"It was summer; the temperature was delightful, about like our October.
The showers were frequent, there was no dust and no sultry air.
"There must be a great deal of nice mechanical work required in St.
Petersburg, for on the Nevsky Perspective, the principal street, there
were a great many shops in which graduating and measuring instruments of
very nice workmanship were for sale. Especially I noticed the excellence
of the thermometers, and I naturally stopped to read them. Figures are a
common language, but it was clear that I was in another planet; I could
not read the thermometers! I judged that the weather was warm enough for
the thermometer to be at 68. I read, say, 16. And then I remembered that
the Russians do not put their freezing point at 32, as we do, and I was
obliged to go through a troublesome calculation before I could tell how
warm it was.
"But I came to a still stranger experience. I dated my letters August 3,
and went to my banker's, before I sealed them, to see if there were
letters for me. The banker's little calendar was hanging by his desk,
and the day of the month was on exhibition, in large figures. I read,
July 22! This was distressing! Was I like Alice in Wonderland? Did time
go backward? Surely, I had dated August 3. Could I be in error twelve
days? And then I perceived that twelve days was just the difference of
old and new calendars.
"How many times I had taught students that the Russians still counted
their time by the 'old style,' but had never learned it myself! And so I
was obliged to teach myself new lessons in science.
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