off to be repaired. A feeling of migration is in the air. A lot of
damage was done getting to Mexico. A locksmith asked fifteen francs
to open that small trunk where I keep my papers and give me a new key.
He took the fifteen francs, but brought no key until pressure was put
on him, when he sent back a key that fitted, having, however, a large,
ornamental wrought-iron handle from the viceregal period. I should say
that takes up more room than all our other keys together. It would look
better in a _vitrine_.
If the end comes suddenly, which I don't believe, we can get out
comfortably and with the philosophy engendered by the fact that, after
all, these are not our Lares and Penates.
We dine at the British Legation to-night. The Stronges are very
comfortably and handsomely installed, though the drawing-room, with
its pale-blue hangings, endless modern chairs and cabinets and small
tables, sent out from England, make it less artistic, to my mind, than
in its former spare furnishing with Hohler's lovely old things.
Just home from the Country Club, where I left N. starting out on
a "foursome" with Susana Garcia Pimentel,[44] Señor Bernal, her
brother-in-law, and an unknown fourth. On those beautiful links she
seemed more beautiful than ever, with a tall slenderness, an exceeding
and arresting straightness of feature, long, idealized "Hapsburg chin,"
and what we call a "complexion" not often seen here. She was Diana-like
as she started off in a thin, extremely expensive, white, unmistakably
French dress and an equally French flopping Leghorn hat, the little
Indian caddy following with the _arrow-case_.
I called on Madame Madero, senior, yesterday, and found more than a
hint of the patriarchal--sons and daughters and grandchildren coming
and going. They seem quiet, dignified people. The father came in as I
was sitting there with various other visitors, and the two daughters
rose and kissed his hand and called him _papacito_. The devotion of
families and the permanence of ties here is quite remarkable, a decided
contrast to the more airy conjugal relations in the United States.
After tea had been served we went into the big drawing-room, where
I sat with some anonymous, silent, big-hatted, small-footed Mexican
women, while Angela Madero sang charmingly and easily, without the
tiresome urging so often necessary. She speaks of going abroad or
to New York to study, when political affairs are quite settled.
The house,[45] recently built in the handsome Colonia Juarez, Calle
Berlin, is comfortable but banal, without the good things of the "old"
families. Few books--in fact, like most of the modern Mexican houses.
As I came out the air was darkened by one of the great dust-storms that
sometimes come up toward twilight at this time of the year. The strains
of "The Rosary," which Angela twice sang with real feeling, followed
me, together with thoughts of a family who, once rich, obscure, and
happy, now find themselves perched on the dizzy, uncertain peak of
Mexican politics. I wonder if the elder members don't sometimes sigh
for the good old days.
_April 24th._
Yesterday the ambassador gave a large musical in honor of Mlle.
Tréville, who is leaving soon, at which Mrs. Schuyler and I presided.
The rooms were filled with Easter lilies. Miss de T. sang really
beautifully the aria of "La Folie," from "Ophélie," "Super vorreste,"
some songs of Mr. McDowell's, and, as her last encore, gave the
ever-popular Mexican song of home and homesickness, "La Golondrina."
Her voice has a beautiful, bird-like quality and her _école_ of the
best; she studied in Paris and Brussels.
Madame Madero came, looking a little thin, in a nice, black lace dress,
over some shining white, with a sister resembling her, though without
any suggestion of Madame Madero's banked fires; her two sisters-in-law,
Angela and Mercedes, also accompanied her. Madame Ernesto Madero,
always very pretty, with a bright, fresh look, in spite of her many
children, was in black lace, with a large picture-hat. Indeed, I
was fearful at one time that the unusually large assortment of black
picture-hats, in conjunction with the Easter lilies, would make the
room somewhat funereal in spots.
The whole _Corps Diplomatique_, which had not been out in force for
some time, was there. The governor of the Federal District, Don Ignacio
Rivero, now a great friend of N.'s and most useful in many ways, came
with his wife, whom I hadn't met. The Guatemalan minister presented his
handsome bride, the Cuban minister, General de Riba, who, it appears,
is breaking hearts galore with his tenor voice and handsome face, was
there; and Madame Simon, as always, sparkling and interested, surveyed
the scene with her long lorgnette.
The _clou_ of the occasion was the appearance of Mr. de la Barra,
just back from Europe. He was amiable, tactful, and inscrutable, but I
wonder what he really thinks of the slopes of Avernus, down which the
government seems to be sliding, and not gently, either. He has taken a
big house, quite ex-presidential-looking, in the Calle Hamburgo, and
the largest of packing-boxes are being emptied in front of it. The
Embassy staff were out in full force, of course--D'Antin, interpreter
and legal adviser since many years; Palmer, now diplomatic secretary to
the ambassador and very capable; Parker, first clerk; and others.
Mr. Potter and Mr. Butler came in late and stayed late, and we spoiled
our dinners sitting around the dining-table, eating sandwiches and
sweets and talking about the party. We screamed with laughter at Mr.
Potter's cutting from one of the big New York dailies, which quite
solemnly states that Zapata is a natural product of the Diaz rule,
and is merely avenging the innocent and oppressed ones. We all had a
conviction that they had rather be unavenged. What twaddle the people
have to read, anyway. As for me, school begins with my first waking
moment and continues without a recess till I pass from this land of the
unexpected and unsuspected to that of dreams.
_April 25th._
The newspapers have been having large head-lines the past two days
regarding the Zapatistas, for "the Attila of the South" is moving on
Cuernavaca from the north, and it seems but a question of time before
the lovely town falls into his hands. The Federal garrison is estimated
at only a few hundreds, while the Zapatistas have between four and five
thousand men.
The inhabitants are anxious to be allowed to surrender, as Zapata
has declared that if there is resistance he will sack and burn the
town, "piously" leaving nothing standing but the cathedral, according
to his solemn promise to the bishop. There was quite a tidy bit of
warning at Huitzilac, when that town was stormed, as to what might
happen to Cuernavaca, which is full of refugees from Guerrero and the
southern part of Morelos. This most fertile and lovely state, wherein
may be seen "all the vegetable kingdoms of the world in a moment of
time," is practically in the hands of the Zapatistas, shading off into
"Salgadistas" and endless other "istas," coloring the country-side
independently. In all this the women and children seem the pity of it.
At home or afield, they are continually being caught up into mysterious
traps of destiny. Even here in my house there are, from time to time,
curious disappearances.
Josefina, the silent, consumptive seamstress who comes to sew and mend,
has one of those vanishing sorts of lives. She has wonderful hands, and
can copy with her slender, tapering fingers the most complicated French
clothes. In fact, if one were able to get the stuffs here, one couldn't
tell the copy from the original, cut and all. She has just been copying
that rather intricate Jeanne Hallé purple-and-black blouse. Except for
the inside waistband, whose origin is nameless, like Josefina, you can
scarcely tell them apart, not a sixteenth of a centimeter's difference
in length, breadth, or width.
She sits in the sun by an open window, and has egg and sherry at eleven
and before she goes home, but the sands of her life are slipping fast.
She lives in a room with three other consumptive sisters. The eldest
went out one night to get some oil for their lamp. It is now ten
days, and she has not returned. Is she working in the powder-mills, or
what? Who will care, and who could if he would inform himself of her
fate--just gone out into the night.
Madame Bonilla, from whom I got Josefina, has been an angel of mercy
to her and her sisters, and tried unsuccessfully to rearrange their
housing, inviting Josefina to live at her country place and supply her
with work. But one can only battle so far with Indian situations. After
a certain point everything seems to slip away into mystery, racial and
individual.
Does not constitutional democracy seem a snare and a delusion if
two-thirds of the population are composed of such? It brings a smile,
but of despair, to the face. My very good Indian washer-woman, not long
ago, left me. The usual excuse of an aunt or a grandmother, or some one
being ill or dead, was not used. She just stood there with her three
children, clutching the ends of her rebozo, that the last, fat little
baby was rolled up in, and repeated that she must return at once to her
pueblo whose Indian name I didn't catch. She had a sort of an antique,
troubled look. I asked Cecilia if she knew what the matter was. She
answered the usual "_Pués quién sabe, Señora?_"
We got some things together for the children, and I gave her a few
_pesos_, and she went off, out of my life, out of the security of food
and lodging that was hers, to melt into the endless generations of
Indians; I felt uncomfortable for long after.
Talking about housework, I wish some of the airy stipendiaries of other
climes, or even the women of those sections of my native land where
they don't have "help," could really know what it is here, where half
the female energies of the nation are engaged in the grinding of corn.
They don't do it occasionally, but every day, and hour after hour, or
the nation would starve.
It's one of the most appalling things in Mexico, this grinding of the
mother literally between the upper and nether stones. How can a nation
advance when the greater part of the women pass their lives grinding
corn, making tortillas, and bearing children? There is no time or
strength left to sketch in the merest outline of home-making, let alone
a personal life, or any of the rudiments of citizenship.
_April 26th._
Yours about the catastrophe in the Bay of Tangier is received. My heart
aches. To think of parents being brought back out of the darkness of
death by drowning, to call for _three_ children and find nothing! It
is Greek, terrible. You remember them from Berlin days and those lovely
little ones.
Last night we dined at Mr. Walker's with our military attaché and Mr.
Knoblauch; they are all keeping bachelor quarters in Mr. W.'s handsome
house next door to the British Legation, in his wife's absence. The
talk turned on oil. Though the Aztecs used it for their temple floors,
the Spaniards left it in the rich breast of Mother Earth. Now it looks
as if it were going to be the center of foreign interests in Mexico,
replacing in the inevitable evolution of things its romantic mining
history.
Mr. Doheny, the pioneer of the industry, has had one of those careers
only possible to the man of genius. He appeared on the scene of the
future oil-drama (the state of Vera Cruz),[46] looked about him,
installed a plant of many millions, and when _he_ was ready, the oil
gushed up--a sort of twentieth century striking of the rock--to say
nothing of Moses.
Lord Cowdray's enterprise was not less spectacular nor less profitable.
Nature did not, however, wait on _his_ preparedness, for suddenly from
his lands the greatest oil-well in the world, Las Dos Bocas, gushed
out, and for months burned upward in a great column of smoke and fire,
and flowed out to the sea, a burning waste of light and heat, before it
could be capped.
Now that modern-sounding thing, an oleoduct, carries a vast stream from
one of the other great wells (Potrero del Llano) to Tampico, to the
sea, where navies and merchant-ships await it, and we have begun a new
era in the mechanical activity of the world.
Mr. Walker enlivened it all with amusing tales of Indian laborers
and their ways when driven by Anglo-Saxons who suffer not the word
_mañana_. Underneath it is the beat of world-passions and world-needs,
and Mexico, lovely and uncertain, finds herself at once the stage of
mighty interests--and their battle-ground.
After dinner we betook ourselves to the big living-room, where the
phonograph was turned on, giving forth such national lyrics as "You
Have Another Papa on the Salt Lake Line," and "My Wife's Gone to the
Country, Hurray, Hurray!" The nearest we got to the classics was the
air from "Martha."
Burnside drove us home, after a turn in the dim, mysterious park.
The immense and splendid "Ship" was stretching low across the starry
heavens, and there were great spaces of intensest black between the
groupings of the constellations. These stars, under which I was not
born, have a strange and quieting influence on me. One cannot look
other than with stillness and awe on their luminous rhythm, compared to
the restless and confused "who knows whence, whither, or what" of the
Indian destinies they shine on. All that "vast and wondering dream of
night" which "rolls on above our tears."
Mr. J. B. P. gives a big luncheon at the Villa des Roses to-day, and
has sent me the list to seat. You see that we do move about, though
somewhat warily, in these regions of political quicksands.
The ambassador has always had the gravest doubts as to Madero's
competency. Nothing any of us have seen, up to now, has been
encouraging. It is one thing to inflame a country by promises of
everything to everybody; it's another thing to rebuild a state, as he
set out to do, from ruins, or even to sustain law and order, as he knew
it, and benefited by it, in his youth. That dreamy face of his makes me
think of the school-boy's definition of an abstract noun, "something
you can't see," and those hands, with their soft and kindly gestures,
are so unfitted for grappling with this special Leviathan--and
consequences are pitiless. Alas for the _peu de politique et beaucoup
d'administration_ of Diaz!
[Illustration: A BEAUTIFUL OLD MEXICAN CHURCH
Photograph by Ravell]
I discovered a decided hint of original sin in Elim yesterday. When I
told him to kneel in church he said his leg hurt him; when I told him
to make the sign of the cross he said his arms hurt him, and his neck
was like a ramrod when I told him to bow his head.
_April 27th._
A year ago to-day we set out on our tropical adventure, and the end
is not yet. I said to the ambassador yesterday, _à propos_ of picnics,
"What shall we do next Sunday?" He answered: "You may be on a war-ship
next Sunday."
However, the climax may not come for months, and it may not come that
way when we do leave, but it would be a fine finale!
_Later._
Your letter from Mentone of April 15th has just been handed in--twelve
days only; did it fly through space? I ask myself.
I have been reading an account of the death of the great viceroy,
Bucareli, which tells of the famous courier who was sent to announce
the nomination to his successor, Mayorga, then in Guatemala, building a
new capitol near the old, destroyed by earthquake. He did the distance,
over pathless mountains and deep valleys, in seven days, spurred on
by the motto of "the king is dead, long live the king"--in this case
translated into an old Mexican saying of "_No es lo mismo virrey que
viene que virrey que se va_" ("A viceroy that comes is not the same as
a viceroy that goes").
The Mexican post, in the old days, was auctioned off to the highest
bidder by the state, not a confidence-inspiring way of communication,
and it ended by wealthy people having their own runners. Now, in twelve
days, a letter takes its flight from the shores of the Mediterranean to
the Mexican heights! _Autre temps, autres mœurs._
There is from the time of the wars of independence the picturesque tale
of the "Courrier Anglais"; nothing English about it, except that an
Indian horseman by the name of Verazo would leave Mexico City in time
to reach Vera Cruz for the arrival of the packet from Southampton,
and in his saddle-bags would be the whole diplomatic and mercantile
correspondence of the capital.
He never stopped, except to jump from one horse to the other at the
relay stations, and was allowed privileges of safe-conduct by all
shades of combatants, regular and irregular. Once arrived at Vera Cruz,
he would eat copiously, sleep for a couple of days, and then return
with the mails to Mexico City, ready to repeat his exploits the next
month.
Do you remember that poem of Bret Harte's, "The Lost Galleon"? I came
across it the other day, fingering a volume of American poetry. It,
too, evokes pictures of runners bringing mails and valuables from the
Orient up from Acapulco, and begins:
In sixteen hundred and forty-one
The regular yearly galleon,
Laden with odorous gums and spice,
India cotton and India rice,
And the richest silks of far Cathay,
Was due at Acapulco Bay.
The luncheon at the Villa des Roses was very pleasant. The place is
kept by a Frenchwoman with a fine touch and an excellent cellar. She
has some wonderful _pâté de foie gras_ in a great _terrine_, just
out from France, and her _macédoine de fruits_ was _arrosée_ with an
ancient and mellow maraschino. The table was spread in a long glass
veranda, with thickly blossoming rose-vines, crimson rambler, trailing
over it. The Lefaivres, the Riedls, Von Hintze, the ambassador,
Rieloff, De Vilaine, Kilvert, Seeger, the Schuylers, and ourselves made
up the party.
Mr. Potter's lavishness as to menu made us feel somewhat
"boa-constrictory" as we rose from table, but we were able to get into
the garden and have our photographs taken by Baroness R., which I send
you.
_April 29th._
Burnside goes to the "front," which now means Huerta's army against
Orozco's; changes of front are among the natural phenomena here. It
appears General Huerta is full of resource and has contrived to enlist
and equip a large force in this short month.
I did not tell you of the dinner at the German Legation the other night
for the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Don Pedro Lascurain. Mrs.
Stronge presided, with him on her right, and I sat on his other side.
He is a tall, spectacled, near-sighted-appearing man with a pleasant
expression, but I understand he can see farther than most down
financial and political vistas. He has a natural _flair_ for business,
having made a large fortune by real-estate purchases in the new section
of the town, is moderate in the political sense, honorable and very
pious.
He told me about the _Sagrado Corazón_, the church he is building
almost entirely out of his own pocket for the Jesuits in the Calle de
Orizaba near his house. It had been so badly cracked in what is now
simply known as the "Madero" earthquake (June 7, 1911), not as a "sign
from heaven," that work had to be suspended on it while the foundations
were strengthened. N. said he remarked quite simply to him, in the
course of a conversation, "Why do you Americans talk of intervening in
Mexico? You own it already."
He has replaced Calero, sent as ambassador to Washington. I predict
that Calero will know a good deal more about us than we do about him
before he is done.
After much hesitation, Aunt L. has rented the big house near the
station to General Garcia Hernandez of the "military zone." They
would have taken it if she hadn't. It's certainly ideal for strategic
purposes; it commands a view of the whole country and the railway
is comfortingly near at hand. The large fly in the ointment is that
quantities of dynamite have been stored in it. She has been waiting
for days to go to Juchitan, where things are lively again. She does
not dare to drive over, and the train has not been going for some time,
a commentary on the regeneration of Mexico. If the taxes are not paid
there are fines, and they have to get to Juchitan to pay the taxes or
the usual devil gets the hindmost. Batches of wounded from there have
been brought in to San G.
Yesterday we went a-picnicking again to El Desierto--three motors
full--Mr. Potter, Mr. Butler, Mademoiselle de Tréville and her mother,
Burnside, Seeger, the ambassador, and ourselves. We all met at the
Embassy, where there was an immense amount of telephoning between
N. and the governor, Rivero, as to whether the first detachment of
soldiers, supposed to have gone early in the morning to prepare the
scene for festivities by clearing the brush of Zapatistas, really had
departed.
After circling round and round the Embassy, the sun so broiling we
could not sit still in it, we finally started off, the gentlemen
bulging with pistols, the motors heavy with cartridges. We were
preceded by a military auto containing two officers and eight men.
They nearly choked us with their dust, and only when we got off the
highway into the lovely forest stretch did we begin to "take notice"
again. Then the glinting of uniforms through the great trees, Miss de
Tréville boldly trilling some lovely variations on "The Star-spangled
Banner," the general feeling of adventure, not unmixed with pride as to
our boldness, made us once more "rejoice in the green springtime of our
youth," according to Nezahualcoyotl.
By the time we reached the luncheon site we felt ourselves perfect
daredevils and ready for anything. The only risk we did run (I hate
to relate it) was when a pair of excited mules, driven by a wild-eyed
Indian, coming from _quién sabe_ where, dashed upon us as we were
sitting innocently at lunch in the idyllic spot I wrote you of. They
were prevented by a big tree, only some four yards off, from completely
demolishing us. The wagon was smashed, and the picnickers fled in all
directions. The first thought of each was that it was the prelude to a
Zapatista play, and we _were_ on their stage. However, all's well that
ends well: and here I am on my sofa again.
The political mess thickens. So much might have been done, if all the
efforts of the government had not been expended on keeping in office.
War-ships are announced, some of ours, and the English and French and
Germans will take a look, too.
A curious complication about the railways has come to a head, involving
not alone money, but life. Shortly after Madero came in he endeavored
to get rid of the American railroad servants, who tried to get the
matter taken up in Washington, and there was a lot of unofficial talk
besides. Madero had ordered that, after a certain date, all orders
must be written in Spanish; the trainmen, while speaking Spanish, in
the majority of cases, could not write it sufficiently well for prompt
and efficient service. Mr. W. has been so convinced from the beginning
that Madero could not fill the position that he has lost interest
in personal communications. So he sent N. up to Chapultepec to see
Madero and explain to him the bad effect this would have. There were
even threats of boycott on the northern frontier by union trainmen,
who considered it would be an unjust act, as many of the men had
been in Mexico since childhood, and there were many of them over age
who couldn't get jobs in the United States. N. told him it was very
impolitic, etc., etc.
Madero thought it over and said in French: "You can tell the ambassador
that the order very probably will not go into force, though it is
impossible for me to revoke it." N. reported this to the ambassador.
Several days afterward, on April 17th, he met Mr. Brown on the links.
Mr. Brown said, with a smile, "That order went into force to-day" (Mr.
B. had to sign it as president). N. hurried off to the ambassador, who
was naturally very annoyed, and said N. must have misunderstood Mr.
Madero. N. thought his goose was cooked; that Madero would go back on
him and throw the interview in with a lot of other Mexican apocrypha.
But Madero was most decent about it all and said: "Yes, I did tell
Mr. O' S. so, but I was unable to prevent the order from going into
force." The result has been that a large body of trained men who
couldn't negotiate _la lengua castellana_ have been obliged to leave
the country, to their own and Mexico's detriment.