Sunday, July 11, 2010

Shooting an Elephant

Sight
1. "He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without knocking him down."
2. "You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs."
3. "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."
4. "It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside.
Sound
5. "The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theater curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats."
6. "When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick-one never does when a shot goes home-but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd."
7. "The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock."

Touch
8. "I felt that I had to put an end to that dreadful noise."
9. "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,"
10. "It made me vaguely uneasy."

No comments:

Post a Comment