Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/157

 Zeitung, dated July 1914. One of us who had been a student in Vienna, exclaimed: "Well, it reminds one of many things to see a copy of the Arbeiter Zeitung of pre-war days." And the shopkeeper added immediately, with a deep sigh: "If only we could begin to receive it again every morning as we used to before the war!" Our Russian friends only smiled at this statement. We, however, could not help thinking what would have happened to a Belgian shopkeeper if he had made a similar remark in the presence of German officers in the zone of the armies or if a citizen of Noyon, before some French officer, had expressed regret at not seeing the Liller Kriegszeitung any more.

We had another example of Russian tolerance when we arrived at Buczacz. It was one o'clock in the morning, and the General Staff had not expected our arrival in the middle of the night. Most of the town having been demolished by the bombardments, lodgings were scarce. To make room for us, soldiers and officers who were occupying a little villa that had remained intact in the outskirts of the