{"id":"01KG6G6PJN5NACV81G3ENRMVKC","cid":"bafkreiclf2llzp4luopwgwv3gxtjadl562csx7bstnnmymkwutdd2jyowm","type":"chapter","properties":{"end_line":3028,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:47:28.078Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"XIX","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":2971,"text":"taken days of sequestration from the winds and the sun to have brought\r\nabout the effacement of that. But the skeleton in the cheek-bone at the\r\npoint of its angle was just beginning delicately to be defined under the\r\nwarm-tinted skin. In fervid hearts self-contained some brief experiences\r\ndevour our human tissue as secret fire in a ship’s hold consumes cotton\r\nin the bale.\r\n\r\nBut now, lying between the two guns, as nipped in the vice of fate,\r\nBilly’s agony, mainly proceeding from a generous young heart’s virgin\r\nexperience of the diabolical incarnate and effective in some men--the\r\ntension of that agony was over now. It survived not the something\r\nhealing in the closeted interview with Captain Vere. Without movement he\r\nlay as in a trance, that adolescent expression, previously noted as his,\r\ntaking on something akin to the look of a slumbering child in the cradle\r\nwhen the warm hearth-glow of the still chamber of night plays on the\r\ndimples that at whiles mysteriously form in the cheek, silently coming\r\nand going there. For now and then in the gyved one’s trance, a serene\r\nhappy light born of some wandering reminiscence or dream would diffuse\r\nitself over his face, and then wane away only anew to return.\r\n\r\nThe chaplain coming to see him and finding him thus, and perceiving no\r\nsign that he was conscious of his presence, attentively regarded him for\r\na space, then slipping aside, withdrew for the time, peradventure\r\nfeeling that even he, the minister of Christ, though receiving his\r\nstipend from wars, had no consolation to proffer which could result in a\r\npeace transcending that which he beheld. But in the small hours he came\r\nagain. And the prisoner, now awake to his surroundings, noticed his\r\napproach, and civilly, all but cheerfully, welcomed him. But it was to\r\nlittle purpose that in the interview following the good man sought to\r\nbring Billy Budd to some Godly understanding that he must die, and at\r\ndawn. True, Billy himself freely referred to his death as a thing close\r\nat hand; but it was something in the way that children will refer to\r\ndeath in general, who yet among their other sports will play a funeral\r\nwith hearse and mourners. Not that like children Billy was incapable of\r\nconceiving what death really is. No, but he was wholly without\r\nirrational fear of it, a fear more prevalent in highly civilised\r\ncommunities than those so-called barbarous ones which in all respects\r\nstand nearer to unadulterate Nature. And, as elsewhere said, a barbarian\r\nBilly radically was; quite as much so (for all the costume) as his\r\ncountrymen the British captives, living trophies made to march in the\r\nRoman triumph of Germanicus. Quite as much so as those later barbarians,\r\nyoung men probably, and picked specimens among the earlier British\r\nconverts to Christianity, at least nominally such, and taken to Rome (as\r\nto-day converts from lesser isles of the sea may be taken to London), of\r\nwhom the Pope of that time, admiring the strangeness of their personal\r\nbeauty, so unlike the Italian stamp, their clear, ruddy complexions and\r\ncurled flaxen locks, exclaimed, ‘Angles’ (meaning _English_, the modern\r\nderivative), ‘Angles do you call them? And is it because they look so\r\nlike Angels?’ Had it been later in time one would think that the Pope\r\nhad in mind Fra Angelico’s seraphs, some of whom, plucking apples in\r\ngardens of Hesperides, have the faint rosebud complexion of the more\r\nbeautiful English girls.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"XIX"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G62NAV0XVMCJK0J8GGZ96","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G6PJNH5QCRX73H14BH0PF","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G6PJN4N5XZZ9N4TE02ZJK","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:47:29.493Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:47:33.472Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}