Sunday, July 10, 1921.—Mexico City.
I have at last found a friend. She is an English woman, married to a Mexican. I met her in England, but never realized she lived in Mexico. Great was my surprise and pleasure, when she made a sign of life to me. Through her I have come in touch with the English and American Colony. They are very nice to me, and anxious to help me to see all there is to see. My Anglo-Mexican friends had a picnic lunch for me today, at their place in Tocubaya just outside the City. It is called “The Molino” and is the oldest mill in America, North or South. They hold the titles of the estate from the first Viceroy.
Now they no longer live there. The house is deserted and unfurnished, the chapel bereft of its old carved pews. The granaries are empty, one is a hollow shell, the result of a fire. Only in the garden are there signs of renaissance. This is the result of Revolution. Two thousand men and 1500 horses were billeted there for five months, at the time when Obregon came into power. From all descriptions, they destroyed everything and took what they did not destroy. The trees were cut down. Even the Church pews were stacked onto a cart and left when the soldiers left. “The best Obusson Chair” in which the Colonel used to sit, and to which he had become attached was piled onto the top of the coke cart! Listening to all this, I felt I might be hearing the complaint of people against the Bolsheviks! It is a point of view that I do not often hear, and it interests me as all points of view do. For awhile my sympathy was with these landowners. Their suffering sounded so futile and this form of destruction helps none. The working man does not gain by it. Nothing is arrived at except an unrest, a lack of confidence, an apprehension for the future, and a resignation of despair on the part of property owners. Some one gains: Presumably the individual who loots.—I asked, “What was your ambition and your aim, before all this happened...?” and the answer was: “The ambition of every decent Mexican, to make a lot of money and go and live abroad.” Precisely what the Russian bourgeois did. And how, I asked, does Mexico expect to put her house in order, if the ambition of every decent Mexican is to live outside his country...?
The Conways were among those invited to this rather sumptuous picnic, which was served elaborately under the pergola in the garden. The Conways are English and he is at the head of the electric light and tramway company. The workshops have been on strike for sometime, and now the tramway personnel threaten to come out in sympathy, on Thursday next. Yesterday there was a demonstration of tramway workers, and they deposited a red flag on Mr. Conway’s doorstep! The situation is an anxious one, and keeps him overworked. He arrived late for lunch from a Government conference, and had to leave again almost immediately after.
While the rest of the party played poker, I rocked in a perfectly good hammock, and Dick sailed his boat in a 23 ft. deep swimming tank. The sun came out fitfully, and the day was cold.
The weather I am assured is “unusual”.... On the way home we passed a trolley car full of men. It was at a standstill and there seemed to be a good-humored dispute going on, between one of the men in the trolley and another who was attempting to board it. The man in the trolley threatened the other by brandishing an iron bar. The other disregarding him continued his efforts to climb. With a resounding blow, which we could hear above the sound of our motor, the iron bar smote the man on the temple, so that he dropped, stunned to the ground. A woman screamed and ran to pick him up. But he picked himself up, and two small rocks at the same time. Our car turned a corner, and the sequel was lost to view.
“They hold life very lightly,” Mrs. Conway said with indifference. She has lived here for some years.
Wednesday, July 13, 1921.
Mrs. Conway fetched me in the morning and we went to the National Museum. I was in search of the War God Huitzil, the one that Cortez threw down from the height of the Teocali after the great fight. Mr. Terry’s guide book says it is in the Museum, but I could find it nowhere. Upon inquiry one person said it was in a Convent, another that it was built into the walls of the Cathedral, a third that it was among the foundations of the National Palace! But if I failed in discovering my god, the accumulation of Gods and of sculptured stone contained in that small gallery in the National Museum was a revelation. The moment I walked in I was amazed. This is work that rivets one’s attention. The people who created these things have the right to a very important place in art. The Aztec calendar stone one knows well, it has been so often reproduced, but the reliefs on the sacrificial stones, are equally wonderful,—almost pure Assyrian in feeling.
The great flat screenlike stone, representing the goddess of the Moon, is full of design, beauty and terror. They demanded much, these Gods, and I imagine they were served more out of fear than of love. Theirs was a jealous god, and a god of vengeance. There was Chauticalli, the crouching tiger, demanding the votive offering of human hearts, for which he carries a cup sunk in his own back.