We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and
Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over
mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy
were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little
nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting
up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future.

Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position began
to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up;
the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the head-board with our
four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them,
as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more
so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too,
seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because
truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for
there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by
contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are
all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be
said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed,
the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why
then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and
unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be
furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the
rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but
the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air.
Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic
crystal.

We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at
once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether by
day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always
keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of
being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except
his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our
essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon opening
my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created darkness
into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated
twelve-o’clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did I
at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to
strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; and besides he felt a
strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it said,
that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed
the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love
once comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to have
Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such
serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the
landlord’s policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed
confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real
friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed
the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue
hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp.

Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far
distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island; and,
eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly
complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his
words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with
his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as
it may prove in the mere skeleton I give.