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''What do they want?'' I drowsily asked my maidservant. ''They didn't say. But they behaved in a very unusual manner.'' ''Tell them I'll be down presently,'' I said. ''Give them a cold drink and some cigarettes.'' I did not hurry. I wanted time to think and be ready to cope with whatever was coming. After tea, I went downstairs slowly, deliberately creating the impression of composure. When I entered the living room, both men were sprawled on the sofa. Qi stood up from force of habit, but when he saw that the other man remained seated, he went red in the face with embarrassment and hastily sat down again. It was a calculated gesture of discourtesy. In 1949, not long after the Communist army entered Shanghai, the new policeman in our area came unannounced to our house. He marched straight into the living room and spat on the carpet. That was the first time I saw a declaration of power made in a gesture of rudeness. I came to realize that junior party officers often used such exaggerated gestures to cover up their feeling of inferiority. ''We have come to take you to a meeting,'' Qi said. ''You have been so slow that we will probably be late,'' the other man added. ''What's the meeting about?'' I asked. ''There's no need to ask so many questions,'' the activist said. ''We would not be here if we did not have authority. All the former members of Shell have to attend this meeting. It's very important. Don't you know the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has started?'' The servants looked anxious as I left. We all knew that since Mao took over, innumerable people had left their homes during the political campaigns and never come back. At the technical school, the target of the meeting was Tao Feng, the former chief accountant of our office. After several hours of speeches denouncing Shell and the ''running dogs of imperialism,'' Tao Feng was led into the room wearing a tall dunce cap made of white paper with COW'S DEMON AND SNAKE SPIRIT written on it. (In Chinese mythology, these are evil spirits that can assume human forms to do mischief. Mao had first used this expression during the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957 to describe the intellectuals, many of whom were sent to labor camps for having taken up the Chairman's own invitation to offer frank and constructive criticism of the Communist Party.) In the office, Tao Feng was always full of self-assurance. Now he looked nervous and thoroughly beaten. He had lost a great deal of weight and seemed years older than only a few months ago. The young people behind me snickered. A man pushed a chair forward and told Tao Feng to stand on it. When he did and stood there in a posture of subservience in his tall paper hat, the snickers became uncontrolled laughter. Someone in a corner of the room stood up. Holding up the Little Red Book of Mao Tse-tung's quotations, he led the assembly in shouting slogans: ''Down with Tao Feng!'' ''Down with the running dog of the imperialists!'' ''Long live our great leader Chairman Mao!'' I was shocked to see Tao Feng raise his fist and shout with gusto the same slogans, including those against himself. ''Tao Feng will now make his self-criticism,'' the man leading the meeting announced. Without lifting his eyes, Tao read a prepared statement in a low and trembling voice. He admitted all the ''crimes'' listed by the speakers. He expressed regret for having worked for a foreign firm for more than 35 years and said he had wasted his life. He said he was ashamed