No More Learning

’

‘No. ’

‘You have been in prison! ’

‘No. ’

‘Turn round! ’ bellowed the Sub-inspector on an inspiration. ‘Bend over! ’


The suspect turned his grey face in agony towards Westfield, who looked away. The two
constables seized him, twisted him round and bent him over; the Sub-inspector tore off
his longyi, exposing his buttocks.



‘Look at this, sir! ’ He pointed to some scars. ‘He have been flogged with bamboos. He is
an old offender. THEREFORE he stole the ring! ’

‘All right, put him in the clink,’ said Westfield moodily, as he lounged away from the
table with his hands in his pockets. At the bottom of his heart he loathed running in these
poor devils of common thieves. Dacoits, rebels — yes; but not these poor cringing rats!
‘How many have you got in the clink now, Maung Ba? ’ he said.

‘Three, sir. ’

The lock-up was upstairs, a cage surrounded by six-inch wooden bars, guarded by a
constable anned with a carbine. It was very dark, stifling hot, and quite unfurnished,
except for an earth latrine that stank to heaven. Two prisoners were squatting at the bars,
keeping their distance from a third, an Indian coolie, who was covered from head to foot
with ringworm like a coat of mail. A stout Bunnese woman, wife of a constable, was
kneeling outside the cage ladling rice and watery dahl into tin pannikins.

‘Is the food good? ’ said Westfield.

‘It is good, most holy one,’ chorused the prisoners.

The Government provided for the prisoners’ food at the rate of two annas and a half per
meal per man, out of which the constable’s wife looked to make a profit of one anna.

Flory went outside and loitered down the compound, poking weeds into the ground with
his stick. At that hour there were beautiful faint colours in everything — tender green of
leaves, pinkish brown of earth and tree-trunks — like aquarelle washes that would vanish
in the later glare. Down on the maidan flights of small, low-flying brown doves chased
one another to and fro, and bee-eaters, emerald-green, curvetted like slow swallows. A
file of sweepers, each with his load half hidden beneath his garment, were marching to
some dreadful dumping-hole that existed on the edge of the jungle. Starveling wretches,
with stick-like limbs and knees too feeble to be straightened, draped in earth-coloured
rags, they were like a procession of shrouded skeletons walking.

The mali was breaking ground for a new flower-bed, down by the pigeon-cote that stood
near the gate. He was a lymphatic, half-witted Hindu youth, who lived his life in almost



complete silence, because he spoke some Manipur dialect which nobody else understood,
not even his Zerbadi wife. His tongue was also a size too large for his mouth. He
salaamed low to Flory, covering his face with his hand, then swung his mamootie aloft
again and hacked at the dry ground with heavy, clumsy strokes, his tender back-muscles
quivering.

A sharp grating scream that sounded like ‘Kwaaa! ’ came from the servants quarters. Ko
S’la’s wives had begun their morning quarrel. The tame fighting cock, called Nero,
strutted zigzag down the path, nervous of Flo, and Ba Pe came out with a bowl of paddy
and they fed Nero and the pigeons. There were more yells from the servants’ quarters,
and the gruffer voices of men trying to stop the quarrel. Ko STa suffered a great deal
from his wives. Ma Pu, the first wife, was a gaunt hard-faced woman, stringy from much
child-bearing, and Ma Yi, the Tittle wife’, was a fat, lazy cat some years younger. The
two women fought incessantly when Flory was in headquarters and they were together.
Once when Ma Pu was chasing Ko STa with a bamboo, he had dodged behind Flory for
protection, and Flory had received a nasty blow on the leg.

Mr Macgregor was coming up the road, striding briskly and swinging a thick walking-
stick. He was dressed in khaki pagri-cloth shirt, drill shorts and a pigsticker topi. Besides
his exercises, he took a brisk two-mile walk every morning when he could spare the time.

‘Top o’ the mornin’ to ye! ’ he called to Flory in a hearty matutinal voice, putting on an
Irish accent. He cultivated a brisk, invigorating, cold-bath demeanour at this hour of the
morning. Moreover, the libellous article in the Burmese Patriot, which he had read
overnight, had hurt him, and he was affecting a special cheeriness to conceal this.

‘Morning! ’ Flory called back as heartily as he could manage.

Nasty old bladder of lard! he thought, watching Mr Macgregor up the road. How his
bottom did stick out in those tight khaki shorts. Like one of those beastly middle-aged
scoutmasters, homosexuals almost to a man, that you see photographs of in the illustrated
papers. Dressing himself up in those ridiculous clothes and exposing his pudgy, dimpled
knees, because it is the pukka sahib thing to take exercise before breakfast — disgusting!



A Burman came up the hill, a splash of white and magenta. It was Flory’s clerk, coming
from the tiny office, which was not far from the church. Reaching the gate, he shikoed
and presented a grimy envelope, stamped Bunnese-fashion on the point of the flap.

‘Good morning, sir. ’

‘Good morning. What’s this thing? ’

‘Local letter, your honour. Come this morning’s post. Anonymous letter, I think, sir. ’

‘Oh bother. All right, I’ll be down to the office about eleven. ’

Flory opened the letter. It was written on a sheet of foolscap, and it ran:

MR JOHN FLORY,

SIR, — I the undersigned beg to suggest and WARN to your honour certain useful pieces
of information whereby your honour will be much profited, sir.

Sir, it has been remarked in Kyauktada your honour’s great friendship and intimacy with
Dr Veraswami, the Civil Surgeon, frequenting with him, inviting him to your house, etc.
Sir, we beg to inform you that the said Dr Veraswami is NOT A GOOD MAN and in no
ways a worthy friend of European gentlemen. The doctor is eminently dishonest, disloyal
and corrupt public servant. Coloured water is he providing to patients at the hospital and
selling drugs for own profit, besides many bribes, extortions, etc. Two prisoners has he
flogged with bamboos, afterwards rubbing chilis into the place if relatives do not send
money. Besides this he is implicated with the Nationalist Party and lately provided
material for a very evil article which appeared in the Burmese Patriot attacking Mr
Macgregor, the honoured Deputy Commissioner.

He is also sleeping by force with female patients at the hospital.

Wherefore we are much hoping that your honour will ESCHEW same Dr Veraswami and
not consort with persons who can bring nothing but evil upon your honour.


And shall ever pray for your honour’s long health and prosperity.



(Signed) A FRIEND.


The letter was written in the shaky round hand of the bazaar letter-writer, which
resembled a copybook exercise written by a drunkard. The letter-writer, however, would
never have risen to such a word as ‘eschew’. The letter must have been dictated by a
clerk, and no doubt it came ultimately from U Po Kyin. From ‘the crocodile’, Flory
reflected.

He did not like the tone of the letter. Under its appearance of servility it was obviously a
covert threat. ‘Drop the doctor or we will make it hot for you’, was what it said in effect.
Not that that mattered greatly; no Englishman ever feels himself in real danger from an
Oriental.

Flory hesitated with the letter in his hands. There are two things one can do with an
anonymous letter. One can say nothing about it, or one can show it to the person whom it
concerns. The obvious, the decent course was to give the letter to Dr Veraswami and let
him take what action he chose.

And yet — it was safer to keep out of this business altogether. It is so important (perhaps
the most important of all the Ten Precepts of the pukka sahib) not to entangle oneself in
‘native’ quarrels. With Indians there must be no loyalty, no real friendship. Affection,
even love — yes. Englishmen do often love Indians — native officers, forest rangers,
hunters, clerks, servants. Sepoys will weep like children when their colonel retires. Even
intimacy is allowable, at the right moments. But alliance, partisanship, never! Even to
know the rights and wrongs of a ‘native’ quarrel is a loss of prestige.

If he published the letter there would be a row and an official inquiry, and, in effect, he
would have thrown in his lot with the doctor against U Po Kyin. U Po Kyin did not
matter, but there were the Europeans; if he, Flory, were too conspicuously the doctor’s
partisan, there might be hell to pay. Much better to pretend that the letter had never
reached him. The doctor was a good fellow, but as to championing him against the full
fury of pukka sahibdom — ah, no, no! What shall it profit a man if he save his own soul
and lose the whole world? Flory began to tear the letter across. The danger of making it
public was very slight, very nebulous. But one must beware of the nebulous dangers in



India. Prestige, the breath of life, is itself nebulous. He carefully tore the letter into small
pieces and threw them over the gate.

At this moment there was a terrified scream, quite different from the voices of Ko S’ la’s
wives. The mali lowered his mamootie and gaped in the direction of the sound, and Ko
S’la, who had also heard it, came running bareheaded from the servants’ quarters, while
Flo sprang to her feet and yapped sharply. The scream was repeated. It came from the
jungle behind the house, and it was an English voice, a woman’s, crying out in terror.

There was no way out of the compound by the back. Flory scrambled over the gate and
came down with his knee bleeding from a splinter. He ran round the compound fence and
into the jungle, Flo following. Just behind the house, beyond the first fringe of bushes,
there was a small hollow, which, as there was a pool of stagnant water in it, was
frequented by buffaloes from Nyaunglebin. Flory pushed his way through the bushes. In
the hollow an English girl, chalk-faced, was cowering against a bush, while a huge
buffalo menaced her with its crescent-shaped horns. A hairy calf, no doubt the cause of
the trouble, stood behind. Another buffalo, neck-deep in the slime of the pool, looked on
with mild prehistoric face, wondering what was the matter.

The girl turned an agonized face to Flory as he appeared. ‘Oh, do be quick! ’ she cried, in
the angry, urgent tone of people who are frightened. ‘Please! Help me! Help me! ’

Flory was too astonished to ask any questions. He hastened towards her, and, in default of
a stick, smacked the buffalo sharply on the nose. With a timid, loutish movement the
great beast turned aside, then lumbered off followed by the calf. The other buffalo also
extricated itself from the slime and lolloped away. The girl threw herself against Flory,
almost into his arms, quite overcome by her fright.

‘Oh, tha nk you, thank you! Oh, those dreadful things! What ARE they? I thought they
were going to kill me. What horrible creatures! What ARE they? ’

They’re only water-buffaloes. They come from the village up there. ’


‘Buffaloes? ’



‘Not wild buffaloes — bison, we call those. They’re just a kind of cattle the Bunnans
keep. I say, they’ve given you a nasty shock. I’m sorry. ’

She was still clinging closely to his arm, and he could feel her shaking. He looked down,
but he could not see her face, only the top of her head, hatless, with yellow hair as short
as a boy’s. And he could see one of the hands on his arm. It was long, slender, youthful,
with the mottled wrist of a schoolgirl. It was several years since he had seen such a hand.
He became conscious of the soft, youthful body pressed against his own, and the warmth
breathing out of it; whereat something seemed to thaw and grow warm within him.

‘It’s all right, they’re gone,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of. ’

The girl was recovering from her fright, and she stood a little away from him, with one
hand still on his arm. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing. I’m not hurt. They didn’t
touch me. It was only their looking so awful. ’

‘They’re quite hannless really. Their horns are set so far back that they can’t gore you.
They’re very stupid brutes. They only pretend to show fight when they’ve got calves. ’

They had stood apart now, and a slight embarrassment came over them both immediately.
Flory had already turned himself sidelong to keep his birthmarked cheek away from her.
He said:

‘I say, this is a queer sort of introduction! I haven’t asked yet how you got here.
Wherever did you come from — if it’s not rude to ask? ’

‘I just came out of my uncle’s garden. It seemed such a nice morning, I thought I’d go for
a walk. And then those dreadful things came after me. I’m quite new to this country, you
see. ’

‘Your uncle? Oh, of course! You’re Mr Lackersteen’s niece. We heard you were coming.
I say, shall we get out on to the maidan? There’ll be a path somewhere. What a start for
your first morning in Kyauktada! This’ll give you rather a bad impression of Burma, I’m
afraid. ’



‘Oh no; only it’s all rather strange. How thick these bushes grow! All kind of twisted
together and foreign-looking. You could get lost here in a moment. Is that what they call
jungle? ’

‘Scrub jungle. Burma’s mostly jungle — a green, unpleasant land, I call it. I wouldn’t walk
through that grass if I were you. The seeds get into your stockings and work their way
into your skin. ’

He let the girl walk ahead of him, feeling easier when she could not see his face. She was
tallish for a girl, slender, and wearing a lilac-coloured cotton frock. From the way she
moved her limbs he did not think she could be much past twenty. He had not noticed her
face yet, except to see that she wore round tortoise-shell spectacles, and that her hair was
as short as his own. He had never seen a woman with cropped hair before, except in the
illustrated papers.

As they emerged on to the maidan he stepped level with her, and she turned to face him.
Her face was oval, with delicate, regular features; not beautiful, perhaps, but it seemed so
there, in Burma, where all Englishwomen are yellow and thin.
He turned his head sharply
aside, though the birthmark was away from her. He could not bear her to see his worn
face too closely. He seemed to feel the withered skin round his eyes as though it had been
a wound. But he remembered that he had shaved that morning, and it gave him courage.
He said:

‘I say, you must be a bit shaken up after this business. Would you like to come into my
place and rest a few minutes before you go home? It’s rather late to be out of doors
without a hat, too. ’

‘Oh, thank you, I would,’ the girl said. She could not, he thought, know anything about
Indian notions of propriety. ‘Is this your house here? ’

‘Yes. We must go round the front way. I’ll have the servants get a sunshade for you. This
sun’s dangerous for you, with your short hair. ’

They walked up the garden path. Flo was frisking round them and trying to draw
attention to herself. She always barked at strange Orientals, but she liked the smell of a



European. The sun was growing stronger. A wave of blackcurrant scent flowed from the
petunias beside the path, and one of the pigeons fluttered to the earth, to spring
immediately into the air again as Flo made a grab at it. Flory and the girl stopped with
one consent, to look at the flowers. A pang of unreasonable happiness had gone through
them both.

‘You really mustn’t go out in this sun without a hat on,’ he repeated, and somehow there
was an intimacy in saying it. He could not help referring to her short hair somehow, it
seemed to him so beautiful. To speak of it was like touching it with his hand.

‘Took, your knee’s bleeding,’ the girl said. ‘Did you do that when you were coming to
help me? ’

There was a slight trickle of blood, which was drying, purple, on his khaki stocking. ‘It’s
nothing,’ he said, but neither of them felt at that moment that it was nothing. They began
chattering with extraordinary eagerness about the flowers. The girl ‘adored’ flowers, she
said. And Flory led her up the path, talking garrulously about one plant and another.

‘Took how these phloxes grow. They go on blooming for six months in this country.
They can’t get too much sun. I think those yellow ones must be almost the colour of
primroses. I haven’t seen a primrose for fifteen years, nor a wallflower, either. Those
zinnias are fine, aren’t they? — like painted flowers, with those wonderful dead colours.
These are African marigolds. They’re coarse things, weeds almost, but you can’t help
liking them, they’re so vivid and strong. Indians have an extraordinary affection for them;
wherever Indians have been you find marigolds growing, even years afterwards when the
jungle has buried every other trace of them. But I wish you’d come into the veranda and
see the orchids. I’ve some I must show that are just like bells of gold — but literally like
gold. And they smell of honey, almost overpoweringly. That’s about the only merit of
this beastly country, it’s good for flowers. I hope you’re fond of gardening? It’s our
greatest consolation, in this country. ’

‘Oh, I simply adore gardening,’ the girl said.


They went into the veranda. Ko S’la had hurriedly put on his ingyi and his best pink silk
gaungbaung, and he appeared from within the house with a tray on which were a decanter



of gin, glasses and a box of cigarettes. He laid them on the table, and, eyeing the girl half
apprehensively, put his hands flat together and shikoed.


‘I expect it’s no use offering you a drink at this hour of the morning? ’ Flory said. ‘I can
never get it into my servant’s head that SOME people can exist without gin before
breakfast. ’

He added himself to the number by waving away the drink Ko S’ la offered him. The girl
had sat down in the wicker chair that Ko S’la had set out for her at the end of the veranda.
The dark-leaved orchids hung behind her head, with gold trusses of blossom, breathing
out warm honey-scent. Flory was standing against the veranda rail, half facing the girl,
but keeping his birthmarked cheek hidden.

‘What a perfectly divine view you have from here,’ she said as she looked down the
hillside.

‘Yes, isn’t it? Splendid, in this yellow light, before the sun gets going. I love that sombre
yellow colour the maidan has, and those gold mohur trees, like blobs of crimson. And
those hills at the horizon, almost black. My camp is on the other side of those hills,’ he
added.

The girl, who was long-sighted, took off her spectacles to look into the distance. He
noticed that her eyes were very clear pale blue, paler than a harebell. And he noticed the
smoothness of the skin round her eyes, like a petal, almost. It reminded him of his age
and his haggard face again, so that he turned a little more away from her. But he said on
impulse:

‘I say, what a bit of luck you coming to Kyauktada! You can’t imagine the difference it
makes to us to see a new face in these places. After months of our own miserable society,
and an occasional official on his rounds and American globe-trotters skipping up the
Irrawaddy with cameras. I suppose you’ve come straight from England? ’

‘Well, not England exactly. I was living in Paris before I came out here. My mother was
an artist, you see. ’



‘Paris! Have you really lived in Paris? By Jove, just fancy coming from Paris to
Kyauktada! Do you know, it’s positively difficult, in a hole like this, to believe that there
ARE such places as Paris. ’

‘Do you like Paris? ’ she said.

‘I’ve never even seen it. But, good Lord, how I’ve imagined it! Paris — it’s all a kind of
jumble of pictures in my mind; cafes and boulevards and artists’ studios and Villon and
Baudelaire and Maupassant all mixed up together. You don’t know how the names of
those European towns sound to us, out here. And did you really live in Paris? Sitting in
cafes with foreign art students, drinking white wine and talking about Marcel Proust? ’

‘Oh, that kind of thing, I suppose,’ said the girl, laughing.

‘What differences you’ll find here! It’s not white wine and Marcel Proust here. Whisky
and Edgar Wallace more likely. But if you ever want books, you might find something
you liked among mine. There’s nothing but tripe in the Club library. But of course I’m
hopelessly behind the times with my books. I expect you’ll have read everything under
the sun. ’

‘Oh no. But of course I simply adore reading,’ the girl said.

‘What it means to meet somebody who cares for books! I mean books worth reading, not
that garbage in the Club libraries. I do hope you’ll forgive me if I overwhelm you with
talk. When I meet somebody who’s heard that books exist, I’m afraid I go off like a bottle
of warm beer. It’s a fault you have to pardon in these countries. ’

‘Oh, but I love talking about books. I think reading is so wonderful. I mean, what would
life be without it? It’s such a — such a — ’

‘Such a private Alsatia. Yes — ’

They plunged into an enormous and eager conversation, first about books, then about
shooting, in which the girl seemed to have an interest and about which she persuaded
Flory to talk. She was quite thrilled when he described the murder of an elephant which
he had perpetrated some years earlier. Flory scarcely noticed, and perhaps the girl did not



either, that it was he who did all the talking. He could not stop himself, the joy of
chattering was so great. And the girl was in a mood to listen. After all, he had saved her
from the buffalo, and she did not yet believe that those monstrous brutes could be
hannless; for the moment he was almost a hero in her eyes. When one does get any credit
in this life, it is usually for something that one has not done. It was one of those times
when the conversation flows so easily, so naturally, that one could go on talking forever.
But suddenly, their pleasure evaporated, they started and fell silent. They had noticed that
they were no longer alone.

At the other end of the veranda, between the rails, a coal-black moustachioed face was
peeping with enonnous curiosity. It belonged to old Sammy, the ‘Mug’ cook. Behind him
stood Ma Pu, Ma Yi, Ko S’la’s four eldest children, an unclaimed naked child, and two
old women who had come down from the village upon the news that an ‘Ingaleikma’ was
on view. Like carved teak statues with footlong cigars stuck in their wooden faces, the
two old creatures gazed at the ‘Ingaleikma’ as English yokels might gaze at a Zulu
warrior in full regalia.

‘Those people . . . ’ the girl said uncomfortably, looking towards them.

Sammy, seeing himself detected, looked very guilty and pretended to be rearranging his
pagri. The rest of the audience were a little abashed, except for the two wooden-faced old
women.

‘Dash their cheek! ’ Flory said. A cold pang of disappointment went through him. After
all, it would not do for the girl to stay on his veranda any longer. Simultaneously both he
and she had remembered that they were total strangers. Her face had turned a little pink.
She began putting on her spectacles.

‘I’m afraid an English girl is rather a novelty to these people,’ he said. ‘They don’t mean
any hann. Go away! ’ he added angrily, waving his hand at the audience, whereupon they
vanished.

‘Do you know, if you don’t mind, I think I ought to be going,’ the girl said. She had stood
up. ‘I’ve been out quite a long time. They may be wondering where I’ve got to. ’



‘Must you really? It’s quite early. I’ll see that you don’t have to go home bareheaded in
the sun. ’


‘I ought really — ’ she began again.

She stopped, looking at the doorway. Ma Hla May was emerging on to the veranda.

Ma Hla May came forward with her hand on her hip. She had come from within the
house, with a calm air that asserted her right to be there. The two girls stood face to face,
less than six feet apart.

No contrast could have been stranger; the one faintly coloured as an apple-blossom, the
other dark and garish, with a gleam almost metallic on her cylinder of ebony hair and the
salmon-pink silk of her longyi. Flory thought he had never noticed before how dark Ma
Hla May’s face was, and how outlandish her tiny, stiff body, straight as a soldier’s, with
not a curve in it except the vase-like curve of her hips. He stood against the veranda rail
and watched the two girls, quite disregarded. For the best part of a minute neither of them
could take her eyes from the other; but which found the spectacle more grotesque, more
incredible, there is no saying.

Ma Hla May turned her face round to Flory, with her black brows, thin as pencil lines,
drawn together. ‘Who is this woman? ’ she demanded sullenly.

He answered casually, as though giving an order to a servant:

‘Go away this instant. If you make any trouble I will afterwards take a bamboo and beat
you till not one of your ribs is whole. ’

Ma Hla May hesitated, shrugged her small shoulders and disappeared. And the other,
gazing after her, said curiously:

‘Was that a man or a woman? ’

‘A woman,’ he said. ‘One of the servants’ wives, I believe. She came to ask about the
laundry, that was all. ’



‘Oh, is THAT what Burmese women are like? They ARE queer little creatures! I saw a
lot of them on my way up here in the train, but do you know, I thought they were all
boys. They’re just like a kind of Dutch doll, aren’t they? ’

She had begun to move towards the veranda steps, having lost interest in Ma Hla May
now that she had disappeared. He did not stop her, for he thought Ma Hla May quite
capable of coming back and making a scene. Not that it mattered much, for neither girl
knew a word of the other’s language. He called to Ko S’la, and Ko S’la came running
with a big oiled-silk umbrella with bamboo ribs. He opened it respectfully at the foot of
the steps and held it over the girl’s head as she came down. Flory went with them as far
as the gate. They stopped to shake hands, he turning a little sideways in the strong
sunlight, hiding his birthmark.

‘My fellow here will see you home. It was ever so kind of you to come in. I can’t tell you
how glad I am to have met you. You’ll make such a difference to us here in Kyauktada. ’

‘Good-bye, Mr — oh, how funny! I don’t even know your name. ’

‘Flory, John Flory. And yours — Miss Lackersteen, is it? ’

‘Yes. Elizabeth. Good-bye, Mr Flory. And thank you EVER so much. That awful buffalo.
You quite saved my life. ’

‘It was nothing. I hope I shall see you at the Club this evening? I expect your uncle and
aunt will be coming down. Good-bye for the time being, then. ’

He stood at the gate, watching them as they went. Elizabeth — lovely name, too rare
nowadays. He hoped she spelt it with a Z. Ko S’la trotted after her at a queer
uncomfortable gait, reaching the umbrella over her head and keeping his body as far
away from her as possible. A cool breath of wind blew up the hill. It was one of those
momentary winds that blow sometimes in the cold weather in Burma, coming from
nowhere, filling one with thirst and with nostalgia for cold sea-pools, embraces of
mermaids, waterfalls, caves of ice. It rustled through the wide domes of the gold mohur
trees, and fluttered the fragments of the anonymous letter that Flory had thrown over the
gate half an hour earlier.



CHAPTER 7


Elizabeth lay on the sofa in the Lackersteen’s drawing-room, with her feet up and a
cushion behind her head, reading Michael Arlen’s These Channing People.