When morning came,he felt he had earned the right to inhabit the lighthouse;yes,even though there still was glass in most of the windows,even though the view from the platform was so fine.For the very reason why he had chosen the lighthouse had become almost instantly a reason for going somewhere else.He had decided to live there because the view was so beautiful,because,from his vantage point,he seemed to be looking out on to the incarnation of a divine being.But who was he to be pampered with the daily and hourly sight of loveliness?Who was he to be living in the visible presence of God?All he deserved to live in was some filthy sty,some blind hole in the ground.Stiff and aching after his long night of pain,but for that very reason inwardly reassured,he climbed up to the platform of his tower,he looked out over the bright sunrise world which he had regained the right to inhabit.On the north the view was bounded by the long chalk ridge of the Hog's Back,from behind whose eastern extremity rose the towers of the seven skyscrapers which constituted Guildford.Seeing them,the Savage made a grimace;but he was to become reconciled to them in course of time;for at night they twinkled gaily with geometrical constellations,or else,flood-lighted,pointed their luminous fingers(with a gesture whose significance nobody in England but the Savage now understood)solemnly towards the plumbless mysteries of heaven.
In the valley which separated the Hog's Back from the sandy hill on which the lighthouse stood,Puttenham was a modest little village nine stories high,with silos,a poultry farm,and a small vitamin-D factory.On the other side of the lighthouse,towards the south,the ground fell away in long slopes of heather to a chain of ponds.
Beyond them,above the intervening woods,rose the fourteen-storey tower of Elstead.Dim in the hazy English air,Hindhead and Selborne invited the eye into 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 during 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 were 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 expenses,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 persuasion.Looking at the tins now,he bitterly reproached himself for his weakness.Loathsome 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 water-fowl 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.
He had almost finished whittling the stave into shape,when he realized with a start that he was singing-singing!It was as though,stumbling upon himself from the outside,he had suddenly caught himself out,taken himself flagrantly at fault.Guiltily he blushed.After all,it was not to sing and enjoy himself that he had come here.It was to escape further contamination by the filth of civilized life;it was to be purified and made good;it was actively to make amends.He realized to his dismay that,absorbed in the whittling of his bow,he had forgotten what he had sworn to himself he would constantly remember-poor Linda,and his own murderous unkindness to her,and those loathsome twins,swarming like lice across the mystery of her death,insulting,with their presence,not merely his own grief and repentance,but the very gods themselves.He had sworn to remember,he had sworn unceasingly to make amends.And here he was,sitting happily over his bow-stave,singing,actually singing……
He went indoors,opened the box of mustard,and put some water to boil on the fire.