anner--normal conditions have ceased
long ago--in the month of May, I believe. The days, which a couple of
weeks ago had but twenty-four hours, have now at least forty-two. You
cannot exactly say why this strange state of affairs obtains, for as
yet there is nothing very definite to fix upon, and you have
absolutely no physical sensation of fear; but the mercury of both the
barometer and the thermometer has been somehow badly shaken, and the
mainsprings of all watches and clocks, although still much as the
mainsprings of clocks and watches in other parts of the
world--bringing your mind to bear on it you know they are exactly the
same--are merely mechanism, and allow the day to have at least
forty-two hours. It is strange, is it not, and you begin to understand
vaguely some of the quite impossible Indian metaphysics which tell you
gravely that what is, is not, and that what is not can still be.... In
the crushing heat you can understand that.

Perhaps it is all because the hours are now split into ten separate
and different parts by the fierce rumours which rage for a few minutes
and then, dissipating their strength through their very violence, die
away as suddenly as they came. The air is charged with electricity of
human passions until it throbs painfully, and then.... You are
merrily eating your _tiffin_ or your dinner, and quite calmly cursing
your "_boy_" because something is not properly iced. Your "_boy_," who
is a Bannerman or Manchu and of Roman Catholic family, as are all
servants of polite Peking society, does not move a muscle nor show any
passing indignation, as he would were the ordinary rules and
regulations of life still in existence. He, like everyone of the
hundreds of thousands of Peking and the millions of North China, is
waiting--waiting more patiently than impatient Westerners, but waiting
just as anxiously; waiting with ear wide open to every rumour; waiting
with an eye on every shadow--to know whether the storm is going to
break or blow away. There is something disconcerting, startling,
unseemly in being waited on by those who you know are in turn waiting
on battle, murder, and sudden death. You feel that something may come
suddenly at any moment, and though you do not dare to speak your
thoughts to your neighbour, these thoughts are talking busily to you
without a second's interruption. For if this storm truly comes, it
must sweep everything before it and blot us all out in a horrible way.
Our