"Herman Melville - Moby Dick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Melville Herman)

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Moby Dick
Herman Melville, 1819-1891.

.. < chapter I 2 LOOMINGS >

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how
long precisely --having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular
to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the
watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and
regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the
mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find
myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the
rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an
upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me
from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking
people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish
Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is
nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their
degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the
ocean with me. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round
by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with her surf.

Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme down-town is
the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by
breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the
crowds of water-gazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath
afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by
Whitehall northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all
around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean
reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads;
some looking over the bulwarks glasses!
..

of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a
still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up
in lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks.
How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here? But look!
here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for
a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the
land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice.
No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling
in. And there they stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come
from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues, --north, east, south, and west.
Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of
the compasses of all those ships attract them thither? Once more. Say, you
are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you
please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there