Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of a former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as the sweetest songster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity, all miserable events do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than equally, thought Ahab; since both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of this: that it is an inference from certain canonic teachings, that while some natural enjoyments here shall have no children born to them for the other world, but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the joy-childlessness of all hell's despair; whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave; not at all to hint of this, there still seems an inequality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction.
而且，当时他那偏热症的心里可没有忘记：现下的苦痛都是直接来自先前的祸患，他也看得非常清楚，这条永远盘踞在他心里的湿辘辘的、最凶狠的巨蟒，正如丛林里必然有音调最为美妙的鸣禽一样，因此，一切的不幸往事如同一切的喜庆事一般，就自然而然地各自产生了相似的后果。亚哈还认为，哪里会是一样，大大小小的不幸总是多于大大小小的幸福。更别提什么根据某种宗规的教义的论断，认为若干天然的幸福到了另一个世界里就不会开花结子，而且，相反地，会落得全是悲惨失望的一场空；所以，一些罪大恶极的不幸者却在死后会多子多孙似的，接二连三的产生了更多的不幸：更别提什么把事物更深入地分析下去，还是会有不一样了。因为，亚哈心里想，即使是人间的最高福祉者嘛，本身也始终存有一种琐屑的不称心事，而且，实际上，一切的心病，就是一种神秘的、意味深长的东西，在有些人看来，则把它看成是天使长似的伟大；因此，他们便战战兢兢地不敢去追寻那种会使明显的推论落空的东西。