{"id":"01KFNR8BAA09WRGCQMVT6XDW11","cid":"bafkreifgrqtmu7l5j24xnjygzgzmbdrz2f5245doqkrazp2ncgd4rz6qlq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":20788,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.416Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":20719,"text":"on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some\r\nsuch mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket.”\r\n\r\n“They have, they have. I have seen them—some summer days in the\r\nmorning. About this time—yes, it is his noon nap now—the boy\r\nvivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of\r\ncannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back\r\nto dance him again.”\r\n\r\n“’Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every\r\nmorning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of\r\nhis father’s sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for\r\nNantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away!\r\nSee, see! the boy’s face from the window! the boy’s hand on the hill!”\r\n\r\nBut Ahab’s glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and\r\ncast his last, cindered apple to the soil.\r\n\r\n“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what\r\ncozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor\r\ncommands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep\r\npushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly\r\nmaking me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not\r\nso much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this\r\narm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy\r\nin heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible\r\npower; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain\r\nthink thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does\r\nthat living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round\r\nin this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all\r\nthe time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon\r\nAlbicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where\r\ndo murderers go, man! Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged\r\nto the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and\r\nthe air smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have\r\nbeen making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and\r\nthe mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we\r\nhow we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust\r\namid greenness; as last year’s scythes flung down, and left in the\r\nhalf-cut swaths—Starbuck!”\r\n\r\nBut blanched to a corpse’s hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away.\r\n\r\nAhab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at\r\ntwo reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly\r\nleaning over the same rail.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 133. The Chase—First Day.\r\n\r\nThat night, in the mid-watch, when the old man—as his wont at\r\nintervals—stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went\r\nto his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing\r\nup the sea air as a sagacious ship’s dog will, in drawing nigh to some\r\nbarbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that\r\npeculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the living\r\nsperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner\r\nsurprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane,\r\nand then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as\r\npossible, Ahab rapidly ordered the ship’s course to be slightly\r\naltered, and the sail to be shortened.\r\n\r\nThe acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated\r\nat daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and\r\nlengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery\r\nwrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift\r\ntide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream.\r\n\r\n“Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR85HWN9BZZ5RJPNHTDQTZ","peer_label":"133","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR85HWN9BZZ5RJPNHTDQTZ","peer_label":"133","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":"01KFNR8B70RHP18KJZ5DTD0K4W","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR8B9HG20WJZBM8Q4ZYK3X","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.971Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:18.947Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}