What charm there is in traveling,
you sit down in the railway carriage,
dressed in agreeable clothes,
the houses and trees fly past
as though they were just hazy dreams.
The wheels rattle gently.
In one way or another
you get into conversation
and almost become friends already.
Traveling has a very particular tone
consisting of friendliness and ease,
a little bit of respect for life,
not too little and not too much.
Of course you set yourself a goal,
but not one you regard as at all important.
What's important becomes immaterial,
for you treat it as sport.
Today you are here and tomorrow there,
traveling takes you from place to place.
The towns and villages, rivers and lakes,
the side-streets, briefcases, girls and boys,
the station forecourts, reading-rooms,
and whatever else you have seen
is afterwards written up in your notebook,
because it lodged in your memory.