Ishmael tried sleeping on a wooden bench rather than face the harpooneer’s blanket. The landlord planed the boards with ape-like grins while drafts swept from window and door. The bench proved too short, too narrow, too cold. Defeated, Ishmael followed the landlord upstairs to a room containing a bed of prodigious size, a tall harpoon at its head, and a strange shaggy garment on the chest resembling a door mat with a slit in its center. Alone in the freezing chamber, he examined the odd poncho-like object, even trying it on before a scrap of mirror. The sight decided him. He stripped, blew out the candle, and tumbled into the vast bed.
The mattress proved lumpy. He tossed until exhaustion dragged him toward sleep—only to be roused by heavy footsteps. Light crept under the door. The stranger who entered carried a candle in one hand and a shrunken human head in the other. When he turned toward the light, Ishmael’s breath caught. The face was dark purple-yellow, marked with black squares in a checkerboard pattern. His head was entirely bald save for a small knot of hair twisted on his forehead, giving him the appearance of a mildewed skull. The strange checkering covered his entire body—chest, back, arms, legs.
Then the savage produced a small deformed figure of polished ebony—a hunchbacked wooden idol—and set it in the cold fireplace like a shrine. He arranged shavings before it, laid a ship’s biscuit atop them, and kindled a flame. With guttural chants and strange contortions of face, he offered the burnt biscuit to his Congo god. The ritual complete, he stuffed the idol back into his pocket.
Ishmael knew he should speak before the light died. But hesitation cost him everything. The savage picked up his tomahawk, raised it to his lips, and puffed great clouds of tobacco smoke. Then he extinguished the candle and sprang into bed with the weapon still clutched in his teeth.
Ishmael screamed. The cannibal grunted in surprise and began feeling about in the darkness. His guttural voice demanded to know who shared his bed, and when Ishmael stammered, the man raised his smoking tomahawk and threatened death. Ishmael shouted for the landlord, for angels, for anyone who might save him.
The door burst open. The landlord stood grinning in the light. He spoke calm words: Queequeg here would not harm a hair on any man’s head. The harpooneer was a South Sea islander, a sober and paying guest, harmless despite his fearsome appearance. Queequeg sat up in bed, pipe in hand, his tattooed face composed and patient. He motioned Ishmael back toward the covers with genuine courtesy, rolling to one side to give him room.
The fear drained away. Ishmael reflected that this clean, composed savage posed less danger than any drunken Christian sailor stumbling through the night. He asked the landlord to tell Queequeg to put away his tomahawk and pipe. Queequeg complied at once, settling back with the polite grace of a host. Ishmael turned in beside him and slept better than he had in his entire life.
Waking to daylight, Ishmael finds Queequeg’s tattooed arm thrown over him in a loving embrace, the intricate patterns blending so perfectly with the patchwork counterpane that he can hardly distinguish the limb from the quilt. This confusing intimacy triggers a vivid childhood memory of being sent to bed early in the height of summer, where he once woke in darkness to feel a supernatural hand gripping his own, a terror that paralyzed him for ages. The shock of that phantom grip mirrors his initial startle at the savage’s weight, but as the events of the previous night return, the fear shifts into a comical realization of his predicament: he is being hugged like a bride by a slumbering cannibal.
Ishmael attempts to extricate himself from the bridegroom clasp, only to feel a scratch and discover a tomahawk sleeping by Queequeg’s side like a hatchet-faced baby. After much wriggling and loud expostulation, he succeeds in rousing the harpooner. Queequeg shakes himself awake like a wet dog and sits up stiffly, slowly recognizing Ishmael. With a surprising gesture of civility, he signals that he will dress first and leave the room to his bedfellow. Ishmael watches this curious creature perform his bizarre toilette, noting behaviors that highlight his hybrid nature. Queequeg puts on his hat and boots but insists on crawling under the bed to complete the latter, an act Ishmael attributes to his incomplete civilization. The harpooner washes only his chest and arms before astonishing Ishmael by unsheathing his harpoon, whetting the head on his boot, and using the razor-sharp steel to shave his face before the mirror. Finished, Queequeg dons his pilot jacket and marches out of the room, carrying his harpoon like a marshal’s baton.
Ishmael descends to the bar-room, greeting the grinning landlord without malice for the previous night’s bedfellow prank. The room fills with a shaggy company of whalemen, whose sun-weathered complexions reveal exactly how long each has been ashore, ranging from fresh, sun-toasted hues to the bleached tans seasoned by weeks on land. Queequeg’s barred countenance stands out among them, suggesting the grandeur of the Andes. When the landlord calls for grub, the group moves to the table. Ishmael anticipates boisterous sea-stories but discovers a surprising, sheepish silence among the otherwise bold whalemen, who look around as bashfully as timid sheep. Queequeg breaks the tension not with words, but with supreme coolness, using his harpoon to snag beefsteaks across the table to the imminent jeopardy of the other diners. After ignoring coffee and rolls for rare beef, Queequeg retires to the public room to smoke his tomahawk-pipe while Ishmael goes out for a stroll.
Ishmael’s initial astonishment at Queequeg fades during a stroll through New Bedford, where the streets outdo other seaports with actual cannibals chatting at corners. Amidst these savages, scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men arrive seeking whaling glory. These rustic dandies strut in beaver hats and swallow-tailed coats, purchasing ridiculous sea-outfits with bell-buttons and straps that Ishmael predicts will burst in the first tempest. Yet the town offers more than rough sailors; it is a land of oil, boasting opulent houses and gardens that rival the patrician estates of older lands. This grandeur stems entirely from the whale fishery, for the brave mansions were harpooned and dragged up from the bottom of the sea. Wealth is so abundant that fathers give whales as dowries and families burn spermaceti candles recklessly. In summer, the town is sweet with maples and horse-chestnuts, while the women bloom like roses, possessing a beauty and musk said to rival only that of Salem.
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