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‘Oh, he’s not a bad chap,’ Westfield said. ‘Says some Bolshie things sometimes. Don’t suppose he means half of them.’ ‘Oh, a very good fellow, of course,’ said Mr Macgregor. Every European in India is ex officio, or radier ex colore, a good fellow, until he has done something quite outrageous. It is an honorary rank. ‘He’s a bit too Bolshie for my taste. I can’t bear a fellow who pals up with the natives. I shouldn’t wonder if he’s got a lick of the tarbrush himself. It might explain that black mark on his face. Piebald. And he looks like a yellow-belly, with that black hair, and skin the colour of a lemon.’ There was some desultory scandal about Flory, but not much, because Mr Macgregor did not like scandal. The Europeans stayed in the Club long enough for one more round of drinks. Mr Macgregor told his anecdote about Prome, which could be produced in almost any context. And then the conversation veered back to the old, never-palling subject–the insolence of the natives, the supineness of the Government, the dear dead days when the British Raj was the British Raj and please give the bearer fifteen lashes. This topic was never let alone for long, partly because of Ellis’s obsession. Besides, you could forgive the Europeans a great deal of their bitterness. Living and working among Orientals would try the temper of a saint. And all of them, the officials particularly, knew what it was to be baited and insulted. Almost every day, when Westfield or Mr Macgregor or even Maxwell went down the street, the High School boys, with their young, yellow faces–faces smooth as gold coins, full of that maddening contempt that sits so naturally on the Mongolian face– sneered at them as they went past, sometimes hooted after them with hyena-like laughter. The life of the Anglo-Indian officials is not all jam. In comfortless camps, in sweltering offices, in gloomy dak bungalows smelling of dust and earth-oil, they earn, perhaps, the right to be a little disagreeable. It was getting on for ten now, and hot beyond bearing. Flat, clear drops of sweat gathered on everyone’s face, and on the men’s bare forearms. A damp patch was growing larger and larger in the back of Mr Macgregor’s silk coat. The glare outside seemed to soak somehow through the greenchicked windows, making one’s eyes ache and filling one’s head with stuffiness. Everyone thought with malaise of his stodgy breakfast, and of the long, deadly hours that were coming. Mr Macgregor stood up with a sigh and adjusted his spectacles, which had slipped down his sweating nose. ‘Alas that such a festive gathering should end,’ he said. I must get home to breakfast. The cares of Empire. Is anybody coming my way? My man is waiting with the car.’ ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Mrs Lackersteen; ‘if you’d take Tom and me. What a relief not to have to walk in this heat!’ The others stood up. Westfield stretched his arms and yawned through his nose. ‘Better get a move on, I suppose. Go to sleep if I sit here any longer. Think of stewing in that office all day! Baskets of papers. Oh Lord!’ ‘Don’t forget tennis this evening, everyone,’ said Ellis. ‘Maxwell, you lazy devil, don’t you skulk out of it again. Down here with your racquet at four-thirty sharp.’ ‘Après vous, madame,’ said Mr Macgregor gallantly, at the door. ‘Lead on, Macduff,’ said Westfield. They went out into the glaring white sunlight. The heat rolled from the earth like the breath of an oven. The flowers, oppressive to the eyes, blazed with not a petal stirring, in a debauch of sun. The
glare sent a weariness through one’s bones. There was something horrible in it–horrible to think of that blue, blinding sky, stretching on and on over Burma and India, over Siam, Cambodia, China, cloudless and interminable. The plates of Mr Macgregor’s waiting car were too hot to touch. The evil time of day was beginning, the time, as the Burmese say, ‘when feet are silent.’ Hardly a living creature stirred, except men, and the black columns of ants, stimulated by the heat, which marched ribbon-like across the path, and the tailless vultures which soared on the currents of the air.
Page 3 and 4: GEORGE ORWELL Burmese Days This des
Page 5 and 6: Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter
Page 7 and 8: Key to a sketch-map of Kyauktada th
Page 9 and 10: announced to them that he was going
Page 11 and 12: felt that Orwell had ‘rather let
Page 13 and 14: A Note on the Text Burmese Days pos
Page 15 and 16: I U Po Kyin, Sub-divisional Magistr
Page 17 and 18: wages, for he was a convicted thief
Page 19 and 20: than bribery; they expect a native
Page 21 and 22: Ma Kin bent her head over her sewin
Page 23 and 24: if it had not proved a convenient s
Page 25 and 26: married, she had left him for a for
Page 27 and 28: you, Westfield, proud as Punch of y
Page 29 and 30: Mrs Lackersteen, unequal to the qua
Page 31: ‘Our burra sahib at Mandalay alwa
Page 35 and 36: It was a joke between the two men t
Page 37 and 38: various industries. Where are the I
Page 39 and 40: efore this cursed sun gets too high
Page 41 and 42: ‘Yes, I heard that. We hear all t
Page 43 and 44: Ko S’la put the tea-tray down on
Page 45 and 46: her, because of its strangeness and
Page 47 and 48: Flory got out of the water, put on
Page 49 and 50: V In spite of the whisky he had dru
Page 51 and 52: school. In his last term he and ano
Page 53 and 54: imperialism in which he lived. For
Page 55 and 56: streaming egrets-were more native t
Page 57 and 58: ‘No.’ ‘You have been in priso
Page 59 and 60: (Signed) A FRIEND. The letter was w
Page 61 and 62: did not think she could be much pas
Page 63 and 64: ‘What it means to meet somebody w
Page 65 and 66: VII Elizabeth lay on the sofa in th
Page 67 and 68: ‘school’ where she produced gre
Page 69 and 70: of the bow was like a moving arrowh
Page 71 and 72: ‘And oh, aunt, such an interestin
Page 73 and 74: there would be a scandal when they
Page 75 and 76: grotesque, it’s even ugly, with a
Page 77 and 78: sahib’. Mr Macgregor made a very
Page 79 and 80: IX During the next fortnight a grea
Page 81 and 82: S’la’s notions of what went on
Page 83 and 84:
He was anything but tactful with he
Page 85 and 86:
‘Thanks, I’ll remember about th
Page 87 and 88:
example-she seemed to have an enthu
Page 89 and 90:
‘Oh, it’s all right, they’ll
Page 91 and 92:
girls wear broad brass rings to str
Page 93 and 94:
They walked up the road, he to the
Page 95 and 96:
murder by poison, murder by sympath
Page 97 and 98:
Thongwa to rebel, and then I arrest
Page 99 and 100:
‘Do you not see, woman? Do you no
Page 101 and 102:
operations. ‘Belly-cutting’ was
Page 103 and 104:
‘Ah, I have a few friends left. B
Page 105 and 106:
shoulder. Flory walked into the hou
Page 107 and 108:
Instantly she cried out in renewed
Page 109 and 110:
naked boy was standing between two
Page 111 and 112:
were tattooed with dark blue patter
Page 113 and 114:
As they were walking to the fifth b
Page 115 and 116:
‘Oh, do let’s! Oh, what awful f
Page 117 and 118:
stroked his beautiful white belly,
Page 119 and 120:
morning when he met her, and the si
Page 121 and 122:
to marry him? He was being so slow
Page 123 and 124:
teetotal pledge tomorrow morning. H
Page 125 and 126:
‘I’m afraid you won’t get any
Page 127 and 128:
to his feet. He was badly bruised,
Page 129 and 130:
‘Oh, shut up! I’m sick of the s
Page 131 and 132:
that ran down to the Irrawaddy. The
Page 133 and 134:
‘Go away this instant! If you fol
Page 135 and 136:
help. The doctor sent back a quanti
Page 137 and 138:
struck too hard, came swishing thro
Page 139 and 140:
‘Hell!’ said Ellis. He went int
Page 141 and 142:
there was no sleep yet for Elizabet
Page 143 and 144:
Verrall could drop his offensive ma
Page 145 and 146:
Flory being brought indoors-and cam
Page 147 and 148:
Lackersteen came back to the drawin
Page 149 and 150:
XX Next morning there was great exc
Page 151 and 152:
in that there is no disguising it,
Page 153 and 154:
XXI O Western wind, when wilt thou
Page 155 and 156:
‘Our friend Ellis appears surpris
Page 157 and 158:
him, and he took the drawer of whit
Page 159 and 160:
clothes. Every face except Elizabet
Page 161 and 162:
Though they were four to one he was
Page 163 and 164:
shouting that they were not to begi
Page 165 and 166:
‘The river!’ One of those start
Page 167 and 168:
‘Here, you!’ cried Flory to the
Page 169 and 170:
XXIII Next day the town was quieter
Page 171 and 172:
the danger had really been, and she
Page 173 and 174:
masterstroke to cope with a situati
Page 175 and 176:
‘Well, what I mean to say-train
Page 177 and 178:
XXIV It was nearly six o’clock in
Page 179 and 180:
debaucheries, the lies, the pain of
Page 181 and 182:
‘I really don’t know what you
Page 183 and 184:
eproach him for the kick he had giv
Page 185 and 186:
written on his tombstone that he co
Page 187 and 188:
Glasgow electrician named Macdougal
Page 189:
PENGUIN CLASSICS Published by the P
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