Burmese Sketches - Khamkoo

^AQ
''Did she read it ?"
'' She did.'*
BURMESE SKETCHES.
'' Then, what did she do with it after reading it ? "
'* She threw it into the fire."
** Threw it into the fire "—the poor priest could speak no
more. A black scowl passed over his face and his whole
frame was in a convulsed state, showing how keen the disappointment
was and how sharp was its blow. He bit his underlip,
ground his teeth, and was going to give vent to his sorrow
and disappointment in a violent manner, when happily his reason
asserted its sovereignty over his passion. Once more, his face
beamed with intelligence, and his features assumed their
habitual calmness. Then, turning to the boy, he, with all the
suavity at his command, said, '' Well, Saw U, you may go
now."
When the little melodrama recorded above was enacted, it
was rather late in the evening. The hall of the monastery
had been lit up with earth-oil lamps. Some novices and lay
boys were reciting their lessons at the top of their voice,
while others were kneelins^ down before a brazen imap:e of
Gotama placed in one corner of the hall. But placed as he
was in the midst of this hubbub, U Zota appeared to be buried
in his own thoughts and not to be at all affected by this Babel
of voices. He appeared grave and calm, and the deep furrows
on his forehead bespoke of some hard mental struggle within.
It being then 9 p.m. the hubbub of voices gradually died away
and the whole school retired to rest. U Zota, too, retired to
his dormitory, but not to sleep. Morpheus spurned him
probably for his amorous propensities, leaving him restless and
haunted by dreams.
The next morning found U Zota calm, hopeful, and subdued,
though loss of sleep and the harrowing nature of his mind
made him look haggard and worn. There was a cynical
appearance about him and one might have guessed that his
disappointment in love had turned him from a large-hearted
compassionate man into a misanthrope. But this was not the
actual case. By one stroke ot accident, he had been turned
from a woman-hater into a woman-lover ; and this metamorphosis
he tried his best to cloak over by a stern, cynical, misanthropic
external appearance. With the beating of the kaladet
— a piece of hollowed timber or petrified wood doing duty for a
bell—he got up from bed. Then he performed his ablutions.
This done, he said his morning prayers—in a tone more cheerful