








CHAPTER XXXVII. SUNSET


The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.

I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I
sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them;
but first I pass.

Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like
wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun--slow dived from
noon,--goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill.
Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? This Iron Crown of Lombardy.
Yet is it bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far
flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds.
'Tis iron--that I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too--that I feel; the jagged
edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye,
steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most
brain-battering fight!

Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred
me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not
me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted
with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most
subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good
night--good night! (waving his hand, he moves from the window.)

'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least;
but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they
revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all
stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the
match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and
what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad--Starbuck does; but I'm
demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to
comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered;
and--Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my
dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's
more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye
cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I
will not say as school-boys do to bullies,--Take some one of your own
size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again;
but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags!
I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come
and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye
swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed
purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.
Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under
torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an
angle to the iron way!





