BIRTH OF A GOVERNMENT
这天一清早就下雪。我坐在我那石板地的屋子里，感到有些郁闷和孤独。这时，他从外面走进来——一位幽灵似的人，身穿棉袍，头戴小帽。他像私塾先生似地鞠了个躬，就在我的炭火盆前找了个凳子坐下，贪婪地烤着手。他一边打着寒战，一边仰头看了我一眼，然后又垂下眼皮，从我的桌上拣起一颗瓜子，熟练地嗑起来。他怯生生地看了我一会儿，不自然地笑了笑。一个很腼腆的人！我想。
但是走进我屋里烤火的其貌不扬的这个人，可能是共产党地区中除了毛泽东、朱德之外最出名的人了。其实，他是闻名于全中国的。他就叫赵树理，是个作家，我在上一章里引用了他的作品。
It had been snowing since dawn and I was sitting inside my stone-floored home, feeling blue and lonely, when he came in from the outside - a spectral-looking figure in a long cotton padded gown with a skullcap on his head. Bowing like an old-fashioned schoolteacher, he seated himself on a stool in ffront of my pan of burning charcoal and greedily warmed his hands. Shivering all the while, he raised his eyes to mine, bent them down again, picked up a watermelon seed from my table, spit it out expertly between his teeth, looked at me tentatively for a moment, then smiled in an embarrassed sort of way. A very shy man! I thought.
But this self-effacing creature who had come to warm his hands at my fire was possibly - outside of Mao Tze-tung and Chu Teh - the most famous man in Communist areas. In fact, he was well known all over China. His name was Chao Hsu-li and he was a writer - the same writer whose verse I have quoted in the last chapter.
赵树理出生于山西太岳地区的一个小城镇。他是一位贫农的次子。家里有八口人，靠着种十七、八亩土地为生。为了糊口，他不得不拼命地干活。冬天到煤窑外捡煤，其余时间就在地里流汗。
赵树理小时候具有永不满足的好奇心，他特别爱好戏剧和音乐。他很小就学会了敲鼓、打钹、击节、吹笛、唱戏，而且很出色，于是村里的成年人就让他参加了“八音社”。这种熏陶为他以后给八路军写戏剧打下了良好的基础。
赵树理的祖父是个读书人，从小教他读四书五经。他让赵树理信奉三合教，这是一种把佛、道、儒三教教义揉合起来的宗教，强调行善致福。赵树理有一种善恶之行的记录，做了好事就在罐子里放白豆，做了坏事就放黑豆。修桥补路放三颗白豆，掩埋尸骨放两颗。坏事中有：不忠，不孝，损人利己，不洗手就在祖宗牌位前上香之类。赵树理的白豆总是比黑豆多。
Chao was born in a small town in the Taiyueh Mountains in Shansi, the second son of a poor farmer. With eight family members living off less than three acres of land, he had to scramble hard for his food, foraging in the pits for stray pieces of coal in the wintertime and sweating on the land the rest of the year.
Chao was a boy of insatiable curiosity, who was especially interested in drama and music. At an early age, he learned to beat drums, clang cymbals, clap sticks, blow the flute and sing old-fashioned drama so well that the adults in his village let him become a member of the Eight Sounds Association. Such training stood him in good stead when he later came to write plays for the 8th Route Army.
Chao's grandfather, who was a scholar, gave Chao an education in the classics and also persuaded him to believe in the Three Sects Faith - religion composed of Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian elements which stressed the doing of good as the means of acquiring a fortune. Chao kept a record of his good and bad deeds, putting white beans in a jar for the former and black for the latter. Repairing bridges and roads counted three white beans and burying human bones two. Bad deeds consisted of being disloyal, unfilial, gaining advantage at the expense of others or burning incense in front of the ancestral tablets without first washing your hands. Chao always had more white beans than black.
由于祖父早先的训诲，赵树理在班上总是名列前茅。赵树理上不起中学，便进了一所师范学校，可以免缴膳宿费。在师范学校图书馆的书里，他第一次读到他那山沟之外的现代世界，了解到西方国家的一些情况，如乔治·华盛顿的事迹、法国革命、工业化时代等。他在那里找到屠格涅夫和易卜生的译本，便如饥似渴地读起来。
这时，父母给他找了一个十四岁的媳妇，他便尽义务似地结了婚。新婚后同妻子住了几天就返回学校了。过了两年，他成为一群学生中的核心人物。这群学生是由二十个“思想进步”的分子所组成，他们认为课本中无用的古文太多，科学的内容太少。这些反抗分子对校长进行了指责，这位校长在筹款盖科学馆时贪污，结果只盖成了一间空房子，除了几只桌椅外，什么仪器也没有。这件事激起了公愤，校长被撤职了。新来的校长显然遵照军阀阎锡山总部的指示，把赵树理和其他五个同学开除了，说他们是共产党。
In the meantime, Chao's parents betrothed him to a girl of fourteen, whom he dutifully married. Just as dutifully, he slept with his bride for a few days, then went back to school. After two years, he became a leading figure in a group of twenty students with "advanced thoughts" who believed the curriculum contained too much classical nonsense and not enough science. These rebels accused the principal of raising money to build a science hall, and then "squeezing" so much that there was only a bare room with a few chairs and a table, and absolutely no equipment. In the ensuing scandal, the principal was ousted, but the new principal, evidently acting under instructions from the headquarters of Warlord Yen Hsi-shan, threw Chao and five other students out of school, accusing them of being Communists.
他种了一个时期的地，教过和尚识字，后来到一个小学任教，校长是个地主，也是当地的大债主。每星期总有三四个晚上，负债的农民拿着酒肉到学堂里请校长吃席，求他不要没收他们典出的土地。酒席有时要吃到凌晨三点钟，校长要到下午才能起来上课。教员们也颓丧起来，抽上了鸦片烟。
大约就在这一期间，赵树理的妻子死了，赵树理便回家料理丧事。丧事完后的第一天，军阀阎锡山的特务把他逮捕了，押送到省城太原，和一些学生一道，投入一座专门关押共产党的监狱。
That was in the year 1927, just after the split between Chiang Kai-shek and the Reds at Shanghai. To be called a Communist in the China of those days was even worse than to be called a Communist in the United States of today. And Chao, who had never met a Communist, never read one of their pamphlets or books and had no idea of what Communism meant, had no other course but to return home.
For a while he worked on the farm, then taught monks, then became a
teacher in a primary school whose principal was a landlord and the local
usurer. About three or four nights every week, peasant debtors, bearing
gifts of meat and wine, would feast the principal in the school rooms,
trying to persuade him not to foreclose on their land. These parties sometimes
lasted till three o'clock in the morning, with the result that the principal
never showed up for his classes until afternoon. The teachers, becoming
demoralized, took to smoking opium.
About this time, Chao's wife died and he went home to bury her. A day
after the funeral, agents of Warlord Yen Hsi-shan arrested him and shipped
him off to the provincial capital at Taiyuan where he was thrown with
a number of students into a special jail for Communists.
这简直等于扔给赵树理一把开启精神牢房的钥匙，虽然打不开通往自由的门，却打开了这个小伙子的心房。他告诉我；“共产党猛烈抨击中国封建旧社会，号召建立新社会，把我吸引住了。我正苦于不能解脱旧传统的羁绊，共产党的理论使我豁然开朗。”这位年轻的囚徒虽然在肌体上挨饿，但是在精神上却获得丰富的食粮。
经过长时间的审查后，起树理获释了。他虽然从未见过共产党，但是由于残酷的折磨，由于读了狱吏给他的材料他成了共产党的同情者。他很想找到有血有肉的真正的“赤匪”，可是一个也碰不到。他的思想渐浙地有些颓丧。
In exchange for their freedom, prison officials asked Chao and the others to write some articles against Communism. Chao and his fellow students were at a loss. None of them had the faintest knowledge of Communism. Cynically the jailers threw some Communist pamphlets in the cell. "Here," they said, "this is Communism. Write something against it."
The jailer might better have thrown Chao the key to his cell. For the
pamphlets, though they didn't open the door to freedom, unlocked the boy's
soul. "I was attracted," he told me, "by the Communists'
vigorous denunciation of the old feudal society of China and their call
to build a new one. To me who had felt strangled in the old traditions,
their doctrines made sense." So the young outcast lay in jail, starving
in body, but feasting his mind.
After a long investigation, Chao was freed. He had never met a Communist,
but now, due to cruel treatment and due to the reading matter with which
his own jailers had furnished him, he had become a sympathizer. He looked
for a real flesh-and-blood "Red bandit," but could find none.
Gradually, his thoughts took on a tinge of despair.
“我父亲根本就不理会我这一番话，”赵树理说，“他觉得我应该再娶个媳妇。而我对于个人的生活已毫无兴趣了．这样也好，那样也好，我都不在乎。可是家里需要个干家务活的。我自己并不操心这件事，就听任父亲张罗说亲。这种态度大概是听天由命吧，可是在那种旧社会里我只能采取这种态度。”
赵树理续弦不久，又离开了家，到达黄河南畔的开封，在朋友的书店里当店员。他希望这回能有个牢靠饭碗。可是．他来开封不久，蒋介石的官员们为了展宽街道，把书店拆了。赵树理只好又回家去。
"My father didn't give a damn for my sayings," said Chao. "He thought I ought to marry again. I didn't care at all about my personal life; it meant nothing to me one way or the other. But the family needed someone to do the housework, so when he suggested marriage, since I had no plans for myself, I just relaxed and let him choose me another wife. I suppose it was a helpless attitude to take, but I couldn't find any other attitude in that ancient society."
Shortly after his marriage, Chao left home again to become a clerk in a friend's bookstore in Kaifeng south of the Yellow River. Here, he hoped to find a measure of economic security, but Chiang Kai-shek's officials, soon after his arrival, broadened the street on which the store was located and tore it down. In despair, Chao started back home.
赵树理料定自己要惨遭不测，他对于自己悲惨的生命并不怎么留恋，但很不愿连累朋友，于是决定跑去自杀。这不仅对中国社会是一种极深刻的揭露，而见也说明赵树理当时无谓的轻生厌世思想。他对谁都没有说，就投入太原的湖中。
有人把他捞了上来，他在警察局里恢复了知觉，然后像一条挨过鞭打的狗似的回到朋友的住所。同蒋介石特务机关有勾结的帮会立刻在大学里散布谣言，说赵树理疯了，还诱使一家报纸刊登这种消息。学生们都嚷嚷起来，纷纷要求赵树理的朋友把“疯子”赶走。赵树理觉得自己在劫难逃，又想起自己过去的勿损人、只行善的宗教信条，便不去争辩。帮会派了一个人告诉赵树理的朋友，有个地方可以给赵树理治病，赵树理便顺从地跟那人走了。
His actions, however, aroused the suspicion of the four men and they followed him back to Taiyuan where Chao, very nervous by this time, took up residence with a friend on the campus of Taiyuan University. At night, Chao started to tell his friend about his experiences. Suddenly there was a loud and peremptory rapping on the wall of the room next door. Chao closed his mouth in fright. In the succeeding days, he tried to speak again, but each time there was a rapping and Chao concluded the "clique" men thought he had discovered some of their secrets and were yarning him to keep quiet.
It is a remarkable commentary not only on Chinese society, but also in the humbleness and perhaps misguided generosity of Chao's soul, that at this moment, certain he would be tortured or killed, not caring much about his poor life anyway, but above all not wanting to involve his friend in his troubles - at this moment, Chao determined to commit suicide. Without saying a word to anyone, he threw himself in the lake at Taiyuan.
Someone fished him out, and he regained consciousness in the police station, later returning like a whipped dog to the room of his friend. Immediately, the secret society, which had vague connections with Chiang Kai-shek's Special Service Section, spread rumors around the college that Chao was insane and at the same time induced a newspaper to print an article to that effect. The student body was in an uproar, with everyone demanding that Chao's friend get rid of that "crazy man.?" Feeling his life was doomed anyway and remembering his early religious training not to cause others harm - but to do only good deeds - Chao still made no attempts to deny that he was insane. When an agent of the secret society told his friend that he had a place where Chao could be cured, he meekly allowed himself to be led away.
他每次吃一块怪味烙饼，师傅就在本子上记录一次。“好，好好地吃。”师傅总这么说，并带着怂恿的神情朝赵树理微笑。
土匪们有自己的黑话。他们要杀一个人，就说：“闺女要出嫁了。”他们给赵树理吃毒药时，也用黑话说毒药的用量，如说“棉价一毛”或“麦价三毛”之类的话，表示每天在烙饼中的砒霜用量。
赵树理对活下去已不抱希望，他继续吃饼，日渐虚弱，但是什么话也不说。他那漠然处之的态度使土匪也感到惊奇。他们觉得犯不上把这种绝望的人杀掉。有一天，当他们转移巢穴的时候，就把他放了。
赵树理从满洲坟回来后，一个朋友给他在乡村师范学校找了个工作。这时正是日本侵华的前夕。在山西的知识分子中，爱国情绪十分高涨。可是阎锡山不允许示威，也不允许任何公开的反日宣传。这回，赵树理感到自己对中国社会统治者的义愤有了真正的理由，而且还找到志同道合者。每天下午，他和两个教员都把校园大门锁上，举行违禁的反日会议。
The bandits had a secret language of their own. When they were going to kill someone, they said: "The daughter is going to be married." When they fed Chao poison, they indicated the amount by saying to each other: "The price of cotton is ten cents" or "The price of wheat is thirty cents," depending on how much arsenic was in the cakes that day.
Chao had no hope for life and kept on eating. He grew weaker every day, but said nothing. His apathetic stoicism amazed the bandits. They decided such a hopeless man was not worth killing, so one day when they were moving to another headquarters, they let Chao go.
When Chao returned from the Manchurian Tombs, a friend found him a job in a rural normal school. It was just before the Japanese invasion. Patriotic feelings ran high among the intellectuals of Shansi, but Yen would allow no demonstrations or any public anti-Japanese propaganda. Chao now found a real reason for his defiance of the rulers of Chinese society and he also found allies. Every afternoon, Chao and two of his fellow-teachers would lock the gates of the schoolyard and hold forbidden anti-Japanese meetings.
赵树理用这种办法使土兵和老百姓和解了，也忘却了个人的烦恼。他成了游击队的干部，游荡了两年，最后同八路军建立了联系，开始搞宣传写作工作。他喜欢这个工作，因为这使他有机会告诉士兵和老百姓要和睦相处，他喜欢八路军，因为在他看来，八路军亲近穷人，接近他自己的生活。一九四〇年，八路军办了一个报纸，赵树理参加了编辑工作。由于日军的进攻，编辑部分成两部分。一连四年，赵树理总是在流动，一会儿写文章，一会儿打仗，但是他并未感到像过去做“文丐”那样低人一等。抗日战争将近结束时，他有了较多的时间，开始为报纸的副刊创作短篇小说。他的一篇小说《小二黑结婚》受到了边区政府的重视。这篇小说写的是一对青年男女为了婚姻自由而与父母、与全村作斗争的故事。边区政府把这篇小说印成单行本发行。这是赵树理创作道路的开端，他在一年的时间内又写了六七本书和几个剧本。他从此名扬解放区以至蒋管区。在蒋管区的著名作家如郭沫若、茅盾等，把他誉为新文学的魁首。
赵树理并没有从销售他的书中得到版税。我觉得他的生活并不比过去好多少，我把这个意思告诉了他。他觉得好笑。“你知道在中国‘文丐’是什么意思吗？抗战前，自己不掏点钱，书就没法出版。中国大多数作家是付钱给出版商而不是出版商付钱给作家。没钱就别想出书。关于群众运动的书就更不能出了。而现在，我想写的东西政府就帮助出版。再说，在这种时候，我赚钱干什么？有志愿战士，就有志愿文化人。正因为如此，我为人民创作完全是出于自愿的。
When the Japs invaded China, Chao joined a Sacrifice League organized
by Po Yi-po and took to the mountains. He soon found himself alone and
deserted in the countryside. All Yen's magistrates had fled and he decided
he would become a district officer himself. But his first three days in
office, he could find no one to govern. The people had fled to forests
and were hiding in caves. Terror-struck at the wild anarchy existing in
the retreating army of Chiang Kai-shek, they would not return home. With
trembling determination, Chao went among the soldiers who were digging
frantically in the ground for the peasants' hidden food stocks. They felt
like murdering all the farmers because they had fled. Talking gently,
applying some classical maxims, but with his heart in his throat, Chao
persuaded the soldiers not to break up any more furniture for firewood
and to stop searching for grain. "If you do that," he said,
"the people will come back and find it for you." In this manner,
he brought people and soldiers together and began to forget his personal
troubles.
For two years, he wandered as a guerrilla official, and finally hooked
up with the 8th Route Army as a propaganda writer. He liked this job because
it gave him a chance to tell soldiers and people to act kindly toward
each other and he liked the 8th Route Army because it seemed to him close
to the poor people and close to his own life. In 1940, the army established
a newspaper and Chao joined the staff. Japanese attacks split the staff
in two and for the next four years, Chao was constantly on the run, sometimes
writing, sometimes fighting, but never feeling degraded as he had in his
days as a "beggar writer." Toward the end of the Japanese war,
he had more leisure and began to write a literary column of novelettes
and short stories. One of his stories, "The Marriage of Little Black
Boy," about a girl and boy who struggled against their parents and
their whole village to marry freely, attracted the attention of the Border
Region government which published it in book form. This was the beginning
of a creative period which resulted in Chao's turning out half a dozen
books and a number of plays within the space of a year. It was also the
beginning of a fame that soon spread over all the Liberated Areas and
then into Chiang Kai-shek's areas where such noted writers as Kuo Mei-jo,
Mao Tun and others hailed him as the leader of a new literature.
Chao received no royalties from the sales of his books. To me it seemed that he was little better off than he had been before. I told him so. Chao was amused. "Do you know what it means to be a 'beggar writer' in China? Before the war, you could not get a book published without paying for it. Most authors pay publishers in China, not the other way around. If you had no money, you didn't get published, nor could you ever get anything published about the mass movement. But now the government helps me to publish the very things I want to write about. Furthermore, why should I want to profit in times like these? As there are volunteer soldiers, so are there volunteer culture men. That is why I write plays for the people on a strictly volunteer basis.
不过赵树理并不幻想要做个大作家，他也不想把所有的精力都用于写作，那样会使他脱离人民的。“我应该投入社会生活，”他说，“我要跟上革命的各个阶段。现在最重要的事情是搞土地改革，以后大概就是搞工业化。我们将来要组织合作社，需要美国的机器，所以我想去美国看看。我很想写重大的题材，也许内战结束后，我可以安顿下来专心专意写它一阵子。不过我决不愿完全脱离人民。”
“也许，”他说，“有人会觉得我的书没啥意思。抗战前，作家们写的是小资产阶级的爱情故事。这种作家对于描写在我们的农民中所进行的革命是不感兴逐的。我若请这种人写政治性的书，他们就很不高兴，觉得受了拘束。可是我是在农村长大的，我在这里一点也不感到拘束。我想写什么就写什么。而从前我却办不到。
“从我为农民写作以来，我写小说，写剧本。过去，我使用的语言和现在不一样，我的东西只有少数知识分子看。后来我想到，农民能看到的书尽是些极端反动的书，这些书向农民宣扬崇拜偶像，敬鬼神，宣扬迷信，使农民听凭巫婆的摆弄。我想，我应该向农民灌输新知识，同时又使他们有所娱乐，于是我就开始用农民的语言写作。我用词是有一定的标准的。我写一行字，就念给父母听，他们是农民，没有读过什么书。他们要是听不懂，我就修改。我还常去书店走走，了解买我的书的都是些什么样的人，这样我就能知道我是否有很多的读者。因为成千上万的农民都不识字，所以我就写能为他们演出的剧本。这样，从前只有少数知识分子看我的作品，现在连穷人都普遍能看到了。”
"But my material life is also much better than it was before. Besides writing, I also work as an editor in the Border Region Book Publishing Company. We have our own production organization, spinning, weaving, farming and so on, and everyone shares in the work and shares in the proceeds. From the company I get twenty-five ounces of millet a day, a half a catty [little over half a pound] of vegetables and some money for medicine because I am in bad health. I get one cotton padded winter garment and one summer suit every year. Before the war I had only a thin blanket and a few unpadded garments so that I was always cold. Before, I could never sit by a fire, but now I have my own charcoal to burn. Besides, the company gives me enough money for my daughter to go to school. And my wife can raise vegetables and make a pair of shoes a week. She gets the material for five hundred dollars and sells the shoes for two thousand. Such production was im~ssible before the war because we were overwhelmed with cheap Japanese goods. So now, having almost no burdens, I can devote myself more freely to writing."
Chao, however, had no romantic ideas about becoming a great author,
nor did he want to devote all his time to writing. That would take him
out of contact with people. "I must join social life," he said.
"I want to follow the stages of the revolution. Now, the most important
thing is the land reform. Later, it will probably be industrialization.
We will need to develop co-operatives and will need American machinery,
so I want to go to America. I have the ambition to write big things, and
maybe when the civil war is over I will settle down and just do nothing
but write for a while. But never will I completely divorce myself from
the people.
"Maybe," he said, "Some people would find my books boring.
Before the war against Japan, authors wrote books about the love of the
petite bourgeoisie. Such authors are not interested in describing the
revolution going on among our farmers. If I tell these people to write
books of a political nature, they might be very unhappy and think they
were being restricted. But I, who grew from a village, feel no restrictions
here. I write exactly as I please. I could not do that before.
"Since I write for village people, I write novels and plays. Formerly
I did not use the same language I do now and I had a small circulation
among a few intellectuals. Then I began to think that the only books available
to farmers were extremely reactionary, teaching them to respect idols,
devils and ghosts and to be generally superstitious so that they were
at the mercy of witches. I thought I must give these peasants a new knowledge
and also entertain them, so I began to write in their own language. I
have a standard for the words I use. Whenever I write a line, I read it
to my parents, who are farmers, without much education. If they cannot
understand it, I change it. I go around to the bookstores and ask what
kind of people buy my books, so I can learn if I am reaching a big audience.
Since thousands of our farmers can't read I write plays that can be performed
for them. Then, sometimes I rewrite these into novels for those who can
read. As a result, my writings which previously fell into the hands of
only a few literati now are well known among even the poor."
我翻译了赵树理的三本书。第一本是写农村选举的，第二本是写婚姻自由的，第三本是写一个乡村的战时生活的。他的第四部书名为《福贵》，写一个二流子在土改运动中变成了好人。这是托尔斯泰式的赎罪故事，从中也可以看到赵树理早年宗教教育的痕迹。不过己不是上帝改造人，而是革命改造人了。
说实话，我对赵树理的书感到失望。有人说，他的书如果翻译成外文，就会使他成为一个闻名世界的大文学家。我不同意这一点。他的书倒不是单纯的宣传文章，其中也没有多提共产党。他对乡村生活的描写是生动的，讽刺是辛辣的。他写出的诗歌是独具一格的，笔下的某些人物也颇有风趣。可是，他对于故事情节只是进行白描，人物常常是贴上姓名标签的苍白模型，不具特色，性格得不到充分的展开。最大的缺点是，作品中所描写的都是些事件的梗概，而不是实在的感受。我亲身看到，整个中国农村为激情所震撼，而赵树理的作品中却没有反映出来。
不过，若是用西方的文艺批评标准来衡量一位中国作家，也未免太学究气了，尤其是这位作家不仅进行写作，而且还当编辑，干农活，参加土改以及形形色色的运动。我想，等战争结束后，赵树理有了更多的时间，就能写出重要的作品，甚至能写出西方读者也感兴趣的作品来。
As for Chao's technique, he said he did not like to center a story
around just one person, but liked to delineate a whole village and a whole
period. For his characters, he made them composites of many people he
had known. To find such people he went down into the villages, lived with
the farmers, worked in their fields, joined their co-operatives and struggled
with them in the land reform.
I translated three of Chao's books. One was about village elections;
another about freedom of marriage; a third about wartime life in a village
; a fourth called Pu Kwei was about a village bum who became a good man
during the "overturning" movement. In such a Tolstoyan theme
of redemption, one notes traces of Chao's early religious training. However,
instead of God reforming man, it is the revolution that does so.
Frankly, I was disappointed in Chao's books. I had heard, if translated,
they would make him one of the world's leading literary figures. I can
not agree. His books contained no propaganda. I saw no mention of the
Communist party. His descriptions of village life were charming, his humor
piquant, his verses highly original and some of his characters were salty.
But the plots were mere outlines, the characters often bare types labeled
with a name, but possessing no personality, and none of them were fully
developed. Worst of all, his stories dealt with outlined events and not
with actually felt emotions. Those deep passions which I found out from
personal experience were stirring the whole Chinese countryside found
no record in his pages.
However, to apply Western critical standards to a Chinese writer, especially
one who is not only writing but editing, working on the farm, taking part
in the land reform and a half a dozen other movements, would be academic
in the extreme. I feel that when the war is over and Chao has more time,
he will produce important works and ones that might even interest a Western
reader.