No More Learning

And there would be such a row when the others heard
of it — oh, such a devil of a row! But the astonishing thing was that it only made him
laugh. The prospect that would have appalled him a month back now almost exhilarated
him.

Why? And why had he given his promise at all? It was a small thing, a small risk to
take — nothing heroic about it — and yet it was unlike him. Why, after all these years — the
circumspect, pukka sahib-like years — break all the rules so suddenly?

He knew why. It was because Elizabeth, by coming into his life, had so changed it and
renewed it that all the dirty, miserable years might never have passed. Her presence had
changed the whole orbit of his mind. She had brought back to him the air of England —
dear England, where thought is free and one is not condemned forever to dance the danse
du pukka sahib for the edification of the lower races. Where is the life that late I led? he
thought. Just by existing she had made it possible for him, she had even made it natural to
him, to act decently.

Where is the life that late I led? he thought again as he came through the garden gate. He
was happy, happy. For he had perceived that the pious ones are right when they say that



there is salvation and life can begin anew. He came up the path, and it seemed to him that
his house, his flowers, his servants, all the life that so short a time ago had been drenched
in ennui and homesickness, were somehow made new, significant, beautiful
inexhaustibly. What fun it could all be, if only you had someone to share it with you!
How you could love this country, if only you were not alone! Nero was out on the path,
braving the sun for some grains of paddy that the mali had dropped, taking food to his
goats. Flo made a dash at him, panting, and Nero sprang into the air with a flurry and
lighted on Flory’s shoulder. Flory walked into the house with the little red cock in his
arms, stroking his silky ruff and the smooth, diamond-shaped feathers of his back.

He had not set foot on the veranda before he knew that Ma Hla May was in the house. It
did not need Ko S’ la to come hurrying from within with a face of evil tidings. Flory had
smelled her scent of sandalwood, garlic, coco-nut oil and the jasmine in her hair. He
dropped Nero over the veranda rail.

‘THE WOMAN has come back,’ said Ko S’la.

Flory had turned very pale. When he turned pale the birthmark made him hideously ugly.
A pang like a blade of ice had gone through his entrails. Ma Hla May had appeared in the
doorway of the bedroom. She stood with her face downcast, looking at him from beneath
lowered brows.

‘Thakin,’ she said in a low voice, half sullen, half urgent.

‘Go away! ’ said Flory angrily to Ko S’la, venting his fear and anger upon him.

‘Thakin,’ she said, ‘come into the bedroom here. I have a thing to say to you. ’

He followed her into the bedroom. In a week — it was only a week — her appearance had
degenerated extraordinarily. Her hair looked greasy. All her lockets were gone, and she
was wearing a Manchester longyi of flowered cotton, costing two rupees eight annas. She
had coated her face so thick with powder that it was like a clown’s mask, and at the roots
of her hair, where the powder ended, there was a ribbon of natural-coloured brown skin.
She looked a drab. Flory would not face her, but stood looking sullenly through the open
doorway to the veranda.



‘What do you mean by coming back like this? Why did you not go home to your
village? ’

‘I am staying in Kyauktada, at my cousin’s house. How can I go back to my village after
what has happened? ’

‘And what do you mean by sending men to demand money from me? How can you want
more money already, when I gave you a hundred rupees only a week ago? ’

‘How can I go back? ’ she repeated, ignoring what he had said. Her voice rose so sharply
that he turned round. She was standing very upright, sullen, with her black brows drawn
together and her lips pouted.

‘Why cannot you go back? ’

‘After that! After what you have done to me! ’

Suddenly she burst into a furious tirade. Her voice had risen to the hysterical graceless
scream of the bazaar women when they quarrel.

‘How can I go back, to be jeered at and pointed at by those low, stupid peasants whom I
despise? I who have been a bo-kadaw, a white man’s wife, to go home to my father’s
house, and shake the paddy basket with old hags and women who are too ugly to find
husbands! Ah, what shame, what shame! Two years I was your wife, you loved me and
cared for me, and then without warning, without reason, you drove me from your door
like a dog. And I must go back to my village, with no money, with all my jewels and silk
longyis gone, and the people will point and say, “There is Ma Hla May who thought
herself cleverer than the rest of us. And behold! her white man has treated her as they
always do. ” I am ruined, ruined! What man will marry me after I have lived two years in
your house? You have taken my youth from me. Ah, what shame, what shame! ’

He could not look at her; he stood helpless, pale, hang-dog. Every word she said was
justified, and how tell her that he could do no other than he had done? How tell her that it
would have been an outrage, a sin, to continue as her lover? He almost cringed from her,
and the birthmark stood on his yellow face like a splash of ink. He said flatly, turning
instinctively to money — for money had never failed with Ma Hla May:



‘I will give you money. You shall have the fifty rupees you asked me for — more later. I
have no more till next month. ’

This was true. The hundred rupees he had given her, and what he had spent on clothes,
had taken most of his ready money. To his dismay she burst into a loud wail. Her white
mask puckered up and the tears sprang quickly out and coursed down her cheeks. Before
he could stop her she had fallen on her knees in front of him, and she was bowing,
touching the floor with her forehead in the ‘full’ shiko of utter abasement.

‘Get up, get up! ’ he exclaimed. The shameful, abject shiko, neck bent, body doubled up
as though inviting a blow, always horrified him. ‘I can’t bear that. Get up this instant. ’

She wailed again, and made an attempt to clasp his ankles. He stepped backwards
hurriedly.

‘Get up, now, and stop that dreadful noise. I don’t know what you are crying about. ’

She did not get up, but only rose to her knees and wailed at him anew. ‘Why do you offer
me money? Do you think it is only for money that I have come back? Do you think that
when you have driven me from your door like a dog it is only because of money that I
care? ’

‘Get up,’ he repeated. He had moved several paces away, lest she should seize him.
‘What do you want if it is not money? ’

‘Why do you hate me? ’ she wailed. ‘What harm have I done you? I stole your cigarette-
case, but you were not angry at that. You are going to marry this white woman, I know it,
everyone knows it. But what does it matter, why must you turn me away? Why do you
hate me? ’

‘I don’t hate you. I can’t explain. Get up, please get up. ’

She was weeping quite shamelessly now. After all, she was hardly more than a child. She
looked at him through her tears, anxiously, studying him for a sign of mercy. Then, a
dreadful thing, she stretched herself at full length, flat on her face.



‘Get up, get up! ’ he cried out in English. ‘I can’t bear that — it’s too abominable! ’


She did not get up, but crept, wormlike, right across the floor to his feet. Her body made a
broad ribbon on the dusty floor. She lay prostrate in front of him, face hidden, arms
extended, as though before a god’s altar.

‘Master, master,’ she whimpered, ‘will you not forgive me? This once, only this once!
Take Ma Hla May back. I will be your slave, lower than your slave. Anything sooner
than turn me away. ’

She had wound her arms round his ankles, actually was kissing his toes. He stood looking
down at her with his hands in his pockets, helpless. Flo came ambling into the room,
walked to where Ma Hla May lay and sniffed at her longyi. She wagged her tail vaguely,
recognizing the smell. Flory could not endure it. He bent down and took Ma Hla May by
the shoulders, lifting her to her knees.

‘Stand up, now,’ he said. ‘It hurts me to see you like this. I will do what I can for you.
What is the use of crying? ’

Instantly she cried out in renewed hope: ‘Then you will take me back? Oh, master, take
Ma Hla May back! No one need ever know. I will stay here when that white woman
comes, she will think I am one of the servants’ wives. Will you not take me back? ’

‘I cannot. It’s impossible,’ he said, turning away again.

She heard finality in his tone, and uttered a harsh, ugly cry. She bent forward again in a
shiko, beating her forehead against the floor. It was dreadful. And what was more
dreadful than all, what hurt in his breast, was the utter gracelessness, the lowness of the
emotion beneath those entreaties. For in all this there was not a spark of love for him. If
she wept and grovelled it was only for the position she had once had as his mistress, the
idle life, the rich clothes and dominion over servants. There was something pitiful beyond
words in that. Had she loved him he could have driven her from his door with far less
compunction. No sorrows are so bitter as those that are without a trace of nobility. He
bent down and picked her up in his arms.



‘Listen, Ma Hla May,’ he said; ‘I do not hate you, you have done me no evil. It is I who
have wronged you. But there is no help for it now. You must go home, and later I will
send you money. If you like you shall start a shop in the bazaar. You are young. This will
not matter to you when you have money and can find yourself a husband. ’

‘I am ruined! ’ she wailed again. ‘I shall kill myself. I shall jump off the jetty into the
river. How can I live after this disgrace? ’

He was holding her in his arms, almost caressing her. She was clinging close to him, her
face hidden against his shirt, her body shaking with sobs. The scent of sandalwood
floated into his nostrils. Perhaps even now she thought that with her arms around him and
her body against his she could renew her power over him. He disentangled himself
gently, and then, seeing that she did not fall on her knees again, stood apart from her.

‘That is enough. You must go now. And look, I will give you the fifty rupees I promised
you. ’

He dragged his tin unifonn case from under the bed and took out five ten-rupee notes.
She stowed them silently in the bosom of her ingyi. Her tears had ceased flowing quite
suddenly. Without speaking she went into the bathroom for a moment, and came out with
her face washed to its natural brown, and her hair and dress rearranged. She looked
sullen, but not hysterical any longer.

‘For the last time, thakin: you will not take me back? That is your last word? ’

‘Yes. I cannot help it. ’

‘Then I am going, thakin. ’

‘Very well. God go with you. ’

Leaning against the wooden pillar of the veranda, he watched her walk down the path in
the strong sunlight. She walked very upright, with bitter offence in the carriage of her
back and head. It was true what she had said, he had robbed her of her youth. His knees
were trembling uncontrollably. Ko S’la came behind him, silent-footed. He gave a little
deprecating cough to attract Flory’s attention.



‘What’s the matter now? ’


‘The holy one’s breakfast is getting cold. ’

‘I don’t want any breakfast. Get me something to drink — gin. ’
Where is the life that late I led?


CHAPTER 14

Like long curved needles threading through embroidery, the two canoes that carried Flory
and Elizabeth threaded their way up the creek that led inland from the eastern bank of the
Irrawaddy. It was the day of the shooting trip — a short afternoon trip, for they could not
stay a night in the jungle together. They were to shoot for a couple of hours in the
comparative cool of the evening, and be back at Kyauktada in time for dinner.

The canoes, each hollowed out of a single tree-trunk, glided swiftly, hardly rippling the
dark brown water. Water hyacinth with profuse spongy foliage and blue flowers had
choked the stream so that the channel was only a winding ribbon four feet wide.
The light
filtered, greenish, through interlacing boughs. Sometimes one could hear parrots scream
overhead, but no wild creatures showed themselves, except once a snake that swam
hurriedly away and disappeared among the water hyacinth.

‘How long before we get to the village? ’ Elizabeth called back to Flory. He was in a
larger canoe behind, together with Flo and Ko S’la, paddled by a wrinkly old woman
dressed in rags.

‘How far, grandmama? ’ Flory asked the canoe-woman.


The old woman took her cigar out of her mouth and rested her paddle on her knees to
think. ‘The distance a man can shout,’ she said after reflection.



‘About half a mile,’ Flory translated.


They had come two miles. Elizabeth’s back was aching. The canoes were liable to upset
at a careless moment, and you had to sit bolt upright on the narrow backless seat, keeping
your feet as well as possible out of the bilge, with dead prawns in it, that sagged to and
fro at the bottom. The Burman who paddled Elizabeth was sixty years old, half naked,
leaf-brown, with a body as perfect as that of a young man. His face was battered, gentle
and humorous. His black cloud of hair, finer than that of most Burmans, was knotted
loosely over one ear, with a wisp or two tumbling across his cheek. Elizabeth was nursing
her uncle’s gun across her knees. Flory had offered to take it, but she had refused; in
reality, the feel of it delighted her so much that she could not bring herself to give it up.
She had never had a gun in her hand until today. She was wearing a rough skirt with
brogue shoes and a silk shirt like a man’s, and she knew that with her Terai hat they
looked well on her. She was very happy, in spite of her aching back and the hot sweat
that tickled her face, and the large, speckled mosquitoes that hummed round her ankles.

The stream narrowed and the beds of water hyacinth gave place to steep banks of
glistening mud, like chocolate. Rickety thatched huts leaned far out over the stream, their
piles driven into its bed. A naked boy was standing between two of the huts, flying a
green beetle on a piece of thread like a kite. He yelled at the sight of the Europeans,
whereat more children appeared from nowhere. The old Burman guided the canoe to a
jetty made of a single palm- trunk laid in the mud — it was covered with barnacles and so
gave foothold — and sprang out and helped Elizabeth ashore. The others followed with the
bags and cartridges, and Flo, as she always did on these occasions, fell into the mud and
sank as deep as the shoulder. A skinny old gentleman wearing a magenta paso, with a
mole on his cheek from which four yard-long grey hairs sprouted, came forward shikoing
and cuffing the heads of the children who had gathered round the jetty.

‘The village headman,’ Flory said.

The old man led the way to his house, walking ahead with an extraordinary crouching
gait, like a letter L upside down — the result of rheumatism combined with the constant
shikoing needed in a minor Government official. A mob of children marched rapidly after
the Europeans, and more and more dogs, all yapping and causing Flo to shrink against



Flory’s heels. In the doorway of every hut clusters of moonlike, rustic faces gaped at the
‘Ingaleikma’. The village was darkish under the shade of broad leaves. In the rains the
creek would flood, turning the lower parts of the village into a squalid wooden Venice
where the villagers stepped from their front doors into their canoes.

The headman’s house was a little bigger than the others, and it had a corrugated iron roof,
which, in spite of the intolerable din it made during the rains, was the pride of the
headman’s life. He had foregone the building of a pagoda, and appreciably lessened his
chances of Nirvana, to pay for it. He hastened up the steps and gently kicked in the ribs a
youth who was lying asleep on the veranda. Then he turned and shikoed again to the
Europeans, asking them to come inside.

‘Shall we go in? ’ Flory said. ‘I expect we shall have to wait half an hour. ’

‘Couldn’t you tell him to bring some chairs out on the veranda? ’ Elizabeth said. After her
experience in Li Yeik’s house she had privately decided that she would never go inside a
native house again, if she could help it.

There was a fuss inside the house, and the headman, the youth and some women dragged
forth two chairs decorated in an extraordinary manner with red hibiscus flowers, and also
some begonias growing in kerosene tins. It was evident that a sort of double throne had
been prepared within for the Europeans. When Elizabeth had sat down the headman
reappeared with a teapot, a bunch of very long, bright green bananas, and six coal-black
cheroots. But when he had poured her out a cup of tea Elizabeth shook her head, for the
tea looked, if possible, worse even than Li Yeik’s.

The headman looked abashed and rubbed his nose. He turned to Flory and asked him
whether the young thakin-ma would like some milk in her tea. He had heard that
Europeans drank milk in their tea. The villages should, if it were desired, catch a cow and
milk it. However, Elizabeth still refused the tea; but she was thirsty, and she asked Flory
to send for one of the bottles of soda-water that Ko S’la had brought in his bag. Seeing
this, the headman retired, feeling guiltily that his preparations had been insufficient, and
left the veranda to the Europeans.



Elizabeth was still nursing her gun on her knees, while Flory leaned against the veranda
rail pretending to smoke one of the headman’s cheroots. Elizabeth was pining for the
shooting to begin. She plied Flory with innumerable questions.

‘How soon can we start out? Do you think we’ve got enough cartridges? How many
beaters shah we take? Oh, I do so hope we have some luck! You do think we’ll get
something, don’t you? ’

‘Nothing wonderful, probably. We’re bound to get a few pigeons, and perhaps jungle
fowl. They’re out of season, but it doesn’t matter shooting the cocks. They say there’s a
leopard round here, that killed a bullock almost in the village last week. ’

‘Oh, a leopard! How lovely if we could shoot it! ’

‘It’s very unlikely, I’m afraid. The only rule with this shooting in Burma is to hope for
nothing. It’s invariably disappointing. The jungles teem with game, but as often as not
you don’t even get a chance to fire your gun. ’

‘Why is that? ’

‘The jungle is so thick. An animal may be five yards away and quite invisible, and half
the time they manage to dodge back past the beaters. Even when you see them it’s only
for a flash of a second. And again, there’s water everywhere, so that no animal is tied
down to one particular spot. A tiger, for instance, will roam hundreds of miles if it suits
him. And with ah the game there is, they need never come back to a kill if there’s
anything suspicious about it. Night after night, when I was a boy, I’ve sat up over
horrible stinking dead cows, waiting for tigers that never came. ’

Elizabeth wriggled her shoulder-blades against the chair. It was a movement that she
made sometimes when she was deeply pleased. She loved Flory, really loved him, when
he talked like this. The most trivial scrap of information about shooting thrilled her. If
only he would always talk about shooting, instead of about books and Art and that mucky
poetry! In a sudden burst of admiration she decided that Flory was really quite a
handsome man, in his way. He looked so splendidly manly, with his pagri-cloth shirt
open at the throat, and his shorts and puttees and shooting boots! And his face, lined,



sunburned, like a soldier’s face. He was standing with his birthmarked cheek away from
her. She pressed him to go on talking.

‘DO tell me some more about tiger-shooting. It’s so awfully interesting! ’

He described the shooting, years ago, of a mangy old man-eater who had killed one of his
coolies. The wait in the mosquito-ridden machan; the tiger’s eyes approaching through
the dark jungle, like great green lanterns; the panting, slobbering noise as he devoured the
coolie’s body, tied to a stake below. Flory told it all perfunctorily enough — did not the
proverbial Anglo Indian bore always talk about tiger-shooting? — but Elizabeth wriggled
her shoulders delightedly once more. He did not realize how such talk as this reassured
her and made up for all the times when he had bored her and disquieted her. Six shock-
headed youths came down the path, carrying dahs over their shoulders, and headed by a
stringy but active old man with grey hair. They halted in front of the headman’s house,
and one of them uttered a hoarse whoop, whereat the headman appeared and explained
that these were the beaters. They were ready to start now, if the young thakin-ma did not
find it too hot.

They set out. The side of the village away from the creek was protected by a hedge of
cactus six feet high and twelve thick. One went up a narrow lane of cactus, then along a
rutted, dusty bullock-cart track, with bamboos as tall as flagstaffs growing densely on
either side. The beaters marched rapidly ahead in single file, each with his broad dah laid
along his forearm. The old hunter was marching just in front of Elizabeth. His longyi was
hitched up like a loin-cloth, and his meagre thighs were tattooed with dark blue patterns,
so intricate that he might have been wearing drawers of blue lace. A bamboo the
thickness of a man’s wrist had fallen and hung across the path. The leading beater
severed it with an upward flick of his dah; the prisoned water gushed out of it with a
diamond-flash. After half a mile they reached the open fields, and everyone was
sweating, for they had walked fast and the sun was savage.

‘That’s where we’re going to shoot, over there,’ Flory said.

He pointed across the stubble, a wide dust-coloured plain, cut up into patches of an acre
or two by mud boundaries. It was horribly flat, and lifeless save for the snowy egrets. At
the far edge a jungle of great trees rose abruptly, like a dark green cliff. The beaters had



gone across to a small tree like a hawthorn twenty yards away. One of them was on his
knees, shikoing to the tree and gabbling, while the old hunter poured a bottle of some
cloudy liquid on to the ground. The others stood looking on with serious, bored faces,
like men in church.

‘What ARE those men doing? ’ Elizabeth said.

‘Only sacrificing to the local gods. Nats, they call them — a kind of dryad. They’re
praying to him to bring us good luck. ’

The hunter came back and in a cracked voice explained that they were to beat a small
patch of scrub over to the right before proceeding to the main jungle. Apparently the Nat
had counselled this. The hunter directed Flory and Elizabeth where to stand, pointing
with his dah. The six beaters, plunged into the scrub; they would make a detour and beat
back towards the paddy-fields. There were some bushes of the wild rose thirty yards from
the jungle’s edge, and Flory and Elizabeth took cover behind one of these, while Ko S’la
squatted down behind another bush a little distance away, holding Flo’s collar and
stroking her to keep her quiet. Flory always sent Ko S’la to a distance when he was
shooting, for he had an irritating trick of clicking his tongue if a shot was missed.
Presently there was a far-off echoing sound — a sound of tapping and strange hollow
cries; the beat had started. Elizabeth at once began trembling so uncontrollably that she
could not keep her gun-barrel still. A wonderful bird, a little bigger than a thrush, with
grey wings and body of blazing scarlet, broke from the trees and came towards them with
a dipping flight. The tapping and the cries came nearer. One of the bushes at the jungle’s
edge waved violently — some large animal was emerging. Elizabeth raised her gun and
tried to steady it. But it was only a naked yellow beater, dah in hand. He saw that he had
emerged and shouted to the others to join him.

Elizabeth lowered her gun. ‘What’s happened? ’

‘Nothing. The beat’s over. ’

‘So there was nothing there! ’ she cried in bitter disappointment.


‘Never mind, one never gets anything the first beat. We’ll have better luck next time. ’



They crossed the lumpy stubble, climbing over the mud boundaries that divided the
fields, and took up their position opposite the high green wall of the jungle. Elizabeth had
already learned how to load her gun. This time the beat had hardly started when Ko STa
whistled sharply.

‘Look out! ’ Flory cried. ‘Quick, here they come! ’

A flight of green pigeons were dashing towards them at incredible speed, forty yards up.
They were like a handful of catapulted stones whirling through the sky. Elizabeth was
helpless with excitement. For a moment she could not move, then she flung her barrel
into the air, somewhere in the direction of the birds, and tugged violently at the trigger.
Nothing happened — she was pulling at the trigger-guard. Just as the birds passed
overhead she found the triggers and pulled both of them simultaneously. There was a
deafening roar and she was thrown backwards a pace with her collar-bone almost broken.
She had fired thirty yards behind the birds. At the same moment she saw Flory turn and
level his gun. Two of the pigeons, suddenly checked in their flight, swirled over and
dropped to the ground like arrows. Ko STa yelled, and he and Flo raced after them.

‘Look out! ’ said Flory, ‘here’s an imperial pigeon. Let’s have him! ’

A large heavy bird, with flight much slower than the others, was flapping overhead.
Elizabeth did not care to fire after her previous failure. She watched Flory thrust a
cartridge into the breech and raise his gun, and the white plume of smoke leapt up from
the muzzle. The bird planed heavily down, his wing broken. Flo and Ko STa came
running excitedly up, Flo with the big imperial pigeon in her mouth, and Ko STa grinning
and producing two green pigeons from his Kachin bag.

Flory took one of the little green corpses to show to Elizabeth. ‘Look at it. Aren’t they
lovely things? The most beautiful bird in Asia. ’

Elizabeth touched its smooth feathers with her finger-tip. It filled her with bitter envy,
because she had not shot it. And yet it was curious, but she felt almost an adoration for
Flory now that she had seen how he could shoot.



‘Just look at its breast-feathers; like a jewel. It’s murder to shoot them. The Burmese say
that when you kill one of these birds they vomit, meaning to say, “Look, here is all I
possess, and I’ve taken nothing of yours. Why do you kill me? ” I’ve never seen one do it,
I must admit. ’

‘Are they good to eat? ’

‘Very. Even so, I always feel it’s a shame to kill them. ’

‘I wish I could do it like you do! ’ she said enviously.

‘It’s only a knack, you’ll soon pick it up. You know how to hold your gun, and that’s
more than most people do when they start. ’

However, at the next two beats, Elizabeth could hit nothing. She had learned not to fire
both barrels at once, but she was too paralysed with excitement ever to take aim. Flory
shot several more pigeons, and a small bronze-wing dove with back as green as verdigris.
The jungle fowl were too cunning to show themselves, though one could hear them
cluck-clucking all round, and once or twice the sharp trumpet-call of a cock. They were
getting deeper into the jungle now. The light was greyish, with dazzling patches of
sunlight. Whichever way one looked one’s view was shut in by the multitudinous ranks
of trees, and the tangled bushes and creepers that struggled round their bases like the sea
round the piles of a pier. It was so dense, like a bramble bush extending mile after mile,
that one’s eyes were oppressed by it. Some of the creepers were huge, like serpents. Flory
and Elizabeth struggled along narrow game-tracks, up slippery banks, thorns tearing at
their clothes. Both their shirts were drenched with sweat. It was stifling hot, with a scent
of crushed leaves. Sometimes for minutes together invisible cidadas would keep up a
shrill, metallic pinging like the twanging of a steel guitar, and then, by stopping, make a
silence that startled one.

As they were walking to the fifth beat they came to a great peepul tree in which, high up,
one could hear imperial pigeons cooing.