Evening
I started out with Kanya and Madame Simon to motor to Xochimilco, and before getting out of town we ran down a poor pelado. It was a horrible sensation as the big motor struck him. I jumped out and ran to him and found him lying on his poor face, a great stream of blood gushing from a wound in his head.
They wouldn’t let me touch him till a sergeant came. Then we turned him on his back, and I bound up his head as well as I could, with a handkerchief some one gave me, and with one of my long, purple veils. I took the motor—Kanya and Madame Simon are not used to blood—and went quickly to the comisaría and got a doctor. The chauffeur, whose fault it really was, was trembling like an aspen. When we got back, it seemed to me the whole peon world had turned out. Finally we got the victim laid on the camilla; and now, I suppose, his poor soul is with its Maker. As the motor is Kanya’s, there will be no calling him up in court, and he will be very generous to the family. I am thankful, for various reasons, that it wasn’t the Embassy motor. I am awfully upset about it; to think of starting out on this beautiful afternoon and being the instrument to send that poor soul into eternity.
Later I went to see Madame Lefaivre. She is in bed with a “synovite,” and is trying to superintend her packing at the same time. I met von Hintze as I came out of the Legation. He informed me, with a wicked smile, that the review was to celebrate, or rather, commemorate, the mutiny of the celebrated Twenty-ninth against Madero last February. Well, I hope we won’t get into trouble with the powers that be. He addressed me, saying, “I hear you presided over the military commemoration of to-day.”
I said, “Good heavens! What commemoration?” I knew nothing of it, and was only interested to see what sort of a showing the troops would make!
I write no more. I feel very triste with the sight of that poor, bleeding head before my eyes and the memory of the impact of that body against the motor.