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 the 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!
