The Blood of the Conquerors | Page 7

could not compete
successfully because he had so little money.
The fair held but one new experience for him, and that was the
Montezuma ball. This took place on the evening of the last day, and
was an exclusive invitation event, designed to give elegance to the fair
by bringing together prominent persons from all parts of the state.
Ramon had never attended a Montezuma ball, as he had been
considered a mere boy before his departure for college and had not
owned a dress suit. But this lack had now been supplied, and he had
obtained an invitation through the Governor of the State, who happened
to be a Mexican.
He went to the ball with his mother and his eldest sister in a carriage
which had been among the family possessions for about a quarter of a
century. It had once been a fine equipage, and had been drawn by a
spirited team in the days before Felipe Delcasar lost all his money, but

now it had a look of decay, and the team consisted of a couple of rough
coated, low-headed brutes, one of which was noticeably smaller than
the other. The coachman was a ragged native who did odd jobs about
the Delcasar house.
The Montezuma ball took place in the new Eldorado Hotel which had
recently been built by the railroad company for the entertainment of its
transcontinental passengers. It was not a beautiful building, but it was
an apt expression of the town's personality. Designed in the ancient
style of the early Spanish missions, long, low and sprawling, with deep
verandahs, odd little towers and arched gateways it was made of
cement and its service and prices were of the Manhattan school. A little
group of Pueblo Indians, lonesomely picturesque in buck-skin and red
blankets, with silver and turquoise rings and bracelets, were always
seated before its doors, trying to sell fruit and pottery to well-tailored
tourists. It had a museum of Southwestern antiquities and curios, where
a Navajo squaw sulkily wove blankets on a handloom for the
edification of the guilded stranger from the East. On the platform in
front of it, perspiring Mexicans smashed baggage and performed the
other hard labour of a modern terminal.
Thus the Eldorado Hotel was rich in that contrast between the old and
the new which everywhere characterized the town. Generally speaking,
the old was on exhibition or at work, while the new was at leisure or in
charge.
When the Delcasar carriage reached the hotel, it had to take its place in
a long line of crawling vehicles, most of which were motor cars.
Ramon felt acutely humiliated to arrive at the ball in a decrepit-looking
rig when nearly every one else came in an automobile. He hoped that
no one would notice them. But the smaller of the two horses, which had
spent most of his life in the country, became frightened, reared,
plunged, and finally backed the rig into one of the cars, smashing a
headlight, blocking traffic, and making the Delcasars a target for
searchlights and oaths. The Dona Delcasar, a ponderous and swarthy
woman in voluminous black silk, became excited and stood up in the
carriage, shouting shrill and useless directions to the coachman in

Spanish. People began to laugh. Ramon roughly seized his mother by
the arm and dragged her down. He was trembling with rage and
embarassment.
It was an immense relief to him when he had deposited the two women
on chairs and was able to wander away by himself. He took up his
position in a doorway and watched the opening of the ball with a cold
and disapproving eye. The beginning was stiff, for many of those
present were unknown to each other and had little in common. Most of
them were "Americans," Jews and Mexicans. The men were all a good
deal alike in their dress suits, but the women displayed an astonishing
variety. There were tall gawky blonde wives of prominent cattlemen;
little natty black-eyed Jewesses, best dressed of all; swarthy Mexican
mothers of politically important families, resplendent in black silk and
diamonds; and pretty dark Mexican girls of the younger generation,
who did not look at all like the se�oritas of romance, but talked,
dressed and flirted in a thoroughly American manner.
The affair finally got under way in the form of a grand march, which
toured the hall a couple of times and disintegrated into waltzing
couples. Ramon watched this proceeding and several other dances
without feeling any desire to take part. He was in a state of grand and
gloomy discontent, which was not wholly unpleasant, as is often the
case with youthful glooms. He even permitted himself to smile at some
of the capers cut by prominent citizens. But presently his gaze settled