ABSTRACT
In Herman Melville's famous novel Moby-Dick, which Paul de Man published in Belgium in his own translation into Flemish in 1945, at the conclusion of the Second World War and three years before his emigration to the United States, the narrator, on his way to board the ship on which he has arranged to sail, is accosted by a stranger who mysteriously insists that the narrator does not know all he should— or all there is to know—about the captain of the ship. Do we ever know all we should—or all there is to know—about the figures who have an impact on us, those who spontaneously stand out as metaphoric captains—leaders, mentors, or role models? “ ‘Look here, friend,’ “ says Moby-Dick's narrator to the unsolicited informer, “ ‘if you have anything important to tell us, out with it … Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way—you can't fool us. It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.’ ” 1
