Once when I was on my way back to Belgrade, returning from one of my visits to a girlfriend who studied organic chemistry at the University of Louvain, I shared the compartment with five Yugoslav workers who boarded the train in Aachen. Whenever the train would stop at a signal they would get up, all five of them, open the window, and stare over each other’s shoulders toward the engine. And when the train would start moving again, at first slowly and then faster and faster, their anxiety would presently vanish, and they would return to their seats with relief and satisfaction. “As long as it’s moving,” they explained to me after a dozen such occasions, “we don’t worry about a thing. We’ll get there!” It did not matter to them how much closer they were to their homes, however. According to the five workers, this was a purely qualitative issue.