On Tahiti
the breezes from the forest and sea strengthen the lungs, they
broaden the shoulders and hips. Neither men nor women are sheltered
from the rays of the sun nor the pebbles of the sea-shore. Together
they engage in the same tasks with the same activity or the same
indolence. There is something virile in the women and something
feminine in the men.
This similarity of the sexes makes their
relations easier. Their continual state of nakedness has kept
their minds free from the dangerous preoccupation with the "mystery"
and from the excessive stress which among civilized people is
laid upon the "happy accident" and the clandestine
and sadistic colors of love. It has given their manners a natural
innocence, a perfect purity. Man and woman are comrades, friends
rather than lovers, dwelling together almost without cease, in
pain and pleasure, and even the very idea of vice is unknown
to them.
-
PAUL GAUGUIN
