第七十章 斯芬克斯
应当补述一笔：在彻底剥去那巨兽的躯体之前，先是将它斩了首。须知，斩下抹香鲸的头乃是一项科学性的解剖绝技，经验丰富的捕鲸外科医生对此极为自豪，这也并非没有道理。
试想，鲸鱼根本没有可称为脖子的部位；恰恰相反，在头和身躯仿佛相接的地方，正是它全身最粗壮之处。还须记住，外科医生必须从上方动手，他与对象之间隔着八九英尺甚至十英尺的距离，而那对象几乎隐没在变色翻滚、时常汹涌迸裂的海涛之中。也要留意，在这等不利情势下，他得向肉里切下好几英尺深；以那种地下作业的方式，连朝那不断收缩的伤口瞥上一眼的机会都没有，却必须巧妙避开所有邻近的禁区，并在头骨衔接脊柱的险要之处将其精准切断。那么，你难道不为斯塔布那句大话感到惊异——他声称斩下一头抹香鲸的头只需十分钟？
头颅刚被割下时，会被丢在船尾，用缆绳系住，直到躯体剥完为止。剥净之后，若是小鲸，便吊上甲板从容处置。但若是成年巨兽，这就绝无可能；因为抹香鲸的头几乎占去全身三分之一的体量，哪怕用捕鲸船那般巨大的滑车，要将如此重负完全吊离海面，也如同企图用珠宝商的秤去称一座荷兰谷仓一样徒劳。
“裴廓德号”的鲸鱼既已斩首、剥体，那颗头便被吊起，贴着船舷——约莫半浸在海中，好教它大半仍凭本来的元素浮托着。于是，那吃重的船身因下桅顶传来巨大下拽之力而剧烈倾斜向它，那一边的每根桁端都如鹤颈般探向波涛；在那里，那滴血的头颅悬在“裴廓德号”的腰侧，恰似巨人荷罗孚尼的首级悬于朱迪斯腰间。
这最后一道工序完毕时已是正午，水手们下舱用餐。先前喧腾、此刻空寂的甲板上一片沉静。浓烈的铜色静谧，如一朵普世的黄莲，正将无声无量的花瓣在海上愈展愈开。
稍过片刻，亚哈独自从舱中走上这无声之境。在后甲板踱了几圈，他驻足俯望船侧，随后缓缓踏入主锚链，取了斯塔布的长铲——鲸鱼斩首后它仍搁在那儿——将铲尖刺入那半悬躯体下部，另一端如拐杖般挟在腋下，便这般倚身而立，目光凝注在那颗头上。
那是一颗黝黑而覆罩的头；悬于这般死寂的静谧中央，宛若沙漠里的斯芬克斯。“说吧，你这庞大而可敬的头，”亚哈低语，“虽无须髯妆点，却这儿那儿地生着苔痕，显出苍老；说吧，威严的头，告诉我们你心中隐藏的秘密。一切潜水者中，你潜得最深。那此刻承着上方日光的头，曾在这世界的根基间游走。在那些无名舰船与姓名锈烂、无名希望与锚爪腐坏的地方；在这艘名为大地的 frigate 以其千万溺者之骨为压舱物的凶残底舱里；在那可怖的水陆之交，曾有你最熟稔的居所。你到过钟声与潜水者皆未至之处；你曾眠于多少水手身畔，而他们那无眠的母亲甘舍性命只求能挨他们躺下。你见过相拥的恋人自燃烧之船跃下；心贴着心，沉入欢腾的浪下；当天国似对他们背弃，他们却对彼此忠贞。你见过被海盗自午夜甲板抛下的被害大副；数小时里他坠入那贪壑更深的午夜；而凶手仍安然航行——同时迅疾的闪电劈碎了邻船，那船本要将一位义夫载向伸张的、渴盼的臂弯。哦，头！你见得足够劈裂行星、令亚伯拉罕成异教徒，而你竟无半字吐露！”
“见帆！”主桅顶上传来一声得胜的呼喊。
“嗯？好哇，这可提神，”亚哈猛然挺直身躯，眉间整片雷云被扫开，叫道。“这死寂中一声活呼，几乎能感化更好的人。——什么方向？”
“右舷船首三度角，先生，正把她的风带给我们！”
“越好越好，老兄。但愿圣保罗此刻打那条路来，给我这无风之处送来他的风！哦自然，哦人之魂！你们勾连的类比远非言语能尽！物质上最微的原子之动之生，心中皆有狡黠的对应。”
It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping
the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the
Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced
whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason.
Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck;
on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that
very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the
surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening
between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a
discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear
in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut
many feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without
so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus
made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts,
and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion
into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb’s boast, that he
demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?
When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a
cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small
whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a
full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale’s head
embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend
such a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this
were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers’
scales.
The Pequod’s whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head
was hoisted against the ship’s side—about half way out of the sea, so
that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And
there with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of
the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm
on that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that
blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod’s waist like the giant
Holofernes’s from the girdle of Judith.
When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went
below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but
now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow
lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves
upon the sea.
A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone
from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to
gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took
Stubb’s long spade—still remaining there after the whale’s
decapitation—and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended
mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood
leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so
intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast
and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a
beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty
head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou
hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams,
has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and
navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous
hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the
drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar
home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many
a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay
them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their
flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true
to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours
he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his
murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the
neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to
outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the
planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”
“Sail ho!” cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head.
“Aye? Well, now, that’s cheering,” cried Ahab, suddenly erecting
himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. “That
lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better
man.—Where away?”
“Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze
to us!
“Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way,
and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man!
how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the
smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate
in mind.”
