V
Uncertain days—The friendly offices of diplomats—A side-light on executions—Mexican street cries—Garza Aldape resigns—First official Reception at Chapultepec Castle—The jewels of Cortés.
The President was not trackable last night, though N. kept up the search until a late or, rather, an early hour. It certainly is an efficient, if not satisfactory, way of giving answer—just to subtract yourself from the situation.
N. will not present himself at the convening of Congress on Saturday, the 15th. His absence will make a big hole in theCorps Diplomatique.
Several reporters were here early this morning to say they had positive information that Huerta had fled the country. But Mexico City as a rumor factory is unexcelled, and one no longer gets excited over theon dits. Moreover, nothing, probably, is further from Huerta’s mind than flight. From it all emerged one kernel of truth: Mr. Lind had left for Vera Cruz without satisfaction of any kind.
The Belgian minister came in yesterday just as Mr. Lind was leaving. He begged him not to go, to refrain from any brusque action calculated to precipitate a rupture that might be avoided. But I can’t see that any one’s coming or going makes any difference. The abyss is calling the Mexicans and they will fall into it when and how they please.
I have gone so far as to tell Berthe to pack my clothes.The things in the drawing-rooms I will leave—and lose if necessary. It would create a panic if any one came in and saw the rooms dismantled. No one can tell what is really impending. The American editor who remarked that what we take for an Aztec Swan Song is generally only another yelp of defiance is about right.
The five days’ siege of Chihuahua was ended yesterday by a Federal victory. The rebels lost about nine hundred men. The corpses of the latter were very well dressed, many wearing silk underclothing, the result of the looting of Torreon, which the rebels took several weeks ago. The Chihuahua victory will probably strengthen the provisional government if anything can. The generals, including Orozco, who fought against Madero, have been promoted.
Night before last the train on the Inter-oceanic between Mexico City and Vera Cruz was held up by rebel bandits for two hours. Everybody was robbed and terrorized. The rebels had in some way got news of the large export of bullion on the train. There was so much that they could not have carried it off, even if they hadn’t been frightened in the midst of their raid by a hastily summoned detachment of Federals. If we depart I don’t care to chaperon silver bars to the port. And N. says he would like Huerta to sit on the seat with him all the way down.
I wonder if the government will be so huffed at the non-appearance of the American representative on Saturday that the Sabbath will see us on the way, with our passports? Probably men may come and men may go (videMr. Lind), coldness and threats may be tried on them, and they will continue to let everything go till the United States is actually debarking troops at the ports and pouring them over the frontier. Masterly inaction with a vengeance.
I have an idea that Washington is not in accord with Mr. Lind’s impatience to end the situation by a rupture of diplomatic relationship. Once broken off, we would be faced by an urgent situation, demanding immediate action. Perhaps itistrue that we are not efficiently ready for intervention, besides not wanting it. As long as N. stays the wheels will be oiled.
Last night the atmosphere cleared—for a while, at least. Congress will not be convened to-morrow, which puts quite a different aspect on things. If it had been held, Mexico would have been the only country, by the way, able to display a triplicate set of Congressmen,i. e., those in jail, those elected since thecoup d’état, and the last new ones.
Sir L. called yesterday to offer his services. Great Britain knows she must be in accord with us. Many other colleagues also called, fearing some trouble when it was understood that N. was not to attend the opening and that the United States proposed to declare null and void any act of the Congress. Quite a flutter among the expectantconcessionaires Belges! It all had a very salutary effect. There is no use in any of the Powers trying to “rush” the United States, no matter what their interests on the Western Hemisphere.
President Wilson has decided to delay the announcement of his new Mexican policy. Incidentally, I told Berthe to unpack. Well, we will all be quiet until something else turns up. Hundreds of dollars’ worth of cables went out from the Embassy yesterday, N. dictating for hours and the clerks coding. Several of them are sleeping at the Embassy, anyway—so much night work that they are needed on the ground.
I am giving this letter to M. Bourgeois, the French consul-general, leaving on theEspagne, next week. He is an agreeable man of the world, who has just been assigned to Tientsin.
Matters very serious. N. is to deliver to-night what is practically an ultimatum. He called up Manuel Garza Aldape, Minister of Gobernación (Interior), and arranged for an interview with him at his house at nine o’clock. Then he rang up the ministers he needs as witnesses, to accompany him there.
Von Hintze arrived first. When he had read the paper here in the drawing-room he said, after a silence, “This means war.” (Some one had intimated such a possibility on Wednesday last, to Garza Aldape, and he had answered, quietly, “Itiswar.”) Von Hintze went on to say: “Huerta’s personal position is desperate. Whether he fights the rebels in the north or the United States, it is disaster for him. Only, I fancy, he has less to lose in the way of prestige if he chooses the United States. His nation will make some show of rallying around him in this latter case.” Von Hintze is persuaded that we are not ready for war, practically or psychologically. He kept repeating to N.: “But have you represented to your government what all this will eventually lead to?” N. answered “Washington is justly tired of the situation. For six months our government has urged and threatened and coaxed. It doesn’t want any more useless explanations. It is too late.”
However, until the note is in Huerta’s hands it is not official. So I still hope. Garza Aldape is one of the best of the ministers.
I went with von Hintze and N. to the big front door and watched the motor disappear in the darkness. Delicious odors from the geraniums and heliotrope in thegarden enveloped the house, but after a moment I came back, feeling very still. The idea of American blood watering the desert of Chihuahua grips my heart. I can see those dry, prickly cactus stubs sticking up in the sand. No water anywhere! During the Madero revolution a couple of hundred Mexicans died there of thirst, and they knew their country. I kept looking about my comfortable drawing-room, with its easy-chairs and photographs, books and bowls of flowers, and saying to myself: “So that is the way wars are made.” This putting of another’s house in order is getting on my nerves.
The telephone has been ringing constantly. The journalists have had indications from Washington that something is impending.
N. came in last night at half past twelve, after a three hours’ conference with Aldape. He is to see him again at ten this morning. They say that the presence of Mr. Lind gives publicity to every step, that their national dignity is constantly imperiled, and that it is impossible to negotiate under such conditions. Aldape also said that Huerta flies into such a rage whenever Lind’s name is mentioned that conversation becomes impossible.
Things are very strenuous to-day. N. saw Garza Aldape at ten. He said he had passed a sleepless night, after their conference, and had not yet presented the ultimatum to Huerta. N. asked him if he were afraid to do so, and he answered, quite simply, “Yes.” N. told him he would return at three o’clock, and if by that time the note had not been presented through the regular channels, he would do it himself.
The outlook is very gloomy. Carranza in the north has refused the offices of W. B. Hale as mediator, saying,“No foreign nation can be permitted to interfere in the interior matters of Mexico.” If Carranza says that, certainly Huerta cannot say less. So there we are. Though nothing was further from his purpose, Mr. Lind has absolutely knocked any possible negotiations on the head by the noise and publicity of his arrival in the city of MontezumaandHuerta. The Latin-American may know that you know his affairs, and know that you know he knows you know; but he does not want and will not stand publicity.
This morning I went out “junking” at the Thieves’ Market with Lady C. It seemed to us that all the rusty keys in the world, together with all the locks, door-knobs, candlesticks, spurs, and family chromos were on exhibition. We were just leaving when my eye fell on a beautiful old blue-and-white Talavera jar, its metal top and old Spanish lock intact. After considerable haggling I ended by giving the shifty-eyed Indian more than he had ever dreamed of getting, and much less than the thing was worth. Drugs, sweetmeats, and valuables of various kinds used to be kept in these jars. Greatly encouraged, I dragged Lady C. to the Monte de Piedad. All foreigners as well as natives frequent it, hoping, in vain, to get a pearl necklace for what one would pay for a string of beads elsewhere. One of the monthlyremates, or auctions, was going on, and the elbowing crowd of peons and well-dressed people, together with the familiar Aztec smell, made us feel it was no place for us. The diamonds and pearls here are mostly very poor, and the great chunks of emeralds with their thousand imperfections are more decorative than valuable. The fine jewels of the wealthy class have come mostly from Europe, though shrewd buyers are on the lookout for possible finds in the constant turnover of human possessions. There are beautiful opalsto be had in Mexico, but you know I wouldn’t touch one, and the turquoise has been mined from time immemorial. The museums everywhere are full of them as talismans and congratulatory gifts, to say nothing of the curio-shops.
Cortés, it appears, was very fond of jewels, and was always smartly dressed in fine linen and dark colors, with one handsome ornament. When he went back to Spain he set all the women crazy by the jewels he took with him. Emeralds, turquoises, gold ornaments, andpanachesof plumes of thequetzal(bird of paradise) cunningly sewn with pearls and emeralds, after the Aztec fashion, were distributed with a lavish hand. The presents for his second wife were so splendid that the queen became quite jealous, though he had made her wonderful offerings. It is hinted that this was the beginning of his disfavor at court.
Yesterday, which began so threateningly, ended without catastrophe. On opening the morning newspaper, I saw that Garza Aldape had resigned. He finally presented the American note to Huerta, with the result that he also presented his own demission and leaves almost immediately for Vera Cruz, to sail on theEspagnefor Paris, where, it is rumored, he will be minister in place of de la Barra. Anyway, it is his exit from Huertista politics. He is a gentleman and a man of understanding. The way Huerta has of dispersing his Cabinet is most unfortunate.
Yesterday there was another little luncheon at Tlalpam. We sat in the beautiful, half-neglected garden till half past four among a riot of flowers in full bloom, callas, violets, roses, geraniums, and heliotrope on every side. The two white, distant volcanoes crowned as ever the matchless beauty of the scene about us.
What the diplomats are fearing in the event of N.’s withdrawal is the interregnumafterour departure and before the American troops could get here. They foresee pillaging of the city and massacre of the inhabitants; as their natural protectors, the Federal troops, would be otherwise occupied, fighting “the enemy”—i. e., us! They always say Washington would be held responsible in such an event, by the whole world, but this thought does not seem to comfort them much. The ineradicable idea among all foreigners is that we are playing a policy of exhaustion and ruin in Mexico by non-recognition, so that we will have little or no difficulty when we are ready to grab. One can talk oneself hoarse, explain, embellish, uphold the President’s policy—it makes no difference: “It is like that.”
We came home after I had shown myself with Elim at the Country Club on our way in. People are in a panic here, but no one has heard anything frommeexcept that I expect to receive on Thanksgiving Day from four to eight. The telephones are being rung all day by distracted fathers and husbands, not knowing what to do. They cannot leave their daily bread. They are not men who have bank accounts in New York or in any other town, and to them leaving means ruin. They come with white, harassed faces. “Is it true that the Embassy is to be closed to-night?” “What do you advise?” “It is ruin if I leave.” “Can’t we count on any protection?” are a few of the questions asked.
Dr. Ryan, the young physician who did such good work during theDecena Tragicalast February, is here again. He has been in the north these last months, where he saw horrid things and witnessed many executions. He says the victims don’t seem to care for their own lives or for any one’s else. They will stand upand look at the guns of the firing-squad, with big round eyes, like those of deer, and then fall over.
As I write I hear the sad cry of the tamale-women, two high notes, and a minor drop. All Mexican street cries are sad. The scissors-grinder’s cry is beautiful—and melancholy to tears.
I was startled as I watched the faces of some conscripts marching to the station to-day. On so many was impressed something desperate and despairing. They have a fear of displacement, which generally means catastrophe and eternal separation from their loved ones. They often have to be tied in the transport wagons. There is no system about conscription here—the press-gang takes any likely-looking person. Fathers of families, only sons of widows, as well as the unattached, are enrolled, besides women to cook and grind in the powder-mills. Sometimes a few dozen school-children parade the streets with guns, escorted by their teachers. Unripe food for cannon, these infants—but looking so proud. These are all details, but indicative of the situation.
To-morrow Huerta and his señora are to receive at Chapultepec, the first time they will have made use of the official presidential dwelling. They are moving from the rented house in the Calle Liverpool to one of their own, a simple enough affair in the Mexican style, one story with apatio, in an unfashionable quarter.
As we are still “accredited,” I think we ought to go, there being no reason why we should offer to Señora Huerta the disrespect of staying away.
When we arrived in Mexico, beautiful Doña Carmen Diaz was presiding; then came Señora de la Barra, newly married, sweet-faced, and smiling; followed by Señora Madero, earnest, pious, passionate. Now SeñoraHuerta is the “first lady”—all in two years and a half. The dynasties have a way of telescoping in these climes.
The invitation to the opening of Congress to-morrow has just come in—exactly as if the United States had not decided that no such Congress should be convened and its acts be considered null and void.
Elim told me to-day that all the children he plays with have gone away—“afraid of the revolution,” he added, in a matter-of-fact voice. He expects to die with me if “war” does come, and is quite satisfied with his fate.
The details of Garza Aldape’s demission have come in. His resignation was accepted by Huerta in the friendliest manner. He concluded the conversation, however, by telling Aldape theEspagnewas sailing on Monday, and that he had better leave on Sunday morning, so as to be sure not to miss it. This being late Saturday evening, Garza Aldape demurred, saying his family had no trunks. The President assured him that he himself would see that he got all he needed. Subsequently he sent Aldape a number of large and handsome receptacles. Madame G. A. received a hand-bag with luxurious fittings, and 20,000 francsoroin it! The “old man” has a royal manner of doing things on some occasions; and then again he becomes the Indian, inscrutable, unfathomable to us, and violent and high-handed to his own people—whom he knows so very well.
The reception at Chapultepec, yesterday, was most interesting. As we drove through the Avenida de los Insurgentes up thePaseotoward the “Hill of the Grasshopper” the windows of the castle were a blaze of light high up against the darkening sky.
On our last visit to Chapultepec,[5]Madero and Pino Suarez were there, and shades of the murdered ones beganto accost me as I appeared on the terrace. One of the glittering presidential aides, however, sprang to give me his arm, and in a moment I was passing into the familiarSalon de Embajadores, to find Señora Huerta installed on the equally familiar gilt-and-pink brocaded sofa placed across the farther end. She has been a very handsome woman, with fine eyes and brow, and has now a quiet, dignified, and rather serious expression. She was dressed in a tight-fitting princess gown of red velvet, with white satin guimp and blackglacékid gloves. She has had thirteen children, most of whom seemed to be present on this, their first appearance in an official setting. The daughters, married and unmarried, and their friends receiving with them, made quite a gathering in themselves. As I looked around, after saluting Señora Huerta, the big room seemed almost entirely filled with small, thick-busted women, with black hair parted on one side over low, heavy brows, and held down by passementerie bandeaux; well-slippered,verytiny feet, were much in evidence. None of the “aristocrats” were there, butel Cuerpo, was out in full force.
The President came at about six o’clock, walking quickly into the room as the national air was played, and we all arose. It was the first time I had seen him. N. presented me, and we three stood talking, in the middle of the room, while everybody watched “America and Mexico.”
Huerta is a short, broad-shouldered man of strong Indian type, with an expression at once serious, amiable, and penetrating; he has restless, vigilant eyes, screened behind large glasses, and shows no signs of the much-talked-of alcoholism. Instead, he looked like a total abstainer. I was much impressed by a certain underlying force whose momentummaycarry him to recognition—now the great end of all.
I felt myself a bit “quivery” at the thought of the war-cloud hanging over these people, and of how the man dominating the assembly took his life in his hands at his every appearance, and was apparently resolved to die rather than cede one iota tomycountry. After the usual greetings, “a los pies de Vd. señora” (“at your feet, señora”), etc., he remarked, with a smile, that he was sorry I should find things still a little strained on my return, but that he hoped for a way out of the very natural difficulties. I answered rather ambiguously, so far as he is concerned, that I loved Mexico and didn’t want to leave it. I felt my eyes fill over the potentialities of the situation, whereupon he answered, as any gentleman, anywhere in the world, might have done, that now thatla señorahad returned thingsmightbe arranged! After this he gave his arm to Madame Ortega, wife of the Guatemalan minister, the ranking wife of the Spanish minister being ill, and Madame Lefaivre not yet arrived. Señor Ortega gave me his arm, and we all filed out into the long, narrow gallery,la Vitrina, overlooking the city and the wondrous valley, where an elaborate tea was served. The President reached across the narrow table to me to touch my glass of champagne, as the usualsaludeswere beginning, and I found he was drinking to the health of the “Gran Nación del Norte.” Could I do less than answer “VivaMexico”?
V. Huerta
After tea, music—the photograph fiends taking magnesium snap-shots of Señora Huerta and the dark-browed beauties clustering around, with an incidental head or arm of some near-by diplomat. Madame Ortega then got up to say good-by, and after making our adieux we passed out on to the beautiful flower- and palm-planted terrace. Again, in the dim light the memory of Madero and Pino Suarez assailed me rather reproachfully. It was a curious presentment of human destinies,played out on the stage of the mysterious valley of Anahuac, which seems often a strange astral emanation of a world, rather than actual hills and plains. A mysterious correspondence between things seen and unseen is always making itself felt, and now, in this space between two destinies, I felt more than ever the fathomlessness of events. Other “kings” were dead, and this one could not “long live.”
Afterward we played bridge at Madame Simon’s with thechicheriathere assembled. It seemed very banal. All the guests, however, turned their handsome faces and rustled their handsome clothes as I entered, and in a detached sort of way asked how it had all gone off—this, the first official reception oftheirPresident.
To-day Congress opens, and N. does not attend. I am glad, in the interests of the dove of peace, that we went to the reception yesterday. The officials will realize there is nothing personal in to-day’s absence.
Last night there was a pleasant dinner at the Cardens’, who are now settled at the comfortable Legation. They are very nice to us, but I feel that Sir L. is naturally much chagrined at the unmeritedly adverse press comments he has had in the United States. We all shivered in our evening dresses, in spite of the rare joy of an open fire in the long drawing-room. There is a thin, penetrating, unsparing sort of chill in these November evenings, in houses meant only for warm weather. I should have enjoyed wearing my motor coat instead of the gray-and-silver Worth dress.
The British cruiser squadron under Admiral Cradock sailed last night for Vera Cruz, which is packed to overflowing with people from here. The prices, “twelve hours east and a mile and a half down,” are fabulous. One woman, so her husband told me, pays ten dollars a day at the Diligencias for a room separated only by acurtain from an electric pump, which goes day and night.
Villa has made a formal declaration that, owing to Carranza’s inactivity, he assumes the leadership of the rebellion, which is the first, but very significant, hint of two parties in the north: Huerta is very pleased, it appears, and is looking forward to seeing them eat each other up like the proverbial lions of the desert. A few “lost illusions” will doubtless stalk the Washington streets and knock at a door or two.
Well, another Sabbath has passed and we are still here. Burnside is up from Vera Cruz. He says we can’t back down, and war seems inevitable. It will take the United States one hundred years to make Mexico into what we call a civilized country, during which process most of its magnetic charm will go. The Spanish imprint left in the wonderful frame of Mexico is among the beauties of the universe. Every pink belfry against every blue hill reminds one of it; every fine old façade, unexpectedly met as one turns a quiet street corner; in fact, all the beauty in Mexico except that of the natural world—is the Spaniards’ and the Indians’. Poor Indians!
I have been reading accounts of the deportation of the Yaquis from Sonora to Yucatan, the wordless horrors of the march, the separation of families. I can’t go into it now; it is one of the long-existent abuses that Madero, at first, was eager to abate. Volumes could be written about it. Another crying shame is the condition of the prisons. Belem, here in town, is an old building erected toward the end of the seventeenth century, and used as an asylum of some kind ever since. Much flotsam and jetsam has been washed up at its doors, though I don’t know that the word “washed” is in any sense suitable. When one thinks that a few hundredpesos’of bichlorideof lime and some formaldehyde gas would clean up the vermin-infested corners and check the typhus epidemics, one can scarcely refrain from taking the stuff there oneself. It seems so simple, but it is all bound up so inextricably with the generallaisser-allerof the nation. No one is in Belem three days without contracting an itching skin disease, and a large proportion of the prisoners there, as well as at Santiago, near by, are political, journalists, lawyers,et al., who are used to some measure of cleanliness. ThePenitenciaríais their show prison, built on modern principles, and compares favorably with the best in the United States.
Yesterday we lunched with the Ösi-Sanz. He is an agreeable, clever, musical Hungarian, married to a handsome young Mexican, widow of an Iturbide. In their charming rooms are many Maximilian souvenirs that he has ferreted out here; big portraits of the emperor and Carlota look down from the blue walls of the very artisticsalon, and a large copy of the picture of the deputation headed by Estrada, which went to Miramar to offer Maximilian the imperial and fatal crown. Vitrines are filled with Napoleon and Maximilian porcelain, and they have some beautiful old Chinese vases. In the viceregal days these were much prized, being brought up from the Pacific coast on the backs of Indian runners. Afterward, we had bridge at the Corcuera-Pimentels—another smart young Mexicanménage. Their house, too, is charming, full of choice things, beautifully and sparingly placed; the rooms would be lovely anywhere. Then home, where I looked over that depressing book,Barbarous Mexico.
In Huerta’s speech before Congress on the 20th, he makes use of the famous words of Napoleon—“The law is not violated if the country be saved.” We all wondered how he fished it up!
There is a cartoon reproduced inThe Literary Digest, which I am sending you. In it Uncle Sam is saying to President Wilson, “It’s no use, Woody; you can’t pet a porcupine,” the porcupine being Huerta, in the background, sitting near a bit of cactus. Some London papers call Huerta the “Mexican Cromwell.” His speech, putting patriotism and morality above expediency, evidently made a hit.