How it is I know not; but there is no place like a
bed for confidential disclosures between friends.
Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom
of their souls to each other; and some old couples
often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning.
Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and
Queequeg— a cosy, loving pair.
Nightgown
We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short
intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately
throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then
drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and
easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations,
what little nappishness remained in us altogether
departed, and we felt like getting up again, though
day-break was yet some way down the future.
Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent
position began to grow wearisome, and by little and
little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes
well tucked around us, leaning against the headboard
with our four knees drawn up close together, and our
two noses bending over them, as if our knee-pans were
warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the
more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed
out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire
in the room. The more so, I say, because truly
to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must
be cold, for there is no quality in this world that
is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing
exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that
you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long
time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any
more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed,
the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be
slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general
consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably
warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should
never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the
luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height
of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but
the blankets between you and your snugness and the
cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like
the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.
We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some
time, when all at once I thought I would open my eyes;
for when between sheets, whether by day or by night,
and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always
keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate
the snugness of being in bed. Because no man
can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes
be closed; as if, darkness were indeed the proper element
of our essences, though light be more congenial to
our clayey part. Upon opening my eyes then, and
coming out of my own pleasant and self-created darkness
into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated
twelve-o’clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable
revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the hint
