{"id":"01KFNR86VS9NMSEM9HW5FD89WB","cid":"bafkreieovygpov4ozqizoosumfybfoyqamlbi2td3ayfqbtwyr3znomuey","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1803,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.897Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":1745,"text":"CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane.\r\n\r\nUpon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown\r\nover me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost\r\nthought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of\r\nodd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his\r\ntattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no\r\ntwo parts of which were of one precise shade—owing I suppose to his\r\nkeeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt\r\nsleeves irregularly rolled up at various times—this same arm of his, I\r\nsay, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork\r\nquilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I\r\ncould hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues\r\ntogether; and it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I\r\ncould tell that Queequeg was hugging me.\r\n\r\nMy sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a\r\nchild, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me;\r\nwhether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. The\r\ncircumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other—I\r\nthink it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little\r\nsweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other,\r\nwas all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,—my\r\nmother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to\r\nbed, though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon of the 21st June,\r\nthe longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But\r\nthere was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the\r\nthird floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time,\r\nand with a bitter sigh got between the sheets.\r\n\r\nI lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse\r\nbefore I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the small\r\nof my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too; the sun\r\nshining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the\r\nstreets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse\r\nand worse—at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my\r\nstockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself at\r\nher feet, beseeching her as a particular favour to give me a good\r\nslippering for my misbehaviour; anything indeed but condemning me to\r\nlie abed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and\r\nmost conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For\r\nseveral hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than\r\nI have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes.\r\nAt last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and\r\nslowly waking from it—half steeped in dreams—I opened my eyes, and the\r\nbefore sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt\r\na shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and\r\nnothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine.\r\nMy arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable,\r\nsilent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely\r\nseated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there,\r\nfrozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet\r\never thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid\r\nspell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided\r\naway from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it\r\nall, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in\r\nconfounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I\r\noften puzzle myself with it.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84A50K5F8N1J5P2FVT41","peer_label":"Chapter 4. The Counterpane","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84A50K5F8N1J5P2FVT41","peer_label":"Chapter 4. The Counterpane","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86S9R439YT1XRAH1039R","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.328Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:15.086Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}