Shooting an Elephant

His mouth slobbered.

I watched him beating his bunch of grass
against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have.

The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and
meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy
fields below, only a few hundred yards away.

I had no intention of shooting the
elephant-I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary-and it is always
unnerving to have a crowd following you.

At last, after what seemed a long time-it might have been five
seconds, I dare say-he sagged flabbily to his knees.

Early one
morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of town rang me up on the 'phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar.

For at that time I had already made up my mind
that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of
it the better.

An
enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him.

I took my rifle, an old .44
Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be
useful in terrorem.

He was breathing very
rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and
falling.

With one part of
my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something
clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with
another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet
into a Buddhist priest's guts.

At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a
metaled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across,
not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains dotted with coarse grass.

At that age I was not squeamish
about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to.

He becomes a sort of
hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib.

He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken,
immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without
knocking him down.

Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred
pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

With one part of
my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something
clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with
another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet
into a Buddhist priest's guts.

All this was perplexing and upsetting.

I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the
garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the
elephant was going to be shot.

There were several thousands of them in the town and non of them seemed to have
anything to do except stand on the street corners and jeer at Europeans.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European
woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over
her dress.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

They were watching me as they would watch a
conjurer about to perform a trick.

I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it
is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it.

It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of
squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside.

But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind
legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upwards like a huge rock toppling, his
trunk reaching skywards like a tree.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.)

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

Theoretically-and secretly, of course-I was all for the Burmese and all
against their oppressors, the British.

His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and
grinning with an expression of unendurable agony.

You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant
of strength from his legs.

I was subdivisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way antiEuropean feeling was very bitter.

He was breathing very
rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and
falling.

When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and
the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous
laughter.

I
remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking
of a clock.

The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong
those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced
to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill.

It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of
squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the
hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East.

Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a
mad dog, if its owner fails to control it.

At the second shot he did not
collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright,
with legs sagging and head drooping.

One day something happened which in a round-about way was enlightening.

All this was perplexing and upsetting.

This was the rainy season
and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of
yards long.

In
that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get
there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant.

It was a
tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real
nature of imperialism-the real motives for which despotic governments act.

It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which which
had gone "must".

It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of
squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside.

The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the
quarter where the elephant had been seen.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go made
with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant.

When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and
the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous
laughter.

As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend's house nearby to
borrow an elephant rifle.

At the second shot he did not
collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright,
with legs sagging and head drooping.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

I watched him beating his bunch of grass
against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have.

When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and
the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous
laughter.

All I knew
was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against
the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.

Early one
morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of town rang me up on the 'phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar.

His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and
grinning with an expression of unendurable agony.

I rounded the hut and saw a man's
dead body sprawling in the mud.

Some
more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was
something that the children ought not to have seen.

They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in
my hands I was momentarily worth watching.

His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and
grinning with an expression of unendurable agony.

I was young and ill-educated and I had had to
think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the
East.

He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken,
immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without
knocking him down.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant-it is
comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery-and obviously one
ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided.

With one part of
my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something
clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with
another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet
into a Buddhist priest's guts.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

The friction of the great beast's foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a
rabbit.

I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it
is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it.

Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some
said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of any
elephant.

His body did not
even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause.

The friction of the great beast's foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a
rabbit.

In the end the sneering yellow faces of
young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe
distance, got badly on my nerves.

For at that time I had already made up my mind
that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of
it the better.

You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant
of strength from his legs.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

He was breathing very
rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and
falling.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or fell the kick-one never does when
a shot goes home-but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd.

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or fell the kick-one never does when
a shot goes home-but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd.

With one part of
my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something
clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with
another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet
into a Buddhist priest's guts.

And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the
hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East.

As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it
seemed safe to do so.

He becomes a sort of
hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib.

All I knew
was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against
the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.

He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken,
immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without
knocking him down.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

A white man
mustn't be frightened.

But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful
yellow faces behind.

His mouth was wide open-I could see far down into caverns of pale pink
throat.

The people said that the
elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its
trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth.

And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it
put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the
elephant.

He was breathing very
rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and
falling.

No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European
woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over
her dress.

And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the
hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East.

But I could get nothing into perspective.

He trumpeted, for the first and only time.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken,
immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without
knocking him down.

Go away this instant!" and an old woman with a switch in her hand came
around the corner of a hut, violently shooing away a crowd of naked children.

I was young and ill-educated and I had had to
think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the
East.

A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to
appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.

The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and
meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy
fields below, only a few hundred yards away.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

We began
questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone, and, as usual, failed to get
any definite information.

In a job that you see the dirty work of Empire at close
quarters.

He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to
one side.

I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had
been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving.

This was the rainy season
and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of
yards long.

For it is the condition
of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives", and so in
every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an
imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

I perceived in this moment that when the
white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.

As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it
seemed safe to do so.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

In the end the sneering yellow faces of
young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe
distance, got badly on my nerves.

I marched down the hill, looking and
feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people
jostling at my heels.

I thought then and I think now
that his attack of "must" was already passing off; in which case he would merely
wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him.

It made me vaguely uneasy.

They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in
my hands I was momentarily worth watching.

He neither stirred nor
fell, but every line of his body had altered.

The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong
those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced
to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill.

With one part of
my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something
clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with
another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet
into a Buddhist priest's guts.

He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken,
immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without
knocking him down.

I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely
to avoid looking a fool.

I felt that I had got to put an end to that
dreadful noise.

Here was I, the white
man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd-seemingly the
leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro
by the will of those yellow faces behind.

As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend's house nearby to
borrow an elephant rifle.

The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the
theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats.

When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and
the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous
laughter.

I was subdivisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way antiEuropean feeling was very bitter.

Here was I, the white
man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd-seemingly the
leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro
by the will of those yellow faces behind.

Among the Europeans opinion was divided.

The
thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die.

In the end the sneering yellow faces of
young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe
distance, got badly on my nerves.

As I started forward practically the
whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me.

He took not the
slightest notice of the crowd's approach.

There was only one
alternative.

In the end the sneering yellow faces of
young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe
distance, got badly on my nerves.

That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds
clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it
becomes.

It made me vaguely uneasy.

I had halted on the road.

He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken,
immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without
knocking him down.

I had committed myself to
doing it when I sent for the rifle.

All this was perplexing and upsetting.

There were several thousands of them in the town and non of them seemed to have
anything to do except stand on the street corners and jeer at Europeans.

I was young and ill-educated and I had had to
think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the
East.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost
naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes.

At the second shot he did not
collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright,
with legs sagging and head drooping.

As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it
seemed safe to do so.

And
then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the
ground even where I lay.

At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a
metaled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across,
not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains dotted with coarse grass.

Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a
mad dog, if its owner fails to control it.

It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant-it is
comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery-and obviously one
ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided.

He neither stirred nor
fell, but every line of his body had altered.

It was a
tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real
nature of imperialism-the real motives for which despotic governments act.

I marched down the hill, looking and
feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people
jostling at my heels.

It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of
squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside.

As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty
that I ought not to shoot him.

I was a poor shot with a rifle and the
ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step.

The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong
those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced
to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill.

The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing.

Here was I, the white
man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd-seemingly the
leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro
by the will of those yellow faces behind.

The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all.

They had
seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant
when he was merely ravaging their home, but it was different now that he was going
to be shot.

As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly
than I can perhaps make clear.

The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong
those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced
to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill.

The people expected it of me and I had got to do
it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly.

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or fell the kick-one never does when
a shot goes home-but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd.

It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of
squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside.

(Never tell me, by the way, that
the dead look peaceful.

It was a
tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real
nature of imperialism-the real motives for which despotic governments act.

I rounded the hut and saw a man's
dead body sprawling in the mud.

I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an
imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole.

It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of
squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside.

Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out
in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey
away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town.

It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant-it is
comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery-and obviously one
ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided.

I perceived in this moment that when the
white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.

His body did not
even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause.

The
Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it.

It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant-it is
comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery-and obviously one
ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided.

Here was I, the white
man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd-seemingly the
leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro
by the will of those yellow faces behind.

He
was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where
not even a bullet could damage him further.

I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go made
with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant.

He
was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where
not even a bullet could damage him further.

Go away this instant!" and an old woman with a switch in her hand came
around the corner of a hut, violently shooing away a crowd of naked children.

The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong
those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced
to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill.

That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds
clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it
becomes.

They were watching me as they would watch a
conjurer about to perform a trick.

At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a
metaled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across,
not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains dotted with coarse grass.

He neither stirred nor
fell, but every line of his body had altered.

Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out
in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey
away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

He becomes a sort of
hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib.

I ought, therefore, as the elephant
was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole; actually I aimed several
inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

Feelings like these are the normal by-products of
imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

I had no intention of shooting the
elephant-I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary-and it is always
unnerving to have a crowd following you.

The
Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it.

And suddenly I realized that I should
have to shoot the elephant after all.

Feelings like these are the normal by-products of
imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.)

The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking
of a clock.

As I started forward practically the
whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me.

An
enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him.

Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out
in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey
away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town.

The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the
theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats.

He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to
one side.

And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh.

I was young and ill-educated and I had had to
think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the
East.

As I started forward practically the
whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me.

I decided that I would watch him for a little while
to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home.

I perceived in this moment that when the
white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.

It was a
tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real
nature of imperialism-the real motives for which despotic governments act.

This was the rainy season
and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of
yards long.

It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him.

But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me.

At the second shot he did not
collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright,
with legs sagging and head drooping.

With one part of
my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something
clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with
another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet
into a Buddhist priest's guts.

It was a
tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real
nature of imperialism-the real motives for which despotic governments act.

I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get
a better aim.

An
enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him.

For at that time I had already made up my mind
that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of
it the better.

It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their
attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped.

All I knew
was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against
the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.

One day something happened which in a round-about way was enlightening.

His body did not
even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause.

Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out
in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey
away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town.

Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the
elephant.

In a job that you see the dirty work of Empire at close
quarters.

It was a
tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real
nature of imperialism-the real motives for which despotic governments act.

I decided that I would watch him for a little while
to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home.

It was an
immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute.

In
that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get
there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant.

A white man
mustn't be frightened.

All I knew
was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against
the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.

For at that time I had already made up my mind
that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of
it the better.

At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a
metaled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across,
not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains dotted with coarse grass.

But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind
legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upwards like a huge rock toppling, his
trunk reaching skywards like a tree.

Finally I
fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be.

For it is the condition
of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives", and so in
every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him.

I had no intention of shooting the
elephant-I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary-and it is always
unnerving to have a crowd following you.

I had committed myself to
doing it when I sent for the rifle.

The elephant
was standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

It had already
destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and
devoured the stack; also it had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver
jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon
it.

I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the
garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the
elephant was going to be shot.

The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an
elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn
Coringhee coolie.

The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair
sights.

Here was I, the white
man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd-seemingly the
leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro
by the will of those yellow faces behind.

It
seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him.

I ought to walk up to within say,
twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behaviour.

I was subdivisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way antiEuropean feeling was very bitter.

They
seemed to make no impression.

I had almost made up my mind that the whole story was a pack of lies, when
we heard yells a little distance away.

No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European
woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over
her dress.

One could have imagined him
thousands of years old.

He took not the
slightest notice of the crowd's approach.

He took not the
slightest notice of the crowd's approach.

Some
more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was
something that the children ought not to have seen.

He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken,
immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without
knocking him down.

At last, after what seemed a long time-it might have been five
seconds, I dare say-he sagged flabbily to his knees.

I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go made
with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant.

I ought, therefore, as the elephant
was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole; actually I aimed several
inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

Here was I, the white
man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd-seemingly the
leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro
by the will of those yellow faces behind.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds
clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it
becomes.

And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be
laughed at.

And at that distance, peacefully eating,
the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow.

This was the rainy season
and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of
yards long.

Some
more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was
something that the children ought not to have seen.

But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me.

It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their
attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped.

The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the
grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had
been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

I was young and ill-educated and I had had to
think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the
East.

With one part of
my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something
clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with
another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet
into a Buddhist priest's guts.

Feelings like these are the normal by-products of
imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

Early one
morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of town rang me up on the 'phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar.

His mouth was wide open-I could see far down into caverns of pale pink
throat.

I perceived in this moment that when the
white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.

For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not
afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone.

And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it
put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the
elephant.

He wears a mask, and
his face grows to fit it.

But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful
yellow faces behind.

All I knew
was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against
the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.

I ought, therefore, as the elephant
was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole; actually I aimed several
inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get
a better aim.

Besides, there was the
beast's owner to be considered.

That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds
clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it
becomes.

Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out
in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey
away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town.

Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a
mad dog, if its owner fails to control it.

It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their
attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped.

The people expected it of me and I had got to do
it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly.

It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant-it is
comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery-and obviously one
ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided.

The people said that the
elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with its
trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth.

There were several thousands of them in the town and non of them seemed to have
anything to do except stand on the street corners and jeer at Europeans.

His face was coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and
grinning with an expression of unendurable agony.

I ought, therefore, as the elephant
was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole; actually I aimed several
inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty
that I ought not to shoot him.

That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds
clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it
becomes.