Porfirio Parra was born in the State of Chihuahua. In 1869, when he was scarcely fourteen years of age, he was voted a sum of money by the State Legislature, to take him to the City of Mexico for purposes of study. From 1870 to 1872, he attended the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School), where he stood first in his classes and where his conduct was so exemplary, as to gain him state aid until the time of his graduation. In 1871, entering the competition for the Professorship of History in the Girls High School, he gained the second grade, although three eminent historians were among the contestants. Entering the Escuela Nacional de Medicina (National Medical School), in 1873, he maintained high rank there and took his degree in February, 1878. In March of that year, he was appointed Professor of Logic in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria. In 1879, by competition, he received the Professorship of Physiology in the National School of Medicine, with which he has been associated in some capacity ever since. In 1880, by competition, he became Surgeon and Physician of the Juarez Hospital. In 1886, after a brilliant examination, he became a member of the Academia de Medicina de MÉxico (Academy of Medicine). In the Escuela Nacional de Agricultura y Veterinaria (National Agricultural and Veterinary School), he has held chairs of mathematics and zootechnology.

An alternate Deputy in 1882, he was in 1898 elected Deputy of the Federal Congress, and has been re-elected until the present time. He was made chairman of the House Committee on Public Instruction. In 1902 he was named Secretary of the Upper Council of Education. Dr. Parra has participated, officially, in several of the most important medical congresses held in Europe during recent years, sometimes as a delegate from his native State of Chihuahua, at others as delegate from the Mexican nation. In 1892, he was elected a member of the Mexican Academy.

Dr. Parra has written both in poetry and prose. Most of what he writes is in scientific lines. Even in poetry he is a scientist, and in a volume of his poems, we find odes to the mathematics and to medicine, a sonnet to a skull, and poems on the Death of Pasteur, Night, Water. Of very great importance is his Nueva Sistema de Logica, inductiva y deductiva (New System of Logic, Inductive and Deductive). He has written one novel, Pacotillas, in which the life of the medical student is depicted. It is from this work that we have drawn our selections.

LÓpez (Santa Anna), Robles (El Chango—“the monkey”), Albarez (Patillitas) and Tellez (Pacotillas), are fellow-students in the School of Medicine. They are friends but present four quite different types of character. Santa Anna figures least in the story and attends most strictly to business; Patillitas is a dandy, anxious to make feminine conquests; El Chango drops out of school before he has completed his course, toadies in politics, rapidly rising to importance as the private secretary of a departmental minister, and marries great wealth. Pacotillas, the hero, is an astonishing combination of strong and weak qualities. Of lofty ideals, of great firmness in announcing and supporting them, and of brilliant intellectual powers, he is cold, morose, lacking in initiative, easily depressed, and procrastinating. He smokes constantly and excessively and readily yields to drink. He loves a beautiful and amiable girl and lives with her without marriage; though he realizes the injustice this is to her, the injustice—excused at the time by poverty—is never atoned for in his days of comparative prosperity. Pacotillas and his beautiful Amalia suffer enormous trials of poverty; Paco finally secures a position on the force of an opposition paper. He antagonizes the government, is arrested and thrown in jail, where he dies of typhus. The book is an interesting picture of Mexican life, but it is a particularly difficult task to make brief selections from it for translation.

EXTRACTS FROM PACOTILLAS.

The next day the vigilant argus, accompanied by a faithful friend, was at his post from nine o’clock in the morning. He was not on beat but he warned his fellow policeman to pay no attention to what was about to take place at the house, since it concerned a personage of consequence, closely connected with the official world, whose plans it were best not to disturb; that the gentleman did not ask something for nothing and would not fail to reward him; that everything would go on behind closed doors, and was really no more than a joke; that it concerned a private matter, with no political bearings; that the woman living in the house badly repaid him who supported her, and that he merely wished to scare her and put her to shame.

The policeman on the beat permitted himself to be convinced by Pablo’s diplomatic arguments; he demanded, indeed, a guarantee that nothing serious should take place, that there should be no fight, wounds, shots, or other scandal.

No, comrade, answered Pablo, it only concerns giving a thrashing to a young fellow who is accustomed to enjoy women, whom other men support. Put yourself in the place of the deceived man; what would you do? What would any other decent man do, in such a case? Just what he is going to do. I shall not compromise you. You see that I am also one of the police-force. Further, this may help you, the gentleman we are helping is in with the government, and he does not expect service for nothing.

Completely convinced, the policeman agreed that, at a signal from Pablo, he would walk slowly toward the Plazuela del Carmen, to see what was going on there.

The astute Pablo had arranged for two stout fellows of evil mien to meet him at the corner pulqueria; they arrived at the place appointed at half-past-nine carrying heavy cudgels as walking sticks.

A little before ten the servant of Mercedes left the house; Pablo, who had already made her acquaintance, overtook her and said:

“Where are you going so fast, my dear?”

“I am going far; I am taking a message to the Arcade of Belem and from there to Sapo street, to the socursal.”

“Does not my pretty one want a drop?”

The pretty one did want a drop, entered the pulqueria, drank, submitted to various pinches, and left. Pablo at once said to his friend: “Run and call the General,” and he planted himself where he could see the house.

A little later poor Mercedes, who suspected nought of what was plotting for her undoing, opened the windows and looked out. It was the signal, arranged between her and Patillitas, indicating that there were no Moors on the coast and that the happy lover might enter. He was not slow in appearing, strutting pompously as if enjoying in anticipation the pleasure he was about to have. He caught sight of his sweetheart, which was equal to seeing the gates of paradise opening, saluted her with much elegance and cautiously entered the doors of the court-yard, which were ajar.

“The fish falls into the net! how easy! how easy!”[24] murmured the malicious Pablo, humming the accompanying tune in a low voice.

A quarter of an hour had passed when, by San Pedro y San Pablo St., the General was seen approaching, as grave, as correct, and as arrogant as ever, smoking his unfailing cigar, without hastening his pace or displaying the least emotion.

As soon as Pablo saw him, he spoke to the policeman on the beat, who at once walked slowly in the direction of the Plazuela, as he had promised. Then Pablo summoned his assistants from the pulqueria and all three joined the messenger, who had been sent to call the General and who had now returned; the whole party stopped on the sidewalk opposite Mercedes’ house.

The General, without quickening his pace, without looking at the men, nor making any signal to them, had already arrived before the house. When he had almost reached the gateway, the four men crossed the street and, when he entered, they cautiously followed.

LÓpez, with measured tread, crossed the court, followed by his men; he turned to the left and knocked at the house-door, which was fastened. No one responded, but noises of alarm were heard within, a sound as of a person running and finding some piece of furniture in his way, a stifled cry, and the murmur of troubled voices.

The General knocked a second, and a third time with briefer interval and with greater force. No one replied and now nothing was heard. The General knocked for the fourth time and said, in his stentorian voice, though without displaying anger or emotion: “Open, Mercedes, it is I.”

“I am coming,” shrilly answered a woman’s voice, “I am dressing; I was ill and had not yet risen.”

The General waited with the utmost calm. No escape was possible; from the hall one passed directly into the room, which was the scene of the guilty love and which received light by a grated window, that opened onto the patio of the next house. The General, who knew all the hiding places and the location of the pieces of furniture in the room, was delighted, imagining the little agreeable plight of the student, who had already, tremblingly, hidden himself under the bed.

After ten minutes waiting, Mercedes, visibly pale with chiquedores[25] on her temples, her head tied up in a handkerchief, and covered with a loose gown, which she was still hooking, finally opened the door, smiled at the General, and attempting to overcome her manifest uneasiness, said: “Ah, sir! what a surprise!”

“Good morning, madam,” said the General, abruptly entering the hall and then the inner room, followed by his four men, and paying no attention to Mercedes, who, following them all, exclaimed, each time more afflicted:

“What do you wish, sir? What are you looking for? Why have these men come here?”

Once in the room, the General stopped near the door, and, as he expected, saw under the bed the coiled up body of the student who would gladly have given his whiskers to be elsewhere.

“Drag out that shameless fellow,” said the General to his men, “and beat him for me.”

“SeÑor, for God’s sake!” cried Mercedes.

The four men obeyed the order. The unhappy student did not even try to escape. One took him by the feet and dragged him out into the middle of the room; the others began to discharge a hail of blows upon him, distributing them evenly over the shoulders, back, seat, and legs of that unfortunate, who squirmed upon the floor like an epileptic, writhing, screaming, and howling, with a choked voice:

“Ay! ay! they are killing me! ay! ay! help! Ay! ay! infamous fellows! assassins!”

Meantime the General looked on at that calamitous spectacle, without a word; when the flogging seemed to him sufficient he exclaimed—“Hold!” and then, addressing the man who had been flogged, added: “Be warned by this experience and let the women of other men alone.”

The maltreated Patillitas arose, hurled some insolence at the General, and threw himself upon him with his fists clenched; the floggers started to seize him, but the General said, “Leave him to me.” And, with the greatest calmness, he allowed him to deal his inoffensive blow, and, then, seizing his wrist, gave it such a wrench that the poor fellow suffered more than from the beating, and, notwithstanding all his efforts to the contrary, fell upon his knees before his conqueror, howling with pain.

“Listen well, jackanapes,” said the General, without loosening his hold, “get away from here at once; and, if you prefer the least complaint or cause the least scandal, I will put you into jail and afterwards send you into the army as a vagabond and mischief-maker.”

He loosed his prisoner who rose uttering suffocated groans and muttering inarticulate insolences. Limping, and with his dress disordered, he started to walk away; he took his hat, which one of the floggers, at a signal from the General, handed him. Pablo followed him and at reaching the hall door gave him a kick behind, saying with a hoarse laugh:

“There! take your deserts, you!”

“Now,” said the General, addressing Mercedes, who, huddled on the sofa, with her kerchief thrown over her head and covering her face, was sobbing violently, “indicate what you wish to take with you and get out into the street.”

“Keep it all, horrible old man, monster without heart or entrails of pity,” said the unhappy woman, drying her eyes; and, arranging her dress as best she could and wrapping up her head, she left.

When she had disappeared, the General, as pleased as if he had consummated some great act of justice, dismissed the floggers, after paying them; then, he went out onto the street with a lofty air, and, smoking his ever-present cigar, closed the gate of the court, put the key into his pocket, and walked away.

The Chango did not pronounce this long discourse at one breath, but interrupted himself from time to time to sip coffee or to ask Pacotillas incident questions, which he answered in his usual laconic style. He expressed himself somewhat more upon his matrimonial troubles and the faults of his wife’s parents. Then, changing his tone, he said:

“Now I have tired you in speaking of myself and my affairs; now you must reciprocate, as a good friend, and tell me all about yourself.”

“I can do that in a few words: I am slowly continuing my course of study and with more or less of difficulty and labor gain my bread.”

“Spartan! You do wrong not to confide in me. Am I to understand that you desire nothing? that you do not care to better your condition?”

“I do not say so; I desire many things; I desire to escape from poverty; but, I am content with my situation.”

“What a fool you are! I could do much for you, because I love you well, and I would willingly offer you more than one chance of improving your condition.”

“I thank you for your good will but I see no means of taking advantage of it.”

“See Paco, let us speak frankly; notwithstanding your assertion that you are content with your situation, I cannot believe it; the fact is that you are very proud, that you do not care to ask anything from anyone; that is all right with strangers, but when I, your school-fellow and friend, anticipate your desires and offer——”

“I thank you and beg you to respect my freedom of action.”

“What a hard-shell you are! Come, consent to this anyway—separate yourself from the Independiente; I promise to supply resources for you to found a paper of your own, which will bring you at least double what Don Marcos can pay you, and also to secure you a grant to aid you in your studies, and, if you desire more, you shall have more.”

“But, truly, I desire nothing; I owe consideration to Don Marcos and cannot treat him cavalierly,” said Paco, at the same time saying to himself, “Oho, now I see!”

“You are fearfully stubborn,” said the Chango, “but you are your own master and I will not insist further; but, now, I come to one favor, begging you affectionately, in the name of our old friendship, to grant it; do not continue to discuss, in your bulletins, the objectionable question upon which you have been writing.”

“In my soul, I regret that I cannot gratify you, since I have resolved to examine that matter in all its aspects.”

“You are more tenacious than a Biscayan! Don’t you understand that in this you do me a personal injury and expose me to public criticism?”

“I do not see why? I have never mentioned your name, nor shall I mention it; nor are you responsible for that contract.”

“Don’t be a ninny; although you do not mention me by name; although, legally, you do not treat of me; yet the odium of the transaction falls on me.”

“Whether the part you play is odious or not, I am not to blame; you have chosen it freely. You act, and I judge. We are both within our rights.”

“In fine, Paco, if you continue to write as heretofore, you do me an injury, you attack me.”

“That is not my intention, nor do I believe it the necessary result of my procedure.”

“Of course, if you attack me, you give me the right to defend myself.”

“Granted,” answered Paco, coldly.

“And you know that I have many means of doing it?”

“I know it and they have no terrors for me.”

“Paco, you despise me,” said the Chango with annoyance.

“No, I merely answer you,” replied Paco, coldly.

“For the last time I will sum up the situation. If you consent to withdraw from the Independiente you shall have whatever advantages you desire that I can give you; you shall have the same if you consent, at least, to speak no more of the contract. Do you agree?”

“I have already said no,” replied Paco with dignity.

“Very well; it is hard for me to proceed against a fellow-student, whom I have always esteemed for his talents and his brilliant promise; for that reason, I desired to speak with you beforehand and give you proofs of my friendship, but since you are obstinate, I warn you that I shall prosecute you criminally.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Do you reflect that you will be proceeded against, that you will be sent to jail, that you will be sentenced?”

“Yes, I consider all, and I am prepared for all; you will allow me to say that I appreciate the kindness and politeness, with which you have treated me; but now, as it seems your wish to induce me to maintain silence and to separate myself from the Independiente, and as I will never agree to this, I judge my further presence here to be useless and, with your permission, will leave.”

And the young man at once rose and left; the Chango followed him without a word; they went down the stairway, crossed the corridor, Pacotillas took his hat in the hall, and on saying adieu to Robles, the latter involuntarily moved by the dignity of Pacotillas, said to him: “Think yet, Paco.”

“I need not think; neither threats nor bribes can swerve me from what I believe to be my duty.”