by Diego Rivera
From that time on, I developed a keen desire to know about the origins of life. I began to teach myself to read, asking everyone I could, night and day, to help me learn the letters of the alphabet. Later, when I could make out a few words, I practiced reading my mother’s obstetrics books and any other books I could borrow from our doctor.
THE THREE OLD GENTLEMEN WELCOME THE NEW ICONOCLAST
BESIDES MY MOTHER AND FATHER, my sister and myself, two female relations of my mother lived in the house on Pocitos Street. These two boarders, my Aunt Cesaria and my great-aunt Vicenta, were very religious. My father, who was a liberal and anticlerical, had worked out a truce with them. He did not interfere with their observances and even permitted them to display the religious pictures and images which figure so much in Catholic worship. Around my soul, however, he drew a line; that was off limits to the pious ones. Until I was six years old, I had never been inside a house of worship.
One day, without my father’s knowledge, my great-aunt Vicenta risked taking me to the Church of San Diego. She thought I should pray to the Virgin Mary there for my mother’s success in her diploma examinations which she was taking that morning.
On entering the Church, my revulsion was so great that I still get a sick feeling in my stomach when I recall it. I remember examining the wooden boxes with their slots on top for the coins, then the man at the door in his long, dirty smock, collecting more money in a tin plate. There were paintings all around of women and men sitting or walking on clouds with little winged boys flying above them.
In my own house, I had inspected my aunts’ images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. I had scratched them and discovered that they were made of wood. I had put sticks into their glass eyes and through their ears to discover whether they could see, hear, or feel anything—always, of course, with negative results.
In the church, my great-aunt Vicenta took her place among the crowd of old men and women, some of whom were kneeling. She whispered to me to beg the Virgin of Guanajuato to help my mother. I had a funny feeling then which I remember vividly. It was a mixture of indignation and an impulse to laugh at the people around me. I did not laugh, but I gave vent to my feelings by scornfully calling them idiots. My poor aunt and some other old ladies who had heard me tried to explain to me that they were not idiots, that I was only a boy and did not understand such things. My aunt had to be cautious with me because our visit to the church was a secret from my father who had forbidden my ever being taken there.
I said nothing more for the moment but sat quietly, looking at everything around me. I observed the carving on the altar and the images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, pictured as they were supposed to appear in heaven. Suddenly rage possessed me, and I ran from my aunt and climbed up the steps of the altar. Then at the top of my voice, I began to address the astonished worshipers. I remember the words because each one had a strange sound, each one left a burning imprint in my head.
“Stupid people! You reek of dirt and stupidity! You are so crazy that you believe that if I were to ask the portrait of my father, hanging in my house, for one peso, the portrait would actually give me one peso. You are utter idiots. In order to get pesos, I have to ask someone who has pesos to spare and is willing to give some to me.
“You talk of heaven, pointing with your fingers over your head. What heaven is there? There is only air, clouds which give rain, lightning which makes a loud sound and breaks the tree branches, and birds flying. There are no boys with wings nor any ladies or gentlemen sitting on clouds.
“Clouds are water vapor which goes up when the heat of the sun’s rays strikes the rivers and lakes. You can see this vapor from the Guanajuato mountains. It turns to water which falls in drops, and so we have rain.
“At the entrance to this place, I saw boxes to collect money, and a man asking for more money. I also know the priest who comes often to our house to drink my aunt’s good chocolate and glasses of liquor. With the money he collects for the church, he pays the painters and sculptors to paint all these lies and puppets. He does this to get more money to make stupid people like you believe that these are truths and to make you fear the Virgin Mary and God.
“In order to have the priest appease these idols to spare you because you are cruel, dirty, and bad people, you give this money to the priest. Does that fear stop the beggars, the poor people, and the jobless miners from sneaking into the houses of the rich people, the grocery stores, the clothing stores of the gabachos, and the haciendas of the gringos, and taking from them a little of what they need?”
At this point some terrified ladies began to scream. They made the sign of the cross in my direction, shouting, “This child is Satan! Satan has appeared in this child!”
The man with the long smock came over to me with a big brass cup full of water which he threw over me, all the while making the sign of the cross. By now my fury had passed, and I was full of mischievous fun. No longer preaching, I began taunting the worshipers with the worst insults and profanities I had learned up to that time.
Suddenly the priest came out, dressed in an impressive robe crusted over with gold embroidery. In his left hand, he held a big book from which he read loudly while looking at me foolishly. I retreated to the small altar at the right, calculating eventually to take a candlestick and throw it at him.
With my back to the wall so that I could not be attacked from the rear and with my hands clenched, I faced the priest. “What about you, you old fool?” I said. “If there really is a Holy Virgin or anyone up in the air, tell them to send lightning to strike me down or let the stones of the vault fall on my head. If you are unable to do that, Mr. Priest, you’re nothing but a puppet taking money from stupid old women. You’re no better than the clown in the circus coaxing coins from the public. If God doesn’t stop me, then there must be no God.”
The priest read on more loudly than before, making funny signs in the air. Nothing happened. The atmosphere was so charged with hatred against me that I looked up to the dome to see if stones were really starting to fall.
Then I took two steps toward the priest and shouted, “You see that your God, your Virgin, and your saints mean no more to me than your old book and your signs.” Then I grabbed the candlestick in my hands.
“Get out of here!” I shouted.
Whether he was trying to prevent a scandal or simply didn’t know how to cope with a boy like me, I can’t tell; but the priest closed his book, covered his head, and ran out. At that moment, I wouldn’t have changed places with anyone in the world. I took the center of the altar and, gesticulating with my fists, I shouted, “You see, there is no God! You’re all stupid cows!”
Many rough-looking men had joined the old people, but when I said, “There is no God,” they put their hands over their eyes and ears and ran away. They pushed each other in their panic to get out of the church, crying as they ran, “The devil is here!”
My great-aunt, melting in tears, gathered me in her arms to carry me out of the profaned church of San Diego. When we reached the street, I expected to be pelted with stones, but the people were too busy shutting their windows and doors against the devil. The streets were as empty as if a herd of wild bulls had stampeded into town.
My great-aunt ran with me through the streets and up into the mountains. She didn’t bring me home until late in the afternoon.
When we returned, a crowd of doctors and fellow students were dancing in the street with my successful, pretty mother. They were celebrating my mother’s passing her examinations.
If that morning I came to know the feeling of triumph, I learned the nature of jealousy that afternoon. No one paid me any attention.
That night, however, as I was blowing out the candles before going to bed, three old gentlemen called at my house. They wore top hats and black riding boots and behaved in a very formal manner. Stiffly they requested an audience with Don Diego de Rivera.
My mother, supposing that they had come to see my father about fighting a duel, pa
led as she called him. But my father, who never avoided a fight or an adventure, came out immediately. On seeing them, he pretended not to know them, though factually they were friends of his. One of the gentlemen asked if they could speak with his son, Diego. Hearing my name, I came forward saying, “At your command, sirs.”
My visitors took off their hats, and the eldest, looking stately in his big white mustache, made me this speech:
“We come to you here, in the name and as representatives of the eleven freedom veterans in Guanajuato. We men are liberals, veterans of the wars against invaders, and fighters for reform and liberty. Our brotherhood keeps up the fight for freedom and the rights of men. After today we consider you our younger brother, and we have come to invite you publicly to join our group. We sit every day in the Union Garden at the time of the evening paseo. No fanatic, conservative, or Catholic would dare sit with us without fearing to be condemned to hell. Therefore, we never suffer intrusion.
“We veterans have fought with arms, thoughts, writings, and speeches against clericalism. You are a legitimate son of our brotherhood and as much our brother as is your father. Both he and your grandfather have been distinguished members of our order. No wonder you have performed such a feat at the outset of your life—a feat superior to any of ours. Not one of us has ever used the freedom of speech and thought inside of the house of religion itself! We congratulate you, young wolf. Will you shake hands and join us?”
With great pride, I shook each man’s hand. I felt so full of new learning and vanity that I left home with them that evening, without asking my parents’ permission. From then on, I was permitted to sit with them whenever I chose, on their special benches in the park. And these graybeards of between fifty and eighty talked to me as if I were their peer, although much of their conversation was beyond me.
MY THREE AMBITIONS
AT THE AGE OF SIX, I had three ambitions.
The first was to be an engineer. Everyone in Guanajuato, in fact, already called me “the engineer” because I loved mechanical toys. I would also go out to the railroad depot to watch the trains come in and depart. After a while, I made friends with some of the railroad workers, and they would take me for short rides in the cab, even allowing me to hold the throttle and blow the whistle. I would return home from these journeys filled with excitement and wild plans for the future.
My second ambition was to become the lover of a beautiful girl named Virginia Mena.
My third ambition was to be accepted by a group of local women whom I adored. These women were prostitutes who served the Guanajuato miners. The miners paid them in gold and silver which they spent on fantastically gorgeous clothes. Many times they got into murderous fights which left them scarred from their ears to the corners of their mouths.
My first two ambitions were never realized. But to my dying day I shall never forget those whores. I became their pet and they my love.
I BEGIN TO DRAW
As FAR BACK as I can remember, I was drawing. Almost as soon as my fat baby fingers could grasp a pencil, I was marking up walls, doors, and furniture. To avoid mutilation of his entire house, my father set aside a special room where I was allowed to write on anything I wished. This first “studio” of mine had black canvas draped on all the walls and on the floor. Here I made my earliest “murals.”
I still have a drawing that my mother preserved from the time I was two years old. It represents a locomotive with a caboose, going uphill.
My favorite subjects in childhood were machines—especially trains, locomotives, and train crashes. Then came battles, besieged trains falling from bridges, and occasionally mountains, with the mines showing inside them.
WE MOVE TO MEXICO CITY
FROM THE AGE OF THIRTEEN, when he enlisted in the war against the French invaders, my father had dedicated his life to freedom and progress. He fought against the French for seven years; at twenty, he returned to Guanajuato with the rank of major. Feeling now that education was the great need of the country, he left the army to become a teacher, then an inspector of the rural schools of the state. During his inspection tours, he saw the misery and ignorance in which the people lived. He became deeply moved and was seized with a burning zeal for reform. Never a man to hold his tongue, he gave vent to his feelings in a journal he edited called The Democrat. In impassioned articles, he took the side of the oppressed—the miners and the peasants. As a result, he incurred the enmity of fellow officials.
This enmity extended to the other members of my family; my performance in the Church of San Diego had already given us a bad name in the town. We were subjected to petty persecutions. My mother was frightened by frequent street riots and demonstrations. One day she fell into a panic, sold everything except a few personal belongings, and went off with my sister and me to Mexico City. I was not quite seven at the time.
When my father returned home from an inspection tour, he was somewhat taken aback. However, he soon learned from neighbors where we had gone, and he followed us willingly. He had recently lost money in unlucky mining speculations, and a change of scene must not have appeared unattractive. But the home we found was a poor one in a poor neighborhood. My father had to take a small clerkship in the Department of Public Health. My mother set up as a midwife, but it was some time before she was able to build up a practice.
As for myself, our poverty diet undermined my resistance, and I came down first with scarlet fever and then with typhoid. Then my mother became pregnant again and was sick much of the time. The new baby, a boy named Alfonso, lived no more than a week.
SCHOOLS
IN THE THIRD YEAR our lot improved, and we moved into a better neighborhood in the northern part of the city, close to where the Monument of the Revolution stands. Nearby was an immense open area which, with the district of San Rafael, comprised the ejido of Mexico City-that is, the communal land of the Indian population. It was an ideal playground and here, with other children, I romped and went fishing in the canals.
At eight, I entered my first school, the Colegio del Padre Antonio. This clerical school was the choice of my mother, who had fallen under the influence of her pious sister and aunt. Except for a French teacher named Ledoyen, a former officer of the French army and a communist, there was nobody and nothing in the school that I liked, and I left it after a few months.
I was next sent to another clerical school, the Liceo Católico Hispano, conducted by an intelligent priest, Father Servine. Here I was given good food as well as free instruction, books, various working tools, and other things. I was put in the third grade, but having been prepared well by my father, I was soon skipped to the sixth grade.
MY FIRST EXPERIENCE OF LOVE
OF GREAT IMPORTANCE to me at this period was my first experience of sexual love. My mistress was a young American teacher at the Protestant school. She was eighteen years old and as beautiful and sensitive a creature as any I have known. Though I was only nine, I was already virile. It excited her to discover in me an unsuspected, deep-rooted masochism, and she would thrill me by reciting stories about the holy martyrs. With her, I came to manhood suddenly and completely and was spared the torment of solitary yearning which is the usual lot of a growing boy.
She gave me her voluptuous body, the summit of earthly delight. And she prepared me for the arms of my second mistress, a generous Negroid girl, wife of an engineer on the Mexican Central Railroad. When her husband was away, I joined this lass in a nearby pasture. I was then twelve or thirteen and already a student in the San Carlos School of Fine Arts.
THE BEGINNING AND END OF A MILITARY CAREER
I WAS ELEVEN when I entered the School of Fine Arts. The year before, I had done very little drawing. Between my first and second loves, I concentrated all my energies in making sketches of fortifications and plans of battle. I also drew up campaigns of military conquest and programs of government. I put myself in command of five thousand Russian troops, which I fabricated by gluing drawings of soldiers on cardboard in such a
way that the little figures stood erect. I was not only the commander of this Russian army but of all Russia, the Tsar, his generals and ministers, and even the revolutionaries. I helped other boys I played with make similar armies of allies and enemies.
Carlos Macías, my cousin, now an engineer with the General Electric Company, was France, my ally. Manuel Macías, today a successful lawyer whose clients include all the old-regime Mexican families, was England. Auria Manon, the rich landlord’s son, was Spain. Juan Macías was Germany. And Porfirio Aguirre, world-famous archeologist and authority on American culture, was Mexico.
When my father discovered the charts and programs I had drawn up, he seemed much impressed but said nothing. One evening, however, he came home apparently excited, and holding up a pile of my documents in his hands, he demanded to know where I had copied them from. I flew into a rage, and for the first and only time in my life, I insulted my father. Instead of becoming enraged, however, my father merely smiled.
Calming down, I asked him, “Why do you think I’m such a fool that I have to copy from anybody?”
My tone convinced him that the documents were original, and he told me to come with him. As I walked beside him into the street, I thought he was taking me to the dormitory of some school. I assumed that he disapproved of my preoccupation with military affairs, for which I had neglected my studies. But I was mistaken. The place he led me to was no school but an impressive, large building before which a soldier in full uniform was standing. In the room we entered were several fierce-looking, gray-haired men sitting behind a large table.