AUG_md-chapter2.txt

CHAPTER 2

The carpet bag.


I stuffed one or two shirts into my old carpet bag, put them under my
arm and made my way to Cape Horn and the Pacific.  After leaving the
good old city of Manhattan, I duly arrived in New Bedford.  It was a
Saturday night in December.  I was very disappointed when I learned
that the package for Nantucket had already expired and that there
would be no way to reach this place until the following Monday.

Since most of the young candidates for the torments and punishments
of whaling stop at that very place in New Bedford to start their
journey, it might just as well be because I had no idea I was doing
it myself.  Because my decision was to sail in no other than a
Nantucket boat, because everything to do with this famous old island
had a fine, exuberant something that amazingly pleased me.  Apart
from the fact that New Bedford has been gradually monopolizing the
business of whaling lately, and while poor old Nantucket is now much
behind her in this matter, Nantucket was its great original - the
Tyre of this Carthage; - the place where the first dead American
whale was stranded.  Where else but Nantucket did these native
whalers, the Red Men, first gather in canoes to chase the leviathan?
And where, apart from Nantucket, was this first adventurous little
sloop, some of which was loaded with imported cobblestones - so the
story goes - to throw the whales, to find out when they were close
enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?

After one night, one day and one more night in New Bedford before I
could disembark for my port of destination, it became a matter of
concern where to eat and sleep in the meantime.  It was a very
dubious looking, yes, very dark and gloomy night, biting cold and
carefree.  I didn't know anyone on the ground.  With anxious handles,
I had looked into my pocket and fetched only a few pieces of silver -
wherever you go, Ishmael, I said to myself, standing in the middle of
a desolate street, shouldering my bag and comparing the darkness in
the north with the darkness in the south - wherever you, in your
wisdom, would like to conclude to spend the night, my dear Ishmael,
be sure to ask the price, and be not too precise.

With stopped steps I walked through the streets and passed the sign
"The Crossed Harpoons" - but it looked too expensive and cheerful
there. From the bright red windows of the "Sword-Fish-Inn" came so
glowing rays that it seemed as if it had melted the packed snow and
the ice in front of the house, because everywhere else the frozen
frost lay ten centimetres thick in a hard, asphalt pavement - quite
exhausted for me as I hit my foot against the fiery projections,
because the soles of my boots were in the most miserable need after
hard, unrelenting service.  Too expensive and too funny, I thought,
and paused for a moment to observe the broad glow in the street and
hear the sounds of the rattling glasses inside me. But, Ismael, I
finally said, don't you hear? Away from the door, the patched boots
block the way.  And so it went on.  I instinctively followed the
streets that led me downstream, for there were undoubtedly the
cheapest, if not the happiest, inns.

Such dreary roads! Blocks of blackness, not houses, on both sides,
and here and there a candle, like a candle moving in a grave.  At
this hour of the night, on the last day of the week, this district
proved to be virtually deserted.  But immediately I came to a smoky
light emanating from a low, wide building whose door was invitingly
open.  It looked carefree, as if it was meant for public use, so the
first thing I stumbled upon when entering was an ash box in the
porch.  Ha! I thought, ha, when the flying particles nearly choked
me, is this ash from the destroyed city of Gomorrah?  But "The
crossed harpoons" and "The swordfish?" - that must be the sign of
"The trap." However, I picked myself up and heard a loud voice
inside, pressed on and opened a second, inner door.

It seemed as if the great Black Parliament was sitting in Tophet.
One hundred black faces turned in their ranks to catch a glimpse, and
behind them a black angel of destiny struck a book on a pulpit.  It
was a Negro church, and the preacher's text was about the darkness
and the weeping and weeping and gnashing of teeth there.  Ha,
Ishmael, I muttered, retreating, miserable conversation marked "The
trap!"

As I walked on, I finally came to a dim light, not far from the
docks, and heard a deserted creak in the air; and when I looked up, I
saw a swinging sign above the door with a white painting on it,
faintly representing a high, straight stream of misty spray, and
these words underneath: "The Spouter Inn: --Peter Coffin."

Coffin? --Spouter? --Rather ominous in this context, I thought.  But
it's a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I assume this Peter
here is an immigrant from there.  Since the light looked so faint,
and the place looked quiet enough for the time being, and the
run-down wooden house itself looked as if it had been carted here
from the ruins of a burned-out district, and since the swing shield
had a poor kind of creak, I thought that this was exactly the place
for cheap lodging and the best pea coffee.

It was a peculiar kind of place - an old house with gables, one side
paralysed and sadly bent.  It stood in a sharp, dark corner, where
that blustery Euroclydon wind was howling more loudly than ever over
poor Paul's discarded ship.  Yet Euroclydon is a mighty, pleasant
zephyr for anyone standing indoors, feet on the stove, quietly
toasting their bed.  "In judging that stormy wind called Euroclydon,"
says an old writer - of whose works I have the only surviving copy -
"it makes a wonderful difference whether you look at it through a
stained glass window, where the frost is completely outside, or
whether you look at it through that plain window, where the frost is
on both sides and of which death is the only glazer."  True enough, I
thought when that passage came to mind - old black letter, you
reasonable.  Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is
the house.  What a pity that they did not remove the cracks and
cracks and put in a little lint here and there.  But it is too late
to make any improvements now.  The universe is ready, the Copestone
is standing, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor
Lazarus there, babbling his teeth against the curb of his pillow and
shaking off his shreds in a shudder, might be able to plug both ears
with rags and put a cob of corn in his mouth, but that would not stop
the stormy Euroclydon.  Euroclydon! says the old diver in his red
silk coat - (he had a redder one afterwards) Phew, phew!  What a
beautiful frosty night; how Orion glitters; what aurora borealis!
Let them tell of their oriental summer climate of eternal
conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my
own coals.

But what does Lazarus think?  Can he keep his blue hands warm by
holding them up to the great Northern Lights?  Wouldn't Lazarus
rather be in Sumatra than here?  Would he not rather lay it along the
equatorial line; yes, gods! Descend into the fiery pit itself to keep
out this frost?

Now that Lazarus is stranded there on the curb outside the door of
dives, this is more wonderful than having an iceberg moored at one of
the Moluccas.  But he too lives like a tsar in an ice palace of
frozen sighs, and, as president of a moderate society, he drinks only
the lukewarm tears of the orphans.

But now the bubbling is over, we're going whaling, and there's still
plenty of that.  Let's scrape the ice off our icy feet and see what
kind of place this "spouter" might be.