‘You feel a bit of horror for me too. — But why not? Perhaps I feel a bit of horror for you too, for your light-coloured eyes and your strong white hands. But that is good.’
Kate looked at him in amazement. And all she wanted was to flee, to flee away beyond the bounds of this gruesome continent.
‘Get used to it,’ he said. ‘Get used to it that there must be a bit of fear, and a bit of horror in your life. And marry me, and you will find many things that are not horror. The bit of horror is like the sesame seed in the nougat, it gives the sharp wild flavour. It is good to have it there.’
He sat watching her with black, glittering eyes, and talking with strange, uncanny reason. His desire seemed curiously impersonal, physical, and yet not personal at all. She felt as if, for him, she had some other name, she moved within another species. As if her name were, for example, Itzpapalotl, and she had been born in unknown places, and was a woman unknown to herself.
Yet surely, surely he was only putting his will over her?
She was breathless with amazement, because he had made her see the physical possibility of marrying him: a thing she had never even glimpsed before. But surely, surely it would not be herself who could marry him. It would be some curious female within her, whom she did not know and did not own.
He was emanating a dark, exultant sort of passion.
‘I can’t believe,’ she said, ‘that I could do it.’
‘Do it,’ he said. ‘And then you will know.’
She shuddered slightly, and went indoors for a wrap. She came out again in a silk Spanish shawl, brown, but deeply embroidered in silver-coloured silk. She tangled her fingers nervously in the long brown fringe.
Really, he seemed sinister to her, almost repellent. Yet she hated to think that she merely was afraid: that she had not the courage. She sat with her head bent, the light falling on her soft hair and on the heavy, silvery-coloured embroidery of her shawl, which she wrapped round her tight, as the Indian women do their rebozos. And his black eyes watched her, and watched the rich shawl, with a peculiar intense glitter. The shawl, too, fascinated him.
‘Well!’ he said suddenly. ‘When shall it be?’
‘What?’ she said, glancing up into his black eyes with real fear.
‘The marriage.’
She looked at him, almost hypnotized with amazement that he should have gone so far. And even now, she had not the power to make him retreat.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘Will you say in August? On the first of August?’
‘I won’t say any time,’ she said.
Suddenly the black gloom and anger of the Indians came over him. Then again he shook it off, with a certain callous indifference.
‘Will you come to Jamiltepec to-morrow to see Ramón?’ he asked. ‘He wants to speak with you.’
Kate also wanted to see Ramón: she always did.
‘Shall I?’ she said.
‘Yes! Come with me in the morning in the automobile. Yes?’
‘I would like to see Don Ramón again,’ she said.
‘You are not afraid of him, eh? Not the bit of horror, eh?’ he said, smiling peculiarly.
‘No. But Don Ramón isn’t really Mexican,’ she said.
‘Not really Mexican?’
‘No! — He feels European.’
‘Really! To me he is — Mexico.’
She paused and gathered herself together.
‘I will row in a boat to Jamiltepec to-morrow, or I will take Alonso’s motor-boat. I will come about ten o’clock.’
‘Very good!’ said Cipriano, rising to leave.
When he had gone, she heard the sound of the drum from the plaza. It would be another meeting of the men of Quetzalcoatl. But she had not the desire nor the courage to set out afresh that day.
Instead, she went to bed, and lay breathing the inner darkness. Through the window-cracks she saw the whiteness of the moon, and through the walls she heard the small pulse of the drum. And it all oppressed her and made her afraid. She lay forming plans to escape. She must escape. She would hurriedly pack her trunks and disappear: perhaps take the train to Manzanillo, on the coast, and thence sail up to California, to Los Angeles or to San Francisco. Suddenly escape, and flee away to a white man’s country, where she could once more breathe freely. How good it would be! — Yes, this was what she would do.
The night grew late, the drum ceased, she heard Ezequiel come home and lie down on the mattress outside her door. The only sound was the hoarse crowing of cocks in the moonlit night. And in her room, like someone striking a match, came the greenish light of a firefly, intermittent, now here, now there.
Thoroughly uneasy and cowed, she went to sleep. But then she slept deeply.
And curiously enough, she awoke in the morning with a new feeling of strength. It was six o’clock, the sun was making yellow pencils through her shutter-cracks. She threw open her window to the street, and looked through the iron grating at the little lane with deep shadow under the garden wall, and above the wall, banana leaves fraying translucent green, and shaggy mops of palm-trees perching high, towards the twin white tower-tips of the church, crowned by the Greek cross with four equal arms.
In the lane it was already motion: big cows marching slowly to the lake, under the bluish shadow of the wall, and a small calf, big-eyed and adventurous, trotting aside to gaze through her gate at the green watered grass and the flowers. The silent peon, following, lifted his two arms with a sudden swoop upwards, noiselessly, and the calf careered on. Only the sound of the feet of calves.
Then two boys vainly trying to urge a young bull-calf to the lake. It kept on jerking up its sharp rump, and giving dry little kicks, from which the boys ran away. They pushed its shoulder, and it butted them with its blunt young head. They were in the state of semi-frenzied bewilderment which the Indians fall into when they are opposed and frustrated. And they took the usual recourse of running to a little distance, picking up heavy stones, and hurling them viciously at the animal.
‘No!’ cried Kate from her window. ‘Don’t throw stones. Drive it sensibly!’
They started as if the skies had opened, dropped their stones, and crept very much diminished after the see-sawing bull-calf.
An ancient crone appeared at the window with a plate of chopped-up young cactus leaves, for three centavos. Kate didn’t like cactus vegetable, but she bought it. An old man was thrusting a young cockerel through the window-bars.
‘Go,’ said Kate, ‘into the patio.’
And she shut her window on the street, for the invasion had begun.
But it had only changed doors.
‘Niña! Niña!’ came Juana’s voice. ‘Says the old man that you buy this chicken?’
‘At how much?’ shouted Kate, slipping on a dressing gown.
‘At ten reales.’
‘Oh, no!’ said Kate, flinging open her patio doors, and appearing in her fresh wrap of pale pink cotton crepe, embroidered with heavy white flowers. ‘Not more than a peso!’
‘A peso and ten centavos!’ pleaded the old man, balancing the staring-eyed red cock between his hands. ‘He is nice and fat, Señorita. See!’
And he held out the cock for Kate to take it and balance it between her hands, to try its weight. She motioned to him to hand it to Juana. The red cock fluttered, and suddenly crowed in the transfer. Juana balanced him, and made a grimace.
‘No, only a peso!’ said Kate.
The man gave a sudden gesture of assent, received the peso, and disappeared like a shadow. Concha lurched up and took the cock, and instantly she bawled in derision:
‘Está muy flaco! He is very thin.’
‘Put him in the pen,’ said Kate. ‘We’ll let him grow.’
The patio was liquid with sunshine and shadows. Ezequiel had rolled up his mattress and gone. Great rose-coloured hibiscus dangled from the tips of their boughs, there was a faint scent from the half-wild, creamy roses. The great mango-trees were most sumptuous i
n the morning, like cliffs, with their hard green fruits dropping like the organs of some animal from the new bronze leaves, so curiously heavy with life.
‘Está muy flaco!’ the young Concha was bawling still in derision as she bore off the young cock to the pen under the banana-trees. ‘He’s very scraggy.’
Everybody watched intent while the red cock was put in among the few scraggy fowls. The grey cock, elder, retreated to the far end of the pen, and eyed the newcomer with an eye of thunder. The red cock, muy flaco, stood diminished in a dry corner. Then suddenly he stretched himself and crowed shrilly, his red gills lifted like an aggressive beard. And the grey cock stirred around, preparing the thunders of his vengeance. The hens took not the slightest notice.
Kate laughed, and went back to her room to dress, in the powerful newness of the morning. Outside her window the women were passing quietly, the red water-jar on one shoulder, going to the lake for water. They always put one arm over their head, and held the jar on the other shoulder. It had a contorted look, different from the proud way the women carried water in Sicily.
‘Niña! Niña!’ Juana was crying outside.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Kate.
It was another of the hymn-sheets, with a Hymn of Quetzalcoatl.
‘See, Niña, the new hymn from last evening.’
Kate took the leaflet and sat upon her bed to read it.
QUETZALCOATL LOOKS DOWN ON MEXICO
Jesus had gone far up the dark slope, when he looked back.
Quetzalcoatl, my brother! he called. Send me my images,
And the images of my mother, and the images of my saints.
Send me them by the swift way, the way of the sparks,
That I may hold them like memories in my arms when I go to sleep.
And Quetzalcoatl called back: I will do it.
Then he laughed, seeing the sun dart fiercely at him.
He put up his hand, and held back the sun with his shadow.
So he passed the yellow one, who lashed like a dragon in vain.
And having passed the yellow one, he saw the earth beneath.
And he saw Mexico lying like a dark woman with white breast-tips.
Wondering he stepped nearer, and looked at her,
At her trains, at her railways and her automobiles,
At her cities of stone and her huts of straw,
And he said: Surely this looks very curious!
He sat within the hollow of a cloud, and saw the men that worked in the fields, with foreign overseers.
He saw the men that were blind, reeling with aguardiente.
He saw the women that were not clean.
He saw the hearts of them all, that were black, and heavy, with a stone of anger at the bottom.
Surely, he said, this is a curious people I have found!
So leaning forward on his cloud, he said to himself:
I will call to them.
Hold! Hold! Mexicanos! Glance away a moment towards me.
Just turn your eyes this way, Mexicanos!
They turned not at all, they glanced not one his way.
Holalá! Mexicanos! Holalá!
They have gone stone deaf! he said.
So he blew down on them, to blow his breath in their faces.
But in the weight of their stupefaction, none of them knew.
Holalá! What a pretty people!
All gone stupefied!
A falling star was running like a white dog over a plain.
He whistled to it loudly, twice, till it fell to his hand.
In his hand it lay and went dark.
It was the Stone of Change.
This is the stone of change! he said.
So he tossed it awhile in his hand, and played with it.
Then suddenly he spied the old lake, and he threw it in.
It fell in.
And two men looked up.
Holalá! he said. Mexicanos!
Are there two of you awake?
So he laughed, and one heard him laughing.
Why are you laughing? asked the first man of Quetzalcoatl.
I hear the voice of my First Man ask me why I am laughing? Holalá, Mexicanos! It is funny!
To see them so glum and so lumpish!
Hey! First Man of my name! Hark here!
Here is my sign.
Get a place ready for me.
Send Jesus his images back, Mary and the saints and all.
Wash yourself, and rub oil in your skin.
On the seventh day, let every man wash himself, and put oil on his skin; let every woman.
Let him have no animal walk on his body, nor through the shadow of his hair. Say the same to the women.
Tell them they all are fools, that I’m laughing at them.
The first thing I did when I saw them, was to laugh at the sight of such fools.
Such lumps, such frogs with stones in their bellies.
Tell them they are like frogs with stones in their bellies, can’t hop!
Tell them they must get the stones out of their bellies,
Get rid of their heaviness,
Their lumpishness,
Or I’ll smother them all.
I’ll shake the earth, and swallow them up, with their cities.
I’ll send fire and ashes upon them, and smother them all.
I’ll turn their blood like sour milk rotten with thunder,
They will bleed rotten blood, in pestilence.
Even their bones shall crumble.
Tell them so, First Man of my Name.
For the sun and the moon are alive, and watching with gleaming eyes.
And the earth is alive, and ready to shake off his fleas.
And the stars are ready with stones to throw in the faces of men.
And the air that blows good breath in the nostrils of people and beasts
Is ready to blow bad breath upon them, to perish them all.
The stars and the earth and the sun and the moon and the winds
Are about to dance the war dance round you, men!
When I say the word, they will start.
For sun and stars and earth and the very rains are weary
Of tossing and rolling the substance of life to your lips.
They are saying to one another: Let us make an end
Of those ill-smelling tribes of men, these frogs that can’t jump,
These cocks that can’t crow
These pigs that can’t grunt
This flesh that smells
These words that are all flat
These money vermin.
These white men, and red men, and yellow men, and brown men, and black men
That are neither white, nor red, nor yellow, nor brown, nor black
But everyone of them dirtyish.
Let us have a spring cleaning in the world.
For men upon the body of the earth are like lice,
Devouring the earth into sores.
This is what stars and sun and earth and moon and winds and rain
Are discussing with one another; they are making ready to start.
So tell the men I am coming to,
To make themselves clean, inside and out.
To roll the grave-stone off their souls, from the cave of their bellies,
To prepare to be men.
Or else prepare for the other things.
Kate read this long leaflet again and again, and a swift darkness like a whirlwind seemed to envelop the morning. She drank her coffee on the veranda, and the heavy papayas in their grouping seemed to be oozing like great drops from the invisible spouting of the fountain of non-human life. She seemed to see the great sprouting and urging of the cosmos, moving into weird life. And men only like green-fly clustering on the tender tips, an aberration there. So monstrous the rolling and unfolding of the life of the cosmos, as if even iron could grow like lichen deep in the earth, and cease growing, and prepare to perish. Iron and stone render up their life, when the hour comes. And me
n are less than the green-fly sucking the stems of the bush, so long as they live by business and bread alone. Parasites on the face of the earth.
She strayed to the shore. The lake was blue in the morning light, the opposite mountains pale and dry and ribbed like mountains in the desert. Only at their feet, next the lake, the dark strip of trees and white specks of villages.
Near her against the light five cows stood with their noses to the water, drinking. Women were kneeling on the stones, filling red jars. On forked sticks stuck up on the foreshore, frail fishing-nets were hung out, drying, and on the nets a small bird sat facing the sun; he was red as a drop of new blood, from the arteries of the air.
From the straw huts under the trees, her urchin of the mud-chick was scuttling towards her, clutching something in his fist. He opened his hand to her, and on the palm lay three of the tiny cooking-pots, the ollitas which the natives had thrown into the water long ago, to the gods.
‘Muy chiquitas!’ he said, in his brisk way, a little, fighting tradesman; ‘do you buy them?’
‘I have no money. To-morrow!’ said Kate.
‘To-morrow!’ he said, like a pistol shot.
‘To-morrow.’
He had forgiven her, but she had not forgiven him.
Somebody in the fresh Sunday morning was singing rather beautifully, letting the sound, as it were, produce itself.
A boy was prowling with a sling, prowling like a cat, to get the little birds. The red bird like a drop of new blood twittered upon the almost invisible fish-nets, then in a flash was gone. The boy prowled under the delicate green of the willow-trees, stumbling over the great roots in the sand.
Along the edge of the water flew four dark birds, their necks pushed out, skimming silent near the silent surface of the lake, in a jagged level rush.
Kate knew these mornings by the lake. They hypnotized her almost like death. Scarlet birds like drops of blood, in very green willow-trees. The aguador trotting to her house with a pole over his shoulder, and two heavy square gasoline cans, one at each end of the pole, filled with hot water. He had been to the hot spring for her daily supply. Now barefoot, with one bare leg, the young man trotted softly beneath the load, his dark, handsome face sunk beneath the shadows of the big hat, as he trotted in a silence, mindlessness that was like death.
Dark heads out on the water in little groups, like black water-fowl bobbing. Were they birds? Were they heads? Was this human life, or something intermediate, that lifted its orange, wet, glistening shoulders a little out of the lake, beneath the dark head?
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 452