Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/BOOKS/Novels/H.Melville/moby.108

Text File | 1994-05-27 | 8.6 KB | 130 lines

.. < chapter cviii 7  AHAB AND THE CARPENTER THE DECK--FIRST NIGHT WATCH >


(Carpenter standing before his vice-bench, and by the light of two lanterns
busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is firmly fixed in the
vice.  Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all
sorts lying about the bench.  Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen,
where the blacksmith is at work.) Drat the file, and drat the bone!  That is
hard which should be soft, and that soft which should be hard.  So we go,
who file old jaws and shinbones.  Let's try another.  Aye, now, this works
better ( sneezes).  Halloa, this bone dust is ( sneezes)-- why it's
( sneezes)--yes it's ( sneezes)--bless my soul, it won't let me speak!  This is
what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber.  Saw a live tree, and
you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don't get it
( sneezes).  Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have
that ferule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready for them presently.  Lucky now
( sneezes) there's no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little; but a
mere shinbone --why it's easy as making hop-poles; only I should like to put a
good finish on.  Time, time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him
out as neat a leg now as ever ( sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor.  Those

     buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop windows wouldn't compare
at all.  They soak water, they do; and of
.. <p 466 >
course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored ( sneezes) with washes and
lotions, just like live legs.  There; before I saw it off, now, I must call
his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; too short,
if anything, I guess.  Ha!  that's the heel; we are in luck; here he comes,
or it's somebody else, that's certain.  Ahab ( advancing). (During the
ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at times).  Well, manmaker!
Just in time, sir.  If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length.  Let
me measure, sir.  Measured for a leg!  good.  Well, it's not the first time.
About it!  There; keep thy finger on it.  This is a cogent vice thou hast
here, carpenter; let me feel its grip once.  so, so; it does pinch some.
Oh, sir, it will break bones--beware, beware!  No fear; I like a good grip; I
like to feel something in this slippery world that can hold, man.  What's
Prometheus about there? --the blacksmith, I mean --what's he about?  He must be
forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.  Right.  It's a partnership; he supplies
the muscle part.  He makes a fierce red flame there!  Aye, sir; he must have
the white heat for this kind of fine work.  Um-m.  So he must.  I do deem it
now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they
say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's
made in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable.  How the
soot flies!  This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of.
Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of
steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.  Sir?
Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man after a
desirable pattern.  Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest
modelled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay in
one place; then, arms three
.. <p 467 >
feet through the wrist; no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a
quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let me see --shall I order eyes to see
outwards?  No, but put a sky-light on top of his head to illuminate inwards.
There, take the order, and away.  Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he
speaking to, I should like to know?  Shall I keep standing here? ( aside).
'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one.  No, no,
no; I must have a lantern.  Ho, ho!  That's it, hey?  Here are two, sir; one
will serve my turn.  What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face
for, man?  thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.  i thought, sir,
that you spoke to carpenter.  Carpenter?  why that's --but no; --a very tidy,
and, I may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here,
carpenter; --or would'st thou rather work in clay?  Sir? --Clay?  clay, sir?
That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.  The fellow's impious!  What art
thou sneezing about?  Bone is rather dusty, sir.  Take the hint, then; and
when thou art dead, never bury thyself under living people's noses.  Sir?
--oh!  ah! --I guess so; so; --yes, yes --oh dear!  Look ye, carpenter, I dare say
thou callest thyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh!  Well, then, will
it speak thoroughly well for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg
thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical
place with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one,
I mean.  Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?  Truly, sir, I begin to
understand somewhat now.  Yes, I have heard something curious on that score,
sir; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old
spar, but it will be still pricking him at times.  May I humbly ask if it be
really so, sir?  It is, man.  Look, put thy live leg here in the place where
mine once was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye,
.. <p 468 >
yet two to the soul.  Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there,

     there to a hair, do I. Is't a riddle?  I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

     Hist, then.  How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing may
not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where thou now
standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite?  In thy most solitary hours,
then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers?  Hold, don't speak!  And if I still
feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now so long dissolved; then,
why mayest not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and
without a body?  Hah!  Good Lord!  Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must
calculate over again; I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.  Look ye,
pudding-heads should never grant premises. --How long before this leg is
done?  Perhaps an hour, sir.  Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me
(turns to go).  Oh, Life!  Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing
debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on!  Cursed be that mortal
inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers.  I would be free as
air; and I'm down in the whole world's books.  I am so rich, I could have
given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman
empire (which was the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I
brag with.  By heavens!  I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve
myself down to one small, compendious vertebra.  So.  Carpenter ( resuming

     his work).  Well, well, well!  Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb
always says he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word
queer; he's queer, says Stubb; he's queer--queer, queer; and keeps dinning
it into Mr. Starbuck all the time -- queer, sir --queer, queer, very queer.  And
here's his leg!  Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bedfellow!  has a
stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife!  And this is his leg; he'll stand on
this.  What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and all
three places standing in one hell --how was that?  Oh!  I don't wonder he
looked so scornful at me!  I'm a sort of strange-thoughted
.. <p 469 >
sometimes, they say; but that's only haphazard-like.  Then, a short, little
old body like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep waters with
tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick,
and there's a great cry for life-boats.  And here's the heron's leg!  long and

     slim, sure enough!  Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime,
and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old
lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses.  But Ahab; oh he's a hard driver.
Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears
out bone legs by the cord.  Halloa, there, you Smut!  bear a hand there with
those screws, and let's finish it before the resurrection fellow comes
a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as brewery-men go round
collecting old beer barrels, to fill 'em up again.  What a leg this is!  It
looks like a real live leg, filed down to nothing but the core; he'll be
standing on this to-morrow; he'll be taking altitudes on it.  Halloa!  I
almost forgot the little oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the
latitude.  So, so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now!
.. <p 469 >