Edith O'Shaughnessy

The feast of Guadalupe—Peace reigns on the Isthmus—Earthquakes—Madero in a dream—The French colony ball—Studies in Mexican democracy—Christmas preparations

December 1st.

A pinching, cold snap, the result of a norte of long duration blowing from Vera Cruz. The heat quickly goes out of the body, and at this altitude is not easily made up again. I have been penetrated to my soul as if by a thin knife. The air is so attenuated that there is nothing to it except cold, no exhilaration. The oil-stoves, I have discovered, are not lighted with impunity. They have a way of suddenly emitting a long, high column of black smoke, after which something detonates, and the room and the people in it are covered by a fine, black soot. One rings, the source of trouble is removed, and one stays cold.

Very pleasant lunch here yesterday; the only way to get warm is to eat, drink, and be merry, especially this last. The luncheon was for the Belgian minister, who had been appointed to Copenhagen. Can't you hear us telling him about the Rabens and the Frijs, Klampenborg, and the HÔtel d'Angleterre? The Lefaivres brought a friend who is staying with them—Vicomte de KargarouÉ, a Breton of the vieille noblesse, who is that anomaly, a French globe-trotter.

I am sending you in the form of Christmas cards some samples of present-day feather-work; a pale relic of the plumaje the Aztecs used to be so famous for, persisting through the ages. It doesn't at all resemble the beautiful feather-work mantle, said to have belonged to Montezuma, that I saw among the treasures in the Hofburg at Vienna.

December 4th.

Society is agog here; it is the first appearance on any scene, since my arrival, of the erste Gesellschaft. A young man shot and killed another at a famous club, and then died as the result of an accidental wound to himself. He was married on his death-bed to the mother of his children; the whole is a story for the pen of IbaÑez or Echegaray. For hours the streets were filled with carriages and autos taking floral tributes to the stricken mother. Oh, the hearts of mothers! So many crimes, social, civil, and national are being committed all over the world, but everywhere some souls are yearning for perfection—to keep it all going!

December 6th.

My little luncheon for American women went off very well. The dishes Teresa knows—the classic huachinango, cold and "well presented," with a good mayonnaise sauce, the small, fat-breasted ducks with peas, that every one is serving at this season here, were the "chief of our diet."

Mrs. Kilvert, Mrs. C. R. Hudson, Mrs. Paul Hudson, the wife of the editor of the Mexican Herald, Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Beck, Mrs. Bassett and the ambassadress and her sister came.

This is just a word while waiting for Mrs. Wilson to come back for me to go on a calling bout with her. She goes home to spend the holidays with her boys, so I shall have to do what Christmas honors are done—a tree and incidental tea.

I inclose a little verse by Joaquin Miller that I cut out of the Herald this morning. Though outrageously bad, the line "glorious gory Mexico," is unforgetable.

MEXICO

Thou Italy of the Occident,

Land of flowers and summer climes,

Of holy priests and horrid crimes;

Land of the cactus and sweet cocoa;

Richer, than all the Orient

In gold and glory, in want and woe,

In self-denial, in days misspent,

In truth and treason, in good and guilt,

In ivied ruins and altars low,

In battered walls and blood misspilt;

Glorious gory Mexico.

Evening.

Among our visits to-day was one on Madame Creel. They have a very large and handsome house in the Calle de Londres, not yet quite finished. Everything French. In the drawing-room where Madame C. received were two splendid SÈvres vases, and great French-plate mirrors and French brocades cover the walls. Mr. Creel, fresh-complexioned, white-haired, speaking English very well, and liking to recall ambassadorial days in Washington, took us over the uncompleted part of the house. The large ball-room is awaiting special bronze electric-light appliques, door and window fastenings, now on their way from Paris, where all the woodwork of the house was executed.[27]

December 11th, evening.

This afternoon Madame Lefaivre and Mr. de Soto and I went out to Guadalupe to see the preparations for to-morrow's feast, the greatest in Mexico.

Indians were arriving from all directions, bivouacking close up against the church. They seemed to have brought not only all their children, but all their furniture in the shape of petates and earthen bowls, and any incidental live-stock they possessed in the shape of goat or dog. It was quite cold, and in the dusk they seemed like their own ancestors coming over the hills for the worship of dreaded and dreadful gods.

Nothing except the Deity and the temple has changed since the old days; they themselves are unmodified, and seemingly unmodifiable. I dare say one would give a gasp if one could really see what they thought about the Virgin of Guadalupe, or the "Cause of Causes."

They come in from hidden mountain towns, where images of other gods are still graven, and where charms and incantations are used, which doesn't at all affect their devotion to "Nuestra SeÑora de Guadalupe." Often they are many days en route, and all night until dawn they will be arriving at the great shrine.

We crossed the plaza to a near-by house, where a painter-friend of Mr. de S.'s lived, going up some winding stone steps in a house built at the end of the sixteenth century, giving into irregular-shaped rooms with strange windows apparently not designed to give light. The paintings portrayed little or nothing of the charm of Mexico, but Madame Lefaivre found one of some place near Cordoba, which she thought for a moment that she wanted. I would much rather have closed my eyes and looked in on my inner Mexican gallery, or been out with the mysterious Indians in the mysterious twilight which was enveloping the crowded plaza.

When we finally came out lanterns were being hung on the little booths, tortilleras were slapping up their cakes, and everywhere there was a smell of the pungent peppers and all sorts of nameless things they put into them. Children were rolled up asleep or playing about half-clad in the cold dusk, and zarape-enveloped men bent over dimly lighted squares of cloth laid out on the ground, engrossed in games of chance. I was suddenly sad, as one might be at seeing rolled out the inexorable scroll of a subject people.

December 12th.

Beautiful weather, soft, shining, clear—but that cold snap was a terror. Many little brown Indian babies returned to their Maker by way of bronchitis, pneumonia, and kindred ills. It is good to think of them warm, safe with the Lord, so many children with none or insufficient clothing in that cruel, lifeless cold!

It has been rather a day of contrasts, for in the morning I mingled again with the Indian world at Guadalupe,[28] and in the afternoon I went to the benefit held for a new charity hospital by a committee of American women. The affair crystallized about the art exhibit of Miss Helen Hyde, who has a collection of the most lovely Japanese things done on her recent visit to Nippon. She calls them chromozylographs, and they are charmingly framed in plain black strips. I bought several after harrowing indecisions.

Madame Madero came and had tea with us at a table over which Mrs. Wilson presided. Madame Madero was almost extinguished by a huge bronze-green and purple hat matching her velvet dress. Madame Calero and Madame Lie made up the party, with Mrs. Stronge, the newly married wife of the British minister, who has just arrived. She had on some interesting emeralds, picked up in BogotÁ, their last post.

Mrs. Wilson goes to-morrow. I always miss her kindness and her consideration.

Christmas is in the air. We dine with the ambassador at the Kilverts' at Coyoacan on that day. My thoughts will be with my dear ones, and the seas, the mountains, and the valleys between will hurt.

Just now the following was handed in to me through Mr. Cummings: "Governor Juarez left for Oaxaca last night. General Hernandez and troops left for Juchitan this morning. Peace reigns on the Isthmus."

It looks as if it soon might be time for a lone exotic niece to betake her to those regions.

December 15th.

A very interesting letter from San GerÓnimo of the 12th came this morning. The governor, with his party, had just left the house for Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz. He had come most unostentatiously, with only his secretaries and a few officials—no guard, no private car, no banquets—as he said he had come to restore peace, and not for feasting.

The celebrated Che GÓmez, an hour or so before, had been sitting, uninvited and unafraid, on the front porch. When he learned that the governor was expected he betook himself off, with followers and guard, to another station. The governor subsequently wired the police at Rincon Antonio to arrest him on the arrival of the train before he got out of the state (Oaxaca). He was taken to jail, and that night was shot with his men.

No word of regret anywhere for his fate, and I dare say he gave up his own life as easily as he had taken that of others. Governor Juarez was warmly welcomed by all the towns, even by poor, ruined Juchitan, Che GÓmez's own town, with open arms and flowers. The law-abiding citizens are returning to their dismantled homes, after living in the bush, from hand to mouth, for weeks.

December 16th.

This morning at 11.30 a "good" earthquake. It suddenly got very dark, and I went to the window, my infant clutching at my dress, to see what was happening, when the roofs of the houses opposite began to undulate, and I had to catch hold of the window, or we would have been thrown to the floor.

The horses stopped short with perfectly stiff legs, and people began running out of the doors and kneeling in the street and shrieking, "Misericordia! Misericordia!" most uncomfortably. Nothing was broken in the house, but every picture was left hanging askew, and pale servants served a luncheon which showed the effects on them!

Elena appeared collarless, with damp, thick hair floating down her back, and Cecilia had a blue rebozo twisted about her, no hint of white anywhere on her person. They passed the dishes at an angle of forty-five degrees.

Later.

At three o'clock a dimness again fell upon the city, and there was the faint, uncanny sound of sliding objects and slipping pictures and swaying doors and curtains. In a second of time it had passed, but the hint of cosmic forces leaves a decided trace on mere flesh and blood.

We went to the reception at Chapultepec on Thursday, "par charitÉ, pas par snobisme," as somebody unkindly said. The Mexican families of repute boycott the Madero receptions. The few Mexicans who do go don't figure in the real national accounting. The diplomats feel that they at least ought to go, so last Thursday the inclosed clipping was produced.

Madame Madero, though small and worn-looking, is always dignified and courteous, and receives with simplicity and cordiality. Madero seems in a continual ecstasy; one would think he found Chapultepec the seventh heaven. He is full of confidence in himself and in the country. A happy man, one involuntarily says in looking at him. To-night is the ball the French colony gives for him.

December 17th.

The reception at the "Cercle FranÇais," in their fine quarters in the Calle de Motolinia, was a great success. The President with Madame Lefaivre, in a handsome black-and-white gown, and Mr. Lefaivre with Madame Madero in a dark, rich evening dress, headed the procession to an elaborate supper, all following according to the protocol, Mr. Madero and Mr. Lefaivre sitting facing each other. Allart took me in.

Everything was decorated with the tricolor, and red and blue and white lights, and masses of natural flowers, and very good music played continuously; the affair was got up by the wealthy French commerÇants in honor of the President and his wife.

Madame Lefaivre said the President talked to her the whole time in a most sanguine manner about the reforms he intends to introduce, especially in the matter of public instruction, and was wrapped about with illusions and dreams as to his rÔle of apostle charged with the regeneration of Mexico.

Afterward, when he made his speech in answer to the toast, he recalled happy souvenirs of his youth in the LycÉe de Versailles. When they subsequently made the tour of the salon, Madame Lefaivre, in passing me, whispered that she was toute confuse at feeling herself so big on the arm of the little President. He saluted right and left with a smile which, without being fixed, was always there. I think he was very pleased with the occasion and its international setting.

It is always interesting to see any colony turn out in distant posts, and here the French colony, representing very large interests—banking, industrial, mercantile—is numerous and important, comparable only to that in Moscow.

The large department shops, À la Bon MarchÉ, like the "Palacio de Hierro" and the "Puerto de Vera Cruz," are in French hands. From the days of their intervention, the French have invested largely in Mexico, and now I hear there is much uneasiness in Gallic quarters, so many interests are to be protected, and the protection is an unknown quantity. Mr. Lefaivre is untiring in his efforts—but order can only come through the government itself.

Previous to the famous elections, or rather "selections," as I prefer to call them (the word elections could be dropped from use and not missed in Mexico), the Partido CatÓlico, among other parties of conservative tendencies, was not efficiently formed. Iglesias Calderon represented the old anti-clerical party, and De la Barra, in spite of his determination to retire from public life, was made the candidate of the National Catholic party, and of the Liberal party as well, for the Vice-Presidency.

It was "generally understood" that he would be defeated. N. said last night, informally, to Madero: "It is a pity; Mr. de la Barra has such a good standing abroad." Madero replied: "I will see that he is elected from somewhere else." And he was, later, from QuerÉtaro, his native town, as senator, I think.

They haven't got the "hang" of democracy here, nor any suspicion of political parties having rights and dignities, and it is discouraging to see them trying to work out their questions without any such suspicions. It is war to the knife or the adjective when one man differs from another.

Bulnes had one of his flashing, witty articles in El Imparcial not long ago, À propos of the candidature of Pino Suarez, in which he says that as in classic days the language of intellectuals was Latin, now in Latin-America that of the politicians is any kind of vile language, and to be in conformity with electoral urbanity, when meeting an acquaintance, one should salute him by saying, "I forestall any remark you may make, by telling you that if you hold opinions differing from mine you are a scoundrel!"

December 18th.

I am inviting for my Xmas festivity those with children, and the childless, the colleagues, the Bedfords, the Bonillas, Kilverts, Judge W., the ambassador's great friend, and members of the embassy. Mr. Wilson has gone for a few days to the hot country to try to get rid of his cold, and N. is looking after things in his absence. I have sent off seventy post-cards, quite a document of this strange land.

Very pleasant dinner at the French Legation last night. Bridge afterward till an unduly late hour for Mexico. The Lefaivres have been here three years already, and would take a European post without urging. You would like them—cultivated, sincere, and kind, and Lefaivre shows his long training, his Latin-American experience in his full appreciation of the situation. They came here from Havana, and keep open house, constantly entertaining their colony, as well as doing more than their share of "nourishing" their colleagues.

Have just been with Madame Lefaivre to the tea given by — for his extraordinary-looking daughter, a huge, dark-eyed, fresh-complexioned creature, À la belle Fatima, innocent, ignorant, and wanting a husband; a not unusual type here, but not in our Anglo-Saxon category at all.

December 19th, Tuesday.

Hohler dropped in late for a few minutes. He is going off on one of his long trips into the heart of the country. When I asked him which one of his antique comrades would accompany him, he pulled out a fine little edition of Virgil, diamond-printed on matchless paper. He is endlessly strong and keen about things in general, and now that the minister has arrived, can leave for a few days' outing.

Some of the long-expected furniture from London has come, and the Stronges are busy installing themselves. The "lion and the unicorn" are always most generous to those who represent them abroad.

Two interesting young women with letters from New York, from Mr. Choate, also called—Miss Hague and Miss Brownell. They are painting and collecting folk-songs. I am thankful for any one coming here to record the fading glories of Mexico with intelligence and love. They will come for the Christmas tree, also.

December 21st.

Monsignore Vay de Vaya appeared yesterday en route for Panama. You know space scarcely exists for him. He found a warm welcome, and I have a luncheon for him on Saturday. He sends many regards, and hopes to meet you at Nauheim again next summer. I am asking the Lefaivres, Riedls, Carmona, chef du protocole, De Soto, the Belgian minister, et al.

I enclose letter of the 17th from Aunt L., who has just been to Juchitan, saying that the town looked very battered. The jefe not yet back. Among domestic items she says a large packet of cranberries has arrived; after thirty years of Mexico, it is not quite so commonplace as it sounds, but rather as if a denizen of a Vermont village had received a crate of mangoes.

December 22d, Friday.

N. and I went to call on Monsignore this morning. He is stopping at the Hotel Iturbide. He was out, but I took a look about the imposing patio, three-storied, colonnaded, and pierced with large, beautifully carved doorways and windows. It was started on a magnificent scale for the Emperor Iturbide, who paid the usual Mexican penalty for power at the hands of the usual Mexican patriots before it was finished. 'Tis known that as a hotel it leaves to be desired; the dust of revolutions and ages covers the spacious corridors. There are strange silences when you call for hot water, or any kind of water, for that matter. And you eat somewhere else.

Yesterday another reception at Chapultepec. Madame Madero is much changed from the simple-appearing woman of the Von Hintze dinner. I see she naturally inclines to a somber richness of dress—dark velvets, dull brocades—which I think fit her passionate, ambitious, resolute temperament, though sometimes overpowering to her small physique.

Yesterday she had on a deep-blue brocaded velvet, with some sort of heavy, lusterless fringe, and there was a decided though still discreet gleam of jewels. That air of coming from the provinces, but nice provinces, is somewhat gone.

The President slipped in quietly, later, without the playing of the national hymn. There was quite a musical program. Madame Esmeralda de Grossmann played beautifully on the harp. It appears she has an international reputation. The daughter of —, attired in a very tight-skirted, lemon-colored satin dress, trimmed with swan's-down, one of her pupils, started to play, broke down, was further discomfited and finally routed by irate paternal glances. Angela Madero sings charmingly with natural style, and gave Massenet's "ElÉgie" delightfully. One is continually interested in the composition of the presidential receptions, which means so much more than appears. Madero's father and mother were there, with various daughters and sons and sons' wives.

The Vice-President, young, tall, dark-skinned, black-eyed, black-mustached, regular of features, without, however, any perceptible color of personality, was accompanied by his wife and a contingent of satellites, moving wherever he moved with the regularity of the heavenly bodies—no intention of revolving alone in the unknown social orbit. The Corps Diplomatique was out in force, and the Protocole, Carmona, Nervo, Pulido, etc., also Don Felix Romero, chief of the Supreme Court, and his wife, Judge and Mrs. Sepulveda of California, naturalized Americans, with a handsome daughter. But beyond these I did not see any of what might be called "pillars of society," or, indeed, anything remotely resembling props to uphold the new order. We presented Monsignor Vay de Vaya, who struck the international note in the pink-and-white-and-gold salon des ambassadeurs, whose spaces were known to those princes of his monarchy, Maximilian and Carlota.

December 23d, evening.

The Christmas tide is flowing full about the Alameda, where the Indians have again stocked their puestos with reminders of the season. We have just come from a little tournÉe between the rows of booths hung with lanterns of every size and color, the odor of la race cuivrÉe mingling with the more familiar scent of freshly cut pine-trees. Tiny plaster and terra-cotta groups of the "Three Kings" abound—a white man, a negro, a Mongolian in various fanciful garbings—shone on by the largest of stars, and all sorts of "Holy Families," especially the "Flight into Egypt," where the burro seems to have come into his own.

On all sides were great piles of peanuts, fruits known and unknown, highly colored sweets, heaps upon heaps of fragile potteries, and charming, pliable baskets, brought to the city from mountain fastnesses or distant plains by Indian families afoot.

Soft, shining-bodied children were sleeping in the most fortuitous of positions, uncovered, in the chill night air. I could but think of blue-eyed, white-skinned children in warm nurseries. They lay beside grotesque naguales—figures with hideous human faces on woolly four-footed bodies, whose raison d'Être is to frighten. The population inclines to the grotesque, anyway, on the slightest provocation, and side by side with the naguales are other hideous clown-like figures—piÑatas—which are the high-lights of certain time-hallowed post-Christmas festivities. They are of all sizes and prices—from little paper dolls hanging from bamboo rods that will decorate adobe huts to the more expensive figures, bulky about the waist, whose tinsel and tissue-paper garments conceal a great earthenware jar filled with toys and candies.

The cohetes are sounding as I write—a sort of fire-cracker—announcing the advent of the Child to this Indian world.

As for the Posadas, we are evidently not to be initiated into their mysteries. The Mexican families of note continue to sport their oaks since the coming in of the Madero administration, and the Diplomatic Corps this year is left out in the cold on these intimate occasions, which are family parties held during nine days before Christmas, symbolic of the efforts of Mary and Joseph to find a resting-place in crowded Bethlehem.

December 24th.

We see the list of diplomatic shifts; among them are a few real Christmas presents. Dearing, who returned a short time ago, is made assistant chief of the Latin-American division of the State Department. He has made and will continue to make une bonne carriÈre. Schuyler, whom I have not seen since he passed through Copenhagen en route for Petersburg, takes his place here. Cresson goes to London, which will please him; the Blisses get Paris, quite the handsomest of all the presents. Weitzel, who was here when we arrived, goes to Nicaragua, and so on through a long list. I felt, when I saw the changes, a sort of hankering for the Aryan flesh-pots, a sudden feeling of my unrelatedness to Latin America. I was, so to speak, for the moment "fed up" on the tropics with a thick sauce of world pain. Any light-colored diplomat will know just what I mean, and I dare say the dark ones feel it in higher latitudes.

Diplomacy, as offered by the United States Government, is a most unsettling thing, anyway. The basic uncertainties of the carriÈre, to begin with, and then, if you are in a place you like, the feeling that at any time the trump may sound, and if you don't like it, hoping to be changed. However, it all goes up like smoke along with other human things.