Much has been written, in various languages and from different latitudes, about these days in January. To exemplify a verse from the poet TS Eliot that says: “Last year’s words belong to last year’s language. Next year’s words await another voice. Hope smiles from the threshold of the coming year and it even seems that a voice is coming from the calendars whispering: this year will be happier. “
The case of our Mexican chroniclers and writers is very different. Your New Year’s texts and articles have a different flavor. Ángel de Campo, for example, signing with his pseudonym Tick-Tack publishes a text entitled Congratulations and charges in passing on the occasion of the New Year on the last day of December 1901 where he mocks the customs of some and incidentally tells tasty gossip.
“Not everyone can enjoy the end of the year, and in order not to tire the camera’s attention, I will mention the standing press printers; to the evangelists; to postal and telegraphic messengers; to the candy store maidens and the apothecary young men. Because we are in the century of social attentions, the cook Luz Pial de Alas, the doorman Arturo Padrón, the pumpman Calixto Piedra, the gendarme Nicasio Lope, the coachman Simeón O’Faril, the collector of the Pancha Gotas collection, the teacher with a degree Angustias Diosdado, and even the solemn poor Adalberto Recalde; all, all without exception, printing the personal stamp of their wishes to the economic, contribute to the progress of the national industry, consuming the cards of the country, so that they contain their name in gothic, cursive, round, athanasias, small caps, minions, ornaments , or clean horn, I mean, by hand. Some send something symbolic, for example, a card with an allegory of color, a dove from whose fluffy neck hangs a cornucopia … and that messenger is going to wish Don Bernardo Fulton a happy new year, who they say his wife Columba, taking the change of the errand. “
The mood of Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, chronicler par excellence of the Mexican 19th century, is very different when he writes the following in his “Chronicles of the Week” on the occasion of the arrival of a new year:
“On the morning of the first day of January, he is a believer and returns to youth with his memory and with his heart, he has just cried and smiled, he has just unraveled the beautiful fabrics of his imagination, he started them all over again, like Penelope, waiting of happiness. Every January we feel the bitterness of a disappointment, but at the same time we savor the nectar of a desire. “
Diametrically opposed to what he had to write, on January 3, 1871, when reality came out -as it always does- brutally at the same time and he had to review the funeral of Margarita Maza de Juárez. Curdled with sadness, his chronicle begins like this:
“In Mexico, the year 1871 has entered crowned with cypress. Indeed, the first days of January, generally devoted to intimate parties and pleasant hopes, were disturbed by the disastrous event of the death of Mrs. Juárez. The wife of the President of the Republic was an eminent woman, not because of the position she held in society, but because of her extremely high virtues. And the fact is that the virtue of that matron shone too brightly for her to deny herself. Who could deny the sunlight? The news of such disgrace froze laughter on everyone’s lips. It seems that at the moment a veil of sadness spread over Mexico, which forced each one to lament in religious recollection an irreparable loss. The times in which we live do not allow official mourning; Juárez is not a fan of pomp, and even less for his private affairs; the modest lady who had just died despised her during her life with the sincerity of republican women and virtuous hearts. That’s right: not only was nothing officially arranged, but even the invitations were omitted. Modesty and democratic delicacy had never been carried to this extreme. But never before has there been such a spontaneous, general and tender display of public sentiment. Banquets ceased, theaters were closed, societies suspended their sessions and workshops their work. Everyone, nationals, foreigners, of all ages and from all classes of society, went in large numbers to the mortuary house, located in the architects’ colony, to accompany the corpse to the San Fernando cemetery, where it should have been to bury oneself “
He has little time and courage left to write his usual New Year’s message -which I steal today- and it read like this:
“Now readers, wish me a good year, as I wish you with all my heart; And you, beautiful readers, be happy, and may this year, not for a moment the melancholy blot your generous and good heart, as is that of all Mexican women. And if you do shed a few tears, it may only be for the pleasure that the memory of a good deed causes you or for the joy of feeling loved. “