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

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‘It nauseates me — I look for something else.’

‘And what do you find?’

‘My own manhood!’

‘What does that mean?’ she cried, jeering.

‘If you looked, and found your own womanhood, you would know.’

‘But I HAVE my own womanhood!’ she cried.

‘And then — when you find your own manhood — your womanhood,’ he went on, smiling faintly at her — ‘then you know it is not your own, to do as you like with. You don’t have it of your own will. It comes from — from the middle — from the God. Beyond me, at the middle, is the God. And the God gives me my manhood, then leaves me to it. I have nothing but my manhood. The God gives it me, and leaves me to do further.’

Kate would not hear any more. She broke off into banalities.

The immediate question, for her, was whether she would stay in Mexico or not. She was not really concerned with Don Ramón’s soul — or even her own. She was concerned with her immediate future. Should she stay in Mexico? Mexico meant the dark-faced men in cotton clothes, big hats: the peasants, peons, pelados, Indians, call them what you will. The mere natives.