Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/BOOKS/Novels/H.Melville/moby.8

Text File | 1994-05-27 | 5.3 KB | 79 lines

.. < chapter viii 2  THE PULPIT >

     I had not been seated very long ere a man
of a certain venerable robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted
door flew back upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all
the congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the
chaplain.  Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen,
among whom he was a very great favorite.  He had been a sailor and a
harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the
ministry.  At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter
of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second
flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone
certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom --the spring verdure peeping
forth even beneath February's snow.  No one having previously heard his
history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost
interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about
him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led.  When he entered
I observed that he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his
carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great
pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of
the water it had absorbed.  However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by
one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner; when,
arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit.  Like most old
fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a regular stairs to
such a height would, by its long angle with the floor, seriously contract the
already small area of the chapel, the architect, it seemed, had acted upon the
hint of Father Mapple, and finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting
a perpendicular side ladder, like those used in mounting
.. <p 38 >
a ship from a boat at sea.  The wife of a whaling captain had provided the
chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which,
being itself nicely headed, and stained with a mahogany color, the whole
contrivance, considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in
bad taste.  Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both
hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a
look upwards, and then with a truly sailorlike but still reverential
dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of
his vessel.  the perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the
case with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of
wood, so that at every step there was a joint.  At my first glimpse of the
pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship, these
joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary.  For I was not prepared to
see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn round, and stooping
over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder step by step, till the whole
was deposited within, leaving him impregnable in his little Quebec.  I
pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this.  Father
Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, that I
could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks of the stage.
No, thought I, there must be some sober reason for this thing; furthermore,
it must symbolize something unseen.  Can it be, then, that by that act of
physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from
all outward worldly ties and connexions?  Yes, for replenished with the meat
and wine of the word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a
self-containing stronghold --a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well
of water within the walls.  But the side ladder was not the only strange
feature of the place, borrowed from the chaplain's former sea-farings.
Between the marble cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which
formed its back was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship
beating against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy
breakers.  But high above the
.. <p 39 >
flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight,
from which beamed forth an angel's face; and this bright face shed a distinct
spot of radiance upon the ship's tossed deck, something like that silver
plate now inserted into the Victory's plank where Nelson fell.  Ah, noble
ship, the angel seemed to say, beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and
bear a hardy helm; for lo!  the sun is breaking through; the clouds are
rolling off --serenest azure is at hand.  Nor was the pulpit itself without a
trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture.  Its
panelled front was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible
rested on the projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's
fiddle-headed beak.  What could be more full of meaning? --for the pulpit is
ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit
leads the world.  From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first
descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt.  From thence it is the
God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds.  Yes, the
world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit
is its prow.