The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere
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Title: The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere
Author: José Rizal
Translator: Charles E. Derbyshire
Release date: October 1, 2004 [eBook #6737]
Most recently updated: April 13, 2010
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6737
Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOCIAL CANCER: A COMPLETE ENGLISH VERSION OF NOLI ME TANGERE ***
Produced by Jeroen Hellingman.
The Social Cancer
A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere from the Spanish of
José Rizal
By
Charles Derbyshire
Manila
Philippine Education Company
New York: World Book Company
1912
THE NOVELS OF JOSÉ RIZAL
Translated from Spanish into English
BY CHARLES DERBYSHIRE
THE SOCIAL CANCER (NOLI ME TANGERE)
THE REIGN OF GREED (EL FILIBUSTERISMO)
Copyright, 1912, by Philippine Education Company.
Entered at Stationers' Hall.
Registrado en las Islas Filipinas.
All rights reserved.
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
I
"We travel rapidly in these historical sketches. The reader
flies in his express train in a few minutes through a couple
of centuries. The centuries pass more slowly to those to
whom the years are doled out day by day. Institutions grow
and beneficently develop themselves, making their way into
the hearts of generations which are shorter-lived than they,
attracting love and respect, and winning loyal obedience;
and then as gradually forfeiting by their shortcomings
the allegiance which had been honorably gained in worthier
periods. We see wealth and greatness; we see corruption and
vice; and one seems to follow so close upon the other, that we
fancy they must have always co-existed. We look more steadily,
and we perceive long periods of time, in which there is first
a growth and then a decay, like what we perceive in a tree
of the forest."
FROUDE, _Annals of an English Abbey_.
Monasticism's record in the Philippines presents no new general fact
to the eye of history. The attempt to eliminate the eternal feminine
from her natural and normal sphere in the scheme of things there met
with the same certain and signal disaster that awaits every perversion
of human activity. Beginning with a band of zealous, earnest men,
sincere in their convictions, to whom the cause was all and their
personalities nothing, it there, as elsewhere, passed through its
usual cycle of usefulness, stagnation, corruption, and degeneration.
To the unselfish and heroic efforts of the early friars Spain
in large measure owed her dominion over the Philippine Islands
and the Filipinos a marked advance on the road to civilization and
nationality. In fact, after the dreams of sudden wealth from gold and
spices had faded, the islands were retained chiefly as a missionary
conquest and a stepping-stone to the broader fields of Asia, with
Manila as a depot for the Oriental trade. The records of those early
years are filled with tales of courage and heroism worthy of Spain's
proudest years, as the missionary fathers labored with unflagging
zeal in disinterested endeavor for the spread of the Faith and the
betterment of the condition of the Malays among whom they found
themselves. They won the confidence of the native peoples, gathered
them into settlements and villages, led them into the ways of peace,
and became their protectors, guides, and counselors.
In those times the cross and the sword went hand in hand, but in the
Philippines the latter was rarely needed or used. The lightness and
vivacity of the Spanish character, with its strain of Orientalism,
its fertility of resource in meeting new conditions, its adaptability
in dealing with the dwellers in warmer lands, all played their part in
this as in the other conquests. Only on occasions when some stubborn
resistance was met with, as in Manila and the surrounding country,
where the most advanced of the native peoples dwelt and where some of
the forms and beliefs of Islam had been established, was it necessary
to resort to violence to destroy the native leaders and replace them
with the missionary fathers. A few sallies by young Salcedo, the Cortez
of the Philippine conquest, with a company of the splendid infantry,
which was at that time the admiration and despair of martial Europe,
soon effectively exorcised any idea of resistance that even the boldest
and most intransigent of the native leaders might have entertained.
For the most part, no great persuasion was needed to turn a simple,
imaginative, fatalistic people from a few vague animistic deities
to the systematic iconology and the elaborate ritual of the Spanish
Church. An obscure _Bathala_ or a dim _Malyari_ was easily superseded
by or transformed into a clearly defined _Diós_, and in the case of
any especially tenacious "demon," he could without much difficulty
be merged into a Christian saint or devil. There was no organized
priesthood to be overcome, the primitive religious observances
consisting almost entirely of occasional orgies presided over by
an old woman, who filled the priestly offices of interpreter for
the unseen powers and chief eater at the sacrificial feast. With
their unflagging zeal, their organization, their elaborate forms
and ceremonies, the missionaries were enabled to win the confidence
of the natives, especially as the greater part of them learned the
local language and identified their lives with the communities under
their care. Accordingly, the people took kindly to their new teachers
and rulers, so that in less than a generation Spanish authority was
generally recognized in the settled portions of the Philippines,
and in the succeeding years the missionaries gradually extended this
area by forming settlements from among the wilder peoples, whom they
persuaded to abandon the more objectionable features of their old
roving, often predatory, life and to group themselves into towns and
villages "under the bell."
The tactics employed in the conquest and the subsequent behavior of
the conquerors were true to the old Spanish nature, so succinctly
characterized by a plain-spoken Englishman of Mary's reign, when the
war-cry of Castile encircled the globe and even hovered ominously
near the "sceptered isle," when in the intoxication of power character
stands out so sharply defined: "They be verye wyse and politicke, and
can, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and brydell theyr owne natures for
a tyme, and applye ther conditions to the manners of those men with
whom they meddell gladlye by friendshippe; whose mischievous maners
a man shall never know untyll he come under ther subjection; but then
shall he parfectlye parceve and fele them: for in dissimulations untyll
they have ther purposes, and afterwards in oppression and tyrannye,
when they can obtain them, they do exceed all other nations upon the
earthe." [1]
In the working out of this spirit, with all the indomitable courage
and fanatical ardor derived from the long contests with the Moors,
they reduced the native peoples to submission, but still not to the
galling yoke which they fastened upon the aborigines of America, to
make one Las Casas shine amid the horde of Pizarros. There was some
compulsory labor in timber-cutting and ship-building, with enforced
military service as rowers and soldiers for expeditions to the Moluccas
and the coasts of Asia, but nowhere the unspeakable atrocities which
in Mexico, Hispaniola, and South America drove mothers to strangle
their babes at birth and whole tribes to prefer self-immolation to the
living death in the mines and slave-pens. Quite differently from the
case in America, where entire islands and districts were depopulated,
to bring on later the curse of negro slavery, in the Philippines
the fact appears that the native population really increased and
the standard of living was raised under the stern, yet beneficent,
tutelage of the missionary fathers. The great distance and the
hardships of the journey precluded the coming of many irresponsible
adventurers from Spain and, fortunately for the native population,
no great mineral wealth was ever discovered in the Philippine Islands.
The system of government was, in its essential features, a simple
one. The missionary priests drew the inhabitants of the towns
and villages about themselves or formed new settlements, and with
profuse use of symbol and symbolism taught the people the Faith,
laying particular stress upon "the fear of God," as administered by
them, reconciling the people to their subjection by inculcating the
Christian virtues of patience and humility. When any recalcitrants
refused to accept the new order, or later showed an inclination to
break away from it, the military forces, acting usually under secret
directions from the padre, made raids in the disaffected parts with
all the unpitying atrocity the Spanish soldiery were ever capable of
displaying in their dealings with a weaker people. After sufficient
punishment had been inflicted and a wholesome fear inspired, the padre
very opportunely interfered in the natives' behalf, by which means
they were convinced that peace and security lay in submission to the
authorities, especially to the curate of their town or district. A
single example will suffice to make the method clear: not an isolated
instance but a typical case chosen from among the mass of records
left by the chief actors themselves.
Fray Domingo Perez, evidently a man of courage and conviction, for he
later lost his life in the work of which he wrote, was the Dominican
vicar on the Zambales coast when that Order temporarily took over the
district from the Recollects. In a report written for his superior in
1680 he outlines the method clearly: "In order that those whom we have
assembled in the three villages may persevere in their settlements,
the most efficacious fear and the one most suited to their nature is
that the Spaniards of the fort and presidio of Paynaven [2] of whom
they have a very great fear, may come very often to the said villages
and overrun the land, and penetrate even into their old recesses where
they formerly lived; and if perchance they should find anything planted
in the said recesses that they would destroy it and cut it down without
leaving them anything. And so that they may see the father protects
them, when the said Spaniards come to the village, the father opposes
them and takes the part of the Indians. But it is always necessary
in this matter for the soldiers to conquer, and the father is always
very careful always to inform the Spaniards by whom and where anything
is planted which it may be necessary to destroy, and that the edicts
which his Lordship, the governor, sent them be carried out .... But
at all events said Spaniards are to make no trouble for the Indians
whom they find in the villages, but rather must treat them well." [3]
This in 1680: the Dominican transcriber of the record in 1906 has
added a very illuminating note, revealing the immutability of the
system and showing that the rulers possessed in a superlative degree
the Bourbonesque trait of learning nothing and forgetting nothing:
"Even when I was a missionary to the heathens from 1882 to 1892,
I had occasion to observe the said policy, to inform the chief of
the fortress of the measures that he ought to take, and to make a
false show on the other side so that it might have no influence on
the fortress."
Thus it stands out in bold relief as a system built up and maintained
by fraud and force, bound in the course of nature to last only as
long as the deception could be carried on and the repressive force
kept up to sufficient strength. Its maintenance required that the
different sections be isolated from each other so that there could
be no growth toward a common understanding and coöperation, and its
permanence depended upon keeping the people ignorant and contented with
their lot, held under strict control by religious and political fear.
Yet it was a vast improvement over their old mode of life and their
condition was bettered as they grew up to such a system. Only with
the passing of the years and the increase of wealth and influence,
the ease and luxury invited by these, and the consequent corruption so
induced, with the insatiable longing ever for more wealth and greater
influence, did the poison of greed and grasping power enter the system
to work its insidious way into every part, slowly transforming the
beneficent institution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
into an incubus weighing upon all the activities of the people in
the nineteenth, an unyielding bar to the development of the country,
a hideous anachronism in these modern times.
It must be remembered also that Spain, in the years following her
brilliant conquests of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, lost
strength and vigor through the corruption at home induced by the
unearned wealth that flowed into the mother country from the colonies,
and by the draining away of her best blood. Nor did her sons ever
develop that economic spirit which is the permanent foundation of
all empire, but they let the wealth of the Indies flow through their
country, principally to London and Amsterdam, there to form in more
practical hands the basis of the British and Dutch colonial empires.
The priest and the soldier were supreme, so her best sons took up
either the cross or the sword to maintain her dominion in the distant
colonies, a movement which, long continued, spelled for her a form of
national suicide. The soldier expended his strength and generally laid
down his life on alien soil, leaving no fit successor of his own stock
to carry on the work according to his standards. The priest under the
celibate system, in its better days left no offspring at all and in
the days of its corruption none bred and reared under the influences
that make for social and political progress. The dark chambers of the
Inquisition stifled all advance in thought, so the civilization and
the culture of Spain, as well as her political system, settled into
rigid forms to await only the inevitable process of stagnation and
decay. In her proudest hour an old soldier, who had lost one of his
hands fighting her battles against the Turk at Lepanto, employed the
other in writing the masterpiece of her literature, which is really
a caricature of the nation.
There is much in the career of Spain that calls to mind the dazzling
beauty of her "dark-glancing daughters," with its early bloom, its
startling--almost morbid--brilliance, and its premature decay. Rapid
and brilliant was her rise, gradual and inglorious her steady decline,
from the bright morning when the banners of Castile and Aragon were
flung triumphantly from the battlements of the Alhambra, to the short
summer, not so long gone, when at Cavite and Santiago with swift,
decisive havoc the last ragged remnants of the once world-dominating
power were blown into space and time, to hover disembodied there, a
lesson and a warning to future generations. Whatever her final place in
the records of mankind, whether as the pioneer of modern civilization
or the buccaneer of the nations or, as would seem most likely, a
goodly mixture of both, she has at least--with the exception only
of her great mother, Rome--furnished the most instructive lessons in
political pathology yet recorded, and the advice to students of world
progress to familiarize themselves with her history is even more apt
today than when it first issued from the encyclopedic mind of Macaulay
nearly a century ago. Hardly had she reached the zenith of her power
when the disintegration began, and one by one her brilliant conquests
dropped away, to leave her alone in her faded splendor, with naught but
her vaunting pride left, another "Niobe of nations." In the countries
more in contact with the trend of civilization and more susceptible
to revolutionary influences from the mother country this separation
came from within, while in the remoter parts the archaic and outgrown
system dragged along until a stronger force from without destroyed it.
Nowhere was the crystallization of form and principle more pronounced
than in religious life, which fastened upon the mother country a
deadening weight that hampered all progress, and in the colonies,
notably in the Philippines, virtually converted her government into
a hagiarchy that had its face toward the past and either could not
or would not move with the current of the times. So, when "the shot
heard round the world," the declaration of humanity's right to be and
to become, in its all-encircling sweep, reached the lands controlled
by her it was coldly received and blindly rejected by the governing
powers, and there was left only the slower, subtler, but none the
less sure, process of working its way among the people to burst in
time in rebellion and the destruction of the conservative forces that
would repress it.
In the opening years of the nineteenth century the friar orders in the
Philippines had reached the apogee of their power and usefulness. Their
influence was everywhere felt and acknowledged, while the country
still prospered under the effects of the vigorous and progressive
administrations of Anda and Vargas in the preceding century. Native
levies had fought loyally under Spanish leadership against Dutch
and British invaders, or in suppressing local revolts among their
own people, which were always due to some specific grievance, never
directed definitely against the Spanish sovereignty. The Philippines
were shut off from contact with any country but Spain, and even this
communication was restricted and carefully guarded. There was an
elaborate central government which, however, hardly touched the life
of the native peoples, who were guided and governed by the parish
priests, each town being in a way an independent entity.
Of this halcyon period, just before the process of disintegration
began, there has fortunately been left a record which may be
characterized as the most notable Spanish literary production
relating to the Philippines, being the calm, sympathetic, judicial
account of one who had spent his manhood in the work there and who,
full of years and experience, sat down to tell the story of their
life. [4] In it there are no puerile whinings, no querulous curses
that tropical Malays do not order their lives as did the people of
the Spanish village where he may have been reared, no selfish laments
of ingratitude over blessings unasked and only imperfectly understood
by the natives, no fatuous self-deception as to the real conditions,
but a patient consideration of the difficulties encountered, the good
accomplished, and the unavoidable evils incident to any human work. The
country and the people, too, are described with the charming simplicity
of the eyes that see clearly, the brain that ponders deeply, and the
heart that beats sympathetically. Through all the pages of his account
runs the quiet strain of peace and contentment, of satisfaction with
the existing order, for he had looked upon the creation and saw that
it was good. There is "neither haste, nor hate, nor anger," but the
deliberate recital of the facts warmed and illumined by the geniality
of a soul to whom age and experience had brought, not a sour cynicism,
but the mellowing influence of a ripened philosophy. He was such
an old man as may fondly be imagined walking through the streets of
Parañaque in stately benignity amid the fear and respect of the brown
people over whom he watched.
But in all his chronicle there is no suggestion of anything more to
hope for, anything beyond. Beautiful as the picture is, it is that of
a system which had reached maturity: a condition of stagnation, not
of growth. In less than a decade, the terrific convulsions in European
politics made themselves felt even in the remote Philippines, and then
began the gradual drawing away of the people from their rulers--blind
gropings and erratic wanderings at first, but nevertheless persistent
and vigorous tendencies.
The first notable influence was the admission of representatives
for the Philippines into the Spanish Cortes under the revolutionary
governments and the abolition of the trade monopoly with Mexico. The
last galleon reached Manila in 1815, and soon foreign commercial
interests were permitted, in a restricted way, to enter the
country. Then with the separation of Mexico and the other American
colonies from Spain a more marked change was brought about in that
direct communication was established with the mother country, and
the absolutism of the hagiarchy first questioned by the numbers of
Peninsular Spaniards who entered the islands to trade, some even
to settle and rear families there. These also affected the native
population in the larger centers by the spread of their ideas, which
were not always in conformity with those that for several centuries
the friars had been inculcating into their wards. Moreover, there
was a not-inconsiderable portion of the population, sprung from the
friars themselves, who were eager to adopt the customs and ideas of
the Spanish immigrants.
The suppression of many of the monasteries in Spain in 1835 caused
a large influx of the disestablished monks into the Philippines in
search for a haven, and a home, thus bringing about a conflict with
the native clergy, who were displaced from their best holdings to
provide berths for the newcomers. At the same time, the increase of
education among the native priests brought the natural demand for
more equitable treatment by the Spanish friar, so insistent that it
even broke out into open rebellion in 1843 on the part of a young
Tagalog who thought himself aggrieved in this respect.
Thus the struggle went on, with stagnation above and some growth below,
so that the governors were ever getting further away from the governed,
and for such a movement there is in the course of nature but one
inevitable result, especially when outside influences are actively at
work penetrating the social system and making for better things. Among
these influences four cumulative ones may be noted: the spread of
journalism, the introduction of steamships into the Philippines,
the return of the Jesuits, and the opening of the Suez Canal.
The printing-press entered the islands with the conquest, but its use
had been strictly confined to religious works until about the middle of
the past century, when there was a sudden awakening and within a few
years five journals were being published. In 1848 appeared the first
regular newspaper of importance, _El Diario de Manila_, and about a
decade later the principal organ of the Spanish-Filipino population,
_El Comercio_, which, with varying vicissitudes, has continued down
to the present. While rigorously censored, both politically and
religiously, and accessible to only an infinitesimal portion of the
people, they still performed the service of letting a few rays of
light into the Cimmerian intellectual gloom of the time and place.
With the coming of steam navigation communication between the
different parts of the islands was facilitated and trade encouraged,
with all that such a change meant in the way of breaking up the old
isolation and tending to a common understanding. Spanish power, too,
was for the moment more firmly established, and Moro piracy in Luzon
and the Bisayan Islands, which had been so great a drawback to the
development of the country, was forever ended.
The return of the Jesuits produced two general results tending to
dissatisfaction with the existing order. To them was assigned the
missionary field of Mindanao, which meant the displacement of the
Recollect Fathers in the missions there, and for these other berths
had to be found. Again the native clergy were the losers in that they
had to give up their best parishes in Luzon, especially around Manila
and Cavite, so the breach was further widened and the soil sown with
discontent. But more far-reaching than this immediate result was
the educational movement inaugurated by the Jesuits. The native,
already feeling the vague impulses from without and stirred by the
growing restlessness of the times, here saw a new world open before
him. A considerable portion of the native population in the larger
centers, who had shared in the economic progress of the colony, were
enabled to look beyond their daily needs and to afford their children
an opportunity for study and advancement--a condition and a need met
by the Jesuits for a time.
With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 communication with the
mother country became cheaper, quicker, surer, so that large numbers
of Spaniards, many of them in sympathy with the republican movements
at home, came to the Philippines in search of fortunes and generally
left half-caste families who had imbibed their ideas. Native boys
who had already felt the intoxication of such learning as the schools
of Manila afforded them began to dream of greater wonders in Spain,
now that the journey was possible for them. So began the definite
movements that led directly to the disintegration of the friar régime.
In the same year occurred the revolution in the mother country,
which had tired of the old corrupt despotism. Isabella II was driven
into exile and the country left to waver about uncertainly for several
years, passing through all the stages of government from red radicalism
to absolute conservatism, finally adjusting itself to the middle course
of constitutional monarchism. During the effervescent and ephemeral
republic there was sent to the Philippines a governor who set to work
to modify the old system and establish a government more in harmony
with modern ideas and more democratic in form. His changes were hailed
with delight by the growing class of Filipinos who were striving for
more consideration in their own country, and who, in their enthusiasm
and the intoxication of the moment, perhaps became more radical than
was safe under the conditions--surely too radical for their religious
guides watching and waiting behind the veil of the temple.
In January, 1872, an uprising occurred in the naval arsenal at Cavite,
with a Spanish non-commissioned officer as one of the leaders. From
the meager evidence now obtainable, this would seem to have been
purely a local mutiny over the service questions of pay and treatment,
but in it the friars saw their opportunity. It was blazoned forth,
with all the wild panic that was to characterize the actions of the
governing powers from that time on, as the premature outbreak of
a general insurrection under the leadership of the native clergy,
and rigorous repressive measures were demanded. Three native
priests, notable for their popularity among their own people, one an
octogenarian and the other two young canons of the Manila Cathedral,
were summarily garroted, along with the renegade Spanish officer
who had participated in the mutiny. No record of any trial of these
priests has ever been brought to light. The Archbishop, himself a
secular [5] clergyman, stoutly refused to degrade them from their
holy office, and they wore their sacerdotal robes at the execution,
which was conducted in a hurried, fearful manner. At the same time
a number of young Manilans who had taken conspicuous part in the
"liberal" demonstrations were deported to the Ladrone Islands or to
remote islands of the Philippine group itself.
This was the beginning of the end. Yet there immediately followed
the delusive calm which ever precedes the fatal outburst, lulling
those marked for destruction to a delusive security. The two decades
following were years of quiet, unobtrusive growth, during which
the Philippine Islands made the greatest economic progress in their
history. But this in itself was preparing the final catastrophe, for
if there be any fact well established in human experience it is that
with economic development the power of organized religion begins to
wane--the rise of the merchant spells the decline of the priest. A
sordid change, from masses and mysteries to sugar and shoes, this is
often said to be, but it should be noted that the epochs of greatest
economic activity have been those during which the generality of
mankind have lived fuller and freer lives, and above all that in such
eras the finest intellects and the grandest souls have been developed.
Nor does an institution that has been slowly growing for three
centuries, molding the very life and fiber of the people, disintegrate
without a violent struggle, either in its own constitution or in the
life of the people trained under it. Not only the ecclesiastical but
also the social and political system of the country was controlled by
the religious orders, often silently and secretly, but none the less
effectively. This is evident from the ceaseless conflict that went on
between the religious orders and the Spanish political administrators,
who were at every turn thwarted in their efforts to keep the government
abreast of the times.
The shock of the affair of 1872 had apparently stunned the Filipinos,
but it had at the same time brought them to the parting of the ways and
induced a vague feeling that there was something radically wrong, which
could only be righted by a closer union among themselves. They began
to consider that their interests and those of the governing powers were
not the same. In these feelings of distrust toward the friars they were
stimulated by the great numbers of immigrant Spaniards who were then
entering the country, many of whom had taken part in the republican
movements at home and who, upon the restoration of the monarchy,
no doubt thought it safer for them to be at as great a distance as
possible from the throne. The young Filipinos studying in Spain came
from different parts of the islands, and by their association there
in a foreign land were learning to forget their narrow sectionalism;
hence the way was being prepared for some concerted action. Thus,
aided and encouraged by the anti-clerical Spaniards in the mother
country, there was growing up a new generation of native leaders,
who looked toward something better than the old system.
It is with this period in the history of the country--the author's
boyhood--that the story of _Noli Me Tangere_ deals. Typical scenes and
characters are sketched from life with wonderful accuracy, and the
picture presented is that of a master-mind, who knew and loved his
subject. Terror and repression were the order of the day, with ever
a growing unrest in the higher circles, while the native population
at large seemed to be completely _cowed_--"brutalized" is the term
repeatedly used by Rizal in his political essays. Spanish writers of
the period, observing only the superficial movements,--some of which
were indeed fantastical enough, for
"they,
Who in oppression's darkness caved have dwelt,
They are not eagles, nourished with the day;
What marvel, then, at times, if they mistake their way?"
--and not heeding the currents at work below, take great delight in
ridiculing the pretensions of the young men seeking advancement,
while they indulge in coarse ribaldry over the wretched condition
of the great mass of the "Indians." The author, however, himself a
"miserable Indian," vividly depicts the unnatural conditions and
dominant characters produced under the outworn system of fraud and
force, at the same time presenting his people as living, feeling,
struggling individuals, with all the frailties of human nature and all
the possibilities of mankind, either for good or evil; incidentally
he throws into marked contrast the despicable depreciation used by
the Spanish writers in referring to the Filipinos, making clear the
application of the self-evident proposition that no ordinary human
being in the presence of superior force can very well conduct himself
as a man unless he be treated as such.
The friar orders, deluded by their transient triumph and secure in
their pride of place, became more arrogant, more domineering than
ever. In the general administration the political rulers were at every
turn thwarted, their best efforts frustrated, and if they ventured
too far their own security threatened; for in the three-cornered
wrangle which lasted throughout the whole of the Spanish domination,
the friar orders had, in addition to the strength derived from their
organization and their wealth, the Damoclean weapon of control over the
natives to hang above the heads of both governor and archbishop. The
curates in the towns, always the real rulers, became veritable despots,
so that no voice dared to raise itself against them, even in the midst
of conditions which the humblest _indio_ was beginning to feel dumbly
to be perverted and unnatural, and that, too, after three centuries
of training under the system that he had ever been taught to accept as
"the will of God."
The friars seemed long since to have forgotten those noble aims
that had meant so much to the founders and early workers of their
orders, if indeed the great majority of those of the later day had
ever realized the meaning of their office, for the Spanish writers of
the time delight in characterizing them as the meanest of the Spanish
peasantry, when not something worse, who had been "lassoed," taught a
few ritualistic prayers, and shipped to the Philippines to be placed
in isolated towns as lords and masters of the native population, with
all the power and prestige over a docile people that the sacredness of
their holy office gave them. These writers treat the matter lightly,
seeing in it rather a huge joke on the "miserable Indians," and
give the friars great credit for "patriotism," a term which in this
connection they dragged from depth to depth until it quite aptly fitted
Dr. Johnson's famous definition, "the last refuge of a scoundrel."
In their conduct the religious corporations, both as societies and as
individuals, must be estimated according to their own standards--the
application of any other criterion would be palpably unfair. They
undertook to hold the native in subjection, to regulate the essential
activities of his life according to their ideas, so upon them
must fall the responsibility for the conditions finally attained:
to destroy the freedom of the subject and then attempt to blame him
for his conduct is a paradox into which the learned men often fell,
perhaps inadvertently through their deductive logic. They endeavored
to shape the lives of their Malay wards not only in this existence
but also in the next. Their vows were poverty, chastity, and obedience.
The vow of poverty was early relegated to the limbo of neglect. Only a
few years after the founding of Manila royal decrees began to issue on
the subject of complaints received by the King over the usurpation of
lands on the part of the priests. Using the same methods so familiar in
the heyday of the institution of monasticism in Europe--pious gifts,
deathbed bequests, pilgrims' offerings--the friar orders gradually
secured the richest of the arable lands in the more thickly settled
portions of the Philippines, notably the part of Luzon occupied by
the Tagalogs. Not always, however, it must in justice be recorded,
were such doubtful means resorted to, for there were instances where
the missionary was the pioneer, gathering about himself a band of
devoted natives and plunging into the unsettled parts to build up
a town with its fields around it, which would later become a friar
estate. With the accumulated incomes from these estates and the fees
for religious observances that poured into their treasuries, the
orders in their nature of perpetual corporations became the masters of
the situation, the lords of the country. But this condition was not
altogether objectionable; it was in the excess of their greed that
they went astray, for the native peoples had been living under this
system through generations and not until they began to feel that they
were not receiving fair treatment did they question the authority of
a power which not only secured them a peaceful existence in this life
but also assured them eternal felicity in the next.
With only the shining exceptions that are produced in any system, no
matter how false its premises or how decadent it may become, to uphold
faith in the intrinsic soundness of human nature, the vow of chastity
was never much more than a myth. Through the tremendous influence
exerted over a fanatically religious people, who implicitly followed
the teachings of the reverend fathers, once their confidence had
been secured, the curate was seldom to be gainsaid in his desires. By
means of the secret influence in the confessional and the more open
political power wielded by him, the fairest was his to command,
and the favored one and her people looked upon the choice more as an
honor than otherwise, for besides the social standing that it gave her
there was the proud prospect of becoming the mother of children who
could claim kinship with the dominant race. The curate's "companion"
or the sacristan's wife was a power in the community, her family was
raised to a place of importance and influence among their own people,
while she and her ecclesiastical offspring were well cared for. On
the death or removal of the curate, it was almost invariably found
that she had been provided with a husband or protector and a not
inconsiderable amount of property--an arrangement rather appealing
to a people among whom the means of living have ever been so insecure.
That this practise was not particularly offensive to the people among
whom they dwelt may explain the situation, but to claim that it excuses
the friars approaches dangerously close to casuistry. Still, as long as
this arrangement was decently and moderately carried out, there seems
to have been no great objection, nor from a worldly point of view,
with all the conditions considered, could there be much. But the old
story of excess, of unbridled power turned toward bad ends, again
recurs, at the same time that the ideas brought in by the Spaniards
who came each year in increasing numbers and the principles observed
by the young men studying in Europe cast doubt upon the fitness of
such a state of affairs. As they approached their downfall, like all
mankind, the friars became more open, more insolent, more shameless,
in their conduct.
The story of Maria Clara, as told in _Noli Me Tangere_, is by no means
an exaggerated instance, but rather one of the few clean enough to
bear the light, and her fate, as depicted in the epilogue, is said
to be based upon an actual occurrence with which the author must have
been familiar.
The vow of obedience--whether considered as to the Pope, their
highest religious authority, or to the King of Spain, their political
liege--might not always be so callously disregarded, but it could be
evaded and defied. From the Vatican came bull after bull, from the
Escorial decree after decree, only to be archived in Manila, sometimes
after a hollow pretense of compliance. A large part of the records of
Spanish domination is taken up with the wearisome quarrels that went
on between the Archbishop, representing the head of the Church, and
the friar orders, over the questions of the episcopal visitation and
the enforcement of the provisions of the Council of Trent relegating
the monks to their original status of missionaries, with the friars
invariably victorious in their contentions. Royal decrees ordering
inquiries into the titles to the estates of the men of poverty and
those providing for the education of the natives in Spanish were
merely sneered at and left to molder in harmless quiet. Not without
good grounds for his contention, the friar claimed that the Spanish
dominion over the Philippines depended upon him, and he therefore
confidently set himself up as the best judge of how that dominion
should be maintained.
Thus there are presented in the Philippines of the closing quarter of
the century just past the phenomena so frequently met with in modern
societies, so disheartening to the people who must drag out their lives
under them, of an old system which has outworn its usefulness and is
being called into question, with forces actively at work disintegrating
it, yet with the unhappy folk bred and reared under it unprepared for
a new order of things. The old faith was breaking down, its forms
and beliefs, once so full of life and meaning, were being sharply
examined, doubt and suspicion were the order of the day. Moreover,
it must ever be borne in mind that in the Philippines this unrest,
except in the parts where the friars were the landlords, was not
general among the people, the masses of whom were still sunk in their
"loved Egyptian night," but affected only a very small proportion of
the population--for the most part young men who were groping their
way toward something better, yet without any very clearly conceived
idea of what that better might be, and among whom was to be found the
usual sprinkling of "sunshine patriots" and omnipresent opportunists
ready for any kind of trouble that will afford them a chance to rise.
Add to the apathy of the masses dragging out their vacant lives amid
the shadows of religious superstition and to the unrest of the few,
the fact that the orders were in absolute control of the political
machinery of the country, with the best part of the agrarian wealth
amortized in their hands; add also the ever-present jealousies, petty
feuds, and racial hatreds, for which Manila and the Philippines,
with their medley of creeds and races, offer such a fertile field,
all fostered by the governing class for the maintenance of the old
Machiavelian principle of "divide and rule," and the sum is about
the most miserable condition under which any portion of mankind ever
tried to fulfill nature's inexorable laws of growth.
II
And third came she who gives dark creeds their power,
Silabbat-paramasa, sorceress,
Draped fair in many lands as lowly Faith,
But ever juggling souls with rites and prayers;
The keeper of those keys which lock up Hells
And open Heavens. "Wilt thou dare," she said,
"Put by our sacred books, dethrone our gods,
Unpeople all the temples, shaking down
That law which feeds the priests and props the realm?"
But Buddha answered, "What thou bidd'st me keep
Is form which passes, but the free Truth stands;
Get thee unto thy darkness."
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, _The Light of Asia_.
"Ah, simple people, how little do you know the blessing that you
enjoy! Neither hunger, nor nakedness, nor inclemency of the weather
troubles you. With the payment of seven reals per year, you remain free
of contributions. You do not have to close your houses with bolts. You
do not fear that the district troopers will come in to lay waste your
fields, and trample you under foot at your own firesides. You call
'father' the one who is in command over you. Perhaps there will come
a time when you will be more civilized, and you will break out in
revolution; and you will wake terrified, at the tumult of the riots,
and will see blood flowing through these quiet fields, and gallows
and guillotines erected in these squares, which never yet have seen an
execution." [6] Thus moralized a Spanish traveler in 1842, just as that
_dolce far niente_ was drawing to its close. Already far-seeing men had
begun to raise in the Spanish parliament the question of the future of
the Philippines, looking toward some definite program for their care
under modern conditions and for the adjustment of their relations with
the mother country. But these were mere Cassandra-voices--the horologe
of time was striking for Rome's successor, as it did for Rome herself.
Just where will come the outbreak after three centuries of
mind-repression and soul-distortion, of forcing a growing subject
into the strait-jacket of medieval thought and action, of natural
selection reversed by the constant elimination of native initiative and
leadership, is indeed a curious study. That there will be an outbreak
somewhere is as certain as that the plant will grow toward the light,
even under the most unfavorable conditions, for man's nature is but
the resultant of eternal forces that ceaselessly and irresistibly
interplay about and upon him, and somewhere this resultant will
express itself in thought or deed.
After three centuries of Spanish ecclesiastical domination in the
Philippines, it was to be expected that the wards would turn against
their mentors the methods that had been used upon them, nor is it
especially remarkable that there was a decided tendency in some parts
to revert to primitive barbarism, but that concurrently a creative
genius--a bard or seer--should have been developed among a people
who, as a whole, have hardly passed through the clan or village
stage of society, can be regarded as little less than a psychological
phenomenon, and provokes the perhaps presumptuous inquiry as to whether
there may not be some things about our common human nature that the
learned doctors have not yet included in their anthropometric diagrams.
On the western shore of the Lake of Bay in the heart of the Philippines
clusters the village of Kalamba, first established by the Jesuit
Fathers in the early days of the conquest, and upon their expulsion
in 1767 taken over by the Crown, which later transferred it to the
Dominicans, under whose care the fertile fields about it became one
of the richest of the friar estates. It can hardly be called a town,
even for the Philippines, but is rather a market-village, set as it
is at the outlet of the rich country of northern Batangas on the
open waterway to Manila and the outside world. Around it flourish
the green rice-fields, while Mount Makiling towers majestically near
in her moods of cloud and sunshine, overlooking the picturesque
curve of the shore and the rippling waters of the lake. Shadowy
to the eastward gleam the purple crests of Banahao and Cristobal,
and but a few miles to the southwestward dim-thundering, seething,
earth-rocking Taal mutters and moans of the world's birth-throes. It
is the center of a region rich in native lore and legend, as it sleeps
through the dusty noons when the cacao leaves droop with the heat and
dreams through the silvery nights, waking twice or thrice a week to
the endless babble and ceaseless chatter of an Oriental market where
the noisy throngs make of their trading as much a matter of pleasure
and recreation as of business.
Directly opposite this market-place, in a house facing the village
church, there was born in 1861 into the already large family of one
of the more prosperous tenants on the Dominican estate a boy who was
to combine in his person the finest traits of the Oriental character
with the best that Spanish and European culture could add, on whom
would fall the burden of his people's woes to lead him over the _via
dolorosa_ of struggle and sacrifice, ending in his own destruction
amid the crumbling ruins of the system whose disintegration he himself
had done so much to compass.
José Rizal-Mercado y Alonso, as his name emerges from the confusion
of Filipino nomenclature, was of Malay extraction, with some distant
strains of Spanish and Chinese blood. His genealogy reveals several
persons remarkable for intellect and independence of character, notably
a Philippine Eloise and Abelard, who, drawn together by their common
enthusiasm for study and learning, became his maternal grandparents, as
well as a great-uncle who was a traveler and student and who directed
the boy's early studies. Thus from the beginning his training was
exceptional, while his mind was stirred by the trouble already brewing
in his community, and from the earliest hours of consciousness he saw
about him the wrongs and injustices which overgrown power will ever
develop in dealing with a weaker subject. One fact of his childhood,
too, stands out clearly, well worthy of record: his mother seems to
have been a woman of more than ordinary education for the time and
place, and, pleased with the boy's quick intelligence, she taught him
to read Spanish from a copy of the Vulgate in that language, which
she had somehow managed to secure and keep in her possession--the
old, old story of the Woman and the Book, repeated often enough under
strange circumstances, but under none stranger than these. The boy's
father was well-to-do, so he was sent at the age of eight to study
in the new Jesuit school in Manila, not however before he had already
inspired some awe in his simple neighbors by the facility with which
he composed verses in his native tongue.
He began his studies in a private house while waiting for an
opportunity to enter the Ateneo, as the Jesuit school is called,
and while there he saw one of his tutors, Padre Burgos, haled to
an ignominious death on the garrote as a result of the affair of
1872. This made a deep impression on his childish mind and, in fact,
seems to have been one of the principal factors in molding his ideas
and shaping his career. That the effect upon him was lasting and that
his later judgment confirmed him in the belief that a great injustice
had been done, are shown by the fact that his second important work,
_El Filibusterismo_, written about 1891, and miscalled by himself a
"novel," for it is really a series of word-paintings constituting a
terrific arraignment of the whole régime, was dedicated to the three
priests executed in 1872, in these words: "Religion, in refusing
to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime imputed to you; the
government, in surrounding your case with mystery and shadow, gives
reason for belief in some error, committed in fatal moments; and all
the Philippines, in venerating your memory and calling you martyrs,
in no way acknowledges your guilt." The only answer he ever received
to this was eight Remington bullets fired into his back.
In the Ateneo he quickly attracted attention and became a general
favorite by his application to his studies, the poetic fervor with
which he entered into all the exercises of religious devotion, and
the gentleness of his character. He was from the first considered
"peculiar," for so the common mind regards everything that fails to fit
the old formulas, being of a rather dreamy and reticent disposition,
more inclined to reading Spanish romances than joining in the games of
his schoolmates. And of all the literatures that could be placed in
the hands of an imaginative child, what one would be more productive
in a receptive mind of a fervid love of life and home and country and
all that men hold dear, than that of the musical language of Castile,
with its high coloring and passionate character?
His activities were varied, for, in addition to his regular studies,
he demonstrated considerable skill in wood-carving and wax-modeling,
and during this period won several prizes for poetical compositions
in Spanish, which, while sometimes juvenile in form and following
closely after Spanish models, reveal at times flashes of thought and
turns of expression that show distinct originality; even in these
early compositions there is that plaintive undertone, that minor
chord of sadness, which pervades all his poems, reaching its fullest
measure of pathos in the verses written in his death-cell. He received
a bachelor's degree according to the Spanish system in 1877, but
continued advanced studies in agriculture at the Ateneo, at the same
time that he was pursuing the course in philosophy in the Dominican
University of Santo Tomas, where in 1879 he startled the learned
doctors by a reference in a prize poem to the Philippines as his
"patria," fatherland. This political heresy on the part of a native
of the islands was given no very serious attention at the time, being
looked upon as the vagary of a schoolboy, but again in the following
year, by what seems a strange fatality, he stirred the resentment of
the friars, especially the Dominicans, by winning over some of their
number the first prize in a literary contest celebrated in honor of
the author of _Don Quixote_.
The archaic instruction in Santo Tomas soon disgusted him and led to
disagreements with the instructors, and he turned to Spain. Plans
for his journey and his stay there had to be made with the utmost
caution, for it would hardly have fared well with his family had
it become known that the son of a tenant on an estate which was a
part of the University endowment was studying in Europe. He reached
Spanish territory first in Barcelona, the hotbed of radicalism,
where he heard a good deal of revolutionary talk, which, however,
seems to have made but little impression upon him, for throughout
his entire career breadth of thought and strength of character are
revealed in his consistent opposition to all forms of violence.
In Madrid he pursued the courses in medicine and philosophy, but a
fact of even more consequence than his proficiency in his regular
work was his persistent study of languages and his omnivorous
reading. He was associated with the other Filipinos who were working
in a somewhat spectacular way, misdirected rather than led by what
may be styled the Spanish liberals, for more considerate treatment of
the Philippines. But while he was among them he was not of them, as
his studious habits and reticent disposition would hardly have made
him a favorite among those who were enjoying the broader and gayer
life there. Moreover, he soon advanced far beyond them in thought by
realizing that they were beginning at the wrong end of the labor,
for even at that time he seems to have caught, by what must almost
be looked upon as an inspiration of genius, since there was nothing
apparent in his training that would have suggested it, the realization
of the fact that hope for his people lay in bettering their condition,
that any real benefit must begin with the benighted folk at home,
that the introduction of reforms for which they were unprepared would
be useless, even dangerous to them. This was not at all the popular
idea among his associates and led to serious disagreements with their
leaders, for it was the way of toil and sacrifice without any of the
excitement and glamour that came from drawing up magnificent plans
and sending them back home with appeals for funds to carry on the
propaganda--for the most part banquets and entertainments to Spain's
political leaders.
His views, as revealed in his purely political writings, may be
succinctly stated, for he had that faculty of expression which never
leaves any room for doubt as to the meaning. His people had a natural
right to grow and to develop, and any obstacles to such growth and
development were to be removed. He realized that the masses of his
countrymen were sunk deep in poverty and ignorance, cringing and
crouching before political authority, crawling and groveling before
religious superstition, but to him this was no subject for jest
or indifferent neglect--it was a serious condition which should be
ameliorated, and hope lay in working into the inert social mass the
leaven of conscious individual effort toward the development of a
distinctive, responsible personality. He was profoundly appreciative
of all the good that Spain had done, but saw in this no inconsistency
with the desire that this gratitude might be given cause to be ever
on the increase, thereby uniting the Philippines with the mother
country by the firm bonds of common ideas and interests, for his
earlier writings breathe nothing but admiration, respect, and loyalty
for Spain and her more advanced institutions. The issue was clear to
him and he tried to keep it so.
It was indeed administrative myopia, induced largely by blind greed,
which allowed the friar orders to confuse the objections to their
repressive system with an attack upon Spanish sovereignty, thereby
dragging matters from bad to worse, to engender ill feeling and finally
desperation. This narrow, selfish policy had about as much soundness
in it as the idea upon which it was based, so often brought forward
with what looks very suspiciously like a specious effort to cover
mental indolence with a glittering generality, "that the Filipino is
only a grown-up child and needs a strong paternal government," an idea
which entirely overlooks the natural fact that when an impressionable
subject comes within the influence of a stronger force from a higher
civilization he is very likely to remain a child--perhaps a stunted
one--as long as he is treated as such. There is about as much sense
and justice in such logic as there would be in that of keeping a babe
confined in swaddling-bands and then blaming it for not knowing how to
walk. No creature will remain a healthy child forever, but, as Spain
learned to her bitter cost, will be very prone, as the parent grows
decrepit and it begins to feel its strength, to prove a troublesome
subject to handle, thereby reversing the natural law suggested by the
comparison, and bringing such Sancho-Panza statecraft to flounder at
last through as hopeless confusion to as absurd a conclusion as his
own island government.
Rizal was not one of those rabid, self-seeking revolutionists who
would merely overthrow the government and maintain the old system
with themselves in the privileged places of the former rulers, nor
is he to be classed among the misguided enthusiasts who by their
intemperate demands and immoderate conduct merely strengthen the
hands of those in power. He realized fully that the restrictions
under which the people had become accustomed to order their lives
should be removed gradually as they advanced under suitable guidance
and became capable of adjusting themselves to the new and better
conditions. They should take all the good offered, from any source,
especially that suited to their nature, which they could properly
assimilate. No great patience was ever exhibited by him toward those
of his countrymen--the most repulsive characters in his stories are
such--who would make of themselves mere apes and mimes, decorating
themselves with a veneer of questionable alien characteristics, but
with no personality or stability of their own, presenting at best
a spectacle to make devils laugh and angels weep, lacking even the
hothouse product's virtue of being good to look upon.
Reduced to a definite form, the wish of the more thoughtful in the
new generation of Filipino leaders that was growing up was that the
Philippine Islands be made a province of Spain with representation in
the Cortes and the concomitant freedom of expression and criticism. All
that was directly asked was some substantial participation in the
management of local affairs, and the curtailment of the arbitrary power
of petty officials, especially of the friar curates, who constituted
the chief obstacle to the education and development of the people.
The friar orders were, however, all-powerful, not only in the
Philippines, but also in Madrid, where they were not chary of making
use of a part of their wealth to maintain their influence. The
efforts of the Filipinos in Spain, while closely watched, do not
seem to have been given any very serious attention, for the Spanish
authorities no doubt realized that as long as the young men stayed
in Madrid writing manifestoes in a language which less than one
per cent of their countrymen could read and spending their money
on members of the Cortes, there could be little danger of trouble
in the Philippines. Moreover, the Spanish ministers themselves
appear to have been in sympathy with the more moderate wishes of
the Filipinos, a fact indicated by the number of changes ordered
from time to time in the Philippine administration, but they were
powerless before the strength and local influence of the religious
orders. So matters dragged their weary way along until there was an
unexpected and startling development, a David-Goliath contest, and
certainly no one but a genius could have polished the "smooth stone"
that was to smite the giant.
It is said that the idea of writing a novel depicting conditions in
his native land first came to Rizal from a perusal of Eugene Sue's
_The Wandering Jew_, while he was a student in Madrid, although the
model for the greater part of it is plainly the delectable sketches
in _Don Quixote_, for the author himself possessed in a remarkable
degree that Cervantic touch which raises the commonplace, even the
mean, into the highest regions of art. Not, however, until he had
spent some time in Paris continuing his medical studies, and later in
Germany, did anything definite result. But in 1887 _Noli Me Tangere_
was printed in Berlin, in an establishment where the author is said
to have worked part of his time as a compositor in order to defray
his expenses while he continued his studies. A limited edition was
published through the financial aid extended by a Filipino associate,
and sent to Hongkong, thence to be surreptitiously introduced into
the Philippines.
_Noli Me Tangere_ ("Touch Me Not") at the time the work was written had
a peculiar fitness as a title. Not only was there an apt suggestion
of a comparison with the common flower of that name, but the term
is also applied in pathology to a malignant cancer which affects
every bone and tissue in the body, and that this latter was in the
author's mind would appear from the dedication and from the summing-up
of the Philippine situation in the final conversation between Ibarra
and Elias. But in a letter written to a friend in Paris at the time,
the author himself says that it was taken from the Gospel scene where
the risen Savior appears to the Magdalene, to whom He addresses these
words, a scene that has been the subject of several notable paintings.
In this connection it is interesting to note what he himself thought of
the work, and his frank statement of what he had tried to accomplish,
made just as he was publishing it: "_Noli Me Tangere_, an expression
taken from the Gospel of St. Luke, [7] means _touch me not_. The
book contains things of which no one up to the present time has
spoken, for they are so sensitive that they have never suffered
themselves to be touched by any one whomsoever. For my own part, I
have attempted to do what no one else has been willing to do: I have
dared to answer the calumnies that have for centuries been heaped
upon us and our country. I have written of the social condition and
the life, of our beliefs, our hopes, our longings, our complaints,
and our sorrows; I have unmasked the hypocrisy which, under the cloak
of religion, has come among us to impoverish and to brutalize us,
I have distinguished the true religion from the false, from the
superstition that traffics with the holy word to get money and to
make us believe in absurdities for which Catholicism would blush,
if ever it knew of them. I have unveiled that which has been hidden
behind the deceptive and dazzling words of our governments. I have
told our countrymen of our mistakes, our vices, our faults, and our
weak complaisance with our miseries there. Where I have found virtue I
have spoken of it highly in order to render it homage; and if I have
not wept in speaking of our misfortunes, I have laughed over them,
for no one would wish to weep with me over our woes, and laughter
is ever the best means of concealing sorrow. The deeds that I have
related are true and have actually occurred; I can furnish proof of
this. My book may have (and it does have) defects from an artistic
and esthetic point of view--this I do not deny--but no one can dispute
the veracity of the facts presented." [8]
But while the primary purpose and first effect of the work was to
crystallize anti-friar sentiment, the author has risen above a mere
personal attack, which would give it only a temporary value, and by
portraying in so clear and sympathetic a way the life of his people
has produced a piece of real literature, of especial interest now as
they are being swept into the newer day. Any fool can point out errors
and defects, if they are at all apparent, and the persistent searching
them out for their own sake is the surest mark of the vulpine mind,
but the author has east aside all such petty considerations and,
whether consciously or not, has left a work of permanent value to
his own people and of interest to all friends of humanity. If ever a
fair land has been cursed with the wearisome breed of fault-finders,
both indigenous and exotic, that land is the Philippines, so it is
indeed refreshing to turn from the dreary waste of carping criticisms,
pragmatical "scientific" analyses, and sneering half-truths to a story
pulsating with life, presenting the Filipino as a human being, with
his virtues and his vices, his loves and hates, his hopes and fears.
The publication of _Noli Me Tangere_ suggests the reflection that
the story of Achilles' heel is a myth only in form. The belief that
any institution, system, organization, or arrangement has reached
an absolute form is about as far as human folly can go. The friar
orders looked upon themselves as the sum of human achievement in
man-driving and God-persuading, divinely appointed to rule, fixed
in their power, far above suspicion. Yet they were obsessed by the
sensitive, covert dread of exposure that ever lurks spectrally under
pharisaism's specious robe, so when there appeared this work of a
"miserable Indian," who dared to portray them and the conditions
that their control produced exactly as they were--for the indefinable
touch by which the author gives an air of unimpeachable veracity to
his story is perhaps its greatest artistic merit--the effect upon the
mercurial Spanish temperament was, to say the least, electric. The
very audacity of the thing left the friars breathless.
A committee of learned doctors from Santo Tomas, who were appointed
to examine the work, unmercifully scored it as attacking everything
from the state religion to the integrity of the Spanish dominions,
so the circulation of it in the Philippines was, of course, strictly
prohibited, which naturally made the demand for it greater. Large
sums were paid for single copies, of which, it might be remarked in
passing, the author himself received scarcely any part; collections
have ever had a curious habit of going astray in the Philippines.
Although the possession of a copy by a Filipino usually meant summary
imprisonment or deportation, often with the concomitant confiscation
of property for the benefit of some "patriot," the book was widely read
among the leading families and had the desired effect of crystallizing
the sentiment against the friars, thus to pave the way for concerted
action. At last the idol had been flouted, so all could attack
it. Within a year after it had begun to circulate in the Philippines a
memorial was presented to the Archbishop by quite a respectable part of
the Filipinos in Manila, requesting that the friar orders be expelled
from the country, but this resulted only in the deportation of every
signer of the petition upon whom the government could lay hands. They
were scattered literally to the four corners of the earth: some to
the Ladrone Islands, some to Fernando Po off the west coast of Africa,
some to Spanish prisons, others to remote parts of the Philippines.
Meanwhile, the author had returned to the Philippines for a visit
to his family, during which time he was constantly attended by an
officer of the Civil Guard, detailed ostensibly as a body-guard. All
his movements were closely watched, and after a few months the
Captain-General "advised" him to leave the country, at the same time
requesting a copy of _Noli Me Tangere_, saying that the excerpts
submitted to him by the censor had awakened a desire to read the
entire work. Rizal returned to Europe by way of Japan and the United
States, which did not seem to make any distinct impression upon him,
although it was only a little later that he predicted that when Spain
lost control of the Philippines, an eventuality he seemed to consider
certain not far in the future, the United States would be a probable
successor. [9]
Returning to Europe, he spent some time in London preparing an edition
of Morga's _Sucesos de las Filipinas_, a work published in Mexico
about 1606 by the principal actor in some of the most stirring scenes
of the formative period of the Philippine government. It is a record
of prime importance in Philippine history, and the resuscitation of
it was no small service to the country. Rizal added notes tending to
show that the Filipinos had been possessed of considerable culture and
civilization before the Spanish conquest, and he even intimated that
they had retrograded rather than advanced under Spanish tutelage. But
such an extreme view must be ascribed to patriotic ardor, for Rizal
himself, though possessed of that intangible quality commonly known
as genius and partly trained in northern Europe, is still in his own
personality the strongest refutation of such a contention.
Later, in Ghent, he published _El Filibusterismo_, called by him a
continuation of _Noli Me Tangere_, but with which it really has no
more connection than that some of the characters reappear and are
disposed of. [10] There is almost no connected plot in it and hardly
any action, but there is the same incisive character-drawing and
clear etching of conditions that characterize the earlier work. It
is a maturer effort and a more forceful political argument, hence
it lacks the charm and simplicity which assign _Noli Me Tangere_
to a preeminent place in Philippine literature. The light satire
of the earlier work is replaced by bitter sarcasm delivered with
deliberate intent, for the iron had evidently entered his soul with
broadening experience and the realization that justice at the hands
of decadent Spain had been an iridescent dream of his youth. Nor had
the Spanish authorities in the Philippines been idle; his relatives
had been subjected to all the annoyances and irritations of petty
persecution, eventually losing the greater part of their property,
while some of them suffered deportation.
In 1891 he returned to Hongkong to practise medicine, in which
profession he had remarkable success, even coming to be looked
upon as a wizard by his simple countrymen, among whom circulated
wonderful accounts of his magical powers. He was especially skilled
in ophthalmology, and his first operation after returning from his
studies in Europe was to restore his mother's sight by removing a
cataract from one of her eyes, an achievement which no doubt formed
the basis of marvelous tales. But the misfortunes of his people were
ever the paramount consideration, so he wrote to the Captain-General
requesting permission to remove his numerous relatives to Borneo to
establish a colony there, for which purpose liberal concessions had
been offered him by the British government. The request was denied,
and further stigmatized as an "unpatriotic" attempt to lessen the
population of the Philippines, when labor was already scarce. This
was the answer he received to a reasonable petition after the homes
of his family, including his own birthplace, had been ruthlessly
destroyed by military force, while a quarrel over ownership and rents
was still pending in the courts. The Captain-General at the time was
Valeriano Weyler, the pitiless instrument of the reactionary forces
manipulated by the monastic orders, he who was later sent to Cuba to
introduce there the repressive measures which had apparently been so
efficacious in the Philippines, thus to bring on the interference of
the United States to end Spain's colonial power--all of which induces
the reflection that there may still be deluded casuists who doubt
the reality of Nemesis.
Weyler was succeeded by Eulogio Despujols, who made sincere attempts to
reform the administration, and was quite popular with the Filipinos. In
reply to repeated requests from Rizal to be permitted to return to
the Philippines unmolested a passport was finally granted to him and
he set out for Manila. For this move on his part, in addition to the
natural desire to be among his own people, two special reasons appear:
he wished to investigate and stop if possible the unwarranted use of
his name in taking up collections that always remained mysteriously
unaccounted for, and he was drawn by a ruse deliberately planned and
executed in that his mother was several times officiously arrested
and hustled about as a common criminal in order to work upon the
son's filial feelings and thus get him back within reach of the
Spanish authority, which, as subsequent events and later researches
have shown, was the real intention in issuing the passport. Entirely
unsuspecting any ulterior motive, however, in a few days after his
arrival he convoked a motley gathering of Filipinos of all grades of
the population, for he seems to have been only slightly acquainted
among his own people and not at all versed in the mazy Walpurgis
dance of Philippine politics, and laid before it the constitution
for a _Liga Filipina_ (Philippine League), an organization looking
toward greater unity among the Filipinos and coöperation for economic
progress. This _Liga_ was no doubt the result of his observations in
England and Germany, and, despite its questionable form as a secret
society for political and economic purposes, was assuredly a step in
the right direction, but unfortunately its significance was beyond
the comprehension of his countrymen, most of whom saw in it only an
opportunity for harassing the Spanish government, for which all were
ready enough.
All his movements were closely watched, and a few days after his
return he was arrested on the charge of having seditious literature
in his baggage. The friars were already clamoring for his blood, but
Despujols seems to have been more in sympathy with Rizal than with
the men whose tool he found himself forced to be. Without trial Rizal
was ordered deported to Dapitan, a small settlement on the northern
coast of Mindanao. The decree ordering this deportation and the
destruction of all copies of his books to be found in the Philippines
is a marvel of sophistry, since, in the words of a Spanish writer of
the time, "in this document we do not know which to wonder at most: the
ingenuousness of the Governor-General, for in this decree he implicitly
acknowledges his weakness and proneness to error, or the candor of
Rizal, who believed that all the way was strewn with roses." [11]
But it is quite evident that Despujols was playing a double game,
of which he seems to have been rather ashamed, for he gave strict
orders that copies of the decree should be withheld from Rizal.
In Dapitan Rizal gave himself up to his studies and such medical
practice as sought him out in that remote spot, for the fame of his
skill was widely extended, and he was allowed to live unmolested
under parole that he would make no attempt to escape. In company
with a Jesuit missionary he gathered about him a number of native
boys and conducted a practical school on the German plan, at the same
time indulging in religious polemics with his Jesuit acquaintances by
correspondence and working fitfully on some compositions which were
never completed, noteworthy among them being a study in English of
the Tagalog verb.
But while he was living thus quietly in Dapitan, events that were to
determine his fate were misshaping themselves in Manila. The stone had
been loosened on the mountain-side and was bounding on in mad career,
far beyond his control.
III
He who of old would rend the oak,
Dream'd not of the rebound;
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke
Alone--how look'd he round?
BYRON.
Reason and moderation in the person of Rizal scorned and banished,
the spirit of Jean Paul Marat and John Brown of Ossawatomie rises to
the fore in the shape of one Andres Bonifacio, warehouse porter, who
sits up o' nights copying all the letters and documents that he can lay
hands on; composing grandiloquent manifestoes in Tagalog; drawing up
magnificent appointments in the names of prominent persons who would
later suffer even to the shedding of their life's blood through his
mania for writing history in advance; spelling out Spanish tales of
the French Revolution; babbling of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity;
hinting darkly to his confidants that the President of France had begun
life as a blacksmith. Only a few days after Rizal was so summarily
hustled away, Bonifacio gathered together a crowd of malcontents and
ignorant dupes, some of them composing as choice a gang of cutthroats
as ever slit the gullet of a Chinese or tied mutilated prisoners in
ant hills, and solemnly organized the _Kataastaasang Kagalang-galang
Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan_, "Supreme Select Association of the
Sons of the People," for the extermination of the ruling race and
the restoration of the Golden Age. It was to bring the people into
concerted action for a general revolt on a fixed date, when they
would rise simultaneously, take possession of the city of Manila,
and--the rest were better left to the imagination, for they had been
reared under the Spanish colonial system and imitativeness has ever
been pointed out as a cardinal trait in the Filipino character. No
quarter was to be asked or given, and the most sacred ties, even of
consanguinity, were to be disregarded in the general slaughter. To
the inquiry of a curious neophyte as to how the Spaniards were
to be distinguished from the other Europeans, in order to avoid
international complications, dark Andres replied that in case of
doubt they should proceed with due caution but should take good care
that they made no mistakes about letting any of the _Castilas_ escape
their vengeance. The higher officials of the government were to be
taken alive as hostages, while the friars were to be reserved for a
special holocaust on Bagumbayan Field, where over their incinerated
remains a heaven-kissing monument would be erected.
This Katipunan seems to have been an outgrowth from Spanish
freemasonry, introduced into the Philippines by a Spaniard named
Morayta and Marcelo H. del Pilar, a native of Bulacan Province who was
the practical leader of the Filipinos in Spain, but who died there in
1896 just as he was setting out for Hongkong to mature his plans for a
general uprising to expel the friar orders. There had been some masonic
societies in the islands for some time, but the membership had been
limited to Peninsulars, and they played no part in the politics of the
time. But about 1888 Filipinos began to be admitted into some of them,
and later, chiefly through the exertions of Pilar, lodges exclusively
for them were instituted. These soon began to display great activity,
especially in the transcendental matter of collections, so that their
existence became a source of care to the government and a nightmare to
the religious orders. From them, and with a perversion of the idea in
Rizal's still-born _Liga_, it was an easy transition to the Katipunan,
which was to put aside all pretense of reconciliation with Spain,
and at the appointed time rise to exterminate not only the friars
but also all the Spaniards and Spanish sympathizers, thus to bring
about the reign of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, under the benign
guidance of Patriot Bonifacio, with his bolo for a scepter.
With its secrecy and mystic forms, its methods of threats and
intimidation, the Katipunan spread rapidly, especially among the
Tagalogs, the most intransigent of the native peoples, and, it should
be noted, the ones in Whose territory the friars were the principal
landlords. It was organized on the triangle plan, so that no member
might know or communicate with more than three others--the one above
him from whom he received his information and instructions and two
below to whom he transmitted them. The initiations were conducted with
great secrecy and solemnity, calculated to inspire the new members
with awe and fear. The initiate, after a series of blood-curdling
ordeals to try out his courage and resolution, swore on a human skull
a terrific oath to devote his life and energies to the extermination
of the white race, regardless of age or sex, and later affixed to
it his signature or mark, usually the latter, with his own blood
taken from an incision in the left arm or left breast. This was one
form of the famous "blood compact," which, if history reads aright,
played so important a part in the assumption of sovereignty over the
Philippines by Legazpi in the name of Philip II.
Rizal was made the honorary president of the association, his
portrait hung in all the meeting-halls, and the magic of his name
used to attract the easily deluded masses, who were in a state of
agitated ignorance and growing unrest, ripe for any movement that
looked anti-governmental, and especially anti-Spanish. Soon after
the organization had been perfected, collections began to be taken
up--those collections were never overlooked--for the purpose of
chartering a steamer to rescue him from Dapitan and transport him to
Singapore, whence he might direct the general uprising, the day and
the hour for which were fixed by Bonifacio for August twenty-sixth,
1896, at six o'clock sharp in the evening, since lack of precision
in his magnificent programs was never a fault of that bold patriot,
his logic being as severe as that of the Filipino policeman who put
the flag at half-mast on Good Friday.
Of all this Rizal himself was, of course, entirely ignorant, until
in May, 1896, a Filipino doctor named Pio Valenzuela, a creature of
Bonifacio's, was despatched to Dapitan, taking along a blind man as a
pretext for the visit to the famous oculist, to lay the plans before
him for his consent and approval. Rizal expostulated with Valenzuela
for a time over such a mad and hopeless venture, which would only bring
ruin and misery upon the masses, and then is said to have very humanly
lost his patience, ending the interview "in so bad a humor and with
words so offensive that the deponent, who had gone with the intention
of remaining there a month, took the steamer on the following day, for
return to Manila." [12] He reported secretly to Bonifacio, who bestowed
several choice Tagalog epithets on Rizal, and charged his envoy to
say nothing about the failure of his mission, but rather to give the
impression that he had been successful. Rizal's name continued to be
used as the shibboleth of the insurrection, and the masses were made
to believe that he would appear as their leader at the appointed hour.
Vague reports from police officers, to the effect that something
unusual in the nature of secret societies was going on among the
people, began to reach the government, but no great attention was
paid to them, until the evening of August nineteenth, when the parish
priest of Tondo was informed by the mother-superior of one of the
convent-schools that she had just learned of a plot to massacre all
the Spaniards. She had the information from a devoted pupil, whose
brother was a compositor in the office of the _Diario de Manila_. As
is so frequently the case in Filipino families, this elder sister was
the purse-holder, and the brother's insistent requests for money,
which was needed by him to meet the repeated assessments made on
the members as the critical hour approached, awakened her curiosity
and suspicion to such an extent that she forced him to confide the
whole plan to her. Without delay she divulged it to her patroness,
who in turn notified the curate of Tondo, where the printing-office
was located. The priest called in two officers of the Civil Guard, who
arrested the young printer, frightened a confession out of him, and
that night, in company with the friar, searched the printing-office,
finding secreted there several lithographic plates for printing
receipts and certificates of membership in the Katipunan, with a
number of documents giving some account of the plot.
Then the Spanish population went wild. General Ramon Blanco was
governor and seems to have been about the only person who kept his
head at all. He tried to prevent giving so irresponsible a movement a
fictitious importance, but was utterly powerless to stay the clamor
for blood which at once arose, loudest on the part of those alleged
ministers of the gentle Christ. The gates of the old Walled City,
long fallen into disuse, were cleaned and put in order, martial law
was declared, and wholesale arrests made. Many of the prisoners were
confined in Fort Santiago, one batch being crowded into a dungeon
for which the only ventilation was a grated opening at the top, and
one night a sergeant of the guard carelessly spread his sleeping-mat
over this, so the next morning some fifty-five asphyxiated corpses
were hauled away. On the twenty-sixth armed insurrection broke out at
Caloocan, just north of Manila, from time immemorial the resort of bad
characters from all the country round and the center of brigandage,
while at San Juan del Monte, on the outskirts of the city, several
bloody skirmishes were fought a few days later with the _Guardia
Civil Veterana_, the picked police force.
Bonifacio had been warned of the discovery of his schemes in time to
make his escape and flee to the barrio, or village, of Balintawak,
a few miles north of Manila, thence to lead the attack on Caloocan
and inaugurate the reign of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity in the
manner in which Philippine insurrections have generally had a habit
of starting--with the murder of Chinese merchants and the pillage of
their shops. He had from the first reserved for himself the important
office of treasurer in the Katipunan, in addition to being on occasions
president and at all times its ruling spirit, so he now established
himself as dictator and proceeded to appoint a magnificent staff, most
of whom contrived to escape as soon as they were out of reach of his
bolo. Yet he drew considerable numbers about him, for this man, though
almost entirely unlettered, seems to have been quite a personality
among his own people, especially possessed of that gift of oratory
in his native tongue to which the Malay is so preeminently susceptible.
In Manila a special tribunal was constituted and worked steadily,
sometimes through the siesta-hour, for there were times, of which
this was one, when even Spanish justice could be swift. Bagumbayan
began to be a veritable field of blood, as the old methods of
repression were resorted to for the purpose of striking terror into
the native population by wholesale executions, nor did the ruling
powers realize that the time for such methods had passed. It was a
case of sixteenth-century colonial methods fallen into fretful and
frantic senility, so in all this wretched business it is doubtful whim
to pity the more: the blind stupidity of the fossilized conservatives
incontinently throwing an empire away, forfeiting their influence over
a people whom they, by temperament and experience, should have been
fitted to control and govern; or the potential cruelty of perverted
human nature in the dark Frankenstein who would wreak upon the rulers
in their decadent days the most hideous of the methods in the system
that produced him, as he planned his festive holocaust and carmagnole
on the spot where every spark of initiative and leadership among
his people, both good and bad, had been summarily and ruthlessly
extinguished. There is at least a world of reflection in it for the
rulers of men.
In the meantime Rizal, wearying of the quiet life in Dapitan and
doubtless foreseeing the impending catastrophe, had requested leave
to volunteer his services as a physician in the military hospitals
of Cuba, of the horrors and sufferings in which he had heard. General
Blanco at once gladly acceded to this request and had him brought to
Manila, but unfortunately the boat carrying him arrived there a day
too late for him to catch the regular August mail-steamer to Spain,
so he was kept in the cruiser a prisoner of war, awaiting the next
transportation. While he was thus detained, the Katipunan plot was
discovered and the rebellion broke out. He was accused of being
the head of it, but Blanco gave him a personal letter completely
exonerating him from any complicity in the outbreak, as well as a
letter of recommendation to the Spanish minister of war. He was placed
on the _Isla de Panay_ when it left for Spain on September third and
traveled at first as a passenger. At Singapore he was advised to land
and claim British protection, as did some of his fellow travelers,
but he refused to do so, saying that his conscience was clear.
As the name of Rizal had constantly recurred during the trials
of the Katipunan suspects, the military tribunal finally issued a
formal demand for him. The order of arrest was cabled to Port Said
and Rizal there placed in solitary confinement for the remainder
of the voyage. Arrived at Barcelona, he was confined in the grim
fortress of Montjuich, where; by a curious coincidence, the governor
was the same Despujols who had issued the decree of banishment in
1892. Shortly afterwards, he was placed on the transport _Colon_,
which was bound for the Philippines with troops, Blanco having at last
been stirred to action. Strenuous efforts were now made by Rizal's
friends in London to have him removed from the ship at Singapore,
but the British authorities declined to take any action, on the ground
that he was on a Spanish warship and therefore beyond the jurisdiction
of their courts. The _Colon_ arrived at Manila on November third and
Rizal was imprisoned in Fort Santiago, while a special tribunal was
constituted to try him on the charges of carrying on anti-patriotic
and anti-religious propaganda, rebellion, sedition, and the formation
of illegal associations. Some other charges may have been overlooked
in the hurry and excitement.
It would be almost a travesty to call a trial the proceedings which
began early in December and dragged along until the twenty-sixth. Rizal
was defended by a young Spanish officer selected by him from among
a number designated by the tribunal, who chivalrously performed so
unpopular a duty as well as he could. But the whole affair was a
mockery of justice, for the Spanish government in the Philippines had
finally and hopelessly reached the condition graphically pictured by
Mr. Kipling:
Panic that shells the drifting spar--
Loud waste with none to check--
Mad fear that rakes a scornful star
Or sweeps a consort's deck!
The clamor against Blanco had resulted in his summary removal by royal
decree and the appointment of a real "pacificator," Camilo Polavieja.
While in prison Rizal prepared an address to those of his countrymen
who were in armed rebellion, repudiating the use of his name and
deprecating the resort to violence. The closing words are a compendium
of his life and beliefs: "Countrymen: I have given proofs, as well as
the best of you, of desiring liberty for our country, and I continue
to desire it. But I place as a premise the education of the people,
so that by means of instruction and work they may have a personality
of their own and that they may make themselves worthy of that same
liberty. In my writings I have recommended the study of the civic
virtues, without which there can be no redemption. I have also written
(and my words have been repeated) that reforms, to be fruitful, must
come from _above_, that those which spring from _below_ are uncertain
and insecure movements. Imbued with these ideas, I cannot do less than
condemn, and I do condemn, this absurd, savage rebellion, planned
behind my back, which dishonors the Filipinos and discredits those
who can speak for us. I abominate all criminal actions and refuse any
kind of participation in them, pitying with all my heart the dupes who
have allowed themselves to be deceived. Go back, then, to your homes,
and may God forgive those who have acted in bad faith." This address,
however, was not published by the Spanish authorities, since they did
not consider it "patriotic" enough; instead, they killed the writer!
Rizal appeared before the tribunal bound, closely guarded by two
Peninsular soldiers, but maintained his serenity throughout and
answered the charges in a straightforward way. He pointed out the
fact that he had never taken any great part in politics, having
even quarreled with Marcelo del Pilar, the active leader of the
anti-clericals, by reason of those perennial "subscriptions," and that
during the time he was accused of being the instigator and organizer of
armed rebellion he had been a close prisoner in Dapitan under strict
surveillance by both the military and ecclesiastical authorities. The
prosecutor presented a lengthy document, which ran mostly to words,
about the only definite conclusion laid down in it being that the
Philippines "are, and always must remain, Spanish territory." What
there may have been in Rizal's career to hang such a conclusion
upon is not quite dear, but at any rate this learned legal light was
evidently still thinking in colors on the map serenely unconscious in
his European pseudo-prescience of the new and wonderful development
in the Western Hemisphere--humanity militant, Lincolnism.
The death sentence was asked, but the longer the case dragged on the
more favorable it began to look for the accused, so the president
of the tribunal, after deciding, Jeffreys-like, that the charges had
been proved, ordered that no further evidence be taken. Rizal betrayed
some sunrise when his doom was thus foreshadowed, for, dreamer that
he was, he seems not to have anticipated such a fatal eventuality for
himself. He did not lose his serenity, however, even when the tribunal
promptly brought in a verdict of guilty and imposed the death sentence,
upon which Polavieja the next day placed his _Cúmplase_, fixing the
morning of December thirtieth for the execution.
So Rizal's fate was sealed. The witnesses against him, in so far
as there was any substantial testimony at all, had been his own
countrymen, coerced or cajoled into making statements which they have
since repudiated as false, and which in some cases were extorted from
them by threats and even torture. But he betrayed very little emotion,
even maintaining what must have been an assumed cheerfulness. Only
one reproach is recorded: that he had been made a dupe of, that he had
been deceived by every one, even the _bankeros_ and _cocheros_. His old
Jesuit instructors remained with him in the _capilla_, or death-cell,
[13] and largely through the influence of an image of the Sacred Heart,
which he had carved as a schoolboy, it is claimed that a reconciliation
with the Church was effected. There has been considerable pragmatical
discussion as to what form of retraction from him was necessary,
since he had been, after studying in Europe, a frank freethinker, but
such futile polemics may safely be left to the learned doctors. That
he was reconciled with the Church would seem to be evidenced by
the fact that just before the execution he gave legal status as
his wife to the woman, a rather remarkable Eurasian adventuress,
who had lived with him in Dapitan, and the religious ceremony was
the only one then recognized in the islands. [14] The greater part
of his last night on earth was spent in composing a chain of verse;
no very majestic flight of poesy, but a pathetic monody throbbing with
patient resignation and inextinguishable hope, one of the sweetest,
saddest swan-songs ever sung.
Thus he was left at the last, entirely alone. As soon as his doom
became certain the Patriots had all scurried to cover, one gentle
poetaster even rushing into doggerel verse to condemn him as a
reversion to barbarism; the wealthier suspects betook themselves
to other lands or made judicious use of their money-bags among the
Spanish officials; the better classes of the population floundered
hopelessly, leaderless, in the confused whirl of opinions and passions;
while the voiceless millions for whom he had spoken moved on in dumb,
uncomprehending silence. He had lived in that higher dreamland of
the future, ahead of his countrymen, ahead even of those who assumed
to be the mentors of his people, and he must learn, as does every
noble soul that labors "to make the bounds of freedom wider yet,"
the bitter lesson that nine-tenths, if not all, the woes that afflict
humanity spring from man's own stupid selfishness, that the wresting
of the scepter from the tyrant is often the least of the task, that
the bondman comes to love his bonds--like Chillon's prisoner, his very
chains and he grow friends,--but that the struggle for human freedom
must go on, at whatever cost, in ever-widening circles, "wave after
wave, each mightier than the last," for as long as one body toils in
fetters or one mind welters in blind ignorance, either of the slave's
base delusion or the despot's specious illusion, there can be no final
security for any free man, or his children, or his children's children.
IV
"God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!
Why look'st thou so?"--"With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross!"
COLERIDGE.
It was one of those magic December mornings of the tropics--the very
nuptials of earth and sky, when great Nature seems to fling herself
incontinently into creation, wrapping the world in a brooding calm of
light and color, that Spain chose for committing political suicide
in the Philippines. Bagumbayan Field was crowded with troops, both
regulars and militia, for every man capable of being trusted with
arms was drawn up there, excepting only the necessary guards in other
parts of the city. Extra patrols were in the streets, double guards
were placed over the archiepiscopal and gubernatorial palaces. The
calmest man in all Manila that day was he who must stand before the
firing-squad.
Two special and unusual features are to be noted about this
execution. All the principal actors were Filipinos: the commander of
the troops and the officer directly in charge of the execution were
native-born, while the firing-squad itself was drawn from a local
native regiment, though it is true that on this occasion a squad of
Peninsular _cazadores_, armed with loaded Mausers, stood directly
behind them to see that they failed not in their duty. Again, there
was but one victim; for it seems to have ever been the custom of
the Spanish rulers to associate in these gruesome affairs some real
criminals with the political offenders, no doubt with the intentional
purpose of confusing the issue in the general mind. Rizal standing
alone, the occasion of so much hurried preparation and fearful
precaution, is a pathetic testimonial to the degree of incapacity
into which the ruling powers had fallen, even in chicanery.
After bidding good-by to his sister and making final disposition
regarding some personal property, the doomed man, under close guard,
walked calmly, even cheerfully, from Fort Santiago along the Malecon
to the Luneta, accompanied by his Jesuit confessors. Arrived there, he
thanked those about him for their kindness and requested the officer
in charge to allow him to face the firing-squad, since he had never
been a traitor to Spain. This the officer declined to permit, for
the order was to shoot him in the back. Rizal assented with a slight
protest, pointed out to the soldiers the spot in his back at which
they should aim, and with a firm step took his place in front of them.
Then occurred an act almost too hideous to record. There he stood,
expecting a volley of Remington bullets in his back--Time was, and
Life's stream ebbed to Eternity's flood--when the military surgeon
stepped forward and asked if he might feel his pulse! Rizal extended
his left hand, and the officer remarked that he could not understand
how a man's pulse could beat normally at such a terrific moment! The
victim shrugged his shoulders and let the hand fall again to his
side--Latin refinement could be no further refined!
A moment later there he lay, on his right side, his life-blood
spurting over the Luneta curb, eyes wide open, fixedly staring at that
Heaven where the priests had taught all those centuries agone that
Justice abides. The troops filed past the body, for the most part
silently, while desultory cries of "_Viva España!_" from among the
"patriotic" Filipino volunteers were summarily hushed by a Spanish
artillery-officer's stern rebuke: "Silence, you rabble!" To drown
out the fitful cheers and the audible murmurs, the bands struck
up Spanish national airs. Stranger death-dirge no man and system
ever had. Carnival revelers now dance about the scene and Filipino
schoolboys play baseball over that same spot.
A few days later another execution was held on that spot, of members
of the _Liga_, some of them characters that would have richly deserved
shooting at any place or time, according to existing standards, but
notable among them there knelt, torture-crazed, as to his orisons,
Francisco Roxas, millionaire capitalist, who may be regarded as the
social and economic head of the Filipino people, as Rizal was fitted
to be their intellectual leader. Shades of Anda and Vargas! Out there
at Balintawak--rather fitly, "the home of the snake-demon,"--not three
hours' march from this same spot, on the very edge of the city, Andres
Bonifacio and his literally sansculottic gangs of cutthroats were,
almost with impunity, soiling the fair name of Freedom with murder
and mutilation, rape and rapine, awakening the worst passions of an
excitable, impulsive people, destroying that essential respect for
law and order, which to restore would take a holocaust of fire and
blood, with a generation of severe training. Unquestionably did Rizal
demonstrate himself to be a seer and prophet when he applied to such
a system the story of Babylon and the fateful handwriting on the wall!
But forces had been loosed that would not be so suppressed, the time
had gone by when such wild methods of repression would serve. The
destruction of the native leaders, culminating in the executions
of Rizal and Roxas, produced a counter-effect by rousing the
Tagalogs, good and bad alike, to desperate fury, and the aftermath
was frightful. The better classes were driven to take part in the
rebellion, and Cavite especially became a veritable slaughter-pen,
as the contest settled down into a hideous struggle for mutual
extermination. Dark Andres went his wild way to perish by the
violence he had himself invoked, a prey to the rising ambition of
a young leader of considerable culture and ability, a schoolmaster
named Emilio Aguinaldo. His Katipunan hovered fitfully around Manila,
for a time even drawing to itself in their desperation some of the
better elements of the population, only to find itself sold out and
deserted by its leaders, dying away for a time; but later, under
changed conditions, it reappeared in strange metamorphosis as the
rallying-center for the largest number of Filipinos who have ever
gathered together for a common purpose, and then finally went down
before those thin grim lines in khaki with sharp and sharpest shot
clearing away the wreck of the old, blazing the way for the new:
the broadening sweep of "Democracy announcing, in rifle-volleys
death-winged, under her Star Banner, to the tune of Yankee-doodle-do,
that she is born, and, whirlwind-like, will envelop the whole world!"
MANILA, December 1, 1909
What? Does no Caesar, does no Achilles, appear on your stage now?
Not an Andromache e'en, not an Orestes, my friend?
No! there is nought to be seen there but parsons, and syndics of commerce,
Secretaries perchance, ensigns and majors of horse.
But, my good friend, pray tell, what can such people e'er meet with
That can be truly call'd great?--what that is great can they do?
SCHILLER: _Shakespeare's Ghost_.
(_Bowring's translation._)
CONTENTS
Author's Dedication
I A Social Gathering
II Crisostomo Ibarra
III The Dinner
IV Heretic and Filibuster
V A Star in a Dark Night
VI Capitan Tiago
VII An Idyl on an Azotea
VIII Recollections
IX Local Affairs
X The Town
XI The Rulers
XII All Saints
XIII Signs of Storm
XIV Tasio: Lunatic or Sage
IV The Sacristans
XVI Sisa
XVII Basilio
XVIII Souls In Torment
XIX A Schoolmaster's Difficulties
XX The Meeting in the Town Hall
XXI The Story of a Mother
XXII Lights and Shadows
XXIII Fishing
XXIV In the Wood
XXV In the House of the Sage
XXVI The Eve of the Fiesta
XXVII In the Twilight
XXVIII Correspondence
XXIX The Morning
XXX In the Church
XXXI The Sermon
XXXII The Derrick
XXXIII Free Thought
XXXIV The Dinner
XXXV Comments
XXXVI The First Cloud
XXXVII His Excellency
XXXVIII The Procession
XXXIX Doña Consolación
XL Right and Might
XLI Two Visits
XLII The Espadañas
XLIII Plans
XLIV An Examination of Conscience
XLV The Hunted
XLVI The Cockpit
XLVII The Two Señoras
XLVIII The Enigma
XLIX The Voice of the Hunted
L Elias's Story
LI Exchanges
LII The Cards of the Dead and the Shadows
LIII Il Buon Dí Si Conosce Da Mattina
LIV Revelations
LV The Catastrophe
LVI Rumors and Belief
LVII Vae Victis!
LVIII The Accursed
LIX Patriotism and Private Interests
LX Maria Clara Weds
LXI The Chase on the Lake
LXII Padre Damaso Explains
LXIII Christmas Eve
Epilogue
Glossary
AUTHOR'S DEDICATION
To My Fatherland:
Recorded in the history of human sufferings is a cancer of so malignant
a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in it the
sharpest pains. Thus, how many times, when in the midst of modern
civilizations I have wished to call thee before me, now to accompany
me in memories, now to compare thee with other countries, hath thy
dear image presented itself showing a social cancer like to that other!
Desiring thy welfare, which is our own, and seeking the best treatment,
I will do with thee what the ancients did with their sick, exposing
them on the steps of the temple so that every one who came to invoke
the Divinity might offer them a remedy.
And to this end, I will strive to reproduce thy condition faithfully,
without discriminations; I will raise a part of the veil that covers
the evil, sacrificing to truth everything, even vanity itself, since,
as thy son, I am conscious that I also suffer from thy defects and
weaknesses.
THE AUTHOR
EUROPE, 1886
THE SOCIAL CANCER
CHAPTER I
A Social Gathering
On the last of October Don Santiago de los Santos, popularly known as
Capitan Tiago, gave a dinner. In spite of the fact that, contrary to
his usual custom, he had made the announcement only that afternoon,
it was already the sole topic of conversation in Binondo and adjacent
districts, and even in the Walled City, for at that time Capitan
Tiago was considered one of the most hospitable of men, and it was
well known that his house, like his country, shut its doors against
nothing except commerce and all new or bold ideas. Like an electric
shock the announcement ran through the world of parasites, bores,
and hangers-on, whom God in His infinite bounty creates and so kindly
multiplies in Manila. Some looked at once for shoe-polish, others
for buttons and cravats, but all were especially concerned about how
to greet the master of the house in the most familiar tone, in order
to create an atmosphere of ancient friendship or, if occasion should
arise, to excuse a late arrival.
This dinner was given in a house on Calle Anloague, and although we do
not remember the number we will describe it in such a way that it may
still be recognized, provided the earthquakes have not destroyed it. We
do not believe that its owner has had it torn down, for such labors are
generally entrusted to God or nature--which Powers hold the contracts
also for many of the projects of our government. It is a rather large
building, in the style of many in the country, and fronts upon the arm
of the Pasig which is known to some as the Binondo River, and which,
like all the streams in Manila, plays the varied rôles of bath, sewer,
laundry, fishery, means of transportation and communication, and even
drinking water if the Chinese water-carrier finds it convenient. It
is worthy of note that in the distance of nearly a mile this important
artery of the district, where traffic is most dense and movement most
deafening, can boast of only one wooden bridge, which is out of repair
on one side for six months and impassable on the other for the rest of
the year, so that during the hot season the ponies take advantage of
this permanent _status quo_ to jump off the bridge into the water,
to the great surprise of the abstracted mortal who may be dozing
inside the carriage or philosophizing upon the progress of the age.
The house of which we are speaking is somewhat low and not exactly
correct in all its lines: whether the architect who built it was
afflicted with poor eyesight or whether the earthquakes and typhoons
have twisted it out of shape, no one can say with certainty. A wide
staircase with green newels and carpeted steps leads from the tiled
entrance up to the main floor between rows of flower-pots set upon
pedestals of motley-colored and fantastically decorated Chinese
porcelain. Since there are neither porters nor servants who demand
invitation cards, we will go in, O you who read this, whether friend or
foe, if you are attracted by the strains of the orchestra, the lights,
or the suggestive rattling of dishes, knives, and forks, and if you
wish to see what such a gathering is like in the distant Pearl of
the Orient. Gladly, and for my own comfort, I should spare you this
description of the house, were it not of great importance, since we
mortals in general are very much like tortoises: we are esteemed and
classified according to our shells; in this and still other respects
the mortals of the Philippines in particular also resemble tortoises.
If we go up the stairs, we immediately find ourselves in a spacious
hallway, called there, for some unknown reason, the _caida_, which
tonight serves as the dining-room and at the same time affords a
place for the orchestra. In the center a large table profusely and
expensively decorated seems to beckon to the hanger-on with sweet
promises, while it threatens the bashful maiden, the simple _dalaga_,
with two mortal hours in the company of strangers whose language and
conversation usually have a very restricted and special character.
Contrasted with these terrestrial preparations are the motley paintings
on the walls representing religious matters, such as "Purgatory,"
"Hell," "The Last Judgment," "The Death of the Just," and "The Death
of the Sinner."
At the back of the room, fastened in a splendid and elegant framework,
in the Renaissance style, possibly by Arévalo, is a glass case in
which are seen the figures of two old women. The inscription on this
reads: "Our Lady of Peace and Prosperous Voyages, who is worshiped in
Antipolo, visiting in the disguise of a beggar the holy and renowned
Capitana Inez during her sickness." [15] While the work reveals little
taste or art, yet it possesses in compensation an extreme realism,
for to judge from the yellow and bluish tints of her face the sick
woman seems to be already a decaying corpse, and the glasses and other
objects, accompaniments of long illness, are so minutely reproduced
that even their contents may be distinguished. In looking at these
pictures, which excite the appetite and inspire gay bucolic ideas, one
may perhaps be led to think that the malicious host is well acquainted
with the characters of the majority of those who are to sit at his
table and that, in order to conceal his own way of thinking, he has
hung from the ceiling costly Chinese lanterns; bird-cages without
birds; red, green, and blue globes of frosted glass; faded air-plants;
and dried and inflated fishes, which they call _botetes_. The view is
closed on the side of the river by curious wooden arches, half Chinese
and half European, affording glimpses of a terrace with arbors and
bowers faintly lighted by paper lanterns of many colors.
In the sala, among massive mirrors and gleaming chandeliers, the
guests are assembled. Here, on a raised platform, stands a grand
piano of great price, which tonight has the additional virtue of not
being played upon. Here, hanging on the wall, is an oil-painting of a
handsome man in full dress, rigid, erect, straight as the tasseled cane
he holds in his stiff, ring-covered fingers--the whole seeming to say,
"Ahem! See how well dressed and how dignified I am!" The furnishings
of the room are elegant and perhaps uncomfortable and unhealthful,
since the master of the house would consider not so much the comfort
and health of his guests as his own ostentation, "A terrible thing
is dysentery," he would say to them, "but you are sitting in European
chairs and that is something you don't find every day."
This room is almost filled with people, the men being separated from
the women as in synagogues and Catholic churches. The women consist of
a number of Filipino and Spanish maidens, who, when they open their
mouths to yawn, instantly cover them with their fans and who murmur
only a few words to each other, any conversation ventured upon dying
out in monosyllables like the sounds heard in a house at night, sounds
made by the rats and lizards. Is it perhaps the different likenesses
of Our Lady hanging on the walls that force them to silence and a
religious demeanor or is it that the women here are an exception?
A cousin of Capitan Tiago, a sweet-faced old woman, who speaks Spanish
quite badly, is the only one receiving the ladies. To offer to the
Spanish ladies a plate of cigars and _buyos_, to extend her hand to
her countrywomen to be kissed, exactly as the friars do,--this is
the sum of her courtesy, her policy. The poor old lady soon became
bored, and taking advantage of the noise of a plate breaking, rushed
precipitately away, muttering, "_Jesús!_ Just wait, you rascals!" and
failed to reappear.
The men, for their part, are making more of a stir. Some cadets
in one corner are conversing in a lively manner but in low tones,
looking around now and then to point out different persons in the room
while they laugh more or less openly among themselves. In contrast,
two foreigners dressed in white are promenading silently from one end
of the room to the other with their hands crossed behind their backs,
like the bored passengers on the deck of a ship. All the interest and
the greatest animation proceed from a group composed of two priests,
two civilians, and a soldier who are seated around a small table on
which are seen bottles of wine and English biscuits.
The soldier, a tall, elderly lieutenant with an austere countenance--a
Duke of Alva straggling behind in the roster of the Civil Guard--talks
little, but in a harsh, curt way. One of the priests, a youthful
Dominican friar, handsome, graceful, polished as the gold-mounted
eyeglasses he wears, maintains a premature gravity. He is the curate
of Binondo and has been in former years a professor in the college of
San Juan de Letran, [16] where he enjoyed the reputation of being a
consummate dialectician, so much so that in the days when the sons
of Guzman [17] still dared to match themselves in subtleties with
laymen, the able disputant B. de Luna had never been able either to
catch or to confuse him, the distinctions made by Fray Sibyla leaving
his opponent in the situation of a fisherman who tries to catch eels
with a lasso. The Dominican says little, appearing to weigh his words.
Quite in contrast, the other priest, a Franciscan, talks much and
gesticulates more. In spite of the fact that his hair is beginning to
turn gray, he seems to be preserving well his robust constitution,
while his regular features, his rather disquieting glance, his wide
jaws and herculean frame give him the appearance of a Roman noble in
disguise and make us involuntarily recall one of those three monks of
whom Heine tells in his "Gods in Exile," who at the September equinox
in the Tyrol used to cross a lake at midnight and each time place in
the hand of the poor boatman a silver piece, cold as ice, which left
him full of terror. [18] But Fray Damaso is not so mysterious as they
were. He is full of merriment, and if the tone of his voice is rough
like that of a man who has never had occasion to correct himself and
who believes that whatever he says is holy and above improvement, still
his frank, merry laugh wipes out this disagreeable impression and even
obliges us to pardon his showing to the room bare feet and hairy legs
that would make the fortune of a Mendieta in the Quiapo fairs. [19]
One of the civilians is a very small man with a black beard, the only
thing notable about him being his nose, which, to judge from its size,
ought not to belong to him. The other is a rubicund youth, who seems
to have arrived but recently in the country. With him the Franciscan
is carrying on a lively discussion.
"You'll see," the friar was saying, "when you've been here a few
months you'll be convinced of what I say. It's one thing to govern
in Madrid and another to live in the Philippines."
"But--"
"I, for example," continued Fray Damaso, raising his voice still
higher to prevent the other from speaking, "I, for example, who can
look back over twenty-three years of bananas and _morisqueta_, know
whereof I speak. Don't come at me with theories and fine speeches,
for I know the Indian. [20] Mark well that the moment I arrived in the
country I was assigned to a toxin, small it is true, but especially
devoted to agriculture. I didn't understand Tagalog very well then,
but I was, soon confessing the women, and we understood one another
and they came to like me so well that three years later, when I was
transferred to another and larger town, made vacant by the death of
the native curate, all fell to weeping, they heaped gifts upon me,
they escorted me with music--"
"But that only goes to show--"
"Wait, wait! Don't be so hasty! My successor remained a shorter
time, and when he left he had more attendance, more tears, and more
music. Yet he had been more given to whipping and had raised the fees
in the parish to almost double."
"But you will allow me--"
"But that isn't all. I stayed in the town of San Diego twenty years
and it has been only a few months since I left it."
Here he showed signs of chagrin.
"Twenty years, no one can deny, are more than sufficient to get
acquainted with a town. San Diego has a population of six thousand
souls and I knew every inhabitant as well as if I had been his mother
and wet-nurse. I knew in which foot this one was lame, where the
shoe pinched that one, who was courting that girl, what affairs she
had had and with whom, who was the real father of the child, and so
on--for I was the confessor of every last one, and they took care not
to fail in their duty. Our host, Santiago, will tell you whether I am
speaking the truth, for he has a lot of land there and that was where
we first became friends. Well then, you may see what the Indian is:
when I left I was escorted by only a few old women and some of the
tertiary brethren--and that after I had been there twenty years!"
"But I don't see what that has to do with the abolition of the tobacco
monopoly," [21] ventured the rubicund youth, taking advantage of the
Franciscan's pausing to drink a glass of sherry.
Fray Damaso was so greatly surprised that he nearly let his glass
fall. He remained for a moment staring fixedly at the young man.
"What? How's that?" he was finally able to exclaim in great
wonderment. "Is it possible that you don't see it as clear as
day? Don't you see, my son, that all this proves plainly that the
reforms of the ministers are irrational?"
It was now the youth's turn to look perplexed. The lieutenant wrinkled
his eyebrows a little more and the small man nodded toward Fray Damaso
equivocally. The Dominican contented himself with almost turning his
back on the whole group.
"Do you really believe so?" the young man at length asked with great
seriousness, as he looked at the friar with curiosity.
"Do I believe so? As I believe the Gospel! The Indian is so indolent!"
"Ah, pardon me for interrupting you," said the young man, lowering
his voice and drawing his chair a little closer, "but you have said
something that awakens all my interest. Does this indolence actually,
naturally, exist among the natives or is there some truth in what a
foreign traveler says: that with this indolence we excuse our own,
as well as our backwardness and our colonial system. He referred to
other colonies whose inhabitants belong to the same race--"
"Bah, jealousy! Ask Señor Laruja, who also knows this country. Ask him
if there is any equal to the ignorance and indolence of the Indian."
"It's true," affirmed the little man, who was referred to as Señor
Laruja. "In no part of the world can you find any one more indolent
than the Indian, in no part of the world."
"Nor more vicious, nor more ungrateful!"
"Nor more unmannerly!"
The rubicund youth began to glance about nervously. "Gentlemen," he
whispered, "I believe that we are in the house of an Indian. Those
young ladies--"
"Bah, don't be so apprehensive! Santiago doesn't consider himself an
Indian--and besides, he's not here. And what if he were! These are
the nonsensical ideas of the newcomers. Let a few months pass and you
will change your opinion, after you have attended a lot of fiestas
and _bailúhan_, slept on cots, and eaten your fill of _tinola_."
"Ah, is this thing that you call _tinola_ a variety of lotus which
makes people--er--forgetful?"
"Nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Fray Damaso with a smile. "You're
getting absurd. _Tinola_ is a stew of chicken and squash. How long
has it been since you got here?"
"Four days," responded the youth, rather offended.
"Have you come as a government employee?"
"No, sir, I've come at my own expense to study the country."
"Man, what a rare bird!" exclaimed Fray Damaso, staring at him with
curiosity. "To come at one's own expense and for such foolishness! What
a wonder! When there are so many books! And with two fingerbreadths
of forehead! Many have written books as big as that! With two
fingerbreadths of forehead!"
The Dominican here brusquely broke in upon the conversation. "Did
your Reverence, Fray Damaso, say that you had been twenty years in
the town of San Diego and that you had left it? Wasn't your Reverence
satisfied with the town?"
At this question, which was put in a very natural and almost
negligent tone, Fray Damaso suddenly lost all his merriment and stopped
laughing. "No!" he grunted dryly, and let himself back heavily against
the back of his chair.
The Dominican went on in a still more indifferent tone. "It must be
painful to leave a town where one has been for twenty years and which
he knows as well as the clothes he wears. I certainly was sorry to
leave Kamiling and that after I had been there only a few months. But
my superiors did it for the good of the Orders for my own good."
Fray Damaso, for the first time that evening, seemed to be very
thoughtful. Suddenly he brought his fist down on the arm of his chair
and with a heavy breath exclaimed: "Either Religion is a fact or it
is not! That is, either the curates are free or they are not! The
country is going to ruin, it is lost!" And again he struck the arm
of his chair.
Everybody in the sala turned toward the group with astonished
looks. The Dominican raised his head to stare at the Franciscan from
under his glasses. The two foreigners paused a moment, stared with an
expression of mingled severity and reproof, then immediately continued
their promenade.
"He's in a bad humor because you haven't treated him with deference,"
murmured Señor Laruja into the ear of the rubicund youth.
"What does your Reverence mean? What's the trouble?" inquired the
Dominican and the lieutenant at the same time, but in different tones.
"That's why so many calamities come! The ruling powers support
heretics against the ministers of God!" continued the Franciscan,
raising his heavy fists.
"What do you mean?" again inquired the frowning lieutenant, half
rising from his chair.
"What do I mean?" repeated Fray Damaso, raising his voice and facing
the lieutenant. "I'll tell you what I mean. I, yes I, mean to say that
when a priest throws out of his cemetery the corpse of a heretic,
no one, not even the King himself, has any right to interfere and
much less to impose any punishment! But a little General--a little
General Calamity--"
"Padre, his Excellency is the Vice-Regal Patron!" shouted the soldier,
rising to his feet.
"Excellency! Vice-Regal Patron! What of that!" retorted the Franciscan,
also rising. "In other times he would have been dragged down a
staircase as the religious orders once did with the impious Governor
Bustamente. [22] Those were indeed the days of faith."
"I warn you that I can't permit this! His Excellency represents his
Majesty the King!"
"King or rook! What difference does that make? For us there is no
king other than the legitimate [23]--"
"Halt!" shouted the lieutenant in a threatening tone, as if he were
commanding his soldiers. "Either you withdraw what you have said or
tomorrow I will report it to his Excellency!"
"Go ahead--right now--go on!" was the sarcastic rejoinder of Fray
Damaso as he approached the officer with clenched fists. "Do you think
that because I wear the cloth, I'm afraid? Go now, while I can lend
you my carriage!"
The dispute was taking a ludicrous turn, but fortunately the
Dominican intervened. "Gentlemen," he began in an authoritative
tone and with the nasal twang that so well becomes the friars,
"you must not confuse things or seek for offenses where there are
none. We must distinguish in the words of Fray Damaso those of the
man from those of the priest. The latter, as such, _per se_, can
never give offense, because they spring from absolute truth, while
in those of the man there is a secondary distinction to be made:
those which he utters _ab irato_, those which he utters _ex ore_,
but not _in corde_, and those which he does utter _in corde_. These
last are the only ones that can really offend, and only according to
whether they preexisted as a motive _in mente_, or arose solely _per
accidens_ in the heat of the discussion, if there really exist--"
"But I, by _accidens_ and for my own part, understand his motives,
Padre Sibyla," broke in the old soldier, who saw himself about to
be entangled in so many distinctions that he feared lest he might
still be held to blame. "I understand the motives about which your
Reverence is going to make distinctions. During the absence of Padre
Damaso from San Diego, his coadjutor buried the body of an extremely
worthy individual--yes, sir, extremely worthy, for I had had dealings
with him many times and had been entertained in his house. What
if he never went to confession, what does that matter? Neither do
I go to confession! But to say that he committed suicide is a lie,
a slander! A man such as he was, who has a son upon whom he centers
his affection and hopes, a man who has faith in God, who recognizes
his duties to society, a just and honorable man, does not commit
suicide. This much I will say and will refrain from expressing the
rest of my thoughts here, so please your Reverence."
Then, turning his back on the Franciscan, he went on: "Now then, this
priest on his return to the town, after maltreating the poor coadjutor,
had the corpse dug up and taken away from the cemetery to be buried I
don't know where. The people of San Diego were cowardly enough not to
protest, although it is true that few knew of the outrage. The dead
man had no relatives there and his only son was in Europe. But his
Excellency learned of the affair and as he is an upright man asked
for some punishment--and Padre Damaso was transferred to a better
town. That's all there is to it. Now your Reverence can make your
distinctions."
So saying, he withdrew from the group.
"I'm sorry that I inadvertently brought up so delicate a subject,"
said Padre Sibyla sadly. "But, after all, if there has been a gain
in the change of towns--"
"How is there to be a gain? And what of all the things that
are lost in moving, the letters, and the--and everything that is
mislaid?" interrupted Fray Damaso, stammering in the vain effort to
control his anger.
Little by little the party resumed its former tranquillity. Other
guests had come in, among them a lame old Spaniard of mild and
inoffensive aspect leaning on the arm of an elderly Filipina,
who was resplendent in frizzes and paint and a European gown. The
group welcomed them heartily, and Doctor De Espadaña and his
señora, the _Doctora_ Doña Victorina, took their seats among our
acquaintances. Some newspaper reporters and shopkeepers greeted one
another and moved about aimlessly without knowing just what to do.
"But can you tell me, Señor Laruja, what kind of man our host
is?" inquired the rubicund youth. "I haven't been introduced to
him yet."
"They say that he has gone out. I haven't seen him either."
"There's no need of introductions here," volunteered Fray
Damaso. "Santiago is made of the right stuff."
"No, he's not the man who invented gunpowder," [24] added Laruja.
"You too, Señor Laruja," exclaimed Doña Victorina in mild reproach,
as she fanned herself. "How could the poor man invent gunpowder if,
as is said, the Chinese invented it centuries ago?"
"The Chinese! Are you crazy?" cried Fray Damaso. "Out with you! A
Franciscan, one of my Order, Fray What-do-you-call-him Savalls,
[25] invented it in the--ah the seventh century!"
"A Franciscan? Well, he must have been a missionary in China, that
Padre Savalls," replied the lady, who did not thus easily part from
her beliefs.
"Schwartz, [26] perhaps you mean, señora," said Fray Sibyla, without
looking at her.
"I don't know. Fray Damaso said a Franciscan and I was only repeating."
"Well, Savalls or Chevas, what does it matter? The difference of
a letter doesn't make him a Chinaman," replied the Franciscan in
bad humor.
"And in the fourteenth century, not the seventh," added the Dominican
in a tone of correction, as if to mortify the pride of the other friar.
"Well, neither does a century more or less make him a Dominican."
"Don't get angry, your Reverence," admonished Padre Sibyla,
smiling. "So much the better that he did invent it so as to save his
brethren the trouble."
"And did you say, Padre Sibyla, that it was in the fourteenth
century?" asked Doña Victorina with great interest. "Was that before
or after Christ?"
Fortunately for the individual questioned, two persons entered
the room.
CHAPTER II
Crisostomo Ibarra
It was not two beautiful and well-gowned young women that attracted
the attention of all, even including Fray Sibyla, nor was it his
Excellency the Captain-General with his staff, that the lieutenant
should start from his abstraction and take a couple of steps forward,
or that Fray Damaso should look as if turned to stone; it was simply
the original of the oil-painting leading by the hand a young man
dressed in deep mourning.
"Good evening, gentlemen! Good evening, Padre!" were the greetings
of Capitan Tiago as he kissed the hands of the priests, who forgot
to bestow upon him their benediction. The Dominican had taken off
his glasses to stare at the newly arrived youth, while Fray Damaso
was pale and unnaturally wide-eyed.
"I have the honor of presenting to you Don Crisostomo Ibarra, the son
of my deceased friend," went on Capitan Tiago. "The young gentleman
has just arrived from Europe and I went to meet him."
At the mention of the name exclamations were heard. The lieutenant
forgot to pay his respects to his host and approached the young man,
looking him over from head to foot. The young man himself at that
moment was exchanging the conventional greetings with all in the group,
nor did there seem to be any thing extraordinary about him except
his mourning garments in the center of that brilliantly lighted
room. Yet in spite of them his remarkable stature, his features,
and his movements breathed forth an air of healthy youthfulness in
which both body and mind had equally developed. There might have been
noticed in his frank, pleasant face some faint traces of Spanish
blood showing through a beautiful brown color, slightly flushed at
the cheeks as a result perhaps of his residence in cold countries.
"What!" he exclaimed with joyful surprise, "the curate of my native
town! Padre Damaso, my father's intimate friend!"
Every look in the room was directed toward the Franciscan, who made
no movement.
"Pardon me, perhaps I'm mistaken," added Ibarra, embarrassed.
"You are not mistaken," the friar was at last able to articulate in a
changed voice, "but your father was never an intimate friend of mine."
Ibarra slowly withdrew his extended hand, looking greatly surprised,
and turned to encounter the gloomy gaze of the lieutenant fixed on him.
"Young man, are you the son of Don Rafael Ibarra?" he asked.
The youth bowed. Fray Damaso partly rose in his chair and stared
fixedly at the lieutenant.
"Welcome back to your country! And may you be happier in it than your
father was!" exclaimed the officer in a trembling voice. "I knew him
well and can say that he was one of the worthiest and most honorable
men in the Philippines."
"Sir," replied Ibarra, deeply moved, "the praise you bestow upon my
father removes my doubts about the manner of his death, of which I,
his son, am yet ignorant."
The eyes of the old soldier filled with tears and turning away hastily
he withdrew. The young man thus found himself alone in the center
of the room. His host having disappeared, he saw no one who might
introduce him to the young ladies, many of whom were watching him
with interest. After a few moments of hesitation he started toward
them in a simple and natural manner.
"Allow me," he said, "to overstep the rules of strict etiquette. It
has been seven years since I have been in my own country and upon
returning to it I cannot suppress my admiration and refrain from
paying my respects to its most precious ornaments, the ladies."
But as none of them ventured a reply, he found himself obliged to
retire. He then turned toward a group of men who, upon seeing him
approach, arranged themselves in a semicircle.
"Gentlemen," he addressed them, "it is a custom in Germany,
when a stranger finds himself at a function and there is no one to
introduce him to those present, that he give his name and so introduce
himself. Allow me to adopt this usage here, not to introduce foreign
customs when our own are so beautiful, but because I find myself driven
to it by necessity. I have already paid my respects to the skies and
to the ladies of my native land; now I wish to greet its citizens,
my fellow-countrymen. Gentlemen, my name is Juan Crisostomo Ibarra
y Magsalin."
The others gave their names, more or less obscure, and unimportant
here.
"My name is A----," said one youth dryly, as he made a slight bow.
"Then I have the honor of addressing the poet whose works have done
so much to keep up my enthusiasm for my native land. It is said that
you do not write any more, but I could not learn the reason."
"The reason? Because one does not seek inspiration in order to debase
himself and lie. One writer has been imprisoned for having put a
very obvious truth into verse. They may have called me a poet but
they sha'n't call me a fool."
"And may I enquire what that truth was?"
"He said that the lion's son is also a lion. He came very near to being
exiled for it," replied the strange youth, moving away from the group.
A man with a smiling face, dressed in the fashion of the natives
of the country, with diamond studs in his shirt-bosom, came up at
that moment almost running. He went directly to Ibarra and grasped
his hand, saying, "Señor Ibarra, I've been eager to make your
acquaintance. Capitan Tiago is a friend of mine and I knew your
respected father. I am known as Capitan Tinong and live in Tondo,
where you will always be welcome. I hope that you will honor me with a
visit. Come and dine with us tomorrow." He smiled and rubbed his hands.
"Thank you," replied Ibarra, warmly, charmed with such amiability,
"but tomorrow morning I must leave for San Diego."
"How unfortunate! Then it will be on your return."
"Dinner is served!" announced a waiter from the café La Campana, and
the guests began to file out toward the table, the women, especially
the Filipinas, with great hesitation.
CHAPTER III
The Dinner
Jele, jele, bago quiere. [27]
Fray Sibyla seemed to be very content as he moved along tranquilly with
the look of disdain no longer playing about his thin, refined lips. He
even condescended to speak to the lame doctor, De Espadaña, who
answered in monosyllables only, as he was somewhat of a stutterer. The
Franciscan was in a frightful humor, kicking at the chairs and even
elbowing a cadet out of his way. The lieutenant was grave while the
others talked vivaciously, praising the magnificence of the table. Doña
Victorina, however, was just turning up her nose in disdain when she
suddenly became as furious as a trampled serpent--the lieutenant had
stepped on the train of her gown.
"Haven't you any eyes?" she demanded.
"Yes, señora, two better than yours, but the fact is that I was
admiring your frizzes," retorted the rather ungallant soldier as he
moved away from her.
As if from instinct the two friars both started toward the head of the
table, perhaps from habit, and then, as might have been expected, the
same thing happened that occurs with the competitors for a university
position, who openly exalt the qualifications and superiority of their
opponents, later giving to understand that just the contrary was meant,
and who murmur and grumble when they do not receive the appointment.
"For you, Fray Damaso."
"For you, Fray Sibyla."
"An older friend of the family--confessor of the deceased lady--age,
dignity, and authority--"
"Not so very old, either! On the other hand, you are the curate of
the district," replied Fray Damaso sourly, without taking his hand
from the back of the chair.
"Since you command it, I obey," concluded Fray Sibyla, disposing
himself to take the seat.
"I don't command it!" protested the Franciscan. "I don't command it!"
Fray Sibyla was about to seat himself without paying any more attention
to these protests when his eyes happened to encounter those of the
lieutenant. According to clerical opinion in the Philippines, the
highest secular official is inferior to a friar-cook: _cedant arma
togae_, said Cicero in the Senate--_cedant arma cottae_, say the
friars in the Philippines. [28]
But Fray Sibyla was a well-bred person, so he said, "Lieutenant, here
we are in the world and not in the church. The seat of honor belongs
to you." To judge from the tone of his voice, however, even in the
world it really did belong to him, and the lieutenant, either to keep
out of trouble or to avoid sitting between two friars, curtly declined.
None of the claimants had given a thought to their host. Ibarra
noticed him watching the scene with a smile of satisfaction.
"How's this, Don Santiago, aren't you going to sit down with us?"
But all the seats were occupied; Lucullus was not to sup in the house
of Lucullus.
"Sit still, don't get up!" said Capitan Tiago, placing his hand on
the young man's shoulder. "This fiesta is for the special purpose
of giving thanks to the Virgin for your safe arrival. _Oy!_ Bring
on the _tinola!_ I ordered _tinola_ as you doubtless have not tasted
any for so long a time."
A large steaming tureen was brought in. The Dominican, after muttering
the benedicite, to which scarcely any one knew how to respond, began
to serve the contents. But whether from carelessness or other cause,
Padre Damaso received a plate in which a bare neck and a tough wing
of chicken floated about in a large quantity of soup amid lumps of
squash, while the others were eating legs and breasts, especially
Ibarra, to whose lot fell the second joints. Observing all this, the
Franciscan mashed up some pieces of squash, barely tasted the soup,
dropped his spoon noisily, and roughly pushed his plate away. The
Dominican was very busy talking to the rubicund youth.
"How long have you been away from the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra.
"Almost seven years."
"Then you have probably forgotten all about it."
"Quite the contrary. Even if my country does seem to have forgotten
me, I have always thought about it."
"How do you mean that it has forgotten you?" inquired the rubicund
youth.
"I mean that it has been a year since I have received any news from
here, so that I find myself a stranger who does not yet know how and
when his father died."
This statement drew a sudden exclamation from the lieutenant.
"And where were you that you didn't telegraph?" asked Doña
Victorina. "When we were married we telegraphed to the Peñinsula." [29]
"Señora, for the past two years I have been in the northern part of
Europe, in Germany and Russian Poland."
Doctor De Espadaña, who until now had not ventured upon any
conversation, thought this a good opportunity to say something. "I--I
knew in S-spain a P-pole from W-warsaw, c-called S-stadtnitzki, if
I r-remember c-correctly. P-perhaps you s-saw him?" he asked timidly
and almost blushingly.
"It's very likely," answered Ibarra in a friendly manner, "but just
at this moment I don't recall him."
"B-but you c-couldn't have c-confused him with any one else," went
on the Doctor, taking courage. "He was r-ruddy as gold and t-talked
Spanish very b-badly."
"Those are good clues, but unfortunately while there I talked Spanish
only in a few consulates."
"How then did you get along?" asked the wondering Doña Victorina.
"The language of the country served my needs, madam."
"Do you also speak English?" inquired the Dominican, who had been in
Hongkong, and who was a master of pidgin-English, that adulteration
of Shakespeare's tongue used by the sons of the Celestial Empire.
"I stayed in England a year among people who talked nothing but
English."
"Which country of Europe pleased you the most?" asked the rubicund
youth.
"After Spain, my second fatherland, any country of free Europe."
"And you who seem to have traveled so much, tell us what do you
consider the most notable thing that you have seen?" inquired Laruja.
Ibarra appeared to reflect. "Notable--in what way?"
"For example, in regard to the life of the people--the social,
political, religious life--in general, in its essential features--as
a whole."
Ibarra paused thoughtfully before replying. "Frankly, I like everything
in those people, setting aside the national pride of each one. But
before visiting a country, I tried to familiarize myself with its
history, its Exodus, if I may so speak, and afterwards I found
everything quite natural. I have observed that the prosperity or
misery of each people is in direct proportion to its liberties or its
prejudices and, accordingly, to the sacrifices or the selfishness of
its forefathers."
"And haven't you observed anything more than that?" broke in the
Franciscan with a sneer. Since the beginning of the dinner he had not
uttered a single word, his whole attention having been taking up,
no doubt, with the food. "It wasn't worth while to squander your
fortune to learn so trifling a thing. Any schoolboy knows that."
Ibarra was placed in an embarrassing position, and the rest looked
from one to the other as if fearing a disagreeable scene. He was
about to say, "The dinner is nearly over and his Reverence is now
satiated," but restrained himself and merely remarked to the others,
"Gentlemen, don't be surprised at the familiarity with which our former
curate treats me. He treated me so when I was a child, and the years
seem to make no difference in his Reverence. I appreciate it, too,
because it recalls the days when his Reverence visited our home and
honored my father's table."
The Dominican glanced furtively at the Franciscan, who was trembling
visibly. Ibarra continued as he rose from the table: "You will now
permit me to retire, since, as I have just arrived and must go away
tomorrow morning, there remain some important business matters for me
to attend to. The principal part of the dinner is over and I drink
but little wine and seldom touch cordials. Gentlemen, all for Spain
and the Philippines!" Saying this, he drained his glass, which he had
not before touched. The old lieutenant silently followed his example.
"Don't go!" whispered Capitan Tiago. "Maria Clara will be here. Isabel
has gone to get her. The new curate of your town, who is a saint,
is also coming."
"I'll call tomorrow before starting. I've a very important visit to
make now." With this he went away.
Meanwhile the Franciscan had recovered himself. "Do you see?" he
said to the rubicund youth, at the same time flourishing his dessert
spoon. "That comes from pride. They can't stand to have the curate
correct them. They even think that they are respectable persons. It's
the evil result of sending young men to Europe. The government ought
to prohibit it."
"And how about the lieutenant?" Doña Victorina chimed in upon the
Franciscan, "he didn't get the frown off his face the whole evening. He
did well to leave us so old and still only a lieutenant!" The lady
could not forget the allusion to her frizzes and the trampled ruffles
of her gown.
That night the rubicund youth wrote down, among other things, the
following title for a chapter in his _Colonial Studies_: "Concerning
the manner in which the neck and wing of a chicken in a friar's plate
of soup may disturb the merriment of a feast." Among his notes there
appeared these observations: "In the Philippines the most unnecessary
person at a dinner is he who gives it, for they are quite capable of
beginning by throwing the host into the street and then everything
will go on smoothly. Under present conditions it would perhaps be a
good thing not to allow the Filipinos to leave the country, and even
not to teach them to read."
CHAPTER IV
Heretic and Filibuster
Ibarra stood undecided for a moment. The night breeze, which during
those months blows cool enough in Manila, seemed to drive from his
forehead the light cloud that had darkened it. He took off his hat and
drew a deep breath. Carriages flashed by, public rigs moved along at a
sleepy pace, pedestrians of many nationalities were passing. He walked
along at that irregular pace which indicates thoughtful abstraction
or freedom from care, directing his steps toward Binondo Plaza and
looking about him as if to recall the place. There were the same
streets and the identical houses with their white and blue walls,
whitewashed, or frescoed in bad imitation of granite; the church
continued to show its illuminated clock face; there were the same
Chinese shops with their soiled curtains and their iron gratings, in
one of which was a bar that he, in imitation of the street urchins of
Manila, had twisted one night; it was still unstraightened. "How slowly
everything moves," he murmured as he turned into Calle Sacristia. The
ice-cream venders were repeating the same shrill cry, "_Sorbeteee!_"
while the smoky lamps still lighted the identical Chinese stands and
those of the old women who sold candy and fruit.
"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "There's the same Chinese who was here
seven years ago, and that old woman--the very same! It might be said
that tonight I've dreamed of a seven years' journey in Europe. Good
heavens, that pavement is still in the same unrepaired condition
as when I left!" True it was that the stones of the sidewalk on the
corner of San Jacinto and Sacristia were still loose.
While he was meditating upon this marvel of the city's stability in
a country where everything is so unstable, a hand was placed lightly
on his shoulder. He raised his head to see the old lieutenant gazing
at him with something like a smile in place of the hard expression
and the frown which usually characterized him.
"Young man, be careful! Learn from your father!" was the abrupt
greeting of the old soldier.
"Pardon me, but you seem to have thought a great deal of my father. Can
you tell me how he died?" asked Ibarra, staring at him.
"What! Don't you know about it?" asked the officer.
"I asked Don Santiago about it, but he wouldn't promise to tell me
until tomorrow. Perhaps you know?"
"I should say I do, as does everybody else. He died in prison!"
The young man stepped backward a pace and gazed searchingly at the
lieutenant. "In prison? Who died in prison?"
"Your father, man, since he was in confinement," was the somewhat
surprised answer.
"My father--in prison--confined in a prison? What are you talking
about? Do you know who my father was? Are you--?" demanded the young
man, seizing the officer's arm.
"I rather think that I'm not mistaken. He was Don Rafael Ibarra."
"Yes, Don Rafael Ibarra," echoed the youth weakly.
"Well, I thought you knew about it," muttered the soldier in a
tone of compassion as he saw what was passing in Ibarra's mind. "I
supposed that you--but be brave! Here one cannot be honest and keep
out of jail."
"I must believe that you are not joking with me," replied Ibarra in
a weak voice, after a few moments' silence. "Can you tell me why he
was in prison?"
The old man seemed to be perplexed. "It's strange to me that your
family affairs were not made known to you."
"His last letter, a year ago, said that I should not be uneasy if
he did not write, as he was very busy. He charged me to continue my
studies and--sent me his blessing."
"Then he wrote that letter to you just before he died. It will soon
be a year since we buried him."
"But why was my father a prisoner?"
"For a very honorable reason. But come with me to the barracks and
I'll tell you as we go along. Take my arm."
They moved along for some time in silence. The elder seemed to be in
deep thought and to be seeking inspiration from his goatee, which he
stroked continually.
"As you well know," he began, "your father was the richest man in
the province, and while many loved and respected him, there were
also some who envied and hated him. We Spaniards who come to the
Philippines are unfortunately not all we ought to be. I say this as
much on account of one of your ancestors as on account of your father's
enemies. The continual changes, the corruption in the higher circles,
the favoritism, the low cost and the shortness of the journey, are to
blame for it all. The worst characters of the Peninsula come here,
and even if a good man does come, the country soon ruins him. So it
was that your father had a number of enemies among the curates and
other Spaniards."
Here he hesitated for a while. "Some months after your departure the
troubles with Padre Damaso began, but I am unable to explain the real
cause of them. Fray Damaso accused him of not coming to confession,
although he had not done so formerly and they had nevertheless been
good friends, as you may still remember. Moreover, Don Rafael was a
very upright man, more so than many of those who regularly attend
confession and than the confessors themselves. He had framed for
himself a rigid morality and often said to me, when he talked of
these troubles, 'Señor Guevara, do you believe that God will pardon
any crime, a murder for instance, solely by a man's telling it to a
priest--a man after all and one whose duty it is to keep quiet about
it--by his fearing that he will roast in hell as a penance--by being
cowardly and certainly shameless into the bargain? I have another
conception of God,' he used to say, 'for in my opinion one evil does
not correct another, nor is a crime to be expiated by vain lamentings
or by giving alms to the Church. Take this example: if I have killed
the father of a family, if I have made of a woman a sorrowing widow
and destitute orphans of some happy children, have I satisfied eternal
Justice by letting myself be hanged, or by entrusting my secret to one
who is obliged to guard it for me, or by giving alms to priests who
are least in need of them, or by buying indulgences and lamenting
night and day? What of the widow and the orphans? My conscience
tells me that I should try to take the place of him whom I killed,
that I should dedicate my whole life to the welfare of the family
whose misfortunes I caused. But even so, who can replace the love of
a husband and a father?' Thus your father reasoned and by this strict
standard of conduct regulated all his actions, so that it can be said
that he never injured anybody. On the contrary, he endeavored by his
good deeds to wipe out some injustices which he said your ancestors
had committed. But to get back to his troubles with the curate--these
took on a serious aspect. Padre Damaso denounced him from the pulpit,
and that he did not expressly name him was a miracle, since anything
might have been expected of such a character. I foresaw that sooner
or later the affair would have serious results."
Again the old lieutenant paused. "There happened to be wandering about
the province an ex-artilleryman who has been discharged from the army
on account of his stupidity and ignorance. As the man had to live and
he was not permitted to engage in manual labor, which would injure
our prestige, he somehow or other obtained a position as collector of
the tax on vehicles. The poor devil had no education at all, a fact of
which the natives soon became aware, as it was a marvel for them to see
a Spaniard who didn't know how to read and write. Every one ridiculed
him and the payment of the tax was the occasion of broad smiles. He
knew that he was an object of ridicule and this tended to sour his
disposition even more, rough and bad as it had formerly been. They
would purposely hand him the papers upside down to see his efforts
to read them, and wherever he found a blank space he would scribble
a lot of pothooks which rather fitly passed for his signature. The
natives mocked while they paid him. He swallowed his pride and made
the collections, but was in such a state of mind that he had no respect
for any one. He even came to have some hard words with your father.
"One day it happened that he was in a shop turning a document over and
over in the effort to get it straight when a schoolboy began to make
signs to his companions and to point laughingly at the collector with
his finger. The fellow heard the laughter and saw the joke reflected
in the solemn faces of the bystanders. He lost his patience and,
turning quickly, started to chase the boys, who ran away shouting _ba,
be, bi, bo, bu_. [30] Blind with rage and unable to catch them, he
threw his cane and struck one of the boys on the head, knocking him
down. He ran up and began to kick the fallen boy, and none of those
who had been laughing had the courage to interfere. Unfortunately,
your father happened to come along just at that time. He ran forward
indignantly, caught the collector by the arm, and reprimanded him
severely. The artilleryman, who was no doubt beside himself with rage,
raised his hand, but your father was too quick for him, and with the
strength of a descendant of the Basques--some say that he struck him,
others that he merely pushed him, but at any rate the man staggered
and fell a little way off, striking his head against a stone. Don
Rafael quietly picked the wounded boy up and carried him to the town
hall. The artilleryman bled freely from the mouth and died a few
moments later without recovering consciousness.
"As was to be expected, the authorities intervened and arrested
your father. All his hidden enemies at once rose up and false
accusations came from all sides. He was accused of being a heretic
and a filibuster. To be a heretic is a great danger anywhere,
but especially so at that time when the province was governed by an
alcalde who made a great show of his piety, who with his servants used
to recite his rosary in the church in a loud voice, perhaps that all
might hear and pray with him. But to be a filibuster is worse than
to be a heretic and to kill three or four tax-collectors who know
how to read, write, and attend to business. Every one abandoned him,
and his books and papers were seized. He was accused of subscribing to
_El Correo de Ultramar_, and to newspapers from Madrid, of having sent
you to Germany, of having in his possession letters and a photograph
of a priest who had been legally executed, and I don't know what
not. Everything served as an accusation, even the fact that he, a
descendant of Peninsulars, wore a camisa. Had it been any one but
your father, it is likely that he would soon have been set free,
as there was a physician who ascribed the death of the unfortunate
collector to a hemorrhage. But his wealth, his confidence in the law,
and his hatred of everything that was not legal and just, wrought his
undoing. In spite of my repugnance to asking for mercy from any one,
I applied personally to the Captain-General--the predecessor of our
present one--and urged upon him that there could not be anything of
the filibuster about a man who took up with all the Spaniards, even
the poor emigrants, and gave them food and shelter, and in whose
veins yet flowed the generous blood of Spain. It was in vain that
I pledged my life and swore by my poverty and my military honor. I
succeeded only in being coldly listened to and roughly sent away with
the epithet of _chiflado_." [31]
The old man paused to take a deep breath, and after noticing the
silence of his companion, who was listening with averted face,
continued: "At your father's request I prepared the defense in the
case. I went first to the celebrated Filipino lawyer, young A----,
but he refused to take the case. 'I should lose it,' he told me,
'and my defending him would furnish the motive for another charge
against him and perhaps one against me. Go to Señor M----, who is a
forceful and fluent speaker and a Peninsular of great influence.' I
did so, and the noted lawyer took charge of the case, and conducted it
with mastery and brilliance. But your father's enemies were numerous,
some of them hidden and unknown. False witnesses abounded, and their
calumnies, which under other circumstances would have melted away
before a sarcastic phrase from the defense, here assumed shape and
substance. If the lawyer succeeded in destroying the force of their
testimony by making them contradict each other and even perjure
themselves, new charges were at once preferred. They accused him of
having illegally taken possession of a great deal of land and demanded
damages. They said that he maintained relations with the tulisanes in
order that his crops and animals might not be molested by them. At
last the case became so confused that at the end of a year no one
understood it. The alcalde had to leave and there came in his place
one who had the reputation of being honest, but unfortunately he stayed
only a few months, and his successor was too fond of good horses.
"The sufferings, the worries, the hard life in the prison, or the pain
of seeing so much ingratitude, broke your father's iron constitution
and he fell ill with that malady which only the tomb can cure. When
the case was almost finished and he was about to be acquitted of the
charge of being an enemy of the fatherland and of being the murderer
of the tax-collector, he died in the prison with no one at his side. I
arrived just in time to see him breathe his last."
The old lieutenant became silent, but still Ibarra said nothing. They
had arrived meanwhile at the door of the barracks, so the soldier
stopped and said, as he grasped the youth's hand, "Young man, for
details ask Capitan Tiago. Now, good night, as I must return to duty
and see that all's well."
Silently, but with great feeling, Ibarra shook the lieutenant's bony
hand and followed him with his eyes until he disappeared. Then he
turned slowly and signaled to a passing carriage. "To Lala's Hotel,"
was the direction he gave in a scarcely audible voice.
"This fellow must have just got out of jail," thought the cochero as
he whipped up his horses.
CHAPTER V
A Star in a Dark Night
Ibarra went to his room, which overlooked the river, and dropping
into a chair gazed out into the vast expanse of the heavens spread
before him through the open window. The house on the opposite bank
was profusely lighted, and gay strains of music, largely from stringed
instruments, were borne across the river even to his room.
If the young man had been less preoccupied, if he had had more
curiosity and had cared to see with his opera glasses what was going
on in that atmosphere of light, he would have been charmed with one of
those magical and fantastic spectacles, the like of which is sometimes
seen in the great theaters of Europe. To the subdued strains of the
orchestra there seems to appear in the midst of a shower of light, a
cascade of gold and diamonds in an Oriental setting, a deity wrapped
in misty gauze, a sylph enveloped in a luminous halo, who moves
forward apparently without touching the floor. In her presence the
flowers bloom, the dance awakens, the music bursts forth, and troops
of devils, nymphs, satyrs, demons, angels, shepherds and shepherdesses,
dance, shake their tambourines, and whirl about in rhythmic evolutions,
each one placing some tribute at the feet of the goddess. Ibarra would
have seen a beautiful and graceful maiden, clothed in the picturesque
garments of the daughters of the Philippines, standing in the center
Of a semicircle made up of every class of people, Chinese, Spaniards,
Filipinos, soldiers, curates, old men and young, all gesticulating
and moving about in a lively manner. Padre Damaso stood at the side
of the beauty, smiling like one especially blessed. Fray Sibyla--yes,
Fray Sibyla himself--was talking to her. Doña Victorina was arranging
in the magnificent hair of the maiden a string of pearls and diamonds
which threw out all the beautiful tints of the rainbow. She was white,
perhaps too much so, and whenever she raised her downcast eyes there
shone forth a spotless soul. When she smiled so as to show her small
white teeth the beholder realized that the rose is only a flower
and ivory but the elephant's tusk. From out the filmy piña draperies
around her white and shapely neck there blinked, as the Tagalogs say,
the bright eyes of a collar of diamonds. One man only in all the crowd
seemed insensible to her radiant influence--a young Franciscan, thin,
wasted, and pale, who watched her from a distance, motionless as a
statue and scarcely breathing.
But Ibarra saw nothing of all this--his eyes were fixed on other
things. A small space was enclosed by four bare and grimy walls, in
one of which was an iron grating. On the filthy and loathsome floor
was a mat upon which an old man lay alone in the throes of death,
an old man breathing with difficulty and turning his head from side
to side as amid his tears he uttered a name. The old man was alone,
but from time to time a groan or the rattle of a chain was heard on
the other side of the wall. Far away there was a merry feast, almost
an orgy; a youth was laughing, shouting, and pouring wine upon the
flowers amid the applause and drunken laughter of his companions. The
old man had the features of _his_ father, the youth was himself, and
the name that the old man uttered with tears was _his own_ name! This
was what the wretched young man saw before him. The lights in the
house opposite were extinguished, the music and the noises ceased,
but Ibarra still heard the anguished cry of his father calling upon
his son in the hour of his death.
Silence had now blown its hollow breath over the city, and all
things seemed to sleep in the embrace of nothingness. The cock-crow
alternated with the strokes of the clocks in the church towers and
the mournful cries of the weary sentinels. A waning moon began to
appear, and everything seemed to be at rest; even Ibarra himself,
worn out by his sad thoughts or by his journey, now slept.
Only the young Franciscan whom we saw not so long ago standing
motionless and silent in the midst of the gaiety of the ballroom slept
not, but kept vigil. In his cell, with his elbow upon the window
sill and his pale, worn cheek resting on the palm of his hand, he
was gazing silently into the distance where a bright star glittered
in the dark sky. The star paled and disappeared, the dim light of the
waning moon faded, but the friar did not move from his place--he was
gazing out over the field of Bagumbayan and the sleeping sea at the
far horizon wrapped in the morning mist.
CHAPTER VI
Capitan Tiago
Thy will be done on earth.
While our characters are deep in slumber or busy with their breakfasts,
let us turn our attention to Capitan Tiago. We have never had the
honor of being his guest, so it is neither our right nor our duty to
pass him by slightingly, even under the stress of important events.
Low in stature, with a clear complexion, a corpulent figure and a
full face, thanks to the liberal supply of fat which according to his
admirers was the gift of Heaven and which his enemies averred was the
blood of the poor, Capitan Tiago appeared to be younger than he really
was; he might have been thought between thirty and thirty-five years of
age. At the time of our story his countenance always wore a sanctified
look; his little round head, covered with ebony-black hair cut long in
front and short behind, was reputed to contain many things of weight;
his eyes, small but with no Chinese slant, never varied in expression;
his nose was slender and not at all inclined to flatness; and if his
mouth had not been disfigured by the immoderate use of tobacco and
buyo, which, when chewed and gathered in one cheek, marred the symmetry
of his features, we would say that he might properly have considered
himself a handsome man and have passed for such. Yet in spite of this
bad habit he kept marvelously white both his natural teeth and also
the two which the dentist furnished him at twelve pesos each.
He was considered one of the richest landlords in Binondo and a
planter of some importance by reason of his estates in Pampanga and
Laguna, principally in the town of San Diego, the income from which
increased with each year. San Diego, on account of its agreeable
baths, its famous cockpit, and his cherished memories of the place,
was his favorite town, so that he spent at least two months of the year
there. His holdings of real estate in the city were large, and it is
superfluous to state that the opium monopoly controlled by him and a
Chinese brought in large profits. They also had the lucrative contract
of feeding the prisoners in Bilibid and furnished zacate to many of the
stateliest establishments in Manila u through the medium of contracts,
of course. Standing well with all the authorities, clever, cunning,
and even bold in speculating upon the wants of others, he was the only
formidable rival of a certain Perez in the matter of the farming-out of
revenues and the sale of offices and appointments, which the Philippine
government always confides to private persons. Thus, at the time of
the events here narrated, Capitan Tiago was a happy man in so far as
it is possible for a narrow-brained individual to be happy in such
a land: he was rich, and at peace with God, the government, and men.
That he was at peace with God was beyond doubt,--almost like religion
itself. There is no need to be on bad terms with the good God when one
is prosperous on earth, when one has never had any direct dealings with
Him and has never lent Him any money. Capitan Tiago himself had never
offered any prayers to Him, even in his greatest difficulties, for
he was rich and his gold prayed for him. For masses and supplications
high and powerful priests had been created; for novenas and rosaries
God in His infinite bounty had created the poor for the service of
the rich--the poor who for a peso could be secured to recite sixteen
mysteries and to read all the sacred books, even the Hebrew Bible, for
a little extra. If at any time in the midst of pressing difficulties
he needed celestial aid and had not at hand even a red Chinese taper,
he would call upon his most adored saints, promising them many things
for the purpose of putting them under obligation to him and ultimately
convincing them of the righteousness of his desires.
The saint to whom he promised the most, and whose promises he was
the most faithful in fulfilling, was the Virgin of Antipolo, Our
Lady of Peace and Prosperous Voyages. [32] With many of the lesser
saints he was not very punctual or even decent; and sometimes,
after having his petitions granted, he thought no more about them,
though of course after such treatment he did not bother them again,
when occasion arose. Capitan Tiago knew that the calendar was full of
idle saints who perhaps had nothing wherewith to occupy their time up
there in heaven. Furthermore, to the Virgin of Antipolo he ascribed
greater power and efficiency than to all the other Virgins combined,
whether they carried silver canes, naked or richly clothed images of
the Christ Child, scapularies, rosaries, or girdles. Perhaps this
reverence was owing to the fact that she was a very strict Lady,
watchful of her name, and, according to the senior sacristan of
Antipolo, an enemy of photography. When she was angered she turned
black as ebony, while the other Virgins were softer of heart and more
indulgent. It is a well-known fact that some minds love an absolute
monarch rather than a constitutional one, as witness Louis XIV and
Louis XVI, Philip II and Amadeo I. This fact perhaps explains why
infidel Chinese and even Spaniards may be seen kneeling in the famous
sanctuary; what is not explained is why the priests run away with
the money of the terrible Image, go to America, and get married there.
In the sala of Capitan Tiago's house, that door, hidden by a silk
curtain leads to a small chapel or oratory such as must be lacking
in no Filipino home. There were placed his household gods--and we
say "gods" because he was inclined to polytheism rather than to
monotheism, which he had never come to understand. There could be
seen images of the Holy Family with busts and extremities of ivory,
glass eyes, long eyelashes, and curly blond hair--masterpieces of
Santa Cruz sculpture. Paintings in oil by artists of Paco and Ermita
[33] represented martyrdoms of saints and miracles of the Virgin;
St. Lucy gazing at the sky and carrying in a plate an extra pair
of eyes with lashes and eyebrows, such as are seen painted in the
triangle of the Trinity or on Egyptian tombs; St. Pascual Bailon;
St. Anthony of Padua in a _guingón_ habit looking with tears upon a
Christ Child dressed as a Captain-General with the three-cornered hat,
sword, and boots, as in the children's ball at Madrid that character
is represented--which signified for Capitan Tiago that while God
might include in His omnipotence the power of a Captain-General of
the Philippines, the Franciscans would nevertheless play with Him
as with a doll. There, might also be seen a St. Anthony the Abbot
with a hog by his side, a hog that for the worthy Capitan was as
miraculous as the saint himself, for which reason he never dared to
refer to it as the _hog_, but as the _creature of holy St. Anthony_;
a St. Francis of Assisi in a coffee-colored robe and with seven
wings, placed over a St. Vincent who had only two but in compensation
carried a trumpet; a St. Peter the Martyr with his head split open
by the talibon of an evil-doer and held fast by a kneeling infidel,
side by side with another St. Peter cutting off the ear of a Moro,
Malchus [34] no doubt, who was gnawing his lips and writhing with
pain, while a fighting-cock on a doric column crowed and flapped his
wings--from all of which Capitan Tiago deduced that in order to be
a saint it was just as well to smite as to be smitten.
Who could enumerate that army of images and recount the virtues and
perfections that were treasured there! A whole chapter would hardly
suffice. Yet we must not pass over in silence a beautiful St. Michael
of painted and gilded wood almost four feet high. The Archangel
is biting his lower lip and with flashing eyes, frowning forehead,
and rosy cheeks is grasping a Greek shield and brandishing in his
right hand a Sulu kris, ready, as would appear from his attitude and
expression, to smite a worshiper or any one else who might approach,
rather than the horned and tailed devil that had his teeth set in
his girlish leg.
Capitan Tiago never went near this image from fear of a miracle. Had
not other images, even those more rudely carved ones that issue from
the carpenter shops of Paete, [35] many times come to life for the
confusion and punishment of incredulous sinners? It is a well-known
fact that a certain image of Christ in Spain, when invoked as a witness
of promises of love, had assented with a movement of the head in the
presence of the judge, and that another such image had reached out its
right arm to embrace St. Lutgarda. And furthermore, had he not himself
read a booklet recently published about a mimic sermon preached by an
image of St. Dominic in Soriano? True, the saint had not said a single
word, but from his movements it was inferred, at any rate the author of
the booklet inferred, that he was announcing the end of the world. [36]
Was it not reported, too, that the Virgin of Luta in the town of Lipa
had one cheek swollen larger than the other and that there was mud
on the borders of her gown? Does not this prove mathematically that
the holy images also walk about without holding up their skirts and
that they even suffer from the toothache, perhaps for our sake? Had
he not seen with his own eyes, during the regular Good-Friday sermon,
all the images of Christ move and bow their heads thrice in unison,
thereby calling forth wails and cries from the women and other
sensitive souls destined for Heaven? More? We ourselves have seen
the preacher show to the congregation at the moment of the descent
from the cross a handkerchief stained with blood, and were ourselves
on the point of weeping piously, when, to the sorrow of our soul, a
sacristan assured us that it was all a joke, that the blood was that
of a chicken which had been roasted and eaten on the spot in spite
of the fact that it was Good Friday--and the sacristan was fat! So
Capitan Tiago, even though he was a prudent and pious individual,
took care not to approach the kris of St. Michael. "Let's take no
chances," he would say to himself, "I know that he's an archangel,
but I don't trust him, no, I don't trust him."
Not a year passed without his joining with an orchestra in the
pilgrimage to the wealthy shrine of Antipolo. He paid for two
thanksgiving masses of the many that make up the three novenas,
and also for the days when there are no novenas, and washed himself
afterwards in the famous _bátis_, or pool, where the sacred Image
herself had bathed. Her votaries can even yet discern the tracks of
her feet and the traces of her locks in the hard rock, where she dried
them, resembling exactly those made by any woman who uses coconut-oil,
and just as if her hair had been steel or diamonds and she had weighed
a thousand tons. We should like to see the terrible Image once shake
her sacred hair in the eyes of those credulous persons and put her
foot upon their tongues or their heads. There at the very edge of the
pool Capitan Tiago made it his duty to eat roast pig, _sinigang_ of
_dalag_ with _alibambang_ leaves, and other more or less appetizing
dishes. The two masses would cost him over four hundred pesos, but
it was cheap, after all, if one considered the glory that the Mother
of the Lord would acquire from the pin-wheels, rockets, bombs, and
mortars, and also the increased profits which, thanks to these masses,
would come to one during the year.
But Antipolo was not the only theater of his ostentatious devotion. In
Binondo, in Pampanga, and in the town of San Diego, when he was about
to put up a fighting-cock with large wagers, he would send gold moneys
to the curate for propitiatory masses and, just as the Romans consulted
the augurs before a battle, giving food to the sacred fowls, so Capitan
Tiago would also consult his augurs, with the modifications befitting
the times and the new truths, tie would watch closely the flame of
the tapers, the smoke from the incense, the voice of the priest,
and from it all attempt to forecast his luck. It was an admitted
fact that he lost very few wagers, and in those cases it was due to
the unlucky circumstance that the officiating priest was hoarse,
or that the altar-candles were few or contained too much tallow,
or that a bad piece of money had slipped in with the rest. The
warden of the Brotherhood would then assure him that such reverses
were tests to which he was subjected by Heaven to receive assurance
of his fidelity and devotion. So, beloved by the priests, respected
by the sacristans, humored by the Chinese chandlers and the dealers
in fireworks, he was a man happy in the religion of this world, and
persons of discernment and great piety even claimed for him great
influence in the celestial court.
That he was at peace with the government cannot be doubted, however
difficult an achievement it may seem. Incapable of any new idea and
satisfied with his _modus vivendi_, he was ever ready to gratify
the desires of the last official of the fifth class in every one of
the offices, to make presents of hams, capons, turkeys, and Chinese
fruits at all seasons of the year. If he heard any one speak ill of
the natives, he, who did not consider himself as such, would join in
the chorus and speak worse of them; if any one aspersed the Chinese or
Spanish mestizos, he would do the same, perhaps because he considered
himself become a full-blooded Iberian. He was ever first to talk in
favor of any new imposition of taxes, or special assessment, especially
when he smelled a contract or a farming assignment behind it. He always
had an orchestra ready for congratulating and serenading the governors,
judges, and other officials on their name-days and birthdays, at the
birth or death of a relative, and in fact at every variation from the
usual monotony. For such occasions he would secure laudatory poems
and hymns in which were celebrated "the kind and loving governor,"
"the brave and courageous judge for whom there awaits in heaven the
palm of the just," with many other things of the same kind.
He was the president of the rich guild of mestizos in spite of
the protests of many of them, who did not regard him as one of
themselves. In the two years that he held this office he wore out ten
frock coats, an equal number of high hats, and half a dozen canes. The
frock coat and the high hat were in evidence at the Ayuntamiento,
in the governor-general's palace, and at military headquarters; the
high hat and the frock coat might have been noticed in the cockpit,
in the market, in the processions, in the Chinese shops, and under the
hat and within the coat might have been seen the perspiring Capitan
Tiago, waving his tasseled cane, directing, arranging, and throwing
everything into disorder with marvelous activity and a gravity even
more marvelous.
So the authorities saw in him a safe man, gifted with the best of
dispositions, peaceful, tractable, and obsequious, who read no books
or newspapers from Spain, although he spoke Spanish well. Indeed,
they rather looked upon him with the feeling with which a poor student
contemplates the worn-out heel of his old shoe, twisted by his manner
of walking. In his case there was truth in both the Christian and
profane proverbs _beati pauperes spiritu_ and _beati possidentes_,
[37] and there might well be applied to him that translation,
according to some people incorrect, from the Greek, "Glory to God
in the highest and peace to men of good-will on earth!" even though
we shall see further along that it is not sufficient for men to have
good-will in order to live in peace.
The irreverent considered him a fool, the poor regarded him
as a heartless and cruel exploiter of misery and want, and his
inferiors saw in him a despot and a tyrant. As to the women, ah,
the women! Accusing rumors buzzed through the wretched nipa huts,
and it was said that wails and sobs might be heard mingled with the
weak cries of an infant. More than one young woman was pointed out by
her neighbors with the finger of scorn: she had a downcast glance and
a faded cheek. But such things never robbed him of sleep nor did any
maiden disturb his peace. It was an old woman who made him suffer,
an old woman who was his rival in piety and who had gained from many
curates such enthusiastic praises and eulogies as he in his best days
had never received.
Between Capitan Tiago and this widow, who had inherited from brothers
and cousins, there existed a holy rivalry which redounded to the
benefit of the Church as the competition among the Pampanga steamers
then redounded to the benefit of the public. Did Capitan Tiago present
to some Virgin a silver wand ornamented with emeralds and topazes? At
once Doña Patrocinio had ordered another of gold set with diamonds! If
at the time of the Naval procession [38] Capitan Tiago erected an
arch with two façades, covered with ruffled cloth and decorated with
mirrors, glass globes, and chandeliers, then Doña Patrocinio would
have another with four facades, six feet higher, and more gorgeous
hangings. Then he would fall back on his reserves, his strong point,
his specialty--masses with bombs and fireworks; whereat Doña Patrocinia
could only gnaw at her lips with her toothless gums, because, being
exceedingly nervous, she could not endure the chiming of the bells and
still less the explosions of the bombs. While he smiled in triumph,
she would plan her revenge and pay the money of others to secure the
best orators of the five Orders in Manila, the most famous preachers
of the Cathedral, and even the Paulists, [39] to preach on the holy
days upon profound theological subjects to the sinners who understood
only the vernacular of the mariners. The partizans of Capitan Tiago
would observe that she slept during the sermon; but her adherents
would answer that the sermon was paid for in advance, and by her,
and that in any affair payment was the prime requisite. At length,
she had driven him from the field completely by presenting to the
church three _andas_ of gilded silver, each one of which cost her
over three thousand pesos. Capitan Tiago hoped that the old woman
would breathe her last almost any day, or that she would lose five or
six of her lawsuits, so that he might be alone in serving God; but
unfortunately the best lawyers of the _Real Audiencia_ looked after
her interests, and as to her health, there was no part of her that
could be attacked by sickness; she seemed to be a steel wire, no doubt
for the edification of souls, and she hung on in this vale of tears
with the tenacity of a boil on the skin. Her adherents were secure in
the belief that she would be canonized at her death and that Capitan
Tiago himself would have to worship her at the altars--all of which
he agreed to and cheerfully promised, provided only that she die soon.
Such was Capitan Tiago in the days of which we write. As for the past,
he was the only son of a sugar-planter of Malabon, wealthy enough,
but so miserly that he would not spend a cent to educate his son,
for which reason the little Santiago had been the servant of a good
Dominican, a worthy man who had tried to train him in all of good
that he knew and could teach. When he had reached the happy stage
of being known among his acquaintances as a _logician_, that is,
when he began to study logic, the death of his protector, soon
followed by that of his father, put an end to his studies and he
had to turn his attention to business affairs. He married a pretty
young woman of Santa Cruz, who gave him social position and helped
him to make his fortune. Doña Pia Alba was not satisfied with buying
and selling sugar, indigo, and coffee, but wished to plant and reap,
so the newly-married couple bought land in San Diego. From this time
dated their friendship with Padre Damoso and with Don Rafael Ibarra,
the richest capitalist of the town.
The lack of an heir in the first six years of their wedded life
made of that eagerness to accumulate riches almost a censurable
ambition. Doña Pia was comely, strong, and healthy, yet it was in
vain that she offered novenas and at the advice of the devout women
of San Diego made a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Kaysaysay [40] in
Taal, distributed alms to the poor, and danced at midday in May in
the procession of the Virgin of Turumba [41] in Pakil. But it was all
with no result until Fray Damaso advised her to go to Obando to dance
in the fiesta of St. Pascual Bailon and ask him for a son. Now it
is well known that there is in Obando a trinity which grants sons or
daughters according to request--Our Lady of Salambaw, St. Clara, and
St. Pascual. Thanks to this wise advice, Doña Pia soon recognized the
signs of approaching motherhood. But alas! like the fisherman of whom
Shakespeare tells in _Macbeth_, who ceased to sing when he had found a
treasure, she at once lost all her mirthfulness, fell into melancholy,
and was never seen to smile again. "Capriciousness, natural in her
condition," commented all, even Capitan Tiago. A puerperal fever put
an end to her hidden grief, and she died, leaving behind a beautiful
girl baby for whom Fray Damaso himself stood sponsor. As St. Pascual
had not granted the son that was asked, they gave the child the name
of Maria Clara, in honor of the Virgin of Salambaw and St. Clara,
punishing the worthy St. Pascual with silence.
The little girl grew up under the care of her aunt Isabel, that good
old lady of monkish urbanity whom we met at the beginning of the
story. For the most part, her early life was spent in San Diego, on
account of its healthful climate, and there Padre Damaso was devoted
to her.
Maria Clara had not the small eyes of her father; like her mother,
she had eyes large, black, long-lashed, merry and smiling when she
was playing but sad, deep, and pensive in moments of repose. As a
child her hair was curly and almost blond, her straight nose was
neither too pointed nor too flat, while her mouth with the merry
dimples at the corners recalled the small and pleasing one of her
mother, her skin had the fineness of an onion-cover and was white as
cotton, according to her perplexed relatives, who found the traces
of Capitan Tiago's paternity in her small and shapely ears. Aunt
Isabel ascribed her half-European features to the longings of Doña
Pia, whom she remembered to have seen many times weeping before
the image of St. Anthony. Another cousin was of the same opinion,
differing only in the choice of the smut, as for her it was either
the Virgin herself or St. Michael. A famous philosopher, who was
the cousin of Capitan Tinong and who had memorized the "Amat," [42]
sought for the true explanation in planetary influences.
The idol of all, Maria Clara grew up amidst smiles and love. The
very friars showered her with attentions when she appeared in the
processions dressed in white, her abundant hair interwoven with
tuberoses and sampaguitas, with two diminutive wings of silver and
gold fastened on the back of her gown, and carrying in her hands a
pair of white doves tied with blue ribbons. Afterwards, she would
be so merry and talk so sweetly in her childish simplicity that the
enraptured Capitan Tiago could do nothing but bless the saints of
Obando and advise every one to purchase beautiful works of sculpture.
In southern countries the girl of thirteen or fourteen years
changes into a woman as the bud of the night becomes a flower in the
morning. At this period of change, so full of mystery and romance,
Maria Clara was placed, by the advice of the curate of Binondo, in
the nunnery of St. Catherine [43] in order to receive strict religious
training from the Sisters. With tears she took leave of Padre Damaso
and of the only lad who had been a friend of her childhood, Crisostomo
Ibarra, who himself shortly afterward went away to Europe. There in
that convent, which communicates with the world through double bars,
even under the watchful eyes of the nuns, she spent seven years.
Each having his own particular ends in view and knowing the mutual
inclinations of the two young persons, Don Rafael and Capitan Tiago
agreed upon the marriage of their children and the formation of a
business partnership. This agreement, which was concluded some years
after the younger Ibarra's departure, was celebrated with equal joy
by two hearts in widely separated parts of the world and under very
different circumstances.
CHAPTER VII
An Idyl on an Azotea
The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.
That morning Aunt Isabel and Maria Clara went early to mass,
the latter elegantly dressed and wearing a rosary of blue beads,
which partly served as a bracelet for her, and the former with her
spectacles in order to read her _Anchor of Salvation_ during the holy
communion. Scarcely had the priest disappeared from the altar when the
maiden expressed a desire for returning home, to the great surprise and
displeasure of her good aunt, who believed her niece to be as pious
and devoted to praying as a nun, at least. Grumbling and crossing
herself, the good old lady rose. "The good Lord will forgive me, Aunt
Isabel, since He must know the hearts of girls better than you do,"
Maria Clara might have said to check the severe yet maternal chidings.
After they had breakfasted, Maria Clara consumed her impatience in
working at a silk purse while her aunt was trying to clean up the
traces of the former night's revelry by swinging a feather duster
about. Capitan Tiago was busy looking over some papers. Every noise in
the street, every carriage that passed, caused the maiden to tremble
and quickened the beatings of her heart. Now she wished that she were
back in the quiet convent among her friends; there she could have seen
him without emotion and agitation! But was he not the companion of her
infancy, had they not played together and even quarreled at times? The
reason for all this I need not explain; if you, O reader, have ever
loved, you will understand; and if you have not, it is useless for
me to tell you, as the uninitiated do not comprehend these mysteries.
"I believe, Maria, that the doctor is right," said Capitan Tiago. "You
ought to go into the country, for you are pale and need fresh air. What
do you think of Malabon or San Diego?" At the mention of the latter
place Maria Clara blushed like a poppy and was unable to answer.
"You and Isabel can go at once to the convent to get your clothes
and to say good-by to your friends," he continued, without raising
his head. "You will not stay there any longer."
The girl felt the vague sadness that possesses the mind when we leave
forever a place where we have been happy, but another thought softened
this sorrow.
"In four or five days, after you get some new clothes made, we'll
go to Malabon. Your godfather is no longer in San Diego. The priest
that you may have noticed here last night, that young padre, is the
new curate whom we have there, and he is a saint."
"I think that San Diego would be better, cousin," observed Aunt
Isabel. "Besides, our house there is better and the time for the
fiesta draws near."
Maria Clara wanted to embrace her aunt for this speech, but hearing
a carriage stop, she turned pale.
"Ah, very true," answered Capitan Tiago, and then in a different tone
he exclaimed, "Don Crisostomo!"
The maiden let her sewing fall from her hands and wished to move but
could not--a violent tremor ran through her body. Steps were heard
on the stairway and then a fresh, manly voice. As if that voice had
some magic power, the maiden controlled her emotion and ran to hide
in the oratory among the saints. The two cousins laughed, and Ibarra
even heard the noise of the door closing. Pale and breathing rapidly,
the maiden pressed her beating heart and tried to listen. She heard
his voice, that beloved voice that for so long a time she had heard
only in her dreams he was asking for her! Overcome with joy, she
kissed the nearest saint, which happened to be St. Anthony the Abbot,
a saint happy in flesh and in wood, ever the object of pleasing
temptations! Afterwards she sought the keyhole in order to see and
examine him. She smiled, and when her aunt snatched her from that
position she unconsciously threw her arms around the old lady's neck
and rained kisses upon her.
"Foolish child, what's the matter with you?" the old lady was at last
able to say as she wiped a tear from her faded eyes. Maria Clara felt
ashamed and covered her eyes with her plump arm.
"Come on, get ready, come!" added the old aunt fondly. "While he is
talking to your father about you. Come, don't make him wait." Like
a child the maiden obediently followed her and they shut themselves
up in her chamber.
Capitan Tiago and Ibarra were conversing in a lively manner when Aunt
Isabel appeared half dragging her niece, who was looking in every
direction except toward the persons in the room.
What said those two souls communicating through the language of the
eyes, more perfect than that of the lips, the language given to the
soul in order that sound may not mar the ecstasy of feeling? In such
moments, when the thoughts of two happy beings penetrate into each
other's souls through the eyes, the spoken word is halting, rude, and
weak--it is as the harsh, slow roar of the thunder compared with the
rapidity of the dazzling lightning flash, expressing feelings already
recognized, ideas already understood, and if words are made use of
it is only because the heart's desire, dominating all the being and
flooding it with happiness, wills that the whole human organism with
all its physical and psychical powers give expression to the song of
joy that rolls through the soul. To the questioning glance of love,
as it flashes out and then conceals itself, speech has no reply;
the smile, the kiss, the sigh answer.
Soon the two lovers, fleeing from the dust raised by Aunt Isabel's
broom, found themselves on the azotea where they could commune in
liberty among the little arbors. What did they tell each other in
murmurs that you nod your heads, O little red cypress flowers? Tell
it, you who have fragrance in your breath and color on your lips. And
thou, O zephyr, who learnest rare harmonies in the stillness of the
dark night amid the hidden depths of our virgin forests! Tell it,
O sunbeams, brilliant manifestation upon earth of the Eternal, sole
immaterial essence in a material world, you tell it, for I only know
how to relate prosaic commonplaces. But since you seem unwilling to
do so, I am going to try myself.
The sky was blue and a fresh breeze, not yet laden with the fragrance
of roses, stirred the leaves and flowers of the vines; that is why
the cypresses, the orchids, the dried fishes, and the Chinese lanterns
were trembling. The splash of paddles in the muddy waters of the river
and the rattle of carriages and carts passing over the Binondo bridge
came up to them distinctly, although they did not hear what the old
aunt murmured as she saw where they were: "That's better, there you'll
be watched by the whole neighborhood." At first they talked nonsense,
giving utterance only to those sweet inanities which are so much like
the boastings of the nations of Europe--pleasing and honey-sweet at
home, but causing foreigners to laugh or frown.
She, like a sister of Cain, was of course jealous and asked her
sweetheart, "Have you always thought of me? Have you never forgotten me
on all your travels in the great cities among so many beautiful women?"
He, too, was a brother of Cain, and sought to evade such questions,
making use of a little fiction. "Could I forget you?" he answered
as he gazed enraptured into her dark eyes. "Could I be faithless
to my oath, my sacred oath? Do you remember that stormy night when
you saw me weeping alone by the side of my dead mother and, drawing
near to me, you put your hand on my shoulder, that hand which for so
long a time you had not allowed me to touch, saying to me, 'You have
lost your mother while I never had one,' and you wept with me? You
loved her and she looked upon you as a daughter. Outside it rained
and the lightning flashed, but within I seemed to hear music and to
see a smile on the pallid face of the dead. Oh, that my parents were
alive and might behold you now! I then caught your hand along with
the hand of my mother and swore to love you and to make you happy,
whatever fortune Heaven might have in store for me; and that oath,
which has never weighed upon me as a burden, I now renew!
"Could I forget you? The thought of you has ever been with me,
strengthening me amid the dangers of travel, and has been a comfort
to my soul's loneliness in foreign lands. The thoughts of you
have neutralized the lotus-effect of Europe, which erases from the
memories of so many of our countrymen the hopes and misfortunes of our
fatherland. In dreams I saw you standing on the shore at Manila, gazing
at the far horizon wrapped in the warm light of the early dawn. I heard
the slow, sad song that awoke in me sleeping affections and called
back to the memory of my heart the first years of our childhood, our
joys, our pleasures, and all that happy past which you gave life to
while you were in our town. It seemed to me that you were the fairy,
the spirit, the p
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