But the words were not spoken yet; instead, he found himself talking
egoistically
on and on.
Orwell - Burmese Days
’
The leopard had disappeared as he fell. He was thrashing about in the undergrowth like a
great, wounded snake, and crying out with a snarling, sobbing noise, savage and pitiful.
The noise seemed to be coming nearer. Every cartridge Flory turned up had 6 or 8
marked on the end. The rest of the large-shot cartridges had, in fact, been left with Ko
STa. The crashing and snarling were now hardly five yards away, but they could see
nothing, the jungle was so thick.
The two Burmans were crying out ‘Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! ’ The sound of ‘Shoot! Shoot! ’
got farther away — they were skipping for the nearest climbable trees. There was a crash
in the undergrowth so close that it shook the bush by which Elizabeth was standing.
‘By God, he’s almost on us! ’ Flory said. ‘We must turn him somehow. Let fly at the
sound. ’
Elizabeth raised her gun. Her knees were knocking like castanets, but her hand was as
steady as stone. She fired rapidly, once, twice. The crashing noise receded. The leopard
was crawling away, crippled but swift, and still invisible.
‘Well done! You’ve scared him,’ Flory said.
‘But he’s getting away! He’s getting away! ’ Elizabeth cried, dancing about in agitation.
She made to follow him. Flory jumped to his feet and pulled her back.
‘No fear! You stay here. Wait! ’
He slipped two of the small-shot cartridges into his gun and ran after the sound of the
leopard. For a moment Elizabeth could not see either beast or man, then they reappeared
in a bare patch thirty yards away. The leopard was writhing along on his belly, sobbing as
he went. Flory levelled his gun and fired at four yards’ distance. The leopard jumped like
a cushion when one hits it, then rolled over, curled up and lay still. Flory poked the body
with his gun-barrel. It did not stir.
‘It’s all right, he’s done for,’ he called. ‘Come and have a look at him. ’
The two Burmans jumped down from their tree, and they and Elizabeth went across to
where Flory was standing. The leopard — it was a male — was lying curled up with his
head between his forepaws. He looked much smaller than he had looked alive; he looked
rather pathetic, like a dead kitten. Elizabeth’s knees were still quivering. She and Flory
stood looking down at the leopard, close together, but not clasping hands this time.
It was only a moment before Ko S’la and the others came up, shouting with glee. Flo
gave one sniff at the dead leopard, then down went her tail and she bolted fifty yards,
whimpering. She could not be induced to come near him again. Everyone squatted down
round the leopard and gazed at him. They stroked his beautiful white belly, soft as a
hare’s, and squeezed his broad pugs to bring out the claws, and pulled back his black lips
to examine the fangs. Presently two of the beaters cut down a tall bamboo and slung the
leopard upon it by his paws, with his long tail trailing down, and then they marched back
to the village in triumph. There was no talk of further shooting, though the light still held.
They were all, including the Europeans, too anxious to get home and boast of what they
had done.
Flory and Elizabeth walked side by side across the stubble field. The others were thirty
yards ahead with the guns and the leopard, and Flo was slinking after them a long way in
the rear. The sun was going down beyond the Irrawaddy. The light shone level across the
field, gilding the stubble stalks, and striking into their faces with a yellow, gentle beam.
Elizabeth’s shoulder was almost touching Flory’s as they walked. The sweat that had
drenched their shirts had dried again. They did not talk much. They were happy with that
inordinate happiness that comes of exhaustion and achievement, and with which nothing
else in life — no joy of either the body or the mind — is even able to be compared.
‘The leopard skin is yours,’ Flory said as they approached the village.
‘Oh, but you shot him! ’
‘Never mind, you stick to the skin. By Jove, I wonder how many of the women in this
country would have kept their heads like you did! I can just see them screaming and
fainting. I’ll get the skin cured for you in Kyauktada jail. There’s a convict there who can
cure skins as soft as velvet. He’s doing a seven-year sentence, so he’s had time to learn
the job. ’
‘Oh well, thanks awfully. ’
No more was said for the present. Later, when they had washed off the sweat and dirt,
and were fed and rested, they would meet again at the Club. They made no rendezvous,
but it was understood between them that they would meet. Also, it was understood that
Flory would ask Elizabeth to marry him, though nothing was said about this either.
At the village Flory paid the beaters eight annas each, superintended the skinning of the
leopard, and gave the headman a bottle of beer and two of the imperial pigeons. The skin
and skull were packed into one of the canoes. All the whiskers had been stolen, in spite of
Ko S’la’s efforts to guard them. Some young men of the village carried off the carcass in
order to eat the heart and various other organs, the eating of which they believed would
make them strong and swift like the leopard.
CHAPTER 15
When Flory arrived at the Club he found the Lackersteens in an unusually morose mood.
Mrs Lackersteen was sitting, as usual, in the best place under the punkah, and was
reading the Civil List, the Debrett of Burma. She was in a bad temper with her husband,
who had defied her by ordering a Targe peg’ as soon as he reached the Club, and was
further defying her by reading the Pink’un. Elizabeth was alone in the stuffy little library,
turning over the pages of an old copy of Blackwood’s.
Since parting with Flory, Elizabeth had had a very disagreeable adventure. She had come
out of her bath and was half-way through dressing for dinner when her uncle had
suddenly appeared in her room — pretext, to hear some more about the day’s shooting —
and begun pinching her leg in a way that simply could not be misunderstood. Elizabeth
was horrified. This was her first introduction to the fact that some men are capable of
making love to their nieces. We live and learn. Mr Lackersteen had tried to carry the
thing off as a joke, but he was too clumsy and too nearly drunk to succeed. It was
fortunate that his wife was out of hearing, or there might have been a first-rate scandal.
After this, dinner was an uncomfortable meal. Mr Lackersteen was sulking. What rot it
was, the way these women put on airs and prevented you from having a good time! The
girl was pretty enough to remind him of the Illustrations in La Vie Parisienne, and damn
it! wasn’t he paying for her keep? It was a shame. But for Elizabeth the position was very
serious. She was penniless and had no home except her uncle’s house. She had come
eight thousand miles to stay here. It would be terrible if after only a fortnight her uncle’s
house were to be made uninhabitable for her.
Consequently, one thing was much surer in her mind than it had been: that if Flory asked
her to marry him (and he would, there was little doubt of it), she would say yes. At
another time it was just possible that she would have decided differently. This afternoon,
under the spell of that glorious, exciting, altogether ‘lovely’ adventure, she had come near
to loving Flory; as near as, in his particular case, she was able to come. Yet even after
that, perhaps, her doubts would have returned. For there had always been something
dubious about Flory; his age, his birthmark, his queer, perverse way of talking — that
‘highbrow’ talk that was at once unintelligible and disquieting. There had been days
when she had even disliked him. But now her uncle’s behaviour had turned the scale.
Whatever happened she had got to escape from her uncle’s house, and that soon. Yes,
undoubtedly she would marry Flory when he asked her!
He could see her answer in her face as he came into the library. Her air was gentler, more
yielding than he had known it. She was wearing the same lilac-coloured frock that she
had worn that first morning when he met her, and the sight of the familiar frock gave him
courage. It seemed to bring her nearer to him, taking away the strangeness and the
elegance that had sometimes unnerved him.
He picked up the magazine she had been reading and made some remark; for a moment
they chattered in the banal way they so seldom managed to avoid. It is strange how the
drivelling habits of conversation will persist into almost all moments. Yet even as they
chattered they found themselves drifting to the door and then outside, and presently to the
big frangipani tree by the tennis court. It was the night of the full moon. Flaring like a
white-hot coin, so brilliant that it hurt one’s eyes, the moon swam rapidly upwards in a
sky of smoky blue, across which drifted a few wisps of yellowish cloud. The stars were
all invisible. The croton bushes, by day hideous things like jaundiced laurels, were
changed by the moon into jagged black and white designs like fantastic wood-cuts. By
the compound fence two Dravidian coolies were walking down the road, transfigured,
their white rags gleaming. Through the tepid air the scent streamed from the frangipani
trees like some intolerable compound out of a penny-in-the-slot machine.
‘Look at the moon, just look at it! ’ Flory said. ‘It’s like a white sun. It’s brighter than an
English winter day. ’
Elizabeth looked up into the branches of the frangipani tree, which the moon seemed to
have changed into rods of silver. The light lay thick, as though palpable, on everything,
crusting the earth and the rough bark of trees like some dazzling salt, and every leaf
seemed to bear a freight of solid light, like snow. Even Elizabeth, indifferent to such
things, was astonished.
‘It’s wonderful! You never see moonlight like that at Home. It’s so — so — ’ No adjective
except ‘bright’ presenting itself, she was silent. She had a habit of leaving her sentences
unfinished, like Rosa Dartle, though for a different reason.
‘Yes, the old moon does her best in this country. How that tree does stink, doesn’t it?
Beastly, tropical thing! I hate a tree that blooms all the year round, don’t you? ’
He was talking half abstractedly, to cover the time till the coolies should be out of sight.
As they disappeared he put his arm round Elizabeth’s shoulder, and then, when she did
not start or speak, turned her round and drew her against him. Her head came against his
breast, and her short hair grazed his lips. He put his hand under her chin and lifted her
face up to meet his. She was not wearing her spectacles.
‘You don’t mind? ’
‘No. ’
‘I mean, you don’t mind my — this thing of mine? ’ he shook his head slightly to indicate
the birthmark. He could not kiss her without first asking this question.
‘No, no. Of course not. ’
A moment after their mouths met he felt her bare arms settle lightly round his neck. They
stood pressed together, against the smooth trunk of the frangipani tree, body to body,
mouth to mouth, for a minute or more. The sickly scent of the tree came mingling with
the scent of Elizabeth’s hair. And the scent gave him a feeling of stultification, of
remoteness from Elizabeth, even though she was in his arms. All that that alien tree
symbolized for him, his exile, the secret, wasted years — it was like an unbridgeable gulf
between them. How should he ever make her understand what it was that he wanted of
her? He disengaged himself and pressed her shoulders gently against the tree, looking
down at her face, which he could see very clearly though the moon was behind her.
‘It’s useless trying to tell you what you mean to me,’ he said. “‘What you mean to me! ”
These blunted phrases! You don’t know, you can’t know, how much I love you. But I’ve
got to try and tell you. There’s so much I must tell you. Had we better go back to the
Club? They may come looking for us. We can talk on the veranda. ’
‘Is my hair very untidy? ’ she said.
‘It’s beautiful. ’
‘But has it got untidy? Smooth it for me, would you, please? ’
She bent her head towards him, and he smoothed the short, cool locks with his hand. The
way she bent her head to him gave him a curious feeling of intimacy, far more intimate
than the kiss, as though he had already been her husband. Ah, he must have her, that was
certain! Only by marrying her could his life be salvaged. In a moment he would ask her.
They walked slowly through the cotton bushes and back to the Club, his arm still round
her shoulder.
‘We can talk on the veranda,’ he repeated. ‘Somehow, we’ve never really talked, you and
I. My God, how I’ve longed all these years for somebody to talk to! How I could talk to
you, intenninably, interminably! That sounds boring. I’m afraid it will be boring. I must
ask you to put up with it for a little while. ’
She made a sound of remonstrance at the word ‘boring’.
‘No, it is boring, I know that. We Anglo-Indians are always looked on as bores. And we
ARE bores. But we can’t help it. You see, there’s — how shall I say? — a demon inside us
driving us to talk. We walk about under a load of memories which we long to share and
somehow never can. It’s the price we pay for coming to this country. ’
They were fairly safe from interruption on the side veranda, for there was no door
opening directly upon it. Elizabeth had sat down with her arms on the little wicker table,
but Flory remained strolling back and forth, with his hands in his coatpockets, stepping
into the moonlight that streamed beneath the eastern eaves of the veranda, and back into
the shadows.
‘I said just now that I loved you. Love! The word’s been used till it’s meaningless. But let
me try to explain. This afternoon when you were there shooting with me, I thought, my
God! here at last is somebody who can share my life with me, but really share it, really
LIVE it with me — do you see — ’
He was going to ask her to marry him — indeed, he had intended to ask her without more
delay.
But the words were not spoken yet; instead, he found himself talking egoistically on and on. He could not help it. It was so important that she should understand something
of what his life in this country had been; that she should grasp the nature of the loneliness
that he wanted her to nullify. And it was so devilishly difficult to explain. It is devilish to
suffer from a pain that is all but nameless. Blessed are they who are stricken only with
classifiable diseases! Blessed are the poor, the sick, the crossed in love, for at least other
people know what is the matter with them and will listen to their belly-achings with
sympathy. But who that has not suffered it understands the pain of exile? Elizabeth
watched him as he moved to and fro, in and out of the pool of moonlight that turned his
silk coat to silver. Her heart was still knocking from the kiss, and yet her thoughts
wandered as he talked. Was he going to ask her to marry him? He was being so slow
about it! She was dimly aware that he was saying something about loneliness. Ah, of
course! He was telling her about the loneliness she would have to put up with in the
jungle, when they were married. He needn’t have troubled. Perhaps you did get rather
lonely in the jungle sometimes? Miles from anywhere, no cinemas, no dances, no one but
each other to talk to, nothing to do in the evenings except read — rather a bore, that. Still,
you could have a gramophone. What a difference it would make when those new portable
radio sets got out to Burma! She was about to say this when he added:
‘Have I made myself at all clear to you? Have you got some picture of the life we live
here? The foreignness, the solitude, the melancholy! Foreign trees, foreign flowers,
foreign landscapes, foreign faces. It’s all as alien as a different planet. But do you see —
and it’s this that I so want you to understand — do you see, it mightn’t be so bad living on
a different planet, it might even be the most interesting thing imaginable, if you had even
one person to share it with. One person who could see it with eyes something like your
own. This country’s been a kind of solitary hell to me — it’s so to most of us — and yet I
tell you it could be a paradise if one weren’t alone. Does all this seem quite
meaningless? ’
He had stopped beside the table, and he picked up her hand. In the half-darkness he could
see her face only as a pale oval, like a flower, but by the feeling of her hand he knew
instantly that she had not understood a word of what he was saying. How should she,
indeed? It was so futile, this meandering talk! He would say to her at once, Will you
marry me? Was there not a lifetime to talk in? He took her other hand and drew her
gently to her feet.
‘Forgive me all this rot I’ve been talking. ’
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured indistinctly, expecting that he was about to kiss her.
‘No, it’s rot talking like that. Some things will go into words, some won’t. Besides, it was
an impertinence to go belly-aching on and on about myself. But I was trying to lead up to
something. Look, this is what I wanted to say. Will — ’
‘Eliz-a-beth! ’
It was Mrs Lackersteen’s high-pitched, plaintive voice, calling from within the Club.
‘Elizabeth? Where are you, Elizabeth? ’
Evidently she was near the front door — would be on the veranda in a moment. Flory
pulled Elizabeth against him. They kissed hurriedly. He released her, only holding her
hands.
‘Quickly, there’s just time. Answer me this. Will you — ’
But that sentence never got any further. At the same moment something extraordinary
happened under his feet — the floor was surging and rolling like a sea — he was staggering,
then dizzily falling, hitting his upper ann a thump as the floor rushed towards him. As he
lay there he found himself jerked violently backwards and forwards as though some
enonnous beast below were rocking the whole building on its back.
The drunken floor righted itself very suddenly, and Flory sat up, dazed but not much hurt.
He dimly noticed Elizabeth sprawling beside him, and screams coming from within the
Club. Beyond the gate two Burmans were racing through the moonlight with their long
hair streaming behind them. They were yelling at the top of their voices:
‘Nga Yin is shaking himself! Nga Yin is shaking himself! ’
Flory watched them unintelligently. Who was Nga Yin? Nga is the prefix given to
criminals. Nga Yin must be a dacoit. Why was he shaking himself? Then he remembered.
Nga Yin was a giant supposed by the Burmese to be buried, like Typhaeus, beneath the
crust of the earth. Of course! It was an earthquake.
‘An earthquake! ’ he exclaimed, and he remembered Elizabeth and moved to pick her up.
But she was already sitting up, unhurt, and rubbing the back of her head.
‘Was that an earthquake? ’ she said in a rather awed voice.
Mrs Lackersteen’s tall form came creeping round the comer of the veranda, clinging to
the wall like some elongated lizard. She was exclaiming hysterically:
‘Oh dear, an earthquake! Oh, what a dreadful shock! I can’t bear it — my heart won’t
stand it! Oh dear, oh dear! An earthquake! ’
Mr Lackersteen tottered after her, with a strange ataxic step caused partly by earth-
tremors and partly by gin.
‘An earthquake, dammit! ’ he said.
Flory and Elizabeth slowly picked themselves up. They all went inside, with that queer
feeling in the soles of the feet that one has when one steps from a rocking boat on to the
shore. The old butler was hurrying from the servants’ quarters, thrusting his pagri on his
head as he came, and a troop of twittering chokras after him.
‘Earthquake, sir, earthquake! ’ he bubbled eagerly.
‘I should damn well think it was an earthquake,’ said Mr Lackersteen as he lowered
himself cautiously into a chair. ‘Here, get some drinks, butler. By God, I could do with a
nip of something after that. ’
They all had a nip of something. The butler, shy yet beaming, stood on one leg beside the
table, with the tray in his hand. ‘Earthquake, sir, BIG earthquake! ’ he repeated
enthusiastically. He was bursting with eagerness to talk; so, for that matter, was everyone
else. An extraordinary joie de vivre had come over them all as soon as the shaky feeling
departed from their legs. An earthquake is such fun when it is over. It is so exhilarating to
reflect that you are not, as you well might be, lying dead under a heap of ruins. With one
accord they all burst out talking: ‘My dear, I’ve never HAD such a shock — I fell
absolutely FLAT on my back — I thought it was a dam’ pariah dog scratching itself under
the floor — I thought it must be an explosion somewhere — ’ and so on and so forth; the
usual earthquake-chatter. Even the butler was included in the conversation.
‘I expect you can remember ever so many earthquakes can’t you butler? ’ said Mrs
Lackersteen, quite graciously, for her.
‘Oh yes, madam, many earthquakes! 1887, 1899, 1906, 1912 — many, many I can
remember, madam! ’
‘The 1912 one was a biggish one,’ Flory said.
‘Oh, sir, but 1906 was bigger! Very bad shock, sir! And big heathen idol in the temple
fall down on top of the thathanabaing, that is Buddhist bishop, madam, which the
Burmese say mean bad omen for failure of paddy crop and foot-and-mouth disease. Also
in 1887 my first earthquake I remember, when I was a little chokra, and Major Maclagan
sahib was lying under the table and promising he sign the teetotal pledge tomorrow
morning. He not know it was an earthquake. Also two cows was killed by falling roofs,’
etc. , etc.
The Europeans stayed in the Club till midnight, and the butler popped into the room as
many as half a dozen times, to relate a new anecdote. So far from snubbing him, the
Europeans even encouraged him to talk. There is nothing like an earthquake for drawing
people together. One more tremor, or perhaps two, and they would have asked the butler
to sit down at table with them.
Meanwhile, Flory’s proposal went no further. One cannot propose marriage immediately
after an earthquake. In any case, he did not see Elizabeth alone for the rest of that
evening. But it did not matter, he knew that she was his now. In the morning there would
be time enough. On this thought, at peace in his mind, and dog-tired after the long day, he
went to bed.
CHAPTER 16
The vultures in the big pyinkado trees by the cemetery flapped from their dung-whitened
branches, steadied themselves on the wing, and climbed by vast spirals into the upper air.
It was early, but Flory was out already. He was going down to the Club, to wait until
Elizabeth came and then ask her formally to marry him. Some instinct, which he did not
understand, prompted him to do it before the other Europeans returned from the jungle.
As he came out of the compound gate he saw that there was a new arrival at Kyauktada.
A youth with a long spear like a needle in his hand was cantering across the maidan on a
white pony. Some Sikhs, looking like sepoys, ran after him, leading two other ponies, a
bay and a chestnut, by the bridle. When he came level with him Flory halted on the road
and shouted good morning. He had not recognized the youth, but it is usual in small
stations to make strangers welcome. The other saw that he was hailed, wheeled his pony
negligently round and brought it to the side of the road. He was a youth of about twenty-
live, lank but very straight, and manifestly a cavalry officer. He had one of those rabbit-
like faces common among English soldiers, with pale blue eyes and a little triangle of
fore-teeth visible between the lips; yet hard, fearless and even brutal in a careless
fashion — a rabbit, perhaps, but a tough and martial rabbit. He sat his horse as though he
were part of it, and he looked offensively young and fit. His fresh face was tanned to the
exact shade that went with his light-coloured eyes, and he was as elegant as a picture with
his white buckskin topi and his polo-boots that gleamed like an old meerschaum pipe.
Flory felt uncomfortable in his presence from the start.
‘How d’you do? ’ said Flory. ‘Have you just arrived? ’
‘Last night, got in by the late train. ’ He had a surly, boyish voice. ‘I’ve been sent up here
with a company of men to stand by in case your local bad-mashes start any trouble. My
name’s Verrall — Military Police,’ he added, not, however, inquiring Flory’s name in
return.
‘Oh yes. We heard they were sending somebody. Where are you putting up? ’
‘Dak bungalow, for the time being. There was some black beggar staying there when I
got in last night — Excise Officer or something. I booted him out. This is a filthy hole,
isn’t it? ’ he said with a backward movement of his head, indicating the whole of
Kyauktada.
‘I suppose it’s like the rest of these small stations. Are you staying long? ’
‘Only a month or so, thank God. Till the rains break. What a rotten maidan you’ve got
here, haven’t you? Pity they can’t keep this stuff cut,’ he added, swishing the dried-up
grass with the point of his spear. ‘Makes it so hopeless for polo or anything. ’
‘I’m afraid you won’t get any polo here,’ Flory said. ‘Tennis is the best we can manage.
There are only eight of us all told, and most of us spend three-quarters of our time in the
jungle. ’
‘Christ! What a hole! ’
After this there was a silence. The tall, bearded Sikhs stood in a group round their horses’
heads, eyeing Flory without much favour. It was perfectly clear that Verral was bored
with the conversation and wanted to escape. Flory had never in his life felt so completely
de trop, or so old and shabby. He noticed that Verrall’s pony was a beautiful Arab, a
mare, with proud neck and arching, plume-like tail; a lovely milk-white thing, worth
several thousands of rupees. Verrall had already twitched the bridle to turn away,
evidently feeling that he had talked enough for one morning.
‘That’s a wonderful pony of yours,’ Flory said.
‘She’s not bad, better than these Burma scrubs. I’ve come out to do a bit of tent-pegging.
It’s hopeless trying to knock a polo ball about in this muck. Hey, Hira Singh! ’ he called,
and turned his pony away.
The sepoy holding the bay pony handed his bridle to a companion, ran to a spot forty
yards away, and fixed a narrow boxwood peg in the ground. Verral took no further notice
of Flory. He raised his spear and poised himself as though taking aim at the peg, while
the Indians backed their horses out of the way and stood watching critically. With a just
perceptible movement Verrall dug his knees into the pony’s sides. She bounded forward
like a bullet from a catapult. As easily as a centaur the lank, straight youth leaned over in
the saddle, lowered his spear and plunged it clean through the peg. One of the Indians
muttered gruffly ‘Shabash! ’ Verrall raised his spear behind him in the orthodox fashion,
and then, pulling his horse to a canter, wheeled round and handed the transfixed peg to
the sepoy.
Verrall rode twice more at the peg, and hit it each time. It was done with matchless grace
and with extraordinary solemnity. The whole group of men, Englishman and Indians,
were concentrated upon the business of hitting the peg as though it had been a religious
ritual. Flory still stood watching, disregarded — VerralFs face was one of those that are
specially constructed for ignoring unwelcome strangers — but from the very fact that he
had been snubbed unable to tear himself away. Somehow, Verrall had filled him with a
horrible sense of inferiority. He was trying to think of some pretext for renewing the
conversation, when he looked up the hillside and saw Elizabeth, in pale blue, coming out
of her uncle’s gate. She must have seen the third transfixing of the peg. His heart stirred
painfully. A thought occurred to him, one of those rash thoughts that usually lead to
trouble. He called to Verrall, who was a few yards away from him, and pointed with his
stick.
‘Do these other two know how to do it? ’
Verrall looked over his shoulder with a surly air. He had expected Flory to go away after
being ignored.
‘What? ’
‘Can these other two do it?
The leopard had disappeared as he fell. He was thrashing about in the undergrowth like a
great, wounded snake, and crying out with a snarling, sobbing noise, savage and pitiful.
The noise seemed to be coming nearer. Every cartridge Flory turned up had 6 or 8
marked on the end. The rest of the large-shot cartridges had, in fact, been left with Ko
STa. The crashing and snarling were now hardly five yards away, but they could see
nothing, the jungle was so thick.
The two Burmans were crying out ‘Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! ’ The sound of ‘Shoot! Shoot! ’
got farther away — they were skipping for the nearest climbable trees. There was a crash
in the undergrowth so close that it shook the bush by which Elizabeth was standing.
‘By God, he’s almost on us! ’ Flory said. ‘We must turn him somehow. Let fly at the
sound. ’
Elizabeth raised her gun. Her knees were knocking like castanets, but her hand was as
steady as stone. She fired rapidly, once, twice. The crashing noise receded. The leopard
was crawling away, crippled but swift, and still invisible.
‘Well done! You’ve scared him,’ Flory said.
‘But he’s getting away! He’s getting away! ’ Elizabeth cried, dancing about in agitation.
She made to follow him. Flory jumped to his feet and pulled her back.
‘No fear! You stay here. Wait! ’
He slipped two of the small-shot cartridges into his gun and ran after the sound of the
leopard. For a moment Elizabeth could not see either beast or man, then they reappeared
in a bare patch thirty yards away. The leopard was writhing along on his belly, sobbing as
he went. Flory levelled his gun and fired at four yards’ distance. The leopard jumped like
a cushion when one hits it, then rolled over, curled up and lay still. Flory poked the body
with his gun-barrel. It did not stir.
‘It’s all right, he’s done for,’ he called. ‘Come and have a look at him. ’
The two Burmans jumped down from their tree, and they and Elizabeth went across to
where Flory was standing. The leopard — it was a male — was lying curled up with his
head between his forepaws. He looked much smaller than he had looked alive; he looked
rather pathetic, like a dead kitten. Elizabeth’s knees were still quivering. She and Flory
stood looking down at the leopard, close together, but not clasping hands this time.
It was only a moment before Ko S’la and the others came up, shouting with glee. Flo
gave one sniff at the dead leopard, then down went her tail and she bolted fifty yards,
whimpering. She could not be induced to come near him again. Everyone squatted down
round the leopard and gazed at him. They stroked his beautiful white belly, soft as a
hare’s, and squeezed his broad pugs to bring out the claws, and pulled back his black lips
to examine the fangs. Presently two of the beaters cut down a tall bamboo and slung the
leopard upon it by his paws, with his long tail trailing down, and then they marched back
to the village in triumph. There was no talk of further shooting, though the light still held.
They were all, including the Europeans, too anxious to get home and boast of what they
had done.
Flory and Elizabeth walked side by side across the stubble field. The others were thirty
yards ahead with the guns and the leopard, and Flo was slinking after them a long way in
the rear. The sun was going down beyond the Irrawaddy. The light shone level across the
field, gilding the stubble stalks, and striking into their faces with a yellow, gentle beam.
Elizabeth’s shoulder was almost touching Flory’s as they walked. The sweat that had
drenched their shirts had dried again. They did not talk much. They were happy with that
inordinate happiness that comes of exhaustion and achievement, and with which nothing
else in life — no joy of either the body or the mind — is even able to be compared.
‘The leopard skin is yours,’ Flory said as they approached the village.
‘Oh, but you shot him! ’
‘Never mind, you stick to the skin. By Jove, I wonder how many of the women in this
country would have kept their heads like you did! I can just see them screaming and
fainting. I’ll get the skin cured for you in Kyauktada jail. There’s a convict there who can
cure skins as soft as velvet. He’s doing a seven-year sentence, so he’s had time to learn
the job. ’
‘Oh well, thanks awfully. ’
No more was said for the present. Later, when they had washed off the sweat and dirt,
and were fed and rested, they would meet again at the Club. They made no rendezvous,
but it was understood between them that they would meet. Also, it was understood that
Flory would ask Elizabeth to marry him, though nothing was said about this either.
At the village Flory paid the beaters eight annas each, superintended the skinning of the
leopard, and gave the headman a bottle of beer and two of the imperial pigeons. The skin
and skull were packed into one of the canoes. All the whiskers had been stolen, in spite of
Ko S’la’s efforts to guard them. Some young men of the village carried off the carcass in
order to eat the heart and various other organs, the eating of which they believed would
make them strong and swift like the leopard.
CHAPTER 15
When Flory arrived at the Club he found the Lackersteens in an unusually morose mood.
Mrs Lackersteen was sitting, as usual, in the best place under the punkah, and was
reading the Civil List, the Debrett of Burma. She was in a bad temper with her husband,
who had defied her by ordering a Targe peg’ as soon as he reached the Club, and was
further defying her by reading the Pink’un. Elizabeth was alone in the stuffy little library,
turning over the pages of an old copy of Blackwood’s.
Since parting with Flory, Elizabeth had had a very disagreeable adventure. She had come
out of her bath and was half-way through dressing for dinner when her uncle had
suddenly appeared in her room — pretext, to hear some more about the day’s shooting —
and begun pinching her leg in a way that simply could not be misunderstood. Elizabeth
was horrified. This was her first introduction to the fact that some men are capable of
making love to their nieces. We live and learn. Mr Lackersteen had tried to carry the
thing off as a joke, but he was too clumsy and too nearly drunk to succeed. It was
fortunate that his wife was out of hearing, or there might have been a first-rate scandal.
After this, dinner was an uncomfortable meal. Mr Lackersteen was sulking. What rot it
was, the way these women put on airs and prevented you from having a good time! The
girl was pretty enough to remind him of the Illustrations in La Vie Parisienne, and damn
it! wasn’t he paying for her keep? It was a shame. But for Elizabeth the position was very
serious. She was penniless and had no home except her uncle’s house. She had come
eight thousand miles to stay here. It would be terrible if after only a fortnight her uncle’s
house were to be made uninhabitable for her.
Consequently, one thing was much surer in her mind than it had been: that if Flory asked
her to marry him (and he would, there was little doubt of it), she would say yes. At
another time it was just possible that she would have decided differently. This afternoon,
under the spell of that glorious, exciting, altogether ‘lovely’ adventure, she had come near
to loving Flory; as near as, in his particular case, she was able to come. Yet even after
that, perhaps, her doubts would have returned. For there had always been something
dubious about Flory; his age, his birthmark, his queer, perverse way of talking — that
‘highbrow’ talk that was at once unintelligible and disquieting. There had been days
when she had even disliked him. But now her uncle’s behaviour had turned the scale.
Whatever happened she had got to escape from her uncle’s house, and that soon. Yes,
undoubtedly she would marry Flory when he asked her!
He could see her answer in her face as he came into the library. Her air was gentler, more
yielding than he had known it. She was wearing the same lilac-coloured frock that she
had worn that first morning when he met her, and the sight of the familiar frock gave him
courage. It seemed to bring her nearer to him, taking away the strangeness and the
elegance that had sometimes unnerved him.
He picked up the magazine she had been reading and made some remark; for a moment
they chattered in the banal way they so seldom managed to avoid. It is strange how the
drivelling habits of conversation will persist into almost all moments. Yet even as they
chattered they found themselves drifting to the door and then outside, and presently to the
big frangipani tree by the tennis court. It was the night of the full moon. Flaring like a
white-hot coin, so brilliant that it hurt one’s eyes, the moon swam rapidly upwards in a
sky of smoky blue, across which drifted a few wisps of yellowish cloud. The stars were
all invisible. The croton bushes, by day hideous things like jaundiced laurels, were
changed by the moon into jagged black and white designs like fantastic wood-cuts. By
the compound fence two Dravidian coolies were walking down the road, transfigured,
their white rags gleaming. Through the tepid air the scent streamed from the frangipani
trees like some intolerable compound out of a penny-in-the-slot machine.
‘Look at the moon, just look at it! ’ Flory said. ‘It’s like a white sun. It’s brighter than an
English winter day. ’
Elizabeth looked up into the branches of the frangipani tree, which the moon seemed to
have changed into rods of silver. The light lay thick, as though palpable, on everything,
crusting the earth and the rough bark of trees like some dazzling salt, and every leaf
seemed to bear a freight of solid light, like snow. Even Elizabeth, indifferent to such
things, was astonished.
‘It’s wonderful! You never see moonlight like that at Home. It’s so — so — ’ No adjective
except ‘bright’ presenting itself, she was silent. She had a habit of leaving her sentences
unfinished, like Rosa Dartle, though for a different reason.
‘Yes, the old moon does her best in this country. How that tree does stink, doesn’t it?
Beastly, tropical thing! I hate a tree that blooms all the year round, don’t you? ’
He was talking half abstractedly, to cover the time till the coolies should be out of sight.
As they disappeared he put his arm round Elizabeth’s shoulder, and then, when she did
not start or speak, turned her round and drew her against him. Her head came against his
breast, and her short hair grazed his lips. He put his hand under her chin and lifted her
face up to meet his. She was not wearing her spectacles.
‘You don’t mind? ’
‘No. ’
‘I mean, you don’t mind my — this thing of mine? ’ he shook his head slightly to indicate
the birthmark. He could not kiss her without first asking this question.
‘No, no. Of course not. ’
A moment after their mouths met he felt her bare arms settle lightly round his neck. They
stood pressed together, against the smooth trunk of the frangipani tree, body to body,
mouth to mouth, for a minute or more. The sickly scent of the tree came mingling with
the scent of Elizabeth’s hair. And the scent gave him a feeling of stultification, of
remoteness from Elizabeth, even though she was in his arms. All that that alien tree
symbolized for him, his exile, the secret, wasted years — it was like an unbridgeable gulf
between them. How should he ever make her understand what it was that he wanted of
her? He disengaged himself and pressed her shoulders gently against the tree, looking
down at her face, which he could see very clearly though the moon was behind her.
‘It’s useless trying to tell you what you mean to me,’ he said. “‘What you mean to me! ”
These blunted phrases! You don’t know, you can’t know, how much I love you. But I’ve
got to try and tell you. There’s so much I must tell you. Had we better go back to the
Club? They may come looking for us. We can talk on the veranda. ’
‘Is my hair very untidy? ’ she said.
‘It’s beautiful. ’
‘But has it got untidy? Smooth it for me, would you, please? ’
She bent her head towards him, and he smoothed the short, cool locks with his hand. The
way she bent her head to him gave him a curious feeling of intimacy, far more intimate
than the kiss, as though he had already been her husband. Ah, he must have her, that was
certain! Only by marrying her could his life be salvaged. In a moment he would ask her.
They walked slowly through the cotton bushes and back to the Club, his arm still round
her shoulder.
‘We can talk on the veranda,’ he repeated. ‘Somehow, we’ve never really talked, you and
I. My God, how I’ve longed all these years for somebody to talk to! How I could talk to
you, intenninably, interminably! That sounds boring. I’m afraid it will be boring. I must
ask you to put up with it for a little while. ’
She made a sound of remonstrance at the word ‘boring’.
‘No, it is boring, I know that. We Anglo-Indians are always looked on as bores. And we
ARE bores. But we can’t help it. You see, there’s — how shall I say? — a demon inside us
driving us to talk. We walk about under a load of memories which we long to share and
somehow never can. It’s the price we pay for coming to this country. ’
They were fairly safe from interruption on the side veranda, for there was no door
opening directly upon it. Elizabeth had sat down with her arms on the little wicker table,
but Flory remained strolling back and forth, with his hands in his coatpockets, stepping
into the moonlight that streamed beneath the eastern eaves of the veranda, and back into
the shadows.
‘I said just now that I loved you. Love! The word’s been used till it’s meaningless. But let
me try to explain. This afternoon when you were there shooting with me, I thought, my
God! here at last is somebody who can share my life with me, but really share it, really
LIVE it with me — do you see — ’
He was going to ask her to marry him — indeed, he had intended to ask her without more
delay.
But the words were not spoken yet; instead, he found himself talking egoistically on and on. He could not help it. It was so important that she should understand something
of what his life in this country had been; that she should grasp the nature of the loneliness
that he wanted her to nullify. And it was so devilishly difficult to explain. It is devilish to
suffer from a pain that is all but nameless. Blessed are they who are stricken only with
classifiable diseases! Blessed are the poor, the sick, the crossed in love, for at least other
people know what is the matter with them and will listen to their belly-achings with
sympathy. But who that has not suffered it understands the pain of exile? Elizabeth
watched him as he moved to and fro, in and out of the pool of moonlight that turned his
silk coat to silver. Her heart was still knocking from the kiss, and yet her thoughts
wandered as he talked. Was he going to ask her to marry him? He was being so slow
about it! She was dimly aware that he was saying something about loneliness. Ah, of
course! He was telling her about the loneliness she would have to put up with in the
jungle, when they were married. He needn’t have troubled. Perhaps you did get rather
lonely in the jungle sometimes? Miles from anywhere, no cinemas, no dances, no one but
each other to talk to, nothing to do in the evenings except read — rather a bore, that. Still,
you could have a gramophone. What a difference it would make when those new portable
radio sets got out to Burma! She was about to say this when he added:
‘Have I made myself at all clear to you? Have you got some picture of the life we live
here? The foreignness, the solitude, the melancholy! Foreign trees, foreign flowers,
foreign landscapes, foreign faces. It’s all as alien as a different planet. But do you see —
and it’s this that I so want you to understand — do you see, it mightn’t be so bad living on
a different planet, it might even be the most interesting thing imaginable, if you had even
one person to share it with. One person who could see it with eyes something like your
own. This country’s been a kind of solitary hell to me — it’s so to most of us — and yet I
tell you it could be a paradise if one weren’t alone. Does all this seem quite
meaningless? ’
He had stopped beside the table, and he picked up her hand. In the half-darkness he could
see her face only as a pale oval, like a flower, but by the feeling of her hand he knew
instantly that she had not understood a word of what he was saying. How should she,
indeed? It was so futile, this meandering talk! He would say to her at once, Will you
marry me? Was there not a lifetime to talk in? He took her other hand and drew her
gently to her feet.
‘Forgive me all this rot I’ve been talking. ’
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured indistinctly, expecting that he was about to kiss her.
‘No, it’s rot talking like that. Some things will go into words, some won’t. Besides, it was
an impertinence to go belly-aching on and on about myself. But I was trying to lead up to
something. Look, this is what I wanted to say. Will — ’
‘Eliz-a-beth! ’
It was Mrs Lackersteen’s high-pitched, plaintive voice, calling from within the Club.
‘Elizabeth? Where are you, Elizabeth? ’
Evidently she was near the front door — would be on the veranda in a moment. Flory
pulled Elizabeth against him. They kissed hurriedly. He released her, only holding her
hands.
‘Quickly, there’s just time. Answer me this. Will you — ’
But that sentence never got any further. At the same moment something extraordinary
happened under his feet — the floor was surging and rolling like a sea — he was staggering,
then dizzily falling, hitting his upper ann a thump as the floor rushed towards him. As he
lay there he found himself jerked violently backwards and forwards as though some
enonnous beast below were rocking the whole building on its back.
The drunken floor righted itself very suddenly, and Flory sat up, dazed but not much hurt.
He dimly noticed Elizabeth sprawling beside him, and screams coming from within the
Club. Beyond the gate two Burmans were racing through the moonlight with their long
hair streaming behind them. They were yelling at the top of their voices:
‘Nga Yin is shaking himself! Nga Yin is shaking himself! ’
Flory watched them unintelligently. Who was Nga Yin? Nga is the prefix given to
criminals. Nga Yin must be a dacoit. Why was he shaking himself? Then he remembered.
Nga Yin was a giant supposed by the Burmese to be buried, like Typhaeus, beneath the
crust of the earth. Of course! It was an earthquake.
‘An earthquake! ’ he exclaimed, and he remembered Elizabeth and moved to pick her up.
But she was already sitting up, unhurt, and rubbing the back of her head.
‘Was that an earthquake? ’ she said in a rather awed voice.
Mrs Lackersteen’s tall form came creeping round the comer of the veranda, clinging to
the wall like some elongated lizard. She was exclaiming hysterically:
‘Oh dear, an earthquake! Oh, what a dreadful shock! I can’t bear it — my heart won’t
stand it! Oh dear, oh dear! An earthquake! ’
Mr Lackersteen tottered after her, with a strange ataxic step caused partly by earth-
tremors and partly by gin.
‘An earthquake, dammit! ’ he said.
Flory and Elizabeth slowly picked themselves up. They all went inside, with that queer
feeling in the soles of the feet that one has when one steps from a rocking boat on to the
shore. The old butler was hurrying from the servants’ quarters, thrusting his pagri on his
head as he came, and a troop of twittering chokras after him.
‘Earthquake, sir, earthquake! ’ he bubbled eagerly.
‘I should damn well think it was an earthquake,’ said Mr Lackersteen as he lowered
himself cautiously into a chair. ‘Here, get some drinks, butler. By God, I could do with a
nip of something after that. ’
They all had a nip of something. The butler, shy yet beaming, stood on one leg beside the
table, with the tray in his hand. ‘Earthquake, sir, BIG earthquake! ’ he repeated
enthusiastically. He was bursting with eagerness to talk; so, for that matter, was everyone
else. An extraordinary joie de vivre had come over them all as soon as the shaky feeling
departed from their legs. An earthquake is such fun when it is over. It is so exhilarating to
reflect that you are not, as you well might be, lying dead under a heap of ruins. With one
accord they all burst out talking: ‘My dear, I’ve never HAD such a shock — I fell
absolutely FLAT on my back — I thought it was a dam’ pariah dog scratching itself under
the floor — I thought it must be an explosion somewhere — ’ and so on and so forth; the
usual earthquake-chatter. Even the butler was included in the conversation.
‘I expect you can remember ever so many earthquakes can’t you butler? ’ said Mrs
Lackersteen, quite graciously, for her.
‘Oh yes, madam, many earthquakes! 1887, 1899, 1906, 1912 — many, many I can
remember, madam! ’
‘The 1912 one was a biggish one,’ Flory said.
‘Oh, sir, but 1906 was bigger! Very bad shock, sir! And big heathen idol in the temple
fall down on top of the thathanabaing, that is Buddhist bishop, madam, which the
Burmese say mean bad omen for failure of paddy crop and foot-and-mouth disease. Also
in 1887 my first earthquake I remember, when I was a little chokra, and Major Maclagan
sahib was lying under the table and promising he sign the teetotal pledge tomorrow
morning. He not know it was an earthquake. Also two cows was killed by falling roofs,’
etc. , etc.
The Europeans stayed in the Club till midnight, and the butler popped into the room as
many as half a dozen times, to relate a new anecdote. So far from snubbing him, the
Europeans even encouraged him to talk. There is nothing like an earthquake for drawing
people together. One more tremor, or perhaps two, and they would have asked the butler
to sit down at table with them.
Meanwhile, Flory’s proposal went no further. One cannot propose marriage immediately
after an earthquake. In any case, he did not see Elizabeth alone for the rest of that
evening. But it did not matter, he knew that she was his now. In the morning there would
be time enough. On this thought, at peace in his mind, and dog-tired after the long day, he
went to bed.
CHAPTER 16
The vultures in the big pyinkado trees by the cemetery flapped from their dung-whitened
branches, steadied themselves on the wing, and climbed by vast spirals into the upper air.
It was early, but Flory was out already. He was going down to the Club, to wait until
Elizabeth came and then ask her formally to marry him. Some instinct, which he did not
understand, prompted him to do it before the other Europeans returned from the jungle.
As he came out of the compound gate he saw that there was a new arrival at Kyauktada.
A youth with a long spear like a needle in his hand was cantering across the maidan on a
white pony. Some Sikhs, looking like sepoys, ran after him, leading two other ponies, a
bay and a chestnut, by the bridle. When he came level with him Flory halted on the road
and shouted good morning. He had not recognized the youth, but it is usual in small
stations to make strangers welcome. The other saw that he was hailed, wheeled his pony
negligently round and brought it to the side of the road. He was a youth of about twenty-
live, lank but very straight, and manifestly a cavalry officer. He had one of those rabbit-
like faces common among English soldiers, with pale blue eyes and a little triangle of
fore-teeth visible between the lips; yet hard, fearless and even brutal in a careless
fashion — a rabbit, perhaps, but a tough and martial rabbit. He sat his horse as though he
were part of it, and he looked offensively young and fit. His fresh face was tanned to the
exact shade that went with his light-coloured eyes, and he was as elegant as a picture with
his white buckskin topi and his polo-boots that gleamed like an old meerschaum pipe.
Flory felt uncomfortable in his presence from the start.
‘How d’you do? ’ said Flory. ‘Have you just arrived? ’
‘Last night, got in by the late train. ’ He had a surly, boyish voice. ‘I’ve been sent up here
with a company of men to stand by in case your local bad-mashes start any trouble. My
name’s Verrall — Military Police,’ he added, not, however, inquiring Flory’s name in
return.
‘Oh yes. We heard they were sending somebody. Where are you putting up? ’
‘Dak bungalow, for the time being. There was some black beggar staying there when I
got in last night — Excise Officer or something. I booted him out. This is a filthy hole,
isn’t it? ’ he said with a backward movement of his head, indicating the whole of
Kyauktada.
‘I suppose it’s like the rest of these small stations. Are you staying long? ’
‘Only a month or so, thank God. Till the rains break. What a rotten maidan you’ve got
here, haven’t you? Pity they can’t keep this stuff cut,’ he added, swishing the dried-up
grass with the point of his spear. ‘Makes it so hopeless for polo or anything. ’
‘I’m afraid you won’t get any polo here,’ Flory said. ‘Tennis is the best we can manage.
There are only eight of us all told, and most of us spend three-quarters of our time in the
jungle. ’
‘Christ! What a hole! ’
After this there was a silence. The tall, bearded Sikhs stood in a group round their horses’
heads, eyeing Flory without much favour. It was perfectly clear that Verral was bored
with the conversation and wanted to escape. Flory had never in his life felt so completely
de trop, or so old and shabby. He noticed that Verrall’s pony was a beautiful Arab, a
mare, with proud neck and arching, plume-like tail; a lovely milk-white thing, worth
several thousands of rupees. Verrall had already twitched the bridle to turn away,
evidently feeling that he had talked enough for one morning.
‘That’s a wonderful pony of yours,’ Flory said.
‘She’s not bad, better than these Burma scrubs. I’ve come out to do a bit of tent-pegging.
It’s hopeless trying to knock a polo ball about in this muck. Hey, Hira Singh! ’ he called,
and turned his pony away.
The sepoy holding the bay pony handed his bridle to a companion, ran to a spot forty
yards away, and fixed a narrow boxwood peg in the ground. Verral took no further notice
of Flory. He raised his spear and poised himself as though taking aim at the peg, while
the Indians backed their horses out of the way and stood watching critically. With a just
perceptible movement Verrall dug his knees into the pony’s sides. She bounded forward
like a bullet from a catapult. As easily as a centaur the lank, straight youth leaned over in
the saddle, lowered his spear and plunged it clean through the peg. One of the Indians
muttered gruffly ‘Shabash! ’ Verrall raised his spear behind him in the orthodox fashion,
and then, pulling his horse to a canter, wheeled round and handed the transfixed peg to
the sepoy.
Verrall rode twice more at the peg, and hit it each time. It was done with matchless grace
and with extraordinary solemnity. The whole group of men, Englishman and Indians,
were concentrated upon the business of hitting the peg as though it had been a religious
ritual. Flory still stood watching, disregarded — VerralFs face was one of those that are
specially constructed for ignoring unwelcome strangers — but from the very fact that he
had been snubbed unable to tear himself away. Somehow, Verrall had filled him with a
horrible sense of inferiority. He was trying to think of some pretext for renewing the
conversation, when he looked up the hillside and saw Elizabeth, in pale blue, coming out
of her uncle’s gate. She must have seen the third transfixing of the peg. His heart stirred
painfully. A thought occurred to him, one of those rash thoughts that usually lead to
trouble. He called to Verrall, who was a few yards away from him, and pointed with his
stick.
‘Do these other two know how to do it? ’
Verrall looked over his shoulder with a surly air. He had expected Flory to go away after
being ignored.
‘What? ’
‘Can these other two do it?
