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Файл:The Plumed Serpent
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THE PLUMED SERPENT
against that unconscious, heavy, reptilian indifference in them, indifference and resistance.
Her servants were the clue to all the native life, for her. The men
always together, erect, handsome, balancing their great hats on the
top of their heads and sitting, standing, crouching with a snake-like
impassivity. The women together separately, soft, and as if HIDDEN,
wrapped tight in their dark rebozos. Men and women seemed always
to be turning their back on one another, as if they didn’t want to see
one another. No fl irting, no courting. Only an occasional quick, dark
look, the signal of a weapon-like desire, given and taken.
The women seemed, on the whole, softly callous and determined
to go their own way: to change men if they wished. And the men
seemed not to care very profoundly. But it was the women who
wanted the men.
The native women, with their long black hair streaming down
their full, ruddy backs, would bathe at one end of the beach, usually wearing their chemise, or a little skirt. The men took absolutely
no notice. They didn’t even look the other way. It was the women
bathing, that was all. As if it were, like the charales swimming, just
a natural part of the lake life. The men just left that part of the lake
to the women. And the women sat in the shallows of the lake, isolated in themselves like moor-fowl, pouring water over their heads
and over their ruddy arms from a gourd scoop.
The quiet, unobtrusive, but by no means down-trodden women
of the peon class. They went their own way, enveloped in their rebozos as in their own darkness. They hurried nimbly along, their full
cotton skirts swinging, chirping and quick like birds. Or they sat in
the lake with long hair streaming, pouring water over themselves:
again like birds. Or they passed with a curious slow inevitability up
the lake-shore, with a heavy red jar of water perched on one shoulder, one arm over the head, holding the rim of the jar. They had to
191
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
carry all water from the lake to their houses. There was no town supply. Or, especially on Sunday afternoons, they sat in their doorways
de-lousing one another. The most resplendent belles, with magnifi cent black wavy hair, were most thoroughly de-loused. It was as if it
were a meritorious public act.
The men were the obvious fi gures. They assert themselves on the
air. They are the dominant. Usually they are in loose groups, talking
quietly, or silent: always standing or sitting apart, rarely touching
one another. Often a single man would stand alone at a street corner
in his serape, motionless for hours, like some powerful spectre. Or
a man would lie on the beach as if he had been cast up dead from
the waters. Impassive, motionless, they would sit side by side on the
benches of the plaza, not exchanging a word. Each one isolated in
his own fate, his eyes black and quick like a snake’s, and as blank.
It seemed to Kate that the highest thing this country might produce would be some powerful relationship of man to man. Marriage
itself would always be a casual thing. Though the men seemed very
gentle and protective to the little children. Then they forgot them.
But sex itself was a powerful, potent thing, not to be played with
or paraded. The one mystery. And a mystery greater than the individual. The individual hardly counted.
It was strange to Kate to see the Indian huts on the shore, little
holes built of straw or corn-stalks, with half-naked children squatting on the naked earth fl oor, and a lousy woman-squalor around,
a litter of rags and bones, and a sharp smell of human excrement.
The people have no noses. And standing silent and erect not far
from the hole of the doorway, the man, handsome and impassive.
How could it be, that such a fi ne-looking human male should be so
absolutely indifferent, content with such paltry squalor?
But there he was, unconscious. He seemed to have life and passion in him. And she knew he was strong. No men in the world can
192
THE PLUMED SERPENT
carry heavier loads on their backs, for longer distances, than these
Indians. She had seen an Indian trotting down a street with a piano
on his back: holding it, also, by a band round his forehead. From his
forehead, and on his spine he carried it, trotting along. The women
carry with a band round the breast.
So there is strength. And APPARENTLY, there is passionate life.
But no energy. Nowhere in Mexico is there any sign of energy. This
is, as it were, switched off.
Even the new artisan class, though it imitates the artisan class
of the United States, has no real energy. There are workmen’s clubs.
The workmen dress up and parade a best girl on their arm. But
somehow it seems what it is, only a weak imitation.
Kate’s family was increased, without her expecting it. One day
there arrived from Ocotlan a beautiful ox-eyed girl of about fi fteen,
wrapped in her black cotton rebozo, and somewhat towny in her
Madonna-meekness: Maria del Carmen. With her, Julio, a straight
and fi erce young man of twenty-two. They had just been married,
and had come to Sayula for a visit. Julio was Juana’s cousin.
Might they sleep in the patio with herself and the girls, was
Juana’s request. They would stay only two days.
Kate was amazed. Maria del Carmen must have had some Spanish blood, her beauty was touched with Spain. She seemed even
refi ned and superior. Yet she was to sleep out on the ground like
a dog, with her young husband. And he, so erect and proud-looking,
possessed nothing in the world but an old serape.
‘There are three spare bedrooms,’ said Kate. ‘They may sleep in
one of those.’
The beds were single beds. Would they need more blankets? she
asked Juana.
No! They would manage with the one serape of Julio’s.
193
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
The new family had arrived. Julio was a bricklayer. That is to
say, he worked building the adobe walls of the little houses. He belonged to Sayula, and had come back for a visit.
The visit continued. Julio would come striding in at midday and
at evening; he was looking for work. Maria del Carmen, in her one
black dress, would squat on the fl oor and pat tortillas. She was allowed to cook them in Juana’s kitchen hole. And she talked and
laughed with the girls. At night, when Julio was home, he would lie
on the ground with his back to the wall, impassive, while Maria del
Carmen fondled his thick black hair.
They were in love. But even now, he was not yielding to his love.
She wanted to go back to Ocotlan, where she was at home, and
more a señorita than here in Sayula. But he refused. There was
no money: the young ménage lived on about fi ve American cents
a day.
Kate was sewing. Maria del Carmen, who didn’t even know how
to put a chemise together, watched with great eyes. Kate taught her,
and bought a length of cotton material. Maria del Carmen was sewing herself a dress!
Julio had got work at a peso a day. The visit continued. Kate
thought Julio wasn’t very nice with Maria del Carmen: his quiet
voice was so overbearing in command when he spoke to her. And
Maria del Carmen, who was a bit towny, did not take it well. She
brooded a little.
The visit stretched into weeks. And now Juana was getting a bit
tired of her relative.
But Julio had got a bit of money. He had rented a little one-room
adobe house, at one peso fi fty per week. Maria del Carmen was going
to move into her own home.
Kate saw the new outfi t got together. It consisted of one straw
mat, three cooking-plates of earthenware, fi ve bits of native crock-
194
THE PLUMED SERPENT
ery, two wooden spoons, one knife and Julio’s old blanket. That was
all. But Maria del Carmen was moving in.
Kate presented her with a large old eiderdown, whose silk was
rather worn, a couple of bowls, and a few more bits of crockery. Maria del Carmen was set up. Good! Good! Oh good! Kate heard her
voice down the patio. I have got a coverlet! I have got a coverlet!
In the rainy season, the nights can be very cold, owing to evaporation. Then the natives lie through the small hours like lizards,
numb and prostrate with cold. They are lying on the damp earth
on a thin straw mat, with a corner of an old blanket to cover them.
And the same terrible inertia makes them endure it, without trying to make any change. They could carry in corn husks or dry banana leaves for a bed. They could even cover themselves with banana leaves.
But no! On a thin mat on damp cold earth they lie and tremble
with cold, night after night, night after night, night after night.
But Maria del Carmen was a bit towny. Oh good! Oh good! I’ve
got a coverlet!
CHAPTER X
DON RAMÓN AND
DOÑA CARLOTA
Kate had been in Sayula ten days before she had any sign from
Don Ramón. She had been out in a boat on the lake, and had seen
his house, round the bend of the western point. It was a reddishand-yellow two-storey house with a little stone basin for the boats,
and a mango grove between it and the lake. Among the trees, away
from the lake, were the black adobe huts, two rows, of the peons.
The hacienda had once been a large one. But it had been irrigated from the hills, and the revolutions had broken all the aqueducts.
Only a small supply of water was available. Then Don Ramón had
had enemies in the Government. So that a good deal of his land was
taken away to be divided among the peons. Now, he had only some
three hundred acres. The two hundred acres along the lake-shore
were mostly lost to him. He worked a few acres of fruit land round
the house, and in a tiny valley just in the hills he raised sugar-cane.
On the patches of the mountain slope little patches of maize were
to be seen.
But Doña Carlota had money. She was from Torreon and drew
still a good income from the mines.
A mozo came with a note from Don Ramón: might he bring his
wife to call on Kate?
Doña Carlota was a thin, gentle, wide-eyed woman, with a slightly startled expression, and soft, brownish hair. She was pure Europe-
196
THE PLUMED SERPENT
an in extraction, of a Spanish father and French mother: very different from the usual stout, over-powdered, ox-like Mexican matron.
Her face was pale, faded, and without any make-up at all. Her thin,
eager fi gure had something English about it, but her strange, wide
brown eyes were not English. She spoke only Spanish – or French.
But her Spanish was so slow and distinct and slightly plaintive, that
Kate understood her at once.
The two women understood one another quickly, but were a little nervous of one another. Doña Carlota was delicate and sensitive
like a Chihuahua dog, and with the same slightly prominent eyes.
Kate felt she had rarely met a woman with such a dog-like fi nesse
of gentleness. And the two women talked. Ramón, large and muted,
kept himself in reserve. It was as if the two women rushed together
to unite against his silence and his powerful, different signifi cance.
Kate knew at once that Doña Carlota loved him, but with a love
that was now nearly all WILL. She had worshipped him, and she had
had to leave off worshipping him. She had had to question him. And
she would never now cease from questioning.
So he sat apart, a little constrained, his handsome head hanging
a little, and his dark, sensitive hands dangling between his thighs.
‘I had such a wonderful time!’ Kate said suddenly to him. ‘I danced
a dance round the drum with the Men of Quetzalcoatl.’
‘I heard,’ he said, with a rather stiff smile.
Doña Carlota understood English, though she would not speak
it.
‘You danced with the men of Quetzalcoatl!’ she said in Spanish,
in a pained voice. ‘But, Señora, why did you do such a thing? Oh
why?’
‘I was fascinated,’ said Kate.
197
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
‘No, you must not be fascinated. No! No! It is not good. I tell you.
I am so SORRY my husband interests himself in this thing. I am so
sorry.’
Juana was bringing a bottle of vermouth: all that Kate had to offer her visitors, in the morning.
‘You went to see your boys in the United States?’ said Kate to
Doña Carlota. ‘How were they?’
‘Oh, better, thank you. They are well; that is, the younger is very
delicate.’
‘You didn’t bring him home?’
‘No! No! I think they are better at school. Here – here – there
are so many things to trouble them. No! But they will come home
next month, for the vacation.’
‘How nice!’ said Kate. ‘Then I shall see them. They will be here,
won’t they? – on the lake?’
‘Well! – I am not sure. Perhaps for a little while. You see I am so
busy in Mexico with my Cuna.’
‘What is a Cuna?’ said Kate; she only knew it was the Spanish
for cradle.
It turned out to be a foundlings’ home, run by a few obscure
Carmelite sisters. And Doña Carlota was the director. Kate gathered
that Don Ramón’s wife was an intense, almost exalted Catholic. She
exalted herself in the Church, and in her work for the Cuna.
‘There are so many children born in Mexico,’ said Doña Carlota,
‘and so many die. If only we could save them, and equip them for life.
We do a little, all we can.’
It seemed the waste, unwanted babies could be delivered in at
the door of the Cuna, like parcels. The mother had only to knock,
and hand in the little living bundle.
‘It saves so many mothers from neglecting their babies, and letting them die,’ said Doña Carlota. ‘Then we do what we can. If the
198
THE PLUMED SERPENT
mother doesn’t leave a name, I name the child. Very often I do. The
mothers just hand over a little naked thing, sometimes without
a name or a rag to cover it. And we never ask.’
The children were not all kept in the Home. Only a small number. Of the others, some decent Indian woman was paid a small sum
to take the child into her home. Every month she must come with
the little one to the Cuna, to receive her wage. The Indians are so
very rarely unkind to children. Careless, yes. But rarely, rarely unkind.
In former days, Doña Carlota said, nearly every well-born lady
in Mexico would receive one or more of these foundlings into her
home, and have it brought up with the family. It was the loose, patriarchal generosity innate in the bosoms of the Spanish-Mexicans. But
now, few children were adopted. Instead, they were taught as far as
possible to be carpenters or gardeners, or house-servants, or, among
the girls, dressmakers, even school-teachers.
Kate listened with uneasy interest. She felt there was so much
real human feeling in this Mexican charity: she was almost rebuked.
Perhaps what Doña Carlota was doing was the best that could be
done, in this half-wild, helpless country. At the same time, it was
such a forlorn hope, it made one’s heart sink.
And Doña Carlota, confi dent as she was in her good works, still
had just a bit the look of a victim; a gentle, sensitive, slightly startled
victim. As if some secret enemy drained her blood.
Don Ramón sat there impassive, listening without heeding; solid and unmoving AGAINST the charitable quiver of his wife’s emotion. He let her do as she would. But against her work and against
her fl ow he was in silent, heavy, unchanging opposition. She knew
this, and trembled in her nervous eagerness, as she talked to Kate
about the Cuna, and won Kate’s sympathy. Till it seemed to her that
199
DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
there was something cruel in Don Ramón’s passive, masked poise.
An impassive male cruelty, changeless as a stone idol.
‘Now won’t you come and spend the day with me while I am
here with Don Ramón?’ said Doña Carlota. ‘The house is very poor
and rough. It is no longer what it used to be. But it is your house if
you will come.’
Kate accepted, and said she would prefer to walk out. It was only
four miles, and surely she would be safe, with Juana.
‘I will send a man to come with you,’ said Don Ramón. ‘It might
not be quite safe.’
‘Where is General Viedma?’ asked Kate.
‘We shall try to get him out when you come,’ replied Doña Carlota. ‘I am so very fond of Don Cipriano, I have known him for many
years, and he is the godfather of my younger son. But now he is in
command of the Guadalajara division, he is not very often able to
come out.’
‘I wonder why he is a General?’ said Kate. ‘He seems to me too
human.’
‘Oh, but he is very human too. But he is a general; yes, yes, he
wants to be in command of the soldiers. And I tell you, he is very
strong. He has great power with his regiments. They believe in him,
oh, they believe in him. He has that power, you know, that some of
the higher types of Indians have, to make many others want to follow them and fi ght for them. You know? Don Cipriano is like that.
You can never change him. But I think a woman might be wonderful for him. He has lived so without any woman in his life. He won’t
care about them.’
‘What does he care about?’ asked Kate.
‘Ah!’ Doña Carlota started as if stung. Then she glanced quickly,
involuntarily at her husband, as she added: ‘I don’t know. Really,
I don’t know.’
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