{"id":"01KF7FPTBFEBZVSEQY7NG39A53","cid":"bafkreifmxdtaij2aauyng5ugbov2civ5k57xsfe27a3f77ozgrhnyswb64","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":20657,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.458Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 18","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":20586,"text":"hammock—“I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only\r\nyesterday; but were dead ere night. Only _that_ one I bury; the rest\r\nwere buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb.” Then turning\r\nto his crew—“Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and\r\nlift the body; so, then—Oh! God”—advancing towards the hammock with\r\nuplifted hands—“may the resurrection and the life——”\r\n\r\n“Brace forward! Up helm!” cried Ahab like lightning to his men.\r\n\r\nBut the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the\r\nsound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not\r\nso quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have\r\nsprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism.\r\n\r\nAs Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy\r\nhanging at the Pequod’s stern came into conspicuous relief.\r\n\r\n“Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!” cried a foreboding voice in her wake.\r\n“In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your\r\ntaffrail to show us your coffin!”\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 132. The Symphony.\r\n\r\nIt was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were\r\nhardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was\r\ntransparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and\r\nman-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s\r\nchest in his sleep.\r\n\r\nHither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small,\r\nunspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air;\r\nbut to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed\r\nmighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong,\r\ntroubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.\r\n\r\nBut though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and\r\nshadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were,\r\nthat distinguished them.\r\n\r\nAloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle\r\nair to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the\r\ngirdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion—most seen\r\nhere at the equator—denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving\r\nalarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.\r\n\r\nTied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm\r\nand unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the\r\nashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the\r\nmorn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl’s\r\nforehead of heaven.\r\n\r\nOh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged\r\ncreatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how\r\noblivious were ye of old Ahab’s close-coiled woe! But so have I seen\r\nlittle Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around\r\ntheir old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on\r\nthe marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain.\r\n\r\nSlowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side\r\nand watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the\r\nmore and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the\r\nlovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a\r\nmoment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that\r\nwinsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world,\r\nso long cruel—forbidding—now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn\r\nneck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that\r\nhowever wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save\r\nand to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into\r\nthe sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee\r\ndrop.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 18"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPNZVQN0MWH12S4195JDT","peer_label":"Chapter 124","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPNZVQN0MWH12S4195JDT","peer_label":"Chapter 124","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTECTYSMFGJK2BQHK3ND","peer_label":"Chunk 19","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTG1EQC86TVBVZXDG8ZW","peer_label":"Chunk 17","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.798Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:28.878Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}