No More Learning

He would sit under the
punkah in the chair that had once been sacred to Mrs Lackersteen, reading such of the
papers as interested him, until Elizabeth came, when he would dance and talk with her for
an hour or two and then make off without so much as a good-night to anybody.
Meanwhile Mr Lackersteen was alone in his camp, and, according to the rumours which
drifted back to Kyauktada, consoling loneliness with quite a miscellany of Burmese
women.

Elizabeth and Verrall went out riding together almost every evening now. Verrall’ s
mornings, after parade, were sacred to polo practice, but he had decided that it was worth
while giving up the evenings to Elizabeth. She took naturally to riding, just as she had to
shooting; she even had the assurance to tell Verrall that she had ‘hunted quite a lot’ at
home. He saw at a glance that she was lying, but at least she did not ride so badly as to be
a nuisance to him.

They used to ride up the red road into the jungle, ford the stream by the big pyinkado tree
covered with orchids, and then follow the narrow cart-track, where the dust was soft and
the horses could gallop. It was stifling hot in the dusty jungle, and there were always
mutterings of faraway, rainless thunder. Small martins flitted round the horses, keeping
pace with them, to hawk for the flies their hooves turned up. Elizabeth rode the bay pony,
Verrall the white. On the way home they would walk their sweat-dark horses abreast, so
close sometimes his knee brushed against hers, and talk. Verrall could drop his offensive
manner and talk amicably enough when he chose, and he did choose with Elizabeth.

Ah, the joy of those rides together! The joy of being on horseback and in the world of
horses — the world of hunting and racing, polo and pigsticking! If Elizabeth had loved
Verrall for nothing else, she would have loved him for bringing horses into her life. She



tormented him to talk about horses as once she had tormented Flory to talk about
shooting. Verrall was no talker, it was true. A few gruff, jerky sentences about polo and
pigsticking, and a catalogue of Indian stations and the names of regiments, were the best
he could do. And yet somehow the little he said could thrill Elizabeth as all Flory’s talk
had never done. The mere sight of him on horseback was more evocative than any words.
An aura of horsemanship and soldiering surrounded him. In his tanned face and his hard,
straight body Elizabeth saw all the romance, the splendid panache of a cavalryman’s life.
She saw the North-West Frontier and the Cavalry Club — she saw the polo grounds and
the parched barrack yards, and the brown squadrons of horsemen galloping with their
long lances poised and the trains of their pagris streaming; she heard the bugle-calls and
the jingle of spurs, and the regimental bands playing outside the messrooms while the
officers sat at dinner in their stiff, gorgeous uniforms. How splendid it was, that
equestrian world, how splendid! And it was HER world, she belonged to it, she had been
bom of it. These days, she lived, thought, dreamed horses, almost like Verrall himself.
The time came when she not only TOLD her taradiddle about having ‘hunted quite a lot’,
she even came near believing it.

In every possible way they got on so well together. He never bored her and fretted her as
Flory had done. (As a matter of fact, she had almost forgotten Flory, these days; when
she thought of him, it was for some reason always his birthmark that she remembered. ) It
was a bond between them that Verrall detested anything ‘highbrow’ even more than she
did. He told her once that he had not read a book since he was eighteen, and that indeed
he ‘loathed’ books; ‘except, of course, Jorrocks and all that’. On the evening of their third
or fourth ride they were parting at the Lackersteens’ gate. Verrall had successfully
resisted all Mrs Lackersteen’s invitations to meals; he had not yet set foot inside the
Lackersteens’ house, and he did not intend to do so. As the syce was taking Elizabeth’s
pony, Verrall said:

‘I tell you what. Next time we come out you shall ride Belinda. I’ll ride the chestnut. I
think you’ve got on well enough not to go and cut Belinda’s mouth up. ’

Belinda was the Arab mare. Verrall had owned her two years, and till this moment he had
never once allowed anyone else to mount her, not even the syce. It was the greatest



favour that he could imagine. And so perfectly did Elizabeth appreciate Verrall’s point of
view that she understood the greatness of the favour, and was thankful.

The next evening, as they rode home side by side, Verrall put his ann round Elizabeth’s
shoulder, lifted her out of the saddle and pulled her against him. He was very strong. He
dropped the bridle, and with his free hand, lifted her face up to meet his; their mouths
met. For a moment he held her so, then lowered her to the ground and slipped from his
horse. They stood embraced, their thin, drenched shirts pressed together, the two bridles
held in the crook of his ann.

It was about the same time that Flory, twenty miles away, decided to come back to
Kyauktada. He was standing at the jungle’s edge by the ha nk of a dried-up stream, where
he had walked to tire himself, watching some tiny, nameless finches eating the seeds of
the tall grasses. The cocks were chrome -yellow, the hens like hen sparrows. Too tiny to
bend the stalks, they came whirring towards them, seized them in midflight and bore
them to the ground by their own weight. Flory watched the birds incuriously, and almost
hated them because they could light no spark of interest in him. In his idleness he flung
his dah at them, scaring them away. If she were here, if she were here! Everything —
birds, trees, flowers, everything — was deadly and meaningless because she was not here.
As the days passed the knowledge that he had lost her had grown surer and more actual
until it poisoned every moment.

He loitered a little way into the jungle, flicking at creepers with his dah. His limbs felt
slack and leaden. He noticed a wild vanilla plant trailing over a bush, and bent down to
sniff at its slender, fragrant pods. The scent brought him a feeling of staleness and deadly
ennui. Alone, alone, in the sea of life enisled! The pain was so great that he struck his fist
against a tree, jarring his ann and splitting two knuckles. He must go back to Kyauktada.
It was folly, for barely a fortnight had passed since the scene between them, and his only
chance was to give her time to forget it. Still, he must go back. He could not stay any
longer in this deadly place, alone with his thoughts among the endless, mindless leaves.

A happy thought occurred to him. He could take Elizabeth the leopard-skin that was
being cured for her in the jail. It would be a pretext for seeing her, and when one comes
bearing gifts one is generally listened to. This time he would not let her cut him short



without a word. He would explain, extenuate — make her realize that she had been unjust
to him. It was not right that she should condemn him because of Ma Hla May, whom he
had turned out of doors for Elizabeth’s own sake. Surely she must forgive him when she
heard the truth of the story? And this time she SHOULD hear it; he would force her to
listen to him if he had to hold her by the arms while he did it.

He went back the same evening. It was a twenty-mile journey, by rutted cart-tracks, but
Flory decided to march by night, giving the reason that it was cooler. The servants almost
mutinied at the idea of a night-march, and at the very last moment old Sammy collapsed
in a semi-genuine fit and had to be plied with gin before he could start. It was a moonless
night. They made their way by the light of lanterns, in which Flo’s eyes gleamed like
emeralds and the bullocks’ eyes like moonstones. When the sun was up the servants
halted to gather sticks and cook breakfast, but Flory was in a fever to be at Kyauktada,
and he hurried ahead. He had no feeling of tiredness. The thought of the leopard-skin had
filled him with extravagant hopes. He crossed the glittering river by sampan and went
straight to Dr Veraswami’s bungalow, getting there about ten.

The doctor invited him to breakfast, and — having shooed the women into some suitable
hiding-place — took him into his own bath-room so that he could wash and shave. At
breakfast the doctor was very excited and full of denunciations of ‘the crocodile’; for it
appeared that the pseudo-rebellion was now on the point of breaking out. It was not till
after breakfast that Flory had an opportunity to mention the leopard-skin.

‘Oh, by the way, doctor. What about that skin I sent to the jail to be cured? Is it done
yet? ’

‘Ah — ’ said the doctor in a slightly disconcerted manner, rubbing his nose. He went
inside the house — they were breakfasting on the veranda, for the doctor’s wife had
protested violently against Flory being brought indoors — and came back in a moment
with the skin rolled up in a bundle.

‘Ass a matter of fact — ’ he began, unrolling it.


‘Oh, doctor! ’



The skin had been utterly ruined. It was as stiff as cardboard, with the leather cracked and
the fur discoloured and even rubbed off in patches. It also stank abominably. Instead of
being cured, it had been converted into a piece of rubbish.

‘Oh, doctor! What a mess they’ve made of it! How the devil did it happen? ’

‘I am so sorry, my friend! I wass about to apologize. It wass the best we could do. There
iss no one at the jail who knows how to cure skins now. ’

‘But, damn it, that convict used to cure them so beautifully! ’

‘Ah, yes. But he iss gone from us these three weeks, alas. ’

‘Gone? I thought he was doing seven years? ’

‘What? Did you not hear, my friend? I thought you knew who it wass that used to cure
the skins. It was Nga Shwe O. ’

‘Nga Shwe O? ’

‘The dacoit who escaped with U Po Kyin’s assistance. ’

‘Oh, hell! ’

The mishap had daunted him dreadfully. Nevertheless, in the afternoon, having bathed
and put on a clean suit, he went up to the Lackersteens’ house, at about four. It was very
early to call, but he wanted to make sure of catching Elizabeth before she went down to
the Club. Mrs Lackersteen, who had been asleep and was not prepared for visitors,
received him with an ill grace, not even asking him to sit down.

‘I’m afraid Elizabeth isn’t down yet. She’s dressing to go out riding. Wouldn’t it be better
if you left a message? ’


‘I’d like to see her, if you don’t mind. I’ve brought her the skin of that leopard we shot
together. ’



Mrs Lackersteen left him standing up in the drawing-room, feeling lumpish and
abnormally large as one does at such times. However, she fetched Elizabeth, taking the
opportunity of whispering to her outside the door: ‘Get rid of that dreadful man as soon
as you can, dear. I can’t bear him about the house at this time of day. ’

As Elizabeth entered the room Flory’s heart pounded so violently that a reddish mist
passed behind his eyes. She was wearing a silk shirt and jodhpurs, and she was a little
sunburned. Even in his memory she had never been so beautiful. He quailed; on the
instant he was lost — every scrap of his screwed-up courage had fled. Instead of stepping
forward to meet her he actually backed away. There was a fearful crash behind him; he
had upset an occasional table and sent a bowl of zinnias hurtling across the floor.

‘I’m so sorry! ’ he exclaimed in horror.

‘Oh, not at ALL! PLEASE don’t worry about it! ’

She helped him to pick up the table, chattering all the while as gaily and easily as though
nothing had happened: ‘You HAVE been away a long time, Mr Flory! You’re quite a
STRANGER! We’ve SO missed you at the Club! ’ etc. , etc. She was italicizing every
other word, with that deadly, glittering brightness that a woman puts on when she is
dodging a moral obligation. He was terrified of her. He could not even look her in the
face. She took up a box of cigarettes and offered him one, but he refused it. His hand was
shaking too much to take it.

‘I’ve brought you that skin,’ he said flatly.

He unrolled it on the table they had just picked up. It looked so shabby and miserable that
he wished he had never brought it. She came close to him to examine the skin, so close
that her flower-like cheek was not a foot from his own, and he could feel the wannth of
her body. So great was his fear of her that he stepped hurriedly away. And in the same
moment she too stepped back with a wince of disgust, having caught the foul odour of the
skin. It shamed him terribly. It was almost as though it had been himself and not the skin
that stank.



‘Thank you EVER so much, Mr Flory! ’ She had put another yard between herself and the
skin. ‘Such a LOVELY big skin, isn’t it? ’

‘It was, but they’ve spoiled it, I’m afraid. ’

‘Oh no! I shall love having it! — Are you back in Kyauktada for long? How dreadfully hot
it must have been in camp! ’

‘Yes, it’s been very hot. ’

For three minutes they actually talked of the weather. He was helpless. All that he had
promised himself to say, all his arguments and pleadings, had withered in his throat. ‘You
fool, you fool,’ he thought, ‘what are you doing? Did you come twenty miles for this? Go
on, say what you came to say! Seize her in your arms; make her listen, kick her, beat
her — anything sooner than let her choke you with this drivel! ’ But it was hopeless,
hopeless. Not a word could his tongue utter except futile trivialities. How could he plead
or argue, when that bright easy air of hers, that dragged every word to the level of Club-
chatter silenced him before he spoke? Where do they learn it, that dreadful tee-heeing
brightness? In these brisk modern girls’ schools, no doubt. The piece of carrion on the
table made him more ashamed every moment. He stood there almost voiceless, lumpishly
ugly with his face yellow and creased after the sleepless night, and his birthmark like a
smear of dirt.

She got rid of him after a very few minutes. ‘And now, Mr Flory, if you DON’T mind, I
ought really — ’

He mumbled rather than said, ‘Won’t you come out with me again some time? Walking,
shooting — something? ’

‘I have so LITTLE time nowadays! ALL my evenings seem to be full. This evening I’m
going out riding. With Mr Verrall,’ she added.

It was possible that she added that in order to wound him. This was the first that he had
heard of her friendship with Verrall. He could not keep the dread, flat tone of envy out of
his voice as he said:



‘Do you go out riding much with Verrall? ’


‘Almost every evening. He’s such a wonderful horseman! And he has absolute STRINGS
of polo ponies! ’

‘Ah. And of course I have no polo ponies. ’

It was the first thing he had said that even approached seriousness, and it did no more
than offend her. However, she answered him with the same gay easy air as before, and
then showed him out. Mrs Lackersteen came back to the drawing-room, sniffed the air,
and immediately ordered the servants to take the reeking leopard-skin outside and burn it.

Flory lounged at his garden gate, pretending to feed the pigeons. He could not deny
himself the pain of seeing Elizabeth and Verrall start on their ride. How vulgarly, how
cruelly she had behaved to him!
It is dreadful when people will not even have the
decency to quarrel. Presently Verrall rode up to the Lackersteens’ house on the white
pony, with a syce riding the chestnut, then there was a pause, then they emerged together,
Verrall on the chestnut pony, Elizabeth on the white, and trotted quickly up the hill. They
were chattering and laughing, her silk-shirted shoulder very close to his. Neither looked
towards Flory.

When they had disappeared into the jungle, Flory still loafed in the garden. The glare was
waning to yellow. The mali was at work grubbing up the English flowers, most of which
had died, slain by too much sunshine, and planting balsams, cockscombs, and more
zinnias. An hour passed, and a melancholy, earth-coloured Indian loitered up the drive,
dressed in a loin-cloth and a salmon-pink pagri on which a washing-basket was balanced.
He laid down his basket and salaamed to Flory.

‘Who are you? ’

‘Book-wallah, sahib. ’

The book-wallah was an itinerant peddler of books who wandered from station to station
throughout Upper Burma. His system of exchange was that for any book in his bundle
you gave him four annas, and any other book. Not quite ANY book, however, for the
book-wallah, though analphabetic, had learned to recognize and refuse a Bible.



‘No, sahib,’ he would say plaintively, ‘no. This book (he would turn it over
disapprovingly in his flat brown hands) this book with a black cover and gold letters —
this one I cannot take. I know not how it is, but all sahibs are offering me this book, and
none are taking it. What can it be that is in this black book? Some evil, undoubtedly. ’

‘Turn out your trash,’ Flory said.

He hunted among them for a good thriller — Edgar Wallace or Agatha Christie or
something; anything to still the deadly restlessness that was at his heart. As he bent over
the books he saw that both Indians were exclaiming and pointing towards the edge of the
jungle.

‘Dekko! ’ said the mali in his plum-in-the-mouth voice.

The two ponies were emerging from the jungle. But they were riderless. They came
trotting down the hill with the silly guilty air of a horse that has escaped from its master,
with the stirrups swinging and clashing under their bellies.

Flory remained unconsciously clasping one of the books against his chest. Verrall and
Elizabeth had dismounted. It was not an accident; by no effort of the mind could one
imagine Verrall falling off his horse. They had dismounted, and the ponies had escaped.

They had dismounted — for what? Ah, but he knew for what! It was not a question of
suspecting; he KNEW. He could see the whole thing happening, in one of those
hallucinations that are so perfect in detail, so vilely obscene, that they are past bearing.
He threw the book violently down and made for the house, leaving the book-wallah
disappointed. The servants heard him moving about indoors, and presently he called for a
bottle of whisky. He had a drink and it did him no good. Then he filled a tumbler two-
thirds full, added enough water to make it drinkable, and swallowed it. The filthy,
nauseous dose was no sooner down his throat than he repeated it. He had done the same
thing in camp once, years ago, when he was tortured by toothache and three hundred
miles from a dentist. At seven Ko S’la came in as usual to say that the bath-water was
hot. Flory was lying in one of the long chairs, with his coat off and his shirt torn open at
the throat.



‘Your bath, thakin,’ said Ko S’la.


Flory did not answer, and Ko S’la touched his ann, thinking him asleep. Flory was much
too drunk to move. The empty bottle had rolled across the floor, leaving a trail of whisky-
drops behind it. Ko STa called for Ba Pe and picked up the bottle, clicking his tongue.

‘Just look at this! He has drunk more than three-quarters of a bottle! ’

‘What, again? I thought he had given up drinking? ’

‘It is that accursed woman, I suppose. Now we must carry him carefully. You take his
heels, I’ll take his head. That’s right. Hoist him up! ’

They carried Flory into the other room and laid him gently on the bed.

‘Is he really going to marry this “Ingaleikma”? ’ said Ba Pe.

‘Heaven knows. She is the mistress of the young police officer at present, so I was told.
Their ways are not our ways. I think I know what he will be wanting tonight,’ he added as
he undid Flory’s braces — for Ko STa had the art, so necessary in a bachelor’s servant, of
undressing his master without waking him.

The servants were rather more pleased than not to see this return to bachelor habits. Flory
woke about midnight, naked in a pool of sweat. His head felt as though some large,
sharp-comered metal object were bumping about inside it. The mosquito net was up, and
a young woman was sitting beside the bed fanning him with a wicker fan. She had an
agreeable negroid face, bronze-gold in the candlelight. She explained that she was a
prostitute, and that Ko STa had engaged her on his own responsibility for a fee of ten
rupees.

Flory’s head was splitting. ‘For God’s sake get me something to drink,’ he said feebly to
the woman. She brought him some soda-water which Ko STa had cooled in readiness and
soaked a towel and put a wet compress round his forehead. She was a fat, good-tempered
creature. She told him that her name was Ma Sein Galay, and that besides plying her
other trade she sold paddy baskets in the bazaar near Li Yeik’s shop. Flory’s head felt



better presently, and he asked for a cigarette; whereupon Ma Sein Galay, having fetched
the cigarette, said naively, ‘Shall I take my clothes off now, thakin? ’


Why not? he thought dimly. He made room for her in the bed. But when he smelled the
familiar scent of garlic and coco-nut oil, something painful happened within him, and
with his head pillowed on Ma Sein Galay’s fat shoulder he actually wept, a thing he had
not done since he was fifteen years old.


CHAPTER 20

Next morning there was great excitement in Kyauktada, for the long-rumoured rebellion
had at last broken out. Flory heard only a vague report of it at the time. He had gone back
to camp as soon as he felt fit to march after the drunken night, and it was not until several
days later that he learned the true history of the rebellion, in a long, indignant letter from
Dr Veraswami.

The doctor’s epistolary style was queer. His syntax was shaky and he was as free with
capital letters as a seventeenth-century divine, while in the use of italics he rivalled
Queen Victoria. There were eight pages of his small but sprawling handwriting.

MY DEAR FRIEND [the letter ran], — You will much regret to hear that the WILES OF
THE CROCODILE have matured. The rebellion — the SO-CALLED rebellion — is all
over and finished. And it has been, alas! a more Bloody affair than 1 had hoped should
have been the case.

All has fallen out as 1 have prophesied to you it would be. On the day when you came
back to Kyauktada U Po Kyin’s SPIES have informed him that the poor unfortunate men
whom he have Deluded are assembling in the jungle near Thongwa. The same night he
sets out secretly with U Lugale, the Police Inspector, who is as great a Rogue as he, if
that could be, and twelve constables. They make a swift raid upon Thongwa and surprise
the rebels, of whom they are only Seven! ! in a ruined field hut in the jungle. Also Mr



Maxwell, who have heard rumours of the rebellion, came across from his camp bringing
his Rifle and was in time to join U Po Kyin and the police in their attack on the hut. The
next morning the clerk Ba Sein, who is U Po Kyin’s JACKALL and DIRTY WORKER,
have orders to raise the cry of rebellion as Sensationally as possible, which was done, and
Mr Macgregor, Mr Westfield and Lieutenant Verrall all rush out to Thongwa carrying
fifty sepoys armed with rifles besides Civil Police. But they arrive to find it is all over
and U Po Kyin was sitting under a big teak tree in the middle of the village and
PUTTING ON AIRS and lecturing the villages, whereat they are all bowing very
frightened and touching the ground with their foreheads and swearing they will be
forever loyal to the Government, and the rebellion is already at an end. The SO-CALLED
weiksa, who is no other than a circus conjurer and the MINION of U Po Kyin, have
vanished for parts unknown, but six rebels have been Caught. So there is an end.

Also I should inform you that there was most regrettably a Death. Mr Maxwell was I
think TOO ANXIOUS to use his Rifle and when one of the rebels try to run away he
fired and shoot him in the abdomen, at which he died. I thi nk the villagers have some
BAD FEELING towards Mr Maxwell because of it. But from the point of view legal all
is well for Mr Maxwell, because the men were undoubtedly conspiring against the
Government.

Ah, but, my Friend, I trust that you understand how disastrous may all this be for me!
You will realise, I think, what is its bearing upon the Contest between U Po Kyin and
myself, and the supreme LEG-UP it must give to him. It is the TRIUMPH OF THE
CROCODILE. U Po Kyin is now the Hero of the district. He is the PET of the
Europeans. I am told that even Mr Ellis has praised his conduct. If you could witness the
abominable Conceitedness and the LIES he is now telling as to how there were not seven
rebels but Two Hundred! ! and how he crushed upon them revolver in hand — he who only
directing operations from a SAFE DISTANCE while the police and Mr Maxwell creep
up upon the hut — you would find is veritably Nauseous I assure you. He has had the
effrontery to send in an official report of the matter which started, ‘By my loyal
promptitude and reckless daring’, and I hear that positively he had had this
Conglomeration of lies written out in readiness days BEFORE THE OCCURRENCE. It
is Disgusting. And to think that now when he is at the Height of his triumph he will again
begin to calumniate me with all the venom at his disposal etc. etc.



The rebels’ entire stock of weapons had been captured. The armoury with which, when
their followers were assembled, they had proposed to march upon Kyauktada, consisted
of the following:

Item, one shotgun with a damaged left barrel, stolen from a Forest Officer three years
earlier.

Item, six home-made guns with barrels of zinc piping stolen from the railway. These
could be fired, after a fashion, by thrusting a nail through the touch-hole and striking it
with a stone.

Item, thirty-nine twelve-bore cartridges.

Item, eleven dummy guns carved out of teakwood.

Item, some large Chinese crackers which were to have been fired in terrorem.

Later, two of the rebels were sentenced to fifteen years’ transportation, three to three
years’ imprisonment and twenty-five lashes, and one to two years’ imprisonment.

The whole miserable rebellion was so obviously at an end that the Europeans were not
considered to be in any danger, and Maxwell had gone back to his camp unguarded.
Flory intended to stay in camp until the rains broke, or at least until the general meeting
at the Club. He had promised to be in for that, to propose the doctor’s election; though
now, with his own trouble to think of, the whole business of the intrigue between U Po
Kyin and the doctor sickened him.

More weeks crawled by. The heat was dreadful now. The overdue rain seemed to have
bred a fever in the air. Flory was out of health, and worked incessantly, worrying over
petty jobs that should have been left to the overseer, and making the coolies and even the
servants hate him. He drank gin at all hours, but not even drinking could distract him
now. The vision of Elizabeth in Verrall’s arms haunted him like a neuralgia or an
earache. At any moment it would come upon him, vivid and disgusting, scattering his
thoughts, wrenching him back from the brink of sleep, turning his food to dust in his
mouth. At times he flew into savage rages, and once even struck Ko S’la. What was



worse than all was the DETAIL — the always filthy detail — in which the imagined scene
appeared. The very perfection of the detail seemed to prove that it was true.

Is there anything in the world more graceless, more dishonouring, than to desire a woman
whom you will never have? Throughout all these weeks Flory’s mind held hardly a
thought which was not murderous or obscene. It is the common effect of jealousy. Once
he had loved Elizabeth spiritually, sentimentally indeed, desiring her sympathy more than
her caresses; now, when he had lost her, he was tormented by the basest physical longing.
He did not even idealize her any longer. He saw her now almost as she was — silly,
snobbish, heartless — and it made no difference to his longing for her. Does it ever make
any difference? At nights when he lay awake, his bed dragged outside the tent for
coolness, looking at the velvet dark from which the barking of a gyi sometimes sounded,
he hated himself for the images that inhabited his mind. It was so base, this envying of
the better man who had beaten him. For it was only envy — even jealousy was too good a
name for it. What right had he to be jealous? He had offered himself to a girl who was too
young and pretty for him, and she had turned him down — rightly. He had got the snub he
deserved. Nor was there any appeal from that decision; nothing would ever make him
young again, or take away his birthmark and his decade of lonely debaucheries. He could
only stand and look on while the better man took her, and envy him, like — but the simile
was not even mentionable. Envy is a horrible thing. It is unlike all other kinds of
suffering in that there is no disguising it, no elevating it into tragedy. It is more than
merely painful, it is disgusting.

But meanwhile, was it true, what he suspected? Had Verrall really become Elizabeth’s
lover? There is no knowing, but on the whole the chances were against it, for, had it been
so, there would have been no concealing it in such a place as Kyauktada. Mrs
Lackersteen would probably have guessed it, even if the others had not. One thing was
certain, however, and that was that Verrall had as yet made no proposal of marriage. A
week went by, two weeks, three weeks; three weeks is a very long time in a small Indian
station. Verrall and Elizabeth rode together every evening, danced together every night;
yet Verrall had never so much as entered the Lackersteens’ house. There was endless
scandal about Elizabeth, of course. All the Orientals of the town had taken it for granted
that she was VerralFs mistress. U Po Kyin’s version (he had a way of being essentially
right even when he was wrong in detail) was that Elizabeth had been Flory’s concubine



and had deserted him for Verrall because Verrall paid her more. Ellis, too, was inventing
tales about Elizabeth that made Mr Macgregor squirm. Mrs Lackersteen, as a relative, did
not hear these scandals, but she was growing nervous. Every evening when Elizabeth
came home from her ride she would meet her hopefully, expecting the ‘Oh, aunt! What
DO you think! ’ — and then the glorious news. But the news never came, and however
carefully she studied Elizabeth’s face, she could divine nothing.

When three weeks had passed Mrs Lackersteen became fretful and finally half angry. The
thought of her husband, alone — or rather, not alone — in his camp, was troubling her.
After all, she had sent him back to camp in order to give Elizabeth her chance with
Verrall (not that Mrs Lackersteen would have put it so vulgarly as that). One evening she
began lecturing and threatening Elizabeth in her oblique way. The conversation consisted
of a sighing monologue with very long pauses — for Elizabeth made no answer whatever.

Mrs Lackersteen began with some general remarks, apropos of a photograph in the
Tatler, about these fast MODERN girls who went about in beach pyjamas and all that and
made themselves so dreadfully CHEAP with men. A girl, Mrs Lackersteen said, should
NEVER make herself too cheap with a man; she should make herself — but the opposite
of ‘cheap’ seemed to be ‘expensive’, and that did not sound at all right, so Mrs
Lackersteen changed her tack. She went on to tell Elizabeth about a letter she had had
from home with further news of that poor, POOR dear girl who was out in Burma for a
while and had so foolishly neglected to get married. Her sufferings had been quite
heartrending, and it just showed how glad a girl ought to be to marry anyone, literally
ANYONE. It appeared that the poor, poor dear girl had lost her job and been practically
STARVING for a long time, and now she had actually had to take a job as a common
kitchen maid under a horrid, vulgar cook who bullied her most shockingly. And it seemed
that the black beetles in the kitchen were simply beyond belief! Didn’t Elizabeth think it
too absolutely dreadful? BLACK BEETLES!

Mrs Lackersteen remained silent for some time, to allow the black beetles to sink in,
before adding:

‘SUCH a pity that Mr Verrall will be leaving us when the rains break. Kyauktada will
seem quite EMPTY without him! ’



‘When do the rains break, usually? ’ said Elizabeth as indifferently as she could manage.


‘About the beginning of June, up here. Only a week or two now. . . . My dear, it seems
absurd to mention it again, but I cannot get out of my head the thought of that poor, poor
dear girl in the kitchen among the BLACK BEETLES! ’

Black beetles recurred more than once in Mrs Lackersteen’s conversation during the rest
of the evening. It was not until the following day that she remarked in the tone of
someone dropping an unimportant piece of gossip:

‘By the way, I believe Flory is coming back to Kyauktada at the beginning of June. He
said he was going to be in for the general meeting at the Club. Perhaps we might invite
him to dinner some time. ’

It was the first time that either of them had mentioned Flory since the day when he had
brought Elizabeth the leopard-skin.