The Quito Glow

Chapter 99 THE DOUBLOON'



Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but in the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the particular object before him.



When he halted before the binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness. But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them.



And some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.



Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour passed by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless, every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white whale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever live to spend it.



Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun's disks and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic. It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.



Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now pausing.



There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things; look here, -three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, 't is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.



No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must have left their mouldings there since yesterday, murmured Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. The old man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.



Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain! This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely...



...This way comes Pip --poor boy! would he had died, or I; he's half horrible to me. He too has been watching all of these interpreters --myself included --and look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot face. stand away again and hear him. hark! I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look. Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar! Improving his mind, poor fellow! But what's that he says now -- hist!



I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look. Why, he's getting it by heart --hist! again. I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look. Well, that's funny. And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm a crow, especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's the scare-crow? There he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves of an old jacket.



Wonder if he means me? --complimentary! --poor lad! --I could go hang myself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I can stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too crazy-witty for my sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering.



Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious gold! --the green miser 'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!'



'Moby Dick' - Herman Melville



IT is about posture before mystery.Each of the crew of the 'Pequod' who studies the coin, which is to go to the first one who sees the Great White Whale, narrates their own denial of mystery. All except Pip who has gone so far into the mystery, so far into oceanic revelations that he has no posture before the mystery, for he is lost inside the mystery, and has therefore lost his mind, his wits, and cannot help but to speak only dreadful, mysterious Truth.



Ahab, has dreadful knowing of oceanic revelations. But his posture before mystery is ruined by the projection of a monstrously inflated ego. He believes he is the One. He denies the Oneness of Being.



Starbuck has his seeing. He can recognize Truth. But he denies the dark side of the mystery. He wants to believe that IT is only about light, a personal, beneviolent deity, puppies and ice cream.



'I will quit IT, lest Truth shake me falsely,' he says.



The currency that was the white whale's talisman, the round gold that was 'the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious sethe orb,' has been eliminated. Ecuador no longer has it's own currency, its doubloons. The country uses United States' dollars, United States' coins.



I came to South America with a minimal plan, no fixed intent, agenda, other then to engage mystery. I at first thought it was about engaging the mystery of ayahuasca. But I have been warned to avoid the posture of a drunk, to avoid a sterile, static, stagnant repetition with the medicine, with everything.



In the Quito glow, in the glow of, if not amazing grace, sufficient grace, in the glow of surviving, unscathed, my recent tribulation, I can at last see.



I see the validity of what I say, the falseness of what I actually do.



Beneath the very active Pinchincha volcanoes (the three Andes summits depicted on the doubloon), which always gives Quito an apocalyptic beauty, I slough off some really old and tired skin.



And I survive and live to tell this story.