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September 25, 2005

tehura lay motionless...

One day I was obliged to go to Papeete. I had promised to return that evening, but the carriage only took me half-way so I had to do the rest on foot and I didn't get home until one 0'clock in the morning...when I opened the door...I saw her...

Tehura lay motionless, naked, belly down on the bed: she stared up at me, her eyes wide with fear, she seemed to know who I was. For a moment I too felt a strange uncertainty. Tehura's dread was contagious: it seemed to me that a phosphorescent light poured from her staring eyes. I had never seen her so lovely: above all, I had never seen her beauty so moving. And in the half-shadow, which no doubt seethed with dangerous apparitions and ambiguous shapes, I feared to make the slightest movement, in the case the child would be terrified out of her mind. Did I know what she thought I was, in that instant? Perhaps she took me, with my anguished face, for one of those legendary demons or specters, the Tupapaus that filled the sleepless nights of her people.


Gauguin - Noa Noa

Posted by amin at September 25, 2005 1:28 PM

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