December 11th
Yesterday I was too busy to write; spent the morning at the Red Cross, and then had luncheon at Coyoacan, at Mrs. Beck’s charming old house. Coyoacan is the most interesting, as well as livable, of all the suburbs, with its beautiful gardens and massive live-oaks shading the streets. Cortés made Coyoacan his stamping-ground, and one lovely old Spanish edifice after the other recalls his romantic history.
From here he launched his final assault against Mexico City; here poor, noble Guauhtémoc (I have an old print representing him with his feet in boiling water and an expression of complete detachment on his face) was tortured, in vain, to make him reveal the hiding-place of Montezuma’s treasure. After leaving Mrs. B.’s, Mrs. Kilvert and I went for a stroll in the garden of the celebrated Casa de Alvarado, built by him, of the famous leap. An old servidor of Mrs. Nuttall’s, to whom the house now belongs, opened the gate for us, with a welcoming smile. We passed through the patio, in one corner of which is the old well (with a dark history connected with the murder of the wife of one of the Conquerors), out into the garden with its melancholy and mysterious charm. The possession of the house is supposed to bring bad luck to the possessors, and sudden and violent death has happened to a dweller there even in my time. Roses and heliotrope and the brilliant drapeaux Espagnoles, with their streaks of red and yellow, were running riot, and a eucalyptus-tree drooped over all. In this magic land, even a few months of neglect will transform the best-kept garden into some enchanted close of story.
As I was getting out of the auto in front of the Embassy, I found sitting on the curb a pitiful family of five—four children of from seven years to eighteen months, and the mother, who was about to have another child. The father had been taken by the press-gang in the morning, and they were in the streets. I gave the woman some money, and one of the maids brought out bread and cake, and a bundle of garments for the children. Such bright-eyed little girls, real misery not having pinched them yet. I speak of them because they typify thousands of cases. A hand on his shoulder, and the father is gone forever! Such acts, occurring daily, estrange possible sympathy for the government. The woman will return to me when the money is spent.
There are Federal rumors of a split between Villa and Carranza, but, though they will inevitably fight, I don’t think the time is ripe for it, and they are some five hundred kilometers apart, which makes for patience and charity. Villa, whose latest name is the “Tiger of the North,” has made such daring and successful military moves that Carranza must put up with him. He has just married again, during the sacking of Torreon (a detail, of course, as was also his appearance at a ball in puris naturalibus—a shock to the guests, even in revolutionary Mexico!)
I only heard at luncheon at the Russian Legation that Count Peretti, conseiller of the French embassy in Washington, is leaving for Paris to-night, by the Navarre. He married when en poste here a handsome Mexican wife. This letter goes with him. On Saturday we dine at Lady Carden’s. The dinner is given for Colonel Gage, the handsome and agreeable British military attaché à cheval between Washington and Mexico City.
The fight around Tampico continues, the town being indeed “between the devils and the deep sea.” No one yet knows the outcome, except that the unoffending blood of the Mexican peon is reddening the soil. The Kronprinzessin Cecilie is down there to take off refugees; also the Logican, and we are sending the Tacoma and the Wheeling. I understand that, though some hundreds have been taken on board, about five hundred unfortunates are still waiting on the pier in the neutral zone.
I must begin to arrange my Christmas tree for the few friends remaining in this restless, distant land, with some little gift for each.