Evening, January 27th
This afternoon I went with de Soto to see Mme. Lefaivre at the Museo Nacional, where she is copying an old Spanish screen. It is always a pleasure to go through the lovely, sun-baked patio, filled with gods and altars of a lost race. Many of them, found in the Zocalo, have made but a short journey to their resting-place. De Soto is always an agreeable companion for any little excursion into the past—though it isn’t the past we are dreaming about, these days. And as for his looks, put a lace ruff and a velvet doublet on him and he would be a “Velasquez” of the best epoch.
Mme. Lefaivre, enveloped in an apron, was sitting on a little step-ladder before the largest screen I have ever seen, its eight mammoth leaves representing various amorous scenes, lovers, balconies, guitars, etc.—all most decorative and truly ambassadorial. I told her that nothing but the Farnese Palace would be big enough for it, and the light of dreams—the kind of dreams we all dream—appeared in her eyes. The big sala was getting a bit dim, so she left her work and we started for a turn through the museum. When we found ourselves talking of Huerta by the “Morning Star,” a mysterious, hard-faced, green god (his little name is Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli), I thought we might as well take a turn in the motor; so we went up to Chapultepec and continued the discourse under the cypresses, which are growing, though slowly, with the living events that alone really interest one. The past is for those with peace and leisure.