I cannot appraise you, yet strangely the sight of you
moves me.
I believe that I shall dream of you.

Pa-tze-kiao


Our Chinese Acquaintance

We met him in the runway called a street, between the
warrens known as houses.
He looked still the same, but his French-cut tweeds,
his continental hat, and small round glasses were
alien here.
About him we felt a troubled uncertainty.

He greeted us gladly. "It is good," he said in his
soft French, "to see my foreign friends again.
You find our city dirty I am sure. On every stone
dirt grows in China.
How the people crowd! The street is choked. _No
jee ba_! Go away, curious ones! The ladies
cannot breathe....
No, my people are not clean. They do not understand,
I think. In Belgium where I studied--
... Yes, I was studying in Bruges, studying
Christianity, when the great war came.
We, you know, love peace. I could not see....