February 3d, 11 A.M.
The second telegram has just come, saying that the President intends, within a few hours, to raise the embargo, and that N. is to inform all Americans and foreigners. I keep repeating to myself: “God! God! God!” A generation of rich and poor alike will be at the mercy of the hordes that will have new strength and means to fight, and eat, and pillage, and rape their way through the country. There will be a stampede of people leaving town to-night and to-morrow, but those in the interior, what of them? There is sure to be violent anti-American demonstration, especially in out-of-the-way places.
12.30.
The news previously leaked out from Vera Cruz last night. Nothing gets out from the Embassy, as our staff all happen to know how to keep their counsel. It is what Mr. Lind has wanted for months, and I suppose the news was too satisfactory to keep. You will read it in to-morrow’s Paris Herald and the Journal de Genève. Don’t worry about us. We will have first-class safeguard if Huerta declares war. He may not. It is his policy, and a strong one it has been, to ignore Washington’s proclamations. On the other hand, he will have no intention of being caught by Villa, like a rat in a hole; and war with us may seem to him a glorious solution of his problems. Villa and Carranza will not arrive in the city together. No street is broad enough to permit the double entry of their contrary passions, violence, and greed.
It is “to laugh” when Villa is thanked publicly and officially for his kind promises in regard to life and property in the north.
February 3d. Evening.
A busy day—as you can well imagine. N. had to inform the various legations. I went down-town with him for luncheon, a thing I never do. We met the Spanish minister driving up the Paseo in his victoria—a pathetic figure. He has had so much worry and heartbreak over the situation and has been so helpless in the face of the disasters which have befallen his nationals that he is beyond surprise. Upon hearing the news he merely made a tired gesture of acquiescence. To him the raising of the embargo was, doubtless, only one more inexplicable thing. Von Hintze was out, and we next stopped at the French Legation, just opposite the German. Ayguesparsse, the secretary, possessed of one of the most elegant silhouettes in the world, was more than polite, but quite impassive, as he came out with Nelson to speak a word to me. He is married to a handsome young Mexican—the sister of Rincon Gaillardo, Marqués de Guadalupe—whose time, strength, money, and life, if need be, are at the disposition of his country.
When we got to the restaurant in Plateros, the most public and alarm-allaying spot we could think of, the newspaper men assailed N. with questions. The “story” that they are after is what the relations of Huerta would be to N. and the Embassy, and they announce that they were not going to let the chargé out of their sight.
After lunch, at which Mr. S. joined us, we went to the British Legation. N. gave Sir L. the news, while I walked in the garden with Lady C., both of us wilted, with nerves on edge. I came home, rested for a few minutes, and then dressed, and went out to fulfil my afternoon program of calls, turning up late for bridge at Madame Simon’s. She asked me squarely, though in the politest of French, “What is your government doing?” I saw many people during the afternoon, but, apart from her greeting, there was no word of politics. I think the matter is too distasteful to the public to be discussed with any one like myself, where care in the expression of feeling is necessary.
I drove home with Lady C., who was quietly aghast at the situation, just in time to get into a tea-gown and down-stairs for dinner. In the salon Seeger and the Graux (who leave to-morrow for Vera Cruz and New York) were waiting. N. telephoned that he was at the Palace, just going in to see Huerta. You can imagine that we had a lively dinner of surmises. He returned barely in time to say good-by to the Graux, and after they left we sat up late to talk over the appalling situation.