CHAPTER 4
The Counterpane
Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's armthrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner.You had almost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane wasof patchwork, full of odd little parti-colored squares and triangles;and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretanlabyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise shade--owing I suppose to his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sunand shade, his shirt sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times--this same arm of his, I say, looked for all the world like a stripof that same patchwork quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the armdid when I first awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt,they so blended their hues together; and it was only by the senseof weight and pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was hugging me.
My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I wasa child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me;whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle.The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other--I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a littlesweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other,was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,--my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me offto bed, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June,the longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully.But there was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little roomin the third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as tokill time, and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets.
I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hoursmust elapse before I could hope for a resurrection.Sixteen hours in bed! the small of my back ached to think of it.And it was so light too; the sun shining in at the window,and a great rattling of coaches in the streets, and the soundof gay voices all over the house. I felt worse and worse--at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in mystockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threwmyself at her feet, beseeching her as a particular favor to giveme a good slippering for my misbehaviour: anything indeed butcondemning me to lie abed such an unendurable length of time.But she was the best and most conscientious of stepmothers,and back I had to go to my room. For several hours I laythere broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have everdone since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes.At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze;and slowly waking from it--half steeped in dreams--I opened my eyes,and the before sunlit room was now wrapped in outer darkness.Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame;nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard;but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hungover the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent formor phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closelyseated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages,I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daringto drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could butstir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken.I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me;but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all,and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myselfin confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to thisvery hour, I often puzzle myself with it.
Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations atfeeling the supernatural hand in mine were very similar,in their strangeness, to those which I experienced on wakingup and seeing Queequeg's pagan arm thrown round me.But at length all the past night's events soberly recurred,one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive tothe comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm--unlock his bridegroom clasp--yet, sleeping as he was, he stillhugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain.I now strove to rouse him--"Queequeg!"--but his only answerwas a snore. I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if itwere in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a slight scratch.Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk sleepingby the savage's side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby.A pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strangehouse in the broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk!"Queequeg!--in the name of goodness, Queequeg, wake!" At length,by dint of much wriggling, and loud and incessant expostulationsupon the unbecomingness of his hugging a fellow male in thatmatrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in extracting a grunt;and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself all overlike a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed,stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyesas if he did not altogether remember how I came to be there,though a dim consciousness of knowing something about me seemedslowly dawning over him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him,having no serious misgivings now, and bent upon narrowly observingso curious a creature. When, at last, his mind seemed madeup touching the character of his bedfellow, and he became,as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon the floor,and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that,if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave meto dress afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself.Thinks I, Queequeg, under the circumstances, this is a verycivilized overture; but, the truth is, these savages have aninnate sense of delicacy, say what you will; it is marvelloushow essentially polite they are. I pay this particularcompliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so muchcivility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness;staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions;for the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding.Nevertheless, a man like Queequeg you don't see every day,he and his ways were well worth unusual regarding.
He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat,a very tall one, by the by, and then--still minus his trowsers--he hunted up his boots. What under the heavens he did it for,I cannot tell, but his next movement was to crush himself--boots in hand, and hat on--under the bed; when, from sundryviolent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was hard at workbooting himself; though by no law of propriety that I ever heard of,is any man required to be private when putting on his boots.But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition state--neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilizedto show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner.His education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate.If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very probablywould not have troubled himself with boots at all; but then,if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamtof getting under the bed to put them on. At last, he emergedwith his hat very much dented and crushed down over his eyes,and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not beingmuch accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide ones--probably not made to order either--rather pinched and tormentedhim at the first go off of a bitter cold morning.
Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and thatthe street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain viewinto the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure thatQueequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on;I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat,and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible.He complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time inthe morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg,to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutionsto his chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat,and taking up a piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table,dipped it into water and commenced lathering his face.I was watching to see where he kept his razor, when lo and behold,he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, slips out the longwooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little on his boot,and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall,begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance.Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came to knowof what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedinglysharp the long straight edges are always
kept.
The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marchedout of the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket,and sporting his harpoon like a marshal's baton.