It was removed, and after a disturbed interval the dinner proceeded to the accompaniment of polite suggestions as to the removal of "blacks" that descended, from time to time, on the faces and shoulders of the diners. As we were leaving the dining-room somebody remarked that there was a smell of burning, and in the drawing-room the oil-stove's mate was found to be doing the most awful things in the line of Popocatepetl, when Cortés passed by the first time. It was also removed.
Madame Lefaivre suggested at this point that we had better frankly accept le temps comme le bon Dieu l'avait envoyé, so scarfs and shawls were brought, with suggestions of overcoats. Everybody began to smoke and we got out the bridge-tables. They refused to play bridge, however, with my nice Vienna packs of cards, which are innocent of numbers at the corners. After a while, with the smoking, the process of digestion, the jokes, the companionship in misery, things got better, and the little party broke up at only one o'clock, very late for Mexico. They said they were too cold to go home. It was a fine sample of the "tropics."
At Von H.'s dinner for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the other night, it was even worse. His large drawing-rooms are to the north, though his stoves were working auf commando. After the long and elaborate dinner, during which the fair sex were visibly "all goose-flesh," we had our wraps brought and turned up our fur collars, which put a different complexion on events and ladies.
XIX
A tragic dance in the moonlight—Unveiling George Washington's statue—The Corps Diplomatique visits the Pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan—Orozco in full revolt
February 10th.
We were all awakened last night by a terrible, inhuman, mewing sound coming from the patio. It reminded us of "The White Leper" of Kipling. The moon was chiseling every stone and plant in the courtyard; a small light was in the porter's room, where a struggle seemed to be going on. All of a sudden a tall, stark-naked Indian, with his arms held stiff above his head, burst out and began to dance about in the moonlight, making strange passes and dippings of the body before something imaginary; there was a sort of sacrificial gesturing to his madness.
N. got his revolver and started down-stairs, fearing homicidal mania, when suddenly he threw himself in a corner, huddled up, and became unconscious. After a long delay the men came from the manicomio (mad-house) and his body was picked up like a loose bundle; but I felt as if I never needed to read about prehistoric, sacrificial rites—I had seen them in the moonlight, in the person of that poor Indian, gone insane.
I went down to see Magdalena, his mother, later on. She was sitting with her head in her hands in the little porter's lodge, surrounded by two or three of his children. He is a "widower." When she saw me she suddenly cried out, "Señora, mi hijo! mi hijo!" and her old eyes looked at me with the mother-look of helpless compassion for suffering sons through the ages—tearless, personal, tortured. I was troubled and saddened as I came up the stairway into the sunny veranda. But at the potent hour of pulque I heard sounds which, though not of mirth, seemed consoling.
February 13th.