---
title: "Burmese Days"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 4 of 25
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-burmese-days-fp20180520/4/
cite: "George Orwell, Burmese Days, section 4. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-burmese-days-fp20180520/4/"
---

# Burmese Days

*George Orwell*

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> _Title:_ Burmese Days
_Date of first publication:_ 1934
_Author:_ Eric Blair (as George Orwell) (1903-1950)
_Date first posted:_ May 21, 2018
_Date last updated:_ May 21, 2018
Faded Page eBook #20180520

> This ebook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Cindy Beyer & the online
Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

> [Cover Illustration]

> GEORGE  ORWELL

> Burmese  Days

> This desert inaccessible
               Under the shade of melancholy boughs.

> _As You Like It_

> First published in the USA by Harper & Brothers, New York 1934
           Published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz 1935

> Copyright 1934 by Eric Blair

> [Illustration: Map of Kyauktada]

> TRANSCRIBER NOTES

> Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

> Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.

> [The end of _Burmese Days_ by Eric Blair (as George Orwell)]

## 4. IV

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-burmese-days-fp20180520/4/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-burmese-days-fp20180520/4/#p-N

[¶0] Flory lay asleep, naked except for black Shan trousers, upon his
sweat-damp bed. He had been idling all day. He spent approximately three
weeks of every month in camp, coming into Kyauktada for a few days at a
time, chiefly in order to idle, for he had very little clerical work to
do.

[¶1] The bedroom was a large square room with white plaster walls, open
doorways and no ceiling, but only rafters in which sparrows nested.
There was no furniture except the big four-poster bed, with its furled
mosquito net like a canopy, and a wicker table and chair and a small
mirror; also some rough bookshelves containing several hundred books,
all mildewed by many rainy seasons and riddled by silver fish. A
_tuktoo_ clung to the wall, flat and motionless like a heraldic dragon.
Beyond the veranda eaves the light rained down like glistening white
oil. Some doves in a bamboo thicket kept up a dull droning noise,
curiously appropriate to the heat—a sleepy sound, but with the
sleepiness of chloroform rather than a lullaby.

[¶2] Down at Mr Macgregor’s bungalow, two hundred yards away, a _durwan_,
like a living clock, hammered four strokes on a section of iron rail. Ko
S’la, Flory’s servant, awakened by the sound, went into the cookhouse,
blew up the embers of the wood fire and boiled the kettle for tea. Then
he put on his pink _gaungbaung_ and muslin _ingyi_ and brought the
tea-tray to his master’s bedside.

[¶3] Ko S’la (his real name was Maung San Hla; Ko S’la was an abbreviation)
was a short, square-shouldered, rustic-looking Burman with a very dark
skin and a harassed expression. He wore a black moustache which curved
downwards round his mouth, but like most Burmans he was quite beardless.
He had been Flory’s servant since his first day in Burma. The two men
were within a month of one another’s age. They had been boys together,
had tramped side by side after snipe and duck, sat together in _machans_
waiting for tigers that never came, shared the discomforts of a thousand
camps and marches; and Ko S’la had pimped for Flory and borrowed money
for him from the Chinese moneylenders, carried him to bed when he was
drunk, tended him through bouts of fever. In Ko S’la’s eyes Flory,
because a bachelor, was a boy still; whereas Ko S’la had married,
begotten five children, married again and become one of the obscure
martyrs of bigamy. Like all bachelors’ servants Ko S’la was lazy and
dirty, and yet he was devoted to Flory. He would never let anyone else
serve Flory at table, or carry his gun or hold his pony’s head while he
mounted. On the march, if they came to a stream, he would carry Flory
across on his back. He was inclined to pity Flory, partly because he
thought him childish and easily deceived, and partly because of the
birthmark, which he considered a dreadful thing.

[¶4] Ko S’la put the tea-tray down on the table very quietly, and then went
round to the end of the bed and tickled Flory’s toes. He knew by
experience that this was the only way of waking Flory without putting
him in a bad temper. Flory rolled over, swore, and pressed his forehead
into the pillow.

[¶5] ‘Four o’clock has struck, most holy god,’ Ko S’la said. ‘I have brought
two teacups, because _the woman_ said that she was coming.’

[¶6] _The woman_ was Ma Hla May, Flory’s mistress. Ko S’la always called her
_the woman_, to show his disapproval—not that he disapproved of Flory
for keeping a mistress, but he was jealous of Ma Hla May’s influence in
the house.

[¶7] ‘Will the holy one play _tinnis_ this evening?’ Ko S’la asked.

[¶8] ‘No, it’s too hot,’ said Flory in English. ‘I don’t want anything to
eat. Take this muck away and bring some whisky.’

[¶9] Ko S’la understood English very well, though he could not speak it. He
brought a bottle of whisky, and also Flory’s tennis racquet, which he
laid in a meaning manner against the wall opposite the bed. Tennis,
according to his notions, was a mysterious ritual incumbent on all
Englishmen, and he did not like to see his master idling in the
evenings.

[¶10] Flory pushed away in disgust the toast and butter that Ko S’la had
brought, but he mixed some whisky in a cup of tea and felt better after
drinking it. He had slept since noon, and his head and all his bones
ached, and there was a taste like burnt paper in his mouth. It was years
since he had enjoyed a meal. All European food in Burma is more or less
disgusting—the bread is spongy stuff leavened with palm-toddy and
tasting like a penny bun gone wrong, the butter comes out of a tin, and
so does the milk, unless it is the grey watery catlap of the
_dudh_-wallah. As Ko S’la left the room there was a scraping of sandals
outside, and a Burmese girl’s high-pitched voice said, ‘Is my master
awake?’

[¶11] ‘Come in,’ said Flory rather bad-temperedly.

[¶12] Ma Hla May came in kicking off red-lacquered sandals in the doorway. She
was allowed to come to tea, as a special privilege, but not to other
meals, nor to wear her sandals in her master’s presence.

[¶13] Ma Hla May was a woman of twenty-two or -three, and perhaps five feet
tall. She was dressed in a _longyi_ of pale blue embroidered Chinese
satin, and a starched white muslin _ingyi_ on which several gold lockets
hung. Her hair was coiled in a tight black cylinder like ebony, and
decorated with jasmine flowers. Her tiny, straight, slender body was as
contourless as a bas-relief carved upon a tree. She was like a doll,
with her oval, still face the colour of new copper, and her narrow eyes;
an outlandish doll and yet a grotesquely beautiful one. A scent of
sandalwood and coco-nut oil came into the room with her.

[¶14] Ma Hla May came across to the bed, sat down on the edge and put her arms
rather abruptly round Flory. She smelled at his cheek with her flat
nose, in the Burmese fashion.

[¶15] ‘Why did my master not send for me this afternoon?’ she said.

[¶16] ‘I was sleeping. It is too hot for that kind of thing.’

[¶17] ‘So you would rather sleep alone than with Ma Hla May? How ugly you must
think me, then! Am I ugly, master?’

[¶18] ‘Go away,’ he said, pushing her back. ‘I don’t want you at this time of
day.’

[¶19] ‘At least touch me with your lips, then.’ (There is no Burmese word for
to kiss.) ‘All white men do that to their women.’

[¶20] ‘There you are, then. Now leave me alone. Fetch some cigarettes and give
me one.’

[¶21] ‘Why is it that nowadays you never want to make love to me? Ah, two
years ago it was so different! You loved me in those days. You gave me
presents of gold bangles and silk _longyis_ from Mandalay. And now
look’—Ma Hla May held out one tiny muslin-clad arm—‘not a single
bangle. Last month I had thirty, and now all of them are pawned. How can
I go to the bazaar without my bangles, and wearing the same _longyi_
over and over again? I am ashamed before the other women.’

[¶22] ‘Is it my fault if you pawn your bangles?’

[¶23] ‘Two years ago you would have redeemed them for me. Ah, you do not love
Ma Hla May any longer!’

[¶24] She put her arms round him again and kissed him, a European habit which
he had taught her. A mingled scent of sandalwood, garlic, coco-nut oil
and the jasmine in her hair floated from her. It was a scent that always
made his teeth tingle. Rather abstractedly he pressed her head back upon
the pillow and looked down at her queer, youthful face, with its high
cheek-bones, stretched eyelids and short, shapely lips. She had rather
nice teeth, like the teeth of a kitten. He had bought her from her
parents two years ago, for three hundred rupees. He began to stroke her
brown throat, rising like a smooth, slender stalk from the collarless
_ingyi_.

[¶25] ‘You only like me because I am a white man and have money,’ he said.

[¶26] ‘Master, I love you, I love you more than anything in the world. Why do
you say that? Have I not always been faithful to you?’

[¶27] ‘You have a Burmese lover.’

[¶28] ‘Ugh!’ Ma Hla May affected to shudder at the thought. ‘To think of their
horrible brown hands touching me! I should die if a Burman touched me!’

[¶29] ‘Liar.’

[¶30] He put his hand on her breast. Privately, Ma Hla May did not like this,
for it reminded her that her breasts existed—the ideal of a Burmese
woman being to have no breasts. She lay and let him do as he wished with
her, quite passive yet pleased and faintly smiling, like a cat which
allows one to stroke it. Flory’s embraces meant nothing to her (Ba Pe,
Ko S’la’s younger brother, was secretly her lover), yet she was bitterly
hurt when he neglected them. Sometimes she had even put love philtres in
his food. It was the idle concubine’s life that she loved, and the
visits to her village dressed in all her finery, when she could boast of
her position as a _bo-kadaw_—a white man’s wife; for she had persuaded
everyone, herself included, that she was Flory’s legal wife.

[¶31] When Flory had done with her he turned away, jaded and ashamed, and lay
silent with his left hand covering his birthmark. He always remembered
the birthmark when he had done something to be ashamed of. He buried his
face disgustedly in the pillow, which was damp and smelt of coco-nut
oil. It was horribly hot, and the doves outside were still droning. Ma
Hla May, naked, reclined beside Flory, fanning him gently with a wicker
fan she had taken from the table.

[¶32] Presently she got up and dressed herself, and lighted a cigarette. Then,
coming back to the bed, she sat down and began stroking Flory’s bare
shoulder. The whiteness of his skin had a fascination for her, because
of its strangeness and the sense of power it gave her. But Flory
twitched his shoulder to shake her hand away. At these times she was
nauseating and dreadful to him. His sole wish was to get her out of his
sight.

[¶33] ‘Get out,’ he said.

[¶34] Ma Hla May took her cigarette from her mouth and tried to offer it to
Flory. ‘Why is master always so angry with me when he has made love to
me?’ she said.

[¶35] ‘Get out,’ he repeated.

[¶36] Ma Hla May continued to stroke Flory’s shoulder. She had never learned
the wisdom of leaving him alone at these times. She believed that
lechery was a form of witchcraft, giving a woman magical powers over a
man, until in the end she could weaken him to a half-idiotic slave. Each
successive embrace sapped Flory’s will and made the spell stronger—this
was her belief. She began tormenting him to begin over again. She laid
down her cigarette and put her arms round him, trying to turn him
towards her and kiss his averted face, reproaching him for his coldness.

[¶37] ‘Go away, go away!’ he said angrily. ‘Look in the pocket of my shorts.
There is money there. Take five rupees and go.’

[¶38] Ma Hla May found the five-rupee note and stuffed it into the bosom of
her _ingyi_, but she still would not go. She hovered about the bed,
worrying Flory until at last he grew angry and jumped up.

[¶39] ‘Get out of this room! I told you to go. I don’t want you in here after
I’ve done with you.’

[¶40] ‘That is a nice way to speak to me! You treat me as though I were a
prostitute.’

[¶41] ‘So you are. Out you go,’ he said, pushing her out of the room by her
shoulders. He kicked her sandals after her. Their encounters often ended
in this way.

[¶42] Flory stood in the middle of the room, yawning. Should he go down to the
Club for tennis after all? No, it meant shaving, and he could not face
the effort of shaving until he had a few drinks inside him. He felt his
scrubby chin and lounged across to the mirror to examine it, but then
turned away. He did not want to see the yellow, sunken face that would
look back at him. For several minutes he stood, slack-limbed, watching
the _tuktoo_ stalk a moth above the bookshelves. The cigarette that Ma
Hla May had dropped burned down with an acrid smell, browning the paper.
Flory took a book from the shelves, opened it and then threw it away in
distaste. He had not even the energy to read. Oh God, God, what to do
with the rest of this bloody evening?

[¶43] Flo waddled into the room, wagging her tail and asking to be taken for a
walk. Flory went sulkily into the little stone-floored bathroom that
gave on the bedroom, splashed himself with lukewarm water and put on his
shirt and shorts. He must take some kind of exercise before the sun went
down. In India it is in some way evil to spend a day without being once
in a muck-sweat. It gives one a deeper sense of sin than a thousand
lecheries. In the dark evening, after a quite idle day, one’s ennui
reaches a pitch that is frantic, suicidal. Work, prayer, books,
drinking, talking—they are all powerless against it; it can only be
sweated out through the pores of the skin.

[¶44] Flory went out and followed the road uphill into the jungle. It was
scrub jungle at first, with dense stunted bushes, and the only trees
were half-wild mangoes, bearing little turpentiny fruits the size of
plums. Then the road struck among taller trees. The jungle was dried-up
and lifeless at this time of year. The trees lined the road in close,
dusty ranks, with leaves a dull olive-green. No birds were visible
except some ragged brown creatures like disreputable thrushes, which
hopped clumsily under the bushes; in the distance some other bird
uttered a cry of ‘_Ah_ ha ha! _Ah_ ha ha!’—a lonely, hollow sound like
the echo of a laugh. There was a poisonous, ivy-like smell of crushed
leaves. It was still hot, though the sun was losing his glare and the
slanting light was yellow.

[¶45] After two miles the road ended at the ford of a shallow stream. The
jungle grew greener here, because of the water, and the trees were
taller. At the edge of the stream there was a huge dead pyinkado tree
festooned with spidery orchids, and there were some wild lime bushes
with white, waxen flowers. They had a sharp scent like bergamot. Flory
had walked fast and the sweat had drenched his shirt and dribbled,
stinging, into his eyes. He had sweated himself into a better mood.
Also, the sight of this stream always heartened him; its water was quite
clear, rarest of sights in a miry country. He crossed the stream by the
stepping stones, Flo splashing after him, and turned into a narrow track
he knew, which led through the bushes. It was a track that cattle had
made, coming to the stream to drink, and few human beings ever followed
it. It led to a pool fifty yards up-stream. Here a peepul tree grew, a
great buttressed thing six feet thick, woven of innumerable strands of
wood, like a wooden cable twisted by a giant. The roots of the tree made
a natural cavern, under which the clear greenish water bubbled. Above
and all round dense foliage shut out the light, turning the place into a
green grotto walled with leaves.

[¶46] Flory threw off his clothes and stepped into the water. It was a shade
cooler than the air, and it came up to his neck when he sat down. Shoals
of silvery _mahseer_, no bigger than sardines, came nosing and nibbling
at his body. Flo had also flopped into the water, and she swam round
silently, otterlike, with her webbed feet. She knew the pool well, for
they often came here when Flory was at Kyauktada.

[¶47] There was a stirring high up in the peepul tree, and a bubbling noise
like pots boiling. A flock of green pigeons were up there, eating the
berries. Flory gazed up into the great green dome of the tree, trying to
distinguish the birds; they were invisible, they matched the leaves so
perfectly, and yet the whole tree was alive with them, shimmering, as
though the ghosts of birds were shaking it. Flo rested herself against
the roots and growled up at the invisible creatures. Then a single green
pigeon fluttered down and perched on a lower branch. It did not know
that it was being watched. It was a tender thing, smaller than a tame
dove, with jade-green back as smooth as velvet, and neck and breast of
iridescent colours. Its legs were like the pink wax that dentists use.

[¶48] The pigeon rocked itself backwards and forwards on the bough, swelling
out its breast-feathers and laying its coralline beak upon them. A pang
went through Flory. Alone, alone, the bitterness of being alone! So
often like this, in lonely places in the forest, he would come upon
something—bird, flower, tree—beautiful beyond all words, if there had
been a soul with whom to share it. Beauty is meaningless until it is
shared. If he had one person, just one, to halve his loneliness!
Suddenly the pigeon saw the man and dog below, sprang into the air and
dashed away swift as a bullet, with a rattle of wings. One does not
often see green pigeons so closely when they are alive. They are
high-flying birds, living in the treetops, and they do not come to the
ground, or only to drink. When one shoots them, if they are not killed
outright, they cling to the branch until they die, and drop long after
one has given up waiting and gone away.

[¶49] Flory got out of the water, put on his clothes and re-crossed the
stream. He did not go home by the road, but followed a foot-track
southward into the jungle, intending to make a detour and pass through a
village that lay in the fringe of the jungle not far from his house. Flo
frisked in and out of the undergrowth, yelping sometimes when her long
ears caught in the thorns. She had once turned up a hare near here.
Flory walked slowly. The smoke of his pipe floated straight upwards in
still plumes. He was happy and at peace after the walk and the clear
water. It was cooler now, except for patches of heat lingering under the
thicker trees, and the light was gentle. Bullock-cart wheels were
screaming peaceably in the distance.

[¶50] Soon they had lost their way in the jungle, and were wandering in a maze
of dead trees and tangled bushes. They came to an impasse where the path
was blocked by large ugly plants like magnified aspidistras, whose
leaves terminated in long lashes armed with thorns. A firefly glowed
greenish at the bottom of a bush; it was getting twilight in the thicker
places. Presently the bullock-cart wheels screamed nearer, taking a
parallel course.

[¶51] ‘Hey, _saya gyi, saya gyi_!’ Flory shouted, taking Flo by the collar to
prevent her running away.

[¶52] ‘_Ba le-de_?’ the Burman shouted back. There was the sound of plunging
hooves and of yells to the bullocks.

[¶53] ‘Come here, if you please, O venerable and learned sir! We have lost our
way. Stop a moment, O great builder of pagodas!’

[¶54] The Burman left his cart and pushed through the jungle, slicing the
creepers with his _dah_. He was a squat middle-aged man with one eye. He
led the way back to the track, and Flory climbed onto the flat,
uncomfortable bullock-cart. The Burman took up the string reins, yelled
to the bullocks, prodded the roots of their tails with his short stick,
and the cart jolted on with a shriek of wheels. The Burmese bullock-cart
drivers seldom grease their axles, probably because they believe that
the screaming keeps away evil spirits, though when questioned they will
say that it is because they are too poor to buy grease.

[¶55] They passed a whitewashed wooden pagoda, no taller than a man and half
hidden by the tendrils of creeping plants. Then the track wound into the
village, which consisted of twenty ruinous wooden huts roofed with
thatch, and a well beneath some barren date palms. The egrets that
roosted in the palms were streaming homewards over the treetops like
white flights of arrows. A fat yellow woman with her _longyi_ hitched
under her armpits was chasing a dog round a hut, smacking at it with a
bamboo and laughing, and the dog was also laughing in its fashion. The
village was called Nyaunglebin—‘the four peepul trees’; there were no
peepul trees there now, probably they had been cut down and forgotten a
century ago. The villagers cultivated a narrow strip of fields that lay
between the town and the jungle, and they also made bullock-carts which
they sold in Kyauktada. Bullock-cart wheels were littered everywhere
under the houses; massive things five feet across, with spokes roughly
but strongly carved.

[¶56] Flory got off the cart and gave the driver a present of four annas. Some
brindled curs hurried from beneath the houses to sniff at Flo, and a
flock of pot-bellied, naked children, with their hair tied in top-knots,
also appeared, curious about the white man but keeping their distance.
The village headman, a weazened, leaf-brown old man, came out of his
house, and there were shikoings. Flory sat down on the steps of the
headman’s house and re-lighted his pipe. He was thirsty.

[¶57] ‘Is the water in your well good to drink, _thugyi-min_?’

[¶58] The headman reflected, scratching the calf of his left leg with his
right big toenail. ‘Those who drink it, drink it, _thakin_. And those
who do not drink it, do not drink it.’

[¶59] ‘Ah. That is wisdom.’

[¶60] The fat woman who had chased the pariah brought a blackened earthenware
teapot and a handleless bowl, and gave Flory some pale-green tea,
tasting of wood-smoke.

[¶61] ‘I must be going, _thugyi-min_. Thank you for the tea.’

[¶62] ‘God go with you, _thakin_.’

[¶63] Flory went home by a path that led out on to the _maidan_. It was dark
now. Ko S’la had put on a clean _ingyi_ and was waiting in the bedroom.
He had heated two kerosene tins of bathwater, lighted the petrol lamps
and laid out a clean suit and shirt for Flory. The clean clothes were
intended as a hint that Flory should shave, dress himself and go down to
the Club after dinner. Occasionally he spent the evening in Shan
trousers, loafing in a chair with a book, and Ko S’la disapproved of
this habit. He hated to see his master behaving differently from other
white men. The fact that Flory often came back from the Club drunk,
whereas he remained sober when he stayed at home, did not alter Ko
S’la’s opinion, because getting drunk was normal and pardonable in a
white man.

[¶64] ‘The woman has gone down to the bazaar,’ he announced, pleased, as he
always was when Ma Hla May left the house. ‘Ba Pe has gone with a
lantern, to look after her when she comes back.’

[¶65] ‘Good,’ Flory said.

[¶66] She had gone to spend her five rupees—gambling no doubt.

[¶67] ‘The holy one’s bathwater is ready.’

[¶68] ‘Wait, we must attend to the dog first. Bring the comb,’ Flory said.

[¶69] The two men squatted on the floor together and combed Flo’s silky coat
and felt between her toes, picking out the ticks. It had to be done
every evening. She picked up vast numbers of ticks during the day,
horrible grey things that were the size of pin-heads when they got onto
her, and gorged themselves till they were as large as peas. As each tick
was detached Ko S’la put it on the floor and carefully crushed it with
his big toe.

[¶70] Then Flory shaved, bathed, dressed, and sat down to dinner. Ko S’la
stood behind his chair, handing him the dishes and fanning him with the
wicker fan. He had arranged a bowl of scarlet hibiscus flowers in the
middle of the little table. The meal was pretentious and filthy. The
clever ‘Mug’ cooks, descendants of servants trained by Frenchmen in
India centuries ago, can do anything with food except make it eatable.
After dinner Flory walked down to the Club, to play bridge and get three
parts drunk, as he did most evenings when he was in Kyauktada.