Call me Ishmael. Years ago, finding myself poor and aimless on land, I decided to sail and view the watery world. This is my method for curing melancholy and regulating my blood. Whenever my mouth grows grim, or my soul feels like a damp, drizzly November, I know it is time to leave. The urge becomes undeniable when I pause before coffin before warehouses, trail behind funerals, or feel a manic impulse to knock hats off in the street. Going to sea is my alternative to suicide. While Cato died on his sword with a flourish, I quietly board a ship. This impulse is not unique; almost all men feel a magnetic pull toward the ocean.
The ships parted. The Pequod’s crew watched the receding Bachelor with grave longing. Ahab stood at the taffrail, fingering a small vial of Nantucket soundings.
The day after the Bachelor’s taunting, the Pequod—long adroop—caught fortune’s rushing breeze. Four whales were slain, one by Ahab. The crimson fight ended; sun and whale died together, the rosy air sweet like vesper hymns.
Ahab watched, soothed to deeper gloom. The dying whale turned sunward—a faithful vassal paying homage—yet death whirled the corpse about. The sun calls forth life but gives it not again. From the dark Hindoo half of nature, her sea-queen throne, Ahab drew a prouder, darker faith, buoyed by breaths of once-living things. He hailed the sea: born of earth, suckled by waves, the billows were his foster-brothers.
Ahab’s boat kept vigil beside the windward whale, a lantern flickering over the carcass. The crew slept, but Fedallah crouched in the bow, watching sharks circle and tap the planks. Ahab woke from his dream of hearses. Fedallah reminded him: two hearses must appear before he can die. The Parsee vowed to pilot Ahab beyond death, and that only hemp could kill him. Ahab laughed, declaring himself immortal on land and sea. The two fell silent as one man until grey dawn, when the crew stirred and the whale was brought to the ship.
As the season for the Line drew near, the crew watched Ahab’s glances aloft with impatience. At last the order came. Near high noon, Ahab seated himself in his hoisted boat to take his solar observation. Through colored glasses he sighted the blazing sun, while Fedallah knelt below, watching through half-hooded eyes.
The observation taken, Ahab calculated his latitude. But the quadrant told him only where he was—not where Moby Dick waited. The same sun must even now be beholding the White Whale.
In fury he denounced the instrument as a foolish toy. Science could mark only where one stood, not where one drop of water would be tomorrow. He cursed all that cast men’s eyes to heaven when God made them level to earth. Dashing the quadrant to the deck, he trampled it—only compass and dead-reckoning would guide him now.
Fedallah’s face showed sneering triumph for Ahab, fatalistic despair for himself. The awestruck crew clustered forward until Ahab shouted the order: the yards swung round, the ship wheeled toward the equator.
Starbuck watched Ahab lurch along the deck and thought of a coal fire burning to dust. Stubb countered: sea-coal ashes. Live in the game, and die in it.
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