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New-Year’s receptions—Churubusco—Memories of Carlota—Rape of the Morelos women—Mexico’s excuse for the murder of an American citizen—A visit to the floating gardens of Xochimilco.
My first word goes to you. You know my heart, and all my love and hopes.
A letter came from Mr. Lind, who is to-day at Pass Christian. It was sent before he started. He wants N. to come down to confer when he returns.
The President received the ministers at the Palace this morning and in the afternoon Señora Huerta receives at Chapultepec. I have people for dinner also. The President’s answer to the Spanish minister’s speech at the Palace was long and disconnected, with, however, the insistent refrain that he had but one idea—the pacification of Mexico, which he would and could accomplish if given time. The German minister wasn’t there. He was off investigating the murder of a German subject in the interior.
Huerta appeared at the New-Year’s eve ball at the Country Club—a most unusual stage-setting for him. As soon as he saw N. he joined him and gave him one of theabrazosthey so enjoy hearing about in the States. His undaunted amiability may stand him and us and the Colony in good stead on some day of reckoning. He himself will always find asylum here. It isa pity that the Embassy did not hide Madero behind its secure door.
I went to Señora Huerta’s reception with the Cardens. N., having paid his tithe in the morning, had fled to the country. There were few present. She received on the lower floor of the Palace in the rooms which were once the intimate apartments of Maximilian and Carlota. They were handsome rooms so far as proportions go, but were done over in doubtful taste in Diaz’s time. The dining-room, where tea was served, looked as if paneled in plaster and painted a hideous brownish yellow; but I am told it is really finished in carved Alsatian oak. On the table was one large silver épergne bearing Maximilian’s arms; how it has managed to remain where it is all these years I know not.
The room where Señora Huerta stood, which used to be Carlota’s boudoir, is now hung with an ugly, brownish-pink brocade; a lovely Gobelin border remains to frame the panels of the brocade, and two exquisite lunettes of the same Gobelin are over the windows. The rooms are only inconveniently reached one through the other. Visitors pass through theSalon Rojo, with its big table and chairs, where the Cabinet sits when meetings are held at Chapultepec, then through theRecamara Azul, hung with blue brocade, in which is an elaborate Buhl bed and dressing-table. Other traces of the ruler with the blond hair and blue eyes are not in evidence.
The President made a speech at tea. I was standing, two removed, on his side of the table, next to Mme. Lefaivre and Sir Lionel. Huerta began by wishing the Diplomatic Corps a happy new year. He went on to say, with his usual genial ignoring of the United States, that Mexico was not the equal of great Powers like England, Spain, France, or Germany; that she had not theirmany blessings of culture and enlightenment; that she was an adolescent, a minor; but that, like any nation, she possessed a right to her own development and evolution along her own line, and he begged the mercy and patience of the Powers. He got balled up in some astronomical metaphors. One heard vague references to Jupiter and Mars; but he soon disentangled himself with his usualsang-froid. I found his speech, under the circumstances, tragic and touching. He is backed up determinedly against the whole world of Powers and Dominations, but at times he must know that he is slipping, slipping. Mexico can’t exist without the favor of the United States, or at least without its indifference.
Eight years ago, in one of those interregna known to all Mexican statesmen, Huerta was overseer of peons building houses in the new quarter of Mexico City. But mostly his avocations have required courage and knowledge. He was for years head of the Geodetic Survey, and was at one time inspector of the “National Railways.” He was first discovered in his native town by a passing general who needed some one for secretarial work. Having taken the fullest advantage of the very poor schooling of his native town, he was ready when opportunity came. He was taken to Mexico City, where he was brought to the attention of Diaz, through whose influence he entered the Military Academy. After this his qualities were speedily acknowledged and he became an important figure in the military history of Mexico.
He once told N. that when, during de la Barra’s incumbency in 1911, he was sent in to Morelos to suppress the Zapatistas, the Cientifico party offered him many inducements to aid in their reinstatement as rulers of Mexico. He added that he had preferred to remain faithful to his constitutional oath. The same thing occurred during the brilliant campaign he carried out in the north forMadero against Orozco. He said, “I could have done it easily then, because I had control of the army and the arms, but I remained faithful to Madero, as representing constitutional government.” Later on, he said, he became convinced that Madero was not capable of the business of government and that disaster was unavoidable.
How well I remember going once to Chapultepec to see Señora Madero. She was in bed in the room next theSalon de Embajadores, consumed with fever and anxieties, twisting a rosary in her hot hands. She told me, with shining eyes, of the news received that very afternoon of the success of Huerta’s northern campaign against Orozco, and added that he was their strongest general andmuy leal(very loyal). How quickly any situation here in Latin America becomes part of an irrevocable past!
N. sent a telegram to Mr. Lind in answer to his letter, begging him to give the President his most respectful wishes for a happy new year. This afternoon we received the new Italian minister.
The cook departed an hour ago, leaving word that her sister is dying and that she will be back in eight days. They are apt to take time for grief in this part of the world, and food for an Embassy is a mere detail. Thegalopina(kitchen-maid), seen for the first time—a pale, high-cheeked Indian girl, with her hair hanging down her back—answered my every question by a most discouraging, “Quién sabe?” The women servants seem to be forever washing their hair, and though it would doubtless be unreasonable and useless to forbid it, the sight has an irritating effect. Everybody who has really lived in Mexico has at some time or other had food brought in by females with long, damp, black hair floating down their backs.
We motored out to the Country Club, where Elim andI followed some golfers over the beautiful links. The short grass was dry and springy, the air clear and cool, without a breath of wind. As we motored home we found ourselves enveloped in an indescribable glory—a strange light thrown over everything by a blue and copper sunset. The luster-tiled roof of the little Chapel of Churubusco was like a diamond held in the sun—the rest of the church gray and flat. All this is historic ground for us as well as for the Mexicans. Over the golf-links and in the fields between the Country Club and Churubusco, our men, on their way up from Vera Cruz in 1847, fought a desperate fight before pressing into Mexico City. It is said we lost more than a thousand men here, and there are grass-grown mounds beneath which pale and bronze heroes lie together in death. In the old Aztec days Churubusco had a temple dedicated to the war-god Huitzilopochtli, and Churubusco is the word the Spaniards produced from this rather discouraging collection of letters.
Burnside has just come to say that a lot of “scrapping,” as he calls it, is beginning again in the north. I don’t know why we say “beginning again”—it never stops. He told me about the three hundred Morelos peasant women taken from their families and sent to Quintana Roo, the most unhealthful of the Mexican states, lying south of Yucatan, where it is customary to send men only. The women had been convoyed there with some idea of forming a colony with the unfortunate men deported to that region for army service. On their arrival there was a mutiny and a scramble for the women by the soldiers. Such disorder prevailed that the officials shipped the women back to Vera Cruz and dumped them on the beach. Almost every woman had a baby, but there was no food, no clothing, no one responsible for them in any way. They were merelythrown there, separated from their families by hundreds of miles. It was one of those tragedies that countless Indian generations have enacted.
Last night N. went to a big dinner at the Jockey Club. It was given by Corona, thechicgovernor of the Federal District, for the President, who made speeches at intervals. Several times Huerta seemed to be on the verge of mentioning the United States, but N. said he kept a restraining eye fastened on him. After dinner N. was called to the telephone. When he came back there was a subtle something in the air which made him feel that in his absence the President had drifted near the Washington rocks, for Huerta took pains to go over and embrace him. Later the President quoted the saying that “all thieves are notgachupines,” but that “allgachupinesare thieves,” whereupon, catching the Spanish minister’s eye, he felt obliged to go over and embrace him, too! However, drifting a bit nearer to Scylla and Charybdis matters little to him.
He was not responsible for the much-talked-of New-Year’s greeting to President Wilson. It was sent out from the Foreign Office with the other usual annual messages to the heads of Powers, and in the Foreign Office they explained that theydid not like to pass overthe United States.
The admonition given out by the State Department yesterday, the third to Americans, warning them not to return to Mexico, was printed in small type in a corner of theMexican Herald. Formerly it would have occupied a whole page, but the people are gettingblaséabout warnings. Each man looks to himself for protection—on the even chance. I don’t know whether this admonition was in any way an outcome of Mr. Lind’s conference; it might easily be, as one of his strong beliefsis that foreigners would better get out. This is also Carranza’s idea.
Von Hintze has returned. The excuse given for the murder of a German subject who was quietly asleep in the railroad station at Leon was that the guards, who also robbed him, thought he was an American! Well, there are some things one can’t talk about, but I seemed to be conscious, hotly, of each individual hair on my head.
No news from theChesterconference, but, of course, we are all on thequi vivefor possible results. Things get more chaotic all the time, and whatever is to be done should be done quickly. There is some regard for life and property under the near gaze of the Dictator in the provinces he controls, but in the north reigns complete lawlessness. Everywhere brother is killing brother, and as for thesisters, they are often lassoed and captured as if they were stampeding cattle. Educated people, who have been prosperous all their lives, are now without food or shelter, knowing that strangers eat at their tables, sleep in their beds, and scatter their treasures. If only poor old Huerta could have begun in some other way than by riding into the capital in a path of blood spilled by himself and others, he would probably have been able, with recognition, to do as well as any one, and better than most. As it is, he is like a woman who has begun wrong. The neighbors won’t let her start again, no matter how virtuously she lives.
The “bull-fight charity,” organized to raise funds for the Red Cross, is considered the hit of the season. It had been advertised as a “humane” fight, as the bull’s horns were capped. However, the toreador was killed—amid immense excitement, pleasurable rather than otherwise. As I was coming home, about five this afternoon,from a peaceful day at Xochimilco, I saw in every direction immense clouds of dust. For a moment I thought that a storm was rising, but it was only the dust raised by the vehicles bringing spectators back from the bull-ring, half a kilometer beyond the Embassy. Having tried, on two awful and useless occasions, to “get the spirit of the game,” I have put the whole question of bull-fights out of my consciousness.
Several people have just been here on their way home. Mr. Lefaivre thinks this unfortunate government might possibly get money from abroad if it could be placed in the hands of a commission for spending and accounting, and would be willing to urge it on his government under such conditions. The idea of such a commission, for several reasons, has not been popular here. It would, of course, bemixte(foreigners and Mexicans). It would reflect on theircultura(a Spanish word for personal dignity and urbanity), and on theirbizarría, meaning gallantry, mettle, valor, generosity. Last, but not least, what would be the use of an arrangement where there would be no “pickings” for anybody?
Well, the sun shines faithfully on what might be an earthly paradise, and Xochimilco was beautiful beyond words. We motored out, skirting a bit of the picturesque Viga Canal (fifty years ago the fashionable drive of Mexico City), to the old water-gates, where we got into a great flatboat and were poled by a big-hatted, white-trousered Indian along the watery aisles in between the beautiful floating islands—Chinampas, the Indians call them—so near that one could almost reach the flowers and vegetables planted on them. Masses of lilies, stocks, and pansies are now in bloom and are reflected everywhere in the smooth water. Silent Indians, in narrow canoes often simply hollowed out of trunks of trees, passed and repassed us. Sometimes it was a coupleof women in bright garments, poling quietly along, with heaps of flowers and vegetables between them. Sometimes there was a family, with a bright-eyed baby lying against the carrots and cauliflowers, the eternal trio—when it isn’t the national sextette or octette so familiar here. The picturesque life of a changeless people little, if at all, modified since the coming of Cortés, unfolded itself to our gaze. They offered us bouquets as they passed, and bunches of carrots and radishes and aromatic herbs, until our boat was a mass of flowers and scent, and a dreamy, hypnotic quiescence took the place of our strenuousness. Some one said, in a far-away voice, “La vida es sueño” (“Life is a dream”). But, fortunately or unfortunately, a practical-minded picnicker was able to shake off his share of the strange magic that was upon us, saying, with an attempt at briskness, “This isn’t for us!”
THE FLOATING GARDENS OF XOCHIMILCO
THE FLOATING GARDENS OF XOCHIMILCO
THE FLOATING GARDENS OF XOCHIMILCO
Beautiful willow- and flower-bordered vistas had a way of unexpectedly leading to a sight of the volcanoes, sometimes Popocatepetl, sometimes Iztaccihuatl, when one was sure theymustbe somewhere else. The brilliant atmosphere of the Mexican plateau lay over the entire picture, seeming to hold the colors of the spectrum, and yet to remain white. There, indeed, “life is a dream.”
A year ago to-day we laid away our precious Elliott. I feel anew the sword of grief that pierced me in that gray, foggy dawn at Zürich, when I realized that I must get up and do something that was undoable. Countless millions know the complete revolt of humanity against the laying of one’s own in the earth. The beautiful Mass at theLiebfrauen Kirchewas strength to my soul. Pater Braun’s handsome, earnest face, as he spoke Elliott’sprecious name in prayer and supplication, the light playing around the pulpit, and the beatitudes in mosaic against gold—all are graven on my heart. I could only read through tears the wordsBeati qui esuriunt—Elliott’s life history. And that peaceful hour with him afterward, in the flower-filled room, when we felt that it was only his afternoon rest we were watching over! When they came to cover his face forever I was so uplifted that I could turn those screws myself, instead of leaving it to hirelings to shut the light away from those noble features.
Oh, that loving heart, that crystal brain, with its power of original thought, that gift of industry! How far Elliott might have gone on the road of science! Others will discover and progress, but he, so fitted to lift the veil, has slipped behind it. Oh, my brother!
Sir Lionel is going, having been promoted to Brazil. It is an indication to all not to “monkey with the buzz-saw”—i. e., relations between the United States and Mexico. The English are always dignified in the treatment of their representatives. Instead of recalling Sir L., when faced with the advisability of a change, they send him to Brazil, a higher-ranking post with a much larger salary. It is said that the matter was crystallized by his strong and entirely justified recommendation for the proceeding to his post of the Italian minister. Italian affairs, since the departure of Aliotti, had been in the hands of the British; but the Italian colony here began to get restive, feeling the necessity, in these troublous times, of having their own representative, who had been “waiting and watching” so long at Havana. However, nothing can be successful down here that is against the United States policy—right or wrong. The Cardenincident will doubtless put the other foreign representatives on their guard.
Von Hintze made a most enlightened speech at the German Club, not long ago—in which he said that, by reason of our unalterable geographical relations to Mexico, the United States would always have paramount interests here. He recommended his colony not to make criticisms of our policy—but to accept it as inevitable and natural.
I am wondering if I can go to Vera Cruz with N. to-night without causing a panic here. He is going to confer with Mr. Lind, from whom we had a wire this morning, saying that he hoped N. would find it possible to come, and that President Wilson sent his best wishes. There is a norther blowing at Vera Cruz, and we have the resultant penetrating cold up here. When once the heat gets out of the body at this altitude it is difficult to make it up. I am leaving Elim, as a sort of hostage and an assurance to the Colony that I am not fleeing. Dr. Ryan is living in the house, also the Parkers, and they will all watch over him.
As soon as Huerta heard that N. was going to Vera Cruz he sent one of his colonels to ask if we wanted a special train, or a private car attached to the night express. We take the private car, only, of course; everybody in these days prefers traveling in numbers. The President is always most courteous about everything. If he cannot please Washington he does what seems to him the next best thing—he shows courtesy to its representative. He said to d’Antin, who went to thank him, in N.’s name, for the car: “Mexico es como una serpiente; toda la vida está en la cabeza” (“Mexico is like a snake; all its life is in its head.”) Then he banged his head with his small fist and said, “Yo soy la cabeza de Mexico!” (“I am the head of Mexico!”) “Anduntil I am crushed,” he added, “she will survive!” D’Antin, who is a Frenchman with a Latin-American past, probably gave him words of consolation that would fit neither the letter nor the spirit of watchful waiting. Huerta is magnetic. There is no disputing that fact.
I am writing this hasty line in Mr. Lind’s dim room at the Consulate, to let you know that we slipped quietly down those wondrous slopes last night without hindrance.
I am decked out in a white skirt, purple hat and veil, and purple jersey. We have struck the tail end of the norther and the temperature is delightful. The moving-picture man, who followed us down last night, is now trying to persuade Mr. Lind and N. to let him “get them” in conversation, but Mr. Lind refuses on the plea that he is not in politics. I asked him how about his noble Lincoln head, and he answered, “Nothing doing; that unrepeatable head is long in its grave.”... The admiral is announced.