There were crowds before the Church of the Profesa in “Plateros” as I drove home. The church had been gutted by fire the night before, its second misfortune since we arrived. Its great dome was rent during the terrific earthquake of the 7th of June, 1911—that unforgetable day on which I saw Madero make his triumphant entry into Mexico. At half past four in the morning the town was rocked like a ship in a gale, with a strange sound of great wind.
The Profesa, which has only just been repaired, was built late in the sixteenth century, and was a center of Jesuit activity. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries all the great marriages, baptisms, and functions took place in it. One can see in one’s mind the array of proud viceroys and their jewel-decked spouses and all the glittering functionaries, and last, but not least, the inevitable accompaniment of the Indian population, wandering in and out. Yesterday, at San Felipe, Mass was celebrated by a priest with a pronounced Spanish eighteenth-century ascetic face of the Merry del Val type. As he turned to give the blessing, I thought of the many elect and beautiful priests of Spain who had in bygone days turned with that same gesture and expression to give the same blessing to like throngs of uplifted Indian faces. The Indians crowd the churches and I am thankful that Heaven can be foreshown to them, somewhere, somehow. They are but beasts of burden here below.
XV
Departure of the British minister—Guns and marines from Vera Cruz—Review at the Condesa—Mister Lind—The Benton case—Huerta predicts intervention—Villa at Chihuahua.
February 12th.
Sir Lionel Carden is leaving next week. He feels (I think not without reason) very bitter about his experience down here. He is going to London via Washington. I suppose he means to tell the President a lot of things, but when he gets there he won’t do it. Something in the air will make him feel that nothing is of any use....
The protest Nelson made to the Foreign Office over the abusive language of the Imparcial was in big head-lines in the newspapers yesterday. The Spanish language lends itself exceedingly well to abuse. Miron, the man who wrote the articles, now goes about declaring that he will shoot Nelson at the first opportunity. I don’t think anything will come of this, however, though it keeps one a little uneasy in this land of surprises.
February 13th.
This morning we received a telegram that Nelson’s father is seriously ill (pneumonia) and all day I have been broken with agonies of indecision. Ought I to go to New York, possibly in time to close those beautiful old eyes? Or ought I to stay here?
N. intends to have six marines come up from Vera Cruz. We could lodge them here. This house was built for two very large apartments and was joined by doors and stairways when taken for an Embassy. The very large dining-room on the bedroom floor could easily hold six cots and the necessary washing apparatus. It is now used as a trunk-room, pressing-room, and general store-room. Personally I don’t feel that anything will happen in Mexico City, beyond having a premonition that we may be giving asylum to Huerta some of these days. The scroll bearing his hour still lies folded upon the lap of the gods.