Morning Read Gabriel
¶ In Moby-Dick, a flurry of short chapters about whale butchering, culminating in “The Sphynx,” in which Ahab addresses the head of the decapitated leviathan. His poetical and rather awful gush is interrupted by the sighting of another ship.
“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?”
The ship is another whaler, the Jeroboam. Although the captain and crew are healthy, the ship has been commandeered by a madman on board who calls himself Gabriel. Gabriel has convinced the “ignorant” crew that he is indeed archangelic, and the state of things aboard the Jeroboam might best be characterized as ongoing but non-violent mutiny. A boat from the Jeroboam pitches alongside the Pequod. Gabriel is among the oarsman; Stubb has heard his story from the Town-Ho. For the first time since beginning the book, I am thrilled and terrified by the scene that Melville conjures. Difficult as it is to shout over high seas, Captain Mayhew is continually interrupted by the lunatic.
“Think, think of thy whale-boat stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible tail!”
“I tell thee again, Gabriel, that — ” But again the boat tore ahead as though borne by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional caprices of the sea were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale’s head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature seemed to warrant.
The raving madman, the roiling sea, and the invocation of Moby-Dick left me queasy and ill at ease. Â
Regular readers will have noted the scarcity of Morning Reads since the New Year. It is a matter of late nights, I’m afraid; it has never been so difficult to get to bed at a decent hour. Two o’clock in the morning menaces as the new eleven at night. One of these days, the “Morning” descriptor may become altogether notional.