A Story Of Mexican Life.
'You are an unbelieving set of fellows, and though you admire my rings, my breastpin, and my studs, and though you willingly accept any stray gems that I occasionally offer you, still you sneer and laugh at my mine; but it is no laughing matter, and now that we are all here together, I suppose I may as well gratify you by telling you all about it. However, as the yarn is a long one, I will first of all put the cigars and the wine within reach, so that you can help yourselves during the recital.
'Soon after our forces had evacuated Mexico, on my return from a long, tedious journey across the Cordilleras, I hired, what for the city of Mexico, might be deemed sumptuous apartments, overlooking the Cathedral Square; so luxurious, in fact, that my Mexican friends were lavish in their praises, though I confess my American visitors said much less. But my domicil consisted of only two 'pieces,' one answering for both bedroom and parlor, while in the other I dressed. Never mind the latter, for it contained little else than one shelf, which was adorned with a brown earthen pitcher and a gourd cut in two, for all my washing. My drawing-room, however, deserves a more elaborate description. The walls were frescoed, in a peculiarly gorgeous style; garlands of flowers were represented as twining around piles of fruit, and it was hard to say whether the profusion of the fruit, or the colors of the flowers, were the severest tax on the imagination, though I always thought myself, that they were both surpassed by incredible swarms of impossible humming-birds, with very gold and silver wings. The floor was covered with bran new matting, and the bedstead of cedar-wood was also new, though the bullock-skin on which the mattress rested, had rather an antiquated air. Moreover, I had a pair of sheets which were not of a bad color, although slightly patched. In addition, there was a Madonna hanging on one wall, and a Saint looking at her from the other; and against a door near the foot of my bed, stood a rocking-chair, which on my conscience I believe must have been worth at least a dollar and a half. As the door was fastened up, this rocking-chair was the favorite resort of my first morning visitor, all subsequent callers having to choose between the window-sill, the matting, and the bedstead.
'As for the neatness and cleanliness of my sanctum, it was marvelous—for Mexico. I don't remember ever seeing more than ten scorpions at one time there, and two or three tarantulas on the ceiling were too much a matter of course to attract notice. Still, I had been so long away from civilized society, and endured so many privations, that I confess, notwithstanding the attractions that my home offered, I spent but little of my time there, for I was warmly received by several American families, and gladly availed myself of their hospitality and friendly attentions. To own the honest truth, ere a month had elapsed, I had so well compensated myself for past privations, that I had a serious attack of illness.
'To this illness was I indebted for my second interview with my worthy landlady, Donna Teresa Lopez, who had been invisible since the day on which my lucky stars first guided me to her roof. This worthy woman, who was somewhere between forty and sixty years of age, (Mexican women, be it understood, when once they pass thirty, enter on a career of the most ambiguous antiquity,) had two branches of business, of which she claimed a thorough knowledge—tobacco and medicine. My sickness, therefore, was to her a source of intense gratification. She was everlastingly bringing me some new remedy of her own invention, in spite of which, thanks be to God, and a good constitution, I at length rallied, and grew gradually convalescent.
'One night, while lying half-asleep and half-awake, dreamily promising myself, if the weather were favorable on the morrow, that I would venture out of doors, I fancied I heard a voice, muttering words in my own mother tongue. I rose, and resting on my elbow, listened attentively—but then a profound silence reigned around me. Persuaded, that feeble as I still was, I had mistaken a dream for a reality, I languidly let my head fall back upon my pillow. Scarcely a minute, however, had elapsed, ere a voice whose tone denoted anguish and distress, and which seemed to come from the middle of the room, exclaimed, in distinct English: 'My God! my God! take pity on my anguish, and in mercy help me!'
'Assured this time that I was no longer dreaming, I started up again, and laboring under much excitement, cried out: 'Who is there?'
'Again all was perfectly silent. Just as I was about to jump out of bed and explore the mystery, my eye fell upon a faint streak of light, which glimmered through a crack in the door behind my rocking-chair, near the foot of my bed. From the same direction, also, came the sound of a nervous, unequal, jerking tread, which fully explained a portion of the mystery. It was pretty evident, first, that I had a neighbor; secondly, that he spoke English; and thirdly, that he was either a somnambulist or a soliloquist.
'This discovery, ordinary and common-place enough in itself, for Englishmen and Americans are plentiful enough in Mexico now-a-days, still made a very serious impression on my mind, for the words I had overheard, and above all, the tone in which they were uttered, seemed to imply something mysterious, and to be the key-note of some dramatic fragment. For hours I tossed about, pondering over those words, and day was dawning ere I fell asleep.
'The entrance of my learned landlady with a cup brimful of her latest concoction, awoke me.
''Here, Señor,' said she, presenting the dose to me with a serene air of matronly confidence, 'Here, Señor, is a tea containing no less than seventeen different ingredients; and I have a presentiment that this is the very thing to perfect your cure.'
''Thank you a thousand times,' I said, 'but I feel perfectly well this morning.'
''That is no matter—'
''No matter! what is no matter?'
''Why, no matter how well you fancy you feel; this is a sovereign remedy, so just drink it off to please me.'
''For mercy's sake, Señora, put down your medicine, sit down in the rocking-chair and draw near to the bedside, for I have several questions to ask.
''How long has my present neighbor lodged with you, Señora,' said I, when she had duly ensconced herself. She gazed inquiringly at me, but when I pointed to the door behind her, she replied, with apparent nonchalance:
''Somewhere about three months.'
''And who is he?'
''That is a question I can not answer?'
''Why not?'
''Because, over and above his rent, he paid me five dollars to hold my tongue.'
''If I were to offer you ten to let it go, how would it be then?'
''Ten dollars!' replied my hostess, in a ruminating tone of voice.
''Yes, ten dollars.'
''I should feel it my duty to my fatherless children to speak,' said this excellent mother of the bereaved heirs of the defunct Lopez. 'Yes—holy Virgin, forgive me—but I should feel bound to speak.'
''It is a bargain, then; Señora, proceed.'
''Your neighbor, Señor,' replied my hostess, in a low voice, 'is a heretic—an Englishman.'
''Not an American?'
''English or American—what is the difference, any way? I tell you he is a heretic, and you know we Mexicans make no difference between those heathens—we call them all Inglez.''
'The fair Teresa, I may remark, had always taken me for one of her fellow-countrymen, as I spoke the language fluently, and had been thoroughly sun-burnt years before.
''He arrived here, as I have already had the honor of saying, about three months since. He appears very sickly and exhausted, and from the look of his clothing I judge he had just returned from a long journey in the interior. 'Señora,' said he, when paying his bill in advance, 'I wish you to speak to no one of my residence in this house. I have no family, no country, and no name; I hate the world; I do not know a soul in this city, and I do not want to. I expect two inquiries to be made for me, one by a man, the other will be by a woman. I will not see any others. Should either of them call, their first salutation to you will be: 'The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.' Without that pass-word, I forbid you to allow any one to have access to my room.''
''Well, Señora Lopez, have these folks with the eternal pass-word turned up yet?'
''No, Excellency, during the whole three months he has not had a single visitor. Every morning when I take him his chocolate, he promises a dollar if I can find him a letter at the post-office. So every day I go, but unfortunately I have only found two for him in all that time.'
''But, of course, if you go for his letters, you must know his name, and surely you noticed where the two came from, which you received for him.'
''They were addressed to Albert Pride, and bore the stamp, 'New-Orleans.' But who knows whether that is his real name?'
''How does he spend his time?'
''He alone can answer that question. Since the first hour of his entering the house he has shut himself up in that room, and no one has seen him quit it. Between you and me, I confess candidly, that my opinion of him is by no means favorable. Why, would you believe, that though he is as thin as a rail and as pale as a ghost, he won't admit that he is even slightly indisposed. If I ask him about his symptoms, he gets angry; and if I offer him any of my specifics, he has the ill-manners to exclaim: 'Bosh! Oh! that man is a wicked fellow; I have no confidence in him!'
''Many thanks, Señora Lopez, for your information,' said I, handing her the promised reward'—vaya vm; con Dios!'
'After her departure I began to reflect that my own conduct had not been much less dishonorable than hers. What right had I to tear aside the vail of mystery in which my neighbor wished to wrap himself? I owned to myself that I was very clearly in the wrong. And yet, having made this concession to the claims of conscience, my fancy was busy putting together the scraps I had gleaned. The field of speculation was so vast and unbounded that I knew not where to stop. The starting-point was easy. Curiosity began by asking, Why the deuce, Albert Pride was so carefully hiding himself away in the city of Mexico? He must be a fellow-countryman; because an Englishman, no matter how branded at home, by fraud or dishonor, could boldly strut about New-Orleans or New-York, without submitting to voluntary self-imprisonment in the city of Mexico. Was he a fraudulent merchant, or a bank-defaulter? Good heavens! such gentlemen generally assume such a graceful nonchalance, or else laugh at their little transactions so good-naturedly that such a supposition was ridiculous. Well, then, perhaps he had had a personal difficulty? I think that is the phrase, is it not, for sending a fellow-mortal on his last long journey? What of that? that even would be no reason for concealment, for once in Mexico, what had he to dread? Thus I went on, tormenting my mind with suppositions and conjectures without end, until at last I resolved to dispel my apparently inextricable tangle of mystery by taking a walk, as soon as I had finished my breakfast. Accordingly I sallied forth, turned my steps toward the Alameda, and at no great distance from one of the fountains I sat down on a bench, beneath the shade of one of the grand old trees.