The extremely delicate negotiations N. has been having with the President’s private secretary, Rabago, concerning Huerta’s possible resignation, have leaked out, not from Mexico, but from the United States, and, we suspect, via Vera Cruz. At the somewhat early hour of two in the morning the press correspondents began to come to the Embassy. It is now 11.30 and they have been coming ever since.
N., of course, denies categorically having negotiations on hand. Mr. Bryan, we see by the morning newspaper, is reported as looking very pleased at the aspect of the Mexican situation, on account of the aforesaid negotiations. The correspondents here must be heaven-born. Their scent is unerring. If there is anything even dreamed of they appear in shoals; when things are in abeyance you wouldn’t know there was one in town. They try, naturally, to read something political into everything that happens. For instance, the officers of the German training-ship invited several of the ministers to take a little trip to Vera Cruz, and the German, Russian, and Norwegian ministers accepted—which is why the newspapers had it that there was a meeting of plenipotentiaries at Vera Cruz. They are on a hunting trip for two days and will return to-morrow.
Felix Diaz has at last been landed at Havana (much to the relief, I imagine, of the captain of the U. S. S. Wheeling, on which ship he sought refuge) and his political curtain has been rung down on this especial act.
November 5th.
Rabago is a very clever man, endowed to a high degree with the peculiarly caustic type of Latin-American wit, whose natural object here seems always to be Mexico’s kaleidoscopic government. His paper El Mañana did more than anything else to kill Madero by perseveringly reflecting his weaknesses in a mirror of ridicule. On account of his opposition to the Maderos and his Porfirista sympathies he was taken up by the aristocratic class and has been of immense service to Huerta, a sort of bridge between him and them. But how far the advice to resign, which he swears that he has urged on Huerta, will be followed remains to be seen. Huerta has a deep, strange, Indian psychology entirely unfamiliar to us, which is at work on the situation, and the results cannot be predicted.
It was amusing to see the various ministers arrive at the Embassy, one after the other, to assure N. that there had been no conference of ministers at Vera Cruz with Mr. Lind. They intend to uphold the protocol, and wouldn’t be caught flirting with an unknown official quantity behind N.’s back for anything in the world.... Huerta easily gets suspicious and I dare say the whole proceeding is spoiled. N. goes to-day with the ultimatum to the President himself, and we shall see what we shall see. It is all very uncertain, but intensely interesting, in the magnetic, highly colored, Latin-American way. It makes London, Paris, and New York seem very banal.
Just home, after leaving N. at the Palacio, where the answer to the ultimatum is supposed to be forthcoming. All the clerks are here, in readiness to get off despatches.
On my way back I stopped at the Alameda for a belated look at the booths stocked with the articles appropriate, according to Aztec ideas, for All Saints’ Day and the Feast of the Dead. Countless Indians, picturesque and mysterious, flood into the city, build their booths, stay a few days, and then silently ebb away, unseen until the next occasion—Christmas. Great bunches of a yellow flower—cinco llagas, “Flower of Death,” the Indians call it—are everywhere for sale, to be placed afterward on the evanescent graves. Toy death’s-heads and small toy coffins of all sorts abound. A favorite device is one whereby a string is pulled, the dead man raises his head, and when one lets go he falls back with a rattling sound. It is all a bit macabre, sold by these imperturbable Indians of the plateau, who are far from being a jovial race. Pulque and their other drinks often induce silence and melancholy rather than hilarity. They never sing nor whistle in the streets. They almost never dance. If they go through a few figures it is mostly in a solemn manner and on the occasion of some church festival, when they dance and gesticulate, strangely garlanded, in the patio of the church itself.
The Alameda is a handsome park in the very middle of the town, and marks the site of the old Aztec tianguiz, or market-place. Fountains and flowers abound, and it is lavishly planted with beautiful eucalyptus and palms; an excellent band plays daily. The pajarera (aviary) around which the children cluster is very poor, considering the beauty and variety of the Mexican birds and the Aztec traditions in this regard. The park has no railing around it—one can stroll in from the broad Avenida Juarez. The drawback to the stone benches, placed at intervals, is that the most prominent have graven upon them the words, “Eusebio Gayosso”—the name of the popular undertaker. In the midst of life you are in death there. However, the eternal Indians, sunning themselves and their offspring on the benches, can’t read; they have this advantage over any ilustrado who might want to rest a bit.
N. has just returned with the anxiously awaited answer, which is quite beside the point. Huerta is probably sparring for time. He proffers vague, pleasant words in answer to the very definite message of the President, to the effect that he has always been animated by the most patriotic desires, that he will always limit his acts to the law, and that after the elections he will scrupulously respect the public wish and will recognize any person elected as President for the term to the 30th of November, 1916. N. recommends the withdrawal of the Embassy if, after the 23d of this month, when a new congress is to be convened, Huerta has not resigned. This might influence Huerta; and again, he may consider it only another cry of wolf.