第26章 THE HOUSE OF TEMOANA(2)

Vaekehu is very deaf;'MERCI'is her only word of French;and I do not know that she seemed clever.An exquisite,kind refinement,with a shade of quietism,gathered perhaps from the nuns,was what chiefly struck us.Or rather,upon that first occasion,we were conscious of a sense as of district-visiting on our part,and reduced evangelical gentility on the part of our hostess.The other impression followed after she was more at ease,and came with Stanislao and his little girl to dine on board the CASCO.She had dressed for the occasion:wore white,which very well became her strong brown face;and sat among us,eating or smoking her cigarette,quite cut off from all society,or only now and then included through the intermediary of her son.It was a position that might have been ridiculous,and she made it ornamental;making believe to hear and to be entertained;her face,whenever she met our eyes,lighting with the smile of good society;her contributions to the talk,when she made any,and that was seldom,always complimentary and pleasing.No attention was paid to the child,for instance,but what she remarked and thanked us for.Her parting with each,when she came to leave,was gracious and pretty,as had been every step of her behaviour.When Mrs.Stevenson held out her hand to say good-bye,Vaekehu took it,held it,and a moment smiled upon her;dropped it,and then,as upon a kindly after-thought,and with a sort of warmth of condescension,held out both hands and kissed my wife upon both cheeks.Given the same relation of years and of rank,the thing would have been so done on the boards of the COMEDIE FRANCAISE;just so might Madame Brohan have warmed and condescended to Madame Broisat in the MARQUIS DEVILLEMER.It was my part to accompany our guests ashore:when Ikissed the little girl good-bye at the pier steps,Vaekehu gave a cry of gratification,reached down her hand into the boat,took mine,and pressed it with that flattering softness which seems the coquetry of the old lady in every quarter of the earth.The next moment she had taken Stanislao's arm,and they moved off along the pier in the moonlight,leaving me bewildered.This was a queen of cannibals;she was tattooed from hand to foot,and perhaps the greatest masterpiece of that art now extant,so that a while ago,before she was grown prim,her leg was one of the sights of Tai-o-hae;she had been passed from chief to chief;she had been fought for and taken in war;perhaps,being so great a lady,she had sat on the high place,and throned it there,alone of her sex,while the drums were going twenty strong and the priests carried up the blood-stained baskets of long-pig.And now behold her,out of that past of violence and sickening feasts,step forth,in her age,a quiet,smooth,elaborate old lady,such as you might find at home (mittened also,but not often so well-mannered)in a score of country houses.Only Vaekehu's mittens were of dye,not of silk;and they had been paid for,not in money,but the cooked flesh of men.It came in my mind with a clap,what she could think of it herself,and whether at heart,perhaps,she might not regret and aspire after the barbarous and stirring past.But when I asked Stanislao -'Ah!'said he,'she is content;she is religious,she passes all her days with the sisters.'

Stanislao (Stanislaos,with the final consonant evaded after the Polynesian habit)was sent by Bishop Dordillon to South America,and there educated by the fathers.His French is fluent,his talk sensible and spirited,and in his capacity of ganger-in-chief,he is of excellent service to the French.With the prestige of his name and family,and with the stick when needful,he keeps the natives working and the roads passable.Without Stanislao and the convicts,I am in doubt what would become of the present regimen in Nuka-hiva;whether the highways might not be suffered to close up,the pier to wash away,and the Residency to fall piecemeal about the ears of impotent officials.And yet though the hereditary favourer,and one of the chief props of French authority,he has always an eye upon the past.He showed me where the old public place had stood,still to be traced by random piles of stone;told me how great and fine it was,and surrounded on all sides by populous houses,whence,at the beating of the drums,the folk crowded to make holiday.The drum-beat of the Polynesian has a strange and gloomy stimulation for the nerves of all.White persons feel it -at these precipitate sounds their hearts beat faster;and,according to old residents,its effect on the natives was extreme.Bishop Dordillon might entreat;Temoana himself command and threaten;at the note of the drum wild instincts triumphed.And now it might beat upon these ruins,and who should assemble?The houses are down,the people dead,their lineage extinct;and the sweepings and fugitives of distant bays and islands encamp upon their graves.The decline of the dance Stanislao especially laments.'CHAQUE PAYS A SES COUTUMES,'said he;but in the report of any gendarme,perhaps corruptly eager to increase the number of DELITS and the instruments of his own power,custom after custom is placed on the expurgatorial index.'TENEZ,UNE DANSE QUI N'EST PAS PERMISE,'said Stanislao:'JE NE SAIS PASPOURQUOI,ELLE EST TRES JOLIE,ELLE VA COMME CA,'and sticking his umbrella upright in the road,he sketched the steps and gestures.