Part 14
On returning from bridge at Madame Lefaivre’s, where I left de Soto losing with more than his usual melancholy distinction, I found the Japanese minister with the captain of the _Idzuma_, in full regimentals, come to call--but N. was out. The captain said he wanted to express especially and officially to N. his appreciation of all the courtesies he had received from Admiral Cowles, and the other officers of our ships at Manzanillo. He spoke French and English only fairly well, as they do. I was very cordial, of course, and said that in these difficult moments all must be friends, must stand by one another, and show mutual understanding of difficulties. As I looked at him I thought, for some reason, of the horrors suffered and the deeds of valor performed by his race in the Russo-Japanese War, without question or thought of individuals. He espied Iswolsky’s photograph and Adatchi showed him Demidoff’s picture, saying that Elim was his namesake. They never forget _anything_.
The officers had all been out to the celebrated pyramid of San Juan Teotihuacan to-day, with the Minister of Public Instruction. It is a fatiguing trip, but an excursion always arranged for strangers of distinction. (I made it with Madero, mounting those last great steps, exhausted and dripping, on his arm.) They, the Japanese, were going to the Jockey Club, where Moheno, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, is to give them a dinner. The government is so in debt to the various restaurants here that they couldn’t get credit for the dinner at Silvain’s, as first planned.
I met Lady Carden at bridge this afternoon. She feels badly at the way things have developed for her husband. He has been called to London “to report”; _à la_ Henry Lane Wilson to Washington, I suppose. Hohler, who was _chargé_ when we first came to Mexico, is already _en route_ from England to take over the Legation during Sir Lionel’s absence--but I suppose Sir L. will never return. I told Lady Carden to give Sir Lionel my best regards, and added that it wasn’t, by any means, _all_ beer and skittles at the Embassy.
Sir L. shouldn’t have tried, however, to “buck” the United States. All the representatives have become a bit more cautious as to how they approach “the policy,” since the unpleasant newspaper notoriety Sir Lionel and Paul May received. Lady Carden is not going, I am glad to say, and we are all making plans to console her for Sir L.’s absence.
_January 31st._
Your cable “Love” received yesterday. I sent a cable, “_Bene_,” in answer. I have been thinking all day of those hours, many years ago, when my precious mother was lying with me, her first-born, in her arms.
N. is in receipt of a proclamation from revolutionary agents in Mexico City. The part referring to foreigners states that any protection given by them to Huerta or to his intimates will result in their immediate execution, and that _no_ flag will be respected in such cases. It is one of those nice, little, confidence-inspiring documents which induce one to ponder on the Mexican situation, not as it might be or ought to be, but as it _is_. Its caption, “_La revolución es revolución_,” is completely expressive.
_February 1st. Afternoon._
A few lines while waiting for tea and callers. This morning we made a wonderful run out the Toluca road with Seeger and Mr. and Madame Graux, our Belgian friends, _Chemins de fer secondaires_, as we call them. After Tacubaya the road rises high above the city, and for miles we motored along the heights, through stretches of dazzling white _tepetate_ and pink _tezontle_, the buildingstones of the city from immemorial days. The road was fairly alive with Indians bringing in their wares, this Sunday morning. They came from Toluca, seventy kilometers distant, moving tirelessly over their roads with the quick, short Aztec trot, and bearing such loads of pottery, baskets, and wood, that nothing can be seen of them but their feet. This is also a Zapatista country, and we had provided ourselves with three pistols. High in the hills could be seen the smoke of camp-fires, Zapatistas _or_ charcoal-burners. It was on this road that the son of the Minister of War, Blanquet, was held up about three weeks ago. His party was stripped and its members sent home as they were born, even that last possible covering, the floor-rug of the motor, being removed.
However, beyond being stopped at intervals by _gendarmes_, who tried, unsuccessfully, to make us leave our pistols at the _jefetura_ of their little village, we were not interfered with. Our cry of _Embajada Americana_, though not over-popular now, had not lost all its potency. In spite of the dazzling sun it is very cold on the heights, and in the little village where we stopped to “water” our car a coughing, sneezing, sniffling crowd of half-naked, shivering Indians gathered around us, evidently suffering from one of those bronchial epidemics so prevalent in these thin, high atmospheres. I fear that our coppers, though acceptable, were not therapeutic, as, doubtless, they all rounded up at the nearest _pulquería_ after our departure. We could not decide to turn lunch-ward, but kept on and on, until we had dipped into the Toluca Valley as far as the statue of Hidalgo, commemorating the spot where he met the viceregal forces in 1821. It always seems to me a sad spot, for when the Spaniards fell, with the exception of Diaz’s thirty years, the last stable government of Mexico also fell.
[Illustration: THE GUARD THAT STOPPED US]
At the base of the statue three Indian women were sitting--_enredadas_. Each had a baby slung over her back and a burden by her side, giving the scene the mysterious, changeless, lonely Indian note. In Mexico, nothing is ever missing from any picture to make it beautiful and peculiarly itself.
A very gratifying letter came to-day from Mr. John Bassett Moore, counselor of the State Department. There are so many difficulties, so many enmities ready to lift their poisoned heads, so many delicate transactions, so much hanging in the balance, that it is gratifying to have, sometimes, an appreciative word from headquarters. Also a very nice letter came from General Crozier. I am so glad of that Mexican visit of his two years ago. He will understand just what the situation is--and many things besides.
Nelson spent all Saturday morning getting the 1914 instalment of the Pius Fund, the twelfth payment since the Hague decision in 1902. Diaz intended to pay off the principal, but now, of course, the country is in no condition to do so. We went down to Hacienda (Treasury Department). I sat in the auto in the sun, in the historic _Zocalo_, from immemorial days the focus of Mexican events. The officials had only $37,000 of the $43,000, but told N. to return at half past twelve, and they would have the other six for him. I couldn’t help wondering where they got it. Finally it was all safely deposited in the bank. We then picked up the Graux at the Hotel Sanz and motored out for luncheon and golf at the Country Club.
_February 1st, 10.30_ P.M.
To-night has come the long-feared cable from Washington stating that the President intends to raise the embargo on arms and ammunition. The note was for Nelson’s special information, not for delivery to the Foreign Office yet, but the hour will come when he will have to gird himself to do the deed. It has been sent to every chancery in Europe, where it will raise a storm, to blow hard or not, according to the amount of material investments in Mexico. We scarcely know what to think; we are dazed and aghast. I am glad that a few hours, at least, must elapse before the facts will get out. I shall hardly dare to venture forth unveiled. Courteous as the Mexicans have been to Nelson and myself, some day, in face of the terrible catastrophes we have brought upon them, their patience must fail. This act will not establish the rebels in Mexico City or anywhere else, but will indefinitely prolong this terrible civil war and swell the tide of the blood of men and women, “and the _children_--oh, my brothers.”
I think Wilhelmstrasse, Downing Street, Quai d’Orsay, Ballplatz, and all the other _Ministères_ will pick many a flaw in the President’s document; but what can they do except anathematize us behind our backs?
_February 2d._
My first thought, on awaking this morning, was of the irremediable catastrophe threatening this beautiful land. Nelson says he thinks Huerta will disregard it, as he has disregarded all other moves of Mr. Wilson; but it can be nothing but a further source of terrible embarrassment.
_February 3d, 11_ A.M.
The second telegram has just come, saying that the President intends, within a few hours, to raise the embargo, and that N. is to inform all Americans and foreigners. I keep repeating to myself: “God! God! God!” A generation of rich and poor alike will be at the mercy of the hordes that will have new strength and means to fight, and eat, and pillage, and rape their way through the country. There will be a stampede of people leaving town to-night and to-morrow, but those in the interior, what of them? There is sure to be violent anti-American demonstration, especially in out-of-the-way places.
_12.30._
The news previously leaked out from Vera Cruz last night. Nothing gets out from the Embassy, as our staff all happen to know how to keep their counsel. It is what Mr. Lind has wanted for months, and I suppose the news was too satisfactory to keep. You will read it in to-morrow’s Paris _Herald_ and the _Journal de Genève_. Don’t worry about us. We will have first-class safeguard _if_ Huerta declares war. He may not. It is his policy, and a strong one it has been, to ignore Washington’s proclamations. On the other hand, he will have no intention of being caught by Villa, like a rat in a hole; and war with us may seem to him a glorious solution of his problems. Villa and Carranza will not arrive in the city together. No street is broad enough to permit the double entry of their contrary passions, violence, and greed.
It is “to laugh” when Villa is thanked publicly and officially for his kind promises in regard to life and property in the north.
_February 3d. Evening._
A busy day--as you can well imagine. N. had to inform the various legations. I went down-town with him for luncheon, a thing I never do. We met the Spanish minister driving up the _Paseo_ in his victoria--a pathetic figure. He has had so much worry and heartbreak over the situation and has been so helpless in the face of the disasters which have befallen his nationals that he is beyond surprise. Upon hearing the news he merely made a tired gesture of acquiescence. To him the raising of the embargo was, doubtless, only one more inexplicable thing. Von Hintze was out, and we next stopped at the French Legation, just opposite the German. Ayguesparsse, the secretary, possessed of one of the most elegant silhouettes in the world, was more than polite, but quite impassive, as he came out with Nelson to speak a word to me. He is married to a handsome young Mexican--the sister of Rincon Gaillardo, Marqués de Guadalupe--whose time, strength, money, and life, if need be, are at the disposition of his country.
When we got to the restaurant in Plateros, the most public and alarm-allaying spot we could think of, the newspaper men assailed N. with questions. The “story” that they are after is what the relations of Huerta would be to N. and the Embassy, and they announce that they were not going to let the _chargé_ out of their sight.
After lunch, at which Mr. S. joined us, we went to the British Legation. N. gave Sir L. the news, while I walked in the garden with Lady C., both of us wilted, with nerves on edge. I came home, rested for a few minutes, and then dressed, and went out to fulfil my afternoon program of calls, turning up late for bridge at Madame Simon’s. She asked me squarely, though in the politest of French, “What is your government doing?” I saw many people during the afternoon, but, apart from her greeting, there was no word of politics. I think the matter is too distasteful to the public to be discussed with any one like myself, where care in the expression of feeling is necessary.
I drove home with Lady C., who was quietly aghast at the situation, just in time to get into a tea-gown and down-stairs for dinner. In the _salon_ Seeger and the Graux (who leave to-morrow for Vera Cruz and New York) were waiting. N. telephoned that he was at the Palace, just going in to see Huerta. You can imagine that we had a lively dinner of surmises. He returned barely in time to say good-by to the Graux, and after they left we sat up late to talk over the appalling situation.
Sir Lionel was with the President when N. got there. From the violent sounds coming through the half-opened door, N. thought that the old man was at last losing patience and control, and prepared himself for the worst. However, when N. finally went in Huerta was perfectly calm and had never been more friendly. He never mentioned President Wilson’s name, and concerning the raising of the embargo quietly remarked that it would not change matters much, but would merely give a recognized name to the smuggling over the border that had been going on for three years. He kept repeating that the future would justify him; that he had had nothing to do with the killing of Madero; that the attitude of the administration toward him was simply “a persecution.” N. said he never flinched. He terminated the interview by saying that he greatly appreciated N.’s public as well as private courtesies, and that he was “very necessary to the situation,” whereupon he ordered _copitas_, and the embargo question was dismissed.
Apropos of _copitas_, while we were talking N. was rung up to hear that an English woman reporter and Wallace, the cine man, sent us from the State Department, had been put in prison for trying to take a photograph of Huerta at the Café Colon, while he was taking his _copita_. They were both released at a late, or rather an early hour, and I think they richly deserved their experience. Huerta’s reputation for drinking is very much exaggerated.
The hall, stairway, and chancery were black with reporters all the evening, until one o’clock. It has been a long day of responsibility, excitement, and fatigue.
_February 4th._
The newspapers have appalling head-lines about President Wilson. _El Puritano_, with his mask off, the avowed friend of bandits and assassins, is about the mildest sample.
_Evening._
Another full day. I had errands all the morning. In the afternoon, after being undecided as to whether I would shine by my absence or turn the full light of my American countenance on my Mexican friends, I decided to make calls. I found everybody in. I went first to Señora Gamboa, where I had to talk Spanish. Fortunately, they have a few very good antiques on which to hang conversation. Then I went to see the Evanses. They have bought a handsome old Mexican house which we are all interested in seeing them modernize without spoiling. After that I drove out to Tacubaya, and on the way out the broad _calzada_ saw the _leva_ at work. There were about twenty men hedged in by lines of soldiers, and two or three disconsolate-looking women.
Señora Escandon’s house is situated in the midst of one of the beautiful gardens for which Tacubaya is celebrated, inclosed by high walls over which run a riot of vines and flowers. I found her and her daughter, Señora Soriano, at home. The Spanish son-in-law is a mechanical genius and spends this revolutionary period peacefully constructing small, perfect models of war-ships and locomotives. I shall take Elim there when “the fleet” is on the little lake in the garden. The Escandons are people of immense wealth, agreeable and cultivated, but, like all their kind, aloof from politics. Their perfect and friendly courtesy made me more than a little sad.
Going home for a moment, I found Clarence Hay with Nelson at the gate, and drove him down-town. I enjoyed talking English and hearing it instead of speaking broken Spanish or listening to broken French. We browsed about in an antique-shop and did a little refreshing haggling. I stopped at Madame Simon’s on my way back, where I found Rincon Gaillardo, who is, among other things, chief of the _rurales_.
He had many interesting things to say about hunting for Zapatistas, which seems to be the biggest kind of “big-game” shooting. After descending unexpectedly upon sleeping villages the Zapatistas retreat to their mountain fastnesses. By the time word reaches the point where _rurales_ are stationed, the worst has been done. The next day innocent-looking persons are begging for a centavo or working in the fields. They were the bandits of the night before! It needs a Hercules to clear this mountainous country of “the plague of brigandage.” A gun, a horse, and full power are naturally more attractive than a plow and a corn-field.
There are rumors of a student demonstration to-morrow--it is Constitution Day--when they propose to march the streets crying, “Death to Wilson!” Everybody was not only polite, but even affectionate in their greetings to me. Whatever they thought of yesterday’s raising of the embargo they kept to themselves or expressed when I was absent. Even Rincon Gaillardo, who is giving his _all_--time, money, brain--to the pacifying of the country _under_ Huerta, maintained his exquisite calm.
XIV
A “neat little haul” for brigands--Tea at San Angel--A picnic and a burning village--The lesson of “Two Fools”--Austria-Hungary’s new minister--Cigarettes in the making--Zapata’s message.
_February 6th._
There was no disturbance of any kind yesterday. Never were the streets more peaceful, nor the heavens more calmly beautiful. Madame Simon had a luncheon for the new Austro-Hungarian minister, and afterward we all motored out the Toluca road, driving on till from a high mountain place we could see the setting sun filling the stretches of the Toluca Valley with translucent flame colors, mauves, reds, and browns. It was like some new Jerusalem or any other promised glory. Every time we saw a group on horseback we wondered if it were the redoubtable Zapatistas who make that part of the world so unquiet. It was all carefully patrolled, however, with armed men at intervals, cartridge-belts full, and guns across their saddles.
Our party would have been a neat little haul for brigands: the Austro-Hungarian minister, the Italian minister, Joaquin Garcia Pimentel, Señor and Señora Ösi, Madame Simon, and myself. Señora Ösi had on a magnificent string of pearls, likewise a huge diamond pin that blazed in the setting sun. I left my jewels at home, and Madame Simon kept hers well covered. I wonder that we _did_ get back as we went. It was marvelous, dropping down from the heights to the glistening town, in the mysterious Mexican half-light.
I wonder what President Wilson is going to do about the revolution in Peru? I see they have deported Billinghurst from Callao, and Augusto Durand, the revolutionary chief, has assumed the Presidency. There was a price on his head a day or two before. It will take more than one administration to cure the Latin-Americans of their taste for revolutions. Have sent you a _Cosmopolitan_, with a story, “Two Fools,” by Frederick Palmer; it deals with a certain burning side of the Mexican situation, and has excited much comment.
_February 8th. Evening._
Yesterday we went out to the beautiful San Angel Inn for tea, six of us in one motor, two empty motors following. Motoring about this marvelous plateau is one of the joys of Mexican life. We watched the sunset over the volcanoes until the rose-tinted “White Lady,” Iztaccihuatl, was only a gigantic form lying against a purple sky, covered with a blue-white shroud; then we raced in to dine with Clarence Hay and the Tozzers, who had a box for a mild circus performance in the evening. The night before last, so von Hintze told N. (and he is always thoroughly informed), forty men and officers in the Guadalupe Hidalgo barracks were shot. They were accused, probably justly, of a plot against Huerta. For days there have been persistent rumors of a military uprising--_cuartelazo_, as they call it. Perhaps at the predestined hour one such rising will succeed. If Huerta is forced into bankruptcy and can’t pay his troops, what will become of _us_, the foreigners? He stated the full truth about elections here when he said that conditions were such that the government of the nation must necessarily be in the hands of the few. A thoroughgoing dictatorship is what he doubtless thinks the best solution--from a close acquaintance with his own people.
[Illustration:
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.
“THE WOMAN IN WHITE”--FROM SAN JUAN HILL]
This morning, after Mass at nine o’clock, I started with Seeger, Hay, the Tozzers, and Elim for Texcoco. It was marvelous, speeding through the soft, yet brilliant, air, each turn of the wheel bringing us to historic spots. Texcoco was the “Athens” of Mexico in Aztec days, and the whole length of this now so-dusty road was done in canoes and barques. There is a great column near Chapingo which points the spot Cortés started from in his brigantine, in his last desperate and successful attempt at the conquest of the City of Mexico. It was from the ridge of hills beyond that the conquerors first looked down on the marvels of Tenochtitlan, set among its shining lakes and its myriad gardens.
We found it was market-day at Texcoco, and Indian life was beating its full around the old plaza with its Aztec sun-dial, palms, and eucalyptus. Here the Indians set up their innumerable booths with their potteries, baskets, blankets, fruits, and vegetables. We were most amused watching a crowd gathered about a steaming caldron. In it a pig, his outline still quite intact, was converting himself into soup as fast as fire and water could assist him. Cortés, in one of the famous letters, gives as detailed an account of an Indian market as if he were a modern traveling agent sending back data to the firm. In the near-by old church his venturesome heart lay for long years. Now only unlettered Indians crowd in and out of the place. There is a huge adjacent seminary of the Spanish period, unused since the “Laws of Reform.” The most visible results of the “Laws of Reform” seem to be, as far as I have discovered, huge, dusty waste spaces, where schools had once been. All over Mexico there are such.
Texcoco doesn’t offer many inducements to modern picnickers, so we motored back a short distance and stopped at the hacienda of Chapingo, formerly belonging to Gonsalez, President of Mexico before Diaz’s second administration. _He_ was allowed to leave the country. As Dooley remarks, “There is no such word as ‘ix-Prisidint’ in Mexico. They are known as ‘the late-lamented,’ or ‘the fugitive from justice’; and the only tr’uble the country has with those who remain is to keep the grass cut.”