Moby Dick

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.
Wild 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.