Night cast down curtains. Tom looked at David again, and seemed to enter and know him. David was moving forward to the City as to a death he must pass through. The City was a cloud for them both ... though a different cloud ... whose blackness wreathed far over their afternoon. But David was distant from Thomas Rennard. David felt he might know this man and the City at a single moment: know them at once and together. Sharp long shadows crouched across the aisle of the car. Heads and shoulders of men and women loomed from a common gloom that expressed their oneness. Men and women were single-mooded, single-loined, they were a swaying, night-bound creature. Four men--more nearly boys save one who was old--got up and reached to the racks above the windows. They took violins and mandolins from cases. They tuned them. The old one who was leader struck a chord. A chorus of voices--male and wistfully female--quavered about the car. Only the four who stood were visible. Song rose from underneath them, tremulous and pervasive, rose from the gloom of the car. It was a song of folk, a song of yearning. Passion shot it through and passion ribbed it, it was a song of tender sorrow. The voices of women rose in it like waving of lonely trees in a wide bare field--rose and swayed, wept and subsided. The voices of men rose higher, mastering, comforting the low wail of women. The melody throbbed higher. Sharp flashings of desire were now the women’s voices: the men were weary and disconsolate, dying down. The song was over. A new silence lay in the car. The car ran on, subdued in it and sweetened. The leader lifted his violin. He was a man of gray hair and tremorous shoulders. His back was to David. The three boys rose again. Two of them very dark with hot tender eyes and glowing hair. The third was light, all his skin and hair was golden. David knew they were foreigners. There was laughter in the song. Sunlight aglisten on tears. Laughter of longing beyond hope, laughter of proud submission. The women’s voices welled like a sudden sea. Their liquid accents spoke of the softness of hands and the roundness of breasts, of the defiant promise of loyal children. Laughter of love and blood. They sat half lost in the gloom--wistful maidens, battered women--breeders of the defiance of loyal children. Their eyes glowed as they sang, their lips were round and wet with their song. The music rippled and foamed and raced. The men joined in--hard, staccato lancings of laughter--the music of men who had such mothers. The car was caught and was quick in their ecstasy. The car laughed on, raced on, under a song of low fields and mounting conquering laughter. David was lifted up. His veins were eager with melody, his eyes were dim. Never had he heard such music. “Who are they?” “Little Russians, I think. Ukrainians. Landless folk whose song is their land.”