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Table of Contents
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 ..
2 position began to grow
wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes
well tucked around us, leaning against the head-board 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 blanket 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 ..
3 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. ..
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