Part 16

In this quiet, beauteous night, with the _patio_ holding a thick, silver moonlight spilling over the square, dark roof, this gorgeous Indian world in strange unrest about me, and I myself far enough away to see, I can speak. Show him this some time when he is healed. What an adoring sister thought cannot hurt. I unite myself with the millions who have had their loved ones hanging on the cross, who have heard their _sitio_. But as the emotions of each are measured by their personal experience, this, my brother's thirst, moves me more deeply than even that of sacramental martyrs, who gave willingly, where he gives resistingly. "And everywhere I see a cross where sons of men give up their lives." ...

_January 20th._

Things are bubbling up, boiling, geyser-like, and the public in a fair way to get scalded. Yesterday a bill was passed through Congress suspending the constitutional guarantees in various of the near-by states, Morelos, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Vera Cruz, and others.

It would seem that all of Mr. Madero's chickens are coming home to roost, and demands for the cutting up of the Mexican cake sound from all sides. But what was easy for Madero to promise in the first passion for the regeneration of "his" people is proving not only impractical, but impossible. What's the use, anyway, of giving waterless lands to Indians without farming implements, whose only way of irrigating would be prayers for moisture to pre- or post-Cortésian gods? Let those who have been divested of their illusions by hard facts govern the state, _I_ say.

[Illustration: BOATS ON THE VIGA CANAL Photograph 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. _Tajada_ it 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-class contingent, 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, being _à cheval_ between 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. The _Corps Diplomatique_ was 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 to improve 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 to _you_ here."

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, _is_ the 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 and _actuel_ by 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 is _en route_ for Paris, _via_ New 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 very _jeunesse dorée_ son, 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 strangely enough, 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, but _vox populi_ here bears very little resemblance to _vox 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....

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

[31] (1917) Le Colonel de Chambrun, croix de guerre, grande croix de la Légion d'Honneur, cité many times à l'ordre de l'armée for 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.

XVIII

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 a _tournée_ with 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 colonnaded _patio_, 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 as _désorientée_ and 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 a _paysage un état d'âme_ not an _état 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 splendid _ensemble_. 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 those _sin derechos y hechos_ of 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 to look 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 the _Livre des Fondations_ of 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, the lines 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.