Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/70
“What do you think, Mrs Leslie,” cried the pale-faced young Mirabel, in curiously resonant English, with a French accent. “Don’t you think it would be wonderful if the gods came back to Mexico? our own gods?” He sat in intense expectation, his blue eyes fixed on Kate’s face, his . soup-spoon suspended.
Kate’s face was baffled with incomprehension.
“Not those Aztec horrors!” she said.
“The Aztec horrors! The Aztec horrors! Well, perhaps they were not so horrible after all. But if they were, it was because the Aztecs were all tied up. They were in a cul de sac, so they saw nothing but death. Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know enough!” said Kate.
“Nobody knows any more. But if you like the word Quetzalcoatl, don’t you think it would be wonderful if he came back again? Ah, the names of the gods! Don’t you think the names are like seeds, so full of magic, of the unexplored magic? Huitzilopochtli!—how wonderful! And Tlaloc! Ah! Ilove them! I say them over and over, like they say Mani padma Om! in Thibet. I believe in the fertility of sound. Itzpapalotl—the Obsidian Butterfly! Itzpapalotl! But say it, and you will see it does good to your soul. Itzpapalotl! Tezcatlipocá! They were old when the Spaniards came, they needed the bath of life again. But now, re-bathed in youth, how wonderful they must be! Think of Jehovah! Jehovah! Think of Jesus Christ! How thin and poor they sound! Or Jesús Cristo! They are dead names, all the life withered out of them. Ah, it is time now for Jesus to go back to the place of the death of the gods, and take the long bath of being made young again. He is an old-old young god, don’t you think?” He looked long at Kate, then dived for his soup.
Kate widened her eyes in amazement at this torrent from the young Mirabal. Then she laughed.
“I think it’s a bit overwhelming!” she said, non-committal.
“Ah! Yes! Exactly! Exactly! But how good to be overwhelmed! How splendid if something will overwhelm me! Ah, I am so glad!”
The last word came with a French resonance, and the young man dived for his soup again. He was lean and pale, but burning with an intense, crazy energy.