XXVIII

"Nur die Jugend giebt uns Schwung,Nur die Liebe macht uns jung."

"Nur die Jugend giebt uns Schwung,

Nur die Liebe macht uns jung."

A far-off look replaced the twinkle at any reference to Vienna. He is short and stout, but the God of wit lives within, looking out of his brown eye, smiling about his wide mouth, and he carries with him an atmosphere of deep kindliness at all times. He departed from Vienna in his earliest youth, came to New York, studied medicine, got his diploma "all by himself" which shows the pluck and ability which may be concealed under the cover of the "first society" and "protection." Baroness R. left last week.

I see that Demidoff has been appointed minister to Greece, where he will find a Russian queen. Athens is fortunate to have him.

Last night we had supper at the Gambrinus restaurant with the Gustavo Maderos, the Darrs, and Colonel Eduardo Hay, this last a figure of the Madero revolution.

The place started out by being a German affair, but no matter what nationality opens a hotel or restaurant here, it ends by being Mexican. Gustavo Madero repeated his famous remark that of a family of clever men the only fool among them was chosen for President. He has a sense of humor that does not care much who or what it demolishes, and a sort of prevision about a joke.

He incidentally spoke ofEl Cocodrilo; when I asked who the individual might be, they told me it was Diaz! How terrible is the stuff of dreams when it is spilt over a whole nation! It sometimes seems as if the entire government had eatenmarihuana.[60]Gustavo Madero was elected Deputy in the last July elections, and has the majority in the House where he "wants" them—under his thumb.

He was amusing, but cynical (as he well may be), about the cry of "free land," saying that it would engulf, inthe fulfilment of its high purpose, any man in any party starting out under its banner. "And the people won't get the land," he added; "they never do, anywhere. It isn't only in Mexico, as foreigners seem to believe."

We caused a cloud to come over his face when we asked if he were soon starting for Japan. He has been delegated to thank the Mikado for participation in the Diaz centenary celebration of 1910. You see how fast Mexican events move, and how infinitely unrelated to one another they sometimes are! He said, with a rather sharp look in his eye, that Japan wasmuy lójos(very far), and it certainly is far from these Mexican political fields, apparently white for the harvest.[61]

September 21st.

Recently a band of Mexican regulars made the journey from El Paso,viathe United States, to some point in Sonora. Several of the more up-to-date papers at home are worrying for fear, unless our Monroe Doctrine be more extensive and comfortable, the "house guests" won't stay. There is one consoling aspect to the Zapatista outrages, as far as Madero is concerned. They always relate to his own people, and so can be dismissed. But the outrages in the north are not so easily disposed of where American and Mexicanmeumandtuumis involved.

A letter from —, dreading life, fearing death. His is a ravaged existence and "pain's furnace heat within him quivers." I sent him the inclosed verses, which came to me in the night. It is the simplicity of death, after all, that is its wonder.

To ———

Why should I fear to die?When all I love do treadAmong the quickened dead?If they, then why not I?If their wills have reposedFrom acts the sense hath known,Why then myself aloneAffright and uncomposed?Shall I not rather deemIf they give back no groan,They lie not there alone,In some cold, heavy dream?But have returned home,As one at eventideBy his swept firesideSitteth, but not alone.So steadfast are the lawsThat bind us each to each,They scarcely give us pauseTo weep that which they teach.

Why should I fear to die?When all I love do treadAmong the quickened dead?If they, then why not I?

Why should I fear to die?

When all I love do tread

Among the quickened dead?

If they, then why not I?

If their wills have reposedFrom acts the sense hath known,Why then myself aloneAffright and uncomposed?

If their wills have reposed

From acts the sense hath known,

Why then myself alone

Affright and uncomposed?

Shall I not rather deemIf they give back no groan,They lie not there alone,In some cold, heavy dream?

Shall I not rather deem

If they give back no groan,

They lie not there alone,

In some cold, heavy dream?

But have returned home,As one at eventideBy his swept firesideSitteth, but not alone.

But have returned home,

As one at eventide

By his swept fireside

Sitteth, but not alone.

So steadfast are the lawsThat bind us each to each,They scarcely give us pauseTo weep that which they teach.

So steadfast are the laws

That bind us each to each,

They scarcely give us pause

To weep that which they teach.

Sunday evening.

A long day. N. is at the Embassy; the house is quiet, except for water still dripping heavily from the roof. My Mexican sands are slipping, and this morning my eyes looked their last on the so-familiar beauty of the plateau. Early Mr. de S. and Mr. S. and myself started out from the city, down the shining Avenida San Francisco, through the Zócalo, past the palace, through the Calle de la Moneda, where the French troops entered in 1863, out past the San Lázaro station, on to what was once the ancient Aztec causeway.

There we met three fishermen, clad only in small breech-clouts, with long poles over their shoulders, oneach end of which were small nets full of little fish. They were moving along silently, swiftly, the sun glistening on their wet bodies, just as from the night of time dark men have moved over that causeway.

We passed the sun-baked Peñon Viejo, with its clump of trees, its bits of cactus growing on its grassy sides, and the old Church of Santa Marta on a farther hill. On one side the road is bounded by the whitetequesquiteshores of Texcoco, with little piles of soda gathered up at intervals. On the other are the green, sweet-water shores of Lake Chalco, and the little lake of San Martu, so near the Texcoco lake that there is just room between for the railway and the motor road. At Los Reyes, about eighteen kilometers out of town, we branched off to Texcoco over a highway running through maize-planted fields, under the great cypresses and eucalyptus-trees of the Hacienda de Chapingo, along more corn-fields, till we bumped into Texcoco.

The usual Sunday market was in full blast around theportalesof the Plaza, and there was a coming and going in the old church as I stepped in for a moment. Here Cortés lay by his mother and his daughter for over one hundred and fifty years. The little near-by chapel, with its antique baptismal font, was built by the Conqueror himself, and shows how limited were the means he had at his command when bivouacking in the "Athens of Mexico." As I bid farewell to these scenes of his romantic deeds and the long-time resting-place of his venturesome heart, I bethought me of his watchword:

Por el rey infinitas tierrasY por Dios infinitas almas.

Por el rey infinitas tierras

Y por Dios infinitas almas.

We went on toward the beautiful little village of Magdalena, entered through some wonderful plantingsof organos cactus, and at the entrance was the little pink-and-blue pulque-shop, with its motto, so true of all things earthly, "Paso á paso se va llegando."[62]

The sun shone through the cypress and eucalyptus in the atrium of the lovely old church, and Indians, in clean, white clothes were going to Mass. There was an assortment of wide, flounced petticoats, quite striking in these days of tight skirts. All was as I had first seen it, except that some feet would never tread these paths again, while others were beginning to toddle about, and nature had blossomed and reblossomed, and I myself was to pass. That was all.

As we went on we seemed, for a while, to lose the volcanoes, but higher up on the great ridge they showed themselves again in all their splendor and the air got quite cold, communicating a sensation of excessive lightness and purity. The hills around are bare of vegetation.

Mr. de S. said that the first conquerors wanted to make the beautiful plateau resemble in all things the Castilian soil, which in so many places is arid and treeless. However that may be, every authority the country has ever had has taken literally "a whack" at the trees, till these hills are bare and dry. Great stony, waterless gorges separate the immense stretches of maguey—endless, symmetrically planted fields, stretching to barren hills, from which the French, during their occupation, cut the last timber.

There is a feudal aspect to the old, high, wall-inclosed haciendas, with their battlements and turret-holes, always the belfry of a chapel showing above. Everything that is needed for the life of the Indian—which isn't much—is contained within their walls, together with the much more costly and complicatedmachinery of the pulque industry. "Pulque fino de Apam" is inscribed on each little blue-and-pinkcantina. The view, as we turned back, was enchanting, showing us Mexico as it appeared to the conquerors when Cortés first looked upon it and called it "La más hermosa cosa del mundo" ("The most beautiful thing in the world"). Beyond—far beyond the enchanting hills to the east, is the drop into the land of coffee and pineapple and banana and a thousand heavy scents unknown to this thin air.

Gorgeous but ominous masses of clouds began to roll up on the wide horizon, and shortly afterward over the shining green plain moved a misty wall of fast-approaching rain, and there were deafening peals of thunder, with great white flashes of lightning. In a moment, it seemed, even before the chauffeur could button down the curtains, we were deluged, and the road was a rush of gray water, with a pelting of hail on the motor-top. Some Indians, in the long, thatch-like capes of grass that they wear as raincoats, passed us—the water dripping from the bamboos on to their bare feet.

Then began a slipping and skidding down the hill and a search for the nearest shelter. The view toward the great Apam plain was dark and splendid, with here and there a heavy bar of light falling on the fields of maguey. At last we found ourselves within sight of the rather sizable village of Calpulalpam, and decided to ask shelter at the San Cristobal hacienda known to Mr. de S., slipping down the hill in a second cloudburst that made the auto feel like a fly in a millrace.

In inconceivable mud, not even an Indian in sight, we went in through the great gate in the feudal-like wall, with a church of baroque design built into it, where we found ourselves in a roughly paved court with an old fountain. The gate was fortunately nearthe entrance to the dwelling of theadministrador, a Spaniard, as theadministradoresnearly always are.

He welcomed us warmly intola casa de ustedes, appearing withEl Paisin his hand. He pressed us to stay for thecomida. We delicately answered that we had sandwiches, and only wanted shelter, but we allowed ourselves to be persuaded. His once-handsome wife shortly appeared, dressed in a white sack and a blue rebozo, accompanied by several boys and a really beautiful girl of about eighteen, and we all went into the long, low-ceilinged dining-room. Theadministradorand his spouse sat cozily side by side, the children near them, and we three at the other end, together with a friend of theirs—some local functionary. The room was dusky, the windows curtainedoutsideby sheets of water, but the table was bountifully spread with such a typical repast of well-to-do Mexicans of that class that you will be interested in the menu.

We began with asopa de frijoles,[63]followed by plates of hot tortillas, and a big dish of rice decorated with fried eggs, slices of fried bananas, and bacon.Mole de guajolote[64]was thepièce de résistance. I inclose the receipt for it, which Madame Lefaivre sent me theother day. Taking it from the philosophic point of view, it is the image of their politics;melé,melo,mole, and the result very indigestible.

Pulque was served in lovely old engraved glass-jars, and was very liberally poured out to us in only slightly smaller glasses. It was the far-famedPulque fino de Apam, but seeing that we did no more than politely sip in spite of all the urging (if one could lose one's sense of smell, onecouldgo ahead), theadministradordisappeared, and came back with a dusty bottle ofXeresof some old mark.

There were various sweets on the table:cajetas de Celaya,[65]celebrated all over Mexico, guava jelly, and a sweet looking somewhat like it, calledmembrillate, made of quince-juice. The little local functionary seemed somewhat annoyed to find us there. I suppose he looked on that Sunday dinner as his special appearance, and strange people had come in and monopolized the stage. His contribution to the conversation was the complaint that when Americans come to Mexico they continue to speak English. I pointed out that most of us would give half our kingdom to possess in returnla lengua castellana, and that we did notalluse itallthe time because we couldn't. At this point Mr. S. humbly said he was speaking what he thought was Spanish, and he answered, "You are an exception," but he continued a somewhat muffled conversation with Mr. de Soto.

The more I looked at the daughter the more I saw she was of an extraordinary loveliness; not Spanish, not Indian, but some third thing—was it Arab?—showing distinctly through these two. She looked at us as if we kept the keys of the gate of heaven,i.e., escape from the hacienda. The only door open to her, however, is marriage,and that will lead to a stone wall, as far as horizon is concerned.

She said she longed to see Mexico City, if onlyonce, and asked me about thetightskirts—hers were long and flowing.Enfin, she is ready for life, but the functionary seemed to have a proprietary eye on her.

They were all as nice and pleasant as possible, and so hospitable. After lunch we made the rounds of the hacienda buildings. The family to whom the vast estate belongs must have been absent not only one, but two generations—from the look of the rooms. It was the quintessence of "absentee landlordship."

We went through what seemed acres of corridors and half-dismantled rooms, with an occasional piece of good furniture or an old, faded brocade curtain. The library had rows upon rows of yellowing books and countless volumes of accounts of bygoneadministradoresof the estate, the same thing that one finds piled up in every bookshop in Mexico City. In the days before it was easy to get away, some one, however, had loved the classics, for one case was full of richly bound Latin books.

There were numberless fascinating little courtyards. One had a cypress-tree pressed against an oval, barred window; another, only half-inclosed, had a fig-tree growing higher than the top, and out beyond was the great Apam plain, light and cloud rapidly passing over the green, maguey-planted stretches. There was something sad and lovely about it all, and Guadalupe seemed a sort of "Mariana in the moated grange." There were vast granaries, too; wheat growing easily at this altitude, in addition to the pulque.

We went at last into the little chapel where there were some old, carvedprie-Dieu, covered with faded brocade, and the altar was a charming example ofChurrigueresque, with small, gilded saints in elaborately carved and gilded niches, surrounding a large, central figure of Saint Christopher. It was all, somehow, melancholy-inducing, and made us remember that the "whole round world is but a sepulchre," as Nezahualcoyotl put it.

We took a photograph of Guadalupe, standing on a little outer stairway leading to theentresol, where the family sleep and the girl dreams her dreams. I was only sorry some Prince Charming had not been with us. She had a distinctly yearning expression as we drove away into the great world; there was, probably, far back, some venturesome blood, but she will doubtless get the functionary.

September 29th.

Last night, one of Von Hintze's big dinners. He has been such a good friend from the first, and we have been a part of all his dinners, which have been many.Paso á paso se va llegando, and this is likely to be the last. I felt as if I were back in Vienna, as Auersperg sat on one side of me and Riedl took me out. A handsome Captain Bazaine was also there. That name found in Mexico awakens historical thoughts, and now that I am to leave it all, perhaps forever, the least tap on memory and a thousand things spring into consciousness.

Mrs. Stronge presided; Hohler was there, the Hugo Scherers, Mr. Carlos de Landa, Mr. Hewitt, the Von Hillers, and we played bridge till late. Conditions are going from bad to worse here, and I feel an increasing sadness at leaving all this touching, appealing beauty of Mexico to the powers of darkness, or if not of darkness, of such uncertainty that evil only can come.

The "Apostle" has become themono de Coahuila. The favor of republics is more short-lived than that of princes. How true a word La Rochefoucauld spoke whenhe said, "On loue et on blâme la plupart des gens parce que c'est la mode de les louer ou de les blâmer."

Gustavo,ojo parado, would perhaps like to be President, and feels himself superior in intelligence and will to his brother, who is, as a fact, decidedly under his dominion.

If "Panchito" did not feel that he is upheld by the world of spirits, and I should add by a passionate, resolute consort, he might abdicate; everything here is possible except peace, and it is still "up" to the heavens to perform miracles and so relieve the Mexicans themselves of the tedium of installing a stable government.

Good-by to Mexico, and a special farewell to Madame Madero—Vera Cruz—Mexico in perspective

October 1st.

We take theMexicoof the Ward Line on the 10th. So sorry not to be going with Madame Lefaivre straight to France, but we think it will be well to wrap the Stars and Stripes about us for a space.

This is only a word. I sit among open boxes in what will never again be my home, "things I have known and loved awhile." Through it runs my Mexicanétape, my "rosary of the road."

October 3d.

Madame Lefaivre and I have each received diplomas and testimonials from the Red Cross, and a very polite note from Madame de Palomo. It was a curious and salutary experience in things human.

The ambassador sent N. a really beautiful letter of appreciation. He has a quite perfect epistolary turn—finished off by a very chic signature, and has been all that a chief could be during the long, strange Mexican months, while Mrs. Wilson has been the kindest, most considerate of friends.

October 5th.

This morning I went up to Chapultepec to say good-by to Madame Madero. As I drove up the winding way in the white morning the flowers were shining softly along the embankments, the trees were feathery, unsubstantial, the birds singing "like to burst their littlethroats." It might have been the road to Paradise instead of to the abode of care.

I went in through the great iron gate, the guard saluting, across the flat, stone terrace where some cadets were at drill, and got out at the glass doors leading up to the big stairway. The President was standing there as I drove up, his auto waiting to take him to the palace to a Cabinet meeting. I thought he looked slightly—very slightly—troubled, though I had a feeling that his head was still in the morning clouds of the dazzling day. He wished me abon voyageandprompt retourand drove away. Our personal relations with them both have always been most friendly.[66]

I imagine there has been little or no change in his psychology along the lines of practical statecraft. His true habitat is the world of fancy, where he feels himself protected and led on by benign powers as definitely as was Tobias by the angel. A state of mind like that can be very compelling, and hemaywitness what the unkind say is his pet ambition—his own apotheosis.

The dim progression of Mexican events seems to have left his spirits untouched, though his fleshly being must be a mass of black-and-blue spots from the hard facts he bumps into. "One man with a dream at pleasure," but I felt like leaving him a pocket edition ofLe Prince.

I thought Madame Madero showed the strain of that climb from obscurity and prison up thevia triumphalisto the presidential peaks. The flood of morning light, as we sat on the terrace, did not spare her worn and anxious face. I have an idea that she is very practical, but it is not her practicality, but her husband's dreams,that brought them to Chapultepec. It's a situation to discourage common sense.

She was, as always, courteous and friendly, but a puzzled look was on her face, and I felt that there were questions that she would have liked to put to me, that the circumstances forbade. We spoke of the work she is just now especially interested in, for the amelioration of the Mexican woman's lot—the organizing of the lace and embroidery industry,à laQueen Elena, in Italy, several years ago. There is a really lovely product here, the drawn linen work—deshilados, it is called—introduced by the Spaniards and practised through generations in cloisters and religious schools.

She told me that in Puerto Rico one hundred thousand women had been organized, and she wanted to do the same here, asking me if I could not interest people in New York in the industry.

I felt how frail her body, but how determined her will as we embraced in the dazzling morning. About us was the perfume of the rare and lovely shrubs of thepatio, the splash of the fountain, the singing of birds, the lustrous hills, the shining volcanoes; that crystal air enfolded us, closer than human touch, but beneath us was the restless city and the shifting will of the Mexican people.

On board theMexicoin Vera Cruz Harbor.October 10th.

We got down last night over the International; so many friendly faces at the station—une belle gare—reminding me of the unforgetable going away from Copenhagen. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, and theChef du Protocole, nearly all the colleagues, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, Aunt Laura, and many American friends were there.

The train departed at last without the slightest warning, but, the hour being at hand, we were standing near the steps, and as it quite slyly began to move out I was pushed into it by friendly hands with my load of flowers. Various other passengers had only time to scramble into the baggage and rear cars; and so, without any sound except those of friendly adieux, we slipped out of the station into the starlit valley, toward the hills that hold the splendors of this Indian world.

I had a feeling as of some one who leaves treasure behind, and the thought that my eyes will probably never again rest on the beauty of Mexico gives me a clutching at the heart. "Heureux ceux qui n'ont pas vu la fumée de la fête de l'étranger et qui ne se sont assis qu'aux festins de leurs pères."

It is seventeen months since we landed, but changing governments have not changed Mexico.

On arriving, at 7.30, we repaired to the Arcades of the Hotel Diligencias of somewhat branded reputation, in one of the little rickety cabs. If its back flap is loose, you have a lovely breeze. If not, you feel as if you were in a "hot country"notof earth.

I asked for tea, but when it was poured out I decided 'twere better to do in Vera Cruz as the Veracruzanos do, and ordered, as a farewell tribute, "chocolate Mexicano," which, though it brought my own temperature up to the boiling-point, was very good.

The dissolving sensation is not unpleasant after having one's nerves screwed up to the last turn by all those "high" months. Something thick and stiff, in very small cups, being served on an adjacent table to a couple ofindigènes, was "chocolate español."

Afterward I went across the palm-planted Plaza, that I had only seen in the dim light of my arrival,to the old cathedral—wind-swept, sun-enveloped, rain-deluged, the patine of centuries making it lovely beyond description, with its flying buttresses and quaint gargoyles, and its pink belfry, in which swing old, green-bronze bells.

Inside, the modern Veracruzanos have let themselves "go" as regards art. Cheap stained-glass windows, "made in Germany," and realistic portrayals of saints in agony, one more appalling than the other, encumber the chapels, and, I hate to record it, only paper and tinsel flowers were on the altars. But I turned my thoughts to One who walked upon the waters, and prayed for a safe voyage.

They tell me there are fish as beautiful as flowers to be seen in the market, but instead of continuing the investigation of Vera Cruz in the garish light of its October day we went back to the ship. On our way we met an Oxford friend of N.'s, a young Englishman, perfectly turned out in spotless white, who might have been called suddenly before the viceroy (I find myself getting a little wild) without the slightest change in his raiment. He hadn't spoken with one of "his kind" for weeks, and was not expecting any one. England's true conquest of the world, it seems to me, identity, habits, customs, unchanged by that most potent of all alchemies—the tropics.

The German and Russian ministers take theMexicoas far as Progreso, whence they depart on some sort of hunting expedition, and promise aigrettes and similar vanities. We have all been sitting on the breezy side of the boat, sipping lemonade, talking of Mexico in perspective and "letting him who will be wise." Vera Cruz is a memory of color, green and pink and white, merciless sun, refreshing breeze, and the Veracruzanos, of all shades and origins, coming and going, carrying ontheir heads the abundances of earth and sea. I post this in Havana.

October 12th.

Last night, in the dim prow, some Indians were chanting in mournful, wailing voices, a half-sensuous, half-imploring air of sad peoples. As it floated toward me in the soft, thick darkness it possessed me with its melancholy—but I must trim my lamp for other nights.

THE END

FOOTNOTES[1]Killed during the battle of the Somme, 1916.[2]The Casa de Alvarado was once the home of the American consul-general, Mr. Parsons, of regretted and appreciated memory, who was killed stepping out of a street-car in Mexico City. Mr. Laughton subsequently was murdered while at his mining-camp. Of course this has nothing to do with the house, but its history, nevertheless, is bound up with such decrees of fate.[3]I had three glimpses of the "King in Exile." First in Rome, the Easter Sunday of 1913, after the Madero tragedy. As I went across the Piazza Barberini I saw flying from the middle window of thepiano nobileof the Hotel Bristol, the Mexican colors, floating there by what strange chance, the eagle holding in its claws the antique serpent against the green, white, and red. As I went up the stairway there were numberless and unmistakable Mexicans on the landings, and several priests were waiting in the antechamber.Doña Carmen came in almost immediately with the "grand air" I had heard about, handsome and composed, a veritable queen in exile. She was dressed with extreme elegance and simplicity, in a perfectly plain, dark-blue gown; around her throat was a pearl necklace. After the greetings she seated me on the gaudy, gold-and-blue sofa, and took her place beside me. Once or twice her eyes filled as we spoke of Mexico, but mostly there was a remote look in them.When Don Porfirio entered the room I knew him for a leader of men.Anno Dominihad weakened his will, perhaps, but had not bowed his proud figure nor dulled the piercing look in his eye, which I remember as hazel with a very large, light iris, the pupil dark and fiery. We could not but speak of the Madero tragedy, Don Porfirio talking in Spanish, I in French. I found myself slightly trembling. He repeated several times, "I foresaw it all—my method was the only one," and once he added, "How shall one judge men other than by results?" I saw in his eye that same remoteness which I think an observer would have found in mine also; for instead of the gaudy hotel room I saw Chapultepec high up, swung in a strange transparency and Don Porfirio's destiny blocked out against it.In Paris, that same summer of 1913, at the Hotel Astoria, I witnessed anotherétapeof the painful, unfit Odyssey from hotel to hotel. The antechamber was filled with their luggage, plastered with endless hotel tabs. Don Porfirio's mien was not quite so majestic, his heart was more broken, his hope less, his years seemed heavier, and they were uncertain where next to turn their steps, to San Sebastian or to some "cure" in Switzerland.On my way back to Mexico on theEspagne, September, 1913, I was sitting idly watching the Spanish shores off Santander. There were some Syrians on board suspected ofquién sabewhat disease, and we were not allowed to go ashore to visit the old town. About four o'clock a small launch was seen approaching. In it were Don Porfirio and Doña Carmen and Don Porfirio's daughter, Doña Amada (Madame de la Torre), whom they were bringing to the ship, which was crowded with returning Mexicans, anticipating the pacification of the country by Huerta. At the news that the "grand old man" was in the launch there was a rush for the railing. Don Porfirio could not come on board on account of the quarantine. It was a tragic moment when he took his daughter in his arms, and many eyes filled with tears as she tore herself from him and came hurriedly up the gangway. Farewells were waved as the launch turned toward the land. Don Porfirio, upright, majestic, motionless, had his eyes fixed on the ship with its prow toward Mexico. Who would, if he could, have searched his heart or said of what he was thinking, the old, the illustrious, the once powerful, in "the fell clutch of circumstance"?As long as I live his figure will be to me the sign and symbol of nostalgia, as he stood in the small launch, his head bared under the brilliant sky, the bright spot of his red necktie accenting the whiteness of his hair, watching with longing eyes the ship turned toward the land which had given him birth, and which he in return had made great and honorable among nations.[4]"The Daughter of the Emperor," "Queen Xochitl," "The Great Napoleon," "The Wife of the Moor," "The Star of the Sea," "The Brigantines."[5]This was a time-honored calumny told to all new-comers in Mexico, and believed by many chiefly because it would have been so easy for Don Porfirio to enrich himself to any extent he pleased. The facts are that his ambitions lay rather in the direction of power for himself and peace and progress for his country than in that of the amassing of riches. He was a man of the simplest personal habits, though he always maintained a state dignified and befitting his high office.During his years of exile he and his beautiful wife lived in the quietest manner on an income sufficient only for the ordinary comforts of life. The last will and testament of "the Greatest Mexican" further proved that he could be called to no such accounting by the Final Judge.As for Señor Limantour, he inherited a large fortune from his father, principally in real estate, that increased in value during those years of prosperity which his long and able administration of the finances of Mexico did so much to bring about.[6]In the autumn of 1911 Maurice de Weede was accidentally killed at a shooting-party in Austria.[7]Recreation-ground of the Ancient Cat.[8]The temple of Venus.[9]The Road to Rome, Hilaire Belloc.[10]National Pawn-shop.[11]St. Augustine of the Caves.[12]We must get even the water from the Spanish woman.[13]Not to-morrow, immediately.[14]Vide A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico.[15]Interinato,ad interimpresidency.[16]Gulf of California.[17]The final fate of Don Alberto García Granados, also Minister of Gobernación in Madero's Cabinet, was to be taken by Carranzistas to the Escuela de Tir and there shot. He was ill in bed when the summons came, and it is recorded that he was given salt injections and tied to a post to make it possible for him to stand before the firing-squad, which achieved the death of the aged statesman only afterseveralvolleys.[18]British ambassador to Vienna at the time of writing.[19]The Enchantress. The Emotions. The Lost Man.[20]The Casa de Manrique in the Calle Donceles is another example of old seigniorial houses. It belonged to the Conde de Heras, and was built late in the seventeenth century. Now, alas, it is the office of the Wells Fargo Express Co., but there is a note of protesting splendor about it.[21]Down with the gringos.[22]Every government, since the days of the viceroys, appointed inexorably but quietly from Spain, has come into power like the government of Huerta or Madero or Diaz, through a revolution by a militarycoup. No foreign ruler till our day thought it a reason for bringing the whole nation to ruin.[23]Armand Delille distinguished himself; at the battle of the Yser and on the bridge of Steenstraete was decorated with the Légion d'Honneur. He was sent to hold it with three hundred men, and itwasheld; but when he was relieved, of the three hundred men only thirty remained.[24]Maurice Parmentier fell at Dieuze, November 28, 1914.[25]Marina, the daughter of acaciqueof Painalla, had been sold into slavery, and after the famous battle of Ceutla, when Santiago appeared in the heavens above the Spanish hosts (the chronicler of the event says that he, miserable sinner, was not worthy to see the apparition), she fell into the hands of the Spaniards. She was first allotted to Puertocarrero, but her abilities speedily raised her to the tent of Cortés. She became his interpreter, his Egeria, his love, the instrument of fate, holding Indian and Spanish destinies alike in her hands. All historians of the epoch extol her virtues, and Bernal Diaz says they held her to be like no other woman on earth, because of her intelligence and her devotion to the Spanish cause. By the Indians she is held eternally restless—malign—for having leagued herself with the Spaniards.[26]Carranza'sPlan de Guadalupe, March 19, 1913, contains, among other oddities, the statement of this "Everlasting Idol of Free Peoples," that "as our Constitution forbids us to confiscate, we have decided to do without our Constitution for a while."[27]During the first Carrancista occupation of Mexico City this house was sacked and stripped of all belongings. Not an electric-light fixture, not a door-knob was left; even the costly floorings were torn up. Street-cars run through the Calles de Londres and — told me that for days the traffic was interrupted by cars filled with the Creels' furniture and works of art, which were left standing in front of the house. One rather sighs for the fate of the Sèvres vases, and one thinks involuntarily of the new verb in the Spanish language, "carranciar," to steal like a Carrancista.[28]Diplomat's Wife in Mexico, Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe.[29]Fifty-second viceroy.[30]Elliott Baird Coues, + Zürich, January 2, 1913.[31](1917)Le Colonel de Chambrun, croix de guerre, grande croix de la Légion d'Honneur, citémany timesà l'ordre de l'arméefor deeds of bravery, and once, in the autumn of 1915,"pour sa gaité communicative dans les tranchées"—so indicative of his special talents and great heart.[32]Henri de G. (Lieutenant 4th Zouaves), wounded at Verdun, June 9, 1916. Croix de guerre in Belgium, 1915, Légion d'Honneur, Verdun, 1916.[33]"If thou goest to dwell in the Indies let it be where thou seest the volcanoes."[34]Maurice Raoul Duval, + fallen on the field of honor, Verdun, May 5, 1916.[35]Count du Boisrouvray, 14th Hussards,promu chef de bataillon pour faits de guerre. Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, croix de guerre, many citations; the first to enter Thiaumont when it was retaken.[36]"For the king infinite lands, and for God infinite souls."[37]This statue was thrown down and dragged through the city the night of the breaking off of relations between the United States and Mexico (April 23, 1914).[38]Pathway of the dead.[39]This is the prince who was taken by Cortés on his Honduras expedition with the kings of Texcoco and Tacuba. As punishment for plotting to escape they were hanged head downward from a tree in the wilderness. Humboldt saw this represented in a hieroglyphic painting in the convent of San Felipe Neri, and even Bernal Diaz relates that the companions in arms of Cortés were "much shocked" at the occurrence.Now Cuauhtemoc stands in gold and bronze in one of theglorietasof the beautiful Paseo, high on a marble column, with Aztec devices on base and plinth, where he can keep watch on his hills and volcanoes and lakes. He sustained the siege of Mexico for seventy-nine days, and the inscription says, "to the memory of Cuauhtemoc and those warriors who fought heroically in defense of their country MDXXI." Diaz and his then Minister of Public Works, Riva Palacio, MDCCCLXXVII, ordered it to be erected, and later it was finished under Manuel Gonzalez and his Minister of Public Works, MDCCCLXXXII.[40]The body of Maximilian lies with his kin in the imperial vault of the Capuchin church in Vienna.[41]Without civil rights.[42]Accursed one.[43]This ship has played a rôle in the destinies of two of Mexico's rulers, for it not only bore Diaz into exile, but it was the ship containing the ammunition for Huerta, to prevent the delivery of which we thought we were obliged to seize Vera Cruz, April 21, 1914.[44]Died in New York, August 23, 1916, of amaladie de langueur. How could she resist a winter exiled in Harlem, after the flight from Mexico in 1915—the world, her world, in ruins? As well put an orchid in a cellar in the autumn and expect to find it blooming in the spring.[45]This house was burned and sacked during theDecena Trágica, February, 1913, by what the newspapers calledla furia popular, and remains to this day a mass of crumbling and charred walls, roofless and windowless,sic transit.[46]The American interests are chiefly situated in the district of El Ebano, on the frontier of the states of Vera Cruz and San Luis Potosí. The English are in the district of Tuxpam in the state of Vera Cruz, and the total of the interests represented is about a hundred million dollars for the American, seventy-five millions for the English, and between two and three millions for the Mexican. The figures do rather sustain the adage that "Mexico is the mother of foreigners, but the stepmother of Mexicans."[47]In the palace in the Salón Rojo is a large picture of the battle of Puebla, with Diaz prominently figured. The picturesque dress of the Puebla mountain Indians gives it a familiar note. There is nothing wanting to show the prowess of Mexicans, and it portrays the French retreating down-hill in terrible disorder—chasseurs d'Afrique and chasseurs de Vincennes giving it a European touch not in keeping with the bits of maguey in the landscape.[48]The heir to the Hanoverian throne killed in a motor accident.[49]Io mi volsi a man destra e posi menteAll' altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle,Non viste mai fuor ch'alla prima gente.Goder pareva il ciel di lor fiammelle;O settentrional vedovo sitoPoi che privato se' di mirar quelle!"Purgatorio" IThis is the passage that commentators take to mean the Southern Cross, the knowledge of which Dante got from Marco Polo.[50]Assassinated at Salonica, 1913.[51]Peña Pobre has been occupied and evacuated countless times by Zapatistas, and is now completely laid waste—the great paper-mills, the gardens, the hacienda buildings. Since writing these words a vast and blood-stained scroll has been unfolded, and I think many a one has modified his political creed.—E. O'S., 1917.[52]Of the Casasus house nothing but the walls remain. Everything has been pillaged and scattered. People have happened on an occasional old volume of the great library, and an occasional piece of the gilt-and-brocade furniture has been seen in the second-hand shops. — told me that a matter of importance took him to the house when used as a barracks by Carrancistas. In the greatpatiowere only a filthy cot and an oldbraseronear which a poorsoldaderawas sitting. The fountain was dry and full of refuse, and some soldiers were standing about waiting for their officer, who came in violently disputing with a woman of the town. From under the cot, after a few moments, the woman drew out a small, beautiful old chest clamped with silver and inset with coral, with which she departed, "the living symbol of the aspirations of the downtrodden masses," as one of his followers calls Don Venustiano.—E. O'S., 1917.[53]These treasures were scattered and destroyed during the first Carrancista occupation.[54]Orozco was arrested with General Huerta by the United States authorities on June 27, 1915. A few days later he escaped his guard at El Paso, and shortly afterward was killed during a raid on the border.[55]A young mining engineer lately come out of Mexico on one of the intermittent trains, over the once favorite northern route, tells me that everywhere the stations are destroyed. Overturned rolling-stock lies rotting in the ditches; at one point where the fuel gave out the trainmen got down and chopped up the seats remaining on what once had been a station platform, and at another a Pullman car was smashed and fed to the engine. What intending travelers and the stockholders in the company think of Carranza's passion for reconstruction is said to be too fierce for expression!—E. O'S., January, 1917.[56]Marquis de la G., then military attaché at the French Embassy in Berlin.[57]Et comment fera celui qui a reçu du sort le don superbe et fatal de voir la vérité, et de ne pouvoir pas ne pas la voir?—Romain Rolland,Vie de Tolstoi. (January, 1917.)[58]Killed in battle at Belloy-en-Santerre, July, 1916.A friend and companion of Alan Seeger's Harvard days, Pierre Abreu, himself extraordinarily fitted for the understanding of the "humanities" in every sense, told me of him one windy twilight crossing to France on theEspagnethat autumn after his death. I had just seen, in myNorth American Review, that most charming of all his poems, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death."He was evidently a free, romantic being, Latinized in temperament and mentality, receptive and creative. Abreu met him first at a Sophocles course—he was a brilliant, original classical scholar, with an elasticity of culture that made him also able to translate a gem of Clément Marot, or Ronsard, into perfect form at sight. For the impressionable years of gifted adolescence, what more suggestive setting than that magnetic valley of Mexico?Now he lies in France. His high, adventurous spirit was meant for wars and chances, doubtless in the old, romantic sense of battle."Heroes battling with heroes and above them the wrathful gods."For this type there could be but one consummation. But it seems to me all can be fulfilled as well at twenty-eight as at threescore and ten, and the completion of no man's destiny is dependent on his years.—E. O'S., January, 1917.[59]Dr. F. S. Pearson, to whose genius this astounding engineering feat is largely due, lost his life on theLusitania.[60]A Mexican herb inducing insanity.[61]Gustavo Madero was apprehended, as he was lunching in this restaurant in the Avenida San Francisco in company with General Huerta, February 18, 1913, and was shot while attempting to escape early the next morning.Vide A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico.[62]"Step by step one reaches the end."[63]Bean soup.[64]Turkey stew with Chile gravy.Receipt for the famous "mole de guajolote"Pepper and saltCinnamonGrains of sesameChile ancho}Chile mulato} Three kinds of peppersChile verde}AnisAlmondsOne piece of chocolateOne piece of sugarLaurelClovesAll ground separately on themetate, then ground together and put into the saucepan, where the turkey already boiled is waiting, cut up in bouillon.I don't know ifmolemust be made from the second joint of the turkey leg, but my pieces always prove to be that when scraped. The sauce is so thick that the anatomy is completely masked when one helps oneself.[65]Boxes of sweets from Celaya.[66]Francisco I. Madero and José María Pino Suarez were killed when being transferred from the palace to the Penitenciaría on the night of Saturday, February 22, 1913.Videpage 215,A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico.—E. O'S.

[1]Killed during the battle of the Somme, 1916.

[2]The Casa de Alvarado was once the home of the American consul-general, Mr. Parsons, of regretted and appreciated memory, who was killed stepping out of a street-car in Mexico City. Mr. Laughton subsequently was murdered while at his mining-camp. Of course this has nothing to do with the house, but its history, nevertheless, is bound up with such decrees of fate.

[3]I had three glimpses of the "King in Exile." First in Rome, the Easter Sunday of 1913, after the Madero tragedy. As I went across the Piazza Barberini I saw flying from the middle window of thepiano nobileof the Hotel Bristol, the Mexican colors, floating there by what strange chance, the eagle holding in its claws the antique serpent against the green, white, and red. As I went up the stairway there were numberless and unmistakable Mexicans on the landings, and several priests were waiting in the antechamber.

Doña Carmen came in almost immediately with the "grand air" I had heard about, handsome and composed, a veritable queen in exile. She was dressed with extreme elegance and simplicity, in a perfectly plain, dark-blue gown; around her throat was a pearl necklace. After the greetings she seated me on the gaudy, gold-and-blue sofa, and took her place beside me. Once or twice her eyes filled as we spoke of Mexico, but mostly there was a remote look in them.

When Don Porfirio entered the room I knew him for a leader of men.Anno Dominihad weakened his will, perhaps, but had not bowed his proud figure nor dulled the piercing look in his eye, which I remember as hazel with a very large, light iris, the pupil dark and fiery. We could not but speak of the Madero tragedy, Don Porfirio talking in Spanish, I in French. I found myself slightly trembling. He repeated several times, "I foresaw it all—my method was the only one," and once he added, "How shall one judge men other than by results?" I saw in his eye that same remoteness which I think an observer would have found in mine also; for instead of the gaudy hotel room I saw Chapultepec high up, swung in a strange transparency and Don Porfirio's destiny blocked out against it.

In Paris, that same summer of 1913, at the Hotel Astoria, I witnessed anotherétapeof the painful, unfit Odyssey from hotel to hotel. The antechamber was filled with their luggage, plastered with endless hotel tabs. Don Porfirio's mien was not quite so majestic, his heart was more broken, his hope less, his years seemed heavier, and they were uncertain where next to turn their steps, to San Sebastian or to some "cure" in Switzerland.

On my way back to Mexico on theEspagne, September, 1913, I was sitting idly watching the Spanish shores off Santander. There were some Syrians on board suspected ofquién sabewhat disease, and we were not allowed to go ashore to visit the old town. About four o'clock a small launch was seen approaching. In it were Don Porfirio and Doña Carmen and Don Porfirio's daughter, Doña Amada (Madame de la Torre), whom they were bringing to the ship, which was crowded with returning Mexicans, anticipating the pacification of the country by Huerta. At the news that the "grand old man" was in the launch there was a rush for the railing. Don Porfirio could not come on board on account of the quarantine. It was a tragic moment when he took his daughter in his arms, and many eyes filled with tears as she tore herself from him and came hurriedly up the gangway. Farewells were waved as the launch turned toward the land. Don Porfirio, upright, majestic, motionless, had his eyes fixed on the ship with its prow toward Mexico. Who would, if he could, have searched his heart or said of what he was thinking, the old, the illustrious, the once powerful, in "the fell clutch of circumstance"?

As long as I live his figure will be to me the sign and symbol of nostalgia, as he stood in the small launch, his head bared under the brilliant sky, the bright spot of his red necktie accenting the whiteness of his hair, watching with longing eyes the ship turned toward the land which had given him birth, and which he in return had made great and honorable among nations.

[4]"The Daughter of the Emperor," "Queen Xochitl," "The Great Napoleon," "The Wife of the Moor," "The Star of the Sea," "The Brigantines."

[5]This was a time-honored calumny told to all new-comers in Mexico, and believed by many chiefly because it would have been so easy for Don Porfirio to enrich himself to any extent he pleased. The facts are that his ambitions lay rather in the direction of power for himself and peace and progress for his country than in that of the amassing of riches. He was a man of the simplest personal habits, though he always maintained a state dignified and befitting his high office.

During his years of exile he and his beautiful wife lived in the quietest manner on an income sufficient only for the ordinary comforts of life. The last will and testament of "the Greatest Mexican" further proved that he could be called to no such accounting by the Final Judge.

As for Señor Limantour, he inherited a large fortune from his father, principally in real estate, that increased in value during those years of prosperity which his long and able administration of the finances of Mexico did so much to bring about.

[6]In the autumn of 1911 Maurice de Weede was accidentally killed at a shooting-party in Austria.

[7]Recreation-ground of the Ancient Cat.

[8]The temple of Venus.

[9]The Road to Rome, Hilaire Belloc.

[10]National Pawn-shop.

[11]St. Augustine of the Caves.

[12]We must get even the water from the Spanish woman.

[13]Not to-morrow, immediately.

[14]Vide A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico.

[15]Interinato,ad interimpresidency.

[16]Gulf of California.

[17]The final fate of Don Alberto García Granados, also Minister of Gobernación in Madero's Cabinet, was to be taken by Carranzistas to the Escuela de Tir and there shot. He was ill in bed when the summons came, and it is recorded that he was given salt injections and tied to a post to make it possible for him to stand before the firing-squad, which achieved the death of the aged statesman only afterseveralvolleys.

[18]British ambassador to Vienna at the time of writing.

[19]The Enchantress. The Emotions. The Lost Man.

[20]The Casa de Manrique in the Calle Donceles is another example of old seigniorial houses. It belonged to the Conde de Heras, and was built late in the seventeenth century. Now, alas, it is the office of the Wells Fargo Express Co., but there is a note of protesting splendor about it.

[21]Down with the gringos.

[22]Every government, since the days of the viceroys, appointed inexorably but quietly from Spain, has come into power like the government of Huerta or Madero or Diaz, through a revolution by a militarycoup. No foreign ruler till our day thought it a reason for bringing the whole nation to ruin.

[23]Armand Delille distinguished himself; at the battle of the Yser and on the bridge of Steenstraete was decorated with the Légion d'Honneur. He was sent to hold it with three hundred men, and itwasheld; but when he was relieved, of the three hundred men only thirty remained.

[24]Maurice Parmentier fell at Dieuze, November 28, 1914.

[25]Marina, the daughter of acaciqueof Painalla, had been sold into slavery, and after the famous battle of Ceutla, when Santiago appeared in the heavens above the Spanish hosts (the chronicler of the event says that he, miserable sinner, was not worthy to see the apparition), she fell into the hands of the Spaniards. She was first allotted to Puertocarrero, but her abilities speedily raised her to the tent of Cortés. She became his interpreter, his Egeria, his love, the instrument of fate, holding Indian and Spanish destinies alike in her hands. All historians of the epoch extol her virtues, and Bernal Diaz says they held her to be like no other woman on earth, because of her intelligence and her devotion to the Spanish cause. By the Indians she is held eternally restless—malign—for having leagued herself with the Spaniards.

[26]Carranza'sPlan de Guadalupe, March 19, 1913, contains, among other oddities, the statement of this "Everlasting Idol of Free Peoples," that "as our Constitution forbids us to confiscate, we have decided to do without our Constitution for a while."

[27]During the first Carrancista occupation of Mexico City this house was sacked and stripped of all belongings. Not an electric-light fixture, not a door-knob was left; even the costly floorings were torn up. Street-cars run through the Calles de Londres and — told me that for days the traffic was interrupted by cars filled with the Creels' furniture and works of art, which were left standing in front of the house. One rather sighs for the fate of the Sèvres vases, and one thinks involuntarily of the new verb in the Spanish language, "carranciar," to steal like a Carrancista.

[28]Diplomat's Wife in Mexico, Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

[29]Fifty-second viceroy.

[30]Elliott Baird Coues, + Zürich, January 2, 1913.

[31](1917)Le Colonel de Chambrun, croix de guerre, grande croix de la Légion d'Honneur, citémany timesà l'ordre de l'arméefor deeds of bravery, and once, in the autumn of 1915,"pour sa gaité communicative dans les tranchées"—so indicative of his special talents and great heart.

[32]Henri de G. (Lieutenant 4th Zouaves), wounded at Verdun, June 9, 1916. Croix de guerre in Belgium, 1915, Légion d'Honneur, Verdun, 1916.

[33]"If thou goest to dwell in the Indies let it be where thou seest the volcanoes."

[34]Maurice Raoul Duval, + fallen on the field of honor, Verdun, May 5, 1916.

[35]Count du Boisrouvray, 14th Hussards,promu chef de bataillon pour faits de guerre. Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, croix de guerre, many citations; the first to enter Thiaumont when it was retaken.

[36]"For the king infinite lands, and for God infinite souls."

[37]This statue was thrown down and dragged through the city the night of the breaking off of relations between the United States and Mexico (April 23, 1914).

[38]Pathway of the dead.

[39]This is the prince who was taken by Cortés on his Honduras expedition with the kings of Texcoco and Tacuba. As punishment for plotting to escape they were hanged head downward from a tree in the wilderness. Humboldt saw this represented in a hieroglyphic painting in the convent of San Felipe Neri, and even Bernal Diaz relates that the companions in arms of Cortés were "much shocked" at the occurrence.

Now Cuauhtemoc stands in gold and bronze in one of theglorietasof the beautiful Paseo, high on a marble column, with Aztec devices on base and plinth, where he can keep watch on his hills and volcanoes and lakes. He sustained the siege of Mexico for seventy-nine days, and the inscription says, "to the memory of Cuauhtemoc and those warriors who fought heroically in defense of their country MDXXI." Diaz and his then Minister of Public Works, Riva Palacio, MDCCCLXXVII, ordered it to be erected, and later it was finished under Manuel Gonzalez and his Minister of Public Works, MDCCCLXXXII.

[40]The body of Maximilian lies with his kin in the imperial vault of the Capuchin church in Vienna.

[41]Without civil rights.

[42]Accursed one.

[43]This ship has played a rôle in the destinies of two of Mexico's rulers, for it not only bore Diaz into exile, but it was the ship containing the ammunition for Huerta, to prevent the delivery of which we thought we were obliged to seize Vera Cruz, April 21, 1914.

[44]Died in New York, August 23, 1916, of amaladie de langueur. How could she resist a winter exiled in Harlem, after the flight from Mexico in 1915—the world, her world, in ruins? As well put an orchid in a cellar in the autumn and expect to find it blooming in the spring.

[45]This house was burned and sacked during theDecena Trágica, February, 1913, by what the newspapers calledla furia popular, and remains to this day a mass of crumbling and charred walls, roofless and windowless,sic transit.

[46]The American interests are chiefly situated in the district of El Ebano, on the frontier of the states of Vera Cruz and San Luis Potosí. The English are in the district of Tuxpam in the state of Vera Cruz, and the total of the interests represented is about a hundred million dollars for the American, seventy-five millions for the English, and between two and three millions for the Mexican. The figures do rather sustain the adage that "Mexico is the mother of foreigners, but the stepmother of Mexicans."

[47]In the palace in the Salón Rojo is a large picture of the battle of Puebla, with Diaz prominently figured. The picturesque dress of the Puebla mountain Indians gives it a familiar note. There is nothing wanting to show the prowess of Mexicans, and it portrays the French retreating down-hill in terrible disorder—chasseurs d'Afrique and chasseurs de Vincennes giving it a European touch not in keeping with the bits of maguey in the landscape.

[48]The heir to the Hanoverian throne killed in a motor accident.

[49]Io mi volsi a man destra e posi menteAll' altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle,Non viste mai fuor ch'alla prima gente.Goder pareva il ciel di lor fiammelle;O settentrional vedovo sitoPoi che privato se' di mirar quelle!"Purgatorio" I

Io mi volsi a man destra e posi menteAll' altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle,Non viste mai fuor ch'alla prima gente.Goder pareva il ciel di lor fiammelle;O settentrional vedovo sitoPoi che privato se' di mirar quelle!"Purgatorio" I

Io mi volsi a man destra e posi mente

All' altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle,

Non viste mai fuor ch'alla prima gente.

Goder pareva il ciel di lor fiammelle;

O settentrional vedovo sito

Poi che privato se' di mirar quelle!

"Purgatorio" I

This is the passage that commentators take to mean the Southern Cross, the knowledge of which Dante got from Marco Polo.

[50]Assassinated at Salonica, 1913.

[51]Peña Pobre has been occupied and evacuated countless times by Zapatistas, and is now completely laid waste—the great paper-mills, the gardens, the hacienda buildings. Since writing these words a vast and blood-stained scroll has been unfolded, and I think many a one has modified his political creed.—E. O'S., 1917.

[52]Of the Casasus house nothing but the walls remain. Everything has been pillaged and scattered. People have happened on an occasional old volume of the great library, and an occasional piece of the gilt-and-brocade furniture has been seen in the second-hand shops. — told me that a matter of importance took him to the house when used as a barracks by Carrancistas. In the greatpatiowere only a filthy cot and an oldbraseronear which a poorsoldaderawas sitting. The fountain was dry and full of refuse, and some soldiers were standing about waiting for their officer, who came in violently disputing with a woman of the town. From under the cot, after a few moments, the woman drew out a small, beautiful old chest clamped with silver and inset with coral, with which she departed, "the living symbol of the aspirations of the downtrodden masses," as one of his followers calls Don Venustiano.—E. O'S., 1917.

[53]These treasures were scattered and destroyed during the first Carrancista occupation.

[54]Orozco was arrested with General Huerta by the United States authorities on June 27, 1915. A few days later he escaped his guard at El Paso, and shortly afterward was killed during a raid on the border.

[55]A young mining engineer lately come out of Mexico on one of the intermittent trains, over the once favorite northern route, tells me that everywhere the stations are destroyed. Overturned rolling-stock lies rotting in the ditches; at one point where the fuel gave out the trainmen got down and chopped up the seats remaining on what once had been a station platform, and at another a Pullman car was smashed and fed to the engine. What intending travelers and the stockholders in the company think of Carranza's passion for reconstruction is said to be too fierce for expression!—E. O'S., January, 1917.

[56]Marquis de la G., then military attaché at the French Embassy in Berlin.

[57]Et comment fera celui qui a reçu du sort le don superbe et fatal de voir la vérité, et de ne pouvoir pas ne pas la voir?—Romain Rolland,Vie de Tolstoi. (January, 1917.)

[58]Killed in battle at Belloy-en-Santerre, July, 1916.

A friend and companion of Alan Seeger's Harvard days, Pierre Abreu, himself extraordinarily fitted for the understanding of the "humanities" in every sense, told me of him one windy twilight crossing to France on theEspagnethat autumn after his death. I had just seen, in myNorth American Review, that most charming of all his poems, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death."

He was evidently a free, romantic being, Latinized in temperament and mentality, receptive and creative. Abreu met him first at a Sophocles course—he was a brilliant, original classical scholar, with an elasticity of culture that made him also able to translate a gem of Clément Marot, or Ronsard, into perfect form at sight. For the impressionable years of gifted adolescence, what more suggestive setting than that magnetic valley of Mexico?

Now he lies in France. His high, adventurous spirit was meant for wars and chances, doubtless in the old, romantic sense of battle.

"Heroes battling with heroes and above them the wrathful gods."

For this type there could be but one consummation. But it seems to me all can be fulfilled as well at twenty-eight as at threescore and ten, and the completion of no man's destiny is dependent on his years.—E. O'S., January, 1917.

[59]Dr. F. S. Pearson, to whose genius this astounding engineering feat is largely due, lost his life on theLusitania.

[60]A Mexican herb inducing insanity.

[61]Gustavo Madero was apprehended, as he was lunching in this restaurant in the Avenida San Francisco in company with General Huerta, February 18, 1913, and was shot while attempting to escape early the next morning.Vide A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico.

[62]"Step by step one reaches the end."

[63]Bean soup.

[64]Turkey stew with Chile gravy.

Receipt for the famous "mole de guajolote"

All ground separately on themetate, then ground together and put into the saucepan, where the turkey already boiled is waiting, cut up in bouillon.

I don't know ifmolemust be made from the second joint of the turkey leg, but my pieces always prove to be that when scraped. The sauce is so thick that the anatomy is completely masked when one helps oneself.

[65]Boxes of sweets from Celaya.

[66]Francisco I. Madero and José María Pino Suarez were killed when being transferred from the palace to the Penitenciaría on the night of Saturday, February 22, 1913.Videpage 215,A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico.—E. O'S.

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