When I returned to the Spouter-Inn after the service at the chapel, I found Queequeg sitting alone. He had left the chapel before the final blessing and was now sitting on a bench beside the fire, his feet resting on the stove.
In one hand, he held his little black wooden idol close to his face. He stared seriously into its tiny face while gently shaving its nose with a pocketknife. At the same time, he hummed quietly to himself in his strange, heathen way.
When he noticed me, he put the idol away.
A moment later, he picked up a large book from the table, placed it on his lap, and began counting the pages very carefully. Every time he reached fifty pages, he would stop, look around with a blank expression, and let out a long, amazed whistle.
Then he would start counting again from one.
It seemed to me that he could count only to fifty. Each time he reached that number, he acted as if he were starting over. Only when he realized how many groups of fifty pages the book contained did he seem truly amazed by its size.
I watched him with great interest.
Queequeg was certainly a wild-looking man, and his heavily tattooed face was far from handsome by my standards. Yet there was something about him that I found strangely appealing.
You cannot completely hide what is inside a person.
Beneath all those strange tattoos, I thought I could see a simple and honest heart. His large, deep black eyes were fierce and fearless, as if he had the courage to face a thousand devils without blinking.
There was also a natural dignity about him that even his rough appearance could not destroy. He looked like a man who had never bowed his head to anyone and had never had to worry about owing money.
His shaved head made his forehead look even larger and more impressive. In fact, the shape of his head reminded me of the popular busts of General George Washington. His forehead had the same long, sloping shape, with heavy eyebrows sticking out like two wooded cliffs.
Queequeg was, in a strange way, George Washington as a cannibal.
While I was secretly studying him, pretending to look out through the window at the storm, he completely ignored me. He did not even give me a glance. He remained entirely absorbed in counting the pages of that enormous book.
I found this rather strange.
After all, we had slept together quite comfortably the night before. And when I woke that morning, I had even found his arm wrapped affectionately around me.
Yet now he acted as though I were barely there.
But perhaps that was simply how savages were. Sometimes you never knew what to make of them.
At first, their calmness could almost frighten you. Their quiet self-control seemed like the wisdom of some ancient philosopher.
I had also noticed that Queequeg hardly ever spoke with the other sailors at the inn. He never tried to make new friends and seemed to have no desire to expand his circle of acquaintances.
The whole thing was very strange.
But the more I thought about it, the more impressive it seemed.
Here was a man who had traveled almost twenty thousand miles from his homeland, all the way around Cape Horn. He was surrounded by people who must have seemed as strange to him as the inhabitants of Jupiter would seem to us.
Yet he was completely at ease.
He was peaceful, self-contained, and perfectly comfortable with his own company.
There was something almost philosophical about that.
Of course, Queequeg had probably never heard the word “philosophy.”
Perhaps that was exactly the point. Maybe a person cannot truly live like a philosopher if he is constantly thinking about being a philosopher.
Whenever I hear someone proudly announce that he is a philosopher, I immediately suspect that something is wrong with him. He reminds me of an old woman with a bad stomach who has spent too much time thinking about her digestion.
The room had become quiet and lonely.
The fire had burned down to a soft glow. It was no longer giving off much heat; it simply sat there glowing in the darkness.
Outside, the storm continued to roar.
The evening shadows gathered around the windows and seemed to peer inside at the two of us, sitting there alone.
As I watched Queequeg, something strange began to happen inside me.
My heart seemed to soften.
For a long time, I had felt angry with the world. My heart had been wounded, and I had been ready to turn my back on everyone.
But somehow, this quiet savage was changing that.
His very indifference seemed honest. There was none of the false politeness, hypocrisy, or hidden dishonesty that I had come to expect from civilized people.
He was certainly wild-looking. Anyone who saw him for the first time might have been shocked.
Yet I found myself strangely attracted to him.
The very things that might have frightened or disgusted other people were beginning to draw me closer.
“Perhaps I’ll try having a pagan for a friend,” I thought. “Christian kindness has given me nothing but empty courtesy.”
I moved my bench closer to him and began making friendly gestures, trying my best to start a conversation.
At first, he barely noticed me.
But when I reminded him of how kindly he had treated me the night before, he finally managed to ask whether we would sleep together again.
“Yes,” I told him.
He seemed pleased by my answer, perhaps even a little flattered.
We then looked through the book together.
I tried to explain what the printed words meant and pointed out the few pictures inside. Soon he became interested.
From there, we began talking as best we could about the sights around New Bedford and all the strange things to see in the town.
After a while, I suggested that we have a smoke together.
Queequeg took out his tobacco pouch and his tomahawk pipe and calmly offered it to me.
I took a puff.
Then he took one.
We passed the strange pipe back and forth, each of us taking a turn.
If there had been any remaining distance between us, that friendly smoke quickly melted it away.
Before long, we were close friends.
Queequeg seemed to accept me just as naturally as I had accepted him.
When we finished smoking, he pressed his forehead against mine, put his arm around my waist, and announced that from that moment on, we were married.
Of course, he did not mean an actual marriage.
In his culture, it meant that we were now brothers and closest friends. He was saying that he would gladly die for me if I ever needed him.
If an ordinary civilized man had suddenly declared such deep friendship after knowing me for only a short time, I probably would have thought it suspicious.
But Queequeg was different.
His simple, trusting nature made such sudden friendship feel completely natural.
After supper, we spent more time talking and smoking together before returning to our room.
Once there, Queequeg gave me his embalmed head as a gift.
Then he pulled out his enormous tobacco pouch. Hidden underneath the tobacco was a collection of silver coins worth about thirty dollars.
He spread the money across the table, divided it into two equal piles, pushed one pile toward me, and said,
“Yours.”
I immediately started to protest.
But before I could say anything, he simply picked up the coins and stuffed them into my trouser pockets.
I decided to let him have his way.
Then Queequeg began preparing for his evening prayers.
He took out his little wooden idol and removed the paper fireboard that had been covering it.
From his gestures, I got the feeling that he wanted me to join him.
I knew what he was about to do, so I hesitated.
I was a good Christian, born and raised in the Presbyterian Church.
How could I possibly worship beside this man while he prayed to a piece of wood?
Then I thought about it more carefully.
What exactly was worship?
Could the great God of heaven and earth really be jealous of a tiny piece of black wood?
Surely not.
And what was the true purpose of worship?
To do God’s will.
And what was God’s will?
To treat other people the way I would want them to treat me.
Well, Queequeg was my fellow human being.
What would I want him to do for me?
I would want him to respect and join me in my own way of worship.
Therefore, I reasoned, I should be willing to join him in his.
So, in the end, I became a temporary idolater.
I lit the wood shavings for his little ritual. I helped place the harmless idol upright. I joined Queequeg in offering it some burnt biscuit.
I bowed before it several times.
I even kissed its nose.
When the ceremony was over, we undressed and climbed into bed, both of us feeling perfectly at peace with our consciences and with the rest of the world.
But we did not fall asleep immediately.
We stayed there talking.
There is something about sharing a bed with a close friend that seems to make people unusually open with each other.
Husbands and wives often reveal the deepest parts of their hearts in bed. Old married couples can lie awake for hours, talking about the past and remembering the days when they were young.
And so Queequeg and I spent our first night of true friendship lying side by side like a newly married couple.
We were warm, comfortable, and completely at ease with each other.