He sat down, there was a roar of applause; he regarded them contemptuously. At that moment I caught sight of Boris Grogoff. I had been on the watch for him. I had thought it very likely that he would be there. Well, there he was, at the back of the crowd, listening with a contemptuous sneer on his face, and a long golden curl poking out from under his cap.
And then something else occurred—something really strange. I was conscious, as one sometimes is in a crowd, that I was being stared at by someone deliberately. I looked about me, and then, led by the attraction of the other’s gaze, I saw quite close to me, on the edge of the crowd nearest to the platform, the Rat.
He was dressed rather jauntily in a dark suit with his cup set on one side, and his hair shining and curled. His face glittered with soap, and he was smiling in his usual friendly way. He gazed at me quite steadily. My lips moved very slightly in recognition. He smiled and, I fancy, winked.
Then, as though he had actually spoken to me, I seemed to hear him say:
“Well, goodbye. … I’m never coming to you again. Goodbye, goodbye.”
It was as definite a farewell as you can have from a man, more definite than you will have from most, as though, further, he said: “I’m gone for good and all. I have other company and more profitable plunder. On the back of our glorious Revolution I rise from crime to crime. … Goodbye.”
I was, in sober truth, never to speak to him again. I cannot but regret that on the last occasion when I should have a real opportunity of looking him full in the face, he was to offer me a countenance of friendly good-humour and amiable rascality.
I shall have, until I die, a feeling of tenderness. …
I was recalled from my observation of Grogoff and the Rat by the sensation that the waters of emotion were rising higher around me. I raised my eyes and saw that the Belgian Consul was addressing the meeting. He was a stout little man, with eyeglasses and a face of no importance, but it was quite obvious at once that he was most terribly in earnest. Because he did not know the Russian language he was under the unhappy necessity of having a translator, a thin and amiable Russian, who suffered from short sight and a nervous stammer.
He could not therefore have spoken under heavier disadvantages, and my heart ached for him. It need not have done so. He started in a low voice, and they shouted to him to speak up. At the end of his first paragraph the amiable Russian began his translation, sticking his nose into the paper, losing the place and stuttering over his sentences. There was a restless movement in the hall, and the poor Belgian Consul seemed lost. He was made, however, of no mean stuff. Before the Russian had finished his translation the little man had begun again. This time he had stepped forward, waving his glasses and his head and his hand, bending forward and backward, his voice rising and rising. At the end of his next paragraph he paused and, because the Russian was slow and stammering once again, went forward on his own account. Soon he forgot himself, his audience, his translator, everything except his own dear Belgium. His voice rose and rose; he pleaded with a marvellous rhythm of eloquence her history, her fate, her shameful devastation. He appealed on behalf of her murdered children, her ravished women, her slaughtered men.
He appealed on behalf of her Arts, her Cathedrals, and libraries ruined, her towns plundered. He told a story, very quietly, of an old grandfather and grandmother murdered and their daughter ravished before the eyes of her tiny children. Here he himself began to shed tears. He tried to brush them back. He paused and wiped his eyes. … Finally, breaking down altogether, he turned away and hid his face. …
I do not suppose that there were more than a dozen persons in that hall who understood anything of the language in which he spoke. Certainly it was the merest gibberish to that whole army of listening men. Nevertheless, with every word that he uttered the emotion grew tenser. Cries—little sharp cries like the bark of a puppy—broke out here and there. “Verrno! Verrno! Verrno!”7 Movements, like the swift finger of the wind on the sea, hovered, wavered, and vanished. …
He turned back to them, his voice broken with sobs, and he could only cry the one word “Belgia … Belgia … Belgia” … To that they responded. They began to shout, to cry aloud. The screams of “Verrno … Verrno” rose until it seemed that the roof would rise with them. The air was filled with shouts, “Bravo for the Allies.” “Soyousniki! Soyousniki!” Men raised their caps and waved them, smiled upon one another as though they had suddenly heard wonderful news, shouted and shouted and shouted … and in the midst of it all the little rotund Belgian Consul stood bowing and wiping his eyes.
How pleased we all were! I whispered to Vera: “You see! They do care! Their hearts are touched. We can do anything with them now!”
Even Uncle Ivan was moved, and murmured to himself “Poor Belgium! Poor Belgium!”
How delighted, too, were the gentlemen on the platform. Smiling, they whispered to one another, and I saw several shake hands. A great moment. The little
