Either one is a
correspondent or one is not!
It goes without saying that my newspaper would not have sent me to
Russia, if I could not speak fluently in Russian, English and German.
To require a newspaper man to know the few thousand languages which are
used to express thought in the five parts of the world would be too
much; but with the three languages above named, and French added, one
can go far across the two continents. It is true, there is Turkish of
which I had picked up a few phrases, and there is Chinese of which I
did not understand a single word. But I had no fear of remaining dumb
in Turkestan and the Celestial Empire. There would be interpreters on
the road, and I did not expect to lose a detail of my run on the Grand
Transasiatic. I knew how to see, and see I would. Why should I hide it
from myself? I am one of those who think that everything here below can
serve as copy for a newspaper man; that the earth, the moon, the sky,
the universe were only made as fitting subjects for newspaper articles,
and that my pen was in no fear of a holiday on the road.
Before starting off round Tiflis let us have done with this passport
business.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25