Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/114
time or time. No work, no pay. And in the long dry season, it was mostly no work.
“Still,” said the German manager of the hotel, a man who had run a rubber plantation in Tabasco, a sugar plantation in the state of Vera Cruz, and a hacienda growing wheat, maize, oranges, in Jalisco: “Still, it isn’t a question of money with the peons. It doesn’t start with the peons. It starts in Mexico City, with a lot of malcontents who want to put their spoke in the wheel, and who lay hold of pious catchwords, to catch the poor. There’s no more in it than that. Then the agitators go round and infect the peons. It is nothing but a sort of infectious disease, like syphilis, all this revolution and socialism.”
“But why does no one oppose it,” said Kate. “Why don’t the hacendados put up a fight, instead of caving in and running away.”
“The Mexican hacendado!” The man’s German eyes gave out a spark. “The Mexican gentleman is such a brave man, that while the soldier is violating his wife on the bed, he is hiding under the bed and holding his breath so they shan’t find him. He’s as brave as that.”
Kate looked away uncomfortably.
“They all want the United States to intervene. They hate the Americans; but they want the United States to intervene, to save them their money and their property. That’s how brave they are! They hate the Americans personally, but they love them because they can look after money and property. So they want the United States to annex Mexico, the beloved patria; leaving the marvellous green and white and red flag, and the eagle with the snake in its claws, for the sake of appearances and honour! They’re simply bottled full of honour; of that sort.”
Always the same violence of bitterness, Kate thought to herself. And she was so weary of it. How, how weary she was of politics, of the very words “Labour” and “Socialism!” and all that sort! It suffocated her.
“Have you heard of the men of Quetzalcoatl?” asked Kate.
“Quetzalcoatl!” exclaimed the manager, giving a little click of the final ‘l,’ in a peculiar native fashion. “That’s another try-on of the Bolshevists. They thought socialism needed a god, so they’re going to fish him out of this lake.