192
PARTISAN REVIEW
They descended to the Zocalo and strolled around among the
kneeling .pottery and straw sellers stopping often to bargain and
laugh. They bought a few trifles, shiny little pots of Michoacan
and a straw horseman such as tourists buy. At the gates of the
museum they loitered undecided and contented themselves finally
with a look at the patio, its memorial stones and greenery, and
returned to the square.
"So much for
el ]efe's
behavior to that point," Citron said
ending the silence he had kept since leaving the church. "What
do you think of it, eh ?"He did not stop for an answer. "You know
it has made me think of this, you cannot expect a man to correct
in a crisis the faults he had before. He cannot know them all him·
self. But you can condemn him for not even
suspecting
himself.
El ]efe
did not and does not. I can tell. He was in no way uneasy.
Well, it may be a necessary thing in a public man not to suspect
himself but I don't care for it and so far as I'm concerned that's
what's wrong with all these people. You would think that being
'history·minded' would make them more conscientious, but it
doesn't. And people like me who are carried along and not being
in major positions have an opportunity to look into the works,
we
are struck by a lack of fitness that throws suspicion on everything
and makes us sure there must have been precisely such vanities
and blunders in the greatest Passions. Although it would be cheap
to discredit them for that. But you see, I was upset; you wouldn't
think anyone so case hardened would be."
"Como no?
The toughest are, once in a while.
It
happens
to me."
"Well, I was. And it was what happened afterwards as much
as anything else that did it. You can never get used to some things
entirely, can you? To be fair, however, the fault was not entirely
Felipe's hut also the doctors' and the press's. It can be that living
a year in the States has made me squeamish. I don't know. But
there they make some attempt to conceal the
tripas.
It may not
always be so honest and it may not always work, but once you gel
the object it makes life a little easier. But here we spill them all
over and hang them up with lungs, windpipe, kidneys, fat, bones
and all in the open market, and I have seen men disembowel each
other as though they were no more than hens or cocks."
"Don' t they do that up there?" said Paco.
