There is an old document in the National Library of Paris which has hardly ever been consulted, I dare say, since the day on which it was placed on the dusty shelves of the manuscript room. It is an essay on the idioms of the Indian tribes of the New World, written toward the end of the sixteenth century, by Fray Alonzo Urbano, a monk of the order of St. Augustin. The chain of circumstances which was the means of bringing this curious document from Mexico to Paris is perhaps known only to myself, and that for an excellent reason. It was I who carried thither the unknown work of the monk of St. Augustin. The person from whom I obtained it is very likely dead. Be that as it may, the way in which I got possession of this manuscript will never be effaced from my memory; and the essay of Fray Urbano, although I am no judge of its philological merits, has still a great interest in my eyes. It brings to mind the intercourse I once had with one of the strangest personages that I ever had the good fortune to meet in Mexico. That intercourse was very short, but the recital will enable one easily to understand the deep impression it left upon me. I do not require to add that this story, though it appear romantic, is strictly true. In Mexico, you must remember, romance is ingrained in the manners of the people, and he who would faithfully picture these exceptionable manners would be set down as a somewhat unscrupulous story-teller, when he is, in fact, only a simple historian.
CHAPTER I.
The Public Scribe.—Pepito Rechifla.—The China.—The Callejon del Arco.
At the commencement of the year 1835 I happened to be in Mexico, engaged in the prosecution of a troublesome piece of business. This concerned the somewhat problematical recovery of a very considerable sum of money due me by an individual of whom I could not find the slightest trace. The business demanded the most energetic measures, and I addressed myself, in consequence, to several lawyers, well known for their success in dealing with such difficult cases. They all at first promised their assistance, but when I mentioned my debtor's name (he was called Don Dionisio Peralta), one and all of them excused themselves from having any share in the business. One said he could never pardon himself if he gave the slightest cause of uneasiness to so gallant a man as Señor Peralta; a second, that he was attached to him by a compadrazgo[17] of long standing; a third suddenly remembered that he had been a bosom friend of his in his youth. A fourth, more communicative than the others, enlightened me as to the cause of such friendly scruples; these gentlemen had the fear of a dagger before their eyes, a mode of procedure of which Señor Peralta had availed himself more than once, to shake himself free of creditors who had been too pressing. "I don't know," he added, "a single person who will undertake your business, if the licentiate Don Tadeo Cristobal refuse: he has a heart of rock and a hand of iron; he is the man for you." I ran immediately to the Calle de los Batanes, where I was told he lived; but another check awaited me there. Don Tadeo had quitted that place, and no one could tell me his present abode.
Wearied and dejected in the evening, after a whole day spent in running up and down to no purpose, I was walking listlessly to and fro in the Merchants' Arcades (Portales de los Mercadores), which stands on the grand square of Mexico. Despairing of success, I resolved to ask for some information about Don Tadeo from some of the numerous public writers, whose stalls under the gallery are so many public intelligence offices; but, once there, I completely forgot the motive which had brought me into this kind of bazar, the daily resort of all the idlers of Mexico, and my attention was completely distracted by the animated picture which was unrolled before my eyes. The spectator will be less astonished at this if he figure to himself the almost magical appearance the Plaza Mayor presents an hour before sunset. The Portales de los Mercadores occupy, in fact, almost one complete side of this immense square. The Cathedral, the Ayuntamiento, and the President's palace form, as the reader already knows, the other three sides. The most beautiful streets in Mexico debouch between those buildings; there is the street Primeria Monterilla, crowded with elegant shops; another, called los Plateros (the street of the goldsmiths), whose shops are almost exclusively occupied by jewelers or lapidaries, while the petty Mexican merchant seems to have chosen, for the display of European commodities, the dark arcades of the los Mercadores. At the time of my stay in Mexico, French innovation had not yet ventured to alter the picturesque appearance of these arcades, which, in their general aspect, bore a remarkable resemblance to the Piliers des Halles in Paris. The heavy arches are supported on one side by vast warehouses, on the other by pillars, at the foot of which are ranged shops (alacenas) well stocked with religious books, rosaries, daggers, and spurs. Close by these shops, as if to represent all the grades of trafficking, léperos, in rags, hawk about articles of glassware, and, sticking one of them on the tip of their finger, they search for customers with great eagerness. Every now and then the venders of wild duck ragouts, or tamales,[18] seated in the shade of the arches, strike in, amid the din of the crowd, with their well-known cry,[19] Aqui hay poto grande, mi alma; senorito venga sted, or that as popular but shorter call, Tamales[20] queretanos. The passers-by and purchasers are as worthy of observation as the sellers. The ever-varying color of gowns and tapalos,[21] the gold of the mangas, and the motley color of the serapes, form, under the dim, hazy light which prevail in the pilastera, a brilliant mixture of different colors, which reminds one strongly of the most fantastical Venetian masquerades. In the evening, when the stalls and shops are closed, the Merchants' Arcades become a kind of political club. Seated on the threshold of the gates, or striding along in this kind of cloister, officers and townsmen talk about revolutions that have been effected, or are to be effected, till the time when the almost deserted galleries serve only as a retreat for lovers, and their low whispers is all that is heard beneath the silent arcades.
I had now sauntered for a long time in the Merchants' Arcades, when the sight of a writer's stall reminded me of my business there. Among the working population of the Portales, the public writers form a considerable portion of the community. You must remember that in Mexico primary instruction is not at all general, and that the office of a public writer, among this illiterate population, has lost nothing of its primitive importance. The tractable pen of the evangelists (that is the name they bear) is required for a thousand commissions, more or less delicate, and often of the most equivocal character—from the venal love-letter down to the note sent by a bravo to lure his intended victim to some secret ambuscade. The evangelist whom I had remarked among the rest of his tribe was a little squat fellow, his head almost bald, scarcely encircled with a few gray hairs. What principally drew my attention to this man was an expression of sardonic joviality which shone in his otherwise insignificant face. I was just about to make some inquiries of him about Don Tadeo, when an incident made me suddenly pause, and continue to look on in silence. A young girl came to the stall of the evangelist. The long wavy hair, which escaped in plaits from her open rebozo, her complexion of a slight umber tint, the brown shoulders that her chemise of fine linen, fringed with lace, left almost bare, her slender figure, which had never been deformed by stays, and, above all, the three short petticoats of different colors, which fell in straight folds over her pliant haunches, all pointed out the young woman as a genuine specimen of the China.[22]
"Tio Luquillas," said the maiden.
"What is it?" replied the evangelist.
"I need your assistance."