d picked up Lavina,
the famous landlady of the Tiare Hotel, the uncrowned queen of Tahiti, and
with a few strokes of his pen, had dissected her, and exposed her to the
world as she was. Here I must quote:

"'Tall and extremely stout, she would have been an imposing presence if
the great good nature of her face had not made it impossible for her to
express anything but kindliness. Her arms were like legs of mutton, her
breasts like giant cabbages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an
impression of almost indecent nakedness and vast chin succeeded vast
chin.'

"This may seem a small matter in a great world. Tahiti is a small world,
and this became a great matter. I read the book twice, decided that
Somerset Maugham could no longer be regarded as a pleasant liqueur, but
rather as the joint of a meal requiring steady digestion, and suppressed
_The Moon and Sixpence_ on Tahiti. The temptation to lend it to a kindred
spirit was almost unbearable, but the thought of Lavina hearing of the
above description of her person frightened me and I resisted. For kindred
souls, on Tahiti as elsewhere, have their own kindred souls, and slowly
but surely the fact that a writer had described her arms as legs of mutton
(perfect!) and her breasts as huge cabbages (even better!) would have
oozed its way to Lavina, sending her to bed for six days, with gloom
spread over Tahiti and no cocktails.

"All of which is a trifle by the way. Yet in writing of Somerset Maugham
one must gaze along all lines of vision. And it seemed to me that Tahiti
in general, and Papeete in particular should supply a clear one; for here,
certainly, in the days when Maugham visited the island a man could be
mentally dead, spiritually naked and physically unashamed. I therefore
sought Lavina one afternoon as she sat clothed as with a garment by the
small side verandah of the Tiare Hotel. (Lavina was huge; the verandah was
a small verandah as verandahs go; there was just room for me and a bottle
of rum.)

"'Lavina,' I remarked; 'many persons who write come to Tahiti.'

"'It is true,' she admitted, 'but not as the heavy rain, rather as the few
drops at the end.'

"'Do you like them?' I enquired.

"One makes that kind of remark on Tahiti. The climate demands such, since
the answer can be almost anything, a meandering spreading-of-weight kind
of answer.

"'These are good men,' said Lavina steadily, wandering off into the old
and possibly untrue story of a lady ca