Part 15
Beautiful avenues of eucalyptus adorn the entrance to the gaudy clap-clappy house, and the dozens of _peon_ dwellings surrounding it. The _administrador_ allowed us to have our luncheon in the grounds, and we sat around the dry, flower-grown basin of an old fountain. Hay recited; we picked bunches of violets without moving an inch, and watched cheerful lizards darting in and out. Coming home, great spiral pillars of dust reached up, with a regular rotary motion, to the sky over the lake, the results of the drainage works of the lake and valley of Texcoco.
As we passed the _Peñon_ and got into the straight home road, some one remarked, “Nothing doing in the Zapatista line this time.” A moment afterward, however, volleys were heard in the direction of Xochimilco, and puffs of smoke could be seen. Then about forty _rurales_ galloped up. The sergeant, a fresh-complexioned, dull-witted fellow, stopped us and asked if we knew from where the firing came. We apparently knew more than he, little as it was. He continued, in a helpless way: “Those are Mauser shots, _pero no hay tren, no hay telefono. Como vamos a hacer?_” (“but we have no train, we have no telephone. What are we to do?”) When we asked him the name of the village (_pueblo_) where it was going on, he shrugged his shoulders and answered, “_Quién sabe?_” Finally we left the _rurales_ to their own devices and came upon a group of women running for their lives and virtue. They all learn to get out of the way of the soldiers, as they are obliged to hear dreadful _groserías_, if nothing worse. A pink- or blue-skirted figure being chased in the maguey-fields is no uncommon sight.
We came back to the Embassy and had tea, learning that a huge fire we had seen burning on the side of a not-distant hill, and which we thought might be from a charcoal-burners’ camp, was a village the Zapatistas had pillaged and set on fire at two o’clock, while we were peacefully picnicking in “violet-crowned” Chapingo.
The Tozzers and Clarence Hay leave for Oaxaca and Mitla, to-morrow night, for a week’s trip. I would have loved to go, but “No traveling” is our motto. We must keep out of possible troubles. Later Kanya de Kanya, the new Austro-Hungarian minister, came to call. He has been ten years in the Foreign Office in Vienna, and is glad to be out of the turmoil of Near-East politics. For him Mexico is relatively quiet. There are only about five or six hundred of his nationals in the whole country, as there has been little or nothing here for them since the Maximilian tragedy. Kanya is a Hungarian. He will be a pleasant colleague, and I certainly hope the Magyar will show itself. He is said to be very musical.
In the evening Seeger came back for dinner; also Burnside, who is up from Vera Cruz for a day or so. We had a “political” evening. Going back over things, it does seem as if the United States, in conniving at the elimination of Diaz, three years ago, had begun the deadly work of disintegration here.
But all the time I kept before my mind’s eye the enchanting background of blue hills and lakes shining in the slanting sun, millions of wild ducks flying across the Lake of Chalco, and, above it, the smoldering village, the reverberations of the Mauser rifles below!
_February 9th._
There was a pleasant luncheon at the Lefaivres’ for Kanya. They--the Lefaivres--are both worn out with their long Mexican sojourn, five years, and the heavy responsibilities entailed by the ever-increasing French material losses, and are planning to go on leave in March. They are good friends and I shall miss them greatly, but I have learned to be philosophic about partings. Life keeps filling up, like a miraculous pitcher.
The newspapers have been getting the details of the horrible disaster in the Cumbre tunnel in Chihuahua, a few days ago. A bandit chief, Castillo, set fire to it by running into it a burning lumber-train. A passenger-train came along, collided with the débris, and all that has been recovered is a few charred bones. It is near the frontier, and it is said that Villa allowed the rescue-party to have an escort of American soldiers. There were a number of American women and children on the train; but it is a momentous step--or may be--for American troops to get into Mexico. Castillo did the thing, it is said, to revenge himself on Villa. This latter is getting a taste of the responsibilities success entails. He has Chihuahua, and Juarez, and a long line of railway to protect, and I am sure he doesn’t find guerilla warfare a recommendable pastime, when it is directed against himself and his ambitions.
_February 10th._
This morning we went over the magnificent Buen Tono cigarette-factories. Pugibet, who sold cigarettes in the street forty years ago, is the founder and millionaire owner. The factory is a model in all ways, and a testimony to his brains, energy, and initiative. He showed us over the vast place himself. In one of the rooms he had refrained from installing machinery, as it meant taking work from hundreds of women.
Oh, the deftness and skill of those beautiful Indian hands! Their motions were so quick that one hardly saw anything but the finished article. He loaded us with cigarettes and many souvenirs, and we drove home after a visit to the big church he had built near by. On arriving home, I found the words, “Papa,” “Mama,” “Elim,” and “Kuss,” written in white chalk, in high letters, on the entrance-door. I hated to have them removed.
N. has protested to the Foreign Office regarding the scurrilous language the _Imparcial_ has used about the President, the _Imparcial_ being a government organ. “Wicked Puritan with sorry horse teeth,” “Exotic and nauseous Carranzista pedagogue,” are samples of its style.
_Evening._
I have had a stone for a heart all day, thinking of the horrors that are to be multiplied. Nelson went to see Gamboa this afternoon. Incidentally the raising of the embargo was mentioned, and Gamboa said he thought Huerta might declare war. Like all the rest, he is doubtless ready to desert the old man. _Après moi le déluge_ and “the devil take the hindmost” are the sentiments governing people here. Mr. Jennings just rang up to ask if we had heard that the letter-bag of the Zapatistas had been seized. In it was a letter to President Wilson from Zapata, saying he upheld and was in perfect accord with his (Wilson’s) policy toward Huerta. A smile on the face of every one!
I went to the Garcia Pimentels’ at four o’clock, where we sewed till seven for the Red Cross. The women there were all wives or daughters of wealthy _hacendados_. They asked me if there was any news, and as usual, I answered, “Nothing new,” but I felt my eyes grow dim. This measure will strike them hard. The _hacendados_ in this part of the country have made great sacrifices to co-operate with the Federal government (it is the only visible thing in the shape of government) in the hope of preserving their properties and helping toward peace.
There were crowds before the Church of the Profesa in “Plateros” as I drove home. The church had been gutted by fire the night before, its second misfortune since we arrived. Its great dome was rent during the terrific earthquake of the 7th of June, 1911--that unforgetable day on which I saw Madero make his triumphant entry into Mexico. At half past four in the morning the town was rocked like a ship in a gale, with a strange sound of great wind.
The Profesa, which has only just been repaired, was built late in the sixteenth century, and was a center of Jesuit activity. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries all the great marriages, baptisms, and functions took place in it. One can see in one’s mind the array of proud viceroys and their jewel-decked spouses and all the glittering functionaries, and last, but not least, the inevitable accompaniment of the Indian population, wandering in and out. Yesterday, at San Felipe, Mass was celebrated by a priest with a pronounced Spanish eighteenth-century ascetic face of the Merry del Val type. As he turned to give the blessing, I thought of the many elect and beautiful priests of Spain who had in bygone days turned with that same gesture and expression to give the same blessing to like throngs of uplifted Indian faces. The Indians crowd the churches and I am thankful that Heaven can be foreshown to them, somewhere, somehow. They are but beasts of burden here below.
XV
Departure of the British minister--Guns and marines from Vera Cruz--Review at the Condesa--_Mister Lind_--The Benton case--Huerta predicts intervention--Villa at Chihuahua.
_February 12th._
Sir Lionel Carden is leaving next week. He feels (I think not without reason) very bitter about his experience down here. He is going to London _via_ Washington. I suppose he means to tell the President a lot of things, but when he gets there he won’t do it. Something in the air will make him feel that nothing is of any use....
The protest Nelson made to the Foreign Office over the abusive language of the _Imparcial_ was in big head-lines in the newspapers yesterday. The Spanish language lends itself exceedingly well to abuse. Miron, the man who wrote the articles, now goes about declaring that he will shoot Nelson at the first opportunity. I don’t think anything will come of this, however, though it keeps one a little uneasy in this land of surprises.
_February 13th._
This morning we received a telegram that Nelson’s father is seriously ill (pneumonia) and all day I have been broken with agonies of indecision. Ought I to go to New York, possibly in time to close those beautiful old eyes? Or ought I to stay here?
N. intends to have six marines come up from Vera Cruz. We could lodge them here. This house was built for two very large apartments and was joined by doors and stairways when taken for an Embassy. The very large dining-room on the bedroom floor could easily hold six cots and the necessary washing apparatus. It is now used as a trunk-room, pressing-room, and general store-room. Personally I don’t feel that anything will happen in Mexico City, beyond having a premonition that we may be giving asylum to Huerta some of these days. The scroll bearing his hour still lies folded upon the lap of the gods.
_February 17th._
I decided this morning not to go to New York, though Berthe had my things in readiness for to-morrow night. I was afraid that when I wanted to return I might not be able to get up to the city from Vera Cruz.
I went to see von Hintze this morning about the circus performance on Friday night for the Red Cross. He had already sent out invitations for a big dinner for that night, but he will postpone this until Saturday. He thinks there will be trouble here, and _soon_, and that I would never have time to go and return. So are destinies decided. Suddenly it was clear to me that I was to stay with my boy and Nelson and await results. Von Hintze considers the situation desperate and has sent out a circular telling his nationals to leave the country. In that story, “Two Fools,” you will see some of the disadvantages of leaving, faced by people whose all is here. Von Hintze is having Maxim quick-firing guns up from Vera Cruz. Three good mitrailleuses and the men to work them would be ample protection for any of the legations in case of riots.
Diaz Miron, who is threatening Nelson’s life, has already killed three men. Another man he shot limps about town, and he himself has a bad arm. He is a poet, a neurotic, but wrote in his young days some of the most beautiful Spanish verse that exists. Now he is old, violent, and eccentric. I hardly think anything will come of his threats. Huerta has other Diaz Mirons; he has but one American _chargé d’affaires_; and if necessary Diaz Miron can be put in the _Penitenciaría_ or Belem. I only fear some fool may catch the idea and do what Miron wouldn’t do.
A very nice cable came from Mr. Bryan this afternoon, saying that the President was deeply concerned at the threats against Nelson, and that we should arrange for secret-service men to follow him when he goes out of the Embassy; and also, if necessary, have a military guard at the house. There has been a secret-service man walking up and down outside for several days, and a dull time he must be having.
The morning was soft, yet brilliant, when I walked down to von Hintze’s. It seems strange that blood and tragedy should be woven in such a beautiful woof. Von Hintze is not an alarmist, but by telling me to go to New York, on the theory that everybody that can should leave, he certainly decided me to stay. I _can’t_ be away if anything happens here. So now I am calm again. Having been ready to go, not dodging the hard duty, makes me able to remain in peace.
_February 18th._
We have a new Minister for Foreign Affairs, a gentleman, to replace Moheno, the joyful bounder who has been in during the past few months. Portillo y Rojas, the new minister, is also supposed to be that white blackbird, an honest man. He has held various public offices without becoming rich, even when he was governor of the State of Jalisco. He, like all the rest, however, will do as Huerta dictates.
Maximo Castillo, the bandit responsible for the awful Cumbre tunnel disaster, was captured by American troops yesterday. Twenty-one Americans perished in the disaster. I wonder what Washington will do with him? To which of the two unrecognized governments can he be turned over? He was making a big détour around a mountain range, with a few followers, when he was caught, trying to avoid Villa. This is another piece of good luck for “the tiger.”
Huerta continues to believe in himself. N. says that unless von Hintze had information of a precise nature that Blanquet (Huerta’s intimate friend and his Minister of War) is going to betray him, the end is by no means in sight. But treachery is as much a part of this landscape as the volcanoes are.
Had a wearing sort of day, full of corners and edges; also the first real dust-storm of the season, which helps to make nerves raw. The government sends down three Gatling-guns, which Nelson is to get into the country “anyway he thinks best.” It will not be a simple matter. Everything is in a combustible condition here, needing but a match to ignite the whole.
_Evening._
Just returned from Chapultepec from Señora Huerta’s reception. It was her first in two months, as she had been in mourning for her brother. The “court” wore black. I found myself next to Huerta for tea, having been taken out by the Minister of Communicaciones--the Minister of “Highways and Buyways,” he might be called. I had a little heart-to-heart talk with the President--unfortunately in my broken Spanish. He gave me some flowers and all the good things on the table, and in return I gave him a red carnation for his buttonhole. He called for _enchiladas_ and _tamales_--pink jelly and fussy sandwiches don’t appeal to him--but the majordomo, with a grin, said, “_No hay_.”
A few of the _gens du monde_ were there. It seems cruel for them to boycott their own government as they continually and consistently do. Huerta has promised to put a larger house at our disposition for the Red Cross, and I begged him to come, if only for a moment, to the benefit circus performance on Friday. He has some military engagement for that night. I think we will be able later to get up a really productive bull-fight for the Red Cross, if he will sanction it. There is always money for bull-fights in this country. If the bull-fighters didn’t come so high, and if the bulls were not so dear, a bull-fight would be a wonderful way of putting any organization on its feet!
Huerta sat with Nelson the whole time after tea, in the bedroom next to the big _salon_, and Nelson broached to him the subject of the guns. He said he could bring in any blankety thing he pleased, or the Spanish equivalent, but he warned him to do it quietly. We were almost the last to leave and Huerta took me on his arm down the broad, red-carpeted stairs, telling me that Mexicans were the friends of everybody, and offering me a pony for Elim. When we got to the glass vestibule, in front of which the autos were waiting, he made us take _his_ auto. “_Your_ automobile,” he insisted, when I said, “Oh, but this is yours!” What could I do but get in, to the salute of officers, our empty car following us. All his courtesies make it a bit hard for us. I felt like a vampire in a churchyard or some such awful thing, when I was sitting there in the big _salon_, knowing that Huerta is up against the world and can’t but slip at the end, no matter how he digs in his feet. He needs fidelity. It is nowhere to be had, and never was to be had in Mexico, if history is to be believed. When Santa Ana left Mexico City with twelve thousand troops in 1847 to meet and engage Scott at Puebla, he finally arrived with a fourth of that number--the others vanishing along the road a few at a time.
There was a good deal of uniform up there this afternoon. I looked at those gold-braided chests with mingled feelings--pity at the thought of the uncertainty of life, and a sickening feeling of the undependability of the sentiments that fill them when the constitution is in question.
We hear that Diaz Miron leaves for Switzerland to-night; which, if true, ends _that_ little flurry. The long arm of the Dictator moves the puppets as he wills, and I imagine he intends to take no risks concerning the brightest jewel in his crown--_i. e._, N., the last link with the United States. I keep thinking what a “grand thing” a dictatorship is if it is on your side. Most of the dozen Huerta children were at the reception--from the youngest, a bright little girl of seven, to the fatuous eldest officer son of thirty or thereabouts. A big diamond in a gold ring, next to a still bigger one in platinum, were the most conspicuous things about him.
A new comic journal called _Mister Lind_ made its first appearance to-day. It is insulting and unclean, with a caricature of Lind on the second page. I can’t decide whether the name is bright or stupid.
The Mexicans are master-hands at caricature and play upon words, and there are generally some really trenchant political witticisms in their comic papers. There are wishes for Wilson’s early demise scattered through the pages in various forms. But I imagine they are boomerang wishes, and the journal itself will have a short and unprofitable life. The big middle page has a picture, calling itself _El Reparto de Tierras_ (“The Division of Lands”). It represents a graveyard; underneath are the words, “_tenemos 200,000 tierras tenientes_” (“we have 200,000 landholders”)--a sad play upon the division of lands. Above it vultures are portrayed, wearing Uncle Sam’s hat. Another caricature shows the Mexicans carrying a coffin labeled _Asuntos Nacionales_ (National Affairs), with President Wilson as a candle-bearer. The press gets more anti-American every day.
[Illustration: A BURIAL
MEXICO: “WHO GAVE _YOU_ A CANDLE TO CARRY IN THIS FUNERAL?”]
On one of N’s visits to the President, at his famous little shack-like retreat set in among a collection of market-gardens, at Popotla, he began to talk about the division of lands, saying the Indian had inalienable rights to the soil, but that the lands should be returned to him under circumstances of justice and order. On no account should they be used as a reward for momentarily successful revolutionaries. He added that the United States had never respected the rights of their Indians, but had settled the whole question by force.
_February 19th._
We went this morning to the big military _revue_ at the Condesa, one of the most beautiful race-tracks in the world. I thought of Potsdam’s strong men under dull skies. Now I am in this radiant paradise, watching more highly colored troops, who make a really fine show, and who perhaps are soon to fight with “the Colossus of the North.” Certainly in another year many of them will have been laid low by brothers’ hands. The President was very pleased with the 29th, the crack regiment that helped him to power a year ago. He addressed a few words to them, and his hands trembled as he decorated their flag, pinning the cross at the top of the flag-staff, and attaching a long red streamer instead of the rosette that generally goes with this decoration. They made a fine showing, and the _rurales_, under command of Rincon Gaillardo, on a beautiful horse, and in all the splendor of a yellow and silver-trimmed _charro_ costume, were a picturesque and unforgetable sight. The _rurales_ wear great peaked hats, yellow-gray costumes made with the tight _vaquero_ trousers, short embroidered coats, and long, floating red-silk neckties--such a spot at which to aim! I suppose there were six or seven thousand troops in all. Everything was very spick and span--men, horses, and equipment. It was a testimony to Huerta’s military qualities that in the face of his manifold enemies he could put up such an exhibition. I sat by Corona, governor of the Federal District, and watched the glittering _défilé_ and listened to the stirring martial music. The Mexicans have probably the best brass in the world--_le beau côté de la guerre_. But what horrors all that glitter covers! Twice, when Huerta’s emotion was too much for him, he disappeared for a _copita_, which was to be had in a convenient back inclosure.
_Evening._
I started out with Kanya and Madame Simon to motor to Xochimilco, and before getting out of town we ran down a poor _pelado_. It was a horrible sensation as the big motor struck him. I jumped out and ran to him and found him lying on his poor face, a great stream of blood gushing from a wound in his head.
They wouldn’t let me touch him till a sergeant came. Then we turned him on his back, and I bound up his head as well as I could, with a handkerchief some one gave me, and with one of my long, purple veils. I took the motor--Kanya and Madame Simon are not used to blood--and went quickly to the _comisaría_ and got a doctor. The chauffeur, whose fault it really was, was trembling like an aspen. When we got back, it seemed to me the whole _peon_ world had turned out. Finally we got the victim laid on the _camilla_; and now, I suppose, his poor soul is with its Maker. As the motor is Kanya’s, there will be no calling him up in court, and he will be very generous to the family. I am thankful, for various reasons, that it wasn’t the Embassy motor. I am awfully upset about it; to think of starting out on this beautiful afternoon and being the instrument to send that poor soul into eternity.