Another reason that has caused me to embark upon this work with apprehension is that the persons I have chiefly to deal with are of another culture It is very difficult to know people and I dont think one can ever really know any but ones own countrymen For men and women are not only themselves they are also the region in which they were born the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk the games they played as children the food they ate the schools they attended the sports they followed and the poets they read It is all these things that have made them what they are and these are the things that you cant come to know by hearsay you can only know them if you have lived them You can only know if you are them And because you cannot know persons of a nation foreign to you except from observation it is difficult to give them credibility in the pages of a book I have never attempted to deal with any but my own countrymen and if I have ventured to do otherwise in short stories it is because in them you can treat your characters more summarily You give the reader broad indications and leave him to fill in the details In this book I do not pretend that my characters are as they would see themselves they are seen as is my main character through my own eyes