IV

IV

The “Abrazo”—Arrival of Mr. Lind—Delicate negotiations in progress—Luncheon at the German Legation—Excitement about the bull-fight—Junk-hunting—Americans in prison—Another “big game” hunt.

The newspaper with the announcement that Mr. Lind had left Vera Cruz last night for Mexico City was brought up on my breakfast tray. I have had two rooms made ready for him, moving rugs and desks and furniture about, robbing Peter to pay Paul, as one does in an incompletely furnished house. He will be welcome, and I hope comfortable, as long as he sees fit to stay. I bear the memory of something magnetic, something disarming of criticism, in his clear, straight gaze, blue viking eye, his kindly smile, and his tall, spare figure, clothed, not dressed. He won’t find it easy here and I don’t think any Mexican official sporting the oak of the protocol will receive him unless he is accompanied by N.—a sort of political, Siamese-twin effect, and of a superfluity.

When I got down-stairs Mr. Lind was in N.’s study. To greet him I had to get through a swarm of newspaper men clustering like bees around the honey-pot of “copy.” I presented him, so to speak, with the keys of the borough, and retreated to my own bailiwick to order luncheon for one o’clock. The whole town is whispering and wondering what it all will mean. Huerta remains silent. It appears that he and his generals are nowwillingto make headway against the rebels. Why not before? A hundred years ago “dips” were sent to Constantinople to learn a thing or two they hadn’t known before. Now, I think, Mexico is as good a school for the study of other points of view.

Mr. Lind makes no secret of his conviction of the hostile intentions of England in the Mexican situation; but I have difficulty in thinking that to save her interests here, big though they be, England would ever do anything to jeopardize our friendship. In last week’sMulticolorthere was a picture of the White House, with England, Germany, and France in the act of painting it green.Poner verdeis to insult.

Huerta feels that he has the support of many foreign powers, especially of England. Sir L., by presenting his credentials the morning after thecoup d’état, stiffened him up considerably.

We have been busy these past two days. Mr. L. is a delightful guest, easy and simple. He goes to-morrow, but I am pressing him to return for Thanksgiving—ifwe are here. People smile when I speak of a Thanksgiving reception. Three weeks is a long cry in Mexico City, in these days.

N. finally ran Huerta down yesterday in theEl Globocafé. He received the usual affectionateabrazo,[4]and they had acopitatogether, but Huerta never mentioned Lind any more than if he were non-existent, and shied off at the remotest hint of “business.” Instead, he asked N., “How about the girls?” (“Y las muchachas?”) a phrase often used for opening or closing a conversation,in these climes, much as we would ask about the weather. It has no bearing on whatever subject may be in hand.

The new elections are to be held on the 23d of this month. Huerta plays with the government in Washington in a truly Machiavellian way. They want his resignation, but for the moment there is no recognized government in whose hands to place such a resignation. After the 23d, if the elections bear fruit, he will find some other reasons for remaining. If it were not for the fact that might is always right, the Administration would be as the kindergarten class, in regard to this clever, involved, astute old Indian. “They say” he is getting rich, but there are no apparent signs. I don’t think his mentality is that of the money-loving order, though possibly his principles would not prevent his making himself comfortable if he put his mind to it. He is now, however, so under the domination of hisidée fixe—pacification—in spite of the difficulties within and without, that I doubt if he is taking an undue interest in personal enrichment.

This morning I began the day by telephoning von Hintze to come for lunch, as Mr. Lind wanted to see him informally. Then I went to the house of the Chilianchargé, who died yesterday. He was laid out in the center of the little dining-room, the electric bell from the hanging lamp, which he must often have pressed while eating, dangling over his poor, dead face. There is a quite particular sadness about the passing away of diplomats in lands distant from their own, their little span spun among the polite, but the unrelated and uncaring. I stayed for a rosary and litany, the priest, his pretty, childless wife, and myself, alone in the room. Great hangings of purple bougainvillæa, the glory of Mexico, darkened the window. May he rest in peace.

There was interesting conversation at lunch, only we four being present. Mr. Lind repeated to von Hintze what he has, curiously enough, said to many people here—his opinion that the crux of the matter was the Anglo-American relations, and that the United States would never allow the dominance of British interests to the injury of American or Mexican ones; von Hintze, though he listened attentively, was non-committal and most diplomatic in his answers. It is always of absorbing interest to Germans to hear of possible difficulties between England and other nations, andvice versa, too, for that matter. A light springs into the eye; and I dare say von Hintze made a report to his home government on returning to the Legation. He told Mr. Lind he thought we had not sufficiently respected theamour propreof the Mexicans; that we were wrong in trying threats when what they needed was skilful coaxing. Mr. Lind volunteered the surprising statement that it didn’t suit us to have the elections held, anyway, as there would be concessions granted and laws passed that would render the Mexican situation difficult for us for fifty years. I really felt quite embarrassed.

The Vera Cruz elections amused Mr. Lind considerably, the “urn” being a common pasteboard shoe-box with a slit in it. Thisobjet de vertuhe had actually seen with his own eyes.

The town is wild over the bull-fight this Sunday afternoon. Belmonte,el fenomeno, just arrived from Spain, twenty-one years old, is the object of all affections. Political matters are quite in abeyance. There was a scarcely subdued excitement among the servants as the gay throng passed the Embassyen routefor the Ring, and considerable dejection this evening because all hadn’t been able to stampede the house and hie them to the fray. They are like children; any disappointmentseems the end of everything. A continual cloud of dust wrapped us about, stirred up by the thousands passing in motor, carriage, or on foot. During my first Mexican sojourn I went to two bull-fights, but didn’t acquire the taste. De Chambrun told me one had to go six times running, after which one couldn’t be kept away!

I saw Belmonte driving yesterday, the crowds cheering wildly. His expression of pride, yet condescension, distinguished him as much as his clothes. He wore the usual flat black hat, showing his tiny pigtail, a wide-frilled shirt under a tight jacket which didn’t pretend to meet the still tighter trousers, and he was covered with jewelry—doubtless votive offerings from adoring friends. And to-night he may be dead!

Burnside and Ensign H., of theLouisiana, who accompanied Lind as body-guard, return with him to Vera Cruz. The Embassy is to engage a compartment for him in the evening, but he will go in the morning. Just as well to be prepared against “accidents.”

We lunch at the German Legation to-day, with Mr. Lind. He hasn’t any clothes, but as he doesn’t work along those lines I suppose it doesn’t matter. There is no question of the tailor making this man.

A heavenly, transforming sun, for which I am giving thanks, shines in at my windows. I am going out to do some “junking” with Lady C. With exchange three for one, every now and then some one does unearth something for nothing. The Belgian minister, who has money andflair, makes the most astounding finds. He got for a song what seems to be an authentic enamel of Diane de Poitiers, in its original frame—a relic of the glories of the viceroys.

Something that developed in a conversation with Mr.Lind has been making me a bit thoughtful, and more than a little uneasy. He has the idea, perhaps the plan, of facilitating the rebel advance by raising the embargo, and I am afraid he will be recommending it to Washington. We had been sitting, talking, after dinner, shivering in the big room over a diminutive electric stove, when he first tentatively suggested such action. I exclaimed: “Oh, Mr. Lind! You can’t mean that! It would be opening a Pandora box of troubles here.” Seeing how aghast I was, he changed the subject. But I cannot get it out of my head. The Mexican book is rolled out like a scroll before him; can it be that he is not going to read it? Any measures tending to undermine the central authority here, imperfect though it be, can only bring calamity. I witnessed that at first hand in the disastrous overturning of the Diaz rule and the installation of the ineffective Madero régime. I think Madero was more surprised than any one that, after having taken so much trouble to help him in, we took so little tokeephim in. The diplomats are forever insisting that Diaz’s situation in 1877 was analogous to Huerta’s now, and that after a decently permissible delay of ten months, or whatever it was, we recognized him. So why not Huerta? He, at least, is in possession of the very delicate machinery of Mexican government, and has shown some understanding of how to keep it going.

The lunch at the German Legation was most interesting. Lind, Rabago, the Belgian minister, and ourselves were the guests. Rabago doesn’t speak a word of English, and Mr. Lind not a word of Spanish, so there was a rather scattered conversation. Everybody smiled with exceeding amiability—all to show how safe we felt on the thin ice. The colleagues are always very polite, butnone of them is really with us as regards our policy. Standing with von Hintze by the window for a few minutes after lunch, I used the word intervention, and von Hintze said something about the unpreparedness of the United States for war. This, though true, I could not accept unchallenged from a foreigner. I answered that if war were declared, we would have a million men at the recruiting offices between sunrise and sunset. It sounded patriotic and terrifying, but it was rendered rather ineffective by his reply, “Men, yes, but not soldiers. Soldiers are not made between sunrise and sunset.” He added something about the apparent divergence in public opinion in the States, and threw a bit of Milton at me in the shape of “not everybody thinks they serve who only stand and wait.” Ignoring this quotation from the blind bard, I said that whatever the divergence of public opinion might bebeforewar, the nation would be as one man with the Presidentafterany declaration. I also told him we did not regard the Mexican situation so much as a military situation as a police and administrative job, which we were unwilling to undertake. I then made my adieux, leaving the “junta” in full swing, the Belgian minister’s agile tongue doing wonders of interpretation between Lind and Rabago. The result of the palaver, however, as I heard afterward from the various persons who took part, wasnil.

Mr. Lind keeps me on thequi viveby predictions of a rupture in the next few days. He is naturally becoming impatient and would like things to come to a head. I have not drawn a peaceful breath since landing.

Runs on the banks to draw out silver in exchange for paper have complicated matters. When I went this morning to the Banco Internacional I saw people standing at the paying-teller’s desk, with big canvas bags in which to carry off silver. Since the law to coin moresilver has been passed, I should say that each patriot intends to do his best to line his own cloud with that material.

A telegram came from Washington last night. Rupture of diplomatic relations unless Huerta accedes to our demands. N. has taken it to the Foreign Office, to Rabago and to Garza Aldape, to prove to them that, though they may not believe it, we are ready to take strenuous measures. It is all more like being on a volcano than near one. Neither the Mexican nation, nor any other, for that matter, believes we are ready and able to go to war; which, of course, isn’t true, as we may be called upon to show. War is not, to my mind, anyway, the greatest of evils in the life of a nation. Too much prosperity is a thousand times worse; and certainly anarchy, as exemplified here, is infinitely more disastrous. We ourselves were “conceived in wars, born in battle, and sustained in blood.”

We hope theLouisianawent to Tuxpan last night, and that she will shell out the rebels there who are in full enjoyment of destruction of life and property. It would give them all a salutary scare. There are huge English oil interests there. The owners are all worried about their property and generally a bit fretful at the uncertainty. Will we protect their interests or will we allow them to?Ourgovernment gave warning that it would not consider concessions granted during the Huerta régime as binding on theMexicans. It makes one rub one’s eyes.

Things Mexican seem approaching their inevitable end. At three o’clock to-day N. showed Rabago the telegram from Washington about the probable breaking off of diplomatic relations. He turned pale and saidhe would arrange an interview with the President for six o’clock. At six o’clock N., accompanied by Mr. Lind, presented himself at the Palace. Neither President nor secretary was there. Rabago finally telephoned from some unknown place that he was looking for Huerta, but could not find him. Some one suggested that he might at that time be closeted with the only “foreigners” he considered really worth knowing—Hennessy and Martell.

Mr. Lind came for a moment to the drawing-room to tell me that he leaves to-night at 8.15. He thinks we will be following him before Saturday—this being Wednesday. The continual sparring for time on the part of the government and a persistently invisible President have got on his nerves. He hopes, by his sudden departure, to bring things to a climax, but climaxes, as we of the north understand them, are hard to bring about in Latin America. The one thing not wanted is definite action. Mr. Lind said, in a convincing manner, as he departed, that he would arrange for rooms for us in Vera Cruz. He knows it is N.’s right to conduct any business connected with the breaking off of relations, which he seems sure will be decided on at Washington, and he realizes that N. has borne the heat and burden of the Mexican day. He seems more understanding of us than of the situation, alas! I said Godspeed to him with tears in my eyes. Vague fears of impending calamity press upon me. How is this mysterious and extraordinary people fitted to meet the impending catastrophe—this burning of the forest to get the tiger?

An American citizen, Krauss, has been put without trial in the Prison of Santiago, where he has come down with pneumonia. N. has sent a doctor to him with d’Antin, who has been for years legal adviser and translator to the Embassy, and is almost, if notquite, a Mexican.They found the American in a long, narrow corridor, with eighty or ninety persons lying or sitting about; there was scarcely stepping-room, and the air was horrible; there were few peons among the prisoners, who were mostly men of education—political suspects. One aspect of a dictatorship!

Garza de la Cadena, the man I wrote you about (who seized the priest at the altar and threw him into the street in Gomez Palacio), was shot yesterday, by his own rebels, for some treachery—a well-deserved fate. He was taken out at dawn near Parral, placed against an adobe wall, and riddled with bullets.

This morning I was reading of the breaking off of our relations with Spain in 1898. Most interesting, and possibly to the point. History has a way of repeating itself with changes of names only. I wonder will the day come when N.’s name and Algara’s figure as did General Woodford’s and Polo de Bernabé’s? Various horrors take place here, but no one fact, it seems to me, can equal the dwindling of the population of the “green isle of Cuba” (indescribably beautiful as one steams along its shores), which dropped from 1,600,000 to 1,000,000 in ten months—mostly through hunger. Mothers died with babes at their breasts; weak, tottering children dug the graves of their parents. Good God! How could it ever have happened so near to us? However,theyare all safe—“con Dios.”

Now we take a hurried dinner, at which Mr. Lind, Captain B., and Ensign H. had been expected, and then N. goes “big-game hunting” again. It bids fair to be a busy night.

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