1.   As a boy, de Kooning had developed a romantic fascination with the United States, reading about Walt Whitman, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Wild West.

2.   As a boy, he had developed a romantic fascination with America, reading about Walt Whitman, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Wild West.

3.   But even his early films never hid his romantic fascination with prerevolutionary Russia or his love affair with dreamy, sun-dappled afternoons in the Russian countryside.

4.   I loved the idea of running, the romantic fascination.

5.   That, he felt, would be an irreparable loss because there are still thousands of Americans who have a romantic fascination with passenger train travel.