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 love once 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.
