Chapter XCIV: A SQUEEZE OF THE HAND
That whale of Stubb's so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the
Pequod's side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations
previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling
of the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case. While some were occupied with this
latter duty, others were employed in dragging away the larger tubs, so
soon as filled with the sperm; and when the proper time arrived, this
same sperm was carefully manipulated ere going to the try-works, of
which anon. It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that
when, with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine's
bath of it, I found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there
rolling about in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze
these lumps back into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! no wonder
that in old times this sperm was such a favorite cosmetic. Such a
clearer! such a sweetener! such a softener! such a delicious
mollifier! After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my
fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and
spiralize. As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after
the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the
ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed
my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues,
woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and
discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I
snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma, --literally and truly, like the
smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived
as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that
inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost
began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare
virtue in allaying the heat of anger: while bathing in that bath, I
felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulence, or malice, of any
sort whatsoever. Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I
squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed
that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found
myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking
their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate,
friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was
continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes
sentimentally; as much as to say, --Oh! my dear fellow beings, why
should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest
ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us
all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves
universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. Would that I
could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many
prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases
man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of
attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the
fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the
fire-side, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready
to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I
saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of
spermaceti. Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of
other things akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale
for the try-works. First comes white-horse, so called, which is
obtained from the tapering part of the fish, and also from the thicker
portions of his flukes. It is tough with congealed tendons --a wad of
muscle --but still contains some oil. After being severed from the
whale, the white-horse is first cut into portable oblongs ere going to
the mincer. They look much like blocks of Berkshire
marble. Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary
parts of the whale's flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of
blubber, and often participating to a considerable degree in its
unctuousness. It is a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to
behold. As its name imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled
tint, with a bestreaked snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of
the deepest crimson and purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of
citron. Spite of reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it.
I confess, that once I stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted
something as I should conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis
le Gros might have tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first
day after the venison season, and that particular venison season
contemporary with an unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of
Champagne.
There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in
the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling
adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation
original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the
substance. It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently
found in the tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and
subsequent decanting. I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured
membranes of the case, coalescing. Gurry, so called, is a term
properly belonging to right whalemen, but sometimes incidentally used
by the sperm fishermen. It designates the dark, glutinous substance
which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or right whale, and
much of which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that
ignoble Leviathan. Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to
the whale's vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A
whaleman's nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from
the tapering part of Leviathan's tail: it averages an inch in
thickness, and for the rest, is about the size of the iron part of a
hoe. Edgewise moved along the oily deck, it operates like a leathern
squilgee; and by nameless blandishments, as of magic, allures along
with it all impurities. But to learn all about these recondite
matters, your best way is at once to descend into the blubber-room,
and have a long talk with its inmates. This place has previously been
mentioned as the receptacle for the blanket-pieces, when stript and
hoisted from the whale. When the proper time arrives for cutting up
its contents, this apartment is a scene of terror to all tyros,
especially by night. On one side, lit by a dull lantern, a space has
been left clear for the workmen. They generally go in pairs, --a
pike-and-gaff-man and a spade-man. The whaling-pike is similar to a
frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name. The gaff is something
like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a sheet of
blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship pitches and
lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheet itself,
perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horse-pieces. This
spade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan's feet are shoeless;
the thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide away from
him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one of his
assistants', would you be very much astonished? Toes are scarce among
veteran blubber-room men.