Page 168 - BraveNewWorld

168 IDPH

Beyond them, above the intervening woods, rose the fourteen-story tower of
Elstead. Dim in the hazy English air, Hindhead and Selborne invited the eye in-
to a blue romantic distance. But it was not alone the distance that had attracted
the Savage to his lighthouse; the near was as seductive as the far. The woods,
the open stretches of heather and yellow gorse, the clumps of Scotch firs, the
shining ponds with their overhanging birch trees, their water lilies, their beds
of rushes-these were beautiful and, to an eye accustomed to the aridities of the
American desert, astonishing. And then the solitude! Whole days passed du-
ring which he never saw a human being. The lighthouse was only a quarter of
an hour’s flight from the Charing-T Tower; but the hills of Malpais were hardly
more deserted than this Surrey heath. The crowds that daily left London, left
it only to play Electro- magnetic Golf or Tennis. Puttenham possessed no links;
the nearest Riemann- surfaces were at Guildford. Flowers and a landscape we-
re the only attractions here. And so, as there was no good reason for coming,
nobody came. During the first days the Savage lived alone and undisturbed.
Of the money which, on his first arrival, John had received for his personal ex-
penses, most had been spent on his equipment. Before leaving London he had
bought four viscose-woollen blankets, rope and string, nails, glue, a few tools,
matches (though he intended in due course to make a fire drill), some pots and
pans, two dozen packets of seeds, and ten kilogrammes of wheat flour. “No,
not synthetic starch and cotton-waste flour- substitute,” he had insisted. “Even
though it is more nourishing.” But when it came to pan-glandular biscuits and
vitaminized beef-surrogate, he had not been able to resist the shopman’s persu-
asion. Looking at the tins now, he bitterly reproached himself for his weakness.
Loathesome civilized stuff! He had made up his mind that he would never eat
it, even if he were starving. “That’ll teach them,” he thought vindictively. It
would also teach him.

He counted his money. The little that remained would be enough, he hoped,
to tide him over the winter. By next spring, his garden would be producing
enough to make him independent of the outside world. Meanwhile, there
would always be game. He had seen plenty of rabbits, and there were wa-
terfowl on the ponds. He set to work at once to make a bow and arrows.
There were ash trees near the lighthouse and, for arrow shafts, a whole copse
full of beautifully straight hazel saplings. He began by felling a young ash, cut
out six feet of unbranched stem, stripped off the bark and, paring by paring,
shaved away the white wood, as old Mitsima had taught him, until he had a
stave of his own height, stiff at the thickened centre, lively and quick at the
slender tips. The work gave him an intense pleasure. After those weeks of
idleness in London, with nothing to do, whenever he wanted anything, but to
press a switch or turn a handle, it was pure delight to be doing something that
demanded skill and patience.

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