Chapter 13

by Herman Melville

　　Pale ire, envy and despairThat Claggart's figure was not amiss, and his face, save the chin,well moulded, has already been said. Of these favorable points he seemednot insensible, for he was not only neat but careful in his dress. Butthe form of Billy Budd was heroic; and if his face was without theintellectual look of the pallid Claggart's, not the less was it lit,like his, from within, though from a different source. The bonfire inhis heart made luminous the rose-tan in his cheek.In view of the marked contrast between the persons of the twain, itis more than probable that when the Master-at-arms in the scene lastgiven applied to the sailor the proverb Handsome is as handsome does, hethere let escape an ironic inkling, not caught by the young sailors whoheard it, as to what it was that had first moved him against Billy,namely, his significant personal beauty.Now envy and antipathy, passions irreconcilable in reason,nevertheless in fact may spring conjoined like Chang and Eng in onebirth. Is Envy then such a monster? Well, though many an arraignedmortal has in hopes of mitigated penalty pleaded guilty to horribleactions, did ever anybody seriously confess to envy? Something there isin it universally felt to be more shameful than even felonious crime.And not only does everybody disown it, but the better sort are inclinedto incredulity when it is in earnest imputed to an intelligent man. Butsince its lodgement is in the heart not the brain, no degree ofintellect supplies a guarantee against it. But Claggart's was no vulgarform of the passion. Nor, as directed toward Billy Budd, did it partakeof that streak of apprehensive jealousy that marred Saul's visageperturbedly brooding on the comely young David. Claggart's envy struckdeeper. If askance he eyed the good looks, cheery health and frankenjoyment of young life in Billy Budd, it was because these went alongwith a nature that, as Claggart magnetically felt, had in its simplicitynever willed malice or experienced the reactionary bite of that serpent.To him, the spirit lodged within Billy, and looking out from his welkineyes as from windows, that ineffability it was which made the dimple inhis dyed cheek, suppled his joints, and dancing in his yellow curls madehim preeminently the Handsome Sailor. One person excepted, theMaster-at-arms was perhaps the only man in the ship intellectuallycapable of adequately appreciating the moral phenomenon presented inBilly Budd. And the insight but intensified his passion, which assumingvarious secret forms within him, at times assumed that of cynic disdain-- disdain of innocence. To be nothing more than innocent! Yet in anaesthetic way he saw the charm of it, the courageous free-and-easytemper of it, and fain would have shared it, but he despaired of it.With no power to annul the elemental evil in him, tho' readilyenough he could hide it; apprehending the good, but powerless to be it;a nature like Claggart's surcharged with energy as such natures almostinvariably are, what recourse is left to it but to recoil upon itselfand like the scorpion for which the Creator alone is responsible, actout to the end the part allotted it.