Page 679 - Microsoft Word - Belicena respaldo

«Your mission, he said to them, will only conclude when those who know evaluate the
results of the operation». And those persons, of course, were in Germany: to both of you then,
corresponded to accompany us to our homeland and present your valuable testimonies. Then
you would be free to return, and the would put at your service all the necessary means.

As the monks hesitated, von Grossen pressed them morally assuring them that anywise
they would have to accompany us to Shanghai to officiate as Chinese interpreters and, once
there, «would not be very difficult for them» to embark towards Germany, «which was almost
as far as Bhutan». But this was not true.

Srivirya and the Ghurka, indeed, speak Chinese, but no one knew a word in Japanese,
the idiom spoken by who occupied the half of China. On the contrary, Oskar and I studied

Chinese and Japanese in the career of Ostenführer of the NAPOLA; and both of us dominated
the Mandarin and Japanese. But, anyhow, always existed the resource of the English, language
discredited in Asia but with which von Grossen or any of us could communicate. The universal

idiom of Asia, as the sons of the Perfidious Albion, would be the English, but the truth was that
was only spoken by the colonial functionaries and the sepoys of always; amongst the erudite
members of the Asian peoples, being India, Nepal, Kashmir, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, etc., the
English was resisted and remained commonly unwnown, to not say hated and hidden.

Even though we disapproved the attitude of von Grossen, neither Oskar nor I belied his
arguments. We observed smilingly, instead, how the two extraordinary Initaites went little by
little ceding in their positions. The truth was that in reality all wanted that the monks travel
with us to Germany. When, at the next day, we left to Sining, they were almost convinced by
the persuasive Standartenführer.

Chapter XXXV

What a city, neffe! In those days it counted with more than 130.000 inhabitants, and a
perimeter of more than 20 km. To its towering walls reached routes of all Asia: of Mongolia, of

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