The statue of Tchaikovsky

From the moment I resolved on the journey, images and scenes assailed my imagination... a blacklist on which my name danced... as though it were not my name! An iron curtain before which my courage recoiled... suspicious glances pursuing me... scrutinizing eyes aimed at me... feelings turned against me, casting me out — while I stood bewildered at all this, not at... my own affair!!

Good people... my affair is less strange than you imagine, even if I did visit the China of Europe! For the whole of the matter is that I am one of those who seek learning and knowledge — even in China!

I passed through many European cities of which we know a great deal, until I set down my baggage in the city of Moscow at the break of a rainy dawn. And rain in Moscow reminds me of a February winter in my own country... in its coming and its ceasing there are question marks... and exclamation points!

Naturally, the presence of my uncle and his wife made everything easy for me, and in their company I saw and beheld and visited far more than the ordinary visitor or tourist...

During the time of my stay Moscow was the destination of great visitors from East and West... In my memory are pictures upon pictures which I pass in review whenever longing stirs in me for the receding yesterday... I see the beautiful "Soraya," Empress of Iran, sweeping in her flaring white gown through the ballroom of the Kremlin palace, glances snatching at her, besieged by inquiring... admiring... curious eyes... Thousands congealed into beads of tender emerald adorned Soraya's neck and wrist and hair... beauty... and magnificence!

Then I see the image of President Tito's wife, her face tinted with a bright, eloquent smile...

And Sayf al-Islam al-Badr in his splendid dress... Will Yemen, I wonder, return to its happiness... to its flourishing green, in these days of ours?

And Hammarskjöld... and the visiting parlia-mentary delegations... and then... the circles of diplomats at every party — at every reception... conversations... volleys of glances, exchanges of smiles by installment or wholesale... comments in agreement or at odds... the clinking of glasses around laden tables...

Between you and me, the life of diplomats is harder than you imagine — a life of exertion... and of giving, both ruled by duty and its demands... a life of recurring festivities... and of a wary... conscious luxury!

And withal, the diplomat goes on smiling under his burden... he carries his country on his shoulders... outside his country!

I visited the Kremlin, quarter of the czars, and I saw extravagance in the highest degrees of its arts and refinements... There gold was amassed to adorn the domes... and to sheathe the robes... to be poured into dishes... and vessels and earrings and strings of jewels! There rubies were gathered to bespangle everything — even the bridles of the horses and their

A front view of Moscow University, and before it a statue of Lomonosov, "father of the university" and its founder