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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 ...
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 a 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.
