CHAPTER 46
Surmises
Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his
thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick;
though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one passion;
nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long habituation
far too wedded to a fiery whaleman’s ways, altogether to abandon the
collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if this were otherwise, there
were not wanting other motives much more influential with him. It would
be refining too much, perhaps, even considering his monomania, to hint that
his vindictiveness towards the White Whale might have possibly extended
itself in some degree to all sperm whales, and that the more monsters he
slew by so much the more he multiplied the chances that each subsequently
encountered whale would prove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such
an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, there were still additional
considerations which, though not so strictly according with the wildness of
his ruling passion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him.
To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in the
shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew, for
example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was over
Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual man any
more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual mastership; for to
the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in a sort of corporeal relation.
Starbuck’s body and Starbuck’s coerced will were Ahab’s, so long as
Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck’s brain; still he knew that for all this the
chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his captain’s quest, and could he, would
joyfully disintegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a
long interval would elapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that long
interval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion
against his captain’s leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential,
circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but
the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more
significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in
foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of
that strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the
full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure
background (for few men’s courage is proof against protracted meditation
unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night watches, his
officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby Dick.
For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the
announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less
capricious and unreliable— they live in the varying outer weather, and they
inhale its fickleness— and when retained for any object remote and blank in
the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, it is above
all things requisite that temporary interests and employments should
intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the final dash.
Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion
mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. The
permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab,
is sordidness.
Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage
crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous
knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to
Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common, daily
appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were
not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy
sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining
other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one
final and romantic object— that final and romantic object, too many would
have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all
hopes of cash—aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months
go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same
quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon
cashier Ahab.
Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related to
Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps somewhat
prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod’s voyage,
Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid
himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect
impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end
competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently
wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of
usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression
gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect
himself. That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain
and heart and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention to
every minute atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be
subjected to.
For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be verbally
developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good degree
continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod’s voyage;
observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force himself to evince
all his well known passionate interest in the general pursuit of his
profession.
Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three
mastheads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit
reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward.
