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READING. Tahiti is a South Pacific island famous for its unique history, friendly people and breathtaking beauty. People go to this part of the world for the beaches and the relaxed pace of life. The island is rich in marine and bird life and is covered w
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UNIT 5
READING
Tahiti is a South Pacific island famous for its unique history, friendly people and breathtaking beauty. People go to this part of the world for the beaches and the relaxed pace of life. The island is rich in marine and bird life and is covered with lush forest. The best time to visit is between May and November, as this is the dry season.
THE MOON AND SIXPENCE
by W. S. Maugham
I have said already that but for the hazard of a journey to Tahiti I should doubtless never have written this book. It is there that after many travels Charles Strickland came, and it is there that he painted the pictures on which his fame rests. I suppose no artist achieves completely the realization of the dream that obsesses him, and Strickland, harassed incessantly by his struggle with technique, managed, perhaps, less than others to express the vision that he saw with his mind’s eye; but in Tahiti the circumstances were favourable to him; he found in his surroundings the accidents necessary for his inspiration to become effective, and his later pictures give at least a suggestion of what he sought. To use the hackneyed phrase, here he found himself.
It would seem that my visit to this remote island should immediately revive my interest in Strickland, but the work I was engaged in occupied my attention to the exclusion of something that was irrelevant, and it was not till I had been there some days that I even remembered his connection with it. After all, I had not seen him for fifteen years, and it was nine since he died. But I think my arrival at Tahiti would have driven out of my head matters of much more immediate importance.
I remember that on my first morning I awoke early, and when I came on to the terrace of the hotel no one was stirring. 1. ______ There seemed no chance of breakfast for some time, so I walked down to the waterfront. The Chinamen were already busy in their shops. The sky had still the pallor of dawn, and there was a ghostly silence on the lagoon.
I did not altogether believe my eyes. The days that had passed since I left Wellington seemed extraordinary and unusual. 2. ______ And for three days afterwards the sea was stormy. Gray clouds chased one another across the sky. 3. ______ The Pacific is more desolate than other seas; its spaces seem more vast, and the most ordinary journey upon it has somehow the feeling of an adventure. The air you breathe is an elixir which prepares you for the unexpected.
Murea, the sister isle, comes into view in rocky splendour, rising from the desert sea mysteriously, like the unsubstantial fabric of a magic land. 4. ______ It would not surprise you if, as you came near seeking for an opening in the reef, it vanished suddenly from your view, and nothing met your gaze but the blue loneliness of the Pacific.
Tahiti is a lofty green island, with deep folds of a darker green, in which you divine silent valleys. There is mystery in their sombre depths, down which murmur and splash cool streams, and you feel that in those shadowy places life has not changed for centuries. 5. ______ But the impression is fleeting, and serves only to give a greater acuteness to the enjoyment of the moment. For Tahiti is smiling and friendly; it is like a lovely woman graciously prodigal of her charm and beauty; and nothing can be more conciliatory than the entrance into the harbour at Papeete.
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6. ______, the little town along the bay is white and charming, and the flamboyants, scarlet against the blue sky, flaunt their colour like a cry of passion. And the crowd at the wharf as the steamer draws alongside is gay and well-dressed. 7. ______ It is a sea of brown faces. You have an impression of coloured movement against the flaming blue of the sky. Everything is done with a great deal of bustle, the unloading of the baggage, the examination of the customs; and everyone seems to smile at you. It is very hot. The colour dazzles you.
Task 30. Read the text and choose from the list A – H the sentence which fits each gap (1–7). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.
A. I wandered round to the kitchen, but it was locked, and on a bench outside it a native boy was sleeping.
B. The beauty of the island is unveiled as diminishing distance shows you in distincter shape its lovely peaks, but it keeps its secret as you sail by.
C. Wellington is trim and neat and English; it reminds you of a seaport town on the South Coast.
D. It is a noisy, cheerful, gesticulating crowd.
E. Even here is something sad and terrible.
F. The schooners moored to the quay are trim and neat
G. Then the wind dropped, and the sea was calm and blue.
H. You may imagine it was guarded by Polynesian knights.
VOCABULARY PRACTICE
GLOSSARY
1. hazard of a journey
2. favourable circumstances
3. to rest fame
4. effective inspiration
5. hackneyed phrase
6. irrelevant
7. drive out of one’s head
8. to wander round
9. become distinct
10. trim and neat
11. remote / desolate island
12. revive one’s interest
13. occupy one’s attention
14. to be engaged in sth.
15. of immediate importance
16. waterfront
17. extraordinary
18. chase one another
19. splendour
20. drop (the wind ~)
21. to vanish from view
22. to meet one’s gaze
23. lofty island
24. fleeting (syn. short-lived) feeling
25. enjoyment of the moment
26. conciliatory
27. flamboyant trees
28. unloading of the baggage
29. examination of customs
30. dazzle; dazzling colour
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