Arrived finally at Tepositlan we rambled all over the church, the convent and the patios. It used to be a Jesuit Monastery; they were planted there in order to educate and influence the Indian children. They have within the last few years been expelled, leaving behind them a really beautiful monument of church art. I have not seen anything more beautiful in Italy. The façade of the church, the carvings, the towers and domes, the surrounding wall, the avenue of cypress, the gnarled olive trees, complete an exquisite exterior. Within there is a church that is gold! Gold! Gold! but the gold is on carved wood and the gold is old gold, so that what must have once been dazzling and vulgar, is now mellow and beautiful. Then there are little inner chapels that are gems of beauty, and a patio, sun-bathed, and full of orange trees in fruit, cloister surrounded. The whole thing was an endless labyrinth of real beauty.
We retired to the garden of Don Trinidad, a picturesque farmer, who set a table for us to lunch under the largest fig tree I have ever seen, our dessert being overhead, reachable by standing on a chair! Always wherever one looks, whether in town or in country, there is the background of mountain ranges that meets the eye. After lunch we climbed to the topmost belfry.
I got home just in time to have a short rest, and then Mr. Malbran fetched me in his car and took me to Chapultepec Castle, which, by the way, is much prettier at night, lit up. We drove straight up to the front door,—no sentries attempted to stop us. It was like a deserted country house, and even with the front door wide open, there was no one about, and Mr. Malbran had to walk outside, to a guard or someone, and request that our arrival be announced. We waited for about ten minutes in a small Council Chamber on the right of the entrance, and then voices were heard. Mr. Malbran said “Here he is”—and I recognized at once, coming towards us, the one-armed General, whose face the newspapers have made familiar. He invited us to go upstairs to one of the reception rooms, and he led the way to a room where the chairs were covered with overalls, and stood all in a solemn row, except a tapestry sofa and centrepiece presented by Napoleon III, I suppose to Maximilian, and set in light yellow wood, and perfectly hideous.
We three sat in this formal unlived-in room, and Mr. Malbran proceeded to be our interpreter for about an hour. Whenever I was being interpreted to the President, I had the chance of watching his face. His hair is thick and black, his rather flowing moustache tinged with grey. His face is round and fresh complexioned, he is powerfully built, but too stout. His right arm is cut off above the elbow, and every now and then he moves the stump, which gives the impression of a bird trying to use a broken wing. We had a fine battle of wits, which through an interpreter became so clear and acute that we all of us had finally to laugh over it. Talking through an interpreter is as bad as talking to a deaf person through an ear trumpet. I said I had come with the hopes of doing his portrait, that I regarded myself as an historian, and it was my idea to try and represent the people of my own day,—whatever country they belong to, so long as they have accomplished something.
The President replied that he had not yet accomplished the things for which he represented the Mexican people, and that he felt too modest at present to allow himself to be done. There was only one thing he minded, and that was ridicule. “My people will think I am competing with the Venus of Milo!” he said, shaking his stump. He would not refuse me, however, and suggested merely a postponement of three years, to enable him in that space of time to “make good.”...
I said that success was not necessary to a man’s greatness. That I had done Asquith, who had not brought England through the war, and Winston Churchill, who is not yet Prime Minister, and Lenin, who has not yet brought the Russian experiment to a triumph, and Marconi who admitted to me himself that he had not yet completed the invention that was to make him most famous! But that these are all nevertheless historical men. I explained that Mexico ought to be represented in my world collection, and that I understood he, General Obregon, was the best and the most representative man of the 15,000,000 people of Mexico! The President laughed, he said “If I am the best, what must you think of the others?” He said that if I were less famous and therefore his sitting to me less conspicuous, he might consent, but that he was not a worthy subject yet for so distinguished an artist, but that he would work during the three years to come with a new zeal. Knowing the prize in view!
I swept his compliments aside by asking him to help me to be a more distinguished artist by having the honor to do him!
He laughed, and said that he had had many dangerous moments in his life, but never had he felt nearer to defeat than at this moment, and defeat by a woman...! To which I repeated that I had been told the President was a man of force, but I had no idea he had such force.
When this was translated, he seemed slightly embarrassed, and I went on, revelling in his discomfiture: “Lenin said it was extremely tiresome of me to want to do him, but that after all, I had come such a long way to do it! Now Mexico is just as far as Moscow, and are you going to allow it to be said that the Bolsheviks are more chivalrous and more cultured? Of course, he knew, and I knew, and he knew that I knew that there is no comparison between himself and Lenin. The one is bound to live in the world’s history....” He said desperately “I will be delighted to see you whenever you care to see me. I play cards and billiards and ride horse back, and will do any of these things with you if you wish....” He then went on to explain that Mexico had had so many Presidents in the last few years, some of them, men of ability, but others, men of no consequence.... He did not wish to be classified in this latter category, so that when I had done his bust, it should turn out to be of some one of no importance.... He had certain definite work he wished to accomplish, work for which the Mexican people had elected him their representative, and he must try and accomplish that work before he had a right to assume any attitude that might be mistaken by his people as being a satisfaction with himself. I said that I understood his point of view but deplored it! We then went on to talk about Mexico, and my appreciation of all there was to see, and he said that I was not to be allowed to go away before the Centenary celebration (September 15th) and that I should represent “Modern Europe” at the Centenary! “Modern” indeed! but I do not see myself living until September without work!
He left the room for a moment to give an order, explaining he had sent for a reproduction of himself that Madame Obregon had presented to him, and that he would like to show me. Presently two small children came in: “These are the reproductions of me!” he said, laughingly ... the boy about 4 years old was certainly like him. The little girl, rather frail and white, less so. I wondered at those small children not being in bed, it must have been nearly ten o’clock. No wonder they looked pale!