Salta il testo dell’articolo
CHAPTER 13 . Wheelbarrow . Next morning , Monday , after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber , for a block , I settled my own and comrade’s bill ; using , however , my comrade’s money . The grinning landlord , as well as the boarders , seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between me and Queequeg — especially as Peter Coffin’s cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person whom I now companied with . We borrowed a wheelbarrow , and embarking our things , including my own poor carpet - bag , and Queequeg’s canvas sack and hammock , away we went down to “ the Moss , ” the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the wharf . As we were going along the people stared ; not at Queequeg so much — for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their streets , — but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms . But we heeded them not , going along wheeling the barrow by turns , and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs . I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore , and whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons . To this , in substance , he replied , that though what I hinted was true enough , yet he had a particular affection for his own harpoon , because it was of assured stuff , well tried in many a mortal combat , and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales . In short , like many inland reapers and mowers , who go into the farmers ’ meadows armed with their own scythes — though in no wise obliged to furnish them — even so , Queequeg , for his own private reasons , preferred his own harpoon . Shifting the barrow from my hand to his , he told me a funny story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen . It was in Sag Harbor . The owners of his ship , it seems , had lent him one , in which to carry his heavy chest to his boarding house . Not to seem ignorant about the thing — though in truth he was entirely so , concerning the precise way in which to manage the barrow — Queequeg puts his chest upon it ; lashes it fast ; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf . “ Why , ” said I , “ Queequeg , you might have known better than that , one would think . Didn’t the people laugh ? ” Upon this , he told me another story . The people of his island of Rokovoko , it seems , at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl ; and this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided mat where the feast is held . Now a certain grand merchant ship once touched at Rokovoko , and its commander — from all accounts , a very stately punctilious gentleman , at least for a sea captain — this commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg’s sister , a pretty young princess just turned of ten .
Indietro Pagina 51 di 430 Pagina 51 di 430 Avanti Continua a leggere con le traduzioni Crea un account gratuito: 7 giorni di Pro, poi 20 traduzioni di parole al giorno oppure un piano a pagamento.
