Читать книгу The Plumed Serpent. Historical Novel - Life and Love after the Mexico Revolution онлайн

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‘Was your god-father disappointed?’

‘A little, perhaps. But he asked me if I would rather be a soldier, so I said I would. Then when the revolution came, and I was twenty-two years old, I had to come back to Mexico.’

‘Did you like your god-father?’

‘Yes, very much. But the revolution carried everything away. I felt I must do what my god-father wished. But I could see that Mexico was not the Mexico he believed in. It was different. He was too English, and too good to understand. In the revolutions I tried to help the man I believed was the best man. So you see, I have always been half a priest and half a soldier.’

‘You never married?’

‘No. I couldn’t marry, because I always felt my god-father was there, and I felt I had promised him to be a priest — all those things, you know. When he died he told me to follow my own conscience, and to remember that Mexico and all the Indians were in the hands of God, and he made me promise never to take sides against God. He was an old man when he died, seventy-five.’