第四十七章 编席人
那是一个多云而闷热的下午；水手们懒洋洋地倚在甲板上，或茫然地望着铅灰色的海面。魁魁格和我正温和地编着一种叫做剑席的东西，用来给我们的小艇多加一道绑绳。整个场景如此静谧、沉郁，却又仿佛预示着什么，空气中潜藏着一种催眠般的幻梦，每一个沉默的水手都仿佛化入了自身无形的存在。
编席时，我是魁魁格的随侍或小工。我不断将麻绳做的纬线穿来穿去于经线的长纱之间，用自己的手当作梭子；魁魁格侧身而立，时不时将沉重的橡木剑滑入线隙，漫不经心地望向海面，无心无念地把每一根纱压紧：我说，那时全船全海笼罩着如此奇异的梦幻，只有剑不时发出的沉闷声将其打破，竟仿佛这是时间的织机，而我自身便是那机械般在命运间织了又织的梭子。那里铺着固定的经线，只服从一种单一、永回、不变的震颤，而那震颤仅够让横来的其他线与之交织。这经线似是必然；而我想，我以己手引己梭，将己之命运织入这不可改易的线中。同时，魁魁格那冲动而淡漠的剑，时而斜刺、歪刺、重刺、轻刺纬线，视情形而定；而这收尾一击的差别，令织成之物终貌相应异样；这野人的剑，我想，终而塑成经与纬；这从容淡漠的剑必是偶然——哎，偶然、自由意志与必然——绝不相斥——皆交织同作。必然之直经，不偏离其终途——其每一交替之震实只趋此；自由意志仍得于给定线间自在引梭；偶然虽受制于必然之正线、其侧向之动受自由意志导，虽为二者所规，却轮番主之，且对事件有最后定貌之一击。
我们正织了又织，忽为一声所惊：那声奇长、曳引、野调超凡如乐，令自由意志之球从我手中落下，我立而望云，那声如翼自云降。高高处桅桁间，是那疯了的盖海人塔斯提戈。他身急前倾，手伸如杖，短促骤间续发喊声。确然，同声此刻或正自数百鲸人高悬之望台传遍海面；然少有肺腑能如印第安人塔斯提戈般赋此旧喊以奇韵。
他悬空半立、 Wildly急望天际，你必以为他是见命运之影、以野喊告其将至的先知或巫者。
“她喷了！那里！那里！那里！她喷了！她喷了！”
“在哪边？”
“下风舷侧，约两哩外！一群！”
顷刻间全船骚动。
抹香鲸喷水如钟摆，恒一而可信。鲸人以此别其于同属之族。
“露尾了！”塔斯提戈喊；鲸没。
“快，管事！”亚哈喊。“计时！计时！”
面团孩急下，瞥表，报亚哈以确刻。
船遂避风，柔滚前行。塔斯提戈报鲸下潜向下风，我们信其必现于船首前。因抹香鲸偶显异术：头向一方潜，而藏水下时转圈，速游反向——此诈今必未施；无由疑塔氏所见之鱼受惊，或知我近。留船者——即不派艇之人——此时代印第安人于主桅顶。前中桅人已下；线桶就位；吊架伸出；主帆收背，三艇悬海如三篮悬崖。舷外急 crew 一手抓栏，一足期然立于舷缘。如战舰兵线欲跃敌船。
然此危急瞬，忽闻惊呼，众目离鲸。皆惊瞥暗亚哈，其周五幽影如自气生。
It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging
about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-coloured waters.
Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat,
for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet
somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie
lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own
invisible self.
I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I
kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the
long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as
Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword
between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly
and unthinkingly drove home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess
did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only
broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as
if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically
weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of
the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging
vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise
interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed
necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle
and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime,
Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof
slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be;
and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding
contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage’s
sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and
woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance—aye, chance, free
will, and necessity—nowise incompatible—all interweavingly working
together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its
ultimate course—its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending
to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads;
and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of
necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though
thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the
last featuring blow at events.
Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so
strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball of
free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds
whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees
was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly
forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden
intervals he continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that
very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of
whalemen’s look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those
lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous
cadence as from Tashtego the Indian’s.
As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and
eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some
prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries
announcing their coming.
“There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!”
“Where-away?”
“On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!”
Instantly all was commotion.
The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and
reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from
other tribes of his genus.
“There go flukes!” was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales
disappeared.
“Quick, steward!” cried Ahab. “Time! time!”
Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact
minute to Ahab.
The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling
before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to
leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of
our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale
when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while
concealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in
the opposite quarter—this deceitfulness of his could not now be in
action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by
Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our
vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepers—that is, those not
appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the
main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the
line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the
mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three
samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager
crews with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly
poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war’s men about
to throw themselves on board an enemy’s ship.
But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took
every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was
surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air.
