{"id":"01KJNXJQTPK18666C310WPM6CH","cid":"bafkreic2dae353555y5abelo2drfrqehoyv3nsu2rwzvckhgk2n5rj4f6y","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":93585,"char_start":85684,"chunk_index":12,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1976,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to\r\nthose which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg’s pagan arm\r\nthrown round me. But at length all the past night’s events soberly\r\nrecurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to\r\nthe comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm—unlock his\r\nbridegroom clasp—yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly,\r\nas though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse\r\nhim—“Queequeg!”—but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over, my\r\nneck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a\r\nslight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk\r\nsleeping by the savage’s side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A\r\npretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange house in the\r\nbroad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! “Queequeg!—in the name of\r\ngoodness, Queequeg, wake!” At length, by dint of much wriggling, and\r\nloud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his\r\nhugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in\r\nextracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself\r\nall over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in\r\nbed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if\r\nhe did not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim\r\nconsciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over\r\nhim. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings\r\nnow, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature. When, at\r\nlast, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bedfellow,\r\nand he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon\r\nthe floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that,\r\nif it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress\r\nafterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg,\r\nunder the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the\r\ntruth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you\r\nwill; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this\r\nparticular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much\r\ncivility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness;\r\nstaring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for\r\nthe time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless,\r\na man like Queequeg you don’t see every day, he and his ways were well\r\nworth unusual regarding.\r\n\r\nHe commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall\r\none, by the by, and then—still minus his trowsers—he hunted up his\r\nboots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his\r\nnext movement was to crush himself—boots in hand, and hat on—under the\r\nbed; when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he\r\nwas hard at work booting himself; though by no law of propriety that I\r\never heard of, is any man required to be private when putting on his\r\nboots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition\r\nstage—neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized\r\nto show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His\r\neducation was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not\r\nbeen a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled\r\nhimself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage,\r\nhe never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At\r\nlast, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over\r\nhis eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not\r\nbeing much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide\r\nones—probably not made to order either—rather pinched and tormented him\r\nat the first go off of a bitter cold morning.\r\n\r\nSeeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the\r\nstreet being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view\r\ninto the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that\r\nQueequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on;\r\nI begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and\r\nparticularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He\r\ncomplied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time in the\r\nmorning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg, to my\r\namazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his\r\nchest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a\r\npiece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water\r\nand commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept\r\nhis razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed\r\ncorner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it\r\na little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the\r\nwall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.\r\nThinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers’s best cutlery with a\r\nvengeance. Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came\r\nto know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how\r\nexceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept.\r\n\r\nThe rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of\r\nthe room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting his\r\nharpoon like a marshal’s baton.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 5. Breakfast.\r\n\r\nI quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the\r\ngrinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him,\r\nthough he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my\r\nbedfellow.\r\n\r\nHowever, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a\r\ngood thing; the more’s the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper\r\nperson, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be\r\nbackward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in\r\nthat way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about\r\nhim, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.\r\n\r\nThe bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the\r\nnight previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were\r\nnearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates,\r\nand sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and\r\nharpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with bosky\r\nbeards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning\r\ngowns.\r\n\r\nYou could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This\r\nyoung fellow’s healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and\r\nwould seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been three days\r\nlanded from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades\r\nlighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In the\r\ncomplexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly\r\nbleached withal; _he_ doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who\r\ncould show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints,\r\nseemed like the Andes’ western slope, to show forth in one array,\r\ncontrasting climates, zone by zone.\r\n\r\n“Grub, ho!” now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we\r\nwent to breakfast.\r\n\r\nThey say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease\r\nin manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though:\r\nLedyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch\r\none; of all men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But\r\nperhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as\r\nLedyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in\r\nthe negro heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo’s\r\nperformances—this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode\r\nof attaining a high social polish."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKT041HQBEV40829SSVCD","peer_label":"landlord","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKY9QG9G0KM51HSAJJNE1","peer_label":"whalemen","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_people","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKX9BFFH5D0M0BETYC3TV","peer_label":"ishmael","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXNA6Q7NV244AJQKVXKZ","peer_label":"queequeg","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXPC09DFJBX440X1TVHE","peer_label":"queequegs boots","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"clothing_item","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXFY0E3ZV5BQ7DJR2BPW","peer_label":"tomahawk","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXH2GMRN3K01DR56AKFQ","peer_label":"harpoon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKY7MNRS9ABYG9S587VGF","peer_label":"monkey jacket","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"clothing_item","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYVEJC808CW1E1H3SM1K","peer_label":"siberia","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"geographical_region","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYGSCYCBQPQ4F045ENWB","peer_label":"mungo park","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKY6CPAF6HFRYMWJQSWPF","peer_label":"bar-room","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYCGVNP4R0DVYK1SB9J1","peer_label":"ledyard","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYKE6YQ5NRGEF3ABP2AS","peer_label":"traveller","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYWWYQ8C3QGCT7QR62QS","peer_label":"africa","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"continent","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYYAZZ12J6VNV09JVWXV","peer_label":"chapter 5","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document_section","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXMETQ0TKDSSTJ1JCWZK","peer_label":"beaver hat","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"clothing_item","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:59.262Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.606Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.205Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}