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expecting sixteen guests and had only eight chairs. I sent my boy to a neighbor, a Chinese officer, to borrow some. Yes, the officer would let us have them with pleasure, but just then he had guests sitting on them and eating ice cream. Of course, he really had neither guests nor ice cream. He merely wanted to show me that he was familiar with European customs.

I have often quite unconsciously performed such favors for my neighbors. Once when we were invited to dine with some friends I used the free afternoon to make a general inspection of my kitchen. One of my baking tins was lacking. After long hesitation my cook pulled it out of the oven with a beautiful pie in it. I did not say anything, but made up my mind to watch the disposition of that pie.

Our dinner with Mrs. X- passed off smoothly. She was an American lady, and just before dessert was served said that she had a little surprise for us - a genuine German pastry. Naturally we were all expectation. Her boy, with the most innocent and complacent face in the world, brought in-my pie! The pie was only too German. It had been made in my kitchen, with my materials, and baked with my fueland all by my 'German boy' from Tsingtau, who had sold it to the cook next door. Naturally Mrs. X-had not the slightest inkling of the true situation, and I took care not to shake her faith in her 'pearl of a Germantrained cook.' Besides, I had no idea how often I might have served my own

impromptu guests ice cream or butter from her house.

Trifles like having five people drop in unexpectedly for dinner, or even come in after dinner is over and need to be fed, do not disturb in the slightest a cook in this Celestial realm. He goes about his work in the same leisurely, placid manner as ever. I go into the kitchen and say: 'Four extra people have just come in for dinner. They will want something to eat in a quarter of an hour.' On such occasions I have found that it is wisest to drop the subject right there and do no more worrying. Cooks from House Number 19 and House Number 21 come in and help, and ten minutes later the boy is generally ready to announce, 'Kai fan (Dinner is served).' The soup has been hurriedly heated out of a can. Number 19 brought over some cream for it. The omelette is from our own kitchen, perhaps with asparagus added. The composition and the size of the cutlets are determined by the variety and the amount of the meat left over in the ten next houses. Our five courses of vegetables depend on the same complex situation. Evidently it has not been possible to get them all alike on such short notice. The vanilla ice cream is eked out with strawberry ice cream from Number 19. The cake is evidently from an American household. To-morrow, perhaps, my cook will help out House Number 19 and House Number 21 in return.

Who says that China has n't gone Communist?

CIVILIZING THE CAUCASUS1

BY LEV TOLSTOI

[THIS hitherto unpublished fragment, apparently originally intended to be included in his story, The Invaders, was recently discovered among Tolstoi's papers and printed at Moscow. It evidently marks one stage in the author's progress toward a creed of nonresistance and brotherly love.]

Nor a living soul was left in the village. Here and there along the fences frightened chickens, asses, and dogs fled in a panic; but a flock of ducks continued to paddle peacefully in the little pond below, oblivious of the disaster. The Chechens had evidently abandoned the place the night before, carrying with them their women and children, their rugs, their cooking utensils, their horses and cattle, and their weapons, and had fled down the steep descent into the gorge below, where our troops could not pursue them without exposing themselves to heavy losses. We and our brave colonel had had no opportunity to prove our prowess. There was no one to fight, no one to sabre. Now and then, to be sure, a bullet whizzed past, but that was none of our business. A detachment of infantry had been sent to clean out the enemy's hidden riflemen. My excitement, which had hitherto borne me up, did not subside until we halted. As long as we were pushing ahead at a gallop I felt no fear. I was quite capable, it seemed to me, of killing a man with my own hand. But

1 From La Revue Bleue (Paris literary and political semimonthly), April 3

now that I had stopped and had nothing to occupy me I was conscious of a different mood. The bullets that whistled past and occasionally wounded a horse or a man had a disagreeable effect upon my nerves. I comforted myself with the thought that the Chechens were not aiming at me, and likened myself, in my civilian clothing among these uniformed soldiers, to worthless bird that flies up at a hunter's feet when he is intent upon big prey. Only a pothunter would kill a bird like that, and the Chechens were not pothunters in time of war. They would not waste their bullets on a civilian when they had so many soldiers in sight to shoot.

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The General reached the village. At once our lines were strengthened and pushed forward. Bullets ceased to whistle past our ears.

'All right, Colonel,' said the General with a smile; 'let the boys set fire to the place, and grab anything they can get. I see they are anxious to start.'

The General's voice and his expression were the same that they were when he invited guests at his home to be seated at the dinner table. Only the words were different. You cannot imagine the effect that this contrast between his polished, gracious manner and the military realities around us produced upon me.

Dragoons, Cossacks, and infantrymen scattered through the village. A roof fell here; a door was burst in there; a fence flared up in flame; a haycock started to burn; pungent

smoke mingled with the fresh, cool morning air. A Cossack passed us dragging behind him a sack of flour and a sack of corn, and carrying two chickens. Another packed a big kettle on his back and carried a jug of milk. A third drove past a donkey loaded with booty. Some men led past a very old Chechen almost naked, and frightened nearly to death, who had not been able to escape by flight.

The village stood on a slope. A dozen sazhens above lay the edge of an immense forest, beyond which was the deep gulch I have mentioned.

I turned my horse up this slope to a point from which I could look down upon the village, already in flames, and the bustling troops that filled it. A captain rode up, and we sat in our saddles chatting and joking while we watched the soldiers destroy the fruits of so much human labor. Suddenly a piercing shriek arrested our attention. We turned around. Some thirty sazhens away a woman who had just escaped from the village was running up the slope. She was carrying a baby in a sash. Her head and features were covered with a white cloth, but her movements and her contours showed she was still young. She ran with surprising speed, one arm lifted above her head, shrieking at every step. Just behind her ran several infantrymen. One of them, with a rifle on his shoulder, outdistanced his comrades and was about to seize the woman, eager to get a bag of money she was carrying.

"They'll kill her, the scoundrels!' exclaimed the Captain, and giving his horse a cut with his riding whip he galloped toward the party. 'Hands off; don't touch her,' he cried.

But just as he spoke the soldier in advance overtook the woman and clutched at the moneybag, to which she clung. When she refused to relinquish it, he raised his gun in both

hands and brought it down with all his strength across her back. She fell; blood covered her blouse; her baby began to cry. The Captain, knocking off the soldier's fur cap, grabbed him by the hair and without uttering a word beat him so violently that I thought he would kill him. Then he went up to the woman and turned her over. When he saw the tear-stained face of the baby, and the sweet face of the girl, who could not have been more than eighteen years old, all pale and bleeding at the mouth, he ran to his horse, sprang in the saddle, and dashed away at a gallop. I caught a glint of tears in his eyes.

Why did you do that, soldier? I saw your silly smile when the Captain lambasted you. You thought the Captain was beating you simply to gratify his feelings. You expected your comrades to approve your act. I know you. When you get back to your station, and are sitting in the barracks with your legs crossed, you will smile complacently as you listen to your comrades boasting of your exploit. You will possibly interject a joking remark about the captain who beat

you.

Think of your wife Anissia, a soldier's wife who keeps a tavern in the government of T. Think of little Aliochka, a soldier's son, whom you left in Anissia's arms and whom you looked back at as you left, waving your hand to keep him from crying. What would you say were a party of drunken laborers to enter the tavern some fine day, pick a row with your wife, beat her, and throw a pewter mug at Aliochka's head? How would you like that? Perhaps you never think of such things. You say: These people here are savages and scoundrels. That may be true. They are savages. But that won't prevent the day coming when you, a poor old soldier, will feel

death drawing near. Anissia will hurry off for the priest. He will come when you are already in your death agony and ask if you have sinned against the Sixth Commandment. 'I have sinned, Father,' you will say, with a groan. And then suddenly the memory of this brutal act will flash vividly before your eyes. Your imagination will retrace the whole horrible scene the woman's dying eyes, the slender trickle of blood flowing from her mouth, the deep wound in her back under her blue blouse. You will see those eyes dart a last reproachful look at you, filled with inexpressible despair. A child's horrified face will rise before your vision. And the low but terribly distinct voice of conscience will utter to you the one dreadful word. You will feel a strangling clutch at your heart; the first and the last tears that you will ever shed will moisten your cheeks. But it will be too late. Tears of repentance will not save you. A mortal chill will seize you. I pity you, soldier.

After the village was completely destroyed, and nothing was left but smouldering ruins, the General departed and ordered the troops to retire. The soldiers withdrew in the same order in which they had advanced, a detachment of infantry on either flank and the smiling General surrounded by his staff in the centre. But the enemy had received reënforcements, and attacked us with fury. Bullets rained on us from both directions. Nevertheless the General was perfectly calm and undisturbed - a commander must be an example to his men. He rode side by side with the Colonel. They conversed as if they were riding in the park. The Colonel looked like a typical Englishman on his bay charger. He rode in an English saddle with peculiar stirrups, his legs thrust out straight ahead. His polished

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'You will command the advance guard, Colonel,' said the General, with a courteous smile.

'At your orders,' replied the Colonel, saluting. Then he added in French: 'I really feel hurt at this, my General. You never entrust the rear guard to my care. One would think that you were offended with me.'

'You know yourself that the Princess would never pardon me if you were wounded. My only excuse would be to be wounded with you.'

'Surely you don't shirk risks, my General.'

'If I am killed I am sure you would be the first to see my body safely to the rear; and I would do the same for you.'

The Colonel bowed with an amiable smile and muttered a word or two.

'What cultivated gentlemen!' I exclaimed to myself. I should add that while this conversation occurred their horses were at a full gallop and we were all under heavy fire. Several soldiers near us were wounded, and had to be carried forward on stretchers. One, struck in the neck, howled at the top of his voice. A young second lieutenant in the General's suite glanced at him with a look of pity and involuntarily exclaimed, 'How dreadful!'

The General interrupted his conversation to give the young officer a quick, sarcastic glance, and asked: 'Where's your nerve, young man?'

A couple of hundred sazhens farther on, when we were out of the enemy's fire for a moment, the General dismounted and ordered a meal prepared. His officers followed suit. A smoothfaced young adjutant lay down a little distance away with a thoughtful look on his countenance. He seemed to be

thinking to himself, 'All right; but if I am killed, what then?"

The other officers gathered around the General and watched with great affected interest the preparation of an omelette and a cutlet in a casserole heated by kerosene. One would imagine that they found the idea that the General was going to eat something most absorbing. I wondered what the slowly retiring soldiers were thinking. They were surrounded on all sides by the Chechens, who had gathered from every direction like flies around a syrup jug. The dull roar of cannon punctuated the incessant rattle of rifles, and great billows of smoke poured across the country.

'Who's commanding the rear guard now?' asked the General.

'Captain N,' answered one of his officers.

'A good man,' commented the General. 'I've known him a long time. He's a regular pack horse. You always find him where it is hottest. Just think of it, he was my senior when I first came to the Caucasus in 1822.'

The adjutants expressed their surprise and interest, but the General continued without pausing, 'Order the men there to retire by echelons.'

An adjutant hastily mounted and galloped off toward the rear. My curiosity was stronger than my fear, and I accompanied him. Without approaching the commander of the rear guard, to whom he was carrying instructions, the adjutant delivered them to the first officer he met. I rode up to the Captain. He stared at me, scowled, and, without addressing a word to me, turned round and began giving orders. He shouted and cursed, but without the slightest show of excitement. The commander of the battalion had been wounded and the Captain had taken his place. A young Georgian prince rode up.

'Let me charge them with the bayonet. We can drive them back.'

'You presume too much, young man. It is for you to obey and not to order. Your instructions are to protect the convoy.' And the Captain turned elsewhere.

'Why not give me a chance? Let me charge, I beg you.'

'Have you a mother?' the Captain asked brusquely, swinging round. "Think of her.'

The young prince looked confused. 'Get back to your position,' the Captain added sternly.

The Chechens pressed their attack with increasing fury. Our troops drove them back from time to time with a volley of grapeshot. Their fire would die down for a moment, only to resume a moment later hotter than ever. A pale lieutenant stepped up to the Captain and reported, 'My company is out of ammunition.' (He exaggerated.) 'What shall I do? The Georgian prince wants to change places with me. Anyhow, we can charge them with bayonets.'

'Who's talking bayonets? Our orders are to withdraw, not to stop here. You go and guard that convoy, and send the young prince to me.'

The latter appeared immediately. Disregarding the orders of the Captain, he gave an hurrah and charged down the declivity, followed by his company. His soldiers stumbled forward with difficulty under their booty-laden knapsacks, but they managed it somehow, and disappeared in the gulch with a weak cheer.

After half an hour of firing, tumult, shrieking, and cursing, which reached our ears from below, an old soldier clambered up the steep slope holding his rifle in one hand and a yellow and reddish object in the other the head of a Chechen. The fellow dropped on one knee, wiped the perspiration from

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