In all countries [antikvár]

PASSPORT PHOTOSLIPPING unsurely with numb wet feet on the sleetslimed pavement the Amerikanski Peesatyel stumbled into the station and found his way dazedly to his compartment in the train. In the trainshed it was like the Moscow winter afternoon outside, only darker and greyer. The dim electric bulbs made no light in the December murk, cold and heavy and grey as pigiron. Only the steam rising from the engine and our breaths made a little fragile stir of whiteness. The A. Peesatyel was dead tired, his nose stuffed up with a cold, his stomach was full of cold herring and smoked fish, the vodka of many goodbyes had worked up into his head where it weighed and buzzed in an iron crown. All the day before, all night, all this day he'd slushed through the sleetpitted snow of the streets, climbed grey stairs, tried to explain, to understand explanations, to say things in foreign languages, to ask how, to tell why ; had stood face to face with great healthy youthful people in formless grey clothes ; had been warmed and moved by the warmth and movement of their faces so alive in the eyes and lips, eyes strained to see beyond the frontier,3