My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

uilt completely of stone. The dining room was furnished with
laquered black furniture from Oaxaca. The house and everything
in it was tasteful and unusual. The meal was prepared by friends
of his, two brothers, who had built the road up to Popocatepetl.
They did not speak English, so Lu and I got all the necessary
information from Montes de Oca. He told us that their father had
been married three times and had fathered thirty children~ the
oldest son forty-eight, the youngest six. His wife was fifty, and he
was still so full of vigor he would no doubt soon be looking for
another wife.
The two brothers took us up to a chapel built in 1553. It was
built in a cave filled with flowers. The walls were covered with
primitive signs, letters of thanks for the saints after recuperation
from illness and disease. Near the entrance to the cave were heaps
of withered flowers mixed with wheat. Near them, on a step, sat an
Indian woman, staring motionless into the depths of a well. Floating
on the water was the dress of another woman, an unhappy
person who wanted to get rid ofdisease or was asking for a special
favor. Praying, the woman rubbed her body with the withered
wheat taken out of the heap of faded flowers. The chapel was filled
with statues of saints, and candles were everywhere, candles
shaped like hearts or other parts of the body, flickering irregularly
in the breeze. And there were flowers everywhere, theirbeautiful,
clean odor mixed with the smell of burnt candles. The niche of the
Virgin was empty. Outside the chapel stood an old, lonely olive
tree, surrounded by a fence. Here, it was said, Brother Martin de
Valencia had prayed together with the singing birds. Next to the
tree was the churchyard. As the ground was too stony for a garden,
the dead were put in the earth, stone plates covering the holes with
their names and dates. Everyone stepped over them. Here there
were no flowers, no candles.
We returned to Mexico City long after sunset. It had been a
beautiful but tiring day. Lu and I both had only one wish: to get
under the shower and into clean clothes. And none too soon: for
the first-and last-time in my life I saw my darling husband
hunting fleas . We were both bitten from head to toe, but he outdid
me in catching them. He found five, while I only caught two.
Lu was very, very busy during our two months in Mexico. He
gave many lectures outside Mexico City, in small towns that had
no air conditioning and where the heat reached ninety to ninetyfive
degrees. After those lectures he came back completely exhausted.
He also spoke at the law school in Mexico City, on
"Economics and Politics," and once he lectured at the Banker~s
Club.
Among the many interesting people we met were the conductors
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