‘And we had to be slaves, because we had only got the first strength, we had lost the second strength.
‘Now we are getting it back. We have found our way again to the secret sun behind the sun. There sat Quetzalcoatl, and at last Don Ramón found him. There sits the red Huitzilopochtli, and I have found him. For I have found the second strength.
‘When he comes, all you who strive shall find the second strength.
‘And when you have it, where will you feel it?
‘Not here!’ — and he struck his forehead. ‘Not where the cunning gringos have it, in the head, and in their books. Not we. We are men, we are not spiders.
‘We shall have it here!’ — he struck his breast — ’and here!’ — he struck his belly — ’and here!’ — he struck his loins.
‘Are we men? Can we not get the second strength? Can we not? Have we lost it forever?
‘I say no! Quetzalcoatl is among us. I have found the red Huitzilopochtli. The second strength!
‘When you walk or sit, when you work or lie down, when you eat or sleep, think of the second strength, that you must have it.
‘Be very quiet. It is shy as a bird in a dark tree.
‘Be very clean, clean in your bodies and your clothes. It is like a star, that will not shine in dirt.
‘Be very brave, and do not drink till you are drunk, nor soil yourself with bad women, nor steal. Because a drunken man has lost his second strength, and a man loses his strength in bad women, and a thief is a coward, and the red Huitzilopochtli hates a coward.
‘Try! Try for the second strength. When we have it, the others will lose it.’
Cipriano struggled hard with his army. The curse of any army is the having nothing to do. Cipriano made all his men cook and wash for themselves, clean and paint the barracks, make a great garden to grow vegetables, and plant trees wherever there was water. And he himself took a passionate interest in what they did. A dirty tunic, a sore foot, a badly-made huarache did not escape him. But even when they cooked their meals he went among them.
‘Give me something to eat,’ he would say. ‘Give me an enchilada!’
Then he praised the cooking, or said it was bad.
Like all savages, they liked doing small things. And, like most Mexicans, once they were a little sure of what they were doing, they loved doing it well.
Cipriano was determined to get some discipline into them. Discipline is what Mexico needs, and what the whole world needs. But it is the discipline from the inside that matters. The machine discipline, from the outside, breaks down.
He had the wild Indians from the north beat their drums in the barrack-yard, and start the old dances again. The dance, the dance which has meaning, is a deep discipline in itself. The old Indians of the north still have the secret of animistic dancing. They dance to gain power; power over the living forces or potencies of the earth. And these dances need intense dark concentration, and immense endurance.
Cipriano encouraged the dances more than anything. He learned them himself, with curious passion. The shield and spear dance, the knife dance, the dance of ambush, and the surprise dance, he learned them in the savage villages of the north, and he danced them in the barrack-yard, by the bonfire, at night, when the great doors were shut.
Then, naked saved for a black breech-cloth, his body smeared with oil and red earth-powder, he would face some heavy naked Indian and with shield and spear dance the dance of the two warriors, champions in the midst of the dense ring of soldiers. And the silent, rhythmic concentration of this duel in subtlety and rapidity kept the feet softly beating with the drum, the naked body suave and subtle, circling with suave, primitive stealth, then crouching and leaping like a panther, with the spear poised, to a clash of shields, parting again with the crowing yell of defiance and exultance.
In this dance, no one was more suave and sudden than Cipriano. He could swerve along the ground with bent, naked back, as invisible as a lynx, circling round his opponent, his feet beating and his suave body subtly lilting to the drum. Then in a flash he was in the air, his spear pointing down at the collarbone of his enemy and gliding over his shoulder, as the opponent swerved under, and the war-yell resounded. The soldiers in the deep circle watched, fascinated, uttering the old low cries.
And as the dance went on, Cipriano felt his strength increase and surge inside him. When all his limbs were glistening with sweat, and his spirit was at last satisfied, he was at once tired and surcharged with extraordinary power. Then he would throw his scarlet and dark serape around him, and motion other men to fight, giving his spear and shield to another officer or soldier, going himself to sit down on the ground and watch, by the firelight. And then he felt his limbs and his whole body immense with power, he felt the black mystery of power go out of him over all his soldiers. And he sat there imperturbable, in silence, holding all those black-eyed men in the splendour of his own, silent self. His own dark consciousness seemed to radiate through their flesh and their bones; they were conscious, not through themselves but through him. And as a man’s instinct is to shield his own head, so that instinct was to shield Cipriano, for he was the most precious part of themselves to them. It was in him they were supreme. They got their splendour from his power and their greatest consciousness was his consciousness diffusing them.
‘I am not of myself,’ he would say to them. ‘I am of the red Huitzilopochtli and the power from behind the sun. And you are not of yourselves. Of yourselves you are nothing. You are of me, my men.’
He encouraged them to dance naked, with the breech-cloth, to rub themselves with the red earth-powder, over the oil.
‘This is the oil of the stars. Rub it well into your limbs and you will be strong as the starry sky. This is the red blood of volcanoes. Rub yourselves with it, you will have the power of the fire of the volcanoes, from the centre of the earth.’
He encouraged them to dance the silent, concentrated dances to the drum, to dance for hours, gathering power and strength.
‘If you know how to tread the dance, you can tread deeper and deeper, till you touch the middle of the earth with your foot. And when you touch the middle of the earth, you will have such power in your belly and your breast, no man will be able to overcome you. Get the second strength. Get it, get it out of the earth, get it from behind the sun. Get the second strength.’
He made long, rapid marches across the wild Mexican country, and through the mountains, moving light and swift. He liked to have his men camping in the open, with no tents: but the watch set, and the stars overhead. He pursued the bandits with swift movements. He stripped his captives, and tied them up. But if it seemed a brave man, he would swear him in. If it seemed to him a knave, a treacherous cur, he stabbed him to the heart, saying:
‘I am the red Huitzilopochtli, of the knife.’
Already he had got his own small, picked body of men out of the ignominious drab uniform, dressed in white with the scarlet sash and the scarlet ankle cords, and carrying the good, red and black serape. And his men must be clean. On the march they would stop by some river, with the order for every man to strip and wash, and wash his clothing. Then the men, dark and ruddy, moved about naked, while the white clothing of strong white cotton dried on the earth. They moved on again, glittering with the peculiar whiteness of cotton clothes in Mexico, gun at their backs, serape and small pack on their backs, wearing the heavy straw hats with the scarlet crowns on their heads.
‘They must move!’ he said to his officers. ‘They must learn again to move swiftly and untiringly, with the old power. They must not lie about. In the sleep hours, let them sleep. In the waking, let them work, or march, or drill, or dance.’
He divided his regiment up into little companies of a hundred each, with a centurion and a sergeant in command. Each company of a hundred must learn to act in perfect unison, freely and flexibly. ‘Perfect your hundred,’ Cipriano insisted, ‘and I will perfect your thousands and your tens of thousands.’
‘Listen!’ h
e said. ‘For us, no trench and cannon warfare. My men are no cannon-fodder, nor trench-dung. Where cannon are, we move away. Our hundreds break up, and we attack where the cannon are not. That we are swift, that we are silent, that we have no burdens, and that the second strength is in us: that is all. We intend to put up no battle-front, but to attack at our own moment, and at a thousand points.’
And always he reiterated:
‘If you can get the power from the heart of the earth, and the power from behind the sun; if you can summon the power of the red Huitzilopochtli into you, nobody can conquer you. Get the second strength.’
Ramón was pressing Cipriano now openly to assume the living Huitzilopochtli.
‘Come!’ he said. ‘It is time you let General Viedma be swallowed up in the red Huitzilopochtli. Don’t you think?’
‘If I know what it means,’ said Cipriano.
They were sitting on the mats in Ramón’s room, in the heat before the rain came, towards the end of the rainy season.
‘Stand up!’ said Ramón.
Cipriano stood up at once, with that soft, startling alertness in his movement.
Ramón came quickly to him, placed one of his hands over Cipriano’s eyes, closing them. Ramón stood behind Cipriano, who remained motionless in the warm dark, his consciousness reeling in strange concentric waves, towards a centre where it suddenly plunges into the bottomless deeps, like sleep.
‘Cipriano?’ — the voice sounded so far off.
‘Yes.’
‘Is it dark?’
‘It is dark.’
‘Is it alive? Is the darkness alive?’
‘Surely it is alive.’
‘Who lives?’
‘I.’
‘Where?’
‘I know not. In the living darkness.’
Ramón then bound Cipriano’s eyes and head with a strip of black fur. Then again, with a warm, soft pressure, he pressed one naked hand over Cipriano’s naked breast, and one between his shoulders. Cipriano stood in profound darkness, erect and silent.
‘Cipriano?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it dark in your heart?’
‘It is coming dark.’
Ramón felt the thud of the man’s heart slowly slackening. In Cipriano, another circle of darkness had started slowly to revolve, from his heart. It swung in widening rounds, like a greater sleep.
‘Is it dark?’
‘It is dark.’
‘Who lives?’
‘I.’
Ramón bound Cipriano’s arms at his sides, with a belt of fur round the breast. Then he put his one hand over the navel, his other hand in the small of the other man’s back, pressing with slow, warm, powerful pressure.
‘Cipriano?’
‘Yes.’
The voice and the answer going farther and farther away.
‘Is it dark?’
‘No, my Lord.’
Ramón knelt and pressed his arms close round Cipriano’s waist, pressing his black head against his side. And Cipriano began to feel as if his mind, his head were melting away in the darkness; like a pearl in black wine, the other circle of sleep began to swing, vast. And he was a man without a head, moving like a dark wind over the face of the dark waters.
‘Is it perfect?’
‘It is perfect.’
‘Who lives?’
‘Who — !’
Cipriano no longer knew.
Ramón bound him fast round the middle, then, pressing his head against the hip, folded the arms round Cipriano’s loins, closing with his hands the secret places.
‘Cipriano?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it all dark?’
But Cipriano could not answer. The last circle was sweeping round, and the breath upon the waters was sinking into the waters, there was no more utterance. Ramón kneeled with pressed head and arms and hands, for some moments still. Then he bound the loins, binding the wrists to the hips.
Cipriano stood rigid and motionless. Ramón clasped the two knees with his hands, till they were warm, and he felt them dark and asleep like two living stones, or two eggs. Then swiftly he bound them together, and grasped the ankles, as one might grasp the base of a young tree, as it emerges from the earth. Crouching on the earth, he gripped them in an intense grip, resting his head on the feet. The moments passed, and both men were unconscious.
Then Ramón bound the ankles, lifted Cipriano suddenly, with a sleep-moving softness, laid him on the skin of a big mountain-lion, which was spread upon the blankets, threw over him the red and black serape of Huitzilopochtli, and lay down at his feet, holding Cipriano’s feet to his own abdomen.
And both men passed into perfect unconsciousness, Cipriano within the womb of undisturbed creation, Ramón in the death sleep.
How long they were both dark, they never knew. It was twilight. Ramón was suddenly aroused by the jerking of Cipriano’s feet. He sat up, and took the blanket off Cipriano’s face.
‘Is it night?’ said Cipriano.
‘Almost night,’ said Ramón.
Silence followed, while Ramón unfastened the bonds, beginning at the feet. Before he unbound the eyes, he closed the window, so the room was almost dark. Then he unfastened the last binding, and Cipriano sat up, looking, then suddenly covering his eyes.
‘Make it quite dark!’ he said.
Ramón closed the shutters, and the room was complete night. Then he returned and sat on the mat by Cipriano. Cipriano was asleep again. After a while, Ramón left him.
He did not see him again till dawn. Then Ramón found him going down to the lake, to swim. The two men swam together, while the sun rose. With the rain, the lake was colder. They went to the house to rub oil in their limbs.
Cipriano looked at Ramón with black eyes which seemed to be looking at all space.
‘I went far,’ he said.
‘To where there is no beyond?’ said Ramón.
‘Yes, there.’
And in a moment or two, Cipriano was wrapped in his blanket again, and asleep.
He did not wake till the afternoon. Then he ate, and took a boat, and rowed down the lake to Kate. He found her at home. She was surprised to see him, in his white clothes and with his serape of Huitzilopochtli.
‘I am going to be the living Huitzilopochtli,’ he said.
‘Are you? When? Does it feel queer?’ — Kate was afraid of his eyes; they seemed inhuman.
‘On Thursday. The day of Huitzilopochtli is to be Thursday. Won’t you sit beside me, and be wife of me when I am a god?’
‘But do you feel you are a god?’ she asked, querulous.
He turned his eyes on her strangely.
‘I have been,’ he said. ‘And I have come back. But I belong there, where I went.’
‘Where?’
‘Where there is no beyond, and the darkness sinks into the water, and waking and sleeping are one thing.’
‘No,’ said Kate, afraid. ‘I never understood mystical things. They make me uneasy.’
‘Is it mystical when I come in to you?’
‘No,’ said Kate. ‘Surely, that is physical.’
‘So is the other, only further. Won’t you be the bride of Huitzilopochtli?’ he asked again.
‘Not so soon,’ said Kate.
‘Not so soon!’ he re-echoed.
There was a pause.
‘Will you come back with me to Jamiltepec now?’ he asked.
‘Not now,’ she said.
‘Why not now?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. — You treat me as if I had no life of my own,’ she said. ‘But I have.’
‘A life of your own? Who gave it you? Where did you get it?’
‘I don’t know. But I have got it. And I must live it. I can’t be just swallowed up.’
‘Why, Malintzi?’ he said, giving her a name. ‘Why can’t you?’
‘Be just swallowed up?’ she said. ‘Well, I just can’t.’
‘I am the living Huitzilopochtli,’ he said. ‘
And I am swallowed up. I thought, so could you be, Malintzi.’
‘No! Not quite!’ she said.
‘Not quite! Not quite! Not now! Not just now! How often you say Not, to-day! — I must go back to Ramón.’
‘Yes. Go back to him. You only care about him, and your living Quetzalcoatl and your living Huitzilopochtli. — I am only a woman.’
‘No, Malintzi, you are more. You are more than Kate, you are Malintzi.’
‘I am not! I am only Kate, and I am only a woman. I mistrust all that other stuff.’
‘I am more than just a man, Malintzi. — Don’t you see that?’
‘No!’ said Kate. ‘I don’t see it. Why should you be more than just a man?’
‘Because I am the living Huitzilopochtli. Didn’t I tell you? You’ve got dust in your mouth to-day, Malintzi.’
He went away, leaving her rocking in anger on her terrace, in love again with her old self, and hostile to the new thing. She was thinking of London and Paris and New York, and all the people there.
‘Oh!’ she cried to herself, stifling. ‘For heaven’s sake let me get out of this, and back to simple human people. I loathe the very sound of Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli. I would die rather than be mixed up in it any more. Horrible, really, both Ramón and Cipriano. And they want to put it over me, with their high-flown bunk, and their Malintzi. Malintzi! I am Kate Forrester, really. I am neither Kate Leslie nor Kate Tylor. I am sick of these men putting names over me. I was born Kate Forrester, and I shall die Kate Forrester. I want to go home. Loathsome, really, to be called Malintzi. — I’ve had it put over me.’
CHAPTER XXIII
Huitzilopochtli’s Night
They had the Huitzilopochtli ceremony at night, in the wide yard in front of the church. The guard of Huitzilopochtli, in serapes of black, red, and yellow stripes, striped like tigers or wasps, stood holding torches of blazing ocote. A tall bonfire was built, but unkindled, in the centre of the yard.
In the towers where the bells had been, fires were blazing and the heavy drum of Huitzilopochtli went rolling its deep, sinister notes. It had been sounding all the while since the sun went down.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 467