La vuelta al mundo de un novelista; vol. 2/3

A weary traveler steps off a steam train into the frosty dawn of Mukden, a city where Chinese roofs meet American‑style high‑rises and wooden lanes echo the rhythm of distant Japan and Korea. The narrator paints a vivid tableau of snow‑clad streets, restless, mottled horses and shaggy Siberian dogs, their breath curling like smoke in the bitter air. From the bustling station cafés to the hushed, lantern‑lit plazas, every detail conveys a place caught between old imperial grandeur and the modern world’s restless push.

Guided by a fur‑lined coachman, the party ventures toward the silent mausoleums of the Manchu dynasty, slipping over hidden gullies and the faint outlines of ancient burial mounds beneath the snow. The landscape rolls like an endless white sea, broken only by dark, skeletal trees and the distant murmur of the Amur River’s hidden springs. As the sunrise drapes the plain in a pale, ash‑gray glow, the traveler feels the weight of countless battles once fought here, while still sensing the promise of spring that will eventually melt the ice.