I have a great liking and admiration for the secretary of the Second International; but it requires a sense of humour and a certain gift of scepticism to make him understood of the great mass of his more sober Saxon comrades. “You can as easily make an Englishman musical as a Belgian moral,” he said gaily into the shocked ears of at least two English persons present, delighted to be taken seriously when he only wanted to draw us into a debate. His eyes twinkled mischievously as he spoke. He is the Puck of the International, the tormenting imp who likes nothing better than to stab with little darts of irony the self-important people who take life too seriously.
On public occasions he appears the most self-possessed of men; but he told me once that he suffers an agony of nervousness when called upon to meet strangers. His public speech sparkles with wit. He can laugh, sing, dance and shout with the abandon of a schoolboy; but when some piece of stiff business arises and he has to calm a raging storm of passion between two sets of nationals in a conference his peculiar genius shows itself, and he restores order and amity with the hand and voice of a master. Without Camille Huysmans the ship of the International would sail very unsteadily upon the turbulent waters of present-day politics. Huysmans is a member of the Belgian Parliament, and if there be anything in present signs and portents he is marked out by circumstance and his own commanding abilities to play a prominent part in shaping the future fortunes of his gallant little country.
“La petite Sara,” as his gifted young daughter was called by the Georgians, helps her father, whom she adores. She has his charming personality and marvellous facility for languages, with an added seriousness and self-sufficiency, if not a slight stubbornness of character, which will not detract but rather add to the quality of her international work. She is a very pretty girl, with large, serious grey eyes, dark fringed, and a complexion of cream and roses. All the young men of the party fell in love with her and lived in hourly, jealous fear lest some dancing Georgian rival should persuade her to marry him and carry her off to his mountain home.
M. Louis de Brouckere, tall, handsome and dignified, another of our Belgian companions, is the perfect scholar and gentleman. Could more and better be added to that?
M. Emile Vandervelde, the Belgian Minister for Justice, is a portly figure with a ruddy complexion and wonderful blue eyes, clear and limpid as a child’s. He is slightly deaf, which obliges him to lean and strain to catch the words of a speaker. He professes not to speak English, but that is all nonsense. He both speaks and understands it very well. His wife is an Englishwoman.
Of French he is a master. He is one of the greatest of living orators. As chairman of the Delegation he spoke on almost every occasion. So perfect is his art, so entirely matchless is his choice and use of word and phrase, so magnificent the roll and crescendo of his argument that his listeners stood fascinated as he spoke, or leaned forward in their chairs, their faces aglow with enjoyment of gesture and speech, even when they did not understand a word. To the understanding the speech was ever a marvel of beauty and delight, holding them spellbound to the last triumphant word and overpowering gesture. The theme in Georgia was the same for us all, and for all occasions: sympathy for the Georgians in their effort to build up peacefully and on Social-Democratic lines the Socialist Republic; offers of help in our various home countries; condemnation of Bolshevism; praise of Internationalism.
M. Vandervelde is one of the most brilliant supporters of the Temperance Movement. He is by preference a total abstainer, although he is often placed by his public life and on foreign travel in circumstances where it is very difficult to indulge his taste. In some of those Eastern lands the water is tainted with germs and poisonous to the last degree. When it comes to a choice between typhoid and alcohol, the choice usually falls upon alcohol! Sometimes bitter offence is given where it is highly important good feeling should be maintained if a guest declines to drink wine with a host; incredible in these days, but true; impossible in this country now, but in Eastern Europe of the greatest frequency.
It was in the company of this distinguished statesman that I visited the wine-cellars on the estate in central Georgia of an exiled Russian Grand Duke. We entered the vast chambers led by smocked peasants carrying torches. They bowed till their beards almost swept the ground as we thanked them for their pains. Vast, gloomy, mysterious in the light of the flaming torches, the cellars were not so attractive, we thought, as the enchanting garden under the moon, and the voices of the villagers singing their folk songs on the lawn; so we left the rest of the company and sought the road back to the palace ourselves.
“What do you think will happen at the next election in Belgium?” I asked my companion.