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{{title
{{TextQuality|75%}}{{title
|title= Burmese Days
|title= ''Burmese Days''
|author= George Orwell
|author= George Orwell
|notes= This novel publish in 1934 is based loosely on Orwell's five years as a policeman in the Indian Imperial Police force in Burma. It is a caustic, fast-paced tale about the waning days of British imperialism before World War II. From Wikipedia article on [[:en.wp:Burmese Days|Burmese Days]].
|notes= This novel publish in 1934 is based loosely on Orwell's five years as a policeman in the Indian Imperial Police force in Burma. It is a caustic, fast-paced tale about the waning days of British imperialism before World War II. From Wikipedia article on [[:en.wp:Burmese Days|Burmese Days]].
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{{PD-Canada}}


'This desert inaccessible
<div class="text">
'This desert inaccessible<br>
Under the shade of melancholy boughs'
Under the shade of melancholy boughs'


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* [[Burmese Days/24|24]]
* [[Burmese Days/24|24]]
* [[Burmese Days/25|25]]
* [[Burmese Days/25|25]]
 
</div>
 
{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Burmese Days''}}
 
[[Category:George Orwell novels]]
 
[[Category:1934 novels]]
 
 
 
 
 
== 23 ==
 
Next day the town was quieter than a cathedral city on Monday
morning.  It is usually the case after a riot.  Except for the
handful of prisoners, everyone who could possibly have been
concerned in the attack on the Club had a watertight alibi.  The
Club garden looked as though a herd of bison had stampeded across
it, but the houses had not been plundered, and there were no new
casualties among the Europeans, except that after everything was
over Mr Lackersteen had been found very drunk under the billiard-
table, where he had retired with a bottle of whisky.  Westfield and
Verrall came back early in the morning, bringing Maxwell's
murderers under arrest; or at any rate, bringing two people who
would presently be hanged for Maxwell's murder.  Westfield, when he
heard the news of the riot, was gloomy but resigned.  AGAIN it
happened--a veritable riot, and he not there to quell it!  It
seemed fated that he should never kill a man.  Depressing,
depressing.  Verrall's only comment was that it had been 'damned
lip' on the part of Flory (a civilian) to give orders to the
Military Police.
 
Meanwhile, it was raining almost without cease.  As soon as he woke
up and heard the rain hammering on the roof Flory dressed and
hurried out, Flo following.  Out of sight of the houses he took off
his clothes and let the rain sluice down on his bare body.  To his
surprise, he found that he was covered with bruises from last
night; but the rain had washed away every trace of his prickly heat
within three minutes.  It is wonderful, the healing power of
rainwater.  Flory walked down to Dr Veraswami's house, with his
shoes squelching and periodical jets of water flowing down his neck
from the brim of his Terai hat.  The sky was leaden, and
innumerable whirling storms chased one another across the maidan
like squadrons of cavalry.  Burmans passed, under vast wooden hats
in spite of which their bodies streamed water like the bronze gods
in the fountains.  A network of rivulets was already washing the
stones of the road bare.  The doctor had just got home when Flory
arrived, and was shaking a wet umbrella over the veranda rail.  He
hailed Flory excitedly.
 
'Come up, Mr Flory, come up at once!  You are just apropos.  I was
on the point of opening a bottle of Old Tommy Gin.  Come up and let
me drink to your health, ass the saviour of Kyauktada!'
 
They had a long talk together.  The doctor was in a triumphant
mood.  It appeared that what had happened last night had righted
his troubles almost miraculously.  U Po Kyin's schemes were undone.
The doctor was no longer at his mercy--in fact, it was the other
way about.  The doctor explained to Flory:
 
'You see, my friend, this riot--or rather, your most noble
behaviour in it--wass quite outside U Po Kyin's programme.  He had
started the SO-CALLED rebellion and had the glory of crushing it,
and he calculated that any further outbreak would simply mean more
glory still.  I am told that when he heard of Mr Maxwell's death,
hiss joy was positively'--the doctor nipped his thumb and forefinger
together--'what iss the word I want?'
 
'Obscene?'
 
'Ah yes.  Obscene.  It iss said that actually he attempted to
dance--can you imagine such a disgusting spectacle?--and exclaimed,
"Now at least they will take my rebellion seriously!"  Such iss his
regard for human life.  But now hiss triumph iss at an end.  The
riot hass tripped up in mid-career.'
 
'How?'
 
'Because, do you not see, the honours of the riot are not hiss, but
yours!  And I am known to be your friend.  I stand, so to speak, in
the reflection of your glory.  Are you not the hero of the hour?
Did not your European friends receive you with open arms when you
returned to the Club last night?'
 
'They did, I must admit.  It was quite a new experience for me.
Mrs Lackersteen was all over me. "DEAR Mr Flory", she calls me now.
And she's got her knife properly in Ellis.  She hasn't forgotten
that he called her a bloody hag and told her to stop squealing like
a pig.'
 
'Ah, Mr Ellis iss sometimes over-emphatic in hiss expressions.  I
have noticed it.'
 
'The only fly in the ointment is that I told the police to fire
over the crowd's heads instead of straight at them.  It seems
that's against all the Government regulations.  Ellis was a little
vexed about it.  "Why didn't you plug some of the b--s when you had
the chance?" he said.  I pointed out that it would have meant
hitting the police who were in the middle of the crowd; but as he
said, they were only niggers anyway.  However, all my sins are
forgiven me.  And Macgregor quoted something in Latin--Horace, I
believe.'
 
It was half an hour later when Flory walked along to the Club.  He
had promised to see Mr Macgregor and settle the business of the
doctor's election.  But there would be no difficulty about it now.
The others would eat out of his hand until the absurd riot was
forgotten; he could have gone into the Club and made a speech in
favour of Lenin, and they would have put up with it.  The lovely
rain streamed down, drenching him from head to foot, and filling
his nostrils with the scent of earth, forgotten during the bitter
months of drought.  He walked up the wrecked garden, where the
mali, bending down with the rain splashing on his bare back, was
trowelling holes for zinnias.  Nearly all the flowers had been
trampled out of existence.  Elizabeth was there, on the side
veranda, almost as though she were waiting for him.  He took off
his hat, spilling a pool of water from the brim, and went round to
join her.
 
'Good morning!' he said, raising his voice because of the rain that
beat noisily on the low roof.
 
'Good morning!  ISN'T it coming down?  Simply PELTING!'
 
'Oh, this isn't real rain.  You wait till July.  The whole Bay of
Bengal is going to pour itself on us, by instalments.'
 
It seemed that they must never meet without talking of the weather.
Nevertheless, her face said something very different from the banal
words.  Her demeanour had changed utterly since last night.  He
took courage.
 
'How is the place where that stone hit you?'
 
She held her arm out to him and let him take it.  Her air was
gentle, even submissive.  He realized that his exploit of last
night had made him almost a hero in her eyes.  She could not know
how small the danger had really been, and she forgave him
everything, even Ma Hla May, because he had shown courage at the
right moment.  It was the buffalo and the leopard over again.  His
heart thumped in his breast.  He slipped his hand down her arm and
clasped her fingers in his own.
 
'Elizabeth--'
 
'Someone will see us!' she said, and she withdrew her hand, but not
angrily.
 
'Elizabeth, I've something I want to say to you.  Do you remember a
letter I wrote you from the jungle, after our--some weeks ago?'
 
'Yes.'
 
'You remember what I said in it?'
 
'Yes.  I'm sorry I didn't answer it.  Only--'
 
'I couldn't expect you to answer it, then.  But I just wanted to
remind you of what I said.'
 
In the letter, of course, he had only said, and feebly enough, that
he loved her--would always love her, no matter what happened.  They
were standing face to face, very close together.  On an impulse--
and it was so swiftly done that afterwards he had difficulty in
believing that it had ever happened--he took her in his arms and
drew her towards him.  For a moment she yielded and let him lift up
her face and kiss her; then suddenly she recoiled and shook her
head.  Perhaps she was frightened that someone would see them,
perhaps it was only because his moustache was so wet from the rain.
Without saying anything more she broke from him and hurried away
into the Club.  There was a look of distress or compunction in her
face; but she did not seem angry.
 
He followed her more slowly into the Club, and ran into Mr
Macgregor, who was in a very good humour.  As soon as he saw Flory
he boomed genially, 'Aha!  The conquering hero comes!' and then, in
a more serious vein, offered him fresh congratulations.  Flory
improved the occasion by saying a few words on behalf of the
doctor.  He painted quite a lively picture of the doctor's heroism
in the riot.  'He was right in the middle of the crowd, fighting
like a tiger,' etc., etc.  It was not too much exaggerated--for the
doctor had certainly risked his life.  Mr Macgregor was impressed,
and so were the others when they heard of it.  At all times the
testimony of one European can do an Oriental more good than that of
a thousand of his fellow countrymen; and at this moment Flory's
opinion carried weight.  Practically, the doctor's good name was
restored.  His election to the Club could be taken as assured.
 
However, it was not finally agreed upon yet, because Flory was
returning to camp.  He set out the same evening, marching by night,
and he did not see Elizabeth again before leaving.  It was quite
safe to travel in the jungle now, for the futile rebellion was
obviously finished.  There is seldom any talk of rebellion after
the rains have started--the Burmans are too busy ploughing, and in
any case the waterlogged fields are impassable for large bodies of
men.  Flory was to return to Kyauktada in ten days, when the
padre's six-weekly visit fell due.  The truth was that he did not
care to be in Kyauktada while both Elizabeth and Verrall were
there.  And yet, it was strange, but all the bitterness--all the
obscene, crawling envy that had tormented him before--was gone now
that he knew she had forgiven him.  It was only Verrall who stood
between them now.  And even the thought of her in Verrall's arms
could hardly move him, because he knew that at the worst the affair
must have an end.  Verrall, it was quite certain, would never marry
Elizabeth; young men of Verrall's stamp do not marry penniless
girls met casually at obscure Indian stations.  He was only amusing
himself with Elizabeth.  Presently he would desert her, and she
would return to him--to Flory.  It was enough--it was far better
than he had hoped.  There is a humility about genuine love that is
rather horrible in some ways.
 
U Po Kyin was furiously angry.  The miserable riot had taken him
unawares, so far as anything ever took him unawares, and it was
like a handful of grit thrown into the machinery of his plans.  The
business of disgracing the doctor had got to be begun all over
again.  Begun it was, sure enough, with such a spate of anonymous
letters that Hla Pe had to absent himself from office for two whole
days--it was bronchitis this time--to get them written.  The doctor
was accused of every crime from pederasty to stealing Government
postage stamps.  The prison warder who had let Nga Shwe O escape
had now come up for trial.  He was triumphantly acquitted, U Po
Kyin having spent as much as two hundred rupees in bribing the
witnesses.  More letters showered up on Mr Macgregor, proving in
detail that Dr Veraswami, the real author of the escape, had tried
to shift the blame on to a helpless subordinate.  Nevertheless, the
results were disappointing.  The confidential letter which Mr
Macgregor wrote to the Commissioner, reporting on the riot, was
steamed open, and its tone was so alarming--Mr Macgregor had spoken
of the doctor as 'behaving most creditably' on the night of the
riot--that U Po Kyin called a council of war.
 
'The time has come for a vigorous move,' he said to the others--
they were in conclave on the front veranda, before breakfast.  Ma
Kin was there, and Ba Sein and Hla Pe--the latter a bright-faced,
promising boy of eighteen, with the manner of one who will
certainly succeed in life.
 
'We are hammering against a brick wall,' U Po Kyin continued; 'and
that wall is Flory.  Who could have foreseen that that miserable
coward would stand by his friend?  However, there it is.  So long
as Veraswami has his backing, we are helpless.'
 
'I have been talking to the Club butler, sir,' said Ba Sein.  'He
tells me that Mr Ellis and Mr Westfield still do not want the
doctor to be elected to the Club.  Do you not think they will
quarrel with Flory again as soon as this business of the riot is
forgotten?'
 
'Of course they will quarrel, they always quarrel.  But in the
meantime the harm is done.  Just suppose that man WERE elected!  I
believe I should die of rage if it happened.  No, there is only one
move left.  We must strike at Flory himself!'
 
'At Flory, sir!  But he is a white man!'
 
'What do I care?  I have ruined white men before now.  Once let
Flory be disgraced, and there is an end of the doctor.  And he
shall be disgraced!  I will shame him so that he will never dare
show his face in that Club again!'
 
'But, sir!  A white man!  What are we to accuse him of?  Who would
believe anything against a white man?'
 
'You have no strategy, Ko Ba Sein.  One does not ACCUSE a white
man; one has got to catch him in the act.  Public disgrace, in
flagrante delicto.  I shall know how to set about it.  Now be
silent while I think.'
 
There was a pause.  U Po Kyin stood gazing out into the rain with
his small hands clasped behind him and resting on the natural
plateau of his posterior.  The other three watched him from the end
of the veranda, almost frightened by this talk of attacking a white
man, and waiting for some masterstroke to cope with a situation
that was beyond them.  It was a little like the familiar picture
(is it Meissonier's?) of Napoleon at Moscow, poring over his maps
while his marshals wait in silence, with their cocked hats in their
hands.  But of course U Po Kyin was more equal to the situation
than Napoleon.  His plan was ready within two minutes.  When he
turned round his vast face was suffused with excessive joy.  The
doctor had been mistaken when he described U Po Kyin as attempting
to dance; U Po Kyin's figure was not designed for dancing; but, had
it been so designed, he would have danced at this moment.  He
beckoned to Ba Sein and whispered in his ear for a few seconds.
 
'That is the correct move, I think?' he concluded.
 
A broad, unwilling, incredulous grin stole slowly across Ba Sein's
face.
 
'Fifty rupees ought to cover all the expenses,' added U Po Kyin,
beaming.
 
The plan was unfolded in detail.  And when the others had taken it
in, all of them, even Ba Sein, who seldom laughed, even Ma Kin, who
disapproved from the bottom of her soul, burst into irrepressible
peals of laughter.  The plan was really too good to be resisted.
It was genius.
 
All the while it was raining, raining.  The day after Flory went
back to camp it rained for thirty-eight hours at a stretch,
sometimes slowing to the pace of English rain, sometimes pouring
down in such cataracts that one thought the whole ocean must by now
have been sucked up into the clouds.  The rattling on the roof
became maddening after a few hours.  In the intervals between the
rain the sun glared as fiercely as ever, the mud began to crack and
steam, and patches of prickly heat sprang out all over one's body.
Hordes of flying beetles had emerged from their cocoons as soon as
the rain started; there was a plague of loathly creatures known as
stink-bugs, which invaded the houses in incredible numbers,
littered themselves over the dining-table and made one's food
uneatable.  Verrall and Elizabeth still went out riding in the
evenings, when the rain was not too fierce.  To Verrall, all
climates were alike, but he did not like to see his ponies
plastered with mud.  Nearly a week went by.  Nothing was changed
between them--they were neither less nor more intimate than they
had been before.  The proposal of marriage, still confidently
expected, was still unuttered.  Then an alarming thing happened.
The news filtered to the Club, through Mr Macgregor, that Verrall
was leaving Kyauktada; the Military Police were to be kept at
Kyauktada, but another officer was coming in Verrall's place, no
one was certain when.  Elizabeth was in horrible suspense.  Surely,
if he was going away, he must say something definite soon?  She
could not question him--dared not even ask him whether he was
really going; she could only wait for him to speak.  He said
nothing.  Then one evening, without warning, he failed to turn up
at the Club.  And two whole days passed during which Elizabeth did
not see him at all.
 
It was dreadful, but there was nothing that could be done.  Verrall
and Elizabeth had been inseparable for weeks, and yet in a way they
were almost strangers.  He had kept himself so aloof from them all--
had never even seen the inside of the Lackersteens' house.  They
did not know him well enough to seek him out at the dakbungalow, or
write to him; nor did he reappear at morning parade on the maidan.
There was nothing to do except wait until he chose to present
himself again.  And when he did, would he ask her to marry him?
Surely, surely he must!  Both Elizabeth and her aunt (but neither
of them had even spoken of it openly) held it as an article of
faith that he must ask her.  Elizabeth looked forward to their next
meeting with a hope that was almost painful.  Please God it would
be a week at least before he went!  If she rode with him four times
more, or three times--even if it were only twice, all might yet be
well.  Please God he would come back to her soon!  It was
unthinkable that when he came, it would only be to say good-bye!
The two women went down to the Club each evening and sat there
until quite late, listening for Verrall's footsteps outside while
seeming not to listen; but he never appeared.  Ellis, who
understood the situation perfectly, watched Elizabeth with spiteful
amusement.  What made it worst of all was that Mr Lackersteen was
now pestering Elizabeth unceasingly.  He had become quite reckless.
Almost under the eyes of the servants he would waylay her, catch
hold of her and begin pinching and fondling her in the most
revolting way.  Her sole defence was to threaten that she would
tell her aunt; happily he was too stupid to realize that she would
never dare do it.
 
On the third morning Elizabeth and her aunt arrived at the Club
just in time to escape a violent storm of rain.  They had been
sitting in the lounge for a few minutes when they heard the sound
of someone stamping the water off his shoes in the passage.  Each
woman's heart stirred, for this might be Verrall.  Then a young man
entered the lounge, unbuttoning a long raincoat as he came.  He was
a stout, rollicking, chuckle-headed youth of about twenty-five,
with fat fresh cheeks, butter-coloured hair, no forehead, and, as
it turned out afterwards, a deafening laugh.
 
Mrs Lackersteen made some inarticulate sound--it was jerked out of
her by her disappointment.  The youth, however, hailed them with
immediate bonhomie, being one of those who are on terms of slangy
intimacy with everyone from the moment of meeting them.
 
'Hullo, hullo!' he said 'Enter the fairy prince!  Hope I don't sort
of intrude and all that?  Not shoving in on any family gatherings
or anything?'
 
'Not at all!' said Mrs Lackersteen in surprise.
 
'What I mean to say--thought I'd just pop in at the Club and have
a glance round, don't you know.  Just to get acclimatized to the
local brand of whisky.  I only got here last night.'
 
'Are you STATIONED here?' said Mrs Lackersteen, mystified--for they
had not been expecting any newcomers.
 
'Yes, rather.  Pleasure's mine, entirely.'
 
'But we hadn't heard. . . .  Oh, of course!  I suppose you're from
the Forest Department?  In place of poor Mr Maxwell?'
 
'What?  Forest Department?  No fear!  I'm the new Military Police
bloke, you know.'
 
'The--what?'
 
'New Military Police bloke.  Taking over from dear ole Verrall.
The dear ole chap got orders to go back to his regiment.  Going off
in a fearful hurry.  And a nice mess he's left everything in for
yours truly, too.'
 
The Military Policeman was a crass youth, but even he noticed that
Elizabeth's face turned suddenly sickly.  She found herself quite
unable to speak.  It was several seconds before Mrs Lackersteen
managed to exclaim:
 
'Mr Verrall--going?  Surely he isn't going away YET?'
 
'Going?  He's gone!'
 
'GONE?'
 
'Well, what I mean to say--train's due to start in about half an
hour.  He'll be along at the station now.  I sent a fatigue party
to look after him.  Got to get his ponies aboard and all that.'
 
There were probably further explanations, but neither Elizabeth nor
her aunt heard a word of them.  In any case, without even a good-
bye to the Military Policeman, they were out on the front steps
within fifteen seconds.  Mrs Lackersteen called sharply for the
butler.
 
'Butler!  Send my rickshaw round to the front at once!  To the
station, jaldi!' she added as the rickshaw-man appeared, and,
having settled herself in the rickshaw, poked him in the back with
the ferrule of her umbrella to start him.
 
Elizabeth had put on her raincoat and Mrs Lackersteen was cowering
in the rickshaw behind her umbrella, but neither was much use
against the rain.  It came driving towards them in such sheets that
Elizabeth's frock was soaked before they had reached the gate, and
the rickshaw almost overturned in the wind.  The rickshaw-wallah
put his head down and struggled into it, groaning.  Elizabeth was
in agony.  It was a mistake, SURELY it was a mistake.  He had
written to her and the letter had gone astray.  That was it, that
MUST be it!  It could not be that he had meant to leave her without
even saying good-bye!  And if it were so--no, not even then would
she give up hope!  When he saw her on the platform, for the last
time, he could not be so brutal as to forsake her!  As they neared
the station she fell behind the rickshaw and pinched her cheeks to
bring the blood into them.  A squad of Military Police sepoys
shuffled hurriedly by, their thin uniforms sodden into rags,
pushing a handcart among them.  Those would be Verrall's fatigue
party.  Thank God, there was a quarter of an hour yet.  The train
was not due to leave for another quarter of an hour.  Thank God, at
least, for this last chance of seeing him!
 
They arrived on the platform just in time to see the train draw out
of the station and gather speed with a series of deafening snorts.
The stationmaster, a little round, black man, was standing on the
line looking ruefully after the train, and holding his waterproof-
covered topi on to his head with one hand, while with the other he
fended off two clamorous Indians who were bobbing at him and trying
to thrust something upon his attention.  Mrs Lackersteen leaned out
of the rickshaw and called agitatedly through the rain.
 
'Stationmaster!'
 
'Madam!'
 
'What train is that?'
 
'That is the Mandalay train, madam.'
 
'The Mandalay train!  It can't be!'
 
'But I assure you, madam!  It is precisely the Mandalay train.'  He
came towards them, removing his topi.
 
'But Mr Verrall--the Police officer?  Surely he's not on it?'
 
'Yes, madam, he have departed.'  He waved his hand towards the
train, now receding rapidly in a cloud of rain and steam.
 
'But the train wasn't due to start yet!'
 
'No, madam.  Not due to start for another ten minutes.'
 
'Then why has it gone?'
 
The stationmaster waved his topi apologetically from side to side.
His dark, squabby face looked quite distressed.
 
'I know, madam, I know!  MOST unprecedented!  But the young Military
Police officer have positively COMMANDED me to start the train!  He
declare that all is ready and he do not wish to be kept waiting.
I point out the irregularity.  He say he do not care about
irregularity.  I expostulate.  He insist.  And in short--'
 
He made another gesture.  It meant that Verrall was the kind of man
who would have his way, even when it came to starting a train ten
minutes early.  There was a pause.  The two Indians, imagining that
they saw their chance, suddenly rushed forward, wailing, and
offered some grubby notebooks for Mrs Lackersteen's inspection.
 
'What DO these men want?' cried Mrs Lackersteen distractedly.
 
'They are grass-wallahs, madam.  They say that Lieutenant Verrall
have departed owing them large sums of money.  One for hay, the
other for corn.  Of mine it is no affair.'
 
There was a hoot from the distant train.  It rolled round the bend,
like a black-behinded caterpillar that looks over its shoulder as
it goes, and vanished.  The stationmaster's wet white trousers
flapped forlornly about his legs.  Whether Verrall had started the
train early to escape Elizabeth, or to escape the grass-wallahs,
was an interesting question that was never cleared up.
 
They made their way back along the road, and then struggled up the
hill in such a wind that sometimes they were driven several paces
backwards.  When they gained the veranda they were quite out of
breath.  The servants took their streaming raincoats, and Elizabeth
shook some of the water from her hair.  Mrs Lackersteen broke her
silence for the first time since they had left the station:
 
'WELL!  Of all the unmannerly--of the simply ABOMINABLE. . . !'
 
Elizabeth looked pale and sickly, in spite of the rain and wind
that had beaten into her face.  But she would betray nothing.
 
'I think he might have waited to say good-bye to us,' she said
coldly.
 
'Take my word for it, dear, you are thoroughly well rid of him! . . .
As I said from the start, a most ODIOUS young man!'
 
Some time later, when they were sitting down to breakfast, having
bathed and got into dry clothes, and feeling better, she remarked:
 
'Let me see, what day is this?'
 
'Saturday, Aunt.'
 
'Ah, Saturday.  Then the dear padre will be arriving this evening.
How many shall we be for the service tomorrow?  Why, I think we
shall ALL be here!  How very nice!  Mr Flory will be here too.  I
think he said he was coming back from the jungle tomorrow.'  She
added almost lovingly, 'DEAR Mr Flory!'
 
== 24 ==
 
It was nearly six o'clock in the evening, and the absurd bell in
the six-foot tin steeple of the church went clank-clank, clank-
clank! as old Mattu pulled the rope within.  The rays of the
setting sun, refracted by distant rainstorms, flooded the maidan
with a beautiful, lurid light.  It had been raining earlier in the
day, and would rain again.  The Christian community of Kyauktada,
fifteen in number, were gathering at the church door for the
evening service.
 
Flory was already there, and Mr Macgregor, grey topi and all, and
Mr Francis and Mr Samuel, frisking about in freshly laundered drill
suits--for the six-weekly church service was the great social event
of their lives.  The padre, a tall man with grey hair and a
refined, discoloured face, wearing pince-nez, was standing on the
church steps in his cassock and surplice, which he had put on in Mr
Macgregor's house.  He was smiling in an amiable but rather
helpless way at four pink-cheeked Karen Christians who had come to
make their bows to him; for he did not speak a word of their
language nor they of his.  There was one other Oriental Christian,
a mournful, dark Indian of uncertain race, who stood humbly in the
background.  He was always present at the church services, but no
one knew who he was or why he was a Christian.  Doubtless he had
been captured and baptized in infancy by the missionaries, for
Indians who are converted when adults almost invariably lapse.
 
Flory could see Elizabeth coming down the hill, dressed in lilac-
colour, with her aunt and uncle.  He had seen her that morning at
the Club--they had had just a minute alone together before the
others came in.  He had only asked her one question.
 
'Has Verrall gone--for good?'
 
'Yes.'
 
There had been no need to say any more.  He had simply taken her by
the arms and drawn her towards him.  She came willingly, even
gladly--there in the clear daylight, merciless to his disfigured
face.  For a moment she had clung to him almost like a child.  It
was a though he had saved her or protected her from something.  He
raised her face to kiss her, and found with surprise that she was
crying.  There had been no time to talk then, not even to say,
'Will you marry me?'  No matter, after the service there would be
time enough.  Perhaps at his next visit, only six weeks hence, the
padre would marry them.
 
Ellis and Westfield and the new Military Policeman were approaching
from the Club, where they had been having a couple of quick ones to
last them through the service.  The Forest Officer who had been
sent to take Maxwell's place, a sallow, tall man, completely bald
except for two whisker-like tufts in front of his ears, was
following them.  Flory had not time to say more than 'Good evening'
to Elizabeth when she arrived.  Mattu, seeing that everyone was
present, stopped ringing the bell, and the clergyman led the way
inside, followed by Mr Macgregor, with his topi against his
stomach, and the Lackersteens and the native Christians.  Ellis
pinched Flory's elbow and whispered boozily in his ear:
 
'Come on, line up.  Time for the snivel-parade.  Quick march!'
 
He and the Military Policeman went in behind the others, arm-in-
arm, with a dancing step--the policeman, till they got inside,
wagging his fat behind in imitation of a pwe-dancer.  Flory sat
down in the same pew as these two, opposite Elizabeth, on her
right.  It was the first time that he had ever risked sitting with
his birthmark towards her.  'Shut your eyes and count twenty-five',
whispered Ellis as they sat down, drawing a snigger from the
policeman.  Mrs Lackersteen had already taken her place at the
harmonium, which was no bigger than a writing-desk.  Mattu
stationed himself by the door and began to pull the punkah--it was
so arranged that it only flapped over the front pews, where the
Europeans sat.  Flo came nosing up the aisle, found Flory's pew and
settled down underneath it.  The service began.
 
Flory was only attending intermittently.  He was dimly aware of
standing and kneeling and muttering 'Amen' to interminable prayers,
and of Ellis nudging him and whispering blasphemies behind his hymn
book.  But he was too happy to collect his thoughts.  Hell was
yielding up Eurydice.  The yellow light flooded in through the open
door, gilding the broad back of Mr Macgregor's silk coat like
cloth-of-gold.  Elizabeth, across the narrow aisle, was so close to
Flory that he could hear every rustle of her dress and feel, as it
seemed to him, the warmth of her body; yet he would not look at her
even once, lest the others should notice it.  The harmonium
quavered bronchitically as Mrs Lackersteen struggled to pump
sufficient air into it with the sole pedal that worked.  The
singing was a queer, ragged noise--an earnest booming from Mr
Macgregor, a kind of shamefaced muttering from the other Europeans,
and from the back a loud, wordless lowing, for the Karen Christians
knew the tunes of the hymns but not the words.
 
They were kneeling down again.  'More bloody knee-drill,' Ellis
whispered.  The air darkened, and there was a light patter of rain
on the roof; the trees outside rustled, and a cloud of yellow
leaves whirled past the window.  Flory watched them through the
chinks of his fingers.  Twenty years ago, on winter Sundays in his
pew in the parish church at home, he used to watch the yellow
leaves, as at this moment, drifting and fluttering against leaden
skies.  Was it not possible, now, to begin over again as though
those grimy years had never touched him?  Through his fingers he
glanced sidelong at Elizabeth, kneeling with her head bent and her
face hidden in her youthful, mottled hands.  When they were
married, when they were married!  What fun they would have together
in this alien yet kindly land!  He saw Elizabeth in his camp,
greeting him as he came home tired from work and Ko S'la hurried
from the tent with a bottle of beer; he saw her walking in the
forest with him, watching the hornbills in the peepul trees and
picking nameless flowers, and in the marshy grazing-grounds,
tramping through the cold-weather mist after snipe and teal.  He
saw his home as she would remake it.  He saw his drawing-room,
sluttish and bachelor-like no longer, with new furniture from
Rangoon, and a bowl of pink balsams like rosebuds on the table, and
books and water-colours and a black piano.  Above all the piano!
His mind lingered upon the piano--symbol, perhaps because he was
unmusical, of civilized and settled life.  He was delivered for
ever from the sub-life of the past decade--the debaucheries, the
lies, the pain of exile and solitude, the dealings with whores and
moneylenders and pukka sahibs.
 
The clergyman stepped to the small wooden lectern that also served
as a pulpit, slipped the band from a roll of sermon paper, coughed,
and announced a text.  'In the name of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost.  Amen.'
 
'Cut it short, for Christ's sake,' murmured Ellis.
 
Flory did not notice how many minutes passed.  The words of the
sermon flowed peacefully through his head, an indistinct burbling
sound, almost unheard.  When they were married, he was still
thinking, when they were married--
 
Hullo!  What was happening?
 
The clergyman had stopped short in the middle of a word.  He had
taken off his pince-nez and was shaking them with a distressed air
at someone in the doorway.  There was a fearful, raucous scream.
 
'Pike-san pay-like!  Pike-san pay-like!'
 
Everyone jumped in their seats and turned round.  It was Ma Hla
May.  As they turned she stepped inside the church and shoved old
Mattu violently aside.  She shook her fist at Flory.
 
'Pike-san pay-like!  Pike-san pay-like!  Yes, THAT'S the one I
mean--Flory, Flory!  (She pronounced it Porley.)  That one sitting
in front there, with the black hair!  Turn round and face me, you
coward!  Where is the money you promised me?'
 
She was shrieking like a maniac.  The people gaped at her, too
astounded to move or speak.  Her face was grey with powder, her
greasy hair was tumbling down, her longyi was ragged at the bottom.
She looked like a screaming hag of the bazaar.  Flory's bowels
seemed to have turned to ice.  Oh God, God!  Must they know--must
Elizabeth know--that THAT was the woman who had been his mistress?
But there was not a hope, not the vestige of a hope, of any
mistake.  She had screamed his name over and over again.  Flo,
hearing the familiar voice, wriggled from under the pew, walked
down the aisle and wagged her tail at Ma Hla May.  The wretched
woman was yelling out a detailed account of what Flory had done to
her.
 
'Look at me, you white men, and you women, too, look at me!  Look
how he has ruined me!  Look at these rags I am wearing!  And he is
sitting there, the liar, the coward, pretending not to see me!  He
would let me starve at his gate like a pariah dog.  Ah, but I will
shame you!  Turn round and look at me!  Look at this body that you
have kissed a thousand times--look--look--'
 
She began actually to tear her clothes open--the last insult of a
base-born Burmese woman.  The harmonium squeaked as Mrs Lackersteen
made a convulsive movement.  People had at last found their wits
and began to stir.  The clergyman, who had been bleating
ineffectually, recovered his voice, 'Take that woman outside!' he
said sharply.
 
Flory's face was ghastly.  After the first moment he had turned his
head away from the door and set his teeth in a desperate effort to
look unconcerned.  But it was useless, quite useless.  His face was
as yellow as bone, and the sweat glistened on his forehead.
Francis and Samuel, doing perhaps the first useful deed of their
lives, suddenly sprang from their pew, grabbed Ma Hla May by the
arms and hauled her outside, still screaming.
 
It seemed very silent in the church when they had finally dragged
her out of hearing.  The scene had been so violent, so squalid,
that everyone was upset by it.  Even Ellis looked disgusted.  Flory
could neither speak nor stir.  He sat staring fixedly at the altar,
his face rigid and so bloodless that the birth-mark seemed to glow
upon it like a streak of blue paint.  Elizabeth glanced across the
aisle at him, and her revulsion made her almost physically sick.
She had not understood a word of what Ma Hla May was saying, but
the meaning of the scene was perfectly clear.  The thought that he
had been the lover of that grey-faced, maniacal creature made her
shudder in her bones.  But worse than that, worse than anything,
was his ugliness at this moment.  His face appalled her, it was so
ghastly, rigid and old.  It was like a skull.  Only the birthmark
seemed alive in it.  She hated him now for his birthmark.  She had
never known till this moment how dishonouring, how unforgivable a
thing it was.
 
Like the crocodile, U Po Kyin had struck at the weakest spot.  For,
needless to say, this scene was U Po Kyin's doing.  He had seen his
chance, as usual, and tutored Ma Hla May for her part with
considerable care.  The clergyman brought his sermon to an end
almost at once.  As soon as it was over Flory hurried outside, not
looking at any of the others.  It was getting dark, thank God.  At
fifty yards from the church he halted, and watched the others
making in couples for the Club.  It seemed to him that they were
hurrying.  Ah, they would, of course!  There would be something to
talk about at the Club tonight!  Flo rolled belly-upwards against
his ankles, asking for a game.  'Get out, you bloody brute!' he
said, and kicked her.  Elizabeth had stopped at the church door.
Mr Macgregor, happy chance, seemed to be introducing her to the
clergyman.  In a moment the two men went on in the direction of Mr
Macgregor's house, where the clergyman was to stay for the night,
and Elizabeth followed the others, thirty yards behind them.  Flory
ran after her and caught up with her almost at the Club gate.
 
'Elizabeth!'
 
She looked round, saw him, turned white, and would have hurried on
without a word.  But his anxiety was too great, and he caught her
by the wrist.
 
'Elizabeth!  I must--I've got to speak to you!'
 
'Let me go, will you!'
 
They began to struggle, and then stopped abruptly.  Two of the
Karens who had come out of the church were standing fifty yards
away, gazing at them through the half-darkness with deep interest.
Flory began again in a lower tone:
 
'Elizabeth, I know I've no right to stop you like this.  But I must
speak to you, I must!  Please hear what I've got to say.  Please
don't run away from me!'
 
'What are you doing?  Why are you holding on to my arm?  Let me go
this instant!'
 
'I'll let you go--there, look!  But do listen to me, please!
Answer me this one thing.  After what's happened, can you ever
forgive me?'
 
'Forgive you?  What do you mean, FORGIVE you?'
 
'I know I'm disgraced.  It was the vilest thing to happen!  Only,
in a sense it wasn't my fault.  You'll see that when you're calmer.
Do you think--not now, it was too bad, but later--do you think you
can forget it?'
 
'I really don't know what you're talking about.  Forget it?  What
has it got to do with ME?  I thought it was very disgusting, but
it's not MY business.  I can't think why you're questioning me like
this at all.'
 
He almost despaired at that.  Her tone and even her words were the
very ones she had used in that earlier quarrel of theirs.  It was
the same move over again.  Instead of hearing him out she was going
to evade him and put him off--snub him by pretending that he had no
claim upon her.
 
'Elizabeth!  Please answer me.  Please be fair to me!  It's serious
this time.  I don't expect you to take me back all at once.  You
couldn't, when I'm publicly disgraced like this.  But, after all,
you virtually promised to marry me--'
 
'What!  Promised to marry you?  WHEN did I promise to marry you?'
 
'Not in words, I know.  But it was understood between us.'
 
'Nothing of the kind was understood between us!  I think you are
behaving in the most horrible way.  I'm going along to the Club at
once.  Good evening!'
 
'Elizabeth!  Elizabeth!  Listen.  It's not fair to condemn me
unheard.  You knew before what I'd done, and you knew that I'd
lived a different life since I met you.  What happened this evening
was only an accident.  That wretched woman, who, I admit, was once
my--well--'
 
'I won't listen, I won't listen to such things!  I'm going!'
 
He caught her by the wrists again, and this time held her.  The
Karens had disappeared, fortunately.
 
'No, no, you shall hear me!  I'd rather offend you to the heart
than have this uncertainty.  It's gone on week after week, month
after month, and I've never once been able to speak straight out to
you.  You don't seem to know or care how much you make me suffer.
But this time you've got to answer me.'
 
She struggled in his grip, and she was surprisingly strong.  Her
face was more bitterly angry than he had ever seen or imagined it.
She hated him so that she would have struck him if her hands were
free.
 
'Let me go!  Oh, you beast, you beast, let me go!'
 
'My God, my God, that we should fight like this!  But what else can
I do?  I can't let you go without even hearing me.  Elizabeth, you
MUST listen to me!'
 
'I will not!  I will not discuss it!  What right have you to
question me?  Let me go!'
 
'Forgive me, forgive me!  This one question.  Will you--not now,
but later, when this vile business is forgotten--will you marry
me?'
 
'No, never, never!'
 
'Don't say it like that!  Don't make it final.  Say no for the
present if you like--but in a month, a year, five years--'
 
'Haven't I said no?  Why must you keep on and on?'
 
'Elizabeth, listen to me.  I've tried again and again to tell you
what you mean to me--oh, it's so useless talking about it!  But do
try and understand.  Haven't I told you something of the life we
live here?  The sort of horrible death-in-life!  The decay, the
loneliness, the self-pity?  Try and realize what it means, and that
you're the sole person on earth who could save me from it.'
 
'Will you let me go?  Why do you have to make this dreadful scene?'
 
'Does it mean nothing to you when I say that I love you?  I don't
believe you've ever realized what it is that I want from you.  If
you like, I'd marry you and promise never even touch you with my
finger.  I wouldn't mind even that, so long as you were with me.
But I can't go on with my life alone, always alone.  Can't you
bring yourself ever to forgive me?'
 
'Never, never!  I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on
earth.  I'd as soon marry the--the sweeper!'
 
She had begun crying now.  He saw that she meant what she said.
The tears came into his own eyes.  He said again:
 
'For the last time.  Remember that it's something to have one
person in the world who loves you.  Remember that though you'll
find men who are richer, and younger, and better in every way than
I, you'll never find one who cares for you so much.  And though I'm
not rich, at least I could make you a home.  There's a way of
living--civilized, decent--'
 
'Haven't we said enough?' she said more calmly.  'Will you let me
go before somebody comes?'
 
He relaxed his grip on her wrists.  He had lost her, that was
certain.  Like a hallucination, painfully clear, he saw again their
home as he had imagined it; he saw their garden, and Elizabeth
feeding Nero and the pigeons on the drive by the sulphur-yellow
phloxes that grew as high as her shoulder; and the drawing-room,
with the water-colours on the walls, and the balsams in the china
bowl mirrored by the table, and the book-shelves, and the black
piano.  The impossible, mythical piano--symbol of everything that
that futile accident had wrecked!
 
'You should have a piano,' he said despairingly.
 
'I don't play the piano.'
 
He let her go.  It was no use continuing.  She was no sooner free
of him than she took to her heels and actually ran into the Club
garden, so hateful was his presence to her.  Among the trees she
stopped to take off her spectacles and remove the signs of tears
from her face.  Oh, the beast, the beast!  He had hurt her wrists
abominably.  Oh, what an unspeakable beast he was!  When she
thought of his face as it had looked in church, yellow and
glistening with the hideous birthmark upon it, she could have
wished him dead.  It was not what he had done that horrified her.
He might have committed a thousand abominations and she could have
forgiven him.  But not after that shameful, squalid scene, and the
devilish ugliness of his disfigured face in that moment.  It was,
finally, the birthmark that had damned him.
 
Her aunt would be furious when she heard that she had refused
Flory.  And there was her uncle and his leg-pinching--between the
two of them, life here would become impossible.  Perhaps she would
have to go Home unmarried after all.  Black beetles!  No matter.
Anything--spinsterhood, drudgery, anything--sooner than the
alternative.  Never, never, would she yield to a man who had been
so disgraced!  Death sooner, far sooner.  If there had been
mercenary thoughts in her mind an hour ago, she had forgotten them.
She did not even remember that Verrall had jilted her and that to
have married Flory would have saved her face.  She knew only that
he was dishonoured and less than a man, and that she hated him as
she would have hated a leper or a lunatic.  The instinct was deeper
than reason or even self-interest, and she could no more have
disobeyed it than she could have stopped breathing.
 
Flory, as he turned up the hill, did not run, but he walked as fast
as he could.  What he had to do must be done quickly.  It was
getting very dark.  The wretched Flo, who even now had not grasped
that anything serious was the matter, trotted close to his heels,
whimpering in a self-pitying manner to reproach him for the kick he
had given her.  As he came up the path a wind blew through the
plaintain trees, rattling the tattered leaves and bringing a scent
of damp.  It was going to rain again.  Ko S'la had laid the dinner-
table and was removing some flying beetles that had committed
suicide against the petrol-lamp.  Evidently he had not heard about
the scene in church yet.
 
'The holy one's dinner is ready.  Will the holy one dine now?'
 
'No, not yet.  Give me that lamp.'
 
He took the lamp, went into the bedroom and shut the door, The
stale scent of dust and cigarette-smoke met him, and in the white,
unsteady glare of the lamp he could see the mildewed books and the
lizards on the wall.  So he was back again to this--to the old,
secret life--after everything, back where he had been before.
 
Was it not possible to endure it!  He had endured it before.  There
were palliatives--books, his garden, drink, work, whoring, shooting,
conversations with the doctor.
 
No, it was not endurable any longer.  Since Elizabeth's coming the
power to suffer and above all to hope, which he had thought dead in
him, had sprung to new life.  The half-comfortable lethargy in
which he had lived was broken.  And if he suffered now, there was
far worse to come.  In a little while someone else would marry her.
How he could picture it--the moment when he heard the news!--'Did
you hear the Lackersteen kid's got off at last?  Poor old So-and-
so--booked for the altar, God help him,' etc., etc.  And the casual
question--'Oh, really?  When is it to be?'--stiffening one's face,
pretending to be uninterested.  And then her wedding day approaching,
her bridal night--ah, not that!  Obscene, obscene.  Keep your eyes
fixed on that.  Obscene.  He dragged his tin uniform-case from under
the bed, took out his automatic pistol, slid a clip of cartridges
into the magazine, and pulled one into the breech.
 
Ko S'la was remembered in his will.  There remained Flo.  He laid
his pistol on the table and went outside.  Flo was playing with Ba
Shin, Ko S'la's youngest son, under the lee of the cookhouse, where
the servants had left the remains of a woodfire.  She was dancing
round him with her small teeth bared, pretending to bite him, while
the tiny boy, his belly red in the glow of the embers, smacked
weakly at her, laughing, and yet half frightened.
 
'Flo!  Come here, Flo!'
 
She heard him and came obediently, and then stopped short at the
bedroom door.  She seemed to have grasped now that there was
something wrong.  She backed a little and stood looking timorously
up at him, unwilling to enter the bedroom.
 
'Come in here!'
 
She wagged her tail, but did not move.
 
'Come on, Flo!  Good old Flo!  Come on!'
 
Flo was suddenly stricken with terror.  She whined, her tail went
down, and she shrank back.  'Come here, blast you!' he cried, and
he took her by the collar and flung her into the room, shutting the
door behind her.  He went to the table for the pistol.
 
'No come here!  Do as you're told!'
 
She crouched down and whined for forgiveness.  It hurt him to hear
it.  'Come on, old girl!  Dear old Flo!  Master wouldn't hurt you.
Come here!'  She crawled very slowly towards his feet, flat on her
belly, whining, her head down as though afraid to look at him.
When she was a yard away he fired, blowing her skull to fragments.
 
Her shattered brain looked like red velvet.  Was that what he would
look like?  The heart, then, not the head.  He could hear the
servants running out of their quarters and shouting--they must have
heard the sound of the shot.  He hurriedly tore open his coat and
pressed the muzzle of the pistol against his shirt.  A tiny lizard,
translucent like a creature of gelatine, was stalking a white moth
along the edge of the table.  Flory pulled the trigger with his
thumb.
 
As Ko S'la burst into the room, for a moment he saw nothing but the
dead body of the dog.  Then he saw his master's feet, heels
upwards, projecting from beyond the bed.  He yelled to the others
to keep the children out of the room, and all of them surged back
from the doorway with screams.  Ko S'la fell on his knees behind
Flory's body, at the same moment as Ba Pe came running through the
veranda.
 
'Has he shot himself?'
 
'I think so.  Turn him over on his back.  Ah, look at that!  Run
for the Indian doctor!  Run for your life!'
 
There was a neat hole, no bigger than that made by a pencil passing
through a sheet of blotting-paper, in Flory's shirt.  He was
obviously quite dead.  With great difficulty Ko S'la managed to
drag him on to the bed, for the other servants refused to touch the
body.  It was only twenty minutes before the doctor arrived.  He
had heard only a vague report that Flory was hurt, and had bicycled
up the hill at top speed through a storm of rain.  He threw his
bicycle down in the flower-bed and hurried in through the veranda.
He was out of breath, and could not see through his spectacles.  He
took them off, peering myopically at the bed.  'What iss it, my
friend?' he said anxiously.  'Where are you hurt?'  Then, coming
closer, he saw what was on the bed, and uttered a harsh sound.
 
'Ach, what is this?  What has happened to him?'
 
The doctor fell on his knees, tore Flory's shirt open and put his
ear to his chest.  An expression of agony came into his face, and
he seized the dead man by the shoulders and shook him as though
mere violence could bring him to life.  One arm fell limply over
the edge of the bed.  The doctor lifted it back again, and then,
with the dead hand between his own, suddenly burst into tears.  Ko
S'la was standing at the foot of the bed, his brown face full of
lines.  The doctor stood up, and then losing control of himself for
a moment, leaned against the bedpost and wept noisily and
grotesquely his back turned on Ko S'la.  His fat shoulders were
quivering.  Presently he recovered himself and turned round again.
 
'How did this happen?'
 
'We heard two shots.  He did it himself, that is certain.  I do not
know why.'
 
'How did you know that he did it on purpose?  How do you know that
it was not an accident?'
 
For answer, Ko S'la pointed silently to Flo's corpse.  The doctor
thought for a moment, and then, with gentle, practised hands,
swathed the dead man in the sheet and knotted it at foot and head.
With death, the birthmark had faded immediately, so that it was no
more than a faint grey stain.
 
'Bury the dog at once.  I will tell Mr Macgregor that this happened
accidentally while he was cleaning his revolver.  Be sure that you
bury the dog.  Your master was my friend.  It shall not be written
on his tombstone that he committed suicide.'
 
== 25 ==
 
It was lucky that the padre should have been at Kyauktada, for he
was able, before catching the train on the following evening, to
read the burial service in due form and even to deliver a short
address on the virtues of the dead man.  All Englishmen are
virtuous when they are dead.  'Accidental death' was the official
verdict (Dr Veraswami had proved with all his medico-legal skill
that the circumstances pointed to accident) and it was duly
inscribed upon the tombstone.  Not that anyone believed it, of
course.  Flory's real epitaph was the remark, very occasionally
uttered--for an Englishman who dies in Burma is so soon forgotten--
'Flory?  Oh yes, he was a dark chap, with a birthmark.  He shot
himself in Kyauktada in 1926.  Over a girl, people said.  Bloody
fool.'  Probably no one, except Elizabeth, was much surprised at
what had happened.  There is a rather large number of suicides
among the Europeans in Burma, and they occasion very little
surprise.
 
Flory's death had several results.  The first and most important of
them was that Dr Veraswami was ruined, even as he had foreseen.
The glory of being a white man's friend--the one thing that had
saved him before--had vanished.  Flory's standing with the other
Europeans had never been good, it is true; but he was after all a
white man, and his friendship conferred a certain prestige.  Once
he was dead, the doctor's ruin was assured.  U Po Kyin waited the
necessary time, and then struck again, harder than ever.  It was
barely three months before he had fixed it in the head of every
European in Kyauktada that the doctor was an unmitigated scoundrel.
No public accusation was ever made against him--U Po Kyin was most
careful of that.  Even Ellis would have been puzzled to say just
what scoundrelism the doctor had been guilty of; but still, it was
agreed that he was a scoundrel.  By degrees, the general suspicion
of him crystallized in a single Burmese phrase--'shok de'.
Veraswami, it was said, was quite a clever little chap in his way--
quite a good doctor for a native--but he was THOROUGHLY shok de.
Shok de means, approximately, untrustworthy, and when a 'native'
official comes to be known as shok de, there is an end of him.
 
The dreaded nod and wink passed somewhere in high places, and
the doctor was reverted to the rank of Assistant Surgeon and
transferred to Mandalay General Hospital.  He is still there, and
is likely to remain.  Mandalay is rather a disagreeable town--it
is dusty and intolerably hot, and it is said to have five main
products all beginning with P, namely, pagodas, pariahs, pigs,
priests and prostitutes--and the routine-work of the hospital is a
dreary business.  The doctor lives just outside the hospital
grounds in a little bake-house of a bungalow with a corrugated iron
fence round its tiny compound, and in the evenings he runs a
private clinic to supplement his reduced pay.  He has joined a
second-rate club frequented by Indian pleaders.  Its chief glory is
a single European member--a Glasgow electrician named Macdougall,
sacked from the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company for drunkenness, and now
making a precarious living out of a garage.  Macdougall is a dull
lout, only interested in whisky and magnetos.  The doctor, who will
never believe that a white man can be a fool, tries almost every
night to engage him in what he still calls 'cultured conversation';
but the results are very unsatisfying.
 
Ko S'la inherited four hundred rupees under Flory's will, and with
his family he set up a tea-shop in the bazaar.  But the shop
failed, as it was bound to do with the two women fighting in it at
all hours, and Ko S'la and Ba Pe were obliged to go back to
service.  Ko S'la was an accomplished servant.  Besides the useful
arts of pimping, dealing with money-lenders, carrying master to bed
when drunk and making pick-me-ups known as prairie oysters on the
following morning, he could sew, darn, refill cartridges, attend to
a horse, press a suit, and decorate a dinner-table with wonderful,
intricate patterns of chopped leaves and dyed rice-grains.  He was
worth fifty rupees a month.  But he and Ba Pe had fallen into lazy
ways in Flory's service, and, they were sacked from one job after
another.  They had a bad year of poverty, and little Ba Shin
developed a cough, and finally coughed himself to death one
stifling hot-weather night.  Ko S'la is now a second boy to a
Rangoon rice-broker with a neurotic wife who makes unending kit-
kit, and Ba Pe is pani-wallah in the same house at sixteen rupees a
month.  Ma Hla May is in a brothel in Mandalay.  Her good looks are
all but gone, and her clients pay her only four annas and sometimes
kick her and beat her.  Perhaps more bitterly than any of the
others, she regrets the good time when Flory was alive, and when
she had not the wisdom to put aside any of the money she extracted
from him.
 
U Po Kyin realized all his dreams except one.  After the doctor's
disgrace, it was inevitable that U Po Kyin should be elected to the
Club, and elected he was, in spite of bitter protests from Ellis.
In the end the other Europeans came to be rather glad that they had
elected him, for he was a bearable addition to the Club.  He did
not come too often, was ingratiating in his manner, stood drinks
freely, and developed almost at once into a brilliant bridge-
player.  A few months later he was transferred from Kyauktada and
promoted.  For a whole year, before his retirement, he officiated
as Deputy Commissioner, and during that year alone he made twenty
thousand rupees in bribes.  A month after his retirement he was
summoned to a durbar in Rangoon, to receive the decoration that had
been awarded to him by the Indian Government.
 
It was an impressive scene, that durbar.  On the platform, hung
with flags and flowers, sat the Governor, frock-coated, upon a
species of throne, with a bevy of aides-de-camp and secretaries
behind him.  All round the hall, like glittering waxworks, stood
the tall, bearded sowars of the Governor's bodyguard, with pennoned
lances in their hands.  Outside, a band was blaring at intervals.
The gallery was gay with the white ingyis and pink scarves of
Burmese ladies, and in the body of the hall a hundred men or more
were waiting to receive their decorations.  There were Burmese
officials in blazing Mandalay pasos, and Indians in cloth-of-gold
pagris, and British officers in full-dress uniform with clanking
sword-scabbards, and old thugyis with their grey hair knotted
behind their heads and silver-hilted dahs slung from their
shoulders.  In a high, clear voice a secretary was reading out the
list of awards, which varied from the C.I.E. to certificates of
honour in embossed silver cases.  Presently U Po Kyin's turn came
and the secretary read from his scroll:
 
'To U Po Kyin, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, retired, for long and
loyal service and especially for his timely aid in crushing a most
dangerous rebellion in Kyauktada district'--and so on and so on.
 
Then two henchmen, placed there for the purpose hoisted U Po Kyin
upright, and he waddled to the platform, bowed as low as his belly
would permit, and was duly decorated and felicitated, while Ma Kin
and other supporters clapped wildly and fluttered their scarves
from the gallery.
 
U Po Kyin had done all that mortal man could do.  It was time now
to be making ready for the next world--in short, to begin building
pagodas.  But unfortunately, this was the very point at which his
plans went wrong.  Only three days after the Governor's durbar,
before so much as a brick of those atoning pagodas had been laid, U
Po Kyin was stricken with apoplexy and died without speaking again.
There is no armour against fate.  Ma Kin was heartbroken at the
disaster.  Even if she had built the pagodas herself, it would have
availed U Po Kyin nothing; no merit can be acquired save by one's
own act.  She suffers greatly to think of U Po Kyin where he must
be now--wandering in God knows what dreadful subterranean hell of
fire, and darkness, and serpents, and genii.  Or even if he has
escaped the worst, his other fear has been realized, and he has
returned to the earth in the shape of a rat or a frog.  Perhaps at
this very moment a snake is devouring him.
 
As to Elizabeth, things fell out better than she had expected.
After Flory's death Mrs Lackersteen, dropping all pretences for
once, said openly that there were no men in this dreadful place and
the only hope was to go and stay several months in Rangoon or
Maymyo.  But she could not very well send Elizabeth to Rangoon or
Maymyo alone, and to go with her practically meant condemning Mr
Lackersteen to death from delirium tremens.  Months passed, and the
rains reached their climax, and Elizabeth had just made up her mind
that she must go home after all, penniless and unmarried, when--Mr
Macgregor proposed to her.  He had had it in his mind for a long
time; indeed, he had only been waiting for a decent interval to
elapse after Flory's death.
 
Elizabeth accepted him gladly.  He was rather old, perhaps, but a
Deputy Commissioner is not to be despised--certainly he was a far
better match than Flory.  They are very happy.  Mr Macgregor was
always a good-hearted man, but he has grown more human and likeable
since his marriage.  His voice booms less, and he has given up his
morning exercises.  Elizabeth has grown mature surprisingly
quickly, and a certain hardness of manner that always belonged to
her has become accentuated.  Her servants live in terror of her,
though she speaks no Burmese.  She has an exhaustive knowledge of
the Civil List, gives charming little dinner-parties and knows how
to put the wives of subordinate officials in their places--in
short, she fills with complete success the position for which
Nature had designed her from the first, that of a burra memsahib.
 
THE END

Latest revision as of 17:04, 28 December 2016

Burmese Days
written by George Orwell
This novel publish in 1934 is based loosely on Orwell's five years as a policeman in the Indian Imperial Police force in Burma. It is a caustic, fast-paced tale about the waning days of British imperialism before World War II. From Wikipedia article on Burmese Days.




'This desert inaccessible
Under the shade of melancholy boughs'

As you like it.

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