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."The whale will breach there," Stubb said.Ahabwas up immediately.Peering into the water, he leaned on the steering oarand reversed the orientation of his boat.He then exchanged places withFedallah, the other men reaching up to help him through the rocking boat.He picked up the harpoon, and the oarsmen stood ready to row.Fallon looked down into the sea, trying to make out what Ahab saw.Nothing, until a sudden explosion of white as the whale, rocketingupward, turned over as it finally hit the surface.In a moment Ahab's boatwas in the whale's jaws, Ahab in the bows almost between them.Stubbwas shouting and gesturing, and Fallen's fellows fell to the oars in adisorganized rush.The Filipinos in the lead boat crowded into the sternwhile Ahab, like a man trying to open a recalcitrant garage door, tuggedand shoved at Moby Dick's jaw, trying insanely to dislodge the whale'sgrip.Within seconds filled with crashing water, cries, and confusion,Moby Dick had bitten the boat in two, and Ahab had belly-flopped overthe side like a swimming-class novice.Moby Dick then began to swim tight circles around the smashed boatand its crew.Ahab struggled to keep his head above water.Neither Stubbnor Flask could bring his boat close enough to pick him up.The Pequodwas drawing nearer, and finally Ahab was able to shout loudly enough tobe heard, "Sail on the whale drive him off!"It worked.The Pequod picked up the remnants of the whale-boat whileFallon and the others dragged its crew and Ahab into their own boat.The old man collapsed in the bottom of the boat, gasping for breath,broken and exhausted.He moaned and shook.Fallon was sure he wasfinished whale chasing, that Stubb and the others would see the man wasused up, that Starbuck would take over and sail them home.But in aminute or two Ahab was leaning on his elbow asking after his boat's crew,and a few minutes after that they had resumed the chase with doubleoarsmen in Stubb's boat.Moby Dick drew steadily away as exhaustion wore them down.Fallondid not feel he could row any more after all.The Pequod picked them up,and they gave chase in vain under all sail until dark.fourteenOn the second day's chase all three boats were smashed in.Manysuffered sprains and contusions, and one was bitten by a shark.Ahab'swhalebone leg was shattered, with a splinter driven into his own flesh.Fedallah, who had been the captain's second shadow, was tangled in theline Ahab had shot into the white whale, dragged out of the boat, anddrowned.Moby Dick escaped.fifteenIt came down to what Fallon had known it would come down toeventually.In the middle of that night he went to talk to Ahab, who slept in one ofthe hatchways as he had the night before.The carpenter was making himanother leg, wooden this time, and Ahab was curled sullenly in the darklee of the afterscuttle.Fallon did not know whether he was waiting orasleep.He started down the stairs, hesitated on the second step.Ahab lifted hishead."What do you need?" he asked.Fallon wondered what he wanted to say.He looked at the man huddledin the darkness and tried to imagine what moved him, tried to see him asa man instead of a thing.Was it possible he was only a man, or had Fallonhimself become stylized and distorted by living in the book of Melville'simagination?"You said talking to Starbuck today you said that everything thathappens is fixed, decreed.You said it was rehearsed a billion years beforeany of it took place.Is it true?"Ahab straightened and leaned toward Fallon, bringing his face into thedim light thrown by the lamps on deck.He looked at him for a moment insilence."I don't know.So it seemed as the words left my lips.The Parsee is deadbefore me, as he foretold.I don't know.""That is why you're hunting the whale.""That is why I'm hunting the whale.""How can this hunt, how can killing an animal tell you any thing? Howcan it justify your life? What satisfaction can it give you in the end, even ifyou boil it all down to oil, even if you cut Moby Dick into bible leaves andeat him? I don't understand it."The captain looked at him earnestly.He seemed to be listening, andleaping ahead of the questions.It was very dark in the scuttle, and theycould hardly see each other.Fallon kept his hands folded tightly behindhim.The blade of the cleaver he had shoved into his belt lay cool againstthe skin at the small of his back; it was the same knife he used to butcherthe whale."If it is immutably fixed, then it does not matter what I do.Thepurpose and meaning are out of my hands, and thine.We have only totake our parts, to be the thing that it is written for us to be.Better to livethat role given us than to struggle against it or play the coward, when theactions must be the same nonetheless.Some say I am mad to chase thewhale.Perhaps I am mad [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]