{"id":"01KJNXJQTBPG1NVDSCVTACMWZP","cid":"bafkreic5t2tsvkfxmlmwkueiaetsiz6m5qw6g3xolgyjptniqxylrnkh3i","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":51295,"char_start":43306,"chunk_index":6,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1998,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"north with the darkness towards the south—wherever in your wisdom you\r\nmay conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to\r\ninquire the price, and don’t be too particular.\r\n\r\nWith halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of “The\r\nCrossed Harpoons”—but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further\r\non, from the bright red windows of the “Sword-Fish Inn,” there came\r\nsuch fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and\r\nice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay\r\nten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,—rather weary for me,\r\nwhen I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from\r\nhard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most\r\nmiserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one\r\nmoment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of\r\nthe tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t\r\nyou hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are\r\nstopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets\r\nthat took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not\r\nthe cheeriest inns.\r\n\r\nSuch dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand,\r\nand here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At\r\nthis hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of\r\nthe town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light\r\nproceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood\r\ninvitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the\r\nuses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble\r\nover an ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying\r\nparticles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city,\r\nGomorrah? But “The Crossed Harpoons,” and “The Sword-Fish?”—this, then\r\nmust needs be the sign of “The Trap.” However, I picked myself up and\r\nhearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior\r\ndoor.\r\n\r\nIt seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black\r\nfaces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of\r\nDoom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the\r\npreacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping\r\nand wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing\r\nout, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’\r\n\r\nMoving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the\r\ndocks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a\r\nswinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly\r\nrepresenting a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words\r\nunderneath—“The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin.”\r\n\r\nCoffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought\r\nI. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this\r\nPeter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and\r\nthe place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated\r\nlittle wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here\r\nfrom the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a\r\npoverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very\r\nspot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.\r\n\r\nIt was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house, one side palsied\r\nas it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner,\r\nwhere that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than\r\never it did about poor Paul’s tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless,\r\nis a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the\r\nhob quietly toasting for bed. “In judging of that tempestuous wind\r\ncalled Euroclydon,” says an old writer—of whose works I possess the\r\nonly copy extant—“it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou\r\nlookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the\r\noutside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where\r\nthe frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only\r\nglazier.” True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my\r\nmind—old black-letter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are\r\nwindows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn’t\r\nstop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint\r\nhere and there. But it’s too late to make any improvements now. The\r\nuniverse is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted\r\noff a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth\r\nagainst the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with\r\nhis shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a\r\ncorn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the\r\ntempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken\r\nwrapper—(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty\r\nnight; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their\r\noriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the\r\nprivilege of making my own summer with my own coals.\r\n\r\nBut what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up\r\nto the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra\r\nthan here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the\r\nline of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in\r\norder to keep out this frost?\r\n\r\nNow, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the\r\ndoor of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be\r\nmoored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a\r\nCzar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a\r\ntemperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.\r\n\r\nBut no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there\r\nis plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted\r\nfeet, and see what sort of a place this “Spouter” may be.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.\r\n\r\nEntering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide,\r\nlow, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of\r\nthe bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large\r\noilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the\r\nunequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent\r\nstudy and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of\r\nthe neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its\r\npurpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first\r\nyou almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New\r\nEngland hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint\r\nof much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and\r\nespecially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the\r\nentry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however\r\nwild, might not be altogether unwarranted.\r\n\r\nBut what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber,\r\nportentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the\r\npicture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a\r\nnameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive\r\na nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,\r\nhalf-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to\r\nit, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what\r\nthat marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas,\r\ndeceptive idea would dart you through.—It’s the Black Sea in a midnight\r\ngale.—It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a\r\nblasted heath.—It’s a Hyperborean winter scene.—It’s the breaking-up of\r\nthe icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to\r\nthat one portentous something in the picture’s midst. _That_ once found\r\nout, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint\r\nresemblance to a gigantic fish?"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKXNCK8G0E519GPWTEATV","peer_label":"ishmael","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:23.317Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM1JY61FTG36E9HP0Z97S","peer_label":"peter 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