At last Jacqueline stabbed a dot after the word “Finis,” and so rounded out her chapter on “Failure.” Beyond doubt that tiny punctuation point saved many lives. The besiegers were waxing impatient to assault, and within the City famine mobs ran the streets, crying, “Corn and wood! Corn and wood!” Those who could fled to the Republican camp. The Austrians practically mutinied. Starving and dying thousands clamored for surrender. Yet the ugly, revolting pigmy who was lieutenant of the Empire held them back in the terror of his heartless cruelty.
Then the angel of mercy came. From her Marquez the tyrant learned that his speculation in treachery had collapsed. Louis Napoleon wanted no more of that stock. Besides, every French bayonet was needed in France. The rabid Leopard heard, and that night meanly crept away to save his own loathsome pelt. Bombs had begun to fall into the City, when a Mexican general worthier of the name took upon himself the heroic shame of unconditional surrender. The Oaxacans outside marched in, led by their young chief, Porfirio Diaz, and they fed the people, and of “traitors” shot only a moderate few.
Renovation became the order of the days that followed. The President of the Republic was to be welcomed back to his 507capital. The stubborn old patriot’s heart must be gladdened by every contrast to the dreary, rainy night years before when he fled into exile. Mexico would honor herself in honoring the Benemérito of America. So bunting was spread over every façade, along every cornice, green, white, and red, a festival lichen of magic growth. Flags cracked and snapped aloft, and lace curtains decked the outside of windows. Soldiers put on shoes and canvased their brown hands in white cotton gloves, and military bands rehearsed tirelessly.
Din Driscoll sat on a bench in the shady Zócalo, and contemplated the Palacio Nacional and the Cathedral in process of changing sides from Empire to Republic. Innumerable lanterns being hung along their massive outlines were for incense to a goddess restored. The Mexican eagle had prevailed over monarchial griffins, and held her serpent safely in the way of being throttled. The blunt homely visage of Don Benito Juarez, luxuriously framed, looked out from over the Palace entrance. It was a huge portrait, surrounded by the national standards. Among the emblems there was one other, the Stars and Stripes. The gaze of the ex-Confederate was fixed. It was fixed steadily on the Stars and Stripes. Now and then he felt a rising in his throat, which he had difficulty to swallow down again.
“Well, Jack?”
Boone stood over him. Driscoll’s eyes were oddly troubled as they turned from that flag opposite.
“Sure it’s hard,” said Boone quietly, “mighty hard, to forgive our enemies the good they do.”
“What enemies?”
“W’y, them,” and Daniel pointed to a flag as to a nation. “Yes sir, the Yanks have kept faith. Do you see a single one of their uniforms down here? Do you notice anywheres that Yankee protectorate we were predicting? No sir, you do not! The Yanks–” But the term was damning to eloquence. 508Mr. Boone found another. “The Americans, I repeat, have hurled back the European invader. They have given Mexico to the Mexicans. They have endowed a people with nationality. But they have not gobbled up one solitary foot of territory. Which is finer, grander, than your Napoleonic glory! And yet it’s selfish, of coh’se it is. But listen here, there’ll never be any Utopia, Altruria, Millennium, or what not, that don’t coincide with self-interest. And first among the races of the earth, the Americans have made ’em coincide, and I want to know right now if the Americans are not the hope of the world!”
The orator paused for breath. He had to. And then surprise the most lugubrious unexpectedly clouded his lank features. “Darn it, Jack,” he exclaimed in alarm, “if I ain’t getting Reconstructed, right while I am standing here!”