This is Moby Dick Chapter 4: The Counterpane (summary).
Vocabulary Words found in this chapter: Moby Dick Chapter 4: The Counterpane (Vocabulary Words)
Previous Chapter: Chapter 3: The Spouter-Inn (summary)
The next morning, Ishmael found Queegqueg’s arm over his body, hugging him as if they were husbands and wives. He didn’t notice Queegqueg’s arm at first, but he felt its weight over his body. Queegqueg’s tattooed arms camouflaged with the hue of the patch-worked counterpane.
While still laying there in their bed, he recalled a half-remembered incident, figuring out if it was just a nightmare. It was the 21st of June, and he was just a boy at the time. Ishmael was playing and climbing up their chimney. Consequently, his step-mother pulled him out, whipped him afterwards a couple times, and then dragged him into his own room.
His step-mother strictly told him not to go downstairs and forced him to go to sleep. But it was just two o’clock in the afternoon! He felt dreadful as he went to his bedroom on their third floor. It was just a little room. There, he undressed himself to the slowest possible to kill the time of sixteen hours.
After taking his clothes off, he forces himself to sleep, but he just can’t because he keeps on hearing the jolly people who were in their house, too. Later, he dressed up, went downstairs, looked for his step-mom, begged at her feet, and he apologized. But instead of forgiving him, his step-mother cast him back upstairs.
Ishmael obeyed her and at last fell asleep. Upon waking up in the middle of the night, he felt someone holding his hand. It was a hand of an unknown phantom, sitting closely by his bedside. Hence, he remained frozen as ice, horrified and spooked.
Today, it still puzzles him of who that was. Anyway, back to Queegqueg’s hand. Ishmael tried to remove Queequeg’s hand, but it was clasped and fastened onto his body. Noone could possibly remove his strong grip from his body.
So he cried out loud Queegqueg’s name as loud as he could. But he was still asleep. After some time of wriggling and shouting, Queegqueg at long last woke up. He sat and looked at Ishmael for some time, wondering how he got there with him. Finally, he recalled what happened and his mind cleared.
Subsequently, he stood up and wore his shirt. Ishmael was still in bed, watching him. It came to the point that he begged Queegqueg to wear his pants. It’s good that Queegqueg concurred.
Afterwards, he went straight to the bathroom to take a shower. All he washed were his face, his chest, his arms, and his hands. Done. Then he got out of the bathroom, took his harpoon from the bed’s corner, and marched to the stairs like a marshal with his baton.
End of Moby Dick Chapter 4: The Counterpane (summary).