Chapter XLII

CHAPTER XLII

One day Martin became aware that he was lonely. He was healthy and
strong, and had nothing to do. The cessation from writing and
studying, the death of Brissenden, and the estrangement from Ruth
had made a big hole in his life; and his life refused to be pinned
down to good living in cafes and the smoking of Egyptian
cigarettes. It was true the South Seas were calling to him, but he
had a feeling that the game was not yet played out in the United
States. Two books were soon to be published, and he had more books
that might find publication. Money could be made out of them, and
he would wait and take a sackful of it into the South Seas. He
knew a valley and a bay in the Marquesas that he could buy for a
thousand Chili dollars. The valley ran from the horseshoe, land-
locked bay to the tops of the dizzy, cloud-capped peaks and
contained perhaps ten thousand acres. It was filled with tropical
fruits, wild chickens, and wild pigs, with an occasional herd of
wild cattle, while high up among the peaks were herds of wild goats
harried by packs of wild dogs. The whole place was wild. Not a
human lived in it. And he could buy it and the bay for a thousand
Chili dollars.

The bay, as he remembered it, was magnificent, with water deep
enough to accommodate the largest vessel afloat, and so safe that
the South Pacific Directory recommended it to the best careening
place for ships for hundreds of miles around. He would buy a
schooner - one of those yacht-like, coppered crafts that sailed
like witches - and go trading copra and pearling among the islands.
He would make the valley and the bay his headquarters. He would
build a patriarchal grass house like Tati's, and have it and the
valley and the schooner filled with dark-skinned servitors. He
would entertain there the factor of Taiohae, captains of wandering
traders, and all the best of the South Pacific riffraff. He would
keep open house and entertain like a prince. And he would forget
the books he had opened and the world that had proved an illusion.

To do all this he must wait in California to fill the sack with
money. Already it was beginning to flow in. If one of the books
made a strike, it might enable him to sell the whole heap of
manuscripts. Also he could collect the stories and the poems into
books, and make sure of the valley and the bay and the schooner.
He would never write again. Upon that he was resolved. But in the
meantime, awaiting the publication of the books, he must do
something more than live dazed and stupid in the sort of uncaring
trance into which he had fallen.

He noted, one Sunday morning, that the Bricklayers' Picnic took
place that day at Shell Mound Park, and to Shell Mound Park he
went.