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X But as a matter of fact, Ko S’la’s alarm was premature. After knowing Elizabeth for ten days, Flory was scarcely more intimate with her than on the day when he had first met her. As it happened, he had her almost to himself during these ten days, most of the Europeans being in the jungle. Flory himself had no right to be loitering in headquarters, for at this time of year the work of timber-extraction was in full swing, and in his absence everything went to pieces under the incompetent Eurasian overseer. But he had stayed–pretext, a touch of fever–while despairing letters came almost every day from the overseer, telling of disasters. One of the elephants was ill, the engine of the light railway that was used for carrying teak logs to the river had broken down, fifteen of the coolies had deserted. But Flory still lingered, unable to tear himself away from Kyauktada while Elizabeth was there, and continually seeking–never, as yet, to much purpose–to recapture that easy and delightful friendship of their first meeting. They met every day, morning and evening, it was true. Each evening they played a single of tennis at the Club–Mrs Lackersteen was too limp and Mr Lackersteen too liverish for tennis at this time of year–and afterwards they would sit in the lounge, all four together, playing bridge and talking. But though Flory spent hours in Elizabeth’s company, and often they were alone together, he was never for an instant at his ease with her. They talked–so long as they talked of trivialities–with the utmost freedom, yet they were distant, like strangers. He felt stiff in her presence, he could not forget his birthmark; his twice-scraped chin smarted, his body tortured him for whisky and tobacco–for he tried to cut down his drinking and smoking when he was with her. After ten days they seemed no nearer the relationship he wanted. For somehow, he had never been able to talk to her as he longed to talk. To talk, simply to talk! It sounds so little, and how much it is! When you have existed to the brink of middle age in bitter loneliness, among people to whom your true opinion on every subject on earth is blasphemy, the need to talk is the greatest of all needs. Yet with Elizabeth serious talk seemed impossible. It was as though there had been a spell upon them that made all their conversation lapse into banality; gramophone records, dogs, tennis racquets–all that desolating Club-chatter. She seemed not to want to talk of anything but that. He had only to touch upon a subject of any conceivable interest to hear the evasion, the ‘I shan’t play’ coming into her voice. Her taste in books appalled him when he discovered it. Yet she was young, he reminded himself, and had she not drunk white wine and talked of Marcel Proust under the Paris plane trees? Later, no doubt, she would understand him and give him the companionship he needed. Perhaps it was only that he had not won her confidence yet.
He was anything but tactful with her. Like all men who have lived much alone, he adjusted himself better to ideas than to people. And so, though all their talk was superficial, he began to irritate her sometimes; not by what he said but by what he implied. There was an uneasiness between them, illdefined and yet often verging upon quarrels. When two people, one of whom has lived long in the country while the other is a newcomer, are thrown together, it is inevitable that the first should act as cicerone to the second. Elizabeth, during these days, was making her first acquaintance with Burma; it was Flory, naturally, who acted as her interpreter, explaining this, commenting upon that. And the things he said, or the way he said them, provoked in her a vague yet deep disagreement. For she perceived that Flory, when he spoke of the ‘natives’, spoke nearly always in favour of them. He was forever praising Burmese customs and the Burmese character; he even went so far as to contrast them favourably with the English. It disquieted her. After all, natives were natives–interesting, no doubt, but finally only a ‘subject’ people, an inferior people with black faces. His attitude was a little too tolerant. Nor had he grasped, yet, in what way he was antagonising her. He so wanted her to love Burma as he loved it, not to look at it with the dull, incurious eyes of a memsahib! He had forgotten that most people can be at ease in a foreign country only when they are disparaging the inhabitants. He was too eager in his attempts to interest her in things Oriental. He tried to induce her, for instance, to learn Burmese, but it came to nothing. (Her aunt had explained to her that only missionary-women spoke Burmese; nice women found kitchen Urdu quite as much as they needed.) There were countless small disagreements like that. She was grasping, dimly, that his views were not the views an Englishman should hold. Much more clearly she grasped that he was asking her to be fond of the Burmese, even to admire them; to admire people with black faces, almost savages, whose appearance still made her shudder! The subject cropped up in a hundred ways. A knot of Burmans would pass them on the road. She, with her still fresh eyes, would gaze after them, half curious and half repelled; and she would say to Flory, as she would have said to anybody: ‘How revoltingly ugly these people are, aren’t they?’ ‘Are they? I always think they’re rather charminglooking, the Burmese. They have such splendid bodies! Look at that fellow’s shoulders–like a bronze statue. Just think what sights you’d see in England if people went about half naked as they do here!’ ‘But they have such hideous-shaped heads! Their skulls kind of slope up behind like a tom-cat’s. And then the way their foreheads slant back–it makes them look so wicked. I remember reading something in a magazine about the shape of people’s heads; it said that a person with a sloping forehead is a criminal type.’ ‘Oh, come, that’s a bit sweeping! Round about half me people in the world have that kind of forehead.’ ‘Oh, well, if you count coloured people, of course !——’ Or perhaps a string of women would pass, going to the well: heavy-set peasant-girls, copper brown, erect under their water-pots with strong mare-like buttocks protruded. The Burmese women repelled Elizabeth more man the men; she felt her kinship with them, and the hatefulness of being kin to creatures with black faces.
- Page 31 and 32: ‘Our burra sahib at Mandalay alwa
- Page 33 and 34: glare sent a weariness through one
- 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: S’la’s notions of what went on
- 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
X<br />
But as a matter of fact, Ko S’la’s alarm was premature. After knowing Elizabeth for ten days, Flory<br />
was scarcely more intimate with her than on the day when he had first met her.<br />
As it happened, he had her almost to himself during these ten days, most of the Europeans being in<br />
the jungle. Flory himself had no right to be loitering in headquarters, for at this time of year the work<br />
of timber-extraction was in full swing, and in his absence everything went to pieces under the<br />
incompetent Eurasian overseer. But he had stayed–pretext, a touch of fever–while despairing letters<br />
came almost every day from the overseer, telling of disasters. One of the elephants was ill, the engine<br />
of the light railway that was used for carrying teak logs to the river had broken down, fifteen of the<br />
coolies had deserted. But Flory still lingered, unable to tear himself away from Kyauktada while<br />
Elizabeth was there, and continually seeking–never, as yet, to much purpose–to recapture that easy<br />
and delightful friendship of their first meeting.<br />
They met every day, morning and evening, it was true. Each evening they played a single of tennis<br />
at the Club–Mrs Lackersteen was too limp and Mr Lackersteen too liverish for tennis at this time of<br />
year–and afterwards they would sit in the lounge, all four together, playing bridge and talking. But<br />
though Flory spent hours in Elizabeth’s company, and often they were alone together, he was never for<br />
an instant at his ease with her. They talked–so long as they talked of trivialities–with the utmost<br />
freedom, yet they were distant, like strangers. He felt stiff in her presence, he could not forget his<br />
birthmark; his twice-scraped chin smarted, his body tortured him for whisky and tobacco–for he tried<br />
to cut down his drinking and smoking when he was with her. After ten days they seemed no nearer the<br />
relationship he wanted.<br />
For somehow, he had never been able to talk to her as he longed to talk. To talk, simply to talk! It<br />
sounds so little, and how much it is! When you have existed to the brink of middle age in bitter<br />
loneliness, among people to whom your true opinion on every subject on earth is blasphemy, the need<br />
to talk is the greatest of all needs. Yet with Elizabeth serious talk seemed impossible. It was as though<br />
there had been a spell upon them that made all their conversation lapse into banality; gramophone<br />
records, dogs, tennis racquets–all that desolating Club-chatter. She seemed not to want to talk of<br />
anything but that. He had only to touch upon a subject of any conceivable interest to hear the evasion,<br />
the ‘I shan’t play’ coming into her voice. Her taste in books appalled him when he discovered it. Yet<br />
she was young, he reminded himself, and had she not drunk white wine and talked of Marcel Proust<br />
under the Paris plane trees? Later, no doubt, she would understand him and give him the<br />
companionship he needed. Perhaps it was only that he had not won her confidence yet.
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