“_Tenez, voilà le Capitaine Brunot_,” said Tiaré, one day when I was
fitting together what she could tell me of Strickland. “He knew
Strickland well; he visited him at his house.”
I saw a middle-aged Frenchman with a big black beard, streaked with
gray, a sunburned face, and large, shining eyes. He was dressed in a
neat suit of ducks. I had noticed him at luncheon, and Ah Lin, the
Chinese boy, told me he had come from the Paumotus on the boat that had
that day arrived. Tiaré introduced me to him, and he handed me his
card, a large card on which was printed _René Brunot_, and underneath,
_Capitaine au Long Cours._ We were sitting on a little verandah outside
the kitchen, and Tiaré was cutting out a dress that she was making for
one of the girls about the house. He sat down with us.
“Yes; I knew Strickland well,” he said. “I am very fond of chess, and
he was always glad of a game. I come to Tahiti three or four times a
year for my business, and when he was at Papeete he would come here and
we would play. When he married”—Captain Brunot smiled and shrugged his
shoulders—“_enfin_, when he went to live with the girl that Tiaré gave
him, he asked me to go and see him. I was one of the guests at the
wedding feast.” He looked at Tiaré, and they both laughed. “He did not
come much to Papeete after that, and about a year later it chanced that
I had to go to that part of the island for I forgot what business, and
when I had finished it I said to myself: ‘_Voyons_, why should I not go
and see that poor Strickland?’ I asked one or two natives if they knew
anything about him, and I discovered that he lived not more than five
kilometres from where I was. So I went. I shall never forget the
impression my visit made on me. I live on an atoll, a low island, it is
a strip of land surrounding a lagoon, and its beauty is the beauty of
the sea and sky and the varied colour of the lagoon and the grace of
the cocoa-nut trees; but the place where Strickland lived had the
beauty of the Garden of Eden. Ah, I wish I could make you see the
enchantment of that spot, a corner hidden away from all the world, with
the blue sky overhead and the rich, luxuriant trees. It was a feast of
colour. And it was fragrant and cool. Words cannot describe that
paradise. And here he lived, unmindful of the world and by the world
forgotten. I suppose to European eyes it would have seemed
astonishingly sordid. The house was dilapidated and none too clean.
Three or four natives were lying on the verandah. You know how natives
love to herd together. There was a young man lying full length, smoking
a cigarette, and he wore nothing but a _pareo_.”
The _pareo_ is a long strip of trade cotton, red or blue, stamped with
a white pattern. It is worn round the waist and hangs to the knees.
“A girl of fifteen, perhaps, was plaiting pandanus-leaf to make a hat,
and an old woman was sitting on her haunches smoking a pipe. Then I saw
Ata. She was suckling a new-born child, and another child, stark naked,
was playing at her feet. When she saw me she called out to Strickland,
and he came to the door. He, too, wore nothing but a _pareo_. He was an
extraordinary figure, with his red beard and matted hair, and his great
hairy chest. His feet were horny and scarred, so that I knew he went
always bare foot. He had gone native with a vengeance. He seemed
pleased to see me, and told Ata to kill a chicken for our dinner. He
took me into the house to show me the picture he was at work on when I
came in. In one corner of the room was the bed, and in the middle was
an easel with the canvas upon it. Because I was sorry for him, I had
bought a couple of his pictures for small sums, and I had sent others
to friends of mine in France. And though I had bought them out of
compassion, after living with them I began to like them. Indeed, I
found a strange beauty in them. Everyone thought I was mad, but it
turns out that I was right. I was his first admirer in the islands.”
He smiled maliciously at Tiaré, and with lamentations she told us again
the story of how at the sale of Strickland’s effects she had neglected
the pictures, but bought an American stove for twenty-seven francs.
“Have you the pictures still?” I asked.
“Yes; I am keeping them till my daughter is of marriageable age, and
then I shall sell them. They will be her _dot._” Then he went on with
the account of his visit to Strickland.
“I shall never forget the evening I spent with him. I had not intended
to stay more than an hour, but he insisted that I should spend the
night. I hesitated, for I confess I did not much like the look of the
mats on which he proposed that I should sleep; but I shrugged my
shoulders. When I was building my house in the Paumotus I had slept out
for weeks on a harder bed than that, with nothing to shelter me but
wild shrubs; and as for vermin, my tough skin should be proof against
their malice.
“We went down to the stream to bathe while Ata was preparing the
dinner, and after we had eaten it we sat on the verandah. We smoked and
chatted. The young man had a concertina, and he played the tunes
popular on the music-halls a dozen years before. They sounded strangely
in the tropical night thousands of miles from civilisation. I asked
Strickland if it did not irk him to live in that promiscuity. No, he
said; he liked to have his models under his hand. Presently, after loud
yawning, the natives went away to sleep, and Strickland and I were left
alone. I cannot describe to you the intense silence of the night. On my
island in the Paumotus there is never at night the complete stillness
that there was here. There is the rustle of the myriad animals on the
beach, all the little shelled things that crawl about ceaselessly, and
there is the noisy scurrying of the land-crabs. Now and then in the
lagoon you hear the leaping of a fish, and sometimes a hurried noisy
splashing as a brown shark sends all the other fish scampering for
their lives. And above all, ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of
the breakers on the reef. But here there was not a sound, and the air
was scented with the white flowers of the night. It was a night so
beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the
body. You felt that it was ready to be wafted away on the immaterial
air, and death bore all the aspect of a beloved friend.”
Tiaré sighed.
“Ah, I wish I were fifteen again.”
Then she caught sight of a cat trying to get at a dish of prawns on the
kitchen table, and with a dexterous gesture and a lively volley of
abuse flung a book at its scampering tail.
“I asked him if he was happy with Ata.
“‘She leaves me alone,’ he said. ‘She cooks my food and looks after her
babies. She does what I tell her. She gives me what I want from a
woman.’
“‘And do you never regret Europe? Do you not yearn sometimes for the
light of the streets in Paris or London, the companionship of your
friends, and equals, _que sais-je?_ for theatres and newspapers, and
the rumble of omnibuses on the cobbled pavements?’
“For a long time he was silent. Then he said:
“‘I shall stay here till I die.’
“‘But are you never bored or lonely?’ I asked.
“He chuckled.
“‘_Mon pauvre ami_,’ he said. ‘It is evident that you do not know what
it is to be an artist.’”
Capitaine Brunot turned to me with a gentle smile, and there was a
wonderful look in his dark, kind eyes.
“He did me an injustice, for I too know what it is to have dreams. I
have my visions too. In my way I also am an artist.”
We were all silent for a while, and Tiaré fished out of her capacious
pocket a handful of cigarettes. She handed one to each of us, and we
all three smoked. At last she said:
“Since _ce monsieur_ is interested in Strickland, why do you not take
him to see Dr. Coutras? He can tell him something about his illness and
death.”
“_Volontiers_,” said the Captain, looking at me.
I thanked him, and he looked at his watch.
“It is past six o’clock. We should find him at home if you care to come
now.”
I got up without further ado, and we walked along the road that led to
the doctor’s house. He lived out of the town, but the Hôtel de la Fleur
was on the edge of it, and we were quickly in the country. The broad
road was shaded by pepper-trees, and on each side were the plantations,
cocoa-nut and vanilla. The pirate birds were screeching among the
leaves of the palms. We came to a stone bridge over a shallow river,
and we stopped for a few minutes to see the native boys bathing. They
chased one another with shrill cries and laughter, and their bodies,
brown and wet, gleamed in the sunlight.