A MEXICAN'S PROGRESS.
The Hispano-Americans usually drink nothing with their meals: it is only
when the _dulces_, or cakes and sweetmeats, have been eaten, and each
guest has swallowed the glass of water intended to facilitate digestion,
that the liquors are put on the table, and the Catalonian _refino_
begins to circulate; then the _puros_ and _pajillos_ are lighted, and
the conversation, always rather stiff during the meal, becomes more
intimate and friendly, owing to the absence of the inferior guests, who
then retire, leaving the master of the house and his guests at perfect
liberty.
The captain had judiciously chosen this moment to commence his attack.
Not that he hoped to have a better chance with the young man at the
termination of the meal--for the sobriety of the Southern Americans is
proverbial--but because at that moment Don Sebastian, being freed from
all cares, must more easily yield to the influence the captain fancied
he could exercise over him.
The captain poured some refino into a large glass, which he filled with
water, lit a puro, leant his elbows on the table, and looked fixedly at
the young man.
"Muchacho," he said to him abruptly, "does the life you lead in the
desert possess a great charm for you?"
Surprised at this question, which he was far from expecting, Don
Sebastian hesitated ere he replied.
"Yes," the captain said, emptying his glass, "do you amuse yourself
greatly here? Answer me frankly."
"On my word, captain, as I never knew any other existence than that I am
leading at this moment, I cannot answer your question thoroughly: it is
certain that I feel myself hipped at times."
The captain struck his tongue against his palate with evident
satisfaction.
"Ah, ah!" he said, "I am glad to hear you speak so."
"Why?"
"Because I hope you will easily accept the proposition I am about to
make to you."
"You!"
"Who else, then, if not I?"
"Speak!" the young man said with a careless air; "I am listening."
The captain threw away his cigar, gave vent to two or three sonorous
_hums_, and at length said in a sharp voice,--
"Sebastian, my dear fellow! Do you think that, if your worthy father
could return to this world, he would be well pleased to see you thus
idly wasting the precious hours of your youth?"
"I do not at all understand your meaning, captain."
"That is possible. I never pretended to be a great orator, and today
less than at any other period of my long career. I will, however, try to
explain myself so clearly that, if you do not understand me, _caray!_ It
is because you will not."
"Go on; I am listening."
"Your father, muchacho, whose history you probably do not know, was at
once a brave soldier and a good officer. He was one of the founders of
our liberty, and his name is a symbol of loyalty and devotion to every
Mexican. For ten years your father fought the enemies of his country on
every battlefield, enduring, though rich and a gentleman, hunger and
thirst, heat and cold, gaily and without complaining; and yet, had he
wished it, he might have led a luxurious and thoroughly easy life. You
loved your father?"
"Alas, captain! Can I ever be consoled for his loss?"
"You will be consoled. You have many things to learn yet, and that among
others. Poor boy! There is nothing eternal in the world--neither joy,
nor sorrow, nor pleasure. But let us return to what I was saying. Were
your father permitted to quit the abode of the just, where he is
doubtlessly sojourning, and return for a few moments to earth, he would
speak to you as I am now doing; he would ask an account of the useless
indolence in which you spend your youth, thinking no more of your
country, which you can and ought to serve, than if you lived in the
heart of a desert. Did your father endure so many sacrifices in order to
create such an existence--tell me, muchacho?"
The worthy captain, who had probably never preached so much in his life,
stopped, awaiting a reply to the question he had asked; but this reply
did not come. The young man, with his arms crossed on his chest, his
body thrown back, and his eyes obstinately fixed on the ground, seemed
plunged in deep thought. The captain continued after a lengthened
delay,--
"We," he said, "demolished; you young men must rebuild. No one at the
present day has the right to deprive the Republic of his services. Each
must, under penalty of being considered a bad citizen, carry his stone
to the social edifice, and you more than anyone else, muchacho--you, the
son of one of the most celebrated heroes of the War of Independence.
Your country calls you--it claims you: you can no longer remain deaf to
its voice. What are you doing here among your dogs and horses, wasting
ingloriously your courage, dissipating your energy without profit to
anyone, and growing daily more brutalised in a disgraceful solitude?
_Cuerpo de Cristo!_ I can understand that a man may love his father, and
even weep for him--for that is the duty of a good son, and your father
certainly deserves the sacred recollection you give him--but to make of
that grief a pretext to caress and satisfy your egotism, that is worse
than a bad action--it is cowardice!"
At this word the young man's tawny eye flashed lightning.
"Captain!" he shouted, as he struck the table with his clenched fist.
"_Rayo de Dios!_" the old soldier continued boldly, "the word is spoken,
and I will not withdraw it: your father, if he hear me, must approve me.
Now, muchacho, I have emptied my heart; I have spoken frankly and
loyally, as it was my duty to do. I owed it to myself to fulfil this
painful duty. If you do not understand the feeling that dictated the
rough words I uttered, all the worse for you; it is because your heart
is dead to every generous impulse, and you are incapable of feeling how
much I must have loved you to find the courage to speak to you in that
way. Now do as you think proper; I shall not have to reproach myself for
having hidden the truth from you. It is late. Good night, muchacho. I
will go to bed, for I start early tomorrow. Reflect on what I have said
to you. The night is a good counsellor, if you will listen in good
faith to the voices that chatter round your pillow in the darkness."
And the captain emptied his glass and rose. Don Sebastian imitated him,
took a step toward him, and laid his hand on his shoulder.
"One moment," he said to him.
"What do you want?"
"Listen to me in your turn," the young man said in a gloomy voice. "You
have been harsh with me, captain. Those truths you have told me you
might perhaps have expressed in milder language, in consideration of my
age, and the solitude and isolation in which I have hitherto lived.
Still I am not angry at your rude frankness; on the contrary, I am
grateful to you for it, for I know that you love me, and the interest
you take in me alone urged you to be so severe. You say that you depart
tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Where do you intend going?"
"To Mexico."
"Very good, captain; you will not go alone. I shall accompany you."
The old soldier looked at the young man for a moment tenderly; then
pressing with feverish energy the hand held out to him,--
"It is well, muchacho," he said to him with great emotion. "I was not
mistaken in you; you are a brave lad, and, _caray!_ I am satisfied with
you."
The two men left Palmar together the next morning, and rode toward
Mexico, which city they reached after a ten days' journey. But during
those ten days, spent _tête-à-tête_ with the captain, the young man's
ideas were completely modified, and a perfect change came over his
aspirations.
General Guerrero's son belonged unconsciously to that numerous class of
men who are utterly ignorant of themselves, and pass their lives in
indolence until the moment when, an object being suddenly offered them,
their imagination is inflamed, their ambition is aroused, and they
become as eager in the chase as they had been previously negligent and
indifferent as to their future.
Captain Don Isidro Vargas heartily praised the intelligence with which
the young man he emphatically called his pupil understood the lessons he
gave him as to his behaviour in the world.
Don Sebastian experienced no difficulty--thanks to his name, and the
reputation his father so justly enjoyed--in obtaining his grade as
lieutenant in the army. This step was, for the young man, the first rung
of the ladder, which he prepared to climb as rapidly as possible.
It was fine work at that day, in Mexico, for an intelligent man to fish
in troubled waters; and, unfortunately, we are obliged to confess that,
in spite of the long years that have passed since the proclamation of
its independence, nothing is as yet changed in that unhappy country,
where anarchy has been systematised.
If ever a country could do without an army, it was Mexico after the
recognition of her liberty and the entire expulsion of the Spaniards,
owing to her isolation in the midst of peaceful nations, and the
security of her frontiers, which no enemy menaced. Unhappily, the war of
independence had lasted ten years. During that long period the peaceful
and gentle population of that country, held in guardianship by its
oppressors, had become transformed. A warlike ardour had seized on all
classes of society, and a species of martial fever had aroused in every
brain a love of arms.
Hence that naturally came about which all sensible people expected; that
is to say, when the army had no longer enemies before it to combat, the
troops turned their arms against their fellow citizens, vexing and
tyrannising over them at their pleasure.
The government, instead of disbanding this turbulent army, or at any
rate reducing it to a _minimum_ by only keeping up the depôts of the
various corps, considered it far more advantageous to lean on it, and
organise a military oligarchy, which pressed heavily on the country.
This deplorable system has plunged this unhappy country into disastrous
complications, against which it struggles in vain, and has dug the abyss
in which its nationality will sooner or later be swallowed up.
The army, then, after the war, assumed an influence which it has ever
since retained, and which increased in proportion as the men placed at
the head of the government more fully understood that it alone could
maintain them in power or overthrow them at its good pleasure. The army,
therefore, made revolutions that its leaders might become powerful. From
the lowest _alférez_ up to the general of division, all the officers
look to troubles for promotion--the alférez to become lieutenant, the
colonel to exchange his red scarf for the green one of the brigadier
general, and the general of division to become President of the
Republic.
Hence pronunciamientos are continual; for every officer wearied of a
subaltern grade, and who aspires to a higher rank, pronounces himself;
that is to say, aided by a nucleus of malcontents like himself, which is
never wanting, he revolts by refusing obedience to the government, and
that the more easily because, whether conqueror or conquered, the rank
he has thus appropriated always remains his.
The military career is, therefore, a perfect steeplechase. We know a
certain general, whose name we could write here in full if we wished,
who attained the presidency by stepping from pronunciamiento to
pronunciamiento without ever having smelt fire, or knowing the first
movement of platoon drill--an ignorance which is not at all
extraordinary in a country where one of our sergeant conductors would be
superior to the most renowned generals.
Don Sebastian judged his position with the infallible eye of an
ambitious man; and suddenly attacked by a fever of immense activity, he
resolved to profit cleverly by the general anarchy to gain a position.
He clambered up the first steps at full speed and became a full colonel
with startling rapidity. On reaching that position he married, in order
to secure himself, and to give him that solidity he desired for the
great game he intended to play, and which, in his mind, only ended with
the presidential chair.
Already very rich, his marriage increased his fortune, which he sought
to augment, however, by every possible scheme; for he was aware what the
cost of a successful pronunciamiento was, and he did not mean to suffer
a defeat.
As if everything was destined to favour this man in all he undertook,
his wife, a dear and charming woman, whose love and devotion he never
comprehended, died after a short illness, and left him father of a girl
as charming and amiable as herself--that lovely Angela whom we have
already met several times in the course of our narrative.
Don Sebastian could have married again if he liked; but by his first
marriage he had obtained what he wanted, and preferred to remain free.
At the period we have now reached he had attained general's rank, and
secured the appointment of political governor of the state of Sonora,
the first stepping-stone for his ambitious projects.
Colossally rich, he was interested in all the great industrial
enterprises, and a shareholder in most of the mining operations. It was
for the object of watching these operations more closely, that he had
asked for the government of Sonora, a new country, almost unknown, where
he hoped to fish more easily in troubled waters, owing to its distance
from the capital, and the slight surveillance he had to fear from the
government, in which he had, moreover, all-powerful influences.
In a word, General Guerrero was one of those gloomy personages who,
under a most fascinating exterior, the most affable manners, and most
seductive smiles, conceal the most perverse instincts, the coldest
ferocity, and the most rotten soul.
Still this man had in his heart one feeling which, by its intensity,
expiated many faults.
He loved his daughter.
He loved her passionately, without calculation or afterthought; yet this
paternal love had something terrible about it: he loved his daughter as
the jaguar or the panther loves its cubs, with fury and jealousy.
Doña Angela, though she had never tried to sound her father's
impenetrable heart, had still divined the uncontrolled power she
exercised over this haughty nature which crushed everything, but became
suddenly weak and almost timid in her presence. The charming maid
employed her power despotically, but ever with the intention of doing a
good deed, as, for instance, to commute the sentence of a prisoner or
succour the unfortunate; in a word, to render lighter the yoke of iron
under which the general, with his feline manners, crushed his
subordinates.
Thus the girl was as much adored by all those who approached her as the
general was feared and hated. God had doubtlessly wished, in His
ineffable goodness, to place an angel by the side of a demon, so that
the wounds inflicted by the latter might be cured by the former.
Now that we have described these two persons to the best of our ability,
whose characters will be more fully developed in the course of our
story, we will resume our narrative at the point where we interrupted
it.