Chapter 2

by Herman Melville

　　Though our new-made foretopman was well received in the top and onthe gun decks, hardly here was he that cynosure he had previously beenamong those minor ship's companies of the merchant marine, with whichcompanies only had he hitherto consorted.He was young; and despite his all but fully developed frame, inaspect looked even younger than he really was, owing to a lingeringadolescent expression in the as yet smooth face, all but feminine inpurity of natural complexion, but where, thanks to his seagoing, thelily was quite suppressed and the rose had some ado visibly to flushthrough the tan.To one essentially such a novice in the complexities of factitiouslife, the abrupt transition from his former and simpler sphere to theampler and more knowing world of a great war-ship; this might well haveabashed him had there been any conceit or vanity in his composition.Among her miscellaneous multitude, the Indomitable mustered severalindividuals who, however inferior in grade, were of no common naturalstamp, sailors more signally susceptive of that air which continuousmartial discipline and repeated presence in battle can in some degreeimpart even to the average man. As the Handsome Sailor, Billy Budd'sposition aboard the seventy-four was something analogous to that of arustic beauty transplanted from the provinces and brought intocompetition with the highborn dames of the court. But this change ofcircumstances he scarce noted. As little did he observe that somethingabout him provoked an ambiguous smile in one or two harder faces amongthe blue-jackets. Nor less unaware was he of the peculiar favorableeffect his person and demeanour had upon the more intelligent gentlemenof the quarter-deck. Nor could this well have been otherwise. Cast in amould peculiar to the finest physical examples of those Englishmen inwhom the Saxon strain would seem not at all to partake of any Norman orother admixture, he showed in face that humane look of reposeful goodnature which the Greek sculptor in some instances gave to his heroicstrong man, Hercules. But this again was subtly modified by another andpervasive quality. The ear, small and shapely, the arch of the foot, thecurve in mouth and nostril, even the indurated hand dyed to theorange-tawny of the toucan's bill, a hand telling alike of the halyardsand tar-bucket; but, above all, something in the mobile expression, andevery chance attitude and movement, something suggestive of a mothereminently favored by Love and the Graces; all this strangely indicated alineage in direct contradiction to his lot. The mysteriousness herebecame less mysterious through a matter-of-fact elicited when Billy, atthe capstan, was being formally mustered into the service. Asked by theofficer, a small brisk little gentleman, as it chanced among otherquestions, his place of birth, he replied, "Please, Sir, I don't know.""Don't know where you were born? -- Who was your father?""God knows, Sir."Struck by the straightforward simplicity of these replies, theofficer next asked, "Do you know anything about your beginning?""No, Sir. But I have heard that I was found in a pretty silklinedbasket hanging one morning from the knocker of a good man's door inBristol.""Found say you? Well," throwing back his head and looking up anddown the new recruit; "Well, it turns out to have been a pretty goodfind. Hope they'll find some more like you, my man; the fleet sadlyneeds them."Yes, Billy Budd was a foundling, a presumable by-blow, and,evidently, no ignoble one. Noble descent was as evident in him as in ablood horse.For the rest, with little or no sharpness of faculty or any trace ofthe wisdom of the serpent, nor yet quite a dove, he possessed that kindand degree of intelligence going along with the unconventional rectitudeof a sound human creature, one to whom not yet has been proffered thequestionable apple of knowledge. He was illiterate; he could not read,but he could sing, and like the illiterate nightingale was sometimes thecomposer of his own song.Of self-consciousness he seemed to have little or none, or about asmuch as we may reasonably impute to a dog of Saint Bernard's breed.Habitually living with the elements and knowing little more of theland than as a beach, or, rather, that portion of the terraqueous globeprovidentially set apart for dance-houses, doxies and tapsters, in shortwhat sailors call a "fiddlers'-green," his simple nature remainedunsophisticated by those moral obliquities which are not in every caseincompatible with that manufacturable thing known as respectability. Butare sailors, frequenters of "fiddlers'-greens," without vices? No; butless often than with landsmen do their vices, so called, partake ofcrookedness of heart, seeming less to proceed from viciousness thanexuberance of vitality after long constraint; frank manifestations inaccordance with natural law. By his original constitution aided by thecooperating influences of his lot, Billy in many respects was littlemore than a sort of upright barbarian, much such perhaps as Adampresumably might have been ere the urbane Serpent wriggled himself intohis company.And here be it submitted that apparently going to corroborate thedoctrine of man's fall, a doctrine now popularly ignored, it isobservable that where certain virtues pristine and unadulteratepeculiarly characterize anybody in the external uniform of civilization,they will upon scrutiny seem not to be derived from custom orconvention, but rather to be out of keeping with these, as if indeedexceptionally transmitted from a period prior to Cain's city andcitified man. The character marked by such qualities has to anunvitiated taste an untampered-with flavor like that of berries, whilethe man thoroughly civilized, even in a fair specimen of the breed, hasto the same moral palate a questionable smack as of a compounded wine.To any stray inheritor of these primitive qualities found, like CasparHauser, wandering dazed in any Christian capital of our time, thegood-natured poet's famous invocation, near two thousand years ago, ofthe good rustic out of his latitude in the Rome of the Cesars, stillappropriately holds: --"Honest and poor, faithful in word and thought,What has thee, Fabian, to the city brought?"Though our Handsome Sailor had as much of masculine beauty as one canexpect anywhere to see; nevertheless, like the beautiful woman in one ofHawthorne's minor tales, there was just one thing amiss in him. Novisible blemish, indeed, as with the lady; no, but an occasionalliability to a vocal defect. Though in the hour of elemental uproar orperil he was everything that a sailor should be, yet under suddenprovocation of strong heart-feeling, his voice otherwise singularlymusical, as if expressive of the harmony within, was apt to develop anorganic hesitancy, in fact, more or less of a stutter or even worse. Inthis particular Billy was a striking instance that the arch interferer,the envious marplot of Eden, still has more or less to do with everyhuman consignment to this planet of earth. In every case, one way oranother he is sure to slip in his little card, as much as to remind us-- I too have a hand here.The avowal of such an imperfection in the Handsome Sailor should beevidence not alone that he is not presented as a conventional hero, butalso that the story in which he is the main figure is no romance.