{"id":"01KG6YGAW387788QZ627RJBJFW","cid":"bafkreifrp3cetdgs45hubjwucgchfzvgfteegmuve2zu4ukqxv2nw622da","type":"segment","properties":{"description":"# PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS\n## Overview\nThis is a segment of text extracted from [The Apple-Tree Table and Other Sketches](arke:01KG6YFXZ62W4FVZVEZTBSQNZY) by Herman Melville. The segment, titled \"PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS,\" spans lines 740-839 of the source file, [the_apple_tree_table_and_other_sketches.txt](arke:01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7). It is part of the [Melville](arke:01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF) collection.\n\n## Context\nThe segment is preceded by [I AND MY CHIMNEY](arke:01KG6YGAW3RVWZMPVH8TPXDXBS) and followed by [COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO](arke:01KG6YGAW39D2BV4XP86FC7EAE) within the document. The text was extracted using the `structure-extraction-lambda` tool.\n\n## Contents\nThis segment contains a dialogue between a husband, his wife, and their daughters regarding a bug that emerged from a crack in their table. The daughters, Julia and Anna, are frightened and suggest the table is haunted by spirits. Their mother dismisses this idea, suggesting the table be treated with \"roach powder.\" The husband recounts the events and the family's reactions, highlighting the daughters' fear and the mother's pragmatic approach. The segment culminates in the wife sealing the crack in the table with cement and the daughters being taken out for a walk to distract them from their fears.\n","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T07:58:10.249Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS","end_line":839,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:25.113Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":740,"text":"\"A bug, Julia.\"\r\n\r\n\"Bug?\" cried my wife. \"A bug come out of this table? And what did you\r\ndo with it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Clapped it under a tumbler.\"\r\n\r\n\"Biddy! Biddy!\" cried my wife, going to the door. \"Did you see a\r\ntumbler here on this table when you swept the room?\"\r\n\r\n\"Sure I did, marm, and 'bomnable bug under it.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what did you do with it?\" demanded I.\r\n\r\n\"Put the bug in the fire, sir, and rinsed out the tumbler ever so many\r\ntimes, marm.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where is that tumbler?\" cried Anna. \"I hope you scratched it--marked\r\nit some way. I'll never drink out of that tumbler; never put it before\r\nme, Biddy. A bug--a bug! Oh, Julia! Oh, mamma! I feel it crawling all\r\nover me, even now. Haunted table!\"\r\n\r\n\"Spirits! spirits!\" cried Julia.\r\n\r\n\"My daughters,\" said their mother, with authority in her eyes, \"go to\r\nyour chamber till you can behave more like reasonable creatures. Is it\r\na bug--a bug that can frighten you out of what little wits you ever\r\nhad? Leave the room. I am astonished, I am pained by such childish\r\nconduct.\"\r\n\r\n\"Now tell me,\" said she, addressing me, as soon as they had withdrawn,\r\n\"now tell me truly, did a bug really come out of this crack in the\r\ntable?\"\r\n\r\n\"Wife, it is even so.\"\r\n\r\n\"Did you see it come out?\"\r\n\r\n\"I did.\"\r\n\r\nShe looked earnestly at the crack, leaning over it.\r\n\r\n\"Are you sure?\" said she, looking up, but still bent over.\r\n\r\n\"Sure, sure.\"\r\n\r\nShe was silent. I began to think that the mystery of the thing began\r\nto tell even upon her. Yes, thought I, I shall presently see my wife\r\nshaking and shuddering, and, who knows, calling in some old dominie to\r\nexorcise the table, and drive out the spirits.\r\n\r\n\"I'll tell you what we'll do,\" said she suddenly, and not without\r\nexcitement.\r\n\r\n\"What, wife?\" said I, all eagerness, expecting some mystical\r\nproposition; \"what, wife?\"\r\n\r\n\"We will rub this table all over with that celebrated 'roach powder'\r\nI've heard of.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good gracious! Then you don't think it's spirits?\"\r\n\r\n\"Spirits?\"\r\n\r\nThe emphasis of scornful incredulity was worthy of Democritus himself.\r\n\r\n\"But this ticking--this ticking?\" said I.\r\n\r\n\"I'll whip that out of it.\"\r\n\r\n\"Come, come, wife,\" said I, \"you are going too far the other way, now.\r\nNeither roach powder nor whipping will cure this table. It's a queer\r\ntable, wife; there's no blinking it.\"\r\n\r\n\"I'll have it rubbed, though,\" she replied, \"well rubbed;\" and calling\r\nBiddy, she bade her get wax and brush, and give the table a vigorous\r\nmanipulation. That done, the cloth was again laid, and we sat down to\r\nour morning meal; but my daughters did not make their appearance. Julia\r\nand Anna took no breakfast that day.\r\n\r\nWhen the cloth was removed, in a businesslike way, my wife went to work\r\nwith a dark colored cement, and hermetically closed the little hole in\r\nthe table.\r\n\r\nMy daughters looking pale, I insisted upon taking them out for a walk\r\nthat morning, when the following conversation ensued:\r\n\r\n\"My worst presentiments about that table are being verified, papa,\"\r\nsaid Julia; \"not for nothing was that intimation of the cloven foot on\r\nmy shoulder.\"\r\n\r\n\"Nonsense,\" said I. \"Let us go into Mrs. Brown's, and have an\r\nice-cream.\"\r\n\r\nThe spirit of Democritus was stronger on me now. By a curious\r\ncoincidence, it strengthened with the strength of the sunlight.\r\n\r\n\"But is it not miraculous,\" said Anna, \"how a bug should come out of a\r\ntable?\"\r\n\r","title":"PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YFXZ62W4FVZVEZTBSQNZY","peer_type":"document","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YGAW3RVWZMPVH8TPXDXBS","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YGAW39D2BV4XP86FC7EAE","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:25.251Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:10.407Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}