Moby-Dick

Squeeze of the Hand.

That whale of Stubb’s, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the
Pequod’s side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations
previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of
the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.

While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in
dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and
when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated
ere going to the try-works, of which anon.

It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with
several others, I sat down before a large Constantine’s bath of it, I
found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about
in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back
into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this
sperm was such a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener!
such a softener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it
for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it
were, to serpentine and spiralise.

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter
exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under
indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands
among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost
within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all
their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that
uncontaminated aroma,—literally and truly, like the smell of spring
violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky
meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible
sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit
the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in
allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely
free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort
whatsoever.

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm
till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a
strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly
squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the
gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving
feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually
squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as
much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish
any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come;
let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into
each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and
sperm of kindness.

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since
by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all
cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of
attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the
fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the
fireside, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready
to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I
saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of
spermaceti.

Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things
akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the
try-works.

First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering
part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It
is tough with congealed tendons—a wad of muscle—but still contains some
oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first cut
into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like
blocks of Berkshire marble.

Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the
whale’s flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and
often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is
a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name
imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked
snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and
purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason,
it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I
stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should
conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have
tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the
venison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an
unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.

There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in
the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling
adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation
original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance.
It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the
tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I
hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case,
coalescing.

Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but
sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the
dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the
Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those
inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.

Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale’s
vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman’s
nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering
part of Leviathan’s tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the
rest, is about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along
the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless
blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities.

But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at
once to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its
inmates. This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for
the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the
proper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a
scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by
a dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They
generally go in pairs,—a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The
whaling-pike is similar to a frigate’s boarding-weapon of the same
name. The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the
gaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from
slipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the
spade-man stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into
the portable horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the
spademan’s feet are shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes
irresistibly slide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of
his own toes, or one of his assistants’, would you be very much
astonished? Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.