Summary

1. Perina describes his departure for Hawaii (following an uneasy farewell with Owen) and his eventual first encounter with Paul Tallent, his first reaction being an intense response to Tallent’s physical beauty. A lengthy footnote by Kubodera sums up Tallent’s career and the mysteries that thread their way through his life, particularly the nature of his disappearance and presumed death (which, Kubodera adds in a footnote, will be discussed by Perina later in his narrative). On their plane trip to U’ivu, Perina says, his contemplations of Tallent’s beauty led him to contemplations of his own physical unattractiveness. There was no time for further contemplations, he suggests, on the rest of the journey – by smaller plane, by boat, and by foot through the jungle. Along the way, he writes, he and Tallent connected...