Mr. Conway fetched me and Dick in his car at 9:00 A.M. and we drove out
to Tipositlan. It is about 40 kilometers away. It had been raining all
night and the roads were desperately slippery. We had to climb up a
small mountain and the road was not really a road, but a muddy torrent.
The car stuck. Dick delighted, he got out and climbed the mountain side
and picked wild flowers. To my surprise it did in time get out of the
mire and we climbed to the top, closely followed by a huge motor-lorry.
When we had descended the hill on the other side onto the flat road,
the lorry tried to race us, with the result that the driver was very
nearly jolted off the seat and the man next to the driver did actually
fall off! Such is the condition of the roads just outside the city area.
Arrived finally at Tepositlan we rambled all over the church, the
convent and the patios. It used to be a Jesuit Monastery; they were
planted there in order to educate and influence the Indian children.
They have within the last few years been expelled, leaving behind them
a really beautiful monument of church art. I have not seen anything
more beautiful in Italy. The façade of the church, the carvings, the
towers and domes, the surrounding wall, the avenue of cypress, the
gnarled olive trees, complete an exquisite exterior. Within there is a
church that is gold! Gold! Gold! but the gold is on carved wood and the
gold is old gold, so that what must have once been dazzling and vulgar,
is now mellow and beautiful. Then there are little inner chapels that
are gems of beauty, and a patio, sun-bathed, and full of orange trees
in fruit, cloister surrounded. The whole thing was an endless labyrinth
of real beauty.
We retired to the garden of Don Trinidad, a picturesque farmer, who
set a table for us to lunch under the largest fig tree I have ever
seen, our dessert being overhead, reachable by standing on a chair!
Always wherever one looks, whether in town or in country, there is
the background of mountain ranges that meets the eye. After lunch we
climbed to the topmost belfry.
I got home just in time to have a short rest, and then Mr. Malbran
fetched me in his car and took me to Chapultepec Castle, which, by the
way, is much prettier at night, lit up. We drove straight up to the
front door,--no sentries attempted to stop us. It was like a deserted
country house, and even with the front door wide open, there was no
one about, and Mr. Malbran had to walk outside, to a guard or someone,
and request that our arrival be announced. We waited for about ten
minutes in a small Council Chamber on the right of the entrance, and
then voices were heard. Mr. Malbran said “Here he is”--and I recognized
at once, coming towards us, the one-armed General, whose face the
newspapers have made familiar. He invited us to go upstairs to one of
the reception rooms, and he led the way to a room where the chairs
were covered with overalls, and stood all in a solemn row, except a
tapestry sofa and centrepiece presented by Napoleon III, I suppose to
Maximilian, and set in light yellow wood, and perfectly hideous.
We three sat in this formal unlived-in room, and Mr. Malbran proceeded
to be our interpreter for about an hour. Whenever I was being
interpreted to the President, I had the chance of watching his face.
His hair is thick and black, his rather flowing moustache tinged
with grey. His face is round and fresh complexioned, he is powerfully
built, but too stout. His right arm is cut off above the elbow, and
every now and then he moves the stump, which gives the impression of
a bird trying to use a broken wing. We had a fine battle of wits,
which through an interpreter became so clear and acute that we all of
us had finally to laugh over it. Talking through an interpreter is as
bad as talking to a deaf person through an ear trumpet. I said I had
come with the hopes of doing his portrait, that I regarded myself as
an historian, and it was my idea to try and represent the people of
my own day,--whatever country they belong to, so long as they have
accomplished something.
The President replied that he had not yet accomplished the things for
which he represented the Mexican people, and that he felt too modest
at present to allow himself to be done. There was only one thing he
minded, and that was ridicule. “My people will think I am competing
with the Venus of Milo!” he said, shaking his stump. He would not
refuse me, however, and suggested merely a postponement of three years,
to enable him in that space of time to “make good.”...
I said that success was not necessary to a man’s greatness. That I had
done Asquith, who had not brought England through the war, and Winston
Churchill, who is not yet Prime Minister, and Lenin, who has not yet
brought the Russian experiment to a triumph, and Marconi who admitted
to me himself that he had not yet completed the invention that was to
make him most famous! But that these are all nevertheless historical
men. I explained that Mexico ought to be represented in my world
collection, and that I understood he, General Obregon, was the best
and the most representative man of the 15,000,000 people of Mexico!
The President laughed, he said “If I am the best, what must you think
of the others?” He said that if I were less famous and therefore his
sitting to me less conspicuous, he might consent, but that he was not a
worthy subject _yet_ for so distinguished an artist, but that he would
work during the three years to come with a new zeal. Knowing the prize
in view!
I swept his compliments aside by asking him to help me to be a more
distinguished artist by having the honor to do him!
He laughed, and said that he had had many dangerous moments in his
life, but never had he felt nearer to defeat than at this moment, and
defeat by a woman...! To which I repeated that I had been told the
President was a man of force, but I had no idea he had such force.
When this was translated, he seemed slightly embarrassed, and I went
on, revelling in his discomfiture: “Lenin said it was extremely
tiresome of me to want to do him, but that after all, I had come _such_
a long way to do it! Now Mexico is just as far as Moscow, and are you
going to allow it to be said that the Bolsheviks are more chivalrous
and more cultured? Of course, he knew, and I knew, and he knew that I
knew that there is no comparison between himself and Lenin. The one is
bound to live in the world’s history....” He said desperately “I will
be delighted to see you whenever you care to see me. I play cards and
billiards and ride horse back, and will do any of these things with
you if you wish....” He then went on to explain that Mexico had had so
many Presidents in the last few years, some of them, men of ability,
but others, men of no consequence.... He did not wish to be classified
in this latter category, so that when I had done his bust, it should
turn out to be of some one of no importance.... He had certain definite
work he wished to accomplish, work for which the Mexican people had
elected him their representative, and he must try and accomplish
that work before he had a right to assume any attitude that might be
mistaken by his people as being a satisfaction with himself. I said
that I understood his point of view but deplored it! We then went on
to talk about Mexico, and my appreciation of all there was to see, and
he said that I was not to be allowed to go away before the Centenary
celebration (September 15th) and that I should represent “Modern
Europe” at the Centenary! “Modern” indeed! but I do not see myself
living until September without work!
He left the room for a moment to give an order, explaining he had sent
for a reproduction of himself that Madame Obregon had presented to him,
and that he would like to show me. Presently two small children came
in: “These are the reproductions of me!” he said, laughingly ... the
boy about 4 years old was certainly like him. The little girl, rather
frail and white, less so. I wondered at those small children not being
in bed, it must have been nearly ten o’clock. No wonder they looked
pale!
The President then took us upstairs to another large uninhabited
reception room, to show us a picture done from photographs by a Spanish
artist! The picture had its face to the wall, and when turned round
by two attendants, for our inspection, it was obviously just what a
picture would be like done from photographs! I felt it had better go
back with its face to the wall. I also thought of Colonel Miller, the
U. S. Military Attaché, who informed me sometime ago, that visiting
a pottery he found that a workman had modelled from photographs an
“excellent and most clever likeness of Obregon.”... He paid the workman
two pesos for it and intended to “present it” to the President. Done
from photographs, for two pesos. How can one compete? I cannot help
smiling as I recall the three distinguished portrait painters, who, on
hearing I was coming to Mexico, bade me cable to them if there was any
work to do, so that they might come immediately. To switch off from
this train of thought I asked, if I were not indiscreet in doing so,
what the President’s impression was of the condition of Russia from
the reports of his representatives whom he had sent there three months
ago. He explained that the representatives had not yet returned, but
one was to arrive in about sixty days. Meanwhile they have orders not
to send communications by mail. His own private opinion was that every
movement has something good as well as bad in it. He thought the result
of the Russians having been so long oppressed, was that they were now
like birds let out of a cage, and not knowing quite what to do with
their freedom.... I thought to myself, this is the most non-committal
opinion I have ever heard expressed! and I marvelled at the
unhesitating readiness of the man, who is really a soldier, yet talks
like a diplomat! My impression was of a man of no culture and little
education. His face shows no trace of thought or even anxiety, he is
quick, cautious and strong-minded. I asked him before I left, whether
his disinclination to be modelled by me was influenced by the fact that
I had done Lenin and Trotzky. He said most emphatically that this was
not the case, and that he was far too independent a man to entertain
such small ideas. He seemed really rather worried lest I should think
him discourteous, and he begged me to tell him what he could do for
me, as he would like to be my best friend in Mexico,--would I come and
see him whenever I liked without any pretext being necessary and if I
could not produce an interpreter, he would. “But in three years ...” he
said, “I shall speak French!” “and ... I Spanish,” I said. He picked
me flowers from the roof garden, took my arm and helped me upstairs
and expressed in every outward way his desire to be friendly. He said
to me, as I was leaving: “You must know in your heart that I am right
...” and of course I do know it. I have already said it. Obregon has
not yet done anything to immortalize his name in History ... he may
‘go’ tomorrow, and another take his place ... I said to him, “Well, do
something _quickly_ to justify my doing your bust!”
Meanwhile let us “wait and see” what he is going to do!