In the nineteenth century, Twain was the know-everything traveller, who made his homeland seem doubly attractive by so engagingly representing its energy and creativity.

The aging actress played the role she played in her youth, as if to reprise it.

Decades ago comics like Yakov Smirnoff used to do “Russian Reversal” jokes: “In America you can always find a party! In Soviet Russia, party always finds you.”

There were a few people on the platform, among them two Indian police, and a station oflicial with a white topee.