ebsk, in the company of Uncle Solomon, I
remember as well as the first. I had been up all night, dancing at a
wedding, and had gone home only to pick up my small bundle and be
picked up, in turn, by my uncle. I was a little taller now, and had my
own ticket, like a real traveller.

It was still early in the morning when the train pulled out of the
station, or else it was a misty day. I know the fields looked soft and
gray when we got out into the country, and the trees were blurred. I
did not want to sleep. A new day had begun--a new adventure. I would
not miss any of it.

But the last day, so unnaturally prolonged, was entangled in the
skirts of the new. When did yesterday end? Why was not this new day
the same day continued? I looked up at my uncle, but he was smiling at
me in that amused way of his--he always seemed to be amused at me, and
he would make me talk and then laugh at me--so I did not ask my
question. Indeed, I could not formulate it, so I kept staring out on
the dim country, and thinking, and thinking; and all the while the
engine throbbed and lurched, and the wheels ground along, and I was
astonished to hear that they were keeping perfectly the time of the
last waltz I had danced at the wedding. I sang it through in my head.
Yes, that was the rhythm. The engine knew it, the whole machine
repeated it, and sent vibrations through my body that were just like
the movements of the waltz. I was so much interested in this discovery
that I forgot the problem of the Continuity of Time; and from that day
to this, whenever I have heard that waltz,--one of the sweet Danube
waltzes,--I have lived through that entire experience; the festive
night, the misty morning, the abnormal consciousness of time, as if I
had existed forever, without a break; the journey, the dim landscape,
and the tune singing itself in my head. Never can I hear that waltz
without the accompaniment of engine wheels grinding rhythmically along
speeding tracks.

I remained in Vitebsk about six months. I do not believe I was ever
homesick during all that time. I was too happy to be homesick. The
life suited me extremely well. My life in Polotzk had grown meaner and
duller, as the family fortunes declined. For years there had been no
lessons, no pleasant excursions, no jolly gatherings with uncles and
aunts. Poverty, shadowed by pride, trampled down our simple ambitions
and simpler joys. I cannot honestly say that I was very sensitive to
our loss