Camerlynck

The greatest interpreter of modern times,'and perhaps of any age, was Gustave Henri Camerlynck. Death found him, last week, in Paris, five days after he had taken to bed with influenza. As Chief Interpreter of the Paris Peace Conference, the Washington Conference, and the First Dawes Committee, Professor Camerlynck received the personal thanks of such statesmen as David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson. He was to have interpreted for the new Second Dawes Committee (see col. 2). As illness stole upon him last fortnight, Professor Camerlynck interpreted, for the last time, between Prime Minister Raymond Poincare of France (who speaks no English) and the Agent General of Reparations, Seymour Parker Gilbert (who learned his French at Rutgers College).

M. Camerlynck was no mere polylinguist. He comprehended many tongues, but he translated only between English and French. His German was too correct and stilted. It was only to his chosen and special art that this little man from Flanders brought facility and fidelity which at times seemed miraculous. Gliding like an actor imperceptibly into the role of the statesman for whom he was translating, Professor Camerlynck would seem to become by turns Statesmen Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Wilson, Balfour, Hughes, Briand, Dawes or perhaps that wily Greek, old Eleutherios Venizelos. "We Greeks!" M. Camerlynck would cry, "We Greeks demand so-and-so as our rightful, our inalienable heritage!"

Buried in the musty minutes of the Washington Conference lies perhaps the perfect tribute to Gustave Henri Camerlynck--his rightful epitaph. As the Conference was about to adjourn, Arthur James Balfour. Chief of the British Delegation, rose with his usual majestic deliberation and sonorously addressed the Delegates:

"One word and one word only more must I say. I think we should feel that if we separated without expressing our thanks to Mr. Camerlynck [applause], we should be accounted among the most ungrateful of mankind. Mr. Camerlynck has an absolute genius for the work he has undertaken [applause]. ... I do not know what my French colleagues think when they hear their speeches translated by Mr. Camerlynck into the English tongue. But I know what I always think when I hear my speeches translated into the French tongue, which is that it is a matter of most agreeable surprise to think that I have lapsed into such unusual felicity [laughter]. If all my colleagues around this table entertain the same views that I do--and I believe they do--they will thank me for setting myself up as their mouthpiece and giving to our friend Mr. Camerlynck our warmest tribute of thanks and admiration." Turning to the little Professor whom he had thus made the hero of the moment, Mr. Balfour added: "Mr. Camerlynck, I shall undoubtedly meet you in Heaven!"

Inevitably the great translator's biography is dry as dust. Born in French Flanders of bourgeois parents. Educated in the ordinary primary and secondary schools open to every child in France. Then four university years at Lille and Paris, majoring in English and graduating with a B. A. English instructor at a Paris lycee or high school. Marriage. Instructor of Phonetics at the Sorbonne. Much poorly paid writing of text books in collaboration with his wife. War. Served all four years as interpreter to a British artillery regiment. Then the great, unexpected appointment as Chief Interpreter to the Paris Peace Conference, the chance of a lifetime which turned a brittle, impecunious professor into the confidant of the Big Three at their most secret and vital meetings. Perhaps M. Camerlynck was even present on that celebrated evening when Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George are supposed to have gotten Woodrow Wilson convivially stimulated,, but if so the little Fleming never told. When asked in his later years: "Why don't you write your memoirs?" Gustave Henri Camerlynck always laconically replied. "I know too much." He was 60 when Death came.