Author’s Note

A rereading of the Apocrypha, while I was living in Kanto, Manchuria, some years ago, seemed to me to show a curiously exact parallel between the position of the exiled Jews of Tobit’s day and that of the exiled White Russians in ours. Even most of the details of Tobit’s story it seemed to me, might be read as referring, without irrelevance or even improbability to the adventures of a White Russian refugee family. I am therefore very anxious that any reader of this book should keep, as it were, one eye on the Apocrypha, and, for this reason, I have included a complete copy of Tobit at the end of my book. I have not added Judith, since she makes but a shadowy and vicarious appearance in my story.

It is difficult for me now to read the Book of Tobit with an impartial eye. Perhaps over-frequent rereadings have thrown the book rather out of focus in my view, and perhaps I have identified too elaborately my Russians with the ancient Jews. Certainly the rather complacent narrative of old Tobit leaves me with the impression that he wrote down the experiences of his family as he would have liked them to happen, rather than as they did happen. Tobit’s partly tacit insistence on the I-told-you-so and father-always-knows-best motifs, suggests a wistfully self-compensating diary, rather than an impersonal record of facts, and his conception of his son’s exclusively filial orientation makes a modern reader sceptical as to whether a few thousand years could make so much difference to youthful human nature as all that. The Book of Tobit seems to me to give, in fact, purely Tobit’s side of what must have been a many-sided story. Old Tobit was the center of his picture, as Old Sergei in my book would have liked to be the center of his. My narrative discounts this patriarchal bias.

With regard to the setting of my story, my friend, the late Sir Valentine Chirol, and my husband, J. C. O’G. Anderson, have kindly supplied me with facts from their superior knowledge, to supplement and explain my own ignorant observations of the bewildering confusion of tongues and nationalities in the midst of which I have set my scene. This confusion is a commonplace of life in Manchuria, but may seem fantastic to readers unfamiliar with that part of the world.

Kanto, the part of Manchuria in which my Malinins live, is the Japanese name for a territory about the size of Wales, in the most southerly corner of the east side of Manchuria. To the south of it is Korea, to the east⁠—shutting it off from the sea⁠—is the Maritime Province of Russian Siberia and Vladivostok. To the north and to the west is the rest of Manchuria.

Kanto, though a part of Chinese Manchuria, is chiefly populated by Koreans. The next most important element numerically is the Chinese; then come Japanese, and finally a sprinkling of Russians. I do not here include the few European and American missionaries, who are not permanent residents.

In the days when Korea was a tribute-paying dependency of China, the exact frontier between Korea and Chinese Manchuria was not a matter of great importance, and was probably never very clearly defined. In 1909, however, with the Japanese annexation of Korea⁠—of 1910⁠—in sight, China and Japan signed the Chientao (or Kanto) Agreement, determining what would shortly be the frontier between the two countries. This agreement awarded Kanto to China, although Koreans constituted an enormous majority of the population. The reason for this seemingly illogical award was doubtless that the T’umen River, to the north of which Kanto lies, offered an excellent natural boundary line from the military and geographical points of view, ethnological claims not having in those days the weight which they have since acquired. The decisions of governments did not affect⁠—and have not affected to this day⁠—the development of the soil of Kanto by Koreans. The fertility of this soil, and the prosperity of the original Korean residents of this region, have attracted, and continue to attract, large numbers of immigrants from the south bank of the river⁠—i.e., from Korea proper.

The fact of Chinese sovereignty sufficiently accounts for the presence of Chinese in Kanto. But here, as nowhere else in Manchuria, they are in a minority of the resident population. What Chinese there are in Kanto have not settled to any considerable extent on the land; most of them live there as territorial officials, merchants, and middlemen, or travel there as agents and peddlers, and are content to leave the bulk of the actual development of the soil to the Koreans. The million and more of Chinese immigrants who pour into other parts of Manchuria every year, mainly from the Shantung and Hopeh provinces, have not as yet penetrated in any great numbers to this remote corner, Kanto, and are still being absorbed by the vast fertile tracts of undeveloped land to the west and north, which are, to them, nearer home. It is to be noted, too, that much the most direct approach to Kanto from China proper is by rail through Korea⁠—which is now a foreign country to Chinese. The only other approaches are from the north, and consist of very rough cart roads through unsettled and desolate country.

The absence, or apparent absence, of Manchus in what would seem to be their native land, Manchuria, is explained by the fact that, although they were at one time conquerors of China, China’s superior civilization has conquered her conquerors; the Manchus adopted in a great measure Chinas language and customs, and have become⁠—except in a few remote regions⁠—almost indistinguishable from Chinese. In their own land, Manchuria, they have been swamped by the flood of immigrants from China proper. In this note and in the story, then, the word Chinese includes Manchus.

The Japanese, being now the overlords of Korea, are near neighbors of Kanto. Hence Japanese consulates, hospitals, and schools, with their appropriate staffs, are to be found in the towns of Kanto, and there are also Japanese mining and railway concessionaires, and considerable numbers of Japanese traders. The fact of Japanese police functioning in this district is more difficult to explain, but the following points may be noted as having a bearing on this anomaly. Japan has fought two life-and-death wars in Manchuria, and expended enormous sums of money on railway and other development there; in addition to the extraterritorial rights which her nationals⁠—in common with the British, French, Americans, etc.⁠—still enjoy in China, she claims special privileges in Manchuria and Kanto (which are in some cases contested by the Chinese), arising partly out of her succession to the privileged position which the Russians held in Manchuria before the Russo-Japanese war, and partly out of subsequent Sino-Japanese conventions and agreements; Korean “independence” movements have originated in Kanto in the past, and it is known that the communistic doctrines which the Japanese view with such suspicion have made some headway among Kanto Koreans. Finally, the nationality⁠—Chinese or Japanese⁠—of Korean residents in Kanto is not infrequently in dispute.

There have always been a certain number of Russians in Manchuria. Imperialist Russia long cherished designs on this rich and handy country, and even after these hopes were overthrown by the Russian defeat at the hands of the Japanese, Russian official establishments were maintained in many centers in Manchuria and Kanto. The Russian revolution of 1917 cut off all officials of the Imperial regime from their sources of authority, and these families, for lack of anywhere else to go to, continued to live in Manchuria, as in other parts of China, living as best they might on their savings. These exiles were joined, little by little, by the more timid or foreseeing among White Russians already in Siberia. Among such early refugees I assume my Malinins and Ostapenkos to be numbered. These isolated exiles were presently swamped by a flood of White Russian fugitives⁠—the remnants of a defeated army accompanied by thousands of nonmilitary refugees⁠—which poured into Kanto after the collapse of the short-lived Far Eastern White Republic in Siberia. The greater part of these latest refugees eventually passed on to other parts of China, but some settled in Kanto and other districts of Manchuria, establishing small businesses, investing what remained of their savings, taking humble employment or living from hand to mouth. The lives of Russian refugees in China⁠—men and women frequently of a class not brought up to manual work⁠—are often terribly hard, and their stories heartrending. Suitable work is very difficult to find. Wages which will keep a Chinese or Korean workingman in what seems to him comfort, will not support the large frame or supply the more varied and aspiring wants of a Russian. The disorganization of life caused by the period of revolution, rootlessness, anarchy, bloodshed, and despair through which all these exiles have lived, has of course affected them psychologically⁠—especially the younger generation. Many Russian young men, therefore, at the time of this story, were following the line of least resistance by joining the Chinese army and taking part in Chinese civil wars⁠—often, poor souls, to lose their lives recklessly in causes that meant nothing to them.

The part of Kanto in which my Malinins settled is very inaccessible, now that the U.S.S.R. have closed the Siberian border, though in actual distance not far from Vladivostok. The nearest railway is near the Korean border, several days’ walk south over trails often infested by brigands⁠—and even when the railway is reached, it does not⁠—or did not, at the time of this story⁠—run direct into southern Korea, or connect with the South Manchurian Railway. A traveler in possession of money and a passport would travel for two days by train across the northwestern corner of Korea to the Korean port of Seishin; whence he would take ship to another Korean port⁠—Gensan⁠—and from thence travel by train to Seoul. My Russian traveler would elect to walk all the way, partly because he could afford no better, and partly because in this way he could better escape the notice of the Japanese police, who, though present all along the border and in every considerable town of Kanto, concentrate particularly on the railways and harbors and are, perhaps naturally, very suspicious of Russians. It should be remembered that White Russians are everywhere on sufferance only. They have no political standing, no official representation, and no appeal in times of difficulty. Their Russian passports are symbols of a dead power, and the papers issued to them by Chinese local officials carry no great weight outside the neighborhoods where they are personally known.

A point in my story which perhaps needs elucidation is the confusion of tongues between one Chinese and another. This will surprise no one who has lived in China. The spoken language differs so considerably from one province⁠—and even from one district⁠—to another, that it is not at all unusual for a European to be found acting as interpreter between, say, an English-speaking Chinese from Canton and a Mandarin-speaking Chinese settled in North China. Supposing the European to have lived a few years in Manchuria, he would almost certainly be able to make himself understood by the local Chinese population, whereas the Chinese newcomer from Canton might well be unable to make himself understood at all. Failing such an interpreter, however, and supposing the northerner and the Cantonese both to have some knowledge of the Chinese script (a certain degree of literacy is fairly widespread in China), they could communicate readily enough by means of writing, Chinese script being ideographic, not alphabetical, and universal throughout China.

Kanto is a small region, and perhaps I should therefore add that the picture of the village of Chi-tao-kou is a composite picture having no exact counterpart in fact, and any references to individuals or local affairs⁠—Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or missionary⁠—are purely imaginary.