Under the Volcano Read Free Page B

they did every evening,
to roost within the fresno trees in the zócalo, which until nightfall would
ring with their incessant drilling mechanic screech. Straggling, the obscene
concourse hushed and peddled by. By the time he reached the Palace the sun had
set.
    In spite of his amour propre he
immediately regretted having come. The broken pink pillars, in the half-light,
might have been waiting to fall down on him: the pool, covered with green scum,
its steps torn away and hanging by one rotting clamp, to close over his head.
The shattered evil-smelling chapel, over-grown with weeds, the crumbling walls,
splashed with urine, on which scorpions lurked--wrecked entablature, sad
archivolt, slippery stones covered with excreta--this place, where love had
once brooded, seemed part of a nightmare. And Laruelle was tired of nightmares.
France, even in Austrian guise, should not transfer itself to Mexico, he
thought. Maximilian had been unlucky in his palaces too, poor devil. Why did
they have to call that other fatal palace in Trieste also the Miramar, where
Carlotta went insane, and everyone who ever lived there from the Empress
Elizabeth of Austria to the Archduke Ferdinand had met with a violent death?
And yet, how they must have loved this land, these two lonely empurpled exiles,
human beings finally, lovers out of their element--their Eden, without either
knowing quite why, beginning to turn under their noses into a prison and smell
like a brewery, their only majesty at last that of tragedy. Ghosts. Ghosts, as
at the Casino, certainly lived here. And a ghost who still said: "It is
our destiny to come here, Carlotta. Look at this rolling glorious country, its
hills, its valleys, its volcanoes beautiful beyond belief. And to think that it
is ours! Let us be good and constructive and make ourselves worthy of it!"
Or there were ghosts quarrelling: "No, you loved yourself, you loved your
misery more than I. You did this deliberately to us." "I?"
"You always had people to look after you, to love you, to use you, to lead
you. You listened to everyone save me, who really loved you." "No,
you're the only person I've ever loved." "Ever? You loved only
yourself." "No, it was you, always you, you must believe me, please;
you must remember how we were always planning to go to Mexico. Do you
remember?... Yes, you are right. I had my chance with you. Never a chance like
that again!" And suddenly they were weeping together, passionately, as
they stood.
    But it was the Consul's voice, not
Maximilian's, M. Laruelle could almost have heard in the Palace; and he
remembered as he walked on, thankful he had finally struck the Calle Nicaragua
even at its farthest end, the day he'd stumbled upon the Consul and Yvonne
embracing there; it was not very long after their arrival in Mexico and how
different the Palace had seemed to him then! M. Laruelle slackened his pace.
The wind had dropped. He opened his English tweed coat (bought however from
High Life, pronounced Eetchleef, Mexico City) and loosened his blue
polka-dotted scarf. The evening was unusually oppressive. And how silent. Not a
sound, not a cry reached his ears now. Nothing but the clumsy suction of his
footsteps... Not a soul in sight. M. Laruelle felt slightly chafed too, his trousers
bound him. He was getting too fat, had already got too fat in Mexico, which
suggested another odd reason some people might have for taking up arms, that
would never find its way into the newspapers. Absurdly, he swung his tennis
racket in the air, through the motions of a serve, a return: but it was too
heavy, he had forgotten about the press. He passed the model farm on his right,
the buildings, the fields, the hills shadowy now in the swiftly gathering
gloom. The Ferris wheel came into view again, just the top, silently burning
high on the hill, almost directly in front of him, then the trees rose up over
it. The road, which was terrible and full of pot-holes, went steeply downhill
here; he was