70 MYSTIC ISLES 



cally, for he was a thick-bodied man in his thirties, 

 with a stamina and a strength incredibly developed. I 

 had seen him once lift over a fence a barrel of flour, two 

 hundred pounds in weight, and without full effort. His 

 skin was very dark, his facial expression one of ire and 

 frustration, but of conscious superiority to all about 

 him. He had had no aids to overcome his natal infirmity 

 of deafness and consequent dimibness, none of the edu- 

 cational assistance imodern science lends these unfortu- 

 nates, no finger alphabet, or even another inarticulate 

 for sympathy. He was like the mutes of history, of 

 courts and romances, condemned to suffer in silence the 

 humor and contempt of all about him, though he felt 

 liimself better than they in body and in the under- 

 standing of things, which he could not make them know. 

 This repression made him often like a wild beast, though 

 mostly he was half-clown and half-infant in his conduct. 

 He had a gift of mimicry incomparably finer than any 

 professional's I knew of. This, with his gestures, stood 

 him instead of speech. A certain haughty EngHsh 

 woman whose elaborate hats in an island where women 

 were hatless, or wore simple, native weaves, were noted 

 atrocities, and whose chin was almost nil, kept the car- 

 riage and me waiting for breakfast while she primped in 

 her lodging. The Dummy uttered one of his abortive 

 sounds, much like that of an angry puma, contorted his 

 face, and put his hand above his head, so that I had a 

 very vivid suggestion of the lady, her sloping chin and 

 her hat, at which all Papeete laughed. Vava's gesticu- 

 lations and grimaces were unerring cartoons without 

 paper or ink. If one could have seen him draw one- 

 self, one's pride would have tumbled. He saw the most 



