Chapter 42

by Herman Melville

　　UPON THE HEEL OF THE LAST SCENE THE COSMOPOLITAN ENTERS THE BARBER'SSHOP, A BENEDICTION ON HIS LIPS."Bless you, barber!"Now, owing to the lateness of the hour, the barber had been all aloneuntil within the ten minutes last passed; when, finding himself ratherdullish company to himself, he thought he would have a good time withSouter John and Tam O'Shanter, otherwise called Somnus and Morpheus, twovery good fellows, though one was not very bright, and the other anarrant rattlebrain, who, though much listened to by some, no wise manwould believe under oath.In short, with back presented to the glare of his lamps, and so to thedoor, the honest barber was taking what are called cat-naps, anddreaming in his chair; so that, upon suddenly hearing the benedictionabove, pronounced in tones not unangelic, starting up, half awake, hestared before him, but saw nothing, for the stranger stood behind. Whatwith cat-naps, dreams, and bewilderments, therefore, the voice seemed asort of spiritual manifestation to him; so that, for the moment, hestood all agape, eyes fixed, and one arm in the air."Why, barber, are you reaching up to catch birds there with salt?""Ah!" turning round disenchanted, "it is only a man, then.""Only a man? As if to be but a man were nothing. But don't be too surewhat I am. You call me man, just as the townsfolk called the angelswho, in man's form, came to Lot's house; just as the Jew rustics calledthe devils who, in man's form, haunted the tombs. You can concludenothing absolute from the human form, barber.""But I can conclude something from that sort of talk, with that sort ofdress," shrewdly thought the barber, eying him with regainedself-possession, and not without some latent touch of apprehension atbeing alone with him. What was passing in his mind seemed divined by theother, who now, more rationally and gravely, and as if he expected itshould be attended to, said: "Whatever else you may conclude upon, it ismy desire that you conclude to give me a good shave," at the same timeloosening his neck-cloth. "Are you competent to a good shave, barber?""No broker more so, sir," answered the barber, whom the business-likeproposition instinctively made confine to business-ends his views of thevisitor."Broker? What has a broker to do with lather? A broker I have alwaysunderstood to be a worthy dealer in certain papers and metals.""He, he!" taking him now for some dry sort of joker, whose jokes, hebeing a customer, it might be as well to appreciate, "he, he! Youunderstand well enough, sir. Take this seat, sir," laying his hand on agreat stuffed chair, high-backed and high-armed, crimson-covered, andraised on a sort of dais, and which seemed but to lack a canopy andquarterings, to make it in aspect quite a throne, "take this seat, sir.""Thank you," sitting down; "and now, pray, explain that about thebroker. But look, look--what's this?" suddenly rising, and pointing,with his long pipe, towards a gilt notification swinging among coloredfly-papers from the ceiling, like a tavern sign, "No Trust?" "No trustmeans distrust; distrust means no confidence. Barber," turning upon himexcitedly, "what fell suspiciousness prompts this scandalous confession?My life!" stamping his foot, "if but to tell a dog that you have noconfidence in him be matter for affront to the dog, what an insult totake that way the whole haughty race of man by the beard! By my heart,sir! but at least you are valiant; backing the spleen of Thersites withthe pluck of Agamemnon.""Your sort of talk, sir, is not exactly in my line," said the barber,rather ruefully, being now again hopeless of his customer, and notwithout return of uneasiness; "not in my line, sir," he emphaticallyrepeated."But the taking of mankind by the nose is; a habit, barber, which Isadly fear has insensibly bred in you a disrespect for man. For how,indeed, may respectful conceptions of him coexist with the perpetualhabit of taking him by the nose? But, tell me, though I, too, clearlysee the import of your notification, I do not, as yet, perceive theobject. What is it?""Now you speak a little in my line, sir," said the barber, notunrelieved at this return to plain talk; "that notification I find veryuseful, sparing me much work which would not pay. Yes, I lost a gooddeal, off and on, before putting that up," gratefully glancing towardsit."But what is its object? Surely, you don't mean to say, in so manywords, that you have no confidence? For instance, now," flinging asidehis neck-cloth, throwing back his blouse, and reseating himself on thetonsorial throne, at sight of which proceeding the barber mechanicallyfilled a cup with hot water from a copper vessel over a spirit-lamp,"for instance, now, suppose I say to you, 'Barber, my dear barber,unhappily I have no small change by me to-night, but shave me, anddepend upon your money to-morrow'--suppose I should say that now, youwould put trust in me, wouldn't you? You would have confidence?""Seeing that it is you, sir," with complaisance replied the barber, nowmixing the lather, "seeing that it is you sir, I won't answer thatquestion. No need to.""Of course, of course--in that view. But, as a supposition--you wouldhave confidence in me, wouldn't you?""Why--yes, yes.""Then why that sign?""Ah, sir, all people ain't like you," was the smooth reply, at the sametime, as if smoothly to close the debate, beginning smoothly to applythe lather, which operation, however, was, by a motion, protestedagainst by the subject, but only out of a desire to rejoin, which wasdone in these words:"All people ain't like me. Then I must be either better or worse thanmost people. Worse, you could not mean; no, barber, you could not meanthat; hardly that. It remains, then, that you think me better than mostpeople. But that I ain't vain enough to believe; though, from vanity, Iconfess, I could never yet, by my best wrestlings, entirely free myself;nor, indeed, to be frank, am I at bottom over anxious to--this samevanity, barber, being so harmless, so useful, so comfortable, sopleasingly preposterous a passion.""Very true, sir; and upon my honor, sir, you talk very well. But thelather is getting a little cold, sir.""Better cold lather, barber, than a cold heart. Why that cold sign? Ah,I don't wonder you try to shirk the confession. You feel in your soulhow ungenerous a hint is there. And yet, barber, now that I look intoyour eyes--which somehow speak to me of the mother that must have sooften looked into them before me--I dare say, though you may not thinkit, that the spirit of that notification is not one with your nature.For look now, setting, business views aside, regarding the thing in anabstract light; in short, supposing a case, barber; supposing, I say,you see a stranger, his face accidentally averted, but his visible partvery respectable-looking; what now, barber--I put it to your conscience,to your charity--what would be your impression of that man, in a moralpoint of view? Being in a signal sense a stranger, would you, for that,signally set him down for a knave?""Certainly not, sir; by no means," cried the barber, humanely resentful."You would upon the face of him----""Hold, sir," said the barber, "nothing about the face; you remember,sir, that is out of sight.""I forgot that. Well then, you would, upon the back of him, concludehim to be, not improbably, some worthy sort of person; in short, anhonest man: wouldn't you?""Not unlikely I should, sir.""Well now--don't be so impatient with your brush, barber--suppose thathonest man meet you by night in some dark corner of the boat where hisface would still remain unseen, asking you to trust him for a shave--howthen?""Wouldn't trust him, sir.""But is not an honest man to be trusted?""Why--why--yes, sir.""There! don't you see, now?""See what?" asked the disconcerted barber, rather vexedly."Why, you stand self-contradicted, barber; don't you?""No," doggedly."Barber," gravely, and after a pause of concern, "the enemies of ourrace have a saying that insincerity is the most universal andinveterate vice of man--the lasting bar to real amelioration, whether ofindividuals or of the world. Don't you now, barber, by your stubbornnesson this occasion, give color to such a calumny?""Hity-tity!" cried the barber, losing patience, and with it respect;"stubbornness?" Then clattering round the brush in the cup, "Will you beshaved, or won't you?""Barber, I will be shaved, and with pleasure; but, pray, don't raiseyour voice that way. Why, now, if you go through life gritting yourteeth in that fashion, what a comfortless time you will have.""I take as much comfort in this world as you or any other man," criedthe barber, whom the other's sweetness of temper seemed rather toexasperate than soothe."To resent the imputation of anything like unhappiness I have oftenobserved to be peculiar to certain orders of men," said the otherpensively, and half to himself, "just as to be indifferent to thatimputation, from holding happiness but for a secondary good and inferiorgrace, I have observed to be equally peculiar to other kinds of men.Pray, barber," innocently looking up, "which think you is the superiorcreature?""All this sort of talk," cried the barber, still unmollified, "is, as Itold you once before, not in my line. In a few minutes I shall shut upthis shop. Will you be shaved?""Shave away, barber. What hinders?" turning up his face like a flower.The shaving began, and proceeded in silence, till at length it becamenecessary to prepare to relather a little--affording an opportunity forresuming the subject, which, on one side, was not let slip."Barber," with a kind of cautious kindliness, feeling his way, "barber,now have a little patience with me; do; trust me, I wish not to offend.I have been thinking over that supposed case of the man with the avertedface, and I cannot rid my mind of the impression that, by your oppositereplies to my questions at the time, you showed yourself much of a piecewith a good many other men--that is, you have confidence, and thenagain, you have none. Now, what I would ask is, do you think it sensiblestanding for a sensible man, one foot on confidence and the other onsuspicion? Don't you think, barber, that you ought to elect? Don't youthink consistency requires that you should either say 'I have confidencein all men,' and take down your notification; or else say, 'I suspectall men,' and keep it up."This dispassionate, if not deferential, way of putting the case, did notfail to impress the barber, and proportionately conciliate him.Likewise, from its pointedness, it served to make him thoughtful; for,instead of going to the copper vessel for more water, as he hadpurposed, he halted half-way towards it, and, after a pause, cup inhand, said: "Sir, I hope you would not do me injustice. I don't say, andcan't say, and wouldn't say, that I suspect all men; but I do say thatstrangers are not to be trusted, and so," pointing up to the sign, "notrust.""But look, now, I beg, barber," rejoined the other deprecatingly, notpresuming too much upon the barber's changed temper; "look, now; to saythat strangers are not to be trusted, does not that imply something likesaying that mankind is not to be trusted; for the mass of mankind, arethey not necessarily strangers to each individual man? Come, come, myfriend," winningly, "you are no Timon to hold the mass of mankinduntrustworthy. Take down your notification; it is misanthropical; muchthe same sign that Timon traced with charcoal on the forehead of a skullstuck over his cave. Take it down, barber; take it down to-night. Trustmen. Just try the experiment of trusting men for this one little trip.Come now, I'm a philanthropist, and will insure you against losing acent."The barber shook his head dryly, and answered, "Sir, you must excuse me.I have a family."