A diplomat's wife in Mexico

by Edith O'Shaughnessy

December 20th.

Red Cross all the morning. It is wonderful, the stoicism of the Indian, where pain, hard pain, is concerned. A rather amusing incident occurred to-day. I asked a man who had had his hand shot off if it were a “Zapatista,” “Constitucionalista,” or “Huertista” deed. He raised the other paw to his forehead, answering with great exactitude, “No, señora, Vasquista.” I thought the Vasquista movement had long since died the usual unnatural death.

I see that the new Austrian minister to Mexico has arrived in the United States en route for his post, and the new Italian minister arrives at Vera Cruz to-morrow, after a wait of three weeks at Havana, for “our health,” not his. As is the custom, some one from the protocol has gone to meet him and bring him up to the city. The European Powers evidently mean to carry out their program independent of “watchful waiting.” It will be rather hard on our government when two more representatives of great nations present their credentials to the “Dictator.”

People say it is a pity that Huerta did not, on assuming power, declare formally that he would have a dictatorship for two years, until such time as the country was pacified, leaving out entirely any question of elections. However, that is “hindsight.” Apropos of Villa, I see one of the United States papers chirps: “Is a new sun rising in Mexico?” I have seen several rise and set on the reddest horizon imaginable, in my short Mexican day. As a butcher Villa cannot possibly be surpassed. But “who loves the sword shall perish by the sword,” is always true here. I spent the morning at the Red Cross, washing and bandaging dirty, forlorn Aztecs. This year they have the beds made according to our ideas. Last year they used the blankets next the body and the sheet on top—it “looked better.”

Calls and card-leaving all the afternoon, with Mme. Lefaivre, fortunately. We generally do the “bores and chores” together, chatting between addresses. Now it is half past nine. I am looking over one of Gamboa’s books. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs last August when Mr. Lind arrived, and drafted the famous and entirely creditable answer to “Mr. Confidential Agent.” He is sometimes called the Zola of Mexico.

December 21st.

Just home from Mass. I go to the Sagrado Corazon near by, built mostly with money given by the muy piadoso Lascurain, a man of the highest integrity and large personal fortune. For a long time he was Minister for Foreign Affairs, and for twenty minutes (as I wrote you), President, between Madero and Huerta.

I am now writing, veiled and gloved, waiting for the picnickers to assemble here. About ten or twelve of us are going to Mme. Bonilla’s lovely garden in Tacubaya.

Evening.

We had a peaceful dia de campo in the old garden, the strange Mexican magic making beautiful things more beautiful and transfiguring all that is ordinary. Mme. B., an Englishwoman and, incidentally, a cordon bleu, was sitting under a yellow rose-bush when we got there—looking very attractive in white lace and beating up the sort of sauce you make yourself, if you can, or go without, in Mexico. We partook of an excellent combined luncheon—we all brought something—under an arbor of honeysuckle and roses, with true Mexican lack of hurry. Afterward we strolled over the near hillside in its garb of maguey and pepper trees. The volcanoes looked inexpressibly white and beautiful in their aloofness from our troubles, though the hills at their base are the stamping-grounds of hordes of Zapatistas, and often the smoke of fires indicates their exact whereabouts. With true Anglo-Saxon disregard of native warnings, we sat for a long time under a large pepper-tree, arbol de Peru, which, the Indians say, gives headache, unable to take our eyes from the soft outline of the city, swimming in the warm afternoon light. Countless domes and church spires were cut softly into the haze, the lake of Texcoco was a plaque of silver far beyond, and above all were the matchless volcanoes. To complete the first plan of the picture, an old Indian, a tlachiquero, was quietly drawing the juice from some near-by maguey plants, after the fashion of centuries, with a sort of gourd-like instrument which he worked by sucking in some primitive but practical fashion. It looks to the uninitiated as if the Indian were drinking it, but its final destination is a pigskin slung athwart his back. After tea in the garden, on which a mystical blue light had fallen, we motored home in the quickly falling dusk, the thin, chilly air penetrating us like a knife.