BOATS ON THE VIGA CANALPhotograph by Ravell
BOATS ON THE VIGA CANALPhotograph by Ravell
Outside of a few political agitators, who cares for politics here except as a means of livelihood? What each one is a-fevered for is the disease commonly attacking republics. Above the Rio Grande they call it graft.Tajadait is called here, but the name doesn't matter. Republics are notoriously susceptible, and here it grows with a lushness comparable only to the jungle. Now when the reins of government are in many regions given over to those completely unversed in statecraft or even in the rudiments of "mine and thine"—a lower-classcontingent, naturally destructive, unimaginative, and completely ignorant—what can one expect?
January 23d.
Aldebert de Chambrun[31]called yesterday afternoon and came back for dinner. He is just down from Washington, beingà chevalbetween the two posts. It brought back old childhood days. Now he is in the full tide of a brilliant career, and scintillating with the celebrated De C. wit. They all have it—delightful,fin, glancing from subject to subject, illuminating and refreshing, giving a "lift" to any conversation they partake of, sometimes unsparing, but oftener kind. It's completely unlike the Spanish-American satire, which I am now beginning to understand, and which has its own value, though it is mostly cruel and demolishing, and seems to suffer with difficulty the neighbor's good fortune.
January 26th.
Yesterday was the first reception at Chapultepec since several weeks. We drove up during a chill dropping of the sun, to find quite a grouping of foreign and domestic powers. TheCorps Diplomatiquewas almost complete, De Chambrun going with the Lefaivres. I talked with Calero, and Vasquez Tagle, Minister of Justice, a scholar of note, they tell me, deeply versed in law and of the highest probity. Though he had a serious face, there was a twinkle in his eyes.
N. walked up and down the terrace with the President for a long time. He said he had a very interesting conversation, accidentally turning on the claims of Americans who had been killed or wounded during the revolution, in El Paso and Douglas. N., thinking it well toimprove the shining hour, pointed out to the President the special character of these claims; that during a revolution by which he had established himself as President of Mexico his soldiers, in taking positions held by President Diaz's troops, had killed and wounded, on American soil, several peaceful American citizens. This constituted a claim that could not be denied by any international tribunal, to say nothing of the violation of American territory. N., finding Madero in optimistic mood (not that this is unusual), advised him strongly to settle these claims, which were not large, and were leading to much criticism of his government, when things might go so pleasantly. He even quoted to him, "Qui cito dat bis dat."
Madero replied: "All that will be settled in due time," but he did not seem to feel that it was as important as N. thought it was, saying, "They should have got out of harm's way." He also said the amounts claimed were exorbitant (that "madonna of the wash-tub" wanted one hundred thousand dollars) and he did not see how, without bringing the matters before a court of arbitration, he could come to a decision as to proper compensation. N. said that, as the question of Mexico's liability was certain, he need not be afraid to admit the validity of the claims in principle—to get a good railroad lawyer in Texas to find out for him how much such injuries would be paid for by a railroad company in event of such injuries occurring on a United States line, and then quadruple the amount. This seemed to make an impression on him, but in the shifting sands of Mexican liabilities will probably lead nowhere.
I found myself standing by — on the terrace, after we had taken leave of Madame Madero, and as I said good-by, I added, "Perhaps some day we will be paying our respects toyouhere."
Even in the sudden dusk that had fallen I saw flash across his face in answer, as if written in words, the look that men of ambitious temperament, gifted with will and intelligence necessary to achievement, have had in all ages when the object of desire is mentioned. I imagine he has little hope and no illusions about the present situation. I am struck all the time by the exceeding cleverness of the clever men here. What, then,isthe matter?
In the evening a very pleasant dinner at the French Legation, illuminated by several European stars, or rather comets, as they quickly disappear from these heavens.
The Duc de R. took me out. He is small, with clever, unhappy eyes and the world-manner, with a hint of introversion, most interesting. I found, when I came to talk with him, that he was possessed of immense knowledge, rendered living andactuelby his personality, and his mentality is of that crystal type equally lucid in the discussion of facts or ideas.
He has just returned from a trip through Oaxaca, where he has large mining and railway interests, and isen routefor Paris,viaNew York. He walked home with us afterward, telling us about that southern country, which he knows as only one knows a country gone through on horseback, and, of course, he was turning the international flashlight on it all.
Mr. de Gheest sat on my other side. He has come on a brief business visit with his handsome veryjeunesse doréeson, Henri.[32]I had never met them before, but his charming wife and I have listened to Wagner cycles together in Munich. They were married strangelyenough, in Mexico, and lived here for a while afterward.
M. de G. is trained and brilliant in discussion of international affairs, witty,risqué, and unsparing. They come for lunch to-morrow. I must say I was what one would call extremely well placed at table!
January 27th.
Most amusing lunch here to-day, the Gallic sparks flying in all directions! The De Gheests, De Chambrun, the Lefaivres, Allart—and our Anglo-Saxon selves as listeners.
De G. was very amusing about some business rendezvous with Mexican banking associates. One important meeting fell through because the banker's little granddaughter was having a birthday. The second came to grief because another luminary's wife's aunt's sister-in-law, or some sort of remote relation, had died, and, of course, it's a rather far journey from Paris to Mexico to find oneself tripping over family occurrences....
Then we got on to the eternal land question. There's a lot said about the 80 per cent. speaking out and asking for land, butvox populihere bears very little resemblance tovox dei, and it's only confusing when a few (generally oppressors, not oppressed) do begin to mutter.
Madero walked to the presidency on the plank of the distribution of land, which he promptly and inevitably kicked from under him—it didn't, couldn't hold. It appears that he bought from one of the computed two hundred and thirty-two members of the family a large tract of land in Tamaulipas, but when it was parceled out it came so high that no Indian could buy it, and wouldn't have known what to do with it had he bought it.
What he loves is his adobe hut running over with children and surrounded by just enough land, planted with corn, beans, and peppers, not to starve on,when worked intermittently, as fancy or the rainfall indicate. The Indians certainly seem, under these conditions, a thousand times happier than our submerged tenth, but it's never any use comparing especially dissimilar matters. Anybody who has been to Mexico, however, knows that the Indian of the adobe hut has little or no qualification to permit of his being changed into a scientific farmer by the touch of any wand. And as for slogans! They're all right to get into office with, but try tilling the soil with them!
January 31st, evening.
... And so the anniversaries come. I feel but a stitch between your destiny and Elim's, holding the generations together in my turn. I am distant from you, but I embrace you all—the dear ones of my blood. I realize the fortuitousness of mine and all other human experiences. I have never had the things I worked for, prayed for, hoped for, but always something unexpected, which showed itself as inevitable only after it had happened, though at the time it seemed to come as a blow or a gift, accidentally, unrelatedly. The path has always lain where I never had an intimation of the tiniest trail. "Strange dooms past hope or fear" of which we all partake....
Washington warns Madero—Mobilization orders—A visit to the Escuela Preparatoria—A race of old and young—The watchword of the early fathers
February 1st.
To-day a military lunch—De Chambrun, Captain Sturtevant, just leaving, and our new military attaché, Burnside, just arrived. Speculations as to the potentialities of the situation put a bit of powder into the menu, and the appearance of small fat ducks awakened a few hunting reminiscences, but mostly it was martial.
In the afternoon I made some calls with De C. First to Mrs. Harold W.'s, where we actually found an open fire in the big, book-lined living-room. Some exotic-looking logs of a wood priceless in other climes were making a sweet and long-unheard, comfortable, sputtering sound. She kept us waiting, though pleasantly, while she donned a most becoming, diaphanous, fur-trimmed, white chiffon tea-gown (the fair sex are apt to dress for De C.), coming down about twenty minutes later, looking extremely pretty.
Mr. W., who is associated with one of the large oil companies, came in just as we were leaving. There are few combinations he does not understand about the modern Mexican mentality; but he views its varied facets in a most enlightened way, and flings a kindly, inexhaustible humor about it all.
After that De C. paid his respects to Mrs. Wilson,who has just returned. She was looking very handsome in her mourning garments, and De C. pronounced her decidedly ambassadorial. We then wound up at the French Legation, sitting for an hour in Mr. Lefaivre's book-filled study, warmed by a well-behaved little oil-stove, fingering volumes of past poets, and talking present politics.
February 2d, Candlemas.
This is the day of the signing of the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty terminating the war of 1847, which one can only hope will continue to bear fruit. Its motto is, "Peace, Friendship, Limits, Settlement," and there is a street named for the auspicious document.
February 5th, evening.
Quite a flutter in town because of orders from Washington yesterday for mobilization, or what amounts to it; the military forces being commanded by the War Department to be ready for immediate concentration on the border. Head-lines of the newspapers are almost American in size and sensation.
The United States warns Madero that he must protect Americans and American interests from injury by rebels, and Mexican ears are to the ground, listening for the possible tramp of American feet this side of the Rio Grande. The government is distinctly discomfited. They need to know exactly where they are "at" with the United States,On ne fonde pas sur un sol qui tremble.
Poor Madero! Uneasy lies the head that wears the Mexican crown, except in the case of Don Porfirio, who had a genius for meeting emergencies, increased by his vast knowledge of men and conditions, acquired during the hazards of his career before he became President, and doubtless by the responsibilities afterward. Anyway,the Mexicans are stepping lively, with their weather eyes out. The old adage that the only thing they hate more than an American is two Americans seems to be to the fore. From the viewpoint of Mexican history, we do rather appear as their predestined natural enemies and not to be trusted along any line.
This morning I went with Mr. de Soto to visit the Escuela Preparatoria. It is long since I had taken atournéewith him, and it is just as well to improve the shining hours. No one knows when the trump will sound. All is quiet in the house; N. is at the Embassy, and won't be back till the small, wee hours.
The Escuela Preparatoria, most interesting, was formerly the Colegio de San Ildefonso, which the Jesuits completed in the middle of the eighteenth century, after the order to consolidate their various schools and seminaries into one. It covers an entire city block, and is so massive that, though it is somewhat out of plumb, as are most of the great edifices built on this soft soil, it will long stay in place.
It is built of tezontle with a wine-colored staining, and has noble, broad doors and rows of mediæval-looking windows piercing the façade, and altogether is most imposing. As we passed in under the majestic old doors, wide enough to admit a couple of coaches and four abreast, students were being drilled in the beautiful colonnadedpatio, said to be a remnant of the immediate post-Cortés period.
We went first to the Sala de Actas to see the famous seventeenth-century choir-stalls, once the glory of the San Agustin church. Everything one sees in Mexico has been most provokingly ripped from where it belonged and put somewhere else. I got quite sad at the thought of the continual transfers. Something beautiful always gets lost in the changes.
As I sat in one of the fine old seats, I discovered that it had bits of "local color" in the shape of a monkey and a parrot, cunningly but charmingly introduced among more austere religious symbols; and when I folded up the next seat I found a quite lovely carving, on the under side, so that it looked equally well in use or disuse.
As we went up the broad stairway there was a scuffle of young feet along one of the beautiful old arched corridors, and a hurrying from one class-room to another, just as so many generations before this had scuffled and hurried, pushing on and being replaced. The foundation of the school as it now is dates from Juarez's time, and was founded by a man called Gabino Barreda, a disciple of Comte. Many of the Mexican élite who did not or would not send their sons abroad were educated here. Men like Justo Sierra and Limantour passed through it, too.
When we got up on to one of the great flat roofs, by way of various interesting bits of stairs, the most glorious sight was spread out. The volcanoes had such long mantles of snow that they seemed encircled and united by the same band of white. About us lay the city with its sun-bathed domes and roofs, and Mr. de S. quoted me the old lines, "Si a morar en Indias fueras que sea donde los volcanes vieres."[33]
I was horrified by the appearance of the Church of Nuestra Señora de Loreto, built in the last century, which was asdésorientéeand uncertain-looking as Mexican politics. Mr. de S. said the sinking was not caused by any disturbance of nature, but rather of man. There was a difference of opinion among high ecclesiastical authorities as to the materials to be used, so they decided the issue by constructing one of the walls of hard stone,and the other of a more porous kind, with the result that one side began straightway to sink. Now the dome seems to be pulled down over it, the whole looking as if it might collapse entirely at any minute; so we decided to visit it immediately, though it's always a wrench to tear oneself from the enchantment of the view in Mexico.
Journeying up from Tehuantepec, I came across a passage in Amiel where he calls apaysage un état d'âmenot anétat d'atmosphère. Here it is both, for the landscape is always wrapped in a wonder-working, almost tangible air, which is able to induce something mystical in the most practical or commercial soul. When we descended into the streets on our way to Nuestra Señora de Loreto they seemed particularly human and detailed, coming from that height, where everything had been a splendidensemble. The dip in the long, little plaza is so apparent that you feel you may get the whole structure on your head. It was full of beggars hovering near venders of unhealthy, dusty, highly colored sweets, or hawking hard green fruits about. A green lime or orange can be a repast here. At the church doors the beggars were lying or sitting about, just living in their own particularly unconscious way, descendants of thosesin derechos y hechosof the old days, and not a bit better off now, in spite of all the "Libertad" and "Fraternidad" and decrying of Spanish and ecclesiastical government.
A beautiful little boy, covered partially with the remains of a scarlet zarape and tattered white drawers which revealed rather than concealed his brown hips, carried, slung over his shoulders, two lively, coal-black hens that he had evidently been sent out to vend. Accompanying him was an old blind woman clutching at a corner of the zarape. It tugs at one's heart so,all this beauty and all this misery. We gave them "centavitos," and the little boy's flashing smile and the droning voice of the old woman—"Dios te lo pague, niña"—as she heard the sound of the money, were equally pathetic and mysterious.
So often it seems a race of very old and very young here, nothing of the long maturity we know. An Indian with gray hair, however, is a rarity; some atavism when one sees it; and as they preserve their muscular activity till a great age, it's impossible to say how old, but the race gives a continual impression of just old and young.
February 6th.
Another agreeable dinner at the French Legation last night. Maurice Raoul Duval[34]and his English-American wife recently arrived, struck a charming note of the great and far world. He is a very tall, very good-looking Frenchman, a polo-player and sportsman of note, hoping to remake, with interests here, a lost fortune.
An atmosphere of recent married happiness hung about them, with the romantic adventure of Mexico as background.
His wife was handsome and sparkling in a white-throated way, wearing a very good black dress and wedding jewels. It was quite a treat to see something new, we are all sick of one another's things. I am sure if she had worn the waistband outside one would have seen the word "Worth." They are to be here some time, and will contribute to the gaiety of the nations assembled in the vale of Anahuac.
Count du Boisrouvray[35]took me out. He is here tolook after the large estates of his wife, who is now in France, and whose mother, née De la Torre, is Mexican. Madame Lefaivre tells me she is very beautiful and gifted, the mother of many little children. Monsieur du B. is musical—plays the violoncello like an artist. A day or two ago, when I dropped into Madame Simon's late in the afternoon, they were playing Mozart beautifully. The clever Frenchman's clever eye is on the Mexican situation, and finds nothing encouraging, "plutôt le commencement de la fin." Though the French may line every subject, conversationally, with the agreeable color of some theory, their minds are so constructed that they can't reject facts.
February 7th.
Until the small, wee hours last night I was reading a relation of the foundation of the bishoprics of Tlaxcala, Michoacan, and Oaxaca in the sixteenth century, printed from the manuscripts in the collection of Don Joaquin García Icazbalceta, and published a few years ago by his son, Don Luis García Pimentel, possessed of the finest Hispano-American library in Mexico.
The story of difficulties surmounted, the dangers overcome, the founding and building of the various churches and schools and hospitals, is enthralling, and made me think a little of theLivre des Fondationsof Saint Theresa, that we read at Wörishofen with so much pleasure. The account of the baptism of the four chiefs of Tlaxcala, who had such distinguished godfathers as Cortés, Pedro de Alvarado, Gonzalo de Sandoval, and Cristóbal de Olid, make a page of the realistic school of to-day seem like a record of tawdry dreams.
The faces of these early bishops and priests of Mexico are extraordinary. The life is concentrated in and between the eyes, the foreheads are those of thinkers, thelines about the mouths, compassionate, yet unflinching, are those of workers, and, however different the actual structure of the faces, the expression is the same. I found a couple of old engravings the other day, one of Las Casas, and one of Ripalda, yellowed, stained, evidently torn out of some old book. The tale of labors and difficulties overcome is stamped upon their faces. Their watchword was "Al rey infinitas tierras, y a Dios infinitas almas,"[36]and I can't but think that our political slogans seem a bit shabby in comparison. Our Monroe doctrine, which controls their destinies, our dollar diplomacy, and all the rest, make but a poor figure.
Evening.
Under the impression of the foundations of the Bishops of Tlaxcala, etc., I strayed into the Biblioteca Nacional on my way home after some errands. It is what once was one of the most beautiful churches in Mexico, San Agustin, built at the end of the seventeenth century.
What remains of the old atrium is rather spoiled by being inclosed with a high iron railing; but in it stands a statue of my friend Humboldt, whose soul perceived the "splendors of this Indian world." It is a most charming building to come upon in those busy, modern streets, where bankers raise and lower the exchange, and the "interests" have their visible habitats. One is thankful for every good old stone that has been left upon another good old stone in Mexico, and the old building has a beautiful tiled dome in the Mudejar style (Moorish-Christian), with arabesque designs and a charming façade. The modern iron railing is decorated with busts of the Mexican great, in early-Victorian style, from the days of Nezahualcoyotl down to Alaman. But thebeautiful oldbasso rilievoof San Agustin over the main door tells you unmistakably that the ages of faith were also the ages of art.
I wrestled with the catalogues, and found they always referred me to others of various dates, like 1872 and 1881. I spoke with several very vague and exceedingly polite officials. I dare say my Spanish contributed to the vagueness. The library is very rich in books relating to the labors of the Church in New Spain, and in general of the history of the post-Conquest period. The huge reading-room was once the great central nave of the church, and a flood of white light pours in through high octagonal windows. Any time any one moved or walked there was the sound as of an army. It was the wooden floor acting in unison with the unsurpassed acoustic qualities of the nave.
Over all was a still, deathly cold that froze the gray matter stiff. Some students, looking a lead color under their rich, natural tone, were noisily turning over the pages of their books, and an old man with a green shade and a magnifying glass was looking at a manuscript. Otherwise empty space. The reading Mexicans are, I fancy, mostly engaged in trying to sustain or destroy Madero.
In 1867 Benito Juarez issued the decree which established the Biblioteca Nacional, and they got the books from the university, and various monasteries and colleges were also emptied of their treasures. The night library was formerly a chapel of the third order of San Agustin, and I was told by some sort of attendant only remotely interested in the world of books that there was once a celebrated old walnut choir, with the richest carvings, which I could now find in the Escuela Preparatoria. It reminded me of the catalogues andhelooked like what in "The Isles" Humboldt says they callun monsieur passable.He thinks he's white—you know he isn't; but one leaves it at that.
Life is short, even here, and art is long, and I think I will send to New York for anything they have in it that I might want.
February 7th.
Orozco denies any disloyalty to Madero, or that Chihuahua is about to secede, but he does say in Spanish, probably still less elegant, something to the effect that Madero can't do the "Mexican trick."
When Madame Madero called yesterday her rather halting remark thatOrozco es muy leal(Orozco is very loyal) was unconvincing, but of course theymusthope. She was in dark, rich garments, somewhat too heavy in cut and texture for her size, with a very imposing plume-loaded hat over her pale, tired face. She now wears a beautiful string of pearls. All the life is in her vigilant eyes, and if there is an iron hand in the family, it is hers. Madame Ernesto Madero, very pretty in the dark, flashing-eyed, color-coming-and-going-way, also called and said, as a charming girl might have said it, that she wasmuy paseadora.
Vasquez Gómez, a day or two since, proclaimed himself provisional President, and has quite a tidy following, with the "seat" of government in Juarez. It would seem the presidential bee buzzes under any hat! More and more I ask myself, Why try government according to our pattern? I can't see that ours is just the cut for them.
There is another cold wave, oronda fria, as they call the dreadful things. This one timed itself for a little dinner I was giving for Mr. Potter and Mr. Butler. The dining-room, into which I cast a glance before going to the drawing-room, looked very conducive with its flowers and shaded lights. The stove appeared a model ofheat-giving. Well, we had just got to the fish when it not only emitted a column of smoke, but it blew up!
It was removed, and after a disturbed interval the dinner proceeded to the accompaniment of polite suggestions as to the removal of "blacks" that descended, from time to time, on the faces and shoulders of the diners. As we were leaving the dining-room somebody remarked that there was a smell of burning, and in the drawing-room the oil-stove's mate was found to be doing the most awful things in the line of Popocatepetl, when Cortés passed by the first time. It was also removed.
Madame Lefaivre suggested at this point that we had better frankly acceptle temps comme le bon Dieu l'avait envoyé, so scarfs and shawls were brought, with suggestions of overcoats. Everybody began to smoke and we got out the bridge-tables. They refused to play bridge, however, with my nice Vienna packs of cards, which are innocent of numbers at the corners. After a while, with the smoking, the process of digestion, the jokes, the companionship in misery, things got better, and the little party broke up at only one o'clock, very late for Mexico. They said they were too cold to go home. It was a fine sample of the "tropics."
At Von H.'s dinner for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the other night, it was even worse. His large drawing-rooms are to the north, thoughhisstoves were workingauf commando. After the long and elaborate dinner, during which the fair sex were visibly "all goose-flesh," we had our wraps brought and turned up our fur collars, which put a different complexion on events and ladies.
A tragic dance in the moonlight—Unveiling George Washington's statue—TheCorps Diplomatiquevisits the Pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan—Orozco in full revolt
February 10th.
We were all awakened last night by a terrible, inhuman, mewing sound coming from thepatio. It reminded us of "The White Leper" of Kipling. The moon was chiseling every stone and plant in the courtyard; a small light was in the porter's room, where a struggle seemed to be going on. All of a sudden a tall, stark-naked Indian, with his arms held stiff above his head, burst out and began to dance about in the moonlight, making strange passes and dippings of the body before something imaginary; there was a sort of sacrificial gesturing to his madness.
N. got his revolver and started down-stairs, fearing homicidal mania, when suddenly he threw himself in a corner, huddled up, and became unconscious. After a long delay the men came from themanicomio(mad-house) and his body was picked up like a loose bundle; but I felt as if I never needed to read about prehistoric, sacrificial rites—I had seen them in the moonlight, in the person of that poor Indian, gone insane.
I went down to see Magdalena, his mother, later on. She was sitting with her head in her hands in the little porter's lodge, surrounded by two or three of his children.Heis a "widower." When she saw me she suddenly cried out, "Señora, mi hijo! mi hijo!" and her old eyeslooked at me with the mother-look of helpless compassion for suffering sons through the ages—tearless, personal, tortured. I was troubled and saddened as I came up the stairway into the sunny veranda. But at the potent hour of pulque I heard sounds which, though not of mirth, seemed consoling.
February 13th.
Pleasant luncheon here today—the Raoul Duvals, and De Chambrun, who is returning to Washington to-morrow, after which we all predict a total eclipse of the sun. The more I see of him the more I appreciate that French imaginative, speculative, analytical, yet constructive type of mind, with its flashing play of wit, its easy intellectuality, always ready to look at the most personal thing impersonally; this last so precious in the interchange of thought; and it's all very much in relief against this Latin-American background, where everything is always passionately personal.
De C. told us of his visit to the prison of San Juan Ulua, when he was last in Mexico. Evidently it is a horror. Madero had sworn that one of his first acts would be to do away with it, but there it is still. Nobody really trusts the situation here. Some one remarked that the quiet before something dreadful is going to happen is what is known as peace in Mexico. De C. had been off for a few days with the army, in the adjacent scenes of action. A general showed him his school medals by the camp-fire. One was for French, of which he did not know a word; the other was for geography, and he seemed to hear of Morocco for the first time by that same firelight. However, all he really needs to know is where the Zapatistas are.
The R. D.'s have taken a furnished house in Calle Dinamarca. Everybody flies, as soon as possible, from the evident evils of the hotels to any kind of unknown.They came in, looking so smart, she in a dark-blue tailor and a chic, flower-covered purple hat.
The plateau is thawed out again, and we will have no more cold this year. They tell me March and April are the warmest months here, before the rains begin to announce themselves.
February 19th.
This morning, in a flood of sun, but with a "tang" in the early air, we went to meet Aunt L., and now she is comfortably resting with a book,notabout Mexico.
February 22d.
This auspicious day was celebrated here by the unveiling of the large monument in white marble of George Washington in the Glorieta Dinamarca. The official Mexican world was out in force, also the diplomats. All the Americans in town, in whose hearts he was, indeed, first that day, watched the falling of the cloth from the face and form of the immortal George. Platforms had been built around the circle, the police kept beautiful order, and it might have been an "unveiling" anywhere, except for the outer fringe of peaked-hattedpelados(skinned ones), who gather wherever any are gathered in any name.
I was deeply thrilled as the well-known features showed themselves, and our national air, beautifully played, rose to the shining heavens. The figure is standing, clad in a long cloak, and can be seen from the four streets leading into the circle.[37]The President gave a short address, and Mr. Wilson made one of his finished speeches—a happy combination of Stars and Stripes and Eagle and Cactus. I saw Aunt L.'s eyes fill as our looks met.They do stir one, these commemorations in foreign lands, where one feels to its fullest the privilege and pride of participation in a great citizenship.
February 25th.
Yesterday I had a luncheon for Aunt L. Baroness Riedl, Madame Chermont, Mrs. Cummings and Mrs. Chemidlin (these latter friends of many years), Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Kilvert, and Mrs. Hudson came. In the evening we dined at the Embassy. I thought it warm and spring-like, but Aunt L., though piled with furs, nearly froze. It evidently isn't with impunity that one comes up from the tropics to visit a niece on the plateau.
February 28th.
I am feeling a bit fagged this morning after the interesting, but quite exhausting, official "picnic" yesterday, to the celebrated pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan, offered to theCorps Diplomatiqueby theGobierno.
We met at the Buena Vista station for an 8.30 special train—a rather motley assemblage of some fifty or sixty persons, those who had the habit of jaunts in their blood, and those who had not.
The weather was the usual lustrous thing, only to be matched in beauty by what we had had the day before, and what we will have to-morrow. I looked about the various groups of señoras and wondered would they hold out, their garbs not being for such occasions.
One of the ladies asked me and Baroness Riedl if we were sisters. We look more unlike than Thorwaldsen's "Night and Morning," but we decided afterward that, as we had on tailored suits, white blouses with lace-trimmed jabots, small hats, neat veils, tan shoes, and parasols, we must have presented a certain superficial likeness of origin and atmosphere.
The Mexican women were mostly dressed in semi-eveninggowns, spangles, paillettes, passementerie, presenting all sorts of touches, as they caught the light, not connected in the Anglo-Saxon mind with picnics. They also wore small, high-heeled, patent-leather slippers, and were accompanied byniñosof various ages.
You go out of the city by the hill of Tepeyac, where the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe is. All along the road are still to be seen dilapidated "Stations of the Cross," relics of the viceregal days, among the shunting tracks and railway-supply buildings.
There was a settling down of the elements of the party, foreign and domestic naturally gravitating to their kind, as we rolled out. The President and his wife, his mother and father, his two sisters, Madame Gustavo Madero, and various other members of the family were with us. Also the Vice-President and his family. After about an hour we got to the little village of San Juan Teotihuacan, where all sorts of venders of all sorts of antiquities, little clay pots, masks, bits of obsidian, charms of bloodstone, were ready for us. We climbed down the steep embankment and got into various "buckboards," I suppose they would call themselves, without any "buck," however, which were waiting to take us across a sandy stretch to the pyramids, which had seemed only insignificant mounds as we steamed over the glittering plain.
Our first destination was the Pyramid of the Sun, gigantic, impressive, as we neared it, and one of the few things giving a feeling of stability that I have seen in Mexico. The Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, as we started out over the Path of the Dead, (Micoatl), was the cock of that special walk, almost putting Madero in the shade, figuratively, however, as there was not a tree within miles. The two principal pyramids, dwellings of the gods, were dedicated to Tonatiuh,the sun, and Miztli, the moon, but there are many smaller pyramids, supposed to be dedicated to various stars, and which once served as burial-places for remote, illustrious dead.
As we climbed up the great hewn steps, grass-grown, with all sorts of cacti making unexpected appearances, I could but think of the small mark the generations make in passing, and "Why so hot, my little man?"
When N. started up with Baroness R., one of the ladies said to her: "Why are you going up, and what will you do when you get up?" Baroness R. said, "We are going to take a look about, and come down." She glanced rather desperately at the pyramid and then at her tiny, patent-leather-slippered feet, which must have been in a condition fit for sacrifice in that broiling sun. She finished by sitting down on the first step with some other high-heeled ladies, with the same feelings and the same clothes.
It was a magnificent sight, once up there; the solitary eminence on which we stood put every thing in a wonderful perspective. Formerly on the apex of the pyramid there had been a splendid temple, containing a gigantic statue of the sun, made of a single block of porphyry, and ornamented with a heavy breastplate of gold. But I was more interested in Madero, once, at least, ademi-god, viewing from this great height kingdoms and principalities given into his keeping.
His expression was soft and speculative as he gazed about him, not of one who is tempted to gather thingstohimself,forhimself; and I must say that, as I looked, I entirely acquitted him of personal ambitions. He seemed strangely removed from the difficulties of his situation, as materially and spiritually lifted above them as he was above the shining plain; but in the city, glistening in the distance, intrigues and dissolvingforces of all kinds were at work against him. The far and splendid hills to which he perhaps may some day flee showed horizons of cobalt and verde antique, and they, as well as we, were folded in a dazzling ambience.
However, you have little time for dreams on official picnics—for just as I was, so to speak,partie—polite yet firm-willed photographers began to shove the living units into their proper places, with a special rounding up of the high-lights of the assembly, domestic and foreign, after which we descended.
I had my usual horrid sensation of falling as I looked from that great height down those huge steps between me and the not less solid earth. Mr. Madero gave me his arm and, somehow, I got down. A fierce sun was shining on us and reverberating from the dry plain as we made our way to the newly opened museum, where a very complete collection of objects, found around the pyramids, was carefully arranged in handsome glass cases; for some years, soel Señor Ministrotold me, the government had been excavating, and countless terra-cotta masks, similar to those which abounded on the Isla de las Mugeres, off the coast of Yucatan, had been unearthed. There was also a beautiful collection of jade objects, effigies, and masks of dead rulers; on the brow of one of the finest specimens was a diadem, orcopilla, as the ancient Mexican crown was called.
If I hadn't been simply done up by the heat I would have been most interested in going over the collection, for the endless terra-cotta heads and masks, with entirely different features, mark the different races who have inhabited the plateau. My friend Humboldt, with whom I spent the evening, also the early night hours, and who had done the same thing just a hundred years ago, says the teocalli wereorientésas exactly as the Egyptianand Asiatic pyramids, and that the race the Spaniards found there attributed them to a still more ancient race, which would place them in the eighth or ninth century. They are composed of clay mixed with gravel, and covered with a wall of amygdaloid. What seems to be a system of pyramids is disposed in very large streets, following exactly the meridians, and which end at the four faces of the two great pyramids.
After an hour in the museum, which seemedquitean hour, I must say, there was a welcome announcement of lunch, and we walked along a path called "Camino de Muertos,"[38]"walk of thehalf-dead," one of the exhausted foreigners called it, and descended into the cool dimness of a great and beautiful grotto, where long tables, flower-decorated and elaborately spread, awaited us.
TheCorps Diplomatiquesat at the President's table; Von Hintze was between Baroness Riedl and myself, and an unidentified Mexican official or member of the dynasty was on my other side. The lunch was sent out from town by Sylvain and was most excellent. We could look out at a great patch of blue sky, and fringing the brilliant edges of the grotto were various cacti and rows of peaked hats and a single graceful pepper-tree. The Indians always spring up, as if by magic, from any place where there is a gathering.
N. and Riedl, instead of taking seats at the President's table, sat at a small table back of us, and we knew from their unseemly mirth that they weren't talking about the antiquities or improving their minds in any way.
After luncheon we all repaired to the Pyramid of the Moon, which nobody had the energy to ascend, going over a sidewalk made of ancient cement still bearing traces of red color. One of the smaller mounds had been opened by Señor Batres a few years before, and hefound around and over it a building now called the "House of the Priests."
At this special place even the most enterprising of the foreigners began to wilt, and some polychrome frescoes are the last definite impression I received before we started back to the buckboards. The — minister, sitting too near the wheel, to politely make room, got jolted out, but we picked him up and soothed him by singing his national anthem as we went toward the train.
It was a long day, but one to be kept in memory with its background of obsidian, red clay masks, idols of jade, and works of a past race against which Mexican history continues to unfold itself.
February 29th.
It is not leap-year which is occupying our thoughts down here. Orozco is openly in full revolt. With him are some thousands of troops and the whole state of Chihuahua.
Madero shows indications of nervous tension—Why one guest of Mexico's President did not sit down—A novena with Madame Madero—Picture-writing on maguey—Picnic at El Desierto—San Fernando
March 3d.
Yesterday Mr. Taft issued a wise proclamation directing citizens of the United States to comply strictly with the neutrality laws between our country and Mexico till there is a change in conditions, which gave rise to various expressions of satisfaction at a large luncheon at Madame Simon's.
I sat by Mr. Chevrillon, a French mining expert since many years in Mexico, and also having a wide experience of our own southwest. He told strange mining stories; one about an ancient whip he once found in a remote chamber in an old mine, with a lash so long that it was a mystery how it could have been used in the small spaces. A detail, but it gave me a sudden, shivering glimpse into the sufferings of subject peoples. However, it's no use throwing stones at Spain for not having practised political liberty in those centuries. As we know it to-day, it was nowhere existent. It had not even begun to glimmer on any horizon, and certainly Mexico has lived through a terrible century since its light dawned onher.
March 7th.
At the Chapultepec reception to-day one felt the tension.
Madero was walking up and down the terrace withhis new private secretary, Gonzales Garza, clad in some sort of a dark suit, with a conspicuous peacock-blue vest, doubtless a family offering. His glance was more than usually visionary and introverted, his unacquisitive hands were behind his back; but can Mexico be governed by a well-disposed President from Chapultepec terrace? He has a way of avoiding facts, which, in the end, are sure to hit somebody as the national destinies take their course. One can only hope his sterling honesty will see him safely through the snares that are spread everywhere.
As I talked with him on the sun-flooded terrace above the gorgeous valley, with all Mexican creation at our feet, though he had his usual smile, I noted many wrinkles, as he stood bareheaded, and it was difficult to fix his eye, an honest eye.
The new Minister of the Interior, Flores Magon, took me out to tea. He is a huge, square-faced Zapotec Indian, rather portly—which they rarely are—with straight, black hair, a strong jaw, and observant eyes. The foreigner on the other side of me—whether his tale be true or apocryphal I know not—related that on his last visit to Madero, as he was about to sink into an inviting armchair he was hastily asked not to take it, for at that moment it was occupied by George Washington! As his surprised person was suspended over another and was half-way down, he was waved to still a third, for in the second was sitting Jean Jacques Rousseau! After which, fearful of incommoding other illustrious dead, he remained standing.Si non e Verdi e bene Trovatore.
Madero has a certain natural inclination toward the French, fostered by those years at the Versailles Lycée, without, however, any of their logic or genius for facts, and he often converses vaguely, but admiringly,about the French Revolution. They say he sleeps withLe Contrat Socialunder his pillow. He has not a single suspicion of the Anglo-Saxon mind, nor of that composite and extremely personal affair we call the national conscience; and still he is supposed to govern his country after our pattern. The whole seemed unrelated to the situation.
In fact, I told Aunt L., as we came away, that I didn't think the loggias and terraces are good for his psychology. You have no need for the firm hand when you are looking out upon a valley swimming in a strange transparency, where the hills seem of purest mother-of-pearl, inevitably leading to golden streets, not black heaps of earth peopled by passionate, starving human beings.
Am now off to the Red Cross. It is temporarily stationed in a beautiful old Spanish house, with a garden, and a largepatioand fountain in the middle, and doors opening on to it, in the Calle Alamo, a once fashionable part of town. Mexico was almost the last country to join the Red Cross organization.
March 11th, evening.
At the reception at Chapultepec I found I had, by a curious chance, arranged with Madame Madero to make a novena with her to the Guadalupe shrine. Whatever reliance she may have had on accidental spirits in the past, I now see her having recourse to the one Great Spirit, the Cause of Causes. I don't feel unassailable by the chances of life myself.
She has been coming for me the past three mornings in the big presidential auto. N. and Aunt L. are thankful to see me return; they think a bomb, aimed at the conveyance full of piety, would not be beyond the bounds of possibility. I am sure Madame M. would do the distance gladly on her knees, instead of in the big car; her passionate solicitude for her husband'swelfare has no limits, and she means to compel whatever powers there be to take the kingdom of heaven by violence, if need be. Like all people who are playing with great chances, she is, I fancy, superstitious. She arises very early, attends Mass, begins her day's work, and is at our house from the castle at 9.30, apparently going the rest of the day at the same high pressure.
I gather they prefer De la Barra not to return; indeed, the faces of any darken at the mention of other possible candidates for public favor. Jealousies and struggles of individual ambition are more evident than struggles for principles in this most personal of all games, Mexican politics.
There was not a hint of any political happening on her part, nor on mine, as I got into the motor this morning. She told me about the six children they have adopted at one time or another, according to various exigencies; all the children too small to make an appearance, however, on the presidential stage.
An Indian boy ran across our path and was knocked down by the auto, just as we were going through the teeming suburb of Peralvillo. In a moment a crowd gathered about us, giving vent to growls. We stopped and got out of the motor. The boy, fortunately, was not injured, and he was wearing few garments to dust. We gave him money, and the mollified parents, pulque-eyed and battered, received him tenderly, plus money and minus hurt, so we were able to drive on through the soft, shimmering morning, out the broad Calzadato to Our Lady of Guadalupe....
We came back through the old Plaza of Tlaltelolco, where the Church of Santiago still exists, though now the yards of the National Railways surround it, and it is used to store cotton and grain, the customs, too, having offices there. It was formerly connected withMexico City by canals instead of these dusty streets, getting dustier every year, as the volume of water decreases in the valley.
Here Cortés found the great market he described in his letter to Charles V., and here Fray Gante taught the Indians for fifty years. Here, too, the first Bishop of Mexico is said to have carried into effect his unfortunate idea of gathering a pile of Aztec hieroglyphics, on cotton, maguey, or deerskin; and piling them mountain high; according to the historian, Ixtlilxochitl, he had them set afire. Now there are only squalid remnants of that civilization, here and there ancient corner-stones on which dilapidatedmesones, lodging-houses for men and beasts, show themselves.
But, somehow, when one peeps in at the little courtyards the life itself doesn't seem so squalid. Anypatioyou look into has a bit of color in the way of a child or a flower or a bright bit of garment. I thought of the three patrician women who, during the siege of Mexico, stood for several days up to their necks in water with only a handful of corn for nourishment, and of the last and noble Aztec king, Cuauhtemoc,[39]who, at the hour of Vespers, fell into the Spaniards' hands, and was broughtto Cortés as he was standing on the terrace of a house in Tlaltelolco, watching the operations.
Cortés asked him to be seated, but the young king put his hand on a poignard that Cortés carried in his belt and asked him to kill him, because, having done what he could to save his kingdom and his people, it only remained for him to die. He was the son-in-law of Montezuma, and was escaping in a canoe with his young wife, just emerging into womanhood, when he was captured. History is soevidenthere and so in relief—I have never lived in a place where the past follows and arrests one as here, though I doubt if Madame Madero, trying to pierce the heavy curtain of the future, gave it a thought this morning.
March 12th.
The Blair Flandraus are here now, visiting Madame Bonilla. He is the "brother" in that delightful book,Viva Mexico, that I sent you, and meeting him made me remember a line where one brother says to the other brother, "What very agreeable people one runs across in queer, out-of-the-way places," meaning themselves, and quite warranted, as I have discovered.
I had a luncheon to-day for Mrs. Flandrau, and Madame Bonilla, Madame del Rio, Madame Simon, and Madame Scherer came. In the afternoon bridge at Madame Bonilla's, at which husbands and also the unattached and solitary appeared. In Mexico, when you have spent one part of the day with people, it isn't, as in more conventional climes, a reason for avoiding them the other hours.
We are all rather amused by the visible romance of a youngquerido(lover) who stands for hours leaning against the garden rail of a big, handsome house in the Calle Liverpool, wherein hisinamoratadwells. The irate father has just built a trellis above the wall, gardenersare busy, and the quickly growing vines will soon make it a rather bootless pastime for the young man topelar la pava. The girl is watched every moment, quite in the way of old dramas concerning unwelcome lovers, determinedDulcineas, and vigilantduennas.
March 14th.
Went to the French Legation this afternoon, where one of Madame Lefaivre's pleasant "days" was in full swing. I met there the Marquis de Guadalupe (Rincon Gallardo), very polished and agreeable, and we looked at a most interesting old book of picture-writing on maguey, which shut up like a folding screen, with a piece of wood at each end to hold it fast. We opened it out on Mr. Lefaivre's long study table. It was of silky, papery fiber, as smooth to the touch as to the eye. Across strong, blue-black grounds were pictures of hunting scenes, or scenes of vengeance—hounds let loose from the leash, springing at Indians whose eyes bulged with terror. Forests were depicted and dark men entering them, and footmarks; a babe was being held to the heavens, and groups of Indians were selling and buying, bending over mats on which their wares were laid out, as to-day.
The Marquis thought it wasn't Aztec, but must have belonged to the period immediately succeeding the Conquest, as there was a Moorish touch to head-dress and garments. Mr. Lefaivre thought it was perhaps one of the cunningly wrought impostures of the sixteenth century. It was for sale for some thousands of pesos and in excellent condition. Life sometimes seems like it here.
Secretary Stimson has poured oil on the troubled waters by saying there is no thought of intervention in Mexico for pacification and otherwise, but it'sall a playing with fire—and a good many American and Mexican fingers are like to be burnt. It would seem 'twere better to let the Mexican revolutions quietly simmer till they boil dry—wecan't do a little; all or nothing.
I must say I have some sympathy with Madero, for, having allowed him to "use" the border for equipping and organizing his revolution, he now naturally wonders at our coldness. It's all a puzzle, whichever way one looks. I keep thinking of Don Porfirio's watch on Mexico; what he knew would happenishappening. Prophets may not only be stoned, but justified, in their own country.
The Senate has wisely adopted a resolution authorizing the President to prohibit shipments of war materials into Mexico—at leastwewon't be feeding fuel to the Mexican fires.
March 16th.
This afternoon I went out late with Madame Lefaivre; she had come to inquire for Elim, who has had some mysterious ailment which has kept me hanging over his bed in terror for two days. We drove up the Paseo in her victoria, and by the statue of the "Independencia" got out and walked about the broad space surrounding it.
Night was near, though not yet fallen, and the sun had disappeared behind Chapultepec. In the changing light the stars shone in the heavens with a brilliancy I have scarcely ever seen in deepest night. They illuminated a pale-blue dome which had a sort of faded sunset lining. I looked up and saw the Southern Cross, the glory of these skies, hanging just above the horizon, and came home touched and quieted by the beauty of it all, to find my babe awake, in a gentle moisture, the fever gone. So often in Mexico the natural changes bring personalhelp.
March 17th, evening.
To-day a delightful picnic at the famous "Desierto," the old Carmelite monastery, deep in one of the splendid forests of the Ajusco hills off the Toluca road.
We met, about fifteen merrymakers, in front of Mr. Potter's house, in the Calle Durango, one of the newest of streets in the newest of the "colonias." All were loudly congratulatory when we appeared, about "St. Patrick's Day in the morning." After a careful packing in of baskets, bottles, and other paraphernalia which always flow most lavishly from Mr. Potter's house, we started out in a long line—where, however, the disadvantages of companionship were soon apparent, as the dust got the hindmost with a vengeance.
It being more necessary to keep the ambassador dusted than lesser objects, he led off, arriving with his luster undimmed. As we passed through Tacubaya, the Sunday market was going its usual picturesque pace, and the trail of equality and fraternity we left behind dimmed many eyes and wares. Once on the high Toluca road we could spread out more, distance lending a decided enchantment.
At Santa Fé, in the great ravine where there has been a powder-factory for a hundred years or so, were unwonted signs of activity. After a stiff bit of steep, broken road, we left the motors in a blessed, grassy, dustless spot, and began a long and lovely walk, through a forest of magnificent oaks and pines. The loveliest of ferns grew beneath them, and there were thick carpets of green and gray mosses, patterned with bright, flowery patches. There was the sweet sound of rushing waters, so rare on the plateau, and occasionally there was a sudden rustle to show that we had surprised some wild living thing, and twice we saw some deer.