Volume 4 Chapter 5 Part4 (1/2)

Translator

Corner

Minasan oideyasu. This is Yukkuri demasu!

Today is a day of many release.

Also, I want to try a new thing!

CLICK THE b.u.t.tON!

DISCLAIMER: There is no

guarantee that my translation is 100% correct. Please correct me if I was

wrong.

Author:

Dozeumaru(どぜう丸)

Translator:

Yukkuri Oniisan

Editor:

SMS

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Enlightenment Arc

Chapter 5 As a Person D

Call me Ishmael. Some years

ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and

nothing particular to interest me on sh.o.r.e, I thought I would sail about a

little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off

the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim

about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I

find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the

rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an

upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from

deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats

off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my

subst.i.tute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself

upon his sword; I quietly take to the s.h.i.+p. There is nothing surprising in

this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other,

cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

There now is your insular city of

the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce

surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its

extreme downtown is the battery, where that n.o.ble mole is washed by waves, and

cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look

at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Circ.u.mambulate the city of a

dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from

thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels

all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in

ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the

pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of s.h.i.+ps from China; some high aloft

in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these

are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to counters,

nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields

gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds,

pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing

will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the

shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh

the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles

of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and

avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does

the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compa.s.ses of all those s.h.i.+ps attract

them thither?

Once more. Say you are in the

country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten

to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the

stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in

his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet going, and he

will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should

you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your

caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one

knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

But here is an artist. He desires

to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic

landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs?

There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix

were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up

from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a

mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side

blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree

shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain,

unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit

the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep

among Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—Water—there is not a drop of

water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your

thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly

receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which

he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach?

Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at

some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a

pa.s.senger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told

that you and your s.h.i.+p were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians

hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother

of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning

of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild

image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same

image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the

ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

Now, when I say that I am in the

habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin

to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever

go to sea as a pa.s.senger. For to go as a pa.s.senger you must needs have a purse,

and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, pa.s.sengers

get sesick—grow quarrelsome—don't sleep of nights—do not enjoy themselves

much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a pa.s.senger; nor, though I am

something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a

Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like

them. For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials, and

tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take

care of myself, without taking care of s.h.i.+ps, barques, brigs, schooners, and

what not. And as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable

glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on s.h.i.+p-board—yet, somehow, I

never fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously b.u.t.tered, and

judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more

respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is

out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and

roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge

bake-houses the pyramids.

No, when I go to sea, I go as a

simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft

there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make

me jump from spar to spar, like a gra.s.shopper in a May meadow. And at first,

this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honor,

particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van

Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous

to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country

schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a

keen one, I a.s.sure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong

decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even

this wears off in time.

What of it, if some old hunks of

a secaptain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that

indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do

you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I

promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who

ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old secaptains may order

me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of

knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in

much the same way—either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is;

and so the universal thump is pa.s.sed round, and all hands should rub each

other's shoulder-blades, and be content.

Again, I always go to sea as a

sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they

never pay pa.s.sengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary,

pa.s.sengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world

between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most

uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But

being paid,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man

receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe

money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied

man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

Finally, I always go to sea as a

sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck.

For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern

(that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the

Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the

sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much

the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the

same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after

having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into

my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the

Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and

influences me in some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else.

And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand

programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort

of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that

this part of the bill must have run something like this:

“Grand Contested Election for the

Presidency of the United States. “WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. “b.l.o.o.d.y BATTLE

IN AFFGHANISTAN.”

Though I cannot tell why it was

exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part

of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high

tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in

farces—though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all

the circ.u.mstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives

which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to

set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that

it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating

judgment.

Chief among these motives was the

overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious

monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled

his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with

all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to

sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been

inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things

remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not

ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be

social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms

with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

By reason of these things, then,

the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung

open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there

floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of

them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.

It was nightfall by the time the audience

with Mary was concluded. Roroa and Junsan welcomed us when we returned to the

office room. I also could see Carla in her maid uniform at the corner of the

room.

「Welcome

back Darling…… Eh, did something happen?」(Roroa)

「Ano,

what happened, Your Majesty?」(Juna)

Though both welcomed us with smiling

at first, they became worried the moment they noticed my expression. Ahaha, surely my face looks horrible right

now…… May be it really does. Junsan touched my forehead with her cold and

soft hand.

「There’s

no fever…… But, are you feeling unwell? Would you like to rest for a while?」(Juna)

「Wait,

Cinee! What happened to Darling!?」(Roroa)

「E-even

if you ask me, I also don’t know!」(Liscia)

Just as Roroa pressed Liscia for

an answer, I replied, 「No…… I’m alright」, and gently brushed Junsan’s hand aside, before sitting

down on my “desk”. And then,

「Sorry.

Liscia, Aisha, Junsan, Roroa…… Come over here.」

I beckoned my fiancées closer. The

four of them exchanged glances and then slowly approached me. When they stood close

enough by my side, I wrapped them all together in a hug.

「Hyah?」(Liscia)

「What!?」(Aisha)

「Aw……」(Juna)

「W,

Darling!」(Roroa)

All four of them yelped, but I kept

hugging them without minding it. From a distance, this would look like a team

huddle, so there would be nothing romantic about it. Even so, I could feel their

warmth…… I finally calmed myself down. After a minute or so, I released them. While

mending her disheveled clothing, Liscia asked with a hint of anger.

「…… You

better explain what’s going on, okay?」(Liscia)

I was glad that behind her angry

tone, there was a heart that genuinely cared about me.

「Yes.

I shall explain everything.」(Souma)

「Souma,

you became like this after the last conversation with the Holy Maiden, right?

Did something happen?」(Liscia)

「…… I

felt… a sense of discomfort, the whole time during the audience.」(Souma)

「Sense

of discomfort?.」(Liscia)

I nodded.

「When

I saw Mary for the first time, I thought that she was pretty. But at the same

time, I felt that something was strange. She should have come across as a very attractive

girl, yet I couldn’t bring myself to see her that way.」(Souma)

「But,

from her appearance, she looks like a beautiful girl in my eyes.」(Hakuya)

Hakuya said so. Yeah, perhaps, other

people wouldn’t able to notice it.

「I also

didn’t notice at first. However, the moment I thought that this emotionless girl’s

face is 『Like a Doll』, or perhaps I should say, 『seems

artificial』, I noticed the true cause of that sense of

discomfort. She…… resembled someone.」(Souma)

「Resembled

someone? Who?」(Liscia)

Liscia ask me, and so I pointed

my fingers at her.

「You.

Liscia.」(Souma)

「M-me!?」(Liscia)

「Yes.

Furthermore, Aisha and Roroa too.」(Souma)

「Eh,

really?」(Aisha)

「Me

too?」(Roroa)

Upon hearing my answer, Aisha and

Roroa stared at each other face. I then turned my attention to Hakuya.

「Hakuya.

How you would describe Mary’s appearance to someone who was not in the Audience

Room?」(Souma)

「…… Let’s

see. A well proportioned face. Silver hair, braided into two……Wh-!?」(Hakuya)

Hakuya widened his eyes, so he

seemed to notice it too. I then let out a sigh.

「For

me, I will describe her like this. Her well proportioned face resembles Liscia.

Her silver hair is reminiscent of Aisha’s Dark Elvish characteristics. Her

hairstyle is similar to that of Roroa. In other words, Mary's appearance seems

to be a composite of features from Liscia, Aisha, and Roroa.」(Souma)

「Li-like

us!?」(Liscia)

Yeah. The reason why I did not get

charmed by her at all, even though she was a such beauty, perhaps because my face

perception processing gave off a red flag. If one day, Aisha suddenly had a

human face, then I would be surprised. If Liscia or Roroa’s hair became silver

then it would be natural if I felt uncomfortable. Then, Aisha tilted her head.

「Wait

a moment. If she has our characteristics, then where is Junsan’s part? Her

body appearance is also average, right?」(Aisha)

「That’s

it!」(Souma)

I slapped my knee, as I realized

something.

「Judging

from her look, Mary doesn’t have any resemblance to Junsan. Though perhaps, only

her big black eyes are similar to Junsan, but as a characteristic, this is

too weak. Then, what is the difference between Junsan and the other three?」(Souma)

「I am

the only candidate as a Royal Consort. And…… it is only my engagement which still

has yet to be announced to public.」(Juna)

I nodded at Junsan’s reply.

「For Liscia,

Aisha, and Roroa, their engagements have already had been announced to public,

but out of consideration for Junsan’s activities as 『Song

Princess』, Junsan’s engagement hasn’t been announced yet. That’s

why no one knows that Junsan is my fiancée. Following that, if we consider

that the dispatched Holy Maiden possesses the characteristics of my fiancées,

excluding Junsan, and the active movement of the Orthodoxy State’s spies in

the Capital, we could speculate that what the spies gathered was information

about my fiancées’ appearance. It was so that they could send a girl as the

Holy Maiden that matched my preferences, or at least won’t be disliked by me.」(Souma)

「Souma,

then.......」(Liscia)

「Yeah……

Do you remember what Mary said, when I mentioned whether she was here 『to

offer herself as a bride』?」(Souma)

『If Your