fair, Circassian face, dressed in the Russian worker's blouse and boots. He smiled.
"Dubra utra!" he greeted; and as Stoddard shook his head, he continued in English: "Good day! You speak no Russian? But I speak the English, so we will be able to talk, n'et? I am Kazanovitch. You are Tovarish Stoddard. Welcome to Russia!" He extended his hand.
"Thanks!" smiled Stoddard, shaking the proffered hand. "Glad you speak English. Russian's rather difficult for me, though I've been studying it. I've just been admiring the view here from the window."
The other nodded, smiling. "It gives one to think, not?" he answered. "Moscow is truly Muscovite. I am engineer, Tovarish Stoddard. I am to bring you to the Tovarish Direktor, then to take you to the technician's quarters. I was not told"—he looked around the room swiftly—"you have brought a wife with you?"
"No. I'm not married."
"Not? Many of the foreign engineers bring their wives with them. You will like the technicians' quarters. There are other American engineers; also English and Italian and German. I think, me, all the young engineers are come to help us with the Piatiletka. Thanks! I enjoy the American cigarette so much—they are very good. You are one of the American comrades?"
"No,” smiled Stoddard. "This is just a job to me. I needed it. Conditions are rather slow back home."
Kazanovitch nodded knowingly.
"The capitalist world is destroying itself," he announced, inhaling hungrily at his American cigarette. "When the Piatiletka is finished, we will overthrow it with its own weapons." He was tremendously sincere; his eyes fairly sparkled with a misty fanaticism.
Stoddard said: "Never had time to think about it. I'm merely an aviation engineer. I came here to build high-speed planes. The first one, I understand, is to make a good-will flight—non-stop—to Tokyo."
Kazanovitch nodded. "Come," he smiled. "I take you to the Tovarish Direktor. He do not speak the English, so I will tell you what he will say; then I take you to the technicians' quarters. I do not live there, but I go often to be with the men."
"You are an engineer?"
"Oh, yes! I am aviation engineer. We all work together for the Piatiletka. But I live in another place. I have the girl." He smiled.
"Oh, you're married?"
"Married? Oh, no. I live in free union. My Olga she do not believe in marry. But it is just the same. My sister, she live with me. She is young. She member of party too, division of education. She is—what you say?—detail by bureau to be guide for you." He chuckled. "Our Tovarish Direktor do not like that, but he can not change executive ukase. It is nothing. You come one day too soon, and she can not come today. So I come instead."
"I see!" said Stoddard. Free union! Well, this was Russia, and there wasn't any use in marriage anyway, when either party to a marriage could appear before the proper authority and get a divorce in a few minutes by simply asking for it.
They walked along the busy streets, Stoddard avidly examining the crowds. This was a new world, started from a new beginning; this was the proletariat, engaged in the greatest social experiment in history. Piatiletka! The
