[inner] Chapter 22: “Henri Mon Ami”

A fishing boat that stands on blocks at the "boat works" building on the Hopkins Marine Station grounds. Henri lived on such a boat (on land) that he built, continuously improving it and then deconstructing it. As he was afraid of the ocean, finishing construction was out of the question.

It had become his custom, each time he was deserted, to buy a gallon of wine, to stretch out on the comfortably hard bunk and get drunk [...] he would read Rimbaud aloud with a very bad accent, marveling the while at his fluid speech. (Steinbeck 124).

[Henri] “Well, will you come up with me, and see if it comes back?” “No, [...] If I saw it, it might be a ghost and it would scare me badly because I don’t believe in ghosts. And if you saw it again and I didn’t it would be a hallucination and you would be frightened.” (Steinbeck 125)