My luncheon for Hanihara went off very pleasantly, at Chapultepec. That restaurant is the knife with which I have cut the gordion knot of entertaining. The new Italian minister was there, the Norwegians, Mr. E. N. Brown, president of the National Railways, Parra, from the Foreign Office, and others. We reached home at four o’clock, and I drove immediately to the Garcia Pimentels, where Don Luis was waiting to show me some of the special treasures in his library. Up-stairs, the handsome daughters and their equally handsome friends, married and single, were sewing for the Red Cross. We meet there every Tuesday. Each daughter had a beautifully embroidered rebozo thrown over her smart Paris gown à la Mexicana—heirlooms of the family.
The house is one of the noble, old-style Mexican edifices, with a large patio, and a fine stairway leading up to the corridor that winds around its four palm- and flower-banked sides. Large, handsome rooms, with pictures, rare engravings, priceless porcelains, and old brocades, open from the corridor. I merely put my head in at the door of the big drawing-room where they were working, as Don Luis was waiting for me in his library down-stairs. I spent a couple of delightful hours with him, among his treasures, so lovingly guarded through generations. Oh, those fascinating title-pages in reds and blacks, that thick, rich-feeling hand-woven paper, that changeless ink, fit to perpetuate those romantic histories and the superhuman achievement of the men of God! I could scarcely put down the beautifully written letter of Cortés to Charles V., wherein he tells of the Indians as he found them. They so closely resemble the Indians as I have found them.
Many of Don Luis’s most valuable books and manuscripts were found in Spain, and his library of Mexicana embraces everything obtainable down to our own time.[9] His wife is a charming woman, very grande dame, cultivated, and handsome. She and her daughters are always busy with countless works of charity. Just now they are busy making up little bundles of layettes for the maternity home. It does make one’s fingers nimble to see Indian women obliged to wrap their babies in newspapers!
I had just time to get home and dress for dinner at the British Legation, but we came away at half past nine, leaving the rest of the party playing bridge. I had on again the gray-and-silver Worth dress, but I feel sad without my black things.
Evening, January 27th.
This afternoon I went with de Soto to see Mme. Lefaivre at the Museo Nacional, where she is copying an old Spanish screen. It is always a pleasure to go through the lovely, sun-baked patio, filled with gods and altars of a lost race. Many of them, found in the Zocalo, have made but a short journey to their resting-place. De Soto is always an agreeable companion for any little excursion into the past—though it isn’t the past we are dreaming about, these days. And as for his looks, put a lace ruff and a velvet doublet on him and he would be a “Velasquez” of the best epoch.
Mme. Lefaivre, enveloped in an apron, was sitting on a little step-ladder before the largest screen I have ever seen, its eight mammoth leaves representing various amorous scenes, lovers, balconies, guitars, etc.—all most decorative and truly ambassadorial. I told her that nothing but the Farnese Palace would be big enough for it, and the light of dreams—the kind of dreams we all dream—appeared in her eyes. The big sala was getting a bit dim, so she left her work and we started for a turn through the museum. When we found ourselves talking of Huerta by the “Morning Star,” a mysterious, hard-faced, green god (his little name is Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli), I thought we might as well take a turn in the motor; so we went up to Chapultepec and continued the discourse under the cypresses, which are growing, though slowly, with the living events that alone really interest one. The past is for those with peace and leisure.
Evening.
A quiet day, but we are distressed beyond words at the renewed reports of a lifting of the embargo on arms and ammunition for the rebels. I feel as if I couldn’t stand it, and N. even felt that he ought to resign if it happens. The ship of state is going so inevitably on the rocks. He will make some sort of protest to Washington against the advisability of this move. Villa’s cry is “On to Mexico,” and he may get there, or rather, here—if we decide to carry him.
It appears that he is becoming daily more intoxicated by the favors of the United States. No one is more surprised than he at his success with the powers that be, and as for the vogue he has with the confidential agents, they tell me his face is one broad grin whenever their names are mentioned. However, this doesn’t mean he is going to try to please them. Just now he wants Huerta’s head, but that foxy old head can have asylum here. Shouts and shots were heard an hour or so ago, but probably only from some Zapatistas near town.