Part 9
After lunch we drove to Chapultepec, a more beautiful or well-cared-for park I have never seen. It positively outdoes the Bois de Boulogne. In comparison with Central Park, where one is so aggressively over-guarded by men with whistles, in spite of which the place is littered with paper, this park is as neat as a private garden. Everyone seems to behave with taste and decorum, and there seem to be no guards to keep order. One or two mounted police in gray and red, wearing large sombreros and riding gaily caparisoned ponies, added to the picturesqueness. We hired a boat for an hour and rowed on the lake, but the effort of rowing made one’s breath short, and one’s heart did a variety of irregular movements. I had heard that the high altitude effected one this way. On a hill close to us stood the castle of Chapultepec, with its distant background of mountains. A beautiful situation to live in, but the most unenviable of positions. I think I would prefer almost any fate on earth except that of President of Mexico. Like the Roman Rulers, one after another, doomed to destruction.
FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1921. _Mexico._
In the morning I delivered my letter of introduction from Mr. Fletcher to Mr. Summerlin. In the afternoon I was asked to go and see him. He at once handed me a cable which had arrived the day before, and addressed to me under his care. It contained news that I read and re-read before my numbed brain could take it,--the announcement of Aunt Jennie’s[8] death. I tried to pull myself together and talk of things Mexican with Mr. Summerlin, who was very charming to me, but the weight of my news was overwhelming. I drove out to San Angel Inn, in the country with Dick and we had tea in the patio, where blue plumbago and magenta bougainvillia mingled together from the verandah to the roof. Dick played in a fountain. It was wondrously peaceful, and good to look at.
I have left England to “make good” and of all the people I love, and who love me, and whose eyes have followed me across the sea, Aunt Jennie’s were among the keenest. I would have liked to do my best work for her appreciation. Her praise, her approval, her advice, her love was something that counted. The loss of her, and the contemplation of years to face without ever seeing her again is difficult to grasp. I cannot imagine returning to an England that does not contain her. My second mother, my loyallest friend. She had the rarest qualities, and the largest heart, which made her loveable. She was “worldly-wise,” yet neither wise nor worldly. She loved passionately and generously as her heart dictated, and always she gave out more than she received. She married three times, and twice in a wayward and unworldly fashion. Partly what I am today is the result of her early influence. I used to admire and love her in a rather awe-struck way when I was a child, and when I was 17 I believed she could do no wrong. Her judgment seemed to me infallible. In those days we lived exactly opposite, in great Cumberland Place, London, and I used to sit with her every morning and while she dressed I was made to read the leading articles in the TIMES. I was very shy, having ran wild for years in Ireland. Aunt Jennie took the raw and untamed girl, taught her how to do her hair; made her put on her clothes with care, and scolded her into a civilized woman. She used to say to me: “While you are dressing, put your mind to it, and do the best you can with yourself. After that, never give your appearance another thought.” She would scold me unmercifully if I did not make an effort to talk to whatever man I sat next to at luncheon or dinner: “Remember you are asked, not for your amusement, but to contribute something to the party....” The letters of Lord Chesterfield to his son were as nothing compared to the worldly advice of Jennie Churchill to her niece. She frightened me, but I loved her, because I knew she was just, and I knew she was right. For years she took me out into the world and did with me the best she could. It became an accepted thing with me, that she had all the attention, and her admirers were kind to me on her account. I used to wonder whether I would have to wait to attain her age in order to have my own success. I never resented it, my admiration for her was too great, I just took for granted that things were so. In later years my awesome fear ebbed away, and we became confidential friends on a mature basis. I seemed after marriage to catch up to her, and in my widowhood we had a perfect understanding. There was nothing then that we would not tell one another and I bowed to her superior experience and judgment. Her understanding, her tolerance and her love had made her very precious. When I returned from Russia, she was my loyallest friend, and championed me. My last evening before sailing for New York, was a reunion _de famille_ at her house for dinner. After dinner she took me aside and talked to me intimately, and advisedly. She made me promise that if I did not like being in America I was to return at once, “You have a loving, a loyal and a powerful family,” she said, and hoped I was not going to be lonely or unhappy in a strange new world which she had known and left. At eight the next morning she surprised me by being at the station to wish me godspeed, I was deeply touched, but saddened by a rather wistful look in her face. God bless her, she was a splendid independent woman. She disregarded public opinion, and her own was very strong. She was beautiful and brilliant; never banal, never conventional, always a great personality.
She wrote, as Mrs. George Cornwallis West, the memories of “Lady Randolph Churchill” ... no one had more material, or more right to present it. Hurled into the midst of a political centre from the moment of her first marriage, she continued to the end the friend of every Prime Minister and every Cabinet Minister; a friend of kings, artists, writers, musicians, a dominating influence and a leader of thought and taste in a cosmopolitan as well as English society.
I prefer to think of her forever at rest, beautiful and brilliant and wonderful to the end.
SATURDAY, JULY 2, 1921. _Mexico City._
This morning we went to see the Cathedral. It sounds banal enough but one must see cathedrals! Outside it is very beautiful and imposing, and forms a whole side of the square.
It was completed in 1525 and represented the Mother Church of Spain. Almost on the same site stood the ancient Aztec Teocali of Tlaloc-huitzilopochtli, the great pagan sanctuary, in fact, the Cathedral was built to a great extent out of the same stones. Effacing the Cathedral from my mind, I visualize the great pyramidal Teocali with its five stories each receding above the other, and its flights of steps leading from terrace to terrace, on the summit was the great jasper sacrificial stone. Before the altar stood a colossal figure of Huitzilopochtli, the war god and the deity. Here burned the undying fires, which meant as much to the Aztecs as did the Vestal flame to ancient Rome.
It is amazing to recall that as late as 1486 the dedication of the Great Teocali was celebrated by human sacrifices to the extent of 20,000. One of the most dramatic episodes in the World’s History must have been the battle between the soldiers led by Cortez and those of Montezuma, a thousand combatants fought on this aerial summit in full view of the whole city. The battle raged for three hours and many of the combatants here were hurled from the height, Cortez himself narrowly escaping this fate. The victorious Spaniards rushed at the God Huitzil, and with shouts of triumph dragged him from his niche and tumbled him over the edge to the horror of the onlooking Aztecs. Thus ended Paganism and Christianity was established. In the place of the great Teocali, the Spaniards built a Cathedral. As a substitute for human sacrifices, they introduced the Inquisition. Instead of Huitzil, Christ in crude plaster, gaudily painted, with imitation blood, and a bevy of life-sized Saints and Angels, some of them kneeling on billows of plaster clouds, surrounded by bleeding hearts (imitation) and sham flowers, now reign supreme. This is the setting in which we found ourselves on entering and by chance we happened upon a wedding ceremony! The organ was abominable and the singing. All the poor women with their babies had followed in after the bride to witness this ever appealing ceremony! Most of the babies were dressed in a rather bright crude pink, the worst possible color for a dark yellow baby! Dick, who had never seen a wedding before, asked me in an awestruck whisper as the bridal party stood in a row at the top of the aisle: “Is she marrying the woman next to her?”
“No, the man....”
“Did you marry Daddy like that?”
“Yes--”
and then incredulously: “Dressed like that--?”
“Yes....”
He sidled up to me, and then asked shyly:
“Think you’ll ever marry again?”
“No--”
“I’d like to see you like that,--wish I’d seen you marry Daddy.”
If I’d told him a second marriage isn’t privileged to wear white, he probably would realize it wasn’t worth doing!
At midday I received the visit of the sister and niece of Mr. N. to whom I had delivered a letter of introduction. It is rather fun knowing real Mexicans and getting their point of view. I didn’t tell them and they didn’t seem to know that I had only met their kinsman once and I wondered what they did think. In the afternoon they fetched me for a drive, the car was owned and driven by the fiancé of the girl. We drove out into the country and were caught in the fiercest rain-storm. The car had only a hood and I had only a cape. One was frozen to the marrow. They took me to tea at the Reforma Club at Chapultepec, a tennis club organized chiefly by the English Colony. It looked truly English, and the cold and the damp made one feel as though in England. The English women whom I did not meet but looked at, seemed to be of that type that is neither interesting nor decorative.--One or two Mexican girls I was introduced to, as “my uncle’s friend....” It seems to me I might be explained to strangers in various ways, but “my uncle’s friend” is a fame that is new to me.
SUNDAY, JULY 3, 1921. _Mexico City._
The 4th of July was celebrated today. I suppose on account of its being Sunday. There was a garden fête at a place called “Tivoli.” The President was supposed to come; but of course he did not, nor ever intended to, for as long as the U. S. will not recognize his government, he will not recognize the U. S. national holiday. Mr. Summerlin and Colonel Miller and all the high-hatted and uniformed diplomats of various nations were waiting to receive him. Instead, the press kodaks had to comfort themselves with the belated but smiling Minister Pani of Foreign Affairs! With great ceremony they paraded round the ground in procession and the band played every conceivable Sousa March. I never realized how utterly unendurable civilized American music is ... I mean, not to include the jazz and the coon music, which has great character and charm. But there are things like “Yankee-Doodle” that just make one curl up. With a fictitious attempt at gaiety, I watched this celebration of the defeat of England. Dick enjoyed it, he bought bags of confetti, and realized for the first time the full joy of being able to throw handfulls of something straight in a person’s face. It was a lovely game.
MONDAY, JULY 4, 1921. _Mexico City._
My Mexican acquaintances, mother and daughter, took me to tea with some friends of theirs, who lived in a really lovely house, almost palatial. The daughter of the house was intelligent and spoke perfect English. I had a long talk with her and learnt something of the Mexican aristocracy’s view point: She said that decent and honest people in Mexico try to keep out of politics, and not to meet the politicians or the Generals. Otherwise they are persecuted by whatever Government follows for having even been friends with the Government that has been overthrown. The politicians of whatever regime have always been self-interested. Their object is to make as much as they can while their Government lasts. Against this there is no remedy. If the President tried to enforce rigorous measures against graft, etc., he would be turned upon and rent asunder. Referring to General Obregon, she said he was pretty well acknowledged by every one to be honest and purposeful, the best out of 15,000,000 people, but “thieves” as she expressed it helped him to become President, and he dare not get rid of them for that reason, “I suppose he is in honor bound to stand by them,” I said--“Not at all.” She contradicted, “but if he dismisses them they would plot against him.... His only way is to kill them.” (I felt I was probing this skin-deep civilization!!).
Everyone seems to live in great uncertainty. “In the Revolution” (I did not understand which of the many!) people’s houses and farms and motors, etc., were taken away from them. A few of them have been inadequately paid for since, and some farms have been returned to their owners, but in such a dilapidated condition as to make them almost hopeless.
“If anything happened to General Obregon, things would be far worse ... there would be chaos....” I was told. A Revolution is impossible unless the Indians are with it. They are very easily led, and always side with the richest General. I was told a good deal more, but it represented the average bourgeois point of view,--so ready to criticize, so inaccurate in its details.
TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1921. _Mexico City._
Today is Review day. It happens once a month. First the Firemen with a band marched down the Passo de La Reforma, past our Hotel. Then some soldiers and finally quantities of police. They were all smartened up, clean and white-spatted for the occasion. I rushed forward to photograph them, which seemed to amuse them, and one officer on horseback purposely made his horse rear for my benefit. People in the street seemed not to take the slightest interest, only a few loafers or foreigners looked on, and the usual crowd of women fruit sellers, who sold pulque (the national drink, made from the juice of cactus) to the men when they halted. The streets are conspicuous at all times by their absence of well dressed or prosperous looking people. Except for some business men, the people look nearly as dilapidated as those in Moscow. The shop windows contain the ugliest clothes. I wonder what the Mexican woman does when she wants a new dress.
This afternoon, Dick not being well enough to walk, we drove to Chapultepec Park. By lucky chance the driver spoke English. He told us we could see parts of the Castle, and drove us up to the Hill summit. We wandered around rather stupidly, there was no guide, and rumor has it that one can only see the Castle if one has a special letter from one’s consul. Presently two young men appeared, officials apparently, and they watched us and seemed to take an interest. Of course, in the end, although they could speak nothing but Spanish, we were carrying on some kind of understanding. They took us from terrace to terrace, higher and higher, until finally we were in a fountained flower garden on the roof. They gathered bunches of roses and carnations, pansies and violets for us, insisted on photographing us with our own kodaks and finally took us up the spiral stairs to the topmost tower, where the view of the town below and the plain and the mountains all round us was staggering. They smiled with satisfaction at our delight. On the way down we were shown some rooms and here our incoherent friends linked us on to a guide, who was showing some Americans over the Castle. I hear that Obregon prefers to live in a cottage adjoining, and small wonder: The Castle inside is as ugly as it is possible to be. The Chinese room, presented by the Chinese Emperor to President Diaz, is terrible. Only one bed room, I think it was Maximilian’s Queen’s, had some quite nice “Bulle” wardrobes. Pointed out as of special interest was a sitting room, all done up in pink: “For Miss Root....” I am ashamed of my ignorance in not knowing anything about this lady or her part in Mexican History.
I really felt speechless over the ugliness of the interior. There is nothing to recommend Chapultepec Castle except its position and its view. The imitation Pompeian decoration on the terrace walls are as bad as the “Mexican Work” which decorates the banquet room. The entrance gates, with bronze soldiers on the pillars are enough to warn one of what is in store, where decoration is concerned. However, it was well worth the time to see the view and we spent a charming afternoon, thanks to our unknown friends. In the evening I was discovered by the Press! Interviewers and photographers recalled early days in New York. But I mean to leave Mexico City--climate means more to me than anything else in the World. I cannot feel lonely or ill if I am in a place of flowers and sun. Such places exist quite near, we are wasting our precious days in the cold grayness of Mexico City. We came with only tropical clothes and it is the rainy season! I want to go away. I am only waiting for Dick to get well.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 1921. _Mexico City._
At 10 A.M. we went to Guadalupe by tram car. It took about twenty minutes. The Church, another of those magnificent edifices erected by the Spaniards, dates back to the 16th Century, and was in fact built about ten years after the Conquest of Mexico. This “Shrine of the Virgin” is the “Mecca” of the Mexicans. It is the centre every year of great festivals, and is supposed to be endowed with miraculous powers. The superstitious Indian regards this divine Virgin as a manifestation of the primitive “diosa” (Goddess) they once worshipped, and on December 12th of every year they celebrate their “Fiesta” in their own way, unhampered by priests. At the big entrance door, as I went in, a beggar was sitting. He looked like a sculptured “Goya” carved in walnut wood. Emaciated, old, expressionless, immovable with an out-stretched wizened hand and a bandage round his brow, he looked the picture of passive misery. I photographed him. Outside the Church was a whole encampment of natives selling the usual cheap rosaries, medals and holy cakes, called “Gondites of the Virgin” (Little fat ones of the Virgin).
We were the only tourists and the whole town seemed to be under canvas, selling fruits, knick-knacks and pottery--There seemed to be a world of sellers and nobody buying.
The Chapel of the Well is another building that can rival any in Latin Europe. It is exquisite with its domes of blue and yellow tiles. But we should have come here on a fiesta or a Sunday and seen the fervent Indian crowds. On an ordinary day there is not much movement.
THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1921. _Mexico City._
A lovely sunshiny morning (one has learned to appreciate that!), and we boarded a tram at the Zocolo and went to Zochimilco. It took an hour. We went as fast as a train across long straight stretches of plain. A big barefooted Indian insisted on talking to me, rapidly and at great length, in spite of my repeated “non entiendo.” Perhaps he thought I was only pretending not to understand, which is true, for I gathered he belonged to Zochimilco, owned a boat on the “lago” and wished to be our cicerone! As I knew nothing about him and dislike persistency, I turned a cold shoulder upon him.
Our tram took us across the plain and close up to the mountain feet. Arrived at the region of lakes and floating islands and with no one to turn to for information, the only strangers among a world of Indians, I humbly followed the persistent guide. He had an ugly but kindly face, and such a clean white smock that it gave us confidence in him. We followed him for some way along a narrow cobbled way, where wide eyed Indian girls wrapped around in blue shawls, looked at us curiously. After a while I stopped dead, and intimated that I wanted to find the lakes. Our guide looked hurt, even uglier for a moment, and I understood him to assure us he was “secure”--and that we need have no anxiety. A blind man, young, bare-legged, his head held high as all blind men do, came tapping after us with his stick. They always give me the creeps. I want to run in a panic, when I hear the tap-tap. He stopped when the church bell sounded and taking his hat off, he recited rapid prayers. I wonder if he was very philosophical about his blindness, or what his mental attitude could be towards his God. At this juncture however, we arrived at a canal, and our guide led us through a door-way into the courtyard of a house by the water side. Around the fountain some women were cleaning meat. I prepared my kodak, but everyone melted away, and an old grey-haired hag shrieked at me! A big man loomed into the background. He looked half-bred, rather negroid, and had a severe questioning expression. I made a bolt for the boat! This was a species of punt, with poles garlanded, and an awning overhead, made of a faded Mexican flag. It was crude and picturesque. In a moment we were under way and being punted noiselessly, along the canal which joins the lakes. The small poplar-like trees that were reflected avenues in the water, reminded me of Holland. The islands were all luxuriant with flowers, there seemed to be acres of carnations, mixed with pansies and chrysanthemums. In the water grew a lovely “aquatic lily,” as our guide called it. I have never seen one like it. The flower was mauve and like a small rhododendron. There were yellow water lilies as well, and arum lilies on the water’s edge. As we passed under a weeping willow, an irridescent humming bird flew out. I had never dreamed of seeing one outside of the Natural History Museum. The vision of it crowned my day.