But that’s not all. Together with the earth and the sun, the train goes along an elliptical line, relative to the constellation Centaurus, towards some unknown point in space to be found in the direction of the constellation Hercules.’

‘Philology at the service of astronomy. Parbleu! How profound!’

‘You’re an idiot, my dear sir! Let’s move over to the incidental motions. Have you ever heard anything about the Earth’s processional motion?’

‘Maybe I’ve heard about it. But what does all this concern us? Long live the motion of a train!’

Szygon fell into a rage. He raised his mallet-like hand and let it drop forcefully on the scoffer’s head. But his arm cut only through air: the intruder had vanished somewhere; the space opposite was suddenly vacant.

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ chortled someone from the other corner of the compartment.

Szygon turned around and spotted the ‘stationmaster’ squatting between the headrest and the net; somehow he had contracted himself to a small size, and now looked like an imp.

‘Ha, ha, ha! Well? Will we be civil in the future? If you want to talk further with me, then behave properly. Otherwise, I won’t come down. A fist, my dear sir, is too ordinary an argument.’

‘For thick-headed opponents it’s the only one; nothing else can be as persuasive.’

‘I’ve been listening,’ the other drawled, returning to his old place, ‘I’ve been listening patiently for a quarter of an hour to your utopian arguments. Now listen a little to me.’

‘Utopian?!’ growled Szygon. ‘The motions I’ve mentioned are therefore fictitious?’

‘I don’t deny their existence. But of what concern are they to me? I’m only interested in the speed of my train. The only conclusive thing to me is the motion of engines. Why should I be concerned about how much forward I’ve moved in relation to interstellar space? One has to practical; I am a positivist, my dear sir.’

‘An argument worthy of a table leg. You must sleep well, Mr Stationmaster?’

‘Thank you, yes. I sleep like a baby.’

‘Of course. That’s easy to figure out. People like you are not tormented by the Motion Demon.’

‘Ha, ha, ha! The Motion Demon! You’ve fallen onto the gist of the matter! You’ve hit upon my profitable idea—actually, to tell the truth, not mine, but merely commissioned by me for a certain painter at our station.’

‘A profitable idea? Commissioned?’

‘Oh, yes. It concerns a prospectus for a couple of new railway branches—the so-called Veranuqunosbahnlinien. Consider this—a type of publicity or poster that would encourage the public to use these new lines of communication. And so some vignette, some picture was needed, something like an allegory, or symbol.’

‘Of motion?!’ Szygon paled.

‘Exactly. The aforementioned gentleman painted a mythical figure—a magnificent symbol that in no time swept through the waiting rooms of every station, not only in my country, but beyond its borders. And because I endeavoured to get a patent and stipulated a copyright in the beginning, I haven’t done badly.’

Szygon raised himself from the cushions, straightening up to his full imposing height.

‘And what figure did your symbol assume, if it’s possible to know?’ he hissed in a choked, strange voice.

‘Ha, ha, ha! The figure of a genius of motion. A huge, swarthy young man balanced on extended raven wings, surrounded by a swirling, frenzied dance of planets—a demon of interplanetary gales, interstellar moon blizzards, wonderful, maddeningly hurling comets and more comets.