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i9i3] TALES OF GERMAN BRUTALITY 317
children1—when they were getting into motor cars to
go from the Embassy to the station ; a hostile crowd
that the police could not, or would not, control shouted
insults at them, and spat in their faces. " You do not
know how horrible it was when they actually spat in
my face! " said a young and charming woman with a
shudder. But they did not confine themselves to
spitting; three or four people, of whom two were ladies,
received violent blows from sticks, of which they still
bore the marks after ten days. " But who hit you ? Did
your notice what the individual looked like?" I asked
the lady who had been the most ill-used. "Oh yes! I
did. It was an old gentleman with a white beard and
gold-rimmed spectacles, long black coat and soft hat, the
real type of the Herr Professor !"
However, all these tales paled before those told by
the wretched Russians who, on the eve of the declaration
of war, had started off in the direction of the Russian
frontier, had been stopped within half an hour of the
frontier, forced to turn back, and subjected in East and
West Prussia, and in Pomerania to the most odious,
the most revolting treatment for days and days. Some
poor wretches were shut up for fifty hours on end in
goods-trucks, without food or drink, and without being
allowed to get out even for an instant. Some wretched
women were confined without any assistance in the
pig-styes of the municipal slaughter-houses, where "diese
Russischen Schweine " were herded for the night. And
a great many unfortunate people were shot, especially
those who were caught with kodaks!
All these tales bore a stereotyped resemblance
to each other. And among those who told them were
people whom one could not disbelieve: intellectuals,
men of serious and well-balanced minds, people of
our world, and among others many travellers
belonging to the Baltic Provinces. I can quote: my old
friend the worthy general Baron Kaulbars, his wife
1 Except the Ambassador, whose motor car was accompanied by a
strong escort of cavalry.
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