Six Months in Mexico, Nellie Bly [classic literature books TXT] 📗

came on, and the don went out to perform his deadly business. A man clad like himself came along, and Don Juan approached with, “My friend, what is the hour?” “Eleven o’clock. Adois,” briefly answered the one addressed. “You are a happy man; you know the hour of your death,” and the dark-clad stranger sank with a slight moan, while the don fled to his dreary chambers.

Morning dawned, and a dead man, as usual, was found. Don Manuel met them carrying the body into his casa, heard the screams of his wife, and saw the rigid face of his beloved nephew, dead, and by his hand! He rushed to his father confessor, whom he had not visited for so long, and begged absolution. “Thou must first repent,” said the father. “Repent, repent!” cried the wretched man; “I am racked with misery. Grant me absolution.” “Prove thy repentance first,” answered the father; “go and stand beneath the scaffolding in front of the official building when the bell and watchman tolls the hour for midnight. Prove thy repentance by doing that thrice, then come to me.”

After the first trial he returned to the father, begging that absolution be granted, for devils had wounded his flesh and tortured him as he had stood beneath the scaffolding. “No, twice more must thou stand there,” was the unrelenting reply, and once again he went. Morning brought him more dead than alive to the good father’s side. His face wore the hue of death, his form was trembling, his eyes were glassy and his words wild. “I cannot endure the third night. Angels and devils alike surround me. My victims ask me, with their cold hands about my throat and glassy eyes staring into mine, to name the hour I want to die. My flesh is bruised where they burn and prick me. My head is sore from the frequent pulling of my hair. Grant me absolution; they have showed me the bottomless pit of hell, and I cannot return!”

The good father prayed long and earnestly with him, that the Almighty power would deal leniently with his many crimes, but commanded the trembling wretch to spend the third and final night beneath the scaffolding. Dawn came, but it brought no hopeful man for the promised absolution. They found him hanging on the scaffolding dead. Some say the angels took him away because he had suffered sufficiently for his sins. Others say the devils hung him because he tried to escape the toil he had willingly accepted. But he was dead. His story was made known, and because of the strangeness of it, this street was named after him, and I never traversed it while in Mexico but that I felt sorrow for the poor insane wretch as he stood three nights beneath the scaffolding on Don Juan Manuel.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A MEXICAN PARLOR.

MOST readers will probably be interested to know how custom rules that a parlor shall be furnished “in Spanish” as we quaintly say in Mexico. For the knowledge that all are of a different tongue makes a rather queer impression and it is quite common for foreigners to remark: “Oh, they can’t hear, they are Spanish.” We even get to think they cannot see and that people laugh and babies cry “in Spanish.”

A parlor, or sala, is found in every private Mexican house, but until within the last two years there was not a hotel in the republic that had a parlor. Boarders entertained their friends in their bedrooms - and this is yet considered quite the proper thing to do. Some of the hotels now advertise as Americanos on the strength of having a little parlor. Calling or visiting is quite uncommon, as there is no society, and little sociability outside their home doors, yet occasionally relatives call on one another; still I have been with cousins who accidentally met at church, and though they were the best of friends, living within a dozen squares of each other, they had not exchanged visits for three years; this is quite common. I know two sisters living within four squares of each other who have not been in each other’s house for a year. I hardly think the reason is a lack of sociability or hospitality, as, once within the massive walls of their casa, the Spanish courtesy is readily exhibited; they are your servants, and their house is yours for the time being, but the main causes are the gradual decrease of their once princely fortunes, and their laziness; the latter I regard, from close observation, as the chief fault.

Yet with all their retired habits they retain the “custom” of former generations as to how their parlor must be arranged and visits paid and received, as strictly as though they were in the midst of an ultra society circle; their customs, I have been informed, are thoroughly Spanish and are the only ones practiced both in Spain and Cuba.

The sala is always on the second floor, as none but servants occupy the ground or first floor, and it is generally the only room in the house which boasts of a carpet. In several cases I have seen the floors made of polished wood and marble tiling; the walls are beautifully frescoed in colors, and the ceiling, which is always very high, has a magnificent painting in the center, the subject invariably of angels or a group of scantily-clad females. In each corner there are round, brass-edged openings of about ten inches in circumference, which serve as ventilators and very often a double purpose by letting scorpions in on unwilling victims.

The windows are but glass doors opening out upon little iron-railed balconies shaded by awnings. Each window-shade is transparent, and as the light shines through, it not only fills the room with some beautiful delicate tints, but discloses a lovely Southern scene. Cobweby curtains of creamy white hang from brass poles, suspended at least a foot and a half from the window, forming in themselves little nooks which would be idolized by romantically inclined “spoons” and “spooners” of the States.

The Mexicans are all good judges of paintings and many are talented artists; they do not harrow up one’s sensibilities with dollar daubs of blue-trees, lavender-tinted skies and a mammoth animal with horns and tail, standing on a white streak in the foreground, which (the animal) placed crosswise, could stand on all fours and never touch water. Nor does one’s eyes have to long for the waters of Lethe because of tea prizes and Mikado ornaments. But a selection of good oil paintings and French-plate mirrors, all framed in brass, grace their rooms.

The piano is almost universal and occupies some nook by itself; the furniture for the sala is always cushioned and is composed mainly of easy chairs; the sofa - the seat of honor - is placed against the wall beneath some large painting or mirror and a large rug is laid in front. Starting from either end are the easy chairs which form an unbroken circle around the sofa, all thus being able to face it without turning their backs on any one. Directly at the back of the chairs, or facing the sofa, is a round table with a “crazy” patchwork cover - which craze has invaded even that country - or a knitted scarf. Then it is actually littered with ornaments of every description, leaving no empty space; as an Englishman rather tersely remarked to me, “They look like a counter in a crowded pawn shop.”

All the chairs, and the sofa, have crocheted tidies on the backs, arms and seat, each separate, and enough to madden a Talmage convert. You may rise up slowly with an Andersonian grace and first one female politely begs permission to remove one of her tidies from your hat; then they will file into the next room, one by one, to see how La Americanos’ sombrero becomes them, while another removes a white, delicately constructed thing from your “tournure” (what they dote on), which latter they have been dying to closely inspect, and to find how you manage to have it hang so prettily. And after you remove another tidy which has become fastened to your heel (although you can’t imagine how), you detach yet another from the side trimmings of your dress. By that time you are flustered, forget the Andersonian grace, and utter some emphatic words about tidies and tidy matters in general, and sit down with a real Castletonian kick.

The sala is not complete without at least two cabinets to hold the overflow of the center table. In all the odd corners are pedestals on which are statuettes in marble, bronze, or plaster-of-Paris, just as the owner’s purse permits. Tropical plants in quaint jars of Indian design and construction and rustic stands are grouped about, and parrots, mocking-birds, and gayly-colored birds of high and low voices complete the attractions of the beautiful Mexican sala.

CHAPTER XXIX.

LOVE AND COURTSHIP IN MEXICO.

“Why the world are all thinking about it,

And as for myself I can swear,

If I fancied that Heaven were without it,

I’d scarce feel a wish to be there.” Moore.

BENEATH the Mexican skies, where everybody treats life as if it were one long holiday, they love with a passion as fervent as their Southern sun, but - on one side at least - as brilliant and transient as a shooting star. Yet there is a fascination about it which makes the American love very insipid in comparison.

In childhood, boys and girls are never permitted to be together. There is no rather sweet remembrance of when we first began to love, or having to stand with our face in the corner for passing “love letters,” or the fun of playing “Copenhagen” when we didn’t run one bit hard. It is only of a dirty little schoolroom filled with dusky ninos, all of the same wearing apparel, who studied “out loud;” a fat little teacher who never wore tight dresses, and who only combed her hair “after the senoritas had gone home.” A scolding French master and an equally bad music master completes the memories.

When Mexican damsels reach that “hood” which permits of long dresses and big bustles, they are in feverish expectation until, during a walk or drive, a flash from a pair of soft, black eyes tells its tale and a pair of starry ones sends back a swift reply, and with a tender sigh she realizes she has learned that which comes into the lives of them all. That night she peeps from behind her curtains and watches him promenade the opposite sidewalk back and forth, the gaslight throwing his shadow many feet in advance, which, she vows - next to him - is the most beautiful thing she ever gazed upon. She does not show herself the first time or does he expect it. Modesty or custom prevents. Just as he takes off his hat to breathe a farewell to her balcony, a white handkerchief flutters forth for an instant, he kisses his finger tips, the light goes out, and both retire, longing for manana noche.

Time goes on, and she gets bold enough to stand on the balcony, in full glare of the laughing moon, whilst he walks just beneath her. When it rains he will stand there until hat and clothing are ruined, to show his devotion. When she goes for a walk he is sure to follow slowly behind, and if chance offers he touches his hat slightly, and she with upraised hand deftly gives the pretty Mexican salutation. When the novelty wears off all this, she gets a pencil, paper, and cord, with which she transfers to him those sweet, soft little nothings which the love-stricken are so fond of, and the fair fisheress never draws in an empty