Bab Bab 11 · 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

head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two

noses bending over them, as if our kneepans 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 blanket

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 from Queequeg that

perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide

awake; and besides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs

from his Tomahawk. Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong

repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how

elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them.

For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me,

even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy

then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord’s policy of

insurance. I was only alive to the condensed confidential

comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend.

With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed the

Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue

hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp.

Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to

far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island;

and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He

gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of

his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar

with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story

such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give.