Part 13
The Simons are very handsomely installed in a house on the Paseo, and have sent out cards for a series of dinners. We dined there last night. Simon, it appears, is a banking genius of incorruptible probity--a second Limantour. They have what few here possess, a French chef, imported specially. Besides several diplomats, there were some Frenchmen whom I had not met, Armand Delille,[23] a banker, and an agreeable man, Parmentier.[24] In the drawing-room are many photographs relating to the Simons' Belgrade _étape_, an interesting one of Pasitch's clever old face, the Serbian Crown Prince, the old King, Countess Forgasch, and others, who struck the Balkan note.
The first reception at Chapultepec, where the Maderos have taken up permanent habitation, is to be held on Friday.
_November 24th._
Last night there was a brilliant dinner at the Embassy in honor of Calero, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife. I inclose a clipping. Mrs. W. looked very handsome in a white-lace gown with gold-wheat embroideries.
Madame Lefaivre had on a gray gown with her nice diamonds, and a beautiful old lace scarf about her shoulders. Baroness Riedl wore a clinging yellow dress with pearl fringe, and all her war-paint in the shape of her pearls and diamonds. After dinner we sat around the big, glass-inclosed _patio_ which forms the center of the house.
I had a little talk with Calero. He is astonishingly clever. His mind reflects a perfectly clear mental image of the facts that come before it, and in any argument he is straight to the point. For the rest, it is _terra incognita_ to me, though doubtless the land is perfectly charted with the roads so necessary for arriving at Latin-American ends (and not unnecessary to successful politicians anywhere).
Side-lights on the Juchitan troubles continue most interesting and instructive. Che Gómez, the man who stirred up the apparently quite-ready inhabitants, is part Indian, part negro ("zambo" as this special _mélange_ is called), and had set his heart on remaining _jefe político_ of the turbulent town. When he began a similar agitation some years ago, Diaz wisely kicked him "up-stairs" by sending him in that capacity to some small place in Lower California. Now he is back, making things lively.
What remains of the Federal authorities, notaries, banking agents, industrials, _et al._, are still cooped up in the barracks there, or hiding in the woods and distant ranches. The situation was tragic till the long-looked-for Maderista troops arrived--a motley crowd, boys strapped to guns larger than themselves predominating over the _rurales_ mounted on scrawny little crow-baits, looking like bandits in comic opera. They were accompanied by their womenkind, of course, and wandered aimlessly about. It was such a farce that even the natives laughed.
Che Gómez is said to be supported by some sort of powerful influence, and his forces directed by some one having knowledge of military tactics. The dove of Madero's new peace is evidently not hovering over that portion of Mexico. The unrest is like an epidemic.
I must now get into the black-velvet dress to go to the first reception of the new régime at Chapultepec.
_November 24th, evening._
Madero's expression this afternoon was extraordinary. There was a kind of illumination of the plain, indefinite features, and he seemed scarcely to be walking with the sons of men. He had a smile which, without being fixed, was always there, and he talked a great deal, and quite freely, to various receptive plenipotentiaries.
Madame Madero was simple and dignified, but under it all I fancy something passionate and resolute. The diplomats were out in force, but there was very little else to the reception. A few unlabeled outlying Mexican nondescripts came, and some of the Cabinet ministers. Carmona, _chef du protocole_, and Nervo, the Second Introducer of Ambassadors, did what they could; but it was only too apparent that various essential elements of the national body-politic were lacking.
Madame Madero had on some sort of somber brocade with a hint of jewel sparkling in her lace jabot, and received in the big _Sala de los Embajadores_. After greeting her, however, we went out to the terrace, where such wonders were going on in the heavens that man for the moment seemed indeed dust. Great bodies of clouds in the form of a vast rose-colored throng, which Madero ought properly to have been with, were taking their way across the western sky, and purple shadows began to come up from the valley, enveloping the city as we watched what I can only call the "orb of day" disappear behind the hills. Madero strikes me as being rather a type apart, not specially Mexican, but such a type as appears in strange moments of the history of the nation to which it belongs.
_November 25th._
Waiting for lunch after a most delightful morning in the park with Baroness R. and the French and Belgian ministers. I don't know if it was Marina's[25] spirit, which, according to the Indian tradition, still slips among the cypresses, or other unrecorded ghosts; but as we walked through the Calzada de los Poetas and los Filósofos, the matchless sun filtering through the branches of the old _ahuehuetes_, their bronzy hue the only sign of winter one can note here, we all succumbed to some enchantment.
There is a moss-hung cypress near one of the little lakes, called the _Arbol de Moctezuma_. It, with the _Noche Triste_ tree, witnessed the fall of the Aztec Empire. There still remains an old inscription on a walled-in spring, marking the terminus of the Aztec aqueduct which brought drinking-water to Montezuma's capital from Chapultepec. The inscription, which I have sometimes dallied by, says the aqueduct was renovated in 1571 by the fourth viceroy. It faces the dustiest of tramway lines now, but one is thankful for any writing on any wall that gives a clue to the past.
Near the great tree is "Montezuma's Bath," where the water still bubbles up, only now the sprucest and most modern of flower-beds encircle it. This is the special haunt of Marina, but it is said that when an Indian has seen her at the _ahuehuete_ pond he himself is seen no more.
We sauntered about for a while listening to the music, and then the gentlemen proposed rowing Baroness R. and myself about in the tiny boats that are for hire. Once out from under the trees, one became modern and completely objective, and Mr. Lefaivre and I discussed European diplomatic appointments of his and my governments as we rowed about on the shallow, artificial lakes under the hottest of suns, between the made lands of the new section of the park.
But every time we passed under the little bridge into the dimness of the narrow, tree-and-vine-grown banks of the little stream leading from two sides of the duck-pond, even though the band played a waltz from "The Balkan Princess," and a selection of "Lohengrin," and children were shouting and motors coming and going, that magic fell upon us. I didn't know if it were Aztec or Spanish ghosts, or spirits of the heroes of 1847, who assailed me.
One thing is sure. Those old _ahuehuetes_ keep everything that was ever confided to them and trap the unwary with it. At this season, too, one begins to see familiar migratory birds come to pass the cold season in Mexico, recalling with a note of homesickness the distant land of one's birth. A "ruby-crowned kinglet" was perched on a low branch by the water--and some kind of a "warbler" was warbling New England lays all over the ancient park.
_November 30th._
Zapata has just given some more building material to the new republic, in the shape of what he calls _El Plan de Ayala_, of the date of November 25th, written for him by one of the Vasquez Gómez brothers. To our surprise, the brilliant editor of _La Prensa_ has spoken not unfavorably of it.
I don't know if it is bowing to the inevitable, or expediency, that makes him advocate the use of the aforesaid material, which provides for the division of the lands of the state of Morelos, the only state in which, for climatic reasons (not political), the distribution of land could be undertaken without installing gigantic irrigation processes impossible for the Indians.
All through Mexican history revolutionary leaders have launched these Plans.
Iturbide published the _Plan de Iguala_, February 24, 1823, known as _Las Tres Garantías_, Porfirio Diaz the _Plan de Noria_, 1869; Madero's _Plan de San Luis Potosí_ is what we are now living and breathing (and sometimes panting) by.[26]
[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 it _was_ held; 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 a _cacique_ of 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's _Plan 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."
XIV
The feast of Guadalupe--Peace reigns on the Isthmus--Earthquakes--Madero in a dream--The French colony ball--Studies in Mexican democracy--Christmas preparations
_December 1st._
A pinching, cold snap, the result of a _norte_ of long duration blowing from Vera Cruz. The heat quickly goes out of the body, and at this altitude is not easily made up again. I have been penetrated to my soul as if by a thin knife. The air is so attenuated that there is nothing to it except cold, no exhilaration. The oil-stoves, I have discovered, are not lighted with impunity. They have a way of suddenly emitting a long, high column of black smoke, after which something detonates, and the room and the people in it are covered by a fine, black soot. One rings, the source of trouble is removed, and one stays cold.
Very pleasant lunch here yesterday; the only way to get warm is to eat, drink, and be merry, especially this last. The luncheon was for the Belgian minister, who had been appointed to Copenhagen. Can't you hear us telling him about the Rabens and the Frijs, Klampenborg, and the Hôtel d'Angleterre? The Lefaivres brought a friend who is staying with them--Vicomte de Kargaroué, a Breton of the _vieille noblesse_, who is that anomaly, a French globe-trotter.
I am sending you in the form of Christmas cards some samples of present-day feather-work; a pale relic of the _plumaje_ the Aztecs used to be so famous for, persisting through the ages. It doesn't at all resemble the beautiful feather-work mantle, said to have belonged to Montezuma, that I saw among the treasures in the Hofburg at Vienna.
_December 4th._
Society is agog here; it is the first appearance on any scene, since my arrival, of the _erste Gesellschaft_. A young man shot and killed another at a famous club, and then died as the result of an accidental wound to himself. He was married on his death-bed to the mother of his children; the whole is a story for the pen of Ibañez or Echegaray. For hours the streets were filled with carriages and autos taking floral tributes to the stricken mother. Oh, the hearts of mothers! So many crimes, social, civil, and national are being committed all over the world, but everywhere some souls are yearning for perfection--to keep it all going!
_December 6th._
My little luncheon for American women went off very well. The dishes Teresa knows--the classic _huachinango_, cold and "well presented," with a good mayonnaise sauce, the small, fat-breasted ducks with peas, that every one is serving at this season here, were the "chief of our diet."
Mrs. Kilvert, Mrs. C. R. Hudson, Mrs. Paul Hudson, the wife of the editor of the _Mexican Herald_, Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Beck, Mrs. Bassett and the ambassadress and her sister came.
This is just a word while waiting for Mrs. Wilson to come back for me to go on a calling bout with her. She goes home to spend the holidays with her boys, so I shall have to do what Christmas honors are done--a tree and incidental tea.
I inclose a little verse by Joaquin Miller that I cut out of the _Herald_ this morning. Though outrageously bad, the line "glorious gory Mexico," is unforgetable.
MEXICO
Thou Italy of the Occident, Land of flowers and summer climes, Of holy priests and horrid crimes; Land of the cactus and sweet cocoa; Richer, than all the Orient In gold and glory, in want and woe, In self-denial, in days misspent, In truth and treason, in good and guilt, In ivied ruins and altars low, In battered walls and blood misspilt; Glorious gory Mexico.
_Evening._
Among our visits to-day was one on Madame Creel. They have a very large and handsome house in the Calle de Londres, not yet quite finished. Everything French. In the drawing-room where Madame C. received were two splendid Sèvres vases, and great French-plate mirrors and French brocades cover the walls. Mr. Creel, fresh-complexioned, white-haired, speaking English very well, and liking to recall ambassadorial days in Washington, took us over the uncompleted part of the house. The large ball-room is awaiting special bronze electric-light _appliques_, door and window fastenings, now on their way from Paris, where all the woodwork of the house was executed.[27]
_December 11th, evening._
This afternoon Madame Lefaivre and Mr. de Soto and I went out to Guadalupe to see the preparations for to-morrow's feast, the greatest in Mexico.
Indians were arriving from all directions, bivouacking close up against the church. They seemed to have brought not only all their children, but all their furniture in the shape of _petates_ and earthen bowls, and any incidental live-stock they possessed in the shape of goat or dog. It was quite cold, and in the dusk they seemed like their own ancestors coming over the hills for the worship of dreaded and dreadful gods.
Nothing except the Deity and the temple has changed since the old days; they themselves are unmodified, and seemingly unmodifiable. I dare say one would give a gasp if one could really see what they thought about the Virgin of Guadalupe, or the "Cause of Causes."
They come in from hidden mountain towns, where images of other gods are still graven, and where charms and incantations are used, which doesn't at all affect their devotion to "Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe." Often they are many days en route, and all night until dawn they will be arriving at the great shrine.
We crossed the plaza to a near-by house, where a painter-friend of Mr. de S.'s lived, going up some winding stone steps in a house built at the end of the sixteenth century, giving into irregular-shaped rooms with strange windows apparently not designed to give light. The paintings portrayed little or nothing of the charm of Mexico, but Madame Lefaivre found one of some place near Cordoba, which she thought for a moment that she wanted. I would much rather have closed my eyes and looked in on my inner Mexican gallery, or been out with the mysterious Indians in the mysterious twilight which was enveloping the crowded plaza.
When we finally came out lanterns were being hung on the little booths, _tortilleras_ were slapping up their cakes, and everywhere there was a smell of the pungent peppers and all sorts of nameless things they put into them. Children were rolled up asleep or playing about half-clad in the cold dusk, and zarape-enveloped men bent over dimly lighted squares of cloth laid out on the ground, engrossed in games of chance. I was suddenly sad, as one might be at seeing rolled out the inexorable scroll of a subject people.
_December 12th._
Beautiful weather, soft, shining, clear--but that cold snap was a terror. Many little brown Indian babies returned to their Maker by way of bronchitis, pneumonia, and kindred ills. It is good to think of them warm, safe with the Lord, so many children with none or insufficient clothing in that cruel, lifeless cold!
It has been rather a day of contrasts, for in the morning I mingled again with the Indian world at Guadalupe,[28] and in the afternoon I went to the benefit held for a new charity hospital by a committee of American women. The affair crystallized about the art exhibit of Miss Helen Hyde, who has a collection of the most lovely Japanese things done on her recent visit to Nippon. She calls them chromozylographs, and they are charmingly framed in plain black strips. I bought several after harrowing indecisions.
Madame Madero came and had tea with us at a table over which Mrs. Wilson presided. Madame Madero was almost extinguished by a huge bronze-green and purple hat matching her velvet dress. Madame Calero and Madame Lie made up the party, with Mrs. Stronge, the newly married wife of the British minister, who has just arrived. She had on some interesting emeralds, picked up in Bogotá, their last post.
Mrs. Wilson goes to-morrow. I always miss her kindness and her consideration.
Christmas is in the air. We dine with the ambassador at the Kilverts' at Coyoacan on that day. My thoughts will be with my dear ones, and the seas, the mountains, and the valleys between will hurt.
Just now the following was handed in to me through Mr. Cummings: "Governor Juarez left for Oaxaca last night. General Hernandez and troops left for Juchitan this morning. Peace reigns on the Isthmus."
It looks as if it soon might be time for a lone exotic niece to betake her to those regions.
_December 15th._
A very interesting letter from San Gerónimo of the 12th came this morning. The governor, with his party, had just left the house for Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz. He had come most unostentatiously, with only his secretaries and a few officials--no guard, no private car, no banquets--as he said he had come to restore peace, and not for feasting.
The celebrated Che Gómez, an hour or so before, had been sitting, uninvited and unafraid, on the front porch. When he learned that the governor was expected he betook himself off, with followers and guard, to another station. The governor subsequently wired the police at Rincon Antonio to arrest him on the arrival of the train before he got out of the state (Oaxaca). He was taken to jail, and that night was shot with his men.
No word of regret anywhere for his fate, and I dare say he gave up his own life as easily as he had taken that of others. Governor Juarez was warmly welcomed by all the towns, even by poor, ruined Juchitan, Che Gómez's _own_ town, with open arms and flowers. The law-abiding citizens are returning to their dismantled homes, after living in the bush, from hand to mouth, for weeks.
_December 16th._
This morning at 11.30 a "good" earthquake. It suddenly got very dark, and I went to the window, my infant clutching at my dress, to see what was happening, when the roofs of the houses opposite began to undulate, and I had to catch hold of the window, or we would have been thrown to the floor.
The horses stopped short with perfectly stiff legs, and people began running out of the doors and kneeling in the street and shrieking, "_Misericordia! Misericordia!_" most uncomfortably. Nothing was broken in the house, but every picture was left hanging askew, and pale servants served a luncheon which showed the effects on _them_!
Elena appeared collarless, with damp, thick hair floating down her back, and Cecilia had a blue rebozo twisted about her, no hint of white anywhere on her person. They passed the dishes at an angle of forty-five degrees.
_Later._
At three o'clock a dimness again fell upon the city, and there was the faint, uncanny sound of sliding objects and slipping pictures and swaying doors and curtains. In a second of time it had passed, but the hint of cosmic forces leaves a decided trace on mere flesh and blood.
We went to the reception at Chapultepec on Thursday, "_par charité, pas par snobisme_," as somebody unkindly said. The Mexican families of repute boycott the Madero receptions. The few Mexicans who do go don't figure in the real national accounting. The diplomats feel that they at least ought to go, so last Thursday the inclosed clipping was produced.
Madame Madero, though small and worn-looking, is always dignified and courteous, and receives with simplicity and cordiality. Madero seems in a continual ecstasy; one would think he found Chapultepec the seventh heaven. He is full of confidence in himself and in the country. A happy man, one involuntarily says in looking at him. To-night is the ball the French colony gives for him.
_December 17th._
The reception at the "Cercle Français," in their fine quarters in the Calle de Motolinia, was a great success. The President with Madame Lefaivre, in a handsome black-and-white gown, and Mr. Lefaivre with Madame Madero in a dark, rich _evening_ dress, headed the procession to an elaborate supper, all following according to the protocol, Mr. Madero and Mr. Lefaivre sitting facing each other. Allart took me in.
Everything was decorated with the tricolor, and red and blue and white lights, and masses of natural flowers, and very good music played continuously; the affair was got up by the wealthy French _commerçants_ in honor of the President and his wife.
Madame Lefaivre said the President talked to her the whole time in a most sanguine manner about the reforms he intends to introduce, especially in the matter of public instruction, and was wrapped about with illusions and dreams as to his rôle of apostle charged with the regeneration of Mexico.
Afterward, when he made his speech in answer to the toast, he recalled happy souvenirs of his youth in the Lycée de Versailles. When they subsequently made the tour of the _salon_, Madame Lefaivre, in passing me, whispered that she was _toute confuse_ at feeling herself so big on the arm of the little President. He saluted right and left with a smile which, without being fixed, was always there. I think he was very pleased with the occasion and its international setting.
It is always interesting to see any colony turn out in distant posts, and here the French colony, representing very large interests--banking, industrial, mercantile--is numerous and important, comparable only to that in Moscow.
The large department shops, _à la Bon Marché_, like the "Palacio de Hierro" and the "Puerto de Vera Cruz," are in French hands. From the days of their intervention, the French have invested largely in Mexico, and now I hear there is much uneasiness in Gallic quarters, so many interests are to be protected, and the protection is an unknown quantity. Mr. Lefaivre is untiring in his efforts--but order can only come through the government itself.