Burmese Days

by George Orwell

“Behold there the degeneracy of the East,” said the doctor, pointing to Mattu, who was doubling himself up like a caterpillar and uttering grateful whines. “Look at the wretchedness of hiss limbs. The calves of hiss legs are not so thick ass an Englishman’s wrists. Look at hiss abjectness and servility. Look at hiss ignorance—such ignorance ass iss not known in Europe outside a home for mental defectives. Once I asked Mattu to tell me hiss age. ‘Sahib’, he said, ‘I believe that I am ten years old’. How can you pretend, Mr. Flory, that you are not the natural superior of such creatures?” “Poor old Mattu, the uprush of modern progress seems to have missed him somehow,” Flory said, throwing another four-anna piece over the rail. “Go on, Mattu, spend that on booze. Be as degenerate as you can. It all postpones Utopia.” “Aha, Mr. Flory, sometimes I think that all you say iss but to—what iss the expression?—pull my leg. The English sense of humour. We Orientals have no humour, ass iss well known.”