Br "Stroy"
Can a man miss his own jubilee? Con he, for instance, approach the thirtieth anniversary of his literary career and be completely unaware of that fact? The possibility is unlikely. Yet the unlikely became the factual the ease of Capt. A. M. Kotencv, who to is surprise found out in somewhat unusual circumstances that 30 years have passed since he published a novel of 400 purges in Moscow in 1008.
Some time ago a man with a youngish and distantly familiar face wrested him in a bank. There followed the usual assertions about the state of the weather and ques-tons about the state of euch other's well-being, and for want of saying anything else to the insistent conversationalist' Capt. Kotenev _com-rented on the latter's really excellent shirt, Ib transpired that this article of apparel cost an excellent price and was made by the best shirtmaker in the city. Then, " without further preamble, the stranger came out with the question: "Where could 1 get your book?" Thinking that he meant his "New Lamps for Old," or "The Chinese Soldier," or "Shanghai: Its Council and the Chinese," Captain Koteney "answered, "Oh, at Kelly Walsh's or "The North-China Daily News'." "No," was the rejoinder, "L mean your Russian book." Then, as the more popular writers used' to say, came the dawn, "You must be much older than you lok," he exclaimed, "it you've read iny Russian book! He suddenly remembered that thirty years ago, in Moscow, Just after had recuperated from serious wounds received in the Russo-Japanese War, he hod written a long hovel reflecting the experiences und mental turmoil of men of his generation who had left for Manchuria while yet youths and went through the first revolution of 1905 and the Subsequent reaction in polities and decadence in the country's literature and morality. "It appeared that the individual of the colourful shirt. was 35 years of age; quite definitely, therefore, he could not have read the book when it came out in Russia. Greatly intrigued as he believed there never was a copy of the old novel in the Far East, Capt, Kotenev asked a few more questions; and the slang into which the other slipped served to remind him when many years ago he was an interpreter at the Mixed Court and came across this man who was nothing but a Jailbird. The man had read the book while sojourning at the Amoy Road all, and it had, he confessed, stirred him mightily. The rest was hot dit cult to do: Capt. Koteney got touch with the Governor of the $.M.C. Gaol and obtained through an oficial paper this rare copy of his first Titerary attempt. It had gone through thousands of hands, yet had lost none of its 400 odd pages of large format.
The novel is called "The Truth of Mis God" Its principal hero, Alexis Abarinov, "Alesha," has much in common in biography and character with the then young author, who was under~ going an emotional strain caused by hhis wounds, the unsuccessful war, the revolution and the resulting moral decadence. Now this books has been carefully renovated by an experienced binder, given a beautiful leather cover and graces the writing desk of its author, who has thus been reminded by a chance meeting that he has approached the 30th anniversary of his Literary career.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.