Part 24

[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 the _Espagne_ that autumn after his death. I had just seen, in my _North 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.

XXVI

Balls at the German Legation and at Madame Simon's--Necaxa--A strange, gorge-like world of heat and light--Mexican time-tables--The French trail

_August 17th._

Unwonted festivities here. For two nights running we have "tripped the light fantastic." Night before last Madame Simon gave a big ball, and last night there was one at the German Legation. The dancing world was out in full swing, bumping into a varied assortment of wall-flowers, tropical and temperate.

Handsome favors and elaborate suppers at both these _bailes de confianza_, and the later it got, the wilder and more spirited became the music. I gave the _coup de grâce_ to the pink velvet Buda-Pesth court dress at von H.'s.

The Benoist d'Azy are here from Washington. It always adds to the gaiety of nations to have _étrangers de distinction_ make their appearance. They have all the interest of events. It isn't often the capital sees two smart balls, one after the other.

A long-expected box of suits and things from Peter Robinson's for Elim has just arrived. He didn't fancy trying on, and in the struggle asked me suddenly "Who was Jesus Christ's tailor?" I was a bit taken aback. I must say I had never put those words or ideas together.

When I recovered my mental activity, I told him that Jesus' Mother made his clothes for him, whereupon he answered: "These only came from London," and wouldn't lift his feet from the floor when I wanted him to try on some little trousers. He doubtless needed a spanking which he didn't get. Mama was feeling decidedly slack after two nights of dissipation at an altitude of nearly eight thousand feet. Madame Montessori says a psychological change comes over children at the age of six. I look forward to it.

Necaxa, State of Vera Cruz _August 23d._ Station of the Light and Power Company.

I have only time for a word. We arrived here at five-thirty, after a twelve-hour journey through indescribable beauty. We left the house in a clear dawn--Rieloff, the Seegers, Burnside, and myself--and all day have been winding through mountain passes, deep barrancas, with a sound of rushing waters, and great forests of pine-trees, red and white cedars, and delicate ferns almost as high, through which our little geared-locomotive would have seemed a pioneer had it not been for the sight of the delicate steel towers that support the wires of the Light and Power Company.

In the afternoon great masses of shifting light flooded broad valleys or stamped the heights with shining patches as the rain-clouds passed and repassed between brilliant bits of sunny heaven. We came as the guests of the Light and Power Company, and the manager and chief engineer, an Englishman, Mr. Cooper, met us and brought us to the club-house, very comfortable, according to Anglo-Saxon ideas, with easy-chairs, verandas, etc. After a bountiful repast, according to the same ideas, we walked about the little plateau, in an enchantment of changing lights, till night suddenly fell and everything was blotted out, and we bethought ourselves that _beata solitudine_ was the only fitting finale to it all. We have planned a full morrow, which is near, so good night.

_Sunday, 25th._

I did not write yesterday. In the morning Mr. Cooper took us down to the dynamos, reached by a cog-railway, through a great, dark tunnel-like incline with a bright speck of light at the far end. We issued out of the cool dimness to find ourselves in a strange gorge-like world of heat and light, with a great mass of falling water, the distant edge of the waterfall outlined against a high, shining heaven; against it, again, thousands of small, brilliant blue butterflies, and on all sides the most gorgeous plants and trees. There was an effect of some circle of Paradise, and something mysterious and magic in the very practicality of it all, when one thinks that these falls, nearly six hundred feet high--and a hundred kilometers from Mexico City--supply the light and motor power of the town.

Doctor Pearson is the genius who controls it all, and his name is breathed with awe at Necaxa.[59] As we stood looking up at the falling waters, bright birds and heavy scents about us, "the white man is lord and king of it all," I kept saying to myself.

To-day has been still fuller. In the afternoon we visited the great dam that is just being finished to provide an immense storage reservoir against the dry season. Water is as precious as gold in Mexico, and in many places scarcer.

Some one remarked that there seemed to be little or no _mañana_ about it, and Mr. C. told the story of one of his first experiences in Mexico, when he was still under the spell of the time-table.

He was waiting at a station where the only passenger-train was scheduled to pass every day at 9 A.M. He arrived at the station a few minutes before nine, to see the train just disappearing. On complaining to the _jefe de estación_ about this running ahead of time, he received the bland response that it was _yesterday's_ train that had just passed out and there was every reason to suppose that the train of to-day would be delayed, perhaps as long! He cooled his heels till the next dawn. But Necaxa wasn't built at a cost of a hundred million pesos on that principle, he added.

We had started out after breakfast to explore the "French trail"--a son of Gaul was once owner of Necaxa--plunging perpendicularly over the side of the little plateau, to find ourselves on the most romantic of footpaths, formerly the only road through the gorgeous wilderness.

It got hotter and hotter as we descended, and though Rieloff kept insisting that, technically, we were not yet in Tierra Caliente, all its abundancies seemed to surround us: giant ferns, ebony and rosewood trees, lovely orchids hanging from high branches, convolvuli of all colors; and under our feet mosses, by the yard, of rare and lovely fabric, each patch holding a world of tiny forms and tints. I started to follow one bit of morning-glory vine, but was obliged to give it up. I could nor bear to break it, and it would have led me, like an endless thread, through a labyrinth of sarsaparilla, myrtle, and fern.

The brightest of birds and butterflies were flying about--the sort of things one finds under glass in northern museums--and a huge, scarlet flower of the hibiscus type was everywhere splashed over the green.

Here and there an Indian appeared from _quién sabe_ where. It was all his and yet not his.

We came up in the cool dimness of the cog-railway, and after cold douches and luncheon, enlivened with entomological discussions (that lovely wilderness is alive with invisible biting specimens), we went with Mr. Cooper to the reservoir.

We have spent the evening mostly meeting the officials of the company and playing bridge. (!) Though it was the least _noblesse oblige_ allowed, it seemed a lot after the long, full day--_on paie ses plaisirs_....

However, they were all so nice and so pleased to see people from the outside world that, once in our "bridge stride," it wasn't so hard. Rieloff, who hates cards, after a while went to the piano, bursting into "_Du meiner Seele schönster Traum_"--following it up with the "Moonlight Sonata"; so, in the end, we found ourselves sitting in a dimly-lighted room, with Beethoven floating out on the soft Indian night--and all was well.

I am dead with sleep, and early to-morrow we depart.

42 Calle Humboldt, _August 26th, late evening_.

We were awakened at 5.30 in a dawn of such exceeding beauty that, as I stepped out into it, I was tempted to fall upon my knees rather than hurry to our little train. On one side were the hills, so veiled in splendors of filmy pearls and blues and pinks that their forms could only be imagined; on the other was an abyss of gold and rose and sapphire into which our train was to plunge.

All day long we went from glory to glory; but I got home to find that something human and dreadful had happened in my absence: Little Emma C., playing over the roof with Laurita and Elim, escaped for one unexplained second from Gabrielle--fell from it to the stone _patio_--her fall, for an instant, broken by a balcony railing.

I hurried to her mother's. The child is alive, but dreadfully injured, and, it is feared, for life. Nature was too beautiful at Necaxa not to exact some sort of toll from those admitted to it. I am dreadfully upset.

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

XXVII

A luncheon for Gustavo Madero--Celebrating the _Grito_ at the Palace--The President's brother explains his philosophy--Hacienda of San Cristobal--A typical Mexican Sunday dinner

_September 3d._

The _funcion_ I gave yesterday went off with a good deal of snap. Everybody in town was there, and the house filled to bursting. Elsie S. and I brewed the classic Grosvenor punch ourselves and arranged masses of flowers everywhere. Probably it will be the last gathering I shall have, _sic transit_, etc.

Madame Madero came with her two sisters-in-law. She seems more worn, thinner, and older; a year heavy with anxieties has passed over her since I first saw her in the flush of hope and triumph at the German Legation.

The Porfiristas--all the old régime--hold the United States responsible for Madero's success, because of our permitting him to organize and finance himself on our border, and there are others who think, rather paradoxically, that it is due to us that he has not had _more_ success.

As for the Maderistas, they don't understand anything, feel no obligation to us, and wonder why we don't do more. The active anti-Maderistas feel very bitter that in any revolt aimed against Madero they can't "use" the border. Nobody has any political love for us. We loom up as uncertain in our mode of action, but powerful as arbiters of destinies.

I have not been watching as carefully as I might the great, threefold presidential race at home. It's a consoling thought that any one of them will make a good President and under any one of them the United States will pursue its vast and brilliant destiny. Methinks, however, as regards two of the candidates, that, after the White House, no other place can ever really seem like home.

_September 4th._

Luncheon here to-day for the Gustavo Maderos. He came in with rather more energy and magnetism than usual, and kept things lively. He produced from his pocket and presented to the various assembled guests some small, gilded statues of St. Anthony, in little glass, bottle-like reliquaries. He said San Antonio was his patron saint, and quite frankly stated that he was superstitious.

His wit is of the ready kind--readiness in all things is doubtless his greatest quality. He seems not only excited by his prosperity and prominence, but intoxicated by it all. There is no gainsaying the fact that he does give a magnetic hint of possibilities by that abounding energy and life, overflowing and communicative, if he only wouldn't give the effect of taking everything in sight for himself or his friends. He is continually enveloped in clouds of incense by the expectant who form his circle.

There are questions, from time to time, of the seven hundred thousand pesos he got from the treasury for the expenses of the revolution, but, to do him justice, it appears there are national, as well as family reasons which make it inexpedient for him to fully explain.

As he was smoking his cigar in the library after lunch he said to me, with an intellectual flash: "Señora, we Latin-Americans think of everything you think of, but we don't put our thoughts into action. I am different. When I decide on something I act immediately, which is why I ought to succeed."

I thought there was a whole world in that remark. One of the difficulties here _is_ the turning of their very brilliant ideas into

## action at the psychological moment. Madame Gustavo M. is handsome in a

rather more artificial style than the other dynastic consorts. She has done something to her hair. But all the Madero women have qualities of good looks, freshness, and amiability.

As they said good-by, standing on the veranda, the perfect square of blue heaven above us, I thought how typical Gustavo Madero was of Latin-America in many of its aspects, and that he was gifted with some qualities not often found here. He is above medium height, with reddish-brown hair, and inclines to the flashy in dress and gesture--the type of the clever _rasta_. He is known as _ojo parado_, but after lunching with him on my right in that sun-flooded dining-room I couldn't tell which was the glass eye and which the mortal orb. They were both of an astounding brilliancy.

_September 11th._

The War Department orders two regiments of regulars to the Mexican border to reinforce the soldiers on duty, but they don't like it down here. The _Intransigente_, living up to its name, had an editorial which rather took our breath away, to the effect that nothing can be done while the American fist is threatening Mexico.

It speaks in the name of every Indo-Spanish nation, decrying the smiles of ambassadors and the hypocrisy of official notes, and saying that our affections, at the best, can only be diplomatic, that we can have treaties for the carrying on of commerce, etc.,--that anything where the spirit of the two peoples does not touch can be provided for. But "our soul is against their soul, their cupidity against our pride; our faith is the Latin faith, the faith of the Scipios and the Guzmans; theirs is the _fides punica_ of the _Maine_ and the Panama Canal!"

Now that what all really feel has been said, perhaps the air will clear for a day. I had some time since concluded, with Thomas Jefferson, that "the press is a fountain of lies," but this was for once the crystal truth. The _collègues_ were quite excited about it, and I have no doubt the statement was sent in full to their various foreign offices as indicative of the underlying sentiments.

Mr. Stronge, who is most conciliatory, and a natural uniter of factions, somewhat belying his Irish blood (when I asked him, "Irish diplomacy, what is it?" he didn't know the simple answer, "See a head, punch it"), considers this only a passing flare-up. But _quién sabe, quién sabe?_

_September 16th._

We went, last night, to the palace to celebrate the _Grito_, and again I saw those tens of thousands of upturned faces, as we stood upon the balcony overlooking the Zócalo.

I was taken in to supper--the usual ceremonious, standing affair--by the Minister of War. He showed me a telegram confirming the capture of Orozco, who was not captured at all. They are very previous about accepting congratulations concerning good news, whether true or false. The President was receiving felicitations all the evening, and the Minister of War said, "We will of course shoot him immediately if Los Estados Unidos will extradite him." He was supposedly to be taken on American soil. This morning we saw there had been a big defeat of the Federal troops; El Tigre mine taken, etc.

Prince Auersperg was at the palace, too. He was trying to interest the Mexicans in a patent cartridge-belt, just the sort of toy they all naturally love. I referred him to the Minister of War, and turned to the "green isle of Cuba" on my other hand.

Afterward, as I watched the vast concourse, I felt a _serrement de cœur_. A something came out of the crowd--a quality of uncertainty, destructiveness, force, suffering, heroism, irresponsibility, persistence. The words of Holy Saturday recurred to me, "_Popule meus, quod fecisti tu?_" What have you done,--what will you always do?

There is a something so irresistible and strong in life here. They are simply ground out, these generations, renewing themselves with terrible ease. The begetting, the mother-pain, the life pilgrimage, the death-pains--there is such an abundance of it all, but though just as tragic and mysterious, not as unlovely as in the slums of great cities.

I am to press on to other things. What can one do, save leave it to God? But I felt unspeakably sad as I turned back into the great _sala_, where I saw the pale, illumined face of the priest Hidalgo looking down upon it all from its heavy gold frame. I stood by Mr. Lefaivre, as we were waiting for the motor, and he said, "_Il_ [Madero] _veut gouverner avec des vivas_." It is the situation rather in a nutshell.

I am sitting out here in the park, with only this scrap of paper, which is so crisscrossed that you won't be able to read it. But, oh! this heavenly, _washed_ morning--this freshness of light filtering through the trees! Elsie and Elim are coming in sight, making such a charming picture across the green spaces with the glinting sunlight--a magic world.

My "day" this afternoon, and then dinner at the Embassy. The Schuylers return shortly. I have told Gabrielle to put out the white satin dress. Its days are numbered, like mine.

_September 17th._

Last night a great crowd at the station to say good-by to Señor Rivero, former governor of the Federal District. He has now been sent as minister to Buenos Aires, and goes _via_ Spain--a rather zigzag route; neither he nor his wife nor any of the six children nor accompanying servants were ever out of Mexico before.

Again in the park; shining, fresh, the band playing, the children running over the grass with their butterfly-nets; but I must go home, as I am having people for lunch.

_September 18th._

Some one is playing the "_Liebestod_"; it floats in through the open windows. It is now nine o'clock; my thoughts are turning from this strange and gorgeous Indian plateau to other climes--to things my spirit is familiar with. Madame Lefaivre is pressing me to go with her on the _Espagne_. We would like to make the voyage together.

Played bridge this afternoon at her Legation with Auersperg and De Soto. Mr. Lefaivre and Elsie S. immersed in chess. It was raining the proverbial "cats and dogs."

It is very pleasant seeing Auersperg--some one with all those traditions, and yet who has been through the American mill. A German-speaking lunch yesterday--Von H., Auersperg, Riedl, Rieloff. Auersperg regaled us with a description of his first and only eating of an iguana, a sort of cross between a lizard in looks and a pig in taste, at some hacienda near Cordoba. He was screechingly funny and sang:

"_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 of _El 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 eaten _marihuana_.[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, in the 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 was _muy lójos_ (very far), and it certainly is far from these Mexican political fields, apparently white for the harvest.[61]

_September 21st._