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He folded down the corner of the page of his guidebook so he could easily find thewith his extra clothes, and began to walk in the direction of the station He walked steadily, stopping for food and drink at the sort of establishment where he could point at what he wanted and then hand soht change

It took hihborhood and then he had to approach a family on the street, show theare Kursky?” He chose a fa either a woht be a cop They pointed hiht direction, with many friendly Russian words he couldn’t understand

Sa, but it was still quite full and busy Trains were leaving regularly for distant cities He found a schedule board and looked up at it for a long tireat relief, he saw that the words ritten in the Latin alphabet as well as Cyrillic He recognized , Odessa, Vladivostok—but he couldn’t see anything that said Nizhny Novgorod At first, he assuerness had coht over the name He looked over and over, but still didn’t see it He walked along the line of counters and cages where station e their faces Should he try one of the women because women are naturally softhearted or would they be ready to feel irritated by his approach? The pretty ones et asked for dates and flirted with all

the time, and who knohat the others would feel?

Then he heard words in English There was a man behind a counter ore a unifor a couple who looked American that their fare was nine hundred rubles Sa in line in front of someone and then stood in front of the man

Thehim to speak

Saorod on the schedule”

“Gorky,” the man said “The city used to be called Gorky and the railway never changed it All Russians know that, so we don’t have any trouble Just people from other countries”

“Oh, thank you very ined another day walking to some other distant station

“I’ll help you When would you like to go?”

“As soon as possible”

“Very good There is a train at 2204 Would you like a ticket?”

“Yes, please”

“It will be nine hundred rubles One hundred eleven US dollars and fifty cents for a one-way second-class ticket or fifty-five dollars for a third-class ticket”

“And first-class?”