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I put the remaining wine cups in the box and went upstairs to inspect the damage. My heart sank. On the third floor landing were fragments of porcelain in colors of oxblood, imperial yellow, celadon green and blue-and-white. The third-floor rooms resembled a scene after an earthquake. The Red Guards had emptied my storage cupboard. Flour, sugar and food lay on top of heaps of clothing they had taken out of cupboards. They had already dealt with my fur coats and evening dresses with scissors. The ceiling fan was whirling. Bits of fur, silk and torn tissue paper were flying around. Tables and chairs were overturned. In my bedroom, the bedspread was soiled with footprints. The Red Guards had slashed the mattress, punched holes in the lacquered screen, smashed the porcelain lamps and crushed their white silk lampshades. In the largest guest room, where the Red Guards had carried out most of their cutting and smashing, a radio set was broadcasting revolutionary songs based on Mao's quotations. A female voice was singing, ''Marxism can be summed up in one sentence: revolution is justifiable.'' Through a window I saw bright, leaping flames in the garden. A bonfire had been lit in the middle of the lawn. The Red Guards were standing around the fire tossing my books onto the flames. My heart tightened with pain. Several Red Guards began hammering on the furniture and breaking my records. I said to a teacher, ''These records are classical music by the great masters of Europe. Why not preserve the records and donate them to the Music Society?'' ''You live in the past,'' he said. ''Don't you know that our Great Leader has said that Western music of any kind is decadent? We are going to compose our own proletarian music. As for the Music Society, it's disbanded.'' I was so tired that I could hardly stand. I asked the teacher for permission to rest. ''You may go to your daughter's room. She is an independent filmworker earning a salary. Her room is not included in our revolutionary action.'' In my daughter's room I lay down on her bed. Through the window I could see the faint light of dawn on the eastern horizon. When I woke, the sun was streaming into the room. I went to the kitchen and asked the cook to make coffee and toast. A pretty girl with two long plaits over her shoulders came in to watch me. She picked up my coffee cup and sniffed. Making a grimace, she asked me, ''What is this?'' ''It's coffee,'' I said. ''What is coffee?'' I told her that coffee was rather like tea, only stronger. ''Is it foreign food?'' She put the cup down with a clatter. ''I suppose you could call it foreign.'' ''Why do you have to drink a foreign beverage? Why do you have so many foreign books? Why are you so foreign altogether? In every room in this house there are imported things, but there is not a single portrait of our beloved Great Leader.'' Outside the kitchen, I saw a man who had not been with the Red Guards the night before. I could tell by his air of self-assurance that he was a party official. ''I'm a liaison officer of the municipal government,'' he said. ''It's my job to inspect the revolutionary action of the Red Guards. Have you been beaten or ill treated?'' ''No, not at all,'' I said. ''These Red Guards carried out their revolutionary action strictly according to the teachings of our Great Leader Chairman Mao.'' The Red Guards beamed. He said, ''That's good. It's not the purpose of the proletarian class to destroy your body. We want to save your