J. Novikof · Reception at the Baroness Grovestins’s · Dr. Holls · Utterances of the nationalistic press · Excursion to Scheveningen · We give a small dinner · Threatening letter to Herr von Staal · At Ten Kate’s · Reports from Descamps · Beernaert on the Geneva Convention · Letter from Levysohn · Results in the matter of mediation · New acquaintances · First of Bloch’s evening lectures: subject, “The Development of Firearms” · Stead publishes a daily chronicle on the Conference · Young Vasily’s album · Removal to Scheveningen · Baron Pirquet brings a letter from the Interparliamentary Union of Brussels · Bloch’s second lecture: subject, “Mobilization” · My birthday · Dinner at Okoliczany’s · Lieutenant Pichon · Letters from aëronauts · Discussion on the permanent tribunal · President Kruger and Sir Alfred Milner · An amusing incident · Bloch’s third lecture: subject, “Naval Warfare” · A conversation with Léon Bourgeois · His call to Paris · False reports and denials · What Emperor Nicholas said to Stead · Rumor of the blocking of the arbitration business · Bloch’s final lecture: subject, “The War of the Future”
May 28. Novikof arrived. What kind of a man do you think is the author of sociological-philosophical works of seven hundred royal-octavo pages each, with such titles as Les luttes entre sociétés humaines et leurs phases successives, La théorie organique des sociétés, and the like? I have read these books and this is the idea of the man which I had in my mind: White bearded, with spectacles, in externalities a trifle neglectful of appearances,—for if a person sticks all day long poring over learned books and carries round socialistic problems in his head, he can scarcely be expected to bother himself with the petty vanities of the toilet; I imagined him very earnest but free from pedantry,—for his style is fresh and sparkling,—and probably a bit gloomy, for if one looks so searchingly into the motive powers of the world, has been busied so incessantly with the phenomena of wretchedness and suffering, a mood of melancholy might well be expected.
And the actual Novikof? An elegant man of the world, the jolliest of companions, with far too youthful an appearance for his forty-nine years; full of wit and entrain in his conversation. I believe these characteristics, charming as they are, injure him to a certain extent. Any one who has not read his books would not suspect what a man he is, would not take up the reading of them with that feeling of awe with which one should bury one’s self in scientific works.
In the forenoon a reception at the house of the Baroness Grovestins. Almost all the delegates are present. On the stairs I meet Count Münster and his daughter. In the drawing-room the family of the Chinese delegate forms the center of a numerous group. Madame Yang wears the selfsame coiffure as at the court, the same paper flowers down her temples, and though it is daytime she is painted like a mask, just as if she were under a chandelier. And yet there is a touch of lovableness in her pretty little face. Her gestures when she extends her hand are something like a wooden doll’s; but then she shakes the hand of the other person so heartily that it seems to mean, “For life, old comrade!” Her son of twelve and her little daughter of eight, both also in Chinese costume, accompany her, and they bear the brunt of the conversation, for they speak both English and French.
These children will not be brought up as pure, unadulterated Chinese. Behind their wall lies henceforth for them a piece of the world,—a world, moreover, in which all nations are joined to treat together in the name of universal peace; this idea will remain all their lives bound up with the recollection of the sweetmeats which Fräulein von Grovestins, with pretty speeches, offers them on a Delft plate. Gradually all Chinese walls—there are others than that one which bounds the Middle Kingdom—will fall. We already see them tottering.
Make new acquaintances, among them Dr. Holls, the second American delegate.[[35]] He sits down with me on a small corner sofa. We talk German together. He is by profession a lawyer in New York; comes from a German-American family; has a tall, thick-set, angular figure, and his eyebrows are outlined high on his forehead like circumflex accents. He confirms the news that I have heard from Stead. He informs me that public interest in the Conference is nowhere else so keen as in his own country. Cablegrams are received every day; resolutions and letters of sympathy come from all the states and from the most diverse circles. Each one of these messages is gratefully acknowledged, and they not only are instrumental in strengthening the American delegates but also make a strong impression on the representatives of other countries, who cannot fail to see in this interest displayed by the Republic of the West a significant sign of the times. I express my regret that this information does not immediately make the round of the European press.
“Yes,” assents Holls, “the exclusion of journalists was a great mistake. The majority of the European states are represented here by diplomats who see in mystery and secrecy the factors of successful diplomacy. We Americans and a few others were opposed to it—but the majority decided. Now it may result that the representatives of the great newspapers will feel insulted and go away—a few have already done so. Their editors will retaliate by belittling or ignoring the Conference.”
May 29. By way of exception, no party. Spend the evening at home with a group of friends,—Fried, the Grelix couple, the painter Ten Kate, and Novikof. We get a scornful satisfaction in reading aloud a package of extracts from the German nationalistic press.
As the various Neueste Nachrichten and the various Lokalanzeiger in Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, and elsewhere comment on the Conference, we find unqualified such expressions as “The disgusting drama at The Hague,” “The Conference of Absurdities,” “The noxious nuisance now under way, which must arouse righteous indignation in all right-thinking men and genuine Germans,” “For the development of universal history the comedy at The Hague will signify about as much as a visit from ‘Charley’s Aunt’ would signify in the life of a single individual.”
And even Vorwärts (et tu, Brute!)—which is not nationalistic but scouts the Conference because it was called together by an autocrat and is composed of aristocrats and bourgeois—even Vorwärts writes: “How long will the augurs restrain themselves before they burst out into Homeric laughter and separate amid the laughter of the world?”