Lunes, 6 junio 1887
Beloved Pancho:
We just bid you goodbye, and I thought I would not make it back to the house before the tears burst forth. But I had to control myself for our children’s sake: they kept looking toward the boat, then back to me, as if something whole had been halved. (It has, oh it has!)
Young as they are, our sons feel your loss. As we were walking back from the dock, Fran looked up at the sun, and said—It was brighter before Papancho was gone. Who knows how children come up with such things? Hostos is right: there is a gold mine there. (Imagine him, tapping his forehead, smiling that smile of his.)
They are fast asleep now, dreaming, no doubt of their father on his way to Paris. I promise, dearest, to keep my vow and present you with your sons, healthy and happy, upon your return.
Your Salomé
Martes, 7 junio 1887
Pancho, dearest:
Today I feel only desperation. We are mad, you and I, to take on this sacrifice: two years of separation! I know this is such an opportunity for you: to study medicine with the acclaimed Dieulafoy. (I hear all your arguments in my head.) But every day I find myself agreeing more with Hostos’s belief that our dear “president” Lilís wants you out of here. Why else offer you a foreign scholarship in medicine when you already have your medical degree from our Instituto Profesional?
Pibín caught cold coming home from the dock. That child catches everything. I hear him now coughing from the bedroom. How I worry that I will not be able to keep my vow to you!
Your Salomé
Mi querido Pancho:
I could write you every day of the week, but I will not even try. The steamboat now comes only once a month. Besides, what I write this morning, no longer applies tonight. The patience and hope of dawn turn into desperation by dark.
I have started a poem about our son’s remark on the dimming of the sun after his father left. But this poem, I warn you, will not be like those old declamations of mine, which you prefer. I know you are still harboring the hope that—as you said the night before you left—I will “create something of lasting value for the generations to come.” I have, Pancho: our three sons!
Your Salomé
Domingo, 16 agosto 1887, Restoration Day
Pancho, love:
Celebrations are going on throughout the city. The children are pleading with me to let them go out and follow the marching band. But—and I don’t want to worry you—some cases of croup have been reported in the capital, and I am sick to death thinking of the danger to our little ones. I give them their pills of Clorato as they are all too young to gargle, and—pobrecitos—I keep them inside.
I myself have not felt well in a while now, as you know. The move to this damp, dark house has not helped. But Mamá could no longer accommodate our instituto. (I already have sixty-seven registered when classes start up again.) I wake up nights unable to breathe. I have been following Alfonseca’s prescription and drink the Estramonio tea at supper along with a small dose of Ipecacuana. I am also trying to follow the regimen you set out for us before you left: we take the first streetcar out to Güibia beach and are back by seven-thirty in time for me to open the school doors downstairs by eight. The sea air is good for the boys. So far I have not noticed any improvement in my own health.
The Ayuntamiento has still not paid the promised funds for last year. Federico says he will take the matter up with Lilís himself. But Federico and Hostos have enough trouble on their hands. I had better say no more. As we know, no flies can enter a closed mouth.
—¡Qué viva la patria! I hear the shouts outside my window. And our dear Pibín asks me—¿Qué es patria, Mamá?—I don’t have the heart to answer him: there is no patria with Lilís in power.
A fly buzzes in my mouth. I am glad Don Eliseo is carrying this letter by hand.
Your Salomé
Pancho:
Today is our Fran’s birthday: five years old. He holds up all the fingers of his right hand and writes his name FRAN for good luck on a little paper to put under la virgencita’s statue. (Tía Ana insists.) He is so proud of himself!
Hostos brought over his four boys and little María to celebrate. And you know how the apostle turns everything into a lesson. He taught Fran his numbers by asking him the ages of everyone present: How old is Max? Two fingers! And Pedro? Three! And Mamá? Here he gets very stumped as he hasn’t enough fingers to hold up. Hostos, by the way, was quite surprised. He did not know that I am nine years your senior.
You ask after the croup—we are all bracing ourselves for the rainy season—as there do seem to be increased instances. But I beg you, Pancho, do not threaten me as you did! I know you entrusted this treasure to me. I will do everything in my power to keep my vow to present our sons to you, happy and healthy, upon your return. But if, oh if, God forbid, something should happen to any one of them, you must not turn a desperate hand on yourself. What of our other sons? What of me?
(MUTILADA)
Viernes, 9 diciembre 1887
Pancho, dear:
Yesterday I received several of your letters, dated October 3, October 21 (thank you for your birthday wishes: thirty-seven nails in my coffin, as Don Eloy used to say), and November 3. I do wonder if some of your letters (or mine) are not getting lost. You refer to your instructions to me in an earlier letter about getting the Ayuntamiento to pay their debt to me. No such earlier letter ever arrived.
I must be more careful than ever what I say, unless a trusted individual is carrying the letters by hand—as the Llomparts are, in this instance.
Federico comes by often and unannounced. He cautions me what I should write so that you can continue in your studies without preoccupations. I wonder if some of my letters have not been held back? This one should get by the family censor, at any rate. Matilde Llompart promised not to say a word about it. She sews all correspondence into the bodice of her dress, afraid of Lilís’s spies.
Trust only the letters that come from me to you in the hands of friends.
Your Salomé
Domingo, 1 enero 1888
Pancho, dearest:
How many hopes and fears for this new year ahead of us! I tell myself: I must be strong. This whole one, and half of another one, and then you will be back.
I send you my new year’s gift: “Tristezas.” Perchance if I put my sadness in poetic form, you will allow me to say how much I miss you? It is unkind of you to chide me for complaining. Why should I not complain when you are so far away from me? I feel so alone, Pancho, so alone. Had I not made my vow to you, I believe I would succumb to melancholy.
The croup is now an epidemic. I do not let the children out of my sight. Every time they wail and I am on the point of giving in to their pleas, I recall my vow, and I remain firm.
My asthma is no better. If your theory is correct that the affliction is nervous, then I will not expect any improvement until you return.
Today, for Three Kings, I had nothing to give the children. With the Ayuntamiento debt outstanding and with the stipend I am sending you, there is nothing left for frivolities. So, I invented a game: each one was allowed one wish. Hostos stopped by with his children and thought of an ingenious (and educational) refinement to the game: each one was to make a wish with the letter of the alphabet he called out.
—It will teach them spelling, quick thinking, vocabulary—he explained to me. I asked what wish he would want.
—It depends on the letter, he said, falling silent.
As you know, the campaign against him continues in the papers. Your brother Federico has undertaken our maestro’s defense in El Mensajero. But this merely serves to incite Lilís’s suspicions against our apostle and his ire against your brother.
Lilís has announced that he will hold elections this summer. Between the croup and the rebellions always attendant on our elections, I expect a year of trouble.
Your sons remain well. Pibín and Max suffer often from coughs. Dr. Pietri has examined them as well as Dr. Arvelo and they concur with Dr. Alfonseca, the boys are in good health. But the doctors all noted that I seem overwrought with the boys’ well-being. They do not know the vow I have made to you.
My one wish: that you were here.
Your Salomé
Miércoles, 11 julio 1888
Pancho, dear:
Some days the heart is lighter. Who can explain the mystery? Even Hostos, who is always emphasizing the rational side of things, agrees that we cannot begin to understand the deep springs of our being.
It seems your brother Federico showed him my poem “Tristezas.” Must your brother read all our correspondence? Even what I manage to get past him here, you return for his perusal.
Some good came of your brother’s indiscretion: el maestro was so concerned about my state of mind, he came by for a talk. I must admit that I have felt uplifted the rest of this day. The work we are doing, el maestro reminded me, is a seed in the ground, invisible until it flowers—unlike a poem I can hold in my hands.
You accuse me of being bold in what I write—that is not a new proclivity of mine, as you well know.
El maestro sends his regards. So do these three little grackles who must make their mark here:
Papancho, come home soon! Your son, Fran
Papancho, bring me wood letters to complete my set, Pibín
XXXXXXXX (Max says he has written his “big name,” Maximiliano, I suppose)
And finally, your Salomé
Jueves, 6 septiembre 1888
How dare you doubt my integrity! I cannot believe your brother, who does not allow any worrisome letter of mine to get through for fear it might preoccupy you (so that I, who hate subterfuge, have had to devise this scheme of sending what letters I can in the hands of friends and acquaintances), then turns around to disturb your peace of mind with this insulting rumor.
NO MAN VISITS THE HOUSE except Federico and your countless brothers and our honorable friend Hostos. How dare you call me to account after all my sacrifices!
(ORIGINAL INCOMPLETO)
My beloved husband:
We received your poem, which Federico kindly read to my students without telling them who had written it. But they all guessed you as the writer! Very pretty verses. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
I also received the lovely silk gown you purchased in Nantes. But Pancho, dearest, where am I to wear such a dress when I go out nowhere without you here? Please recall for the next time that I asked that the boys’ socks not be white as they are little ones and I have dismissed the laundry woman in order to save funds. Max, by the way, is already as large as Pibín—but these small ones will fit any number of our little nephews.
Hostos and his schools are under serious attack. My instituto, being for females, has so far escaped the blows. But Hostos’s students are harassed when they try to enter his school. We have had to line the route with supporters. True to his Henríquez name, your brother is first among them. He stands by me as I write this and protests that I must not praise him so highly.
We are all well. My asthma is improved. Elections in August were peaceful—how could they not be? Only eleven thousand voted out of one hundred thousand franchised men, and all those were in favor of Lilís. His opponents flee to Haiti, where, we hear, they are planning an invasion. Our old enemy now harbors the seeds of our future! But it remains to be seen whether our patria shall ever flower.
We are working day and night to be able to graduate the next class by the time Hostos leaves in December. Yes, el maestro has accepted an invitation from Chile to organize schools there. We lose our best men. It seems they have only two choices: destierro or entierro, exile or death. The girls come at seven and they do not leave until six. If you are wondering when I take the boys for their seaside excursion—as you ordered—the croup epidemic is at such proportions that I no longer feel safe taking the streetcar.
Only Mimí is allowed out. Can the croup be transmitted by cats? Please confer with Dieulofoy.
Federico says not to worry you, to repeat that the boys are well, that my asthma is better, and your first poem in eight years is quite fine.
25 octubre (CONTINUACÍON)
Such a touching scene, Pancho. I wished you had been a witness. Imagine my six oldest girls, bent over their diagrams of the insides of flowers (such memories, Pancho, such memories). They stay after school to finish their botany lessons so that they can graduate before el maestro leaves. Every once in a while, a sigh of weariness or wonder escapes their lips.
Suddenly, I look up to find them gathered around me, their pretty eyes moist, their faces downcast. Eva speaks up and says,
—Maestra, we all feel so sad to think you have given up your poetry to teach us.
Poor girls. For years they have been harboring this feeling of culpability.
I explain that my silence has had nothing to do with them. My country’s sufferings, its falls, and lapses are the primary cause.
—You cannot know yet—I told them—young as you are, how deeply one can love one’s country.
Tu Salomé
Lunes, 10 diciembre 1888
Pancho, dearest:
I am sending this with the Grullóns who depart next week.
Your brother is insufferable. He shows up at all hours, even at week’s end when I close off the bottom of the house. It would seem a kindness if it were not for his suspicions. Yesterday evening, Hostos dropped by to examine the girls and say goodbye. Along came Federico, snooping. Today (I had to laugh!) he heard Mimí with her new litter under my bed and insisted on checking the room, “for my own protection.”
You say you require more frequent news of your sons. But what am I to do when your brother will not permit more frequent transmissions? He says we cannot afford to be sending correspondence as often as I like.
I understand that you have passed your courses, but now there is some controversy between me and Federico about when you are to come home. My understanding is that you will be back in June once you have written your thesis: a two-year separation, remember? But no, Federico says, shaking his head with assurance. The medical degree from the University of Paris is granted after six levels and you have passed only your first two. There is at least a year or two to go.
I have felt at the point of madness hearing this.
(ORIGINAL INCOMPLETO)
Lunes, 17 diciembre 1888
Pancho:
Last Saturday we graduated my second set of teachers. It would have been a joyous occasion if it were not that we all knew that this was also a farewell to Hostos.
Lilís’s spies were as thick as flies.
And now our apostle is gone. On Thursday, a crowd of his followers accompanied him and Belinda and the four boys and little María to the docks. It might have been you leaving again—I felt such desperation—
Ay, Pancho, Pancho, life without you frightens me!
I hear Pibín calling—
Your Salomé
Noche Buena, dearest! and a good night it is, for your brother allows me an extra letter for our last packet of the year.
My gift has already come. Pibín is fully recovered! Yes, I tell you the news now, for your brother would not allow me to breathe a word of this in my earlier letter: our son succumbed to the croup and for days he was between life and death. I have aged years in this one month: Pibín’s illness, Hostos’s departure. The poem I am sending you, “Angustias,” speaks for itself.
My vow remains unbroken.
Your Salomé
Viernes, 1 marzo 1889
Pancho:
How did you catch the measles? Is there an epidemic there? I understand from your letter to Federico that you have been named our delegate to the Americanist congress and will prepare a paper on how the bones of Columbus reside here.
How unkind of you, Pancho, not to mention this to me. Every thing that affects you, affects me. And remember, such secrets always come out. The packets and letters, addressed to Federico, are as often as not delivered here. And you really don’t expect me to wait until your brother comes by to open them.
Of course, this news is upsetting to me. You have explained about the six levels that you only found out about after you got there. I have resigned myself to another year of waiting. But if the time is so short, why fill it with other distractions?
I cannot comprehend why you must move from rue Jacob, which seemed adequate, to Mazarine, where the board is more expensive, as you yourself admit. Surely not just to be close to Café Procope where Molière and Voltaire drank coffee!
(ORIGINAL ROTO)
Pancho, dear:
Are you quite serious about my sending Fran?
We had a conference about it—all of us—and I’m afraid we’re evenly divided as to what to do. Tía Ana and Federico both think it would be a fortifying experience for our young son to go. His bad behavior, his tantrums, his violence are cause for alarm. Ramona and Mamá (“Mon and Manina”—the boys rename everyone!) both say that it is unpardonable to ship a six-year-old child across an ocean, even if he will be accompanied by our good friend Don Eugenio.
I myself vacillate horribly.
The child is quite determined that he wants to go to Paris and see his father and the bears. Why he thinks that there are bears in Paris, I don’t know. The things of children! But just his saying so reminds me that he is a child. He has been behaving much better so as not to ruin his chances of getting to go on a ship. He no longer hits my little girls or disrupts my classes with his violent Achillean tantrums.
Pancho, I will let myself be guided by your opinion.
Your Salomé
Lunes, 17 junio 1889
Dearest Pancho:
This missive goes pinned to the coat of our dear one as amulet and admission that I am sending him, our love child, to keep myself in your heart. On my darkest nights I have feared that another muse has captured your imagination and that is why you delay your return and write so seldom. I know I must not trouble you as you have so much on your mind. But my own imagination works on your absence as if it were a blank sheet of paper.
Fran leaves tomorrow. Don Eugenio promises me that he will not let our boy out of his sight during the crossing. Twenty-four days at sea! I try to anticipate the desperation I will feel when I see his beribboned sailor cap grow smaller and smaller as the ship leaves the dock.
Did I tell you I have a reverie I allow myself in low moments? I picture myself sailing across the sky until I am above you in Paris as you walk to your dissection classes or your hospital rounds at Necker. I hope Doctor Dielafouy will like the cigars I am sending with our Fran. Please tell him that I have appreciated all his consejos about how to treat my asthma. But between us, my dear, I will gladly drink all the papaya juice I can get my hands on, but I draw the line on enemas of sulphur gas. Where, for one thing, am I to get sulfur gas in our little capital? Por Dios, Pancho, this is not Paris!
Do take into account our oldest’s violent temper, which has only grown worse since your departure. The attention of a father will no doubt improve his character. He prefers café con leche to water with chocolate as he wants to be a little man. (I prepare mostly hot milk with a dash of coffee.) He does wet his bed on occasion, so be sure to remind him to empty his bladder, and if perchance, you share a bed with him, take precautions.
I am relieved to hear that Mlle. Chrittia is willing to take care of our little one. How convenient that she lives in the same pensión and has already been doing your cleaning. Your move to Mazarine was a wise decision, after all. (How quaint of her to to say: “For another franc, why not add Fran!”) I am sending her two silk handkerchiefs Mamá embroidered. We are too poor to send more, but we felt we must send the kind mademoiselle a gift of some sort.
I also include the photograph Julio Pou took of our three grackles, and one of a lady you might not recognize with her tired face and weary look. But perchance, you will recall the little cross you gave her?
Take good care of my treasure. Now I entrust his health and happiness to you.
Your Salomé
Miércoles, 24 julio 1889
Dearest:
Thank you for letting me know by cable about our son’s safe arrival in Paris. Please do not be too hard on him. Remember there are bound to be lapses. He is only six years old, and you have been gone two years, which is one third of his existence.
You cannot believe everything the child says. The scar on his forehead is the result of his banging himself on a door during a temper tantrum. His brother Pibín did not push him. (Pibín has a wonderfully peaceable nature.) As for his fears of the Haitian cuco, I would never terrify my children into good behavior. Besides, I have never thought our bogeymen live anywhere but in our own country.
In your last letter, you ask what I have been writing. Dearest, I lack the tranquillity of mind to be able to read, no less write. Nights are spent preparing tomorrow’s classes and burning azufre to disinfect the house. I see no improvement with my asthma, but the boys no longer suffer from as many colds as before.
They flourish. You will not know them upon your return. I have surpassed my promise. Your Pibín knows his numbers to a thousand—and drives me quite to distraction reciting them—and Max is so cariñoso. In the midst of a game, he will drop everything and run to my side to give me an abrazo. At those times, I tell myself, he is being seized by his father’s spirit, and it is you, all the way over in France, desiring to hold me.
Tell Fran, his Mimí has had a second litter of kittens! I wish Federico would supervise her a little better.
Tu Salomé
Jueves, 15 agosto 1889, eve of Restoration Day
Pancho:
Nothing for our family to celebrate tomorrow. Your brother Manuel has been deported and leaves in a few hours for St. Thomas. He will send this and the note for three hundred francs you requested. Federico has been thrown in la fortaleza for a “seditious article” he wrote against Lilís’s latest issue of paper money. He was given the chance to join his older brother, but you know Federico. “I will fight to the death!” he announced to Lilís, who instantly rescinded his offer of exile and threw him in jail.
As for that scandalous article about you in El Eco de la Opinión, I confess I have heard similar remarks. But those who criticize you for accepting a government scholarship confuse our country with our tyrant. Our country has awarded you this opportunity so you can partake of the most advanced medical research being conducted in the world and return to benefit your countrymen. (How kind of Dieulafoy to mention you in a footnote in the sixth volume of his Pathologie.) And think of this, Pancho: were you home, you would no doubt be with your brother Federico in prison. What good would you be to any of us there?
So, ignore the article, my love. Hold your head high. You have nothing to be ashamed of. The enclosed should give you encouragement, a poem in the old mode of mine you like so well, “¡Adelante!”
Pibín and Max are at my side. Pibín reads to Max from a little newspaper for children, La Edad de Oro, published by Martí exiled in Nueva York. Betances in Brooklyn, Hostos in Chile, Penson on his way north. Our whole Caribbean is living elsewhere!
We hear news of a first Pan American conference being convened in Washington, D.C., by President Harrison. (Federico had planned on going.) Mr. Harrison has been quoted as saying that the United States wants to be a friendly neighbor. Friendly indeed—they come and help themselves to what they need! One day there will be an American ruling us instead of the Spanish governor of earlier days, if we are not careful.
Meanwhile, they are devouring their own continent. Did you hear that they have acquired four new states (each one larger than our little patria)? I can’t remember all their names—I’m sure Pibín would, but he is over at his Manina’s house.
The boys are just now coming in and insist on greeting their father. They grab my pen out of my hands—
Hola, Papancho. They are Montana, Washington, North Dakota, South Dakota.
Hola Fran. Hola Mademoisette.
Pibín and XXXXXX
and your Salomé
Domingo, 1 diciembre 1889
Pancho:
I have only moments to write down stray thoughts. Federico is still in prison, so all matters fall on me. After I complained so much about his supervision, now I confess, I miss him. I feel more alone than ever.
Please do not torture me with your observations of men’s needs. You hold up your faithfulness as a sacrifice but expect mine as your due. Have you learned nothing from Hostos?
You say I should save all my complaints until you get home when you will be able to listen to them with more equanimity. But don’t you see, Pancho? The minute you come home, I will forget what I have suffered, in the same way, after laboring for hours, I lost all memory of pain when I looked at the faces of our newborn sons.
I will send the hundred francs, but obviously, I will have to borrow from Cosme Batlle’s firm, as no one we know has that kind of money.
My instituto is fine. The one endeavor that gives me hope in these dark times.
Your sons ask after you and their brother. I no longer know what to promise them.
Your Salomé
Domingo, 15 april 1890
Pancho, dear:
Our old friend Billini will be buried this afternoon in a state funeral. My girls all went home early, although of course, they are not allowed to march, only the boys. But I instructed them to line the sidewalks and wave a black handkerchief or swatch of black fabric. It cannot be that even our right to grief is denied us.
After the early dismissal, I locked up downstairs. As we were lying down to siesta, we heard a knock on the door. Pibín ran to the balcony and reported that there were soldiers down below. My blood ran cold. I thought we would soon be joining Federico in the dungeon.
Minutes later, the man himself was in my parlor! He is tall and agile, very dark as you know, with bright eyes that are quite splendid and a magnetism that cannot be denied.
It seems Lilís had read the poem I wrote for Billini in Boletín Eclesiástico (enclosed) and was stopping by to tell me how moved he was by my elegy and how he planned to read it at the funeral. He then had the gall to stand in my parlor—with your own brother lying in his dungeon—and recite it.
To keep his dreams from dying
is all the monument he dreamed of having . . .
Has poetry no power at all, as Hostos claims?
As he turned to go, I brought up Federico’s name and that other sore point of the last few years, the sums the Ayuntamiento owes us.
—You are a woman of few words, Doña Salomé, but you get right to the point, he observed.
Right then and there, he promised the outstanding sums would be paid the next day. (He said nothing about Federico.) True to his word (for once), the following morning, the delivery was made: three hundred papeletas—his new paper money no one believes in. I am trying to convert them into mexicanos or francs at the first opportunity in order to send you some portion of the funds you need to purchase your medical equipment. (Why is it so costly for you to live in Paris this year, my love?)
How is my son? Please do not think that any little thing about him is beneath my interest. Does he ask after us? Has his temper improved? Is he still getting on well with Mlle. Chrittia? Tell me what if anything I can send her when the Marchenas again sail for France. Their trips will now be even more frequent, as Don Eugenio has been named minister in Paris.
Your Salomé
Viernes, 10 mayo 1890
Ay, Pancho:
Tragedy has struck in Ciudad Nueva: the worst fire in history, according to our historian Don Emiliano. The capital was wrapped in dark fumes for several days. You can imagine how bad this has been for my asthma. But nothing compared to the losses others have suffered. I am worried about Federico—no word of him yet. Pibín—you know his compassionate nature—asked if there was anything we could do to help the victims. In fact, Trini and her mother are hosting a fund-raiser, and I’ve put in my little bit, “Mi obolo,” copy enclosed.
Trini stops by at least once a month—when she hears the mail boat has come—to ask after you and Fran. I have told her that you want her to write you, but I don’t think Trini is much for writing letters or for writing of any kind. Remember that she went to the sisters Bobadilla where writing was discouraged. She always does say to include her fond regards.
I include her fond regards.
Salomé
Martes, 8 julio 1890
Dearest:
I am beside myself thinking of your fatigue and illness. If Dieulafoy advises a three-month rest at Cabourg Beach, of course, I can wait. I can wait ages if it means your health will not be compromised. Perhaps, dearest, this rest will last less than three months if you take good care of yourself? How I hope so! We are past the third year mark and you still have two more levels to go. Of course, from time to time, I despair. But your health must not be sacrificed at any cost.
I am glad to know you have convinced Mlle. Chrittia to accompany you and Fran to Cabourg. Otherwise, you will not be getting a rest, for well I know our Fran is certainly “gifted with a strong character,” as Mlle. Chrittia says. In your next, let me know her measurements as Mamá insists on making her a walking jacket. (Ask her if she already has one.) You know Mamá—she thanks everyone with her needle and thread.
Your sons are well, asking after you.
Federico’s situation is still the same.
Your Salomé
Querido Pancho:
I have received no letters since you left Paris. You have become poco comunicativo. I dread that illness be the cause of your silence. You began the year with bronchitis, then pleurisy this summer. What am I to think? Por Dios: send me a cable to let me know you are doing all right. I have asked you for nothing in your three years of absence. I beg you to indulge me this once.
Here, continuing sad news. Federico is still in prison. After Lilís’s show of helping out my instituto, his congreso refused to designate us as a public institution. So we can receive no further funds to supplement the pittance from el Ayuntamiento.
Teachers and students have lost ánimo. Many absences.
But your sons are thriving. You will not believe how tall and smart they both are. Pibín now wants to be called Pedro instead of his baby name, but I tell him he will always be my Pibín. Max has turned into a talker—yak, yak, yak, all day long. Half the words, I don’t understand, but he says he is practicing his French so he can talk to his father upon his return from Paris.
Tu Salomé
Martes, 18 noviembre 1890
Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal:
I have received the disillusionment of my life. After all my compromisos, this is how I am to be rewarded. And under the very nose of our son, with his own nursemaid!
How do I know? The letter you wrote to Federico was delivered to me here. Nice condition you have put her in. Now I understand your delays. All that hard work in Paris.
You have broken my heart. Stay as long as you like, but send me my son, or I will come and fetch him myself. I swear, you do not know what I am capable of.
I do not care to ever hear from you again.
(MUTILADA)
Viernes, 5 junio 1891
Doctor Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal
60 rue de Mazarine
Awaiting return Olinda line departing Havre 12th June. Congratulations medical degree. Federico freed. Sons healthy and happy.
I have kept my promise.
Salomé