombre aparecerá en los fallecimientos del periódico que leeréis mañana en el desayuno ? No, porque los correos son muy irregulares, entre aquí y Nueva Guinea. En realidad, ¿habéis oído jamás algo que pudiera llamarse noticias regulares, directas o indirectas, de Nueva Guinea ? Sin embargo, os diré que en un determinado viaje que hice al Pacífico, hablamos, entre otros muchos, con treinta barcos, cada uno de los cuales había sufrido una muerte por una ballena, algunos más de una, y tres habían perdido la tripulación de una lancha. ¡Por Dios, sed ahorrativos con las lámparas y candelas ! No queméis un galón sin que al menos se haya vertido por él una gota de sangre humana.

En segundo lugar: la gente en tierra firme tiene, en efecto, alguna idea indefinida de que una ballena es una enorme criatura de enorme fuerza, pero he encontrado siempre que cuando les contaba algún ejemplo concreto de esa doble enormidad, me felicitaban significativamente por mi buen humor, siendo así que, lo declaro por mi alma, no tenía más intención de gastar bromas que Moisés cuando escribió la historia de las plagas de Egipto.

Pero, afortunadamente, el punto determinado que busco aquí puede apoyarse en un testimonio completamente independiente del mío. Ese punto es el siguiente: el cachalote, en algunos casos, es lo bastante poderoso, experto y juiciosamente maligno, como para desfondar un gran barco con directa premeditación, destruyéndolo totalmente y hundiéndolo; y lo que es más, el cachalote lo ha hecho así.

Primero: el año 1820, el barco Essex, al mando del capitán Pollard, de Nantucket, atravesaba el océano Pacífico. Un día vio chorros, arrió las lanchas y persiguió una manada de cachalotes. Antes de mucho, varios de los cetáceos quedaron heridos, cuando, de repente, un cachalote enorme que huía de las lanchas, se apartó de la manada y se lanzó directamente contra el barco. Disparando la frente contra el casco, lo desfondó de tal modo, que en menos de « diez minutos » se inclinó y desapareció. No se ha vuelto a ver desde entonces ni una tabla superviviente. Después de las mayores penalidades, parte de la tripulación llegó a tierra en las lanchas. Después de regresar otra vez a la patria, el capitán Pollard volvió a zarpar hacia el Pacífico al mando de otro barco, pero los dioses le hicieron naufragar otra vez contra rocas y rompientes desconocidas; por segunda vez se perdió totalmente su barco, y abjurando con ello del mar, no ha vuelto a intentarlo más. Actualmente, el capitán Pollard reside en Nantucket. He visto a Owen Chace, que era primer oficial del Essex en el momento de la tragedia: he leído su clara y fidedigna narración; he conversado con su hijo, y todo ello a pocas millas de la escena de la catástrofe.

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Segundo: el barco Unión, también de Nantucket, se perdió totalmente en 1807, a lo largo de las Azores, en un episodio semejante, pero nunca he tenido ocasión de encontrar los detalles auténticos de esta catástrofe, aunque he oído a los cazadores de ballenas aludir de vez en cuando casualmente a ella.

Tercero: hace unos dieciocho o veinte años, el comodoro J..., que entonces mandaba una corbeta americana de guerra, de primera clase, comía por casualidad con un grupo de capitanes balleneros a bordo de un buque de Nantucket, en el puerto de Oahu, islas Sandwich. Al recaer la conversación en las ballenas, al comodoro se le antojó mostrarse escéptico en cuanto a la sorprendente fuerza que les atribuían los profesionales allí presentes. Por ejemplo, negó perentoriamente que ninguna ballena pudiera dañar su robusta corbeta de guerra como para hacerla embarcar un dedal de agua. Muy bien, pero aún viene más. Unas semanas después, el comodoro se hizo a la vela en su inexpugnable embarcación hacia Valparaíso. Pero le detuvo por el camino un obeso cachalote que le rogó unos pocos momentos para un asunto confidencial. Este asunto consistió en dar al barco del comodoro tal golpe que, con todas las bombas en acción, se dirigió en seguida al puerto más cercano para dar la quilla y repararse. No soy supersticioso, pero considero la entrevista del comodoro con esa ballena como providencial. ¿No se convirtió Saulo de Tarso de su incredulidad por un espanto semejante ? Os digo que el cachalote no aguanta tonterías.

Ahora os remitiré a los Viajes de Langsdorff para una pequeña circunstancia a propósito, de interés peculiar para el que esto escribe. Langsdorff, por cierto, debéis saber que estaba agregado a la famosa expedición exploratoria del almirante ruso Krusenstern, a comienzos de este siglo. El capitán Langsdorff empieza así su capítulo decimoséptimo:

« Para el 13 de mayo nuestro barco estaba dispuesto, y al día siguiente salíamos a alta mar, en ruta hacia Ojotsk. El tiempo era bueno y claro, paro tan intolerablemente frío que estábamos obligados a conservar nuestra vestimenta de piel. Durante unos días tuvimos muy poco viento; sólo el día diecinueve empezó a soplar un viento vivo del noroeste. Una ballena extraordinariamente grande, cuyo cuerpo era mayor que el propio barco, estaba casi en la superficie del agua, pero no la percibió nadie a bordo hasta el momento en que el barco, que iba a toda vela, estuvo casi encima, así que fue imposible evitar chocar contra ella. Nos encontrábamos así en el peligro más inminente, cuando esta gigantesca criatura, levantando el lomo, elevó el barco por lo menos tres pies fuera del agua. Los palos oscilaron, las velas se sacudieron, mientras que los que estábamos abajo saltamos al instante a cubierta, suponiendo que habíamos chocado con alguna roca, pero, en vez de eso, vinos al monstruo que se alejaba navegando con la mayor gravedad y solemnidad. El capitán D'Wolf se aplicó inmediatamente a las bombas para examinar si el barco había recibido o no algún daño en el choque, pero encontramos que, por gran suerte, había escapado sin ningún daño en absoluto. »

Ahora, el capitán D'Wolf aquí aludido como al mando del buque en cuestión, es uno de New England que, tras una larga vida de insólitas aventuras como capitán de marina, hoy día reside en la aldea de Dorchester, junto a Boston. Tengo el honor de ser sobrino suyo. Le he preguntado detalladamente en cuanto a este pasaje de Langsdorff. El confirma todas las palabras. El barco, sin embargo, no era en absoluto grande: una embarcación rusa construida en la costa siberiana, y adquirida por mi tío después de quitarse de encima la embarcación en que llegó de su patria.

En ese libro, tan viril de arriba abajo, de aventuras a la antigua, y tan lleno, también, de honradas maravillas, que es el viaje de Lionel Wafer, uno de los viejos compadres del antiguo Dampier, he encontrado una pequeña cuestión anotada de modo tan semejante a la recién citada de Langsdorff, que no puedo menos de insertarla aquí como ejemplo corroborativo, si es que se necesita.

Lionel, según parece, iba rumbo a « John Ferdinando », como llama a la isla hoy llamada Juan Fernández. « En nuestra travesía allá -dice-, hacia las cuatro de la mañana, cuando estábamos a unas cientos cincuenta leguas del continente americano, nuestro barco sintió un terrible choque, que puso a nuestros hombres en tal agitación que apenas podían decir dónde estaban o qué pensar; pero todos empezaron a prepararse para morir. Y, desde luego, el choque fue tan súbito y violento, que dimos por seguro que el barco había chocado contra una roca; pero cuando pasó un poco la sorpresa, echamos la sonda y no encontramos fondo... Lo repentino del choque hizo que los cañones saltasen de sus cureñas, algunos de los hombres salieron lanzados de sus hamacas. El capitán Davis, que estaba tendido con la cabeza en un cañón, fue lanzado fuera de su cabina. » Luego Lionel pasa a atribuir el choque a un terremoto, y parece enfriar la atribución afirmando que hacia ese momento un gran terremoto hizo, efectivamente, mucho daño por la tierra española. Pero no me extrañaría mucho que, en la oscuridad de aquella temprana hora de la madrugada, el choque hubiera sido causado, pese a todo, por una ballena que no vieron y que hizo saltar verticalmente el casco desde abajo.

Podría continuar con varios ejemplos más, que he conocido de un modo o de otro, de la gran fuerza y malicia que a veces tiene el cachalote. En más de un caso, se ha sabido que no sólo persiguió las lanchas atacantes haciéndolas volver a los barcos, sino que persiguió al propio barco, resistiendo durante mucho tiempo todas las lanzas que le disparaban desde la cubierta. El barco inglés Pusil Hall puede contar una historia en este apartado, y, en cuanto a su fuerza, permítaseme decir que ha habido ejemplos en que las estachas sujetas a un cachalote fugitivo se han llevado, en tiempo de calma, hasta el barco, amarrándose allí, y el cachalote ha remolcado su gran casco por el agua, como un caballo que echa a andar con un carro. También, se observa muy a menudo que si al cachalote, una vez herido, se le deja tiempo para reponerse, no actúa entonces tanto con cólera ciega cuanto con tercos y deliberados designios de destrucción de sus perseguidores; y no deja de dar alguna indicación elocuente de su carácter el que, al ser atacado, frecuentemente abre la boca y la mantiene con esa terrible apertura durante varios minutos seguidos. Pero debo contentarme con otra ilustración conclusiva, muy notable y , significativa, por la que no dejaréis de ver que el acontecimiento más maravilloso de este libro no sólo queda corroborado por hechos evidentes en los días actuales, sino que esas maravillas (como todas las maravillas) son meras repeticiones a través de las épocas; de modo que por millonésima vez decimos Amén a Salomón: verdaderamente no hay nada nuevo bajo el sol.

En el siglo vi después de Cristo vivió Procopio, un magistrado cristiano de Constantinopla, en los días en que Justiniano era emperador y Belisario general. Como muchos saben, escribió la historia de sus tiempos, obra en todos los sentidos de valor extraordinario. Las mejores autoridades le han considerado siempre historiador fidedigno y sin exageración, salvo en dos o tres detalles, que no afectan en absoluto al asunto que se va a mencionar ahora.

Entonces, en esa historia suya, Procopio menciona que durante el término de su prefectura en Constantinopla, se capturó un gran monstruo marino en el cercano Propontis, o mar de Mármara, después de haber destruido barcos, de vez en cuando, en esas aguas, durante un período de más de cincuenta años. Un hecho anotado así en una historia positiva no puede ser puesto fácilmente en cuestión. Ni hay ninguna razón para que lo sea. No se menciona de qué especie determinada era ese monstruo marino. Pero puesto que destruyó barcos, así como por otras razones, debió de ser una ballena, y me inclino mucho a creer que un cachalote. Y os diré por qué. Durante mucho tiempo, se me antojaba que el cachalote había sido desconocido en el Mediterráneo y en las aguas profundas que comunican con él. Incluso ahora, estoy seguro de que esos mares no son, ni quizá pueden ser nunca, en la actual disposición de las cosas, un lugar donde habitualmente acudan en manada. Pero posteriores investigaciones me han demostrado recientemente que en tiempos modernos ha habido ejemplos aislados de la presencia del cachalote en el Mediterráneo. Me han dicho, con buena autoridad, que en la costa de Berbería cierto comodoro Davis, de la Armada británica, encontró el esqueleto de un cachalote. Ahora, dado que un barco de guerra pasa muy bien por los Dardanelos, según eso, un cachalote, por la misma ruta, podría pasar desde el Mediterráneo al Propontis.

En el Propontis, que yo sepa, no se encuentra nada de esa peculiar sustancia llamada brit, que es el alimento de la ballena propiamente dicha. Pero tengo todas las razones para creer que el alimento del cachalote -el calamar o sepia- se oculta en el fondo de ese mar, porque en su superficie se han encontrado grandes ejemplares, aunque no los más grandes de su especie. Entonces, si reunís adecuadamente estas afirmaciones, y meditáis un poco sobre ellas, percibiréis claramente que, conforme a todo razonamiento humano, el monstruo marino de Procopio, que durante medio. siglo desfondó los barcos del emperador romano, debía de ser con toda probabilidad un cachalote. 

Hipótesis

Aunque, consumido por el cálido fuego de su propósito, Ahab tenía siempre a su vista la captura definitiva de Moby Dick, en todos sus pensamientos y acciones; aunque parecía dispuesto a sacrificar todos los intereses mortales a esa pasión única; sin embargo, quizá ocurría que, por naturaleza y largo hábito, estaba demasiado consustanciado con el feroz modo de ser del ballenero para abandonar del todo el interés colateral del viaje. O al menos, si' era de diverso modo, no faltaban otros motivos con influjo mucho mayor en él. Sería afinar demasiado, quizá aun considerando su monomanía, sugerir que su vengatividad hacia la ballena blanca podía haberse extendido en algún prado a todos los cachalotes, y que cuantos más monstruos mataba, tanto más multiplicaba las probabilidades de que la ballena encontrada a continuación resultase ser, la odiada ballena que perseguía. Pero si tal hipótesis es realmente objetable, había aún consideraciones adicionales que, aunque no estrictamente de acuerdo con la locura de su pasión dominante, no eran de ningún modo incapaces de desviarle.

Para cumplir su objetivo, Ahab debía usar instrumentos; y de todos los instrumentos usados en todo el mundo sublunar, los hombres son los más capaces de estropearse. El sabía, por ejemplo, que por magnético que fuera su ascendiente en muchos aspectos sobre Starbuck, ese ascendiente no cubría toda su humanidad espiritual, por lo mismo que la mera superioridad corporal no implica el dominio intelectual; pues respecto a lo puramente espiritual, lo intelectual está en una suerte de relación corporal. El cuerpo de Starbuck y la coaccionada voluntad de Starbuck eran de Ahab mientras que Ahab mantuviera su magnetismo sobre el cerebro de-Starbuck; pero él sabía, con todo eso, que su primer oficial aborrecía la búsqueda del capitán, y, si pudiera, de buena gana se separaría de ella, o incluso la frustraría. Podría ocurrir que transcurriese un largo intervalo antes que se viera la ballena blanca. Durante ese largo intervalo, Starbuck siempre estaría dispuesto a entrar en abiertas recaídas de rebelión contra el dominio de su capitán, a no ser que se hicieran actuar sobre él ciertas influencias ordinarias, prudentes y circunstanciadas. No solamente eso, sino que la sutil demencia de Ahab respecto a Moby Dick no se manifestaba de modo más significativo que en su superlativa sensatez y astucia al prever que, por el momento, la caza debía despojarse de alguna manera de esa extraña impiedad imaginativa que la revestía por naturaleza: que todo el terror del viaje debía quedar retirado al fondo oscuro (pues pocos hombres tienen un valor a prueba de una prolongada meditación no aliviada por la acción); que, mientras hacían sus largas guardias nocturnas, sus oficiales y marineros debían tener algunas cosas más inmediatas en que pensar que en Moby Dick. Pues por mucho ímpetu y empeño con que la salvaje tripulación hubiera saludado el anuncio de su persecución, sin embargo, todos los marineros de cualquier especie son más o menos caprichosos y poco de fiar -viven en el cambiante tiempo exterior, y aspiran su volubilidad-, y cuando se les retiene para algún objeto remoto y vacío en su persecución, por más que prometa vida y pasión al final, se requiere, más que nada, que intervengan intereses y ocupaciones temporales que les mantengan saludablemente en suspenso para el ataque final.

Y tampoco se olvidaba Ahab de otra cosa. En tiempos de fuerte emoción, la humanidad desdeña todas las consideraciones bajas, pero esos tiempos se desvanecen. « La condición constitucional y permanente del hombre, tal como está fabricado -pensaba Ahab-, es la sordidez. Aun concediendo que la ballena blanca incite plenamente los corazones de esta mi salvaje tripulación, y que, dando vueltas a su salvajismo, llegue incluso a producir en ellos cierta generosidad de caballeros andantes, sin embargo, mientras que por su amor persiguen a Moby Dick, deben también tener alimento para sus apetitos más comunes y cotidianos. Pues aun los elevados y caballerescos cruzados de tiempos antiguos no se contentaban con atravesar dos mil millas de tierra para luchar por su Santo Sepulcro, sin cometer robos, hurtar bolsas, y obtener otras piadosas preparaciones por el camino. Si se hubieran atenido estrictamente a su único y romántico objetivo final, demasiados habrían vuelto la espalda a ese romántico objetivo final. « No despojaré a estos hombres -pensaba Ahab de todas su esperanzas de dinero; sí, dinero. Ahora quizá desprecien el dinero, pero que pasen varios meses sin que tengan en perspectiva una promesa de dinero, y entonces este mismo dinero ahora silencioso se amotinará de repente en ellos, y ese mismo dinero pronto liquidará a Ahab. »

Tampoco faltaba otro motivo de precaución más relacionado personalmente con Ahab. Habiendo revelado, probablemente de modo impulsivo y quizá algo prematuro, el principal, pero personal objetivo del viaje del Pequod Ahab ahora tenía plena conciencia de que, al hacerlo así, se había expuesto indirectamente a la acusación sin respuesta de ser un usurpador; y su tripulación, si así se le antojaba y era capaz de ello, y con perfecta impunidad, moral y legal, podía rehusarle toda sucesiva obediencia, y aun arrancarle violentamente del mando. Desde luego, Ahab debía tener gran afán de protegerse de ser acusado, aun por mera sugestión, de usurpación, y de las posibles consecuencias de que ganara terreno semejante impresión reprimida. Para protegerse no tenía sino su propio cerebro dominante, su corazón y sus manos, respaldados por una atención, vigilante y estrechamente calculadora, hacia toda menuda influencia atmosférica a que fuera posible que se sujetara su tripulación.

Por todas esas razones, pues, y otras quizá demasiado analíticas para desarrollarse aquí verbalmente, Ahab veía claramente que aún debía continuar en buena medida siendo fiel al propósito natural y nominal del viaje del Pequod; observar todos los usos acostumbrados, y, no sólo eso, sino obligarse a evidenciar su conocido interés apasionado en la tarea general de su profesión.

Sea como sea todo esto, su voz se oía ahora a menudo llamando a los tres vigías y exhortándoles a mantener una aguda vigilancia, sin dejar de señalar ni una marsopa. Esa vigilancia no tardó en tener recompensa. 

El esterero

Era una tarde nublada y bochornosa; los marineros vagaban perezosamente por las cubiertas, o miraban con aire ausente a las aguas plomizas. Queequeg y yo estábamos pacíficamente ocupados en tejer lo que se llama una « estera de sable », como amortiguador adicional para nuestra lancha. Tan tranquila y silenciosa era toda la escena, y sin embargo, no sé cómo, tan cargada de presagios, y en el aire flotaba tal hechizo de fiesta, que cada silencioso marinero parecía disuelto en su propio yo invisible.

Yo era el asistente o criado de Queequeg, ocupado en la estera. Mientras pasaba y repasaba el relleno o trama de merlín entre los largos hilos de la urdimbre, usando mi propia mano como lanzadera, y mientras Queequeg puesto de medio lado, de vez en cuando deslizaba su pesado sable de encina entre los hilos, y apartando la mirada ociosamente hacia el agua, descuidado y sin pensar, llevaba a su sitio cada hilo: digo que tan extraño aire de sueño reinaba entonces sobre el barco y sobre todo el mar, sólo roto por el sonido sordo e intermitente del sable, que parecía que aquello fuera el Telar del Tiempo, y yo mismo fuera una lanzadera tejiendo y tejiendo los Hados. Allí estaban los hilos fijos de la urdimbre, sujetos a una única vibración insistente e inalterable, y esa vibración era meramente suficiente para dejar pasar la mezcla entrecruzada de otros hilos con el suyo propio. Esta urdimbre parecía la Necesidad; y aquí, pensaba yo, con mi propia mano paso mi lanzadera y tejo mi destino entre estos hilos inalterables. Mientras tanto, el indiferente e impulsivo sable de Queequeg, a veces golpeando la trama de medio lado, o torcido, o fuerte, o débil, según fuera el caso, y produciendo, con esa indiferencia en el golpe conclusivo, un contraste correspondiente en el aspecto final del tejido terminado; el sable de este salvaje, pensaba yo, que así da forma final y contextura tanto a la urdimbre como a la trama; ese tranquilo e indiferente sable debe ser el Azar: sí, el alar, el libre albedrío, y la necesidad; de ningún modo incompatibles, sino trabajando juntos y entretejidos. La recta trama de la necesidad, que no se ha de desviar de su curso definitivo; pues cada una de sus vibraciones alternantes, en efecto, sólo tiende a esto: el libre albedrío, todavía libre para pasar la lanzadera entre los hilos; y el azar, aunque sujeto en su juego a las líneas rectas de la necesidad, y dirigido lateralmente en sus movimientos por la libre voluntad, aun así prescrito por ambos, los va dirigiendo alternativamente, y da a los acontecimientos el último golpe configurador.

Así tejíamos y tejíamos cuando me sobresalté ante un sonido tan extraño, prolongado y musicalmente salvaje y sobreterrenal, que cayó de mi mano el ovillo de libre albedrío, y me quedé mirando a las nubes de donde bajaba esa voz como un ala. En lo alto de los canes del palo estaba aquel loco Gay-Head, Tashtego. Su cuerpo se echaba ansiosamente hacia delante, y a intervalos breves y súbitos, continuaba sus gritos. Por supuesto, el mismo sonido se oyó quizá en ese mismo momento por los mares, lanzado por centenares de vigías balleneros elevados en el aire, a la misma altura, pero de pocos de esos pulmones podía el viejo grito acostumbrado haber sacado tan maravillosa cadencia como de los de Tashtego el indio.

Al verle cerniéndose por encima, medio suspendido en el aire, escudriñando el horizonte de modo tan loco y ansioso, se le habría creído un profeta o vidente observando las sombras del Hado, y anunciando su llegada con esos locos gritos.

-¡Allí sopla ¡Allí, allí, allí !, ¡sopla, sopla

-¿Por dónde ?

-¡De través a sotavento, a unas dos millas ! ¡Una manada de ellas ! ¬¬

Al momento, todo fue conmoción.

El cachalote sopla como el tictac de un reloj, con la misma uniformidad infalible y segura. Y por eso distinguen los balleneros este pez entre las diferentes tribus de su género.

-¡Allí van colas ! -fue ahora el grito de Tashtego, y las ballenas desaparecieron.

-¡Deprisa, mayordomo ! -gritó Ahab-. ¡La hora, la hora !

Dough-Boy bajó deprisa, lanzó una mirada al reloj e informó a Ahab del minuto exacto.

El barco abatió, y continuó balanceándose suavemente por delante del viento. Como Tashtego informó de que las ballenas se habían sumergido avanzando a sotavento, mirábamos confiados para verlas otra vez delante mismo de nuestra proa. Pues esa singular astucia a veces mostrada por el cachalote cuando, zambulléndose con la cabeza hacia una dirección, sin embargo, mientras está oculto bajo la superficie, da media vuelta y nada rápidamente en sentido opuesto, ese carácter engañoso, ahora no podía estar en acción, pues no había motivo para suponer que los peces vistos por Tashtego estuvieran de ningún modo alarmados, ni en absoluto supieran de nuestra cercanía. Uno de los hombres elegidos para guardar los barcos -es decir, de los que no están designados para las lanchas- relevó entonces al indio en la cofa del palo mayor. Los marineros del trinquete y del palo de mesana habían bajado; se pusieron en su sitio las tinas de estacha; se sacaron las grúas, se dio atrás a la verga mayor, y las tres lanchas se balancearon sobre el mar como tres cestos de hinojo sobre altos acantilados. Fuera de las amuras, sus ansiosas tripulaciones se agarraron con una mano al pasamano, mientras apoyaban expectantemente un pie en la borda. Tal aspecto tiene la larga línea de marineros de un barco de guerra a punto de lanzarse al abordaje de un barco enemigo.

Pero en ese momento crítico se oyó una exclamación repentina que apartó todas las miradas de la ballena. Con un sobresalto, todos fijaron la mirada en el sombrío Ahab, quien estaba rodeado por cinco fantasmas oscuros que parecían recién formados del aire. 

El primer ataque

Los fantasmas, pues eso parecían entonces, daban vueltas por el otro lado de la cubierta, y, con celeridad sin ruido, soltaban las jarcias y amarras de la lancha que allí se balanceaba. Esa lancha siempre se había considerado una de las lanchas de reserva, aunque técnicamente se la llamaba « la del capitán », a causa de que colgaba al lado de estribor. La figura que ahora estaba junto a su proa era alta y sombría, con un solo diente blanco sobresaliendo malignamente de sus labios acerados. Una arrugada chaqueta china de algodón negro le revestía funeralmente, con anchos pantalones negros del mismo material oscuro. Pero coronando extrañamente todo su color de ébano, había un resplandeciente turbante blanco entrelazado, con el pelo vivo, trenzado y retorcido, dando vueltas a la cabeza. Menos sombríos de aspecto, los compañeros de esta figura eran de ese color vívido, de amarillo de tigre, peculiar de algunos de los aborígenes de Manila; una raza famosa por cierto diabolismo de sutileza, y que algunos marineros honrados suponen que son espías pagados y agentes confidenciales y secretos en las aguas, enviados por el demonio, su señor, cuyo despacho suponen que está en otro sitio.

Mientras la interrogativa tripulación del barco miraba a aquellos desconocidos, Ahab gritó al viejo de turbante blanco que iba a la cabeza de ellos:

-¿Todos dispuestos, Fedallah ?

-Dispuestos -fue la respuesta medio siseada. -Botes al agua, entonces, ¿oís ? -gritando a través de la cubierta-. Botes al agua ahí, digo.

Tal fue el trueno de su voz, que a pesar de su asombro, los hombres saltaron sobre el pasamanos, las roldanas dieron vueltas como torbellinos en los motones, y con un chapuzón, las tres lanchas cayeron al mar, mientras, con diestra y tranquila osadía, desconocida en cualquier otra profesión, los marineros, como machos cabríos, se dejaban caer de un brinco desde el costado balanceante del barco a las agitadas lanchas de abajo.

Apenas habían remado hasta salir de sotavento de la nave, cuando una cuarta quilla, viniendo del lado de barlovento, bogó dando la vuelta bajo la popa y mostró a los cinco desconocidos remando con Ahab, quien, de pie en la popa, gritaba ruidosamente a Starbuck, Stubb y Flask que se dispersaran mucho para cubrir una gran extensión de mar. Pero con todos sus ojos clavados en el sombrío Fedallah y su tripulación, los marineros de las otras lanchas no obedecieron la orden.

-¿Capitán Ahab... ? -dijo Starbuck.

-Dispérsense -gritó Ahab-: dejen sitio, las cuatro lanchas. ¡Tú, Flask, echa más a sotavento !

-Sí, sí, capitán -gritó animosamente el pequeño « Puntal » haciendo girar su gran remo de gobernalle-. ¡Atrás ! -dirigiéndose a su tripulación-. ¡Ahí, ahí !, ¡ahí otra vez ! ¡Ahí delante mismo está soplando, muchachos ! ¡Atrás !

-No te preocupes de esos tipos amarillos, Archy.

-¡Ah, no me importan, señor ! -dijo Archy-: ya lo sabía todo antes de ahora. ¿No los había oído en la bodega ? ¿Y no se lo dije, aquí, a Cabaco ? ¿Qué dices tú, Cabaco ? Son polizones, señor Flask.

-¡Remad, remad, mis queridos valientes; remad, hijos míos; remad, pequeños ! -gruñó y suspiró mimoso Stubb a los de su tripulación, algunos de los cuales todavía mostraban señales de intranquilidad-. ¿Por qué no os rompéis los espinazos, muchachos ? ¿Qué os quemáis mirando ? ¿Aquellos muchachos de ese bote ? ¡Chist ! Solamente son cinco hombres más que han venido a ayudarnos; no importa de dónde; cuanto más, más contentos. Remad, entonces, remad; no os preocupéis del azufre; los demonios son bastante buenos chicos. Ea, ea, ea, ya estamos; ése es el golpe, por mil libras; ¡ése es el golpe para llevarse la partida ! ¡Hurra por la copa de oro de aceite de ballena, mis héroes ! Tres hurras, muchachos; ¡ánimo todos ! Tranquilos, tranquilos, no tengáis prisa. ¿Por qué no partís los remos, bribones ? ¡Morded algo, perros ! Ea, ea, ea, ahora; suave, suave. ¡Eso es, eso es ! Largo y fuerte. ¡Dejad sitio ahí, dejad sitio ! ¡El diablo os lleve, bribones andrajosos; estáis dormidos todos ! Dejad de roncar, dormilones, y remad. Remad, ¿queréis ? Remad, ¿no sabéis ? Remad, remad ¿vamos allá ? En el nombre de los gobios y los pasteles de jengibre, ¿no remáis ? Remad y romped algo; remad, sacaos los ojos. ¡Vamos ! -sacando del cinto el afilado cuchillo-: que cada hijo de su madre saque el cuchillo, y reme con la hoja entre los dientes. Eso es..., eso es. Ahora, haced algo; esto ya tiene buen aspecto, mis pedacitos de acero. ¡Dadle fuerte, dadle fuerte, mis cucharitas de plata ! ¡Dadle fuerte, pedazos de pasadores !

Se da aquí por extenso el exordio de Stubb a su tripulación por que tenía en general un modo bastante peculiar de hablarles, y en especial al inculcarles la religión del remo. Pero no se ha de suponer por esta muestra de sus sermones que alguna vez se lanzara a furores completos con su feligresía. De ningún modo; y en eso consistía su principal peculiaridad. Decía a su tripulación las cosas más terroríficas en un tono tan extrañamente compuesto de broma y furia, y la furia parecía tan meramente calculada como condimento para la broma, que ningún remero podía oír tan extrañas invocaciones sin remar como cosa de vida o muerte, y sin embargo remando por el simple chiste del asunto. Además, todo el tiempo tenía él mismo un aire tan tranquilo e indolente, y manejaba con tal ocio su remo de gobernalle, y bostezaba tan largo -a veces quedándose con la boca abierta-, que la mera visión de semejante jefe bostezante, por pura fuerza de contraste, actuaba como un encantamiento sobre la tripulación. Además, Stubb era de esa extraña clase de humoristas cuya jovialidad a veces es cruelmente ambigua, como para poner en guardia a todos los inferiores en el asunto de obedecerle.

Obedeciendo a una señal de Ahab, Starbuck ahora bogaba oblicuamente por delante de la proa de Stubb, y cuando, durante cerca de un minuto, las dos lanchas estuvieron bastante próximas una de otra, Stubb gritó al oficial:

-¡Señor Starbuck, lancha a babor, eh !; ¡una palabra con usted, por favor !

-¡Hola ! -replicó Starbuck, sin volverse una sola pulgada al hablar, y todavía apremiando a su tripulación con empeño, pero en un susurro, y la cara apartada de la de Stubb, fija como un pedernal.

-¿Qué piensa de esos muchachos amarillos, señor Starbuck ?

-Entraron a bordo de contrabando, no sé cómo, antes que zarpara el barco. (¡Fuerte, fuerte, muchachos !) -en un susurro a la tripulación, y luego volviendo a hablar alto-: ¡Un triste asunto, señor Stubb ! (¡Dadle, dadle, chicos ! ), pero no se preocupe, señor Stubb, todo será para bien. Que toda su tripulación reme fuerte, pase lo que pase. (¡Pegad, hombres, pegad !) Hay bocoyes de aceite por delante, señor Stubb, y a eso es a lo que vinimos. (¡Remad, muchachos !) ¡Aceite, aceite es el juego ! Esto por lo menos es obligación: obligación y ganancia de la mano.

-Sí, sí, eso pensé yo -soliloquizó Stubb, al separarse los botes-; en cuanto les eché el ojo, lo pensé. Sí, y a eso es a lo que él bajaba tanto a la bodega, como sospechaba hace mucho Dough-Boy. Estaban escondidos allá abajo. La ballena blanca está en el fondo de esto. ¡Bueno, bueno, sea así ! ¡No se puede remediar ! ¡Dejad sitio !

Ahora, la aparición de esos exóticos desconocidos en tan crítico instante como el de arriar los botes de cubierta, había despertado no sin razón una especie de desconcierto supersticioso en algunos de la tripulación del barco, pero como el imaginado descubrimiento de Archy se había difundido entre ellos hacía algún tiempo, aunque desde luego sin que le dieran crédito, eso les había preparado para el acontecimiento en cierta pequeña medida. Les había embotado el filo del asombro, y así, con todo esto y con el modo confiado de Stubb de explicar su aparición, quedaron por el momento libres de hipótesis supersticiosas, aunque el asunto aún dejaba lugar abundante para toda clase de desatadas conjeturas en cuanto a la exacta intervención de Ahab en el asunto desde el principio. En cuanto a mí, recordaba silenciosamente las misteriosas sombras que vi deslizarse a bordo del Pequod durante el opaco amanecer en Nantucket, así como las enigmáticas sugerencias del inexplicable Elías.

Mientras tanto, Ahab, fuera del alcance del oído de sus oficiales, por haberse desviado lo más posible a barlovento, todavía llevaba la delantera a las otras lanchas, circunstancias que proclamaba qué poderosa tripulación le impulsaba. Aquellas criaturas de amarillo atigrado parecían todas de acero y ballena; como cinco martinetes, se levantaban y bajaban con golpes regulares de energía, que intermitentemente sacudían la lancha a lo largo del agua, como la caldera de transmisión horizontal en un vapor del Mississippi. En cuanto a Fedallah, a quien se veía tirando del remo de arponero, había echado a un lado su chaqueta negra, exhibiendo desnudo el pecho con toda la parte entera de su cuerpo que quedaba por encima de la borda, claramente recortada sobre las depresiones alternativas del horizonte acuático, mientras al otro extremo de la lancha, Ahab, con un solo brazo, igual que un esgrimidor, medio echado para atrás en el aire, como para contrapesar cualquier tendencia a volcarse, aparecía manejando; con firmeza su remo de gobernalle igual que en otras mil bajadas al mar antes que la ballena blanca le hubiera destrozado. De repente su brazo extendido hizo un movimiento peculiar y luego quedó fijo, mientras se veía que los cinco remos de la lancha se erguían simultáneamente. La lancha y la tripulación quedaron inmóviles en el mar. Al momento, las tres lanchas dispersas a retaguardia se detuvieron en su camino. Las ballenas se habían sumergido irregularmente en el azul, sin dar así señal de su movimiento que fuera discernible a lo lejos, aunque Ahab lo había notado por su mayor cercanía.

-¡Cada cual mire siguiendo sus remos ! -gritó Starbuck-. Tú, Queequeg, ponte de pie.

Poniéndose ágilmente de un salto en la caja triangular elevada en la proa, el salvaje se quedó allí erguido, y con ojos intensamente serios lanzó su mirada hacia el lugar donde se habían señalado por última vez sus presas. Igualmente, en el extremo de la popa, donde había también una plataforma triangular al nivel de la borda, se vio al propio Starbuck, con frialdad y destreza, equilibrándose entre las convulsivas oscilaciones de su cáscara de nuez, y observando cara a cara en silencio la vasta mirada azul del mar.

No muy lejos, también la lancha de Flask estaba en reposo y como sin aliento, con su jefe descuidadamente de pie en el bolardo, una especie de poste recio, con base en la quilla, que se eleva un par de pies por encima del nivel de la plataforma de popa. Se usa para dar vuelta en torno a él en la estacha de la ballena. Su extremo no es más ancho que la palma de la mano de un hombre, y, al ponerse de pie en una base como ésa, Flask parecía encaramado sobre el mastelerillo de un barco que se hubiera hundido entero menos las perillas de los palos. Pero el pequeño « Puntal » era pequeño y bajo, y al mismo tiempo, el pequeño « Puntal » estaba lleno de grande y alta ambición, de modo que aquel punto de apoyo en el bolardo no satisfacía en absoluto a « Puntal ».

-No puedo ver más allá de tres olas: vamos a poner de pie un remo aquí, y yo me subiré.

Ante esto, Daggoo, con las manos en la borda para apoyarse en el camino, se deslizó rápidamente a popa, y entonces, irguiéndose, ofreció sus elevados hombros como pedestal.

-Una cofa tan buena como otra cualquiera, señor Flask. ¿Quiere subir ?

-Ya lo creo, y muchas gracias, mi buen amigo; sólo que me gustaría que fueras cincuenta pies más alto.

Entonces, plantado firmemente con los pies contra dos tablas opuestas de la lancha, el gigantesco negro se agachó un poco, presentó la palma de la mano extendida al pie de Flask, y luego, poniendo la mano de Flask en su cabeza con penacho de plumas y pidiéndole que saltara cuando él le empujara, de un solo golpe diestro hizo al hombrecito posarse sano y salvo en sus hombros. Y allí estaba ahora Flask, mientras Daggoo, con un brazo elevado, le proporcionaba un parapeto en que apoyarse y afirmarse.

En cualquier momento, es para un novicio un extraño espectáculo ver con qué sorprendente costumbre de habilidad inconsciente mantiene el cazador de ballenas una postura vertical en la lancha, aun sacudido por los mares más amotinadamente perversos y entrecruzados. Aún más extraño es el verle aturdidamente encaramado en el propio bolardo en tales circunstancias. Pero el espectáculo del pequeño Flask subido en el gigantesco Daggoo era aún más curioso, pues, sosteniéndose con una majestad fría, indiferente, cómoda y sin preocupaciones, el noble negro mecía armoniosamente su hermosa figura a cada balanceo del mar. En su ancha espalda, Flask, con su pelo rubio, parecía un copo de nieve. La montura parecía más noble que el jinete. Aunque el pequeño Flask, verdaderamente vivaz, tumultuoso y ostentoso, de vez en cuando pataleaba de impaciencia, no daba con eso ningún empujón adicional al señorial pecho del negro. Igual he visto a la Pasión y la Vanidad pataleando sobre la magnánima tierra viva, sin que la tierra alterase por ello sus mareas ni sus estaciones.

Mientras tanto Stubb, el tercer oficial, no manifestaba tales afanes de mirar a larga distancia. Quizá las ballenas habrían dado una de sus zambullidas normales, no sumergiéndose temporalmente por simple susto, y por si ése era el caso, Stubb, como parece que tenía por costumbre en tales ocasiones, había decidido entretener el enervante intervalo con su pipa. La sacó de la cinta del sombrero, donde la llevaba siempre al sesgo como una pluma. La cargó, y atacó la carga con el pulgar, pero apenas había encendido el fósforo pasándolo por el áspero papel de lija de su mano, cuando Tashtego, su arponero, cuyos ojos estaban fijos a barlovento como dos estrellas fijas, se dejó caer, con la velocidad de la luz, abandonando su actitud erguida para sentarse, y exclamó en vivo frenesí de apresuramiento: -¡Abajo, abajo todos, y adelante ! ¡Ahí están !

Para un hombre de tierra adentro, en ese momento no habrían sido visibles ni ballenas ni señales de arenques; nada sino una mancha turbia de agua verdiblanca y sutiles vahos dispersos de vapor cerniéndose sobre ella y deshaciéndose con el viento hacia sotavento, como el confuso celaje de las agitadas olas blancas. El aire, de repente, vibró alrededor y retiñó, por decirlo así, como aire sobre planchas de hierro muy caliente. Bajo esas ondas y rizos de la atmósfera, y en parte también bajo una delgada capa de agua, nadaban las ballenas. Vistos por delante de toda otra indicación, los vahos de vapor que lanzaban parecían sus heraldos precursores, sus batidores destacados a galope.

Las cuatro lanchas estaban ya en afanosa persecución de aquel único punto de agua y aire turbios. Pero éste se empeñaba en dejarlas atrás; volaba y volaba, como una masa de burbujas entremezclada al ser arrastrada por un rápido torrente de los montes.

-Remad, remad, mis buenos chicos -decía Starbuck a sus hombres, en el susurro más bajo posible, pero más intensamente concentrado, mientras la mirada, aguda y fija, de sus ojos se disparaba derecha por delante de la proa, casi semejante a un par de agujas visibles en dos infalibles brújulas de bitácora. No dijo mucho a su tripulación, sin embargo, ni tampoco su tripulación le decía nada. Sólo el silencio de la lancha era roto, a intervalos, de modo sobresaltador, por uno de sus peculiares susurros, unas veces ásperos, al dar órdenes, otras veces suaves, al rogar.

¡Qué diferente el ruidoso y pequeño « Puntal » ! -¡Gritad y decid algo, queridos míos ! ¡Rugid y remad, relámpagos míos ! Encalladme, encalladme en sus lomos negros, muchachos; hacedlo por mí, y yo os dejaré en testamento la plantación en Marth's Vineyard, chicos; incluyendo mujer e hijos. ¡Atracadme allí, atracadme ! ¡Oh, Señor, Señor, pero me voy a poner loco de remate, de atar ! ¡Mirad, mirad esta agua blanca ! Y gritando así, se quitó el sombrero de la cabeza, y lo pisoteó; luego, recogiéndolo, lo tiró al mar, bien lejos; y finalmente, se puso a dar saltos y corvetas en la popa de la lancha como un potro enloquecido en la pradera.

-Mirad ahora a ese muchacho -gruñó filosóficamente Stubb, que, con su corta pipa sin encender sujeta maquinalmente entre los dientes, le seguía a poca distancia-: Le entran ataques a ese Flask. ¿Ataques ? Sí, dadle ataques, ésa es la palabra: echadle ataques encima. Alegres, alegres, con ánimo. Hay pastel de cena, ya sabéis; alegres, eso es. Remad, muchachos; remad, cachorritos; remad todos. Pero ¿para qué demonios os dais tanta prisa ? Suavecito, suavecito y firme, hombre. Sólo remad y seguid remando; nada más. Partíos todos los espinazos, y romped en dos los cuchillos de un mordisco, eso es todo. Tomadlo con calma: ¡por qué no lo tomáis con calma, digo, y echáis fuera todos los hígados y los pulmones !

Pero en cuanto a lo que decía el inescrutable Ahab a su tripulación de amarillo de tigre... esas palabras es mejor que se omitan aquí, pues vivís bajo la luz bendita de la tierra evangélica. Sólo los tiburones infieles de los mares audaces pueden prestar oído a palabras como aquellas con que, con frente de ciclón y ojos de crimen rojo, y labios pegados por la espuma, Ahab saltaba tras su presa.

Mientras tanto, todas las lanchas se abrían paso. Las repetidas alusiones específicas de Flask a « esa ballena », como llamaba el ficticio monstruo que declaraba que le atraía la proa del barco con la cola; esas alusiones suyas, a veces, eran tan vívidas y semejantes a la realidad, que hacían que uno o dos de sus hombres lanzaran una mirada temerosa por encima del hombro. Pero eso iba contra todas las reglas; pues los remeros deben sacarse los ojos y meterse un asador por el cuello, por decretar la costumbre que, en esos momentos cruciales, no deben tener más órganos que los oídos, ni más miembros que los brazos.

¡Era un espectáculo lleno de prodigio vivo y de temor ! Las vastas hinchazones del mar omnipotente; el rugido hueco y explosivo que hacían, al pasar a lo largo de las ocho bordas, como gigantescas bolas en una ilimitada bolera de césped; la breve angustia suspensa de la lancha, como si por un momento se fuera a volcar en el filo de cuchillo de las olas más agudas, que casi parecían amenazar cortarla en dos; la súbita zambullida repentina en los valles y oquedades del agua; las apremiantes incitaciones y estímulos a ganar la cima de la colina de enfrente; el deslizarse boca abajo, como en trineo, por el otro lado; todas estas cosas, con los gritos de los jefes y los arponeros, y los estremecidos jadeos de los remeros, y la prodigiosa visión del marfileño Pequod siguiendo a sus lanchas con las velas tendidas, como una gallina sobresaltada tras la pollada gritadora; todo eso era emocionante. Ni el recluta bisoño, saliendo del abrazo de su mujer hacia el calor febril de su primera batalla; ni el espíritu de un muerto al encontrar al primer fantasma desconocido en el otro mundo, ninguno de éstos puede sentir más fuertes y más extrañas emociones que el hombre que por primera vez se encuentra remando en el hirviente círculo mágico del cachalote perseguido.

El agua blanca en danza que se formaba en la persecución, ahora se iba haciendo más visible, debido a la creciente tenebrosidad de las negruzcas sombras que las nubes proyectaban sobre el mar. Los chorros de vapor ya no se mezclaban, sino que doblaban por todas partes a derecha e izquierda; las ballenas parecían separar sus estelas. Los botes se separaron remando, y Starbuck persiguió a tres ballenas que corrían derechas a sotavento. Izamos ahora la vela, y, con viento siempre en aumento nos precipitamos adelante; la lancha avanzaba tan locamente por el agua, que casi no se podían manejar los remos de sotavento tan deprisa como para evitar que fueran arrancados de las chumaceras.

Pronto corrimos por un difuso y ancho velo de niebla; no se veían ni lancha ni barco.

-Adelante, muchachos -susurró Starbuck, echando más a popa la escota de su vela-: todavía hay tiempo de cazar un pez antes que llegue el chubasco. ¡Allí hay otra vez agua blanca !, ¡acercaos ! ¡Saltad !

Poco después, dos gritos en rápida sucesión, a cada lado de nosotros, denotaron que las otras lanchas habían hecho presa, pero apenas las habíamos oído, cuando con un susurro disparado como un relámpago, Starbuck dijo: « ¡De pie ! », y Queequeg, arpón en mano, se puso en pie de un salto.

Aunque ninguno de los remeros entonces daba la cara al peligro de vida o muerte que tenían tan cerca, sin embargo, con los ojos en la tensa expresión del oficial en la popa de la lancha, supieron que había llegado el momento decisivo, y oyeron también un enorme ruido de revolverse, como si cincuenta elefantes se removiesen en la paja de dormir. Mientras tanto, la lancha seguía disparada a través de la neblina, con las olas rizándose y siseando a nuestro alrededor como crestas erguidas de serpientes coléricas.

-Esa es la joroba. ¡Ahí, ahí, dale ! -susurró Starbuck.

Un breve ruido zumbante salió disparado de la lancha: era el hierro lanzado de Queequeg. Entonces, en una sola conmoción mezclada, vino por la popa un empujón invisible, mientras la lancha, a proa, parecía chocar con un arrecife: la vela se hundió y estalló; un borbotón de vapor abrasador brotó muy cerca disparado; algo rodó y se agitó como un terremoto debajo de nosotros. La tripulación entera quedó medio sofocada al ser lanzada en confusión entre la blanca espuma cuajada de aquel huracán. El chubasco, la ballena y el arpón se habían fundido, y la ballena meramente arañada por el hierro, se había escapado.

Aunque completamente inundada, la lancha estaba casi intacta. Nadando alrededor de ella recogimos los remos que flotaban, y, echándolos adentro por la borda, volvimos a desplomarnos en nuestros puestos. Teníamos mar hasta las rodillas, con el agua cubriendo toda tabla y toda cuaderna, de modo que, para nuestros ojos, mirando hacia abajo, la embarcación en suspenso parecía una lancha de coral que creciera hasta nosotros desde el fondo del océano.

El viento aumentó hasta ser un aullido; las olas entrechocaron sus escudos: el chubasco entero rugió, se dividió y crepitó en torno a nosotros como un fuego blanco por la pradera, en que ardíamos sin consumirnos; ¡inmortales en esas mandíbulas de muerte ! En vano gritamos a las otras lanchas; gritar a esos botes en la tormenta era igual que rugir a los carbones encendidos desde lo alto de la chimenea de una fundición llameante. Mientras tanto, los crecientes celajes, nubes y neblinas, se oscurecían cada vez más con las sombras de la noche: no se podía ver señal del barco. El mar, cada vez más fuerte, impedía todos los intentos de achicar la lancha. Los remos eran inútiles para impulsar, realizando ahora funciones de salvavidas. Así, cortando las ataduras del barrilillo impermeable de fósforos, después de varios fracasos, Starbuck se las arregló para encender la lámpara de la linterna, y luego, elevándola en un palo desprendido, se la entregó a Queequeg como abanderado de esta esperanza desesperada. Allí, pues, se sentó éste, elevando aquella imbécil candela en el corazón de aquella todopoderosa desolación. Allí, pues, se sentó, signo y símbolo de un hombre sin fe, elevando desesperadamente la esperanza en medio de la desesperación.

Mojados, calados y tiritando de frío, desesperando de barco o de lancha, elevamos nuestras miradas cuando llegó el alba. Con la niebla todavía extendida por el mar, la linterna vacía quedaba aplastada en el fondo de la lancha. De repente, Queequeg se puso en pie de un salto, ahuecando la mano junto al oído. Todos oímos un leve crujido, como de jarcias y vergas, hasta entonces sofocado por la tormenta. El sonido se acercó cada vez más: las densas nieblas quedaron vagamente divididas por una enorme forma imprecisa. Asustados, nos echamos todos al agua, mientras por fin el barco aparecía, dirigiéndose derecho hacia nosotros a una distancia no mucho mayor que su longitud.

Flotando en las olas, vimos la lancha abandonada que por un momento era zarandeada y abierta bajo la proa del barco como una astilla al pie de una catarata; y luego el enorme casco pasó sobre ella, y no se la vio hasta que subió revolcada a popa. Otra vez nadamos a ella, y fuimos lanzados contra ella por las olas, y por fin fuimos recogidos y llevados a bordo sanos y salvos. Antes que llegase el chubasco, las otras lanchas se habían separado de sus ballenas, volviendo a tiempo al barco. El barco nos había dado por perdidos, pero seguía todavía navegando por allí a ver si por casualidad tropezaba con algún rastro de nuestra perdición, un remo o un palo de lanza. 

La hiena

Hay ciertas extrañas ocasiones y coyunturas en este raro asunto entremezclado que llamamos vida, en que uno toma el entero universo por una enorme broma pesada, aunque no llega a discernirle su gracia sino vagamente, y tiene algo más que sospechas de que la broma no es a expensas sino de él mismo. Con todo, no hay nada que desanime, y nada parece valer la pena de discutirse. Uno se traga todos los acontecimientos, todos los credos y convicciones, todos los objetos duros, visibles e invisibles, por nudosos que sean, igual que un avestruz de potente digestión engulle las balas y los pedernales de escopeta. En cuanto a las pequeñas dificultades y preocupaciones, perspectivas de desastre súbito, pérdida de vida o de algún miembro, todas estas cosas, y la muerte misma, sólo le parecen a uno golpes bromistas y de buen carácter, y joviales puñetazos en el costado propinados por el viejo bromista invisible e inexplicable. Esta extraña especie de humor caprichoso de que hablo, le sobreviene a uno solamente en algún momento de tribulación extrema; le llega en el mismísimo centro de su seriedad, de modo que lo que un poco antes podía haber parecido una cosa de más peso, ahora no parece más que parte de una broma general. No hay cosa como los peligros de la pesca de la ballena para engendrar esta especie, libre y tranquila, de filosofía genial del desesperado; y con ella yo consideraba ahora todo este viaje del Pequod y la gran ballena blanca que era su objetivo.

-Queequeg -dije, después que me arrastraron a mí, en último lugar, a la, cubierta, y cuando todavía me sacudía con el chaquetón para quitarme el agua-: Queequeg, mi buen amigo, ¿ocurren muy a menudo este tipo de cosas ? Sin mucha emoción, aunque calado igual que yo, me dio a entender que tales cosas ocurrían muy a menudo.

-Señor Stubb --dije, volviéndome a ese ilustre personaje, que, abotonado hasta el cuello en su capote aceitado fumaba tranquilamente su pipa bajo la lluvia-, señor Stubb, creo haberle oído decir que, de todos los cazadores de ballenas que ha conocido usted, nuestro primer oficial, el señor Starbuck, es con mucho el más cuidadoso y prudente. ¿He de suponer, entonces, que echarse de golpe contra una ballena que huye, con la vela desplegada, entre un chubasco con niebla, es la cima de la discreción de un cazador de ballenas ?

-Por supuesto. Yo he arriado la lancha para perseguir ballenas en un buque que hacía agua, en medio de una galerna a lo largo del cabo de Hornos.

-Señor Flask -dije, volviéndome al pequeño « Puntal », que estaba allí cerca-, usted es experto en estas cosas, y yo no. ¿Me quiere decir si es ley inalterable en estas pesquerías, señor Flask, que un remero se parta el espinazo remando de espaldas para meterse en la boca de la muerte ?

-¿No lo puede decir más sencillo ? -dijo Flask-. Sí, ésta es la ley. Me gustaría ver a la tripulación de un bote dando marcha atrás por el agua hacia una ballena, con la cara para delante. Ja, ja !, la ballena les devolvería el bizqueo, ¡fíjese bien !

Allí entonces, de tres testigos imparciales, tenía una circunstanciada declaración sobre todo el asunto. Considerando, pues, que los huracanes y vuelcos en el agua y consiguientes vivaqueos en las profundidades eran asuntos que ocurrían comúnmente en esta clase de vida; considerando que el instante superlativamente crítico de lanzarnos del que gobernaba la lancha -a menudo un tipo que, en ese mismo momento, está a punto, a fuerza de ímpetu, de hacer un escotillón en la lancha con sus frenéticos pataleos-; considerando que el desastre ocurrido precisamente a nuestra precisa lancha se había de atribuir principalmente a que Starbuck se lanzó contra su ballena casi en las fauces de un chubasco, y considerando que, a pesar de eso, Starbuck era famoso por su gran cuidado en la pesca; considerando que yo pertenecía a la lancha de ese Starbuck tan insólitamente prudente; y, por último, considerando en qué persecución diabólica me había metido, respecto a la ballena blanca; tomando todas estas cosas juntas, digo, pensé que bien podría bajar a hacer un borrador de mi testamento. -Queequeg -dije-, ven conmigo y serás mi notario, albacea y heredero.

Puede parecer extraño que los marineros, más que nadie, anden enredando con sus últimas voluntades y testamentos, pero no hay en el mundo gente más aficionada a esta diversión. Era la cuarta vez en mi vida náutica que había hecho esto mismo. En la actual ocasión, una vez que estuvo concluida la ceremonia, me sentí mucho mejor; se me había quitado una piedra de encima del pecho. Además, todos los días que ahora viviera serían tan buenos como los días que vivió Lázaro después de su resurrección; una ganancia en limpio suplementaria de tantos meses o semanas como hubiera de ser. Me sobrevivía a mí mismo; mi muerte y mi entierro estaban encerrados en mi pecho. Miré a mi alrededor con tranquilidad y satisfacción, como un espíritu tranquilo, con la conciencia limpia, sentado entre las rejas de un confortable panteón de familia.

« Ahora, pues -pensaba yo, remangándome distraídamente el blusón-, vamos allá en frío y atentamente, a una zambullida en la muerte y la destrucción, y al último que se lo lleve el diablo. » 

La lancha y la tripulación de Ahab. Fedallah

-¡Quién lo habría pensado, Flask ! -gritó Stubb-: si yo no tuviera más que una pierna, no me sorprenderían en una lancha, a no ser, quizá, para tapar el agujero del tapón con mi dedo gordo de palo. ¡Ah, es un viejo admirable !

-Yo no lo creo tan extraño, después de todo, en ese aspecto -dijo Flask-. Si la pierna estuviera montada hasta la cadera, entonces sería cosa diferente. Eso le incapacitaría; pero le queda una rodilla, y buena parte de la otra, ya sabe.

-No lo sé, amiguito; nunca le he visto arrodillarse.

Entre los que entienden de ballenas, se ha discutido a menudo si, considerando la suprema importancia de su vida para el éxito del viaje, el capitán de un barco ballenero hace bien en poner en riesgo esa vida en los peligros activos de la persecución. Así, los soldados de Tamerlán muchas veces discutían, con lágrimas en los ojos, si esa inapreciable vida suya debía ser llevada a lo más espeso de la pelea.

Pero con Ahab la cuestión tomaba un aspecto modificado. Considerando que, aun con dos piernas, el hombre no es más que un ser renqueante en todos los tiempos de peligro; considerando que la persecución de las ballenas siempre tiene grandes y extraordinarias dificultades, y que cada momento concreto, en efecto, comprende un peligro, en tales circunstancias, ¿es sensato que un hombre mutilado entre en una lancha ballenera para la persecución ? En general, los copropietarios del Pequod debían haber pensado francamente que no.

Ahab sabía muy bien que, aunque a sus amigos de la patria no les importaría mucho que entrase en una lancha en ciertas vicisitudes relativamente inocuas de la persecución, con el fin de estar cerca de la escena y dar en persona las órdenes, sin embargo, en cuanto a que el capitán Ahab tuviera una lancha efectivamente reservada para él, como uno de los jefes normales en la persecución -y sobre todo, en cuanto a que el capitán Ahab estuviera provisto de cinco hombres extra, como tripulación de dicha lancha-, él sabía muy bien que tan generosos conceptos jamás habían entrado en las cabezas de los propietarios del Pequod. Por consiguiente, no les había pedido una tripulación de lancha, ni había sugerido de ningún modo sus deseos en ese aspecto. No obstante, había tomado sus propias medidas particulares respecto a todo ese asunto. Hasta que se divulgó el descubrimiento de Cabaco, los marineros lo habían previsto muy poco, aunque, desde luego, al estar un tanto fuera del puerto, y al concluir todos los hombres la acostumbrada ocupación de preparar las lanchas balleneras para el servicio, cuando algún tiempo después se encontró de vez en cuando a Ahab afanándose en la cuestión de hacer toletes con sus propias manos para lo que se creía que era una de las lanchas de repuesto, e incluso cortando solícitamente las pequeñas puntas de madera que, cuando corre la estacha, se clavan en la ranura de proa; cuando se observó todo eso en él, y especialmente su solicitud por que se pusiera una capa más de revestimiento en el fondo de la lancha, como para hacer que resistiera mejor la presión puntiaguda de su pierna de marfil, y asimismo la ansiedad que evidenciaba al dar forma exacta a la tabla para el muslo, o castañuela, o galápago, como se llama a veces a esa pieza horizontal en la proa de la lancha para apoyar la rodilla al disparar el arpón o dar tajos a la ballena; cuando se observó que a menudo estaba en ese bote con su rodilla única fija en la depresión semicircular de la castañuela, o arrancando, con el formón del carpintero, un poco de allí y alisando un poco de aquí; todas esas cosas, digo, habían despertado entonces mucho interés y curiosidad. Pero casi todo el mundo supuso que esa particular atención de Ahab en los preparativos debía ser sólo con vistas a la persecución definitiva de Moby Dick, pues ya había revelado su intención de dar caza en persona a ese monstruo mortal. Pero tal suposición no implicaba en absoluto la más remota sospecha de que hubiera ninguna tripulación asignada a aquella lancha.

Ahora, con sus fantasmas subordinados, lo que quedaba de asombro se disipó pronto, pues en un barco ballenero los asombros se desvanecen pronto. Además, de vez en cuando se presentan tan inexplicables restos y sobras de naciones raras, saliendo de desconocidos rincones y agujeros de ceniza de la tierra, para tripular a esos proscritos flotantes que son los barcos balleneros; y los barcos mismos a menudo recogen tan extrañas criaturas de desecho, que se encuentran flotando en alta mar sobre tablas, restos de remos rotos, lanchas balleneras, canoas, juncos japoneses asolados por el huracán, y cualquier otra cosa, que el propio Belcebú podría trepar por el costado y bajar a la cabina a charlar con el capitán sin crear en el castillo de proa ninguna excitación irreprimible.

Pero, sea como sea todo esto, lo cierto es que mientras los fantasmas subordinados pronto encontraron su lugar entre la tripulación, por más que como si fueran algo, no se sabe cómo, distinto de ellos, sin embargo, aquel Fedallah del pelo en turbante siguió siendo hasta el fin un misterio. Nadie sabía de dónde venía a un mundo bien educado como el nuestro, ni por qué clase de vínculo inexplicable pronto evidenció estar unido a la suerte personal de Ahab; más aún, hasta el punto de tener una suerte de influencia medio sugerida, o, el cielo lo sabe, quizá hasta con autoridad sobre él; pero nadie podía asumir aire de indiferencia respecto a Fedallah. Era una criatura tal como la gente civilizada y doméstica de la zona templada sólo ve en sus sueños, y aun eso vagamente; pero cuyos semejantes se deslizan de vez en cuando entre las inmutables comunidades asiáticas, especialmente en las islas orientales, al este del continente esos países aislados, inmemoriales, inalterables, que, aun en los días actuales, conservan mucho de la espectral condición aborigen de las generaciones prístinas de la tierra, cuando la memoria del primer hombre era un recuerdo claro, y todos los hombres, descendientes suyos, no sabiendo de dónde había venido él, se miraban unos a otros como auténticos fantasmas, y preguntaban al sol y a la luna por qué habían sido creados y para qué fin: cuando, además de que, según el Génesis, los ángeles mismos se casaron con las hijas de los hombres, también los demonios, según añaden los rabinos no canónicos, se permitieron amoríos mundanales. 

El chorro fantasma

Pasaron días y semanas, y marchando a poca vela, el ebúrneo Pequod había cruzado lentamente a través de cuatro diversos parajes de pesquería: el situado a lo largo de las Azores; el de a lo largo de Cabo Verde; el de la Plata, así llamado por estar a la altura de la desembocadura del río de la Plata; y el Carrol Ground, un abierto coto marino al sur de Santa Elena.

Al deslizarse por estas últimas aguas, una noche serena y con mucha luna, en que todas las olas pasaban como rodillos de plata, y con sus suaves hervores difundidos formaban algo que parecía un silencio plateado, y no una soledad; en tal noche callada, se vio un chorro plateado muy por delante de las burbujas blancas de la proa. Iluminado por la luna, parecía celestial; parecía un dios emplumado y centelleante que se alzara del mar. Fedallah fue el primero en señalar ese chorro. Pues, en esas noches de luna, tenía costumbre de subir a la cofa del palo mayor y hacer allí de vigía, con la misma precisión que si hubiera sido de día. Y sin embargo, aunque se habían visto de noche manadas de ballenas, ni un cazador de cada cien se habría arriesgado a arriar a los botes por ellas. Podéis imaginar, entonces, con qué emociones observaban los marineros a ese viejo oriental encaramado en lo alto a tan insólitas horas, con su turbante y la luna hechos compañeros en un mismo cielo. Pero cuando, tras de pasar allí su período uniforme durante varias noches sucesivas sin lanzar un solo sonido; cuando, después de todo ese silencio, se oyó su voz de otro mundo anunciando aquel chorro plateado, alumbrado por la luna, todos los marineros acostados se pusieron de pie de un salto, como si algún espíritu alado se hubiera posado en las jarcias y saludara a la tripulación mortal. -¡Allí sopla ! Si hubiera soplado la trompeta del Juicio, no se habrían estremecido más, y sin embargo no sentían terror, sino más bien placer. Pues aunque era una hora muy insólita, fue tan impresionante el grito y tan delirantemente excitante, que casi todas las almas de a bordo desearon instintivamente que se bajaran los botes.

Recorriendo la cubierta con rápidas zancadas que acometían de medio lado, Ahab mandó que se largaran las velas de juanete y sobrejuanete, y todas las alas. El mejor marinero del barco debía tomar el timón. Entonces, con hombres en todas las cofas, la recargada nave empezó a avanzar meciéndose ante el viento. La extraña tendencia a levantar y alzar que tenía la brisa llegada del coronamiento de popa, al llenar los vacíos de tantas velas, hacía que la suspensa y ondeante cubierta pareciese aire bajo los pies, mientras echaba a correr como si lucharan en el barco dos tendencias antagónicas; una, para subir directamente al cielo; la otra, para avanzar dando guiñadas hacia algún objetivo horizontal. Y si hubierais observado aquella noche la cara de Ahab, habríais pensado que también en él guerreaban dos cosas diferentes. Mientras su única pierna viva despertaba vivaces ecos por la cubierta, cada golpe de su miembro muerto sonaba como un golpe en un ataúd. Ese hombre andaba sobre la vida y la muerte. Pero aunque el barco avanzaba con tanta rapidez, y aunque todos los ojos disparaban miradas ansiosas como flechas, sin embargo, el chorro plateado no volvió a verse esa noche. Todos los marineros juraron haberlo visto una vez, pero no por segunda vez.

Ese chorro de medianoche casi se había convertido en cosa olvidada cuando, varios días después, he aquí que, a la misma hora silenciosa, volvió a ser anunciado: otra vez fue gritado por todos; pero al extender velas para alcanzarlo, desapareció una vez más como si jamás hubiera existido. Y así se nos presentó noche tras noche hasta que nadie le prestó atención sino para sorprenderse él. Disparándose misteriosamente a la clara luz de la luna, o de las estrellas, según fuera el caso; desapareciendo otra vez por un día entero, o dos, o tres; y, no se sabe cómo, a cada repetición clara, pareciendo avanzar más y más en nuestra delantera, ese solitario chorro parecía hechizarnos siempre para seguir avanzando.

Con la inmemorial superstición de su especie, y de acuerdo con el carácter preternatural que parecía revestir en muchas cosas al Pequoa no faltaron algunos de los marineros que juraban que siempre y dondequiera que se señalaba, por remotos que fueran los momentos, o por separadas que estuvieran las latitudes y longitudes, aquel insoportable chorro era lanzado por una mismísima ballena, y esa ballena era Moby Dick. Durante algún tiempo también reinó una sensación de terror peculiar ante esa fugitiva aparición, como si nos hiciera traidoramente señal de avanzar más y más, para que el monstruo pudiera volverse contra nosotros, y despedazarnos por fin en los mares más remotos y salvajes.

Esos temores temporales, tan vagos, pero tan espantosos, cobraban prodigiosa potencia con el contraste de la serenidad del tiempo, en que, por debajo de su azul suavidad, algunos pensaban que se escondía un hechizo diabólico, mientras seguíamos viajando días y días a través de mares tan fatigosa y solitariamente benignos, que todo el espacio, por repugnancia a nuestra expedición vengativa, parecía vaciarse de vida ante nuestra proa de urna funeraria. ;

Pero al fin, al volvernos al este, los vientos del Cabo empezaron a aullar alrededor de nosotros, y subimos y bajamos por las largas y agitadas olas que hay allí; entonces el Pequod de colmillos de marfil se inclinó fuertemente ante las ráfagas, y acorneó las sombrías ondas en su locura, hasta que, como chaparrones de astillas de plata, los copos de espuma volaron sobre sus amuras; desde ahí desapareció toda esa desolada vaciedad de vida, pero para dejar lugar a espectáculos más lúgubres que nunca.

Cerca de nuestra proa, extrañas formas se disparaban por el agua, acá y allá, por delante de nosotros, mientras que, pegados a nuestra retaguardia, volaban los inescrutables cuervos del mar. Y todas las mañanas se veían filas de esos pájaros posados en nuestros estais; y a pesar de nuestros aullidos, se aferraban obstinadamente durante largo tiempo al cáñamo, como si consideraran nuestro barco una nave deshabitada y a la deriva; una cosa destinada a la desolación, y por tanto, apropiado criadero para esas criaturas sin hogar. Y se hinchaba, se hinchaba, seguía hinchándose inexorablemente el negro mar, como si sus vastas mareas fueran una conciencia, y la gran alma del mundo tuviera angustia y remordimiento por el largo pecado y el sufrimiento que había engendrado.

¿Y te llaman cabo de Buena Esperanza ? Más bien cabo de las Tormentas, como te llamaban antaño; pues, largamente incitados por los pérfidos silencios que antes nos habían acompañado, nos hallamos lanzados a ese mar atormentado, donde seres culpables, transformados en esos pájaros y esos peces, parecían condenados a seguir nadando eternamente sin puerto en perspectiva, o a seguir agitando el negro aire sin horizonte alguno. Pero de vez en cuando, tranquilo, níveo e invariable, dirigiendo siempre su fuente de plumas hacia el cielo, siempre incitándonos desde delante, se avistaba el chorro solitario.

Durante toda esta negrura de los elementos, Ahab, aunque asumiendo entonces casi sin interrupción el mando de la cubierta, empapada y peligrosa, manifestaba la reserva más sombría, y se dirigía a sus oficiales más raramente que nunca. En períodos tempestuosos como ésos, después que se ha amarrado todo, en cubierta y en la arboladura, no se puede hacer más que esperar pasivamente la conclusión de la galerna. Entonces el capitán y la tripulación se vuelven fatalistas prácticos. Así, con su pierna de marfil inserta en su acostumbrado agujero, y agarrando firmemente un obenque con una mano, Ahab se quedaba durante horas y horas mirando fijo a barlovento; mientras que alguna descarga ocasional de nieve o aguanieve casi le pegaba los párpados congelándoselos. Mientras tanto, la tripulación, arrojada de la parte de proa del barco por los mares peligrosos que irrumpían explosivamente, por delante, se alineaba en el combés a lo largo de las amuradas; y para defenderse mejor contra las olas que saltaban, cada hombre se había metido en una especie de bolina atada a la borda, en que se movía como en un cinturón aflojado. Pocas palabras, o ninguna, se decían; y el silencioso barco, como tripulado por marineros de cera pintada, seguía avanzando día tras día a través de la rápida locura alegre de las olas demoníacas. De noche continuaba la misma mudez humana ante los gritos del océano; los hombres seguían en silencio moviéndose en sus bolinas; Ahab, siempre sin palabras, hacía frente al huracán. Aun cuando la fatigada naturaleza parecía pedir reposo, él no buscaba ese reposo en su hamaca. Nunca pudo olvidar Starbuck el aspecto del viejo, cuando una noche, al bajar a la cabina para observar cómo estaba el barómetro, le vio sentado y con los ojos cerrados, muy derecho en su sillón atornillado al suelo, mientras todavía goteaban del sombrero y chaquetón, sin quitárselos, la lluvia y la nevisca medio fundidas de la tempestad de que había salido algún tiempo antes. En la mesa, a su lado, estaba desenrollado uno de esos mapas de mareas y corrientes de que se ha hablado antes. La linterna se balanceaba en su mano, apretada firmemente. Aunque el cuerpo estaba erguido, la cabeza estaba echada atrás, de modo que los ojos cerrados quedaban dirigidos hacia la aguja del « soplón », que colgaba de una viga del techo.'

[]

« ¡Terrible viejo ! -pensó Starbuck con un estremecimiento-; dormido en esta galerna, todavía sigues mirando firmemente tu propósito. » 

El Albatros

Al sudeste del cabo, a lo largo de las lejanas Crozett, en una buena zona de pesca de ballenas, apareció por la proa una vela; un barco llamado el Goney (« Albatros »). Al acercarse despacio, desde mi alto observatorio en la cofa del palo trinquete, obtuve una buena vista de aquel espectáculo tan notable para un novato en las lejanas pesquerías oceánicas: un barco ballenero en el mar, ausente del puerto desde hacía mucho.

Como si las olas hubieran sido de lejía, la embarcación estaba blanqueada como el esqueleto de una morsa encallada. Bajando por los costados, esta aparición espectral estaba marcada con largos canales de óxido enrojecido, mientras que todas las vergas y jarcias eran igual que espesas ramas de árboles revestidas de escarcha como de pieles. Sólo llevaba puestas las velas mayores. Era un espectáculo extraño ver sus barbudos vigías en esas tres cofas. Parecían vestidos de pieles de animales; tan desgarradas y remendadas estaban las ropas que sobrevivían a casi cuatro años de crucero. De pie, en aros de hierro clavados al mástil, se ladeaban y balanceaban sobre un mar insondable; y aunque, cuando el barco se deslizó lentamente cerca de nuestra popa, los seis que estábamos en el aire nos acercamos tanto que casi podríamos haber saltado de los masteleros de un barco a los del otro; sin embargo, esos balleneros de aspecto desolado, mirándonos mansamente al pasar, no dijeron una palabra a nuestros vigías, mientras se oía desde abajo la llamada del alcázar:

-¡Ah del barco ! ¿Habéis visto a la ballena blanca ?

Pero cuando el extraño capitán, inclinándose sobre las pálidas amuradas, se disponía a llevarse el altavoz a la boca, no se sabe cómo, se le cayó de la mano al mar, y, con el viento levantándose ahora en banda, fue en vano que se esforzara por hacerse oír sin él. Entretanto, su barco aumentaba aún la distancia. Mientras que, de diversos modos silenciosos, los marineros del Pequod evidenciaban que habían observado este fatídico incidente apenas mencionado por primera vez el nombre de la ballena blanca a otro barco, Ahab se detuvo por un momento; casi pareció que habría arriado una lancha para ir a bordo del desconocido, si no lo hubiera impedido el viento amena7ador. Pero, aprovechando su posición a barlovento, agarró a su vez su altavoz y, conociendo por el aspecto del barco recién llegado que era de Nantucket y que iba derecho rumbo a la patria, gritó ruidosamente: -¡Eh, ahí ! ¡Este es el Pequod, que va a dar la vuelta al mundo !¡Decidles que dirijan todas las cartas sucesivas al océano Pacífico ! Y si dentro de tres años no estoy en casa, decidles que las dirijan a…

En ese momento las dos estelas se cruzaron del todo, y al instante, siguiendo sus singulares costumbres, bandadas de pececillos inofensivos, que desde hacía varios días nadaban plácidamente a nuestro lado, se alejaron disparados con aletas que parecían estremecerse, y se dispusieron, de proa a popa, a los lados del barco desconocido. Aunque en el transcurso de sus continuos viajes Ahab debía haber observado a menudo un espectáculo semejante, sin embargo, para cualquier hombre monomaniático, las más pequeñas trivialidades llevan significados caprichosos.

-Os alejáis de mí nadando, ¿eh ? -murmuró Ahab, observando el agua. No parecían decir mucho esas palabras, pero su tono mostraba una tristeza más profunda y sin remedio que cuanta había mostrado jamás el demente anciano. Pero volviéndose al timonel, que hasta entonces había mantenido la nave contra el viento para disminuir su arrancada, gritó con su voz de viejo león: -¡Caña a barlovento ! ¡A dar la vuelta al mundo !

¡La vuelta al mundo ! Hay mucho en ese sonido que inspira sentimientos de orgullo: pero ¿adónde lleva toda esa circunnavegación ? Sólo a través de peligros innumerables, al mismo punto de donde partimos, donde los que dejamos atrás a salvo, han estado todo el tiempo antes que nosotros.

Si este mundo fuera una llanura infinita y navegando hacia el este pudiéramos alcanzar siempre nuevas distancias y descubrir visiones más dulces y extrañas que ninguna Cícladas o islas del Rey Salomón, entonces habría promesa en el viaje. Pero en la persecución de esos misterios de que soñamos, o en el acoso atormentado de ese fantasma demoníaco que, una vez u otra, nada ante todo corazón humano, lo uno o lo otro, en tal seguimiento por este globo redondo, o nos lleva a laberintos yermos o nos deja sumergidos a medio camino. 

El Gam

La razón ostensible por la cual Ahab no pasó a bordo del ballenero con que habíamos hablado era ésta: el viento y el mar anunciaban tormenta. Pero aunque no hubiera sido así, quizá tampoco habría ido a bordo de é1, después de todo -a juzgar por su conducta posterior en ocasiones semejantes-, si, después de gritar, hubiera obtenido respuesta negativa a la pregunta que hacía. Pues, según se echó de ver en definitiva, no tenía ganas de reunirse ni cinco minutos con ningún capitán desconocido, a no ser que le pudiera ofrecer algo de la información que tan absorbentemente deseaba. Pero todo esto podría no ser adecuadamente valorado, si no se dijera aquí algo de las peculiares costumbres de los barcos balleneros al encontrarse en mares remotos, y especialmente en una zona común de pesquería.

Si dos desconocidos, al cruzar los Desiertos de los Pinos, en el estado de Nueva York, o la igualmente desolada llanura de Salisbury, en Inglaterra, y al encontrarse por casualidad en esas inhospitalarias soledades, no pueden evitar los dos un saludo mutuo, aunque les vaya en ello la vida, deteniéndose un momento a intercambiar noticias y quizá sentándose un rato a descansar de acuerdo, entonces, ¡cuánto más natural que, en los ilimitados Desiertos de los Pinos y llanuras de Salisbury del mar, dos barcos balleneros que se avistan mutuamente en el extremo de la tierra -a lo largo de la solitaria isla Fanning, o en los remotos King's Mills-, cuánto más natural, digo, que en estas circunstancias los barcos no sólo intercambien saludos, sino que entren en el contacto más cercano, más amistoso y sociable ! Y especialmente, esto parecería ser algo obvio en el caso de barcos matriculados en el mismo puerto, y cuyos capitanes, oficiales y no pocos de los marineros se conocen personalmente, y en consecuencia tienen toda clase de cosas familiares y queridas de que hablar.

Para el barco que lleva mucho tiempo ausente, el que va en viaje de ida quizá lleva cartas a bordo; en cualquier caso, es seguro que tendrá algunos periódicos de fecha posterior en un año o dos a la del último que haya en su borroso y desgastado archivo. Y en correspondencia a tal cortesía, el barco en viaje de ida recibirá las últimas noticias balleneras de la zona de pesca a donde quizá va destinado, cosa de la mayor importancia para él. Y en proporción, todo esto seguirá siendo cierto respecto a los barcos balleneros que entrecruzan su camino en la propia zona de pesca, aunque estén igual tiempo ausentes del puerto. Pues uno de ellos puede haber recibido una transferencia de cartas de un tercer barco ahora remoto, y algunas de esas cartas pueden ser para la gente del barco con que ahora se encuentra. Además, intercambiarán noticias sobre las ballenas, y tendrán una charla agradable. Pues no sólo encontrarán todas las simpatías mutuas de los marineros, sino, igualmente, todas las peculiaridades congeniales procedentes de una búsqueda común y de privaciones y peligros compartidos juntos.

Y la diferencia de país tampoco representa una diferencia muy especial; es decir, con tal que ambas partes hablen un mismo idioma, como ocurre con americanos e ingleses. Aunque, por supuesto, dado el pequeño número de balleneros ingleses, tales encuentros no ocurren con mucha frecuencia, y cuando ocurren es demasiado probable que haya entre ellos una especie de cohibición, pues vuestros ingleses son más bien reservados, y a vuestros yanquis no les gusta cierta clase de cosas sino en ellos mismos. Además, los balleneros ingleses a veces afectan_ una especie de superioridad metropolitana sobre los balleneros americanos, considerando que el largo y flaco hombre de Nantucket, con su provincialismo informe, es una especie de labriego del mar. Pero sería difícil decir en qué consiste esta superioridad del ballenero inglés, visto que los yanquis, en conjunto, matan en un solo día más ballenas que todos los ingleses, en conjunto, en diez años. Pero ésta es una pequeña debilidad inocua de los balleneros ingleses, que los de Nantucket no toman muy a pecho, probablemente porque saben que ellos también tienen unas pocas debilidades.

Así entonces, vemos que, entre todos los diversos barcos que navegan por el mar, los balleneros tienen las mayores razones para ser sociales, y lo son. Mientras algunos barcos mercantes, al cruzar sus estelas en pleno Atlántico, muchas veces pasan adelante sin una palabra, siquiera, de reconocimiento, fingiendo no verse mutuamente en alta mar, igual que un par de elegantes en Broadway, y quizá durante todo este tiempo permitiéndose críticas remilgadas sobre el aparejo del otro. En cuanto a los barcos de guerra, cuando por casualidad se encuentran en el mar, primero pasan por tal ristra de estúpidas reverencias y zalemas, y tal sacar y zambullir banderas, que no parece haber en absoluto mucha buena voluntad sincera y cariño fraternal en todo ello. En lo que toca al encuentro de barcos negreros, bueno, tienen tan extraordinaria prisa, que huyen uno de otro en cuanto pueden. En cuanto a los piratas, cuando por casualidad se entrecruzan sus huesos entrecruzados, el primer grito de saludo es « ¿Cuántos cráneos ? », del mismo modo que los balleneros gritan: « ¿Cuántos barriles ? ». Y una vez contestada esta pregunta, los piratas se desvían inmediatamente, pues son unos infernales villanos por los dos lados, y, les gusta ver demasiado los villanos rostros de los otros.

Pero ¡mirad al pío, al honrado, al modesto, al hospitalario, al sociable, al tranquilo barco ballenero ! ¿Qué hace el barco ballenero cuando encuentra a otro barco ballenero en cualquier clase de tiempo decente ? Establece un Gam, una cosa tan absolutamente desconocida para todos los demás barcos, que ni siquiera han oído su nombre, y si por casualidad lo oyeran, no harían más que sonreírse de él y repetir chistes sobre « los del chorro » y los « hervidores de aceite », y semejantes hermosos epítetos. Es cuestión que sería difícil de contestar por qué todos los marinos mercantes, y también todos los piratas y marineros de guerra, y marineros de barcos negreros, abrigan sentimientos tan despectivos hacia los barcos balleneros. Porque, en el caso de los piratas, digamos, me gustaría saber si esa profesión suya tiene alguna gloria peculiar. A veces acaba en una elevación extraordinaria, desde luego, pero sólo en la horca. Y además, cuando un hombre está elevado en esa extraña forma, no tiene fundamento adecuado para su sublime altura. De aquí deduzco que, al jactarse de estar por encima de un ballenero, el pirata no tiene base sólida en que apoyarse.

Pero ¿qué es un Gam ? Podríais gastaros el índice subiendo y bajando por las columnas de los diccionarios sin encontrar jamás la palabra. El doctor Johnson no alcanzó jamás tal erudición; el arca de Noah Webster no la contiene. No obstante, esta misma palabra expresiva lleva ya muchos años en uso constante entre unos quince mil yanquis auténticamente nativos. Ciertamente, necesita definición, y debería incorporarse al léxico. Con esa intención, permítaseme definirla doctamente:

« GAM, S. Reunión sociable de dos (o más) barcos balleneros, generalmente en zona de pesquería; en la que, tras intercambiar gritos de saludo, intercambian visitas, por tripulaciones de lanchas, quedándose durante ese tiempo los dos capitanes a bordo de un mismo barco, y los dos primeros oficiales a bordo del otro. »

Hay otro pequeño punto sobre el Gam que no se debe olvidar aquí. Todas las profesiones tienen sus pequeñas peculiaridades de detalle; igualmente la pesca de la ballena. En un barco pirata, de guerra o negrero, cuando llevan al capitán en la lancha, remando, siempre va sentado en las planchas de popa, sobre un cómodo asiento, a veces almohadillado, y a menudo gobierna con una linda cañita como de modista, decorada con alegres cordones y cintas. Pero la lancha ballenera no tiene asiento a popa, ni sofá ninguno de esa especie, ni cañita en absoluto. Sería cosa inaudita, desde luego, que a los capitanes balleneros les llevaran por el agua sobre pieles, como viejos concejales gotosos en sillones de ruedas. En cuanto a la cañita,' el barco ballenero jamás admite tal afeminamiento; y por consiguiente, en el Gam, como la tripulación completa de una lancha debe abandonar el barco, y como, por tanto, en ella va incluido el jefe o el arponero de la lancha, ese subordinado es el que gobierna en dicha ocasión, y al capitán, por no tener lugar en que sentarse, le llevan remando a su visita de pie todo el tiempo, como un pino. Y a menudo se advertirá que al tener conciencia de que los ojos de todo el mundo visible se posan en él desde los costados de los dos barcos, ese capitán erguido es muy sensible a la importancia de sustentar su dignidad a fuerza de sostener sus piernas. Y no es cosa nada fácil, pues a su retaguardia el inmenso remo de gobernalle se proyecta y le golpea de vez en cuando en la base de la espalda, a lo que corresponde el remo de popa machacándole las rodillas por delante. Así va completamente calzado por delante y por detrás, y sólo se puede expansionar a los lados apoyándose en las piernas extendidas, pero una sacudida súbita y violenta de la lancha a menudo es capaz de volcarle, porque la longitud de unos fundamentos no es nada sin una anchura en proporción. Haced simplemente un ángulo extendido con dos palos, y no los podréis poner de pie. Entonces, por su parte, no estaría nunca bien, a plena vista de los ojos del mundo bien clavados, no estaría nunca bien, digo, que se viera a ese despatarrado capitán apoyándose en la más mínima partícula al agarrarse a algo con las manos; más aún, como signo de su completo y ágil dominio de sí mismo, generalmente lleva las manos metidas en los bolsillos de los pantalones; aunque quizá, siendo por lo regular unas manos muy grandes y pesadas, las lleva allí como lastre. No obstante, se han dado casos, también muy bien certificados, en que se ha sabido que un capitán, en algún que otro momento extraordinariamente crítico, digamos en un huracán repentino..., ha echado mano al pelo del remero más cercano, y se ha agarrado a él como la muerte oscura. 

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El cabo de Buena Esperanza, y toda la región acuática a su alrededor, se parece mucho a ciertas famosas encrucijadas de un gran camino real, donde se encuentran más viajeros que en cualquier otra parte.

No mucho después de hablar con el Goney, encontramos otro barco ballenero en viaje de vuelta, el Town-Ho,' Iba tripulado casi totalmente por polinesios. En el breve gam que tuvo lugar, nos dio sólidas noticias sobre Moby Dick. Para algunos, el interés genérico por la ballena blanca quedó ahora desmedidamente aumentado por una circunstancia del relato del Town-Ho, que parecía oscuramente vincular a la ballena cierto prodigio sobrenatural, a la inversa, en uno de esos llamados juicios de Dios, que se dice que a veces caen sobre ciertos hombres. Esta circunstancia, con sus propios acompañamientos peculiares, formando lo que podría llamarse la parte secreta de la tragedia que se va a narrar, jamás alcanzó los oídos del capitán Ahab ni de sus oficiales. Pues esa parte secreta de la historia era desconocida por el propio capitán del Town-Ho. Era propiedad reservada de tres marineros blancos de aquella nave, unidos entre sí, uno de los cuales, al parecer, se lo comunicó a Tashtego con requerimientos de secreto a lo católico romano, pero, a la noche siguiente, Tashtego charló en sueños, y de ese modo reveló tanto, que al despertar no pudo reservar el resto. No obstante, tan poderosa influencia tuvo esta cosa en aquellos marineros del Pequod que llegaron a su pleno conocimiento, y tan extraña delicadeza, por llamarla así, les gobernó en este asunto, que guardaron el secreto entre ellos de tal modo que nunca llegó a difundirse a popa del palo mayor del Pequod. Entretejiendo en su debido lugar ese hilo más oscuro con el relato según se contaba públicamente en el barco, paso ahora a poner en noticia perenne la totalidad de este extraño asunto.

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Siguiendo mi humor, conservaré el estilo en que lo conté una vez en Lima, a un ocioso círculo de mis amigos españoles, la víspera de cierto santo, fumando en el patio de baldosas espesamente doradas de la Posada de Oro. De aquellos admirables caballeros, los jóvenes don Pedro y don Sebastián tenían más intimidad conmigo; de aquí las preguntas intercaladas que de vez en cuando me hicieron, y que fueron debidamente respondidas en su momento.

« -Caballeros, unos años antes de que yo conociera los acontecimientos que voy a referiros, el Town-Ho, barco de Nantucket a la pesca de cachalotes, navegaba por aquí, por vuestra parte del Pacífico, a no muchos días de vela al oeste de los aleros de esta Posada de Oro. Estaba un poco al norte del ecuador. Una mañana, al dar a las bombas, según la costumbre diaria, se observó que hacía más agua de la acostumbrada en la bodega. Supusieron, caballeros, que un pez espada habría perforado el barco. Pero como el capitán tenía alguna razón insólita para creer que le aguardaba una buena suerte extraordinaria en aquellas latitudes, y, por tanto, era muy contrario a abandonarlas, y como la vía de agua no se consideró en absoluto peligrosa -aunque, desde luego, no pudieron encontrarla después de buscar por toda la bodega hasta la mayor profundidad posible con una mar bastante gruesa-, el barco siguió su crucero, con los marineros trabajando en las bombas a intervalos espaciados y cómodos, pero sin que llegara ninguna buena suerte: pasaron más días, y no sólo seguía sin descubrirse la vía de agua, sino que aumentaba sensiblemente. Tanto fue así, que, alarmándose algo ahora, el capitán se desvió a toda vela al puerto más cercano entre las islas para tumbar el casco y repararlo.

»Aunque no tenía por delante una breve travesía, sin embargo, con tal que le favoreciera la suerte más corriente, no tenía miedo en absoluto de que su barco se hundiera por el camino, porque sus bombas eran de las mejores, y, relevándose periódicamente en ellas, aquellos treinta y seis hombres suyos podían mantener fácilmente libre el barco, sin importar que la vía de agua se hiciera el doble. En realidad, casi toda la travesía fue acompañada por brisas muy favorables, y el Town-Ho hubiera llegado a su puerto con toda seguridad sin sufrir la menor desgracia, de no ser por los brutales abusos de Radney, el primer oficial, uno del Vineyard, y por la venganza ásperamente provocada, de Steelkilt, un hombre de los lagos, un desesperado de Buffalo.

»-¡De los lagos ! ¡De Buffalo ! Por favor, ¿qué es un hombre de los lagos, y dónde está Buffalo ? -dijo don Sebastián, incorporándose en su balanceante hamaca de hierba.

»-En la orilla oriental de nuestro lago Erie, don Sebastián, pero... hacedme la merced..., quizá pronto sabréis más de todo eso. Bien, caballeros, en bergantines con velas de respeto y en barcos de tres palos, casi tan largos y fuertes como los que jamás puedan haber zarpado de vuestro viejo Callao para la remota Manila, este hombre de los lagos, en el corazón de nuestra América, encerrado entre tierra, se había nutrido de todas esas salvajes impresiones filibusteras relacionadas popularmente con el mar abierto. Pues, en su conjunto interfluyente, esos grandes mares de agua dulce que tenemos -Erie, Ontario, Hurón, Superior y Michigan- poseen una extensión oceánica, con muchos de los más nobles rasgos del océano, y con muchas de sus variedades costeras de razas y climas. Contienen redondos archipiélagos de islas románticas, igual que los mares polinesios; en buena parte, tienen por orillas dos grandes naciones rivales, como el Atlántico; proporcionan largas comunicaciones marítimas desde el este a nuestras numerosas colonias territoriales, dispersas por todo su litoral; acá y allá, se asoman a ellos el ceño de las fortalezas, y los cañones, como cabras en lo escarpado del alto Mackinaw; han oído los truenos lejanos de victorias navales; de vez en cuando, ceden sus playas a bárbaros salvajes cuyas caras pintadas de rojo salen como relámpagos de sus cabañas de pieles; durante leguas y leguas están flanqueados de bosques antiguos y sin hollar, donde los delgados pinos se yerguen como apretadas líneas de reyes en las genealogías góticas -bosques que albergan salvajes animales africanos de rapiña, y sedeñas criaturas cuyas pieles exportadas dan mantos a los emperadores tártaros-; reflejan las pavimentadas capitales de Buffalo y Cleveland, así como las aldeas de Winnebago; hacen flotar igualmente al barco mercante de tres palos, al crucero armado del Estado, al vapor y a la canoa de abedul; son agitados por hiperbóreos huracanes desarboladores, tan terribles como los que azotan las olas saladas; saben lo que son naufragios, pues, sin tener tierra a la vista, aunque dentro de tierra, en ellos se han ahogado muchos barcos a medianoche, con toda su tripulación clamorosa. Así, caballeros, aunque hombre de tierra adentro, Steelkilt era nativo del océano salvaje, y nutrido en el océano salvaje; un marinero tan audaz como cualquiera. Y en cuanto a Radney, aunque en su niñez se hubiera tendido en su solitaria playa de Nantucket para alimentarse de la mar maternal; y aunque en su vida posterior hubiera recorrido durante mucho tiempo nuestro austero Atlántico y vuestro contemplativo Pacífico, sin embargo, era tan vengativo y tan peleón en cualquier compañía como el marinero de los bosques vírgenes, recién llegado de las regiones de los cuchillos de monte con mango de cuerno. Con todo, el de Nantucket era hombre con algunos rasgos de buen corazón; y el de los lagos era un marinero que, aunque ciertamente una especie de diablo, podía ser tratado con firmeza inflexible, templada sólo por la decencia común del reconocimiento humano que es derecho del más bajo esclavo; y así tratado, Steelkilt se había contenido durante mucho tiempo como inofensivo y dócil. En todo caso, hasta ahora se había mostrado así; pero Radney estaba predestinado y enloquecido, y Steelkilt..., pero ya oiréis, caballeros.

»Había pasado un día o dos todo lo más, después de dirigir su proa hacia el puerto de la isla, cuando la vía de agua del Town-Ho pareció volver a aumentar, aunque sólo haciendo necesaria una hora o más cada día en las bombas. Habéis de saber que en un océano colonizado y civilizado como nuestro Atlántico, por ejemplo, a algunos capitanes les importa muy poco bombear a lo largo de toda su travesía, aunque si, en una noche tranquila y soñolienta, al oficial de guardia se le olvidase por casualidad su obligación en este aspecto, lo probable es que ni él ni sus compañeros volverían a acordarse jamás, porque toda la tripulación descendería suavemente al fondo. Y tampoco en los solitarios y salvajes mares que quedan lejos al oeste de Vuestras Mercedes es totalmente desacostumbrado que los barcos no dejen de darle a coro a los mangos de las bombas durante un viaje, incluso, de considerable longitud; es decir, con tal que se encuentren a lo largo de una costa tolerablemente accesible, que se les ofrezca algún otro refugio razonable. Sólo cuando un barco que hace agua queda muy apartado en esas aguas, en alguna latitud realmente sin tierra, entonces su capitán empieza a sentirse un tanto preocupado.

»Mucho de esto le había ocurrido al Town-Ho, de modo que cuando se encontró una vez que aumentaba la vía de agua, en verdad hubo varios de la tripulación que manifestaron cierta preocupación, sobre todo Radney, el primer oficial. Mandó izar bien las velas altas, cazándolas a besar de nuevo, y extendiéndolas por todas partes a la brisa. Ahora, este Radney supongo que tenía poco de cobarde y se inclinaba tan escasamente a cualquier suerte de aprensión nerviosa, en cuanto a su propia persona, como cualquier criatura despreocupada y sin miedo, del mar o de la tierra, como podáis imaginar a vuestro gusto, caballeros. Por tanto, cuando manifestó esa solicitud por la seguridad del barco, algunos de los marineros afirmaron que era sólo a causa de que era copropietario de él. Así, cuando ese anochecer estaban trabajando en las bombas, hubo no pocas bromas sobre este apartado, maliciosamente intercambiadas entre ellos, mientras sus pies quedaban continuamente inundados por la ondulante agua clara; clara como de cualquier manantial de la montaña, caballeros; que salía burbujeante de la bombas, corría por cubierta, y se vertía en chorros continuos por los imbornales de sotavento.

»Ahora, como sabéis muy bien, no es raro el caso, en este nuestro mundo de convenciones -en el agua o donde sea-, en que, cuando una persona puesta al mando de sus semejantes encuentra que uno de ellos es notablemente superior a él en su orgullo general de virilidad, inmediatamente conciba contra ese hombre un invencible odio y antipatía, y, si tiene ocasión, derribe y pulverice esa torre de su subalterno, reduciéndola a un montoncito de polvo. Sea lo que sea esta idea mía, caballeros, en todo caso Steelkilt era un elevado y noble animal, con una cabeza como un romano y una fluyente barba dorada como las gualdrapas emborladas del resoplante corcel de vuestro último virrey; y un cerebro, y un corazón, y un alma dentro de él, caballeros, que hubieran hecho de Steelkilt un Carlomagno si hubiera nacido hijo del padre de Carlomagno. Pero Radney, el primer oficial, era feo como un mulo, y lo mismo de terco, duro y malicioso. No quería a Steelkilt, y Steelkilt lo sabía.

»Al observar que el primer oficial se acercaba mientras él trabajaba en la bomba con los demás, el de los lagos fingió no darse cuenta, sino que, sin dejarse impresionar, siguió con sus alegres bromas.

»-Eso, eso, muchachos; esta vía de agua es un encanto; tomad un vasito, uno de vosotros, y vamos a probarla. ¡Por Dios que es digna de embotellarse ! Os digo de veras, hombres, que con esto se pierde la inversión del viejo Rad. Más le valdría cortar su parte de casco y remolcarla a casa. La verdad es, muchachos, que el pez espada no hizo más que empezar el trabajo; luego ha vuelto con una cuadrilla de peces carpinteros, peces sierra, peces lima, y todo lo demás; y toda su pandilla está ahora trabajando de firme en el fondo, cortando y tajando; para hacer mejoras, supongo. Si el viejo Rad estuviera ahora aquí, le diría que saltara por la borda y los dispersara. Están jugando al demonio con sus bienes, le puedo decir. Pero es un simple y un buenazo, ese Rad, y también una belleza. Muchachos, dicen que el resto de sus bienes está invertido en espejos. No sé si a un pobre diablo como yo le querría dar el modelo de su nariz.

»-¡Malditas sean vuestras almas ! ¿Por qué se para la bomba ? -rugió Radney, fingiendo no haber oído la conversación de los marineros-. ¡Seguid con ella como truenos !

»-Eso, eso -dijo Steelkilt, alegre como un grillo-. ¡Vivo, muchachos, vivo, ya ! »Y entonces la bomba sonó como cincuenta máquinas para incendios; los hombres tiraron los sombreros, y no tardó en oírse ese peculiar jadeo de los pulmones que indica la plena tensión de las energías extremas de la vida.

»Abandonando por fin la bomba, con el resto de su grupo, el de los lagos se fue a proa todo jadeante, y se sentó en el molinete, con su feroz cara enrojecida, los ojos inyectados de sangre, y secándose el abundante sudor de la frente. Ahora, caballeros, no sé qué diablo seductor fue el que poseyó a Radney para que se enredara con un hombre en semejante estado corporal de exasperación; pero así ocurrió. Dando zancadas insolentes por la cubierta, el oficial le ordenó que se buscase una escoba y barriese las tablas, y asimismo una pala, para quitar ciertos molestos materiales resultantes de haber dejado escapar un cerdo.

»Ahora bien, caballeros, barrer la cubierta de un barco en el mar es una cuestión de trabajo doméstico que se cumple con regularidad todas las tardes, en cualquier tiempo, salvo con galerna furiosa, y se sabe que se ha cumplido en el caso de barcos que en ese momento estaban de hecho hundiéndose. Tal es, caballeros, la inflexibidad de las costumbres marítimas y el instintivo amor a la limpieza que hay en los marineros, algunos de los cuales no se ahogarían de buena gana sin lavarse antes la cara. Pero, en todos los barcos, ese asunto de la escoba es la jurisdicción prescrita a los grumetes, si hay grumetes a bordo. Además, los hombres más fuertes del Town-Ho se habían dividido en cuadrillas, turnándose en las bombas; y, siendo el marinero más atlético de todos, Steelkilt había sido debidamente nombrado capitán de una de las cuadrillas, por lo que, en consecuencia, debía haber quedado liberado de cualquier asunto trivial sin relación con los verdaderos deberes náuticos, si así ocurría con sus compañeros. Menciono todos esos detalles para que podáis comprender exactamente cómo estaba la cuestión entre los dos hombres.

»Pero había más que esto: la orden respecto a la pala estaba casi tan claramente pensada para insultar a Steelkilt como si Radney le hubiera escupido a la cara. Cualquiera que haya ido de marinero en un barco ballenero lo entenderá; y todo eso, y sin duda mucho más, entendió del todo el hombre de los lagos cuando el oficial pronunció su orden. Pero se quedó un momento quieto y sentado, y al mirar con firmeza los malignos ojos del oficial y percibir las pilas de barriles de pólvora amontonados en él y la mecha lenta que ardía hacia ellos, al verlo todo esto instintivamente, caballeros, se apoderó de Steelkilt, como sentimiento fantasmal y sin nombre, esa extraña indulgencia y desgana por remover el más profundo apasionamiento en ningún ser ya iracundo, esa repugnancia que sienten sobre todo, cuando la sienten, los hombres realmente valientes, aunque sean agraviados.

»Por tanto, en su tono ordinario, sólo que un poco roto por el agotamiento corporal en que se encontraba momentáneamente, le contestó diciendo que barrer la cubierta no era asunto suyo, y no lo haría. Y luego, sin aludir en absoluto a la pala, señaló como los habituales barrenderos a los tres grumetes, los cuales, no estando destinados a las bombas, tenían muy poco o nada que hacer en todo el día. A eso Radney replicó con un juramento, y en el tono más dominante y ultrajante repitió incondicionalmente su mandato, y avanzó hacia el hombre de los lagos, aún sentado, levantando un mazo de tonelero que había tomado de un barril cercano.

»Acalorado e irritado como estaba por su espasmódico esfuerzo en las bombas, a pesar de todo su innombrable sentimiento de indulgencia, el sudoroso Steelkilt no pudo aguantar esta actitud en el oficial; sin embargo, sofocando sin saber cómo la conflagración en su interior, permaneció sin hablar y tercamente arraigado en su asiento, hasta que por fin el excitado Radney tiró el mazo a pocas pulgadas de su cara, mandándole furiosamente que cumpliera su orden.

»Steelkilt se levantó y se retiró lentamente, dando la vuelta al molinete, seguido por el oficial con su mazo amenazador, y repitiendo deliberadamente su intención de no obedecer. Al ver, sin embargo, que esa paciencia no tenía el menor efecto, amenazó a aquel hombre loco e Infatuado con una temible e inexpresable intimación de la mano cerrada; pero no sirvió para nada. Y de ese modo los dos dieron una vuelta lentamente al molinete, hasta que, decidido por fin a no seguir retirándose, por pensar que ya había soportado todo lo que era compatible con su humor, el hombre de los lagos se detuvo en las escotillas y habló así al oficial:

»-Señor Radrìey no le voy a obedecer. Deje ese mazo, o ande con cuidado. »Pero el predestinado oficial siguió acercándose a donde estaba inmóvil el hombre de los lagos, y dejó caer el pesado mazo a una pulgada de sus dientes, repitiendo mientras tanto una sarta de maldiciones insufribles. Sin retirarse ni la milésima parte de una pulgada, y clavándole en los ojos el inflexible puñal de su mirada, Steelkilt apretó el puño derecho a su espalda y echándolo atrás insensiblemente, dijo a su Perseguidor que si el mazo le rozaba la mejilla, él, Steelkilt, le mataría. Pero, caballeros, el loco está marcado por los dioses para la matanza. Inmediatamente, el mazo tocó la mejilla; un momento después, la mandíbula inferior del oficial estaba desfondada en su cabeza, y caía en la escotilla chorreando sangre como una ballena.

»Antes que el clamor pudiera llegar a popa, Steelkilt se agarró a una de las burdas que llevaban a lo alto, donde dos de sus compañeros estaban de vigías en sus cofas. Ambos eran canaleros.

»-¡Canaleros ! -gritó don Pedro-. Hemos visto en nuestros puertos mochos de vuestros barcos balleneros, pero nunca hemos oído hablar de vuestros canaleros. Perdón, ¿qué son ésos ?

»-Canaleros, don Pedro, son los bateleros de nuestro gran canal del Erie. Debéis haber oído hablar de eso.

»-No señor; Por aquí, en este país aburrido, caliente, perezoso y hereditario, conocemos muy poco de vuestro vigoroso norte.

»-¿Ah, sí ? Bueno, entonces, don Pedro, volved a llenarme el vaso. La chicha es muy buena, y antes de seguir adelante os diré qué son nuestros canaleros, pues esa información puede proporcionar luz adicional a mi historia.

»A través de trescientas sesenta millas, caballeros, a través de toda la anchura del Estado de Nueva York; a través de numerosas ciudades populosas y muchas aldeas prósperas; a través de largas, tristes y deshabitadas marismas, y fecundos campos cultivados, sin rival en fertilidad; por billares y tabernas; por el sancta sanctorum de los grandes bosques, por arcos romanos sobre ríos indios; a través del sol y la sombra; por corazones felices o desolados; a través de todo el ancho escenario de contrastes de esos nobles condados mohawks; y especialmente a lo largo de filas de capillas níveas cuyas agujas se yerguen casi como piedras miliares, fluye un continuo torrente de vida de corrupción veneciana, a menudo al margen de la ley. Allí están vuestros verdaderos ashantis, caballeros; allí aúllan vuestros paganos; allí los podéis encontrar siempre en la casa de al lado; bajo la sombra, largamente proyectada, de las iglesias, al socaire de su cómodo patrocinio. Pues, por alguna curiosa fatalidad, así como se nota a menudo de los filibusteros de ciudad que siempre acampan en torno a los palacios de justicia, igualmente, caballeros, los pecadores suelen abundar en las cercanías más sagradas.

»-¿Es un fraile aquel que pasa ? -dijo don Pedro, mirando abajo, a la plaza atestada, con humorística preocupación.

»-Por fortuna para nuestro nórdico amigo, la Inquisición de doña Isabel se desvanece en Lima -rió don Sebastián-: Adelante, señor.

»-Un momento, ¡perdón ! -dijo otro del grupo-. En nombre de todos nosotros los limeños, deseo expresaros, señor marinero, que no hemos pasado por alto de ningún modo vuestra delicadeza al no haber puesto la presente Lima en lugar de la lejana Venecia en vuestra corrupta comparación. ¡Ah ! No os inclinéis ni parezcáis sorprendido: ya conocéis el proverbio que hay por toda esta costa: "corrompidos como Lima". No hace sino confirmar lo que decís, también: la iglesias son más abundantes que las mesas de billar, y siempre abiertas... y "corrompido como Lima". Así también Venecia; yo he estado allí; ¡la sagrada ciudad del santo Evangelio, San Marcos !... ¡Santo Domingo, púrgala ! ¡Vuestro vaso ! Gracias; lo vuelvo a llenar; ahora, volved a escanciarnos.

»-Libremente representado en su propia vocación, caballeros, el hombre del canal haría un hermoso héroe dramático; tan abundante y pintoresca es su perversidad. Como Marco Antonio, durante días y días, a lo largo de su Nilo florido y de verde césped, flota indolentemente jugando a la vista de todos con su Cleopatra de rojas mejillas, y haciendo madurar su muslo de albaricoque en la cubierta soleada. Pero en tierra se borra todo este afeminamiento. El aire de bandido que tan orgullosamente luce el hombre del canal, y su sombrero gancho y de alegres cintas, son señales de sus grandiosas cualidades. Terror de la inocencia sonriente de las aldeas a través de las cuales boga, su rostro moreno y su atrevida fanfarronería son esquivadas en las ciudades. Yo, vagabundo una vez en su canal, he recibido buenas pasadas de uno de esos canaleros; se lo agradezco cordialmente: no querría ser ingrato, pero a menudo una de las principales cualidades redentoras de ese hombre de violencia es que a veces tiene un brazo tan duro para defender a un pobre desconocido en una dificultad como para despojar a otro desconocido rico. En resumen, caballeros, el salvajismo de esa vida del canal se evidencia enfáticamente en esto: que nuestra salvaje pesca ballenera contiene a muchos de sus más completos licenciados, y que no hay apenas otra raza de la humanidad, excepto los de Sydney, de que tanto desconfíen nuestros capitanes balleneros. Y no disminuye en absoluto lo curioso de ese asunto que para tantos millares de muchachos rurales y jóvenes nacidos a lo largo de su línea, la vida probatoria del Gran Canal proporcione la única transición entre cosechar tranquilamente en un campo cristiano de trigo y surcar inexorablemente las aguas de los mares más bárbaros.

»-¡Ya veo, ya veo ! -exclamó impetuosamente don Pedro, vertiéndose la chica por sus volantes plateados-: ¡No hay necesidad de viajar ! El mundo es una misma Lima. Yo había creído, entonces, que en vuestro templado norte las generaciones serían tan frías y santas como las montañas... Pero, la historia.

»-Me había quedado, caballeros, en que el de los lagos se agarró a la burda. Apenas lo había hecho, cuando fue rodeado por el segundo y tercer oficiales y los cuatro arponeros, que le derribaron en masa sobre la cubierta. Pero, deslizándose por las jarcias abajo como cometas fatídicos, los dos canaleros se precipitaron en el tumulto y trataron de sacar a su hombre a rastras hacia el castillo de proa. Otros marineros se unieron a ellos en el intento, y tuvo lugar un torbellino confuso, mientras que, a una distancia segura, el valiente capitán danzaba de arriba abajo con una lanza ballenera, requiriendo a sus oficiales para que sujetaran a aquel bribón, y lo llevaran a golpes al alcázar. De vez en cuando, corría a acercarse al agitado borde de la confusión y, hurgando en su interior con la lanza, trataba de pinchar al objeto de su resentimiento Pero Steelkilt y sus desesperados eran demasiado para todos ellos, y lograron alcanzar el castillo de proa, donde, haciendo rodar deprisa tres o cuatro grandes barriles en línea con el molinete, esos parisienses del mar se atrincheraron detrás de la barricada.

»-¡Salid de ahí, piratas ! -rugió el capitán, amenazándoles ahora con una pistola en cada mano, que le acababa de traer el mayordomo-. ¡Salid de ahí, asesinos !

»Steelkilt salió de un brinco de la barricada, y dando zancadas de un lado para otro, desafió lo peor que podían hacer las pistolas, pero dio a entender claramente al capitán que su muerte, la de Steelkilt, sería la señal para un motín criminal por parte de todos los hombres. Con miedo en su corazón de que esto resultase demasiado cierto, el capitán desistió un poco, pero siguió ordenando apremiantemente a los insurgentes que volvieran a su obligación.

-¿Nos promete no tocarnos, si lo hacemos así ? -preguntó su cabecilla.

»-¡Volved, volved ! Yo no hago promesas... ¡A la obligación ! ¿Queréis hundir el barco, dejando de trabajar en un momento como éste ? -y volvió a apuntar con una pistola.

»-¿Hundir el barco ? -gritó Steelkilt-. Eso, que se hunda. Ninguno de nosotros volverá al trabajo, a no ser que nos jure que no levantará contra nosotros ni un hilo de jarcia. ¿Qué decís, hombres ? -volviéndose a sus compañeros. Una feroz aclamación fue la respuesta.

»El de los lagos entonces se puso de guardia en la barricada, sin dejar de mirar al capitán, y lanzando, a sacudidas, frases como éstas: »-No es culpa nuestra; no queríamos; ya le dije que apartase el mazo; ha sido una chiquillada; ya me podía haber conocido antes; ya le dije que no pinchara al bisonte; creo que me he roto un dedo contra su maldita quijada: ¿no están aquellos chinchantes en el castillo de proa, muchachos ? Capitán, por Dios, tenga cuidado; diga la palabra; no sea loco; olvídelo todo; estamos dispuestos a volver al trabajo; trátenos decentemente y somos sus hombres, pero no dejaremos que nos azoten.

»-¡Volved a trabajar ! ¡No hago ninguna promesa, volved, os digo !

»-Mire, entonces -gritó el de los lagos, extendiendo el brazo hacia él-: hay aquí tinos pocos de nosotros (y yo soy uno de ellos) que nos hemos embarcado para el viaje, ya ve; ahora, como sabe muy bien, podemos pedir la licencia en cuanto echemos el ancla; así que no queremos riñas; no nos interesa: queremos estar en paz; estamos dispuestos a trabajar, pero no a que nos den latigazos.

»-¡Volved ! -rugió el capitán.

»Steelkilt miró a su alrededor un momento, y luego dijo: »-Le diré la verdad, capitán, antes que matarle, y que nos ahorquen por tan asqueroso granuja, no levantaremos una mano contra usted a no ser que nos ataque, pero mientras no dé su palabra de que no va a darnos latigazos, no trabajaremos.

»Abajo, al castillo de proa, entonces, abajo con vosotros; os tendré allí hasta que os hartéis. Abajo.

»-¿Vamos ? -gritó el cabecilla a sus hombres. Muchos de ellos estaban en contra, pero al fin, por obediencia a Steelkilt, le precedieron bajando a su oscura cueva, y desaparecieron gruñendo, como osos en una cueva.

»Cuando la cabeza descubierta del hombre de los lagos bajó al nivel de las tablas, el capitán y su gente saltaron la barricada, y echando rápidamente la corredera de la escotilla, plantaron todas las manos encima y gritaron ruidosamente al mayordomo que trajera el pesado candado de bronce que pertenecía al tambucho.

Luego, abriendo la corredera un poco, el capitán susurró algo por la abertura, la cerró y les echó la llave a todos ellos -diez en número- dejando en la cubierta unos veinte o más, que hasta entonces habían permanecido neutrales.

»Aquella noche entera estuvieron todos los oficiales en guardia atenta, a proa y a popa, sobre todo alrededor de la escotilla y el portillo del castillo de proa, por donde se temía que pudieran salir los insurgentes, después de abrirse paso por el mamparo de abajo. Pero las horas de tinieblas pasaron en paz; los hombres que seguían en el trabajo se esforzaban duramente en las bombas, cuyos golpes y retiñidos intermitentes, a través de la sombría noche, resonaban lúgubremente por el barco.

»Al salir el sol, el capitán fue a proa y, golpeando en la cubierta, requirió a los prisioneros a trabajar, pero ellos con un aullido, rehusaron. Entonces les bajaron agua y echaron detrás un par de puñados de galleta; después, volviendo a hacer girar la llave, y embolsándosela, el capitán regresó al alcázar. Dos veces diarias, durante tres días, se repitió esto, pero en la cuarta mañana se oyó una confusa agitación, y luego una pelea, cuando se pronunció la acostumbrada exhortación; y de repente cuatro hombres irrumpieron del castillo de proa, diciendo que estaban dispuestos a trabajar. La fétida angostura del aire, y la alimentación de hambre, unidas quizá a ciertos temores de castigo definitivo, les había obligado a rendirse a discreción. Envalentonado con esto, el capitán repitió su demanda a los demás, pero Steelkilt le grito una aterradora indicación de que se dejara de chácharas y se retirara a su sitio. La quinta mañana, tres más de los amotinados se precipitaron al aire escapando a los desesperados brazos que trataban de sujetarles. Sólo quedaban tres.

»-Sería mejor volver al trabajo, ¿eh ? -dijo el capitán con burla inexorable.

»-¡Vuelva a encerrarnos !, ¿quiere ? -gritó Steelkilt.

»-¡Ah, claro ! -dijo el capitán, y chasqueó la llave.

»En este punto fue, caballeros, cuando, encolerizado por la deserción de siete de sus anteriores compañeros, picado por la voz burlona que acababa de saludarle, y enloquecido por su larga sepultura en un sitio tan negro como las tripas de la desesperación, Steelkilt propuso a los dos canaleros, hasta entonces al parecer de acuerdo con él, echarse fuera del agujero a la próxima exhortación de la guarnición, y, armados de agudos trinchantes (largos y pesados instrumentos en forma de luna creciente, con un mango en cada extremo), correr tumultuosamente desde el bauprés al coronamiento de popa, y, si era posible en la desesperación infernal, apoderarse del barco. Por su parte, él lo haría así, le siguieran ellos o no. Esa era la última noche que iba a pasar en aquella cueva. El proyecto no encontró ninguna oposición por parte de los otros dos; juraron que estaban dispuestos a ello, o a cualquier otra locura; en resumen, a todo menos a rendirse. Y, lo que era más, cada uno de ellos se empeñó en ser el primero en cubierta, cuando llegara el momento de dar el asalto. Pero a eso objetó fieramente su jefe, reservándose tal prioridad; sobre todo, dado que sus dos compañeros no cedían uno a otro en este asunto, y los dos no podían ser los primeros, porque la escalerilla sólo admitía un hombre a cada vez. Y aquí, caballeros, tiene que salir el juego sucio de aquellos descreídos.

»Al oír el frenético proyecto de su jefe, a cada uno de ellos, por separado en su alma, se le había ocurrido de repente la misma forma de traición, a saber, ser el primero en salir fuera, para ser el primero de los tres, aunque el último de los diez, en rendirse, obteniendo así cualquier pequeña probabilidad de perdón que pudiera merecer tal conducta. Pero cuando Steelkilt les hizo saber su decisión de precederles hasta el fin, ellos, de algún modo, por alguna sutil química de villanía, mezclaron juntas sus traiciones antes ocultas, y cuando su jefe cayó en un sopor, se abrieron mutuamente con palabras sus ánimos, en tres frases; y ataron y amordazaron al dormido con cuerdas, y gritaron llamando al capitán a medianoche.

»Pensando que había algún asesinato y olfateando sangre en lo oscuro, el capitán y sus oficiales y arponeros, armados, se precipitaron al castillo de proa. Pocos momentos después estuvo abierta la escotilla y, atado de pies y manos, el cabecilla, aún peleando, fue empujado al aire por sus pérfidos aliados, que inmediatamente reclamaron el honor de haber sujetado a un hombre que estaba completamente a punto de cometer un asesinato. Pero todos ellos fueron agarrados por el cuello y arrastrados por la cubierta como ganado muerto; y, costado con costado, fueron elevados a las jarcias de mesana como sendos cuartos de buey, quedando allí colgados hasta la mañana. »-¡Malditos vosotros ! -gritaba el capitán, dando vueltas de un lado para otro delante de ellos-: ¡ni los buitres os tocarían, villanos !

»Al salir el sol, convocó a todos los hombres, y separando a los que se habían rebelado de los que no habían tomado parte en el motín, dijo a aquéllos que tenía ganas de darles latigazos a todos, y pensaba, en conjunto, que lo haría así, que debía hacerlo así, y la justicia lo exigía; pero que por el momento, considerando su oportuna rendición, les dejaría ir con una reprimenda, que, en consecuencia, les administró en lengua vernácula.

»-Pero en cuanto a vosotros, bribones de carroña -volviéndose a los tres hombres en las jarcias-, a vosotros, pienso haceros pedazos para las marmitas de destilación. »Y, agarrando un cabo, lo aplicó con toda su fuerza a las espaldas de los dos traidores, hasta que dejaron de aullar y quedaron exánimes con las cabezas colgando de medio lado, como se dibuja a los dos ladrones crucificados.

»-¡Me he dislocado la muñeca con vosotros ! -gritó por fin-, pero todavía queda bastante cabo para ti, mi guapo gatillo, que no querías ceder. Quitadle esa mordaza de la boca, y oigamos lo que puede decir a su favor.

»Por un momento, el exhausto amotinado hizo un trémulo movimiento de sus mandíbulas en espasmo, y luego, retorciendo dolorosamente la cabeza para volverla, dijo en una especie de siseo: »--Lo que digo es esto... y fíjese bien..., como me dé latigazos, ¡le asesino !

»-¿Eso dices ? Entonces vas a ver cómo me asustas... -y el capitán echó atrás el cabo para golpear. »

-Más le vale que no -siseó el de los lagos.

»-Pero debo hacerlo -y el cabo se echó atrás una vez más para el golpe.

»Steelkilt entonces siseó algo, inaudible para todos menos para el capitán, quien, con sorpresa de todos los hombres, se echó atrás sobresaltado, dio vueltas rápidamente por la cubierta dos o tres veces, y luego, dejando caer de repente el cabo, dijo: »-No lo haré... Dejadle ir..., cortadle las cuerdas: ¿oís ?

»Pero cuando el segundo y tercer oficial se apresuraban a ejecutar la orden, les detuvo un hombre pálido, con la cabeza vendada: Radney, el primer oficial. Desde el golpe, había estado tendido en su litera, pero aquella mañana, al oír el tumulto en la cubierta, se había deslizado fuera, y había observado así toda la escena. Era tal el estado de su boca que apenas podía hablar, pero murmurando algo de que él sí estaba dispuesto y era capaz de hacer lo que el capitán no se atrevía a intentar, tomó el cabo y avanzó hacia su atado enemigo.

»-¡Eres un cobarde ! -siseó el de los lagos. »--Lo seré, pero toma esto.

»El oficial estaba a punto de golpear, cuando otro siseo le detuvo el brazo levantado. Se detuvo: y luego, sin pararse más, cumplió su palabra, a pesar de la amenaza de Steelkilt, cualquiera que hubiera sido. A los tres hombres luego les cortaron las cuerdas; todos los marineros se pusieron al trabajo, y malhumoradamente manejadas por los melancólicos tripulantes, las bombas metálicas volvieron a resonar como antes.

»Acababa de oscurecer aquel día, y una guardia se había retirado franca de servicio, cuando se oyó un clamor en el castillo de proa, y los dos temblorosos traidores acudieron corriendo a acosar la puerta de la cabina, diciendo que no se atrevían a estar juntos con la tripulación. Amenazas, golpes y patadas no pudieron echarles atrás, de modo que, a petición propia, se les puso en los raseles de popa para su salvación. Sin embargo, no volvió a notarse señal de motín entre los demás. Al contrario, parecía que, sobre todo por instigación de Steelkilt, habían decidido mantener la paz más estricta, obedecer las órdenes hasta el fin, y, cuando el barco llegara a puerto, desertar todos juntos. Pero, para lograr el más rápido final del viaje, acordaron todos otra cosa, a saber, no señalar ballenas, en caso de que se descubrieran. Pues, a pesar de su vía de agua, y a pesar de todos los demás peligros, el Town-Ho seguía manteniendo sus vigías, y el capitán estaba tan dispuesto a arriar los botes en ese momento para pescar como en el mismo día en que el barco entró en la zona de pesca; y Radney, el primer oficial, estaba dispuesto a cambiar la litera por un bote, y, con la boca vendada, a intentar amordazar la mandíbula vital de la ballena.

»Pero aunque el hombre de los lagos había inducido a los marineros a adoptar esta suerte de pasividad en su conducta, él seguía su propio designio (al menos hasta que pasara todo) en cuanto a su propia venganza particular contra el hombre que le había herido en los ventrículos del corazón. Pertenecía a la guardia de Radney el primer oficial; y como si este infatúo hombre tratara de correr más que a mitad de camino al encuentro de su destino, después de la escena del latigazo se empeñó, contra el consejo expreso del capitán, en volver a tomar el mando de su guardia nocturna. Sobre esto, y una o dos circunstancias más, Steelkilt construyó sistemáticamente el plan de su venganza.

»Durante la noche, Radney tenía un modo nada marinero de sentarse en las amuradas del alcázar y apoyar el brazo en la borda de la lancha que estaba allí izada, un poco por encima del costado del barco. En esa postura se sabía que a veces se quedaba adormecido. Había un hueco considerable entre la lancha y el barco, y debajo quedaba el mar. Steelkilt calculó su hora, y encontró que su próximo turno en el timón tocaría hacia las dos, en la madrugada del tercer día después de aquel en que fue traicionado. Con tranquilidad, empleó el intervalo en trenzar algo muy cuidadosamente, en sus guardias francas.

»-¿Qué haces ahí ? -dijo un compañero.

»-¿Qué crees ?, ¿qué parece ?

»-Como un rebenque para tu saco, pero es muy raro, me parece. »

-Sí, bastante raro -dijo el de los lagos, sosteniéndolo ante él con el brazo extendido-: pero creo que servirá. Compañero, no tengo bastante hilo: ¿tienes algo ?

»Pero no lo había en el castillo de proa.

»-Entonces tendré que pedirle algo al viejo Rad -y se levantó para ir a popa.

»-¡No querías decir que le vas a pedir algo a él ! -dijo un marinero.

»-¿Por qué no ? ¿Crees que no me va a hacer un favor, si es para servirle a él al final, compañero ? »Y acercándose al oficial, le miró tranquilamente y le pidió un poco de hilo de vela para arreglar la hamaca. Se lo dio; no se volvieron a ver ni hilo ni rebenque, pero a la noche siguiente, una bola de hierro, apretadamente envuelta, casi se salió del bolsillo del chaquetón del hombre de los lagos, cuando mullía la chaqueta en la hamaca para que le sirviera de almohada. Veinticuatro horas después, había de llegar su turno en el timón, cerca del hombre capaz de dormirse sobre la tumba siempre abierta y dispuesta para el marinero; había de llegar la hora fatal, y, en el alma preordenadora de Steelkilt, el oficial ya estaba rígido y extendido como un cadáver, con la frente aplastada.

»Pero, caballeros, un tonto salvó al aspirante a asesino del sangriento hecho que había planeado. Y sin embargo, tuvo completa venganza, pero sin ser él el vengador. Pues, por una misteriosa fatalidad, el mismo cielo pareció intervenir para quitarle de sus manos, con las suyas, esa cosa de condenación que iba a hacer.

»Era precisamente entre el alba y la salida del sol del segundo día, mientras baldeaban las cubiertas, cuando un estúpido marinero de Tenerife, sacando agua en la mesa de guarnición mayor, gritó de repente: »-¡Ahí va, ahí va nadando ! »Jesús, qué ballena ! Era Moby Dick.

»-¡Moby Dick ! -gritó don Sebastián-: ¡Por Santo Domingo ! Señor marinero, pero ¿las ballenas tienen nombre de pila ? ¿A quién llamáis Moby Dick ?

»-A un monstruo muy blanco, y famoso, y mortalmente inmortal, don Sebastián...; pero eso sería una historia muy larga.

»-¿Cómo, cómo ? -gritaron todos los jóvenes españoles, agolpándose.

»-No, señores, señores... ¡No, no ! No puedo repetirlo ahora. Déjenme un poco más de aire, señores.

»-¡La chicha, la chicha ! -gritó don Pedro-: nuestro vigoroso amigo parece que se va a desmayar: ¡llenadle el vaso vacío !

»-No hace falta, señores; un momento, y sigo. Entonces, señores, al percibir tan de repente la ballena nívea a cincuenta yardas del barco -olvidándose de lo conjurado entre la tripulación-, en la excitación del momento, el marinero de Tenerife había elevado su voz, de modo instintivo e involuntario, por el monstruo, aunque hacía ya algún tiempo que lo habían observado claramente los tres huraños vigías. Todo entró entonces en frenesí. "¡La ballena blanca, la ballena blanca !", era el grito de capitanes, oficiales y arponeros, que, sin asustarse por los temibles rumores, estaban afanosos de capturar un pez tan famoso y precioso, mientras la terca tripulación miraba de medio lado y con maldiciones la horrible belleza de la vasta masa lechosa que, iluminada por un sol en bandas horizontales, centelleaba y oscilaba como un ópalo vivo en el azul mar de la mañana. Caballeros, una extraña fatalidad domina el entero transcurso de estos acontecimientos, como si estuvieran trazados completamente antes que el mismo mundo se dibujara en un mapa. El cabecilla del motín era el que iba en la proa de la lancha del primer oficial, y cuando acosaban a una ballena, su deber era sentarse a su lado, mientras Radney se erguía con su lanza en la proa, y halar o soltar la estacha, a la voz de mando. Además, cuando se arriaron las cuatro lanchas, el primer oficial fue por delante, y nadie aulló con más feroz deleite que Steelkilt al poner en tensión el remo. Tras de remar violentamente, su arponero hizo presa, y, lanza en mano, Radney saltó a proa. Siempre era, al parecer, un hombre furioso en la lancha. Y ahora su grito, entre las vendas, fue que le hicieran abordar lo alto del lomo del cachalote. Sin hacerse rogar, su marinero de proa le izó cada vez más, a través de una cegadora espuma que fundía juntas dos blancuras: hasta que, de repente, la lancha chocó como contra un escollo hundido y, escorándose, dejó caer fuera al oficial, que iba de pie. En ese momento, cuando él cayó en el resbaladizo lomo del cetáceo, la lancha se enderezó, y fue echada a un lado por la oleada, mientras Radney era lanzado al mar al otro lado del cachalote. Salió disparado por las salpicaduras y, por un momento, se le vio vagamente a través de ese velo, tratando locamente de apartarse del ojo de Moby Dick. Pero el cachalote se dio la vuelta en repentino torbellino: agarró al nadador entre las mandíbulas y, encabritándose con él1, volvió a sumergirse de cabeza y desapareció.

»Mientras tanto, al primer golpe del fondo de la lancha, el hombre de los lagos había aflojado la estacha, para echarse a popa alejándose del torbellino: sin dejar de mirar tranquilamente, pensaba sus propios pensamientos. Pero una súbita y terrorífica sacudida de la lancha hacia abajo llevó rápidamente su cuchillo a la estacha. La cortó, y el cachalote quedó libre. Pero, a cierta distancia, Moby Dick volvió a subir, llevando unos jirones de la camisa de lana roja de Radney, entre los dientes que le habían destrozado. Los cuatro botes volvieron a emprender la persecución, pero el cetáceo los eludió, y al fin desapareció por completo.

»En su momento, el Town-Ho alcanzó el puerto, un lugar salvaje y solitario donde no residía ninguna criatura civilizada. Allí, con el hombre de los lagos a la cabeza, todos los marineros rasos, menos cinco o seis, desertaron deliberadamente entre las palmeras; y al fin, según resultó, se apoderaron de una gran canoa doble de guerra, de los salvajes, y se hicieron a la vela para algún otro puerto.

»Como la tripulación del barco quedó reducida a un puñado, el capitán apeló a los isleños para que le ayudaran en el laborioso asunto de poner la quilla del barco al aire para tapar la vía de agua. Pero esta pequeña banda de blancos se vio obligada a tan incesante vigilancia contra sus peligrosos aliados, de día y de noche, y tan extremado fue el duro trabajo a que se sometieron, que cuando el barco volvió a estar dispuesto para navegar, estaban de tal modo debilitados que el capitán no se atrevió a zarpar con ellos en un barco tan pesado. Después de celebrar el consejo con sus oficiales, ancló el barco todo lo lejos de la orilla que pudo; cargó y trasladó los dos cañones desde la proa; amontonó los fusiles a popa, y, avisando a los isleños que no se acercaran al barco porque era peligroso, tomó consigo un solo marinero e, izando la vela de su mejor lancha ballenera, se dirigió viento en popa a Tahití, a quinientas millas, en busca de refuerzos para su tripulación.

»Al cuarto día de navegación, se observó una gran canoa, que parecía haber tocado en una baja isla de coral. El viró para evitarla, pero la embarcación salvaje se dirigió hacia él, y pronto la voz de Steelkilt le llamó gritándole que se pusiera al pairo, o le echaría a pique. El capitán sacó una pistola. Con un pie en cada proa de las enyugadas canoas de guerra, el hombre de los lagos se rió de él despectivamente, asegurándole que sólo con que chascara la llave, él le sepultaría en burbujas y espuma.

»-¿Qué me quiere ? -gritó el capitán.

»-¿Adónde va, y para qué va ? -preguntó Steelkilt-. Sin mentiras.

»-Voy a Tahití en busca de más hombres.

»-Muy bien. Déjeme que suba a bordo un momento: voy en paz. »Y entonces saltó de la canoa, nadó hacia el bote, y, trepando por la borda, se enfrentó con el capitán.

»-Cruce los brazos, capitán: eche atrás la cabeza. Ahora, repita conmigo: "Tan pronto como Steelkilt me deje, juro varar la lancha en esa isla, y quedarme ahí seis días: ¡Y si no, que me parta un rayo !".

¡Buen estudiante ! -rió el de los lagos-. ¡Adiós, Señor ! -y, saltando al mar, volvió a nado con sus compañeros.

»Observando hasta que la lancha quedó bien varada y sacada a tierra junto a las raíces de los cocoteros, Steelkilt se hizo a la vela a su vez, y llegó en su momento a Tahití, su destino. Allí la suerte le fue propicia; dos barcos estaban a punto de zarpar para Francia, y providencialmente, necesitaban tantos marineros como encabezaba Steelkilt. Se embarcaron, y así le sacaron ventaja definitiva a su antiguo capitán, por si había tenido en algún momento intención de procurarles algún castigo legal.

»Unos diez días después de que zarparon los barcos franceses, llegó la lancha ballenera, y el capitán se vio obligado a alistar algunos de los tahitianos más civilizados, que estaban algo acostumbrados al mar. Contratando una pequeña goleta indígena, regresó con ellos a su barco, y encontrándolo allí todo en orden, volvió a continuar sus travesías.

»Dónde estará ahora Steelkilt, caballeros, nadie lo sabe, pero en la isla de Nantucket, la vida de Radney sigue dirigiéndose al mar que rehúsa entregar sus muertos y sigue viendo en sueños la terrible ballena blanca que le destrozó.

»-¿Habéis terminado ? -dijo don Sebastián, sosegadamente.

»-He terminado, don Sebastián.

»-Entonces os ruego que me digáis, según vuestras convicciones más sinceras: ¿esa historia es auténticamente verdadera en sustancia ? ¡Es tan prodigiosa ! ¿La habéis recibido de fuente indiscutible ? Perdonadme si parece que insisto mucho.

»-Perdonadnos entonces a todos nosotros, pues acompañamos a don Sebastián en su ruego -exclamaron los reunidos, con enorme interés.

»-¿Hay en la Posada de Oro unos Santos Evangelios, caballeros ?

»-No -dijo don Sebastián-, pero conozco un digno sacerdote de aquí cerca que rápidamente me procurará unos. Iré a buscarlos, pero ¿lo habéis pensado bien ? Esto puede ponerse demasiado serio.

»-¿Tendréis la bondad de traer también al sacerdote, don Sebastián ?

Aunque ahora no hay en Lima autos de fe -dijo uno del grupo a otro-, me temo que nuestro amigo marinero corre peligro con el arzobispado. Vamos a apartarnos más de la luz de la luna. No veo la necesidad de esto.

»-Perdonadme que corra en vuestra busca, don Sebastián, pero querría rogar también que insistáis en procuraros los Evangelios de mayor tamaño que podáis. *******

»-Este es el sacerdote que os trae los Evangelios -dijo gravemente don Sebastián, volviendo con una figura alta y solemne.

»-Me quitaré el sombrero. Ahora, venerable sacerdote, venid más a la luz, y presentadme el Libro Sagrado para que pueda tocarlo.

Y así me salve Dios, y por mi honor, que la historia que os he contado, caballeros, es verdadera en sustancia y en sus principales puntos. Sé que es verdadera: ha ocurrido en esta esfera; yo estuve en el barco; conocí a la tripulación, y he visto y he hablado con Steelkilt después de la muerte de Radney. » 

De las imágenes monstruosas de las ballenas

No tardaré en pintaros, lo mejor que es posible sin lienzo, algo así como la verdadera forma de la ballena según aparece efectivamente a los ojos del cazador de ballenas, cuando, en carne y hueso, el cetáceo queda amarrado a lo largo del barco, de modo que se puede andar limpiamente por encima de él. Por tanto, puede valer la pena aludir previamente a esos curiosos retratos imaginarios suyos que aun hasta en nuestros días excitan confiadamente la credulidad de la gente de tierra adentro. Ya es hora de corregir al mundo en este asunto, demostrando que tales imágenes de la ballena son todas erróneas.

Es posible que la fuente prístina de todos esos engaños plásticos se encuentre entre las más antiguas esculturas hindúes, egipcias y griegas. Pues desde aquellas épocas, inventivas, pero poco escrupulosas, en que, en los paneles marmóreos de los templos, en los pedestales de las estatuas, y en escudos, medallones, copas y monedas, se representaba el delfín en escamas de cota de malla como Saladino, y con casco en la cabeza, igual que san Jorge, ha prevalecido siempre desde entonces algo de la misma suerte de licenciosidad, no sólo en las imágenes más populares de la ballena, sino en muchas de sus representaciones científicas.

Ahora, según toda probabilidad, el más antiguo retrato que de algún modo se proponga ser de la ballena, se encuentra en la famosa pagoda-caverna de Elephanta, en la India. Los brahmanes sostienen que en las casi inacabables esculturas de esa pagoda inmemorial, se representaron todas las actividades y profesiones, toda clase de dedicaciones concebibles en el hombre, siglos antes de que ninguna de ellas llegara de hecho a existir. No es extraño, entonces, que nuestra noble profesión ballenera estuviera prefigurada allí de alguna manera. La ballena hindú a que aludimos se encuentra en un departamento aislado en la pared, que representa la encarnación de Visnú en forma de leviatán, conocida entre los doctos como Matse Avatar. Pero aunque esa escultura es mitad hombre y mitad ballena, de modo que sólo ofrece la cola de ésta, sin embargo, esta pequeña sección de ella está equivocada. Parece la cola puntiaguda de una anaconda, más bien que las anchas palmetas de la majestuosa cola de la ballena auténtica.

Pero id a lo viejos museos, y mirad entonces el retrato de este pez por un gran pintor cristiano: no tiene más éxito que el antediluviano hindú. Es el cuadro de Guido que representa a Perseo salvando a Atidrómeda de un monstruo marino o ballena. ¿De dónde sacó Guido el modelo para tan extraña criatura como ésta ? Tampoco Hogarth, al trazar la misma escena en su Descenso de Perseo, lo hace ni una jota mejor. La enorme corpulencia de ese monstruo hogarthiano ondula en la superficie, desplazando escasamente una pulgada de agua. Tiene una especie de howdah en el lomo, y su boca distendida y colmilluda, en que entran las olas, podría tomarse por la Puerta de los Traidores, que lleva, por agua, desde el Támesis a la Torre. Luego están los pródromos balleneros del viejo escocés Sibbald, y la ballena de Jonás, según se representa en las estampas de las viejas Biblias y los grabados de los viejos devocionarios. ¿Qué se ha de decir de éstos ? En cuanto a la ballena del encuadernador, retorcida corno una vida en torno al cepo de un ancla que desciende -según está grabada y dorada en los lomos y portadas de tantos libros, antiguos y nuevos-, es una criatura muy pintoresca, pero puramente fabulosa, imitada, según entiendo, de análogas figuras en ánforas de la Antigüedad. Aunque universalmente se le llama delfín, sin embargo, a este pez del encuadernador yo le llamo un intento de ballena, porque eso se intentó que fuera cuando se introdujo tal divisa. La introdujo un antiguo editor italiano, de alrededor del siglo XV, durante el Renacimiento de la Erudición, y en aquellos días, e incluso hasta un período relativamente reciente, se suponía que los delfines eran una especie del leviatán.

En viñetas y otros ornamentos de ciertos libros antiguos encontraréis a veces rasgos muy curiosos de la ballena, donde toda clase de chorros, jets d'eau, fuentes termales y frías, Saratogas y Baden-Baden, se elevan burbujeando de su inagotable cerebro. En la portada de la edición original del Adelanto del Saber encontraréis algunas curiosas ballenas.

Pero dejando todos estos intentos extra-profesionales, lancemos una ojeada a las imágenes del leviatán, que se proponen ser transcripciones sobrias y científicas, por aquellos que entienden. En la vieja colección de viajes de Harris hay algunos grabados de ballenas, tomados de un libro holandés de viajes, del año 1671, titulado Un Viaje Ballenero a Spitzberg en el barco Jonás en la Ballena, propiedad de Peter Peterson de Friesland. En uno de esos grabados se representan las ballenas como grandes balsas de troncos, entre islas de hielo, con osos blancos corriendo por sus lomos vivos. En otro grabado, se comete el prodigioso error de representar a la ballena con cola vertical.

Luego, también, hay un imponente en cuarto, escrito por un tal capitán Colnett, oficial retirado de la Armada inglesa, titulado Un viaje doblando el cabo de Hornos, a los mares del Sur, con el propósito de extender las pesquerías de cachalotes. En ese libro hay un bosquejo que pretende ser una « Imagen de un Physeter o Cachalote, dibujada a escala según uno muerto en la costa de México, en agosto de 1793, e izado a cubierta ». No dudo que el capitán tomaría esta veraz imagen para utilidad de sus marineros. Para mencionar una sola cosa en ella, permítaseme decir que tiene un ojo que, aplicado, según la escala adjunta, a un cachalote adulto, convertiría el ojo de ese cetáceo en una ventana de arco de unos cinco pies de larga. ¡Ah, mi valiente capitán, por qué no nos pusiste a Jonás asomado a ese ojo !

Tampoco las más concienzudas compilaciones de Historia Natural, para uso de los jóvenes e ingenuos, están libres de la misma atrocidad de error. Mirad esa obra tan famosa que es La Naturaleza Animada, de Goldsmith. En la edición abreviada de 1807, de Londres hay grabados sobre una presunta « ballena » y un « narval ». No quiero parecer poco elegante, pero esta fea ballena parece una cerda mutilada, y en cuanto al narval, una ojeada basta para sorprenderle a uno de que en este siglo decimonono se pueda hacer pasar por genuino un hipogrifo, a cualquier inteligente público de escolares.

Luego, a su vez, en 1825, Bernard Germain, conde de Lacépède, gran naturalista, publicó un libro sobre las ballenas, científico y sistemático, en que hay varias imágenes de las diversas especies del leviatán. Todas ellas no sólo son incorrectas, sino que la imagen del Mysticetus o ballena de Groenlandia (es decir, la ballena franca), el mismo Scoresby, hombre de larga experiencia respecto a esa especie, declara que no tiene equivalencia en la naturaleza.

Pero estaba reservado poner el remate a todo este asunto de errores al científico Frederick Cuvier, hermano del famoso Barón. En 1836 publicó una Historia Natural de las Ballenas, en que da lo que llama una imagen del cachalote. Antes de mostrar esa imagen a cualquiera de Nantucket, haríais mejor en prepararos la rápida retirada de Nantucket. En una palabra, el cachalote de Frederick Cuvier no es un cachalote, sino una calabaza. Desde luego, él nunca tuvo la ventaja de un viaje ballenero (tales hombres rara vez lo tienen), pero ¿quién puede decir de dónde sacó esa imagen ? Quizá la sacó de donde su predecesor científico en el mismo campo, Desmarest, sacó uno de sus auténticos abortos, esto es, de un dibujo chino. Y muchas extrañas tazas y platillos nos informan de qué clase de gente traviesa con el pincel son esos chinos.

En cuanto a las ballenas de los pintores de esas muestras que se ven colgando sobre las tiendas de los vendedores de aceite, ¿qué diremos de ellas ? Son generalmente ballenas a lo Ricardo II, con jorobas de dromedario, y muy salvajes; que desayunan con tres o cuatro empanadas de marinero, es decir, lanchas balleneras llenas de tripulantes, y que sumergen sus deformidades en mares de pintura sangrienta y azul.

Pero, después de todo, esas múltiples equivocaciones al representar la ballena no son muy sorprendentes. ¡Consideradlo ! La mayor parte de esos dibujos científicos se han tomado de las ballenas encalladas, y son tan correctas como el dibujo de un barco naufragado, con el lomo deshecho, podría serlo para representar al noble animal mismo en todo su orgullo intacto de casco y arboladura. Aunque ha habido elefantes que han posado para retratos de cuerpo entero, el leviatán viviente jamás se ha puesto al pairo decentemente para que lo retrataran. La ballena viva, en plena majestad y significación, sólo se puede ver en el mar, en aguas insondables, y, al nivel del agua, su vasta mole queda fuera del alcance de la vista, como un barco de guerra en la botadura; y sacada de ese elemento, es para el hombre una cosa eternamente imposible de izar en peso por el aire, con el fin de eternizar sus poderosas flexiones y curvas. Y, para no hablar de la diferencia de contorno, presumiblemente muy grande, entre una joven ballena lactante y un adulto leviatán platónico, con todo, aun en el caso en que se icen a la cubierta de un barco esas jóvenes ballenas lactantes, es tal, entonces, su exótica forma, blanda, variante y como de anguila, que ni el mismo diablo podría captar su precisa expresión.

Pero cabría suponer que del esqueleto desnudo de la ballena encallada se podrían derivar sugerencias exactas en cuanto a su verdadera forma. De ningún modo. Pues una de las cosas más curiosas sobre este leviatán es que su esqueleto da muy poca idea de su forma general. Aunque el esqueleto de Jeremy Bentham, que cuelga como candelabro en la biblioteca de uno de sus albaceas, ofrece correctamente la idea de un anciano caballero utilitario de frente abultada, con todas las demás características personales dominantes de Jeremy, nada de este orden podría inferirse de los huesos articulados de ningún leviatán. En realidad, como dice el gran Hunter, el mero esqueleto de una ballena tiene la misma relación con el animal totalmente revestido y almohadillado, que el insecto con la crisálida que tan redondamente le envuelve. Esa peculiaridad se evidencia de modo sorprendente en la cabeza, como se mostrará incidentalmente en cierta parte de este libro. También se echa de ver eso en forma muy curiosa en la aleta lateral, cuyos huesos corresponden casi exactamente a los huesos de la mano humana, sólo que sin el pulgar. La aleta tiene cuatro normales dedos de hueso, el índice, medio, anular y meñique. Pero todos están permanentemente alojados en su recubrimiento carnoso, igual que los dedos humanos en un enguantado artificial. « Por más inexorablemente que nos maltrate a veces la ballena -decía un día Stubb humorísticamente-, no se podrá decir de veras que no nos trata con guantes. »

Por todas esas razones, pues, de cualquier modo que se mire, es necesario concluir que el gran leviatán es la única criatura del mundo que habrá de seguir hasta el final sin que se la pinte. Cierto es que un retrato podrá dar mucho más cerca del blanco que otro, pero ninguno puede dar en él con un grado muy considerable de exactitud. Así que no hay en este mundo un modo de averiguar exactamente qué aspecto tiene la ballena. Y el único modo como se puede obtener una idea aceptable de su silueta viva, es yendo en persona a cazarla, pero al hacerlo así, se corre no poco riesgo de ser desfondado y hundido para siempre por ella. Por lo tanto, me parece que haríais mejor en no ser demasiado meticulosos en vuestra curiosidad respecto a este leviatán. 

De las imágenes menos erróneas de las ballenas, y de las imágenes verdaderas de escenas de la caza de la ballena

En conexión con las imágenes monstruosas de ballenas, siento ahora grandes tentaciones de entrar en esos relatos aún más monstruosos sobre ellas que se encuentran en ciertos libros, tanto antiguos como modernos, especialmente en Plinio, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etcétera. Pero dejaré a un lado todo eso.

Sólo conozco cuatro dibujos publicados del gran cachalote: los de Colnett, Huggins, Frederick Cuvier y Beale. En el capítulo anterior se ha aludido a Colnett y a Cuvier. El de Huggins es mucho mejor que los suyos; pero, con gran probabilidad, el de Beale es el mejor. Todos los dibujos de este cetáceo por Beale son buenos, salvo la figura central en el grabado de tres cetáceos en diversas actitudes, que encabeza el capítulo segundo. Su frontispicio, unas lanchas atacando a unos cachalotes, aunque sin duda calculado para excitar el cortés escepticismo de ciertos hombres de salón, resulta admirablemente correcto y a lo vivo en su efecto general. Algunos de los dibujos de cachalotes por J. Ross Browne son bastante correctos de silueta, pero están miserablemente grabados. Sin embargo, no es culpa suya.

De la ballena propiamente dicha, los mejores dibujos de contorno se encuentran en Scoresby; pero están trazados en una escala demasiado pequeña para producir una impresión deseable. No hay allí más que un grabado de escenas de pesca de ballenas, y esto es una triste deficiencia, porque sólo con tales grabados, sí están realmente bien hechos, se puede obtener algo así como una idea auténtica de la ballena viva según la ven sus cazadores vivos.

Pero, tomándolo todo en conjunto, las representaciones mejores, con mucho, aunque no del todo correctas en algunos detalles, que cabe encontrar en cualquier sitio, son dos grandes grabados franceses, bien ejecutados y tomados de pinturas de un tal Garnery. Representan ataques, respectivamente, contra el cachalote y la ballena. En el primer grabado se representa un noble cachalote en plena majestad de poderío, recién surgido de debajo de la lancha, desde las profundidades del océano, y lanzando con el lomo a lo alto, por el aire, la terrible ruina de las tablas desfondadas. La proa de la lancha está parcialmente entera, y aparece en equilibrio sobre el espinazo del monstruo; y de pie en esa proa, en un inapreciable chispazo de tiempo, se observa un remero, medio envuelto por el irritado chorro hirviente del cetáceo, y en ademán de saltar, como desde un precipicio. La acción del conjunto es admirablemente buena y verdadera. La tina de la estacha, medio vacía, flota en el mar blanquecino; las astas de madera de los arpones dispersos asoman oblicuamente en el agua; las cabezas de la tripulación, a nado, están esparcidas en torno a la ballena en contrastadas expresiones de espanto; mientras que, en la negra lontananza tormentosa, el barco se acerca a la escena. Podrían encontrarse serios defectos en los detalles anatómicos de esta ballena, pero dejémoslo pasar, porque yo no sabría dibujar otra tan buena ni por toda mi vida.

En el segundo grabado, la lancha está pasando a lo largo del costado, lleno de lapas, de una gran ballena de Groenlandia, a la carrera, que mece su negra mole algosa en el mar, como una roca musgosa desprendida de los acantilados patagónicos. Sus chorros están erguidos, llenos y negros como el hollín, de modo que, por tan abundante humo en la chimenea, se pensaría que debe haber una buena cena guisándose en las grandes tripas de abajo. Hay aves marinas que picotean los cangrejitos, mariscos y otros confites y macarrones marinos que la ballena de Groenlandia lleva a veces en su pestilente lomo. Y durante todo el tiempo, ese leviatán de labios apretados se precipita a través de las profundidades, dejando en su estela toneladas de tumultuosos coágulos blancos, y haciendo a la ligera lancha mecerse en las oleadas como una yola sorprendida junto a las ruedas de palas de un vapor transatlántico. Así, el primer término es todo él una conmoción colérica, pero atrás, en admirable contraste artístico, queda la superficie cristalina de un mar tranquilo, las velas caídas e inmaculadas del barco sin fuerza, y la masa inerte de una ballena muerta, una fortaleza conquistada, con la bandera de la captura colgando perezosamente del asta inserta en su agujero del chorro.

No sé quién es o era el pintor Garnery. Pero apuesto la cabeza a que, o tenía experiencia práctica del tema, o estaba maravillosamente aleccionado por algún experto cazador de ballenas. Los franceses son la gente más adecuada para la pintura de acción. Id a mirar todas las pinturas de Europa, y ¿dónde encontraréis tal galería de conmoción viva y respirando en el lienzo como en el triunfal ámbito de Versalles, donde el observador lucha abriéndose paso, en confusión, a través de todas las grandes batallas de Francia, tina tras otra, en que cada espada parece un relámpago de las auroras boreales, y la sucesión de reyes armados y emperadores pasa como una carga de centauros coronados ? No del todo indignas de figurar en esa galería son las piezas marítimas de Garnery.

La aptitud natural de los franceses para captar lo pintoresco de las cosas parece peculiarmente evidenciada en los cuadros y grabados que han hecho de sus escenas de pesca de la ballena. Con la décima parte de la experiencia de los ingleses en tal pesca, y ni siquiera la milésima parte de los americanos, sin embargo, ellos han proporcionado a ambas naciones las únicas representaciones acabadas capaces en absoluto de transmitir el auténtico espíritu de la caza de la ballena. En su mayor parte, los dibujantes balleneros ingleses y americanos parecen totalmente contentos con presentar el contorno mecánico de las cosas, tales como el perfil vacío de la ballena, que, en cuanto a lo que se refiere a lo pintoresco del efecto, viene a ser equivalente a esbozar el perfil de una pirámide. Incluso Scoresby, el justamente famoso cazador de ballenas de Groenlandia, tras darnos un rígido retrato de cuerpo entero de la ballena, y tres o cuatro delicadas miniaturas de narvales y marsopas, nos obsequia con una serie de grabados clásicos de bicheros, trinchantes y rezones; y, con la microscópica laboriosidad de un Leuwenhoeck somete a la inspección de un mundo aterido noventa y seis facsímiles de cristales de nieve ártica vistos con aumento. No lo digo en desdoro de ese excelente viajero (le honro como veterano), pero en un asunto tan importante ha sido realmente un descuido no haberse procurado para cada cristal una declaración jurada prestada ante un juez de paz groenlandés.

En adición a esos hermosos grabados de Garnery, hay otros dos grabados franceses dignos de nota, por alguien que se firma « H. Durand ». Uno de ellos, aunque no encaja exactamente con nuestro propósito actual, merece sin embargo mencionarse por otros motivos. Es una tranquila escena de mediodía, entre las islas del Pacífico; hay un barco ballenero francés anclado junto a la costa, en bonanza, y llevando agua a bordo perezosamente, con las aflojadas velas del barco y las largas hojas de las palmeras del fondo cayendo juntamente en el aire sin brisa. El efecto es muy hermoso, si se considera en referencia a que presenta los curtidos pescadores en uno de sus pocos aspectos de reposo oriental. El otro grabado es' un asunto muy diferente; el barco se pone al pairo en alta mar y en el mismo corazón de la vida leviatánica, con una ballena de Groenlandia al lado; la nave (que está en el descuartizamiento) atraca junto al monstruo como si fuera un muelle, y una lancha, alejándose apresuradamente de esta escena de actividad, se dispone a perseguir a unas ballenas en lontananza. Los arpones y las lanzas están apuntándose para actuar; tres remeros acaban de meter el mástil en su fogonadura, mientras, por una súbita oleada del mar, la pequeña embarcación se empina medio erguida en el agua como un caballo encabritado. Desde ese barco, el humo de los tormentos de la ballena hirviente sube como el humo de una aldea de herrerías; y a barlovento, una nube negra, elevándose con promesa de chubascos y lluvias, parece avivar la actividad de los excitados marineros. 

Sobre las ballenas en pintura, en dientes, en madera, en plancha de hierro, en piedra, en montañas, en estrellas

Desde la colina de la Torre, bajando a los muelles de Londres, quizá habréis visto un mendigo tullido (un anclote, como dicen los marineros) que enseña una tabla pintada donde se representa la trágica escena en que perdió la pierna. Hay tres ballenas y tres lanchas, y una de las lanchas (que se supone que contiene la pierna ausente en toda su integridad original) está siendo mascada por las mandíbulas de la ballena delantera. Durante todo el tiempo, desde hace diez años, según me han dicho, ese horrible ha mostrado la pintura y ha exhibido el muñón ante un mundo incrédulo. Pero ahora ha llegado el momento de su justificación. Sus tres ballenas son tan buenas ballenas como jamás se hayan publicado en Wapping, en cualquier caso; y su muñón es un muñón tan indiscutible como pueda encontrarse en las talas del Oeste. Pero, aunque subido para siempre en su muñón, el pobre ballenero no hace jamás discursos, sino que, con los ojos bajos, permanece contritamente contemplando su propia amputación.

A través del Pacífico, y también en Nantucket, New Bedford y Sag Harbour, encontraréis vivaces esbozos de ballenas y escenas balleneras, tallados por los propios pescadores en dientes de cachalote, o varillas de corsé sacadas de las ballenas, u otros artículos de skrimshander, como llaman los balleneros a los numerosos pequeños artilugios que tallan meticulosamente en esa materia prima, en sus horas de ocio oceánico. Algunos de ellos tienen cajitas de instrumentos de aspecto odontológico, especialmente destinados a este asunto del skrimshander. Pero en general, trabajan sólo con su navaja, y con esa herramienta casi omnipotente del marinero, os sacan lo que queráis en cuestión de fantasía naval.

El largo exilio respecto a la cristiandad y la civilización inevitablemente devuelve al hombre a la condición en que Dios le puso, esto es, a lo que se llama salvajismo. El verdadero cazador de ballenas es casi tan salvaje como un iroqués. Yo mismo soy un salvaje que no debe sumisión sino al rey de los caníbales, dispuesto en todo momento a rebelarme contra él.

Ahora, una de las características peculiares del salvaje en sus horas domésticas, es su admirable paciencia y su maña. Un antiguo rompecabezas o una pagaya de las islas Hawai, en su plena multiplicidad y complicación de talla, es un trofeo de la perseverancia humana tan grande como un diccionario de latín. Pues, con un trozo de concha rota o un diente de tiburón, se ha logrado un milagroso intrincamiento de entrelazado de madera, que ha costado años de constante aplicación.

Con el salvaje marinero blanco pasa lo mismo que con el salvaje hawaiano. Con la misma paciencia maravillosa, y con ese mismo único diente de tiburón que es su pobre única navaja, os tallará un poco de escultura en hueso, no con tanta habilidad, pero tan cerradamente apretado en su enredo de diseño como el salvaje griego talló el escudo de Aquiles; y tan lleno de espíritu barbárico y de sugestión como los grabados de aquel admirable salvaje holandés, Alberto Durero.

Ballenas de madera, o ballenas cortadas en silueta en las tablillas oscuras de la noble madera de guerra del mar del Sur, se encuentran frecuentemente en los castillos de proa de los balleneros americanos. Algunas de ellas están hechas con mucha exactitud.

En ciertas casas de campo de tejado abuhardillado veréis ballenas de bronce colgando de la cola a modo de aldabones en la puerta que da al camino. Cuando el portero está soñoliento, sería mejor la ballena de cabeza de yunque. Pero estas ballenas golpeadoras, raramente son notables como ensayos fieles. En las agujas de algunas iglesias a la antigua usanza veréis ballenas de plancha de hierro puestas allí a modo de veleta, pero están tan elevadas, y además, para todos los efectos y propósitos, están tan rotuladas con « No tocar », que no se las puede examinar lo bastante de cerca como para decidir sobre su mérito.

En regiones huesudas y costilludas de la tierra, donde en la base de altos acantilados rotos hay dispersas por la llanura masas de roca en fantásticos grupos, a menudo descubriréis imágenes como formas petrificadas del leviatán parcialmente sumergidas en la hierba que en días de viento rompe contra ellas en resaca de verdes oleadas.

Luego, también, en regiones montañosas donde el viajero está continuamente rodeado por alturas en anfiteatro, desde algún feliz punto de vista, acá y allá, captareis atisbos pasajeros de perfiles de ballenas recortados a lo largo de las onduladas crestas. Pero habéis de ser perfectos cazadores de ballenas para ver esas imágenes, y no sólo eso, sino que si deseáis volver de nuevo a ver tal imagen, debéis aseguraron y tomar la exacta intersección de latitud y longitud de vuestro primer punto de vista, pues, de otro modo, tales observaciones en los montes son tan azarosas, que vuestro exacto punto de vista anterior requerirla un laborioso redescubrimiento; como las islas Soloma [Salomón], que todavía siguen siendo terra incógnita, aunque antaño las hollara el engolillado Mendaña y el viejo Figueroa las pusiera en crónica.

Y si vuestro tema os eleva en expansión, no podréis dejar de notar grandes ballenas en los cielos estrellados, y lanchas en persecución de ellas, como cuando, llenas durante mucho tiempo de pensamientos de guerra, las naciones orientales veían ejércitos trabando batalla entre las nubes. Así, en el norte, yo he perseguido al leviatán dando vueltas al Polo con las revoluciones de los puntos luminosos que primero me lo señalaron. Y bajo los refulgentes cielos antárticos, he embarcado en la nave Argos y me he unido a la persecución del Cetáceo de estrellas, más allá del último trecho del Hydrus y del Pez Volante.

Con unas anclas de fragata como mis bitas de brida y con haces de arpones como espuelas, ¡ojalá monte yo esa ballena, y salte sobre los cielos más altos, a ver si los legendarios cielos, con todas sus incontables tiendas, están realmente acampados mucho más allá de mi vista mortal ! 

Brit

Navegando al nordeste de las Crozetts, entramos en vastas praderas de brit, la menuda sustancia amarilla de que se alimenta ampliamente la ballena propiamente dicha. Durante leguas y leguas ondeó a nuestro alrededor, de modo que parecía que navegábamos a través de ilimitados campos de trigo maduro y dorado.

Al segundo día, se vieron cierto número de ballenas que, a salvo de todo ataque de un barco cazador de cachalotes como el Pequod, nadaron perezosamente con las mandíbulas abiertas por entre el brit, que adhiriéndose a las fibras franjeadas de esa admirable persiana veneciana que tienen en la boca, quedaba de ese modo separado del agua, que se escapaba por el labio.

Como segadores mañaneros que, uno junto a otro, hacen avanzar lenta y asoladoramente sus guadañas por la larga hierba mojada de los prados empantanados, así nadaban esos monstruos haciendo un extraño ruido cortador de hierba, y dejando atrás interminables guadañas de azul en el mar amarillo.'

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Pero no era en absoluto solamente el ruido que hacían al partir el brit lo que le recordaba a uno a los segadores. Vistas desde los masteleros, especialmente cuando se detenían y quedaban un rato inmóviles, sus enormes formas negras parecían, más que otra cosa, masas de roca sin vida. Y lo mismo que en las grandes comarcas de cacerías de la India, el extranjero a veces ve a distancia, a su paso por las llanuras, elefantes tumbados sin saber que lo son, tomándolos por desnudas y ennegrecidas elevaciones del suelo, así le pasa a menudo a quien por primera vez observa esta especie de los leviatanes del mar. Y aun cuando los reconoce por fin, su inmensa magnitud hace muy difícil creer realmente que tan enormes masas de excrecencia puedan estar animadas, en todas sus partes, por la misma clase de vida que vive en un perro o un caballo.

Desde luego, en otros aspectos, es difícil considerar a cualquier criatura de las profundidades con los mismos sentimientos que a los de tierra firme. Pues aunque ciertos antiguos naturalistas han sostenido que todas las criaturas de la tierra tienen su parentela en el mar, y aunque, tomando este asunto en una amplia perspectiva general, esto podría ser verdad, sin embargo, viniendo a las especialidades, ¿dónde, por ejemplo, ofrece el océano ningún pez que corresponda en su disposición a la bondadosa sagacidad del perro ? Sólo el maldito tiburón, en algún aspecto genérico, puede decirse que presenta una analogía comparable con él.

Pero aunque, para la gente de tierra en general, los habitantes nativos del mar siempre se consideran con emociones inexpresablemente repelentes y poco sociables; y aunque sabemos que el mar es una perenne terra incógnita, de modo que Colón navegó sobre innumerables mundos desconocidos para descubrir su mundo superficial de occidente; y aunque, sin comparación, los desastres más terribles y mortíferos han afectado de modo inmemorial e indiscriminado a decenas y centenas de millares de los que han atravesado las aguas; y aunque un solo momento de reflexión enseñará que por mucho que ese niñito que es el hombre presuma de su ciencia y habilidad, y por mucho que, en un futuro lisonjero, puedan aumentar esa ciencia y habilidad, sin embargo, por los siglos de los siglos, hasta el hundimiento del juicio, el mar seguirá insultándole y asesinándole, y pulverizando la fragata más solemne y rígida que pueda él hacer: a pesar de todo eso, con la continua repetición de las mismas impresiones, el hombre ha perdido la sensación de ese pleno carácter temeroso del mar, que le corresponde originariamente.

La primera embarcación de que leemos, flotó en un océano que, con venganza portuguesa, se había tragado un mundo entero sin dejar ni una viuda. Ese mismo océano se agita ahora; ese mismo océano destruyó los barcos que naufragaron el año pasado. Sí, locos mortales, el diluvio de Noé no se ha terminado todavía; aún cubre dos tercios de este hermoso mundo.

¿En qué difieren el mar y la tierra, que lo que en uno es milagro no es milagro en el otro ? Terrores preternaturales cayeron sobre los hebreos cuando, a los pies de Korah y los suyos, se abrió la tierra viva y se los tragó para siempre; sin embargo, no se pone una vez el sol moderno sin que, exactamente del mismo modo, el mar vivo se trague barcos y tripulaciones.

Pero el mar no sólo es tal enemigo del hombre, ajeno a él, sino que también es enemigo de su propia progenie, y, peor que el anfitrión persa que asesinaba a sus propios invitados, no perdona a las criaturas que él mismo ha engendrado. Como una tigresa salvaje que, saltando por la jungla, aplasta a sus cachorros, el mar estrella aun a las más poderosas ballenas contra las rocas, y las deja allí, al lado de los astillados restos de los barcos. No lo gobierna ninguna misericordia ni poder sino los suyos Jadeando y bufando como un loco corcel de batalla que ha perdido el jinete, el océano sin amo se desborda por el mundo.

Considerad la sutileza del mar; cómo sus más temidas criaturas se deslizan bajo el agua, sin aparecer en su mayor parte, traidoramente ocultas bajo los más amables matices del azur. Considerad también la diabólica brillantez y belleza de muchas de sus tribus más encarnizadas; así, la forma elegantemente embellecida de muchas especies de tiburones. Considerad, una vez más, el canibalismo universal del mar, cuyas criaturas se devoran unas a otras, manteniendo eterna guerra desde que empezó el mundo.

Considerad todo esto, y luego volveos a esta verde, amable y docilísima tierra; consideradlos ambos, mar y tierra; y ¿no encontráis una extraña analogía con algo en vosotros mismos ? Pues igual que este aterrador océano rodea la tierra verdeante, así en el alma del hombre hay una Tahití insular, llena de paz y de alegría, pero rodeada por todos los horrores de la vida medio conocida. ¡Dios te guarde ! ¡No te alejes de esa isla; no puedes volver jamás ! 

El pulpo

Vadeando lentamente a través de las praderas de brit, el Pequod mantenía su rumbo nordeste hacia la isla de Java, con un suave viento empujando su quilla, de modo que en la serenidad circundante sus tres altos mástiles puntiagudos se mecían dulcemente en aquella lánguida brisa como tres dulces palmeras en una llanura. Y todavía, con amplios intervalos, en la noche plateada, se veía el solitario chorro incitante.

Pero una transparente mañana azul, cuando una quietud casi preternatural se extendía sobre el mar, aunque sin ir acompañada por ninguna calma chicha; cuando la larga y bruñida franja de sol en las aguas parecía un dedo de oro extendido a través de ellas para imponer algún secreto; cuando las resbalosas olas susurraban juntas al pasar corriendo; en ese profundo acallamiento de la esfera visible, Daggoo vio un extraño espectro desde la cofa del palo mayor.

En la lejanía, se elevó perezosamente una gran masa blanca y, alzándose cada vez más alta y desprendiéndose de lo azul, por fin centelleó ante nuestra proa como un alud recién desprendido de las montañas. Brillando así por un momento, se desvaneció con la misma lentitud, y se sumergió. Luego volvió a subir una vez más, y brilló en silencio. No parecía una ballena, y sin embargo, « ¿es éste Moby Dick ? », pensó Daggoo. Volvió a bajar el fantasma, pero cuando reapareció una vez más, el negro aulló con un grito como de estilete que sobresaltó a todos los hombres en su sopor: -¡Ahí, ahí otra vez ! ¡Ahí salta ! ¡Ahí delante ! ¡La ballena blanca, la ballena blanca !

Al oírlo, los marineros se precipitaron a los penoles, como en tiempo de enjambre las abejas se precipitan a las ramas. Con la cabeza descubierta bajo el sol abrasador, Ahab estaba en el bauprés y con una mano echada atrás, en preparación para señalar sus órdenes al timonel, lanzaba su ansiosa mirada en la dirección indicada desde lo alto por el extendido brazo inmóvil de Daggoo.

Fuera porque la presencia irregular de aquel chorro único y solitario hubiera hecho efecto gradualmente en Ahab, de modo que ahora estuviera preparado a relacionar las ideas de dulzura y reposo con la primera visión de esa determinada ballena que perseguía; por eso, o por que le traicionara su ansiedad, por lo que quiera que fuera, en cuanto percibió claramente la masa blanca, con rápida tensión dio orden al momento de arriar las lanchas.

Las cuatro lanchas estuvieron pronto en el agua; la de Ahab por delante, y todas, ellas remando rápidamente hacia su presa. Pronto se hundió y mientras, con los remos en suspenso, esperábamos su reaparición, he ahí que volvió a surgir lentamente una vez más en el mismo lugar donde se había sumergido. Casi olvidando por el momento todos los pensamientos sobre Moby Dick, mirábamos ahora el más prodigioso fenómeno que los mares secretos han revelado hasta ahora a la humanidad. Una vasta masa pulposa, de estadios enteros de anchura y longitud, de un resplandeciente color crema, flotaba en el agua, con innumerables brazos largos irradiando desde su centro y retorciéndose y rizándose igual que un nido de anacondas, como para captar a ciegas cualquier desdichado objeto a su alcance. No tenía cara ni frente perceptible; no tenía signo concebible de sensación o instinto, sino que ondulaba allí en las olas una manifestación de vida sin forma, extraterrenal, azarosa.

Al desaparecer lentamente otra vez con un sordo ruido de succión, Starbuck exclamó con voz loca, sin dejar de mirar a las agitadas aguas donde se había hundido: -¡Casi habría preferido ver a Moby Dick y luchar con él que haberte visto a ti, fantasma blanco !

-¿Qué era eso, señor Starbuck ? -dijo Flask.

-El gran pulpo viviente, que, según dicen, pocos barcos balleneros han visto y han regresado al puerto para contarlo.

Pero Ahab no dijo nada; haciendo virar la lancha, volvió al barco, y los demás le siguieron igualmente callados.

Cualesquiera que sean las supersticiones que los cazadores de cachalotes en general tengan en relación con la visión de este objeto, lo cierto es que, como el poderlo entrever es tan insólito, esa circunstancia ha llegado a revestirlo de carácter portentoso. Tan raramente se observa que, aunque todos a una voz declaren que es la mayor cosa animada del océano, muy pocos de ellos tienen sino vaguísimas ideas respecto a su verdadera naturaleza y forma, a pesar de lo cual creen que proporciona al cachalote su único alimento. Pues aunque otras especies de ballenas encuentran su alimento sobre el agua, y pueden ser vistas por el hombre en el acto de alimentarse, el cachalote obtiene todo su alimento en zonas desconocidas bajo la superficie y sólo por inferencia puede alguien decir en qué consiste exactamente ese alimento. A veces, cuando se le persigue de cerca, vomita lo que se supone que son los brazos desprendidos del pulpo, y algunos de ellos, que así se muestran, exceden los veinte y treinta pies de longitud. Se les antoja que el monstruo a que originalmente pertenecieron suele agarrarse con ellos al fondo del océano, y que el cachalote, a diferencia de otras especies, está provisto de dientes para atacarlo y destrozarlo.

Parece haber algún fundamento para imaginar que el gran Kraken del obispo Pontoppodan puede acabar por identificarse con el Pulpo. El modo como lo describe el obispo, alternativamente subiendo y bajando, con algunos otros detalles que cuenta, hacen que se correspondan los dos en todo esto. Pero mucha rebaja es necesaria respecto al increíble tamaño que le asigna.

Algunos naturalistas que han oído vagos rumores sobre esta misteriosa criatura de que hablamos aquí, la incluyen entre la clase de las jibias, a la que en ciertos aspectos externos parecería que pertenece, aunque sólo como el Anak de la tribu. 

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En referencia a la escena de caza de la ballena que dentro de poco se va a describir, así como para mejor comprensión de todas las escenas semejantes que se presenten en otro momento, debo hablar aquí de la mágica, y a veces horrible, estacha de la ballena.

La estacha usada originalmente en estas pesquerías era del mejor cáñamo, levemente ahumada de brea, pero sin impregnarse de ella, como en el caso de los cabos corrientes; pues mientras la brea, tal como ordinariamente se usa, hace el cáñamo más flexible para el cordelero, y también hace al propio cabo más conveniente para el marinero en el uso normal en el barco, sin embargo, la cantidad ordinaria de brea no sólo haría la estacha demasiado rígida para el apretado adujamiento a que debe someterse, sino que, como muchos navegantes empiezan a reconocer, la brea en general no aumenta en absoluto la duración y fuerza de un cabo, por más que lo haga compacto y reluciente.

En los últimos años, el cabo de abacá ha sustituido casi enteramente en los pesqueros americanos al cáñamo como material para estacha de ballena; pues, aunque no tan duradero como el cáñamo, es más fuerte, y mucho más suave y elástico; y yo añadiré (puesto que hay una estética en todas las cosas) que es mucho más bonito y decente para la lancha que el cáñamo. El cáñamo es un tipo oscuro e hirsuto, una especie de indio, pero el cabo de abacá, para la vista, es una circasiana de pelo dorado.

La estacha de ballena sólo tiene dos tercios de pulgada de grosor. A primera vista, uno no la creería tan fuerte como realmente es. En experimento, cada una de sus cincuenta y una filásticas resiste un peso de ciento veinte libras, de modo que el conjunto del cabo aguanta una tensión casi igual a tres toneladas. En longitud, la estacha de cachalote usual mide algo más de doscientas brazas. Hacia la popa de la lancha, se aduja en espiral en su tina, pero no como el serpentín de un alambique, sino formando una masa redonda, en forma de queso, de « roldanas », o capas de espirales concéntricas, sin más hueco que el « corazón », el menudo tubo vertical formado en el eje del queso. Como el menor enredo o retorcimiento en la aduja, al desenrollarse, se le llevaría infaliblemente por delante a alguien el brazo, o la pierna, o el cuerpo entero, se tiene la mayor precaución al guardar la estacha en su tina. Algunos arponeros pasan casi una mañana entera en este asunto, subiendo la estacha a lo alto y luego laboreándola hacia abajo a través de un motón hasta la tina, para que, en el momento de adujarla, quede libre de todo posible pliegue y retorcimiento.

En las lanchas inglesas se usan dos tinas en vez de una, adujando la misma estacha de modo continuado en ambas tinas. Esto tiene cierta ventaja, porque estas tinas gemelas, al ser tan pequeñas, se adaptan más fácilmente a la lancha y no la fuerzan demasiado, mientras que la tina americana, casi de tres pies de diámetro y de profundidad proporcionada, resulta una carga bastante voluminosa para una embarcación cuyas tablas sólo tienen media pulgada de grosor; pues el fondo de la lancha ballenera es como el hielo en punto crítico, que soporta un peso considerable bien distribuido, pero no mucho peso concentrado. Cuando a la tina americana de la estacha se le echa encima la cubierta de lona pintada, parece que la lancha se aleja remando con un pastel de boda prodigiosamente grande, para obsequiar a las ballenas.

Los dos extremos de la estacha están al descubierto: el extremo inferior termina en una costura de ojo o anilla que sale del fondo junto al costado de la tina, y pende sobre su borde, completamente desembarazada de todo. Esta disposición del extremo inferior es necesaria por dos motivos. Primero: para facilitar el sujetarle otra estacha adicional de una lancha cercana, en el caso de que la ballena herida se sumergiera tan hondo que amenazara llevarse toda la estacha originalmente sujeta al arpón. En esos casos, a la ballena, desde luego, se la pasan de una lancha a otra como un jarro de cerveza, por decirlo así, aunque la primera lancha siempre permanece a mano para ayudar a su compañera. Segundo: esta disposición es indispensable en atención a la seguridad común, pues si el extremo inferior de la estacha estuviera sujeto a la lancha de algún modo, y si la ballena corriera la estacha hasta el final, como hace a veces, casi en un solo minuto humeante, no se detendría allí, sino que la malhadada lancha sería arrastrada infaliblemente tras ella a la profundidad del mar, y en ese caso no habría pregonero que la volviera a encontrar jamás.

Antes de arriar la lancha para la persecución, el extremo superior de la estacha se pasa a popa desde la tina, y, dándole la vuelta en torno al bolardo que hay allí, vuelve a llevarse adelante, a lo largo de toda la lancha, apoyándose, cruzada, en el guión o mango del remo de cada marinero, de modo que le toca en la muñeca cuando rema; y asimismo pasa entre los hombres, sentados en las bordas opuestas, hasta los tacos emplomados, con surcos, que hay en el extremo de la puntiaguda proa de la lancha, donde una clavija o punzón de madera, del tamaño de una pluma normal de escribir, impide qué se resbale y se salga. Desde esos tacos, pende en leve festón sobre la proa, y luego pasa otra vez dentro de la lancha, y después de adujarse unas diez o veinte brazas sobre la caja de proa (lo que se llama estacha de la caja), sigue su camino a la borda todavía un poco más a popa, y luego se amarra a la pernada, que es el cabo inmediatamente atado al arpón, pero antes de tal conexión, la pernada pasa por diversos enredos demasiado tediosos de detallar.

Así, la estacha de la ballena envuelve a la lancha entera en sus complicados anillos, torciendo y retorciéndose alrededor de ella en casi todas las direcciones. Todos los remeros están envueltos en sus peligrosas contorsiones, de modo que, ante los tímidos ojos de la gente de tierra, parecen prestidigitadores indios, con las más mortíferas serpientes contorneándoles juguetonamente los miembros. Y ningún hijo de mujer mortal puede sentarse por primera vez entre esos enredos de cáñamo, y a la vez que tira todo lo posible del remo, pensar que en cualquier instante desconocido puede dispararse el arpón, y todos esos horribles retorcimientos pueden entrar en juego como relámpagos anillados; no puede, digo, encontrarse en tal circunstancia sin un estremecimiento que le haga temblar la misma médula de los huesos como una gelatina agitada. Sin embargo, la costumbre -¡extraña cosa !-, ¿qué no puede lograr la costumbre... ? Jamás habréis oído sobre la caoba de vuestra mesa más alegres salidas, más jubiloso regocijo, mejores bromas y más brillantes réplicas que las que oiréis sobre esa media pulgada de cedro blanco de la lancha ballenera, al estar así suspendida en el nudo corredizo del verdugo; y, como los seis burgueses de Calais ante el rey Eduardo, los seis hombres que componen la tripulación avanzan hacia las fauces de la muerte con la soga al cuello, podríamos decir.

Quizá ahora os bastará pensarlo muy poco para explicaros esos frecuentes desastres de la pesca de la ballena -unos pocos de los cuales se anotan casualmente en las crónicas-, en que este o aquel hombre fue sacado de la lancha por la estacha y se perdió. Pues, cuando la estacha va disparada, estar sentado entonces en la lancha es como estar sentado en medio de los múltiples silbidos de una máquina de vapor a toda marcha, cuando os roza toda biela volante, todo eje y toda rueda. Es peor, pues no podéis estar sentados inmóviles en medio de estos peligros, porque la lancha se mece como una cuna, lanzándoos de un lado a otro, sin el menor aviso; y sólo por cierto equilibrio y simultaneidad de volición y acción podéis escapar de convertiros en un Mazeppa, y que os lleven corriendo a donde el sol que todo lo ve jamás podría sacaros de la hondura.

Además: así como la profunda calma que sólo aparentemente precede y profetiza la tempestad, quizá es más terrible que la propia tempestad -pues, en efecto, la calma no es sino la cubierta y el envoltorio de la tempestad y la contiene en sí misma, igual que el rifle al parecer inofensivo contiene la pólvora fatal, y la bala, y la explosión-, de ese modo el gracioso reposo de la estacha, serpenteando silenciosamente por los remeros antes de ponerse en juego efectivo, es una cosa que lleva consigo más terror que ningún otro aspecto de este peligroso asunto. Pero ¿por qué decir más ? Todos los hombres viven envueltos en estachas de ballena. Todos nacen con la cuerda al cuello, pero sólo al ser arrebatados en el rápido y súbito remolino de la muerte, es cuando los mortales se dan cuenta de los peligros de la vida, callados, sutiles y omnipresentes. Y si uno es un filósofo, aunque esté sentado en una lancha ballenera no sentirá un ápice más de terror que sentado ante el fuego del anochecer, con un atizador y no un arpón al lado. 

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Si para Starbuck la aparición del pulpo fue cosa de portento, para Queequeg fue un objeto bien diverso.

-Cuando ver al pulpo -dijo el salvaje, afilando el arpón en la proa de su lancha colgada-, luego ver pronto al cachalote.

El siguiente día fue enormemente tranquilo y bochornoso, y, sin nada especial en qué ocuparse, la tripulación del Pequod difícilmente pudo resistir la incitación al sueño producida por un mar tan vacío. Pues esa parte del océano índico por donde viajábamos entonces no es lo que los balleneros llaman una zona viva; esto es, ofrece menos atisbos de marsopas, delfines, peces voladores y otros vivaces moradores de aguas movidas, que las zonas a lo largo del Río de la Plata o el litoral del Perú.

Me tocaba mi turno de vigía en la cofa del trinquete, y, con los hombros apoyados contra los aflojados obenques de sobrejuanete, me mecía de un lado para otro en lo que parecía un aire encantado. No había decisión que pudiera resistirlo; en ese soñador estado de ánimo, perdiendo toda conciencia, por fin mi alma salió de mi cuerpo, aunque mi cuerpo aún seguía meciéndose, como un péndulo mucho después que se retira la fuerza que empezó a moverlo.

Antes de que me invadiera el olvido, me había dado cuenta de que los marineros en las cofas de mayor y mesana ya estaban adormilados. Así que, al fin, los tres pendimos sin vida de las vergas, y por cada oscilación que dábamos, había una cabezada, desde abajo, por parte del amodorrado timonel. Las olas también daban cabezadas con sus crestas indolentes; y a través del ancho éxtasis del mar, el este inclinaba la cabeza hacia el oeste, y el sol por encima de todo.

De repente, parecieron reventar burbujas bajo mis ojos cerrados; mis manos, como tornillos de carpintero, se agarraron a los obenques; algún poder invisible y misericordioso me salvó; volví a la vida con una sacudida. Y he ahí que muy cerca de nosotros, a sotavento, a menos de cuarenta brazas, un gigantesco cachalote se mecía en el agua como el casco volcado de una fragata, con su ancho lomo reluciente, de tinte etiópico, brillando a los rayos del sol como un espejo. Pero ondulado perezosamente en la artesa del mar, y lanzando de vez en cuando tranquilamente su chorro vaporoso, el cetáceo parecía un obeso burgués que fuma su pipa una tarde de calor. Pero esa pipa, mi pobre cachalote, era su última pipa. Como golpeado por la varita de algún encantador, el soñoliento buque, con todos sus durmientes, de repente se sobresaltó en vigilia, y más de una veintena de voces, desde todas partes del barco, a la vez que las tres notas desde la altura, lanzaron el acostumbrado grito, mientras el gran pez, con lenta regularidad, chorreaba la centelleante agua del mar por el aire.

-¡Soltad los botes ! ¡Orza ! -grito Ahab. Y obedeciendo su propia orden, dio al timón a sotavento antes que el timonel pudiera mover las cabillas.

La repentina exclamación de los tripulantes debía haber alarmado al cetáceo, y, antes que las lanchas estuvieran abajo, se dio la vuelta majestuosamente, y se alejó nadando a sotavento, pero con tan sólida tranquilidad, y haciendo tan pocas ondulaciones al nadar, que, pensando que, después de todo, quizá no estaría aún alarmado, Ahab dio órdenes de que no se usara ni un remo, y nadie hablara sino en susurros. Así, sentados como indios de Ontario en las bordas de las lanchas, usamos los canaletes con rapidez, pero calladamente, porque la calma no permitía que se izaran las silenciosas velas. Al fin, al deslizarnos así en su persecución, el monstruo agitó la cola verticalmente en el aire a unos cuarenta pies y luego se sumergió, perdiéndose de vista.

-¡Ahí va una cola ! -fue el grito; anuncio a que inmediatamente siguió que Stubb sacó el fósforo y encendió la pipa, pues ahora se concedía un intervalo. Después que transcurrió todo el intervalo de la zambullida, el cetáceo volvió a subir, y como ahora estaba delante de la lancha del fumador, Stubb se hizo cargo del honor de la captura. Ahora era obvio que el cetáceo, por fin, se había dado cuenta de sus perseguidores. Por consiguiente, era inútil ya todo silencio de precaución. Se dejaron los canaletes y se pusieron ruidosamente en acción los remos. Y sin dejar de dar chupadas a la pipa, Stubb gritó a su tripulación para lanzarse al asalto.

Sí, en el pez había ahora un enorme cambio. Sintiendo todo el riesgo, marchaba « cabeza fuera », sobresaliendo esa parte oblicuamente entre la loca fermentación que agitaba.'

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-¡Adelante, adelante, muchachos ! No os deis prisa; tomadlo con tiempo; pero ¡adelante, adelante como truenos, eso es todo ! -gritaba Stubb, lanzando bocanadas de humo al hablar-. ¡Adelante, vamos; da la palada larga y fuerte, Tashtego ! Dale bien, Tashtego, muchacho; adelante todos, pero sin acalorarse, fresquitos... como pepinos, eso es... tranquilos, tranquilos..., pero adelante como la condenada muerte, como diablos haciendo muecas, y sacando derechos de sus tumbas a los muertos enterrados, muchachos... eso es todo. ¡Adelante !

-¡Uuu...jú ! ¡Ua...jí ! -chilló en respuesta el Gay-Head, elevando hasta los cielos un viejo grito de guerra, y todos los remeros en la tensa lancha saltaron involuntariamente adelante con el único y tremendo golpe de guía que dio el ansioso indio.

Pero sus salvajes chillidos fueron contestados por otros de modo igualmente salvaje. -¡Ki...jí ! ¡Kú...lú ! -gritó Daggoo, tendiéndose adelante y atrás en su asiento, como un tigre que da vueltas en su jaula.

-¡Ka...lá ! ¡Ku...lú ! -aulló Queequeg, como relamiéndose los labios con un bocado de chuleta de granadero. Y así, con remos y aullidos, las quillas cortaban el mar. Mientras tanto, Stubb, conservando su lugar de mando, seguía estimulando a sus hombres al ataque, sin dejar de soplar el humo por la boca. Como desesperados se tendían y esforzaban, hasta que se oyó el grito bienvenido: -¡De pie, Tashtego !, ¡dale con ello ! Se lanzó el arpón. -¡Atrás ! Los remeros ciaron; en ese mismo momento, algo caliente y zumbador pasó por las muñecas de cada cual. Era la mágica estacha. Un instante antes, Stubb había dado dos vueltas adicionales con ella al bolardo, donde, a causa de su giro con rapidez aumentada, se elevaba ahora un humo azul de cáñamo, mezclándose con la constante humareda de su pipa. Al pasar dando vueltas al bolardo, antes mismo de llegar a ese punto, atravesaba, levantando ampollas, las manos de Stubb, de las que habían caído accidentalmente los « guantes », esos cuadrados de lona acolchada que a veces se llevan en esas ocasiones. Era como sujetar por el fijo la tajante espada de doble filo de un enemigo, mientras éste se esforzara todo el tiempo por arrancarla de vuestra sujeción.

-¡Moja la estacha, moja la estacha ! -gritó Stubb al remero de tina (el sentado junto a la tina), quien, quitándose el gorro, empezó a echar agua en ella.' Se dieron más vueltas, con lo que la estacha empezó a mantenerse en su sitio. La lancha ahora volaba por el agua hirviente como un tiburón todo aletas. Stubb y Tashtego cambiaron entonces de sitio, de popa a proa; un asunto verdaderamente tambaleante en aquella conmoción tan agitada.

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Por las vibraciones de la estacha que se extendía a todo lo largo de la parte superior de la lancha, y por estar ahora tan tensa como una cuerda de arpa, se habría pensado que la embarcación tenía dos quillas, una surcando el mar, y la otra el aire, mientras la lancha seguía avanzando a golpes a través de ambos elementos a la vez. Una cascada continua se abría en la proa; un incesante torbellino arremolinado en su estela; y, al más leve movimiento desde dentro, aunque fuera de un meñique, la vibrante y crujiente embarcación se escoraba espasmódicamente por la borda hacia el mar. Así se precipitaban, cada cual aferrándose con todas sus fuerzas a su bancada, para evitar ser lanzado a la espuma, mientras la alta figura de Tashtego, en el remo de gobernalle, se agachaba casi hasta doblarse para bajar su centro de gravedad. Enteros Atlánticos y Pacíficos parecían pasar mientras ellos avanzaban disparados, hasta que por fin el cetáceo aflojó algo su huida.

¡Templa, templa ! -gritó Stubb al de proa, y, dando cara al cetáceo, todos los hombres empezaron a acercar la lancha a él, todavía a remolque. Pronto, al llegar a la altura de su costado, Stubb plantó firmemente la rodilla en la castañuela, y disparó lanza tras lanza, alternativamente; retrocedía fuera del alcance de la horrible contorsión del monstruo, y luego se ponía a tiro para otro golpe.

La inundación roja brotaba de todos los costados del monstruo como los arroyuelos por una montaña. Su cuerpo atormentado no flotaba en agua, sino en sangre, que burbujeaba y hervía a estadios enteros por detrás de su estela. El sol oblicuo, al jugar sobre ese estanque carmesí en el mar, devolvía su reflejo a todas las caras, de modo que todos refulgían unos ante otros como pieles rojas. Y mientras tanto, chorro tras chorro de humo blanco se disparaba en agonía por el respiradero del cetáceo, y bocanada tras bocanada, con vehemencia, de la boca del excitado jefe de lancha, mientras a cada lanzada, tirando su arma torcida (mediante la estacha unida a ella), Stubb la volvía a enderezar una vez y otra con unos cuantos golpes rápidos contra la borda, para lanzarla luego una vez y otra al cetáceo.

-¡Hala, hala ! -gritó luego al de proa, cuando el cachalote, desmayando, disminuyó su cólera-. ¡Hala, más cerca ! -y la lancha llegó al lado del costado del pez. Entonces, asomándose mucho sobre la proa, Stubb metió lentamente su larga y aguda lanza en el pez y la sujetó allí, removiéndola cuidadosamente como si buscara a tientas con precaución algún reloj de oro que el cachalote se hubiera tragado, y que él tuviera miedo de romper antes de poderlo sacar enganchado. Pero ese reloj de oro que buscara era la más entrañable vida del pez. Y ahora quedó alcanzada; pues, sobresaltándose de su trance, con esa cosa inexpresable que llaman su « convulsión », el monstruo se agitó horriblemente en su sangre, se envolvió en impenetrable espuma, loca e hirviente, de modo que la amenazada embarcación, cayendo repentinamente a popa, tuvo que luchar casi a ciegas para salir desde ese frenético crepúsculo al aire claro del día.

Y disminuyendo entonces su convulsión, el cetáceo volvió a salir a la luz, agitándose de lado a lado, y dilatando y contrayendo espasmódicamente su agujero del chorro, con inspiraciones bruscas, quebradas y agonizantes. Por fin, se dispararon al aire asustado borbotones tras borbotones de rojos sangrujos cuajados, como si fueran las purpúreas heces del vino tinto; y volviendo a caer, corrieron por sus inmóviles flancos hasta bajar al mar. ¡Había reventado su corazón !

-Está muerto, señor Stubb -dijo Daggoo. -Sí; las dos pipas han dejado de echar humo.

Y, retirando la suya de la boca, Stubb esparció por el agua las cenizas muertas, y, por un momento, se quedó contemplando pensativo el enorme cadáver que había hecho. 

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Una palabra en relación con un episodio del último capítulo.

Conforme a la costumbre invariable de la pesca de la ballena, la lancha se aparta del barco con el jefe, el que mata la ballena, como timonel interino, mientras el arponero, el que hace presa en la ballena, va en el remo de proa, el llamado remo del arponero. Ahora, se necesita un brazo fuerte y nervudo para disparar el primer hierro clavándoselo al pez, pues a menudo, en lo que se llama un disparo largo, el pesado instrumento ha de ser lanzado a la distancia de veinte o treinta pies. Pero, por prolongada y agotadora que sea la persecución, el arponero tiene que tirar mientras tanto del remo con todas sus fuerzas; más aún, se espera que dé a los demás un ejemplo de actividad sobrehumana, no sólo remando de modo increíble, sino con repetidas exclamaciones, sonoras e intrépidas; y lo que es eso de seguir gritando hasta el tope de la capacidad propia, mientras los demás músculos están tensos y medio sacudidos, lo que es eso, no lo saben sino los que lo han probado. Por mi parte, yo no puedo gritar con toda mi alma y al mismo tiempo trabajar de modo inexorable. Así, en esa situación tensa y aullante, de espaldas al pez, de repente el exhausto arponero oye el grito excitante: « ¡De pie, y dale ! ». Entonces tiene que dejar y asegurar el remo, dar media vuelta sobre su base, sacar el arpón de su horquilla, y con la escasa fuerza que le quede, tratar de clavarlo de algún modo en la ballena. No es extraño entonces que, tomando en su totalidad la flota entera de balleneros, de cada cincuenta ocasiones de arponeo no tengan éxito cinco; no es extraño que tantos malhadados arponeros sean locamente maldecidos y degradados; no es extraño que algunos de ellos y se rompan efectivamente las venas en la lancha; no es extraño que algunos cazadores de cachalotes estén ausentes cuatro años para cuatro barriles; no es extraño que, para muchos armadores, la pesca de la ballena sea un negocio en pérdida, pues es del arponero de quien depende el resultado de la expedición, y si le quitáis el aliento del cuerpo, ¿cómo podéis esperar encontrarlo en él cuando más falta hace ?

Además, si el arponeo tiene éxito, luego, en el segundo momento crítico, esto es, cuando la ballena echa a correr, el jefe de lancha y el arponero empiezan también a correr a la vez a proa y a popa con inminente riesgo propio y de todos los demás. Entonces es cuando cambian de sitio; y el jefe de bote, principal oficial de la pequeña embarcación, toma su puesto adecuado en la proa de la lancha.

Ahora, no me importa quien mantenga lo contrario, pero todo esto es tan loco como innecesario. El jefe debía quedarse en la proa desde el principio al final; él debería disparar tanto el arpón como la lanza, sin que se esperara de él que remara en absoluto, salvo en circunstancias obvias para cualquier pescador. Sé que esto a veces implicaría una ligera pérdida de velocidad en la persecución, pero una larga experiencia en diversos barcos balleneros de más de una nación me ha convencido de que, en la gran mayoría de fracasos en la pesca, lo que los ha causado no ha sido tanto la velocidad de la ballena cuanto el agotamiento antes descrito del arponero.

Para asegurar la mayor eficacia en el arponeo, todos los arponeros del mundo deberían ponerse de pie saliendo del ocio, y no de la fatiga. 

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Del tronco crecen las ramas; de éstas, las ramitas. Así, en temas productivos, crecen los capítulos.

La horquilla aludida en una página anterior merece mención por separado. Es un palo bifurcado de una forma peculiar, de unos dos pies de largo, insertado verticalmente en la borda de estribor junto a la proa, con el fin de proporcionar un apoyo al extremo de madera del arpón, cuyo otro extremo, desnudo y afilado, se proyecta oblicuamente desde la proa. Así el arma está al momento a mano de su lanzador, quien la agarra de su apoyo tan prontamente como un habitante de los bosques descuelga su rifle de la pared. Es costumbre tener dos arpones descansando en la horquilla, llamados respectivamente primero y segundo hierros.

Pero esos dos arpones, cada cual con su pernada, están ambos unidos a la estacha con este objeto: dispararlos ambos, si es posible, en un momento, uno tras otro, contra la misma ballena, de modo que si en el tirón sucesivo se saliera uno, el otro pudiera conservar su presa. Es doblar las probabilidades. Pero muy a menudo ocurre que, debido a la carrera instantánea, violenta y convulsiva de la ballena, al recibir el primer hierro, se le hace imposible al arponero, aunque tenga movimientos de relámpago, lanzarle el segundo hierro. Sin embargo, como el segundo hierro ya está unido a la estacha, y la estacha corre, de aquí que el arma debe ser a toda costa lanzada cuanto antes fuera de la lancha, como sea y a donde sea, pues de otro modo el más terrible peligro amenazaría a todos lo hombres. En consecuencia, se tira al agua en esos casos, lo que, en muchos casos, es prudentemente practicable gracias a las adujas de reserva de la estacha de la caja (mencionada en un capítulo precedente). Pero este crítico acto no siempre deja de ir acompañado de las más tristes y fatales desgracias.

Además: debéis saber que cuando se tira por la borda el segundo hierro, se convierte desde entonces en un terror errante y afilado, dando caprichosas corvetas en torno a la lancha y la ballena, enredándose en las estachas, o cortándolas, y formando una prodigiosa sensación en todas direcciones. Y, en general, tampoco es posible volver a sujetarlo hasta que la ballena está completamente capturada y es cadáver.

Considerad, entonces, cómo debe ocurrir en el caso de cuatro lanchas atacando todas ellas a una ballena insólitamente fuerte, activa y astuta; cuando, debido a esas cualidades suyas, así como a los mil accidentes adicionales de tan audaz empresa, pueden colgar de ella a la vez ocho o diez segundos hierros. Pues, desde luego, cada lancha está provista de varios arpones que atar a la estacha, si el primero se dispara ineficazmente sin recuperarse. Todos esos detalles se narran fielmente aquí porque no dejarán de explicar varios pasajes muy importantes, aunque intrincados, en escenas que se describirán más adelante. 

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El cachalote de Stubb había sido muerto a cierta distancia del barco. Había calma, de modo que, poniendo tres lanchas en tándem, empezamos la lenta tarea de remolcar el trofeo hasta el Pequod. Y entonces, al trabajar lentamente, hora tras hora, los dieciocho hombres, con nuestros treinta y seis brazos y ciento ochenta dedos, ante aquel inerte y perezoso cadáver en el mar, que apenas parecía moverse en absoluto, tuvimos de ese modo buena evidencia de la enormidad de la masa que movíamos. Pues en el gran canal del Hang-Ho, o como lo llamen, en China, cuatro o cinco trabajadores por el camino de sirga arrastran un junco con mucha carga a la velocidad de una milla por hora, pero ese gran galeón que remolcábamos avanzaba tan pesadamente como si tuviera una carga de lingotes de plomo.

Sobrevino la oscuridad, pero tres luces, acá y allá, en los obenques del palo mayor del Pequod, nos guiaron débilmente en nuestro camino, hasta que, al acercarnos más, vimos a Ahab bajar por la amurada una linterna, entre otras varias. Lanzando una mirada ausente al cetáceo flotante, por un momento, dio las órdenes de costumbre para amarrarlo durante la noche, y luego, cediendo su linterna a un marinero, se metió en la cabina y no volvió a salir hasta por la mañana.

Aunque al dirigir la persecución de este cachalote, el capitán Ahab había evidenciado su acostumbrada actividad, por llamarla así, sin embargo, ahora que el animal estaba muerto, parecía actuar en él alguna vaga insatisfacción, o impaciencia, o desesperación, como si el ver aquel cuerpo muerto le recordara que todavía faltaba matar a Moby Dick, y que, aunque se trajeran a su barco otras mil ballenas, todo ello no adelantaría una jota su grandioso objetivo monomaniático. Muy pronto, a juzgar por el ruido en las cubiertas del Pequod, habríais pensado que todos los hombres se preparaban a echar el ancla en la profundidad, pues se arrastraban pesadas cadenas por la cubierta, y las echaban ruidosamente por las portas. Pero con esos eslabones tintineantes, lo que se amarraba no era el barco, sino el propio cadáver. Atado por la cabeza a la popa y por la cola a la proa, el cetáceo yacía ahora con su casco negro junto al del barco, y visto a través de la oscuridad de la noche, que oscurecía en lo alto las vergas y jarcias, los dos, barco y ballena, parecían enyugados juntos como colosales bueyes, uno de los cuales se recuesta mientras el otro sigue en pie.

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Si el malhumorado Ahab ahora era todo quietud, al menos en lo que se pudiera saber en cubierta, Stubb, su segundo oficial, excitado por la victoria, revelaba una excitación insólita aunque de buena naturaleza. En tan desacostumbrada agitación estaba, que el rígido Starbuck, su superior por cargo, le entregó silenciosamente, por el momento, la dirección exclusiva de los asuntos. Pronto se hizo extrañamente manifiesta una pequeña causa que contribuía a toda esa vivacidad en Stubb. Stubb era un refinado: le gustaba un tanto desordenadamente la ballena como cosa sabrosa para su paladar.

-¡Un filete, un filete, antes de acostarme ! ¡Tú, Daggoo !, ¡salta por la borda y córtame uno de solomillo !

Aquí ha de saberse que, aunque esos salvajes pescadores, en general, conforme a la gran máxima militar, no hagan al enemigo pagar los gastos inmediatos de la guerra (al menos, antes de liquidar las ganancias del viaje), sin embargo, de vez en cuando, encontraréis algunos de esos hombres de Nantucket que tienen auténtica afición a esa determinada parte del cachalote aludida por Stubb, que comprende la extremidad puntiaguda del cuerpo.

Hacia medianoche, el filete estaba cortado y guisado, y, a la luz de dos linternas de aceite de esperma, Stubb se enfrentó vigorosamente con su cena de cachalote en el cabrestante, como si el sombrero del cabrestante fuera un aparador. Y no fue Stubb el único que esa noche se banqueteó con carne de cachalote. Mezclando sus gruñidos con las masticaciones de Stubb, miles y miles de tiburones, en enjambre en torno del leviatán muerto, hicieron un ávido festín con su grasa. Los pocos hombres que dormían abajo fueron sobresaltados a menudo en sus literas por el brusco palmetazo de las colas contra el casco, a pocas pulgadas del corazón de los dormidos. Mirando sobre el costado, se les podía ver apenas (como antes se les oía) agitándose en las tétricas aguas negras y revolviéndose sobre el lomo al arrancar grandes trozos redondeados del cachalote, del tamaño de una cabeza humana. Este logro particular del tiburón parece poco menos que milagroso. Cómo, en una superficie al parecer inatacable, se las arreglan para arrancar bocados tan simétricos, resulta ser un aparte del problema universal de todas las cosas. La señal que dejan así en los cetáceos podría compararse al hueco hecho por un carpintero al perforar para meter un tornillo.

Aunque en medio de todo el horror humeante y diabólico de un combate nocturno se ve a los tiburones observando ansiosamente las cubiertas de un barco, como perros hambrientos en torno a una mesa donde se trincha carne bien roja, dispuestos a engullir a todo hombre muerto que les echen, y aunque, mientras los valientes carniceros de la mesa de la cubierta se están así trinchando canibalescamente unos a otros la carne viva con trinchantes dorados y emborlados, los tiburones, también, con sus bocas de empuñadura enjoyada, se están llevando entre luchas la carne muerta por debajo de la mesa; y aunque, si se volviera de arriba abajo todo el asunto, seguiría siendo poco más o menos lo mismo, es decir, un desagradable asunto bastante tiburonesco para ambas partes; y aunque los tiburones son también los invariables batidores de los barcos negreros que cruzan el Atlántico, trotando sistemáticamente a sus lados para estar preparados en caso de que haya que llevar a alguna parte un bulto, o enterrar decentemente a un esclavo muerto; y aunque se puedan anotar uno o dos ejemplos más, en cuanto a los términos prefijados, lugares y ocasiones en que los tiburones se congregan del modo más sociable, para hacer un festín del modo más animado; sin embargo, no cabe imaginar un momento ni una ocasión en que se les encuentre en tan incontables números, y con ánimo más alegre y jovial, que en torno a un cachalote muerto, amarrado de noche a un barco ballenero en el mar. Si no habéis visto nunca ese espectáculo, suspended vuestra decisión en cuanto a la decencia de la adoración de los demonios y la conveniencia de conciliar al diablo.

Pero, por ahora, Stubb no había prestado más atención al banquete desarrollado tan cerca de él, de lo que los tiburones se habían fijado en cómo se relamían sus propios labios epicúreos.

-¡Cocinero, cocinero !, ¿dónde está ese viejo Nevado ? -gritó por fin, abriendo aún más las piernas, como para formar una base más segura para su cena, y, al mismo tiempo, disparando el tenedor contra el plato como si le diera estocadas con su lanza-: ¡Cocinero, tú, cocinero; rumbo acá, cocinero !

El viejo negro, no muy jubiloso por haber sido antes levantado de su caliente hamaca a una hora tan inoportuna, se acercó bamboleándose desde su fogón, pues como a muchos negros viejos, le ocurría algo en sus choquezuelas, que no tenía tan bien fregadas como sus cazuelas; este viejo Nevado, como le llamaban, se acercó renqueando y arrastrándose, y apoyándose en sus pasos con las tenazas de la cocina, que, de forma tosca, estaban hechas de aros de hierro enderezados; este viejo « ébano » llegó tropezando, y en obediencia a la voz de mando, se detuvo al otro lado del aparador de Stubb, donde, con las manos cruzadas por delante, y apoyado en su bastón de dos patas, agachó aún más su doblada espalda, inclinando al mismo tiempo la cabeza a un lado, como para poner en actuación su oído más sano.

-Cocinero -dijo Stubb, elevando rápidamente a la boca un bocado bastante rojizo-, ¿no crees que este filete está demasiado hecho ? Has golpeado demasiado este filete, cocinero; está demasiado tierno. ¿No te digo siempre que, para ser bueno, un filete de ballena debe ser duro ? Ahí están esos tiburones al otro lado de la borda: ¿no ves que lo prefieren duro y poco hecho ? ¡Qué estrépito están armando ! Cocinero, ve a hablar con ellos: diles que son bienvenidos, y que se sirvan ellos mismos y con moderación, pero que no deben hacer ruido. Que me maten si puedo oír mi propia voz. Vete, cocinero, a dar mi recado. Ea, toma este farol -tomando uno de su aparador-: ¡ahora ve a predicarles !

Tomando de mal humor el farol que se le ofrecía, el viejo Nevado atravesó la cubierta renqueando hasta las amuradas; y allí, lanzando la luz con una mano, hacia abajo, por encima del mar, como para obtener una buena vista de su feligresía, con la otra mano blandió solemnemente las tenazas, y asomándose mucho por el costado, empezó a dirigirse a los tiburones con un murmullo de voz, mientras Stubb, que se acercó por detrás agachado, escuchaba todo lo que se decía.

-Hermanos animales: me han mandado decir que debéis terminar ese maldito ruido de ahí. ¿Oís ? ¡Dejar ese maldito relameros los labios ! Amo Stubb dice que podéis llenar las malditas barrigas hasta los topes, pero ¡por Dios ! que no hagáis más ese maldito ruido.

-Cocinero -interrumpió aquí Stubb, acompañando sus palabras con una repentina palmada en el hombro-, ¡cocinero ! Vaya, maldita sea tu alma, no debes maldecir de ese modo cuando predicas. ¡No es manera de convertir pecadores, cocinero !

-¿Y qué ? Entonces predique usté -y se volvió de mal humor para irse.

-No, cocinero; sigue, sigue.

-Bueno, entonces, amadísimos hermanos animales...

-¡Muy bien ! -exclamo Stubb, con aprobación-: tienes que halagarles; haz la prueba -y el Nevado continuó.

-Tós vosotros sois tiburones, y muy voraces de nacimiento, pero os digo, hermanos animales, que esa voracidá... ¡pero dejar de dar con la maldita cola ! ¿Cómo creéis que podéis oír, si seguís dando ahí esos malditos golpes y mordiscos ?

-Cocinero -gritó Stubb, agarrándole por el cuello-: no aguanto esas malas palabras. Háblales como un caballero.

Una vez más, continuó el sermón.

-De vuestra voracidá, hermanos animales, no os digo que tengáis mucha culpa: es de nacimiento y no se pué remediar; pero la cosa es gobernar esa naturaleza perversa. Sois tiburones, es verdá, pero si gobernáis el tiburón que hay en vosotros, bueno, entonces seréis ángeles; porque todo ángel no es más que un tiburón bien gobernao. Ea, mirá, hermanos, por una vez, a ver si sois bien educaos al serviros de ese cachalote. No arranquéis el bocao de la boca del vecino, digo. ¿No tiene tanto derecho un tiburón como el otro a ese cachalote ? Y, por Dios, ninguno de vosotros tiene derecho a ese cachalote; ese cachalote es de otro. Ya sé que algunos de vosotros tienen una boca mu' grande, más grande que otros; pero las bocas grandes a veces tienen barrigas pequeñas; de manera que la grandeza de la boca no es pa' tragar con ella, sino pa' arrancar el bocao pa' los más pequeños de los tiburones, que no puén meterse en el jaleo pa' servirse ellos mismos.

-¡Bien dicho, viejo Nevado ! -gritó Stubb-: eso es cristianismo; adelante.

-No sirve pa' na'; esos malditos villanos siguen haciendo ruido y dándose golpes, amo Stubb; no oyen ni palabra; no sirve predicar a esos malditos glotones, como dice usté, hasta que tengan la barriga llena, y esas barrigas no tienen fondo; y cuando las tengan llenas, no querrán oír; porque se hundirán en el mar, y se irán en seguida a dormir al coral, y no podrán oír ná, para siempre jamás.

-Por mi vida que soy de la misma opinión; así que dales la bendición, Nevado, y me marcho a mi cena.

Entonces Nevado, levantando las dos manos sobre la multitud piscaria, elevó su aguda voz, y gritó:

-¡Malditos hermanos animales ! ¡Hacer el ruido más condenao que podáis; llenaros las barrigas hasta que estallen... y luego, a morir !

-Bueno, cocinero -dijo Stubb, continuando su cena en el cabrestante-, ponte donde estabas antes, ahí, frente a mí, y préstame especial atención.

-Toa atención -dijo el Nevado, volviendo a encorvarse sobre sus tenazas en el punto deseado.

-Bueno -dijo Stubb, sirviéndose con abundancia mientras tanto ahora vuelvo al asunto de este filete. Ante todo ¿cuántos años tienes, cocinero ?

--¿Qué tiene que ver con el filete ? -dijo el viejo negro, de mal humor.

-¡Silencio ! ¿Cuántos años tienes, cocinero ?

-Unos noventa, dicen -murmuró sobriamente.

-¿Y has vivido en este mundo casi cien años, cocinero, y no sabes guisar un filete de ballena ? -y engulló rápidamente otro bocado con la última palabra, de modo que el bocado pareció continuar la pregunta-. ¿Dónde has nacido, cocinero ?

-Detrás de la escotilla, en el trasbordador, cruzando el Roanoke.

¡Nacido en un trasbordador ! Eso también es raro. Pero quiero saber: ¿en qué país has nacido, cocinero ?

-¿No he dicho que en el país de Roanoke ? -gritó bruscamente.

-No, no lo has dicho, cocinero; pero te voy a decir adónde voy, cocinero. Debes volver a tu tierra y nacer otra vez; no sabes todavía cómo se hace un filete de ballena.

-Que me maten si vuelvo a hacer otro -gruñó irritado, volviéndose para marcharse.

-Vuelve, cocinero; ea, dame esas tenazas; ahora toma este pedazo de filete, y dime si crees que está hecho como es debido. Tómalo, digo -alargándole las tenazas-, tómalo, y pruébalo.

Relamiéndose débilmente los labios con él por un momento, el viejo negro masculló: -El filete mejor hecho que he probao nunca; bien jugosito.

-Cocinero -dijo Stubb, volviendo a servirse-, ¿perteneces a la iglesia ?

-Una vez pasé por delante de una, en la Ciudá del Cabo -dijo el viejo, de mal humor.

-¿Y has pasado una vez en tu vida delante de una santa iglesia en la Ciudad del Cabo, donde sin duda oíste que un santo párroco hablaba a sus oyentes llamándoles amadísimos hermanos, de veras, cocinero; y sin embargo vienes acá a decirme una mentira tan terrible como me acabas de decir, eh ? -dijo Stubb-. ¿Adónde esperas ir, cocinero ?

-A la cama muy pronto -murmuró, medio volviéndose mientras hablaba.

-¡Espera ! ¡Ponte al pairo ! Quiero decir, cuando te mueras, cocinero. Es una pregunta terrible. Ahora, ¿qué contestas ?

-Cuando se muera este viejo negro -dijo lentamente el negro, cambiando todo su aire y actitud-, él mismo no irá a ningún lao, pero un ángel bendito vendrá y se le llevará.

-¿Se le llevará ? ¿Cómo ? ¿Con un coche de cuatro caballos, como se llevaron a Elías ? ¿Y adónde se le llevará ?

-Allá arriba -dijo el Nevado, levantando las tenazas sobre la cabeza y sosteniéndolas así con mucha solemnidad.

-¿Así que esperas subir a nuestra cofa, cocinero, cuando estés muerto ? Pero ¿no sabes que cuanto más alto subas, más frío tienes ? A la cofa, ¿eh ?

-No he dicho na' de eso -dijo el Nevado, otra vez de mal humor.

-Dijiste que allá arriba, ¿no ? Y ahora mira adónde señalan tus tenazas. Pero quizá esperas llegar al cielo gateando por la boca del lobo, cocinero; pero no, no, cocinero, no llegarás allí si no vas por donde se debe, dando la vuelta por las jarcias. Es un asunto difícil, pero hay que hacerlo, o si no, no se va. Y ninguno de nosotros está todavía en el cielo. Deja las tenazas, cocinero, y escucha mis órdenes. ¿Escuchas ? Ten el gorro en una mano, y ponte la otra sobre el corazón, cuando doy mis órdenes, cocinero. ¡Qué ! ¿Tienes ahí el corazón ? ¡Esa es la tripa ! ¡Arriba, arriba ! Ahora estás. Sostenla ahí, y préstame atención.

-Toa atención -dijo el viejo negro, con las manos colocadas donde le decían, y retorciendo inútilmente su cabeza cana como para poner las dos orejas de frente al mismo tiempo.

-Bueno, entonces, ¿ves que este filete de ballena tuyo era tan malo que he tenido que quitarlo de delante tan pronto como he podido ? lo ves, ¿no ? Bueno, en lo sucesivo, cuando me hagas otro filete de ballena para mi mesa particular, aquí en el cabrestante, te diré qué hay que hacer para no estropearlo dejándolo pasar. Sostén el filete en una mano y enséñale con la otra un carbón encendido; hecho esto, sírvelo; ¿me oyes ? Y mañana, cocinero, cuando cortemos el pez, ten cuidado de estar allí para llevarte las puntas de las aletas, y ponlas en vinagreta. Y en cuanto a los extremos de la cola, ponlos en escabeche. Ahora ya te puedes ir.

Pero apenas el Nevado había dado tres pasos, cuando fue llamado otra vez.

-Cocinero, dame chuletas de cena mañana por la noche en la guardia de media. ¿Me oyes ? Zarpa entonces. ¡Eh, espera ! Haz una reverencia antes de marcharte. ¡Ahora vira otra vez ! ¡Albóndigas de ballena para desayunar mañana ! ¡No te olvides !

-¡Por Dios, que me gustaría que la ballena se le comiera a él, en vez de él a la ballena ! Que me maten si no es más tiburón que el mismo compadre Tiburón -murmuró el viejo, al alejarse renqueando; y, con estas sabias exclamaciones, se fue a su hamaca. 

La ballena como plato

Que el hombre mortal se alimente de la criatura que alimenta su lámpara y, como Stubb, se la coma a su propia luz, como podría decirse, esto parece cosa tan extraña que por fuerza uno debe meterse un poco en su historia y su filosofía.

Está documentado que hace tres siglos la lengua de la ballena propiamente dicha se estimaba plato exquisito en Francia, alcanzando allí altos precios. Y asimismo, que en tiempos de Enrique VII, cierto cocinero de la corte obtuvo una hermosa recompensa por inventar una admirable salsa que se había de comer con las marsopas asadas en barbacoa -y las marsopas ya recordáis que son una especie de ballena-. Las marsopas, en efecto, son consideradas hoy día como un delicado manjar. Su carne se convierte en albóndigas de tamaño como de bolas de billar, que, estando bien sazonadas y con especias, podrían tomarse por albóndigas de tortuga o de ternera. A los antiguos monjes de Dunfermline les gustaban mucho. Tenían una gran concesión de la corona sobre las marsopas.

El hecho es que, al menos entre sus cazadores, la ballena sería considerada por todos como un noble plato, si no hubiera tanta, pero al sentarse a comer ante una empanada de casi cien pies de largo, a uno se le quita el apetito. Sólo los hombres más libres de prejuicios, como Stubb, participan hoy de las ballenas guisadas, pero los esquimales no son tan melindrosos. Todos sabemos cómo viven de ballenas, y tienen raras soleras viejísimas de excelente aceite añejo de ballena. Zogranda, uno de sus médicos más famosos, recomienda tajadas de grasa de ballena para los niños, por ser enormemente jugosas y nutritivas. Y eso me recuerda que ciertos ingleses que hace tiempo fueron dejados accidentalmente en Groenlandia por un barco ballenero, vivieron de hecho varios meses con los enmohecidos restos de ballenas que habían quedado en la orilla después de destilar la grasa. Entre los balleneros holandeses esos restos se llaman « frituras », y a ellas, en efecto, se parecen mucho, por ser crujientes y de color tostado, y oler, cuando están frescos, algo así como los buñuelos o pastelillos de aceite de las amas de casa del viejo Amsterdam. Tienen un aspecto tan apetitoso que el más abnegado recién llegado difícilmente puede dejar de echarles mano.

Pero lo que además deprecia la ballena como plato civilizador es su enorme sustancia grasienta. Es el gran buey premiado del mar demasiado gordo para ser delicadamente bueno. Mirad su joroba, que sería tan fino manjar como la del búfalo (que se considera plato exquisito) si no fuera tal pirámide maciza de grasa. Pero en cuanto al propio aceite de esperma, ¡qué suave y cremoso es ! : es como la pulpa blanca, transparente, medio gelatinosa, de un coco en el tercer mes de su crecimiento, pero demasiado grasiento para ofrecer un sustitutivo a la mantequilla... No obstante, muchos balleneros tienen un método para empaparlo en alguna otra sustancia y luego tomárselo. En las largas guardias nocturnas, mientras se destila, es cosa corriente que los marineros mojen su galleta de barco en las grandes marmitas de aceite y la dejen freírse un rato. Muchas buenas cenas he hecho yo así.

En el caso de un cachalote pequeño, los sesos se consideran un plato excelente. La tapa del cráneo se parte con un hacha, y al retirar los dos gruesos lóbulos blancuzcos (que parecen exactamente dos grandes flanes) se mezclan entonces con harina, y se cocinan formando un delicioso plato, de sabor algo parecido a la cabeza de ternera, que es un gran manjar entre algunos epicúreos; y todo el mundo sabe que ciertos jóvenes ejemplares de epicúreos, a fuerza de comer continuamente sesos de ternera, llegan a tener poco a poco algo de sesos propios, hasta poder distinguir una cabeza de ternera de la suya propia, lo cual, desde luego, requiere extraordinaria discriminación. Y ése es el motivo por el que uno de esos jóvenes, teniendo delante una cabeza de ternera de aspecto inteligente, resulta, no sé por qué, uno de los espectáculos más tristes que se pueden ver. La cabeza parece estarle reprochando, con una expresión de Et tu Brute !

Quizá no es sobre todo porque la ballena sea tan excesivamente untuosa por lo que la gente de tierra mira con aborrecimiento el comerla; eso parece resultar, en cierto modo, de la consideración antes mencionada: esto es, que un hombre se coma una cosa del mar recién asesinada, y que se la coma, encima, a su propia luz. Pero no hay duda de que el primer hombre que asesinó un buey fue considerado como asesino, y quizá fue ahorcado; y lo habría sido cierta mente si le hubieran sometido a ser juzgado por bueyes; y verdad es que se lo mereció, si lo merece jamás un asesino. Id un sábado por la noche y ved las multitudes de bípedos vivos que miran pasmados las largas filas de cuadrúpedos muertos. Este espectáculo ¿no es capaz de hacerle perder los dientes al caníbal ? ¿Caníbales ?, ¿quién no es caníbal ? Os digo que se tendrá más tolerancia con el indígena de las Fidji que saló a un flaco misionero en su bodega, contra el hambre inminente; se tendrá más tolerancia, digo, con ese previsor hombre de Fidji, en el día del juicio, que contigo, goloso civilizado e ilustrado, que clavas a los patos en el suelo y haces festín de sus hígados hinchados con tu paté de foie gran.

Pero Stubb se come a la ballena a su propia luz, ¿no ? Y eso es añadir el insulto a la injuria, ¿no ? Mira el mango de tu cuchillo, mi civilizado e ilustrado goloso que comes ese buey asado: ¿de qué está hecho el mango ?, ¿de qué, sino de los huesos del hermano del mismo buey que te comes ? ¿Y con qué te mondas los dientes, después de devorar a ese grueso pato ? Con una pluma de la misma ave. ¿Y con qué pluma redacta ceremoniosamente sus circulares el secretario de la Sociedad para la Supresión de la Crueldad contra las Ocas ? Hace sólo un mes o dos que esta sociedad aprobó una decisión de no usar más que plumas de acero. 

La matanza de los tiburones

Cuando en las pesquerías de los mares del Sur se atraca junto al barco un cachalote capturado a altas horas de la noche, tras un largo y fatigoso trabajo, no es costumbre, al menos en general, pasar inmediatamente a la tarea de descuartizarlo. Pues esta tarea es enormemente laboriosa, no se termina muy pronto, y requiere que todos los hombres se pongan a ella. Por tanto, la costumbre corriente es arriar todas las velas; asegurar el timón a sotavento, y luego mandar bajar a dos a sus hamacas hasta que amanezca, con la reserva de que, hasta entonces, hay que poner guardia de anclas, esto es, que de dos en dos, una hora cada pareja, la tripulación por turno irá subiendo a cubierta para ver si todo va bien.

Pero a veces, sobre todo junto al Ecuador, en el Pacífico, este plan no responde en absoluto, porque se acumulan tan incalculables huestes de tiburones junto al cadáver amarrado, que si se le dejara, digamos, seis horas seguidas, por la mañana quedaría visible poco más que el esqueleto. Sin embargo, en muchas otras partes del océano, donde no abundan tanto estos peces, puede disminuirse a veces considerablemente su voracidad atacándoles vigorosamente con afiladas azadas balleneras, procedimiento, no obstante, que en algunos casos sólo parece cosquillearles incitándoles aún a mayor actividad. Pero no fue así, en el caso presente de los tiburones del Pequod, aunque, desde luego, cualquiera poco acostumbrado a tales espectáculos que hubiera mirado por encima de la borda aquella noche, casi habría pensado que todo el mar alrededor era un enorme queso, y los tiburones eran sus gusanos.

Con todo, cuando Stubb montó la guardia de ancla después de terminar su cena, y, cuando, en consecuencia, Queequeg y un marinero del castillo de proa subieron a cubierta, se produjo no poca agitación entre los tiburones, pues colgando inmediatamente los andamios de descuartizar por encima de la borda, y bajando tres faroles, de modo que lanzaran largos fulgores de luz sobre el turbio mar, esos dos marineros, disparando sus largas azadas balleneras, comenzaron un ininterrumpido asesinato de los tiburones,' metiéndoles el agudo acero bien hondo en el cráneo, que al parecer era su única parte vital. Pero en la espumosa confusión de sus mezcladas huestes combativas, no siempre daban en el blanco, y ello daba lugar a nuevas revelaciones de la increíble ferocidad de su enemigo. Cruelmente se daban mordiscos no sólo unos a otros, a las tripas que se les salían, sino que, como arcos flexibles, se doblaban para morderse sus propias tripas, hasta que esas entrañas parecían tragadas una vez y otra por la misma boca, para ser evacuadas a su vez por la herida abierta. Y no era eso todo. Era peligroso mezclarse con los cadáveres y espíritus de esas criaturas. Una especie de vitalidad genérica o panteísta parecía conservarse en sus mismas coyunturas y huesos, después de haberse ausentado lo que podría llamarse la vida individual. Matado e izado a cubierta para conservar su pie, uno de esos tiburones casi le arrancó la mano al pobre Queequeg cuando trataba de cerrar la tapa muerta de su mandíbula asesina.

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-Queequeg no querer -dios que hizo tiburón -dijo el salvaje, agitando de arriba abajo la mano dolorida-: igual dios Fidji o dios de Nantucket; pero el dios que hizo tiburón debe ser indio maldito. 

Descuartizando

Era noche de sábado, y ¡qué día del Señor le siguió ! Todos los balleneros son, ex officio, profesionales del quebrantamiento del día festivo. El ebúrneo Pequod se convirtió en lo que parecía un matadero, y cada marinero en un matarife. Habríais creído que ofrendábamos diez mil bueyes rojos a los dioses marinos.

En primer lugar, los enormes aparejos de descuartizar, que, entre otras cosas pesadas, comprende un haz de motones generalmente pintados de verde, y que ningún hombre puede levantar por sí solo -ese enorme racimo de uvas-, fue guindado a la cofa del palo mayor y amarrado firmemente al tamborete del palo macho, el punto más sólido que hay por encima de la cubierta de un barco. La extremidad del cabo, que, como una guindaleza, serpenteaba a través de estos enredos, fue llevado luego al torno, y la enorme polea inferior de los aparejos quedó pendiendo sobre el cachalote; a esta polea se ató el gran gancho de la grasa, que pesa unas cien libras. Y entonces, suspendidos en pisos sobre los costados, Starbuck y Stubb, los oficiales, armados de sus largas azadas, empezaron a excavar un agujero en el cuerpo para insertar el gancho, encima mismo de la más próxima de las dos aletas laterales. Hecho esto, se corta una ancha línea semicircular en torno al agujero; se inserta el gancho, y la mayor parte de los tripulantes, entonando un salvaje coro, empiezan a izar, densamente agolpados en el cabrestante. Al momento, entonces, el barco entero se escora de costado, con todos sus pernos estremecidos como las cabezas de los clavos de una casa vieja en tiempo de escarcha: tiembla, vacila, y sus asustados mástiles hacen saludos al cielo. Cada vez más se inclina hacia el cetáceo, mientras que a cada jadeante tirón del cabrestante responde un tirón auxiliar de las olas; hasta que por fin se oye un rápido chasquido sobresaltador: con un gran golpe de agua, el barco se mece acercándose y alejándose del cetáceo, y el triunfante aparejo sube a la vista arrastrando tras sí el desprendido extremo semicircular de la primera tira de grasa. Ahora, dado que la grasa envuelve a la ballena exactamente igual que la cáscara a una naranja, se arranca del cuerpo exactamente igual que a veces se pelan las naranjas, mondándolas en espiral. Pues la tensión mantenida continuamente por el torno hace que el cetáceo siga dando vueltas y vueltas en el agua, y como la grasa, en una sola tira, se va pelando uniformemente a lo largo de la línea llamada « la bufanda », excavada a la vez por las azadas de Starbuck y Stubb, los oficiales; tan deprisa como se va pelando así, y precisamente por ese mismo acto, va siendo izada todo el tiempo cada vez más alto hasta que su extremo superior roza la cofa del palo mayor; entonces, los hombres del torno cesan de tirar, y por unos momentos, la prodigiosa masa, goteando sangre, se mece de un lado para otro como si colgara del cielo, y cada cual de los presentes debe tener buen cuidado de esquivarla en su balanceo, pues de otro modo le puede dar una bofetada y tirarle de cabeza por la borda.

Uno de los arponeros presentes avanza entonces con una larga y aguda arma llamada sable de abordaje, y acechando una buena oportunidad, rebana diestramente un considerable agujero en la parte inferior de la masa balanceante. En ese agujero se inserta entonces el extremo del segundo gran aparejo, en uso alternativo, para hacer presa en la grasa y prepararla para la continuación. Tras de ello, ese hábil esgrimidor, avisando a todos los hombres que se aparten, da una vez más un tajo científico a la masa, y, con unos pocos tajos laterales, desesperados y a fondo, la corta completamente en dos, de modo que, mientras la breve porción inferior todavía está sujeta, la larga tira superior, llamada « el cobertor », se balancea desprendida, y queda dispuesta para ser arriada. Los que izan a proa vuelven a reanudar su canto, y mientras un aparejo pela e iza una segunda tira de la ballena, el otro se afloja lentamente, y la primera tira baja derecha por la escotilla mayor, a un local sin mobiliario llamado el cuarto de la grasa. En ese recinto en penumbra, varios hombres ágiles van enrollando el largo cobertor como si fuera una gran masa viva de serpientes trenzadas. Y así se desarrolla la tarea; los dos aparejos izan y bajan a la vez; la ballena y el torno dan tirones; los del cabrestante cantan; los caballeros del cuarto de la grasa van enrollando; los oficiales trazan el surco de « la bufanda »; el barco hace fuerza y todos los hombres juran de vez en cuando, como manera de aliviar el rozamiento general. 

El cobertor

He prestado no poca atención a ese tema tan traído y llevado que es la piel de la ballena. He tenido controversias sobre él con expertos balleneros en el mar y con doctos naturalistas en tierra. Mi opinión primitiva permanece inalterada, pero es sólo una opinión.

La cuestión es: ¿qué es y dónde está la piel de la ballena ? Ya sabéis lo que es su grasa. Esa grasa es algo de consistencia de carne de buey, firme y de fibra apretada, pero más dura, más elástica, más compacta, alcanzando en espesor desde ocho o diez a doce o quince pulgadas.

Ahora, por absurdo que parezca a primera vista hablar de la piel de un animal como de algo que tenga tal suerte de consistencia y espesor, sin embargo, de hecho no hay argumentos contra tal suposición, porque no se puede arrancar ninguna otra capa densa que envuelva el cuerpo de la ballena sino esa misma grasa; y la capa externa que envuelve a un animal, si es razonablemente consistente, ¿qué puede ser sino la piel ? Verdad es que del cuerpo muerto e intacto de la ballena se puede rascar con la mano una sustancia infinitamente sutil y transparente, algo parecido a las más sutiles escamas de la colapez, sólo que casi tan flexible y blanda como el raso; esto es, antes que se seque, pues entonces no sólo se contrae y espesa, sino que se vuelve dura y quebradiza. Tengo varios trozos secos así, que uso como señales en mis libros balleneros. Es transparente, como antes dije; y al ponerla sobre la página impresa, a veces me he complacido imaginando que hacía efecto de lente de aumento. En cualquier caso, es grato leer sobre las ballenas a través de sus propias gafas, como quien dice. Pero adonde quiero ir es a esto: esa misma sustancia infinitamente sutil y como colapez que, según reconozco, reviste todo el cuerpo de la ballena, no se considera tanto como la piel del animal, cuanto, por decirlo así, como la piel de la piel, pues sería sencillamente ridículo decir que la verdadera piel de la enorme ballena es más sutil y tierna que la piel de un niño recién nacido. Pero basta de esto.

Suponiendo que la grasa sea la piel de la ballena, entonces, si esa piel, como ocurre en el caso de un cachalote muy grande, produce la cantidad de cien barriles de aceite, y si se considera que en cantidad, o mejor dicho, en peso, este aceite, en su estado exprimido, es sólo tres cuartas partes y no la entera sustancia de su revestimiento, se puede sacar por aquí alguna idea de lo enorme de esta masa animada, si una mera parte de su mero tegumento proporciona un lago de líquido como ése. Calculando diez barriles por tonelada, se obtienen diez toneladas como peso neto de solamente tres cuartas partes de la materia de la piel de la ballena.

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Una palabra o dos sobre este asunto de la piel o grasa de la ballena. Ya se ha dicho que se le arranca en largas piezas, llamadas « piezas de cobertor ». Como muchos términos marítimos, éste es muy afortunado y significativo. Pues la ballena, en efecto, está arropada en su grasa como en una auténtica manta o colcha; o, mejor aún, como en un poncho indio echado por la cabeza y que le rodea como una falda su extremidad. Por causa de este caliente arropamiento de su cuerpo, la ballena es capaz de mantenerse a gusto en todos los climas, en todos los mares, tiempos y mareas. ¿Qué sería de una ballena de Groenlandia, digamos, en esos mares helados y estremecedores del norte, si no estuviera provista de su caliente sobretodo ? Verdad es que se encuentran otros peces muy vivaces en esas aguas hiperbóreas, pero ésos, ha de observarse, son los otros peces, de sangre fría y sin pulmones, cuyas mismísimas barrigas son refrigeradores; criaturas que se calientan al socaire de un iceberg, como un viajero invernal que se calentara ante el fuego de una posada; mientras que la ballena, como el hombre, tiene pulmones y sangre caliente. Heladle la sangre, y se muere. Qué maravilloso es entonces -salvo después de la explicación- que ese gran monstruo, para quien el calor corporal es tan indispensable como para el hombre; qué maravilloso es, digo, que se encuentre en su casa sumergido hasta los labios en esas aguas árticas, donde, cuando los marineros caen por la borda se les encuentra a veces, meses después, congelados verticalmente en el corazón de campos de hielo, igual que se encuentra una mosca presa en el ámbar. Pero más sorprendente es saber, como se ha probado por experiencia, que la sangre de una ballena polar es más caliente que la de un negro de Borneo en verano.

A mí me parece que aquí vemos la rara virtud de una fuerte vitalidad individual, y la rara virtud de unas paredes gruesas, y la rara virtud de la espaciosidad interior. ¡Oh, hombre, admira a la ballena y tómala por modelo ! Permanece también tú caliente entre el hielo. Tú también vives en este mundo sin ser de él. Quédate frío en el ecuador; mantén fluida tu sangre en el Polo. Como la gran cúpula de San Pedro, y como la gran ballena, conserva, ¡oh, hombre !, en todas las estaciones una temperatura propia.

Pero ¡qué fácil y qué desesperanzado enseñar estas cosas tan hermosas ! De las construcciones, ¡qué pocas tienen cúpulas como la de San Pedro ! De las criaturas, ¡qué pocas son tan vastas como la ballena ! 

El funeral

¡Halad las cadenas ! ¡Soltad la carcasa a popa !

Los enormes aparejos han cumplido ya su deber. El desollado cuerpo blanco del cachalote decapitado resplandece como una sepultura de mármol; aunque cambiado de color, no ha perdido nada perceptible en tamaño. Sigue siendo colosal. Lentamente se aleja flotando, mientras el agua a su alrededor es quebrada y salpicada por los insaciados tiburones, y el aire, por encima, es violado por rapaces vuelos de aves chillonas, cuyos picos son como puñales que atacan al cetáceo. El vasto fantasma blanco y decapitado sigue alejándose del barco, y a cada vara que deriva así flotando, se aumenta el criminal estrépito con lo que parece varas cuadradas de tiburones y varas cúbicas de aves. Durante horas y horas, se ve ese horrible espectáculo desde el barco casi inmóvil. Bajo el cielo sin nubes, de suave azur, sobre el hermoso rostro del grato mar, ventilado por las jubilosas brisas, la gran masa de muerte sigue derivando, hasta que se pierde en perspectivas infinitas.

¡Son unos funerales tristísimos y burlones ! Los buitres de mar, todos ellos de piadoso luto; los tiburones del aire, todos ceremoniosamente de negro o de lunares. Imagino que bien pocos de ellos habrían ayudado al cetáceo en vida, si por casualidad les hubiera nece sitado; pero se precipitan muy piadosamente al banquete de sus funerales. ¡Ah, horrible buitrismo de la tierra, del que no está libre ni aun la más poderosa ballena !

Y no es ése el fin. Profanado el cuerpo como está, un vengativo espectro sobrevive y se cierne sobre él para asustar. Descubierto desde lejos por algún tímido barco de guerra, o por alguna equivocada nave de exploración, cuando la distancia que oscurece el enjambre de aves sigue mostrando sin embargo la blanca masa que flota al sol, y la blanca espuma que rompe bien alto contra ella, inmediatamente se anota el inofensivo cadáver del cetáceo, con dedos temblorosos, en el cuaderno de bitácora: Bajío, rocas y rompientes por aquí:¡cuidado ! Y durante años después, quizá, los barcos esquivan ese sitio, dando un salto sobre él como las ovejas tontas saltan sobre un vacío porque su guía, al principio, saltó allí, cuando alguien sostenía un palo. ¡Ahí está vuestra ley de los precedentes; ahí está vuestra utilidad de las tradiciones; ahí está la historia de vuestra supervivencia obstinada de viejas creencias jamás cimentadas en la tierra, y que ahora ni siquiera se ciernen en el aire ! ¡Ahí está la ortodoxia !

Así, mientras en vida el gran cuerpo de la ballena puede haber sido un auténtico terror para sus enemigos, en su muerte, su espectro se convierte en un impotente pánico para el mundo.

¿Crees en espectros, amigo mío ? Hay otros espectros que no son el de Cock-Lane, y hay hombres, más profundos que el doctor Johnson, que creen en ellos. 

La esfinge

No habría debido omitir que, antes de desollar por completo el cuerpo del leviatán, había sido decapitado. Ahora, decapitar al cachalote es una hazaña anatómica de que se enorgullecen muchos expertos cirujanos balleneros, y no sin razón.

Considerad que el cachalote no tiene nada que pueda ser llamado cuello; al contrario, en el mismísimo lugar donde parecen unirse su cabeza y su cuerpo es donde se encuentra su parte más gruesa. Recordad, asimismo, que el cirujano debe operar desde arriba, a unos ocho o diez pies de su paciente, y que ese paciente está casi oculto en un mar opaco, agitado, y a menudo tumultuoso y explosivo. Tened en cuenta, también, que en esas circunstancias poco propicias tiene que cortar en la carne hasta varios pies de profundidad; y en esa forma subterránea, sin poder siquiera obtener un atisbo de la incisión siempre contraída que ha hecho así, debe evitar hábilmente el contacto con todas las prohibidas partes adyacentes, y cortar exactamente el espinazo en un punto crítico a su inserción en el cráneo. ¿No os maravilla, entonces, la jactancia de Stubb, que sólo pedía diez minutos para decapitar a un cachalote ?

Apenas cortada, se larga la cabeza a popa, sujetándola allí con un cable hasta que el cuerpo está desollado. Hecho esto, si pertenece a una ballena pequeña, es izada a cubierta para disponer de ella con tranquilidad. Pero con un leviatán adulto eso es imposible; pues la cabeza de un cachalote alcanza casi un tercio de su masa total, y sería tan vano intentar suspender del todo tal carga, aun con los inmensos aparejos del ballenero, sería cosa tan vana como intentar pesar un granero holandés con la balanza de un joyero.

Una vez decapitado el cetáceo del Pequod y desollado el cuerpo, se izó la cabeza contra el costado del barco, medio salida del mar, para que todavía la mantuviera en gran parte a flote su elemento nativo. Y allí, con la tensa embarcación inclinándose abruptamente sobre ella, a causa del enorme tirón hacia abajo desde el tamborete del palo macho, y con todos los penoles de ese lado asomando como grúas sobre las olas; allí, esa cabeza goteando sangre colgaba de la cintura del Pequod como el gigante Holofernes del cinturón de Judit.

Cuando se acabó esta última tarea era mediodía, y los marineros bajaron a comer. Reinó el silencio sobre la cubierta, antes tumultuosa pero ahora abandonada. Una intensa calma de cobre, como un loto amarillo universal, desplegaba cada vez más sus callados pétalos sobre el mar.

Transcurrió un corto intervalo, y Ahab subió desde su cabina a esta quietud. Dando unas pocas vueltas por el alcázar, se detuvo a mirar por encima de la borda, y luego, acercándose lentamente a los cadenotes, tomó la larga azada de Stubb -que seguía todavía allí después de la decapitación de la ballena- y, clavándola en la parte inferior de la masa medio suspendida, se colocó el otro extremo bajo el brazo, como una muleta, y se quedó así asomado, con los ojos atentamente fijos en esa cabeza.

Era una cabeza negra y encapuchada, y colgada allí, en medio de una calma tan intensa, parecía la Esfinge en el desierto. -Habla, enorme y venerable cabeza -murmuró Ahab-, que, aunque privada de barba, te muestras acá y allá encanecida de moho; habla, poderosa cabeza, y dinos el secreto que hay en ti. De todos los buceadores, tú eres quien más hondo se ha sumergido. Esta cabeza sobre la que brilla ahora el sol, se ha movido entre los cimientos del mundo. Donde se oxidan nombres y armadas sin anotar, y se pudren esperanzas y áncoras nunca dichas; donde en su criminal sentina, esta fragata que es la tierra, está lastrada de huesos de millones de ahogados; allí, en esa terrible tierra de agua, allí estaba tu hogar más familiar. Tú has estado donde jamás llegó campana o buzo; has dormido al lado de muchos marineros, donde insomnes madres darían sus vidas por acostarles. Tú viste a los amantes abrazados saltar del barco en llamas; pecho contra pecho se hundieron bajo la ola jubilosa; fieles uno a otro, cuando el cielo parecía serles falso. Tú viste al oficial asesinado cuando los piratas le tiraron de la cubierta a medianoche; para todas las horas ha caído en la más profunda medianoche de este estómago insaciable; y sus asesinos siguieron navegando incólumes, mientras que raudos rayos estremecían al barco vecino que iba a llevar a un honrado marido a los brazos extendidos que le ansiaban. ¡Oh cabeza ! ¡Tú has visto bastante para desgajar los planetas y hacer infiel a Abraham, y no dices una sílaba !

-¡Vela a proa ! -gritó una voz triunfante desde la cofa del palo mayor.

-¿Ah, sí ? Bueno, eso da gusto -gritó Ahab, incorporándose de repente, mientras enteras nubes de tormenta se apartaban de su frente-. Ese grito vivaz sobre esta calma mortal casi podría convertir a un hombre mejor. ¿Por dónde ?

-Tres cuartas a proa a estribor, capitán, ¡y nos trae la brisa !

-Mejor que mejor, muchacho. ¡Ojalá viniera por ahí san Pablo y trajera su brisa a mi calma chicha ! ¡Ah, naturaleza, y, oh alma del hombre !, cuánto más allá de toda expresión están tus emparejadas analogías; no se mueve ni vive el más pequeño átomo de materia sin que tenga en la mente su hábil duplicado. 

La historia del jeroboam

La nave y la brisa avanzaban corriendo mano a mano, pero la brisa llegó antes que el barco, y pronto el Pequod empezó a balancearse.

Poco a poco, a través del catalejo, las lanchas del barco desconocido y sus cofas con vigías mostraron que era un ballenero. Pero como estaba lejos a barlovento y pasaba de largo, al parecer dirigiéndose a alguna otra zona de pesca, el Pequod no podía esperar alcanzarla. Así que se izó la señal, para ver qué respuesta se daría.

Aquí ha de decirse que, igual que los navíos de la marina de guerra, los barcos de la flota ballenera americana tienen cada cual una señal propia; y todas esas señales están reunidas, llevando al lado los nombres de las respectivas naves, en un libro del que están provistos todos los capitanes. Por consiguiente, los capitanes de balleneros pueden reconocerse unos a otros en el océano, aun a distancias considerables, y con poca facilidad.

Al fin, a la señal del Pequod respondió el recién llegado izando la suya, que mostró que era el, jeroboam, de Nantucket. Braceando en cruz, recaló sobre el Pequod, se alineó a través a sotavento de nuestro barco, y arrió un bote, que pronto estuvo cerca, pero cuando se preparaba la escalerilla, por orden de Starbuck, para uso del capitán visitante, el forastero en cuestión agitó la mano desde la proa del bote en señal de que era enteramente inútil esa medida. Resultó que el Jeroboam tenía una epidemia maligna a bordo, y que su capitán, Mayhew, tenía miedo de contagiar a la tripulación del Pequod. Pues, aunque él mismo y la tripulación del bote permanecían sanos y aunque su barco estaba a medio tiro de rifle, con un mar y un aire incorruptibles meciéndose y soplando por entre medias, sin embargo, en concienzudo cumplimiento de la tímida cuarentena de los puertos, rehusó de modo perentorio entrar en contacto directo con el Pequod.

Pero esto no impidió en modo alguno toda comunicación. Con un intervalo de unas pocas yardas entre él mismo y el barco, el bote del Jeroboam, usando de vez en cuando los remos, se las arregló para mantenerse paralelo al Pequod, que se movía pesadamente por el mar (pues para entonces soplaba viento fresco), con la gavia en facha; aunque, desde luego, a veces la lancha era empujada a cierta distancia por el empuje súbito de una gran ola, pero pronto la llevaban hábilmente otra vez a su sitio propio. Sujeta a esto, y a otras interrupciones semejantes de vez en cuando, se sostenía entre ambas partes una conversación, pero, de vez en cuando, con alguna otra interrupción de especie muy diversa.

Entre los remeros de la lancha del Jeroboam había un hombre de aspecto singular, aun para esa salvaje vida ballenera donde las peculiaridades individuales componen todas las totalidades. Era un hombre bajo, rechoncho, de aspecto juvenil, con toda la cara salpicada de pecas y con abundante pelo amarillo. Le envolvía una levita de largos faldones y de corte cabalístico, de desteñido color castaño, con las rebosantes mangas remangadas en las muñecas. En sus ojos había un profundo y fanático delirio fijo.

Tan pronto como se señaló por primera vez esta figura, Stubb exclamó: -¡Es él, es él ! ¡Aquel bufón de ropas holgadas de que nos habló la tripulación del Town-Ho ! Stubb aludía aquí a una extraña historia contada sobre el Jeroboam y sobre cierto marinero de su tripulación algún tiempo antes, cuando el Pequod habló con el Town-Ho. Según este relato y lo que se supo posteriormente, parecía que el bufón en cuestión había alcanzado un ascendiente asombroso sobre casi todos los del Jeroboam. Su historia era ésta:

Se había criado entre la loca compañía de los Shakers de Neskyeuna donde había sido un gran profeta; en sus dementes reuniones secretas había descendido varias veces del cielo por una trampilla, anunciando la pronta apertura del séptimo cáliz, un frasco que llevaba en el bolsillo del chaleco, pero que, en vez de contener pólvora, se suponía que estaba cargado de láudano. Al apoderarse de él un extraño antojo apostólico, dejó Neskyeuna por Nantucket, donde, con la astucia propia de la locura, asumió un aspecto tranquilo y sensato, y se ofreció como bisoño para el viaje ballenero del Jeroboam. Le enrolaron, pero en cuanto el barco dejó de estar a la vista de tierra, brotó su demencia en inundación. Se proclamó como el arcángel Gabriel, y ordenó al capitán que saltara por la borda. Publicó su manifiesto, en que se presentaba como el liberador de las islas del mar y vicario general de toda la Oceánida. La inflexible seriedad con que declaraba estas cosas, el oscuro y atrevido juego de su excitada imaginación insomne, y todos los terrores preternaturales del delirio auténtico se unieron para revestir a Gabriel de una atmósfera de sacralidad en las mentes de la mayoría de la ignorante tripulación. Además, le tenían miedo. Sin embargo, como un hombre así no era de gran utilidad en el barco, sobre todo porque rehusaba trabajar cuando se le antojaba, el incrédulo capitán deseaba deshacerse de él; pero al darse cuenta de que la intención de ese individuo era desembarcarle en el primer puerto conveniente, el arcángel abrió inmediatamente todos sus sellos y cálices, entregando al barco y a todos los marineros a la perdición incondicional en el caso de que se llevara a cabo ese designio. Tan fuertemente influyó en sus discípulos de la marinería, que por fin se presentaron en corporación al capitán y le dijeron que si se echaba a Gabriel del barco, no se quedaría ni uno de ellos. Por consiguiente, el capitán se vio obligado a abandonar su plan. Y tampoco habían de permitir que Gabriel fuese maltratado, dijera o hiciera lo que quisiera, de modo que acabó por ocurrir que Gabriel tuvo completa libertad en la nave. La consecuencia de todo ello fue que al arcángel no le importaban ni poco ni mucho el capitán y los oficiales; y desde que se declaró la epidemia, tenía mayor dominio que nunca, declarando que la plaga, como él la llamaba, estaba a su mando solamente, y no se evitaría sin su beneplácito. Los marineros, en su mayor parte pobres diablos, se rebajaron y algunos de ellos le adulaban, rindiéndole a veces homenaje personal como a un dios, en obediencia a sus instrucciones. Tales cosas pueden parecer increíbles, pero son verdaderas por más que sorprendan. Y la historia de esos fanáticos, si se tiene en cuenta el desmedido autoengaño del propio fanático, no es ni la mitad de sorprendente que su desmedido poder de engañar y endemoniar a tantos otros. Pero es hora de volver al Pequod.

-No tengo miedo de tu epidemia, hombre -dijo Ahab desde las ameradas al capitán Mayhew, que estaba en la popa de la lancha-; sube a bordo.

Pero entonces Gabriel se puso de pie, de repente.

-¡Piensa, piensa en las fiebres, amarillas y biliosas ! ¡Ten cuidado con la horrible plaga !

-Gabriel, Gabriel -gritó el capitán Mayhew-: debes, o... Pero en ese momento una ola de cabeza disparó la lancha bien lejos, y sus salpicaduras cubrieron todo lenguaje.

-¿Has visto a la ballena blanca ? -preguntó Ahab, cuando la lancha volvió derivando.

-¡Piensa, piensa en tu ballenera, desfondada y hundida ! ¡Cuidado con su horrible cola !

-Te vuelvo a decir, Gabriel, que... Pero otra vez la lancha saltó adelante como arrastrada por demonios. Nada se dijo durante unos momentos, mientras pasaban una serie de olas amotinadas que, por uno de esos caprichos ocasionales de los mares, rompían sin hincharse. Mientras tanto, la cabeza de cachalote izada daba violentas sacudidas, y Gabriel la miraba con bastante más temor de lo que parecía permitir su naturaleza arcangélica.

Acabado este intermedio, el capitán Mayhew empezó una larga historia sobre Moby Dick, pero, sin embargo, no sin frecuentes interrupciones por parte de Gabriel, siempre que se mencionaba su nombre, y por parte del loco mar, que parecía aliado con él.

Parecía que el Jeroboam no había dejado el puerto hacía mucho tiempo cuando, al hablar con un barco ballenero, su tripulación fue informada de modo fidedigno sobre la existencia de Moby Dick y de los trastornos que había causado. Absorbiendo ávidamente esta noticia, Gabriel amonestó con solemnidad al capitán para que no atacara a la ballena blanca, en caso de que se viera al monstruo, y declaró, en su demencia ininteligible, que la ballena blanca era nada menos que el Dios Shaker encarnado, ya que los Shakers aceptan la Biblia. Pero cuando un año o dos después se avistó claramente a Moby Dick desde las cofas, Macey, el primer oficial, se consumía de ardor por salir a su encuentro, y como el propio capitán no se opuso a darle esa oportunidad, a pesar de todas las denuncias y avisos del arcángel, Macey logró convencer a cinco hombres para que montaran en su lancha. Con ellos empezó a remar, y después de muchos trabajos, y muchos ataques peligrosos y sin éxito, logró por fin hacer presa con un hierro. Mientras tanto, Gabriel, subiendo al calcés de sobrejuanete mayor, agitaba un brazo en gestos frenéticos, y lanzaba profecías de inminente condenación contra los sacrílegos atacantes de su condición divina. Ahora, mientras Macey, el oficial, se erguía en la proa de su lancha, y, con toda la indómita energía de su tribu, desfogaba sus salvajes exclamaciones contra la ballena, tratando de obtener una buena ocasión para su lanza ya en alto, he aquí que una ancha sombra blanca se elevó del mar, y dejó temporalmente sin aliento los cuerpos de los remeros con su rápido movimiento de abanico. Un momento después, el desdichado oficial, tan lleno de vida furiosa, era lanzado entero por el aire, y trazando un largo arco en su descenso, caía al mar a la distancia de unas cincuenta yardas. Ni una astilla del bote quedó dañada, ni un pelo de la cabeza de ningún remero, pero el primer oficial se hundió para siempre.

Está bien poner aquí entre paréntesis que de los accidentes de la pesca de ballenas, esta clase es casi tan frecuente como cualquier otra. A veces, no se daña nada sino el hombre así aniquilado; más a menudo, se arranca con el golpe la proa de la lancha, o la castañuela en que el jefe de lancha apoya el muslo es arrancada de su sitio y acompaña al cuerpo. Pero lo más extraño de todo es la circunstancia de que, en más de un caso, cuando se recupera el cuerpo, no se distingue una sola señal de violencia, estando el hombre completamente muerto.

Toda esa calamidad, con la caída de la figura de Macey, se observó claramente desde el barco. Lanzando un grito penetrante -« ¡El cáliz, el cáliz ! »-, Gabriel disuadió con sus llamadas a la tripulación, abrumada de terror, de que siguieran persiguiendo a la ballena. Ese terrible acontecimiento revistió al arcángel de nuevo influjo, porque sus crédulos discípulos creyeron que lo había anunciado específicamente, en vez de hacer sólo una profecía general, que podría haber hecho cualquiera, dando así por casualidad en uno de los muchos blancos en el ancho margen que quedaba. Se convirtió en un terror sin nombre para el barco.

Al concluir Mayhew este relato, Ahab le hizo tales preguntas, que el capitán visitante no pudo menos de inquirir si se proponía perseguir a la ballena blanca. A lo cual Ahab contestó: Sí. Inmediatamente, Gabriel se puso en pie sobresaltado, miró furiosamente hacia el viejo y exclamó, mientras apuntaba con el dedo hacia abajo: -¡Pensad, pensad en el blasfemo; muerto y allá abajo ! ¡Cuidado con el fin del blasfemo !

Ahab se volvió a un lado con sosiego, y luego dijo a Mayhew: -Capitán, acabo de acordarme de mi bolsa de correo, hay una carta para uno de sus oficiales, si no me equivoco. Starbuck, busque la bolsa.

Todo barco ballenero lleva un buen número de cartas para diversos barcos, cuya entrega a las personas a quienes puedan estar dirigidas depende de la simple probabilidad de encontrarlos en los cuatro océanos. Así, la mayor parte de las cartas nunca llegan a su objetivo; y muchas se reciben sólo después de dos o tres años o más.

Pronto volvió Starbuck con una carta en la mano. Estaba lamentablemente arrugada, húmeda y cubierta de un opaco moho verde con manchas; como consecuencia de semejante carta, la misma Muerte bien podría haber sido el cartero.

-¿No sabe leerla ? -gritó Ahab-. Démela, hombre. Sí, sí, no es más que un garrapateo borroso... ¿Esto qué es ? Mientras él la descifraba, Starbuck tomó un largo palo de azada ballenera, y con su navaja partió ligeramente el extremo para insertar allí la carta, y, de ese modo, entregarla a la lancha, sin que se acercara más al barco.

Mientras tanto Ahab, sosteniendo la carta, murmuraba: -« Al señor Har... », sí, « señor Harry »... (una letra puntiaguda de mujer; su mujer, apuesto). Sí... « Al señor Harry Macey, a bordo del Jeroboam »; ¡cómo, es Macey, y ha muerto !

-¡Pobre muchacho, pobre muchacho ! Y de su mujer -suspiró Mayhew-, pero démela.

-No, quédatela tú mismo -gritó Gabriel a Ahab-: tú irás pronto por ese camino.

-¡Que los demonios te estrangulen ! -aulló Ahab-. Capitán Mayhew, prepárese ya a recibirla. Y tomando la misiva fatal de manos de Starbuck, la metió en la hendidura del palo y se la alcanzó hasta la lancha. Pero al hacerlo así, los remeros dejaron de remar, con la expectación; la lancha derivó un poco hacia la popa del barco, de modo que, como por magia, la carta quedó de repente a la altura de la ávida mano de Gabriel. Este la agarró en un momento, empuñó el cuchillo de la lancha, y, atravesando con él la carta, lo lanzó, así cargado, al barco. Cayó a los pies de Ahab. Entonces Gabriel aulló a sus compañeros que tiraran adelante con los remos, y de ese modo la revoltosa lancha se alejó disparada del Pequod.

Cuando, tras este intermedio, los marineros continuaron su trabajo con la envoltura de la ballena, se insinuaron muchas cosas extrañas en referencia a este sorprendente asunto. 

El andarivel

En el tumultuoso asunto de descuartizar una ballena y ocuparse de ella, hay mucho que correr de un lado a otro, para la tripulación. Unas veces hacen falta hombres aquí, y otras veces hacen falta allá. No hay modo de quedarse en un solo sitio, pues al mismo tiempo hay que hacerlo todo en todas partes. Mucho de eso le ocurre al que intenta describir la escena. Ahora tenemos que desandar nuestro camino un poco. Se mencionó que al romper por primera vez la superficie en el lomo de la ballena, el gancho de la grasa se insertó en el agujero cortado previamente allí por las azadas de los oficiales. Pero ¿cómo quedó fijada en ese agujero una masa tan torpe y pesada como ese gancho ? La insertó allí mi particular amigo Queequeg, quien, como arponero, tenía la obligación de bajar al lomo del monstruo con el propósito especial a que se ha aludido. Pero en muchos casos, las circunstancias requieren que el arponero se quede en la ballena hasta que concluya toda la operación del desollamiento o despojo. La ballena, ha de observarse, se encuentra casi enteramente sumergida, excepto las partes inmediatas sobre las que se opera. Así que allá abajo el pobre arponero da vueltas y vacila, mitad en la ballena y mitad en el agua, mientras la vasta mole gira debajo de él como un molino de rueda de escalones. En la ocasión a que aludimos, Queequeg lucía el traje escocés, o sea, una camisa y calcetines, en que, al menos a mis ojos, aparecía extraordinariamente favorecido; y nadie tuvo mejor ocasión de observarle, como se va a ver.

Por ser yo el hombre de proa de este salvaje, esto es, la persona sentada en el remo de proa de su lancha (el segundo de delante), me correspondía el grato deber de ayudarle mientras él hacía aquel pataleante gateo sobre el lomo de la ballena muerta. Habréis visto a los organilleros italianos sosteniendo a un mono bailarín con una larga cuerda. Precisamente así, desde el abrupto costado del barco, sujetaba yo a Queequeg allá abajo en el mar, mediante lo que se llama técnicamente en la pesquería un andarivel o « cable de mono », amarrado a una recia tira de lona prendida en torno a su cintura.

Para ambos de nosotros, era un asunto humorísticamente peligroso. Pues, antes de continuar, debe decirse que el andarivel estaba sujeto por los dos extremos; sujeto al ancho cinturón de lona de Queequeg y sujeto a mi estrecho cinturón de cuero. De modo que, para bien o para mal, los dos estábamos casados por el momento, y si el pobre Queequeg se hundía para no volver a subir más, entonces, tanto la costumbre como el honor exigían que, en vez de cortar la cuerda, el andarivel me arrastrase hundiéndome en su estela. Así pues, nos unía una prolongada ligadura de siameses. Queequeg era mi inseparable hermano gemelo, y yo no podía eludir de ningún modo las peligrosas responsabilidades que implicaba aquel vínculo de cáñamo.

Tan enérgica y metafísicamente entendía yo entonces mi situación, que, mientras observaba sus movimientos con ansia, me pareció percibir con claridad que mi propia individualidad estaba ahora fundida en una sociedad comanditaria de dos; que mi libre albedrío había recibido una herida mortal, y que, en mi inocencia, el error o la desgracia de otro podía hundirme en desastre y muerte no merecidos. Por tanto, vi que allí había una especie de interregno en la Providencia, pues su equidad igualitaria jamás podría haber sancionado tan garrafal injusticia. Y sin embargo, cavilando más -a la vez que con sacudidas le sacaba de vez en cuando de entre la ballena y el barco, que amenazaban aplastarle-, cavilando más, digo, vi que esa situación mía era la situación exacta de todo mortal que alienta, sólo que, en la mayoría de los casos, de un modo o de otro, uno tiene esa conexión siamesa con una pluralidad de otros mortales. Si vuestro banquero quiebra, os hundís; si vuestro boticario, por error, os manda veneno en las píldoras, os morís. Verdad es que quizá diréis que, a fuerza de precaución, podéis escapar acaso de esas y las demás numerosas ocasiones de males en la vida. Pero, por muy atentamente que yo manejaba el andarivel de Queequeg, a veces él le daba tales sacudidas que yo estaba muy a punto de resbalar por la borda. Y tampoco me era posible olvidar que, hiciera lo que hiciera, yo no tenía más que el uso de un solo extremo.

[]

He sugerido que muchas veces saqué con una sacudida a Queequeg de entre la ballena y el barco, donde caía de vez en cuando, con el incesante balanceo y desvío de ambos. Pero no era ése el único riesgo de hacerse trizas a que estaba expuesto. Sin horrorizarse por la matanza hecha con ellos durante la noche, los tiburones, ahora incitados otra vez con más apremio por la sangre, antes contenida, que empezaba a manar del cadáver, lo rodeaban en enjambres de criaturas rabiosas como abejas en una colmena.

Y en medio mismo de esos tiburones estaba Queequeg, que a veces les hacía apartarse con los pies vacilantes; una cosa en absoluto increíble si no fuera porque, atraído por una presa tal como una ballena muerta, el tiburón, por lo demás carnívoro sin distinción, raramente toca a un hombre.

No obstante, puede creerse muy bien que una vez que mete en la masa unas manos tan rapaces, se considera prudente no perderle de vista. En consecuencia, además del andarivel, con que de vez en cuando sacaba de una sacudida al pobre muchacho de la excesiva cercanía a la mandíbula de lo que parecía un tiburón peculiarmente feroz, él disponía de otra protección. Suspendidos sobre el costado, en uno de los andamios, Tashtego y Dalo blandían continuamente sobre su cabeza un par de tajantes azadas balleneras, con las que mataban tantos tiburones como alcanzaban. Esa actividad por su parte, desde luego, era muy benévola y desinteresada. Deseaban la mayor felicidad de Queequeg, lo admito; pero en su apresurado celo por ayudarle y por el hecho de que tanto él como los tiburones estaban a veces medio escondidos por el agua enlodada de sangre, esas indiscretas azadas estaban más a punto de amputar una pierna que una cola. Pero el pobre Queequeg, fatigándose y jadeando allí con ese gran, gancho de hierro, supongo que no hacía más que rezar a su Yojo, y encomendaba su vida en manos de sus dioses.

« Bueno, bueno, mi querido camarada y hermano gemelo -pensaba yo, tirando y luego aflojando el cabo a cada hinchazón del mar-: ¿qué importa, después de todo ? ¿No eres la preciosa imagen de cada uno y todos nosotros los hombres en este mundo de ballenas ? Ese insondado océano en que jadeas es la Vida; esos tiburones, tus enemigos; esas azadas, tus amigos, y entre tiburones y espadas, estás en un triste peligro y un mal guisado, pobre muchacho. »

Pero ¡ánimo ! Te está reservada una buena alegría, Queequeg. Pues ahora, cuando con los labios azules y los ojos inyectados de sangre, el exhausto salvaje trepa al fin por los cadenotes, y se detiene en cubierta, todo goteante e involuntariamente tembloroso, avanza el mayordomo, y con una benévola mirada de consuelo le ofrece... ¿qué ? ¿Coñac caliente ? ¡No ! ¡Le ofrece, OH dioses, le ofrece una taza de jengibre con agua tibia !

-¿Jengibre ? ¿Huele a jengibre ? -preguntó Stubb con suspicacia, acercándose-. Sí, esto debe ser jengibre -escudriñando la taza aún sin probar. Luego, quedándose un rato como sin creerlo, marchó sosegadamente hacia el asombrado mayordomo y le dijo despacio-: ¿Jengibre ? ¿Jengibre ? ¿Tendrá la bondad de decirme, señor Dough-Boy, dónde está la virtud del jengibre ? ¡Jengibre ! ¿Es jengibre la clase de combustible que usa, Dough-Boy, para encender fuego en este caníbal que tirita ? ¡Jengibre !, ¿qué demonios es el jengibre ? ¿Carbón de mar ?, ¿leña de arder ?, ¿fósforos ?, ¿yesca ?, ¿pólvora ? ¿Qué demonio es el jengibre, digo, para que ofrezca una taza a nuestro pobre Queequeg ?

-En este asunto hay algún solapado movimiento de Sociedad de Templanza -añadió de repente, acercándose ahora a Starbuck, que acababa de llegar de proa-. ¿Quiere mirar este cacharro ? Huélalo, por favor. El mayordomo, señor Starbuck, ha tenido la cara de ofrecer ese calomelano y jalapa a Queequeg, que en este momento vuelve de la ballena. ¿Es un boticario este mayordomo, señor Starbuck ? Y ¿puedo preguntar si es éste el género de estimulantes con que vuelve a dar soplo de vida a un hombre medio ahogado ?

-Confío que no -dijo Starbuck-, es una cosa bastante mala.

-Eso, eso, mayordomo -gritó Stubb-; te enseñaremos a medicar a un arponero, sin nada de esas medicinas de boticario; ¿quieres envenenarnos ? ¿Tienes seguros sobre nuestras vidas y nos quieres asesinar a todos y embolsarte el producto, eh ?

-No he sido yo -gritó Dough-Boy-: fue tía Caridad quien trajo a bordo el jengibre, y me pidió que nunca diera licores a los arponeros, sino sólo su tisana de jengibre, como la llamaba.

-¡Tisana de jengibre ! ¡Bribón jengibrado !, ¡toma eso ! Y corre allá a los armarios y trae algo mejor. Espero no hacer mal, señor Starbuck. Son las órdenes del capitán: grog para el arponero que ha estado en la ballena.

-Basta -contestó Starbuck-: pero no le vuelvas a pegar, sino que...

-Ah, nunca hago daño cuando pego, sino cuando pego a una ballena o algo así, y este tipo es una comadreja. ¿Qué iba a decir, señor Starbuck ?

-Sólo esto; baja con él, y trae tú mismo lo que quieras.

Cuando reapareció Stubb, venía con un frasco oscuro en una mano y una especie de bote de té en la otra. El primero contenía un licor fuerte, y fue entregado a Queequeg; el segundo era el regalo de tía Caridad, y fue dado liberalmente a las olas. 

Stubb y Flask matan una ballena,  y luego tienen una conversación sobre ella

No debe olvidarse que durante todo este tiempo tenemos una monstruosa cabeza de cachalote colgando en el costado del Pequod. pero hemos de dejarla colgando algún tiempo, hasta que podamos obtener una ocasión de hacerle caso. Por el momento, otros asuntos apremian, y lo mejor que podemos hacer ahora por la cabeza es rogar al Cielo que los aparejos aguanten.

Ahora, durante la pasada noche y tarde, el Pequod había derivado poco a poco a un mar que, por sus intermitentes zonas de brit, daba insólitas señales de la cercanía de ballenas francas, una especie del leviatán que pocos suponían que en ese determinado momento anduviese por ningún lugar cercano. Y aunque todos los marineros solían desdeñar la captura de esas criaturas inferiores, y aunque el Pequod no estaba enviado para perseguirlas en absoluto, y aunque había pasado junto a muchas de ellas junto a las islas Crozetts sin arriar una lancha, sin embargo, ahora que habían acercado al costado y decapitado un cachalote, se anunció que se capturaría ese día una ballena franca, si se ofrecía oportunidad.

Y no faltó mucho tiempo. Se vieron altos chorros a sotavento, y se destacaron en su persecución dos lanchas, las de Stubb y Flask. Remaron alejándose cada vez más, hasta que por fin fueron casi invisibles para los vigías en el mastelero. Pero de repente, a lo lejos, vieron un gran montón de agua blanca en tumulto, y poco después llegaron noticias desde lo alto de que una lancha, o las dos, debían haber hecho presa. Al cabo de un intervalo, las lanchas quedaron claramente a la vista, arrastradas derechas hacia el barco, a remolque de la ballena. Tanto se acercó el monstruo al casco, que al principio pareció que traía malas intenciones, pero de repente se sumergió en un torbellino, a tres varas de las tablas, y desapareció por entero de la vista, como si se zambullera por debajo de la quilla. ¡Cortad, cortad ! -fue el grito desde el barco a las lanchas, que, por un momento, parecieron a punto de ser llevadas a un choque mortal contra el costado del navío. Pero como tenían todavía mucha estacha en los barriles, y la ballena no se sumergía muy deprisa, soltaron abundante cable, y al mismo tiempo remaron con todas sus fuerzas para pasar por delante del barco. Durante unos minutos, la batalla fue intensamente crítica, pues mientras ellos aflojaban en un sentido la estacha atirantada, y a la vez remaban en otro sentido, la tensión contrastada amenazaba hundirles. Pero ellos sólo trataban de obtener unos pocos pies de ventaja. Y se pusieron a ello hasta que lo consiguieron, y en ese mismo instante se sintió un rápido rumor a lo largo de la quilla, cuando la tensa estacha, rascando el barco por debajo, surgió de pronto a la vista bajo la proa, con chasquido y temblor, sacudiendo el agua en gotas que cayeron al mar como trozos de cristal roto, mientras la ballena, más allá, surgía también a la vista, y otra vez las lanchas quedaban libres para volar. Pero el animal, agotado, disminuyó su velocidad, y, alterando ciegamente su rumbo, dio vuelta a la popa del barco remolcando detrás de sí a las dos lanchas, de modo que realizaron un circuito completo.

Mientras tanto, ellos halaban cada vez los cabos, hasta que, flanqueando de cerca a la ballena por los dos lados, Stubb respondió a Flask con lanza por lanza; y así continuó la batalla en torno al Pequod, mientras que las multitudes de tiburones que antes habían nadado en torno al cuerpo del cachalote muerto, se precipitaron a la sangre fresca que se vertía, bebiendo con sed a cada nueva herida, igual que los ávidos israelitas en las nuevas fuentes desbordadas que manaron de la roca golpeada.

Por fin, el chorro se puso espeso, y con una sacudida y un vómito espantosos, la ballena se volvió de espalda, cadáver.

Mientras los dos jefes se ocupaban en sujetar cables a la cola y preparar por otras medias aquellas moles en disposición para remolcar, tuvo lugar entre ellos alguna conversación.

-No sé qué quiere el viejo con este montón de tocino rancio -dijo Stubb, no sin cierto disgusto al pensar en tener que ver con un leviatán tan innoble.

-¿Qué es lo que quiere ? -dijo Flask, enrollando cable sobrante a la proa de la lancha-. ¿Nunca ha oído decir que el barco que lleva por una sola vez izada una cabeza de cachalote a estribor, y al mismo tiempo una cabeza de ballena fresca a babor, no ha oído decir, Stubb, que ese barco jamás podrá zozobrar después ?

-¿Por qué no podrá ?

-No sé, pero he oído decir que ese espectro de gutapercha de Fedallah lo dice así, y parece saberlo todo sobre encantamiento de barcos. Pero a veces pienso que acabará por encantar el barco para mal. No me gusta ni pizca este tipo, Stubb. ¿Se ha dado cuenta alguna vez de que tiene un colmillo tallado en cabeza de serpiente, Stubb ?

-¡Que se hunda ! Nunca le miro en absoluto, pero si alguna vez encuentro una ocasión en una noche oscura, en que él esté cerca de las batayolas, y nadie por allí; mire, Flask•.. -y señaló al mar con un movimiento peculiar de ambas manos-: ¡Sí que lo haré ! Flask, estoy seguro de que ese Fedallah es el diablo disfrazado. ¿Cree esa historia absurda de que había estado escondido a bordo del barco ? Es el demonio, digo yo. La razón por la que no se le ve la cola, es porque la enrolla para esconderla; supongo que la lleva adujada en el bolsillo. ¡Maldito sea ! Ahora que lo pienso; siempre le hace falta estopa para rellenar las punteras de las botas.

-Duerme con las botas puestas, ¿no ? No tiene hamaca, pero le he visto tumbado por la noche en una aduja de cabo.

-Sin duda, y es por su condenado rabo; lo mete enrollado, ¿comprende ?, en el agujero de en medio de la aduja.

-¿Por qué el viejo tiene tanto que ver con él ?

-Supongo que estará haciendo un trato o una transacción.

-¿Un trato ? ¿Sobre qué ?

-Bueno, verá, el viejo está empeñado en perseguir a esa ballena blanca, y este diablo trata de enredarle y hacer que le dé a cambio su reloj de plata, o su alma, o algo parecido, y entonces él le entregará a Moby Dick.

-¡Bah ! Stubb, está bromeando; ¿cómo puede Fedallah hacer eso ?

-No sé, Flask, pero el demonio es un tipo curioso, y muy malo, se lo aseguro. En fin, dicen que una vez entró de paseo por el viejo buque insignia, moviendo el rabo, endemoniadamente tranquilo y hecho un señor, y preguntó al demonio qué quería. El diablo, removiendo las pezuñas, va y dice: « Quiero a John ». « ¿Para qué ? », dice el viejo jefe. « ¿A usted qué le importa ? -dice el diablo, poniéndose como loco-: Quiero usarlo. » « Llévatelo », dice el jefe. Y por los Cielos, Flask, si el diablo no le dio a John el cólera asiático antes de acabar con él, me como esta ballena de un bocado. Pero fíjese bien... ¿no estáis listos ahí todos vosotros ? Bien, entonces, remad, y vamos a poner la ballena a lo largo del barco.

-Creo recordar una historia parecida a la que me ha contado -dijo Flask, cuando por fin las dos lanchas avanzaron lentamente sobre su carga hacia el barco-: pero no puedo recordar dónde.

-¿En lo de los tres españoles ? ¿En las aventuras de aquellos tres soldados sanguinarios ? ¿Lo leyó allí, Flask ? Supongo que así sería.

-No, nunca he visto semejante libro; pero he oído de él. Ahora, sin embargo, dígame, Stubb, ¿supone que ese diablo de que hablaba era el mismo que dice que ahora está a bordo del Pequod ?

-¿Soy yo el mismo hombre que ha ayudado a matar esta ballena ? ¿No vive el diablo para siempre ? ¿Quién ha oído decir que el diablo hubiera muerto ? ¿Ha visto jamás un párroco que llevase luto por el diablo ? Y si el diablo tiene una llave para entrar en la cabina del almirante, ¿no supone que podrá gatear por un portillo ? ¿Dígame, señor Flask ?

-¿Cuántos años supone que tiene Fedallah, Stubb ?

-¿Ve ahí ese palo mayor ? -señalando al barco-: bueno, ése es el número uno; ahora tome todos los aros de barril que haya en la bodega del Pequod, y póngalos en fila, como ceros, con ese palo, ya entiende: bueno, con eso no se empezaría la edad de Fedallah. Ni todos los toneleros del mundo podrían enseñar aros bastantes para hacer ceros.

-Pero vea, Stubb, me pareció que ahora mismo presumía un poco de que pensaba dar a Fedallah una zambullida en el mar, si tenía buena ocasión. Sin embargo, si es tan viejo como resulta con todos esos aros suyos, y si va a vivir para siempre, dígame ¿de qué puede servir tirarle por la borda ?

-De todos modos, para darle una buena zambullida.

-Pero volvería nadando.

-Pues otra vez al agua, sin dejar de zambullirle otra vez.

-Pero suponiendo que a él se le metiera en la cabeza zambullirle a usted; sí, y ahogarle, ¿entonces qué ?

-Me gustaría ver cómo lo probaba; le pondría los ojos tan negros que no se atrevería a enseñar otra vez la cara en la cabina del almirante durante mucho tiempo, y mucho menos ahí abajo en el sollado, donde vive, y allá arriba, en cubierta por donde merodea tanto. Maldito sea el demonio, Flask; ¿así que supone que yo tengo miedo del diablo ? ¿Quién tiene miedo de él, sino el viejo jefe que no se atreve a agarrarle y ponerle grilletes dobles, como se merece, sino que le deja andar por ahí secuestrando gente; sí, y que ha firmado un pacto de que todos los que secuestre el diablo, él se los asará al fuego ? ¡Eso sí que es un jefe !

-¿Supone que Fedallah quiere secuestrar al capitán Ahab ?

-¿Que si lo supongo ? Ya lo sabrá dentro de poco, Flask. Pero ahora le voy a vigilar estrechamente, y si veo que pasa algo sospechoso, le agarraré por el cogote y le diré: « Mire acá, Belcebú; no haga eso », y si arma algún estrépito, por Dios que le meto la mano en el bolsillo, le saco el rabo, lo amarro al cabestrante y le doy tal retorcimiento y tal tirón, que se lo arranco de las posaderas..., ya verá; y entonces, me parece más bien que cuando se encuentre rabón de ese modo raro, se escapará sin la mísera satisfacción de notar el rabo entre las piernas.

-¿Y qué hará con el rabo, Stubb ?

-¿Qué haré con él ? Lo venderé como látigo para bueyes cuando lleguemos a casa; ¿qué más ?

-Pero ¿habla en serio en todo lo que dice, y en todo lo que lleva dicho, Stubb ?

-En serio o no, ya estamos en el barco.

Gritaron entonces a las lanchas que remolcaran la ballena al lado de babor, donde ya estaban preparadas cadenas para la cola y otros instrumentos para sujetarla.

-¿No se lo dije ? -dijo Flask-; sí, pronto verá esta cabeza de ballena franca izada al otro lado de la del cachalote.

En su momento, se cumplió el dicho de Flask. Y lo mismo que el Pequod se escoraba abruptamente hacia la cabeza del cachalote, ahora, con el contrapeso de ambas cabezas, volvió a equilibrarse en la quilla, aunque gravemente cargada, pueden creerlo muy bien. Así, cuando izáis en un lado la cabeza de Locke, os inclináis a ese lado; pero entonces izáis en el otro lado la cabeza de Kant y volvéis, a enderezaros, aunque en muy malas condiciones. De ese modo hay ciertos espíritus que no dejan nunca de equilibrar su embarcación. ¡Ah, locos !, tirad por la borda a todos esos cabezudos, y flotaréis ligeros y derechos.

Al despachar el cuerpo de una ballena franca, una vez puesto a lo largo del barco, suelen tener lugar las mismas actividades preliminares que en el caso del cachalote, sólo que en este último caso, la cabeza se corta entera, mientras que en aquél, los labios y la lengua se quitan por separado y se izan a cubierta, con todos esos famosos huesos negros sujetos a lo que se llama la corona. Pero en el caso presente no se había hecho nada de eso. Los cadáveres de ambos cetáceos quedaron a popa, y el barco, con su carga de cabezas, pareció no poco una mula con un par de cuévanos abrumadores.

Mientras tanto, Fedallah observaba tranquilamente la cabeza de la ballena franca, alternando de vez en cuando ojeadas a sus profundas arrugas y ojeadas a los surcos de su propia mano. Y Ahab, por casualidad, quedó situado de modo que el Parsi ocupaba su sombra, mientras que la sombra del Parsi, si es que existía, parecía fundirse con la de Ahab, prolongándola. Mientras los tripulantes seguían sus tareas, rebotaban entre ellos especulaciones laponas en torno a las cosas que pasaban. 

La cabeza del cachalote: vista contrastada

Aquí están, pues, dos grandes cetáceos, juntando las cabezas: unámonos a ellos y juntemos la nuestra.

De la gran orden de los leviatanes infolio, el cachalote y la ballena franca son, con mucho, los más notables. Son las únicas ballenas perseguidas sistemáticamente por el hombre. Para los de Nantucket, representan los dos extremos de todas las variedades conocidas de la ballena. Dado que la diferencia externa entre ellas se observa sobre todo en sus cabezas, y dado que en este momento cuelga una cabeza de cada cual en el costado del Pequod, y dado que podemos pasar libremente de la una a la otra, simplemente con cruzar la cubierta, ¿dónde, me gustaría saber, vais a encontrar mejor ocasión que aquí para estudiar cetología práctica ?

En primer lugar, os impresiona el contraste general entre estas cabezas. Ambas son bastante voluminosas con toda certidumbre; pero la del cachalote tiene cierta simetría matemática que falta lamentablemente a la de la ballena franca. La cabeza del cachalote tiene más carácter. Al observarla, se le otorga involuntariamente una inmensa superioridad en punto de dignidad impresionante. En el presente caso, además, esa dignidad queda realzada por el color sal y pimienta de lo alto de la cabeza, como señal de una edad avanzada y una amplia experiencia. En resumen, es lo que los pescadores llaman técnicamente un « cachalote con canas ».

Observemos lo que es menos diferente en esas cabezas: a saber, los órganos más importantes, los ojos y los oídos. En la parte posterior y más baja del lado de la cabeza, junto al ángulo de las mandíbulas de ambos cetáceos, si se observa atentamente, se acabará por ver un ojo sin pestañas, que uno diría que es el ojo de un potro joven, de tan desproporcionado como está respecto al tamaño de la cabeza.

Ahora, debido a esta peculiar posición lateral de los ojos de estos cetáceos, es evidente que jamás pueden ver un objeto que esté exactamente delante, así como tampoco uno que esté exactamente detrás. En resumen, la posición de los ojos de ambos cetáceos corresponde a la de los oídos del hombre; y podéis imaginar, por vosotros mismos, a través de los oídos. Encontraríais que sólo podíais dominar unos treinta grados de visión por delante de la perpendicular a la vista, y unos treinta más por detrás. Aunque vuestro peor enemigo avanzara derecho hacia vosotros, en pleno día, con el puñal en alto, no podríais verle, así como tampoco si se acercara deslizándose por detrás. En resumen, tendríais dos espaldas, por decirlo así, pero, al mismo tiempo, dos frentes (frentes laterales); pues ¿qué es lo que hace la frente de un hombre, qué, en efecto, sino sus ojos ?

Además, mientras que en la mayor parte de los demás animales que ahora soy capaz de recordar, los ojos están asentados de modo que funden imperceptiblemente su capacidad visual, produciendo una sola imagen, y no dos, en el cerebro, en cambio, la posición peculiar de los ojos de estos cetáceos, separados como están de hecho por tantos pies cúbicos de cabeza maciza, que se yergue entre ellos como una gran montaña que separa dos lagos en valles, es cosa, desde luego, que debe separar por completo las impresiones que transmite cada órgano independiente. Los cetáceos, por consiguiente, deben ver una imagen clara en un lado, y otra imagen clara en el otro lado, mientras que por en medio todo debe ser para ellos profunda oscuridad y nada. En efecto, se puede decir que el hombre mira hacia el mundo desde una garita de centinela que tiene por ventana dos bastidores acoplados. Pero en el cetáceo, los dos bastidores están insertados separadamente, formando dos ventanas distintas, pero estropeando lamentablemente la visión. Esta peculiaridad de los ojos de los cetáceos es cosa que siempre debe tenerse en cuenta en la pesca, y que habrá de recordar el lector en algunas escenas posteriores.

Podría abordarse una cuestión curiosa y muy desconcertante respecto a este asunto visual en cuanto se relaciona con el leviatán. Pero debo contentarme con una sugerencia. Mientras los ojos del hombre están abiertos a la luz, el acto de ver es involuntario: esto es, él_ no puede evitar entonces ver maquinalmente cualquier objeto que tenga delante. No obstante, cualquiera aprende por experiencia que, aunque de una sola ojeada puede abarcar todo un barrido indiscriminado de cosas, le resulta imposible examinar de modo atento y completo dos cosas -por grandes o pequeñas que sean- en un mismo instante de tiempo, por más que estén juntas y tocándose. Y entonces, si vais y separáis esos dos objetos, rodeando a cada uno de un círculo de profunda tiniebla, al mirar uno de ellos de tal modo que apliquéis a él vuestra mente, el otro quedará completamente excluido de vuestra conciencia durante ese tiempo. ¿Qué pasa, entonces, con el cetáceo ? Cierto es que ambos ojos, en sí mismo deben actuar simultáneamente, pero ¿acaso su cerebro es mucho más comprensivo, combinador y sutil que el del hombre, para que en un mismo momento pueda examinar atentamente dos perspectivas, una a uno de sus lados, y la otra en la dirección exactamente opuesta ? Si puede, entonces es una cosa tan maravillosa para un cetáceo como si un hombre fuera capaz de recorrer simultáneamente las demostraciones de dos diversos problemas de Euclides. Y, examinándolo de modo estricto, no hay ninguna incongruencia en esta comparación.

Será un antojo caprichoso, pero siempre me ha parecido que las extraordinarias vacilaciones de movimiento mostradas por ciertos cetáceos al ser atacados por tres o cuatro lanchas, y la timidez y la propensión a extraños espantos, tan comunes en tales animales, todo ello, a mi juicio, procede de la inevitable perplejidad de volición en que deben situarles sus potencias separadas y diametralmente opuestas.

Pero el oído del cetáceo es por completo tan curioso como el ojo. Si no tenéis el menor trato con su raza, podríais seguir rastros en esas cabezas durante horas y horas sin descubrir jamás tal órgano. El oído no tiene pabellón externo en absoluto, y en el propio agujero apenas podríais meter una pluma de ave, de tan sorprendentemente menudo como es. Está asentado un poco detrás del ojo. Respecto a sus oídos, se ha de observar esta importante diferencia entre el cachalote y la ballena franca: mientras el oído de aquél tiene una abertura externa, el de ésta queda recubierto por completo y de modo parejo por una membrana, de modo que desde fuera es del todo inobservable.

¿No es curioso que un ser tan enorme como un cetáceo vea el mundo por un ojo tan pequeño y oiga el trueno por un oído que es más pequeño que el de una liebre ? Pero si sus ojos fueran tan anchos como las lentes del gran telescopio de Herschel, y sus oídos fueran tan capaces como los atrios de las catedrales ¿tendría por ello más capacidad de visión o sería más agudo de oído ? De ningún modo. Entonces ¿por qué tratáis de « ensanchar » vuestra mente ? ¡Sutilizadla !

Ahora, con todas las palancas y máquinas de vapor que tengamos a mano, volquemos la cabeza del cachalote, de modo que quede del revés: luego, subiendo con una escalerilla a la cima, echemos una ojeada por la boca abajo; si no fuera porque el cuerpo ya está separado por completo de ella, podríamos descender con una linterna a esa gran Caverna del Mamut de Kentucky que es su estómago. Pero agarrémonos aquí a este diente, y miremos a nuestro alrededor dónde estamos. ¡Qué boca más auténticamente hermosa y pura ! Desde el suelo al techo, está forrada, o mejor dicho empapelada, con una reluciente membrana blanca, brillante como el raso nupcial.

Pero salgamos ya, y miremos esta portentosa mandíbula inferior, que parece la larga tapa derecha de una inmensa tabaquera, con la charnela en un extremo, en vez de en un lado. Si la abrís de par en par, de modo que quede por encima de vosotros, y ponéis al aire sus filas de dientes, parece un terrible rastrillo de fortaleza; y así, ¡ay !, resulta ser para muchos pobres diablos de la pesca, sobre los cuales caen estos espigones atravesándolos con su fuerza. Pero mucho más terrible es observar, a varias brazas de profundidad en el mar, algún arisco cachalote que se cierne allí suspenso, con su prodigiosa mandíbula, de unos quince pies de largo, colgando derecha en ángulo recto con el cuerpo, semejante en todo al botalón de foque de un barco. Ese cachalote no está muerto; sólo está desanimado, quizá de mal humor, hipocondríaco, y tan decaído que los goznes de su mandíbula se le han aflojado, dejándole en esa lamentable situación, como un reproche para toda su tribu, que, sin duda, le maldice deseándole el tétanos.

En la mayor parte de los casos, esa mandíbula inferior -sacada fácilmente de sus goznes por algún artista experto- se separa y se iza a cubierta con el fin de extraer sus dientes de marfil, haciendo provisión de esos duros huesos blancos con que los pescadores hacen toda clase de objetos curiosos, incluyendo bastones, mangos de paraguas y mangos de fusta.

Izándola, larga y fatigosamente, la mandíbula es elevada a bordo, como si fuese un ancla, y, llegado el momento adecuado -unos pocos días después de los otros trabajos-, Queequeg, Daggoo y Tashtego, todos ellos excelentes dentistas, se ponen a arrancar dientes. Con una aguda azada de descuartizar, Queequeg hace trabajo de bisturí en las encías; luego afianzan la mandíbula a unos cáncamos, y, enganchando un aparejo desde arriba, arrancan esos dientes igual que los bueyes de Michigan arrancan tocones de viejos robles en bosques silvestres. Suele haber cuarenta y dos dientes en total; en los cachalotes viejos, muy desgastados, pero nada enfermos, ni empastados conforme a nuestra moda artificial. Después, se sierra la mandíbula en rebanadas, que se guardan en montones como viguetas para construir casas. 

La cabeza de la ballena franca: vista comparada

Cruzando la cubierta, vamos ahora a observar bien despacio la cabeza de la ballena franca.

Así como, en su forma general, la noble cabeza del cachalote podría compararse a un carro de guerra romano (sobre todo en la frente, donde tiene tan ancha redondez), del mismo modo, vista en conjunto, la cabeza de la ballena franca ostenta una semejanza bastante poco elegante con un gigantesco zapato de puntera en forma de galeota. Hace doscientos años un antiguo viajero holandés comparó su forma a la de una horma de zapatero. Y en esa misma horma o zapato podría alojarse cómodamente la vieja del cuento infantil, con su progenie en enjambre, todos juntos.

Pero al acercaros más a esta gran cabeza, empieza a asumir diferentes aspectos, conforme a vuestro punto de vista. Si os ponéis en la cima y miráis esos agujeros para los chorros, en forma de f, tomaríais toda la cabeza por un enorme contrabajo, y esas rendijas serían las aberturas en la caja de resonancia. Luego, en cambio, si fijáis la mirada en esa extraña incrustación, crestada como un peine, en lo alto de la masa de la ballena franca -en esa cosa verde, llena de lapas, que los de Groenlandia llaman « la corona », y los pescadores de los mares del Sur « el gorro »-, al poner los ojos solamente en esto, tomaríais la cabeza por el tronco de algún enorme roble, con un nido de pájaros en la horquilla. En cualquier caso si observáis los cangrejos vivos que anidan allí, en ese gorro, es casi seguro que se os ocurrirá semejante idea, a no ser, desde luego, que vuestra fantasía haya sido captada por el término técnico « corona » que también se le concede, en cuyo caso sentiréis gran interés al pensar cómo este poderoso monstruo es, efectivamente, un rey marino con diadema, con una corona verde montada para él de este modo maravilloso. Pero si este cetáceo es rey es un sujeto de aspecto muy arisco para honrar una diadema. ¡Mirad ese labio inferior colgante ! ¡Qué enorme mal humor y enfurruñamiento hay ahí ! Un mal humor y enfurruñamiento, según medidas de carpintero, de unos veinte pies de largo y cinco pies de profundo; un mal humor y enfurruñamiento que os dará unos quinientos galones de aceite, o más.

Una gran lástima, pues, que esta desgraciada ballena tenga « labio de conejo ». La hendidura tiene cerca de un pie de anchura. Probablemente su madre, durante cierta época interesante, navegaba por la costa del Perú abajo, cuando los terremotos hicieron que la playa se desgajara. Sobre este labio, como sobre un umbral resbaladizo, nos deslizamos ahora dentro de la boca. Palabra que si estuviera en Mackinaw, tomaría esto por el interior de una cabaña india. ¡Dios mío !, ¿es éste el camino por donde entró Jonás ? El techo tiene unos doce pies de alto, y se recoge en un ángulo bastante agudo, como si hubiera un auténtico mástil de sostén, mientras que estos lados acostillados, arqueados, peludos, nos ofrecen esas sorprendentes lonjas de « ballena », casi verticales y en forma de cimitarra, digamos, unas trescientas por cada lado, que, colgando de la parte superior del hueso de cabeza o « corona », forman las persianas venecianas que en otro lado se han mencionado de paso. Los bordes de esos huesos están orlados de fibras pelosas, a través de las cuales la ballena franca filtra el agua, y en cuyos enredos retiene los pececillos, al avanzar con la boca abierta por los mares de brít a la hora de comer. En las persianas de hueso centrales, según están puestas en su orden t natural hay ciertas marcas curiosas, curvas, huecos y bordes, por los que algunos balleneros calculan la edad del animal, igual que se calcula la edad de un roble por sus anillos circulares. Aunque la certidumbre de este criterio está lejos de demostrarse, tiene sin embargo el cariz de una probabilidad analógica. En todo caso, si nos inclinamos a él, hemos de conceder mucha más edad a la ballena franca que la que parece razonable a primera vista.

En tiempos antiguos, parece que dominaron las más curiosas fantasías respecto a esas persianas. Un viajero en Purchas las llama los prodigiosos « bigotes » dentro de la boca de la ballena;' otro, « cerdas »; un tercer caballero antiguo en Halduyt usa el siguiente lenguaje elegante: « Hay unas doscientas cincuenta aletas que crecen a cada lado de su quijada superior, que se arquea sobre la lengua a ambos lados de la boca ».

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Como todo el mundo sabe, esas mismas « cerdas », « aletas », « bigotes », « persianas », o como os guste, proporcionan a las damas sus « ballenas » de corsé y otros artilugios envaradores. Pero en este punto, hace tiempo que la demanda está en descenso. En tiempo de la reina Ana fue cuando la varilla de ballena estuvo en auge, coincidiendo con la moda del miriñaque. Y así como esas damas de antaño andaban por ahí alegremente, aunque entre las fauces de la ha','llena, como podría decirse, del mismo modo, en un chaparrón, hoy, día volamos bajo esas mismas mandíbulas en busca de refugio con la misma despreocupación, ya que el paraguas es un pabellón extendido sobre ese mismo hueso.

Pero ahora, por un momento, olvidémoslo todo sobre las persianas y bigotes, y, colocándonos en la boca de la ballena franca, miremos otra vez alrededor. Al ver estas columnatas de huesos tan metódicamente ordenadas en torno, ¿no pensaríais que estáis dentro del gran órgano de Haarlem, contemplando sus mil tubos ? Como alfombra ante el órgano tenemos la más suave alfombra turca: la lengua, que está pegada, por decirlo así, al suelo de la boca. Es muy gorda y tierna, y propensa a romperse en trozos al izarla a cubierta. Esta determinada lengua que tenemos ahora delante, yo diría, con una ojeada de paso, que es de seis barriles, esto es, que dará alrededor de esa cantidad de aceite.

Al llegar a este punto ya debéis haber visto claramente la verdad de que partí: que el cachalote y la ballena franca tienen cabezas casi completamente diferentes. Para resumir, entonces: en la cabeza de la ballena franca no hay un gran manantial de esperma, no hay dientes de marfil en absoluto, ni un largo y flexible hueso maxilar como quijada inferior, igual que en el cachalote. Y en el cachalote no hay esas persianas de hueso, ni tan grueso labio inferior, y apenas nada de lengua. Además, la ballena franca tiene dos agujeros exteriores para chorros, y el cachalote uno sólo.

Lanzad ahora vuestra última mirada a esas venerables cabezas encapuchadas, mientras todavía están juntas, pues una se hundirá pronto, olvidada, en el mar, y la otra no tardará mucho en seguirla.

¿Podéis captar la expresión de ese cachalote, allí ? Es la misma con que murió, sólo que algunas de las más largas arrugas de la frente ahora se diría que se han borrado. Me parece que esta ancha frente está llena de una placidez de dehesa, nacida de una indiferencia filosófica hacia la muerte. Pero fijaos en la expresión de la otra cabeza. Mirad ese sorprendente labio inferior, aplastado por casualidad contra el costado del barco, como para abrazar firmemente la mandíbula. Toda esta cabeza ¿no parece hablar de una enorme decisión práctica al afrontar la muerte ? Entiendo que esta ballena franca ha sido una estoica, y el cachalote, un platónico, que en sus años más avanzados podría haberse consagrado a Spinoza. 

El ariete

Antes de abandonar, por ahora, la cabeza del cachalote, querría que, simplemente como fisiólogos sensatos, observaseis con detalle su aspecto frontal, en toda su compacta concentración. Querría que lo investigarais ahora con la única intención de formaros un concepto inteligente y sin exageración de cualquier poder de ariete que pueda residir allí. Este es un punto vital; pues, o bien debéis arreglar satisfactoriamente este punto con vosotros mismos, o permanecer para siempre incrédulos ante uno de los acontecimientos más horribles, pero no menos verdaderos, que se pueda encontrar en cualquier, punto de toda la historia anotada.

Observais que, en la ordinaria posición natatoria del cachalote, la frente de su cabeza presenta un plano casi totalmente vertical al agua; observáis que la parte inferior de esa frente tiene considerable inclinación hacia atrás, como para dejar más entrante al alvéolo a la mandíbula inferior, parecida a un botalón; observáis que la boca queda enteramente bajo la cabeza, de modo muy parecido, en efecto, a como si vuestra boca quedara enteramente bajo vuestra barbilla. Además, observáis que el cachalote no tiene nariz externa; y lo que tiene de nariz -su agujero del chorro- está en lo alto de la cabeza: observáis que sus ojos y oídos están a los lados de la cabeza, casi a un tercio de su longitud total desde delante. Por consiguiente, ya os debéis haber dado cuenta de que la frente del cachalote es una pared cerrada y ciega, sin un solo órgano ni prominencia tierna de ninguna especie. Además, habéis de considerar ahora que sólo en la, parte extrema, inferior, echada hacia atrás, de la delantera de la cabeza hay un leve vestigio de hueso, y hasta que no se entra a veinte pies desde la frente no se llega a la plena estructura craneana. Así, que toda esta enorme masa sin hueso es como una sola huata. Finalmente, aunque, como pronto se revelará, su contenido comprende en parte el más delicado aceite, sin embargo, ahora debéis informaros sobre la naturaleza de la sustancia que tan inexpugnablemente reviste todo ese aparente refinamiento. En algún lugar anterior os he descrito cómo la grasa envuelve el cuerpo de la ballena igual que la cáscara a la naranja. Lo mismo pasa con la cabeza, pero con esta diferencia: en torno a la cabeza, este forro, aunque no tan grueso, es de una dureza sin hueso que no puede imaginar quien no haya tenido que habérselas con él. El arpón de punta más aguda, la lanza más afilada arrojada por el más fuerte brazo humano, rebota impotente en él. Es como si la frente del cachalote estuviera pavimentada con cascos de caballo. No creo que en ella se esconda ninguna sensibilidad.

Considerad también otra cosa. Cuando dos grandes barcos cargados, de los que van a la India, se agolpan por casualidad y se entrechocan uno contra otro en los muelles, ¿qué hacen los marineros ? No cuelgan entre ellos, en el punto de inminente contacto, ninguna sustancia meramente dura, como hierro o madera. No; cuelgan una gran huata redonda de estopa y corcho, envuelta en el más grueso y duro cuero. Esta recibe, con valentía y sin daño, el apretón que habría partido todos los espeques de roble y las palancas de hierro. Esto, por sí solo, ilustra suficientemente el hecho obvio a que apunto. Pero, como suplemento a ello, se me ha ocurrido por vía de hipótesis que, dado que los peces ordinarios poseen lo que se llama vejiga natatoria, capaz de distenderse o contraerse a voluntad, y dado que el cachalote no tiene en él, que yo sepa, semejante recurso; y, por otra parte, considerando la manera por lo demás inexplicable como unas veces sumerge por completo la cabeza bajo la superficie, y otras veces nada llevándola elevada por encima del agua, considerando la elasticidad sin obstáculos de su envoltorio, digo, por vía de hipótesis, que esos misteriosos panales de celdillas pulmonares que hay en su cabeza puedan quizá tener alguna conexión hasta ahora desconocida e insospechada con el aire exterior, de tal modo que sean capaces de distensión y contracción atmosférica. Si es así, imaginaos lo irresistible de esa fuerza, a que contribuye el más impalpable y destructor de todos los elementos.

Ahora fijaos: impulsando infaliblemente ese muro cerrado, inexpugnable, invulnerable, y esa cosa tan flotante que hay dentro de él, detrás de todo ello, nada una masa de tremenda vida, que sólo se puede estimar adecuadamente igual que la madera apilada: por su volumen; y toda ella obedeciendo a una sola voluntad, como el más pequeño insecto. Así que cuando en lo sucesivo os detalle todas las especialidades y concentraciones de potencia que residen en cualquier punto de este monstruo expansivo, y cuando os muestre algunas de sus menos importantes hazañas carniceras, confío en que habréis abandonado toda incredulidad ignorante y estaréis dispuestos a aceptarlo todo; de modo que, aunque el cachalote abriera un paso a través del istmo de Darién, mezclando el Atlántico con el Pacífico, no elevaríais ni un pelo de vuestras cejas. Pues si no confesáis a los cetáceos, no sois más que provincianos y sentimentales en la Verdad. Pero la Verdad clara es cosa que sólo afrontan los gigantes-salamandras: ¿qué pequeñas serán entonces las probabilidades para los provinciales ? ¿Qué le ocurrió al débil muchacho que levantó el velo de la temible diosa, en Lais ? 

El Gran Tonel de Heidelberg

Ahora viene el vaciado de la caja. Pero para comprenderlo del todo debéis saber algo de la curiosa estructura interna del órgano sobre la que se trabaja.

Considerando la cabeza del cachalote como un cuerpo sólido oblongo, se puede, siguiendo un plano inclinado, dividirla a lo largo en dos cuñas,' la inferior de las cuales es la estructura ósea que forma el cráneo y las mandíbulas, y la superior es una masa untuosa completamente libre de huesos, cuyo ancho extremo delantero forma la frente visible, expandida verticalmente, del cetáceo. Si, en mitad de la frente, subdividís horizontalmente esta cuña superior, entonces tendréis dos partes casi iguales, que antes ya estaban divididas naturalmente por una pared interna de una densa sustancia tendinosa.

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La parte inferior de la subdivisión, llamada « la jarcia trozada », es un solo panal inmenso de aceite, formado por el cruzamiento y recruzamiento, en diez mil celdillas imbricadas, de densas fibras blancas cas y elásticas, en toda su extensión. La parte superior, conocida por la caja, puede considerarse como el Gran Tonel de Heidelberg del cachalote. Y del mismo modo que ese célebre gran barril está misteriosamenteriosamente esculpido en su delantera, así la vasta frente arrugada del cetáceo forma innumerables trazados extraños como adorno emblemático de su prodigioso tonel. Asimismo, igual que el de Heidelberg siempre se ha llenado con los vinos más excelentes de los valles del Rin, el tonel del cachalote contiene la más preciosa de todas las soleras oleosas: a saber, el preciadísimo aceite de esperma, en estado absolutamente puro, límpido y fragante. Y no se encuentra esta preciosa sustancia libre de mezcla en ninguna otra parte del animal. Aunque mientras está vivo permanece perfectamente fluido, sin embargo, al exponerse al aire después de la muerte, empieza muy pronto a condensarse, produciendo hermosos vástagos cristalinos, como cuando empieza a formarse en el agua el primer hielo, delicado y sutil. La caja de un cachalote grande suele producir unos quinientos galones de aceite de esperma, aunque, por circunstancias inevitables, una parte considerable de él se derrama, se escapa y se vierte, o se pierde irrevocablemente de alguna otra manera, en el delicado asunto de poner a salvo todo lo que se puede.

No sé con qué refinado y costoso material se revestiría por dentro el tonel de Heidelberg, pero ese revestimiento no podría compararse en riqueza superlativa con la sedeña membrana color perla, que, como el forro de una rica piel, forma la superficie interior de la caja del cachalote.

Se habrá visto que el tonel de Heidelberg del cachalote abarca toda la longitud de toda la parte superior de la cabeza, y dado que -según se ha expuesto en otro lugar- la cabeza abarca un tercio de la entera longitud del animal, entonces, calculando esa longitud de ochenta pies para un cachalote de buen tamaño, tendréis más de veintiséis pies para el aforo del tonel, al izarse verticalmente a lo largo, junto al costado del barco.

Como, al decapitar el cachalote, el instrumento del operador queda muy cerca del lugar donde posteriormente se abre un acceso al depósito del aceite de esperma, ese operador debe tener extraordinario cuidado, no sea que un golpe descuidado e inoportuno alcance el santuario y deje escapar, despilfarrado, su inestimable contenido. Es también ese extremo decapitado de la cabeza el que por fin se eleva, sacándolo del agua y reteniéndolo en tal posición con los enormes aparejos de descuartizamiento, cuyos enredos de cáñamo, en un costado, forman una verdadera selva de cables en esa zona.

Una vez dicho todo esto, os ruego que ahora os fijéis en la operación maravillosa y -en este caso concreto- casi fatal con que se detenta el Gran Tonel de Heidelberg del cachalote. 

Cisterna y cubos

Agil como un gato, Tashtego va hacia arriba, y, sin alterar su postura erguida, corre derecho por el saliente extremo de la verga mayor, hasta el punto donde se proyecta exactamente sobre el tonel izado. Ha llevado consigo un aparejo ligero llamado « látigo », que consiste sólo en dos partes pasadas por un motón con una sola roldana. Asegurando el motón de modo que cuelgue de la verga mayor, tira una punta del cabo para que lo agarre y lo sujete bien firme un marinero en cubierta. Luego, una mano tras otra, el indio baja con la otra punta, pendiendo por el aire, hasta que se posa diestramente en lo alto de la cabeza. Allí -todavía muy elevado sobre el resto de la gente, a la que grita con vivacidad- parece algún muecín turco llamando a la buena gente a la oración desde lo alto de un minarete. Le hacen subir una aguda azada de mango corto, y él busca diligentemente el lugar adecuado para empezar a irrumpir en el tonel. En ese asunto actúa con mucho cuidado, como un buscador de tesoros en una casa vieja, golpeando las paredes para ver dónde está emparedado el oro. En el momento en que concluye esa cauta búsqueda, un recio cubo con aros de hierro, exactamente como un cubo de pozo, ha sido amarrado a un extremo del « látigo », mientras el otro extremo, extendido a través de la cubierta, queda sujeto por dos o tres marineros atentos. Estos izan entonces el cubo al alcance del indio, a quien otra persona le ha hecho llegar un palo muy largo. Insertado en ese palo el cubo, Tashtego guía el cubo haciéndolo bajar al tonel, hasta que desaparece por entero; luego, avisando a los marineros del « látigo », sube otra vez el cubo, todo él burbujeante, como el cubo de leche recién ordeñada por la lechera. Cuidadosamente bajado desde su altura, el recipiente hasta los topes es aferrado por un marinero designado para ello, que lo vacía rápidamente en un gran barril. Luego, volviendo a subir, vuelve a pasar por el mismo recorrido hasta que la honda cisterna no produce más. Hacia el final, Tashtego tiene que meter el largo palo cada vez con más fuerza y más hondo en el tonel hasta que baja unos veinte pies del palo.

Entonces, los hombres del Pequod habían estado trasvasando algún tiempo de este modo, y se habían llenado varios barriles con el fragante aceite de esperma, cuando de repente ocurrió un extraño accidente. Si fue que Tashtego, ese indio salvaje, se descuidó y se distrajo soltando por un momento la mano con que se agarraba a los aparejos de grandes cables que suspendían la cabeza, o si fue que el lugar donde estaba era muy traidor y resbaladizo, o si el mismo demonio se empeñó en que fuese así, sin precisar sus razones exactas, no se puede decir ahora por qué fue, pero, de repente, cuando subía rebañando el cubo octogésimo o nonagésimo, ¡Dios mío !, el ,pobre Tashtego, como el cubo que alterna con su gemelo en un pozo de verdad, se cayó de cabeza a ese gran tonel de Heidelberg, y, con un horrible gorgoteo aceitoso, se perdió de vista por completo.

-¡Hombre al agua ! -gritó Daggoo, que, en medio de la consternación general, fue el primero en recobrar el dominio-. ¡Echad el cubo para acá ! Y, metiendo un pie dentro, como para reforzar más el resbaladizo agarre de las manos en la propia cuerda del « látigo », fue elevado por los izadores hasta lo alto de la cabeza, casi antes de que Tashtego pudiera haber alcanzado su fondo interior. Mientras tanto, hubo un terrible tumulto. Mirando sobre la borda, todos vieron la cabeza, antes sin vida, latiendo y agitándose por debajo mismo de la superficie del mar, como si en ese momento se le hubiera ocurrido una idea importante, mientras que era sólo el pobre indio que, sin darse cuenta, revelaba en esas luchas la peligrosa profundidad en que se había hundido.

En ese momento, mientras Daggoo, en lo alto de la cabeza, liberaba el « látigo » -que se había enredado, no se sabe cómo, en los grandes aparejos de descuartizamiento-, se oyó un brusco ruido crujiente, y, con inexpresable horror de todos, uno de los dos enormes ganchos que suspendían la cabeza se desprendió, y con vasta oscilación la enorme masa se inclinó a un lado, hasta que el barco ebrio se escoró y se agitó como golpeado por un iceberg. El único gancho que quedaba, y del que ahora pendía toda la tensión, parecía a cada momento a punto de ceder, cosa aún más probable por los violentos movimientos de la cabeza.

-¡Baja, baja ! -aullaron los marineros a Daggoo, pero sujetando con una mano los pesados aparejos, para que, si se caía la cabeza, él quedase todavía colgado; mientras, el negro, desenredado el cable, sumergía el cubo en el pozo ahora desplomado, con la intención de que el arponero sepultado lo agarrase y fuese izado.

-¡En nombre del cielo, marinero ! -gritó Stubb-, ¿estás metiendo ahí un cartucho ? ¡Espera ! ¿Cómo le va a servir que le des en la cabeza con ese cubo de aros de hierro ? ¡Espera, eh !

-¡Cuidado con el aparejo ! -gritó una voz como el estallido de un cohete.

Casi en el mismo instante, con un trueno, la enorme masa cayó al mar, como la Table Rock del Niagara en el remolino; el casco, repentinamente aligerado, se alejó de ella, meciéndose hasta mostrar el cobre reluciente, y todos contuvieron el aliento, mientras que Daggoo -oscilando unas veces sobre las cabezas de los marineros, otras veces sobre el agua- aparecía vagamente entre una densa niebla de salpicaduras, agarrado a los aparejos balanceantes, en tanto el pobre Tashtego, sepultado vivo, se hundía cada vez más en el fondo del mar. Pero apenas se disipó el vapor cegador, se vio por un fugaz momento cernerse sobre las amuradas una figura desnuda con un sable de abordaje en la mano. En seguida, una ruidosa zambullida anunció que mi valiente Queequeg se había sumergido para el salvamento. Todos se agolparon en masa a ese lado, y todos los ojos contaron las ondas del agua, mientras un momento sucedía a otro sin que se viera señal del que se hundía ni del zambullido. Entonces algunos marineros saltaron a una lancha junto al barco y se separaron un poco.

-¡Ah, ah ! -gritó Daggoo, de repente, desde su altura oscilante, ahora quieta, allá arriba; y, mirando lejos del barco, vimos un brazo que salía verticalmente de las olas azules: espectáculo tan extraño de ver como un brazo que saliera de la hierba sobre una tumba.

-¡Los dos, los dos ! ¡Son los dos ! -volvió a gritar Daggoo con un clamor gozoso, y poco después se vio a Queequeg braceando valientemente con una sola mano, mientras con la otra agarraba el largo pelo del indio. Izados a la lancha que aguardaba, fueron rápidamente llevados a la cubierta, pero Tashtego tardó en recuperarse, y Queequeg no parecía muy vivo.

Ahora, ¿cómo se había realizado este noble salvamento ? Pues así: Queequeg, zambullido en pos de la cabeza que descendía lentamente, había dado tajos laterales con su afilada espada cerca de su fondo, de modo que abrió un gran agujero; entonces, dejando caer la espalda, metió el largo brazo muy dentro y hacia arriba, sacando así por la cabeza al pobre Tashtego. Aseguró que, a la primera metida que dio en su busca, se le ofreció una pierna, pero sabiendo muy bien que eso no era lo que debía ser, y que podría dar lugar a gran inconveniencia, había echado atrás esa pierna, y, con un diestro empujón y sacudida, había hecho dar una voltereta al indio, de modo que, al siguiente intento, lo sacó del buen modo tradicional: con la cabeza por delante. En cuanto a la gran cabeza, se encontraba en perfecto estado de salud.

Y así, mediante el valor y la gran habilidad obstétrica de Queequeg, se realizó con éxito la liberación, o mejor dicho, el parto de Tashtego, a pesar, además, de los impedimentos más inoportunos y aparentemente desesperanzadores, lo cual es una lección que no debe olvidarse en absoluto. El arte de la comadrona debería enseñarse en el mismo curso de la esgrima, el boxeo, la equitación y el remo.

Ya sé que esta extraña aventura del indio Gay-Head parecerá seguramente increíble a algunos de tierra adentro, aunque ellos mismos habrán visto u oído decir que alguien se ha caído en una cisterna, en tierra; accidente que ocurre no raras veces, y con motivo mucho menor que el del indio, si se considera la enorme resbalosidad del borde del pozo del cachalote.

Pero tal vez se me apremiará sagazmente: ¿cómo es eso ? Creíamos que la cabeza del cachalote, con su tejido imbricado, era la parte más ligera y flotante que hay en él, y sin embargo, tú lo haces hundirse en un elemento de mayor peso específico que ella. Aquí te tenemos. De ningún modo, sino que aquí os tengo yo: pues en el momento en que se cayó el pobre Tash, la caja casi estaba vacía de su contenido más ligero, dejando poco más que la densa pared tendinosa del pozo; una sustancia doblemente soldada y martillada, como he dicho antes, mucho más pesada que el agua de mar, en la cual se hunde un trozo suyo casi como plomo. Pero la tendencia a hundirse rápidamente que tiene esta sustancia, en el caso presente, quedó contrarrestada materialmente por las demás partes de la cabeza que quedaban sin desprender de ella, de modo que se hundió, en efecto, con mucha lentitud y deliberación, proporcionando a Queequeg una decente ocasión para que realizara su ágil obstetricia a la carrera, como podríais decirlo. Sí, fue un parto a la carrera; eso fue.

Ahora, si Tashtego hubiera perecido en esa cabeza, habría sido un modo precioso de perecer: ahogado en el más blanco y refinado de los fragantes aceites de esperma, y teniendo por ataúd, carroza y tumba, la secreta cámara interior, el sanctasantórum del cetáceo. Sólo se puede recordar fácilmente un fin más dulce: la deliciosa muerte de un buscador de colmenas de Ohio, el cual, buscando miel en la horquilla de un árbol hueco, encontró tan enorme reserva de ella que, al inclinarse demasiado, fue absorbido por la miel y murió embalsamado. ¿Cuántos creéis que hayan caído igualmente en la cabeza de miel de Platón, muriendo dulcemente en ella ? 

La dehesa

Escudriñar las líneas de la cara, o palpar los bultos de la cabeza de este leviatán es cosa que ningún fisiognomista o frenólogo ha hecho jamás. Tal empresa parecería casi tan poco prometedora como lo habría sido para Lavater escudriñar las arrugas del Peñón de Gibraltar, o para Gall subir en una escalerilla a manosear la cúpula del Panteón. Sin embargo, en sus famosas obras, Lavater no sólo trata sobre las diversas caras de los hombres, sino que también estudia atentamente las caras de los caballos, pájaros, serpientes y peces, y se demora en detalles sobre las variedades de expresión discernibles en ellas. Por tanto, aunque yo estoy poco cualificado para hacer de pionero en la aplicación de esas dos semiciencias al cachalote, haré lo que pueda. Lo intento todo: logro lo que puedo.

Desde el punto de vista fisiognómico, el cachalote es una criatura anómala. No tiene nariz propiamente dicha. Y dado que la nariz es el más central y conspicuo de los rasgos, y dado que quizá es el que más modifica y en definitiva domina su expresión combinada, parecería por ello que su entera ausencia como apéndice externo debe afectar mucho a la cara del cetáceo. Pues del mismo modo que en la jardinería paisajística se considera casi indispensable para el completamiento de la escena un chapitel, una cúpula o un monumento, así no hay cara que pueda estar fisiognómicamente en orden sin el alto campanario calado de la nariz. Quitadle la nariz al Júpiter marmóreo de Fidias, y ¡qué triste resto ! No obstante, el leviatán es de tan poderosa magnitud, y sus proporciones son tan solemnes, que la misma deficiencia que sería horrible en el Júpiter esculpido, en él no es defecto en absoluto. Más aún, es una grandeza adicional. Para el cachalote, una nariz hubiera sido impertinente. Al navegar en vuestro chinchorro alrededor de su vasta cabeza en vuestro viaje fisiognómico, vuestro noble concepto de él jamás queda ofendido por la reflexión de que tenga una nariz de que tirar: una idea pestilente, que tan a menudo se empeña en invadirnos aun cuando observamos al más poderoso macero real en su trono.

En algunos detalles, quizá la visión fisiognómica más impotente que quepa tener del cachalote es la plena visión frontal de la cabeza. Ese aspecto es sublime.

Una hermosa frente humana, cuando piensa, es como el oriente cuando se turba con el amanecer. Paciendo en reposo, la rizada frente del toro tiene un toque de grandiosidad. Al arrastrar pesados cañones por desfiladeros de montañas, la frente del elefante es majestuosa. Humana o animal, la misteriosa frente es como ese gran sello de oro adherido por los emperadores germánicos a sus decretos. Significa: « Dios: hecho en el día de hoy por mi mano ». Pero en la mayor parte de las criaturas, e incluso en el hombre mismo, muy a menudo la frente es una mera franja de tierra alpina extendida a lo largo de la línea de nieve. Pocas son las frentes que, como la de Shakespeare o la de Melanchthon, se elevan tan alto y descienden tan bajo que los propios ojos semejan claros lagos eternos y sin oscilación; y sobre ellas, en sus arrugas, os parece seguir el rastro de los astados pensamientos que bajan a beber, igual que los cazadores de las tierras altas siguen el rastro de los ciervos por sus huellas en la nieve. Pero en el gran cachalote esta alta y poderosa dignidad divina, inherente a la frente, está tan inmensamente amplificada que, al contemplarla, en esa plena vista frontal, sentís a la Divinidad y las potencias temibles con más energía que al observar cualquier otro objeto de la naturaleza viva. Pues no veis un solo punto con precisión, no se revela un solo rasgo visible; no hay nariz, ojos, oídos o boca; no hay cara; no la tiene, en rigor; nada sino un solo ancho firmamento de frente, alforzado de enigmas, amenazando mudamente con la condenación de lanchas, barcos y hombres. Y tampoco disminuye de perfil esa prodigiosa frente; aunque, al observarla así, su grandeza no os abrume tanto. De perfil, observáis claramente esa depresión horizontal, como una media luna, en el centro de la frente, que en el hombre es la señal del genio, según Lavater.

Pero ¿cómo ? ¿Genio en el cachalote ? ¿Alguna vez el cachalote ha escrito un libro o pronunciado un discurso ? No, su gran genio se declara en que no haga nada especial para demostrarlo. Se declara además en su silencio piramidal. Y eso me recuerda que, si el joven mundo oriental hubiera conocido al gran cachalote, lo habría divinizado en sus pensamientos de mágico infantilismo. Divinizaron al cocodrilo, porque el cocodrilo no tiene lengua; y el cachalote tampoco tiene lengua, o al menos es tan pequeña que resulta incapaz de sacarse. Si en lo sucesivo algún pueblo poético y de alta cultura logra con sus incitaciones que regresen a sus derechos de nacimiento los alegres dioses de los mayas de antaño y los vuelve a entronizar con vida en el cielo hoy egolátrico, en el monte hoy sin hechizos, entonces, estad seguros, exaltado al alto asiento de Júpiter, el gran cachalote será el dominador.

Champollion descifró los arrugados jeroglíficos del granito. Pero no hay Champollion que descifre el Egipto de la cara de cada hombre y de cada ser. La fisiognomía, como todas las demás ciencias humanas, es sólo una fábula pasajera. Entonces, si sir William Jones, que leía treinta idiomas, no sabía leer la más sencilla cara de aldeano en sus más profundos y sutiles significados, ¿cómo puede el analfabeto Ismael tener esperanzas de leer el terrible caldeo de la frente del cachalote ? No hago más que poner ante vosotros esta frente. Leedla si podéis. 

El núcleo

Si el cachalote es una esfinge, desde el punto de vista fisiognómico, para el frenólogo su cerebro parece aquel círculo de la geometría que es imposible cuadrar.

En el animal maduro, el cráneo mide por lo menos veinte pies de largo. Si desengoznáis la mandíbula inferior, la vista lateral de este cráneo es como la vista lateral de un plano moderadamente inclinado apoyado totalmente en una base horizontal. Pero en vida -como hemos visto en otro lugar- el plano inclinado queda rellenado en su ángulo y casi cuadrado por la enorme masa superpuesta del « trozado » y la esperma. En su extremo más alto, el cráneo forma un cráter para acomodar esa parte de la masa, mientras que bajo el largo suelo de ese cráter -en otra cavidad que rara vez excede diez pulgadas de largo y otras tantas de profundo- reposa el escaso puñado de cerebro de este monstruo. El cerebro está por lo menos a veinte pies de su frente visible, en el animal vivo; está escondido detrás de sus enormes obras defensivas, como la ciudadela interna tras las amplias fortificaciones de Quebec. Está escondido en él de modo tan semejante a un cofrecillo precioso, que he conocido a muchos pescadores de ballenas que niegan perentoriamente que el cachalote tenga otro cerebro que esa palpable semejanza de cerebro formada por las yardas cúbicas de la reserva de aceite de esperma. Como ésta se encuentra en extraños repliegues, conductos y circunvoluciones, para su modo de ver parece más de acuerdo con la idea de su potencia de conjunto considerar esta misteriosa parte suya como la morada de su inteligencia.

Está claro, entonces, que, desde el punto de vista frenológico, la cabeza de este leviatán, en el estado vivo e intacto del animal, es un completo engaño. En cuanto a su verdadero cerebro, no podéis ver indicaciones suyas, ni sentirlas. El cachalote, como todas las cosas potentes, ostenta una frente falsa para el mundo común.

Si liberáis su cráneo de su cargamento de aceite de esperma, y lanzáis una vista por detrás a su parte trasera, que es el extremo elevado, os sorprenderá su semejanza con el cráneo humano observado en la misma situación y desde el mismo punto de vista. En efecto, colocad este cráneo vuelto del revés (reducido a la escala de la magnitud humana) entre una bandeja de cráneos humanos, e involuntariamente lo confundiréis con ellos; y al observar las depresiones en una parte de su cima, diríais, en lenguaje frenológico: « Este hombre no tenía estimación de sí mismo, ni veneración ». Y con esas negaciones, consideradas juntamente con el hecho afirmativo de su portentosa mole y energía, os podéis formar del mejor modo el concepto más auténtico, aunque no el más regocijante, de lo que es la potencia más exaltada.

Pero, si por las dimensiones relativas del cerebro propiamente dicho del cachalote, lo juzgáis incapaz de ser adecuadamente localizado, entonces tengo otra idea que ofreceros. Si consideráis atentamente el espinazo de casi todos los cuadrúpedos, os llamará la atención la semejanza de sus vértebras con un collar engarzado de cráneos enanos, todos ellos ostentando una semejanza rudimentaria con el cráneo propiamente dicho. Es un concepto alemán que las vértebras son cráneos absolutamente sin desarrollar. Pero entiendo que no fueron los alemanes los primeros en percibir esa curiosa semejanza externa. Un amigo extranjero una vez me la hizo notar en el esqueleto de un enemigo que había matado, con cuyas vértebras estaba haciendo una especie de incrustación en bajorrelieve en la proa en pico de su canoa. Ahora, considerad que los frenólogos han omitido una cosa importante al no prolongar sus investigaciones desde el cerebelo hasta el canal medular. Pues creo que mucho del carácter de un hombre se hallará representado en su espinazo. Prefería tocar vuestro espinazo que vuestro cráneo, quienquiera que seáis. Una débil viga de espinazo jamás ha sostenido un alma íntegra y noble. Yo me complazco en mi espinazo, como en el firme y audaz mástil de la bandera que despliego ante el mundo.

Aplicad esta rama espinal de la frenología al cachalote. Su cavidad craneana se continúa con la primera vértebra del cuello, y, en esta vértebra, el cauce del canal medular mide unas diez pulgadas de ancho, con ocho de altura, y con una forma triangular con la base para abajo. Al pasar por las restantes vértebras, el canal disminuye de tamaño, pero durante una considerable distancia sigue siendo de gran capacidad. Ahora, desde luego, este canal está lleno de la misma sustancia extrañamente fibrosa -la médula espinal- que el cerebro, y comunica directamente con el cerebro. Y, lo que es más, durante muchos pies después de emerger de la cavidad cerebral, la médula espinal sigue teniendo la misma circunferencia sin mengua, casi igual a la del cerebro. En todas esas circunstancias, ¿no sería razonable inspeccionar y sacar planos de la médula del cachalote desde el punto de vista frenológico ? Pues, mirada en este sentido, la notable pequeñez relativa de su cerebro propiamente dicho está más que compensada por la prodigiosa magnitud relativa de su médula espinal.

Pero dejando que esta sugestión influya como pueda en los frenólogos, simplemente querría asumir por un momento la teoría espinal en referencia a la joroba del cachalote. Esta augusta joroba, si no me equivoco, se eleva sobre una de las vértebras mayores, y por tanto es, en cierto modo, su molde convexo exterior. Por su situación relativa, entonces, yo llamaría a esta alta joroba el órgano de la firmeza y la indomabilidad en el cachalote. Y que el gran monstruo es indomable, todavía tendréis razones para saberlo. 

El Pequod encuentra al Virgen

Llegó el día predestinado y, como era debido, encontramos al barco Jungfrau, capitán Derick De Deer, de Bremen.

Antaño los principales pescadores de ballenas del mundo, ahora los holandeses y los alemanes están entre los menos importantes, pero, acá y allá, a intervalos muy amplios de latitud y longitud, todavía se encuentra de vez en cuando su bandera en el Pacífico.

Por alguna razón, el Jungfrau parecía muy deseoso de presentar sus respetos. Todavía a cierta distancia del Pequod, orzó, y arriando un bote, su capitán fue impulsado hacia nosotros, situándose impacientemente a proa, en vez de ir a popa.

-¿Qué lleva ahí en la mano ? -gritó Starbuck, señalando algo que el alemán llevaba balanceando-. ¡Imposible ! ¡Una alcuza !

-No es eso -dijo Stubb-: no, no, es una cafetera, señor Starbuck; viene acá a hacernos el café, ese alemán; ¿no ve la gran lata que tiene al lado ? Es agua hirviendo. ¡Ah, está muy bien, ese alemán !

-¡Quite allá ! -exclamó Flask-, es una alcuza y una lata de aceite. Se le ha acabado el aceite y viene a pedir.

jPor curioso que parezca que un barco aceitero pida prestado aceite en zona de pesca, y por mucho que contradiga al revés al viejo proverbio de llevar carbón a Newcastle, a veces ocurre realmente semejante cosa; y en el caso presente, el capitán Derick De Deer llevaba sin duda una alcuza, como había dicho Flask.

Cuando subió a cubierta, Ahab se le acercó repentinamente, sin fijarse en absoluto en lo que llevaba en la mano, pero el alemán, en su jerga rota, pronto evidenció su completa ignorancia sobre la ballena blanca dirigiendo inmediatamente la conversación hacia su alcuza y su lata de aceite, con algunas observaciones sobre que, por la noche, tenía que meterse en su hamaca en profunda oscuridad, porque se había acabado su última gota de aceite de Bremen, y todavía no habían capturado un solo pez volador para suplir la deficiencia; y para terminar sugirió que su barco estaba lo que en la pesca de ballenas se llama técnicamente limpio (esto es, vacío), muy merecedor del nombre de Jungfrau, « Virgen ».

Remediadas sus necesidades, Derick se marchó, pero no había alcanzado el costado de su barco cuando se anunciaron ballenas desde los masteleros de ambos barcos, y tan ansioso estaba Derick de persecución, que, sin detenerse a dejar a bordo la lata de aceite y la alcuza, hizo virar la lancha y se puso a seguir a las alcuzas leviatánicas.

Ahora, como la caza se había levantado a sotavento, él y las otras tres lanchas alemanas que de pronto le siguieron llevaban considerable ventaja a las quillas del Pequod. Había ocho ballenas, una manada mediana. Conscientes de su peligro, marchaban todas en fondo con gran velocidad, derechas por delante del viento, rozando sus costados tan estrechamente como tiros de caballos enjaezados. Dejaban una estela grande y ancha, como si desenrollaran de modo continuo un ancho pergamino sobre el mar.

Dentro de esa rápida estela, y a muchas brazas detrás, nadaba un viejo macho, grande y jorobado, que, por su avance relativamente lento, así como por las insólitas incrustaciones amarillentas que crecían sobre él, parecía sufrir ictericia o alguna otra enfermedad. Parecía dudoso que esta ballena perteneciera a la manada de delante, pues no es corriente en tan venerables leviatanes ser sociables. No obstante, se mantenía en su estela, aunque indudablemente su reflujo debía retardarle, porque el « hueso blanco » o marejada ante su ancho morro se rompía como la onda que se forma cuando se encuentran dos corrientes hostiles. Su chorro era corto, lento y laborioso, saliendo con una especie de estertor estrangulado, y disipándose en jirones desgarrados, seguidos de extrañas conmociones subterráneas en él, que parecían encontrar salida por su otro extremo hundido, haciendo que las aguas se elevaran burbujeantes detrás de él.

¿Quién tiene algún calmante ? -dijo Stubb-; tiene dolor de estómago, me temo. Dios mío, ¡figuraos lo que es tener media hectárea de dolor de estómago ! Vientos contrarios están haciendo en él una pascua loca, muchachos. Es el primer mal viento que he visto jamás soplar por la popa; pero mirad, ¿ha habido nunca una ballena que diera tales guiñadas ? Debe de ser que ha perdido la caña.

Como un gran barco cargado en exceso, al acercarse a la costa del Indostán con la cubierta llena de caballos espantados, se escora, se mece, se sumerge y avanza vacilante, así esta vieja ballena balanceaba su envejecida mole, y de vez en cuando, revolviéndose sobre sus molestas costillas, mostraba la causa de su estela incierta en el muñón innatural de su aleta de estribor. Sería difícil decir si había perdido esa aleta en batalla, o si había nacido sin ella.

-Espera un poco, viejo, y te pondré en cabestrillo ese brazo herido -gritó el cruel Flask, señalando la estacha que tenía a su lado.

-Fíjate que no te ponga a ti en cabestrillo -gritó Starbuck-: Adelante, o el alemán se lo llevará.

Con una sola intención, todas las lanchas rivales se dirigían a ese mismo animal no sólo porque era el mayor, y por tanto el más valioso, sino porque estaba más cerca, y los otros se movían a tal velocidad, además, que casi desafiaban toda persecución por el momento. En esta coyuntura, las embarcaciones del Pequod habían adelantado a las tres lanchas alemanas arriadas en último lugar, pero la de Derick, por la gran ventaja que había tenido, todavía iba en cabeza de la persecución, aunque a cada momento se acercaran a ella sus rivales extranjeros. Lo único que temían éstos era que él, por estar ya tan cerca de su blanco, pudiera disparar su arpón antes que terminaran de alcanzarle y pasarle. En cuanto a Derick, parecía muy confiado en que ocurriría así, y de vez en cuando, con un gesto de burla, agitaba la alcuza hacia las otras lanchas.

¡Perro grosero e ingrato ! -gritó Starbuck-: ¿se burla y me desafía con la misma lata de limosnas que le he llenado hace cinco minutos ? -Y luego, con su viejo susurro intenso-: ¡Adelante, lebreles ! ¡Hala con ello !

-Os digo la verdad, muchachos -gritaba Stubb a su tripulación-, va contra mi religión ponerse como loco, pero ¡me gustaría comerme a ese granuja de alemán ! ¡Remad !, ¿queréis ? ¿Vais a dejar que ese bribón os gane ? ¿Os gusta el coñac ? Un pellejo de coñac, entonces, al mejor remero. Vamos, ¿por qué no os rompéis alguno una vena ? ¿Quién es el que ha echado un ancla por la borda ? No nos movemos una pulgada; estamos en calma chicha. Ea, que crece la hierba en el fondo de la lancha; y por Dios, que este mástil está echando yemas. Eso no me gusta, muchachos. ¡Mirad a ese alemán ! Bueno, ¿en qué quedamos, vais a escupir fuego o no ?

-¡Ah, mirad qué espuma hace ! -gritaba Flask, danzando de un lado para otro-: ¡Qué joroba ! ¡Venga, echaos contra el buey; está quieto como un tronco ! ¡Ah, muchachos, tirad allá: torta y quohogs de cena, ya sabéis, muchachos..., almejas y bollos..., ea, tirad adelante... Tiene cien barriles..., no la perdáis ahora... ! ¡No, no... ! Mirad a ese alemán... ¡Ah, no remáis por lo que coméis, muchachos ! ¡Qué asco, qué porquería ! ¿No os gusta el aceite de esperma ? ¡Ahí van tres mil dólares, hombres ! ¡Un Banco, todo un Banco ! ¡El Banco de Inglaterra ! ¡Ea, vamos, vamos, vamos ! ¿Qué hace ahora el alemán ?

En ese momento Derick lanzaba su alcuza contra las lanchas que avanzaban, y también la lata de aceite, quizá con la doble intención de retardar el avance de sus rivales, y a la vez de acelerar económicamente el suyo, con el ímpetu momentáneo del lanzamiento hacia atrás.

-¡Ese grosero perro teutón ! -gritó Stubb-. ¡Remad, hombres, como cincuenta mil cargamentos de barcos de guerra llenos de diablos de pelo rojo ! ¿Qué dices, Tashtego: eres hombre para partirte el espinazo en veintidós trozos por el honor del viejo Gay-Head ? ¿Qué dices ?

-Digo que ya remo como un condenado -gritó el indio.

Ferozmente, pero incitadas por igual por las burlas del alemán, las tres lanchas del Pequod empezaban ahora a darle alcance casi juntas, y así dispuestas se le acercaban por momentos. En la hermosa, desprendida y caballeresca actitud del jefe de la lancha al acercarse a la presa, los tres oficiales se levantaron orgullosamente, animando de vez en cuando al remero de popa con un grito estimulante de: -¡A11á se escurre, ahora ! ¡Hurra por la brisa de fresno ! ¡Adelantadle !

Pero Derick había tenido tan resuelta ventaja inicial que, a pesar de toda la valentía de ellos, habría resultado vencedor en la carrera si no hubiera caído sobre él un justo juicio en forma de un fallo que detuvo la pala de su remero de en medio. Mientras este torpe marinero de agua dulce se esforzaba por desenredar su fresno, y mientras, en consecuencia, la lancha de Derick estaba a punto de zozobrar, en tanto que él se deshacía en truenos contra sus hombres en terrible cólera, fue el buen momento para Starbuck, Stubb y Flask. Con un grito, dieron un salto mortal hacia delante, y llegaron oblicuamente a disponerse a la altura del alemán. Un instante después, las cuatro lanchas estaban en diagonal en la estela inmediata del cetáceo, mientras que a ambos lados de ellos se extendía la oleada espumosa que hacía.

Fue un espectáculo terrible, lamentable y enloquecedor. El cachalote iba ahora con la cabeza fuera, proyectando su chorro por delante en manantial continuamente atormentado, mientras que su único aletazo golpeaba su costado en agonía de espanto. Unas veces a un lado, otras veces a otro, daba guiñadas en su vacilante huida, y sin embargo, a cada ola que superaba, se hundía espasmódicamente en el mar, o agitaba de lado hacia el cielo su única aleta móvil. Así he visto un pájaro con un ala herida trazando espantado círculos rotos en el aire e intentando en vano escapar de los piratescos halcones. Pero el pájaro tiene voz, y con gritos plañideros da a conocer su miedo, mientras que el miedo de este enorme bruto mudo del mar estaba encadenado y encantado dentro de él: no tenía voz, salvo la respiración en estertor por su rendija, y eso hacía que el verle fuera inexpresablemente lamentable, mientras que a la vez, en su impresionante mole, en su mandíbula en rastrillo y en su cola omnipotente, había bastante para horrorizar al hombre más robusto que así se compadeciera.

Al ver ahora que unos pocos momentos más darían la ventaja a las lanchas del Pequod, y con tal de no quedar así burlado de su presa, Derick eligió al azar lo que debió parecerle un disparo insólitamente largo, antes de que se le escapara para siempre la última probabilidad.

Pero apenas se levantó su arponero para el lanzamiento, los tres tigres -Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo- se pusieron en pie de un salto instintivo, y situados en fila diagonal, apuntaron a la vez sus hierros, dispararon sobre la cabeza del arponero alemán, y sus tres arpones de Nantucket penetraron en el animal. ¡Qué cegadores vapores de espuma y fuego blanco ! Las tres lanchas, en la primera furia del arranque escapado del cachalote, golpearon de lado la del alemán, con tal fuerza que tanto Derick como su desconcertado arponero fueron vertidos fuera, y les pasaron por encima las tres quillas fugitivas.

-No tengáis miedo, mis botes de manteca -gritó Stubb, lanzándoles una ojeada pasajera al adelantarles-: ya se os recogerá... ¡Muy bien ! He visto unos tiburones a popa..., ya sabéis, perros de San Bernardo..., alivian a los viajeros en apuros. ¡Hurra !, éste es ahora el camino para navegar. ¡Cada quilla es un rayo de sol ! ¡Hurra ! ¡Allá vamos, como tres latas en la cola de un puma enloquecido ! Esto me hace pensar en cuando se ata un elefante a una calesa, en una llanura... Hace volar los radios de las ruedas, muchachos, cuando se le ata así; y hay también peligro de que le tire a uno fuera, cuando se ataca una cuesta. ¡Hurra ! Así es como se siente uno cuando se va con Pedro Botero... ¡corriendo cuesta abajo por un plano inclinado sin fin ! ¡Hurra !, ¡esa ballena lleva el correo de la eternidad !

Pero la carrera del monstruo fue breve. Dando un súbito jadeo, se zambulló tumultuosamente. Rascando velozmente, las tres estachas volaron en torno a los bolardos con tal fuerza, que abrieron profundos surcos en ellos mientras que los arponeros, temerosos de que esta rápida zambullida agotara pronto las estachas, usando todo su poder y destreza dieron repetidas vueltas al cabo humeante para sujetarlo, hasta que por fin -debido a la tensión vertical en los tacos, forrados de plomo, de los botes, desde donde bajaban derechos los tres cabos al azul- las regalas de las proas casi estuvieron al nivel del agua, mientras las tres proas se elevaban hacia el cielo. Y al cesar pronto el cetáceo en su sumersión, se quedaron algún tiempo en esa actitud, temerosos de soltar más cabo, aunque la posición era un poco difícil. Pero aunque de ese modo se han hundido y perdido muchas lanchas, sin embargo, el aguantar así, con las agudas puntas enganchadas en la carne viva del lomo, es lo que a menudo atormenta tanto al leviatán que pronto le hace subir otra vez al encuentro de la afilada lanza de sus enemigos. Pero, para no hablar del peligro del asunto, es dudoso si ese procedimiento es siempre el mejor, pues es razonable suponer que cuanto más tiempo permanezca bajo el agua el animal herido, más agotado quedará. Porque, debido a su enorme superficie -en un cachalote adulto, algo menos de 2.000 pies cuadrados-, la presión del agua es inmensa. Todos sabemos qué asombroso peso atmosférico resistimos nosotros mismos, aun aquí, sobre la tierra, en el aire ¡qué enorme, entonces, la carga de una ballena, colocando en su espalda una columna de doscientas brazas de océano ! Debe ser igual, por lo menos, al peso de cincuenta atmósferas. Un cazador de ballenas lo ha calculado como el peso de veinte barcos de guerra, con todos sus cañones y reservas y hombres a bordo.

Con las tres lanchas detenidas allí en aquel mar que se mecía suavemente, mirando allá abajo su eterno mediodía azul, y sin que subiera de sus profundidades un solo gemido ni grito de ninguna clase, más aún, ni una onda ni una burbuja, ¿qué hombre de tierra adentro habría pensado que por debajo de todo ese silencio y placidez se retorcía y agitaba en agonía el mayor monstruo de los mares ? Ni ocho pulgadas de cabo vertical se veían en las proas. ¿Parece creíble que con tres hilos tan finos quedara suspendido el gran leviatán, como la gran pesa de un reloj de ocho días ? ¿Suspendido ?, y ¿de qué ? De tres trocitos de tabla. ¿Es ésa la criatura de que se dijo una vez tan triunfalmente: « ¿Puedes llenar su piel de arpones afilados, o su cabeza de bicheros ? La espada de quien le golpea no hace presa, ni la lanza, ni el dardo, ni la cota de malla; el hierro es para él como la paja; la flecha no puede hacerle huir; los dardos son para él como rastrojo; se ríe de quien blande una lanza ? ». ¿Es éste el animal, es éste ? ¡Ah, que haya tales incumplimientos para los profetas ! Pues, con la fuerza de mil muslos en la cola, Leviatán ha metido la cabeza bajo las montañas del mar para esconderla de los arpones del Pequod !

En esa luz oblicua de la primera hora de la tarde, las sombras que las tres lanchas proyectaban bajo la superficie debían ser suficientemente largas y anchas como para dar sombra a medio ejército de Jerjes. ¡Quién puede decir qué horrendos debieron ser para el cachalote herido tan enormes fantasmas cerniéndose sobre su cabeza !

¡Cuidado, muchachos, se mueve ! -gritó Starbuck, cuando los tres cabos vibraron de repente en el agua, transmitiéndoles claramente hasta ellos, como por cables magnéticos, los latidos de vida y muerte de la ballena, de tal modo que cada remero los notaba en su asiento. Un momento después, aliviadas en buena medida de la tensión hacia abajo en las proas, las lanchas dieron un salto repentino hacia arriba, como un pequeño campo de hielo cuando un denso rebaño de osos blancos lo abandona, asustado, .echándose al mar.

-¡Halad, halad ! -volvió a gritar Starbuck-: está subiendo.

Las estachas, en que, un momento antes, no se podría haber ganado un palmo, ahora fueron lanzadas, otra vez, todas goteantes, adentro de las lanchas, en largas adujas vivas, y pronto la ballena salió a la superficie a dos largos de barco de sus perseguidores.

Sus movimientos denotaban claramente su extremo agotamiento. En la mayor parte de los animales de tierra hay ciertas válvulas o compuertas, en muchas de sus venas, mediante las cuales, al ser heridos, la sangre se desvía en ciertas direcciones, al menos parcialmente. No es así en el cachalote, una de cuyas peculiaridades es tener una estructura de venas enteramente sin válvulas, de modo que, al ser pinchada aun por una punta tan pequeña como la de un arpón, comienza al momento un mortal desangramiento en todo su sistema arterial, y cuando éste aumenta con la extraordinaria presión de agua, a gran distancia bajo la superficie, se puede decir que se le va la vida a chorros, en torrente incesante. Sin embargo, es tan enorme la cantidad de sangre que hay en él, y tan lejanas y numerosas sus fuentes interiores, que sigue así sangrando y sangrando durante un período considerable, igual que un río sigue manando en una sequía cuando tiene su venero en las fuentes de unas montañas lejanas e indiscernibles. Aun entonces, cuando las lanchas se acercaron remando a la ballena, y, pasando arriesgadamente sobre su cola agitada, le dispararon lanzas, fueron perseguidas por chorros continuos de la herida recién hecha, que siguió manando continuamente, mientras el agujero natural para el chorro, en la cabeza, sólo a intervalos, aunque rápidos, lanzaba al aire su lluvia asustada. Por esta abertura no salía todavía sangre, porque no se había tocado hasta ahora ninguna parte vital suya. Su « vida », como la llaman significativamente, todavía estaba intacta.

Ahora que las lanchas le rodeaban más de cerca, quedó visible claramente toda la parte superior de su forma, con mucho de ella que suele estar sumergido. Sus ojos o mejor dicho los sitios donde habían estado sus ojos, quedaron a la vista. Igual que cuando caen los ancestrales robles, en los agujeros de sus nudos se reúnen extrañas masas mal crecidas, así, de los puntos que habían ocupado antes los ojos de la ballena, ahora salían bulbos ciegos, horriblemente lamentables de ver. Pero no hubo compasión. A pesar de su vejez, y de su brazo único y de sus ojos ciegos, debía morir de muerte y ser asesinado, para iluminar las alegres bodas y los demás festivales del hombre, y asimismo para alumbrar las solemnes iglesias que predican que todos han de ser incondicionalmente inofensivos para con todos. Aún meciéndose en su sangre, por fin mostró parcialmente un extraño racimo o protuberancia, del tamaño de un bushel, muy abajo del flanco.

-Bonito sitio -gritó Flask-: déjeme pincharle ahí una vez.

-¡Alto ! -gritó Starbuck-: ¡no hay necesidad de eso !'

Pero había tardado demasiado el humanitario Starbuck. En el momento del disparo, un chorro ulceroso se disparó de esa herida cruel, y la ballena, sufriendo con ella insoportable angustia, lanzó chorros de densa sangre y con rápida furia atacó ciegamente a las embarcaciones, salpicándolas, a ellas y a sus jubilosos tripulantes, con chaparrones de sangrujo, y haciendo zozobrar la lancha de Flask, con la proa destrozada. Fue su golpe de muerte. Pues, desde ese momento, quedó tan agotada por la pérdida de sangre, que se alejó, meciéndose inerme, de la ruina que había causado; se tendió jadeando de costado, agitó impotente su aleta mutilada, y luego dio vueltas lentamente como un mundo que se desvanece: volvió a lo alto los blancos secretos de su panza, quedó flotando como un leño y murió. Fue lamentable ese último chorro expirante. Como cuando unas manos invisibles retiran el agua de alguna poderosa fuente, y con gorgoteos melancólicos y medio ahogados la columna espumosa desciende hasta abajo, así fue el último largo chorro moribundo moribundo de la ballena.

Pronto, mientras las tripulaciones aguardaban la llegada del barco, el cuerpo mostró síntomas de irse a hundir con todos sus tesoros sin saquear. Inmediatamente, por orden de Starbuck, se le amarraron cabos de diferentes puntos, de modo que cada lancha poco después era una boya, quedando la ballena hundida suspensa a pocas pulgadas por debajo de ella con las cuerdas. Con manejo muy atento, cuando se acercó el barco, se trasladó la ballena a su costado y allí se aseguró reciamente con las más rígidas cadenas para la cola, pues estaba claro que si no se sostenía artificialmente, el cuerpo se hundiría en seguida al fondo.

Ocurrió por casualidad que, casi al empezar a darle tajos con la azada, se encontró incrustado en la carne un arpón, corroído en `toda su longitud, en la parte inferior de la prominencia antes descrita. Pero como frecuentemente se encuentran trozos de arpones en los cuerpos muertos de ballenas capturadas, con la carne perfectamente curada a su alrededor y sin prominencia de ninguna clase que denote su lugar, por tanto, necesariamente debía haber alguna otra razón desconocida, en el presente caso, que explicara por completo la ulceración aludida. Pero aún más curioso era el hecho de que se encontrara en ella una punta de lanza de piedra, no lejos del fierro sepultado, con la carne perfectamente firme a su alrededor. Quién había disparado aquella lanza de piedra ? ¿Y cuándo ? Podría haberla disparado algún indio del noroeste antes de que se descubriera América.

No cabe decir qué otras maravillas podrían haberse hurgado en ese monstruoso armario. Pero todo ulterior descubrimiento fue suspendido de repente, al quedar el barco escorado de modo sin precedentes hacia el mar, debido a la tendencia a hundirse, inmensamente creciente, del cuerpo. Sin embargo, Starbuck, que tenía el mando de los asuntos, aguantó hasta el fin, y se aferró a ello tan decididamente, en efecto, que cuando por fin el barco iba a zozobrar si insistía en mantener aferrado el cuerpo, entonces, al darse la orden de romper y separarse de él, era tal la tensión inamovible sobre las ligazones de revés a que se habían amarrado las cadenas y cables de la cola, que fue imposible soltarlos. Mientras tanto, el Pequod se había escorado. Cruzar al otro lado de la cubierta era como subir por el abrupto techo picudo de una casa. El barco gemía y jadeaba. Muchas de las incrustaciones de marfil de sus amuradas y cabinas saltaron de su sitio, por la tensión extraordinaria. En vano se trajeron espeques y palancas para aplicarlos a las inamovibles cadenas que sujetaban la cola, liberándolas de las ligazones: tan hondo había bajado ya la ballena que no cabía acercarse a los extremos sumergidos, mientras a cada momento parecían añadirse toneladas enteras de pesadumbre a la mole que se hundía, y el barco parecía a punto de perderse.

-¡Aguanta, aguanta !, ¿quieres ? -Gritó Stubb al cuerpo-: ¡no tengas tan endemoniada prisa de hundirte ! Por todos los demonios, hombres, tenemos que hacer algo o lanzarnos a ello. No sirve hurgar ahí; ¡alto, digo, con los espeques, y corred uno de vosotros a buscar un libro de oraciones y un cortaplumas para cortar las cadenas grandes !

-¿Cortar ? Sí, sí -gritó Queequeg, y agarrando la pesada hacha del carpintero, se asomó por una porta, y, con el acero contra el hierro, empezó a dar tajos a las mayores cadenas de la cola. Pocos golpes se dieron, con muchas chispas, y la enorme tensión hizo el resto. Con un terrible chasquido, todas las amarras saltaron por el aire; el barco se enderezó y el cadáver se hundió.

Ahora, esta inevitable sumersión que ocurre a veces en un cachalote recién muerto es una cosa muy curiosa, y ningún pescador la ha explicado adecuadamente. Por lo general, el cachalote muerto flota con mucha ligereza, con el costado o la panza considerablemente elevado sobre la superficie. Si los únicos cetáceos que se hundieran así fueran criaturas viejas, flacas y de ánimo abatido, con sus almohadillas de grasa disminuidas y todos sus huesos pesados y reumáticos, entonces podríais afirmar con mucha razón que ese hundimiento está causado por un insólito peso específico en el pez que así se hunde, como consecuencia de que le falta dentro materia flotante. Pero no es así. Pues incluso jóvenes cetáceos, en su mejor salud y rebosando nobles aspiraciones, truncados prematuramente en la tibia floración y el mayo de su vida, con toda su grasa palpitando encima, incluso esos héroes valientes y flotantes, se hunden alguna vez.

Hay que decir, sin embargo, que el cachalote es mucho menos propenso a ese accidente que cualquier otra especie. Por cada uno de esa especie que se hunde, se hunden veinte ballenas francas. Esta diferencia entre las especies es sin duda atribuible en no escaso grado a la mayor cantidad de hueso que hay en la ballena franca, ya que sólo sus persianas venecianas pesan a veces más de una tonelada, estorbo de que el cachalote está totalmente libre. Pero hay ejemplos en que, después de un lapso de varias horas o varios días, el cetáceo hundido vuelve a subir, más flotante que en vida. Pero la razón de esto es obvia. En él se producen gases: se hincha con prodigiosa magnitud, convirtiéndose en una especie de globo animal. Entonces, apenas un barco de guerra podría impedirle subir. En las pesquerías costeras de la ballena, en bajos fondos entre las bahías de Nueva Zelanda, cuando una ballena franca da señales de hundirse, le amarran boyas, con mucho cable, de modo que, cuando el cuerpo ha bajado, saben dónde buscarlo cuando suba otra vez.

No mucho después del hundimiento del cadáver, se oyó un grito desde las cofas del Pequod, anunciando que el Jung frau volvía a .arriar sus lanchas, aunque el único chorro a la vista era de una ballena de aleta dorsal, de las especies de ballenas incapturables, a causa de su increíble poder natatorio. No obstante, el chorro de esa ballena es tan semejante al del cachalote, que los pescadores inexpertos a veces la confunden con él. Y en consecuencia, Derick y toda su ueste se pusieron en valiente persecución de ese bruto inalcanzable. La Virgen, desplegando todas sus velas, se puso a seguir sus cuatro quillas jóvenes, y así desaparecieron todos a sotavento, todavía en atrevida y esperanzada persecución.

¡Ah, muchas son las ballenas de aleta dorsal, y muchos son los Dericks, amigo mío ! 

El honor y la gloria de la caza de la ballena

Hay algunas empresas en que el método adecuado es un desorden cuidadoso.

Cuanto más me sumerjo en este asunto de la caza de la ballena y hago avanzar mis investigaciones hasta su misma fuente, mucho más me impresionan su gran honorabilidad y su antigüedad; y, sobre todo, cuando encuentro tantos grandes semidioses y héroes, y profetas de todas clases, que de un modo o de otro le han conferido distinción, me siento transportado al reflexionar que yo mismo pertenezco, aunque sólo de modo subordinado, a una hermandad de tales blasones.

El valiente Perseo, un hijo de Júpiter, fue el primer ballenero, y ha de decirse, para eterno honor de nuestra profesión, que la primera ballena atacada por nuestra cofradía no fue muerta con ninguna intención sórdida. Aquéllos eran los días caballerescos de nuestra profesión, cuando sólo tomábamos las armas para socorrer a los que estaban en apuros, y no para llenar las alcuzas de los hombres. Todos saben la hermosa historia de Perseo y Andrómeda: como la deliciosa Andrómeda, hija de un rey, fue atada a una roca en la costa, y cuando el leviatán se disponía a llevársela, Perseo, el príncipe de los balleneros, avanzando intrépidamente, arponeó al monstruo, libró a la doncella y se casó con ella. Fue una admirable gesta artística, raramente lograda por los mejores arponeros de nuestros días, ya que este leviatán quedó muerto al primer arponazo. Y que nadie dude de esta historia arcaica, pues en la antigua Joppa, hoy Jaffa, en la costa Siria, en un templo pagano, estuvo durante muchos siglos el vasto esqueleto de una ballena, que las leyendas de la ciudad y todos sus habitantes afirmaban que era la mismísima osamenta del monstruo que mató Perseo. Cuando los romanos tomaron Joppa, ese esqueleto fue llevado a Italia en triunfo. Lo que parece más singular y sugestivamente importante de esta historia es que fue desde Joppa desde donde zarpó Jonás.

Afín a la aventura de Perseo y Andrómeda -incluso, algunos suponen que deriva indirectamente de ella -es la famosa historia de san Jorge y el dragón, el cual dragón yo sostengo que fue una ballena, pues en muchas antiguas crónicas las ballenas y los dragones se entremezclaban extrañamente, y a menudo se sustituían unos a otros. « Eres como un león de las aguas, y como un dragón del mar », dice Ezequiel, en lo cual alude claramente a una ballena; en realidad, algunas versiones de la Biblia usan esa misma palabra. Además, menguaría mucho la gloria de la gesta que san Jorge sólo hubiera afrontado a un reptil de los que se arrastran por la tierra, en vez de entablar batalla con el gran monstruo de las profundidades. Cualquier hombre puede matar una serpiente, pero sólo un Perseo, un san Jorge o un Coffin tienen bastantes agallas como para avanzar valientemente contra una ballena.

Que no nos desorienten las modernas pinturas de esa escena; pues aunque el animal afrontado por ese valiente ballenero de antaño está representado vagamente en forma semejante a un grifo, y aunque la batalla se pinta en tierra, con el santo a caballo, sin embargo, considerando la gran ignorancia de aquellos tiempos, cuando los artistas desconocían la verdadera forma de la ballena, y considerando que, en el caso de Perseo, la ballena de san Jorge podía haber subido reptando desde el mar a la playa, y considerando que el animal cabalgado por san Jorge podía ser sólo una gran foca o caballo marino, entonces, el tener en cuenta todo esto, no parecerá in compatible con la sagrada leyenda y con los más antiguos esbozos, de la escena, afirmar que ese llamado dragón no fue otro que el propio gran leviatán. En realidad, al ponerse ante la estricta y penetrante te verdad, toda esta historia se comportará como aquel ídolo pescado-carne-y-ave de los filisteos llamado Dagón, al cual, al ser colocado ante el Arca de Israel, se le cayeron la cabeza de caballo y las palmas de las manos, quedando sólo su muñón o parte pisciforme. Así pues, uno de nuestra noble estirpe, precisamente un ballenero, es el guardián tutelar de Inglaterra, y, con buen derecho, nosotros los arponeros de Nantucket deberíamos estar alistados en la nobilísima Orden de San Jorge. Y por consiguiente, que los caballeros de esa honorable cofradía (ninguno de los cuales, me atrevo a decir, habrá tenido que ver jamás con una ballena, como su gran patrón) no miren nunca con desprecio a los de Nantucket, ya que, aun con nuestros blusones de lana y nuestros pantalones alquitranados, tenemos mejores títulos para la condecoración de San Jorge que ellos.

Mucho tiempo he estado dudando si admitir o no a Hércules entre nosotros, pues aunque, según las mitologías griegas, aquel Crockett y Kit Carson de la antigüedad, aquel robusto realizador de excelentes gestas entusiasmadoras, fue tragado y vomitado por una ballena, con todo, podría discutirse si eso, estrictamente, le hace ser ballenero. Por ninguna parte consta que jamás arponeara a tal pez, a no ser, claro está, desde dentro. Con todo, puede considerársele como una suerte de ballenero involuntario; en cualquier caso, la ballena le cazó a él, si no a él la ballena. Le reclamo para nuestro clan.

Pero, según las mejores autoridades contradictorias, esa historia griega de Hércules y la ballena ha de considerarse derivada de la aún más antigua historia hebrea de Jonás y la ballena, o viceversa: ciertamente, son muy semejantes. Entonces, si reclamo al semidiós, ¿por qué no al profeta ?

Y tampoco los héroes, santos, semidioses y profetas son los únicos en componer toda la lista de nuestra orden. Nuestro gran maestro todavía no ha sido nombrado, pues nosotros, como los solemnes reyes de antaño, encontramos nuestro manantial nada menos que en los mismísimos grandes dioses. Ahora ha de repetirse aquí aquella maravillosa historia oriental del Shastra, que nos presenta al temible Visnú, una de las tres personas que hay en la divinidad de los hindúes, y nos da al propio divino Visnú como señor nuestro; a Visnú, que, con la primera de sus diez encarnaciones terrenales, ha dejado aparte y santificado para siempre a la ballena. Cuando Brahma, o el dios de los dioses, dice el Shastra, decidió volver a crear el mundo después de una de sus disoluciones periódicas, dio nacimiento a Visnú, para presidir el trabajo; pero los Vedas, o libros místicos, cuya lectura parecería haber sido indispensable a Visnú antes de empezar la creación, y que, por tanto, debían contener algo en forma de sugerencias prácticas para jóvenes arquitectos, esos Vedas, digo, yacían en el fondo de las aguas, de modo que Visnú, encarnándose en una ballena, se zambulló a las últimas profundidades y salvó los sagrados volúmenes. ¿No fue entonces un ballenero este Visnú, del mismo modo que un hombre que va a caballo se llama caballero ?

¡Perseo, san Jorge, Hércules, Jonás y Visnú !, ¡Vaya lista que tenemos ! ¿Qué club, sino el de los balleneros, puede encabezarse de modo semejante ? 

Jonás, considerado históricamente

En el capítulo precedente se hizo referencia al relato histórico de Jonás y la ballena. Ahora bien, algunos de Nantucket desconfían de ese relato histórico de Jonás y la ballena. Pero, asimismo, había algunos griegos y romanos escépticos, que, separándose de los paganos ortodoxos de su época, dudaban igualmente del relato de Hércules y la ballena, y Arión y el delfín; y sin embargo, el hecho de que dudaran de esas tradiciones no las hizo menos reales ni en un apice.

La principal razón que un viejo ballenero de Sag-Harbour tenía para poner en duda el relato hebreo era ésta: él tenía una de esas extrañas Biblias a la antigua usanza, embellecida con grabados curiosos y nada científicos, uno de los cuales representaba la ballena de Jonás con dos chorros en la cabeza, peculiaridad sólo verdadera respecto a una especie del leviatán (la ballena franca y las variedades de esta orden), sobre la cual los balleneros tienen este proverbio: « Se ahogaría con un panecillo de a penique », ya que sus tragaderas son muy pequeñas. Pero para eso está dispuesta la respuesta anticipada del obispo Jebb. No es necesario, sugiere el obispo, que consideremos a Jonás emparedado en la panza de la ballena, sino temporalmente alojado en alguna parte de la boca. Y eso parece suficientemente razonable al buen obispo. Pues, realmente, en la boca de la ballena franca podrían instalarse un par de mesas de juego, sentando cómodamente a todos los jugadores. Es posible, también, que Jonás se hubiera escondido en un diente hueco; pero, pensándolo mejor, la ballena franca no tiene dientes.

Otra razón por la que el Sag-Harbour (así le llamaban) insistía en su falta de fe en ese asunto del profeta, era algo oscuramente referente al cuerpo encarcelado del profeta y a los jugos gástricos de la ballena. Pero esa objeción cae igualmente por tierra, porque un exegeta alemán supone que Jonás debió refugiarse en el cuerpo flotante de una ballena muerta, del mismo modo que los soldados franceses, en la campaña en Rusia, convirtieron en tiendas a sus caballos muertos y se metieron a gatas en ellas. Además, otros comentadores continentales han supuesto que, cuando Jonás fue lanzado por la borda del barco de Joppa, él se escapó derecho a otra embarcación cercana, alguna embarcación con una ballena por mascarón de proa y, yo añadiría, posiblemente llamada La Ballena, igual que ciertos navíos se bautizan hoy día como El Tiburón, La Gaviota, El Aguila. Y tampoco han faltado doctores exegetas que han opinado que la ballena mencionada en el libro de Jonás quería indicar meramente un salvavidas -un pellejo inflado de viento- al que se acercó nadando el profeta en peligro, salvándose así de la condena acuática. Por consiguiente, el pobre de Sag-Harbour parece derrotado por todas partes. Pero todavía tenía otra razón para su falta de fe. Era ésta, si no recuerdo mal: Jonás fue tragado por la ballena en el mar Mediterráneo, y al cabo de tres días fue vomitado en algún lugar a unos tres días de viaje de Nínive, una ciudad junto al Tigris, a mucho más de tres días de viaje del punto más cercano de la costa mediterránea. ¿Cómo es eso ?

Pero ¿no había otro modo de que la ballena dejara en tierra al profeta a tan corta distancia de Nínive ? Sí. Podía haberle llevado dando la vuelta al cabo de Buena Esperanza. Pero, para no hablar de la travesía a todo lo largo del Mediterráneo, y otra travesía por el golfo Pérsico y el mar Rojo, tal suposición implicaría la completa circunnavegación de Africa, en tres días, para no hablar de que las aguas del Tigris, junto a Nínive, son demasiado superficiales para que nade en ellas una ballena. Además, la idea de que Jonás doblara el cabo de Buena Esperanza en tiempos tan antiguos le quitaría el honor del descubrimiento de ese gran promontorio a Bartolomé Díaz, y daría así un mentís a la historia moderna.

Pero todos esos necios argumentos del viejo de Sag-Harbour evidenciaban sólo el necio orgullo de su razón: cosa más reprensible en él, visto que tenía pocos conocimientos, salvo lo que había ido sacando del sol y del mar. Digo que sólo muestra su necio e impío orgullo, y su abominable y diabólica rebelión contra la reverenda clerecía. Pues un sacerdote católico portugués presentó esa misma idea, de que Jonás hubiera ido a Nínive vía cabo de Buena Esperanza, como manifestación y presagio del milagro general. Y así fue. Además, en nuestros días, los ilustradísimos turcos creen en el relato histórico de Jonás. Y hace unos tres siglos, un viajero inglés, en los antiguos Viajes de Harris, hablaba de una mezquita turca construida en honor de Jonás, en la que había una lámpara milagrosa que ardía sin aceite. 

El marcado

Para hacerlos correr con facilidad y rapidez, se untan los ejes de los carros; y con propósito muy semejante, algunos cazadores de ballenas realizan análoga operación en su lancha: engrasan el fondo. Y no hay que dudar que tal medida, así como no puede causar perjuicio, es posible que produzca una ventaja nada despreciable, si se piensa que el aceite y el agua son hostiles, que el aceite es una sustancia resbaladiza, y que el objetivo que se pretende es hacer que la lancha resbale bravamente. Queequeg tenía gran fe en untar la lancha, y una mañana, no mucho después de que desapareciera el barco alemán Jungfrau, se tomó mayores molestias que de costumbre en esa ocupación, gateando bajo el fondo, donde colgaba sobre el costado del barco, y frotándolo con el unto como si tratara diligentemente de lograr que le saliera una mata de pelo a la calva quilla de la embarcación. Parecía trabajar obedeciendo a algún presentimiento particular, que no dejó de ser confirmado por los acontecimientos.

A mediodía, se señalaron ballenas; pero tan pronto como el barco se dirigió hacia ellas, se volvieron y huyeron con rápida precipitación; una huida desordenada, como los lanchones de Cleopatra huyendo de Actium.

No obstante, las lanchas prosiguieron, y la de Stubb tomó la delantera. Con gran esfuerzo, Tashtego logró por fin clavar un hierro, pero la ballena herida, sin zambullirse en absoluto, continuó su huida horizontal, con mayor velocidad. Tan ininterrumpida tensión en el arpón clavado debía, antes o después, arrancarlo inevitablemente. Se hizo imperativo alancear a la ballena fugitiva, o contentarse con perderla. Pero halar el bote hasta su flanco era imposible, de tan rápida y furiosa como nadaba. ¿Qué quedaba entonces ?

De todos los admirables recursos y destrezas, juegos de mano e incontables sutilezas a que se ve obligado a menudo el ballenero veterano, nada supera a la hermosa maniobra con la lanza llamada « el marcado ». Ni el florete ni el sable, con todos sus ejercicios, pueden presumir de nada así. Sólo es indispensable con una ballena que no se canse de correr; su principal característica y hecho es la notable distancia a que se dispara con exactitud la larga lanza desde una lancha que se mece y agita violentamente, bajo una fuerte arrancada. Incluyendo hierro y madera, toda la jabalina tiene unos diez o doce pies de longitud: la vara es mucho más ligera que la del arpón, y también de un material más ligero: pino. Está provista de un delgado do cabo, llamado pernada, de considerable longitud, el cual puede recuperarse una vez lanzado.

Pero antes de seguir adelante, es importante señalar aquí que, aunque el arpón puede ser lanzado a gran distancia, igual que la lanza, esto se hace rara vez; y cuando se hace, tiene éxito con menos frecuencia, a causa de su gran peso e inferior longitud, en comparación con la lanza, que se convierten en serios inconvenientes. En general, por tanto, hay que aferrar primero una ballena con el arpón antes que entre en « juego el marcado ».

Mirad ahora a Stubb, un hombre que, por su frialdad y ecuanimidad, bienhumoradas y deliberadas, en las peores emergencias, estaba especialmente cualificado para sobresalir en el marcado. Miradle; está erguido en la agitada proa de la lancha voladora, envuelto en espuma vellonosa, mientras la ballena que les remolca va a cuarenta pies por delante. Tomando ligeramente la larga lanza, echando dos o tres ojeadas a lo largo, para ver si es exactamente recta, Stubb, mientras silba, recoge en una mano el rollo de cabo, para asegurar el extremo libre, dejando lo demás sin obstáculos. Luego, levanta la lanza todo por delante de la cintura y apunta a la ballena; entonces, sin dejar de apuntarla, aprieta firmemente el extremo del mango en la mano, elevando así la punta hasta que el arma queda en equilibrio sobre la palma, a quince pies en el aire. Hace pensar algo en un titiritero que lleva una larga vara en equilibrio en la barbilla. Un momento después, con un impulso rápido y sin nombre, en soberbio arco elevado, el acero brillante cruza la distancia espumosa y vibra en el punto vital de la ballena. En vez de agua centelleante, ahora chorrea sangre roja.

-¡Eso le ha hecho saltar el tapón ! -grita Stubb-. ¡Es el inmortal Cuatro de Julio; todas las fuentes deben manar hoy vino ! ¡Me gustaría que fuera whisky añejo de Nueva Orleáns, o del viejo Ohio, o del inefable viejo Monongahela ! ¡Entonces, Tashtego, muchacho, haría que acercaras 'el vaso al chorro, y beberíamos una ronda ! Sí, de veras, mis valientes; haríamos un ponche selecto en la abertura del agujero del chorro, y de esa ponchera viva engulliríamos la bebida viva.

Una vez y otra, con tales palabras de broma, se repite el diestro disparo, y la jabalina vuelve a su amo como un lebrel sujeto en hábil correa. La ballena agonizante se entrega a su furor; se afloja el cabo de remolque, y el lanzador, pasando a popa, cruza las manos y observa en silencio cómo muere el monstruo. 

La fuente

Que durante seis mil años -y nadie sabe cuántos millones de siglos antes- las grandes ballenas hayan ido lanzando sus chorros por todo el mar, y salpicando y nebulizando los jardines de las profundidades como regaderas y vaporizadores; y que durante varios siglos pasados miles de cazadores se hayan acercado a la fuente de la ballena, observando esos chorreos y salpicaduras; que todo eso haya ocurrido así, y, sin embargo, hasta este mismo bendito minuto (quince minutos y cuarto después de la una de la tarde del 16 de diciembre del año del Señor 1851), siga siendo un problema si esos chorreos son, después de todo, agua de veras, o nada más que vapor; esto, sin duda, es cosa notable.

Miremos, pues, este asunto, junto con algunos interesantes anejos correspondientes. Todos saben que, con el peculiar artificio de las branquias, las tribus escamosas en general respiran el aire que en todo momento está combinado con el elemento en que nadan; por tanto, un arenque o un bacalao podrían vivir un siglo, sin sacar una sola vez la cabeza fuera de la superficie. Pero, debido a su diversa estructura interna, que le da unos pulmones normales, como los de un ser humano, la ballena sólo puede vivir inhalando el aire desprendido que hay en la atmósfera abierta. De ahí la necesidad de sus visitas periódicas al mundo de arriba. Pero no puede en absoluto respirar por la boca, pues, en su posición ordinaria, en el caso del cachalote, la boca está sepultada al menos a ocho pies por debajo de la superficie; y lo que es más, su tráquea no tiene conexión con la boca. No, respira sólo por su orificio, que está en lo alto de la cabeza.

Si digo que en cualquier criatura el respirar es sólo una función indispensable para la vitalidad en cuanto que retira del aire cierto elemento que, al ser puesto luego en contacto con la sangre, da a la sangre su principio vivificador, me parece que no me equivoco, aunque quizá use algunas palabras científicas superfluas. Supuesto así, se deduce que si toda la sangre de un hombre pudiera airearse con una sola inspiración, podría entonces taparse las narices y no volver a inhalar en un tiempo considerable. Es decir, viviría entonces sin respirar. Por anómalo que parezca, éste es el caso exactamente de la ballena, que vive sistemáticamente con intervalos de una hora entera y más (cuando está sumergida) sin inhalar un solo respiro, ni absorber de ningún modo una partícula de aire, pues recordemos que no tiene branquias. ¿Cómo es eso ? Entre las costillas y a cada lado del espinazo, está provista de un laberinto cretense, notablemente enredado, de conductos como macarrones, los cuales, cuando abandona la superficie, están completamente hinchados de sangre oxigenada. Así que, durante una hora o más, a mil brazas, en el mar, transportas una reserva sobrada de vitalidad, igual que el camello que cruza el seco desierto lleva una reserva sobrada de bebida para su uso futuro, en cuatro estómagos suplementarios. Es indiscutible el hecho anatómico de ese laberinto; y que la suposición fundada en él sea razonable y verdadera me parece más probable si se considera la obstinación, de otro modo inexplicable, de ese leviatán por echar fuera los chorros, como dicen los pescadores. Esto es lo que quiero decir: el cachalote, si no se le molesta al subir a la superficie, continúa allí por un período de tiempo exactamente igual al de sus demás subidas sin molestias. Digamos que permanece once minutos, y echa el chorro setenta veces, esto es, hace setenta inspiraciones; entonces, cuando vuelve a subir, es seguro que volverá a inspirar sus setenta veces, hasta el final. Pues bien, si después que da unos cuantos respiros le asustáis de modo que se zambulla, volverá a empeñarse siempre en subir para completar su dosis normal de aire. Y mientras no se cuenten esos setenta respiros, no descenderá finalmente para pasar abajo todo su período. Observad, sin embargo, que en diversos individuos esas proporciones son diversas; pero en cada uno son semejantes. Ahora ¿para qué iba la ballena a empeñarse tanto en echar fuera los chorros, si no es para volver a llenar su reserva de aire antes de bajar definitivamente ? ¡Qué evidente es, también, que esa necesidad de subir expone a la ballena a todos los fatales azares de la persecución ! Pues ni con anzuelo ni con red podría atraparse a este enorme leviatán, navegando a mil brazas bajo la luz del sol. ¡No es tanto, pues, oh cazador, tu habilidad, sino las grandes necesidades lo que te otorga la victoria !

En el hombre, la respiración se mantiene incesantemente, y cada respiro sirve sólo para dos o tres pulsaciones, de modo que, aun con cualquier otro asunto de que tenga que ocuparse, dormido o despierto, debe respirar, o se muere. Pero el cachalote sólo respira cerca de la séptima parte, el domingo de su tiempo.

Ya se ha dicho que la ballena sólo respira por su orificio del chorro; si se pudiera añadir con verdad que sus chorros están mezclados con agua, entonces opino que tendríamos la razón por la cual su sentido del olfato parece borrado, pues la única cosa que en ella responda a la nariz es ese mismo agujero del chorro, que, estando tan atrancado con dos elementos, no se podría esperar que tuviera la capacidad de oler. Pero debido al misterio del chorro -si es agua o si es vapor-, no se puede llegar a ninguna certidumbre absoluta en este apartado. Es seguro, sin embargo, que el cachalote no tiene olfatividad propiamente dicha. Pero ¿para qué le hace falta ? En el mar no hay rosas, no hay violetas, no hay agua de colonia.

Además, como su tráquea se abre sólo al tubo de su canal del chorro, y como este largo canal -igual que el gran Canal del Eire- está provisto de una especie de llaves (que se abren y se cierran) para retener abajo el aire o impedir el paso por arriba al agua, en consecuencia, la ballena no tiene voz, a no ser que la ofendáis diciendo que cuando hace sus rumores extraños está hablando por la nariz. Pero también ¿qué tiene que decir la ballena ? Rara vez he conocido ningún ser profundo que tuviera algo que decir a este mundo, a no ser que se viera obligado a tartamudear algo como manera de ganarse la vida. ¡Ah, suerte que el mundo es tan excelente oyente !

Ahora bien, el canal del chorro del cachalote, estando destinado principalmente a la transmisión del aire, y situado horizontalmente a lo largo de varios pies debajo mismo de la superficie superior de la cabeza, y un poco a un lado; ese curioso canal se parece mucho a una tubería de gas de una ciudad, puesta a un lado de la calle. Pero vuelve a plantearse la cuestión de si esa tubería de gas es también una tubería de agua; dicho de otro modo, si el chorro del cachalote es el mero vapor del aliento exhalado, o si ese aliento exhalado se mezcla con agua tomada por la boca y descargada por ese orificio. Es cierto que la boca comunica indirectamente con el canal del chorro; pero no se puede demostrar que sea con el propósito de descargar agua por ese orificio. Porque la mayor necesidad de hacerlo así sería cuando al alimentarse le entrara agua accidentalmente. Pero el alimento del cachalote está muy por debajo de la superficie, y allí no puede echar chorros aunque quiera. Además, si se le observa de cerca, contando el tiempo con el reloj, se encontrará que, mientras no le molesten, hay un ritmo fijo entre los períodos de sus chorros y los períodos ordinarios de su respiración.

Pero ¿para qué fastidiarle a uno con todos estos razonamientos sobre el tema ? ¡Desembuche usted ! La ha visto echar el chorro; entonces diga lo que es el chorro; ¿no es usted capaz de distinguir el agua del aire ? Mi distinguido señor, en este mundo no es tan fácil poner en claro estas cosas evidentes. Siempre he encontrado que estas cosas evidentes son las más enredadas de todas. Y en cuanto a este chorro de ballena, podríais casi poneros de pie sobre él y sin embargo seguir sin decidiros sobre lo que es exactamente.

Su parte central está oculta en la niebla nívea y resplandeciente que la envuelve, y ¿cómo podéis decir con seguridad si cae de ella alguna agua, cuando, siempre que estáis lo bastante cerca de una ballena como para observar de cerca el chorro, la ballena está en tremenda conmoción y a su alrededor caen cascadas de agua ? Y si en esos momentos creéis percibir realmente gotas de lluvia en el chorro, ¿cómo sabéis que no son simples condensaciones de su vapor, o cómo sabéis que no son las gotas que se alojan superficialmente en la rendija del agujero, que está remetido en la cabeza de la ballena ? Pues aun cuando nada tranquilamente por el mar en calma, en pleno día, con su elevada joroba secada por el sol como la de un dromedario en el desierto, aun entonces, la ballena lleva siempre un pequeño estanque de agua en la cabeza, igual que, bajo un sol abrasador, a veces veis una cavidad de la roca que se ha llenado de lluvia.

Y no es muy prudente para el cazador ser demasiado curioso en cuanto a la naturaleza exacta del chorro de la ballena. No está bien que se ponga a escudriñarlo, ni que meta la cara dentro. No se puede ir con el cántaro a esta fuente, y llenarlo y marcharse. Pues aun al entrar en ligero contacto con la zona exterior y vaporosa del chorro, como ocurre a menudo, la piel arde febrilmente por la acidez de la sustancia que la toca. Y sé de uno al que, al ponerse en contacto más cercano con el chorro, no puedo decir si con algún objetivo científico o no, se le peló la piel de las mejillas y el brazo. Por tanto, entre los balleneros, el chorro se considera venenoso; ellos tratan de eludirlo. Otra cosa; he oído decir, y no lo dudo mucho, que si el chorro da de frente en los ojos, uno se queda ciego. Entonces, lo más prudente que puede hacer el investigador es dejar en paz ese mortal chorro.

Sin embargo, podemos hacer hipótesis, aunque no las podamos demostrar y afianzar. Mi hipótesis es ésta: que el chorro no es más que niebla. Entre otras razones, me veo llevado a esta conclusión por consideraciones referentes a la gran dignidad y sublimidad del cachalote; no le considero ningún ser corriente y superficial, en cuanto que es un hecho indiscutido que jamás se le encuentra en fondos bajos ni cerca de las orillas, mientras que las demás ballenas se encuentran ahí a veces. Y estoy convencido que de las cabezas de todos los seres graves y profundos, tales como Platón, Pirrón, el Demonio, Júpiter, Dante, etc., siempre sube un cierto vapor semivisible, mientras piensan profundos pensamientos. Yo, mientras componía un pequeño tratado sobre la eternidad, tuve la curiosidad de poner un espejo delante de mí, y no tardé en ver reflejada una ondulación curiosamente enroscada y enredada en la atmósfera sobre mi cabeza. La inevitable humedad de mi cabeza, cuando me sumerjo en profundos pensamientos, después de tomar seis tazas de té caliente en mi buhardilla de sutil tejado en una tarde de agosto parece un argumento adicional a favor de la mencionada suposición.

¡Y qué noblemente eleva nuestra idea del poderoso monstruo nebuloso observarle navegando solemnemente por un tranquilo mar tropical, con su enorme cabeza benévola por sus incomunicables contemplaciones, y con ese vapor -según se le ve algunas veces- glorificado por un arco iris, como si el mismo cielo hubiera puesto su sello sobre sus pensamientos ! Pues, ya veis, los arcos iris no se presentan en cielo claro; sólo irradian vapores. Y así, a través de todas las densas nieblas de las penumbrosas dudas de mi mente, de vez en cuando surgen divinas intuiciones, encendiendo mi niebla con un rayo celeste. Y doy gracias a Dios por ello, pues todos tienen dudas; muchos lo niegan; pero, con dudas o negaciones, pocos tienen también intuiciones con ellas. Dudas de todas las cosas terrenales e intuiciones de algunas cosas celestiales: esta combinación no produce ni un creyente ni un incrédulo, sino que produce un hombre que las considera a ambas con iguales ojos. 

La cola

Otros poetas han gorjeado las alabanzas de los suaves ojos del antílope, y del delicioso plumaje del pájaro que nunca se posa: yo, menos celestial, celebro una cola.

Calculando que la cola del mayor cachalote empiece en ese punto del tronco donde se reduce hasta cerca de la circunferencia de un hombre, sólo en la superficie de encima comprende un área por lo menos de cincuenta pies cuadrados. El compacto cuerpo redondo de su raíz se expansiona en dos anchas palmas o aletas, anchas, firmes y planas, que se adelgazan poco a poco hasta tener menos de una pulgada de espesor. En la horquilla o juntura, esas aletas se superponen ligeramente, luego se apartan lateralmente una de otra como alas, dejando entre ambas un ancho vacío. No hay cosa viviente en que se definan más exquisitamente las líneas de la belleza que en los bordes en media luna de esas aletas. En su máxima expansión, en un cetáceo adulto, la cola excede mucho los veinte pies de anchura.

Ese miembro entero parece un denso cauce tejido de tendones soldados; pero si dais un corte en él, encontraréis que se compone de tres estratos diferentes: superior, medio e inferior. Las fibras de las capas superior e inferior son largas y horizontales; las de la capa media son muy cortas y corren transversalmente entre las capas exteriores. Esta estructura una y trina es, más que nada, lo que confiere potencia a la cola. Para el estudioso de los antiguos muros romanos, la capa central ofrece un paralelo curioso con la delgada fila de losetas que siempre alternan con la piedra en esos notables restos de la antigüedad y que sin duda contribuyen tanto a la gran robustez de la construcción.

Pero como si no fuera bastante esa enorme potencia local en la cola, la entera mole del leviatán está tejida con una urdimbre y una trama de fibras musculares y filamentos, que, pasando a ambos lados del lomo y corriendo abajo hasta la cola, se mezclan insensiblemente con la cola, y contribuyen en buena medida a su poderío, de modo que la ilimitada fuerza confluyente del cetáceo entero parece concentrarse en un solo punto en la cola. Si pudiese haber aniquilación para la materia, éste sería el medio de producirla.

Por eso, su sorprendente fuerza, no contribuye en absoluto a dañar la graciosa flexibilidad de sus movimientos, en que una gracia infantil ondula a través de una fuerza titánica. Al contrario, esos movimientos son los que le dan su más horrenda belleza. La auténtica fuerza jamás daña a la belleza ni a la armonía, sino que a menudo la produce; y en todo lo que tiene una hermosura imponente, la fuerza tiene mucho que ver con su magia. Quitad los tendones ligados que parecen saltar por todas partes del mármol en el Hércules esculpido, y desaparecerá su encanto. Cuando el devoto Eckermann levantó el sudario de lino del cadáver desnudo de Goethe, quedó abrumado por el macizo pecho de aquel hombre, que parecía un arco romano de triunfo. Cuando Miguel Angel pinta a Dios Padre en forma humana, observad qué robustez hay ahí. Y por más que puedan revelar algo del amor divino en el Hijo las imágenes italianas, blandas, rizadas y hermafrodíticas, en que su idea se haya incorporado con más éxito, esas imágenes, privadas como están de toda robustez, no sugieren nada de ninguna fuerza, sino la mera fuerza, negativa y femenina, de la sumisión y la paciencia que quepa hallar por todas partes entre las virtudes prácticas peculiares de su enseñanza.

Tal es la sutil elasticidad del órgano de que trato que, bien sea que se mueva en juego, o en serio, o con ira, cualquiera que sea su humor, sus flexiones están siempre caracterizadas por su mucha gracia En eso ningún brazo de hada le aventaja.

Cinco grandes movimientos le son propios: primero, al usarse como aleta para el avance; segundo, al usarse como maza en el combate; tercero, al barrer; cuarto, al azotar; quinto, al levantarse.

Primero: al tener posición horizontal, la cola del leviatán actúa de modo diferente que las colas de todos los demás animales matutinos. No se retuerce nunca. En el hombre o el pez, retorcerse es signo de inferioridad. Para la ballena, la cola es el único medio de propulsión. Encogiéndose hacia delante como un rollo bajo el cuerpo, y luego disparándose rápidamente hacia atrás, es lo que da al monstruo ese singular movimiento de disparo y brinco, al nadar furiosamente. Sus aletas laterales sólo le sirven para gobernarse.

Segundo: tiene cierta importancia que el cachalote, mientras que contra otro cachalote sólo lucha con la cabeza y la mandíbula, en cambio, en sus choques con el hombre usa, de modo principal y despectivo, la cola. Al golpear a una lancha, retira vivamente de ella su cola en una curva, y el golpe sólo es infligido al extenderse. Si se ''hace en el aire y sin obstáculos, y sobre todo, cuando cae sobre el blanco, el golpe es entonces sencillamente irresistible. No hay costillas de hombre ni de lancha que puedan aguantarlo. La única salvación reside en eludirlo; pero si llega de lado a través del agua, entonces, en parte por la ligera flotabilidad de la lancha ballenera y por la elasticidad de sus materiales, lo más serio que suele ocurrir es una cuaderna rota, y una tabla partida, o dos, o alguna herida en el costado. Esos golpes sumergidos se reciben tan a menudo en la pesca de ballenas, que se consideran como mero juego de niños. Alguien se quita una blusa, y el agujero queda tapado.

Tercero: no puedo demostrarlo, pero me parece que en el cetáceo el sentido del tacto está concentrado en la cola, pues, en ese aspecto, hay allí una delicadeza sólo igualada por la exquisitez de la trompa del elefante. Esa delicadeza se evidencia principalmente en la acción de barrer, cuando, con virginal amabilidad, la ballena, con, blanda lentitud, mueve su inmensa cola de lado a lado por la superficie del mar, y si nota solamente la patilla de un marinero ¡ay de aquel marinero, con patillas y todo ! ¡Qué ternura hay en ese toque preliminar ! Si su cola tuviera alguna capacidad prensil, me recordaría completamente al elefante de Darmonodes que frecuentaba el mercado de flores, y con profundas reverencias ofrecía ramilletes a las damiselas, acariciándoles luego la cintura. En más de un aspecto, es una lástima que la ballena no tenga en la cola esa capacidad prensil, pues he oído hablar de otro elefante que, al ser herido en el combate, echó atrás la trompa y se sacó el dardo.

Cuarto: al acercarse inadvertidos a la ballena, en la imaginada seguridad en medio de los mares solitarios, la encontraréis descargada del vasto peso de su dignidad, y, como un gatito, jugando por el océano como si fuera el rincón de la chimenea. Pero seguís viendo su fuerza en ese juego. Las anchas palmas de su cola se agitan, altas, en el aire, y luego, golpeando la superficie, resuena en millas y millas el poderoso estampido. Casi creeríais que se ha descargado un gran cañón, y si observarais la leve guirnalda de vapor que surge de su agujero en el otro extremo, pensaríais que era el humo del oído.

Quinto: como en la habitual postura de flotación del leviatán la cola queda considerablemente por debajo del nivel del lomo, se pierde por completo de vista bajo la superficie, pero cuando se va a zambullir en las profundidades, la cola entera, así como por lo menos treinta pies de su cuerpo, se levantan irguiéndose en el aire, y quedan así vibrando un momento, hasta que se hunden rápidamente, perdiéndose de vista. Salvo el sublime salto -que se describirá en otro lugar-, esta elevación de la cola de la ballena es quizá el espectáculo más grandioso que se puede ver en toda la naturaleza animada. Desde las profundidades insondables, la gigantesca cola parece querer agarrarse espasmódicamente al más alto cielo. Así, en sueños, he visto al majestuoso Satán alzando su atormentada garra colosal desde el llameante Báltico del Infierno. Pero al observar tales escenas, todo es cuestión del humor que tengáis: si es el dantesco, pensaréis en los demonios; si es el de Isaías, en los arcángeles. Estando en el mastelero de mi barco durante un amanecer que ponía carmesíes al cielo y el mar, vi una vez a oriente una gran manada de ballenas, que se dirigían todas hacia el sol, y vibraban por un momento en concierto con las colas erguidas. Según me pareció entonces, jamás se ha visto tan grandiosa forma de adoración a los dioses, ni aun en Persia, patria de los adoradores del fuego. Como lo atestiguó Ptolomeo Philopater sobre el elefante africano, yo lo atestigüé entonces sobre la ballena, declarándola el más devoto de los seres. Pues, según el rey Juba, los elefantes militares de la antigüedad a menudo saludaban a la mañana con las trompas levantadas en el más profundo silencio.

La ocasional comparación, en este capítulo, entre la ballena y el elefante, en la medida en que se trata de la cola de la una y de la trompa del otro, no debería tender a poner esos dos órganos opuestos en plano de igualdad, y mucho menos a los animales a que respectivamente pertenecen. Pues así como el más poderoso elefante es sólo un perrillo terrier al lado del leviatán, igualmente comparada con la cola del leviatán, su trompa es sólo el tallo de un lirio. El más horrible golpe de la trompa del elefante sería como el golpecito juguetón de un abanico, comparado con el inconmensurable aplastamiento y la opresión de la pesada cola del cachalote, que en frecuentes casos ha lanzado al aire, una tras otra, enteras lanchas con todos sus remos y tripulaciones, igual que un prestidigitador indio lanza sus bolas.

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Cuanto más considero esta poderosa cola, más deploro mi incapacidad para expresarla. A veces hay en ella gestos que, aunque agraciarían muy bien la mano del hombre, siguen siendo por completo inexplicables. A veces, en una manada entera, son tan notables esos gestos misteriosos que he oído que algunos cazadores los declaraban afines a los signos y símbolos de la francmasonería; incluso, que la ballena, por ese método, conversaba inteligentemente con el mundo. Y no faltan otros movimientos de la ballena en el conjunto de su cuerpo, llenos de extrañeza, e inexplicables para su más experto asaltante. Por mucho que la diseccione, pues, no paso de la profundidad de la piel; no la conozco, y jamás la conoceré. Pero si no conozco siquiera la cola de esta ballena, ¿cómo comprender su cabeza ? Y mucho más: ¿cómo comprender su cara, si no tiene cara ? Verás mis partes traseras, mi cola, parece decir, pero mi cara no se verá. Pero no puedo distinguir bien sus partes traseras, y por mucho que ella sugiera sobre su cara, vuelvo a decir que no tiene cara. 

La gran armada

La larga y estrecha península de Malaca, extendiéndose al sudeste de los territorios de Birmania, forma el extremo más meridional de toda Asia. En línea continua, desde esta península, se extienden las largas islas de Sumatra, Java, Bali y Timor, las cuales, con otras muchas, forman una vasta mole o bastión que conecta a lo largo de Asia con Australia, y separa el océano índico, ininterrumpido en tanta extensión, de los archipiélagos orientales, densamente tachonados. Ese bastión está traspasado por varias surtidas, para uso de barcos y ballenas, entre las cuales destacan los estrechos de la Sonda y de Malaca. Principalmente, el estrecho de la Sonda es por donde los barcos que se dirigen a China desde el oeste emergen hacia los mares de la China.

El angosto estrecho de la Sonda separa a Sumatra de Java, y, situado a medio camino en este vasto bastión de islas, con el contrafuerte del atrevido promontorio verde que los navegantes llaman cabo de Java, se parece no poco a la puerta central abierta a un imperio con grandes murallas. Y si se considera la inagotable riqueza de especias, de sedas, joyas, oro y marfil con que se enriquecen esas mil islas del mar oriental, parce una previsión significativa de la naturaleza que tales tesoros, por la misma disposición de la tierra, tengan al menos el aspecto, aunque sin eficacia, de estar guardados del rapaz mundo occidental. Las orillas del estrecho de la Sonda carecen de esas fortalezas dominadoras que guardan las entradas del Mediterráneo, del Báltico y de la Propóntide. A diferencia de los daneses, esos orientales no exigen el obsequioso homenaje de que arríen las gavias la interminable procesión de barcos que, viento en popa, a lo largo de siglos, de noche o de día, pasan entre las islas de Sumatra y Java, cargados con los más costosos cargamentos del oriente. Pero aunque renuncian libremente a semejante ceremonial, no renuncian en absoluto a su exigencia de un tributo más sólido.

Desde tiempos inmemorables, las proas piratescas de los malayos, acechando entre las bajas sombras de las calas e islotes de Sumatra, han zarpado contra las embarcaciones que navegaban por el estrecho, y han exigido tributo a punta de espada. Aunque los repetidos castigos sangrientos que han recibido de manos de navegantes europeos recientemente han reprimido algo la audacia de estos corsarios, sin embargo, aun en los días presentes, oímos hablar de vez en cuando de barcos ingleses y americanos que en esas aguas han sido abordados y saqueados sin remordimientos.

Con un buen viento fresco, el Pequod se acercaba ahora a ese estrecho: Ahab tenía el propósito de pasar por él al mar de Java, y desde allí, en travesía hacia el norte, por aguas que se sabe que de vez en cuando frecuentan los cachalotes, pasar a lo largo de las islas Filipinas y ganar la lejana costa del Japón, a tiempo de la gran temporada de ballenería que allí habría. Por esos medios, el Pequod, en su circunnavegación, recorrería casi todas las zonas de pesquería ballenera conocidas en el mundo, antes de acercarse al ecuador en el Pacífico, donde Ahab, aunque se le escapara a su persecución en todos los demás sitios, contaba firmemente con dar batalla a Moby Dick en el mar que se sabía que frecuentaba más, y en una época en que podía suponerse del modo más razonable que andaría por allí.

Pero ¿ahora qué ? En esta búsqueda en círculo, ¿Ahab no toca tierra ? ¿Su tripulación bebe aire ? Seguramente se detendrá por agua. No. Hace mucho tiempo ya que el sol, corriendo en su circo, va en carrera por su feroz anillo, y no necesita más sustento sino lo que hay en sí mismo. Así hace Ahab. Observad esto, también, en el ballenero. Mientras otros cascos van sobrecargados de materia ajena, para ser trasladada a muelles extranjeros, el barco ballenero, errando por el mundo, no lleva más carga que él mismo y la tripulación, sus armas y sus cosas necesarias. Tiene todo el contenido de un lago embotellado en su amplia sentina. Va lastrado de cosas útiles, y no, en absoluto, de inutilizable plomo en lingotes y enjunque. Lleva en sí años de agua; vieja y clara agua selecta de Nantucket, que, al cabo de tres años a flote, el hombre de Nantucket, en el Pacífico, prefiere 'r beber, mejor que el salobre fluido, sacado el día antes en barriles, de los ríos peruanos o chilenos. De aquí que, mientras otros barcos quizá hayan ido de China a Nueva York, y vuelta, tocando en una veintena de puertos, el barco ballenero, en ese intervalo, tal vez no ha avistado un solo grano de tierra, y su tripulación no ha visto más hombres que otros navegantes a flote como ellos mismos. Así que si les dierais la noticia de que había llegado otro diluvio, ellos sólo contestarían: ¡Bueno, muchachos, aquí está el arca !

Ahora, como se habían capturado muchos cachalotes a lo largo de la costa occidental de Java, en cercana vecindad al estrecho de la Sonda; y, más aún, como la mayor parte de la zona de alrededor estaba generalmente reconocida por los pescadores como excelente lugar para crucero, en consecuencia, al avanzar el Pequod cada vez más hacia el cabo de Java, se gritaba repetidamente a los vigías, amonestándoles a mantenerse bien alerta. Pero aunque pronto aparecieron a estribor de la proa las escolleras de la tierra, con verdes palmeras, y se olió, con complacida nariz, la fresca canela en el aire, no se señaló, sin embargo, ni un solo chorro. Renunciando casi a toda idea de encontrar caza por allí, el barco estaba a punto de meterse por el estrecho, cuando se oyó desde arriba el acostumbrado grito reconfortante, y no tardó en saludarnos un espectáculo de singular magnificencia.

Pero aquí hay que advertir antes que, debido a la infatigable actividad con que últimamente han sido perseguidos por los cuatro océanos, los cachalotes, en vez de navegar sin falta en pequeños grupos separados, como en tiempos anteriores, se encuentran ahora frecuentemente en manadas extensas, que a veces abarcan tan gran multitud, que casi parecería que una numerosa nación de ellos hubiera jurado solemne alianza y pacto de mutua asistencia y protección. A esa congregación del cachalote en tan inmensas caravanas podría imputarse la circunstancia de que, en las mejores zonas de crucero, se puede, a veces, navegar durante semanas y meses seguidos sin ser saludado por un solo chorro, y luego, de repente, ser saludado por lo que a veces parece millares y millares.

Desplegándose a ambos lados de la proa, a la distancia de unas dos o tres millas, y formando un gran semicírculo que abrazaba la mitad del liso horizonte, una cadena continua de chorros de cachalote se elevaba y centelleaba en el aire de mediodía. A diferencia de los chorros gemelos, derechos y verticales, de la ballena franca, que, separándose en lo alto, caen en dos ramas, como la abertura de las ramas caídas de un sauce, el chorro único del cachalote, lanzado hacia delante, presenta un denso matorral rizado de niebla blanca, que se eleva continuamente y cae a sotavento.

Vistos, pues, desde la cubierta del Pequod, al levantarse éste en una alta colina del mar, esa hueste de chorros vaporosos, elevándose y rizándose por separado en el aire, y observados a través de una atmósfera fundida de neblina azulada, parecían las mil alegres chimeneas de alguna densa metrópoli, observada en una aromada mañana otoñal por un jinete desde una altura.

Como unos ejércitos en marcha, al acercarse a un hostil desfiladero en la montaña, aceleran la marcha, ansiosos todos de dejar atrás ese peligroso paso, y después vuelven a extenderse por la llanura con relativa seguridad, así, igualmente, esa vasta flota de cetáceos parecía ahora apresurarse a pasar al estrecho, reduciendo poco a poco las alas de su semicírculo, y nadando en un bloque macizo, aunque aún en forma de media luna.

Desplegadas todas las velas, el Pequod se apresuró a perseguirles: los arponeros blandían sus armas, y daban alegres gritos desde las proas de las lanchas aún suspendidas. Sólo con que se mantuviera el viento, tenían escasas dudas de que la enorme hueste, perseguida a través de ese estrecho de la Sonda, no haría más que desplegarse en los mares orientales para presenciar la captura de no pocos de su número. Y ¿quién podría decir si, en esa caravana reunida, no estaría nadando temporalmente el propio Moby Dick, como el adorado elefante blanco en la procesión de coronación de los siameses ? Así, desplegando ala sobre ala, seguimos navegando, con esos leviatanes empujados por delante de nosotros, cuando, de repente, se oyó la voz de Tashtego, que llamaba ruidosamente la atención a algo en nuestra estela.

En correspondencia a la media luna a proa, observamos otra a popa. Parecía formada de vapores blancos separados, elevándose y cayendo, algo así como los chorros de los cetáceos, pero no llegaban a subir y bajar por completo, pues se cernían constantemente sin desaparecer por fin. Apuntando su catalejo a ese espectáculo, Ahab giró rápidamente en su agujero de pivote, gritando: -¡Eh, arriba, a guarnir amantes, y cubos para mojar las velas ! ¡Son malayos, que nos persiguen !

Como si hubieran acechado mucho tiempo detrás de los promontorios, hasta que el Pequod hubiese entrado del todo por el estrecho, esos bribones de asiáticos ahora venían en ardiente persecución, para compensar su tardanza cautelosa. Pero cuando el rápido Pequod, con fresco viento en popa, estaba a su vez en plena persecución ¡qué amable por la parte de esos atezados filántropos ayudarle a tomar velocidad en su propia persecución elegida, como simples fustas y espuelas que eran para él ! Una idea semejante a ésa parecía tener Ahab con el catalejo bajo el brazo, mientras recorría la cubierta; en la ida a proa, observando a los monstruos a los que pretendía dar caza, y en la vuelta a los piratas, ávidos de sangre, que le perseguían a él. Y al mirar las verdes paredes del desfiladero acuático en que navegaba entonces el barco, y al pensar que a través de esa puerta se abría la ruta hacia su venganza, y al ver cómo por esa misma puerta iba ahora persiguiendo y perseguido hacia su fin mortal, y no sólo eso, sino al ver cómo una manada de piratas salvajes y sin remordimientos y de diablos ateos e inhumanos le iban aclamando en su marcha con maldiciones; al pasar por su cerebro todas esas ideas, la frente de Ahab quedó mustia y arrugada, como la playa de arena negra después que una marea tempestuosa la ha roído sin poder arrancar lo sólido de su sitio.

Pero pensamientos como éstos turbaban a muy pocos de la temeraria tripulación, y cuando, tras dejar cada vez más atrás a los piratas, el Pequod pasó al fin junto a la Punta de la Cacatúa, de vívido verde, en el lado de Sumatra, y salió al fin a las anchas aguas de más allá, entonces, los arponeros parecieron más afligidos porque las rápidas ballenas hubieran aventajado tan victoriosamente a los malayos. Sin embargo, al continuar en la estela de los cetáceos, por éstos parecieron disminuir su velocidad: poco a poco el barco se les acercó, y, como el viento caía ahora, se dio orden de arriar las lanchas. Pero en cuanto la manada, por algún supuesto instinto admirable del cachalote, se dio cuenta de las tres quillas que les perseguían -aunque todavía a una milla por detrás-, todos volvieron a reunirse, y formaron en estrechas filas y batallones, de modo que sus chorros parecían completamente líneas centelleantes de bayonetas caladas, al avanzar con redoblada velocidad.

Quedándonos en camisa y calzoncillos, saltamos a tomar el fresno, y al cabo de varias horas de remo, casi estábamos dispuestos a renunciar a la persecución, cuando una general conmoción de parada entre los cetáceos dio señales estimulantes de que ahora estaban por fin bajo el influjo de esa extraña perplejidad de irresolución inerte, que, cuando los pescadores lo perciben en la ballena, dicen que está aterrada, gallied. Las compactas columnas marciales en que hasta entonces habían nadado los cachalotes con rapidez y firmeza, ahora se rompían en una desbandada sin medida, y, como los elefantes del rey Poro en la batalla con Alejandro en la India, parecían enloquecer de consternación. Extendiéndose por todas direcciones en vastos círculos irregulares, y nadando sin objetivo de acá para allá, mostraban claramente su agitación de pánico. Eso lo evidenciaban aún más extrañamente aquéllos, que como completamente paralizados, flotaban inermes como barcos desarbolados y anegados. Si esos leviatanes no hubieran sido más que un rebaño de sencillas ovejas, perseguidas en el prado por tres lobos feroces, no podrían haber mostrado posiblemente tan enorme consternación. Pero esta timidez ocasional es característica de casi todos los animales gregarios. Aunque reunidos en decenas de millares, los bisontes del oeste, con sus melenas de león, han huido ante un jinete solitario. Testigos, también, todos los seres humanos, cuando, reunidos en rebaño en el redil de la platea de un teatro, a la menor alarma de fuego se precipitan en tumulto a las salidas, agolpándose, pisoteándose, aplastándose y dándose golpes sin piedad uno a otro hasta la muerte. Mejor, pues, contener todo asombro ante los cetáceos extrañamente aterrados que tengamos delante, pues no hay locura de los animales de este mundo que no quede infinitamente superada por la locura de los hombres.

Aunque muchos de los cachalotes, como se ha dicho, estaban en violenta agitación, ha de observarse sin embargo que, en conjunto, la manada ni avanzaba ni retrocedía, sino que permanecía toda ella en el mismo sitio. Como es costumbre en tales casos, las lanchas se separaron en seguida, cada cual persiguiendo a un solo cetáceo en los bordes del rebaño. Al cabo de unos tres minutos, Queequeg disparó el arpón; el pez herido nos lanzó cegadora espuma a la cara, y luego, escapándose de nosotros como la luz, se fue derecho al centro de la manada. Aunque tal movimiento, por parte del cachalote, sorprendía en tales circunstancias, no dejaba de ningún modo de tener precedentes; incluso, casi siempre se cuenta más o menos con él, pero constituye una de las vicisitudes más peligrosas de la pesca. Pues cuando el rápido monstruo os arrastra cada vez más profundamente dentro de la frenética manada, decís adiós a la vida circunspecta y sólo existís en un latir delirante.

Mientras, ciego y sordo, el cachalote se lanzaba adelante, como para librarse, a pura fuerza de velocidad, de la sanguijuela de hierro que se le había pegado; mientras desgarrábamos así una blanca abertura en el mar, amenazados por todas partes en nuestro vuelo por los enloquecidos animales que se precipitaban de un lado a otro alrededor de nosotros, nuestra sitiada lancha era como un barco asaltado por islas de hielo en una tempestad, que trata de abrirse paso por sus complicados canales y estrechos, sin saber en qué momento podrá quedar encerrado y aplastado.

Pero sin asustarse en absoluto, Queequeg nos gobernó valientemente, mente, unas veces desviándose de un monstruo que se nos cruzaba por delante en nuestra ruta, otras veces apartándose de otro cuya colosal cola se suspendía sobre nuestras cabezas, mientras, durante todo el tiempo, Starbuck se erguía en la proa, lanza en mano, apartando del camino con sus lanzadas a todos los cachalotes a los que podía alcanzar con disparos cortos, pues no había tiempo para hacerlos largos. Y no estaban nada ociosos los remeros, aunque su obligación habitual ahora no era necesaria en absoluto: se ocupaban principalmente de la parte de gritos del asunto. -¡Quita de en medio, Comodoro ! -gritó uno a un gran dromedario que de repente surgió entero a la superficie y por un momento amenazó con inundarnos. -Baja la cola, ¡eh ! -gritó otro a otro, que, cerca de nuestra regala, parecía refrescarse tranquilamente con su extremidad en forma de abanico.

Todas las lanchas balleneras transportan ciertos adminículos curiosos, inventados por los indios de Nantucket, que se llaman druggs. Do gruesos cuadrados de madera de igual tamaño están sujetos sólidamente, de modo que sus fibras se cruzan en ángulo recto; luego se amarra un cable de considerable longitud al centro de ese bloque mientras que el otro extremo, en un lazo, puede atarse en un momento a un arpón. Este drugg se usa principalmente con las ballenas aterradas. Pues entonces hay cerca y alrededor más cetáceos de los que es posible perseguir al mismo tiempo. Pero no todos los días se encuentran cachalotes: así que, mientras se puede, hay que matar todos los que quepa. Y si no se les puede matar a todos a la vez, es preciso meterles el plomo en el ala, de modo que luego puedan ser muertos con tranquilidad. De aquí que en momentos como éstos resulte útil el drugg. Nuestra lancha estaba provista de tres. El primero y el segundo se lanzaron con éxito, y vimos a los cachalotes escapar vacilantes, entorpecidos por la enorme resistencia lateral del drugg a remolque. Estaban impedidos como malhechores con la cadena y la bola. Pero, al lanzar el tercero, se pilló bajo una de las bancadas de la lancha, y en un momento la arrancó y se la llevó, tirando al remero en el fondo de la lancha, al escapársele el asiento de debajo. El agua entró por ambos lados, por las tablas heridas, pero metimos dos o tres camisas y calzoncillos, tapando así las vías de agua por el momento.

Hubiera sido casi imposible disparar esos arpones con druggs de no ser porque, al avanzar por la manada, disminuía mucho la marcha de nuestro cachalote; además, al alejarnos cada vez más de la agitada periferia, los terribles desórdenes parecían extinguirse. Así que, cuando por fin el arpón se salió con las sacudidas, y el cachalote que nos remolcaba se desvaneció a un lado, entonces, con la fuerza decreciente del impulso de la separación, nos deslizamos entre dos cetáceos hasta la parte más central de la manada, como si, desde un torrente montañoso, nos hubiéramos deslizado a un sereno lago en el valle. Allí se oían, pero no se sentían, las tormentas entre los rugientes barracones de las ballenas de los bordes. En esa extensión central el mar presentaba la suave superficie, como de raso, que llaman una mancha de calma, producida por la suave lluvia que lanza el cetáceo en su estado de ánimo más tranquilo. Sí, ahora estábamos en esa calma encantada que se dice que se esconde en el corazón de toda agitación. Y sin embargo, en la agitada lejanía, observábamos los tumultos de los concéntricos círculos exteriores, y veíamos sucesivos grupos de cetáceos, con ocho o diez en cada uno que daban vueltas rápidamente, como multiplicados tiros de caballos en una pista, y tan apretados hombro con hombro que un titánico jinete de circo hubiera podido haberse puesto encima de los de en medio, girando así sobre sus lomos. Debido a la densidad de la multitud de ballenas en reposo que rodeaban más de cerca el eje cerrado de la manada, no se nos ofrecía por el momento una ocasión posible de escape. Debíamos acechar una grieta en la muralla viva que nos cercaba: la muralla sólo nos había dejado paso para encerrarnos. Manteniéndose en el centro de ese lago, de vez en cuando nos visitaban vacas y terneras, pequeñas y mansas: las mujeres y los niños de esa hueste en tumulto.

Ahora, incluyendo los anchos intervalos ocasionales entre los círculos culos exteriores giratorios, e incluyendo los espacios entre las diversas manadas en cualquiera de esos círculos, el área total en esa coyuntura, que abarcaba la entera multitud, debía contener por lo menos dos o tres millas cuadradas. En cualquier caso -aunque, desde luego, semejante prueba en semejante momento tal vez sería ilusoria-, se podían observar, desde nuestra baja lancha, chorros que parecían elevarse casi desde el borde del horizonte. Menciono esta circunstancia porque, como si las vacas y terneros hubieran quedado encerrados adrede en este redil interior, y como si la ancha extensión de la manada les hubiera impedido hasta entonces saber la causa exacta de su detención, o, posiblemente, por ser tan jóvenes, tan ingenuos, y en todos sentidos tan inocentes e inexpertos, por lo que quiera que fuese, esos cetáceos menores -que de vez en cuando venían desde el borde del lago a visitar a nuestra lancha en calma- evidenciaban una notable confianza y falta de miedo, o, si no, un pánico inmóvil y hechizado ante el cual era imposible no maravillarse. Como perros domésticos, venían a olfatear a nuestro alrededor, hasta nuestras mismas regalas, tocándolas; de modo que casi parecía que algún encanto les había domesticado de repente. Queequeg les daba golpecitos en la frente; Starbuck les rascaba el lomo con la lanza, pero, temeroso de las consecuencias, por el momento se contenía de dispararla.

Pero muy por debajo de ese maravilloso mundo de la superficie, nuestros ojos encontraron otro aún más extraño, al mirar sobre la borda. Pues, suspendidas en esas bóvedas acuosas, flotaban las figuras de las madres nutricias de los cetáceos, y de aquellas que, por su enorme circunferencia, parecían próximas a ser madres. El lago, como he sugerido, era muy transparente hasta una considerable profundidad; y, así como los lactantes humanos, mientras maman, miran de modo tranquilo y fijo lejos del pecho, igual que si llevaran dos vidas diferentes a un tiempo, y, a la vez que toman alimento mortal, disfrutaran en espíritu el festín de alguna reminiscencia supraterrenal, del mismo modo los pequeños de esos cetáceos parecían levantar su mirada hacia nosotros, pero no hacia nosotros, como si sólo fuéramos una brizna de alga ante su mirada recién nacida. Flotando a su lado, también las madres parecían observarnos tranquilamente. Uno de esos pequeños lactantes, que por ciertos curiosos signos parecía tener apenas un día de vida, podría haber medido unos catorce pies de longitud y unos seis pies de cintura. Era bastante travieso, aunque todavía su cuerpo parecía haberse recuperado escasamente de esa irritante posición que había ocupado hasta hacía poco en el retículo maternal, donde, cabeza con cola, y dispuesto para el salto final, el cetáceo nonato yace doblado como un arco de tártaro. Las delicadas aletas laterales y las palmetas de la cola aún conservaban fresco el aspecto arrugado y alforzado de las orejas de un niño recién llegado de extrañas regiones.

-¡Soltad, soltad cable ! -gritó Queequeg, mirando sobre la regala-: ¡está sujeto, está sujeto ! ¿Quién tirar él, quién dar él ? ¡Dos cachalotes; uno grande, uno pequeño !

-¿Qué te pasa, hombre ? -gritó Starbuck.

-Mire ahí -dijo Queequeg, señalando hacia abajo.

Como cuando la ballena herida, después de haber desenrollado del barril cientos de brazas de cable, y después de zambullirse profundamente, vuelve a subir a flote, y muestra el cable aflojado subiendo ligero y en espirales hacia el aire, así vio ahora Starbuck largos rollos del cordón umbilical de Madame Leviatán, que parecían sujetar todavía al joven cachorro a su mamá. No es raro que, en las rápidas vicisitudes de la persecución, ese cable natural, con su extremo maternal suelto, se enrede con el de cáñamo, de tal modo que el cachorro quede preso. Algunos de los más sutiles secretos de los mares parecían revelársenos en ese estanque encantado. Vimos en la profundidad juveniles amores leviatánicos.

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Y así, aunque rodeados por círculos y círculos de consternaciones y horrores, esos inescrutables animales se entregaban en el centro, con libertad y sin miedo, a todos los entretenimientos pacíficos: sí, se gozaban serenamente en abrazos y deleites. Pero precisamente así, en el ciclónico Atlántico de mi ser, yo también me complazco en mi centro en muda calma, y mientras giran a mi alrededor pesados planetas de dolor inextinguible, allá en lo hondo y tierra adentro, sigo bañándome en eterna suavidad de gozo.

Mientras que nosotros quedábamos en tal éxtasis, los repentinos y ocasionales espectáculos frenéticos a distancia evidenciaban la actividad de las otras lanchas, aún ocupadas en lanzar druggs a los cachalotes del borde de la hueste, o posiblemente, en continuar su guerra dentro del primer círculo, donde se le ofrecía abundancia de espacio y algunos retiros convenientes. Pero la visión de los rabiosos cachalotes con los druggs, disparándose de vez en cuando ciegamente a través de los círculos no era nada al lado de lo que por fin se ofreció a nuestros ojos. A veces es costumbre cuando se ha hecho presa en un cetáceo más poderoso y alerta de lo común tratar de desjarretarle por decirlo así cortando o hiriendo su gigantesco tendón de cola. Esto se hace disparando una azada de descuartizamiento de mango corto sujeta con una cuerda para recuperarla otra vez. Un cetáceo herido en esa parte (según supimos después) pero al parecer sin eficacia se había desprendido de la lancha llevándose consigo la mitad del cable del arpón; y en la terrible agonía de la herida daba golpes ahora entre los círculos giratorios como el solitario jinete desesperado Arnold en la batalla de Saratoga llevando el terror a donde quiera que iba.

Pero, aun con todo lo angustiosa que era la herida de este cachalote y lo terrible que era ese espectáculo, en todos los sentidos, sin embargo, el peculiar horror que parecía inspirar al resto de la manada era debido a una causa que al principio no nos dejó ver clara la distancia interpuesta. Pero al fin percibimos que, por uno de los imprevisibles accidentes de la pesca, ese cachalote se había enredado con el cable arponero que remolcaba y además se había escapado con la azada de descuartizamiento dentro, y que, mientras el extremo libre del cable unido a esa arma se había quedado atrapado de modo fijo en las vueltas del cable arponero en torno a la cola, la propia azada de descuartizamiento se había desprendido de la carne. Así que, atormentado hasta la locura, agitando violentamente su flexible cola y lanzando la afilada azada a su alrededor, hería y asesinaba a sus propios compañeros.

Este terrible objeto pareció hacer salir a toda la manada de su espanto estático. Primero, los cachalotes del borde de nuestro lago empezaron a agruparse un poco y a entrechocarse unos contra otros, como elevados por olas medio extinguidas desde lejos; luego, el propio lago empezó levemente a hincharse y mecerse; se desvanecieron las alcobas nupciales y los cuartos de niño bajo el mar; en órbitas cada vez más estrechas, los cachalotes de los círculos centrales empezaron a nadar en grupos cada vez más densos. Sí, se acababa la larga calma. Pronto se oyó un sordo zumbido que avanzaba, y luego, como las masas tumultuosas de hielo cuando el gran río Hudson se rompe en primavera, la entera hueste de ballenas llegó entrechocándose hasta su centro interior, como para amontonarse en una montaña común. Al momento, Starbuck y Queequeg cambiaron sus sitios, y Starbuck se puso a popa.

-¡Remos, remos ! -susurró con intensidad, agarrando la caña-, empuñad los remos, y apretaos el alma, ¡venga ! ¡Atención, muchachos, por Dios ! ¡Quita de ahí a ese cachalote, Queequeg ! ¡Pínchale, dale ! ¡Levanta, levanta y quédate así ! ¡Adelante, hombres; remad, muchachos; no os preocupéis de vuestra espalda... rascadla ! ¡Despellejaos las espaldas !

La lancha quedaba ahora casi atrancada entre dos vastas masas negras, que dejaban unos estrechos Dardanelos entre sus largas extensiones. Pero, con desesperado esfuerzo, por fin salimos disparados a una abertura momentánea, retirándonos entonces rápidamente, y a la vez buscando con ansia otra salida. Tras de varias semejantes escapatorias por un pelo, nos deslizamos al fin con rapidez a lo que acababa de ser uno de los círculos exteriores, pero que ahora cruzaban cetáceos dispersos, todos ellos dirigiéndose violentamente al mismo centro. Esta feliz salvación se adquirió muy barato al precio de la pérdida del sombrero de Queequeg, a quien, de pie en la proa para pinchar a los cachalotes fugitivos, se le había llevado limpiamente el sombrero de la cabeza el torbellino de aire producido por el súbito lanzamiento de una ancha cola cerca de él.

Aun tan agitada y desordenada como era ahora la conmoción general, pronto se resolvió en lo que parecía un movimiento sistemático, pues, congregados todos por fin en un solo cuerpo macizo, renovaron su fuga hacia delante con aumentada ligereza. Era inútil seguir persiguiéndoles, pero las lanchas todavía se mantuvieron en su estela para recoger a los cachalotes con druggs que pudieran quedarse atrás, y asimismo para asegurar a uno que Flask había matado y marcado. La marca es un palo con gallardete del cual se llevan dos o tres en cada lancha, y cuando hay a mano caza de sobra, se insertan verticalmente en el cuerpo flotante de una ballena muerta, tanto para marcar su posición en el mar cuanto para señalar la posesión anterior si se acercan las lanchas de algún otro barco.

El resultado de esa arriada de las lanchas ilustró bastante el sagaz proverbio de la pesca: a más ballenas, menos pesca. De todos los cetáceos con druggs, sólo se capturó uno. Los demás se las arreglaron para escaparse por el momento, aunque sólo para ser capturados, como se verá después, por una nave diversa del Pequod. 

Escuelas y maestros

El capítulo anterior dio cuenta de un inmenso grupo o manada de cachalotes, y también se indicó entonces la causa probable de esas vastas reuniones.

Ahora, aunque se encuentren a veces tan grandes agrupaciones, sin embargo, como hemos visto, aun en los días presentes, de vez en cuando se observan pequeñas bandas separadas que abarcan de veinte a cincuenta individuos cada una. Esas bandas se llaman es cuelas. Suelen ser de dos especies: las compuestas casi enteramente de hembras, y las que no presentan sino vigorosos machos, o « toros », como se designan vulgarmente.

En caballeresco acompañamiento a la « escuela » de hembras, se ve sin falta un macho de adulta magnitud, pero no viejo, que, ante cualquier alarma, evidencia su valentía poniéndose a retaguardia para cubrir la retirada de sus damas. En verdad, ese caballero es un lujurioso otomano que nada por el mundo acuático rodeado de la compañía de todos los solaces y deleites del harén. Es llamativo el contraste entre este otomano y sus concubinas, porque, mientras él es siempre de las mayores proporciones leviatánicas, las damas, aun plenamente crecidas, no tienen más de un tercio de un macho de tamaño natural. En efecto, son relativamente delicadas: me atrevo a decir que no tienen más de media docena de yardas de cintura. Con todo, no se puede negar que en conjunto son propensas por herencia al en bon point.

Es muy curioso observar a este harén y a su señor en sus vagabundeos indolentes. Como gente elegante, siempre están en marcha en búsqueda ociosa de variedad. Se les encuentra en el ecuador a tiempo para la plena floración de la temporada de nutrición ecuatorial, quizá recién regresados de pasar el verano en los mares del Norte, donde han evitado toda la desagradable fatiga y calurosidad del estío. Una vez que han dado vueltas ociosamente por el paseo del ecuador, se ponen en marcha hacia las aguas orientales, en previsión de la época fresca de allí, para evitar otra temporada de temperatura excesiva en el año.

Cuando avanzan serenamente en uno de esos viajes, si se ve alguna visión extraña y sospechosa, mi señor cachalote no quita su atenta mirada de su interesante familia. Si algún joven leviatán, imprevisiblemente atrevido, al pasar por ese camino, pretende acercarse en proximidad confidencial a alguna de las damas, ¡con qué prodigiosa furia le asalta el Pachá y le hace alejarse ! Estaría bueno, desde luego, que a jóvenes libertinos sin principios, como él, se les permitiera invadir el santuario de la felicidad doméstica, aunque, haga lo que quiera el Pachá, no puede evitar que el más conocido Lothario entre en su lecho, pues, ¡ay !, el lecho de todos los peces es común. Así como en tierra las damas causan a menudo los más terribles duelos entre sus admiradores rivales, igual ocurre con los cachalotes, que a veces entran en mortal batalla, y todo por amor. Esgrimen con sus largas mandíbulas inferiores, a veces prendiéndolas una en otra, y luchando así por la supremacía como alces que entretejen los cuernos en su lucha. Se capturan no pocos que llevan las profundas cicatrices de esos encuentros: cabezas surcadas, dientes rotos, aletas cortadas, y, en algunos casos, bocas retorcidas y dislocadas.

Pero suponiendo que el invasor de la felicidad doméstica se marche al primer ataque del señor del harén, es entonces muy divertido observar a dicho señor. Gentilmente vuelve a introducir entonces su vasta mole entre ellas y se complace allí, atormentando al modo de Tántalo al joven Lothario, como el piadoso Salomón adorado devotamente entre sus mil concubinas. Mientras haya otros cetáceos a la vista, los pescadores raramente darán caza a Uno de esos « grandes turcos », pues tales « grandes turcos » son muy pródigos de su energía, y por tanto, su grasa es muy escasa. En cuanto a los hijos e hijas que engendran, tales hijos e hijas deben ocuparse de ellos mismos; al menos, sólo con la ayuda maternal. Pues como ciertos otros amadores omnívoros y vagabundos que podrían nombrarse, mi Señor cachalote no tiene gran afición al cuarto de los niños, por más que la tenga a la alcoba; y así, siendo gran viajero, deja sus niños anónimos por todo el mundo, todos ellos exóticos. En su debido momento, sin embargo, al declinar el ardor de la juventud, al crecer los años y las melancolías, al imponer la reflexión sus solemnes pausas, en resumen, al invadir una laxitud general al saciado turco, entonces el amor a la comodidad y a la virtud sustituye al amor a las doncellas; nuestro otomano entra en la fase impotente, arrepentida y admonitoria de la vida, abjura y se desprende del harén, y convertido en una buena alma ejemplar y malhumorada, marcha en soledad por todos los océanos, rezando sus oraciones y amonestando a todo joven leviatán contra sus amorosos errores.

Ahora, dado que el harén de cetáceos es llamado « escuela » por los pescadores, el señor y amo de esa escuela ha de conocerse técnicamente por el « maestro ». Por tanto, no es cosa de carácter estricto, por más que sea admirablemente satírico, que después de haber ido él mismo a la escuela, vaya luego por ahí inculcando, no lo que aprendió allí, sino la locura que es eso. Su título de maestro parecería muy naturalmente derivado del nombre concedido al propio harén, pero algunos han supuesto que el hombre que por primera vez tituló así a esa suerte de cetáceo turco debía haber leído las memorias de Vidocq, informándose de qué clase de maestro rural fue en su juventud ese famoso francés, y cuál fue la naturaleza de las ocultas lecciones que dio a algunos de sus alumnos.

La misma soledad y aislamiento en que se encierra el cachalote maestro en sus años avanzados, es propia de todos los cachalotes ancianos.. Casi universalmente, un cachalote solo --como se llama al leviatán solitario- resulta ser anciano. Como el venerable Daniel Boone de la barba musgosa, no tiene nadie a su lado sino la propia naturaleza, y a ésta toma por esposa en la soledad de las aguas; y ella es la mejor de las esposas, aunque guarde tantos secretos malhumorados.

Las « escuelas » compuestas sólo de machos jóvenes y vigorosos, antes mencionadas, ofrecen un fuerte contraste con las « escuelas » harenes. Pues mientras los cachalotes hembras son característicamente tímidos, los jóvenes machos, o « toros de cuarenta barriles », como se les llama, son, con mucho, los más peleones de los leviatanes, y proverbialmente, los más peligrosos de afrontar, excepto esos sorprendentes cetáceos encanecidos y de mezclilla, que a veces se encuentran, y que luchan contra uno como feroces demonios exasperados por una gota dolorosa.

Las « escuelas » de toros de cuarenta barriles son mayores que las « escuelas » harenes. Como masas de jóvenes colegiales, están llenas de peleas, bromas y maldad, dando tumbos por el mundo a una velocidad tan desenfrenada y agitada, que ningún asegurador prudente les aseguraría más que a un travieso muchacho de Yale o Harvard. Pero pronto abandonan esa turbulencia, y cuando crecen hasta los tres cuartos, se dispersan y van cada cual por su lado en busca de acomodos, es decir, de harenes.

Otro punto de diferencia entre las « escuelas » de machos y hembras es aún más típica de los sexos. Digamos que herís a un toro de cuarenta barriles: ¡pobre diablo !, todos sus compañeros le abandonan. Pero herid a una de las que forman la « escuela » harén, y sus compañeras nadarán a su alrededor con todas las señales del interés, a veces deteniéndose tan cerca de ella y por tanto tiempo que acaban por ser víctimas ellas mismas. 

Pez sujeto y pez libre

La alusión a los marcados y palos de marca en el penúltimo capítulo obliga a alguna explicación sobre las leyes y reglas de la pesquería de ballenas, cuyo gran emblema y símbolo puede considerarse el arpón de marcado.

Ocurre con frecuencia que cuando varios barcos pescan a la vez, una ballena puede ser herida por un barco, escapar luego, y finalmente ser muerta y capturada por otro barco; en lo cual se implican indirectamente varias contingencias menores, todas ellas formando parte de ese gran caso general. Por ejemplo: después de la fatigosa y peligrosa persecución y captura de una ballena, el cuerpo puede soltarse del barco a causa de una violenta tempestad, y derivando mucho a sotavento, ser capturada de nuevo por un segundo barco ballenero, que, en la calma, la remolca tranquilamente a su costado, sin arriesgar vidas ni cables. Así, muchas veces surgirían entre los pescadores las más ofensivas y violentas disputas, si no hubiera alguna ley indiscutida y universal, escrita o no, para aplicar en todos los casos.

Quizás el único código formalizado de la ballenería que se ha puesto en vigor por un decreto legislativo fue el de Holanda. Lo promulgaron los Estados Generales del año 1695. Pero aunque ninguna otra nación ha tenido jamás ninguna ley ballenera por escrito, los pescadores americanos de ballenas han sido sus propios legisladores y abogados en este asunto. Han proporcionado un sistema que, en su sucinta comprensividad sobrepasa a Las Pandectas de Justiniano y a los Reglamentos de la Sociedad China para la Supresión del Entrometimiento en los Asuntos Ajenos. Sí: estas leyes podrían grabarse en un cuarto de penique de la reina Ana, o en el filo de un arpón, y colgárselas al cuello, de tan breves como son.

I. Un « pez sujeto » pertenece a la persona que lo sujeta.

I. Un « pez libre » es buena presa para quienquiera que lo atrape antes.

Pero lo que estropea este magistral código es su admirable breve dad, que requiere un vasto volumen de comentarios para explicarlo.

Primero: ¿Qué es un « pez sujeto » ? Vivo o muerto, un pez está técnicamente sujeto cuando se conecta con un barco o lancha ocupados por algún medio que pueda dominar de algún modo el ocupante u ocupantes: un mástil, un remo, un cable de nueve pulgadas de mena, un hilo de telégrafo, o una hebra de telaraña, es todo igual. Igualmente, un pez está técnicamente sujeto cuando lleva un arpón de marcado, o algún otro símbolo de posesión reconocido; en tanto que quien ha puesto la marca muestre claramente su capacidad, en algún momento, de llevarlo a su costado, así como su intención de hacerlo.

Estos son comentarios científicos, pero los comentarios propios balleneros a veces consisten en palabras duras y golpes aún más duros: el Coke-upon-Littleton del puño. Verdad es que entre los más rectos y honrados balleneros siempre se hacen concesiones para los casos peculiares, en que sería una ultrajante injusticia moral para una parte pretender la posesión de una ballena previamente perseguida o muerta por otra parte. Pero hay otros que no son en absoluto tan escrupulosos.

Hace unos cincuenta años se solventó en Inglaterra un curioso pleito sobre repetición de caza de ballena, en que los demandantes declararon que, tras de una dura persecución de una ballena en los mares del Norte, y cuando ya habían logrado en efecto (los demandantes) arponear al pez, se vieron obligados al fin, por el riesgo de sus vidas, a abandonar no sólo el arpón, sino la misma lancha. Más adelante los demandados (los tripulantes de otro barco) tropezaron con la ballena, y la hirieron, mataron, capturaron y finalmente se la apropiaron ante los mismos ojos de los demandantes. Y cuando se presentaron quejas a estos demandados, su capitán chascó los dedos en las narices de los demandantes, y les aseguró, por vía de doxología de la gesta realizada, que se quedaría ahora con su estacha, arpón y lancha, que habían quedado unidos a la ballena en el momento de la captura. Por lo cual los demandantes entablaron pleito entonces, para recobrar el valor de la ballena, estacha, arpones y lancha.

El señor Erskine era el abogado de los demandados; lord Ellenborough fue el juez. En el curso de su defensa, el ingenioso Erskine pasó a ilustrar su posición aludiendo a un reciente caso por adulterio en que un caballero, tras de intentar en vano refrenar las viciosas tendencias de su esposa, la había abandonado por fin en los mares de la vida, pero, con el transcurso de los años, arrepentido de ese paso, entabló una acción para recobrar su posesión. Erskine estaba con la otra parte, y entonces se defendió diciendo que, aunque el caballero hubiera sido el primero en arponear a la señora, y la hubiera tenido sujeta antaño, y sólo la hubiera abandonado al fin a causa de la gran tirantez de su viciosidad sumergida, con todo, la había abandonado, de modo que ella se había convertido en un pez libre, y por consiguiente, cuando un posterior caballero la volvió a arponear, la señora se convirtió en propiedad de ese posterior caballero, junto con los arpones que se hubieran encontrado clavados en ella.

Ahora, en el caso presente, Erskine sostenía que los ejemplos de la ballena y la señora se ilustraban recíprocamente.

Una vez debidamente escuchados estos alegatos y los alegatos contrarios, el doctísimo juez sentenció en términos exactos lo siguiente: que, en cuanto a la lancha, se la concedía a los demandantes, porque la habían abandonado solamente para salvar sus vidas, pero que respecto a la ballena controvertida, los arpones y la estacha, pertenecían a los demandados; la ballena, porque era un « pez-libre » en el momento de su captura final; y los arpones y la estacha, porque cuando el pez se escapó con ellos, adquirió (el pez) un derecho de propiedad sobre esos objetos, y por tanto, quienquiera que luego capturara al pez tenía derecho a ellos. Ahora bien, los demandados habían capturado luego al pez; ergo, los susodichos objetos eran suyos.

Un hombre corriente que observa estas decisiones del doctísimo juez quizá les pondrá objeciones. Pero excavando hasta la roca original del asunto, los dos grandes principios establecidos en las mellizas leyes balleneras previamente citadas, y aplicadas y elucidadas por lord Ellenborough en el caso precitado; esas dos leyes, digo, concernientes al « pez sujeto » y « pez libre », se encontrará que son los fundamentos de toda la jurisprudencia humana, pues, a pesar de su complicada tracería de escultura, el templo de la Ley, como el templo de los Filisteos, no tiene más que dos puntales en que apoyarse.

¿No es un proverbio en boca de todos que la posesión es la mitad del derecho: esto es, sin tener en cuenta cómo se ha llegado a la posesión de la cosa ? ¿Qué son los músculos y las almas de los siervos rusos y de los esclavos republicanos sino peces libres, cuya posesión es la totalidad del derecho ? ¿Qué es para el rapaz propietario el último céntimo de la viuda sino un pez sujeto ? ¿Qué es la mansión marmórea de aquel granuja no descubierto, con placa en la puerta a modo de contraseña; qué es sino un pez sujeto ? ¿Qué es el ruinoso interés que Mordecai, el agente, obtiene del pobre malaventurado en quiebra, en un préstamo para evitar que se muera de hambre la familia del malaventurado; qué es ese ruinoso interés sino un pez sujeto ? ¿Qué es la renta de cien mil libras del arzobispo de Salvaelalma, sacada del escaso pan con queso de cientos de millares de trabajadores de espaldas rotas (todos ellos seguros de ir al cielo sin ninguna ayuda de Salvaelalma), qué son esas redondas cien mil, sino un pez sujeto ? ¿Qué son las ciudades y aldeas hereditarias del duque de Dunder, sino un pez sujeto ? Para el temido arponero John Bull, ¿qué es la pobre Irlanda, sino un pez sujeto ? Para ese alanceador apostólico, el hermano Jonathan, ¿qué es Tejas sino un pez sujeto ? Y en referencia a todos éstos, ¿no es la posesión la integridad del derecho ?

Pero si la doctrina del pez sujeto es aplicable de modo bastante general, la doctrina afín del pez sujeto lo es con mayor amplitud. Se aplica de modo internacional y universal.

¿Qué era América en 1492 sino un pez libre, en que Colón clavó el estandarte español poniéndole el arpón de marcado para sus reales señor y señora ? ¿Qué fue Polonia para el Zar ? ¿Qué, Grecia para los turcos ? ¿Qué, India para Inglaterra ? ¿Qué será al fin México para los Estados Unidos ? Todos, peces libres.

¿Qué son los derechos del hombre y las libertades del mundo sino peces libres ? ¿Qué son todas las ideas y opiniones de los hombres sino peces libres ? ¿Qué es en ellos el principio de la creencia religiosa sino un pez libre ? Para los ostentosos contrabandistas palabreros, ¿qué son los pensamientos de los pensadores sino peces sueltos ? ¿Qué es la gran esfera misma sino un pez libre ? ¿Y qué eres tú, lector, sino un pez libre y también un pez sujeto ? 

Cabezas o colas

De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.

(Bracton, 1, 3, c. 3)

Este latín, de los libros dé las Leyes de Inglaterra, quiere decir, tomado junto con el contexto, que de todas las ballenas capturadas por cualquiera en la costa de este país, el rey como Gran Arponero Honorario, debe recibir la cabeza, y a la reina se le debe ofrecer respetuosamente la cola: una división que, en la ballena, se parece mucho a partir por la mitad una manzana: no hay residuo intermedio. Ahora, dado que esta ley, en forma modificada, sigue hasta ahora en vigor en Inglaterra, y dado que ofrece en varios aspectos una extraña anomalía respecto a la ley general del pez sujeto y libre, se trata aquí en capítulo aparte, conforme al mismo principio de cortesía que sugiere a los ferrocarriles ingleses que paguen un vagón aparte especialmente reservado para el acomodo de la realeza. En primer lugar, como curiosa demostración de que la supradicha ley sigue en vigor, paso a presentar ante vosotros una circunstancia que ocurrió no hará dos años.

Parece ser que unos honrados marineros de Dover, o Sandwich, o de alguno de los Cinco Puertos, tras una dura persecución, habían logrado matar y sacar a tierra una hermosa ballena que antes habían observado bastante lejos de la orilla. Ahora, los Cinco Puertos están, en parte o no sé cómo, bajo la jurisdicción de una especie de policía o bedel llamado lord Guardián. Por recibir el cargo directamente de la Corona, creo, todos los emolumentos reales correspondientes a los Cinco Puertos se convierten en suyos por atribución. Algunos autores llaman a esto una sinecura. Pero no es así. Porque el lord Guardián a veces está laboriosamente ocupado en embolsarse sus regalías, que son suyas principalmente por virtud de ese mismo hecho de embolsárselas.

Ahora, cuando esos pobres marineros, tostados por el sol, descalzos y con los pantalones arremangados bien alto en sus piernas de anguila, halaron fatigosamente su grueso pez hasta ponerlo en seco, prometiéndose unas buenas ciento cincuenta libras de sus preciosos huesos y aceite, y en su imaginación sorbiendo exquisito té con sus mujeres, y buena cerveza con sus compadres, a base de sus respectivas porciones, he aquí que se presenta un caballero muy docto y cristiano y caritativo, con un ejemplar del Blackstone bajo el brazo, y, poniéndolo en la cabeza de la ballena, dice: -¡Fuera las manos ! Este pez, señores míos, es un pez sujeto. Tomo posesión de él por ser del lord Guardián. Ante esto, los pobres marineros, en su respetuosa consternación -tan auténticamente inglesa-, sin saber qué decir, se pusieron a rascarse vigorosamente la cabeza al unísono, alternando mientras tanto contritas miradas a la ballena y al recién llegado. Pero eso no arregló de ningún modo la cuestión, ni ablandó en absoluto el duro corazón del docto caballero con el ejemplar del Blackstone. Al fin, uno de ellos, tras de mucho rascarse en busca de sus ideas, se atrevió a hablar:

-Por favor, señor, ¿quién es el lord Guardián ?

-El duque.

-Pero el duque ¿tiene algo que ver con la captura de este pez ?

-Es suyo.

-Nos ha costado mucho trabajo y peligro, y algún gasto, y ¿todo eso tiene que ir en beneficio del duque, sin que nosotros saquemos de nuestra molestia nada más que las ampollas ?

-Es suyo.

-¿Es tan pobre el duque como para verse obligado a este modo desesperado de ganarse la vida ?

-Es suyo.

-Yo pensaba aliviar a mi madre, enferma en cama, con parte de mi porción de la ballena.

-Es suyo.

-¿Y el duque no se contentará con la cuarta parte o la mitad ?

-Es suyo.

En una palabra, la ballena fue incautada y vendida, y Su Gracia el duque de Wellington recibió el dinero. Pensando que la cosa podía juzgarse un tanto dura, vista bajo una determinada luz, en una mera posibilidad y en algún escaso grado, dadas las circunstancias, un honrado clérigo de la ciudad dirigió respetuosamente una nota a Su Gracia, rogándole que tomara en plena consideración el caso de esos infortunados marineros. A lo cual mi señor el duque respondió (ambas cartas se publicaron) que ya lo había hecho así, y había recibido el dinero, y le estaría muy agradecido al reverendo caballero si en lo sucesivo evitaba (el reverendo) meterse en los asuntos de los demás. ¿Es éste el anciano aún combativo, plantado en las esquinas de los tres reinos, sacándoles en todas partes limosnas a los mendigos ?

Se verá fácilmente que en este caso el derecho a la ballena alegado por el duque era un derecho delegado del soberano. Por fuerza hay que inquirir entonces según qué principio está el soberano revestido originalmente de ese derecho. La propia ley ya se ha expuesto. Pero Plowdon nos da las razones. Dice Plowdon que la ballena capturada pertenece al rey y a la reina « a causa de su excelencia superior ». Y los más autorizados comentaristas han considerado esto siempre como argumento convincente en tales materias.

Pero ¿por qué va a recibir el rey la cabeza y la reina la cola ? Una razón para esto, ¡oh, ahogados !

En su tratado sobre « el oro de la reina » o « dinero para alfileres de la reina », un viejo autor del King's Bench, un tal William Prynne, raçona ansi: « La cabeza es de la Rreyna, para que el ropero de la Rreyna sea proveydo de ballenas ». Ahora, esto se escribió en un tiempo en que el flexible y negro hueso de la ballena se usaba mucho en corpiño de señora. Pero dicho hueso no está en la cola; está en la cabeza, lo cual es una triste equivocación para un sagaz abogado como Prynne. Pero ¿acaso es una sirena la reina, para obsequiarla con una cola ? Aquí debe de ocultarse un significado alegórico.

Hay dos peces reales, así llamados por los juristas ingleses: la ballena y el esturión, ambos propiedad real bajo ciertos límites, y nominalmente proporcionando la décima rama de las rentas ordinarias de la Corona. No sé qué otro autor habrá hecho sugerencias sobre el asunto, pero por indiferencia, me parece que el esturión debe dividirse del mismo modo que la ballena, recibiendo el Rey la cabeza, densa y altamente elástica, propia de ese pez, lo cual, considerado como símbolo, es posible que esté humorísticamente basado en alguna supuesta congenialidad. Y así, parece haber alguna razón en todo, incluso en el derecho. 

El Pequod se encuentra con el Capullo de Rosa

En vano fue remover, en busca de ámbar gris, la panza de este leviatán, pues el insufrible hedor no consentía búsquedas.

(Sir T Browne, Errores vulgares)

Una semana o dos después de la última escena ballenera relatada, y cuando navegábamos lentamente por un mar de siesta, soñoliento y vaporoso, las muchas narices en cubierta del Pequod resultaron más vigilantes descubridoras que los tres pares de ojos en los masteleros. En el mar se olió un olor peculiar y no muy grato.

-Apuesto algo ahora -dijo Stubb- a que andan por aquí cerca algunos de esos cachalotes con druggs que cosquilleamos el otro día. Ya suponía que no tardarían en asomar.

Al fin, se apartaron los vapores que teníamos por delante, y se mostró un barco en lontananza, cuyas velas aferradas daban señales de que debía tener a su costado alguna clase de cetáceo. Al deslizarnos más cerca, el barco recién llegado mostró los colores franceses en el pico, y, por la arremolinada nube de rapaces aves marinas que giraba y se cernía y bajaba a su alrededor, estaba claro que la ballena que tenía a su costado debía ser lo que los pescadores llaman una ballena estallada, es decir, una ballena que ha muerto en el mar sin ser atacada, y ha quedado así a flote como cadáver sin dueño. Ya se puede imaginar qué desagradable olor debe exhalar semejante masa, peor que una ciudad asiría en la epidemia, cuando los vivos no son capaces de enterrar a los fallecidos. Tan intolerable, en efecto, resulta para muchos, que no hay codicia que les persuada a amarrarla a su lado. Pero hay quienes lo hacen, sin embargo, a pesar del hecho de que el aceite obtenido de tales individuos es de calidad inferior, y en absoluto semejante a la esencia de rosas.

Acercándonos más con la brisa que expiraba, vimos que el barco francés tenía otra ballena a su costado, y esta segunda parecía más aromática aún que la primera. En realidad, resultó ser una de esas ballenas problemáticas que parecen resecarse y morir con una especie de prodigiosa dispepsia o indigestión, gestión, dejando sus cuerpos difuntos casi en bancarrota de cualquier cosa semejante al aceite. No obstante, en el lugar adecuado veremos que ningún pescador experto aparta la nariz de una ballena como ésa, por más que en general pueda eludir las ballenas reventadas.

El Pequod, para entonces, había llegado tan cerca del otro, que Stubb juró que reconocía el mango de su azada de descuartizamiento enredado en los cables que se anudaban en torno a la cola de una de esas ballenas.

-¡Bonita gente ésa ! -se rió burlonamente, en la proa del barco-: ¡eso sí que es un chacal ! Sé muy bien que esos crappos de franceses son unos pobres diablos en la pesca, y a veces arrían las lanchas en busca de unas rompientes, confundiéndolas con chorros de ballenas; sí, y a veces zarpan del puerto con la sentina llena de cajas de velas de esperma y cajas de despabiladeras, previendo que todo el aceite que saquen no será bastante como para mojar en él la torcida del capitán; sí, ya sabemos todos esas cosas; pero, mirad acá, ahí hay un crappo que se contenta con lo que dejamos, quiero decir, con ese cachalote con druggs; sí, y se contenta también con raspar los huesos rotos de ese otro precioso pez que tiene ahí. ¡Pobre diablo ! Ea, que alguno pase el sombrero, y vamos a regalarle un poco de aceite, por caridad. Porque el aceite que saque de ese cachalote con drugg no serviría para arder en una cárcel, no, ni en una celda de condenado. Y en cuanto a la otra ballena, en fin, estoy seguro de sacar más aceite cortando en rodajas y destilando nuestros tres palos, que cuanto sacará él de ese manojo de huesos; aunque, ahora que lo pienso, quizá contenga algo que vale mucho más que el aceite; sí, ámbar gris. Ahora, no sé si nuestro viejo habrá pensado en eso. Vale la pena probarlo. Sí, allá voy yo. Y diciendo así, se puso en marcha hacia el alcázar.

Para entonces, el sutil aire se había convertido en una calma completa, de modo que, quisiera o no, el Pequod ahora había caído por completo en la trampa de mal olor, sin esperanzas de escapar, salvo que se levantara otra vez la brisa. Saliendo de la cabina, Stubb llamó entonces a la tripulación de su lancha, y marchó remando hacia el otro barco. Al cruzar ante su proa, percibió que, de acuerdo con el fantasioso gusto francés, la parte superior del tajamar estaba esculpida a semejanza de un gran tallo inclinado, pintado de verde y, a modo de espinas, con puntas de cobre saliendo de él acá y allá; todo ello terminando en un capullo, plegado simétricamente de color rojo claro. Sobre la empavesada del beque, en grandes letras doradas, leyó Bouton de Rose (« Botón de Rosa » o « Capullo de Rosa »); tal era el aromático nombre de ese aromático barco.

Aunque Stubb no comprendió la parte Bouton de la inscripción, sin embargo, la palabra Rose y el mascarón de proa en forma de capullo bastaron juntos a explicarle el conjunto.

-Un capullo de rosa, ¿eh ? -exclamó, con la mano en la nariz-: está muy bien: pero ¡cómo demonios huele !

Ahora, para entrar en comunicación directa con la gente de cubierta, tuvo que remar en torno a la proa hasta el costado de estribor, acercándose así a la ballena reventada, y hablando por encima de ella.

Llegado a ese punto, todavía con una mano en la nariz, aulló: -¡Eh, Bouton de Rose ! ¿No hay ninguno de vosotros los Boutonde-Roses que hable inglés ?

-Sí -contestó desde las batayolas uno de Guernsey, que resultó ser el primer oficial.

-Bueno, entonces, mi capullito de Bouton-de-Rose, ¿habéis visto a la ballena blanca ?

-¿Qué ballena ?

-La ballena blanca..., un cachalote... Moby Dick, ¿le habéis visto ?

-Nunca he oído hablar de tal ballena. Cachalot Blanche ! ¡Ballena blanca !... No.

-Muy bien, entonces; adiós por ahora, y volveré a veros dentro de un momento.

Entonces hizo remar rápidamente de vuelta al Pequod, y, al ver a Ahab apoyado en el pasamanos del alcázar en espera de su informe, juntó las manos en trompeta y gritó: -¡No, señor ! ¡No ! Ante lo cual, Ahab se retiró, y Stubb volvió al barco francés.

Entonces percibió que el de Guernsey, que acababa de bajar a los cadenotes, y manejaba una azada de descuartizamiento, se había envuelto la nariz en una especie de bolsa.

-¿Qué le pasa con su nariz, eh ? -dijo Stubb-. ¿Se le ha roto ?

-¡Ojalá me la hubiera roto, o no tuviera nariz en absoluto ! -contestó el de Guernsey, que no parecía disfrutar mucho con su trabajo-. Pero usted ¿por qué se la tapa ?

-¡Ah, por nada ! Es una nariz postiza; me la tengo que sujetar. Estupendo día, ¿no es verdad ? El aire, diría yo, está bastante perfumado; échenos acá un ramillete, ¿quiere, Bouton-de-Rose ?

-¿Qué quiere aquí, en nombre del demonio ? -rugió el de Guernsey, encolerizándose de repente.

-¡Vamos, no se acalore; eso es, no se acalore ! ¿Por qué no envuelve en hielo esas ballenas mientras trabaja en ellas ? Pero, bromas aparte; ¿sabe usted, Capullo de Rosa, que es tontería querer sacar ningún aceite de tales ballenas ? Y en cuanto a la reseca, no tiene una onza en toda la carcasa.

-Lo sé de sobra, pero, mire, el capitán no se lo quiere creer; es su primer viaje: antes era fabricante de agua de colonia. Pero suba a bordo, y a lo mejor le cree a usted, si no me cree a mí, y así saldré de este sucio enredo.

-Cualquier cosa por complacerle, mi dulce y grato compañero -contestó Stubb, y subió pronto a cubierta. Allí se le ofreció una extraña escena. Los marineros, con gorros emborlados de lana roja, preparaban los pesados aparejos para las ballenas. Pero trabajaban más bien despacio y hablaban más bien deprisa, y parecían de escaso buen humor. Todas las narices se proyectaban de sus caras hacia arriba como otros tantos botalones de foque. De vez en cuando, una pareja de ellos abandonaba el trabajo y corría a lo alto del mastelero en busca de aire fresco. Algunos, pensando que se iban a contagiar de peste, mojaban estopa en alquitrán de hulla, y de vez en cuando se la aplicaban a la nariz. Otros, después pués de romper los tubos de sus pipas casi junto a la cazoleta, daban vigorosas chupadas de humo de tabaco, de modo que constantemente les llenara la nariz.

Stubb quedó impresionado por un chaparrón de gritos y maldiciones que salía de la cabina del capitán, a popa, y mirando en esa dirección vio una cara feroz asomada desde detrás de la puerta, que se mantenía entreabierta desde dentro. Era el atormentado médico quien, después de protestar en vano contra las actividades del día, se había retirado a la cabina del capitán (al cabinet, como lo llamaba él) para evitar la peste, pero no podía menos de aullar de vez en cuando sus súplicas y sus indignaciones.

Notando todo esto, Stubb hizo sus deducciones para su plan y, volviéndose al de Guernsey, tuvo con él una pequeña charla, en la cual el oficial le expresó que detestaba a su capitán como ignorante presuntuoso, que les había metido en un enredo tan desagradable y sin ganancia. Al sondearle cuidadosamente, Stubb percibió también que el de Guernsey no tenía la más leve sospecha en cuanto al ámbar gris. Por tanto, refrenó la boca en ese capítulo, pero en lo demás estuvo muy sincero y confidencial con él, de modo que los dos rápidamente tramaron un pequeño plan para burlar y engañar ambos al capitán, sin que él lo soñara en absoluto ni desconfiara de su sinceridad. Conforme a ese pequeño plan, el de Guernsey, bajo apariencia de su cargo de intérprete, había de decir al capitán lo que le pareciera, pero como si procediera de Stubb, y en cuanto a Stubb, diría cualquier insensatez que se le viniera a la boca durante la entrevista.

Para entonces, su predestinada víctima salió de la cabina. Era un hombre pequeño y oscuro, pero de aspecto bastante delicado para ser un capitán de barco, aunque con grandes patillas y bigote; y llevaba un chaleco rojo de pana de algodón con dijes de reloj a un lado. A este caballero fue cortésmente presentado Stubb por el de Guernsey, quien inmediatamente adoptó de modo ostentoso las funciones de intérprete entre ellos.

-¿Qué le digo para empezar ? -dijo.

-Bueno -dijo Stubb, observando el chaleco de pana y los dijes de reloj-, podría empezar por decirle que me parece una especie de niñito, aunque no pretendo ser buen juez.

-Dice, monsieur -dijo en francés el de Guernsey, dirigiéndose a su capitán-, que ayer mismo su barco habló con otro barco cuyo capitán, así como el primer oficial y seis marineros, se habían muerto todos de una fiebre que les dio una ballena estallada que habían amarrado al costado.

Ante esto, el capitán se sobresaltó, y deseó ansiosamente saber más.

-¿Y ahora qué ? -dijo el de Guernsey a Stubb.

-Bueno, puesto que lo toma con tanta tranquilidad, dígale que, ahora que le he observado cuidadosamente, estoy completamente seguro de que sirve menos para mandar un barco ballenero que un mono de Santiago. Mejor dicho, dígale que es un chimpancé.

-Jura y asegura, monsieur, que la otra ballena, la reseca, es mucho más mortal que la estallada; en resumen, monsieur, nos conjura, si estimamos en algo nuestras vidas, a cortar amarras de esos peces.

Al momento el capitán corrió adelante, y con voz sonora mandó a su tripulación que dejara de izar los aparejos de descuartizar y al momento soltara los cables y cadenas que sujetaban las ballenas al barco.

-¿Ahora qué ? -dijo el de Guernsey, cuando volvió con ellos el capitán.

-Bueno, vamos a ver; sí, podría decirle ahora que..., que..., en realidad, que le he engañado, y (aparte para sí mismo) quizá también a alguien más.

-Dice, monsieur, que está muy contento de habernos sido útil.

Al oír esto, el capitán aseguró que ellos eran los que me estaban muy agradecidos (refiriéndose a él mismo y al oficial) y concluyo invitando a Stubb a que bajara a tomar una botella de Burdeos.

-Quiere que tome usted un vaso de vino con él dijo el intérprete.

-Agradézcaselo cordialmente, pero dígale que va contra mis principios beber con el hombre a quien he engañado. En realidad, dígale que tengo que marcharme.

-Dice, monsieur, que sus principios no le consienten beber, pero que si monsieur quiere vivir un día más para beber, hará mejor en arriar las cuatro lanchas y apartar al barco de estas ballenas a fuerza de remo, porque en esta calma no se irán a la deriva.

Para entonces, Stubb ya saltaba por la borda, y metiéndose en -su lancha, saludaba al de Guernsey diciendo que, como tenía en su, lancha un largo cable de remolque, haría lo que pudiera por ayu1darles, tirando de la ballena más ligera y separándola del barco fuerza de remos. Entonces, mientras las lanchas de los franceses estaban ocupadas en remolcar su buque por un lado, Stubb, bondadosamente, se llevaba a remolque su ballena por el otro lado, soltando de modo ostentoso un cable de remolque insólitamente argo.

Por fin se levantó una brisa; Stubb fingió largarse de la ballena; y el barco francés, izando las lanchas, pronto aumentó la distancia, mientras el Pequod se metía entre él y la ballena de Stubb. Entonces Stubb remó rápidamente hasta el cuerpo flotante, y, gritando al Pequod para informarles de sus intenciones, procedió inmediatamente a cosechar el fruto de su malvada astucia. Con su afilada azada de la lancha, empezó una excavación en el cuerpo, un poco detrás de la aleta lateral. Casi se habría pensado que estaba excavando una bodega en el mar; y cuando por fin la azada chocó con las flacas costillas, fue como sacar antigua cerámica y tejas romanas enterradas en pingüe humus inglés. Los tripulantes de su lancha estaban todos muy excitados, ayudando afanosamente a su jefe, y con aire tan ansioso como buscadores de oro.

Y todo el tiempo, innumerables aves bajaban y se lanzaban a pico y chillaban y aullaban y luchaban en torno de ellos. Stubb empezaba a parecer decepcionado, sobre todo, dado que aumentaba el horrible aroma, cuando de repente, del mismo corazón de la peste, surgió una leve corriente de perfume que fluyó a través de la inundación de malos olores sin ser absorbido por ellos, igual que un río, algunas veces, afluye a otro y luego corre a lo largo de éste sin mezclarse en absoluto con él durante algún tiempo.

-Ya lo tengo, ya lo tengo -gritó Stubb con deleite, golpeando algo en las regiones subterráneas-: ¡una bolsa, una bolsa !

Dejando caer la azada, metió las dos manos dentro y sacó puñados de algo que parecía jabón blanco de Windsor, o un sustancioso queso viejo y moteado, muy untuoso y grato sin embargo. Fácilmente se puede mellar con el pulgar; y es de un color entre amarillo y ceniza. Y esto, buenos amigos, es el ámbar gris, que para cualquier droguero vale una guinea de oro la onza. Se obtuvieron unos seis puñados, pero se perdió más en el mar, inevitablemente, y más quizá se habría obtenido de no ser por las impacientes y ruidosas órdenes de Ahab a Stubb para que lo dejara y volviera a bordo, o si no, el barco se despediría de ellos. 

Ambar gris

Ahora, este ámbar gris es una sustancia muy curiosa, y un artículo de comercio tan importante, que en 1791 un tal capitán Coffin, de Nantucket, prestó declaración sobre este tema en la tribuna de la Cámara de los Comunes inglesa. Pues en ese momento, y en realidad hasta tiempos relativamente recientes, el origen exacto del ámbar gris seguía siendo, como el propio ámbar gris, un problema por dilucidar. Aunque la palabra inglesa ambergris no es más que un compuesto de las palabras francesas correspondientes a « ámbar gris », el ámbar y esa sustancia son cosas muy diversas. Pues el ámbar, aunque algunas veces se encuentra en la costa del mar, también se excava en algunos terrenos muy tierra adentro, mientras que el « ámbar gris » jamás se encuentra si no es en el mar. Además, el ámbar es una sustancia dura, transparente, friable e inodora, usada para boquillas de pipas, cuentas y ornamentos, mientras que el ámbar gris es blando, céreo, y tan altamente fragante y especioso, que se usa mucho en perfumería, en velas preciosas, polvos para el pelo y pomadas. Los turcos lo usan en la cocina, y lo llevan también a La Meca, con el mismo objetivo con que se lleva el incienso a San Pedro de Roma. Algunos comerciantes de vino echan unos pocos granos nos en el clarete para darle aroma.

¡Quién creería, entonces, que tan refinados caballeros y damas se regalaran con una esencia encontrada en las ignominiosas tripas de una ballena enferma ! Pero así es. Algunos suponen que el ámbar gris es la causa, y otros el efecto, de la dispepsia de la ballena. Sería difícil decir cómo se cura tal dispepsia, a no ser administrando tres o cuatro barcadas de píldoras de Brandreth, y corriendo luego a ponerse a salvo, como los trabajadores cuando ponen barrenos en las rocas.

He olvidado decir que en este ámbar gris se encontraron ciertos discos duros, redondos y óseos, que al principio Stubb pensó que pudieran ser botones de pantalones de marineros; pero luego resultó que no eran más que trozos de huesecillos de pulpo, embalsamados de ese modo.

Ahora, ¿no es nada que en el corazón de tal podredumbre se encuentre la incorrupción de este fragantísimo ámbar gris ? Acuérdate de aquel dicho de san Pablo a los corintios, sobre corrupción e incorrupción: « Cómo se siembran en deshonor, para surgir en gloria ». E igualmente, haz memoria del dicho de Paracelso sobre qué es lo que hace el mejor almizcle. Y no olvides el hecho extraño de que, de todas las cosas malolientes, la peor es el agua de colonia en las fases preparatorias de su manufactura.

Me gustaría concluir este capítulo con la exhortación precedente, pero no puedo, debido a mi afán por rechazar una acusación hecha a menudo contra los balleneros y que, en la estimativa de algunos ánimos mal predispuestos, podría considerarse indirectamente demostrada por lo que se ha dicho de las dos ballenas del barco francés. En otros momentos de este libro se ha refutado la calumniosa acusación de que el oficio ballenero es un asunto absolutamente sucio y desagradable. Pero hay otra cosa que rechazar. Se insinúa que todas las ballenas huelen mal siempre. Ahora: ¿cómo se ha originado ese odioso estigma ?

Opino que su rastro se remonta claramente a la primera llegada a Londres de los barcos balleneros de Groenlandia, hace más de dos siglos. Porque esos balleneros no destilaban entonces, ni destilan ahora, el aceite en el mar, como lo han hecho siempre los barcos del mar del Sur, sino que, cortando en trozos pequeños la grasa fresca, la meten por los agujeros de grandes barriles, y se la llevan al puerto de ese modo, ya que la brevedad de la temporada en esos mares helados y las súbitas y violentas tempestades a que están expuestos les prohíben cualquier otro modo de obrar. La consecuencia es que al abrir la sentina y descargar uno de esos cementerios de ballenas, en el muelle de Groenlandia, se exhala un olor semejante al que surge cuando se excava un viejo cementerio urbano para poner los cimientos de un hospital de maternidad.

Supongo también, en parte, que esa perversa acusación contra los balleneros puede imputarse igualmente a que en tiempos antiguos existía en la costa de Groenlandia una aldea de holandeses llamada Schmerenburgh o Smeerenberg, siendo usado este último nombre por el docto Fogo von Slack, en su gran obra sobre los olores, libro de texto sobre el tema. Como implica su nombre (smeer, grasa; berg, preparar), esa aldea se fundó para proporcionar un lugar de destilación a la grasa de la flota ballenera holandesa, sin llevarla a la patria con ese objeto. Era una colección de hornos, marmitas y depósitos de aceite, y cuando el trabajo estaba en plena actividad, ciertamente, no exhalaba ningún aroma agradable. Pero todo eso es muy diferente en un ballenero del mar del Sur, que en un viaje, quizá, de cuatro años, después de llenar completamente de aceite la sentina, tal vez no dedica ni cincuenta días a la tarea de hervirlo; y, al meterlo en barriles en ese estado, el aceite es casi inodoro. La verdad es que, viva o muerta, con tal que se la trate decentemente, la ballena, como especie, no es en absoluto un ser maloliente; ni se puede reconocer con la nariz a un ballenero, tal como la gente de la Edad Media se jactaba de descubrir a un judío a su alrededor. Y, desde luego, la ballena no puede ser sino fragante, dado que, en general, disfruta de tan buena salud, y hace tan abundante ejercicio, siempre fuera de casa, aunque ciertamente rara vez al aire libre. Yo digo que el movimiento de la cola de un cachalote por encima de la superficie produce un perfume como cuando una dama almizclada agita su vestido en un tibio salón. ¿A qué compararé, pues, el cachalote, en fragancia, considerando su magnitud ? ¿No habrá de ser a aquel famoso elefante, de colmillos enjoyados y aromado de mirra, que sacaron de una ciudad "' india para rendir honores a Alejandro Magno ? 

El náufrago

Sólo pocos días después de encontrar al barco francés, ocurrió un hecho muy significativo al más insignificante de los tripulantes del Pequod; un suceso muy lamentable y que terminó por ofrecer a esa nave predestinada, a veces locamente alegre, una profecía viva y siempre presente de cualquier porvenir de desastres que pudiera estarle reservado.

Bien: en un barco ballenero no todos bajan a las lanchas. Se reservan algunos marineros, llamados guardianes, cuya jurisdicción es manejar el barco mientras las lanchas persiguen a la ballena. Por lo regular, esos guardianes son gente tan dispuesta como los hombres que forman las tripulaciones de las lanchas. Pero si por casualidad hay en el barco un tipo indebidamente enclenque, torpe o temeroso, es seguro que se le hará guardián. Eso ocurría en el Pequod con el negrito apodado Pippin; Pip por abreviatura. ¡Pobre Pip ! Ya habéis oído antes hablar de él; debéis recordar su pandereta en aquella noche dramática, tan sombríamente loca.

En aspecto exterior, Pip y Dough-Boy hacían pareja, como un potro negro y uno blanco, de igual tamaño, pero de color diverso, uncidos en un excéntrico tiro. Pero mientras el desgraciado Dough-Boy era por naturaleza oscuro y lento de inteligencia, Pip, aunque demasiado tierno de corazón, era en el fondo muy listo, con esa listeza grata, jovial y alegre, peculiar de su raza; raza que siempre disfruta todas las vacaciones y festividades con más hermoso y libre deleite que cualquier otra raza. Para los negros, el calendario del año debería mostrar nada más que trescientos sesenta y cinco Cuatro de julio y días de Año Nuevo. Y no sonriáis así cuando digo que ese negrito era brillante, pues incluso la negrura tiene su brillante: observad ese ébano lustroso, puesto en paneles en los gabinetes de los reyes. Pero Pip amaba la vida, y todas las pacíficas seguridades de la vida, de modo que aquella tarea infundidora de pánico en que, sin saber por qué, se había enredado inexplicablemente, había empañado su brillantez del modo más lamentable; aunque, como no tardará en verse, lo que así había quedado temporalmente apagado en él, al final estaba destinado a ser lúgubremente iluminado por extraños fuegos locos, que de modo ficticio, le harían relucir con un brillo diez veces superior al brillo natural con que en su nativo Tolland County; en Connecticut, había animado más de una fiesta de violines en el prado, y, en el crepúsculo melodioso, con su alegre ¡ah, ah ! había transformado el redondo horizonte en una pandereta con sonajas de estrellas. . Así, en el claro aire del día, suspendida sobre un cuello de venas azules, brilla saludable la gota de diamante de puras aguas; pero cuando el astuto joyero quiere mostraros el diamante en su fulgor más impresionante, lo pone sobre un fondo oscuro, y luego lo ilumina no con el sol, sino con algún gas poco natural. Entonces surgen esas fieras refulgencias, infernalmente soberbias; entonces el diamante de perverso brillo parece alguna gema de la corona robada al rey del infierno. Pero volvamos al relato.

Ocurrió por casualidad que, en el asunto del ámbar gris, el remero de popa de Stubb se dislocó una mano de tal modo que quedó inútil durante algún tiempo, y, temporalmente, pusieron a Pip en su lugar.

La primera vez que Stubb bajó a la lancha con él, Pip mostró mucho nerviosismo, pero, por fortuna, escapó por esa vez de entrar en contacto cercano con la ballena, y por consiguiente no salió desacreditado, aunque Stubb, observándole, se cuidó después de exhortarle a que estimulase su valentía hasta el máximo, pues podría resultarle necesario a menudo.

Ahora, la segunda vez que bajaron, la lancha llegó remando hasta la ballena, y al recibir el pez el férreo dardo, dio su acostumbrado golpe, que en ese caso, por casualidad, fue precisamente bajo la bancada del pobre Pip. La involuntaria consternación del momento le hizo dar un brinco, remo en mano, fuera de la lancha, y de tal modo que, por tener ante el pecho parte de la estacha aflojada, se la llevó consigo por la borda, quedando enredado en ella al zambullirse por fin en el agua. En ese instante, la ballena herida emprendió feroz carrera y la estacha se tensó en seguida: inmediatamente el pobre Pip subió todo espumeante hasta los « choques » de la lancha, arrastrado inexorablemente por la estacha, que le había dado varias vueltas al pecho y al cuello.

Tashtego estaba de pie en la proa. El fuego de la persecución le llenaba. Odiaba a Pip por poltrón. Sacando de su vaina el cuchillo de la lancha, acercó su borde afilado a la estacha, y volviéndose a Stubb, exclamó interrogativamente: -¿Corto ? Mientras tanto, la cara azul y sofocada de Pip parecía decir claramente: « ¡Sí, por Dios ! ». Todo pasó en un instante. En menos de medio minuto ocurrió el asunto entero.

-¡Maldito sea; corta ! -rugió Stubb, y así se perdió la ballena y se salvó Pip.

Tan pronto como se recobró, el negrito fue asaltado por aullidos e insultos de la tripulación. Dejando tranquilamente que se desahogaran esas injurias desbordadas, Stubb, en tono sencillo, como de negocios, pero medio humorísticamente, maldijo a Pip en forma oficial; y hecho esto, en forma extraoficial le dio consejos muy saludables. Su sustancia era: « Nunca saltes de una lancha, Pip, a no ser... ». Pero todo lo demás era algo indefinido, como lo es siempre el más sano consejo. Ahora, en general, pegarse a la lancha es el lema auténtico de la pesca de la ballena, pero a veces se dan casos en que es aún mejor saltar de la lancha. Además, como si advirtiera al fin que si le daba a Pip un consejo concienzudo y sin diluir le dejaría un margen demasiado amplio para saltar en el futuro, Stubb abandonó de repente todos los consejos y concluyó con una orden perentoria: -¡Pégate a la lancha, Pip, o por Dios que no te voy a recoger si saltas; acuérdate de eso ! No podemos permitirnos perder ballenas por gente como tú; una ballena se vendería por treinta veces más que tú, Pip, en Alabama. Acuérdate de eso, y no vuelvas a saltar. Quizá con ello Stubb sugería indirectamente que, aunque el hombre ame a su semejante, el hombre, sin embargo, es un animal que hace dinero, propensión que a menudo interfiere con su benevolencia.

Pero todos estamos en manos de los dioses, y Pip volvió a saltar. Fue en circunstancias muy semejantes a su primera actuación, pero esta vez no se llevó la estacha con el pecho, de modo que, cuando la ballena empezó a correr, Pip quedó atrás en el mar, como el baúl de un viajero apresurado. ¡Ay !, Stubb fue demasiado fiel a su palabra. Era un día hermoso, generoso y azul; el mar chispeante estaba tranquilo y fresco y se extendía, plano, alrededor, hasta el horizonte, como el pan de oro del batihoja martillado hasta lo más extremo. Subiendo y bajando en ese mar, la cabeza de ébano de Pip aparecía como una cabeza de ajos. No hubo un cuchillo de lancha que se levantara cuando él cayó tan rápidamente a popa. Stubb le volvió la espalda inexorablemente, y la ballena fue alcanzada. En tres minutos, toda una milla de océano sin orillas se interpuso entre Pip y Stubb. Desde el centro del mar, el pobre Pip volvía su cabeza negra, encrespada y rizada, hacia el sol, otro náufrago solitario, aunque el más alto y brillante.

Ahora, en tiempo de calma, nadar en el mar abierto es tan fácil para el nadador experto como lo es en tierra montar en un coche con buenos muelles. Pero la terrible soledad es intolerable. ¡Dios mío ! ¿Quién puede decir la intensa concentración del yo en tan despiadada inmensidad ? Observad cuando los marineros en calma chicha se bañan en alta mar; observad cómo se aprietan de cerca a su barco y sólo se mueven junto a sus flancos.

Pero ¿realmente Stubb había abandonado al pobre negrito a su destino ? No; al menos, no tenía esa intención. Porque había dos lanchas detrás de él, y suponía, sin duda, que acudirían por supuesto a Pip, muy deprisa, y le recogerían; aunque, desde luego, no siempre los cazadores de ballenas muestran estas consideraciones hacia los remeros en peligro, en tales casos, y tales casos ocurren con cierta frecuencia: casi siempre, en la pesca, el llamado cobarde queda marcado por ese odio inexorable peculiar de la marina militar y los ejércitos.

Pero ocurrió por casualidad que esas lanchas, sin ver a Pip, al observar de repente unas ballenas cercanas por un lado, viraron y emprendieron la persecución, y la lancha de Stubb ya estaba tan lejos, y él y sus tripulantes tan atentos a su pez, que el anillo del horizonte de Pip empezó a ensancharse a su alrededor de modo lamentable. Por puro azar, el propio barco le salvó por fin; pero desde aquella hora el negrito anduvo por la cubierta como un idiota; o al menos así dijeron que estaba. El mar, burlonamente, había conservado su cuerpo finito, pero había ahogado el infinito de su alma. No la había dejado ahogada del todo, sin embargo. Más bien se la había llevado viva allá abajo, a maravillosas profundidades, donde extrañas formas del intacto mundo prístino se deslizaban de un lado para otro ante sus ojos pasivos; y donde la avara sirena Sabiduría revelaba sus tesoros amontonados; y entre las eternidades alegres, sin corazón y siempre juveniles, Pip veía esos animalillos, como los del coral, multitudinarios y divinamente omnipresentes, que elevaban las colosales esferas desde el firmamento de las aguas. Veía el pie de Dios en la cárcola del telar, y lo decía; y por eso sus compañeros le llamaban loco. Así, la locura del hombre es la cordura del cielo; y, alejándose de toda razón mortal, el hombre llega al fin a ese pensamiento celeste que para la razón es absurdo y frenético; y, para bien o para mal, se siente entonces libre de compromiso e indiferente como su Dios.

Por lo demás, no juzguéis a Stubb con demasiada dureza. Este asunto es corriente en tal clase de pesca; y, en la continuación del relato, ya se verá qué parecido abandono me tocó a mí mismo. 

Un apretón de manos

Esa ballena de Stubb, adquirida tan cara, se trasladó debidamente al costado del Pequod, donde se llevaron a cabo de modo normal todas esas operaciones de izado y descuartizamiento antes descritas, hasta el vaciado del Tonel de Heidelberg, o caja.

Mientras algunos estaban ocupados en esta última tarea, otros estaban empleados en arrastrar los toneles mayores, tan pronto como se llenaban de esperma, y, llegado el momento adecuado, esa misma esperma se manipulaba con cuidado antes de ir a las destilerías de que trataré en seguida.

Se había enfriado y cristalizado en tal medida que cuando, con otros varios, me senté ante una amplia bañera constantiniana de esperma, la encontré extremadamente condensada en bultos que flotaban acá y allá por la parte líquida. Nuestra tarea era volver a hacer fluidos esos bultos a fuerza de apretarlos. ¡Dulce y untuoso deber ! No es extraño que en tiempos antiguos el aceite de esperma fuera un cosmético tan estimado. ¡Qué clarificador ! ¡Qué endulzador ! ¡Qué suavizador ! ¡Qué delicioso reblandecedor ! Después de tener las manos en él unos pocos minutos, notaba los dedos como anguilas y empezando, por decirlo así, a volverse serpentinos y espirales.

Yo, sentado allí bien cómodo, con las piernas cruzadas, en cubierta; tras el duro ejercicio del cabrestante; bajo un tranquilo cielo azul; con el barco navegando indolentemente y deslizándose con serenidad; yo, mientras me bañaba las manos en esos suaves y amables glóbulos de tejidos infiltrados, tejidos casi en esa misma hora, para romperse sustanciosamente entre mis dedos y descargar toda su opulencia, como las uvas plenamente maduras sueltan su vino, y mientras aspiraba ese aroma incontaminado, literal y verdaderamente como aroma de violetas en primavera, os aseguro que viví aquel rato como en un prado almizclado, y me olvidé totalmente de nuestro terrible juramento, lavándome de él las manos y el corazón en ese inefable aceite de esperma, y casi empecé a dar crédito a la vieja superstición de Paracelso de que el aceite de esperma es de rara eficacia para mitigar el calor de la ira, al mismo tiempo que, bañándome en ese baño, me sentía divinamente libre de toda mala voluntad, o petulancia, o malicia de ninguna clase.

¡Apretar, apretar, apretar, durante toda la mañana ! Apreté aquel aceite de esperma hasta que casi me fundí en él: apreté ese aceite de esperma hasta que me invadió una extraña suerte de locura, y me encontré, sin darme cuenta, apretando en él las manos de los que trabajaban conmigo, confundiéndolas con suaves glóbulos. Tal sentimiento desbordante, afectuoso, amistoso, cariñoso producía esta labor, que por fin acabé por apretarles continuamente las manos, y por mirarles a los ojos sentimentalmente, como para decir: « ¡Oh, mis queridos semejantes !, ¿por qué vamos a seguir abrigando resentimientos sociales, o conocer el más leve malhumor o envidia ? Vamos; apretémonos todos las manos; mejor dicho, apretémonos universalmente en la mismísima leche y esperma de la benevolencia ».

¡Ojalá pudiera seguir apretando ese aceite de esperma para siempre ! Pues ahora, una vez que, por muchas experiencias prolongadas y repetidas, he percibido que en todos los casos el hombre debe acabar por rebajar, o al menos desplazar, su concepto de la felicidad inalcanzable, sin ponerlo en parte ninguna del intelecto ni de la fantasía, sino en la esposa, el corazón, la cama, la mesa, la silla de montar, el rincón del fuego, el campo, ahora que he percibido todo esto, estoy dispuesto a apretar la tina eternamente. En pensamientos de las visiones nocturnas, he visto largas filas de ángeles en el paraíso, cada cual con las manos en una orza de aceite de esperma.

Bien, mientras se habla de aceite de esperma, es oportuno hablar de otras cosas afines a él, en la tarea de preparar al cachalote para las refinerías.

Primero viene el llamado caballo-blanco, que se obtiene de la parte menguante del pez, y también de las porciones más gruesas de la cola. Está duro de tendones solidificados -una almohada de músculo-, pero todavía contiene aceite. Después de separarse de la ballena, el caballo-blanco se corta ante todo en trozos alargados transportables, para pasar luego al trinchador. Parecen bloques de mármol de Berkshire.

Pastel de ciruelas es el término dado a ciertas partes fragmentarias de la carne de la ballena, que se adhieren acá y allá a la manta de grasa, y a menudo participan en considerable medida de su untuosidad. Es un objeto muy reconfortable, apetitoso y hermoso de mirar. Como implica su nombre, es de un color enormemente rico y moteado, con un fondo de vetas níveas y doradas, punteado de manchas del más oscuro carmesí o púrpura. Son ciruelas de rubíes en figura de limón. Pese a la sensatez, es difícil contenerse para no comerlo. Confieso que una vez me escondí detrás del trinquete para probarlo. Sabía algo así como supongo que podría haber sabido una real chuleta del muslo de Louis le Gros, imaginando que le hubieran matado el primer día después de la temporada de caza mayor, y que esa determinada época de caza mayor hubiera coincidido con una vendimia extraordinariamente buena de las viñas de Champagne.

Hay otra sustancia, y muy singular, que aparece en el desarrollo de este asunto, pero que entiendo que es muy difícil describir adecuadamente. Se llama slobgollion, nombre original de los balleneros, como también lo es la naturaleza de la sustancia. Es un asunto inefablemente legamoso y fibroso, que suele encontrarse en los barriles de esperma después de mucho apretar y decantar a continuación. Entiendo que son las membranas de la caja, notablemente sutiles, que se han roto y se adhieren.

El llamado gurry es un término que pertenece en propiedad a los cazadores de ballenas francas, pero que a veces usan ocasionalmente los pescadores de cachalotes. Designa la oscura sustancia glutinosa que se rasca del lomo de la ballena franca o de Groenlandia, y que cubre en abundancia las cubiertas de esos seres inferiores que persiguen a tan innoble leviatán.

Las pinzas: estrictamente, esta palabra no es autóctona del vocabulario ballenero, pero llega a pertenecer a él, por usarlo los balleneros. Las pinzas del ballenero son una corta y firme tira de materia tendinosa cortada de la parte decreciente de la cola del leviatán: tiene, por término medio, una pulgada de espesor, y en cuanto al resto, cerca del tamaño de la parte de hierro de una azada. Moviéndola como un filo por la cubierta aceitosa, actúa como un raspador de cuero y, con inexpresables incitaciones, como por magia, atrae consigo todas las impurezas.

Pero para saberlo todo sobre esos asuntos recónditos, el mejor modo que tenéis es bajar en seguida al cuarto de la grasa, y tener una larga charla con sus residentes. Ese lugar se ha descrito antes como el receptáculo para los trozos de la « manta », una vez arrancada ésta de la ballena, e izada a cubierta. Cuando llega el momento adecuado de descuartizar su contenido, ese local es una escena de terror para todos los novicios, especialmente de noche. A un lado, alumbrado por una linterna pálida, se ha dejado un espacio libre para los trabajadores. Estos suelen ir en parejas: uno con pica y garfio, y otro con azada. La pica ballenera es semejante al arma de abordaje de la fragata que tiene ese mismo nombre. El garfio es algo así como un bichero de bote. Con su garfio, el hombre del garfio engancha una lámina de grasa y trata de impedir que resbale, mientras el barco se mece y cabecea. Mientras tanto, el hombre de la azada se pone de pie en esa lámina, cortándolo verticalmente en rebanadas que entran en los caballetes portátiles. Esta azada está tan tajante como puede dejarla la piedra de afilar: los pies del hombre de la azada están descalzos, la cosa en que se yergue se le resbala irresistiblemente como un trineo. Si se corta uno de los dedos de sus propios pies, o de su ayudante, ¿os extrañaría mucho ? Los dedos de los pies andan escasos entre los veteranos del cuarto de la grasa. 

La sotana

Si hubierais subido a bordo del Pequod en una determinada coyuntura de esta autopsia de la ballena, y os hubieseis dado un paseo hacia la proa, junto al molinete, estoy casi seguro de que habríais escudriñado con no poca curiosidad un objeto muy extraño y enigmático que habríais visto allí, tendido a lo largo de los imbornales de sotavento. No la prodigiosa cisterna en la enorme cabeza del cetáceo, ni el prodigio de su mandíbula inferior desquijarada, ni el milagro de su cola simétrica, nada de eso os habría sorprendido tanto como una leve mirada a ese inexplicable cono, más largo que la altura de un hombre de Kentucky, de cerca de un pie de diámetro en la base, y de un negro de azabache, como Yojo, el ídolo de ébano de Queequeg. Y en efecto, es un ídolo; o más bien, en tiempos antiguos, era su imagen. Un ídolo como el que se encontró en los secretos bosquecillos de la reina Maachah en Judea, y por adorar al cual, el rey Asa, su hijo, la depuso, y destruyó el ídolo, y lo quemó como abominación en el torrente Cedrón, según se expone sobriamente en el capítulo decimoquinto del Primer Libro de los Reyes.

Mirad al marinero, llamado trinchador, que viene ahora, y, ayudado por dos compañeros, se echa pesadamente a la espalda el gran dissimus, como lo llaman los marineros, y, con los hombros encorvados, sale vacilante como si fuera un granadero que se lleva del campo de combate a un camarada muerto. Extendiéndolo en la cubierta del castillo de proa, como un cazador africano con la piel de una boa. Hecho esto, vuelve la piel del revés, como una pernera de pantalón: le da un buen tirón, hasta doblar casi su diámetro, y por fin la cuelga, bien extendida, en las jarcias, a secar. No tarda mucho en descolgarla; entonces, cortando unos tres pies de ella, hacia la extremidad en punta, y cortando luego dos hendiduras para sacar los brazos, se mete a lo largo, entero, dentro de ella. El trinchador ahora está ante vosotros revestido de todos los ornamentos de su oficio. Inmemorial para toda su orden, este revestimiento es lo único que le protege adecuadamente mientras se ocupa de las peculiares funciones de su cargo.

Ese cargo consiste en trinchar los trozos « de caballete » de la grasa para las marmitas; operación que se realiza en un curioso caballete, apoyado por un extremo contra las amuradas, y con un amplio barril debajo, en que caen los trozos en rebanada, tan deprisa como caen las hojas de la mesa de un orador en arrebato. Revestido de decoroso negro; ocupando un conspicuo púlpito; atento a hojas de Biblia,' ¡qué candidato para un arzobispado, qué tipo para Papa sería este trinchador !

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La destilería

Un barco ballenero americano se distingue no sólo por sus lanchas suspendidas, sino también por sus instalaciones de destilería. Presenta la curiosa rareza de la más sólida albañilería unida con el roble y el cáñamo para formar el barco entero. Es como si un horno de ladrillos se transportara desde el campo abierto hasta sus tablas.

Las destilerías están situadas entre el palo trinquete y el mayor, la parte más espaciosa de la cubierta. Las tablas de debajo son de especial resistencia, apropiadas para sostener el peso de una masa casi maciza de ladrillo y mortero, de una planta de unos diez pies por ocho, y cinco de altura. El cimiento no penetra en cubierta, pero la obra de albañilería está firmemente asegurada a la superficie mediante poderosos codos de hierro que la abrazan por todas partes, atornillándola a las tablas. Por los lados, está revestida de madera, y por arriba está cubierta por una amplia escotilla, en pendiente y con refuerzos. Levantando esa escotilla, se hacen visibles las grandes marmitas de destilería, dos en número, y cada una de ellas de varios barrels de cabida. Cuando no se usan, se conservan notablemente limpias. A veces se pulimentan con esteatita y arena, hasta que brillan por dentro como poncheras de plata. Durante las guardias nocturnas, algunos cínicos marineros viejos se deslizan dentro de ellas y se enrollan para echar un sueñecito. Mientras se ocupan en pulimentarlas -uno en cada marmita, a cada lado- se transmiten muchas comunicaciones confidenciales por encima de los labios de hierro. También es lugar para profundas meditaciones matemáticas. Fue en la marmita izquierda del Pequod, con la esteatita dando vueltas diligentemente a mi alrededor, donde por primera vez me impresionó indirectamente el notable hecho de que, en geometría, todos los cuerpos que se deslizan a lo largo de la cicloide, por ejemplo mi esteatita, descienden en cualquier punto empleando exactamente el mismo tiempo.

Quitando el parafuegos de delante de la destilería, queda a la vista la desnuda albañilería de ese lado, perforado por las dos bocas de hierro de los hornos, que quedan debajo mismo de las marmitas. Esas bocas están provistas de pesadas puertas de hierro. Para impedir que el intenso calor del fuego se comunique a la cubierta, hay un depósito somero que se extiende bajo toda la superficie cerrada de la refinería. Este depósito se conserva lleno de agua, por un concurso inserto detrás, al mismo tiempo que se evapora. No hay chimeneas exteriores; se abren directamente a la pared posterior. Y aquí volvamos atrás un momento.

Fue cerca de las nueve de la noche cuando, por primera vez en este viaje, se pusieron en funcionamiento las destilerías del Pequod. Correspondía a Stubb dirigir el asunto.

-¿Todos preparados ahí ? Fuera la escotilla, entonces, y adelante. Tú, cocinero, fuego a los hornos. Esto fue cosa fácil, pues el carpintero había ido metiendo sus virutas en el horno durante todo el viaje. Aquí ha de decirse que, en un viaje ballenero, el primer fuego de la destilería ha de alimentarse algún tiempo con leña. Después de eso, no se usa leña sino como medio de poner en rápida ignición el combustible habitual. En resumen, después de destilarse, el material grasiento, crujiente y encogido, que entonces se llama restos o fritters, sigue conservando buena parte de sus propiedades oleaginosas. Estos fritters alimentan las llamas. Como un pletórico mártir ardiente, o un misántropo que se consume a sí mismo, la ballena, una vez entrada en combustión, proporciona su propio combustible y quema su propio cuerpo. ¡Ojalá consumiera su propio humo ! Pues su humo es horrible de inhalar, y no hay más remedio que inhalarlo, y no sólo eso, sino que durante todo ese tiempo hay que vivir en él. Tiene un inexpresable aroma salvaje e hindú como puede hallarse en la proximidad de las piras funerarias. Huele como el ala izquierda del día del juicio, es un argumento a favor del abismo infernal.

A medianoche, la destilería estaba en plena actividad. Nos habíamos desembarazado de la carcasa; se habían izado las velas; el viento refrescaba; la salvaje oscuridad del océano era intensa. Pero esa oscuridad quedaba disuelta por las feroces llamas que de vez en cuando salían bifurcándose de los fuliginosos tubos, e iluminaban todas las jarcias en la altura como con el famoso « fuego griego ». El ardiente barco seguía avanzando como si se le hubiera encargado inexorablemente alguna acción vengativa. Así los bergantines, cargados de pez y azufre, del osado hidriota Canaris, con anchas hojas de llamas por velas, caían sobre las fragatas turcas, y las envolvían en conflagraciones.

La escotilla, quitada de encima de la destilería, ahora ofrecía un amplio hogar ante ella. Allí se erguían las tartáreas figuras de los arponeros paganos, siempre los fogoneros del barco ballenero. Con largos palos dentados, lanzaban siseantes masas de grasa a las abrasadoras marmitas, o removían debajo de éstas los fuegos, hasta que se disparaban las llamas serpentinas, escapando, rizadas, por las puertecillas para alcanzarles por los pies. El humo salía en espirales que se amontonaban lúgubremente. A cada balanceo del barco correspondía un balanceo del aceite hirviente, que parecía todo ansioso de saltarles a la cara. Enfrente de la boca de la destilería, al otro lado del amplio hogar de madera, estaba el molinete. Este servía de sofá de mar. Allí estaba ociosa la guardia, cuando no tenía nada que hacer, mirando el rojo ardor del fuego, hasta que notaban abrasados los ojos en la cara. Sus bronceados rasgos, ahora todos sucios de humo y sudor, sus barbas enredadas y el contrastado brillo bárbaro de sus dientes, todo ello se revelaba extrañamente en las caprichosas decoraciones de la destilería. Mientras se narraban sus aventuras impías, con sus relatos de terror contados con palabras de regocijo; mientras se elevaba bifurcada su risa incivilizada, como las llamas saliendo del horno; mientras gesticulaban salvajemente ante ellas los arponeros, de un lado para otro, con sus grandes horcas puntiagudas y sus cazos; mientras seguía aullando el viento, y saltaban las olas, y gruñía y cabeceaba el barco, aunque lanzando firmemente su rojo infierno cada vez más allá, a la negrura del mar y de la noche, a la vez que trituraba despectivamente los huesos blancos en su boca, y escupía malignamente a todos lados; mientras tanto, el Pequod, cargado de salvajes y de fuego, y quemando un cadáver, y sumergiéndose en esa negrura de tiniebla, parecía el equivalente material del alma de su monomaníaco comandante.

Así me parecía a mí, situado en la caña, mientras guiaba en silencio, durante largas horas, el camino de ese barco de fuego por el mar. Envuelto también yo en tiniebla durante aquel tiempo, veía mejor así la rojez, la locura, la espectralidad de los demás. La continua visión de las formas demoníacas ante mí, haciendo cabriolas, medio en fuego, medio en humo, empezó por fin a engendrar visiones afines en mi alma, tan pronto como empecé a sucumbir al inexplicable sopor que siempre me invadía en el timón a medianoche.

Pero esa noche en particular me ocurrió una cosa extraña, y para siempre inexplicable. Sobresaltándome de un breve sueño de pie, tuve horrible conciencia de que algo estaba fatalmente mal. La caña del timón, hecha de mandíbula de ballena, me golpeaba el costado con que me apoyaba en ella; en mis oídos sentía el sordo zumbido de las velas, que empezaban a sacudirse con el viento; creí que tenía abiertos los ojos; tuve a medias conciencia de que me llevaba los dedos a los párpados y los abría maquinalmente hasta separarlos. Pero, a pesar de todo esto, no podía ver ante mí ninguna brújula con que orientarme, por más que parecía que sólo un momento antes había mirado el mapa a la firme luz de la bitácora que la iluminaba. No parecía haber ante mí nada sino un vacío de pez, de vez en cuando más fantasmal por destellos de rojez. La impresión dominante era que esa cosa rápida y precipitada sobre la que estaba yo, fuera lo que fuera, no iba rumbo a ningún puerto por delante, sino que se precipitaba huyendo de todos los puertos a popa. Me invadió un sentimiento intenso y loco, como de muerte. Mis manos agarraron la caña convulsivamente, pero con la idea demente de que la caña estaba invertida, no se sabe por qué, de algún modo encantado. « ¡Dios mío ! ¿Qué me pasa ? », pensé. ¡Mirad ! En mi breve sueño me había dado la vuelta, y estaba mirando a la popa del barco, de espalda a la proa y a la brújula. En un momento, me volví, con el tiempo justo de evitar que el barco volara contra el viento, y probablemente zozobrara. ¡Qué alegre y grato liberarme de esa innatural alucinación de la noche, y de la fatal contingencia de caer a sotavento !

¡Oh, hombre, no mires demasiado tiempo a la cara del fuego ! ¡Nunca sueñes con la mano en la barra ! No vuelvas la espalda a la brújula, acepta la primera indicación del timón que tironea; no creas al fuego artificial, cuando su rojez hace parecer fantasmales todas las cosas. Mañana, al sol natural, los cielos estarán claros; los que centelleaban como demonios entre las llamas bífidas, por la mañana se mostrarán suavizados de un modo diferente, al menos más suave; el glorioso, dorado y alegre sol es la única lámpara sincera: ¡todas las demás son sólo embusteras !

No obstante, el sol no oculta la marisma funesta de Virginia, ni la maldita campiña romana, ni el ancho Sahara, ni tantos millones de millas de desiertos y dolores como hay bajo la luna. El sol no oculta el océano, que es el lado oscuro de la tierra, y que forma sus dos terceras partes. Así, por tanto, si un hombre mortal tiene en sí más alegría que tristeza, ese hombre mortal no puede ser sincero: o no es sincero, o está a medio crecer. Con los libros pasa lo mismo. El más sincero de todos los hombres fue el varón de Dolores, y el más sincero de los libros es el de Salomón, y el Eclesiastés es el fino acero templado del dolor. « Todo es vanidad. » TODO. Esta terrible palabra todavía no se ha apoderado de la sabiduría del Salomón no cristiano. Pero el que elude hospitales y cárceles, y aprieta el paso al cruzar los cementerios, y prefiere hablar de óperas que del infierno, y llama pobres diablos de hombres enfermos a Cowper, Young, Pascal y Rousseau; y, a través de toda una vida libre de cuidados, jura por Rabelais como el más sabio, y por tanto el más alegre; ese hombre no es apropiado para sentarse en lápidas sepulcrales y romper el verde terrón húmedo con el insondablemente maravilloso Salomón.

Pero hasta Salomón dice: « El hombre que se aparta del camino del entendimiento quedará (esto es, aun en vida) en la compañía de los muertos ». No te entregues, pues, al fuego, no sea que él te haga volcar y te mate, como aquella vez me pasó a mí. Hay una sabiduría que es dolor; pero hay un dolor que es locura. Y hay en algunas almas un águila de Catskill que lo mismo puede dejarse caer en las más negras gargantas que volver a elevarse de ella y hacerse invisible en los espacios soleados. Y aunque vuele por siempre en la garganta, esa garganta está en las montañas, de modo que, aun en su caída más baja, el águila montañera sigue estando más alta que otras aves de la llanura, por mucho que se eleven. 

La lámpara

Si hubierais bajado de la destilería del Pequod al castillo de proa donde dormía la guardia franca de servicio, por un momento casi habríais creído que estabais en alguna iluminada capilla de reyes y consejeros canonizados. Allí yacían, en sus triangulares nichos de encina; cada marinero un mutismo cincelado, con una veintena de lámparas resplandeciendo sobre sus ojos encapuchados.

En los barcos mercantes, el aceite para el marinero es más escaso que la leche de reinas. Su suerte habitual es vestirse a oscuras, comer a oscuras y andar a oscuras tropezando hacia su petate. Pero el cazador de ballenas, como busca el alimento de la luz, vive por tanto en luz. Convierte su linterna en una lámpara de Aladino y allí se acuesta, de tal modo que en la noche más alquitranada, el negro casco del barco sigue albergando una iluminación.

Ved con qué entera libertad el marinero toma su manojo de lámparas -aunque a menudo no son más que viejas botellas y cacharros- y las lleva a la enfriadera de cobre de la destilería, llenándolas allí como jarros de cerveza en la cuba. El hace arder el más puro aceite, en su estado bruto, y por tanto sin viciar; un fluido desconocido para todas las invenciones solares, lunares o astrales de tierra firme. Es dulce como la mantecosa hierba temprana en abril. Va a la caza de su aceite como para estar seguro de su frescura y autenticidad, igual que el cazador de las praderas sale a cazar su cena de caza. 

Estiba y limpieza

Ya se ha relatado cómo el gran leviatán es señalado a gritos desde el mastelero, cómo se le persigue por los páramos acuáticos, y cómo se hace su matanza en los valles de la profundidad; cómo luego es remolcado junto al barco y decapitado; y cómo (conforme al principio que autorizaba al verdugo de antaño a quedarse las vestiduras con que muriera el degollado) su gran gabán almohadillado se convierte en propiedad de su ejecutor; cómo, en el momento oportuno, es condenado a las calderas, y lo mismo que Shadrach, Meshach y Abednego, su esperma, aceite y huesos pasan intactos por el fuego; pero ahora queda por concluir el último capítulo de esta parte de la descripción recitando -cantando, si soy capaz- el romántico proceso de trasvasar su aceite a los barriles y bajarlos a la sentina, donde una vez más regresa el leviatán a sus profundidades nativas, deslizándose bajo la superficie como antes, pero ¡ay ! para no volver jamás a subir y a soplar.

Todavía tibio, el aceite, como el ponche caliente, entra en los toneles de seis barrels, y quizá, en tanto que el barco avanza cabeceando y balanceándose por el mar de medianoche, los enormes toneles se hacen rodar y se vuelcan, un extremo tras otro, y a veces se escapan peligrosamente por la resbalosa cubierta, como aludes, hasta que por fin son sujetos y frenados en su camino, mientras que alrededor, tac, tac, golpean los aros todos los martillos que pueden caer sobre ellos, pues ahora todo marinero es tonelero ex officio.

Al fin, cuando se mete en barril la última pinta de aceite, y todo se enfría, se abren las grandes escotillas, dejando al aire las tripas del barco, y bajan los toneles a su reposo final en el mar. Hecho esto, se vuelven a colocar las escotillas y se cierran herméticamente, como un armario emparedado.

En la pesca del cachalote, éste es quizá uno de los episodios más notables de todo el asunto. Un día las tablas desbordan torrentes de sangre y aceite; en el sagrado alcázar se amontonan profanamente enormes masas de la cabeza del cetáceo; hay alrededor grandes toneles oxidados; el humo de la destilería ha llenado de hollín las batayolas; los marineros andan por ahí llenos de untuosidad; el barco entero se parece al propio leviatán, mientras que por todas partes hay un ruido ensordecedor.

Pero un día o dos después, mirad a vuestro alrededor, y aguzad las orejas en el mismísimo barco; si no fuera por las delatoras lanchas y destilerías, juraríais que pisáis algún silencioso buque mercante, con un capitán escrupulosamente pulcro. El aceite de esperma sin manufacturar posee una singular capacidad de limpieza. Esa es la razón por la que las cubiertas nunca tienen un aspecto tan blanco como después de lo que ellos llaman un trabajo de aceite. Además, con las cenizas de los restos quemados de la ballena, se hace en seguida una poderosa lejía, y esta lejía acaba rápidamente con cualquier pegajosidad del lomo del cetáceo que pueda seguir adherida al costado. Los marineros van con toda diligencia a lo largo de las amuradas y con baldes de agua y trapos les devuelven su total limpieza. Se rasca el hollín de las jarcias bajas. Todos los numerosos instrumentos que se han usado se limpian y guardan con análoga fidelidad. Se restriega la gran escotilla y se pone sobre la destilería, ocultando por completo las marmitas; no queda un tonel a la vista; y todos los aparejos se amontonan en rincones ocultos; y cuando, con la diligencia combinada y simultánea de casi toda la tripulación del barco, se concluye por fin la totalidad de este deber concienzudo, los tripulantes comienzan sus propias abluciones, se mudan de pies a cabeza, y por fin salen a la cubierta inmaculada, todos frescos y radiantes como novios recién llegados de la más refinada Holanda.

Ahora, con paso animado, recorren las tablas en grupos de dos y tres y charlan humorísticamente sobre salones, sofás, alfombras y finas batistas; proponen esterar la cubierta; piensan en tener cortinajes en la cofa, y no les parecía mal tomar el té a la luz de la luna en el mirador del castillo de proa. Sería casi un atrevimiento insinuar a tan almizclados marineros algo sobre el aceite, los huesos y la grasa. No conocen esas cosas a que aludís lejanamente. ¡Fuera, y a buscar servilletas !

Pero atención: allá arriba, en las tres cofas, hay tres hombres dedicados a acechar más ballenas, que si se cazan, volverán a manchar sin remedio el antiguo mobiliario de roble, y dejarán caer por lo menos alguna manchita de grasa en algún sitio. Sí, y en muchas ocasiones, después de los más severos trabajos sin interrupción, que no conocen noches, continuando seguidos durante noventa y seis horas; después que ellos han salido de la lancha, donde se han hinchado las muñecas remando todo el día por el ecuador, sólo para subir a cubierta llevando enormes cadenas, y mover el pesado cabrestante y cortar y tajar, sí, y en sus mismos sudores, ser ahumados y quemados otra vez por los combinados fuegos del sol ecuatorial y de la ecuatorial refinería; cuando, a continuación de esto, se han agitado para limpiar el barco y dejarlo como un inmaculado salón de lechería, muchas veces, estos pobres hombres, al abotonarse apenas sus chaquetones limpios, se ven sobresaltados por el grito de « ¡Ahí sopla ! », y vuelan allá a combatir con otra ballena, y volver a pasar por todo este fatigoso asunto. ¡Ah, amigo mío, pero esto es matar hombres ! Sin embargo, esto es la vida. Pues apenas los mortales, con largos esfuerzos, hemos extraído de la vasta mole del mundo su escaso, pero valioso aceite de esperma, y luego, con fatigada paciencia, nos hemos limpiado de sus suciedades, y aprendido a vivir aquí en limpios tabernáculos del alma; apenas se ha hecho esto, cuando ¡ahí sopla ! se ve surgir el chorro del espectro, y nos hacemos a la vela para combatir contra otro mundo, y volver a pasar por la vieja rutina de la vida joven.

¡Ah, la metempsicosis ! ¡Oh, Pitágoras, que en la clara Grecia, hace dos mil años, moriste tan bueno, tan sabio, tan benévolo; en mi último viaje a lo largo de la costa del Perú he navegado contigo, y, aun tan necio como soy, te he enseñado a ti, simple muchacho bisoño, a empalmar una jarcia ! 

El doblón

Ya se ha contado antes cómo Ahab solía recorrer su alcázar, dando la vuelta regularmente en cada extremo, la bitácora y el palo mayor, pero con la multiplicidad de las demás cosas que requerían narración, no se ha añadido que a veces, en esos paseos, cuando más sumergido estaba en su humor, solía detenerse al dar la vuelta en cada uno de esos dos puntos, y quedarse mirando extrañamente el objeto particular que tenía delante. Cuando se detenía ante la bitácora, con su mirada clavada en la aguja puntiaguda de la brújula, esa mirada se disparaba como una jabalina con la afilada intensidad de su designio; y cuando al continuar otra vez su paseo, se detenía de nuevo ante el palo mayor, entonces, con esa misma mirada remachada en la moneda de oro allí clavada, conservaba el mismo aspecto de firmeza claveteada, sólo tocada por un cierto anhelo salvaje, aunque no esperanzado.

Pero una mañana, al dar media vuelta ante el doblón, pareció quedar nuevamente atraído por las extrañas figuras e inscripciones acuñadas en él, como si ahora empezara por primera vez a interpretar de algún modo monomaníaco los significados que pudieran albergarse en ellas. Y en todas las cosas se alberga algún significado cierto, o de otro modo, todas las cosas valen muy poco, y el mismo mundo redondo no es más que un signo vacío, a no ser como se hace con los cerros de junto a Boston, para venderse por carretadas para rellenar alguna marisma en la Vía Láctea.

Ahora, este doblón era del más puro oro virgen, arrancado en algún sitio del corazón de montes ubérrimos, de los que, a este y oeste, fluyen las fuentes de más de un Pactolo. Y aunque clavado ahora entre todas las herrumbres de los pernos de hierro y el verde gris de las chavetas de cobre, sin embargo, intocable e inmaculado para cualquier impureza, aún conservaba su fulgor de Quito. Y, aunque colocado entre una tripulación inexorable, y aunque a todas horas pasaran junto a él menos inexorables, a través de las inacabables noches envueltas en densa tiniebla, que podrían encubrir cualquier aproximación para un hurto, sin embargo, cada amanecer encontraba el doblón donde lo había dejado al anochecer. Pues estaba apartado y santificado para un fin aterrorizador, y por más que se extralimitaran en sus costumbres de marinos, los tripulantes, de modo unánime, lo reverenciaban en la fatigosa guardia de noche, preguntándose de quién acabaría siendo, y si éste viviría para gastarlo.

Ahora, esas nobles monedas de oro de Sudamérica son como medallas del sol y muestras del trópico. En ellas se acuñan, en lujuriante profusión, palmeras, alpacas, volcanes, discos del sol, estrellas, eclípticas, cuernos de la abundancia y ricas banderas ondeantes; de modo que el precioso oro parece casi obtener más valor y realzar gloria al pasar por esas fantasiosas Casas de Moneda tan hispánicamente poéticas.

Ocurrió por cierto, que el doblón del Pequod era un ejemplo riquísimo de esas cosas. En su canto redondo llevaba las letras: REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. De modo que esa brillante moneda Procedía de un país situado en el centro del mundo, bajo el gran ecuador, y con su nombre; y se había acuñado a media altura de los Andes, en el inalterado clima que no conoce otoño. Rodeada por esas letras, se veía la imagen de tres cimas andinas; de una salía una llama; una torre, de otra; de la tercera un gallo cantando; mientras que, en arco sobre ellas, había un segmento del zodíaco en compartimientos con todos los signos marcados con su cabalística habitual, y el sol, como clave del arco, entrando en el punto equinoccial en Libra.

Ante esa ecuatorial moneda se detenía ahora Ahab, no sin ser observado por otros.

« Hay algo siempre egoísta en cumbres de montañas y torres, y todas las demás cosas grandiosas y altivas; mirad aquí, tres picos tan orgullosos como Lucifer. La firme torre es Ahab; el volcán es Ahab; el pájaro valeroso, intrépido y victorioso, es también Ahab; todos son Ahab, y este oro redondo no es sino la imagen del globo más redondo, que, como el espejo de un mago, no hace otra cosa que devolver, a cada cual a su vez, su propio yo misterioso. Grandes molestias, pequeñas ganancias para los que piden al mundo que les explique, cuando él no puede explicarse a sí mismo. Me parece que este sol acuñado presenta una cara rubicunda, pero ¡ved !, sí, ¡entra en el signo de las tormentas, el equinoccio, y hace sólo seis meses que salió rodando de otro equinoccio, en Aries ! ¡De tormenta en tormenta ! Sea así, pues. ¡Nacido en dolores, es justo que el hombre viva en dolores y muera en estertores ! ¡Sea así, entonces ! Aquí hay materia sólida para que trabaje en ella el dolor. Sea así, entonces. »

« No hay dedos de hada que puedan haber apretado este oro, sino que las garras del demonio deben haber dejado en él sus marcas desde ayer -murmuró para sí Starbuck, recostándose en las amuradas-. El viejo parece leer la terrible inscripción de Baltasar. Nunca me he fijado atentamente en esa moneda. Ahora baja él; voy a leerla. Un valle oscuro entre tres poderosos picos, levantados contra el cielo, que casi parecen la Trinidad, en algún débil símbolo terrenal. Así, en este valle de Muerte, Dios nos ciñe alrededor; y, por encima de toda nuestra melancolía, el sol de la justicia brillando como faro y como esperanza. Si bajamos los ojos, el sombrío valle muestra su suelo mohoso, pero si los levantamos, el sol sale al encuentro de nuestra mirada, a medio camino, para animarnos. Pero, ay, el gran sol no es cosa fija, y cuando, a medianoche, querríamos arrancarle algún dulce solaz, en vano miramos buscándole: esta moneda me habla con juicio, con benignidad, con sinceridad, pero, sin embargo, con tristeza. La dejaré, no sea que la Verdad me sacuda falsamente. »

« Ya está ahí el viejo mongol -soliloquizó Stubb junto a la destilería-, le ha dado con la varita, y ahí viene Starbuck de eso mismo, los dos con caras que yo diría que podrían tener cerca de nueve brazas de largo. Y todo por mirar un trozo de oro, que si lo tuviera yo ahora en Negro Hill o en Corlaer's Hook, no lo miraría mucho tiempo antes de gastarlo. ¡Hum ! en mi pobre e insignificante opinión, lo considero esto extraño. He visto doblones otras veces en mis viajes: los doblones de la vieja España, los doblones de Chile, los doblones de Bolivia, los doblones de Popayán, con abundancia de moidores de oro, y pistolas, y reales y medios reales. ¿Qué puede haber entonces en este doblón del Ecuador que es tan matadoramente maravilloso ? ¡Por Golconda ! Lo voy a leer una vez. ¡Hola, hay signos y prodigios, ciertamente ! Eso, entonces, es lo que el viejo Bowditch, en su Epítome, llama el zodíaco, y mi almanaque de abajo, igual. Buscaré el almanaque, y, lo mismo que he oído decir que se pueden sacar diablos con la aritmética de Daboll, probaré la mano sacando algún significado de estos extraños garabatos de aquí, con el calendario de Massachusetts. Aquí está el libro. Vamos a ver ahora. Signos y prodigios, y el sol va siempre entre ellos. Ejem, ejem, ejem; aquí están, aquí van... todos vivos: Aries o el Carnero; Taurus o el Toro; y ¡Jimimi !; el propio Géminis o los Gemelos. Bueno, el sol da vueltas entre ellos. Sí, aquí en la moneda acaba de cruzar el umbral entre dos de los saloncitos, todos en anillo. ¡Libro !, aquí estás: el hecho es que los libros debéis saber cuál es vuestro sitio. Vosotros servís para darnos las meras palabras y hechos, pero a nosotros nos toca proporcionar los pensamientos. Esa es mi pequeña experiencia, en cuanto al calendario de Massachusetts, el tratado de navegación de Bowditch, y a la aritmética de Daboll. Signos y prodigios, ¿eh ? ¡Lástima si no hay nada prodigioso en los signos, y nada significativo en los prodigios ! En algún sitio hay una clave; espera un poco; ¡chissst... escucha ! ¡Por Júpiter, que ya lo tengo ! Mira, Doblón, este zodíaco que tienes aquí es la vida del hombre en un solo capítulo redondo, y ahora lo voy a leer, tal como sale del libro. ¡Vamos, Almanaque ! Para empezar: ahí está Aries, o el Carnero, animal lujurioso, que nos engendra; luego, Taurus, el Toro: nos embiste para empezar; luego Géminis, los Gemelos, esto es, la Virtud y el Vicio; tratamos de alcanzar la Virtud, cuando he aquí que viene Cáncer el Cangrejo, y nos arrastra detrás; y ahí, saliendo de Virtud, Leo, un León rugiente, se tiende en el camino: da unos pocos mordiscos feroces y lanza malhumorado un zarpazo; escapamos, y saludamos a Virgo, ¡la Virgen !; es nuestro primer amor; nos casamos y creemos ser felices para siempre, cuando, paf, sale Libra, o la Balanza: la felicidad pesada y hallada escasa; y mientras estamos muy tristes por eso, ¡Señor, qué rápidamente brincamos, cuando Scorpio, el Escorpión, nos pica en el trasero !; nos estamos curando la herida, cuando ¡bang ! las flechas llueven alrededor: se está divirtiendo Sagitario, el Arquero. Mientras nos arrancamos las flechas, ¡a un lado !, ahí viene el ariete, Capricornio, el Macho Cabrío; lleno de ímpetu, llega precipitado, y somos lanzados de cabeza; entonces Acuarius, el Aguador, vierte todo su diluvio y nos inunda; y para terminar, dormimos con Piscis, los Peces. Hay ahora un sermón, escrito en el alto cielo, y el sol lo recorre todos los años, y sin embargo sale de él vivo y animado. Alegremente, allá arriba, rueda a través de fatiga y apuro; y así, aquí abajo, hace el alegre Stubb. ¡Ah, alegre es la palabra para siempre ! ¡Adiós, Doblón ! Pero, alto; ahí viene el pequeño "Puntal'; vamos a dar la vuelta a la destilería, entonces, y oigamos lo que tiene que decir. Ea; está delante del oro; terminará por salir con algo al fin. Eso, eso, ya está empezando. »

« No veo nada aquí, sino una cosa redonda hecha de oro; y quienquiera que señale una cierta ballena, esa cosa redonda le pertenece. Entonces ¿a qué viene todo ese mirar ? Vale dieciséis dólares, es verdad; y a dos centavos el cigarro, son novecientos sesenta cigarros. No fumaré pipas sucias como Stubb, pero me gustan los cigarros, y aquí hay novecientos sesenta: así que allá va Flask a la cofa a acecharlos. »

« ¿He de llamarlo a esto sensato o necio, entonces ? Si es realmente sensato, tiene aspecto necio; pero si realmente es necio, entonces tiene una especie de aspecto sensato. Pero, espera, ahí viene nuestro viejo de la isla de Man; el antiguo cochero de entierro, que es lo que debió ser antes de darse a la mar. Ahora orza ante el doblón; anda y da la vuelta al otro lado del mástil; bueno, en ese lado hay una herradura clavada; y ya vuelve: ¿qué significa eso ? ¡Atención ! Está murmurando: una voz como un viejo molinillo de café estropeado. ¡Aguza las orejas y escucha ! »

« Si se descubre la ballena blanca, debe ser en tal mes y tal día que el sol se encuentre en algunos de estos signos. He estudiado los signos, y conozco sus marcas: me los enseñó, hace cuarenta años, la vieja bruja de Copenhague. Ahora ¿en qué signo estará entonces el sol ? En el signo de la herradura, pues ahí está, enfrente mismo del oro. ¿Y cuál es el signo de la herradura ? El león es el signo de la herradura: el león rugiente y devorador. ¡Barco, viejo barco ! Mi vieja cabeza tiembla de pensar en ti. »

« Aquí hay ahora otra versión, pero sigue siendo un mismo texto. Ya veis, toda clase de hombres en una sola especie de mundo. ¡Apartarse otra vez ! Ahí viene Queequeg..., todo tatuaje..., parece él mismo los signos del zodíaco. ¿Qué dice el caníbal ? Como que estoy vivo, que compara notas; mira su hueso del muslo; piensa que el sol está en el muslo, o en la pantorrilla, o en las tripas, supongo, igual que las viejas de la aldea hablan de la astronomía del cirujano. Y, por Júpiter, que ha encontrado algo en la cercanía de ese muslo: supongo que es Sagitario, o el Arquero. No; él no entiende nada de ese doblón: lo toma por un viejo botón de unos pantalones de rey. Pero ¡otra vez a un lado ! ; ahí viene ese diablo fantasmal, Fedallah; con la cola enrollada para que no se le vea, como de costumbre, y con estopa en las punteras de las botas, como de costumbre. ¿Qué dice, con ese aspecto suyo ? Ah, sólo hace un signo al signo y se inclina: hay un sol en la moneda: adorador del fuego, podéis estar seguros. ¡Oh, más y más ! Por ahí viene Pip... ¡pobre muchacho ! ojalá hubiera muerto él, o yo; me da casi horror verle. El también ha observado a todos estos intérpretes, incluido yo mismo... y mira ahora: viene a leer, con esa cara de idiota sobrenatural. Otra vez a un lado, y oigamos qué dice. ¡Atención ! »

« Yo miro, tú miras, él mira; nosotros miramos, vosotros miráis, ellos miran. »

« ¡Por mi vida, si ha estudiado la Gramática de Murray ! ¡Mejorando su espíritu, pobre muchacho ! Pero veamos qué dice ahora... ¡chist ! »

« Yo miro, tú miras, él mira; nosotros miramos, vosotros miráis, ellos miran. »

« Vaya, lo está aprendiendo de memoria; chissst, otra vez. »

« Yo miro, tú miras, él mira; nosotros miramos, vosotros miráis, ellos miran. »

« Bueno, es divertido. »

« Y yo, y tú, y él, y nosotros, vosotros y ellos, somos todos murciélagos, y yo soy un cuervo, sobre todo cuando me subo encima de ese pino. ¡Co, co, co, co, co, co ! ¿No soy un cuervo ? ¿Y dónde está el espantacuervos ? Ahí está: dos huesos metidos en unos pantalones

[]

« Ahí está el ombligo del barco, este doblón, y ahí están todos inflamados por desatornillarlo. Pero, desatornillaos el ombligo, y ¿cuál es la consecuencia ? Pero, por otro lado, si sigue ahí, eso es feo, también, pues cuando se clava algo al mástil es signo de que las cosas se ponen desesperadas. ¡Ja, ja, viejo Ahab !, la ballena blanca: ¡ella os clavará ! Ese es un pino. Mi padre, en el viejo condado de Tolland, cortó una vez un pino, y encontró un anillo de plata que le había crecido, el anillo de boda de algún viejo negro. ¿Cómo había llegado allí ? Y eso dirán en la resurrección, cuando lleguen a pescar este viejo mástil, y encuentren un doblón metido en él, con ostras incrustadas en vez de la corteza áspera. ¡Ah, el oro, el precioso, precioso oro ! El avaro verde pronto te atesorará. ¡Chist, chist ! Dios va por los mundos buscando zarzamoras. ¡Cocinero ! ¡Eh, cocinero ! ¡Ven a guisarnos ! ¡Jenny ! ¡Eh, eh, eh, eh, Jenny ! ¡Ven a hacernos nuestra torta de maíz ! » 

Pierna y brazo.  El Pequod, de Nantucket, encuentra  al Samuel Enderby, de Londres

« ¡Ah del barco ! ¿Habéis visto a la ballena blanca ? »

Así gritó Ahab, saludando una vez más a un barco que pasaba a popa, con pabellón inglés. Con el altavoz en la boca, el viejo estaba en su lancha izada, con la pierna de marfil claramente visible para el capitán recién llegado, que estaba descuidadamente reclinado en la proa de su propia lancha. Era un hombre de curtida piel oscura, corpulento, de buen humor y buen aspecto, de unos sesenta años, vestido con un espacioso gabán que colgaba a su alrededor en festones de azul paño de marina; y una manga vacía de ese chaquetón flotaba detrás de él como el brazo bordado de un dolmán de húsar.

-¿Ha visto a la ballena blanca ?

-¿Ve esto ? -y sacándolo de los pliegues que lo ocultaban, levantó un brazo blanco de hueso de cachalote, que acababa en una cabeza de madera como un mazo.

-¡Hombres a mi lancha ! -gritó Ahab, con ímpetu, y golpeando los remos que tenía a su lado-: ¡Preparados para arriar !

En menos de un minuto, sin abandonar su pequeña embarcación, él y sus remeros bajaron al mar y pronto estuvieron junto al costado del recién llegado. Pero allí se presentó una curiosa dificultad. En la excitación del momento, Ahab había olvidado que, desde que perdió la pierna, jamás había subido a bordo de otro barco que no fuera el suyo, y en este caso era siempre mediante un artefacto mecánico muy ingenioso y hábil, peculiar del Pequod un objeto que no podía ser armado y embarcado en otro barco con pocos momentos de anticipación. Ahora, no es cosa muy fácil para nadie -excepto los que están acostumbrados a ello a todas horas, como los balleneros- trepar por el costado de un barco desde una lancha en alta mar, pues las grandes olas unas veces elevan la lancha hasta lo alto de las amuradas y luego, en un momento, la dejan caer a mitad de camino de la sobrequilla. Así, privado de una pierna, y como el barco forastero, desde luego, carecía en absoluto de la benévola invención, Ahab se encontró ahora reducido otra vez, de modo abyecto, a ser un torpe hombre de tierra adentro, observando con desesperanza la incierta altura cambiante que difícilmente podría alcanzar.

Se ha sugerido antes, quizá, que cualquier pequeña circunstancia contraria que le ocurriera, y que indirectamente procediera de su lamentable desgracia, casi siempre irritaba o desesperaba a Ahab. Y en el caso presente, todo se aumentó al ver a dos oficiales del barco recién llegado, asomados a la borda, y la escala de gato de flechaste claveteados, y, balanceándose hacia él, un par de guardamancebos decorados con mucho gusto, pues al principio no parecieron considerar que un hombre con una sola pierna debía estar demasiado mutilado para usar sus barandas marinas. Pero esta perplejidad sólo duró un momento, porque el capitán recién llegado, observando de una ojeada cómo estaban las cosas, exclamó: -¡Ya veo, ya veo ! ¡Dejad de echar nada ! ¡Pronto, muchachos; fuera el aparejo de descuartizar !

Como si lo hubiera hecho la buena suerte, habían tenido una ballena al costado un día o dos antes, y los aparejos grandes estaban todavía arriba, y el macizo y curvado gancho de la grasa, ahora limpio y seco, todavía estaba amarrado al extremo. Este se hizo bajar rápidamente hasta Ahab, que, comprendiéndolo enseguida, deslizó su solitario muslo en la curva del gancho (era como sentarse en la uña de un ancla, o en la horquilla de un manzano), y, entonces, dando la señal, se agarró fuerte, y al mismo tiempo ayudó a izar su propio peso tirando, una mano tras otra, de uno de los cabos móviles del aparejo. Pronto le balancearon cuidadosamente dentro de las altas batayolas, y se posó suavemente en el sombrero del cabrestante. Con su brazo de marfil cordialmente extendido en bienvenida, el otro capitan avanzó, y Ahab, adelantando su pierna de marfil y cruzándola con el brazo de marfil (como dos hojas de pez espada) exclamó, en su tono de morsa: -¡Sí, sí, amigo ! ¡Vamos a chocar los huesos ! ¡Un brazo y una pierna ! Un brazo que nunca se puede encoger, ya se ve; y una pierna que nunca puede correr. ¿Dónde ha visto la ballena blanca ? ¿Cuánto tiempo hace ?

-La ballena blanca -dijo el inglés, señalando con su brazo de marfil al este, y lanzando una mirada contrita a lo largo de él, como si hubiera sido un telescopio-: Allí la vi, en el ecuador, la temporada pasada.

-¿Y fue la que le arrancó este brazo, no ? -preguntó Ahab, deslizándose ahora del cabrestante, apoyado, al hacerlo, en el hombro del inglés.

-Sí, al menos, fue la causa de ello; ¿y esa pierna, también ?

-Cuénteme la historia -dijo Ahab-: ¿cómo fue ?

-Era la primera vez en mi vida que navegaba por el ecuador -empezó el inglés-. Entonces no sabía nada de la ballena blanca. Bueno, un día arriamos las lanchas por una manada de cuatro o cinco ballenas, y mi lancha hizo presa en una de ellas: un verdadero caballo de circo era, también, que empezó a dar vueltas y vueltas de tal modo que mis hombres sólo pudieron mantener el equilibrio plantando las popas en la borda. Al fin, salió del fondo del mar una enorme ballena saltando, con cabeza y joroba blancas como la leche, todas arrugas y patas de gallo.

-¡Era ésa, era ésa ! -gritó Ahab, dejando escapar de repente el aliento contenido.

-Y con arpones clavados cerca de su aleta de estribor.

-Sí, sí... eran míos..., mis hierros -gritó Ahab, exultante-: pero ¡adelante !

-Déme una ocasión, entonces -dijo el inglés, de buen humor-. Bueno, ese viejo bisabuelo de cabeza y joroba blancas, se metió corriendo, todo espuma, en la manada, y empezó a dar mordiscos furiosos a la estacha del arpón.

-¡Sí, ya entiendo ! Quería partirla; liberar el pez sujeto... Un viejo truco..., le conozco.

-Cómo fue exactamente -continuó el capitán manco, no lo sé, pero al morder la estacha, se le enredaron los dientes y se quedó atrapado no sé cómo; pero entonces no lo sabíamos, así que cuando luego remamos para recuperar estacha, ¡paf !, fuimos a posarnos en su joroba, en vez de en la joroba del otro pez que salió a barlovento, agitando la cola. Viendo cómo estaba la cosa, y qué ballena más grande y noble era -la más noble y grande que he visto en mi vida, capitán-, decidí capturarla, a pesar de que parecía tener una cólera hirviente. Y pensando que aquella estacha azarosa podía soltarse, o que podría arrancar el diente que se había enredado (pues tengo una tripulación diabólica para tirar de una estacha), viendo todo eso, digo, salté a la lancha de mi primer oficial, el señor Mountopp, aquí presente (por cierto, capitán..., el señor Mountopp; Mountopp, el capitán); como iba diciendo, salté a la lancha de Mountopp, que, ya ve, estaba borda con borda con la mía, entonces: y agarrando el primer arpón, se lo tire a ese viejo bisabuelo. Pero, dios mío, vea, capitan; por todos los demonios, hombre; un momento después, de repente, me quedé ciego como un murciélago... de los dos ojos..., todo en niebla y medio muerto de espuma negra... con la cola de la ballena levantándose derecha, vertical en el aire, como un campanario de mármol. No servía entonces echar atrás; pero como yo iba a tientas a mediodía, con un sol cegador, todo diamantes; mientras iba a tientas, como digo, buscando el segundo arpón para tirárselo por la borda, cae la cola como una torre de Lima, cortando en dos mi lancha, y dejando las dos mitades en astillas; y con las aletas por delante, la joroba blanca retrocedió por el desastre, como si todo fuera trozos. Todos salimos disparados. Para escapar a sus terribles azotes me agarré al palo de mi arpón, que llevaba clavado, y por un momento me sujeté a él como un pez que mama. Pero una ola, golpeándome, me separó, y en el mismo instante, el bicho, lanzando un buen arranque hacia delante, se zambulló como un pez, y el filo de ese segundo arpón maldito, remolcado junto a mí, me alcanzó por aquí (se apretó con la mano por debajo mismo del hombro), sí, me alcanzó por aquí, digo, y me bajó a las llamas del infierno, según creí: cuando en esto, de repente, gracias a Dios, el filo se abrió paso a través de la carne... a todo lo largo del brazo..., salió cerca de la muñeca, y yo volví a flote... y ese caballero les contará el resto (por cierto, capitán..., el doctor Bunger, médico del barco; Bunger, muchacho..., el capitán). Ahora, Bunger, chico, cuenta tu parte de la historia.

El profesional señalado con esa familiaridad había estado todo el tiempo al lado de ellos sin nada específicamente visible que denotara su rango de caballero a bordo. Tenía una cara enormemente redonda, pero sobria; iba vestido con una blusa o camisa de desteñida lana azul, y pantalones remendados, y hasta entonces había distribuido su atención entre un pasador que tenía en una mano y una caja de píldoras que tenía en la otra, lanzando de vez en cuando una mirada crítica a los miembros de marfil de los dos capitanes mutilados. Pero al presentarle su superior a Ahab, se inclinó cortésmente, y pasó inmediatamente a cumplir la petición de su capitán.

-Era una herida terriblemente mala -empezó el médico ballenero- y, siguiendo mi consejo, el capitán Boomer, aquí presente, dirigió a nuestro viejo Sammy...

-Samuel Enderby es el nombre de mi barco -interrumpió el capitán manco, dirigiéndose a Ahab-: Sigue, muchacho.

-Dirigió a nuestro viejo Sammy al norte, para salir del abrasador tiempo caliente del ecuador. Pero no sirvió... e hice todo lo que pude, le velé por la noche; fui muy severo con él en cuestión de dieta...

-¡Ah, muy severo ! -repitió el paciente; y luego, cambiando de pronto la voz-: Bebía conmigo todas las noches toddies de ron hasta que no veía para ponerme las vendas; y me mandaba a la cama, medio borracho, a las tres de la mañana. ¡Ah, estrellas ! Me veló, desde luego, y fue muy severo en mi dieta. ¡Ah, un gran velador, y muy severo dietéticamente, este doctor Bunger ! (Bunger, pícaro, ¡échalo a risa ! ¿Por qué no ? Ya sabes que eres un alegre sinvergüenza.) Pero sigue adelante, muchacho; prefiero que me mates tú a que me conserve vivo otro.

-Mi capitán, como ya debe haberse dado cuenta, mi respetado señor -dijo Bunger, con imperturbable solemnidad, inclinándose levemente hacia Ahab-, es propenso a la broma algunas veces; no cuenta muchas cosas divertidas de ese tipo. Pero bien podría decir... en passant, como observan los franceses..., que yo..., es decir, Jack Bunger, antes del reverendo clero..., soy un hombre totalmente abstemio; nunca bebo...

-¡Agua ! -gritó el capitán-: nunca la bebe; es una especie de ataque; el agua dulce le produce hidrofobia; pero sigue... con la historia del brazo.

-Sí, sería lo mejor -dijo el médico, fríamente-. Iba a observar, señor, antes de la jocosa interrupción del capitán Boomer, que, a pesar de mis mejores y más severos esfuerzos, la herida se fue poniendo cada vez peor; la verdad fue, señor, que era una herida abierta tan fea como haya visto nunca un cirujano; de más de dos pies y varias pulgadas de larga. La medí con la sonda. En resumen, se puso negra; yo sabía qué era lo que amenazaba, y allá que fue. Pero yo no he intervenido en armar ese brazo de marfil: esa cosa va contra todas las reglas -señalándola con el pasador-; es obra del capitán, no mía; ordenó al carpintero que la hiciera; hizo que le pusieran en el extremo ese mazo para romperle los sesos a alguien con él, supongo, como ha intentado hacer con los míos una vez. De vez en cuando le entran cóleras diabólicas. ¿Ve usted esta mella, señor ? -y se quitó el sombrero, y echando a un lado el pelo, dejó ver una cavidad como un recipiente, pero que no tenía la más leve huella de cicatriz ni señal ninguna de haber sido jamás una herida-: Bueno, el capitán, aquí presente, le dirá cómo ha llegado ahí esto: él lo sabe.

-No, no lo sé -dijo el capitán-, pero su madre lo sabía: nació con eso. Ah, grandísimo pícaro, tú..., ¡tú, Bunger ! ¿Ha habido otro Bunger semejante en el mundo de las aguas ? Bunger, cuando te mueras, deberías morirte en vinagreta, sinvergüenza; deberían conservarte para épocas futuras, bribón.

-¿Qué pasó con la ballena blanca ? -exclamó entonces Ahab, que hasta entonces había escuchado con impaciencia la conversación marginal entre los dos ingleses.

-¡Ah ! -exclamó el capitán manco-, ¡ah, sí ! Bueno; después de sumergirse, no la vimos durante algún tiempo; en realidad, como he indicado antes, yo no sabía entonces qué ballena era la que me había jugado tal pasada, hasta algún tiempo después, cuando, al volver al Ecuador, oímos hablar de Moby Dick, como la llaman algunos, entonces supe que era ella.

-¿Volvió a cruzar su estela otra vez ?

-Dos veces

-Pero ¿no pudo hacer presa en ella ?

-No quería probar; ¿no basta con un brazo ? ¿Qué haría yo sin el otro ? Y me parece que Moby Dick no muerde tanto como engulle.

-Bueno, entonces -interrumpió Bunger-, déle el brazo como cebo para sacar el derecho. ¿Ya saben ustedes, caballeros -inclinándose ante cada uno de los capitanes, de modo grave y matemático-, ya saben ustedes, caballeros, que los órganos digestivos de la ballena están tan inescrutablemente construidos por la Divina Providencia, que le resulta por completo imposible digerir del todo incluso un brazo de hombre ? Y ella lo sabe también. Así que lo que toman por malicia de la ballena blanca es sólo su torpeza. Pues nunca pretende tragarse un solo miembro; sólo piensa aterrorizar con fintas. Pero a veces es como el viejo ilusionista, antiguo paciente mío en Ceilán, que haciendo como si se tragara navajas, una vez se dejó caer dentro una en serio, y allí se quedó un año o más, hasta que le di un vomitivo y entonces la echó fuera en tachuelas. No había modo de que pudiera digerir esa navaja e incorporarla del todo a su sistema corporal en conjunto. Sí, capitán Boomer, si es usted bastante rápido, y tiene idea de empeñar un brazo para obtener el privilegio de dar decente sepultura al otro, bien, en ese caso, el brazo es suyo; solamente, no tarde en dar a la ballena otra posibilidad de encontrarle; eso es todo.

-No, gracias, Bunger -dijo el capitán inglés-, que se quede en buena hora con el brazo que tiene, ya que no lo puedo remediar, y no lo sabía entonces; pero no con otro. Para mí, basta de ballenas blancas; he embarcado en la lancha una vez en su busca, y ya estoy satisfecho. Habría mucha gloria en matarla, ya lo sé, y lleva dentro todo un barco de precioso aceite de esperma, pero, escucha, mejor es dejarla sola; ¿no cree, capitán ? -lanzando una mirada a la pierna de marfil.

-Sí, es mejor. Pero, con todo eso, aún será perseguida. Lo que es mejor dejar solo, esa cosa maldita, no es lo que menos incita. ¡Es todo un imán ! ¿Cuánto tiempo hace que la vio por última vez ? ¿Con qué rumbo iba ?

-¡Bendita sea mi alma, y maldita la del enemigo malo ! -gritó Bunger, andando encorvado alrededor de Ahab, y olfateando extrañamente, como un perro-: ¡La sangre de este hombre... traed el termómetro... está en el punto de ebullición !.. Su pulso hace latir estas tablas... ¡Capitán !

Y sacando una lanceta del bolsillo, se acercó al brazo de Ahab. -¡Alto ! -rugió Ahab, lanzándole contra las batayolas-. ¡A la lancha ! ¿Por qué rumbo iba ?

-¡Dios mío ! -gritó el capitán inglés a quien se hacía la pregunta-. ¿Qué pasa ? Iba rumbo al este, creo. ¿Está loco vuestro capitán ? -dijo en un susurro a Fedallah.

Pero Fedallah, poniéndose un dedo en los labios, se deslizó sobre las batayolas para tomar el remo de gobernalle de la lancha, y Ahab, haciendo balancearse hacia él el aparejo de descuartizar, ordenó a los marineros del barco que se prepararan a bajarle.

Un momento después, estaba de pie en la popa de la lancha, y los de Manila saltaban a los remos. En vano le llamó el capitán inglés. Dando la espalda al buque extranjero, y con la cara, como de pedernal, hacia el suyo, Ahab siguió erguido hasta llegar al costado del Pequod. 

El frasco

Antes de que se pierda de vista el barco inglés, quede aquí anotado que había zarpado de Londres, y que llevaba el nombre del difunto Samuel Enderby, comerciante de esa ciudad, fundador de la famosa casa ballenera de Enderby & Hijos, casa que, en mi pobre opinión de ballenero, no queda muy por detrás de las casas reales reunidas de los Tudor y los Borbón, en punto a autentico interés histórico. Mis numerosos documentos pesqueros no dejan en claro cuántos años llevaba existiendo esta gran casa ballenera antes del año 1775 de Nuestro Señor; pero en ese año, 1775, armó los primeros barcos ingleses dedicados a la pesca del cachalote; aunque durante unas décadas antes (desde 1726), nuestros valientes Coffin y Macey, de Nantucket y del Vineyard, habían perseguido al leviatán en grandes flotas, pero sólo en el Atlántico Norte y Sur, y no en otro lugar. Conste aquí claramente que los de Nantucket fueron los primeros de la humanidad en arponear con civilizado acero al gran cachalote, y que durante medio siglo fueron la única gente del globo entero que así le arponeaba.

En 1778, un hermoso barco, el Amelia, armado con ese propósito preciso, y a cargo exclusivo de los vigorosos Enderby, dio la vuelta valerosamente al cabo de Hornos, y fue el primero, entre las naciones, en arriar una lancha ballenera de cualquier especie en el gran mar del Sur. El viaje fue hábil y con éxito; y como volvió a su puerto con la sentina llena del precioso aceite de esperma, el ejemplo del Amelia fue seguido pronto por otros barcos, ingleses y ame ricanos, y así se abrieron de par en par las vastas zonas de pesca del cachalote en el Pacífico. Pero no contenta con esta buena acción, la infatigable casa se puso en movimiento otra vez: Samuel y todos sus hijos -cuántos, sólo su madre lo sabe-; y, bajo sus auspicios inmediatos, y en parte, creo, a sus expensas, el gobierno británico fue inducido a enviar la corbeta Rattler en viaje de exploración ballenera al mar del Sur. Mandada por un oficial nombrado capitán de la Armada, la Rattler hizo un viaje resonante, y fue de alguna utilidad: no consta cuánta. Pero eso no es todo. En 1819, la misma casa armó un barco ballenero propio para exploración, para ir en viaje de prueba a las remotas aguas del Japón. El barco -bien llamado el Si rena- hizo un magnífico crucero experimental, y así fue como por primera vez se conoció universalmente la gran zona ballenera del Japón. El Sirena, en ese famoso viaje, iba mandado por un tal capitán Coffin, de Nantucket.

Todo honor a los Enderby, pues, cuya casa, creo, sigue existiendo hasta hoy, aunque sin duda el primer Samuel debe haber soltado amarras hace mucho tiempo rumbo al gran mar del Sur del otro mundo.

El barco cuyo nombre llevaba, era digno de ese honor, siendo un velero muy rápido y una noble embarcación en todos los sentidos. Una vez yo subí a bordo de él, a medianoche, en algún punto a lo largo de la costa de Patagonia, y bebí buen flip en el castillo de proa. Fue un estupendo gam, y todos, nos emborrachamos, hasta el último a bordo. Vida breve, para ellos, y muerte alegre. Y aquel estupendo gam que tuve -mucho, mucho después que el viejo Ahab tocase sus tablas con su pierna de marfil- me recuerda la noble y sólida hospitalidad sajona de ese barco; y que mi párroco me olvide y el demonio me recuerde si alguna vez lo pierdo de vista. ¿Flip ? ¿Dije que tomamos flip ? Sí, y lo tomamos a razón de diez galones por hora, y cuando vino el chubasco (pues aquello es muy chubascoso, a lo largo de Patagonia), y todos los hombres -visitantes incluidos- fuimos llamados a rizar gavias, estábamos tan pesados de cabeza que nos tuvimos que atar arriba unos a otros con bolinas; y sin darnos cuenta, aferramos los faldones de nuestros capotes a las velas, de modo que allí quedamos colgados, rizados y sujetos en la galerna aullante, como ejemplo admonitorio para todos los lobos de mar borrachos. Sin embargo, los mástiles no saltaron por la borda, y poco a poco nos revolvimos para bajar, tan despejados, que tuvimos que volver a pasar el flip, aunque las salvajes salpicaduras saladas que entraban por el portillo del castillo lo habían diluido demasiado, dándole demasiado sabor a salmuera, para mi gusto.

La carne estuvo muy bien; dura, pero con mucho cuerpo. Dijeron que era carne de toro; otros, que era de dromedario; pero yo no sé exactamente lo que era. Tenían también albóndigas; albóndigas pequeñas, pero sustanciosas, simétricamente globulares, e indestructibles. Me pareció que se podían sentir rodando por dentro después de habérselas tragado. Si uno se inclinaba mucho hacia delante, había peligro de que se salieran fuera como bolas de billar. El pan..., pero eso no se podía remediar: además era antiescorbútico; en resumen, el pan contenía el único alimento fresco que tenían. Pero el castillo no estaba muy iluminado, y era muy fácil meterse en un rincón oscuro al comerlo. No obstante, en conjunto, tomándolo de la galleta a la caña, y considerando las dimensiones de las calderas del cocinero, incluida su propia marmita viva de pergamino, a popa y a proa, digo, el Samuel Enderby era un hermoso barco, de buen alimento en abundancia, con buen flip fuerte, todos muchachos dispuestos y estupendos desde los tacones de las botas a la cinta del sombrero.

Pero ¿cómo es, pensaréis, que el Samuel Enderby y otros balleneros ingleses que conozco -aunque no son todos- eran barcos tan célebres y hospitalarios, que pasaban a la redonda la carne, el pan y la broma, y no se cansaban tan pronto de comer, beber y reír ? Os lo diré. El rebosante buen alimento de estos balleneros ingleses es asunto para la investigación histórica. Y yo no he escatimado la investigación histórica ballenera cuando ha parecido necesario.

Los ingleses fueron precedidos en la pesca de la ballena por los holandeses, zelandeses y daneses, de los que tomaron muchos términos aún existentes en la pesca, y lo que es más, sus antiguas costumbres de abundancia en cuanto al comer y beber. Pues, en general, el barco mercante inglés es tacaño con su tripulación; pero no así el barco ballenero inglés. De aquí que, para los ingleses, ese buen trato en la balleneras no es normal y natural, sino incidental y particular, y por tanto, debe tener algún origen especial, que aquí se señala y se elucidará después.

En mis investigaciones sobre las historias leviatánicas, me tropecé con un antiguo volumen holandés, que, por su mohoso olor ballenáceo, comprendí que debía tratar de balleneros. Su título era Dan Coopman, por lo que deduje que debían ser las inestimables memorias de algún tonelero de Amsterdam en la pesca de ballenas, ya que todo ballenero debe llevar su tonelero. Me reforzó en esa opinión ver que era obra de un tal Fitz Swackhammer. Pero mi amigo el doctor Snodhead, hombre muy docto, profesor de bajo holandés y alto alemán en el colegio de Santa Claus y San Pott, a quien entregué la obra para su traducción, dándole una caja de velas de esperma por su molestia, este doctor Snodhead, tan pronto como vio el libro, me aseguró que Dan Coopman no significaba The Cooper, el tonelero, sino « el mercader ». En resumen, ese antiguo y docto libro en bajo holandés trataba del comercio de Holanda, y, entre otros temas, contenía un informe muy interesante sobre la pesca de la ballena. Y en el capítulo « Smee »>, o sea, « grasa », encontré una lista larga y detallada de las provisiones para las despensas y bodegas de 120 naves balleneras holandesas; de cuya lista, traducida por el doctor Snodhead, copio lo siguiente:

400.000 libras de buey. 60. 000 libras de cerdo de Frisia. 150. 000 libras de bacalao. 550. 000 libras de galleta. 72.000 libras de pan tierno. 2.800 libras de barriletes de mantequilla. 20. 000 libras de queso de Texel & Leyden. 144. 000 libras de queso (probablemente un artículo inferior). 550 ankers de ginebra. 10. 800 barriles de cerveza.

La mayor parte de las tablas estadísticas son agotadoramente secas de leer; no así en el caso presente, sin embargo, en que el lector es inundado por enteros toneles, barriles, cuartos y gills de ginebra y buen alimento.

Por entonces, dediqué tres días a la estudiosa digestión de toda esta cerveza, carne y pan, durante la cual se me ocurrieron incidentalmente muchos profundos pensamientos, capaces de aplicación trascendental y platónica, y más aún, redacté mis propias tablas suplementarias en cuanto a la probable cantidad de bacalao, etc., consumida por cada arponero bajo-holandés en aquella antigua pesquería ballenera de Groenlandia y Spitzberg. En primer lugar, parece sorprendente la cantidad consumida de mantequilla y queso de Texol y Leyden. Pero yo lo atribuyo a sus condiciones naturalmente untuosas, que se hacen aún más untuosas por la naturaleza del oficio, y especialmente por perseguir la presa en esos frígidos mares polares, en las mismas costas del país esquimal, donde los nativos en sus convites brindan unos por otros con jarros de aceite de ballena.

También es muy grande la cantidad de cerveza: 10.800 barriles. Ahora, como esas pesquerías polares sólo podrían realizarse en el breve verano de ese clima, de modo que todo el crucero de uno de esos balleneros holandeses, incluido el corto viaje hacia y desde el mar de Spitzberg, no excedía mucho de tres meses, digamos, y calculando 30 hombres por cada uno de los 120 barcos de su flota, tenemos en total 5.400 marineros bajo-holandeses; por tanto, digo, salen precisamente dos barriles de cerveza por hombre, para una ración de doce semanas, aparte de su porción de esos 550 ankers de ginebra. Y esos arponeros de cerveza y ginebra, tan cargados como uno se puede imaginar que estarían, es un tanto dudoso que fueran la clase más apropiada de hombres para ponerse en la proa de una lancha y apuntar bien a las ballenas fugitivas. Sin embargo, las apuntaban, y les daban también. Pero esto era muy al norte, recuérdese, donde la cerveza sienta bien al cuerpo: en el ecuador, en nuestra pesquería sureña, la cerveza serviría para dar sueño al arponero en la cofa y para embriagarle en la lancha, lo que acarrearía lamentables pérdidas para Nantucket y New Bedford.

Pero basta ya; ya se ha dicho bastante para mostrar que los antiguos balleneros holandeses de hace dos o tres siglos se daban la gran vida; y que los balleneros ingleses no han desperdiciado tan excelente ejemplo. Pues, dicen ellos, cuando se navega en un barco vacío, si no se puede sacar cosa mejor de este mundo, saquemos de él por lo menos una buena comida. Y con esto se vacía el frasco. 

Una glorieta entre los arsácidas

Hasta aquí, al tratar descriptivamente del cachalote, me he demorado sobre todo en las maravillas de su aspecto exterior; o, por separado y en detalle, en unos pocos rasgos estructurales internos. Pero para una amplia comprensión, totalmente completa, me conviene seguir desabotonándole, y, desatacándole las agujetas de sus calzones, deshebillándole las ligas y soltando los corchetes de las junturas de sus huesos más íntimos, presentarle ante vosotros en su ultimidad, es decir, en su esqueleto definitivo.

Pero ¿cómo es eso, Ismael ? ¿Cómo es que tú, simple remero en la pesca, pretendes saber algo de las partes subterráneas del pez ? ¿Acaso el erudito Stubb, subido en vuestro cabrestante, pronunciaba conferencias sobre la anatomía de los cetáceos, y, con ayuda del molinete, levantaba una costilla de muestra para que se viera ? Explícate, Ismael. ¿Puedes colocar un cetáceo adulto en cubierta para examinarlo, igual que un cocinero asa un cochinillo ? Seguro que no. Hasta ahora has sido un testigo fidedigno, Ismael, pero ten cuidado de cómo te apoderas del privilegio exclusivo de Jonás; el privilegio de discurrir sobre las viguetas y maderos, las vigas, los arquitrabes, los travesaños, los puntales, que constituyen la armazón del 'leviatán; e igualmente, los toneles de sebo, las lecherías, las mantequerías y queserías de sus tropas.

Confieso que, de Jonás acá, pocos balleneros han penetrado muy por debajo de la piel de la ballena adulta; no obstante, yo he sido agraciado con una oportunidad de diseccionarla en miniatura. En un barco al que pertenecí, una vez se izó entero a cubierta un pequeño cachorro de cachalote, para quitarle el saco o bolsa, y hacer vainas para los filos de los arpones y las puntas de las lanzas. ¿Creéis que dejé escapar esa oportunidad sin usar mi hacha de lancha y mi navaja, y sin romper el sello y leer todos los contenidos de ese joven cachorro ?

Y en cuanto a mi conocimiento exacto de los huesos del leviatán en todo su gigantesco desarrollo adulto, debo ese raro conocimiento a mi difunto amigo regio Tranquo, rey de Tranque, uno de los Arsácidas. Pues estando hace años en Tranque, cuando formaba parte del barco mercante Dey de Argel, fui invitado a pasar parte de las fiestas arsacidanas con el señor de Tranque, en su retirada villa de palmeras en Pupella, un vallecito costero no muy lejano de lo que nuestros marineros llaman Villa-Bambú, su capital.

Mi real amigo Tranquo, dotado de un devoto amor por todas las cuestiones de virtuosismo bárbaro, había reunido en Pupella todas las cosas raras que pudieron inventar los más ingeniosos de su pueblo; sobre todo, maderas esculpidas de maravillosas formas, conchas cinceladas, lanzas incrustadas, remos preciosos, canoas aromáticas; todas ellas distribuidas entre cuantos prodigios naturales habían arrojado a sus orillas las olas cargadas de maravillas y otorgadoras de tributos.

Entre estos últimos prodigios, destacaba un gran cachalote, que, después de una galerna insólitamente larga, se había hallado muerto y encallado, con la cabeza contra un cocotero, cuyas espesas ramas, colgantes como plumajes, parecían su chorro verdeante. Cuando el enorme cuerpo quedó por fin despojado de sus envoltorios, de varias brazas de espesor, y los huesos se desecaron como polvo al sol, entonces se transportó cuidadosamente el esqueleto al valle de Pupella, donde ahora lo cobijaba un grandioso templo de palmas señoriales.

Las costillas estaban engalanadas de trofeos; las vértebras tenían esculpidos los anales arsacidanos, en extraños jeroglíficos; en la calavera, los sacerdotes mantenían una inextinguida llama aromática, de modo que la mística cabeza volvía a lanzar su chorro vaporoso; mientras que, colgada de una rama, la terrorífica mandíbula inferior vibraba sobre todos los devotos como la espada colgada de un pelo que tanto espantó a Damocles.

Era un espectáculo prodigioso. El bosque estaba verde como los musgos del Valle Helado; los árboles se elevaban altos y altaneros, sintiendo su savia vital; abajo, la industriosa tierra era como un telar de tejedor, con una espléndida alfombra en ella, en que los zarcillos de las plantas trepadoras formaban la urdimbre y la trama, y las flores vivas las figuras. Todos los árboles, con sus ramas cargadas; todos los matorrales, los helechos y céspedes; el aire, llevando mensajes; todos ellos estaban activos sin cesar. A través de los entrelazados de las hojas, el gran sol parecía una lanzadera volante tejiendo el verdor sin decadencia. ¡Oh, atareado tejedor, tejedor invisible !, ¡alto !, ¡una palabra !, ¿adónde fluye el tejido ?, ¿qué palacio puede cubrirlo ?, ¿para qué todas estas fatigas incesantes ? ¡Habla, tejedor !, ¡detén tu mano !, ¡una sola palabra contigo ! No; la lanzadera vuela; las figuras surgen del telar; la alfombra, con rapidez de torrente, se desliza marchándose para siempre. El dios tejedor va tejiendo, y ese tejer le ensordece tanto que no oye voces mortales; y con ese zumbido también nos ensordecemos los que miramos el telar; y sólo cuando escapemos de él, oiremos las mil voces que hablan por él. Pues siempre es así en todas las fábricas materiales. Las palabras habladas, que son inaudibles entre los husos volantes; esas mismas palabras, se oyen claramente desde fuera, saliendo por las ventanas abiertas. Así se han detectado delitos. ¡Ah, mortal, está atento, pues ! Porque sí, en todo ese estrépito del gran telar del mundo, se pueden escuchar desde lejos tus más sutiles pensamientos.

Ahora, entre el verde telar, agitado de vida, de ese bosque arsacidano, está tendido ocioso el gran esqueleto blanco, objeto de adoración: ¡gigantesco holgazán ! Pero, mientras la trama y urdimbre verdeantes, siempre entretejidas, se entremezclaban y zumbaban a su alrededor, el enorme holgazán parecía ser el vigilante tejedor, envuelto él mismo por encima con el tejido de plantas trepadoras, y cada mes tomando más verde y fresca vegetación, aunque permaneciendo él mismo como esqueleto. La Vida envolvía a la Muerte; la Muerte enrejaba a la Vida; la sombría diosa mortal se casaba con el juvenil genio de la Vida, y le paría glorias de cabeza rizada.

Ahora, cuando, con el regio Tranquo, visité ese prodigioso cetá ceo y vi al cráneo hecho altar, y el humo artificial subiendo de donde había salido el chorro real, me maravilló que el rey considerara una capilla como objeto de virtuosismo. El se rió. Pero más me maravilló que los sacerdotes juraran que ese chorro humoso suyo era genuino. Anduve de un lado para otro ante este esqueleto -echando a un lado las plantas trepadoras-; me abrí paso entre las costillas, y, con un ovillo de bramante arsacidano, vagué y di vueltas largamente entre sus muchas columnatas y alamedas, retorcidas y sombreadas. Pero pronto se me acabó la cuerda; y retrocediendo por ella, salí a la abertura por donde entré. No vi dentro cosa viva; no había dentro sino huesos.

Cortándome una vara de medir verde, volví a zambullirme en el esqueleto. Por su aspillera en el cráneo, los sacerdotes me vieron tomar medidas de la última costilla. -¡EA, cómo ! -gritaron-. ¿Te atreves a medir a nuestro dios ? Eso es cosa nuestra. -Sí, sacerdotes; bueno, ¿qué largo decís que es, entonces ? Pero con esto surgió entre ellos una feroz disputa sobre pies y pulgadas; se golpearon las molleras con sus varas de medir -el gran cráneo les hizo eco- y yo, aprovechando esa feliz oportunidad, terminé rápidamente mis propias mediciones.

Ahora me propongo presentaros esas mediciones. Pero ante todo conste que, en este asunto, no soy libre para decir cualquier medida fantástica que se me antoje. Porque hay autoridades esqueletales a que os podéis remitir para comprobar mi exactitud. Hay un Museo Leviatánico, según he oído decir, en Hull, Inglaterra, uno de los puertos balleneros de ese país, donde tienen algunas hermosas muestras de ballenas de aleta dorsal y otros cetáceos. Igualmente, he oído decir que en el museo de Manchester, en New Hampshire, tienen lo que los propietarios llaman « la única muestra perfecta de ballena de Groenlandia, o de Río, que hay en Estados Unidos ». Además, en un lugar de Yorkshire, Inglaterra, llamado Burton Contable, un tal sir Clifford Constable tiene en su posesión el esqueleto de un cachalote, pero de tamaño mediano, y en absoluto de la magnitud adulta del de mi amigo el rey Tranquo.

En ambos casos, los peces encallados a que pertenecieron esos dos esqueletos fueron reclamados en principio por sus propietarios según motivos análogos. El rey Tranquo se apoderó del suyo porque quiso; y sir Clifford, porque era señor de los dominios de aquellas partes. La ballena de sir Clifford está completamente articulada, de modo que, como un gran armario con cajones, se puede cerrar y abrir, en todas sus cavidades óseas, extendiendo sus costillas como un abanico gigantesco, y meciéndose todo el día en su mandíbula inferior. Habrán de ponerse cerraduras en algunas de sus trampillas y postigos, y un lacayo guiará a futuros visitantes con un manojo de llaves al costado. Sir Clifford piensa cobrar dos peniques por una ojeada a la galería de los susurros de la columna espinal; tres peniques por oír el eco en el hueco del cerebelo, y seis peniques por la vista sin rival desde la frente.

Las dimensiones del esqueleto que ahora voy a anotar están copiadas literalmente de mi brazo derecho, donde me las hice tatuar; ya que, en mis locos vagabundeos de ese período, no había otro modo seguro de conservar tan valiosas estadísticas. Pero como andaba escaso de espacio, y deseaba que las demás partes de mi cuerpo continuasen como páginas en blanco para un poema que entonces estaba componiendo -al menos, las partes no tatuadas que me quedaban-, no me molesté en las pulgadas fraccionarias, y desde luego, tampoco deben entrar en absoluto pulgadas en una medición adecuada del cetáceo. 

Medidas del esqueleto del cachalote

En primer lugar, querría presentaros una declaración detallada y sencilla respecto a la mole viviente de este leviatán, cuyo esqueleto vamos a describir brevemente. Tal declaración podrá ser útil aquí.

Conforme a un cálculo cuidadoso que he hecho, y que baso en parte sobre la estimación del capitán Scoresby, de setenta toneladas para la mayor ballena de Groenlandia, de sesenta pies de longitud; conforme, digo, a mi cálculo cuidadoso, un cachalote de la máxima magnitud, entre ochenta y cinco y noventa pies de largo, y de algo menos de cuarenta pies en su más amplia circunferencia, pesará, semejante cetáceo, noventa toneladas por lo menos; de modo que, calculando trece hombres por tonelada, él pesa considerablemente más que una aldea entera de mil cien habitantes.

¿Pensais, entonces, que a este leviatán habría que ponerle unos sesos como bueyes enyugados para hacer que se moviera, según la imaginación de cualquier hombre de tierra adentro ?

Como ya he puesto ante vosotros, de modos diversos, su cráneo, su agujero del chorro, su mandíbula, sus dientes, su frente, sus aletas y otras diferentes partes, ahora señalaré simplemente lo que es más interesante en la mole total de sus huesos más extensos. Pero como el colosal cráneo abarca tan gran proporción de todo el alcance del esqueleto; como es, con mucho, su parte más complicada, y como no se va a repetir nada sobre él en este capítulo, no debéis dejar de llevarlo en la memoria, bajo el brazo, mientras continuamos, pues de otro modo no obtendréis una noción completa de la estructura de conjunto que vamos a observar.

En longitud, el esqueleto del cachalote que había en Tranque cedía sesenta y dos pies, de modo que, en vida, completamente revestido y extendido, debía haber tenido noventa pies de largo, pues n un cetáceo el esqueleto pierde cerca de un quinto de su longitud respecto al cuerpo vivo. De esos setenta y dos pies, el cráneo y la mandíbula comprendían unos veinte pies, dejando unos cincuenta pies de vértebras simples. Unido al espinazo, durante menos de tercera parte de su longitud, estaba el poderoso cesto circular de ostillas que antes encerró sus entrañas.

Para mí, ese enorme pecho de costillas marfileñas, con el largo spinazo sin relieve, extendiéndose a lo lejos en línea recta, se parecía no poco al casco de un gran barco recién colocado sobre la grada, cuando sólo se han insertado una veintena de sus desnudas cuadernas de proa, y la quilla, por su parte, no es por entonces sino un irgo madero mal empalmado.

Las costillas eran diez por cada lado. La primera, empezando por l cuello, tenía casi seis pies de largo; la segunda, tercera y cuarta tan cada cual más larga que la anterior, hasta que se llegaba al clíamax de la quinta, o costilla central, que medía ocho pies y unas pulgadas. Desde ahí, las siguientes costillas disminuían, hasta que la .écima y última sólo alcanzaba cinco pies y unas pulgadas. En espesor general, todas ellas mostraban una evidente correspondencia con la longitud. Las costillas centrales eran las más arqueadas. Entre algunos de los arsácidas, se usan como vigas en que apoyar puentes cara caminantes, sobre pequeños arroyos.

Al considerar estas costillas, no podía dejar de impresionarme otra vez la circunstancia, tan variadamente repetida en este libro, de que el esqueleto del cetáceo no es en absoluto el reflejo de su forma revestida. Las mayores costillas del de Tranque, una de las centrales, ¡ocupaba esa parte del pez que, en vida, es mayor en profundidad ahora, la mayor profundidad del cuerpo revestido, en esa determinada ballena, debía ser al menos de dieciséis pies, en tanto que esa ostilla daba sólo la mitad de la noción verdadera del tamaño vivo de esa parte. Además en otro aspecto, donde ahora yo sólo veía un espinazo desnudo, todo eso había estado antaño envuelto en más toneladas de masa de carne, músculo, sangre y tripas. Y aún más en las grandes aletas: allí sólo veían unas pocas coyunturas desordenadas; ¡y en lugar de la pesada y majestuosa cola, aunque sin huesos, un absoluto vacío !

¡Qué vano y necio, pues, pensé, para el hombre tímido e inexperto, intentar comprender bien a este prodigioso cetáceo, sólo meditando su muerto esqueleto disminuido, tendido en este pacífico bosque ! No. Sólo en el corazón de los más vivos peligros; sólo cuando se está metido en los remolinos de su iracunda cola; sólo en el profundo mar sin límites puede ser examinado, de modo vivo y verdadero, el cetáceo plenamente revestido.

Pero ¿y el espinazo ? En cuanto a éste, el mejor modo de considerarlo es amontonar sus huesos, uno sobre otro, con una grúa. No es una empresa rápida. Pero una vez hecha, se parece mucho a la Columna de Pompeyo.

Hay cuarenta y tantas vértebras en total, que no están pegadas juntas en el esqueleto. La mayor parte se encuentra como los grandes bloques nudosos en un chapitel gótico, formando sólidas hileras de pesada albañilería. La mayor, una central, tiene algo menos de tres pies de anchura, y más de cuatro de profundidad. La más pequeña, en que el espinazo empieza a menguar desapareciendo hacia la cola, tiene sólo dos pulgadas de ancho, y parece algo así como una bola de billar blanca. Me han dicho que había aún otras más pequeñas, pero las han perdido unos pequeños caníbales traviesos, los niños del sacerdote, que las robaron para jugar a las canicas con ellas. Así vemos cómo incluso el espinazo de las más enormes cosas vivas va disminuyendo al fin hasta ser simple juego de niños. 

La ballena fósil

Por su mole poderosa, la ballena ofrece un tema muy adecuado para extenderse en él, amplificarlo, y, en general, demorarse. Aunque quisierais, no podríais comprimirlo. En buen derecho, sólo debería tratarse en un infolio imperial. Para no repetir una vez más los estadios que mide desde el agujero del chorro a la cola, y las yardas que tiene de cintura, pensad sólo en las gigantescas circunvoluciones de sus intestinos, que yacen en ella como grandes cables y guindalezas guardados en adujas en el subterráneo sollado de un barco de guerra.

Puesto que me he propuesto manejar yo solo a este leviatán, me es preciso mostrarme exhaustivamente omnisciente en la empresa, sin olvidar los más menudos gérmenes seminales de su sangre, y desenrollándolo hasta el último rollo de sus tripas. Habiéndole ya descrito en la mayor parte de sus peculiaridades habitatorias y anatómicas, queda ahora ensalzarle desde un punto de vista arqueológico, fosilífero y antediluviano. Aplicados a cualquier otro animal que el leviatán -a una hormiga o una pulga- tan colosales términos podrían considerarse con justicia como inmerecidamente grandilocuentes. Pero cuando el texto trata del leviatán, la cosa cambia. Estoy contento de acercarme tambaleante a esta empresa bajo las palabras más pesadas del diccionario. Y aquí ha de decirse que siempre que ha sido conveniente consultar un diccionario en el curso de estas disertaciones, he usado sin falta una enorme edición en cuarto del de Johnson, comprado adrede para este propósito, porque el insólito tamaño personal de ese famoso lexicógrafo le hacía más que capaz de redactar un diccionario para ser usado por un autor ballenero como yo.

A menudo, uno oye hablar de escritores que se elevan y se hinchan chan con su tema, aunque éste parezca sólo ordinario. ¡Cómo, entonces, me pasará a mí, escribiendo sobre este leviatán ! Inconscientemente, mi caligrafía se expansiona en mayúsculas de cartel. ¡Dadme una pluma de cóndor ! ¡Dadme el cráter del Vesubio como tintero ! ¡Amigos, sostenedme los brazos ! Pues en el simple acto de movimiento, como para abarcar todo el círculo de las ciencias, y toda la generación de las ballenas, y los hombres, y los mastodontes, pasados, presentes y futuros, con todos los panoramas giratorios de imperios en la tierra, y a través del universo entero, sin excluir sus suburbios. ¡Tal, y tan magnificadora es la virtud de un tema amplio y liberal ! Nos expansionamos hasta su tamaño. Para producir un libro poderoso, hay que elegir un tema poderoso. No se puede jamás escribir un volumen grande y duradero sobre la pulga, aunque haya muchos que lo han intentado.

Antes de entrar en mi tema de las ballenas fósiles presento mis credenciales como geólogo, declarando que en mis tiempos misceláneos he sido albañil, y también gran excavador de zanjas, canales y 'fuentes, bodegas de vino, sótanos y cisternas de todas clases. Igualmente, por vía preliminar, deseo recordar al lector que, mientras en los estratos geológicos primitivos se encuentran los fósiles de monstruos ahora casi por completo extinguidos, los restos sucesivos, descubiertos en lo que se llaman las formaciones terciarias, parecen ser los eslabones conectadores, o al menos interpuestos, entre las criaturas antecrónicas, y aquellas cuya remota posteridad se dice que entró en el Arca; todas las ballenas fósiles hasta ahora descubiertas pertenecen al período terciario, que es el último que precede a las formaciones superficiales. Y aunque ninguna de ellas responde exactamente a ninguna especie conocida de los tiempos presentes, sin embargo, todas son lo bastante afines a éstas, en aspectos generales, para justificar que tomen el rango de cetáceos fósiles.

Fósiles rotos y dispersos de ballenas preadamíticas, fragmentos de sus huesos y esqueletos, se han encontrado en los pasados treinta años, con intervalos diversos, en la base de los Alpes, en Lombardía, Francia, Inglaterra, Escocia, y en los Estados de Louisiana, Mississippi y Alabama. Entre los más curiosos de tales restos está parte de un cráneo, que el año 1779 se desenterró en la rue Dauphiné, de París, una breve calle que sale casi enfrente del Palacio de las Tullerías, y unos huesos desenterrados al excavar los grandes muelles de Amberes, en tiempos de Napoleón. Cuvier declaró que esos fragmentos pertenecieron a alguna especie leviatánica absolutamente desconocida.

Pero el hallazgo más prodigioso, con mucho, de restos de cetáceos, fue el enorme esqueleto, casi completo, de un monstruo extinguido, hallado el año 1842, en la plantación del juez Creagh, en Alabama. Los crédulos y aterrados esclavos de las cercanías lo tomaron por los huesos de uno de los ángeles caídos. Los médicos de Alabama dijeron que era de un enorme reptil, y le concedieron el nombre de basilosauro. Pero al llevar algunos huesos suyos de muestra, al otro lado del océano, a Owen, el anatomista inglés, resultó que el presunto reptil era una ballena, aunque de especie desaparecida: significativa ilustración del hecho, repetido una vez y otra en este libro, de que el esqueleto de la ballena proporciona escasas claves sobre la forma de su cuerpo totalmente revestido. Así, Owen volvió a bautizar al monstruo como Zeuglodon, y en su estudio leído ante la Sociedad Geológica de Londres, afirmó que era, en sustancia, una de las criaturas más extraordinarias que las mutaciones del globo han borrado de la existencia.

Cuando me pongo entre estos poderosos esqueletos leviatánicos, cráneos, colmillos, mandíbulas, costillas y vértebras, todos ellos caracterizados por sus parciales semejanzas con los géneros existentes á de monstruos marinos, pero al mismo tiempo mostrando por otra parte afinidades semejantes con los aniquilados leviatanes antecrónicos, sus incalculables antecesores, me siento llevado por una inundación a aquel prodigioso período antes de que se pudiera decir que había empezado el tiempo mismo, pues el tiempo empezó con el hombre. Aquí, el caos gris de Saturno rueda sobre mí, y obtengo vagos y estremecedores atisbos de esas eternidades polares, cuando bastiones de hielo, como cuñas, apretaban lo que ahora son los trópicos, y en todas las 25.000 millas de la circunferencia de este mundo, no era visible ni un palmo de tierra habitable. Entonces el mundo entero era de la ballena, y, reina de la creación, dejaba su estela a lo largo de las actuales líneas de los Andes y del Himalaya. ¿Quién puede mostrar un pedigrí como leviatán ? El arpón de Ahab había derramado sangre más antigua que la de los faraones. Matusalén parece un niño de escuela. Miro a mí alrededor para estrechar la mano de Sem. Me abruma de terror esta existencia, antemosaica y sin fuentes, de los inexpresables terrores de la ballena, que, habiendo existido antes de todos los tiempos, por fuerza deberá existir después que pasen todas las eras humanas.

Pero este leviatán no sólo ha dejado sus huellas preadamíticas en las planchas estereotípicas de la naturaleza y ha perpetuado en piedra caliza y greda su antiguo busto; sino que en tabletas egipcias, cuya antigüedad parece reclamar para ellas un carácter casi fosilífe ro, encontramos la inconfundible huella de su aleta. En una sala del gran templo de Denderah, hace unos cincuenta años, se descubrió en el techo granítico un planisferio esculpido y pintado, abundante en centauros, grifos y delfines semejante a las grotescas figuras en la esfera celeste de los modernos. Deslizándose entre ellos, el viejo leviatán nadaba como antaño; allí nadaba en ese planisferio, siglos antes de que Salomón fuera mecido en la cuna.

Y tampoco debe omitirse aquí otro extraño testimonio sobre la antigüedad de la ballena, en su propia realidad ósea posdiluviana, según establece el venerable Juan Leo, el antiguo viajero de Berberla.

« No lejos de la orilla del mar, tienen un templo, cuyas vigas y travesaños están hechos de huesos de ballena, pues a menudo se arrojan muertas a la orilla ballenas de tamaño monstruoso. La gente vulgar imagina que, por un secreto poder otorgado al templo por Dios, ninguna ballena puede pasar ante él sin muerte inmediata. Pero la verdad del asunto es que, a ambos lados del templo, hay rocas que se meten dos millas en el mar y hieren a las ballenas cuando se posan en ellas. Tienen como cosa milagrosa una costilla de ballena de increíble longitud, que, tendida en el suelo con su parte convexa hacia arriba, forma un arco, cuya cima no puede alcanzar un hombre a lomo de camello. Esa costilla (escribe Juan Leo) se dice que llevaba allí cien años antes que la viera yo. Sus historiadores afirman que un profeta que profetizó sobre Mahoma, salió de este templo, y algunos no rehúsan afirmar que el profeta Jonás fue arrojado por la ballena en la base del templo. »

En ese templo africano de la ballena te dejo, oh lector, y si eres de Nantucket, y ballenero, adorarás ahí en silencio. 

¿Disminuye el tamaño de la ballena ?  -Va a desaparecer ?

Así, pues, en cuanto que este leviatán desciende tropezando sobre nosotros como desde los manantiales de la Eternidad, podrá preguntarse pertinentemente, si, en el largo transcurso de las generaciones, no ha degenerado desde el primitivo tamaño de sus progenitores.

Pero al investigar encontramos que, no sólo las ballenas de los días actuales son superiores en magnitud a aquellas cuyos restos fósiles se encuentran en el sistema terciario (abarcando un definido período geológico anterior al hombre), sino que de las ballenas encontradas en este sistema terciario, las que pertenecen a las formaciones posteriores superan en tamaño a las de los anteriores.

De todas las ballenas preadamíticas exhumadas hasta ahora, la mayor, con mucho, es la de Alabama que se mencionó en el último capítulo, y tenía menos de setenta pies de longitud de esqueleto; en tanto que ya hemos visto que la cinta métrica da setenta y dos pies para el esqueleto de una ballena moderna de gran tamaño. Y he oído decir, según autoridad de balleneros, que se han capturado cachalotes de cerca de cien pies de largo en el momento de la captura.

Pero ¿no podría ser que, mientras las ballenas de la hora presente aventajan en magnitud a las de todos los períodos geológicos anteriores, no podría ser, repito, que hubieran degenerado desde la época de Adán ?

Con seguridad hemos de concluir eso, si hemos de dar crédito a las noticias de caballeros tales como Plinio y los naturalistas antiguos en general. Pues Plinio nos cuenta de ballenas que abarcaban acres enteros de mole viviente, y Aldrovando, de otras que medían ochocientos pies de longitud: ¡Avenidas de Cabullería y túneles del Támesis de ballenas ! E incluso en los días de Banks y Solander, naturalistas de Cook, encontramos un miembro danés de la Academia de Ciencias que anota ciertas ballenas de Islandia (reydan-siskur, o panzas arrugadas) de ciento veinte yardas, esto es, trescientos sesenta pies. Y Lacépède, el naturalista francés, en su detallada historia de las ballenas, al mismo comienzo de su obra (página 3) evalúa la ballena de Groenlandia en cien metros, trescientos veintiocho pies. Y esa obra se ha publicado recientemente, en el año 1825 del Señor.

Pero ¿creerá esas historias ningún ballenero ? No. La ballena de hoy es tan grande como sus antepasados de tiempos de Plinio. Y si alguna vez voy a donde está Plinio, yo, que soy más ballenero que él, tendré el valor de decírselo. Porque no puedo entender cómo es que mientras que las momias egipcias que se enterraron miles de años antes que naciera Plinio no miden tanto con sus ataúdes como un kentuckiano actual sin zapatos; y mientras que el ganado vacuno y los demás animales tallados en las más antiguas tablillas de Egipto y Nínive, conforme a las proporciones relativas en que se han trazado, demuestran, con la misma claridad, que el actual ganado premiado en Smithfield, bien criado y alimentado en el establo, no sólo iguala sino que excede con mucho en tamaño a las más gordas de las vacas gordas de los faraones; a la vista de todo eso, no he de admitir que, entre todos los animales, solamente la ballena haya degenerado.

Pero todavía queda otro interrogante, a menudo removido por los más recónditos investigadores de Nantucket. Bien sea debido a los casi omniscientes vigías en la cofa de los balleneros, que ahora penetran incluso por el estrecho de Behring, y hasta los más remotos cajones y compartimientos secretos del mundo, o bien debido a '' los mil arpones y lanzas que se disparan a lo largo de todas las costas continentales, el punto a discutir es si Leviatán podrá aguantar mucho tiempo semejante persecución, y semejante agitación inexorable; y si no acabará por ser exterminado de las aguas, y la última ballena, como el último hombre, fumará su última pipa y luego se evaporará en la bocanada final.

Comparando los jibosos rebaños de ballenas con los jibosos rebaños de búfalos que, no hace cuarenta años, se extendían en decenas de millares por las praderas de Illinois y Missouri, y agitaban sus férreas melenas y miraban hurañamente con sus frentes cuajadas de truenos los asentamientos de las populosas ciudades fluviales, donde ahora el cortés agente os vende tierra a dólar la pulgada, tal comparación parecería ofrecer un argumento irresistible para mostrar que la perseguida ballena ya no puede escapar a su rápida destrucción.

Pero hay que mirar este asunto bajo todas las luces. Aunque haga tan breve período -ni una larga vida de hombre- que el censo de búfalos de Illinois excedía al censo de hombres que hay ahora en Londres, y aunque en el día presente no quede de ellos ni un cuerno ni una pezuña en toda esa región, y aunque la causa de esta prodigiosa exterminación haya sido la lanza del hombre, sin embargo, la naturaleza tan diversa de la caza de la ballena prohíbe perentoriamente un final tan poco glorioso para el leviatán. Cuarenta hombres en un barco persiguiendo al cachalote durante cuarenta y ocho meses creen que les ha ido enormemente bien, y dan gracias a Dios, si al fin se llevan a casa el aceite de cuarenta peces: mientras que, en los días de los viejos cazadores canadienses e indios y los tramperos del Oeste, cuando el Far West (en cuyo poniente siguen levantándose soles) era un desierto virgen, el mismo número de hombres con mocasines, durante el mismo número de meses, montados a caballo en vez de navegando en barcos, habrían matado, no cuarenta, sino más de cuarenta mil búfalos; un hecho que, si fuera necesario, podría comprobarse estadísticamente.

Y, bien mirado, tampoco parece un argumento a favor de la extinción gradual del cachalote, que, por ejemplo, en los últimos años (la parte final del siglo pasado, digamos) esos leviatanes, en pequeñas manadas, se encontrasen mucho más a menudo que actualmente, y, en consecuencia, los cruceros no fueran tan prolongados y fueran también mucho más remuneradores. Porque, como se ha hecho notar en otro lugar, esas ballenas, influidas por consideraciones de seguridad, ahora nadan por los mares en inmensas caravanas, de modo que, en buena medida, los solitarios dispersos, las parejas, las pequeñas manadas y las « escuelas » de otros tiempos ahora se han congregado en ejércitos infrecuentes, vastos pero muy separados. Eso es todo. E igualmente falaz me parece la idea de que, porque las llamadas ballenas de « barbas de ballena » ya no aparecen en muchas zonas de pesca que en años anteriores abundaban en ellas, se deduzca de aquí que la especie está también declinando. Pues sólo son expulsadas de promontorio en promontorio, y si una costa ya no se anima con sus chorros, entonces es seguro que alguna otra orilla más remota acaba de ser sorprendida por este espectáculo insólito.

Además: en cuanto a los mencionados leviatanes, tienen dos firmes fortalezas que, con toda probabilidad humana, seguirán siendo siempre inexpugnables. Y así como, ante la invasión de sus valles, los escarchados suizos se retiraron a sus montañas, igualmente, expulsadas de las sabanas y páramos de los mares centrales, las ballenas de « barbas de ballena » pueden recurrir al fin a sus ciudadelas polares, y sumergiéndose allí bajo las últimas barreras y murallas cristalinas, emerger entre campos y bancos de hielo, y, en un círculo encantado de perenne diciembre, desafiar a toda persecución del hombre.

Pero como quizá se arponean cincuenta de esas ballenas de « barbas de ballena » por cada cachalote, algunos filósofos del castillo de proa han decidido que esta resuelta matanza ya ha disminuido seriamente sus batallones. Sin embargo, aunque durante hace algún tiempo se han matado un gran número de estas ballenas, no menos de 13.000 al año, en la costa del noroeste, sólo por americanos, hay consideraciones que hacen que incluso esta circunstancia tenga poco o ninguna importancia como argumento en este asunto.

Aun siendo natural una cierta incredulidad respecto a la populosidad de las más enormes criaturas del globo, ¿qué diremos, sin embargo, a Harto, el historiador de Goa, cuando nos dice que en una sola cacería el rey de Siam cobró 4.000 elefantes, y que en esas regiones los elefantes son tan numerosos como las manadas de ganado vacuno en los climas templados ? Y no parece haber razón para dudar que si esos elefantes, que ya hace miles de años que fueron perseguidos, por Semíramis, Poro, Aníbal y todos los posteriores monarcas de Oriente, siguen sobreviviendo allí en grandes números, mucho más sobrevivirá la gran ballena a toda persecución, ya que tiene unos pastos en que extenderse que son exactamente el doble de grandes que toda Asia, ambas Américas, Europa, Africa, Nueva Holanda y todas las islas del mar reunidas.

Además: si hemos de considerar que, por la gran longevidad que se supone en las ballenas, probablemente alcanzan la edad de un siglo o más, por tanto, en cualquier momento, deben ser coetáneas varias generaciones adultas. Y de lo que es eso, podemos hacernos pronto alguna idea imaginando que todos los cementerios, camposantos y panteones familiares de la creación entregasen los cuerpos vivos de todos los hombres, mujeres y niños que vivían hace setenta y cinco años, añadiendo esta incontable hueste a la actual población humana del globo.

Por tanto, para todas estas cosas, consideramos a la ballena como inmortal en cuanto especie, por más que sea perecedera en su individualidad. Nadaba por los mares antes que los continentes salieran a la superficie; nadaba antaño sobre la sede actual de las Tullerías, del castillo de Windsor y del Kremlin. En el diluvio de Noé, despreciaba el Arca de Noé, y si alguna vez el mundo ha de inundarse otra vez, como los Países Bajos, para exterminar las ratas, entonces la eterna ballena seguirá sobreviviendo, y alzándose sobre la cresta más alta de la inundación en el ecuador, lanzará a los cielos el chorro de su desafío espumeante. 

La pierna de Ahab

La manera precipitada como el capitán Ahab había abandonado el Samuel Enderby de Londres no dejó de ir acompañada de alguna ligera violencia para su propia persona. Se posó con tal empuje sobre una bancada de la lancha, que su pierna de marfil recibió un choque que la dejó medio astillada. Y cuando, después de alcanzar su cubierta, y su propio agujero de pivote en ella, giró vehementemente para dar una orden urgente al timonel (como siempre, era algo sobre que no gobernaba con la debida inflexibilidad), entonces el marfil ya transformado recibió de nuevo tal contorsión y retorcimiento que, aunque siguió entero y, según todas las apariencias, sólido, Ahab ya no lo juzgó del todo digno de confianza.

Y, en efecto, no había mucho de que extrañarse si, con toda su loca indiferencia general, Ahab a veces concedía cuidadosa atención al hueso muerto sobre el cual se apoyaba en parte. Pues no mucho antes de que el Pequod zarpase de Nantucket, le habían encontrado una noche tendido en el suelo, sin sentido: por algún accidente desconocido, inimaginable y al parecer inexplicable, su pierna de marfil se había desplazado tan violentamente, que le había herido como empalándole y casi le había perforado la ingle, y no sin grandes dificultades se curó por completo la dolorosa herida.

Entonces no dejó de metérsele en su monomaníaca cabeza que toda la angustia del sufrimiento entonces presente era sólo el resultado directo de una desgracia anterior, y le pareció ver con sobrada claridad que, del mismo modo que el más venenoso reptil del pantano perpetúa su especie tan inevitablemente como el más dulce cantor del bosque, así del mismo modo que las felicidades, todos los acontecimientos lamentables engendran su semejanza por naturaleza. Sí, y aún más todavía, pensaba Ahab, ya que, tanto los antecesores cuanto los descendientes del dolor llegan más lejos que los antecesores y descendientes de la alegría. Pues, para no aludir a lo que se puede inferir de ciertos escritos canónicos, que, mientras ciertos gozos naturales de aquí no tendrán hijos que les nazcan para el otro mundo, sino que, al contrario, han de ser seguidos Buidos por esa esterilidad de alegrías que será toda la desesperación del infierno, en tanto que ciertas culpables miserias mortales engendrarán con fecundidad una progenie eternamente progresiva de dolores más allá de la tumba; para no aludir a esto en absoluto, parece seguir habiendo cierta desigualdad en el análisis más profundo de la cuestión. Pues, pensaba Ahab, mientras aun las más altas felicidades terrenas tienen siempre una cierta mezquindad insignificante acechando en ellas, y en cambio todos los dolores del corazón, en el fondo, tienen un significado místico, y, en algunos hombres, una grandeza arcangélica, del mismo modo la diligente averiguación de su ascendencia no desmiente esa deducción obvia. Rastrear las genealogías de tan altas miserias mortales nos lleva al menos hasta las primogenituras sin fuentes de los dioses; de modo que, frente a todos los alegres soles cosechadores de heno, y frente a todas las lunas de suaves címbalos y redondeadoras de las mieses, hemos de asentir a esto: que ni los propios dioses están alegres para siempre. La señal de nacimiento, imborrable y triste, en la frente del hombre, no es sino el sello de la tristeza que hay en los señaladotes.

Incautamente, se ha divulgado aquí un secreto, que quizá hubiera sido más adecuado revelarlo antes como era debido. Con otros muchos detalles referentes a Ahab, siempre siguió siendo un secreto para algunos que, durante cierto período, antes y después de zarpar el Pequod, se había escondido con hermetismo de Gran Lama; y que, durante ese intervalo había buscado refugio sin habla, por decirlo así, entre el marmóreo senado de los muertos. La razón que el capitán Peleg divulgó para este asunto no parecía en absoluto adecuada, aunque, ciertamente, en cuanto se refiere a la parte más profunda de Ahab, cualquier revelación tenía más de tiniebla significativa que de luz explanatoria. Pero, al final, todo salió fuera: o al menos, esta cuestión. Esa desgracia atroz estaba en la base de su reclusión temporal. Y no sólo esto, sino que para el disperso y cada vez más reducido grupo de gente de tierra que, por cualquier razón, poseía el privilegio de acercarse a él sin tantos impedimentos, para ese tímido círculo, la desgracia antes aludida -al permanecer, como permaneció, malhumoradamente inexplicada por Ahab-, se revistió de terrores que no dejaban de provenir hasta cierto punto de la tierra de los espíritus y los gemidos. Así que, a causa de su celo por él, todos ellos se habían conjurado a silenciar ante los demás, en lo que de ellos dependiera, su conocimiento del asunto. Y por eso ocurrió que, hasta que no transcurrió un considerable intervalo, no se difundió por la cubierta del Pequod.

Pero sea todo esto como sea; dejemos que el invisible y ambiguo sínodo del aire, y los vengativos príncipes y potestades del fuego tengan que ver o no con el terrenal Ahab: con todo, en la cuestión presente de su pierna, él tomó sencillas medidas prácticas: llamó al carpintero.

Y cuando se presentó ante él dicho funcionario, le pidió que sin tardanza se pusiera a hacerle una nueva pierna, e instruyó a los oficiales para que le hicieran proveer de todas las viguetas y tablillas de marfil de mandíbula (del cachalote) que hasta entonces se habían acumulado en el viaje, para que pudiera asegurarse una cuidadosa selección del material más robusto y de grano más claro. Hecho esto, el carpintero recibió órdenes de que la pierna estuviera terminada esa noche, y que proveyera todos los accesorios, independientemente de los que pertenecían a la desacreditada pierna en uso. Además, se ordenó que se izara la forja del barco, saliendo de su temporal reposo en la sentina, y, para acelerar el asunto, se mandó al herrero que se pusiera en seguida a forjar cuantos dispositivos de hierro se pudieran necesitar. 

El carpintero

Siéntate como un sultán entre las lunas de Saturno y toma al hombre a solas, en elevada abstracción: parecerá un prodigio, una grandeza, un dolor. Pero desde ese mismo punto de vista, toma a la humanidad en masa, y en su mayor parte, parecerá un populacho de duplicados innecesarios, tan simultáneos como hereditarios. Pero aun tan humilde como era, y tan lejos de ofrecer un ejemplo de la elevada abstracción humana, el carpintero del Pequod no era ningún duplicado; de aquí que ahora salga en persona a escena.

Como todos los carpinteros que se hacen a la mar, y más especialmente aquellos que pertenecen a barcos balleneros, éste, en cierta medida práctica y desenvuelta, estaba igualmente experimentado en numerosas industrias y actividades colaterales de la suya propia, ya que el trabajo de carpintero es el antiguo tronco ramificado de todas esas numerosas artesanías que tienen más o menos que ver con la madera como material auxiliar. Pero, además de que se le aplicara esa anterior observación genérica, este carpintero del Pequod era singularmente eficaz en esas mil innominadas emergencias mecánicas que ocurren continuamente en un barco grande, durante un viaje de tres o cuatro años, por mares lejanos y sin civilización. Pues, para no hablar de su prontitud en los deberes ordinarios -reparar lanchas desfondadas o perchas abatidas, corregir la forma de remos de pala tosca, insertar en el puente ojos de buey, o clavijas de madera nuevas en las tablas de los costados, y otros asuntos variados, más o menos directamente pertenecientes a su oficio especial-, además, era experto sin vacilación en toda clase de aptitudes opuestas, tanto útiles como caprichosas.

La única grandiosa escena donde ejecutaba todos sus variados papeles, tan diversos, era su banco con tornillos: una larga mesa, ruda y pesada, provista de diversos tornillos, de diferentes tamaños, tanto de hierro como de madera. En todo momento, excepto cuando había ballenas al costado, este banco estaba sólidamente sujeto de través, junto a la parte de atrás de la refinería.

Se encuentra que una cabilla es demasiado gruesa para insertarse fácilmente en su agujero: el carpintero la sujeta en uno de sus tornillos siempre dispuestos, e inmediatamente la reduce con la lima. Un extraviado pájaro terrestre, de extraño plumaje, cae a bordo y es cautivado: con limpias varas cepilladas de hueso de ballena franca, y con travesaños de marfil de cachalote, el carpintero le hace una jaula en forma de pagoda. Un remero se disloca la muñeca: el carpintero cuece una loción aliviadora. Stubb desea que se pinten estrellas de bermellón en la pala de cada remo: atornillando los remos en su gran tornillo de madera, el carpintero proporciona con simetría la constelación. A un marinero se le antoja llevar en las orejas aros de hueso de tiburón: el carpintero le perfora las orejas. A otro le duelen las muelas: el carpintero saca las tenazas, y dando una palmada en el banco, le manda sentarse allí, pero el pobre hombre, sin poderlo remediar, retrocede a mitad de la operación: haciendo girar el mango de su tornillo de madera, el carpintero le hace señas de que meta en él la mandíbula, si quiere que le saque la muela.

Así, este carpintero estaba preparado en todos los puntos, e igualmente indiferente y sin respeto en todos. Las muelas las consideraba como trozos de marfil; las cabezas las tomaba por montones de virador; a los hombres mismos, los trataba con tanta ligereza como cabrestantes. Pero entonces, con tal variadas dotes en tan ancho campo, y con tal vivacidad de experiencia, además, todo ello parecería exigir alguna extraordinaria vivacidad de inteligencia. Sin embargo, no era exactamente así. Pues lo más notable de este hombre era cierta estolidez impersonal, por así decir; impersonal, digo; pues se difumaba tanto en el circundante infinito de las cosas, que parecía unido a la estolidez general discernible en todo el mundo visible, el cual, a la vez que incesantemente activo en incontables modos, sigue externamente conservando su calma, y os ignora aunque excavéis cimientos de catedrales. Pero esa estolidez casi horrible que había en él, implicando también, al parecer, una falta de sensibilidad que se ramificaba por todo, sin embargo, a veces se entreveraba extrañamente de un antiguo humor, antediluviano, jadeante, como una muleta, no exento de vez en cuando de una cierta ingeniosidad casi encanecida, tal como habría servido para pasar el tiempo durante la guardia de medianoche en el barbudo castillo de proa del arca de Noé. ¿Era que ese viejo carpintero había sido un vagabundo vitalicio, que, con tanto rodar de acá para allá, no sólo no había criado musgo, sino, lo que es más, se había despojado con el roce de cualquier pequeña adherencia exterior que en principio le hubiera correspondido ? Era una abstracción desnuda; una integral sin fracciones; sin compromiso, como un niño recién nacido; viviendo sin referencia premeditada a este mundo ni al siguiente. Casi podríais decir que esta extraña ausencia de compromiso en él implicaba una suerte de falta de inteligencia; pues, en sus numerosas actividades, no parecía trabajar por razón o instinto, o simplemente porque le hubieran enseñado, o por cualquier mixtura de estas cosas, igual o desigual, sino meramente por una especie de proceso sordo y mudo, espontáneamente literal. Era un puro manipulador; su cerebro, si es que lo tenía, debía haberse filtrado a los músculos de los dedos. Era como uno de esos artilugios de Sheffield, irracionales, pero altamente útiles, multum in parvo, que toman el aspecto exterior -aunque un poco hinchado- de una navaja corriente de bolsillo, pero contienen no sólo filos de varios tamaños, sino también sacacorchos, destornilladores, tenacillas, leznas, plumas, reglas, limas de uñas y gubias. Así, si sus superiores querían usar al carpintero como destornillador, no tenían que hacer más que abrir esa parte suya, y el tornillo quedaba en su sitio; o si como tenacillas, le tomaban por las piernas, y ya estaba.

Con todo, como se ha sugerido anteriormente, este carpintero herramienta universal y plegable no era, después de todo, ninguna simple máquina autómata. Si no tenía un alma corriente, tenía un algo sutil que, no se sabe cómo, cumplía de modo anómalo esa función. No es posible decir qué era, si esencia de mercurio, o unas pocas gotas de amoníaco. Pero ahí estaba, y ahí había permanecido durante sesenta años o más. Y era eso, ese mismo inexplicable y astuto principio vital en él, era eso lo que le hacía estar gran parte del tiempo en soliloquio, pero sólo como una rueda irracional, que también zumbaba en soliloquio; o más bien, su cuerpo era una garita y ese soliloquizador estaba allí de guardia, hablando todo el tiempo para mantenerse despierto. 

Ahab y el carpintero

En cubierta. Cuarto de guardia deprima.

El carpintero, de pie ante su banco con tornillos, y a la luz de dos faroles, limando diligentemente el trozo de marfil para la pierna, que está é firmemente sujeto en el tornillo. Placas de marfil, correas de cuero, al mohadillas, tornillos y diversas herramientas de todas clases están dis persas por la mesa. Delante, se ve la llama roja de la forja donde trabaja el herrero

-¡Maldita la lima y maldito el hueso ! Es duro lo que debería ser blando, y es blando lo que debería ser duro. Así vamos nosotros, los que limamos viejas mandíbulas y huesos de espinilla. Probemos otro. Eso, ahora eso funciona mejor (estornuda). Hola, este polvo de hueso es... (estornuda), sí, es... (estornuda) ¡Válgame Dios, no me va a dejar hablar ! Eso es lo que saca ahora un viejo por trabajar en leño muerto. Serrad un árbol vivo, y no se saca este polvo; amputad una pierna viva, y no se saca (estornuda). Vamos, vamos, viejo Smut; ea, mete mano y tengamos esa férula y ese tornillo de hebilla; yo ya estoy casi listo para ellos. Suerte ahora (estornuda) que no hay que hacer juntura de la rodilla; eso podría desconcertar un poco, pero un simple hueso de espinilla, vaya, es tan fácil como hacer pértigas para rodrigones; sólo que me gustaría darle un buen acabado. Tiempo, tiempo, sólo con que tuviera tiempo, le podría hacer una pierna tan bonita como jamás (estornuda) haya hecho una reverencia a una dama en un salón. Esas piernas y pantorrillas de cabritilla que he visto en los escaparates no se le compararían en absoluto. Absorben el agua, desde luego, y claro, se vuelven reumáticas, y hay que curarlas (estornuda) con lavados y lociones, igual que las piernas vivas. Ea; antes de serrarla tengo que llamar al viejo de Su Mongolidad, a ver si va bien de largo; en todo caso, estará corta, me parece. ¡Ah, ése es su tranco ! ; tenemos suerte; ahí viene, o si no, es otro; eso es seguro.

AHAB (avanzando)

Durante la siguiente escena, el carpintero sigue estornudando de vez en cuando.

-¡Bueno, constructor de hombres !

-Muy a tiempo, capitán. Si le parece bien, voy ahora a marcar la longitud. Déjeme tomar medidas, capitán.

-¡Medidas para una pierna ! Bueno. En fin, no es la primera vez. ¡A ella ! Ea; pon un dedo encima. Es un tornillo fuerte el que tienes aquí, carpintero; déjame sentir por una vez cómo aprieta. Eso, eso; pellizca bastante.

-Ah, capitán, rompe los huesos: ¡cuidado, cuidado !

-No temas, me gusta un buen apretón, me gusta sentir algo a que pueda agarrarme en este mundo resbaloso, hombre. ¿Qué hace ahí Prometeo ? El herrero, quiero decir... ¿Qué hace ?

-Debe de estar forjando ahora el tornillo de hebilla, capitán.

-Muy bien. Es una asociación: él aporta la parte muscular. ¡Está haciendo una terrible llamarada roja !

-Sí, señor; tiene que ponerlo al rojo blanco para esa clase de trabajo delicado.

-Hum... Sí que tiene. Me parece, ahora, una cosa muy significativa que ese antiguo griego, Prometeo, el que hizo los hombres, según dicen, fuera un herrero, y les animara con fuego, pues lo que está hecho en fuego debe pertenecer propiamente al fuego; así que el infierno no es probable. ¡Cómo vuela el hollín ! Esto debe de ser el resto con que el griego hizo a los africanos. Carpintero, cuando ése acabe con la hebilla, dile que forje un par de hombreras de acero; tenemos a bordo un vendedor ambulante con una carga abrumadora.

-¿Capitán ?

-Espera, ya que Prometeo anda en ello, le encargaré un hombre completo según un modelo deseable. Ante todo, de cincuenta pies del alto, sin zapatos; luego, el pecho modelado conforme al túnel del Támesis; luego, piernas con raíces, para quedarse en el mismo sitio; luego, brazos de tres pies a través de la muñeca; sin corazón en absoluto, la frente de bronce, y cerca de un cuarto de acre de buenos sesos; y vamos a ver..., ¿encargaré unos ojos que miren hacia fuera ? No, pero ponle una claraboya en lo alto de la cabeza para iluminar el interior. Ea, recibe el encargo y vete.

-Pero ¿de qué habla, y a quién habla ? Me gustaría saberlo. ¿He de seguir aquí quieto ? (Aparte.)

-Es una arquitectura muy mediocre hacer una cúpula ciega; aquí hay una. No, no, no; hace falta una linterna.

-¡Ah, ah ! ¿Es eso, entonces ? Aquí hay dos, capitan; me basta una.

-¿Para qué me metes en la cara este atrapa ladrones, hombre ? Apuntar con una luz es peor que apuntar con una pistola.

-Creía, capitan, que hablaba al carpintero.

-¿Al carpintero ? Bueno, eso es..., pero no; es un asunto muy elegante y, podría decir, extremadamente señorial el que traes entre manos, carpintero...; ¿o preferirías trabajar en arcilla ?

-¿Capitán ? ¿Arcilla, arcilla, capitán ? Eso es fango; dejemos la arcilla a los cavadores de zanjas, capitán.

-¡Ese compadre es muy irreverente ! ¿De qué estornudas ?

-El hueso es bastante polvoriento, capitán.

-Entiende entonces la alusión, y cuando estés muerto, no te entierres jamás debajo de las narices de la gente viva.

-¿Eh, capitán ? ¡Ah, sí ! Ya supongo... Sí... ¡Ah, caramba !

-Mira, carpintero; supongo que te consideras un artesano hábil como es menester, ¿eh ? Bueno, entonces, hablará mucho a favor de tu trabajo si, cuando me ponga encima de la pierna que me haces, siento, no obstante, otra pierna en el mismísimo sitio que ella; esto es, carpintero, mi antigua pierna perdida; la de carne y hueso, quiero decir. ¿No puedes expulsar a ese viejo Adán ?

-La verdad, capitán, ahora empiezo a comprender algo. Sí, he oído decir algo curioso por ese lado, capitán: cómo un hombre desarbolado nunca pierde por completo la sensación de su vieja percha, sino que a veces le sigue picando. ¿Puedo preguntarle humildemente si es de verdad, capitán ?

-Sí, lo es, hombre. Mira, pon tu pierna viva aquí, en el sitio donde estaba la mía; así, ahora hay sólo una pierna visible para los ojos, pero dos para el alma. Donde siente la vida hormigueante, ahí, exactamente ahí, por un pelo, yo la siento también. ¿Es una adivinanza ?

-Yo lo llamaría humildemente un rompecabezas, capitán.

-Oye, entonces. ¿Cómo sabes tú que una cosa entera, viva, pensante, no puede estar de modo visible y sin interpretación precisamente donde estabas tú ahora, sí, y que no esté ahí a pesar tuyo ? En tus horas más solitarias, entonces, ¿no temes que alguien esté escuchando ? ¡Alto, no hables ! Y si siento todavía el escozor de mi pierna aplastada, aunque ya hace tanto que se ha disuelto, entonces, ¿por qué ahora tú, carpintero, no puedes sentir las feroces penas del infierno para siempre, y sin cuerpo ? ¡Ah !

-¡Dios mío ! La verdad, señor, si vamos a eso, tengo que volver a calcular; creo que no tenía una cifra corta, capitán.

-Mira, los imbéciles no deben nunca hacer suposiciones. ¿Cuánto tardará en estar hecha la pierna ?

-Quizá una hora, capitán.

-¡Date prisa con ella, entonces, y tráemela ! (Se vuelve para marcharse.) ¡Ah, Vida ! ¡Aquí estoy yo, orgulloso como un dios griego, y sin embargo quedo deudor a este estúpido de un hueso en que erguirme ! ¡Maldito sea ese endeudamiento recíproco que no deja prescindir de libros mayores ! Querría ser tan libre como el aire, y estoy apuntado en los libros del mundo entero. Soy tan rico que podría haber rivalizado con los más ricos pretorianos en la subasta del Imperio romano (que fue la del mundo), y sin embargo debo la carne de la lengua con que presumo. ¡Por los Cielos ! Tomaré un crisol y me meteré en él, y me disolveré en una sola pequeña vértebra compendiadora. Eso.

CARPINTERO (continuando su trabajo).

- ¡Bueno, bueno, bueno ! Stubb le conoce mejor que nadie, y Stubb siempre dice que es raro; no dice nada sino esa palabrita suficiente: « raro », es raro, dice Stubb; es raro..., raro, raro; y no deja de machacárselo al señor Starbuck todo el tiempo...; raro, sí, señor..., raro, raro, muy raro. ¡Y aquí está su pierna ! Sí, ahora que lo pienso, aquí está su compañera de cama: ¡tiene un bastón de mandíbula de ballena por esposa ! Y ésta es su pierna: sobre ella se erguirá. ¿Qué era aquello de una sola pierna que estaba en tres sitios, y los tres sitios estaban en un solo infierno...; cómo era eso ? ¡Ah, no me extraña que me mirara con tanto desprecio ! A veces tengo ideas extrañas, dicen; pero eso es sólo por azar. Luego, un tipo viejo, bajo, pequeño, como yo, no debería nunca meterse a vadear en aguas profundas con capitanes altos como avutardas, el agua le llega a uno en seguida a la barbilla, y se arma un griterío pidiendo lanchas de salvamento. ¡Y aquí está mi pierna de avutarda ! ¡Larga y esbelta, cómo no ! Ahora a la mayor parte de la gente, un par de piernas les dura toda la vida, y eso debe de ser porque las usan con cuidado, como una anciana de corazón tierno usa a sus viejos y bien comidos caballos de tiro. Pero Ahab, ¡ah !, es un cochero muy duro. Mira, ha conducido una pierna a la muerte, y la otra la ha estropeado de por vida, y ahora gasta las piernas de hueso por cestos. ¡Ea, vamos, Smut ! Echa una mano aquí con esos tornillos, y vamos a terminar antes que el tío de la resurrección venga con su trompeta a llamar a todas las piernas, verdaderas o postizas, igual que los hombres de la cervecería van por ahí recogiendo los barriles viejos de cerveza para volverlos a llenar. ¡Qué pierna es ésta ! Parece una pierna viva de verdad, limada hasta el mismo núcleo; él se apoyará mañana en ella; tomará posiciones sobre ella. ¡Hola ! Casi me olvidaba la plaquita ovalada de marfil pulido donde calcula la latitud. ¡Ea, ea; cincel, lima y papel de lija, vamos ! 

Ahab y Starbuck en la cabina

Según la costumbre, a la mañana siguiente estaban achicando el barco con las bombas, cuando he aquí que salió no poco aceite con el agua: los toneles de abajo debían de perder bastante. Se notó mucha preocupación, y Starbuck bajó a la cabina a informar de ese asunto desfavorable.

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Ahora, desde el suroeste, el Pequod se acercaba a Formosa y a las islas Bashi, entre las cuales se abre uno de los pasos tropicales desde los mares de China al Pacífico. Y así, Starbuck encontró a Ahab con una carta general de los archipiélagos orientales extendida ante él, y otra parte mostraba las largas costas orientales de las islas japonesas, Niphon, Matsmai y Sikoke. Con su nívea pierna nueva de marfil apoyada contra la pata atornillada de la mesa, y con una larga navaja, en forma de gancho jardinero, en la mano, el portentoso viejo, con la espalda hacia la porta, arrugaba la frente y volvía a trazar antiguos recorridos.

-¿Quién está ahí ? -dijo al oír los pasos en la puerta, pero sin volverse-. ¡A cubierta ! ¡Fuera !

-El capitán Ahab se equivoca; soy yo. El aceite en la sentina se está saliendo, capitán. Tenemos que izar los Burtons, y desestibar.

-¿Izar los Burtons y desestibar ? ¿Ahora que nos acercamos al Japón, ponernos al pairo una semana para lañar un montón de barriles viejos ?

-O hacemos eso, capitán, o perdemos en un solo día más aceite que el que podamos ganar en un año. Lo que hemos navegado veinte mil millas para conseguir, vale la pena conservarlo, capitán.

-Eso es, eso es; si llegamos a conseguirlo.

-Hablaba del aceite en la sentina, capitán.

-Y yo no hablaba de eso en absoluto. ¡Fuera ! Deja que se pierda. Yo mismo estoy perdiendo todo. ¡Sí !, pérdidas en pérdidas; no sólo lleno de barriles que pierden, sino que esos barriles que pierden están en un barco que pierde; y ésa es una situación mucho peor que la del Pequod, hombre. Pero no me paro a tapar la vía de agua; pues ¿quién la puede encontrar en un casco tan cargado, o cómo esperar taparla, aunque la encuentre, en la galerna aullante de esta vida ? ¡Starbuck ! No voy a izar los Burtons.

-¿Qué dirán los propietarios, capitán ?

-Que los propietarios se pongan en la playa de Nantucket a gritar más que los tifones. ¿Qué le importa a Ahab ? ¿Propietarios, propietarios ? Siempre me estás fastidiando, Starbuck, con esos tacaños de propietarios, como si los propietarios fueran mi conciencia. Pero mira, el único propietario verdadero de algo es su jefe; y escucha, mi conciencia está en la quilla de este barco. ¡A cubierta !

-Capitán Ahab -dijo el oficial, enrojeciendo y entrando más en la cabina, con una osadía tan extrañamente respetuosa y cauta que no sólo parecía casi tratar de evitar la más leve manifestación externa, sino que también parecía más que a medias desconfiada de sí misma-: un hombre mejor que yo podría perdonarle lo que le ofendería en seguida en un hombre más joven; sí, o en un hombre más feliz, capitán Ahab.

-¡Demonios ! Entonces, ¿te atreves a pensar críticas contra mí ? ¡A cubierta !

-No, capitán, todavía no; se lo ruego. Me atrevo, capitán... a perdonar. ¿No vamos a entendernos mejor que hasta ahora, capitán Ahab ?

Ahab agarró un mosquete cargado del armero (que forma parte del mobiliario de cabina en la mayor parte de los barcos del mar del Sur) y apuntando con él a Starbuck, exclamó: -¡Hay un solo Dios que sea Señor de la tierra, y un solo capitán que sea señor del Pequod ! ¡A cubierta !

Durante un momento, por los ojos centelleantes del oficial y sus mejillas encendidas se habría creído casi que realmente había recibido el estampido del tubo que le apuntaba. Pero, dominando su emoción, se levantó casi tranquilo y, al abandonar la cabina, se detuvo un momento y dijo: -¡Me ha ultrajado, no me ha ofendido, capitán ! Pero no le pido que se cuide de Starbuck; se reiría; sino que Ahab se cuide de Ahab; cuidado consigo mismo, viejo.

-Se pone valiente, pero obedece sin embargo, ¡una valentía muy cuidadosa ésa ! -murmuró Ahab, cuando Starbuck desaparecía-. ¿Qué es lo que ha dicho: que Ahab se cuide de Ahab ? ¡Debe de haber algo ahí ! Entonces, usando sin darse cuenta el mosquete como bastón, con ceño de hierro dio vueltas de un lado para otro por la pequeña cabina, pero al fin los gruesos pliegues de la frente se ablandaron y, devolviendo el mosquete al armero, salió a cubierta.

-Eres un muchacho demasiado bueno, Starbuck -dijo en voz baja al oficial; y luego levantó la voz hacia los tripulantes-: ¡Aferrar juanetes, rizar gavias y velachos; braza mayor; arriba los Burtons, y a desestibar la bodega !

Quizá sería ano preguntarse por qué exactamente actuó así Ahab, respetando a Starbuck. Quizá habría sido por un destello de honradez en él; o por mera política de prudencia, que, en esas circunstancias, prohibía imperiosamente el más leve síntoma de desafecto, aunque fuera pasajero, en alguien tan importante como el primer oficial de su barco. Como quiera que fuese, se ejecutaron las órdenes y se izaron los Burtons. 

Queequeg en su ataúd

Después de un examen se observó que los últimos barriles estibados estaban totalmente indemnes y que el escape debía de estar más abajo. De manera que, estando el tiempo en calma, se siguió el trabajo de reconocimiento, perturbando el descanso de los enormes envases alineados e izando aquellas moles enormes desde la penumbra de media noche a la luz del día, arriba. Tan hondos se hallaban, y tan corroídos, mohosos y antiguos parecían los barriles de las filas inferiores, que al verlos casi se tenía la idea de alguna mocheta que contuviera monedas del capitán Noé, con carteles, previniendo, aunque en vano, del diluvio al mundo antiguo. Fueron izadas también, unas tras otras, las barricas de pan, agua y carne, las duelas sueltas de barril y los líos de zunchos, hasta que se hizo complicado el conseguir andar por cubierta, y el casco hueco resonaba bajo las pisadas como si anduviera sobre catacumbas vacías, y cabeceaba y se mecía en el mar como una damajuana llena de aire. Al buque le pesaba la calabaza, como a un famélico estudiante con la cabeza llena de Aristóteles. Menos mal que por entonces no nos visitó ningún tifón.

Pero he aquí que fue entonces cuando mi pobre camarada infiel y amigo del alma, Queequeg, cogió unas fiebres que le pusieron al borde de la tumba.

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No hubo marinero en la tripulación que no le diese por perdido, y, en cuanto al pobre Queequeg, lo que pensaba de su situación se manifestó de modo impresionante por un curioso favor que pidió. Llamó a uno, en el grisáceo cuarto de guardia de alba, y aferrándole por la mano, dijo que cuando estaba en Nantucket había visto por casualidad ciertas pequeñas canoas de madera oscura, como la lujosa madera de guerra de su isla nativa; y, al preguntar, había sabido que a todos los balleneros que morían en Nantucket les ponían en esas canoas oscuras, y le había gustado mucho la idea de ser sepultado así, pues no se diferenciaba mucho de la costumbre de los de su propia raza, que, después de embalsamar a un guerrero muerto, le tendían en su canoa, y le dejaban así derivar flotando hacia los archipiélagos de las estrellas, pues no sólo creen que las estrellas son islas, sino que más allá de todos los horizontes visibles, sus propios mares benévolos y sin límites afluyen a los cielos azules, y así forman las blancas rompientes de la Vía Láctea. Añadió que se estremecía a la idea de ser sepultado en su hamaca, conforme a la habitual costumbre marinera, lanzado, como algo vil, a los tiburones devoradores de la muerte. No: él deseaba una canoa como las de Nantucket, tanto más adecuadas para él, como ballenero, porque, igual que las lanchas balleneras, esas canoas-ataúdes no tenían quilla, aunque ello implicaba un rumbo incierto y mucha deriva por las eras de tiniebla.

Ahora, cuando se hizo saber a popa esta extraña circunstancia, el carpintero recibió orden en seguida de cumplir la petición de Queequeg, implicara lo que implicara. Había a bordo alguna vieja madera exótica, de color ataúd, que, en un largo viaje anterior, se había cortado de los bosques aborígenes de las islas Laquedivas, y se recomendó que se hiciera el ataúd con esas oscuras tablas. Tan pronto como el carpintero conoció la orden, tomó la regla y, con la indiferente prontitud de su temperamento, marchó al castillo de proa y tomó medidas a Queequeg con gran exactitud, marcando sistemáticamente con tiza la persona de Queequeg cuando trasladaba la regla

-¡Ah, pobre muchacho ! Ahora se tendrá que morir -exclamó el marinero de Long Island.

Al volver a su banco de los tornillos, el carpintero, para su comodidad y para referencia general, trasladó a él la medida de la longitud exacta que había de tener el ataúd, y luego hizo permanente el traslado cortando dos muescas en sus extremos. Hecho esto, requirió las tablas y las herramientas y se puso al trabajo.

Una vez clavado el último clavo, y debidamente alisada y encajada la tapa, se echó ligeramente a hombros el ataúd y marchó a proa con él, preguntando si estaban preparados ya para él en aquella parte.

Dándose cuenta de los gritos indignados, pero casi jocosos, con que la gente de cubierta empezó a rechazar el ataúd, Queequeg, con consternación de todos, mandó que le trajeran al momento aquel objeto, y no cupo negárselo, visto que, de todos los mortales, ciertos agonizantes son los más tiránicos; y la verdad es que, puesto que dentro de poco nos molestarán tan poco para siempre, hay que tener indulgencia con esos pobres hombres.

Asomándose desde la hamaca, Queequeg observó largamente el ataúd con ojos atentos. Luego pidió el arpón, hizo que le sacaran el palo y que pusieran la parte de hierro en el ataúd, junto con uno de los canaletes de la lancha. También a petición suya, se pusieron galletas dentro, alrededor de los costados: en la cabecera se colocó un frasco de agua dulce, y una bolsita de tierra leñosa rascada en el fondo de la sentina; y, enrollado en un trozo de lona de vela a modo de almohada, Queequeg pidió que le subieran a su lecho final, para poder probar sus comodidades, si es que las tenía. Estuvo tendido unos minutos sin moverse, y luego dijo a uno que fuera a su bolsa y le trajera su diosecillo Yojo. Después, cruzando los brazos sobre el pecho, con Yojo en medio, pidió la tapa del ataúd (la escotilla, la llamó) para que se la pusieran. La parte de la cabeza se doblaba con un gozne de cuero, y allí quedó Queequeg en su ataúd, dejando a la vista poco más que su rostro sereno. -Rarmai (« sirve, es cómodo ») -murmuró por fin, e hizo una señal de que le volvieran a poner en su hamaca.

Pero antes que se hiciera esto, Pip, que había andado dando vueltas furtivamente por allí cerca durante todo este tiempo, se aproximó adonde estaba tendido, y, con suaves sollozos, le tomó de la mano, sosteniendo en la otra su pandereta.

-¡Pobre vagabundo ! ¿Nunca habrás acabado todo ese fatigoso vagabundeo ? ¿Adónde vas ahora ? Pero si las corrientes no te llevan a esas dulces Antillas cuyas aguas sólo están batidas por lirios de agua, ¿me harás un recadito ? Busca a un tal Pip, que se ha perdido hace mucho; creo que está en esas Antillas lejanas. Si le encuentras, consuélale, pues debe de estar muy triste, porque, ¡mira !, se ha dejado olvidada la pandereta: y la he encontrado. ¡Tan, tan, tarantán ! Ea, Queequeg, muérete; y yo te tocaré la marcha fúnebre.

-He oído decir -murmuró Starbuck, mirando por el portillo- que, en fiebres violentas, hombres muy ignorantes han hablado en lenguas antiguas, y que, cuando se examina ese misterio, resulta siempre que en su niñez, completamente olvidada, esas antiguas lenguas las hablaban realmente algunos elevados sabios al alcance de sus oídos. Así, mi confianza más amorosa es que Pip, en esta extraña dulzura de su demencia, nos ofrece celestes garantías de todos nuestros hogares celestes. ¿Dónde ha aprendido esto, si no allí ? ¡Oíd ! Vuelve a hablar, pero ahora más agitado.

-¡Formad de dos en fondo ! ¡Hagámosle general ! ¡Eh !, ¿dónde está su arpón ? Ponedlo aquí cruzado. ¡Tan, tan, tarantán ! ¡Hurra ! ¡Ah, si un gallo de pelea se le posara ahora en la cabeza y cantara ! ¡Queequeg muere como un valiente ! Fijaos en esto: ¡Queequeg muere como un valiente ! Atentos a esto: ¡Queequeg muere como un valiente ! Eso digo: ¡valiente, valiente, valiente ! ¡Pero el vil del pequeño Pip murió como un cobarde, murió todo temblando ! ¡Fuera con Pip ! Oíd, si encontráis a Pip, decid a todas las Antillas que es un desertor; ¡un cobarde, un cobarde, un cobarde ! ¡Decidles que saltó de una ballenera ! Nunca tocaría yo la pandereta por el vil Pip, ni le saludaría como general, si se muriera otra vez aquí. ¡No, no ! Vergüenza para todos los cobardes: ¡vergüenza para ellos ! Que se ahoguen como Pip, que saltó de una ballenera. ¡Vergüenza, vergüenza !

Durante todo esto, Queequeg seguía tendido con los ojos cerrados, como si soñara. Se llevaron a Pip, y volvieron a poner al enfermo en su hamaca.

Pero ahora que al parecer había hecho todos los preparativos para la muerte; ahora que se había visto que el ataúd le venía bien, Queequeg de repente mejoró; pronto pareció no haber necesidad de la caja del carpintero; y por tanto, cuando algunos expresaron su complacida sorpresa, él dijo, en sustancia, que la causa de su súbita convalecencia era ésta: en un momento crítico, se había acordado de una pequeña obligación en tierra que dejaba sin cumplir; y por tanto, había cambiado de intención en cuanto a morir: no se podía morir todavía, aseguró. Le preguntaron si vivir o morir era asunto de su propio albedrío y gusto soberano. Contestó que ciertamente. En resumen, Queequeg se imaginaba que si un hombre se decidía a vivir, la mera enfermedad no podía matarle; nada sino una ballena, o una galerna, o algún destructor violento, ingobernable e ininteligentee de este tipo.

Ahora, hay esta notable diferencia entre el salvaje y el civilizado: que mientras un hombre civilizado enfermo puede pasar seis meses convaleciente, hablando en general, un salvaje enfermo se pone casi bien en un día. Así, en poco tiempo mi Queequeg recobró fuerza, y por fin, después de estar sentado en el molinete durante unos pocos días de indolencia (pero comiendo con apetito vigoroso), se puso de pie de repente, extendió los brazos y las piernas, se estiró bien, bostezó un poco y luego, saltando a la proa de su lancha izada y blandiendo un arpón, se declaró capaz de pelea.

Con salvaje extravagancia, ahora usó el ataúd como cofre marinero, y vaciando la ropa de su saco, la puso en orden allí. Pasó muchas horas de ocio tallando la tapa con toda clase de figuras y dibujos grotescos, y pareció que con eso intentaba copiar, a su tosca manera, partes del retorcido tatuaje de su cuerpo. Y ese tatuaje había sido obra de un difunto profeta y vidente de su isla, que, con esos signos jeroglíficos, había escrito en su cuerpo una completa teoría de los cielos y la tierra, y un tratado místico sobre el arte de alcanzar la verdad; de modo que Queequeg, en su misma persona, era un enigma por resolver; una prodigiosa obra en un solo volumen; pero cuyos misterios no sabía leer él mismo, aunque su propio corazón vivo latiera contra ellos; y esos misterios, por tanto, estaban destinados a disiparse con el pergamino vivo en que estaban inscritos, y quedar así sin resolver en definitiva. Y esta idea debió ser lo que sugirió a Ahab aquella salvaje exclamación suya, una mañana, al volverse de espaldas después de inspeccionar al pobre Queequeg: -¡Ah, diabólico suplicio de Tántalo de los dioses ! 

El Pacífico

Cuando, pasando a lo largo de las islas Bashi, salimos al fin al gran mar del Sur, si no fuera por otras cosas, podría haber saludado a mi querido Pacífico con gracias incontables, pues ahora hallaba respuesta la larga súplica de mi juventud; ese sereno océano se extendía al este de mí en mil leguas de azul.

Hay, no se sabe qué, un dulce misterio en este mar, cuyos movimientos suaves y aterradores parecen hablar de alguna oculta alma de debajo; como esas legendarias ondulaciones del suelo de Efeso sobre el sepulcro del evangelista san Juan. Y justo es que sobre estos pastos marinos, estas praderas acuáticas de anchos oleajes, estos campos de alfarero de los cuatro continentes, las olas se levanten y caigan, y avancen y refluyan constantemente; pues aquí yacen, sofiando y soñando en silencio, millones de sombras y siluetas mezcladas, sueños ahogados, sonambulismos, ensueños, todo lo que llamamos vidas y almas, agitándose las olas, como durmientes con sueños en sus camas, sólo por la inquietud de todas esas cosas.

Para cualquier meditativo vagabundo mágico, este sereno Pacífico, una vez observado, debe ser para siempre el mar de su adopción. Hace mecerse las aguas centrales del mundo, ya que el océano índico y el Atlántico son sólo sus brazos. Las mismas olas bañan los muelles de las ciudades de California recién construidas, plantadas ayer mismo por la más reciente raza de los hombres, y mojan las borrosas, pero aún espléndidas faldas de países asiáticos más viejos que Abraham; mientras que, por en medio, flotan vías lácteas de islas de coral, y archipiélagos bajos, inacabables, desconocidos, y japonés impenetrables. Así este misterioso y divino Pacífico ciñe toda la mole del mundo, hace que todas las costas sean bahía suya, y parece el corazón de la tierra, latiendo en mareas. Elevados por esas eternas hinchazones, por fuerza debéis confesar al seductor dios, inclinando vuestra cabeza ante Pan.

Pero pocos pensamientos sobre Pan agitaban el cerebro de Ahab, plantado como una estatua de hierro en su acostumbrado lugar junto a los obenques de mesana, y con un agujero de la nariz aspirando sin pensar el dulce almizcle de las islas Bashi (en cuyos placenteros bosques debían pasear dulces amantes), mientras con el otro inhalaba, dándose cuenta, el aliento salado del mar recién hallado, ese mar en que debía de estar nadando entonces la odiada ballena blanca. Lanzado al fin sobre esas aguas casi finales, y deslizándose hacia la zona pesquera del Japón, el propósito del viejo se intensificaba. Sus firmes labios se unían como los labios de un tornillo de carpintero; el delta de las venas de su frente se hinchaba como con torrentes rebosantes; en su mismo sueño, su grito vibrante atravesaba la bóveda del casco. -¡Cía ! ¡La ballena blanca chorrea sangre espesa ! 

El herrero

Aprovechando el tiempo suave, frescamente estival, que entonces reinaba en esas latitudes, y como preparación para los trabajos especialmente activos que se esperaban para pronto, Perth, el viejo herrero tiznado y encallecido, no se había vuelto a llevar la forja portátil a la bodega, tras de concluir su trabajo de contribución a la pierna de Ahab, sino que la seguía teniendo en cubierta, firmemente sujeta a unos cáncamos junto al palo trinquete, ya que ahora era casi incesantemente requerido por los jefes de lancha, arponeros y remeros de proa, para que les hiciera algún pequeño trabajo; alterando, reparando o dando nueva forma a sus diversas armas y adminículos de las lanchas. A menudo estaba rodeado por un círculo ansioso, todos en espera de que les sirvieran, sosteniendo azadas de lancha, puntas de pica, arpones, lanzas, y vigilando celosamente todos sus enhollinados movimientos mientras trabajaba. No obstante, el martillo de este hombre era un martillo paciente blandido por un brazo paciente. De él no salían murmullos, ni impaciencias, ni petulancias. Silencioso, lento y solemne, inclinando aún más su espalda de vez en cuando rota, seguía trabajando como si el trabajo fuera la vida misma, y el pesado golpear del martillo fuera el pesado golpear de su corazón. Y así era. ¡Qué desdichado !

Unos peculiares andares de este viejo ciertas guiñadas leves pero al parecer dolorosas, en su paso, habían excitado al principio la curiosidad de los marineros. Y por fin había cedido al importunar de sus insistentes preguntas, y así había llegado a ocurrir que todos conocían ya la vergonzosa historia de su mísero destino.

Habiéndose retardado, y no de modo inocente, una dura noche de invierno, en el camino entre dos aldeas, el herrero, en semiestupidez, había notado la mortal insensibilidad que le invadía, y había buscado refugio en un cobertizo torcido y echado a perder. El resultado fue la pérdida de los dedos de ambos pies. De esa revelación, poco a poco, salieron por fin los cuatro actos de alegría, y el quinto acto, largo, pero todavía sin catástrofe, del dolor del drama de su vida.

Era un viejo que, casi a la edad de sesenta años, había encontrado tardíamente eso que en la técnica de la tristeza se llama ruina. Había sido un artesano de afamada excelencia, y con mucho que hacer; había tenido casa y jardín; había abrazado a una esposa cariñosa y juvenil, que parecía su hija, y a tres niños alegres y sanos; todos los domingos iba a una iglesia de alegre aspecto, situada en un bosquecillo. Pero una noche, bajo la defensa de la oscuridad, y oculto también bajo astuto disfraz, un ladrón terrible se había deslizado en ese hogar feliz y se lo había robado todo. Y lo que es aún más triste de contar, el propio herrero, de modo ignorante, había llevado aquel ladrón al corazón de su familia. ¡Era el Brujo de la Botella ! Al abrirse el tapón fatal, salió volando el enemigo, y arrasó la casa. Ahora: por prudentes, sabias y económicas razones, la tienda del herrero estaba en el piso bajo de su casa, pero con entrada separada, de modo que la joven, cariñosa y saludable esposa, escuchaba, no con nerviosismo desgraciado, sino con placer vigoroso, el fuerte son del martillo de su viejo marido de brazos jóvenes, cuyas repercusiones, veladas al pasar por suelos y paredes, subían hasta ella con dulzura, en el cuarto de los niños; y así, con la férrea nana del robusto trabajo, los niños del herrero se dormían arrullados.

¡Ah, desgracia sobre desgracia ! ¡Ah, Muerte !, ¿por qué no puedes ser oportuna a veces ? Si te hubieras llevado contigo al viejo herrero antes que cayese sobre él toda su ruina, entonces la joven viuda hubiera tenido un dolor con delicia, y los huérfanos hubieran tenido un progenitor verdaderamente venerable y legendario con que soñar en sus años venideros; y todos ellos, una herencia que matara los cuidados. Pero la Muerte se llevó a algún virtuoso hermano mayor, de cuyo trabajo diario, entre silbidos, pendían por completo las responsabilidades de alguna otra familia, y dejó en pie a aquel viejo, peor que inútil, hasta que la horrible putrefacción de la vida le hiciera más fácil de cosechar.

¿Para qué contarlo todo ? Los golpes del martillo en el piso bajo se espaciaron cada día más, y, cada día, cada golpe se hacía más débil que el anterior: la esposa se sentó helada junto a la ventana, con ojos sin lágrimas, mirando refulgentes a las caras llorosas de los niños; el fuelle cayó: la forja se atragantó de cenizas; la casa se vendió; la madre se hundió en la larga hierba del camposanto; los hijos, en dos veces la siguieron allí; y el viejo, sin casa ni familia, se fue tambaleando, vagabundo enlutado; sin respeto para sus dolores, y con su cabeza encanecida hecha desprecio de los rizos de oro.

La muerte parece la única consecuencia deseable para una carrera como ésta: pero la Muerte es sólo un lanzamiento a la región de lo extraño No-probado; es sólo el primer saludo a las posibilidades de lo inmensamente Remoto, lo Salvaje, lo Acuático, lo Sin Orillas; por tanto, para los ojos, ávidos de muerte, de tales hombres, que todavía tienen algún reparo interior contra el suicidio, el océano, que todo lo recibe y a que todo contribuye, extiende incitantemente toda su llanura de inimaginables terrores subyugadores, y maravillosas aventuras de nueva vida; y, desde los corazones de infinitos Pacíficos, las mil sirenas les cantan: « Ven aquí, tú, el de corazón destrozado; aquí hay otra vida sin la deuda del intermedio de la muerte: aquí hay maravillas sobrenaturales sin morir por ellas. ¡Ven acá !, sepúltate en una vida que, para tu mundo de tierra, igualmente aborrecido y aborrecedor, está más llena de olvido que la muerte. ¡Ven acá ! Erige también tu lápida en el cementerio, y ¡ven acá, hasta que nos casemos contigo ! ».

Escuchando esas voces, al oeste y al este, al amanecer y al caer el sol, el alma del herrero respondió: « ¡Sí, ya voy ! ». Y así Perth se fue a la caza de ballenas. 

La forja

Con barba enredada, y fajado en un hirsuto delantal de piel de tiburón, hacia mediodía, Perth estaba entre su forja y su yunque, éste situado en un tronco de palo-de-hierro, metiendo con una mano una punta de pica entre los carbones, y con la otra dándole al fuelle cuando llegó el capitán Ahab con una pequeña bolsa de cuero, de aspecto herrumbroso, en la mano. Todavía a breve distancia de la forja, el malhumorado Ahab se detuvo, hasta que por fin Perth retiró el hierro del fuego y empezó a martillarlo en el yunque, con la roja masa enviando las centellas en densos enjambres volantes, algunos de los cuales pasaban junto a Ahab.

-¿Son ésos tus pájaros de tormenta, Perth ? Siempre vuelan en tu estela: pájaros de buen agüero, también, pero no para todos: mira, queman, pero tú..., tú vives entre ellos en una chamuscadura.

-Porque estoy chamuscado entero, capitán Ahab -contestó Perth, apoyándose por un momento en el martillo-: estoy más allá de las chamusquinas, y no es fácil chamuscar una cicatriz.

-Bueno, bueno, basta. Tu voz encogida suena para mí de un modo demasiado tranquilo, sensatamente doloroso para mí. Yo, que no estoy en ningún paraíso, me impaciento de todas las desgracias en los demás que no estén locos. Tú deberías volverte loco, herrero; di, ¿por qué no te vuelves loco ? ¿Cómo puedes aguantar sin volverte loco ? ¿Te odian todavía los cielos, que no te pueden volver loco ?... ¿Qué estabas haciendo ahí ?

-Soldando una vieja punta de pica, capitán: tenía grietas y mellas.

-¿Y puedes volverla a dejar toda lisa, herrero, después de tan duro empleo como ha tenido ?

-Creo que sí, capitán.

-Y supongo que puedes pulir otra vez, herrero, cualquier grieta o mella, por duro que sea el metal, ¿no, herrero ?

-Sí, capitán, creo que puedo: todas las grietas y mellas, menos una.

-Mira, entonces -exclamó Ahab, avanzando apasionadamente y apoyándose con las dos manos en los hombros de Perth-, mira aquí..., aquí..., ¿puedes alisar una grieta como ésta, herrero ? -pasándose una mano por la frente surcada-: Si pudieras, herrero, de buena gana pondría la cabeza en tu yunque, y sentiría tu martillo más pesado entre los ojos. ¡Contesta ! ¿Puedes alisar esta grieta ?

-¡Ah ! ¿Es ésa, capitán ? ¿No dije que todas las grietas y mellas menos una ?

-Sí, herrero, ésa es; así, hombre, ésa no se puede alisar; pues aunque sólo la veas aquí, en mi carne, se ha metido hasta el hueso del cráneo..., ¡ése está todo arrugado ! Pero basta de juegos de niños; basta por hoy de ganchos y picas. ¡Mira aquí ! -agitando la bolsa de cuero, como si estuviera llena de monedas de oro-: Yo también quiero que me hagas un arpón; uno que no puedan partir mil yuntas de demonios, Perth; algo que se le pegue a la ballena como su propio hueso de la aleta. Este es el material -sacudiendo la bolsa sobre el yunque-. Mira, herrero, aquí he reunido pedazos de clavos de las herraduras de acero de caballos de carreras.

-¿Trozos de clavos de herraduras, capitán ? Vaya, capitán Ahab, entonces tiene aquí el material mejor y más duro con que trabajamos jamás los herreros.

-Ya lo sé, viejo; estos trozos se soldarán como cola sacada de huesos fundidos de criminales. ¡Deprisa ! Fórjame el arpón. Y fórjame primero doce puntas para el hierro y martilla juntas esas doce como las filásticas y cabos de guindaleza. ¡Deprisa ! ¡Yo atizaré el fuego !

Cuando por fin estuvieron hechas las doce varillas, Ahab las probó, una tras otras, curvándolas con su propia mano en torno a un largo y pesado perno de hierro.

-¡Un defecto ! -dijo, rechazando la última-. Vuelve a trabajar ésta, Perth. Hecho esto, Perth se disponía a empezar a soldar las doces en una, cuando Ahab le sujetó la mano, y dijo que quería soldar su propio hierro. Mientras él, con jadeos regulares, martillaba en el yunque, Perth, pasándole las puntas candentes, una tras otra, con la atizada forja lanzando intensa llama vertical, el Parsi pasó silencioso, e inclinó la cabeza hacia el fuego, pareciendo invocar alguna maldición o alguna bendición sobre el trabajo. Pero, al levantar Ahab la mirada, se deslizó a un lado.

-¿Qué hace así esa pandilla de luciferes ? -murmuró Stubb, mirando desde el castillo de proa-: Ese Parsi huele el fuego como una mecha, y él mismo huele a fuego como la cazoleta caliente de mosquete.

Por fin el hierro, en una sola tira completa, recibió el calor final; y Perth lo sumergió todo siseante en el barril de agua que tenía al lado, y el vapor abrasador se disparó a la cara inclinada de Ahab.

-¿Me quieres marcar, Perth ? -dijo, echándose atrás un momento, de dolor-; entonces, ¿no he hecho más que forjar mi propio hierro de marcar ?

-No lo quiera Dios, pero me temo algo, capitán Ahab. ¿No es este arpón para la ballena blanca ?

-¡Para el demonio blanco ! Pero ahora, el filo; tienes que hacerlo tú mismo, hombre. Aquí están mis navajas de afeitar: el mejor acero: toma, y haz el filo tan agudo como las agujas de la nevisca del mar de Hielo.

Por un momento, el viejo herrero miró las navajas como si no tuviera deseos de usarlas.

Tómalas, hombre, no me hacen falta: pues ahora ni me afeito, ni ceno, ni rezo hasta que..., pero ¡vamos !..., ¡al trabajo !

Configurado al fin en forma de flecha, y soldado por Perth al asta, el acero pronto remató el extremo del hierro, y el herrero, al ir a dar su calor final al filo, antes de templarlo, gritó a Ahab que le pusiera cerca el tonel de agua.

-¡No, no..., nada de agua para eso ! Lo quiero de temple de auténtica muerte. ¡Eh, escuchad ! ¡Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo ! ¿Qué decís, paganos ? ¿Me daréis bastante sangre como para cubrir este filo ? -y lo levantó en alto. Un montón de inclinaciones replicaron « Sí ». Tres pinchazos se dieron en la carne pagana, y el filo para la ballena blanca quedó entonces templado.

-Ego non baptizo te en nomine Patris, sed en nomine diaboli ! -aulló Ahab en delirio, cuando el malévolo hierro devoró la sangre bautismal.

Entonces, trayendo de abajo las pértigas de repuesto, y seleccionando una de hickory, con la corteza todavía alrededor, Ahab adaptó el extremo al hueco del hierro. Se desenrolló entonces una aduja de cabo nuevo, se pasaron unas cuantas brazas de él en torno al molinete, y se estiraron con gran tensión. Apretando con el pie, hasta que al cabo vibró como una cuerda de arpa, luego inclinándose ávidamente sobre él, y no viendo rozaduras, Ahab exclamó: -¡Bueno ! Ahora, vamos a trincarlo.

Por un extremo, se destrenzó el cabo, y los cordones separados se trenzaron y tejieron en torno al hierro de arpón: luego se metió fuertemente el palo en el agujero del hierro; desde el extremo inferior, el cabo fue alineado hasta la mitad de la longitud del palo y firmemente sujeto así, con trenzado de hilo de vela. Hecho esto, palo, hierro y cabo -como las tres parcas- quedaron inseparables, y Ahab se marchó sobriamente a grandes zancadas con el arma; sonando a hueco en cada tabla el ruido de su pierna de marfil y el ruido del palo de hickory. Pero antes de que entrara en la cabina, se oyó un ruido ligero, poco natural, medio burlón, pero muy lamentable. ¡Ah, Pip, tu mísera risa, tus miradas ociosas, pero inquietas; todas tus extrañas mímicas se fundían, no sin significación, con la negra tragedia del melancólico barco y se burlaban de ella ! 

El dorador

Penetrando cada vez más en el corazón de la zona pesquera del Japón, el Pequod estuvo pronto atareado por completo en la pesca. A menudo, en tiempo suave y placentero, y durante veinte horas seguidas, estaban ocupados en las lanchas, remando de firme, o navegando a vela o con los canaletes tras los cetáceos, o, en un interludio de sesenta o setenta minutos, esperando con calma su salida, aunque con poco éxito por su molestia.

En tales ocasiones, bajo un sol caído, tras de flotar todo el día por olas suaves que se hinchaban lentamente, en la lancha, ligera como una canoa de abedul, y mezclándose con tanta sociabilidad con las propias olas que, como gatos junto al fuego, ronronean contra la regala, ésos son momentos de quietud soñadora, en que, al observar la tranquila belleza y el brillo de la piel del océano uno olvida el corazón de tigre que jadea por debajo, y no querría recordar de buena gana que la zarpa de terciopelo esconde una garra inexorable.

Esas son las ocasiones en que, en la ballenera, el vagabundo siente suavemente respecto al mar cierto sentimiento filial, confiado, como si fuera tierra, y lo considera como si fuera tierra florida, y el barco lejano que sólo muestra los topes de los palos, parece esforzarse en su avance, no a través de altas olas balanceantes, sino a través de la hierba de una pradera ondulante, igual que cuando los caballos de los emigrantes del Oeste muestran sólo las orejas aguzadas mientras que cuerpos ocultos vadean ampliamente a través del verdor desconcertante.

En esos extensos valles vírgenes, en esas laderas suavemente azuladas, mientras por encima se desliza el zumbido, el susurro, casi juraríais que hay niños, cansados de jugar, tendidos a dormir en esas soledades, en algún alegre mayo, mientras buscaban las flores de los bosques. Y todo eso se mezcla con vuestro humor místico, de tal modo que realidad y fantasía, encontrándose a medio camino, se interpenetran y forman un conjunto inconsútil.

Tales escenas suavizadoras, por más que pasajeras, no dejaron de producir al fin un efecto igualmente pasajero sobre Ahab. Pero si las secretas llaves de oro parecieron abrir en él sus secretos tesoros de oro, su aliento sobre ellos se mostró empañador.

¡Ah, claros herbosos ! ¡Ah, pasajes sin fin, siempre primaverales en el alma ! En vosotros -aunque largamente agotados por la sequía cerrada de la vida terrenal- en vosotros, los hombres pueden aún revolverse, como potros jóvenes en los tréboles recientes del amanecer; y durante unos pocos momentos huidizos, sentir el fresco rocío de la vida inmortal sobre ellos. ¡Ojalá quisiera Dios que duraran estas calmas benditas ! Pero los mezclados y enredados hilos de la vida se tejen en trama y urdimbre; calmas cruzadas por tormentas, una tormenta por cada calma. No hay avance constante y sin retroceso en esta vida; no avanzamos a través de gradaciones fijas, descansando en la última: a través del inconsciente hechizo de la infancia, de la despreocupada fe de la niñez, de la duda de la adolescencia (el destino común), luego el escepticismo, luego la incredulidad, para descansar por fin, con la virilidad, en el meditativo reposo del Si. Pero una vez atravesado todo, volvemos a trazar el círculo; y eternamente somos niñitos, muchachos y hombres, y Si. ¿Dónde se encuentra el puerto final, de donde ya no soltaremos amarras ? En ¿qué extático éter navega el mundo de que no se fatigará ni el más fatigado ? ¿Dónde está escondido el padre del expósito ? Nuestras almas son como esos huérfanos cuyas madres solteras murieron al parirles: el secreto de nuestra paternidad yace en su tumba, y tenemos que ir a ella para saberlo.

Y en ese mismo día, también mirando desde el costado en su lancha a ese mismo mar dorado, Starbuck exclamó en voz baja:

-¡Delicia insondable, como ningún amador vio jamás en los ojos de su joven esposa ! No me hables de tus tiburones con varias filas de dientes, y tus maneras canibalescas y secuestradoras. Que la fe expulse a los hechos; que la fantasía expulse a la memoria: yo miro a lo hondo y creo.

Y Stubb, como un pez de escamas centelleantes, saltó en la misma luz dorada:

-Soy Stubb, y Stubb tiene su historia; ¡pero ahora Stubb presta juramento de que siempre ha sido alegre ! 

El Pequod encuentra al soltero

Y bien alegres que fueron las visiones y sonidos que llegaron sobre el viento, unas semanas después de que estuviera forjado el arpón de Ahab.

Fue un barco de Nantucket, el Soltero, que acababa de estibar su último barril de aceite yempernar las escotillas a punto de reventar, y ahora, en alegre gala de vacación, navegabagozosamente, aunque con cierta vanagloria, haciendo una ronda entre los dispersos barcos de la zona, antes de poner proa al puerto.

Los tres hombres de las cofas llevaban en los sombreros largos gallardetes de estrecha estameña roja: de la popa colgaba una lancha ballenera, del revés; y pendiendo cautiva del bauprés, se veía la larga mandíbula inferior de la última ballena que habían matado. Señales, pabellones y torrotitos de todos los colores volaban desde su, jarcias, por todas partes. Amarrados de lado, en cada una de sus tres cofas revestidas de cestería, había dos barriles de aceite de esperma sobre los cuales, en sus canes de mastelero, se veían pequeños recipientes de ese mismo precioso fluido y clavada a la galleta del palo mayor había una lámpara de bronce.

Como luego supimos, el Soltero había encontrado el más sorprendente éxito: cosa másadmirable dado que mientras tanto, navegando por esos mismos mares, otros numerosos barcos habían pasado meses enteros sin capturar un solo pez. No sólo se habían cedido barriles de carne y pan para dejar sitio al más valioso aceite de esperma, sino que se habían obtenido a cambio barriles suplementarios en adición, de los barcos que encontraron; y estos barriles se encontraban estibado a lo largo de la cubierta, y en las habitaciones del capitán y los oficiales. Hasta la mesa de la cabina se había partidocomo astillas para la destilería; y los comensales de la cabina comían en la ancha tapa de un barril de aceite sujeto al suelo corno mueble central. En el castillo de proa, los marineros habían llegado a calafatear y embrear sus cofres, para llenarlos. Se añadía humorísticamente que el cocinero había encajado una tapa en su olla más grande y la había llenado; que el mayordomo había agujereado su cafetera de repuesto y la había llenado; que los arponeros habían tapado los huecos de sus hierros para llenarlos; y que todo, en efecto, estaba lleno de aceite de esperma, excepto los bolsillos de los pantalones del capitán, que éste reservaba para meterse las manos en ufano testimonio de su entera satisfacción.

Cuando este alegre barco de buena suerte se acercó al huraño Pequod, el bárbaro son de enormes tambores llegó desde su castillo de proa; y al acercarse más, se vio un grupo de sus hombres en torno a sus marmitas de destilería que, cubiertas con el poke, o apergaminada piel ventral de la ballena negra, lanzaban un sonoro estampido a cada golpe de los tripulantes con los puños apretados. En el alcázar, los oficiales y los arponeros danzaban con las muchachas aceitunadas que se habían escapado con ellos de las islas polinesias, en tanto que, colgados de un bote ornamental, firmemente izado entre el palo trinquete y el mayor, tres negros de Long Island, con centelleantes arcos de violín de marfil de ballena, presidían la alegre jiga. Mientras tanto, otros de la tripulación del barco estaban tumultuosamente atareados en la albañilería de la destilería, de donde se habían quitado las grandes marmitas. Casi habríais creído que estaban derribando la maldita Bastilla, de tan salvajes gritos como daban al tirar al mar los ladrillos y el mortero ya inútiles.

Dueño y señor, sobre toda esta escena, el capitán estaba erguido en el elevado alcázar del barco, de modo que todo el regocijante dramatismo quedaba por completo ante él, y parecía simplemente organizado para su diversión personal.

Y Ahab también estaba en su alcázar, hirsuto y negro, con terca melancolía; y al cruzar los dos barcos sus estelas —el uno, todo júbilo por lo pasado, el otro, todo presentimiento de lo futuro— y sus dos capitanes, en sí mismos, personificaban todo el impresionante contraste de la escena.

—¡Venid a bordo, venid a bordo! —exclamó el

—¿Has visto a la ballena blanca? —gritó Ahab en respuesta.—

No, sólo he oído hablar de ella, pero no creo en ella en absoluto —dijo el otro, de buenhumor: ¡A bordo

!—Estás demasiado condenadamente alegre. Sigue tu rumbo. ¿Has perdido algún hombre?

—No que valga la pena hablar..., dos de las islas, eso es todo..., pero ven a bordo, viejo compadre. Pronto te quitaré la negrura de la frente. Ven, ea (la fiesta está alegre): un barco lleno, y a casa

.—¡Qué sorprendentes familiaridades se toma un tonto! —murmuró Ahab; y luego, envoz alta—: Dices que eres un barco lleno y rumbo a casa; bueno, llámame barco vacío yen viaje de ida. Así que vete por tu lado, y yo iré por el mío. ¡Adelante vosotros! Desplegad las velas, y ¡viento en popa!

Y así, mientras un barco seguía alegremente viento en popa, el otro luchaba tercamente con la brisa; y de ese modo se separaron dos barcos: la tripulación del Pequod mirando con ojeadas graves y demoradas al Soltero que se alejaba; mientras que los hombres del, Soltero no prestaban atención a esas miradas, con el vivaz festejo en que estaban. Y Ahab, apoyándose en el coronamiento, observó al barco que volvía al puerto, sacó del bolsillo un frasquito de arena y luego alternó sus miradas entre el barco y el frasquito, pareciendo así reunir dos remotos recuerdos, pues ese frasquito estaba lleno de arena de sondeos de Nantucket. 

La ballena agonizante

No raras veces, en esta vida, cuando, a nuestra derecha, nos adelantan los favoritos de la fortuna navegando junto a nosotros, aunque antes estábamos inmóviles, recibimos un poco de la brisa de ese avance y sentimos gozosamente llenarse nuestras velas deshinchadas. Así pareció ocurrir con el Pequod. Pues al día siguiente de encontrar el alegre Soltero, se vieron ballenas y se mataron cuatro, y una de ellas la mató Ahab.

Era a la tarde bien avanzada, y cuando acabaron todas las lanzadas del rojo combate, y, flotando en el delicioso mar y cielo del poniente, el sol y el pez murieron sosegadamente a la vez; entonces, en ese aire rosado se elevaron, rizándose, tal dulzura y tal quejumbre, tales oraciones entrelazadas, que casi pareció como si, desde muy lejos, desde los profundos y verdes valles conventuales de las islas de Manila, la brisa de tierra española, hecha marinera por extravagancia, se hubiera hecho a la mar, cargada de esos himnos de vísperas.

Ablandado otra vez, pero sólo ablandado para mayor tristeza, Ahab, que se había apartado del cetáceo, se sentó a observar atentamente su extinción desde la lancha ya tranquila. Pues ese extraño espectáculo que se observa en todos los cachalotes agonizantes -volver la cabeza hacia el sol, y expirar así-, ese extraño espectáculo, observando en tan plácido atardecer, le imponía a Ahab, sin saberse cómo, una sensación de prodigio hasta entonces desconocida.

« Se vuelve y vuelve hacia el sol -qué lentamente, pero qué firmeza-, su frente homenajeadora e invocadora, con sus últimos ademanes de agonía. El también adora el fuego; ¡fidelísimo, amplio, baronial vasallo del sol ! ¡Ah, que estos ojos míos, demasiado favorecedores, hayan de ver estas visiones demasiado favorecedoras ! ¡Mira ! que, muy recluida en medio de las aguas; más allá de todo bien o ~, al humano; en esos mares tan sinceros e imparciales; donde ni tradiciones ni rocas ofrecen tablas escritas; donde, durante largas eras chinas, las olas se han mecido sin hablar y sin que les hablaran, como estrellas que brillan sobre la desconocida fuente del Níger; aquí, también, la vida muere vuelta hacia el sol, llena de fe; pero :mira' apenas muerta, la muerte gira en torno al cadáver y lo orienta de algún otro modo.

»Ah, tú, oscura mitad india de la naturaleza, que con huesos de ahogados has construido, no se sabe dónde, tu trono apartado en el corazón de estos mares sin vegetación; tú eres una descreída, oh, reina, y me hablas con excesiva veracidad en el tifón ampliamente matador, y en el callado funeral de la calma que le sucede. Y no sin lección para mí ha vuelto esta agonizante ballena la cabeza hacia el sol, luego ha dado otra vuelta.

» ¡Ah, caldera de energía, tres veces rodeada de aros de metal y soldada ! ¡Ah, chorro irisado de alta aspiración ! Aquélla la esfuerzas, éste lo lanzas en vano. En vano, oh ballena, buscas intercesiones de aquel sol que todo lo vivifica, que sólo da lugar a la vida, pero no la vuelve a producir. Y sin embargo, tú, mitad más oscura, me meces con una fe más orgullosa, aunque más sombría. Todas tus innombrables mixturas flotan aquí debajo de mí; me hacen flotar hálitos de cosas antaño vivas, exhalados como aire, pero que ahora son agua.

»Entonces, ¡salve, para siempre salve, oh, mar, en cuyos eternos zarandeos encuentra su único reposo el ave salvaje ! Nacido yo de la tierra, pero amamantado por el mar: aunque montaña y valle me parieron, ¡vosotras, olas, sois mis hermanas adoptivas ! » 

La guardia a la ballena

Los cuatro cetáceos muertos aquella tarde habían muerto muy alejados: uno, muy a barlovento; otro, menos distante, a sotavento, uno, a proa; otro, a popa. Estos tres últimos se arrimaron al costado antes de que cayera la noche, pero el de barlovento no pudo alcanzarse hasta por la mañana, y la lancha que lo había matado quedó a su lado toda la noche; y esa lancha era la de Ahab.

El palo de marcado se había metido derecho en el agujero del chorro de la ballena, y el farol que colgaba de lo alto de él lanzaba un turbado fulgor tembloroso sobre el negro y brillante lomo, y, a lo lejos, sobre las olas de medianoche, que golpeaban suavemente el ancho flanco de la ballena, como suaves oleadas en una playa.

Ahab y todos los tripulantes de su lancha parecían dormidos, menos el Parsi; quien, acurrucado junto a la proa, permanecía observando a los tiburones que jugaban espectralmente en torno a la ballena y daban leves golpes con las colas en las ligeras tablas de cedro. Por el aire corrió, en escalofrío, un sonido como los gemidos en escuadrones, sobre el Asfaltites, de fantasmas condenados de Gomorra.

Sobresaltado de su sopor, Ahab, cara a cara, vio al Parsi; y con el aro, a su alrededor, de la tiniebla nocturna, ambos parecían los últimos hombres en un mundo inundado. -Lo he vuelto a soñar otra vez -dijo aquél.

-¿Los coches fúnebres ? ¿No te he dicho, viejo, que para ti no puede haber coche fúnebre ni ataúd ?

-¿Y quién que muera en el mar puede tener coche fúnebre ?

-Pero dije, viejo, que antes que puedas morir, debe haber tres á que vean claramente dos coches fúnebres en el mar: el primero no hecho por manos mortales; el segundo, de una madera visible que haya crecido en América.

-¡Sí, sí ! Extraña visión ésa, Parsi; un coche fúnebre y sus plumas flotando por el océano, con las olas como portadoras. ¡Ah ! No veremos pronto tal espectáculo.

-Lo creas o no, no puedes morir hasta que se vea, viejo.

-¿Y qué era eso que decías de ti ?

-Aunque sea al fin, yo todavía iré por delante, como tu piloto.

-Y cuando te hayas ido por delante..., si ocurre eso jamás..., entonces, antes que te pueda seguir, ¿debes aparecérteme para seguirme pilotando ? ¿No era eso ? Bueno, ¡entonces, si yo creyese todo lo que dices, oh, mi piloto ! Tengo aquí dos prendas de que todavía mataré a Moby Dick y sobreviviré.

-Toma otra prenda, viejo -dijo el Parsi, mientras sus ojos se encendían como luciérnagas en la tiniebla-: Sólo te puede matar el cáñamo.

-La horca, quieres decir: entonces, soy inmortal, por tierra y por mar -gritó Ahab, con una carcajada de burla-: ¡Inmortal por tierra y por mar !

Ambos quedaron otra vez callados, como un solo hombre. Llegó alba gris; la tripulación soñolienta se levantó del fondo de la lana, y antes de mediodía, la ballena muerta quedaba junto al barco. 

El cuadrante

Por fin se acercaba la temporada de pesca del ecuador, y todos los días, cuando Ahab salía de su cabina y levantaba los ojos arriba, vigilante timonel movía ostentosamente las cabillas del timón, y ávidos marineros corrían rápidamente a las brazas, y se quedaran allí con los ojos concéntricamente fijos en el doblón clavado; impacientes de la orden de poner proa al barco hacia el ecuador. En su momento, llegó la orden. Era casi mediodía, y Ahab, sentado en la proa de su lancha izada bien alto, se puso a tomar su usual observación diaria del sol para determinar su latitud.

Ahora, en ese mar del Japón, los días de verano son como torrentes de refulgencias. Ese sol del Japón, vivido sin pestañear, parece el foco ardiente de la inconmensurable lente del océano brillante. El cielo parece lacado; no hay nubes; el horizonte se difama, y su desnudez de radiosidad sin alivio es como los insufribles esplendores del trono de Dios. Suerte que el cuadrante de Ahab estuviera provisto de cristales de color, a través de los cuales observar ese fuego solar. Así, balanceando su figura sentada con el vaivén de la nave, y con su instrumento, como de astrólogo, colocado ante el ojo, se quedó en esa postura unos momentos necesarios para captar el preciso instante en que el sol alcanzara su meridiano exacto. Mientras que toda su atenuación estaba absorbida, el Parsi se arrodillaba abajo, en la cubierta del barco y, con la cara vuelta hacia arriba, como la de Ahab, observaba el mismo sol con él, sólo que los párpados de sus ojos medio recubrían sus órbitas, y su salvaje rostro estaba sometido a un desapasionamiento terrestre. Por fin se tomó la observación deseada; y con el lápiz en su pierna de marfil, pronto calculó Ahab cuál debía ser su latitud en ese momento exacto. Entonces, cayendo en un rato de ensueño, volvió a levantar la mirada al sol, y murmuró para sí: …………………

……… « ¡Necio juguete ! ¡Diversión pueril de altaneros almirantes, comodoros y capitanes ! El mundo se jacta de ti, de tu astucia y poder; pero, después de todo, ¿qué puedes tú sino decir el pobre punto lastimoso donde tú mismo te encuentras por casualidad sobre este ancho planeta, y donde está la mano que te sostiene ? ¡No, ni una jota más ! No puedes decir dónde estará mañana al mediodía una gota de agua o un solo grano de arena; ¡y sin embargo, con toda tu impotencia, insultas al sol ! ¡La ciencia ! Maldito seas, juguete vano; y malditas sean todas las cosas que elevan los ojos del hombre arriba, hacia el cielo. ¡Maldito seas, cuadrante ! -lanzándolo a cubierta-; así te pisoteo, objeto vil que débilmente señalas a, lo alto; ¡así te parto y destrozo ! » ……….

Mientras el frenético viejo hablaba así, pisoteando con su pie viejo y su pie muerto, una mueca de triunfo que parecía referirse a Ahab, y una desesperación fatalista que parecía referirse a él mismo, pasaron por la silenciosa e inmóvil cara del Parsi. Sin ser observado, se levantó y se deslizó fuera, mientras, abrumados de terror por el aspecto de su capitán, los marineros se agolparon en el castillo de proa, hasta que Ahab, andando agitado por la cubierta, gritó: -¡A las brazas ! ¡Caña a barlovento !

En un momento, las vergas giraron, y al girar el barco casi sobre sí mismo, sus tres graciosos palos, firmemente asentados y equilibradamente verticales sobre su largo casco acostillado, parecieron los tres Horacios haciendo una pirueta en un solo corcel suficiente para los tres.

Situado entre los « apóstoles », Starbuck observaba la tumultuosa ruta del Pequod, y también la de Ahab, que iba tambaleándose por cubierta.

-Me he sentado ante un denso fuego de carbón y lo he visto refulgente, lleno de su atormentada vida llameante; y lo he visto al fin desvanecerse, bajando, bajando hasta el más mudo polvo. ¡Viejo de los océanos ! De toda esta tu vida impetuosa, ¡qué quedará por fin sino un montoncito de cenizas !

-Eso es -gritó Stubb-, pero cenizas de carbón de mar, no lo olvide, señor Starbuck; carbón de mar, no el vulgar carbón de leña. Bueno, bueno; he oído murmurar a Ahab: « Ahora, alguien me ha puesto estas cartas en mis viejas manos, y ha jurado que debo ser yo quien las juegue, y no otro ». Y ¡maldito sea yo, Ahab, si no haces bien ! ¡Vive en el juego, y muere en juego ! 

Las candelas

Los climas más cálidos ocultan las más crueles garras: el tigre de Bengala se esconde en perfumados bosquecillos de verdor incesante. Los cielos más refulgentes no son sino un cesto de los más letales truenos; la espléndida Cuba conoce ciclones que jamás barren los mansos países norteños. Así también ocurre que en esos resplandecientes mares del Japón el navegante encuentra la más terrible de todas las tormentas, el tifón. A veces estalla desde ese cielo sin nubes, como una bomba que estalla sobre una ciudad deslumbrada y soñolienta.

Hacia la caída de la tarde de ese día, el Pequod tenía desgarrado el velamen, y quedó a palo seco para combatir contra un tifón que le había golpeado directamente de cara. Cuando llegó la tiniebla, el cielo y el mar rugían y se partían de truenos, y destellaban de rayos que mostraban los palos inutilizados, ondeando acá y allá los jirones que la primera furia de la tempestad había dejado para divertirse después.

Agarrado a un obenque, Starbuck estaba en el alcázar, y a cada, destello de los rayos miraba arriba para ver qué nuevo desastre podría haber ocurrido entre los intrincados aparejos de allá, mientras Stubb y Flask dirigían a los marineros que izaban más alto y ama rraban más firme las lanchas. Pero todos sus trabajos parecían inútiles. Aunque elevada hasta el extremo de sus pescantes, la lancha de popa a sotavento (la de Ahab) no se salvó. Una gran ola levantada, lanzándose desde muy alto contra el elevado costado del barco tambaleante, destrozó el fondo de la lancha por la popa, y la dejó luego toda goteante como un cedazo.

-¡Mal trabajo, mal trabajo ! Señor Starbuck -dijo Stubb, contemplando la ruina-: el mar se saldrá con la suya. Stubb, por su parte, no puede pelear con él. Ya ve, señor Starbuck, una ola tiene mucha carrerilla tomada antes de saltar; corre alrededor del mundo entero, ¡y luego viene el salto ! En cambio por mi parte, toda la carrerilla que puedo tomar contra ella es sólo a lo largo de esta cubierta. Pero no importa: todo es en broma: así dice la vieja canción (canta):

Oh, qué alegre es la tormenta; 
la ballena está contenta 
su gran cola al agitar: 
qué gracioso, hermoso, 
gozoso, mimoso, cariñoso 
es el mar, es el mar, es el mar. 
El nublado va volando, 
con un solo golpe blando 
tanta espuma al levantar: 
qué gracioso, hermoso, gozoso, mimoso, cariñoso 
es el mar, es el mar, es el mar. 
El trueno parte la nave: 
se relame y bien le sabe 
al probar ese manjar: 
qué gracioso, hermoso, gozoso, mimoso, cariñoso 
es el mar, es el mar, es el mar.

-Basta, Stubb -gritó Starbuck-: que cante el tifón, y que toque el arpa en nuestras jarcias, pero usted, si es hombre valiente, estése callado,

-Pero yo no soy valiente; nunca he dicho que fuera valiente: soy cobarde, y canto para no perder el ánimo. Y le diré lo que pasa, señor Starbuck: no hay modo de parar mi canción en este mundo, sino cortándome el cuello. Y una vez hecho eso, apuesto diez a uno que le cantaré de remate un himno de acción de gracias.

-¡Loco ! Mire por mis ojos, si no los tiene usted.

-¡Qué ! ¿Cómo puede, en una noche oscura, ver mejor que otro, por tonto que sea ?

-¡Eso ! -gritó Starbuck, agarrando a Stubb por el hombro, y señalando con la mano a proa hacia barlovento-: ¿no ve que la galerna viene del este, el mismo rumbo que tiene que recorrer Ahab hacia Moby Dick ?, ¿el mismo rumbo que tomó hoy a mediodía ? Ahora fíjese en esta lancha: ¿dónde está desfondada ? En las planchas de popa: donde él suele ponerse... ¡Su punto de apoyo se ha desfondado, hombre ! Ahora, ¡salte por la borda y échelo en canciones, si puede !

-No lo entiendo ni a medias: ¿qué hay en el viento ?

-Sí, sí, doblando el cabo de Buena Esperanza es el camino más corto a Nantucket -monologó de repente Starbuck, sin atender a la pregunta de Stubb-: La galerna que ahora nos martilla para desfondarnos, la podemos convertir en un viento propicio que nos llevará a casa. Allá, a barlovento, todo es negrura de condenación; pero a sotavento, hacia casa..., veo que por allí aclara, y no con relámpagos.

En este momento, en uno de los intervalos de profunda oscuridad que seguían a los rayos, se oyó una voz a su lado, y casi en el mismo instante resonó en lo alto una salva de truenos.

-¿Quien va ?

-¡El viejo Trueno ! -dijo Ahab, avanzando a tientas por las bacayolas hasta su agujero de pivote, pero de repente encontró que le hacían visible el camino bifurcadas lanzas de fuego.

Ahora, así como en tierra firme un pararrayos en una torre está destinado a desviar al suelo el peligroso fluido, igualmente la varilla semejante que llevan algunos barcos en cada palo está destinada a llevarlo al agua. Pero como este conductor debe bajar a considerable profundidad para que su extremo evite todo contacto con el casco, y además, si se llevara continuamente a remolque daría lugar a muchas desgracias, aparte de interferir no poco con parte de las jarcias y estorbar más o menos el avance del barco por el agua, por todo ello, las partes inferiores de los pararrayos de un barco no siempre están dispuestas en largas cadenas de eslabones delgados para ser más rápidamente haladas a los cadenotes de fuera, o echadas al mar, según lo requiera la ocasión.

-¡Los pararrayos, los pararrayos ! -gritó Starbuck a los tripulantes, repentinamente requerido a la vigilancia por la vívida exhalación que acababa de disparar antorchas para alumbrar hasta su sitio a Ahab-• ¿Están a bordo ? Fondeadlos, a popa y a proa. ¡Deprisa !

¡Alto ! -gritó Ahab-: vamos aquí a jugar limpio, aunque estemos en el lado más débil. Sin embargo, contribuiré para que se pongan pararrayos en el Himalaya y en los Andes, para que todo el mundo quede a salvo, pero ¡nada de privilegios ! Déjalos estar.

-¡Mire allá arriba ! -gritó Starbuck-. ¡El fuego de san Telmo !

Todos los penoles tenían puntas de un pálido fuego, y, tocados en cada uno de los extremos trifurcados de los pararrayos por tres puntiagudas llamas blancas, los tres mástiles ardían silenciosamente en ese aire sulfuroso, como tres gigantescos cirios de cera ante un altar.

-¡Condenada lancha !, ¡que se vaya ! -gritó Stubb en ese momento, mientras una destructora oleada se levantaba debajo mismo de su pequeña embarcación, de tal modo que la regala le golpeó violentamente en la mano, mientras él le pasaba una trinca- ¡Maldita sea ! -pero al resbalar hacia atrás por la cubierta, sus ojos alzados vieron las llamas, y cambiando inmediatamente de tono, exclamó-: ¡Que san Telmo tenga misericordia de todos nosotros !

Para los marineros, las maldiciones son palabras domésticas; juran en el éxtasis de la calma, y en las fauces de la tempestad; imprecan maldiciones desde los penoles de gavia, cuando más se balancean sobre un mar furioso; pero, en todos mis viajes, raramente he oído un juramento vulgar cuando el ardiente dedo de Dios se posa en el barco, y su « Mane, Tecel, Fare » se entreteje en los obenques y la cabullería.

Mientras arriba ardía ese pálido fuego, se oyeron pocas palabras entre la hechizada tripulación, que, en un solo grupo apretado, estaba en el castillo de proa, con todos los ojos centelleantes en esa pálida fosforescencia, como una remota constelación. Recortado contra la espectral luz, el gigantesco negro de azabache, Daggoo, se elevaba hasta el triple de su estatura verdadera, y parecía la nube negra de que había salido el trueno. La boca entreabierta de Tashtego mostraba sus dientes blancos de tiburón que destellaban extrañamente, como si también tuvieran fuegos de san Telmo en las puntas; en tanto que, iluminado por la luz sobrenatural, el tatuaje de Queequeg ardía como satánicas llamas azules en su cuerpo.

La escena se desvaneció al fin con la pálida luz de arriba, y una vez más, el Pequod y todas las almas en cubierta quedaron envueltos en un sudario. Pasaron unos momentos, y Starbuck, al ir a proa, tropezó con alguien. Era Stubb. -¿Qué piensa ahora, hombre ? He oído el grito: no era lo mismo que en la canción.

-No, no lo era. Dije que san Telmo tenga misericordia de todos nosotros, y espero que la tendrá. Pero ¿tiene misericordia solamente de las caras largas ? ¿No tiene tripas para reír ? Y mire, señor Starbuck... Pero está demasiado oscuro para mirar. Oigame, entonces: considero que esa llama que hemos visto en los palos es una señal de buena suerte, pues esos palos están arraigados en una sentina que va a estar rebosante de aceite de esperma, ya ve; y así, todo ese aceite se subirá por los palos, como la savia en un árbol. Sí, nuestros tres palos serán como tres candelas de aceite de esperma: ésa es la buena promesa que hemos visto.

En ese momento Starbuck distinguió la cara de Stubb, que lentamente empezaba a entreverse con luz. Mirando arriba, gritó: -¡Ved, ved ! Y una vez más, las altas llamas puntiagudas se observaron con lo que parecía redoblada sobrenaturalidad en su palidez.

-San Telmo tenga misericordia de todos nosotros -volvió a gritar Stubb.

En la base del palo mayor, debajo mismo del doblón y la llama, el Parsi estaba arrodillado delante de Ahab, pero con la cara desviada de él; mientras que cerca, desde los arqueados y colgantes obenques donde acababan de ocuparse en aferrar una jarcia que colgaba, un grupo de marineros, inmovilizados por el fulgor, se habían reunido y colgaban pendularmente, como un enjambre de avispas ateridas en la rama inclinada de un frutal. En variadas actitudes hechizadas, como los esqueletos de Herculanum, de pie, marchando o corriendo, otros habían quedado enraizados a la cubierta, pero todos con los ojos en lo alto.

-¡Eso, eso, muchachos ! -gritó Ahab-. ¡Levantad los ojos, miradlo bien ! ¡La llama blanca no hace más que alumbrar el camino hacia la ballena blanca ! Dadme esa cadena del palo mayor: querría tomarle el pulso y hacer que el mío latiera contra ella: ¡sangre contra fuego ! Así.

Luego se volvió, con el último eslabón bien sujeto en la mano, puso el pie sobre el Parsi, y, con los ojos fijos en lo alto y el brazo derecho extendido hacia arriba, quedó erguido ante la elevada trinidad trifurcada de llamas.

-¡Ah tú, claro espíritu del claro fuego, a quien en estos mares yo adoré antaño como persa, hasta que me quemaste tanto en el acto sacramental que sigo llevando ahora la cicatriz ! Te conozco, y ahora conozco que tu auténtica adoración es el desafío. No has de ser propicio ni al amor ni a la reverencia; e incluso al odio, no puedes sino matarlo, y todos ellos son matados. No hay necio sin miedo que ahora te haga frente. Yo confieso tu poder mudo y sin lugar, pero hasta el último hálito de mi terremoto, la vida disputará el señorío incondicional e integral sobre mí. En medio de lo impersonal personificado, aquí hay una personalidad. Aunque sólo un punto, como máximo: de donde quiera que haya venido; a donde quiera que vaya; pero mientras vivo terrenalmente, esa personalidad, como una reina, vive en mí, y siente sus reales derechos. Pero la guerra es dolor, y el odio es sufrimiento. Ven a tu más baja forma de amor, y me arrodillaré ante ti y te besaré; pero en tu punto más alto, ven como mero poder de arriba; y aunque lances armadas de mundos cargados hasta los topes, hay algo aquí que sigue indiferente. Ah tú, claro espíritu, de tu fuego me hiciste, y, como auténtico hijo del fuego, te lo devuelvo en mi aliento.

(Súbitos, repetidos destellos de rayos; las nueve llamas se alzan a lo largo hasta tres veces su anterior altura; Ahab, con los demás, cierra los ojos, y se los aprieta fuertemente con la mano derecha.)

-Confieso tu poder sin lenguaje ni lugar; ¿no lo he dicho así ? Y eso no se me arrancó a la fuerza, ni ahora suelto estos eslabones. Puedes cegar, pero entonces puedo andar a tientas. Puedes consumir, pero entonces puedo ser cenizas. Recibe el homenaje de estos pobres ojos, y estas manos que los cubren. Yo no lo recibiría. Los rayos destellan a través de mi cráneo; mis ojos me duelen cada vez más; todo mi sacudido cerebro parece como degollado, y balanceándose sobre un terreno que lo aturde. ¡Ah, ah ! Pero aun cegado, te seguiré hablando. Aunque seas luz, saltas saliendo de la tiniebla; ¡pero yo soy tiniebla que sale de la luz, que salta de ti ! Cesan esas jabalinas; abríos, ojos; ¿veis o no ? ¡Ahí arden las llamas ! ¡Ah, magnánimo ! Ahora me glorio de mi genealogía. Pero tú eres sólo mi padre feroz: a mi dulce madre no la conozco. ¡Ah, cruel !, ¿qué has hecho de ella ? Ahí está mi enigma: pero el tuyo es mayor. Tú no sabes cómo has nacido, y por ello te llamas inengendrado; ciertamente no conoces tu comienzo, y por ello te llamas incomenzado. Yo conozco de mí lo que tú no conoces de ti mismo, oh tú, omnipotente. Hay algo que no se difunde más allá de ti, oh tú, claro espíritu, para quien toda tu eternidad no es sino tiempo, y toda tu creatividad es mecánica. A través de ti, de tu ser llameante, mis ojos abrasados te ven confusamente. Ah tú, fuego expósito, ermitaño inmemorial, tú también tienes tu enigma incomunicable, tu dolor sin participación. Otra vez aquí con mi altiva agonía, leo a mi progenitor. ¡Salta, salta y lame el cielo ! Yo salto contigo; ardo contigo; querría soldarme contigo; ¡te adoro en desafío !

-¡La lancha, la lancha ! -gritó Starbuck-: ¡mira tu lancha, viejo !

El arpón de Ahab, el forjado en el fuego de Perth, permanecía firmemente amarrado en su visible horquilla, de modo que salía más allá de la proa de su lancha, pero el mar que la había desfondado había hecho que se le cayera la floja vaina de cuero, y del agudo filo de acero ahora salía una llama horizontal de pálido fuego bifurcado. Mientras el silencioso arpón ardía allí como una lengua de serpiente, Starbuck agarró a Ahab por el brazo: -¡Dios, Dios está contra ti, viejo ! ¡Abandona ! ¡Es un mal viaje ! ¡Mal empezado, mal continuado ! ¡Déjame bracear las vergas, mientras podemos, viejo, y convertir esto en un buen viento de regreso, para hacer mejor viaje que éste !

Al escuchar a Starbuck, la tripulación aterrorizada corrió al momento a las vergas; aunque no se izó una sola vela. Por un momento, todos los pensamientos del horrorizado oficial parecieron suyos, y levantaron una gritería casi de motín. Pero Ahab, tirando a cubierta las chasqueantes cadenas, y agarrando el arpón ardiente, lo blandió como una antorcha entre ellos, jurando que atravesaría al primer marinero que largara la punta de un cabo. Petrificados por su aspecto, y aún más aterrorizados por el feroz dardo que sostenía, los hombres se echaron atrás con consternación, y Ahab volvió a hablar:

-Todos vuestros juramentos de perseguir a la ballena blanca son tan obligatorios como el mío; y, en corazón, alma, cuerpo, pulmones y vida, el viejo Ahab está comprometido. Y para que podáis saber a qué compás late este corazón, mirad aquí: así apago de un soplo el último temor.

Y de un solo aliento, extinguió la llama. Como, bajo el huracán que barre la llanura, los hombres huyen de la vecindad de algún gigantesco olmo solitario, cuya misma altura y robustez lo hacen mucho más inseguro, como mejor blanco para los rayos, así, ante estas últimas palabras de Ahab, muchos de los marineros huyeron de él corriendo en pánico consternado. 

La cubierta, hacia el final del primer cuarto de guardia de noche

AHAB, de pie junto al timón. STARBUCK, acercándose a él

-Capitán, debemos arriar la verga de gavia. La faja de rizos se está soltando, y el amantillo de sotavento está medio deshecho, ¿la arrío ?

-No arríes nada; amárralo. Si tuviera espigas de mastelerillo de sosobre, las guindaría ahora.

-¡Capitán ! ¡En nombre de Dios, capitán !

-¿Qué pasa ?

-Las anclas ceden, capitán. ¿Las izo a bordo ?

-No arríes nada, no muevas nada, sino amárralo todo. El viento se levanta, pero todavía no ha llegado a mis mesetas. Rápido, y ocúpate de eso. ¡Por mástiles y quillas ! Me toma por el patrón jorobado de algún pesquero de cabotaje. ¡Arriar la verga de gavia ! ¡Vaya pegotes ! Los palos de galleta más alta se han hecho para los vientos más salvajes, y la galleta de mis sesos ahora avanza navegando entre el nublado. ¿Voy a arriarla ? Ah, solamente los cobardes arrían las vergas de los sesos en tiempo de tempestad. ¡Qué estrépito hay allí arriba ! Lo tomaría por sublime, si no supiera que el cólico es una enfermedad ruidosa. ¡Ah, toma medicina, toma medicina ! 

Medianoche. Las almuradas del castillo de proa

STUBB y FLASK, en lo alto,  reforzando amarras a las anclas allí pendientes

-No, Stubb, podrá golpear ese nudo todo lo que le plazca, pero jamás me hará entrar a golpes lo que acaba de decir. ¿Y cuánto tiempo hace que ha dicho exactamente lo contrario ? ¿No decía una vez que el barco en que navegue Ahab tendría que pagar algo extra de póliza de seguro, como si estuviera cargado de barriles de pólvora a popa y cajas de fósforos a proa ? Vamos a ver; ¿no decía eso ?

-Bueno, supongamos que sí. ¿Y qué ? En parte, he cambiado de carne desde entonces: ¿por qué no de pensamiento ? Además, suponiendo que estemos cargados de barriles de pólvora a popa y cajas de fósforos a proa, ¿cómo diablos iban a prenderse los fósforos en esta lluvia que nos cala ? Vea, amiguito, usted, con su bonito pelo rojo, no podría ahora prenderse fuego. Sacúdase, Flask; es Acuario, el Aguador: podría llenar cántaros en el cuello del capote. ¿No ve, entonces, que para esos peligros extra, las compañías de seguros marítimos tienen garantías extra ? Aquí están las bocas de agua, Flask. Pero escuche, otra vez, y le contestaré a lo otro. Pero primero quite la pierna de esa cruz de ancla, para que pueda pasar el cabo; y ahora escuche. ¿Cuál es la gran diferencia entre levantar en la tormenta un pararrayos de mástil, o estar en una tormenta al lado de un mástil que no tiene en absoluto pararrayos ? ¿No ve, cabeza de leño, que no le puede pasar nada al que sostiene el pararrayos, si antes no cae el rayo en el mástil ? ¿De qué habla entonces ? Ni un barco de cada cien lleva pararrayos, y Ahab -sí, hombre, y todos nosotros- no estábamos en mayor peligro, en mi pobre opinión, que todos los tripulantes de diez mil barcos que ahora navegan por el mar. Vaya, « Puntal », supongo que usted haría que todos en el mundo fueran por ahí con un pequeño pararrayos saliendo del pico del sombrero, como esa pluma de asador de un oficial de la milicia, y con el cable arrastrando atrás como la banda. ¿Por qué no es sensato, Flask ? Es fácil ser sensato; ¿por qué no lo es, entonces ? Cualquier hombre con medio ojo puede ser sensato.

-No lo sé, Stubb. A veces a usted le resulta bastante difícil.

-Sí, cuando uno está calado hasta los huesos, es difícil ser sensato, eso es cierto. Y yo estoy calado con esta lluvia. No importa; doble el cabo ahí, páselo. Me parece que estamos amarrando estas anclas como si no se fueran a usar nunca jamás. Atar estas dos anclas aquí, Flask, parece como atarle a un hombre las manos a la espalda. Y ¡qué manos tan generosas y grandes, desde luego ! Son sus puños de hierro, ¿eh ? ¡Qué cabida tienen, también ! Me pregunto, Flask, si el mundo estará anclado a algo; pero si lo está, tiene un cable extraordinariamente largo. Ea, golpee ese nudo, y hemos terminado. Eso es: después de tocar tierra, lo más satisfactorio es pisar la cubierta. Oiga, ¿quiere retorcerme los faldones del chaquetón ? Gracias. Se ríen mucho de los trajes de tierra, Flask, pero me parece que en el mar debía llevarse en las tormentas un frac de colas largas. Las colas, menguando así al bajar, sirven para desviar el agua, ya ve. Y lo mismo con los sombreros de tres picos: los picos forman canalones y gárgolas, Flask. Yo ya no quiero más chaquetones ni suestes: tengo que ponerme unas colas de golondrina y encasquetarme un sombrero de copa: eso. ¡Hola, eh ! Ahí sale por la borda mi sueste: ¡Señor, Señor ! ¡Que los vientos que vienen del cielo sean tan groseros ! Es una noche asquerosa, muchacho. 

Truenos y rayos

La verga de gavia. TASHTEGO le pasa alrededor nuevas trincas

-¡Pon, pon, pon ! ¡Basta de truenos ! Demasiado trueno hay aquí arriba. ¿Para qué sirven los truenos ? Pon, pon, pon. No queremos truenos; queremos ron; dadnos un vaso de ron. ¡Pon, pon, pon ! 

El mosquete

Durante las más violentas sacudidas del tifón, el marinero con la caña de mandíbula del Pequod había sido lanzado varias veces tambaleante a la cubierta por sus movimientos espasmódicos, aunque se había sujetado preventivamente la caña con aparejos, porque no se habían tensado, siendo indispensable un poco de juego en el timón.

En una galerna fuerte como ésta, mientras el barco no es más que un volante zarandeado por el huracán, no es nada raro ver que las agujas de las brújulas, de vez en cuando, dan vueltas y vueltas. Eso le pasó al Pequod: casi a cada sacudida, el timonel no había dejado de observar la velocidad de torbellino con que giraban en la rosa: es un espectáculo que difícilmente puede observar nadie sin alguna suerte de emoción insólita.

Unas horas después de medianoche, el tifón disminuyó tanto, que, con los robustos esfuerzos de Starbuck y Stubb -el uno ocupado a proa, el otro a popa- los desgarrados restos del foque, de la vela de trinquete y de las gavias se cortaron de las vergas, a la deriva, y salieron en remolino a sotavento, como las plumas de un albatros, que a veces se lanzan a los vientos en el vuelo de ese pájaro tan sacudido por las tormentas.

Las tres velas nuevas correspondientes se envergaron y rizaron y se puso más a proa una cangreja de capa, de modo que pronto el barco volvió a nadar por el agua con cierta precisión, y se dio una vez más al timonel el rumbo -por el momento, Este-Sud-Este- que debía tomar si era posible. Pues, durante la violencia de la galerna, había gobernado conforme a sus vicisitudes. Pero ahora, mientras ponía el barco tan próximo a su rumbo como era posible, mirando al mismo tiempo la brújula, he aquí, ¡buena señal !, que el viento pareció venir de popa: ¡sí, el viento contrario se volvió propicio !

Al momento se bracearon en cruz las vergas, al vivo canto de ¡Ah, el buen viento; ah, ah, fuerza, marineros !, con los tripulantes cantando de alegría de que tan prometedor acontecimiento hubiera desmentido tan pronto los malos prodigios que lo precedieron.

De acuerdo con la orden constante del capitán -informar inmediatamente, en cualquiera de las veinticuatro horas, sobre cualquier cambio importante en los asuntos de cubierta-, Starbuck, en cuanto orientó las vergas a la brisa -por más que de modo reluctante y sombrío- bajó maquinalmente a dar noticias al capitán Ahab sobre el hecho.

Antes de llamar a la puerta de la cabina, se detuvo involuntariamente un momento ante ella. La lámpara de la cabina -balanceándose largamente a un lado y a otro- ardía de modo irregular, lanzando sombras irregulares sobre la cerrada puerta del viejo, puerta delgada, con postigos cerrados, en lugar de paneles superiores. El aislamiento subterráneo de la cabina hacía que allí reinara cierto silencio zumbador, aunque estaba cercado alrededor por todo el rugido de los elementos. Los mosquetes cargados, en el armero, resaltaban de modo refulgente, erguidos verticalmente contra el mamparo de proa. Starbuck era un hombre honrado y recto, pero, en el momento en que vio los mosquetes, brotó extrañamente del corazón de Starbuck un mal pensamiento, aunque tan mezclado con sus acompañamientos neutrales o buenos, que por el momento apenas lo reconoció como tal.

-Una vez él me iba a disparar -murmuró-; sí, ahí está el mismo mosquete con que me apuntó, el de la culata claveteada; voy a tocarlo... a levantarlo. Es extraño que yo, que he manejado tantas lanzas mortales; es extraño que tiemble ahora así. ¿Cargado ? Debo ver. Eso, eso; y pólvora en la cazoleta... eso no está bien. ¿Mejor verterla ?... Espera. Me curaré de esto. Agarraré firme el mosquete mientras pienso. Vengo a informarle de un viento propicio. Pero propicio ¿cómo ? Propicio para la muerte y la condenación..., eso es propicio para Moby Dick. Viento propicio es el que sólo es propicio para ese pez maldito... El mismo cañón con que me apuntó... el mismísimo, ése... lo tengo aquí; él me iba a matar con lo mismo que tengo ahora... Sí, y le gustaría matar a toda su tripulación. ¿No dice que no arriará las vergas contra ninguna galerna ? ¿No ha tirado su cuadrante celeste ? Y en estos mismos mares peligrosos ¿no recorre su camino a tientas por la simple estima de la corredera, tan abundante en errores ? Y en este mismo tifón, ¿no juró que no quería tener pararrayos ? Pero ¿se consentirá mansamente que este viejo loco arrastre consigo a la condenación de todos los tripulantes de un barco ? Sí, eso le haría el terco asesino de treinta y tantos hombres, si este barco sufre daño mortal; y mi alma jura que este barco sufrirá daño mortal si Ahab se sale con la suya. Entonces, si en este instante, él fuera... echado a un lado, ese delito no sería suyo. ¡Ah ! ¿está murmurando en su sueño ? Sí, ahí mismo... ahí, está durmiendo. ¿Durmiendo ? Sí, pero todavía vivo, y pronto volverá a despertar. No te puedo soportar, entonces, viejo. Ni razonamientos, ni protestas, ni amenazas quieres escuchar; todo eso lo desprecias. Obediencia absoluta a tus mandatos absolutos, es todo lo que respiras. Sí, y dices que los marineros han jurado tu juramento: dices que todos nosotros somos Ahabs. ¡No lo quiera el gran Dios ! Pero ¿no hay otro modo ? ¿No hay modo legal ? ¿Hacerle prisionero para llevarle al puerto ? ¡Qué ! ¿tienes esperanzas de arrancar la fuerza viva de este viejo de entre sus propias manos vivas ? Sólo un loco lo intentaría. Supongamos que estuviera en grillos; ligado todo él con cabos y estachas; encadenado a cáncamos en el suelo de la cabina: sería entonces más horrible que un tigre enjaulado. No podría yo aguantar ese espectáculo: toda comodidad, el mismo sueño, la inapreciable cordura me abandonarían en el largo e intolerable viaje, ¿Qué queda entonces ? La tierra está a centenares de leguas, y la más cercana es el cerrado Japón. Estoy aquí solo en un mar abierto, con dos océanos y un continente entero entre la ley y yo. Eso, eso, así es. ¿Es el cielo un asesino cuando su rayo hiere en la cama a uno que intenta ser un asesino, haciendo cenizas a la vez las sábanas y la piel ? ¿Y sería yo un criminal, entonces, si... ?

Y de modo lento y furtivo, y mirando de medio lado, apoyó contra la puerta el mosquete cargado. -A esta altura pende ahí dentro la hamaca de Ahab; su cabeza está en esta dirección. Un toque, y Starbuck sobrevivirá para abrazar otra vez a su mujer y su hijo. ¡Ah, Mary, Mary; niño, niño, niño ! Pero si no te despierto a la muerte, viejo, ¿quién puede decir a qué insondadas profundidades se hundirá el cuerpo de Starbuck en la próxima semana, con toda la tripulación ? Gran Dios ¿dónde estás ? ¿Lo haré, lo haré... ? el viento ha caído y ha saltado, capitán; se han erizado y cazado la vela de trinquete y las gavias; el barco sigue el rumbo.

-¡Cía ! ¡Ah, Moby Dick, por fin estrecho tu corazón !

Tales fueron los sonidos que ahora salieron violentamente del atormentado sueño del viejo, como si la voz de Starbuck hubiera hecho hablar al sueño largamente mudo.

El mosquete, todavía apuntado, se agitó contra el mamparo como el brazo de un borracho; Starbuck pareció luchar con un ángel; pero, separándose de la puerta, puso en el armero el tubo mortal y abandonó el sitio.

-Señor Stubb, está demasiado dormido; baje a decírselo usted. Yo debo ocuparme aquí de la cubierta. Usted sabe qué decir. 

La aguja

A la mañana siguiente, el mar, aún no sosegado, se agitaba en largas y lentas olas de poderosa mole, y, agolpándose en el gorgoteante rastro de Pequod, lo empujaba como las manos extendidas de un gigante. La fuerte brisa sin vacilación era tan abundante que el cielo y el aire parecían vastas velas panzudas: el mundo entero corría viento en popa. Velado en la plena luz matinal, el invisible sol se daba a conocer sólo por la difusa intensidad de su sitio, de donde las bayonetas de sus rayos salían en haces. Por encima de todo reinaban blasones como de coronados reyes y reinas babilónicos. El mar era un crisol de oro fundido, que saltaba en burbujas con luz y calor.

Observando largamente un silencio encantado, Ahab se mantenía aparte, y cada vez que el barco balanceante hacía bajar el bauprés, volvía a mirar los claros rayos del sol lanzados por delante; y cuando se agachaba profundamente por la popa, se volvía atrás, y veía el lugar del sol a retaguardia, y cómo los mismos rayos amarillos se fundían con su estela sin desvío.

-¡Ah, ah, barco mío ! Se te podría tomar muy bien por el carro marino del sol. ¡Oh, oh, vosotras, todas las naciones ante mi proa, os llevo el sol ! Enyugad aquellas olas: ¡hola ! Conduzco el mar como un tiro de caballos.

Pero de repente se refrenó por algún pensamiento contrario, se apresuró al timón, preguntando roncamente qué rumbo llevaba el barco.

-Este-Sud-Este, capitán -dijo el asustado timonel.

¡Mientes ! -golpeándole con el puño cerrado-. ¿Rumbo al este a estas horas de la mañana y con el sol a popa ?

Ante esto, todo el mundo quedó confundido, pues el fenómeno recién observado de Ahab se les había escapado inexplicablemente a todos los demás, aunque la causa debía ser la misma palpabilidad cegadora.

Metiendo la mitad de la cabeza en la bitácora, Ahab lanzó una ojeada a las brújulas; su brazo levantado cayó lentamente, y por un momento pareció casi tambalearse. Detrás de él, Starbuck miró y ¡ved ! las dos brújulas señalaban este, mientras que el Pequod, sin duda, iba al oeste.

Pero antes que se pudiera extender entre la tripulación la primera alarma loca, el viejo exclamó, con rígida risa: -¡Ya lo tengo ! Ha ocurrido otras veces. Starbuck, los rayos de anoche, han invertido nuestras brújulas... eso es todo. Creo que otras veces habrás oído hablar de tal cosa.

-Sí, capitán, pero no me había ocurrido nunca -dijo sombríamente el pálido oficial.

Aquí es preciso decir que accidentes como éste, en más de un caso, han ocurrido a barcos en violentas tempestades. La energía magnética que se despliega en la aguja de navegar es, como todos saben, esencialmente la misma que la electricidad observada en el cielo, por lo que no hay que asombrarse mucho de que pasen tales cosas. En casos en que el rayo ha caído efectivamente sobre el barco, destruyendo algunas de las vergas y jarcias, el efecto en la aguja ha sido a veces aún más pernicioso: toda su virtud magnética ha quedado aniquilada, de modo que el acero, antes magnetizado, ya no servía más que la aguja de zurcir de una vieja comadre. Pero en un caso y en otro, la aguja nunca vuelve, por sí misma, a recobrar la virtud original así estropeada o perdida; y si son afectadas las brújulas de la bitácora, la misma suerte alcanza a todas las demás que pueda haber en el barco, aun la más profunda, inserta en la sobrequilla.

Plantado deliberadamente ante la bitácora, y observando las agujas invertidas, el viejo, con la punta de la mano extendida, tomó entonces la posición exacta del sol, y se cercioró de que las agujas estaban exactamente invertidas, gritando sus órdenes para que se cambiara en consecuencia el rumbo del barco. Las vergas se pusieron a barlovento, y una vez más, el Pequod lanzó su impertérrita proa al viento opuesto, pues el que se supuso propicio no había hecho más que burlarse de él.

Mientras tanto, cualesquiera que fueran sus secretos pensamientos, Starbuck no decía nada, sino que daba tranquilamente las órdenes necesarias, mientras Stubb y Flask -que en pequeña medida parecían compartir sus sentimientos- asentían igualmente sin murmurar. En cuanto a los marineros, aunque algunos de ellos gruñían sordamente, su miedo a Ahab era mayor que su miedo al destino. Pero, como siempre, los arponeros paganos permanecieron casi totalmente sin impresionar, o si se impresionaron, fue sólo con un cierto magnetismo metido en sus corazones afines por el inflexible Ahab.

Durante algún tiempo, el viejo recorrió la cubierta en ensueños vacilantes. Pero al resbalar por casualidad con su talón de marfil, vio los aplastados tubos de cobre del cuadrante que el día antes había aplastado contra la cubierta.

-¡Tú, pobre y soberbio observador del cielo y piloto del sol ! Ayer te destrocé, y hoy las brújulas querían haberme destrozado a mí. Eso, eso. Pero Ahab todavía es señor del plano imán. Starbuck, una lanza sin palo, una mandarria y la más pequeña de las agujas del velero. ¡Pronto !

Añadiéndose, quizá, al impulso que dictaba lo que iba a hacer, había ciertos motivos de prudencia cuyo objeto podría haber sido reanimar los ánimos de los tripulantes con un golpe de su sutil habilidad, en un asunto tan prodigioso como el de las brújulas invertidas. Además, el viejo sabía muy bien que seguir el rumbo con agujas invertidas, no era cosa, aunque toscamente practicable, que hubiera de ser admitida por marineros supersticiosos sin algunos estremecimientos y malos presagios.

-Muchachos -dijo, volviéndose firmemente hacia la tripulación, cuando el oficial le entregó las cosas que había perdido-: muchachos, el rayo ha cambiado las agujas del viejo Ahab; pero, con este trozo de acero, Ahab puede hacerse una que señalará tan segura como cualquiera.

Al decir esto, entre los marineros se cambiaron miradas avergonzadas de asombro servil, y con ojos fascinados aguardaron la magia que viniera a continuación. Pero Starbuck apartó la mirada.

Con un golpe de martillo, Ahab sacó de la lanza la punta de acero y luego, dándole al oficial la larga vara de hierro que quedaba, le mandó que la sostuviera derecha sin que tocara la cubierta. Entonces, con el martillo, tras de golpear repetidamente la parte superior de esa vara de hierro, colocó la aguja despuntada en su extremo, y la martilló varias veces, con menos fuerza, mientras el oficial seguía sosteniendo la vara como antes. Luego, realizando varios extraños movimientos con ello -no es seguro si eran indispensables a la magnetización de la aguja, o si estaban simplemente destinados a aumentar la reverencia de los tripulantes- pidió hilo de lino, y, acercándose a la bitácora, sacó las dos agujas invertidas y suspendió horizontalmente la aguja de vela por la mitad sobre una de las rosas de los vientos. Al principio, el acero dio vueltas y vueltas, temblando y vibrando por los dos extremos, pero al fin se fijó en su sitio; entonces Ahab, que había observado atentamente el resultado, se echó atrás decididamente de la bitácora, y señalando a ella con su brazo extendido, exclamó: -¡Mirad vosotros mismos si Ahab no es señor de la piedra imán ! El sol está al este, y esta brújula lo jura.

Uno tras otro se asomaron, pues sólo sus propios ojos podían convencer a una ignorancia como la suya, y uno tras otro se marcharon.

Entonces se vio a Ahab en todo su fatal orgullo, con sus fieros ojos de desprecio y triunfo. 

La corredera y el cordel

En tanto tiempo como el predestinado Pequod llevaba navegando en este viaje, la corredera y el cordel se habían usado muy rara vez. Debido a una confianza tranquila en otros medios de determinar la situación de la nave, algunos barcos mercantes y muchos balleneros, especialmente en crucero, desdeñan por completo echar la corredera, aunque al mismo tiempo, y a menudo más por cubrir las formas que por otra cosa, anotan regularmente en la habitual pizarra el rumbo mantenido por el barco, así como la presunta media de avance en cada hora. Así había pasado con el Pequod. El carretel de madera, con la angular corredera, pendían, sin tocar desde hace mucho, debajo mismo del pasamanos de las batayolas de popa. Lluvias y salpicaduras los habían humedecido; el sol y el viento los habían torcido: todos los elementos se habían conjurado para pudrir una cosa que colgaba tan ociosa. Pero sin prestar atención a nada de esto, Ahab fue invadido por su humor, al mirar por casualidad el carretel, pocas horas después de la escena de la brújula, y recordó que ya no había cuadrante, y rememoró su frenético juramento sobre la corredera y el cordel. El barco navegaba a zambullidas; a popa, las olas se mecían amotinadas.

-¡Eh, a proa ! ¡Echad la corredera !

Vinieron dos marineros: el tahitiano de tez dorada y el de la isla de Man, con su pelo gris. -Tomad el carretel, uno de vosotros; yo la echo.

Fueron al extremo de la popa, en el lado de sotavento, donde la cubierta, con la energía oblicua del viento, ahora casi se metía en el cremoso mar que huía de lado.

El de Man tomó el carretel, y sosteniéndolo en alto por los extremos salientes del mango del huso, en torno al cual se enrollaba el ovillo de cordel, se quedó así, con la corredera angular colgando, hasta que Ahab se adelantó hacia él.

Ahab se le puso delante, y ya desenrollaba ligeramente treinta o cuarenta vueltas para hacer un rollo preliminar en la mano y tirarlo por la borda, cuando el viejo de Man, que le observaba atentamente a él y al cordel, se atrevió a hablar.

-Capitán, no me fío de ello; este cordel parece muy pasado; el largo calor y la humedad lo han estropeado.

-Aguantará, señor mío. El largo calor y la humedad ¿acaso te han estropeado a ti ? Pareces aguantar. O quizás es más verdad que la vida te aguanta a ti; no tú a ella.

-Yo aguanto el ovillo. Pero como quiera mi capitán. Con este pelo gris que tengo, no vale la pena discutir, sobre todo con un superior, que nunca se dará por vencido.

-¿Qué es eso ? Aquí tenemos un catedrático remendado del Colegio de la Reina Naturaleza, de cimientos de granito; pero me parece que es demasiado sumiso. ¿Dónde has nacido ?

-En la pequeña y rocosa isla de Man.

-¡Estupendo ! Con eso has acertado en el blanco del mundo.

-Yo sólo sé, capitán, que he nacido allí.

-En la isla de Man, ¿eh ? Bueno, de la otra manera, está bien. Aquí hay un hombre de Man; un hombre nacido en la antaño independiente Man, y ahora sin nada de Man; que es absorbido por... ¿por qué ? ¡Arriba con el carrete ! La pared cerrada y ciega, al fin choca con todas las cabezas que preguntan. ¡Arriba con él ! Así.

Se echó la corredera. Los rollos sueltos se extendieron deprisa en un cordel arrastrado largamente a popa, y luego, al momento, el carretel empezó a girar. A su vez, levantada y bajada en sacudidas por las olas mecidas, la resistencia de la corredera a remolque hacía vacilar extrañamente al viejo del carretel.

-¡Sujeta fuerte !

¡Chac ! El cordel, con el exceso de tensión, se extendió en largo festón: la corredera a remolque desapareció.

-Aplasto el cuadrante, el rayo invierte las agujas, y ahora el loco mar se lleva la corredera. Pero Ahab lo puede arreglar todo. Iza acá, tahitiano; tú, el de Man, enrolla. Y mirad que el carpintero haga otra corredera, y arregla tú el cordel. Ocúpate de eso.

-Ahí va ya; para él no ha pasado nada, pero para mí parece que se está saliendo el asador del eje del mundo. ¡Iza, iza, tahitiano ! Esos cordeles corren enteros y en un momento: vuelven rotos y arrastrándose despacio. ¿Eh, Pip ? Vienes a ayudar, ¿eh, Pip ?

-¿Pip ? ¿A quién llama usted Pip ? Pip saltó de la lancha, Pip ha desaparecido. Vamos a ver ahora si todavía no le habéis pescado, pescador. Es duro de arrastrar; me parece que se ha agarrado. ¡Sacúdele, tahitiano ! Aquí no izamos cobardes a bordo. ¡Oh ! Ahí está el brazo, saliendo a flor de agua. ¡Un hacha, un hacha ! ¡Córtaselo... ! Aquí no izamos cobardes a bordo. ¡Capitán Ahab, capitán !, ahí está Pip, tratando de subir otra vez a bordo.

¡Silencio, loco lunático ! -gritó el de Man, agarrándole por el brazo-: ¡Fuera del alcázar !

-El mayor idiota siempre riñe al menor -murmuró Ahab, avanzando-: ¡Quita las manos de esa santidad ! ¿Dónde decías que estaba Pip, muchacho ?

-¡A popa, ahí, a popa, capitán ! ¡Vea, vea !

-¿Y quién eres tú, muchacho ? ¡No veo mi reflejo en las pupilas vacías de tus ojos ! ¡Oh, Dios !, ¡que el hombre sea una cosa para que le pasen a través de las almas inmortales como por un cedazo ! ¿Quién eres, muchacho ?

-El campanero, capitán, el pregonero del barco: ¡tin, tan, tin ! ¡Pip, Pip, Pip ! Cien libras de tierra de recompensa por Pip: cinco pies de altura, aspecto cobarde: ¡se le conoce en seguida por eso ! ¡Tin, tan, tin ! ¿Quién ha visto a Pip el cobarde ?

-No puede haber corazones por encima de la línea de las nieves. ¡Ah, helados cielos, inclinad aquí vuestra mirada ! Vosotros engendrasteis a este desventurado niño, y le habéis abandonado, oh creativos libertinos. Aquí, muchacho; la cabina de Ahab será el hogar de Pip en lo sucesivo, mientras viva Ahab. Tú me tocas lo más hondo de las entrañas, muchacho; estás atado a mí por cuerdas tejidas con las fibras de mi corazón. Ven, vamos abajo.

-¿Qué es eso ? Aquí hay piel de tiburón aterciopelada -observando atentamente la mano de Ahab, y tocándola-. ¡Ah, ya, si el pobre Pip hubiera tocado sólo una cosa tan cariñosa como ésta, quizá no se habría perdido nunca ! Esto me parece, capitán, un guardamancebo: algo a que se pueden agarrar las almas débiles. Ah capitán, haga venir al viejo Perth y que remache juntas estas dos manos, la blanca y la negra, porque no la voy a soltar.

-¡Ah, muchacho, yo tampoco te soltaré, a no ser que con eso te vaya a arrastrar a peores horrores que los de aquí ! Ven, entonces, a mi cabina. ¡Ved ! los que creéis que en los dioses está toda la bondad, y en el hombre toda la maldad, ¡ved !, ved a los omniscientes dioses olvidados del hombre que sufre; y al hombre, aunque idiota y sin saber lo que hace, lleno de dulces cosas de cariño y gratitud. ¡Vamos ! ¡Me siento más orgulloso llevándote de tu negra mano que si estrechara la de un emperador !

-Ahí van ahora dos chiflados -murmuró el viejo de Man-: uno chiflado de energía, el otro chiflado de debilidad. Pero aquí está el extremo del cordel podrido... todo goteante, además. ¿Arreglarlo, eh ? Creo que sería mejor que pusiéramos otro cordel nuevo. Ya hablaré de eso con el señor Stubb. 

La boya de salvamento

Tomando ahora rumbo a sudeste, según el acero en vilo de Ahab, y con el avance solamente determinado por la corredera de Ahab, el '' Pequod continuaba su camino hacia el ecuador. En tan larga travesía, a través de aguas tan poco frecuentadas, sin señalar barcos, y antes de mucho tiempo, impelido por alisios constantes, sobre olas monótonamente benignas, todas estas cosas parecían las cosas extrañamente sosegadas que preludian a alguna escena amotinada y desesperada.

Al fin, cuando el barco se acercó al borde, por decirlo así, de la zona ecuatorial de pesca, y en la profunda oscuridad que precede al alba, navegando junto a un grupo de islotes rocosos, la guardia, mandada entonces por Flask- se sobresaltó con un grito tan í; plañideramente salvaje y sobrenatural -como los gemidos medio articulados de los fantasmas de todos los inocentes asesinados por Herodes- que, como un solo hombre, se sobresaltaron de sus ensueños, y quedaron, durante unos momentos, de pie, sentados o tendidos, todos escuchando en trance, como aquel esclavo romano de la escultura, mientras el loco grito seguía oyéndose. La parte cristiana o civilizada de los tripulantes dijo que eran sirenas, y se estremecieron, pero los arponeros paganos permanecieron impertérritos. Sin embargo, el encanecido hombre de Man -el más viejo de todos los marineros- declaró que los locos ruidos estremecedores que se oían eran las voces de hombres recién ahogados en el mar.

Abajo, en su hamaca, Ahab no oyó nada de esto hasta el gris amanecer, cuando subió a cubierta; entonces se lo contó Flask, no sin acompañarlo de sombrías sugerencias. El se rió con risa hueca, y explicó así el prodigio:

Esas islas rocosas que había pasado el barco eran refugio de grandes números de focas, y algunas focas jóvenes que habrían perdido a sus madres, o algunas madres que habrían perdido a sus cachorros, debían haberse acercado al barco, acompañándole, con gritos y gemidos de los suyos, que parecen humanos. Pero esto no hizo sino afectarles aún más a algunos de ellos, porque la mayor parte de los marineros abrigan un sentimiento muy supersticioso sobre las focas, no sólo por sus peculiares ruidos cuando están en apuros, sino también por el aspecto humano de sus cabezas redondas y seminteligentes, al verse asomando a atisbar, en las aguas junto al barco. En ciertas circunstancias, en el mar, se han tomado más de una vez las focas por hombres.

Pero los presentimientos de los tripulantes estaban destinados a recibir una confirmación muy plausible con uno de ellos mismos, aquella mañana. Ese marinero, al salir el sol, se levantó de su hamaca para ir a su cofa en el trinquete, y ahora no es posible saber si fue porque todavía no se había despertado del todo de su sueño (pues los marineros a veces suben en estado de transición), pero, fuera como fuera, no llevaba mucho tiempo en su percha cuando se oyó un grito -un grito y una caída- y, al mirar a lo alto, vieron un fantasma que caía por el aire; y mirando abajo, un montoncito de burbujas acumuladas en el azul del mar.

La boya de salvamento -un largo y estrecho barrilete- fue lanzada desde la popa, donde colgaba siempre, obedeciendo a un hábil resorte: pero no hubo una mano que subiera a agarrarla, y el barrilete quedó tanto tiempo al sol que se encogió de tal modo que se llenó por todos los poros, hasta que el barrilete, claveteado y con aros de hierro, siguió al marinero al fondo, como para darle almohada, aunque bien dura en verdad.

Y así el primer hombre del Pequod que subió al palo a otear en busca de la ballena blanca, en la zona propia y peculiar de la ballena blanca, fue tragado por la profundidad. Pero quizá pocos pensaron en ello en ese momento. En efecto, no se sabe por qué, no se afligieron ante este suceso, al menos como cosa portentosa, pues lo consideraron no como presagio de un mal en el futuro, sino como cumplimiento de un mal ya presagiado. Declararon que ahora ya sabían el motivo de esos locos aullidos que habían oído la noche anterior. Pero una vez más, el viejo de Man dijo que no.

Había que reemplazar ahora la boya de salvamento perdida: se dieron instrucciones a Starbuck para que se ocupara de ello, pero como no se encontró un barril de suficiente ligereza, y, con la febril ansiedad de lo que parecía la crisis inminente del viaje, todos los marineros se impacientaban con cualquier trabajo que no estuviera en relación directa con su objetivo final, cualquiera que resultara ser, por todo ello, se iba a dejar la popa del barco desprovista de boya, cuando, con ciertos extraños signos e insinuaciones, Queequeg insinuó algo sobre su ataúd.

-¡Un ataúd por boya de salvamento ! -gritó Starbuck, sobresaltado.

-Un poco extraño, yo diría -dijo Stubb.

-Servirá bastante bien -dijo Flask-, el carpintero puede arreglarlo fácilmente.

-Súbelo; no hay otra cosa que sirva -dijo Starbuck, después de una pausa melancólica-. Arréglalo, carpintero, no me mires así... el ataúd, quiero decir. ¿Me oyes ? Arréglalo.

-¿Tengo que clavar la tapa, señor Starbuck ? -moviendo la mano como un martillo.

-Sí.

-¿Y tengo que calafatear las junturas ? -moviendo la mano como con un hierro de calafate.

-Sí.

-¿Y tengo que darle pez por encima ? -moviendo la mano como con una olla de pez.

-¡Fuera ! ¿Qué te ha entrado para ponerte así ? ¡Haz una boya salvavidas con el ataúd, y basta ! Señor Stubb, señor Flask; vengan a proa conmigo.

-Se marcha enfurecido. El conjunto, lo puede aguantar; pero las partes le hacen echarse atrás. Ahora, no me gusta esto. Yo le hago una pierna al capitán Ahab, y la lleva como un caballero, pero le hago una caja a Queequeg, y no quiere meter la cabeza dentro. ¿Se van a perder todas mis molestias con este ataúd ? Y ahora me mandan que lo convierta en una boya salvavi STYLE="text-decoration: underline">das. Es como volver un gabán viejo: poner la carne del otro lado, ahora. No me gusta esta tarea de remendón... no me gusta nada; es poco digna; no es mi sitio. Que los muchachos de los leñadores pongan lañas; nosotros estamos por encima de ellos. No me gusta poner manos sino en trabajos limpios, vírgenes, claros y rectos, matemáticos; algo que empieza como es debido por el principio, y está en la mitad cuando se llega a medio camino, y se acaba en la conclusión, no un trabajo de remendón, que se acaba por en medio, y empieza por, el final. Es un truco de vieja, dar trabajos de remendón. ¡Señor ! qué cariño tienen todas las viejas a los lañadores. Conozco una vieja de sesenta y cinco años que se escapó una vez con un joven lañador calvo. Y ésa es la razón por la que nunca quería yo trabajar para las viejas viudas solitarias de tierra adentro, cuando tenía mi taller en el Vineyard, se les podría haber metido en sus viejas cabezas solitarias escaparse conmigo. Pero ¡ahí va ! En el mar no hay más cofias que la espuma de las olas. Vamos a ver. Clavar la tapa, calafatear las junturas, darle pez por encima, ponerle los listones en las costillas, bien cerrados, y colgarlo con el resorte de disparo en la popa del barco. ¿Se han hecho nunca tales cosas con un ataúd ? Pues algunos viejos carpinteros supersticiosos se dejarían colgar atados de las jarcias, antes que hacer este trabajo. Pero yo soy de abeto nudoso de Aroostook, yo no me agito. ¡Con un ataúd por baticola ! ¡Navegando por ahí con una bandeja de cementerio ! Pero no importa. Los que trabajamos la madera, hacemos camas de matrimonio y mesas de juego, igual que ataúdes y coches fúnebres. Trabajamos por la mesada, o por encargo o a destajo; y no es cosa nuestra preguntar el por qué y para qué de nuestro trabajo, a no ser que sea una cosa de remendón demasiado condenada, y entonces si podemos nos lo quitamos de encima. ¡Ejem ! Ahora haré este trabajo con cariño. Pondré... vamos a ver... ¿cuántos hay en la tripulación del barco, en total ? Pero se me ha olvidado. De cualquier modo, haré treinta cables salvavidas separados, con nudos de cabeza de turco, cada cual de tres pies de largo, cabalgando alrededor del ataúd. Entonces, si el casco se va a pique, habrá treinta tipos animados peleando por un solo ataúd, ¡un espectáculo que no se ve a menudo bajo el sol ! ¡Vengan martillo, hierro de calafate, olla de pez y pasador ! Vamos a ello. 

En cubierta

El ataúd, puesto sobre dos barriletes de cable, entre el banco de los tornillos y la escotilla abierta; el carpintero, calafateando las junturas, con la ristra de estopa retorcida saliendo lentamente de un gran rollo metido en el pecho de la blusa. AHAB sale lentamente por la porta de la cabina, y oye a Pip que le sigue.

-¡Atrás, muchacho ! En seguida vuelvo contigo. ¡Allá va ! Ni esta mano obedece a mi humor más dócilmente que ese muchacho. ¡La nave central de una iglesia ! ¿Qué hay ahí ?

-Boya de salvamento, capitán. Ordenes del señor Starbuck.

¡Eh, mire, capitán ! Cuidado con la escotilla.

-Gracias, hombre. Tu ataúd está muy cerca de la fosa. -¿Capitán ? ¿La escotilla ? ¡Ah, así es, capitán, así es !

-¿No eres tú el fabricante de piernas ? Mira, ¿este muñón no procede de tu taller ?

-Creo que sí, capitán: ¿aguanta bien el zuncho ?

-Bastante bien. Pero ¿no eres también el enterrador ?

-Sí, señor; yo arreglé esta cosa de aquí como ataúd para Queequeg, pero ahora me han puesto a convertirla en otra cosa. -

Entonces, dime: ¿no eres un redomado entremetido intruso, un monopolizador pícaro impío, para estar un día haciendo piernas y al otro día ataúdes para encerrarlas, y luego boyas salvavidas con esos mismos ataúdes ? Tienes la misma falta de principios que los dioses, y eres un enredador para todo, igual que ellos.

-Pero yo no lo hago con intención, capitán. Lo hago por hacer.

-Como los dioses, también. Escucha, ¿no cantas siempre, cuando trabajas en un ataúd ? Los titanes, según dicen, canturreaban melodías cuando hacían astillas los cráteres para convertirlos en volcanes, y el sepulturero de la función canta azada en mano. ¿No lo haces tú ?

-¿Cantar, capitán ? ¿Canto yo ? Ah, en eso soy bastante mediano; pero el motivo por el que el sepulturero hacía música debe ser porque su azada no la tenía. Pero el mazo de calafate está lleno de música. Escúchelo.

-Sí, y eso es porque la tapa hace de caja de resonancia, y lo que convierte todas las cosas en caja de resonancia es esto... que no hay - nada debajo. Y sin embargo, un ataúd con un cuerpo dentro suena poco más o menos lo mismo, carpintero. ¿Alguna vez has ayudado a llevar un féretro, y has oído el ataúd chocando con la verja del cementerio, al entrar ?

-A fe, capitán, yo...

-¿Fe ? ¿Eso qué es ?

-Bueno, pues eso de a fe, es sólo una especie de exclamación... eso es todo, capitán.

-Hum, hum; sigue.

-Iba a decir que...

-¿Eres un gusano de seda ? ¿Tejes tu propio sudario sacándotelo de ti mismo ? ¡Mírate el pecho ! ¡Despáchate ! Y haz desaparecer estos trastos...

-Se va a popa. Ha sido repentino, esta vez; pero en las latitudes cálidas, los chubascos vienen de repente. He oído decir que la isla de Albemarle, una de los Galápagos, está cortada por la-mitad por el ecuador. Me parece que a ese viejo le corta una especie de ecuador, también, por la mitad. Siempre está en la línea... ferozmente cálido, os lo aseguro. Mira para acá... vamos, estopa; deprisa. Ya vamos otra vez. Este mazo de madera es el tapón, y yo soy el profesor de vasos musicales... ¡tac, tac !

AHAB, para sí mismo

-¡Qué espectáculo ! ¡Qué ruido ! ¡El encanecido pájaro carpintero golpeando en el árbol hueco ! Los ciegos y los mudos pueden ser ahora bien envidiados. ¡Ved ! esa cosa descansa en dos barriletes de cabo, llenos de cabos balleneros. Un tipo muy maligno, ese hombre. ¡Tac, tac ! ¡Así es el tictac de los segundos del hombre ! ¡Ah, qué inmateriales son todos los materiales ! ¿Qué cosas reales hay, sino los pensamientos imponderables ? Aquí está ahora el mismísimo símbolo temido de la muerte terrible, que, por puro azar, se convierte en el signo expresivo de la ayuda y la esperanza de la vida más en peligro. ¡Una boya salvavidas hecha de un ataúd ! ¿Va aún más allá ? ¿Podrá ocurrir que, en algún sentido espiritual, el ataúd sea, después de todo, el preservador de la inmortalidad ? Pensaré sobre esto. Pero no. Tanto he avanzado por el lado oscuro de la tierra, que su otro lado, el claro y teórico, me parece sólo un crepúsculo incierto. ¿No acabarás nunca, carpintero, con ese ruido maldito ? Me voy abajo; que no vea aquí esto cuando vuelva. Ahora, Pip, hablaremos de esto: de ti absorbo maravillosas filosofias. ¡Algunos desconocidos conductos de los mundos desconocidos deben vaciarse en ti ! 

El Pequod encuentra al Raquel

Al día siguiente se avistó un gran barco, el Raquel, que se dirigía derecho hacia el Pequod, con toda la arboladura densamente cuajada de marineros. Entonces, el Pequod marchaba a buena velocidad por el agua, pero al acercársele a contraviento el visitante con las alas extendidas, sus jactanciosas velas cayeron todas a la vez como vejigas vacías que estallan, y toda la vida huyó del casco herido.

-Malas noticias, trae malas noticias -murmuró el viejo de Man. Pero antes que su capitán, altavoz en boca, se irguiera en la lancha, y antes que pudiera saludar esperanzado, se oyó la voz de Ahab.

-¿Habéis visto a la ballena blanca ?

-Sí, ayer. ¿Habéis visto una lancha ballenera a la deriva ?

Sofocando su alegría, Ahab contestó negativamente a esa pregunta inesperada, y habría querido ir a bordo del recién llegado, cuando se vio al propio capitán visitante, una vez detenido su barco, descender por su costado. Unas pocas remadas vigorosas, y el bichero pronto se enganchó en los cadenotes del Pequod, y él saltó a cubierta. Inmediatamente Ahab lo reconoció como uno de Nantucket, conocido suyo. Pero no se intercambiaron saludos formales.

¿Dónde estaba ? ¡No la han matado, no la han matado ! -gritó Ahab, avanzando de cerca-. ¿Cómo fue ?

Pareció ser que hacia media tarde del día anterior, mientras tres de las lanchas del recién llegado estaban ocupadas con una manada de ballenas, que les habían llevado a unas cuatro o cinco millas del barco, y cuando estaban en rápida persecución a barlovento, de repente emergieron del agua, a sotavento, la joroba y la cabeza blanca de Moby Dick, no muy lejos; con lo cual la cuarta lancha preparada -de reserva- se había arriado al momento en persecución. Tras navegar rápidamente a vela viento en popa, esa cuarta lancha -la más rápida de todas- parecía haber logrado hacer presa: al menos, por lo que podía decir de ello el marinero de la cofa. En lontananza vio a la lancha como un punto en disminución, y luego un vivo fulgor de agua blanca y con burbujas; y después de eso, nada más; por lo que se decidió que la ballena herida debía haberse escapado sin fin con sus perseguidores, como ocurre a menudo. Había algún temor, pero no alarma decidida, por entonces. Se pusieron en las jarcias las señales de llamada; sobrevino la oscuridad; y obligado a recoger sus tres lanchas muy a barlovento, antes de ir en busca de la cuarta, en la dirección exactamente opuesta, el barco no sólo se había visto obligado a dejar aquella lancha a su suerte hasta cerca de medianoche, sino, por el momento, a aumentar su distancia de ella. Pero cuando por fin estuvo a bordo y a salvo el resto de su tripulación, hizo fuerza de velas, ala sobre ala, en busca de la lancha en falta, encendiendo un fuego en sus marmitas de destilería a modo de faro, y mandando arriba a la mitad de sus hombres como vigías. Pero aun cuando navegó así una distancia suficiente como para alcanzar el lugar presunto de los ausentes, cuando les vieron por última vez, y aun cuando entonces se detuvo a arriar las lanchas de reserva para que remaran a su alrededor, y al no encontrar nada, siguió adelante, deteniéndose otra vez y volviendo a arriar las lanchas; y aunque había seguido haciéndolo así hasta el amanecer, sin embargo, no se había visto el menor rastro de la embarcación desaparecida.

Contada la historia, el capitán visitante pasó inmediatamente a revelar su objetivo al subir a bordo del Pequod. Deseaba que este barco se uniera al suyo en la búsqueda, recorriendo el mar a unas cuatro o cinco millas de distancia, en líneas paralelas, para dominar, por decirlo así, un horizonte doble.

-Ahora apostaré algo -susurró Stubb a Flask- a que alguno de esa lancha desaparecida se fue llevándose la mejor chaqueta de este capitán; o quizá su reloj: está condenadamente ansioso de recobrarlo. ¿Quién ha oído jamás hablar de dos piadosos balleneros emprendiendo un crucero en busca de una sola lancha, en plena temporada de pesca ? Mire, Flask, vea sólo qué pálido está: pálido hasta las niñas de los ojos: mire... no era la chaqueta... debía ser el...

-¡Mi hijo, mi hijo está entre ellos ! ¡Por Dios, se lo pido, se lo conjuro ! exclamó entonces el capitán visitante a Ahab, que hasta entonces había recibido gélidamente su petición-. Durante cuarenta y ocho horas, permítame alquilarle el barco... se lo pagaré de buena gana, y le pagaré bien... si no hay otro modo... sólo por cuarenta y ocho horas... sólo eso... tiene, tiene que hacerlo, y lo hará.

-¡Su hijo ! -gritó Stubb-: ¡Ah, es su hijo lo que ha perdido ! Retiro lo de la chaqueta y el reloj... ¿Qué dice Ahab ? Tenemos que salvar a ese chico.

-Se ahogó con todos los demás, anoche -dijo el viejo marinero de Man, que estaba entre ellos-: lo oí, todos vosotros oísteis a sus espíritus.

Ahora, como resultó al poco tiempo, lo que hacía más triste este incidente del Raquel era la circunstancia de que no sólo estaba uno de los hijos del capitán entre el número de los tripulantes de la lancha desaparecida, sino que entre las tripulaciones de las otras lanchas, al mismo tiempo, pero, por otro lado, separado del barco durante las sombrías visicitudes de la persecución, había estado otro hijo más, de modo que, durante algún tiempo, el desgraciado padre había quedado sumergido en el fondo de la más cruel perplejidad, que sólo le resolvió el que su primer oficial adoptara instintivamente la medida ordinaria de un ballenero en tales circunstancias, esto es, al encontrarse entre lanchas separadas en peligro, recoger siempre al mayor número. Pero el capitán, por alguna desconocida razón temperamental, había evitado decir todo esto, y hasta que no le obligó a ello la frialdad de Ahab, no aludió al hijo que todavía faltaba: un muchachito, sólo de doce años, cuyo padre, con la seria, pero inconsciente osadía de un cariño paternal de Nantucket, había tratado tan tempranamente de iniciarle en los peligros y prodigios de un oficio que de modo casi inmemorial era el destino de toda su raza. Y no es raro que ocurra que los capitanes de Nantucket envíen lejos de sí a un hijo de tan tierna edad, durante un viaje que se prolonga tres o cuatro años en un barco que no es el suyo, para que su primer conocimiento de la carrera de un ballenero no pierda fuerza por alguna ocasional muestra de la natural, pero inoportuna parcialidad de un padre, o por aprensión o miedo indebidos.

Mientras tanto, el recién llegado seguía implorando de Ahab su pobre don, y Ahab seguía como un yunque, recibiendo todos los golpes, pero sin el menor temblor por su parte.

-No me iré --dijo el visitante- hasta que me diga que sí. Haga conmigo como querría que yo hiciera con usted en caso semejante. Pues usted también tiene un hijo, capitán Ahab... aunque sólo sea un niño, y esté ahora en casa, a salvo en su nido... un hijo de su vejez, además... Sí, sí, se ablanda... corred, corred, marineros, y preparaos a poner brazas a barlovento.

-Alto -gritó Ahab-: no toquéis una filástica -y luego, con una voz que, prolongándose, modelaba cada palabra-: capitán Gardiner, no lo haré. Ahora mismo, pierdo tiempo. Adiós, adiós. Dios le proteja, hombre, y ojalá me perdone a mí, pero me tengo que ir. Señor Starbuck, mire el reloj de bitácora, y dentro de tres minutos a partir de este preciso instante, haga salir a todos los visitantes: luego vuelva a bracear a proa, y que el barco siga navegando como antes.

Volviéndose deprisa, con la cara apartada, bajó a su cabina, dejando al capitán visitante pasmado ante el absoluto y total rechazo de su ansiosa pretensión. Pero Gardiner, saliendo de su trance con un sobresalto, se apresuró en silencio a la borda; cayó, más que entró, en su lancha, y volvió a su barco.

Pronto los barcos separaron sus estelas, y mientras estuvo a la vista el barco visitante, se le vio dar guiñadas acá y allá, a cada punto oscuro, por pequeño que fuera, en el mar. Sus vergas giraban a un lado y a otro; a babor y a estribor, continuaba virando; unas veces encontraba olas de proa, y otras veces le empujaban por la popa, mientras que, durante todo el tiempo, sus mástiles y vergas estaban densamente poblados de marineros, como tres altos cerezos, cuando los muchachos van a coger cerezas entre las ramas.

Pero por su triste manera de detenerse y seguir, se veía claramente que esa nave tan llorosa de espuma seguía sin consuelo. Era Raquel, llorando por sus hijos, porque ya no están. 

La cabina

AHAB, saliendo a cubierta; PiP le da la mano para seguirle

-Muchacho, muchacho, te digo que ahora no debes seguir a Ahab. Se acerca la hora en que Ahab, aun sin querer asustarte para que te alejaras de él, no querría tenerte a su lado. Hay algo en ti, pobre muchacho, que noto que es demasiado curativo para mi enfermedad. Lo semejante cura a lo semejante; y para esta persecución, mi mal se convierte en mi más deseada salud. Quédate ahí abajo, donde te servirán como si fueras el capitán. Sí, muchacho, te sentarás en mi propia butaca atornillada; debes ser para ella otro tornillo.

-¡No, no, no ! Capitán, no tiene el cuerpo entero: úseme, pobre de mí, como su pierna perdida; píseme encima, capitán, no pido más, para permanecer como parte de usted.

-¡Ah ! ¡a pesar de un millón de villanos, esto me hace fanático de la inmarcesible fidelidad del hombre ! ¡Y un negro, y loco ! Pero me parece que lo de que lo semejante cura lo semejante se le aplica también a él; otra vez se vuelve cuerdo así.

-Me han dicho, capitán, que Stubb una vez abandonó al pobre pequeño Pip, cuyos huesos ahogados ahora blanquean, a pesar de toda la negrura de su piel viva. Pero yo no le abandonaré jamás, como Stubb a él. Capitán, .tengo que ir con usted.

-Si me hablas así mucho más, el propósito de Ahab se vuelca en su interior. Te digo que no: no puede ser.

-¡Oh, buen amo, amo, amo !

-Si lloras así, te asesinaré. Ten cuidado, pues Ahab también está loco. Escucha, y oirás a menudo mi pie de marfil pisando en cubierta, y sabrás que sigo estando aquí. Y ahora te dejo. ¡La mano ! ¡Adiós ! Eres fiel, muchacho, como la circunferencia a su centro. Eso: Dios te bendiga para siempre, y, si a mano viene... Dios te salve para siempre, pase lo que pase.

AHAB se va: Pi a un paso adelante

-Aquí estaba en este momento: estoy en su aire... pero estoy solo. Ah, si siguiera estando aquí el pobre Pip, lo podría aguantar, pero ha desaparecido. ¡Pip, Pip ! ¡Tin, tan, tin ! ¿Quién ha visto a Pip ? Debe estar allá arriba: probemos la puerta. ¿Cómo ? No hay cierre, ni cerrojo, ni barra, y sin embargo, no hay modo de abrirla. Debe ser el hechizo, me dijo que me quedara aquí; sí, y me dijo que esta butaca atornillada era mía. Aquí, entonces, me sentaré, contra el yugo, en la misma mitad del barco, con toda la quilla y los tres palos por delante. Aquí dicen nuestros viejos marineros que, en sus negros navíos de setenta y cuatro cañones, los grandes almirantes se sientan a veces a la mesa, dominando filas de capitanes y tenientes. ¡Ah ! ¿qué es eso ? ¡Charreteras, charreteras, todas las charreteras vienen a agolparse ! Que den vueltas las botellas: me alegra verles; ¡llenen los vasos, señores míos ! ¡Qué extraña sensación ahora, cuando un muchacho negro es anfitrión de hombres blancos con encaje de oro en las casacas ! Señores míos, ¿han visto a un tal Píp ? ¿Un muchachito negro, de cinco pies de alto, de aspecto vil y cobarde ? Una vez saltó de una lancha ballenera, ¿le han visto ? ¡No ! Bueno, entonces, vuelvan a llenar los vasos, capitanes, y bebamos por la vergüenza de todos los cobardes. No doy nombres. ¡Chisst ! Aquí encima, oigo marfil... ¡Oh, amo, amo ! Me siento muy abatido cuando me anda por encima. Pero aquí me quedo, aunque esta popa choque con rocas, y se metan aquí, y las ostras vengan a estar conmigo. 

El sombrero

Y ahora que, en el momento y el lugar adecuados, después de tan largo y amplio viaje preliminar, Ahab, tras inspeccionar todas las demás aguas de pesquería, parecía haber perseguido a su enemigo hasta un rincón del océano, para matarle allí con más seguridad; ahora que se encontraba cerca de la misma latitud y longitud donde le había sido infligida su herida atormentadora; ahora que había hablado con un barco que el mismo día anterior se había enfrentado de hecho con Moby Dick; y ahora que todos sus sucesivos encuentros con diversos barcos habían concordado, dentro de sus contrastes, en mostrar la demoníaca indiferencia con que la ballena blanca destrozaba a sus perseguidores, fueran atacados o atacantes; ahora fue cuando se entrevió algo en los ojos del viejo que las almas débiles apenas podían soportar. Como la estrella polar sin ocaso, que a lo largo de la vitalicia noche ártica de seis meses mantiene su penetrante mirada firme en el centro, así el propósito de Ahab ahora resplandecía fijamente sobre la constante medianoche de la tenebrosa tripulación. Dominaba sobre ellos de tal modo que todos sus presentimientos, dudas STYLE="text-decoration: underline">, sospechas y temores no deseaban sino esconderse debajo de sus almas, sin dejar brotar ni una sola brizna ni hoja.

En este intervalo agorero, además, se desvaneció todo humor, forzado o natural. Stubb ya no intentaba provocar sonrisas; Starbuck buck ya no intentaba contenerlas. Por igual, gozo y tristeza, esperanza y miedo parecían molidos en el más fino polvo, y por el momento, pulverizados en el pisoteado mortero del alma férrea de Ahab. Como máquinas, los marineros se movían mudos por la cubierta, siempre conscientes de que los ojos despóticos del viejo estaban sobre ellos.

Pero si le hubierais examinado profundamente en sus más secretas horas confidenciales, cuando él creía que no tenía encima más mirada que la suya, entonces habríais visto que así como los ojos de Ahab intimidaban a los tripulantes, la inescrutable mirada del Parsi intimidaba a la suya; o al menos, no se sabe cómo, a veces la trastornaba de algún modo extraño. Tal nueva extrañeza huidiza empezaba ahora a revestir al flaco Fedallah, tal incesante estremecimiento le sacudía, que los marineros le miraban dubitativamente, medio inciertos, al parecer, sobre si era una sustancia mortal, o más bien una sombra trémula que proyectaba en la cubierta el cuerpo de algún ser invisible. Y esa sombra siempre se cernía allí. Pues ni siquiera de noche se había sabido con certidumbre que Fedallah se adormeciera o se retirara de cubierta. Se quedaba quieto durante horas: pero nunca se sentaba o se recostaba; sus ojos mortecinos decían claramente: « Somos dos vigías que jamás descansamos ».

Y tampoco, a ninguna hora, ni de día ni de noche, podían poner los pies en cubierta los marineros sin que Ahab les hubiera tomado la delantera. Plantado en su agujero de pivote, o recorriendo exactamente las tablas entre dos límites invariables: el palo mayor y el de mesana: o bien le veían de pie en el portillo de la cabina, con su pie vivo avanzando hacia la cubierta, como para entrar en ella; con el sombrero muy ladeado sobre los ojos, de modo que, por inmóvil que estuviera, por más que sumasen los días y las noches en que no se había colgado en su hamaca, sin embargo, oculto debajo de ese sombrero ladeado, jamás podían decir con certeza si, a pesar de todo eso, tenía los ojos realmente cerrados a veces, o si les examinaba atentamente; no le importaba estar así una hora seguida en el portillo, mientras la humedad de la noche, inadvertida, se concentraba, en sartas de rocío, sobre aquel capote y aquel sombrero esculpidos en piedra. La ropa que la noche mojaba, el sol del día siguiente se la secaba encima; y así, día tras día, noche tras noche, siguió sin retirarse más abajo las tablas de cubierta, mandando a buscar a la cabina cualquier cosa que necesitara.

Comía al mismo aire libre; esto es, sus dos únicas comidas, desayuno y almuerzo: la cena no la tocaba nunca; ni se cortaba la barba que crecía oscuramente, toda nudosa, como raíces de árboles desarraigados por el viento, que aún siguen creciendo ociosamente en la base desnuda, aunque han parecido en el verdor de arriba. Pero aunque toda su vida ahora se había vuelto una sola guardia en cubierta, y aunque la misteriosa guardia del Parsi era tan sin interrupción como la suya, sin embargo, esos dos parecían no hablar nunca uno con otro, a no ser que, a largos intervalos, alguna momentánea cuestión sin importancia lo hiciera necesario. Aunque un potente hechizo parecía unirles secretamente como gemelos, abiertamente, y para la intimada tripulación, parecían tan separados como los polos. Si durante el día, por casualidad, decían una sola palabra, de noche ambos eran mudos, en cuanto al más leve intercambio verbal. A veces, durante las más largas horas, sin un solo saludo, permanecían muy separados bajo la luz estelar; Ahab en su portillo, el Parsi junto al palo mayor; pero mirándose fijamente, como si Ahab viera en el Parsi su sombra proyectada hacia delante, y el Parsi viera en Ahab su sustancia abandonada.

Y sin embargo, no se sabe cómo, Ahab -en su propia intimidad personal, según se revelaba imperiosamente a sus subordinados a cada día, a cada hora y a cada minuto y a cada instante-, Ahab parecía señor independiente, y el Parsi sólo su esclavo. También aquí, ambos parecían enyugados juntos, con un tirano invisible aguijándoles: la flaca sombra al lado de la sólida costilla. Pues, fuera el Parsi lo que fuera, el sólido Ahab era todo costilla y quilla.

Al primer leve despuntar de la aurora, se oía a popa su férrea voz: -¡Vigías a las cofas ! Y a lo largo de todo el día, hasta después del crepúsculo y la puesta del sol, se oía esa misma voz, a todas horas, al sonar la campana del timonel: -¿Qué veis ? ¡Atentos, atentos !

Pero cuando pasaron tres o cuatro días, después de encontrar a la nave Raquel en busca de los hijos, sin ver todavía ningún chorro, el viejo monomaníaco pareció desconfiar de la fidelidad de sus tripulantes, o al menos, de casi todos menos de los arponeros paganos, y pareció dudar, incluso, si Stubb y Flask no estarían dispuestos a pasar por alto lo que él deseaba ver. Pero si tenía realmente tales sospechas, se contenía sagazmente de expresarlas, por más que sus acciones pudieran parecer sugerirlas.

-Yo mismo seré el primero en ver la ballena -dijo-: ¡Eso ! ¡Ahab se ganará el doblón ! Y con sus propias manos urdió un nido de bolinas formando cesto, y, enviando arriba a un marinero, con un aparejo de una sola polea para atarlo al calcés del palo mayor, recibió los dos extremos del cable pasado hacia abajo, y, amarrando uno a su cesto, preparó una cabilla para sujetar el otro extremo al pasamanos. Hecho esto, con ese extremo aún en la mano, y poniéndose junto a la cabilla, miró alrededor a sus tripulantes, pasando de uno en otro, deteniendo largamente la mirada en Daggoo, Queequeg y Tashtego, pero eludiendo a Fedallah, y luego puso sus firmes ojos confiados en el primer oficial y dijo: -Toma el cable; lo pongo en tus manos, Starbuck. Entonces, acomodando su persona en el cesto, les dio orden de izarle a su alcándara, siendo Starbuck quien sujetaba el extremo del cable, y quien quedó luego a su cuidado. Y así, con una mano aferrada al mastelero de sobrejuanete, Ahab extendió su mirada sobre millas y millas de mar, a proa, a popa, a un lado y a otro, en el amplio y extenso círculo dominado desde tan gran altura.

Cuando, al trabajar con las manos en algún lugar elevado y casi aislado entre el cordaje, sin probabilidades de ofrecer apoyo al pie, el marinero, en una travesía, es izado a tal sitio y sostenido allí por el cable, en esas circunstancias, el extremo sujeto a cubierta se pone a cargo estricto de algún marinero que lo vigile especialmente, dado que, en tal selva de caballería extendida, cuyas variadas relaciones diferentes no siempre se pueden distinguir por lo que se ve de ellas desde cubierta, y siendo así que los extremos de cubierta de esas jarcias se sacan a cada pocos minutos de sus cabillas, sería sólo una fatalidad natural que, en ausencia de un vigilante constante, el marinero izado fuera soltado y cayera volando al mar por algún descuido de los tripulantes. Así que las medidas de Ahab en este asunto no eran insólitas, y la única cosa que parecía extraña en ellas es que fuera Starbuck, casi el único hombre que alguna vez se había atrevido a oponérsele con algo que se aproximara en el más ligero grado a la decisión, y uno de aquellos, además, de cuya fidelidad en la vigilancia había parecido dudar algo; era extraño que fuera éste el mismo hombre a quien eligiera para cuidarle, entregando del todo su vida en manos de una persona por lo demás sin confianza.

Ahora, la primera vez que Ahab fue izado arriba, antes de llevar allí diez minutos, uno de esos salvajes halcones marinos de pico rojo que tan a menudo vuelan incómodamente en torno a los marineros en las cofas de los balleneros por aquellas latitudes; uno de esos pájaros, vino a rondarle y a chillarle en torno a la cabeza, en un laberinto de círculos inextricablemente rápidos. Luego se disparó a la altura, a mil pies por el aire; luego bajó en espiral, y volvió a girar en torbellino en torno a su cabeza.

Pero con la mirada fija en el sombrío horizonte lejano, Ahab no pareció advertir el salvaje pájaro, y, desde luego, nadie se habría fijado mucho en él, no siendo un caso nada raro, de no ser porque entonces el ojo menos atento parecía ver alguna suerte de intención astuta en casi todo lo que se veía.

-¡El sombrero, el sombrero, capitán ! -gritó de repente el marinero siciliano que, de guardia en el palo de mesana, quedaba detrás mismo de Ahab, aunque a nivel un poco más abajo que él, y con un profundo abismo de aire separándoles.

Pero ya las alas oscuras estaban ante los ojos del viejo, y el largo pico ganchudo en la cabeza: con un chillido, el negro halcón salió disparado con su presa.

Un águila voló tres veces en torno a la cabeza de Tarquino, quitándole el sombrero para volver a ponérselo, por lo cual Tanaquil, su mujer, declaró que Tarquino sería rey de Roma. Pero el augurio sólo se consideró bueno por haberse vuelto a colocar el sombrero. El de Ahab no se recuperó jamás, y el salvaje halcón siguió volando con él, muy por delante de la proa, hasta que al fin desapareció, al mismo tiempo que, en el momento de esa desaparición, se distinguió confusamente un menudo punto negro que caía al mar desde gran altura. 

El Pequod encuentra al Deleite

El afanoso Pequod siguió navegando; las olas y los días siguieron pasando agitados: el ataúd-salvavidas siguió meciéndose levemente; y se avistó otro barco, míseramente mal llamado el Deleite. Al acercarse, todos los ojos se fijaron en las anchas vigas, lo que se llama la cabria, que en algunos barcos balleneros cruzan la cubierta a una altura de ocho o diez pies, sirviendo para sostener las lanchas de reserva, o sin aparejos, o inutilizadas.

En la cabria del recién llegado se observaban las destrozadas y blancas cuadernas y unas pocas tablas astilladas de lo que había sido antaño una lancha ballenera, pero ahora se veía a través de esa ruina tan claramente como se ve a través del pesado esqueleto de un caballo, blanqueado y medio desquiciado.

-¿Habéis visto a la ballena blanca ?

-¡Mira ! -replicó el capitán de hundidas mejillas desde el coronamiento de popa, y con el altavoz señaló la ruina.

-¿La has matado ?

-Todavía no se ha forjado el arpón que lo consiga -contestó el otro, mirando tristemente una hamaca envuelta que había en cubierta, y cuyos lados reunidos algunos silenciosos marineros estaban ocupados en juntar cosiendo.

-¡Que no se ha forjado ! -y apuntando desde la horquilla con el hierro de Perth, Ahab lo blandió y exclamó-: ¡Mira tú, nantuqués; aquí en esta mano tengo su muerte ! Templado en sangre y templado por el rayo está este filo, y juro darle triple temple en ese sitio caliente detrás de la aleta, donde la ballena blanca nota más su maldita vida.

-Entonces Dios te guarde, viejo... ya ves esto -señalando a la hamaca-: sepulto a uno de cinco hombres robustos, que ayer mismo estaban vivos, pero antes de la noche habían muerto. Sólo sepulto a éste: los demás estaban sepultados antes de morir; navegas sobre su tumba. -Luego, volviéndose a sus marineros-: ¿Estáis dispuestos ? Entonces, poned la tabla en el pasamanos, y levantad el cadáver; así, entonces... ¡Oh, Dios ! -avanzando hacia la hamaca con las manos levantadas-: Que la resurrección y la vida...

-¡Bracead a proa ! ¡Caña a barlovento ! -gritó Ahab como el trueno a sus marineros.

Pero el Pequod, sobresaltado de repente, no fue lo bastante rápido como para escapar del ruido de la salpicadura que hizo el cadáver al caer en el agua; ni lo bastante rápido, en efecto, para que algunas de las burbujas volanderas dejaran de salpicar su casco con su espectral bautismo.

Al alejarse Ahab del abatido Deleite, se puso muy de manifiesto el extraño salvavidas que colgaba de la popa del Pequod.

-¡Eh, vosotros, mirad ahí, marineros ! -gritó una voz augural en su estela-. ¡En vano, oh, desconocidos, huís de nuestra triste sepultura ! ¡Nos volvéis la popa sólo para enseñarnos vuestro ataúd ! 

La sinfonía

Era un claro día, de azul acerado. Los firmamentos del aire y el mar apenas se podían separar en ese azur que todo lo invadía; sólo el aire pensativo era transparentemente puro y suave, con aspecto femenino, y el robusto y viril mar se hinchaba en oleadas lentas, largas y recias, como el pecho de Sansón en su sueño.

Acá y allá, en lo alto, se deslizaban las alas níveas de pequeñas aves inmaculadas; ésos eran los amables pensamientos del aire femenino; pero acá y allá, en las profundidades, muy abajo, en el azul sin fondo, se agolpaban poderosos leviatanes, peces espada y tiburones; y ésos eran los recios, turbados y criminales pensamientos del mar masculino.

Pero aunque así contrastaran por dentro, el contraste era sólo en sombras y matices por fuera: los dos parecían uno; sólo el sexo, por así decir, le distinguía.

Arriba, como un majestuoso zar y rey, el sol parecía conceder este amable aire a su osado mar agitado, como esposa dada al esposo. Y en la línea ceñidora del horizonte, un movimiento suave y trémulo -que se ve sobre todo allí, en el ecuador- señalaba la fe tierna y palpitante, el sobresalto cariñoso con que la pobre esposa otorga su seno.

Atado en lo alto y retorcido, nudoso y cargado de arrugas, hurañamente firme y sin ceder, con los ojos ardiendo como carbones que siguen encendidos en las cenizas de la ruina, el inflexible Ahab permanecía en la claridad de la mañana, elevando el casco astillado de su frente hacia la frente de hermosa niña del cielo.

¡Ah, inmortal infancia, ah, inocencia del azur ! ¡Invisibles criaturas aladas que alborotan a nuestro alrededor ! ¡Dulce infancia de aire y cielo ! ¡Qué olvidadas estabais de la congoja apretada de Ahab ! Pero así he visto a las pequeñas Miriam y Marta, sílfides de ojos risueños, haciendo cabriolas despreocupadas en torno a su viejo progenitor, y jugando con el cerco de chamuscados rizos que han crecido en el borde del requemado cráter de su cerebro.

Cruzando lentamente la cubierta desde el portillo, Ahab se asomó a la borda, y observó cómo su sombra en el agua se hundía cada vez más ante su mirada, cuanto más se esforzaba por penetrar su profundidad. Pero los deliciosos aromas del aire encantado parecieron al menos dispersar por fin aquella cosa cancerosa de su alma. Ese aire alegre y feliz, ese cielo seductor, por fin le tocaron y le acariciaron; la tierra madrastra, tanto tiempo cruel y abrumadora, ahora le echaba sus brazos cariñosos en torno al terco cuello, y parecía sollozar de alegría por él, como por alguien a quien, por más empedernido y desviado que fuera, todavía tenía corazón para salvar y bendecir. Desde debajo de su sombrero ladeado, Ahab dejó caer una lágrima al mar, y todo el Pacífico no contenía tal riqueza como esa diminuta gota.

Starbuck vio al viejo; le vio cuánto se asomaba sobre la borda, y pareció escuchar en su propio corazón sincero el desmedido sollozo que escapaba del centro de la serenidad que le rodeaba. Con cuidado de no tocarle, ni de ser advertido por él, se le acercó, sin embargo, y se quedó a su lado.

Ahab se volvió.

-¡Starbuck !

-Capitán.

-¡Ah, Starbuck ! El viento es suave, suave, y el cielo tiene un aspecto suave. En un día así, con una dulzura muy parecida a ésta, hería mi primera ballena: ¡un muchacho arponero de dieciocho años ! Hace cuarenta años... ¡cuarenta, cuarenta ! ¡Cuarenta años de continua pesca de ballenas ! ¡Cuarenta años de privaciones, de peligros y de tormentas ! ¡Cuarenta años en el mar despiadado ! ¡Durante cuarenta años, Ahab ha desdeñado la tierra pacífica; durante cuarenta años, para guerrear con los horrores de lo profundo ! Sí, y de esos cuarenta años, Starbuck, no he pasado ni tres en tierra firme. Cuando pienso en la vida que he llevado; en la desolación de soledad que ha sido; en el emparedado y amurallado aislamiento de un capitán, que deja muy poca entrada a cualquier simpatía de la tierra verde que le rodea... ¡Ah, fatiga, pesadez ! ¡Esclavitud de costa de Guinea que es el mando solitario ! Cuando pienso en todo esto; que antes sólo sospechaba a medias y no sabía tan penetrantemente; y en cómo, durante cuarenta años, me he alimentado de salazones -adecuado símbolo del seco alimento de mi alma-; mientras el más pobre habitante de tierra firme tiene a mano diariamente frutos frescos y parte el pan fresco del mundo, en vez de mis costras mohosas; lejos, a océanos enteros de distancia de esa joven esposa niña con quien me casé pasados mis cincuenta años, zarpando al día siguiente para el cabo de Hornos, y dejando un solo hueco en mi almohada matrimonial... (¿esposa ? ¿esposa ?: más bien viuda con el marido vivo); sí, he hecho viuda a esa pobre muchacha al casarme con ella, Starbuck; y luego la locura, el frenesí, la sangre hirviente con que en mil ataques en la lancha el viejo Ahab ha perseguido a su presa con furia espumeante (¿más demonio que hombre ?); ¡sí, sí ! ¡qué cuarenta años de loco ! ¡loco, loco ! ¡viejo loco, ha sido el viejo Ahab ! ¿Por qué este empeño de la persecución ? ¿por qué fatigar y paralizar el brazo en el remo y el arpón y la lanza ? ¿Qué ha ganado o mejorado ahora con eso Ahab ? Obsérvalo. ¡Ah, Starbuck !, ¿no es duro que, con esta fatigosa carga que llevo, me hayan arrebatado de debajo una pobre pierna ? Aquí, échame a un lado este viejo pelo; me ciega tanto que parece que lloro. Un pelo tan canoso nunca ha crecido sino de alguna ceniza. Pero ¿parezco muy viejo, Starbuck, muy viejo ? Me siento mortalmente débil, doblado, jorobado, como si fuera Adán, tambaleándose bajo los siglos apilados desde el Paraíso. ¡Dios, Dios, Dios !, ¡quiébrame el corazón, desfóndame el cerebro ! ¡qué burla, qué burla ! ¡amarga y mordaz burla del pelo gris !: ¿acaso he vivido bastantes alegrías como para llevarlo, y parezco y me siento tan intolerablemente viejo ? ¡Acércate ! quédate a mi lado, Starbuck; déjame mirar unos ojos humanos; es mejor que otear al mar o al cielo; mejor que otear hacia Dios. ¡Por la tierra verde; por el claro hogar ! Este es el espejo mágico: en tus ojos veo a mi mujer y mi hijo. ¡No, no ! ¡quédate a bordo, a bordo ! ¡No bajes a la lancha cuando vaya yo; cuando el marcado Ahab persiga a Moby Dick Ese peligro no ha de ser para ti ! ¡No, no con el remoto hogar que veo en estos ojos !

-¡Ah, mi capitán, mi capitán ! ¡Alma noble ! ¡Viejo gran corazón, después de todo ! ¡Por qué ha de perseguir nadie a ese osado pez ! ¡Lejos conmigo ! ¡Huyamos de estas aguas mortales ! ¡Vamos a casa ! También Starbuck tiene mujer e hijo; mujer e hijo de su juventud, compañeros de juego, como hermana y hermano; ¡así como los suyos, capitán, son la mujer e hijo de su tierra, afectuosa y paternal vejez ! ¡Lejos, alejémonos ! ¡Déjeme cambiar de rumbo al momento ! ¡Con qué alegría, con qué regocijo, ah, mi capitán, correríamos para ver de nuevo a la vieja Nantucket ! Creo, capitán, que en Nantucket hay algunos días suaves y azules como éste.

-Los hay, los hay. Yo los he visto... algunos días de verano por la mañana. Hacia esta hora... (sí, es su siesta de mediodía) el niño se despierta con hambre; se incorpora en la cama, y su madre le habla de mí, del viejo caníbal de mí; de cómo estoy lejos sobre las profundidades, pero volveré para hacerle bailar.

-¡Es mi Mary, mi propia Mary ! ¡Me prometió llevar a mi niño, todas las mañanas, al cerro, para ver por primera vez la vela de su padre ! ¡Sí, sí ! ¡basta ya ! ¡se acabó ! ¡ponemos rumbo a Nantucket ! Vamos, capitán, estudie la travesía, y vamos allá. ¡Vea, vea ! ¡la cara del niño en la ventana ! ¡la mano del niño en el cerro !

Pero Ahab desvió la mirada; se estremeció como un frutal agostado y dejó caer al suelo su última manzana en cenizas.

-¿Qué es, qué cosa sin nombre, inescrutable, sobrenatural; qué amo y señor escondido y engañador, qué emperador cruel e inexorable me manda; para que, contra todos los amores y deseos naturales, siga así empujando, concentrándome, agolpándome, todo el tiempo; haciéndome estar implacablemente dispuesto a lo que no me atrevería en mi propio corazón natural ? ¿Es Ahab, Ahab ? ¿Soy yo, Dios, o quién es el que levanta este brazo ? Pero si el gran sol no se mueve por sí mismo, y es sólo un recadero en el cielo, ni puede girar una sola estrella sino por algún poder invisible, ¿cómo entonces puede latir este pequeño corazón, cómo puede pensar pensamientos este pequeño cerebro, si no hace Dios ese latir, y hace ese pensar, y hace ese vivir, él, y no yo ? Por los Cielos, Starbuck, nos dan vueltas en este mundo, como aquel cabestrante, y el Destino es el espeque. Y todo el tiempo, ¡mira ! ese cielo sonriente, y ése mar insondado. ¡Mira esa albacora ! ¿Adónde van los asesinos, hombre ? ¿Quién va a condenar, si el mismo juez es arrastrado ante el juicio ? Pero hay un viento suave, muy suave, y un cielo de suave aspecto; y el aire ahora huele como si soplase desde un lejano prado; han cortado heno en algún sitio al pie de las estribaciones de los Andes, Starbuck, y los segadores duermen entre la hierba recién cortada. ¿Duermen ? Sí, por más que nos esforcemos, todos hemos de dormir al fin en el campo. ¿Dormir ? Sí, ¡y nos pondremos herrumbrosos entre lo verde, como las guadañas que se tiraron el año pasado, y quedaron entre las ringleras a medio cortar, Starbuck !

Pero, blanqueando de desesperación con dolor de cadáver, el primer oficial se había retirado.

Ahab cruzó la cubierta para mirar al otro lado, pero se sobresaltó ante dos ojos fijos que se reflejaban allí en el agua. Fedallah estaba asomado, inmóvil, al mismo pasamanos. 

La caza. Primer día

Aquella noche, durante la guardia de media, cuando el viejo -como solía hacer a intervalos- salió del portillo en que se apoyaba, y llegó a su agujero de pivote, de repente adelantó la cara ferozmente olfateando el aire marino, como un sagaz perro de barco al acercarse a alguna isla bárbara, y declaró que debía haber alguna ballena cerca. Pronto se hizo perceptible a toda la guardia ese peculiar olor que a veces emite a gran distancia el cachalote vivo, y ningún marinero se sorprendió cuando, después de inspeccionar la brújula, y luego el cataviento, y después de asegurarse, en todo lo posible, del rumbo exacto del olor, Ahab ordenó rápidamente que se cambiara un poco el rumbo del barco y se disminuyera de paño.

La aguda prudencia que dictaba esos movimientos quedó justificada suficientemente al alborear, cuando se vio en el mar una larga mancha de calma, delante mismo, suave como el aceite, y semejante, en las plegadas arrugas de agua que la bordeaban, a las pulidas marcas de aspecto metálico de alguna rápida hendidura, de la corriente en una garganta de un torrente profundo y rápido.

¡Vigías a las cofas ! ¡Todos a cubierta !

Tronando con los extremos de tres espeques empuñados contra la cubierta del castillo, Daggoo despertó a los durmientes con tales golpes de juicio Final, que parecieron salir disparados por el portillo, de tan al momento como aparecieron con la ropa en la mano.

-¿Qué veis ? -gritó Ahab, volviendo la cara hacia el cielo.

-¡Nada, nada, capitán ! -fue el sonido que bajó en respuesta.

-¡Juanetes y alas ! ¡Abajo y arriba, y a las dos bandas !

Desplegando todas las velas, soltó entonces el cable reservado o para izarle al mastelero de sobrejuanete, y pocos momentos después le izaban allí, cuando, sólo a dos tercios del camino hacia arriba, y mientras oteaba a través del vacío horizontal entre la vela de gavia y la de juanete, elevó por el aire un grito como de gaviota: -¡Ahí sopla, ahí sopla ! ¡Una joroba como un monte nevado ! ¡Es Moby Dick !

Inflamados por el grito, que pareció repetido al instante por los tres vigías, los marineros en cubierta se precipitaron a las jarcias a observar la famosa ballena que tanto tiempo llevaban persiguiendo. Ahab ahora había alcanzado su altura final, a varios pies por encima de los demás vigías, y Tashtego estaba exactamente por debajo de él en el tamborete del mastelero de juanete, de modo que la cabeza del indio quedaba casi al nivel del talón de Ahab. Desde esa altura, la ballena se veía ahora a poco más de una milla, mostrando a cada ondulación del mar su alta joroba resplandeciente, y disparando con regularidad al aire su silencioso chorro. Para los crédulos marineros, pareció el mismo chorro silencioso que habían observado, hacía tanto tiempo, a la luz de la luna, en los océanos Atlántico e índico.

-¿Y no la visteis antes ninguno de vosotros ? -gritó Ahab, dirigiéndose a los vigías.

-La vi casi en el mismo momento que el capitán Ahab, y la señalé -dijo Tashtego.

-No en el mismo momento, no en el mismo... no, el doblón es mío; el Destino me ha reservado el doblón. Yo sólo he sido: ninguno de vosotros tres habéis sido el primero en avistar a la ballena blanca. ¡Ahí sopla, ahí sopla, ahí sopla ! ¡Otra vez, otra vez ! -gritó, en tono prolongado, lento, metódico, a compás de las extensiones graduales de los chorros visibles de la ballena-. ¡Se va a zambullir ! ¡Aferrar las alas ! ¡Arriar juanetes ! ¡Preparados para tres lanchas ! Starbuck, no olvides, quédate a bordo, y guarda el barco. ¡Timonel, orza una cuarta ! ¡Eso; firme, muchacho, firme ! ¡Ahí va una cola ! ¡No, no, es sólo agua negra ! ¿Preparadas todas las lanchas ? ¡Dispuestos todos ! ¡Bájame, Starbuck; baja, baja, deprisa, más deprisa ! -y se deslizó por el aire hasta cubierta.

-Va derecha a sotavento, capitán -gritó Stubb-: delante mismo de nosotros: todavía no puede haber visto el barco.

-¡Cállate, hombre ! ¡Preparados a las brazas ! ¡Caña toda a sotavento ! ¡Braga a ceñir ! ¡Flamear, flamear ! ¡Eso; está bien ! ¡A las lanchas, a las lanchas !

Pronto se arriaron todas las lanchas menos la de Starbuck; se izaron todas las velas de las lanchas y se movieron los canaletes, con velocidad ondeante, disparándose a sotavento, y llevando a Ahab a la cabeza del ataque. Un pálido fulgor mortal iluminaba los hundidos ojos de Fedallah; un horrible gesto le mordía la boca.

Como silenciosas conchas de nautilus, sus leves proas avanzaban rápidas por el mar, pero se acercaban muy despacio al enemigo. Al llegar a su proximidad, el océano se hizo aún más liso: parecía extender una alfombra sobre sus olas: parecía una pradera a mediodía, de tan sereno como se extendía. Por fin el cazador sin aliento llegó tan cerca de su presa, al parecer libre de sospechas, que se hizo enteramente visible toda su abrumadora joroba, deslizándose por el mar como una cosa aislada, y envuelta continuamente en un anillo giratorio de la espuma más fina, como vellón verdoso. Vio las vastas y enredadas arrugas de la cabeza levemente replegada hacia atrás. Por delante de ella, a buena distancia, en las aguas blandas como alfombra persa, iba la centelleante sombra blanca de su ancha frente lechosa, y una ondulación musical que acompañaba juguetonamente a la sombra; y por detrás, las aguas azules fluían intercambiándose entre el valle móvil de su firme estela; y a un lado y a otro, claras burbujas surgían y danzaban junto a ella. Pero éstas volvían a romperse con las leves patas de centenares de alegres aves que salpicaban suavemente de plumas el mar, alternando con su vuelo entrecortado. Como un asta de bandera elevándose del casco pintado de una carabela, el alto, pero destrozado, palo de una lanza reciente salía del lomo de la ballena blanca; y de vez en cuando, alguno de la nube de pájaros de suaves patas que revoloteaban rasantes, como un baldaquino sobre el pez, se posaba y se mecía silenciosamente en ese palo, con sus largas plumas de la cola tendidas al viento como gallardetes.

Una suave alegría, una poderosa suavidad de reposo con velocidad revestía a la ballena en su avance. Ni el blanco toro Júpiter escapando a nado con la raptada Europa agarrada a sus graciosos cuernos, y con sus ojos atentos, maliciosos y enamorados, mirando de medio lado a la doncella, al navegar, con suave rapidez hechizadora, hacia su escondrijo nupcial en Creta; ni Jove, esa gran majestad suprema, superó a la glorificada ballena blanca al nadar de modo tan divino.

A cada uno de sus suaves lados -coincidiendo con la onda dividida, que, después de elevarla, luego se separaba tanto en su fluir-, a cada uno de sus claros lados, la ballena derramaba seducciones. No era extraño que entre sus cazadores algunos hubieran sido tan arrebatados y seducidos por toda esa serenidad, que se hubieran atrevido a asaltarla, para encontrar fatalmente que esa quietud no era sino el disfraz de los huracanes. Pero tranquila, seductoramente tranquila, ¡oh, ballena !, avanzas deslizándote, y para todos los que te miran por primera vez, no importa cuántos puedas haber engañado y seducido antes de ese modo.

Y así, a través de las serenas tranquilidades del mar tropical, en tre olas cuyaspalmadas quedaban suspendidas por el éxtasis, Moby Dick se movía, aún escondiendo a la vista todos los terrores de su mole sumergida, y ocultando por entero el retorcido horror de su mandíbula. Pero pronto su parte delantera se elevó lentamente del agua; por un momento todo su cuerpo marmóreo formó un gran arco, como el Puente Natural de Virginia, y, como un aviso, agitó en el aire su cola igual que una bandera: el gran dios se reveló, se zambulló, y desapareció de la vista. Deteniéndose aleteantes y picando en el vuelo, las blancas aves marinas se demoraron anhelantes sobre el agitado charco que dejó.

Con los remos alzados, y los canaletes bajos, y con las escotas de las velas sueltas, las tres lanchas seguían flotando tranquilamente, en espera de la reaparición de Moby Dick.

-Una hora -dijo Ahab, quedándose arraigado en la proa de su lancha, y miró más allá del sitio de la ballena, hacia los penumbrosos espacios azules y los anchos vacíos fascinadores a sotavento. Fue sólo un momento, pues otra vez sus ojos parecieron revolverse en su cara al recorrer todo el círculo de aguas. La brisa ahora refrescaba; el mar empezaba a hincharse.

-¡Los pájaros, los pájaros ! -gritó Tashtego.

En larga fila india, como las avutardas cuando emprenden el vuelo, los pájaros blancos volaban ahora todos hacia la lancha de Ahab, y al llegar a pocos pasos de él, empezaron a revolotear por el agua, girando en torno con alegres gritos de expectación. Su visión era más aguda que la del hombre; Ahab no podía descubrir señal alguna en el mar. Pero de repente, al escudriñar más y más hondo en sus profundidades, vio en lo hondo un blanco punto vivo, no mayor que una comadreja blanca, que subía con prodigiosa celeridad, agrandándose al subir, hasta que se volvió y entonces se mostraron claramente dos largas filas retorcidas de relucientes dientes blancos, subiendo a flote desde el fondo inescrutable. Era la boca abierta de Moby Dick y su mandíbula curvada; su vasta mole ensombrecida, aún medio mezclada con el azul del mar. La boca resplandeciente bostezaba bajo la lancha como una tumba marmórea con las puertas abiertas; y Ahab, dando un golpe lateral con el remo de gobernalle, hizo girar su embarcación desviándola de esa tremenda aparición. Luego, llamando a Fedallah para cambiar de sitio con él, se adelantó a la proa, y empuñando el arpón de Perth, mandó a sus tripulantes que agarraran los remos y se prepararan a retroceder.

Ahora, a causa del oportuno giro en redondo de la lancha sobre su eje, la proa, por anticipación, vino a quedar frente a la cabeza de la ballena cuando todavía estaba debajo del agua. Pero Moby Dick, como si percibiera esta estratagema con la maliciosa inteligencia que se le atribuía, se trasladó de lado, por decirlo así, en un momento, disparando hacia delante su arrugada cabeza por debajo de la lancha.

Toda entera, en cada tabla y cada cuaderna, la lancha vibró por un instante, mientras la ballena, tendida oblicuamente sobre el lomo, a modo de un tiburón al morder, se metía la proa en la boca, despacio y como a tientas, de tal modo que la larga mandíbula inferior, estrecha y torcida, se elevó, rizada, por el aire, y uno de los dientes se atrancó en una chumacera. La azulada blancura perlada del interior de la mandíbula estaba a seis pulgadas de Ahab, llegando más arriba de ésta. En esa postura, la ballena blanca sacudía el ligero cedro como un gato benignamente cruel a su ratón. Con ojos sin asombro, Fedallah miró cruzándose de brazos, pero los tripulantes de amarillo atigrado se atropellaron unos sobre las cabezas de otros para alcanzar el extremo de popa.

Y entonces, mientras ambas elásticas regalas vibraban encogiéndose y estirándose, a la ballena, en su juego diabólico con la embarcación condenada, por tener el cuerpo sumergido bajo la lancha, no se la podía arponear desde la proa, pues la proa estaba casi dentro de ella, por decirlo así, y mientras las demás lanchas se detenían involuntariamente, como ante una crisis vital imposible de resistir, entonces, el monomaníaco Ahab, furioso con la cercanía tantalizadora de su enemigo, que le ponía vivo e inerme en las mismas mandíbulas que odiaba, entró en frenesí con todo ello, agarró el largo hueso con las manos descubiertas, y se esforzó locamente por arrancarle la lancha. Al intentarlo así vanamente, la mandíbula se le escapó; las frágiles regalas se doblaron y se deshicieron con un chasquido, mientras las mandíbulas, como enormes tijeras, deslizándose más a popa, cortaron completamente en dos la lancha de un mordisco, y se volvieron a cerrar firmemente en el mar, en medio de los dos restos flotantes. Estos quedaron a sus lados, con los extremos rotos hundidos, mientras los tripulantes, en el resto de popa, se agarraban a las regalas y trataban de sujetarse a los remos para amarrarlos de través.

En ese momento inicial, antes de que se partiera la lancha, Ahab, el primero en darse cuenta de la intención de la ballena -por la hábil elevación de la cabeza, movimiento que le hizo soltar su propio apoyo por el momento-, hizo con la mano en ese instante un esfuerzo final para sacar de un empujón a la lancha fuera del mordisco. Pero la lancha, resbalando más al interior de la boca de la ballena, y escorándose al deslizarse, le quitó su apoyo en la mandíbula, volcándole fuera, al inclinarse para empujar, de modo que se cayó de cara en el mar.

Retirándose de su presa entre oleadas, Moby Dick quedó a poca distancia, sacando y metiendo verticalmente su alargada cabeza blanca por entre las olas y, a la vez haciendo girar todo su cuerpo ahusado, de modo que cuando subía su vasta frente arrugada -a unos veinte pies o más fuera del agua- las olas entonces levantadas, con todas sus ondas confluyentes, se rompían centelleantes contra ella, lanzando vengativamente su desgarrada salpicadura aún más alto por el aire. Así en una galerna, las ondas del Canal, sólo a medias días derrotadas, retroceden desde la base de Eddystone, para sobrepasar triunfalmente su cima por su carrera.

Pero volviendo a tomar pronto su postura horizontal, Moby Dick nadó rápidamente en torno a la tripulación náufraga, revolviendo lateralmente el agua en su vengativa estela, como si se animase a latigazos para otro ataque aún más mortal. La vista de la lancha hecha astillas parecía enloquecerla, como la sangre de uvas y moras echadas ante los elefantes de Antíoco, en el Libro de los Macabeos. Mientras tanto Ahab, medio ahogado en la espuma de la insolente cola de la ballena, y demasiado inválido para nadar -aunque todavía podía mantenerse a flote, aun en el corazón de semejante torbellino-, el inerme Ahab, mostraba la cabeza como una burbuja zarandeada que puede estallar a la menor ocasión. Desde la fragmentada popa de la lancha, Fedallah le observaba sin curiosidad y con benignidad; los tripulantes agarrados al otro extremo a la deriva no podían socorrerle, y ya hacían de sobra por cuidarse de sí mismos. Pues tan trastornadamente horrorizador era el aspecto de la ballena blanca, y tan planetariamente rápidos eran los círculos, cada vez más estrechos, que trazaba, que parecía ir a caer sobre ellos de plano. Y aunque las otras lanchas, intactas, todavía andaban por allí cerca, no se atrevían a remar hacia el remolino para arponear, no fuera a ser ésa la señal para la destrucción instantánea de los proscritos en peligro, Ahab incluido; y tampoco en ese caso podrían esperar ellos salvarse. Con miradas tensas, pues, se quedaron en el margen exterior de la zona de peligro, cuyo centro había llegado a ser la cabeza del viejo.

Mientras tanto, todo esto se había avistado desde las cofas del barco, que, braceando en cruz, se había dirigido hacia la escena, y llegaba ya tan cerca que Ahab, desde el agua, le gritó: -Navegad contra... Pero en ese instante una ola que provenía de Moby Dick rompió contra él, y le abrumó por el momento. Sin embargo, volvió a salir luchando de ella, y al encontrarse en lo alto de una elevada cresta, gritó: -¡Navegad contra la ballena ! ¡Echadla de aquí !

El Pequod puso proa, y, rompiendo el círculo encantado, logró eficazmente separar a la ballena blanca de su víctima. Y mientras aquélla se alejaba de mal humor, las lanchas acudieron al salvamento.

Arrastrado a la lancha de Stubb con ojos cegados e inyectados de sangre, y con la espuma blanca cuajándose en sus arrugas, la larga tensión de la energía corporal de Ahab pareció quebrarse, y cedió inerme al juicio de su cuerpo por algún tiempo, quedando aplastado en el fondo de la lancha de Stubb, como pisado por las patas de rebaños de elefantes. Desde lo más íntimo de él, salían gemidos sin nombre, como desolados sonidos desde barrancos.

Pero esa intensidad de su postración física sirvió para abreviarla. En el margen de un instante, grandes corazones condensan a veces en un solo dolor agudísimo la suma total de esas penas superficiales que se difunden benignamente a través de las vidas enteras de hombres más débiles. Y así tales corazones, aunque sumarios en el sufrimiento de cada uno, sin embargo, si lo decretan los dioses, se reúnen en su vida entera toda una era de sufrimiento, completamente compuesta de intensidad instantánea, pues, aun en sus centros sin extensión, esas nobles naturalezas contienen los enteros ámbitos de almas inferiores.

-El arpón -dijo Ahab, medio levantándose, y apoyándose a rastras en un brazo doblado -¿está a salvo ?

-Sí, capitán, porque no se lanzó: es éste -dijo Stubb mostrándoselo.

-Pónmelo delante: ¿faltan hombres ?

-Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco... había cinco remeros, capitán, y aquí hay cinco hombres.

-Está bien. Ayúdame: quiero ponerme de pie. ¡Eso, eso, la veo ! "¡Allí, allí ! Todavía a sotavento: ¡cómo salta el chorro ! ¡Quitadme las manos de encima ! ¡La savia eterna vuelve a correr por los huesos de Ahab ! Izad la vela; fuera los remos; ¡la caña !

Ocurre a menudo que, cuando se desfonda una lancha, sus tripulantes, recogidos por otra, ayudan al trabajo en esa segunda lancha, y la caza continúa así con lo que se llaman remos de doble bancada. Así fue ahora. Pero la aumentada fuerza de la lancha no igualó a la aumentada fuerza de la ballena, pues parecía haber puesto triple bancada a cada una de sus aletas, nadando con una velocidad que mostraba claramente que si ahora, en esas circunstancias, se proseguía la persecución, se prolongaría indefinidamente y sin esperanzas; y no había tripulación que pudiera aguantar tan largo período de tensión intensa e ininterrumpida en el remo: cosa apenas soportable solamente en alguna breve vicisitud. El propio barco, entonces, ofrecía el medio más prometedor para proseguir entretanto la caza. Conforme a esto, las lanchas se dirigieron entonces hacia él y pronto se acercaron a sus cabrias -amarrándose a ellas previamente las dos partes de la lancha destrozada- para izarlo luego todo al costado, tras de lo cual se desplegaron todas las velas y se reforzaron lateralmente con « alas », como las alas de doble coyuntura del albatros, y el Pequod siguió a sotavento la estela de Moby Dick. Con los conocidos intervalos metódicos, se anunciaba regularmente el centelleante chorro de la ballena desde las cofas, y cuando se informaba de que se había sumergido, Ahab observaba la hora, y luego, recorriendo la cubierta con el reloj de bitácora en la mano, en cuanto expiraba el último segundo de la hora prevista, se oía su voz: -¿De quién es ahora el doblón ? ¿La veis ? Y si la respuesta era « ¡No, capitán ! », al momento mandaba que le izaran a su altura. De ese modo pasó el día Ahab; unas veces en lo alto e inmóvil; otras veces, caminando inquieto por la cubierta.

Mientras andaba así, sin emitir sonido, excepto para gritar a los vigías, o para pedir a los marineros que izaran más alto una vela, o que extendieran otra con mayor extensión; andando así, bajo su sombrero ladeado, a cada vuelta pasaba ante su propia lancha destrozada, que habían tirado en cubierta y quedaba allí volcada: la rota proa junto a la aniquilada popa. Por fin se detuvo ante ella; y lo mismo que en un cielo ya nublado a veces cruzan nuevas bandadas de nubes, así sobre la cara del viejo se deslizó una nueva tenebrosidad.

Stubb le vio detenerse, y quizá pretendiendo, aunque no con vanidad, evidenciar su propia fortaleza inabatida, y conservar así plaza de valiente en el ánimo del capitán, avanzó, y mirando la ruina, exclamó: -¡El cardo que ha rehusado el burro; le pinchaba demasiado la boca, capitán, ja, ja !

-¿Qué ser sin alma es éste que se ríe delante de un destrozo ? ¡Hombre, hombre ! Si no supiera que eres tan valiente como el fuego sin temor (y tan maquinal como él) podría jurar que eres un cobarde. No gimas ni rías ante un resto de naufragio.

-Sí, capitán -dijo Starbuck, acercándose-: es un espectáculo solemne: un agüero, y malo.

-¿Agüero, agüero ? ¡El diccionario ! Si los dioses piensan hablar con franqueza al hombre, le hablan honradamente con franqueza, y no sacuden la cabeza y le dan una oscura sugerencia de viejas. ¡Vete ! los dos sois los polos opuestos de una cosa: Starbuck es Stubb al revés, y Stubb, es Starbuck al revés: y sin embargo, los dos sois toda la humanidad, y Ahab está solo entre los millones de la tierra poblada, sin tener dioses ni hombres por vecinos suyos. ¡Frío, frío ! ¡Tirito ! ¿Y ahora qué ? ¡Eh, arriba ! ¿La veis ? Señalad cada chorro, aunque lo lance diez veces por segundo.

El día casi había acabado; sólo se arrastraba la orla de su manto dorado. Pronto estuvo casi oscuro, pero no se hacía bajar aún a los vigías.

-Ya no podemos ver el chorro, capitán... demasiado oscuro... -gritó una voz desde el aire.

-¿Qué rumbo llevaba la última vez que la viste ?

-Como antes, capitán; derecho a sotavento.

¡Bien ! Esta noche viajará más despacio. Starbuck, arría juanetes y alas. No debemos alcanzarla antes de la mañana; ahora está haciendo una travesía, y podría ponerse un rato al pairo. ¡Eh, timonel !, ¡pon viento en popa ! ¡Los de arriba, bajad ! Stubb, envía un relevo a la cofa del palo mayor, y que siga habiendo alguien hasta que amanezca. -Luego, avanzando hacia el doblón en el palo mayor-: Muchachos, este oro es mío, porque me lo he ganado, pero lo dejaré ahí hasta que muera la ballena blanca; y ahora, el primero de vosotros que la señale en el día que muera, se ganará este oro; y si ese día la vuelvo a señalar yo, se repartirá entre vosotros diez veces esta suma. ¡Ahora, fuera ! La cubierta es tuya.

Y diciendo así, se puso a medio camino en el portillo, y, ladeando el sombrero, se quedó allí hasta el amanecer, salvo cuando, a intervalos, se levantaba para ver cómo iba la noche. 

La caza. Segundo día

Al romper el día, se relevaron puntualmente los tres vigías de las cofas.

-¿La veis ? -gritó Ahab, después de dejar un pequeño intervalo para que la luz se difundiese.

-No vemos nada, capitan.

¡Todos a cubierta, y a toda vela ! Viaja más deprisa de lo que yo creía; ¡las velas de juanete... ! sí, deberían haberse dejado toda la noche. Pero no importa... no es más que descansar para lanzarse.

Aquí ha de decirse que esta pertinaz persecución de una determinada ballena proseguida a lo largo del día y de la noche, es cosa que no carece en modo alguno de precedentes en las pesquerías del mar del Sur. Pues es tal la prodigiosa habilidad, previsión de experiencia, y confianza invencible adquiridas por algunos grandes genios naturales entre los capitanes de Nantucket, que, por la simple observación de una ballena al ser avistada por última vez, son capaces, en ciertas circunstancias dadas, de predecir con bastante exactitud tanto la dirección fuera del alcance de la vista, cuanto su probable velocidad de avance durante ese período. Y, en esos casos, de modo algo parecido a como el piloto, cuando va a perder de vista una costa, cuya tendencia general conoce, y a la que desea volver en breve, pero en un punto más avanzado, se sitúa junto a la brújula y toma la posición exacta de la punta entonces visible, para poder acertar con más seguridad el promontorio remoto e invisible que ha de alcanzar por fin, así el pescador observa su brújula, con la ballena, pues tras ser perseguida y diligentemente observada a lo largo de varias horas de luz del día, luego, cuando la noche deja en oscuridad al pez, la futura estela del animal a través de la tiniebla está casi tan establecida para la sagaz mente del cazador como la costa para el piloto. De modo que era esta prodigiosa habilidad del cazador, la proverbial fugacidad de una cosa escrita en el agua, una estela, es tan de fiar, a todos los efectos deseados, como la tierra firme. Y lo mismo que ese poderoso leviatán férreo que es el moderno ferrocarril es tan familiarmente conocido en cada paso que, reloj en mano, los hombres cuentan su velocidad como los médicos el pulso de un niño, y dicen con ligereza que el tren ascendente o el descendente llegará a tal o cual sitio a tal o cual hora, igualmente, hay ocasiones en que estos hombres de Nantucket miden la hora a ese otro leviatán de las profundidades conforme al humor observado en su velocidad, y se dicen que dentro de tantas horas esta ballena habrá llegado a doscientas millas, y estará a punto de llegar a tal o cual grado de latitud o longitud. Pero para que esta agudeza tenga al fin algún éxito, el viento y el mar deben ser aliados del ballenero; pues ¿de qué utilidad inmediata es, para el marinero en calma chicha o con viento contrario, la habilidad que le asegura que está exactamente a noventa y tres leguas y cuarto de su puerto ? Como deducción de estas afirmaciones, se derivan muchos sutiles asuntos colaterales respecto a la caza de las ballenas.

El barco se abría paso, dejando tal surco en el mar como cuando una bala de cañón fallida se convierte en reja de arado y revuelve la superficie del campo.

-¡Por la sal y el cáñamo ! -gritó Stubb-, pero este vivo movimiento de la cubierta le sube a uno por las piernas y la hace cosquillas en el corazón. ¡Este barco y yo somos dos tipos valientes ! ¡Ja, ja ! Que alguien me agarre y me tire al mar de espaldas... pues ¡por el demonio ! tengo un espinazo que es una quilla. ¡Ja, ja ! ¡vamos con unos andares que no dejan polvo atrás !

-¡Ahí sopla, ahí sopla, ahí sopla, ahí delante ! -fue entonces el grito del vigía.

-¡Eso, eso ! -gritó Stubb-, lo sabía... no puedes escapar... ¡sopla y revienta el chorro, oh, ballena ! ¡El loco diablo en persona va tras de ti ! Sopla la trompa... hazte callos en los pulmones... Ahab pondrá dique a tu sangre, como un molinero que cierra la compuerta contra el torrente.

Y Stubb hablaba casi en nombre de toda la tripulación. El frenesí de la persecución, para entonces, les había invadido con su burbujeo como viejo vino renovado. Todos los pálidos miedos y presentimientos que algunos de ellos hubieran podido sentir antes, no sólo se escondían a la vista por creciente intimidación de Ahab, sino que se aniquilaban, huían derrotados por todas partes, como tímidas liebres de pradera que se dispersan ante el bisonte que embiste. La mano del Destino les había arrebatado a todos el alma; y con los agitadores peligros del día anterior, con el tormento de la suspensión de la pasada noche, con el modo fijo, sin temor, ciego, inexorable, con que su loca embarcación avanzaba zambulléndose hacia su blanco huidizo; con todas esas cosas, sus corazones iban disparados como bolas de bolera. El viento que hacía grandes barrigas de sus velas, y empujaba el bajel con brazos tan invisibles como irresistibles, parecía el símbolo de ese agente invisible que así les esclavizaba a la carrera.

Eran un solo hombre, no treinta. Pues igual que en el barco unico que les contenía a todos, aunque estaba compuesto de todas las cosas más opuestas -roble, arce y pino; hierro, pez y canamo-, todas estas cosas se interpenetraban en un solo casco concreto, que avanzaba disparado, a la vez equilibrado y dirigido por la larga quilla central, asimismo todas las individualidades de los tripulantes, el valor de aquel marinero, el miedo de aquel otro, la culpa y la culpabilidad, todo ello iba dirigido a esa metal fatal a que apuntaba Ahab, su único señor y su única quilla.

Las jarcias estaban vivas; las cofas, como las cimas de altas palmeras, rebosaban matas de brazos y piernas. Agarrándose a una percha con una mano, alguno extendía la otra agitándola con braceos impacientes; otros, haciéndose pantalla a los ojos ante la vívida luz del sol, se sentaban asomados a las balanceantes vergas; y toda la arboladura había dado completa generación de mortales, dispuestos y maduros para su destino. ¡Ah ! ¡cómo se esforzaban aún por descubrir en ese azul infinito la cosa que podía destruirles !

-¿Por qué no la señaláis, si la veis ? -gritó Ahab, cuando, tras un lapso de unos minutos tras la primera señal, no se oyó más-. ¡Izadme a lo alto, muchachos; os habéis engañado; Moby Dick nos lanza un chorro suelto de ese modo, para desaparecer después !

Así fue: en su ansia lanzada de cabeza, los marineros habían confundido alguna otra cosa con el chorro, como lo mostraron pronto a los mismos hechos, pues Ahab, apenas había alcanzado su alcándara, y apenas estaba el cable amarrado a su cabilla en cubierta, dio la nota de entrada a una orquesta que hizo vibrar el aire como con descargas combinadas de rifles. El triunfal saludo de treinta pulmones de cuero se escuchó cuando -mucho más cerca del barco que el lugar del chorro imaginario; a menos de una milla a proa- ¡Moby Dick en persona salió a la vista ! Pues la ballena blanca ahora no reveló su cercanía por tranquilos e indolentes chorros, ni por el apacible derrame de aquella mística fuente de su cabeza, sino por el fenómeno, mucho más prodigioso, de su salto. Elevándose con la mayor velocidad desde las mayores profundidades, el cachalote dispara así su entera mole al puro elemento del aire y, acumulando una montaña de espuma deslumbrante, muestra su lugar hasta a distancia de siete millas o más. En esos momentos, las olas rotas y coléricas que se sacude parecen su melena; en algunos casos, ese salto es su gesto de desafío.

-¡Ahí salta, ahí salta ! -fue el grito, al saltar al cielo la ballena blanca, como un salmón, en bravata inconmensurable. Tan repentinamente vista en la llanura azul del mar y recortándose contra el fondo aún más azul del cielo, la salpicadura que levantó, por el momento, centelleó y resplandeció intolerablemente como un glaciar, y se quedó allí disipando gradualmente su primera intensidad chispeante, hasta quedar en la vaga nebulosidad de un chaparrón que avanza por un valle.

-¡Sí, salta al sol por última vez, Moby Dick ! -gritó Ahab-: ¡ya están a mano tu hora y tu arpón ! ¡Abajo, abajo todos vosotros, un solo hombre en el palo de trinquete ! ¡Las lanchas ! ¡Preparados !

Desdeñando las tediosas tablas de jarcia y los obenques, los hombres cayeron en cubierta como estrellas errantes por burdas y estáis aislados, mientras Ahab, menos fugaz, aunque rápidamente, fue descolgado de su alcándara.

-Arriad las lanchas -gritó, tan pronto como alcanzó la suya: una lancha de repuesto, aparejada la tarde anterior-: Starbuck, el barco es tuyo; manténte separado de las lanchas, pero siempre cerca de ellas. ¡Arriad, todos !

Como para infundirles un vivo terror al ser esta vez la primera en atacar, Moby Dick se había vuelto y ahora se dirigía contra las tres tripulaciones. La lancha de Ahab estaba en medio; él, animando a sus hombres, les dijo que abordarían a la ballena proa a proa, esto es, remando derechos contra su frente; cosa no insólita, pues, dentro de ciertos límites, tal procedimiento deja el ataque inminente fuera de la visión lateral de la ballena. Pero antes de alcanzar esos límites, y cuando todavía las tres lanchas estaban tan claras ante sus ojos como los tres palos del barco, la ballena blanca, tomando furiosa velocidad, casi en un instante, como quien dice, se precipitó entre las lanchas con las mandíbulas abiertas y con la cola dando latigazos, en horrenda batalla a ambos lados; y sin prestar atención a los arpones que le disparaban desde todas las lanchas, parecía sólo empeñada en aniquilar hasta la última tabla de que estuvieran hechas esas lanchas. Pero con hábiles maniobras y girando incesantemente como corceles entrenados en la batalla, las lanchas la eludieron algún tiempo, aunque a veces por el ancho de una tabla, mientras, durante todo ese tiempo, el sobrenatural grito de Ahab hacía jirones todo clamor que no fuera el suyo.

Pero por fin, en sus indistinguibles evoluciones, la ballena blanca cruzó y recruzó de tal modo, y enredó de mil maneras la extensión de las tres estachas que ahora la sujetaban, que se acortaron, y, por sí mismos, remolcaron a las obstinadas lanchas hacia los arpones clavados en ella, aunque entonces, por un momento, la ballena se echó un poco a un lado, como para concentrarse para un empujón más tremendo. Aprovechando esa oportunidad, Ahab empezó por soltar más estacha, y luego haló y recogió cada vez más, esperando de ese modo deshacer algunos enredos, cuando he aquí que se vio un espectáculo más salvaje que los dientes belicosos de los tiburones.

Enredados y retorcidos, prendidos en los laberintos del cable, arpones sueltos y lanzas, con todos sus aguzados filos y puntas, salieron, centelleando y goteando, hasta los bordes de la lancha de Ahab. Sólo cabía hacer una cosa. Empuñando el cuchillo de la lancha, lo metió en el momento crítico dentro, a través, y luego fuera de los radios de acero; tiró de la estacha que venía detrás, la pasó, dentro de la lancha, al remero de proa, y luego, cortando dos veces la estacha junto a la regala, tiró al mar todo el haz prendido de acero, y todo quedó como antes. En ese momento, la ballena blanca lanzó un ataque repentino entre los restantes enredos de las otras estachas, y, al hacerlo, arrastró irresistiblemente las lanchas de Stubb y Flask, más enredadas, hacia su cola; las golpeó juntas como dos cáscaras flotantes en una playa batida por la mar, y luego, sumergiéndose en lo hondo, desapareció en un remolino hirviente, en que durante un intervalo las aromáticas astillas de cedro de las lanchas destrozadas bailaron dando vueltas como la nuez moscada rallada en un bol de ponche agitado con rapidez.

Mientras las dos tripulaciones seguían aún dando vueltas en las aguas queriendo aferrarse a las tinas de estacha, a los remos, y a otros objetos flotantes; mientras el pequeño Flask, escorado, subía y bajaba en el agua como una botella vacía, retorciendo las piernas hacia arriba, para escapar a las temibles mandíbulas de los tiburones, y Stubb gritaba enérgicamente que alguno le sacase a flote; y mientras el cable del viejo, ahora cortado, le permitía remar al cremoso charco para salvar a quien pudiera; en esa salvaje simultaneidad de mil peligros concretados, la lancha de Ahab, todavía intacta, pareció elevada al cielo por cables invisibles, cuando, como una flecha, disparándose verticalmente desde el mar, la ballena blanca lanzó su ancha frente contra su fondo y la mandó dando vueltas por el aire, hasta que volvió a caer, quilla arriba, y Ahab y sus hombres, lucharon por salir de debajo de ella, como focas en una cueva costera.

El primer impulso ascendente de la ballena -modificando su dirección al llegar a la superficie- involuntariamente la lanzó por ella a cierta distancia del centro de la destrucción que había causado; y, dándole la espalda, se quedó entonces un momento tocándose con la cola de lado a lado, y cada vez que encontraba en su piel un remo perdido, un trozo de tabla, o la menor astilla o migaja de las lanchas, la cola se echaba atrás vivamente y daba un golpe lateral por el agua. Pero pronto, como asegurada de que su tarea estaba cumplida por esa vez, hizo avanzar su frente arrugada por el océano, y, llevando a remolque las estachas enredadas, continuó su travesía a sotavento, con metódica velocidad de viajero.

Como antes, el atento barco observó toda la lucha y volvió a acercarse para el salvamento: arrió una lancha, y recogió a los marineros a flote, las tinas, remos, y todo lo demás que pudiera alcanzarse, llevándoselo a cubierta. Había de todo: hombros, muñecas y tobillos dislocados; contusiones con cardenales; arpones y lanzas retorcidos, remos y tablas destruidos, pero no parecía haberle ocurrido a nadie ningún mal fatal, ni aun serio. Como Fedallah el día anterior, Ahab apareció entonces sobriamente agarrado a la mitad rota de su lancha, que proporcionaba una flotación relativamente cómoda, y no se agotó tanto como en la desventura del día anterior.

Pero cuando le ayudaron a subir a cubierta, todas las miradas quedaron clavadas en él, porque en vez de erguirse por sí mismo, medio colgaba del hombro de Starbuck, que hasta entonces había sido el primero en asistirle. Su pierna de marfil estaba arrancada, dejando sólo una astilla corta y aguda.

-Eso, eso, Starbuck, a veces es dulce apoyarse, en quienquiera que uno se apoye: y ojalá que el viejo Ahab se hubiera apoyado más a menudo.

-El zuncho no ha resistido, capitán -dijo el carpintero, acudiendo entonces-; había metido buen trabajo en esa pierna.

-Pero espero que no se habrá roto ningún hueso -dijo Stubb, con sincero interés.

-¡Sí, y todo astillado en pedazos, Stubb ! Ya lo ves. Pero aun con un hueso roto, el viejo Ahab sigue intacto, y consideró que ningún hueso vivo mío es ni una jota más yo mismo que este hueso muerto que se ha perdido. Ni hay ballena blanca, ni hombre, ni demonio que pueda más que arañar al viejo Ahab en su propio ser inaccesible. ¿Puede algún plomo de sonda tocar ese fondo, o algún mástil rascar ese techo ? ¡Eh, vigías ! ¿Por dónde va ?

-Derecho a sotavento, capitán.

-¡Caña a barlovento, entonces; desplegad todas las velas otra vez, guardianes del barco ! ¡Abajo las lanchas de repuesto y aparejadlas ! Starbuck, ve a pasar revista a las tripulaciones de las lanchas.

-Déjeme primero acercarle a batayolas, capitán.

-¡Ah, ah, ah ! ¡Cómo me acornea ahora esta astilla ! ¡Destino maldito ! ¡que el invencible capitán del alma tenga tan mísero primer oficial !

-¿Capitán ?

-Mi cuerpo, hombre, no tú. Dame algo de bastón... eso, esa lanza rota servirá. Pasa revista a los hombres. Seguramente, no le he visto todavía. ¡Por el Cielo ! ¡No puede ser ! ¿Falta ? ¡Deprisa ! llámalos a todos.

El pensamiento sugerido por el viejo era cierto. Al pasar revista a los hombres, no estaba el Parsi.

-¡El Parsi ! -gritó Stubb-: debió quedar enredado en...

-¡Que te mate el vómito negro ! ¡Corred todos vosotros, arriba, abajo, al castillo... encontradle... no se ha ido... no se ha ido !

Pero volvieron rápidamente a él con la noticia de que el Parsi no se encontraba en ningún sitio.

-Sí, capitán -dijo Stubb-, se enredó entre los nudos de su estacha... Me pareció verle arrastrado abajo por la ballena.

-¡Mi estacha, mi estacha ! ¿Se ha ido, se ha ido ? ¿Qué quieren decir esas palabritas ? ¿Qué toque de muerte suena en ellas, que el viejo Ahab tiembla como si fuese el campanario ? ¡El arpón, también ! Tira ese montón... ¿lo veis ? el hierro forjado, hombre, el de la ballena blanca... no, no, no... ¡tonto encallecido ! ¡esta mano lo disparó !... ¡está en el pez ! ¡Eh, vigías ! ¡No perderla de vista ! ¡Deprisa ! Todos los hombres a aparejar las lanchas... reunid los remos... ¡arponeros ! ¡los hierros, los hierros ! Izad los sobrejuanetes... ¡cazad todas las escotas ! ¡Eh, timonel, derecho, derecho, por tu vida ! ¡Daré la vuelta diez veces al globo inmenso; sí, y me zambulliré derecho hasta atravesarlo, pero todavía la he de matar !

-¡Gran Dios ! ¡Pero por un momento muéstrese en sí mismo ! -gritó Starbuck-: jamás, jamás la capturarás, viejo. En nombre de Jesús, basta de esto: es peor que la locura del diablo. Dos días persiguiendo, dos veces desfondado en astillas; la misma pierna, otra vez se la han arrebatado de debajo; se ha ido su sombra mala... todos los ángeles buenos le acosan con exhortaciones... ¿qué más quiere tener ? ¿Hemos de seguir persiguiendo a ese pez asesino hasta que hunda al último hombre ? ¿Nos ha de arrastrar al fondo del mar ? ¿Nos ha de arrastrar al fondo del mar ? ¿Nos ha de remolcar hasta el mundo infernal ? Ah, ah... ¡es impiedad y blasfemia seguir persiguiéndola !

-Starbuck, últimamente he sentido extraño afecto por ti; desde aquel momento en que los dos vimos... ya sabes qué, el uno en los ojos del otro. Pero en este asunto de la ballena, la vista de tu cara ha de ser para mí como la palma de esta mano, un vacío sin labios ni rasgos. Ahab es para siempre Ahab, hombre. Todo esto está decretado de modo inmutable. Lo ensayamos tú y yo un billón de años antes que se meciera el océano. ¡Loco ! Soy el lugarteniente del Destino; actúo bajo órdenes. ¡Mira, esclavo !, a ver si me obedeces. Poneos a mi alrededor, hombres. Veis a un viejo cortado hasta el tocón, apoyándose en una lanza rota, sostenido por un solo pie. Este es Ahab... su parte corporal; pero el alma de Ahab es un ciempiés, que avanza sobre cien patas. Me siento tenso, medio deshilachado, como los cables que remolcan fragatas desarboladas en una galerna, y es posible que así lo parezca. Pero antes de romperme, me oiréis crujir; hasta que lo oigáis, saber que la guindaleza de Ahab aún sigue remolcando su propósito. ¿Creéis vosotros, hombres, en esas cosas llamadas agüeros ? Entonces, ¡reíd fuerte, y pedid el bis ! Pues antes que ahoguen, las cosas que ahogan tiene que subir dos veces a la superficie; y luego subir otra vez y hundirse para siempre. Así es con Moby Dick: dos días ha salido a flote: mañana será el tercero. Eso, hombres, volverá a subir... ¡pero sólo para lanzar el último chorro ! ¿Os sentís hombres valientes ?

-Como el fuego sin temor -gritó Stubb.

-Y lo mismo de maquinales -murmuró Ahab. Y luego, al marchar los marineros a proa, siguió murmurando-: ¡Esas cosas llamadas agüeros ! Y ayer le dije lo mismo aquí a Starbuck, sobre mi lancha destrozada. ¡Ah, qué valientemente trato de arrancar de los corazones de los demás lo que se ha prendido tan fuerte en el mío ! ¡El Parsi, el Parsi ! ¡Se ha ido, se ha ido ! Y él tenía que irse por delante... Pero todavía se le había de ver otra vez antes que yo pudiera perecer... ¿Cómo es eso ? Ese es un acertijo que ahora podría desconcertar a todos los abogados, respaldados por los fantasmas de toda la estirpe de los jueces... Me pica en los sesos como el pico de un halcón. Pero ¡yo, yo lo resolveré !

Cuando cayó la noche, todavía se veía la ballena a sotavento.

Así que, una vez más, se recogieron las velas, y todo ocurrió casi igual que la noche anterior, salvo que se oyó el ruido de los martillos y el zumbido de la muela hasta cerca del amanecer, mientras los hombres trabajaban, a la luz de faroles, en el completo y cuidadoso aparejo de las lanchas de repuesto, y en el afilado de sus nuevas armas para el día siguiente. Entretanto, con la quilla rota de la embarcación destrozada de Ahab, el carpintero le hizo otra pierna, mientras, también como la noche pasada, Ahab, con el sombrero ladeado, permanecía fijo en su portillo, con su oculta mirada de heliotropo girando por adelantado en su esfera horaria, y orientándose hacia el este en espera del primer sol. 

La caza. Tercer día

La mañana del tercer día amaneció clara y fresca, y una vez más el solitario guardián nocturno en la cofa de trinquete fue relevado por multitudes de vigías diurnos, que puntearon todos los palos y casi todas las vergas.

-¿La veis ? -gritaba Ahab, pero la ballena todavía no estaba a la vista.

-Es su estela sin falta, sin embargo; pero sigamos esa estela, eso es todo. Eh, timonel; derecho, como vas y como ibas. ¡Qué delicioso día otra vez ! Aunque fuera un mundo recién hecho, y hecho para glorieta de los ángeles, y esta mañana fuera la primera en que se les abriera de par en par, no podría haber alboreado un día más claro sobre el mundo. Aquí habrá materia para los pensamientos, si Ahab tuviera tiempo para pensar, pero Ahab no piensa nunca; solamente siente, siente, siente; eso ya le hormiguea bastante a un hombre mortal: pensar en audacia. Sólo Dios tiene ese derecho y privilegio. Pensar es, o debería ser, una frialdad y una calma; y nuestros pobres corazones laten, y nuestros pobres cerebros palpitan demasiado para eso. Y sin embargo, a veces he pensado que mi cerebro estaba muy tranquilo, en calma helada: este viejo cráneo se resquebraja así, como un vaso cuyo contenido se ha vuelto hielo, y lo rompe. Y sin embargo, este pelo crece ahora; en este momento crece, y el calor debe criarlo; pero no, es como esa especie de hierba común que crece en cualquier sitio, entre las grietas terrosas del hielo de Groenlandia o en la lava del Vesubio. Cómo lo agitan los vientos salvajes: lo azotan en torno a mí como los jirones desgarrados de las velas partidas azotan al barco zarandeado a que se agarran. Un viento vil que, sin duda, ha soplado antes por pasillos y celdas de cárcel, y salas de hospital, y las ha ventilado, y ahora viene soplando tan inocente como piel de cordero. ¡Fuera con él ! Está manchado. Si yo fuera el viento, no soplaría más en el mundo miserable y perverso. Iría a gatas, no sé dónde, a una cueva, y me escurriría allí. Y sin embargo, ¡qué cosa noble y heroica, el viento ! ¿Quién lo ha dominado jamás ? En toda pelea él tiene el último y más amargo soplo. Corred contra él en justa, y no haréis sino pasar a través de él. ¡Ah ! es un viento cobarde que hiere a hombres desnudos, pero no se yergue para recibir un solo golpe. Hasta Ahab es algo más valiente, algo más noble que eso. Ojalá el viento tuviera ahora un cuerpo; pero todas las cosas que más exasperan y ofenden al hombre, todas esas cosas son incorpóreas, aunque sólo incorpóreas como objetos, no como agentes. ¡Hay una diferencia muy especial, ah, muy maliciosa ! Y sin embargo, vuelvo a decir, y ahora lo juro, que hay algo por completo glorioso y gracioso en el viento; en estos tibios alisios, al menos, que soplan continuos bajo claros cielos, con suavidad recia y firme y vigorosa; y no se desvían de su blanco, por más que den vuelta y viren, más viles, las corrientes del mar, y los más poderosos Mississippis de la tierra cambien y se desvíen, dudosos de dónde ir a parar al fin. .Y ¡por los Polos eternos ! esos mismos alisios que tan derechamente empujan mi buen barco, esos alisios, o algo como ellos, ¡algo tan inalterable, y tan plenamente recio, hace avanzar con su soplo mi quilla ! ¡A ello ! ¡Eh, vigías ! ¿Qué veis ?

-Nada, capitán.

-¡Nada ! ¡y es casi mediodía ! ¡El doblón va pidiendo limosna ! -¡Mirad el sol ! Sí, sí, así debe ser. Le he adelantado. ¿Cómo, he tomado mucho impulso ? Sí, ahora ella me persigue; no yo a ella... eso está mal: podía haberlo sabido, además. ¡Tonto ! los cables... los arpones que remolca. Sí, la he alcanzado esta noche. ¡Virad, virad ! ¡Bajad todos, menos los vigías de turno ! ¡A las bracas!

Con el rumbo que había llevado, el viento había quedado más o menos a popa del Pequod, de modo que ahora, al tomar rumbo en dirección opuesta, el barco así braceado navegó proa al viento volviendo a agitar la espuma de su propia estela blanca.

-A contraviento, ahora pone rumbo a la mandíbula abierta -murmuró Starbuck para sí, adujando sobre la batayola la braza mayor recién cazada-. Dios nos guarde, pero ya siento los huesos húmedos dentro de mí, y mi carne mojada por dentro. ¡Sospecho que desobedezco a mi Dios al obedecerle !

-¡Preparados para izarme ! -gritó Ahab, avanzando hacia el cesto de cáñamo-. Pronto la encontraremos.

-Sí, sí, capitán -e inmediatamente Starbuck hizo lo que le pedía Ahab, y una vez más Ahab se balanceó en lo alto.

Pasó entonces toda una hora, batihojada hasta hacerse siglo. El propio tiempo entonces contenta largamente sus respiros con la punzante suspensión. Pero al fin, a unas tres cuartas a proa, a barlovento, Ahab volvió a avistar el chorro, y al momento, de las tres cofas subieron tres gritos como si las lenguas de fuego les hubieran dado voz.

-¡Frente a frente te encuentro, esta tercera vez, Moby Dick ! ¡Eh, a cubierta ! ¡Bracear más a ceñir; aguantarlo proa al viento ! Todavía está muy lejos para arriar lanchas, Starbuck. ¡Las velas dan gualdrapazos ! ¡Ponte detrás de ese timonel con un mazo en la mano ! Eso, eso; navega deprisa, y tengo que bajar. Pero dejadme que eche a mi alrededor otra buena mirada al mar desde lo alto; hay tiempo para ello. Un espectáculo viejo, muy viejo; sí, y no ha cambiado en nada desde la primera vez que lo vi, siendo muchacho, en los cerros de arena de Nantucket. ¡El mismo, el mismo ! El mismo para Noé que para mí. Hay un ligero chaparrón a sotavento. ¡Qué deliciosos sotaventos ! Deben llevar a alguna parte; algo diferente de la tierra vulgar, más lleno de gracia que las palmeras. ¡A sotavento ! La ballena blanca va para allá; mirad entonces a sotavento; mejor si es el cuarto más duro. Pero ¡adiós, adiós, viejo mastelero ! ¿Qué es eso ? ¿verde ? Sí, hay diminutos musgos en esas grietas retorcidas. ¡No mancha semejante moho de humedad la cabeza de Ahab ! Esa es la diferencia entre la vejez del hombre y de la materia. Pero sí, viejo mástil, los dos envejecemos juntos; sin embargo, estamos sanos de casco, ¿verdad, barco mío ? Sí, con una pierna de menos, eso es todo. Por el Cielo, esta madera muerta aventaja en todos los sentidos a mi carne viva. No puedo compararme con ella; y he sabido de muchos barcos, hechos de árboles muertos, que superaban las vidas de hombres hechos de la materia más vital de padres vitales. ¿Qué es lo que ha dicho ? ¿Que todavía irá por delante de mí, mi piloto, y todavía se le ha de ver otra vez ? Pero ¿dónde ? ¿Tendré ojos en el fondo del mar, suponiendo que descienda esos escalones sin fin ? Y toda la noche he navegado alejándome de él, dondequiera que se hundiese. Sí, sí, como tantos otros, dijiste terribles verdades en cuanto referentes a ti mismo, oh, Parsi; pero, hasta Ahab, aquí no ha llegado tu disparo. Adiós, mastelero: no pierdas de vista a la ballena, mientras yo me voy. Mañana hablaremos, no, esta noche, cuando la ballena blanca yazga aquí, atada por la cabeza y la cola.

Dio la orden y aún mirando a su alrededor, le bajaron sólidamente hasta cubierta a través del hendido aire azul.

En su momento, se arriaron las lanchas, pero Ahab, al erguirse en la popa de su embarcación, cerniéndose a punto de descender, hizo una señal con la mano al primer oficial -que sostenía en cubierta uno de los cables de los aparejos- y le hizo detenerse.

-¡Starbuck !

-¿Capitán ?

-Por tercera vez, el barco de mi alma zarpa para este viaje, Starbuck.

-Sí, capitán, usted lo quiere así.

-Algunos barcos zarpan de sus puertos y luego desaparecen para siempre, Starbuck.

-Es verdad, capitán, amarguísima verdad.

-Algunos hombres mueren con la marea saliente, otros en bajamar, algunos en pleamar; y ahora me siento como una ola que es toda una sola cresta espumosa, Starbuck: soy viejo... dame la mano, hombre.

Sus manos se encontraron: sus ojos se pegaron, con las lágrimas de Starbuck por cola.

-¡Ah, mi capitán, mi capitán ! Noble corazón... no vaya... ¡no vaya ! Vea, es un hombre valiente el que llora; ¡qué grande, entonces, la agonía de su persuasión !

¡Arriad ! -gritó Ahab, sacudiéndose de encima el brazo del primer oficial-. ¡Atención con los marineros !

Un momento después, la lancha remaba virando al pie de la popa.

-¡Los tiburones, los tiburones ! -gritó una voz desde el tragaluz bajo de la cabina que había allí-: ¡Amo, mi amo, vuelve !

Pero Ahab no oyó nada, pues su propia voz estaba entonces gritando, y el barco siguió adelante saltando.

Sin embargo, la voz decía la verdad, pues apenas se había separado del barco, cuando multitudes de tiburones, al parecer subiendo de las oscuras aguas de debajo del casco, mordieron malignamente las palas de los remos, cada vez que se metían en el agua, y de ese modo acompañaron a la lancha con sus mordiscos. Es cosa que ocurre de modo nada insólito a las lanchas balleneras en esas aguas infestadas, como si los tiburones las siguieran del mismo modo previsor con que los buitres se ciernen en Oriente sobre las banderas de los regimientos que avanzan. Pero ésos eran los primeros tiburones que se habían observado en el Pequod desde la primera vez que se avistó la ballena blanca; y bien fuera porque los tripulantes de Ahab eran tales bárbaros de amarillo atigrado, y por consiguiente su carne era más perfumada para el sentido de los tiburones -cosa que a veces se sabe muy bien que les afecta-, o por lo que fuera, parecían seguir a aquella sola lancha sin molestar a las demás.

¡Corazón de acero templado ! -murmuró Starbuck mirando sobre la borda, y siguiendo con los ojos a la lancha que se alejaba-: ¿puedes resonar aún audazmente ante esa visión ? ¿Arriando tu quilla entre voraces tiburones, y seguido por ellos, con las bocas abiertas a la caza, y en este crítico tercer día ? Pues cuando pasan tres días seguidos en una sola persecución continua e intensa, es seguro que el primero es la mañana, el segundo el mediodía, y el tercero el ocaso de ese asunto, acabe como acabe. ¡Ah, Dios mío !, ¿qué es lo que me atraviesa como un disparo, y me deja tan mortalmente tranquilo, fijo en la cima de un estremecimiento ? Cosas futuras flotan ante mí, no sé cómo, se oscurece. ¡Mary, muchacha !, te desvaneces en pálidas glorias detrás de mí: ¡hijo !, me parece ver solamente tus ojos, que se han vuelto de un prodigioso azul. Los más extraños problemas de mi vida parecen aclararse, pero por en medio se ciernen nubes... ¿Llega el fin de mi viaje ? Mis piernas se debilitan: como las del que ha caminado todo el día. Siente tu corazón... ¿sigue latiendo ? ¡Muévete, Starbuck ! ¡Destruye esto ! ¡Muévete, muévete, habla en voz alta ! ¡A ver, vigía ! ¿Ves la mano de mi hijo en el cerro ? Estoy loco... ¡eh, vigía !, no pierdas de vista a las lanchas... ¡fíjate bien en la ballena ! ¡Eh, otra vez ! ¡echa fuera a ese halcón ! ¡mira cómo pica ! Rompe el cataviento -(señalando a la bandera roja que ondeaba en la galleta del palo mayor)-. ¡Eh, se lo lleva ! ¿Dónde está ahora el viejo ? ¿Ves este espectáculo, oh, Ahab ? ¡Tiembla, tiembla !

No habían llegado muy lejos las lanchas cuando, por una señal desde las cofas -un brazo señalando hacia abajo-, Ahab supo que la ballena se había sumergido, pero deseando estar cerca de ella en la próxima subida, siguió por su camino, un poco lateralmente desde la nave, mientras los tripulantes hechizados mantenían el más profundo silencio, en tanto que las olas, de frente, martillaban y martillaban contra la proa enfrentada.

¡Clavad, clavad vuestros clavos, olas ! ¡Metedlos hasta el extremo de la cabeza ! No hacéis más que golpear una cosa sin tapa, y para mí no puede haber ataúd ni coche fúnebre: ¡sólo el cáñamo puede matarme ! ¡Ja, ja !

De repente, las aguas alrededor de ellos se hincharon lentamente en anchos círculos: luego se elevaron deprisa, como resbalando de lado desde una sumergida montaña de hielo que subiera velozmente a la superficie. Se oyó un sordo sonido profundo, un zumbido subterráneo, y luego todos contuvieron el aliento, al ver que, entorpecida con cables a rastras, arpones y lanzas, una vasta figura surgía del mar a lo largo, pero oblicuamente. Envuelta en un leve velo de niebla que caía, se cernió por un momento en el aire irisado, y luego cayó atrás, hundiéndose en lo profundo. Salpicadas a treinta pies de altura, las aguas centellearon por un momento como cúmulos de fuentes, y luego se rompieron y se hundieron en un chaparrón de copos, dejando los círculos de la superficie cremosa como leche nueva en torno de la mole marmórea de la ballena.

-¡Adelante ! -gritó Ahab a los remeros, y las lanchas se dispararon al ataque, pero Moby Dick, enloquecido por los recientes arpones de ayer que la corroían, parecía poseído a la vez por todos los ángeles caídos del cielo. La ancha fila de tendones soldados que se extendían por su ancha frente blanca, bajo la piel transparente, parecía como entretejida, cuando, de cara, se acercó agitando la cola entre las lanchas, y una vez más las separó con sus sacudidas, haciendo caer los arpones y lanzas de las lanchas de los dos oficiales, pero dejando la de Ahab casi sin tocar.

Mientras Daggoo y Queequeg tapaban las tablas estropeadas, la ballena se apartó de ellos nadando, y, al volverse, mostró un costado entero, pasando rápidamente junto a ellos: en ese momento se elevó un vivo grito. Atado con varias cuerdas al lomo del pez, amarrado en las vueltas y vueltas con que, durante la pasada noche, la ballena había enrollado los enredos de los cables a su alrededor, se veía el cuerpo medio destrozado del Parsi, con su oscuro ropaje hecho jirones y sus ojos distendidos volviéndose de lleno hacia Ahab.

El arpón se le cayó de la mano.

¡Engañado, engañado ! -lanzando un largo respiro afanoso-. ¡Sí, Parsi ! Te veo otra vez. Sí, y tú vas por delante, y ése, ése es entonces el coche fúnebre que prometiste. Pero te sigo hasta la última letra de tu palabra. ¿Dónde está el segundo coche fúnebre ? ¡Fuera, oficiales, al barco ! Estas lanchas ahora no sirven para nada: reparadlas, si podéis, a tiempo, y volved conmigo; si no, Ahab es suficiente para morir... ¡Quietos, marineros ! Al primero que pretenda saltar de esta lancha, lo arponeo. No sois otros marineros, sino mis brazos y mis piernas, de modo que obedecedme. ¿Dónde está la ballena ? ¿Ha vuelto a bajar ?

Pero miraba demasiado cerca de la lancha, pues, como si estuviera empeñado en escapar con el cadáver que llevaba, y como si el sitio preciso de su último encuentro hubiera sido sólo una etapa en su viaje a sotavento, Moby Dick seguía ahora nadando de firme hacia adelante; y casi había adelantado al barco, que hasta entonces había navegado en dirección contraria a él, aunque por el momento había detenido su avance. Parecía nadar con su mayor rapidez, y pretender ahora sólo escapar por su camino más derecho al mar.

-¡Ah, Ahab ! -gritó Starbuck-, no es demasiado tarde, incluso ahora, el tercer día, para desistir. ¡Mira ! Moby Dick no te busca. ¡Eres tú, eres tú el que locamente la buscas !

Poniendo vela al viento que se levantaba, la solitaria lancha era rápidamente impulsada a sotavento por remos y lona. Y al fin, cuando Ahab se deslizaba junto al barco, tan cerca como para distinguir la cara de Starbuck asomado al pasamano, le gritó que diera la vuelta al barco, y le siguiera, sin demasiada rapidez, con un intervalo juicioso. Al mirar arriba, vio a Tashtego, Queequeg y Daggoo subiendo ansiosamente a las tres cofas, mientras los remeros se balanceaban en las dos lanchas desfondadas que acababan de izarse al costado y se ocupaban en repararlas. Al pasar rápidamente, también observó fugazmente, uno tras otro, a Stubb y Flask, ocupados en cubierta entre haces de nuevos arpones y lanzas. Al ver todo esto, al oír los martilleos en las lanchas rotas, otros martillos muy diversos parecieron meter un clavo en su corazón. Pero se dominó. Y entonces, observando el lugar donde había desaparecido el catavientos o bandera del mastelero del palo mayor, gritó a Tashtego, que acababa de llegar a esa altura, que bajara otra vez a buscar otra bandera, y clavos y martillo para sujetarla al palo.

Quizás extenuado por los tres días de persecución a la carrera y por la resistencia a su avance en el enredo anudado que arrastraba, o quizá por alguna oculta malicia y engaño que había en él, fuera por lo que fuera, la marcha de Moby Dick empezaba a menguar, según parecía, por el rápido acercamiento de la lancha, una vez más, aunque, desde luego, la ventaja del cetáceo no había sido en esta ocasión tan larga como antes. Y todavía, mientras Ahab se deslizaba sobre las olas, los inexorables tiburones le seguían acompañados, y se pegaban tan pertinazmente a la lancha, y mordían tan continuamente los remos al sumergirse, que las palas quedaban melladas y aplastadas, y dejaban pequeñas astillas en el mar casi a cada zambullida.

-¡No les hagáis caso ! Esos dientes no hacen más que de nuevos toletes para vuestros remos. ¡Seguid remando ! Es mejor apoyo la mandíbula del tiburón que el agua que cede.

-¡Pero a cada mordisco, capitán, las palas se hacen más pequeñas !

-¡Durarán de sobra ! ¡Seguid remando ! Pero ¿quién puede decir -murmuró- si estos tiburones nadan para hacer festín con la ballena o con Ahab ? Pero ¡seguid remando ! Sí, todos vivos ahora... nos acercamos a ella. ¡La caña, tomad la caña ! Dejadme pasar -y, diciendo así, dos de los remeros le ayudaron a adelantarse a la proa de la lancha aún en pleno avance.

Al fin, cuando la embarcación llegó a un costado y pasó corriendo junto al flanco de la ballena blanca, ésta pareció extrañamente olvidada de su avance -como hacen a veces las ballenas-, y Ahab llegó ya dentro de la humosa niebla montañosa, que lanzada por el chorro de la ballena, se rizaba en torno a su gran joroba de Monadnock; y al estar muy cerca de ella, con el cuerpo arqueado hacia atrás y los dos brazos elevados a todo lo largo para blandirlo, disparó el feroz arpón y su maldición aún más feroz a la odiada ballena. Al hundirse en su agujero arpón y maldición, como absorbido en una ciénaga, Moby Dick se retorció de lado; agitó espasmódicamente su flanco cercano contra la proa, y, sin abrir en ella-un agujero, volcó tan de repente la lancha, que de no ser por la parte elevada de la regala a que se agarraba, Ahab hubiera sido lanzado una vez más al mar. De todos modos, tres de los remeros, y por tanto no estaban preparados para sus efectos, fueron lanzados fuera, pero cayeron de tal modo que, en un momento dos de ellos volvieron a agarrarse a la regala, y, subiendo a su nivel con la cresta de una ola, se volvieron a meter enteros a bordo, mientras el tercer marinero quedaba inerme a popa, aunque todavía a flote y nadando.

Casi simultáneamente, con una poderosa volición de rapidez instantánea y sin grados, la ballena blanca se disparó a través del mar en tumulto. Pero cuando Ahab gritó al timonel que diera más vueltas a la estacha y la sujetó así, y mandó a los tripulantes que dieran vuelta en sus bancadas para llevar a remolque la lancha hasta su blanco, ¡en ese momento, la traidora estacha sintió ese doble esfuerzo de tensión, y se partió en el aire vacío !

-¿Qué se rompe en mí ? ¡Algún tendón se quiebra ! Otra vez estoy bien. ¡Remos, remos ! ¡Adelante contra ella !

Al oír el tremendo empujón de la lancha que surcaba el agua, la ballena dio la vuelta para presentarle como defensa su frente lisa, pero en ese giro, observando el casco negro del barco que se acercaba, y al parecer viendo en él la fuente de todas sus persecuciones, o quizá considerándolo un enemigo mayor y más noble, de repente se lanzó contra su proa que avanzaba, a la vez que chascaba las mandíbulas entre feroces chaparrones de espuma.

Ahab se tambaleó y se golpeó la frente con la mano. -Me quedo ciego. ¡Manos, alargaos ante mí para poder seguir avanzando a tientas ! ¿Es de noche ?

-¡La ballena ! ¡El barco ! -gritaron los remeros, abrumados.

¡Remos, remos ! ¡Haz una ladera bajando a tus profundidades, oh, mar, para que, antes que sea demasiado tarde para siempre, Ahab pueda deslizarse por esta última, última vez hacia su blanco ! ¡Adelante, muchachos ! ¿No queréis salvar mi barco ?

Pero cuando los remeros forzaron violentamente la lancha a través de las olas que golpeaban como martillos, los extremos de proa de dos tablas, ya rotas por la ballena, reventaron, y casi en un instante, la lancha temporalmente inutilizada quedó al nivel de las olas, con sus tripulantes, medio sumergidos y salpicantes, intentando difícilmente tapar la vía de agua y achicar la que entraba.

Mientras, en ese momento de observación, el martillo de Tashtego, en el mastelero, quedó suspenso en su mano, y la bandera roja, medio envolviéndole como en un capote, se extendió recta y ondeó desde él, como su propio corazón, fluyendo hacia delante, en tanto que Starbuck y Stubb, situados abajo, en el bauprés, vieron al mismo tiempo que él al monstruo que les acometía.

-¡La ballena, la ballena ! ¡Caña a barlovento, caña a barlovento ! ¡Ah, todas vosotras, dulces potestades del aire, abrazadme ahora estrechamente ! Que no muera Starbuck, si ha de morir, en un desmayo de mujer. Caña a barlovento digo... ¡tontos, la mandíbula, la mandíbula ! ¿Es ése el final de todas mis oraciones explosivas ? ¿De todas mis fidelidades a lo largo de la vida ? ¡Ah, Ahab, Ahab, mira tu obra ! ¡Derecho, timonel, derecho ! ¡No, no ! ¡Caña a barlovento otra vez ! ¡Se vuelve para venir contra nosotros ! Ah, su inexorable frente avanza contra uno cuyo deber le dice que no puede marcharse. ¡Dios mío, ponte ahora a mi lado !

-No te pongas a mi lado, sino ponte debajo de mí, quienquiera que seas el que ahora quieras ayudar a Stubb, pues también Stubb está aquí sujeto; ¡y te hago muecas, ballena con muecas ! ¿Quién ayudó jamás a Stubb, o mantuvo a Stubb en vela sino los propios ojos sin parpadeo de Stubb ? Y ahora el pobre Stubb se acuesta en un colchón que es demasiado blando: ¡ojalá estuviera relleno de zarzas ! ¡Te hago muecas, ballena con muecas ! ¡Mirad, sol, luna y estrellas ! Os llamo asesinos de un hombre tan bueno como jamás ha lanzado en chorro su espíritu. Con todo eso, ¡todavía chocaría con vosotros mi copa, con tal que me la alargarais ! ¡Oh, oh, oh, oh ! ¡oh, tú, ballena con muecas, pero pronto habrá exceso de tragar ! ¿Por qué no huyes, Ahab ? En cuanto a mí, fuera los zapatos y la chaqueta, y a ellos: ¡que Stubb muera en calzoncillos ! Sin embargo, es una muerte muy mohosa y salada: ¡cerezas, cerezas, cerezas ! ¡Oh, Flask, una sola cereza roja antes de que muramos !

-¿Cerezas ? Sólo me gustaría que estuviéramos donde crecen. Ah, Stubb, espero que mi pobre madre haya cobrado mi parte de paga antes de ahora: si no, ahora le llegarán pocas monedas de cobre, porque se acabó el viaje.

Desde la proa del barco, casi todos los marineros ahora estaban suspensos e inactivos, con martillos, trozos de tabla, lanzas y arpones maquinalmente sujetos en la mano, tal como se habían separado de sus diversas ocupaciones: con todas sus absortas miradas fijas en la ballena, que, moviendo de un lado a otro su cabeza predestinadora, lanzaba por delante en su avance una ancha banda de espuma semicircular extendida. Retribución, rápida venganza, malicia eterna había en todo su aspecto, y, a pesar de todo lo que pudo hacer el hombre mortal, el sólido contrafuerte blanco de su frente golpeó la proa del barco a estribor, hasta que temblaron hombres y tablas. Algunos cayeron de bruces. Como galletas de mástil arrancadas, las cabezas de los arponeros vigías oscilaron en sus cuellos taurinos. A través de la brecha, oyeron entrar el agua, como torrentes de montaña cayendo a un barranco.

-¡El barco ! ¡El coche fúnebre ! -gritó Ahab desde la lancha-: ¡su madera sólo podía ser americana !

Sumergiéndose bajo el barco zozobrante, la ballena corrió bajo la quilla y la hizo estremecer, pero, después de girar bajo el agua, volvió a surgir rápidamente a la superficie, lejos del otro lado de la proa, pero a pocos pasos de la lancha de Ahab, donde, por algún tiempo, se quedó quieta.

-Vuelvo la espalda al sol. ¡Eh, Tashtego ! Hazme oír tu martillo. ¡Ah, esos tres inexpugnados campanarios míos; quilla sin quebrar; casco sólo herido por los dioses; firme cubierta y altanero timón, proa apuntada al polo; barco glorioso en la muerte ! ¿Has de perecer entonces, y sin mí ? ¿Estoy separado del último orgullo afectuoso de los más bajos capitanes naufragados ? ¡Ah, muerte solitaria para vida solitaria ! ¡Ah, ahora siento mi supremo dolor ! ¡Ah, ah, desde vuestros más lejanos confines, venid ahora a verteros, osadas olas de toda mi vida pasada, y amontonaos en esta gran oleada reunida de mi muerte ! Hacia ti bogo, ballena omnidestructora, pero invencible; al fin lucho contigo; desde el corazón del infierno te hiero; por odio te escupo mi último aliento. ¡Húndanse todos los ataúdes y todos los coches fúnebres en un charco común ! Y puesto que ninguno ha de ser para mí, ¡vaya yo a remolque en trozos, sin dejar de perseguirte, aunque atado a ti, ballena maldita ! ¡Así entrego la lanza !

Se disparó el arpón: la ballena herida voló hacia delante; con velocidad inflamadora, la estacha corrió por el surco, y se enredó. Ahab se agachó para desenredarla, y lo logró, pero el lazo al vuelo le dio vuelta al cuello, y sin voz, igual que los silenciosos turcos estrangulan a sus víctimas, salió disparado de la lancha, antes que los tripulantes supieran que se había ido. Un momento después, la pesada gaza en el extremo final de la estacha salía volando de latina vacía, derribaba a un remero, e, hiriendo el mar, desaparecía en sus profundidades.

Por un momento, los pasmados tripulantes de la lancha quedaron inmóviles, y luego se volvieron: -¿Y el barco ? ¡Gran Dios ! ¿dónde está el barco ? Pronto, a través de una confusa y enloquecedora niebla vieron su escorado fantasma que se desvanecía, como en la gaseosa fata morgana, sólo con los extremos de los mástiles fuera del agua, mientras, clavados por infatuación, o fidelidad, o fatalidad, a sus nidos, antes elevados, los arponeros paganos seguían manteniendo sus vigilancias, sumergiéndose, sobre el mar. Y entonces, círculos concéntricos envolvieron a la propia lancha solitaria, y a todos sus tripulantes, y a todo remo flotante, y a toda asta de lanza; y haciendo girar todos, con cosas animadas e inanimadas, alrededor de un solo torbellino, se llevaron de la vista hasta la más pequeña astilla del Pequod.

Pero mientras las últimas sumersiones caían entremezcladas sobre la hundida cabeza del indio en la cofa, dejando aún visibles unas pocas pulgadas del palo erguido, junto con largas yardas ondeantes de la bandera, que se mecía tranquilamente, con irónica coincidencia, sobre las destructoras olas que casi tocaba; en ese instante, un brazo rojo se echó atrás con un martillo levantado en el aire, en ademán de clavar más firme la bandera al palo que se desvanecía. Un halcón del cielo que había seguido burlonamente la galleta del palo mayor, bajando desde su hogar natural entre las estrellas, picó la bandera e incomodó allí a Tashtego: por casualidad, ese pájaro interpuso su ancha ala móvil entre el martillo y la madera, y, sintiendo, abajo, en su estertor de muerte, plantó allí su martillo como helado; y así el pájaro del cielo, con gritos arcangélicos, y con su pico imperial vuelto hacia arriba, y toda su forma cautiva envuelta en la bandera de Ahab, se hundió con el barco, que, como Satán, no quiso bajar al infierno hasta haber arrastrado consigo una parte viva del cielo, poniéndosela por casco.

Entonces, pequeñas aves volaron gritando sobre el abismo aún entreabierto; una tétrica rompiente blanca chocó contra sus bordes abruptos; después, todo se desplomó, y el gran sudario del mar siguió meciéndose como se mecía hace cinco mil años. 

Epílogo

Y SÓLO YO ESCAPÉ PARA CONTÁRTELO. Job

El drama ha terminado. Entonces ¿por qué se adelanta alguien ? Porque uno sobrevivió al naufragio.

Ocurrió que, después de la desaparición del Parsi, yo fui aquel a quien el Destino ordenó tomar el lugar del remero de proa de Ahab, cuando éste asumió el puesto vacante: el mismo que, cuando en el último día tres hombres fueron lanzados del bote sacudido, cayó por la popa. Así, flotando al margen de la escena sucesiva, y observándola por completo, cuando me alcanzó la succión semiextinguida del barco, fui atraído entonces, pero despacio, hacia el abismo que se cerraba. Cuando lo alcancé, se había convertido en un charco cremoso. Entonces giré y giré como otro Ixión, siempre contrayéndome hacia la negra burbuja, como un botón, en el eje de ese círculo lentamente rotatorio. Hasta que, al alcanzar ese centro vital, la burbuja negra reventó hacia-arriba, y el ataúd-salvavidas, liberado ahora por razón de su ingenioso resorte y, subiendo con gran fuerza debido a su gran flotabilidad, salió disparado y quedó flotando a mi lado. Sostenido por ese ataúd, durante casi todo un día y una noche, floté por un océano blando y funéreo. Los inocuos tiburones pasaban a mi lado como si llevaran candados en la boca; los salvajes halcones marinos navegaban con picos envainados. Al segundo día, un barco se acercó, y por fin me recogió. Era el Raquel, de rumbo errante que, retrocediendo en busca de sus hijos perdidos, encontró sólo otro huérfano.

FIN