Part 17

De C. told us of his visit to the prison of San Juan Ulua, when he was last in Mexico. Evidently it is a horror. Madero had sworn that one of his first acts would be to do away with it, but there it is still. Nobody really trusts the situation here. Some one remarked that the quiet before something dreadful is going to happen is what is known as peace in Mexico. De C. had been off for a few days with the army, in the adjacent scenes of action. A general showed him his school medals by the camp-fire. One was for French, of which he did not know a word; the other was for geography, and he seemed to hear of Morocco for the first time by that same firelight. However, all he really needs to know is where the Zapatistas are.

The R. D.'s have taken a furnished house in Calle Dinamarca. Everybody flies, as soon as possible, from the evident evils of the hotels to any kind of unknown. They came in, looking so smart, she in a dark-blue tailor and a chic, flower-covered purple hat.

The plateau is thawed out again, and we will have no more cold this year. They tell me March and April are the warmest months here, before the rains begin to announce themselves.

_February 19th._

This morning, in a flood of sun, but with a "tang" in the early air, we went to meet Aunt L., and now she is comfortably resting with a book, _not_ about Mexico.

_February 22d._

This auspicious day was celebrated here by the unveiling of the large monument in white marble of George Washington in the Glorieta Dinamarca. The official Mexican world was out in force, also the diplomats. All the Americans in town, in whose hearts he was, indeed, first that day, watched the falling of the cloth from the face and form of the immortal George. Platforms had been built around the circle, the police kept beautiful order, and it might have been an "unveiling" anywhere, except for the outer fringe of peaked-hatted _pelados_ (skinned ones), who gather wherever any are gathered in any name.

I was deeply thrilled as the well-known features showed themselves, and our national air, beautifully played, rose to the shining heavens. The figure is standing, clad in a long cloak, and can be seen from the four streets leading into the circle.[37] The President gave a short address, and Mr. Wilson made one of his finished speeches--a happy combination of Stars and Stripes and Eagle and Cactus. I saw Aunt L.'s eyes fill as our looks met. They do stir one, these commemorations in foreign lands, where one feels to its fullest the privilege and pride of participation in a great citizenship.

_February 25th._

Yesterday I had a luncheon for Aunt L. Baroness Riedl, Madame Chermont, Mrs. Cummings and Mrs. Chemidlin (these latter friends of many years), Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Kilvert, and Mrs. Hudson came. In the evening we dined at the Embassy. I thought it warm and spring-like, but Aunt L., though piled with furs, nearly froze. It evidently isn't with impunity that one comes up from the tropics to visit a niece on the plateau.

_February 28th._

I am feeling a bit fagged this morning after the interesting, but quite exhausting, official "picnic" yesterday, to the celebrated pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan, offered to the _Corps Diplomatique_ by the _Gobierno_.

We met at the Buena Vista station for an 8.30 special train--a rather motley assemblage of some fifty or sixty persons, those who had the habit of jaunts in their blood, and those who had not.

The weather was the usual lustrous thing, only to be matched in beauty by what we had had the day before, and what we will have to-morrow. I looked about the various groups of señoras and wondered would they hold out, their garbs not being for such occasions.

One of the ladies asked me and Baroness Riedl if we were sisters. We look more unlike than Thorwaldsen's "Night and Morning," but we decided afterward that, as we had on tailored suits, white blouses with lace-trimmed jabots, small hats, neat veils, tan shoes, and parasols, we must have presented a certain superficial likeness of origin and atmosphere.

The Mexican women were mostly dressed in semi-evening gowns, spangles, paillettes, passementerie, presenting all sorts of touches, as they caught the light, not connected in the Anglo-Saxon mind with picnics. They also wore small, high-heeled, patent-leather slippers, and were accompanied by _niños_ of various ages.

You go out of the city by the hill of Tepeyac, where the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe is. All along the road are still to be seen dilapidated "Stations of the Cross," relics of the viceregal days, among the shunting tracks and railway-supply buildings.

There was a settling down of the elements of the party, foreign and domestic naturally gravitating to their kind, as we rolled out. The President and his wife, his mother and father, his two sisters, Madame Gustavo Madero, and various other members of the family were with us. Also the Vice-President and his family. After about an hour we got to the little village of San Juan Teotihuacan, where all sorts of venders of all sorts of antiquities, little clay pots, masks, bits of obsidian, charms of bloodstone, were ready for us. We climbed down the steep embankment and got into various "buckboards," I suppose they would call themselves, without any "buck," however, which were waiting to take us across a sandy stretch to the pyramids, which had seemed only insignificant mounds as we steamed over the glittering plain.

Our first destination was the Pyramid of the Sun, gigantic, impressive, as we neared it, and one of the few things giving a feeling of stability that I have seen in Mexico. The Minister of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, as we started out over the Path of the Dead, (Micoatl), was the cock of that special walk, almost putting Madero in the shade, figuratively, however, as there was not a tree within miles. The two principal pyramids, dwellings of the gods, were dedicated to Tonatiuh, the sun, and Miztli, the moon, but there are many smaller pyramids, supposed to be dedicated to various stars, and which once served as burial-places for remote, illustrious dead.

As we climbed up the great hewn steps, grass-grown, with all sorts of cacti making unexpected appearances, I could but think of the small mark the generations make in passing, and "Why so hot, my little man?"

When N. started up with Baroness R., one of the ladies said to her: "Why are you going up, and what will you do when you get up?" Baroness R. said, "We are going to take a look about, and come down." She glanced rather desperately at the pyramid and then at her tiny, patent-leather-slippered feet, which must have been in a condition fit for sacrifice in that broiling sun. She finished by sitting down on the first step with some other high-heeled ladies, with the same feelings and the same clothes.

It was a magnificent sight, once up there; the solitary eminence on which we stood put every thing in a wonderful perspective. Formerly on the apex of the pyramid there had been a splendid temple, containing a gigantic statue of the sun, made of a single block of porphyry, and ornamented with a heavy breastplate of gold. But I was more interested in Madero, once, at least, a _demi_-god, viewing from this great height kingdoms and principalities given into his keeping.

His expression was soft and speculative as he gazed about him, not of one who is tempted to gather things _to_ himself, _for_ himself; and I must say that, as I looked, I entirely acquitted him of personal ambitions. He seemed strangely removed from the difficulties of his situation, as materially and spiritually lifted above them as he was above the shining plain; but in the city, glistening in the distance, intrigues and dissolving forces of all kinds were at work against him. The far and splendid hills to which he perhaps may some day flee showed horizons of cobalt and verde antique, and they, as well as we, were folded in a dazzling ambience.

However, you have little time for dreams on official picnics--for just as I was, so to speak, _partie_--polite yet firm-willed photographers began to shove the living units into their proper places, with a special rounding up of the high-lights of the assembly, domestic and foreign, after which we descended.

I had my usual horrid sensation of falling as I looked from that great height down those huge steps between me and the not less solid earth. Mr. Madero gave me his arm and, somehow, I got down. A fierce sun was shining on us and reverberating from the dry plain as we made our way to the newly opened museum, where a very complete collection of objects, found around the pyramids, was carefully arranged in handsome glass cases; for some years, so _el Señor Ministro_ told me, the government had been excavating, and countless terra-cotta masks, similar to those which abounded on the Isla de las Mugeres, off the coast of Yucatan, had been unearthed. There was also a beautiful collection of jade objects, effigies, and masks of dead rulers; on the brow of one of the finest specimens was a diadem, or _copilla_, as the ancient Mexican crown was called.

If I hadn't been simply done up by the heat I would have been most interested in going over the collection, for the endless terra-cotta heads and masks, with entirely different features, mark the different races who have inhabited the plateau. My friend Humboldt, with whom I spent the evening, also the early night hours, and who had done the same thing just a hundred years ago, says the teocalli were _orientés_ as exactly as the Egyptian and Asiatic pyramids, and that the race the Spaniards found there attributed them to a still more ancient race, which would place them in the eighth or ninth century. They are composed of clay mixed with gravel, and covered with a wall of amygdaloid. What seems to be a system of pyramids is disposed in very large streets, following exactly the meridians, and which end at the four faces of the two great pyramids.

After an hour in the museum, which seemed _quite_ an hour, I must say, there was a welcome announcement of lunch, and we walked along a path called "Camino de Muertos,"[38] "walk of the _half_-dead," one of the exhausted foreigners called it, and descended into the cool dimness of a great and beautiful grotto, where long tables, flower-decorated and elaborately spread, awaited us.

The _Corps Diplomatique_ sat at the President's table; Von Hintze was between Baroness Riedl and myself, and an unidentified Mexican official or member of the dynasty was on my other side. The lunch was sent out from town by Sylvain and was most excellent. We could look out at a great patch of blue sky, and fringing the brilliant edges of the grotto were various cacti and rows of peaked hats and a single graceful pepper-tree. The Indians always spring up, as if by magic, from any place where there is a gathering.

N. and Riedl, instead of taking seats at the President's table, sat at a small table back of us, and we knew from their unseemly mirth that they weren't talking about the antiquities or improving their minds in any way.

After luncheon we all repaired to the Pyramid of the Moon, which nobody had the energy to ascend, going over a sidewalk made of ancient cement still bearing traces of red color. One of the smaller mounds had been opened by Señor Batres a few years before, and he found around and over it a building now called the "House of the Priests."

At this special place even the most enterprising of the foreigners began to wilt, and some polychrome frescoes are the last definite impression I received before we started back to the buckboards. The ---- minister, sitting too near the wheel, to politely make room, got jolted out, but we picked him up and soothed him by singing his national anthem as we went toward the train.

It was a long day, but one to be kept in memory with its background of obsidian, red clay masks, idols of jade, and works of a past race against which Mexican history continues to unfold itself.

_February 29th._

It is not leap-year which is occupying our thoughts down here. Orozco is openly in full revolt. With him are some thousands of troops and the whole state of Chihuahua.

[37] This statue was thrown down and dragged through the city the night of the breaking off of relations between the United States and Mexico (April 23, 1914).

[38] Pathway of the dead.

XX

Madero shows indications of nervous tension--Why one guest of Mexico's President did not sit down--A novena with Madame Madero--Picture-writing on maguey--Picnic at El Desierto--San Fernando

_March 3d._

Yesterday Mr. Taft issued a wise proclamation directing citizens of the United States to comply strictly with the neutrality laws between our country and Mexico till there is a change in conditions, which gave rise to various expressions of satisfaction at a large luncheon at Madame Simon's.

I sat by Mr. Chevrillon, a French mining expert since many years in Mexico, and also having a wide experience of our own southwest. He told strange mining stories; one about an ancient whip he once found in a remote chamber in an old mine, with a lash so long that it was a mystery how it could have been used in the small spaces. A detail, but it gave me a sudden, shivering glimpse into the sufferings of subject peoples. However, it's no use throwing stones at Spain for not having practised political liberty in those centuries. As we know it to-day, it was nowhere existent. It had not even begun to glimmer on any horizon, and certainly Mexico has lived through a terrible century since its light dawned on _her_.

_March 7th._

At the Chapultepec reception to-day one felt the tension.

Madero was walking up and down the terrace with his new private secretary, Gonzales Garza, clad in some sort of a dark suit, with a conspicuous peacock-blue vest, doubtless a family offering. His glance was more than usually visionary and introverted, his unacquisitive hands were behind his back; but can Mexico be governed by a well-disposed President from Chapultepec terrace? He has a way of avoiding facts, which, in the end, are sure to hit somebody as the national destinies take their course. One can only hope his sterling honesty will see him safely through the snares that are spread everywhere.

As I talked with him on the sun-flooded terrace above the gorgeous valley, with all Mexican creation at our feet, though he had his usual smile, I noted many wrinkles, as he stood bareheaded, and it was difficult to fix his eye, an honest eye.

The new Minister of the Interior, Flores Magon, took me out to tea. He is a huge, square-faced Zapotec Indian, rather portly--which they rarely are--with straight, black hair, a strong jaw, and observant eyes. The foreigner on the other side of me--whether his tale be true or apocryphal I know not--related that on his last visit to Madero, as he was about to sink into an inviting armchair he was hastily asked not to take it, for at that moment it was occupied by George Washington! As his surprised person was suspended over another and was half-way down, he was waved to still a third, for in the second was sitting Jean Jacques Rousseau! After which, fearful of incommoding other illustrious dead, he remained standing. _Si non e Verdi e bene Trovatore._

Madero has a certain natural inclination toward the French, fostered by those years at the Versailles Lycée, without, however, any of their logic or genius for facts, and he often converses vaguely, but admiringly, about the French Revolution. They say he sleeps with _Le Contrat Social_ under his pillow. He has not a single suspicion of the Anglo-Saxon mind, nor of that composite and extremely personal affair we call the national conscience; and still he is supposed to govern his country after our pattern. The whole seemed unrelated to the situation.

In fact, I told Aunt L., as we came away, that I didn't think the loggias and terraces are good for his psychology. You have no need for the firm hand when you are looking out upon a valley swimming in a strange transparency, where the hills seem of purest mother-of-pearl, inevitably leading to golden streets, not black heaps of earth peopled by passionate, starving human beings.

Am now off to the Red Cross. It is temporarily stationed in a beautiful old Spanish house, with a garden, and a large _patio_ and fountain in the middle, and doors opening on to it, in the Calle Alamo, a once fashionable part of town. Mexico was almost the last country to join the Red Cross organization.

_March 11th, evening._

At the reception at Chapultepec I found I had, by a curious chance, arranged with Madame Madero to make a novena with her to the Guadalupe shrine. Whatever reliance she may have had on accidental spirits in the past, I now see her having recourse to the one Great Spirit, the Cause of Causes. I don't feel unassailable by the chances of life myself.

She has been coming for me the past three mornings in the big presidential auto. N. and Aunt L. are thankful to see me return; they think a bomb, aimed at the conveyance full of piety, would not be beyond the bounds of possibility. I am sure Madame M. would do the distance gladly on her knees, instead of in the big car; her passionate solicitude for her husband's welfare has no limits, and she means to compel whatever powers there be to take the kingdom of heaven by violence, if need be. Like all people who are playing with great chances, she is, I fancy, superstitious. She arises very early, attends Mass, begins her day's work, and is at our house from the castle at 9.30, apparently going the rest of the day at the same high pressure.

I gather they prefer De la Barra not to return; indeed, the faces of any darken at the mention of other possible candidates for public favor. Jealousies and struggles of individual ambition are more evident than struggles for principles in this most personal of all games, Mexican politics.

There was not a hint of any political happening on her part, nor on mine, as I got into the motor this morning. She told me about the six children they have adopted at one time or another, according to various exigencies; all the children too small to make an appearance, however, on the presidential stage.

An Indian boy ran across our path and was knocked down by the auto, just as we were going through the teeming suburb of Peralvillo. In a moment a crowd gathered about us, giving vent to growls. We stopped and got out of the motor. The boy, fortunately, was not injured, and he was wearing few garments to dust. We gave him money, and the mollified parents, pulque-eyed and battered, received him tenderly, plus money and minus hurt, so we were able to drive on through the soft, shimmering morning, out the broad Calzadato to Our Lady of Guadalupe....

We came back through the old Plaza of Tlaltelolco, where the Church of Santiago still exists, though now the yards of the National Railways surround it, and it is used to store cotton and grain, the customs, too, having offices there. It was formerly connected with Mexico City by canals instead of these dusty streets, getting dustier every year, as the volume of water decreases in the valley.

Here Cortés found the great market he described in his letter to Charles V., and here Fray Gante taught the Indians for fifty years. Here, too, the first Bishop of Mexico is said to have carried into effect his unfortunate idea of gathering a pile of Aztec hieroglyphics, on cotton, maguey, or deerskin; and piling them mountain high; according to the historian, Ixtlilxochitl, he had them set afire. Now there are only squalid remnants of that civilization, here and there ancient corner-stones on which dilapidated _mesones_, lodging-houses for men and beasts, show themselves.

But, somehow, when one peeps in at the little courtyards the life itself doesn't seem so squalid. Any _patio_ you look into has a bit of color in the way of a child or a flower or a bright bit of garment. I thought of the three patrician women who, during the siege of Mexico, stood for several days up to their necks in water with only a handful of corn for nourishment, and of the last and noble Aztec king, Cuauhtemoc,[39] who, at the hour of Vespers, fell into the Spaniards' hands, and was brought to Cortés as he was standing on the terrace of a house in Tlaltelolco, watching the operations.

Cortés asked him to be seated, but the young king put his hand on a poignard that Cortés carried in his belt and asked him to kill him, because, having done what he could to save his kingdom and his people, it only remained for him to die. He was the son-in-law of Montezuma, and was escaping in a canoe with his young wife, just emerging into womanhood, when he was captured. History is so _evident_ here and so in relief--I have never lived in a place where the past follows and arrests one as here, though I doubt if Madame Madero, trying to pierce the heavy curtain of the future, gave it a thought this morning.

_March 12th._

The Blair Flandraus are here now, visiting Madame Bonilla. He is the "brother" in that delightful book, _Viva Mexico_, that I sent you, and meeting him made me remember a line where one brother says to the other brother, "What very agreeable people one runs across in queer, out-of-the-way places," meaning themselves, and quite warranted, as I have discovered.

I had a luncheon to-day for Mrs. Flandrau, and Madame Bonilla, Madame del Rio, Madame Simon, and Madame Scherer came. In the afternoon bridge at Madame Bonilla's, at which husbands and also the unattached and solitary appeared. In Mexico, when you have spent one part of the day with people, it isn't, as in more conventional climes, a reason for avoiding them the other hours.

We are all rather amused by the visible romance of a young _querido_ (lover) who stands for hours leaning against the garden rail of a big, handsome house in the Calle Liverpool, wherein his _inamorata_ dwells. The irate father has just built a trellis above the wall, gardeners are busy, and the quickly growing vines will soon make it a rather bootless pastime for the young man to _pelar la pava_. The girl is watched every moment, quite in the way of old dramas concerning unwelcome lovers, determined _Dulcineas_, and vigilant _duennas_.

_March 14th._

Went to the French Legation this afternoon, where one of Madame Lefaivre's pleasant "days" was in full swing. I met there the Marquis de Guadalupe (Rincon Gallardo), very polished and agreeable, and we looked at a most interesting old book of picture-writing on maguey, which shut up like a folding screen, with a piece of wood at each end to hold it fast. We opened it out on Mr. Lefaivre's long study table. It was of silky, papery fiber, as smooth to the touch as to the eye. Across strong, blue-black grounds were pictures of hunting scenes, or scenes of vengeance--hounds let loose from the leash, springing at Indians whose eyes bulged with terror. Forests were depicted and dark men entering them, and footmarks; a babe was being held to the heavens, and groups of Indians were selling and buying, bending over mats on which their wares were laid out, as to-day.

The Marquis thought it wasn't Aztec, but must have belonged to the period immediately succeeding the Conquest, as there was a Moorish touch to head-dress and garments. Mr. Lefaivre thought it was perhaps one of the cunningly wrought impostures of the sixteenth century. It was for sale for some thousands of pesos and in excellent condition. Life sometimes seems like it here.