Houch

No matter. It only proves that the events to which I return were important. In recalling we unconsciously prevaricate. This is obvious, and I say it only for the benefit of the most naive reader.

A frequent daydream and plan was a trip.

That could have happened, even quite easily. My poor four-year-old Iuo-Ya from the times of the Japanese war. I wrote her a dedication in Polish.

Painstakingly she tried to teach her dull pupil Chinese.

Of course, there ought to be institutes of oriental languages. Certainly, professors and lectures.

But everyone must spend ayear in such a village in the Orient, and pass such an introductory course under a four-year-old.

I was taught German by Erna. Walter and Frieda were already too old for that, already grammatical, influenced by novels, handbooks, schooling.

Dostoievsky says that in time all our dreams materialize, only in such a degenerated form that we don't recognize them. I can recognize those dreams of my pre-war years.

Not that I went to China but that China came to me. Chinese famine, Chinese orphan misery, Chinese mass and child mortality.

I don't want to pursue this subject. To describe someone else's pain is like stealing, preying upon misfortune, as if what he already had wasn't enough.

The first newmen and officials from America did not conceal their disappointment: it wasn't all that terrible. They were even looking for corpses, and in the orphanages, skeletons.

While they visited the Children's Home, the boys were playing soldiers. Paper caps and sticks.

"Apparently, the war hasn't upset them," said one, ironically.

"That's so now. But their appetites has increas and their nerves have become numb. Things are beginning to improve. Here and there even toys are to be seen in shops and plenty of candy, from a single pence to a whole zloty's worth.

"I saw with my own eyes: a small child scrounged up ten groszy by begging and then promptly spent it on candy."

"Don't write that in your paper, friend."