Thein Pe Myint's "Oil" (6/13)

This post presents page 6 of 13 of Thein Pe Myint's 1938 short story "Oil". This copy has been downloaded from the "Burmese Classic" website, which has an excellent collection of Myanmar books in PDF format.

Vocabulary:

လစ် ။ slip out, slip away; slip, lapse; be missing; be absent
ခိုက် ။ while
အဒိန္နဒါန ။
လျှော့ ။ to reduce; lessen; decrease; (of attempts, hopes, etc) give up (as in စိတ်-၊မာန်-၊လက်-); (of knots, belts, etc) loosen, slacken
တူး ။ to dig
ဆင်ခြေ ။ an excuse
သံချောင်းခေါက် ။ strike a piece of iron to sound the hour or alarm
ထပ် ။ stack; pile; place one upon another
အတန်ငယ် ။ little; somewhat
လက် ။ flash; glitter; scintillate; coruscate
သာဓု ။ 'Well done!' (pali word recited three times following Buddhist sermons and chants)
နားငြီး ။ to be bored; be tired of hearing sth repeatedly.
ငြူစူ ။ to be envious, jealous, grudge
ငိုချင်း ။ plaintive piece of poem or prose; dirge; threnody; song of lamentation; wailing song
ယောင်ယောင် ။ just, slightly; part particle suffixed to a noun to denote close or deceptive resemblance (equivalent in usage to adverbs 'like', 'as though')
တယ် ။ word expressing indignation, threat, frustration
အိမ်သား ။ member of a household; husband
တစာစာ ။

Translation:

While slipping by, he could put a bottle of oil on the car. "That's not good. Stealing is a major violation. I'll go to hell, I think," Ko Lu Dote thought and released a big sigh. He relaxed one knee and let it drop and lowered [his] foot.

He returned to the excuse "This oil is gotten because of our work. It's because we have dug, that [the oil] comes out." He came to see [in his mind] workers digging and drilling [for oil]. He heard the sound of the 10 o'clock bell. Ko Lu Dote put his hands one on top of the other on his chest.

"More than that, these lands are our Myanmar lands. They have belonged to our people since historical times. The oil that comes out of our land belongs to us, of course. Why would [I go to] hell [as a result of taking oil]? We would just be taking back what is ours. I will steal it. I will steal it."

While he was deciding that, he returned to listening to the sound of his breathing.

Therefore, after a short while there was a glittering little lamp in Ko Lu Dote's room. The sound of Kyaw Yin reading could be heard. An old man from the room of the northernmost [family] among the five families in that little row [of homes] heard Kyaw Yin reading Buddhist prayers and called out 'well said'. And [those in the room] adjoining the north room from [which came the sound of reading prayers] became tired of [the sound] and became jealous. And from the southernmost room the husband and wife could not go to sleep early and the sound of Kyaw Yin's reading like a wailing song was heard. A member of the household living in the southernmost room said, "Is the little boy from that room reading? It's because he is the son of a disrobed monk, I think."