{"id":"01KJNXJQYHYXCD90EZKDRRRZ25","cid":"bafkreihaggayn7h4s3nvvrmizvuiywyyqas6vmmtif6amrbnqc5b63n6bq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":456452,"char_start":448458,"chunk_index":63,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1999,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"unquestionable instances where the contrary of this has proved true. In\r\ngeneral, the same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the\r\nsolitaries and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that\r\nthough Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what\r\nis called the Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on\r\nthe Japanese Coast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to\r\nvisit either of those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she\r\nwould infallibly encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding\r\ngrounds, where he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed\r\nonly his casual stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his\r\nplaces of prolonged abode. And where Ahab’s chances of accomplishing\r\nhis object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to\r\nwhatever way-side, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a\r\nparticular set time or place were attained, when all possibilities\r\nwould become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every\r\npossibility the next thing to a certainty. That particular set time and\r\nplace were conjoined in the one technical phrase—the\r\nSeason-on-the-Line. For there and then, for several consecutive years,\r\nMoby Dick had been periodically descried, lingering in those waters for\r\nawhile, as the sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted\r\ninterval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of\r\nthe deadly encounters with the white whale had taken place; there the\r\nwaves were storied with his deeds; there also was that tragic spot\r\nwhere the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive to his\r\nvengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering\r\nvigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering\r\nhunt, he would not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one\r\ncrowning fact above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those\r\nhopes; nor in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his\r\nunquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest.\r\n\r\nNow, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of the\r\nSeason-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable her\r\ncommander to make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn, and\r\nthen running down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial\r\nPacific in time to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next\r\nensuing season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod’s sailing had,\r\nperhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very\r\ncomplexion of things. Because, an interval of three hundred and\r\nsixty-five days and nights was before him; an interval which, instead\r\nof impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous hunt;\r\nif by chance the White Whale, spending his vacation in seas far remote\r\nfrom his periodical feeding-grounds, should turn up his wrinkled brow\r\noff the Persian Gulf, or in the Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any\r\nother waters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas,\r\nNor’-Westers, Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon,\r\nmight blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the\r\nPequod’s circumnavigating wake.\r\n\r\nBut granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it\r\nnot but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one\r\nsolitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of\r\nindividual recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti\r\nin the thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar\r\nsnow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but be\r\nunmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to\r\nhimself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he\r\nwould throw himself back in reveries—tallied him, and shall he escape?\r\nHis broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep’s ear!\r\nAnd here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a\r\nweariness and faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air\r\nof the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what\r\ntrances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one\r\nunachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes\r\nwith his own bloody nails in his palms.\r\n\r\nOften, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid\r\ndreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through\r\nthe day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them\r\nround and round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing\r\nof his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was\r\nsometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up\r\nfrom its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked\r\nflames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap\r\ndown among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild\r\ncry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would\r\nburst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on\r\nfire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms\r\nof some latent weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the\r\nplainest tokens of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the\r\nscheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab\r\nthat had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to\r\nburst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living\r\nprinciple or soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated\r\nfrom the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its\r\nouter vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the\r\nscorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it\r\nwas no longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless\r\nleagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab’s\r\ncase, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme\r\npurpose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced\r\nitself against gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent\r\nbeing of its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common\r\nvitality to which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the\r\nunbidden and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that\r\nglared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room,\r\nwas for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being,\r\na ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to colour, and\r\ntherefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts\r\nhave created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus\r\nmakes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that\r\nvulture the very creature he creates.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.\r\n\r\nSo far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed,\r\nas indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious\r\nparticulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in\r\nits earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this\r\nvolume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and\r\nmore familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood,\r\nand moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of\r\nthe entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity\r\nof the main points of this affair.\r\n\r\nI care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall be\r\ncontent to produce the desired impression by separate citations of\r\nitems, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from\r\nthese citations, I take it—the conclusion aimed at will naturally\r\nfollow of itself.\r\n\r\nFirst: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after\r\nreceiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an\r\ninterval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the\r\nsame hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the "},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.729Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.729Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}