Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/111

 The representatives of the Soviets and the Trade Unions met us. The bands played merrily, the flags and banners waved briskly and gleamed brightly. The usual speeches of welcome were made and properly acknowledged. And then we left in the fleet of motor-cars provided for us to the large and commodious Hotel Delavoy Dvor, a whole floor of which had been devoted to our use. Special passes were handed to us at the station which admitted us to all the public buildings of the Government, and we prepared ourselves for a useful and strenuous time.

The hotel in which we were lodged was a modern business men's place taken over by the Government with the rest of Moscow's great public buildings. It stands at the entry to a large square and is within a good stone's throw of the Kremlin. Our quarters were very comfortable, almost luxurious, with substantial furnishings and good beds; but alas for the scriptural injunction: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness!" A new "Red Army" left its trail of blood along our pillows, one which, after the first night, drove us from our beds to the refuge of the more comfortable sofas. I give my word, there are more crawling things in that Moscow hotel than I had imagined were contained in the whole universe! Not in ones, nor twos, but in