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. 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.
