Monday, 24 July

Light rain

I studied Russian in the morning. The conjugation of verbs is so complicated that it is rarely seen in other languages. The teacher said that my progress was most satisfactory. I know more than 1,500 words (She said I know more than 2,000). She thought that I could read short news, and start to read the Chekov scripts next week. According to her estimation, I could read newspapers three months later, and one year later I could read Russian literature. My teacher’s good points are that she is patient and stresses basic skills such as pronunciation and grammar. She is pleased that I do not trying to get on too quickly. I know that if one wants to learn something properly, and literature in particular, it is best to progress slowly day by day with great patience.

Because I am unable to hear the broadcast from Chongqing here, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is unwilling to issue telegrams on news to me, I have to ask Consul Yin to listen to the broadcast from Central, make the summary and send it to our Embassy twice a week, and our side will pay for the fees. Yesterday we received news for the first time, and it was quite good. It said that Hengyang is still in our hands, and the enemy’s army has already lost more than 16,000 people. According to Military Attaché Guo, based on military judgement, the enemy came from a long way, but it is already more than one week and they could not occupy Hengyang so must be showing signs of fatigue. As to whether our army can hold this place for so long, it means there must be some help coming through, so it is possible that the enemy will be defeated. He was quite reasonable. If we can defeat Japan in this way, the international opinion towards us will change. Because foreign people do not care about virtue, what they praise is only power. The various pointless criticisms from them recently are all evidence. So if there is no victory in the battlefield we cannot make foreigners change their views. The said news also said that the Hunan-Kwangsi route has been cleared, and so Kwangsi and Guizhou are free from danger now. I am very glad. Wang Dongyuan (王東原) will be transferred to become Governor of Hubei province. It is possible that the training corps will really be cancelled.