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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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of Russia were putting on a Russian version of his “All God's Chillun Got Wings.” Several other people had given me letters of introduction, too. And in Moscow we were just wined and dined. This was now about the first week of June, about the 7th or 8th of June, and it was right at the height of the summer solstice. It stayed light all night. At midnight you could read a newspaper in the park. It was only dark for about an hour and a half. By the same token, in the winter there's virtually no daylight. Remember, Moscow is way up north!

Mina was having a ball, and I was really beginning to fall in love with her and wondering whether I should take her back to New York with me.

Then we took the overnight train, the Red Arrow, from Moscow to Leningrad. And when we got to Leningrad, Harold suddenly took sick. (Getzloe had left us again with his wife.) I called a doctor, who promptly informed him he had small pox. Well, we were frantic. Fortunately, Alice, his wife, who had been in Ireland with her kids (her nurse was Irish, and she had visited the nurse's home in Ireland), met us that day in Leningrad. I didn't know how I was going to tell her that Harold had small pox. We soon discovered that all he had was chicken pox; the doctor had mistakenly translated it as small pox. He meant to say chicken pox!

Alice Guinzburg quickly sized up the situation with Mina and myself. She said, “The girl's in love with you.” And I said, “I'm crazy about her.” Well, Alice was the one





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