M. Nazarov, as a student in Petrograd, embraced Bolshevism with great enthusiasm. When student days ended he came back to his original faith of Social Democracy. He acted as secretary to the expedition and was, without a single exception, the most consistently courteous and considerate person I have known who has ever occupied so difficult and thankless a position. Early and late he was engaged in looking after the comfort of everybody. Pestered to the verge of insanity, as he must have been with the requests of various members of the delegation, his manners never for an instant forsook him, and the remembrance of him alone would make the visit to Georgia unforgettable.
Of the three delegates from France, M. Inghels is the typical bluff and substantial Trade Union leader, a representative of the textile workers; M. Marquet is tall and slim and elegant, faultless in dress, of impeccable manners, leaving on the mind the impression of easy victories with women; M. Renaudel has already appeared in these pages, the man of robust proportions and prodigious appetite, of matchless eloquence in speaking, with a voice of great beauty.
There remain only the English delegates to describe, and one of these was a Scotsman, Mr. J. R. Macdonald, of the dark eyes and wavy hair of silvery grey, of the calm judgment and austere outlook upon life so valuable to the leader of men, and so necessary for the safeguarding of inexperienced Labour representatives in England come new and defenceless against the seductions of wily enemies in the House of Commons; and Mr. Tom Shaw of the Lancashire Textile Unions, stout and ruddy complexioned, full of fun and good-natured banter, the best of travelling companions and the kindest of men.
The delegates met in Paris at a dinner given to them by M. Tseretelli, the Georgian Minister. Preliminary to this was the tiresome and disgusting business of inoculation. The wily Georgians had said nothing about this in Geneva. Had we known then of the ravages of the pest, and had we been told we must be inoculated against bubonic plague, it might have affected our decision about going. For some time we resisted; but on the very earnest solicitations of our friends, and because it was suggested that by not being vaccinated we might endanger the lives of other people, we weakly yielded and consented to allow ourselves to be ill-treated in this peculiarly objectionable manner! I have never been able to reconcile myself to the deliberate poisoning of my blood at intervals during my life, and have always felt triumphant when the healthy blood I inherited from plain-living and high-thinking ancestors refused to be poisoned by the filthy injections.
The journey from Paris to Rome occupied two days, with a change of train at Turin. The one memorable thing about this journey was the descent through the Mont Cenis Tunnel into the Italian valley, with its villas and vineyards and sun-steeped fields.
We stayed a couple of days in Rome awaiting the date for sailing and to complete the passport business. Into those two swift days we crowded as much sight-seeing as possible—the Forum, the Coliseum, St. Peter’s Church and the Appian Way. There are some travellers whose sole happiness lies in being able to boast of having seen something which nobody else has seen, or to have got ahead of the party by doing something it never occurred to the others to do. You praise the sunset. “Ah, but you should have seen it an hour ago,” is the remark which cools your enthusiasm. You are pleased with the dinner. “But it is nothing like so good as yesterday’s,” is the observation which robs you of half your pleasure. You are enraptured with the song. “Oh, he’s gone off lately. You should have heard him a year ago,” is the comment that leaves you flat and disappointed.
“How wonderful is the Coliseum!” exclaimed one of the delegates to the rest of us.
“But did you see it by moonlight? No? Then you have not seen it. You must see it by moonlight if you really want to see the Coliseum.” And we left Rome with the feeling that there was nothing to be done but to return to Rome to see the Coliseum by moonlight, or our visit to the city would be mere fruitless folly.
I discovered the Corso to be no place for a woman walking alone. As a matter of fact, reputable Italian women do not walk in the streets of Rome unattended, particularly at night. I was ignorant of this, or had forgotten it, and did as I am accustomed to do in my own country, when I speedily discovered one difference between an English and an Italian city which pleasantly distinguishes the former; for there are very few places in England where a modest woman going about her legitimate business unattended would be stopped and spoken to in a familiar way in a public thoroughfare. In the streets of Rome the sun at midday is, apparently, no guarantee of impunity for women from the annoying familiarities of unknown and undesirable men.