Tuesday, June 09, 2015
What Is In This Black Book?
George Orwell (1903-1950), Burmese Days, chapter 19:
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'Who are you?'
'Book-wallah, sahib.'
The book-wallah was an itinerant peddler of books who wandered from station to station throughout Upper Burma. His system of exchange was that for any book in his bundle you gave him four annas, and any other book. Not quite any book, however, for the book-wallah, though analphabetic, had learned to recognize and refuse a Bible.
'No, sahib,' he would say plaintively, 'no. This book' (he would turn it over disapprovingly in his flat brown hands) 'this book with a black cover and gold letters — this one I cannot take. I know not how it is, but all sahibs are offering me this book, and none are taking it. What can it be that is in this black book? Some evil, undoubtedly.'
