The Logo for Lesson 18 is a "Calavera"

English text: Chapter 18: The Mexican Revolution: Guzmán, Azuela

I. The Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution which broke out in 1910 was the most profound and far-reaching revolution Latin America had known up to the middle of the 20th Century. It made deep and irreversible changes in many aspects of Mexican life: political, social, economic and cultural. It broke the old colonial and neocolonial patterns of foreign penetration and ruptured the historical ties between landowner-politician, priest and army officer. Beyond Mexico, it provided an example for the rest of Latin America, even though the Mexicans never attempted to export their revolution or claim that what they did could be easily replicated in other countries.

The Mexican Revolution was also in a sense a continuation of the aborted popular revolt of 1810 led by the priests Hidalgo and Morelos, which had been co-opted by the conservative elites. The 1910 Revolution broke the power of these elites, the Catholic Church, and the old-style military.

The stage for the Revolution was set by the long conservative rule of General Porfirio Díaz, who for 34 years had governed Mexico under the ideology of the Positivists. His regime boasted of many signs of material progress, but these favored the Mexican elites and the foreign investors, to the detriment of the large masses of lower class Mexicans. The economy was neocolonial, since it was based on control of Mexico's extractive industries (especially oil and minerals), by American, British and other European investors. Internally Díaz controlled Mexico through a tight alliance of the large landowners, the Church, and the military and police forces directly under his command. Each of these legs of his three-legged stool of conservative power supported each other, and the system endured, providing the stability so cherished by the Positivists and so attractive to the foreign investor.

But by the beginning of the new century things were starting to change. The rural masses and urban labor were chafing under their exploited status, and a growing middle class, mainly mestizo and city-dwelling, was becoming politicized and increasingly resentful at being excluded from the superficial material progress being made in their nation.

The spark that set off the Revolution was the 1910 reelection campaign of Porfirio Díaz (for his eighth term). In a 1908 interview with a foreign journalist, the aging Díaz let it be known that he might not choose to run in 1910. This led an intellectual member of an upper-class family by the name of Francisco Madero to announce his candidacy. Running on a campaign of &laqno;effective suffrage and no reelection», Madero was able to gather considerable support among the middle class, and the possibility that he might win stirred hope among the lower classes. Díaz promptly arrested Madero and proceeded to win a rigged election. But he miscalculated the degree of unrest in Mexico and shortly after the election, when his police fired on a demonstration in Mexico City, he went into exile himself. The first stage of the Revolution had ended with the departure of the old dictator.

Madero, returned from exile in Texas, was declared President and took the reins of power. But Madero was essentially a 19th Century liberal, and his program was a &laqno;constitutionalist» one based on clean elections and limits on the reelection of the president. He was well-meaning, but had no real program for the profound social, economic and political changes that Mexicans were clamoring for. He had also made the critical mistake of allowing many of the senior generals of Díaz' old army to remain in place.

When it became clear that Madero's reform program would be a very limited one, unrest and violence broke out in numerous places in Mexico. One of the most significant movements was the cry for land reform led by Emiliano Zapata, whose cry of &laqno;land and liberty» mobilized thousands of followers who began invading the large land holdings (the haciendas) and taking them over. The landowners appealed to their allies among the senior military officers, who under the leadership of the reactionary general Victoriano Huerta moved to put down the revolt, take Madero and his Vice President prisoner, and then execute them &laqno;as they tried to escape».

By 1913 Huerta and the counterrevolutionary &laqno;federales» were in control of Mexico City, the port city of Veracruz, and not much else. The rest of Mexico was in chaos, with local leaders fighting for the increasingly radical goals of the Revolution under the broad banner of the &laqno;Constitutionalists». Zapata continued his land seizures, Pancho Villa in northern Mexico ran his own war, and Venustiano Carranza attempted to take over the leadership of the remaining factions.

Huerta was finally defeated in 1914, and Carranza became president at the head of the coalition of Constitutionalists. For the first time since Independence radical mestizos, at the head of large numbers of Indigenous, had wrested power away from the creole elite. Carranza was able to consolidate his power by accepting some of the more radical proposals made by Zapata and others. These were institutionalized in the revolutionary constitution of 1917, which included such far-reaching provisions as land reform, social security protection for workers, restrictions on the power and wealth of the Church, and nationalization of oil and mineral riches.

The Mexican Revolution was also a cultural revolution. The European cultural values of the Positivists and the elites were swept aside in favor of local and native traditions. Respect for Indigenous values became a major part of Mexico's official government cultural programs after centuries in which these values had been considered inferior. Because Mexico had very high levels of illiteracy, murals were used as educational and propagandistic tools to gain support for the Revolution's goals. The broadside woodcuts of Posada and others had mobilized the Revolution's supporters in their protests against Díaz, and after the revolution had consolidated its power they too were used to propagate and support its goals.

Mexican literature in this period was dominated by the theme of the Revolution. Sometimes this took the form of biographies of the leaders and fighters, with very mixed quality. The most successful examples of the literature of the Mexican Revolution were produced by writers and journalists who participated or closely observed the fighting phase, bringing to these writings a reality and sense of vividness that those sitting in comfort far from the battlefield could not hope to duplicate. Novels and short stories written by these observers and fighters of the Revolution joined the murals of Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros (&laqno;the Big Three») to become the best cultural witnesses to this key turning point of Mexican history.

II. A story from the fighting phase of the Revolution: &laqno;Pancho Villa on the Cross» by Martín Luis Guzmán.

Because the Mexican Revolution had this cultural dimension as well as political, social and economic ones, there were important manifestations in literature as well as art (the muralists). There is a whole genre of novels, memoirs and stories surrounding the period of greatest fighting between 1910 and 1920. One of the best writers of the Mexican Revolution from the unique perspective of the eye witness was Martín Luis Guzmán, who came from a prominent Mexico City family and was with Pancho Villa during many of the key moments of the revolutionary struggle. Guzman's major work is the book The Eagle and the Serpent, a title chosen because it is the ancient Aztec icon of Mexican nationhood, as well as for its contemporary significance as the symbol of the struggle between good and evil, between the forces for change and the forces of reaction and counterrevolution. Not exactly a novel, The Eagle and the Serpent is a loosely connected series of anecdotes and stories, sometimes embellished, of Pancho Villa and his army as they fought their way across the northern part of Mexico during the violent stage of the Mexican Revolution.

Guzmán's relationship to the central figure of Pancho Villa bears some similarities to the relationship between Sarmiento and Facundo, with the added value that Guzmán knew Villa well and was able to observe him closely over an extended period of time. There is tension between the earthy, crude, macho, animal-like caudillo that is Villa and the educated, citified writer-journalist that is Guzmán. Villa was not above mocking and even humiliating Guzmán, but as the story which follows indicates, he was also capable of listening to his advice.

In one of the more bizarre incidents of the Mexican Revolution, in March 1916 Pancho Villa ordered his men to cross the border and attack the small town of Columbus, New Mexico, killing several Americans and destroying parts of the town and the small military outpost. The reasons for the raid were unclear, but apparently Villa hoped that his brazen act and the expected US response would appeal to Mexican nationalism and result in greater support for his group. The raid was, technically, the last time the continental United States was invaded by a hostile foreign force. U.S. public opinion was outraged, and President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John Pershing to mount a Punitive Expedition to catch Villa. This proved to be a frustrating and difficult task, and after a year of marching around the deserts of northern Mexico in pursuit of Villa the Expedition gave up and returned to the United States.

&laqno;Pancho Villa on the Cross» by Martín Luis Guzmán

The Aguas Calientes Convention had barely ended when the fighting began again. That is to say, the conciliatory efforts failed at the practical level before the theoretical one. And the efforts failed, after all, because that is what most of the members wanted. If there were armies available and at hand, how could one resist the urgent temptation to use them and set them to fighting?

Maclovio Herrera, in Chihuahua, was one of the first to take to the field, challenging Pancho Villa's authority.

&laqno;That big-eared SOB» said Villa of his onetime ally Herrera, &laqno;I am the one who made him what he is! He is my son in arms! How can that deaf and ungrateful traitor dare to abandon me?»

So great was Villa's ire that only a few days after Herrera rebelled he was under attack from the troops Villa sent to get him.

The encounters were bloody and terrible: it was Villistas against Villistas, hurricane against hurricane. He who did not kill, died.

One of those mornings Llorente and I went to visit Villa, and we found him so somber that we felt panic just looking at him. The burning fire in his eyes made me think that we humans belong to several different species, and that between these species there are unbridgeable distances, worlds that have no common denominator. And if one of us penetrated into the world of an opponent we would feel a certain vertigo over the chasm that divides us. A reflex shudder swept through my soul that morning as I faced Villa, in the framework of terror and horror.

In response to our &laqno;good morning, general», he responded in a grim tone:

&laqno;Not good, my friends. We have too many empty sombreros».

I did not fully understand the meaning of that phrase, and I don't think Llorente did either. But while he kept the silence of true wisdom, I, with stupid haste, almost inciting a crime, said,

&laqno;We have too many what, General?»

He took a step towards me and replied with a careful and slow tone that showed that he was barely containing his rage:

&laqno;Too many empty sombreros, Licenciado. Don't you understand man talk? Or don't you realize that because of the Long-eared one (wait till I catch that bastard!) my boys are killing each other? Do you understand now why we have too many empty sombreros? Am I speaking clearly enough?»

I froze and said nothing. Villa was pacing back and forth in the rail car to the interior rhythm of his anger. Every couple of steps he swore between clenched teeth:

&laqno;That deaf SOB... ... That deaf SOB».

Several times Llorente and I looked at each other, and then, not knowing what to do or say, we sat down next to each other. Outside the morning was bright, interrupted only by the distant sounds and voice of the bivouacked camp. In the train car the only sound besides the raging in Villa's soul was the tic-track of the telegraph.

The telegrapher sat facing us, leaning over his table, his movements precise, and his face as expressionless as his equipment. Several minutes passed this way. Then the telegrapher, who had been busy transmitting, turned to his chief and said:

&laqno;It looks like it's here, General».

He took the pencil from behind his ear and slowly began to write. Villa moved over to the telegraph table with an air that at the same time was agitated and glacial, impatient and calm, vengeful and disdaining. He was between us and the telegrapher, and I could see his profile leaning over the equipment....

The telegrapher peeled off the top sheet of the pink pad where he had been writing the message and handed it to Villa. Villa took it, but then handed it back to him, saying:

&laqno;You read it to me, my friend. But read it carefully, because now I think we're getting down to business».

Villa's voice carried echoes of somber emotion, echoes so deep and threatening that they were reflected in the voice of the telegrapher, who separating each word carefully, scanning each syllable, began to read the message with a flat voice:

&laqno;I have the honor of communicating to you...» Then the tone of his words became more elevated as the reading continued. The message, laconic and bloody, was the report of the defeat that Villa's troops had just inflicted on Maclovio Herrera's forces.

As he listened, Villa's face seemed for an instant to move from the shadows to the light. But then, as he heard the final phrases, his eyes blazed and once again his face burned with the fire of his maximum fury, his overwhelming and uncontrollable rage. What set him off was the closing phrase in the message in which the commander of his victorious forces, after listing his dead and wounded, asked Villa what he should do with the one hundred and sixty of Herrera's men who had laid down their arms and surrendered.

&laqno;What to do with them?» yelled Villa. &laqno;Well, what else but shoot them! What a stupid question! Why do even my best men, my most loyal and sure ones, let me down? What do I need these generals for if they don't even know what to do with traitors they get a hold of?»

He said all of this without taking his eyes off the poor telegrapher, and through his eyes, and then the wires of the telegraph, Villa could perhaps feel how his anger reached the battlefield where his men lay dead. Turning to us, he continued:

&laqno;And what do you think, sir lawyers?» &laqno;What do you think about them asking me what to do with prisoners?»

But Llorente and I, barely looking at him, stared out the window to the vague infinity beyond. We were Villa's least concern. Turning back to the operator he ordered him:

&laqno;OK, friend. Tell that so-and-so to stop wasting my time and the telegraph's. Tell him to shoot the hundred and sixty right now, and if he doesn't tell me within the hour that he has carried out the order I'll go there and shoot them myself so he'll learn how to handle things. Did you understand me?»

&laqno;Yes, general».

The telegrapher started to write the message out first before transmitting it. Villa interrupted him after the first word:

&laqno;Hey, what are you doing? Why aren't you obeying my order?»

&laqno;I'm drafting the message, General»

&laqno;Don't give me any of that drafting crap. Just tell him what I said and that's it. Time was not made to be wasted on papers.»

And so the operator put his right hand on the transmitting apparatus, placed his index finger on the Morse key, and began to call the distant station: <tic-tic; trick-tic; tic-trick-tic>.

Between the pile of papers and Villa's arm I could see the operator's knuckles, pale and vibrating under the contraction of his tendons as he produced the little homicidal sounds. Villa never took his eyes off the movements which were transmitting his orders two hundred leagues North, nor did we. For reasons I could not understand, as stupid as those in dreams, I was trying to guess the exact instant in which the vibrations of the operator's fingers spelled out the words &laqno;shoot at once». For five minutes it was a terrible obsession which swept from my conscience every other immediate reality, every other sense of being.

When the operator finished his transmission, Villa, now calmer, sat down in the chair next to his desk. There he was silent for a brief moment. Then he shifted his hat to the back of his head, pushed the fingers of his hand through his reddish hair and scratched his skull as if trying to rip out something that was eating at his brain, at his soul. Then he was still. We sat watching him, silent, still.

Perhaps ten minutes passed. Suddenly Villa turned toward me and said:

&laqno;And what do you think of all this, my friend?»

&laqno;Me, General?»

&laqno;Yes, you, my friend».

Then, cornered, but determined to use men's language, I answered ambiguously:

&laqno;Well, there are going to be a lot of empty sombreros, General».

&laqno;Bah. Who are you telling that to! But that's not what I am asking about. What about the consequences? Do you think this business of the execution is good or bad?»

Llorente, more daring, got ahead of me: &laqno;To be frank, General, I don't think the order was a good idea».

I closed my eyes. I was sure that Villa, rising up from his seat, or even sitting down, would whip out his pistol to punish such a colossal reproach of his conduct in something so close to his soul. But a few seconds passed, and after that Villa asked in a calm voice which contrasted extraordinarily with the tempest that had come before:

&laqno;Well, tell me why you don't think the order was a good idea».

Llorente was so pale that his skin looked just like his starched white collar. But he answered firmly: &laqno;Because the report said, General, that the hundred and sixty men surrendered».

&laqno;Yes. So what?»

&laqno;Well, taken in battle like that, they should not be executed».

&laqno;Why not?»

&laqno;Because of that, General: because they surrendered».

&laqno;That really is hilarious. Where did they teach you these things?»

The shame of my silence overwhelmed me. I couldn't take it any longer. I broke in:

&laqno;I think the same thing, General. I think Llorente is right.»

Villa took us both in with a single glance:

&laqno;And why do you think that, my friend?»

&laqno;Llorente already explained it: because the men surrendered»

&laqno;And I'll repeat what I said: so WHAT?»

The WHAT was pronounced like a final and absolute interrogation. This last time, as he said it, he revealed a certain unease that led him to open his eyes even wider to wrap us in his now less focused gaze. From outside inwards I felt the weight of that cold and cruel stare, and from inside outwards I felt an impulse spurred on by the vision of remote mass executions. It was urgent that I come up with a sure and intelligible formula. I tried, explaining:

&laqno;When a man surrenders, General, he grants life to others by giving up his career of killing. And as a result, he who accepts the surrender is obliged not to kill him».

Villa looked at me carefully and slowly. Then he jumped up and yelled at the telegraph operator:

&laqno;Hey, friend, call them again, call them again...»

The operator obeyed: <tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>.

A few seconds went by. Villa inquired impatiently: &laqno;Are they answering?»

&laqno;I'm calling, General».

Llorente and I could not contain ourselves and we went over to the equipment table. Villa asked again:

&laqno;Do they answer?»

&laqno;Not yet, general»

&laqno;Call harder»

The operator could neither call harder or softer. But we could see, in the contraction of his fingers, that he was trying to make the shape of each letter clearer and more precise. There was a brief silence, and then there broke out, dry and distant, the <trick-tic> of the receiver.

&laqno;They're answering» said the operator.

&laqno;OK, friend, OK. Transmit this, and don't waste any time. Listen closely: 'Delay execution prisoners until further order. General Francisco Villa'...»

<tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>

&laqno;Done?»

<tic-tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>

&laqno;Yes, General».

&laqno;Now tell the operator at the other end that I am standing here next to the equipment waiting for an answer, and I am holding him personally responsible for the slightest delay.»

<tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>

&laqno;Done?»

&laqno;Yes, General»

The receiver rang out:

<tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>

&laqno;What's he saying?»

&laqno;That he's going to deliver the telegram and bring back an answer...»

The three of us stood next to the telegraph table: Villa strangely uneasy; Llorente and I spellbound by anxiety.

Ten minutes went by.

<trick-tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>

&laqno;Is he answering?»

&laqno;That's not him, General. It's another station.»

Villa took out his watch and asked:

&laqno;How long has it been since we telegraphed the first order?»

&laqno;About twenty-five minutes, General».

Turning then towards me, Villa said, and I don't know why he picked me:

&laqno;Will the counter-order get there in time? What do you think?»

&laqno;I hope so, General»

<tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>

&laqno;Are they answering, friend?»

&laqno;No, General, it's a different one».

As the minutes passed, we could hear in Villa's voice a vibration which we had never heard before: harmonics, veiled by emotion, deeper each time he asked if the <tic-tricks> were an acknowledgment of the counter-order. He had his eyes fixed on the little lever of the receiver, and whenever it showed the slightest movement he would say, as if he could influence the electricity running through the wires: &laqno;Is it him?»

&laqno;No, General, it's someone else».

Twenty minutes had passed since the sending of the counter-order when the operator finally said, picking up his pencil:

&laqno;They're calling now». <tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>

Villa leaned further over the table. Llorente, however, stood up straight. I went over and sat next to the operator to read the message as he was writing it.

<tic-trick-tic; trick-trick>

By the third line Villa could not contain his impatience and asked:

&laqno;Did the counter-order get there in time?»

Without taking my eyes of what the operator was writing, I nodded my head affirmatively. Villa took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow.

That evening we ate with him; but during the whole time we sat together he did not talk about the morning's events. Only when we said good-bye, well after nightfall, Villa said to us, without any explanations:

&laqno;Thanks, friends, many thanks, for the business with the telegrams and the prisoners...»

III. A story from the consolidation phase of the Revolution: "How, finally, Juan Pablo cried" by Mariano Azuela.

Mariano Azuela (1873-1952) was one of the great novelists of the Mexican Revolution. Like Guzmán, he too had accompanied Villa and other leaders on numerous campaigns. But his viewpoint is not so much biographical as Guzman's was, and he attempts to present the viewpoint of the common man, of the people themselves.

He had studied medicine, although he had always wanted to be a writer. His works cover the Revolution from the period of Madero (1910-13) through the presidency of Cárdenas in the 1940's. When the Revolution broke out he joined the Maderista faction, and then later the Villa group as a doctor. He wrote the greater part of his principal novel, Los de Abajo (The Underdogs) during the period with Villa. When Villa was defeated in 1915, Azuela went into exile in El Paso, Texas, and the novel was first published there. The title clearly reveals Azuela's attitude: he wanted to tell the story of the people who had always been Mexico's &laqno;underdogs», even after many of the changes brought about by the Revolution.

This theme is the basis for the story which follows: Juan Pablo is a humble representative of the masses who, due to circumstances and personal courage, becomes a revolutionary general and leader. But the corrupt politicians who began to control the Revolution after the fighting phase was over betrayed him and finally executed him because they could not tolerate his honesty and his firm loyalty to the ideals of the Revolution.

Azuela's story corresponds to the phase when the Revolution was becoming consolidated and bureaucratized. A series of official revolutionary political parties were organized, culminating in the &laqno;PRI - Partido Revolucionario Institucional» (translated as &laqno;Party of the Institutionalized Revolution &laqno; or &laqno;Party of the Revolutionary Institutions»). The PRI is still in power, and it maintains that the Revolution continues even after more than three quarters of a century, despite clear indications to the contrary.

&laqno;How, finally, Juan Pablo cried» by Mariano Azuela

Juan Pablo is locked up in the chapel the night before his execution. The next morning, at the crack of dawn, he will be taken from his cell amidst the sound of bugles and the beating of drums to the far end of the barracks blocks. And there, with his back to a narrow adobe wall, in front of the whole regiment, the squad will be formed and he will be executed.

Thus one pays with one's life for the ugly crime of treason. Treason! Treason!

The harsh word spoken yesterday during the Extraordinary Court Martial has been stabbed into the center of Juan Pablo's heart like a scorpion's stinger.

&laqno;Treason». Thus spoke the handsome little officer, who blinked his eyes and moved his hands like a comic actor's. Thus spoke the corseted officer, affected, perfumed like the women of the streets; a little officer with three shiny insignia ... virgin insignia.

And the word bounces around Juan Pablo's skull like a fixed idea in the Ferris-wheel of a typhoid victim's brain.

&laqno;Treason! Treason! But treason against whom?»

Juan Pablo roars, but without raising his head, shifting in his chair and making his iron-trimmed boots creak on the tile floor.

The guard awakens:

&laqno;Sentry aleeeeert!...» &laqno;Sentry aleeeeert!...»

The call is repeated and moves into the distance, losing itself from patio to patio, until it fades fearfully and with a shudder in a whimper of wind. Then a dog barks in the street. A sharp bark, mournful, with a tearful, almost human melancholy.

One day the Mexico City newspaper arrived in Hostotipaquillo with the lies telling of the feats of the drunkard Huerta and his savages. Pascual Bailón, skillful barber and sure druggist, called his intimate friends together.

&laqno;It would be good to get rid of the tyrants now», replied Juan Pablo, who never spoke.

Then Pascual Bailón, a personage of some note, full of the readings of Juan A. Mateos and Don Ireneo Paz and other famous writers, with an epic gesture, and with his words reaching the heights of condors, spoke thusly:

&laqno;Friends, it is cowardly to speak in tongues, when our brothers to the North are speaking with gun powder».

Juan Pablo was the first to go out into the street.

The conspirators, numbering seven, did not speak with powder because they didn't even have flintlock pistols. But they did speak with iron, and they permanently silenced the tyrants of the village, the mayor and the guards of the municipal jail, to say nothing of setting fire to the La Simpatía store (odds and ends) belonging to Don Telésforo, the local political boss.

Pascual Bailón and his men went up to the ravines of Tequila. After their first skirmish with the Federals, there occurred a radical move which realigned the hierarchy. Pascual Bailón had always tried to place himself at a respectable distance from the line of fire, which he called, based on his readings of history, &laqno;prudence». But the others, who didn't even know how to read, said that this was simply called &laqno;fear». Then, by unanimity, Juan Pablo assumed the leadership of the group. This was Juan Pablo who in the village had been known only for his rough withdrawal, or by his very limited ability to put an edge on a plow, whet a workman's bar, or sharpen a machete. Fearless valor and serenity were for Juan Pablo the same thing as an eaglet's ability to spread its wings and fly through the sky. When the Revolution triumphed he was able to proudly wear, without any shame or false modesty, his insignias of the rank of general.

The pairs of lovers who liked to see the foliage of Mexico City's Santiago Tlatelolco garden tinted in the golden vapors of the morning sun would frequently run across a rough-looking man, carelessly leaning back on a park bench, in shirt-sleeves, his shirtfront open to show a hairy chest; sometimes he would drunkenly contemplate the moldy and eroded side of the church, its old and uneven rose-colored towers cutting into the sapphire-blue sky; other times he would be with a copy of El Pueblo, painfully spelling out each word as he read.

Juan Pablo, on garrison duty in the capital, knows little about newspapers, now that Pascual Bailón, the new Cincinattus, having saved the motherland, has retired to private life to look after his interests (an hacienda in Michoacán and a rather nicely equipped little railroad). But when the newspaper's headline is printed in red for the nth time with the news the &laqno;Doroteo Arango has been killed» or that &laqno;the Government has refused the offer of five hundred million dollars made by US bankers», or perhaps &laqno;the people are beginning to feel the immense benefits of the Revolution», then he buys the newspaper. It goes without saying that Juan Pablo adopts the daily opinion of El Pueblo: his jacket is unbuttoned because it no longer closes; the point of his nose has become purple and it has begun to sprout rather large little veins which wind through it like a snake; at his side a pretty adolescent dressed in flowery white plays, with a bright ribbon at her neck, and another, larger and opened up like a butterfly tied to the end of the braid which lies, heavily, in the midst of hips which have only just begun to broaden.

Juan Pablo had just finished rendering the reading of &laqno;the Immense Benefits which the Revolution have brought to the People», when his eyes happen to fix upon a hundred or so filthy, flea-bitten and cadaverous individuals who are standing in line along the Twelfth Factor street, waiting for the opening of the doors of the corn meal mill. Juan Pablo scrunches his left nostril and leans over to scratch his ankle. It is not that Juan Pablo, stung by the coincidence, has reflected. No. Juan Pablo does not ordinarily think. What happens in the depths of his subconscious usually emerges to the surface this way: the scrunching of a nostril, and a silent sharp snap, as if a flea had walked across his calf. That is all.

And well, this is the third time Juan Pablo has been locked up waiting for his execution. The first time was for having rearranged the face of an effeminate emissary of the Secretary of War; the second for having lodged a bullet in the head of a paymaster. These were not major events, just the minutiae of service. Because in the simple dense mesquite-like logic of Juan Pablo there was no room for this business about the people continuing to be enslaved by others after the triumph of the Revolution. In effect, in his regiment the only line of action that was followed was &laqno;Don't ever turn your back to the enemy». The rest would be sorted out by each individual as best suited him. One can understand the kind of men Juan Pablo would take with him. One can understand why they adored him. And one can understand the valid reasons why the Government, concerned about his people, would twice set him free.

But the second time he came out of jail he found something new: his regiment had been dissolved, and his men broken up and sent to remote units; some in Sonora, others in Chihuahua, others in Tampico and a few in Morelos.

Juan Pablo, a warehoused general with no more capital than the Colt at his left side, then felt the nostalgia for his little plot of homeland, and his old fighting buddies, with his freedom more limited now than when he was a blacksmith, and when the only tyrants he had on his head were the poor devil of the La Simpatía village store, (odds and ends), and the three or four &laqno;cats» holstered by the municipal guards, good fellows generally, if one did not mess around with them. Juan Pablo recognized this now, sighing and turning his nostrils to the west.

One evening, a certain individual who a few days before had been occupying the place in front of Juan Pablo in the restaurant scratches his head, sighs, and mumbles:

&laqno;Those 'civilistas' are robbing us».

Juan Pablo, brows furrowed, looks at the man who spoke, eats, and is quiet.

The next day:

&laqno;The 'civilistas' have grabbed our crops; and after we have sowed the earth and watered it with our own blood».

Juan Pablo leaves his plate for a second, touches the left half of his nose, and scratches his ankle. Then he eats and is quiet.

Another day: &laqno;The 'civilistas' are not just annoying flies any more. Now they have sat down and taken over the table and they throw us, as if we were dogs, the leftovers from their meal».

Juan Pablo, finally impatient, asks: &laqno;But, who are those sons of ..., who are those 'civilistas'?»

&laqno;Those who have stolen our land, those lazy bastards».

The light went on in Juan Pablo's head.

The next day it is he who speaks: &laqno;It would be good to get rid of those tyrants».

His friend takes him that night to a secret meeting in the sinister suburbs. There the conspirators are meeting. One, more respectable, speaks with sober tones on the theme that it is time to give the people their motherland.

Absorbed and unaware, Juan Pablo does not realize that the doors and windows are gradually filling up with shiny rifle barrels.

A harsh voice: &laqno;Hands up!»

Everyone puts them up. Juan Pablo also puts his hands up: or better said he raises his right hand vigorously, his fist wrapped around his Colt.

&laqno;Surrender or we shoot!» roars out a voice so close to him that it makes him leap backward violently. And Juan Pablo replies by emptying the chambers of his revolver.

In the midst of the white smoke, between the flash of the firing, under the dim light of the greasy lantern, Juan Pablo, his hair twitching, his teeth showing white, smiles in his apotheosis.

When the firing ends and there is no human figure left in the dim corners of the doors and windows, the conspirators themselves fall on him like a bolt of lightning. Hands and feet tied, Juan Pablo keeps smiling. And so there is no idle mocking when Juan Pablo says that he has been face to face with death so often that he is used to seeing death head-on without having his legs tremble.

If for the last six hours he has been rooted in his fabric chair, with his vigorous head sunk in his strong and sunburned hands, it is because something more cruel than death is destroying him. Juan Pablo still hears:

&laqno;Treason! ... treason!», as one by one the slow and steady ringing of the bells announce the coming of the dawn.

&laqno;But treason against whom, Holy Mother of the Refugio?»

Without opening his eyes he is looking at the little altar mounted on one of the walls of his little room; a religious figure of Our Lady of Refugio, two handfuls of withered flowers and a little oil lamp that sheds its yellow and funeral light. Then two large tears come to his eyes.

&laqno;Impossible!» Juan Pablo leaps with the energy of a wounded lion... &laqno;Impossible». But the clear insight of those facing death takes him back to a vivid scene of his infancy, in a noisy hut, black with soot, a great fire, and a little boy with unsure hands who cannot hold the tongs and drops the red-hot iron... Then a cry of pain and his eyes fill with tears... On the other side of the forge an old, barechested man stands tall, dried out like the bark of an oak tree, bearded with great hanks of hair like burned ixtle plant fibers.

&laqno;What is this, Juan Pablo? Men don't cry!»

In hollow phrases wrapped in journalistic hypocrisy, the press said that the executed prisoner died with great serenity. The reporters added that the last words of the culprit were these:

&laqno;Don't fire at my face», and that he pronounced these words with such authority that they seemed more like an order than a plea.

It seemed that the executioner's squad did their job well. Juan Pablo jerked forward, slipped, and fell with his face to the stars, without crumpling, lying straight out.

That's all the reporters saw. I saw more. I saw how in the glassy eyes of Juan Pablo two little diamond drops timidly grew and grew, and spread, as if they wanted to climb to the sky ... yes, two stars...