Another picturesque sight was the army trucks filled with armed soldiers, red handkerchiefs tied to their bayonets, dashing up and down the streets, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting the citizens, but really for the mere joy of riding about and being cheered. One of these trucks stands out vividly in my mind: it contained about twenty soldiers, having in their midst a beautiful young woman with a red banner, and a young hoodlum astride the engine. No one knows, at the end of the fourth year of the World War, what the result of the Russian revolution will be. It has so far left Russia a prey to Germany, but Germany is showing such criminal greed and unfairness that she may find her easily gained plunder will be her destruction, like the drowning robber with his pockets filled with gold. The Russian _mooshik_ has a motto, or rather a philosophy, which is expressed by the word "_nitchevo_." This word has several meanings, one of which is "nothing." Just what the _mooshik_ has in mind when he says "_nitchevo_" is illustrated by the following story. When Bismarck was Prussian ambassador at the court of Tsar Alexander II, he was invited by the Tsar to take part in a great hunt, a dozen or more miles out of the capital. Bismarck started with his own horses and sledge but soon met with a serious accident, and was obliged to call upon the Russian peasants, or _mooshiki_, to help him by providing a horse, sledge, and driver. Soon a peasant appeared with a very small and raw-boned horse attached to a sledge that seemed about ready to fall to pieces. "That looks more like a rat than a horse," growled Bismarck, but he got into the sledge. The peasant answered but one word, "_Nitchevo._" Soon the horse was flying over the snow at a great rate of speed. There was no road to be seen and the peasant was heading for the woods. "Look out!" yelled Bismarck. "You will throw me out!" But the peasant replied, "_Nitchevo._" In a moment they were among the trees and were turning, now this way, now that, to avoid hitting them. The raw-boned horse had not lessened his speed in the least. Suddenly there was a crash. The sledge had skidded and struck a tree. The peasant and his passenger were thrown out headlong. Bismarck was a man of fiery temper. When he had picked himself up, he rushed up to the peasant, who was trying to stop his bleeding nose, and yelled, "I will kill you." The _mooshik_ did not seem at all frightened or troubled, and answered simply, "_Nitchevo._" He drew a piece of rope from the sledge and began to tie the broken parts together. "I shall be late at the hunt," yelled the angry Bismarck. "_Nitchevo_," replied the peasant. While the sledge was being repaired, Bismarck noticed a small piece of iron broken from the runner and lying on the snow. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.