Thein Pe Myint (7)

The following text and translation covers the page 7 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 335 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A new collection of short stories].

Vocabulary:

ချိုသွေး ။ to prepare for a fight; make ready for a fight
ကိုယ်လုံးကိုယ်ပေါက် ။ physique
ဖွံ့ထွား ။ big for one's age
တောက်ပြောင် ။ bright; brilliant; shining; vivid; luminous; lustrous
ဆန်းပြား ။ be extraordinary; be different
လင့်ကစား ။ however; even if; although; in spite of; despite
ပူပူနွေးနွေး ။ hot; recently, newly; promptly
အစေခံ ။ servant [?]
လျှို ။ to insert; hide, conceal
မှုန်း ။ to touch up (a painting or face)
ပူပင် ။ to be worried or anxious about sth
ဖုံး ။ to cover, conceal, hide
ကြည့်ပျော်ရှုပျော် ။ passable
ရိ ။ (of clothes) threadbare, worn out
လက်ပြတ် ။ sleeveless vest or jacket
အနား ။ fringe
သတ် ။ to trim
အစုတ် ။ (n) tear

Translation:

"Okay, go. Finish up."

Ngwe Sein showed the police a beligerant face and approached. She was not yet older than twenty-five. Her physique was big for her age and her face was relaxed. As for her clothing, although it was not bright and extraordinary, it was modern. Ever since I happened to think that it was like I had seen her before I tried hard to recall well. As soon as she approached the Municiple Police and said "Finish up," I recalled well where and with what issue I had previously seen her. While thinking about the issue for which we had encountered each other, happening to be looking up and gazing, I did not notice that Htun Khin had come close. I did not remember to get back the one kyat bill.

2

I was not a person who accepted to talk about a legal case at home. Even if they were my friends, if it was regarding a legal court case only in the office would I accept to speak.

During one day free day from the office while reading a law journal that had recently arrived from England in the reading room or the home where I was staying, while the servant boy left saying that a woman visitor had arrived at the front of the house, I saw a woman whom Htun Khin had called Ngwe Sein.

Ngwe Sein had tied her hair in a back knot. Although her face was touched up with powder spread thickly she could not conceal that she was worried about something. As her eyelashes were not painted and her lips were coloured red, one could not say that was decorated. One could only say that she was just passably decorated. As for Ngwe Sein's clothes, although they was not dirty I could see that they were old and worn out. I happened to notice especially that her English vest was not newly stitched and there was a tear on the trimmed edge of the left hand side with the cut of the old arm length.

I did not offer a chair to Ngwe Sein. As as for myself, I did not sit.