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BR has heard that The Absolute at Large (by Karl Capek) is rather good.

BR invites John for the next weekend—Peter and Conrad are in their new house. BR is still living in college, as the house is "not yet habitable for me".

"I had a long talk the other day with a Chinese fresh from Chung-King. He says China no longer feels any fear of Anglo-American imperialism, but is in deadly terror of Russia. I think myself that Russia will take the place of Germany as disturber of the peace, just as Germany took the place of France. Westward the course of empire, but eastward the course of imperialism. China's turn for wickedness will come when Russia is passe."

[The Chinese referred to must be Hsiao Ch'ien (Xiao Ian). BR's interview with him was published in Dagongbao, 8 Sept. 1944, p. 2, a Chung-King newspaper. But according to Hsiao's autobiography, Traveller without a Map (1990), he had been in the UK since the early 1940s, and therefore wasn't "fresh" from Chung-King.]