face would take on its reptile mask as she would continue: “Usted sabe, Niña, los gringos, los gringitos llevan todo—you know, Niña, the gringos and the gringitos take away everything...?”
The gringos are the Americans. But Kate herself was included by Juana in the gringitos: the white foreigners. The woman was making another sliding, insolent attack.
“It is possible,” said Kate coldly. “But tell me what I take away from Mexico.”
“No, Niña, No!” The subtle smile of satisfaction lurked under the bronze tarnish of Juana’s face. She had been able to get at the other woman, touch the raw. “I don’t speak of you, Niña!” But there was too much protest in it.
Almost, they wanted to drive her away: to insult her and drag her down and make her want to go away. They couldn’t help it. Like the Irish, they could cut off their nose to spite their face.
The backward races!
At the same time there was a true pathos about them. Ezequiel had worked for a man for two months, building a house, when he was a boy of fourteen, in order to get a serape. At the end of the two months, the man had put him off, and he had not got the serape: had never got it. A bitter disappointment.
But then, Kate was not responsible for that. And Juana seemed almost to make her so.
A people without the energy of getting on, how could they fail to be hopelessly exploited. They had been hopelessly and cruelly exploited, for centuries. And their backbones were locked in malevolent resistance.