Vagabond life in Mexico/A Mexican Wake
CHAPTER III.
A Mexican Wake.
The company to which Perico had introduced me presented a very singular appearance. About twenty men and women of the lowest class were seated in a circle, chatting, bawling, and gesticulating. A dank, cadaverous smell pervaded the apartment, which was hardly smothered by the smoke of cigars, and the fumes of Xeres and Chinguirito. In a corner of the room stood a table loaded with provisions of every sort, with cups, bottles, and flasks. Some gamblers, seated at a table a little farther off, jingling copper money, and shouting out the technical terms of monte, were quarreling, with drunken excitement, over piles of cuartillas[1] and tlacos. Under the triple excitement of wine, women, and play, the orgie, which had only commenced when I arrived, seemed likely to mount to a formidable height; but what struck me most was precisely that which seemed to engage the attention of the assembly least. A young child, who seemed to have scarcely reached his seventh year, was lying at full length on a table. His pale brow, wreathed with flowers faded by the heat of the stifling atmosphere, his glazed eyes, and shriveled, sunken cheeks, already tinged with a violet hue, plainly showed that life had left him, and that it was some days, probably, since he had slept the eternal sleep. The mere sight of the little corpse was heartrending amid the cries, the gambling, and the noisy conversation; the men and women meanwhile laughing and singing like savages. The flowers and jewels which decorated him, far from stripping death of its gloomy solemnity, only made the appearance more hideous. A general silence followed our entrance. A man, in whom I soon recognized the master of the house and the father of the dead child, rose to receive us. His face, far from being oppressed with sadness, seemed, on the contrary, radiant with delight, and he pointed with an air of pride to the numerous guests that had assembled to celebrate the death of his son, an event considered as a favor from heaven, since God had been pleased to call the child to himself before he was old enough to displease him. He assured us that we were welcome to his house, and that to him, on such an occasion, strangers became friends. Thanks to the loquacity of Perico, I had become the focus on which all eyes were centred. I had a difficult part to play, Perico thinking it right to make it appear to all who would listen to him that no one could kill people with a better grace than I. To enable me to act my part properly, I hastened to put my gloves in my pocket, and affect the most cavalier assurance, convinced that it was prudent to follow the fashion.
"What do you think of the lodging I have found you?" asked Perico, rubbing his hands; "is not this better than what I could offer you? besides, you will now know what a velorio is; it will be a resource in the evenings when you are low-spirited, and have nothing to do. Thanks to me, you will thus acquire a title to the eternal gratitude of this worthy father, whose child, having died before its seventh year, is now an angel in heaven." And Perico, anxious, no doubt, to have a share in this tribute of gratitude, seized, without ceremony, an enormous glass of chinguirito and swallowed it at a draught. I witnessed for the first time this barbarous custom, which compels the father of a family to cloak his sorrow beneath a smiling face, and to do the honors of his house to the first vagabond who, under the guidance of a sereno, comes to gorge himself with meat and drink before the corpse of his son, and share in that profuse liberality which often brings want to the family on the morrow.
The orgie, which had been disturbed a moment by our entrance, now fell in its usual course, and I began to cast my eyes about a little. In the midst of a circle of excited females, who esteem it a duty never to neglect a night-wake, I perceived a pale face, lips attempting to smile in spite of eyes full of tears, and, in this victim of a gross superstition, I had little difficulty in detecting the mother, for whom an angel in heaven could not compensate for the angel she missed on earth. The women about her seemed vying with one another as to who should increase the sorrow of the poor woman by their ill-timed but well-meant importunities. The different stages of the disease, and the sufferings of the dead child, were described by one woman; another enumerated infallible remedies that she would have applied if she had been consulted in time, such as St. Nicholas's plasters, moxas, the vapor of purslane gathered on a Friday in Lent, decoctions of herbs strained through a bit of a Dominican's frock, and the poor credulous mother turned her head away to wipe her eyes, thoroughly convinced that these remedies, if applied in time, would have saved her child. Sherry and cigarettes were rapidly consumed during these discussions; then all the innocent games in use in Spanish America were proposed and played, while the children, weary and sleepy, lay down to rest in every corner of the room, as if envying him whose discolored face protested, beneath the withered flowers, against this odious profanation of the dead.
Seated in the deep recess of one of the windows which looked into the street, I watched all Perico's motions with some uneasiness. It appeared to me that the protection he had so suddenly bestowed was only a cloak to entrap me. My features must have betrayed my uneasiness, for the lépero approached and said, by way of consolation,
"Look you, Señor, killing a man is like everything else; the first step is the only painful one. Besides, your sereno may perhaps be like my Englishman, who is to-day as well as ever. These heretics have as many lives as a cat. Ah! Señor," said Perico, with a sigh, "I have always regretted that I was not a heretic."
"To have as many lives as a cat?"
"No, to be paid for my conversion! Unfortunately, my reputation as a Christian is too well established."
"But the cavalier you were to kill," I asked of Perico, naturally brought back to the recollection of the melancholy young man whom I had seen kneeling before the Morgue, "do you think that he is still alive?"
Perico shook his head. "To-morrow, perhaps, his mad passion may have cost him his life, and his mistress will not survive him. I have no desire to make two victims at once, and I threw up the business."
"These sentiments do you honor, Perico."
Perico wished to profit by the favorable impression his answer had produced upon me.
"Doubtless—you can not risk your soul so for a few piastres. But, speaking of piastres, Señor," he continued, holding out his hand, "I feel in the vein, and perhaps there are still a few pieces left in your purse. If I Break the bank at monte, you shall go halves with my winnings."
I thought it prudent to yield to this new demand of the Zaragate. The play, besides, would free me from his company, which was becoming irksome. I slipped, then, some piastres into Perico's hand. Almost at the same moment twelve o'clock struck. One of the company rose, and cried in a solemn tone, "It is the hour of the souls in Purgatory; let us pray!"
The gamblers arose, amusements were suspended, and all the company gravely knelt. The prayer began in a high tone of voice, interrupted by responses at regular intervals, and for the first time the object of the meeting seemed remembered. Picture to your selves these sots, their eyes glazed with drunkenness these women in tatters, standing round a corpse crowned with flowers; draw over all this kneeling crowd the vapors of a thick atmosphere, in which putrid miasmas were mingled with the fumes of liquor, and you will have an idea of the strange and horrible scene of which I was forced to become an unwilling eye-witness.
Prayers over, gambling commenced anew, but not with so much liveliness as before. In company, when the night is far advanced, there is always a strong inclination to go to sleep; but when this struggle is over, the spirits become more lively, and get almost delirious and frantic. That is the hour of the orgie: the time was approaching.
I had again sat down in the recess of the window, and, to drive away the drowsiness which I felt stealing upon me, occasioned by the close air in-the room, had opened the window a little. Looking out into the darkness of the night, I tried to find out, by the stars, what o'clock it was, and also to trace my way mentally through the labyrinth of streets, but I could scarcely see a bit of the sky, which on that night was cloudy, above the tops of the neighboring houses. I never remembered to have seen in Mexico before this canal with its leaden waters, nor those dark, deserted lanes which ran at right angles to it. I was completely at fault. Should I remain any longer amid this hideous orgie? Ought I not to try to escape, even though it was dangerous, through the streets of this distant suburb? While I was irresolutely weighing all these things in my mind, a noise of steps and confused whispers attracted my attention. I hid myself behind one of the shutters, so as to see and hear without being seen. Half a dozen men soon issued from a lane in front of the house in which I was. Their leader was wrapped in an esclivina.[2] which only half concealed the scabbard of his sword. The others were armed with naked sabres. A European but newly arrived in the country would have considered them criminals from their timid deportment, but my experienced eye could not be deceived; justice alone could seem so terrified, and I easily recognized the night patrol, composed of a regidor, an auxiliary alcalde, and four celadores.
"Voto a brios!" said the man in the esclavina, probably one of the auxiliary magistrates, at once alcaldes and publicans, who lodge criminals during the day, and let them off to pursue them at night; "what does my Lord Prefect mean by sending us to patrol in such a quarter as this, where the officers of justice have never penetrated. I should like to see him employed about this business."
"He would take care to provide himself with fire arms, that he refuses to us," said one of the corchetes, who appeared the coolest of the party, "for criminals and malefactors are not in the habit of carrying the arms we do, and the person whom we have been ordered to protect will perhaps experience it this night to his cost."
"What the devil!" said the alcalde, "when one knows that he runs the risk of getting a dagger into him at night, why does not he stay at home?"
"There are some scamps whom nothing frightens," replied one of the corchetes; "but, as the Evangelist says, 'he who seeks the danger shall perish in it.'"
"What o'clock may it be now?" asked the auxiliary.
"Four in the morning," answered one of the men; and, raising his eyes to the window behind which I was concealed, he added, "I envy those people who pass the night so merrily in that tertulia." Talking thus, the celadores walked along the brink of the canal. All at once the auxiliary at their head stumbled in the darkness. At that moment a man sprang up and stood before the patrol.
"Who are you?" cried the alcalde, in a voice meant to be imposing.
"What's 'that to you?" replied the man as haughtily. "Can't a man sleep in the streets without being questioned?"
"One sleeps at home as—as—much as possible," stammered the alcalde, evidently frightened.
The person thus caught acting so much like a vagabond gave a shrill whistle, and, pushing the alcalde aside, ran down a neighboring lane. To my great surprise, the alcalde and the celadores, like men who dread a snare, instead of following him, ran off in quite an opposite direction. Almost at the same moment a hand was laid on my shoulder. I started and turned about. Perico and my host stood before me.
"That whistle sounds wonderfully like the call of my chum Navaja, when out on an expedition," cried the former, stooping to peer through the window, while the latter, with bleared eyes, his legs tottering like a man who had too conscientiously fulfilled his duties as master of the house, offered me a glass of liquor, that his shaky hand allowed to run over. Then, with the irritability peculiar to drunkards,
"One may say, señor," said he to me, "that you despise the society of poor people like us; you don't play, you don't drink; yet, in certain cases of conscience, gambling and brandy give great relief. Look at me now! To gratify my friends, I have eaten and drunk what I have and what I haven't: well, I am happy, although I don't possess a tlaco in the world; and, if you like, I will play with you for my child's body! It is a stake," continued he, in a confidential tone, "which is as good as another, for I can let it out, and well too, to some lover of a velorio."
"Play for the body of your child!" I cried.
"Why not? That is done every day. Every body hasn't the good fortune to have an angel aloft, and the body of this dear little one brings luck here."
I got rid, as well as I could, of the entreaties of this tender-hearted father, and cast my eyes once more into the street, but the approaches to the canal were now silent and deserted. I was not long, however, in discovering that this quiet, this solitude, were only apparent. Some strange, vague sounds escaped now and then from one of the lanes leading to the canal. Presently I fancied I heard the crunching of unsteady steps on the gravel. With my body leaning over the balcony, and listening intently, I waited for the moment when the awful stillness would be broken by some cry of anguish. The sound of voices, loud in dispute, again drew my attention to the room on which my back was turned. The orgie was this moment at its height. The Zaragate, surrounded by a group of angry gamblers, whose suspicions had been roused by his run of good luck, was trying, but in vain, to wrap around him the shreds of his olive cloak, which had been torn into ribbons by the furious hands of his adversaries.
The most stinging epithets were launched against him from all sides.
"I am a man of substance," cried the fellow, impudently, "as much as those whose uncivil hands have torn to tatters the handsomest cloak I ever possessed."
"Barefaced swindler!" cried a gambler; "your cloak had as many rents as your conscience."
"In any other place," replied Perico, who was prudently edging toward the door, "you would have to give me satisfaction for this double insult. Señor," said he, appealing to me, "be my surety, as I have been yours; half of my winnings is yours; they were honestly come by. All this is but mere slander."
I was once more mentally cursing my intimacy with Perico, when an occurrence of a graver nature made a happy diversion to the scene in which I saw myself in danger of becoming an actor. A man rushed hurriedly out of one of the back rooms on the same floor. Close behind him another followed, knife in hand; a woman after, shrieking terribly, and her dress flying in disorder about her.
"Will you stand and see me murdered?" cried the pursued, piteously. "Will no one hand me a knife?"
"Let me bury my knife in this rascal's body, this destroyer of my honor!" gasped the outraged husband.
The women, doubtless through sympathy, shrieked in concert, and uttered the most dreadful cries, while a friend of the offender slyly slipped a long knife into his hand. The latter faced about, and rushed boldly at his adversary. The cries of the women increased; a dreadful confusion ensued. The infuriated fellows made prodigious efforts to get at one another. Blood was about to flow, when, in the struggle, the table on which the infant lay was overturned. The body fell on the floor with a dull, heavy sound, and the flowers were scattered about. A large circle formed round the profaned corpse. A piercing shriek rose over all the uproar, and the bereaved mother threw herself on her child's remains with a cry of intense agony.
I had seen too much. I rushed to the balcony to cast a second look into the street, to assure myself that escape was yet possible; but there was no egress in that way. A man had just emerged from one of the lanes which opened upon the opposite bank of the canal. Other men came behind him, brandishing their weapons. This Navaja, whom Perico acknowledged as one of the fraternity, had doubtless collected his troop, and I was about to see him terminate, without being able to help his victim, one of those nocturnal brawls, of which some of the léperos boast. The person they were pursuing soon reached the parapet, and set his back to it. I distinctly heard him exclaim, "Back, you cowardly rascals, who fight five to one."
"At him, Muchachos!" cried the chief of the "band; "there are a hundred piastres to be earned."
Need I tell what followed? The unequal struggle lasted only a few moments. Soon a fierce shout announced that the murderers had triumphed. The unhappy man still breathed. He was able even to drag himself to the bridge, and, waving the stump of his sword, to dare the assassins to come on. Again surrounded by these villains, he once more fell beneath their blows. By the wan light of the lamp burning for the souls in Purgatory, I saw the men lift a bleeding body and throw it into the canal, the surface of which was for a moment disturbed. A second after, the assassins dispersed, and so rapidly that I asked myself if all this was not a bad dream; but the reality was too evident for me to indulge long in this error. Another incident occurred to prove to me that I was wide awake. A man on horseback issued from the house to which a fatal chain of events had bound me, and in this man I recognized Perico, mounted on the noble animal that I had brought with so much trouble from the hacienda de la Noria.
"Halloo, you rascal!" I exclaimed, "this is too much; you are stealing my horse."
"Señor," replied Perico, with astonishing composure, "I am carrying away a proof which might criminate your lordship."
Such was the lépero's farewell. The spurs driven home, the horse sprang off at a gallop. Without taking leave of any body, I set off in pursuit. It was too late; I only heard in the distance his plaintive neigh and the break of his gallop. These sounds soon died away. I rushed at random down one of the lanes which led to the canal. I wandered a long time in this labyrinth before finding myself in a place I knew, and day was breaking before I discovered my whereabouts. Night had brought its counsel, and I resolved to make a declaration in a court of law about the misfortune I had caused the night before. I went, then, to the juzgado de latras.[3] When I entered the judge had not yet arrived, and I waited in the hall. Fatigue and want of sleep were not long in making me oblivious of all my anxieties, and I fell asleep on a bench. I was retracing in my dreams the extraordinary scenes I had witnessed. I fancied I heard a dull noise about me, then deep silence all at once. I opened my eyes; I still believed myself a prey to the nightmare. A stretcher, covered with a bloody sheet, was laid almost at my feet. A thought passed through me like a flash of lightning. I imagined that I had been recognized, and that, by a refinement of barbarous justice, they were about to confront me with him whose death I had caused. I walked to the end of the lobby; the sight of the bloody sheet became insupportable to me. I gradually reassured myself, however, and, arming my self with courage, went and raised a corner of the covering. I had no difficulty in recognizing the victim. His pale, handsome face, and forehead marked with a long, slender scar, had left too deep an impression in my memory. The marshy plants and green slime which soiled his clothes reminded me of the theatre of the crime. This was the man I had seen die so valiantly, and whose loss, I knew, would be so tenderly bewailed. I let the sheet fall over his noble face.
I hasten to terminate this too long story. Twenty days had passed. No attention seemed to have been paid to the unfortunate accident of which I had been the innocent cause, and nothing remained of my nocturnal adventures but an invincible horror of the whole tribe of léperos, when I received an order to appear before a strange alcalde. A man about forty years of age, as much a stranger to me as the alcalde, was waiting for me at the bar.
"Señor," said this man to me, "I am the lamp lighter whom your lordship almost killed; and as this accident has kept me from work for a fortnight, you will not take it ill if I ask you to make it up to me."
"Certainly not," said I, delighted to know that I had not to reproach myself with the death of any body. "How much do you ask?"
"Five hundred piastres, Señor."
I must confess that this exorbitant charge immediately changed my pleasure into anger, and I could not help mentally consigning the lamplighter to the devil. But these feelings cooled down almost immediately; and the alcalde advising me to compound with the man, I was glad to be let off for a fifth part of the sum demanded by the lamplighter. After all, if my studies had been too expensive, the experience I had gained had its value, and I regretted nothing that Perico had extorted from me, not even the noble horse which he had so ingeniously appropriated.