Moby Dick - Herman Melville (best novels to read in english txt) š
- Author: Herman Melville
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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 oneā 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, couldnāt I steal a march on himābolt 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 around me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending a sufferable night unless in some other personās bed, I began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, Iāll wait awhile; he must be dropping in before long. Iāll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after allāthereās 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.
āLandlord! said I, āwhat sort of a chap is heādoes he always keep such late hours?ā It was now hard upon twelve oāclock.
The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. āNo,ā he answered, āgenerally heās an early birdāairley to bed and airley to riseāyea, heās the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out a peddling, you see, and I donāt see what on airth keeps him so late, unless, may be, he canāt sell his head.ā
āCanāt sell his head?āWhat sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are telling me?ā getting into a towering rage. āDo 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?ā
āThatās precisely it,ā said the landlord, āand I told him he couldnāt sell it here, the marketās overstocked.ā
āWith what?ā shouted I.
āWith heads to be sure; aināt there too many heads in the world?ā
āI tell you what it is, landlord,ā said I quite calmly, āyouād better stop spinning that yarn to meāIām not green.ā
āMay be not,ā taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, ābut I rayther guess youāll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears you a slanderinā his head.ā
āIāll break it for him,ā said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago of the landlordās.
āItās broke aāready,ā said he.
āBroke,ā said Iāābroke, do you mean?ā
āSartain, and thatās the very reason he canāt sell it, I guess.ā
āLandlord,ā said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a snowstormāālandlord, 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 bedfellowāa 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 Iāve 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.ā
āWall,ā said the landlord, fetching a long breath, āthatās 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 tellinā you of has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of ābalmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know), and heās sold all on āem but one, and that one heās trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrowās Sunday, and it would not do to be sellinā human heads about the streets when folks is goinā to churches. He wanted to last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goinā out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions.ā
This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling meā 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?
āDepend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.ā
āHe pays regālar,ā was the rejoinder. āBut come, itās getting dreadful late, you had better be turning flukesāitās a nice bed: Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. Thereās plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed; itās 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. After that, Sal said it wouldnāt do. Come along here, Iāll give ye a glim in a jiffy;ā 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 āI vum itās Sundayāyou wonāt see that harpooneer to-night; heās come to anchor somewhereācome along then; do come; wonāt ye come?ā
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.
āThere,ā said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; āthere, make yourself comfortable now; and good night to ye.ā 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 seamanās bag, containing the harpooneerās 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 harpooneerās 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
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