Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/190

 from a catapult. Then the muscles relax and the arms form as it were a mattress, into which the victim falls, only to be flung up in the air again immediately, and so on. General Nottbeck submitted to this treatment with the stoicism of a real soldier, his body stiff, his face immovable, his hand at the salute. I am convinced that we Belgians, unaccustomed to this type of enthusiasm, made but a piteous figure the first time we underwent it. The first day of our arrival in Petrograd I was the victim of the enthusiasm of the sailors of the Black Sea, and my colleagues told me after all that was seen after the first leap in the air was a collar and two cuffs waving wildly, and a heap of clothes, presumably containing a man. Afterwards we got on better, for one becomes accustomed to everything, even to Russian enthusiasm.

This enthusiasm, moreover, sometimes takes a less disconcerting form. We had a memorable example at a meeting at Iezierna. It was a wonderful scene. It was at dusk on these wide Galician Steppes, night was falling when the meeting ended. The applause continued until our