Free Reasons of State by Alejo Carpentier Page A

workers in the copper and tin mines to rebel, with the help of half a dozen student leaders. It seemed a bold undertaking, all the more so when one reflected that he was an academic from the university, admired by some local inhabitants but without political following in the rest of the country. The President’s calm was restored by a drink served him most opportunely, and analysing the situation from the tactical point of view, he decided that in fact an attack by a common enemy on General Ataúlfo Galván’s rear was in his favour, because it limited rebel action to two provinces of the north-east. And if this affair of Nueva Córdoba really came to something, he couldin the last resort count on the help of the United States, since the White House was now more than ever opposed to the smallest germ of an anarchistic or socialistic movement in that other America, which was already so revolutionary and Latin. And now the Head of State was beginning to discuss the situation with Colonel Hoffmann when a second news sheet, written in a satirical and mocking tone, was brought in and revived his subsiding anger—and this time to a more violent degree than before. It made fun of his oratory in markedly Creole prose, describing him mockingly as a “Musical Comedy Tiberius,” “the Satrap of the Torrid Zone,” “Moloch of the Public Treasure,” and “Upstart Monte-Cristo,” who always travelled about Europe with a million in his wallet. His ascent to power had been the “Gangsters’ 18th Brumaire.” His Ministry was a “Gold Rush,” “Court of Miracles,” and “Council of Buddies.” No one was spared: Colonel Hoffmann was “a Prussian with a black grandmother in the back yard”; General Ataúlfo Galván a “jabbering street hawker, an Ostrogoth with sword and buckler,” just as a great many functionaries and police chiefs were cast in the mould either of the Inquisition or farce, according to whether they were assumed to be tragic or grotesque. But the worst of all was that his daughter, Ofelia, was dubbed the “Infanta of King Midas,” as a reminder that, while the barefoot women of this country had no hospital to give birth in, the favoured Creole, collector of antique cameos, exquisite musical boxes and racehorses, had given thousands of the national pesos (at an exchange of 2.27 against the dollar) to enterprises and organisations such as “Missionary Work in China,” the “Society for the Protection of Gothic Art,” and the “Drop of Milk Foundation,” this last having a European duchess for president. So they passed from joke to joke and the President didn’t care for jokes. Moreover, Colonel Hoffmann now arrived with the news that the studentshad shut themselves inside the University and were holding a meeting to oppose the government.
    “Send the mounted police into the building,” said the President.
    “But … what about their ancient privileges? Their self-government charter?”
    “I can’t be bothered with such swine. They’ve caused quite enough trouble with that bloody self-government of theirs. We’re in a state of emergency.”
    “And what if they resist, if they throw tiles from the roofs, if they hamstring the horses as they did in 1908?”
    “In that case … shoot them! I repeat: we’re in a state of emergency and this disorderly behaviour can’t be tolerated.”
    Half an hour later shooting was going on in the courtyards of the University of San Lucas. “And if some are killed,” said the Head of State, as he buttoned his tunic, “none of those solemn funerals, with coffins carried on shoulders and speeches in the cemetery, which are merely demonstrations sheltering under the guise of mourning. Just give the stiff to the family and let them bury it without weeping and wailing, because if they do otherwise the whole family, mother, grandparents, and their brats too, will go to prison.”
    Outside, the firing went on. Eight killed and more than twenty