The Good Conscience Read Free

fever in a village near León. He had been three days traveling his estate on horseback. Night and a violent rain storm had descended upon him together. He was dying of pneumonia, and so delirious that it was impossible to move him from the dirty adobe hut where he lay. Proud Guillermina hurried to him, only to find, upon arrival, the peon’s dead fires, the mourning neighing of horses, and Pepe’s body. It would appear that the Ceballos patriarchs were accustomed to dying on historic dates, for this was a morning in the third week of November and soon afterward it was known throughout the region that on the same day Madero had risen in revolt in San Luis Potosí.
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    The funeral procession, headed by the widow and the two black-clad children, had just dissolved when Pánfilo drew near his sister-in-law and informed her that she could count upon him as the man of the family. Guillermina paused at the exit to the Municipal Cemetery, facing the compact panorama—brown, green, and black—of mountains, glens, and churches. She reflected that she would not go far relying upon the judgment of the aged clothier. She would have to trust her own good sense to resolve the problems caused by her husband’s death. She was sad and a little troubled, but at the same time felt lighter, for sadness was the feeling she most enjoyed. Taking Rodolfo and Asunción by the hand, she boarded the black carriage and rode home.
    Shortly thereafter, she sold the mines to Pepe’s British associates at a very good price indeed, and entrusted the vast hacienda to an administrator. She decided to wed Asunción three years earlier than planned before, at fifteen, and to prepare Rodolfo to take his father’s place. She was glad to rid herself of the mines, in whose exploitation, sweaty, tyrannous, often criminal, the first wealth of her ancestors had been founded … lords of the manor but not of the manner, men of rough words and quick whips. She was going to limit herself to landowning; it was like stepping from a muddy street to the sidewalk. Rodolfo’s projected law career was abandoned. It would be enough for him to handle the hacienda. But if the unlinked events of the already busy revolution were incomprehensible to her, even more so was her son’s character. It seemed that the Andalusan Doña Margarita had been resusitated to infuse, in a disagreeable and accentuated way, the boy’s physical appearance and spirit. No one was less worried about anything than Rodolfo Ceballos. No one was less suited for the management and discipline of large landholdings.
    In the beginning the Revolution did not frighten Doña Guillermina. It spread down from the north, and in 1914 Guanajuato began to fill with refugee families, many of them old friends, from Coahuila, San Luis, and Chihuahua. Relatives, former business associates of Don Pepe, and friends of friends poured in. Social life quickened, and Guillermina found this pleasant. There were balls and parties, and everyone attended the usual religious festivities. From time to time someone spoke of violence and killing: Guillermina would reply placidly that this was not the first revolution they had known: “Guanajuato has always been the richest state in the Republic, the granary and the treasury of Mexico, as my husband used to say, and no one will dare to disturb us here.”
    Events turned out otherwise. A band of revolutionists took over, the next year, Don Pepe’s land. They emptied the corn bins and barns, and Rodolfo, who was living at the hacienda by now, informed his mother that the situation was grave. For the first time Guillermina felt afraid. The worst was still to come. In 1916 Villa approached Guanajuato with nine thousand men. Young Asunción, only fifteen years of age but already married, fled with her husband, and the stone mansion was empty except for Guillermina and Pánfilo. The elderly merchant