The Polyglots
“Aunt Teresa had become a social centre of the town; and perhaps what added zest to the adventure was the knowledge that our polyglottic presence in Harbin was only temporary—as temporary as life on earth. We specialized in being nice to everybody. Only the children were rather naughty. They would come up to any guest, however stolid, and say: ‘You are awfully ugly’, or Bubby would comment on her mother’s looks as Aunt Molly came down the stairs in a new dress: ‘Oh, mummy, you do look a fright!’... We were an unusual set of people caught in an unusual set of circumstances and conditions. I like to think that we had, by the play of accident, escaped from much that has become threadbare and stereotyped in life. In the world war, the Russian revolution, things had taken place, strange shiftings of families and populations of which little has been heard as yet but the effect of which will tell one day In the day-time I was censoring all manner of telegrams and letters—an indictment of the war: that anyone should waste his time and talents on being a military censor.MoreLess
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