Burmese Days: Chapter 19 Summary & Analysis

Toward the end of April, Mr. Lackersteen has gone alone to the jungle (where he is reportedly living in debauchery). Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Verrall have begun to ride together every evening. Elizabeth loves horses, and she loves listening to Verrall talk about horses—much as she loved listening to Flory talk about hunting. Though a terse conversationalist, Verrall seems to her manly, military, and romantic, and because he too loathes anything “highbrow,” he never annoys her as Flory used to. (Whenever she thinks of Flory now, which isn’t often, she remembers his birthmark.) One evening, Verrall lets Elizabeth ride his white Arabian horse, whom no one else has ever ridden; that same evening, he kisses her for the first time.

Flory—lonely and longing for Elizabeth—decides to return to Kyauktada. He plans to bring her the leopard skin he was having a prisoner cure for her and to explain himself at length. Traveling all night, he arrives in Kyauktada around 10 a.m.. He goes to Dr. Veraswami’s and asks about the leopard skin only to learn that the curing process has ruined it: the prisoner who was so good at curing skins is Nga Shwe O, who escaped with U Po Kyin’s assistance, so there was no one at the jail who knew how to do it right.

Regardless, Flory bathes, shaves, and takes the leopard skin to the Lackersteens’ around 4:00 p.m. Mrs. Lackersteen greets Flory. She fetches Elizabeth but whispers to her to get rid of Flory as quickly as possible. When Elizabeth enters the room where Flory is waiting, he’s so overcome by her beauty that he backs into a side table, knocking over and breaking a vase. He apologizes, hugely embarrassed, and shows her the skin—but is even more embarrassed when she recoils from the smell of the bad curing. She thanks him with excessive cheer and makes small talk about the weather. Flory internally urges himself to speak about important things but can’t manage it.

As Elizabeth shows Flory out, he awkwardly invites her hunting again. She tells him she’s very busy in the evenings lately—for example, riding with Verrall. Flory asks whether she rides with Verrall a lot, and she says that she does—he has a lot of polo ponies. When Flory flatly replies, “And of course I have no polo ponies,” Elizabeth is annoyed. She shows Flory out. Afterward, Mrs. Lackersteen enters the room, smells the leopard skin, and orders the servants to burn it.

Afterward, Flory loiters outside in his garden to spy on Elizabeth and Verrall starting their ride. He sees them, very close together, riding into the jungle. About an hour later, an itinerant bookseller approaches Flory. Flory is rifling through the bookseller’s wares for a distracting thriller when he sees Elizabeth and Verrall’s ponies walk riderless out of the jungle. As Verrall is such a good rider, Flory concludes that Verrall and Elizabeth weren’t thrown but rather dismounted together and were distracted enough to let the ponies escape. Flory vividly pictures what he believes occurred between them, storms inside, and gets very drunk. Ko S’la, trying to be helpful, procures Flory a sex worker, but Flory just ends up crying on her shoulder.