Sunday, 28 November

At 2.00 p.m. I visited Yasnaya Polyana Museum. It happened that it had just opened after renovation as it was bombarded two years ago. His granddaughter Sofia Andreivena Tolstoya and his secretary [name unknown] received us and took the tour. According to his granddaughter, Tolstoy had long liked China, and in his works there were letters to a Chinese friend (Letters to Gu Hongming辜鴻銘)[1] Tolstoy was a prolific writer and he had produced 95 works. But now only 37 of them are published.

At 4.00 I had lunch with Counsellors Liu and Chen and Attachés Hu and Qian at the Cossack Restaurant. It was quite nice.

In the evening Diachu invited me to watch Don Quixote. (Bolshoi Theatre). The main female character M.T. Semenova danced very well, no wonder she is so well-known. I met the Afghanistan Ambassador, he said recently at the Soviet-Afghanistan border the Soviet army always crossed the border and killed people. The Soviet Union has just announced the Four Powers Declaration with others, but at the same time it did things which were completely contrary to this, he said he was simply puzzled. I said the border issue might not be government policy. At the Japan-Soviet border, strife also always happens. The quarrels of the local army shouldn’t be viewed as serious incidents, therefore I urged him to remain calm. I also met the Greek Ambassador. He had heard the content of the meeting after it ended. He guessed that there was internal change inside Germany, for instance it was rumoured earlier that Marshall [unclear] will replace Hitler. The purpose of the British bombardment of Berlin is the same as when it bombarded Rome earlier to help Badoglio rise against Mussolini.

[1] Gu Hongming (1857-1928) was a Malay-born famous Chinese scholar on English Literature who had studied at Edinburgh University. He was proficient in many languages.