Passer le texte de l’article
Or , if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that , yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his underlings to the attack . But be all this as it may , certain it is , that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in him , Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only and all - engrossing object of hunting the White Whale . Had any one of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then , how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the ship from such a fiendish man ! They were bent on profitable cruises , the profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint . He was intent on an audacious , immitigable , and supernatural revenge . Here , then , was this grey - headed , ungodly old man , chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world , at the head of a crew , too , chiefly made up of mongrel renegades , and castaways , and cannibals — morally enfeebled also , by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right - mindedness in Starbuck , the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb , and the pervading mediocrity in Flask . Such a crew , so officered , seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge . How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire — by what evil magic their souls were possessed , that at times his hate seemed almost theirs ; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his ; how all this came to be — what the White Whale was to them , or how to their unconscious understandings , also , in some dim , unsuspected way , he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life , — all this to explain , would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go . The subterranean miner that works in us all , how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting , muffled sound of his pick ? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag ? What skiff in tow of a seventy - four can stand still ? For one , I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the place ; but while yet all a - rush to encounter the whale , could see naught in that brute but the deadliest ill . CHAPTER 42 . The Whiteness of the Whale . What the white whale was to Ahab , has been hinted ; what , at times , he was to me , as yet remains unsaid . Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick , which could not but occasionally awaken in any man’s soul some alarm , there was another thought , or rather vague , nameless horror concerning him , which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest ; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it , that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form . It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me . But how can I hope to explain myself here ; and yet , in some dim , random way , explain myself I must , else all these chapters might be naught .
Précédent Page 144 sur 430 Page 144 sur 430 Suivant Continuez à lire avec les traductions Créez un compte gratuit : 7 jours de Pro, puis 20 traductions de mots par jour ou une formule payante.
