2 
III 
As the other train passed he looked through the 
plate glass of the dining car — the other — and saw 
a fork suspended in the air and before it had finished 
its journey he was peering into a smoking car with a 
silver haze and four men playing cards over a suitcase 
clamped to their knees. A world, a veritable world, as 
seen beneath the microscope. A world in an envelope 
sealed with the red tail light that proceeded gravely 
past him up the track. A world sealed out of his world 
and living for thirty-five seconds of his life. 
IV 
The lights of the train proceed 
transversely across the water; 
across the water strides 
the shadow of the engineer; 
the square barred windows move across the water 
as if they marked a prison that exists 
never between four walls, but only moves 
continually across a world of waters. 
V 
His head drooped lower gradually; he dreamed 
of the locomotive that boldly had deserted 
the comfortable assurance of steel rails; 
it turned and leaped 
like a beast hunted along the wooded slope. 
BMMMP 
over logs, over stones and among 
the trees that leaned away from it as it passed, 
and all the time the engineer bending out of his cab 
and saying 
— The four fourteen will be on time at Youngsville 
the four fourteen will be on time WON’T it, Bill. 
And the trees, reassured, lean back to their posts again. 
VI 
Time is marked not by hours but by cities; we are 
one station before Altoona, one station beyond Altoona;