He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction,
covered his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling,
till all the people had departed, and he was left
alone in the place.
A Bosom Friend
Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found
Queequeg there quite alone; he having left the Chapel
before the benediction some time. He was sitting
on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove
hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his
face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into
its face, and with a jack-knife gently whittling away
at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his heathenish
way.
But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and
pretty soon, going to the table, took up a large book
there, and placing it on his lap began counting the
pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth
page— as I fancied—stopping
for a moment, looking vacantly around him, and giving
utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment.
He would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming
to commence at number one each time, as though he
could not count more than fifty, and it was only by
such a large number of fifties being found together,
that his astonishment at the multitude of pages was
excited.
With much interest I sat watching him. Savage
though he was, and hideously marred about the face—at
least to my taste— his countenance yet
had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable.
You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly
tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple
honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black
and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would
dare a thousand devils. And besides all this,
there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan,
which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim.
He looked like a man who had never cringed and never
had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that
his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out
in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive
than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to
decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically
an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but
it reminded me of General Washington’s head,
as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the
same long regularly graded retreating slope from above
the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like
two long promontories thickly wooded on top.
Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.
