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streets. And then there were marvelous toy shops (locomotives, tunnels, viaducts), and tennis courts in the outskirts of the city, on the Kurfürstendamm, and the starry-night ceiling of the Wintergarten, and a trip to the pine woods of Charlottenburg on a cool, clear day, in a white electric cab.
    At the frontier where one had to change trains Martinrealized that he had forgotten in his compartment the penholder with the tiny glass lens, in which, when held up to your eye, a mother-of-pearl and blue landscape would flash into being; but during supper at the station (hazel hen with lingonberry sauce) the sleeping-car attendant brought it, and Father gave him a ruble. Snow and frost met one on the Russian side of the border, a whole mountain of logs swelled up on the tender, the crimson Russian locomotive was equipped with a fan-shaped snowplow, and abundant white steam flowed, curling, from the huge smokestack. The Nord-Express, russified at Verzhbolovo, retained the brown facings of its cars, but now became more sedate, wide-flanked, thoroughly heated, and, instead of gathering full speed right away, took a long time to gain momentum after a stop. It was pleasant to perch on one of the flap seats in the blue-carpeted corridor, and the fat lantern-jawed attendant, in his chocolate-colored uniform, stroked Martin on the head in passing. White fields stretched outside; here and there leafless sallows stuck up out of the snow. By a crossing gate stood a woman in felt boots, holding a green flag; a peasant, who had jumped down from his sledge, shielded with his mittens the eyes of his backing nag. And at night he saw something wonderful: past the black, mirrory window flew thousands of sparks—arrowlike flourishes of a fire-tipped pen.

7
    From that year on Martin developed a passion for trains, travels, distant lights, the heartrending wails of locomotives in the dark of night, and the waxworks vividness of local stations flashing by, with people never to be seen again. The slow heaving off, the grating of the rudder chain, the internal tremor of the Canadian freighter on which heand his mother left Crimea in April 1919, the stormy sea and the driving rain were not as conducive to viatic excitement as an express train, and only very gradually did Martin get penetrated with this new enchantment. A disheveled raincoated young woman with a black and white scarf around her neck strolled about the deck, blowing at the hair that tickled her face, accompanied by her pale husband until the sea got the better of him, and in her figure, in her flying scarf, Martin fully recognized the travel thrill that captivated him at the sight of the checkered cap and suede gloves his father would put on in a railroad compartment, or the crocodile satchel worn with its strap over her shoulder by that little French girl with whom it was such fun to roam along a fast train’s long corridor, inserted into the fleeting landscape. This young woman was the only one that looked an exemplary sailor, very much unlike the rest of the passengers whom the captain of this rashly chartered vessel, finding no cargo in crazed Crimea, had agreed to take on board so as not to make the return journey empty. Despite the abundant luggage—lumpy, hastily gathered, fastened with rope instead of straps—all these people somehow gave the impression of traveling light, of sailing as if by chance; the formula of distant journeys could not accommodate their bewilderment and melancholy. They were fleeing before a mortal danger but for some reason Martin was little disturbed by the fact that this was so, that the ashen-faced profiteer over there with a load of precious stones in a belt next to his skin, had he stayed ashore, would have been killed on the spot by the first Red Army fellow to be tempted by his diamond innards. And Martin followed the Russian shore with an almost indifferent gaze as it receded in the rainy mist, so restrainedly, so simply, without a single sign