Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Narrator Agrees to Share the Bed

Queequeg grunts that he understands, politely motions the narrator to get into bed, and rolls over to make space. The narrator observes that despite his tattoos, Queequeg looks clean and comely, and decides it is better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian. He asks Queequeg to put away his tomahawk and stop smoking in bed, which Queequeg agrees to immediately, and the narrator climbs into bed and sleeps more soundly than he ever has before.

第四章 : The Counterpane

The narrator wakes to find Queequeg’s tattooed arm draped over him, resembling the patchwork counterpane on the bed. The arm’s complex inked design blends visually with the quilt’s squares and triangles, creating a surreal visual effect. Despite the physical contact being comforting rather than threatening, the narrator experiences strange sensations at finding himself in this intimate embrace.

Waking in Queequeg’s Embrace

The narrator recalls a childhood incident involving his stepmother. After being caught misbehaving—attempting to crawl up the chimney like a little sweep—he was sent to bed at 2 PM on the longest day of the year as punishment. The sixteen hours he was forced to spend in bed felt like an eternity, especially with daylight streaming in and sounds of activity outside. When night fell, he experienced a terrifying nightmare where he felt a supernatural hand grasp his, leaving him paralyzed with fear for ages. Though the exact nature of this childhood experience remains mysterious to him even as an adult, the sensation of waking with Queequeg’s arm around him brings back similar feelings of strange vulnerability, though without the dread.