{"id":"01KJNXJV9KYHCND13DC26YJV69","cid":"bafkreihwtg2m3u6slb2ajfbizwkkoo2riknetuohiuch4tyur264dogv4q","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":1078336,"char_start":1070739,"chunk_index":151,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1900,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"was traced half-way along the pole’s length, and firmly secured so,\r\nwith intertwistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and rope—like the\r\nThree Fates—remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with\r\nthe weapon; the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory\r\npole, both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his\r\ncabin, light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was\r\nheard. Oh, Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy\r\nstrange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the\r\nmelancholy ship, and mocked it!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 114. The Gilder.\r\n\r\nPenetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising\r\nground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild,\r\npleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on\r\nthe stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or\r\nsailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or\r\nseventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small\r\nsuccess for their pains.\r\n\r\nAt such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow\r\nheaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so\r\nsociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone\r\ncats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy\r\nquietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the\r\nocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and\r\nwould not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a\r\nremorseless fang.\r\n\r\nThese are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a\r\ncertain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he\r\nregards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing\r\nonly the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high\r\nrolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when\r\nthe western emigrants’ horses only show their erected ears, while their\r\nhidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure.\r\n\r\nThe long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these\r\nthere steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied\r\nchildren lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when\r\nthe flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most\r\nmystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate,\r\nand form one seamless whole.\r\n\r\nNor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as\r\ntemporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem\r\nto open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath\r\nupon them prove but tarnishing.\r\n\r\nOh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in\r\nye,—though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,—in ye,\r\nmen yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some\r\nfew fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them.\r\nWould to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling\r\nthreads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a\r\nstorm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this\r\nlife; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one\r\npause:—through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless\r\nfaith, adolescence’ doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then\r\ndisbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But\r\nonce gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and\r\nmen, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor\r\nno more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will\r\nnever weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like\r\nthose orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of\r\nour paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.\r\n\r\nAnd that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat’s side into that\r\nsame golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:—\r\n\r\n“Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s\r\neye!—Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping\r\ncannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep\r\ndown and do believe.”\r\n\r\nAnd Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that same\r\ngolden light:—\r\n\r\n“I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that\r\nhe has always been jolly!”\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor.\r\n\r\nAnd jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down\r\nbefore the wind, some few weeks after Ahab’s harpoon had been welded.\r\n\r\nIt was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her\r\nlast cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in\r\nglad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously,\r\nsailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous\r\nto pointing her prow for home.\r\n\r\nThe three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red\r\nbunting at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended,\r\nbottom down; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long\r\nlower jaw of the last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks\r\nof all colours were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways\r\nlashed in each of her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm;\r\nabove which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of\r\nthe same precious fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen\r\nlamp.\r\n\r\nAs was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most\r\nsurprising success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in\r\nthe same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without\r\nsecuring a single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been\r\ngiven away to make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional\r\nsupplemental casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met;\r\nand these were stowed along the deck, and in the captain’s and\r\nofficers’ state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself had been knocked\r\ninto kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of an\r\noil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centrepiece. In the\r\nforecastle, the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their chests,\r\nand filled them; it was humorously added, that the cook had clapped a\r\nhead on his largest boiler, and filled it; that the steward had plugged\r\nhis spare coffee-pot and filled it; that the harpooneers had headed the\r\nsockets of their irons and filled them; that indeed everything was\r\nfilled with sperm, except the captain’s pantaloons pockets, and those\r\nhe reserved to thrust his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of\r\nhis entire satisfaction.\r\n\r\nAs this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the\r\nbarbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing\r\nstill nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge\r\ntry-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like _poke_ or stomach skin\r\nof the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the\r\nclenched hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and\r\nharpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with\r\nthem from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat,\r\nfirmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long\r\nIsland negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were\r\npresiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship’s\r\ncompany were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the try-works, from\r\nwhich the huge pots had been removed."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXM37BGJ4EBHZ5Q1YQPREQ","peer_label":"pip","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV7VCG1M1V2KKXZJD4A9","peer_label":"stubb","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVYKWFDKYWNFAY5N9KE5","peer_label":"starbuck","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM9FN9D3YSCP9TPV20WJ8","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXND12BNTD8Q581YVH07AR","peer_label":"whales","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"animal","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQDFAQ37WNWKFGVVNYWRP","peer_label":"long island negroes","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_people","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNPWYGWZGK2JEDJKV09EE","peer_label":"sperm oil","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"product","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ0Y34QG7PM2W16CG11W4","peer_label":"try-pots","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"equipment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ2B148T6ZZNS7FGBJD55","peer_label":"mates the bachelor","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_people","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ24CN8VDP7E45FBWDM51","peer_label":"black fish","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"animal","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ3SVJCSTZNMHH65BHGN4","peer_label":"whale ivory","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"material","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ26QNA6K8S7AFPGS71PR","peer_label":"try-works","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"structure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQE340HEB88J7DXPX5VWT","peer_label":"ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQDCF22ANSSF1MAJTW10S","peer_label":"loveliness unfathomable","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFHF3YV53XD597DCJSQZ","peer_label":"japanese cruising ground","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQEF6ZS7A4G6YSJ6N7RJ2","peer_label":"nantucket ship","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFHG9BDRRCK0KTDSVA3S","peer_label":"the bachelor","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXR5213T1PCK70XJJM85RB","peer_label":"fiddle-bows","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRF0JV0YHRVQG0ZZ191J2","peer_label":"olive-hued girls","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRYJ8M5ZCV43EEV3H6FNB","peer_label":"polynesian isles","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ71XXCQ9QY75A9PV1GBB","peer_label":"harpooneers the bachelor","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_people","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFPCQV2AQ1EHCZS3N2KR","peer_label":"ahabs weapon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:19.848Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.155Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:08:21.193Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}