Read Online The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela - Free Book Online

hungry and half-naked, as you were before. Meanwhile, those of us up here will go ahead and make a few million pesos for ourselves.’”
    Demetrio shook his head, smiled, and scratched himself.
    â€œLuisito has spoken the God’s honest truth!” the barber Venancio exclaimed enthusiastically.
    â€œAs I was saying,” Luis Cervantes continued. “Once the revolution comes to an end, everything will come to an end. And what a pity it will be for all those lives cut short, for all those widows and orphans, for all that spilled blood! All of that and for what? So that a handful of indolent rogues can grow rich, while everything else remains the same as before, or even worse? Since you are unselfish, you say: ‘I have no ambition other than to return to my land.’ But is it just to deprive your wife and children of the fortune that divine providence now lays in your hands? Would it be just to abandon your country now, at these solemn times, precisely when the motherland will need all the selflessness of its most humble children to save her, so she will not fall again into the hands of the caciques, those eternal thieves and murderers? We must not forget the most sacred things a man has in this world: his family and his country!”
    Macías smiled. His eyes sparkled.
    â€œSo . . . So ya think it would be good to go and join Natera, curro ?”
    â€œNot only good,” Venancio exclaimed, trying to sound persuasive. “But indispensable, Demetrio.”
    â€œEsteemed leader,” Cervantes continued, “ever since we met, you and I have gotten along very well, and I have grown to care for you more and more as I have come to know how valuable you are to the revolution. Allow me now to be entirely frank. I believe that you do not yet understand your true, your high, your most noble mission. You are a modest man, without any ambition. You have not yet opened your eyes and seen the very important role that you are to play in this revolution. You are not really out here just because of the cacique don Mónico. You have risen up against the cacique system itself, the system that is devastating the entire nation. We are constitutive pieces of a great social movement that will lead to the exaltation of our motherland. We are instruments of destiny for the revindication of the sacred rights of the people. We are not fighting in order to defeat one miserable murderer. We are fighting a fight against tyranny itself. And that is what it means to fight for one’s principles, to have ideals. That is what Villa, Natera, and Carranza are fighting for. 5 And that is what we are fighting for.”
    â€œYes, yes. Exactly what I was thinking,” Venancio said, nearly beside himself.
    â€œPancracio, go on, bring us two more beers.”

XIV
    â€œIf ya could see how good the curro explains things, compadre Anastasio,” Demetrio said, reflecting on what he had been able to discern from Luis Cervantes’s words that morning.
    â€œYes, I heard ’im,” Anastasio replied. “Truth is, he’s one of those who understands things good, since he knows how to read and write. But the thing that I don’t really get, compadre, is how we’re supposed to go and present ourselves to Señor Natera since there’s so few of us.”
    â€œH’m, that’s the least of it! From now on we’re gonna do things a little different. I heard tell how Crispín Robles goes into every town he finds, takes all the weapons and horses they have there, lets all the prisoners outta the jail, and just like that he has more than enough men with ’im. You’ll see. Truth is, compadre Anastasio, that we’ve wasted a lot of time already. Seems hard to believe that we needed this curro to show up and lecture us just to get us to wake up and see what’s what.”
    â€œTha’s what happens when ya know how to read and write!”
    The two sighed