Noa Noa Page 4
I continue my way.
At Taravao, the district farthest from Mataïea at the other extremity of the island, a gendarme lends me his horse, and I range along the east coast, which is little frequented by Europeans.
At Faone, a tiny district which precedes the more important one of Itia, I hear a native calling out to me,
“Halloa! Man who makes human beings!”—He knows that I am a painter. “Haëre maï ta maha (come and eat with us).” This is the Tahitian formula of hospitality.
No persuasion is required, for the smile accompanying the invitation is engaging and gentle.
I dismount from the horse. My host takes the animal by the bridle and ties it to a branch, simply and skillfully, without a trace of servility.
Together we enter a hut where men and women are sitting together on the ground talking and smoking. Around them children play and prattle.
“Where are you going?” asked a beautiful Maori woman of about forty.
“I am going to Itia.”
“What for?”
I do not know what idea flitted across my mind. Perhaps I was only giving expression to the real purpose of my journey, which had hitherto been hidden even to myself.
“To find a wife,” I replied.
“There are many pretty women at Faone. Do you want one?”
“Yes. ”
“Very well! If she pleases you, I will give her to you. She is my daughter.”
“Is she young?”
“Yes.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Yes. ”
“Is she in good health?”
“Yes. ”
“It is well. Go and bring her to me.”
The woman went out.
A quarter of an hour later, as they were bringing on the meal, a truly Maori one of wild bananas and shellfish, she returned, followed by a young girl who held a small bundle in the hand.
Through her dress of almost transparent rose-colored muslin one could see the golden skin of her shoulders and arms. Two swelling buds rose on the breasts. She was a large child, slender, strong, of wonderful proportions. But in her beautiful face I failed to find the characteristics which hitherto I had found everywhere dominant on the island. Even her hair was exceptional, thick like a bush and a little crispy. In the sunlight it was all an orgy in chrome.
They told me that she was of Tonga origin.
I greeted her; she smiled and sat down beside me.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” I asked.
“Aïta (no).
“Do you wish to live in my hut for always?”
“Eha (yes).”
“You have never been ill?”
“Aïta!”
That was all.
My heart beat, while the young girl on the ground before me was tranquilly arranging the food on a large banana-leaf and offering it to me. I ate with good appetite, but I was preoccupied, profoundly troubled. This child of about thirteen years (the equivalent of eighteen or twenty in Europe) charmed me, made me timid, almost frightened me. What might be passing in her soul? And it was I, so old in contrast with her, who hesitated to sign a contract in which all the advantages were on my side, but which was entered into and concluded so hastily.
What are you thinking about? I don’t know.
Perhaps, I thought, it is in obedience to her mother’s command. Perhaps, it is an arrangement upon which they have agreed among themselves . . . .
I was reassured when I saw in the face of the young girl, in her gestures and attitude the distinct signs of independence and pride which are so characteristic of her race. And my faith was complete and unshakable, when after a deep study of her, I saw unmistakably the serene expression which in young beings always accompanies an honorable and laudable act. But the mocking line about her otherwise pretty, sensual, and tender mouth warned me that the real dangers of the adventure would be for me, not for her . . . .
I cannot deny that in crossing the threshold of the hut when leaving my heart was weighed down with a strange and very poignant anguish.
The hour of departure had come. I mounted the horse.
The girl followed behind. Her mother, a man, and two young women—her aunts, she said—also followed.
We returned to Taravao, nine kilometers from Faone.
After the first kilometer, they said:
“Parahi téié (here stop).”
I dismounted from my horse, and all six of us entered into a large hut, neatly kept, almost rich—with the riches of the earth, with beautiful straw-mats.
A still young and exceedingly gracious couple lived here. My bride sat down beside the woman, and introduced me,
“This is my mother.”
Then in silence fresh water was poured into a goblet from which we drank each in turn, gravely, as if we were engaged in some intimate religious rite.
After this the woman whom my bride had just designated as her mother said to me with a deeply-moved look and moist lashes,
“You are good?”
I replied, not without difficulty, after having examined my conscience,
“I hope so!”
“You will make my daughter happy?”
“Yes. ”
“In eight days she must return. If she is not happy she will leave you.”
I assented with a gesture. Silence fell. It seemed as if no one dared to break it.
Finally we went out, and again on horseback I set out, always accompanied by my escort.
On the way we met several people who were acquainted with my new family. They were already informed of the happening, and in saluting the girl they said:
“Ah, and are you now really the vahina of a Frenchman? Be happy! ”
One point disturbed me. How did Tehura—this was my wife’s name—come to have two mothers?
I asked the first one, the one who had offered her to me:
“Why did you lie to me?”
The mother of Tehura replied,
“I did not lie. The other one also is her mother, her nurse, foster-mother.”
At Taravao, I returned the horse to the gendarme, and an unpleasant incident occurred there. His wife, a Frenchwoman, said to me, not maliciously, but tactlessly:
“What! You bring back with you such a hussy?”
And with her angry eyes she undressed the young girl, who met this insulting examination with complete indifference.
I looked for a moment at the symbolic spectacle which the two women offered. On the one side a fresh blossoming, faith and nature; on the other the season of barrenness, law and artifice. Two races were face to face, and I was ashamed of mine. It hurt me to see it so petty and intolerant, so uncomprehending. I turned quickly to feel again the warmth and the joy coming from the glamor of the other, from this living gold which I already loved.
At Taravao the family took leave of us at the Chinaman’s who sells everything—adulterated liqueurs and fruit, stuffs and weapons, men and women and beasts.
My wife and I took the stage-coach which left us twenty-five kilometers farther on at Mataïea, my home.
My wife is not very talkative; she is at the same time full of laughter and melancholy and above all given to mockery.
We did not cease studying each other, but she remained impenetrable to me, and I was soon vanquished in this struggle.
I had made a promise to keep a watch over myself, to remain master of myself, so that I might become a sure observer. My strength and resolutions were soon overcome. For Tehura I was in a very short time an open book.
In a way I experienced, at my expense and in my own person, the profound gulf which separates an Oceanian soul from a Latin soul, particularly a French soul. The soul of a Maori is not revealed immediately. It requires much patience and study to obtain a grasp of it. And even when you believe that you know it to the very bottom, it suddenly disconcerts you by its unforeseen “jumps.” But, at first, it is enigma itself, or rather an infinite series of enigmas. At the moment you believe y
ou have seized it, it is far away, inaccessible, incommunicable, enveloped in laughter and variability. Then of its own free will it reapproaches, only to slip away again as soon as you betray the slightest sign of certitude. And when confused by its externals you seek its inmost truth, it looks at you with tranquil assurance out of the depths of its never-ending smile and its easy lightheartedness. This tranquility is, perhaps, less real than it seems.
For my part I soon gave up all these conscious efforts which so interfered with the enjoyment of life. I let myself live simply, waiting confidently in the course of time for the revelations which the first moments had refused.
A week thus went by during which I had a feeling of “childlikeness,” such as I had never before experienced.
I loved Tehura and told her so; it made her laugh—she knew it, very well.
She seemed to love me in return, but she never spoke of it—but sometimes at night the lightning graved furrows in the gold of the skin of Tehura . . . .
On the eighth day—to me it seemed as though we only for the first time had entered my hut—Tehura asked my permission to visit her mother at Faone. It was something that had been promised.
I sadly resigned myself. Tying several piastres in her handkerchief in order to defray the expenses of the journey and to buy some rum for her father, I led her to the stage-coach.
I had the feeling that it was a good-by forever.
The following days were full of torment. Solitude drove me from the hut and memories brought me back to it. I was unable to fix my thought upon any study . . . .
Another week passed, and Tehura returned.
Then a life filled to the full with happiness began. Happiness and work rose up together with the sun, radiant like it. The gold of Tehura’s face flooded the interior of our hut and the landscape round about with joy and light. She no longer studied me, and I no longer studied her. She no longer concealed her love from me, and I no longer spoke to her of my love. We lived, both of us, in perfect simplicity.
How good it was in the morning to seek refreshment in the nearest brook, as did, I imagine, the first man and the first woman in Paradise.
Tahitian paradise, navé navé fénua,—land of delights!
And the Eve of this paradise became more and more docile, more loving. I was permeated with her fragrance—noa noa. She came into my life at the perfect hour. Earlier, I might, perhaps, not have understood her, and later it would have been too late. To-day I understand how much I love her, and through her I enter into mysteries which hitherto remained inaccessible to me. But, for the moment, my intelligence does not yet reason out my discoveries; I do not classify them in my memory. It is to my emotions that Tehura confides all this that she tells me. It is in my emotions and impressions that I shall later find her words inscribed. By the daily telling of her life she leads me, more surely than it could have been done by any other way, to a full understanding of her race.
Ornamental person.
I am no longer conscious of days and hours, of good and evil. The happiness is so strange at times that it suppresses the very conception of it. I only know that all is good, because all is beautiful.
And Tehura never disturbs me when I work or when I dream. Instinctively she is then silent. She knows perfectly when she can speak without disturbing me. We talk of Europe and of Tahiti, and of God and of the gods. I instruct her. She in turn instructs me.
I had to go to Papeete for a day.
I had promised to return the same evening, but the coach which I took left me half way, and I had to do the rest on foot. It was one o’clock in the morning when I returned.
When I opened the door I saw with sinking heart that the light was extinguished. This in itself was not surprising, for at the moment we had only very little light. The necessity of renewing our supply was one of the reasons for my absence. But I trembled with a sudden feeling of apprehension and suspicion which I felt to be a presentiment—surely, the bird had flown . . . .
Quickly, I struck a match, and I saw . . . .
Tehura, immobile, naked, lying face downward flat on the bed with the eyes inordinately large with fear. She looked at me, and seemed not to recognize me. As for myself I stood for some moments strangely uncertain. A contagion emanated from the terror of Tehura. I had the illusion that a phosphorescent light was streaming from her staring eyes. Never had I seen her so beautiful, so tremulously beautiful. And then in this half-light which was surely peopled for her with dangerous apparitions and terrifying suggestions, I was afraid to make any movement which might increase the child’s paroxysm of fright. How could I know what at that moment I might seem to her? Might she not with my frightened face take me for one of the demons and specters, one of the Tupapaüs, with which the legends of her race people sleepless nights? Did I really know who in truth she was herself? The intensity of fright which had dominated her as the result of the physical and moral power of her superstitions had transformed her into a strange being, entirely different from anything I had known heretofore.
Finally she came to herself again, called me, and I did all I could to reason with her, to reassure her, to restore her confidence.
She listened sulkily to me, and with a voice in which sobs trembled she said,
“Never leave me again so alone without light. . . .”
But fear scarcely slumbered, before jealousy awoke.
“What did you do in the city? You have been to see women, those who drink and dance on the market-place, and who give themselves to officers, sailors, to all the world.”
I would not quarrel with her, and the night was soft, soft and ardent, a night of the tropics . . . .
Tehura was sometimes very wise and affectionate, and then again quite filled with folly and frivolity. Two opposite beings, leaving out of account many others, infinitely varied, were mingled in one. They gave the lie, the one to the other; they succeeded one another suddenly with astonishing rapidity. She was not changeable; she was double, triple, multiple—the child of an ancient race.
One day, the eternal itinerant Jew, who ranges over islands as well as continents, arrived in the district with a box of trinkets of gilded copper.
He spread out his ware; everyone surrounded him.
A pair of ear-rings pass from hand to hand. The eyes of the women shine; all want to possess them.
Tehura knits her brows and looks at me. Her eyes speak very clearly. I pretend I do not understand.
She draws me aside in a corner.
“I want them.”
I explain to her that in France those trifles have no value whatsoever, that they are of copper.
“I want them.”
“But why? To pay twenty francs for such trash! It would be folly. No!”
“I want them.”
And with passionate volubility, her eyes full of tears, she urges.
“What, would you not be ashamed to see the jewel in the ears of some other woman? Some one there is already speaking about selling his horse so that he may give the pair of ear-rings to his vahina.”
I will have nothing to do with this folly. For the second time I decline.
Tehura looks at me fixedly, and without saying another word begins to weep.
I go away, I return, and give the twenty francs to the Jew—and the sun reappears.
Two days later was Sunday. Tehura is dressing. The hair is washed with soap, then dried in the sun, and finally rubbed down with fragrant oil. In her best dress, one of my handkerchiefs in the hand, a flower behind the ear, the feet bare, she is going to the temple.
“And the ear-rings?” I ask.
With an expression of disdain, Tehura replies,
“They are of copper.”
And laughing aloud she crosses the threshold of the hut, and suddenly becoming grave again continues her way.
At the hour of siesta, undressed, quite simply, we sleep on this day as on other days, side by side, or we dream. In her dream Tehura, perhaps, sees other ear-rings gleam.
One day when the weather was beautiful, God knows which day of the year it may have been for beautiful days are by no means exceptional in the Tahitian year, we decided one morning to visit friends whose hut was about ten kilometers from ours.
We left about six o’clock, and in the coolness we made such quick progress that we arrived at the early hour of eight.
We were not expected. There was great joy and when the embracings were finished, they went out in quest of a little pig to prepare a feast for us. It was slaughtered, and two chickens were added. A magnificent mollusc caught that very morning, taros and bananas, made up the menu of this abundant and tempting repast.
I suggested that while waiting for noon-day we visit the grottoes of Mara. I had often seen them from the distance without ever having had the opportunity of visiting them.
Three young girls, a young boy, Tehura and I, a gay little company, soon arrived at our destination.
From the edge of the way the grotto, almost wholly concealed by guavas, might be taken for a simple irregularity in the rocks or a fissure a little deeper than the others. But when you bend back the branches and glide down a meter, the sun is no longer visible. You are in a sort of cavern whose further end suggests a little stage with a bright red ceiling apparently about a hundred meters above. Here and there on the walls enormous serpents seem to extend slowly as if to drink from the surface of the interior lake. They are roots which have forced their way through the crevices in the rocks.
“Shall we take a bath?”
They reply that the water is too cold. Then there are long consultations aside and laughter which make me curious.
I persist; finally the young girls make up their minds and lay aside their light robes. With paréos around the loins, soon all of us are in the water.
There is a general cry, “Toë, toë!”