Thein Pe Myint (11)

The following text and translation covers the page 11 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 339 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A new collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

တင်းမာ ။ stern; hard; tense
အရိပ် ။ sign; indication;
မူယာ ။ ?
ရိုသေကိုင်းရှိုင်း ။ behave respectfully; bow in respect; revere
ညပ် ။ to be hemmed in; be wedged in between; be jammed
ရုန်း ။ to struggle free
တစ်စုံတစ်ရာ ။ something ("anything" in questions and negative sentences; "nothing" in negative statements)
ဒီ့ပြင်နည်း ။ ?
Vမိ Vရာ ။ to V wildly, incoherently
ပဲ့ ။ stern or tail part of a boat or plane; helm.
ခတ် ။ beat or strike
ရှောင်ရှား ။ avoid; abstain; stay away from
အလွန်အကျွံ ။ excessively; exceedingly
အပျော်အပါး ။ amusement; entertainment; fun; sensual pleasure.
ဂုဏ်ပုဒ် ။ qualities; characteristics; attributes; prestige.
ကာယကံရှင် ။ person responsible for a deed or act; party most concerned
ကြည်ဖြူ ။ be cordial; approve; be agreeable
ကာမ ။ sensual desire; carnal desire; lust
စင ။ to be free from; be clean; be pure.
နှစ် ။ to immerse;

Translation:

As for her face, it was stern. I did not think that there was any sign of shame. And I could not see any respectful behaviour. At that time I returned to a kind of spinning thought. Because it was the girl with the problem on the road, so that I would feel pity was she ?? and showing herself crying?

In the way that she was speaking of her husband who had gotten wrapped up in a case with pick-pocket thieves, could she not be a good and honest person. It would be fine as soon as I struggled out so as not to get wedged in between these problems. However, before I was able to say anything more, she [said]

"Because I don't have a ?? way to free my husband I planned wildly and got this idea barrister, sir. I didn't see how I could be able to look for a way with money. That's all. I'll go."

"Yes, yes, go on. As for me, I said money, only with money. With this work, in order to get a livelihood we can't follow [a case] for free. I want you to understand that."

Ngwe Sein, while she was getting up from sitting, with eyes glowing with pride while staring directly at my face, she grit her teeth and while saying

"I understand sir. And I want you to understand me," she put on her high heel shoes and left. The glow of pride that she let out from her eyes pierced into my liver and heart. And the last word she said "And I want you to understand me," repeatedly struck the back of my ears.

Really, although I was an old bachelor I was not a person who avoided women. If she was free of excessive diseases and other dangers and did not have all kinds of problems and if she was free, I was capable of following after sensual pleasure. However, I made extraordinary efforts to avoid following after amusements that would impact the prestige with the work of a barrister lawyer. Whether it was a cordial understanding of a person responsible for a deed or an uncordial misunderstanding, if one accepted carnal pleasures as a legal fee, it would be worse than to have the prestige of the work of a lawyer dragged into and immersed in impurity.