Queequeg’s Breakfast Conduct and Post-Meal Routine
Queequeg sat at the head of the table, cool as an icicle among the bashful company. While his admirers might struggle to justify his bringing a harpoon to breakfast and using it to reach across the table for beefsteaks, his actions possessed a certain coolness that the narrator notes “is to do it genteelly.” Queequeg avoided coffee and hot rolls, focusing entirely on rare beefsteaks. After breakfast concluded, he withdrew to the public room alongside the other boarders, lit his tomahawk-pipe, and sat quietly digesting and smoking while keeping his inseparable hat on. The narrator then departed for a stroll.
第六章 The Street.
New Bedford’s streets present a remarkable cosmopolitan character, far exceeding other major seaports in the diversity of their inhabitants. While Broadway, Chestnut Street, and Regent Street occasionally see foreign mariners, New Bedford surpasses all—featuring actual cannibals, savages, and exotic Pacific Islanders (Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans) casually conversing at street corners alongside wild whalemen. The town’s cosmopolitan street population makes a stranger stare.
Diversity of New Bedford’s Street Population and Seaport Comparisons
New Bedford’s street scene rivals or exceeds any major port city worldwide. While Water Street and Wapping display only sailors, New Bedford features actual cannibals, complete savages still bearing unholy flesh upon their bones, and wild specimens of the whaling trade wandering unheeded through thoroughfares. Mediterranean mariners occasionally jostle ladies on Broadway and Chestnut Street, and Yankees have startled natives at Bombay’s Apollo Green, but New Bedford surpasses all these encounters in exoticism and diversity.
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