In Ballast to the White Sea by Lowry Malcolm; McCarthy Patrick A.; Ackerley Chris

Author:Lowry, Malcolm; McCarthy, Patrick A.; Ackerley, Chris [Lowry, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 1676716
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
Published: 2014-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

XV

Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick!

HERMAN MELVILLE1

Once more2 a young face paused on the quays looking up at the ship. Once more Sigbjørn wondered: Is this your place on earth?

The iron ship lay wearily against the wharf; a pile of wood was stacked beside her, where he stood hidden.

Suddenly he pressed his lips against the sweet wood as if to draw from it some of its generous strength. Wood, wood, all goodness, all rightness were in that sweet texture!

That morning when he had waked his eyelids had been heavy to lift. There was nobody in the forecastle. In a panic, he had gone out on deck; the few hands there took him for an agent or a tally clerk.3 He had gone forward to report himself but the chief engineer’s door was closed and the captain was nowhere to be seen. Only a few hands were visible, working forward under the mate.

He hesitated to go down below but he looked down from the fiddley4 into the engine-room; lever weight and fulcrum5 slept there, but all was poised: co-ordination was expectant in every nut and bolt.

Perhaps he could slip away without being observed…

Even when on the wharf, he had no intention of leaving the Unsgaard. He had felt only that there his own purpose would become stronger to him; standing away from it he would see it, like the ship, as clearly, as bare, as moulded as iron. He would no longer be enclosed by it as it is said man is enclosed by his soul.6

Yet now every nerve within him did really bid: Escape! Escape utterly from the ship and from any dream of that purpose.

He tunneled through a fragrant wilderness of pine until he came to a clearing from which he could see the Unsgaard again, perhaps for the last time! The huge bows of the ship rose up before him and seemed to stare at him through its eyes of hawse-holes7 like an elephant. He laughed aloud at this absurd fancy but his laughter sounded idiotic, like gibbering.

Behind him, metals ran into the desolation of the scrap-heap and were lost in half-frozen pools and basins of rain among which old propellers and anchors rusted away; a little poverty grass that grew there was the only sign of life. Before him loomed the ship!

He burrowed back to his former position, leant his elbows on a ledge of pine, and watched the Unsgaard, sniffing in the good smell of resin. Ah, wood! the wood of good trees, wood for building, for the warmth and goodness of fire, but also for the fire that makes of wood itself only chaff.

Bells pealed out wildly from the city. Of course! It was Easter day.8 He touched the wood with his fingers. There was innocence about wood too, like that of little children, as yet almost devoid of life but later to be vivified and perfected; and then the one to crucify, the other to be crucified, and Sigbjørn

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.