It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most significant event befell the most insignificant1 of the Pequod's crew; an event most lamentable2; and which ended in providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own.
Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province it is to work the vessel3 while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, these shipkeepers are as hardy4 fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there happen to be an unduly5 slender, clumsy, or timorous6 wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine7 on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly.
In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony9 and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar color, driven in one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and torpid10 in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial11, jolly brightness peculiar12 to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with finer, freer relish13 than any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar should show naught14 but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and New Year's Days. Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold15 yon lustrous16 ebony, panelled in king's cabinets. But Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped17, had most sadly blurred18 his brightness; though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily subdued19 in him, in the end was destined20 to be luridly21 illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously22 showed him off to ten times the natural lustre23 with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and at melodious24 even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the clear air of day, suspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural25 gases. Then come out those fiery26 effulgences, infernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell. But let us to the story.
It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman chanced so to sprain27 his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed; and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.
The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness; but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing him, took care, afterwards, to exhort28 him to cherish his courageousness29 to the utmost, for he might often find it needful.
Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as the fish received the darted30 iron, it gave its customary rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat. The involuntary consternation31 of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as to become entangled32 in it, when at last plumping into the water. That instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly straightened; and presto33! poor Pip came all foaming34 up to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken several turns around his chest and neck.
Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon35. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, "Cut?" Meantime Pip's blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passed in a flash. In less than half a minute, this entire thing happened.
"Damn him, cut!" roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was saved.
So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed36 by yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly37 permitting these irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, business-like, but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially; and that done, unofficially gave him much wholesome38 advice. The substance was, Never jump from a boat, Pip, except--but all the rest was indefinite, as the soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, Stick to the boat, is your true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when Leap from the boat, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if he should give undiluted conscientious39 advice to Pip, he would be leaving him too wide a margin40 to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped all advice, and concluded with a peremptory41 command "Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump; mind that. We can't afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and don't jump any more." Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly42 hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity43 too often interferes44 with his benevolence45.
But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk. Alas46! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous47, blue day! the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed like a head of cloves48. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern. Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest.
Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore49. But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea-- mark how closely they hug their ship and only coast along her sides.
But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; he did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake, and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very quickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations towards oarsmen jeopardized50 through their own timidity, is not always manifested by the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances not unfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to military navies and armies.
But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably51. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly52 kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely53, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous54 depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal55 world glided56 to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded57 heaps; and among the joyous58, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament59 of waters heaved the colossal60 orbs61. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom8, and spoke62 it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity63 is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial64 thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic65; and weal or woe66, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.
For the rest blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative67, it will then be seen what like abandonment befell myself.
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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timorous
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| adj.胆怯的，胆小的 | |
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tambourine
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| n.铃鼓，手鼓 | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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torpid
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| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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entrapped
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| v.使陷入圈套，使入陷阱( entrap的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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luridly
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| adv. 青灰色的(苍白的, 深浓色的, 火焰等火红的) | |
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fictitiously
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| adv.虚构地；假地 | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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sprain
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| n.扭伤,扭筋 | |
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exhort
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| v.规劝，告诫 | |
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courageousness
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| 勇敢，无畏 | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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presto
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| adv.急速地；n.急板乐段；adj.急板的 | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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poltroon
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| n.胆怯者；懦夫 | |
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assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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propensity
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| n.倾向；习性 | |
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interferes
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| vi. 妨碍，冲突，干涉 | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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bounteous
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| adj.丰富的 | |
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cloves
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| n.丁香（热带树木的干花，形似小钉子，用作调味品，尤用作甜食的香料）( clove的名词复数 )；蒜瓣(a garlic ~|a ~of garlic) | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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jeopardized
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| 危及，损害( jeopardize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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jeeringly
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| adv.嘲弄地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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hoarded
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| v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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firmament
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| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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orbs
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| abbr.off-reservation boarding school 在校寄宿学校n.球，天体，圆形物( orb的名词复数 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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