has just arrived. He didn't fancy trying on, and in the struggle asked
me suddenly "Who was Jesus Christ's tailor?" I was a bit taken aback.
I must say I had never put those words or ideas together.
When I recovered my mental activity, I told him that Jesus' Mother
made his clothes for him, whereupon he answered: "These only came
from London," and wouldn't lift his feet from the floor when I wanted
him to try on some little trousers. He doubtless needed a spanking
which he didn't get. Mama was feeling decidedly slack after two nights
of dissipation at an altitude of nearly eight thousand feet. Madame
Montessori says a psychological change comes over children at the age
of six. I look forward to it.
Necaxa, State of Vera Cruz
_August 23d._
Station of the Light and Power Company.
I have only time for a word. We arrived here at five-thirty, after a
twelve-hour journey through indescribable beauty. We left the house
in a clear dawn--Rieloff, the Seegers, Burnside, and myself--and all
day have been winding through mountain passes, deep barrancas, with a
sound of rushing waters, and great forests of pine-trees, red and white
cedars, and delicate ferns almost as high, through which our little
geared-locomotive would have seemed a pioneer had it not been for the
sight of the delicate steel towers that support the wires of the Light
and Power Company.
In the afternoon great masses of shifting light flooded broad valleys
or stamped the heights with shining patches as the rain-clouds passed
and repassed between brilliant bits of sunny heaven. We came as the
guests of the Light and Power Company, and the manager and chief
engineer, an Englishman, Mr. Cooper, met us and brought us to the
club-house, very comfortable, according to Anglo-Saxon ideas, with
easy-chairs, verandas, etc. After a bountiful repast, according to the
same ideas, we walked about the little plateau, in an enchantment of
changing lights, till night suddenly fell and everything was blotted
out, and we bethought ourselves that _beata solitudine_ was the only
fitting finale to it all. We have planned a full morrow, which is near,
so good night.
_Sunday, 25th._
I did not write yesterday. In the morning Mr. Cooper took us down
to the dynamos, reached by a cog-railway, through a great, dark
tunnel-like incline with a bright speck of light at the far end.
We issued out of the cool dimness to find ourselves in a strange
gorge-like world of heat and light, with a great mass of falling
water, the distant edge of the waterfall outlined against a high,
shining heaven; against it, again, thousands of small, brilliant blue
butterflies, and on all sides the most gorgeous plants and trees. There
was an effect of some circle of Paradise, and something mysterious and
magic in the very practicality of it all, when one thinks that these
falls, nearly six hundred feet high--and a hundred kilometers from
Mexico City--supply the light and motor power of the town.
Doctor Pearson is the genius who controls it all, and his name is
breathed with awe at Necaxa.[59] As we stood looking up at the falling
waters, bright birds and heavy scents about us, "the white man is lord
and king of it all," I kept saying to myself.
To-day has been still fuller. In the afternoon we visited the great
dam that is just being finished to provide an immense storage reservoir
against the dry season. Water is as precious as gold in Mexico, and in
many places scarcer.
Some one remarked that there seemed to be little or no _mañana_ about
it, and Mr. C. told the story of one of his first experiences in
Mexico, when he was still under the spell of the time-table.
He was waiting at a station where the only passenger-train was
scheduled to pass every day at 9 A.M. He arrived at the station a few
minutes before nine, to see the train just disappearing. On complaining
to the _jefe de estación_ about this running ahead of time, he received
the bland response that it was _yesterday's_ train that had just passed
out and there was every reason to suppose that the train of to-day
would be delayed, perhaps as long! He cooled his heels till the next
dawn. But Necaxa wasn't built at a cost of a hundred million pesos on
that principle, he added.
We had started out after breakfast to explore the "French trail"--a
son of Gaul was once owner of Necaxa--plunging perpendicularly over the
side of the little plateau, to find ourselves on the most romantic of
footpaths, formerly the only road through the gorgeous wilderness.
It got hotter and hotter as we descended, and though Rieloff kept
insisting that, technically, we were not yet in Tierra Caliente, all
its abundancies seemed to surround us: giant ferns, ebony and rosewood
trees, lovely orchids hanging from high branches, convolvuli of all
colors; and under our feet mosses, by the yard, of rare and lovely
fabric, each patch holding a world of tiny forms and tints. I started
to follow one bit of morning-glory vine, but was obliged to give it up.
I could nor bear to break it, and it would have led me, like an endless
thread, through a labyrinth of sarsaparilla, myrtle, and fern.
The brightest of birds and butterflies were flying about--the sort of
things one finds under glass in northern museums--and a huge, scarlet
flower of the hibiscus type was everywhere splashed over the green.
Here and there an Indian appeared from _quién sabe_ where. It was all
his and yet not his.
We came up in the cool dimness of the cog-railway, and after cold
douches and luncheon, enlivened with entomological discussions (that
lovely wilderness is alive with invisible biting specimens), we went
with Mr. Cooper to the reservoir.
We have spent the evening mostly meeting the officials of the company
and playing bridge. (!) Though it was the least _noblesse oblige_
allowed, it seemed a lot after the long, full day--_on paie ses
plaisirs_....
However, they were all so nice and so pleased to see people from the
outside world that, once in our "bridge stride," it wasn't so hard.
Rieloff, who hates cards, after a while went to the piano, bursting
into "_Du meiner Seele schönster Traum_"--following it up with the
"Moonlight Sonata"; so, in the end, we found ourselves sitting in a
dimly-lighted room, with Beethoven floating out on the soft Indian
night--and all was well.
I am dead with sleep, and early to-morrow we depart.
42 Calle Humboldt,
_August 26th, late evening_.
We were awakened at 5.30 in a dawn of such exceeding beauty that, as I
stepped out into it, I was tempted to fall upon my knees rather than
hurry to our little train. On one side were the hills, so veiled in
splendors of filmy pearls and blues and pinks that their forms could
only be imagined; on the other was an abyss of gold and rose and
sapphire into which our train was to plunge.
All day long we went from glory to glory; but I got home to find
that something human and dreadful had happened in my absence: Little
Emma C., playing over the roof with Laurita and Elim, escaped for
one unexplained second from Gabrielle--fell from it to the stone
_patio_--her fall, for an instant, broken by a balcony railing.
I hurried to her mother's. The child is alive, but dreadfully injured,
and, it is feared, for life. Nature was too beautiful at Necaxa not
to exact some sort of toll from those admitted to it. I am dreadfully
upset.
[59] Dr. F. S. Pearson, to whose genius this astounding
engineering feat is largely due, lost his life on the
_Lusitania_.
XXVII
A luncheon for Gustavo Madero--Celebrating the _Grito_
at the Palace--The President's brother explains his
philosophy--Hacienda of San Cristobal--A typical Mexican
Sunday dinner
_September 3d._
The _funcion_ I gave yesterday went off with a good deal of snap.
Everybody in town was there, and the house filled to bursting. Elsie S.
and I brewed the classic Grosvenor punch ourselves and arranged masses
of flowers everywhere. Probably it will be the last gathering I shall
have, _sic transit_, etc.
Madame Madero came with her two sisters-in-law. She seems more worn,
thinner, and older; a year heavy with anxieties has passed over her
since I first saw her in the flush of hope and triumph at the German
Legation.
The Porfiristas--all the old régime--hold the United States responsible
for Madero's success, because of our permitting him to organize and
finance himself on our border, and there are others who think, rather
paradoxically, that it is due to us that he has not had _more_ success.
As for the Maderistas, they don't understand anything, feel no
obligation to us, and wonder why we don't do more. The active
anti-Maderistas feel very bitter that in any revolt aimed against
Madero they can't "use" the border. Nobody has any political love for
us. We loom up as uncertain in our mode of action, but powerful as
arbiters of destinies.
I have not been watching as carefully as I might the great, threefold
presidential race at home. It's a consoling thought that any one of
them will make a good President and under any one of them the United
States will pursue its vast and brilliant destiny. Methinks, however,
as regards two of the candidates, that, after the White House, no other
place can ever really seem like home.
_September 4th._
Luncheon here to-day for the Gustavo Maderos. He came in with rather
more energy and magnetism than usual, and kept things lively. He
produced from his pocket and presented to the various assembled guests
some small, gilded statues of St. Anthony, in little glass, bottle-like
reliquaries. He said San Antonio was his patron saint, and quite
frankly stated that he was superstitious.
His wit is of the ready kind--readiness in all things is doubtless
his greatest quality. He seems not only excited by his prosperity
and prominence, but intoxicated by it all. There is no gainsaying
the fact that he does give a magnetic hint of possibilities by that
abounding energy and life, overflowing and communicative, if he only
wouldn't give the effect of taking everything in sight for himself or
his friends. He is continually enveloped in clouds of incense by the
expectant who form his circle.
There are questions, from time to time, of the seven hundred thousand
pesos he got from the treasury for the expenses of the revolution, but,
to do him justice, it appears there are national, as well as family
reasons which make it inexpedient for him to fully explain.
As he was smoking his cigar in the library after lunch he said to
me, with an intellectual flash: "Señora, we Latin-Americans think of
everything you think of, but we don't put our thoughts into action. I
am different. When I decide on something I act immediately, which is
why I ought to succeed."
I thought there was a whole world in that remark. One of the
difficulties here _is_ the turning of their very brilliant ideas into
action at the psychological moment. Madame Gustavo M. is handsome in a
rather more artificial style than the other dynastic consorts. She has
done something to her hair. But all the Madero women have qualities of
good looks, freshness, and amiability.
As they said good-by, standing on the veranda, the perfect square of
blue heaven above us, I thought how typical Gustavo Madero was of
Latin-America in many of its aspects, and that he was gifted with
some qualities not often found here. He is above medium height,
with reddish-brown hair, and inclines to the flashy in dress and
gesture--the type of the clever _rasta_. He is known as _ojo parado_,
but after lunching with him on my right in that sun-flooded dining-room
I couldn't tell which was the glass eye and which the mortal orb. They
were both of an astounding brilliancy.
_September 11th._
The War Department orders two regiments of regulars to the Mexican
border to reinforce the soldiers on duty, but they don't like it down
here. The _Intransigente_, living up to its name, had an editorial
which rather took our breath away, to the effect that nothing can be
done while the American fist is threatening Mexico.
It speaks in the name of every Indo-Spanish nation, decrying the smiles
of ambassadors and the hypocrisy of official notes, and saying that
our affections, at the best, can only be diplomatic, that we can have
treaties for the carrying on of commerce, etc.,--that anything where
the spirit of the two peoples does not touch can be provided for. But
"our soul is against their soul, their cupidity against our pride; our
faith is the Latin faith, the faith of the Scipios and the Guzmans;
theirs is the _fides punica_ of the _Maine_ and the Panama Canal!"
Now that what all really feel has been said, perhaps the air will clear
for a day. I had some time since concluded, with Thomas Jefferson, that
"the press is a fountain of lies," but this was for once the crystal
truth. The _collègues_ were quite excited about it, and I have no doubt
the statement was sent in full to their various foreign offices as
indicative of the underlying sentiments.
Mr. Stronge, who is most conciliatory, and a natural uniter of
factions, somewhat belying his Irish blood (when I asked him, "Irish
diplomacy, what is it?" he didn't know the simple answer, "See a head,
punch it"), considers this only a passing flare-up. But _quién sabe,
quién sabe?_
_September 16th._
We went, last night, to the palace to celebrate the _Grito_, and again
I saw those tens of thousands of upturned faces, as we stood upon the
balcony overlooking the Zócalo.
I was taken in to supper--the usual ceremonious, standing affair--by
the Minister of War. He showed me a telegram confirming the capture
of Orozco, who was not captured at all. They are very previous about
accepting congratulations concerning good news, whether true or false.
The President was receiving felicitations all the evening, and the
Minister of War said, "We will of course shoot him immediately if Los
Estados Unidos will extradite him." He was supposedly to be taken on
American soil. This morning we saw there had been a big defeat of the
Federal troops; El Tigre mine taken, etc.
Prince Auersperg was at the palace, too. He was trying to interest
the Mexicans in a patent cartridge-belt, just the sort of toy they all
naturally love. I referred him to the Minister of War, and turned to
the "green isle of Cuba" on my other hand.
Afterward, as I watched the vast concourse, I felt a _serrement de
cœur_. A something came out of the crowd--a quality of uncertainty,
destructiveness, force, suffering, heroism, irresponsibility,
persistence. The words of Holy Saturday recurred to me, "_Popule meus,
quod fecisti tu?_" What have you done,--what will you always do?
There is a something so irresistible and strong in life here. They
are simply ground out, these generations, renewing themselves with
terrible ease. The begetting, the mother-pain, the life pilgrimage, the
death-pains--there is such an abundance of it all, but though just as
tragic and mysterious, not as unlovely as in the slums of great cities.
I am to press on to other things. What can one do, save leave it to
God? But I felt unspeakably sad as I turned back into the great _sala_,
where I saw the pale, illumined face of the priest Hidalgo looking down
upon it all from its heavy gold frame. I stood by Mr. Lefaivre, as we
were waiting for the motor, and he said, "_Il_ [Madero] _veut gouverner
avec des vivas_." It is the situation rather in a nutshell.
I am sitting out here in the park, with only this scrap of paper, which
is so crisscrossed that you won't be able to read it. But, oh! this
heavenly, _washed_ morning--this freshness of light filtering through
the trees! Elsie and Elim are coming in sight, making such a charming
picture across the green spaces with the glinting sunlight--a magic
world.
My "day" this afternoon, and then dinner at the Embassy. The Schuylers
return shortly. I have told Gabrielle to put out the white satin dress.
Its days are numbered, like mine.
_September 17th._
Last night a great crowd at the station to say good-by to Señor Rivero,
former governor of the Federal District. He has now been sent as
minister to Buenos Aires, and goes _via_ Spain--a rather zigzag route;
neither he nor his wife nor any of the six children nor accompanying
servants were ever out of Mexico before.
Again in the park; shining, fresh, the band playing, the children
running over the grass with their butterfly-nets; but I must go home,
as I am having people for lunch.
_September 18th._
Some one is playing the "_Liebestod_"; it floats in through the open
windows. It is now nine o'clock; my thoughts are turning from this
strange and gorgeous Indian plateau to other climes--to things my
spirit is familiar with. Madame Lefaivre is pressing me to go with her
on the _Espagne_. We would like to make the voyage together.
Played bridge this afternoon at her Legation with Auersperg and De
Soto. Mr. Lefaivre and Elsie S. immersed in chess. It was raining the
proverbial "cats and dogs."
It is very pleasant seeing Auersperg--some one with all those
traditions, and yet who has been through the American mill. A
German-speaking lunch yesterday--Von H., Auersperg, Riedl, Rieloff.
Auersperg regaled us with a description of his first and only eating
of an iguana, a sort of cross between a lizard in looks and a pig in
taste, at some hacienda near Cordoba. He was screechingly funny and
sang:
"_Nur die Jugend giebt uns Schwung,
Nur die Liebe macht uns jung._"
A far-off look replaced the twinkle at any reference to Vienna. He is
short and stout, but the God of wit lives within, looking out of his
brown eye, smiling about his wide mouth, and he carries with him an
atmosphere of deep kindliness at all times. He departed from Vienna
in his earliest youth, came to New York, studied medicine, got his
diploma "all by himself" which shows the pluck and ability which may
be concealed under the cover of the "first society" and "protection."
Baroness R. left last week.
I see that Demidoff has been appointed minister to Greece, where he
will find a Russian queen. Athens is fortunate to have him.
Last night we had supper at the Gambrinus restaurant with the Gustavo
Maderos, the Darrs, and Colonel Eduardo Hay, this last a figure of the
Madero revolution.
The place started out by being a German affair, but no matter what
nationality opens a hotel or restaurant here, it ends by being Mexican.
Gustavo Madero repeated his famous remark that of a family of clever
men the only fool among them was chosen for President. He has a sense
of humor that does not care much who or what it demolishes, and a sort
of prevision about a joke.
He incidentally spoke of _El Cocodrilo_; when I asked who the
individual might be, they told me it was Diaz! How terrible is the
stuff of dreams when it is spilt over a whole nation! It sometimes
seems as if the entire government had eaten _marihuana_.[60] Gustavo
Madero was elected Deputy in the last July elections, and has the
majority in the House where he "wants" them--under his thumb.
He was amusing, but cynical (as he well may be), about the cry of
"free land," saying that it would engulf, in the fulfilment of its
high purpose, any man in any party starting out under its banner. "And
the people won't get the land," he added; "they never do, anywhere. It
isn't only in Mexico, as foreigners seem to believe."
We caused a cloud to come over his face when we asked if he were soon
starting for Japan. He has been delegated to thank the Mikado for
participation in the Diaz centenary celebration of 1910. You see how
fast Mexican events move, and how infinitely unrelated to one another
they sometimes are! He said, with a rather sharp look in his eye, that
Japan was _muy lójos_ (very far), and it certainly is far from these
Mexican political fields, apparently white for the harvest.[61]
_September 21st._
Recently a band of Mexican regulars made the journey from El Paso,
_via_ the United States, to some point in Sonora. Several of the more
up-to-date papers at home are worrying for fear, unless our Monroe
Doctrine be more extensive and comfortable, the "house guests" won't
stay. There is one consoling aspect to the Zapatista outrages, as
far as Madero is concerned. They always relate to his own people, and
so can be dismissed. But the outrages in the north are not so easily
disposed of where American and Mexican _meum_ and _tuum_ is involved.
A letter from ----, dreading life, fearing death. His is a ravaged
existence and "pain's furnace heat within him quivers." I sent him the
inclosed verses, which came to me in the night. It is the simplicity of
death, after all, that is its wonder.
To ----
Why should I fear to die?
When all I love do tread
Among the quickened dead?
If they, then why not I?
If their wills have reposed
From acts the sense hath known,
Why then myself alone
Affright and uncomposed?
Shall I not rather deem
If they give back no groan,
They lie not there alone,
In some cold, heavy dream?
But have returned home,
As one at eventide
By his swept fireside
Sitteth, but not alone.
* * * * *
So steadfast are the laws
That bind us each to each,
They scarcely give us pause
To weep that which they teach.
_Sunday evening._
A long day. N. is at the Embassy; the house is quiet, except for water
still dripping heavily from the roof. My Mexican sands are slipping,
and this morning my eyes looked their last on the so-familiar beauty of
the plateau. Early Mr. de S. and Mr. S. and myself started out from the
city, down the shining Avenida San Francisco, through the Zócalo, past
the palace, through the Calle de la Moneda, where the French troops
entered in 1863, out past the San Lázaro station, on to what was once
the ancient Aztec causeway.
There we met three fishermen, clad only in small breech-clouts, with
long poles over their shoulders, on each end of which were small nets
full of little fish. They were moving along silently, swiftly, the sun
glistening on their wet bodies, just as from the night of time dark men
have moved over that causeway.
We passed the sun-baked Peñon Viejo, with its clump of trees, its bits
of cactus growing on its grassy sides, and the old Church of Santa
Marta on a farther hill. On one side the road is bounded by the white
_tequesquite_ shores of Texcoco, with little piles of soda gathered up
at intervals. On the other are the green, sweet-water shores of Lake
Chalco, and the little lake of San Martu, so near the Texcoco lake
that there is just room between for the railway and the motor road. At
Los Reyes, about eighteen kilometers out of town, we branched off to
Texcoco over a highway running through maize-planted fields, under the
great cypresses and eucalyptus-trees of the Hacienda de Chapingo, along
more corn-fields, till we bumped into Texcoco.
The usual Sunday market was in full blast around the _portales_ of the
Plaza, and there was a coming and going in the old church as I stepped
in for a moment. Here Cortés lay by his mother and his daughter for
over one hundred and fifty years. The little near-by chapel, with its
antique baptismal font, was built by the Conqueror himself, and shows
how limited were the means he had at his command when bivouacking
in the "Athens of Mexico." As I bid farewell to these scenes of his
romantic deeds and the long-time resting-place of his venturesome
heart, I bethought me of his watchword:
_Por el rey infinitas tierras_
_Y por Dios infinitas almas._
We went on toward the beautiful little village of Magdalena, entered
through some wonderful plantings of organos cactus, and at the entrance
was the little pink-and-blue pulque-shop, with its motto, so true of
all things earthly, "_Paso á paso se va llegando_."[62]
The sun shone through the cypress and eucalyptus in the atrium of the
lovely old church, and Indians, in clean, white clothes were going
to Mass. There was an assortment of wide, flounced petticoats, quite
striking in these days of tight skirts. All was as I had first seen
it, except that some feet would never tread these paths again, while
others were beginning to toddle about, and nature had blossomed and
reblossomed, and I myself was to pass. That was all.