SOURCE: "Homer of the Transsiberian," in The Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. III, No. 12, October 16, 1926, pp. 202-22.

Below, novelist and poet Dos Passos offers an interpretive discussion of Cendrars's poetry.

At the Paris exposition of 1900—but perhaps this is all a dream, perhaps I heard someone tell about it; no it must have happened at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900—somewhere between the Eiffel tower and the Trocadero there was a long shed. In that shed was a brand new train of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, engine, tender, baggage coach, sleeping cars, restaurant car. The shed was dark, and girdered like a station. You walked up wooden steps into the huge dark varnished car. It was terrible. The train was going to start. As you followed the swish of dresses along the corridor the new smell gave you gooseflesh. The train smelt of fresh rubber, of just bought toys...