Zapata looms large on the horizon, as he has chosen this auspicious moment to declare that he would descend upon the fold with his cohorts, not, however, gleaming in purple and gold. The beauteous morning sun revealed various notices to this effect pasted up during the night in the heart of the city by daring Zapatistas.
I haven't seen them, but a rumor is as good as a fact for unsettling the public. However, I did see that La Perla and La Esmeralda had their iron windows drawn down upon their glittering treasures, when I took a turn down the Avenida San Francisco a little while ago—and many other shops had done the same.
I have no doubt the population of the submerged-tenth quarter, through which Zapata would have to pass, coming in via the Tlalpan and Country Club road, would enjoy rallying to his call. Our street seemed at one time already in the hands of revolucionarios in the shape of hundreds of newspaper boys—babes who could scarcely hold their papers, but whose bright little eyes can distinguish the national currency at any distance, and big boys and old women.
They scented large editions from the offices of La Prensa, and there was much begging for centavitos right under my windows to buy copies with. Shrieks and howls mingled with cries of "La Prensa!" and "Viva Orozco!" The trolley-cars were blocked, and we seemed the focus of the Orozco victory as far as the capital was concerned. It was late when an adequate police force appeared on the scene and formed a cordon about the lower part of the street. Even as I write they are calling an extra, which I am sending down for. It has been an exciting day, and all exciting days in Mexico are blood-colored.
March 31st.
Palm Sunday evening.
This morning I went to the Church of San Fernando. The sun was shining softly as I passed down the street of the Hombres Ilustres in through the little palm- and eucalyptus-planted plaza, in the middle of which, surrounded by the most peaceful of flower-beds, is the statue of Guerrero (shot in Oaxaca in 1831). His body lies in the old cemetery near by.
A soft, shining peace was over everything, and I felt inexpressibly happy and in accord with it. No hint came to me, as I walked along, of any bloody sacrifice of God or man. Little groups of Indians were waving their palms, kneeling at the door of the church, or walking about, and a few were selling elaborately plaited branches.
Though San Fernando is in a populous quarter, the tide has set to other shrines. Once it was the center of great activities, for from this church and the monastery and seminary adjoining were fitted out all the missions to the Californias. Padre Junipero Sierra and Padre Magin Catalá, and many other holy youths, burning with a zeal we don't even dimly comprehend, came from Spain to be trained here before starting out into unknown wildernesses, "for souls and for Spain." It's all so mysteriously suggestive.
The church has a pinkish-brown baroque façade, beautifully patinée, and the old doors are carved in a noble, conventional design. As I went in it seemed rather empty, a few Indians and a few gente decente only, praying before the purple-draped altars. Dreary, immense, uninteresting paintings decorate the walls now; but its interior was once hallowed, dim, gleaming with the gold of Churrigueresque altars and retablos, carvings, embroideries, and beautiful silver and gilt candelabra and vases.
Afterward I went to the cemetery adjoining the church, known as that of the Hombres Ilustres, where a somnolent custodian let me in. The most prominent tomb is that of Juarez, dating from somewhere in the eighties. He is represented with his head lying in the lap of a weeping woman, symbolic of the sorrows of the nation (and tears enough to make a river have been shed by women here, since then). I asked myself, by his tomb, what has it availed to scatter the treasures of the church? All are poorer and none, alas, the wiser.