Rizal’s Life, Works & Writings

Module

Prepared and compiled for instructional purposes only

EUGENE C CALUMBA
Assistant Professor IV

College of Management
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

2024
 VISION

A provide of relevant and quality education to a

society where citizens are competent, skilled,
dignified and community- oriented.

MISSION

An academic institution providing technological,

professional, research and extension programs to
form principled men and women of competencies
and skills responsive to local and global
development needs.

QUALITY POLICY

Northwest Samar State University commits to

provide quality outcomes-based education,
research, extension and production through
continual improvement of all its programs, thereby
producing world class professionals.

CORE VALUES

Resilience. Integrity. Service. Excellence.

INSTITUTIONAL GRADUATE
OUTCOMES

Creative and critical thinkers

Life-long learners
Effective communicators
Morally and socially upright individuals
 Table of Contents

Module 1: The Rizal Law....................................................................................................11

Republic Act 1425 .........................................................................................................13
The Trials of Rizal Bill ..................................................................................................18
The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century as Rizal's Context ......................................30

Module 2: Rizal's Life and Death ....................................................................................40

Family, Childhood and Early Education .......................................................................42
Higher Education and Life Abroad ...............................................................................67
Exile, Trial, and Death ..................................................................................................93

Module 3: Rizal's Works & Writings .............................................................................133

Annotation of Antonio Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas ...................................135
Noli Me Tangere .........................................................................................................143
El Filibusterismo .........................................................................................................322
The Philippines: A Century Hence ..............................................................................449

Module 4: Jose Rizal and Philippine Nationalism .........................................................473

Bayani and Kabayanihan .............................................................................................475
National Symbol ..........................................................................................................500
 Rationale
This module was developed and compiled for instruction based on the prescribed syllabus
of the course “The Life and Works of Rizal. This is a general education course offered by the social
sciences area in the College of Management of Northwest Samar State University. The module and
its materials will be available for those enrolled to the course.

The module is prepared for use offline. This can be complied by the students with or
without the benefit of the internet. Submissions for the course requirements can be done personally
or by courier. Online submissions is the last option since the material will be available online.
Students are only required to take note of the deadlines set by the module in accomplishing the
activities.

Each lesson of the module is provided a set of activities that should be complied and
complied prior to submitting to the instructor on set dates as seen in the module schedules. The
module contains four (4) learning plans. Each plan is set with objectives, activities, summaries,
reading materials and formative tests. Other resources which can be accessed online or at the library
is also provided for the students reference.

Course Code : General Education 9

Course Title : The Life and Works of Jose Rizal

Course Description : As mandated by Republic Act 1425, this course covers the life
and works of the country's national hero, Jose Rizal. Among the
topics covered are Rizal's biography and his writings, particularly
the novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, some of his
essays, and various correspondences.

Course Outcomes : At the end of the course, students should be able to

1. Discuss Jose Rizal's life within the context of 19twcentury

Philippines
2. Analyze Rizal's various works, particularly the novels Noli
me Tangere and El Filibusterismo
3. Organize Rizal's ideas into various themes
4. Demonstrate a critical reading of primary sources
5. Interpret the values that can be derived from studying Rizal's
life and works
6. Display an appreciation for education and love of country

Course Content : As explained above, Rizal’s Life, Works and Writings

introduces students the concept, theories, principles and practice,
discusses the functions to come up interventions addressing
problems.
The table below shows the outline of the topics to be discussed in
the lecture per week vis-à-vis the course outcomes. It is designed
based on the course syllabus approved by the college Dean in the
College of Management.
 Course Learning Date of
Week Topics Assessment
Outcomes Submission

1  Explain the history of Module 1 – Introduction Writing exercise: Compare and 2nd week of
the Rizal Law and its contrast the views of those in August to
important provisions. A. Introduction to the favor and against RA 1425, 4th week of
 Critically assess the course considering the context of the February
effectiveness of the 1950s; Would similar arguments
Rizal Course still have force today?
B. Republic Act 1425
 Appraise the link
between the OR
C. The Philippines in the
individual and society
nineteenth century as
 Analyze the various Reflect on your secondary
social, political, Rizal's context
education: Did your school
economic, and comply with RA 1425? How
cultural changes that 1. opening of the Suez
Canal, opening of effective is the Rizal law in
occurred in the
nineteenth century ports to world trade, instilling patriotism among
 Understand Jose rise of the export secondary school students?
Rizal in the context of crop economy, and
his times monopolies Pop Quiz:

2. Economic: end of the Graphic organizer/ table mapping

galleon trade the changes in the nineteenth-
century Philippines, categorizing
social, political, economic,
3. Social: education, cultural changes
rise of the Chinese
mestizo, rise of the Reflection paper about the film
inquilino
Guide Questions:
4. Political: Liberalism,
impact of the  Describe the nineteenth-century
Bourbon reforms, Philippines as represented in the
Cadiz constitution film

5. Subtopic: seeing the  Based on your reading and class

life of an individual discussion, what can you say
in society and about the film's representation
society in the life of of the nineteenth century?
an individual
 What is the main question that
the film seeks to answer? What
is your own reflection based on
the film and your
understanding?

2  Analyze Rizal's Module 2 - Rizal's Life Students will write a short 1st week of
family, childhood, biographical essay that compare March to
and early education A. Family, Childhood the student's early childhood with 4th week of
 Evaluate the people and Early Education Rizal's own March
and events and their
influence on Rizal's
early life B. Higher Education and Written document analysis
 Explain the principle Life Abroad worksheet
of assimilation
advocated by the C. Exile, Trial, and Graphic organizer for activity on
Propaganda Death La Liga Filipina
Movement
 Appraise Rizal's Reflection paper about the film
relationship with
Guide Questions
other Propagandists
 Analyze Rizal's  Describe the life of Jose Rizal
growth as a as represented in the film.
Propagandist and
disavowal of  Based on your reading and class
assimilation discussion, what can you say
about the film's representation
of Jose Rizal?
  Analyze the factors
that led to Rizal's  What is the main question that
execution the film seeks to answer?
 Analyze the effects of
Rizal's execution on
Spanish colonial rule What is your own reflection based
and the Philippine on the film and your
Revolution understanding.

3  Analyze Rizal's ideas Module 3 – Rizal’s Group discussion and oral 1st week of
on how to rewrite Works & Writings presentation on Rizal's April to
Philippine history historiography 3rd week of
 Compare and April
contrast Rizal and A. Annotation of Antonio
Morga's Sucesos de las Graphic organizer: Compare and
Morga's different contrast, and show continuities
views about Islas Filipinas
and/or changes in Rizal's ideas
Filipinos and expressed in the Noli and Fili
Philippine culture B. Noli Me Tangere
 Appraise important Reflection paper about select
characters in the
novel and what they C. El Filibusterismo chapters discussing the role of
represent youth in society (e.g., Ch. 24, Ch.
 Examine the present D. The Philippines: A 39)
Philippine situation Century Hence
through the Essay writing: Write a response to
examples mentioned Jose Rizal with the students
in the Noli
E. Other Works situating themselves a century
 Compare and contrast after Rizal's time
the characters, plot,
and theme of the Noli Alternative: Give a speech that
and the El Fili will serve as a response to Rizal
 Value the role of the
youth in the
development and
future of society
 Assess Rizal's
writings
 Appraise the value of
understanding the
past
 Frame arguments
based on evidence

4  Interpret views and Module 4 - Jose Rizal Present a photo exhibit of 4th Week of
opinions about bayani different Rizal monuments in the April to 2nd
and Philippine
and kabayanihan in Philippines and abroad. Week of
the context of Nationalism
May
Philippine history and Write short descriptions about
society A. Bayani & Kabayanihan their background and
 Assess the concepts interpretations on their imagery
of bayani and B. National Symbol and representations.
kabayanihan in the
context of Philippine Essay writing or speech about a
particular value Rizal advocated
society
Students choose a key issue (e.g.,
 Examine the values
heroism and the notion of
highlighted by the
various sacrifice; literature and national
representations of consciousness; ethics and our
Rizal as a national concepts of leadership; ethnicity
symbol and national belonging) to be
 Advocate the values tackled in an integrating project
Rizal's life assigned by the teacher (e.g., a
encapsulates newspaper; an audio-visual
project; composition of lyrics with
musical arrangement; or a painting
/mural
Course Requirements :

In general, the requirements of General Education 9 are as follows:

 Major Examinations
 Creative Output based from Course Topics
 Group Presentation of a selected topic

Grading Criteria :

Requirement/Assessment Task Percentage

Major Course Output 50%
Major Exams 30%
Class Standing 20%
TOTAL 100%

Course Materials :

 Off line and Online Modules

 Suggested Films
 Rubrics
 Course policies

References :

Text of the RA 1425 http://WM.gov.ph/1956/06/1 2/republic-act-no-1425/

Constantino, Renato. The Making of a Filipino: A Story of Philippine Colonial Politics. QC: R.
Constantino, 1982, pp. 244-247.

Jose B. Laurel Jr. "The Trials of the Rizal Bill," Historical Bulletin vol. 4, no. 2 (1960): 130-139.

Schumacher, John. "The Rizal Bill of 1956: Horacio de la Costa and the Bishops," Philippine Studies
59 no. 4 (201 1): 529-553.

Caroline S. Hau, "Introduction" in Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation,1946-1980.
Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000,

Nelson, Gloria Luz. "Mga Pananaw hinggil sa ugnayan ng talambuhay at lipunan," in Diestro, DI et al.
Si Heneral Paciano Rizal sa Kasaysayang Pilipino. Los Banos: UPLB Sentro ng Wikang Filipino,
2006

C. Wright Mills. "The Promise," The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959.
http://legacy.lclark.edu/-gol dman/socimagination. Html

P. Sztompka. "Great Individuals as Agencies of Change" in The Sociology of Social Change. Wiley,
1993.
John Schumacher. "Rizal in the Context of the 19th Century Philippines" in The Making of a Nation:
Essays on Nineteenth-Century Filipino Nationalism.Quezon City: ADMU Press, 1991.

Film: "Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?" directed by Eddie Romero (1976)
Coates, Austin. Rizal: Filipino Nationalist and Martyn Hong Kong: Oxford University Pres Quezon
City. Malaya Books, 1969; or Filipino translation b Nilo S. Ocampo. Rizal: Makabayan at Martir.
Quezo City: University of the Philippines Press, 2007.

Rizal, Jose. "Memoirs of a Student in Manila," Appendix Section of Gregorio Zaide's Jose Rizal: Life,
Works and Writings

Schumacher, John. The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1885: The Creation of a Filipino Consciousness,
The Making of a Revolution. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1997.

Coates, Austin. Rizal: Filipino Nationalist and Martyr. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, Quezon
City. Malaya Books, 1969.

Ileto, Reynaldo. Rizal and the Underside of Philippine History" In Filipinos and their Revolution: Event,
Discourse, and Historiography. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998, pp. 29-
78.

Teodora Alonzo's petition to Camilo Polavieja, Manila, 28 December 1896.

Blumentrift, Ferdinand.Prologue to Jose Rizal, Annotated Copy of Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas (Manila: National Centennial Commission, 1962)

Ocampo, Ambeth. "Rizal's Morga and views of Philippine History" in Philippine Studies vol 46 no. 2
(1998). http://www.phitippinestudies. net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/v iewFile/662/663

Salazar, Zeus. "A Legacy of the Propaganda: The Tripartite View of Philippine History" in Atoy
Navarro and Flordeliza Lagbao-Botante, eds. Mga Babasahin sa Agham Panlipunang Pilipino:
Sikolohiyang Pilipino, Pilipinolohiya, at Pantayong Pananaw. QC: C&E Publishing, 2007.
http://www.bagongkasaysay an.org/downloadable/zeus 005.pdf

Rizal, Jose. Historical events of the Philippines Islands by Dr. Antonio de Morga, published in Mexico
in 1609, recently brought to light and annotated by Jose Rizal, preceded by a prologue by Dr.
Ferdinand Blumentritt. Manila: Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, 1962

Constantino, Renato. "Our task: to make Rizal obsolete" in This Week, Manila Chronicle (14 June 1959)

Daroy, Petronjlo. Rizal contrary essays. Quezon City: Guro Books, 1968

Almario. Virgitio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. Quezon City. University of the Philippines Press, 2008

Rizal, Jose. Noll' Me Tangere. Trans. Virgilio Almario or Soledad Maximo Locsin Anderson, Benedict.
Why Counting Counts: A Study of Forms of Consciousness and Problems of Language in Noli
Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008

Caroline S. Hau, "Introduction" in Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, 1946-1980.
Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000

Daroy, Petronilo. Rizal contrary essays. Quezon City: Guro Books, 1968

Almario. Virgilio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. QC: UP Press, 2008

Anderson, Benedict. Why Counting Counts: A Study of Forms of Consciousness and Problems of
Language in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University
Press, 2008
 Reyes, Miguel Paolo. "El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as 'Science Fictionist'" in Humanities Diliman
vol. 10 no. 2 (2013).http://journals.upd.edu.ph/in dex.php/humanitiesdiliman/a
rticle/view/4168/3774

Rizal Jose. El Filibusterismo. Trans. Virgilio Almario or Soledad Maximo Locsin

Rizal, Jose. "The Philippines a century hence" Can be accessed through: http://www.archive.org/strea
m/philippinescentu00riza/phi lippinescentu00riza_djvu.txt

Eugenio, Damiana. Philippine Folk Literature: The Epics. QC: UP Press, 2001.

Revel, Nicole, ed. Literature of voice: Epics in the Philippines. QC: ADMU Press, 2005.

Nolasco, Ricardo Ma. D. Pinagmulan ng Salitang Bayani" sa Diliman Review, vol 45, no. 2-3, 1997,
pp. 14-18.

Salazar, Zeus A. "Ang Bayani bilang sakripisyo: pag-aanyo ng pagkabayani sa agos ng kasaysayang
Pilipino" in Kalamidad, Rebolusyon, Kabayanihan: Mga kahulugan nito sa kasalukuyang
panahon. QC. ADHIKA ng Pilipinas 1996.

De Ocampo, Esteban. "Who Made Rizal our Foremost National Hero, and Why?" in Jose Rizal: Life,
Works, and Writings of a Geniust Writer, Scientist and National Hero, edited by Gregorio Zaide.
1984.

Joaquin, Nick. A Question of heroes. Pasig: Anvil, 2005. (Chapters on Rizal, Bonifacio and Aguinaldo.)

Lahiri, Smitha. "Writer, hero, myth, and spirit: The changing image of Jose Rizal." Cornell University
papers on Southeast Asia. http://www.seasite.niu.edurr tagalog/Modules/Modules/Ph
ilippineReligions/article_rizal.htm

Other References :

Coates, Austin. Rizal: Filipino Nationalist and Martyr. Hongkong: Oxford University Press, Quezon
City: Malaya Books, 1969

Rizal, Jose. El Filibusteösmo (Translation by Virgilio Almario or Soledad Lacson-Locsin)

Rizal, Jose. Noli me tangere (Translation by Virgilio Almario or Soledad Lacson-Locsin)

Rizal, Jose. Historical events of the Philippines Islands by Dr. Antonio de Morga, published in Mexico
in 1609, recently brought to light and annotated by Jose Rizal, preceded by a prologue by Dr.
Ferdinand Blumentritt. Manila: Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, 1962.

Rizal, Jose. "The Philippines a Century Hence" In La Solidaridad

Lahiri, Smitha. "Writer, hero, myth, and spirit: The changing image of Jose Rizal." Cornell University
papers on Southeast Asia.

Laurel, Jose B. Jr. "The Trials of the Rizal Bill," Historical Bulletin vol. 4, no. 2 (1960).

Nolasco Ricardo Ma. D. "Pinagmulan ng Salitang Bayani" sa Diliman Review, Tomo 45, Bilang 2-3,
1997, pp. 14-18.

Ocampo, Ambeth. "Rizal's Morga and views of Philippine History" in Philippine Studies vol 46 no. 2
(1998).

Ocampo Ambeth. Rizal Without the Overcoat. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc. 1990.
Quibuyen, Floro C. A Nation Aborted: Rizal, American Hegemony and Philippine Nationalism. Quezon
City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 1990

Reyes, Miguel Paolo. "El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as 'Science Fictionist'" in Humanities
Diliman vol. 10 no. 2 (2013).

Salazar, Zeus A. Bayani Bilang Isang Sakripisyo. 1997.

Salazar, Zeus A. A Legacy of the Propaganda: The Tripartite View of Philippine History. Nasa
Kasaysayan at Kamalayan. Lunsod Quezon: Limbagang Pangkasaysayan. 1998.

Salazar, Zeus A. "Si Andres Bonifacio at ang Kabayanihan Pilipino," Bagong Kasaysayan. Mga Pag-
aaral sa Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas. Lunsod Quezon: Palimbagang Kalawakan. 1999

Schumacher, John. "Rizal in the Context of the 19th Century Philippines" in The Making of a Nation:
Essays on Nineteenth-Century Filipino Nationalism. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press, 1991

Schumacher, John. The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1885: The Creation of a Filipino Consciousness,
The Making of a Revolution. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1997.

Wickberg, Edgar. The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850-1898. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 1965.

Yabes, Leopoldo. Jose Rizal on his Centenary. Quezon City: University of the Philippines. 1963.

Zaide, Gregorio at Sonia Zaide. Jose Rizal: Buhay, Mga Ginawa at mga Sinulat ng Isang Henyo,
Manunu/at, Siyentipiko at Pambansang Bayanl Quezon City. All Nations Publishing Co. Inc.,
1997.
 Module 1
Module Title : The Rizal Law

Module Description : This module contains the lesson or topics as well as the
discussions on Republic Act 1425, The Trials of the Rizal Bill and
an overview of the Philippines in the Nineteenth Century as Rizal’s
Context.

Purpose of the : This module let the students learn to explain the history of the
Module Rizal Law and its important provisions as well as critically assess
the effectiveness of the Rizal Course. The students will learn to
appraise the link between the individual and society and analyze
the various social, political, economic, and cultural changes that
occurred in the nineteenth century. In so doing, they will learn to
understand Jose Rizal in the context of his times

Module Guide : The module is designed so that students need not be online in
fulfilling the requirements of the module. To access other readings,
the student may opt to search online or go to the library of the
university if necessary. This module contains three major topics
that would serve as the introduction for students on the discussions
of Rizal’s life, works and writings. Each lesson is provided their
respective readings which will serve as main readings for the
particular topic. Each topic is provided a set of activities for
students to accomplish and submitted to the instructor within the
given timeframe. A reference section for additional readings is
also provided for other online sources that could be used by
students additional information and learnings.

Module Outcomes : At the end of this module:

 Evaluate primary sources for their credibility, authenticity,

and provenance

 Analyze the context, content, and perspective of different kinds

of primary sources

 Determine the contribution of different kinds of primary

sources in understanding Philippine history

Module : At the end of this module, the students will come up a:

Requirements
 Compilation of activities conducted per lesson.
  Submission of recitations

Module Pretest :
___ 1 __ was the lawmaker who authored the Rizal
Law.
___ 2 __ was the date of the enactment of the law.
___ 3 __ was the president of the republic during the
enactment of the law.
___ 4 __ mandates the teaching of Rizal’s Life, Works
and Writings in the educational system of the
country.
___ 5 __ and __ were considered the main works of
Rizal.
___ 6 __ was the term used to mean the white people
from the west.
___ 7 __ was the Chinese pirate who invaded Old
Manila.
___ 8 __ was the Spanish historian who wrote the first
history of the country.
___ 9 __ was the name given to people that were
against the Spanish colonial government.
___ 10 __ is the habit of Filipinos to procrastinate.

Key Terms : Republic Act 1425

Jose Rizal
Jose P. Laurel Jr.
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 1

Lesson Title : Republic Act 1425

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Acquire knowledge on the history of the Rizal Law

 Describe the important provisions of the Law

 Explain the impact of the law to the present.

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Why do I need to study the life and works of
Rizal?”

 Students are required to solicit ideas from their parents, elder siblings, friends
or classmates.

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate the interpretation
of the Rizal Law.

 The students are tasked to read the "Rizal Law" (RA 1425) and research
possible interpretations from other sources before forming their own
interpretation of the law.
Let’s Read :
Let’s Remember :

 The Rizal law effectively requires all Filipinos especially in the education sector and its
stakeholders to have an overview of the life, works and writings of Dr. Jose Rizal. It is
mandated by the constitution that every citizen has knowledge of their national hero. This
will serve as a basis to emulate the values that are being promoted by studying his life.

Let’s Do This :

A. Writing Exercise:

 What are the important points that is mandated by the law?

 How does these points impact you as a student and a citizen of the country?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

B. Recitation Exercise:

 Are you in favour or not in favour of the law if you were to be asked to review the Rizal
Law
 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Text of the RA 1425 http://WM.gov.ph/1956/06/1 2/republic-act-no-1425/

Module Post Test:

________ 1 __ was the lawmaker who authored the Rizal Law.

________ 2 __ was the date of the enactment of the law.
________ 3 __ was the president of the republic during the enactment of the law.
________ 4 __ mandates the teaching of Rizal’s Life, Works and Writings in the educational
system of the country.
________ 5 __ and __ were considered the main works of Rizal.

References/Sources:
 Constantino, Renato. The Making of a Filipino: A Story of Philippine Colonial Politics. QC: R.
Constantino, 1982, pp. 244-247.
 Schumacher, John. "The Rizal Bill of 1956: Horacio de la Costa and the Bishops," Philippine Studies
59 no. 4 (201 1): 529-553.
 Caroline S. Hau, "Introduction" in Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation,1946-1980.
Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000,
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 2

Lesson Title : The Trials of Rizal Bill

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Critically assess the effectiveness of the Rizal Course

 Appraise the link between the individual and society

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Why does every law undergo scrutiny by the
lawmakers prior to implementation?”

 Students are required to watch the film: "Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?"
directed by Eddie Romero (1976)

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate the knowledge
of how the Rizal Law was approved.

 The students are tasked to read the "Trials of the Rizal Bill" and research
possible interpretations from other sources before forming their own
interpretation of the law.
Let’s Read :
Let’s Remember :

 Former President and then Senator Jose P Laurel Jr provided the arguments requiring the
mandate of studying the life of Dr. Jose Rizal. He reasons that as foremost national hero,
Filipino educators should be mindful of propagating Rizal’s ideals and values among young
Filipinos. And he insists that there exists a need to study his ideals for the generation to
follow to always be aware of the sacrifices of these heroes to the national identity of the
country.

Let’s Do This :

C. Writing Exercise:

 In high school, did your school comply with RA 1425?

 How effective is the Rizal law in instilling patriotism among secondary school students?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

D. Recitation Exercise:

 Why was the law focused only on Rizal? Why are the other heroes of the country not given
importance?
 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Jose B. Laurel Jr. "The Trials of the Rizal Bill," Historical Bulletin vol. 4, no. 2 (1960):
130-139.

Module Post Test:

________ 1 __ was the lawmaker who authored the Rizal Law.

________ 2 __ was the date of the enactment of the law.
________ 3 __ was the president of the republic during the enactment of the law.
________ 4 __ mandates the teaching of Rizal’s Life, Works and Writings in the educational
system of the country.
________ 5 __ and __ were considered the main works of Rizal.

References/Sources:

 Schumacher, John. "The Rizal Bill of 1956: Horacio de la Costa and the Bishops," Philippine Studies
59 no. 4 (201 1): 529-553.
 P. Sztompka. "Great Individuals as Agencies of Change" in The Sociology of Social Change. Wiley,
1993.
 John Schumacher. "Rizal in the Context of the 19th Century Philippines" in The Making of a Nation:
Essays on Nineteenth-Century Filipino Nationalism.Quezon City: ADMU Press, 1991.
 Film: "Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?" directed by Eddie Romero (1976)
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 3

Lesson Title : The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century as Rizal's

Context

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Analyze the various social, political, economic, and cultural changes that
occurred in the nineteenth century

 Understand Jose Rizal in the context of his times

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Why is the Philippines like this today?”

 Students are required to watch the film: "Jose Rizal" directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya
(1998)

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate the knowledge
of past in the Philippines.

 The students are tasked to read the America’s Forerunner and research possible
interpretations from other sources before forming their own interpretation of
the law.
Let’s Read :

America’s Forerunner

The lineage of a hero who made the history of his country

during its most critical period, and whose labors constitute its hope
for the future, must be more than a simple list of an ascending line.
The blood which flowed in his veins must be traced generation by
generation, the better to understand the man, but at the same time
the causes leading to the conditions of his times must be noted, step
by step, in order to give a better understanding of the environment
in which he lived and labored.

The study of the growth of free ideas is now in the days of

our democracy the most important feature of Philippine history;
hitherto this history has consisted of little more than lists of
governors, their term of office, and of the recital of such incidents as
were considered to redound to the glory of Spain, or could be so
twisted and misrepresented as to make them appear to do so. It rarely
occurred to former historians that the lamp of experience might
prove a light for the feet of future generations, and the mistakes of
the past were usually ignored or passed over, thus leaving the way
open for repeating the old errors. But profit, not pride, should be the
object of the study of the past, and our historians of today very largely concern themselves with mistakes in policy
and defects of system; fortunately for them such critical investigation under our changed conditions does not
involve the discomfort and danger that attended it in the days of Doctor Rizal.

In the opinion of the martyred Doctor, criticism of the right sort—even the very best things may be
abused till they become intolerable evils—serves much the same useful warning purpose for governments that the
symptoms of sickness do for persons. Thus government and individual alike, when advised in time of something
wrong with the system, can seek out and correct the cause before serious consequences ensue. But the nation that
represses honest criticism with severity, like the individual who deadens his symptoms with dangerous drugs, is
likely to be lulled into a false security that may prove fatal. Patriot toward Spain and the Philippines alike, Rizal
tried to impress this view upon the government of his day, with fatal results to himself, and the disastrous effects
of not heeding him have since justified his position.

The very defenses of Old Manila illustrate how the Philippines have suffered from lack of such devoted,
honest and courageous critics as José Rizal. The city wall was built some years later than the first Spanish
occupation to keep out Chinese pirates after Li Ma-hong destroyed the city. The Spaniards sheltered themselves
in the old Tagalog fort till reinforcements could come from the country. No one had ever dared to quote the
proverb about locking the door after the horse was stolen. The need for the moat, so recently filled in, was not
seen until after the bitter experience of the easy occupation of Manila by the English, but if public opinion had
been allowed free expression this experience might have been avoided. And the free space about the walls was
cleared of buildings only after these same buildings had helped to make the same occupation of the city easier,
yet there were many in Manila who foresaw the danger but feared to foretell it.

Had the people of Spain been free to criticize the Spaniards’ way of waiting to do things until it is too
late, that nation, at one time the largest and richest empire in the world, would probably have been saved from its
loss of territory and its present impoverished condition. And had the early Filipinos, to whom splendid professions
and sweeping promises were made, dared to complain of the Peninsular policy of procrastination—the “mañana”
habit, as it has been called—Spain might have been spared Doctor Rizal’s terrible but true indictment that she
retarded Philippine progress, kept the Islands miserably ruled for 333 years and in the last days of the nineteenth
century was still permitting medieval malpractices. Rizal did not believe that his country was able to stand alone
as a separate government. He therefore desired to preserve the Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines, but he
desired also to bring about reforms and conditions conducive to advancement. To this end he carefully pointed
out those colonial shortcomings that caused friction, kept up discontent, and prevented safe progress, and that
would have been perfectly easy to correct. Directly as well as indirectly, the changes he proposed were calculated
 to benefit the homeland quite as much as the Philippines, but his well-
meaning efforts brought him hatred and an undeserved death, thus proving
once more how thankless is the task of telling unpleasant truths, no matter
how necessary it may be to do so. Because Rizal spoke out boldly, while
realizing what would probably be his fate, history holds him a hero and calls
his death a martyrdom. He was not one of those popularity-seeking, self-
styled patriots who are ever mouthing “My country, right or wrong;” his
devotion was deeper and more disinterested. When he found his country
wrong he willingly sacrificed himself to set her right. Such unselfish spirits
are rare; in life they are often misunderstood, but when time does them
justice, they come into a fame which endures.

Doctor Rizal knew that the real Spain had generous though sluggish
intentions, and noble though erratic impulses, but it awoke too late; too late
for Doctor Rizal and too late to save the Philippines for Spain; tardy reforms
after his death were useless and the loss of her overseas possessions was the
result. Doctor Rizal lost when he staked his life on his trust in the innate sense
of honor of Spain, for that sense of honor became temporarily blinded by a
sudden but fatal gust of passion; and it took the shock of the separation to
rouse the dormant Spanish chivalry.

Still in the main Rizal’s judgment was correct, and he was the victim of mistimed, rather than of
misplaced, confidence, for as soon as the knowledge of the real Rizal became known to the Spanish people, belated
justice began to be done his memory, and then, repentant and remorseful, as is characteristically Castilian, there
was little delay and no half-heartedness. Another name may now be grouped with Columbus and Cervantes among
those to whom Spain has given imprisonment in life and monuments after death—chains for the man and chaplets
for his memory. In 1896, during the few days before he could be returned to Manila, Doctor Rizal occupied a
dungeon in Montjuich Castle in Barcelona; while on his way to assist the Spanish soldiers in Cuba who were
stricken with yellow fever, he was shipped and sent back to a prejudged trial and an unjust execution. Fifteen
years later the Catalan city authorities commemorated the semi-centennial of this prisoner’s birth by changing, in
his honor, the name of a street in the shadow of the infamous prison of Montjuich Castle to “Calle del Doctor
Rizal.”

More instances of this nature are not cited since they are not essential to the proper understanding of
Rizal’s story, but let it be made clear once for all that whatever harshness may be found in the following pages is
directed solely to those who betrayed the trust of the mother country and selfishly abused the ample and
unrestrained powers with which Spain invested them.

And what may seem the exaltation of the Anglo-Saxons at the expense of the Latins in these pages is
intended only to point out the superiority of their ordered system of government, with its checks and balances, its
individual rights and individual duties, under which men are “free to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law.”
No human being can be safely trusted with unlimited power, and no man, no matter what his nationality, could
have withstood the temptations offered by the chaotic conditions in the Philippines in past times any better than
did the Spaniards. There is nothing written in this book that should convey the opinion that in similar
circumstances men of any nationality would not have acted as the Spaniards did. The easiest recognized
characteristic of absolutism, and all the abuses and corruption it brings in its train, is fear of criticism, and Spain
drew her own indictment in the Philippines when she executed Rizal.

When any nation sets out to enroll all its scholarly critics among the martyrs in the cause of Liberty, it
makes an open confession of guilt to all the world. For a quarter of a century Spain had been ruling in the
Philippines by terrorizing its subjects there, and Rizal’s execution, with utter disregard of the most elementary
rules of judicial procedure, was the culmination that drove the Filipinos to desperation and arrested the attention
of the whole civilized world. It was evident that Rizal’s fate might have been that of any of his countrymen, and
the thinking world saw that events had taken such a course in the Philippines that it had become justifiable for the
Filipinos to attempt to dissolve the political bands which had connected them with Spain for over three centuries.

Such action by the Filipinos would not have been warranted by a solitary instance of unjust execution
under stress of political excitement that did not indicate the existence of a settled policy. Such instances are rather
to be classed among the mistakes to which governments as well as individuals are liable. Yet even such a mistake
may be avoided by certain precautions which experience has suggested, and the nation that disregards these
precautions is justly open to criticism.

Our present Philippine government guarantees to its citizens as fundamental rights, that no person shall
be held to answer for a capital crime unless on an indictment, nor may he be compelled in any criminal case to be
a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The accused
must have a speedy, public and impartial trial, be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, be confronted
with the witnesses against him, have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and have the
assistance of counsel for his defense. Not one of these safeguards protected Doctor Rizal except that he had an
“open trial,” if that name may be given to a courtroom filled with his enemies openly clamoring for his death
without rebuke from the court. Even the presumption of innocence till guilt was established was denied him. These
precautions have been considered necessary for every criminal trial, but the framers of the American Constitution,
fearful lest popular prejudice someday might cause injustice to those advocating unpopular ideals, prohibited the
irremediable penalty of death upon a charge of treason except where the testimony of two reliable witnesses
established some overt act, inference not being admissible as evidence.

Such protection was not given the subjects of Spain, but still, with
all the laxity of the Spanish law, and even if all the charges had been true,
which they were far from being, no case was made out against Doctor Rizal
at his trial. According to the laws then in effect, he was unfairly convicted
and he should be considered innocent; for this reason his life will be studied
to see what kind of hero he was, and no attempt need be made to plead good
character and honest intentions in extenuation of illegal acts. Rizal was ever
the advocate of law, and it will be found, too, that he was always
consistently law-abiding.

Though they are in the Orient, the Filipinos are not of it. Rizal once
said, upon hearing of plans for a Philippine exhibit at a European World’s
Fair, that the people of Europe would have a chance to see themselves as
they were in the Middle Ages. With allowances for the changes due to
climate and for the character of the country, this statement can hardly be
called exaggerated. The Filipinos in the last half of the nineteenth century
were not Orientals but medieval Europeans—to the credit of the early
Castilians but to the discredit of the later Spaniards.

The Filipinos of the remoter Christian barrios, whom Rizal had in

mind particularly, were in customs, beliefs and advancement substantially what the descendants of Legaspi’s
followers might have been had these been shipwrecked on the sparsely inhabited islands of the Archipelago and
had their settlement remained shut off from the rest of the world.

Except where foreign influence had accidentally crept in at the ports, it could truthfully be said that
scarcely perceptible advance had been made in three hundred years. Succeeding Spaniards by their misrule not
only added little to the glorious achievement of their ancestors, but seemed to have prevented the natural progress
which the land would have made.

In one form or another, this contention was the basis of Rizal’s campaign. By careful search, it is true,
isolated instances of improvement could be found, but the showing at its very best was so pitifully poor that the
system stood discredited. And it was the system to which Rizal was opposed.

The Spaniards who engaged in public argument with Rizal were continually discovering, too late to avoid
tumbling into them, logical pitfalls which had been carefully prepared to trap them. Rizal argued much as he
played chess, and was ever ready to sacrifice a pawn to be enabled to say “check.” Many an unwary opponent
realized after he had published what he had considered a clever answer that the
same reasoning which scored a point against Rizal incontrovertibly established
the Kalamban’s major premise.

Superficial antagonists, to the detriment of their own reputations, have

made much of what they chose to consider Rizal’s historical errors. But history
is not merely chronology, and his representation of its trend, disregarding details,
was a masterly tracing of current evils to their remote causes. He may have erred
in some of his minor statements; this will happen to anyone who writes much,
but attempts to discredit Rizal on the score of historical inaccuracy really reflect
upon the captious critics, just as a draftsman would expose himself to ridicule
were he to complain of some famous historical painting that it had not been
drawn to exact scale. Rizal’s writings were intended to bring out in relief the
evils of the Spanish system of the government of the Filipino people, just as a
map of the world may put the inhabited portions of the earth in greater
prominence than those portions that are not inhabited. Neither is exact in its
representation, but each serves its purpose the better because it magnifies the
important and minimizes the unimportant.

In his disunited and abased countrymen, Rizal’s writings aroused, as he

intended they should, the spirit of nationality, of a Fatherland which was not
Spain, and put their feet on the road to progress. What matters it, then, if his
historical references are not always exhaustive, and if to make himself intelligible in the Philippines he had to
write in a style possibly not always sanctioned by the Spanish Academy? Spain herself had denied to the Filipinos
a system of education that might have made a creditable Castilian the common language of the Archipelago. A
display of erudition alone does not make an historian, nor is purity, propriety and precision in choosing words all
there is to literature.

Rizal charged Spain unceasingly with un-progressiveness in the Philippines, just as he labored and
planned unwearyingly to bring the Filipinos abreast of modern European civilization. But in his appeals to the
Spanish conscience and in his endeavors to educate his countrymen he showed himself as practical as he was in
his arguments, ever ready to concede nonessentials in name and means if by doing so progress could be made.

Because of his unceasing efforts for a wiser, better governed and more prosperous Philippines, and
because of his frank admission that he hoped thus in time there might come a freer Philippines, Rizal was called
traitor to Spain and ingrate. Now honest, open criticism is not treason, and the sincerest gratitude to those who
first brought Christian civilization to the Philippines should not shut the eyes to the wrongs which Filipinos
suffered from their successors. But until the latest moment of Spanish rule, the apologists of Spain seemed to
think that they ought to be able to turn away the wrath evoked by the cruelty and incompetence that ran riot during
centuries, by dwelling upon the benefits of the early days of the Spanish dominion.

Wearisome was the eternal harping on gratitude which at one time was the only safe tone for pulpit, press
and public speech; it irritating because it ignored questions of current policy, and it was discouraging to the
Filipinos who were reminded by it of the hopeless future for their country to which time had brought no progress.
But with all the faults and unworthiness of the later rulers, and the inane attempts of their parasites to distract
attention from these failings, there remains undimmed the luster of Spain’s early fame. The Christianizing which
accompanied her flag upon the mainland and islands of the New World is its imperishable glory, and the
transformation of the Filipino people from Orientals into medieval Europeans through the colonizing genius of
the early Castilians, remains a marvel unmatched in colonial history and merits the lasting gratitude of the Filipino.

Doctor Rizal satirized the degenerate descendants and scored the unworthy successors, but his writings
may be searched in vain for wholesale charges against the Spanish nation such as Spanish scribblers were forever
directing against all Filipinos, past, present and future, with an alleged fault of a single one as a pretext. It will be
found that he invariably recognized that the faithful first administrators and the devoted pioneer missionaries had
a valid claim upon the continuing gratitude of the people of Tupa’s and Lakandola’s land.

Rizal’s insight discerned, and experience has demonstrated, that Legaspi, Urdaneta and those who were
like them, laid broad and firm foundations for a modern social and political organization which could be safely
and speedily established by reforms from above. The early Christianizing civilizers deserve no part of the blame
for the fact that Philippine ports were not earlier opened to progress, but much credit is due them that there is
succeeding here an orderly democracy such as now would be impossible in any neighboring country.

The Philippine patriot would be the first to recognize the justice of the selection of portraits which appear
with that of Rizal upon the present Philippine postage stamps, where they serve as daily reminders of how free
government came here.

The constancy and courage of a Portuguese sailor put these Islands into touch with the New World with
which their future progress was to be identified. The tact and honesty of a civil official from Mexico made possible
the almost bloodless conquest which brought the Filipinos under the then helpful rule of Spain. The bequest of a
far-sighted early philanthropist was the beginning of the water system of Manila, which was a recognition of the
importance of efforts toward improving the public health and remains a reminder of how, even in the darkest days
of miseries and misgovernment, there have not been wanting Spaniards whose ideal of Spanish patriotism was to
devote heart, brain and wealth to the welfare of the Filipinos. These were the heroes of the period of preparation.

The life of the one whose story is told in these pages was devoted and finally sacrificed to dignify their
common country in the eyes of his countrymen, and to unite them in a common patriotism; he inculcated that self-
respect which, by leading to self-restraint and self-control, makes self-government possible; and sought to inspire
in all a love of ordered freedom, so that, whether under the flag of Spain or any other, or by themselves, neither
tyrants (caciques) nor slaves (those led by caciques) would be possible among them.

And the change itself came through an American President who believed, and practiced the belief, that
nations owed obligations to other nations just as men had duties toward their fellow-men. He established here
Liberty through Law, and provided for progress in general education, which should be a safeguard to good
government as well, for an enlightened people cannot be an oppressed people. Then he went to war against the
Philippines rather than deceive them, because the Filipinos, who repeatedly had been tricked by Spain with
unfulfilled promises, insisted on pledges which he had not the power to give. They knew nothing of what was
meant by the rule of the people, and could not conceive of a government whose head was the servant and not the
master. Nor did they realize that even the voters might not promise for the future, since republicanism requires
that the government of any period shall rule only during the period that it is in the majority. In that war military
glory and quick conquest were sacrificed to consideration for the misled enemy, and every effort was made to
minimize the evils of warfare and to gain the confidence of the people. Retaliation for violations of the usages of
civilized warfare, of which Filipinos at first were guilty through their Spanish training, could not be entirely
prevented, but this retaliation contrasted strikingly with the Filipinos’ unhappy past experiences with Spanish
soldiers. The few who had been educated out of Spain and therefore understood the American position were daily
reinforced by those persons who became convinced from what they saw, until a majority of the Philippine people
sought peace. Then the President of the United States outlined a policy, and the history and constitution of his
government was an assurance that this policy would be followed; the American government then began to do what
it had not been able to promise.

The forerunner and the founder of the present regime in these Islands, by a strange coincidence, were as
alike in being cruelly misunderstood in their lifetimes by those whom they sought to benefit as they were in the
tragedy of their deaths, and both were unjustly judged by many, probably well-meaning, countrymen.

Magellan, Legaspi, Carriedo, Rizal and McKinley, heroes of the free Philippines, belonged to different
times and were of different types, but their work combined to make possible the growing democracy of to-day.
The diversity of nationalities among these heroes is an added advantage, for it recalls that mingling of blood which
has developed the Filipinos into a strong people.

England, the United States and the Philippines are each composed of widely diverse elements. They have
each been developed by adversity. They have each honored their severest critics while yet those critics lived. Their
common literature, which tells the story of human liberty in its own tongue, is the richest, most practical and most
accessible of all literature, and the popular education upon which rests the freedom of all three is in the same
democratic tongue, which is the most widely known of civilized languages and the only un-sycophantic speech,
for it stands alone in not distinguishing by its use of pronouns in the second person the social grade of the
individual addressed.

The future may well realize Rizal’s dream that his country should be to Asia what England has been to
Europe and the United States is in America, a hope the more likely to be fulfilled since the events of 1898 restored
only associations of the earlier and happier days of the history of the Philippines. The very name now used is
nearer the spelling of the original Philipinas than the Filipinas of nineteenth century Spanish usage. The first form
was used until nearly a century ago, when it was corrupted along with so many things of greater importance.

The Philippines at first were called “The Islands of the West,” as they are considered to be occidental
and not oriental. They were made known to Europe as a sequel to the discoveries of Columbus. Conquered and
colonized from Mexico, most of their pious and charitable endowments, churches, hospitals, asylums and colleges,
were endowed by philanthropic Mexicans. Almost as long as Mexico remained Spanish the commerce of the
Philippines was confined to Mexico, and the Philippines were a part of the postal system of Mexico and
dependent upon the government of Mexico exactly as long as Mexico remained Spanish. They even kept the new
world day, one day behind Europe, for a third of a century longer. The Mexican dollars continued to be their chief
coins till supplanted, recently, by the present peso, and the high-buttoned white coat, the “americana,” by that
name was in general use long years ago. The name America is frequently to be found in the old baptismal registers,
for a century or more ago many a Filipino child was so christened, and in the ’70’s Rizal’s carving instructor,
because so many of the best-made articles he used were of American manufacture, gave the name “Americano”
to a godchild. As Americans, Filipinos were joined with the Mexicans when King Ferdinand VII thanked his
subjects in both countries for their loyalty during the Napoleonic wars. Filipino students abroad found, too, books
about the Philippines listed in libraries and in booksellers’ catalogues as a branch of “Americana.”

Nor was their acquaintance confined to Spanish Americans. The name “English” was early known.
Perhaps no other was more familiar in the beginning, for it was constantly execrated by the Spaniards, and in
consequence secretly cherished by those who suffered wrongs at their hands.

Magellan had lost his life in his attempted circumnavigation of the globe and Elcano completed the
disastrous voyage in a shattered ship, minus most of its crew. But Drake, an Englishman, undertook the same
voyage, passed the Straits in less time than Magellan, and was the first commander in his own ship to put a belt
around the earth. These facts were known in the Philippines, and from them the Filipinos drew comparisons
unfavorable to the boastful Spaniards.

When the rich Philippine galleon Santa Ana was captured off the California coast by Thomas Candish,
“three boys born in Manila” were taken on board the English ships. Afterwards Candish sailed into the straits
south of “Luçon” and made friends with the people of the country. There the Filipinos promised “both themselves,
and all the islands thereabouts, to aid him whensoever he should come again to overcome the Spaniards.”
 Dampier, another English sea captain, passed through the Archipelago but little later, and one of his men,
John Fitzgerald by name, remained in the Islands, marrying here. He pretended to be a physician, and practiced
as a doctor in Manila. There was no doubt room for him, because when Spain expelled the Moors she reduced
medicine in her country to a very low state, for the Moors had been her most skilled physicians. Many of these
Moors who were Christians, though not orthodox according to the Spanish standard, settled in London, and the
English thus profited by the persecution, just as she profited when the cutlery industry was in like manner
transplanted from Toledo to Sheffield.

The great Armada against England in Queen Elizabeth’s time was an attempt to stop once for all the
depredations of her subjects on Spain’s commerce in the Orient. As the early Spanish historian, Morga, wrote of
it: “Then only the English nation disturbed the Spanish dominion in that Orient. Consequently King Philip desired
not only to forbid it with arms near at hand, but also to furnish an example, by their punishment, to all the northern
nations, so that they should not undertake the invasions that we see. A beginning was made in this work in the
year one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight.”

This ingeniously worded statement omits to tell how ignominiously the pretentious expedition ended,
but the fact of failure remained and did not help the prestige of Spain, especially among her subjects in the Far
East. After all the boastings of what was going to happen, and all the claims of what had been accomplished, the
enemies of Spain not only were unchecked but appeared to be bolder than ever. Some of the more thoughtful
Filipinos then began to lose confidence in Spanish claims. They were only a few, but their numbers were to
increase as the years went by. The Spanish Armada was one of the earliest of those influences which, reinforced
by later events, culminated in the life work of José Rizal and the loss of the Philippines by Spain.

At that time the commerce of Manila was restricted to the galleon trade with Mexico, and the prosperity
of the Filipino merchants—in large measure the prosperity of the entire Archipelago—depended upon the yearly
ventures the hazard of which was not so much the ordinary uncertainty of the sea as the risk of capture by English
freebooters. Everybody in the Philippines had heard of these daring English mariners, who were emboldened by
an almost unbroken series of successes which had correspondingly discouraged the Spaniards. They carried on
unceasing war despite occasional proclamation of peace between England and Spain, for the Spanish treasure
ships were tempting prizes, and though at times policy made their government desire friendly relations with Spain,
the English people regarded all Spaniards as their natural enemies and all Spanish property as their legitimate
spoil.

The Filipinos realized earlier than the Spaniards did that torturing to death shipwrecked English sailors
was bad policy. The result was always to make other English sailors fight more desperately to avoid a similar fate.
Revenge made them more and more aggressive, and treaties made with Spain were disregarded because, as they
said, Spain’s inhumanity had forfeited her right to be considered a civilized country.

It was less publicly discussed, but equally well known, that the English freebooters, besides committing
countless depredations on commerce, were always ready to lend their assistance to any discontented Spanish
subjects whom they could encourage into open rebellion.

The English word Filibuster was changed into “Filibusteros” by the Spanish, and in later years it came
to be applied especially to those charged with stirring up discontent and rebellion. For three centuries, in its early
application to the losses of commerce, and in its later use as denoting political agitation, possibly no other word
in the Philippines, outside of the ordinary expressions of daily life, was so widely known, and certainly none had
such sinister signification.

In contrast to this lawless association is a similarity of laws. The followers of Cortez, it will be
remembered, were welcomed in Mexico as the long-expected “Fair Gods” because of their blond complexions
derived from a Gothic ancestry. Far back in history their forbears had been neighbors of the Anglo-Saxons in the
forests of Germany, so that the customs of Anglo-Saxon England and of the Gothic kingdom of Castile had much
in common. The “Laws of the Indies,” the disregard of which was the ground of most Filipino complaints up to
the very last days of the rule of Spain, was a compilation of such of these Anglo-Saxon-Castilian laws and customs
as it was thought could be extended to the Americas, originally called the New Kingdom of Castile, which
included the Philippine Archipelago. Thus the New England township and the Mexican, and consequently the
early Philippine pueblo, as units of local government are nearly related.
 These American associations, English influences, and Anglo-
Saxon ideals also culminated in the life work of José Rizal, the heir of all
the past ages in Philippine history. But other causes operating in his own
day—the stories of his elders, the incidents of his childhood, the books he
read, the men he met, the travels he made—as later pages will show—
contributed further to make him the man he was.

It was fortunate for the Philippines that after the war of

misunderstanding with the United States there existed a character that
commanded the admiration of both sides. Rizal’s writings revealed to the
Americans aspirations that appealed to them and conditions that called
forth their sympathy, while the Filipinos felt confidence, for that reason,
in the otherwise incomprehensible new government which honored their
hero.

Rizal was already, and had been for years, without rival as the
idol of his countrymen when there came, after deliberation and delay, his
official recognition in the Philippines. Necessarily there had to be careful
study of his life and scrutiny of his writings before the head of our nation
could indorse as the corner stone of the new government which succeeded
Spain’s misrule, the very ideas which Spain had considered a sufficient
warrant for shooting their author as a traitor.

Finally the President of the United States in a public address at Fargo, North Dakota, on April 7, 1903—
five years after American scholars had begun to study Philippine affairs as they had never been studied before—
declared: ”In the Philippine Islands the American government has tried, and is trying, to carry out exactly what
the greatest genius and most revered patriot ever known in the Philippines, José Rizal, steadfastly advocated,” a
formal, emphatic and clear-cut expression of national policy upon a question then of paramount interest.

In the light of the facts of Philippine history already set forth there is no cause for wonder at this sweeping
indorsement, even though the views so indorsed were those of a man who lived in conditions widely different
from those about to be introduced by the new government. Rizal had not allowed bias to influence him in studying
the past history of the Philippines, he had been equally honest with himself in judging the conditions of his own
time, and he knew and applied with the same fairness the teaching which holds true in history as in every other
branch of science that like causes under like conditions must produce like results, He had been careful in his
reasoning, and it stood the test, first of President Roosevelt’s advisers, or otherwise that Fargo speech would never
have been made, and then of all the President’s critics, or there would have been heard more of the statement
quoted above which passed unchallenged, but not, one may be sure, uninvestigated.

The American system is in reality not foreign to the Philippines, but it is the highest development,
perfected by experience, of the original plan under which the Philippines had prospered and progressed until its
benefits were wrongfully withheld from them. Filipino leaders had been vainly asking Spain for the restoration of
their rights and the return to the system of the Laws of the Indies. At the time when America came to the Islands
there was among them no Rizal, with a knowledge of history that would enable him to recognize that they were
getting what they had been wanting, who could rise superior to the unimportant detail of under what name or how
the good came as long as it arrived, and whose prestige would have led his countrymen to accept his decision.
Some leaders had one qualification, some another, a few combined two, but none had the three, for a country is
seldom favored with more than one surpassingly great man at one time.

Let’s Remember :

 Former President and then Senator Jose P Laurel Jr provided the arguments requiring the
mandate of studying the life of Dr. Jose Rizal. He reasons that as foremost national hero,
Filipino educators should be mindful of propagating Rizal’s ideals and values among young
Filipinos. And he insists that there exists a need to study his ideals for the generation to
follow to always be aware of the sacrifices of these heroes to the national identity of the
country.
Let’s Do This :

E. Writing Exercise:

 Make an essay on the life of Filipinos under the Spaniards.

 Categorize the essay according to the social, political, economic and cultural changes as
described in the readings provided?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

F. Recitation Exercise:

 What is the impact of the atrocities committed by the Spaniards to Filipinos?

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Craig, Austin. “Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal: Filipino Patriot” University of
the Philippines. Manila: Philippine Education Company 1913.

Module Post Test:

________ 1 __ was the term used to mean the white people from the west.
________ 2 __ was the Chinese pirate who invaded Old Manila.
________ 3 __ was the Spanish historian who wrote the first history of the country.
________ 4 __ was the name given to people that were against the Spanish colonial government.
________ 5 __ is the habit of Filipinos to procrastinate.

References/Sources:

 Coates, Austin. Rizal: Filipino Nationalist and Martyr. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, Quezon
City. Malaya Books, 1969.
 Ileto, Reynaldo. Rizal and the Underside of Philippine History" In Filipinos and their Revolution: Event,
 Discourse, and Historiography. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998, pp. 29-78.
 Teodora Alonzo's petition to Camilo Polavieja, Manila, 28 December 1896.
 Film: Jose Rizal directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya (1997)
 Module 2

Module Title : Rizal's Life and Death

Module Description : This module contains the lesson or topics as well as the
discussions on Rizal’s Life. The module begins with the
presentation on Rizal’s family, childhood and early education.
The module will also present his higher education and life
abroad. The module will end with the presentation on Rizal’s
exile, trial and death.

Purpose of the : This module let the students to analyze Rizal's family,
Module childhood, and early education. It will help the students in
evaluating the people and events and their influence on Rizal's
early life. Further, the module will explain the principle of
assimilation advocated by the Propaganda Movement and
appraise Rizal's relationship with other Propagandists. The
readings will also help in analyzing Rizal's growth as a
Propagandist and disavowal of assimilation. It will provide
analysis on the factors that led to Rizal's execution and the
effects of Rizal's execution on Spanish colonial rule and the
Philippine Revolution

Module Guide : The module is designed so that students need not be online
in fulfilling the requirements of the module. To access other
readings, the student may opt to search online or go to the
library of the university if necessary. This module contains
three major topics that would serve as the introduction for
students on the discussions of Rizal’s life, works and writings.
Each lesson is provided their respective readings which will
serve as main readings for the particular topic. Each topic is
provided a set of activities for students to accomplish and
submitted to the instructor within the given timeframe. A
reference section for additional readings is also provided for
other online sources that could be used by students additional
information and learnings.

Module Outcomes : At the end of this module:

 Develop critical and analytical skills with exposure to

primary sources

 Demonstrate the ability to use primary sources to argue in

favor or against a particular issue

 Effectively communicate, using various techniques and

genres, their historical analysis of a particular event or
issue that could help others understand the chosen topic
Module Requirements : At the end of this module, the students will come up a:

 Compilation of activities conducted per lesson.

 Submission of recitations

Module Pretest :
___ 1 __ was the lawmaker who authored the Rizal
Law.
___ 2 __ was the date of the enactment of the law.
___ 3 __ was the president of the republic during the
enactment of the law.
___ 4 __ mandates the teaching of Rizal’s Life, Works
and Writings in the educational system of the
country.
___ 5 __ and __ were considered the main works of
Rizal.
___ 6 __ was the term used to mean the white people
from the west.
___ 7 __ was the Chinese pirate who invaded Old
Manila.
___ 8 __ was the Spanish historian who wrote the first
history of the country.
___ 9 __ was the name given to people that were
against the Spanish colonial government.
___ 10 __ is the habit of Filipinos to procrastinate.

Key Terms : Kalamba

Bagumbayan
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 4

Lesson Title : Family, Childhood and Early Education

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Analyze Rizal's family, childhood, and early education

 Evaluate the people and events and their influence on Rizal's early life

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Why is the family an important part of child’s
personality development?”

 Students are required to watch the film: "Jose Rizal" directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya
(1998)

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate their knowledge
of the theories in psychology and sociology in their understanding of the roots
and foundations of Rizal.

 The students are tasked to read the Rizal’s Ancestry, Liberalizing Hereditary
Influences, and Rizal’s Early Childhood.
Let’s Read :

Rizal’s Chinese Ancestry

Clustered around the walls of Manila in the latter half of the seventeenth century were little villages the
names of which, in some instances slightly changed, are the names of present districts. A fashionable drive then
was through the settlement of Filipinos in Bagumbayan—the “new town” to which Lakandola’s subjects had
migrated when Legaspi dispossessed them of their own “Maynila.” With the building of the moat this village
disappeared, but the name remained, and it is often used to denote the older Luneta, as well as the drive leading
to it.

Within the walls lived the Spanish rulers and the few other persons that the fear and jealousy of the
Spaniard allowed to come in. Some were Filipinos who ministered to the needs of the Spaniards, but the greater
number was Sangleyes, or Chinese, “the mechanics in all trades and excellent workmen,” as an old Spanish
chronicle says, continuing: “It is true that the city could not be maintained or preserved without the Sangleyes.”

The Chinese conditions of these early days are worth recalling, for influences strikingly similar to those
which affected the life of José Rizal in his native land were then at work. There were troubled times in the ancient
“Middle Kingdom,” the earlier name of the corruption of the Malay Tchina (China) by which we know it. The
conquering Manchus had placed their emperor on the throne so long occupied by the native dynasty whose
adherents had boastingly called themselves “The Sons of Light.” The former liberal and progressive government,
under which the people prospered, had grown corrupt and helpless, and the country had yielded to the invaders
and passed under the terrible tyranny of the Tartars.

Yet there were true patriots among the Chinese who were neither discouraged by these conditions nor
blind to the real cause of their misfortunes. They realized that the easy conquest of their country and the utter
disregard by their people of the bad government which had preceded it, showed that something was wrong with
themselves.

Too wise to exhaust their land by carrying on a hopeless war, they sought rather to get a better
government by deserving it, and worked for the general enlightenment, believing that it would offer the most
effective opposition to oppression, for they knew well that an intelligent people could not be kept enslaved.
Furthermore, they understood that, even if they were freed from foreign rule, the change would be merely to
another tyranny unless the darkness of the whole people were dispelled. The few educated men among them would
inevitably tyrannize over the ignorant many sooner or later, and it would be less easy to escape from the evils of
such misrule, for the opposition to it would be divided, while the strength of union would oppose any foreign
despotism. These true patriots were more concerned about the welfare of their country than ambitious for
themselves, and they worked to prepare their countrymen for self-government by teaching self-control and respect
for the rights of others.

No public effort toward popular education can be made under a bad government. Those opposed to
Manchu rule knew of a secret society that had long existed in spite of the laws against it, and they used it as their
model in organizing a new society to carry out their purposes. Some of them were members of this Ke-Ming-
Tong or Chinese Freemasonry as it is called, and it was difficult for outsiders to find out the differences between
it and the new Heaven-Earth-Man Brotherhood. The three parts to their name led the new brotherhood later to be
called the Triad Society, and they used a triangle for their seal.

The initiates of the Triad were pledged to one another in a blood compact to “depose the Tsing [Tartar]
and restore the Ming [native Chinese] dynasty.” But really the society wanted only gradual reform and was against
any violent changes. It was at first evolutionary, but later a section became dissatisfied and started another society.
The original brotherhood, however, kept on trying to educate its members. It wanted them to realize that the
dignity of manhood is above that of rank or riches, and seeking to break down the barriers of different languages
and local prejudice, hoped to create a united China efficient in its home government and respected in its foreign
relations.

It was the policy of Spain to rule by keeping the different elements among her subjects embittered against
one another. Consequently the entire Chinese population of the Philippines had several times been almost wiped
out by the Spaniards assisted by the Filipinos and resident Japanese. Although overcrowding was mainly the cause
of the Chinese immigration, the considerations already described seem to have influenced the better class of
emigrants who incorporated themselves with the Filipinos from 1642 on through the eighteenth century.
Apparently these emigrants left their Chinese homes to avoid the shaven crown and long braided queue that the
Manchu conquerors were imposing as a sign of submission—a practice recalled by the recent wholesale cutting
off of queues which marked the fall of this same Manchu dynasty upon the establishment of the present republic.
The patriot Chinese in Manila retained the ancient style, which somewhat resembled the way Koreans arrange
their hair. Those who became Christians cut the hair short and wore European hats, otherwise using the clothing—
blue cotton for the poor, silk for the richer—and felt-soled shoes, still considered characteristically Chinese.

The reasons for the brutal treatment of the unhappy exiles and the causes of the frequent accusation
against them that they were intending rebellion may be found in the fear that had been inspired by the Chinese
pirates, and the apprehension that the Chinese traders and workmen would take away from the Filipinos their
means of gaining a livelihood. At times unjust suspicions drove some of the less patient to take up arms in self-
defense. Then many entirely innocent persons would be massacred, while those who had not bought protection
from some powerful Spaniard would have their property pillaged by mobs that protested excessive devotion to
Spain and found their patriotism so profitable that they were always eager to stir up trouble.

One of the last native Chinese emperors, not wishing that any of his subjects should live outside his
dominions, informed the Spanish authorities that he considered the emigrants evil persons unworthy of his interest.
His Manchu successors had still more reason to be careless of the fate of the Manila Chinese. They were
consequently ill-treated with impunity, while the Japanese were “treated very cordially, as they are a race that
demand good treatment, and it is advisable to do so for the friendly relations between the Islands and Japan,” to
quote the ancient history once more.

Pagan or Christian, a Chinaman’s life in Manila then was not an enviable one, though the Christians were
slightly more secure. The Chinese quarter was at first inside the city, but before long it became a considerable
district of several streets along Arroceros near the present Botanical Garden. Thus the Chinese were under the
guns of the Bastion San Gabriel, which also commanded two other Chinese settlements across the river in
Tondo—Minondoc, or Binondo, and Baybay. They had their own headmen, their own magistrates and their own
prison, and no outsiders were permitted among them. The Dominican Friars, who also had a number of missionary
stations in China, maintained a church and a hospital for these Manila Chinese and established a settlement where
those who became Christians might live with their families. Writers of that day suggest that sometimes
conversions were prompted by the desire to get married—which until 1898 could not be done outside the
Church—or to help the convert’s business or to secure the protection of an influential Spanish godfather, rather
than by any changed belief.
 Certainly two of these reasons did not influence the conversion of Doctor Rizal’s paternal ancestor, Lam-
co (that is, “Lam, Esq.”), for this Chinese had a Chinese godfather and was not married till many years later.

He was a native of the Chinchew district, where the Jesuits first, and later the Dominicans, had had
missions, and he perhaps knew something of Christianity before leaving China. One of his church records
indicates his home more definitely, for it specifies Siongque, near the great city, an agricultural community, and
in China cultivation of the soil is considered the most honorable employment. Curiously enough, without
conversion, the people of that region even to-day consider themselves akin to the Christians. They believe in one
god and have characteristics distinguishing them from the Pagan Chinese, possibly derived from some remote
Mohammedan ancestors.

Lam-co’s prestige among his own people, as shown by his leadership of those who later settled with him
in Biñan, as well as the fact that even after his residence in the country he was called to Manila to act as godfather,
suggests that he was above the ordinary standing, and certainly not of the coolie class. This is borne out by his
marrying the daughter of an educated Chinese, an alliance that was not likely to have been made unless he was a
person of some education, and education is the Chinese test of social degree.
 He was baptized in the Parian church of San Gabriel on a Sunday in June of 1697. Lam-co’s age was
given in the record as thirty-five years, and the names of his parents were given as Siang-co and Zun-nio. The
second syllables of these names are titles of a little more respect than the ordinary “Mr.” and “Mrs.,” something
like the Spanish Don and Doña, but possibly the Dominican priest who kept the register was not so careful in his
use of Chinese words as a Chinese would have been. Following the custom of the other converts on the same
occasion, Lam-co took the name Domingo, the Spanish for Sunday, in honor of the day. The record of this baptism
is still to be seen in the records of the Parian church of San Gabriel, which are preserved with the Binondo records,
in Manila.

Chinchew, the capital of the district from which he came, was a literary center and a town famed in
Chinese history for its loyalty; it was probably the great port Zeitung which so strongly impressed the Venetian
traveler Marco Polo, the first European to see China.

The city was said by later writers to be large and beautiful and to contain half a million inhabitants,
“candid, open and friendly people, especially friendly and polite to foreigners.” It was situated forty miles from
the sea, in the province of Fokien, the rocky coast of which has been described as resembling Scotland, and its
sturdy inhabitants seem to have borne some resemblance to the Scotch in their love of liberty. The district now is
better known by its present port of Amoy.

Altogether, in wealth, culture and comfort, Lam-co’s home city far surpassed the Manila of that day,
which was, however, patterned after it. The walls of Manila, its paved streets, stone bridges, and large houses with
spacious courts are admitted by Spanish writers to be due to the industry and skill of Chinese workmen. They
were but slightly changed from their Chinese models, differing mainly in ornamentation, so that to a Chinese the
city by the Pasig, to which he gave the name of “the city of horses,” did not seem strange, but reminded him rather
of his own country.

Famine in his native district, or the plague which followed it, may have been the cause of Lam-co’s
leaving home, but it was more probably political troubles which transferred to the Philippines that intelligent and
industrious stock whose descendants have proved such loyal and creditable sons of their adopted country. Chinese
had come to the Islands centuries before the Spaniards arrived and they are still coming, but no other period has
brought such a remarkable contribution to the strong race which the mixture of many peoples has built up in the
Philippines. Few are the Filipinos notable in recent history who cannot trace descent from a Chinese baptized in
San Gabriel church during the century following 1642; until recently many have felt ashamed of these really
creditable ancestors.

Soon after Lam-co came to Manila he made the acquaintance of two well-known Dominicans and thus
made friendships that changed his career and materially affected the fortunes of his descendants. These powerful
friends were the learned Friar Francisco Marquez, author of a Chinese grammar, and Friar Juan Caballero, a
former missionary in China, who, because of his own work and because his brother held high office there, was
influential in the business affairs of the Order. Through them Lam-co settled in Biñan, on the Dominican estate
named after “St. Isidore the Laborer.” There, near where the Pasig river flows out of the Laguna de Bay, Lam-
co’s descendants were to be tenants until another government, not yet born, and a system unknown in his day,
should end a long series of inevitable and vexatious disputes by buying the estate and selling it again, on terms
practicable for them, to those who worked the land.

The Filipinos were at law over boundaries and were claiming the property that had been early and cheaply
acquired by the Order as endowment for its university and other charities. The Friars of the Parian quarter thought
to take those of their parishioners in whom they had most confidence out of harm’s way, and by the same act
secure more satisfactory tenants, for prejudice was then threatening another indiscriminate massacre. So they
settled many industrious Chinese converts upon these farms, and flattered themselves that their tenant troubles
were ended, for these foreigners could have no possible claim to the land. The Chinese were equally pleased to
have safer homes and an occupation which in China placed them in a social position superior to that of a
tradesman.

Domingo Lam-co was influential in building up Tubigan barrio, one of the richest parts of the great
estate. In name and appearance it recalled the fertile plains that surrounded his native Chinchew, “the city of
springs.” His neighbors were mainly Chinchew men, and what is of more importance to this narrative, the wife
whom he married just before removing to the farm was of a good Chinchew family. She was Inez de la Rosa and
but half Domingo’s age; they were married in the Parian church by the same priest who over thirty years before
had baptized her husband.
 Her father was Agustin Chinco, also of Chinchew, a rice merchant, who had been baptized five years
earlier than Lam-co. His baptismal record suggests that he was an educated man, as already indicated, for the
name of his town proved a puzzle till a present-day Dominican missionary from Amoy explained that it appeared
to be the combined names for Chinchew in both the common and literary Chinese, in each case with the syllable
denoting the town left off. Apparently when questioned from what town he came, Chinco was careful not to repeat
the word town, but gave its name only in the literary language, and when that was not understood, he would repeat
it in the local dialect. The priest, not understanding the significance of either in that form, wrote down the two
together as a single word. Knowledge of the literary Chinese, or Mandarin, as it is generally called, marked the
educated man, and, as we have already pointed out, education in China meant social position. To such minute
deductions is it necessary to resort when records are scarce, and to be of value the explanation must be in harmony
with the conditions of the period; subsequent research has verified the foregoing conclusions.

Agustin Chinco had also a Chinese godfather and his parents were Chin-co and Zun-nio. He was married
to Jacinta Rafaela, a Chinese mestiza of the Parian, as soon after his baptism as the banns could be published. She
apparently was the daughter of a Christian Chinese and a Chinese mestiza; there were too many of the name
Jacinta in that day to identify which of the several Jacintas she was and so enable us to determine the names of
her parents. The Rafaela part of her name was probably added after she was grown up, in honor of the patron of
the Parian settlement, San Rafael, just as Domingo, at his marriage, added Antonio in honor of the Chinese. How
difficult guides names then were may be seen from this list of the six children of Agustin Chinco and Jacinta
Rafaela: Magdalena Vergara, Josepha, Cristoval de la Trinidad, Juan Batista, Francisco Hong-Sun and Inez de la
Rosa.

The father-in-law and the son-in-law, Agustin and Domingo, seem to have been old friends, and
apparently of the same class. Lam-co must have seen his future wife, the youngest in Chinco’s numerous family,
grow up from babyhood, and probably was attracted by the idea that she would make a good housekeeper like her
thrifty mother, rather than by any romantic feelings, for sentiment entered very little into matrimony in those days
when the parents made the matches. Possibly, however, their married life was just as happy, for divorces then
were not even thought of, and as this couple prospered they apparently worked well together in a financial way.

The next recorded event in the life of Domingo Lam-co and his wife occurred in 1741 when, after years
of apparently happy existence in Biñan, came a great grief in the loss of their baby daughter, Josepha Didnio,
probably named for her aunt. She had lived only five days, but payments to the priest for a funeral such as was
not given to many grown persons who died that year in Biñan show how keenly the parents felt the loss of their
little girl. They had at the time but one other child, a boy of ten, Francisco Mercado, whose Christian name was
given partly because he had an uncle of the same name, and partly as a tribute of gratitude to the friendly Friar
scholar in Manila. His new surname suggests that the family possessed the commendable trait of taking pride in
its ancestry.

Among the Chinese the significance of a name counts for much and it is always safe to seek a reason for
the choice of a name. The Lam-co family were not given to the practice of taking the names of their god-parents.
Mercado recalls both an honest Spanish encomendero of the region, also named Francisco, and a worthy mestizo
Friar, now remembered for his botanical studies, but it is not likely that these influenced Domingo Lam-co in
choosing this name for his son. He gave his boy a name which in the careless Castilian of the country was but a
Spanish translation of the Chinese name by which his ancestors had been called. Sangley, Mercado and Merchant
mean much the same; Francisco therefore set out in life with a surname that would free him from the prejudice
that followed those with Chinese names, and yet would remind him of his Chinese ancestry. This was wisdom,
for seldom are men who are ashamed of their ancestry any credit to it.

The family history has to be gleaned from partially preserved parochial registers of births, marriages and
deaths, incomplete court records, the scanty papers of the estates, a few land transfers, and some stray writings
that accidentally have been preserved with the latter. The next event in Domingo’s life which is revealed by them
is a visit to Manila where in the old Parian church he acted as sponsor, or godfather, at the baptism of a
countryman, and a new convert, Siong-co, whose granddaughter was, we shall see, to marry a grandson of Lam-
co’s, the couple becoming Rizal’s grandparents.

Francisco was a grown man when his mother died and was buried with the elaborate ceremonies which
her husband’s wealth permitted. There was a coffin, a niche in which to put it, chanting of the service and special
prayers. All these involved extra cost, and the items noted in the margin of her funeral record make a total which
in those days was a considerable sum. Domingo outlived Mrs. Lam-co by but a few years, and he also had, for the
time, an expensive funeral.

Liberalizing Hereditary Influences

The hope of the Biñan landlords that by changing from Filipino to Chinese tenantry they could avoid
further litigation seems to have been disappointed. A family tradition of Francisco Mercado tells of a tedious and
costly lawsuit with the Order. Its details and merits are no longer remembered, and they are not important.

History has recorded enough agrarian trouble, in all ages and in all countries, to prove the economic
mistake of large holdings of land by those who do not cultivate it. Human nature is alike the world over, it does
not change with the centuries, and just as the Filipinos had done, the Chinese at last objected to paying increased
rent for improvements which they made themselves.

A Spanish judge required the landlords to produce their deeds, and, after measuring the land, he decided
that they were then taking rent for considerably more than they had originally bought or had been given. But the
tenants lost on the appeal, and, as they thought it was because they were weak and their opponents powerful, a
grievance grew up which was still remembered in Rizal’s day and was well known and understood by him.

Another cause of discontent, which was a liberalizing influence, was making itself felt in the Philippines
about the time of Domingo’s death. A number of Spaniards had been claiming for their own countrymen such
safeguards of personal liberty as were enjoyed by Englishmen, for no other government in Europe then paid any
attention to the rights of the individual. Learned men had devoted much study to the laws and rights of nations,
but these Spanish Liberals insisted that it was the guarantees given to the citizens, and not the political
independence of the State, that made a country really free. Unfortunately, just as their proposals began to gain
followers, Spain became involved in war with England, because the Spanish King, then as now a Bourbon and so
related to a number of other reactionary rulers, had united in the family compact by which the royal relatives were
to stamp out liberal ideas in their own dominions, and as allies to crush England, the source of the dissatisfaction
which threatened their thrones.

Many progressive Spaniards had become Freemasons, when that ancient society, after its revival in
England, had been reintroduced into Spain. Now they found themselves suspected of sympathy with England and
therefore of treason to Spain. While this could not be proved, it led to enforcing a papal bull against them, by
which Pope Clement XII placed their institution under the ban of excommunication.

At first it was intended to execute all the Spanish Freemasons, but the Queen’s favorite violinist secretly
sympathized with them. He used his influence with Her Majesty so well that through her intercession the King
commuted the sentences from death to banishment as minor officials in the possessions overseas.

Thus Cuba, Mexico, South and Central America, and the Philippines were provided with the ablest
Spanish advocates of modern ideas. In no other way could liberalism have been spread so widely or more
effectively.

Besides these officeholders there had been from the earliest days noblemen, temporarily out of favor at
Court, in banishment in the colonies. Cavite had some of these exiles, who were called “caja abierta,” or carte
blanche, because their generous allowances, which could be drawn whenever there were government funds,
seemed without limit to the Filipinos. The Spanish residents of the Philippines were naturally glad to entertain,
supply money to, and otherwise serve these men of noble birth, who might at any time be restored to favor and
again be influential, and this gave them additional prestige in the eyes of the Filipinos. One of these exiles, whose
descendants yet live in these Islands, passed from prisoner in Cavite to viceroy in Mexico.

Francisco Mercado lived near enough to hear of the “cajas abiertas” (exiles) and their ways, if he did not
actually meet some of them and personally experience the charm of their courtesy. They were as different from
the ruder class of Spaniards who then were coming to the Islands as the few banished officials were unlike the
general run of officeholders. The contrast naturally suggested that the majority of the Spaniards in the Philippines,
both in official and in private life, were not creditable representatives of their country. This charge, insisted on
with greater vehemence as subsequent events furnished further reasons for doing so, embittered the controversies
of the last century of Spanish rule. The very persons who realized that the accusation was true of themselves, were
those who most resented it, and the opinion of them which they knew the Filipinos held but dared not voice,
rankled in their breasts. They welcomed every disparagement of the Philippines and its people, and thus made
profitable a senseless and abusive campaign which was carried on by unscrupulous, irresponsible writers of such
defective education that vilification was their sole argument. Their charges were easily disproved, but they had
enough cunning to invent new charges continually, and prejudice gave ready credence to them.

Finally an unreasoning fury broke out and in blind passion innocent persons were struck down; the taste
for blood once aroused, irresponsible writers like that Retana who has now become Rizal’s biographer, whetted
the savage appetite for fresh victims. The last fifty years of Spanish rule in the Philippines was a small saturnalia
of revenge with hardly a lucid interval for the governing power to reflect or an opportunity for the reasonable
element to intervene. Somewhat similarly the Bourbons in France had hoped to postpone the day of reckoning for
their mistakes by misdeeds done in fear to terrorize those who sought reforms. The aristocracy of France paid
back tenfold each drop of innocent blood that was shed, but while the unreasoning world recalls the French
Revolution with horror, the student of history thinks more of the evils which made it a natural result. Mirabeau in
vain sought to restrain his aroused countrymen, just as he had vainly pleaded with the aristocrats to end their
excesses. Rizal, who held Mirabeau for his hero among the men of the French Revolution, knew the historical
lesson and sought to sound a warning, but he was unheeded by the Spaniards and misunderstood by many of his
countrymen.

At about the time of the arrival of the Spanish political exiles we find in Manila a proof of the normal
mildness of Spain in the Philippines. The Inquisition, of dread name elsewhere, in the Philippines affected only
Europeans, had before it two English-speaking persons, an Irish doctor and a county merchant accused of being
Freemasons. The kind-hearted Friar inquisitor dismissed the culprits with warnings, and excepting some Spanish
political matters in which it took part, this was the nearest that the institution ever came to exercising its functions
here.

The sufferings of the Indians in the Spanish-American gold mines, too, had no Philippine counterpart,
for at the instance of the friars the Church early forbade the enslaving of the people. Neither friars nor government
have any records in the Philippines which warrant belief that they were responsible for the severe punishments of
the period from ’72 to ’98. Both were connected with opposition to reforms which appeared likely to jeopardize
their property or to threaten their prerogatives, and in this they were only human, but here their selfish interests
and activities seem to cease.

For religious reasons the friar orders combatted modern ideas which they feared might include atheistical
teachings such as had made trouble in France, and the Government was against the introduction of latter-day
thought of democratic tendency, but in both instances the opposition may well have been believed to be for the
best interest of the Philippine people. However mistaken, their action can only be deplored not censured. The
black side of this matter was the rousing of popular passion, and it was done by sheets subsidized to argue; their
editors, however, resorted to abuse in order to conceal the fact that they had not the ability to perform the services
for which they were hired. While some individual members of both the religious orders and of the Government
were influenced by these inflaming attacks, the interests concerned, as organizations, seem to have had a policy
of self-defense, and not of revenge.

The theory here advanced must wait for the judgment of the reader till the later events have been
submitted. However, Rizal himself may be called in to prove that the record and policy is what has been asserted,
for otherwise he would hardly have disregarded, as he did, the writings of Motley and Prescott, historians whom
he could have quoted with great advantage to support the attacks he would surely have not failed to make had
they seemed to him warranted, for he never was wanting in knowledge, resourcefulness or courage where his
country was concerned.

No definite information is available as to what part Francisco Mercado took during the disturbed two
years when the English held Manila and Judge Anda carried on a guerilla warfare. The Dominicans were active
in enlisting their tenants to fight against the invaders, and probably he did his share toward the Spanish defense
either with contributions or personal service. The attitude of the region in which he lived strengthens this surmise,
for only after long-continued wrongs and repeatedly broken promises of redress did Filipino loyalty fail. This was
a century too early for the country around Manila, which had been better protected and less abused than the
provinces to the north where the Ilokanos revolted.

Biñan, however, was within the sphere of English influence, for Anda’s campaign was not quite so
formidable as the inscription on his monument in Manila represents it to be, and he was far indeed from being the
great conqueror that the tablet on the Santa Cruz Church describes him. Because of its nearness to Manila and
Cavite and its rich gardens, British soldiers and sailors often visited Biñan, but as the inhabitants never found
occasion to abandon their homes, they evidently suffered no serious inconvenience.

Commerce, a powerful factor, destroying the hermit character of the Islands, gained by the short
experience of freer trade under England’s rule, since the Filipinos obtained a taste for articles before unused,
which led them to be discontented and insistent, till the Manila market finally came to be better supplied. The
contrast of the British judicial system with the Spanish tribunals was also a revelation, for the foulest blot upon
the colonial administration of Spain was her iniquitous courts of justice, and this was especially true of the
Philippines.

Anda’s triumphal entry into the capital was celebrated with a wholesale hanging of Chinese, which must
have made Francisco Mercado glad that he was now so identified with the country as to escape the prejudice
against his race.

A few years later came the expulsion of the Jesuit fathers and the confiscation of their property. It
certainly weakened the government; personal acquaintance counted largely with the Filipinos; whole parishes
knew Spain and the Church only through their parish priest, and the parish priest was usually a Jesuit whose
courtesy equalled that of the most aristocratic officeholder or of any exiled “caja abierta.”

Francisco Mercado did not live in a Jesuit parish but in the neighboring hacienda of St. John the Baptist
at Kalamba, where there was a great dam and an extensive irrigation system which caused the land to rival in
fertility the rich soil of Biñan. Everybody in his neighborhood knew that the estate had been purchased with money
left in Mexico by pious Spaniards who wanted to see Christianity spread in the Philippines, and it seemed to them
sacrilege that the government should take such property for its own secular uses.

The priests in Biñan were Filipinos and were usually leaders among the secular clergy, for the parish was
desirable beyond most in the archdiocese because of its nearness to Manila, its excellent climate, its well-to-do
parishioners and the great variety of its useful and ornamental plants and trees. Many of the fruits and vegetables
of Biñan were little known elsewhere, for they were of American origin, brought by Dominicans on the voyages
from Spain by way of Mexico. They were introduced first into the great gardens at the hacienda house, which was
a comfortable and spacious building adjoining the church, and the favorite resting place for members of the Order
in Manila.

The attendance of the friars on Sundays and fête days gave to the religious services on these occasions a
dignity usually belonging to city churches. Sometimes, too, some of the missionaries from China and other
Dominican notables would be seen in Biñan. So the people not only had more of the luxuries and the pomp of life
than most Filipinos, but they had a broader outlook upon it. Their opinion of Spain was formed from acquaintance
with many Spaniards and from comparing them with people of other lands who often came to Manila and
investigated the region close to it, especially the show spots such as Biñan. Then they were on the road to the
fashionable baths at Los Baños, where the higher officials often resorted. Such opportunities gave a sort of
education, and Biñan people were in this way more cultured than the dwellers in remote places, whose only
knowledge of their sovereign state was derived from a single Spaniard, the friar curate of their parish.

Monastic training consists in withdrawing from the world and living isolated under strict rule, and this
would scarcely seem to be the best preparation for such responsibility as was placed upon the Friars. Troubles
were bound to come, and the people of Biñan, knowing the ways of the world, would soon be likely to complain
and demand the changes which would avoid them; the residents of less worldly wise communities would wait and
suffer till too late, and then in blind wrath would wreak bloody vengeance upon guilty and innocent alike.

Kalamba, a near neighbor of Biñan, had other reasons for being known besides its confiscation by the
government. It was the scene of an early and especially cruel massacre of Chinese, and about Francisco’s time
considerable talk had been occasioned because an archbishop had established an uniform scale of charges for the
various rites of the Church. While these charges were often complained of, it was the poorer people (some of
whom were in receipt of charity) who suffered. The rich were seeking more expensive ceremonies in order to
outshine the other well-to-do people of their neighborhood. The real grievance was, however, not the cost, but the
fact that political discriminations were made so that those who were out of favor with the government were
likewise deprived of church privileges. The reform of Archbishop Santo y Rufino has importance only because it
gave the people of the provinces what Manila had long possessed—a knowledge of the rivalry between the secular
and the regular clergy.
 The people had learned in Governor Bustamente’s time that Church and State did not always agree, and
now they saw dissensions within the Church. The Spanish Conquest and the possession of the Philippines had
been made easy by the doctrine of the indivisibility of Church and State, by the teaching that the two were one
and inseparable, but events were continually demonstrating the falsity of this early teaching. Hence the foundation
of the sovereignty of Spain was slowly weakening, and nowhere more surely than in the region near Manila which
numbered José Rizal’s keen-witted and observing great grandfather among its leading men.

Francisco Mercado was a bachelor during the times of these exciting events and therefore more free to
visit Manila and Cavite, and he was possibly the more likely to be interested in political matters. He married on
May 26, 1771, rather later in life than was customary in Biñan, though he was by no means as old as his father,
Domingo, was when he married. His bride, Bernarda Monicha, was a Chinese mestiza of the neighboring hacienda
of San Pedro Tunasan, who had been early orphaned and from childhood had lived in Biñan. As the coadjutor
priest of the parish bore the same name, one uncommon in the Biñan records of that period, it is possible that he
was a relative. The frequent occurrence of the name of Monicha among the last names of girls of that vicinity later
on must be ascribed to Bernarda’s popularity as godmother.

Mr. and Mrs. Francisco Mercado had two children, both boys, Juan and Clemente. During their youth
the people of the Philippines were greatly interested in the struggles going on between England, the old enemy of
Spain, and the rebellious English-American colonies. So bitter was the Spanish hatred of the nation which had
humiliated her repeatedly on both land and sea, that the authorities forgot their customary caution and encouraged
the circulation of any story that told in favor of the American colonies. Little did they realize the impression that
the statement of grievances—so trivial compared with the injustices that were being inflicted upon the Spanish
colonials—was making upon their subjects overseas, who until then had been carefully guarded from all modern
ideas of government. American successes were hailed with enthusiasm in the most remote towns, and from this
time may be dated a perceptible increase in Philippine discontent. Till then outbreaks and uprisings had been more
for revenge than with any well-considered aim, but henceforth complaints became definite, demands were made
that to an increasing number of people appeared to be reasonable, and those demands were denied or ignored, or
promises were made in answer to them which were never fulfilled.

Francisco Mercado was well to do, if we may judge from the number of carabaos he presented for
registration, for his was among the largest herds in the book of brands that has chanced to be preserved with the
Biñan church records. In 1783 he was alcalde, or chief officer of the town, and he lived till 1801. His name appears
so often as godfather in the registers of baptisms and weddings that he must have been a good-natured, liberal and
popular man.

Mrs. Francisco Mercado survived her husband by a number of years, and helped to nurse through his
baby ailments a grandson also named Francisco, the father of Doctor Rizal.

Francisco Mercado’s eldest son, Juan, built a fine house in the center of Biñan, where its pretentious
stone foundations yet stand to attest how the home deserved the pride which the family took in it.

At twenty-two Juan married a girl of Tubigan, who was two years his elder, Cirila Alejandra, daughter
of Domingo Lam-co’s Chinese godson, Siong-co. Cirila’s father’s silken garments were preserved by the family
until within the memory of persons now living, and it is likely that José Rizal, Siong-co’s great-grandson, while
in school at Biñan, saw these tangible proofs of the social standing in China of this one of his ancestors.

Juan Mercado was three times the chief officer of Biñan—in 1808, 1813 and 1823. His sympathies are
evident from the fact that he gave the second name, Fernando, to the son born when the French were trying to get
the Filipinos to declare for King Joseph, whom his brother Napoleon had named sovereign of Spain. During the
little while that the Philippines profited by the first constitution of Spain, Mercado was one of the two alcaldes.
King Ferdinand VII then was relying on English aid, and to please his allies as well as to secure the loyalty of his
subjects, Ferdinand pretended to be a very liberal monarch, swearing to uphold the constitution which the
representatives of the people had framed at Cadiz in 1812. Under this constitution the Filipinos were to be
represented in the Spanish Cortes, and the grandfather of Rizal was one of the electors to choose the
Representative.

During the next twenty-five years the history of the connection of the Philippines with Spain is mainly a
record of the breaking and renewing of the King’s oaths to the constitution, and of the Philippines electing
delegates who would find the Cortes dissolved by the time they could get to Madrid, until in the final constitution
that did last Philippine representation was left out altogether. Had things been different the sad story of this book
might never have been told, for though the misgovernment of the Philippines was originally owing to the disregard
for the Laws of the Indies and to giving unrestrained power to officials, the effects of these mistakes were not
apparent until well into the nineteenth century.

Another influence which educated the Filipino people was at work during this period. They had heard
the American Revolution extolled and its course approved, because the Spaniards disliked England. Then came
the French Revolution, which appalled the civilized world. A people, ignorant and oppressed, washed out in blood
the wrongs which they had suffered, but their liberty degenerated into license, their ideals proved impracticable,
and the anarchy of their radical republic was succeeded by the military despotism of Napoleon.

A book written in Tagalog by a friar pointed out the differences between true liberty and false. It was the
story of an old municipal captain who had traveled and returned to enlighten his friends at home. The story was
well told, and the catechism form in which, by his friends’ questions and the answers to them, the author’s opinions
were presented, was familiar to Filipinos, so that there were many intelligent readers, but its results were quite
different from what its pious and patriotic author had intended they should be.

The book told of the broadening influences of travel and of education; it suggested that liberty was
possible only for the intelligent, but that schools, newspapers, libraries and the means of travel which the American
colonists were enjoying were not provided for the Filipinos.

They were further told that the Spanish colonies in America were repeating the unhappy experiences of
the French republic, while the “English North Americans,” whose ships during the American Revolution had
found the Pacific a safe refuge from England, had developed considerable commerce with the Philippines. A
kindly feeling toward the Americans had been aroused by the praise given to Filipino mechanics who had been
trained by an American naval officer to repair his ship when the Spaniards at the government dockyards proved
incapable of doing the work. Even the first American Consul, whose monument yet remains in the Plaza
Cervantes, Manila, though, because of his faith, he could not be buried in the consecrated ground of the Catholic
cemeteries, received what would appear to be a higher honor, a grave in the principal business plaza of the city.

The inferences were irresistible: the way of the French Revolution was repugnant alike to God and
government, that of the American was approved by both. Filipinos of reflective turn of mind began to study
America; some even had gone there; for, from a little Filipino settlement, St. Malo near New Orleans, sailors
enlisted to fight in the second war of the United States against England; one of them was wounded and his name
was long borne on the pension roll of the United States.

The danger of the dense ignorance in which their rulers kept the Filipinos showed itself in 1819, when a
French ship from India having introduced Asiatic cholera into the Islands, the lowest classes of Manila ascribed
it to the collections of insects and reptiles which a French naturalist, who was a passenger upon the ship, had
brought ashore. However the story started, the collection and the dwelling of the naturalist fared badly, and
afterwards the mob, excited by its success, made war upon all foreigners. At length the excitement subsided, but
too much damage to foreign lives and property had been done to be ignored, and the matter had an ugly look,
especially as no Spaniard had suffered by this outbreak. The Insular government roused itself to punish some of
the minor misdoers and made many explanations and apologies, but the aggrieved nations insisted, and obtained
as compensation a greater security for foreigners and the removal of many of the restraints upon commerce and
travel. Thus the riot proved a substantial step in Philippine progress.

Following closely the excitement over the massacre of the foreigners in Manila came the news that Spain
had sold Florida to the United States. The circumstances of the sale were hardly creditable to the vendor, for it
was under compulsion. Her lax government had permitted its territory to become the refuge of criminals and
lawless savages who terrorized the border until in self-defense American soldiers under General Jackson had to
do the work that Spain could not do. Then with order restored and the country held by American troops, an offer
to purchase was made to Spain who found the liberal purchase money a very welcome addition to her bankrupt
treasury.

Immediately after this the Monroe Doctrine attracted widespread attention in the Philippines. Its story is
part of Spanish history. A group of reactionary sovereigns of Europe, including King Ferdinand, had united to
crush out progressive ideas in their kingdoms and to remove the dangerous examples of liberal states from their
neighborhoods. One of the effects of this unholy alliance was to nullify all the reforms which Spain had introduced
to secure English assistance in her time of need, and the people of England were greatly incensed. Great Britain
had borne the brunt of the war against Napoleon because her liberties were jeopardized, but naturally her people
could not be expected to undertake further warfare merely for the sake of people of another land, however they
might sympathize with them.

George Canning, the English statesman to whom belonged much of the credit for the Constitution of
Cadiz, thought out a way to punish the Spanish king for his perfidy. King Ferdinand was planning, with the Island
of Cuba as a base, to begin a campaign that should return his rebellious American colonies to their allegiance, for
they had taken advantage of disturbances in the Peninsula to declare their independence. England proposed to the
United States that they, the two Anglo-Saxon nations whose ideas of liberty had unsettled Europe and whom the
alliance would have attacked had it dared, should unite in a protectorate over the New World. England was to
guard the sea and the United States were to furnish the soldiers for any land fighting which might come on their
side of the Atlantic.

World politics had led the enemies of England to help her revolting colonies, Napoleon’s jealousy of
Britain had endowed the new nation with the vast Louisiana Territory, and European complications saved the
United States from the natural consequences of their disastrous war of 1812, which taught them that union was as
necessary to preserve their independence as it had been to win it. Canning’s project in principle appealed to the
North Americans, but the study of it soon showed that Great Britain was selfish in her suggestion. After a
generation of fighting, England found herself drained of soldiers and therefore she diplomatically invited the
coöperation of her former colonies; but, regardless of any formal arrangement, her navy could be relied on to
prevent those who had played her false from transporting large armies across the ocean into the neighborhood of
her otherwise defenseless colonies. That was self-preservation.

President Monroe’s advisers were willing that their country should run some risk on its own account, but
they had the traditional American aversion to entangling alliances. So the Cabinet counseled that the young nation
alone should make itself the protector of the South American republics, and drafted the declaration warning the
world that aggression against any of the New World democracies would be resented as unfriendliness to the United
States.

It was the firm attitude of President Monroe that compelled Spain to forego the attempt to reconquer her
former colonies, and therefore Mexico and Central and South America owe their existence as republics quite as
much to the elder commonwealth as does Cuba.

The American attitude revealed in the Monroe Doctrine was especially obnoxious to the Spaniards in the
Philippines but their intemperate denunciations of the policy of America for the Americans served only to spread
knowledge of that doctrine among the people of that little territory which remained to them to misgovern. Secretly
there began to be, among the stouter-hearted Filipinos, some who cherished a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,
the Philippines for the Filipinos.

Thoughts of separation from Spain by means of rebellion, by sale and by the assistance of other nations,
had been thus put into the heads of the people. These were all changes coming from outside, but it next to be
demonstrated that Spain herself did not hold her noncontiguous territories as sacred as she did her home
dominions.

The sale of Florida suggested that Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines were also available assets, and
an offer to sell them was made to the King of France; but this sovereign overreached himself, for, thinking to
drive a better bargain, he claimed that the low prices were too high. Thereupon the Spanish Ambassador, who was
not in accord with his unpatriotic instructions, at once withdrew the offer and the negotiations terminated. But the
Spanish people learned of the proposed sale and their indignation was great. The news spread to the Spaniards in
the Philippines. Through their comments the Filipinos realized that the much-talked-of sacred integrity of the
Spanish dominions was a meaningless phrase, and that the Philippines would not always be Spanish if Spain could
get her price.

Gobernadorcillo Mercado, “Captain Juan,” as he was called, made a creditable figure in his office, and
there used to be in Biñan a painting of him with his official sword, cocked hat and embroidered blouse. The
municipal executive in his time did not always wear the ridiculous combination of European and old Tagalog
costumes, namely, a high hat and a short jacket over the floating tails of a pleated shirt, which later undignified
the position. He has a notable record for his generosity, the absence of oppression and for the official honesty
which distinguished his public service from that of many who held his same office. He did, however, change the
tribute lists so that his family were no longer “Chinese mestizos,” but were enrolled as “Indians,” the wholesale
Spanish term for the natives of all Spain’s possessions overseas. This, in a way,
was compensation (it lowered his family’s tribute) for his having to pay the
taxes of all who died in Biñan or moved away during his term of office. The
municipal captain then was held accountable whether the people could pay or
not, no deductions ever being made from the lists. Most gobernadorcillos found
ways to reimburse themselves, but not Mercado. His family, however, were of
the fourth generation in the Philippines and he evidently thought that they were
entitled to be called Filipinos.

A leader in church work also, and several times “Hermano mayor” of

its charitable society, the Captain’s name appears on a number of lists that have
come down from that time as a liberal contributor to various public
subscriptions. His wife was equally benevolent, as the records show.

Mr. and Mrs. Mercado did not neglect their family, which was rather
numerous. Their children were Gavino, Potenciana (who never married),
Leoncio, Fausto, Barcelisa (who became the wife of Hermenegildo Austria),
Gabriel, Julian, Gregorio Fernando, Casimiro, Petrona (who married Gregorio Neri), Tomasa (later Mrs. F. de
Guzman), and Cornelia, the belle of the family, who later lived in Batangas.

Young Francisco was only eight years old when his father died, but his mother and sister Potenciana
looked well after him. First he attended a Biñan Latin school, and later he seems to have studied Latin and
philosophy in the College of San José in Manila.

A sister, Petrona, for some years had been a dressgoods merchant in nearby Kalamba, on an estate that
had recently come under the same ownership as Biñan. There she later married, and shortly after was widowed.
Possibly upon their mother’s death, Potenciana and Francisco removed to Kalamba; though Petrona died not long
after, her brother and sister continued to make their home there.

Francisco, in spite of his youth, became a tenant of the estate as did some others of his family, for their
Biñan holdings were not large enough to give farms to all Captain Juan’s many sons. The landlords early
recognized the agricultural skill of the Mercados by further allotments, as they could bring more land under
cultivation. Sometimes Francisco was able to buy the holdings of others who proved less successful in their
management and became discouraged.
 The pioneer farming, clearing the miasmatic forests especially, was dangerous work, and there were few
families that did not buy their land with the lives of some of its members. In 1847 the Mercados had funerals, of
brothers and nephews of Francisco, and, chief among them, of that elder sister who had devoted her life to
him, Potenciana. She had always prompted and inspired the young man, and Francisco’s success in life was largely
due to her wise counsels and her devoted encouragement of his industry and ambition. Her thrifty management of
the home, too, was sadly missed.

A year after his sister Potenciana’s death, Francisco Mercado married Teodora Alonzo, a native of
Manila, who for several years had been residing with her mother at Kalamba. The history of the family of Mrs.
Mercado is unfortunately not so easily traced as is that of her husband, and what is known is of less simplicity and
perhaps of more interest since the mother’s influence is greater than the father’s, and she was the mother of José
Rizal.

Her father, Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo (born 1790, died 1854), is said to have been “very Chinese” in
appearance. He had a brother who was a priest, and a sister, Isabel, who was quite wealthy; he himself was also
well to do. Their mother, Maria Florentina (born 1771, died 1817), was, on her mother’s side, of the famous
Florentina family of Chinese mestizos originating in Baliwag, Bulacan, and her father was Captain Mariano
Alejandro of Biñan.

Lorenzo Alberto was municipal captain of Biñan in 1824, as had been his father, Captain Cipriano
Alonzo (died 1805), in 1797. The grandfather, Captain Gregorio Alonzo (died 1794), was a native of Quiotan
barrio, and twice, in 1763 and again in 1768, at the head of the mestizos’ organization of the Santa Cruz district
in Manila.

Captain Lorenzo was educated for a surveyor, and his engineering books, some in English and others in
French, were preserved in Biñan till, upon the death of his son, the family belongings were scattered. He was
wealthy, and had invested a considerable sum of money with the American Manila
shipping firms of Peele, Hubbell & Co., and Russell, Sturgis & Co.

The family story is that he became acquainted with Brigida de Quintos,

Mrs. Rizal’s mother, while he was a student in Manila, and that she, being unusually
well educated for a girl of those days, helped him with his mathematics. Their
acquaintance apparently arose through relationship, both being connected with the
Reyes family. They had five children: Narcisa (who married Santiago Muger),
Teodora (Mrs. Francisco Rizal Mercado), Gregorio, Manuel and José. All were born
in Manila, but lived in Kalamba, and they used the name Alonzo till that general
change of names in 1850 when, with their mother, they adopted the name Realonda.
This latter name has been said to be an allusion to royal blood in the family, but
other indications suggest that it might have been a careless mistake made in writing
by Rosa Realonda, whose name sometimes appears written as Redonda. There is a
family Redondo (Redonda in its feminine form) Alonzo of Ilokano origin, the same
stock as their traditions give for Mrs. Rizal’s father, some of whose members were
to be found in the neighborhood of Biñan and Pasay. One member of this family was akin in spirit to José Rizal,
for he was fined twenty-five thousand pesos by the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands for “contempt of
religion.” It appears that he put some original comparisons into a petition which sought to obtain justice from an
inferior tribunal where, by the omission of the word “not” in copying, the clerk had reversed the court’s decision
but the judge refused to change the record.

Brigida de Quintos’s death record, in Kalamba (1856), speaks of her as the daughter of Manuel de
Quintos and Regina Ochoa.

The most obscure part of Rizal’s family tree is the Ochoa branch, the family of the maternal grandmother,
for all the archives,—church, land and court,—disappeared during the late disturbed conditions of which Cavite
was the center. So one can only repeat what has been told by elderly people who have been found reliable in other
accounts where the clews they gave could be compared with existing records.

The first of the family is said to have been Policarpio Ochoa, an employé of the Spanish customs house.
Estanislao Manuel Ochoa was his son, with the blood of old Castile mingling with Chinese and Tagalog in his
veins. He was part owner of the Hacienda of San Francisco de Malabon. One story says that somewhere in this
family was a Mariquita Ochoa, of such beauty that she was known in Cavite, where was her home, as the
Sampaguita (jasmine) of the Parian, or Chinese, quarter.

There was a Spanish nobleman also in Cavite in

her time who had been deported for political reasons—
probably for holding liberal opinions and for being
thought to be favorable to English ideas. It is said that this
particular “caja abierta” was a Marquis de Canete, and if
so there is ground for the claim that he was of royal blood;
at least some of his far-off ancestors had been related to a
former ruling family of Spain.

Mariquita’s mother knew the exile, since,

according to the custom in Filipino families, she looked
after the business interests of her husband. Curious to see
the belle of whom he had heard so much, the Marquis
made an excuse of doing business with the mother, and
went to her home on an occasion when he knew that the
mother was away. No one else was there to answer his
knock and Mariquita, busied in making candy, could not
in her confusion find a coconut shell to dip water for
washing her hands from the large jar, and not to keep the
visitor waiting, she answered the door as she was. Not
only did her appearance realize the expectations of the
Marquis, but the girl seemed equally attractive for her
self-possessed manners and lively mind. The nobleman
was charmed. On his way home he met a cart loaded with
coconut dippers and he bought the entire lot and sent it as
his first present.

After this the exile invented numerous excuses to

call, till Mariquita’s mother finally agreed to his union
with her daughter. His political disability made him out of
favor with the State church, the only place in which people
could be married then, but Mariquita became what in
English would be called a common-law wife. One of their
children, José, had a tobacco factory and a slipper factory
in Meisic, Manila, and was the especial protector of his younger sister, Regina, who became the wife of attorney
Manuel de Quintos. A sister of Regina was Diega de Castro, who with another sister, Luseria, sold “chorizos”
(sausages) or “tiratira” (taffy candy), the first at a store and the second in their own home, but both in Cavite,
according to the variations of one narrative.

A different account varies the time and omits the noble ancestor by saying that Regina was married
unusually young to Manuel de Quintos to escape the attentions of the Marquis. Another authority claims that
Regina was wedded to the lawyer in second marriage, being the widow of Facundo de Layva, the captain of the
ship Hernando Magallanes, whose pilot, by the way, was Andrew Stewart, an Englishman.

It is certain that Regina Ochoa was of Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog ancestry, and it is recorded that she
was the wife of Manuel de Quintos. Here we stop depending on memories, for in the restored burial register of
Kalamba church in the entry of the funeral of Brigida de Quintos she is called “the daughter of Manuel de Quintos
and Regina Ochoa.”

Manuel de Quintos was an attorney of Manila, graduated from Santo Tomás University, whose family
were Chinese mestizos of Pangasinan. The lawyer’s father, of the same name, had been municipal captain of
Lingayan, and an uncle was leader of the Chinese mestizos in a protest they had made against the arbitrariness of
their provincial governor. This petition for redress of grievances is preserved in the Supreme Court archives with
“Joaquin de Quintos” well and boldly written at the head of the complainants’ names, evidence of a culture and a
courage that were equally uncommon in those days. Complaints under Spanish rule, no matter how well founded,
meant trouble for the complainants; we must not forget that it was a vastly different thing from signing petitions
or adhering to resolutions nowadays. Then the signers risked certainly great annoyance, sometimes imprisonment,
and not infrequently death.

The home of Quintos had been in San Pedro Macati at the time of Captain Novales’s uprising, the so-
called “American revolt” in protest against the Peninsulars sent out to supersede the Mexican officers who had
remained loyal to Spain when the colony of their birth separated itself from the mother country. As little San
Pedro Macati is charged with having originated the conspiracy, it is unlikely that it was concealed from the liberal
lawyer, for attorneys were scarcer and held in higher esteem in those days.

The conservative element then, as later, did not often let drop any opportunity of purging the community
of those who thought for themselves, by condemning them for crime unheard and undefended, whether they had
been guilty of it or not.

All the branches of Mrs. Rizal’s family were much richer than the relatives of her husband; there were
numerous lawyers and priests among them—the old-time proof of social standing—and they were influential in
the country.

There are several names of these related families that belong among the descendants of Lakandola, as
traced by Mr. Luther Parker in his study of the Pampangan migration, and color is thereby given, so far as Rizal
is concerned, to a proud boast that an old Pampangan lady of this descent makes for her family. She, who is
exceedingly well posted upon her ancestry, ends the tracing of her lineage from Lakandola’s time by asserting
that the blood of that chief flowed in the veins of every Filipino who had the courage to stand forward as the
champion of his people from the earliest days to the close of the Spanish régime. Lakandola, of course, belonged
to the Mohammedan Sumatrans who emigrated to the Philippines only a few generations before Magellan’s
discovery.

To recall relatives of Mrs. Rizal who were in the professions may help to an understanding of the
prominence of the family. Felix Florentino, an uncle, was the first clerk of the Nueva Segovia (Vigan) court. A
cousin-german, José Florentino, was a Philippine deputy in the Spanish Cortes, and a lawyer of note, as was also
his brother, Manuel. Another relative, less near, was Clerk Reyes, of the Court of First Instance in Manila. The
priest of Rosario, Vicar of Batangas Province, Father Leyva, was a half-blood relation, and another priestly
relative was Mrs. Rizal’s paternal uncle, Father Alonzo. These were in the earlier days when professional men
were scarcer. Father Almeida, of Santa Cruz Church, Manila, and Father Agustin Mendoz, his predecessor in the
same church, and one of the sufferers in the Cavite trouble of ’72—a deporté—were most distantly connected
with the Rizal family. Another relative, of the Reyes connection, was in the Internal Revenue Service and had
charge of Kalamba during the latter part of the eighteenth century.

Mrs. Rizal was baptized in Santa

Cruz Church, Manila, November 18, 1827, as
Teodora Morales Alonzo, her godmother
being a relative by marriage, Doña Maria
Cristina. She was given an exceptionally good
fundamental education by her gifted mother,
and completed her training in Santa Rosa
College, Manila, which was in the charge of
Filipino sisters. Especially did the religious
influence of her schooling manifest itself in her
after life. Unfortunately there are no records in
the institution, because it is said all the
members of the Order who could read and
write were needed for instruction and there
was no one competent who had time for
clerical work.

Brigida de Quintos had removed to

the property in Kalamba which Lorenzo
Alberto had transferred to her, and there as early as 1844 she is first mentioned as Brigida de Quintos, then as
Brigida de Alonzo, and later as Brigida Realonda.
Rizal’s Early Childhood

JOSÉ PROTASIO RIZAL MERCADO Y ALONZO REALONDA, the seventh child of Francisco Engracio Rizal
Mercado y Alejandro and his wife, Teodora Morales Alonzo Realonda y Quintos, was born in Kalamba, June 19,
1861.

He was a typical Filipino, for few persons in this land of mixed

blood could boast a greater mixture than his. Practically all the ethnic
elements, perhaps even the Negrito in the far past, combined in his blood.
All his ancestors, except the doubtful strain of the Negrito, had been
immigrants to the Philippines, early Malays, and later Sumatrans, Chinese
of prehistoric times and the refugees from the Tartar dominion, and
Spaniards of old Castile and Valencia—representatives of all the various
peoples who have blended to make the strength of the Philippine race.

Shortly before José’s birth his family had built a pretentious new
home in the center of Kalamba on a lot which Francisco Mercado had
inherited from his brother. The house was destroyed before its usefulness
had ceased, by the vindictiveness of those who hated the man-child that
was born there. And later on the gratitude of a free people held the same
spot sacred because there began that life consecrated to the Philippines and
finally given for it, after preparing the way for the union of the various
disunited Chinese mestizos, Spanish mestizos, and half a hundred
dialectically distinguished “Indians” into the united people of the
Philippines.

José was christened in the nearby church when three days old,
and as two out-of-town bands happened to be in Kalamba for a local
festival, music was a feature of the event. His godfather was Father Pedro
Casañas, a Filipino priest of a Kalamba family, and the priest who
christened him was also a Filipino, Father Rufino Collantes. Following is
a translation of the record of Rizal’s birth and baptism: “I, the undersigned
parish priest of the town of Calamba, certify that from the investigation
made with proper authority, for replacing the parish books which were
burned September 28, 1862, to be found in Docket No. 1 of Baptisms, page 49, it appears by the sworn testimony
of competent witnesses that JOSÉ RIZAL MERCADO is the legitimate son, and of lawful wedlock, of Don Francisco
Rizal Mercado and Doña Teodora Realonda, having been baptized in this parish on the 22d day of June in the
year 1861, by the parish priest, Rev. Rufino Collantes, Rev. Pedro Casañas being his godfather.”—Witness my
signature. (Signed) LEONCIO LOPEZ.

José Rizal’s earliest training recalls the education of William and Alexander von Humboldt, those two
nineteenth century Germans whose achievements for the prosperity of their fatherland and the advancement of
humanity have caused them to be spoken of as the most remarkable pair of brothers that ever lived. He was not
physically a strong child, but the direction of his first studies was by an unusually gifted mother, who succeeded,
almost without the aid of books, in laying a foundation upon which the man placed an amount of well-mastered
knowledge along many different lines that is truly marvelous, and this was done in so short a time that its brevity
constitutes another wonder.

At three he learned his letters, having insisted upon being taught to read and being allowed to share the
lessons of an elder sister. Immediately thereafter he was discovered with her story book, spelling out its words by
the aid of the syllabary or “caton” which he had propped up before him and was using as one does a dictionary in
a foreign language.

The little boy spent also much of his time in the church, which was conveniently near, but when the
mother suggested that this might be an indication of religious inclination, his prompt response was that he liked
to watch the people.

To how good purpose the small eyes and ears were used, the true-to-life types of the characters in “Noli
Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” testify.
 Three uncles, brothers of the
mother, concerned themselves with the
intellectual, artistic and physical training of
this promising nephew. The youngest, José,
a teacher, looked after the regular lessons.
The giant Manuel developed the physique of
the youngster, until he had a supple body of
silk and steel and was no longer a sickly lad,
though he did not entirely lose his somewhat
delicate looks. The more scholarly Gregorio
saw that the child earned his candy money—
trying to instill the idea into his mind that it
was not the world’s way that anything worth
having should come without effort; he taught
him also the value of rapidity in work, to
think for himself, and to observe carefully
and to picture what he saw.

Sometimes José would draw a bird

flying without lifting pencil from the paper
till the picture was finished. At other times it
would be a horse running or a dog in chase,
but it always must be something of which he
had thought himself and the idea must not be
overworked; there was no payment for what
had been done often before. Thus he came to
think for himself, ideas were suggested to
him indirectly, so he was never a servile
copyist, and he acquired the habit of speedy
accomplishment.
Clay at first, then wax, was his
favorite play material. From these he
modeled birds and butterflies that came ever nearer to the originals in nature as the wise praise of the uncles called
his attention to possibilities of improvement and encouraged him to further effort. This was the beginning of his
nature study.

José had a pony and used to take long rides through all the surrounding country, so rich in picturesque
scenery. Besides these horseback expeditions were excursions afoot; on the latter his companion was his big black
dog, Usman. His father pretended to be fearful of some accident if dog and pony went together, so the boy had to
choose between these favorites, and alternated walking and riding, just as Mr. Mercado had planned he should.
The long pedestrian excursions of his European life, though spoken of as German and English habits, were merely
continuations of this childhood custom. There were other playmates besides the dog and the horse, especially
doves that lived in several houses about the Mercado home, and the lad was friend and defender of all the animals,
birds, and even insects in the neighborhood. Had his childish sympathies been respected the family would have
been strictly vegetarian in their diet.

At times José was permitted to spend the night in one of the curious little straw huts which La Laguna
farmers put up during the harvest season, and the myths and legends of the region which he then heard interested
him and were later made good use of in his writings.

Sleight-of-hand tricks were a favorite amusement, and he developed a dexterity which mystified the
simple folk of the country. This diversion, and his proficiency in it, gave rise to that mysterious awe with which
he was regarded by the common people of his home region; they ascribed to him supernatural powers, and refused
to believe that he was really dead even after the tragedy of Bagumbayan.

Entertainment of the neighbors with magic-lantern exhibitions was another frequent amusement, an
ordinary lamp throwing its light on a common sheet serving as a screen. José’s supple fingers twisted themselves
into fantastic shapes, the enlarged shadows of which on the curtain bore resemblance to animals, and paper
accessories were worked in to vary and enlarge the repertoire of action figures. The youthful showman was quite
successful in catering to the public taste,
and the knowledge he then gained
proved valuable later in enabling him to
approach his countrymen with books
that held their attention and gave him the
opportunity to tell them of shortcomings
which it was necessary that they should
correct.

Almost from babyhood he had

a grown-up way about him, a sort of
dignity that seemed to make him realize
and respect the rights of others and
unconsciously disposed his elders to
reason with him, rather than scold
him for his slight offenses. This habit
grew, as reprimands were needed but
once, and his grave promises of better
behavior were faithfully kept when the
explanation of why his conduct was wrong was once made clear to him. So the child came to be not an unwelcome
companion even for adults, for he respected their moods and was never troublesome. A big influence in the
formation of the child’s character was his association with the parish priest of Kalamba, Father Leoncio Lopez.

The Kalamba church and convento, which were located across the way from the Rizal home, were
constructed after the great earthquake of 1863, which demolished so many edifices throughout the central part of
the Philippines.

The curate of Kalamba had a strong personality and was notable among the Filipino secular clergy of
that day when responsibility had developed many creditable figures. An English writer of long residence in the
Philippines, John Foreman, in his book on the Philippine Islands, describes how his first meeting with this priest
impressed him, and tells us that subsequent acquaintance confirmed the early favorable opinion of one whom he
considered remarkable for broad intelligence and sanity of view. Father Leoncío never deceived himself and his
judgment was sound and clear, even when against the opinions and persons of whom he would have preferred to
think differently. Probably José, through the priest’s fondness for children and because he was well behaved and
the son of friendly neighbors, was at first tolerated about the convento, the Philippine name for the priest’s
residence, but soon he became a welcome visitor for his own sake.

He never disturbed the priest’s meditations when the

old clergyman was studying out some difficult question, but
was a keen observer, apparently none the less curious for his
respectful reserve. Father Leoncío may have forgotten the age
of his listener, or possibly was only thinking aloud, but he
spoke of those matters which interested all thinking Filipinos
and found a sympathetic, eager audience in the little boy, who
at least gave close heed if he had at first no valuable
comments to offer.

In time the child came to ask questions, and they

were so sensible that careful explanation was given, and
questions were not dismissed with the statement that these
things were for grown-ups, a statement which so often repels the childish zeal for knowledge. Not many mature
people in those days held so serious converse as the priest and his child friend, for fear of being overheard and
reported, a danger which even then existed in the Philippines.

That the old Filipino priest of Rizal’s novels owed something to the author’s recollections of Father
Leoncío is suggested by a chapter in “Noli Me Tangere.” Ibarra, viewing Manila by moonlight on the first
night after his return from Europe, recalls old memories and makes mention of the neighborhood of the Botanical
Garden, just beyond which the friend and mentor of his youth had died. Father Leoncio Lopez died in Calle
Concepción in that vicinity, which would seem to identify him in connection with that scene in the book, rather
than numerous others whose names have been sometimes suggested.
 Two writings of Rizal recall thoughts of
his youthful days. One tells how he used to
wander down along the lake shore and, looking
across the waters, wonder about the people on the
other side. Did they, too, he questioned, suffer
injustice as the people of his home town did? Was
the whip there used as freely, carelessly and
unmercifully by the authorities? Had men and
women also to be servile and hypocrites to live in
peace over there? But among these thoughts,
never once did it occur to him that at no distant
day the conditions would be changed and, under
a government that safeguarded the personal
rights of the humblest of its citizens, the region
that evoked his childhood wondering was to
become part of a province bearing his own name
in honor of his labors toward banishing servility
and hypocrisy from the character of his
countrymen.

The lake district of Central Luzon is one

of the most historic regions in the Islands, the
May-i probably of the twelfth century Chinese
geographer. Here was the scene of the earliest
Spanish missionary activity. On the south shore
is Kalamba, birthplace of Doctor Rizal, with
Biñan, the residence of his father’s ancestors, to
the northwest, and on the north shore the land to
which reference is made above. Today this same
region at the north bears the name of Rizal Province in his honor.

The other recollection of Rizal’s youth is of his first reading lesson. He did not know Spanish and made
bad work of the story of the “Foolish Butterfly,” which his mother had selected, stumbling over the words and
grouping them without regard to the sense. Finally Mrs. Rizal took the book from her son and read it herself,
translating the tale into the familiar Tagalog used in their home. The moral is supposed to be obedience, and the
young butterfly was burned and died because it disregarded the parental warning not to venture too close to the
alluring flame. The reading lesson was in the evening and by the light of a coconut-oil lamp, and some moths
were very appropriately fluttering about its cheerful blaze. The little boy watched them as his mother read and he
missed the moral, for as the insects singed their wings and fluttered to their death in the flame he forgot their
disobedience and found no warning in it for him. Rather he envied their fate and considered that the light was so
fine a thing that it was worth dying for. Thus early did the notion that there are things worth more than life enter
his head, though he could not foresee that he was to be himself a martyr and that the day of his death would before
long be commemorated in his country to recall to his countrymen lessons as important to their national existence
as his mother’s precept was for his childish welfare.

When he was four the mystery of life’s ending had been brought home to him by the death of a favorite
little sister, and he shed the first tears of real sorrow, for until then he had only wept as children do when
disappointed in getting their own way. It was the first of many griefs, but he quickly realized that life is a constant
struggle and he learned to meet disappointments and sorrows with the tears in the heart and a smile on the lips, as
he once advised a nephew to do.

At seven José made his first real journey; the family went to Antipolo with the host of pilgrims who in
May visit the mountain shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Safe Travel. In the early Spanish days in Mexico she was
the special patroness of voyages to America, especially while the galleon trade lasted; the statue was brought to
Antipolo in 1672.

A print of the Virgin, a souvenir of this pilgrimage, was, according to the custom of those times, pasted
inside José’s wooden chest when he left home for school; later on it was preserved in an album and went with him
in all his travels. Afterwards it faced Bougereau’s splendid conception of the Christ-mother, as one who had
herself thus suffered, consoling another mother grieving over the loss of a son. Many years afterwards Doctor
Rizal was charged with having fallen away from religion, but he seems really rather to have experienced a
deepening of the religious spirit which made the essentials of charity and kindness more important in his eyes
than forms and ceremonies.

Yet Rizal practiced those forms prescribed for the

individual even when debarred from church privileges. The lad
doubtless got his idea of distinguishing between the sign and
the substance from a well-worn book of explanations of the
church ritual and symbolism “intended for the use of parish
priests.” It was found in his library, with Mrs. Rizal’s name on
the flyleaf. Much did he owe his mother, and his grateful
recognition appears in his appreciative portrayal of maternal
affection in his novels.

His parents were both religious, but in a different

way. The father’s religion was manifested in his charities; he
used to keep on hand a fund, of which his wife had no account,
for contributions to the necessitous and loans to the
irresponsible. Mrs. Rizal attended to the business affairs and
was more careful in her handling of money, though quite as
charitably disposed. Her early training in Santa Rosa had
taught her the habit of frequent prayer and she began early in the
morning and continued till late in the evening, with
frequent attendance in the church. Mr. Rizal did not forget his
church duties, but was far from being so assiduous in his practice of them, and the discussions in the home
frequently turned on the comparative value of words and deeds, discussions that were often given a humorous
twist by the husband when he contrasted his wife’s liberality in prayers with her more careful dispensing of money
aid.

Not many homes in Kalamba were so well posted on events of the outside world, and the children
constantly heard discussions of questions which other households either ignored or treated rather reservedly, for
espionage was rampant even then in the Islands. Mrs. Rizal’s literary training had given her an acquaintance with
the better Spanish writers which benefited her children; she told them the classic tales in style adapted to their
childish comprehension, so that when they grew older they found that many noted authors were old acquaintances.
The Bible, too, played a large part in the home. Mrs. Rizal’s copy was a Spanish translation of the Latin Vulgate,
the version authorized by her Church but not common in the Islands then. Rizal’s frequent references to Biblical
personages and incidents are not paralleled in the writings of any contemporary Filipino author.

The frequent visitors to their home, the church, civil and military authorities, who found the spacious
Rizal mansion a convenient resting place on their way to the health resort at
Los Baños, brought something of the city, and a something not found by
many residents even there, to the people of this village household.
Oftentimes the house was filled, and the family would not turn away a guest
of less rank for the sake of one of higher distinction, though that unsocial
practice was frequently followed by persons who forgot their self-respect in
toadying to rank.

Little José did not know Spanish very well, so far as conversational
usage was concerned, but his mother tried to impress on him the beauty of
the Spanish poets and encouraged him in essays at rhyming which finally
grew into quite respectable poetical compositions. One of these was a drama
in Tagalog which so pleased a municipal captain of the neighboring village
of Paete, who happened to hear it while on a visit to Kalamba, that the
youthful author was paid two pesos for the production. This was as much
money as a field laborer in those days would have earned in half a month;
although the family did not need the coin, the incident impressed them with
the desirability of cultivating the boy’s talent.
 José was nine years old when he was sent to study in Biñan. His
master there, Justiniano Aquino Cruz, was of the old school and Rizal has left
a record of some of his maxims, such as “Spare the rod and spoil the child,”
“The letter enters with blood,” and other similar indications of his heroic
treatment of the unfortunates under his care. However, if he was a strict
disciplinarian, Master Justiniano was also a conscientious instructor, and the
boy had been only a few months under his care when the pupil was told that he
knew as much as his master, and had better go to Manila to school. Truthful
José repeated this conversation without the modification which modesty might
have suggested, and his father responded rather vigorously to the idea and it
was intimated that in the father’s childhood pupils were not accustomed to say
that they knew as much as their teachers. However, Master Justiniano
corroborated the child’s statement, so that preparations for José’s going to
Manila began to be made. This was in the Christmas vacation of 1871.

Biñan had been a valuable experience for young Rizal. There he had
met a host of relatives and from them heard much of the past of his father’s
family. His maternal grandfather’s great house was there, now inhabited by his
mother’s half-brother, a most interesting personage.

This uncle, José Alberto, had been educated in British India, spending eleven years in a Calcutta
missionary school. This was the result of an acquaintance which his father had made with an English naval officer
who visited the Philippines about 1820, the author of “An Englishman’s Visit to the Philippines.” Lorenzo Alberto,
the grandfather, himself spoke English and had English associations. He had also liberal ideas and preferred the
system under which the Philippines were represented in the Cortes and were treated not as a colony but as part of
the homeland and its people were considered Spaniards.

The great Biñan bridge had been built under Lorenzo Alberto’s supervision, and for services to the
Spanish nation during the expedition to Cochin-China—probably liberal contributions of money—he had been
granted the title of Knight of the American Order of Isabel the Catholic, but by the time this recognition reached
him he had died, and the patent was made out to his son.

An episode well known in the village—its chief event, if one might

judge from the conversation of the inhabitants—was a visit which a governor of
Hongkong had made there when he was a guest in the home of Alberto. Many
were the tales told of this distinguished Englishman, who was Sir John Bowring,
the notable polyglot and translator into English of poetry in practically every
one of the dialects of Europe. His achievements along this line had put him
second or third among the linguists of the century. He was also interested in
history, and mentioned in his Biñan visit that the Hakluyt Society, of which he
was a Director, was then preparing to publish an exceedingly interesting account
of the early Philippines that did more justice to its inhabitants than the regular
Spanish historians. Here Rizal first heard of Morga, the historian, whose book
he in after years made accessible to his countrymen. A desire to know other
languages than his own also possessed him and he was eager to rival the
achievements of Sir John Bowring.

In his book entitled “A Visit to the Philippine Islands,” which was translated into Spanish by Mr. José
del Pan, a liberal editor of Manila, Sir John Bowring gives the following account of his visit to Rizal’s uncle:

“We reached Biñan before sunset .... First we passed between files of youths,
then of maidens; and through a triumphal arch we reached the handsome dwelling of
a rich mestizo, whom we found decorated with a Spanish order, which had been
granted to his father before him. He spoke English, having been educated at Calcutta,
and his house—a very large one—gave abundant evidence that he had not studied in
vain the arts of domestic civilization. The furniture, the beds, the table, the cookery,
were all in good taste, and the obvious sincerity of the kind reception added to its
agreeableness. Great crowds were gathered together in the square which fronts the
house of Don José Alberto.”
 The Philippines had just had a liberal governor, De la Torre, but
even during this period of apparent liberalness there existed a confidential
government order directing that all letters from Filipinos suspected of
progressive ideas were to be opened in the post. This violation of the mails
furnished the list of those who later suffered in the convenient insurrection
of ’72.

An agrarian trouble, the old disagreement between landlords and

tenants, had culminated in an active outbreak which the government was
unable to put down, and so it made terms by which, among other things, the
leader of the insurrection was established as chief of a new civil guard for
the purpose of keeping order. Here again was another preparation for ’72,
for at that time the agreement was forgotten and the officer suffered
punishment, in spite of the immunity he had been promised.

Religious troubles, too, were rife. The Jesuits had returned from
exile shortly before, and were restricted to teaching work in those parishes
in the missionary district where collections were few and danger was great.
To make room for those whom they displaced the better parishes in the more thickly settled regions were taken
from Filipino priests and turned over to members of the religious Orders. Naturally there was discontent. A
confidential communication from the secular archbishop, Doctor Martinez, shows that he considered the
Filipinos had ground for complaint, for he states that if the Filipinos were under a non-Catholic government like
that of England they would receive fairer treatment than they were getting from their Spanish co-religionaries,
and warns the home government that trouble will inevitably result if the discrimination against the natives of the
country is continued.

The Jesuit method of education in their newly established “Ateneo Municipal” was a change from that
in the former schools. It treated the Filipino as a Spaniard and made no distinctions between the races in the school
dormitory. In the older institutions of Manila the Spanish students lived in the Spanish way and spoke their own
language, but Filipinos were required to talk Latin, sleep on floor mats and eat with their hands from low tables.
These Filipino customs obtained in the hamlets, but did not appeal to city lads who had become used to Spanish
ways in their own homes and objected to departing from them in school. The
disaffection thus created was among the educated class, who were best fitted to
be leaders of their people in any dangerous insurrection against the government.

However, a change had to take place to meet the Jesuit competition,

and in the rearrangement Filipino professors were given a larger share in the
management of the schools. Notable among these was Father Burgos. He had
earned his doctor’s degree in two separate courses, was among the best educated
in the capital and by far the most public-spirited and valiant of the Filipino
priests.

He enlisted the interest of many of the older Filipino clergy and through
their contributions subsidized a paper, El Eco Filipino, which spoke from the
Filipino standpoint and answered the reflections which were the stock in trade
of the conservative organ, for the reactionaries had an abusive journal just as
they had had in 1821 and were to have in the later days.

Such were the conditions when José Rizal got ready to leave home for
school in Manila, a departure which was delayed by the misfortunes of his
mother. His only, and elder, brother, Paciano, had been a student in San José
College in Manila for some years, and had regularly failed in passing his
examinations because of his outspokenness against the evils of the country.
Paciano was a great favorite with Doctor Burgos, in whose home he lived and
for whom he acted as messenger and go-between in the delicate negotiations of
the propaganda which the doctor was carrying on.

In February of ’72 all the dreams of a brighter and freer Philippines were crushed out in that enormous
injustice which made the mutiny of a few soldiers and arsenal employés in Cavite the excuse for deporting,
imprisoning, and even shooting those whose correspondence, opened during the previous year, had shown them
to be discontented with the backward conditions in the Philippines.

Doctor Burgos, just as he had been nominated to a higher post in the

Church, was the chief victim. Father Gomez, an old man, noted for charity, was
another, and the third was Father Zamora. A reference in a letter of his to
“powder,” which was his way of saying money, was distorted into a dangerous
significance, in spite of the fact that the letter was merely an invitation to a
gambling game. The trial was a farce, the informer was garroted just when he
was on the point of complaining that he was not receiving the pardon and
payment which he had been promised for his services in convicting the others.
The whole affair had an ugly look, and the way it was hushed up did not add to
the confidence of the people in the justice of the proceedings. The Islands were
then placed under military law and remained so for many years.

Father Burgos’s dying advice to Filipinos was for them to be educated

abroad, preferably outside of Spain, but if they could do no better, at least go to the Peninsula. He urged that
through education only could progress be hoped for. In one of his speeches he had warned the Spanish government
that continued oppressive measures would drive the Filipinos from their allegiance and make them wish to become
subjects of a freer power, suggesting England, whose possessions surrounded the Islands.

Doctor Burgos’s idea of England as a hope for the Philippines was borne out by the interest which the
British newspapers of Hongkong took in Philippine affairs. They gave accounts of the troubles and picked flaws
in the garbled reports which the officials sent abroad.

Some zealous but unthinking reactionary at this time conceived the idea of publishing a book somewhat
similar to that which had been gotten out against the Constitution of Cadiz. “Captain Juan” was its name; it was
in catechism form, and told of an old municipal captain who deserved to be
honored because he was so submissively subservient to all constituted
authority. He tries to distinguish between different kinds of liberty, and the
especial attention which he devotes to America shows how live a topic the
great republic was at that time in the Islands. This interest is explained by
the fact that an American company had just then received a grant of the
northern part of Borneo, later British North Borneo, for a trading company.
It was believed that the United States had designs on the Archipelago
because of treaties which had been negotiated with the Sultan of Sulu and
certain American commercial interests in the Far East, which were then
rather important.

Americans, too, had become known in the Philippines through a

soldier of fortune who had helped out the Chinese government in
suppressing the rebellion in the neighborhood of Shanghai. “General” F. T.
Ward, from Massachusetts, organized an army of deserters from European
ships, but their lack of discipline made them undesirable soldiers, and so he
disbanded the force. He then gathered a regiment of Manila men, as the
Filipinos usually found as quartermasters on all ships sailing in the East
were then called. With the aid of some other Americans these troops were
disciplined and drilled into such efficiency that the men came to have the
title among the Chinese of the “Ever-Victorious” army, because of the
almost unbroken series of successes which they had experienced. A partial
explanation, possibly, of their fighting so well is that they were paid only when they won.

The high praise given the Filipinos at this time was in contrast to the disparagement made of their efforts
in Indo-China, where in reality they had done the fighting rather than their Spanish officers. When a Spaniard in
the Philippines quoted of the Filipino their customary saying, “Poor soldier, worse sacristan,” the Filipinos dared
make no open reply, but they consoled themselves with remembering the flattering comments of “General” Ward
and the favorable opinion of Archbishop Martinez.
 References to Filipino military capacity were banned by the censors and the archbishop’s communication
had been confidential, but both became known, for despotisms drive its victims to stealth and to methods which
would not be considered creditable under freer conditions.

Let’s Remember :

 The influences in the life of Rizal during his early childhood had formed in him the ability
to see the injustices committed by the Spaniards to the Filipinos. It was also during his
childhood that his ability to express his thoughts in various artistical manners became
evident. And finally, his childhood experiences provided the basis in forming his
personality that insists on his rights when he had already made up his mind about his beliefs
and principles.

Let’s Do This :

G. Writing Exercise:

 Write a short biographical essay that compares the student's early childhood with Rizal's
own.
 What is the impact of the atrocities committed by the Spaniards to Filipinos?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

H. Recitation Exercise:

 What is your experience of injustice?

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Craig, Austin. “Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal: Filipino Patriot” University of
the Philippines. Manila: Philippine Education Company 1913.

Module Post Test:

________ 1 __ was the father of Jose Rizal.

________ 2 __ was Rizal’s teacher in Biñan.
________ 3 __ was the Spanish practice for those under Spanish landlords.
________ 4 __ was the name of the Spanish police.
________ 5 __ is the mother of Rizal.

References/Sources:
 Salazar, Zeus. "A Legacy of the Propaganda: The Tripartite View of Philippine History" in Atoy Navarro
and Flordeliza Lagbao-Botante, eds. Mga Babasahin sa Agham Panlipunang Pilipino: Sikolohiyang
Pilipino, Pilipinolohiya, at Pantayong Pananaw. QC: C&E Publishing, 2007.
http://www.bagongkasaysay an.org/downloadable/zeus 005.pdf
 Constantino, Renato. "Our task: to make Rizal obsolete" in This Week, Manila Chronicle (14 June 1959)
 Almario. Virgitio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. Quezon City. University of the Philippines Press, 2008
 Caroline S. Hau, "Introduction" in Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, 1946-1980.
Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000
 film: "Jose Rizal" directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya (1998)
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 5

Lesson Title : Higher Education and Life Abroad

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Explain the principle of assimilation advocated by the Propaganda Movement

 Appraise Rizal's relationship with other Propagandists

 Analyze Rizal's growth as a Propagandist and disavowal of assimilation

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Is a higher education primary requirement
for an educated person?”

 Students are required to watch the film: "Jose Rizal" directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya
(1998)

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate their knowledge
of the theories in education in their understanding of the roots and foundations
of Rizal.

 The students are tasked to read the Jagor’s Prophecy, The Period of Preparation
and the Period of Propaganda.
Let’s Read :
Jagor’s Prophecy

Rizal’s first home in Manila was in a nipa house with Manuel

Hidalgo, later to be his brother-in-law, in Calle Espeleta, a street named for a
former Filipino priest who had risen to be bishop and governor-general. This
spot is now marked with a tablet which gives the date of his coming as the
latter part of February, 1872.

Rizal’s own recollections speak of June as being the date of the

formal beginning of his studies in Manila. First he went to San Juan de Letran
and took an examination in the Catechism. Then he went back to Kalamba
and in July passed into the Ateneo, possibly because of the more favorable
conditions under which the pupils were admitted, receiving credit for work in
arithmetic, which in the other school, it is said, he would have had to restudy.
This perhaps accounts for the credit shown in the scholastic year 1871–72.
Until his fourth year Rizal was an externe, as those residing outside of the
school dormitory were then called. The Ateneo was very popular and so great
was the eagerness to enter it that the waiting list was long and two or three
years’ delay was not at all uncommon.

There is a little uncertainty about this period; some writers have gone
so far as to give recollections of childhood incidents of which Rizal was the hero while he lived in the house of
Doctor Burgos, but the family deny that he was ever in this home, and say that he has been confused with his
brother Paciano.

The greatest influence upon Rizal during this period was the sense of Spanish judicial injustice in the
legal persecutions of his mother, who, though innocent, for two years was treated as a criminal and held in prison.

Much of the story is not necessary for this narrative, but the mother’s troubles had their beginning in the
attempted revenge of a lieutenant of the Civil Guard, one of a body of Spaniards who were no credit to the mother
country and whom Rizal never lost opportunity in his writings of painting in their true colors. This official had
been in the habit of having his horse fed at the Mercado home when he visited their town from his station in Biñan,
but once there was a scarcity of fodder and Mr. Mercado insisted that his own stock was entitled to care before he
could extend hospitality to strangers. This the official bitterly resented. His opportunity for revenge soon came,
and was not overlooked. A disagreement between José Alberto, the mother’s brother in Biñan, and his wife, also
his cousin, to whom he had been married when they were both quite young, led to sensational charges which a
discreet officer would have investigated and would assuredly have then realized to be unfounded. Instead the
lieutenant accepted the most ridiculous statements, brought charges of attempted murder against Alberto and his
sister, Mrs. Rizal, and evidently figured that he would be able to extort money from the rich man and gratify his
revenge at the same time.

Now comes a disgruntled judge, who had not received the

attention at the Mercado home which he thought his dignity demanded. Out
of revenge he ordered Mrs. Rizal to be conducted at once to the provincial
prison, not in the usual way by boat, but, to cause her greater annoyance,
afoot around the lake. It was a long journey from Kalamba to Santa Cruz,
and the first evening the guard and his prisoner came to a village where
there was a festival in progress. Mrs. Rizal was well known and was
welcomed in the home of one of the prominent families. The festivities were
at their height when the judge, who had been on horseback and so had
reached the town earlier, heard that the prisoner, instead of being in the
village calaboose, was a guest of honor and apparently not suffering the annoyance to which he had intended to
subject her. He strode to the house, and, not content to knock, broke in the door, splintered his cane on the poor
constable’s head, and then exhausted himself beating the owner of the house.

These proceedings were revealed in a charge of prejudice which Mrs. Rizal’s lawyers urged against the
judge who at the same time was the one who decided the case and also the prosecutor. The Supreme Court agreed
that her contention was correct and directed that she be discharged from custody. To this order the judge paid due
respect and ordered her release, but he said that the accusation of unfairness against him was contempt of court,
and gave her a longer sentence under this charge than the previous one from which she had just been absolved.
After some delay the Supreme Court heard of this affair and decided that the judge was right. But, because Mrs.
Rizal had been longer in prison awaiting trial than the sentence, they dated back her imprisonment, and again
ordered her release. Here the record gets a little confused because it is concerned with a story that her brother had
sixteen thousand pesos concealed in his cell, and everybody, from the Supreme Court down, seemed interested in
trying to locate the money.

While the officials were looking for his sack of gold, Alberto gave a
power of attorney to an over-intelligent lawyer who worded his authority so
that it gave him the right to do everything which his principal himself could
have done “personally, legally and ecclesiastically.” From some source outside,
but not from the brother, the attorney heard that Mrs. Rizal had had money
belonging to Alberto, for in the extensive sugar-purchasing business which she
carried on she handled large sums and frequently borrowed as much as five
thousand pesos from this brother. Anxious to get his hands on money, he
instituted a charge of theft against her, under his power of attorney and acting
in the name of his principal. Mrs. Rizal’s attorney demurred to such a charge
being made without the man who had lent the money being at all consulted,
and held that a power of attorney did not warrant such an action. In time the
intelligent Supreme Court heard this case and decided that it should go to trial;
but later, when the attorney, acting for his principal, wanted to testify for him
under the power of attorney, they seem to have reached their limit, for they
disapproved of that proposal.

Anyone who cares to know just how ridiculous and inconsistent the judicial system of the Philippines
then was would do well to try to unravel the mixed details of the half dozen charges, ranging from cruelty through
theft to murder which were made against Mrs. Rizal without a shadow of evidence. One case was trumped up as
soon as another was finished, and possibly the affair would have dragged on till the end of the Spanish
administration had not her little daughter danced before the Governor-General once when he was traveling through
the country, won his approval, and when he asked what favor he could do for her, presented a petition for her
mother’s release. In this way, which recalls the customs of primitive nations, Mrs. Rizal finally was enabled to
return to her home.

Doctor Rizal tells us that it was then that he first began to lose confidence in mankind. A story of a school
companion, that when Rizal recalled this incident the red came into his eyes, probably has about the same
foundation as the frequent stories of his weeping with emotion upon other people’s shoulders when advised of
momentous changes in his life. Doctor Rizal did not have these Spanish ways, and the narrators are merely
speaking of what other Spaniards would have done, for self-restraint and freedom from exhibitions of emotion
were among his most prominent characteristics.

Some time during Rizal’s early years of school came his first success in painting. It was the occasion of
a festival in Kalamba; just at the last moment an important banner was accidentally damaged and there was not
time to send to Manila for another. A hasty consultation was held among the village authorities, and one
councilman suggested that José Rizal had shown considerable skill with the brush and possibly he could paint
something that would pass. The gobernadorcillo proceeded to the lad’s home and explained the need. Rizal
promptly went to work, under the official’s direction, and speedily produced a painting which the delighted
municipal executive declared was better than the expensive banner bought in Manila. The achievement was
explained to all the participants in the festival and young José was the hero of the occasion. During intervals of
school work Rizal found time to continue his modeling in clay which he procured from the brickyard of a cousin
at San Pedro Macati.

Rizal’s uncle, José Alberto, had played a considerable part in his political education. He was influential
with the Regency in Spain, which succeeded Queen Isabel when that sovereign became too malodorous to be
longer tolerated, and he was the personal friend of the Regent, General Prim, whose motto, “More liberal today
than yesterday, more liberal tomorrow than today,” he was fond of quoting. He was present in Madrid at the time
of General Prim’s assassination and often told of how this wise patriot, recognizing the unpreparedness of the
Spanish people for a republic, opposed the efforts for Page 93what would, he knew, result in as disastrous a failure
as had been France’s first effort, and how he lost his life through his desire to follow the safer course of proceeding
gradually through the preparatory stage of a constitutional monarchy. Alberto was made by him a Knight of the
Order of Carlos III, and, after Prim’s death, was created by King Amadeo a Knight Commander, the step higher
in the Order of Isabel the Catholic.

Events proved Prim’s wisdom, as Alberto was careful to observe, for

King Amadeo was soon convinced of the unfitness of his people for even a
constitutional monarchy, told them so, resigned his throne, and bade them
farewell. Then came a republic marked by excesses such as even the worst
monarch had not committed; among them the dreadful massacre of the members
of the filibustering party on the steamer Virginius in Cuba, which would have
caused war with the United States had not the Americans been deluded into the
idea that they were dealing with a sister republic. America and Switzerland had
been the only nations which had recognized Spain’s new form of government.
Prim sought an alliance with America, for he claimed that Spain should be linked
with a country which would buy Spanish goods and to which Spain could send
her products. France, with whom the Bourbons wished to be allied, was a
competitor along Spain’s own lines.

During the earlier disturbances in Spain a party of Carlists were sent to the Philippine Islands; they were
welcomed by the reactionary Spaniards, for devotion to King Carlos had been their characteristic ever since the
days when Queen Isabel had taken the throne that in their opinion belonged to the heir in the male line. Rizal
frequently makes mention of this disloyalty to the ruler of Spain on the part of those who claimed to be most
devoted Spaniards.

Along with the stories of these troubles which Rizal heard during his school days in Manila were reports
of how these exiles had established themselves in foreign cities, Basa in Hongkong, Regidor in London, and
Tavera in Paris. At their homes in these cities they gave a warm welcome to such Filipinos as traveled abroad and
they were always ready to act as guardians for Filipino students who wished to study in their cities, Many availed
themselves of these opportunities and it came to be an ambition among those in the Islands to get an education
which they believed was better than that which Spain afforded. There was some ground for such a belief, because
many of the most prominent successful men of Spanish and Philippine birth were men whose education had been
foreign. A well-known instance in Manila was the architect Roxas, father of the present Alcalde of Manila, who
learned his profession in England and was almost the only notable builder in Manila during his lifetime.

Paciano Rizal, José’s elder brother, had retired from Manila on the death of Doctor Burgos and devoted
himself to farming; in some ways, perhaps, his career suggested the character of Tasio, the philosopher of “Noli
Me Tangere.” He was careful to see that his younger brother was familiar with the liberal literature with which he
had become acquainted through Doctor Burgos.

The first foreign book read by Rizal, in a Spanish translation, was Dumas’s great novel, “The Count of
Monte Cristo,” and the story of the wrongs suffered by the prisoner of the Château d’If recalled the injustice done
his mother. Then came the book which had greatest influence upon the young man’s career; this was a Spanish
translation of Jagor’s “Travels in the Philippines,” the observations of a German naturalist who had visited the
Islands some fifteen years before. This latter book, among other comments, suggested that it was the fate of the
North American republic to develop and bring to their highest
prosperity the lands which Spain had conquered and Christianized
with sword and cross. Sooner or later, this German writer believed,
the Philippine Islands could no more escape this American influence
than had the countries on the mainland, and expressed the hope that
one day the Philippines would succumb to the same influence; he felt,
however, that it was desirable first for the Islanders to become better
able to meet the strong competition of the vigorous young people of
the New World, for under Spain the Philippines had dreamed away
its past.

The exact title of the book is “Travels in the Philippines. By F. Jagor. With numerous illustrations and a
Map London: Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly. 1875.” The title of the Spanish translation reads, “Viajes por
Filipinas de F. Jagor Traducidos del Alemán por S. Vidal y Soler Ingeniero de Montes Edición illustrada con
numerosos grabados Madrid: Imprenta, Estereopidea y Galvanoplastia de Ariban y Ca. (Sucesores de
Rivadencyra) Impresores de Camara de S. M. Calle del Duque de Osuna, núm 3. 1875,” The following extract
from the book will show how marvelously the author anticipated events that have now become history:
 “With the altered condition of things, however, all this has disappeared. The colony
can no longer be kept secluded from the world. Every facility afforded for commercial
intercourse is a blow to the old system, and a great step made in the direction of broad and
liberal reforms. The more foreign capital and foreign ideas and customs are introduced,
increasing the prosperity, enlightenment, and self-esteem of the population, the more
impatiently will the existing evils be endured.”

England can and does open her possessions unconcernedly to the world. The
British colonies are united to the mother country by the bond of mutual advantage, viz.,
the produce of raw material by means of English capital, and the exchange of the same
for English manufactures. The wealth of England is so great, the organization of her
commerce with the world so complete, that nearly all the foreigners even in the British
possessions are for the most part agents for English business houses, which would scarcely
be affected, at least to any marked extent, by a political dismemberment. It is entirely
different with Spain, which possesses the colony as an inherited property, and without the
power of turning it to any useful account.

Government monopolies rigorously maintained, insolent disregard and neglect

of the half-castes and powerful creoles, and the example of the United States, were the
chief reasons of the downfall of the American possessions. The same causes threaten ruin
to the Philippines; but of the monopolies I have said enough.

Half-castes and creoles, it is true are not, as they formerly were in America,
excluded from all orificial appointments; but they feel deeply hurt and injured through the
crowds of place-hunters which the frequent changes of Ministers send to Manilla. The influence, also, of the
American element is at least visible on the horizon, and will be more noticeable when the relations increase
between the two countries. At present they are very slender. The trade in the meantime follows in its old channels
to England and to the Atlantic ports of the United States. Nevertheless, whoever desires to form an opinion upon
the future history of the Philippines, must not consider simply their relations to Spain, but must have regard to the
prodigious changes which a few decades produce on either side of our planet.

For the first time in the history of the world the mighty powers on both sides of
the ocean have commenced to enter upon a direct intercourse with one another—Russia,
which alone is larger than any two other parts of the earth; China, which contains within
its own boundaries a third of the population of the world; and America, with ground under
cultivation nearly sufficient to feed treble the total population of the earth. Russia’s
further rôle in the Pacific Ocean is not to be estimated at present.

The trade between the two other great powers will therefore be presumably all
the heavier, as the rectification of the pressing need of human labour on the one side, and
of the corresponding overplus on the other, will fall to them.

“The world of the ancients was confined to the shores of the Mediterranean; and the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans sufficed at one time for our traffic. When first the shores of the Pacific re-echoed with the sounds of active
commerce, the trade of the world and the history of the world may be really said to have begun. A start in that
direction has been made; whereas not so very long ago the immense ocean was one wide waste of waters, traversed
from both points only once a year. From 1603 to 1769 scarcely a ship had ever visited California, that wonderful
country which, twenty-five years ago, with the exception of a few places on the coast, was an unknown wilderness,
but which is now covered with flourishing and prosperous towns and cities, divided from sea to sea by a railway,
and its capital already ranking the third of the seaports of the Union; even at this early stage of its existence a
central point of the world’s commerce, and apparently destined, by the proposed junction of the great oceans, to
play a most important part in the future.

In proportion as the navigation of the west coast of America extends the influence of the American
element over the South Sea, the captivating, magic power which the great republic exercises over the Spanish
colonies1 will not fail to make itself felt also in the Philippines. The Americans are evidently destined to bring to
a full development the germs originated by the Spaniards. As conquerors of modern times, they pursue their road
to victory with the assistance of the pioneer’s axe and plough, representing an age of peace and commercial
prosperity in contrast to that bygone and chivalrous age whose champions were upheld by the cross and protected
by the sword.

A considerable portion of Spanish America already belongs to the United States, and has since attained
an importance which could not possibly have been anticipated either under the Spanish Government or during the
anarchy which followed. With regard to permanence, the Spanish system cannot for a moment be compared with
that of America. While each of the colonies, in order to favour a privileged class by immediate gains, exhausted
still more the already enfeebled population of the metropolis by the withdrawal of the best of its ability, America,
on the contrary, has attracted to itself from all countries the most energetic element, which, once on its soil and,
freed from all fetters, restlessly progressing, has extended its power and influence still further and further. The
Philippines will escape the action of the two great neighbouring powers all the less for the fact that neither they
nor their metropolis find their condition of a stable and well-balanced nature.

It seems to be desirable for the natives that the above-mentioned views should not speedily become
accomplished facts, because their education and training hitherto have not been of a nature to prepare them
successfully to compete with either of the other two energetic, creative, and progressive nations. They have, in
truth, dreamed away their best days.”

This prophecy of Jagor’s made a deep impression upon Rizal and seems to furnish the explanation of his
life work. Henceforth it was his ambition to arouse his countrymen to prepare themselves for a freer state. He
dedicated himself to the work which Doctor Jagor had indicated as necessary. It seems beyond question that
Doctor Rizal, as early as 1876, believed that America would sometime come to the Philippines, and wished to
prepare his countrymen for the changed conditions that would then have to be met. Many little incidents in his
later life confirm this view: his eagerness to buy expensive books on the United States, such as his early purchase
in Barcelona of two different “Lives of the Presidents of the United States”; his study of the country in his travel
across it from San Francisco to New York; the reference in “The Philippines in a Hundred Years”; and the studies
of the English Revolution and other Anglo-Saxon influences which culminated in the foundation of the United
States of America.

Besides the interest he took in clay modeling, to which reference has

already been made, Rizal was expert in carving. When first in the Ateneo he
had carved an image of the Virgin of such grace and beauty that one of the
Fathers asked him to try an image of the Sacred Heart. Rizal complied, and
produced the carving that played so important a part in his future life. The Jesuit
Father had intended to take the image with him to Spain, but in some way it was
left behind and the schoolboys put it up on the door of their dormitory. There it
remained for nearly twenty years, constantly reminding the many lads who
passed in and out of the one who teachers and pupils alike agreed was the
greatest of all their number, for Rizal during these years was the schoolboy hero
of the Ateneo, and from the Ateneo came the men who were most largely
concerned in making the New Philippines. The image itself is of batikulin, an
easily carved wood, and shows considerable skill when one remembers that an
ordinary pocketknife was the simple instrument used in its manufacture. It was recalled to Rizal’s memory when
he visited the Ateneo upon his first return from Spain and was forbidden the house by the Jesuits because of his
alleged apostasy, and again in the chapel of Fort Santiago, where it played an important part in what was called
his conversion.

The proficiency he attained in the art of clay modeling is evidenced by many of the examples illustrated
in this volume. They not only indicate an astonishing versatility, but they reveal his very characteristic method of
working—a characteristic based on his constant desire to adapt the best things he found abroad to the conditions
of his own country. The same characteristic appears also in most of his literary work, and in it there is no servile
imitation; it is careful and studied selection, adaptation and combination. For example, the composition of a steel
engraving in a French art journal suggested his model in clay of a Philippine wild boar; the head of the subject in
a painting in the Luxembourg Gallery and the rest of a figure in an engraving in a newspaper are combined in a
statuette he modeled in Brussels and sent, in May, 1890, to Valentina Ventura in place of a letter; a clipping from
a newspaper cut is also adapted for his model of “The Vengeance of the Harem”; and as evidence of his facility
of expressing himself in this medium, his clay modeling of a Dapitan woman may be cited. One day while in exile
he saw a native woman clearing up the street in front of her home preparatory to a festival; the movements and
the attitudes of the figure were so thoroughly typical and so impressed themselves on his mind that he worked out
this statuette from memory.

In a literary way Rizal’s first pretentious effort was a melodrama in one act and in verse, entitled “Junta
al Pasig” (Beside the Pasig), a play in honor of the Virgin, which was given in the Ateneo
to the great edification of a considerable audience, who were enthusiastic in their praise
and hearty in their applause, but the young author neither saw the play nor paid any
attention to the manner of its reception, for he was downstairs, intent on his own
diversions and heedless of what was going on above.

Thursday was the school holiday in those days, and Rizal usually spent the time
at the Convent of La Concordia, where his youngest sister, Soledad, was a boarder. He
was a great friend of the little one and a welcome visitor in the Convent; he used to draw
pictures for her edification, sometimes teasing her by making her own portrait, to which
he gave exaggerated ears to indicate her curiosity.

Then he wrote short satirical skits, such as the following, which in English doggerel quite matches its
Spanish original:

“The girls of Concordia College

Go dressed in the latest of styles—
Bangs high on their foreheads for knowledge—
But hungry their grins and their smiles!”

Some of these girls made an impression upon José, and one of his diary entries of this time tells of his
rude awakening when a girl, some years his elder, who had laughingly accepted his boyish adoration, informed
him that she was to marry a relative of his, and he speaks of the heart-pang with which he watched the carromata
that carried her from his sight to her wedding.

José was a great reader, and the newspapers were giving much attention to the World’s Fair in
Philadelphia which commemorated the first centennial of American independence, and published numerous cuts
illustrating various interesting phases of American life. Possibly as a reaction from the former disparagement of
things American, the sentiment in the Philippines was then very friendly. There was one long account of the
presentation of a Spanish banner to a Spanish commission in Philadelphia, and the newspapers, in speaking of the
wonderful progress which the United States had made, recalled the early Spanish alliance and referred to the fact
that, had it not been for the discoveries of the Spaniards, their new land would not have been known to Europe.

Rizal during his last two years in the Ateneo was a boarder. Throughout his entire course he had been
the winner of most of the prizes. Upon receiving his Bachelor of Arts diploma he entered the University of Santo
Tomás; in the first year he studied the course in philosophy and in the second year began to specialize in medicine.

The Ateneo course of study was a good deal like that of our present high school, though not so thorough
nor so advanced. Still, the method of instruction which has made Jesuit education notable in all parts of the world
carried on the good work which the mother’s training had begun. The system required the explanation of the
morrow’s lesson, questioning on the lesson of the day and a review of the previous day’s work. This, with the
attention given to the classics, developed and quickened faculties which gave Rizal a remarkable power of
assimilating knowledge of all kinds for future use.
 The story is told that Rizal was undecided as to his career, and wrote to
the rector of the Ateneo for advice; but the Jesuit was then in the interior of
Mindanao, and by the time the answer, suggesting that he should devote himself
to agriculture, was received, he had already made his choice. However, Rizal did
continue the study of agriculture, besides specializing in medicine, carrying on
double work as he took the course in the Ateneo which led to the degree of land
surveyor and agricultural expert. This work was completed before he had reached
the age fixed by law, so that he could not then receive his diploma, which was
not delivered to him until he had attained the age of twenty-one years.

In the “Life” of Rizal published in Barcelona after his death a brilliant

picture is painted of how Rizal might have followed the advice of the rector of
the Ateneo, and have lived a long, useful and honorable life as a farmer and
gobernadorcillo of his home town, respected by the Spaniards, looked up to by
his countrymen and filling an humble but safe lot in life. Today one can hardly
feel that such a career would have been suited to the man or regret that events took the course they did.

Poetry was highly esteemed in the Ateneo, and Rizal frequently made essays in verse, often carrying his
compositions to Kalamba for his mother’s criticisms and suggestions. The writings of the Spanish poet Zorilla
were making a deep impression upon him at this time, and while his schoolmates seemed to have been more
interested in their warlike features, José appears to have gained from them an understanding of how Zorilla sought
to restore the Spanish people to their former dignity, rousing their pride through recalling the heroic events in their
past history. Some of the passages in the melodrama, “Junta al Pasig,” already described, were evidently
influenced by his study of Zorilla; the fierce denunciation of Spain which is there put in the mouth of Satan
expresses, no doubt, the real sentiments of Rizal.

In 1877 a society known as the Liceo Literario-Artistica (Lyceum of Art and Literature) offered a prize
for the best poem by a native. The winner was Rizal with the following verses, “Al Juventud Filipino” (To the
Philippine Youth). The prize was a silver pen, feather-shaped and with a gold ribbon running through it.

To the Philippine Youth

Theme: “Growth”
(Translation by Charles Derbyshire)

Hold high the brow serene, Thou, whose voice divine

O youth, where now you stand; Rivals Philomel’s refrain,
Let the bright sheen And with varied line
Of your grace be seen, Through the night benign
Fair hope of my fatherland! Frees mortality from pain;

Come now, thou genius grand, Thou, who by sharp strife

And bring down inspiration; Wakest thy mind to life;
With thy mighty hand, And the memory bright
Swifter than the wind’s volation, Of thy genius’ light
Raise the eager mind to higher station. Makest immortal in its strength;

Come down with pleasing light And thou, in accents clear

Of art and science to the fight, of Phoebus, to Apells dear;
O youth, and there untie Or by the brush’s magic art
The chains that heavy lie, Takest from nature’s store a part,
Your spirit free to blight. To fix it on the simple canvas’ length;

See how in flaming zone Go forth, and then the sacred fire
Amid the shadows thrown, Of thy genius to the laurel may aspire;
The Spaniard’s holy hand To spread around the fame,
A crown’s resplendent band And in victory acclaim,
Proffers to this Indian land. Through wider spheres the human name.

Thou, who now wouldst rise Day, O happy day,

On wings of rich emprise, Fair Filipinas, for thy land!
Seeking from Olympian skies So bless the Power today
Songs of sweetest strain, That places in thy way
Softer than ambrosial rain; This favor and this fortune grand.
 The next competition at the Liceo was in honor of the
fourth centennial of the death of Cervantes; it was open to both
Filipinos and Spaniards, and there was a dispute as to the winner
of the prize. It is hard to figure out just what really happened; the
newspapers speak of Rizal as winning the first prize, but his
certificate says second, and there seems to have been some sort
of compromise by which a Spaniard who was second was put at
the head. Newspapers, of course, were then closely censored, but
the liberal La Oceania contains a number of veiled allusions to
medical poets, suggesting that for the good of humanity they
should not be permitted to waste their time in verse-making. One
reference quotes the title of Rizal’s first poem in saying that it
was giving a word of advice “To the Philippine Youth,” and there are other indications that for some considerable
time the outcome of this contest was a very live topic in the city of Manila.

Rizal’s poem was an allegory, “The Council of the Gods”—“El consejo de los Dioses.” It was an
exceedingly artistic appreciation of the chief figure in Spanish literature. The rector of the Ateneo had assisted his
former student by securing for him needed books, and though Rizal was at that time a student in Santo Tomás,
the rivalries were such that he was still ranked with the pupils of the Jesuits and his success was a corresponding
source of elation to the Ateneo pupils and alumni. Some people have stated that Father Evaristo Arias, a notably
brilliant writer of the Dominicans, was a competitor, a version I once published, but investigation shows that this
was a mistake. However, sentiment in the University against Rizal grew, until matters became so unpleasant that
he felt it time to follow the advice of Father Burgos and continue his education outside of the Islands.

Just before this incident Rizal had been the victim of a brutal assault in Kalamba; one night when he was
passing the barracks of the Civil Guard he noted in the darkness a large body, but did not recognize who it was,
and passed without any attention to it. It turned out that the large body was a lieutenant of the Civil Guard, and,
without warning or word of any kind, he drew his sword and wounded Rizal in the back. Rizal complained of this
outrage to the authorities and tried several times, without success, to see the Governor-General. Finally he had to
recognize that there was no redress for him. By May of 1882 Rizal had made up his mind to set sail for Europe,
and his brother, Paciano, equipped him with seven hundred pesos for the journey, while his sister, Saturnina,
intrusted to him a valuable diamond ring which might prove a resource in time of emergency.

José had gone to Kalamba to attend a festival there, when Mr. Hidalgo, from Manila, notified him that
his boat was ready to sail. The telegram, asking his immediate return to the city, was couched in the form of advice
of the condition of a patient, and the name of the steamer, Salvadora, by
a play on words, was used in the sense of “May save her life.” Rizal had
previously requested of Mr. Ramirez, of the Puerta del Sol store, letters of
introduction to an Englishman, formerly in the Philippines, who was then
living in Paris. He said nothing more of his intentions, but on his last night
in the city, with his younger sister as companion, he drove all through the
walled city and its suburbs, changing horses twice in the five hours of his
farewell. The next morning he embarked on the steamer, and there yet
remains the sketch which he made of his last view of the city, showing its
waterfront as it appeared from the departing steamer. To leave town it was
necessary to have a passport; his was in the name of José Mercado, and
had been secured by a distant relative of his who lived in the Santa Cruz
district.

After five days’ journey the little steamer reached the English
colony of Singapore. There Rizal saw a modern city for the first time. He
was intensely interested in the improvements. Especially did the assured
position of the natives, confident in their rights and not fearful of the
authorities, arouse his admiration. Great was the contrast between the fears
of their rulers shown by the Filipinos and the confidence which the natives
of Singapore seemed to have in their government.

At Singapore, Rizal transferred to a French mail Steamer and seems to have had an interesting time
making himself understood on board. He had studied some French in his Ateneo course, writing an ode which
gained honors, but when he attempted to speak the language he was not
successful in making Frenchmen understand him. So he resorted to a mixed
system of his own, sometimes using Latin words and making the changes
which regularly would have occurred, and when words failed, making signs,
and in extreme cases drawing pictures of what he wanted. This versatility
with the pencil, for many of his offhand sketches had humorous touches that
almost carried them into the cartoon class, interested officers and passengers,
so that the young student had the freedom of the ship and a voyage far from
tedious. The passage of the Suez Canal, a glimpse of Egypt, Aden, where
East and West meet, and the Italian city of Naples, with its historic castle,
were the features of the trip which most impressed him.

The Period of Preparation

Rizal disembarked at Marseilles, saw a little of that famous port, and then went by rail to Barcelona,
crossing the Pyrenees, the desolate ruggedness of which contrasted with the picturesque luxuriance of his tropical
home, and remained a day at the frontier town of Port-Bou. The customary Spanish disregard of tourists compared
very unfavorably with the courteous attention which he had remarked on his arrival at Marseilles, for the custom
house officers on the Spanish frontier rather reminded him of the class of employes found in Manila.

At Barcelona he met many who had been his schoolmates in the Ateneo and others to whom he was
known by name. It was the custom of the Filipino students there to hold reunions every other Sunday at the café,
for their limited resources did not permit the daily visits which were the Spanish custom. In honor of the new
arrival a special gathering occurred in a favorite café in Plaza de Catalonia. The characteristics of the Spaniards
and the features of Barcelona were all described for Rizal’s benefit, and he had to answer a host of questions about
the changes which had occurred in Manila. Most of his answers were to the effect that old defects had not yet
been remedied nor incompetent officials supplanted, and he gave a rather hopeless view of the future of their
country. Somewhat in this gloomy mood, he wrote home for a newly established Tagalog newspaper of Manila,
his views of “Love of country,” an article not so optimistic as most of his later writings.

In Barcelona he remained but a short time, long enough, however, to see the historic sights around that
city, which was established by Hannibal, had numbered many noted Romans among its residents, and in later days
was the scene of the return of Columbus from his voyages in the New World, bringing with him samples of
Redskins, birds and other novel products of the unknown country. Then there were the magnificent boulevards,
the handsome dwellings, the interest which the citizens took in adorning their city and the pride in the results, and
above all, the disgust at all things Spanish and the loyalty to Catalonia, rather than to the “mother-fatherland.”

The Catalan was the most progressive type in Spain, but he had no love for his compatriots, was ever
complaining of their “mañana” habits and of the evils that were bound to exist in a country where Church and
State were so inextricably intermingled. Many Catalans were avowedly republicans. Signs might be seen on the
outside of buildings telling of the location of republican clubs, unpopular officials were hooted in the streets, the
newspapers were intemperate in their criticism of the government, and a campaign was carried on openly which
aimed at changing from a monarchy to a democracy, without
any apparent molestation from the authorities. All these
things impressed the lad who had seen in his own country
the most respectfully worded complaints of unquestionable
abuses treated as treason, bringing not merely punishment,
but opprobrium as well.

He, himself, in order to obtain a better education,

had had to leave his country stealthily like a fugitive from
justice, and his family, to save themselves from persecution,
were compelled to profess ignorance of his plans and
movements. His name was entered in Santo Tomás at the
opening of the new term, with the fees paid, and Paciano had
gone to Manila pretending to be looking for this brother
whom he had assisted out of the country.
 Early in the fall Rizal removed to Madrid and entered the Central University there. His short residence
in Barcelona was possibly for the purpose of correcting the irregularity in his passport, for in that town it would
be easier to obtain a cedula, and with this his way in the national University would be made smoother. He enrolled
in two courses, medicine, and literature and philosophy; besides these he studied sculpture, drawing and art in San
Carlos, and took private lessons in languages from Mr. Hughes, a well-known instructor of the city. With all these
labors it is not strange that he did not mingle largely in social life, and lack of funds and want of clothes, which
have been suggested as reasons for this, seem hardly adequate. José had left Manila with some seven hundred
pesos and a diamond ring. Besides, he received funds from his father monthly, which were sent through his cousin,
Antonio Rivera, of Manila, for fear that the landlords might revenge themselves upon their tenant for the slight
which his son had cast upon their university in deserting it for a Peninsular institution. It was no easy task in those
days for a lad from the provinces to get out of the Islands for study abroad.

Rizal frequently attended the theater, choosing especially the higher class
dramas, occasionally went to a masked ball, played the lotteries in small amounts
but regularly, and for the rest devoted most of his money to the purchase of books.
The greater part of these were second-hand, but he bought several standard works
in good editions, many with bindings de luxe. Among the books first purchased
figure a Spanish translation of the “Lives of the Presidents of the United States,”
from Washington to Johnson, morocco bound, gilt-edged, and illustrated with steel
engravings—certainly an expensive book; a “History of the English Revolution;” a
comparison of the Romans and the Teutons, and several other books which
indicated interest in the freer system of the Anglo-Saxons. Later, another “History
of the Presidents,” to Cleveland, was added to his library.

The following lines, said to be addressed to his mother, were written about this time, evidently during an
attack of homesickness:

“You Ask Me for Verses”

(Translated by Charles Derbyshire)

You bid me now to strike the lyre, While yet in childhood’s happy day,
That mute and torn so long has lain; I learned upon its sun to smile,
And yet I cannot wake the strain, And in my breast there seemed the while
Nor will the Muse one note inspire! Seething volcanic fires to play.
Coldly it shakes in accents dire, A bard I was, and my wish always
As if my soul itself to wring, To call upon the fleeting wind,
And when its sound seems but to fling With all the force of verse and mind:
A jest at its own low lament; “Go forth, and spread around its fame,
So in sad isolation pent, From zone to zone with glad acclaim,
My soul can neither feel nor sing. And earth to heaven together bind!”

There was a time—ah, ’tis too true— But it I left, and now no more—
But that time long ago has past— Like a tree that is broken and sere—
When upon me the Muse had cast My natal gods bring the echo clear
Indulgent smile and friendship’s due; Of songs that in past times they bore;
But of that age now all too few Wide seas I cross’d to foreign shore,
The thoughts that with me yet will stay; With hope of change and other fate;
As from the hours of festive play My folly was made clear too late,
There linger on mysterious notes, For in the place of good I sought
And in our minds the memory floats The seas reveal’d unto me naught,
Of minstrelsy and music gay. But made death’s specter on me wait.

A plant I am, that scarcely grown, All these fond fancies that were mine,
Was torn from out its Eastern bed, All love, all feeling, all emprise,
Where all around perfume is shed, Were left beneath the sunny skies,
And life but as a dream is known; Which o’er that flowery region shine;
The land that I can call my own, So press no more that plea of thine,
By me forgotten ne’er to be, For songs of love from out a heart
Where trilling birds their song taught me, That coldly lies a thing apart;
And cascades with their ceaseless roar, Since now with tortur’d soul I haste
And all along the spreading shore Unresting o’er the desert waste,
The murmurs of the sounding sea. And lifeless gone is all my art.
 In Madrid a number of young Filipinos were intense enthusiasts over
political agitation, and with the recklessness of youth, were careless of what they
said or how they said it, so long as it brought no danger to them. A sort of
Philippine social club had been organized by older Filipinos and Spaniards
interested in the Philippines, with the idea of quietly assisting toward improved
insular conditions, but it became so radical under the influence of this younger
majority that its conservative members were compelled to drop out and the club
broke up. The young men were constantly holding meetings to revive it, but never
arrived at any effective conclusions. Rizal was present at some of these meetings
and suggested that a good means of propaganda would be a book telling the truth
about Philippine conditions and illustrated by Filipino artists. At first the project
was severely criticized; later a few conformed to the plan, and Rizal believed that
his scheme was in a fair way of accomplishment. At the meeting to discuss the
details, however, each member of the company wanted to write upon the Filipino
woman, and the rest of the subjects scarcely interested any of them. Rizal was
disgusted with this trifling and dropped the affair, nor did he ever again seem to
take any very enthusiastic interest in such popular movements. His more mature mind put him out of sympathy
with the younger men. Their admiration gave him great prestige, but his popularity did not arise from comradeship,
as he had but very few intimates.

Early in his stay in Madrid, Rizal had come across a second-hand copy, in two volumes, of a French
novel, which he bought to improve his knowledge of that language. It was Eugene Sue’s “The Wandering Jew,”
that work which transformed the France of the nineteenth century. However one may agree or disagree with its
teachings and concede or dispute its literary merits, it cannot be denied that it was the most powerful book in its
effects on the century, surpassing even Mrs. Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which is usually credited with having
hurried on the American Civil War and brought about the termination of African slavery in the United States. The
book, he writes in his diary, affected him powerfully, not to tears, but with a tremendous sympathy for the
unfortunates that made him willing to risk everything in their behalf. It seemed to him that such a presentation of
Philippine conditions would certainly arouse Spain, but his modesty forbade his saying that he was going to write
a book like the French masterpiece. Still, from this time his recollections of his youth and the stories which he
could get from his companions were written down and revised, till finally the half had been prepared of what was
finally the novel “Noli Me Tangere.”

Through Spaniards who still remembered José’s uncle, he joined a lodge of Masons called the “Acacia.”
At this time few Filipinos in Spain had joined the institution, and those were mostly men much more mature than
himself. Thus he met leaders of Spanish national life who were men of state affairs and much more sedate, men
with broader views and more settled opinions than the irresponsible class with whom his school companions were
accustomed to associate. A distinction must be made between the Masonry of this time and the much more popular
institution in which Filipinos later figured so largely when Professor Miguel Morayta became head of the Grand
Lodge which for a time was a rival of that to which the “Acacia” owed allegiance, and finally triumphed over it.

In 1884 Rizal had begun his studies in English; he had been studying French during
and since his voyage to Spain; Italian was acquired apparently at a time when the exposition
of Genoa had attracted Spanish interest toward Italy, and largely through the reading of
Italian translations of works which he knew in other languages. German, too, he had started
to study, but had not advanced far with it. Thus Rizal was preparing himself for the travels
through Europe which he had intended to make from the time when he first left his home,
for he well knew that it was only by knowing the language of a country that it would be
possible for him to study the people, see in what way they differed from his own, and find
out which of their customs and what lessons from their history might be of advantage to the
Filipinos.

A feature in Rizal’s social life was a weekly visit to the home of Don Pablo Ortigas y Reyes, a liberal
Spaniard who had been Civil Governor of Manila in General de La Torre’s time. Here Filipino students gathered,
and were entertained by the charming daughter of the home, Consuelo, who was the person to whom were
dedicated the verses of Rizal usually entitled “á la Senorita C. O. y R.”

In Rizal’s later days he found a regular relaxation in playing chess, in which he was skilled, with the
venerable ex-president of the short-lived Spanish republic, Pi y Margal. This statesman was accused of German
tendencies because of his inclination toward Anglo-Saxon safeguards for liberty, and was a champion of general
education as a preparation for a freer Spain.

Rizal usually was present on public occasions in Filipino circles and took a leading part in them, as, for
example, when he delivered the principal address at the banquet given by the Madrid Filipino colony in honor of
their artist countrymen, after Luna and Hidalgo had won prizes in the Madrid National exposition. He was also at
the New Year’s banquet when the students gathered in the restaurant to bid farewell to the old and usher in the
new year, and his was the chief speech, summarizing the remarks of the others.

In 1885, having completed the second of his two courses, with his credentials of licentiate in medicine
and also in philosophy and literature, Rizal made a trip through the country provinces to study the Spanish peasant,
for the rural people, he thought, being agriculturists, would be most like the farmer folk of his native land. Surely
the Filipinos did not suffer in the comparison, for the Spanish peasants had not greatly changed from the day when
they were so masterfully described by Cervantes. It seemed to Rizal almost like being in Don Quixote’s land, so
many were the figures who might have been the characters in the book.

The fall of ’85 found Rizal in Paris, studying art, visiting the various museums and associating with the
Lunas, the Taveras and other Filipino residents of the French capital, for there had been a considerable colony in
that city ever since the troubles of 1872 had driven the Tavera family into exile and they had made their home in
that city. In Paris a fourth of “Noli Me Tangere” was written, and Rizal specialized in ophthalmology, devoting
his attention to those eye troubles that were most prevalent in the Philippines and least understood. His mother’s
growing blindness made him covet the skill which might enable him to restore her sight. So successfully did he
study that he became the favorite pupil of Doctor L. de Weckert, the leading authority among the oculists of
France, and author of a three-volume standard work. Rizal next went to Germany, having continued his studies in
its language in the French capital, and was present at Heidelberg on the five hundredth anniversary of the
foundation of the University.

The following lines were written by Rizal in a letter home while he was a student in Germany:

To the Flowers of Heidelberg

(translation by Charles Derbyshire)

Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers, And tell there of that day he stood,
Sown by the traveler on his way; Near to a ruin’d castle gray,
And there beneath its azure sky, By Neckar’s banks, or shady wood,
Where all of my affections lie; And pluck’d you from beside the way;
There from the weary pilgrim say, Tell, too, the tale to you addressed,
What faith is his in that land of ours! And how with tender care,
Your bending leaves he press’d
Go there and tell how when the dawn, ’Twixt pages of some volume rare.
Her early light diffusing,
Your petals first flung open wide; Bear then, O flowers, love’s message bear;
His steps beside chill Neckar drawn, My love to all the lov’d ones there,
You see him silent by your side, Peace to my country—fruitful land—
Upon its Spring perennial musing. Faith whereon its sons may stand,
And virtue for its daughters’ care;
Saw how when morning’s light, All those belovéd creatures greet,
All your fragrance stealing, That still around home’s altar meet.
Whispers to you as in mirth
Playful songs of love’s delight, And when you come unto its shore,
He, too, murmurs his love’s feeling This kiss I now on you bestow,
In the tongue he learned at birth. Fling where the winged breezes blow;
That borne on them it may hover o’er
That when the sun on Koenigstuhl’s height All that I love, esteem, and adore.
Pours out its golden flood,
And with its slowly warming light But though, O flowers, you come unto that land,
Gives life vale and grove and wood, And still perchance your colors hold;
He greets that sun, here only upraising, So far from this heroic strand,
Which in his native land is at its zenith blazing. Whose soil first bade your life unfold,
Still here your fragrance will expand;
Your soul that never quits the earth
Whose light smiled on you at your birth.
 Because he had no passport he could only attend lectures, but could
not regularly matriculate. He lived in one of the student boarding houses, with
a number of law students, and when he was proposed for membership in the
Chess Club he was registered in the Club books as being a student of law like
the men who proposed him. These Chess Club gatherings were quite a feature
of the town, being held in the large saloons with several hundred people
present, and the contests of skill were eagerly watched by shrewd and
competent judges. Rizal was a clever player, and left something of a record
among the experts.

From Heidelberg he went to Leipzig, then famous for the new studies
in psychology which were making the science of the mind almost as exact as
that of the body, and became interested in the comparison of race characteristics as influenced by environment,
history and language. This probably accounts for the advanced views held by Rizal, who was thoroughly abreast
of the new psychology. These ideas were since popularized in America largely through Professor Hugo
Munsterberg of Harvard University, who was a fellow-student of Rizal at Heidelberg and also had been at Leipzig.

A little later Rizal went to Berlin and there became acquainted with a number of men who had studied
the Philippines and knew it as none whom he had ever met previously. Chief among these was Doctor Jagor, the
author of the book which ten years before had inspired in him his life purpose of preparing his people for the time
when America should come to the Philippines. Then there was Doctor Rudolf Virchow, head of the
Anthropological Society and one of the greatest scientists in the world. Virchow was of intensely democratic
ideals, he was a statesman as well as a scientist, and the interest of the young student in the history of his country
and in everything else which concerned it, and his sincere earnestness, so intelligently directed toward helping his
country, made Rizal at once a prime favorite. Under Virchow’s sponsorship he became a member of the Berlin
Anthropological Society.

Rizal lived in the third floor of a corner lodging house not very far from the University; in this room he
spent much of his time, putting the finishing touches to what he had previously written of his novel, and there he
wrote the latter half of “Noli Me Tangere” The German influence, and absence from the Philippines for so long a
time, had modified his early radical views, and the book had now become less an effort to arouse the Spanish
sense of justice than a means of education for Filipinos by pointing out their shortcomings. Perhaps a Spanish
school history which he had read in Madrid deserves a part of the credit for this changed point of view, since in
that the author, treating of Spain’s early misfortunes, brings out the fact that misgovernment may be due quite as
much to the hypocrisy, servility and undeserving character of the people as it is to the corruption, tyranny and
cruelty of the rulers.

The printer of “Noli Me Tangere” lived in a neighboring street, and, like

most printers in Germany, worked for a very moderate compensation, so that the
volume of over four hundred pages cost less than a fourth of what it would have
done in England, or one half of what it would cost in economical Spain. Yet even at
so modest a price, Rizal was delayed in the publication until one fortunate morning
he received a visit from a countryman, Doctor Maximo Viola, who invited him to
take a pedestrian trip. Rizal responded that his interests kept him in Berlin at that
time as he was awaiting funds from home with which to publish a book he had just
completed, and showed him the manuscript. Doctor Viola was much interested and
offered to use the money he had put aside for the trip to help pay the publisher. So
the work went ahead, and when the delayed remittance from his family arrived,
Rizal repaid the obligation. Then the two sallied forth on their trip.

After a considerable tour of the historic spots and scenic places in Germany, they arrived at Dresden,
where Doctor Rizal was warmly greeted by Doctor A. B. Meyer, the Director of the Royal Saxony Ethnographical
Institute. He was an authority upon Philippine matters, for some years before he had visited the Islands to make a
study of the people. With a countryman resident in the Philippines, Doctor Meyer made careful and thorough
scientific investigations, and his conclusions were more favorable to the Filipinos than the published views of
many of the unscientific Spanish observers.
 In the Museum of Art at Dresden, Rizal saw a painting of “Prometheus Bound,” which recalled to him a
representation of the same idea in a French gallery, and from memory he modeled this figure, which especially
appealed to him as being typical of his country.

In Austrian territory he first visited Doctor Ferdinand Blumentritt, whom Rizal had known by reputation
for many years and with whom he had long corresponded. The two friends stayed at the Hotel Roderkrebs, but
were guests at the table of the Austrian professor, whose wife gave them appetizing demonstrations of the
characteristic cookery of Hungary. During Rizal’s stay he was very much interested in a gathering of tourists,
arranged to make known the beauties of that picturesque region, sometimes called the Austrian Switzerland, and
he delivered an address upon this occasion. It is noteworthy that the present interest in attracting tourists to the
Philippines, as an economic benefit to the country, was anticipated by Doctor Rizal and that he was always looking
up methods used in foreign countries for building up tourists’ travel.

One day, while the visitors were discussing Philippine matters with their host, Doctor Rizal made an
offhand sketch of Doctor Blumentritt, on a scrap of paper which happened to be at hand, so characteristic that it
serves as an excellent portrait, and it has been preserved among the Rizal relics which Doctor Blumentritt had
treasured of the friend for whom he had so much respect and affection.

With a letter of introduction to a friend of Doctor Blumentritt in Vienna, Nordenfels, the greatest of
Austrian novelists, Doctor Viola and Doctor Rizal went on to the capital, where they were entertained by the
Concordia Club. So favorable was the impression that Rizal made upon Mr. Nordenfels that an answer was written
to the note of introduction, thanking the professor for having brought to his notice a person whom he had found
so companionable and whose genius he so much admired. Nordenfels had been interested in Spanish subjects, and
was able to discuss intelligently the peculiar development of Castilian civilization and the politics of the Spanish
metropolis as they affected the overseas possessions.

After having seen Rome and a little more of Italy, they embarked for the Philippines, again on the French
mail, from Marseilles, coming by way of Saigon, where a rice steamer was taken for Manila.

The Period of Propaganda

The city had not altered much during Rizal’s seven years of absence. The condition of the Binondo
pavement, with the same holes in the road which Rizal claimed he remembered as a schoolboy, was unchanged,
and this recalls the experience of Ybarra in “Noli Me Tangere” on his homecoming after a like period of absence.

Doctor Rizal at once went to his home in Kalamba. His first operation in the Philippines relieved the
blindness of his mother, by the removal of a double cataract, and thus the object of his special study in Paris was
accomplished. This and other like successes gave the young oculist a fame which brought patients from all parts
of Luzon; and, though his charges were moderate, during his seven
months’ stay in the Islands Doctor Rizal accumulated over five
thousand pesos, besides a number of diamonds which he had bought
as a secure way of carrying funds, mindful of the help that the ring had
been with which he had first started from the Philippines.

Shortly after his arrival, Governor-General Terrero

summoned Rizal by telegraph to Malacañan from Kalamba. The
interview proved to be due to the interest in the author of “Noli Me
Tangere” and a curiosity to read the novel, arising from the copious
extracts with which the Manila censors had submitted an unfavorable
opinion when asking for the prohibition of the book. The
recommendation of the censor was disregarded, and General Terrero,
fearful that Rizal might be molested by some of the many persons who
would feel themselves aggrieved by his plain picturing of undesirable
classes in the Philippines, gave him for a bodyguard a young Spanish
lieutenant, José Taviel de Andrade. The young men soon became fast friends, as they had artistic and other tastes
in common. Once they climbed Mt. Makiling, near Kalamba, and placed there, after the European custom, a flag
to show that they had reached the summit. This act was at first misrepresented by the enemies of Rizal as planting
a German banner, for they started a story that he had taken possession of the Islands in the name of the country
where he was educated, which was just then in unfriendly relations with Spain over the question of the ill treatment
of the Protestant missionaries in the Caroline Islands. This same story was repeated after the American occupation
with the variation that Rizal, as the supreme chief and originator of the ideas of the Katipunan (which in fact he
was not—he was even opposed to the society as it existed in his time), had placed there a Filipino banner, in token
that the Islands intended to reassume the independent condition of which the Spanish had dispossessed them.

“Noli Me Tangere” circulated first among Doctor Rizal’s relatives; on one occasion a cousin made a
special trip to Kalamba and took the author to task for having caricatured her in the character of Doña Victorina.
Rizal made no denial, but merely suggested that the book was a mirror of Philippine life, with types that
unquestionably existed in the country, and that if anybody recognized one of the characters as picturing himself
or herself, that person would do well to correct the faults which therein appeared ridiculous.

A somewhat liberal administration was now governing the Philippines, and

efforts were being made to correct the more glaring abuses in the social conditions.
One of these reforms proposed that the larger estates should bear their share of the
taxes, which it was believed they were then escaping to a great extent. Requests were
made of the municipal government of Kalamba, among other towns, for a statement of
the relation that the big Dominican hacienda bore to the town, what increase or decrease
there might have been in the income of the estate, and what taxes the proprietors were
paying compared with the revenue their place afforded.

Rizal interested the people of the community to gather reliable statistics, to go thoroughly into the actual
conditions, and to leave out the generalities which usually characterized Spanish documents.

He asked the people to cooperate, pointing out that when they did not complain it was their own fault
more than that of the government if they suffered injustice. Further, he showed the folly of exaggerated statements,
and insisted upon a definite and moderate showing of such abuses as were unquestionably within the power of the
authorities to relieve. Rizal himself prepared the report, which is an excellent presentation of the grievances of the
people of his town. It brings forward as special points in favor of the community their industriousness, their
willingness to help themselves, their interest in education, and concludes with expressing confidence in the
fairness of the government, pointing out the fact that they were risking the displeasure of their landlords by
furnishing the information requested. The paper made a big stir, and its essential
statements, like everything else in Rizal’s writings, were never successfully challenged.

Conditions in Manila were at that time disturbed owing to the precedence

which had been given in a local festival to the Chinese, because they paid more money.
The Filipinos claimed that, being in their home country, they should have had prior
consideration and were entitled to it by law. The matter culminated in a protest, which
was doubtless submitted to Doctor Rizal on the eve of his departure from the Islands;
the protest in a general way met with his approval, but the theatrical
methods adopted in the presentation of it can hardly have been according
to his advice.

He sailed for Hongkong in February of 1888, and made a short

stay in the British colony, becoming acquainted there with Jose Maria
Basa, an exile of ’72, who had constituted himself the especial guardian
of the Filipino students in that city. The visitor was favorably impressed
by the methods of education in the British colony and with the spirit of
patriotism developed thereby. He also looked into the subject of the large
investments in Hongkong property by the corporation landlords of the
Philippines, their preparation for the day of trouble which they foresaw.

Rizal was interested in the Chinese theater, comparing the plays

with the somewhat similar productions which existed in the Philippines;
there, however, they had been given a religious twist, which at first glance
hid their debt to the Chinese drama. The Doctor notes meeting, at nearby
Macao, an exile of ’72, whose condition and patient, uncomplaining
bearing of his many troubles aroused Rizal’s sympathies and commanded
his admiration.

With little delay, the journey was continued to Japan, where

Doctor Rizal was surprised by an invitation to make his home in the Spanish consulate. There he was hospitably
entertained, and a like courtesy was shown him in the Spanish minister’s home in Tokyo. The latter even offered
him a position, as a sort of interpreter, probably, should he care to remain in the country. This offer, however, was
declined. Rizal made considerable investigation into the condition of the various Japanese classes and acquired
such facility in the use of the language that with it and his appearance, for he was “very Japanese,” the natives
found it difficult to believe that he was not one of them. The month or more passed here he considered one of the
happiest in his travels, and it was with regret that he sailed from Yokohama for San Francisco. A Japanese
newspaper man, who knew no other language than his own, was a companion on the entire journey to London,
and Rizal acted as his interpreter.

Not only did he enter into the spirit of the language but with remarkable versatility
he absorbed the spirit of the Japanese artists and acquired much dexterity in expressing
himself in their style, as is shown by one of the illustrations in this book. The popular idea
that things occidental are reversed in the Orient was amusingly caricatured in a sketch he
made of a German face; by reversing its lines he converted it into an old-time Japanese
countenance.

The diary of the voyage from Hong Kong to

Japan records an incident to which he alludes as being similar to that of
Aladdin in the Tagalog tale of Florante. The Filipino wife of an Englishman,
Mrs. Jackson, who was a passenger on board, told Rizal a great deal about a
Filipino named Rachal, who was educated in Europe and had written a
much-talked-of novel, which she described and of which she spoke in such
flattering terms that Rizal declared his identity. The confusion in names is
explained by the fact that Rachal is a name well known in the Philippines as
that of a popular make of piano.

At San Francisco the boat was held for some time in quarantine because of sickness aboard, and Rizal
was impressed by the fact that the valuable cargo of silk was not delayed but was quickly transferred to the shore.
His diary is illustrated with a drawing of the Treasury flag on the customs launch which acted as go-between for
their boat and the shore. Finally, the first-class passengers were allowed to land, and he went to the Palace Hotel.

With little delay, the overland journey was begun; the scenery through the picturesque
Rocky Mountains especially impressed him, and finally Chicago was reached. The thing that
struck him most forcibly in that city was the large number of cigar stores with an Indian in front
of each—and apparently no two Indians alike. The unexpressed idea was that in America the
 remembrance of the first inhabitants of the land and their dress was retained
and popularized, while in the Philippines knowledge of the first inhabitants of
the land was to be had only from foreign museums.

Niagara Falls is the next impression recorded in the diary, which has
been preserved and is now in the Newberry Library of Chicago. The same
strange, awe-inspiring mystery which others have found in the big falls
affected him, but characteristically he compared this world-wonder with the
cascades of his native La Laguna, claiming for them greater delicacy and a
daintier enchantment.

From Albany, the train ran along the banks of the Hudson, and he was
reminded of the Pasig in his homeland, with its much greater commerce and
its constant activity.

At New York, Rizal embarked on the City of Rome, then the finest
steamer in the world, and after a pleasant voyage, in which his spare moments
were occupied in rereading “Gulliver’s Travels” in English, Rizal reached
England, and said good-by to the friends whom he had met during their brief
ocean trip together.
Rizal’s first letters home to his family speak of being in the free air of England and once more amidst
European activity. For a short time he lived with Doctor Antonio Maria Regidor, an exile of ’72, who had come
to secure what Spanish legal Business he could in the British metropolis. Doctor Regidor was formerly an official
in the Philippines, and later proved his innocence of any complicity in the troubles of ’72.

Doctor Rizal then boarded with a Mr. Beckett, organist of St. Paul’s Church, at 37 Charlecote Crescent,
in the favorite North West residence section. The zoölogical gardens were conveniently near and the British
Museum was within easy walking distance. The new member was a favorite with all the family, which consisted
of three daughters besides the father and mother.

Rizal’s youthful interest in sleight-of-hand tricks was still maintained. During his stay in the Philippines
he had sometimes amused his friends in this way, till one day he was horrified to find that the simple country folk,
who were also looking on, thought that he was working miracles. In London he resumed his favorite diversion,
and a Christmas gift of Mrs. Beckett to him, “The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist,”
indicated the interest his friends took in this amusement. One of his own purchases was “Modern Magic,” the
frontispiece of which is the sphinx that figures in the story of “El Filibusterismo.”

It was Rizal’s custom to study the deceptions practiced upon the peoples of other lands, comparing them
with those of which his own countrymen had been victims. Thus he could get an idea of the relative credulity of
different peoples and could also account for many practices the origin
of which was otherwise less easy to understand. His investigations
were both in books and by personal research. In quest of these
experiences he one day chanced to visit a professional phrenologist;
the bump-reader was a shrewd guesser, for he dwelt especially upon
Rizal’s aptitude for learning languages and advised him to take up the
study of them.

This interest in languages, shown in his childish ambition to

be like Sir John Bowring, made Rizal a congenial companion of a still
more distinguished linguist, Doctor Reinhold Rost, the librarian of the
India Office. The Raffles Library in Singapore now owns Doctor
Rost’s library, and its collection of grammars in seventy languages
attests the wide range of the studies of this Sanscrit scholar.

Doctor Rost was born and educated in Germany, though naturalized as a British subject, and he was a
man of great musical taste. His family sometimes formed an orchestra, at other times a glee club, and furnished
all the necessary parts from its own members. Rizal was a frequent visitor, usually spending his Sundays in athletic
exercises with the boys, for he quickly became proficient in the English sports of boxing and cricket. While resting
he would converse with the father, or chat with the daughters of the home. All the children had literary tastes, and
one, Daisy, presented him with a copy of a novel which she had just translated from the German, entitled “Ulli.”
 Some idea of Doctor Rizal’s own linguistic attainments may
be gained from the fact that instead of writing letters to his nephews
and nieces he made for them translations of some of Hans Christian
Andersen’s fairy tales. They consist of some forty manuscript pages,
profusely illustrated, and the father is referred to in a “dedication,” as
though it were a real book. The Hebrew Bible quotation is in allusion
to a jocose remark once made by the father that German was like
Hebrew to him, the verse being that in which the sons of Jacob, not
recognizing that their brother was the seller, were bargaining for some
of Pharaoh’s surplus corn, “And he (Joseph) said, How is the old man,
your father?” Rizal always tried to relieve by a touch of humor
anything that seemed to him as savoring of affectation, the phase of
Spanish character that repelled him and the imitation of which by his
countrymen who knew nothing of the un-Spanish world disgusted him with them.

Another example of his versatility in language and of its usefulness to him as well, is shown in a trilingual
letter written by Rizal in Dapitan when the censorship of his correspondence had become annoying through
ignorant exceptions to perfectly harmless matters. No Spaniard available spoke more than one language besides
his own and it was necessary to send the letter to three different persons to find out its contents. The critics took
the hint and Rizal received better treatment thereafter.

Another one of Rizal’s youthful aspirations was attained in London, for there he began transcribing
the early Spanish history by Morga of which Sir John Bowring had told his uncle. A copy of this rare book was
in the British Museum and he gained admission as a reader there through the recommendation of Doctor Rost.
Only five hundred persons can be accommodated in the big reading room, and as students are coming from every
continent for special researches, good reason has to be shown why these studies cannot be made at some other
institution.
 Besides the copying of the text of Morga’s history, Rizal read many
other early writings on the Philippines, and the manifest unfairness of some of
these who thought that they could glorify Spain only by disparaging the Filipinos
aroused his wrath. Few Spanish writers held up the good name of those who were
under their flag, and Rizal had to resort to foreign authorities to disprove their
libels. Morga was almost alone among Spanish historians, but his assertions
found corroboration in the contemporary chronicles of other nationalities. Rizal
spent his evenings in the home of Doctor Regidor, and many a time the bitterness
and impatience with which his day’s work in the Museum had inspired him,
would be forgotten as the older man counseled patience and urged that such
prejudices were to be expected of a little educated nation. Then Rizal’s brow
would clear as he quoted his favorite proverb, “To understand all is to forgive
all.”

Doctor Rost was editor of Trübner’s Record, a journal devoted to the

literature of the East, founded by the famous Oriental Bookseller and Publisher
of London, Nicholas Trübner, and Doctor Rizal contributed to it in May, 1889,
some specimens of Tagal folklore, an extract from which is appended, as it was then printed:

Specimens of Tagal Folklore

By Doctor J. Rizal

Proverbial Sayings

Malakas ang bulong sa sigaw, Low words are stronger than loud words.
Ang lakí sa layaw karaniwa ’y hubad, A petted child is generally naked (i.e. poor).
Hampas ng magulang ay nakatabã, Parents’ punishment makes one fat.
Ibang harī ibang ugaīl, New king, new fashion.
Nagpupútol ang kapus, ang labis ay nagdurugtong, What is short cuts off a piece from itself, what is long adds
another on (the poor gets poorer, the rich richer).
Ang nagsasabing tapus ay siyang kinakapus, He who finishes his words finds himself wanting.
Nangangakõ habang napapakõ, Man promises while in need.
Ang naglalakad ng maráhan, matinik may mababaw, He who walks slowly, though he may put his foot on a thorn,
will not be hurt very much (Tagals mostly go barefooted).
Ang maniwalã sa sabi ’y walang bait na sarili, He who believes in tales has no own mind.
Ang may isinuksok sa dingding, ay may titingalain, He who has put something between the wall may afterwards
look on (the saving man may afterwards be cheerful).—The
wall of a Tagal house is made of palm-leaves and bamboo, so
that it can be used as a cupboard.
Walang mahirap gisingin na paris nang The most difficult to rouse from sleep is the man who pretends
nagtutulogtulugan, to be asleep.
Labis sa salitã, kapus sa gawã, Too many words, too Hipong tulog ay nadadalá ng ánod, The sleeping shrimp is
little work. carried away by the current.
Sa bibig nahuhuli ang isda, The fish is caught through the mouth.

Puzzles

Isang butil na palay sikip sa buony bahay, One rice-corn fills up all the house.—The light. The rice-corn
with the husk is yellowish.
Matapang akó so dalawá, duag akó sa isá, I am brave against two, coward against one.—The bamboo
bridge. When the bridge is made of one bamboo only, it is
difficult to pass over; but when it is made of two or more, it is
very easy.
Dalá akó niya, dalá ko siya, He carries me, I carry him.—The shoes.
Isang balong malalim puna ng patalím, A deep well filled with steel blades.—The mouth.

The Filipino colony in Spain had established a fortnightly review, published first in Barcelona and later
in Madrid, to enlighten Spaniards on their distant colony, and Rizal wrote for it from the start. Its name, La
Solidaridad, perhaps may be translated Equal Rights, as it aimed at like laws and the same privileges for the
Peninsula and the possessions overseas.

From the Philippines came news of a contemptible attempt to reach

Rizal through his family—one of many similar petty persecutions. His sister
Lucia’s husband had died and the corpse was refused interment in consecrated
ground, upon the pretext that the dead man, who had been exceptionally liberal
to the church and was of unimpeachable character, had been negligent in his
religious duties. Another individual with a notorious record of longer absence
from confession died about the same time, and his funeral took place from the
church without demur. The ugly feature about the refusal to bury Hervosa was
that the telegram from the friar parish-priest to the Archbishop at Manila in
asking instructions, was careful to mention that the deceased was a brother-in-
law of Rizal. Doctor Rizal wrote a scorching article for La Solidaridad under
the caption “An Outrage,” and took the matter up with the Spanish Colonial
Minister, then Becerra, a professed Liberal. But that weakling statesman, more
liberal in words than in actions, did nothing.

That the union of Church and State can be as demoralizing to religion as it is disastrous to good
government seems sufficiently established by Philippine incidents like this, in which politics was substituted for
piety as the test of a good Catholic, making marriage impossible and denying decent burial to the families of those
who differed politically with the ministers of the national religion.

Of all his writings, the article in which Rizal speaks of this indignity to the dead comes nearest to
exhibiting personal feeling and rancor. Yet his main point is to indicate generally what monstrous conditions the
Philippine mixture of religion and politics made possible. The following are part of a series of nineteen verses
published in La Solidaridad over Rizal’s favorite pen name of Laong Laan:

To My Muse
(translation by Charles Derbyshire)

Invoked no longer is the Muse, Fled are the days of ease,

The lyre is out of date; The days of Love’s delight;
The poets it no longer use, When flowers still would please
And youth its inspiration now imbues And give to suffering souls surcease
With other form and state. From pain and sorrow’s blight.

If today our fancies aught One by one they have passed on,
Of verse would still require, All I loved and moved among;
Helicon’s hill remains unsought; Dead or married—from me gone,
And without heed we but inquire, For all I place my heart upon
Why the coffee is not brought. By fate adverse are stung.

In the place of thought sincere Go thou, too, O Muse, depart,

That our hearts may feel, Other regions fairer find;
We must seize a pen of steel, For my land but offers art
And with verse and line severe For the laurel, chains that bind,
Fling abroad a jest and jeer. For a temple, prisons blind.

Muse, that in the past inspired me, But before thou leavest me, speak:
And with songs of love hast fired me; Tell me with thy voice sublime,
Go thou now to dull repose, Thou couldst ever from me seek
For today in sordid prose A song of sorrow for the weak,
I must earn the gold that hired me. Defiance to the tyrant’s crime.

Now must I ponder deep,

Meditate, and struggle on;
E’en sometimes I must weep;
For he who love would keep
Great pain has undergone.
 Rizal’s congenial situation in the British capital was
disturbed by his discovering a growing interest in the
youngest of the three girls whom he daily met. He felt that
his career did not permit him to marry, nor was his youthful
affection for his cousin in Manila an entirely forgotten
sentiment. Besides, though he never lapsed into such
disregard for his feminine friends as the low Spanish standard
had made too common among the Filipino students in
Madrid, Rizal was ever on his guard against himself. So he
suggested to Doctor Regidor that he considered it would be
better for him to leave London. His parting gift to the family with whom he had lived so happily was a clay
medallion bearing in relief the profiles of the three sisters.

Other regretful good-bys were said to a number of young Filipinos whom he had gathered around him
and formed into a club for the study of the history of their country and the discussion of its politics.

Rizal now went to Paris, where he was glad to be again with his friend Valentin Ventura, a wealthy
Pampangan who had been trained for the law. His tastes and ideals were very much those of Rizal, and he had
sound sense and a freedom from affectation which especially appealed to Rizal. There Rizal’s reprint of Morga’s
rare history was made, at a greater cost but also in better form than his first novel. Copious notes gave references
to other authorities and compared present with past conditions, and Doctor Blumentritt contributed a forceful
introduction.

When Rizal returned to London to correct the proofsheets, the old original book was in use and the copy
could not be checked. This led to a number of errors, misspelled and changed words, and even omissions of
sentences, which were afterwards discovered and carefully listed and filed away to be corrected in another edition.

Possibly it has been made clear already that, while Rizal did not work for separation from Spain, he was
no admirer of the Castilian character, nor of the Latin type, for that matter. He remarked on Blumentritt’s
comparison of the Spanish rulers in the Philippines with the Czars of Russia, that it is flattering to the Castilians
but it is more than they merit, to put them in the same class as Russia. Apparently he had in mind the somewhat
similar comparison in Burke’s speech on the conciliation of America, in which he said that Russia was more
advanced and less cruel than Spain and so not to be classed with it.

During his stay in Paris, Rizal was a frequent visitor at the

home of the two Doctors Pardo de Tavera, sons of the exile of ’72
who had gone to France, the younger now a physician in South
America, the elder a former Philippine Commissioner. The interest
of the one in art, and of the other in philology, the ideas of progress
through education shared by both, and many other common tastes
and ideals, made the two young men fast friends of Rizal. Mrs.
Tavera, the mother, was an interesting conversationalist, and Rizal
profited by her reminiscences of Philippine official life, to the inner
circle of which her husband’s position had given her the entrée.

On Sundays Rizal fenced at Juan Luna’s house with his distinguished artist-countryman, or, while the
latter was engaged with Ventura, watched their play. It was on one of these afternoons that the Tagalog story of
“The Monkey and the Tortoise”1 was hastily sketched as a joke to fill the remaining pages of Mrs. Luna’s
autograph album, in which she had been insisting Rizal must write before all its space was used up. A comparison
of the Tagalog version with a Japanese counterpart was published by Rizal in English, in Trübner’s Magazine,
suggesting that the two people may have had a common origin. This study received considerable attention from
other ethnologists, and was among the topics at an ethnological conference.

At times his antagonist was Miss Nellie Baustead, who had great skill with the foils. Her father, himself
born in the Philippines, the son of a wealthy merchant of Singapore, had married a member of the Genato family
of Manila. At their villa in Biarritz, and again in their home in Belgium, Rizal was a guest later, for Mr. Baustead
had taken a great liking to him.

The teaching instinct that led him to act as mentor to the Filipino students in Spain and made him the
inspiration of a mutual improvement club of his young countrymen in London, suggested the foundation of a
school in Paris. Later a Pampangan youth offered him $40,000 with which to found
a Filipino college in Hongkong, where many young men from the Philippines had
obtained an education better than their own land could afford but not entirely
adapted to their needs. The scheme attracted Rizal, and a prospectus for such an
institution which was later found among his papers not only proves how deeply he
was interested, but reveals the fact that his ideas of education were essentially like
those carried out in the present public-school course of instruction in the
Philippines.

Early in August of 1890 Rizal went to Madrid to seek redress for a wrong
done his family by the notorious General Weyler, the “Butcher” of evil memory in
Cuba, then Governor-General of the Philippines. Just as the mother’s loss of
liberty, years before, was caused by revengeful feelings on the part of an official
because for one day she was obliged to omit a customary gift of horse feed, so the
father’s loss of land was caused by a revengeful official, and for quite as trivial a cause.

Mr. Mercado was a great poultry fancier and especially prided himself upon his fine stock of turkeys. He
had been accustomed to respond to the frequent requests of the estate agent for presents of birds. But at one time
disease had so reduced the number of turkeys that all that remained were needed for breeding purposes and
Mercado was obliged to refuse him. In a rage the agent insisted, and when that proved unavailing, threats followed.

But Francisco Mercado was not a man to be moved by threats,

and when the next rent day came round he was notified that his rent had
been doubled. This was paid without protest, for the tenants were entirely
at the mercy of the landlords, no fixed rate appearing either in contracts
or receipts. Then the rent-raising was kept on till Mercado was driven to
seek the protection of the courts. Part of his case led to exactly the same
situation as that of the Biñan tenantry in his grandfather’s time, when the
landlords were compelled to produce their title-deeds, and these proved
that land of others had been illegally included in the estate. Other tenants,
emboldened by Mercado’s example also refused to pay the exorbitant
rent increases.

The justice of the peace of Kalamba, before whom the case first came, was threatened by the provincial
governor for taking time to hear the testimony, and the case was turned over to the auxiliary justice, who promptly
decided in the manner desired by the authorities. Mercado at once took an appeal, but the venal Weyler moved a
force of artillery to Kalamba and quartered it upon the town as if rebellion openly existed there. Then the court
representatives evicted the people from their homes and directed them to remove all their buildings from the estate
lands within twenty-four hours. In answer to the plea that they had appealed to the Supreme Court the tenants
were told their houses could be brought back again if they won their
appeal. Of course this was impossible and some 150,000 pesos’ worth of
property was consequently destroyed by the court agents, who were
worthy estate employees. Twenty or more families were made homeless
and the other tenants were forbidden to shelter them under pain of their
own eviction. This is the proceeding in which Retana suggests that the
governor-general and the landlords were legally within their rights. If so,
Spanish law was a disgrace to the nation. Fortunately the Rizal-Mercado
family had another piece of property at Los Baños, and there they made
their home.

Weyler’s motives in this matter do not have to be surmised, for

among the (formerly) secret records of the government there exists a
letter which he wrote when he first denied the petition of the Kalamba
residents. It is marked “confidential” and is addressed to the landlords,
expressing the pleasure which this action gave him. Then the official
adds that it cannot have escaped their notice that the times demand
diplomacy in handling the situation but that, should occasion arise, he
will act with energy. Just as Weyler had favored the landlords at first so
he kept on and when he had a chance to do something for them he did it.
 Finally, when Weyler left the Islands an investigation was ordered
into his administration, owing to rumors of extensive and systematic frauds
on the government, but nothing more came of the case than that Retana, later
Rizal’s biographer, wrote a book in the General’s defense, “extensively
documented,” and also abusively anti-Filipino. It has been urged (not by
Retana, however) that the Weyler régime was unusually efficient, because he
would allow no one but himself to make profits out of the public, and
therefore, while his gains were greater than those of his predecessors, the
Islands really received more attention from him.

During the Kalamba discussion in Spain, Retana, until 1899 always scurrilously anti-Filipino, made the
mistake of his life, for he charged Rizal’s family with not paying their rent, which was not true. While Rizal
believed that duelling was murder, to judge from a pair of pictures preserved in his album, he evidently considered
that homicide of one like Retana was justifiable. After the Spanish custom, his seconds immediately called upon
the author of the libel. Retana notes in his “Vida del Dr. Rizal” that the incident closed in a way honorable to both
Rizal and himself—he, Retana, published an explicit retraction and abject apology in the Madrid papers. Another
time, in Madrid, Rizal risked a duel when he challenged Antonio Luna, later the General, because of a slighting
allusion to a lady at a public banquet. He had a nicer sense of honor in such matters than prevailed in Madrid, and
Luna promptly saw the matter from Rizal’s point of view and withdrew the offensive remark. This second incident
complements the first, for it shows that Rizal was as willing to risk a duel with his superior in arms as with one
not so skilled as he. Rizal was an exceptional pistol shot and a fair swordsman, while Retana was inferior with
either sword or pistol, but Luna, who would have had the choice of weapons, was immeasurably Rizal’s superior
with the sword.

Owing to a schism a rival arose against the old Masonry and finally the original organization succumbed
to the offshoot. Doctor Miguel Morayta, Professor of History in the Central University at Madrid, was the head
of the new institution and it had grown to be very popular among students. Doctor Morayta was friendly to the
Filipinos and a lodge of the same name as their paper was organized among them. For their outside work they had
a society named the Hispano-Filipino Association, of which Morayta was president, with convenient
clubrooms and a membership practically the same as the Lodge La Solidaridad.

Just before Christmas of 1890, this Hispano-Filipino Association gave a largely attended banquet at
which there were many prominent speakers. Rizal stayed away, not because of growing pessimism, as Retana
suggests, but because one of the speakers was the same Becerra who had feared to act when the outrage against
the body of Rizal’s brother-in-law had been reported to him. Now out of office, the ex-minister was again bold in
words, but Rizal for one was not again to be deceived by them.

The propaganda carried on by his countrymen in the Peninsula did not seem to Rizal effective, and he
found his suggestions were not well received by those at its head. The story of Rizal’s separation from La
Solidaridad, however, is really not material, but the following quotation
from a letter written to Carlos Oliver, speaking of the opposition of the
Madrid committee of Filipinos to himself, is interesting as showing
Rizal’s attitude of mind:

“I regret exceedingly that they war against me, attempting to

discredit me in the Philippines, but I shall be content provided only that
my successor keeps on with the work. I ask only of those who say that
I created discord among the Filipinos: Was there any effective union
before I entered political life? Was there any chief whose authority I
wanted to oppose? It is a pity that in our slavery we should have
rivalries over leadership.”

And in Rizal’s letter from Hongkong, May 24, 1892, to

Zulueta, commenting on an article by Leyte in La Solidaridad, he says:

“Again I repeat, I do not understand the reason of the attack,

since now I have dedicated myself to preparing for our countrymen a
safe refuge in case of persecution and to writing some books,
championing our cause, which shortly will appear. Besides, the article
is impolitic in the extreme and prejudicial to the Philippines. Why say that the first thing we need is to have
money? A wiser man would be silent and not wash soiled linen in public.”

Early in ’91 Rizal went to Paris, visiting Mr. Baustead’s villa in Biarritz en route, and he was again a
guest of his hospitable friend when, after the winter season was over, the family returned to their home in Brussels.

During most of the year Rizal’s residence was in Ghent, where he had gathered around him a number of
Filipinos. Doctor Blumentritt suggested that he should devote himself to the study of Malay-Polynesian languages,
and as it appeared that thus he could earn a living in Holland he thought to make his permanent home there. But
his parents were old and reluctant to leave their native land to pass their last years in a strange country, and that
plan failed.

He now occupied himself in finishing the sequel to “Noli Me Tangere,” the novel “El Filibusterismo,”
which he had begun in October of 1887 while on his visit to the Philippines. The bolder painting of the evil
effects of the Spanish culture upon the Filipinos may well have been inspired by his unfortunate experiences with
his countrymen in Madrid who had not seen anything of Europe outside of Spain. On the other hand, the
confidence of the author in those of his countrymen who had not been contaminated by the so-called Spanish
civilization, is even more noticeable than in “Noli Me Tangere.”

Rizal had now done all that he could for his country; he had
shown them by Morga what they were when Spain found them;
through “Noli Me Tangere” he had painted their condition after three
hundred years of Spanish influence; and in “El Filibusterismo” he
had pictured what their future must be if better counsels did not
prevail in the colony.

These works were for the instruction of his countrymen, the

fulfilment of the task he set for himself when he first read Doctor
Jagor’s criticism fifteen years before; time only was now needed for
them to accomplish their work and for education to bring forth its
fruits.

Let’s Remember :

 The influences in the life of Rizal during his early childhood had formed in him the ability
to see the injustices committed by the Spaniards to the Filipinos. It was also during his
childhood that his ability to express his thoughts in various artistical manners became
evident. And finally, his childhood experiences provided the basis in forming his
personality that insists on his rights when he had already made up his mind about his beliefs
and principles.

Let’s Do This :

I. Writing Exercise:

 Write a short biographical essay that explains the importance of the La Liga Filipina to
Rizal.
 What is the importance of education in the quest for equality?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

J. Recitation Exercise:
  What is your experience with berks or groups of friends?
 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Craig, Austin. “Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal: Filipino Patriot” University of
the Philippines. Manila: Philippine Education Company 1913.

Module Post Test:

________ 1 __ was the newspaper where Rizal regularly contributes his articles.
________ 2 __ was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper in Madrid..
________ 3 __ was the school where Rizal graduated his medical degree.
________ 4 __ was the first country that Rizal visited.
________ 5 __ is the name of Rizal’s brother.

References/Sources:
 Salazar, Zeus. "A Legacy of the Propaganda: The Tripartite View of Philippine History" in Atoy Navarro
and Flordeliza Lagbao-Botante, eds. Mga Babasahin sa Agham Panlipunang Pilipino: Sikolohiyang
Pilipino, Pilipinolohiya, at Pantayong Pananaw. QC: C&E Publishing, 2007.
http://www.bagongkasaysay an.org/downloadable/zeus 005.pdf
 Constantino, Renato. "Our task: to make Rizal obsolete" in This Week, Manila Chronicle (14 June 1959)
 Daroy, Petronjlo. Rizal contrary essays. Quezon City: Guro Books, 1968
 Almario. Virgitio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. Quezon City. University of the Philippines Press, 2008
 Daroy, Petronilo. Rizal contrary essays. Quezon City: Guro Books, 1968
 Almario. Virgilio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. QC: UP Press, 2008
 Film: "Jose Rizal" directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya (1998)
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 6

Lesson Title : Exile, Trial, and Death

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Analyze the factors that led to Rizal's execution

 Analyze the effects of Rizal's execution on Spanish colonial rule and the
Philippine Revolution

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “What were the injustices committed by the
Spaniards?”

 Students are required to watch the film: "Jose Rizal" directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya
(1998)

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate their knowledge
of the theories in education in their understanding of the roots and foundations
of Rizal.

 The students are tasked to read the Despujol’s Duplicity, The Deportation to
Dapitan, “Consummatum Est,” and The After-Life in Memory.
Let’s Read :

Despujol’s Duplicity

As soon as he had set in motion what influence he possessed

in Europe for the relief of his relatives, Rizal hurried to Hongkong
and from there wrote to his parents asking their permission to join
them. Some time before, his brother-in-law, Manuel Hidalgo, had
been deported upon the recommendation of the governor of La
Laguna, “to prove to the Filipinos that they were mistaken in thinking
that the new Civil Code gave them any rights” in cases where the
governor-general agreed with his subordinate’s reason for asking for
the deportation as well as in its desirability. The offense was having
buried a child, who had died of cholera, without church ceremonies.
The law prescribed and public health demanded it. But the law was a
dead letter and the public health was never considered when these cut into church revenues, as Hidalgo ought to
have known.

Upon Rizal’s arrival in Hongkong, in the fall of 1891, he received notice that his brother Paciano had
been returned from exile in Mindoro, but that three of his sisters had been summoned, with the probability of
deportation.

A trap to get Rizal into the hands of the government by playing upon his affection for his mother was
planned at this time, but it failed. Mrs. Rizal and one of her daughters were arrested in Manila for “falsification
of cedula” because they no longer used the name Realonda, which the mother had dropped fifteen years before.
Then, though there were frequently boats running to Kalamba, the two women were ordered to be taken there for
trial on foot. As when Mrs. Rizal had been a prisoner before, the humane guards disobeyed their orders and the
elderly lady was carried in a hammock. The family understood the plans of their persecutors, and Rizal was told
by his parents not to come to Manila. Then the persecution of the mother and the sister dropped.

In Hongkong, Rizal was already acquainted with most of the Filipino colony, including Jose M. Basa, a
’72 exile of great energy, for whom he had the greatest respect. The old man was an unceasing enemy of all the
religious orders and was constantly getting out “proclamations,” as the handbills common in the old-time
controversies were called. One of these, against the Jesuits, figures in the case against Rizal and bears some minor
corrections in his handwriting. Nevertheless, his participation in it was probably no more than this proofreading
for his friend, whose motives he could appreciate, but whose plan of action was not in harmony with his own
ideas.

Letters of introduction from London friends secured for Rizal the acquaintance of Mr. H. L. Dalrymple,
a justice of the peace—which is a position more coveted and honored in English lands than here—and a member
of the public library committee, as well as of the board of medical examiners. He was a merchant, too, and agent
for the British North Borneo Company, which had recently secured a charter as a semi-independent colony for
the extensive cession which had originally been made to the American Trading Company and later transferred to
them.

Rizal spent much of his time in the library, reading especially the
files of the older newspapers, which contained frequent mention of the
Philippines. As an old-time missionary had left his books to the library, the
collection was rich in writings of the fathers of the early Church, as well as in
philology and travel. He spent much time also in long conversations with
Editor Frazier-Smith of the Hongkong Telegraph, the most enterprising of the
daily newspapers. He was the master of St. John’s Masonic lodge (Scotch
constitution), which Rizal had visited upon his first arrival, intensely
democratic and a close student of world politics. The two became fast friends
and Rizal contributed to the Telegraph several articles on Philippine matters.
These were printed in Spanish, ostensibly for the benefit of the Filipino
colony in Hongkong, but large numbers of the paper were mailed to the
Philippines and thus at first escaped the vigilance of the censors. Finally the
scheme was discovered and the Telegraph placed on the prohibited list, but,
like most Spanish actions, this was just too late to prevent the circulation of what Rizal had wished to say to his
countrymen.

With the first of the year 1892 the free portion of Rizal’s family came to Hongkong. He had been licensed
to practice medicine in the colony, and opened an office, specializing as an oculist with notable success.

Another congenial companion was a man of his own profession, Doctor L. P.

Marquez, a Portuguese who had received his medical education in Dublin and was a
naturalized British subject. He was a leading member of the Portuguese club, Lusitania,
which was of radically republican proclivities and possessed an excellent library of
books on modern political conditions. An inspection of the colonial prison with him
inspired Rizal’s article, “A Visit to Victoria Gaol,” through which runs a pathetic
contrast of the English system of imprisonment for reformation with the Spanish
vindictive methods of punishment. A souvenir of one of their many conferences was a
dainty modeling in clay made by Rizal with that astonishing quickness that resulted
from his Uncle Gabriel’s training during his early childhood.

In the spring, Rizal took a voyage to British North Borneo and with Mr. Pryor, the agent, looked over
vacant lands which had been offered him by the Company for a Filipino colony. The officials were anxious to
grow abaca, cacao, sugar cane and coconuts, all products of the Philippines, the soil of which resembled theirs.
So they welcomed the prospect of the immigration of laborers skilled in such cultivation, the Kalambans and other
persecuted people of the Luzon lake region, whom Doctor Rizal hoped to transplant there to a freer home.

A different kind of governor-general had succeeded Weyler in the Philippines; the new man was
Despujol, a friend of the Jesuits and a man who at once gave the Filipinos hope of better days, for his promises
were quickly backed up by the beginnings of their performance. Rizal witnessed this novel experience for his
country with gratification, though he had seen too many disappointments to confide in the continuance of reform,
and he remembered that the like liberal term of De la Torre had ended in the Cavite reaction.

He wrote early to the new chief executive, applauding Despujol’s policy

and offering such coöperation as he might be able to give toward making it a
complete success. No reply had been received, but after Rizal’s return from his
Borneo trip the Spanish consul in Hongkong assured him that he would not be
molested should he go to Manila.

Rizal therefore made up his mind to visit his home once more. He still
cherished the plan of transferring those of his relatives and friends who were
homeless through the land troubles, or discontented with their future in the
Philippines, to the district offered to him by the British North Borneo Company.
There, under the protection of the British flag, but in their accustomed climate,
with familiar surroundings amid their own people, a New Kalamba would be
established. Filipinos would there have a chance to prove to the world what they
were capable of, and their free condition would inevitably react on the neighboring
Philippines and help to bring about better government there.
 Rizal had no intention of renouncing his Philippine allegiance, for he
always regretted the naturalization of his countrymen abroad, considering it a loss
to the country which needed numbers to play the influential part he hoped it would
play in awakening Asia. All his arguments were for British justice and “Equality
before the Law,” for he considered that political power was only a means of
securing and assuring fair treatment for all, and in itself of no interest.

With such ideas he sailed for home, bearing the Spanish consul’s
passport. He left two letters in Hongkong with his friend Doctor Marquez marked,
“To be opened after my death,” and their contents indicate that he was not
unmindful of how little regard Spain had had in his country for her plighted honor.

One was to his beloved parents, brother and sisters, and friends:
“The affection that I have ever professed for you suggests this step, and
time alone can tell whether or not it is sensible. Their outcome decides things by
results, but whether that be favorable or unfavorable, it may always be said that duty urged me, so if I die in doing
it, it will not matter.

“I realize how much suffering I have caused you, still I do not regret what I have done. Rather, if I had
to begin over again, still I should do just the same, for it has been only duty. Gladly do I go to expose myself to
peril, not as any expiation of misdeeds (for in this matter I believe myself guiltless of any), but to complete my
work and myself offer the example of which I have always preached.

“A man ought to die for duty and his principles. I hold fast to every idea which I have advanced as to the
condition and future of our country, and shall willingly die for it, and even more willingly to procure for you
justice and peace.

“With pleasure, then, I risk life to save so many innocent persons—so many nieces and nephews, so
many children of friends, and children, too, of others who are not even friends—who are suffering on my account.
What am I? A single man, practically without family, and sufficiently undeceived as to life. I have had many
disappointments and the future before me is gloomy, and will be gloomy if light does not illuminate it, the dawn
of a better day for my native land. On the other hand, there are many individuals, filled with hope and ambition,
who perhaps all might be happy were I dead, and then I hope my enemies would be satisfied and stop persecuting
so many entirely innocent people. To a certain extent their hatred is justifiable as to myself, and my parents and
relatives.

“Should fate go against me, you will all understand that I shall die happy in the thought that my death
will end all your troubles. Return to our country and may you be happy in it.

“Till the last moment of my life I shall be thinking of you and wishing you all good fortune and
happiness.”

The other letter was directed “To the Filipinos,” and said:

“The step which I am taking, or rather am about to take, is undoubtedly risky, and it is unnecessary to
say that I have considered it some time. I understand that
almost everyone is opposed to it; but I know also that hardly
anybody else comprehends what is in my heart. I cannot live
on seeing so many suffer unjust persecutions on my account; I
cannot bear longer the sight of my sisters and their numerous
families treated like criminals. I prefer death and cheerfully
shall relinquish life to free so many innocent persons from such
unjust persecution.

“I appreciate that at present the future of our country

gravitates in some degree around me, that at my death many
will feel triumphant, and, in consequence, many are wishing
for my fall. But what of it? I hold duties of conscience above
all else, I have obligations to the families who suffer, to my
aged parents whose sighs strike me to the heart; I know that I
alone, only with my death, can make them happy, returning them to their native land and to a peaceful life at
home. I am all my parents have, but our country has many, many more sons who can take my place and even do
my work better.

“Besides I wish to show those who deny us patriotism that we know how to die for duty and principles.
What matters death, if one dies for what one loves, for native land and beings held dear?

“If I thought that I were the only resource for the policy of progress in the Philippines and were I
convinced that my countrymen were going to make use of my services, perhaps I should hesitate about taking this
step; but there are still others who can take my place, who, too, can take my place with advantage. Furthermore,
there are perchance those who hold me unneeded and my services are not utilized, resulting that I am reduced to
inactivity.

“Always have I loved our unhappy land, and I am sure that I shall continue loving it till my latest moment,
in case men prove unjust to me. My career, my life, my happiness, all have I sacrificed for love of it. Whatever
my fate, I shall die blessing it and longing for the dawn of its redemption.”

And then followed the note; “Make these letters public after my death.”

Suspicion of the Spanish authorities was justified. The consul’s cablegram notifying Governor-General
Despujol. that Rizal had fallen into their trap, sent the day of issuing the “safe-conduct” or special passport, bears
the same date as the secret case filed against him in Manila, “for anti-religious and anti-patriotic agitation.” On
that same day the deceitful Despujol was confidentially inquiring of his executive secretary whether it was true that
Rizal had been naturalized as a German subject, and, if so, what effect would that have on the governor-general’s
right to take executive action; that is, could he deport one who had the protection of a strong nation with the same
disregard for the forms of justice that he could a Filipino?

This inquiry is joined to an order to the local authorities in the provinces near Manila instructing them to
watch the comings and goings of their prominent people during the following weeks. The scheme resembled that
which was concocted prior to ’72, but Governor-General de la Torte was honest in his reforms. Despujol may, or
may not, have been honest in other matters, but as concerns Rizal there is no lack of proof of his perfidy. The
confidential file relating to this part of the case was forgotten in destroying and removing secret papers when
Manila passed into a democratic conqueror’s hands, and now whoever wishes may read, in the Bureau of Archives,
documents which the Conde de Caspe, to use a noble title for an ignoble man, considered safely hidden. As
with Weyler’s confidential letter to the friar landlords, these discoveries convict their writers of bad faith, with no
possibility of mistake.

This point in the reformed Spanish writer’s biography of Rizal is made

occasion for another of his treacherous attacks upon the good name of his pretended
hero. Just as in the land troubles Retana held that legally Governor-General Weyler was
justified in disregarding an appeal pending in the courts, so in this connection he
declares: ”(Despujol) unquestionably had been deceived by Rizal when, from
Hongkong, he offered to Despujol not to meddle in politics.” That Rizal meddled in
politics rests solely upon Despujol’s word, and it will be seen later how little that is
worth; but, politics or no politics, Rizal’s fate was settled before he ever came to Manila.

Rizal was accompanied to Manila by his sister Lucia, widow of that brother-
in-law who had been denied Christian burial because of his relationship to Rizal. In the Basa home, among other
waste papers, and for that use, she had gathered up five copies of a recent “proclamation,” entitled “Pobres Frailes”
(Poor Friars), a small sheet possibly two inches wide and five long. These, crumpled up, were tucked into the case
of the pillow which Mrs. Hervosa used on board. Later, rolled up in her blankets and bed mat, or petate, they went
to the custom house along with the other baggage, and of course were discovered in the rigorous examination
which the officers always made. How strict Philippine customs searches were, Henry Norman, an English writer
of travels, explains by remarking that Manila was the only port where he had ever had his pockets picked officially.
His visit was made at about the time of which we are writing, and the object, he says, was to keep out anti friar
publications.

Rizal and his sister landed without difficulty, and he at once went to the Oriente Hotel, then the best in
town, for Rizal always traveled and lived as became a member of a well-to-do family. Next he waited on the
Governor-General, with whom he had a very brief interview, for it happened to be on one of the numerous
religious festivals, during which he obtained favorable
consideration for his deported sisters. Several more interviews
occurred in which the hopes first given were realized, so that
those of the family then awaiting exile were pardoned and those
already deported were to be returned at an early date.

One night Rizal was the guest of honor at a dinner

given by the masters and wardens of the Masonic lodges of
Manila, and he was surprised and delighted at the progress the
institution had made in the Islands. Then he had another task
not so agreeable, for, while awaiting a delayed appointment
with the Governor-General, he with two others ran up on the
new railway to Tarlac. Ostensibly this was to see the country,
but it was not for a pleasure trip. They were investigating the
sales of Rizal’s books and trying to find out what had become
of the money received from them, for while the author’s desire
had been to place them at so low a price as to be within the
reach of even the poor, it was reported that the sales had been
few and at high prices, so that copies were only read by the
wealthy whose desire to obtain the rare and much-discussed
novels led them to pay exorbitant figures for them.

Rizal’s party, consisting of the Secretary of one of the

lodges of Manila, and another Mason, a prominent school-
teacher, were under constant surveillance and a minute record
of their every act is preserved in the “reserved” files, now, of
course, so only in name, as they are no longer secret.
Immediately after they left a house it would be thoroughly
searched and the occupants strictly questioned. In spite of the precautions of the officials, Rizal soon learned of
this, and those whom they visited were warned of what to expect. In one home so many forbidden papers were on
hand that Rizal delayed his journey till the family completed their task of carrying them upstairs and hiding them
in the roof.

At another place he came across an instance of superstition such as that which had caused him to cease
his sleight-of-hand exhibitions on his former return to the Islands. Their host was a man of little education but
great hospitality, and the party were most pleasantly entertained. During the conversation he spoke of Rizal, but
did not seem to know that his hero had come back to the Philippines. His remarks drifted into the wildest
superstition, and, after asserting that Rizal bore a charmed life, he startled his audience by saying that if the author
of “Noli Me Tangere” cared to do so, he could be with them at that very instant. At first the three thought
themselves discovered by their host, but when Rizal made himself known, the old man proved that he had had no
suspicion of his guest’s identity, for he promptly became busy preparing his home for the search which he realized
would shortly follow. On another occasion their host was a stranger whom Rizal treated for a temporary illness,
leaving a prescription to be filled at the drug store. The name signed to the paper was a revelation, but the first
result was activity in cleaning house.

No fact is more significant of the utter rottenness of the Spanish rule than the unanimity of the people in
their discontent. Only a few persons at first were in open opposition, but books, pamphlets and circulars were
eagerly sought, read and preserved, with the knowledge generally, of the whole family, despite the danger of
possessing them. At times, as in the case of Rizal’s novels, an entire neighborhood was in the secret; the book was
buried in a garden and dug up to be read from at a gathering of the older men, for which a dance gave pretext.
Informers were so rare that the possibility of treachery among themselves was hardly reckoned in the risk.

The authorities were constantly searching dwellings, often entire neighborhoods, and with a
thoroughness which entirely disregarded the possibility of damaging an innocent person’s property. These
“domiciliary registrations” were, of course, supposed to be unexpected, but in the later Spanish days the intended
victims usually had warning from some employee in the office where it was planned, or from some domestic of
the official in charge; very often, however, the warning was so short as to give only time for a hasty destruction
of incriminating documents and did not permit of their being transferred to other hiding places. Thus large losses
were incurred, and to these must be added damages from dampness when a hole in the ground, the inside of a
post, or cementing up in the wall furnished the means of concealment. Fires, too, were frequent, and such events
attracted so much attention that it was scarcely safe to attempt to save anything of an incriminating nature.

Six years of war conditions did their part toward destroying what little had escaped, and from these
explanations the reader may understand how it comes that the tangled story of Spain’s last half century here
presents an historical problem more puzzling than that of much more remote times in more favored lands.

It seems almost providential that the published

statement of the Governor-General can be checked not only by
an account which Rizal secretly sent to friends, but also by the
candid memoranda contained in the untruthful executive’s own
secret folios. While some unessential details of Rizal’s career
are in doubt, not a point vital to establishing his good name lacks
proof that his character was exemplary and that he is worthy of
the hero-worship which has come to him.

After Rizal’s return to Manila from his railway trip he

had the promised interview with the Governor-General. At their
previous meetings the discussions had been quite informal.
Rizal, in complimenting the General upon his inauguration of
reforms, mentioned that the Philippine system of having no
restraint whatever upon the chief executive had at least the
advantage that a well-disposed governor-general would find no
red-tape hindrances to his plans for the public benefit. But
Despujol professed to believe that the best of men make
mistakes and that a wise government would establish safeguards
against this human fallibility.

The final, and fatal, interview began with the Governor-General asking Rizal if he still persisted in his
plan for a Filipino colony in British North Borneo; Despujol had before remarked that with so much Philippine
land lying idle for want of cultivation it did not seem to him patriotic to take labor needed at home away for the
development of a foreign land. Rizal’s former reply had dealt with the difficulty the government was in respecting
the land troubles, since the tenants who had taken the old renters’ places now also must be considered, and he
pointed out that there was, besides, a bitterness between the parties which could not easily be forgotten by either
side. So this time he merely remarked that he had found no reason for changing his original views.

Hereupon the General took from his desk the five little sheets of the “Poor Friars” handbill, which he
said had been found in the roll of bedding sent with Rizal’s baggage to the custom house, and asked whose they
could be. Rizal answered that of course the General knew that the bedding belonged to his sister Lucia, but she
was no fool and would not have secreted in a place where they were certain to be found five little papers which,
hidden within her camisa or placed in her stocking, would have been absolutely sure to come in unnoticed.

Rizal, neither then nor later, knew the real truth, which was that these papers were gathered up at random
and without any knowledge of their contents. If it was a crime to have lived in a house where such seditious
printed matter was common, then Rizal, who had openly visited Basa’s home, was guilty before ever the handbills
were found. But no reasonable person would believe another rational being could be so careless of consequences
as to bring in openly such dangerous material.

The very title was in sarcastic allusion to the inconsistency of a religious order being an immensely
wealthy organization, while its individual members were vowed to poverty. News, published everywhere except
in the Philippines, of losses sustained in outside commercial enterprises running into the millions, was made the
text for showing how money, professedly raised in the Philippines for charities, was not so used and was invested
abroad in fear of that day of reckoning when tyranny would be overthrown in anarchy and property would be
insecure. The belief of the pious Filipinos, fostered by their religious exploiters, that the Pope would suffer great
hardship if their share of “Peter’s pence” was not prompt and full, was contrasted with another newspaper story
of a rich dowry given to a favorite niece by a former Pope, but that in no way taught the truth that the Head of the
Church was not put to bodily discomfort whenever a poor Filipino failed to come forward with his penny.

Despujol managed to work himself into something like a passion over this alleged disrespect to the Pope,
and ordered Rizal to be taken as a prisoner to Fort Santiago by the nephew who acted as his aide.
 Like most facts, this version runs a middle course between the extreme stories which have been current.
Like circulars may have been printed at the “Asilo de Malabon,” as has been asserted; these certainly came from
Hongkong and were not introduced by any archbishop’s nephew on duty at the custom house, as another tale
suggests. On the other hand, the circular was the merest pretext, and Despujol did not act in good faith, as many
claim that he did.

It may be of interest to reprint the handbill from a facsimile of an original copy:

Pobres Frailes!

Acaba de suspender sus pages un Banco, acaba de quebrarse el New Oriental.

Grandes pédidas en la India, en la isla Mauricio al sur de Africa, ciclónes y

tempestades acabaron con su podeíro, tragnádose más de 36,000,000 de pesos. Estos treinta y
seis millones representaban las esperanzas, las economías, el bienestar y el porvenir de
numerosos individuos y familias.

Entre los que más han sufrido podemos contar á la Rvda. Corporacion de los P. P.
Dominicos, que pierden en esta quiebra muchos cientos de miles. No se sabe la cuenta exacta
porque tanto dinero se les envía de aquí y tantos depósitos hacen, que se neçesitarlan muchos
contadores para calcular el immense caudal de que disponen.

Pero, no se aflijan los amigos ni triunfen los enemigos de los santos monjes que
profesan vote de pobreza.

A unos y otros les diremos que pueden estar tranquilos. La Corporacion tiene aun
muchos millones depositados en los Bancos de Hongkong, y aunque todos quebrasen, y aunque
se derrumbasen sus miles de casas de alquiler, siempre quedarian sus curates y haciendas, les
quedarían los filipinos dispuestos siempre á ayunar para darles una limosna. ¿Qué son
cuatrocientos ó quinientos mil? Que se tomen la molestia de recorrer los pueblos y pedir
limosna y se resarcirán de esa pérdida. Hace un año que, por la mala administracion de los
cardenales, el Papa perdió 14,000,000 del dinero de San Pedro; el Papa, para cubrir el déficit,
acude á nosotros y nosotros recogemos de nuestros tampipis el último real, porque sabemos
que el Papa tiene muchas atenciones; hace cosa de cinco años casó á una sobrina suya
dotándola de un palacio y 300,000 francos ademas. Haced un esfuerzo pues, generosos
filipinos, y socorred á los dominicos igualmente!

Además, esos centanares de miles perdidos no son de ellos, segun dicen: ¿cómo los
iban à tener si tienen voto de pobreza? Hay que creerlos pues cuando, para cubrirse, dicen que
son de los huérfanos y de las viudas. Muy seguramente pertencerían algunos á las viudas y á
los huérfanos de Kalamba, y quién sabe si á los desterrados maridos! y los manejan los
virtuosos frailes sólo á título de depositarios para devolverlos despues religiosamente con todos
sus intereses cuando llegue el día de rendir cuentas! Quién sabe? Quién mejor que ellos podía
encargarse de recoger los pocos haberes mientras las casas ardían, huían las viudas y los
huérfanos sin encontrar hospitalidad, pues se habia prohibido darles albergue, mientras los
hombres estaban presos ó perseguidos? ¿Quién mejor que los dominicos para tener tanto valor,
tanta audacia y tanta humanidad?

Pero, ahora el diablo se ha llevado el dinero de los huérfanos y de las viudas, y es de

temer que se lleve tambien el resto, pues cuando el diablo la empieza la ha de acabar. Tendría
ese dinero mala procedencia?

Si asl sucediese, nosotros los recomendaríamos á los dominicos que dijesen con
Job: Desnudo salí del vientre de mi madre (España), y desnudo volveré allá; lo dió el diablo,
el diablo se lo llevó; bendito sea el nombre del Señor!

Fr. Jacinto.
Manila: Imprenta de los Amigos del Pais.
The Deportation to Dapitan

As soon as Rizal was lodged in his prison, a room in Fort

Santiago, the Governor-General began the composition of one of the
most extraordinary official documents ever issued in this land where
the strangest governmental acts have abounded. It is apology,
argument, and attack all in one and was published in the Official
Gazette, where it occupied most of an entire issue. The effect of the
righteous anger it displays suffers somewhat when one knows how
all was planned from the day Rizal was decoyed from Hongkong
under the faithless safe-conduct. Another enlightening feature is the
copy of a later letter, preserved in that invaluable secret file, wherein
Despujol writes Rizal’s custodian, as jailer, to allow the exile in no
circumstances to see this number of the Gazette or to know its
contents, and suggests several evasions to assist the subordinate’s
power of invention. It is certainly a strange indignation which fears
that its object shall learn the reason for wrath, nor is it a creditable
spectacle when one beholds the chief of a government giving private
lessons in lying.

A copy of the Gazette was sent to the Spanish Consul in

Hongkong, also a cablegram directing him to give it publicity that
“Spain’s good name might not suffer” in that colony. By his
blunder, not knowing that the Lusitania Club was really a
Portuguese Masonic lodge and full of Rizal’s friends, a copy was
sent there and a strong reply was called forth. The friendly editor of the Hongkong Telegraph devoted columns to
the outrage by which a man whose acquaintance in the scientific world reflected honor upon his nation, was
decoyed to what was intended to be his death, exiled to “an unhealthful, savage spot,” through “a plot of which
the very Borgias would have been ashamed.”

The British Consul in Manila, too, mentioned

unofficially to Governor-General Despujol that it seemed
a strange way of showing Spain’s often professed
friendship for Great Britain thus to disregard the
annoyance to the British colony of North Borneo caused
by making impossible an entirely unexceptionable plan.
Likewise, in much the same respectfully remonstrant tone
which the Great Powers are wont to use in recalling to
semi-savage states their obligations to civilization, he
pointed out how Spain’s prestige as an advanced nation
would suffer when the educated world, in which Rizal was
Spain’s best-known representative, learned that the man
whom they honored had been trapped out of his security
under the British flag and sent into exile without the
slightest form of trial.

Almost the last act of Rizal while at liberty was the establishment of the “Liga Filipina,” a league or
association seeking to unite all Filipinos of good character for concerted action toward the economic advancement
of their country, for a higher standard of manhood, and to assure opportunities for education and development to
talented Filipino youth. Resistance to oppression by lawful means was also urged, for Rizal believed that no one
could fairly complain of bad government until he had exhausted and found unavailing all the legal resources
provided for his protection. This was another expression of his constant teaching that slaves, those who toadied
to power, and men without self-respect made possible and fostered tyranny, abuses and disregard of the rights of
others.

The character test was also a step forward, for the profession of patriotism has often been made to cloak
moral shortcomings in the Philippines as well as elsewhere. Rizal urged that those who would offer themselves
on the altar of their fatherland must conform to the standard of old, and, like the sacrificial lamb, be spotless and
without blemish. Therefore, no one who had justifiably been
prosecuted for any infamous crime was eligible to membership in
the new organization.

The plan, suggested by a Spanish Masonic society called

C. Kadosch y Cia., originated with José Maria Basa, at whose
instance Rizal drafted the constitution and regulations. Possibly all
the members were Freemasons of the educated and better-to-do
class, and most of them adhered to the doctrine that peaceably
obtained reforms and progress by education are surest and best.

Rizal’s arrest discouraged those of this higher faith, for the peaceable policy seemed hopeless, while the
radical element, freed from Rizal’s restraining influence and deeming the time for action come, formed a new and
revolutionary society which preached force of arms as the only argument left to them, and sought its membership
among the less-enlightened and poorer class.

Their inspiration was Andrés Bonifacio, a shipping clerk for a foreign firm, who had read and re-read
accounts of the French Revolution till he had come to believe that blood alone could wipe out the wrongs of a
country. His organization, The Sons of the Country, more commonly called the Katipunan, was, however, far
from being as bloodthirsty as most Spanish accounts, and those of many credulous writers who have got their
ideas from them, have asserted. To enlist others in their defense, those who knew that they were the cause of
dissatisfaction spread the report that a race war was in progress and that the Katipuneros were planning the
massacre of all of the white race. It was a sufficiently absurd statement, but it was made even more ridiculous by
its “proof,” for this was the discovery of an apron with a severed head, a hand holding it by the hair and another
grasping the dagger which had done the bloody work. This emblem, handed down from ancient days as an object
lesson of faithfulness even to death, has been known in many lands besides the Philippines, but only here has it
ever been considered anything but an ancient symbol. As reasonably might the paintings of martyrdoms in the
convents be taken as evidence of evil intentions upon the part of their occupants, but prejudice looks for pretexts
rather than reasons, and this served as well as any other for the excesses of which the government in its frenzy of
fear was later guilty.

In talking of the Katipunan one must distinguish the first society, limited in
its membership, from the organization of the days of the Aguinaldo “republic,” so
called, when throughout the Tagalog provinces, and in the chief towns of other
provinces as well, adherence to the revolutionary government entailed membership
in the revolutionary society. And neither of these two Katipunans bore any relation,
except in name and emblems, to the robber bands whose valor was displayed after the
war had ceased and whose patriotism consisted in wronging and robbing their own
defenseless countrymen and countrywomen, while carefully avoiding encounters
with any able to defend themselves.

Rizal’s arrest had put an end to all hope of progress under Governor-General
Despujol. It had left the political field in possession of those countrymen who had not
been in sympathy with his campaign of education. It had caused the succession of the
revolutionary Katipunan to the economic Liga Filipina, with talk of independence
supplanting Rizal’s ambition for the return of the Philippines to their former status under the Constitution of Cadiz.
But the victim of the arrest was at peace as he had not been in years. The sacrifice for country and for family had
been made, but it was not to cost him life, and he was human enough to wish to live. A visitor’s room in the Fort
and books from the military library made his detention comfortable, for he did not worry about the Spanish sentries
without his door who were placed there under orders to shoot anyone who might attempt to signal to him from
the plaza.

One night the Governor-General’s nephew-aide came again to the Fort and Rizal embarked on the
steamer which was to take him to his place of exile, but closely as he was guarded he risked dropping a note which
a Filipino found and took, as it directed, to Mrs. Rizal’s cousin, Vicenta Leyba, who lived in Calle José, Trozo.
Thus the family were advised of his departure; this incident shows Rizal’s perfect confidence in his countrymen
and the extent to which it was justified; he could risk a chance finder to take so dangerous a letter to its address.
 On the steamer he occupied an officer’s cabin and also found a Filipino
quartermaster, of whom he requested a life preserver for his stateroom; evidently
he was not entirely confident that there were no hostile designs against him.
Accidents had rid the Philippines of troublesome persons before his time, and he
was determined that if he sacrificed his life for his country, it should be openly.
He realized that the tree of Liberty is often watered with the blood of secret as
well as open martyrs.

The same boat carried some soldier prisoners, one of whom was to be
executed in Mindanao, and their case was not particularly creditable to Spanish
ideas of justice. A Spanish officer had dishonorably interfered with the domestic
relations of a sergeant, also Spanish, and the aggrieved party had inflicted
punishment upon his superior, with the help of some other soldiers. For allowing
himself to be punished, not for his own disgraceful act, the officer was dismissed
from the service, but the sergeant was to go to the scene of his alleged “crime,”
there to suffer death, while his companions who had assisted him in protecting
their homes were to be witnesses of this “justice” and then to be imprisoned.

After an uneventful trip the steamer reached Dapitan, in the northeast of the large island of Mindanao,
on a dark and rainy evening. The officer in charge of the expedition took Doctor Rizal ashore with some papers
relating to him and delivered all to the commandant, Ricardo Carnicero. The receipt taken was briefed “One
countryman and two packages.” At the same time learned men in Europe were beginning to hear of this outrage
worthy of the Dark Ages and were remarking that Spain had stopped the work of the man who was practically her
only representative in modern science, for the Castilian language has not been the medium through which any
considerable additions have been made to the world’s store of scientific knowledge.

Rizal was to reside either with the commandant or with the Jesuit parish priest, if the latter would take
him into the convento. But while the exile had learned with pleasure that he was to meet priests who were refined
and learned, as well as associated with his happier school days, he did not know that these priests were planning
to restore him to his childhood faith and had mapped out a plan of action which should first make him feel his
loneliness. So he was denied residence with the priest unless he would declare himself genuinely in sympathy
with Spain.

On his previous brief visit to the Islands he had been repelled

from the Ateneo with the statement that till he ceased to be anti-
Catholic and anti-Spanish he would not be welcome. Padre Faura, the
famous meteorologist, was his former instructor and Rizal was his
favorite pupil; he had tearfully predicted that the young man would
come to the scaffold at last unless he mended his ways. But Rizal,
confident in the clearness of his own conscience, went out cheerfully,
and when the porter tried to bring back the memory of his childhood
piety by reminding him of the image of the Sacred Heart which he had
carved years before, Rizal answered, “Other times, other customs,
Brother. I do not believe that way anymore.”

So Rizal, a good Catholic, was compelled to board with the

commandant instead of with the priest because he was unwilling to
make hypocritical professions of admiration for Spain. The
commandant and Rizal soon became good friends, but in order to
retain his position Carnicero had to write to the Governor-General in
a different strain.

The correspondence tells the facts in the main, but of course

they are colored throughout to conform to Despujol’s character. The
commandant is always represented as deceiving his prisoner and gaining his confidence only to betray him, but
Rizal seems never to have experienced anything but straightforward dealing.

Rizal’s earliest letter from Dapitan speaks almost enthusiastically of the place, describing the climate as
exceptional for the tropics, his situation as agreeable, and saying that he could be quite content if his family and
his books were there.
 Shortly after occurred the anniversary of Carnicero’s arrival in the town, and Rizal celebrated the event
with a Spanish poem reciting the improvements made since his coming, written in the style of the Malay loa, and
as though it were by the children of Dapitan.

Next Rizal acquired a piece of property at Talisay, a little bay close to Dapitan, and at once became
interested in his farm. Soon he built a house and moved into it, gathering a number of boy assistants about him,
and before long he had a school. A hospital also was put up for his patients and these in time became a source of
revenue, as people from a distance came to the oculist for treatment and paid liberally.

One five-hundred-peso fee from a rich Englishman was devoted by Rizal to lighting the town, and the
community benefited in this way by his charity in addition to the free treatment given its poor.

The little settlement at Talisay kept growing and those who lived there were constantly improving it.
When Father Obach, the Jesuit priest, fell through the bamboo stairway in the principal house, Rizal and his boys
burned shells, made mortar, and soon built a fine stone stairway. They also did another piece of masonry work in
the shape of a dam for storing water that was piped to the houses and poultry yard; the overflow from the dam
was made to fill a swimming tank.

The school, including the house servants, numbered about twenty and was taught without books by Rizal,
who conducted his recitations from a hammock. Considerable importance was given to mathematics, and in
languages English was taught as well as Spanish, the entire waking period being devoted to the language allotted
for the day, and whoever so far forgot as to utter a word in any other tongue was punished by having to wear a
rattan handcuff. The use and meaning of this modern police device had to be explained to the boys, for Spain still
tied her prisoners with rope.

Nature study consisted in helping the Doctor gather specimens of flowers, shells, insects and reptiles
which were prepared and shipped to German museums. Rizal was paid for these specimens by scientific books
and material. The director of the Royal Zoölogical and Anthropological Museum in Dresden, Saxony, Doctor Karl
von Heller, was a great friend and admirer of Doctor Rizal. Doctor Heller’s father was tutor to the late King
Alfonso XII and had many friends at the Court of Spain. Evidently Doctor Heller and other of his European friends
did not consider Rizal a Spanish insurrectionary, but treated him rather as a reformer seeking progress by peaceful
means.

Doctor Rizal remunerated his pupils’ work with gifts of clothing, books and other useful remembrances.
Sometimes the rewards were cartidges, and those who had accumulated enough were permitted to accompany him
in his hunting expeditions. The dignity of labor was practically inculcated by requiring everyone to make himself
useful, and this was really the first school of the type, combining the use of English, nature study and industrial
instruction.

On one occasion in the year 1894 some of his schoolboys secretly went into the town in a banca; a puppy
which tried to follow them was eaten by a crocodile. Rizal tired to impress the evil effects of disobedience upon
the youngsters by pointing out to them the sorrow which the mother-dog felt at the loss of her young one, and
emphasized the lesson by modeling a statuette called “The Mother’s Revenge,” wherein she is represented, in
revenge, as devouring the cayman. It is said to be a good likeness of the animal which was Doctor Rizal’s favorite
companion in his many pedestrian excursions around Dapitan.
 Father Francisco Sanchez, Rizal’s instructor in rhetoric in the Ateneo, made a
long visit to Dapitan and brought with him some surveyor’s instruments, which his
former pupil was delighted to assist him in using. Together they ran the levels for a
water system for the the town, which was later, with the aid of the lay Jesuit, Brother
Tildot, carried to completion. This same water system is now being restored and
enlarged with artesian wells by the present insular, provincial and municipal
governments jointly, as part of the memorial to Rizal in this place of his exile.

A visit to a not distant mountain and some digging in a spot supposed by the
people of the region to be haunted brought to light curious relics of the first Christian
converts among the early Moros.

The state of his mind at about this period of his career is indicated by the verses written in his home in
Talisay, entitled “My Retreat,” of which the following translation has been made by Mr. Charles Derbyshire. The
scene that inspired this poem has been converted by the government into a public park to the memory of Rizal.

My Retreat

By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and I live in the thought of the lov’d ones left,
fine, And oft their names to my mind are borne;
At the foot of the mount in its mantle of green, Some have forsaken me and some by death are reft;
I have built my hut in the pleasant grove’s confine; But now ’tis all one, as through the past I drift,
From the forest seeking peace and a calmness divine, That past which from me can never be torn.
Rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow
keen. For it is the friend that is with me always,
That ever in sorrow keeps the faith in my soul;
Its roof the frail palm-leaf and its floor the cane, While through the still night it watches and prays,
Its beams and posts of the unhewn wood; As here in my exile in my lone hut it stays,
Little there is of value in this hut so plain, To strengthen my faith when doubts o’er me roll.
And better by far in the lap of the mount to have lain,
By the song and the murmur of the high sea’s flood. That faith I keep and I hope to see shine
The day when the Idea prevails over might;
A purling brook from the woodland glade When after the fray and death’s slow decline,
Drops down o’er the stones and around it sweeps, Some other voice sounds, far happier than mine,
Whence a fresh stream is drawn by the rough cane’s To raise the glad song of the triumph of right.
aid;
That in the still night its murmur has made, I see the sky glow, refulgent and clear,
And in the day’s heat a crystal fountain leaps. As when it forced on me my first dear illusion;
I feel the same wind kiss my forehead sere,
When the sky is serene how gently it flows, And the fire is the same that is burning here
And its zither unseen ceaselessly plays; To stir up youth’s blood in boiling confusion.
But when the rains fall a torrent it goes
Boiling and foaming through the rocky close, I breathe here the winds that perchance have pass’d
Roaring uncheck’d to the sea’s wide ways. O’er the fields and the rivers of my own natal shore;
And mayhap they will bring on the returning blast
The howl of the dog and the song of the bird, The sighs that lov’d being upon them has cast—
And only the kalao’s hoarse call resound; Messages sweet from the love I first bore.
Nor is the voice of vain man to be heard,
My mind to harass or my steps to begird; To see the same moon, all silver’d as of yore,
The woodlands alone and the sea wrap me round. I feel the sad thoughts within me arise;
The fond recollections of the troth we swore,
The sea, ah, the sea! for me it is all, Of the field and the bower and the wide seashore,
As it massively sweeps from the worlds apart; The blushes of joy, with the silence and sighs.
Its smile in the morn to my soul is a call,
And when in the even my fath seems to pall, A butterfly seeking the flowers and the light,
It breathes with its sadness an echo to my heart. Of other lands dreaming, of vaster extent;
Scarce a youth, from home and love I took flight,
By night an arcanum; when translucent it glows, To wander unheeding, free from doubt or affright—
All spangled over with its millions of lights, So in foreign lands were my brightest days spent.
 And the bright sky above resplendent shows;
While the waves with their sighs tell of their woes— And when like a languishing bird I was fain
Tales that are lost as they roll to the heights. To the home of my fathers and my love to return,
Of a sudden the fierce tempest roar’d amain;
They tell of the world when the first dawn broke, So I saw my wings shatter’d and no home remain,
And the sunlight over their surface played; My trust sold to others and wrecks round me burn.
When thousands of beings from nothingness woke,
To people the depths and the heights to cloak, Hurl’d out into exile from the land I adore,
Wherever its life-giving kiss was laid. My future all dark and no refuge to seek;
My roseate dreams hover round me once more,
But when in the night the wild winds awake, Sole treasures of all that life to me bore;
And the waves in their fury begin to leap, The faiths of youth that with sincerity speak.
Through the air rush the cries that my mind shake;
Voices that pray, songs and moans that partake But not as of old, full of life and of grace,
Of laments from the souls sunk down in the deep. Do you hold out hopes of undying reward;
Sadder I find you; on your lov’d face,
Then from their heights the mountains groan, Though still sincere, the pale lines trace
And the trees shiver tremulous from great unto least; The marks of the faith it is yours to guard.
The groves rustle plaintive and the herds utter moan,
For they say that the ghosts of the folk that are gone You offer now, dreams, my gloom to appease,
Are calling them down to their death’s merry feast. And the years of my youth again to disclose;
So I thank you, O storm, and heaven-born breeze,
In terror and confusion whispers the night, That you knew of the hour my wild flight to ease,
While blue and green flames flit over the deep; To cast me back down to the soil whence I rose.
But calm reigns again with the morning’s light,
And soon the bold fisherman comes into sight, By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and
As his bark rushes on and the waves sink to sleep. fine,
At the foot of the mount in its mantle of green;
So onward glide the days in my lonely abode; I have found a home in the pleasant grove’s confine,
Driven forth from the world where once I was known, In the shady woods, that peace and calmness divine,
I muse o’er the fate upon me bestow’d; Rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow
A fragment forgotten that the moss will corrode, keen.
To hide from mankind the world in me shown.

The Church benefited by the presence of the exile, for he drew the design for an elaborate
curtain to adorn the sanctuary at Easter time, and an artist Sister of Charity of the school
there did the oil painting under his direction. In this line he must have been proficient, for
once in Spain, where he traveled out of his way to Saragossa to visit one of his former
teachers of the Ateneo, who he had heard was there, Rizal offered his assistance in making
some altar paintings, and the Jesuit says that his skill and taste were much appreciated.

The home of the Sisters had a private chapel, for which the teachers were
preparing an image of the Virgin. For the sake of economy the head only was procured from abroad, the vestments
concealing all the rest of the figure except the feet, which rested upon a globe encircled by a snake in whose mouth
is an apple. The beauty of the countenance, a real work of art, appealed to Rizal, and he modeled the more
prominent right foot, the apple and the serpent’s head, while the artist Sister assisted by doing the minor work.
Both curtain and image, twenty years after their making, are still in use.

On Sundays, Father Sanchez and Rizal conducted a school for the people after
mass. As part of this education it was intended to make raised maps in the plaza of the
chief city of the eight principal islands of the Philippines, but on account of Father
Sanchez’s being called away, only one. Mindanao, was completed; it has been restored
with a concrete sidewalk and balustrade about it, while the plaza is a national park.

Among Rizal’s patients was a blind American named Taufer, fairly well to do,
who had been engineer of the pumping plant of the Hongkong Fire Department. He was
a man of bravery, for he held a diploma for helping to rescue five Spaniards from a
shipwreck in Hongkong harbor. And he was not less kind-hearted, for he and his wife, a
Portuguese, had adopted and brought up as their own the infant
daughter of a poor Irish woman who had died in Hongkong, leaving
a considerable family to her husband, a corporal in the British Army
on service there.

The little girl had been educated in the Italian convent after
the first Mrs. Taufer died, and upon Mr. Taufer’s remarriage, to
another Portuguese, the adopted daughter and Mr. Taufer’s own child
were equally sharers of his home.

This girl had known Rizal, “the Spanish doctor,” as he was

called there, in Hongkong, and persuaded her adopted father that
possibly the Dapitan exile might restore his lost eyesight. So with the
two girls and his wife, Mr. Taufer set out for Mindanao. At Manila
his own daughter fell in love with a Filipino engineer, a Mr. Sunico,
now owner of a foundry in Manila, and, marrying, remained there.
But the party reached Dapitan with its original number, for they were
joined by a good-looking mestiza from the South who was
unofficially connected with one of the canons of the Manila cathedral.

Josefina Bracken, the Irish girl, was lively, capable and of

congenial temperament, and as there no longer existed any reason
against his marriage, for Rizal considered his political days over, they
agreed to become husband and wife.

The priest was asked to perform the ceremony, but said the Bishop of Cebu must give his consent, and
offered to write him. Rizal at first feared that some political retraction would be asked, but when assured that
only his religious beliefs would be investigated, promptly submitted a statement which Father Obach says
covered about the same ground as the earliest published of the retractions said to have been made on the eve of
Rizal’s death.

This document, inclosed with the priest’s letter, was ready for the mail when Rizal came hurrying in to
reclaim it. The marriage was off, for Mr. Taufer had taken his family and gone to Manila.

The explanation of this sudden departure was that, after the blind man had been told of the impossibility
of anything being done for his eyes, he was informed of the proposed marriage. The trip had already cost him one
daughter, he had found that his blindness was incurable, and now his only remaining daughter, who had for
seventeen years been like his own child, was planning to leave him. He would have to return to Hongkong
hopeless and accompanied only by a wife he had never seen, one who really was merely a servant. In his despair
he said he had nothing to live for, and, seizing his razor, would have ended his
life had not Rizal seized him just in time and held him, with the firm grasp his
athletic training had given him, till the commandant came and calmed the excited
blind man.

It resulted in Josefina returning to Manila with him, but after a while Mr

Taufer listened to reason and she went back to Dapitan, after a short stay in Manila
with Rizal’s family, to whom she had carried his letter of introduction, taking
considerable housekeeping furniture with her.

Further consideration changed Rizal’s opinion as to marriage, possibly

because the second time the priest may not have been so liberal in his
requirements. The mother, too, seems to have suggested that as Spanish law had
established civil marriage in the Philippines, and as the local government had not
provided any way for people to avail themselves of the right, because the
governor-general had pigeon-holed the royal decree, it would be less sinful for
the two to consider themselves civilly married than for Rizal to do violence to his conscience by making any sort
of political retraction. Any marriage so bought would be just as little a sacrament as an absolutely civil marriage,
and the latter was free from hypocrisy.
 So as man and wife Rizal and Josefina lived together in
Talisay. Father Obach sought to prejudice public feeling in the
town against the exile for the “scandal,” though other scandals
happenings with less reason were going on unrebuked. The pages
of “Dapitan”, which some have considered to be the first chapter
of an unfinished novel, may reasonably be considered no more
than Rizal’s rejoinder to Father Obach, written in sarcastic vein
and primarily for Carnicero’s amusement, unless some date of
writing earlier than this should hereafter be found for them.

Josefina was bright, vivacious, and a welcome addition

to the little colony at Talisay, but at times Rizal had misgivings as
to how it came that this foreigner should be permitted by a suspicious and absolute government to join him, when
Filipinos, over whom the authorities could have exercised complete control, were kept away. Josefina’s frequent
visits to the convento once brought this suspicion to an open declaration of his misgivings by Rizal, but two days
of weeping upon her part caused him to avoid the subject thereafter. Could the exile have seen the confidential
correspondence in the secret archives the plan would have been plain to him, for there it is suggested that his
impressionable character could best be reached through the sufferings of his family, and that only his mother and
sisters should be allowed to visit him. Steps in this plot were the gradual pardoning and returning of the members
of his family to their homes.

Josefina must remain a mystery to us as she was to Rizal. While she was in a delicate condition Rizal
played a prank on her, harmless in itself, which startled her so that she sprang forward and struck against an iron
stand. Though it was pure accident and Rizal was scarcely at fault, he blamed himself for it, and his later devotion
seems largely to have been trying to make amends.

The “burial of the son of Rizal,” sometimes referred to as occurring at Dapitan, has for its foundation the
consequences of this accident. A sketch hastily penciled in one of his medical books depicts an unusual condition
apparent in the infant which, had it regularly made its appearance in the world some months later, would have
been cherished by both parents; this loss was a great and common grief which banished thereafter all distrust upon
his part and all occasion for it upon hers.

Rizal’s mother and several of his sisters, the latter changing from time
to time, had been present during this critical period. Another operation had been
performed upon Mrs. Rizal’s eyes, but she was restive and disregarded the
ordinary precautions, and the son was in despair. A letter to his brother-in-law,
Manuel Hidalgo, who was inclined toward medical studies, says, “I now realize
the reason why physicians are directed not to practice in their own families.”

A story of his mother and Rizal, necessary to understand his peculiar

attitude toward her, may serve as the transition from the hero’s sad (later)
married experience to the real romance of his life. Mrs. Rizal’s talents
commanded her son’s admiration, as her care for him demanded his gratitude,
but, despite the common opinion, he never had that sense of companionship
with her that he enjoyed with his father. Mrs. Rizal was a strict disciplinarian
and a woman of unexceptionable character, but she arrogated to herself an
infallibility which at times was trying to those about her, and she foretold bitter
fates for those who dared dispute her.

Just before José went abroad to study, while

engaged to his cousin, Leonora Rivera, Mrs. Rivera and her daughter visited their
relatives in Kalamba. Naturally the young man wished the guests to have the best of
everything; one day when they visited a bathing place nearby he used the family’s
newest carriage. Though this had not been forbidden, his mother spoke rather sharply
about it; José ventured to remind her that guests were present and that it would be better
to discuss the matter in private. Angry because one of her children ventured to dispute
her, she replied: “You are an undutiful son. You will never accomplish anything which
you undertake. All your plans will result in failure.” These words could not be forgotten,
as succeeding events seemed to make their prophecy come true, and there is pathos in
one of Rizal’s letters in which he reminds his mother that she had foretold his fate.
 His thoughts of an early marriage were overruled because his unmarried sisters did not desire to have a
sister-in-law in their home who would add to the household cares but was not trained to bear her share of them,
and even Paciano, who was in his favor, thought that his younger brother would mar his career by marrying early.

So, with fervent promises and high hopes, Rizal had sailed
away to make the fortune which should allow him to marry his
cousin Leonora. She was constantly in his thoughts and his long
letters were mailed with regular frequency during all his first years
in Europe; but only a few of the earliest ever reached her, and as
few replies came into his hands, though she was equally faithful as
a correspondent.

Leonora’s mother had been told that it was for the good of
her daughter’s soul and in the interest of her happiness that she
should not become the wife of a man like Rizal, who was obnoxious
to the Church and in disfavor with the government. So, by advice,
Mrs. Rivera gradually withheld more and more of the
correspondence upon both sides, until finally it ceased. And she
constantly suggested to the unhappy girl that her youthful lover had
forgotten her amid the distractions and gayeties of Europe.

Then the same influence which had advised breaking off

the correspondence found a person whom the mother and others
joined in urging upon her as a husband, till at last, in the belief that
she owed obedience to her mother, she reluctantly consented.
Strangely like the proposed husband of the Maria Clara of “Noli Me Tangere,” in which book Rizal had
prophetically pictured her, this husband was “one whose children should rule ”—an English engineer whose
position had been found for him to make the match more desirable. Their marriage took place, and when Rizal
returned to the Philippines she learned how she had been deceived. Then she asked for the letters that had been
withheld, and when told that as a wife she might not keep love letters from any but her husband, she pleaded that
they be burned and the ashes given her. This was done, and the silver box with the blackened bits of paper upon
her dresser seemed to be a consolation during the few months of life which she knew would remain to her.
Another great disappointment to Rizal was the action of Despujol when he first arrived in Dapitan, for
he still believed in the Governor-General’s good faith and thought in that fertile but sparsely settled region he
might plant his “New Kalamba” without the objection that had been urged against the British North Borneo
project. All seemed to be going on favorably for the assembling of his relatives and neighbors in what then would
be no longer exile, when most insultingly, the Governor-General refused the permission which Rizal had had
reason to rely upon his granting. The exile was reminded of his deportation and taunted with trying to make
himself a king. Though he did not know it, this was part of the plan which was to break his spirit, so that when he
was touched with the sufferings of his family he would yield to the influences of his youth and make complete
political retraction; thus would be removed the most reasonable, and therefore the most formidable, opponent of
the unnatural conditions Philippines and of the selfish interests which were profiting by them. But the plotters
failed in their plan; they had mistaken their man.

During all this time Rizal had repeated chances to escape, and persons high in
authority seem to have urged flight upon him. Running away, however, seemed to him
a confession of guilt; the opportunities of doing so always unsettled him, for each time
the battle of self-sacrifice had to be fought over again; but he remained firm in his
purpose. To meet death bravely is one thing; to seek it is another and harder thing; but
to refuse life and choose death over and over again during many years is the rarest kind
of heroism.

Rizal used to make long trips, sometimes cruising for a week in his
explorations of the Mindanao coast, and some of his friends proposed to charter a
steamer in Singapore and, passing near Dapitan, pick him up on one of these trips.
Another Philippine steamer going to Borneo suggested taking him on board as a rescue
at sea and then landing him at their destination, where he would be free from Spanish
power. Either of these schemes would have been feasible, but he refused both.
 Plans, which materialized, to benefit the fishing industry by improved nets imported from his Laguna
home, and to find a market for the abaka of Dapitan, were joined with the introduction of American machinery,
for which Rizal acted as agent, among planters of neighboring islands. It was a busy, useful life, and in the
economic advancement of his country the exile believed he was as patriotic as when he was working politically.

Rizal personally had been fortunate, for in company with the commandant and a Spaniard, originally
deported for political reasons from the Peninsula, he had gained one of the richer prizes in the government lottery.
These funds came most opportunely, for the land troubles and succeeding litigation had almost stripped the family
of all its possessions. The account of the first news in Dapitan of the good fortune of the three is interestingly told
in an official report to the Governor-General from the commandant. The official saw the infrequent mail steamer
arriving with flying bunting and at once imagined some high authority was aboard; he hastened to the beach with
a band of music to assist in the welcome, but was agreeably disappointed with the news of the luck which had
befallen his prisoner and himself.

Not all of Dapitan life was profitable and prosperous. Yet in spite of this Rizal stayed in the town. This
was pure self-sacrifice, for he refused to make any effort for his own release by invoking influences which could
have brought pressure to bear upon the Spanish home government. He feared to act lest obstacles might be put in
the way of the reforms that were apparently making headway through Despujol’s initiative, and was content to
wait rather than to jeopardize the prospects of others.

A plan for his transfer to the North, in the Ilokano country, had been deferred and had met with
obstacles which Rizal believed were placed in its way through some of his own countrymen in the Peninsula who
feared his influence upon the revenue with which politics was furnishing them.

Another proposal was to appoint Rizal district health officer for Dapitan, but this was merely a covert
government bribe. While the exile expressed his willingness to accept the position, he did not make the
“unequivocally Spanish” professions that were needed to secure this appointment.

Yet the government could have been satisfied of Rizal’s innocence of any treasonable designs against
Spain’s sovereignty in the Islands had it known how the exile had declined an opportunity to head the movement
which had been initiated on the eve of his deportation. His name had been used to gather the members together
and his portrait hung in each Katipunan lodge hall, but all this was without Rizal’s consent or even his knowledge.

The members, who had been paying faithfully for four

years, felt that it was time that something besides collecting money
was done. Their restiveness and suspicions led Andrés Bonifacio,
its head, to resort to Rizal, feeling that a word from the exile, who
had religiously held aloof from all politics since his deportation,
would give the Katipunan leaders more time to mature their plans.
So he sent a messenger to Dapitan, Pio Valenzuela, a doctor, who
to conceal his mission took with him a blind man. Thus the doctor
and his patient appeared as on a professional visit to the exiled
oculist. But though the interview was successfully secured in this
way, its results were far from satisfactory.

Far from feeling grateful for the consideration for the

possible consequences to him which Valenzuela pretended had
prompted the visit, Rizal indignantly insisted that the country came
first. He cited the Spanish republics of South America, with their
alternating revolutions and despotisms, as a warning against
embarking on a change of government for which the people were
not prepared. Education, he declared, was first necessary, and in
his opinion general enlightenment was the only road to progress.
Valenzuela cut short his trip, glad to escape without anyone
realizing that Rizal and he had quarreled.

Bonifacio called Rizal a coward when he heard his emissary’s report, and enjoined Valenzuela to say
nothing of his trip. But the truth leaked out, and there was a falling away in Katipunan membership.

Doctor Rizal’s own statement respecting the rebellion and Valenzuela’s visit may fitly be quoted here:
 “I had no notice at all of what was being planned until the first or second of July, in
1896, when Pio Valenzuela came to see me, saying that an uprising was being arranged. I told
him that it was absurd, etc., etc., and he answered me that they could bear no more. I advised
him that they should have patience, etc., etc. He added then that he had been sent because they
had compassion on my life and that probably it would compromise me. I replied that they should
have patience and that if anything happened to me I would then prove my innocence. ‘Besides,’
said I, ‘don’t consider me, but our country, which is the one that will suffer.’ I went on to show
how absurd was the movement.—This, later, Pio Valenzuela testified.—He did not tell me that
my name was being used, neither did he suggest that I was its chief, or anything of that sort.

“Those who testify that I am the chief (which I do not know, nor do I know of having
ever treated with them), what proofs do they present of my having accepted this chiefship or
that I was in relations with them or with their society? Either they have made use of my name
for their own purposes or they have been deceived by others who have. Where is the chief who
dictates no order and makes no arrangement, who is not consulted in anything about so
important an enterprise until the last moment, and then when he decides against it is disobeyed?
Since the seventh of July of 1892 I have entirely ceased political activity. It seems some have
wished to avail themselves of my name for their own ends.”

This was Rizal’s second temptation to engage in politics, the first having been a trap laid by his enemies.
A man had come to see Rizal in his earlier days in Dapitan, claiming to be a relative and seeking letters to
prominent Filipinos. The deceit was too plain and Rizal denounced the envoy to the commandant, whose
investigations speedily disclosed the source of the plot. Further prosecution, of course, ceased at once.

The visit of some image vendors from Laguna who never before had visited that region, and who seemed
more intent on escaping notice than interested in business, appeared suspicious, but upon report of the Jesuits the
matter was investigated and nothing really suspicious was found.

Rizal’s charm of manner and attraction for every one he met is best shown by his relations with the
successive commandants at Dapitan, all of whom, except Carnicero, were naturally predisposed against him, but
every one became his friend and champion. One even asked relief on the ground of this growing favorable
impression upon his part toward his prisoner.
At times there were rumors of Rizal’s speedy pardon, and he would think of going regularly into scientific
work, collecting for those European museums which had made him proposals that assured ample livelihood and
congenial work.

Then Doctor Blumentritt wrote to him of the ravages of disease among the Spanish soldiers in Cuba and
the scarcity of surgeons to attend them. Here was a labor “eminently humanitarian,” to quote Rizal’s words of his
own profession, and it made so strong an appeal to him that, through the new governor-general, for Despujol had
been replaced by Blanco, he volunteered his services. The minister of war of that time, General Azcarraga, was
Philippine born. Blanco considered the time favorable for granting Rizal’s petition and thus lifting the decree of
deportation without the embarrassment of having the popular prisoner remain in the Islands.

The thought of resuming his travels evidently inspired the following poem, which was written at about
this time. The translation is by Arthur P. Ferguson:

The Song of the Traveler

Like to a leaf that is fallen and withered, Often the sorrowful pilgrim is envied,
Tossed by the tempest from pole unto pole; Circling the globe like a sea-gull above;
Thus roams the pilgrim abroad without purpose, Little, ah, little they know what a void
Roams without love, without country or soul. Saddens his soul by the absence of love.

Following anxiously treacherous fortune, Home may the pilgrim return in the future,
Fortune which e’en as he grasps at it flees; Back to his loved ones his footsteps he bends;
Vain though the hopes that his yearning is Naught will he find but the snow and the ruins,
seeking, Ashes of love and the tomb of his friends.
Yet does the pilgrim embark on the seas!
Pilgrim, begone! Nor return more hereafter.
 Stranger thou art in the land of thy birth;
Ever impelled by invisible power, Others may sing of their love while rejoicing,
Destined to roam from the East to the West; Thou once again must roam o’er the earth.
Oft he remembers the faces of loved ones,
Dreams of the day when he, too, was at rest. Pilgrim, begone! Nor return more hereafter,
Dry are the tears that a while for thee ran;
Chance may assign him a tomb on the desert, Pilgrim, begone! And forget thy affliction,
Grant him a final asylum of peace; Loud laughs the world at the sorrows of man.
Soon by the world and his country forgotten,
God rest his soul when his wanderings cease!

“Consummatum Est”

Notice of the granting of his request came to Rizal just when repeated disappointments had caused him
to prepare for staying in Dapitan. Immediately he disposed of his salable possessions, including a Japanese tea set
and large mirror now among the Rizal relics preserved by the government, and a piece of outlying land, the deed
for which is also among the Rizalana in the Philippines library. Some half-finished busts were thrown into the
pool behind the dam. Despite the short notice all was ready for the trip in time, and, attended by some of his
schoolboys as well as by Josefina and Rizal’s niece, the daughter of his youngest sister, Soledad, whom Josefina
wished to adopt, the party set out for Manila.

The journey was not an uneventful one; at Dumaguete Rizal was the guest of a Spanish judge at dinner;
in Cebu he operated successfully upon the eyes of a foreign merchant; and in Iloilo the local newspaper made
much of his presence.

The steamer from Dapitan reached Manila a little too late for the mail boat for Spain, and Rizal obtained
permission to await the next sailing on board the cruiser Castilla, in the bay. Here he was treated like a guest and
more than once the Spanish captain invited members of Rizal’s family to be his guests at dinner—Josefina with
little Maria Luisa, the niece and the schoolboys, for whom positions had been obtained, in Manila.

The alleged uprising of the Katipunan occurred during this time. A Tondo curate, with an eye to
promotion, professed to have discovered a gigantic conspiracy. Incited by him, the lower class of Spaniards in
Manila made demonstrations against Blanco and tried to force that ordinarily sensible and humane executive into
bloodthirsty measures, which should terrorize the Filipinos. Blanco had known of the Katipunan but realized that
so long as interested parties were using it as a source of revenue, its activities would not go much beyond
speechmaking. The rabble was not so far-seeing, and from high authorities came advice that the country was in a
fever and could only be saved by blood-letting.

Wholesale arrests filled every possible place for prisoners in Manila. The guilt of one suspect consisted
in having visited the American consul to secure the address of a New York medical journal, and other charges
were just as frivolous. There was a reign of terror in Luzon and, to save themselves, members of the Katipunan
resorted to that open warfare which, had Blanco’s prudent counsels been regarded, would probably have been
avoided.

While the excitement was at its height, with a number of executions failing to satisfy the blood-hunger,
Rizal sailed for Spain, bearing letters of recommendation from Blanco. These vouched for his exemplary conduct
during his exile and stated that he had in no way been implicated in the conspiracies then disturbing the Islands.

The Spanish mail boat upon which Rizal finally sailed had among its passengers a sick Jesuit, to whose
care Rizal devoted himself, and though most of the passengers were openly hostile to one whom they supposed
responsible for the existing outbreak, his professional skill led several to avail themselves of his services. These
were given with a deference to the ship’s doctor which made that official an admirer and champion of his
colleague.

Three only of the passengers, however, were really friendly—one Juan Utor y Fernandez, a prominent
Mason and republican, another ex-official in the Philippines who shared Utor’s liberal views, and a young man
whose father was republican.
 But if Rizal’s chief adversaries were content that he should go where he would not molest them or longer
jeopardize their interests, the rabble that had been excited by the hired newspaper advocates was not so easily
calmed. Everyone who felt that his picture had been painted among the lower Spanish types portrayed in “Noli
Me Tangere” was loud for revenge. The clamor grew so great that it seemed possible to take advantage of it to
displace General Blanco, who was not a convenient tool for the interests.

So his promotion was bought, it is said, to get one Polavieja, a willing tool, in his place. As soon as this
scheme was arranged, a cablegram ordering Rizal’s arrest was sent; it overtook the steamer at Suez. Thus as a
prisoner he completed his journey.

But this had not been entirely unforeseen, for when the steamer reached Singapore, Rizal’s companion
on board, the Filipino millionaire Pedro P. Roxas, had deserted the ship, urging the ex-exile to follow his example.
Rizal demurred, and said such flight would be considered confession of guilt, but he was not fully satisfied in his
mind that he was safe. At each port of call his uncertainty as to what course to pursue manifested itself, for though
he considered his duty to his country already done, and his life now his own, he would do nothing that suggested
an uneasy conscience despite his lack of confidence in Spanish justice.

At first, not knowing the course of events in Manila, he very naturally blamed Governor-General Blanco
for bad faith, and spoke rather harshly of him in a letter to Doctor Blumentritt, an opinion which he changed later
when the truth was revealed to him in Manila.

Upon the arrival of the steamer in Barcelona the prisoner was

transferred to Montjuich Castle, a political prison associated with many
cruelties, there to await the sailing that very day of the Philippine mail boat.
The Captain-General was the same Despujol who had decoyed Rizal into the
power of the Spaniards four years before. An interesting interview of some
hours’ duration took place between the governor and the prisoner, in which
the clear conscience of the latter seems to have stirred some sense of shame
in the man who had so dishonorably deceived him.

He never heard of the effort of London friends to deliver him at Singapore by means of habeas-corpus
proceedings. Mr. Regidor furnished the legal inspiration and Mr. Baustead the funds for getting an opinion as to
Rizal’s status as a prisoner when in British waters, from Sir Edward Clarke, ex-solicitor-general of Great Britain.
Captain Camus, a Filipino living in Singapore, was cabled to, money was made available in the Chartered Bank
of Singapore, as Mr. Baustead’s father’s firm was in business in that city, and a lawyer, now Sir Hugh Fort, K.C.,
of London, was retained. Secretly, in order that the attempt, if unsuccessful, might not jeopardize the prisoner, a
petition was presented to the Supreme Court of the Straits Settlements reciting the facts that Doctor José Rizal,
according to the Philippine practice of punishing Freemasons without trial, was being deprived of his liberty
without warrant of law upon a ship then within the jurisdiction of the court.
 According to Spanish law Rizal was being illegally held on the Spanish mail steamer Colon, for the
Constitution of Spain forbade detention except on a judge’s order, but like most Spanish laws the Constitution
was not much respected by Spanish officials. Rizal had never had a hearing before any judge, nor had any charge
yet been placed against him. The writ of habeas corpus was justified, provided the Colon were a merchant ship
that would be subject to British law when in British port, but the mail steamer that carried Rizal also had on board
Spanish soldiers and flew the royal flag as if it were a national transport. No one was willing to deny that this
condition made the ship floating Spanish territory, and the judge declined to issue the writ.

Rizal reached Manila on November 3 and was at once transferred to Fort Santiago, at first being held in
a dungeon “incomunicado” and later occupying a small cell on the ground floor. Its furnishings had to be supplied
by himself and they consisted of a small rattan table, a high-backed chair, a steamer chair of the same material,
and a cot of the kind used by Spanish officers—canvas top and collapsible frame which closed up lengthwise. His
meals were sent in by his family, being carried by one of his former pupils at Dapitan, and such cooking or heating
as was necessary was done on an alcohol lamp which had been presented to him in Paris by Mrs. Tavera.

An unsuccessful effort had been made earlier to get evidence against Rizal by torturing his brother
Paciano. For hours the elder brother had been seated at a table in the headquarters of the political police, a
thumbscrew on one hand and pen in the other, while before him was a confession which would implicate José
Rizal in the Katipunan uprising. The paper remained unsigned, though Paciano was hung up by the elbows till he
was insensible, and then cut down that the fall might revive him. Three days of this maltreatment made him so ill
that there was no possibility of his signing anything, and he was carted home.

It would not be strictly accurate to say that at the close of the nineteenth century the Spaniards of Manila
were using the same tortures that had made their name abhorrent in Europe three centuries earlier, for there was
some progress; electricity was employed at times as an improved method of causing anguish, and the thumbscrews
were much more neatly finished than those used by the Dons of the Dark Ages.

Rizal did not approve of the rebellion and desired to issue a manifesto to those of his countrymen who
had been deceived into believing that he was their leader. But the proclamation was not politic, for it contained
none of those fulsomely flattering phrases which passed for patriotism in the feverish days of 1896. The address
was not allowed to be made public but it was passed on to the prosecutor to form another count in the indictment
of José Rizal for not esteeming Spanish civilization.

The following address to some Filipinos shows more clearly and unmistakably than any words of mine
exactly what was the state of Rizal’s mind in this matter.

Countrymen:

On my return from Spain I learned that my name had been in use, among some who
were in arms, as a war-cry. The news came as a painful surprise, but, believing it already
closed, I kept silent over an incident which I considered irremediable. Now I notice indications
of the disturbances continuing and if any still, in good or bad faith, are availing themselves of
my name, to stop this abuse and undeceive the unwary I hasten to address you these lines that
the truth may be known.

From the very beginning, when I first had notice of what was being planned, I opposed
it, fought it, and demonstrated its absolute impossibility. This is the fact, and witnesses to my
words are now living. I was convinced that the scheme was utterly absurd, and, what was worse,
would bring great suffering.

I did even more. When later, against my advice, the movement materialized, of my own
accord I offered not alone my good offices, but my very life, and even my name, to be used in
whatever way might seem best, toward stifling the rebellion; for, convinced of the ills which it
would bring, I considered myself fortunate if, at any sacrifice, I could prevent such useless
misfortunes. This equally is of record. My countrymen, I have given proofs that I am one most
anxious for liberties for our country, and I am still desirous of them. But I place as a prior
condition the education of the people, that by means of instruction and industry our country
may have an individuality of its own and make itself worthy of these liberties. I have
recommended in my writings the study of the civic virtues, without which there is no
 redemption. I have written likewise (and I repeat my words) that reforms, to be beneficial, must
come from above, that those which come from below are irregularly gained and uncertain.

Holding these ideas, I cannot do less than condemn, and I do condemn this uprising—
as absurd, savage, and plotted behind my back—which dishonors us Filipinos and discredits
those who could plead our cause. I abhor its criminal methods and disclaim all part in it, pitying
from the bottom of my heart the unwary who have been deceived.

Return, then, to your homes, and may God pardon those who have worked in bad faith!

José Rizal.
Fort Santiago, December 15, 1896.

.
Finally a court-martial was convened for Rizal’s trial, in the Cuartel de
España. No trained counsel was allowed to defend him, but a list of young army officers
was presented from which he might select a nominal defender. Among the names was
one which was familiar, Luis Taviel de Andrade, and he proved to be the brother of
Rizal’s companion during his visit to the Philippines in 1887–88. The young man did
his best and risked unpopularity in order to be loyal to his client. His defense reads
pitiably weak in these days but it was risky then to say even so much.

The judge advocate in a ridiculously bombastic effusion gave an alleged

sketch of Rizal’s life which showed ignorance of almost every material event, and then
formulated the first precise charge against the prisoner, which was that he had founded
an illegal society, alleging that the Liga Filipina had for its sole object to commit the crime of rebellion.

The second charge was that Rizal was responsible for the existing rebellion, having caused it, bringing
it on by his unceasing labors. An aggravating circumstance was found in the prisoner’s being a native of the
Philippines.

The penalty of death was asked of the court, and in the event of pardon being granted by the crown, the
prisoner should at least remain under surveillance for the rest of his life and pay as damages 20,000 pesos.

The arguments are so absurd, the bias of the court so palpable, that it is not worth while to discuss them.
The parallel proceedings in the military trial and execution of Francisco Ferret in Barcelona in 1909 caused
worldwide indignation, and the illegality of almost every step, according to Spanish law, was shown in numerous
articles in the European and American press. Rizal’s case was even more brazenly unfair, but Manila was too
remote and the news too carefully censored for the facts to become known.

The prisoner’s arms were tied, corded from elbow to elbow behind his back, and thus he sat through the
weary trial while the public jeered him and clamored for his condemnation as the bloodthirsty crowds jeered and
clamored in the French Reign of terror.

Then came the verdict and the prisoner was invited to acknowledge the regularity of the proceedings in
the farcical trial by signing the record. To this Rizal demurred, but after a vain protest, affixed his signature.

He was at once transferred to the Fort chapel, there to pass the last twenty-four hours of his life in
preparing for death. The military chaplain offered his services, which were courteously declined, but when the
Jesuits came, those instructors of his youth were eagerly welcomed.

Rizal’s trial had awakened great interest and accounts of everything about the prisoner were cabled by
eager correspondents to the Madrid newspapers. One of the newspaper men who visited Rizal in his cell mentions
the courtesy of his reception, and relates how the prisoner played the host and insisted on showing his visitor those
attentions which Spanish politeness considers due to a guest, saying that these must be permitted, for he was in
his own home. The interviewer found the prisoner perfectly calm and natural, serious of course, but not at all
overwhelmed by the near prospect of death, and in discussing his career Rizal displayed that dispassionate attitude
toward his own doings that was characteristic of him. Almost as though speaking of a stranger he mentioned that
if Archbishop Nozaleda’s sane view had been taken and “Noli Me Tangere” not preached against, he would not
have been in prison, and perhaps the rebellion would never have occurred. It is easy for us to recognize that the
author referred to the misconception of his novel, which had arisen from the publication of the censor’s extracts,
which consisted of whatever could be construed into coming under one of the three headings of attacks on religion,
attacks on government, and reflections on Spanish character, without the slightest regard to the context.

But the interviewer, quite honestly, reported Rizal to be regretting his novel instead of regretting its
miscomprehension, and he seems to have been equally in error in the way he mistook Rizal’s meaning about the
republicans in Spain having led him astray.

Rizal’s exact words are not given in the newspaper account, but it is not
likely that a man would make admissions in a newspaper interview, which if made
formally, would have saved his life. Rizal’s memory has one safeguard against the
misrepresentations which the absence of any witnesses favorable to him make
possible regarding his last moments: a political retraction would have prevented
his execution, and since the execution did take place, it is reasonable to believe
that Rizal died holding the views for which he had expressed himself willing to
suffer martyrdom.

Yet this view does not reflect upon the good faith of the reporter. It is
probable that the prisoner was calling attention to the illogical result that, though
he had disregarded the advice of the radical Spaniards who urged him to violent
measures, his peaceable agitation had been misunderstood and brought him to the
same situation as though he had actually headed a rebellion by arms. His slighting
opinion of his great novel was the view he had always held, for like all men who
do really great things, he was the reverse of a braggart, and in his remark that he
had attempted to do great things without the capacity for gaining success, one
recognizes his remembrance of his mother’s angry prophecy foretelling failure in
all he undertook.

His family waited long outside the Governor-General’s place to ask a pardon, but in vain; General
Polavieja had to pay the price of his appointment and refused to see them.

The mother and sisters, however, were permitted to say farewell to Rizal in the chapel, under the eyes of
the death-watch. The prisoner had been given the unusual privilege of not being tied, but he was not allowed to
approach near his relatives, really for fear that he might pass some writing to them—the pretext was made that
Rizal might thus obtain the means for committing suicide.

To his sister Trinidad Rizal spoke of having nothing to give her by way of remembrance except the
alcohol cooking lamp which he had been using, a gift, as he mentioned, from Mrs. Tavera. Then he added quickly,
in English, so that the listening guard would not understand, “There is something inside.”

The other events of Rizal’s last twenty-four hours, for he went in to the chapel at seven in the morning
of the day preceding his execution, are perplexing. What purported to be a detailed account was promptly
published in Barcelona, on Jesuit authority, but one must not forget that Spaniards are not of the phlegmatic
disposition which makes for accuracy in minute matters and even when writing history they are dramatically
inclined. So while the truthfulness, that is the intent to be fair, may not be questioned, it would not be strange if
those who wrote of what happened in the chapel in Fort Santiago during Rizal’s last hours did not escape entirely
from the influence of the national characteristics. In the main their narrative is to be accepted, but the possibility
of unconscious coloring should not be disregarded.

In substance it is alleged that Rizal greeted his old instructors and other past acquaintances in a friendly
way. He asked for copies of the Gospels and the writings of Thomas-à-Kempis, desired to be formally married to
Josefina, and asked to be allowed to confess. The Jesuits responded that first it would be necessary to
investigate how far his beliefs conformed to the Roman Catholic teachings. Their catechizing convinced them that
he was not orthodox and a religious debate ensued in which Rizal, after advancing all known arguments, was
completely vanquished. His marriage was made contingent upon his signing a retraction of his published heresies.

The Archbishop had prepared a form which the Jesuits believed Rizal would be little likely to sign, and
they secured permission to substitute a shorter one of their own which included only the absolute essentials for
reconciliation with the Church, and avoided all political references. They say that Rizal objected only to a
disavowal of Freemasonry, stating that in England, where he held his membership, the Masonic institution was
not hostile to the Church. After some argument, he waived this point and wrote out, at a Jesuit’s dictation, the
needed retraction, adding some words to strengthen it in parts, indicating his Catholic education and that the act
was of his own free will and accord.

The prisoner, the priests, and all the Spanish

officials present knelt at the altar, at Rizal’s suggestion, while
he read his retraction aloud. Afterwards he put on a blue
scapular, kissed the image of the Sacred Heart he had carved
years before, heard mass as when a student in the Ateneo,
took communion, and read his à-Kempis or prayed in the
intervals. He took breakfast with the Spanish officers, who
now regarded him very differently. At six Josefina entered
and was married to him by Father Balanguer.

Now in this narrative there are some apparent

discrepancies. Mention is made of Rizal having in an access
of devotion signed in a devotionary all the acts of faith, and
it is said that this book was given to one of his sisters. His
chapel gifts to his family have been examined, but though
there is a book of devotion, “The Anchor of Faith,” it contains
no other signature than the presentation on a flyleaf. As to the
religious controversy: while in Dapitan Rizal carried on with
Father Pio Pi, the Jesuit superior, a lengthy discussion
involving the interchange of many letters, but he succeeded in fairly maintaining his views, and these views would
hardly have caused him to be called Protestant in the Roman Catholic churches of America. Then the theatrical
reading aloud of his retraction before the altar does not conform to Rizal’s known character. As to the anti-Masonic
arguments, these appear to be from a work by Monsignor Dupanloup and therefore were not new to Rizal;
furthermore, the book was in his own library.

Again, it seems strange that Rizal should have asserted that his Masonic membership was in London
when in visiting St. John’s Lodge, Scotch Constitution, in Hongkong in November of 1891, since which date he
had not been in London, he registered as from “Temple du honneur de les amis français,” an old-established Paris
lodge.

Also the sister Lucia, who was said to have been a witness of the marriage, is not positive that it occurred,
having only seen the priest at the altar in his vestments. The record of the marriage has been stated to be in the
Manila Cathedral, but it is not there, and as the Jesuit in officiating would have been representing the military
chaplain, the entry should have been in the Fort register, now in Madrid. Rizal’s burial, too, does not indicate that
he died in the faith, yet it with the marriage has been used as an argument for proving that the retraction must have
been made.

The retraction itself appears in two versions, with slight differences. No one outside the Spanish faction
has ever seen the original, though the family nearly got into trouble by their persistence in trying to get sight of it
after its first publication.

The foregoing might suggest some disbelief, but in fact they are only proofs of the remarks already made
about the Spanish carelessness in details and liking for the dramatic.

The writer believes Rizal made a retraction, was married canonically, and was given what was intended
to be Christian burial.

The grounds for this belief rest upon the fact that he seems never to have been estranged in faith from
the Roman Catholic Church, but he objected only to certain political and mercenary abuses. The first retraction is
written in his style and it certainly contains nothing he could not have signed in Dapitan. In fact, Father Obach
says that when he wanted to marry Josefina on her first arrival there, Rizal prepared a practically similar statement.
Possibly the report of that priest aided in outlining the draft which the Jesuits substituted for the Archbishop’s
form. There is no mention of evasions or mental reservations and Rizal’s renunciation of Masonry might have
been qualified by the quibble that it was “the Masonry which was an enemy of the Church” that he was renouncing.
Then since his association (not affiliation) had been with Masons not hostile to religion, he was not abandoning
these.
 The possibility of this line of thought having suggested
itself to him appears in his evasions on the witness-stand at his
trial. Though he answered with absolute frankness whatever
concerned himself and in everyday life was almost quixotically
truthful, when cross-examined about others who would be
jeopardized by admitting his acquaintance with them, he used the
subterfuge of the symbolic names of his Masonic acquaintances.
Thus he would say, “I know no one by that name,” since care
was always taken to employ the symbolic names in introductions
and conversations.

Rizal’s own symbolic name was “Dimas Alang”—

Tagalog for “Noli Me Tangere”—and his nom de plume in some
of his controversial publications. The use of that name by one of
his companions on the railroad trip to Tarlac entirely mystified a
station master, as appears in the secret report of the espionage of
that trip, which just preceded his deportation to Dapitan.
Another possible explanation is that, since Freemasonry
professes not to disturb the duties which its members owe to
God, their country or their families, he may have considered himself as a good Mason under obligation to do
whatever was demanded by these superior interests, all three of which were at this time involved.

The argument that it was his pride that restrained him suggested to Rizal the possibility of his being
unconsciously under an influence which during his whole life he had been combating, and he may have considered
that his duty toward God required the sacrifice of this pride.

For his country his sacrifice would have been blemished were any religious stigma to attach to it. He
himself had always been careful of his own good name, and as we have said elsewhere, he told his companions
that in their country’s cause whatever they offered on the altars of patriotism must be as spotless as the sacrificial
lambs of Levitical law.

Furthermore, his work for a tranquil future for his family would be unfulfilled were he to die outside the
Church. Josefina’s anomalous status, justifiable when all the facts were known, would be sure to bring criticism
upon her unless corrected by the better defined position of a wife by a church marriage. Then the aged parents
and the numerous children of his sisters would by his act be saved the scandal that in a country so medivally pious
as the Philippines would come from having their relative die “an unrepentant heretic.”

Rizal had received from the Jesuits, while in prison, several religious books and
pictures, which he used as remembrances for members of his family, writing brief
dedications upon them. Then he said good-by to Josefina, asking in a low voice some
question to which she answered in English, “Yes, yes,” and aloud inquiring how she
would be able to gain a living, since all his property had been seized by the Spanish
government to satisfy the 20,000 pesetas costs which was included in the sentence of
death against him. Her reply was that she could earn money giving lessons in English.

The journey from the Fort to the place of execution, then Bagumbayan Field,
now called the Luneta, was on foot. His arms were tied tightly behind his back, and he
was surrounded by a heavy guard. The Jesuits accompanied him and some of his Dapitan schoolboys were in the
crowd, while one friendly voice, that of a Scotch merchant still resident in Manila, called out in English, “Good-
by, Rizal.”

The route was along the Malecon Drive where as a college student he had walked with his fiancée,
Leonora. Above the city walls showed the twin towers of the Ateneo, and when he asked about them, for they
were not there in his boyhood days, he spoke of the happy years that he had spent in the old school. The beauty
of the morning, too, appealed to him, and may have recalled an experience of his ’87 visit when he said to a friend
whom he met on the beach during an early morning walk: “Do you know that I have a sort of foreboding that
some such sunshiny morning as this I shall be out here facing a firing squad?”
 Troops held back the crowds and left a large square for the tragedy, while artillery behind them was
ready for suppressing any attempt at rescuing the prisoner. None came, however, for though Rizal’s brother
Paciano had joined the insurrectionary forces in Cavite when the death sentence showed there was no more hope
for José, he had discouraged the demonstration that had been planned as soon as he learned how scantily the
insurgents were armed, hardly a score of serviceable firearms being in the possession of their entire “army.”

The firing squad was of Filipino soldiers, while behind them, better armed, were Spaniards in case these
tried to evade the fratricidal part assigned them. Rizal’s composure aroused the curiosity of a Spanish military
surgeon standing by and he asked, “Colleague, may I feel your pulse?” Without other reply the prisoner twisted
one of his hands as far from his body as the cords which bound him allowed, so that the other doctor could place
his fingers on the wrist. The beats were steady and showed neither excitement nor fear, was the report made later.

His request to be allowed to face his executioners was

denied as being out of the power of the commanding officer to
grant, though Rizal declared that he did not deserve such a
death, for he was no traitor to Spain. It was promised, however,
that his head should be respected, and as unblindfolded and
erect Rizal turned his back to receive their bullets, he twisted
a hand to indicate under the shoulder where the soldiers should
aim so as to reach his heart. Then as the volley came, with a
last supreme effort of will power, he turned and fell face
upwards, thus receiving the subsequent “shots of grace” which
ended his life, so that in form as well as fact he did not die a
traitor’s death.

The Spanish national air was played, that march of Cadiz which should have recalled a violated
constitution, for by the laws of Spain itself Rizal was illegally executed.

Vivas, laughter and applause were heard, for it had been the social event of the day, with breakfasting
parties on the walls and on the carriages, full of interested onlookers of both sexes, lined up conveniently near for
the sightseeing.

The troops defiled past the dead body, as though reviewed by it, for the most commanding figure of all
was that which lay lifeless, but the center of all eyes. An officer, realizing the decency due to death, drew his
handkerchief from the dead man’s pocket and spread the silk over the calm face. A crimson stain soon marked
the whiteness emblematic of the pure life that had just ended, and with the glorious blue overhead, the tricolor of
Liberty, which had just claimed another martyr, was revealed in its richest beauty.

Sir Hugh Clifford (now Governor of Ceylon), in Blackwood’s Magazine, “The Story of José Rizal, the
Filipino; A Fragment of Recent Asiatic History,” comments as follows on the disgraceful doing of that day:

“It was,” he writes, “early morning, December 30, 1896, and the bright sunshine of
the tropics streamed down upon the open space, casting hard fantastic shadows, and drenching
with its splendor two crowds of sightseers. The one was composed of Filipinos, cowed,
melancholy, sullen, gazing through hopeless eyes at the final scene in the life of their great
countryman—the man who had dared to champion their cause, and to tell the world the story
of their miseries; the other was blithe of air, gay with the uniforms of officers and the bright
dresses of Spanish ladies, the men jesting and laughing, the women shamelessly applauding
with waving handkerchiefs and clapping palms, all alike triumphing openly in the death of the
hated ‘Indian,’ the ‘brother of the water-buffalo,’ whose insolence had wounded their pride.

Turning away, sick at heart, from the contemplation of this bitter tragedy, it is with a
thrill of almost vindictive satisfaction that one remembers that less than eighteen months later
the Luneta echoed once more to the sound of a mightier fusillade—the roar of the great guns
with which the battle of Manila Bay was fought and won.

And if in the moment of his last supreme agony the power to probe the future had been
vouchsafed to José Rizal, would he not have died happy in the knowledge that the land he loved
so dearly was very soon to be transferred into such safekeeping?”
The After-Life in Memory

An hour or so after the shooting a dead-wagon from San Juan de Diós Hospital took Rizal’s body to Paco
Cemetery. The civil governor of Manila was in charge and there also were present the members of a Church
society whose duty it was to attend executions.

Rizal had been wearing a black suit which he had obtained for his European trip, and a derby hat, not
only appropriate for a funeral occasion because of their somber color, but also more desirable than white both for
the full day’s wear, since they had to be put on before the twenty-four hours in the chapel, and for the lying on the
ground which would follow the execution of the sentence. A plain box enclosed the remains thus dressed, for even
the hat was picked up and encoffined.

No visitors were admitted to the cemetery while the interment was going on, and for several weeks after
guards watched over the grave, lest Filipinos might come by night to steal away the body and apportion the
clothing among themselves as relics of a martyr. Even the exact spot of the interment was intended to be unknown,
but friends of the family were among the attendants at the burial and dropped into the grave a marble slab which
had been furnished them, bearing the initials of the full baptismal name, José Protasio Rizal, in reversed order.

The entry of the burial, like that of three of his followers

of the Liga Filipina who were among the dozen executed a
fortnight later, was on the back flyleaf of the cemetery register,
with three or four words of explanation later erased and now
unknown. On the previous page was the entry of a suicide’s
death, and following it is that of the British Consul who died on
the eve of Manila’s surrender and whose body, by the
Archbishop’s permission, was stored in a Paco niche till it could
be removed to the Protestant (foreigners’) cemetery at San Pedro
Macati.

The day of Rizal’s execution, the day of his birth and

the day of his first leaving his native land was a Wednesday. All
that night, and the next day, the celebration continued the volunteers, who were particularly responsible, like their
fellows in Cuba, for the atrocities which disgraced Spain’s rule in the Philippines, being especially in evidence. It
was their clamor that had made the bringing back of Rizal possible, their demands for his death had been most
prominent in his so-called trial, and now they were praising themselves for their “patriotism.” The landlords had
objected to having their land titles questioned and their taxes raised. The other friar orders, as well as these, were
opposed to a campaign which sought their transfer from profitable parishes to self-sacrificing missionary labors.
But probably none of them as organizations desired Rizal’s death.

Rizal’s old teachers wished for the restoration of their former pupil to the faith of his childhood, from
which they believed he had departed. Through Despujol they seem to have worked for an opportunity for
influencing him, yet his death was certainly not in their plans.

Some Filipinos, to save themselves, tried to complicate Rizal with the Katipunan uprising by palpable
falsehoods. But not every man is heroic and these can hardly be blamed, for if all the alleged confessions were
not secured by actual torture, they were made through fear of it, since in 1896 there was in Manila the legal
practice of causing bodily suffering by medieval methods supplemented by torments devised by modern science.
 Among the Spaniards in Manila then, reinforced by those whom the uprising
had frightened out of the provinces, were a few who realized that they belonged among
the classes caricatured in Rizal’s novels—some incompetent, others dishonest, cruel
ones, the illiterate, wretched specimens that had married outside their race to get money
and find wives who would not know them for what they were, or drunken husbands of
viragoes. They came to the Philippines because they were below the standard of their
homeland. These talked the loudest and thus dominated the undisciplined volunteers.
With nothing divine about them, since they had not forgotten, they did not forgive. So
when the Tondo “discoverer” of the Katipunan fancied he saw opportunity for
promotion in fanning their flame of wrath, they claimed their victims, and neither the
panic-stricken populace nor the weak-kneed government could withstand them.

Once more it must be repeated that Spain has no monopoly of bad characters, nor suffers in the
comparison of her honorable citizenship with that of other nationalities, but her system in the Philippines permitted
abuses which good governments seek to avoid or, in the rare occasions when this is impossible, aim to punish.
Here was the Spanish shortcoming, for these were the defects which made possible so strange a story as this
biography unfolds. “José Rizal,” said a recent Spanish writer, “was the living indictment of Spain’s wretched
colonial system.”

Rizal’s family were scattered among the homes of friends

brave enough to risk the popular resentment against everyone in any
way identified with the victim of their prejudice.

As New Year’s eve approached, the bands ceased playing

and the marchers stopped parading. Their enthusiasm had worn itself
out in the two continuous days of celebration, and there was a
lessening of the hospitality with which these “heroes” who had
“saved the fatherland” at first had been entertained. Their great day
of the year became of more interest than further remembrance of the bloody occurrence on Bagumbayan Field.
To those who mourned a son and a brother the change must have come as a welcome relief, for even sorrow has its
degrees, and the exultation over the death embittered their grief.

To the remote and humble home where Rizal’s widow and the sister to whom he had promised a parting
gift were sheltered, the Dapitan schoolboy who had attended his imprisoned teacher brought an alcohol cooking-
lamp. It was midnight before they dared seek the “something” which Rizal had said was inside. The alcohol was
emptied from the tank and, with a convenient hairpin, a tightly folded and doubled piece of paper was dislodged
from where it had been wedged in, out of sight, so that its rattling might not betray it.

It was a single sheet of notepaper bearing verses in Rizal’s well-known handwriting and familiar style.
Hastily the young boy copied them, making some minor mistakes owing to his agitation and unfamiliarity with
the language, and the copy, without explanation, was mailed to Mr. Basa in Hongkong. Then the original was
taken by the two women with their few possessions and they fled to join the insurgents in Cavite.

The following translation of these verses was made by Charles Derbyshire:

My Last Farewell

Farewell, dear Fatherland, clime of the sun caress’d,

Pearl of the Orient seas, our Eden lost!
Gladly now I go to give thee this faded life’s best,
And were it brighter, fresher, or more blest,
Still would I give it thee, nor count the cost.
 On the field of battle, ’mid the frenzy of fight,
Others have given their lives, without doubt or heed;
The place matters not—cypress or laurel or lily white,
Scaffold of open plain, combat or martyrdom’s plight,
’Tis ever the same, to serve our home and country’s need.

I die just when I see the dawn break,

Through the gloom of night, to herald the day;
And if color is lacking my blood thou shalt take,
Pour’d out at need for thy dear sake,
To dye with its crimson the waking ray.

My dreams, when life first opened to me,

My dreams, when the hopes of youth beat high,
Were to see thy lov’d face, O gem of the Orient sea,
From gloom and grief, from care and sorrow free;
No blush on thy brow, no tear in thine eye

Dream of my life, my living and burning desire,

All hail! cries the soul that is now to take flight;
All hail! And sweet it is for thee to expire;
To die for thy sake, that thou mayst aspire;
And sleep in thy bosom eternity’s long night.
If over my grave someday thou seest grow,
In the grassy sod, a humble flower,
Draw it to thy lips and kiss my soul so,
While I may feel on my brow in the cold tomb below
The touch of thy tenderness, thy breath’s warm power.

Let the moon beam over me soft and serene,

Let the dawn shed over me its radiant flashes,
Let the wind with sad lament over me keen;
And if on my cross a bird should be seen,
Let it trill there its hymn of peace to my ashes.

Let the sun draw the vapors up to the sky,

And heavenward in purity bear my tardy protest;
Let some kind soul o’er my untimely fate sigh,
And in the still evening a prayer be lifted on high
From thee, O my country, that in God I may rest.

Pray for all those that hapless have died,

For all who have suffered the unmeasur’d pain;
For our mothers that bitterly their woes have cried,
For widows and orphans, for captives by torture tried;
And then for thyself that redemption thou mayst gain.

And when the dark night wraps the graveyard around,

With only the dead in their vigil to see;
Break not my repose or the mystery profound,
And perchance thou mayst hear a sad hymn resound;
’Tis I, O my country, raising a song unto thee.

When even my grave is remembered no more,

Unmark’d by never a cross nor a stone;
Let the plow sweep through it, the spade turn it o’er,
That my ashes may carpet thy earthly floor,
Before into nothingness at last they are blown.
 Then will oblivion bring to me no care,
As over thy vales and plains I sweep;
Throbbing and cleansed in thy space and air,
With color and light, with song and lament I fare,
Ever repeating the faith that I keep.

My Fatherland ador’d, that sadness to my sorrow lends,

Beloved Filipinas, hear now my last good-by!
I give thee all: parents and kindred and friends;
For I go where no slave before the oppressor bends,
Where faith can never kill, and God reigns e’er on high!

Farewell to you all, from my soul torn away,

Friends of my childhood in the home dispossessed!
Give thanks that I rest from the wearisome day!
Farewell to thee, too, sweet friend that lightened my way;
Beloved creatures all, farewell! In death there is rest!

For some time such belongings of Rizal as had been intrusted to

Josefina had been in the care of the American Consul in Manila for as the
adopted daughter of the American Taufer she had claimed his protection.
Stories are told of her as a second Joan of Arc, but it is not likely that one of
the few rifles which the insurgents had would be turned over to a woman.
After a short experience in the field, much of it spent in nursing her sister-in-
law through a fever, Mrs. Rizal returned to Manila. Then came a brief
interview with the Governor-General. He had learned that his
“administrative powers” to exile without trial did not extend to foreigners,
but by advice of her consul she soon sailed for Hongkong.

Mrs. Rizal at first lived in the Basa home and received considerable
attention from the Filipino colony. There was too great a difference between
the freedom accorded Englishwomen and the restraints surrounding Spanish
ladies however, to avoid difficulties and misunderstandings, for very long.
She returned to her adopted father’s house and after his death married
Vicente Abad, a Cebuan, son of a Spaniard who had been prominent in the
Tabacalera Company and had become an
agent of theirs in Hongkong after he had completed his studies there.

Two weeks after Rizal’s execution a dozen other members of his “Liga
Filipina” were executed on the Luneta. One was a millionaire, Francisco Roxas,
who had lost his mind, and believing that he was in church, calmly spread his
handkerchief on the ground and knelt upon it as had been his custom in
childhood. An old man, Moises Salvador, had been crippled by torture so that
he could not stand and had to be laid upon the grass to be shot. The others met
their death standing.

That bravery and cruelty do not usually go together was amply

demonstrated in Polavieja’s case and by the volunteers. The latter once showed
their patriotism, after a banquet, by going to the water’s edge on the Luneta and
firing volleys at the insurgents across the bay, miles away. The General was
relieved of his command after he had fortified a camp with siege guns against
the bolo-armed insurgents, who, however, by captures from the Spaniards were
gradually becoming better equipped. But he did not escape condemnation from
his own countrymen, and when he visited Giron, years after he had returned to
the Peninsula, circulars were distributed among the crowd, bearing Rizal’s last
verses, his portrait, and the charge that to Polavieja was due the loss of the
Philippines to Spain.
 The Katipunan insurgents in time were bought off by General Primo de Rivera, once more returned to
the Islands for further plunder. The money question does not concern Rizal’s life, but his prediction of suffering
to the country came true, for while the leaders with the first payment and hostages for their own safety sailed away
to live securely in Hongkong, the poorer people who remained suffered the vengeance of a government which
seems never to have kept a promise to its people. Whether reforms were pledged is disputed, but if any were, they
never were put into effect. No more money was paid, and the first instalment, preserved by the prudent leaders,
equipped them when, owing to Dewey’s victory, they were enabled to return to their country.

On the first anniversary of Rizal’s execution some Spaniards desecrated the grave, while on one of the
niches, rented for the purpose, many feet away, the family hung wreaths with Tagalog dedications but no name.

August 13, 1898, the Spanish flag came down from Fort Santiago in evidence of the surrender of the
city. At the first opportunity Paco Cemetery was visited and Rizal’s body raised for a more decent interment.
Vainly his shoes were searched for a last message which he had said might be concealed there, for the dampness
had made any paper unrecognizable. Then a simple cross was erected, resting on a marble block carved, as had
been the smaller one which secretly had first marked the spot, with the reversed initials “R. P. J.”

The first issue of a Filipino newspaper under the new government was entirely dedicated to Rizal. The
second anniversary of his execution was observed with general unanimity, his countrymen demonstrating that
those who were seeing the dawn of the new day were not forgetful of the greatest of those who had fallen in the
night, to paraphrase his own words.

His widow returned and did live by giving lessons in English, at first privately in Cebu, where one of her
pupils was the present and first Speaker of the Philippine Assembly, and afterwards as a government employee in
the public schools and in the “Liceo” of Manila.

With the establishment of civil government a new province was formed near
Manila, including the land across the lake to which, as a lad in Kalamba, Rizal had often
wonderingly looked, and the name of Rizal Province was given it.

Later when public holidays were provided for by the new laws, the anniversary
of Rizal’s execution was in the list, and it has become the great day of the year, with the
entire community uniting, for Spaniards no longer consider him to have been a traitor to
Spain and the American authorities have founded a government in conformity with his
teachings.

On one of these occasions, December 30, 1905, William Jennings Bryan, “The Great American
Commoner,” gave the Rizal Day address, in the course of which he said:

“If you will permit me to draw one lesson from the life of Rizal, I will say that he
presents an example of a great man consecrated to his country’s welfare. He, though dead, is a
living rebuke to the scholar who selfishly enjoys the privilege of an ample education and does
not impart the benefits of it to his fellows. His example is worth much to the people of these
Islands, to the child who reads of him, to the young and old.”
 The fiftieth anniversary of Rizal’s birth was observed throughout the
Archipelago with exercises in every community by public schools now
organized along the lines he wished, to make self-dependent, capable men
and women, strong in body as in mind, knowing and claiming their own
rights, and recognizing and respecting those of others.

His father died early in the year that the flags changed, but the
mother lived to see honor done her son and to prove herself as worthy, for
when the Philippine Legislature wanted to set aside a considerable sum for
her use, she declined it with the true and rightfully proud assertion, that her
family had never been patriotic for money. Her funeral, in 1911, was an
occasion of public mourning, the Governor-General, Legislature and chief
men of the Islands attending, and all public business being suspended by
proclamation for the day.

A capitol for the representatives of the free people of the Philippines,

and worthy of the pioneer democratic government in the Orient, is soon to be
erected on the Luneta, facing the big Rizal monument which will mark the
place of execution of the man who gave his life to prepare his countrymen for
the changed conditions.
 The Tagalog Story of the Monkey and the Tortoise Illustrated by José Rizal

NOTE : An English version of this story entitled “The foolish monkey and the wise turtle” is found in
The First Year Book published by The World Book Company of New York and Manila.
Let’s Remember :

 It should be remembered that the consequence of Rizal’s actions led him to his death
at Bagumbayan. The publication of his novels criticizing the Spanish colonial
government in the Philippines, his influences in the creation of the revolution and
in the various organizations he joined. It should also be remembered that the ideals
he advocated ultimately led to the revolution led Andres Bonifacio. This revolution
led to the defeat of the Spaniards and the subsequent end of the colonization of
Spain.

Let’s Do This :

 Reflection paper about the film “Rizal” by Marilou Diaz-Abaya.

 Guide Questions
- Describe the life of Jose Rizal as represented in the film.
- Based on your reading and class discussion, what can you say about the film's
representation of Jose Rizal?
- What is the main question that the film seeks to answer?
- What is your own reflection based on the film and your understanding.

Suggested Reading:

 Craig, Austin. “Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal: Filipino Patriot” University of
the Philippines. Manila: Philippine Education Company 1913.

Module Post Test:

________ 1 __ was the organization that Rizal cofounded.

________ 2 __ was the place in Mindanao where Rizal was deported.
________ 3 __ was the founder of the Philippine revolution.
________ 4 __ was the wife of Rizal.
________ 5 __ was the Spanish Governor General who deported Rizal.

References/Sources:
 Salazar, Zeus. "A Legacy of the Propaganda: The Tripartite View of Philippine History" in Atoy Navarro
and Flordeliza Lagbao-Botante, eds. Mga Babasahin sa Agham Panlipunang Pilipino: Sikolohiyang
Pilipino, Pilipinolohiya, at Pantayong Pananaw. QC: C&E Publishing, 2007.
http://www.bagongkasaysay an.org/downloadable/zeus 005.pdf
 Constantino, Renato. "Our task: to make Rizal obsolete" in This Week, Manila Chronicle (14 June 1959)
 Daroy, Petronjlo. Rizal contrary essays. Quezon City: Guro Books, 1968
 Almario. Virgitio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. Quezon City. University of the Philippines Press, 2008
 Daroy, Petronilo. Rizal contrary essays. Quezon City: Guro Books, 1968
 Almario. Virgilio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. QC: UP Press, 2008
 Film: "Jose Rizal" directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya (1998)
 Module 3

Module Title : Rizal's Works & Writings

Module Description : This module contains the lesson or topics as well as the
discussions on Rizal’s works and writings. The module begins
with the presentation of the “Annotation of Antonio Morga’s
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas which revealed how Rizal
provides counter arguments to the errors of the book. The
module will also present Rizal’s novels Noli Me Tangere and
El Filibusterismo. Finally, the module will present a
monograph of Rizal entitled: “The Philippines: A Century
Hence.

Purpose of the : This module let the students to analyze Rizal's family,
Module childhood, and early education. It will help the students in
evaluating the people and events and their influence on Rizal's
early life. Further, the module will explain the principle of
assimilation advocated by the Propaganda Movement and
appraise Rizal's relationship with other Propagandists. The
readings will also help in analyzing Rizal's growth as a
Propagandist and disavowal of assimilation. It will provide
analysis on the factors that led to Rizal's execution and the
effects of Rizal's execution on Spanish colonial rule and the
Philippine Revolution

Module Guide : The module is designed so that students need not be online
in fulfilling the requirements of the module. To access other
readings, the student may opt to search online or go to the
library of the university if necessary. This module contains
three major topics that would serve as the introduction for
students on the discussions of Rizal’s life, works and writings.
Each lesson is provided their respective readings which will
serve as main readings for the particular topic. Each topic is
provided a set of activities for students to accomplish and
submitted to the instructor within the given timeframe. A
reference section for additional readings is also provided for
other online sources that could be used by students additional
information and learnings.

Module Outcomes : At the end of this module:

 Develop critical and analytical skills with exposure to

primary sources
  Demonstrate the ability to use primary sources to argue in
favor or against a particular issue

 Effectively communicate, using various techniques and

genres, their historical analysis of a particular event or
issue that could help others understand the chosen topic

Module Requirements : At the end of this module, the students will come up a:

 Compilation of activities conducted per lesson.

 Submission of recitations

Module Pretest :
___ 1 __ was the first novel of Rizal.
___ 2 __ was the Spaniard who wrote a history of the
Philippines.
___ 3 __ a book written by Rizal providing the first
Philippine history book written by a Filipino.
___ 4 __ is the primary character of Rizal’s first novel.
___ 5 __ is a monograph that provides arguments on
the errors of a history book for the Philippines
written by a Spaniard.
___ 6 __ was the paper where Rizal regularly
contributes articles.
___ 7 __ was the place where the novels of Rizal was
written.
___ 8 __ was the organization which was created by
Rizal when he went back to the Philippines.
___ 9 __ was the governor general when Rizal’s novels
was published and distributed in the country.
___ 10 __ is the continuation of Rizal’s first novel.

Key Terms : Annotation of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

Noli Me Tangere
El Filibusterismo
The Philippines: A Century Hence
La Solidaridad
Propaganda Movement
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 7

Lesson Title : Annotation of Antonio Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Analyze Rizal's ideas on how to rewrite Philippine history

 Compare and contrast Rizal and Morga's different views about Filipinos and
Philippine culture

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Why is history important to the individual
Filipino?”

 Students are required to solicit ideas from their parents, elder siblings, friends
or classmates.

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate the appreciation
of the history.

 The students are tasked to read the " Annotations to Dr. Antonio Morga's Sucesos de
las Islas Filipinas (1609) as translated by Austin Craig) and research possible
interpretations from other sources before forming their own interpretation of
the law.
Let’s Read :

Annotations to Dr. Antonio Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (1609)

(Translated by Austin Craig)
As a child José Rizal heard from his uncle, José Alberto, about an ancient history of the Philippines written by a
Spaniard named Antonio de Morga. The knowledge of this book came from the English Governor of Hong Kong, Sir John
Browning, who had once paid his uncle a visit. While in London, Rizal immediately acquainted himself with the British Museum
where he found one of the few remaining copies of that work. At his own expense, he had the work republished with
annotations that showed the Philippines was an advanced civilization prior to the Spanish conquest. Austin Craig, an early
biographer of Rizal, translated into English some of the more important of these annotations.

To the Filipinos: In Noli Me Tangere ("The Social Cancer") I started to sketch the present state
of our native land. But the effect which my effort produced made me realize that, before attempting to
unroll before your eyes the other pictures which were to follow, it was necessary first to post you on the
past. So only can you fairly judge the present and estimate how much progress has been made during
the three centuries (of Spanish rule).

Like almost all of you, I was born and brought up in ignorance of our country's past and so,
without knowledge or authority to speak of what I neither saw nor have studied, I deem it necessary to
quote the testimony of an illustrious Spaniard who in the beginning of the new era controlled the destinies
of the Philippines and had personal knowledge of our ancient nationality in its last days.

It is then the shade of our ancestor's civilization which the author will call before you. If the work
serves to awaken in you a consciousness of our past, and to blot from your memory or to rectify what has
been falsified or is calumny, then I shall not have labored in vain. With this preparation, slight though it
may be, we can all pass to the study of the future.

José Rizal
Europe, 1889

Governor Morga was not only the first to write but also the first to publish a Philippine history. This statement has
regard to the concise and concrete form in which our author has treated the matter. Father Chirino's work, printed in Rome in
1604, is rather a chronicle of the Missions than a history of the Philippines; still it contains a great deal of valuable material on
usages and customs. The worthy Jesuit in fact admits that he abandoned writing a political history because Morga had already
done so, so one must infer that he had seen the work in manuscript before leaving the Islands.

 By the Christian religion, Dr. Morga appears to mean the Roman Catholic which by fire and sword he would preserve
in its purity in the Philippines. Nevertheless in other lands, notably in Flanders, these means were ineffective to keep
the church unchanged, or to maintain its supremacy, or even to hold its subjects.
 Great kingdoms were indeed discovered and conquered in the remote and unknown parts of the world by Spanish
ships but to the Spaniards who sailed in them we may add Portuguese, Italians, French, Greeks, and even Africans
and Polynesians. The expeditions captained by Columbus and Magellan, one a Genoese Italian and the other a
Portuguese, as well as those that came after them, although Spanish fleets, still were manned by many nationalities
and in them were Negroes, Moluccans, and even men from the Philippines and the Marianes Islands.
 These centuries ago it was the custom to write as intolerantly as Morga does, but nowadays it would be called a bit
presumptuous. No one has a monopoly of the true God nor is there any nation or religion that can claim, or at any
rate prove, that to it has been given the exclusive right to the Creator of all things or sole knowledge of His real
being.
 The conversions by the Spaniards were not as general as their historians claim. The missionaries only succeeded
in converting a part of the people of the Philippines. Still there are Mohammedans, the Moros, in the southern
islands, and Negritos, Igorots and other heathens yet occupy the greater part territorially of the archipelago. Then
the islands which the Spaniards early held but soon lost are non-Christian -- Formosa, Borneo, and the Moluccas.
And if there are Christians in the Carolines, that is due to Protestants, whom neither the Roman Catholics of Morga's
day nor many Catholics in our own day consider Christians.
 It is not the fact that the Filipinos were unprotected before the coming of the Spaniards. Morga himself says, further
on in telling of the pirate raids from the islands had arms and defended themselves. But after the natives were
 disarmed the pirates pillaged them with impunity, coming at times when they were unprotected by the government,
which was the reason for many of the insurrections.
 The civilization of the Pre-Spanish Filipinos in regard to the duties of life for that age was well advanced, as the
Morga history shows in its eighth chapter.
 The islands came under Spanish sovereignty and control through compacts, treaties of friendship and alliances for
reciprocity. By virtue of the last arrangement, according to some historians, Magellan lost his life on Mactan and the
soldiers of Legaspi fought under the banner of King Tupas of Cebu.
 The term "conquest" is admissible but for a part of the islands and then only in its broadest sense. Cebu, Panay,
Luzon, Mindoro, and some others cannot be said to have been conquered.
 The discovery, conquest and conversion cost Spanish blood but still more Filipino blood. It will be seen later on in
Morga that with the Spaniards and on behalf of Spain there were always more Filipinos fighting than Spaniards.
 Morga shows that the ancient Filipinos had army and navy with artillery and other implements of warfare. Their
prized krises and kampilans for their magnificent temper are worthy of admiration and some of them are richly
damascened. Their coats of mail and helmets, of which there are specimens in various European museums, attest
their great advancement in this industry.
 Morga's expression that the Spaniards "brought war to the gates of the Filipinos" is in marked contrast with the word
used by subsequent historians whenever recording Spain's possessing herself of a province, that she pacified it.
Perhaps "to make peace" then meant the same as "to stir up war." (This is a veiled allusion to the old Latin saying
of Romans, often quoted by Spaniard's that they make a desert, calling it making peace. -- Austin Craig)
 Magellan's transferring from the service of his own king (i.e. the Portuguese) to employment under the King of Spain,
according to historic documents, was because the Portuguese King had refused to grant him the raise in salary
which he asked
 Now it is known that Magellan was mistaken when he represented to the King of Spain that the Molucca Islands
were within the limits assigned by the Pope to the Spaniards. But through this error and the inaccuracy of the nautical
instruments of that time, the Philippines did not fall into the hands of the Portuguese.
 Cebu, which Morga calls "The City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus," was at first called "The village of San Miguel."
 The image of the Holy Child of Cebu, which many religious writers believed was brought to Cebu by the angels, was
in fact given by the worthy Italian chronicler of Magellan's expedition, the Chevalier Pigafetta, to the Cebuano queen.
 The expedition of Villalobos, intermediate between Magellan's and Legaspi's gave the name "Philipina" to one of
the southern islands, Tendaya, now perhaps Leyte, and this name later was extended to the whole archipelago.
 Of the native Manila rulers at the coming of the Spaniards, Raja Soliman was called "Rahang mura", or young king,
in distinction from the old king, "Rahang matanda". Historians have confused these personages.
 The native fort at the mouth of the Pasig river, which Morga speaks of as equipped with brass lantakas and artillery
of larger caliber, had its ramparts reinforced with thick hardwood posts such as the Tagalogs used for their houses
and called "harigues", or "haligui".
 Morga has evidently confused the pacific coming of Legaspi with the attack of Goiti and Salcedo, as to date.
According to other historians it was in 1570 that Manila was burned, and with it a great plant for manufacturing
artillery. Goiti did not take possession of the city but withdrew to Cavite and afterwards to Panay, which makes one
suspicious of his alleged victory. As to the day of the date, the Spaniards then, having come following the course of
the sun, were some sixteen hours later than Europe. This condition continued until the end of the year 1844, when
the 31st of December was by special arrangement among the authorities dropped from the calendar for that year.
Accordingly Legaspi did not arrive in Manila on the 19th but on the 20th of May and consequently it was not on the
festival of Santa Potenciana but on San Baudelio's day. The same mistake was made with reference to the other
early events still wrongly commemorated, like San Andres's day for the repulse of the Chinese corsair Li Ma-hong.
 Though not mentioned by Morga, the Cebuanos aided the Spaniards in their expedition against Manila, for which
reason they were long exempted from tribute.
 The southern islands, the Bisayas, were also called "The land of the Painted People (or Pintados, in Spanish)"
because the natives had their bodies decorated with tracings made with fire, somewhat like tattooing.
 The Spaniards retained the native name for the new capital of the archipelago, a little changed, however, for the
Tagalogs had called their city "Maynila."
 When Morga says that the lands were "entrusted (given as encomiendas) to those who had "pacified" them, he
means "divided up among." The word "entrust," like "pacify," later came to have a sort of ironical signification. To
entrust a province was then as if it were said that it was turned over to sack, abandoned to the cruelty and
covetousness of the encomendero, to judge from the way these gentry misbehaved.
 Legaspi's grandson, Salcedo, called the Hernando Cortez of the Philippines, was the "conqueror's" intelligent right
arm and the hero of the "conquest." His honesty and fine qualities, talent and personal bravery, all won the admiration
of the Filipinos. Because of him they yielded to their enemies, making peace and friendship with the Spaniards. He
it was who saved Manila from Li Ma-hong. He died at the early age of twenty-seven and is the only encomendero
 recorded to have left the great part of his possessions to the Indians of his encomienda. Vigan was his encomienda
and the Illokanos there were his heirs.
 The expedition which followed the Chinese corsair Li Ma-hong, after his unsuccessful attack upon Manila, to
Pangasinan province, with the Spaniards of whom Morga tells, had in it 1,500 friendly Indians from Cebu, Bohol,
Leyte and Panay, besides the many others serving as laborers and crews of the ships. Former Raja Lakandola, of
Tondo, with his sons and his kinsmen went too, with 200 more Bisayans and they were joined by other Filipinos in
Pangasinan.
 If discovery and occupation justify annexation, then Borneo ought to belong to Spain. In the Spanish expedition to
replace on its throne a Sirela or Malacla, as he is variously called, who had been driven out by his brother, more
than fifteen hundred Filipino bowmen from the provinces of Pangasinan, Kagayan and the Bisayas participated.
 It is notable how strictly the early Spanish governors were held to account. Some stayed in Manila as prisoners,
one, Governor Corcuera, passed five years with Fort Santiago as his prison.
 In the fruitless expedition against the Portuguese in the island of Ternate, in the Molucca group, which was
abandoned because of the prevalence of beriberi among the troops, there went 1,500 Filipino soldiers from the more
warlike provinces, principally Kagayans and Pampangans.
 The "pacification" of Kagayan was accomplished by taking advantage of the jealousies among its people, particularly
the rivalry between two brothers who were chiefs. An early historian asserts that without this fortunate circumstance,
for the Spaniards, it would have been impossible to subjugate them.
 Captain Gabriel de Rivera, a Spanish commander who had gained fame in a raid on Borneo and the Malacca coast,
was the first envoy from the Philippines to take up with the King of Spain the needs of the archipelago.
 The early conspiracy of the Manila and Pampangan former chiefs was revealed to the Spaniards by a Filipina, the
wife of a soldier, and many concerned lost their lives.
 The artillery cast for the new stone fort in Manila, says Morga, was by the hand of an ancient Filipino. That is, he
knew how to cast cannon even before the coming of the Spaniards, hence he was distinguished as "ancient." In this
difficult art of ironworking, as in so many others, the modern or present-day Filipinos are not so far advanced as
were their ancestors.
 When the English freebooter Cavandish captured the Mexican galleon Santa Ana, with 122,000 gold pesos, a great
quantity of rich textiles -- silks, satins and damask, musk perfume, and stores of provisions, he took 150 prisoners.
All these because of their brave defense were put ashore with ample supplies, except two Japanese lads, three
Filipinos, a Portuguese and a skilled Spanish pilot whom he kept as guides in his further voyaging.
 From the earliest Spanish days ships were built in the islands, which might be considered evidence of native culture.
Nowadays this industry is reduced to small craft, scows and coasters.
 The Jesuit, Father Alonso Sanchez, who visited the papal court at Rome and the Spanish King at Madrid, had a
mission much like that of deputies now, but of even greater importance since he came to be a sort of counselor or
representative to the absolute monarch of that epoch. One wonders why the Philippines could have a representative
then but may not have one now.
 In the time of Governor Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, Manila was guarded against further damage such as was
suffered from Li Ma-hong by the construction of a massive stone wall around it. This was accomplished "without
expense to the royal treasury." The same governor, in like manner, also fortified the point at the entrance to the river
where had been the ancient native fort of wood, and he gave it the name Fort Santiago.
 The early cathedral of wood which was burned which was burned through carelessness at the time of the funeral of
Governor Dasmariñas' predecessor, Governor Ronquillo, was made, according to the Jesuit historian Chirino, with
hardwood pillars around which two men could not reach, and in harmony with this massiveness was all the woodwork
above and below. It may be surmised from this how hard workers were the Filipinos of that time.
 A stone house for the bishop was built before starting on the governor-general's residence. This precedence is
interesting for those who uphold the civil power.
 Morga's mention of the scant output the scant output of large artillery from the Manila cannon works because of lack
of master foundry workers shows that after the death of the Filipino Panday Pira there were not Spaniards skilled
enough to take his place, nor were his sons as expert as he.
 It is worthy of note that China, Japan and Cambodia at this time maintained relations with the Philippines. But in our
day it has been more than a century since the natives of the latter two countries have come here. The causes which
ended the relationship may be found in the interference by the religious orders with the institutions of those lands.
 For Governor Dasmariñas' expedition to conquer Ternate, in the Moluccan group, two Jesuits there gave secret
information. In his 200 ships, besides 900 Spaniards, there must have been Filipinos for one chronicler speaks of
Indians, as the Spaniards called the natives of the Philippines, who lost their lives and others who were made
captives when the Chinese rowers mutinied. It was the custom then always to have a thousand or more native
bowmen and besides the crew were almost all Filipinos, for the most part Bisayans.
 The historian Argensola, in telling of four special galleys for Dasmariñas' expedition, says that they were manned
by an expedient which was generally considered rather harsh. It was ordered that there be bought enough of the
 Indians who were slaves of the former Indian chiefs, or principals, to form these crews, and the price, that which had
been customary in pre-Spanish times, was to be advanced by the encomenderos who later would be reimbursed
from the royal treasury. In spite of this promised compensation, the measures still seem severe since those Filipinos
were not correct in calling their dependents slaves. The masters treated these, and loved them, like sons rather, for
they seated them at their own tables and give them their own daughters in marriage.
 Morga says that the 250 Chinese oarsmen who manned Governor Dasmariñas' swift galley were under pay and
had the special favor of not being chained to their benches. According to him it was covetousness of the wealth
aboard that led them to revolt and kill the governor. But the historian Gaspar de San Agustin states that the reason
for the revolt was the governor's abusive language and his threatening the rowers. Both these authors' allegations
may have contributed, but more important was the fact that there was no law to compel these Chinamen to row in
the galleys. They had come to Manila to engage in commerce or to work in trades or to follow professions. Still the
incident contradicts the reputation for enduring everything which they have had. The Filipinos have been much more
long-suffering than the Chinese since, in spite of having been obliged to row on more than one occasion, they never
mutinied.
 It is difficult to excuse the missionaries' disregard of the laws of nations and the usages of honorable politics in their
interference in Cambodia on the ground that it was to spread the Faith. Religion had a broad field awaiting them in
the Philippines where more than nine-tenths of the natives were infidels. That even now there are to be found here
so many tribes and settlements of non-Christians takes away much of the prestige of that religious zeal which in the
easy life in towns of wealth, liberal and fond of display, grows lethargic. Truth is that the ancient activity was scarcely
for the Faith alone, because the missionaries had to go to islands rich in spices and gold though there were at hand
Mohammedans and Jews in Spain and Africa, Indians by the million in the Americas, and more millions of
protestants, schismatics and heretics peopled, and still people, over six-sevenths of Europe. All of these doubtless
would have accepted the Light and the true religion if the friars, under pretext of preaching to them, had not abused
their hospitality and if behind the name Religion had not lurked the unnamed Domination.
 In the attempt made by Rodriguez de Figueroa to conquer Mindanao according to his contract with the King of Spain,
there was fighting along the Rio Grande with the people called the Buhahayenes. Their general, according to
Argensola, was the celebrated Silonga, later distinguished for many deeds in raids on the Bisayas and adjacent
islands. Chirino relates an anecdote of his coolness under fire once during a truce for a marriage among Mindanao
"principalia." Young Spaniards out of bravado fired at his feet but he passed on as if unconscious of the bullets.
 Argensola has preserved the name of the Filipino who killed Rodriguez de Figueroa. It was Ubal. Two days
previously he had given a banquet, slaying for it a beef animal of his own, and then made the promise which he
kept, to do away with the leader of the Spanish invaders. A Jesuit writer calls him a traitor though the justification for
that term of reproach is not apparent. The Buhahayen people were in their own country, and had neither offended
nor declared war upon the Spaniards. They had to defend their homes against a powerful invader, with superior
forces, many of whom were, by reason of their armor, invulnerable so far as rude Indians were concerned. Yet these
same Indians were defenseless against the balls from their muskets. By the Jesuit's line of reasoning, the heroic
Spanish peasantry in their war for independence would have been a people even more treacherous. It was not
Ubal's fault that he was not seen and, as it was wartime, it would have been the height of folly, in view of the immense
disparity of arms, to have first called out to this preoccupied opponent, and then been killed himself.
 The muskets used by the Buhayens were probably some that had belonged to Figueroa's soldiers who had died in
battle. Though the Philippines had lantakas and other artillery, muskets were unknown until the Spaniards came.
 That the Spaniards used the word "discover" very carelessly may be seen from an admiral's turning in a report of
his "discovery" of the Solomon Islands though he noted that the islands had been discovered before.
 Death has always been the first sign of European civilization on its introduction in the Pacific Ocean. God grant that
it may not be the last, though to judge by statistics the civilized islands are losing their populations at a terrible rate.
Magellan himself inaugurated his arrival in the Marianes islands by burning more than forty houses, many small craft
and seven people because one of his ships had been stolen. Yet to the simple savages the act had nothing wrong
in it but was done with the same naturalness that civilized people hunt, fish, and subjugate people that are weak or
ill-armed.
 The Spanish historians of the Philippines never overlook any opportunity, be it suspicion or accident that may be
twisted into something unfavorable to the Filipinos. They seem to forget that in almost every case the reason for the
rupture has been some act of those who were pretending to civilize helpless peoples by force of arms and at the
cost of their native land. What would these same writers have said if the crimes committed by the Spaniards, the
Portuguese and the Dutch in their colonies had been committed by the islanders?
 The Japanese were not in error when they suspected the Spanish and Portuguese religious propaganda to have
political motives back of the missionary activities. Witness the Moluccas where Spanish missionaries served as
spies; Cambodia, which it was sought to conquer under cloak of converting; and many other nations, among them
the Filipinos, where the sacrament of baptism made of the inhabitants not only subjects of the King of Spain but also
slaves of the encomenderos, and as well slaves of the churches and converts. What would Japan have been now
had not its emperors uprooted Catholicism? A missionary record of 1625 sets forth that the King of Spain had
 arranged with certain members of Philippine religious orders that, under guise of preaching the faith and making
Christians, they should win over the Japanese and oblige them to make themselves of the Spanish party, and finally
it told of a plan whereby the King of Spain should become also King of Japan. In corroboration of this may be cited
the claims that Japan fell within the Pope's demarcation lines for Spanish expansion and so there was complaint of
missionaries other than Spanish there. Therefore it was not for religion that they were converting the infidels!
 The raid by Datus Sali and Silonga of Mindanao, in 1599 with 50 sailing vessels and 3,000 warriors, against the
capital of Panay, is the first act of piracy by the inhabitants of the South which is recorded in Philippine history. I say
"by the inhabitants of the South" because earlier there had been other acts of piracy, the earliest being that of
Magellan's expedition when it seized the shipping of friendly islands and even of those whom they did not know,
extorting for them heavy ransoms. It will be remembered that these Moro piracies continued for more than two
centuries, during which the indomitable sons of the South made captives and carried fire and sword not only in
neighboring islands but into Manila Bay to Malate, to the very gates of the capital, and not once a year merely but
at times repeating their raids five and six times in a single season. Yet the government was unable to repel them or
to defend the people whom it had disarmed and left without protection. Estimating that the cost to the islands was
but 800 victims a year, still the total would be more than 200,000 persons sold into slavery or killed, all sacrificed
together with so many other things to the prestige of that empty title, Spanish sovereignty.
 Still the Spaniards say that the Filipinos have contributed nothing to Mother Spain, and that it is the islands which
owe everything. It may be so, but what about the enormous sum of gold which was taken from the islands in the
early years of Spanish rule, of the tributes collected by the encomenderos, of the nine million dollars yearly collected
to pay the military, expenses of the employees, diplomatic agents, corporations and the like, charged to the
Philippines, with salaries paid out of the Philippine treasury not only for those who come to the Philippines but also
for those who leave, to some who never have been and never will be in the islands, as well as to others who have
nothing to do with them. Yet all of this is as nothing in comparison with so many captives gone, such a great number
of soldiers killed in expeditions, islands depopulated, their inhabitants sold as slaves by the Spaniards themselves,
the death of industry, the demoralization of the Filipinos, and so forth, and so forth. Enormous indeed would the
benefits which that sacred civilization brought to the archipelago have to be in order to counterbalance so heavy a
cost.
 While Japan was preparing to invade the Philippines, these islands were sending expeditions to Tonquin and
Cambodia, leaving the homeland helpless, even against the undisciplined hordes from the South, so obsessed were
the Spaniards with the idea of making conquests.
 In the alleged victory of Morga over the Dutch ships, the latter found upon the bodies of five Spaniards, who lost
their lives in that combat, little silver boxes filled with prayers and invocations to the saints. Here would seem to be
the origin of the anting-anting of the modern tulisanes, which are also of a religious character.
 In Morga's time, the Philippines exported silk to Japan whence now comes the best quality of that merchandise.
 Morga's views upon the failure of Governor Pedro de Acuña's ambitious expedition against the Moros unhappily still
apply for the same conditions yet exist. For fear of uprisings and loss of Spain's sovereignty over the islands, the
inhabitants were disarmed, leaving them exposed to the harassing of a powerful and dreaded enemy. Even now,
though the use of steam vessels has put an end to piracy from outside, the same fatal system still is followed. The
peaceful country folk are deprived of arms and thus made unable to defend themselves against the bandits, or
tulisanes, which the government cannot restrain. It is an encouragement to banditry thus to make easy its getting
booty.
 Hernando de los Rios blames these Moluccan wars for the fact that at first the Philippines were a source of expense
to Spain instead of profitable in spite of the tremendous sacrifices of the Filipinos, their practically gratuitous labor
in building and equipping the galleons, and despite, too, the tribute, tariffs and other imposts and monopolies. These
wars to gain the Moluccas, which soon were lost forever with the little that had been so laboriously obtained, were
a heavy drain upon the Philippines. They depopulated the country and bankrupted the treasury, with not the slightest
compensating benefit. True also is it that it was to gain the Moluccas that Spain kept the Philippines, the desire for
the rich spice islands being one of the most powerful arguments when, because of their expense to him, the King
thought of withdrawing and abandoning them.
 Among the Filipinos who aided the government when the Manila Chinese revolted, Argensola says there were 4,000
Pampangans "armed after the way of their land, with bows and arrows, short lances, shields, and broad and long
daggers." Some Spanish writers say that the Japanese volunteers and the Filipinos showed themselves cruel in
slaughtering the Chinese refugees. This may very well have been so, considering the hatred and rancor then
existing, but those in command set the example.
 The loss of two Mexican galleons in 1603 called forth no comment from the religious chroniclers who were
accustomed to see the avenging hand of God in the misfortunes and accidents of their enemies. Yet there were
repeated shipwrecks of the vessels that carried from the Philippines wealth which encomenderos had extorted from
the Filipinos, using force, or making their own laws, and when not using these open means, cheating by the weights
and measures.
 The Filipino chiefs who at their own expense went with the Spanish expedition against Ternate, in the Moluccas, in
1605, were Don Guillermo Palaot, Maestro de Campo, and Captains Francisco Palaot, Juan Lit, Luis Lont, and
Agustin Lont. They had with them 400 Tagalogs and Pampangans. The leaders bore themselves bravely for
Argensola writes that in the assault on Ternate, "No officer, Spaniard or Indian, went unscathed!"
 The Cebuanos drew a pattern on the skin before starting in to tattoo. The Bisayan usage then was the same
procedure that the Japanese today follow.
 Ancient traditions ascribe the origin of the Malay Filipinos to the island of Samatra. These traditions were almost
completely lost as well as the mythology and the genealogies of which the early historians tell, thanks to the zeal of
the missionaries in eradicating all national remembrances as heathen or idolatrous. The study of ethnology is restring
this somewhat.
 The chiefs used to wear upper garments, usually of Indian fine gauze according to Colin, of red color, a shade for
which they had the same fondness that the Romans had. The barbarous tribes in Mindanao still have the same
taste.
 The "easy virtue" of the native women that historians note is not solely to the simplicity with which they obeyed their
natural instincts but much more due to a religious belief of which Father Chirino tells. It was that in the journey after
death to "Kalualhatiran," the abode of the spirit, there was a dangerous river to cross that had no bridge other than
a very narrow strip of wood over which a woman could not pass unless she had a husband or lover to extend a hand
to assist her. Furthermore, the religious annals of the early missions are filled with countless instances where native
maidens chose death rather than sacrifice their chastity to the threats and violence of encomenderos and Spanish
soldiers. As to the mercenary social evil, that is worldwide and there is no nation that can "throw the first stone" at
the other. For the rest, today the Philippines has no reason to blush in comparing its womankind with the women of
the most chaste nation in the world.
 Morga's remark that the Filipinos like fish better when it is commencing to turn bad is another of those prejudices
which Spaniards like all other nations, have. In matters of food, each is nauseated with what he is unaccustomed to
or doesn't know is eatable. The English, for example, find their gorge rising when they see a Spaniard eating snails,
while in turn the Spanish find roast beef English-style repugnant and can't understand the relish of other Europeans
for beef steak a la Tartar which to them is simply raw meat. The Chinamen, who likes shark's meat, cannot bear
Roquefort cheese, and these examples might be indefinitely extended. The Filipinos favorite fish dish is the bagoong
and whoever has tried to eat it knows that it is not considered improved when tainted. It neither is, nor ought to be,
decayed.
 Colin says the ancient Filipinos had had minstrels who had memorized songs telling their genealogies and of the
deeds ascribed to their deities. These were chanted on voyages in cadence with the rowing, or at festivals, or
funerals, or wherever there happened to be any considerable gatherings. It is regrettable that these chants have not
been preserved as from them it would have been possible to learn much of the Filipinos' past and possibly of the
history of neighboring islands.
 The cannon foundry mentioned by Morga as in the walled city was probably on the site of the Tagalog one which
was destroyed by fire on the first coming of the Spaniards. That established in 1584 was in Lamayan, that is, Santa
Ana now, and was transferred to the old site in 1590. It continued to work until 1805. According to Gaspar San
Augustin, the cannon which the pre-Spanish Filipinos cast were "as great as those of Malaga," Spain's foundry. The
Filipino plant was burned with all that was in it save a dozen large cannons and some smaller pieces which the
Spanish invaders took back with them to Panay. The rest of their artillery equipment had been thrown by the
Manilans, then Moros, into the sea when they recognized their defeat.
 Malate, better Maalat, was where the Tagalog aristocracy lived after they were dispossessed by the Spaniards of
their old homes in what is now the walled city of Manila. Among the Malate residents were the families of Raja
Matanda and Raja Soliman. The men had various positions in Manila and some were employed in government work
nearby. "They were very courteous and well-mannered," says San Agustin. "The women were very expert in lace-
making, so much so that they were not at all behind the women of Flanders."
 Morga's statement that there was not a province or town of the Filipinos that resisted conversion or did not want it
may have been true of the civilized natives. But the contrary was the fact among the mountain tribes. We have the
testimony of several Dominican and Augustinian missionaries that it was impossible to go anywhere to make
conversions without other Filipinos along and a guard of soldiers. "Otherwise, says Gaspan de San Agustin, there
would have been no fruit of the Evangelic Doctrine gathered, for the infidels wanted to kill the Friars who came to
preach to them." An example of this method of conversion given by the same writer was a trip to the mountains by
two Friars who had a numerous escort of Pampangans. The escort's leader was Don Agustin Sonson who had a
reputation for daring and carried fire and sword into the country, killing many, including the chief, Kabadi.
 "The Spaniards," says Morga, "were accustomed to hold as slaves such natives as they bought and others that they
took in the forays in the conquest or pacification of the islands." Consequently in this respect the "pacifiers"
introduced no moral improvement. We even do not know if in their wars the Filipinos used to make slaves of each
other, though that would not have been strange, for the chroniclers tell of captives returned to their own people. The
 practice of the Southern pirates, almost proves this, although in these piratical wars the Spaniards were the first
aggressors and gave them their character.

Let’s Remember :

 Rizal pointed out many errors in the history of the Philippines as written by the Spanish
historian Morga. He wanted the views of a Filipino in writing their history. For example,
in pointing out that there was no civilization prior to the coming of the Spaniards, he
effectively pointed out that the Western civilization is not the only form of civilization. The
people of the Philippines prior to the coming of the Spaniards have already established its
own form of government, commerce and writing.

Let’s Do This :

K. Writing Exercise:

 What are the important points that is pointed out as errors by Rizal?
 How does these points impact the country?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

L. Recitation Exercise:

 What is the history of the name of your barangay, municipality or city?

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Rizal, Jose. Historical events of the Philippines Islands by Dr. Antonio de Morga, published in Mexico
in 1609, recently brought to light and annotated by Jose Rizal, preceded by a prologue by Dr. Ferdinand
Blumentritt. Manila: Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, 1962

Module Post Test:

 Essay: Was Rizal right in pointing out the errors of Morga’s history of the
Philippines? Explain your answer.

References/Sources:
 Blumentrift, Ferdinand. Prologue to Jose Rizal, Annotated Copy of Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas (Manila: National Centennial Commission, 1962)
 Ocampo, Ambeth. "Rizal's Morga and views of Philippine History" in Philippine Studies vol 46 no. 2
(1998). http://www.phitippinestudies. net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/v iewFile/662/663
 Rizal, Jose. Historical events of the Philippines Islands by Dr. Antonio de Morga, published in Mexico
in 1609, recently brought to light and annotated by Jose Rizal, preceded by a prologue by Dr. Ferdinand
Blumentritt. Manila: Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, 1962
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 8

Lesson Title : Noli Me Tangere

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Appraise important characters in the novel and what they represent

 Examine the present Philippine situation through the examples mentioned in

the Noli Me Tangere

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “What were the forms of injustices committed
by the Spaniards?”

 Students are required to solicit ideas from their parents, elder siblings, friends
or classmates.

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate the appreciation
of the creative fiction.

 The students are tasked to read the " Noli Me Tangere and research possible
interpretations from other sources before forming their own understanding of
the novel.
Let’s Read :
 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

“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 [vi] 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 [vii] 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 very wise and politick, and can, throw their wisdom, reform and bridle their own natures for a time, and apply
their conditions to the manners of those men with whom they meddle gladly by friendship; whose mischievous manners a man
shall never know until he come under their subjection; but then shall he perfectly perceive and feel them: for in dissimulations
until they have their purposes, and afterwards in oppression and tyranny, 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 [viii]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 recalcitrant 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 Paynaven2 of whom [ix]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 cooperation, 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 [x]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 [xi] 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 [xii]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 whining, 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 [xiii]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 groping 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 [xiv] 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 [xv] 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 [xvi]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 [xvii] 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 [xviii] 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 [xix] 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 [xx]
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 [xxi] 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 [xxii] 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.[xxiii]

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 [xxiv] 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 [xxv] 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 [xxvi]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 [xxvii] 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 [xxviii] 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 [xxix]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 [xxx] 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 [xxxi]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, [xxxii]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 [xxxiii] 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 [xxxiv] 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 [xxxv]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 practice 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 [xxxvi]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 [xxxvii] 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.[xxxviii]

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 ng̃ mga Anak ng̃ 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 [xxxix] 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 [xl] 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 dispatched 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 [xli]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 [xlii] 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 [xliii]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 [xliv] 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 [xlv]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, [xlvi] 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 everyone, 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 [xlvii]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.[xlviii]

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 [xlix] 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 [l]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[li]

1Quoted by Macaulay: Essay on the Succession in Spain.

 2The ruins of the Fuerza de Playa Honda, ó Real de Paynavén, are still to be seen in the present municipality of Botolan, Zambales. The walls
are overgrown with rank vegetation, but are well preserved, [viiin]with the exception of a portion looking toward the Bankal River, which has been undermined
by the currents and has fallen intact into the stream.
3Relation of the Zambals, by Domingo Perez, O.P.; manuscript dated 1680. The excerpts are taken from the translation in Blair and
Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol. XLVII, by courtesy of the Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, Ohio.
4“Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, ó Mis Viages por Este Pais, por Fray Joaquin Martinez de Zuñiga, Agustino calzado.” Padre Zuñiga was a
parish priest in several towns and later Provincial of his Order. He wrote a history of the conquest, and in 1800 accompanied Alava, the General de Marina,
on his tours of investigation looking toward preparations for the defense of the islands against another attack of the British, with whom war threatened.
The Estadismo, which is a record of these journeys, with some account of the rest of the islands, remained in manuscript until 1893, when it was published
in Madrid.
5Secular, as distinguished from the regulars, i.e., members of the monastic orders.
6Sinibaldo de Mas, Informe sobre el estado de las Islas Filipinas en 1842, translated in Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands, Vol. XXVIII,
p. 254.
7Sic. St. John xx, 17.
8This letter in the original French in which it was written is reproduced in the Vida y Escritos del Dr. José Rizal, by W. E. Retana (Madrid, 1907).
9Filipinas dentro de Cien Años, published in the organ of the Filipinos in Spain, La Solidaridad, in 1889–90. This is the most studied of Rizal’s
purely political writings, and the completest exposition of his views concerning the Philippines.
10An English version of El Filibusterismo, under the title The Reign of Greed, has been prepared to accompany the present work.
11“Que todo el monte era orégano.” W.E. Retana, in the appendix to Fray Martinez de Zuñiga’s Estadismo, Madrid, 1893, where the decree is
quoted. The rest of this comment of Retana’s deserves quotation as an estimate of the living man by a Spanish publicist who was at the time in the employ
of the friars and contemptuously hostile to Rizal, but who has since 1898 been giving quite a spectacular demonstration of waving a red light after the wreck,
having become his most enthusiastic, almost hysterical, biographer: “Rizal is what is commonly called a character, but he has repeatedly demonstrated very
great inexperience in the affairs of life. I believe him to be now about thirty-two years old. He is the Indian of most ability among those who have written.”
12From Valenzuela’s deposition before the military tribunal, September sixth, 1896.
13Capilla: the Spanish practise is to place a condemned person for the twenty-four hours preceding his execution in a chapel, or a cell fitted up
as such, where he may devote himself to religious exercises and receive the final ministrations of the Church.
14But even this conclusion is open to doubt: there is no proof beyond the unsupported statement of the Jesuits that he made a written retraction,
which was later destroyed, though why a document so interesting, and so important in support of their own point of view, should not have been preserved
furnishes an illuminating commentary on the whole confused affair. The only unofficial witness present was the condemned man’s sister, and her declaration,
that she was at the time in such a state of excitement and distress that she is unable to affirm positively that there was a real marriage ceremony performed,
can readily be accepted. It must be remembered that the Jesuits were themselves under the official and popular ban for the part they had played in Rizal’s
education and development and that they were seeking to set themselves right in order to maintain their prestige. Add to this the persistent and systematic
effort made to destroy every scrap [xlviin]of record relating to the man—the sole gleam of shame evidenced in the impolitic, idiotic, and pusillanimous treatment
of him—and the whole question becomes such a puzzle that it may just as well be left in darkness, with a throb of pity for the unfortunate victim caught in
such a maelstrom of panic-stricken passion and selfish intrigue.

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.)[liii]
 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[liv]
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[iv]
 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 everyone 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

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 [2]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 [3]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.”1 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 [4]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 [5]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,2 where he enjoyed the reputation of being a consummate
dialectician, so much so that in the days when the sons of Guzman3 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 [6]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.4 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.5
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 [7]come at me
with theories and fine speeches, for I know the Indian.6 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 [8]of the tobacco monopoly,”7 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—”
[9]“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 [10]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.
[11]“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.8 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 legitimate9—”
“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 [12]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.”
[13]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.”
[14]“No, he’s not the man who invented gunpowder,”10 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,11 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,12 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.[15]

1A similar picture is found in the convento at Antipolo.—Author’s note.

2A school of secondary instruction conducted by the Dominican Fathers, by whom it was taken over in 1640. “It had its first beginning in the
house of a pious Spaniard, called Juan Geronimo Guerrero, who had dedicated himself, with Christian piety, to gathering orphan boys in his house, where
he raised, clothed, and sustained them, and taught them to read and to write, and much more, to live in the fear of God.”—Blair and Robertson, The Philippine
Islands, Vol. XLV, p. 208.—TR.
3The Dominican friars, whose order was founded by Dominic de Guzman.—TR.
4In the story mentioned, the three monks were the old Roman god Bacchus and two of his satellites, in the disguise of Franciscan friars,—TR.
5According to a note to the Barcelona edition of this novel, Mendieta was a character well known in Manila, doorkeeper at the Alcaldía, impresario
of children’s theaters, director of a merry-go-round, etc.—TR.
6See Glossary.
7The “tobacco monopoly” was established during the administration of Basco de Vargas (1778–1787), one of the ablest governors Spain sent
to the Philippines, in order to provide revenue for the local government and to encourage agricultural development. The operation of the monopoly, however,
soon degenerated into a system of “graft” and petty abuse which bore heartily upon the natives (see Zuñiga’s Estadismo), and the abolition of it in 1881 was
one of the heroic efforts made by the Spanish civil administrators to adjust the archaic colonial system to the changing conditions in the Archipelago.—TR.
8As a result of his severity in enforcing the payment of sums due the royal treasury on account of the galleon trade, in which the religious orders
were heavily interested, Governor Fernando de Bustillos Bustamente y Rueda met a violent death at the hands of a mob headed by friars, October 11, 1719.
See Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol. XLIV; Montero y Vidal, Historia General de Filipinas, Vol. I, Chap. XXXV.—TR.
9A reference to the fact that the clerical party in Spain refused to accept the decree of Ferdinand VII setting aside the Salic law and naming his
daughter Isabella as his successor, and, upon the death of Ferdinand, supported the claim of the nearest male heir, Don Carlos de Bourbon, thus giving rise
to the Carlist movement. Some writers state that severe measures had to be adopted to compel many of the friars in the Philippines to use the feminine
pronoun in their prayers for the sovereign, just whom the reverend gentlemen expected to deceive not being explained.—TR.
10An apothegm equivalent to the English, “He’ll never set any rivers on fire.”—TR.
 11The name of a Carlist leader in Spain.—TR.
12A German Franciscan monk who is said to have invented gunpowder about 1330.

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 anything 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 [16]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 [17] 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, [18]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.[19]

Chapter III
The Dinner
Jele, jele, bago quiere.1
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.
[20]“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.2
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 [21]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.”3
“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 [22]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, [23]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. [24]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.”[25]

1“He says that he doesn’t want it when it is exactly what he does want.” An expression used in the mongrel Spanish-Tagalog ‘market language’
of Manila and Cavite, especially among the children,—somewhat akin to the English ‘sour grapes.’—TR.
2Arms should yield to the toga (military to civil power). Arms should yield to the surplice (military to religious power),—TR.
 3For Peninsula, i.e., Spain. The change of n to ñ was common among ignorant Filipinos.—TR.

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 [26]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 [27]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 [28]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 [29] 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.1 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.
[30]“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.”2
[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.”
[32]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.[33]

1The syllables which constitute the first reading lesson in Spanish primers.—TR.
2A Spanish colloquial term (“cracked”), applied to a native of Spain who was considered to be mentally unbalanced from too long residence in
the islands,—TR.

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 [34]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 [35]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.[36]
 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 [37]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 [38]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.1 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 [39]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 Ermita2 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 [40]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, Malchus3 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,4 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 [41]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.5 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 [42]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.
[43]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.
[44]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,6 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 [45]of gold set with diamonds! If at the time of the Naval procession7 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,8 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 [46]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 Kaysaysay9 in Taal, distributed [47]alms to the poor,
and danced at midday in May in the procession of the Virgin of Turumba10 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, [48]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,”11 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 [49]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. Catherine12 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.[50]

1This celebrated Lady was first brought from Acapulco, Mexico, by Juan Niño de Tabora, when he came to govern the Philippines in 1626. By
reason of her miraculous powers of allaying the storms she was carried back and forth in the state galleons on a number of voyages, until in 1672 she was
formally installed in a church in the hills northeast of Manila, under the care of the Augustinian Fathers. While her shrine was building she is said to have
appeared to the faithful in the top of a large breadfruit tree, which is known to the Tagalogs as “antipolo”; hence her name. Hers is the best known and most
frequented shrine in the country, while she disputes with the Holy Child of Cebu the glory of being the wealthiest individual in the whole archipelago.
There has always existed a pious rivalry between her and the Dominicans’ Lady of the Rosary as to which is the patron saint of the Philippines,
the contest being at times complicated by counterclaims on the part of St. Francis, although the entire question would seem to have been definitely settled
by a royal decree, published about 1650, officially conferring that honorable post upon St. Michael the Archangel (San Miguel). A rather irreverent sketch of
this celebrated queen of the skies appears in Chapter XI of Foreman’s The Philippine Islands.—TR.
2Santa Cruz, Paco, and Ermita are districts of Manila, outside the Walled City.—TR.
3John xviii. 10.
4A town in Laguna Province, noted for the manufacture of furniture.—TR.
5God grant that this prophecy may soon be fulfilled for the author of the booklet and all of us who believe it. Amen.—Author’s note.
6“Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “blessed are the possessors.”—TR.
7The annual celebration of the Dominican Order held in October in honor of its patroness, the Virgin of the Rosary, to whose intervention was
ascribed the victory over a Dutch fleet in 1646, whence the name. See Guía Oficial de Filipinas, 1885, pp. 138, 139; Montero y Vidal, Historia General de
Filipinas, Vol. I, Chap. XXIII; Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol. XXXV, pp. 249, 250.—TR.
8Members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, whose chief business is preaching and teaching. They entered the Philippines in 1862.—TR.
9“Kaysaysay: A celebrated sanctuary in the island of Luzon, province of Batangas, jurisdiction, of Taal, so called because there is venerated in
it a Virgin who bears that name ....
“The image is in the center of the high altar, where there is seen an eagle in half-relief, whose abdomen is left open in order to afford a tabernacle
for the Virgin: an idea enchanting to many of the Spaniards [47n]established in the Philippines during the last century, but which in our opinion any sensible
person will characterize as extravagant.
“This image of the Virgin of Kaysaysay enjoys the fame of being very miraculous, so that the Indians gather from great distances to hear mass
in her sanctuary every Saturday. Her discovery, over two and a half centuries ago, is notable in that she was found in the sea during some fisheries, coming
up in a drag-net with the fish. It is thought that this venerable image of the Filipinos may have been in some ship which was wrecked and that the currents
carried her up to the coast, where she was found in the manner related.
“The Indians, naturally credulous and for the most part quite superstitious, in spite of the advancements in civilization and culture, relate that she
appeared afterwards in some trees, and in memory of these manifestations an arch representing them was erected at a short distance from the place where
her sanctuary is now located.”—Buzeta and Bravo’s Diccionario, Madrid, 1850, but copied “with proper modifications for the times and the new truths” from
Zuñiga’s Estadismo, which, though written in 1803 and not published until 1893, was yet used by later writers, since it was preserved in manuscript in the
convent of the Augustinians in Manila, Buzeta and Bravo, as well as Zuñiga, being members of that order.
 So great was the reverence for this Lady that the Acapulco galleons on their annual voyages were accustomed to fire salutes in her honor as
they passed along the coast near her shrine.—Foreman. The Philippine Islands, quoting from the account of an eruption of Taal Volcano in 1749, by Fray
Francisco Vencuchillo.
This Lady’s sanctuary, where she is still “enchanting” in her “eagle in half-relief,” stands out prominently on the hill above the town of Taal, plainly
visible from Balayan Bay.—TR.
10A Tagalog term meaning “to tumble,” or “to caper about,” doubtless from the actions of the Lady’s devotees. Pakil is a town in Laguna
Province.—TR.
11A work on scholastic philosophy, by a Spanish prelate of that name.—TR.
12The nunnery and college of St. Catherine of Sienna (“Santa Catalina de la Sena”) was founded by the Dominican Fathers in 1696.—TR.

Chapter VIII
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 [51]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 [52]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.
[53]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 [54]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 poetic incarnation of my fatherland, beautiful, unaffected, lovable, frank, a true daughter of the
Philippines, that beautiful land which unites with the imposing virtues of the mother country, Spain, the admirable qualities of
a young people, as you unite in your being all that is beautiful and lovely, the inheritance of both races” so indeed the love of
you and that of my fatherland have become fused into one.
“Could I forget you? Many times have I thought that I heard the sound of your piano and the accents of your voice.
When in Germany, as I wandered at twilight [55]in the woods, peopled with the fantastic creations of its poets and the
mysterious legends of past generations, always I called upon your name, imagining that I saw you in the mists that rose from
the depths of the valley, or I fancied that I heard your voice in the rustling of the leaves. When from afar I heard the songs of
the peasants as they returned from their labors, it seemed to me that their tones harmonized with my inner voices, that they
were singing for you, and thus they lent reality to my illusions and dreams. At times I became lost among the mountain paths
and while the night descended slowly, as it does there, I would find myself still wandering, seeking my way among the pines
and beeches and oaks. Then when some scattering rays of moonlight slipped down into the clear spaces left in the dense
foliage, I seemed to see you in the heart of the forest as a dim, loving shade wavering about between the spots of light and
shadow. If perhaps the nightingale poured forth his varied trills, I fancied it was because he saw you and was inspired by you.
“Have I thought of you? The fever of love not only gave warmth to the snows but colored the ice! The beautiful skies
of Italy with their clear depths reminded me of your eyes, its sunny landscape spoke to me of your smile; the plains of Andalusia
with their scent-laden airs, peopled with oriental memories, full of romance and color, told me of your love! On dreamy, moonlit
nights, while boating oil the Rhine, I have asked myself if my fancy did not deceive me as I saw you among the poplars on the
banks, on the rocks of the Lorelei, or in the midst of the waters, singing in the silence of the night as if you were a comforting
fairy maiden sent to enliven the solitude and sadness of those ruined castles!”
“I have not traveled like you, so I know only your town and Manila and Antipolo,” she answered with a smile which
showed that she believed all he said. “But since I said good-by to you and entered the convent, I have always thought of you
and have only put you out of my mind [56]when ordered to do so by my confessor, who imposed many penances upon me. I
recalled our games and our quarrels when we were children. You used to pick up the most beautiful shells and search in the
river for the roundest and smoothest pebbles of different colors that we might play games with them. You were very stupid
and always lost, and by way of a forfeit I would slap you with the palm of my hand, but I always tried not to strike you hard, for
I had pity on you. In those games you cheated much, even more than I did, and we used to finish our play in a quarrel. Do you
remember that time when you became really angry at me? Then you made me suffer, but afterwards, when I thought of it in
the convent, I smiled and longed for you so that we might quarrel again—so that we might once more make up. We were still
children and had gone with your mother to bathe in the brook under the shade of the thick bamboo. On the banks grew many
flowers and plants whose strange names you told me in Latin and Spanish, for you were even then studying in the Ateneo.1 I
paid no attention, but amused myself by running after the needle-like dragon-flies and the butterflies with their rainbow colors
and tints of mother-of-pearl as they swarmed about among the flowers. Sometimes I tried to surprise them with my hands or
to catch the little fishes that slipped rapidly about amongst the moss and stones in the edge of the water. Once you disappeared
suddenly and when you returned you brought a crown of leaves and orange blossoms, which you placed upon my head,
calling me Chloe. For yourself you made one of vines. But your mother snatched away my crown, and after mashing it with a
stone mixed it with the gogo with which she was going to wash our heads. The tears came into your eyes and you said that
she did not understand mythology. ‘Silly boy,’ your mother exclaimed, ‘you’ll [57]see how sweet your hair will smell afterwards.’
I laughed, but you were offended and would not talk with me, and for the rest of the day appeared so serious that then I wanted
to cry. On our way back to the town through the hot sun, I picked some sage leaves that grew beside the path and gave them
to you to put in your hat so that you might not get a headache. You smiled and caught my hand, and we made up.”
Ibarra smiled with happiness as he opened his pocketbook and took from it a piece of paper in which were wrapped
some dry, blackened leaves which gave off a sweet odor. “Your sage leaves,” he said, in answer to her inquiring look. “This
is all that you have ever given me.”
She in turn snatched from her bosom a little pouch of white satin. “You must not touch this,” she said, tapping the
palm of his hand lightly. “It’s a letter of farewell.”
“The one I wrote to you before leaving?”
“Have you ever written me any other, sir?”
“And what did I say to you then?”
“Many fibs, excuses of a delinquent debtor,” she answered smilingly, thus giving him to understand how sweet to
her those fibs were. “Be quiet now and I’ll read it to you. I’ll leave out your fine phrases in order not to make a martyr of you.”
Raising the paper to the height of her eyes so that the youth might not see her face, she began: “‘My’—but I’ll not
read what follows that because it’s not true.”
Her eyes ran along some lines.
“‘My father wishes me to go away, in spite of all my pleadings. ‘You are a man now,’ he told me, ‘and you must think
about your future and about your duties. You must learn the science of life, a thing which your fatherland cannot teach you,
so that you may some day be useful to it. If you remain here in my shadow, in this environment of business affairs, you will
not learn to look far ahead. The day in which you lose me you will find yourself like the plant of which our poet Baltazar tells:
grown in the water, its leaves wither at the least scarcity of moisture [58]and a moment’s heat dries it up. Don’t you understand?
You are almost a young man, and yet you weep!’ These reproaches hurt me and I confessed that I loved you. My father
reflected for a time in silence and then, placing his hand on my shoulder, said in a trembling voice, ‘Do you think that you
alone know how to love, that your father does not love you, and that he will not feel the separation from you? It is only a short
time since we lost your mother, and I must journey on alone toward old age, toward the very time of life when I would seek
help and comfort from your youth, yet I accept my loneliness, hardly knowing whether I shall ever see you again. But you must
think of other and greater things; the future lies open before you, while for me it is already passing behind; your love is just
awakening, while mine is dying; fire burns in your blood, while the chill is creeping into mine. Yet you weep and cannot sacrifice
the present for the future, useful as it may be alike to yourself and to your country.’ My father’s eyes filled with tears and I fell
upon my knees at his feet, I embraced him, I begged his forgiveness, and I assured him that I was ready to set out—’”
Ibarra’s growing agitation caused her to suspend the reading, for he had grown pale and was pacing back and forth.
“What’s the matter? What is troubling you?” she asked him.
“You have almost made me forget that I have my duties, that I must leave at once for the town. Tomorrow is the day
for commemorating the dead.”
Maria Clara silently fixed her large dreamy eyes upon him for a few moments and then, picking some flowers, she
said with emotion, “Go, I won’t detain you longer! In a few days we shall see each other again. Lay these flowers on the tomb
of your parents.”
A few moments later the youth descended the stairway accompanied by Capitan Tiago and Aunt Isabel, while Maria
Clara shut herself up in the oratory.
“Please tell Andeng to get the house ready, as Maria and Isabel are coming. A pleasant journey!” said
Capitan [59]Tiago as Ibarra stepped into the carriage, which at once started in the direction of the plaza of San Gabriel.
Afterwards, by way of consolation, her father said to Maria Clara, who was weeping beside an image of the Virgin,
“Come, light two candles worth two reals each, one to St. Roch,2 and one to St. Raphael, the protector of travelers. Light the
lamp of Our Lady of Peace and Prosperous Voyages, since there are so many tulisanes. It’s better to spend four reals for wax
and six cuartos for oil now than to pay a big ransom later.”[60]

1The “Ateneo Municipal,” where the author, as well as nearly every other Filipino of note in the past generation, received his early education,
was founded by the Jesuits shortly after their return to the islands in 1859.—TR.
 2The patron saint of Tondo, Manila’s Saint-Antoine. He is invoked for aid in driving away plagues,—TR.

Chapter VIII
Recollections

Ibarra’s carriage was passing through a part of the busiest district in Manila, the same which the night before had
made him feel sad, but which by daylight caused him to smile in spite of himself. The movement in every part, so many
carriages coming and going at full speed, the carromatas and calesas, the Europeans, the Chinese, the natives, each in his
own peculiar costume, the fruit-venders, the money-changers, the naked porters, the grocery stores, the lunch stands and
restaurants, the shops, and even the carts drawn by the impassive and indifferent carabao, who seems to amuse himself in
carrying burdens while he patiently ruminates, all this noise and confusion, the very sun itself, the distinctive odors and the
motley colors, awoke in the youth’s mind a world of sleeping recollections.
Those streets had not yet been paved, and two successive days of sunshine filled them with dust which covered
everything and made the passer-by cough while it nearly blinded him. A day of rain formed pools of muddy water, which at
night reflected the carriage lights and splashed mud a distance of several yards away upon the pedestrians on the narrow
sidewalks. And how many women have left their embroidered slippers in those waves of mud!
Then there might have been seen repairing those streets the lines of convicts with their shaven heads, dressed in
short-sleeved camisas and pantaloons that reached only to their knees, each with his letter and number in blue. On their legs
were chains partly wrapped in dirty rags to [61]ease the chafing or perhaps the chill of the iron. Joined two by two, scorched
in the sun, worn out by the heat and fatigue, they were lashed and goaded by a whip in the hands of one of their own number,
who perhaps consoled himself with this power of maltreating others. They were tall men with somber faces, which he had
never seen brightened with the light of a smile. Yet their eyes gleamed when the whistling lash fell upon their shoulders or
when a passer-by threw them the chewed and broken stub of a cigar, which the nearest would snatch up and hide in his
salakot, while the rest remained gazing at the passers-by with strange looks.
The noise of the stones being crushed to fill the puddles and the merry clank of the heavy fetters on the swollen
ankles seemed to remain with Ibarra. He shuddered as he recalled a scene that had made a deep impression on his childish
imagination. It was a hot afternoon, and the burning rays of the sun fell perpendicularly upon a large cart by the side of which
was stretched out one of those unfortunates, lifeless, yet with his eyes half opened. Two others were silently preparing a
bamboo bier, showing no signs of anger or sorrow or impatience, for such is the character attributed to the natives: today it is
you, tomorrow it will be I, they say to themselves. The people moved rapidly about without giving heed, women came up and
after a look of curiosity continued unconcerned on their way—it was such a common sight that their hearts had become
callous. Carriages passed, flashing back from their varnished sides the rays of the sun that burned in a cloudless sky. Only
he, a child of eleven years and fresh from the country, was moved, and to him alone it brought bad dreams on the following
night.
There no longer existed the useful and honored Puente de Barcas, the good Filipino pontoon bridge that had done
its best to be of service in spite of its natural imperfections and its rising and falling at the caprice of the Pasig, which had more
than once abused it and finally destroyed [62]it. The almond trees in the plaza of San Gabriel1 had not grown; they were still
in the same feeble and stunted condition. The Escolta appeared less beautiful in spite of the fact that an imposing building
with caryatids carved on its front now occupied the place of the old row of shops. The new Bridge of Spain caught his attention,
while the houses on the right bank of the river among the clumps of bamboo and trees where the Escolta ends and the Isla
de Romero begins, reminded him of the cool mornings when he used to pass there in a boat on his way to the baths of Uli-
Uli.
He met many carriages, drawn by beautiful pairs of dwarfish ponies, within which were government clerks who
seemed yet half asleep as they made their way to their offices, or military officers, or Chinese in foolish and ridiculous attitudes,
or Gave friars and canons. In an elegant victoria he thought he recognized Padre Damaso, grave and frowning, but he had
already passed. Now he was pleasantly greeted by Capitan Tinong, who was passing in a carretela with his wife and two
daughters.
As they went down off the bridge the horses broke into a trot along the Sabana Drive.2 On the left the Arroceros
Cigar Factory resounded with the noise of the cigar-makers pounding the tobacco leaves, and Ibarra was unable to restrain a
smile as he thought of the strong odor which about five o’clock in the afternoon used to float all over the Puente de Barcas and
which had made him sick when he was a child. The lively conversations and the repartee of the crowds from the cigar factories
carried him back to the district of Lavapiés in Madrid, with its riots of cigar-makers, so fatal for the unfortunate policemen.
The Botanical Garden drove away these agreeable recollections; the demon of comparison brought before his mind
the Botanical Gardens of Europe, in countries where great, labor and much money are needed to make a single [63]leaf grow
or one flower open its calyx; he recalled those of the colonies, where they are well supplied and tended, and all open to the
public. Ibarra turned away his gaze toward the old Manila surrounded still by its walls and moats like a sickly girl wrapped in
the garments of her grandmother’s better days.
Then the sight of the sea losing itself in the distance! “On the other shore lies Europe,” thought the young man,—
“Europe, with its attractive peoples in constant movement in the search for happiness, weaving their dreams in the morning
and disillusioning themselves at the setting of the sun, happy even in the midst of their calamities. Yes, on the farther shore
of the boundless sea are the really spiritual nations, those who, even though they put no restraints on material development,
are still more spiritual than those who pride themselves on adoring only the spirit!”
But these musings were in turn banished from his mind as he came in sight of the little mound in Bagumbayan
Field.3 This isolated knoll at the side of the Luneta now caught his attention and made him reminiscent. He thought of the man
who had awakened his intellect and made him understand goodness and justice. The ideas which that man had impressed
upon him were not many, to be sure, but they were not meaningless repetitions, they were convictions which had not paled in
the light of the most brilliant foci of progress. That man was an old priest whose words of farewell still resounded in his ears:
“Do [64]not forget that if knowledge is the heritage of mankind, it is only the courageous who inherit it,” he had reminded him.
“I have tried to pass on to you what I got from my teachers, the sum of which I have endeavored to increase and transmit to
the coming generation as far as in me lay. You will now do the same for those who come after you, and you can treble it, since
you are going to rich countries.” Then he had added with a smile, “They come here seeking wealth, go you to their country to
seek also that other wealth which we lack! But remember that all that glitters is not gold.” The old man had died on that spot.
At these recollections the youth murmured audibly: “No, in spite of everything, the fatherland first, first the
Philippines, the child of Spain, first the Spanish fatherland! No, that which is decreed by fate does not tarnish the honor of the
fatherland, no!”
He gave little heed to Ermita, the phenix of nipa that had rearisen from its ashes under the form of blue and white
houses with red-painted roofs of corrugated iron. Nor was his attention caught by Malate, neither by the cavalry barracks with
the spreading trees in front, nor by the inhabitants or their little nipa huts, pyramidal or prismatic in shape, hidden away among
the banana plants and areca palms, constructed like nests by each father of a family.
The carriage continued on its way, meeting now and then carromatas drawn by one or two ponies whose abaka
harness indicated that they were from the country. The drivers would try to catch a glimpse of the occupant of the fine carriage,
but would pass on without exchanging a word, without a single salute. At times a heavy cart drawn by a slow and indifferent
carabao would appear on the dusty road over which beat the brilliant sunlight of the tropics. The mournful and monotonous
song of the driver mounted on the back of the carabao would be mingled at one time with the screechings of a dry wheel on
the huge axle of the heavy vehicle or at another time with [65]the dull scraping of worn-out runners on a sledge which was
dragged heavily through the dust, and over the ruts in the road. In the fields and wide meadows the herds were grazing,
attended ever by the white buffalo-birds which roosted peacefully on the backs of the animals while these chewed their cuds
or browsed in lazy contentment upon the rich grass. In the distance ponies frisked, jumping and running about, pursued by
the lively colts with long tails and abundant manes who whinnied and pawed the ground with their hard hoofs.
Let us leave the youth dreaming or dozing, since neither the sad nor the animated poetry of the open country held
his attention. For him there was no charm in the sun that gleamed upon the tops of the trees and caused the rustics, with feet
burned by the hot ground in spite of their callousness, to hurry along, or that made the villager pause beneath the shade of an
almond tree or a bamboo brake while he pondered upon vague and inexplicable things. While the youth’s carriage sways
along like a drunken thing on account of the inequalities in the surface of the road when passing over a bamboo bridge or
going up an incline or descending a steep slope, let us return to Manila.[66]

1Now Plaza Cervantes.—TR.

2Now Plaza Lawton and Bagumbayan; see note, infra.— TR.
3The Field of Bagumbayan, adjoining the Luneta, was the place where political prisoners were shot or garroted, and was the scene of the author’s
execution on December 30, 1906. It is situated just outside and east of the old Walled City (Manila proper), being the location to which the natives who had
occupied the site of Manila moved their town after having been driven back by the Spaniards—hence the name, which is a Tagalog compound meaning “new
town.” This place is now called Wallace Field, the name Bagumbayan being applied to the driveway which was known to the Spaniards as the Paseo de las
Aguadas, or de Vidal, extending from the Luneta to the Bridge of Spain, just outside the moat that, formerly encircled the Walled City.—TR.

Chapter IX
Local Affairs

Ibarra had not been mistaken about the occupant of the victoria, for it was indeed Padre Damaso, and he was on
his way to the house which the youth had just left.
“Where are you going?” asked the friar of Maria Clara and Aunt Isabel, who were about to enter a silver-mounted
carriage. In the midst of his preoccupation Padre Damaso stroked the maiden’s cheek lightly.
“To the convent to get my things,” answered the latter.
“Ahaa! Aha! We’ll see who’s stronger, we’ll see,” muttered the friar abstractedly, as with bowed head and slow step
he turned to the stairway, leaving the two women not a little amazed.
“He must have a sermon to preach and is memorizing it,” commented Aunt Isabel. “Get in, Maria, or we’ll be late.”
Whether or not Padre Damaso was preparing a sermon we cannot say, but it is certain that some grave matter filled
his mind, for he did not extend his hand to Capitan Tiago, who had almost to get down on his knees to kiss it.
“Santiago,” said the friar at once, “I have an important matter to talk to you about. Let’s go into your office.”
 Capitan Tiago began to feel uneasy, so much so that he did not know what to say; but he obeyed, following the
heavy figure of the priest, who closed the door behind him.
While they confer in secret, let us learn what Fray [67]Sibyla has been doing. The astute Dominican is not at the
rectory, for very soon after celebrating mass he had gone to the convent of his order, situated just inside the gate of Isabel II,
or of Magellan, according to what family happened to be reigning in Madrid. Without paying any attention to the rich odor of
chocolate, or to the rattle of boxes and coins which came from the treasury, and scarcely acknowledging the respectful and
deferential salute of the procurator-brother, he entered, passed along several corridors, and knocked at a door.
“Come in,” sighed a weak voice.
“May God restore health to your Reverence,” was the young Dominican’s greeting as he entered.
Seated in a large armchair was an aged priest, wasted and rather sallow, like the saints that Rivera painted. His
eyes were sunken in their hollow sockets, over which his heavy eyebrows were almost always contracted, thus accentuating
their brilliant gleam. Padre Sibyla, with his arms crossed under the venerable scapulary of St. Dominic, gazed at him feelingly,
then bowed his head and waited in silence.
“Ah,” sighed the old man, “they advise an operation, an operation, Hernando, at my age! This country, O this terrible
country! Take warning from my ease, Hernando!”
Fray Sibyla raised his eyes slowly and fixed them on the sick man’s face. “What has your Reverence decided to
do?” he asked.
“To die! Ah, what else can I do? I am suffering too much, but—I have made many suffer, I am paying my debt! And
how are you? What has brought you here?”
“I’ve come to talk about the business which you committed to my care.”
“Ah! What about it?”
“Pish!” answered the young man disgustedly, as he seated himself and turned away his face with a
contemptuous [68]expression, “They’ve been telling us fairy tales. Young Ibarra is a youth of discernment; he doesn’t seem
to be a fool, but I believe that he is a good lad.”
“You believe so?”
“Hostilities began last night.”
“Already? How?”
Fray Sibyla then recounted briefly what had taken place between Padre Damaso and Ibarra. “Besides,” he said in
conclusion, “the young man is going to marry Capitan Tiago’s daughter, who was educated in the college of our Sisterhood.
He’s rich, and won’t care to make enemies and to run the risk of ruining his fortune and his happiness.”
The sick man nodded in agreement. “Yes, I think as you do. With a wife like that and such a father-in-law, we’ll own
him body and soul. If not, so much the better for him to declare himself an enemy of ours.”
Fray Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.
“For the good of our holy Order, I mean, of course,” he added, breathing heavily. “I prefer open attacks to the silly
praises and flatteries of friends, which are really paid for.”
“Does your Reverence think—”
The old man regarded him sadly. “Keep it clearly before you,” he answered, gasping for breath. “Our power will last
as long as it is believed in. If they attack us, the government will say, ‘They attack them because they see in them an obstacle
to their liberty, so then let us preserve them.’”
“But if it should listen to them? Sometimes the government—”
“It will not listen!”
“Nevertheless, if, led on by cupidity, it should come to wish for itself what we are taking in—if there should be some
bold and daring one—”
“Then woe unto that one!”
Both remained silent for a time, then the sick man continued: [69]“Besides, we need their attacks, to keep us awake;
that makes us see our weaknesses so that we may remedy them. Exaggerated flattery will deceive us and put us to sleep,
while outside our walls we shall be laughed at, and the day in which we become an object of ridicule, we shall fall as we fell
in Europe. Money will not flow into our churches, no one will buy our scapularies or girdles or anything else, and when we
cease to be rich we shall no longer be able to control consciences.”
“But we shall always have our estates, our property.”
“All will be lost as we lost them in Europe! And the worst of it is that we are working toward our own ruin. For example,
this unrestrained eagerness to raise arbitrarily the rents on our lands each year, this eagerness which I have so vainly
combated in all the chapters, this will ruin us! The native sees himself obliged to purchase farms in other places, which bring
him as good returns as ours, or better. I fear that we are already on the decline; quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat prius.1 For
this reason we should not increase our burden; the people are already murmuring. You have decided well: let us leave the
others to settle their accounts in that quarter; let us preserve the prestige that remains to us, and as we shall soon appear
before God, let us wash our hands of it—and may the God of mercy have pity on our weakness!”
“So your Reverence thinks that the rent or tax—”
“Let’s not talk any more about money,” interrupted the sick man with signs of disgust. “You say that the lieutenant
threatened to Padre Damaso that—”
 “Yes, Padre,” broke in Fray Sibyla with a faint smile, “but this morning I saw him and he told me that he was sorry
for what occurred last night, that the sherry had gone to his head, and that he believed that Padre Damaso was in the same
condition. ‘And your threat?’ I asked him jokingly. ‘Padre,’ he answered me, ‘I know how to keep my word when my honor is
affected, but I am not nor have [70]ever been an informer—for that reason I wear only two stars.’”
After they had conversed a while longer on unimportant subjects, Fray Sibyla took his departure.
It was true that the lieutenant had not gone to the Palace, but the Captain-General heard what had occurred. While
talking with some of his aides about the allusions that the Manila newspapers were making to him under the names of comets
and celestial apparitions, one of them told him about the affair of Padre Damaso, with a somewhat heightened coloring
although substantially correct as to matter.
“From whom did you learn this?” asked his Excellency, smiling.
“From Laruja, who was telling it this morning in the office.”
The Captain-General again smiled and said: “A woman or a friar can’t insult one. I contemplate living in peace for
the time that I shall remain in this country and I don’t want any more quarrels with men who wear skirts. Besides, I’ve learned
that the Provincial has scoffed at my orders. I asked for the removal of this friar as a punishment and they transferred him to
a better town ‘monkish tricks,’ as we say in Spain.”
But when his Excellency found himself alone he stopped smiling. “Ah, if this people were not so stupid, I would put
a curb on their Reverences,” he sighed to himself. “But every people deserves its fate, so let’s do as everybody else does.”
Capitan Tiago, meanwhile, had concluded his interview with Padre Damaso, or rather, to speak more exactly, Padre
Damaso had concluded with him.
“So now you are warned!” said the Franciscan on leaving. “All this could have been avoided if you had consulted
me beforehand, if you had not lied when I asked you. Try not to play any more foolish tricks, and trust your protector.”
[71]Capitan Tiago walked up and down the sala a few times, meditating and sighing. Suddenly, as if a happy thought
had occurred to him, he ran to the oratory and extinguished the candles and the lamp that had been lighted for Ibarra’s safety.
“The way is long and there’s yet time,” he muttered.[72]

1Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.—TR.

Chapter X
The Town

Almost on the margin of the lake, in the midst of meadows and paddy-fields, lies the town of San Diego.1 From it
sugar, rice, coffee, and fruits are either exported or sold for a small part of their value to the Chinese, who exploit the simplicity
and vices of the native farmers.
When on a clear day the boys ascend to the upper part of the church tower, which is beautified by moss and creeping
plants, they break out into joyful exclamations at the beauty of the scene spread out before them. In the midst of the clustering
roofs of nipa, tiles, corrugated iron, and palm leaves, separated by groves and gardens, each one is able to discover his own
home, his little nest. Everything serves as a mark: a tree, that tamarind with its light foliage, that coco palm laden with nuts,
like the Astarte Genetrix, or the Diana of Ephesus with her numerous breasts, a bending bamboo, an areca palm, or a cross.
Yonder is the river, a huge glassy serpent sleeping on a green carpet, with rocks, scattered here and there along its sandy
channel, that break its current into ripples. There, the bed is narrowed between high banks to which the gnarled trees cling
with bared roots; here, it becomes a gentle slope where the stream widens and eddies about. Farther away, a small hut built
on the edge of the high bank seems to defy the winds, the heights and the depths, presenting [73]with its slender posts the
appearance of a huge, long-legged bird watching for a reptile to seize upon. Trunks of palm or other trees with their bark still
on them unite the banks by a shaky and infirm foot-bridge which, if not a very secure crossing, is nevertheless a wonderful
contrivance for gymnastic exercises in preserving one’s balance, a thing not to be despised. The boys bathing in the river are
amused by the difficulties of the old woman crossing with a basket on her head or by the antics of the old man who moves
tremblingly and loses his staff in the water.
But that which always attracts particular notice is what might be called a peninsula of forest in the sea of cultivated
fields. There in that wood are century-old trees with hollow trunks, which die only when their high tops are struck and set on
fire by the lightning—and it is said that the fire always checks itself and dies out in the same spot. There are huge points of
rock which time and nature are clothing with velvet garments of moss. Layer after layer of dust settles in the hollows, the rains
beat it down, and the birds bring seeds. The tropical vegetation spreads out luxuriantly in thickets and underbrush, while
curtains of interwoven vines hang from the branches of the trees and twine about their roots or spread along the ground, as if
Flora were not yet satisfied but must place plant above plant. Mosses and fungi live upon the cracked trunks, and orchids—
graceful guests—twine in loving embrace with the foliage of the hospitable trees.
Strange legends exist concerning this wood, which is held in awe by the country folk. The most credible account,
and therefore the one least known and believed, seems to be this. When the town was still a collection of miserable huts with
the grass growing abundantly in the so-called streets, at the time when the wild boar and deer roamed about during the nights,
there arrived in the place one day an old, hollow-eyed Spaniard, who spoke Tagalog rather well. After looking about and
inspecting the land, he finally inquired for the owners of this wood, in which [74]there were hot springs. Some persons who
claimed to be such presented themselves, and the old man acquired it in exchange for clothes, jewels, and a sum of money.
Soon afterward he disappeared mysteriously. The people thought that he had been spirited away, when a bad odor from the
neighboring wood attracted the attention of some herdsmen. Tracing this, they found the decaying corpse of the old Spaniard
hanging from the branch of a balete tree.2 In life he had inspired fear by his deep, hollow voice, his sunken eyes, and his
mirthless laugh, but now, dead by his own act, he disturbed the sleep of the women. Some threw the jewels into the river and
burned the clothes, and from the time that the corpse was buried at the foot of the balete itself, no one willingly ventured near
the spot. A belated herdsman looking for some of his strayed charges told of lights that he had seen there, and when some
venturesome youths went to the place they heard mournful cries. To win the smiles of his disdainful lady, a forlorn lover agreed
to spend the night there and in proof to wrap around the trunk a long piece of rattan, but he died of a quick fever that seized
him the very next day. Stories and legends still cluster about the place.
A few months after the finding of the old Spaniard’s body there appeared a youth, apparently a Spanish mestizo,
who said that he was the son of the deceased. He established himself in the place and devoted his attention to agriculture,
especially the raising of indigo. Don Saturnino was a silent young man with a violent disposition, even cruel at times, yet he
was energetic and industrious. He surrounded the grave of his father with a [75]wall, but visited it only at rare intervals. When
he was along in years, he married a young woman from Manila, and she became the mother of Don Rafael, the father of
Crisostomo. From his youth Don Rafael was a favorite with the country people. The agricultural methods introduced and
encouraged by his father spread rapidly, new settlers poured in, the Chinese came, and the settlement became a village with
a native priest. Later the village grew into a town, the priest died, and Fray Damaso came.
All this time the tomb and the land around it remained unmolested. Sometimes a crowd of boys armed with clubs
and stones would become bold enough to wander into the place to gather guavas, papayas, lomboy, and other fruits, but it
frequently happened that when their sport was at its height, or while they gazed in awed silence at the rotting piece of rope
which still swung from the branch, stones would fall, coming from they knew not where. Then with cries of “The old man! The
old man!” they would throw away fruit and clubs, jump from the trees, and hurry between the rocks and through the thickets;
nor would they stop running until they were well out of the wood, some pale and breathless, others weeping, and only a few
laughing.[76]

1We have been unable to find any town of this name, but many of these conditions.—Author’s note.
San Diego and Santiago are variant forms of the name of the patron saint of Spain, St. James.—TR.
2The “sacred tree” of Malaya, being a species of banyan that begins life as a vine twining on another tree, which it finally strangles, using the
dead trunk as a support until it is able to stand alone. When old it often covers a large space with gnarled and twisted trunks of varied shapes and sizes, thus
presenting a weird and grotesque appearance. This tree was held in reverent awe by the primitive Filipinos, who believed it to be the abode of the nono, or
ancestral ghosts, and is still the object of superstitious beliefs,—TR.

Chapter XI
The Rulers
Divide and rule.
(The New Machiavelli.)
Who were the caciques of the town?
Don Rafael, when alive, even though he was the richest, owned more land, and was the patron of nearly everybody,
had not been one of them. As he was modest and depreciated the value of his own deeds, no faction in his favor had ever
been formed in the town, and we have already seen how the people all rose up against him when they saw him hesitate upon
being attacked.
Could it be Capitan Tiago? True it was that when he went there he was received with an orchestra by his debtors,
who banqueted him and heaped gifts upon him. The finest fruits burdened his table and a quarter of deer or wild boar was his
share of the hunt. If he found the horse of a debtor beautiful, half an hour afterwards it was in his stable. All this was true, but
they laughed at him behind his back and in secret called him “Sacristan Tiago.”
Perhaps it was the gobernadorcillo?1 No, for he was [77]only an unhappy mortal who commanded not, but obeyed;
who ordered not, but was ordered; who drove not, but was driven. Nevertheless, he had to answer to the alcalde for having
commanded, ordered, and driven, just as if he were the originator of everything. Yet be it said to his credit that he had never
presumed upon or usurped such honors, which had cost him five thousand pesos and many humiliations. But considering the
income it brought him, it was cheap.
Well then, might it be God? Ah, the good God disturbed neither the consciences nor the sleep of the inhabitants. At
least, He did not make them tremble, and if by chance He might have been mentioned in a sermon, surely they would have
sighed longingly, “Oh, that only there were a God!” To the good Lord they paid little attention, as the saints gave them enough
to do. For those poor folk God had come to be like those unfortunate monarchs who are surrounded by courtiers to whom
alone the people render homage.
San Diego was a kind of Rome: not the Rome of the time when the cunning Romulus laid out its walls with a plow,
nor of the later time when, bathed in its own and others’ blood, it dictated laws to the world—no, it was a Rome of our own
times with the difference that in place of marble monuments and colosseums it had its monuments of sawali and its cockpit of
nipa. The curate was the Pope in the Vatican; the alferez of the Civil Guard, the King of Italy on the Quirinal: all, it must be
understood, on a scale of nipa and bamboo. Here, as there, continual quarreling went on, since each wished to be the
master [78]and considered the other an intruder. Let us examine the characteristics of each.
Fray Bernardo Salvi was that silent young Franciscan of whom we have spoken before. In his habits and manners
he was quite different from his brethren and even from his predecessor, the violent Padre Damaso. He was thin and sickly,
habitually pensive, strict in the fulfilment of his religious duties, and careful of his good name. In a month after his arrival nearly
every one in the town had joined the Venerable Tertiary Order, to the great distress of its rival, the Society of the Holy Rosary.
His soul leaped with joy to see about each neck four or five scapularies and around each waist a knotted girdle, and to behold
the procession of corpses and ghosts in guingón habits. The senior sacristan made a small fortune selling—or giving away as
alms, we should say—all things necessary for the salvation of the soul and the warfare against the devil, as it is well known
that this spirit, which formerly had the temerity to contradict God himself face to face and to doubt His words, as is related in
the holy book of Job, who carried our Lord Christ through the air as afterwards in the Dark Ages he carried the ghosts, and
continues, according to report, to carry the asuang of the Philippines, now seems to have become so shamefaced that he
cannot endure the sight of a piece of painted cloth and that he fears the knots on a cord. But all this proves nothing more than
that there is progress on this side also and that the devil is backward, or at least a conservative, as are all who dwell in
darkness. Otherwise, we must attribute to him the weakness of a fifteen-year-old girl.
As we have said, Fray Salvi was very assiduous in the fulfilment of his duties, too assiduous, the alferez thought.
While he was preaching—he was very fond of preaching—the doors of the church were closed, wherein he was like Nero,
who allowed no one to leave the theater while he was singing. But the former did it for the salvation and the latter for the
corruption of souls. Fray Salvi [79]rarely resorted to blows, but was accustomed to punish every shortcoming of his
subordinates with fines. In this respect he was very different from Padre Damaso, who had been accustomed to settle
everything with his fists or a cane, administering such chastisement with the greatest good-will. For this, however, he should
not be judged too harshly, as he was firm in the belief that the Indian could be managed only by beating him, just as was
affirmed by a friar who knew enough to write books, and Padre Damaso never disputed anything that he saw in print, a
credulity of which many might have reason to complain. Although Fray Salvi made little use of violence, yet, as an old wiseacre
of the town said, what he lacked in quantity he made up in quality. But this should not be counted against him, for the fasts
and abstinences thinned his blood and unstrung his nerves and, as the people said, the wind got into his head. Thus it came
about that it was not possible to learn from the condition of the sacristans’ backs whether the curate was fasting or feasting.
The only rival of this spiritual power, with tendencies toward the temporal, was, as we have said, the alferez: the
only one, since the women told how the devil himself would flee from the curate, because, having one day dared to tempt him,
he was caught, tied to a bedpost, soundly whipped with a rope, and set at liberty only after nine days. As a consequence, any
one who after this would still be the enemy of such a man, deserved to fall into worse repute than even the weak and unwary
devils.
But the alferez deserved his fate. His wife was an old Filipina of abundant rouge and paint, known as Doña
Consolacion—although her husband and some others called her by quite another name. The alferez revenged his conjugal
misfortunes on his own person by getting so drunk that he made a tank of himself, or by ordering his soldiers to drill in the sun
while he remained in the shade, or, more frequently, by beating up his consort, who, if she was not a lamb of God to take
away one’s [80]sins, at least served to lay up for her spouse many torments in Purgatory—if perchance he should get there,
a matter of doubt to the devout women. As if for the fun of it, these two used to beat each other up beautifully, giving free
shows to the neighborhood with vocal and instrumental accompaniments, four-handed, soft, loud, with pedal and all.
Whenever these scandals reached the ears of Padre Salvi, he would smile, cross himself, and recite a paternoster.
They called him a grafter, a hypocrite, a Carlist, and a miser: he merely smiled and recited more prayers. The alferez had a
little anecdote which he always related to the occasional Spaniards who visited him:
“Are you going over to the convento to visit the sanctimonious rascal there, the little curate? Yes! Well, if he offers
you chocolate which I doubt—but if he offers it remember this: if he calls to the servant and says, ‘Juan, make a cup of
chocolate, eh!’ then stay without fear; but if he calls out, ‘Juan, make a cup of chocolate, ah!’ then take your hat and leave on
a run.”
“What!” the startled visitor would ask, “does he poison people? Carambas!”
“No, man, not at all!”
“What then?”
“‘Chocolate, eh!’ means thick and rich, while ‘chocolate, ah!’ means watered and thin.”
But we are of the opinion that this was a slander on the part of the alferez, since the same story is told of many
curates. At least, it may be a thing peculiar to the Order.
To make trouble for the curate, the soldier, at the instigation of his wife, would prohibit any one from walking abroad
after nine o’clock at night. Doña Consolacion would then claim that she had seen the curate, disguised in a piña camisa and
salakot, walking about late. Fray Salvi would take his revenge in a holy manner. Upon seeing the alferez enter the church he
would innocently order the sacristan to close all the doors, and would then go [81]up into the pulpit and preach until the very
saints closed their eyes and even the wooden dove above his head, the image of the Holy Ghost, murmured for mercy. But
the alferez, like all the unregenerate, did not change his ways for this; he would go away cursing, and as soon as he was able
to catch a sacristan, or one of the curate’s servants, he would arrest him, give him a beating, and make him scrub the floor of
the barracks and that of his own house, which at such times was put in a decent condition. On going to pay the fine imposed
by the curate for his absence, the sacristan would explain the cause. Fray Salvi would listen in silence, take the money, and
at once turn out his goats and sheep so that they might graze in the alferez’s garden, while he himself looked up a new text
for another longer and more edifying sermon. But these were only little pleasantries, and if the two chanced to meet they
would shake hands and converse politely.
When her husband was sleeping off the wine he had drunk, or was snoring through the siesta, and she could not
quarrel with him, Doña Consolacion, in a blue flannel camisa, with a big cigar in her mouth, would take her stand at the window.
She could not endure the young people, so from there she would scrutinize and mock the passing girls, who, being afraid of
her, would hurry by in confusion, holding their breath the while, and not daring to raise their eyes. One great virtue Doña
Consolation possessed, and this was that she had evidently never looked in a mirror.
These were the rulers of the town of San Diego.[82]

1“Petty governor,” the chief municipal official, chosen annually from among their own number, with the approval of the parish priest and the
central government, by the principalía, i.e., persons who owned considerable property or who had previously held some municipal office. The manner of his
selection is thus described by a German traveler (Jagor) in the Philippines in 1860: “The election is held in the town hall. The governor or his representative
presides, having on his right the parish priest and on his left a clerk, who also acts as interpreter. All the cabezas de barangay, the gobernadorcillo, and those
who have formerly occupied the latter position, seat themselves on benches. First, there are chosen by lot six cabezas de barangay and six ex-
gobernadorcillos as electors, the actual gobernadorcillo being the thirteenth. The [77n]rest leave the hall. After the presiding officer has read the statutes in
a loud voice and reminded the electors of their duty to act in accordance with their consciences and to heed only the welfare of the town, the electors move
to a table and write three names on a slip of paper. The person receiving a majority of votes is declared elected gobernadorcillo for the ensuing year, provided
that there is no protest from the curate or the electors, and always conditioned upon the approval of the superior authority in Manila, which is never withheld,
since the influence of the curate is enough to prevent an unsatisfactory election.”—TR.

Chapter XII
All Saints

The one thing perhaps that indisputably distinguishes man from the brute creation is the attention which he pays to
those who have passed away and, wonder of wonders! this characteristic seems to be more deeply rooted in proportion to the
lack of civilization. Historians relate that the ancient inhabitants of the Philippines venerated and deified their ancestors; but
now the contrary is true, and the dead have to entrust themselves to the living. It is also related that the people of New Guinea
preserve the bones of their dead in chests and maintain communication with them. The greater part of the peoples of Asia,
Africa, and America offer them the finest products of their kitchens or dishes of what was their favorite food when alive, and
give banquets at which they believe them to be present. The Egyptians raised up palaces and the Mussulmans built shrines,
but the masters in these things, those who have most clearly read the human heart, are the people of Dahomey. These
negroes know that man is revengeful, so they consider that nothing will more content the dead than to sacrifice all his enemies
upon his grave, and, as man is curious and may not know how to entertain himself in the other life, each year they send him
a newsletter under the skin of a beheaded slave.
We ourselves differ from all the rest. In spite of the inscriptions on the tombs, hardly any one believes that the dead
rest, and much less, that they rest in peace. The most optimistic fancies his forefathers still roasting in purgatory and, if it turns
out that he himself be not completely damned, he will yet be able to associate with them for many [83]years. If any one would
contradict let him visit the churches and cemeteries of the country on All Saints’ day and he will be convinced.
Now that we are in San Diego let us visit its cemetery, which is located in the midst of paddy-fields, there toward the
west—not a city, merely a village of the dead, approached by a path dusty in dry weather and navigable on rainy days. A
wooden gate and a fence half of stone and half of bamboo stakes, appear to separate it from the abode of the living but not
from the curate’s goats and some of the pigs of the neighborhood, who come and go making explorations among the tombs
and enlivening the solitude with their presence. In the center of this enclosure rises a large wooden cross set on a stone
pedestal. The storms have doubled over the tin plate for the inscription INRI, and the rains have effaced the letters. At the foot
of the cross, as on the real Golgotha, is a confused heap of skulls and bones which the indifferent grave-digger has thrown
from the graves he digs, and there they will probably await, not the resurrection of the dead, but the coming of the animals to
defile them. Round about may be noted signs of recent excavations; here the earth is sunken, there it forms a low mound.
There grow in all their luxuriance the tarambulo to prick the feet with its spiny berries and the pandakaki to add its odor to that
of the cemetery, as if the place did not have smells enough already. Yet the ground is sprinkled with a few little flowers which,
like those skulls, are known only to their Creator; their petals wear a pale smile and their fragrance is the fragrance of the
tombs. The grass and creepers fill up the corners or climb over the walls and niches to cover and beautify the naked ugliness
and in places even penetrate into the fissures made by the earthquakes, so as to hide from sight the revered hollowness of
the sepulcher.
At the time we enter, the people have driven the animals away, with the single exception of some old hog, an animal
that is hard to convince, who shows his small eyes and [84]pulling back his head from a great gap in the fence, sticks up his
snout and seems to say to a woman praying near, “Don’t eat it all, leave something for me, won’t you?”
 Two men are digging a grave near one of the tottering walls. One of them, the grave-digger, works with indifference,
throwing about bones as a gardener does stones and dry branches, while the other, more intent on his work, is perspiring,
smoking, and spitting at every moment.
“Listen,” says the latter in Tagalog, “wouldn’t it be better for us to dig in some other place? This is too recent.”
“One grave is as recent as another.”
“I can’t stand it any longer! That bone you’re just cut in two has blood oozing from it—and those hairs?”
“But how sensitive you are!” was the other’s reproach. “Just as if you were a town clerk! If, like myself, you had dug
up a corpse of twenty days, on a dark and rainy night—! My lantern went out—”
His companion shuddered.
“The coffin burst open, the corpse fell half-way out, it stunk—and supposing you had to carry it—the rain wet us
both—”
“Ugh! And why did you dig it up?”
The grave-digger looked at him in surprise. “Why? How do I know? I was ordered to do so.”
“Who ordered you?”
The grave-digger stepped backward and looked his companion over from head to foot. “Man, you’re like a Spaniard,
for afterwards a Spaniard asked me the same questions, but in secret. So I’m going to answer you as I answered the Spaniard:
the fat curate ordered me to do so.”
“Ah! And what did you do with the corpse afterwards?” further questioned the sensitive one.
“The devil! If I didn’t know you and was not sure that you are a man I would say that you were certainly a Spaniard
of the Civil Guard, since you ask questions just as he did. Well, the fat curate ordered me to bury it in [85]the Chinamen’s
cemetery, but the coffin was heavy and the Chinese cemetery far away—”
“No, no! I’m not going to dig any more!” the other interrupted in horror as he threw away his spade and jumped out
of the hole. “I’ve cut a skull in two and I’m afraid that it won’t let me sleep tonight.” The old grave-digger laughed to see how
the chicken-hearted fellow left, crossing himself.
The cemetery was filling up with men and women dressed in mourning. Some sought a grave for a time, disputing
among themselves the while, and as if they were unable to agree, they scattered about, each kneeling where he thought best.
Others, who had niches for their deceased relatives, lighted candles and fell to praying devoutly. Exaggerated or suppressed
sighs and sobs were heard amid the hum of prayers, orapreo, orapreiss, requiem-aeternams, that arose from all sides.
A little old man with bright eyes entered bareheaded. Upon seeing him many laughed, and some women knitted
their eyebrows. The old man did not seem to pay any attention to these demonstrations as he went toward a pile of skulls and
knelt to look earnestly for something among the bones. Then he carefully removed the skulls one by one, but apparently
without finding what he sought, for he wrinkled his brow, nodded his head from side to side, looked all about him, and finally
rose and approached the grave-digger, who raised his head when the old man spoke to him.
“Do you know where there is a beautiful skull, white as the meat of a coconut, with a complete set of teeth, which I
had there at the foot of the cross under those leaves?”
The grave-digger shrugged his shoulders.
“Look!” added the old man, showing a silver coin, “I have only this, but I’ll give it to you if you find the skull for me.”
The gleam of the silver caused the grave-digger to consider, [86]and staring toward the heap of bones he said, “Isn’t
it there? No? Then I don’t know where it is.”
“Don’t you know? When those who owe me pay me, I’ll give you more,” continued the old man. “It was the skull of
my wife, so if you find it for me—”
“Isn’t it there? Then I don’t know! But if you wish, I can give you another.”
“You’re like the grave you’re digging,” apostrophized the old man nervously. “You don’t know the value of what you
lose. For whom is that grave?”
“How should I know?” replied the other in bad humor.
“For a corpse!”
“Like the grave, like the grave!” repeated the old man with a dry smile. “You don’t know what you throw away nor
what you receive! Dig, dig on!” And he turned away in the direction of the gate.
Meanwhile, the grave-digger had completed his task, attested by the two mounds of fresh red earth at the sides of
the grave. He took some buyo from his salakot and began to chew it while he stared stupidly at what was going on around
him.[87]

Chapter XIII
Signs of Storm

As the old man was leaving the cemetery there stopped at the head of the path a carriage which, from its dust-
covered appearance and sweating horses, seemed to have come from a great distance. Followed by an aged servant, Ibarra
left the carriage and dismissed it with a wave of his hand, then gravely and silently turned toward the cemetery.
 “My illness and my duties have not permitted me to return,” said the old servant timidly. “Capitan Tiago promised
that he would see that a niche was constructed, but I planted some flowers on the grave and set up a cross carved by my own
hands.” Ibarra made no reply. “There behind that big cross, sir,” he added when they were well inside the gate, as he pointed
to the place.
Ibarra was so intent upon his quest that he did not notice the movement of surprise on the part of the persons who
recognized him and suspended their prayers to watch him curiously. He walked along carefully to avoid stepping on any of
the graves, which were easily distinguishable by the hollow places in the soil. In other times he had walked on them carelessly,
but now they were to be respected: his father lay among them. When he reached the large cross he stopped and looked all
around. His companion stood confused and confounded, seeking some mark in the ground, but nowhere was any cross to be
seen.
“Was it here?” he murmured through his teeth. “No, there! But the ground has been disturbed.”
Ibarra gave him a look of anguish.
“Yes,” he went on, “I remember that there was a stone [88]near it. The grave was rather short. The grave-digger
was sick, so a farmer had to dig it. But let’s ask that man what has become of the cross.”
They went over to where the grave-digger was watching them with curiosity. He removed his salakot respectfully as
they approached.
“Can you tell me which is the grave there that had a cross over it?” asked the servant.
The grave-digger looked toward the place and reflected. “A big cross?”
“Yes, a big one!” affirmed the servant eagerly, with a significant look at Ibarra, whose face lighted up.
“A carved cross tied up with rattan?” continued the grave-digger.
“That’s it, that’s it, like this!” exclaimed the servant in answer as he drew on the ground the figure of a Byzantine
cross.
“Were there flowers scattered on the grave?”
“Oleanders and tuberoses and forget-me-nots, yes!” the servant added joyfully, offering the grave-digger a cigar.
“Tell us which is the grave and where the cross is.”
The grave-digger scratched his ear and answered with a yawn: “Well, as for the cross, I burned it.”
“Burned it? Why did you burn it?”
“Because the fat curate ordered me to do so.”
“Who is the fat curate?” asked Ibarra.
“Who? Why, the one that beats people with a big cane.”
Ibarra drew his hand across his forehead. “But at least you can tell us where the grave is. You must remember that.”
The grave-digger smiled as he answered quietly, “But the corpse is no longer there.”
“What’s that you’re saying?”
“Yes,” continued the grave-digger in a half-jesting tone. “I buried a woman in that place a week ago.”
[89]“Are you crazy?” cried the servant. “It hasn’t been a year since we buried him.”
“That’s very true, but a good many months ago I dug the body up. The fat curate ordered me to do so and to take it
to the cemetery of the Chinamen. But as it was heavy and there was rain that night—”
He was stopped by the threatening attitude of Ibarra, who had caught him by the arm and was shaking him. “Did
you do that?” demanded the youth in an indescribable tone.
“Don’t be angry, sir,” stammered the pale and trembling grave-digger. “I didn’t bury him among the Chinamen. Better
be drowned than lie among Chinamen, I said to myself, so I threw the body into the lake.”
Ibarra placed both his hands on the grave-digger’s shoulders and stared at him for a long time with an indefinable
expression. Then, with the ejaculation, “You are only a miserable slave!” he turned away hurriedly, stepping upon bones,
graves, and crosses, like one beside himself.
The grave-digger patted his arm and muttered, “All the trouble dead men cause! The fat padre caned me for allowing
it to be buried while I was sick, and this fellow almost tore my arm off for having dug it up. That’s what these Spaniards are!
I’ll lose my job yet!”
Ibarra walked rapidly with a far-away look in his eyes, while the aged servant followed him weeping. The sun was
setting, and over the eastern sky was flung a heavy curtain of clouds. A dry wind shook the tree-tops and made the bamboo
clumps creak. Ibarra went bareheaded, but no tear wet his eyes nor did any sigh escape from his breast. He moved as if
fleeing from something, perhaps the shade of his father, perhaps the approaching storm. He crossed through the town to the
outskirts on the opposite side and turned toward the old house which he had not entered for so many years. Surrounded by a
cactus-covered wall it seemed to beckon to him with its open windows, while the ilang-ilang waved its flower-laden branches
joyfully [90]and the doves circled about the conical roof of their cote in the middle of the garden.
But the youth gave no heed to these signs of welcome back to his old home, his eyes being fixed on the figure of a
priest approaching from the opposite direction. It was the curate of San Diego, the pensive Franciscan whom we have seen
before, the rival of the alferez. The breeze folded back the brim of his wide hat and blew his guingón habit closely about him,
revealing the outlines of his body and his thin, curved thighs. In his right hand he carried an ivory-headed palasan cane.
 This was the first time that he and Ibarra had met. When they drew near each other Ibarra stopped and gazed at
him from head to foot; Fray Salvi avoided the look and tried to appear unconcerned. After a moment of hesitation Ibarra went
up to him quickly and dropping a heavy hand on his shoulder, asked in a husky voice, “What did you do with my father?”
Fray Salvi, pale and trembling as he read the deep feelings that flushed the youth’s face, could not answer; he
seemed paralyzed.
“What did you do with my father?” again demanded the youth in a choking voice.
The priest, who was gradually being forced to his knees by the heavy hand that pressed upon his shoulder, made a
great effort and answered, “You are mistaken, I did nothing to your father.”
“You didn’t?” went on the youth, forcing him down upon his knees.
“No, I assure you! It was my predecessor, it was Padre Damaso!”
“Ah!” exclaimed the youth, releasing his hold, and clapping his hand desperately to his brow; then, leaving poor Fray
Salvi, he turned away and hurried toward his house. The old servant came up and helped the friar to his feet.[91]

Chapter XIV
Tasio: Lunatic or Sage

The peculiar old man wandered about the streets aimlessly. A former student of philosophy, he had given up his
career in obedience to his mother’s wishes and not from any lack of means or ability. Quite the contrary, it was because his
mother was rich and he was said to possess talent. The good woman feared that her son would become learned and forget
God, so she had given him his choice of entering the priesthood or leaving college. Being in love, he chose the latter course
and married. Then having lost both his wife and his mother within a year, he sought consolation in his books in order to free
himself from sorrow, the cockpit, and the dangers of idleness. He became so addicted to his studies and the purchase of
books, that he entirely neglected his fortune and gradually ruined himself. Persons of culture called him Don Anastasio, or
Tasio the Sage, while the great crowd of the ignorant knew him as Tasio the Lunatic, on account of his peculiar ideas and his
eccentric manner of dealing with others.
As we said before, the evening threatened to be stormy. The lightning flashed its pale rays across the leaden sky,
the air was heavy and the slight breeze excessively sultry. Tasio had apparently already forgotten his beloved skull, and now
he was smiling as he looked at the dark clouds. Near the church he met a man wearing an alpaca coat, who carried in one
hand a large bundle of candles and in the other a tasseled cane, the emblem of his office as gobernadorcillo.
“You seem to be merry?” he greeted Tasio in Tagalog.
[92]“Truly I am, señor capitan, I’m merry because I hope for something.”
“Ah? What do you hope for?”
“The storm!”
“The storm? Are you thinking of taking a bath?” asked the gobernadorcillo in a jesting way as he stared at the simple
attire of the old man.
“A bath? That’s not a bad idea, especially when one has just stumbled over some trash!” answered Tasio in a similar,
though somewhat more offensive tone, staring at the other’s face. “But I hope for something better.”
“What, then?”
“Some thunderbolts that will kill people and burn down houses,” returned the Sage seriously.
“Why don’t you ask for the deluge at once?”
“We all deserve it, even you and I! You, señor gobernadorcillo, have there a bundle of tapers that came from some
Chinese shop, yet this now makes the tenth year that I have been proposing to each new occupant of your office the purchase
of lightning-rods. Every one laughs at me, and buys bombs and rockets and pays for the ringing of bells. Even you yourself,
on the day after I made my proposition, ordered from the Chinese founders a bell in honor of St. Barbara,1 when science has
shown that it is dangerous to ring the bells during a storm. Explain to me why in the year ’70, when lightning struck in Biñan,
it hit the very church tower and destroyed the clock and altar. What was the bell of St. Barbara doing then?”
At the moment there was a vivid flash. “Jesús, María, y José! Holy St. Barbara!” exclaimed the gobernadorcillo,
turning pale and crossing himself.
Tasio burst out into a loud laugh. “You are worthy of your patroness,” he remarked dryly in Spanish as he turned his
back and went toward the church.
Inside, the sacristans were preparing a catafalque, bordered [93]with candles placed in wooden sockets. Two large
tables had been placed one above the other and covered with black cloth across which ran white stripes, with here and there
a skull painted on it.
“Is that for the souls or for the candles?” inquired the old man, but noticing two boys, one about ten and the other
seven, he turned to them without awaiting an answer from the sacristans.
“Won’t you come with me, boys?” he asked them. “Your mother has prepared a supper for you fit for a curate.”
“The senior sacristan will not let us leave until eight o’clock, sir,” answered the larger of the two boys. “I expect to
get my pay to give it to our mother.”
“Ah! And where are you going now?”
 “To the belfry, sir, to ring the knell for the souls.”
“Going to the belfry! Then take care! Don’t go near the bells during the storm!”
Tasio then left the church, not without first bestowing a look of pity on the two boys, who were climbing the stairway
into the organ-loft. He passed his hand over his eyes, looked at the sky again, and murmured, “Now I should be sorry if
thunderbolts should fall.” With his head bowed in thought he started toward the outskirts of the town.
“Won’t you come in?” invited a voice in Spanish from a window.
The Sage raised his head and saw a man of thirty or thirty-five years of age smiling at him.
“What are you reading there?” asked Tasio, pointing to a book the man held in his hand.
“A work just published: ‘The Torments Suffered by the Blessed Souls in Purgatory,’” the other answered with a smile.
“Man, man, man!” exclaimed the Sage in an altered tone as he entered the house. “The author must be a very clever
person.”
[94]Upon reaching the top of the stairway, he was cordially received by the master of the house, Don Filipo Lino,
and his young wife, Doña Teodora Viña. Don Filipo was the teniente-mayor of the town and leader of one of the parties—the
liberal faction, if it be possible to speak so, and if there exist parties in the towns of the Philippines.
“Did you meet in the cemetery the son of the deceased Don Rafael, who has just returned from Europe?”
“Yes, I saw him as he alighted from his carriage.”
“They say that he went to look for his father’s grave. It must have been a terrible blow.”
The Sage shrugged his shoulders.
“Doesn’t such a misfortune affect you?” asked the young wife.
“You know very well that I was one of the six who accompanied the body, and it was I who appealed to the Captain-
General when I saw that no one, not even the authorities, said anything about such an outrage, although I always prefer to
honor a good man in life rather than to worship him after his death.”
“Well?”
“But, madam, I am not a believer in hereditary monarchy. By reason of the Chinese blood which I have received
from my mother I believe a little like the Chinese: I honor the father on account of the son and not the son on account of the
father. I believe that each one should receive the reward or punishment for his own deeds, not for those of another.”
“Did you order a mass said for your dead wife, as I advised you yesterday?” asked the young woman, changing the
subject of conversation.
“No,” answered the old man with a smile.
“What a pity!” she exclaimed with unfeigned regret.
“They say that until ten o’clock tomorrow the souls will wander at liberty, awaiting the prayers of the living, and that
during these days one mass is equivalent to five on [95]other days of the year, or even to six, as the curate said this morning.”
“What! Does that mean that we have a period without paying, which we should take advantage of?”
“But, Doray,” interrupted Don Filipo, “you know that Don Anastasio doesn’t believe in purgatory.”
“I don’t believe in purgatory!” protested the old man, partly rising from his seat. “Even when I know something of its
history!”
“The history of purgatory!” exclaimed the couple, full of surprise. “Come, relate it to us.”
“You don’t know it and yet you order masses and talk about its torments? Well, as it has begun to rain and threatens
to continue, we shall have time to relieve the monotony,” replied Tasio, falling into a thoughtful mood.
Don Filipo closed the book which he held in his hand and Doray sat down at his side determined not to believe
anything that the old man was about to say.
The latter began in the following manner: “Purgatory existed long before Our Lord came into the world and must
have been located in the center of the earth, according to Padre Astete; or somewhere near Cluny, according to the monk of
whom Padre Girard tells us. But the location is of least importance here. Now then, who were scorching in those fires that had
been burning from the beginning of the world? Its very ancient existence is proved by Christian philosophy, which teaches that
God has created nothing new since he rested.”
“But it could have existed in potentia and not in actu,”2 observed Don Filipo.
“Very well! But yet I must answer that some knew of it and as existing in actu. One of these was Zarathustra, or
Zoroaster, who wrote part of the Zend-Avesta and founded a religion which in some points resembles ours, and Zarathustra,
according to the scholars, flourished at least eight hundred years before Christ. I say ‘at least,’ [96]since Gaffarel, after
examining the testimony of Plato, Xanthus of Lydia, Pliny, Hermippus, and Eudoxus, believes it to have been two thousand
five hundred years before our era. However that may be, it is certain that Zarathustra talked of a kind of purgatory and showed
ways of getting free from it. The living could redeem the souls of those who died in sin by reciting passages from the Avesta
and by doing good works, but under the condition that the person offering the petitions should be a relative, up to the fourth
generation. The time for this occurred every year and lasted five days. Later, when this belief had become fixed among the
people, the priests of that religion saw in it a chance of profit and so they exploited ‘the deep and dark prison where remorse
reigns,’ as Zarathustra called it. They declared that by the payment of a small coin it was possible to save a soul from a year
of torture, but as in that religion there were sins punishable by three hundred to a thousand years of suffering, such as lying,
faithlessness, failure to keep one’s word, and so on, it resulted that the rascals took in countless sums. Here you will observe
something like our purgatory, if you take into account the differences in the religions.”
 A vivid flash of lightning, followed by rolling thunder, caused Doray to start up and exclaim, as she crossed herself:
“Jesús, María, y José! I’m going to leave you, I’m going to burn some sacred palm and light candles of penitence.”
The rain began to fall in torrents. The Sage Tasio, watching the young woman leave, continued: “Now that she is
not here, we can consider this matter more rationally. Doray, even though a little superstitious, is a good Catholic, and I don’t
care to root out the faith from her heart. A pure and simple faith is as distinct from fanaticism as the flame from smoke or music
from discords: only the fools and the deaf confuse them. Between ourselves we can say that the idea of purgatory is good,
holy, and rational. It perpetuates the union of those who [97]were and those who are, leading thus to greater purity of life. The
evil is in its abuse.
“But let us now see where Catholicism got this idea, which does not exist in the Old Testament nor in the Gospels.
Neither Moses nor Christ made the slightest mention of it, and the single passage which is cited from Maccabees is insufficient.
Besides, this book was declared apocryphal by the Council of Laodicea and the holy Catholic Church accepted it only later.
Neither have the pagan religions anything like it. The oft-quoted passage in Virgil, Aliae panduntur inanes,3 which probably
gave occasion for St. Gregory the Great to speak of drowned souls, and to Dante for another narrative in his Divine Comedy,
cannot have been the origin of this belief. Neither the Brahmins, the Buddhists, nor the Egyptians, who may have given Rome
her Charon and her Avernus, had anything like this idea. I won’t speak now of the religions of northern Europe, for they were
religions of warriors, bards, and hunters, and not of philosophers. While they yet preserve their beliefs and even their rites
under Christian forms, they were unable to accompany the hordes in the spoliation of Rome or to seat themselves on the
Capitoline; the religions of the mists were dissipated by the southern sun. Now then, the early Christians did not believe in a
purgatory but died in the blissful confidence of shortly seeing God face to face. Apparently the first fathers of the Church who
mentioned it were St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and St. Irenaeus, who were all perhaps influenced by Zarathustra’s
religion, which still flourished and was widely spread throughout the East, since at every step we read reproaches against
Origen’s Orientalism. St. Irenaeus proved its existence by the fact that Christ remained ‘three days in the depths of
the [98]earth,’ three days of purgatory, and deduced from this that every soul must remain there until the resurrection of the
body, although the ‘Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso’4 seems to contradict it. St. Augustine also speaks of purgatory and, if not
affirming its existence, yet he did not believe it impossible, conjecturing that in another existence there might continue the
punishments that we receive in this life for our sins.”
“The devil with St. Augustine!” ejaculated Don Filipo. “He wasn’t satisfied with what we suffer here but wished a
continuance.”
“Well, so it went” some believed it and others didn’t. Although St. Gregory finally came to admit it in his de quibusdam
levibus culpis esse ante judicium purgatorius ignis credendus est,5 yet nothing definite was done until the year 1439, that is,
eight centuries later, when the Council of Florence declared that there must exist a purifying fire for the souls of those who
have died in the love of God but without having satisfied divine Justice. Lastly, the Council of Trent under Pius IV in 1563, in
the twenty-fifth session, issued the purgatorial decree beginning Cura catholica ecclesia, Spiritu Santo edocta, wherein it
deduces that, after the office of the mass, the petitions of the living, their prayers, alms, and other pious works are the surest
means of freeing the souls. Nevertheless, the Protestants do not believe in it nor do the Greek Fathers, since they reject any
Biblical authority for it and say that our responsibility ends with death, and that the ‘Quodcumque ligaberis in terra,’6 does not
mean ‘usque ad purgatorium,’7 but to this the answer can be made that since purgatory is located in the center of the earth it
fell naturally under the control of St. Peter. But I should never get through if I had to relate all that [99]has been said on the
subject. Any day that you wish to discuss the matter with me, come to my house and there we will consult the books and talk
freely and quietly.
“Now I must go. I don’t understand why Christian piety permits robbery on this night—and you, the authorities, allow
it—and I fear for my books. If they should steal them to read I wouldn’t object, but I know that there are many who wish to burn
them in order to do for me an act of charity, and such charity, worthy of the Caliph Omar, is to be dreaded. Some believe that
on account of those books I am already damned—”
“But I suppose that you do believe in damnation?” asked Doray with a smile, as she appeared carrying in a brazier
the dry palm leaves, which gave off a peculiar smoke and an agreeable odor.
“I don’t know, madam, what God will do with me,” replied the old man thoughtfully. “When I die I will commit myself
to Him without fear and He may do with me what He wishes. But a thought strikes me!”
“What thought is that?”
“If the only ones who can be saved are the Catholics, and of them only five per cent—as many curates say—and as
the Catholics form only a twelfth part of the population of the world—if we believe what statistics show—it would result that
after damning millions and millions of men during the countless ages that passed before the Saviour came to the earth, after
a Son of God has died for us, it is now possible to save only five in every twelve hundred. That cannot be so! I prefer to believe
and say with Job: ‘Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro, and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?’ No, such a calamity is
impossible and to believe it is blasphemy!”
“What do you wish? Divine Justice, divine Purity—”
“Oh, but divine Justice and divine Purity saw the future before the creation,” answered the old man, as he rose
shuddering. “Man is an accidental and not a necessary part of creation, and that God cannot have created [100]him, no indeed,
only to make a few happy and condemn hundreds to eternal misery, and all in a moment, for hereditary faults! No! If that be
true, strangle your baby son sleeping there! If such a belief were not a blasphemy against that God, who must be the Highest
Good, then the Phenician Moloch, which was appeased with human sacrifices and innocent blood, and in whose belly were
burned the babes torn from their mothers’ breasts, that bloody deity, that horrible divinity, would be by the side of Him a weak
girl, a friend, a mother of humanity!”
Horrified, the Lunatic—or the Sage—left the house and ran along the street in spite of the rain and the darkness. A
lurid flash, followed by frightful thunder and filling the air with deadly currents, lighted the old man as he stretched his hand
toward the sky and cried out: “Thou protestest! I know that Thou art not cruel, I know that I must only name Thee Good!”
The flashes of lightning became more frequent and the storm increased in violence.[101]

1St. Barbara is invoked during thunder-storms as the special protectress against lightning.—TR.
2In possibility (i.e., latent) and not: in fact.—TR.
3
“For this are various penances enjoined;
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind;
Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires,
Till all the dregs are drained, and all the rust expires.”
Dryden, Virgil’s Aeneid, VI.
4“Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”—Luke xxiii, 43.
5It should be believed that for some light faults there is a purgatorial fire before the judgment.
6Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth.—Matt, xvi, 19.
7Even up to purgatory.

Chapter XV
The Sacristans

The thunder resounded, roar following close upon roar, each preceded’ by a blinding flash of zigzag lightning, so
that it might have been said that God was writing his name in fire and that the eternal arch of heaven was trembling with fear.
The rain, whipped about in a different direction each moment by the mournfully whistling wind, fell in torrents. With a voice full
of fear the bells sounded their sad supplication, and in the brief pauses between the roars of the unchained elements tolled
forth sorrowful peals, like plaintive groans.
On the second floor of the church tower were the two boys whom we saw talking to the Sage. The younger, a child
of seven years with large black eyes and a timid countenance, was huddling close to his brother, a boy of ten, whom he greatly
resembled in features, except that the look on the elder’s face was deeper and firmer.
Both were meanly dressed in clothes full of rents and patches. They sat upon a block of wood, each holding the end
of a rope which extended upward and was lost amid the shadows above. The wind-driven rain reached them and snuffed the
piece of candle burning dimly on the large round stone that was used to furnish the thunder on Good Friday by being rolled
around the gallery.
“Pull on the rope, Crispin, pull!” cried the elder to his little brother, who did as he was told, so that from above was
heard a faint peal, instantly drowned out by the reechoing thunder.
“Oh, if we were only at home now with mother,” sighed [102]the younger, as he gazed at his brother. “There I
shouldn’t be afraid.”
The elder did not answer; he was watching the melting wax of the candle, apparently lost in thought.
“There no one would say that I stole,” went on Crispin. “Mother wouldn’t allow it. If she knew that they whip me—”
The elder took his gaze from the flame, raised his head, and clutching the thick rope pulled violently on it so that a
sonorous peal of the bells was heard.
“Are we always going to live this way, brother?” continued Crispin. “I’d like to get sick at home tomorrow, I’d like to
fall into a long sickness so that mother might take care of me and not let me come back to the convento. So I’d not be called
a thief nor would they whip me. And you too, brother, you must get sick with me.”
“No,” answered the older, “we should all die: mother of grief and we of hunger.”
Crispin remained silent for a moment, then asked, “How much will you get this month?”
“Two pesos. They’re fined me twice.”
“Then pay what they say I’ve stolen, so that they won’t call us thieves. Pay it, brother!”
“Are you crazy, Crispin? Mother wouldn’t have anything to eat. The senior sacristan says that you’ve stolen two gold
pieces, and they’re worth thirty-two pesos.”
The little one counted on his fingers up to thirty-two. “Six hands and two fingers over and each finger a peso!” he
murmured thoughtfully. “And each peso, how many cuartos?”
“A hundred and sixty.”
“A hundred and sixty cuartos? A hundred and sixty times a cuarto? Goodness! And how many are a hundred and
sixty?”
“Thirty-two hands,” answered the older.
Crispin looked hard at his little hands. “Thirty-two hands,” he repeated, “six hands and two fingers over [103]and
each finger thirty-two hands and each finger a cuarto—goodness, what a lot of cuartos! I could hardly count them in three
days; and with them could be bought shoes for our feet, a hat for my head when the sun shines hot, a big umbrella for the
rain, and food, and clothes for you and mother, and—” He became silent and thoughtful again.
“Now I’m sorry that I didn’t steal!” he soon exclaimed.
“Crispin!” reproached his brother.
“Don’t get angry! The curate has said that he’ll beat me to death if the money doesn’t appear, and if I had stolen it I
could make it appear. Anyhow, if I died you and mother would at least have clothes. Oh, if I had only stolen it!”
The elder pulled on the rope in silence. After a time he replied with a sigh: “What I’m afraid of is that mother will
scold you when she knows about it.”
“Do you think so?” asked the younger with astonishment. “You will tell her that they’re whipped me and I’ll show the
welts on my back and my torn pocket. I had only one cuarto, which was given to me last Easter, but the curate took that away
from me yesterday. I never saw a prettier cuarto! No, mother won’t believe it.”
“If the curate says so—”
Crispin began to cry, murmuring between his sobs, “Then go home alone! I don’t want to go. Tell mother that I’m
sick. I don’t want to go.”
“Crispin, don’t cry!” pleaded the elder. “Mother won’t believe it—don’t cry! Old Tasio told us that a fine supper is
waiting for us.”
“A fine supper! And I haven’t eaten for a long time. They won’t give me anything to eat until the two gold pieces
appear. But, if mother believes it? You must tell her that the senior sacristan is a liar but that the curate believes him and that
all of them are liars, that they say that we’re thieves because our father is a vagabond who—”
[104]At that instant a head appeared at the top of the stairway leading down to the floor below, and that head, like
Medusa’s, froze the words on the child’s lips. It was a long, narrow head covered with black hair, with blue glasses concealing
the fact that one eye was sightless. The senior sacristan was accustomed to appear thus without noise or warning of any kind.
The two brothers turned cold with fear.
“On you, Basilio, I impose a fine of two reals for not ringing the bells in time,” he said in a voice so hollow that his
throat seemed to lack vocal chords. “You, Crispin, must stay tonight, until what you stole reappears.”
Crispin looked at his brother as if pleading for protection.
“But we already have permission—mother expects us at eight o’clock,” objected Basilio timidly.
“Neither shall you go home at eight, you’ll stay until ten.”
“But, sir, after nine o’clock no one is allowed to be out and our house is far from here.”
“Are you trying to give me orders?” growled the man irritably, as he caught Crispin by the arm and started to drag
him away.
“Oh, sir, it’s been a week now since we’re seen our mother,” begged Basilio, catching hold of his brother as if to
defend him.
The senior sacristan struck his hand away and jerked at Crispin, who began to weep as he fell to the floor, crying
out to his brother, “Don’t leave me, they’re going to kill me!”
The sacristan gave no heed to this and dragged him on to the stairway. As they disappeared among the shadows
below Basilio stood speechless, listening to the sounds of his brother’s body striking against the steps. Then followed the
sound of a blow and heartrending cries that died away in the distance.
The boy stood on tiptoe, hardly breathing and listening [105]fixedly, with his eyes unnaturally wide and his fists
clenched. “When shall I be strong enough to plow a field?” he muttered between his teeth as he started below hastily. Upon
reaching the organ-loft he paused to listen; the voice of his brother was fast dying away in the distance and the cries of
“Mother! Brother!” were at last completely cut off by the sound of a closing door. Trembling and perspiring, he paused for a
moment with his fist in his mouth to keep down a cry of anguish. He let his gaze wander about the dimly lighted church where
an oil-lamp gave a ghostly light, revealing the catafalque in the center. The doors were closed and fastened, and the windows
had iron bars on them. Suddenly he reascended the stairway to the place where the candle was burning and then climbed up
into the third floor of the belfry. After untying the ropes from the bell-clappers he again descended. He was pale and his eyes
glistened, but not with tears.
Meanwhile, the rain was gradually ceasing and the sky was clearing. Basilio knotted the ropes together, tied one
end to a rail of the balustrade, and without even remembering to put out the light let himself down into the darkness outside.
A few moments later voices were heard on one of the streets of the town, two shots resounded, but no one seemed to be
alarmed and silence again reigned.[106]

Chapter XVI
Sisa

Through the dark night the villagers slept. The families who had remembered their dead gave themselves up to quiet
and satisfied sleep, for they had recited their requiems, the novena of the souls, and had burned many wax tapers before the
sacred images. The rich and powerful had discharged the duties their positions imposed upon them. On the following day they
would hear three masses said by each priest and would give two pesos for another, besides buying a bull of indulgences for
the dead. Truly, divine justice is not nearly so exacting as human.
 But the poor and indigent who earn scarcely enough to keep themselves alive and who also have to pay tribute to
the petty officials, clerks, and soldiers, that they may be allowed to live in peace, sleep not so tranquilly as gentle poets who
have perhaps not felt the pinches of want would have us believe. The poor are sad and thoughtful, for on that night, if they
have not recited many prayers, yet they have prayed much—with pain in their eyes and tears in their hearts. They have not
the novenas, nor do they know the responsories, versicles, and prayers which the friars have composed for those who lack
original ideas and feelings, nor do they understand them. They pray in the language of their misery: their souls weep for them
and for those dead beings whose love was their wealth. Their lips may proffer the salutations, but their minds cry out
complaints, charged with lamentations. Wilt Thou be satisfied, O Thou who blessedst poverty, and you, O suffering souls, with
the simple prayers of the poor, offered before a rude picture in the light of a dim wick, or do you [107]perhaps desire wax
tapers before bleeding Christs and Virgins with small mouths and crystal eyes, and masses in Latin recited mechanically by
priests? And thou, Religion preached for suffering humanity, hast thou forgotten thy mission of consoling the oppressed in
their misery and of humiliating the powerful in their pride? Hast thou now promises only for the rich, for those who, can pay
thee?
The poor widow watches among the children who sleep at her side. She is thinking of the indulgences that she ought
to buy for the repose of the souls of her parents and of her dead husband. “A peso,” she says, “a peso is a week of happiness
for my children, a week of laughter and joy, my savings for a month, a dress for my daughter who is becoming a woman.” “But
it is necessary that you put aside these worldly desires,” says the voice that she heard in the pulpit, “it is necessary that you
make sacrifices.” Yes, it is necessary. The Church does not gratuitously save the beloved souls for you nor does it distribute
indulgences without payment. You must buy them, so tonight instead of sleeping you should work. Think of your daughter, so
poorly clothed! Fast, for heaven is dear! Decidedly, it seems that the poor enter not into heaven. Such thoughts wander through
the space enclosed between the rough mats spread out on the bamboo floor and the ridge of the roof, from which hangs the
hammock wherein the baby swings. The infant’s breathing is easy and peaceful, but from time to time he swallows and smacks
his lips; his hungry stomach, which is not satisfied with what his older brothers have given him, dreams of eating.
The cicadas chant monotonously, mingling their ceaseless notes with the trills of the cricket hidden in the grass, or
the chirp of the little lizard which has come out in search of food, while the big gekko, no longer fearing the water, disturbs the
concert with its ill-omened voice as it shows its head from out the hollow of the decayed tree-trunk.
[108]The dogs howl mournfully in the streets and superstitious folk, hearing them, are convinced that they see spirits
and ghosts. But neither the dogs nor the other animals see the sorrows of men—yet how many of these exist!
Distant from the town an hour’s walk lives the mother of Basilio and Crispin. The wife of a heartless man, she
struggles to live for her sons, while her husband is a vagrant gamester with whom her interviews are rare but always painful.
He has gradually stripped her of her few jewels to pay the cost of his vices, and when the suffering Sisa no longer had anything
that he might take to satisfy his whims, he had begun to maltreat her. Weak in character, with more heart than intellect, she
knew only how to love and to weep. Her husband was a god and her sons were his angels, so he, knowing to what point he
was loved and feared, conducted himself like all false gods: daily he became more cruel, more inhuman, more wilful. Once
when he had appeared with his countenance gloomier than ever before, Sisa had consulted him about the plan of making a
sacristan of Basilio, and he had merely continued to stroke his game-cock, saying neither yes nor no, only asking whether the
boy would earn much money. She had not dared to insist, but her needy situation and her desire that the boys should learn
to read and write in the town school forced her to carry out the plan. Still her husband had said nothing.
That night, between ten and eleven o’clock, when the stars were glittering in a sky now cleared of all signs of the
storm of the early evening, Sisa sat on a wooden bench watching some fagots that smouldered upon the fireplace fashioned
of rough pieces of natural rock. Upon a tripod, or tunko, was a small pot of boiling rice and upon the red coals lay three little
dried fishes such as are sold at three for two cuartos. Her chin rested in the palm of her hand while she gazed at the weak
yellow glow peculiar to the cane, which burns rapidly and leaves embers that quickly grow pale. A sad smile lighted up her
face as she recalled [109]a funny riddle about the pot and the fire which Crispin had once propounded to her. The boy said:
“The black man sat down and the red man looked at him, a moment passed, and cock-a-doodle-doo rang forth.”
Sisa was still young, and it was plain that at one time she had been pretty and attractive. Her eyes, which, like her
disposition, she had given to her sons, were beautiful, with long lashes and a deep look. Her nose was regular and her pale
lips curved pleasantly. She was what the Tagalogs call kayumanguing-kaligátan; that is, her color was a clear, pure brown. In
spite of her youthfulness, pain and perhaps even hunger had begun to make hollow her pallid cheeks, and if her abundant
hair, in other times the delight and adornment of her person, was even yet simply and neatly arranged, though without pins or
combs, it was not from coquetry but from habit.
Sisa had been for several days confined to the house sewing upon some work which had been ordered for the
earliest possible time. In order to earn the money, she had not attended mass that morning, as it would have taken two hours
at least to go to the town and return: poverty obliges one to sin! She had finished the work and delivered it but had received
only a promise of payment. All that day she had been anticipating the pleasures of the evening, for she knew that her sons
were coming and she had intended to make them some presents. She had bought some small fishes, picked the most beautiful
tomatoes in her little garden, as she knew that Crispin was very fond of them, and begged from a neighbor, old Tasio the
Sage, who lived half a mile away, some slices of dried wild boar’s meat and a leg of wild duck, which Basilio especially liked.
Full of hope, she had cooked the whitest of rice, which she herself had gleaned from the threshing-floors. It was indeed a
curate’s meal for the poor boys.
 But by an unfortunate chance her husband came and ate the rice, the slices of wild boar’s meat, the duck leg, five
of the little fishes, and the tomatoes. Sisa said nothing, [110]although she felt as if she herself were being eaten. His hunger
at length appeased, he remembered to ask for the boys. Then Sisa smiled happily and resolved that she would not eat that
night, because what remained was not enough for three. The father had asked for their sons and that for her was better than
eating.
Soon he picked up his game-cock and started away.
“Don’t you want to see them?” she asked tremulously. “Old Tasio told me that they would be a little late. Crispin now
knows how to read and perhaps Basilio will bring his wages.”
This last reason caused the husband to pause and waver, but his good angel triumphed. “In that case keep a peso
for me,” he said as he went away.
Sisa wept bitterly, but the thought of her sons soon dried her tears. She cooked some more rice and prepared the
only three fishes that were left: each would have one and a half. “They’ll have good appetites,” she mused, “the way is long
and hungry stomachs have no heart.”
So she sat, he ear strained to catch every sound, listening to the lightest footfalls: strong and clear, Basilio; light and
irregular, Crispin—thus she mused. The kalao called in the woods several times after the rain had ceased, but still her sons
did not come. She put the fishes inside the pot to keep them warm and went to the threshold of the hut to look toward the
road. To keep herself company, she began to sing in a low voice, a voice usually so sweet and tender that when her sons
listened to her singing the kundíman they wept without knowing why, but tonight it trembled and the notes were halting. She
stopped singing and gazed earnestly into the darkness, but no one was coming from the town—that noise was only the wind
shaking the raindrops from the wide banana leaves.
Suddenly a black dog appeared before her dragging something along the path. Sisa was frightened but caught up
a stone and threw it at the dog, which ran away howling mournfully. She was not superstitious, but she had heard [111]so
much about presentiments and black dogs that terror seized her. She shut the door hastily and sat down by the light. Night
favors credulity and the imagination peoples the air with specters. She tried to pray, to call upon the Virgin and upon God to
watch over her sons, especially her little Crispin. Then she forgot her prayers as her thoughts wandered to think about them,
to recall the features of each, those features that always wore a smile for her both asleep and awake. Suddenly she felt her
hair rise on her head and her eyes stared wildly; illusion or reality, she saw Crispin standing by the fireplace, there where he
was wont to sit and prattle to her, but now he said nothing as he gazed at her with those large, thoughtful eyes, and smiled.
“Mother, open the door! Open, mother!” cried the voice of Basilio from without.
Sisa shuddered violently and the vision disappeared.[112]

Chapter XVII
Basilio
La vida es sueño.
Basilio was scarcely inside when he staggered and fell into his mother’s arms. An inexplicable chill seized Sisa as
she saw him enter alone. She wanted to speak but could make no sound; she wanted to embrace her son but lacked the
strength; to weep was impossible. At sight of the blood which covered the boy’s forehead she cried in a tone that seemed to
come from a breaking heart, “My sons!”
“Don’t be afraid, mother,” Basilio reassured her. “Crispin stayed at the convento.”
“At the convento? He stayed at the convento? Is he alive?”
The boy raised his eyes to her. “Ah!” she sighed, passing from the depths of sorrow to the heights of joy. She wept
and embraced her son, covering his bloody forehead with kisses.
“Crispin is alive! You left him at the convento! But why are you wounded, my son? Have you had a fall?” she inquired,
as she examined him anxiously.
“The senior sacristan took Crispin away and told me that I could not leave until ten o’clock, but it was already late
and so I ran away. In the town the soldiers challenged me, I started to run, they fired, and a bullet grazed my forehead. I was
afraid they would arrest me and beat me and make me scrub out the barracks, as they did with Pablo, who is still sick from it.”
“My God, my God!” murmured his mother, shuddering. “Thou hast saved him!” Then while she sought
for [113]bandages, water, vinegar, and a feather, she went on, “A finger’s breadth more and they would have killed you, they
would have killed my boy! The civil-guards do not think of the mothers.”
“You must say that I fell from a tree so that no one will know they chased me,” Basilio cautioned her.
“Why did Crispin stay?” asked Sisa, after dressing her son’s wound.
Basilio hesitated a few moments, then with his arms about her and their tears mingling, he related little by little the
story of the gold pieces, without speaking, however, of the tortures they were inflicting upon his young brother.
“My good Crispin! To accuse my good Crispin! It’s because we’re poor and we poor people have to endure
everything!” murmured Sisa, staring through her tears at the light of the lamp, which was now dying out from lack of oil. So
they remained silent for a while.
“Haven’t you had any supper yet? Here are rice and fish.”
“I don’t want anything, only a little water.”
 “Yes,” answered his mother sadly, “I know that you don’t like dried fish. I had prepared something else, but your
father came.”
“Father came?” asked Basilio, instinctively examining the face and hands of his mother.
The son’s questioning gaze pained Sisa’s heart, for she understood it only too well, so she added hastily: “He came
and asked a lot about you and wanted to see you, and he was very hungry. He said that if you continued to be so good he
would come back to stay with us.”
An exclamation of disgust from Basilio’s contracted lips interrupted her. “Son!” she reproached him.
“Forgive me, mother,” he answered seriously. “But aren’t we three better off—you, Crispin, and I? You’re crying—I
haven’t said anything.”
Sisa sighed and asked, “Aren’t you going to eat? Then [114]let’s go to sleep, for it’s now very late.” She then closed
up the hut and covered the few coals with ashes so that the fire would not die out entirely, just as a man does with his inner
feelings; he covers them with the ashes of his life, which he calls indifference, so that they may not be deadened by daily
contact with his fellows.
Basilio murmured his prayers and lay down near his mother, who was upon her knees praying. He felt hot and cold,
he tried to close his eyes as he thought of his little brother who that night had expected to sleep in his mother’s lap and who
now was probably trembling with terror and weeping in some dark corner of the convento. His ears were again pierced with
those cries he had heard in the church tower. But wearied nature soon began to confuse his ideas and the veil of sleep
descended upon his eyes.
He saw a bedroom where two dim tapers burned. The curate, with a rattan whip in his hand, was listening gloomily
to something that the senior sacristan was telling him in a strange tongue with horrible gestures. Crispin quailed and turned
his tearful eyes in every direction as if seeking some one or some hiding-place. The curate turned toward him and called to
him irritably, the rattan whistled. The child ran to hide himself behind the sacristan, who caught and held him, thus exposing
him to the curate’s fury. The unfortunate boy fought, kicked, screamed, threw himself on the floor and rolled about. He picked
himself up, ran, slipped, fell, and parried the blows with his hands, which, wounded, he hid quickly, all the time shrieking with
pain. Basilio saw him twist himself, strike the floor with his head, he saw and heard the rattan whistle. In desperation his little
brother rose. Mad with pain he threw himself upon his tormentor and bit him on the hand. The curate gave a cry and dropped
the rattan—the sacristan caught up a heavy cane and struck the boy a blow on the head so that he fell stunned—the curate,
seeing him down, trampled him with his feet. [115]But the child no longer defended himself nor did he cry out; he rolled along
the floor, a lifeless mass that left a damp track.1
Sisa’s voice brought him back to reality. “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”
“I dreamed—O God!” exclaimed Basilio, sitting up, covered with perspiration. “It was a dream! Tell me, mother, that
it was only a dream! Only a dream!”
“What did you dream?”
The boy did not answer, but sat drying his tears and wiping away the perspiration. The hut was in total darkness.
“A dream, a dream!” repeated Basilio in subdued tones.
“Tell me what you dreamed. I can’t sleep,” said his mother when he lay down again.
“Well,” he said in a low voice, “I dreamed that we had gone to glean the rice-stalks—in a field where there were
many flowers—the women had baskets full of rice-stalks the men too had baskets full of rice-stalks—and the children too—I
don’t remember any more, mother, I don’t remember the rest.”
Sisa had no faith in dreams, so she did not insist.
“Mother, I’ve thought of a plan tonight,” said Basilio after a few moments’ silence.
[116]“What is your plan?” she asked. Sisa was humble in everything, even with her own sons, trusting their judgment
more than her own.
“I don’t want to be a sacristan any longer.”
“What?”
“Listen, mother, to what I’ve been thinking about. Today there arrived from Spain the son of the dead Don Rafael,
and he will be a good man like his father. Well now, mother, tomorrow you will get Crispin, collect my wages, and say that I
will not be a sacristan any longer. As soon as I get well I’ll go to see Don Crisostomo and ask him to hire me as a herdsman
of his cattle and carabaos—I’m now big enough. Crispin can study with old Tasio, who does not whip and who is a good man,
even if the curate does not believe so. What have we to fear now from the padre? Can he make us any poorer than we are?
You may believe it, mother, the old man is good. I’ve seen him often in the church when no one else was about, kneeling and
praying, believe it. So, mother, I’ll stop being a sacristan. I earn but little and that little is taken away from me in fines. Every
one complains of the same thing. I’ll be a herdsman and by performing my tasks carefully I’ll make my employer like me.
Perhaps he’ll let us milk a cow so that we can drink milk—Crispin likes milk so much. Who can tell! Maybe they’ll give us a
little calf if they see that I behave well and we’ll take care of it and fatten it like our hen. I’ll pick fruits in the woods and sell
them in the town along with the vegetables from our garden, so we’ll have money. I’ll set snares and traps to catch birds and
wild cats,2 I’ll fish in the river, and when I’m bigger, I’ll hunt. I’ll be able also to cut firewood to sell or to present to the owner
of the cows, and so he’ll be satisfied with us. When I’m able to plow, I’ll ask him to let me have a piece of land to plant in sugar-
cane or corn and you won’t have to sew until midnight. We’ll [117]have new clothes for every fiesta, we’ll eat meat and big
fish, we’ll live free, seeing each other every day and eating together. Old Tasio says that Crispin has a good head and so we’ll
send him to Manila to study. I’ll support him by working hard. Isn’t that fine, mother? Perhaps he’ll be a doctor, what do you
say?”
“What can I say but yes?” said Sisa as she embraced her son. She noted, however, that in their future the boy took
no account of his father, and shed silent tears.
Basilio went on talking of his plans with the confidence of the years that see only what they wish for. To everything
Sisa said yes—everything appeared good.
Sleep again began to weigh down upon the tired eyelids of the boy, and this time Ole-Luk-Oie, of whom Andersen
tells us, spread over him his beautiful umbrella with its pleasing pictures. Now he saw himself with his little brother as they
picked guavas, alpay, and other fruits in the woods; they clambered from branch to branch, light as butterflies; they penetrated
into the caves and saw the shining rocks; they bathed in the springs where the sand was gold-dust and the stones like the
jewels in the Virgin’s crown. The little fishes sang and laughed, the plants bent their branches toward them laden with golden
fruit. Then he saw a bell hanging in a tree with a long rope for ringing it; to the rope was tied a cow with a bird’s nest between
her horns and Crispin was inside the bell.
Thus he went on dreaming, while his mother, who was not of his age and who had not run for an hour, slept not.[118]

1Dream or reality, we do not know whether this may have happened to any Franciscan, but something similar is related of the Augustinian Padre
Piernavieja.—Author’s note.
Fray Antonio Piernavieja, O.S.A., was a parish curate in the province of Bulacan when this work was written. Later, on account of alleged brutality
similar to the incident used here, he was transferred to the province of Cavite, where, in 1896, he was taken prisoner by the insurgents and by them made
“bishop” of their camp. Having taken advantage of this position to collect and forward to the Spanish authorities in Manila information concerning the
insurgents’ preparations and plans, he was tied out in an open field and left to perish of hunger and thirst under the tropical sun. See Guía Oficial de Filipinas,
1885, p. 195; El Katipunan ó El Filibusterismo en Filipinas (Madrid, 1897), p. 347; Foreman’s The Philippine Islands, Chap. XII.—TR.
2The Philippine civet-cat, quite rare, and the only wild carnivore in the Philippine Islands.—TR.

Chapter XVIII
Souls in Torment

It was about seven o’clock in the morning when Fray Salvi finished celebrating his last mass, having offered up three
in the space of an hour. “The padre is ill,” commented the pious women. “He doesn’t move about with his usual slowness and
elegance of manner.”
He took off his vestments without the least comment, without saying a word or looking at any one. “Attention!”
whispered the sacristans among themselves. “The devil’s to pay! It’s going to rain fines, and all on account of those two
brothers.”
He left the sacristy to go up into the rectory, in the hallway of which there awaited him some seven or eight women
seated upon benches and a man who was pacing back and forth. Upon seeing him approach, the women arose and one of
them pressed forward to kiss his hand, but the holy man made a sign of impatience that stopped her short.
“Can it be that you’ve lost a real, kuriput?” exclaimed the woman with a jesting laugh, offended at such a reception.
“Not to give his hand to me, Matron of the Sisterhood, Sister Rufa!” It was an unheard-of proceeding.
“He didn’t go into the confessional this morning,” added Sister Sipa, a toothless old woman. “I wanted to confess
myself so as to receive communion and get the indulgences.”
“Well, I’m sorry for you,” commented a young woman with a frank face. “This week I earned three plenary
indulgences and dedicated them to the soul of my husband.”
“Badly done, Sister Juana,” said the offended Rufa. [119]“One plenary indulgence was enough to get him out of
purgatory. You ought not to squander the holy indulgences. Do as I do.”
“I thought, so many more the better,” answered the simple Sister Juana, smiling. “But tell me what you do.”
Sister Rufa did not answer at once. First, she asked for a buyo and chewed at it, gazed at her audience, which was
listening attentively, then spat to one side and commenced, chewing at the buyo meanwhile: “I don’t misspend one holy day!
Since I’ve belonged to the Sisterhood I’ve earned four hundred and fifty-seven plenary indulgences, seven hundred sixty
thousand five hundred and ninety-eight years of indulgence. I set down all that I earn, for I like to have clean accounts. I don’t
want to cheat or be cheated.”
Here Sister Rufa paused to give more attention to her chewing. The women gazed at her in admiration, but the man
who was pacing back and forth remarked with some disdain, “Well, this year I’ve gained four plenary indulgences more than
you have, Sister Rufa, and a hundred years more, and that without praying much either.”
“More than I? More than six hundred and eighty-nine plenary indulgences or nine hundred ninety-four thousand
eight hundred and fifty-six years?” queried Rufa, somewhat disgruntled.
“That’s it, eight indulgences and a hundred fifteen years more and a few months over,” answered the man, from
whose neck hung soiled scapularies and rosaries.
“That’s not strange!” admitted Rufa, at last admitting defeat. “You’re an expert, the best in the province.”
The flattered man smiled and continued, “It isn’t so wonderful that I earn more than you do. Why, I can almost say
that even when sleeping I earn indulgences.”
 “And what do you do with them, sir?” asked four or five voices at the same time.
“Pish!” answered the man with a gesture of proud disdain. “I have them to throw away!”
[120]“But in that I can’t commend you, sir,” protested Rufa. “You’ll go to purgatory for wasting the indulgences. You
know very well that for every idle word one must suffer forty days in fire, according to the curate; for every span of thread
uselessly wasted, sixty days; and for every drop of water spilled, twenty. You’ll go to purgatory.”
“Well, I’ll know how to get out,” answered Brother Pedro with sublime confidence. “How many souls have I saved
from the flames! How many saints have I made! Besides, even in articulo mortis I can still earn, if I wish, at least seven plenary
indulgences and shall be able to save others as I die.” So saying, he strode proudly away.
Sister Rufa turned to the others: “Nevertheless, you must do as I do, for I don’t lose a single day and I keep my
accounts well. I don’t want to cheat or be cheated.”
“Well, what do you do?” asked Juana.
“You must imitate what I do. For example, suppose I earn a year of indulgence: I set it down in my account-book
and say, ‘Most Blessed Father and Lord St. Dominic, please see if there is anybody in purgatory who needs exactly a year—
neither a day more nor a day less.’ Then I play heads and tails: if it comes heads, no; if tails, yes. Let’s suppose that it comes
tails, then I write down paid; if it comes heads, then I keep the indulgence. In this way I arrange groups of a hundred years
each, of which I keep a careful account. It’s a pity that we can’t do with them as with money—put them out at interest, for in
that way we should be able to save more souls. Believe me, and do as I do.”
“Well, I do it a better way,” remarked Sister Sipa.
“What? Better?” demanded the astonished Rufa. “That can’t be! My system can’t be improved upon!”
“Listen a moment and you’ll be convinced, Sister,” said old Sipa in a tone of vexation.
“How is it? Let’s hear!” exclaimed the others.
After coughing ceremoniously the old woman began with [121]great care: “You know very well that by saying
the Bendita sea tu pureza and the Señor mío Jesucristo, Padre dulcísimo por el gozo, ten years are gained for each letter—”
“Twenty!” “No, less!” “Five!” interrupted several voices.
“A few years more or less make no difference. Now, when a servant breaks a plate, a glass, or a cup, I make him
pick up the pieces; and for every scrap, even the very smallest, he has to recite for me one of those prayers. The indulgences
that I earn in this way I devote to the souls. Every one in my house, except the cats, understands this system.”
“But those indulgences are earned by the servants and not by you, Sister Sipa,” objected Rufa.
“And my cups and plates, who pays for them? The servants are glad to pay for them in that way and it suits me also.
I never resort to blows, only sometimes a pinch, or a whack on the head.”
“I’m going to do as you do!” “I’ll do the same!” “And I!” exclaimed the women.
“But suppose the plate is only broken into two or three pieces, then you earn very few,” observed the obstinate Rufa.
“Abá!” answered old Sipa. “I make them recite the prayers anyhow. Then I glue the pieces together again and so
lose nothing.”
Sister Rufa had no more objections left.
“Allow me to ask about a doubt of mine,” said young Juana timidly. “You ladies understand so well these matters of
heaven, purgatory, and hell, while I confess that I’m ignorant. Often I find in the novenas and other books this direction: three
paternosters, three Ave Marias, and three Gloria Patris—”
“Yes, well?”
“Now I want to know how they should be recited: whether three paternosters in succession, three Ave Marias [122]in
succession, and three Gloria Patris in succession; or a paternoster, an Ave Maria, and a Gloria Patri together, three times?”
“This way: a paternoster three times—”
“Pardon me, Sister Sipa,” interrupted Rufa, “they must be recited in the other way. You mustn’t mix up males and
females. The paternosters are males, the Ave Marias are females, and the Gloria Patris are the children.”
“Eh? Excuse me, Sister Rufa: paternoster, Ave Maria, and Gloria are like rice, meat, and sauce—a mouthful for the
saints—”
“You’re wrong! You’ll see, for you who pray that way will never get what you ask for.”
“And you who pray the other way won’t get anything from your novenas,” replied old Sipa.
“Who won’t?” asked Rufa, rising. “A short time ago I lost a little pig, I prayed to St. Anthony and found it, and then I
sold it for a good price. Abá!”
“Yes? Then that’s why one of your neighbors was saying that you sold a pig of hers.”
“Who? The shameless one! Perhaps I’m like you—”
Here the expert had to interfere to restore peace, for no one was thinking any more about paternosters—the talk
was all about pigs. “Come, come, there mustn’t be any quarrel over a pig, Sisters! The Holy Scriptures give us an example to
follow. The heretics and Protestants didn’t quarrel with Our Lord for driving into the water a herd of swine that belonged to
them, and we that are Christians and besides, Brethren of the Holy Rosary, shall we have hard words on account of a little
pig! What would our rivals, the Tertiary Brethren, say?”
All became silent before such wisdom, at the same time fearing what the Tertiary Brethren might say. The expert,
well satisfied with such acquiescence, changed his tone and continued: “Soon the curate will send for us. We must tell him
which preacher we’ve chosen of the [123]three that he suggested yesterday, whether Padre Damaso, Padre Martin, or the
coadjutor. I don’t know whether the Tertiary Brethren have yet made any choice, so we must decide.”
“The coadjutor,” murmured Juana timidly.
“Ahem! The coadjutor doesn’t know how to preach,” declared Sipa. “Padre Martin is better.”
“Padre Martin!” exclaimed another disdainfully. “He hasn’t any voice. Padre Damaso would be better.”
“That’s right!” cried Rufa. “Padre Damaso surely does know how to preach! He looks like a comedian!”
“But we don’t understand him,” murmured Juana.
“Because he’s very deep! And as he preaches well—”
This speech was interrupted by the arrival of Sisa, who was carrying a basket on her head. She saluted the Sisters
and went on up the stairway.
“She’s going in! Let’s go in too!” they exclaimed. Sisa felt her heart beating violently as she ascended the stairs. She
did not know just what to say to the padre to placate his wrath or what reasons she could advance in defense of her son. That
morning at the first flush of dawn she had gone into her garden to pick the choicest vegetables, which she placed in a basket
among banana-leaves and flowers; then she had looked along the bank of the river for the pakó which she knew the curate
liked for salads. Putting on her best clothes and without awakening her son, she had set out for the town with the basket on
her head. As she went up the stairway she, tried to make as little noise as possible and listened attentively in the hope that
she might hear a fresh, childish voice, so well known to her. But she heard nothing nor did she meet any one as she made
her way to the kitchen. There she looked into all the corners. The servants and sacristans received her coldly, scarcely
acknowledging her greeting.
“Where can I put these vegetables?” she asked, not taking any offense at their coldness.
“There, anywhere!” growled the cook, hardly looking [124]at her as he busied himself in picking the feathers from a
capon.
With great care Sisa arranged the vegetables and the salad leaves on the table, placing the flowers above them.
Smiling, she then addressed one of the servants, who seemed to be more approachable than the cook: “May I speak with the
padre?”
“He’s sick,” was the whispered answer.
“And Crispin? Do you know if he is in the sacristy?” The servant looked surprised and wrinkled his eyebrows.
“Crispin? Isn’t he at your house? Do you mean to deny it?”
“Basilio is at home, but Crispin stayed here,” answered Sisa, “and I want to see him.”
“Yes, he stayed, but afterwards he ran away, after stealing a lot of things. Early this morning the curate ordered me
to go and report it to the Civil Guard. They must have gone to your house already to hunt for the boys.”
Sisa covered her ears and opened her mouth to speak, but her lips moved without giving out any sound.
“A pretty pair of sons you have!” exclaimed the cook. “It’s plain that you’re a faithful wife, the sons are so like the
father. Take care that the younger doesn’t surpass him.”
Sisa broke out into bitter weeping and let herself fall upon a bench.
“Don’t cry here!” yelled the cook. “Don’t you know that the padre’s sick? Get out in the street and cry!”
The unfortunate mother was almost shoved down the stairway at the very time when the Sisters were coming down,
complaining and making conjectures about the curate’s illness, so she hid her face in her pañuelo and suppressed the sounds
of her grief. Upon reaching the street she looked about uncertainly for a moment and then, as if having reached a decision,
walked rapidly away.[125]

Chapter XIX
A Schoolmaster’s Difficulties

El vulgo es necio y pues lo paga, es justo

Hablarle en necio para darle el gusto.1
LOPE DE VEGA.
The mountain-encircled lake slept peacefully with that hypocrisy of the elements which gave no hint of how its waters
had the night before responded to the fury of the storm. As the first reflections of light awoke on its surface the phosphorescent
spirits, there were outlined in the distance, almost on the horizon, the gray silhouettes of the little bankas of the fishermen who
were taking in their nets and of the larger craft spreading their sails. Two men dressed in deep mourning stood gazing at the
water from a little elevation: one was Ibarra and the other a youth of humble aspect and melancholy features.
“This is the place,” the latter was saying. “From here your father’s body was thrown into the water. Here’s where the
grave-digger brought Lieutenant Guevara and me.”
Ibarra warmly grasped the hand of the young man, who went on: “You have no occasion to thank me. I owed many
favors to your father, and the only thing that I could do for him was to accompany his body to the grave. I came here without
knowing any one, without recommendation, and having neither name nor fortune, just as at present. My predecessor had
abandoned the school to engage in the tobacco trade. Your father protected me, secured me a house, and furnished whatever
was necessary [126]for running the school. He used to visit the classes and distribute pictures among the poor but studious
children, as well as provide them with books and paper. But this, like all good things, lasted only a little while.”
Ibarra took off his hat and seemed to be praying for a time. Then he turned to his companion: “Did you say that my
father helped the poor children? And now?”
“Now they get along as well as possible and write when they can,” answered the youth.
“What is the reason?”
“The reason lies in their torn camisas and their downcast eyes.”
“How many pupils have you now?” asked Ibarra with interest, after a pause.
“More than two hundred on the roll but only about twenty-five in actual attendance.”
“How does that happen?”
The schoolmaster smiled sadly as he answered, “To tell you the reasons would make a long and tiresome story.”
“Don’t attribute my question to idle curiosity,” replied Ibarra gravely, while he stared at the distant horizon. “I’ve
thought better of it and believe that to carry out my father’s ideas will be more fitting than to weep for him, and far better than
to revenge him. Sacred nature has become his grave, and his enemies were the people and a priest. The former I pardon on
account of their ignorance and the latter because I wish that Religion, which elevated society, should be respected. I wish to
be inspired with the spirit of him who gave me life and therefore desire to know about the obstacles encountered here in
educational work.”
“The country will bless your memory, sir,” said the schoolmaster, “if you carry out the beautiful plans of your dead
father! You wish to know the obstacles which the progress of education meets? Well then, under present circumstances,
without substantial aid education will never amount to much; in the very first place because, even when [127]we have the
pupils, lack of suitable means, and other things that attract them more, kill off their interest. It is said that in Germany a
peasant’s son studies for eight years in the town school, but who here would spend half that time when such poor results are
to be obtained? They read, write, and memorize selections, and sometimes whole books, in Spanish, without understanding
a single word.2 What benefit does our country child get from the school?”
“And why have you, who see the evil, not thought of remedying it?”
The schoolmaster shook his head sadly. “A poor teacher struggles not only against prejudices but also against
certain influences. First, it would be necessary to have a suitable place and not to do as I must at present—hold the classes
under the convento by the side of the padre’s carriage. There the children, who like to read aloud, very naturally disturb the
padre, and he often comes down, nervous, especially when he has his attacks, yells at them, and even insults me at times.
You know that no one can either teach or learn under such circumstances, for the child will not respect his teacher when he
sees him abused without standing up for his rights. In order to be heeded and to maintain his authority the teacher needs
prestige, reputation, moral strength, and some freedom of action.
[128]“Now let me recount to you even sadder details. I have wished to introduce reforms and have been laughed at.
In order to remedy the evil of which I just spoke to you, I tried to teach Spanish to the children because, in addition to the fact
that the government so orders, I thought also that it would be of advantage for everybody. I used the simplest method of words
and phrases without paying any attention to long rules, expecting to teach them grammar when they should understand the
language. At the end of a few weeks some of the brightest were almost able to understand me and could use a few phrases.”
The schoolmaster paused and seemed to hesitate, then, as if making a resolution, he went on: “I must not be
ashamed of the story of my wrongs, for any one in my place would have acted the same as I did. As I said, it was a good
beginning, but a few days afterwards Padre Damaso, who was the curate then, sent for me by the senior sacristan. Knowing
his disposition and fearing to make him wait, I went upstairs at once, saluted him, and wished him good-morning in Spanish.
His only greeting had been to put out his hand for me to kiss, but at this he drew it back and without answering me began to
laugh loud and mockingly. I was very much embarrassed, as the senior sacristan was present. At the moment I didn’t know
just what to say, for the curate continued his laughter and I stood staring at him. Then I began to get impatient and saw that I
was about to do something indiscreet, since to be a good Christian and to preserve one’s dignity are not incompatible. I was
going to put a question to him when suddenly, passing from ridicule to insult, he said sarcastically, ‘So it’s buenos dins, eh?
Buenos dias! How nice that you know how to talk Spanish!’ Then again he broke out into laughter.”
Ibarra was unable to repress a smile.
“You smile,” continued the schoolmaster, following Ibarra’s example, “but I must confess that at the time I had very
little desire to laugh. I was still standing—I [129]felt the blood rush to my head and lightning seemed to flash through my brain.
The curate I saw far, far away. I advanced to reply to him without knowing just what I was going to say, but the senior sacristan
put himself between us. Padre Damaso arose and said to me in Tagalog: ‘Don’t try to shine in borrowed finery. Be content to
talk your own dialect and don’t spoil Spanish, which isn’t meant for you. Do you know the teacher Ciruela?3 Well, Ciruela was
a teacher who didn’t know how to read, and he had a school.’ I wanted to detain him, but he went into his bedroom and
slammed the door.
“What was I to do with only my meager salary, to collect which I have to get the curate’s approval and make a trip
to the capital of the province, what could I do against him, the foremost religious and political power in the town, backed up by
his Order, feared by the government, rich, powerful, sought after and listened to, always believed and heeded by everybody?
Although he insulted me, I had to remain silent, for if I replied he would have had me removed from my position, by which I
should lose all hope in my chosen profession. Nor would the cause of education gain anything, but the opposite, for everybody
would take the curate’s side, they would curse me and call me presumptuous, proud, vain, a bad Christian, uncultured, and if
not those things, then anti-Spanish and a filibuster. Of a schoolmaster neither learning nor zeal is expected; resignation,
humility, and inaction only are asked. May God pardon me if I have gone against my conscience and my judgement, but I was
born in this country, I have to live, I have a mother, so I have abandoned myself to my fate like a corpse tossed about by the
waves.”
“Did this difficulty discourage you for all time? Have you lived so since?”
“Would that it had been a warning to me! If only [130]my troubles had been limited to that! It is true that from that
time I began to dislike my profession and thought of seeking some other occupation, as my predecessor had done, because
any work that is done in disgust and shame is a kind of martyrdom and because every day the school recalled the insult to my
mind, causing me hours of great bitterness. But what was I to do? I could not undeceive my mother, I had to say to her that
her three years of sacrifice to give me this profession now constituted my happiness. It is necessary to make her believe that
this profession is most honorable, the work delightful, the way strewn with flowers, that the performance of my duties brings
me only friendship, that the people respect me and show me every consideration. By doing otherwise, without ceasing to be
unhappy myself, I should have caused more sorrow, which besides being useless would also be a sin. I stayed on, therefore,
and tried not to feel discouraged. I tried to struggle on.”
Here he paused for a while, then resumed: “From the day on which I was so grossly insulted I began to examine
myself and I found that I was in fact very ignorant. I applied myself day and night to the study of Spanish and whatever
concerned my profession. The old Sage lent me some books, and I read and pondered over everything that I could get hold
of. With the new ideas that I have been acquiring in one place and another my point of view has changed and I have seen
many things under a different aspect from what they had appeared to me before. I saw error where before I had seen only
truth, and truth in many things where I had formerly seen only error. Corporal punishment, for example, which from time
immemorial has been the distinctive feature in the schools and which has heretofore been considered as the only efficacious
means of making pupils learn—so we have been accustomed to believe—soon appeared to me to be a great hindrance rather
than in any way an aid to the child’s progress. I became convinced that it was impossible to use one’s mind [131]properly
when blows, or similar punishment, were in prospect. Fear and terror disturb the most serene, and a child’s imagination,
besides being very lively, is also very impressionable. As it is on the brain that ideas are impressed, it is necessary that there
be both inner and outer calm, that there be serenity of spirit, physical and moral repose, and willingness, so I thought that
before everything else I should cultivate in the children confidence, assurance, and some personal pride. Moreover, I
comprehended that the daily sight of floggings destroyed kindness in their hearts and deadened all sense of dignity, which is
such a powerful lever in the world. At the same time it caused them to lose their sense of shame, which is a difficult thing to
restore. I have also observed that when one pupil is flogged, he gets comfort from the fact that the others are treated in the
same way, and that he smiles with satisfaction upon hearing the wails of the others. As for the person who does the flogging,
while at first he may do it with repugnance, he soon becomes hardened to it and even takes delight in his gloomy task. The
past filled me with horror, so I wanted to save the present by modifying the old system. I endeavored to make study a thing of
love and joy, I wished to make the primer not a black book bathed in the tears of childhood but a friend who was going to
reveal wonderful secrets, and of the schoolroom not a place of sorrows but a scene of intellectual refreshment. So, little by
little, I abolished corporal punishment, taking the instruments of it entirely away from the school and replacing them with
emulation and personal pride. If one was careless about his lesson, I charged it to lack of desire and never to lack of capacity.
I made them think that they were more capable than they really were, which urged them on to study just as any confidence
leads to notable achievements. At first it seemed that the change of method was impracticable; many ceased their studies,
but I persisted and observed that little by little their minds were being elevated and that more children came, that
they [132]came with more regularity, and that he who was praised in the presence of the others studied with double diligence
on the next day.
“It soon became known throughout the town that I did not whip the children. The curate sent for me, and fearing
another scene I greeted him curtly in Tagalog. On this occasion he was very serious with me. He said that I was exposing the
children to destruction, that I was wasting time, that I was not fulfilling my duties, that the father who spared the rod was
spoiling the child—according to the Holy Ghost—that learning enters with blood, and so on. He quoted to me sayings of
barbarous times just as if it were enough that a thing had been said by the ancients to make it indisputable; according to which
we ought to believe that there really existed those monsters which in past ages were imaged and sculptured in the palaces
and temples. Finally, he charged me to be more careful and to return to the old system, otherwise he would make unfavorable
report about me to the alcalde of the province. Nor was this the end of my troubles. A few days afterward some of the parents
of the children presented themselves under the convento and I had to call to my aid all my patience and resignation. They
began by reminding me of former times when teachers had character and taught as their grandfathers had. ‘Those indeed
were the times of the wise men,’ they declared, ‘they whipped, and straightened the bent tree. They were not boys but old
men of experience, gray-haired and severe. Don Catalino, king of them all and founder of this very school, used to administer
no less than twenty-five blows and as a result his pupils became wise men and priests. Ah, the old people were worth more
than we ourselves, yes, sir, more than we ourselves!’ Some did not content themselves with such indirect rudeness, but told
me plainly that if I continued my system their children would learn nothing and that they would be obliged to take them from
the school It was useless to argue with them, for as a [133]young man they thought me incapable of sound judgment. What
would I not have given for some gray hairs! They cited the authority of the curate, of this one and that one, and even called
attention to themselves, saying that if it had not been for the whippings they had received from their teachers they would never
have learned anything. Only a few persons showed any sympathy to sweeten for me the bitterness of such a disillusioning.
“In view of all this I had to give up my system, which, after so much toil, was just beginning to produce results. In
desperation I carried the whips bank to the school the next day and began the barbarous practice again. Serenity disappeared
and sadness reigned in the faces of the children, who had just begun to care for me, and who were my only kindred and
friends. Although I tried to spare the whippings and to administer them with all the moderation possible, yet the children felt
the change keenly, they became discouraged and wept bitterly. It touched my heart, and even though in my own mind I was
vexed with the stupid parents, still I was unable to take any spite out on those innocent victims of their parents’ prejudices.
Their tears burned me, my heart seemed bursting from my breast, and that day I left the school before closing-time to go home
and weep alone. Perhaps my sensitiveness may seem strange to you, but if you had been in my place you would understand
it. Old Don Anastasio said to me, ‘So the parents want floggings? Why not inflict them on themselves?’ As a result of it all I
became sick.” Ibarra was listening thoughtfully.
“Scarcely had I recovered when I returned to the school to find the number of my pupils reduced to a fifth. The better
ones had run away upon the return to the old system, and of those who remained—mostly those who came to school to
escape work at home—not one showed any joy, not one congratulated me on my recovery. It would have been the same to
them whether I got well or not, or they might have preferred that I continue sick since my [134]substitute, although he whipped
them more, rarely went to the school. My other pupils, those whose parents had obliged them to attend school, had gone to
other places. Their parents blamed me for having spoiled them and heaped reproaches on me for it. One, however, the son
of a country woman who visited me during my illness, had not returned on account of having been made a sacristan, and the
senior sacristan says that the sacristans must not attend school: they would be dismissed.”
“Were you resigned in looking after your new pupils?” asked Ibarra.
“What else could I do?” was the queried reply. “Nevertheless, during my illness many things had happened, among
them a change of curates, so I took new hope and made another attempt to the end that the children should not lose all their
time and should, in so far as possible, get some benefit from the floggings, that such things might at least have some good
result for them. I pondered over the matter, as I wished that even if they could not love me, by getting something useful from
me, they might remember me with less bitterness. You know that in nearly all the schools the books are in Spanish, with the
exception of the catechism in Tagalog, which varies according to the religious order to which the curate belongs. These books
are generally novenas, canticles, and the Catechism of Padre Astete,4 from which they learn about as much piety as they
would from the books of heretics. Seeing the impossibility of teaching the pupils in Spanish or of translating so many books, I
tried to substitute short passages from useful works in Tagalog, such as the Treatise on Manners by Hortensio y Feliza, some
manuals of Agriculture, and so forth. Sometimes I would myself translate simple works, such as Padre Barranera’s [135]History
of the Philippines, which I then dictated to the children, with at times a few observations of my own, so that they might make
note-books. As I had no maps for teaching geography, I copied one of the province that I saw at the capital and with this and
the tiles of the floor I gave them some idea of the country. This time it was the women who got excited. The men contented
themselves with smiling, as they saw in it only one of my vagaries. The new curate sent for me, and while he did not reprimand
me, yet he said that I should first take care of religion, that before learning such things the children must pass an examination
to show that they had memorized the mysteries, the canticles, and the catechism of Christian Doctrine.
“So then, I am now working to the end that the children become changed into parrots and know by heart so many
things of which they do not understand a single word. Many of them now know the mysteries and the canticles, but I fear that
my efforts will come to grief with the Catechism of Padre Astete, since the greater part of the pupils do not distinguish between
the questions and the answers, nor do they understand what either may mean. Thus we shall die, thus those unborn will do,
while in Europe they will talk of progress.”
“Let’s not be so pessimistic,” said Ibarra. “The teniente-mayor has sent me an invitation to attend a meeting in the
town hall. Who knows but that there you may find an answer to your questions?”
The schoolmaster shook his head in doubt as he answered: “You’ll see how the plan of which they talked to me
meets the same fate as mine has. But yet, let us see!”[136]

1The common crowd is a fool and since it pays for it, it is proper to talk to it foolishly to please it.
2“The schools are under the inspection of the parish priests. Reading and writing in Spanish are taught, or at least it is so ordered; but the
schoolmaster himself usually does not know it, and on the other hand the Spanish government employees do not understand the vernacular. Besides, the
curates, in order to preserve their influence intact, do not look favorably upon the spread of Castilian. About the only ones who know Spanish are the Indians
who have been in the service of Europeans. The first reading exercise is some devotional book, then the catechism; the reader is called Casaysayan. On the
average half of the children between seven and ten years attend school; they learn to read fairly well and some to write a little, but they soon forget it.”—
Jagor, Viajes por Filipinas (Vidal’s Spanish version). Jagor was speaking particularly of the settled parts of the Bicol region. Referring to the islands generally,
his “half of the children” would be a great exaggeration.—TR.
3A delicate bit of sarcasm is lost in the translation here. The reference to Maestro Ciruela in Spanish is somewhat similar to a mention in English
of Mr. Squeers, of Dotheboys Hall fame.—TR.
4By one of the provisions of a royal decree of December 20, 1863, the Catecismo de la Doctrina Cristina, by Gaspar Astete, was prescribed as
the text-book for primary schools, in the Philippines. See Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands, Vol. XLVI, p. 98; Census of the Philippine
Islands (Washington, 1905), p. 584.—TR.
 Chapter XX
The Meeting in the Town Hall

The hall was about twelve to fifteen meters long by eight to ten wide. Its whitewashed walls were covered with
drawings in charcoal, more or less ugly and obscene, with inscriptions to complete their meanings. Stacked neatly against the
wall in one corner were to be seen about a dozen old flint-locks among rusty swords and talibons, the armament of the
cuadrilleros.1 At one end of the hall there hung, half hidden by soiled red curtains, a picture of his Majesty, the King of Spain.
Underneath this picture, upon a wooden platform, an old chair spread out its broken arms. In front of the chair was a wooden
table spotted with ink stains and whittled and carved with inscriptions and initials like the tables in the German taverns
frequented by students. Benches and broken chairs completed the furniture.
This is the hall of council, of judgment, and of torture, wherein are now gathered the officials of the town and its
dependent villages. The faction of old men does not mix with that of the youths, for they are mutually hostile. They represent
respectively the conservative and the liberal [137]parties, save that their disputes assume in the towns an extreme character.
“The conduct of the gobernadorcillo fills me with distrust,” Don Filipo, the teniente-mayor and leader of the liberal
faction, was saying to his friends. “It was a deep-laid scheme, this thing of putting off the discussion of expenses until the
eleventh hour. Remember that we have scarcely eleven days left.”
“And he has staved at the convento to hold a conference with the curate, who is sick,” observed one of the youths.
“It doesn’t matter,” remarked another. “We have everything prepared. Just so the plan of the old men doesn’t receive
a majority—”
“I don’t believe it will,” interrupted Don Filipo, “as I shall present the plan of the old men myself!”
“What! What are you saying?” asked his surprised hearers.
“I said that if I speak first I shall present the plan of our rivals.”
“But what about our plan?”
“I shall leave it to you to present ours,” answered Don Filipo with a smile, turning toward a youthful cabeza de
barangay.2 “You will propose it after I have been defeated.”
“We don’t understand you, sir,” said his hearers, staring at him with doubtful looks.
“Listen,” continued the liberal leader in a low voice to several near him. “This morning I met old Tasio and the old
man said to me: ‘Your rivals hate you more than they do your ideas. Do you wish that a thing shall [138]not be done? Then
propose it yourself, and though it were more useful than a miter, it would be rejected. Once they have defeated you, have the
least forward person in the whole gathering propose what you want, and your rivals, in order to humiliate you, will accept it.’
But keep quiet about it.”
“But—”
“So I will propose the plan of our rivals and exaggerate it to the point of making it ridiculous. Ah, here come Señor
Ibarra and the schoolmaster.”
These two young men saluted each of the groups without joining either. A few moments later the gobernadorcillo,
the very same individual whom we saw yesterday carrying a bundle of candles, entered with a look of disgust on his face.
Upon his entrance the murmurs ceased, every one sat down, and silence was gradually established, as he took his seat under
the picture of the King, coughed four or five times, rubbed his hand over his face and head, rested his elbows on the table,
then withdrew them, coughed once more, and then the whole thing over again.
“Gentlemen,” he at last began in an unsteady voice, “I have been so bold as to call you together here for this
meeting—ahem! Ahem! We have to celebrate the fiesta of our patron saint, San Diego, on the twelfth of this month—ahem!—
today is the second—ahem! Ahem!” At this point a slow, dry cough cut off his speech.
A man of proud bearing, apparently about forty years of age, then arose from the bench of the elders. He was the
rich Capitan Basilio, the direct contrast of Don Rafael, Ibarra’s father. He was a man who maintained that after the death
of St. Thomas Aquinas the world had made no more progress, and that since St. John Lateran had left it, humanity had been
retrograding.
“Gentlemen, allow me to speak a few words about such an interesting matter,” he began. “I speak first even though
there are others here present who have more right to do so than I have, but I speak first because in these [139]matters it
seems to me that by speaking first one does not take the first place—no more than that by speaking last does one become
the least. Besides, the things that I have to say are of such importance that they should not be put off or last spoken of, and
accordingly I wish to speak first in order to give them due weight. So you will allow me to speak first in this meeting where I
see so many notable persons, such as the present señor capitan, the former capitan; my distinguished friend, Don Valentin,
a former capitan; the friend of my infancy, Don Julio; our celebrated captain of cuadrilleros, Don Melchor; and many other
personages, whom, for the sake of brevity, I must omit to enumerate—all of whom you see present here. I beg of you that I
may be allowed a few words before any one else speaks. Have I the good fortune to see my humble request granted by the
meeting?”
Here the orator with a faint smile inclined his head respectfully. “Go on, you have our undivided attention!” said the
notables alluded to and some others who considered Capitan Basilio a great orator. The elders coughed in a satisfied way
and rubbed their hands. After wiping the perspiration from his brow with a silk handkerchief, he then proceeded:
 “Now that you have been so kind and complaisant with my humble self as to grant me the use of a few words before
any one else of those here present, I shall take advantage of this permission, so generously granted, and shall talk. In
imagination I fancy myself in the midst of the august Roman senate, senatus populusque romanus, as was said in those happy
days which, unfortunately for humanity, will nevermore return. I propose to the Patres Conscripti, as the learned Cicero would
say if he were in my place, I propose, in view of the short time left, and time is money as Solomon said, that concerning this
important matter each one set forth his opinion clearly, briefly, and simply.”
Satisfied with himself and flattered by the attention in [140]the hall, the orator took his seat, not without first casting
a glance of superiority toward Ibarra, who was seated in a corner, and a significant look at his friends as if to say, “Aha! Haven’t
I spoken well?” His friends reflected both of these expressions by staring at the youths as though to make them die of envy.
“Now any one may speak who wishes that—ahem!” began the gobernadorcillo, but a repetition of the cough and
sighs cut short the phrase.
To judge from the silence, no one wished to consider himself called upon as one of the Conscript Fathers, since no
one rose. Then Don Filipo seized the opportunity and rose to speak. The conservatives winked and made significant signs to
each other.
“I rise, gentlemen, to present my estimate of expenses for the fiesta,” he began. “We can’t allow it,” commented a
consumptive old man, who was an irreconcilable conservative.
“We’ll vote against it,” corroborated others. “Gentlemen!” exclaimed Don Filipo, repressing a smile, “I haven’t yet
made known the plan which we, the younger men, bring here. We feel sure that this great plan will be preferred by all over
any other that our opponents think of or are capable of conceiving.”
This presumptuous exordium so thoroughly irritated the minds of the conservatives that they swore in their hearts
to offer determined opposition.
“We have estimated three thousand five hundred pesos for the expenses,” went on Don Filipo. “Now then, with such
a sum we shall be able to celebrate a fiesta that will eclipse in magnificence any that has been seen up to this time in our own
or neighboring provinces.”
“Ahem!” coughed some doubters. “The town of A——— has five thousand, B——— has four thousand, ahem!
Humbug!”
“Listen to me, gentlemen, and I’ll convince you,” continued the unterrified speaker. “I propose that we erect [141]a
theater in the middle of the plaza, to cost one hundred and fifty pesos.”
“That won’t be enough! It’ll take one hundred and sixty,” objected a confirmed conservative.
“Write it down, Señor Director, two hundred pesos for the theater,” said Don Filipo. “I further propose that we contract
with a troupe of comedians from Tondo for seven performances on seven successive nights. Seven performances at two
hundred pesos a night make fourteen hundred pesos. Write down fourteen hundred pesos, Señor Director!”
Both the elders and the youths stared in amazement. Only those in the secret gave no sign.
“I propose besides that we have magnificent fireworks; no little lights and pin-wheels such as please children and
old maids, nothing of the sort. We want big bombs and immense rockets. I propose two hundred big bombs at two pesos each
and two hundred rockets at the same price. We’ll have them made by the pyrotechnists of Malabon.”
“Huh!” grunted an old man, “a two-peso bomb doesn’t frighten or deafen me! They ought to be three-peso ones.”
“Write down one thousand pesos for two hundred bombs and two hundred rockets.”
The conservatives could no longer restrain themselves. Some of them rose and began to whisper together.
“Moreover, in order that our visitors may see that we are a liberal people and have plenty of money,” continued the speaker,
raising his voice and casting a rapid glance at the whispering group of elders, “I propose: first, four hermanos mayores3 for
the two days of the fiesta; and second, that each day there be thrown into the lake two hundred fried chickens, one hundred
stuffed capons, and [142]forty roast pigs, as did Sylla, a contemporary of that Cicero, of whom Capitan Basilio just spoke.”
“That’s it, like Sylla,” repeated the flattered Capitan Basilio.
The surprise steadily increased.
“Since many rich people will attend and each one will bring thousands of pesos, his best game-cocks, and his
playing-cards, I propose that the cockpit run for fifteen days and that license be granted to open all gambling houses—”
The youths interrupted him by rising, thinking that he had gone crazy. The elders were arguing heatedly.
“And, finally, that we may not neglect the pleasures of the soul—”
The murmurs and cries which arose all over the hall drowned his voice out completely, and tumult reigned.
“No!” yelled an irreconcilable conservative. “I don’t want him to flatter himself over having run the whole fiesta, no!
Let me speak! Let me speak!”
“Don Filipo has deceived us,” cried the liberals. “We’ll vote against his plan. He has gone over to the old men. We’ll
vote against him!”
The gobernadorcillo, more overwhelmed than ever, did nothing to restore order, but rather was waiting for them to
restore it themselves.
The captain of the cuadrilleros begged to be heard and was granted permission to speak, but he did not open his
mouth and sat down again confused and ashamed.
By good fortune, Capitan Valentin, the most moderate of all the conservatives, arose and said: “We cannot agree
to what the teniente-mayor has proposed, as it appears to be exaggerated. So many bombs and so many nights of theatrical
performances can only be desired by a young man, such as he is, who can spend night after night sitting up and listening to
so many explosions without becoming deaf. I have consulted the opinion of the sensible persons here and all of them
unanimously disapprove Don Filipo’s plan. Is it not so, gentlemen?”
[143]“Yes, yes!” cried the youths and elders with one voice. The youths were delighted to hear an old man speak
so.
“What are we going to do with four hermanos mayores?” went on the old man. “What is the meaning of those
chickens, capons, and roast pigs, thrown into the lake? ‘Humbug!’ our neighbors would say. And afterwards we should have
to fast for six months! What have we to do with Sylla and the Romans? Have they ever invited us to any of their festivities, I
wonder? I, at least, have never received any invitation from them, and you can all see that I’m an old man!”
“The Romans live in Rome, where the Pope is,” Capitan Basilio prompted him in a low voice. “Now I understand!”
exclaimed the old man calmly.
“They would make of their festivals watch-meetings, and the Pope would order them to throw their food into the sea
so that they might commit no sin. But, in spite of all that, your plan is inadmissible, impossible, a piece of foolishness!”
Being so stoutly opposed, Don Filipo had to withdraw his proposal. Now that their chief rival had been defeated,
even the worst of the irreconcilable insurgents looked on with calmness while a young cabeza de barangay asked for the floor.
“I beg that you excuse the boldness of one so young as I am in daring to speak before so many persons respected
for their age and prudence and judgment in affairs, but since the eloquent orator, Capitan Basilio, has requested every one to
express his opinion, let the authoritative words spoken by him excuse my insignificance.”
The conservatives nodded their heads with satisfaction, remarking to one another: “This young man talks sensibly.”
“He’s modest.” “He reasons admirably.”
“What a pity that he doesn’t know very well how to gesticulate,” observed Capitan Basilio. “But there’s [144]time yet!
He hasn’t studied Cicero and he’s still a young man!”
“If I present to you, gentlemen, any program or plan,” the young man continued, “I don’t do so with the thought that
you will find it perfect or that you will accept it, but at the same time that I once more bow to the judgment of all of you, I wish
to prove to our elders that our thoughts are always like theirs, since we take as our own those ideas so eloquently expressed
by Capitan Basilio.”
“Well spoken! Well spoken!” cried the flattered conservatives. Capitan Basilio made signs to the speaker showing
him how he should stand and how he ought to move his arm. The only one remaining impassive was the gobernadorcillo, who
was either bewildered or preoccupied; as a matter of fact, he seemed to be both. The young man went on with more warmth:
“My plan, gentlemen, reduces itself to this: invent new shows that are not common and ordinary, such as we see
every day, and endeavor that the money collected may not leave the town, and that it be not wasted in smoke, but that it be
used in some manner beneficial to all.”
“That’s right!” assented the youths. “That’s what we want.”
“Excellent!” added the elders.
“What should we get from a week of comedies, as the teniente-mayor proposes? What can we learn from the kings
of Bohemia and Granada, who commanded that their daughters’ heads be cut off, or that they should be blown from a cannon,
which later is converted into a throne? We are not kings, neither are we barbarians; we have no cannon, and if we should
imitate those people, they would hang us on Bagumbayan. What are those princesses who mingle in the battles, scattering
thrusts and blows about in combat with princes, or who wander alone over mountains and through valleys as though seduced
by the tikbálang? Our nature is to love sweetness and tenderness in woman, and we would shudder at the thought
of [145]taking the blood-stained hand of a maiden, even when the blood was that of a Moro or a giant, so abhorred by us. We
consider vile the man who raises his hand against a woman, be he prince or alferez or rude countryman. Would it not be a
thousand times better to give a representation of our own customs in order to correct our defects and vices and to encourage
our better qualities?”
“That’s right! That’s right!” exclaimed some of his faction.
“He’s right,” muttered several old men thoughtfully.
“I should never have thought of that,” murmured Capitan Basilio.
“But how are you going to do it?” asked the irreconcilable.
“Very easily,” answered the youth. “I have brought here two dramas which I feel sure the good taste and recognized
judgment of the respected elders here assembled will find very agreeable and entertaining. One is entitled ‘The Election of
the Gobernadorcillo,’ being a comedy in prose in five acts, written by one who is here present. The other is in nine acts for two
nights and is a fantastical drama of a satirical nature, entitled ‘Mariang Makiling,’4 written by one of the best poets of the
province. Seeing that the discussion of preparations for the fiesta has been postponed and fearing that there would not be
time enough left, we have secretly secured the actors and had them learn their parts. We hope that with a week of rehearsal
they will have plenty of time to know their parts thoroughly. This, gentlemen, besides being new, useful, and reasonable, has
the great advantage of being economical; we shall not need costumes, as those of our daily life will be suitable.”
[146]“I’ll pay for the theater!” shouted Capitan Basilio enthusiastically.
“If you need cuadrilleros, I’ll lend you mine,” cried their captain.
“And I—and I—if art old man is needed—” stammered another one, swelling with pride.
“Accepted! Accepted!” cried many voices.
 Don Filipo became pale with emotion and his eyes filled with tears.
“He’s crying from spite,” thought the irreconcilable, so he yelled, “Accepted! Accepted without discussion!” Thus
satisfied with revenge and the complete defeat of his rival, this fellow began to praise the young man’s plan.
The latter continued his speech: “A fifth of the money collected may be used to distribute a few prizes, such as to
the best school child, the best herdsman, farmer, fisherman, and so on. We can arrange for boat races on the river and lake
and for horse races on shore, we can raise greased poles and also have other games in which our country people can take
part. I concede that on account of our long-established customs we must have some fireworks; wheels and fire castles are
very beautiful and entertaining, but I don’t believe it necessary to have bombs, as the former speaker proposed. Two bands
of music will afford sufficient merriment and thus we shall avoid those rivalries and quarrels between the poor musicians who
come to gladden our fiesta with their work and who so often behave like fighting-cocks, afterwards going away poorly paid,
underfed, and even bruised and wounded at times. With the money left over we can begin the erection of a small building for
a schoolhouse, since we can’t wait until God Himself comes down and builds one for us, and it is a sad state of affairs that
while we have a fine cockpit our children study almost in the curate’s stable. Such are the outlines of my plan; the details can
be worked out by all.”
A murmur of pleasure ran through the hall, as nearly every one agreed with the youth.
[147]Some few muttered, “Innovations! Innovations! When we were young—”
“Let’s adopt it for the time being and humiliate that fellow,” said others, indicating Don Filipo.
When silence was restored all were agreed. There was lacking only the approval of the gobernadorcillo. That worthy
official was perspiring and fidgeting about. He rubbed his hand over his forehead and was at length able to stammer out in a
weak voice: “I also agree, but—ahem!”
Every one in the hall listened in silence.
“But what?” asked Capitan Basilio.
“Very agreeable,” repeated the gobernadorcillo, “that is to say—I don’t agree—I mean—yes, but—” Here he rubbed
his eyes with the back of his hand. “But the curate,” the poor fellow went on, “the curate wants something else.”
“Does the curate or do we ourselves pay for this fiesta? Has he given a cuarto for it?” exclaimed a penetrating voice.
All looked toward the place whence these questions came and saw there the Sage Tasio.
Don Filipo remained motionless with his eyes fixed on the gobernadorcillo.
“What does the curate want?” asked Capitan Basilio.
“Well, the padre wants six processions, three sermons, three high masses, and if there is any money left, a comedy
from Tondo with songs in the intermissions.”
“But we don’t want that,” said the youths and some of the old men.
“The curate wants it,” repeated the gobernadorcillo. “I’ve promised him that his wish shall be carried out.”
“Then why did you have us assemble here?”
“F-for the very purpose of telling you this!”
“Why didn’t you tell us so at the start?”
“I wanted to tell you, gentlemen, but Capitan Basilio spoke and I haven’t had a chance. The curate must be obeyed.”
[148]“He must be obeyed,” echoed several old men.
“He must be obeyed or else the alcalde will put us all in jail,” added several other old men sadly.
“Well then, obey him, and run the fiesta yourselves,” exclaimed the youths, rising. “We withdraw our contributions.”
“Everything has already been collected,” said the gobernadorcillo.
Don Filipo approached this official and said to him bitterly, “I sacrificed my pride in favor of a good cause; you are
sacrificing your dignity as a man in favor of a bad one, and you’ve spoiled everything.”
Ibarra turned to the schoolmaster and asked him, “Is there anything that I can do for you at the capital of the
province? I leave for there immediately.”
“Have you some business there?”
“We have business there!” answered Ibarra mysteriously.
On the way home, when Don Filipo was cursing his bad luck, old Tasio said to him: “The blame is ours! You didn’t
protest when they gave you a slave for a chief, and I, fool that I am, had forgotten it!”[149]

1The municipal police of the old régime. They were thus described by a Spanish writer, W. E. Retana, in a note to Ventura F. Lopez’s El
Filibustero (Madrid, 1893): “Municipal guards, whose duties are principally rural. Their uniform is a disaster; they go barefoot; on horseback, they hold the
reins in the right hand and a lance in the left. They are usually good-for-nothing, but to their credit it must be said that they do no damage. Lacking military
instruction, provided with fire-arms of the first part of the century, of which one in a hundred might go off in case of need, and for other arms bolos, talibons,
old swords, etc., the cuadrilleros are truly a parody on armed force.”—TR.
2Headman and tax-collector of a district, generally including about fifty families, for whose annual tribute he was personally responsible. The
“barangay” is a Malay boat of the kind supposed to have been used by the first emigrants to the Philippines. Hence, at first, the “head of a barangay” meant
the leader or chief of a family or group of families. This office, quite analogous to the old Germanic or Anglo-Saxon “head of a hundred,” was adopted and
perpetuated by the Spaniards in their system of local administration.—TR.
3The hermano mayor was a person appointed to direct the ceremonies during the fiesta, an appointment carrying with it great honor and
importance, but also entailing considerable expense, as the appointee was supposed to furnish a large share of the entertainments. Hence, the greater the
number of hermanos mayores the more splendid the fiesta,—TR.
 4Mt. Makiling is a volcanic cone at the southern end of the Lake of Bay. At its base is situated the town of Kalamba, the author’s birthplace. About
this mountain cluster a number of native legends having as their principal character a celebrated sorceress or enchantress, known as “Mariang Makiling.”—
TR.

Chapter XXI
The Story of a Mother

Andaba incierto—volaba errante,

Un solo instante—sin descansar.1
ALAEJOS.
Sisa ran in the direction of her home with her thoughts in that confused whirl which is produced in our being when,
in the midst of misfortunes, protection and hope alike are gone. It is then that everything seems to grow dark around us, and,
if we do see some faint light shining from afar, we run toward it, we follow it, even though an abyss yawns in our path. The
mother wanted to save her sons, and mothers do not ask about means when their children are concerned. Precipitately she
ran, pursued by fear and dark forebodings. Had they already arrested her son Basilio? Whither had her boy Crispin fled?
As she approached her little hut she made out above the garden fence the caps of two soldiers. It would be
impossible to tell what her heart felt: she forgot everything. She was not ignorant of the boldness of those men, who did not
lower their gaze before even the richest people of the town. What would they do now to her and to her sons, accused of theft!
The civil-guards are not men, they are civil-guards; they do not listen to supplications and they are accustomed to see tears.
Sisa instinctively raised her eyes toward the sky, that sky which smiled with brilliance indescribable, and in whose
transparent blue floated some little fleecy clouds. She stopped to control the trembling that had seized her whole body. The
soldiers were leaving the house and were alone, [150]as they had arrested nothing more than the hen which Sisa had been
fattening. She breathed more freely and took heart again. “How good they are and what kind hearts they have!” she murmured,
almost weeping with joy. Had the soldiers burned her house but left her sons at liberty she would have heaped blessings upon
them! She again looked gratefully toward the sky through which a flock of herons, those light clouds in the skies of the
Philippines, were cutting their path, and with restored confidence she continued on her way. As she approached those fearful
men she threw her glances in every direction as if unconcerned and pretended not to see her hen, which was cackling for
help. Scarcely had she passed them when she wanted to run, but prudence restrained her steps.
She had not gone far when she heard herself called by an imperious voice. Shuddering, she pretended not to hear,
and continued on her way. They called her again, this time with a yell and an insulting epithet. She turned toward them, pale
and trembling in spite of herself. One of them beckoned to her. Mechanically Sisa approached them, her tongue paralyzed
with fear and her throat parched.
“Tell us the truth or we’ll tie you to that tree and shoot you,” said one of them in a threatening tone.
The woman stared at the tree.
“You’re the mother of the thieves, aren’t you?” asked the other.
“Mother of the thieves!” repeated Sisa mechanically.
“Where’s the money your sons brought you last night?”
“Ah! The money—”
“Don’t deny it or it’ll be the worse for you,” added the other. “We’ve come to arrest your sons, and the older has
escaped from us. Where have you hidden the younger?”
Upon hearing this Sisa breathed more freely and answered, “Sir, it has been many days since I’ve seen Crispin. I
expected to see him this morning at the convento, but there they only told me—”
[151]The two soldiers exchanged significant glances. “All right!” exclaimed one of them. “Give us the money and
we’ll leave you alone.”
“Sir,” begged the unfortunate woman, “my sons wouldn’t steal even though they were starving, for we are used to
that kind of suffering. Basilio didn’t bring me a single cuarto. Search the whole house and if you find even a real, do with us
what you will. Not all of us poor folks are thieves!”
“Well then,” ordered the soldier slowly, as he fixed his gaze on Sisa’s eyes, “come with us. Your sons will show up
and try to get rid of the money they stole. Come on!”
“I—go with you?” murmured the woman, as she stepped backward and gazed fearfully at their uniforms. “And why
not?”
“Oh, have pity on me!” she begged, almost on her knees. “I’m very poor, so I’ve neither gold nor jewels to offer you.
The only thing I had you’ve already taken, and that is the hen which I was thinking of selling. Take everything that you find in
the house, but leave me here in peace, leave me here to die!”
“Go ahead! You’re got to go, and if you don’t move along willingly, we’ll tie you.”
Sisa broke out into bitter weeping, but those men were inflexible. “At least, let me go ahead of you some distance,”
she begged, when she felt them take hold of her brutally and push her along.
 The soldiers seemed to be somewhat affected and, after whispering apart, one of them said: “All right, since from
here until we get into the town, you might be able to escape, you’ll walk between us. Once there you may walk ahead twenty
paces, but take care that you don’t delay and that you don’t go into any shop, and don’t stop. Go ahead, quickly!”
Vain were her supplications and arguments, useless her promises. The soldiers said that they had already
compromised [152]themselves by having conceded too much. Upon finding herself between them she felt as if she would die
of shame. No one indeed was coming along the road, but how about the air and the light of day? True shame encounters eyes
everywhere. She covered her face with her pañuelo and walked along blindly, weeping in silence at her disgrace. She had felt
misery and knew what it was to be abandoned by every one, even her own husband, but until now she had considered herself
honored and respected: up to this time she had looked with compassion on those boldly dressed women whom the town knew
as the concubines of the soldiers. Now it seemed to her that she had fallen even a step lower than they in the social scale.
The sound of hoofs was heard, proceeding from a small train of men and women mounted on poor nags, each
between two baskets hung over the back of his mount; it was a party carrying fish to the interior towns. Some of them on
passing her hut had often asked for a drink of water and had presented her with some fishes. Now as they passed her they
seemed to beat and trample upon her while their compassionate or disdainful looks penetrated through her pañuelo and stung
her face. When these travelers had finally passed she sighed and raised the pañuelo an instant to see how far she still was
from the town. There yet remained a few telegraph poles to be passed before reaching the bantayan, or little watch-house, at
the entrance to the town. Never had that distance seemed so great to her.
Beside the road there grew a leafy bamboo thicket in whose shade she had rested at other times, and where her
lover had talked so sweetly as he helped her carry her basket of fruit and vegetables. Alas, all that was past, like a dream!
The lover had become her husband and a cabeza de barangay, and then trouble had commenced to knock at her door. As
the sun was beginning to shine hotly, the soldiers asked her if she did not want to [153]rest there. “Thanks, no!” was the
horrified woman’s answer.
Real terror seized her when they neared the town. She threw her anguished gaze in all directions, but no refuge
offered itself, only wide rice-fields, a small irrigating ditch, and some stunted trees; there was not a cliff or even a rock upon
which she might dash herself to pieces! Now she regretted that she had come so far with the soldiers; she longed for the deep
river that flowed by her hut, whose high and rock-strewn banks would have offered such a sweet death. But again the thought
of her sons, especially of Crispin, of whose fate she was still ignorant, lightened the darkness of her night, and she was able
to murmur resignedly, “Afterwards—afterwards—we’ll go and live in the depths of the forest.”
Drying her eyes and trying to look calm, she turned to her guards and said in a low voice, with an indefinable accent
that was a complaint and a lament, a prayer and a reproach, sorrow condensed into sound, “Now we’re in the town.” Even the
soldiers seemed touched as they answered her with a gesture. She struggled to affect a calm bearing while she went forward
quickly.
At that moment the church bells began to peal out, announcing the end of the high mass. Sisa hurried her steps so
as to avoid, if possible, meeting the people who were coming out, but in vain, for no means offered to escape encountering
them. With a bitter smile she saluted two of her acquaintances, who merely turned inquiring glances upon her, so that to avoid
further mortification she fixed her gaze on the ground, and yet, strange to say, she stumbled over the stones in the road! Upon
seeing her, people paused for a moment and conversed among themselves as they gazed at her, all of which she saw and
felt in spite of her downcast eyes.
She heard the shameless tones of a woman who asked from behind at the top of her voice, “Where did you catch
her? And the money?” It was a woman without [154]a tapis, or tunic, dressed in a green and yellow skirt and a camisa of blue
gauze, easily recognizable from her costume as a querida of the soldiery. Sisa felt as if she had received a slap in the face,
for that woman had exposed her before the crowd. She raised her eyes for a moment to get her fill of scorn and hate, but saw
the people far, far away. Yet she felt the chill of their stares and heard their whispers as she moved over the ground almost
without knowing that she touched it.
“Eh, this way!” a guard called to her. Like an automaton whose mechanism is breaking, she whirled about rapidly
on her heels, then without seeing or thinking of anything ran to hide herself. She made out a door where a sentinel stood and
tried to enter it, but a still more imperious voice called her aside. With wavering steps she sought the direction of that voice,
then felt herself pushed along by the shoulders; she shut her eyes, took a couple of steps, and lacking further strength, let
herself fall to the ground, first on her knees and then in a sitting posture. Dry and voiceless sobs shook her frame convulsively.
Now she was in the barracks among the soldiers, women, hogs, and chickens. Some of the men were sewing at
their clothes while their thighs furnished pillows for their queridas, who were reclining on benches, smoking and gazing wearily
at the ceiling. Other women were helping some of the men clean their ornaments and arms, humming doubtful songs the
while.
“It seems that the chicks have escaped, for you’ve brought only the old hen!” commented one woman to the new
arrivals,—whether alluding to Sisa or the still clucking hen is not certain.
“Yes, the hen is always worth more than the chicks,” Sisa herself answered when she observed that the soldiers
were silent.
“Where’s the sergeant?” asked one of the guards in a disgusted tone. “Has report been made to the alferez yet?”
[155]A general shrugging of shoulders was his answer, for no one was going to trouble himself inquiring about the
fate of a poor woman.
 There Sisa spent two hours in a state of semi-idiocy, huddled in a corner with her head hidden in her arms and her
hair falling down in disorder. At noon the alferez was informed, and the first thing that he did was to discredit the curate’s
accusation.
“Bah! Tricks of that rascally friar,” he commented, as he ordered that the woman be released and that no one should
pay any attention to the matter. “If he wants to get back what he’s lost, let him ask St. Anthony or complain to the nuncio. Out
with her!”
Consequently, Sisa was ejected from the barracks almost violently, as she did not try to move herself. Finding herself
in the street, she instinctively started to hurry toward her house, with her head bared, her hair disheveled, and her gaze fixed
on the distant horizon. The sun burned in its zenith with never a cloud to shade its flashing disk; the wind shook the leaves of
the trees lightly along the dry road, while no bird dared stir from the shade of their branches.
At last Sisa reached her hut and entered it in silence, She walked all about it and ran in and out for a time. Then she
hurried to old Tasio’s house and knocked at the door, but he was not at home. The unhappy woman then returned to her hut
and began to call loudly for Basilio and Crispin, stopping every few minutes to listen attentively. Her voice came back in an
echo, for the soft murmur of the water in the neighboring river and the rustling of the bamboo leaves were the only sounds
that broke the stillness. She called again and again as she climbed the low cliffs, or went down into a gully, or descended to
the river. Her eyes rolled about with a sinister expression, now flashing up with brilliant gleams, now becoming obscured like
the sky on a stormy night; it might be said that the light of reason was flickering and about to be extinguished.
[156]Again returning to her hut, she sat down on the mat where she had lain the night before. Raising her eyes, she
saw a twisted remnant from Basilio’s camisa at the end of the bamboo post in the dinding, or wall, that overlooked the precipice.
She seized and examined it in the sunlight. There were blood stains on it, but Sisa hardly saw them, for she went outside and
continued to raise and lower it before her eyes to examine it in the burning sunlight. The light was failing and everything
beginning to grow dark around her. She gazed wide-eyed and unblinkingly straight at the sun.
Still wandering about here and there, crying and wailing, she would have frightened any listener, for her voice now
uttered rare notes such as are not often produced in the human throat. In a night of roaring tempest, when the whirling winds
beat with invisible wings against the crowding shadows that ride upon it, if you should find yourself in a solitary and ruined
building, you would hear moans and sighs which you might suppose to be the soughing of the wind as it beats on the high
towers and moldering walls to fill you with terror and make you shudder in spite of yourself; as mournful as those unknown
sounds of the dark night when the tempest roars were the accents of that mother. In this condition night came upon her.
Perhaps Heaven had granted some hours of sleep while the invisible wing of an angel, brushing over her pallid countenance,
might wipe out the sorrows from her memory; perhaps such suffering was too great for weak human endurance, and
Providence had intervened with its sweet remedy, forgetfulness. However that may be, the next day Sisa wandered about
smiling, singing, and talking with all the creatures of wood and field.[157]

1With uncertain pace, in wandering flight, for an instant only—without rest.

Chapter XXII
Lights and Shadows

Three days have passed since the events narrated, three days which the town of San Diego has devoted to making
preparations for the fiesta, commenting and murmuring at the same time. While all were enjoying the prospect of the pleasures
to come, some spoke ill of the gobernadorcillo, others of the teniente-mayor, others of the young men, and there were not
lacking those who blamed everybody for everything.
There was a great deal of comment on the arrival of Maria Clara, accompanied by her Aunt Isabel. All rejoiced over
it because they loved her and admired her beauty, while at the same time they wondered at the change that had come over
Padre Salvi. “He often becomes inattentive during the holy services, nor does he talk much with us, and he is thinner and
more taciturn than usual,” commented his penitents. The cook noticed him getting thinner and thinner by minutes and
complained of the little honor that was done to his dishes. But that which caused the most comment among the people was
the fact that in the convento were to be seen more than two lights burning during the evening while Padre Salvi was on a visit
to a private dwelling—the home of Maria Clara! The pious women crossed themselves but continued their comments.
Ibarra had telegraphed from the capital of the province welcoming Aunt Isabel and her niece, but had failed to explain
the reason for his absence. Many thought him a prisoner on account of his treatment of Padre Salvi on the afternoon of All
Saints, but the comments reached a climax when, on the evening of the third day, they saw him [158]alight before the home
of his fiancée and extend a polite greeting to the priest, who was just entering the same house.
Sisa and her sons were forgotten by all.
If we should now go into the home of Maria Clara, a beautiful nest set among trees of orange and ilang-ilang, we
should surprise the two young people at a window overlooking the lake, shadowed by flowers and climbing vines which exhaled
a delicate perfume. Their lips murmured words softer than the rustling of the leaves and sweeter than the aromatic odors that
floated through the garden. It was the hour when the sirens of the lake take advantage of the fast falling twilight to show their
merry heads above the waves to gaze upon the setting sun and sing it to rest. It is said that their eyes and hair are blue, and
that they are crowned with white and red water plants; that at times the foam reveals their shapely forms, whiter than the foam
itself, and that when night descends completely they begin their divine sports, playing mysterious airs like those of Æolian
harps. But let us turn to our young people and listen to the end of their conversation. Ibarra was speaking to Maria Clara.
“Tomorrow before daybreak your wish shall be fulfilled. I’ll arrange everything tonight so that nothing will be lacking.”
“Then I’ll write to my girl friends to come. But arrange it so that the curate won’t be there.”
“Why?”
“Because he seems to be watching me. His deep, gloomy eyes trouble me, and when he fixes them on me I’m
afraid. When he talks to me, his voice—oh, he speaks of such odd, such strange, such incomprehensible things! He asked
me once if I have ever dreamed of letters from my mother. I really believe that he is half-crazy. My friend Sinang and my foster-
sister, Andeng, say that he is somewhat touched, because he neither eats nor bathes and lives in darkness. See to it that he
does not come!”
[159]“We can’t do otherwise than invite him,” answered Ibarra thoughtfully. “The customs of the country require it.
He is in your house and, besides, he has conducted himself nobly toward me. When the alcalde consulted him about the
business of which I’ve told you, he had only praises for me and didn’t try to put the least obstacle in the way. But I see that
you’re serious about it, so cease worrying, for he won’t go in the same boat with us.”
Light footsteps were heard. It was the curate, who approached with a forced smile on his lips. “The wind is chilly,”
he said, “and when one catches cold one generally doesn’t get rid of it until the hot weather. Aren’t you afraid of catching
cold?” His voice trembled and his eyes were turned toward the distant horizon, away from the young people.
“No, we rather find the night pleasant and the breeze delicious,” answered Ibarra. “During these months we have
our autumn and our spring. Some leaves fall, but the flowers are always in bloom.”
Fray Salvi sighed.
“I think the union of these two seasons beautiful, with no cold winter intervening,” continued Ibarra. “In February the
buds on the trees will burst open and in March we’ll have the ripe fruit. When the hot month’s come we shall go elsewhere.”
Fray Salvi smiled and began to talk of commonplace things, of the weather, of the town, and of the fiesta. Maria
Clara slipped away on some pretext.
“Since we are talking of fiestas, allow me to invite you to the one that we are going to celebrate tomorrow. It is to be
a picnic in the woods, which we and our friends are going to hold together.”
“Where will it be held?”
“The young women wish to hold it by the brook in the neighboring wood, near to the old balete, so we shall rise early
to avoid the sun.”
The priest thought a moment and then answered: “The [160]invitation is very tempting and I accept it to prove to
you that I hold no rancor against you. But I shall have to go late, after I’ve attended to my duties. Happy are you who are free,
entirely free.”
A few moments later Ibarra left in order to look after the arrangements for the picnic on the next day. The night was
dark and in the street some one approached and saluted him respectfully.
“Who are you?” asked Ibarra.
“Sir, you don’t know my name,” answered the unknown, “but I’ve been waiting for you two days.”
“For what purpose?”
“Because nowhere has any pity been shown me and they say that I’m an outlaw, sir. But I’ve lost my two sons, my
wife is insane, and every one says that I deserve what has happened to me.”
Ibarra looked at the man critically as he asked, “What do you want now?”
“To beg for your pity upon my wife and sons.”
“I can’t stop now,” replied Ibarra. “If you wish to come, you can tell me as we go along what has happened to you.”
The man thanked him, and the two quickly disappeared in the shadows along the dimly lighted street.[161]

Chapter XXIII
Fishing

The stars still glittered in the sapphire arch of heaven and the birds were still sleeping among the branches when a
merry party, lighted by torches of resin, commonly called huepes, made its way through the streets toward the lake. There
were five girls, who walked along rapidly with hands clasped or arms encircling one another’s waists, followed by some old
women and by servants who were carrying gracefully on their heads baskets of food and dishes. Looking upon the laughing
and hopeful countenances of the young women and watching the wind blow about their abundant black hair and the wide
folds of their garments, we might have taken them for goddesses of the night fleeing from the day, did we not know that they
were Maria Clara and her four friends, the merry Sinang, the grave Victoria, the beautiful Iday, and the thoughtful Neneng of
modest and timid beauty. They were conversing in a lively manner, laughing and pinching one another, whispering in one
another’s ears and then breaking out into loud laughter.
 “You’ll wake up the people who are still asleep,” Aunt Isabel scolded. “When we were young, we didn’t make so
much disturbance.”
“Neither would you get up so early nor would the old folks have been such sleepy-heads,” retorted little Sinang.
They were silent for a short time, then tried to talk in low tones, but soon forgot themselves and again filled the street
with their fresh young voices.
“Behave as if you were displeased and don’t talk to him,” Sinang was advising Maria Clara. “Scold him so he won’t
get into bad habits.”
[162]“Don’t be so exacting,” objected Iday.
“Be exacting! Don’t be foolish! He must be made to obey while he’s only engaged, for after he’s your husband he’ll
do as he pleases,” counseled little Sinang.
“What do you know about that, child?” her cousin Victoria corrected her.
“Sst! Keep quiet, for here they come!”
A group of young men, lighting their way with large bamboo torches, now came up, marching gravely along to the
sound of a guitar.
“It sounds like a beggar’s guitar,” laughed Sinang. When the two parties met it was the women who maintained a
serious and formal attitude, just as if they had never known how to laugh, while on the other hand the men talked and laughed,
asking six questions to get half an answer.
“Is the lake calm? Do you think we’ll have good weather?” asked the mothers.
“Don’t be alarmed, ladies, I know how to swim well,” answered a tall, thin, emaciated youth.
“We ought to have heard mass first,” sighed Aunt Isabel, clasping her hands.
“There’s yet time, ma’am. Albino has been a theological student in his day and can say it in the boat,” remarked
another youth, pointing to the tall, thin one who had first spoken. The latter, who had a clownish countenance, threw himself
into an attitude of contrition, caricaturing Padre Salvi. Ibarra, though he maintained his serious demeanor, also joined in the
merriment.
When they arrived at the beach, there involuntarily escaped from the women exclamations of surprise and pleasure
at the sight of two large bankas fastened together and picturesquely adorned with garlands of flowers, leaves, and ruined
cotton of many colors. Little paper lanterns hung from an improvised canopy amid flowers and fruits. Comfortable seats with
rugs and cushions for the women had been provided by Ibarra. Even the paddles and oars [163]were decorated, while in the
more profusely decorated banka were a harp, guitars, accordions, and a trumpet made from a carabao horn. In the other
banka fires burned on the clay kalanes for preparing refreshments of tea, coffee, and salabat.
“In this boat here the women, and in the other there the men,” ordered the mothers upon embarking. “Keep quiet!
Don’t move about so or we’ll be upset.”
“Cross yourself first,” advised Aunt Isabel, setting the example.
“Are we to be here all alone?” asked Sinang with a grimace. “Ourselves alone?” This question was opportunely
answered by a pinch from her mother.
As the boats moved slowly away from the shore, the light of the lanterns was reflected in the calm waters of the
lake, while in the eastern sky the first tints of dawn were just beginning to appear. A deep silence reigned over the party after
the division established by the mothers, for the young people seemed to have given themselves up to meditation.
“Take care,” said Albino, the ex-theological student, in a loud tone to another youth. “Keep your foot tight on the plug
under you.”
“What?”
“It might come out and let the water in. This banka has a lot of holes in it.”
“Oh, we’re going to sink!” cried the frightened women.
“Don’t be alarmed, ladies,” the ex-theological student reassured them to calm their fears. “The banka you are in is
safe. It has only five holes in it and they aren’t large.”
“Five holes! Jesús! Do you want to drown us?” exclaimed the horrified women.
“Not more than five, ladies, and only about so large,” the ex-theological student assured them, indicating the circle
formed with his index finger and thumb. “Press hard on the plugs so that they won’t come out.”
“María Santísima! The water’s coming in,” cried an old woman who felt herself already getting wet.
[164]There now arose a small tumult; some screamed, while others thought of jumping into the water.
“Press hard on the plugs there!” repeated Albino, pointing toward the place where the girls were.
“Where, where? Diós! We don’t know how! For pity’s sake come here, for we don’t know how!” begged the frightened
women.
It was accordingly necessary for five of the young men to get over into the other banka to calm the terrified mothers.
But by some strange chance it seemed that there w, as danger by the side of each of the dalagas; all the old ladies together
did not have a single dangerous hole near them! Still more strange it was that Ibarra had to be seated by the side of Maria
Clara, Albino beside Victoria, and so on. Quiet was restored among the solicitous mothers but not in the circle of the young
people.
As the water was perfectly still, the fish-corrals not far away, and the hour yet early, it was decided to abandon the
oars so that all might partake of some refreshment. Dawn had now come, so the lanterns were extinguished.
 “There’s nothing to compare with salabat, drunk in the morning before going to mass,” said Capitana Tika, mother
of the merry Sinang. “Drink some salabat and eat a rice-cake, Albino, and you’ll see that even you will want to pray.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” answered the youth addressed. “I’m thinking of confessing myself.”
“No,” said Sinang, “drink some coffee to bring merry thoughts.”
“I will, at once, because I feel a trifle sad.”
“Don’t do that,” advised Aunt Isabel. “Drink some tea and eat a few crackers. They say that tea calms one’s
thoughts.”
“I’ll also take some tea and crackers,” answered the complaisant youth, “since fortunately none of these drinks is
Catholicism.”
“But, can you—” Victoria began.
[165]“Drink some chocolate also? Well, I guess so, since breakfast is not so far off.”
The morning was beautiful. The water began to gleam with the light reflected from the sky with such clearness that
every object stood revealed without producing a shadow, a bright, fresh clearness permeated with color, such as we get a hint
of in some marine paintings. All were now merry as they breathed in the light breeze that began to arise. Even the mothers,
so full of cautions and warnings, now laughed and joked among themselves.
“Do you remember,” one old woman was saying to Capitana Tika, “do you remember the time we went to bathe in
the river, before we were married? In little boats made from banana-stalks there drifted down with the current fruits of many
kinds and fragrant flowers. The little boats had banners on them and each of us could see her name on one of them.”
“And when we were on our way back home?” added another, without letting her go on. “We found the bamboo
bridges destroyed and so we had to wade the brooks. The rascals!”
“Yes, I know that I chose rather to let the borders of my skirt get wet than to uncover my feet,” said Capitana Tika,
“for I knew that in the thickets on the bank there were eyes watching us.”
Some of the girls who heard these reminiscences winked and smiled, while the others were so occupied with their
own conversations that they took no notice.
One man alone, he who performed the duty of pilot, remained silent and removed from all the merriment. He was a
youth of athletic build and striking features, with large, sad eyes and compressed lips. His black hair, long and unkempt, fell
over a stout neck. A dark striped shirt afforded a suggestion through its folds of the powerful muscles that enabled the vigorous
arms to handle as if it were a pen the wide and unwieldy paddle which’ served as a rudder for steering the two bankas.
[166]Maria Clara had more than once caught him looking at her, but on such occasions he had quickly turned his
gaze toward the distant mountain or the shore. The young woman was moved with pity at his loneliness and offered him some
crackers. The pilot gave her a surprised stare, which, however, lasted for only a second. He took a cracker and thanked her
briefly in a scarcely audible voice. After this no one paid any more attention to him. The sallies and merry laughter of the young
folks caused not the slightest movement in the muscles of his face. Even the merry Sinang did not make him smile when she
received pinchings that caused her to wrinkle up her eyebrows for an instant, only to return to her former merry mood.
The lunch over, they proceeded on their way toward the fish-corrals, of which there were two situated near each
other, both belonging to Capitan Tiago. From afar were to be seen some herons perched in contemplative attitude on the tops
of the bamboo posts, while a number of white birds, which the Tagalogs call kalaway, flew about in different directions,
skimming the water with their wings and filling the air with shrill cries. At the approach of the bankas the herons took to flight,
and Maria Clara followed them with her gaze as they flew in the direction of the neighboring mountain.
“Do those birds build their nests on the mountain?” she asked the pilot, not so much from a desire to know as for
the purpose of making him talk.
“Probably they do, señora,” he answered, “but no one up to this time has ever seen their nests.”
“Don’t they have nests?”
“I suppose they must have them, otherwise they would be very unfortunate.”
Maria Clara did not notice the tone of sadness with which he uttered these words. “Then—”
“It is said, señora,” answered the strange youth, “that the nests of those birds are invisible and that they have the
power of rendering invisible any one who possesses [167]one of them. Just as the soul can only be seen in the pure mirror of
the eyes, so also in the mirror of the water alone can their nests be looked upon.”
Maria Clara became sad and thoughtful. Meanwhile, they had reached the first fish-corral and an aged boatman tied
the craft to a post.
“Wait!” called Aunt Isabel to the son of the fisherman, who was getting ready to climb upon the platform of the corral
with his panalok, or fish-net fastened on the end of a stout bamboo pole. “We must get the sinigang ready so that the fish may
pass at once from the water into the soup.”
“Kind Aunt Isabel!” exclaimed the ex-theological student. “She doesn’t want the fish to miss the water for an instant!”
Andeng, Maria Clara’s foster-sister, in spite of her carefree and happy face, enjoyed the reputation of being an
excellent cook, so she set about preparing a soup of rice and vegetables, helped and hindered by some of the young men,
eager perhaps to win her favor. The other young women all busied themselves in cutting up and washing the vegetables.
In order to divert the impatience of those who were waiting to see the fishes taken alive and wriggling from their
prison, the beautiful Iday got out the harp, for Iday not only played well on that instrument, but, besides, she had very pretty
fingers. The young people applauded and Maria Clara kissed her, for the harp is the most popular instrument in that province,
and was especially suited to this occasion.
“Sing the hymn about marriage,” begged the old women. The men protested and Victoria, who had a fine voice,
complained of hoarseness. The “Hymn of Marriage” is a beautiful Tagalog chant in which are set forth the cares and sorrows
of the married state, yet not passing over its joys.
They then asked Maria Clara to sing, but she protested [168]that all her songs were sad ones. This protest, however,
was overruled so she held back no longer. Taking the harp, she played a short prelude and then sang in a harmonious and
vibrating voice full of feeling:
Sweet are the hours in one’s native land,
Where all is dear the sunbeams bless;
Life-giving breezes sweep the strand,
And death is soften’d by love’s caress.
Warm kisses play on mother’s lips,
On her fond, tender breast awaking;
When round her neck the soft arm slips,
And bright eyes smile, all love partaking.
Sweet is death for one’s native land,
Where all is dear the sunbeams bless;
Dead is the breeze that sweeps the strand,
Without a mother, home, or love’s caress.

The song ceased, the voice died away, the harp became silent, and they still listened; no one applauded. The young
women felt their eyes fill with tears, and Ibarra seemed to be unpleasantly affected. The youthful pilot stared motionless into
the distance.
Suddenly a thundering roar was heard, such that the women screamed and covered their ears; it was the ex-
theological student blowing with all the strength of his lungs on the tambuli, or carabao horn. Laughter and cheerfulness
returned while tear-dimmed eyes brightened. “Are you trying to deafen us, you heretic?” cried Aunt Isabel.
“Madam,” replied the offender gravely, “I once heard of a poor trumpeter on the banks of the Rhine who, by playing
on his trumpet, won in marriage a rich and noble maiden.”
“That’s right, the trumpeter of Sackingen!” exclaimed Ibarra, unable to resist taking part in the renewed merriment.
“Do you hear that?” went on Albino. “Now I want to see if I can’t have the same luck.” So saying, he began [169]to
blow with even more force into the resounding horn, holding it close to the ears of the girls who looked saddest. As might be
expected, a small tumult arose and the mothers finally reduced him to silence by beating him with their slippers1 and pinching
him.
“My, oh my!” he complained as he felt of his smarting arms, “what a distance there is between the Philippines and
the banks of the Rhine! O tempora! O mores! Some are given honors and others sanbenitos!”
All laughed at this, even the grave Victoria, while Sinang, she of the smiling eyes, whispered to Maria Clara, “Happy
girl! I, too, would sing if I could!”
Andeng at length announced that the soup was ready to receive its guests, so the young fisherman climbed up into
the pen placed at the narrower end of the corral, over which might be written for the fishes, were they able to read and
understand Italian, “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’ entrante,”2 for no fish that gets in there is ever released except by death.
This division of the corral encloses a circular space so arranged that a man can stand on a platform in the upper part and draw
the fish out with a small net.
“I shouldn’t get tired fishing there with a pole and line,” commented Sinang, trembling with pleasant anticipation.
All were now watching and some even began to believe that they saw the fishes wriggling about in the net and
showing their glittering scales. But when the youth lowered his net not a fish leaped up.
“It must be full,” whispered Albino, “for it has been over five days now since it was visited.”
The fisherman drew in his net, but not even a single little fish adorned it. The water as it fell back in
glittering [170]drops reflecting the sunlight seemed to mock his efforts with a silvery smile. An exclamation of surprise,
displeasure, and disappointment escaped from the lips of all. Again the youth repeated the operation, but with no better result.
“You don’t understand your business,” said Albino, climbing up into the pen of the corral and taking the net from the
youth’s hands. “Now you’ll see! Andeng, get the pot ready!”
But apparently Albino did not understand the business either, for the net again came up empty. All broke out into
laughter at him.
“Don’t make so much noise that the fish can hear and so not let themselves be caught. This net must be torn.” But
on examination all the meshes of the net appeared to be intact.
“Give it to me,” said Leon, Iday’s sweetheart. He assured himself that the fence was in good condition, examined
the net and being satisfied with it, asked, “Are you sure that it hasn’t been visited for five days?”
“Very sure! The last time was on the eve of All Saints.”
“Well then, either the lake is enchanted or I’ll draw up something.”
 Leon then dropped the pole into the water and instantly astonishment was pictured on his countenance. Silently he
looked off toward the mountain and moved the pole about in the water, then without raising it murmured in a low voice:
“A cayman!”
“A cayman!” repeated everyone, as the word ran from mouth to mouth in the midst of fright and general surprise.
“What did you say?” they asked him.
“I say that we’re caught a cayman,” Leon assured them, and as he dropped the heavy end of the pole into the water,
he continued: “Don’t you hear that sound? That’s not sand, but a tough hide, the back of a cayman. Don’t you [171]see how
the posts shake? He’s pushing against them even though he is all rolled up. Wait, he’s a big one, his body is almost a foot or
more across.”
“What shall we do?” was the question.
“Catch him!” prompted some one.
“Heavens! And who’ll catch him?”
No one offered to go down into the trap, for the water was deep.
“We ought to tie him to our banka and drag him along in triumph,” suggested Sinang. “The idea of his eating the fish
that we were going to eat!”
“I have never yet seen a live cayman,” murmured Maria Clara.
The pilot arose, picked up a long rope, and climbed nimbly up on the platform, where Leon made room for him. With
the exception of Maria Clara, no one had taken any notice of him, but now all admired his shapely figure. To the great surprise
of all and in spite of their cries, he leaped down into the enclosure.
“Take this knife!” called Crisostomo to him, holding out a wide Toledo blade, but already the water was splashing
up in a thousand jets and the depths closed mysteriously.
“Jesús, María, y José!” exclaimed the old women. “We’re going to have an accident!”
“Don’t be uneasy, ladies,” said the old boatman, “for if there is any one in the province who can do it, he’s the man.”
“What’s his name?” they asked.
“We call him ‘The Pilot’ and he’s the best I’ve ever seen, only he doesn’t like the business.”
The water became disturbed, then broke into ripples, the fence shook; a struggle seemed to be going on in the
depths. All were silent and hardly breathed. Ibarra grasped the handle of the sharp knife convulsively.
Now the struggle seemed to be at an end and the head of the youth appeared, to be greeted with joyful cries. The
eyes of the old women filled with tears. The pilot [172]climbed up with one end of the rope in his hand and once on the platform
began to pull on it. The monster soon appeared above the water with the rope tied in a double band around its neck and
underneath its front legs. It was a large one, as Leon had said, speckled, and on its back grew the green moss which is to the
caymans what gray hairs are to men. Roaring like a bull and beating its tail against or catching hold of the sides of the corral,
it opened its huge jaws and showed its long, sharp teeth. The pilot was hoisting it alone, for no one had thought to assist him.
Once out of the water and resting on the platform, he placed his foot upon it and with his strong hands forced its
huge jaws together and tried to tie its snout with stout knots. With a last effort the reptile arched its body, struck the floor with
its powerful tail, and jerking free, hurled itself with one leap into the water outside the corral, dragging its captor along with it.
A cry of horror broke from the lips of all. But like a flash of lightning another body shot into the water so quickly that there was
hardly time to realize that it was Ibarra. Maria Clara did not swoon only for the reason that the Filipino women do not yet know
how to do so.
The anxious watchers saw the water become colored and dyed with blood. The young fisherman jumped down with
his bolo in his hand and was followed by his father, but they had scarcely disappeared when Crisostomo and the pilot
reappeared clinging to the dead body of the reptile, which had the whole length of its white belly slit open and the knife still
sticking in its throat.
To describe the joy were impossible, as a dozen arms reached out to drag the young men from the water. The old
women were beside themselves between laughter and prayers. Andeng forgot that her sinigang had boiled over three times,
spilling the soup and putting out the fire. The only one who could say nothing was Maria Clara.
Ibarra was uninjured, while the pilot had only a slight [173]scratch on his arm. “I owe my life to you,” said the latter
to Ibarra, who was wrapping himself up in blankets and cloths. The pilot’s voice seemed to have a note of sadness in it.
“You are too daring,” answered Ibarra. “Don’t tempt fate again.”
“If you had not come up again—” murmured the still pale and trembling Maria Clara.
“If I had not come up and you had followed me,” replied Ibarra, completing the thought in his own way, “in the bottom
of the lake, I should still have been with my family!” He had not forgotten that there lay the bones of his father.
The old women did not want to visit the other corral but wished to return, saying that the day had begun
inauspiciously and that many more accidents might occur. “All because we didn’t hear mass,” sighed one.
“But what accident has befallen us, ladies?” asked Ibarra. “The cayman seems to have been the only unlucky one.”
“All of which proves,” concluded the ex-student of theology, “that in all its sinful life this unfortunate reptile has never
attended mass—at least, I’ve never seen him among the many other caymans that frequent the church.”
So the boats were turned in the direction of the other corral and Andeng had to get her sinigang ready again. The
day was now well advanced, with a fresh breeze blowing. The waves curled up behind the body of the cayman, raising
“mountains of foam whereon the smooth, rich sunlight glitters,” as the poet says. The music again resounded; Iday played on
the harp, while the men handled the accordions and guitars with greater or less skill. The prize-winner was Albino, who actually
scratched the instruments, getting out of tune and losing the time every moment or else forgetting it and changing to another
tune entirely different.
[174]The second corral was visited with some misgivings, as many expected to find there the mate of the dead
cayman, but nature is ever a jester, and the nets came up full at each haul. Aunt Isabel superintended the sorting of the fish
and ordered that some be left in the trap for decoys. “It’s not lucky to empty the corral completely,” she concluded.
Then they made their way toward the shore near the forest of old trees that belonged to Ibarra. There in the shade
by the clear waters of the brook, among the flowers, they ate their breakfast under improvised canopies. The space was filled
with music while the smoke from the fires curled up in slender wreaths. The water bubbled cheerfully in the hot dishes as
though uttering sounds of consolation, or perchance of sarcasm and irony, to the dead fishes. The body of the cayman writhed
about, sometimes showing its torn white belly and again its speckled greenish back, while man, Nature’s favorite, went on his
way undisturbed by what the Brahmins and vegetarians would call so many cases of fratricide.[175]

1The chinela, the Philippine slipper, is a soft leather sole, heelless, with only a vamp, usually of plush or velvet, to hold it on.—TR.
2“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” The words inscribed over the gate of Hell: Dante’s Inferno, III, 9.—TR.

Chapter XXIV
In the Wood

Early, very early indeed, somewhat differently from his usual custom, Padre Salvi had celebrated mass and cleansed
a dozen sinful souls in a few moments. Then it seemed that the reading of some letters which he had received firmly sealed
and waxed caused the worthy curate to lose his appetite, since he allowed his chocolate to become completely cold.
“The padre is getting sick,” commented the cook while preparing another cup. “For days he hasn’t eaten; of the six
dishes that I set before him on the table he doesn’t touch even two.”
“It’s because he sleeps badly,” replied the other servant. “He has nightmares since he changed his bedroom. His
eyes are becoming more sunken all the time and he’s getting thinner and yellower day by day.”
Truly, Padre Salvi was a pitiable sight. He did not care to touch the second cup of chocolate nor to taste the sweet
cakes of Cebu; instead, he paced thoughtfully about the spacious sala, crumpling in his bony hands the letters, which he read
from time to time. Finally, he called for his carriage, got ready, and directed that he be taken to the wood where stood the
fateful tree near which the picnic was being held.
Arriving at the edge of the wood, the padre dismissed his carriage and made his way alone into its depths. A gloomy
pathway opened a difficult passage through the thickets and led to the brook formed by certain warm springs, like many that
flow from the slopes of Mr. Makiling. Adorning its banks grow wild flowers, many of which [176]have as yet no Latin names,
but which are doubtless well-known to the gilded insects and butterflies of all shapes and colors, blue and gold, white and
black, many-hued, glittering with iridescent spots, with rubies and emeralds on their wings, and to the countless beetles with
their metallic lusters of powdered gold. The hum of the insects, the cries of the cicada, which cease not night or day, the songs
of the birds, and the dry crashing of the rotten branch that falls and strikes all around against the trees, are the only sounds to
break the stillness of that mysterious place.
For some time the padre wandered aimlessly among the thick underbrush, avoiding the thorns that caught at
his guingón habit as though to detain him, and the roots of the trees that protruded from the soil to form stumbling-blocks at
every step for this wanderer unaccustomed to such places. But suddenly his feet were arrested by the sound of clear voices
raised in merry laughter, seeming to come from the brook and apparently drawing nearer.
“I’m going to see if I can find one of those nests,” said a beautiful, sweet voice, which the curate recognized. “I’d like
to see him without having him see me, so I could follow him everywhere.”
Padre Salvi hid behind the trunk of a large tree and set himself to eavesdrop.
“Does that mean that you want to do with him what the curate does with you?” asked a laughing voice. “He watches
you everywhere. Be careful, for jealousy makes people thin and puts rings around their eyes.”
“No, no, not jealousy, it’s pure curiosity,” replied the silvery voice, while the laughing one repeated, “Yes, jealousy,
jealousy!” and she burst out into merry laughter.
“If I were jealous, instead of making myself invisible, I’d make him so, in order that no one might see him.”
“But neither would you see him and that wouldn’t be nice. The best thing for us to do if we find the nest would be to
present it to the curate so that he could watch [177]over us without the necessity of our seeing him, don’t you think so?”
“I don’t believe in those herons’ nests,” interrupted another voice, “but if at any time I should be jealous, I’d know
how to watch and still keep myself hidden.”
“How, how? Perhaps like a Sor Escucha?”1
This reminiscence of school-days provoked another merry burst of laughter.
“And you know how she’s fooled, the Sor Escucha!”
From his hiding-place Padre Salvi saw Maria Clara, Victoria, and Sinang wading along the border of the brook. They
were moving forward with their eyes fixed on the crystal waters, seeking the enchanted nest of the heron, wet to their knees
so that the wide folds of their bathing skirts revealed the graceful curves of their bodies. Their hair was flung loose, their arms
bare, and they wore camisas with wide stripes of bright hues. While looking for something that they could not find they were
picking flowers and plants which grew along the bank.
The religious Acteon stood pale and motionless gazing at that chaste Diana, but his eyes glittered in their dark
circles, untired of staring at those white and shapely arms and at that elegant neck and bust, while the small rosy feet that
played in the water awoke in his starved being strange sensations and in his burning brain dreams of new ideas.
The three charming figures disappeared behind a bamboo thicket around a bend in the brook, and their cruel
allusions ceased to be heard. Intoxicated, staggering, covered with perspiration, Padre Salvi left his hiding-place and looked
all about him with rolling eyes. He stood still as if in doubt, then took a few steps as though he would try to follow the girls, but
turned again and made his way along the banks of the stream to seek the rest of the party.
At a little distance he saw in the middle of the brook a kind of bathing-place, well enclosed, decorated with [178]palm
leaves, flowers, and streamers, with a leafy clump of bamboo for a covering, from within which came the sound of happy
feminine voices. Farther on he saw a bamboo bridge and beyond it the men bathing. Near these a crowd of servants was
busily engaged around improvised kalanes in plucking chickens, washing rice, and roasting a pig. On the opposite bank in a
cleared space were gathered men and women under a canvas covering which was fastened partly to the hoary trees and
partly to newly-driven stakes. There were gathered the alferez, the coadjutor, the gobernadorcillo, the teniente-mayor, the
schoolmaster, and many other personages of the town, even including Sinang’s father, Capitan Basilio, who had been the
adversary of the deceased Don Rafael in an old lawsuit. Ibarra had said to him, “We are disputing over a point of law, but that
does not mean that we are enemies,” so the celebrated orator of the conservatives had enthusiastically accepted the invitation,
sending along three turkeys and putting his servants at the young man’s disposal.
The curate was received with respect and deference by all, even the alferez. “Why, where has your Reverence
been?” asked the latter, as he noticed the curate’s scratched face and his habit covered with leaves and dry twigs. “Has your
Reverence had a fall?”
“No, I lost my way,” replied Padre Salvi, lowering his gaze to examine his gown.
Bottles of lemonade were brought out and green coconuts were split open so that the bathers as they came from
the water might refresh themselves with the milk and the soft meat, whiter than the milk itself. The girls all received in addition
rosaries of sampaguitas, intertwined with roses and ilang-ilang blossoms, to perfume their flowing tresses. Some of the
company sat on the ground or reclined in hammocks swung from the branches of the trees, while others amused themselves
around a wide flat rock on which were to be seen playing-cards, a chess-board, booklets, cowry shells, and pebbles.
[179]They showed the cayman to the curate, but he seemed inattentive until they told him that the gaping wound
had been inflicted by Ibarra. The celebrated and unknown pilot was no longer to be seen, as he had disappeared before the
arrival of the alferez.
At length Maria Clara came from the bath with her companions, looking fresh as a rose on its first morning when the
dew sparkling on its fair petals glistens like diamonds. Her first smile was for Crisostomo and the first cloud on her brow for
Padre Salvi, who noted it and sighed.
The lunch hour was now come, and the curate, the coadjutor, the gobernadorcillo, the teniente-mayor, and the other
dignitaries took their seats at the table over which Ibarra presided. The mothers would not permit any of the men to eat at the
table where the young women sat.
“This time, Albino, you can’t invent holes as in the bankas,” said Leon to the quondam student of theology.
“What! What’s that?” asked the old women.
“The bankas, ladies, were as whole as this plate is,” explained Leon.
“Jesús! The rascal!” exclaimed the smiling Aunt Isabel.
“Have you yet learned anything of the criminal who assaulted Padre Damaso?” inquired Fray Salvi of the alferez.
“Of what criminal, Padre?” asked the military man, staring at the friar over the glass of wine that he was emptying,
“What criminal! Why, the one who struck Padre Damaso in the road yesterday afternoon!”
“Struck Padre Damaso?” asked several voices.
The coadjutor seemed to smile, while Padre Salvi went on: “Yes, and Padre Damaso is now confined to his bed. It’s
thought that he may be the very same Elias who threw you into the mudhole, señor alferez.”
Either from shame or wine the alferez’s face became very red.
[180]“Of course, I thought,” continued Padre Salvi in a joking manner, “that you, the alferez of the Civil Guard, would
be informed about the affair.”
The soldier bit his lip and was murmuring some foolish excuse, when the meal was suddenly interrupted by the
appearance of a pale, thin, poorly-clad woman. No one had noticed her approach, for she had come so noiselessly that at
night she might have been taken for a ghost.
“Give this poor woman something to eat,” cried the old women. “Oy, come here!”
Still the strange woman kept on her way to the table where the curate was seated. As he turned his face and
recognized her, his knife dropped from his hand.
“Give this woman something to eat,” ordered Ibarra.
“The night is dark and the boys disappear,” murmured the wandering woman, but at sight of the alferez, who spoke
to her, she became frightened and ran away among the trees.
 “Who is she?” he asked.
“An unfortunate woman who has become insane from fear and sorrow,” answered Don Filipo. “For four days now
she has been so.”
“Is her name Sisa?” asked Ibarra with interest.
“Your soldiers arrested her,” continued the teniente-mayor, rather bitterly, to the alferez. “They marched her through
the town on account of something about her sons which isn’t very clearly known.”
“What!” exclaimed the alferez, turning to the curate, “she isn’t the mother of your two sacristans?”
The curate nodded in affirmation.
“They disappeared and nobody made any inquiries about them,” added Don Filipo with a severe look at the
gobernadorcillo, who dropped his eyes.
“Look for that woman,” Crisostomo ordered the servants. “I promised to try to learn where her sons are.”
“They disappeared, did you say?” asked the alferez. “Your sacristans disappeared, Padre?”
[181]The friar emptied the glass of wine before him and again nodded.
“Caramba, Padre!” exclaimed the alferez with a sarcastic laugh, pleased at the thought of a little revenge. “A few
pesos of your Reverence’s disappear and my sergeant is routed out early to hunt for them—two sacristans disappear and
your Reverence says nothing—and you, señor capitan—It’s also true that you—”
Here he broke off with another laugh as he buried his spoon in the red meat of a wild papaya.
The curate, confused, and not over-intent upon what he was saying, replied, “That’s because I have to answer for
the money—”
“A good answer, reverend shepherd of souls!” interrupted the alferez with his mouth full of food. “A splendid answer,
holy man!”
Ibarra wished to intervene, but Padre Salvi controlled himself by an effort and said with a forced smile, “Then you
don’t know, sir, what is said about the disappearance of those boys? No? Then ask your soldiers!”
“What!” exclaimed the alferez, all his mirth gone.
“It’s said that on the night they disappeared several shots were heard.”
“Several shots?” echoed the alferez, looking around at the other guests, who nodded their heads in corroboration
of the padre’s statement.
Padre Salvi then replied slowly and with cutting sarcasm: “Come now, I see that you don’t catch the criminals nor
do you know what is going on in your own house, yet you try to set yourself up as a preacher to point out their duties to others.
You ought to keep in mind that proverb about the fool in his own house—”2
“Gentlemen!” interrupted Ibarra, seeing that the alferez had grown pale. “In this connection I should like to have your
opinion about a project of mine. I’m thinking [182]of putting this crazy woman under the care of a skilful physician and, in the
meantime, with your aid and advice, I’ll search for her sons.”
The return of the servants without the madwoman, whom they had been unable to find, brought peace by turning
the conversation to other matters.
The meal ended, and while the tea and coffee were being served, both old and young scattered about in different
groups. Some took the chessmen, others the cards, while the girls, curious about the future, chose to put questions to a Wheel
of Fortune.
“Come, Señor Ibarra,” called Capitan Basilio in merry mood, “we have a lawsuit fifteen years old, and there isn’t a
judge in the Audiencia who can settle it. Let’s see if we can’t end it on the chess-board.”
“With the greatest pleasure,” replied the youth. “Just wait a moment, the alferez is leaving.”
Upon hearing about this match all the old men who understood chess gathered around the board, for it promised to
be an interesting one, and attracted even spectators who were not familiar with the game. The old women, however,
surrounded the curate in order to converse with him about spiritual matters, but Fray Salvi apparently did not consider the
place and time appropriate, for he gave vague answers and his sad, rather bored, looks wandered in all directions except
toward his questioners.
The chess-match began with great solemnity. “If this game ends in a draw, it’s understood that the lawsuit is to be
dropped,” said Ibarra.
In the midst of the game Ibarra received a telegram which caused his eyes to shine and his face to become pale.
He put it into his pocketbook, at the same time glancing toward the group of young people, who were still with laughter and
shouts putting questions to Destiny.
“Check to the king!” called the youth.
Capitan Basilio had no other recourse than to hide the piece behind the queen.
[183]“Check to the queen!” called the youth as he threatened that piece with a rook which was defended by a pawn.
Being unable to protect the queen or to withdraw the piece on account of the king behind it, Capitan Basilio asked
for time to reflect.
“Willingly,” agreed Ibarra, “especially as I have something to say this very minute to those young people in that group
over there.” He arose with the agreement that his opponent should have a quarter of an hour.
Iday had the round card on which were written the forty-eight questions, while Albino held the book of answers.
“A lie! It’s not so!” cried Sinang, half in tears.
 “What’s the matter?” asked Maria Clara.
“Just imagine, I asked, ‘When shall I have some sense?’ I threw the dice and that worn-out priest read from the
book, ‘When the frogs raise hair.’ What do you think of that?” As she said this, Sinang made a grimace at the laughing ex-
theological student.
“Who told you to ask that question?” her cousin Victoria asked her. “To ask it is enough to deserve such an answer.”
“You ask a question,” they said to Ibarra, offering him the wheel. “We’re decided that whoever gets the best answer
shall receive a present from the rest. Each of us has already had a question.”
“Who got the best answer?”
“Maria Clara, Maria Clara!” replied Sinang. “We made her ask, willy-nilly, ‘Is your sweetheart faithful and constant?’
And the book answered—”
But here the blushing Maria Clara put her hands over Sinang’s mouth so that she could not finish.
“Well, give me the wheel,” said Crisostomo, smiling. “My question is, ‘Shall I succeed in my present enterprise?’”
“What an ugly question!” exclaimed Sinang.
Ibarra threw the dice and in accordance with the resulting number the page and line were sought.
[184]“Dreams are dreams,” read Albino.
Ibarra drew out the telegram and opened it with trembling hands. “This time your book is wrong!” he exclaimed
joyfully. “Read this: ‘School project approved. Suit decided in your favor.’”
“What does it mean?” all asked.
“Didn’t you say that a present is to be given to the one receiving the best answer?” he asked in a voice shaking with
emotion as he tore the telegram carefully into two pieces.
“Yes, yes!”
“Well then, this is my present,” he said as he gave one piece to Maria Clara. “A school for boys and girls is to be
built in the town and this school is my present.”
“And the other part, what does it mean?”
“It’s to be given to the one who has received the worst answer.”
“To me, then, to me!” cried Sinang.
Ibarra gave her the other piece of the telegram and hastily withdrew.
“What does it mean?” she asked, but the happy youth was already at a distance, returning to the game of chess.
Fray Salvi in abstracted mood approached the circle of young people. Maria Clara wiped away her tears of joy, the
laughter ceased, and the talk died away. The curate stared at the young people without offering to say anything, while they
silently waited for him to speak.
“What’s this?” he at length asked, picking up the book and turning its leaves.
“The Wheel of Fortune, a book of games,” replied Leon.
“Don’t you know that it’s a sin to believe in these things?” he scolded, tearing the leaves out angrily.
Cries of surprise and anger escaped from the lips of all.
“It’s a greater sin to dispose of what isn’t yours, against the wish of the owner,” contradicted Albino, rising. “Padre,
that’s what is called stealing and it is forbidden by God and men!”
[185]Maria Clara clasped her hands and gazed with tearful eyes at the remnants of the book which a few moments
before had been the source of so much happiness for her.
Contrary to the general expectation, Fray Salvi did not reply to Albino, but stood staring at the torn leaves as they
were whirled about, some falling in the wood, some in the water, then he staggered away with his hands over his head. He
stopped for a few moments to speak with Ibarra, who accompanied him to one of the carriages, which were at the disposal of
the guests.
“He’s doing well to leave, that kill-joy,” murmured Sinang. “He has a face that seems to say, ‘Don’t laugh, for I know
about your sins!’”
After making the present to his fiancée, Ibarra was so happy that he began to play without reflection or a careful
examination of the positions of the pieces. The result was that although Capitan Basilio was hard pressed the game became
a stalemate, owing to many careless moves on the young man’s part.
“It’s settled, we’re at peace!” exclaimed Capitan Basilio heartily.
“Yes, we’re at peace,” repeated the youth, “whatever the decision of the court may be.” And the two shook hands
cordially.
While all present were rejoicing over this happy termination of a quarrel of which both parties were tired, the sudden
arrival of a sergeant and four soldiers of the Civil Guard, all armed and with bayonets fixed, disturbed the mirth and caused
fright among the women.
“Keep still, everybody!” shouted the sergeant. “Shoot any one who moves!”
In spite of this blustering command, Ibarra arose and approached the sergeant. “What do you want?” he asked.
“That you deliver to us at once a criminal named Elias, who was your pilot this morning,” was the threatening reply.
[186]“A criminal—the pilot? You must be mistaken,” answered Ibarra.
“No, sir, this Elias has just been accused of putting his hand on a priest—”
“Oh, was that the pilot?”
 “The very same, according to reports. You admit persons of bad character into your fiestas, Señor Ibarra.”
Ibarra looked him over from head to foot and replied with great disdain, “I don’t have to give you an account of my
actions! At our fiestas all are welcome. Had you yourself come, you would have found a place at our table, just as did your
alferez, who was with us a couple of hours ago.” With this he turned his back.
The sergeant gnawed at the ends of his mustache but, considering himself the weaker party, ordered the soldiers
to institute a search, especially among the trees, for the pilot, a description of whom he carried on a piece of paper.
Don Filipo said to him, “Notice that this description fits nine tenths of the natives. Don’t make any false move!”
After a time the soldiers returned with the report that they had been unable to see either banka or man that could
be called suspicious-looking, so the sergeant muttered a few words and went away as he had come—in the manner of the
Civil Guard!
The merriment was little by little restored, amid questions and comments.
“So that’s the Elias who threw the alferez into the mudhole,” said Leon thoughtfully.
“How did that happen? How was it?” asked some of the more curious.
“They say that on a very rainy day in September the alferez met a man who was carrying a bundle of firewood. The
road was very muddy and there was only a narrow path at the side, wide enough for but one person. They say that the alferez,
instead of reining in his pony, put spurs to it, at the same time calling to the man to get out [187]of the way. It seemed that this
man, on account of the heavy load he was carrying on his shoulder, had little relish for going back nor did he want to be
swallowed up in the mud, so he continued on his way forward. The alferez in irritation tried to knock him down, but he snatched
a piece of wood from his bundle and struck the pony on the head with such great force that it fell, throwing its rider into the
mud. They also say that the man went on his way tranquilly without taking any notice of the five bullets that were fired after
him by the alferez, who was blind with mud and rage. As the man was entirely unknown to him it was supposed that he might
be the famous Elias who came to the province several months ago, having come from no one knows where. He has given the
Civil Guard cause to know him in several towns for similar actions.”
“Then he’s a tulisan?” asked Victoria shuddering.
“I don’t think so, for they say that he fought against some tulisanes one day when they were robbing a house.”
“He hasn’t the look of a criminal,” commented Sinang.
“No, but he looks very sad. I didn’t see him smile the whole morning,” added Maria Clara thoughtfully.
So the afternoon passed away and the hour for returning to the town came. Under the last rays of the setting sun
they left the woods, passing in silence by the mysterious tomb of Ibarra’s ancestors. Afterwards, the merry talk was resumed
in a lively manner, full of warmth, beneath those branches so little accustomed to hear so many voices. The trees seemed
sad, while the vines swung back and forth as if to say, “Farewell, youth! Farewell, dream of a day!”
Now in the light of the great red torches of bamboo and with the sound of the guitars let us leave them on the road
to the town. The groups grow smaller, the lights are extinguished, the songs die away, and the guitar becomes silent as they
approach the abodes of men. Put on the mask now that you are once more amongst your kind![188]

1“Listening Sister,” the nun who acts as spy and monitor over the girls studying in a convent.—TR.
2“Más sabe el loco en su casa que el cuerdo en la ajena.” The fool knows more in his own house than a wise man does in another’s.—TR.

Chapter XXV
In the House of the Sage

On the morning of the following day, Ibarra, after visiting his lands, made his way to the home of old Tasio. Complete
stillness reigned in the garden, for even the swallows circling about the eaves scarcely made any noise. Moss grew on the old
wall, over which a kind of ivy clambered to form borders around the windows. The little house seemed to be the abode of
silence.
Ibarra hitched his horse carefully to a post and walking almost on tiptoe crossed the clean and well-kept garden to
the stairway, which he ascended, and as the door was open, he entered. The first sight that met his gaze was the old man
bent over a book in which he seemed to be writing. On the walls were collections of insects and plants arranged among maps
and stands filled with books and manuscripts. The old man was so absorbed in his work that he did not notice the presence
of the youth until the latter, not wishing to disturb him, tried to retire.
“Ah, you here?” he asked, gazing at Ibarra with a strange expression. “Excuse me,” answered the youth, “I see that
you’re very busy—”
“True, I was writing a little, but it’s not urgent, and I want to rest. Can I do anything for you?”
“A great deal,” answered Ibarra, drawing nearer, “but—”
A glance at the book on the table caused him to exclaim in surprise, “What, are you given to deciphering
hieroglyphics?”
“No,” replied the old man, as he offered his visitor a chair. “I don’t understand Egyptian or Coptic either, [189]but I
know something about the system of writing, so I write in hieroglyphics.”
“You write in hieroglyphics! Why?” exclaimed the youth, doubting what he saw and heard.
 “So that I cannot be read now.”
Ibarra gazed at him fixedly, wondering to himself if the old man were not indeed crazy. He examined the book rapidly
to learn if he was telling the truth and saw neatly drawn figures of animals, circles, semicircles, flowers, feet, hands, arms, and
such things.
“But why do you write if you don’t want to be read?”
“Because I’m not writing for this generation, but for other ages. If this generation could read, it would burn my books,
the labor of my whole life. But the generation that deciphers these characters will be an intelligent generation, it will understand
and say, ‘Not all were asleep in the night of our ancestors!’ The mystery of these curious characters will save my work from
the ignorance of men, just as the mystery of strange rites has saved many truths from the destructive priestly classes.”
“In what language do you write?” asked Ibarra after a pause.
“In our own, Tagalog.”
“Are the hieroglyphical signs suitable?”
“If it were not for the difficulty of drawing them, which takes time and patience, I would almost say that they are more
suitable than the Latin alphabet. The ancient Egyptian had our vowels; our o, which is only final and is not like that of the
Spanish, which is a vowel between o and u. Like us, the Egyptians lacked the true sound of e, and in their language are found
our ha and kha, which we do not have in the Latin alphabet such as is used in Spanish. For example, in this word mukha,” he
went on, pointing to the book, “I transcribe the syllable ha more correctly with the figure of a fish than with the Latin h, which
in Europe is pronounced in different ways. For a weaker aspirate, as for example in this word haín, where [190]the h has less
force, I avail myself of this lion’s head or of these three lotus flowers, according to the quantity of the vowel. Besides, I have
the nasal sound which does not exist in the Latin-Spanish alphabet. I repeat that if it were not for the difficulty of drawing them
exactly, these hieroglyphics could almost be adopted, but this same difficulty obliges me to be concise and not say more than
what is exact and necessary. Moreover, this work keeps me company when my guests from China and Japan go away.”
“Your guests from China and Japan?”
“Don’t you hear them? My guests are the swallows. This year one of them is missing—some bad boy in China or
Japan must have caught it.”
“How do you know that they come from those countries?”
“Easily enough! Several years ago, before they left I tied to the foot of each one a slip of paper with the name
‘Philippines’ in English on it, supposing that they must not travel very far and because English is understood nearly everywhere.
For years my slips brought no reply, so that at last I had it written in Chinese and here in the following November they have
returned with other notes which I have had deciphered. One is written in Chinese and is a greeting from the banks of the
Hoang-Ho and the other, as the Chinaman whom I consulted supposes, must be in Japanese. But I’m taking your time with
these things and haven’t asked you what I can do for you.”
“I’ve come to speak to you about a matter of importance,” said the youth. “Yesterday afternoon—”
“Have they caught that poor fellow?”
“You mean Elias? How did you know about him?”
“I saw the Muse of the Civil Guard!”
“The Muse of the Civil Guard? Who is she?”
“The alferez’s woman, whom you didn’t invite to your picnic. Yesterday morning the incident of the cayman became
known through the town. The Muse of the Civil [191]Guard is as astute as she is malignant and she guessed that the pilot
must be the bold person who threw her husband into the mudhole and who assaulted Padre Damaso. As she reads all the
reports that her husband is to receive, scarcely had he got back home, drunk and not knowing what he was doing, when to
revenge herself on you she sent the sergeant with the soldiers to disturb the merriment of your picnic. Be careful! Eve was a
good woman, sprung from the hands of God—they say that Doña Consolacion is evil and it’s not known whose hands she
came from! In order to be good, a woman needs to have been, at least sometime, either a maid or a mother.”
Ibarra smiled slightly and replied by taking some documents from his pocketbook. “My dead father used to consult
you in some things and I recall that he had only to congratulate himself on following your advice. I have on hand a little
enterprise, the success of which I must assure.” Here he explained briefly his plan for the school, which he had offered to his
fiancée, spreading out in view of the astonished Sage some plans which had been prepared in Manila.
“I would like to have you advise me as to what persons in the town I must first win over in order to assure the success
of the undertaking. You know the inhabitants well, while I have just arrived and am almost a stranger in my own country.”
Old Tasio examined the plans before him with tear-dimmed eyes. “What you are going to do has been my dream,
the dream of a poor lunatic!” he exclaimed with emotion. “And now the first thing that I advise you to do is never to come to
consult with me.”
The youth gazed at him in surprise.
“Because the sensible people,” he continued with bitter irony, “would take you for a madman also. The people
consider madmen those who do not think as they do, so they hold me as such, which I appreciate, because the day in which
they think me returned to sanity, they will deprive [192]me of the little liberty that I’ve purchased at the expense of the reputation
of being a sane individual. And who knows but they are right? I do not live according to their rules, my principles and ideals
are different. The gobernadorcillo enjoys among them the reputation of being a wise man because he learned nothing more
than to serve chocolate and to put up with Padre Damaso’s bad humor, so now he is wealthy, he disturbs the petty destinies
of his fellow-townsmen, and at times he even talks of justice. ‘That’s a man of talent,’ think the vulgar, ‘look how from nothing
he has made himself great!’ But I, I inherited fortune and position, I have studied, and now I am poor, I am not trusted with the
most ridiculous office, and all say, ‘He’s a fool! He doesn’t know how to live!’ The curate calls me ‘philosopher’ as a nickname
and gives to understand that I am a charlatan who is making a show of what I learned in the higher schools, when that is
exactly what benefits me the least. Perhaps I really am the fool and they the wise ones—who can say?”
The old man shook his head as if to drive away that thought, and continued: “The second thing I can advise is that
you consult the curate, the gobernadorcillo, and all persons in authority. They will give you bad, stupid, or useless advice, but
consultation doesn’t mean compliance, although you should make it appear that you are taking their advice and acting
according to it.”
Ibarra reflected a moment before he replied: “The advice is good, but difficult to follow. Couldn’t I go ahead with my
idea without a shadow being thrown upon it? Couldn’t a worthy enterprise make its way over everything, since truth doesn’t
need to borrow garments from error?”
“Nobody loves the naked truth!” answered the old man. “That is good in theory and practicable in the world of which
youth dreams. Here is the schoolmaster, who has struggled in a vacuum; with the enthusiasm of a child, he has sought the
good, yet he has won only jests and [193]laughter. You have said that you are a stranger in your own country, and I believe
it. The very first day you arrived you began by wounding the vanity of a priest who is regarded by the people as a saint, and
as a sage among his fellows. God grant that such a misstep may not have already determined your future! Because the
Dominicans and Augustinians look with disdain on the guingón habit, the rope girdle, and the immodest foot-wear, because a
learned doctor in Santo Tomas1 may have once recalled that Pope Innocent III described the statutes of that order as more
fit for hogs than men, don’t believe but that all of them work hand in hand to affirm what a preacher once said, ‘The most
insignificant lay brother can do more than the government with all its soldiers!’ Cave ne cadas!2 Gold is powerful—the golden
calf has thrown God down from His altars many times, and that too since the days of Moses!”
“I’m not so pessimistic nor does life appear to me so perilous in my country,” said Ibarra with a smile. “I believe that
those fears are somewhat exaggerated and I hope to be able to carry out my plans without meeting any great opposition in
that quarter.”
“Yes, if they extend their hands to you; no, if they withhold them. All your efforts will be shattered against the walls
of the rectory if the friar so much as waves his girdle or shakes his habit; tomorrow the alcalde will on some pretext deny you
what today he has granted; no mother will allow her son to attend the school, and then all your labors will produce a counter-
effect—they will dishearten those who afterwards may wish to attempt altruistic undertakings.”
[194]“But, after all,” replied the youth, “I can’t believe in that power of which you speak, and even supposing it to
exist and making allowance for it, I should still have on my side the sensible people and the government, which is animated
by the best intentions, which has great hopes, and which frankly desires the welfare of the Philippines.”
“The government! The government!” muttered the Sage, raising his eyes to stare at the ceiling. “However inspired it
may be with the desire for fostering the greatness of the country for the benefit of the country itself and of the mother country,
however some official or other may recall the generous spirit of the Catholic Kings3 and may agree with it, too, the government
sees nothing, hears nothing, nor does it decide anything, except what the curate or the Provincial causes it to see, hear, and
decide. The government is convinced that it depends for its salvation wholly on them, that it is sustained because they uphold
it, and that the day on which they cease to support it, it will fall like a manikin that has lost its prop. They intimidate the
government with an uprising of the people and the people with the forces of the government, whence originates a simple
game, very much like what happens to timid persons when they visit gloomy places, taking for ghosts their own shadows and
for strange voices the echoes of their own. As long as the government does not deal directly with the country it will not get
away from this tutelage, it will live like those imbecile youths who tremble at the voice of their tutor, whose kindness they are
begging for. The government has no dream of a healthy future; it is the arm, while the head is the convento. By this inertia
with which it allows itself to be dragged from depth to depth, it becomes changed into a shadow, its integrity is impaired, and
in a weak and incapable way it trusts everything to mercenary hands. But compare our [195]system of government with those
of the countries you have visited—”
“Oh!” interrupted Ibarra, “that’s asking too much! Let us content ourselves with observing that our people do not
complain or suffer as do the people of other countries, thanks to Religion and the benignity of the governing powers.
“This people does not complain because it has no voice, it does not move because it is lethargic, and you say that
it does not suffer because you haven’t seen how its heart bleeds. But some day you will see this, you will hear its complaints,
and then woe unto those who found their strength on ignorance and fanaticism! Woe unto those who rejoice in deceit and
labor during the night, believing that all are asleep! When the light of day shows up the monsters of darkness, the frightful
reaction will come. So many sighs suppressed, so much poison distilled drop by drop, so much force repressed for centuries,
will come to light and burst! Who then will pay those accounts which oppressed peoples present from time to time and which
History preserves for us on her bloody pages?”
“God, the government, and Religion will not allow that day to come!” replied Ibarra, impressed in spite of himself.
“The Philippines is religious and loves Spain, the Philippines will realize how much the nation is doing for her. There are
abuses, yes, there are defects, that cannot be denied, but Spain is laboring to introduce reforms that will correct these abuses
and defects, she is formulating plans, she is not selfish!”
 “I know it, and that is the worst of it! The reforms which emanate from the higher places are annulled in the lower
circles, thanks to the vices of all, thanks, for instance, to the eager desire to get rich in a short time, and to the ignorance of
the people, who consent to everything. A royal decree does not correct abuses when there is no zealous authority to watch
over its execution, while freedom of speech against the insolence of petty tyrants is not conceded. [196]Plans will remain
plans, abuses will still be abuses, and the satisfied ministry will sleep in peace in spite of everything. Moreover, if perchance
there does come into a high place a person with great and generous ideas, he will begin to hear, while behind his back he is
considered a fool, ‘Your Excellency does not know the country, your Excellency does not understand the character of the
Indians, your Excellency is going to ruin them, your Excellency will do well to trust So-and-so,’ and his Excellency in fact does
not know the country, for he has been until now stationed in America, and besides that, he has all the shortcomings and
weaknesses of other men, so he allows himself to be convinced. His Excellency also remembers that to secure the
appointment he has had to sweat much and suffer more, that he holds it for only three years, that he is getting old and that it
is necessary to think, not of quixotisms, but of the future: a modest mansion in Madrid, a cozy house in the country, and a
good income in order to live in luxury at the capital—these are what he must look for in the Philippines. Let us not ask for
miracles, let us not ask that he who comes as an outsider to make his fortune and go away afterwards should interest himself
in the welfare of the country. What matters to him the gratitude or the curses of a people whom he does not know, in a country
where he has no associations, where he has no affections? Fame to be sweet must resound in the ears of those we love, in
the atmosphere of our home or of the land that will guard our ashes; we wish that fame should hover over our tomb to warm
with its breath the chill of death, so that we may not be completely reduced to nothingness, that something of us may survive.
Naught of this can we offer to those who come to watch over our destinies. And the worst of all this is that they go away just
when they are beginning to get an understanding of their duties. But we are getting away from our subject.”
“But before getting back to it I must make some [197]things plain,” interrupted the youth eagerly. “I can admit that
the government does not know the people, but I believe that the people know the government even less. There are useless
officials, bad ones, if you wish, but there are also good ones, and if these are unable to do anything it is because they meet
with an inert mass, the people, who take little part in the affairs that concern them. But I didn’t come to hold a discussion with
you on that point, I came to ask for advice and you tell me to lower my head before grotesque idols!”
“Yes, I repeat it, because here you must either lower your head or lose it.”
“Either lower my head or lose it!” repeated Ibarra thoughtfully. “The dilemma is hard! But why? Is love for my country
incompatible with love for Spain? Is it necessary to debase oneself to be a good Christian, to prostitute one’s conscience in
order to carry out a good purpose? I love my native land, the Philippines, because to it I owe my life and my happiness,
because every man should love his country. I love Spain, the fatherland of my ancestors, because in spite of everything the
Philippines owes to it, and will continue to owe, her happiness and her future. I am a Catholic, I preserve pure the faith of my
fathers, and I do not see why I have to lower my head when I can raise it, to give it over to my enemies when I can humble
them!”
“Because the field in which you wish to sow is in possession of your enemies and against them you are powerless.
It is necessary that you first kiss the hand that—”
But the youth let him go no farther, exclaiming passionately, “Kiss their hands! You forget that among them they
killed my father and threw his body from the tomb! I who am his son do not forget it, and that I do not avenge it is because I
have regard for the good name of the Church!”
The old Sage bowed his head as he answered slowly: “Señor Ibarra, if you preserve those memories, which
I [198]cannot counsel you to forget, abandon the enterprise you are undertaking and seek in some other way the welfare of
your countrymen. The enterprise needs another man, because to make it a success zeal and money alone are not sufficient;
in our country are required also self-denial, tenacity of purpose, and faith, for the soil is not ready, it is only sown with discord.”
Ibarra appreciated the value of these observations, but still would not be discouraged. The thought of Maria Clara
was in his mind and his promise must be fulfilled.
“Doesn’t your experience suggest any other than this hard means?” he asked in a low voice.
The old man took him by the arm and led him to the window. A fresh breeze, the precursor of the north wind, was
blowing, and before their eyes spread out the garden bounded by the wide forest that was a kind of park.
“Why can we not do as that weak stalk laden with flowers and buds does?” asked the Sage, pointing to a beautiful
jasmine plant. “The wind blows and shakes it and it bows its head as if to hide its precious load. If the stalk should hold itself
erect it would be broken, its flowers would be scattered by the wind, and its buds would be blighted. The wind passes by and
the stalk raises itself erect, proud of its treasure, yet who will blame it for having bowed before necessity? There you see that
gigantic kupang, which majestically waves its light foliage wherein the eagle builds his nest. I brought it from the forest as a
weak sapling and braced its stem for months with slender pieces of bamboo. If I had transplanted it large and full of life, it is
certain that it would not have lived here, for the wind would have thrown it down before its roots could have fixed themselves
in the soil, before it could have become accustomed to its surroundings, and before it could have secured sufficient
nourishment for its size and height. So you, transplanted from Europe to this stony soil, may end, if you do not seek support
and do not humble yourself. You are among evil conditions, alone, [199]elevated, the ground shakes, the sky presages a
storm, and the top of your family tree has shown that it draws the thunderbolt. It is not courage, but foolhardiness, to fight
alone against all that exists. No one censures the pilot who makes for a port at the first gust of the whirlwind. To stoop as the
bullet passes is not cowardly—it is worse to defy it only to fall, never to rise again.”
 “But could this sacrifice produce the fruit that I hope for?” asked Ibarra. “Would the priest believe in me and forget
the affront? Would they aid me frankly in behalf of the education that contests with the conventos the wealth of the country?
Can they not pretend friendship, make a show of protection, and yet underneath in the shadows fight it, undermine it, wound
it in the heel, in order to weaken it quicker than by attacking it in front? Granted the previous actions which you surmise,
anything may be expected!”
The old man remained silent from inability to answer these questions. After meditating for some time, he said: “If
such should happen, if the enterprise should fail, you would be consoled by the thought that you had done what was expected
of you and thus something would be gained. You would have placed the first stone, you would have sown the seed, and after
the storm had spent itself perhaps some grain would have survived the catastrophe to grow and save the species from
destruction and to serve afterwards as the seed for the sons of the dead sower. The example may encourage others who are
only afraid to begin.”
Weighing these reasons, Ibarra realized the situation and saw that with all the old man’s pessimism there was a
great deal of truth in what he said.
“I believe you!” he exclaimed, pressing the old man’s hand. “Not in vain have I looked to you for advice. This very
day I’ll go and reach an understanding with the curate, who, after all is said, has done me no wrong and who must be good,
since all of them are not like the [200]persecutor of my father. I have, besides, to interest him in behalf of that unfortunate
madwoman and her sons. I put my trust in God and men!”
After taking leave of the old man he mounted his horse and rode away. As the pessimistic Sage followed him with
his gaze, he muttered: “Now let’s watch how Destiny will unfold the drama that began in the cemetery.” But for once he was
greatly mistaken—the drama had begun long before![201]

1The College of Santo Tomas was established in 1619 through a legacy of books and money left for that purpose by Fray Miguel de Benavides,
O. P., second archbishop of Manila. By royal decree and papal bull, it became in 1645 the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas, and never, during
the Spanish régime, got beyond the Thomistic theology in its courses of instruction.—TR.
2Take heed lest you fall!
3Ferdinand and Isabella, the builders of Spain’s greatness, are known in Spanish history as “Los Reyes Católicos.”—TR.

Chapter XXVI
The Eve of the Fiesta

It is now the tenth of November, the eve of the fiesta. Emerging from its habitual monotony, the town has given itself
over to unwonted activity in house, church, cockpit, and field. Windows are covered with banners and many-hued draperies.
All space is filled with noise and music, and the air is saturated with rejoicings.
On little tables with embroidered covers the dalagas arrange in bright-hued glass dishes different kinds of
sweetmeats made from native fruits. In the yard the hens cackle, the cocks crow, and the hogs grunt, all terrified by this
merriment of man. Servants move in and out carrying fancy dishes and silver cutlery. Here there is a quarrel over a broken
plate, there they laugh at the simple country girl. Everywhere there is ordering, whispering, shouting. Comments and
conjectures are made, one hurries the other,—all is commotion, noise, and confusion. All this effort and all this toil are for the
stranger as well as the acquaintance, to entertain every one, whether he has been seen before or not, or whether he is
expected to be seen again, in order that the casual visitor, the foreigner, friend, enemy, Filipino, Spaniard, the poor and the
rich, may go away happy and contented. No gratitude is even asked of them nor is it expected that they do no damage to the
hospitable family either during or after digestion! The rich, those who have ever been to Manila and have seen a little more
than their neighbors, have bought beer, champagne, liqueurs, wines, and food-stuffs from Europe, of which they will hardly
taste a bite or drink a drop.
Their tables are luxuriously furnished. In the center [202]is a well-modeled artificial pineapple in which are arranged
toothpicks elaborately carved by convicts in their rest-hours. Here they have designed a fan, there a bouquet of flowers, a
bird, a rose, a palm leaf, or a chain, all wrought from a single piece of wood, the artisan being a forced laborer, the tool a dull
knife, and the taskmaster’s voice the inspiration. Around this toothpick-holder are placed glass fruit-trays from which rise
pyramids of oranges, lansons, ates, chicos, and even mangos in spite of the fact that it is November. On wide platters upon
bright-hued sheets of perforated paper are to be seen hams from Europe and China, stuffed turkeys, and a big pastry in the
shape of an Agnus Dei or a dove, the Holy Ghost perhaps. Among all these are jars of appetizing acharas with fanciful
decorations made from the flowers of the areca palm and other fruits and vegetables, all tastefully cut and fastened with sirup
to the sides of the flasks.
Glass lamp globes that have been handed down from father to son are cleaned, the copper ornaments polished,
the kerosene lamps taken out of the red wrappings which have protected them from the flies and mosquitoes during the year
and which have made them unserviceable; the prismatic glass pendants shake to and fro, they clink together harmoniously in
song, and even seem to take part in the fiesta as they flash back and break up the rays of light, reflecting them on the white
walls in all the colors of the rainbow. The children play about amusing themselves by chasing the colors, they stumble and
break the globes, but this does not interfere with the general merriment, although at other times in the year the tears in their
round eyes would be taken account of in a different way.
 Along with these venerated lamps there also come forth from their hiding-places the work of the girls: crocheted
scarfs, rugs, artificial flowers. There appear old glass trays, on the bottoms of which are sketched miniature lakes with little
fishes, caymans, shell-fish, seaweeds, coral, and glassy stones of brilliant hues. These are heaped [203]with cigars, cigarettes,
and diminutive buyos prepared by the delicate fingers of the maidens. The floor of the house shines like a mirror, curtains of
piña and husi festoon the doorways, from the windows hang lanterns covered with glass or with paper, pink, blue, green, or
red. The house itself is filled with plants and flower-pots on stands of Chinese porcelain. Even the saints bedeck themselves,
the images and relics put on a festive air, the dust is brushed from them and on the freshly-washed glass of their cases are
hung flowery garlands.
In the streets are raised at intervals fanciful bamboo arches, known as sinkában, constructed in various ways and
adorned with kaluskús, the curling bunches of shavings scraped on their sides, at the sight of which alone the hearts of the
children rejoice. About the front of the church, where the procession is to pass, is a large and costly canopy upheld on bamboo
posts. Beneath this the children run and play, climbing, jumping, and tearing the new camisas in which they should shine on
the principal day of the fiesta.
There on the plaza a platform has been erected, the scenery being of bamboo, nipa, and wood; there the Tondo
comedians will perform wonders and compete with the gods in improbable miracles, there will sing and dance Marianito,
Chananay, Balbino, Ratia, Carvajal, Yeyeng, Liceria, etc. The Filipino enjoys the theater and is a deeply interested spectator
of dramatic representations, but he listens in silence to the song, he gazes delighted at the dancing and mimicry, he never
hisses or applauds.
If the show is not to his liking, he chews his buyo or withdraws without disturbing the others who perhaps find
pleasure in it. Only at times the commoner sort will howl when the actors embrace or kiss the actresses, but they never go
beyond that. Formerly, dramas only were played; the local poet composed a piece in which there must necessarily be a fight
every second minute, a clown, and terrifying transformations. But since the Tondo artist [204]have begun to fight every fifteen
seconds, with two clowns, and even greater marvels than before, they have put to rout their provincial compeers. The
gobernadorcillo was very fond of this sort of thing, so, with the approval of the curate, he chose a spectacle with magic and
fireworks, entitled, “The Prince Villardo or the Captives Rescued from the Infamous Cave.”1
From time to time the bells chime out merrily, those same bells that ten days ago were tolling so mournfully. Pin-
wheels and mortars rend the air, for the Filipino pyrotechnist, who learned the art from no known instructor, displays his ability
by preparing fire bulls, castles of Bengal lights, paper balloons inflated with hot air, bombs, rockets, and the like.
Now distant strains of music are heard and the small boys rush headlong toward the outskirts of the town to meet
the bands of music, five of which have been engaged, as well as three orchestras. The band of Pagsanhan belonging to the
escribano must not be lacking nor that of San Pedro de Tunasan, at that time famous because it was directed by the maestro
Austria, the vagabond “Corporal Mariano” who, according to report, carried fame and harmony in the tip of his baton. Musicians
praise his funeral march, “El Sauce,”2 and deplore his lack of musical education, since with his genius he might have brought
glory to his country. The bands enter the town playing lively airs, followed by ragged or half-naked urchins, one in the camisa
of his brother, another in his father’s pantaloons. As soon as the band ceases, the boys know the piece by heart, they hum
and whistle it with rare skill, they pronounce their judgment upon it.
[205]Meanwhile, there are arriving in conveyances of all kinds relatives, friends, strangers, the gamblers with their
best game-cocks and their bags of gold, ready to risk their fortune on the green cloth or within the arena of the cockpit.
“The alferez has fifty pesos for each night,” murmurs a small, chubby individual into the ears of the latest arrivals.
“Capitan Tiago’s coming and will set up a bank; Capitan Joaquin’s bringing eighteen thousand. There’ll be liam-pó: Carlos the
Chinaman will set it up with ten thousand. Big stakes are coming from Tanawan, Lipa, and Batangas, as well as from Santa
Cruz.3 It’s going to be on a big scale, yes, sir, on a grand scale! But have some chocolate! This year Capitan Tiago won’t
break us as he did last, since he’s paid for only three thanksgiving masses and I’ve got a cacao mutyâ. And how’s your family?”
“Well, thank you,” the visitors respond, “and Padre Damaso?”
“Padre Damaso will preach in the morning and sit in with us at night.”
“Good enough! Then there’s no danger.”
“Sure, we’re sure! Carlos the Chinaman will loosen up also.” Here the chubby individual works his fingers as though
counting out pieces of money.
Outside the town the hill-folk, the kasamá, are putting on their best clothes to carry to the houses of their landlords
well-fattened chickens, wild pigs, deer, and birds. Some load firewood on the heavy carts, others fruits, ferns, and orchids, the
rarest that grow in the forests, others bring broad-leafed caladiums and flame-colored tikas-tikas blossoms to decorate the
doors of the houses.
But the place where the greatest activity reigns, where it is converted into a tumult, is there on a little plot
of [206]raised ground, a few steps from Ibarra’s house. Pulleys screech and yells are heard amid the metallic sound of iron
striking upon stone, hammers upon nails, of axes chopping out posts. A crowd of laborers is digging in the earth to open a
wide, deep trench, while others place in line the stones taken from the town quarries. Carts are unloaded, piles of sand are
heaped up, windlasses and derricks are set in place.
“Hey, you there! Hurry up!” cries a little old man with lively and intelligent features, who has for a cane a copper-
bound rule around which is wound the cord of a plumb-bob. This is the foreman of the work, Ñor Juan, architect, mason,
carpenter, painter, locksmith, stonecutter, and, on occasions, sculptor. “It must be finished right now! Tomorrow there’ll be no
work and the day after tomorrow is the ceremony. Hurry!”
“Cut that hole so that this cylinder will fit it exactly,” he says to some masons who are shaping a large square block
of stone. “Within that our names will be preserved.”
He repeats to every newcomer who approaches the place what he has already said a thousand times: “You know
what we’re going to build? Well, it’s a schoolhouse, a model of its kind, like those in Germany, and even better. A great
architect has drawn the plans, and I—I am bossing the job! Yes, sir, look at it, it’s going to be a palace with two wings, one for
the boys and the other for the girls. Here in the middle a big garden with three fountains, there on the sides shaded walks with
little plots for the children to sow and cultivate plants in during their recess-time, that they may improve the hours and not
waste them. Look how deep the foundations are, three meters and seventy-five centimeters! This building is going to have
storerooms, cellars, and for those who are not diligent students dungeons near the playgrounds so that the culprits may hear
how the studious children are enjoying themselves. Do you see that big space? That will be a lawn for running and exercising
in the open air. The little girls [207]will have a garden with benches, swings, walks where they can jump the rope, fountains,
bird-cages, and so on. It’s going to be magnificent!”
Then Ñor Juan would rub his hands together as he thought of the fame that he was going to acquire. Strangers
would come to see it and would ask, “Who was the great artisan that built this?” and all would answer, “Don’t you know? Can
it be that you’ve never heard of Ñor Juan? Undoubtedly you’ve come from a great distance!” With these thoughts he moved
from one part to the other, examining and reexamining everything.
“It seems to me that there’s too much timber for one derrick,” he remarked to a yellowish man who was overseeing
some laborers. “I should have enough with three large beams for the tripod and three more for the braces.”
“Never mind!” answered the yellowish man, smiling in a peculiar way. “The more apparatus we use in the work, so
much the greater effect we’ll get. The whole thing will look better and of more importance, so they’ll say, ‘How hard they’ve
worked!’ You’ll see, you’ll see what a derrick I’ll put up! Then I’ll decorate it with banners, and garlands of leaves and flowers.
You’ll say afterwards that you were right in hiring me as one of your laborers, and Señor Ibarra couldn’t ask for more!” As he
said this the man laughed and smiled. Ñor Juan also smiled, but shook his head.
Some distance away were seen two kiosks united by a kind of arbor covered with banana leaves. The schoolmaster
and some thirty boys were weaving crowns and fastening banners upon the frail bamboo posts, which were wrapped in white
cloth.
“Take care that the letters are well written,” he admonished the boys who were preparing inscriptions. “The alcalde
is coming, many curates will be present, perhaps even the Captain-General, who is now in the province. If they see that you
draw well, maybe they’ll praise you.”
[208]“And give us a blackboard?”
“Perhaps, but Señor Ibarra has already ordered one from Manila. Tomorrow some things will come to be distributed
among you as prizes. Leave those flowers in the water and tomorrow we’ll make the bouquets. Bring more flowers, for it’s
necessary that the table be covered with them—flowers please the eye.”
“My father will bring some water-lilies and a basket of sampaguitas tomorrow.”
“Mine has brought three cartloads of sand without pay.”
“My uncle has promised to pay a teacher,” added a nephew of Capitan Basilio.
Truly, the project was receiving help from all. The curate had asked to stand sponsor for it and himself bless the
laying of the corner-stone, a ceremony to take place on the last day of the fiesta as one of its greatest solemnities. The very
coadjutor had timidly approached Ibarra with an offer of all the fees for masses that the devout would pay until the building
was finished. Even more, the rich and economical Sister Rufa had declared that if money should be lacking she would canvass
other towns and beg for alms, with the mere condition that she be paid her expenses for travel and subsistence. Ibarra thanked
them all, as he answered, “We aren’t going to have anything very great, since I am not rich and this building is not a church.
Besides, I didn’t undertake to erect it at the expense of others.”
The younger men, students from Manila, who had come to take part in the fiesta, gazed at him in admiration and
took him for a model; but, as it nearly always happens, when we wish to imitate great men, that we copy only their foibles and
even their defects, since we are capable of nothing else, so many of these admirers took note of the way in which he tied his
cravat, others of the style of his collar, and not a few of the number of buttons on his coat and vest.
[209]The funereal presentiments of old Tasio seemed to have been dissipated forever. So Ibarra observed to him
one day, but the old pessimist answered: “Remember what Baltazar says:
Kung ang isalúbong sa iyong pagdating
Ay masayang maukha’t may pakitang giliw,
Lalong pag-iñgata’t kaaway na lihim4—
Baltazar was no less a thinker than a poet.”
Thus in the gathering shadows before the setting of the sun events were shaping themselves.[210]

1These spectacular performances, known as “Moro-Moro,” often continued for several days, consisting principally of noisy combats between
Moros and Christians, in which the latter were, of course, invariably victorious. Typical sketches of them may be found in Foreman’s The Philippine Islands,
Chap. XXIII, and Stuntz’s The Philippines and the Far East, Chap. III.—TR.
2“The Willow.”
 3The capital of Laguna Province, not to be confused with the Santa Cruz mentioned before, which is a populous and important district in the city
of Manila. Tanawan, Lipa, and Batangas are towns in Batangas Province, the latter being its capital.—TR.
4“If on your return you are met with a smile, beware! for it means that you have a secret enemy.”—From the Florante, being the advice given to
the hero by his old teacher when he set out to return to his home.
Francisco Baltazar was a Tagalog poet, native of the province of Bulacan, born about 1788, and died in 1862. The greater part of his life was
spent in Manila,—in Tondo and in Pandakan, a quaint little village on the south bank of the Pasig, now included in the city, where he appears to have shared
the fate largely of poets of other lands, from suffering “the pangs of disprized love” and persecution by the religious authorities, to seeing himself considered
by the people about him as a crack-brained dreamer. He was educated in the Dominican school of San Juan de Letran, one of his teachers being Fray
Mariano Pilapil, about whose services to humanity there may be some difference of opinion on the part of those who have ever resided in Philippine towns,
since he was the author of the “Passion Song” which enlivens the Lenten evenings. This “Passion Song,” however, seems to have furnished the model for
Baltazar’s Florante, with the pupil surpassing the master, for while it has the subject and characters of a medieval European romance, the spirit and settings
are entirely Malay. It is written in the peculiar Tagalog verse, in the form of a corrido or metrical romance, and has been declared by Fray Toribio Menguella,
Rizal himself, and others familiar with Tagalog, to be a work of no mean order, by far the finest and most characteristic composition in that, the richest of the
Malay dialects.—TR.

Chapter XXVII
In the Twilight

In Capitan Tiago’s house also great preparations had been made. We know its owner, whose love of ostentation
and whose pride as a Manilan imposed the necessity of humiliating the provincials with his splendor. Another reason, too,
made it his duty to eclipse all others: he had his daughter Maria Clara with him, and there was present his future son-in-law,
who was attracting universal attention.
In fact one of the most serious newspapers in Manila had devoted to Ibarra an article on its front page, entitled,
“Imitate him!” heaping him with praise and giving him some advice. It had called him, “The cultivated young gentleman and
rich capitalist;” two lines further on, “The distinguished philanthropist;” in the following paragraph, “The disciple of Minerva who
had gone to the mother country to pay his respects to the true home of the arts and sciences;” and a little further on, “The
Filipino Spaniard.” Capitan Tiago burned with generous zeal to imitate him and wondered whether he ought not to erect a
convento at his own expense.
Some days before there had arrived at the house where Maria Clara and Aunt Isabel were staying a profusion of
eases of European wines and food-stuffs, colossal mirrors, paintings, and Maria Clara’s piano. Capitan Tiago had arrived on
the day before the fiesta and as his daughter kissed his hand, had presented her with a beautiful locket set with diamonds and
emeralds, containing a sliver from St. Peter’s boat, in which Our Savior sat during the fishing. His first interview with his future
son-in-law could not [211]have been more cordial. Naturally, they talked about the school, and Capitan Tiago wanted it named
“School of St. Francis.” “Believe me,” he said, “St. Francis is a good patron. If you call it ‘School of Primary Instruction,’ you
will gain nothing. Who is Primary Instruction, anyhow?”
Some friends of Maria Clara came and asked her to go for a walk. “But come back quickly,” said Capitan Tiago to
his daughter, when she asked his permission, “for you know that Padre Damaso, who has just arrived, will dine with us.”
Then turning to Ibarra, who had become thoughtful, he said, “You dine with us also, you’ll be all alone in your house.”
“I would with the greatest pleasure, but I have to be at home in case visitors come,” stammered the youth, as he
avoided the gaze of Maria Clara.
“Bring your friends along,” replied Capitan Tiago heartily. “In my house there’s always plenty to eat. Also, I want you
and Padre Damaso to get on good terms.”
“There’ll be time enough for that,” answered Ibarra with a forced smile, as he prepared to accompany the girls.
They went downstairs, Maria Clara in the center between Victoria and Iday, Aunt Isabel following. The people made
way for them respectfully. Maria Clara was startling in her beauty; her pallor was all gone, and if her eyes were still pensive,
her mouth on the contrary seemed to know only smiles. With maiden friendliness the happy young woman greeted the
acquaintances of her childhood, now the admirers of her promising youth. In less than a fortnight she had succeeded in
recovering that frank confidence, that childish prattle, which seemed to have been benumbed between the narrow walls of the
nunnery. It might be said that on leaving the cocoon the butterfly recognized all the flowers, for it seemed to be enough for her
to spread her wings for a moment and warm herself [212]in the sun’s rays to lose all the stiffness of the chrysalis. This new
life manifested itself in her whole nature. Everything she found good and beautiful, and she showed her love with that maiden
modesty which, having never been conscious of any but pure thoughts, knows not the meaning of false blushes. While she
would cover her face when she was teased, still her eyes smiled, and a light thrill would course through her whole being.
The houses were beginning to show lights, and in the streets where the music was moving about there were lighted
torches of bamboo and wood made in imitation of those in the church. From the streets the people in the houses might be
seen through the windows in an atmosphere of music and flowers, moving about to the sounds of piano, harp, or orchestra.
Swarming in the streets were Chinese, Spaniards, Filipinos, some dressed in European style, some in the costumes of the
country. Crowding, elbowing, and pushing one another, walked servants carrying meat and chickens, students in white, men
and women, all exposing themselves to be knocked down by the carriages which, in spite of the drivers’ cries, made their way
with difficulty.
 In front of Capitan Basilio’s house some young women called to our acquaintances and invited them to enter. The
merry voice of Sinang as she ran down the stairs put an end to all excuses. “Come up a moment so that I may go with you,”
she said. “I’m bored staying here among so many strangers who talk only of game-cocks and cards.”
They were ushered into a large room filled with people, some of whom came forward to greet Ibarra, for his name
was now well known. All gazed in ecstasy at the beauty of Maria Clara and some old women murmured, as they chewed their
buyo, “She looks like the Virgin!”
There they had to have chocolate, as Capitan Basilio had become a warm friend and defender of Ibarra since the
day of the picnic. He had learned from the half of the [213]telegram given to his daughter Sinang that Ibarra had known
beforehand about the court’s decision in the latter’s favor, so, not wishing to be outdone in generosity, he had tried to set aside
the decision of the chess-match. But when Ibarra would not consent to this, he had proposed that the money which would
have been spent in court fees should be used to pay a teacher in the new school. In consequence, the orator employed all his
eloquence to the end that other litigants should give up their extravagant claims, saying to them, “Believe me, in a lawsuit the
winner is left without a camisa.” But he had succeeded in convincing no one, even though he cited the Romans.
After drinking the chocolate our young people had to listen to piano-playing by the town organist. “When I listen to
him in the church,” exclaimed Sinang, pointing to the organist, “I want to dance, and now that he’s playing here I feel like
praying, so I’m going out with you.”
“Don’t you want to join us tonight?” whispered Capitan Basilio into Ibarra’s ear as they were leaving. “Padre Damaso
is going to set up a little bank.” Ibarra smiled and answered with an equivocal shake of his head.
“Who’s that?” asked Maria Clara of Victoria, indicating with a rapid glance a youth who was following them.
“He’s—he’s a cousin of mine,” she answered with some agitation.
“And the other?”
“He’s no cousin of mine,” put in Sinang merrily. “He’s my uncle’s son.”
They passed in front of the parish rectory, which was not one of the least animated buildings. Sinang was unable to
repress an exclamation of surprise on seeing the lamps burning, those lamps of antique pattern which Padre Salvi had never
allowed to be lighted, in order not to waste kerosene. Loud talk and resounding bursts of laughter might be heard as the friars
moved slowly about, nodding their heads in unison with the big cigars that adorned their [214]lips. The laymen with them, who
from their European garments appeared to be officials and employees of the province, were endeavoring to imitate whatever
the good priests did. Maria Clara made out the rotund figure of Padre Damaso at the side of the trim silhouette of Padre Sibyla.
Motionless in his place stood the silent and mysterious Fray Salvi.
“He’s sad,” observed Sinang, “for he’s thinking about how much so many visitors are going to cost. But you’ll see
how he’ll not pay it himself, but the sacristans will. His visitors always eat at other places.”
“Sinang!” scolded Victoria.
“I haven’t been able to endure him since he tore up the Wheel of Fortune. I don’t go to confession to him any more.”
Of all the houses one only was to be noticed without lights and with all the windows closed—that of the alferez.
Maria Clara expressed surprise at this.
“The witch! The Muse of the Civil Guard, as the old man says,” exclaimed the irrepressible Sinang. “What has she
to do with our merrymakings? I imagine she’s raging! But just let the cholera come and you’d see her give a banquet.”
“But, Sinang!” again her cousin scolded.
“I never was able to endure her and especially since she disturbed our picnic with her civil-guards. If I were the
Archbishop I’d marry Her to Padre Salvi—then think what children! Look how she tried to arrest the poor pilot, who threw
himself into the water simply to please—”
She was not allowed to finish, for in the corner of the plaza where a blind man was singing to the accompaniment
of a guitar, a curious spectacle was presented. It was a man miserably dressed, wearing a broad salakot of palm leaves. His
clothing consisted of a ragged coat and wide pantaloons, like those worn by the Chinese, torn in many places. Wretched
sandals covered his feet. His countenance remained hidden in the shadow of his wide [215]hat, but from this shadow there
flashed intermittently two burning rays. Placing a flat basket on the ground, he would withdraw a few paces and utter strange,
incomprehensible sounds, remaining the while standing entirely alone as if he and the crowd were mutually avoiding each
other. Then some women would approach the basket and put into it fruit, fish, or rice. When no one any longer approached,
from the shadows would issue sadder but less pitiful sounds, cries of gratitude perhaps. Then he would take up the basket
and make his way to another place to repeat the same performance.
Maria Clara divined that there must be some misfortune there, and full of interest she asked concerning the strange
creature.
“He’s a leper,” Iday told her. “Four years ago he contracted the disease, some say from taking care of his mother,
others from lying in a damp prison. He lives in the fields near the Chinese cemetery, having intercourse with no one, because
all flee from him for fear of contagion. If you might only see his home! It’s a tumbledown shack, through which the wind and
rain pass like a needle through cloth. He has been forbidden to touch anything belonging to the people. One day when a little
child fell into a shallow ditch as he was passing, he helped to get it out. The child’s father complained to the gobernadorcillo,
who ordered that the leper be flogged through the streets and that the rattan be burned afterwards. It was horrible! The leper
fled with his flogger in pursuit, while the gobernadorcillo cried, ‘Catch him! Better be drowned than get the disease you have!’”
 “Can it be true!” murmured Maria Clara, then, without saying what she was about to do, went up to the wretch’s
basket and dropped into it the locket her father had given her.
“What have you done?” her friends asked.
“I hadn’t anything else,” she answered, trying to conceal her tears with a smile.
[216]“What is he going to do with your locket?” Victoria asked her. “One day they gave him some money, but he
pushed it away with a stick; why should he want it when no one accepts anything that comes from him? As if the locket could
be eaten!”
Maria Clara gazed enviously at the women who were selling food-stuffs and shrugged her shoulders. The leper
approached the basket, picked up the jeweled locket, which glittered in his hands, then fell upon his knees, kissed it, and
taking off his salakot buried his forehead in the dust where the maiden had stepped. Maria Clara hid her face behind her fan
and raised her handkerchief to her eyes.
Meanwhile, a poor woman had approached the leper, who seemed to be praying. Her long hair was loose and
unkempt, and in the light of the torches could be recognized the extremely emaciated features of the crazy Sisa. Feeling the
touch of her hand, the leper jumped up with a cry, but to the horror of the onlooker’s Sisa caught him by the arm and said:
“Let us pray, let us pray! Today is All Souls’ day! Those lights are the souls of men! Let us pray for my sons!”
“Separate them! Separate them! The madwoman will get the disease!” cried the crowd, but no one dared to go near
them.
“Do you see that light in the tower? That is my son Basilio sliding down a rope! Do you see that light in the convento?
That is my son Crispin! But I’m not going to see them because the curate is sick and had many gold pieces and the gold
pieces are lost! Pray, let us pray for the soul of the curate! I took him the finest fruits, for my garden was full of flowers and I
had two sons! I had a garden, I used to take care of my flowers, and I had two sons!”
Then releasing her hold of the leper, she ran away singing, “I had a garden and flowers, I had two sons, a garden,
and flowers!”
[217]“What have you been able to do for that poor woman?” Maria Clara asked Ibarra.
“Nothing! Lately she has been missing from the totem and wasn’t to be found,” answered the youth, rather
confusedly. “Besides, I have been very busy. But don’t let it trouble you. The curate has promised to help me, but advised that
I proceed with great tact and caution, for the Civil Guard seems to be mixed up in it. The curate is greatly interested in her
case.”
“Didn’t the alferez say that he would have search made for her sons?”
“Yes, but at the time he was somewhat—drunk.” Scarcely had he said this when they saw the crazy woman being
led, or rather dragged along, by a soldier. Sisa was offering resistance.
“Why are you arresting her? What has she done?” asked Ibarra.
“Why, haven’t you seen how she’s been raising a disturbance?” was the reply of the guardian of the public peace.
The leper caught up his basket hurriedly and ran away.
Maria Clara wanted to go home, as she had lost all her mirth and good humor. “So there are people who are not
happy,” she murmured. Arriving at her door, she felt her sadness increase when her fiancé declined to go in, excusing himself
on the plea of necessity. Maria Clara went upstairs thinking what a bore are the fiesta days, when strangers make their
visits.[218]

Chapter XXVIII
Correspondence

Cada uno habla de la feria como le va en ella.1

As nothing of importance to our characters happened during the first two days, we should gladly pass on to the third
and last, were it not that perhaps some foreign reader may wish to know how the Filipinos celebrate their fiestas. For this
reason we shall faithfully reproduce in this chapter several letters, one of them being that of the correspondent of a noted
Manila newspaper, respected for its grave tone and deep seriousness. Our readers will correct some natural and trifling slips
of the pen. Thus the worthy correspondent of the respectable newspaper wrote:
“TO THE EDITOR, MY DISTINGUISHED FRIEND,—Never did I witness, nor had I ever expected to see in the
provinces, a religious fiesta so solemn, so splendid, and so impressive as that now being celebrated in this town by the Most
Reverend and virtuous Franciscan Fathers.
“Great crowds are in attendance. I have here had the pleasure of greeting nearly all the Spaniards who reside in
this province, three Reverend Augustinian Fathers from the province of Batangas, and two Reverend Dominican Fathers. One
of the latter is the Very Reverend Fray Hernando Sibyla, who has come to honor this town with his presence, a distinction
which its worthy inhabitants should never forget. I have also seen a great number of the best people of Cavite and Pampanga,
many wealthy persons from Manila, and many bands of music,—among these the very artistic one of Pagsanhan belonging
to the escribano, Don Miguel Guevara,—swarms of Chinamen [219]and Indians, who, with the curiosity of the former and the
piety of the latter, awaited anxiously the day on which was to be celebrated the comic-mimic-lyric-lightning-change-dramatic
spectacle, for which a large and spacious theater had been erected in the middle of the plaza.
 “At nine on the night of the 10th, the eve of the fiesta, after a succulent dinner set before us by the hermano mayor,
the attention of all the Spaniards and friars in the convento was attracted by strains of music from a surging multitude which,
with the noise of bombs and rockets, preceded by the leading citizens of the town, came to the convento to escort us to the
place prepared and arranged for us that we might witness the spectacle. Such a courteous offer we had to accept, although I
should have preferred to rest in the arms of Morpheus and repose my weary limbs, which were aching, thanks to the joltings
of the vehicle furnished us by the gobernadorcillo of B———.
“Accordingly we joined them and proceeded to look for our companions, who were dining in the house, owned here
by the pious and wealthy Don Santiago de los Santos. The curate of the town, the Very Reverend Fray Bernardo Salvi, and
the Very Reverend Fray Damaso Verdolagas, who is now by the special favor of Heaven recovered from the suffering caused
him by an impious hand, in company with the Very Reverend Fray Hernando Sibyla and the virtuous curate of Tanawan, with
other Spaniards, were guests in the house of the Filipino Croesus. There we had the good fortune of admiring not only the
luxury and good taste of the host, which are not usual among the natives, but also the beauty of the charming and wealthy
heiress, who showed herself to be a polished disciple of St. Cecelia by playing on her elegant piano, with a mastery that
recalled Galvez to me, the best German and Italian compositions. It is a matter of regret that such a charming young lady
should be so excessively modest as to hide her talents from a society which has only admiration for her. Nor should I leave
unwritten that in the house of our host there were set before us champagne and fine liqueurs with the profusion and splendor
that characterize the well-known capitalist.
“We attended the spectacle. You already know our artists, Ratia, Carvajal, and Fernandez, whose cleverness was
comprehended [220]by us alone, since the uncultured crowd did not understand a jot of it. Chananay and Balbino were very
good, though a little hoarse; the latter made one break, but together, and as regards earnest effort, they were admirable. The
Indians were greatly pleased with the Tagalog drama, especially the gobernadorcillo, who rubbed his hands and informed us
that it was a pity that they had not made the princess join in combat with the giant who had stolen her away, which in his
opinion would have been more marvelous, especially if the giant had been represented as vulnerable only in the navel, like a
certain Ferragus of whom the stories of the Paladins tell. The Very Reverend Fray Damaso, in his customary goodness of
heart, concurred in this opinion, and added that in such case the princess should be made to discover the giant’s weak spot
and give him the coup de grace.
“Needless to tell you that during the show the affability of the Filipino Rothschild allowed nothing to be lacking: ice-
cream, lemonade, wines, and refreshments of all kinds circulated profusely among us. A matter of reasonable and special
note was the absence of the well-known and cultured youth, Don Juan Crisostomo Ibarra, who, as you know, will tomorrow
preside at the laying of the corner-stone for the great edifice which he is so philanthropically erecting. This worthy descendant
of the Pelayos and Elcanos (for I have learned that one of his paternal ancestors was from our heroic and noble northern
provinces, perhaps one of the companions of Magellan or Legazpi) did not show himself during the entire day, owing to a
slight indisposition. His name runs from mouth to mouth, being uttered with praises that can only reflect glory upon Spain and
true Spaniards like ourselves, who never deny our blood, however mixed it may be.
“Today, at eleven o’clock in the morning, we attended a deeply-moving spectacle. Today, as is generally known, is
the fiesta of the Virgin of Peace and is being observed by the Brethren of the Holy Rosary. Tomorrow will occur the fiesta of
the patron, San Diego, and it will be observed principally by the Venerable Tertiary Order. Between these two societies there
exists a pious rivalry in serving God, which piety has reached the extreme of holy quarrels among them, as has just happened
in the dispute over the preacher of acknowledged [221]fame, the oft-mentioned Very Reverend Fray Damaso, who tomorrow
will occupy the pulpit of the Holy Ghost with a sermon, which, according to general expectation, will be a literary and religious
event.
“So, as we were saying, we attended a highly edifying and moving spectacle. Six pious youths, three to recite the
mass and three for acolytes, marched out of the sacristy and prostrated themselves before the altar, while the officiating priest,
the Very Reverend Fray Hernando Sibyla, chanted the Surge Domine—the signal for commencing the procession around the
church—with the magnificent voice and religious unction that all recognize and that make him so worthy of general admiration.
When the Surge Domine was concluded, the gobernadorcillo, in a frock coat, carrying the standard and followed by four
acolytes with incense-burners, headed the procession. Behind them came the tall silver candelabra, the municipal corporation,
the precious images dressed in satin and gold, representing St. Dominic and the Virgin of Peace in a magnificent blue robe
trimmed with gilded silver, the gift of the pious ex-gobernadorcillo, the so-worthy-of-being-imitated and never-sufficiently-
praised Don Santiago de los Santos. All these images were borne on silver cars. Behind the Mother of God came the Spaniards
and the rest of the clergy, while the officiating priest was protected by a canopy carried by the cabezas de barangay, and the
procession was closed by a squad of the worthy Civil Guard. I believe it unnecessary to state that a multitude of Indians,
carrying lighted candles with great devotion, formed the two lines of the procession. The musicians played religious marches,
while bombs and pinwheels furnished repeated salutes. It causes admiration to see the modesty and the fervor which these
ceremonies inspire in the hearts of the true believers, the grand, pure faith professed for the Virgin of Peace, the solemnity
and fervent devotion with which such ceremonies are performed by those of us who have had the good fortune to be born
under the sacrosanct and immaculate banner of Spain.
“The procession concluded, there began the mass rendered by the orchestra and the theatrical artists. After the
reading of the Gospel, the Very Reverend Fray Manuel Martin, an Augustinian from the province of Batangas, ascended
the [222]pulpit and kept the whole audience enraptured and hanging on his words, especially the Spaniards, during the
exordium in Castilian, as he spoke with vigor and in such flowing and well-rounded periods that our hearts were filled with
fervor and enthusiasm. This indeed is the term that should be used for what is felt, or what we feel, when the Virgin of our
beloved Spain is considered, and above all when there can be intercalated in the text, if the subject permits, the ideas of a
prince of the Church, the Señor Monescillo,2 which are surely those of all Spaniards.
“At the conclusion of the services all of us went up into the convento with the leading citizens of the town and other
persons of note. There we were especially honored by the refinement, attention, and prodigality that characterize the Very
Reverend Fray Salvi, there being set before us cigars and an abundant lunch which the hermano mayor had prepared under
the convento for all who might feel the necessity for appeasing the cravings of their stomachs.
“During the day nothing has been lacking to make the fiesta joyous and to preserve the animation so characteristic
of Spaniards, and which it is impossible to restrain on such occasions as this, showing itself sometimes in singing and dancing,
at other times in simple and merry diversions of so strong and noble a nature that all sorrow is driven away, and it is enough
for three Spaniards to be gathered together in one place in order that sadness and ill-humor be banished thence. Then homage
was paid to Terpsichore in many homes, but especially in that of the cultured Filipino millionaire, where we were all invited to
dine. Needless to say, the banquet, which was sumptuous and elegantly served, was a second edition of the wedding-feast
in Cana, or of Camacho,3 corrected and enlarged. While we were enjoying the meal, which was directed by a cook from ‘La
Campana,’ an orchestra played harmonious melodies. The beautiful young lady of the house, in a mestiza [223]gown4 and a
cascade of diamonds, was as ever the queen of the feast.. All of us deplored from the bottom of our hearts a light sprain in
her shapely foot that deprived her of the pleasures of the dance, for if we have to judge by her other conspicuous perfections,
the young lady must dance like a sylph.
“The alcalde of the province arrived this afternoon for the purpose of honoring with his presence the ceremony of
tomorrow. He has expressed regret over the poor health of the distinguished landlord, Señor Ibarra, who in God’s mercy is
now, according to report, somewhat recovered.
“Tonight there was a solemn procession, but of that I will speak in my letter tomorrow, because in addition to the
explosions that have bewildered me and made me somewhat deaf I am tired and falling over with sleep. While, therefore, I
recover my strength in the arms of Morpheus—or rather on a cot in the convento—I desire for you, my distinguished friend, a
pleasant night and take leave of you until tomorrow, which will be the great day.
Your affectionate friend,
SAN DIEGO, November 11.
THE CORRESPONDENT.”
Thus wrote the worthy correspondent. Now let us see what Capitan Martin wrote to his friend, Luis Chiquito:
“DEAR CHOY,—Come a-running if you can, for there’s something doing at the fiesta. Just imagine, Capitan Joaquin
is almost broke. Capitan Tiago has doubled up on him three times and won at the first turn of the cards each time, so that
Capitan Manuel, the owner of the house, is growing smaller every minute from sheer joy. Padre Damaso smashed a lamp
with his fist because up to now he hasn’t won on a single card. The Consul has lost on his cocks and in the bank all [224]that
he won from us at the fiesta of Biñan and at that of the Virgin of the Pillar in Santa Cruz.
“We expected Capitan Tiago to bring us his future son-in-law, the rich heir of Don Rafael, but it seems that he wishes
to imitate his father, for he does not even show himself. It’s a pity, for it seems he never will be any use to us.
“Carlos the Chinaman is making a big fortune with the liam-pó. I suspect that he carries something hidden, probably
a charm, for he complains constantly of headaches and keeps his head bandaged, and when the wheel of the liam-pó is
slowing down he leans over, almost touching it, as if he were looking at it closely. I am shocked, because I know more stories
of the same kind.
“Good-by, Choy. My birds are well and my wife is happy and having a good time.
Your friend,
MARTIN ARISTORENAS.”
Ibarra had received a perfumed note which Andeng, Maria Clara’s foster-sister, delivered to him on the evening of
the first day of the fiesta. This note said:
“CRISOSTOMO,—It has been over a day since you have shown yourself. I have heard that you are ill and have
prayed for you and lighted two candles, although papa says that you are not seriously ill. Last night and today I’ve been bored
by requests to play on the piano and by invitations to dance. I didn’t know before that there are so many tiresome people in
the world! If it were not for Padre Damaso, who tries to entertain me by talking to me and telling me many things, I would have
shut myself up in my room and gone to sleep. Write me what the matter is with you and I’ll tell papa to visit you. For the present
I send Andeng to make you some tea, as she knows how to prepare it well, probably better than your servants do.
MARIA CLARA.”
“P.S. If you don’t come tomorrow, I won’t go to the ceremony. Vale!”
[225]

1Every one talks of the fiesta according to the way he fared at it.
2A Spanish prelate, notable for his determined opposition in the Constituent Cortes of 1869 to the clause in the new Constitution providing for
religious liberty.—TR.
3“Camacho’s wedding” is an episode in Don Quixote, wherein a wealthy man named Camacho is cheated out of his bride after he has prepared
a magnificent wedding-feast.—TR.
 4The full dress of the Filipino women, consisting of the camisa, pañuelo, and saya suelta, the latter a heavy skirt with a long train. The
name mestiza is not inappropriate, as well from its composition as its use, since the first two are distinctly native, antedating the conquest, while the saya
suelta was no doubt introduced by the Spaniards.

Chapter XXIX
The Morning

At the first flush of dawn bands of music awoke the tired people of the town with lively airs. Life and movement
reawakened, the bells began to chime, and the explosions commenced. It was the last day of the fiesta, in fact the fiesta
proper. Much was hoped for, even more than on the previous day. The Brethren of the Venerable Tertiary Order were more
numerous than those of the Holy Rosary, so they smiled piously, secure that they would humiliate their rivals. They had
purchased a greater number of tapers, wherefor the Chinese dealers had reaped a harvest and in gratitude were thinking of
being baptized, although some remarked that this was not so much on account of their faith in Catholicism as from a desire
to get a wife. To this the pious women answered, “Even so, the marriage of so many Chinamen at once would be little short
of a miracle and their wives would convert them.”
The people arrayed themselves in their best clothes and dragged out from their strong-boxes all their jewelry. The
sharpers and gamblers all shone in embroidered camisas with large diamond studs, heavy gold chains, and white straw hats.
Only the old Sage went his way as usual in his dark-striped sinamay camisa buttoned up to the neck, loose shoes, and wide
gray felt hat.
“You look sadder than ever!” the teniente-mayor accosted him. “Don’t you want us to be happy now and then, since
we have so much to weep over?”
“To be happy doesn’t mean to act the fool,” answered the old man. “It’s the senseless orgy of every year! [226]And
all for no end but to squander money, when there is so much misery and want. Yes, I understand it all, it’s the same orgy, the
revel to drown the woes of all.”
“You know that I share your opinion, though,” replied Don Filipo, half jestingly and half in earnest. “I have defended
it, but what can one do against the gobernadorcillo and the curate?”
“Resign!” was the old man’s curt answer as he moved away.
Don Filipo stood perplexed, staring after the old man. “Resign!” he muttered as he made his way toward the church.
“Resign! Yes, if this office were an honor and not a burden, yes, I would resign.”
The paved court in front of the church was filled with people; men and women, young and old, dressed in their best
clothes, all crowded together, came and went through the wide doors. There was a smell of powder, of flowers, of incense,
and of perfumes, while bombs, rockets, and serpent-crackers made the women run and scream, the children laugh. One band
played in front of the convento, another escorted the town officials, and still others marched about the streets, where floated
and waved a multitude of banners. Variegated colors and lights distracted the sight, melodies and explosions the hearing,
while the bells kept up a ceaseless chime. Moving all about were carriages whose horses at times became frightened, frisked
and reared all of which, while not included in the program of the fiesta, formed a show in itself, free and by no means the least
entertaining.
The hermano mayor for this day had sent servants to seek in the streets for whomsoever they might invite, as did
he who gave the feast of which the Gospel tells us. Almost by force were urged invitations to partake of chocolate, coffee, tea,
and sweetmeats, these invitations not seldom reaching the proportions of a demand.
There was to be celebrated the high mass, that known as the dalmatic, like the one of the day before, about
which [227]the worthy correspondent wrote, only that now the officiating priest was to be Padre Salvi, and that the alcalde of
the province, with many other Spaniards and persons of note, was to attend it in order to hear Padre Damaso, who enjoyed a
great reputation in the province. Even the alferez, smarting under the preachments of Padre Salvi, would also attend in order
to give evidence of his good-will and to recompense himself, if possible, for the bad spells the curate had caused him.
Such was the reputation of Padre Damaso that the correspondent wrote beforehand to the editor of his newspaper:
“As was announced in my badly executed account of yesterday, so it has come to pass. We have had the especial
pleasure of listening to the Very Reverend Fray Damaso Verdolagas, former curate of this town, recently transferred to a
larger parish in recognition of his meritorious services. The illustrious and holy orator occupied the pulpit of the Holy Ghost
and preached a most eloquent and profound sermon, which edified and left marveling all the faithful who had waited so
anxiously to see spring from his fecund lips the restoring fountain of eternal life. Sublimity of conception, boldness of
imagination, novelty of phraseology, gracefulness of style, naturalness of gestures, cleverness of speech, vigor of ideas—
these are the traits of the Spanish Bossuet, who has justly earned such a high reputation not only among the enlightened
Spaniards but even among the rude Indians and the cunning sons of the Celestial Empire.”
But the confiding correspondent almost saw himself obliged to erase what he had written. Padre Damaso
complained of a cold that he had contracted the night before, for after singing a few merry songs he had eaten three plates of
ice-cream and attended the show for a short time. As a result of all this, he wished to renounce his part as the spokesman of
God to men, but as no one else was to be found who was so well versed in the life and miracles of [228]San Diego,—the
curate knew them, it is true, but it was his place to celebrate mass,—the other priests unanimously declared that the tone of
Padre Damaso’s voice could not be improved upon and that it would be a great pity for him to forego delivering such an
eloquent sermon as he had written and memorized. Accordingly, his former housekeeper prepared for him lemonade, rubbed
his chest and neck with liniment and olive-oil, massaged him, and wrapped him in warm cloths. He drank some raw eggs
beaten up in wine and for the whole morning neither talked nor breakfasted, taking only a glass of milk and a cup of chocolate
with a dozen or so of crackers, heroically renouncing his usual fried chicken and half of a Laguna cheese, because the
housekeeper affirmed that cheese contained salt and grease, which would aggravate his cough.
“All for the sake of meriting heaven and of converting us!” exclaimed the Tertiary Sisters, much affected, upon being
informed of these sacrifices.
“May Our Lady of Peace punish him!” muttered the Sisters of the Holy Rosary, unable to forgive him for leaning to
the side of their rivals.
At half past eight the procession started from the shadow of the canvas canopy. It was the same as that of the
previous day but for the introduction of one novelty: the older members of the Venerable Tertiary Order and some maidens
dressed as old women displayed long gowns, the poor having them of coarse cloth and the rich of silk, or rather of
Franciscan guingón, as it is called, since it is most used by the reverend Franciscan friars. All these sacred garments were
genuine, having come from the convento in Manila, where the people may obtain them as alms at a fixed price, if a commercial
term may be permitted; this fixed price was liable to increase but not to reduction. In the convento itself and in the nunnery
of St. Clara1 are [229]sold these same garments which possess, besides the special merit of gaining many indulgences for
those who may be shrouded in them, the very special merit of being dearer in proportion as they are old, threadbare, and
unserviceable. We write this in case any pious reader need such sacred relics—or any cunning rag-picker of Europe wish to
make a fortune by taking to the Philippines a consignment of patched and grimy garments, since they are valued at sixteen
pesos or more, according to their more or less tattered appearance.
San Diego de Alcala was borne on a float adorned with plates of repoussé silver. The saint, though rather thin, had
an ivory bust which gave him a severe and majestic mien, in spite of abundant kingly bangs like those of the Negrito. His
mantle was of satin embroidered with gold.
Our venerable father, St. Francis, followed the Virgin as on yesterday, except that the priest under the canopy this
time was Padre Salvi and not the graceful Padre Sibyla, so refined in manner. But if the former lacked a beautiful carriage he
had more than enough unction, walking half bent over with lowered eyes and hands crossed in mystic attitude. The bearers
of the canopy were the same cabezas de barangay, sweating with satisfaction at seeing themselves at the same time semi-
sacristans, collectors of the tribute, redeemers of poor erring humanity, and consequently Christs who were giving their blood
for the sins of others. The surpliced coadjutor went from float to float carrying the censer, with the smoke from which he from
time to time regaled the nostrils of the curate, who then became even more serious and grave.
So the procession moved forward slowly and deliberately to the sound of bombs, songs, and religious melodies let
loose into the air by bands of musicians that followed the floats. Meanwhile, the hermano mayor distributed candles [230]with
such zeal that many of the participants returned to their homes with light enough for four nights of card-playing. Devoutly the
curious spectators knelt at the passage of the float of the Mother of God, reciting Credos and Salves fervently. In front of a
house in whose gaily decorated windows were to be seen the alcalde, Capitan Tiago, Maria Clara, and Ibarra, with various
Spaniards and young ladies, the float was detained. Padre Salvi happened to raise his eyes, but made not the slightest
movement that might have been taken for a salute or a recognition of them. He merely stood erect, so that his cope fell over
his shoulders more gracefully and elegantly.
In the street under the window was a young woman of pleasing countenance, dressed in deep mourning, carrying
in her arms a young baby. She must have been a nursemaid only, for the child was white and ruddy while she was brown and
had hair blacker than jet. Upon seeing the curate the tender infant held out its arms, laughed with the laugh that neither causes
nor is caused by sorrow, and cried out stammeringly in the midst of a brief silence, “Pa-pa! Papa! Papa!” The young woman
shuddered, slapped her hand hurriedly over the baby’s mouth and ran away in dismay, with the baby crying.
Malicious ones winked at each other, and the Spaniards who had witnessed the short scene smiled, while the natural
pallor of Padre Salvi changed to the hue of poppies. Yet the people were wrong, for the curate was not acquainted with the
woman at all, she being a stranger in the town.[231]

1The nunnery of St. Clara, situated on the Pasig River just east of Fort Santiago, was founded in 1621 by the Poor Clares, an order of nuns
affiliated with the Franciscans, and was taken under the royal [229n]patronage as the “Real Monasterio de Santa Clara” in 1662. It is still in existence and is
perhaps the most curious of all the curious relics of the Middle Ages in old Manila.—TR.

Chapter XXX
In the Church

From end to end the huge barn that men dedicate as a home to the Creator of all existing things was filled with
people. Pushing, crowding, and crushing one another, the few who were leaving and the many who were entering filled the
air with exclamations of distress. Even from afar an arm would be stretched out to dip the fingers in the holy water, but at the
critical moment the surging crowd would force the hand away. Then would be heard a complaint, a trampled woman would
upbraid some one, but the pushing would continue. Some old people might succeed in dipping their fingers in the water, now
the color of slime, where the population of a whole town, with transients besides, had washed. With it they would anoint
themselves devoutly, although with difficulty, on the neck, on the crown of the head, on the forehead, on the chin, on the chest,
and on the abdomen, in the assurance that thus they were sanctifying those parts and that they would suffer neither stiff neck,
headache, consumption, nor indigestion. The young people, whether they were not so ailing or did not believe in that holy
prophylactic, hardly more than moistened the tip of a finger—and this only in order that the devout might have no cause to
talk—and pretended to make the sign of the cross on their foreheads, of course without touching them. “It may be blessed
and everything you may wish,” some young woman doubtless thought, “but it has such a color!”
It was difficult to breathe in the heat amid the smells of the human animal, but the preacher was worth all these
inconveniences, as the sermon was costing the town two hundred [232]and fifty pesos. Old Tasio had said: “Two hundred and
fifty pesos for a sermon! One man on one occasion! Only a third of what comedians cost, who will work for three nights! Surely
you must be very rich!”
“What has that to do with the drama?” testily inquired the nervous leader of the Tertiary Brethren. “With the drama
souls go to hell but with the sermon to heaven! If he had asked a thousand, we would have paid him and should still owe him
gratitude.”
“After all, you’re right,” replied the Sage, “for the sermon is more amusing to me at least than the drama.”
“But I am not amused even by the drama!” yelled the other furiously.
“I believe it, since you understand one about as well as you do the other!” And the impious old man moved away
without paying any attention to the insults and the direful prophecies that the irritated leader offered concerning his future
existence.
While they were waiting for the alcalde, the people sweated and yawned, agitating the air with fans, hats, and
handkerchiefs. Children shouted and cried, which kept the sacristans busy putting them out of the sacred edifice. Such action
brought to the dull and conscientious leader of the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary this thought: “‘Suffer little children to come
unto me,’ said Our Savior, it is true, but here must be understood, children who do not cry.”
An old woman in a guingón habit, Sister Puté, chid her granddaughter, a child of six years, who was kneeling at her
side, “O lost one, give heed, for you’re going to hear a sermon like that of Good Friday!” Here the old lady gave her a pinch to
awaken the piety of the child, who made a grimace, stuck out her nose, and wrinkled up her eyebrows.
Some men squatted on their heels and dozed beside the confessional. One old man nodding caused our old woman
to believe that he was mumbling prayers, so, running her fingers rapidly over the beads of her rosary—as that was [233]the
most reverent way of respecting the designs of Heaven—little by little she set herself to imitating hint.
Ibarra stood in one corner while Maria Clara knelt near the high altar in a space which the curate had had the
courtesy to order the sacristans to clear for her. Capitan Tiago, in a frock coat, sat on one of the benches provided for the
authorities, which caused the children who did not know him to take him for another gobernadorcillo and to be wary about
getting near him.
At last the alcalde with his staff arrived, proceeding from the sacristy and taking their seats in magnificent chairs
placed on strips of carpet. The alcalde wore a full-dress uniform and displayed the cordon of Carlos III, with four or five other
decorations. The people did not recognize him.
“Abá!” exclaimed a rustic. “A civil-guard dressed as a comedian!”
“Fool!” rejoined a bystander, nudging him with his elbow. “It’s the Prince Villardo that we saw at the show last night!”
So the alcalde went up several degrees in the popular estimation by becoming an enchanted prince, a vanquisher
of giants.
When the mass began, those who were seated arose and those who had been asleep were awakened by the ringing
of the bells and the sonorous voices of the singers. Padre Salvi, in spite of his gravity, wore a look of deep satisfaction, since
there were serving him as deacon and subdeacon none less than two Augustinians. Each one, as it came his turn, sang well,
in a more or less nasal tone and with unintelligible articulation, except the officiating priest himself, whose voice trembled
somewhat, even getting out of tune at times, to the great wonder of those who knew him. Still he moved about with precision
and elegance while he recited the Dominus vobiscum unctuously, dropping his head a little to the side and gazing toward
heaven. Seeing him receive the smoke from the incense one would [234]have said that Galen was right in averring the passage
of smoke in the nasal canals to the head through a screen of ethmoids, since he straightened himself, threw his head back,
and moved toward the middle of the altar with such pompousness and gravity that Capitan Tiago found him more majestic
than the Chinese comedian of the night before, even though the latter had been dressed as an emperor, paint-bedaubed, with
beribboned sword, stiff beard like a horse’s mane, and high-soled slippers. “Undoubtedly,” so his thoughts ran, “a single curate
of ours has more majesty than all the emperors.”
At length came the expected moment, that of hearing Padre Damaso. The three priests seated themselves in their
chairs in an edifying attitude, as the worthy correspondent would say, the alcalde and other persons of place and position
following their example. The music ceased.
The sudden transition from noise to silence awoke our aged Sister Puté, who was already snoring under cover of
the music. Like Segismundo,1 or like the cook in the story of the Sleeping Beauty, the first thing that she did upon awaking
was to whack her granddaughter on the neck, as the child had also fallen asleep. The latter screamed, but soon consoled
herself at the sight of a woman who was beating her breast with contrition and enthusiasm. All tried to place themselves
comfortably, those who had no benches squatting down on the floor or on their heels.
Padre Damaso passed through the congregation preceded by two sacristans and followed by another friar carrying
a massive volume. He disappeared as he went up the winding staircase, but his round head soon reappeared, then his fat
neck, followed immediately by his body. Coughing slightly, he looked about him with assurance. He noticed Ibarra and with a
special wink gave to understand that he would not overlook that youth in [235]his prayers. Then he turned a look of satisfaction
upon Padre Sibyla and another of disdain upon Padre Martin, the preacher of the previous day. This inspection concluded, he
turned cautiously and said, “Attention, brother!” to his companion, who opened the massive volume.
But the sermon deserves a separate chapter. A young man who was then learning stenography and who idolizes
great orators, took it down; thanks to this fact, we can here present a selection from the sacred oratory of those regions.[236]

1The principal character in Calderon de la Barca’s La Vida es Sueño. There is also a Tagalog corrido, or metrical romance, with this title.—TR.

Chapter XXXI
The Sermon

Fray Damaso began slowly in a low voice: “‘Et spiritum bonum dedisti, qui doceret eos, et manna tuum non
prohibuisti ab ore eorum, et aquam dedisti eis in siti. And thou gavest thy good Spirit to teach them, and thy manna thou didst
not withhold from their mouth, and thou gavest them water for their thirst!’ Words which the Lord spoke through the mouth of
Esdras, in the second book, the ninth chapter, and the twentieth verse.”1
Padre Sibyla glanced in surprise at the preacher. Padre Manuel Martin turned pale and swallowed hard that was
better than his! Whether Padre Damaso noticed this or whether he was still hoarse, the fact is that he coughed several times
as he placed both hands on the rail of the pulpit. The Holy Ghost was above his head, freshly painted, clean and white, with
rose-colored beak and feet. “Most honorable sir” (to the alcalde), “most holy priests, Christians, brethren in Jesus Christ!”
Here he made a solemn pause as again he swept his gaze over the congregation, with whose attention and
concentration he seemed satisfied.
“The first part of the sermon is to be in Spanish and the other in Tagalog; loquebantur omnes linguas.”
After the salutations and the pause he extended his right hand majestically toward the altar, at the same time fixing
his gaze on the alcalde. He slowly crossed his arms without uttering a word, then suddenly passing from calmness to action,
threw back his head and made a sign toward the main door, sawing the air with his open hand so forcibly that the sacristans
interpreted the gesture as a command [237]and closed the doors. The alferez became uneasy, doubting whether he should
go or stay, when the preacher began in a strong voice, full and sonorous; truly his old housekeeper was skilled in medicine.
“Radiant and resplendent is the altar, wide is the great door, the air is the vehicle of the holy and divine words that
will spring from my mouth! Hear ye then with the ears of your souls and hearts that the words of the Lord may not fall on the
stony soil where the birds of Hell may consume them, but that ye may grow and flourish as holy seed in the field of our
venerable and seraphic father, St. Francis! O ye great sinners, captives of the Moros of the soul that infest the sea of eternal
life in the powerful craft of the flesh and the world, ye who are laden with the fetters of lust and avarice, and who toil in the
galleys of the infernal Satan, look ye here with reverent repentance upon him who saved souls from the captivity of the devil,
upon the intrepid Gideon, upon the valiant David, upon the triumphant Roland of Christianity, upon the celestial Civil Guard,
more powerful than all the Civil Guards together, now existing or to exist!” (The alferez frowned.) “Yes, señor alferez, more
valiant and powerful, he who with no other weapon than a wooden cross boldly vanquishes the eternal tulisan of the shades
and all the hosts of Lucifer, and who would have exterminated them forever, were not the spirits immortal! This marvel of
divine creation, this wonderful prodigy, is the blessed Diego of Alcala, who, if I may avail myself of a comparison, since
comparisons aid in the comprehension of incomprehensible things, as another has said, I say then that this great saint is
merely a private soldier, a steward in the powerful company which our seraphic father, St. Francis, sends from Heaven, and
to which I have the honor to belong as a corporal or sergeant, by the grace of God!”
The “rude Indians,” as the correspondent would say, caught nothing more from this paragraph than the words “Civil
Guard,” “tulisan,” “San Diego,” and “St. Francis,” [238]so, observing the wry face of the alferez and the bellicose gestures of
the preacher, they deduced that the latter was reprehending him for not running down the tulisanes. San Diego and St. Francis
would be commissioned in this duty and justly so, as is proved by a picture existing in the convento at Manila,
representing St. Francis, by means of his girdle only, holding back the Chinese invasion in the first years after the discovery.
The devout were accordingly not a little rejoiced and thanked God for this aid, not doubting that once the tulisanes had
disappeared, St. Francis would also destroy the Civil Guard. With redoubled attention, therefore, they listened to Padre
Damaso, as he continued:
“Most honorable sir” Great affairs are great affairs even by the side of the small and the small are always small even
by the side of the great. So History says, but since History hits the nail on the head only once in a hundred times, being a thing
made by men, and men make mistakes—errarle es hominum,2 as Cicero said—he who opens his mouth makes mistakes, as
they say in my country then the result is that there are profound truths which History does not record. These truths, most
honorable sir, the divine Spirit spoke with that supreme wisdom which human intelligence has not comprehended since the
times of Seneca and Aristotle, those wise priests of antiquity, even to our sinful days, and these truths are that not always are
small affairs small, but that they are great, not by the side of the little things, but by the side of the grandest of the earth and
of the heavens and of the air and of the clouds and of the waters and of space and of life and of death!”
“Amen!” exclaimed the leader of the Tertiaries, crossing himself.
With this figure of rhetoric, which he had learned from a famous preacher in Manila, Padre Damaso wished to startle
his audience, and in fact his holy ghost was so [239]fascinated with such great truths that it was necessary to kick him to
remind him of his business.
“Patent to your eyes—” prompted the holy ghost below.
“Patent to your eyes is the conclusive and impressive proof of this eternal philosophical truth! Patent is that sun of
virtue, and I say sun and not moon, for there is no great merit in the fact that the moon shines during the night,—in the land
of the blind the one-eyed man is king; by night may shine a light, a tiny star,—so the greatest merit is to be able to shine even
in the middle of the day, as the sun does; so shines our brother Diego even in the midst of the greatest saints! Here you have
patent to your eyes, in your impious disbelief, the masterpiece of the Highest for the confusion of the great of the earth, yes,
my brethren, patent, patent to all, PATENT!”
A man rose pale and trembling and hid himself in a confessional. He was a liquor dealer who had been dozing and
dreaming that the carbineers were demanding the patent, or license, that he did not have. It may safely be affirmed that he
did not come out from his hiding-place while the sermon lasted.
“Humble and lowly saint, thy wooden cross” (the one that the image held was of silver), “thy modest gown, honors
the great Francis whose sons and imitators we are. We propagate thy holy race in the whole world, in the remote places, in
the cities, in the towns, without distinction between black and white” (the alcalde held his breath), “suffering hardships and
martyrdoms, thy holy race of faith and religion militant” (“Ah!” breathed the alcalde) “which holds the world in balance and
prevents it from falling into the depths of perdition.”
His hearers, including even Capitan Tiago, yawned little by little. Maria Clara was not listening to the sermon, for
she knew that Ibarra was near and was thinking about him while she fanned herself and gazed at an evangelical bull that had
all the outlines of a small carabao.
[240]“All should know by heart the Holy Scriptures and the lives of the saints and then I should not have to preach
to you, O sinners! You should know such important and necessary things as the Lord’s Prayer, although many of you have
forgotten it, living now as do the Protestants or heretics, who, like the Chinese, respect not the ministers of God. But the worse
for you, O ye accursed, moving as you are toward damnation!”
“Abá, Pale Lamaso, what!”3 muttered Carlos, the Chinese, looking angrily at the preacher, who continued to
extemporize, emitting a series of apostrophes and imprecations.
“You will die in final unrepentance, O race of heretics! God punishes you even on this earth with jails and prisons!
Women should flee from you, the rulers should hang all of you so that the seed of Satan be not multiplied in the vineyard of
the Lord! Jesus Christ said: ‘If you have an evil member that leads you to sin, cut it off, and cast it into the fire—’”
Having forgotten both his sermon and his rhetoric, Fray Damaso began to be nervous. Ibarra became uneasy and
looked about for a quiet corner, but the church was crowded. Maria Clara neither heard nor saw anything as she was analyzing
a picture, of the blessed souls in purgatory, souls in the shape of men and women dressed in hides, with miters, hoods, and
cowls, all roasting in the fire and clutching St. Francis’ girdle, which did not break even with such great weight. With that
improvisation on the preacher’s part, the holy-ghost friar lost the thread of the sermon and skipped over three long paragraphs,
giving the wrong cue to the now laboriously-panting Fray Damaso.
“Who of you, O sinners, would lick the sores of a poor and ragged beggar? Who? Let him answer by raising his
hand! None! That I knew, for only a saint like Diego de Alcala would do it. He licked all the sores, saying to [241]an astonished
brother, ‘Thus is this sick one cured!’ O Christian charity! O matchless example! O virtue of virtues! O inimitable pattern! O
spotless talisman!” Here he continued a long series of exclamations, the while crossing his arms and raising and lowering
them as though he wished to fly or to frighten the birds away.
“Before dying he spoke in Latin, without knowing Latin! Marvel, O sinners! You, in spite of what you study, for which
blows are given to you, you do not speak Latin, and you will die without speaking it! To speak Latin is a gift of God and
therefore the Church uses Latin! I, too, speak Latin! Was God going to deny this consolation to His beloved Diego? Could he
die, could he be permitted to die, without speaking Latin? Impossible! God wouldn’t be just, He Wouldn’t be God! So he talked
in Latin, and of that fact the writers of his time bear witness!”
He ended this exordium with the passage which had cost him the most toil and which he had plagiarized from a
great writer, Sinibaldo de Mas. “Therefore, I salute thee, illustrious Diego, the glory of our Order! Thou art the pattern of virtue,
meek with honor, humble with nobility, compliant with fortitude, temperate with ambition, hostile with loyalty, compassionate
with pardon, holy with conscientiousness, full of faith with devotion, credulous with sincerity, chaste with love, reserved with
secrecy; long-suffering with patience, brave with timidity, moderate with desire, bold with resolution, obedient with subjection.,
modest with pride, zealous with disinterestedness, skilful with capability, ceremonious with politeness, astute with sagacity,
merciful with piety, secretive with modesty, revengeful with valor, poor on account of thy labors with true conformity, prodigal
with economy, active with ease, economical with liberality, innocent with sagacity, reformer with consistency, indifferent with
zeal for learning: God created thee to feel the raptures of Platonic love! Aid me in singing thy greatness and thy name higher
than the stars [242]and clearer than the sun itself that circles about thy feet! Aid me, all of you, as you appeal to God for
sufficient inspiration by reciting the Ave Maria!”
All fell upon their knees and raised a murmur like the humming of a thousand bees. The alcalde laboriously bent
one knee and wagged his head in a disgusted manner, while the alferez looked pale and penitent.
“To the devil with the curate!” muttered one of two youths who had come from Manila.
“Keep still!” admonished his companion. “His woman might hear us.”
Meanwhile, Padre Damaso, instead of reciting the Ave Maria, was scolding his holy ghost for having skipped three
of his best paragraphs; at the same time he consumed a couple of cakes and a glass of Malaga, secure of encountering
therein greater inspiration than in all the holy ghosts, whether of wood in the form of a dove or of flesh in the shape of an
inattentive friar.
Then he began the sermon in Tagalog. The devout old woman again gave her granddaughter a hearty slap. The
child awoke ill-naturedly and asked, “Is it time to cry now?”
“Not yet, O lost one, but don’t go to sleep again!” answered the good grandmother.
Of the second part of the sermon—that in Tagalog—we have only a few rough notes, for Padre Damaso
extemporized in this language, not because he knew it better, but because, holding the provincial Filipinos ignorant of rhetoric,
he was not afraid of making blunders before them. With Spaniards the case was different; he had heard rules of oratory spoken
of, and it was possible that among his hearers some one had been in college-halls, perhaps the alcalde, so he wrote out his
sermons, corrected and polished them, and then memorized and rehearsed them for several days beforehand.
It is common knowledge that none of those present understood the drift of the sermon. They were so dull
of [243]understanding and the preacher was so profound, as Sister Rufa said, that the audience waited in vain for an
opportunity to weep, and the lost grandchild of the blessed old woman went to sleep again. Nevertheless, this part had greater
consequences than the first, at least for certain hearers, as we shall see later.
He began with a “Mana capatir con cristiano,”4 followed by an avalanche of untranslatable phrases. He talked of
the soul, of Hell, of “mahal na santo pintacasi,”5 of the Indian sinners and of the virtuous Franciscan Fathers.
“The devil!” exclaimed one of the two irreverent Manilans to his companion. “That’s all Greek to me. I’m going.”
Seeing the doors closed, he went out through the sacristy, to the great scandal of the people and especially of the preacher,
who turned pale and paused in the midst of his sentence. Some looked for a violent apostrophe, but Padre Damaso contented
himself with watching the delinquent, and then he went on with his sermon.
Then were let loose curses upon the age, against the lack of reverence, against the growing indifference to Religion.
This matter seemed to be his forte, for he appeared to be inspired and expressed himself with force and clearness. He talked
of the sinners who did not attend confession, who died in prisons without the sacraments, of families accursed, of proud and
puffed-up little half-breeds, of young sages and little philosophers, of pettifoggers, of picayunish students, and so on. Well
known is this habit that many have when they wish to ridicule their enemies; they apply to them belittling epithets because
their brains do not appear to furnish them any other means, and thus they are happy.
Ibarra heard it all and understood the allusions. Preserving an outward calm, he turned his eyes to God and the
authorities, but saw nothing more than the images of saints, and the alcalde was sleeping.
[244]Meanwhile, the preacher’s enthusiasm was rising by degrees. He spoke of the times when every Filipino upon
meeting a priest took off his hat, knelt on the ground, and kissed the priest’s hand. “But now,” he added, “you only take off
your salakot or your felt hat, which you have placed on the side of your head in order not to ruffle your nicely combed hair!
You content yourself with saying, ‘good day, among,’ and there are proud dabblers in a little Latin who, from having studied in
Manila or in Europe, believe that they have the right to shake a priest’s hand instead of kissing it. Ah, the day of judgment will
quickly come, the world will end, as many saints have foretold; it will rain fire, stones, and ashes to chastise your pride!” The
people were exhorted not to imitate such “savages” but to hate and shun them, since they were beyond the religious pale.
“Hear what the holy decrees say! When an Indian meets a curate in the street he should bow his head and offer his
neck for his master to step upon. If the curate and the Indian are both on horseback, then the Indian should stop and take off
his hat or salakot reverently; and finally, if the Indian is on horseback and the curate on foot, the Indian should alight and not
mount again until the curate has told him to go on, or is far away. This is what the holy decrees say and he who does not obey
will be excommunicated.”
“And when one is riding a carabao?” asked a scrupulous countryman of his neighbor.
“Then—keep on going!” answered the latter, who was a casuist.
But in spite of the cries and gestures of the preacher many fell asleep or wandered in their attention, since these
sermons were ever the same. In vain some devout women tried to sigh and sob over the sins of the wicked; they had to desist
in the attempt from lack of supporters. Even Sister Puté was thinking of something quite different. A man beside her had
dropped off to sleep in such a way that [245]he had fallen over and crushed her habit, so the good woman caught up one of
her clogs and with blows began to wake him, crying out, “Get away, savage, brute, devil, carabao, cur, accursed!”
Naturally, this caused somewhat of a stir. The preacher paused and arched his eyebrows, surprised at so great a
scandal. Indignation choked the words in his throat and he was able only to bellow, while he pounded the pulpit with his fists.
This had the desired effect, however, for the old woman, though still grumbling, dropped her clog and, crossing herself
repeatedly, fell devoutly upon her knees.
 “Aaah! Aaah!” the indignant priest was at last able to roar out as he crossed his arms and shook his head. “For this
do I preach to you the whole morning, savages! Here in the house of God you quarrel and curse, shameless ones! Aaaah!
You respect nothing! This is the result of the luxury and the looseness of the age! That’s just what I’ve told you, aah!”
Upon this theme he continued to preach for half an hour. The alcalde snored, and Maria Clara nodded, for the poor
child could no longer keep from sleeping, since she had no more paintings or images to study, nor anything else to amuse
her. On Ibarra the words and allusions made no more impression, for he was thinking of a cottage on the top of a mountain
and saw Maria Clara in the garden; let men crawl about in their miserable towns in the depths of the valley!
Padre Salvi had caused the altar bell to be rung twice, but this was only adding fuel to the flame, for Padre Damaso
became stubborn and prolonged the sermon. Fray Sibyla gnawed at his lips and repeatedly adjusted his gold-mounted eye-
glasses. Fray Manuel Martin was the only one who appeared to listen with pleasure, for he was smiling.
But at last God said “Enough”; the orator became weary and descended from the pulpit. All knelt to
render [246]thanks to God. The alcalde rubbed his eyes, stretched out one arm as if to waken himself, and yawned with a
deep aah. The mass continued.
When all were kneeling and the priests had lowered their heads while the Incarnatus est was being sung, a man
murmured in Ibarra’s ear, “At the laying of the cornerstone, don’t move away from the curate, don’t go down into the trench,
don’t go near the stone—your life depends upon it!”
Ibarra turned to see Elias, who, as soon as he had said this, disappeared in the crowd.[247]

1The Douay version.—TR.

2“Errare humanum est”: “To err is human.”
3To the Philippine Chinese “d” and “l” look and sound about the same.—TR.
4“Brothers in Christ.”
5“Venerable patron saint.”

Chapter XXXII
The Derrick

The yellowish individual had kept his word, for it was no simple derrick that he had erected above the open trench
to let the heavy block of granite down into its place. It was not the simple tripod that Ñor Juan had wanted for suspending a
pulley from its top, but was much more, being at once a machine and an ornament, a grand and imposing ornament. Over
eight meters in height rose the confused and complicated scaffolding. Four thick posts sunk in the ground served as a frame,
fastened to each other by huge timbers crossing diagonally and joined by large nails driven in only half-way, perhaps for the
reason that the apparatus was simply for temporary use and thus might easily be taken down again. Huge cables stretched
from all sides gave an appearance of solidity and grandeur to the whole. At the top it was crowned with many-colored banners,
streaming pennants, and enormous garlands of flowers and leaves artistically interwoven.
There at the top in the shadow made by the posts, the garlands, and the banners, hung fastened with cords and
iron hooks an unusually large three-wheeled pulley over the polished sides of which passed in a crotch three cables even
larger than the others. These held suspended the smooth, massive stone hollowed out in the center to form with a similar hole
in the lower stone, already in place, the little space intended to contain the records of contemporaneous history, such as
newspapers, manuscripts, money, medals, and the like, and perhaps to transmit them to very remote generations. The cables
extended downward and connected with another equally large pulley at the bottom [248]of the apparatus, whence they passed
to the drum of a windlass held in place by means of heavy timbers. This windlass, which could be turned with two cranks,
increased the strength of a man a hundredfold by the movement of notched wheels, although it is true that what was gained
in force was lost in velocity.
“Look,” said the yellowish individual, turning the crank, “look, Ñor Juan, how with merely my own strength I can raise
and lower the great stone. It’s so well arranged that at will I can regulate the rise or fall inch by inch, so that a man in the trench
can easily fit the stones together while I manage it from here.”
Ñor Juan could not but gaze in admiration at the speaker, who was smiling in his peculiar way. Curious bystanders
made remarks praising the yellowish individual.
“Who taught you mechanics?” asked Ñor Juan.
“My father, my dead father,” was the answer, accompanied by his peculiar smile.
“Who taught your father?”
“Don Saturnino, the grandfather of Don Crisostomo.”
“I didn’t know that Don Saturnino—”
“Oh, he knew a lot of things! He not only beat his laborers well and exposed them out in the sun, but he also knew
how to wake the sleepers and put the waking to sleep. You’ll see in time what my father taught me, you’ll see!”
Here the yellowish individual smiled again, but in a strange way.
On a tame covered with a piece of Persian tapestry rested a leaden cylinder containing the objects that were to be
kept in the tomb-like receptacle and a glass case with thick sides, which would hold that mummy of an epoch and preserve
for the future the records of a past.
 Tasio, the Sage, who was walking about there thoughtfully, murmured: “Perchance some day when this edifice,
which is today begun, has grown old and after many vicissitudes has fallen into ruins, either from the visitations of Nature or
the destructive hand of man, and above [249]the ruins grow the ivy and the moss,—then when Time has destroyed the moss
and ivy, and scattered the ashes of the ruins themselves to the winds, wiping from the pages of History the recollection of it
and of those who destroyed it, long since lost from the memory of man: perchance when the races have been buried in their
mantle of earth or have disappeared, only by accident the pick of some miner striking a spark from this rock will dig up
mysteries and enigmas from the depths of the soil. Perchance the learned men of the nation that dwells in these regions will
labor, as do the present Egyptologists, with the remains of a great civilization which occupied itself with eternity, little dreaming
that upon it was descending so long a night. Perchance some learned professor will say to his students of five or six years of
age, in a language spoken by all mankind, ‘Gentlemen, after studying and examining carefully the objects found in the depths
of our soil, after deciphering some symbols and translating a few words, we can without the shadow of a doubt conclude that
these objects belonged to the barbaric age of man, to that obscure era which we are accustomed to speak of as fabulous. In
short, gentlemen, in order that you may form an approximate idea of the backwardness of our ancestors, it will be sufficient
that I point out to you the fact that those who lived here not only recognized kings, but also for the purpose of settling questions
of local government they had to go to the other side of the earth, just as if we should say that a body in order to move itself
would need to consult a head existing in another part of the globe, perhaps in regions now sunk under the waves. This
incredible defect, however improbable it may seem to us now, must have existed, if we take into consideration the
circumstances surrounding those beings, whom I scarcely dare to call human! In those primitive times men were still (or at
least so they believed) in direct communication with their Creator, since they had ministers from Him, beings different from the
rest, designated always with the mysterious [250]letters “M. R. P.”,1 concerning the meaning of which our learned men do not
agree. According to the professor of languages whom we have here, rather mediocre, since he does not speak more than a
hundred of the imperfect languages of the past, “M. R. P.” may signify “Muy Rico Propietario.”2 These ministers were a species
of demigods, very virtuous and enlightened, and were very eloquent orators, who, in spite of their great power and prestige,
never committed the slightest fault, which fact strengthens my belief in supposing that they were of a nature distinct from the
rest. If this were not sufficient to sustain my belief, there yet remains the argument, disputed by no one and day by day
confirmed, that these mysterious beings could make God descend to earth merely by saying a few words, that God could
speak only through their mouths, that they ate His flesh and drank His blood, and even at times allowed the common folk to
do the same.’”
These and other opinions the skeptical Sage put into the mouths of all the corrupt men of the future. Perhaps, as
may easily be the case, old Tasio was mistaken, but we must return to our story.
In the kiosks which we saw two days ago occupied by the schoolmaster and his pupils, there was now spread out a
toothsome and abundant meal. Noteworthy is the fact that on the table prepared for the school children there was not a single
bottle of wine but an abundance of fruits. In the arbors joining the two kiosks were the seats for the musicians and a table
covered with sweetmeats and confections, with bottles of water for the thirsty public, all decorated with leaves and flowers.
The schoolmaster had erected near by a greased pole and hurdles, and had hung up pots and pans for a number of games.
[251]The crowd, resplendent in bright-colored garments, gathered as people fled from the burning sun, some into
the shade of the trees, others under the arbor. The boys climbed up into the branches or on the stones in order to see the
ceremony better, making up in this way for their short stature. They looked with envy at the clean and well-dressed school
children, who occupied a place especially assigned to them and whose parents were overjoyed, as they, poor country folk,
would see their children eat from a white tablecloth, almost the same as the curate or the alcalde. Thinking of this alone was
enough to drive away hunger, and such an event would be recounted from father to son.
Soon were heard the distant strains of the band, which was preceded by a motley throng made up of persons of all
ages, in clothing of all colors. The yellowish individual became uneasy and with a glance examined his whole apparatus. A
curious countryman followed his glance and watched all his movements; this was Elias, who had also come to witness the
ceremony, but in his salakot and rough attire he was almost unrecognizable. He had secured a very good position almost at
the side of the windlass, on the edge of the excavation. With the music came the alcalde, the municipal officials, the friars,
with the exception of Padre Damaso, and the Spanish employees. Ibarra was conversing with the alcalde, of whom he had
made quite a friend since he had addressed to him some well-turned compliments over his decorations and ribbons, for
aristocratic pretensions were the weakness of his Honor. Capitan Tiago, the alferez, and some other wealthy personages
came in the gilded cluster of maidens displaying their silken parasols. Padre Salvi followed, silent and thoughtful as ever.
“Count upon my support always in any worthy enterprise,” the alcalde was saying to Ibarra. “I will give you whatever
appropriation you need or else see that it is furnished by others.”
[252]As they drew nearer the youth felt his heart beat faster. Instinctively he glanced at the strange scaffolding raised
there. He saw the yellowish individual salute him respectfully and gaze at him fixedly for a moment. With surprise he noticed
Elias, who with a significant wink gave him to understand that he should remember the warning in the church.
The curate put on his sacerdotal robes and commenced the ceremony, while the one-eyed sacristan held the book
and an acolyte the hyssop and jar of holy water. The rest stood about him uncovered, and maintained such a profound silence
that, in spite of his reading in a low tone, it was apparent that Padre Salvi’s voice was trembling.
Meanwhile, there had been placed in the glass case the manuscripts, newspapers, medals, coins, and the like, and
the whole enclosed in the leaden cylinder, which was then hermetically sealed.
 “Señor Ibarra, will you put the box in its place? The curate is waiting,” murmured the alcalde into the young man’s
ear.
“I would with great pleasure,” answered the latter, “but that would be usurping the honorable duty of the escribano.
The escribano must make affidavit of the act.”
So the escribano gravely took the box, descended the carpeted stairway leading to the bottom of the excavation
and with due solemnity placed it in the hole in the stone. The curate then took the hyssop and sprinkled the stones with holy
water.
Now the moment had arrived for each one to place his trowelful of mortar on the face of the large stone lying in the
trench, in order that the other might be fitted and fastened to it. Ibarra handed the alcalde a mason’s trowel, on the wide silver
Made of which was engraved the date. But the alcalde first gave a harangue in Spanish:
“People of San Diego! We have the honor to preside over a ceremony whose importance you will not understand
unless We tell you of it. A school is being founded, and [253]the school is the basis of society, the school is the book in which
is written the future of the nations! Show us the schools of a people and We will show you what that people is.
“People of San Diego! Thank God, who has given you holy priests, and the government of the mother country, which
untiringly spreads civilization through these fertile isles, protected beneath her glorious mantle! Thank God, who has taken
pity on you and sent you these humble priests who enlighten you and teach you the divine word! Thank the government, which
has made, is making, and will continue to make, so many sacrifices for you and your children!
“And now that the first stone of this important edifice is consecrated, We, alcalde-mayor of this province, in the name
of his Majesty the King, whom God preserve, King of the Spains, in the name of the illustrious Spanish government and under
the protection of its spotless and ever-victorious banner, We consecrate this act and begin the construction of this
schoolhouse! People of San Diego, long live the King! Long live Spain! Long live the friars! Long live the Catholic Religion!”
Many voices were raised in answer, adding, “Long live the Señor Alcalde!”
He then majestically descended to the strains of the band, which began to play, deposited several trowelfuls of
mortar on the stone, and with equal majesty reascended. The employees applauded.
Ibarra offered another trowel to the curate, who, after fixing his eyes on him for a moment, descended slowly. Half-
way down the steps he raised his eyes to look at the stone, which hung fastened by the stout cables, but this was only for a
second, and he then went on down. He did the same as the alcalde, but this time more applause was heard, for to the
employees were added some friars and Capitan Tiago.
Padre Salvi then seemed to seek for some one to whom [254]he might give the trowel. He looked doubtfully at Maria
Clara, but changing his mind, offered it to the escribano. The latter in gallantry offered it to Maria Clara, who smilingly refused
it. The friars, the employees, and the alferez went down one after another, nor was Capitan Tiago forgotten. Ibarra only was
left, and the order was about to be given for the yellowish individual to lower the stone when the curate remembered the youth
and said to him in a joking tone, with affected familiarity:
“Aren’t you going to put on your trowelful, Señor Ibarra?”
“I should be a Juan Palomo, to prepare the meal and eat it myself,” answered the latter in the same tone.
“Go on!” said the alcalde, shoving him forward gently. “Otherwise, I’ll order that the stone be not lowered at all and
we’ll be here until doomsday.”
Before such a terrible threat Ibarra had to obey. He exchanged the small silver trowel for a large iron one, an act
which caused some of the spectators to smile, and went forward tranquilly. Elias gazed at him with such an indefinable
expression that on seeing it one might have said that his whole life was concentrated in his eyes. The yellowish individual
stared into the trench, which opened at his feet. After directing a rapid glance at the heavy stone hanging over his head and
another at Elias and the yellowish individual, Ibarra said to Ñor Juan in a somewhat unsteady voice, “Give me the mortar and
get me another trowel up there.”
The youth remained alone. Elias no longer looked at him, for his eyes were fastened on the hand of the yellowish
individual, who, leaning over the trench, was anxiously following the movements of Ibarra. There was heard the noise of the
trowel scraping on the stone in the midst of a feeble murmur among the employees, who were congratulating the alcalde on
his speech.
Suddenly a crash was heard. The pulley tied at the base [255]of the derrick jumped up and after it the windlass,
which struck the heavy posts like a battering-ram. The timbers shook, the fastenings flew apart, and the whole apparatus fell
in a second with a frightful crash. A cloud of dust arose, while a cry of horror from a thousand voices filled the air. Nearly all
fled; only a few dashed toward the trench. Maria Clara and Padre Salvi remained in their places, pale, motionless, and
speechless.
When the dust had cleared away a little, they saw Ibarra standing among beams, posts, and cables, between the
windlass and the heavy stone, which in its rapid descent had shaken and crushed everything. The youth still held the trowel
in his hand and was staring with frightened eyes at the body of a man which lay at his feet half-buried among the timbers.
“You’re not killed! You’re still alive! For God’s sake, speak!” cried several employees, full of terror and solicitude.
“A miracle! A miracle!” shouted some.
“Come and extricate the body of this poor devil!” exclaimed Ibarra like one arousing himself from sleep.
On hearing his voice Maria Clara felt her strength leave her and fell half-fainting into the arms of her friends.
 Great confusion prevailed. All were talking, gesticulating, running about, descending into the trench, coming up
again, all amazed and terrified.
“Who is the dead man? Is he still alive?” asked the alferez.
The corpse was identified as that of the yellowish individual who had been operating the windlass.
“Arrest the foreman on the work!” was the first thing that the alcalde was able to say.
They examined the corpse, placing their hands on the chest, but the heart had ceased to beat. The blow had struck
him on the head, and blood was flowing from his nose, mouth, and ears. On his neck were to be noticed some peculiar marks,
four deep depressions toward the [256]back and one more somewhat larger on the other side, which induced the belief that a
hand of steel had caught him as in a pair of pincers.
The priests felicitated the youth warmly and shook his hand. The Franciscan of humble aspect who had served as
holy ghost for Padre Damaso exclaimed with tearful eyes, “God is just, God is good!”
“When I think that a few moments before I was down there!” said one of the employees to Ibarra. “What if I had
happened to be the last!”
“It makes my hair stand on end!” remarked another partly bald individual.
“I’m glad that it happened to you and not to me,” murmured an old man tremblingly.
“Don Pascual!” exclaimed some of the Spaniards.
“I say that because the young man is not dead. If I had not been crushed, I should have died afterwards merely from
thinking about it.”
But Ibarra was already at a distance informing himself as to Maria Clara’s condition.
“Don’t let this stop the fiesta, Señor Ibarra,” said the alcalde. “Praise God, the dead man is neither a priest nor a
Spaniard! We must rejoice over your escape! Think if the stone had caught you!”
“There are presentiments, there are presentiments!” exclaimed the escribano. “I’ve said so before! Señor Ibarra
didn’t go down willingly. I saw it!”
“The dead man is only an Indian!”
“Let the fiesta go on! Music! Sadness will never resuscitate the dead!”
“An investigation shall be made right here!”
“Send for the directorcillo!”
“Arrest the foreman on the work! To the stocks with him!”
“To the stocks! Music! To the stocks with the foreman!”
“Señor Alcalde,” said Ibarra gravely, “if mourning [257]will not resuscitate the dead, much less will arresting this man
about whose guilt we know nothing. I will be security for his person and so I ask his liberty for these days at least.”
“Very well! But don’t let him do it again!”
All kinds of rumors began to circulate. The idea of a miracle was soon an accepted fact, although Fray Salvi seemed
to rejoice but little over a miracle attributed to a saint of his Order and in his parish. There were not lacking those who added
that they had seen descending into the trench, when everything was tumbling down, a figure in a dark robe like that of the
Franciscans. There was no doubt about it; it was San Diego himself! It was also noted that Ibarra had attended mass and that
the yellowish individual had not—it was all as clear as the sun!
“You see! You didn’t want to go to mass!” said a mother to her son. “If I hadn’t whipped you to make you go you
would now be on your way to the town hall, like him, in a cart!”
The yellowish individual, or rather his corpse, wrapped up in a mat, was in fact being carried to the town hall. Ibarra
hurried home to change his clothes.
“A bad beginning, huh!” commented old Tasio, as he moved away.[258]

1Muy Reverendo Padre: Very Reverend Father.

2Very rich landlord. The United States Philippine Commission, constituting the government of the Archipelago, paid to the religious orders “a
lump sum of $7,239,000, more or less,” for the bulk of the lands claimed by them. See the Annual Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of
War, December 23, 1903.—TR.

Chapter XXXIII
Free Thought

Ibarra was just putting the finishing touches to a change of clothing when a servant informed him that a countryman
was asking for him. Supposing it to be one of his laborers, he ordered that he be brought into his office, or study, which was
at the same time a library and a chemical laboratory. Greatly to his surprise he found himself face to face with the severe and
mysterious figure of Elias.
“You saved my life,” said the pilot in Tagalog, noticing Ibarra’s start of surprise. “I have partly paid the debt and you
have nothing to thank me for, but quite the opposite. I’ve come to ask a favor of you.”
“Speak!” answered the youth in the same language, puzzled by the pilot’s gravity.
 Elias stared into Ibarra’s eyes for some seconds before he replied, “When human courts try to clear up this mystery,
I beg of you not to speak to any one of the warning that I gave you in the church.”
“Don’t worry,” answered the youth in a rather disgusted tone. “I know that you’re wanted, but I’m no informer.”
“Oh, it’s not on my account, not on my account!” exclaimed Elias with some vigor and haughtiness. “It’s on your own
account. I fear nothing from men.”
Ibarra’s surprise increased. The tone in which this rustics—formerly a pilot—spoke was new and did not seem to
harmonize with either his condition or his fortune. “What do you mean?” he asked, interrogating that mysterious individual with
his looks.
[259]“I do not talk in enigmas but try to express myself clearly; for your greater security, it is better that your enemies
think you unsuspecting and unprepared.”
Ibarra recoiled. “My enemies? Have I enemies?”
“All of us have them, sir, from the smallest insect up to man, from the poorest and humblest to the richest and most
powerful! Enmity is the law of life!”
Ibarra gazed at him in silence for a while, then murmured, “You are neither a pilot nor a rustic!”
“You have enemies in high and low places,” continued Elias, without heeding the young man’s words. “You are
planning a great undertaking, you have a past. Your father and your grandfather had enemies because they had passions,
and in life it is not the criminal who provokes the most hate but the honest man.”
“Do you know who my enemies are?”
Elias meditated for a moment. “I knew one—him who is dead,” he finally answered. “Last night I learned that a plot
against you was being hatched, from some words exchanged with an unknown person who lost himself in the crowd. ‘The fish
will not eat him, as they did his father; you’ll see tomorrow,’ the unknown said. These words caught my attention not only by
their meaning but also on account of the person who uttered them, for he had some days before presented himself to the
foreman on the work with the express request that he be allowed to superintend the placing of the stone. He didn’t ask for
much pay but made a show of great knowledge. I hadn’t sufficient reason for believing in his bad intentions, but something
within told me that my conjectures were true and therefore I chose as the suitable occasion to warn you a moment when you
could not ask me any questions. The rest you have seen for yourself.”
For a long time after Elias had become silent Ibarra remained thoughtful, not answering him or saying a word. “I’m
sorry that that man is dead!” he exclaimed at [260]length. “From him something more might have been learned.”
“If he had lived, he would have escaped from the trembling hand of blind human justice. God has judged him, God
has killed him, let God be the only Judge!”
Crisostomo gazed for a moment at the man, who, while he spoke thus, exposed his muscular arms covered with
lumps and bruises. “Do you also believe in the miracle?” he asked with a smile. “You know what a miracle the people are
talking about.”
“Were I to believe in miracles, I should not believe in God. I should believe in a deified man, I should believe that
man had really created a god in his own image and likeness,” the mysterious pilot answered solemnly. “But I believe in Him, I
have felt His hand more than once. When the whole apparatus was falling down and threatening destruction to all who
happened to be near it, I, I myself, caught the criminal, I placed myself at his side. He was struck and I am safe and sound.”
“You! So it was you—”
“Yes! I caught him when he tried to escape, once his deadly work had begun. I saw his crime, and I say this to you:
let God be the sole judge among men, let Him be the only one to have the right over life, let no man ever think to take His
place!”
“But you in this instance—”
“No!” interrupted Elias, guessing the objection. “It’s not the same. When a man condemns others to death or destroys
their future forever he does it with impunity and uses the strength of others to execute his judgments, which after all may be
mistaken or erroneous. But I, in exposing the criminal to the same peril that he had prepared for others, incurred the same
risk as he did. I did not kill him, but let the hand of God smite him.”
“Then you don’t believe in accidents?”
“Believing in accidents is like believing in miracles; both presuppose that God does not know the future. What [261]is
an accident? An event that no one has at all foreseen. What is a miracle? A contradiction, an overturning of natural laws. Lack
of foresight and contradiction in the Intelligence that rules the machinery of the world indicate two great defects.”
“Who are you?” Ibarra again asked with some awe.
“Have you ever studied?”
“I have had to believe greatly in God, because I have lost faith in men,” answered the pilot, avoiding the question.
Ibarra thought he understood this hunted youth; he rejected human justice, he refused to recognize the right of man
to judge his fellows, he protested against force and the superiority of some classes over others.
“But nevertheless you must admit the necessity of human justice, however imperfect it may be,” he answered. “God,
in spite of the many ministers He may have on earth, cannot, or rather does not, pronounce His judgments clearly to settle the
million conflicts that our passions excite. It is proper, it is necessary, it is just, that man sometimes judge his fellows.”
“Yes, to do good, but not to do ill, to correct and to better, but not to destroy, for if his judgments are wrong he hasn’t
the power to remedy the evil he has done. But,” he added with a change of tone, “this discussion is beyond my powers and
I’m detaining you, who are being waited for. Don’t forget what I’ve just told you—you have enemies. Take care of yourself for
the good of our country.” Saying this, he turned to go.
“When shall I see you again?” asked Ibarra.
“Whenever you wish and always when I can be of service to you. I am still your debtor.”[262]

Chapter XXXIV
The Dinner

There in the decorated kiosk the great men of the province were dining. The alcalde occupied one end of the table
and Ibarra the other. At the young man’s right sat Maria Clara and at his left the escribano. Capitan Tiago, the alferez, the
gobernadorcillo, the friars, the employees, and the few young ladies who had remained sat, not according to rank, but
according to their inclinations. The meal was quite animated and happy.
When the dinner was half over, a messenger came in search of Capitan Tiago with a telegram, to open which he
naturally requested the permission of the others, who very naturally begged him to do so. The worthy capitan at first knitted
his eyebrows, then raised them; his face became pale, then lighted up as he hastily folded the paper and arose.
“Gentlemen,” he announced in confusion, “his Excellency the Captain-General is coming this evening to honor my
house.” Thereupon he set off at a run, hatless, taking with him the message and his napkin.
He was followed by exclamations and questions, for a cry of “Tulisanes!” would not have produced greater effect.
“But, listen!” “When is he coming?” “Tell us about it!” “His Excellency!” But Capitan Tiago was already far away.
“His Excellency is coming and will stay at Capitan Tiago’s!” exclaimed some without taking into consideration the
fact that his daughter and future son-in-law were present.
“The choice couldn’t be better,” answered the latter.
[263]The friars gazed at one another with looks that seemed to say: “The Captain-General is playing another one of
his tricks, he is slighting us, for he ought to stay at the convento,” but since this was the thought of all they remained silent,
none of them giving expression to it.
“I was told of this yesterday,” said the alcalde, “but at that time his Excellency had not yet fully decided.”
“Do you know, Señor Alcalde, how long the Captain-General thinks of staying here?” asked the alferez uneasily.
“With certainty, no. His Excellency likes to give surprises.”
“Here come some more messages.” These were for the alcalde, the alferez, and the gobernadorcillo, and contained
the same announcement. The friars noted well that none came directed to the curate.
“His Excellency will arrive at four this afternoon, gentlemen!” announced the alcalde solemnly. “So we can finish our
meal in peace.” Leonidas at Thermopylae could not have said more cheerfully, “Tonight we shall sup with Pluto!”
The conversation again resumed its ordinary course.
“I note the absence of our great preacher,” timidly remarked an employee of inoffensive aspect who had not opened
his mouth up to the time of eating, and who spoke now for the first time in the whole morning.
All who knew the history of Crisostomo’s father made a movement and winked, as if to say, “Get out! Fools rush
in—” But some one more charitably disposed answered, “He must be rather tired.”
“Rather?” exclaimed the alferez. “He must be exhausted, and as they say here, all fagged out. What a sermon it
was!”
“A splendid sermon—wonderful!” said the escribano.
“Magnificent—profound!” added the correspondent.
“To be able to talk so much, it’s necessary to have the lungs that he has,” observed Padre Manuel Martin.
The [264]Augustinian did not concede him anything more than lungs.
“And his fertility of expression!” added Padre Salvi.
“Do you know that Señor Ibarra has the best cook in the province?” remarked the alcalde, to cut short such talk.
“You may well say that, but his beautiful neighbor doesn’t wish to honor the table, for she is scarcely eating a bite,”
observed one of the employees.
Maria Clara blushed. “I thank the gentleman, he troubles himself too much on my account,” she stammered timidly,
“but—”
“But you honor it enough merely by being present,” concluded the gallant alcalde as he turned to Padre Salvi.
“Padre,” he said in a loud voice, “I’ve observed that during the whole day your Reverence has been silent and
thoughtful.”
“The alcalde is a great observer,” remarked Fray Sibyla in a meaning tone.
“It’s a habit of mine,” stammered the Franciscan. “It pleases me more to listen than to talk.”
“Your Reverence always takes care to win and not to lose,” said the alferez in a jesting tone.
Padre Salvi, however, did not take this as a joke, for his gaze brightened a moment as he replied, “The alferez
knows very well these days that I’m not the one who is winning or losing most.”
The alferez turned the hit aside with a forced laugh, pretending not to take it to himself.
 “But, gentlemen, I don’t understand how it is possible to talk of winnings and losses,” interposed the alcalde. “What
will these amiable and discreet young ladies who honor us with their company think of us? For me the young women are like
the Æolian harps in the middle of the night—it is necessary to listen with close attention in order that their ineffable harmonies
may elevate the soul to the celestial spheres of the infinite and the ideal!”
[265]“Your Honor is becoming poetical!” exclaimed the escribano gleefully, and both emptied their wine-glasses.
“I can’t help it,” said the alcalde as he wiped his lips. “Opportunity, while it doesn’t always make the thief, makes the
poet. In my youth I composed verses which were really not bad.”
“So your Excellency has been unfaithful to the Muses to follow Themis,” emphatically declared our mythical or
mythological correspondent.
“Pshaw, what would you have? To run through the entire social scale was always my dream. Yesterday I was
gathering flowers and singing songs, today I wield the rod of justice and serve Humanity, tomorrow—”
“Tomorrow your Honor will throw the rod into the fire to warm yourself by it in the winter of life, and take an
appointment in the cabinet,” added Padre Sibyla.
“Pshaw! Yes—no—to be a cabinet official isn’t exactly my beau-ideal: any upstart may become one. A villa in the
North in which to spend the summer, a mansion in Madrid, and some property in Andalusia for the winter—there we shall live
remembering our beloved Philippines. Of me Voltaire would not say, ‘We have lived among these people only to enrich
ourselves and to calumniate them.’”
The alcalde quoted this in French, so the employees, thinking that his Honor had cracked a joke, began to laugh in
appreciation of it. Some of the friars did likewise, since they did not know that the Voltaire mentioned was the same Voltaire
whom they had so often cursed and consigned to hell. But Padre Sibyla was aware of it and became serious from the belief
that the alcalde had said something heretical or impious.
In the other kiosk the children were eating under the direction of their teacher. For Filipino children they were rather
noisy, since at the table and in the presence of other persons their sins are generally more of omission than of commission.
Perhaps one who was using the tableware improperly [266]would be corrected by his neighbor and from this there would arise
a noisy discussion in which each would have his partisans. Some would say the spoon, others the knife or the fork, and as no
one was considered an authority there would arise the contention that God is Christ or, more clearly, a dispute of theologians.
Their fathers and mothers winked, made signs, nudged one another, and showed their happiness by their smiles.
“Ya!” exclaimed a countrywoman to an old man who was mashing buyo in his kalikut, “in spite of the fact that my
husband is opposed to it, my Andoy shall be a priest. It’s true that we’re poor, but we’ll work, and if necessary we’ll beg alms.
There are not lacking those who will give money so that the poor may take holy orders. Does not Brother Mateo, a man who
does not lie, say that Pope Sextus was a herder of carabaos in Batangas? Well then, look at my Andoy, see if he hasn’t
already the face of a St. Vincent!” The good mother watered at the mouth to see her son take hold of a fork with both hands.
“God help us!” added the old man, rolling his quid of buyo. “If Andoy gets to be Pope we’ll go to Rome he, he! I can
still walk well, and if I die—he, he!”
“Don’t worry, granddad! Andoy won’t forget that you taught him how to weave baskets.”
“You’re right, Petra. I also believe that your son will be great, at least a patriarch. I have never seen any one who
learned the business in a shorter time. Yes, he’ll remember me when as Pope or bishop he entertains himself in making
baskets for his cook. He’ll then say masses for my soul—he, he!” With this hope the good old man again filled his kalikut with
buyo.
“If God hears my prayers and my hopes are fulfilled, I’ll say to Andoy, ‘Son, take away all our sins and send us to
Heaven!’ Then we shan’t need to pray and fast and buy indulgences. One whose son is a blessed Pope can commit sins!”
“Send him to my house tomorrow, Petra,” cried the old [267]man enthusiastically, “and I’ll teach him to weave
the nito!”
“Huh! Get out! What are you dreaming about, grand-dad? Do you still think that the Popes even move their hands?
The curate, being nothing more than a curate, only works in the mass—when he turns around! The Archbishop doesn’t even
turn around, for he says mass sitting down. So the Pope—the Pope says it in bed with a fan! What are you thinking about?”
“Of nothing more, Petra, than that he know how to weave the nito. It would be well for him to be able to sell hats and
cigar-cases so that he wouldn’t have to beg alms, as the curate does here every year in the name of the Pope. It always fills
me with compassion to see a saint poor, so I give all my savings.”
Another countryman here joined in the conversation, saying, “It’s all settled, cumare,1 my son has got to be a doctor,
there’s nothing like being a doctor!”
“Doctor! What are you talking about, cumpare?” retorted Petra. “There’s nothing like being a curate!”
“A curate, pish! A curate? The doctor makes lots of money, the sick people worship him, cumare!”
“Excuse me! The curate, by making three or four turns and saying deminos pabiscum,2 eats God and makes money.
All, even the women, tell him their secrets.”
“And the doctor? What do you think a doctor is? The doctor sees all that the women have, he feels the pulses of
the dalagas! I’d just like to be a doctor for a week!”
“And the curate, perhaps the curate doesn’t see what your doctor sees? Better still, you know the saying, ‘the fattest
chicken and the roundest leg for the curate!’”
[268]“What of that? Do the doctors eat dried fish? Do they soil their fingers eating salt?”
 “Does the curate dirty his hands as your doctors do? He has great estates and when he works he works with music
and has sacristans to help him.”
“But the confessing, cumare? Isn’t that work?”
“No work about that! I’d just like to be confessing everybody! While we work and sweat to find out what our own
neighbors are doing, the curate does nothing more than take a seat and they tell him everything. Sometimes he falls asleep,
but he lets out two or three blessings and we are again the children of God! I’d just like to be a curate for one evening in Lent!”
“But the preaching? You can’t tell me that it’s not work. Just look how the fat curate was sweating this morning,”
objected the rustic, who felt himself being beaten into retreat.
“Preaching! Work to preach! Where’s your judgment? I’d just like to be talking half a day from the pulpit, scolding
and quarreling with everybody, without any one daring to reply, and be getting paid for it besides. I’d just like to be the curate
for one morning when those who are in debt to me are attending mass! Look there now, how Padre Damaso gets fat with so
much scolding and beating.”
Padre Damaso was, indeed, approaching with the gait of a heavy man. He was half smiling, but in such a malignant
way that Ibarra, upon seeing him, lost the thread of his talk. The padre was greeted with some surprise but with signs of
pleasure on the part of all except Ibarra. They were then at the dessert and the champagne was foaming in the glasses.
Padre Damaso’s smile became nervous when he saw Maria Clara seated at Crisostomo’s right. He took a seat
beside the alcalde and said in the midst of a significant silence, “Were you discussing something, gentlemen? Go ahead!”
[269]“We were at the toasts,” answered the alcalde. “Señor Ibarra was mentioning all who have helped him in his
philanthropic enterprise and was speaking of the architect when your Reverence—”
“Well, I don’t know anything about architecture,” interrupted Padre Damaso, “but I laugh at architects and the fools
who employ them. Here you have it—I drew the plan of this church and it’s perfectly constructed, so an English jeweler who
stopped in the convento one day assured me. To draw a plan one needs only to have two fingers’ breadth of forehead.”
“Nevertheless,” answered the alcalde, seeing that Ibarra was silent, “when we consider certain buildings, as, for
example, this schoolhouse, we need an expert.”
“Get out with your experts!” exclaimed the priest with a sneer. “Only a fool needs experts! One must be more of a
brute than the Indians, who build their own houses, not to know how to construct four walls and put a roof on top of them.
That’s all a schoolhouse is!”
The guests gazed at Ibarra, who had turned pale, but he continued as if in conversation with Maria Clara.
“But your Reverence should consider—”
“See now,” went on the Franciscan, not allowing the alcalde to continue, “look how one of our lay brothers, the most
stupid that we have, has constructed a hospital, good, pretty, and cheap. He made them work hard and paid only eight cuartos
a day even to those who had to come from other towns. He knew how to handle them, not like a lot of cranks and little mestizos
who are spoiling them by paying three or four reals.”
“Does your Reverence say that he paid only eight cuartos? Impossible!” The alcalde was trying to change the course
of the conversation.
“Yes, sir, and those who pride themselves on being good Spaniards ought to imitate him. You see now, since the
Suez Canal was opened, the corruption that has come in here. Formerly, when we had to double the Cape, neither [270]so
many vagabonds came here nor so many others went from here to become vagabonds.”
“But, Padre Damaso—”
“You know well enough what the Indian is—just as soon as he gets a little learning he sets himself up as a doctor!
All these little fellows that go to Europe—”
“But, listen, your Reverence!” interrupted the alcalde, who was becoming nervous over the aggressiveness of such
talk.
“Every one ends up as he deserves,” the friar continued. “The hand of God is manifest in the midst of it all, and one
must be blind not to see it. Even in this life the fathers of such vipers receive their punishment, they die in jail ha, ha! As we
might say, they have nowhere—”
But he did not finish the sentence. Ibarra, livid, had been following him with his gaze and upon hearing this allusion
to his father jumped up and dropped a heavy hand on the priest’s head, so that he fell back stunned. The company was so
filled with surprise and fright that no one made any movement to interfere.
“Keep off!” cried the youth in a terrible voice, as he caught up a sharp knife and placed his foot on the neck of the
friar, who was recovering from the shock of his fall. “Let him who values his life keep away!”
The youth was beside himself. His whole body trembled and his eyes rolled threateningly in their sockets. Fray
Damaso arose with an effort, but the youth caught him by the neck and shook him until he again fell doubled over on his
knees.
“Señor Ibarra! Señor Ibarra!” stammered some. But no one, not even the alferez himself, dared to approach the
gleaming knife, when they considered the youth’s strength and the condition of his mind. All seemed to be paralyzed.
“You, here! You have been silent, now it is my turn! I have tried to avoid this, but God brings me to it—let God be
the judge!” The youth was breathing laboriously, [271]but with a hand of iron he held down the Franciscan, who was struggling
vainly to free himself.
 “My heart beats tranquilly, my hand is sure,” he began, looking around him. “First, is there one among you, one who
has not loved his father, who was born in such shame and humiliation that he hates his memory? You see? You understand
this silence? Priest of a God of peace, with your mouth full of sanctity and religion and your heart full of evil, you cannot know
what a father is, or you might have thought of your own! In all this crowd which you despise there is not one like you! You are
condemned!”
The persons surrounding him, thinking that he was about to commit murder, made a movement.
“Away!” he cried again in a threatening voice. “What, do you fear that I shall stain my hands with impure blood?
Have I not told you that my heart beats tranquilly? Away from us! Listen, priests and judges, you who think yourselves other
men and attribute to yourselves other rights: my father was an honorable man,—ask these people here, who venerate his
memory. My father was a good citizen and he sacrificed himself for me and for the good of his country. His house was open
and his table was set for the stranger and the outcast who came to him in distress! He was a Christian who always did good
and who never oppressed the unprotected or afflicted those in trouble. To this man here he opened his doors, he made him
sit at his table and called him his friend. And how has this man repaid him? He calumniated him, persecuted him, raised up
against him all the ignorant by availing himself of the sanctity of his position; he outraged his tomb, dishonored his memory,
and persecuted him even in the sleep of death! Not satisfied with this, he persecutes the son now! I have fled from him, I have
avoided his presence. You this morning heard him profane the pulpit, pointing me out to popular fanaticism, and I held my
peace! Now he comes here to seek a quarrel with me. To your surprise, I have [272]suffered in silence, but he again insults
the most sacred memory that there is for a son. You who are here, priests and judges, have you seen your aged father wear
himself out working for you, separating himself from you for your welfare, have you seen him die of sorrow in a prison sighing
for your embrace, seeking some one to comfort him, alone, sick, when you were in a foreign land? Have you afterwards heard
his name dishonored, have you found his tomb empty when you went to pray beside it? No? You are silent, you condemn
him!”
He raised his hand, but with the swiftness of light a girlish form put itself between them and delicate fingers restrained
the avenging arm. It was Maria Clara. Ibarra stared at her with a look that seemed to reflect madness. Slowly his clenched
fingers relaxed, letting fall the body of the Franciscan and the knife. Covering his face, he fled through the crowd.[273]

1Cumare and cumpare are corruptions of the Spanish comadre and compadre, which have an origin analogous to the English “gossip” in its
original meaning of “sponsor in baptism.” In the Philippines these words are used among the simpler folk as familiar forms of address, “friend,” “neighbor.”—
TR.
2Dominus vobiscum.

Chapter XXXV
Comments

News of the incident soon spread throughout the town. At first all were incredulous, but, having to yield to the fact,
they broke out into exclamations of surprise. Each one, according to his moral lights, made his comments.
“Padre Damaso is dead,” said some. “When they picked him up his face was covered with blood and he wasn’t
breathing.”
“May he rest in peace! But he hasn’t any more than settled his debts!” exclaimed a young man. “Look what he did
this morning in the convento—there isn’t any name for it.”
“What did he do? Did he beat up the coadjutor again?”
“What did he do? Tell us about it!”
“You saw that Spanish mestizo go out through the sacristy in the midst of the sermon?”
“Yes, we saw him. Padre Damaso took note of him.”
“Well, after the sermon he sent for the young man and asked him why he had gone out. ‘I don’t understand Tagalog,
Padre,’ was the reply. ‘And why did you joke about it, saying that it was Greek?’ yelled Padre Damaso, slapping the young
man in the face. The latter retorted and the two came to blows until they were separated.”
“If that had happened to me—” hissed a student between his teeth.
“I don’t approve of the action of the Franciscan,” said another, “since Religion ought not to be imposed on any one
as a punishment or a penance. But I am almost glad of it, for I know that young man, I know that he’s from [274]San Pedro
Makati and that he talks Tagalog well. Now he wants to be taken for a recent arrival from Russia and prides himself on
appearing not to know the language of his fathers.”
“Then God makes them and they rush together!”1
“Still we must protest against such actions,” exclaimed another student. “To remain silent would be to assent to the
abuse, and what has happened may be repeated with any one of us. We’re going back to the times of Nero!”
“You’re wrong,” replied another. “Nero was a great artist, while Padre Damaso is only a tiresome preacher.”
The comments of the older persons were of a different kind. While they were waiting for the arrival of the Captain-
General in a hut outside the town, the gobernadorcillo was saying, “To tell who was right and who was wrong, is not an easy
matter. Yet if Señor Ibarra had used more prudence—”
 “If Padre Damaso had used half the prudence of Señor Ibarra, you mean to say, perhaps!” interrupted Don Filipo.
“The bad thing about it is that they exchanged parts—the youth conducted himself like an old man and the old man like a
youth.”
“Did you say that no one moved, no one went near to separate them, except Capitan Tiago’s daughter?” asked
Capitan Martin. “None of the friars, nor the alcalde? Ahem! Worse and worse! I shouldn’t like to be in that young man’s skin.
No one will forgive him for having been afraid of him. Worse and worse, ahem!”
“Do you think so?” asked Capitan Basilio curiously.
“I hope,” said Don Filipo, exchanging a look with the latter, “that the people won’t desert him. We must keep in mind
what his family has done and what he is trying to do now. And if, as may happen, the people, being intimidated, are silent, his
friends—”
“But, gentlemen,” interrupted the gobernadorcillo, [275]“what can we do? What can the people do? Happen what
will, the friars are always right!”
“They are always right because we always allow them to be,” answered Don Filipo impatiently, putting double stress
on the italicized word. “Let us be right once and then we’ll talk.”
The gobernadorcillo scratched his head and stared at the roof while he replied in a sour tone, “Ay! the heat of the
blood! You don’t seem to realize yet what country we’re in, you don’t know your countrymen. The friars are rich and united,
while we are divided and poor. Yes, try to defend yourself and you’ll see how the people will leave you in the lurch.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Don Filipo bitterly. “That will happen as long as you think that way, as long as fear and prudence
are synonyms. More attention is paid to a possible evil than to a necessary good. At once fear, and not confidence, presents
itself; each one thinks only of himself, no one thinks of the rest, and therefore we are all weak!”
“Well then, think of others before yourself and you’ll see how they’ll leave you in the lurch. Don’t you know the
proverb, ‘Charity begins at home’?”
“You had better say,” replied the exasperated teniente-mayor, “that cowardice begins in selfishness and ends in
shame! This very day I’m going to hand in my resignation to the alcalde. I’m tired of passing for a joke without being useful to
anybody. Good-by!”
The women had opinions of still another kind.
“Ay!” sighed one woman of kindly expression. “The young men are always so! If his good mother were alive, what
would she say? When I think that the like may happen to my son, who has a violent temper, I almost envy his dead mother. I
should die of grief!”
“Well, I shouldn’t,” replied another. “It wouldn’t cause me any shame if such a thing should happen to my two sons.”
[276]“What are you saying, Capitana Maria!” exclaimed the first, clasping her hands.
“It pleases me to see a son defend the memory of his parents, Capitana Tinay. What would you say if some day
when you were a widow you heard your husband spoken ill of and your son Antonio should hang his head and remain silent?”
“I would deny him my blessing!” exclaimed a third, Sister Rufa, “but—”
“Deny him my blessing, never!” interrupted the kind Capitana Tinay. “A mother ought not to say that! But I don’t
know what I should do—I don’t know—I believe I’d die—but I shouldn’t want to see him again. But what do you think about it,
Capitana Maria?”
“After all,” added Sister Rufa, “it must not be forgotten that it’s a great sin to place your hand on a sacred person.”
“A father’s memory is more sacred!” replied Capitana Maria. “No one, not even the Pope himself, much less Padre
Damaso, may profane such a holy memory.”
“That’s true!” murmured Capitana Tinay, admiring the wisdom of both. “Where did you get such good ideas?”
“But the excommunication and the condemnation?” exclaimed Sister Rufa. “What are honor and a good name in
this life if in the other we are damned? Everything passes away quickly—but the excommunication—to outrage a minister of
Christ! No one less than the Pope can pardon that!”
“God, who commands honor for father and mother, will pardon it, God will not excommunicate him! And I tell you
that if that young man comes to my house I will receive him and talk with him, and if I had a daughter I would want him for a
son-in-law; he who is a good son will be a good husband and a good father—believe it, Sister Rufa!”
“Well, I don’t think so. Say what you like, and even [277]though you may appear to be right, I’ll always rather believe
the curate. Before everything else, I’ll save my soul. What do you say, Capitana Tinny?”
“Oh, what do you want me to say? You’re both right the curate is right, but God must also be right. I don’t know, I’m
only a foolish woman. What I’m going to do is to tell my son not to study any more, for they say that persons who know anything
die on the gallows. María Santísima, my son wants to go to Europe!”
“What are you thinking of doing?”
“Tell him to stay with me—why should he know more? Tomorrow or the next day we shall die, the learned and the
ignorant alike must die, and the only question is to live in peace.” The good old woman sighed and raised her eyes toward the
sky.
“For my part,” said Capitana Maria gravely, “if I were rich like you I would let my sons travel; they are young and will
some day be men. I have only a little while to live, we should see one another in the other life, so sons should aspire to be
more than their fathers, but at our sides we only teach them to be children.”
 “Ay, what rare thoughts you have!” exclaimed the astonished Capitana Tinay, clasping her hands. “It must be that
you didn’t suffer in bearing your twin boys.”
“For the very reason that I did bear them with suffering, that I have nurtured and reared them in spite of our poverty,
I do not wish that, after the trouble they’re cost me, they be only half-men.”
“It seems to me that you don’t love your children as God commands,” said Sister Rufa in a rather severe tone.
“Pardon me, every mother loves her sons in her own way. One mother loves them for her own sake and another
loves them for their sake. I am one of the latter, for my husband has so taught me.”
“All your ideas, Capitana Maria,” said Sister Rufa, as if preaching, “are but little religious. Become a sister of [278]the
Holy Rosary or of St. Francis or of St. Rita or of St. Clara.”
“Sister Rufa, when I am a worthy sister of men then I’ll try to be a sister of the saints,” she answered with a smile.
To put an end to this chapter of comments and that the reader may learn in passing what the simple country folk
thought of the incident, we will now go to the plaza, where under the large awning some rustics are conversing, one of them—
he who dreamed about doctors of medicine—being an acquaintance of ours.
“What I regret most,” said he, “is that the schoolhouse won’t be finished.”
“What’s that?” asked the bystanders with interest.
“My son won’t be a doctor but a carter, nothing more! Now there won’t be any school!”
“Who says there won’t be any school?” asked a rough and robust countryman with wide cheeks and a narrow head.
“I do! The white padres have called Don Crisostomo plibastiero.2 Now there won’t be any school.”
All stood looking questioningly at each other; that was a new term to them.
“And is that a bad name?” the rough countryman made bold to ask.
“The worst thing that one Christian can say to another!”
“Worse than tarantado and sarayate?”3
“If it were only that! I’ve been called those names several times and they didn’t even give me a bellyache.”
“Well, it can’t be worse than ‘indio,’ as the alferez says.”
The man who was to have a carter for a son became gloomier, while the other scratched his head in thought.
[279]“Then it must be like the betelapora4 that the alferez’s old woman says. Worse than that is to spit on the Host.”
“Well, it’s worse than to spit on the Host on Good Friday,” was the grave reply. “You remember the
word ispichoso5 which when applied to a man is enough to have the civil-guards take him into exile or put him in jail
well, plibustiero is much worse. According to what the telegrapher and the directorcillo said, plibustiero, said by a Christian, a
curate, or a Spaniard to another Christian like us is a santusdeus with requimiternam,6 for if they ever call you a plibustiero then
you’d better get yourself shriven and pay your debts, since nothing remains for you but to be hanged. You know whether the
telegrapher and the directorcillo ought to be informed; one talks with wires and the other knows Spanish and works only with
a pen.” All were appalled.
“May they force me to wear shoes and in all my life to drink nothing but that vile stuff they call beer, if I ever let
myself be called pelbistero!” swore the countryman, clenching his fists. “What, rich as Don Crisostomo is, knowing Spanish
as he does, and able to eat fast with a knife and spoon, I’d laugh at five curates!”
“The next civil-guard I catch stealing my chickens I’m going to call palabistiero, then I’ll go to confession at once,”
murmured one of the rustics in a low voice as he withdrew from the group.[280]

1The Spanish proverb equivalent to the English “Birds of a feather flock together.”—TR.
2For “filibustero.”
3Tarantado is a Spanish vulgarism meaning “blunderhead,” “bungler.” Saragate (or zaragate) is a Mexican provincialism meaning “disturber,”
“mischief-maker.”—TR.
4Vete á la porra is a vulgarism almost the same in meaning and use as the English slang, “Tell it to the policeman,” porra being the Spanish term
for the policeman’s “billy.”—TR.
5For sospechoso, “a suspicious character.”—TR.
6Sanctus Deus and Requiem aeternam (so called from their first words) are prayers for the dead.—TR.

Chapter XXXVI
The First Cloud

In Capitan Tiago’s house reigned no less disorder than in the people’s imagination. Maria Clara did nothing but
weep and would not listen to the consoling words of her aunt and of Andeng, her foster-sister. Her father had forbidden her to
speak to Ibarra until the priests should absolve him from the excommunication. Capitan Tiago himself, in the midst of his
preparations for receiving the Captain-General properly, had been summoned to the convento.
“Don’t cry, daughter,” said Aunt Isabel, as she polished the bright plates of the mirrors with a piece of chamois.
“They’ll withdraw the excommunication, they’ll write now to the Pope, and we’ll make a big poor-offering. Padre Damaso only
fainted, he’s not dead.”
“Don’t cry,” whispered Andeng. “I’ll manage it so that you may talk with him. What are confessionals for if not that
we may sin? Everything is forgiven by telling it to the curate.”
 At length Capitan Tiago returned. They sought in his face the answer to many questions, and it announced
discouragement. The poor fellow was perspiring; he rubbed his hand across his forehead, but was unable to say a single
word.
“What has happened, Santiago?” asked Aunt Isabel anxiously.
He answered by sighing and wiping away a tear.
“For God’s sake, speak! What has happened?”
“Just what I feared,” he broke out at last, half in tears. [281]“All is lost! Padre Damaso has ordered me to break the
engagement, otherwise he will damn me in this life and in the next. All of them told me the same, even Padre Sibyla. I must
close the doors of my house against him, and I owe him over fifty thousand pesos! I told the padres this, but they refused to
take any notice of it. ‘Which do you prefer to lose,’ they asked me, ‘fifty thousand pesos or your life and your soul?’
Ay, St. Anthony, if I had only known, if I had only known! Don’t cry, daughter,” he went on, turning to the sobbing girl. “You’re
not like your mother, who never cried except just before you were born. Padre Damaso told me that a relative of his has just
arrived from Spain and you are to marry him.”
Maria Clara covered her ears, while Aunt Isabel screamed, “Santiago, are you crazy? To talk to her of another
sweetheart now! Do you think that your daughter changes sweethearts as she does her camisa?”
“That’s just the way I felt, Isabel. Don Crisostomo is rich, while the Spaniards marry only for love of money. But what
do you want me to do? They’ve threatened me with another excommunication. They say that not only my soul but also my
body is in great danger—my body, do you hear, my body!”
“But you’re only making your daughter more disconsolate! Isn’t the Archbishop your friend? Why don’t you write to
him?”
“The Archbishop is also a friar, the Archbishop does only what the friars tell him to do. But, Maria, don’t cry. The
Captain-General is coming, he’ll want to see you, and your eyes are all red. Ay, I was thinking to spend a happy evening!
Without this misfortune I should be the happiest of men—every one would envy me! Be calm, my child, I’m more unfortunate
than you and I’m not crying. You can have another and better husband, while I—I’ve lost fifty thousand pesos! Ay, Virgin of
Antipolo, if tonight I may only have luck!”
Salvos, the sound of carriage wheels, the galloping of [282]horses, and a band playing the royal march, announced
the arrival of his Excellency, the Captain-General of the Philippines. Maria Clara ran to hide herself in her chamber. Poor child,
rough hands that knew not its delicate chords were playing with her heart! While the house became filled with people and
heavy steps, commanding voices, and the clank of sabers and spurs resounded on all sides, the afflicted maiden reclined
half-kneeling before a picture of the Virgin represented in that sorrowful loneliness perceived only by Delaroche, as if he had
surprised her returning from the sepulcher of her Son. But Maria Clara was not thinking of that mother’s sorrow, she was
thinking of her own. With her head hanging down over her breast and her hands resting on the floor she made the picture of
a lily bent by the storm. A future dreamed of and cherished for years, whose illusions, born in infancy and grown strong
throughout youth, had given form to the very fibers of her being, to be wiped away now from her mind and heart by a single
word! It was enough to stop the beating of one and to deprive the other of reason.
Maria Clara was a loving daughter as well as a good and pious Christian, so it was not the excommunication alone
that terrified her, but the command and the ominous calmness of her father demanding the sacrifice of her love. Now she felt
the whole force of that affection which until this moment she had hardly suspected. It had been like a river gliding along
peacefully with its banks carpeted by fragrant flowers and its bed covered with fine sand, so that the wind hardly ruffled its
current as it moved along, seeming hardly to flow at all; but suddenly its bed becomes narrower, sharp stones block the way,
hoary logs fall across it forming a barrier—then the stream rises and roars with its waves boiling and scattering clouds of foam,
it beats against the rocks and rushes into the abyss!
She wanted to pray, but who in despair can pray? Prayers are for the hours of hope, and when in the absence of
this we turn to God it is only with complaints. “My [283]God,” cried her heart, “why dost Thou thus cut a man off, why dost
Thou deny him the love of others? Thou dost not deny him thy sunlight and thy air nor hide from him the sight of thy heaven!
Why then deny him love, for without a sight of the sky, without air or sunlight, one can live, but without love—never!”
Would these cries unheard by men reach the throne of God or be heard by the Mother of the distressed? The poor
maiden who had never known a mother dared to confide these sorrows of an earthly love to that pure heart that knew only the
love of daughter and of mother. In her despair she turned to that deified image of womanhood, the most beautiful idealization
of the most ideal of all creatures, to that poetical creation of Christianity who unites in herself the two most beautiful phases
of womanhood without its sorrows: those of virgin and mother,—to her whom we call Mary!
“Mother, mother!” she moaned.
Aunt Isabel came to tear her away from her sorrow since she was being asked for by some friends and by the
Captain-General, who wished to talk with her.
“Aunt, tell them that I’m ill,” begged the frightened girl. “They’re going to make me play on the piano and sing.”
“Your father has promised. Are you going to put your father in a bad light?”
Maria Clara rose, looked at her aunt, and threw back her shapely arms, murmuring, “Oh, if I only had—”
But without concluding the phrase she began to make herself ready for presentation.[284]
 Chapter XXXVII
His Excellency

“I Want to talk with that young man,” said his Excellency to an aide. “He has aroused all my interest.”
“They have already gone to look for him, General. But here is a young man from Manila who insists on being
introduced. We told him that your Excellency had no time for interviews, that you had not come to give audiences, but to see
the town and the procession, and he answered that your Excellency always has time to dispense justice—”
His Excellency turned to the alcalde in wonder. “If I am not mistaken,” said the latter with a slight bow, “he is the
young man who this morning had a quarrel with Padre Damaso over the sermon.”
“Still another? Has this friar set himself to stir up the whole province or does he think that he governs here? Show
the young man in.” His Excellency paced nervously from one end of the sala to the other.
In the hall were gathered various Spaniards mingled with soldiers and officials of San Diego and neighboring towns,
standing in groups conversing or disputing. There were also to be seen all the friars, with the exception of Padre Damaso, and
they wanted to go in to pay their respects to his Excellency.
“His Excellency the Captain-General begs your Reverences to wait a moment,” said the aide. “Come in, young man!”
The Manilan who had confounded Greek with Tagalog entered the room pale and trembling.
All were filled with surprise; surely his Excellency must [285]be greatly irritated to dare to make the friars wait! Padre
Sibyla remarked, “I haven’t anything to say to him, I’m wasting my time here.”
“I say the same,” added an Augustinian. “Shall we go?”
“Wouldn’t it be better that we find out how he stands?” asked Padre Salvi. “We should avoid a scandal, and should
be able to remind him of his duties toward—religion.”
“Your Reverences may enter, if you so desire,” said the aide as he ushered out the youth who did not understand
Greek and whose countenance was now beaming with satisfaction.
Fray Sibyla entered first, Padre Salvi, Padre Martin, and the other priests following. They all made respectful bows
with the exception of Padre Sibyla, who even in bending preserved a certain air of superiority. Padre Salvi on the other hand
almost doubled himself over the girdle.
“Which of your Reverences is Padre Damaso?” asked the Captain-General without any preliminary greeting, neither
asking them to be seated nor inquiring about their health nor addressing them with the flattering speeches to which such
important personages are accustomed.
“Padre Damaso is not here among us, sir,” replied Fray Sibyla in the same dry tone as that used by his Excellency.
“Your Excellency’s servant is in bed sick,” added Padre Salvi humbly. “After having the pleasure of welcoming you
and of informing ourselves concerning your Excellency’s health, as is the duty of all good subjects of the King and of every
person of culture, we have come in the name of the respected servant of your Excellency who has had the misfortune—”
“Oh!” interrupted the Captain-General, twirling a chair about on one leg and smiling nervously, “if all the servants of
my Excellency were like his Reverence, Padre Damaso, I should prefer myself to serve my Excellency!”
[286]The reverend gentlemen, who were standing up physically, did so mentally at this interruption.
“Won’t your Reverences be seated?” he added after a brief pause, moderating his tone a little.
Capitan Tiago here appeared in full dress, walking on tiptoe and leading by the hand Maria Clara, who entered
timidly and with hesitation. Still she bowed gracefully and ceremoniously.
“Is this young lady your daughter?” asked the Captain-General in surprise.
“And your Excellency’s, General,” answered Capitan Tiago seriously.1
The alcalde and the aides opened their eyes wide, but his Excellency lost none of his gravity as he took the girl’s
hand and said affably, “Happy are the fathers who have daughters like you, señorita! I have heard you spoken of with respect
and admiration and have wanted to see you and thank you for your beautiful action of this afternoon. I am informed
of everything and when I make my report to his Majesty’s government I shall not forget your noble conduct. Meanwhile, permit
me to thank you in the name of his Majesty, the King, whom I represent here and who loves peace and tranquillity in his loyal
subjects, and for myself, a father who has daughters of your age, and to propose a reward for you.”
“Sir—” answered the trembling Maria Clara.
His Excellency guessed what she wanted to say, and so continued: “It is well, señorita, that you are at peace with
your conscience and content with the good opinion of your fellow-countrymen, with the faith which is its own best reward and
beyond which we should not aspire. But you must not deprive me of an opportunity to show that if Justice knows how to punish
she also knows how to reward [287]and that she is not always blind!” The italicized words were all spoken in a loud and
significant tone.
“Señor Don Juan Crisostomo Ibarra awaits the orders of your Excellency!” announced the aide in a loud voice.
Maria Clara shuddered.
“Ah!” exclaimed the Captain-General. “Allow me, señorita, to express my desire to see you again before leaving the
town, as I still have some very important things to say to you. Señor Alcalde, you will accompany me during the walk which I
wish to take after the conference that I will hold alone with Señor Ibarra.”
“Your Excellency will permit us to inform you,” began Padre Salvi humbly, “that Señor Ibarra is excommunicated.”
 His Excellency cut short this speech, saying, “I am happy that I have only to regret the condition of Padre Damaso,
for whom I sincerely desire a complete recovery, since at his age a voyage to Spain on account of his health may not be very
agreeable. But that depends on him! Meanwhile, may God preserve the health of your Reverences!”
“And so much depends on him,” murmured Padre Salvi as they retired. “We’ll see who makes that voyage soonest!”
remarked another Franciscan.
“I shall leave at once,” declared the indignant Padre Sibyla.
“And we shall go back to our province,” said the Augustinians. Neither the Dominican nor the Augustinians could
endure the thought that they had been so coldly received on a Franciscan’s account.
In the hall they met Ibarra, their amphitryon of a few hours before, but no greetings were exchanged, only looks that
said many things. But when the friars had withdrawn the alcalde greeted him familiarly, although the entrance of the aide
looking for the young man left no time for conversation. In the doorway he met Maria Clara; their [288]looks also said many
things but quite different from what the friars’ eyes had expressed.
Ibarra was dressed in deep mourning, but presented himself serenely and made a profound bow, even though the
visit of the friars had not appeared to him to be a good augury. The Captain-General advanced toward him several steps.
“I take pleasure, Señor Ibarra, in shaking your hand. Permit me to receive you in all confidence.” His Excellency
examined the youth with marked satisfaction.
“Sir, such kindness—”
“Your surprise offends me, signifying as it does that you had not expected to be well received. That is casting a
doubt on my sense of justice!”
“A cordial reception, sir, for an insignificant subject of his Majesty like myself is not justice but a favor.”
“Good, good,” exclaimed his Excellency, seating himself and waving Ibarra to a chair. “Let us enjoy a brief period of
frankness. I am very well satisfied with your conduct and have already recommended you to his Majesty for a decoration on
account of your philanthropic idea of erecting a schoolhouse. If you had let me know, I would have attended the ceremony
with pleasure, and perhaps might have prevented a disagreeable incident.”
“It seemed to me such a small matter,” answered the youth, “that I did not think it worth while troubling your
Excellency with it in the midst of your numerous cares. Besides, my duty was to apply first to the chief authority of my province.”
His Excellency nodded with a satisfied air and went on in an even more familiar tone: “In regard to the trouble you’re
had with Padre Damaso, don’t hold any fear or rancor, for they won’t touch a hair of your head while I govern the islands. As
for the excommunication, I’ll speak to the Archbishop, since it is necessary for us to adjust ourselves to circumstances. Here
we can’t laugh at such things in public as we can in the Peninsula and in enlightened [289]Europe. Nevertheless, be more
prudent in the future. You have placed yourself in opposition to the religious orders, who must be respected on account of
their influence and their wealth. But I will protect you, for I like good sons, I like to see them honor the memory of their fathers.
I loved mine, and, as God lives, I don’t know what I would have done in your place!”
Then, changing the subject of conversation quickly, he asked, “I’m told that you have just returned from Europe;
were you in Madrid?”
“Yes, sir, several months.”
“Perhaps you heard my family spoken of?”
“Your Excellency had just left when I had the honor of being introduced to your family.”
“How is it, then, that you came without bringing any recommendations to me?”
“Sir,” replied Ibarra with a bow, “because I did not come direct from Spain and because I have heard your Excellency
so well spoken of that I thought a letter of recommendation might not only be valueless but even offensive; all Filipinos are
recommended to you.”
A smile played about the old soldier’s lips and he replied slowly, as though measuring and weighing his words, “You
flatter me by thinking so, and—so it ought to be. Nevertheless, young man, you must know what burdens weigh upon our
shoulders here in the Philippines. Here we, old soldiers, have to do and to be everything: King, Minister of State, of War, of
Justice, of Finance, of Agriculture, and of all the rest. The worst part of it too is that in every matter we have to consult the
distant mother country, which accepts or rejects our proposals according to circumstances there—and at times blindly. As we
Spaniards say, ‘He who attempts many things succeeds in none.’ Besides, we generally come here knowing little about the
country and leave it when we begin to get acquainted with it. With you I can be frank, for it would be useless to try to be
otherwise. Even in Spain, where [290]each department has its own minister, born and reared in the locality, where there are
a press and a public opinion, where the opposition frankly opens the eyes of the government and keeps it informed, everything
moves along imperfectly and defectively; thus it is a miracle that here things are not completely topsyturvy in the lack of these
safeguards, and having to live and work under the shadow of a most powerful opposition. Good intentions are not lacking to
us, the governing powers, but we find ourselves obliged to avail ourselves of the eyes and arms of others whom ordinarily we
do not know and who perhaps, instead of serving their country, serve only their own private interests. This is not our fault but
the fault of circumstances—the friars aid us not a little in getting along, but they are not sufficient. You have aroused my
interest and it is my desire that the imperfections of our present system of government be of no hindrance to you. I cannot
look after everybody nor can everybody come to me. Can I be of service to you in any way? Have you no request to make?”
Ibarra reflected a moment before he answered. “Sir, my dearest wish is the happiness of my country, a happiness
which I desire to see owed to the mother country and to the efforts of my fellow-citizens, the two united by the eternal bonds
of common aspirations and common interests. What I would request can only be given by the government after years of
unceasing toil and after the introduction of definite reforms.”
His Excellency gazed at him for a few seconds with a searching look, which Ibarra sustained with naturalness. “You
are the first man that I’ve talked to in this country!” he finally exclaimed, extending his hand.
“Your Excellency has seen only those who drag themselves about in the city; you have not visited the slandered
huts of our towns or your Excellency would have been able to see real men, if to be a man it is sufficient to have a generous
heart and simple customs.”
[291]The Captain-General rose and began to walk back and forth in the room. “Señor Ibarra,” he exclaimed, pausing
suddenly, and the young man also rose, “perhaps within a month I shall leave. Your education and your mode of thinking are
not for this country. Sell what you have, pack your trunk, and come with me to Europe; the climate there will be more agreeable
to you.”
“I shall always while I live preserve the memory of your Excellency’s kindness,” replied Ibarra with emotion, “but I
must remain in this country where my fathers have lived.”
“Where they have died you might say with more exactness! Believe me, perhaps I know your country better than
you yourself do. Ah, now I remember,” he exclaimed with a change of tone, “you are going to marry an adorable young woman
and I’m detaining you here! Go, go to her, and that you may have greater freedom send her father to me,” this with a smile.
“Don’t forget, though, that I want you to accompany me in my walk.”
Ibarra bowed and withdrew. His Excellency then called to his aide. “I’m satisfied,” he said, slapping the latter lightly
on the shoulder. “Today I’ve seen for the first time how it is possible for one to be a good Spaniard without ceasing to be a
good Filipino and to love his country. Today I showed their Reverences that we are not all puppets of theirs. This young man
gave me the opportunity and I shall soon have settled all my accounts with the friars. It’s a pity that some day or other this
young man—But call the alcalde.”
The alcalde presented himself immediately. As he entered, the Captain-General said to him, “Señor Alcalde, in order
to avoid any repetition of scenes such as you witnessed this afternoon, scenes that I regret, as they hurt the prestige of the
government and of all good Spaniards, allow me to recommend to your especial care Señor Ibarra, so that you may afford
him means for carrying out his patriotic intentions and also that in the future you prevent his [292]being molested by persons
of any class whatsoever, under any pretext at all.”
The alcalde understood the reprimand and bowed to conceal his confusion.
“Have the same order communicated to the alferez who commands in the district here. Also, investigate whether
that gentleman has affairs of his own that are not sanctioned by the regulations. I’ve heard more than one complaint in regard
to that.”
Capitan Tiago presented himself stiff and formal. “Don Santiago,” said his Excellency in an affable tone, “a little while
ago I felicitated you on the happiness of having a daughter such as the Señorita de los Santos; now let me congratulate you
on your future son-in-law. The most virtuous of daughters is certainly worthy of the best citizen of the Philippines. Is it permitted
to know when the wedding will occur?”
“Sir!” stammered Capitan Tiago, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
“Come now, I see that there is nothing definitely arranged. If persons are lacking to stand up with them, I shall take
the greatest pleasure in being one of them. That’s for the purpose of ridding myself of the feeling of disgust which the many
weddings I’ve heretofore taken part in have given me,” he added, turning to the alcalde.
“Yes, sir,” answered Capitan Tiago with a smile that would move to pity.
Ibarra almost ran in search of Maria Clara—he had so many things to tell her. Hearing merry voices in one of the
rooms, he knocked lightly on the door.
“Who’s there?” asked the voice of Maria Clara.
“I!”
The voices became hushed and the door—did not open.
“It’s I, may I come in?” called the young man, his heart beating violently.
The silence continued. Then light footsteps approached the door and the merry voice of Sinang murmured
through [293]the keyhole, “Crisostomo, we’re going to the theater tonight. Write what you have to say to Maria.”
The footsteps retreated again as rapidly as they approached.
“What does this mean?” murmured Ibarra thoughtfully as he retired slowly from the door.[294]

1Spanish etiquette requires that the possessor of an object immediately offer it to any person who asks about it with the conventional phrase, “It
is yours.” Capitan Tiago is rather overdoing his Latin refinement.—TR.

Chapter XXXVIII
The Procession

At nightfall, when all the lanterns in the windows had been lighted, for the fourth time the procession started amid
the ringing of bells and the usual explosions of bombs. The Captain-General, who had gone out on foot in company with his
two aides, Capitan Tiago, the alcalde, the alferez, and Ibarra, preceded by civil-guards and officials who opened the way and
cleared the street, was invited to review the procession from the house of the gobernadorcillo, in front of which a platform had
been erected where a loa1 would be recited in honor of the Blessed Patron.
[295]Ibarra would gladly have renounced the pleasure of hearing this poetical composition, preferring to watch the
procession from Capitan Tiago’s house, where Maria Clara had remained with some of her friends, but his Excellency wished
to hear the loa, so he had no recourse but to console himself with the prospect of seeing her at the theater.
The procession was headed by the silver candelabra borne by three begloved sacristans, behind whom came the
school children in charge of their teacher, then boys with paper lanterns of varied shapes and colors placed on the ends of
bamboo poles of greater or less length and decorated according to the caprice of each boy, since this illumination was
furnished by the children of the barrios, who gladly performed this service, imposed by the matanda sa nayon,2 each one
designing and fashioning his own lantern, adorning it as his fancy prompted and his finances permitted with a greater or less
number of frills and little streamers, and lighting it with a piece of candle if he had a friend or relative who was a sacristan, or
if he could buy one of the small red tapers such as the Chinese burn before their altars.
In the midst of the crowd came and went alguazils, guardians of justice to take care that the lines were not broken
and the people did not crowd together. For this purpose they availed themselves of their rods, with blows from which,
administered opportunely and with sufficient force, they endeavored to add to the glory and brilliance of the procession—all
for the edification of souls and the [296]splendor of religious show. At the same time that the alguazils were thus distributing
free their sanctifying blows, other persons, to console the recipients, distributed candles and tapers of different sizes, also
free.
“Señor Alcalde,” said Ibarra in a low voice, “do they administer those blows as a punishment for sin or simply because
they like to do so?”
“You’re right, Señor Ibarra,” answered the Captain-General, overhearing the question. “This barbarous sight is a
wonder to all who come here from other countries. It ought to be forbidden.”
Without any apparent reason, the first saint that appeared was St. John the Baptist. On looking at him it might have
been said that the fame of Our Savior’s cousin did not amount to much among the people, for while it is true that he had the
feet and legs of a maiden and the face of an anchorite, yet he was placed on an old wooden andas, and was hidden by a
crowd of children who, armed with candles and unlighted lanterns, were engaging in mock fights.
“Unfortunate saint!” muttered the Sage Tasio, who was watching the procession from the street, “it avails you nothing
to have been the forerunner of the Good Tidings or that Jesus bowed before you! Your great faith and your austerity avail you
nothing, nor the fact that you died for the truth and your convictions, all of which men forget when they consider nothing more
than their own merits. It avails more to preach badly in the churches than to be the eloquent voice crying in the desert, this is
what the Philippines teaches you! If you had eaten turkey instead of locusts and had worn garments of silk rather than hides,
if you had joined a Corporation—”
But the old man suspended his apostrophe at the approach of St. Francis. “Didn’t I say so?” he then went on, smiling
sarcastically. “This one rides on a ear, and, good Heavens, what a car! How many lights and how many glass lanterns! Never
did I see you surrounded by so [297]many luminaries, Giovanni Bernardone!3 And what music! Other tunes were heard by
your followers after your death! But, venerable and humble founder, if you were to come back to life now you would see only
degenerate Eliases of Cortona, and if your followers should recognize you, they would put you in jail, and perhaps you would
share the fate of Cesareus of Spyre.”
After the music came a banner on which was pictured the same saint, but with seven wings, carried by the Tertiary
Brethren dressed in guingón habits and praying in high, plaintive voices. Rather inexplicably, next came St. Mary Magdalene,
a beautiful image with abundant hair, wearing a pañuelo of embroidered piña held by fingers covered with rings, and a silk
gown decorated with gilt spangles. Lights and incense surrounded her while her glass tears reflected the colors of the Bengal
lights, which, while giving a fantastic appearance to the procession, also made the saintly sinner weep now green, now red,
now blue tears. The houses did not begin to light up until St. Francis was passing; St. John the Baptist did not enjoy this honor
and passed hastily by as if ashamed to be the only one dressed in hides in such a crowd of folk covered with gold and jewels.
“There goes our saint!” exclaimed the daughter of the gobernadorcillo to her visitors. “I’ve lent him all my rings, but
that’s in order to get to heaven.”
The candle-bearers stopped around the platform to listen to the loa and the blessed saints did the same; either they
or their bearers wished to hear the verses. Those who were carrying St. John, tired of waiting, squatted down on their heels
and agreed to set him on the ground.
“The alguazil may scold!” objected one of them.
“Huh, in the sacristy they leave him in a corner among the cobwebs!”
[298]So St. John, once on the ground, became one of the townsfolk.
As the Magdalene set out the women joined the procession, only that instead of beginning with the children, as
among the men, the old women came first and the girls filled up the lines to the car of the Virgin, behind which came the curate
under his canopy. This practise they had from Padre Damaso, who said: “To the Virgin the maidens and not the old women
are pleasing!” This statement had caused wry faces on the part of many saintly old ladies, but the Virgin did not change her
tastes.
 San Diego followed the Magdalene but did not seem to be rejoicing over this fact, since he moved along as
repentantly as he had in the morning when he followed St. Francis. His float was drawn by six Tertiary Sisters—whether
because of some vow or on account of some sickness, the fact is that they dragged him along, and with zeal. San Diego
stopped in front of the platform and waited to be saluted.
But it was necessary to wait for the float of the Virgin, which was preceded by persons dressed like phantoms, who
frightened the little children so that there were heard the cries and screams of terrified babies. Yet in the midst of that dark
mass of gowns, hoods, girdles, and nuns’ veils, from which arose a monotonous and snuffling prayer, there were to be seen,
like white jasmines or fresh sampaguitas among old rags, twelve girls dressed in white, crowned with flowers, their hair curled,
and flashing from their eyes glances as bright as their necklaces. Like little genii of light who were prisoners of specters they
moved along holding to the wide blue ribbons tied to the Virgin’s car and suggesting the doves that draw the car of Spring.
Now all the images were in attitudes of attention, crowded one against the other to listen to the verses. Everybody
kept his eyes fixed on the half-drawn curtain until at length a sigh of admiration escaped from the lips of all. Deservedly [299]so,
too, for it was a boy with wings, riding-boots, sash, belt, and plumed hat.
“It’s the alcalde!” cried some one, but this prodigy of creation began to recite a poem like himself and took no offense
at the comparison.
But why record here what he said in Latin, Tagalog, and Spanish, all in verse—this poor victim of the
gobernadorcillo? Our readers have enjoyed Padre Damaso’s sermon of the morning and we do not wish to spoil them by too
many wonders. Besides, the Franciscan might feel hard toward us if we were to put forward a competitor, and this is far from
being the desire of such peaceful folk as we have the good fortune to be.
Afterwards, the procession moved on, St. John proceeding along his vale of tears. When the Virgin passed the
house of Capitan Tiago a heavenly song greeted her with the words of the archangel. It was a voice tender, melodious,
pleading, sighing out the Ave Maria of Gounod to the accompaniment of a piano that prayed with it. The music of the procession
became hushed, the praying ceased, and even Padre Salvi himself paused. The voice trembled and became plaintive,
expressing more than a salutation—rather a prayer and a protest.
Terror and melancholy settled down upon Ibarra’s heart as he listened to the voice from the window where he stood.
He comprehended what that suffering soul was expressing in a song and yet feared to ask himself the cause of such sorrow.
Gloomy and thoughtful, he turned to the Captain-General.
“You will join me at the table,” the latter said to him. “There we’ll talk about those boys who disappeared.”
“Could I be the cause?” murmured the young man, staring without seeing the Captain-General, whom he was
following mechanically.[300]

1A metrical discourse for a special occasion or in honor of some distinguished personage. Padre Zuñiga (Estadismo, Chap. III) thus describes
one heard by him in Lipa, Batangas, in 1800, on the occasion of General Alava’s visit to that place: “He who is to recite the loa is seen in the center of the
stage dressed as a Spanish cavalier, reclining in a chair as if asleep, while behind the scenes musicians sing a lugubrious chant in the vernacular. The
sleeper awakes and shows by signs that he thinks he has heard, or dreamed of hearing, some voice. He again disposes himself to sleep, and the chant is
repeated in the same lugubrious tone. Again he awakes, rises, and shows that he has heard a voice. This scene is repeated several times, until at length he
is persuaded that the voice is announcing the arrival of the hero who is to be eulogized. He then commences to recite his loa, carrying himself like a clown in
a circus, while he sings the praises of the person in whose honor the fiesta has been arranged. This loa, which was in rhetorical verse in a diffuse style suited
to the Asiatic taste, set forth the general’s naval expeditions and the honors he had received from the King, concluding with thanks and acknowledgment of
the favor that he had conferred in passing through their town and visiting such poor wretches as they. There were not lacking in it the wanderings of Ulysses,
the journeys of Aristotle, the unfortunate death of Pliny, and other passages from ancient history, which they delight in introducing into their stories. All these
passages are usually filled with fables touching upon the marvelous, such as the following, which merit special [295n]notice: of Aristotle it was said that being
unable to learn the depth of the sea he threw himself into its waves and was drowned, and of Pliny that he leaped into Vesuvius to investigate the fire within
the volcano. In the same way other historical accounts are confused. I believe that these loas were introduced by the priests in former times, although the
fables with which they abound would seem to offer an objection to this opinion, as nothing is ever told in them that can be found in the writings of any European
author; still they appear to me to have been suited to the less critical taste of past centuries. The verses are written by the natives, among whom there are
many poets, this art being less difficult in Tagalog than in any other language.”—TR.
2“The old man of the village,” patriarch.—TR.
3The secular name of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order.—TR.

Chapter XXXIX
Doña Consolacion

Why were the windows closed in the house of the alferez? Where were the masculine features and the flannel
camisa of the Medusa or Muse of the Civil Guard while the procession was passing? Had Doña Consolacion realized how
disagreeable were her forehead seamed with thick veins that appeared to conduct not blood but vinegar and gall, and the
thick cigar that made a fit ornament for her purple lips, and her envious leer, and yielding to a generous impulse had she
wished not to disturb the pleasure of the populace by her sinister appearance? Ah, for her generous impulses existed in the
Golden Age! The house, showed neither lanterns nor banners and was gloomy precisely because the town was making merry,
as Sinang said, and but for the sentinel walking before the door appeared to be uninhabited.
A dim light shone in the disordered sala, rendering transparent the dirty concha-panes on which the cobwebs had
fastened and the dust had become incrusted. The lady of the house, according to her indolent custom, was dozing on a wide
sofa. She was dressed as usual, that is, badly and horribly: tied round her head a pañuelo, from beneath which escaped thin
locks of tangled hair, a camisa of blue flannel over another which must once have been white, and a faded skirt which showed
the outlines of her thin, flat thighs, placed one over the other and shaking feverishly. From her mouth issued little clouds of
smoke which she puffed wearily in whatever direction she happened to be looking when she opened her eyes. If at that
moment Don [301]Francisco de Cañamaque1 could have seen her, he would have taken her for a cacique of the town or
the mankukúlam, and then decorated his discovery with commentaries in the vernacular of the markets, invented by him for
her particular use.
That morning she had not attended mass, not because she had not so desired, for on the contrary she had wished
to show herself to the multitude and to hear the sermon, but her spouse had not permitted her to do so, his refusal being
accompanied as usual by two or three insults, oaths, and threats of kicking. The alferez knew that his mate dressed ridiculously
and had the appearance of what is known as a “querida of the soldiers,” so he did not care to expose her to the gaze of
strangers and persons from the capital. But she did not so understand it. She knew that she was beautiful and attractive, that
she had the airs of a queen and dressed much better and with more splendor than Maria Clara herself, who wore a tapis while
she went in a flowing skirt. It was therefore necessary for the alferez to threaten her, “Either shut up, or I’ll kick you back to
your damned town!” Doña Consolacion did not care to return to her town at the toe of a boot, but she meditated revenge.
Never had the dark face of this lady been such as to inspire confidence in any one, not even when she painted, but
that morning it greatly worried the servants, especially when they saw her move about the house from one part to another,
silently, as if meditating something terrible or malign. Her glance reflected the look that springs from the eyes of a serpent
when caught and about to be crushed; it was cold, luminous, and penetrating, with something fascinating, [302]loathsome,
and cruel in it. The most insignificant error, the least unusual noise, drew from her a vile insult that struck into the soul, but no
one answered her, for to excuse oneself would have been an additional fault.
So the day passed. Not encountering any obstacle that would block her way,—her husband had been invited out,—
she became saturated with bile, the cells of her whole organism seemed to become charged with electricity which threatened
to burst in a storm of hate. Everything about her folded up as do the flowers at the first breath of the hurricane, so she met
with no resistance nor found any point or high place to discharge her evil humor. The soldiers and servants kept away from
her. That she might not hear the sounds of rejoicing outside she had ordered the windows closed and charged the sentinel to
let no one enter. She tied a handkerchief around her head as if to keep it from bursting and, in spite of the fact that the sun
was still shining, ordered the lamps to be lighted.
Sisa, as we saw, had been arrested as a disturber of the peace and taken to the barracks. The alferez was not then
present, so the unfortunate woman had had to spend the night there seated on a bench in an abandoned attitude. The next
day the alferez saw her, and fearing for her in those days of confusion nor caring to risk a disagreeable scene, he had charged
the soldiers to look after her, to treat her kindly, and to give her something to eat. Thus the madwoman spent two days.
Tonight, whether the nearness to the house of Capitan Tiago had brought to her Maria Clara’s sad song or whether
other recollections awoke in her old melodies, whatever the cause, Sisa also began to sing in a sweet and melancholy voice
the kundíman of her youth. The soldiers heard her and fell silent; those airs awoke old memories of the days before they had
been corrupted. Doña Consolacion also heard them in her tedium, and on learning who it was that sang, after a few moments
of meditation, ordered that Sisa [303]be brought to her instantly. Something like a smile wandered over her dry lips.
When Sisa was brought in she came calmly, showing neither wonder nor fear. She seemed to see no lady or
mistress, and this wounded the vanity of the Muse, who endeavored to inspire respect and fear. She coughed, made a sign
to the soldiers to leave her, and taking down her husband’s whip, said to the crazy woman in a sinister tone, “Come
on, magcantar icau!”2
Naturally, Sisa did not understand such Tagalog, and this ignorance calmed the Medusa’s wrath, for one of the
beautiful qualities of this lady was to try not to know Tagalog, or at least to appear not to know it. Speaking it the worst possible,
she would thus give herself the air of a genuine orofea,3 as she was accustomed to say. But she did well, for if she martyrized
Tagalog, Spanish fared no better with her, either in regard to grammar or pronunciation, in spite of her husband, the chairs
and the shoes, all of which had done what they could to teach her.
One of the words that had cost her more effort than the hieroglyphics cost Champollion was the name Filipinas. The
story goes that on the day after her wedding, when she was talking with her husband, who was then a corporal, she had
said Pilipinas. The corporal thought it his duty to correct her, so he said, slapping her on the head, “Say Felipinas, woman!
Don’t be stupid! Don’t you know that’s what your damned country is called, from Felipe?”
The woman, dreaming through her honeymoon, wished to obey and said Felepinas. To the corporal it seemed that
she was getting nearer to it, so he increased the slaps and reprimanded her thus: “But, woman, can’t you
pronounce Felipe? Don’t forget it; you know the king, Don Felipe—the fifth—. Say Felipe, and add to it nas, which in Latin
means ‘islands of Indians,’ and you have the name of your damned country!”
[304]Consolacion, at that time a washerwoman, patted her bruises and repeated with symptoms of losing her
patience, “Fe-li-pe, Felipe—nas, Fe-li-pe-nas, Felipinas, so?”
The corporal saw visions. How could it be Felipenas instead of Felipinas? One of two things: either it
was Felipenas or it was necessary to say Felipi! So that day he very prudently dropped the subject. Leaving his wife, he went
to consult the books. Here his astonishment reached a climax: he rubbed his eyes—let’s see—slowly, now! F-i-l-i-p-i-n-a-s,
Filipinas! So all the well-printed books gave it—neither he nor his wife was right!
 “How’s this?” he murmured. “Can history lie? Doesn’t this book say that Alonso Saavedra gave the country that
name in honor of the prince, Don Felipe? How was that name corrupted? Can it be that this Alonso Saavedra was an Indian?”4
With these doubts he went to consult the sergeant Gomez, who, as a youth, had wanted to be a curate. Without
deigning to look at the corporal the sergeant blew out a mouthful of smoke and answered with great pompousness, “In ancient
times it was pronounced Filipi instead of Felipe. But since we moderns have become Frenchified we can’t endure two i’s in
succession, so cultured people, especially in Madrid—you’ve never been in Madrid?—cultured people, as I say, have begun
to change the first i to e in many words. This is called modernizing yourself.”
The poor corporal had never been in Madrid—here was the cause of his failure to understand the riddle: what things
are learned in Madrid! “So now it’s proper to say—”
“In the ancient style, man! This country’s not yet cultured! [305]In the ancient style, Filipinas!” exclaimed Gomez
disdainfully.
The corporal, even if he was a bad philologist, was yet a good husband. What he had just learned his spouse must
also know, so he proceeded with her education: “Consola, what do you call your damned country?”
“What should I call it? Just what you taught me: Felifinas!”
“I’ll throw a chair at you, you ———! Yesterday you pronounced it even better in the modern style, but now it’s
proper to pronounce it like an ancient: Feli, I mean, Filipinas!”
“Remember that I’m no ancient! What are you thinking about?”
“Never mind! Say Filipinas!”
“I don’t want to. I’m no ancient baggage, scarcely thirty years old!” she replied, rolling up her sleeves and preparing
herself for the fray.
“Say it, you ———, or I’ll throw this chair at you!”
Consolacion saw the movement, reflected, then began to stammer with heavy breaths, “Feli-, Fele-, File—”
Pum! Crack! The chair finished the word. So the lesson ended in fisticuffs, scratchings, slaps. The corporal caught
her by the hair; she grabbed his goatee, but was unable to bite because of her loose teeth. He let out a yell, released her and
begged her pardon. Blood began to flow, one eye got redder than the other, a camisa was torn into shreds, many things came
to light, but not Filipinas.
Similar incidents occurred every time the question of language came up. The corporal, watching her linguistic
progress, sorrowfully calculated that in ten years his mate would have completely forgotten how to talk, and this was about
what really came to pass. When they were married she still knew Tagalog and could make herself understood in Spanish, but
now, at the time of our story, she no longer spoke any language. She had become so addicted to expressing herself by means
of signs—and of these she chose [306]the loudest and most impressive—that she could have given odds to the inventor of
Volapuk.
Sisa, therefore, had the good fortune not to understand her, so the Medusa smoothed out her eyebrows a little,
while a smile of satisfaction lighted up her face; undoubtedly she did not know Tagalog, she was an orofea!
“Boy, tell her in Tagalog to sing! She doesn’t understand me, she doesn’t understand Spanish!”
The madwoman understood the boy and began to sing the Song of the Night. Doña Consolacion listened at first
with a sneer, which disappeared little by little from her lips. She became attentive, then serious, and even somewhat thoughtful.
The voice, the sentiment in the lines, and the song itself affected her—that dry and withered heart was perhaps thirsting for
rain. She understood it well: “The sadness, the cold, and the moisture that descend from the sky when wrapped in the mantle
of night,” so ran the kundíman, seemed to be descending also on her heart. “The withered and faded flower which during the
day flaunted her finery, seeking applause and full of vanity, at eventide, repentant and disenchanted, makes an effort to raise
her drooping petals to the sky, seeking a little shade to hide herself and die without the mocking of the light that saw her in
her splendor, without seeing the vanity of her pride, begging also that a little dew should weep upon her. The nightbird leaves
his solitary retreat, the hollow of an ancient trunk, and disturbs the sad loneliness of the open places—”
“No, don’t sing!” she exclaimed in perfect Tagalog, as she rose with agitation. “Don’t sing! Those verses hurt me.”
The crazy woman became silent. The boy ejaculated, “Abá! She talks Tagalog!” and stood staring with admiration
at his mistress, who, realizing that she had given herself away, was ashamed of it, and as her nature was not that of a woman,
the shame took the aspect of rage and [307]hate; so she showed the door to the imprudent boy and closed it behind him with
a kick.
Twisting the whip in her nervous hands, she took a few turns around the room, then stopping suddenly in front of
the crazy woman, said to her in Spanish, “Dance!” But Sisa did not move.
“Dance, dance!” she repeated in a sinister tone.
The madwoman looked at her with wandering, expressionless eyes, while the alfereza lifted one of her arms, then
the other, and shook them, but to no purpose, for Sisa did not understand. Then she began to jump about and shake herself,
encouraging Sisa to imitate her. In the distance was to be heard the music of the procession playing a grave and majestic
march, but Doña Consolacion danced furiously, keeping other time to other music resounding within her. Sisa gazed at her
without moving, while her eyes expressed curiosity and something like a weak smile hovered around her pallid lips: the lady’s
dancing amused her. The latter stopped as if ashamed, raised the whip,—that terrible whip known to thieves and soldiers,
made in Ulango5 and perfected by the alferez with twisted wires,—and said, “Now it’s your turn to dance—dance!”
 She began to strike the madwoman’s bare feet gently with the whip. Sisa’s face drew up with pain and she was
forced to protect herself with her hands.
“Aha, now you’re starting!” she exclaimed with savage joy, passing from lento to allegro vivace.
The afflicted Sisa gave a cry of pain and quickly raised her foot.
“You’ve got to dance, you Indian—!” The whip swung and whistled.
Sisa let herself fall to the floor and placed both hands on her knees while she gazed at her tormentor with wildly-
staring eyes. Two sharp cuts of the whip on her shoulder made her stand up, and it was not merely a cry but a howl [308]that
the unfortunate woman uttered. Her thin camisa was torn, her skin broken, and the blood was flowing.
The sight of blood arouses the tiger; the blood of her victim aroused Doña Consolacion. “Dance, damn you, dance!
Evil to the mother who bore you!” she cried. “Dance, or I’ll flog you to death!” She then caught Sisa with one hand and, whipping
her with the other, began to dance about.
The crazy woman at last understood and followed the example by swinging her arms about awkwardly. A smile of
satisfaction curled the lips of her teacher, the smile of a female Mephistopheles who succeeds in getting a great pupil. There
were in it hate, disdain, jest, and cruelty; with a burst of demoniacal laughter she could not have expressed more.
Thus, absorbed in the joy of the sight, she was not aware of the arrival of her husband until he opened the door with
a loud kick. The alferez appeared pale and gloomy, and when he saw what was going on he threw a terrible glance at his wife,
who did not move from her place but stood smiling at him cynically.
The alferez put his hand as gently as he could on the shoulder of the strange dancer and made her stop. The crazy
woman sighed and sank slowly to the floor covered with her own blood.
The silence continued. The alferez breathed heavily, while his wife watched him with questioning eyes. She picked
up the whip and asked in a smooth, soft voice, “What’s the matter with you? You haven’t even wished me good evening.”
The alferez did not answer, but instead called the boy and said to him, “Take this woman away and tell Marta to get
her some other clothes and attend to her. You give her something to eat and a good bed. Take care that she isn’t ill-treated!
Tomorrow she’ll be taken to Señor Ibarra’s house.”
Then he closed the door carefully, bolted it, and approached [309]his wife. “You’re tempting me to kill you!” he
exclaimed, doubling up his fists.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, rising and drawing away from him.
“What’s the matter with me!” he yelled in a voice of thunder, letting out an oath and holding up before her a sheet of
paper covered with scrawls. “Didn’t you write this letter to the alcalde saying that I’m bribed to permit gambling, huh? I don’t
know why I don’t beat you to death.”
“Let’s see you! Let’s see you try it if you dare!” she replied with a jeering laugh. “The one who beats me to death
has got to be more of a man than you are!”
He heard the insult, but saw the whip. Catching up a plate from the table, he threw it at her head, but she,
accustomed to such fights, dodged quickly and the plate was shattered against the wall. A cup and saucer met with a similar
fate.
“Coward!” she yelled; “you’re afraid to come near me!” And to exasperate him the more, she spat upon him.
The alferez went blind from rage and with a roar attempted to throw himself upon her, but she, with astonishing
quickness, hit him across the face with the whip and ran hurriedly into an inner room, shutting and bolting the door violently
behind her. Bellowing with rage and pain, he followed, but was only able to run against the door, which made him vomit oaths.
“Accursed be your offspring, you sow! Open, open, or I’ll break your head!” he howled, beating the door with his
hands and feet.
No answer was heard, but instead the scraping of chairs and trunks as if she was building a barricade with the
furniture. The house shook under the kicks and curses of the alferez.
“Don’t come in, don’t come in!” called the sour voice inside. “If you show yourself, I’ll shoot you.”
[310]By degrees he appeared to become calm and contented himself with walking up and down the room like a wild
beast in its cage.
“Go out into the street and cool off your head!” the woman continued to jeer at him, as she now seemed to have
completed her preparations for defense.
“I swear that if I catch you, even God won’t save you, you old sow!”
“Yes, now you can say what you like. You didn’t want me to go to mass! You didn’t let me attend to my religious
duties!” she answered with such sarcasm as only she knew how to use.
The alferez put on his helmet, arranged his clothing a little, and went out with heavy steps, but returned after a few
minutes without making the least noise, having taken off his shoes. The servants, accustomed to these brawls, were usually
bored, but this novelty of the shoes attracted their attention, so they winked to one another. The alferez sat down quietly in a
chair at the side of the Sublime Port and had the patience to wait for more than half an hour.
“Have you really gone out or are you still there, old goat?” asked the voice from time to time, changing the epithets
and raising the tone. At last she began to take away the furniture piece by piece. He heard the noise and smiled.
“Boy, has your master gone out?” cried Doña Consolacion.
At a sign from the alferez the boy answered, “Yes, señora, he’s gone out.”
 A gleeful laugh was heard from her as she pulled back the bolt. Slowly her husband arose, the door opened a little
way—
A yell, the sound of a falling body, oaths, howls, curses, blows, hoarse voices—who can tell what took place in the
darkness of that room?
As the boy went out into the kitchen he made a significant [311]sign to the cook, who said to him, “You’ll pay for
that.”
“I? In any case the whole town will! She asked me if he had gone out, not if he had come back!”[312]

1A Spanish official, author of several works relating to the Philippines, one of which, Recuerdos de Filipinas (Madrid, 1877 and 1880), a loose
series of sketches and impressions giving anything but a complimentary picture of the character and conduct of the Spaniards in the Islands, and in a rather
naive and perhaps unintentional way throwing some lurid side-lights on the governmental administration and the friar régime,—enjoyed the distinction of
being officially prohibited from circulation in the archipelago.—TR.
2“Magcanta-ca!” “(You) sing!”—TR.
3Europea: European woman.—TR.
4In 1527–29 Alvaro de Saavedra led an unsuccessful expedition to take possession of the “Western Isles.” The name “Filipina,” in honor of the
Prince of the Asturias, afterwards Felipe II (Philip II), was first applied to what is probably the present island of Leyte by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, who led
another unsuccessful expedition thither in 1542–43, this name being later extended to the whole group.—TR.
5A barrio of Tanawan, Batangas, noted for the manufacture of horsewhips.—TR.

Chapter XL
Right and Might

Ten o’clock at night: the last rockets rose lazily in the dark sky where a few paper balloons recently inflated with
smoke and hot air still glimmered like new stars. Some of those adorned with fireworks took fire, threatening all the houses,
so there might be seen on the ridges of the roofs men armed with pails of water and long poles with pieces of cloth on the
ends. Their black silhouettes stood out in the vague clearness of the air like phantoms that had descended from space to
witness the rejoicings of men. Many pieces of fireworks of fantastic shapes—wheels, castles, bulls, carabaos—had been set
off, surpassing in beauty and grandeur anything ever before seen by the inhabitants of San Diego.
Now the people were moving in crowds toward the plaza to attend the theater for the last time, Here and there might
be seen Bengal lights fantastically illuminating the merry groups while the boys were availing themselves of torches to hunt in
the grass for unexploded bombs and other remnants that could still be used. But soon the music gave the signal and all
abandoned the open places.
The great stage was brilliantly illuminated. Thousands of lights surrounded the posts, hung from the roof, or sowed
the floor with pyramidal clusters. An alguazil was looking after these, and when he came forward to attend to them the crowd
shouted at him and whistled, “There he is! there he is!”
In front of the curtain the orchestra players were tuning their instruments and playing preludes of airs. Behind them
was the space spoken of by the correspondent in his [313]letter, where the leading citizens of the town, the Spaniards, and
the rich visitors occupied rows of chairs. The general public, the nameless rabble, filled up the rest of the place, some of them
bringing benches on their shoulders not so much for seats as to make, up for their lack of stature. This provoked noisy protests
on the part of the benchless, so the offenders got down at once; but before long they were up again as if nothing had happened.
Goings and comings, cries, exclamations, bursts of laughter, a serpent-cracker turned loose, a firecracker set off—
all contributed to swell the uproar. Here a bench had a leg broken off and the people fell to the ground amid the laughter of
the crowd. They were visitors who had come from afar to observe and now found themselves the observed. Over there they
quarreled and disputed over a seat, a little farther on was heard the noise of breaking glass; it was Andeng carrying
refreshments and drinks, holding the wide tray carefully with both hands, but by chance she had met her sweetheart, who
tried to take advantage of the situation.
The teniente-mayor, Don Filipo, presided over the show, as the gobernadorcillo was fond of monte. He was talking
with old Tasio. “What can I do? The alcalde was unwilling to accept my resignation. ‘Don’t you feel strong enough to attend to
your duties?’ he asked me.”
“How did you answer him?”
“‘Señor Alcalde,’ I answered, ‘the strength of a teniente-mayor, however insignificant it may be, is like all other
authority it emanates from higher spheres. The King himself receives his strength from the people and the people theirs from
God. That is exactly what I lack, Señor Alcalde.’ But he did not care to listen to me, telling me that we would talk about it after
the fiesta.”
“Then may God help you!” said the old man, starting away.
“Don’t you want to see the show?”
“Thanks, no! For dreams and nonsense I am sufficient [314]unto myself,” the Sage answered with a sarcastic smile.
“But now I think of it, has your attention never been drawn to the character of our people? Peaceful, yet fond of warlike shows
and bloody fights; democratic, yet adoring emperors, kings, and princes; irreligious, yet impoverishing itself by costly religious
pageants. Our women have gentle natures yet go wild with joy when a princess flourishes a lance. Do you know to what it is
due? Well—”
 The arrival of Maria Clara and her friends put an end to this conversation. Don Filipo met them and ushered them
to their seats. Behind them came the curate with another Franciscan and some Spaniards. Following the priests were a
number of the townsmen who make it their business to escort the friars. “May God reward them also in the next life,” muttered
old Tasio as he went away.
The play began with Chananay and Marianito in Crispino é la comare. All now had their eyes and ears turned to the
stage, all but one: Padre Salvi, who seemed to have gone there for no other purpose than that of watching Maria Clara, whose
sadness gave to her beauty an air so ideal and interesting that it was easy to understand how she might be looked upon with
rapture. But the eyes of the Franciscan, deeply hidden in their sunken sockets, spoke nothing of rapture. In that gloomy gaze
was to be read something desperately sad—with such eyes Cain might have gazed from afar on the Paradise whose delights
his mother pictured to him!
The first scene was over when Ibarra entered. His appearance caused a murmur, and attention was fixed on him
and the curate. But the young man seemed not to notice anything as he greeted Maria Clara and her friends in a natural way
and took a seat beside them.
The only one who spoke to him was Sinang. “Did you see the fireworks?” she asked.
“No, little friend, I had to go with the Captain-General.”
“Well, that’s a shame! The curate was with us and [315]told us stories of the damned—can you imagine it!—to fill
us with fear so that we might not enjoy ourselves—can you imagine it!”
The curate arose and approached Don Filipo, with whom he began an animated conversation. The former spoke in
a nervous manner, the latter in a low, measured voice.
“I’m sorry that I can’t please your Reverence,” said Don Filipo, “but Señor Ibarra is one of the heaviest contributors
and has a right to be here as long as he doesn’t disturb the peace.”
“But isn’t it disturbing the peace to scandalize good Christians? It’s letting a wolf enter the fold. You will answer for
this to God and the authorities!”
“I always answer for the actions that spring from my own will, Padre,” replied Don Filipo with a slight bow. “But my
little authority does not empower me to mix in religious affairs. Those who wish to avoid contact with him need not talk to him.
Señor Ibarra forces himself on no one.”
“But it’s giving opportunity for danger, and he who loves danger perishes in it.”
“I don’t see any danger, Padre. The alcalde and the Captain-General, my superior officers, have been talking with
him all the afternoon and it’s not for me to teach them a lesson.”
“If you don’t put him out of here, we’ll leave.”
“I’m very sorry, but I can’t put any one out of here.” The curate repented of his threat, but it was too late to retract,
so he made a sign to his companion, who arose with regret, and the two went out together. The persons attached to them
followed their example, casting looks of hatred at Ibarra.
The murmurs and whispers increased. A number of people approached the young man and said to him, “We’re with
you, don’t take any notice of them.”
“Whom do you mean by them?” Ibarra asked in surprise.
[316]“Those who’ve just left to avoid contact with you.”
“Left to avoid contact with me?”
“Yes, they say that you’re excommunicated.”
“Excommunicated?” The astonished youth did not know what to say. He looked about him and saw that Maria Clara
was hiding her face behind her fan. “But is it possible?” he exclaimed finally. “Are we still in the Dark Ages? So—”
He approached the young women and said with a change of tone, “Excuse me, I’ve forgotten an engagement. I’ll
be back to see you home.”
“Stay!” Sinang said to him. “Yeyeng is going to dance La Calandria. She dances divinely.”
“I can’t, little friend, but I’ll be back.” The uproar increased.
Yeyeng appeared fancifully dressed, with the “Da usté su permiso?” and Carvajal was answering her, “Pase usté
adelante,” when two soldiers of the Civil Guard went up to Don Filipo and ordered him to stop the performance.
“Why?” asked the teniente-mayor in surprise.
“Because the alferez and his wife have been fighting and can’t sleep.”
“Tell the alferez that we have permission from the alcalde and that against such permission no one in the town has
any authority, not even the gobernadorcillo himself, and he is my only superior.”
“Well, the show must stop!” repeated the soldiers. Don Filipo turned his back and they went away. In order not to
disturb the merriment he told no one about the incident.
After the selection of vaudeville, which was loudly applauded, the Prince Villardo presented himself, challenging to
mortal combat the Moros who held his father prisoner. The hero threatened to cut off all their heads at a single stroke and
send them to the moon, but fortunately for the Moros, who were disposing themselves for the combat, a tumult arose. The
orchestra suddenly ceased playing, [317]threw their instruments away, and jumped up on the stage. The valiant Villardo, not
expecting them and taking them for allies of the Moros, dropped his sword and shield, and started to run. The Moros, seeing
that such a doughty Christian was fleeing, did not consider it improper to imitate him. Cries, groans, prayers, oaths were heard,
while the people ran and pushed one another about. The lights were extinguished, blazing lamps were thrown into the air.
“Tulisanes! Tulisanes!” cried some. “Fire, fire! Robbers!” shouted others. Women and children wept, benches and spectators
were rolled together on the ground amid the general pandemonium.
The cause of all this uproar was two civil-guards, clubs in hand, chasing the musicians in order to break up the
performance. The teniente-mayor, with the aid of the cuadrilleros, who were armed with old sabers, managed at length to
arrest them, in spite of their resistance.
“Take them to the town hall!” cried Don Filipo. “Take care that they don’t get away!”
Ibarra had returned to look for Maria Clara. The frightened girls clung to him pale and trembling while Aunt Isabel
recited the Latin litany.
When the people were somewhat calmed down from their fright and had learned the cause of the disturbance, they
were beside themselves with indignation. Stones rained on the squad of cuadrilleros who were conducting the two offenders
from the scene, and there were even those who proposed to set fire to the barracks of the Civil Guard so as to roast Doña
Consolacion along with the alferez.
“That’s what they’re good for!” cried a woman, doubling up her fists and stretching out her arms. “To disturb the
town! They don’t chase any but honest folks! Out yonder are the tulisanes and the gamblers. Let’s set fire to the barracks!”
One man was beating himself on the arm and begging for confession. Plaintive sounds issued from under
the [318]overturned benches—it was a poor musician. The stage was crowded with actors and spectators, all talking at the
same time. There was Chananay dressed as Leonor in Il Trovatore, talking in the language of the markets to Ratia in the
costume of a schoolmaster; Yeyeng, wrapped in a silk shawl, was clinging to the Prince Villardo; while Balbino and the Moros
were exerting themselves to console the more or less injured musicians.1 Several Spaniards went from group to group
haranguing every one they met.
A large crowd was forming, whose intention Don Filipo seemed to be aware of, for he ran to stop them. “Don’t disturb
the peace!” he cried. “Tomorrow we’ll ask for an accounting and we’ll get justice. I’ll answer for it that we get justice!”
“No!” was the reply of several. “They did the same thing in Kalamba,2 the same promise was made, but the alcalde
did nothing. We’ll take the law into our own hands! To the barracks!”
In vain the teniente-mayor pleaded with them. The crowd maintained its hostile attitude, so he looked about him for
help and noticed Ibarra.
“Señor Ibarra, as a favor! Restrain them while I get some cuadrilleros.”
“What can I do?” asked the perplexed youth, but the teniente-mayor was already at a distance. He gazed about him
seeking he knew not whom, when accidentally he discerned Elias, who stood impassively watching the disturbance.
Ibarra ran to him, caught him by the arm, and said to him in Spanish: “For God’s sake, do something, if you can! I
can’t do anything.” The pilot must have understood him, for he disappeared in the crowd. Lively disputes [319]and sharp
exclamations were heard. Gradually the crowd began to break up, its members each taking a less hostile attitude. It was high
time, indeed, for the soldiers were already rushing out armed and with fixed bayonets.
Meanwhile, what had the curate been doing? Padre Salvi had not gone to bed but had stood motionless, resting his
forehead against the curtains and gazing toward the plaza. From time to time a suppressed sigh escaped him, and if the light
of the lamp had not been so dim, perhaps it would have been possible to see his eyes fill with tears. Thus nearly an hour
passed.
The tumult in the plaza awoke him from his reverie. With startled eyes he saw the confused movements of the
people, while their voices came up to him faintly. A breathless servant informed him of what was happening. A thought shot
across his mind: in the midst of confusion and tumult is the time when libertines take advantage of the consternation and
weakness of woman. Every one seeks to save himself, no one thinks of any one else; a cry is not heard or heeded, women
faint, are struck and fall, terror and fright heed not shame, under the cover of night—and when they are in love! He imagined
that he saw Crisostomo snatch the fainting Maria Clara up in his arms and disappear into the darkness. So he went down the
stairway by leaps and bounds, and without hat or cane made for the plaza like a madman. There he met some Spaniards who
were reprimanding the soldiers, but on looking toward the seats that the girls had occupied he saw that they were vacant.
“Padre! Padre!” cried the Spaniards, but he paid no attention to them as he ran in the direction of Capitan Tiago’s.
There he breathed more freely, for he saw in the open hallway the adorable silhouette, full of grace and soft in outline, of Maria
Clara, and that of the aunt carrying cups and glasses.
“Ah!” he murmured, “it seems that she has been taken sick only.”
[320]Aunt Isabel at that moment closed the windows and the graceful shadow was no longer to be seen. The curate
moved away without heeding the crowd. He had before his eyes the beautiful form of a maiden sleeping and breathing sweetly.
Her eyelids were shaded by long lashes which formed graceful curves like those of the Virgins of Raphael, the little mouth
was smiling, all the features breathed forth virginity, purity, and innocence. That countenance formed a sweet vision in the
midst of the white coverings of her bed like the head of a cherub among the clouds. His imagination went still further—but who
can write what a burning brain can imagine?
Perhaps only the newspaper correspondent, who concluded his account of the fiesta and its accompanying incidents
in the following manner:
“A thousand thanks, infinite thanks, to the opportune and active intervention of the Very Reverend Padre Fray
Bernardo Salvi, who, defying every danger in the midst of the unbridled mob, without hat or cane, calmed the wrath of the
crowd, using only his persuasive word with the majesty and authority that are never lacking to a minister of a Religion of
Peace. With unparalleled self-abnegation this virtuous priest tore himself from sweet repose, such as every good conscience
like his enjoys, and rushed to protect his flock from the least harm. The people of San Diego will hardly forget this sublime
deed of their heroic Pastor, remembering to hold themselves grateful to him for all eternity!”[321]

1The actors named were real persons. Ratia was a Spanish-Filipino who acquired quite a reputation not only in Manila but also in Spain. He died
in Manila in 1910.—TR.
2In the year 1879.—Author’s note.

Chapter XLI
Two Visits

Ibarra was in such a state of mind that he found it impossible to sleep, so to distract his attention from the sad
thoughts which are so exaggerated during the night-hours he set to work in his lonely cabinet. Day found him still making
mixtures and combinations, to the action of which he subjected pieces of bamboo and other substances, placing them
afterwards in numbered and sealed jars.
A servant entered to announce the arrival of a man who had the appearance of being from the country. “Show him
in,” said Ibarra without looking around.
Elias entered and remained standing in silence.
“Ah, it’s you!” exclaimed Ibarra in Tagalog when he recognized him. “Excuse me for making you wait, I didn’t notice
that it was you. I’m making an important experiment.”
“I don’t want to disturb you,” answered the youthful pilot. “I’ve come first to ask you if there is anything I can do for
you in the province, of Batangas, for which I am leaving immediately, and also to bring you some bad news.”
Ibarra questioned him with a look.
“Capitan Tiago’s daughter is ill,” continued Elias quietly, “but not seriously.”
“That’s what I feared,” murmured Ibarra in a weak voice. “Do you know what is the matter with her?”
“A fever. Now, if you have nothing to command—”
“Thank you, my friend, no. I wish you a pleasant journey. But first let me ask you a question—if it is indiscreet, do
not answer.”
Elias bowed.
[322]“How were you able to quiet the disturbance last night?” asked Ibarra, looking steadily at him.
“Very easily,” answered Elias in the most natural manner. “The leaders of the commotion were two brothers whose
father died from a beating given him by the Civil Guard. One day I had the good fortune to save them from the same hands
into which their father had fallen, and both are accordingly grateful to me. I appealed to them last night and they undertook to
dissuade the rest.”
“And those two brothers whose father died from the beating—”
“Will end as their father did,” replied Elias in a low voice. “When misfortune has once singled out a family all its
members must perish,—when the lightning strikes a tree the whole is reduced to ashes.”
Ibarra fell silent on hearing this, so Elias took his leave. When the youth found himself alone he lost the serene self-
possession he had maintained in the pilot’s presence. His sorrow pictured itself on his countenance. “I, I have made her suffer,”
he murmured.
He dressed himself quickly and descended the stairs. A small man, dressed in mourning, with a large scar on his
left cheek, saluted him humbly, and detained him on his way.
“What do you want?” asked Ibarra.
“Sir, my name is Lucas, and I’m the brother of the man who was killed yesterday.”
“Ah, you have my sympathy. Well?”
“Sir, I want to know how much you’re going to pay my brother’s family.”
“Pay?” repeated the young man, unable to conceal his disgust. “We’ll talk of that later. Come back this afternoon,
I’m in a hurry now.”
“Only tell me how much you’re willing to pay,” insisted Lucas.
“I’ve told you that we’ll talk about that some other time. I haven’t time now,” repeated Ibarra impatiently.
[323]“You haven’t time now, sir?” asked Lucas bitterly, placing himself in front of the young man. “You haven’t time
to consider the dead?”
“Come this afternoon, my good man,” replied Ibarra, restraining himself. “I’m on my way now to visit a sick person.”
“Ah, for the sick you forget the dead? Do you think that because we are poor—”
Ibarra looked at him and interrupted, “Don’t try my patience!” then went on his way.
Lucas stood looking after him with a smile full of hate. “It’s easy to see that you’re the grandson of the man who tied
my father out in the sun,” he muttered between his teeth. “You still have the same blood.”
Then with a change of tone he added, “But, if you pay well—friends!”[324]
 Chapter XLII
The Espadañas

The fiesta is over. The people of the town have again found, as in every other year, that their treasury is poorer, that
they have worked, sweated, and stayed awake much without really amusing themselves, without gaining any new friends,
and, in a word, that they have dearly bought their dissipation and their headaches. But this matters nothing, for the same will
be done next year, the same the coming century, since it has always been the custom.
In Capitan Tiago’s house sadness reigns. All the windows are closed, the inmates move about noiselessly, and only
in the kitchen do they dare to speak in natural tones. Maria Clara, the soul of the house, lies sick in bed and her condition is
reflected in all the faces, as the sorrows of the mind may be read in the countenance of an individual.
“Which seems best to you, Isabel, shall I make a poor-offering to the cross of Tunasan or to the cross of Matahong?”
asks the afflicted father in a low voice. “The Tunasan cross grows while the Matahong cross sweats which do you think is
more miraculous?”
Aunt Isabel reflects, shakes her head, and murmurs, “To grow, to grow is a greater miracle than to sweat. All of us
sweat, but not all of us grow.”
“That’s right, Isabel; but remember that to sweat for the wood of which bench-legs are made to sweat—is not a small
miracle. Come, the best thing will be to make poor-offerings to both crosses, so neither will resent it, and Maria will get better
sooner. Are the rooms ready? You [325]know that with the doctors is coming a new gentleman, a distant relative of Padre
Damaso’s. Nothing should be lacking.”
At the other end of the dining-room are the two cousins, Sinang and Victoria, who have come to keep the sick girl
company. Andeng is helping them clean a silver tea-set.
“Do you know Dr. Espadaña?” the foster-sister of Maria Clara asks Victoria curiously.
“No,” replies the latter, “the only thing that I know about him is that he charges high, according to Capitan Tiago.”
“Then he must be good!” exclaims Andeng. “The one who performed an operation on Doña Maria charged high; so
he was learned.”
“Silly!” retorts Sinang. “Every one who charges high is not learned. Look at Dr. Guevara; after performing a bungling
operation that cost the life of both mother and child, he charged the widower fifty pesos. The thing to know is how to charge!”
“What do you know about it?” asks her cousin, nudging her.
“Don’t I know? The husband, who is a poor sawyer, after losing his wife had to lose his home also, for the alcalde,
being a friend of the doctor’s, made him pay. Don’t I know about it, when my father lent him the money to make the journey to
Santa Cruz?”1
The sound of a carriage stopping in front of the house put an end to these conversations. Capitan Tiago, followed
by Aunt Isabel, ran down the steps to welcome the new arrivals: the Doctor Don Tiburcio de Espadaña, his señora
the Doctora Doña Victorina de los Reyes de De Espadaña, and a young Spaniard of pleasant countenance and agreeable
aspect.
Doña Victorina was attired in a loose silk gown embroidered with flowers and a hat with a huge parrot half-crushed
between blue and red ribbons. The dust of the [326]road mingled with the rice-powder on her cheeks seemed to accentuate
her wrinkles. As at the time we saw her in Manila, she now supported her lame husband on her arm.
“I have the pleasure of introducing to you our cousin, Don Alfonso Linares de Espadaña,” said Doña Victorina,
indicating their young companion. “The gentleman is a godson of a relative of Padre Damaso’s and has been private secretary
to all the ministers.”
The young man bowed politely and Capitan Tiago came very near to kissing his hand.
While their numerous trunks and traveling-bags are being carried in and Capitan Tiago is conducting them to their
rooms, let us talk a little of this couple whose acquaintance we made slightly in the first chapters.
Doña Victorina was a lady of forty and five winters, which were equivalent to thirty and two summers according to
her arithmetical calculations. She had been beautiful in her youth, having had, as she used to say, ‘good flesh,’ but in the
ecstasies of contemplating herself she had looked with disdain on her many Filipino admirers, since her aspirations were
toward another race. She had refused to bestow on any one her little white hand, not indeed from distrust, for not a few times
had she given jewelry and gems of great value to various foreign and Spanish adventurers. Six months before the time of our
story she had seen realized her most beautiful dream,—the dream of her whole life,—for which she might scorn the fond
illusions of her youth and even the promises of love that Capitan Tiago had in other days whispered in her ear or sung in some
serenade. Late, it is true, had the dream been realized, but Doña Victorina, who, although she spoke the language badly, was
more Spanish than Augustina of Saragossa,2 understood the proverb, “Better late than never,” and found consolation in
repeating it to herself. “Absolute happiness does not exist on earth,” [327]was another favorite proverb of hers, but she never
used both together before other persons.
Having passed her first, second, third, and fourth youth in casting her nets in the sea of the world for the object of
her vigils, she had been compelled at last to content herself with what fate was willing to apportion her. Had the poor woman
been only thirty and one instead of thirty and two summers—the difference according to her mode of reckoning was great—
she would have restored to Destiny the award it offered her to wait for another more suited to her taste, but since man proposes
and necessity disposes, she saw herself obliged in her great need for a husband to content herself with a poor fellow who had
been cast out from Estremadura3 and who, after wandering about the world for six or seven years like a modern Ulysses, had
at last found on the island of Luzon hospitality and a withered Calypso for his better half. This unhappy mortal, by name
Tiburcio Espadaña, was only thirty-five years of age and looked like an old man, yet he was, nevertheless, younger than Doña
Victorina, who was only thirty-two. The reason for this is easy to understand but dangerous to state.
Don Tiburcio had come to the Philippines as a petty official in the Customs, but such had been his bad luck that,
besides suffering severely from seasickness and breaking a leg during the voyage, he had been dismissed within a fortnight,
just at the time when he found himself without a cuarto. After his rough experience on the sea he did not care to return to
Spain without having made his fortune, so he decided to devote himself to something. Spanish pride forbade him to engage
in manual labor, although the poor fellow would gladly have done any kind of work in order to earn an honest living. But the
prestige of the Spaniards would not have allowed it, even though this prestige did not protect him from want.
[328]At first he had lived at the expense of some of his countrymen, but in his honesty the bread tasted bitter, so
instead of getting fat he grew thin. Since he had neither learning nor money nor recommendations he was advised by his
countrymen, who wished to get rid of him, to go to the provinces and pass himself off as a doctor of medicine. He refused at
first, for he had learned nothing during the short period that he had spent as an attendant in a hospital, his duties there having
been to dust off the benches and light the fires. But as his wants were pressing and as his scruples were soon laid to rest by
his friends he finally listened to them and went to the provinces. He began by visiting some sick persons, and at first made
only moderate charges, as his conscience dictated, but later, like the young philosopher of whom Samaniego4 tells, he ended
by putting a higher price on his visits. Thus he soon passed for a great physician and would probably have made his fortune
if the medical authorities in Manila had not heard of his exorbitant fees and the competition that he was causing others. Both
private parties and professionals interceded for him. “Man,” they said to the zealous medical official, “let him make his stake
and as soon as he has six or seven thousand pesos he can go back home and live there in peace. After all, what does it
matter to you if he does deceive the unwary Indians? They should be more careful! He’s a poor devil—don’t take the bread
from his mouth—be a good Spaniard!” This official was a good Spaniard and agreed to wink at the matter, but the news soon
reached the ears of the people and they began to distrust him, so in a little while he lost his practise and again saw himself
obliged almost to [329]beg his daily bread. It was then that he learned through a friend, who was an intimate acquaintance of
Doña Victorina’s, of the dire straits in which that lady was placed and also of her patriotism and her kind heart. Don Tiburcio
then saw a patch of blue sky and asked to be introduced to her.
Doña Victorina and Don Tiburcio met: tarde venientibus ossa,5 he would have exclaimed had he known Latin! She
was no longer passable, she was passée. Her abundant hair had been reduced to a knot about the size of an onion, according
to her maid, while her face was furrowed with wrinkles and her teeth were falling loose. Her eyes, too, had suffered
considerably, so that she squinted frequently in looking any distance. Her disposition was the only part of her that remained
intact.
At the end of a half-hour’s conversation they understood and accepted each other. She would have preferred a
Spaniard who was less lame, less stuttering, less bald, less toothless, who slobbered less when he talked, and who had more
“spirit” and “quality,” as she used to say, but that class of Spaniards no longer came to seek her hand. She had more than
once heard it said that opportunity is pictured as being bald, and firmly believed that Don Tiburcio was opportunity itself, for
as a result of his misfortunes he suffered from premature baldness. And what woman is not prudent at thirty-two years of age?
Don Tiburcio, for his part, felt a vague melancholy when he thought of his honeymoon, but smiled with resignation
and called to his support the specter of hunger. Never had he been ambitious or pretentious; his tastes were simple and his
desires limited; but his heart, untouched till then, had dreamed of a very different divinity. Back there in his youth when, worn
out with work, he lay doom on his rough bed after a frugal meal, he used to fall asleep dreaming of an image, smiling and
tender. Afterwards, when troubles and privations increased and with the [330]passing of years the poetical image failed to
materialize, he thought modestly of a good woman, diligent and industrious, who would bring him a small dowry, to console
him for the fatigues of his toil and to quarrel with him now and then—yes, he had thought of quarrels as a kind of happiness!
But when obliged to wander from land to land in search not so much of fortune as of some simple means of livelihood for the
remainder of his days; when, deluded by the stories of his countrymen from overseas, he had set out for the Philippines,
realism gave, place to an arrogant mestiza or a beautiful Indian with big black eyes, gowned in silks and transparent draperies,
loaded down with gold and diamonds, offering him her love, her carriages, her all. When he reached Manila he thought for a
time that his dream was to be realized, for the young women whom he saw driving on the Luneta and the Malecon in silver-
mounted carriages had gazed at him with some curiosity. Then after his position was gone, the mestiza and the Indian
disappeared and with great effort he forced before himself the image of a widow, of course an agreeable widow! So when he
saw his dream take shape in part he became sad, but with a certain touch of native philosophy said to himself, “Those were
all dreams and in this world one does not live on dreams!” Thus he dispelled his doubts: she used rice-powder, but after their
marriage he would break her of the habit; her face had many wrinkles, but his coat was torn and patched; she was a pretentious
old woman, domineering and mannish, but hunger was more terrible, more domineering and pretentious still, and anyway, he
had been blessed with a mild disposition for that very end, and love softens the character. She spoke Spanish badly, but he
himself did not talk it well, as he had been told when notified of his dismissal Moreover, what did it matter to him if she was an
ugly and ridiculous old woman? He was lame, toothless, and bald! Don Tiburcio preferred to take charge of her rather than to
become a public charge from hunger. When some [331]friends joked with him about it, he answered, “Give me bread and call
me a fool.”
Don Tiburcio was one of those men who are popularly spoken of as unwilling to harm a fly. Modest, incapable of
harboring an unkind thought, in bygone days he would have been made a missionary. His stay in the country had not given
him the conviction of grand superiority, of great valor, and of elevated importance that the greater part of his countrymen
acquire in a few weeks. His heart had never been capable of entertaining hate nor had he been able to find a single filibuster;
he saw only unhappy wretches whom he must despoil if he did not wish to be more unhappy than they were. When he was
threatened with prosecution for passing himself off as a physician he was not resentful nor did he complain. Recognizing the
justness of the charge against him, he merely answered, “But it’s necessary to live!”
So they married, or rather, bagged each other, and went to Santa Ann to spend their honeymoon. But on their
wedding-night Doña Victorina was attacked by a horrible indigestion and Don Tiburcio thanked God and showed himself
solicitous and attentive. A few days afterward, however, he looked into a mirror and smiled a sad smile as he gazed at his
naked gums, for he had aged ten years at least.
Very well satisfied with her husband, Doña Victorina had a fine set of false teeth made for him and called in the best
tailors of the city to attend to his clothing. She ordered carriages, sent to Batangas and Albay for the best ponies, and even
obliged him to keep a pair for the races. Nor did she neglect her own person while she was transforming him. She laid aside
the native costume for the European and substituted false frizzes for the simple Filipino coiffure, while her gowns, which fitted
her marvelously ill, disturbed the peace of all the quiet neighborhood.
Her husband, who never went out on foot,—she did not care to have his lameness noticed,—took her on
lonely [332]drives in unfrequented places to her great sorrow, for she wanted to show him off in public, but she kept quiet out
of respect for their honeymoon. The last quarter was coming on when he took up the subject of the rice-powder, telling her
that the use of it was false and unnatural. Doña Victorina wrinkled up her eyebrows and stared at his false teeth. He became
silent, and she understood his weakness.
She placed a de before her husband’s surname, since the de cost nothing and gave “quality” to the name, signing
herself “Victorina de los Reyes de De Espadaña.” This de was such a mania with her that neither the stationer nor her husband
could get it out of her head. “If I write only one de it may be thought that you don’t have it, you fool!” she said to her husband.6
Soon she believed that she was about to become a mother, so she announced to all her acquaintances, “Next month
De Espadaña and I are going to the Penyinsula. I don’t want our son to be born here and be called a revolutionist.” She talked
incessantly of the journey, having memorized the names of the different ports of call, so that it was a treat to hear her talk: “I’m
going to see the isthmus in the Suez Canal—De Espadaña thinks it very beautiful and De Espadaña has traveled over the
whole world.” “I’ll probably not return to this land of savages.” “I wasn’t born to live here—Aden or Port Said would suit me
better—I’ve thought so ever since I was a girl.” In her geography Doña Victorina divided the world into the Philippines and
Spain; rather differently from the clever people who divide it into Spain and America or China for another name.
Her husband realized that these things were barbarisms, but held his peace to escape a scolding or reminders of
his stuttering. To increase the illusion of approaching maternity she became whimsical, dressed herself in colors with [333]a
profusion of flowers and ribbons, and appeared on the Escolta in a wrapper. But oh, the disenchantment! Three months went
by and the dream faded, and now, having no reason for fearing that her son would be a revolutionist, she gave up the trip.
She consulted doctors, midwives, old women, but all in vain. Having to the great displeasure of Capitan Tiago jested
about St. Pascual Bailon, she was unwilling to appeal to any saint. For this reason a friend of her husband’s remarked to her:
“Believe me, señora, you are the only strong-spirited person in this tiresome country.”
She had smiled, without knowing what strong-spirited meant, but that night she asked her husband. “My dear,” he
answered, “the s-strongest s-spirit that I know of is ammonia. My f-friend must have s-spoken f-figuratively.”
After that she would say on every possible occasion, “I’m the only ammonia in this tiresome country, speaking
figuratively. So Señor N. de N., a Peninsular gentleman of quality, told me.”
Whatever she said had to be done, for she had succeeded in dominating her husband completely. He on his part
did not put up any great resistance and so was converted into a kind of lap-dog of hers. If she was displeased with him she
would not let him go out, and when she was really angry she tore out his false teeth, thus leaving him a horrible sight for
several days.
It soon occurred to her that her husband ought to be a doctor of medicine and surgery, and she so informed him.
“My dear, do you w-want me to be arrested?” he asked fearfully.
“Don’t be a fool! Leave me to arrange it,” she answered. “You’re not going to treat any one, but I want people to call
you Doctor and me Doctora, see?”
So on the following day Rodoreda7 received an order [334]to engrave on a slab of black marble: DR. DE
ESPADAÑA, SPECIALIST IN ALL KINDS OF DISEASES. All the servants had to address them by their new titles, and as a
result she increased the number of frizzes, the layers of rice-powder, the ribbons and laces, and gazed with more disdain than
ever on her poor and unfortunate countrywomen whose husbands belonged to a lower grade of society than hers did. Day by
day she felt more dignified and exalted and, by continuing in this way, at the end of a year she would have believed herself to
be of divine origin.
These sublime thoughts, however, did not keep her from becoming older and more ridiculous every day. Every time
Capitan Tiago saw her and recalled having made love to her in vain he forthwith sent a peso to the church for a mass of
thanksgiving. Still, he greatly respected her husband on account of his title of specialist in all kinds of diseases and listened
attentively to the few phrases that he was able to stutter out. For this reason and because this doctor was more exclusive than
others, Capitan Tiago had selected him to treat his daughter.
In regard to young Linares, that is another matter. When arranging for the trip to Spain, Doña Victorina had thought
of having a Peninsular administrator, as she did not trust the Filipinos. Her husband bethought himself of a nephew of his in
Madrid who was studying law and who was considered the brightest of the family. So they wrote to him, paying his passage
in advance, and when the dream disappeared he was already on his way.
Such were the three persons who had just arrived. While they were partaking of a late breakfast, Padre Salvi came
in. The Espadañas were already acquainted with him, and they introduced the blushing young Linares with all his titles.
As was natural, they talked of Maria Clara, who was resting and sleeping. They talked of their journey, and Doña
Victorina exhibited all her verbosity in criticising the customs of the provincials,—their nipa houses, their [335]bamboo bridges;
without forgetting to mention to the curate her intimacy with this and that high official and other persons of “quality” who were
very fond of her.
“If you had come two days ago, Doña Victorina,” put in Capitan Tiago during a slight pause, “you would have met
his Excellency, the Captain-General. He sat right there.”
“What! How’s that? His Excellency here! In your house? No!”
“I tell you that he sat right there. If you had only come two days ago—”
“Ah, what a pity that Clarita did not get sick sooner!” she exclaimed with real feeling. Then turning to Linares, “Do
you hear, cousin? His Excellency was here! Don’t you see now that De Espadaña was right when he told you that you weren’t
going to the house of a miserable Indian? Because, you know, Don Santiago, in Madrid our cousin was the friend of ministers
and dukes and dined in the house of Count El Campanario.”
“The Duke of La Torte, Victorina,” corrected her husband.8
“It’s the same thing. If you will tell me—”
“Shall I find Padre Damaso in his town?” interrupted Linares, addressing Padre Salvi. “I’ve been told that it’s near
here.”
“He’s right here and will be over in a little while,” replied the curate.
“How glad I am of that! I have a letter to him,” exclaimed the youth, “and if it were not for the happy chance that
brings me here, I would have come expressly to visit him.”
In the meantime the happy chance had awakened.
“De Espadaña,” said Doña Victorina, when the meal was over, “shall we go in to see Clarita?” Then to Capitan
Tiago, “Only for you, Don Santiago, only for [336]you! My husband only attends persons of quality, and yet, and yet—! He’s
not like those here. In Madrid he only visited persons of quality.”
They adjourned to the sick girl’s chamber. The windows were closed from fear of a draught, so the room was almost
dark, being only dimly illuminated by two tapers which burned before an image of the Virgin of Antipolo. Her head covered
with a handkerchief saturated in cologne, her body wrapped carefully in white sheets which swathed her youthful form with
many folds, under curtains of jusi and piña, the girl lay on her kamagon bed. Her hair formed a frame around her oval
countenance and accentuated her transparent paleness, which was enlivened only by her large, sad eyes. At her side were
her two friends and Andeng with a bouquet of tuberoses.
De Espadaña felt her pulse, examined her tongue, asked a few questions, and said, as he wagged his head from
side to side, “S-she’s s-sick, but s-she c-can be c-cured.” Doña Victorina looked proudly at the bystanders.
“Lichen with milk in the morning, syrup of marshmallow, two cynoglossum pills!” ordered De Espadaña.
“Cheer up, Clarita!” said Doña Victorina, going up to her. “We’ve come to cure you. I want to introduce our cousin.”
Linares was so absorbed in the contemplation of those eloquent eyes, which seemed to be searching for some one,
that he did not hear Doña Victorina name him.
“Señor Linares,” said the curate, calling him out of his abstraction, “here comes Padre Damaso.”
It was indeed Padre Damaso, but pale and rather sad. On leaving his bed his first visit was for Maria Clara. Nor was
it the Padre Damaso of former times, hearty and self-confident; now he moved silently and with some hesitation.[337]

1A similar incident occurred in Kalamba.—Author’s note.

2“The Maid of Saragossa,” noted for her heroic exploits during the siege of that city by the French in 1808–09.—TR.
3A region in southwestern Spain, including the provinces of Badajoz and Caceres.—TR.
4Author of a little book of fables in Castilian verse for the use of schools. The fable of the young philosopher illustrates the thought in Pope’s
well-known lines:
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
—TR.
5Bones for those who come late.
6According to Spanish custom, a matron is known by prefixing her maiden name with de (possessive of) to her husband’s name.—TR.
7The marble-shop of Rodoreda is still in existence on Calle Carriedo, Santa Cruz.—TR.
8There is a play on words here, Campanario meaning belfry and Torre tower.—TR.
 Chapter XLIII
Plans

Without heeding any of the bystanders, Padre Damaso went directly to the bed of the sick girl and taking her hand
said to her with ineffable tenderness, while tears sprang into his eyes, “Maria, my daughter, you mustn’t die!”
The sick girl opened her eyes and stared at him with a strange expression. No one who knew the Franciscan had
suspected in him such tender feelings, no one had believed that under his rude and rough exterior there might beat a heart.
Unable to go on, he withdrew from the girl’s side, weeping like a child, and went outside under the favorite vines of Maria
Clara’s balcony to give free rein to his grief.
“How he loves his goddaughter!” thought all present, while Fray Salvi gazed at him motionlessly and in silence,
lightly gnawing his lips the while.
When he had become somewhat calm again Doña Victorina introduced Linares, who approached him respectfully.
Fray Damaso silently looked him over from head to foot, took the letter offered and read it, but apparently without
understanding, for he asked, “And who are you?”
“Alfonso Linares, the godson of your brother-in-law,” stammered the young man.
Padre Damaso threw back his body and looked the youth over again carefully. Then his features lighted up and he
arose. “So you are the godson of Carlicos!” he exclaimed. “Come and let me embrace you! I got your letter several days ago.
So it’s you! I didn’t recognize [338]you,—which is easily explained, for you weren’t born when I left the country,—I didn’t
recognize you!” Padre Damaso squeezed his robust arms about the young man, who became very red, whether from modesty
or lack of breath is not known.
After the first moments of effusion had passed and inquiries about Carlicos and his wife had been made and
answered, Padre Damaso asked, “Come now, what does Carlicos want me to do for you?”
“I believe he says something about that in the letter,” Linares again stammered.
“In the letter? Let’s see! That’s right! He wants me to get you a job and a wife. Ahem! A job, a job that’s easy! Can
you read and write?”
“I received my degree of law from the University.”
“Carambas! So you’re a pettifogger! You don’t show it; you look more like a shy maiden. So much the better! But to
get you a wife—”
“Padre, I’m not in such a great hurry,” interrupted Linares in confusion.
But Padre Damaso was already pacing from one end of the hallway to the other, muttering, “A wife, a wife!” His
countenance was no longer sad or merry but now wore an expression of great seriousness, while he seemed to be thinking
deeply. Padre Salvi gazed on the scene from a distance.
“I didn’t think that the matter would trouble me so much,” murmured Padre Damaso in a tearful voice. “But of two
evils, the lesser!” Then raising his voice he approached Linares and said to him, “Come, boy, let’s talk to Santiago.”
Linares turned pale and allowed himself to be dragged along by the priest, who moved thoughtfully. Then it was
Padre Salvi’s turn to pace back and forth, pensive as ever.
A voice wishing him good morning drew him from his monotonous walk. He raised his head and saw Lucas, who
saluted him humbly.
[339]“What do you want?” questioned the curate’s eyes.
“Padre, I’m the brother of the man who was killed on the day of the fiesta,” began Lucas in tearful accents.
The curate recoiled and murmured in a scarcely audible voice, “Well?”
Lucas made an effort to weep and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “Padre,” he went on tearfully, “I’ve been to
Don Crisostomo to ask for an indemnity. First he received me with kicks, saying that he wouldn’t pay anything since he himself
had run the risk of getting killed through the fault of my dear, unfortunate brother. I went to talk to him yesterday, but he had
gone to Manila. He left me five hundred pesos for charity’s sake and charged me not to come back again. Ah, Padre, five
hundred pesos for my poor brother—five hundred pesos! Ah, Padre—”
At first the curate had listened with surprise and attention while his lips curled slightly with a smile of such disdain
and sarcasm at the sight of this farce that, had Lucas noticed it, he would have run away at top speed. “Now what do you
want?” he asked, turning away.
“Ah, Padre, tell me for the love of God what I ought to do. The padre has always given good advice.”
“Who told you so? You don’t belong in these parts.”
“The padre is known all over the province.”
With irritated looks Padre Salvi approached him and pointing to the street said to the now startled Lucas, “Go home
and be thankful that Don Crisostomo didn’t have you sent to jail! Get out of here!”
Lucas forgot the part he was playing and murmured, “But I thought—”
“Get out of here!” cried Padre Salvi nervously.
“I would like to see Padre Damaso.”
“Padre Damaso is busy. Get out of here!” again ordered the curate imperiously.
Lucas went down the stairway muttering, “He’s another of them—as he doesn’t pay well—the one who pays best!”
 [340]At the sound of the curate’s voice all had hurried to the spot, including Padre Damaso, Capitan Tiago, and
Linares.
“An insolent vagabond who came to beg and who doesn’t want to work,” explained Padre Salvi, picking up his hat
and cane to return to the convento.[341]

Chapter XLIV
An Examination of Conscience

Long days and weary nights passed at the sick girl’s bed. After having confessed herself, Maria Clara had suffered
a relapse, and in her delirium she uttered only the name of the mother whom she had never known. But her girl friends, her
father, and her aunt kept watch at her side. Offerings and alms were sent to all the miraculous images, Capitan Tiago vowed
a gold cane to the Virgin of Antipolo, and at length the fever began to subside slowly and regularly.
Doctor De Espadaña was astonished at the virtues of the syrup of marshmallow and the infusion of lichen,
prescriptions that he had not varied. Doña Victorina was so pleased with her husband that one day when he stepped on the
train of her gown she did not apply her penal code to the extent of taking his set of false teeth away from him, but contented
herself with merely exclaiming, “If you weren’t lame you’d even step on my corset!”—an article of apparel she did not wear.
One afternoon while Sinang and Victoria were visiting their friend, the curate, Capitan Tiago, and Doña Victorina’s
family were conversing over their lunch in the dining-room.
“Well, I feel very sorry about it,” said the doctor; “Padre Damaso also will regret it very much.”
“Where do you say they’re transferring him to?” Linares asked the curate.
“To the province of Tayabas,” replied the curate negligently.
“One who will be greatly affected by it is Maria Clara, [342]when she learns of it,” said Capitan Tiago. “She loves
him like a father.”
Fray Salvi looked at him askance.
“I believe, Padre,” continued Capitan Tiago, “that all her illness is the result of the trouble on the last day of the
fiesta.”
“I’m of the same opinion, and think that you’ve done well not to let Señor Ibarra see her. She would have got worse.
“If it wasn’t for us,” put in Doña Victorina, “Clarita would already be in heaven singing praises to God.”
“Amen!” Capitan Tiago thought it his duty to exclaim. “It’s lucky for you that my husband didn’t have any patient of
greater quality, for then you’d have had to call in another, and all those here are ignoramuses. My husband—”
“Just as I was saying,” the curate in turn interrupted, “I think that the confession that Maria Clara made brought on
the favorable crisis which has saved her life. A clean conscience is worth more than a lot of medicine. Don’t think that I deny
the power of science, above all, that of surgery, but a clean conscience! Read the pious books and you’ll see how many cures
are effected merely by a clean confession.”
“Pardon me,” objected the piqued Doña Victorina, “this power of the confessional—cure the alferez’s woman with a
confession!”
“A wound, madam, is not a form of illness which the conscience can affect,” replied Padre Salvi severely.
“Nevertheless, a clean confession will preserve her from receiving in the future such blows as she got this morning.”
“She deserves them!” went on Doña Victorina as if she had not heard what Padre Salvi said. “That woman is so
insolent! In the church she did nothing but stare at me. You can see that she’s a nobody. Sunday I was going to ask her if she
saw anything funny about my face, [343]but who would lower oneself to speak to people that are not of rank?”
The curate, on his part, continued just as though he had not heard this tirade. “Believe me, Don Santiago, to complete
your daughter’s recovery it’s necessary that she take communion tomorrow. I’ll bring the viaticum over here. I don’t think she
has anything to confess, but yet, if she wants to confess herself tonight—”
“I don’t know,” Doña Victorina instantly took advantage of a slight hesitation on Padre Salvi’s part to add, “I don’t
understand how there can be men capable of marrying such a fright as that woman is. It’s easily seen where she comes from.
She’s just dying of envy, you can see it! How much does an alferez get?”
“Accordingly, Don Santiago, tell your cousin to prepare the sick girl for the communion tomorrow. I’ll come over
tonight to absolve her of her peccadillos.”
Seeing Aunt Isabel come from the sick-room, he said to her in Tagalog, “Prepare your niece for confession tonight.
Tomorrow I’ll bring over the viaticum. With that she’ll improve faster.”
“But, Padre,” Linares gathered up enough courage to ask faintly, “you don’t think that she’s in any danger of dying?”
“Don’t you worry,” answered the padre without looking at him. “I know what I’m doing; I’ve helped take care of plenty
of sick people before. Besides, she’ll decide herself whether or not she wishes to receive the holy communion and you’ll see
that she says yes.”
Capitan Tiago immediately agreed to everything, while Aunt Isabel returned to the sick girl’s chamber. Maria Clara
was still in bed, pale, very pale, and at her side were her two friends.
“Take one more grain,” Sinang whispered, as she offered her a white tablet that she took from a small glass tube.
“He says that when you feel a rumbling or buzzing in your ears you are to stop the medicine.”
 [344]“Hasn’t he written to you again?” asked the sick girl in a low voice.
“No, he must be very busy.”
“Hasn’t he sent any message?”
“He says nothing more than that he’s going to try to get the Archbishop to absolve him from the excommunication,
so that—”
This conversation was suspended at the aunt’s approach. “The padre says for you to get ready for confession,
daughter,” said the latter. “You girls must leave her so that she can make her examination of conscience.”
“But it hasn’t been a week since she confessed!” protested Sinang. “I’m not sick and I don’t sin as often as that.”
“Abá! Don’t you know what the curate says: the righteous sin seven times a day? Come, what book shall I bring you,
the Ancora, the Ramillete, or the Camino Recto para ir al Cielo?”
Maria Clara did not answer.
“Well, you mustn’t tire yourself,” added the good aunt to console her. “I’ll read the examination myself and you’ll
have only to recall your sins.”
“Write to him not to think of me any more,” murmured Maria Clara in Sinang’s ear as the latter said good-by to her.
“What?”
But the aunt again approached, and Sinang had to go away without understanding what her friend had meant. The
good old aunt drew a chair up to the light, put her spectacles on the end of her nose, and opened a booklet. “Pay close
attention, daughter. I’m going to begin with the Ten Commandments. I’ll go slow so that you can meditate. If you don’t hear
well tell me so that I can repeat. You know that in looking after your welfare I’m never weary.”
She began to read in a monotonous and snuffling voice the considerations of cases of sinfulness. At the end
of [345]each paragraph she made a long pause in order to give the girl time to recall her sins and to repent of them.
Maria Clara stared vaguely into space. After finishing the first commandment, to love God above all things, Aunt
Isabel looked at her over her spectacles and was satisfied with her sad and thoughtful mien. She coughed piously and after a
long pause began to read the second commandment. The good old woman read with unction and when she had finished the
commentaries looked again at her niece, who turned her head slowly to the other side.
“Bah!” said Aunt Isabel to herself. “With taking His holy name in vain the poor child has nothing to do. Let’s pass on
to the third.”1
The third commandment was analyzed and commented upon. After citing all the cases in which one can break it
she again looked toward the bed. But now she lifted up her glasses and rubbed her eyes, for she had seen her niece raise a
handkerchief to her face as if to wipe away tears.
“Hum, ahem! The poor child once went to sleep during the sermon.” Then replacing her glasses on the end of her
nose, she said, “Now let’s see if, just as you’ve failed to keep holy the Sabbath, you’ve failed to honor your father and mother.”
So she read the fourth commandment in an even slower and more snuffling voice, thinking thus to give solemnity to
the act, just as she had seen many friars do. Aunt Isabel had never heard a Quaker preach or she would also have trembled.
The sick girl, in the meantime, raised the handkerchief to her eyes several times and her breathing became more
noticeable.
“What a good soul!” thought the old woman. “She who is so obedient and submissive to every one! I’ve committed
more sins and yet I’ve never been able really to cry.”
[346]She then began the fifth commandment with greater pauses and even more pronounced snuffling, if that were
possible, and with such great enthusiasm that she did not hear the stifled sobs of her niece. Only in a pause which she made
after the comments on homicide, by violence did she notice the groans of the sinner. Then her tone passed into the sublime
as she read the rest of the commandment in accents that she tried to reader threatening, seeing that her niece was still
weeping.
“Weep, daughter, weep!” she said, approaching the bed. “The more you weep the sooner God will pardon you. Hold
the sorrow of repentance as better than that of mere penitence. Weep, daughter, weep! You don’t know how much I enjoy
seeing you weep. Beat yourself on the breast also, but not hard, for you’re still sick.”
But, as if her sorrow needed mystery and solitude to make it increase, Maria Clara, on seeing herself observed, little
by little stopped sighing and dried her eyes without saying anything or answering her aunt, who continued the reading. Since
the wails of her audience had ceased, however, she lost her enthusiasm, and the last commandments made her so sleepy
that she began to yawn, with great detriment to her snuffling, which was thus interrupted.
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it,” thought the good old lady afterwards. “This girl
sins like a soldier against the first five and from the sixth to the tenth not a venial sin, just the opposite to us! How the world
does move now!”
So she lighted a large candle to the Virgin of Antipolo and two other smaller ones to Our Lady of the Rosary and
Our Lady of the Pillar,2 taking care to put away in a corner a marble crucifix to make it understand that the candles were not
lighted for it. Nor did the Virgin of Delaroche have any share; she was an unknown foreigner, and Aunt Isabel had never heard
of any miracle of hers.
[347]We do not know what occurred during the confession that night and we respect such secrets. But the confession
was a long one and the aunt, who stood watch over her niece at a distance, could note that the curate, instead of turning his
ear to hear the words of the sick girl, rather had his face turned toward hers, and seemed only to be trying to read, or divine,
her thoughts by gazing into her beautiful eyes.
Pale and with contracted lips Padre Salvi left the chamber. Looking at his forehead, which was gloomy and covered
with perspiration, one would have said that it was he who had confessed and had not obtained absolution.
“Jesús, María, y José!” exclaimed Aunt Isabel, crossing herself to dispel an evil thought, “who understands the girls
nowadays?”[348]

1The Roman Catholic decalogue does not contain the commandment forbidding the worship of “graven images,” its second being the prohibition
against “taking His holy name in vain.” To make up the ten, the commandment against covetousness is divided into two.—TR.
2The famous Virgin of Saragossa, Spain, and patroness of Santa Cruz, Manila.—TR.

Chapter XLV
The Hunted

In the dim light shed by the moonbeams sifting through the thick foliage a man wandered through the forest with
slow and cautious steps. From time to time, as if to find his way, he whistled a peculiar melody, which was answered in the
distance by some one whistling the same air. The man would listen attentively and then make his way in the direction of the
distant sound, until at length, after overcoming the thousand obstacles offered by the virgin forest in the night-time, he reached
a small open space, which was bathed in the light of the moon in its first quarter. The high, tree-crowned rocks that rose about
formed a kind of ruined amphitheater, in the center of which were scattered recently felled trees and charred logs among
boulders covered with nature’s mantle of verdure.
Scarcely had the unknown arrived when another figure started suddenly from behind a large rock and advanced
with drawn revolver. “Who are you?” he asked in Tagalog in an imperious tone, cocking the weapon.
“Is old Pablo among you?” inquired the unknown in an even tone, without answering the question or showing any
signs of fear.
“You mean the capitan? Yes, he’s here.”
“Then tell him that Elias is here looking for him,” was the answer of the unknown, who was no other than the
mysterious pilot.
“Are you Elias?” asked the other respectfully, as he approached him, not, however, ceasing to cover him with the
revolver. “Then come!”
Elias followed him, and they penetrated into a kind of [349]cave sunk down in the depths of the earth. The guide,
who seemed to be familiar with the way, warned the pilot when he should descend or turn aside or stoop down, so they were
not long in reaching a kind of hall which was poorly lighted by pitch torches and occupied by twelve to fifteen armed men with
dirty faces and soiled clothing, some seated and some lying down as they talked fitfully to one another. Resting his arms on a
stone that served for a table and gazing thoughtfully at the torches, which gave out so little light for so much smoke, was seen
an old, sad-featured man with his head wrapped in a bloody bandage. Did we not know that it was a den of tulisanes we might
have said, on reading the look of desperation in the old man’s face, that it was the Tower of Hunger on the eve before Ugolino
devoured his sons.
Upon the arrival of Elias and his guide the figures partly rose, but at a signal from the latter they settled back again,
satisfying themselves with the observation that the newcomer was unarmed. The old man turned his head slowly and saw the
quiet figure of Elias, who stood uncovered, gazing at him with sad interest.
“It’s you at last,” murmured the old man, his gaze lighting up somewhat as he recognized the youth.
“In what condition do I find you!” exclaimed the youth in a suppressed tone, shaking his head.
The old man dropped his head in silence and made a sign to the others, who arose and withdrew, first taking the
measure of the pilot’s muscles and stature with a glance.
“Yes!” said the old man to Elias as soon as they were alone. “Six months ago when I sheltered you in my house, it
was I who pitied you. Now we have changed parts and it is you who pity me. But sit down and tell me how you got here.”
“It’s fifteen days now since I was told of your misfortune,” began the young man slowly in a low voice as he stared
at the light. “I started at once and have been [350]seeking you from mountain to mountain. I’ve traveled over nearly the whole
of two provinces.”
“In order not to shed innocent blood,” continued the old man, “I have had to flee. My enemies were afraid to show
themselves. I was confronted merely with some unfortunates who have never done me the least harm.”
After a brief pause during which he seemed to be occupied in trying to read the thoughts in the dark countenance
of the old man, Elias replied: “I’ve come to make a proposition to you. Having sought in vain for some survivor of the family
that caused the misfortunes of mine, I’ve decided to leave the province where I live and move toward the North among the
independent pagan tribes. Don’t you want to abandon the life you have entered upon and come with me? I will be your son,
since you have lost your own; I have no family, and in you will find a father.”
The old man shook his, head in negation, saying, “When one at my age makes a desperate resolution, it’s because
there is no other recourse. A man who, like myself, has spent his youth and his mature years toiling for the future of himself
and his sons; a man who has been submissive to every wish of his superiors, who has conscientiously performed difficult
tasks, enduring all that he might live in peace and quiet—when that man, whose blood time has chilled, renounces all his past
and foregoes all his future, even on the very brink of the grave, it is because he has with mature judgment decided that peace
does not exist and that it is not the highest good. Why drag out miserable days on foreign soil? I had two sons, a daughter, a
home, a fortune, I was esteemed and respected; now I am as a tree shorn of its branches, a wanderer, a fugitive, hunted like
a wild beast through the forest, and all for what? Because a man dishonored my daughter, because her brothers called that
man’s infamy to account, and because that man is set above his fellows with the title of minister of God! In spite of everything,
I, her father, [351]I, dishonored in my old age, forgave the injury, for I was indulgent with the passions of youth and the
weakness of the flesh, and in the face of irreparable wrong what could I do but hold my peace and save what remained to
me? But the culprit, fearful of vengeance sooner or later, sought the destruction of my sons. Do you know what he did? No?
You don’t know, then, that he pretended that there had been a robbery committed in the convento and that one of my sons
figured among the accused? The other could not be included because he was in another place at the time. Do you know what
tortures they were subjected to? You know of them, for they are the same in all the towns! I, I saw my son hanging by the hair,
I heard his cries, I heard him call upon me, and I, coward and lover of peace, hadn’t the courage either to kill or to die! Do you
know that the theft was not proved, that it was shown to be a false charge, and that in punishment the curate was transferred
to another town, but that my son died as a result of his tortures? The other, the one who was left to me, was not a coward like
his father, so our persecutor was still fearful that he would wreak vengeance on him, and, under the pretext of his not having
his cedula,1 which he had not carried with him just at that time, had him arrested by the Civil Guard, mistreated him, enraged
and harassed him with insults until he was driven to suicide! And I, I have outlived so much shame; but if I had not the courage
of a father to defend my sons, there yet remains to me a heart burning for revenge, and I will have it! The discontented are
gathering under my command, my enemies increase my forces, and on the day that I feel myself strong enough I will descend
to the lowlands [352]and in flames sate my vengeance and end my own existence. And that day will come or there is no
God!”2
The old man arose trembling. With fiery look and hollow voice, he added, tearing his long hair, “Curses, curses upon
me that I restrained the avenging hands of my sons—I have murdered them! Had I let the guilty perish, had I confided less in
the justice of God and men, I should now have my sons—fugitives, perhaps, but I should have them; they would not have died
under torture! I was not born to be a father, so I have them not! Curses upon me that I had not learned with my years to know
the conditions under which I lived! But in fire and blood by my own death I will avenge them!”
In his paroxysm of grief the unfortunate father tore away the bandage, reopening a wound in his forehead from
which gushed a stream of blood.
“I respect your sorrow,” said Elias, “and I understand your desire for revenge. I, too, am like you, and yet from fear
of injuring the innocent I prefer to forget my misfortunes.”
“You can forget because you are young and because you haven’t lost a son, your last hope! But I assure you that I
shall injure no innocent one. Do you see this wound? Rather than kill a poor cuadrillero, who was doing his duty, I let him inflict
it.”
“But look,” urged Elias, after a moment’s silence, “look what a frightful catastrophe you are going to bring down upon
our unfortunate people. If you accomplish your revenge by your own hand, your enemies will make terrible reprisals, not
against you, not against those who are armed, but against the peaceful, who as usual will be accused—and then the eases
of injustice!”
“Let the people learn to defend themselves, let each one defend himself!”
[353]“You know that that is impossible. Sir, I knew you in other days when you were happy; then you gave me good
advice, will you now permit me—”
The old man folded his arms in an attitude of attention. “Sir,” continued Elias, weighing his words well, “I have had
the good fortune to render a service to a young man who is rich, generous, noble, and who desires the welfare of his country.
They say that this young man has friends in Madrid—I don’t know myself—but I can assure you that he is a friend of the
Captain-General’s. What do you say that we make him the bearer of the people’s complaints, if we interest him in the cause
of the unhappy?”
The old man shook his head. “You say that he is rich? The rich think only of increasing their wealth, pride and show
blind them, and as they are generally safe, above all when they have powerful friends, none of them troubles himself about
the woes of the unfortunate. I know all, because I was rich!”
“But the man of whom I speak is not like the others. He is a son who has been insulted over the memory of his
father, and a young man who, as he is soon to have a family, thinks of the future, of a happy future for his children.”
“Then he is a man who is going to be happy—our cause is not for happy men.”
“But it is for men who have feelings!”
“Perhaps!” replied the old man, seating himself. “Suppose that he agrees to carry our cry even to the Captain-
General, suppose that he finds in the Cortes3 delegates who will plead for us; do you think that we shall get justice?”
“Let us try it before we resort to violent measure,” answered Elias. “You must be surprised that I, another unfortunate,
young and strong, should propose to you, old and weak, peaceful measures, but it’s because I’ve seen [354]as much misery
caused by us as by the tyrants. The defenseless are the ones who pay.”
“And if we accomplish nothing?”
 “Something we shall accomplish, believe me, for all those who are in power are not unjust. But if we accomplish
nothing, if they disregard our entreaties, if man has become deaf to the cry of sorrow from his kind, then I will put myself under
your orders!”
The old man embraced the youth enthusiastically. “I accept your proposition, Elias. I know that you will keep your
word. You will come to me, and I shall help you to revenge your ancestors, you will help me to revenge my sons, my sons that
were like you!”
“In the meantime, sir, you will refrain from violent measures?”
“You will present the complaints of the people, you know them. When shall I know your answer?”
“In four days send a man to the beach at San Diego and I will tell him what I shall have learned from the person in
whom I place so much hope. If he accepts, they will give us justice; and if not, I’ll be the first to fall in the struggle that we will
begin.”
“Elias will not die, Elias will be the leader when Capitan Pablo fails, satisfied in his revenge,” concluded the old man,
as he accompanied the youth out of the cave into the open air.[355]

1In 1883 the old system of “tribute” was abolished and in its place a graduated personal tax imposed. The certificate that this tax had been paid,
known as the cédula personal, which also served for personal identification, could be required at any time or place, and failure to produce it was cause for
summary arrest. It therefore became, in unscrupulous hands, a fruitful source of abuse, since any “undesirable” against whom no specific charge could be
brought might be put out of the way by this means.—TR.
2Tanawan or Pateros?—Author’s note. The former is a town in Batangas Province, the latter a village on the northern shore of the Lake of Bay,
in what is now Rizal Province.—TR.
3The Spanish Parliament.—TR.

Chapter XLVI
The Cockpit

To keep holy the afternoon of the Sabbath one generally goes to the cockpit in the Philippines, just as to the bull-
fights in Spain. Cockfighting, a passion introduced into the country and exploited for a century past, is one of the vices of the
people, more widely spread than opium-smoking among the Chinese. There the poor man goes to risk all that he has, desirous
of getting rich without work. There the rich man goes to amuse himself, using the money that remains to him from his feasts
and his masses of thanksgiving. The fortune that he gambles is his own, the cock is raised with much more care perhaps than
his son and successor in the cockpit, so we have nothing to say against it. Since the government permits it and even in a way
recommends it, by providing that the spectacle may take place only in the public plazas, on holidays (in order that all may see
it and be encouraged by the example?), from the high mass until nightfall (eight hours), let us proceed thither to seek out some
of our acquaintances.
The cockpit of San Diego does not differ from those to be found in other towns, except in some details. It consists
of three parts, the first of which, the entrance, is a large rectangle some twenty meters long by fourteen wide. On one side is
the gateway, generally tended by an old woman whose business it is to collect the sa pintu, or admission fee. Of this
contribution, which every one pays, the government receives a part, amounting to some hundreds of thousands of pesos a
year. It is said that with this money, with which vice pays its license, magnificent [356]schoolhouses are erected, bridges and
roads are constructed, prizes for encouraging agriculture and commerce are distributed: blessed be the vice that produces
such good results! In this first enclosure are the vendors of buyos, cigars, sweetmeats, and foodstuffs. There swarm the boys
in company with their fathers or uncles, who carefully initiate them into the secrets of life.
This enclosure communicates with another of somewhat larger dimensions,—a kind of foyer where the public
gathers while waiting for the combats. There are the greater part of the fighting-cocks tied with cords which are fastened to
the ground by means of a piece of bone or hard wood; there are assembled the gamblers, the devotees, those skilled in tying
on the gaffs, there they make agreements, they deliberate, they beg for loans, they curse, they swear, they laugh boisterously.
That one fondles his chicken, rubbing his hand over its brilliant plumage, this one examines and counts the scales on its legs,
they recount the exploits of the champions.
There you will see many with mournful faces carrying by the feet corpses picked of their feathers; the creature that
was the favorite for months, petted and cared for day and night, on which were founded such flattering hopes, is now nothing
more than a carcass to be sold for a peseta or to be stewed with ginger and eaten that very night. Sic transit gloria mundi! The
loser returns to the home where his anxious wife and ragged children await him, without his money or his chicken. Of all that
golden dream, of all those vigils during months from the dawn of day to the setting of the sun, of all those fatigues and labors,
there results only a peseta, the ashes left from so much smoke.
In this foyer even the least intelligent takes part in the discussion, while the man of most hasty judgment
conscientiously investigates the matter, weighs, examines, extends the wings, feels the muscles of the cocks. Some go very
well-dressed, surrounded and followed by the partisans [357]of their champions; others who are dirty and bear the imprint of
vice on their squalid features anxiously follow the movements of the rich to note the bets, since the purse may become empty
but the passion never satiated. No countenance here but is animated—not here is to be found the indolent, apathetic, silent
Filipino—all is movement, passion, eagerness. It may be, one would say, that they have that thirst which is quickened by the
water of the swamp.
From this place one passes into the arena, which is known as the Rueda, the wheel. The ground here, surrounded
by bamboo-stakes, is usually higher than that in the two other divisions. In the back part, reaching almost to the roof, are tiers
of seats for the spectators, or gamblers, since these are the same. During the fights these seats are filled with men and boys
who shout, clamor, sweat, quarrel, and blaspheme—fortunately, hardly any women get in this far. In the Rueda are the men
of importance, the rich, the famous bettors, the contractor, the referee. On the perfectly leveled ground the cocks fight, and
from there Destiny apportions to the families smiles or tears, feast or famine.
At the time of entering we see the gobernadorcillo, Capitan Pablo, Capitan Basilio, and Lucas, the man with the sear
on his face who felt so deeply the death of his brother.
Capitan Basilio approaches one of the townsmen and asks, “Do you know which cock Capitan Tiago is going to
bring?”
“I don’t know, sir. This morning two came, one of them the lásak that whipped the Consul’s talisain.”1
“Do you think that my bulik is a match for it?”
“I should say so! I’ll bet my house and my camisa on it!”
At that moment Capitan Tiago arrives, dressed like the heavy gamblers, in a camisa of Canton linen, woolen
pantaloons, [358]and a wide straw hat. Behind him come two servants carrying the lásak and a white cock of enormous size.
“Sinang tells me that Maria is improving all the time,” says Capitan Basilio.
“She has no more fever but is still very weak.”
“Did you lose last night?”
“A little. I hear that you won. I’m going to see if I can’t get even here.”
“Do you want to fight the lásak?” asks Capitan Basilio, looking at the cock and taking it from the servant. “That
depends—if there’s a bet.”
“How much will you put up?”
“I won’t gamble for less than two.”
“Have you seen my bulik?” inquires Capitan Basilio, calling to a man who is carrying a small game-cock.
Capitan Tiago examines it and after feeling its weight and studying its scales returns it with the question, “How much
will you put up?”
“Whatever you will.”
“Two, and five hundred?”
“Three?”
“Three!”
“For the next fight after this!”
The chorus of curious bystanders and the gamblers spread the news that two celebrated cocks will fight, each of
which has a history and a well-earned reputation. All wish to see and examine the two celebrities, opinions are offered,
prophecies are made.
Meanwhile, the murmur of the voices grows, the confusion increases, the Rueda is broken into, the seats are filled.
The skilled attendants carry the two cocks into the arena, a white and a red, already armed but with the gaffs still sheathed.
Cries are heard, “On the white!” “On the white!” while some other voice answers, “On the red!” The odds are on the white, he
is the favorite; the red is the “outsider,” the dejado.
[359]Members of the Civil Guard move about in the crowd. They are not dressed in the uniform of that meritorious
corps, but neither are they in civilian costume. Trousers of guingón with a red stripe, a camisa stained blue from the faded
blouse, and a service-cap, make up their costume, in keeping with their deportment; they make bets and keep watch, they
raise disturbances and talk of keeping the peace.
While the spectators are yelling, waving their hands, flourishing and clinking pieces of silver; while they search in
their pockets for the last coin, or, in the lack of such, try to pledge their word, promising to sell the carabao or the next crop,
two boys, brothers apparently, follow the bettors with wistful eyes, loiter about, murmur timid words to which no one listens,
become more and more gloomy and gaze at one another ill-humoredly and dejectedly. Lucas watches them covertly, smiles
malignantly, jingles his silver, passes close to them, and gazing into the Rueda, cries out:
“Fifty, fifty to twenty on the white!”
The two brothers exchange glances.
“I told you,” muttered the elder, “that you shouldn’t have put up all the money. If you had listened to me we should
now have something to bet on the red.”
The younger timidly approached Lucas and touched him on the arm.
“Oh, it’s you!” exclaimed the latter, turning around with feigned surprise. “Does your brother accept my proposition
or do you want to bet?”
“How can we bet when we’ve lost everything?”
“Then you accept?”
“He doesn’t want to! If you would lend us something, now that you say you know us—”
 Lucas scratched his head, pulled at his camisa, and replied, “Yes, I know you. You are Tarsilo and Bruno, both
young and strong. I know that your brave father died as a result of the hundred lashes a day those soldiers [360]gave him. I
know that you don’t think of revenging him.”
“Don’t meddle in our affairs!” broke in Tarsilo, the elder. “That might lead to trouble. If it were not that we have a
sister, we should have been hanged long ago.”
“Hanged? They only hang a coward, one who has no money or influence. And at all events the mountains are near.”
“A hundred to twenty on the white!” cried a passer-by.
“Lend us four pesos, three, two,” begged the younger.
“We’ll soon pay them back double. The fight is going to commence.”
Lucas again scratched his head. “Tush! This money isn’t mine. Don Crisostomo has given it to me for those who
are willing to serve him. But I see that you’re not like your father—he was really brave—let him who is not so not seek
amusement!” So saying, he drew away from them a little.
“Let’s take him up, what’s the difference?” said Bruno. “It’s the same to be shot as to be hanged. We poor folks are
good for nothing else.”
“You’re right—but think of our sister!”
Meanwhile, the ring has been cleared and the combat is about to begin. The voices die away as the two starters,
with the expert who fastens the gaffs, are left alone in the center. At a signal from the referee, the expert unsheathes the gaffs
and the fine blades glitter threateningly.
Sadly and silently the two brothers draw nearer to the ring until their foreheads are pressed against the railing. A
man approaches them and calls into their ears, “Pare,2 a hundred to ten on the white!”
Tarsilo stares at him in a foolish way and responds to Bruno’s nudge with a grunt.
The starters hold the cocks with skilful delicacy, taking care not to wound themselves. A solemn silence
reigns; [361]the spectators seem to be changed into hideous wax figures. They present one cock to the other, holding his
head down so that the other may peck at it and thus irritate him. Then the other is given a like opportunity, for in every duel
there must be fair play, whether it is a question of Parisian cocks or Filipino cocks. Afterwards, they hold them up in sight of
each other, close together, so that each of the enraged little creatures may see who it is that has pulled out a feather, and with
whom he must fight. Their neck-feathers bristle up as they gaze at each other fixedly with flashes of anger darting from their
little round eyes. Now the moment has come; the attendants place them on the ground a short distance apart and leave them
a clear field.
Slowly they advance, their footfalls are, audible on the hard ground. No one in the crowd speaks, no one breathes.
Raising and lowering their heads as if to gauge one another with a look, the two cocks utter sounds of defiance and contempt.
Each sees the bright blade throwing out its cold, bluish reflections. The danger animates them and they rush directly toward
each other, but a pace apart they check themselves with fixed gaze and bristling plumage. At that moment their little heads
are filled with a rush of blood, their anger flashes forth, and they hurl themselves together with instinctive valor. They strike
beak to beak, breast to breast, gaff to gaff, wing to wing, but the blows are skilfully parried, only a few feathers fall. Again they
size each other up: suddenly the white rises on his wings, brandishing the deadly knife, but the red has bent his legs and
lowered his head, so the white smites only the empty air.. Then on touching the ground the white, fearing a blow from behind,
turns quickly to face his adversary. The red attacks him furiously, but he defends himself calmly—not undeservedly is he the
favorite of the spectators, all of whom tremulously and anxiously follow the fortunes of the fight, only here and there an
involuntary cry being heard.
[362]The ground becomes strewn with red and white feathers dyed in blood, but the contest is not for the first blood;
the Filipino, carrying out the laws dictated by his government, wishes it to be to the death or until one or the other turns tail
and runs. Blood covers the ground, the blows are more numerous, but victory still hangs in the balance. At last, with a supreme
effort, the white throws himself forward for a final stroke, fastens his gaff in the wing of the red and catches it between the
bones. But the white himself has been wounded in the breast and both are weak and feeble from loss of blood. Breathless,
their strength spent, caught one against the other, they remain motionless until the white, with blood pouring from his beak,
falls, kicking his death-throes. The red remains at his side with his wing caught, then slowly doubles up his legs and gently
closes his eyes.
Then the referee, in accordance with the rule prescribed by the government, declares the red the winner. A savage
yell greets the decision, a yell that is heard over the whole town, even and prolonged. He who hears this from afar then knows
that the winner is the one against which the odds were placed, or the joy would not be so lasting. The same happens with the
nations: when a small one gains a victory over a large one, it is sung and recounted from age to age.
“You see now!” said Bruno dejectedly to his brother, “if you had listened to me we should now have a hundred pesos.
You’re the cause of our being penniless.”
Tarsilo did not answer, but gazed about him as if looking for some one.
“There he is, talking to Pedro,” added Bruno. “He’s giving him money, lots of money!”
True it was that Lucas was counting silver coins into the hand of Sisa’s husband. The two then exchanged some
words in secret and separated, apparently satisfied.
“Pedro must have agreed. That’s what it is to be decided,” sighed Bruno.
 [363]Tarsilo remained gloomy and thoughtful, wiping away with the cuff of his camisa the perspiration that ran down
his forehead.
“Brother,” said Bruno, “I’m going to accept, if you don’t decide. The law3 continues, the lásak must win and we ought
not to lose any chance. I want to bet on the next fight. What’s the difference? We’ll revenge our father.”
“Wait!” said Tarsilo, as he gazed at him fixedly, eye to eye, while both turned pale. “I’ll go with you, you’re right. We’ll
revenge our father.” Still, he hesitated, and again wiped away the perspiration.
“What’s stopping you?” asked Bruno impatiently.
“Do you know what fight comes next? Is it worth while?”
“If you think that way, no! Haven’t you heard? The bulik of Capitan Basilio’s against Capitan Tiago’s lásak. According
to the law the lásak must win.”
“Ah, the lásak! I’d bet on it, too. But let’s be sure first.”
Bruno made a sign of impatience, but followed his brother, who examined the cock, studied it, meditated and
reflected, asked some questions. The poor fellow was in doubt. Bruno gazed at him with nervous anger.
“But don’t you see that wide scale he has by the side of his spur? Don’t you see those feet? What more do you
want? Look at those legs, spread out his wings! And this split scale above this wide one, and this double one?”
Tarsilo did not hear him, but went on examining the cock. The clinking of gold and silver came to his ears. “Now let’s
look at the bulik,” he said in a thick voice.
Bruno stamped on the ground and gnashed his teeth, but obeyed. They approached another group where a cock
was being prepared for the ring. A gaff was selected, red [364]silk thread for tying it on was waxed and rubbed thoroughly.
Tarsilo took in the creature with a gloomily impressive gaze, as if he were not looking at the bird so much as at something in
the future. He rubbed his hand across his forehead and said to his brother in a stifled voice, “Are you ready?”
“I? Long ago! Without looking at them!”
“But, our poor sister—”
“Abá! Haven’t they told you that Don Crisostomo is the leader? Didn’t you see him walking with the Captain-General?
What risk do we run?”
“And if we get killed?”
“What’s the difference? Our father was flogged to death!”
“You’re right!”
The brothers now sought for Lucas in the different groups. As soon as they saw him Tarsilo stopped. “No! Let’s get
out of here! We’re going to ruin ourselves!” he exclaimed.
“Go on if you want to! I’m going to accept!”
“Bruno!”
Unfortunately, a man approached them, saying, “Are you betting? I’m for the bulik!” The brothers did not answer.
“I’ll give odds!”
“How much?” asked Bruno.
The man began to count out his pesos. Bruno watched him breathlessly.
“I have two hundred. Fifty to forty!”
“No,” said Bruno resolutely. “Put—”
“All right! Fifty to thirty!”
“Double it if you want to.”
“All right. The bulik belongs to my protector and I’ve just won. A hundred to sixty!”
“Taken! Wait till I get the money.”
“But I’ll hold the stakes,” said the other, not confiding much in Bruno’s looks.
[365]“It’s all the same to me,” answered the latter, trusting to his fists. Then turning to his brother he added, “Even
if you do keep out, I’m going in.”
Tarsilo reflected: he loved his brother and liked the sport, and, unable to desert him, he murmured, “Let it go.”
They made their way to Lucas, who, on seeing them approach, smiled.
“Sir!” called Tarsilo.
“What’s up?”
“How much will you give us?” asked the two brothers together.
“I’ve already told you. If you will undertake to get others for the purpose of making a surprise-attack on the barracks,
I’ll give each of you thirty pesos and ten pesos for each companion you bring. If all goes well, each one will receive a hundred
pesos and you double that amount. Don Crisostomo is rich.”
“Accepted!” exclaimed Bruno. “Let’s have the money.”
“I knew you were brave, as your father was! Come, so that those fellows who killed him may not overhear us,” said
Lucas, indicating the civil-guards.
Taking them into a corner, he explained to them while he was counting out the money, “Tomorrow Don Crisostomo
will get back with the arms. Day after tomorrow, about eight o’clock at night, go to the cemetery and I’ll let you know the final
arrangements. You have time to look for companions.”
 After they had left him the two brothers seemed to have changed parts—Tarsilo was calm, while Bruno was
uneasy.[366]

1Lásak, talisain, and bulik are some of the numerous terms used in the vernacular to describe fighting-cocks.—TR.
2Another form of the corruption of compadre, “friend,” “neighbor.”—TR.
3It is a superstition of the cockpit that the color of the victor in the first bout decides the winners for that session: thus, the red having won,
the lásak, in whose plumage a red color predominates, should be the victor in the succeeding bout.—TR.

Chapter XLVII
The Two Señoras

While Capitan Tiago was gambling on his lásak, Doña Victorina was taking a walk through the town for the purpose
of observing how the indolent Indians kept their houses and fields. She was dressed as elegantly as possible with all her
ribbons and flowers over her silk gown, in order to impress the provincials and make them realize what a distance intervened
between them and her sacred person. Giving her arm to her lame husband, she strutted along the streets amid the wonder
and stupefaction of the natives. Her cousin Linares had remained in the house.
“What ugly shacks these Indians have!” she began with a grimace. “I don’t see how they can live in them—one must
have to be an Indian! And how rude they are and how proud! They don’t take off their hats when they meet us! Hit them over
the head as the curates and the officers of the Civil Guard do—teach them politeness!”
“And if they hit me back?” asked Dr. De Espadaña.
“That’s what you’re a man for!”
“B-but, I’m l-lame!”
Doña Victorina was falling into a bad humor. The streets were unpaved and the train of her gown was covered with
dust. Besides, they had met a number of young women, who, in passing them, had dropped their eyes and had not admired
her rich costume as they should have done. Sinang’s cochero, who was driving Sinang and her cousin in an elegant carriage,
had the impudence to yell “Tabi!” in such a commanding tone that she had to jump out of the way, and could only protest:
“Look at that [367]brute of a cochero! I’m going to tell his master to train his servants better.”
“Let’s go back to the house,” she commanded to her husband, who, fearing a storm, wheeled on his crutch in
obedience to her mandate.
They met and exchanged greetings with the alferez. This increased Doña Victorina’s ill humor, for the officer not
only did not proffer any compliment on her costume, but even seemed to stare at it in a mocking way.
“You ought not to shake hands with a mere alferez,” she said to her husband as the soldier left them. “He scarcely
touched his helmet while you took off your hat. You don’t know how to maintain your rank!”
“He’s the b-boss here!”
“What do we care for that? We are Indians, perhaps?”
“You’re right,” he assented, not caring to quarrel. They passed in front of the officer’s dwelling. Doña Consolacion
was at the window, as usual, dressed in flannel and smoking her cigar. As the house was low, the two señoras measured one
another with looks; Doña Victorina stared while the Muse of the Civil Guard examined her from head to foot, and then, sticking
out her lower lip, turned her head away and spat on the ground. This used up the last of Doña Victorina’s patience. Leaving
her husband without support, she planted herself in front of the alfereza, trembling with anger from head to foot and unable to
speak. Doña Consolacion slowly turned her head, calmly looked her over again, and once more spat, this time with greater
disdain.
“What’s the matter with you, Doña?” she asked.
“Can you tell me, señora, why you look at me so? Are you envious?” Doña Victorina was at length able to articulate.
“I, envious of you, I, of you?” drawled the Muse. “Yes, I envy you those frizzes!”
“Come, woman!” pleaded the doctor. “D-don’t t-take any n-notice!”
[368]“Let me teach this shameless slattern a lesson,” replied his wife, giving him such a shove that he nearly kissed
the ground. Then she again turned to Doña Consolacion.
“Remember who you’re dealing with!” she exclaimed. “Don’t think that I’m a provincial or a soldier’s querida! In my
house in Manila the alfereces don’t eater, they wait at the door.”
“Oho, Excelentísima Señora! Alfereces don’t enter, but cripples do—like that one—ha, ha, ha!”
Had it not been for the rouge, Doña Victorian would have been seen to blush. She tried to get to her antagonist, but
the sentinel stopped her. In the meantime the street was filling up with a curious crowd.
“Listen, I lower myself talking to you—people of quality—Don’t you want to wash my clothes? I’ll pay you well! Do
you think that I don’t know that you were a washerwoman?”
Doña Consolacion straightened up furiously; the remark about washing hurt her. “Do you think that we don’t know
who you are and what class of people you belong with? Get out, my husband has already told me! Señora, I at least have
never belonged to more than one, but you? One must be dying of hunger to take the leavings, the mop of the whole world!”
 This shot found its mark with Doña Victorina. She rolled up her sleeves, clenched her fists, and gritted her teeth.
“Come down, old sow!” she cried. “I’m going to smash that dirty mouth of yours! Querida of a battalion, filthy hag!”
The Muse immediately disappeared from the window and was soon seen running down the stairs flourishing her
husband’s whip.
Don Tiburcio interposed himself supplicatingly, but they would have come to blows had not the alferez arrived on
the scene.
“Ladies! Don Tiburcio!”
“Train your woman better, buy her some decent clothes, [369]and if you haven’t any money left, rob the people—
that’s what you’ve got soldiers for!” yelled Doña Victorina.
“Here I am, señora! Why doesn’t your Excellency smash my mouth? You’re only tongue and spittle, Doña
Excelencia!”
“Señora!” cried the alferez furiously to Doña Victorina, “be thankful that I remember that you’re a woman or else I’d
kick you to pieces—frizzes, ribbons, and all!”
“S-señor Alferez!”
“Get out, you quack! You don’t wear the pants!”
The women brought into play words and gestures, insults and abuse, dragging out all the evil that was stored in the
recesses of their minds. Since all four talked at once and said so many things that might hurt the prestige of certain classes
by the truths that were brought to light, we forbear from recording what they said. The curious spectators, while they may not
have understood all that was said, got not a little entertainment out of the scene and hoped that the affair would come to blows.
Unfortunately for them, the curate came along and restored order.
“Señores! Señoras! What a shame! Señor Alferez!”
“What are you doing here, you hypocrite, Carlist!”
“Don Tiburcio, take your wife away! Señora, hold your tongue!”
“Say that to these robbers of the poor!”
Little by little the lexicon of epithets was exhausted, the review of shamelessness of the two couples completed, and
with threats and insults they gradually drew away from one another. Fray Salvi moved from one group to the other, giving
animation to the scene. Would that our friend the correspondent had been present!
“This very day we’ll go to Manila and see the Captain-General!” declared the raging Doña Victorina to her husband.
“You’re not a man! It’s a waste of money to buy trousers for you!”
“B-but, woman, the g-guards? I’m l-lame!”
[370]“You must challenge him for pistol or sword, or—or—” Doña Victorina stared fixedly at his false teeth.
“My d-dear, I’ve never had hold of a—”
But she did not let him finish. With a majestic sweep of her hand she snatched out his false teeth and trampled them
in the street.
Thus, he half-crying and she breathing fire, they reached the house. Linares was talking with Maria Clara, Sinang,
and Victoria, and as he had heard nothing of the quarrel, became rather uneasy at sight of his cousins. Maria Clara, lying in
an easy-chair among pillows and wraps, was greatly surprised to see the new physiognomy of her doctor.
“Cousin,” began Doña Victorina, “you must challenge the alferez right away, or—”
“Why?” asked the startled Linares.
“You challenge him right now or else I’ll tell everybody here who you are.”
“But, Doña Victorina!”
The three girls exchanged glances.
“You’ll see! The alferez has insulted us and said that you are what you are! His old hag came down with a whip and
he, this thing here, permitted the insult—a man!”
“Abá!” exclaimed Sinang, “they’re had a fight and we didn’t see it!”
“The alferez smashed the doctor’s teeth,” observed Victoria.
“This very day we go to Manila. You, you stay here to challenge him or else I’ll tell Don Santiago that all we’re told
him is a lie, I’ll tell him—”
“But, Doña Victorina, Doña Victorina,” interrupted the now pallid Linares, going up to her, “be calm, don’t call up—”
Then he added in a whisper, “Don’t be imprudent, especially just now.”
At that moment Capitan Tiago came in from the cockpit, sad and sighing; he had lost his lásak. But Doña Victorina
left him no time to grieve. In a few words but [371]with no lack of strong language she related what had happened, trying of
course to put herself in the best light possible.
“Linares is going to challenge him, do you hear? If he doesn’t, don’t let him marry your daughter, don’t you permit it!
If he hasn’t any courage, he doesn’t deserve Clarita!”
“So you’re going to marry this gentleman?” asked Sinang, but her merry eyes filled with tears. “I knew that you were
prudent but not that you were fickle.”
Pale as wax, Maria Clara partly rose and stared with frightened eyes at her father, at Doña Victorina, at Linares.
The latter blushed, Capitan Tiago dropped his eyes, while the señora went on:
 “Clarita, bear this in mind: never marry a man that doesn’t wear trousers. You expose yourself to insults, even from
the dogs!”
The girl did not answer her, but turned to her friends and said, “Help me to my room, I can’t walk alone.”
By their aid she rose, and with her waist encircled by the round arms of her friends, resting her marble-like head on
the shoulder of the beautiful Victoria, she went to her chamber.
That same night the married couple gathered their effects together and presented Capitan Tiago with a bill which
amounted to several thousand pesos. Very early the following day they left for Manila in his carriage, committing to the bashful
Linares the office of avenger.[372]

Chapter XLVIII
The Enigma

Volverán las oscuras golondrinas.1

BECQUER.
As Lucas had foretold, Ibarra arrived on the following day. His first visit was to the family of Capitan Tiago for the
purpose of seeing Maria Clara and informing her that his Grace had reconciled him with religion, and that he brought to the
curate a letter of recommendation in the handwriting of the Archbishop himself. Aunt Isabel was not a little rejoiced at this, for
she liked the young man and did not look favorably on the marriage of her niece with Linares. Capitan Tiago was not at home.
“Come in,” said the aunt in her broken Spanish. “Maria, Don Crisostomo is once more in the favor of God. The
Archbishop has discommunicated him.”
But the youth was unable to advance, the smile froze on his lips, words failed him. Standing on the balcony at the
side of Maria Clara was Linares, arranging bouquets of flowers and leaves. Roses and sampaguitas were scattered about on
the floor. Reclining in a big chair, pale, with a sad and pensive air, Maria Clara toyed with an ivory fan which was not whiter
than her shapely fingers.
At the appearance of Ibarra, Linares turned pale and Maria Clara’s cheeks flushed crimson. She tried to rise, but
strength failed her, so she dropped her eyes and let the fan fall. An embarrassed silence prevailed for a few moments. Ibarra
was then able to move forward and murmur tremblingly, “I’ve just got back and have come immediately [373]to see you. I find
you better than I had thought I should.”
The girl seemed to have been stricken dumb; she neither said anything nor raised her eyes.
Ibarra looked Linares over from head to foot with a stare which the bashful youth bore haughtily.
“Well, I see that my arrival was unexpected,” said Ibarra slowly. “Maria, pardon me that I didn’t have myself
announced. At some other time I’ll be able to make explanations to you about my conduct. We’ll still see one another surely.”
These last words were accompanied by a look at Linares. The girl raised toward him her lovely eyes, full of purity
and sadness. They were so beseeching and eloquent that Ibarra stopped in confusion.
“May I come tomorrow?”
“You know that for my part you are always welcome,” she answered faintly.
Ibarra withdrew in apparent calm, but with a tempest in his head and ice in his heart. What he had just seen and felt
was incomprehensible to him: was it doubt, dislike, or faithlessness?
“Oh, only a woman after all!” he murmured.
Taking no note of where he was going, he reached the spot where the schoolhouse was under construction. The
work was well advanced, Ñor Juan with his mile and plumb-bob coming and going among the numerous laborers. Upon
catching sight of Ibarra he ran to meet him.
“Don Crisostomo, at last you’ve come! We’ve all been waiting for you. Look at the walls, they’re already more than
a meter high and within two days they’ll be up to the height of a man. I’ve put in only the strongest and most durable woods—
molave, dungon, ipil, langil—and sent for the finest—tindalo, malatapay, pino, and narra—for the finishings. Do you want to
look at the foundations?”
The workmen saluted Ibarra respectfully, while Ñor [374]Juan made voluble explanations. “Here is the piping that I
have taken the liberty to add,” he said. “These subterranean conduits lead to a sort of cesspool, thirty yards away. It will help
fertilize the garden. There was nothing of that in the plan. Does it displease you?”
“Quite the contrary, I approve what you’ve done and congratulate you. You are a real architect. From whom did you
learn the business?”
“From myself, sir,” replied the old man modestly.
“Oh, before I forget about it—tell those who may have scruples, if perhaps there is any one who fears to speak to
me, that I’m no longer excommunicated. The Archbishop invited me to dinner.”
“Abá, sir, we don’t pay any attention to excommunications! All of us are excommunicated. Padre Damaso himself is
and yet he stays fat.”
“How’s that?”
 “It’s true, sir, for a year ago he caned the coadjutor, who is just as much a sacred person as he is. Who pays any
attention to excommunications, sir?”
Among the laborers Ibarra caught sight of Elias, who, as he saluted him along with the others, gave him to
understand by a look that he had something to say to him.
“Ñor Juan,” said Ibarra, “will you bring me your list of the laborers?”
Ñor Juan disappeared, and Ibarra approached Elias, who was by himself, lifting a heavy stone into a cart.
“If you can grant me a few hours’ conversation, sir, walk down to the shore of the lake this evening and get into my
banka.” The youth nodded, and Elias moved away.
Ñor Juan now brought the list, but Ibarra scanned it in vain; the name of Elias did not appear on it![375]

1The dark swallows will return.

Chapter XLIX
The Voice of the Hunted

As the sun was sinking below the horizon Ibarra stepped into Elias’s banka at the shore of the lake. The youth looked
out of humor.
“Pardon me, sir,” said Elias sadly, on seeing him, “that I have been so bold as to make this appointment. I wanted
to talk to you freely and so I chose this means, for here we won’t have any listeners. We can return within an hour.”
“You’re wrong, friend,” answered Ibarra with a forced smile. “You’ll have to take me to that town whose belfry we
see from here. A mischance forces me to this.”
“A mischance?”
“Yes. On my way here I met the alferez and he forced his company on me. I thought of you and remembered that
he knows you, so to get away from him I told him that I was going to that town. I’ll have to stay there all day, since he will look
for me tomorrow afternoon.”
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but you might simply have invited him to accompany you,” answered Elias
naturally.
“What about you?”
“He wouldn’t have recognized me, since the only time he ever saw me he wasn’t in a position to take careful note
of my appearance.”
“I’m in bad luck,” sighed Ibarra, thinking of Maria Clara. “What did you have to tell me?”
Elias looked about him. They were already at a distance from the shore, the sun had set, and as in these latitudes
there is scarcely any twilight, the shades were [376]lengthening, bringing into view the bright disk of the full moon.
“Sir,” replied Elias gravely, “I am the bearer of the wishes of many unfortunates.”
“Unfortunates? What do you mean?”
In a few words Elias recounted his conversation with the leader of the tulisanes, omitting the latter’s doubts and
threats. Ibarra listened attentively and was the first to break the long silence that reigned after he had finished his story.
“So they want—”
“Radical reforms in the armed forces, in the priesthood, and in the administration of justice; that is to say, they ask
for paternal treatment from the government.”
“Reforms? In what sense?”
“For example, more respect for a man’s dignity, more security for the individual, less force in the armed forces, fewer
privileges for that corps which so easily abuses what it has.”
“Elias,” answered the youth, “I don’t know who you are, but I suspect that you are not a man of the people; you think
and act so differently from others. You will understand me if I tell you that, however imperfect the condition of affairs may be
now, it would be more so if it were changed. I might be able to get the friends that I have in Madrid to talk, by paying them; I
might even be able to see the Captain-General; but neither would the former accomplish anything nor has the latter sufficient
power to introduce so many novelties. Nor would I ever take a single step in that direction, for the reason that, while I fully
understand that it is true that these corporations have their faults, they are necessary at this time. They are what is known as
a necessary evil.”
Greatly surprised, Elias raised his head and looked at him in astonishment. “Do you, then, also believe in a
necessary evil, sir?” he asked in a voice that trembled [377]slightly. “Do you believe that in order to do good it is necessary to
do evil?”
“No, I believe in it as in a violent remedy that we make use of when we wish to cure a disease. Now then, the country
is an organism suffering from a chronic malady, and in order to cure it, the government sees the necessity of employing such
means, harsh and violent if you wish, but useful and necessary.”
“He is a bad doctor, sir, who seeks only to destroy or stifle the symptoms without an effort to examine into the origin
of the malady, or, when knowing it, fears to attack it. The Civil Guard has only this purpose: the repression of crime by means
of terror and force, a purpose that it does not fulfil or accomplishes only incidentally. You must take into account the truth that
society can be severe with individuals only when it has provided them with the means necessary for their moral perfection. In
our country, where there is no society, since there is no unity between the people and the government, the latter should be
indulgent, not only because indulgence is necessary but also because the individual, abandoned and uncared for by it, has
less responsibility, for the very reason that he has received less guidance. Besides, following out your comparison, the
treatment that is applied to the ills of the country is so destructive that it is felt only in the sound parts of the organism, whose
vitality is thus weakened and made receptive of evil. Would it not be more rational to strengthen the diseased parts of the
organism and lessen the violence of the remedy a little?”
“To weaken the Civil Guard would be to endanger the security of the towns.”
“The security of the towns!” exclaimed Elias bitterly. “It will soon be fifteen years since the towns have had their Civil
Guard, and look: still we have tulisanes, still we hear that they sack towns, that they infest the highways. Robberies continue
and the perpetrators are not hunted down; crime flourishes, and the real criminal goes scot-free, [378]but not so the peaceful
inhabitant of the town. Ask any honorable citizen if he looks upon this institution as a benefit, a protection on the part of the
government, and not as an imposition, a despotism whose outrageous acts do more damage than the violent deeds of
criminals. These latter are indeed serious, but they are rare, and against them one has the right to defend himself, but against
the molestations of legal force he is not even allowed a protest, and if they are not serious they are nevertheless continued
and sanctioned. What effect does this institution produce among our people? It paralyzes communication because all are
afraid of being abused on trifling pretexts. It pays more attention to formalities than to the real nature of things, which is the
first symptom of incapacity. Because one has forgotten his cedula he must be manacled and knocked about, regardless of
the fact that he may be a decent and respectable citizen. The superiors hold it their first duty to make people salute them,
either willingly or forcibly, even in the darkness of the night, and their inferiors imitate them by mistreating and robbing the
country folk, nor are pretexts lacking to this end. Sanctity of the home does not exist; not long ago in Kalamba they entered,
by forcing their way through the windows, the house of a peaceful inhabitant to whom their chief owed money and favors.
There is no personal security; when they need to have their barracks or houses cleaned they go out and arrest any one who
does not resist them, in order to make him work the whole day. Do you care to hear more? During these holidays gambling,
which is prohibited by law, has gone on while they forcibly broke up the celebrations permitted by the authorities. You saw
what the people thought about these things; what have they got by repressing their anger and hoping for human justice? Ah,
sir, if that is what you call keeping the peace—”
“I agree with you that there are evils,” replied Ibarra, “but let us bear with those evils on account of the
benefits [379]that accompany them. This institution may be imperfect, but, believe me, by the fear that it inspires it keeps the
number of criminals from increasing.”
“Say rather that by this fear the number is increased,” corrected Elias. “Before the creation of this corps almost all
the evil-doers, with the exception of a very few, were criminals from hunger. They plundered and robbed in order to live, but
when their time of want was passed, they again left the highways clear. Sufficient to put them to flight were the poor, but brave
cuadrilleros, they who have been so calumniated by the writers about our country, who have for a right, death, for duty, fighting,
and for reward, jests. Now there are tulisanes who are such for life. A single fault, a crime inhumanly punished, resistance
against the outrages of this power, fear of atrocious tortures, east them out forever from society and condemn them to slay or
be slain. The terrorism of the Civil Guard closes against them the doors of repentance, and as outlaws they fight to defend
themselves in the mountains better than the soldiers at whom they laugh. The result is that we are unable to put an end to the
evil that we have created. Remember what the prudence of the Captain-General de la Torre1 accomplished. The amnesty
granted by him to those unhappy people has proved that in those mountains there still beat the hearts of men and that they
only wait for pardon. Terrorism is useful when the people are slaves, when the mountains afford no hiding-places, when power
places a sentinel behind every tree, and when the body of the slave contains nothing more than a stomach and intestines. But
when in desperation he fights for his life, feeling his arm strong, his heart throb, his whole being fill with hate, how can terrorism
hope to extinguish the flame to which it is only adding fuel?”
[380]“I am perplexed, Elias, to hear you talk thus, and I should almost believe that you were right had I not my own
convictions. But note this fact—and don’t be offended, for I consider you an exception—look who the men are that ask for
these reforms” nearly all criminals or on the way to be such!”
“Criminals now, or future criminals; but why are they such? Because their peace has been disturbed, their happiness
destroyed, their dearest affections wounded, and when they have asked justice for protection, they have become convinced
that they can expect it only from themselves. But you are mistaken, sir, if you think that only the criminals ask for justice. Go
from town to town, from house to house, listen to the secret sighings in the bosoms of the families, and you will be convinced
that the evils which the Civil Guard corrects are the same as, if not less than, those it causes all the time. Should we decide
from this that all the people are criminals? If so, then why defend some from the others, why not destroy them all?”
“Some error exists here which I do not see just now some fallacy in the theory to invalidate the practise, for in Spain,
the mother country, this corps is displaying, and has ever displayed, great usefulness.”
“I don’t doubt it. Perhaps there, it is better organized, the men of better grade, perhaps also Spain needs it while the
Philippines does not. Our customs, our mode of life, which are always invoked when there is a desire to deny us some right,
are entirely overlooked when the desire is to impose something upon us. And tell me, sir, why have not the other nations,
which from their nearness to Spain must be more like her than the Philippines is, adopted this institution? Is it because of this
that they still have fewer robberies on their railway trains, fewer riots, fewer murders, and fewer assassinations in their great
capitals?”
Ibarra bowed his head in deep thought, raising it after a few moments to reply: “This question, my friend, calls for
serious study. If my inquiries convince me that these [381]complaints are well founded I will write to my friends in Madrid,
since we have no representatives. Meanwhile, believe me that the government needs a corps with strength enough to make
itself respected and to enforce its authority.”
“Yes, sir, when the government is at war with the country. But for the welfare of the government itself we must not
have the people think that they are in opposition to authority. Rather, if such were true, if we prefer force to prestige, we ought
to take care to whom we grant this unlimited power, this authority. So much power in the hands of men, ignorant men filled
with passions, without moral training, of untried principles, is a weapon in the hands of a madman in a defenseless multitude.
I concede and wish to believe with you that the government needs this weapon, but then let it choose this weapon carefully,
let it select the most worthy instruments, and since it prefers to take upon itself authority, rather than have the people grant it,
at least let it be seen that it knows how to exercise it.”
Elias spoke passionately, enthusiastically, in vibrating tones; his eyes flashed. A solemn pause followed. The banka,
unimpelled by the paddle, seemed to stand still on the water. The moon shone majestically in a sapphire sky and a few lights
glimmered on the distant shore.
“What more do they ask for?” inquired Ibarra.
“Reform in the priesthood,” answered Elias in a sad and discouraged tone. “These unfortunates ask for more
protection against—”
“Against the religious orders?”
“Against their oppressors, sir.”
“Has the Philippines forgotten what she owes to those orders? Has she forgotten the immense debt of gratitude that
is due from her to those who snatched her from error to give her the true faith, to those who have protected her against the
tyrannical acts of the civil power? This is the evil result of not knowing the history of our native land!”
[382]The surprised Elias could hardly credit what he heard. “Sir,” he replied in a grave tone, “you accuse these
people of ingratitude; let me, one of the people who suffer, defend them. Favors rendered, in order to have any claims to
recognition, must be disinterested. Let us pass over its missionary work, the much-invoked Christian charity; let us brush
history aside and not ask what Spain has done with the Jewish people, who gave all Europe a Book, a Religion, and a God;
what she has done with the Arabic people, who gave her culture, who were tolerant with her religious beliefs, and who awoke
her lethargic national spirit, so nearly destroyed during the Roman and Gothic dominations. You say that she snatched us
from error and gave us the true faith: do you call faith these outward forms, do you call religion this traffic in girdles and
scapularies, truth these miracles and wonderful tales that we hear daily? Is this the law of Jesus Christ? For this it was hardly
necessary that a God should allow Himself to be crucified or that we should be obliged to show eternal gratitude. Superstition
existed long before—it was only necessary to systematize it and raise the price of its merchandise!
“You will tell me that however imperfect our religion may be at present, it is preferable to what we had before. I
believe that, too, and would agree with you in saying so, but the cost is too great, since for it we have given up our nationality,
our independence. For it we have given over to its priests our best towns, our fields, and still give up our savings by the
purchase of religious objects. An article of foreign manufacture has been introduced among us, we have paid well for it, and
we are even.
“If you mean the protection that they afforded us against the encomenderos,2 I might answer that through them
we [383]fell under the power of the encomenderos. But no, I realize that a true faith and a sincere love for humanity guided
the first missionaries to our shores; I realize the debt of gratitude we owe to those noble hearts; I know that at that time Spain
abounded in heroes of all kinds, in religious as well as in political affairs, in civil and in military life. But because the forefathers
were virtuous, should we consent to the abuses of their degenerate descendants? Because they have rendered us great
service, should we be to blame for preventing them from doing us wrong? The country does not ask for their expulsion but
only for reforms required by the changed circumstances and new needs.”
“I love our native land as well as you can, Elias; I understand something of what it desires, and I have listened with
attention to all you have said. But, after all, my friend, I believe that we are looking at things through rather impassioned eyes.
Here, less than in other parts, do I see the necessity for reforms.”
“Is it possible, sir,” asked Elias, extending his arms in a gesture of despair, “that you do not see the necessity for
reforms, you, after the misfortunes of your family?”
“Ah, I forget myself and my own troubles in the presence of the security of the Philippines, in the presence of the
interests of Spain!” interrupted Ibarra warmly. “To preserve the Philippines it is meet that the friars continue as they are. On
the union with Spain depends the welfare of our country.”
When Ibarra had ceased Elias still sat in an attitude of attention with a sad countenance and eyes that had lost their
luster. “The missionaries conquered the country, it is true,” he replied, “but do you believe that by the friars the Philippines will
be preserved?”
“Yes, by them alone. Such is the belief of all who have written about the country.”
[384]“Oh!” exclaimed Elias dejectedly, throwing the paddle clown in the banka, “I did not believe that you would have
so poor an idea of the government and of the country. Why don’t you condemn both? What would you say of the members of
a family that dwells in peace only through the intervention of an outsider: a country that is obedient because it is deceived; a
government that commands be, cause it avails itself of fraud, a government that does not know how to make itself loved or
respected for its own sake? Pardon me, sir, but I believe that our government is stupid and is working its own ruin when it
rejoices that such is the belief. I thank you for your kindness, where do you wish me to take you now?”
“No,” replied Ibarra, “let us talk; it is necessary to see who is right on such an important subject.”
“Pardon me, sir,” replied Elias, shaking his head, “but I haven’t the eloquence to convince you. Even though I have
had some education I am still an Indian, my way of life seems to you a precarious one, and my words will always seem to you
suspicious. Those who have given voice to the opposite opinion are Spaniards, and as such, even though they may speak
idly and foolishly, their tones, their titles, and their origin make their words sacred and give them such authority that I have
desisted forever from arguing against them. Moreover, when I see that you, who love your country, you, whose father sleeps
beneath these quiet waters, you, who have seen yourself attacked, insulted, and persecuted, hold such opinions in spite of all
these things, and in spite of your knowledge, I begin to doubt my own convictions and to admit the possibility that the people
may be mistaken. I’ll have to tell those unfortunates who have put their trust in men that they must place it in God and their
own strength. Again I thank you—tell me where I shall take you.”
“Elias, your bitter words touch my heart and make me also doubt. What do you want? I was not brought up among
the people, so I am perhaps ignorant of their needs. [385]I spent my childhood in the Jesuit college, I grew up in Europe, I
have been molded by books, learning only what men have been able to bring to light. What remains among the shadows,
what the writers do not tell, that I am ignorant of. Yet I love our country as you do, not only because it is the duty of every man
to love the country to which he owes his existence and to which he will no doubt owe his final rest, not only because my father
so taught me, but also because my mother was an Indian, because my fondest recollections cluster around my country, and
I love it also because to it I owe and shall ever owe my happiness!”
“And I, because to it I owe my misfortunes,” muttered Elias.
“Yes, my friend, I know that you suffer, that you are unfortunate, and that those facts make you look into the future
darkly and influence your way of thinking, so I am somewhat forearmed against your complaints. If I could understand your
motives, something of your past—”
“My misfortunes had another source. If I thought that the story of them would be of any use, I would relate it to you,
since, apart from the fact that I make no secret of it, it is quite well known to many.”
“Perhaps on hearing it I might correct my opinions. You know that I do not trust much to theories, preferring rather
to be guided by facts.”
Elias remained thoughtful for a few moments. “If that is the case, sir, I will tell you my story briefly.”[386]

1General Carlos Maria de let Torte y Nava Carrada, the first “liberal” governor of the Philippines, was Captain-General from 1869 to 1871. He
issued an amnesty to the outlaws and created the Civil Guard, largely from among those who surrendered themselves in response to it.—TR.
2After the conquest (officially designated as the “pacification”), the Spanish soldiers who had rendered faithful service were allotted districts
known as encomiendas, generally of about a thousand natives each. The encomendero was entitled to the tribute from the people in his district and was in
return supposed to protect them and provide religious instruction. The early friars alleged extortionate greed and [383n]brutal conduct on the part of
the encomenderos and made vigorous protests in the natives’ behalf.—TR.

Chapter L
Elias’s Story

“Some sixty years ago my grandfather dwelt in Manila, being employed as a bookkeeper in a Spanish commercial
house. He was then very young, was married, and had a son. One night from some unknown cause the warehouse burned
down. The fire was communicated to the dwelling of his employer and from there to many other buildings. The losses were
great, a scapegoat was sought, and the merchant accused my grandfather. In vain he protested his innocence, but he was
poor and unable to pay the great lawyers, so he was condemned to be flogged publicly and paraded through the streets of
Manila. Not so very long since they still used the infamous method of punishment which the people call the ‘caballo y
vaca,’1 and which is a thousand times more dreadful than death itself. Abandoned by all except his young wife, my grandfather
saw himself tied to a horse, followed by an unfeeling crowd, and whipped on every street-corner in the sight of men, his
brothers, and in the neighborhood of numerous temples of a God of peace. When the wretch, now forever disgraced, had
satisfied the vengeance of man with his blood, his tortures, and his cries, he had to be taken off the horse, for he had become
unconscious. Would to God that he had died! But by one of those refinements of cruelty he was given his liberty. His wife,
pregnant at the time, vainly begged from door to door for work or alms in order to care for her sick husband and their poor
son, but who would trust the wife of an incendiary and a disgraced man? The wife, then, had to become a prostitute!”
[387]Ibarra rose in his seat.
“Oh, don’t get excited! Prostitution was not now a dishonor for her or a disgrace to her husband; for them honor and
shame no longer existed. The husband recovered from his wounds and came with his wife and child to hide himself in the
mountains of this province. Here they lived several months, miserable, alone, hated and shunned by all. The wife gave birth
to a sickly child, which fortunately died. Unable to endure such misery and being less courageous than his wife, my grandfather,
in despair at seeing his sick wife deprived of all care and assistance, hanged himself. His corpse rotted in sight of the son,
who was scarcely able to care for his sick mother, and the stench from it led to their discovery. Her husband’s death was
attributed to her, for of what is the wife of a wretch, a woman who has been a prostitute besides, not believed to be capable?
If she swears, they call her a perjurer; if she weeps, they say that she is acting; and that she blasphemes when she calls on
God. Nevertheless, they had pity on her condition and waited for the birth of another child before they flogged her. You know
how the friars spread the belief that the Indians can only be managed by blows: read what Padre Gaspar de San Agustin
says!2
[388]“A woman thus condemned will curse the day on which her child is born, and this, besides prolonging her
torture, violates every maternal sentiment. Unfortunately, she brought forth a healthy child. Two months afterwards, the
sentence was executed to the great satisfaction of the men who thought that thus they were performing their duty. Not being
at peace in these mountains, she then fled with her two sons to a neighboring province, where they lived like wild beasts,
hating and hated. The elder of the two boys still remembered, even amid so much misery, the happiness of his infancy, so he
became a tulisan as soon as he found himself strong enough. Before long the bloody name of Balat spread from province to
province, a terror to the people, because in his revenge he did everything with blood and fire. The younger, who was by nature
kind-hearted, resigned himself to his shameful fate along with his mother, and they lived on what the woods afforded, clothing
themselves in the cast-off rags of travelers. She had lost her name, being known only as the convict, the prostitute, the
scourged. He was known as the son of his mother only, because the gentleness of his disposition led every one to believe
that he was not the son of the incendiary and because any doubt as to the morality of the Indians can be held reasonable.
“At last, one day the notorious Balat fell into the clutches of the authorities, who exacted of him a strict accounting
for his crimes, and of his mother for having done nothing to rear him properly. One morning the [389]younger brother went to
look for his mother, who had gone into the woods to gather mushrooms and had not returned. He found her stretched out on
the ground under a cotton-tree beside the highway, her face turned toward the sky, her eyes fixed and staring, her clenched
hands buried in the blood-stained earth. Some impulse moved him to look up in the direction toward which the eyes of the
dead woman were staring, and he saw hanging from a branch a basket and in the basket the gory head of his brother!”
“My God!” ejaculated Ibarra.
“That might have been the exclamation of my father,” continued Elias coldly. “The body of the brigand had been cut
up and the trunk buried, but his limbs were distributed and hung up in different towns. If ever you go from Kalamba to Santo
Tomas you will still see a withered lomboy-tree where one of my uncle’s legs hung rotting—nature has blasted the tree so that
it no longer grows or bears fruit. The same was done with the other limbs, but the head, as the best part of the person and the
portion most easily recognizable, was hung up in front of his mother’s hut!”
Ibarra bowed his head.
“The boy fled like one accursed,” Elias went on. “He fled from town to town by mountain and valley. When he thought
that he had reached a place where he was not known, he hired himself out as a laborer in the house of a rich man in the
province of Tayabas. His activity and the gentleness of his character gained him the good-will of all who did not know his past,
and by his thrift and economy he succeeded in accumulating a little capital. He was still young, he thought his sorrows buried
in the past, and he dreamed of a happy future. His pleasant appearance, his youth, and his somewhat unfortunate condition
won him the love of a young woman of the town, but he dared not ask for her hand from fear that his past might become
known. But love is stronger than anything else and they wandered from the straight path, so, to save the woman’s [390]honor,
he risked everything by asking for her in marriage. The records were sought and his whole past became known. The girl’s
father was rich and succeeded in having him prosecuted. He did not try to defend himself but admitted everything, and so was
sent to prison. The woman gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, who were nurtured in secret and made to believe that their
father was dead no difficult matter, since at a tender age they saw their mother die, and they gave little thought to tracing
genealogies. As our maternal grandfather was rich our childhood passed happily. My sister and I were brought up together,
loving one another as only twins can love when they have no other affections. When quite young I was sent to study in the
Jesuit College, and my sister, in order that we might not be completely separated, entered the Concordia College.3 After our
brief education was finished, since we desired only to be farmers, we returned to the town to take possession of the inheritance
left us by our grandfather. We lived happily for a time, the future smiled on us, we had many servants, our’ fields produced
abundant harvests, and my sister was about to be married to a young man whom she adored and who responded equally to
her affection.
“But in a dispute over money and by reason of my haughty disposition at that time, I alienated the good will of a
distant relative, and one day he east in my face my doubtful birth and shameful descent. I thought it all a slander and demanded
satisfaction. The tomb which covered so much rottenness was again opened and to my consternation the whole truth came
out to overwhelm me. To add to our sorrow, we had had for many years an old servant who had endured all my whims without
ever leaving [391]us, contenting himself merely with weeping and groaning at the rough jests of the other servants. I don’t
know how my relative had found it out, but the fact is that he had this old man summoned into court and made him tell the
truth: that old servant, who had clung to his beloved children, and whom I had abused many times, was my father! Our
happiness faded away, I gave up our fortune, my sister lost her betrothed, and with our father we left the town to seek refuge
elsewhere. The thought that he had contributed to our misfortunes shortened the old man’s days, but before he died I learned
from his lips the whole story of the sorrowful past.
“My sister and I were left alone. She wept a great deal, but even in the midst of such great sorrows as heaped
themselves upon us, she could not forget her love. Without complaining, without uttering a word, she saw her former
sweetheart married to another girl, but I watched her gradually sicken without being able to console her. One day she
disappeared, and it was in vain that I sought everywhere, in vain I made inquiries about her. About six months afterwards I
learned that about that time, after a flood on the lake, there had been found in some rice fields bordering on the beach at
Kalamba, the corpse of a young woman who had been either drowned or murdered, for she had had, so they said, a knife
sticking in her breast. The officials of that town published the fact in the country round about, but no one came to claim the
body, no young woman apparently had disappeared. From the description they gave me afterward of her dress, her ornaments,
the beauty of her countenance, and her abundant hair, I recognized in her my poor sister.
“Since then I have wandered from province to province. My reputation and my history are in the mouths of many.
They attribute great deeds to me, sometimes calumniating me, but I pay little attention to men, keeping ever on my way. Such
in brief is my story, a story of one of the judgments of men.”
[392]Elias fell silent as he rowed along.
“I still believe that you are not wrong,” murmured Crisostomo in a low voice, “when you say that justice should seek
to do good by rewarding virtue and educating the criminals. Only, it’s impossible, Utopian! And where could be secured so
much money, so many new employees?”
“For what, then, are the priests who proclaim their mission of peace and charity? Is it more meritorious to moisten
the head of a child with water, to give it salt to eat, than to awake in the benighted conscience of a criminal that spark which
God has granted to every man to light him to his welfare? Is it more humane to accompany a criminal to the scaffold than to
lead him along the difficult path from vice to virtue? Don’t they also pay spies, executioners, civil-guards? These things, besides
being dirty, also cost money.”
“My friend, neither you nor I, although we may wish it, can accomplish this.”
“Alone, it is true, we are nothing, but take up the cause of the people, unite yourself with the people, be not heedless
of their cries, set an example to the rest, spread the idea of what is called a fatherland!”
“What the people ask for is impossible. We must wait.”
“Wait! To wait means to suffer!”
“If I should ask for it, the powers that be would laugh at me.”
“But if the people supported you?”
“Never! I will never be the one to lead the multitude to get by force what the government does not think proper to
grant, no! If I should ever see that multitude armed I would place myself on the side of the government, for in such a mob I
should not see my countrymen. I desire the country’s welfare, therefore I would build a schoolhouse. I seek it by means of
instruction, by progressive advancement; without light there is no road.”
“Neither is there liberty without strife!” answered Elias.
[393]“The fact is that I don’t want that liberty!”
“The fact is that without liberty there is no light,” replied the pilot with warmth. “You say that you are only slightly
acquainted with your country, and I believe you. You don’t see the struggle that is preparing, you don’t see the cloud on the
horizon. The fight is beginning in the sphere of ideas, to descend later into the arena, which will be dyed with blood. I hear the
voice of God—woe unto them who would oppose it! For them History has not been written!”
Elias was transfigured; standing uncovered, with his manly face illuminated by the moon, there was something
extraordinary about him. He shook his long hair, and went on:
“Don’t you see how everything is awakening? The sleep has lasted for centuries, but one day the thunderbolt4 struck,
and in striking, infused life. Since then new tendencies are stirring our spirits, and these tendencies, today scattered, will some
day be united, guided by the God who has not failed other peoples and who will not fail us, for His cause is the cause of
liberty!”
A solemn silence followed these words, while the banka, carried along insensibly by the waves, neared the shore.
Elias was the first to break the silence. “What shall I tell those who sent me?” he asked with a change from his
former tone.
“I’ve already told you: I greatly deplore their condition, but they should wait. Evils are not remedied by other evils,
and in our misfortunes each of us has his share of blame.”
Elias did not again reply, but dropped his head and rowed along until they reached the shore, where he took leave
of Ibarra: “I thank you, sir, for the condescension you have shown me. Now, for your own good, I beg of you that in the future
you forget me and that you do not [394]recognize me again, no matter in what situation you may find me.”
So saying, he drew away in the banka, rowing toward a thicket on the shore. As he covered the long distance he
remained silent, apparently intent upon nothing but the thousands of phosphorescent diamonds that the oar caught up and
dropped back into the lake, where they disappeared mysteriously into the blue waves.
When he had reached the shadow of the thicket a man came out of it and approached the banka. “What shall I tell
the capitan?” he asked.
“Tell him that Elias, if he lives, will keep his word,” was the sad answer.
“When will you join us, then?”
“When your capitan thinks that the hour of danger has come.”
“Very well. Good-by!”
“If I don’t die first,” added Elias in a low voice.[395]
 1Horse and cow.
2Fray Gaspar de San Agustin, O.S.A., who came to the Philippines in 1668 and died in Manila in 1724, was the author of a history of the conquest,
but his chief claim to immortality comes from a letter written in 1720 on the character and habits of “the Indian inhabitants of these islands,” a letter which was
widely circulated and which has been extensively used by other writers. In it the writer with senile querulousness harped up and down the whole gamut of
abuse in describing and commenting upon the vices of the natives, very artlessly revealing the fact in many places, however, that his observations were
drawn principally from the conduct of the servants in the conventos and homes of Spaniards. To him in this letter is due the credit of giving its wide popularity
to the specious couplet:
El bejuco crece (The rattan thrives
Donde el indio nace, Where the Indian lives,)
which the holy men who delighted in quoting it took as an additional evidence of the wise dispensation of the God of Nature, rather
inconsistently [388n]overlooking its incongruity with the teachings of Him in whose name they assumed their holy office.
It seems somewhat strange that a spiritual father should have written in such terms about his charges until the fact appears that the letter was
addressed to an influential friend in Spain for use in opposition to a proposal to carry out the provisions of the Council of Trent by turning the parishes in the
islands over to the secular, and hence, native, clergy. A translation of this bilious tirade, with copious annotations showing to what a great extent it has been
used by other writers, appears in Volume XL of Blair and Robertson’s The Philippine Islands.— TR.
3The Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion Concordia, situated near Santa Ana in the suburbs of Manila, was founded in 1868 for the education
of native girls, by a pious Spanish-Filipino lady, who donated a building and grounds, besides bearing the expense of bringing out seven Sisters of Charity to
take charge of it.—TR.
4The execution of the Filipino priests Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, in 1872.—TR.

Chapter LI
Exchanges

The bashful Linares was anxious and ill at ease. He had just received from Doña Victorina a letter which ran thus:
DEER COZIN within 3 days i expec to here from you if the alferes has killed you or you him i dont want anuther day
to pass befour that broot has his punishment if that tim passes an you havent challenjed him ill tel don santiago you was never
segretary nor joked with canobas nor went on a spree with the general don arseño martinez ill tel clarita its all a humbug an
ill not give you a sent more if you challenje him i promis all you want so lets see you challenje him i warn you there must be
no excuses nor delays yore cozin who loves you

VICTORINA DE LOS REYES DE DE ESPADAÑA

sampaloc monday 7 in the evening

The affair was serious. He was well enough acquainted with the character of Doña Victorina to know what she was
capable of. To talk to her of reason was to talk of honesty and courtesy to a revenue carbineer when he proposes to find
contraband where there is none, to plead with her would be useless, to deceive her worse—there was no way out of the
difficulty but to send the challenge.
“But how? Suppose he receives me with violence?” he soliloquized, as he paced to and fro. “Suppose I find him with
his señora? Who will be willing to be my second? The curate? Capitan Tiago? Damn the hour in which I listened to her advice!
The old toady! To oblige me to get myself tangled up, to tell lies, to make a [396]blustering fool of myself! What will the young
lady say about me? Now I’m sorry that I’ve been secretary to all the ministers!”
While the good Linares was in the midst of his soliloquy, Padre Salvi came in. The Franciscan was even thinner and
paler than usual, but his eyes gleamed with a strange light and his lips wore a peculiar smile.
“Señor Linares, all alone?” was his greeting as he made his way to the sala, through the half-opened door of which
floated the notes from a piano. Linares tried to smile.
“Where is Don Santiago?” continued the curate.
Capitan Tiago at that moment appeared, kissed the curate’s hand, and relieved him of his hat and cane, smiling all
the while like one of the blessed.
“Come, come!” exclaimed the curate, entering the sala, followed by Linares and Capitan Tiago, “I have good news
for you all. I’ve just received letters from Manila which confirm the one Señor Ibarra brought me yesterday. So, Don Santiago,
the objection is removed.”
Maria Clara, who was seated at the piano between her two friends, partly rose, but her strength failed her, and she
fell back again. Linares turned pale and looked at Capitan Tiago, who dropped his eyes.
“That young man seems to me to be very agreeable,” continued the curate. “At first I misjudged him—he’s a little
quick-tempered—but he knows so well how to atone for his faults afterwards that one can’t hold anything against him. If it
were not for Padre Damaso—”
Here the curate shot a quick glance at Maria Clara, who was listening without taking her eyes off the sheet of music,
in spite of the sly pinches of Sinang, who was thus expressing her joy—had she been alone she would have danced.
“Padre Damaso?” queried Linares.
 “Yes, Padre Damaso has said,” the curate went on, without taking his gaze from Maria Clara, “that as—being her
sponsor in baptism, he can’t permit—but, after [397]all, I believe that if Señor Ibarra begs his pardon, which I don’t doubt he’ll
do, everything will be settled.”
Maria Clara rose, made some excuse, and retired to her chamber, accompanied by Victoria.
“But if Padre Damaso doesn’t pardon him?” asked Capitan Tiago in a low voice.
“Then Maria Clara will decide. Padre Damaso is her father—spiritually. But I think they’ll reach an understanding.”
At that moment footsteps were heard and Ibarra appeared, followed by Aunt Isabel. His appearance produced varied
impressions. To his affable greeting Capitan Tiago did not know whether to laugh or to cry. He acknowledged the presence
of Linares with a profound bow. Fray Salvi arose and extended his hand so cordially that the youth could not restrain a look
of astonishment.
“Don’t be surprised,” said Fray Salvi, “for I was just now praising you.”
Ibarra thanked him and went up to Sinang, who began with her childish garrulity, “Where have you been all day?
We were all asking, where can that soul redeemed from purgatory have gone? And we all said the same thing.”
“May I know what you said?”
“No, that’s a secret, but I’ll tell you soon alone. Now tell me where you’ve been, so we can see who guessed right.”
“No, that’s also a secret, but I’ll tell you alone, if these gentlemen will excuse us.”
“Certainly, certainly, by all means!” exclaimed Padre Salvi.
Rejoicing over the prospect of learning a secret, Sinang led Crisostomo to one end of the sala.
“Tell me, little friend,” he asked, “is Maria angry with me?”
“I don’t know, but she says that it’s better for you to forget her, then she begins to cry. Capitan Tiago wants [398]her
to marry that man. So does Padre Damaso, but she doesn’t say either yes or no. This morning when we were talking about
you and I said, ‘Suppose he has gone to make love to some other girl?’ she answered, ‘Would that he had!’ and began to cry.”
Ibarra became grave. “Tell Maria that I want to talk with her alone.”
“Alone?” asked Sinang, wrinkling her eyebrows and staring at him.
“Entirely alone, no, but not with that fellow present.”
“It’s rather difficult, but don’t worry, I’ll tell her.”
“When shall I have an answer?”
“Tomorrow come to my house early. Maria doesn’t want to be left alone at all, so we stay with her. Victoria sleeps
with her one night and I the other, and tonight it’s my turn. But listen, your secret? Are you going away without telling me?”
“That’s right! I was in the town of Los Baños. I’m going to develop some coconut-groves and I’m thinking of putting
up an oil-mill. Your father will be my partner.”
“Nothing more than that? What a secret!” exclaimed Sinang aloud, in the tone of a cheated usurer. “I thought—”
“Be careful! I don’t want you to make it known!”
“Nor do I want to do it,” replied Sinang, turning up her nose. “If it were something more important, I would tell my
friends. But to buy coconuts! Coconuts! Who’s interested in coconuts?” And with extraordinary haste she ran to join her friends.
A few minutes later Ibarra, seeing that the interest of the party could only languish, took his leave. Capitan Tiago
wore a bitter-sweet look, Linares was silent and watchful, while the curate with assumed cheerfulness talked of indifferent
matters. None of the girls had reappeared.[399]

Chapter LII
The Cards of the Dead and the Shadows

The moon was hidden in a cloudy sky while a cold wind, precursor of the approaching December, swept the dry
leaves and dust about in the narrow pathway leading to the cemetery. Three shadowy forms were conversing in low tones
under the arch of the gateway.
“Have you spoken to Elias?” asked a voice.
“No, you know how reserved and circumspect he is. But he ought to be one of us. Don Crisostomo saved his life.”
“That’s why I joined,” said the first voice. “Don Crisostomo had my wife cured in the house of a doctor in Manila. I’ll
look after the convento to settle some old scores with the curate.”
“And we’ll take care of the barracks to show the civil-guards that our father had sons.”
“How many of us will there be?”
“Five, and five will be enough. Don Crisostomo’s servant, though, says there’ll be twenty of us.”
“What if you don’t succeed?”
“Hist!” exclaimed one of the shadows, and all fell silent.
In the semi-obscurity a shadowy figure was seen to approach, sneaking along by the fence. From time to time it
stopped as if to look back. Nor was reason for this movement lacking, since some twenty paces behind it came another figure,
larger and apparently darker than the first, but so lightly did it touch the ground that it vanished as rapidly as though the earth
had swallowed it every time the first shadow paused and turned.
[400]“They’re following me,” muttered the first figure. “Can it be the civil-guards? Did the senior sacristan lie?”
 “They said that they would meet here,” thought the second shadow. “Some mischief must be on foot when the two
brothers conceal it from me.”
At length the first shadow reached the gateway of the cemetery. The three who were already there stepped forward.
“Is that you?”
“Is that you?”
“We must scatter, for they’ve followed me. Tomorrow you’ll get the arms and tomorrow night is the time. The cry is,
‘Viva Don Crisostomo!’ Go!”
The three shadows disappeared behind the stone walls. The later arrival hid in the hollow of the gateway and waited
silently. “Let’s see who’s following me,” he thought.
The second shadow came up very cautiously and paused as if to look about him. “I’m late,” he muttered, “but perhaps
they will return.”
A thin fine rain, which threatened to last, began to fall, so it occurred to him to take refuge under the gateway.
Naturally, he ran against the other.
“Ah! Who are you?” asked the latest arrival in a rough tone.
“Who are you?” returned the other calmly, after which there followed a moment’s pause as each tried to recognize
the other’s voice and to make out his features.
“What are you waiting here for?” asked he of the rough voice.
“For the clock to strike eight so that I can play cards with the dead. I want to win something tonight,” answered the
other in a natural tone. “And you, what have you come for?”
“For—for the same purpose.”
“Abá! I’m glad of that, I’ll not be alone. I’ve [401]brought cards. At the first stroke of the bell I’ll make the lay, at the
second I’ll deal. The cards that move are the cards of the dead and we’ll have to cut for them. Have you brought cards?”
“No.”
“Then how—”
“It’s simple enough—just as you’re going to deal for them, so I expect them to play for me.”
“But what if the dead don’t play?”
“What can we do? Gambling hasn’t yet been made compulsory among the dead.”
A short silence ensued.
“Are you armed? How are you going to fight with the dead?”
“With my fists,” answered the larger of the two.
“Oh, the devil! Now I remember—the dead won’t bet when there’s more than one living person, and there are two
of us.”
“Is that right? Well, I don’t want to leave.”
“Nor I. I’m short of money,” answered the smaller. “But let’s do this: let’s play for it, the one who loses to leave.”
“All right,” agreed the other, rather ungraciously. “Then let’s get inside. Have you any matches?” They went in to
seek in the semi-obscurity for a suitable place and soon found a niche in which they could sit. The shorter took some cards
from his salakot, while the other struck a match, in the light from which they stared at each other, but, from the expressions
on their faces, apparently without recognition. Nevertheless, we can recognize in the taller and deep-voiced one Elias and in
the shorter one, from the scar on his cheek, Lucas.
“Cut!” called Lucas, still staring at the other. He pushed aside some bones that were in the niche and dealt an ace
and a jack.
Elias lighted match after match. “On the jack!” he [402]said, and to indicate the card placed a vertebra on top of it.
“Play!” called Lucas, as he dealt an ace with the fourth or fifth card. “You’ve lost,” he added. “Now leave me alone
so that I can try to make a raise.”
Elias moved away without a word and was soon swallowed up in the darkness.
Several minutes later the church-clock struck eight and the bell announced the hour of the souls, but Lucas invited
no one to play nor did he call on the dead, as the superstition directs; instead, he took off his hat and muttered a few prayers,
crossing and recrossing himself with the same fervor with which, at that same moment, the leader of the Brotherhood of the
Holy Rosary was going through a similar performance.
Throughout the night a drizzling rain continued to fall. By nine o’clock the streets were dark and solitary. The coconut-
oil lanterns, which the inhabitants were required to hang out, scarcely illuminated a small circle around each, seeming to be
lighted only to render the darkness more apparent. Two civil-guards paced back and forth in the street near the church.
“It’s cold!” said one in Tagalog with a Visayan accent. “We haven’t caught any sacristan, so there is no one to repair
the alferez’s chicken-coop. They’re all scared out by the death of that other one. This makes me tired.”
“Me, too,” answered the other. “No one commits robbery, no one raises a disturbance, but, thank God, they say that
Elias is in town. The alferez says that whoever catches him will be exempt from floggings for three months.”
“Aha! Do you remember his description?” asked the Visayan.
“I should say so! Height: tall, according to the alferez, medium, according to Padre Damaso; color, brown; eyes,
black; nose, ordinary; beard, none; hair, black.”
“Aha! But special marks?”
 “Black shirt, black pantaloons, wood-cutter.”
[403]“Aha, he won’t get away from me! I think I see him now.”
“I wouldn’t mistake him for any one else, even though he might look like him.”
Thus the two soldiers continued on their round.
By the light of the lanterns we may again see two shadowy figures moving cautiously along, one behind the other.
An energetic “Quién vive?” stops both, and the first answers, “España!” in a trembling voice.
The soldiers seize him and hustle him toward a lantern to examine him. It is Lucas, but the soldiers seem to be in
doubt, questioning each other with their eyes.
“The alferez didn’t say that he had a scar,” whispered the Visayan. “Where you going?”
“To order a mass for tomorrow.”
“Haven’t you seen Elias?”
“I don’t know him, sir,” answered Lucas.
“I didn’t ask you if you know him, you fool! Neither do we know him. I’m asking you if you’ve seen him.”
“No, sir.”
“Listen, I’ll describe him: Height, sometimes tall, sometimes medium; hair and eyes, black; all the other features,
ordinary,” recited the Visayan. “Now do you know him?”
“No, sir,” replied Lucas stupidly.
“Then get away from here! Brute! Dolt!” And they gave him a shove.
“Do you know why Elias is tall to the alferez and of medium height to the curate?” asked the Tagalog thoughtfully.
“No,” answered the Visayan.
“Because the alferez was down in the mudhole when he saw him and the curate was on foot.”
“That’s right!” exclaimed the Visayan. “You’re talented—blow is it that you’re a civil-guard?”
“I wasn’t always one; I was a smuggler,” answered the Tagalog with a touch of pride.
[404]But another shadowy figure diverted their attention. They challenged this one also and took the man to the
light.
This time it was the real Elias.
“Where you going?”
“To look for a man, sir, who beat and threatened my brother. He has a scar on his face and is called Elias.”
“Aha!” exclaimed the two guards, gazing at each other in astonishment, as they started on the run toward the church,
where Lucas had disappeared a few moments before.[405]

Chapter LIII
Il Buon Dí Si Conosce Da Mattina1

Early the next morning the report spread through the town that many lights had been seen in the cemetery on the
previous night. The leader of the Venerable Tertiary Order spoke of lighted candles, of their shape and size, and, although he
could not fix the exact number, had counted more than twenty. Sister Sipa, of the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary, could not
bear the thought that a member of a rival order should alone boast of having seen this divine marvel, so she, even though she
did not live near the place, had heard cries and groans, and even thought she recognized by their voices certain persons with
whom she, in other times,—but out of Christian charity she not only forgave them but prayed for them and would keep their
names secret, for all of which she was declared on the spot to be a saint. Sister Rufa was not so keen of hearing, but she
could not suffer that Sister Sipa had heard so much and she nothing, so she related a dream in which there had appeared
before her many souls—not only of the dead but even of the living—souls in torment who begged for a part of those
indulgences of hers which were so carefully recorded and treasured. She could furnish names to the families interested and
only asked for a few alms to succor the Pope in his needs. A little fellow, a herder, who dared to assert that he had seen
nothing more than one light and two men in salakots had difficulty in escaping with mere slaps and scoldings. Vainly he swore
to it; there were his carabaos with him and could verify his statement. “Do you pretend to know more than the [406]Warden
and the Sisters, paracmason,2 heretic?” he was asked amid angry looks. The curate went up into the pulpit and preached
about purgatory so fervently that the pesos again flowed forth from their hiding-places to pay for masses.
But let us leave the suffering souls and listen to the conversation between Don Filipo and old Tasio in the lonely
home of the latter. The Sage, or Lunatic, was sick, having been for days unable to leave his bed, prostrated by a malady that
was rapidly growing worse.
“Really, I don’t know whether to congratulate you or not that your resignation has been accepted. Formerly, when
the gobernadorcillo so shamelessly disregarded the will of the majority, it was right for you to tender it, but now that you are
engaged in a contest with the Civil Guard it’s not quite proper. In time of war you ought to remain at your post.”
“Yes, but not when the general sells himself,” answered Don Filipo. “You know that on the following morning the
gobernadorcillo liberated the soldiers that I had succeeded in arresting and refused to take any further action. Without the
consent of my superior officer I could do nothing.”
 “You alone, nothing; but with the rest, much. You should have taken advantage of this opportunity to set an example
to the other towns. Above the ridiculous authority of the gobernadorcillo are the rights of the people. It was the beginning of a
good lesson and you have neglected it.”
“But what could I have done against the representative of the interests? Here you have Señor Ibarra, he has bowed
before the beliefs of the crowd. Do you think that he believes in excommunications?”
“You are not in the same fix. Señor Ibarra is trying to sow the good seed, and to do so he must bend himself and
make what use he can of the material at hand. Your [407]mission was to stir things up, and for that purpose initiative and force
are required. Besides, the fight should not be considered as merely against the gobernadorcillo. The principle ought to be,
against him who makes wrong use of his authority, against him who disturbs the public peace, against him who fails in his
duty. You would not have been alone, for the country is not the same now that it was twenty years ago.”
“Do you think so?” asked Don Filipo.
“Don’t you feel it?” rejoined the old man, sitting up in his bed. “Ah, that is because you haven’t seen the past, you
haven’t studied the effect of European immigration, of the coming of new books, and of the movement of our youth to Europe.
Examine and compare these facts. It is true that the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas, with its most sapient
faculty, still exists and that some intelligences are yet exercised in formulating distinctions and in penetrating the subtleties of
scholasticism; but where will you now find the metaphysical youth of our days, with their archaic education, who tortured their
brains and died in full pursuit of sophistries in some corner of the provinces, without ever having succeeded in understanding
the attributes of being, or solving the problem of essence and existence, those lofty concepts that made us forget what was
essential,—our own existence and our own individuality? Look at the youth of today! Full of enthusiasm at the view of a wider
horizon, they study history, mathematics, geography, literature, physical sciences, languages—all subjects that in our times
we heard mentioned with horror, as though they were heresies. The greatest free-thinker of my day declared them inferior to
the classifications of Aristotle and the laws of the syllogism. Man has at last comprehended that he is man; he has given up
analyzing his God and searching into the imperceptible, into what he has not seen; he has given up framing laws for the
phantasms of his brain; he comprehends that his heritage is the vast world, dominion over which is within [408]his reach;
weary of his useless and presumptuous toil, he lowers his head and examines what surrounds him. See how poets are now
springing up among us! The Muses of Nature are gradually opening up their treasures to us and begin to smile in
encouragement on our efforts; the experimental sciences have already borne their first-fruits; time only is lacking for their
development. The lawyers of today are being trained in the new forms of the philosophy of law, some of them begin to shine
in the midst of the shadows which surround our courts of justice, indicating a change in the course of affairs. Hear how the
youth talk, visit the centers of learning! Other names resound within the walls of the schools, there where we heard only those
of St. Thomas, Suarez, Amat, Sanchez,3 and others who were the idols of our times. In vain do the friars cry out from the
pulpits against our demoralization, as the fish-venders cry out against the cupidity of their customers, disregarding the fact
that their wares are stale and unserviceable! In vain do the conventos extend their ramifications to check the new current. The
gods are going! The roots of the tree may weaken the plants that support themselves under it, but they cannot take away life
from those other beings, which, like birds, are soaring toward the sky.”
The Sage spoke with animation, his eyes gleamed.
“Still, the new seed is small,” objected Don Filipo incredulously. “If all enter upon the progress we purchase so
dearly, it may be stifled.”
“Stifled! Who will stifle it? Man, that weak dwarf, stifle progress, the powerful child of time and action? When has he
been able to do so? Bigotry, the gibbet, the stake, by endeavoring to stifle it, have hurried it along. E pur si muove,4 said
Galileo, when the Dominicans forced him to declare that the earth does not move, and the same statement might be applied
to human progress. Some wills [409]are broken down, some individuals sacrificed, but that is of little import; progress continues
on its way, and from the blood of those who fall new and vigorous offspring is born. See, the press itself, however backward
it may wish to be, is taking a step forward. The Dominicans themselves do not escape the operation of this law, but are
imitating the Jesuits, their irreconcilable enemies. They hold fiestas in their cloisters, they erect little theaters, they compose
poems, because, as they are not devoid of intelligence in spite of believing in the fifteenth century, they realize that the Jesuits
are right, and they will still take part in the future of the younger peoples that they have reared.”
“So, according to you, the Jesuits keep up with progress?” asked Don Filipo in wonder. “Why, then, are they opposed
in Europe?”
“I will answer you like an old scholastic,” replied the Sage, lying down again and resuming his jesting expression.
“There are three ways in which one may accompany the course of progress: in front of, beside, or behind it. The first guide it,
the second suffer themselves to be carried along with it, and the last are dragged after it and to these last the Jesuits belong.
They would like to direct it, but as they see that it is strong and has other tendencies, they capitulate, preferring to follow rather
than to be crushed or left alone among the shadows by the wayside. Well now, we in the Philippines are moving along at least
three centuries behind the car of progress; we are barely beginning to emerge from the Middle Ages. Hence the Jesuits, who
are reactionary in Europe, when seen from our point of view, represent progress. To them the Philippines owes her dawning
system of instruction in the natural sciences, the soul of the nineteenth century, as she owed to the Dominicans scholasticism,
already dead in spite of Leo XIII, for there is no Pope who can revive what common sense has judged and condemned.
“But where are we getting to?” he asked with a change [410]of tone. “Ah, we were speaking of the present condition
of the Philippines. Yes, we are now entering upon a period of strife, or rather, I should say that you are, for my generation
belongs to the night, we are passing away. This strife is between the past, which seizes and strives with curses to cling to the
tottering feudal castle, and the future, whose song of triumph may be heard from afar amid the splendors of the coming dawn,
bringing the message of Good-News from other lands. Who will fall and be buried in the moldering ruins?”
The old man paused. Noticing that Don Filipo was gazing at him thoughtfully, he said with a smile, “I can almost
guess what you are thinking.”
“Really?”
“You are thinking of how easily I may be mistaken,” was the answer with a sad smile. “Today I am feverish, and I
am not infallible: homo sum et nihil humani a me alienum puto,5 said Terence, and if at any time one is allowed to dream, why
not dream pleasantly in the last hours of life? And after all, I have lived only in dreams! You are right, it is a dream! Our youths
think only of love affairs and dissipations; they expend more time and work harder to deceive and dishonor a maiden than in
thinking about the welfare of their country; our women, in order to care for the house and family of God, neglect their own: our
men are active only in vice and heroic only in shame; childhood develops amid ignorance and routine, youth lives its best
years without ideals, and a sterile manhood serves only as an example for corrupting youth. Gladly do I die! Claudite iam
rivos, pueri!”6
“Don’t you want some medicine?” asked Don Filipo in order to change the course of the conversation, which had
darkened the old man’s face.
[411]“The dying need no medicines; you who remain need them. Tell Don Crisostomo to come and see me
tomorrow, for I have some important things to say to him. In a few days I am going away. The Philippines is in darkness!”
After a few moments more of talk, Don Filipo left the sick man’s house, grave and thoughtful.[412]

1The fair day is foretold by the morn.

2Paracmason, i.e. freemason.
3Scholastic theologians.—TR.
4And yet it does move!
5I am a man and nothing that concerns humanity do I consider foreign to me.
6A portion of the closing words of Virgil’s third eclogue, equivalent here to “Let the curtain drop.”—TR.

Chapter LIV
Revelations
Quidquid latet, adparebit,
Nil inultum remanebit.1
The vesper bells are ringing, and at the holy sound all pause, drop their tasks, and uncover. The laborer returning
from the fields ceases the song with which he was pacing his carabao and murmurs a prayer, the women in the street cross
themselves and move their lips affectedly so that none may doubt their piety, a man stops caressing his game-cock and recites
the angelus to bring better luck, while inside the houses they pray aloud. Every sound but that of the Ave Maria dies away,
becomes hushed.
Nevertheless, the curate, without his hat, rushes across the street, to the scandalizing of many old women, and,
greater scandal still, directs his steps toward the house of the alferez. The devout women then think it time to cease the
movement of their lips in order to kiss the curate’s hand, but Padre Salvi takes no notice of them. This evening he finds no
pleasure in placing his bony hand on his Christian nose that he may slip it down dissemblingly (as Doña Consolacion has
observed) over the bosom of the attractive young woman who may have bent over to receive his blessing. Some important
matter must be engaging his attention when he thus forgets his own interests and those of the Church!
[413]In fact, he rushes headlong up the stairway and knocks impatiently at the alferez’s door. The latter puts in his
appearance, scowling, followed by his better half, who smiles like one of the damned.
“Ah, Padre, I was just going over to see you. That old goat of yours—”
“I have a very important matter—”
“I can’t stand for his running about and breaking down the fence. I’ll shoot him if he comes back!”
“That is, if you are alive tomorrow!” exclaimed the panting curate as he made his way toward the sala.
“What, do you think that puny doll will kill me? I’ll bust him with a kick!”
Padre Salvi stepped backward with an involuntary glance toward the alferez’s feet. “Whom are you talking about?”
he asked tremblingly.
“About whom would I talk but that simpleton who has challenged me to a duel with revolvers at a hundred paces?”
“Ah!” sighed the curate, then he added, “I’ve come to talk to you about a very urgent matter.”
“Enough of urgent matters! It’ll be like that affair of the two boys.”
Had the light been other than from coconut oil and the lamp globe not so dirty, the alferez would have noticed the
curate’s pallor.
“Now this is a serious matter, which concerns the lives of all of us,” declared Padre Salvi in a low voice.
“A serious matter?” echoed the alferez, turning pale. “Can that boy shoot straight?”
“I’m not talking about him.”
“Then, what?”
 The friar made a sign toward the door, which the alferez closed in his own way—with a kick, for he had found his
hands superfluous and had lost nothing by ceasing to be bimanous.
[414]A curse and a roar sounded outside. “Brute, you’ve split my forehead open!” yelled his wife.
“Now, unburden yourself,” he said calmly to the curate.
The latter stared at him for a space, then asked in the nasal, droning voice of the preacher, “Didn’t you see me
come—running?”
“Sure! I thought you’d lost something.”
“Well, now,” continued the curate, without heeding the alferez’s rudeness, “when I fail thus in my duty, it’s because
there are grave reasons.”
“Well, what else?” asked the other, tapping the floor with his foot.
“Be calm!”
“Then why did you come in such a hurry?”
The curate drew nearer to him and asked mysteriously, “Haven’t—you—heard—anything?”
The alferez shrugged his shoulders.
“You admit that you know absolutely nothing?”
“Do you want to talk about Elias, who put away your senior sacristan last night?” was the retort.
“No, I’m not talking about those matters,” answered the curate ill-naturedly. “I’m talking about a great danger.”
“Well, damn it, out with it!”
“Come,” said the friar slowly and disdainfully, “you see once more how important we ecclesiastics are. The meanest
lay brother is worth as much as a regiment, while a curate—”
Then he added in a low and mysterious tone, “I’ve discovered a big conspiracy!”
The alferez started up and gazed in astonishment at the friar.
“A terrible and well-organized plot, which will be carried out this very night.”
“This very night!” exclaimed the alferez, pushing the curate aside and running to his revolver and sword hanging on
the wall.
[415]“Who’ll I arrest? Who’ll I arrest?” he cried.
“Calm yourself! There is still time, thanks to the promptness with which I have acted. We have till eight o’clock.”
“I’ll shoot all of them!”
“Listen! This afternoon a woman whose name I can’t reveal (it’s a secret of the confessional) came to me and told
everything. At eight o’clock they will seize the barracks by surprise, plunder the convento, capture the police boat, and murder
all of us Spaniards.”
The alferez was stupefied.
“The woman did not tell me any more than this,” added the curate.
“She didn’t tell any more? Then I’ll arrest her!”
“I can’t consent to that. The bar of penitence is the throne of the God of mercies.”
“There’s neither God nor mercies that amount to anything! I’ll arrest her!”
“You’re losing your head! What you must do is to get yourself ready. Muster your soldiers quietly and put them in
ambush, send me four guards for the convento, and notify the men in charge of the boat.”
“The boat isn’t here. I’ll ask for help from the other sections.”
“No, for then the plotters would be warned and would not carry out their plans. What we must do is to catch them
alive and make them talk—I mean, you’ll make them talk, since I, as a priest, must not meddle in such matters. Listen, here’s
where you win crosses and stars. I ask only that you make due acknowledgment that it was I who warned you.”
“It’ll be acknowledged, Padre, it’ll be acknowledged—and perhaps you’ll get a miter!” answered the glowing alferez,
glancing at the cuffs of his uniform.
“So, you send me four guards in plain clothes, eh? Be discreet, and tonight at eight o’clock it’ll rain stars and crosses.”
[416]While all this was taking place, a man ran along the road leading to Ibarra’s house and rushed up the stairway.
“Is your master here?” the voice of Elias called to a servant.
“He’s in his study at work.”
Ibarra, to divert the impatience that he felt while waiting for the time when he could make his explanations to Maria
Clara, had set himself to work in his laboratory.
“Ah, that you, Elias?” he exclaimed. “I was thinking about you. Yesterday I forgot to ask you the name of that
Spaniard in whose house your grandfather lived.”
“Let’s not talk about me, sir—”
“Look,” continued Ibarra, not noticing the youth’s agitation, while he placed a piece of bamboo over a flame, “I’ve
made a great discovery. This bamboo is incombustible.”
“It’s not a question of bamboo now, sir, it’s a question of your collecting your papers and fleeing at this very moment.”
Ibarra glanced at him in surprise and, on seeing the gravity of his countenance, dropped the object that he held in
his hands.
“Burn everything that may compromise you and within an hour put yourself in a place of safety.”
“Why?” Ibarra was at length able to ask.
 “Put all your valuables in a safe place—”
“Why?”
“Burn every letter written by you or to you—the most innocent thing may be wrongly construed—”
“But why all this?”
“Why! Because I’ve just discovered a plot that is to be attributed to you in order to ruin you.”
“A plot? Who is forming it?”
“I haven’t been able to discover the author of it, but just a moment ago I talked with one of the poor dupes who are
paid to carry it out, and I wasn’t able to dissuade him.”
[417]“But he—didn’t he tell you who is paying him?”
“Yes! Under a pledge of secrecy he said that it was you.”
“My God!” exclaimed the terrified Ibarra.
“There’s no doubt of it, sir. Don’t lose any time, for the plot will probably be carried out this very night.”
Ibarra, with his hands on his head and his eyes staring unnaturally, seemed not to hear him.
“The blow cannot be averted,” continued Elias. “I’ve come late, I don’t know who the leaders are. Save yourself, sir,
save yourself for your country’s sake!”
“Whither shall I flee? She expects me tonight!” exclaimed Ibarra, thinking of Maria Clara.
“To any town whatsoever, to Manila, to the house of some official, but anywhere so that they may not say that you
are directing this movement.”
“Suppose that I myself report the plot?”
“You an informer!” exclaimed Elias, stepping back and staring at him. “You would appear as a traitor and coward in
the eyes of the plotters and faint-hearted in the eyes of others. They would say that you planned the whole thing to curry favor.
They would say—”
“But what’s to be done?”
“I’ve already told you. Destroy every document that relates to your affairs, flee, and await the outcome.”
“And Maria Clara?” exclaimed the young man. “No, I’ll die first!”
Elias wrung his hands, saying, “Well then, at least parry the blow. Prepare for the time when they accuse you.”
Ibarra gazed about him in bewilderment. “Then help me. There in that writing-desk are all the letters of my family.
Select those of my father, which are perhaps the ones that may compromise me. Read the signatures.”
So the bewildered and stupefied young man opened and shut boxes, collected papers, read letters hurriedly,
tearing [418]up some and laying others aside. He took down some books and began to turn their leaves.
Elias did the same, if not so excitedly, yet with equal eagerness. But suddenly he paused, his eyes bulged, he turned
the paper in his hand over and over, then asked in a trembling voice:
“Was your family acquainted with Don Pedro Eibarramendia?”
“I should say so!” answered Ibarra, as he opened a chest and took out a bundle of papers. “He was my great-
grandfather.”
“Your great-grandfather Don Pedro Eibarramendia?” again asked Elias with changed and livid features.
“Yes,” replied Ibarra absently, “we shortened the surname; it was too long.”
“Was he a Basque?” demanded Elias, approaching him.
“Yes, a Basque—but what’s the matter?” asked Ibarra in surprise.
Clenching his fists and pressing them to his forehead, Elias glared at Crisostomo, who recoiled when he saw the
expression on the other’s face. “Do you know who Don Pedro Eibarramendia was?” he asked between his teeth. “Don Pedro
Eibarramendia was the villain who falsely accused my grandfather and caused all our misfortunes. I have sought for that name
and God has revealed it to me! Render me now an accounting for our misfortunes!”
Elias caught and shook the arm of Crisostomo, who gazed at him in terror. In a voice that was bitter and trembling
with hate, he said, “Look at me well, look at one who has suffered and you live, you live, you have wealth, a home, reputation—
you live, you live!”
Beside himself, he ran to a small collection of arms and snatched up a dagger. But scarcely had he done so when
he let it fall again and stared like a madman at the motionless Ibarra.
“What was I about to do?” he muttered, fleeing from the house.[419]

1“Whatever is hidden will be revealed, nothing will remain unaccounted for.” From Dies Irae, the hymn in the mass for the dead, best known to
English readers from the paraphrase of it in Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel. The lines here quoted were thus metrically translated by Macaulay:
“What was distant shall be near,
What was hidden shall be clear.”—TR.

Chapter LV
The Catastrophe

There in the dining-room Capitan Tiago, Linares, and Aunt Isabel were at supper, so that even in the sala the rattling
of plates and dishes was plainly heard. Maria Clara had said that she was not hungry and had seated herself at the piano in
company with the merry Sinang, who was murmuring mysterious words into her ear. Meanwhile Padre Salvi paced nervously
back and forth in the room.
It was not, indeed, that the convalescent was not hungry, no; but she was expecting the arrival of a certain person
and was taking advantage of this moment when her Argus was not present, Linares’ supper-hour.
“You’ll see how that specter will stay till eight,” murmured Sinang, indicating the curate. “And at eight he will come.
The curate’s in love with Linares.”
Maria Clara gazed in consternation at her friend, who went on heedlessly with her terrible chatter: “Oh, I know why
he doesn’t go, in spite of my hints—he doesn’t want to burn up oil in the convento! Don’t you know that since you’ve been sick
the two lamps that he used to keep lighted he has had put out? But look how he stares, and what a face!”
At that moment a clock in the house struck eight. The curate shuddered and sat down in a corner.
“Here he comes!” exclaimed Sinang, pinching Maria Clara. “Don’t you hear him?”
The church bell boomed out the hour of eight and all rose to pray. Padre Salvi offered up a prayer in a weak [420]and
trembling voice, but as each was busy with his own thoughts no one paid any attention to the priest’s agitation.
Scarcely had the prayer ceased when Ibarra appeared. The youth was in mourning not only in his attire but also in
his face, to such an extent that, on seeing him, Maria Clara arose and took a step toward him to ask what the matter was. But
at that instant the report of firearms was heard. Ibarra stopped, his eyes rolled, he lost the power of speech. The curate had
concealed himself behind a post. More shots, more reports were heard from the direction of the convento, followed by cries
and the sound of persons running. Capitan Tiago, Aunt Isabel, and Linares rushed in pell-mell, crying, “Tulisan! Tulisan!”
Andeng followed, flourishing the gridiron as she ran toward her foster-sister.
Aunt Isabel fell on her knees weeping and reciting the Kyrie eleyson; Capitan Tiago, pale and trembling, carried on
his fork a chicken-liver which he offered tearfully to the Virgin of Antipolo; Linares with his mouth full of food was armed with
a case-knife; Sinang and Maria Clara were in each other’s arms; while the only one that remained motionless, as if petrified,
was Crisostomo, whose paleness was indescribable.
The cries and sound of blows continued, windows were closed noisily, the report of a gun was heard from time to
time.
“Christie eleyson! Santiago, let the prophecy be fulfilled! Shut the windows!” groaned Aunt Isabel.
“Fifty big bombs and two thanksgiving masses!” responded Capitan Tiago. “Ora pro nobis!”
Gradually there prevailed a heavy silence which was soon broken by the voice of the alferez, calling as he ran:
“Padre, Padre Salvi, come here!”
“Miserere! The alferez is calling for confession,” cried Aunt Isabel. “The alferez is wounded?” asked Linares
hastily. [421]“Ah!!!” Only then did he notice that he had not yet swallowed what he had in his mouth.
“Padre, come here! There’s nothing more to fear!” the alferez continued to call out.
The pallid Fray Salvi at last concluded to venture out from his hiding-place, and went down the stairs.
“The outlaws have killed the alferez! Maria, Sinang, go into your room and fasten the door! Kyrie eleyson!”
Ibarra also turned toward the stairway, in spite of Aunt Isabel’s cries: “Don’t go out, you haven’t been shriven, don’t
go out!” The good old lady had been a particular friend of his mother’s.
But Ibarra left the house. Everything seemed to reel around him, the ground was unstable. His ears buzzed, his legs
moved heavily and irregularly. Waves of blood, lights and shadows chased one another before his eyes, and in spite of the
bright moonlight he stumbled over the stones and blocks of wood in the vacant and deserted street.
Near the barracks he saw soldiers, with bayonets fixed, who were talking among themselves so excitedly that he
passed them unnoticed. In the town hall were to be heard blows, cries, and curses, with the voice of the alferez dominating
everything: “To the stocks! Handcuff them! Shoot any one who moves! Sergeant, mount the guard! Today no one shall walk
about, not even God! Captain, this is no time to go to sleep!”
Ibarra hastened his steps toward home, where his servants were anxiously awaiting him. “Saddle the best horse
and go to bed!” he ordered them.
Going into his study, he hastily packed a traveling-bag, opened an iron safe, took out what money he found there
and put it into some sacks. Then he collected his jewels, took clown a portrait of Maria Clara, armed himself with a dagger
and two revolvers, and turned toward a closet where he kept his instruments.
At that moment three heavy knocks sounded on the door. “Who’s there?” asked Ibarra in a gloomy tone.
[422]“Open, in the King’s name, open at once, or we’ll break the door down,” answered an imperious voice in
Spanish.
Ibarra looked toward the window, his eyes gleamed, and he cocked his revolver. Then changing his mind, he put
the weapons down and went to open the door just as the servant appeared. Three guards instantly seized him.
“Consider yourself a prisoner in the King’s name,” said the sergeant.
“For what?”
“They’ll tell you over there. We’re forbidden to say.” The youth reflected a moment and then, perhaps not wishing
that the soldiers should discover his preparations for flight, picked up his hat, saying, “I’m at your service. I suppose that it will
only be for a few hours.”
“If you promise not to try to escape, we won’t tie you the alferez grants this favor—but if you run—”
Ibarra went with them, leaving his servants in consternation.
 Meanwhile, what had become of Elias? Leaving the house of Crisostomo, he had run like one crazed, without
heeding where he was going. He crossed the fields in violent agitation, he reached the woods; he fled from the town, from the
light—even the moon so troubled him that he plunged into the mysterious shadows of the trees. There, sometimes pausing,
sometimes moving along unfrequented paths, supporting himself on the hoary trunks or being entangled in the undergrowth,
he gazed toward the town, which, bathed in the light of the moon, spread out before him on the plain along the shore of the
lake. Birds awakened from their sleep flew about, huge bats and owls moved from branch to branch with strident cries and
gazed at him with their round eyes, but Elias neither heard nor heeded them. In his fancy he was followed by the offended
shades of his family, he saw on every branch the gruesome basket containing Balat’s gory head, as his father had described
it to him; at every tree he seemed to stumble over the [423]corpse of his grandmother; he imagined that he saw the rotting
skeleton of his dishonored grandfather swinging among the shadows—and the skeleton and the corpse and the gory head
cried after him, “Coward! Coward!”
Leaving the hill, Elias descended to the lake and ran along the shore excitedly. There at a distance in the midst of
the waters, where the moonlight seemed to form a cloud, he thought he could see a specter rise and soar the shade of his
sister with her breast bloody and her loose hair streaming about. He fell to his knees on the sand and extending his arms cried
out, “You, too!”
Then with his gaze fixed on the cloud he arose slowly and went forward into the water as if he were following some
one. He passed over the gentle slope that forms the bar and was soon far from the shore. The water rose to his waist, but he
plunged on like one fascinated, following, ever following, the ghostly charmer. Now the water covered his chest—a volley of
rifle-shots sounded, the vision disappeared, the youth returned to his senses. In the stillness of the night and the greater
density of the air the reports reached him clearly and distinctly. He stopped to reflect and found himself in the water—over the
peaceful ripples of the lake he could still make out the lights in the fishermen’s huts.
He returned to the shore and started toward the town, but for what purpose he himself knew not. The streets
appeared to be deserted, the houses were closed, and even the dogs that were wont to bark through the night had hidden
themselves in fear. The silvery light of the moon added to the sadness and loneliness.
Fearful of meeting the civil-guards, he made his way along through yards and gardens, in one of which he thought
he could discern two human figures, but he kept on his way, leaping over fences and walls, until after great labor he reached
the other end of the town and went toward Crisostomo’s house. In the doorway were the servants, lamenting their master’s
arrest.
[424]After learning about what had occurred Elias pretended to go away, but really went around behind the house,
jumped over the wall, and crawled through a window into the study where the candle that Ibarra had lighted was still burning.
He saw the books and papers and found the arms, the jewels, and the sacks of money. Reconstructing in his imagination the
scene that had taken place there and seeing so many papers that might be of a compromising nature, he decided to gather
them up, throw them from the window, and bury them.
But, on glancing toward the street, he saw two guards approaching, their bayonets and caps gleaming in the
moonlight. With them was the directorcillo. He made a sudden resolution: throwing the papers and some clothing into a heap
in the center of the room, he poured over them the oil from a lamp and set fire to the whole. He was hurriedly placing the arms
in his belt when he caught sight of the portrait of Maria Clara and hesitated a moment, then thrust it into one of the sacks and
with them in his hands leaped from the window into the garden.
It was time that he did so, too, for the guards were forcing an entrance. “Let us in to get your master’s papers!” cried
the directorcillo.
“Have you permission? If you haven’t, you won’t get in,’” answered an old man.
But the soldiers pushed him aside with the butts of their rifles and ran up the stairway, just as a thick cloud of smoke
rolled through the house and long tongues of flame shot out from the study, enveloping the doors and windows.
“Fire! Fire!” was the cry, as each rushed to save what he could. But the blaze had reached the little laboratory and
caught the inflammable materials there, so the guards had to retire. The flames roared about, licking up everything in their
way and cutting off the passages. Vainly was water brought from the well and cries for help [425]raised, for the house was set
apart from the rest. The fire swept through all the rooms and sent toward the sky thick spirals of smoke. Soon the whole
structure was at the mercy of the flames, fanned now by the wind, which in the heat grew stronger. Some few rustics came
up, but only to gaze on this great bonfire, the end of that old building which had been so long respected by the elements.[426]

Chapter LVI
Rumors and Beliefs

Day dawned at last for the terrified town. The streets near the barracks and the town hail were still deserted and
solitary, the houses showed no signs of life. Nevertheless, the wooden panel of a window was pushed back noisily and a
child’s head was stretched out and turned from side to side, gazing about in all directions. At once, however, a smack indicated
the contact of tanned hide with the soft human article, so the child made a wry face, closed its eyes, and disappeared. The
window slammed shut.
 But an example had been set. That opening and shutting of the window had no doubt been heard on all sides, for
soon another window opened slowly and there appeared cautiously the head of a wrinkled and toothless old woman: it was
the same Sister Puté who had raised such a disturbance while Padre Damaso was preaching. Children and old women are
the representatives of curiosity in this world: the former from a wish to know things and the latter from a desire to recollect
them.
Apparently there was no one to apply a slipper to Sister Puté, for she remained gazing out into the distance with
wrinkled eyebrows. Then she rinsed out her mouth, spat noisily, and crossed herself. In the house opposite, another window
was now timidly opened to reveal Sister Rufa, she who did not wish to cheat or be cheated. They stared at each other for a
moment, smiled, made some signs, and again crossed themselves.
“Jesús, it seemed like a thanksgiving mass, regular fireworks!” commented Sister Rufa.
[427]“Since the town was sacked by Balat, I’ve never seen another night equal to it,” responded Sister Puté.
“What a lot of shots! They say that it was old Pablo’s band.”
“Tulisanes? That can’t be! They say that it was the cuadrilleros against the civil-guards. That’s why Don Filipo has
been arrested.”
“Sanctus Deus! They say that at least fourteen were killed.”
Other windows were now opened and more faces appeared to exchange greetings and make comments. In the
clear light, which promised a bright day, soldiers could be seen in the distance, coming and going confusedly like gray
silhouettes.
“There goes one more corpse!” was the exclamation from a window.
“One? I see two.”
“And I—but really, can it be you don’t know what it was?” asked a sly-featured individual.
“Oh, the cuadrilleros!”
“No, sir, it was a mutiny in the barracks!”
“What kind of mutiny? The curate against the alferez?”
“No, it was nothing of the kind,” answered the man who had asked the first question. “It was the Chinamen who have
rebelled.” With this he shut his window.
“The Chinamen!” echoed all in great astonishment. “That’s why not one of them is to be seen!” “They’ve probably
killed them all!”
“I thought they were going to do something bad. Yesterday—”
“I saw it myself. Last night—”
“What a pity!” exclaimed Sister Rufa. “To get killed just before Christmas when they bring around their presents!
They should have waited until New Year’s.”
Little by little the street awoke to life. Dogs, chickens, pigs, and doves began the movement, and these
animals [428]were soon followed by some ragged urchins who held fast to each other’s arms as they timidly approached the
barracks. Then a few old women with handkerchiefs tied about their heads and fastened under their chins appeared with thick
rosaries in their hands, pretending to be at their prayers so that the soldiers would let them pass. When it was seen that one
might walk about without being shot at, the men began to come out with assumed airs of indifference. First they limited their
steps to the neighborhood of their houses, caressing their game-cocks, then they extended their stroll, stopping from time to
time, until at last they stood in front of the town hall.
In a quarter of an hour other versions of the affair were in circulation. Ibarra with his servants had tried to kidnap
Maria Clara, and Capitan Tiago had defended her, aided by the Civil Guard. The number of killed was now not fourteen but
thirty. Capitan Tiago was wounded and would leave that very day with his family for Manila.
The arrival of two cuadrilleros carrying a human form on a covered stretcher and followed by a civil-guard produced
a great sensation. It was conjectured that they came from the convento, and, from the shape of the feet, which were dangling
over one end, some guessed who the dead man might be, some one else a little distance away told who it was; further on the
corpse was multiplied and the mystery of the Holy Trinity duplicated, later the miracle of the loaves and fishes was repeated—
and the dead were then thirty and eight.
By half-past seven, when other guards arrived from neighboring towns, the current version was clear and detailed.
“I’ve just come from the town hall, where I’ve seen Don Filipo and Don Crisostomo prisoners,” a man told Sister Puté. “I’ve
talked with one of the cuadrilleros who are on guard. Well, Bruno, the son of that fellow who was flogged to death, confessed
everything last night. As you know, Capitan Tiago is going to marry his daughter to the young Spaniard, so Don Crisostomo
in his rage [429]wanted to get revenge and tried to kill all the Spaniards, even the curate. Last night they attacked the barracks
and the convento, but fortunately, by God’s mercy, the curate was in Capitan Tiago’s house. They say that a lot of them
escaped. The civil-guards burned Don Crisostomo’s house down, and if they hadn’t arrested him first they would have burned
him also.”
“They burned the house down?”
“All the servants are under arrest. Look, you can still see the smoke from here!” answered the narrator, approaching
the window. “Those who come from there tell of many sad things.”
All looked toward the place indicated. A thin column of smoke was still slowly rising toward the sky. All made
comments, more or less pitying, more or less accusing.
 “Poor youth!” exclaimed an old man, Puté’s husband.
“Yes,” she answered, “but look how he didn’t order a mass said for the soul of his father, who undoubtedly needs it
more than others.”
“But, woman, haven’t you any pity?”
“Pity for the excommunicated? It’s a sin to take pity on the enemies of God, the curates say. Don’t you remember?
In the cemetery he walked about as if he was in a corral.”
“But a corral and the cemetery are alike,” replied the old man, “only that into the former only one kind of animal
enters.”
“Shut up!” cried Sister Puté. “You’ll still defend those whom God has clearly punished. You’ll see how they’ll arrest
you, too. You’re upholding a falling house.”
Her husband became silent before this argument.
“Yes,” continued the old lady, “after striking Padre Damaso there wasn’t anything left for him to do but to kill Padre
Salvi.”
“But you can’t deny that he was good when he was a little boy.”
[430]“Yes, he was good,” replied the old woman, “but he went to Spain. All those that go to Spain become heretics,
as the curates have said.”
“Oho!” exclaimed her husband, seeing his chance for a retort, “and the curate, and all the curates, and the
Archbishop, and the Pope, and the Virgin—aren’t they from Spain? Are they also heretics? Abá!”
Happily for Sister Puté the arrival of a maidservant running, all pale and terrified, cut short this discussion.
“A man hanged in the next garden!” she cried breathlessly.
“A man hanged?” exclaimed all in stupefaction. The women crossed themselves. No one could move from his place.
“Yes, sir,” went on the trembling servant; “I was going to pick peas—I looked into our neighbor’s garden to see if it
was—I saw a man swinging—I thought it was Teo, the servant who always gives me—I went nearer to—pick the peas, and I
saw that it wasn’t Teo, but a dead man. I ran and I ran and—”
“Let’s go see him,” said the old man, rising. “Show us the way.”
“Don’t you go!” cried Sister Puté, catching hold of his camisa. “Something will happen to you! Is he hanged? Then
the worse for him!”
“Let me see him, woman. You, Juan, go to the barracks and report it. Perhaps he’s not dead yet.”
So he proceeded to the garden with the servant, who kept behind him. The women, including even Sister Puté
herself, followed after, filled with fear and curiosity.
“There he is, sir,” said the servant, as she stopped and pointed with her finger.
The committee paused at a respectful distance and allowed the old man to go forward alone.
A human body hanging from the branch of a santol tree swung about gently in the breeze. The old man stared at it
for a time and saw that the legs and arms were [431]stiff, the clothing soiled, and the head doubled over.
“We mustn’t touch him until some officer of the law arrives,” he said aloud. “He’s already stiff, he’s been dead for
some time.”
The women gradually moved closer.
“He’s the fellow who lived in that little house there. He came here two weeks ago. Look at the scar on his face.”
“Ave Maria!” exclaimed some of the women.
“Shall we pray for his soul?” asked a young woman, after she had finished staring and examining the body.
“Fool, heretic!” scolded Sister Puté. “Don’t you know what Padre Damaso said? It’s tempting God to pray for one of
the damned. Whoever commits suicide is irrevocably damned and therefore he isn’t buried in holy ground.”
Then she added, “I knew that this man was coming to a bad end; I never could find out how he lived.”
“I saw him twice talking with the senior sacristan,” observed a young woman.
“It wouldn’t be to confess himself or to order a mass!”
Other neighbors came up until a large group surrounded the corpse, which was still swinging about. After half an
hour, an alguazil and the directorcillo arrived with two cuadrilleros, who took the body down and placed it on a stretcher.
“People are getting in a hurry to die,” remarked the directorcillo with a smile, as he took a pen from behind his ear.
He made captious inquiries, and took down the statement of the maidservant, whom he tried to confuse, now looking
at her fiercely, now threatening her, now attributing to her things that she had not said, so much so that she, thinking that she
would have to go to jail, began to cry and wound up by declaring that she wasn’t looking for peas but and she called Teo as a
witness.
While this was taking place, a rustic in a wide salakot [432]with a big bandage on his neck was examining the corpse
and the rope. The face was not more livid than the rest of the body, two scratches and two red spots were to be seen above
the noose, the strands of the rope were white and had no blood on them. The curious rustic carefully examined the camisa
and pantaloons, and noticed that they were very dusty and freshly torn in some parts. But what most caught his attention were
the seeds of amores-secos that were sticking on the camisa even up to the collar.
“What are you looking at?” the directorcillo asked him. “I was looking, sir, to see if I could recognize him,” stammered
the rustic, partly uncovering, but in such a way that his salakot fell lower.
“But haven’t you heard that it’s a certain Lucas? Were you asleep?”
 The crowd laughed, while the abashed rustic muttered a few words and moved away slowly with his head down.
“Here, where you going?” cried the old man after him.
“That’s not the way out. That’s the way to the dead man’s house.”
“The fellow’s still asleep,” remarked the directorcillo facetiously. “Better pour some water over him.”
Amid the laughter of the bystanders the rustic left the place where he had played such a ridiculous part and went
toward the church. In the sacristy he asked for the senior sacristan.
“He’s still asleep,” was the rough answer. “Don’t you know that the convento was assaulted last night?”
“Then I’ll wait till he wakes up.” This with a stupid stare at the sacristans, such as is common to persons who are
used to rough treatment.
In a corner which was still in shadow the one-eyed senior sacristan lay asleep in a big chair. His spectacles were
placed on his forehead amid long locks of hair, while his thin, squalid chest, which was bare, rose and fell regularly.
The rustic took a seat near by, as if to wait patiently, but he dropped a piece of money and started to look for
it [433]with the aid of a candle under the senior sacristan’s chair. He noticed seeds of amores-secos on the pantaloons and
on the cuffs of the sleeper’s camisa. The latter awoke, rubbed his one good eye, and began to scold the rustic with great ill-
humor.
“I wanted to order a mass, sir,” was the reply in a tone of excuse.
“The masses are already over,” said the sacristan, sweetening his tone a little at this. “If you want it for tomorrow—
is it for the souls in purgatory?”
“No, sir,” answered the rustic, handing him a peso.
Then gazing fixedly at the single eye, he added, “It’s for a person who’s going to die soon.”
Hereupon he left the sacristy. “I could have caught him last night!” he sighed, as he took off the bandage and stood
erect to recover the face and form of Elias.[434]

Chapter LVII
Vae Victis!
Mi gozo en un pozo.
Guards with forbidding mien paced to and fro in front of the door of the town hall, threatening with their rifle-butts
the bold urchins who rose on tiptoe or climbed up on one another to see through the bars.
The hall itself did not present that agreeable aspect it wore when the program of the fiesta was under discussion—
now it was gloomy and rather ominous. The civil-guards and cuadrilleros who occupied it scarcely spoke and then with few
words in low tones. At the table the directorcillo, two clerks, and several soldiers were rustling papers, while the alferez strode
from one side to the other, at times gazing fiercely toward the door: prouder Themistocles could not have appeared in the
Olympic games after the battle of Salamis. Doña Consolacion yawned in a corner, exhibiting a dirty mouth and jagged teeth,
while she fixed her cold, sinister gaze on the door of the jail, which was covered with indecent drawings. She had succeeded
in persuading her husband, whose victory had made him amiable, to let her witness the inquiry and perhaps the accompanying
tortures. The hyena smelt the carrion and licked herself, wearied by the delay.
The gobernadorcillo was very compunctious. His seat, that large chair placed under his Majesty’s portrait, was
vacant, being apparently intended for some one else. About nine o’clock the curate arrived, pale and scowling.
“Well, you haven’t kept yourself waiting!” the alferez greeted him.
[435]“I should prefer not to be present,” replied Padre Salvi in a low voice, paying no heed to the bitter tone of the
alferez. “I’m very nervous.”
“As no one else has come to fill the place, I judged that your presence—You know that they leave this afternoon.”
“Young Ibarra and the teniente-mayor?”
The alferez pointed toward the jail. “There are eight there,” he said. “Bruno died at midnight, but his statement is on
record.”
The curate saluted Doña Consolacion, who responded with a yawn, and took his seat in the big chair under his
Majesty’s portrait. “Let us begin,” he announced.
“Bring out those two who are in the stocks,” ordered the alferez in a tone that he tried to make as terrible as possible.
Then turning to the curate he added with a change of tone, “They are fastened in by skipping two holes.”
For the benefit of those who are not informed about these instruments of torture, we will say that the stocks are one
of the most harmless. The holes in which the offender’s legs are placed are a little more or less than a foot apart; by skipping
two holes, the prisoner finds himself in a rather forced position with peculiar inconvenience to his ankles and a distance of
about a yard between his lower extremities. It does not kill instantaneously, as may well be imagined.
The jailer, followed by four soldiers, pushed back the bolt and opened the door. A nauseating odor and currents of
thick, damp air escaped from the darkness within at the same time that laments and sighs were heard. A soldier struck a
match, but the flame was choked in such a foul atmosphere, and they had to wait until the air became fresher.
In the dim light of the candle several human forms became vaguely outlined: men hugging their knees or hiding their
heads between them, some lying face downward, some standing, and some turned toward the wall. A blow [436]and a creak
were heard, accompanied by curses—the stocks were opened, Doña Consolacion bent forward with the muscles of her neck
swelling and her bulging eyes fixed on the half-opened door.
A wretched figure, Tarsilo, Bruno’s brother, came out between two soldiers. On his wrists were handcuffs and his
clothing was in shreds, revealing quite a muscular body. He turned his eyes insolently on the alferez’s woman.
“This is the one who defended himself with the most courage and told his companions to run,” said the alferez to
Padre Salvi.
Behind him came another of miserable aspect, moaning and weeping like a child. He limped along exposing
pantaloons spotted with blood. “Mercy, sir, mercy! I’ll not go back into the yard,” he whimpered.
“He’s a rogue,” observed the alferez to the curate. “He tried to run, but he was wounded in the thigh. These are the
only two that we took alive.”
“What’s your name?” the alferez asked Tarsilo.
“Tarsilo Alasigan.”
“What did Don Crisostomo promise you for attacking the barracks?”
“Don Crisostomo never had anything to do with us.”
“Don’t deny it! That’s why you tried to surprise us.”
“You’re mistaken. You beat our father to death and we were avenging him, nothing more. Look for your two
associates.”
The alferez gazed at the sergeant in surprise.
“They’re over there in the gully where we threw them yesterday and where they’ll rot. Now kill me, you’ll not learn
anything more.”
General surprise and silence, broken by the alferez. “You are going to tell who your other accomplices are,” he
threatened, flourishing a rattan whip.
A smile of disdain curled the prisoner’s lips. The alferez consulted with the curate in a low tone for a few
moments, [437]then turned to the soldiers. “Take him out where the corpses are,” he commanded.
On a cart in a corner of the yard were heaped five corpses, partly covered with a filthy piece of torn matting. A soldier
walked about near them, spitting at every moment.
“Do you know them?” asked the alferez, lifting up the matting.
Tarsilo did not answer. He saw the corpse of the madwoman’s husband with two others: that of his brother, slashed
with bayonet-thrusts, and that of Lucas with the halter still around his neck. His look became somber and a sigh seemed to
escape from his breast.
“Do you know them?” he was again asked, but he still remained silent.
The air hissed and the rattan cut his shoulders. He shuddered, his muscles contracted. The blows were redoubled,
but he remained unmoved.
“Whip him until he bursts or talks!” cried the exasperated alferez.
“Talk now,” the directorcillo advised him. “They’ll kill you anyhow.”
They led him back into the hall where the other prisoner, with chattering teeth and quaking limbs, was calling upon
the saints.
“Do you know this fellow?” asked Padre Salvi.
“This is the first time that I’ve ever seen him,” replied Tarsilo with a look of pity at the other.
The alferez struck him with his fist and kicked him. “Tie him to the bench!”
Without taking off the handcuffs, which were covered with blood, they tied him to a wooden bench. The wretched
boy looked about him as if seeking something and noticed Doña Consolacion, at sight of whom he smiled sardonically. In
surprise the bystanders followed his glance and saw the señora, who was lightly gnawing at her lips.
“I’ve never seen an uglier woman!” exclaimed Tarsilo in the midst of a general silence. “I’d rather lie down [438]on
a bench as I do now than at her side as the alferez does.”
The Muse turned pale.
“You’re going to flog me to death, Señor Alferez,” he went on, “but tonight your woman will revenge me by embracing
you.”
“Gag him!” yelled the furious alferez, trembling with wrath.
Tarsilo seemed to have desired the gag, for after it was put in place his eyes gleamed with satisfaction. At a signal
from the alferez, a guard armed with a rattan whip began his gruesome task. Tarsilo’s whole body contracted, and a stifled,
prolonged cry escaped from him in spite of the piece of cloth which covered his mouth. His head drooped and his clothes
became stained with blood.
Padre Salvi, pallid and with wandering looks, arose laboriously, made a sign with his hand, and left the hall with
faltering steps. In the street he saw a young woman leaning with her shoulders against the wall, rigid, motionless, listening
attentively, staring into space, her clenched hands stretched out along the wall. The sun beat down upon her fiercely. She
seemed to be breathlessly counting those dry, dull strokes and those heartrending groans. It was Tarsilo’s sister.
Meanwhile, the scene in the hall continued. The wretched boy, overcome with pain, silently waited for his
executioners to become weary. At last the panting soldier let his arm fall, and the alferez, pale with anger and astonishment,
made a sign for them to untie him. Doña Consolacion then arose and murmured a few words into the ear of her husband, who
nodded his head in understanding.
“To the well with him!” he ordered.
The Filipinos know what this means: in Tagalog they call it timbaín. We do not know who invented this procedure,
but we judge that it must be quite ancient. Truth at the bottom of a well may perhaps be a sarcastic interpretation.
[439]In the center of the yard rose the picturesque curb of a well, roughly fashioned from living rock. A rude apparatus
of bamboo in the form of a well-sweep served for drawing up the thick, slimy, foul-smelling water. Broken pieces of pottery,
manure, and other refuse were collected there, since this well was like the jail, being the place for what society rejected or
found useless, and any object that fell into it, however good it might have been, was then a thing lost. Yet it was never closed
up, and even at times the prisoners were condemned to go down and deepen it, not because there was any thought of getting
anything useful out of such punishment, but because of the difficulties the work offered. A prisoner who once went down there
would contract a fever from which he would surely die.
Tarsilo gazed upon all the preparations of the soldiers with a fixed look. He was pale, and his lips trembled or
murmured a prayer. The haughtiness of his desperation seemed to have disappeared or, at least, to have weakened. Several
times he bent his stiff neck and fixed his gaze on the ground as though resigned to his sufferings. They led him to the well-
curb, followed by the smiling Doña Consolacion. In his misery he cast a glance of envy toward the heap of corpses and a sigh
escaped from his breast.
“Talk now,” the directorcillo again advised him. “They’ll hang you anyhow. You’ll at least die without suffering so
much.”
“You’ll come out of this only to die,” added a cuadrillero.
They took away the gag and hung him up by his feet, for he must go down head foremost and remain some time
under the water, just as the bucket does, only that the man is left a longer time. While the alferez was gone to look for a watch
to count the minutes, Tarsilo hung with his long hair streaming down and his eyes half closed.
“If you are Christians, if you have any heart,” he begged in a low voice, “let me down quickly or make my head strike
against the sides so that I’ll die. God will [440]reward you for this good deed—perhaps some day you may be as I am!”
The alferez returned, watch in hand, to superintend the lowering.
“Slowly, slowly!” cried Doña Consolacion, as she kept her gaze fixed on the wretch. “Be careful!”
The well-sweep moved gently downwards. Tarsilo rubbed against the jutting stones and filthy weeds that grew in
the crevices. Then the sweep stopped while the alferez counted the seconds.
“Lift him up!” he ordered, at the end of a half-minute. The silvery and harmonious tinkling of the drops of water falling
back indicated the prisoner’s return to the light. Now that the sweep was heavier he rose rapidly. Pieces of stone and pebbles
torn from the walls fell noisily. His forehead and hair smeared with filthy slime, his face covered with cuts and bruises, his body
wet and dripping, he appeared to the eyes of the silent crowd. The wind made him shiver with cold.
“Will you talk?” he was asked.
“Take care of my sister,” murmured the unhappy boy as he gazed beseechingly toward one of the cuadrilleros.
The bamboo sweep again creaked, and the condemned boy once more disappeared. Doña Consolacion observed
that the water remained quiet. The alferez counted a minute.
When Tarsilo again came up his features were contracted and livid. With his bloodshot eyes wide open, he looked
at the bystanders.
“Are you going to talk?” the alferez again demanded in dismay.
Tarsilo shook his head, and they again lowered him. His eyelids were closing as the pupils continued to stare at the
sky where the fleecy clouds floated; he doubled back his neck so that he might still see the light of day, but all too soon he
had to go down into the water, and that foul curtain shut out the sight of the world from him forever.
A minute passed. The watchful Muse saw large bubbles [441]rise to the surface of the water. “He’s thirsty,” she
commented with a laugh. The water again became still.
This time the alferez did not give the signal for a minute and a half. Tarsilo’s features were now no longer contracted.
The half-raised lids left the whites of his eyes showing, from his mouth poured muddy water streaked with blood, but his body
did not tremble in the chill breeze.
Pale and terrified, the silent bystanders gazed at one another. The alferez made a sign that they should take the
body down, and then moved away thoughtfully. Doña Consolation applied the lighted end of her cigar to the bare legs, but the
flesh did not twitch and the fire was extinguished.
“He strangled himself,” murmured a cuadrillero. “Look how he turned his tongue back as if trying to swallow it.”
The other prisoner, who had watched this scene, sweating and trembling, now stared like a lunatic in all directions.
The alferez ordered the directorcillo to question him.
“Sir, sir,” he groaned, “I’ll tell everything you want me to.”
“Good! Let’s see, what’s your name?”
“Andong,1 sir!”
“Bernardo—Leonardo—Ricardo—Eduardo—Gerardo—or what?”
“Andong, sir!” repeated the imbecile.
“Put it down Bernardo, or whatever it may be,” dictated the alferez.
 “Surname?”
The man gazed at him in terror.
“What name have you that is added to the name Andong?”
“Ah, sir! Andong the Witless, sir!”
The bystander’s could not restrain a smile. Even the alferez paused in his pacing about.
[442]“Occupation?”
“Pruner of coconut trees, sir, and servant of my mother-in-law.”
“Who ordered you to attack the barracks?”
“No one, sir!”
“What, no one? Don’t lie about it or into the well you go! Who ordered you? Say truly!”
“Truly, sir!”
“Who?”
“Who, sir!”
“I’m asking you who ordered you to start the revolution?”
“What revolution, sir?”
“This one, for you were in the yard by the barracks last night.”
“Ah, sir!” exclaimed Andong, blushing.
“Who’s guilty of that?”
“My mother-in-law, sir!”
Surprise and laughter followed these words. The alferez stopped and stared not unkindly at the wretch, who, thinking
that his words had produced a good effect, went on with more spirit: “Yes, sir, my mother-in-law doesn’t give me anything to
eat but what is rotten and unfit, so last night when I came by here with my belly aching I saw the yard of the barracks near and
I said to myself, ‘It’s night-time, no one will see me.’ I went in—and then many shots sounded—”
A blow from the rattan cut his speech short.
“To the jail,” ordered the alferez. “This afternoon, to the capital!”[443]

1A common nickname. See the Glossary, under Nicknames.—TR.

Chapter LVIII
The Accursed

Soon the news spread through the town that the prisoners were about to set out. At first it was heard with terror;
afterward came the weeping and wailing. The families of the prisoners ran about in distraction, going from the convento to the
barracks, from the barracks to the town hall, and finding no consolation anywhere, filled the air with cries and groans. The
curate had shut himself up on a plea of illness; the alferez had increased the guards, who received the supplicating women
with the butts of their rifles; the gobernadorcillo, at best a useless creature, seemed to be more foolish and more useless than
ever. In front of the jail the women who still had strength enough ran to and fro, while those who had not sat down on the
ground and called upon the names of their beloved.
Although the sun beat down fiercely, not one of these unfortunates thought of going away. Doray, the erstwhile
merry and happy wife of Don Filipo, wandered about dejectedly, carrying in her arms their infant son, both weeping. To the
advice of friends that she go back home to avoid exposing her baby to an attack of fever, the disconsolate woman replied,
“Why should he live, if he isn’t going to have a father to rear him?”
“Your husband is innocent. Perhaps he’ll come back.”
“Yes, after we’re all dead!”
Capitana Tinay wept and called upon her son Antonio. The courageous Capitana Maria gazed silently toward the
small grating behind which were her twin-boys, her only sons.
There was present also the mother-in-law of the pruner [444]of coco-palms, but she was not weeping; instead, she
paced back and forth, gesticulating with uplifted arms, and haranguing the crowd: “Did you ever see anything like it? To arrest
my Andong, to shoot at him, to put him in the stocks, to take him to the capital, and only because—because he had a new
pair of pantaloons! This calls for vengeance! The civil-guards are committing abuses! I swear that if I ever again catch one of
them in my garden, as has often happened, I’ll chop him up, I’ll chop him up, or else—let him try to chop me up!” Few persons,
however, joined in the protests of the Mussulmanish mother-in-law.
“Don Crisostomo is to blame for all this,” sighed a woman.
The schoolmaster was also in the crowd, wandering about bewildered. Ñor Juan did not rub his hands, nor was he
carrying his rule and plumb-bob; he was dressed in black, for he had heard the bad news and, true to his habit of looking upon
the future as already assured, was in mourning for Ibarra’s death.
At two o’clock in the afternoon an open cart drawn by two oxen stopped in front of the town hall. This was at once
set upon by the people, who attempted to unhitch the oxen and destroy it. “Don’t do that!” said Capitana Maria. “Do you want
to make them walk?” This consideration acted as a restraint on the prisoners’ relatives.
 Twenty soldiers came out and surrounded the cart; then the prisoners appeared. The first was Don Filipo, bound.
He greeted his wife smilingly, but Doray broke out into bitter weeping and two guards had difficulty in preventing her from
embracing her husband. Antonio, the son of Capitana Tinay, appeared crying like a baby, which only added to the lamentations
of his family. The witless Andong broke out into tears at sight of his mother-in-law, the cause of his misfortune. Albino, the
quondam theological student, was also bound, as were Capitana Maria’s twins. All three were grave and serious. The last to
come [445]out was Ibarra, unbound, but conducted between two guards. The pallid youth looked about him for a friendly face.
“He’s the one that’s to blame!” cried many voices. “He’s to blame and he goes loose!”
“My son-in-law hasn’t done anything and he’s got handcuffs on!” Ibarra turned to the guards. “Bind me, and bind me
well, elbow to elbow,” he said.
“We haven’t any order.”
“Bind me!” And the soldiers obeyed.
The alferez appeared on horseback, armed to the teeth, ten or fifteen more soldiers following him.
Each prisoner had his family there to pray for him, to weep for him, to bestow on him the most endearing names—
all save Ibarra, who had no one, even Ñor Juan and the schoolmaster having disappeared.
“Look what you’ve done to my husband and my son!” Doray cried to him. “Look at my poor son! You’ve robbed him
of his father!”
So the sorrow of the families was converted into anger toward the young man, who was accused of having started
the trouble. The alferez gave the order to set out.
“You’re a coward!” the mother-in-law of Andong cried after Ibarra. “While others were fighting for you, you hid
yourself, coward!”
“May you be accursed!” exclaimed an old man, running along beside him. “Accursed be the gold amassed by your
family to disturb our peace! Accursed! Accursed!”
“May they hang you, heretic!” cried a relative of Albino’s. Unable to restrain himself, he caught up a stone and threw
it at the youth.
This example was quickly followed, and a rain of dirt and stones fell on the wretched young man. Without anger or
complaint, impassively he bore the righteous vengeance of so many suffering hearts. This was the parting, the farewell, offered
to him by the people among whom were all his affections. With bowed head, he was perhaps thinking [446]of a man whipped
through the streets of Manila, of an old woman falling dead at the sight of her son’s head; perhaps Elias’s history was passing
before his eyes.
The alferez found it necessary to drive the crowd back, but the stone-throwing and the insults did not cease. One
mother alone did not wreak vengeance on him for her sorrows, Capitana Maria. Motionless, with lips contracted and eyes full
of silent tears, she saw her two sons move away; her firmness, her dumb grief surpassed that of the fabled Niobe.
So the procession moved on. Of the persons who appeared at the few open windows those who showed most pity
for the youth were the indifferent and the curious. All his friends had hidden themselves, even Capitan Basilio himself, who
forbade his daughter Sinang to weep.
Ibarra saw the smoking ruins of his house—the home of his fathers, where he was born, where clustered the fondest
recollections of his childhood and his youth. Tears long repressed started into his eyes, and he bowed his head and wept
without having the consolation of being able to hide his grief, tied as he was, nor of having any one in whom his sorrow awoke
compassion. Now he had neither country, nor home, nor love, nor friends, nor future!
From a slight elevation a man gazed upon the sad procession. He was an old man, pale and emaciated, wrapped
in a woolen blanket, supporting himself with difficulty on a staff. It was the old Sage, Tasio, who, on hearing of the event, had
left his bed to be present, but his strength had not been sufficient to carry him to the town hall. The old man followed the cart
with his gaze until it disappeared in the distance and then remained for some time afterward with his head bowed, deep in
thought. Then he stood up and laboriously made his way toward his house, pausing to rest at every step. On the following day
some herdsmen found him dead on the very threshold of his solitary home.[447]

Chapter LIX
Patriotism and Private Interests

Secretly the telegraph transmitted the report to Manila, and thirty-six hours later the newspapers commented on it
with great mystery and not a few dark hints—augmented, corrected, or mutilated by the censor. In the meantime, private
reports, emanating from the convents, were the first to gain secret currency from mouth to mouth, to the great terror of those
who heard them. The fact, distorted in a thousand ways, was believed with greater or less ease according to whether it was
flattering or worked contrary to the passions and ways of thinking of each hearer.
Without public tranquillity seeming disturbed, at least outwardly, yet the peace of mind of each home was whirled
about like the water in a pond: while the surface appears smooth and clear, in the depths the silent fishes swarm, dive about,
and chase one another. For one part of the population crosses, decorations, epaulets, offices, prestige, power, importance,
dignities began to whirl about like butterflies in a golden atmosphere. For the other part a dark cloud arose on the horizon,
projecting from its gray depths, like black silhouettes, bars, chains, and even the fateful gibbet. In the air there seemed to be
heard investigations, condemnations, and the cries from the torture chamber; Marianas1 and Bagumbayan presented
themselves wrapped in a torn and bloody veil, fishers and fished confused. Fate pictured the event to the imaginations of the
Manilans like certain Chinese fans—one side painted [448]black, the other gilded with bright-colored birds and flowers.
In the convents the greatest excitement prevailed. Carriages were harnessed, the Provincials exchanged visits and
held secret conferences; they presented themselves in the palaces to offer their aid to the government in its perilous crisis.
Again there was talk of comets and omens.
“A Te Deum! A Te Deum!” cried a friar in one convent. “This time let no one be absent from the chorus! It’s no small
mercy from God to make it clear just now, especially in these hopeless times, how much we are worth!”
“The little general Mal-Aguero2 can gnaw his lips over this lesson,” responded another.
“What would have become of him if not for the religious corporations?”
“And to celebrate the fiesta better, serve notice on the cook and the refectioner. Gaudeamus for three days!”
“Amen!” “Viva Salvi!” “Amen!”
In another convent they talked differently.
“You see, now, that fellow is a pupil of the Jesuits. The filibusters come from the Ateneo.”
“And the anti-friars.”
“I told you so. The Jesuits are ruining the country, they’re corrupting the youth, but they are tolerated because they
trace a few scrawls on a piece of paper when there is an earthquake.”
“And God knows how they are made!”
“Yes, but don’t contradict them. When everything is shaking and moving about, who draws diagrams? Nothing,
Padre Secchi—”3
[449]And they smiled with sovereign disdain.
“But what about the weather forecasts and the typhoons?” asked another ironically. “Aren’t they divine?”
“Any fisherman foretells them!”
“When he who governs is a fool—tell me how your head is and I’ll tell you how your foot is! But you’ll see if the
friends favor one another. The newspapers very nearly ask a miter for Padre Salvi.”
“He’s going to get it! He’ll lick it right up!”
“Do you think so?”
“Why not! Nowadays they grant one for anything whatsoever. I know of a fellow who got one for less. He wrote a
cheap little work demonstrating that the Indians are not capable of being anything but mechanics. Pshaw, old-fogyisms!”
“That’s right! So much favoritism injures Religion!” exclaimed another. “If the miters only had eyes and could see
what heads they were upon—”
“If the miters were natural objects,” added another in a nasal tone, “Natura abhorrer vacuum.”
“That’s why they grab for them, their emptiness attracts!” responded another.
These and many more things were said in the convents, but we will spare our reader other comments of a political,
metaphysical, or piquant nature and conduct him to a private house. As we have few acquaintances in Manila, let us enter the
home of Capitan Tinong, the polite individual whom we saw so profusely inviting Ibarra to honor him with a visit.
In the rich and spacious sala of his Tondo house, Capitan Tinong was seated in a wide armchair, rubbing his hands
in a gesture of despair over his face and the nape of his neck, while his wife, Capitana Tinchang, was weeping and preaching
to him. From the corner their two daughters listened silently and stupidly, yet greatly affected.
“Ay, Virgin of Antipolo!” cried the woman. “Ay, [450]Virgin of the Rosary and of the Girdle!4 Ay, ay! Our Lady of
Novaliches!”
“Mother!” responded the elder of the daughters.
“I told you so!” continued the wife in an accusing tone. “I told you so! Ay, Virgin of Carmen,5 ay!”
“But you didn’t tell me anything,” Capitan Tinong dared to answer tearfully. “On the contrary, you told me that I was
doing well to frequent Capitan Tiago’s house and cultivate friendship with him, because he’s rich—and you told me—”
“What! What did I tell you? I didn’t tell you that, I didn’t tell you anything! Ay, if you had only listened to me!”
“Now you’re throwing the blame on me,” he replied bitterly, slapping the arm of his chair. “Didn’t you tell me that I
had done well to invite him to dine with us, because he was wealthy? Didn’t you say that we ought to have friends only among
the wealthy? Abá!”
“It’s true that I told you so, because—because there wasn’t anything else for me to do. You did nothing but sing his
praises: Don Ibarra here, Don Ibarra there, Don Ibarra everywhere. Abaá! But I didn’t advise you to hunt him up and talk to
him at that reception! You can’t deny that!”
“Did I know that he was to be there, perhaps?”
“But you ought to have known it!”
“How so, if I didn’t even know him?”
[451]“But you ought to have known him!”
“But, Tinchang, it was the first time that I ever saw him, that I ever heard him spoken of!”
“Well then, you ought to have known him before and heard him spoken of. That’s what you’re a man for and wear
trousers and read El Diario de Manila,”6 answered his unterrified spouse, casting on him a terrible look.
 To this Capitan Tinong did not know what to reply. Capitana Tinchang, however, was not satisfied with this victory,
but wished to silence him completely. So she approached him with clenched fists. “Is this what I’ve worked for, year after year,
toiling and saving, that you by your stupidity may throw away the fruits of my labor?” she scolded. “Now they’ll come to deport
you, they’ll take away all our property, just as they did from the wife of—Oh, if I were a man, if I were a man!”
Seeing that her husband bowed his head, she again fell to sobbing, but still repeating, “Ay, if I were a man, if I were
a man!”
“Well, if you were a man,” the provoked husband at length asked, “what would you do?”
“What would I do? Well—well—well, this very minute I’d go to the Captain-General and offer to fight against the
rebels, this very minute!”
“But haven’t you seen what the Diario says? Read it: ‘The vile and infamous treason has been suppressed with
energy, strength, and vigor, and soon the rebellious enemies of the Fatherland and their accomplices will feel all the weight
and severity of the law.’ Don’t you see it? There isn’t any more rebellion.”
“That doesn’t matter! You ought to offer yourself as they did in ’72;7 they saved themselves.”
[452]“Yes, that’s what was done by Padre Burg—”
But he was unable to finish this name, for his wife ran to him and slapped her hand over his mouth. “Shut up! Are
you saying that name so that they may garrote you tomorrow on Bagumbayan? Don’t you know that to pronounce it is enough
to get yourself condemned without trial? Keep quiet!”
However Capitan Tinong may have felt about obeying her, he could hardly have done otherwise, for she had his
mouth covered with both her hands, pressing his little head against the back of the chair, so that the poor fellow might have
been smothered to death had not a new personage appeared on the scene. This was their cousin, Don Primitivo, who had
memorized the “Amat,” a man of some forty years, plump, big-paunched, and elegantly dressed.
“Quid video?” he exclaimed as he entered. “What’s happening? Quare?”8
“Ay, cousin!” cried the woman, running toward him in tears, “I’ve sent for you because I don’t know what’s going to
become of us. What do you advise? Speak, you’ve studied Latin and know how to argue.”
“But first, quid quaeritis? Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu; nihil volitum quin praecognitum.”9
He sat down gravely and, just as if the Latin phrases had possessed a soothing virtue, the couple ceased weeping
and drew nearer to him to hang upon the advice from his lips, as at one time the Greeks did before the words of salvation from
the oracle that was to free them from the Persian invaders.
“Why do you weep? Ubinam gentium sumus?”10
[453]“You’ve already heard of the uprising?”
“Alzamentum Ibarrae ab alferesio Guardiae Civilis destructum? Et nunc?11 What! Does Don Crisostomo owe you
anything?”
“No, but you know, Tinong invited him to dinner and spoke to him on the Bridge of Spain—in broad daylight! They’ll
say that he’s a friend of his!”
“A friend of his!” exclaimed the startled Latinist, rising. “Amice, amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas. Birds of a
feather flock together. Malum est negotium et est timendum rerum istarum horrendissimum resultatum!12 Ahem!”
Capitan Tinong turned deathly pale at hearing so many words in um; such a sound presaged ill. His wife clasped
her hands supplicatingly and said:
“Cousin, don’t talk to us in Latin now. You know that we’re not philosophers like you. Let’s talk in Spanish or Tagalog.
Give us some advice.”
“It’s a pity that you don’t understand Latin, cousin. Truths in Latin are lies in Tagalog; for example, contra principia
negantem fustibus est arguendum13 in Latin is a truth like Noah’s ark, but I put it into practise once and I was the one who
got whipped. So, it’s a pity that you don’t know Latin. In Latin everything would be straightened out.”
“We, too, know many oremus, parcenobis, and Agnus Dei Catolis,14 but now we shouldn’t understand one another.
Provide Tinong with an argument so that they won’t hang him!”
“You’re done wrong, very wrong, cousin, in cultivating friendship with that young man,” replied the Latinist.
[454]“The righteous suffer for the sinners. I was almost going to advise you to make your will. Vae illis! Ubi est fumus
ibi est ignis! Similis simili audet; atqui Ibarra ahorcatur, ergo ahorcaberis—”15 With this he shook his head from side to side
disgustedly.
“Saturnino, what’s the matter?” cried Capitana Tinchang in dismay. “Ay, he’s dead! A doctor! Tinong, Tinongoy!”
The two daughters ran to her, and all three fell to weeping. “It’s nothing more than a swoon, cousin! I would have
been more pleased that—that—but unfortunately it’s only a swoon. Non timeo mortem in catre sed super espaldonem
Bagumbayanis.16 Get some water!”
“Don’t die!” sobbed the wife. “Don’t die, for they’ll come and arrest you! Ay, if you die and the soldiers come, ay, ay!”
The learned cousin rubbed the victim’s face with water until he recovered consciousness. “Come, don’t cry. Inveni
remedium: I’ve found a remedy. Let’s carry him to bed. Come, take courage! Here I am with you—and all the wisdom of the
ancients. Call a doctor, and you, cousin, go right away to the Captain-General and take him a present—a gold ring, a
chain. Dadivae quebrantant peñas.17 Say that it’s a Christmas gift. Close the windows, the doors, and if any one asks for my
cousin, say that he is seriously ill. Meanwhile, I’ll burn all his letters, papers, and books, so that they can’t find anything, just
as Don Crisostomo did. Scripti testes sunt! Quod medicamenta non sanant, ferrum sanat, quod ferrum non sanat, ignis
sanat.”18
“Yes, do so, cousin, burn everything!” said Capitana [455]Tinchang. “Here are the keys, here are the letters from
Capitan Tiago. Burn them! Don’t leave a single European newspaper, for they’re very dangerous. Here are the copies of The
Times that I’ve kept for wrapping up soap and old clothes. Here are the books.”
“Go to the Captain-General, cousin,” said Don Primitivo, “and leave us alone. In extremis extrema.19 Give me the
authority of a Roman dictator, and you’ll see how soon I’ll save the coun—I mean, my cousin.”
He began to give orders and more orders, to upset bookcases, to tear up papers, books, and letters. Soon a big fire
was burning in the kitchen. Old shotguns were smashed with axes, rusty revolvers were thrown away. The maidservant who
wanted to keep the barrel of one for a blowpipe received a reprimand:
“Conservare etiam sperasti, perfida?20 Into the fire!” So he continued his auto da fé. Seeing an old volume in vellum,
he read the title, Revolutions of the Celestial Globes, by Copernicus. Whew! “Ite, maledicti, in ignem kalanis!”21 he exclaimed,
hurling it into the flames. “Revolutions and Copernicus! Crimes on crimes! If I hadn’t come in time! Liberty in the Philippines! Ta,
ta, ta! What books! Into the fire!”
Harmless books, written by simple authors, were burned; not even the most innocent work escaped. Cousin Primitivo
was right: the righteous suffer for the sinners.
Four or five hours later, at a pretentious reception in the Walled City, current events were being commented upon.
There were present a lot of old women and maidens of marriageable age, the wives and daughters of government employees,
dressed in loose gowns, fanning themselves and yawning. Among the men, who, like the women, showed in their faces their
education and origin, was an elderly gentleman, small and one-armed, whom the others treated [456]with great respect. He
himself maintained a disdainful silence.
“To tell the truth, formerly I couldn’t endure the friars and the civil-guards, they’re so rude,” said a corpulent dame,
“but now that I see their usefulness and their services, I would almost marry any one of them gladly. I’m a patriot.”
“That’s what I say!” added a thin lady. “What a pity that we haven’t our former governor. He would leave the country
as clean as a platter.”
“And the whole race of filibusters would be exterminated!”
“Don’t they say that there are still a lot of islands to be populated? Why don’t they deport all these crazy Indians to
them? If I were the Captain-General—”
“Señoras,” interrupted the one-armed individual, “the Captain-General knows his duty. As I’ve heard, he’s very much
irritated, for he had heaped favors on that Ibarra.”
“Heaped favors on him!” echoed the thin lady, fanning herself furiously. “Look how ungrateful these Indians are! Is
it possible to treat them as if they were human beings? Jesús!”
“Do you know what I’ve heard?” asked a military official.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s hear it!”
“What do they say?”
“Reputable persons,” replied the officer in the midst of a profound silence, “state that this agitation for building a
schoolhouse was a pure fairy tale.”
“Jesús! Just see that!” the señoras exclaimed, already believing in the trick.
“The school was a pretext. What he wanted to build was a fort from which he could safely defend himself when we
should come to attack him.”
“What infamy! Only an Indian is capable of such cowardly thoughts,” exclaimed the fat lady. “If I were
the [457]Captain-General they would soon seem they would soon see—”
“That’s what I say!” exclaimed the thin lady, turning to the one-armed man. “Arrest all the little lawyers, priestlings,
merchants, and without trial banish or deport them! Tear out the evil by the roots!”
“But it’s said that this filibuster is the descendant of Spaniards,” observed the one-armed man, without looking at
any one in particular.
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed the fat lady, unterrified. “It’s always the creoles! No Indian knows anything about revolution!
Rear crows, rear crows!”22
“Do you know what I’ve heard?” asked a creole lady, to change the topic of conversation. “The wife of Capitan
Tinong, you remember her, the woman in whose house we danced and dined during the fiesta of Tondo—”
“The one who has two daughters? What about her?”
“Well, that woman just this afternoon presented the Captain-General with a ring worth a thousand pesos!”
The one-armed man turned around. “Is that so? Why?” he asked with shining eyes.
“She said that it was a Christmas gift—”
“But Christmas doesn’t come for a month yet!”
“Perhaps she’s afraid the storm is blowing her way,” observed the fat lady.
“And is getting under cover,” added the thin señora.
“When no return is asked, it’s a confession of guilt.”
“This must be carefully looked into,” declared the one-armed man thoughtfully. “I fear that there’s a cat in the bag.”
 “A cat in the bag, yes! That’s just what I was going to say,” echoed the thin lady.
“And so was I,” said the other, taking the words out of her mouth, “the wife of Capitan Tinong is so stingy—she
hasn’t yet sent us any present and that after we’ve been [458]in her house. So, when such a grasping and covetous woman
lets go of a little present worth a thousand pesos—”
“But, is it a fact?” inquired the one-armed man.
“Certainly! Most certainly! My cousin’s sweetheart, his Excellency’s adjutant, told her so. And I’m of the opinion that
it’s the very same ring that the older daughter wore on the day of the fiesta. She’s always covered with diamonds.”
“A walking show-case!”
“A way of attracting attention, like any other! Instead of buying a fashion plate or paying a dressmaker—”
Giving some pretext, the one-armed man left the gathering. Two hours later, when the world slept, various residents
of Tondo received an invitation through some soldiers. The authorities could not consent to having certain persons of position
and property sleep in such poorly guarded and badly ventilated houses—in Fort Santiago and other government buildings
their sleep would be calmer and more refreshing. Among these favored persons was included the unfortunate Capitan
Tinong.[459]

1The Marianas, or Ladrone Islands, were used as a place of banishment for political prisoners.—TR.
2“Evil Omen,” a nickname applied by the friars to General Joaquin Jovellar, who was governor of the Islands from 1883 to 1885. It fell to the lot
of General Jovellar, a kindly old man, much more soldier than administrator, to attempt the introduction of certain salutary reforms tending toward progress,
hence his disfavor with the holy fathers. The mention of “General J———” in the last part of the epilogue probably refers also to him.—TR.
3A celebrated Italian astronomer, member of the Jesuit Order. The Jesuits are still in charge of the Observatory of Manila.—TR.
4“Our Lady of the Girdle” is the patroness of the Augustinian Order.—TR.
5This image is in the six-million-peso steel church of St. Sebastian in Manila. Something of her early history is thus given by Fray Luis de Jesus
in his Historia of the Recollect Order (1681): “A very holy image is revered there under the title of Carmen. Although that image is small in stature, it is a great
and perennial spring of prodigies for those who invoke her. Our religious took it from Nueva España (Mexico), and even in that very navigation she was able
to make herself known by her miracles .... That most holy image is daily frequented with vows, presents, and novenas, thank-offerings of the many who are
daily favored by that queen of the skies.”—Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol. XXI, p. 195.
6The oldest and most conservative newspaper in Manila at the time this work was written.—TR.
7Following closely upon the liberal administration of La Torre, there occurred in the Cavite arsenal in 1872 a mutiny which was construed as an
incipient rebellion, and for alleged complicity in it three [451n]native priests, Padres Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, were garroted, while a number of prominent
Manilans were deported.—TR.
8What do I see? ... Wherefore?
9What do you wish? Nothing is in the intellect which has not first passed through the senses; nothing is willed that is not already in the mind.
10Where in the world are we?
11The uprising of Ibarra suppressed by the alferez of the Civil Guard? And now?
12Friend, Plato is dear but truth is dearer ... It’s a bad business and a horrible result from these things is to be feared.
13Against him who denies the fundamentals, clubs should be used as arguments.
14Latin prayers. “Agnus Dei Catolis” for “Agnus Dei qui tollis” (John I. 29).
15Woe unto them! Where there’s smoke there’s fire! Like seeks like; and if Ibarra is hanged, therefore you will be hanged.
16I do not fear death in bed, but upon the mount of Bagumbayan.
17The first part of a Spanish proverb: “Gifts break rocks, and enter without gimlets.”
18What is written is evidence! What medicines do not cure, iron cures; what iron does not cure, fire cures.
19In extreme cases, extreme measures.
20Do you wish to keep it also, traitress?
21Go, accursed, into the fire of the kalan.
22The first part of a Spanish proverb: “Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos,” “Rear crows and they will pick your eyes out.”—TR.

Chapter LX
Maria Clara Weds

Capitan Tiago was very happy, for in all this terrible storm no one had taken any notice of him. He had not been
arrested, nor had he been subjected to solitary confinement, investigations, electric machines, continuous foot-baths in
underground cells, or other pleasantries that are well-known to certain folk who call themselves civilized. His friends, that is,
those who had been his friends—for the good man had denied all his Filipino friends from the instant when they were suspected
by the government—had also returned to their homes after a few days’ vacation in the state edifices. The Captain-General
himself had ordered that they be cast out from his precincts, not considering them worthy of remaining therein, to the great
disgust of the one-armed individual, who had hoped to celebrate the approaching Christmas in their abundant and opulent
company.
Capitan Tinong had returned to his home sick, pale, and swollen; the excursion had not done him good. He was so
changed that he said not a word, nor even greeted his family, who wept, laughed, chattered, and almost went mad with joy.
The poor man no longer ventured out of his house for fear of running the risk of saying good-day to a filibuster. Not even Don
Primitivo himself, with all the wisdom of the ancients, could draw him out of his silence.
“Crede, prime,” the Latinist told him, “if I hadn’t got here to burn all your papers, they would have squeezed your
neck; and if I had burned the whole house they wouldn’t have touched a hair of your head. But quod [460]eventum, eventum;
gratias agamus Domino Deo quia non in Marianis Insulis es, camotes seminando.”1
 Stories similar to Capitan Tinong’s were not unknown to Capitan Tiago, so he bubbled over with gratitude, without
knowing exactly to whom he owed such signal favors. Aunt Isabel attributed the miracle to the Virgin of Antipolo, to the Virgin
of the Rosary, or at least to the Virgin of Carmen, and at the very, very least that she was willing to concede, to Our Lady of
the Girdle; according to her the miracle could not get beyond that.
Capitan Tiago did not deny the miracle, but added: “I think so, Isabel, but the Virgin of Antipolo couldn’t have done
it alone. My friends have helped, my future son-in-law, Señor Linares, who, as you know, joked with Señor Antonio Canovas
himself, the premier whose portrait appears in the Ilustración, he who doesn’t condescend to show more than half his face to
the people.”
So the good man could not repress a smile of satisfaction every time that he heard any important news. And there
was plenty of news: it was whispered about in secret that Ibarra would be hanged; that, while many proofs of his guilt had
been lacking, at last some one had appeared to sustain the accusation; that experts had declared that in fact the work on the
schoolhouse could pass for a bulwark of fortification, although somewhat defective, as was only to be expected of ignorant
Indians. These rumors calmed him and made him smile.
In the same way that Capitan Tiago and his cousin diverged in their opinions, the friends of the family were also
divided into two parties,—one miraculous, the other governmental, although this latter was insignificant. The miraculous party
was again subdivided: the senior sacristan of Binondo, the candle-woman, and the leader of the Brotherhood [461]saw the
hand of God directed by the Virgin of the Rosary; while the Chinese wax-chandler, his caterer on his visits to Antipolo, said,
as he fanned himself and shook his leg:
“Don’t fool yourself—it’s the Virgin of Antipolo! She can do more than all the rest—don’t fool yourself!”2
Capitan Tiago had great respect for this Chinese, who passed himself off as a prophet and a physician. Examining
the palm of the deceased lady just before her daughter was born, he had prognosticated: “If it’s not a boy and doesn’t die, it’ll
be a fine girl!”3 and Maria Clara had come into the world to fulfill the infidel’s prophecy.
Capitan Tiago, then, as a prudent and cautious man, could not decide so easily as Trojan Paris—he could not so
lightly give the preference to one Virgin for fear of offending another, a situation that might be fraught with grave consequences.
“Prudence!” he said to himself. “Let’s not go and spoil it all now.”
He was still in the midst of these doubts when the governmental party arrived,—Doña Victorina, Don Tiburcio, and
Linares. Doña Victorina did the talking for the three men as well as for herself. She mentioned Linares’ visits to the Captain-
General and repeatedly insinuated the advantages of a relative of “quality.” “Now,” she concluded, “as we was zaying: he who
zhelterz himzelf well, builds a good roof.”
“T-the other w-way, w-woman!” corrected the doctor.
For some days now she had been endeavoring to Andalusize her speech, and no one had been able to get this idea
out of her head—she would sooner have first let them tear off her false frizzes.
“Yez,” she went on, speaking of Ibarra, “he deserves [462]it all. I told you zo when I first zaw him, he’s a filibuzter.
What did the General zay to you, cousin? What did he zay? What news did he tell you about thiz Ibarra?”
Seeing that her cousin was slow in answering, she continued, directing her remarks to Capitan Tiago, “Believe me,
if they zentenz him to death, as is to be hoped, it’ll be on account of my cousin.”
“Señora, señora!” protested Linares.
But she gave him no time for objections. “How diplomatic you have become! We know that you’re the adviser of the
General, that he couldn’t live without you. Ah, Clarita, what a pleasure to zee you!”
Maria Clara was still pale, although now quite recovered from her illness. Her long hair was tied up with a light blue
silk ribbon. With a timid bow and a sad smile she went up to Doña Victorina for the ceremonial kiss.
After the usual conventional remarks, the pseudo-Andalusian continued: “We’ve come to visit you. You’ve been
zaved, thankz to your relations.” This was said with a significant glance toward Linares.
“God has protected my father,” replied the girl in a low voice.
“Yez, Clarita, but the time of the miracles is pazt. We Zpaniards zay: ‘Truzt in the Virgin and take to your heels.’”
“T-the other w-way!”
Capitan Tiago, who had up to this point had no chance to speak, now made bold enough to ask, while he threw
himself into an attitude of strict attention, “So you, Doña Victorina, think that the Virgin—”
“We’ve come ezpezially to talk with you about the virgin,” she answered mysteriously, making a sign toward Maria
Clara. “We’ve come to talk business.”
The maiden understood that she was expected to retire, so with an excuse she went away, supporting herself on
the furniture.
[463]What was said and what was agreed upon in this conference was so sordid and mean that we prefer not to
recount it. It is enough to record that as they took their leave they were all merry, and that afterwards Capitan Tiago said to
Aunt Isabel:
“Notify the restaurant that we’ll have a fiesta tomorrow. Get Maria ready, for we’re going to marry her off before
long.”
Aunt Isabel stared at him in consternation.
“You’ll see! When Señor Linares is our son-in-law we’ll get into all the palaces. Every one will envy us, every one
will die of envy!”
 Thus it happened that at eight o’clock on the following evening the house of Capitan Tiago was once again filled,
but this time his guests were only Spaniards and Chinese. The fair sex was represented by Peninsular and Philippine-Spanish
ladies.
There were present the greater part of our acquaintances: Padre Sibyla and Padre Salvi among various Franciscans
and Dominicans; the old lieutenant of the Civil Guard, Señor Guevara, gloomier than ever; the alferez, who was for the
thousandth time describing his battle and gazing over his shoulders at every one, believing himself to be a Don John of Austria,
for he was now a major; De Espadaña, who looked at the alferez with respect and fear, and avoided his gaze; and Doña
Victorina, swelling with indignation. Linares had not yet come; as a personage of importance, he had to arrive later than the
others. There are creatures so simple that by being an hour behind time they transform themselves into great men.
In the group of women Maria Clara was the subject of a murmured conversation. The maiden had welcomed them
all ceremoniously, without losing her air of sadness.
“Pish!” remarked one young woman. “The proud little thing!”
“Pretty little thing!” responded another. “But he [464]might have picked out some other girl with a less foolish face.”
“The gold, child! The good youth is selling himself.”
In another part the comments ran thus:
“To get married when her first fiancé is about to be hanged!”
“That’s what’s called prudence, having a substitute ready.”
“Well, when she gets to be a widow—”
Maria Clara was seated in a chair arranging a salver of flowers and doubtless heard all these remarks, for her hand
trembled, she turned pale, and several times bit her lips.
In the circle of men the conversation was carried on in loud tones and, naturally, turned upon recent events. All were
talking, even Don Tiburcio, with the exception of Padre Sibyla, who maintained his usual disdainful silence.
“I’ve heard it said that your Reverence is leaving the town, Padre Salvi?” inquired the new major, whose fresh star
had made him more amiable.
“I have nothing more to do there. I’m going to stay permanently in Manila. And you?”
“I’m also leaving the town,” answered the ex-alferez, swelling up. “The government needs me to command a flying
column to clean the provinces of filibusters.”
Fray Sibyla looked him over rapidly from head to foot and then turned his back completely.
“Is it known for certain what will become of the ringleader, the filibuster?” inquired a government employee.
“Do you mean Crisostomo Ibarra?” asked another. “The most likely and most just thing is that he will be hanged,
like those of ’72.”
“He’s going to be deported,” remarked the old lieutenant, dryly.
“Deported! Nothing more than deported? But it will be a perpetual deportation!” exclaimed several voices at the
same time.
[465]“If that young man,” continued the lieutenant, Guevara, in a loud and severe tone, “had been more cautious, if
he had confided less in certain persons with whom he corresponded, if our prosecutors did not know how to interpret so subtly
what is written, that young man would surely have been acquitted.”
This declaration on the part of the old lieutenant and the tone of his voice produced great surprise among his hearers,
who were apparently at a loss to know what to say. Padre Salvi stared in another direction, perhaps to avoid the gloomy look
that the old soldier turned on him. Maria Clara let her flowers fall and remained motionless. Padre Sibyla, who knew so well
how to be silent, seemed also to be the only one who knew how to ask a question.
“You’re speaking of letters, Señor Guevara?”
“I’m speaking of what was told me by his lawyer, who looked after the case with interest and zeal. Outside of some
ambiguous lines which this youth wrote to a woman before he left for Europe, lines in which the government’s attorney saw a
plot and a threat against the government, and which he acknowledged to be his, there wasn’t anything found to accuse him
of.”
“But the declaration of the outlaw before he died?”
“His lawyer had that thrown out because, according to the outlaw himself, they had never communicated with the
young man, but with a certain Lucas, who was an enemy of his, as could be proved, and who committed suicide, perhaps
from remorse. It was proved that the papers found on the corpse were forged, since the handwriting was like that of Señor
Ibarra’s seven years ago, but not like his now, which leads to the belief that the model for them may have been that
incriminating letter. Besides, the lawyer says that if Señor Ibarra had refused to acknowledge the letter, he might have been
able to do a great deal for him—but at sight of the letter he turned pale, lost his courage, and confirmed everything written in
it.”
[466]“Did you say that the letter was directed to a woman?” asked a Franciscan. “How did it get into the hands of
the prosecutor?”
The lieutenant did not answer. He stared for a moment at Padre Salvi and then moved away, nervously twisting the
sharp point of his gray beard. The others made their comments.
“There is seen the hand of God!” remarked one. “Even the women hate him.”
 “He had his house burned down, thinking in that way to save himself, but he didn’t count on the guest, on his querida,
his babaye,” added another, laughing. “It’s the work of God! Santiago y cierra España!”4
Meanwhile the old soldier paused in his pacing about and approached Maria Clara, who was listening to the
conversation, motionless in her chair, with the flowers scattered at her feet.
“You are a very prudent girl,” the old officer whispered to her. “You did well to give up the letter. You have thus
assured yourself an untroubled future.”
With startled eyes she watched him move away from her, and bit her lip. Fortunately, Aunt Isabel came along, and
she had sufficient strength left to catch hold of the old lady’s skirt.
“Aunt!” she murmured.
“What’s the matter?” asked the old lady, frightened by the look on the girl’s face.
“Take me to my room!” she pleaded, grasping her aunt’s arm in order to rise.
“Are you sick, daughter? You look as if you’d lost your bones! What’s the matter?”
“A fainting spell—the people in the room—so many lights—I need to rest. Tell father that I’m going to sleep.”
“You’re cold. Do you want some tea?”
Maria Clara shook her head, entered and locked the [467]door of her chamber, and then, her strength failing her,
she fell sobbing to the floor at the feet of an image.
“Mother, mother, mother mine!” she sobbed.
Through the window and a door that opened on the azotea the moonlight entered. The musicians continued to play
merry waltzes, laughter and the hum of voices penetrated into the chamber, several times her father, Aunt Isabel, Doña
Victorina, and even Linares knocked at the door, but Maria did not move. Heavy sobs shook her breast.
Hours passed—the pleasures of the dinner-table ended, the sound of singing and dancing was heard, the candle
burned itself out, but the maiden still remained motionless on the moonlit floor at the feet of an image of the Mother of Jesus.
Gradually the house became quiet again, the lights were extinguished, and Aunt Isabel once more knocked at the
door.
“Well, she’s gone to sleep,” said the old woman, aloud. “As she’s young and has no cares, she sleeps like a corpse.”
When all was silence she raised herself slowly and threw a look about her. She saw the azotea with its little arbors
bathed in the ghostly light of the moon.
“An untroubled future! She sleeps like a corpse!” she repeated in a low voice as she made her way out to the azotea.
The city slept. Only from time to time there was heard the noise of a carriage crossing the wooden bridge over the
river, whose undisturbed waters reflected smoothly the light of the moon. The young woman raised her eyes toward a sky as
clear as sapphire. Slowly she took the rings from her fingers and from her ears and removed the combs from her hair. Placing
them on the balustrade of the azotea, she gazed toward the river.
A small banka loaded with zacate stopped at the foot of the landing such as every house on the bank of the river
has. [468]One of two men who were in it ran up the stone stairway and jumped over the wall, and a few seconds later his
footsteps were heard on the stairs leading to the azotea.
Maria Clara saw him pause on discovering her, but only for a moment. Then he advanced slowly and stopped within
a few paces of her. Maria Clara recoiled.
“Crisostomo!” she murmured, overcome with fright.
“Yes, I am Crisostomo,” replied the young man gravely. “An enemy, a man who has every reason for hating me,
Elias, has rescued me from the prison into which my friends threw me.”
A sad silence followed these words. Maria Clara bowed her head and let her arms fall.
Ibarra went on: “Beside my mother’s corpse I swore that I would make you happy, whatever might be my destiny!
You can have been faithless to your oath, for she was not your mother; but I, I who am her son, hold her memory so sacred
that in spite of a thousand difficulties I have come here to carry mine out, and fate has willed that I should speak to you
yourself. Maria, we shall never see each other again—you are young and perhaps some day your conscience may reproach
you—I have come to tell you, before I go away forever, that I forgive you. Now, may you be happy and—farewell!”
Ibarra started to move away, but the girl stopped him.
“Crisostomo,” she said, “God has sent you to save me from desperation. Hear me and then judge me!”
Ibarra tried gently to draw away from her. “I didn’t come to call you to account! I came to give you peace!”
“I don’t want that peace which you bring me. Peace I will give myself. You despise me and your contempt will
embitter all the rest of my life.”
Ibarra read the despair and sorrow depicted in the suffering girl’s face and asked her what she wished.
“That you believe that I have always loved you!”
At this he smiled bitterly.
“Ah, you doubt me! You doubt the friend of your [469]childhood, who has never hidden a single thought from you!”
the maiden exclaimed sorrowfully. “I understand now! But when you hear my story, the sad story that was revealed to me
during my illness, you will have mercy on me, you will not have that smile for my sorrow. Why did you not let me die in the
hands of my ignorant physician? You and I both would have been happier!”
 Resting a moment, she then went on: “You have desired it, you have doubted me! But may my mother forgive me!
On one of the sorrowfulest of my nights of suffering, a man revealed to me the name of my real father and forbade me to love
you—except that my father himself should pardon the injury you had done him.”
Ibarra recoiled a pace and gazed fearfully at her.
“Yes,” she continued, “that man told me that he could not permit our union, since his conscience would forbid it, and
that he would be obliged to reveal the name of my real father at the risk of causing a great scandal, for my father is—” And
she murmured into the youth’s ear a name in so low a tone that only he could have heard it.
“What was I to do? Must I sacrifice to my love the memory of my mother, the honor of my supposed father, and the
good name of the real one? Could I have done that without having even you despise me?”
“But the proof! Had you any proof? You needed proofs!” exclaimed Ibarra, trembling with emotion.
The maiden snatched two papers from her bosom.
“Two letters of my mother’s, two letters written in the midst of her remorse, while I was yet unborn! Take them, read
them, and you will see how she cursed me and wished for my death, which my father vainly tried to bring about with drugs.
These letters he had forgotten in a building where he had lived; the other man found and preserved them and only gave them
up to me in exchange for your letter, in order to assure himself, so he said, that I would not marry you without the consent of
my father. Since I have been carrying them about with me, in place of your [470]letter, I have, felt the chill in my heart. I
sacrificed you, I sacrificed my love! What else could one do for a dead mother and two living fathers? Could I have suspected
the use that was to be made of your letter?”
Ibarra stood appalled, while she continued: “What more was left for me to do? Could I perhaps tell you who my
father was, could I tell you that you should beg forgiveness of him who made your father suffer so much? Could I ask my
father that he forgive you, could I tell him that I knew that I was his daughter—him, who desired my death so eagerly? It was
only left to me to suffer, to guard the secret, and to die suffering! Now, my friend, now that you know the sad history of your
poor Maria, will you still have for her that disdainful smile?”
“Maria, you are an angel!”
“Then I am happy, since you believe me—”
“But yet,” added the youth with a change of tone, “I’ve heard that you are going to be married.”
“Yes,” sobbed the girl, “my father demands this sacrifice. He has loved me and cared for me when it was not his
duty to do so, and I will pay this debt of gratitude to assure his peace, by means of this new relationship, but—”
“But what?”
“I will never forget the vows of faithfulness that I have made to you.”
“What are you thinking of doing?” asked Ibarra, trying to read the look in her eyes.
“The future is dark and my destiny is wrapped in gloom! I don’t know what I should do. But know, that I have loved
but once and that without love I will never belong to any man. And you, what is going to become of you?”
“I am only a fugitive, I am fleeing. In a little while my flight will have been discovered. Maria—”
Maria Clara caught the youth’s head in her hands and kissed him repeatedly on the lips, embraced him, and drew
abruptly away. “Go, go!” she cried. “Go, and farewell!”
[471]Ibarra gazed at her with shining eyes, but at a gesture from her moved away—intoxicated, wavering.
Once again he leaped over the wall and stepped into the banka. Maria Clara, leaning over the balustrade, watched
him depart. Elias took off his hat and bowed to her profoundly.[472]

1Believe me, cousin ... what has happened, has happened; let us give thanks to God that you are not in the Marianas Islands, planting camotes.
(It may be observed that here, as in some of his other speeches, Don Primitivo’s Latin is rather Philippinized.)—TR.
2The original is in the lingua franca of the Philippine Chinese, a medium of expression sui generis, being, like, Ulysses, “a part of all that he has
met,” and defying characteristic translation: “No siya ostí gongon; miligen li Antipolo esi! Esi pueli más con tolo; no siya ostí gongong!”—TR.
3“Si esi no hómole y no pataylo, mujé juete-juete!”
4The Spanish battle-cry: “St. James, and charge, Spain!”—TR.

Chapter LXI
The Chase on the Lake

“Listen, sir, to the plan that I have worked out,” said Elias thoughtfully, as they moved in the direction of San Gabriel.
“I’ll hide you now in the house of a friend of mine in Mandaluyong. I’ll bring you all your money, which I saved and buried at
the foot of the balete in the mysterious tomb of your grandfather. Then you will leave the country.”
“To go abroad?” inquired Ibarra.
“To live out in peace the days of life that remain to you. You have friends in Spain, you are rich, you can get yourself
pardoned. In every way a foreign country is for us a better fatherland than our own.”
Crisostomo did not answer, but meditated in silence. At that moment they reached the Pasig and the banka began
to ascend the current. Over the Bridge of Spain a horseman galloped rapidly, while a shrill, prolonged whistle was heard.
“Elias,” said Ibarra, “you owe your misfortunes to my family, you have saved my life twice, and I owe you not only
gratitude but also the restitution of your fortune. You advise me to go abroad—then come with me and we will live like brothers.
Here you also are wretched.”
 Elias shook his head sadly and answered: “Impossible! It’s true that I cannot love or be happy in my country, but I
can suffer and die in it, and perhaps for it—that is always something. May the misfortunes of my native land be my own
misfortunes and, although no noble sentiment unites us, although our hearts do not beat to a single name, at least may the
common calamity bind me to [473]my countrymen, at least may I weep over our sorrows with them, may the same hard fate
oppress all our hearts alike!”
“Then why do you advise me to go away?”
“Because in some other country you could be happy while I could not, because you are not made to suffer, and
because you would hate your country if some day you should see yourself ruined in its cause, and to hate one’s native land
is the greatest of calamities.”
“You are unfair to me!” exclaimed Ibarra with bitter reproach. “You forget that scarcely had I arrived here when I set
myself to seek its welfare.”
“Don’t be offended, sir, I was not reproaching you at all. Would that all of us could imitate you! But I do not ask
impossibilities of you and I mean no offense when I say that your heart deceives you. You loved your country because your
father taught you to do so; you loved it because in it you had affection, fortune, youth, because everything smiled on you, your
country had done you no injustice; you loved it as we love anything that makes us happy. But the day in which you see yourself
poor and hungry, persecuted, betrayed, and sold by your own countrymen, on that day you will disown yourself, your country,
and all mankind.”
“Your words pain me,” said Ibarra resentfully.
Elias bowed his head and meditated before replying. “I wish to disillusion you, sir, and save you from a sad future.
Recall that night when I talked to you in this same banka under the light of this same moon, not a month ago. Then you were
happy, the plea of the unfortunates did not touch you; you disdained their complaints because they were the complaints of
criminals; you paid more attention to their enemies, and in spite of my arguments and petitions, you placed yourself on the
side of their oppressors. On you then depended whether I should turn criminal or allow myself to be killed in order to carry out
a sacred pledge, but God has not permitted this because the old chief of the outlaws [474]is dead. A month has hardly passed
and you think otherwise.”
“You’re right, Elias, but man is a creature of circumstances! Then I was blind, annoyed—what did I know? Now
misfortune has torn the bandage from my eyes; the solitude and misery of my prison have taught me; now I see the horrible
cancer which feeds upon this society, which clutches its flesh, and which demands a violent rooting out. They have opened
my eyes, they have made me see the sore, and they force me to be a criminal! Since they wish it, I will be a filibuster, a real
filibuster, I mean. I will call together all the unfortunates, all who feel a heart beat in their breasts, all those who were sending
you to me. No, I will not be a criminal, never is he such who fights for his native land, but quite the reverse! We, during three
centuries, have extended them our hands, we have asked love of them, we have yearned to call them brothers, and how do
they answer us? With insults and jests, denying us even the chance character of human beings. There is no God, there is no
hope, there is no humanity; there is nothing but the right of might!” Ibarra was nervous, his whole body trembled.
As they passed in front of the Captain-General’s palace they thought that they could discern movement and
excitement among the guards.
“Can they have discovered your flight?” murmured Elias. “Lie down, sir, so that I can cover you with zacate. Since
we shall pass near the powder-magazine it may seem suspicious to the sentinel that there are two of us.”
The banka was one of those small, narrow canoes that do not seem to float but rather to glide over the top of the
water. As Elias had foreseen, the sentinel stopped him and inquired whence he came.
“From Manila, to carry zacate to the judges and curates,” he answered, imitating the accent of the people of
Pandakan.
A sergeant came out to learn what was happening. “Move on!” he said to Elias. “But I warn you not to
take [475]anybody into your banka. A prisoner has just escaped. If you capture him and turn him over to me I’ll give you a
good tip.”
“All right, sir. What’s his description?”
“He wears a sack coat and talks Spanish. So look out!” The banka moved away. Elias looked back and watched the
silhouette of the sentinel standing on the bank of the river.
“We’ll lose a few minutes’ time,” he said in a low voice. “We must go into the Beata River to pretend that I’m from
Peñafrancia. You will see the river of which Francisco Baltazar sang.”
The town slept in the moonlight, and Crisostomo rose up to admire the sepulchral peace of nature. The river was
narrow and the level land on either side covered with grass. Elias threw his cargo out on the bank and, after removing a large
piece of bamboo, took from under the grass some empty palm-leaf sacks. Then they continued on their way.
“You are the master of your own will, sir, and of your future,” he said to Crisostomo, who had remained silent. “But
if you will allow me an observation, I would say: think well what you are planning to do—you are going to light the flames of
war, since you have money and brains, and you will quickly find many to join you, for unfortunately there are plenty of
malcontents. But in this struggle which you are going to undertake, those who will suffer most will be the defenseless and the
innocent. The same sentiments that a month ago impelled me to appeal to you asking for reforms are those that move me
now to urge you to think well. The country, sir, does not think of separating from the mother country; it only asks for a little
freedom, justice, and affection. You will be supported by the malcontents, the criminals, the desperate, but the people will hold
aloof. You are mistaken if, seeing all dark, you think that the country is desperate. The country suffers, yes, but it still hopes
and trusts and will only rebel when it has lost its patience, that is, when those who govern it wish it to [476]do so, and that time
is yet distant. I myself will not follow you, never will I resort to such extreme measures while I see hope in men.”
“Then I’ll go on without you!” responded Ibarra resolutely.
“Is your decision final?”
“Final and firm; let the memory of my mother bear witness! I will not let peace and happiness be torn away from me
with impunity, I who desired only what was good, I who have respected everything and endured everything out of love for a
hypocritical religion and out of love of country. How have they answered me? By burying me in an infamous dungeon and
robbing me of my intended wife! No, not to avenge myself would be a crime, it would be encouraging them to new acts of
injustice! No, it would be cowardice, pusillanimity, to groan and weep when there is blood and life left, when to insult and
menace is added mockery. I will call out these ignorant people, I will make them see their misery. I will teach them to think not
of brotherhood but only that they are wolves for devouring, I will urge them to rise against this oppression and proclaim the
eternal right of man to win his freedom!”
“But innocent people will suffer!”
“So much the better! Can you take me to the mountains?”
“Until you are in safety,” replied Elias.
Again they moved out into the Pasig, talking from time to time of indifferent matters.
“Santa Ana!” murmured Ibarra. “Do you recognize this building?” They were passing in front of the country-house of
the Jesuits.
“There I spent many pleasant and happy days!” sighed Elias. “In my time we came every month. Then I was like
others, I had a fortune, family, I dreamed, I looked forward to a future. In those days I saw my sister in the near-by college,
she presented me with a piece of her own [477]embroidery-work. A friend used to accompany her, a beautiful girl. All that has
passed like a dream.”
They remained silent until they reached Malapad-na-bato.1 Those who have ever made their way by night up the
Pasig, on one of those magical nights that the Philippines offers, when the moon pours out from the limpid blue her melancholy
light, when the shadows hide the miseries of man and the silence is unbroken by the sordid accents of his voice, when only
Nature speaks—they will understand the thoughts of both these youths.
At Malapad-na-bato the carbineer was sleepy and, seeing that the banka was empty and offered no booty which he
might seize, according to the traditional usage of his corps and the custom of that post, he easily let them pass on. Nor did
the civil-guard at Pasig suspect anything, so they were not molested.
Day was beginning to break when they reached the lake, still and calm like a gigantic mirror. The moon paled and
the east was dyed in rosy tints. Some distance away they perceived a gray mass advancing slowly toward them.
“The police boat is coming,” murmured Elias. “Lie down and I’ll cover you with these sacks.”
The outlines of the boat became clearer and plainer.
“It’s getting between us and the shore,” observed Elias uneasily.
Gradually he changed the course of his banka, rowing toward Binangonan. To his great surprise he noticed that the
boat also changed its course, while a voice called to him.
Elias stopped rowing and reflected. The shore was still far away and they would soon be within range of
the [478]rifles on the police boat. He thought of returning to Pasig, for his banka was the swifter of the two boats, but unluckily
he saw another boat coming from the river and made out the gleam of caps and bayonets of the Civil Guard.
“We’re caught!” he muttered, turning pale.
He gazed at his robust arms and, adopting the only course left, began to row with all his might toward Talim Island,
just as the sun was rising.
The banka slipped rapidly along. Elias saw standing on the boat, which had veered about, some men making signals
to him.
“Do you know how to manage a banka?” he asked Ibarra.
“Yes, why?”
“Because we are lost if I don’t jump into the water and throw them off the track. They will pursue me, but I swim and
dive well. I’ll draw them away from you and then you can save yourself.”
“No, stay here, and we’ll sell our lives dearly!”
“That would be useless. We have no arms and with their rifles they would shoot us down like birds.”
At that instant the water gave forth a hiss such as is caused by the falling of hot metal into it, followed instantaneously
by a loud report.
“You see!” said Elias, placing the paddle in the boat. “We’ll see each other on Christmas Eve at the tomb of your
grandfather. Save yourself.”
“And you?”
“God has carried me safely through greater perils.”
As Elias took off his camisa a bullet tore it from his hands and two loud reports were heard. Calmly he clasped the
hand of Ibarra, who was still stretched out in the bottom of the banka. Then he arose and leaped into the water, at the same
time pushing the little craft away from him with his foot.
 Cries resounded, and soon some distance away the [479]youth’s head appeared, as if for breathing, then instantly
disappeared.
“There, there he is!” cried several voices, and again the bullets whistled.
The police boat and the boat from the Pasig now started in pursuit of him. A light track indicated his passage through
the water as he drew farther and farther away from Ibarra’s banka, which floated about as if abandoned. Every time the
swimmer lifted his head above the water to breathe, the guards in both boats shot at him.
So the chase continued. Ibarra’s little banka was now far away and the swimmer was approaching the shore, distant
some thirty yards. The rowers were tired, but Elias was in the same condition, for he showed his head oftener, and each time
in a different direction, as if to disconcert his pursuers. No longer did the treacherous track indicate the position of the diver.
They saw him for the last time when he was some ten yards from the shore, and fired. Then minute after minute passed, but
nothing again appeared above the still and solitary surface of the lake.
Half an hour afterwards one of the rowers claimed that he could distinguish in the water near the shore traces of
blood, but his companions shook their heads dubiously.[480]

1The “wide rock” that formerly jutted out into the river just below the place where the streams from the Lake of Bay join the Mariquina to form the
Pasig proper. This spot was celebrated in the demonology of the primitive Tagalogs and later, after the tutelar devils had been duly exorcised by the Spanish
padres, converted into a revenue station. The name is preserved in that of the little barrio on the river bank near Fort McKinley.—TR.

Chapter LXII
Padre Damaso Explains

Vainly were the rich wedding presents heaped upon a table; neither the diamonds in their cases of blue velvet, nor
the piña embroideries, nor the rolls of silk, drew the gaze of Maria Clara. Without reading or even seeing it the maiden sat
staring at the newspaper which gave an account of the death of Ibarra, drowned in the lake.
Suddenly she felt two hands placed over her eyes to hold her fast and heard Padre Damaso’s voice ask merrily,
“Who am I? Who am I?”
Maria Clara sprang from her seat and gazed at him in terror.
“Foolish little girl, you’re not afraid, are you? You weren’t expecting me, eh? Well, I’ve come in from the provinces
to attend your wedding.”
He smiled with satisfaction as he drew nearer to her and held out his hand for her to kiss. Maria Clara approached
him tremblingly and touched his hand respectfully to her lips.
“What’s the matter with you, Maria?” asked the Franciscan, losing his merry smile and becoming uneasy. “Your
hand is cold, you’re pale. Are you ill, little girl?”
Padre Damaso drew her toward himself with a tenderness that one would hardly have thought him capable of, and
catching both her hands in his questioned her with his gaze.
“Don’t you have confidence in your godfather any more?” he asked reproachfully. “Come, sit down and tell me your
little troubles as you used to do when you were a child, when you wanted tapers to make wax dolls, You [481]know that I’ve
always loved you, I’ve never been cross with you.”
His voice was now no longer brusque, and even became tenderly modulated. Maria Clara began to weep.
“You’re crying, little girl? Why do you cry? Have you quarreled with Linares?”
Maria Clara covered her ears. “Don’t speak of him not now!” she cried.
Padre Damaso gazed at her in startled wonder.
“Won’t you trust me with your secrets? Haven’t I always tried to satisfy your lightest whim?”
The maiden raised eyes filled with tears and stared at him for a long time, then again fell to weeping bitterly.
“Don’t cry so, little girl. Your tears hurt me. Tell me your troubles, and you’ll see how your godfather loves you!”
Maria Clara approached him slowly, fell upon her knees, and raising her tear-stained face toward his asked in a low,
scarcely audible tone, “Do you still love me?”
“Child!”
“Then, protect my father and break off my marriage!” Here the maiden told of her last interview with Ibarra,
concealing only her knowledge of the secret of her birth. Padre Damaso could scarcely credit his ears.
“While he lived,” the girl continued, “I thought of struggling, I was hoping, trusting! I wanted to live so that I might
hear of him, but now that they have killed him, now there is no reason why I should live and suffer.” She spoke in low, measured
tones, calmly, tearlessly.
“But, foolish girl, isn’t Linares a thousand times better than—”
“While he lived, I could have married—I thought of running away afterwards—my father wants only the relationship!
But now that he is dead, no other man shall call me wife! While he was alive I could debase myself, for there would have
remained the consolation that he lived [482]and perhaps thought of me, but now that he is dead—the nunnery or the tomb!”
The girl’s voice had a ring of firmness in it such that Padre Damaso lost his merry air and became very thoughtful.
“Did you love him as much as that?” he stammered.
Maria Clara did not answer. Padre Damaso dropped his head on his chest and remained silent for a long time.
 “Daughter in God,” he exclaimed at length in a broken voice, “forgive me for having made you unhappy without
knowing it. I was thinking of your future, I desired your happiness. How could I permit you to marry a native of the country, to
see you an unhappy wife and a wretched mother? I couldn’t get that love out of your head even though I opposed it with all
my might. I committed wrongs, for you, solely for you. If you had become his wife you would have mourned afterwards over
the condition of your husband, exposed to all kinds of vexations without means of defense. As a mother you would have
mourned the fate of your sons: if you had educated them, you would have prepared for them a sad future, for they would have
become enemies of Religion and you would have seen them garroted or exiled; if you had kept them ignorant, you would have
seen them tyrannized over and degraded. I could not consent to it! For this reason I sought for you a husband that could make
you the happy mother of sons who would command and not obey, who would punish and not suffer. I knew that the friend of
your childhood was good, I liked him as well as his father, but I have hated them both since I saw that they were going to bring
about your unhappiness, because I love you, I adore you, I love you as one loves his own daughter! Yours is my only affection;
I have seen you grow—not an hour has passed that I have not thought of you—I dreamed of you—you have been my only
joy!”
Here Padre Damaso himself broke out into tears like a child.
[483]“Then, as you love me, don’t make me eternally wretched. He no longer lives, so I want to be a nun!”
The old priest rested his forehead on his hand. “To be a nun, a nun!” he repeated. “You don’t know, child, what the
life is, the mystery that is hidden behind the walls of the nunnery, you don’t know! A thousand times would I prefer to see you
unhappy in the world rather than in the cloister. Here your complaints can be heard, there you will have only the walls. You
are beautiful, very beautiful, and you were not born for that—to be a bride of Christ! Believe me, little girl, time will wipe away
everything. Later on you will forget, you will love, you will love your husband—Linares.”
“The nunnery or—death!”
“The nunnery, the nunnery, or death!” exclaimed Padre Damaso. “Maria, I am now an old man, I shall not be able
much longer to watch over you and your welfare. Choose something else, seek another love, some other man, whoever he
may be—anything but the nunnery.”
“The nunnery or death!”
“My God, my God!” cried the priest, covering his head with his hands, “Thou chastisest me, so let it be! But watch
over my daughter!”
Then, turning again to the young woman, he said, “You wish to be a nun, and it shall be so. I don’t want you to die.”
Maria Clara caught both his hands in hers, clasping and kissing them as she fell upon her knees, repeating over
and over, “My godfather, I thank you, my godfather!”
With bowed head Fray Damaso went away, sad and sighing. “God, Thou dost exist, since Thou chastisest! But let
Thy vengeance fall on me, harm not the innocent. Save Thou my daughter!”[484]

Chapter LXIII
Christmas Eve

High up on the slope of the mountain near a roaring stream a hut built on the gnarled logs hides itself among the
trees. Over its kogon thatch clambers the branching gourd-vine, laden with flowers and fruit. Deer antlers and skulls of wild
boar, some with long tusks, adorn this mountain home, where lives a Tagalog family engaged in hunting and cutting firewood.
In the shade of a tree the grandsire was making brooms from the fibers of palm leaves, while a young woman was
placing eggs, limes, and some vegetables in a wide basket. Two children, a boy and a girl, were playing by the side of another,
who, pale and sad, with large eyes and a deep gaze, was seated on a fallen tree-trunk. In his thinned features we recognize
Sisa’s son, Basilio, the brother of Crispin.
“When your foot gets well,” the little girl was saying to him, “we’ll play hide-and-seek. I’ll be the leader.”
“You’ll go up to the top of the mountain with us,” added the little boy, “and drink deer blood with lime-juice and you’ll
get fat, and then I’ll teach you how to jump from rock to rock above the torrent.”
Basilio smiled sadly, stared at the sore on his foot, and then turned his gaze toward the sun, which shone
resplendently.
“Sell these brooms,” said the grandfather to the young woman, “and buy something for the children, for tomorrow is
Christmas.”
“Firecrackers, I want some firecrackers!” exclaimed the boy.
[485]“I want a head for my doll,” cried the little girl, catching hold of her sister’s tapis.
“And you, what do you want?” the grandfather asked Basilio, who at the question arose laboriously and approached
the old man.
“Sir,” he said, “I’ve been sick more than a month now, haven’t I?”
“Since we found you lifeless and covered with wounds, two moons have come and gone. We thought you were
going to die.”
“May God reward you, for we are very poor,” replied Basilio. “But now that tomorrow is Christmas I want to go to the
town to see my mother and my little brother. They will be seeking for me.”
 “But, my son, you’re not yet well, and your town is far away. You won’t get there by midnight.”
“That doesn’t matter, sir. My mother and my little brother must be very sad. Every year we spend this holiday
together. Last year the three of us had a whole fish to eat. My mother will have been mourning and looking for me.”
“You won’t get to the town alive, boy! Tonight we’re going to have chicken and wild boar’s meat. My sons will ask
for you when they come from the field.”
“You have many sons while my mother has only us two. Perhaps she already believes that I’m dead! Tonight I want
to give her a pleasant surprise, a Christmas gift, a son.”
The old man felt the tears springing up into his eyes, so, placing his hands on the boy’s head, he said with emotion:
“You’re like an old man! Go, look for your mother, give her the Christmas gift—from God, as you say. If I had known the name
of your town I would have gone there when you were sick. Go, my son, and may God and the Lord Jesus go with you. Lucia,
my granddaughter, will go with you to the nearest town.”
“What! You’re going away?” the little boy asked him. [486]“Down there are soldiers and many robbers. Don’t you
want to see my firecrackers? Boom, boom, boom!”
“Don’t you want to play hide-and-seek?” asked the little girl. “Have you ever played it? Surely there’s nothing any
more fun than to be chased and hide yourself?”
Basilio smiled, but with tears in his eyes, and caught up his staff. “I’ll come back soon,” he answered. “I’ll bring my
little brother, you’ll see him and play with him. He’s just about as big as you are.”
“Does he walk lame, too?” asked the little girl. “Then we’ll make him ‘it’ when we play hide-and-seek.”
“Don’t forget us,” the old man said to him. “Take this dried meat as a present to your mother.”
The children accompanied him to the bamboo bridge swung over the noisy course of the stream. Lucia made him
support himself on her arm, and thus they disappeared from the children’s sight, Basilio walking along nimbly in spite of his
bandaged leg.
The north wind whistled by, making the inhabitants of San Diego shiver with cold. It was Christmas Eve and yet the
town was wrapped in gloom. Not a paper lantern hung from the windows nor did a single sound in the houses indicate the
rejoicing of other years.
In the house of Capitan Basilio, he and Don Filipo—for the misfortunes of the latter had made them friendly—were
standing by a window-grating and talking, while at another were Sinang, her cousin Victoria, and the beautiful Iday, looking
toward the street.
The waning moon began to shine over the horizon, illumining the clouds and making the trees and houses east long,
fantastic shadows.
“Yours is not a little good fortune, to get off free in these times!” said Capitan Basilio to Don Filipo. “They’ve burned
your books, yes, but others have lost more.”
A woman approached the grating and gazed into the interior. Her eyes glittered, her features were
emaciated, [487]her hair loose and dishevelled. The moonlight gave her a weird aspect.
“Sisal” exclaimed Don Filipo in surprise. Then turning to Capitan Basilio, as the madwoman ran away, he asked,
“Wasn’t she in the house of a physician? Has she been cured?”
Capitan Basilio smiled bitterly. “The physician was afraid they would accuse him of being a friend of Don
Crisostomo’s, so he drove her from his house. Now she wanders about again as crazy as ever, singing, harming no one, and
living in the woods.”
“What else has happened in the town since we left it? I know that we have a new curate and another alferez.”
“These are terrible times, humanity is retrograding,” murmured Capitan Basilio, thinking of the past. “The day after
you left they found the senior sacristan dead, hanging from a rafter in his own house. Padre Salvi was greatly affected by his
death and took possession of all his papers. Ah, yes, the old Sage, Tasio, also died and was buried in the Chinese cemetery.”
“Poor old man!” sighed Don Filipo. “What became of his books?”
“They were burned by the pious, who thought thus to please God. I was unable to save anything, not even Cicero’s
works. The gobernadorcillo did nothing to prevent it.”
Both became silent. At that moment the sad and melancholy song of the madwoman was heard.
“Do you know when Maria Clara is to be married?” Iday asked Sinang.
“I don’t know,” answered the latter. “I received a letter from her but haven’t opened it for fear of finding out. Poor
Crisostomo!”
“They say that if it were not for Linares, they would hang Capitan Tiago, so what was Maria Clara going to do?”
observed Victoria.
A boy limped by, running toward the plaza, whence [488]came the notes of Sisa’s song. It was Basilio, who had
found his home deserted and in ruins. After many inquiries he had only learned that his mother was insane and wandering
about the town—of Crispin not a word.
Basilio choked back his tears, stifled any expression of his sorrow, and without resting had started in search of his
mother. On reaching the town he was just asking about her when her song struck his ears. The unhappy boy overcame the
trembling in his limbs and ran to throw himself into his mother’s arms.
 The madwoman left the plaza and stopped in front of the house of the new alferez. Now, as formerly, there was a
sentinel before the door, and a woman’s head appeared at the window, only it was not the Medusa’s but that of a comely
young woman: alferez and unfortunate are not synonymous terms.
Sisa began to sing before the house with her gaze fixed on the moon, which soared majestically in the blue heavens
among golden clouds. Basilio saw her, but did not dare to approach’ her. Walking back and forth, but taking care not to get
near the barracks, he waited for the time when she would leave that place.
The young woman who was at the window listening attentively to the madwoman’s song ordered the sentinel to
bring her inside, but when Sisa saw the soldier approach her and heard his voice she was filled with terror and took to flight
at a speed of which only a demented person is capable. Basilio, fearing to lose her, ran after her, forgetful of the pains in his
feet.
“Look how that boy’s chasing the madwoman!” indignantly exclaimed a woman in the street. Seeing that he
continued to pursue her, she picked up a stone and threw it at him, saying, “Take that! It’s a pity that the dog is tied up!”
Basilio felt a blow on his head, but paid no attention to it as he continued running. Dogs barked, geese cackled,
several windows opened to let out curious faces but [489]quickly closed again from fear of another night of terror.
Soon they were outside of the town. Sisa began to moderate her flight, but still a great distance separated her from
her pursuer.
“Mother!” he called to her when he caught sight of her. Scarcely had the madwoman heard his voice when she again
took to flight.
“Mother, it’s I!” cried the boy in desperation, but the madwoman did not heed him, so he followed panting. They had
now passed the cultivated fields and were near the wood; Basilio saw his mother enter it and he also went in. The bushes and
shrubs, the thorny vines and projecting roots of trees, hindered the movements of both. The son followed his mother’s shadowy
form as it was revealed from time to time by the moonlight that penetrated through the foliage and into the open spaces. They
were in the mysterious wood of the Ibarra family.
The boy stumbled and fell several times, but rose again, each time without feeling pain. All his soul was centered in
his eyes, following the beloved figure. They crossed the sweetly murmuring brook where sharp thorns of bamboo that had
fallen on the sand at its margin pierced his bare feet, but he did not stop to pull them out.
To his great surprise he saw that his mother had plunged into the thick undergrowth and was going through the
wooden gateway that opened into the tomb of the old Spaniard at the foot of the balete. Basilio tried to follow her in, but found
the gate fastened. The madwoman defended the entrance with her emaciated arms and disheveled head, holding the gate
shut with all her might.
“Mother, it’s I, it’s I! I’m Basilio, your son!” cried the boy as he let himself fall weakly.
But the madwoman did not yield. Bracing herself with her feet on the ground, she offered an energetic resistance.
Basilio beat the gate with his fists, with his Mood-stained head, he wept, but in vain. Painfully he arose and examined [490]the
wall, thinking to scale it, but found no way to do so. He then walked around it and noticed that a branch of the fateful balete
was crossed with one from another tree. This he climbed and, his filial love working miracles, made his way from branch to
branch to the balete, from which he saw his mother still holding the gate shut with her head.
The noise made by him among the branches attracted Sisa’s attention. She turned and tried to run, but her son,
letting himself fall from the tree, caught her in his arms and covered her with kisses, losing consciousness as he did so.
Sisa saw his blood-stained forehead and bent over him. Her eyes seemed to start from their sockets as she peered
into his face. Those pale features stirred the sleeping cells of her brain, so that something like a spark of intelligence flashed
up in her mind and she recognized her son. With a terrible cry she fell upon the insensible body of the boy, embracing and
kissing him. Mother and son remained motionless.
When Basilio recovered consciousness he found his mother lifeless. He called to her with the tenderest names, but
she did not awake. Noticing that she was not even breathing, he arose and went to the neighboring brook to get some water
in a banana leaf, with which to rub the pallid face of his mother, but the madwoman made not the least movement and her
eyes remained closed.
Basilio gazed at her in terror. He placed his ear over her heart, but the thin, faded breast was cold, and her heart no
longer beat. He put his lips to hers, but felt no breathing. The miserable boy threw his arms about the corpse and wept bitterly.
The moon gleamed majestically in the sky, the wandering breezes sighed, and down in the grass the crickets
chirped. The night of light and joy for so many children, who in the warm bosom of the family celebrate this feast of sweetest
memories—the feast which commemorates the [491]first look of love that Heaven sent to earth—this night when in all Christian
families they eat, drink, dance, sing, laugh, play, caress, and kiss one another—this night, which in cold countries holds such
magic for childhood with its traditional pine-tree covered with lights, dolls, candies, and tinsel, whereon gaze the round, staring
eyes in which innocence alone is reflected—this night brought to Basilio only orphanhood. Who knows but that perhaps in the
home whence came the taciturn Padre Salvi children also played, perhaps they sang
“La Nochebuena se viene,
La Nochebuena se va.”1
For a long time the boy wept and moaned. When at last he raised his head he saw a man standing over him, gazing
at the scene in silence.
“Are you her son?” asked the unknown in a low voice.
 The boy nodded.
“What do you expect to do?”
“Bury her!”
“In the cemetery?”
“I haven’t any money and, besides, the curate wouldn’t allow it.”
“Then?”
“If you would help me—”
“I’m very weak,” answered the unknown as he sank slowly to the ground, supporting himself with both hands. “I’m
wounded. For two days I haven’t eaten or slept. Has no one come here tonight?”
The man thoughtfully contemplated the attractive features of the boy, then went on in a still weaker voice, “Listen! I,
too, shall be dead before the day comes. Twenty paces from here, on the other side of the brook, there is a big pile of firewood.
Bring it here, make a pyre, put our bodies upon it, cover them over, and set fire to the whole—fire, until we are reduced to
ashes!”
[492]Basilio listened attentively.
“Afterwards, if no one comes, dig here. You will find a lot of gold and it will all be yours. Take it and go to school.”
The voice of the unknown was becoming every moment more unintelligible. “Go, get the firewood. I want to help
you.”
As Basilio moved away, the unknown turned his face toward the east and murmured, as though praying:
“I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land! You, who have it to see, welcome it—and forget not
those who have fallen during the night!”
He raised his eyes to the sky and his lips continued to move, as if uttering a prayer. Then he bowed his head and
sank slowly to the earth.
Two hours later Sister Rufa was on the back veranda of her house making her morning ablutions in order to attend
mass. The pious woman gazed at the adjacent wood and saw a thick column of smoke rising from it. Filled with holy
indignation, she knitted her eyebrows and exclaimed:
“What heretic is making a clearing on a holy day? That’s why so many calamities come! You ought to go to purgatory
and see if you could get out of there, savage!”[493]

1A Christmas carol: “Christmas night is coming, Christmas night is going.”—TR.

Epilogue

Since some of our characters are still living and others have been lost sight of, a real epilogue is impossible. For the
satisfaction of the groundlings we should gladly kill off all of them, beginning with Padre Salvi and ending with Doña Victorina,
but this is not possible. Let them live! Anyhow, the country, not ourselves, has to support them.
After Maria Clara entered the nunnery, Padre Damaso left his town to live in Manila, as did also Padre Salvi, who,
while he awaits a vacant miter, preaches sometimes in the church of St. Clara, in whose nunnery he discharges the duties of
an important office. Not many months had passed when Padre Damaso received an order from the Very Reverend Father
Provincial to occupy a curacy in a remote province. It is related that he was so grievously affected by this that on the following
day he was found dead in his bedchamber. Some said that he had died of an apoplectic stroke, others of a nightmare, but his
physician dissipated all doubts by declaring that he had died suddenly.
None of our readers would now recognize Capitan Tiago. Weeks before Maria Clara took the vows he fell into a
state of depression so great that he grew sad and thin, and became pensive and distrustful, like his former friend, Capitan
Tinong. As soon as the doors of the nunnery closed he ordered his disconsolate cousin, Aunt Isabel, to collect whatever had
belonged to his daughter and his dead wife and to go to make her home in Malabon or San Diego, since he wished to live
alone thenceforward, tie then devoted himself passionately to liam-pó and the cockpit, and began to smoke opium. He no
longer goes to Antipolo nor does he order any more masses, so Doña Patrocinia, his old rival, [494]celebrates her triumph
piously by snoring during the sermons. If at any time during the late afternoon you should walk along Calle Santo Cristo, you
would see seated in a Chinese shop a small man, yellow, thin, and bent, with stained and dirty finger nails, gazing through
dreamy, sunken eyes at the passers-by as if he did not see them. At nightfall you would see him rise with difficulty and,
supporting himself on his cane, make his way to a narrow little by-street to enter a grimy building over the door of which may
be seen in large red letters: FUMADERO PUBLICO DE ANFION.1 This is that Capitan Tiago who was so celebrated, but who
is now completely forgotten, even by the very senior sacristan himself.
Doña Victorina has added to her false frizzes and to her Andalusization, if we may be permitted the term, the new
custom of driving the carriage horses herself, obliging Don Tiburcio to remain quiet. Since many unfortunate accidents
occurred on account of the weakness of her eyes, she has taken to wearing spectacles, which give her a marvelous
appearance. The doctor has never been called upon again to attend any one and the servants see him many days in the week
without teeth, which, as our readers know, is a very bad sign. Linares, the only defender of the hapless doctor, has long been
at rest in Paco cemetery, the victim of dysentery and the harsh treatment of his cousin-in-law.
The victorious alferez returned to Spain a major, leaving his amiable spouse in her flannel camisa, the color of which
is now indescribable. The poor Ariadne, finding herself thus abandoned, also devoted herself, as did the daughter of Minos,
to the cult of Bacchus and the cultivation of tobacco; she drinks and smokes with such fury that now not only the girls but even
the old women and little children fear her.
Probably our acquaintances of the town of San Diego are still alive, if they did not perish in the explosion of the
steamer “Lipa,” which was making a trip to the province. [495]Since no one bothered himself to learn who the unfortunates
were that perished in that catastrophe or to whom belonged the legs and arms left neglected on Convalescence Island and
the banks of the river, we have no idea whether any acquaintance of our readers was among them or not. Along with the
government and the press at the time, we are satisfied with the information that the only friar who was on the steamer was
saved, and we do not ask for more. The principal thing for us is the existence of the virtuous priests, whose reign in the
Philippines may God conserve for the good of our souls.2
Of Maria Clara nothing more is known except that the sepulcher seems to guard her in its bosom. We have asked
several persons of great influence in the holy nunnery of St. Clara, but no one has been willing to tell us a single word, not
even the talkative devotees who receive the famous fried chicken-livers and the even more famous sauce known as that “of
the nuns,” prepared by the intelligent cook of the Virgins of the Lord.
Nevertheless: On a night in September the hurricane raged over Manila, lashing the buildings with its gigantic wings.
The thunder crashed continuously. Lightning flashes momentarily revealed the havoc wrought by the blast and threw the
inhabitants into wild terror. The rain fell in torrents. Each flash of the forked lightning showed a piece of roofing or a window-
blind flying through the air to fall with a horrible crash. Not a person or a carriage moved through the streets. When the hoarse
reverberations of the thunder, a hundred times re-echoed, lost themselves in the distance, there was heard the soughing of
the wind as it drove the raindrops with a continuous tick-tack against the concha-panes of the closed windows.
Two patrolmen sheltered themselves under the eaves of a building near the nunnery, one a private and the other
a distinguido.
“What’s the use of our staying here?” said the private.
[496]“No one is moving about the streets. We ought to get into a house. My querida lives in Calle Arzobispo.”
“From here over there is quite a distance and we’ll get wet,” answered the distinguido.
“What does that matter just so the lightning doesn’t strike us?”
“Bah, don’t worry! The nuns surely have a lightningrod to protect them.”
“Yes,” observed the private, “but of what use is it when the night is so dark?”
As he said this he looked upward to stare into the darkness. At that moment a prolonged streak of lightning flashed,
followed by a terrific roar.
“Nakú! Susmariosep!” exclaimed the private, crossing himself and catching hold of his companion. “Let’s get away
from here.”
“What’s happened?”
“Come, come away from here,” he repeated with his teeth rattling from fear.
“What have you seen?”
“A specter!” he murmured, trembling with fright.
“A specter?”
“On the roof there. It must be the nun who practises magic during the night.”
The distinguido thrust his head out to look, just as a flash of lightning furrowed the heavens with a vein of fire and
sent a horrible crash earthwards. “Jesús!” he exclaimed, also crossing himself.
In the brilliant glare of the celestial light he had seen a white figure standing almost on the ridge of the roof with arms
and face raised toward the sky as if praying to it. The heavens responded with lightning and thunderbolts!
As the sound of the thunder rolled away a sad plaint was heard.
“That’s not the wind, it’s the specter,” murmured the private, as if in response to the pressure of his companion’s
hand.
[497]“Ay! Ay!” came through the air, rising above the noise of the rain, nor could the whistling wind drown that sweet
and mournful voice charged with affliction.
Again the lightning flashed with dazzling intensity.
“No, it’s not a specter!” exclaimed the distinguido.
“I’ve seen her before. She’s beautiful, like the Virgin! Let’s get away from here and report it.”
The private did not wait for him to repeat the invitation, and both disappeared.
Who was moaning in the middle of the night in spite of the wind and rain and storm? Who was the timid maiden, the
bride of Christ, who defied the unchained elements and chose such a fearful night under the open sky to breathe forth from
so perilous a height her complaints to God? Had the Lord abandoned his altar in the nunnery so that He no longer heard her
supplications? Did its arches perhaps prevent the longings of the soul from rising up to the throne of the Most Merciful?
The tempest raged furiously nearly the whole night, nor did a single star shine through the darkness. The despairing
plaints continued to mingle with the soughing of the wind, but they found Nature and man alike deaf; God had hidden himself
and heard not.
On the following day, after the dark clouds had cleared away and the sun shone again brightly in the limpid sky,
there stopped at the door of the nunnery of St. Clara a carriage, from which alighted a man who made himself known as a
representative of the authorities. He asked to be allowed to speak immediately with the abbess and to see all the nuns.
 It is said that one of these, who appeared in a gown all wet and torn, with tears and tales of horror begged the man’s
protection against the outrages of hypocrisy. It is also said that she was very beautiful and had the most lovely and expressive
eyes that were ever seen.
The representative of the authorities did not accede to her request, but, after talking with the abbess, left her there
in [498]spite of her tears and pleadings. The youthful nun saw the door close behind him as a condemned person might look
upon the portals of Heaven closing against him, if ever Heaven should come to be as cruel and unfeeling as men are. The
abbess said that she was a madwoman. The man may not have known that there is in Manila a home for the demented; or
perhaps he looked upon the nunnery itself as an insane asylum, although it is claimed that he was quite ignorant, especially
in a matter of deciding whether a person is of sound mind.
It is also reported that General J——— thought otherwise, when the matter reached his ears. He wished to protect
the madwoman and asked for her. But this time no beautiful and unprotected maiden appeared, nor would the abbess permit
a visit to the cloister, forbidding it in the name of Religion and the Holy Statutes. Nothing more was said of the affair, nor of
the ill-starred Maria Clara.

1Public Opium-Smoking Room.

2January 2, 1883.—Author’s note.
Glossary

abá: A Tagalog exclamation of wonder, surprise, etc., often used to introduce or emphasize a contradictory statement.
abaka: “Manila hemp,” the fiber of a plant of the banana family.
achara: Pickles made from the tender shoots of bamboo, green papayas, etc.
alcalde: Governor of a province or district with both executive and judicial authority.
alferez: Junior officer of the Civil Guard, ranking next below a lieutenant.
alibambang: A leguminous plant whose acid leaves are used in cooking.
alpay: A variety of nephelium, similar but inferior to the Chinese lichi.
among: Term used by the natives in addressing a priest, especially a friar: from the Spanish amo, master.
amores-secos: “Barren loves,” a low-growing weed whose small, angular pods adhere to clothing.
andas: A platform with handles, on which an image is borne in a procession.
asuang: A malignant devil reputed to feed upon human flesh, being especially fond of new-born babes.
até: The sweet-sop.
Audiencia: The administrative council and supreme court of the Spanish régime.
Ayuntamiento: A city corporation or council, and by extension the building in which it has its offices; specifically, in Manila, the capitol.
azotea: The flat roof of a house or any similar platform; a roof-garden.
babaye: Woman (the general Malay term).
baguio: The local name for the typhoon or hurricane.
bailúhan: Native dance and feast: from the Spanish baile.
balete: The Philippine banyan, a tree sacred in Malay folk-lore.
banka: A dugout canoe with bamboo supports or outriggers.
Bilibid: The general penitentiary at Manila.
buyo: The masticatory prepared by wrapping a piece of areca-nut with a little shell-lime in a betel-leaf: the pan of British India.
cabeza de barangay: Headman and tax collector for a group of about fifty families, for whose “tribute” he was personally responsible.
calle: Street.
camisa: 1. A loose, collarless shirt of transparent material worn by men outside the trousers.
2. A thin, transparent waist with flowing sleeves, worn by women.
camote: A variety of sweet potato.
capitan: “Captain,” a title used in addressing or referring to the gobernadorcillo or a former occupant of that office.
carambas: A Spanish exclamation denoting surprise or displeasure.
carbineer: Internal-revenue guard.
cedula: Certificate of registration and receipt for poll-tax.
chico: The sapodilla plum.
Civil Guard: Internal quasi-military police force of Spanish officers and native soldiers.
cochero: Carriage driver: coachman.
Consul: A wealthy merchant; originally, a member of the Consulado, the tribunal, or corporation, controlling the galleon trade.
cuadrillero: Municipal guard.
cuarto: A copper coin, one hundred and sixty of which were equal in value to a silver peso.
cuidao: “Take care!” “Look out!” A common exclamation, from the Spanish cuidado.
dálag: The Philippine Ophiocephalus, the curious walking mudfish that abounds in the paddy-fields during the rainy season.
dalaga: Maiden, woman of marriageable age.
dinding: House-wall or partition of plaited bamboo wattle.
director, directorcillo: The town secretary and clerk of the gobernadorcillo.
distinguido: A person of rank serving as a private soldier but exempted from menial duties and in promotions preferred to others of equal
merit.
escribano: Clerk of court and official notary.
filibuster: A native of the Philippines who was accused of advocating their separation from Spain.
gobernadorcillo: “Petty governor,” the principal municipal official.
gogo: A climbing, woody vine whose macerated stems are used as soap; “soap-vine.”
guingón: Dungaree, a coarse blue cotton cloth.
hermano mayor: The manager of a fiesta.
husi: A fine cloth made of silk interwoven with cotton, abaka, or pineapple-leaf fibers.
ilang-ilang: The Malay “flower of flowers,” from which the well-known essence is obtained.
Indian: The Spanish designation for the Christianized Malay of the Philippines was indio (Indian), a term used rather contemptuously, the
name Filipino being generally applied in a restricted sense to the children of Spaniards born in the Islands.
kaing̃in: A woodland clearing made by burning off the trees and underbrush, for planting upland rice or camotes.
kalan: The small, portable, open, clay fireplace commonly used in cooking.
kalao: The Philippine hornbill. As in all Malay countries, this bird is the object of curious superstitions. Its raucous cry, which may be faintly
characterized as hideous, is said to mark the hours and, in the night-time, to presage death or other disaster.
kalikut: A short section of bamboo in which the buyo is mixed; a primitive betel-box.
[501]kamagon: A tree of the ebony family, from which fine cabinet-wood is obtained. Its fruit is the mabolo, or date-plum.
kasamá: Tenants on the land of another, to whom they render payment in produce or by certain specified services.
kogon: A tall, rank grass used for thatch.
kris: A Moro dagger or short sword with a serpentine blade.
kundíman: A native song.
kupang: A large tree of the Mimosa family.
kuriput: Miser, “skinflint.”
lanson: The langsa, a delicious cream-colored fruit about the size of a plum. In the Philippines, its special habitat is the country around the
Lake of Bay.
liam-pó: A Chinese game of chance (?).
lomboy: The jambolana, a small, blue fruit with a large stone.
Malacañang: The palace of the Captain-General in Manila: from the vernacular name of the place where it stands, “fishermen’s resort.”
mankukúlan: An evil spirit causing sickness and other misfortunes, and a person possessed of such a demon.
morisqueta: Rice boiled without salt until dry, the staple food of the Filipinos.
Moro: Mohammedan Malay of southern Mindanao and Sulu.
mutya: Some object with talismanic properties, “rabbit’s foot.”
nakú: A Tagalog exclamation of surprise, wonder, etc.
nipa: Swamp-palm, with the imbricated leaves of which the roots and sides of the common Filipino houses are constructed.
nito: A climbing fern whose glossy, wiry leaves are used for making fine hats, cigar-cases, etc.
novena: A devotion consisting of prayers recited on nine consecutive days, asking for some special favor; also, a booklet of these prayers.
oy: An exclamation to attract attention, used toward inferiors and in familiar intercourse: probably a contraction of the Spanish
imperative, oye, “listen!”
pakó: An edible fern.
palasán: A thick, stout variety of rattan, used for walking-sticks.
pandakaki: A low tree or shrub with small, star-like flowers.
pañuelo: A starched neckerchief folded stiffly over the shoulders, fastened in front and falling in a point behind: the most distinctive portion
of the customary dress of the Filipino women.
papaya: The tropical papaw, fruit of the “melon-tree.”
paracmason: Freemason, the bête noire of the Philippine friar.
peseta: A silver coin, in value one-fifth of a peso or thirty-two cuartos.
peso: A silver coin, either the Spanish peso or the Mexican dollar, about the size of an American dollar and of approximately half its value.
piña: Fine cloth made from pineapple-leaf fibers.
proper names: The author has given a simple and sympathetic touch to his story throughout by using the familiar names commonly
employed among the Filipinos in their home-life. Some of these are nicknames or pet names, such as Andong, Andoy, Choy,
Neneng (“Baby”), Puté, Tinchang, and Yeyeng. Others are abbreviations or corruptions of the Christian names, often with the
particle ng or ay added, which is a common practice: Andeng, Andrea; Doray, Teodora; Iday, Brigida (Bridget); [502]Sinang,
Lucinda (Lucy); Sipa, Josefa; Sisa, Narcisa; Teo, Teodoro (Theodore); Tiago, Santiago (James); Tasio, Anastasio; Tiká,
Escolastica; Tinay, Quintina; Tinong, Saturnino.
Provincial: Head of a religious order in the Philippines.
querida: Paramour, mistress: from the Spanish, “beloved.”
real: One-eighth of a peso, twenty cuartos.
sala: The principal room in the more pretentious Philippine houses.
salabat: An infusion of ginger.
salakot: Wide hat of palm or bamboo and rattan, distinctively Filipino.
sampaguita: The Arabian jasmine: a small, white, very fragrant flower, extensively cultivated, and worn in chaplets and rosaries by the
women and girls—the typical Philippine flower.
santol: The Philippine sandal-tree.
sawali: Plaited bamboo wattle.
sinamay: A transparent cloth woven from abaka fibers.
sinigang: Water with vegetables or some acid fruit, in which fish are boiled; “fish soup.”
Susmariosep: A common exclamation: contraction of the Spanish, Jesús, María, y José, the Holy Family.
tabí: The cry of carriage drivers to warn pedestrians.
talibon: A short sword, the “war bolo.”
tapa: Jerked meat.
tápis: A piece of dark cloth or lace, often richly worked or embroidered, worn at the waist somewhat in the fashion of an apron: a distinctive
portion of the native women’s attire, especially among the Tagalogs.
tarambulo: A low weed whose leaves and fruit pedicles are covered with short, sharp spines.
teniente-mayor: Senior lieutenant, the senior member of the town council and substitute for the gobernadorcillo.
tikas-tikas: A variety of canna bearing bright red flowers.
tertiary brethren: Members of a lay society affiliated with a regular monastic order, especially the Venerable Tertiary Order of the
Franciscans.
timbaín: The “water-cure,” and hence, any kind of torture. The primary meaning is “to draw water from a well,” from timba, pail.
tikbalang: An evil spirit, capable of assuming various forms, but said to appear usually in the shape of a tall black man with disproportionately
long legs: the “bogey man” of Tagalog children.
tulisan: Outlaw, bandit. Under the old régime in the Philippines the tulisanes were those who, on account of real or fancied grievances
against the authorities, or from fear of punishment for crime, or from an instinctive desire to return to primitive simplicity, foreswore
life in the towns “under the bell,” and made their homes in the mountains or other remote places. Gathered in small bands with
such arms as they could secure, they sustained themselves by highway robbery and the levying of blackmail from the country
folk.
zacate: Native grass used for feeding livestock.

Let’s Remember :
 The Noli Me Tangere expresses the various injustices committed by the Spaniards to the
Filipinos. This relates the compiled stories of the Filipinos as they were experienced
personally by the author or was retold to him by people that influenced him such as his
parents, the Gomburza hanging and etc.
Let’s Do This :
M. Writing Exercise:

 What were the significant events as experienced by the main character in the novel.
 How does these points relate to you as a Filipino?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)
N. Recitation Exercise:

 Are the atrocities committed in the novel still happening today?

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:
 Rizal, Jose. Noll' Me Tangere. Trans. Virgilio Almario or Soledad Maximo Locsin Anderson, Benedict. Why
Counting Counts: A Study of Forms of Consciousness and Problems of Language in Noli Me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008

Module Post Test:

________ 1 __ was the name of the main character of the novel.

________ 2 __ was the main villain in the novel.
________ 3 __ was the character personifying Rizal’s love of his life.
________ 4 __ was the injustice done to the main villain of the novel.
________ 5 __ is roughly translated as “touch me not”.

References/Sources:
 Caroline S. Hau, "Introduction" in Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, 1946-1980. Quezon City Ateneo
de Manila University Press, 2000
 Almario. Virgilio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. QC: UP Press, 2008
 Anderson, Benedict. Why Counting Counts: A Study of Forms of Consciousness and Problems of Language in Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 9

Lesson Title : El Filibusterismo

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Compare and contrast the characters, plot, and theme of the Noli and the El Fili

 Value the role of the youth in the development and future of society

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Is revenge justified against the commission of
injustice?”

 Students are required to solicit ideas from their parents, elder siblings, friends
or classmates.

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate the appreciation
of the creative fiction.

 The students are tasked to read the "El Filibusterismo and research possible
interpretations from other sources before forming their own understanding of
the novel.
Let’s Read :

The Reign of Greed

A Complete English Version of

El Filibusterismo from the Spanish of

José Rizal
By
Charles Derbyshire
Manila
Philippine Education Company
1912

Copyright, 1912, by Philippine Education Company.

Entered at Stationers’ Hall.
Registrado en las Islas Filipinas.
All rights reserved.
Translator’s Introduction

El Filibusterismo, the second of José Rizal’s novels of Philippine life, is a story of the last days of the Spanish régime
in the Philippines. Under the name of The Reign of Greed it is for the first time translated into English. Written some four or
five years after Noli Me Tangere, the book represents Rizal’s more mature judgment on political and social conditions in the
islands, and in its graver and less hopeful tone reflects the disappointments and discouragements which he had encountered
in his efforts to lead the way to reform. Rizal’s dedication to the first edition is of special interest, as the writing of it was one
of the grounds of accusation against him when he was condemned to death in 1896. It reads:

“To the memory of the priests, Don Mariano Gomez (85 years old), Don José Burgos (30 years
old), and Don Jacinto Zamora (35 years old). Executed in Bagumbayan Field on the 28th of February,
1872.

“The Church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime that has been imputed
to you; the Government, by surrounding your trials with mystery and shadows, causes the belief that there
was some error, committed in fatal moments; and all the Philippines, by worshiping your memory and
calling you martyrs, in no [vi]sense recognizes your culpability. In so far, therefore, as your complicity in
the Cavite mutiny is not clearly proved, as you may or may not have been patriots, and as you may or
may not have cherished sentiments for justice and for liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to you
as victims of the evil which I undertake to combat. And while we await expectantly upon Spain some day
to restore your good name and cease to be answerable for your death, let these pages serve as a tardy
wreath of dried leaves over your unknown tombs, and let it be understood that every one who without
clear proofs attacks your memory stains his hands in your blood!

J. Rizal.”

A brief recapitulation of the story in Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer) is essential to an understanding of such
plot as there is in the present work, which the author called a “continuation” of the first story.

Juan Crisostomo Ibarra is a young Filipino, who, after studying for seven years in Europe, returns to his native land
to find that his father, a wealthy landowner, has died in prison as the result of a quarrel with the parish curate, a Franciscan
friar named Padre Damaso. Ibarra is engaged to a beautiful and accomplished girl, Maria Clara, the supposed daughter and
only child of the rich Don Santiago de los Santos, commonly known as “Capitan Tiago,” a typical Filipino cacique, the
predominant character fostered by the friar régime.[vii]

Ibarra resolves to forego all quarrels and to work for the betterment of his people. To show his good intentions, he
seeks to establish, at his own expense, a public school in his native town. He meets with ostensible support from all, especially
Padre Damaso’s successor, a young and gloomy Franciscan named Padre Salvi, for whom Maria Clara confesses to an
instinctive dread.

At the laying of the corner-stone for the new schoolhouse a suspicious accident, apparently aimed at Ibarra’s life,
occurs, but the festivities proceed until the dinner, where Ibarra is grossly and wantonly insulted over the memory of his father
by Fray Damaso. The young man loses control of himself and is about to kill the friar, who is saved by the intervention of Maria
Clara.

Ibarra is excommunicated, and Capitan Tiago, through his fear of the friars, is forced to break the engagement and
agree to the marriage of Maria Clara with a young and inoffensive Spaniard provided by Padre Damaso. Obedient to her
reputed father’s command and influenced by her mysterious dread of Padre Salvi, Maria Clara consents to this arrangement,
but becomes seriously ill, only to be saved by medicines sent secretly by Ibarra and clandestinely administered by a girlfriend.

Ibarra succeeds in having the excommunication removed, but before he can explain matters an uprising against the
Civil Guard is secretly brought about through agents of Padre Salvi, and the leadership is ascribed to Ibarra to ruin him. He is
warned by a mysterious friend, an outlaw called Elias, whose life he had accidentally saved; but desiring first to see Maria
Clara, he refuses to make his escape, and when the outbreak [viii]occurs he is arrested as the instigator of it and thrown into
prison in Manila.

On the evening when Capitan Tiago gives a ball in his Manila house to celebrate his supposed daughter’s
engagement, Ibarra makes his escape from prison and succeeds in seeing Maria Clara alone. He begins to reproach her
because it is a letter written to her before he went to Europe which forms the basis of the charge against him, but she clears
herself of treachery to him. The letter had been secured from her by false representations and in exchange for two others
written by her mother just before her birth, which prove that Padre Damaso is her real father. These letters had been
accidentally discovered in the convento by Padre Salvi, who made use of them to intimidate the girl and get possession of
Ibarra’s letter, from which he forged others to incriminate the young man. She tells him that she will marry the young Spaniard,
sacrificing herself thus to save her mother’s name and Capitan Tiago’s honor and to prevent a public scandal, but that she will
always remain true to him.

Ibarra’s escape had been effected by Elias, who conveys him in a banka up the Pasig to the Lake, where they are
so closely beset by the Civil Guard that Elias leaps into the water and draws the pursuers away from the boat, in which Ibarra
lies concealed.

On Christmas Eve, at the tomb of the Ibarras in a gloomy wood, Elias appears, wounded and dying, to find there a
boy named Basilio beside the corpse of his mother, a poor woman who had been driven to insanity by her husband’s neglect
and abuses on the part of the Civil Guard, her younger son having [ix]disappeared some time before in the convento, where
he was a sacristan. Basilio, who is ignorant of Elias’s identity, helps him to build a funeral pyre, on which his corpse and the
madwoman’s are to be burned.

Upon learning of the reported death of Ibarra in the chase on the Lake, Maria Clara becomes disconsolate and begs
her supposed godfather, Fray Damaso, to put her in a nunnery. Unconscious of her knowledge of their true relationship, the
friar breaks down and confesses that all the trouble he has stirred up with the Ibarras has been to prevent her from marrying
a native, which would condemn her and her children to the oppressed and enslaved class. He finally yields to her entreaties
and she enters the nunnery of St. Clara, to which Padre Salvi is soon assigned in a ministerial capacity.[x]

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,

Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape-;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb terror shall reply to God,
After the silence of the centuries?

Edwin Markham[xi]
 Contents

I. On the Upper Deck

II. On the Lower Deck
III. Legends
IV. Cabesang Tales
V. A Cochero’s Christmas Eve
VI. Basilio
VII. Simoun
VIII. Merry Christmas
IX. Pilates
X. Wealth and Want
XI. Los Baños
XII. Placido Penitente
XIII. The Class in Physics
XIV. In the House of the Students
XV. Señor Pasta
XVI. The Tribulations of a Chinese
XVII. The Quiapo Pair
XVIII. Legerdemain
XIX. The Fuse
XX. The Arbiter
XXI. Manila Types
XXII. The Performance
XXIII. A Corpse
XXIV. Dreams
XXV. Smiles and Tears[xii]
XXVI. Pasquinades
XXVII. The Friar and the Filipino
XXVIII. Tatakut
XXIX. Exit Capitan Tiago
XXX. Juli
XXXI. The High Official
XXXII. Effect of the Pasquinades
XXXIII. La Ultima Razón
XXXIV. The Wedding
XXXV. The Fiesta
XXXVI. Ben-Zayb’s Afflictions
XXXVII. The Mystery
XXXVIII. Fatality
XXXIX. Conclusion
 On the Upper Deck
Sic itur ad astra.
One morning in December the steamer Tabo was laboriously ascending the tortuous course of the Pasig,
carrying a large crowd of passengers toward the province of La Laguna. She was a heavily built steamer, almost
round, like the tabú from which she derived her name, quite dirty in spite of her pretensions to whiteness, majestic
and grave from her leisurely motion. Altogether, she was held in great affection in that region, perhaps from her
Tagalog name, or from the fact that she bore the characteristic impress of things in the country, representing
something like a triumph over progress, a steamer that was not a steamer at all, an organism, stolid, imperfect yet
unimpeachable, which, when it wished to pose as being rankly progressive, proudly contented itself with putting
on a fresh coat of paint. Indeed, the happy steamer was genuinely Filipino! If a person were only reasonably
considerate, she might even have been taken for the Ship of State, constructed, as she had been, under the
inspection of Reverendos and Ilustrísimos....
Bathed in the sunlight of a morning that made the waters of the river sparkle and the breezes rustle in the
bending bamboo on its banks, there she goes with her white silhouette throwing out great clouds of smoke—the
Ship of State, so the joke runs, also has the vice of smoking! The whistle shrieks at every moment, hoarse and
commanding like a tyrant who would rule by shouting, so that no one on [2]board can hear his own thoughts. She
menaces everything she meets: now she looks as though she would grind to bits the salambaw, insecure fishing
apparatus which in their movements resemble skeletons of giants saluting an antediluvian tortoise; now she speeds
straight toward the clumps of bamboo or against the amphibian structures, karihan, or wayside lunch-stands,
which, amid gumamelas and other flowers, look like indecisive bathers who with their feet already in the water
cannot bring themselves to make the final plunge; at times, following a sort of channel marked out in the river by
tree-trunks, she moves along with a satisfied air, except when a sudden shock disturbs the passengers and throws
them off their balance, all the result of a collision with a sand-bar which no one dreamed was there.
Moreover, if the comparison with the Ship of State is not yet complete, note the arrangement of the
passengers. On the lower deck appear brown faces and black heads, types of Indians,1 Chinese, and mestizos,
wedged in between bales of merchandise and boxes, while there on the upper deck, beneath an awning that protects
them from the sun, are seated in comfortable chairs a few passengers dressed in the fashion of Europeans, friars,
and government clerks, each with his puro cigar, and gazing at the landscape apparently without heeding the
efforts of the captain and the sailors to overcome the obstacles in the river.
The captain was a man of kindly aspect, well along in years, an old sailor who in his youth had plunged
into far vaster seas, but who now in his age had to exercise much greater attention, care, and vigilance to avoid
dangers of a trivial character. And they were the same for each day: the same sand-bars, the same hulk of unwieldy
steamer wedged into the same curves, like a corpulent dame [3]in a jammed throng. So, at each moment, the good
man had to stop, to back up, to go forward at half speed, sending—now to port, now to starboard—the five sailors
equipped with long bamboo poles to give force to the turn the rudder had suggested. He was like a veteran who,
after leading men through hazardous campaigns, had in his age become the tutor of a capricious, disobedient, and
lazy boy.
Doña Victorina, the only lady seated in the European group, could say whether the Tabo was not lazy,
disobedient, and capricious—Doña Victorina, who, nervous as ever, was hurling invectives against the cascos,
bankas, rafts of coconuts, the Indians paddling about, and even the washerwomen and bathers, who fretted her
with their mirth and chatter. Yes, the Tabo would move along very well if there were no Indians in the river, no
Indians in the country, yes, if there were not a single Indian in the world—regardless of the fact that the helmsmen
were Indians, the sailors Indians, Indians the engineers, Indians ninety-nine per cent, of the passengers, and she
herself also an Indian if the rouge were scratched off and her pretentious gown removed. That morning Doña
Victorina was more irritated than usual because the members of the group took very little notice of her, reason for
which was not lacking; for just consider—there could be found three friars, convinced that the world would move
backwards the very day they should take a single step to the right; an indefatigable Don Custodio who was sleeping
peacefully, satisfied with his projects; a prolific writer like Ben-Zayb (anagram of Ibañez), who believed that the
people of Manila thought because he, Ben-Zayb, was a thinker; a canon like Padre Irene, who added luster to the
clergy with his rubicund face, carefully shaven, from which towered a beautiful Jewish nose, and his silken
cassock of neat cut and small buttons; and a wealthy jeweler like Simoun, who was reputed to be the adviser and
inspirer of all the acts of his Excellency, the Captain-General—[4]just consider the presence there of these
pillars sine quibus non of the country, seated there in agreeable discourse, showing little sympathy for a renegade
Filipina who dyed her hair red! Now wasn’t this enough to exhaust the patience of a female Job—a sobriquet
Doña Victorina always applied to herself when put out with any one!
The ill-humor of the señora increased every time the captain shouted “Port,” “Starboard” to the sailors,
who then hastily seized their poles and thrust them against the banks, thus with the strength of their legs and
shoulders preventing the steamer from shoving its hull ashore at that particular point. Seen under these
circumstances the Ship of State might be said to have been converted from a tortoise into a crab every time any
danger threatened.
“But, captain, why don’t your stupid steersmen go in that direction?” asked the lady with great
indignation.
“Because it’s very shallow in the other, señora,” answered the captain, deliberately, slowly winking one
eye, a little habit which he had cultivated as if to say to his words on their way out, “Slowly, slowly!”
“Half speed! Botheration, half speed!” protested Doña Victorina disdainfully. “Why not full?”
“Because we should then be traveling over those ricefields, señora,” replied the imperturbable captain,
pursing his lips to indicate the cultivated fields and indulging in two circumspect winks.
This Doña Victorina was well known in the country for her caprices and extravagances. She was often
seen in society, where she was tolerated whenever she appeared in the company of her niece, Paulita Gomez, a
very beautiful and wealthy orphan, to whom she was a kind of guardian. At a rather advanced age she had married
a poor wretch named Don Tiburcio de Espadaña, and at the time we now see her, carried upon herself fifteen years
of wedded life, false frizzes, and a half-European costume—for her whole ambition had been to Europeanize
herself, with the result that from the ill-omened day of her wedding she had gradually, [5]thanks to her criminal
attempts, succeeded in so transforming herself that at the present time Quatrefages and Virchow together could
not have told where to classify her among the known races.
Her husband, who had borne all her impositions with the resignation of a fakir through so many years of
married life, at last on one luckless day had had his bad half-hour and administered to her a superb whack with
his crutch. The surprise of Madam Job at such an inconsistency of character made her insensible to the immediate
effects, and only after she had recovered from her astonishment and her husband had fled did she take notice of
the pain, then remaining in bed for several days, to the great delight of Paulita, who was very fond of joking and
laughing at her aunt. As for her husband, horrified at the impiety of what appeared to him to be a terrific parricide,
he took to flight, pursued by the matrimonial furies (two curs and a parrot), with all the speed his lameness
permitted, climbed into the first carriage he encountered, jumped into the first banka he saw on the river, and, a
Philippine Ulysses, began to wander from town to town, from province to province, from island to island, pursued
and persecuted by his bespectacled Calypso, who bored every one that had the misfortune to travel in her company.
She had received a report of his being in the province of La Laguna, concealed in one of the towns, so thither she
was bound to seduce him back with her dyed frizzes.
Her fellow travelers had taken measures of defense by keeping up among themselves a lively
conversation on any topic whatsoever. At that moment the windings and turnings of the river led them to talk
about straightening the channel and, as a matter of course, about the port works. Ben-Zayb, the journalist with the
countenance of a friar, was disputing with a young friar who in turn had the countenance of an artilleryman. Both
were shouting, gesticulating, waving their arms, spreading out their hands, [6]stamping their feet, talking of levels,
fish-corrals, the San Mateo River,2 of cascos, of Indians, and so on, to the great satisfaction of their listeners and
the undisguised disgust of an elderly Franciscan, remarkably thin and withered, and a handsome Dominican about
whose lips flitted constantly a scornful smile.
The thin Franciscan, understanding the Dominican’s smile, decided to intervene and stop the argument.
He was undoubtedly respected, for with a wave of his hand he cut short the speech of both at the moment when
the friar-artilleryman was talking about experience and the journalist-friar about scientists.
“Scientists, Ben-Zayb—do you know what they are?” asked the Franciscan in a hollow voice, scarcely
stirring in his seat and making only a faint gesture with his skinny hand. “Here you have in the province a bridge,
constructed by a brother of ours, which was not completed because the scientists, relying on their theories,
condemned it as weak and scarcely safe—yet look, it is the bridge that has withstood all the floods and
earthquakes!”3
“That’s it, puñales, that very thing, that was exactly what I was going to say!” exclaimed the friar-
artilleryman, thumping his fists down on the arms of his bamboo chair. “That’s it, that bridge and the scientists!
That was just what I was going to mention, Padre Salvi—puñales!”
Ben-Zayb remained silent, half smiling, either out of respect or because he really did not know what to
reply, and yet his was the only thinking head in the Philippines! Padre Irene nodded his approval as he rubbed his
long nose.
Padre Salvi, the thin and withered cleric, appeared to be satisfied with such submissiveness and went on
in the [7]midst of the silence: “But this does not mean that you may not be as near right as Padre Camorra” (the
friar-artilleryman). “The trouble is in the lake—”
“The fact is there isn’t a single decent lake in this country,” interrupted Doña Victorina, highly indignant,
and getting ready for a return to the assault upon the citadel.
The besieged gazed at one another in terror, but with the promptitude of a general, the jeweler Simoun
rushed in to the rescue. “The remedy is very simple,” he said in a strange accent, a mixture of English and South
American. “And I really don’t understand why it hasn’t occurred to somebody.”
 All turned to give him careful attention, even the Dominican. The jeweler was a tall, meager, nervous
man, very dark, dressed in the English fashion and wearing a pith helmet. Remarkable about him was his long
white hair contrasted with a sparse black beard, indicating a mestizo origin. To avoid the glare of the sun he wore
constantly a pair of enormous blue goggles, which completely hid his eyes and a portion of his cheeks, thus giving
him the aspect of a blind or weak-sighted person. He was standing with his legs apart as if to maintain his balance,
with his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat.
“The remedy is very simple,” he repeated, “and wouldn’t cost a cuarto.”
The attention now redoubled, for it was whispered in Manila that this man controlled the Captain-
General, and all saw the remedy in process of execution. Even Don Custodio himself turned to listen.
“Dig a canal straight from the source to the mouth of the river, passing through Manila; that is, make a
new river-channel and fill up the old Pasig. That would save land, shorten communication, and prevent the
formation of sandbars.”
The project left all his hearers astounded, accustomed as they were to palliative measures.[8]
“It’s a Yankee plan!” observed Ben-Zayb, to ingratiate himself with Simoun, who had spent a long time
in North America.
All considered the plan wonderful and so indicated by the movements of their heads. Only Don Custodio,
the liberal Don Custodio, owing to his independent position and his high offices, thought it his duty to attack a
project that did not emanate from himself—that was a usurpation! He coughed, stroked the ends of his mustache,
and with a voice as important as though he were at a formal session of the Ayuntamiento, said, “Excuse me, Señor
Simoun, my respected friend, if I should say that I am not of your opinion. It would cost a great deal of money
and might perhaps destroy some towns.”
“Then destroy them!” rejoined Simoun coldly.
“And the money to pay the laborers?”
“Don’t pay them! Use the prisoners and convicts!”
“But there aren’t enough, Señor Simoun!”
“Then, if there aren’t enough, let all the villagers, the old men, the youths, the boys, work. Instead of the
fifteen days of obligatory service, let them work three, four, five months for the State, with the additional
obligation that each one provide his own food and tools.”
The startled Don Custodio turned his head to see if there was any Indian within ear-shot, but fortunately
those nearby were rustics, and the two helmsmen seemed to be very much occupied with the windings of the river.
“But, Señor Simoun—”
“Don’t fool yourself, Don Custodio,” continued Simoun dryly, “only in this way are great enterprises
carried out with small means. Thus were constructed the Pyramids, Lake Moeris, and the Colosseum in Rome.
Entire provinces came in from the desert, bringing their tubers to feed on. Old men, youths, and boys labored in
transporting stones, hewing them, and carrying them on their shoulders under the direction of the official lash,
and afterwards, the survivors returned to their homes or perished [9]in the sands of the desert. Then came other
provinces, then others, succeeding one another in the work during years. Thus the task was finished, and now we
admire them, we travel, we go to Egypt and to Home, we extol the Pharaohs and the Antonines. Don’t fool
yourself—the dead remain dead, and might only is considered right by posterity.”
“But, Señor Simoun, such measures might provoke uprisings,” objected Don Custodio, rather uneasy
over the turn the affair had taken.
“Uprisings, ha, ha! Did the Egyptian people ever rebel, I wonder? Did the Jewish prisoners rebel against
the pious Titus? Man, I thought you were better informed in history!”
Clearly Simoun was either very presumptuous or disregarded conventionalities! To say to Don
Custodio’s face that he did not know history! It was enough to make any one lose his temper! So it seemed, for
Don Custodio forgot himself and retorted, “But the fact is that you’re not among Egyptians or Jews!”
“And these people have rebelled more than once,” added the Dominican, somewhat timidly. “In the times
when they were forced to transport heavy timbers for the construction of ships, if it hadn’t been for the clerics—
”
“Those times are far away,” answered Simoun, with a laugh even drier than usual. “These islands will
never again rebel, no matter how much work and taxes they have. Haven’t you lauded to me, Padre Salvi,” he
added, turning to the Franciscan, “the house and hospital at Los Baños, where his Excellency is at present?”
Padre Salvi gave a nod and looked up, evading the question.
“Well, didn’t you tell me that both buildings were constructed by forcing the people to work on them
under the whip of a lay-brother? Perhaps that wonderful bridge was built in the same way. Now tell me, did these
people rebel?”[10]
“The fact is—they have rebelled before,” replied the Dominican, “and ab actu ad posse valet illatio!”
“No, no, nothing of the kind,” continued Simoun, starting down a hatchway to the cabin. “What’s said,
is said! And you, Padre Sibyla, don’t talk either Latin or nonsense. What are you friars good for if the people can
rebel?”
 Taking no notice of the replies and protests, Simoun descended the small companionway that led below,
repeating disdainfully, “Bosh, bosh!”
Padre Sibyla turned pale; this was the first time that he, Vice-Rector of the University, had ever been
credited with nonsense. Don Custodio turned green; at no meeting in which he had ever found himself had he
encountered such an adversary.
“An American mulatto!” he fumed.
“A British Indian,” observed Ben-Zayb in a low tone.
“An American, I tell you, and shouldn’t I know?” retorted Don Custodio in ill-humor. “His Excellency
has told me so. He’s a jeweler whom the latter knew in Havana, and, as I suspect, the one who got him
advancement by lending him money. So to repay him he has had him come here to let him have a chance and
increase his fortune by selling diamonds—imitations, who knows? And he so ungrateful, that, after getting money
from the Indians, he wishes—huh!” The sentence was concluded by a significant wave of the hand.
No one dared to join in this diatribe. Don Custodio could discredit himself with his Excellency, if he
wished, but neither Ben-Zayb, nor Padre Irene, nor Padre Salvi, nor the offended Padre Sibyla had any confidence
in the discretion of the others.
“The fact is that this man, being an American, thinks no doubt that we are dealing with the redskins. To
talk of these matters on a steamer! Compel, force the people! And he’s the very person who advised the expedition
to [11]the Carolines and the campaign in Mindanao, which is going to bring us to disgraceful ruin. He’s the one
who has offered to superintend the building of the cruiser, and I say, what does a jeweler, no matter how rich and
learned he may be, know about naval construction?”
All this was spoken by Don Custodio in a guttural tone to his neighbor Ben-Zayb, while he gesticulated,
shrugged his shoulders, and from time to time with his looks consulted the others, who were nodding their heads
ambiguously. The Canon Irene indulged in a rather equivocal smile, which he half hid with his hand as he rubbed
his nose.
“I tell you, Ben-Zayb,” continued Don Custodio, slapping the journalist on the arm, “all the trouble comes
from not consulting the old-timers here. A project in fine words, and especially with a big appropriation, with an
appropriation in round numbers, dazzles, meets with acceptance at once, for this!” Here, in further explanation,
he rubbed the tip of his thumb against his middle and forefinger.4
“There’s something in that, there’s something in that,” Ben-Zayb thought it his duty to remark, since in
his capacity of journalist he had to be informed about everything.
“Now look here, before the port works I presented a project, original, simple, useful, economical, and
practicable, for clearing away the bar in the lake, and it hasn’t been accepted because there wasn’t any of that in
it.” He repeated the movement of his fingers, shrugged his shoulders, and gazed at the others as though to say,
“Have you ever heard of such a misfortune?”
“May we know what it was?” asked several, drawing nearer and giving him their attention. The projects
of Don Custodio were as renowned as quacks’ specifics.
Don Custodio was on the point of refusing to explain it from resentment at not having found any
supporters in his diatribe against Simoun. “When there’s no danger, [12]you want me to talk, eh? And when there
is, you keep quiet!” he was going to say, but that would cause the loss of a good opportunity, and his project, now
that it could not be carried out, might at least be known and admired.
After blowing out two or three puffs of smoke, coughing, and spitting through a scupper, he slapped Ben-
Zayb on the thigh and asked, “You’ve seen ducks?”
“I rather think so—we’ve hunted them on the lake,” answered the surprised journalist.
“No, I’m not talking about wild ducks, I’m talking of the domestic ones, of those that are raised in Pateros
and Pasig. Do you know what they feed on?”
Ben-Zayb, the only thinking head, did not know—he was not engaged in that business.
“On snails, man, on snails!” exclaimed Padre Camorra. “One doesn’t have to be an Indian to know that;
it’s sufficient to have eyes!”
“Exactly so, on snails!” repeated Don Custodio, flourishing his forefinger. “And do you know where
they get them?”
Again the thinking head did not know.
“Well, if you had been in the country as many years as I have, you would know that they fish them out
of the bar itself, where they abound, mixed with the sand.”
“Then your project?”
“Well, I’m coming to that. My idea was to compel all the towns round about, near the bar, to raise ducks,
and you’ll see how they, all by themselves, will deepen the channel by fishing for the snails—no more and no
less, no more and no less!”
Here Don Custodio extended his arms and gazed triumphantly at the stupefaction of his hearers—to none
of them had occurred such an original idea.
 “Will you allow me to write an article about that?” asked Ben-Zayb. “In this country there is so little
thinking done—”[13]
“But, Don Custodio,” exclaimed Doña Victorina with smirks and grimaces, “if everybody takes to raising
ducks the balot5 eggs will become abundant. Ugh, how nasty! Rather, let the bar close up entirely!”[14]
1
The Spanish designation for the Christianized Malay of the Philippines was indio (Indian), a term used rather contemptuously, the
name filipino being generally applied in a restricted sense to the children of Spaniards born in the Islands.—Tr.
2
Now generally known as the Mariquina.—Tr.
3
This bridge, constructed in Lukban under the supervision of a Franciscan friar, was jocularly referred to as the Puente de Capricho, being
apparently an ignorant blunder in the right direction, since it was declared in an official report made by Spanish engineers in 1852 to
conform to no known principle of scientific construction, and yet proved to be strong and durable.—Tr.
4
Don Custodio’s gesture indicates money.—Tr.
5
Duck eggs, that are allowed to advance well into the duckling stage, then boiled and eaten. The señora is sneering at a custom among some
of her own people.—Tr.

On the Lower Deck

There, below, other scenes were being enacted. Seated on benches or small wooden stools among valises,
boxes, and baskets, a few feet from the engines, in the heat of the boilers, amid the human smells and the
pestilential odor of oil, were to be seen the great majority of the passengers. Some were silently gazing at the
changing scenes along the banks, others were playing cards or conversing in the midst of the scraping of shovels,
the roar of the engine, the hiss of escaping steam, the swash of disturbed waters, and the shrieks of the whistle. In
one corner, heaped up like corpses, slept, or tried to sleep, a number of Chinese pedlers, seasick, pale, frothing
through half-opened lips, and bathed in their copious perspiration. Only a few youths, students for the most part,
easily recognizable from their white garments and their confident bearing, made bold to move about from stern to
bow, leaping over baskets and boxes, happy in the prospect of the approaching vacation. Now they commented
on the movements of the engines, endeavoring to recall forgotten notions of physics, now they surrounded the
young schoolgirl or the red-lipped buyera with her collar of sampaguitas, whispering into their ears words that
made them smile and cover their faces with their fans.
Nevertheless, two of them, instead of engaging in these fleeting gallantries, stood in the bow talking with
a man, advanced in years, but still vigorous and erect. Both these youths seemed to be well known and respected,
to judge from the deference shown them by their fellow passengers. The elder, who was dressed in complete
black, was the medical [15]student, Basilio, famous for his successful cures and extraordinary treatments, while
the other, taller and more robust, although much younger, was Isagani, one of the poets, or at least rimesters, who
that year came from the Ateneo,1 a curious character, ordinarily quite taciturn and uncommunicative. The man
talking with them was the rich Capitan Basilio, who was returning from a business trip to Manila.
“Capitan Tiago is getting along about the same as usual, yes, sir,” said the student Basilio, shaking his
head. “He won’t submit to any treatment. At the advice of a certain person he is sending me to San Diego under
the pretext of looking after his property, but in reality so that he may be left to smoke his opium with complete
liberty.”
When the student said a certain person, he really meant Padre Irene, a great friend and adviser of Capitan
Tiago in his last days.
“Opium is one of the plagues of modern times,” replied the capitan with the disdain and indignation of a
Roman senator. “The ancients knew about it but never abused it. While the addiction to classical studies lasted—
mark this well, young men—opium was used solely as a medicine; and besides, tell me who smoke it the most?—
Chinamen, Chinamen who don’t understand a word of Latin! Ah, if Capitan Tiago had only devoted himself to
Cicero—” Here the most classical disgust painted itself on his carefully-shaven Epicurean face. Isagani regarded
him with attention: that gentleman was suffering from nostalgia for antiquity.
“But to get back to this academy of Castilian,” Capitan Basilio continued, “I assure you, gentlemen, that
you won’t materialize it.”
“Yes, sir, from day to day we’re expecting the permit,” replied Isagani. “Padre Irene, whom you may
have noticed above, and to whom we’ve presented a team of bays, has promised it to us. He’s on his way now to
confer with the General.” [16]“That doesn’t matter. Padre Sibyla is opposed to it.”
“Let him oppose it! That’s why he’s here on the steamer, in order to—at Los Baños before the General.”
And the student Basilio filled out his meaning by going through the pantomime of striking his fists
together.
“That’s understood,” observed Capitan Basilio, smiling. “But even though you get the permit, where’ll
you get the funds?”
“We have them, sir. Each student has contributed a real.”
“But what about the professors?”
“We have them: half Filipinos and half Peninsulars.”2
 “And the house?”
“Makaraig, the wealthy Makaraig, has offered one of his.”
Capitan Basilio had to give in; these young men had everything arranged.
“For the rest,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “it’s not altogether bad, it’s not a bad idea, and now
that you can’t know Latin at least you may know Castilian. Here you have another instance, namesake, of how
we are going backwards. In our times we learned Latin because our books were in Latin; now you study Latin a
little but have no Latin books. On the other hand, your books are in Castilian and that language is not taught—
aetas parentum pejor avis tulit nos nequiores! as Horace said.” With this quotation he moved away majestically,
like a Roman emperor.
The youths smiled at each other. “These men of the past,” remarked Isagani, “find obstacles for
everything. Propose a thing to them and instead of seeing its advantages they only fix their attention on the
difficulties. They want everything to come smooth and round as a billiard ball.”
“He’s right at home with your uncle,” observed Basilio.[17]
“They talk of past times. But listen—speaking of uncles, what does yours say about Paulita?”
Isagani blushed. “He preached me a sermon about the choosing of a wife. I answered him that there
wasn’t in Manila another like her—beautiful, well-bred, an orphan—”
“Very wealthy, elegant, charming, with no defect other than a ridiculous aunt,” added Basilio, at which
both smiled.
“In regard to the aunt, do you know that she has charged me to look for her husband?”
“Doña Victorina? And you’ve promised, in order to keep your sweetheart.”
“Naturally! But the fact is that her husband is actually hidden—in my uncle’s house!”
Both burst into a laugh at this, while Isagani continued: “That’s why my uncle, being a conscientious
man, won’t go on the upper deck, fearful that Doña Victorina will ask him about Don Tiburcio. Just imagine,
when Doña Victorina learned that I was a steerage passenger she gazed at me with a disdain that—”
At that moment Simoun came down and, catching sight of the two young men, greeted Basilio in a
patronizing tone: “Hello, Don Basilio, you’re off for the vacation? Is the gentleman a townsman of yours?”
Basilio introduced Isagani with the remark that he was not a townsman, but that their homes were not
very far apart. Isagani lived on the seashore of the opposite coast. Simoun examined him with such marked
attention that he was annoyed, turned squarely around, and faced the jeweler with a provoking stare.
“Well, what is the province like?” the latter asked, turning again to Basilio.
“Why, aren’t you familiar with it?”
“How the devil am I to know it when I’ve never set foot in it? I’ve been told that it’s very poor and
doesn’t buy jewels.”[18]
“We don’t buy jewels, because we don’t need them,” rejoined Isagani dryly, piqued in his provincial
pride.
A smile played over Simoun’s pallid lips. “Don’t be offended, young man,” he replied. “I had no bad
intentions, but as I’ve been assured that nearly all the money is in the hands of the native priests, I said to myself:
the friars are dying for curacies and the Franciscans are satisfied with the poorest, so when they give them up to
the native priests the truth must be that the king’s profile is unknown there. But enough of that! Come and have a
beer with me and we’ll drink to the prosperity of your province.”
The youths thanked him, but declined the offer.
“You do wrong,” Simoun said to them, visibly taken aback. “Beer is a good thing, and I heard Padre
Camorra say this morning that the lack of energy noticeable in this country is due to the great amount of water the
inhabitants drink.”
Isagani was almost as tall as the jeweler, and at this he drew himself up.
“Then tell Padre Camorra,” Basilio hastened to say, while he nudged Isagani slyly, “tell him that if he
would drink water instead of wine or beer, perhaps we might all be the gainers and he would not give rise to so
much talk.”
“And tell him, also,” added Isagani, paying no attention to his friend’s nudges, “that water is very mild
and can be drunk, but that it drowns out the wine and beer and puts out the fire, that heated it becomes steam, and
that ruffled it is the ocean, that it once destroyed mankind and made the earth tremble to its foundations!”3
Simoun raised his head. Although his looks could not be read through the blue goggles, on the rest of his
face surprise might be seen. “Rather a good answer,” he said. “But I fear that he might get facetious and ask me
when the [19]water will be converted into steam and when into an ocean. Padre Camorra is rather incredulous and
is a great wag.”
“When the fire heats it, when the rivulets that are now scattered through the steep valleys, forced by
fatality, rush together in the abyss that men are digging,” replied Isagani.
“No, Señor Simoun,” interposed Basilio, changing to a jesting tone, “rather keep in mind the verses of
my friend Isagani himself:
‘Fire you, you say, and water we,
 Then as you wish, so let it be;
But let us live in peace and right,
Nor shall the fire e’er see us fight;
So joined by wisdom’s glowing flame,
That without anger, hate, or blame,
We form the steam, the fifth element,
Progress and light, life and movement.’”
“Utopia, Utopia!” responded Simoun dryly. “The engine is about to meet—in the meantime, I’ll drink
my beer.” So, without any word of excuse, he left the two friends.
“But what’s the matter with you today that you’re so quarrelsome?” asked Basilio.
“Nothing. I don’t know why, but that man fills me with horror, fear almost.”
“I was nudging you with my elbow. Don’t you know that he’s called the Brown Cardinal?”
“The Brown Cardinal?”
“Or Black Eminence, as you wish.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Richelieu had a Capuchin adviser who was called the Gray Eminence; well, that’s what this man is to
the General.”
“Really?”
“That’s what I’ve heard from a certain person,—who always speaks ill of him behind his back and
flatters him to his face.”
“Does he also visit Capitan Tiago?”
“From the first day after his arrival, and I’m sure that [20]a certain person looks upon him as a rival—
in the inheritance. I believe that he’s going to see the General about the question of instruction in Castilian.”
At that moment Isagani was called away by a servant to his uncle.
On one of the benches at the stern, huddled in among the other passengers, sat a native priest gazing at
the landscapes that were successively unfolded to his view. His neighbors made room for him, the men on passing
taking off their hats, and the gamblers not daring to set their table near where he was. He said little, but neither
smoked nor assumed arrogant airs, nor did he disdain to mingle with the other men, returning the salutes with
courtesy and affability as if he felt much honored and very grateful. Although advanced in years, with hair almost
completely gray, he appeared to be in vigorous health, and even when seated held his body straight and his head
erect, but without pride or arrogance. He differed from the ordinary native priests, few enough indeed, who at that
period served merely as coadjutors or administered some curacies temporarily, in a certain self-possession and
gravity, like one who was conscious of his personal dignity and the sacredness of his office. A superficial
examination of his appearance, if not his white hair, revealed at once that he belonged to another epoch, another
generation, when the better young men were not afraid to risk their dignity by becoming priests, when the native
clergy looked any friar at all in the face, and when their class, not yet degraded and vilified, called for free men
and not slaves, superior intelligences and not servile wills. In his sad and serious features was to be read the
serenity of a soul fortified by study and meditation, perhaps tried out by deep moral suffering. This priest was
Padre Florentino, Isagani’s uncle, and his story is easily told.
Scion of a wealthy and influential family of Manila, of agreeable appearance and cheerful disposition,
suited to shine in the world, he had never felt any call to the sacerdotal [21]profession, but by reason of some
promises or vows, his mother, after not a few struggles and violent disputes, compelled him to enter the seminary.
She was a great friend of the Archbishop, had a will of iron, and was as inexorable as is every devout woman who
believes that she is interpreting the will of God. Vainly the young Florentine offered resistance, vainly he begged,
vainly he pleaded his love affairs, even provoking scandals: priest he had to become at twenty-five years of age,
and priest he became. The Archbishop ordained him, his first mass was celebrated with great pomp, three days
were given over to feasting, and his mother died happy and content, leaving him all her fortune.
But in that struggle Florentine received a wound from which he never recovered. Weeks before his first
mass the woman he loved, in desperation, married a nobody—a blow the rudest he had ever experienced. He lost
his moral energy, life became dull and insupportable. If not his virtue and the respect for his office, that unfortunate
love affair saved him from the depths into which the regular orders and secular clergymen both fall in the
Philippines. He devoted himself to his parishioners as a duty, and by inclination to the natural sciences.
When the events of seventy-two occurred,4 he feared that the large income his curacy yielded him would
attract attention to him, so, desiring peace above everything, he sought and secured his release, living thereafter
as a private individual on his patrimonial estate situated on the Pacific coast. He there adopted his nephew, Isagani,
who was reported by the malicious to be his own son by his old sweetheart when she became a widow, and by the
more serious and better informed, the natural child of a cousin, a lady in Manila.[22]
The captain of the steamer caught sight of the old priest and insisted that he go to the upper deck, saying,
“If you don’t do so, the friars will think that you don’t want to associate with them.”
 Padre Florentino had no recourse but to accept, so he summoned his nephew in order to let him know
where he was going, and to charge him not to come near the upper deck while he was there. “If the captain notices
you, he’ll invite you also, and we should then be abusing his kindness.”
“My uncle’s way!” thought Isagani. “All so that I won’t have any reason for talking with Doña
Victorina.”[23]
1
The Jesuit College in Manila, established in 1859.—Tr.
2
Natives of Spain; to distinguish them from the Filipinos, i.e., descendants of Spaniards born in the Philippines. See Glossary: “Indian.”—Tr.
3
It was a common saying among the old Filipinos that the Spaniards (white men) were fire (activity), while they themselves were water
(passivity).—Tr.
4
The “liberal” demonstrations in Manila, and the mutiny in the Cavite Arsenal, resulting in the garroting of the three native priests to whom
this work was dedicated: the first of a series of fatal mistakes, culminating in the execution of the author, that cost Spain the loyalty of the
Filipinos.—Tr.

Legends
Ich weiss nicht was soil es bedeuten.
Dass ich so traurig bin!

When Padre Florentino joined the group above, the bad humor provoked by the previous discussion had
entirely disappeared. Perhaps their spirits had been raised by the attractive houses of the town of Pasig, or the
glasses of sherry they had drunk in preparation for the coming meal, or the prospect of a good breakfast. Whatever
the cause, the fact was that they were all laughing and joking, even including the lean Franciscan, although he
made little noise and his smiles looked like death-grins.
“Evil times, evil times!” said Padre Sibyla with a laugh.
“Get out, don’t say that, Vice-Rector!” responded the Canon Irene, giving the other’s chair a shove. “In
Hongkong you’re doing a fine business, putting up every building that—ha, ha!”
“Tut, tut!” was the reply; “you don’t see our expenses, and the tenants on our estates are beginning to
complain—”
“Here, enough of complaints, puñales, else I’ll fall to weeping!” cried Padre Camorra gleefully. “We’re
not complaining, and we haven’t either estates or banking-houses. You know that my Indians are beginning to
haggle over the fees and to flash schedules on me! Just look how they cite schedules to me now, and none other
than those of the Archbishop Basilio Sancho,1 as if from his time [24]up to now prices had not risen. Ha, ha, ha!
Why should a baptism cost less than a chicken? But I play the deaf man, collect what I can, and never complain.
We’re not avaricious, are we, Padre Salvi?”
At that moment Simoun’s head appeared above the hatchway.
“Well, where’ve you been keeping yourself?” Don Custodio called to him, having forgotten all about
their dispute. “You’re missing the prettiest part of the trip!”
“Pshaw!” retorted Simoun, as he ascended, “I’ve seen so many rivers and landscapes that I’m only
interested in those that call up legends.”
“As for legends, the Pasig has a few,” observed the captain, who did not relish any depreciation of the
river where he navigated and earned his livelihood. “Here you have that of Malapad-na-bato, a rock sacred before
the coming of the Spaniards as the abode of spirits. Afterwards, when the superstition had been dissipated and the
rock profaned, it was converted into a nest of tulisanes, since from its crest they easily captured the luckless
bankas, which had to contend against both the currents and men. Later, in our time, in spite of human interference,
there are still told stories about wrecked bankas, and if on rounding it I didn’t steer with my six senses, I’d be
smashed against its sides. Then you have another legend, that of Doña Jeronima’s cave, which Padre Florentino
can relate to you.”
“Everybody knows that,” remarked Padre Sibyla disdainfully.
But neither Simoun, nor Ben-Zayb, nor Padre Irene, nor Padre Camorra knew it, so they begged for the
story, some in jest and others from genuine curiosity. The priest, adopting the tone of burlesque with which some
had made their request, began like an old tutor relating a story to children.
“Once upon a time there was a student who had made a promise of marriage to a young woman in his
country, [25]but it seems that he failed to remember her. She waited for him faithfully year after year, her youth
passed, she grew into middle age, and then one day she heard a report that her old sweetheart was the Archbishop
of Manila. Disguising herself as a man, she came round the Cape and presented herself before his grace,
demanding the fulfilment of his promise. What she asked was of course impossible, so the Archbishop ordered
the preparation of the cave that you may have noticed with its entrance covered and decorated with a curtain of
vines. There she lived and died and there she is buried. The legend states that Doña Jeronima was so fat that she
had to turn sidewise to get into it. Her fame as an enchantress sprung from her custom of throwing into the river
the silver dishes which she used in the sumptuous banquets that were attended by crowds of gentlemen. A net was
spread under the water to hold the dishes and thus they were cleaned. It hasn’t been twenty years since the river
washed the very entrance of the cave, but it has gradually been receding, just as the memory of her is dying out
among the people.”
“A beautiful legend!” exclaimed Ben-Zayb. “I’m going to write an article about it. It’s sentimental!”
Doña Victorina thought of dwelling in such a cave and was about to say so, when Simoun took the floor
instead.
“But what’s your opinion about that, Padre Salvi?” he asked the Franciscan, who seemed to be absorbed
in thought. “Doesn’t it seem to you as though his Grace, instead of giving her a cave, ought to have placed her in
a nunnery—in St. Clara’s, for example? What do you say?”
There was a start of surprise on Padre Sibyla’s part to notice that Padre Salvi shuddered and looked
askance at Simoun.
“Because it’s not a very gallant act,” continued Simoun quite naturally, “to give a rocky cliff as a home
to one with whose hopes we have trifled. It’s hardly religious to expose her thus to temptation, in a cave on the
banks of a river—it smacks of nymphs and dryads. It would [26]have been more gallant, more pious, more
romantic, more in keeping with the customs of this country, to shut her up in St. Clara’s, like a new Eloise, in
order to visit and console her from time to time.”
“I neither can nor should pass judgment upon the conduct of archbishops,” replied the Franciscan sourly.
“But you, who are the ecclesiastical governor, acting in the place of our Archbishop, what would you do
if such a case should arise?”
Padre Salvi shrugged his shoulders and calmly responded, “It’s not worth while thinking about what
can’t happen. But speaking of legends, don’t overlook the most beautiful, since it is the truest: that of the miracle
of St. Nicholas, the ruins of whose church you may have noticed. I’m going to relate it to Señor Simoun, as he
probably hasn’t heard it. It seems that formerly the river, as well as the lake, was infested with caymans, so huge
and voracious that they attacked bankas and upset them with a slap of the tail. Our chronicles relate that one day
an infidel Chinaman, who up to that time had refused to be converted, was passing in front of the church, when
suddenly the devil presented himself to him in the form of a cayman and upset the banka, in order to devour him
and carry him off to hell. Inspired by God, the Chinaman at that moment called upon St. Nicholas and instantly
the cayman was changed into a stone. The old people say that in their time the monster could easily be recognized
in the pieces of stone that were left, and, for my part, I can assure you that I have clearly made out the head, to
judge from which the monster must have been enormously large.”
“Marvelous, a marvelous legend!” exclaimed Ben-Zayb. “It’s good for an article—the description of the
monster, the terror of the Chinaman, the waters of the river, the bamboo brakes. Also, it’ll do for a study of
comparative religions; because, look you, an infidel Chinaman in great distress invoked exactly the saint that he
must know only by hearsay and in whom he did not believe. Here there’s [27]no room for the proverb that ‘a
known evil is preferable to an unknown good.’ If I should find myself in China and get caught in such a difficulty,
I would invoke the obscurest saint in the calendar before Confucius or Buddha. Whether this is due to the manifest
superiority of Catholicism or to the inconsequential and illogical inconsistency in the brains of the yellow race, a
profound study of anthropology alone will be able to elucidate.”
Ben-Zayb had adopted the tone of a lecturer and was describing circles in the air with his forefinger,
priding himself on his imagination, which from the most insignificant facts could deduce so many applications
and inferences. But noticing that Simoun was preoccupied and thinking that he was pondering over what he, Ben-
Zayb, had just said, he inquired what the jeweler was meditating about.
“About two very important questions,” answered Simoun; “two questions that you might add to your
article. First, what may have become of the devil on seeing himself suddenly confined within a stone? Did he
escape? Did he stay there? Was he crushed? Second, if the petrified animals that I have seen in various European
museums may not have been the victims of some antediluvian saint?”
The tone in which the jeweler spoke was so serious, while he rested his forehead on the tip of his
forefinger in an attitude of deep meditation, that Padre Camorra responded very gravely, “Who knows, who
knows?”
“Since we’re busy with legends and are now entering the lake,” remarked Padre Sibyla, “the captain must
know many—”
At that moment the steamer crossed the bar and the panorama spread out before their eyes was so truly
magnificent that all were impressed. In front extended the beautiful lake bordered by green shores and blue
mountains, like a huge mirror, framed in emeralds and sapphires, reflecting the sky in its glass. On the right were
spread out the low shores, forming bays with graceful curves, and dim there in the distance the crags of Sungay,
while in the [28]background rose Makiling, imposing and majestic, crowned with fleecy clouds. On the left lay
Talim Island with its curious sweep of hills. A fresh breeze rippled over the wide plain of water.
“By the way, captain,” said Ben-Zayb, turning around, “do you know in what part of the lake a certain
Guevara, Navarra, or Ibarra, was killed?”
 The group looked toward the captain, with the exception of Simoun, who had turned away his head as
though to look for something on the shore.
“Ah, yes!” exclaimed Doña Victorina. “Where, captain? Did he leave any tracks in the water?”
The good captain winked several times, an indication that he was annoyed, but reading the request in the
eyes of all, took a few steps toward the bow and scanned the shore.
“Look over there,” he said in a scarcely audible voice, after making sure that no strangers were near.
“According to the officer who conducted the pursuit, Ibarra, upon finding himself surrounded, jumped out of his
banka there near the Kinabutasan2 and, swimming under water, covered all that distance of more than two miles,
saluted by bullets every time that he raised his head to breathe. Over yonder is where they lost track of him, and
a little farther on near the shore they discovered something like the color of blood. And now I think of it, it’s just
thirteen years, day for day, since this happened.”
“So that his corpse—” began Ben-Zayb.
“Went to join his father’s,” replied Padre Sibyla. “Wasn’t he also another filibuster, Padre Salvi?”
“That’s what might be called cheap funerals, Padre Camorra, eh?” remarked Ben-Zayb.[29]
“I’ve always said that those who won’t pay for expensive funerals are filibusters,” rejoined the person
addressed, with a merry laugh.
“But what’s the matter with you, Señor Simoun?” inquired Ben-Zayb, seeing that the jeweler was
motionless and thoughtful. “Are you seasick—an old traveler like you? On such a drop of water as this!”
“I want to tell you,” broke in the captain, who had come to hold all those places in great affection, “that
you can’t call this a drop of water. It’s larger than any lake in Switzerland and all those in Spain put together. I’ve
seen old sailors who got seasick here.”[30]
1
Archbishop of Manila from 1767 to 1787.—Tr.
2
“Between this island (Talim) and Halahala point extends a strait a mile wide and a league long, which the Indians call ‘Kinabutasan,’ a name
that in their language means ‘place that was cleft open’; from which it is inferred that in other times the island was joined to the mainland
and was separated from it by some severe earthquake, thus leaving this strait: of this there is an old tradition among the Indians.”—Fray
Martinez de Zuñiga’s Estadismo (1803).

Cabesang Tales
Those who have read the first part of this story will perhaps remember an old wood-cutter who lived in
the depths of the forest.1 Tandang Selo is still alive, and though his hair has turned completely white, he yet
preserves his good health. He no longer hunts or cuts firewood, for his fortunes have improved and he works only
at making brooms.
His son Tales (abbreviation of Telesforo) had worked at first on shares on the lands of a capitalist, but
later, having become the owner of two carabaos and several hundred pesos, determined to work on his own
account, aided by his father, his wife, and his three children. So they cut down and cleared away some thick woods
which were situated on the borders of the town and which they believed belonged to no one. During the labors of
cleaning and cultivating the new land, the whole family fell ill with malaria and the mother died, along with the
eldest daughter, Lucia, in the flower of her age. This, which was the natural consequence of breaking up new soil
infested with various kinds of bacteria, they attributed to the anger of the woodland spirit, so they were resigned
and went on with their labor, believing him pacified.
But when they began to harvest their first crop a religious corporation, which owned land in the
neighboring town, laid claim to the fields, alleging that they fell within their boundaries, and to prove it they at
once started to set up [31]their marks. However, the administrator of the religious order left to them, for
humanity’s sake, the usufruct of the land on condition that they pay a small sum annually—a mere bagatelle,
twenty or thirty pesos. Tales, as peaceful a man as could be found, was as much opposed to lawsuits as any one
and more submissive to the friars than most people; so, in order not to smash a palyok against a kawali (as he said,
for to him the friars were iron pots and he a clay jar), he had the weakness to yield to their claim, remembering
that he did not know Spanish and had no money to pay lawyers.
Besides, Tandang Selo said to him, “Patience! You would spend more in one year of litigation than in
ten years of paying what the white padres demand. And perhaps they’ll pay you back in masses! Pretend that those
thirty pesos had been lost in gambling or had fallen into the water and been swallowed by a cayman.”
The harvest was abundant and sold well, so Tales planned to build a wooden house in the barrio of
Sagpang, of the town of Tiani, which adjoined San Diego.
Another year passed, bringing another good crop, and for this reason the friars raised the rent to fifty
pesos, which Tales paid in order not to quarrel and because he expected to sell his sugar at a good price.
“Patience! Pretend that the cayman has grown some,” old Selo consoled him.
That year he at last saw his dream realized: to live in the barrio of Sagpang in a wooden house. The father
and grandfather then thought of providing some education for the two children, especially the daughter Juliana,
or Juli, as they called her, for she gave promise of being accomplished and beautiful. A boy who was a friend of
the family, Basilio, was studying in Manila, and he was of as lowly origin as they.
But this dream seemed destined not to be realized. The first care the community took when they saw the
family prospering was to appoint as cabeza de barangay its most [32]industrious member, which left only Tano,
the son, who was only fourteen years old. The father was therefore called Cabesang Tales and had to order a sack
coat, buy a felt hat, and prepare to spend his money. In order to avoid any quarrel with the curate or the
government, he settled from his own pocket the shortages in the tax-lists, paying for those who had died or moved
away, and he lost considerable time in making the collections and on his trips to the capital.
“Patience! Pretend that the cayman’s relatives have joined him,” advised Tandang Selo, smiling placidly.
“Next year you’ll put on a long skirt and go to Manila to study like the young ladies of the town,”
Cabesang Tales told his daughter every time he heard her talking of Basilio’s progress.
But that next year did not come, and in its stead there was another increase in the rent. Cabesang Tales
became serious and scratched his head. The clay jar was giving up all its rice to the iron pot.
When the rent had risen to two hundred pesos, Tales was not content with scratching his head and sighing;
he murmured and protested. The friar-administrator then told him that if he could not pay, some one else would
be assigned to cultivate that land—many who desired it had offered themselves.
He thought at first that the friar was joking, but the friar was talking seriously, and indicated a servant of
his to take possession of the land. Poor Tales turned pale, he felt a buzzing in his ears, he saw in the red mist that
rose before his eyes his wife and daughter, pallid, emaciated, dying, victims of the intermittent fevers—then he
saw the thick forest converted into productive fields, he saw the stream of sweat watering its furrows, he saw
himself plowing under the hot sun, bruising his feet against the stones and roots, while this friar had been driving
about in his carriage with the wretch who was to get the land following like a slave behind his master. No, a
thousand [33]times, no! First let the fields sink into the depths of the earth and bury them all! Who was this
intruder that he should have any right to his land? Had he brought from his own country a single handful of that
soil? Had he crooked a single one of his fingers to pull up the roots that ran through it?
Exasperated by the threats of the friar, who tried to uphold his authority at any cost in the presence of the
other tenants, Cabesang Tales rebelled and refused to pay a single cuarto, having ever before himself that red mist,
saying that he would give up his fields to the first man who could irrigate it with blood drawn from his own veins.
Old Selo, on looking at his son’s face, did not dare to mention the cayman, but tried to calm him by
talking of clay jars, reminding him that the winner in a lawsuit was left without a shirt to his back.
“We shall all be turned to clay, father, and without shirts we were born,” was the reply.
So he resolutely refused to pay or to give up a single span of his land unless the friars should first prove
the legality of their claim by exhibiting a title-deed of some kind. As they had none, a lawsuit followed, and
Cabesang Tales entered into it, confiding that some at least, if not all, were lovers of justice and respecters of the
law.
“I serve and have been serving the King with my money and my services,” he said to those who
remonstrated with him. “I’m asking for justice and he is obliged to give it to me.”
Drawn on by fatality, and as if he had put into play in the lawsuit the whole future of himself and his
children, he went on spending his savings to pay lawyers, notaries, and solicitors, not to mention the officials and
clerks who exploited his ignorance and his needs. He moved to and fro between the village and the capital, passed
his days without eating and his nights without sleeping, while his talk was always about briefs, exhibits, and
appeals. There was then seen a struggle such as was never before carried on under the skies of the Philippines:
that of a poor Indian, [34]ignorant and friendless, confiding in the justness and righteousness of his cause, fighting
against a powerful corporation before which Justice bowed her head, while the judges let fall the scales and
surrendered the sword. He fought as tenaciously as the ant which bites when it knows that it is going to be crushed,
as does the fly which looks into space only through a pane of glass. Yet the clay jar defying the iron pot and
smashing itself into a thousand pieces bad in it something impressive—it had the sublimeness of desperation!
On the days when his journeys left him free he patrolled his fields armed with a shotgun, saying that the
tulisanes were hovering around and he had need of defending himself in order not to fall into their hands and thus
lose his lawsuit. As if to improve his marksmanship, he shot at birds and fruits, even the butterflies, with such
accurate aim that the friar-administrator did not dare to go to Sagpang without an escort of civil-guards, while the
friar’s hireling, who gazed from afar at the threatening figure of Tales wandering over the fields like a sentinel
upon the walls, was terror stricken and refused to take the property away from him.
But the local judges and those at the capital, warned by the experience of one of their number who had
been summarily dismissed, dared not give him the decision, fearing their own dismissal. Yet they were not really
bad men, those judges, they were upright and conscientious, good citizens, excellent fathers, dutiful sons—and
they were able to appreciate poor Tales’ situation better than Tales himself could. Many of them were versed in
the scientific and historical basis of property, they knew that the friars by their own statutes could not own
property, but they also knew that to come from far across the sea with an appointment secured with great difficulty,
to undertake the duties of the position with the best intentions, and now to lose it because an Indian fancied that
justice had to be done on earth as in heaven—that surely was an idea! They had their [35]families and greater
needs surely than that Indian: one had a mother to provide for, and what duty is more sacred than that of caring
for a mother? Another had sisters, all of marriageable age; that other there had many little children who expected
their daily bread and who, like fledglings in a nest, would surely die of hunger the day he was out of a job; even
the very least of them had there, far away, a wife who would be in distress if the monthly remittance failed. All
these moral and conscientious judges tried everything in their power in the way of counsel, advising Cabesang
Tales to pay the rent demanded. But Tales, like all simple souls, once he had seen what was just, went straight
toward it. He demanded proofs, documents, papers, title-deeds, but the friars had none of these, resting their case
on his concessions in the past.
Cabesang Tales’ constant reply was: “If every day I give alms to a beggar to escape annoyance, who will
oblige me to continue my gifts if he abuses my generosity?”
From this stand no one could draw him, nor were there any threats that could intimidate him. In vain
Governor M—— made a trip expressly to talk to him and frighten him. His reply to it all was: “You may do what
you like, Mr. Governor, I’m ignorant and powerless. But I’ve cultivated those fields, my wife and daughter died
while helping me clear them, and I won’t give them up to any one but him who can do more with them than I’ve
done. Let him first irrigate them with his blood and bury in them his wife and daughter!”
The upshot of this obstinacy was that the honorable judges gave the decision to the friars, and everybody
laughed at him, saying that lawsuits are not won by justice. But Cabesang Tales appealed, loaded his shotgun, and
patrolled his fields with deliberation.
During this period his life seemed to be a wild dream. His son, Tano, a youth as tall as his father and as
good as his sister, was conscripted, but he let the boy go rather than purchase a substitute.[36]
“I have to pay the lawyers,” he told his weeping daughter. “If I win the case I’ll find a way to get him
back, and if I lose it I won’t have any need for sons.”
So the son went away and nothing more was heard of him except that his hair had been cropped and that
he slept under a cart. Six months later it was rumored that he had been seen embarking for the Carolines; another
report was that he had been seen in the uniform of the Civil Guard.
“Tano in the Civil Guard! ’Susmariosep!” exclaimed several, clasping their hands. “Tano, who was so
good and so honest! Requimternam!”
The grandfather went many days without speaking to the father, Juli fell sick, but Cabesang Tales did
not shed a single tear, although for two days he never left the house, as if he feared the looks of reproach from the
whole village or that he would be called the executioner of his son. But on the third day he again sallied forth with
his shotgun.
Murderous intentions were attributed to him, and there were well-meaning persons who whispered about
that he had been heard to threaten that he would bury the friar-administrator in the furrows of his fields, whereat
the friar was frightened at him in earnest. As a result of this, there came a decree from the Captain-General
forbidding the use of firearms and ordering that they be taken up. Cabesang Tales had to hand over his shotgun
but he continued his rounds armed with a long bolo.
“What are you going to do with that bolo when the tulisanes have firearms?” old Selo asked him.
“I must watch my crops,” was the answer. “Every stalk of cane growing there is one of my wife’s bones.”
The bolo was taken up on the pretext that it was too long. He then took his father’s old ax and with it on
his shoulder continued his sullen rounds.
Every time he left the house Tandang Selo and Juli trembled for his life. The latter would get up from
her loom, go to the window, pray, make vows to the saints, and [37]recite novenas. The grandfather was at times
unable to finish the handle of a broom and talked of returning to the forest—life in that house was unbearable.
At last their fears were realized. As the fields were some distance from the village, Cabesang Tales, in
spite of his ax, fell into the hands of tulisanes who had revolvers and rifles. They told him that since he had money
to pay judges and lawyers he must have some also for the outcasts and the hunted. They therefore demanded a
ransom of five hundred pesos through the medium of a rustic, with the warning that if anything happened to their
messenger, the captive would pay for it with his life. Two days of grace were allowed.
This news threw the poor family into the wildest terror, which was augmented when they learned that
the Civil Guard was going out in pursuit of the bandits. In case of an encounter, the first victim would be the
captive—this they all knew. The old man was paralyzed, while the pale and frightened daughter tried often to talk
but could not. Still, another thought more terrible, an idea more cruel, roused them from their stupor. The rustic
sent by the tulisanes said that the band would probably have to move on, and if they were slow in sending the
ransom the two days would elapse and Cabesang Tales would have his throat cut.
This drove those two beings to madness, weak and powerless as they were. Tandang Selo got up, sat
down, went outside, came back again, knowing not where to go, where to seek aid. Juli appealed to her images,
counted and recounted her money, but her two hundred pesos did not increase or multiply. Soon she dressed
herself, gathered together all her jewels, and asked the advice of her grandfather, if she should go to see the
gobernadorcillo, the judge, the notary, the lieutenant of the Civil Guard. The old man said yes to everything, or
when she said no, he too said no. At length came the neighbors, their relatives and friends, some poorer than
others, in their simplicity magnifying [38]the fears. The most active of all was Sister Bali, a
great panguinguera, who had been to Manila to practise religious exercises in the nunnery of the Sodality.
Juli was willing to sell all her jewels, except a locket set with diamonds and emeralds which Basilio had
given her, for this locket had a history: a nun, the daughter of Capitan Tiago, had given it to a leper, who, in return
for professional treatment, had made a present of it to Basilio. So she could not sell it without first consulting him.
Quickly the shell-combs and earrings were sold, as well as Juli’s rosary, to their richest neighbor, and
thus fifty pesos were added, but two hundred and fifty were still lacking. The locket might be pawned, but Juli
shook her head. A neighbor suggested that the house be sold and Tandang Selo approved the idea, satisfied to
return to the forest and cut firewood as of old, but Sister Bali observed that this could not be done because the
owner was not present.
“The judge’s wife once sold me her tapis for a peso, but her husband said that the sale did not hold
because it hadn’t received his approval. Abá! He took back the tapis and she hasn’t returned the peso yet, but I
don’t pay her when she wins at panguingui, abá! In that way I’ve collected twelve cuartos, and for that alone I’m
going to play with her. I can’t bear to have people fail to pay what they owe me, abá!”
Another neighbor was going to ask Sister Bali why then did not she settle a little account with her, but
the quick panguinguera suspected this and added at once: “Do you know, Juli, what you can do? Borrow two
hundred and fifty pesos on the house, payable when the lawsuit is won.”
This seemed to be the best proposition, so they decided to act upon it that same day. Sister Bali offered
to accompany her, and together they visited the houses of all the rich folks in Tiani, but no one would accept the
proposal. The case, they said, was already lost, and to show favors to an enemy of the friars was to expose
themselves to their [39]vengeance. At last a pious woman took pity on the girl and lent the money on condition
that Juli should remain with her as a servant until the debt was paid. Juli would not have so very much to do: sew,
pray, accompany her to mass, and fast for her now and then. The girl accepted with tears in her eyes, received the
money, and promised to enter her service on the following day, Christmas.
When the grandfather heard of that sale he fell to weeping like a child. What, that granddaughter whom
he had not allowed to walk in the sun lest her skin should be burned, Juli, she of the delicate fingers and rosy feet!
What, that girl, the prettiest in the village and perhaps in the whole town, before whose window many gallants
had vainly passed the night playing and singing! What, his only granddaughter, the sole joy of his fading eyes,
she whom he had dreamed of seeing dressed in a long skirt, talking Spanish, and holding herself erect waving a
painted fan like the daughters of the wealthy—she to become a servant, to be scolded and reprimanded, to ruin
her fingers, to sleep anywhere, to rise in any manner whatsoever!
So the old grandfather wept and talked of hanging or starving himself to death. “If you go,” he declared,
“I’m going back to the forest and will never set foot in the town.”
Juli soothed him by saying that it was necessary for her father to return, that the suit would be won, and
they could then ransom her from her servitude.
The night was a sad one. Neither of the two could taste a bite and the old man refused to lie down, passing
the whole night seated in a corner, silent and motionless. Juli on her part tried to sleep, but for a long time could
not close her eyes. Somewhat relieved about her father’s fate, she now thought of herself and fell to weeping, but
stifled her sobs so that the old man might not hear them. The next day she would be a servant, and it was the very
day Basilio was accustomed to come from Manila with presents for her. Henceforward she would have to give up
that love; Basilio, who was going to be a doctor, couldn’t marry a [40]pauper. In fancy she saw him going to the
church in company with the prettiest and richest girl in the town, both well-dressed, happy and smiling, while she,
Juli, followed her mistress, carrying novenas, buyos, and the cuspidor. Here the girl felt a lump rise in her throat,
a sinking at her heart, and begged the Virgin to let her die first.
But—said her conscience—he will at least know that I preferred to pawn myself rather than the locket
he gave me.
This thought consoled her a little and brought on empty dreams. Who knows but that a miracle might
happen? She might find the two hundred and fifty pesos under the image of the Virgin—she had read of many
similar miracles. The sun might not rise nor morning come, and meanwhile the suit would be won. Her father
might return, or Basilio put in his appearance, she might find a bag of gold in the garden, the tulisanes would send
the bag of gold, the curate, Padre Camorra, who was always teasing her, would come with the tulisanes. So her
ideas became more and more confused, until at length, worn out by fatigue and sorrow, she went to sleep with
dreams of her childhood in the depths of the forest: she was bathing in the torrent along with her two brothers,
there were little fishes of all colors that let themselves be caught like fools, and she became impatient because she
found no pleasure in catchnig such foolish little fishes! Basilio was under the water, but Basilio for some reason
had the face of her brother Tano. Her new mistress was watching them from the bank.[41]
1
The reference is to the novel Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer), the author’s first work, of which, the present is in a way a
continuation.—Tr.
 A Cochero’s Christmas Eve

Basilio reached San Diego just as the Christmas Eve procession was passing through the streets. He had
been delayed on the road for several hours because the cochero, having forgotten his cedula, was held up by the
Civil Guard, had his memory jogged by a few blows from a rifle-butt, and afterwards was taken before the
commandant. Now the carromata was again detained to let the procession pass, while the abused cochero took off
his hat reverently and recited a paternoster to the first image that came along, which seemed to be that of a great
saint. It was the figure of an old man with an exceptionally long beard, seated at the edge of a grave under a tree
filled with all kinds of stuffed birds. A kalan with a clay jar, a mortar, and a kalikut for mashing buyo were his
only utensils, as if to indicate that he lived on the border of the tomb and was doing his cooking there. This was
the Methuselah of the religious iconography of the Philippines; his colleague and perhaps contemporary is called
in Europe Santa Claus, and is still more smiling and agreeable.
“In the time of the saints,” thought the cochero, “surely there were no civil-guards, because one can’t
live long on blows from rifle-butts.”
Behind the great old man came the three Magian Kings on ponies that were capering about, especially
that of the negro Melchior, which seemed to be about to trample its companions.
“No, there couldn’t have been any civil-guards,” decided the cochero, secretly envying those fortunate
times, “because if there had been, that negro who is cutting up [42]such capers beside those two Spaniards”—
Gaspar and Bathazar—“would have gone to jail.”
Then, observing that the negro wore a crown and was a king, like the other two, the Spaniards, his
thoughts naturally turned to the king of the Indians, and he sighed. “Do you know, sir,” he asked Basilio
respectfully, “if his right foot is loose yet?”
Basilio had him repeat the question. “Whose right foot?”
“The King’s!” whispered the cochero mysteriously.
“What King’s?”
“Our King’s, the King of the Indians.”
Basilio smiled and shrugged his shoulders, while the cochero again sighed. The Indians in the country
places preserve the legend that their king, imprisoned and chained in the cave of San Mateo, will come some day
to free them. Every hundredth year he breaks one of his chains, so that he now has his hands and his left foot
loose—only the right foot remains bound. This king causes the earthquakes when he struggles or stirs himself,
and he is so strong that in shaking hands with him it is necessary to extend to him a bone, which he crushes in his
grasp. For some unexplainable reason the Indians call him King Bernardo, perhaps by confusing him with
Bernardo del Carpio.1
“When he gets his right foot loose,” muttered the cochero, stifling another sigh, “I’ll give him my horses,
and offer him my services even to death, for he’ll free us from the Civil Guard.” With a melancholy gaze he
watched the Three Kings move on.[43]
The boys came behind in two files, sad and serious as though they were there under compulsion. They
lighted their way, some with torches, others with tapers, and others with paper lanterns on bamboo poles, while
they recited the rosary at the top of their voices, as though quarreling with somebody. Afterwards came St. Joseph
on a modest float, with a look of sadness and resignation on his face, carrying his stalk of lilies, as he moved along
between two civil-guards as though he were a prisoner. This enabled the cochero to understand the expression on
the saint’s face, but whether the sight of the guards troubled him or he had no great respect for a saint who would
travel in such company, he did not recite a single requiem.
Behind St. Joseph came the girls bearing lights, their heads covered with handkerchiefs knotted under
their chins, also reciting the rosary, but with less wrath than the boys. In their midst were to be seen several lads
dragging along little rabbits made of Japanese paper, lighted by red candles, with their short paper tails erect. The
lads brought those toys into the procession to enliven the birth of the Messiah. The little animals, fat and round as
eggs, seemed to be so pleased that at times they would take a leap, lose their balance, fall, and catch fire. The
owner would then hasten to extinguish such burning enthusiasm, puffing and blowing until he finally beat out the
fire, and then, seeing his toy destroyed, would fall to weeping. The cochero observed with sadness that the race
of little paper animals disappeared each year, as if they had been attacked by the pest like the living animals. He,
the abused Sinong, remembered his two magnificent horses, which, at the advice of the curate, he had caused to
be blessed to save them from plague, spending therefor ten pesos—for neither the government nor the curates
have found any better remedy for the epizootic—and they had died after all. Yet he consoled himself by
remembering also that after the shower of holy water, the Latin phrases of the padre, and the ceremonies, the
horses had become so vain and self-important that [44]they would not even allow him, Sinong, a good Christian,
to put them in harness, and he had not dared to whip them, because a tertiary sister had said that they
were sanctified.
 The procession was closed by the Virgin dressed as the Divine Shepherd, with a pilgrim’s hat of wide
brim and long plumes to indicate the journey to Jerusalem. That the birth might be made more explicable, the
curate had ordered her figure to be stuffed with rags and cotton under her skirt, so that no one could be in any
doubt as to her condition. It was a very beautiful image, with the same sad expression of all the images that the
Filipinos make, and a mien somewhat ashamed, doubtless at the way in which the curate had arranged her. In
front came several singers and behind, some musicians with the usual civil-guards. The curate, as was to be
expected after what he had done, was not in his place, for that year he was greatly displeased at having to use all
his diplomacy and shrewdness to convince the townspeople that they should pay thirty pesos for each Christmas
mass instead of the usual twenty. “You’re turning filibusters!” he had said to them.
The cochero must have been greatly preoccupied with the sights of the procession, for when it had passed
and Basilio ordered him to go on, he did not notice that the lamp on his carromata had gone out. Neither did
Basilio notice it, his attention being devoted to gazing at the houses, which were illuminated inside and out with
little paper lanterns of fantastic shapes and colors, stars surrounded by hoops with long streamers which produced
a pleasant murmur when shaken by the wind, and fishes of movable heads and tails, having a glass of oil inside,
suspended from the eaves of the windows in the delightful fashion of a happy and homelike fiesta. But he also
noticed that the lights were flickering, that the stars were being eclipsed, that this year had fewer ornaments and
hangings than the former, which in turn had had even fewer than the year preceding it. There was scarcely any
music in the streets, while the agreeable noises of the kitchen were not to be heard in all [45]the houses, which
the youth ascribed to the fact that for some time things had been going badly, the sugar did not bring a good price,
the rice crops had failed, over half the live stock had died, but the taxes rose and increased for some inexplicable
reason, while the abuses of the Civil Guard became more frequent to kill off the happiness of the people in the
towns.
He was just pondering over this when an energetic “Halt!” resounded. They were passing in front of the
barracks and one of the guards had noticed the extinguished lamp of the carromata, which could not go on without
it. A hail of insults fell about the poor cochero, who vainly excused himself with the length of the procession. He
would be arrested for violating the ordinances and afterwards advertised in the newspapers, so the peaceful and
prudent Basilio left the carromata and went his way on foot, carrying his valise. This was San Diego, his native
town, where he had not a single relative.
The only, house wherein there seemed to be any mirth was Capitan Basilio’s. Hens and chickens cackled
their death chant to the accompaniment of dry and repeated strokes, as of meat pounded on a chopping-block, and
the sizzling of grease in the frying-pans. A feast was going on in the house, and even into the street there passed
a certain draught of air, saturated with the succulent odors of stews and confections. In the entresol Basilio saw
Sinang, as small as when our readers knew her before,2 although a little rounder and plumper since her marriage.
Then to his great surprise he made out, further in at the back of the room, chatting with Capitan Basilio, the curate,
and the alferez of the Civil Guard, no less than the jeweler Simoun, as ever with his blue goggles and his
nonchalant air.
“It’s understood, Señor Simoun,” Capitan Basilio was saying, “that we’ll go to Tiani to see your jewels.”
“I would also go,” remarked the alferez, “because I [46]need a watch-chain, but I’m so busy—if Capitan
Basilio would undertake—”
Capitan Basilio would do so with the greatest pleasure, and as he wished to propitiate the soldier in order
that he might not be molested in the persons of his laborers, he refused to accept the money which the alferez was
trying to get out of his pocket.
“It’s my Christmas gift!”
“I can’t allow you, Capitan, I can’t permit it!”
“All right! We’ll settle up afterwards,” replied Capitan Basilio with a lordly gesture.
Also, the curate wanted a pair of lady’s earrings and requested the capitan to buy them for him. “I want
them first class. Later we’ll fix up the account.”
“Don’t worry about that, Padre,” said the good man, who wished to be at peace with the Church also. An
unfavorable report on the curate’s part could do him great damage and cause him double the expense, for those
earrings were a forced present. Simoun in the meantime was praising his jewels.
“That fellow is fierce!” mused the student. “He does business everywhere. And if I can believe a certain
person, he buys from some gentlemen for a half of their value the same jewels that he himself has sold for presents.
Everybody in this country prospers but us!”
He made his way to his house, or rather Capitan Tiago’s, now occupied by a trustworthy man who had
held him in great esteem since the day when he had seen him perform a surgical operation with the same coolness
that he would cut up a chicken. This man was now waiting to give him the news. Two of the laborers were
prisoners, one was to be deported, and a number of carabaos had died.
“The same old story,” exclaimed Basilio, in a bad humor. “You always receive me with the same
complaints.” The youth was not overbearing, but as he was at times scolded by Capitan Tiago, he liked in his turn
to chide those under his orders.[47]
 The old man cast about for something new. “One of our tenants has died, the old fellow who took care
of the woods, and the curate refused to bury him as a pauper, saying that his master is a rich man.”
“What did he die of?”
“Of old age.”
“Get out! To die of old age! It must at least have been some disease.” Basilio in his zeal for making
autopsies wanted diseases.
“Haven’t you anything new to tell me? You take away my appetite relating the same old things. Do you
know anything of Sagpang?”
The old man then told him about the kidnapping of Cabesang Tales. Basilio became thoughtful and said
nothing more—his appetite had completely left him.[48]
1
This legend is still current among the Tagalogs. It circulates in various forms, the commonest being that the king was so confined for defying
the lightning; and it takes no great stretch of the imagination to fancy in this idea a reference to the firearms used by the Spanish conquerors.
Quite recently (January 1909), when the nearly extinct volcano of Banahao shook itself and scattered a few tons of mud over the
surrounding landscape, the people thereabout recalled this old legend, saying that it was their King Bernardo making another effort to get
that right foot loose.—Tr.
2
The reference is to Noli Me Tangere, in which Sinang appears.

Basilio

When the bells began their chimes for the midnight mass and those who preferred a good sleep to fiestas
and ceremonies arose grumbling at the noise and movement, Basilio cautiously left the house, took two or three
turns through the streets to see that he was not watched or followed, and then made his way by unfrequented paths
to the road that led to the ancient wood of the Ibarras, which had been acquired by Capitan Tiago when their
property was confiscated and sold. As Christmas fell under the waning moon that year, the place was wrapped in
darkness. The chimes had ceased, and only the tolling sounded through the darkness of the night amid the murmur
of the breeze-stirred branches and the measured roar of the waves on the neighboring lake, like the deep respiration
of nature sunk in profound sleep.
Awed by the time and place, the youth moved along with his head down, as if endeavoring to see through
the darkness. But from time to time he raised it to gaze at the stars through the open spaces between the treetops
and went forward parting the bushes or tearing away the lianas that obstructed his path. At times he retraced his
steps, his foot would get caught among the plants, he stumbled over a projecting root or a fallen log. At the end
of a half-hour he reached a small brook on the opposite side of which arose a hillock, a black and shapeless mass
that in the darkness took on the proportions of a mountain. Basilio crossed the brook on the stones that showed
black against the shining surface of the water, ascended the hill, and made his way to a small space enclosed by
old and [49]crumbling walls. He approached the balete tree that rose in the center, huge, mysterious, venerable,
formed of roots that extended up and down among the confusedly-interlaced trunks.
Pausing before a heap of stones he took off his hat and seemed to be praying. There his mother was
buried, and every time he came to the town his first visit was to that neglected and unknown grave. Since he must
visit Cabesang Tales’ family the next day, he had taken advantage of the night to perform this duty. Seated on a
stone, he seemed to fall into deep thought. His past rose before him like a long black film, rosy at first, then
shadowy with spots of blood, then black, black, gray, and then light, ever lighter. The end could not be seen,
hidden as it was by a cloud through which shone lights and the hues of dawn.
Thirteen years before to the day, almost to the hour, his mother had died there in the deepest distress, on
a glorious night when the moon shone brightly and the Christians of the world were engaged in rejoicing.
Wounded and limping, he had reached there in pursuit of her—she mad and terrified, fleeing from her son as from
a ghost. There she had died, and there had come a stranger who had commanded him to build a funeral pyre. He
had obeyed mechanically and when he returned he found a second stranger by the side of the other’s corpse. What
a night and what a morning those were! The stranger helped him raise the pyre, whereon they burned the corpse
of the first, dug the grave in which they buried his mother, and then after giving him some pieces of money told
him to leave the place. It was the first time that he had seen that man—tall, with blood-shot eyes, pale lips, and a
sharp nose.
Entirely alone in the world, without parents or brothers and sisters, he left the town whose authorities
inspired in him such great fear and went to Manila to work in some rich house and study at the same time, as
many do. His journey was an Odyssey of sleeplessness and startling surprises, in which hunger counted for little,
for he ate the [50]fruits in the woods, whither he retreated whenever he made out from afar the uniform of the
Civil Guard, a sight that recalled the origin of all his misfortunes. Once in Manila, ragged and sick, he went from
door to door offering his services. A boy from the provinces who knew not a single word of Spanish, and sickly
besides! Discouraged, hungry, and miserable, he wandered about the streets, attracting attention by the
wretchedness of his clothing. How often was he tempted to throw himself under the feet of the horses that flashed
by, drawing carriages shining with silver and varnish, thus to end his misery at once! Fortunately, he saw Capitan
Tiago, accompanied by Aunt Isabel. He had known them since the days in San Diego, and in his joy believed that
in them he saw almost fellow-townsfolk. He followed the carriage until he lost sight of it, and then made inquiries
for the house. As it was the very day that Maria Clara entered the nunnery and Capitan Tiago was accordingly
depressed, he was admitted as a servant, without pay, but instead with leave to study, if he so wished, in San Juan
de Letran.1
Dirty, poorly dressed, with only a pair of clogs for footwear, at the end of several months’ stay in Manila,
he entered the first year of Latin. On seeing his clothes, his classmates drew away from him, and the professor, a
handsome Dominican, never asked him a question, but frowned every time he looked at him. In the eight months
that the class continued, the only words that passed between them were his name read from the roll and the
daily adsum with which the student responded. With what bitterness he left the class each day, and, guessing the
reason for the treatment accorded him, what tears sprang into his eyes and what complaints were stifled in his
heart! How he had wept and sobbed over the grave of his mother, relating to her his hidden sorrows, humiliations,
and affronts, when at the approach of Christmas Capitan Tiago had taken him back to San Diego! Yet he
memorized the lessons without [51]omitting a comma, although he understood scarcely any part of them. But at
length he became resigned, noticing that among the three or four hundred in his class only about forty merited the
honor of being questioned, because they attracted the professor’s attention by their appearance, some prank,
comicality, or other cause. The greater part of the students congratulated themselves that they thus escaped the
work of thinking and understanding the subject. “One goes to college, not to learn and study, but to gain credit
for the course, so if the book can be memorized, what more can be asked—the year is thus gained.”2
Basilio passed the examinations by answering the solitary question asked him, like a machine, without
stopping or breathing, and in the amusement of the examiners won the passing certificate. His nine companions—
they were examined in batches of ten in order to save time—did not have such good luck, but were condemned to
repeat the year of brutalization.
In the second year the game-cock that he tended won a [52]large sum and he received from Capitan Tiago
a big tip, which he immediately invested in the purchase of shoes and a felt hat. With these and the clothes given
him by his employer, which he made over to fit his person, his appearance became more decent, but did not get
beyond that. In such a large class a great deal was needed to attract the professor’s attention, and the student who
in the first year did not make himself known by some special quality, or did not capture the good-will of the
professors, could with difficulty make himself known in the rest of his school-days. But Basilio kept on, for
perseverance was his chief trait.
His fortune seemed to change somewhat when he entered the third year. His professor happened to be a
very jolly fellow, fond of jokes and of making the students laugh, complacent enough in that he almost always
had his favorites recite the lessons—in fact, he was satisfied with anything. At this time Basilio now wore shoes
and a clean and well-ironed camisa. As his professor noticed that he laughed very little at the jokes and that his
large eyes seemed to be asking something like an eternal question, he took him for a fool, and one day decided to
make him conspicuous by calling on him for the lesson. Basilio recited it from beginning to end, without hesitating
over a single letter, so the professor called him a parrot and told a story to make the class laugh. Then to increase
the hilarity and justify the epithet he asked several questions, at the same time winking to his favorites, as if to
say to them, “You’ll see how we’re going to amuse ourselves.”
Basilio now understood Spanish and answered the questions with the plain intention of making no one
laugh. This disgusted everybody, the expected absurdity did not materialize, no one could laugh, and the good
friar never pardoned him for having defrauded the hopes of the class and disappointed his own prophecies. But
who would expect anything worth while to come from a head so badly combed and placed on an Indian poorly
shod, classified until recently among the arboreal animals? As in other [53]centers of learning, where the teachers
are honestly desirous that the students should learn, such discoveries usually delight the instructors, so in a college
managed by men convinced that for the most part knowledge is an evil, at least for the students, the episode of
Basilio produced a bad impression and he was not questioned again during the year. Why should he be, when he
made no one laugh?
Quite discouraged and thinking of abandoning his studies, he passed to the fourth year of Latin. Why
study at all, why not sleep like the others and trust to luck?
One of the two professors was very popular, beloved by all, passing for a sage, a great poet, and a man
of advanced ideas. One day when he accompanied the collegians on their walk, he had a dispute with some cadets,
which resulted in a skirmish and a challenge. No doubt recalling his brilliant youth, the professor preached a
crusade and promised good marks to all who during the promenade on the following Sunday would take part in
the fray. The week was a lively one—there were occasional encounters in which canes and sabers were crossed,
and in one of these Basilio distinguished himself. Borne in triumph by the students and presented to the professor,
he thus became known to him and came to be his favorite. Partly for this reason and partly from his diligence, that
year he received the highest marks, medals included, in view of which Capitan Tiago, who, since his daughter had
become a nun, exhibited some aversion to the friars, in a fit of good humor induced him to transfer to the Ateneo
Municipal, the fame of which was then in its apogee.
Here a new world opened before his eyes—a system of instruction that he had never dreamed of. Except
for a few superfluities and some childish things, he was filled with admiration for the methods there used and with
gratitude for the zeal of the instructors. His eyes at times filled with tears when he thought of the four previous
years during which, from lack of means, he had been unable to study at that center. He had to make extraordinary
efforts to get [54]himself to the level of those who had had a good preparatory course, and it might be said that in
that one year he learned the whole five of the secondary curricula. He received his bachelor’s degree, to the great
satisfaction of his instructors, who in the examinations showed themselves to be proud of him before the
Dominican examiners sent there to inspect the school. One of these, as if to dampen such great enthusiasm a little,
asked him where he had studied the first years of Latin.
“In San Juan de Letran, Padre,” answered Basilio.
“Aha! Of course! He’s not bad,—in Latin,” the Dominican then remarked with a slight smile.
From choice and temperament he selected the course in medicine. Capitan Tiago preferred the law, in
order that he might have a lawyer free, but knowledge of the laws is not sufficient to secure clientage in the
Philippines—it is necessary to win the cases, and for this friendships are required, influence in certain spheres, a
good deal of astuteness. Capitan Tiago finally gave in, remembering that medical students get on intimate terms
with corpses, and for some time he had been seeking a poison to put on the gaffs of his game-cocks, the best he
had been able to secure thus far being the blood of a Chinaman who had died of syphilis.
With equal diligence, or more if possible, the young man continued this course, and after the third year
began to render medical services with such great success that he was not only preparing a brilliant future for
himself but also earning enough to dress well and save some money. This was the last year of the course and in
two months he would be a physician; he would come back to the town, he would marry Juliana, and they would
be happy. The granting of his licentiateship was not only assured, but he expected it to be the crowning act of his
school-days, for he had been designated to deliver the valedictory at the graduation, and already he saw himself
in the rostrum, before the whole faculty, the object of public attention. All [55]those heads, leaders of Manila
science, half-hidden in their colored capes; all the women who came there out of curiosity and who years before
had gazed at him, if not with disdain, at least with indifference; all those men whose carriages had once been about
to crush him down in the mud like a dog: they would listen attentively, and he was going to say something to them
that would not be trivial, something that had never before resounded in that place, he was going to forget himself
in order to aid the poor students of the future—and he would make his entrance on his work in the world with that
speech.[56]
1
The Dominican school of secondary instruction in Manila.—Tr.
2
“The studies of secondary instruction given in Santo Tomas, in the college of San Juan de Letran, and of San José, and in the private schools,
had the defects inherent in the plan of instruction which the friars developed in the Philippines. It suited their plans that scientific and
literary knowledge should not become general nor very extensive, for which reason they took but little interest in the study of those
subjects or in the quality of the instruction. Their educational establishments were places of luxury for the children of wealthy and well-
to-do families rather than establishments in which to perfect and develop the minds of the Filipino youth. It is true they were careful to
give them a religious education, tending to make them respect the omnipotent power (sic) of the monastic corporations.
“The intellectual powers were made dormant by devoting a greater part of the time to the study of Latin, to which they attached an extraordinary
importance, for the purpose of discouraging pupils from studying the exact and experimental sciences and from gaining a knowledge of
true literary studies.
“The philosophic system explained was naturally the scholastic one, with an exceedingly refined and subtile logic, and with deficient ideas
upon physics. By the study of Latin, and their philosophic systems, they converted their pupils into automatic machines rather than into
practical men prepared to battle with life.”—Census of the Philippine Islands (Washington, 1905), Volume III, pp. 601, 602.

Simoun

Over these matters Basilio was pondering as he visited his mother’s grave. He was about to start back to
the town when he thought he saw a light flickering among the trees and heard the snapping of twigs, the sound of
feet, and rustling of leaves. The light disappeared but the noises became more distinct, coming directly toward
where he was. Basilio was not naturally superstitious, especially after having carved up so many corpses and
watched beside so many death-beds, but the old legends about that ghostly spot, the hour, the darkness, the
melancholy sighing of the wind, and certain tales heard in his childhood, asserted their influence over his mind
and made his heart beat violently.
The figure stopped on the other side of the balete, but the youth could see it through an open space
between two roots that had grown in the course of time to the proportions of tree-trunks. It produced from under
its coat a lantern with a powerful reflecting lens, which it placed on the ground, thereby lighting up a pair of
riding-boots, the rest of the figure remaining concealed in the darkness. The figure seemed to search its pockets
and then bent over to fix a shovel-blade on the end of a stout cane. To his great surprise Basilio thought he could
make out some of the features of the jeweler Simoun, who indeed it was.
 The jeweler dug in the ground and from time to time the lantern illuminated his face, on which were not
now the blue goggles that so completely disguised him. Basilio shuddered: that was the same stranger who thirteen
years before had dug his mother’s grave there, only now he had aged somewhat, his hair had turned white, he
wore a beard [57]and a mustache, but yet his look was the same, the bitter expression, the same cloud on his brow,
the same muscular arms, though somewhat thinner now, the same violent energy. Old impressions were stirred in
the boy: he seemed to feel the heat of the fire, the hunger, the weariness of that time, the smell of freshly turned
earth. Yet his discovery terrified him—that jeweler Simoun, who passed for a British Indian, a Portuguese, an
American, a mulatto, the Brown Cardinal, his Black Eminence, the evil genius of the Captain-General as many
called him, was no other than the mysterious stranger whose appearance and disappearance coincided with the
death of the heir to that land! But of the two strangers who had appeared, which was Ibarra, the living or the dead?
This question, which he had often asked himself whenever Ibarra’s death was mentioned, again came
into his mind in the presence of the human enigma he now saw before him. The dead man had had two wounds,
which must have been made by firearms, as he knew from what he had since studied, and which would be the
result of the chase on the lake. Then the dead man must have been Ibarra, who had come to die at the tomb of his
forefathers, his desire to be cremated being explained by his residence in Europe, where cremation is practised.
Then who was the other, the living, this jeweler Simoun, at that time with such an appearance of poverty and
wretchedness, but who had now returned loaded with gold and a friend of the authorities? There was the mystery,
and the student, with his characteristic cold-bloodedness, determined to clear it up at the first opportunity.
Simoun dug away for some time, but Basilio noticed that his old vigor had declined—he panted and had
to rest every few moments. Fearing that he might be discovered, the boy made a sudden resolution. Rising from
his seat and issuing from his hiding-place, he asked in the most matter-of-fact tone, “Can I help you, sir?”
Simoun straightened up with the spring of a tiger [58]attacked at his prey, thrust his hand in his coat
pocket, and stared at the student with a pale and lowering gaze.
“Thirteen years ago you rendered me a great service, sir,” went on Basilio unmoved, “in this very place,
by burying my mother, and I should consider myself happy if I could serve you now.”
Without taking his eyes off the youth Simoun drew a revolver from his pocket and the click of a hammer
being cocked was heard. “For whom do you take me?” he asked, retreating a few paces.
“For a person who is sacred to me,” replied Basilio with some emotion, for he thought his last moment
had come. “For a person whom all, except me, believe to be dead, and whose misfortunes I have always lamented.”
An impressive silence followed these words, a silence that to the youth seemed to suggest eternity. But
Simoun, after some hesitation, approached him and placing a hand on his shoulder said in a moving tone: “Basilio,
you possess a secret that can ruin me and now you have just surprised me in another, which puts me completely
in your hands, the divulging of which would upset all my plans. For my own security and for the good of the cause
in which I labor, I ought to seal your lips forever, for what is the life of one man compared to the end I seek? The
occasion is fitting; no one knows that I have come here; I am armed; you are defenceless; your death would be
attributed to the outlaws, if not to more supernatural causes—yet I’ll let you live and trust that I shall not regret
it. You have toiled, you have struggled with energetic perseverance, and like myself, you have your scores to
settle with society. Your brother was murdered, your mother driven to insanity, and society has prosecuted neither
the assassin nor the executioner. You and I are the dregs of justice and instead of destroying we ought to aid each
other.”
Simoun paused with a repressed sigh, and then slowly resumed, while his gaze wandered about: “Yes, I
am he who came here thirteen years ago, sick and wretched, to pay [59]the last tribute to a great and noble soul
that was willing to die for me. The victim of a vicious system, I have wandered over the world, working night and
day to amass a fortune and carry out my plan. Now I have returned to destroy that system, to precipitate its
downfall, to hurl it into the abyss toward which it is senselessly rushing, even though I may have to shed oceans
of tears and blood. It has condemned itself, it stands condemned, and I don’t want to die before I have seen it in
fragments at the foot of the precipice!”
Simoun extended both his arms toward the earth, as if with that gesture he would like to hold there the
broken remains. His voice took on a sinister, even lugubrious tone, which made the student shudder.
“Called by the vices of the rulers, I have returned to these islands, and under the cloak of a merchant
have visited the towns. My gold has opened a way for me and wheresoever I have beheld greed in the most
execrable forms, sometimes hypocritical, sometimes shameless, sometimes cruel, fatten on the dead organism,
like a vulture on a corpse, I have asked myself—why was there not, festering in its vitals, the corruption, the
ptomaine, the poison of the tombs, to kill the foul bird? The corpse was letting itself be consumed, the vulture was
gorging itself with meat, and because it was not possible for me to give it life so that it might turn against its
destroyer, and because the corruption developed slowly, I have stimulated greed, I have abetted it. The cases of
injustice and the abuses multiplied themselves; I have instigated crime and acts of cruelty, so that the people might
become accustomed to the idea of death. I have stirred up trouble so that to escape from it some remedy might be
found; I have placed obstacles in the way of trade so that the country, impoverished and reduced to misery, might
no longer be afraid of anything; I have excited desires to plunder the treasury, and as this has not been enough to
bring about a popular uprising, I have wounded the people in their most sensitive fiber; I have [60]made the
vulture itself insult the very corpse that it feeds upon and hasten the corruption.
“Now, when I was about to get the supreme rottenness, the supreme filth, the mixture of such foul
products brewing poison, when the greed was beginning to irritate, in its folly hastening to seize whatever came
to hand, like an old woman caught in a conflagration, here you come with your cries of Hispanism, with chants
of confidence in the government, in what cannot come to pass, here you have a body palpitating with heat and
life, young, pure, vigorous, throbbing with blood, with enthusiasm, suddenly come forth to offer itself again as
fresh food!
“Ah, youth is ever inexperienced and dreamy, always running after the butterflies and flowers! You have
united, so that by your efforts you may bind your fatherland to Spain with garlands of roses when in reality you
are forging upon it chains harder than the diamond! You ask for equal rights, the Hispanization of your customs,
and you don’t see that what you are begging for is suicide, the destruction of your nationality, the annihilation of
your fatherland, the consecration of tyranny! What will you be in the future? A people without character, a nation
without liberty—everything you have will be borrowed, even your very defects! You beg for Hispanization, and
do not pale with shame when they deny it you! And even if they should grant it to you, what then—what have
you gained? At best, a country of pronunciamentos, a land of civil wars, a republic of the greedy and the
malcontents, like some of the republics of South America! To what are you tending now, with your instruction in
Castilian, a pretension that would be ridiculous were it not for its deplorable consequences! You wish to add one
more language to the forty odd that are spoken in the islands, so that you may understand one another less and
less.”
“On the contrary,” replied Basilio, “if the knowledge of Castilian may bind us to the government, in
exchange it may also unite the islands among themselves.”[61]
“A gross error!” rejoined Simoun. “You are letting yourselves be deceived by big words and never go to
the bottom of things to examine the results in their final analysis. Spanish will never be the general language of
the country, the people will never talk it, because the conceptions of their brains and the feelings of their hearts
cannot be expressed in that language—each people has its own tongue, as it has its own way of thinking! What
are you going to do with Castilian, the few of you who will speak it? Kill off your own originality, subordinate
your thoughts to other brains, and instead of freeing yourselves, make yourselves slaves indeed! Nine-tenths of
those of you who pretend to be enlightened are renegades to your country! He among you who talks that language
neglects his own in such a way that he neither writes nor understands it, and how many have I not seen who
pretended not to know a single word of it! But fortunately, you have an imbecile government! While Russia
enslaves Poland by forcing the Russian language upon it, while Germany prohibits French in the conquered
provinces, your government strives to preserve yours, and you in return, a remarkable people under an incredible
government, you are trying to despoil yourselves of your own nationality! One and all you forget that while a
people preserves its language, it preserves the marks of its liberty, as a man preserves his independence while he
holds to his own way of thinking. Language is the thought of the peoples. Luckily, your independence is assured;
human passions are looking out for that!”
Simoun paused and rubbed his hand over his forehead. The waning moon was rising and sent its faint
light down through the branches of the trees, and with his white locks and severe features, illuminated from below
by the lantern, the jeweler appeared to be the fateful spirit of the wood planning some evil.
Basilio was silent before such bitter reproaches and listened with bowed head, while Simoun resumed:
“I saw this movement started and have passed whole nights of [62]anguish, because I understood that among those
youths there were exceptional minds and hearts, sacrificing themselves for what they thought to be a good cause,
when in reality they were working against their own country. How many times have I wished to speak to you
young men, to reveal myself and undeceive you! But in view of the reputation I enjoy, my words would have been
wrongly interpreted and would perhaps have had a counter effect. How many times have I not longed to approach
your Makaraig, your Isagani! Sometimes I thought of their death, I wished to destroy them—”
Simoun checked himself.
“Here’s why I let you live, Basilio, and by such imprudence I expose myself to the risk of being some
day betrayed by you. But you know who I am, you know how much I must have suffered—then believe in me!
You are not of the common crowd, which sees in the jeweler Simoun the trader who incites the authorities to
commit abuses in order that the abused may buy jewels. I am the Judge who wishes to castigate this system by
making use of its own defects, to make war on it by flattering it. I need your help, your influence among the youth,
to combat these senseless desires for Hispanization, for assimilation, for equal rights. By that road you will become
only a poor copy, and the people should look higher. It is madness to attempt to influence the thoughts of the
rulers—they have their plan outlined, the bandage covers their eyes, and besides losing time uselessly, you are
deceiving the people with vain hopes and are helping to bend their necks before the tyrant. What you should do
is to take advantage of their prejudices to serve your needs. Are they unwilling that you be assimilated with the
Spanish people? Good enough! Distinguish yourselves then by revealing yourselves in your own character, try to
lay the foundations of the Philippine fatherland! Do they deny you hope? Good! Don’t depend on them, depend
upon yourselves and work! Do they deny you representation [63]in their Cortes? So much the better! Even should
you succeed in sending representatives of your own choice, what are you going to accomplish there except to be
overwhelmed among so many voices, and sanction with your presence the abuses and wrongs that are afterwards
perpetrated? The fewer rights they allow you, the more reason you will have later to throw off the yoke, and return
evil for evil. If they are unwilling to teach you their language, cultivate your own, extend it, preserve to the people
their own way of thinking, and instead of aspiring to be a province, aspire to be a nation! Instead of subordinate
thoughts, think independently, to the end that neither by right, nor custom, nor language, the Spaniard can be
considered the master here, nor even be looked upon as a part of the country, but ever as an invader, a foreigner,
and sooner or later you will have your liberty! Here’s why I let you live!”
Basilio breathed freely, as though a great weight had been lifted from him, and after a brief pause, replied:
“Sir, the honor you do me in confiding your plans to me is too great for me not to be frank with you, and tell you
that what you ask of me is beyond my power. I am no politician, and if I have signed the petition for instruction
in Castilian it has been because I saw in it an advantage to our studies and nothing more. My destiny is different;
my aspiration reduces itself to alleviating the physical sufferings of my fellow men.”
The jeweler smiled. “What are physical sufferings compared to moral tortures? What is the death of a
man in the presence of the death of a society? Some day you will perhaps be a great physician, if they let you go
your way in peace, but greater yet will be he who can inject a new idea into this anemic people! You, what are
you doing for the land that gave you existence, that supports your life, that affords you knowledge? Don’t you
realize that that is a useless life which is not consecrated to a great idea? It is a stone wasted in the fields without
becoming a part of any edifice.”[64]
“No, no, sir!” replied Basilio modestly, “I’m not folding my arms, I’m working like all the rest to raise
up from the ruins of the past a people whose units will be bound together—that each one may feel in himself the
conscience and the life of the whole. But however enthusiastic our generation may be, we understand that in this
great social fabric there must be a division of labor. I have chosen my task and will devote myself to science.”
“Science is not the end of man,” declared Simoun.
“The most civilized nations are tending toward it.”
“Yes, but only as a means of seeking their welfare.”
“Science is more eternal, it’s more human, it’s more universal!” exclaimed the youth in a transport of
enthusiasm. “Within a few centuries, when humanity has become redeemed and enlightened, when there are no
races, when all peoples are free, when there are neither tyrants nor slaves, colonies nor mother countries, when
justice rules and man is a citizen of the world, the pursuit of science alone will remain, the word patriotism will
be equivalent to fanaticism, and he who prides himself on patriotic ideas will doubtless be isolated as a dangerous
disease, as a menace to the social order.”
Simoun smiled sadly. “Yes, yes,” he said with a shake of his head, “yet to reach that condition it is
necessary that there be no tyrannical and no enslaved peoples, it is necessary that man go about freely, that he
know how to respect the rights of others in their own individuality, and for this there is yet much blood to be shed,
the struggle forces itself forward. To overcome the ancient fanaticism that bound consciences it was necessary
that many should perish in the holocausts, so that the social conscience in horror declared the individual
conscience free. It is also necessary that all answer the question which with each day the fatherland asks them,
with its fettered hands extended! Patriotism can only be a crime in a tyrannical people, because then it is rapine
under a beautiful name, but however [65]perfect humanity may become, patriotism will always be a virtue among
oppressed peoples, because it will at all times mean love of justice, of liberty, of personal dignity—nothing of
chimerical dreams, of effeminate idyls! The greatness of a man is not in living before his time, a thing almost
impossible, but in understanding its desires, in responding to its needs, and in guiding it on its forward way. The
geniuses that are commonly believed to have existed before their time, only appear so because those who judge
them see from a great distance, or take as representative of the age the line of stragglers!”
Simoun fell silent. Seeing that he could awake no enthusiasm in that unresponsive mind, he turned to
another subject and asked with a change of tone: “And what are you doing for the memory of your mother and
your brother? Is it enough that you come here every year, to weep like a woman over a grave?” And he smiled
sarcastically.
The shot hit the mark. Basilio changed color and advanced a step.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked angrily.
“Without means, without social position, how may I bring their murderers to justice? I would merely be
another victim, shattered like a piece of glass hurled against a rock. Ah, you do ill to recall this to me, since it is
wantonly reopening a wound!”
“But what if I should offer you my aid?”
Basilio shook his head and remained pensive. “All the tardy vindications of justice, all the revenge in the
world, will not restore a single hair of my mother’s head, or recall a smile to my brother’s lips. Let them rest in
peace—what should I gain now by avenging them?”
 “Prevent others from suffering what you have suffered, that in the future there be no brothers murdered
or mothers driven to madness. Resignation is not always a virtue; it is a crime when it encourages tyrants: there
are no despots where there are no slaves! Man is in his own nature so wicked that he always abuses complaisance.
I thought as [66]you do, and you know what my fate was. Those who caused your misfortunes are watching you
day and night, they suspect that you are only biding your time, they take your eagerness to learn, your love of
study, your very complaisance, for burning desires for revenge. The day they can get rid of you they will do with
you as they did with me, and they will not let you grow to manhood, because they fear and hate you!”
“Hate me? Still hate me after the wrong they have done me?” asked the youth in surprise.
Simoun burst into a laugh. “‘It is natural for man to hate those whom he has wronged,’ said Tacitus,
confirming the quos laeserunt et oderunt of Seneca. When you wish to gauge the evil or the good that one people
has done to another, you have only to observe whether it hates or loves. Thus is explained the reason why many
who have enriched themselves here in the high offices they have filled, on their return to the Peninsula relieve
themselves by slanders and insults against those who have been their victims. Proprium humani ingenii est odisse
quern laeseris!”
“But if the world is large, if one leaves them to the peaceful enjoyment of power, if I ask only to be
allowed to work, to live—”
“And to rear meek-natured sons to send them afterwards to submit to the yoke,” continued Simoun,
cruelly mimicking Basilio’s tone. “A fine future you prepare for them, and they have to thank you for a life of
humiliation and suffering! Good enough, young man! When a body is inert, it is useless to galvanize it. Twenty
years of continuous slavery, of systematic humiliation, of constant prostration, finally create in the mind a twist
that cannot be straightened by the labor of a day. Good and evil instincts are inherited and transmitted from father
to son. Then let your idylic ideas live, your dreams of a slave who asks only for a bandage to wrap the chain so
that it may rattle less and not ulcerate his skin! You hope for a little home and some ease, a wife and a handful of
rice—here is your [67]ideal man of the Philippines! Well, if they give it to you, consider yourself fortunate.”
Basilio, accustomed to obey and bear with the caprices and humors of Capitan Tiago. was now dominated
by Simoun, who appeared to him terrible and sinister on a background bathed in tears and blood. He tried to
explain himself by saying that he did not consider himself fit to mix in politics, that he had no political opinions
because he had never studied the question, but that he was always ready to lend his services the day they might
be needed, that for the moment he saw only one need, the enlightenment of the people.
Simoun stopped him with a gesture, and, as the dawn was coming, said to him: “Young man, I am not
warning you to keep my secret, because I know that discretion is one of your good qualities, and even though you
might wish to sell me, the jeweler Simoun, the friend of the authorities and of the religious corporations, will
always be given more credit than the student Basilio, already suspected of filibusterism, and, being a native, so
much the more marked and watched, and because in the profession you are entering upon you will encounter
powerful rivals. After all, even though you have not corresponded to my hopes, the day on which you change your
mind, look me up at my house in the Escolta, and I’ll be glad to help you.”
Basilio thanked him briefly and went away.
“Have I really made a mistake?” mused Simoun, when he found himself alone. “Is it that he doubts me
and meditates his plan of revenge so secretly that he fears to tell it even in the solitude of the night? Or can it be
that the years of servitude have extinguished in his heart every human sentiment and there remain only the animal
desires to live and reproduce? In that case the type is deformed and will have to be cast over again. Then the
hecatomb is preparing: let the unfit perish and only the strongest survive!”
Then he added sadly, as if apostrophizing some one: [68]“Have patience, you who left me a name and a
home, have patience! I have lost all—country, future, prosperity, your very tomb, but have patience! And thou,
noble spirit, great soul, generous heart, who didst live with only one thought and didst sacrifice thy life without
asking the gratitude or applause of any one, have patience, have patience! The methods that I use may perhaps
not be thine, but they are the most direct. The day is coming, and when it brightens I myself will come to announce
it to you who are now indifferent. Have patience!”[69]

Merry Christmas!

When Juli opened her sorrowing eyes, she saw that the house was still dark, but the cocks were crowing.
Her first thought was that perhaps the Virgin had performed the miracle and the sun was not going to rise, in spite
of the invocations of the cocks. She rose, crossed herself, recited her morning prayers with great devotion, and
with as little noise as possible went out on the batalan.
There was no miracle—the sun was rising and promised a magnificent morning, the breeze was
delightfully cool, the stars were paling in the east, and the cocks were crowing as if to see who could crow best
and loudest. That had been too much to ask—it were much easier to request the Virgin to send the two hundred
and fifty pesos. What would it cost the Mother of the Lord to give them? But underneath the image she found only
the letter of her father asking for the ransom of five hundred pesos. There was nothing to do but go, so, seeing
that her grandfather was not stirring, she thought him asleep and began to prepare breakfast. Strange, she was
calm, she even had a desire to laugh! What had she had last night to afflict her so? She was not going very far,
she could come every second day to visit the house, her grandfather could see her, and as for Basilio, he had
known for some time the bad turn her father’s affairs had taken, since he had often said to her, “When I’m a
physician and we are married, your father won’t need his fields.”
“What a fool I was to cry so much,” she said to herself as she packed her tampipi. Her fingers struck
against the locket and she pressed it to her lips, but immediately [70]wiped them from fear of contagion, for that
locket set with diamonds and emeralds had come from a leper. Ah, then, if she should catch that disease she could
not get married.
As it became lighter, she could see her grandfather seated in a corner, following all her movements with
his eyes, so she caught up her tampipi of clothes and approached him smilingly to kiss his hand. The old man
blessed her silently, while she tried to appear merry. “When father comes back, tell him that I have at last gone to
college—my mistress talks Spanish. It’s the cheapest college I could find.”
Seeing the old man’s eyes fill with tears, she placed the tampipi on her head and hastily went downstairs,
her slippers slapping merrily on the wooden steps. But when she turned her head to look again at the house, the
house wherein had faded her childhood dreams and her maiden illusions, when she saw it sad, lonely, deserted,
with the windows half closed, vacant and dark like a dead man’s eyes, when she heard the low rustling of the
bamboos, and saw them nodding in the fresh morning breeze as though bidding her farewell, then her vivacity
disappeared; she stopped, her eyes filled with tears, and letting herself fall in a sitting posture on a log by the
wayside she broke out into disconsolate tears.
Juli had been gone several hours and the sun was quite high overhead when Tandang Selo gazed from
the window at the people in their festival garments going to the town to attend the high mass. Nearly all led by
the hand or carried in their arms a little boy or girl decked out as if for a fiesta.
Christmas day in the Philippines is, according to the elders, a fiesta for the children, who are perhaps not
of the same opinion and who, it may be supposed, have for it an instinctive dread. They are roused early, washed,
dressed, and decked out with everything new, dear, and precious that they possess—high silk shoes, big hats,
woolen or velvet suits, without overlooking four or five [71]scapularies, which contain texts from St. John, and
thus burdened they are carried to the high mass, where for almost an hour they are subjected to the heat and the
human smells from so many crowding, perspiring people, and if they are not made to recite the rosary they must
remain quiet, bored, or asleep. At each movement or antic that may soil their clothing they are pinched and
scolded, so the fact is that they do not laugh or feel happy, while in their round eyes can be read a protest against
so much embroidery and a longing for the old shirt of week-days.
Afterwards, they are dragged from house to house to kiss their relatives’ hands. There they have to dance,
sing, and recite all the amusing things they know, whether in the humor or not, whether comfortable or not in their
fine clothes, with the eternal pinchings and scoldings if they play any of their tricks. Their relatives give them
cuartos which their parents seize upon and of which they hear nothing more. The only positive results they are
accustomed to get from the fiesta are the marks of the aforesaid pinchings, the vexations, and at best an attack of
indigestion from gorging themselves with candy and cake in the houses of kind relatives. But such is the custom,
and Filipino children enter the world through these ordeals, which afterwards prove the least sad, the least hard,
of their lives.
Adult persons who live independently also share in this fiesta, by visiting their parents and their parents’
relatives, crooking their knees, and wishing them a merry Christmas. Their Christmas gift consists of a sweetmeat,
some fruit, a glass of water, or some insignificant present.
Tandang Selo saw all his friends pass and thought sadly that this year he had no Christmas gift for
anybody, while his granddaughter had gone without hers, without wishing him a merry Christinas. Was it delicacy
on Juli’s part or pure forgetfulness?
When he tried to greet the relatives who called on him, bringing their children, he found to his great
surprise that he could not articulate a word. Vainly he tried, but no [72]sound could he utter. He placed his hands
on his throat, shook his head, but without effect. When he tried to laugh, his lips trembled convulsively and the
only noise produced was a hoarse wheeze like the blowing of bellows.
The women gazed at him in consternation. “He’s dumb, he’s dumb!” they cried in astonishment, raising
at once a literal pandemonium.[73]

Pilates

When the news of this misfortune became known in the town, some lamented it and others shrugged
their shoulders. No one was to blame, and no one need lay it on his conscience.
The lieutenant of the Civil Guard gave no sign: he had received an order to take up all the arms and he
had performed his duty. He had chased the tulisanes whenever he could, and when they captured Cabesang Tales
he had organized an expedition and brought into the town, with their arms bound behind them, five or six rustics
who looked suspicious, so if Cabesang Tales did not show up it was because he was not in the pockets or under
the skins of the prisoners, who were thoroughly shaken out.
The friar-administrator shrugged his shoulders: he had nothing to do with it, it was a matter of tulisanes
and he had merely done his duty. True it was that if he had not entered the complaint, perhaps the arms would not
have been taken up, and poor Tales would not have been captured; but he, Fray Clemente, had to look after his
own safety, and that Tales had a way of staring at him as if picking out a good target in some part of his body.
Self-defense is natural. If there are tulisanes, the fault is not his, it is not his duty to run them down—that belongs
to the Civil Guard. If Cabesang Tales, instead of wandering about his fields, had stayed at home, he would not
have been captured. In short, that was a punishment from heaven upon those who resisted the demands of his
corporation.
When Sister Penchang, the pious old woman in whose [74]service Juli had entered, learned of it, she
ejaculated several ’Susmarioseps, crossed herself, and remarked, “Often God sends these trials because we are
sinners or have sinning relatives, to whom we should have taught piety and we haven’t done so.”
Those sinning relatives referred to Juliana, for to this pious woman Juli was a great sinner. “Think of a
girl of marriageable age who doesn’t yet know how to pray! Jesús, how scandalous! If the wretch doesn’t say
the Diós te salve María without stopping at es contigo, and the Santa María without a pause after pecadores, as
every good Christian who fears God ought to do! She doesn’t know the oremus gratiam, and
says mentíbus for méntibus. Anybody hearing her would think she was talking about something
else. ’Susmariosep!”
Greatly scandalized, she made the sign of the cross and thanked God, who had permitted the capture of
the father in order that the daughter might be snatched from sin and learn the virtues which, according to the
curates, should adorn every Christian woman. She therefore kept the girl constantly at work, not allowing her to
return to the village to look after her grandfather. Juli had to learn how to pray, to read the books distributed by
the friars, and to work until the two hundred and fifty pesos should be paid.
When she learned that Basilio had gone to Manila to get his savings and ransom Juli from her servitude,
the good woman believed that the girl was forever lost and that the devil had presented himself in the guise of the
student. Dreadful as it all was, how true was that little book the curate had given her! Youths who go to Manila
to study are ruined and then ruin the others. Thinking to rescue Juli, she made her read and re-read the book
called Tandang Basio Macunat,1 charging her always to go and see the [75]curate in the convento,2 as did the
heroine, who is so praised by the author, a friar.
Meanwhile, the friars had gained their point. They had certainly won the suit, so they took advantage of
Cabesang Tales’ captivity to turn the fields over to the one who had asked for them, without the least thought of
honor or the faintest twinge of shame. When the former owner returned and learned what had happened, when he
saw his fields in another’s possession,—those fields that had cost the lives of his wife and daughter,—when he
saw his father dumb and his daughter working as a servant, and when he himself received an order from the town
council, transmitted through the headman of the village, to move out of the house within three days, he said
nothing; he sat down at his father’s side and spoke scarcely once during the whole day.[76]
1
The nature of this booklet, in Tagalog, is made clear in several passages. It was issued by the Franciscans, but proved too outspoken for even
Latin refinement, and was suppressed by the Order itself.—Tr.
2
The rectory or parish house.

Wealth and Want

On the following day, to the great surprise of the village, the jeweler Simoun, followed by two servants,
each carrying a canvas-covered chest, requested the hospitality of Cabesang Tales, who even in the midst of his
wretchedness did not forget the good Filipino customs—rather, he was troubled to think that he had no way of
properly entertaining the stranger. But Simoun brought everything with him, servants and provisions, and merely
wished to spend the day and night in the house because it was the largest in the village and was situated between
San Diego and Tiani, towns where he hoped to find many customers.
Simoun secured information about the condition of the roads and asked Cabesang Tales if his revolver
was a sufficient protection against the tulisanes.
“They have rifles that shoot a long way,” was the rather absent-minded reply.
“This revolver does no less,” remarked Simoun, firing at an areca-palm some two hundred paces away.
Cabesang Tales noticed that some nuts fell, but remained silent and thoughtful.
Gradually the families, drawn by the fame of the jeweler’s wares, began to collect. They wished one
another merry Christmas, they talked of masses, saints, poor crops, but still were there to spend their savings for
jewels and trinkets brought from Europe. It was known that the jeweler was the friend of the Captain-General, so
it wasn’t lost labor to get on good terms with him, and thus be prepared for contingencies.
 Capitan Basilio came with his wife, daughter, and son-in-law, [77]prepared to spend at least three
thousand pesos. Sister Penchang was there to buy a diamond ring she had promised to the Virgin of Antipolo. She
had left Juli at home memorizing a booklet the curate had sold her for four cuartos, with forty days of indulgence
granted by the Archbishop to every one who read it or listened to it read.
“Jesús!” said the pious woman to Capitana Tika, “that poor girl has grown up like a mushroom planted
by the tikbalang. I’ve made her read the book at the top of her voice at least fifty times and she doesn’t remember
a single word of it. She has a head like a sieve—full when it’s in the water. All of us hearing her, even the dogs
and cats, have won at least twenty years of indulgence.”
Simoun arranged his two chests on the table, one being somewhat larger than the other. “You don’t want
plated jewelry or imitation gems. This lady,” turning to Sinang, “wants real diamonds.”
“That’s it, yes, sir, diamonds, old diamonds, antique stones, you know,” she responded. “Papa will pay
for them, because he likes antique things, antique stones.” Sinang was accustomed to joke about the great deal of
Latin her father understood and the little her husband knew.
“It just happens that I have some antique jewels,” replied Simoun, taking the canvas cover from the
smaller chest, a polished steel case with bronze trimmings and stout locks. “I have necklaces of Cleopatra’s, real
and genuine, discovered in the Pyramids; rings of Roman senators and knights, found in the ruins of Carthage.”
“Probably those that Hannibal sent back after the battle of Cannae!” exclaimed Capitan Basilio seriously,
while he trembled with pleasure. The good man, thought he had read much about the ancients, had never, by
reason of the lack of museums in Filipinas, seen any of the objects of those times.
“I have brought besides costly earrings of Roman ladies, [78]discovered in the villa of Annius Mucius
Papilinus in Pompeii.”
Capitan Easilio nodded to show that he understood and was eager to see such precious relics. The women
remarked that they also wanted things from Rome, such as rosaries blessed by the Pope, holy relics that would
take away sins without the need of confessions, and so on.
When the chest was opened and the cotton packing removed, there was exposed a tray filled with rings,
reliquaries, lockets, crucifixes, brooches, and such like. The diamonds set in among variously colored stones
flashed out brightly and shimmered among golden flowers of varied hues, with petals of enamel, all of peculiar
designs and rare Arabesque workmanship.
Simoun lifted the tray and exhibited another filled with quaint jewels that would have satisfied the
imaginations of seven débutantes on the eves of the balls in their honor. Designs, one more fantastic than the
other, combinations of precious stones and pearls worked into the figures of insects with azure backs and
transparent forewings, sapphires, emeralds, rubies, turquoises, diamonds, joined to form dragon-flies, wasps, bees,
butterflies, beetles, serpents, lizards, fishes, sprays of flowers. There were diadems, necklaces of pearls and
diamonds, so that some of the girls could not withhold a nakú of admiration, and Sinang gave a cluck with her
tongue, whereupon her mother pinched her to prevent her from encouraging the jeweler to raise his prices, for
Capitana Tika still pinched her daughter even after the latter was married.
“Here you have some old diamonds,” explained the jeweler. “This ring belonged to the Princess Lamballe
and those earrings to one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies.” They consisted of some beautiful solitaire diamonds, as
large as grains of corn, with somewhat bluish lights, and pervaded with a severe elegance, as though they still
reflected in their sparkles the shuddering of the Reign of Terror.[79]
“Those two earrings!” exclaimed Sinang, looking at her father and instinctively covering the arm next to
her mother.
“Something more ancient yet, something Roman,” said Capitan Basilio with a wink.
The pious Sister Penchang thought that with such a gift the Virgin of Antipolo would be softened and
grant her her most vehement desire: for some time she had begged for a wonderful miracle to which her name
would be attached, so that her name might be immortalized on earth and she then ascend into heaven, like the
Capitana Ines of the curates. She inquired the price and Simoun asked three thousand pesos, which made the good
woman cross herself—’Susmariosep!
Simoun now exposed the third tray, which was filled with watches, cigar- and match-cases decorated
with the rarest enamels, reliquaries set with diamonds and containing the most elegant miniatures.
The fourth tray, containing loose gems, stirred a murmur of admiration. Sinang again clucked with her
tongue, her mother again pinched her, although at the same time herself emitting a ’Susmaría of wonder.
No one there had ever before seen so much wealth. In that chest lined with dark-blue velvet, arranged in
trays, were the wonders of the Arabian Nights, the dreams of Oriental fantasies. Diamonds as large as peas
glittered there, throwing out attractive rays as if they were about to melt or burn with all the hues of the spectrum;
emeralds from Peru, of varied forms and shapes; rubies from India, red as drops of blood; sapphires from Ceylon,
blue and white; turquoises from Persia; Oriental pearls, some rosy, some lead-colored, others black. Those who
have at night seen a great rocket burst in the azure darkness of the sky into thousands of colored lights, so bright
that they make the eternal stars look dim, can imagine the aspect the tray presented.
 As if to increase the admiration of the beholders, Simoun [80]took the stones out with his tapering brown
fingers, gloating over their crystalline hardness, their luminous stream, as they poured from his hands like drops
of water reflecting the tints of the rainbow. The reflections from so many facets, the thought of their great value,
fascinated the gaze of every one.
Cabesang Tales, who had approached out of curiosity, closed his eyes and drew back hurriedly, as if to
drive away an evil thought. Such great riches were an insult to his misfortunes; that man had come there to make
an exhibition of his immense wealth on the very day that he, Tales, for lack of money, for lack of protectors, had
to abandon the house raised by his own hands.
“Here you have two black diamonds, among the largest in existence,” explained the jeweler. “They’re
very difficult to cut because they’re the very hardest. This somewhat rosy stone is also a diamond, as is this green
one that many take for an emerald. Quiroga the Chinaman offered me six thousand pesos for it in order to present
it to a very influential lady, and yet it is not the green ones that are the most valuable, but these blue ones.”
He selected three stones of no great size, but thick and well-cut, of a delicate azure tint.
“For all that they are smaller than the green,” he continued, “they cost twice as much. Look at this one,
the smallest of all, weighing not more than two carats, which cost me twenty thousand pesos and which I won’t
sell for less than thirty. I had to make a special trip to buy it. This other one, from the mines of Golconda, weighs
three and a half carats and is worth over seventy thousand. The Viceroy of India, in a letter I received the day
before yesterday, offers me twelve thousand pounds sterling for it.”
Before such great wealth, all under the power of that man who talked so unaffectedly, the spectators felt
a kind of awe mingled with dread. Sinang clucked several times and her mother did not pinch her, perhaps because
she too was overcome, or perhaps because she reflected that a [81]jeweler like Simoun was not going to try to
gain five pesos more or less as a result of an exclamation more or less indiscreet. All gazed at the gems, but no
one showed any desire to handle them, they were so awe-inspiring. Curiosity was blunted by wonder. Cabesang
Tales stared out into the field, thinking that with a single diamond, perhaps the very smallest there, he could
recover his daughter, keep his house, and perhaps rent another farm. Could it be that those gems were worth more
than a man’s home, the safety of a maiden, the peace of an old man in his declining days?
As if he guessed the thought, Simoun remarked to those about him: “Look here—with one of these little
blue stones, which appear so innocent and inoffensive, pure as sparks scattered over the arch of heaven, with one
of these, seasonably presented, a man was able to have his enemy deported, the father of a family, as a disturber
of the peace; and with this other little one like it, red as one’s heart-blood, as the feeling of revenge, and bright as
an orphan’s tears, he was restored to liberty, the man was returned to his home, the father to his children, the
husband to the wife, and a whole family saved from a wretched future.”
He slapped the chest and went on in a loud tone in bad Tagalog: “Here I have, as in a medicine-chest,
life and death, poison and balm, and with this handful I can drive to tears all the inhabitants of the Philippines!”
The listeners gazed at him awe-struck, knowing him to be right. In his voice there could be detected a
strange ring, while sinister flashes seemed to issue from behind the blue goggles.
Then as if to relieve the strain of the impression made by the gems on such simple folk, he lifted up the
tray and exposed at the bottom the sanctum sanctorum. Cases of Russian leather, separated by layers of cotton,
covered a bottom lined with gray velvet. All expected wonders, and Sinang’s husband thought he saw carbuncles,
gems that [82]flashed fire and shone in the midst of the shadows. Capitan Basilio was on the threshold of
immortality: he was going to behold something real, something beyond his dreams.
“This was a necklace of Cleopatra’s,” said Simoun, taking out carefully a flat case in the shape of a half-
moon. “It’s a jewel that can’t be appraised, an object for a museum, only for a rich government.”
It was a necklace fashioned of bits of gold representing little idols among green and blue beetles, with a
vulture’s head made from a single piece of rare jasper at the center between two extended wings—the symbol and
decoration of Egyptian queens.
Sinang turned up her nose and made a grimace of childish depreciation, while Capitan Basilio, with all
his love for antiquity, could not restrain an exclamation of disappointment.
“It’s a magnificent jewel, well-preserved, almost two thousand years old.”
“Pshaw!” Sinang made haste to exclaim, to prevent her father’s falling into temptation.
“Fool!” he chided her, after overcoming his first disappointment. “How do you know but that to this
necklace is due the present condition of the world? With this Cleopatra may have captivated Caesar, Mark Antony!
This has heard the burning declarations of love from the greatest warriors of their time, it has listened to speeches
in the purest and most elegant Latin, and yet you would want to wear it!”
“I? I wouldn’t give three pesos for it.”
“You could give twenty, silly,” said Capitana Tika in a judicial tone. “The gold is good and melted down
would serve for other jewelry.”
“This is a ring that must have belonged to Sulla,” continued Simoun, exhibiting a heavy ring of solid
gold with a seal on it.
 “With that he must have signed the death-wrarrants during his dictatorship!” exclaimed Capitan Basilio,
pale [83]with emotion. He examined it and tried to decipher the seal, but though he turned it over and over he did
not understand paleography, so he could not read it.
“What a finger Sulla had!” he observed finally. “This would fit two of ours—as I’ve said, we’re
degenerating!”
“I still have many other jewels—”
“If they’re all that kind, never mind!” interrupted Sinang. “I think I prefer the modern.”
Each one selected some piece of jewelry, one a ring, another a watch, another a locket. Capitana Tika
bought a reliquary that contained a fragment of the stone on which Our Saviour rested at his third fall; Sinang a
pair of earrings; and Capitan Basilio the watch-chain for the alferez, the lady’s earrings for the curate, and other
gifts. The families from the town of Tiani, not to be outdone by those of San Diego, in like manner emptied their
purses.
Simoun bought or exchanged old jewelry, brought there by economical mothers, to whom it was no
longer of use.
“You, haven’t you something to sell?” he asked Cabesang Tales, noticing the latter watching the sales
and exchanges with covetous eyes, but the reply was that all his daughter’s jewels had been sold, nothing of value
remained.
“What about Maria Clara’s locket?” inquired Sinang.
“True!” the man exclaimed, and his eyes blazed for a moment.
“It’s a locket set with diamonds and emeralds,” Sinang told the jeweler. “My old friend wore it before
she became a nun.”
Simoun said nothing, but anxiously watched Cabesang Tales, who, after opening several boxes, found
the locket. He examined it carefully, opening and shutting it repeatedly. It was the same locket that Maria Clara
had worn during the fiesta in San Diego and which she had in a moment of compassion given to a leper.
“I like the design,” said Simoun. “How much do you want for it?”[84]
Cabesang Tales scratched his head in perplexity, then his ear, then looked at the women.
“I’ve taken a fancy to this locket,” Simoun went on. “Will you take a hundred, five hundred pesos? Do
you want to exchange it for something else? Take your choice here!”
Tales stared foolishly at Simoun, as if in doubt of what he heard. “Five hundred pesos?” he murmured.
“Five hundred,” repeated the jeweler in a voice shaking with emotion.
Cabesang Tales took the locket and made several turns about the room, with his heart beating violently
and his hands trembling. Dared he ask more? That locket could save him, this was an excellent opportunity, such
as might not again present itself.
The women winked at him to encourage him to make the sale, excepting Penchang, who, fearing that
Juli would be ransomed, observed piously: “I would keep it as a relic. Those who have seen Maria Clara in the
nunnery say she has got so thin and weak that she can scarcely talk and it’s thought that she’ll die a saint. Padre
Salvi speaks very highly of her and he’s her confessor. That’s why Juli didn’t want ito give it up, but rather
preferred to pawn herself.”
This speech had its effect—the thought of his daughter restrained Tales. “If you will allow me,” he said,
“I’ll go to the town to consult my daughter. I’ll be back before night.”
This was agreed upon and Tales set out at once. But when he found himself outside of the village, he
made out at a distance, on a path, that entered the woods, the friar-administrator and a man whom he recognized
as the usurper of his land. A husband seeing his wife enter a private room with another man could not feel more
wrath or jealousy than Cabesang Tales experienced when he saw them moving over his fields, the fields cleared
by him, which he had thought to leave to his children. It seemed to him that [85]they were mocking him, laughing
at his powerlessness. There flashed into his memory what he had said about never giving up his fields except to
him who irrigated them with his own blood and buried in them his wife and daughter.
He stopped, rubbed his hand over his forehead, and shut his eyes. When he again opened them, he saw
that the man had turned to laugh and that the friar had caught his sides as though to save himself from bursting
with merriment, then he saw them point toward his house and laugh again.
A buzz sounded in his ears, he felt the crack of a whip around his chest, the red mist reappeared before
his eyes, he again saw the corpses of his wife and daughter, and beside them the usurper with the friar laughing
and holding his sides. Forgetting everything else, he turned aside into the path they had taken, the one leading to
his fields.
Simoun waited in vain for Cabesang Tales to return that night. But the next morning when he arose he
noticed that the leather holster of his revolver was empty. Opening it he found inside a scrap of paper wrapped
around the locket set with emeralds and diamonds, with these few lines written on it in Tagalog:
“Pardon, sir, that in my own house I relieve you of what belongs to you, but necessity drives me to it. In
exchange for your revolver I leave the locket you desired so much. I need the weapon, for I am going out to join
the tulisanes.
 “I advise you not to keep on your present road, because if you fall into our power, not then being my
guest, we will require of you a large ransom.
Telesforo Juan de Dios.”
“At last I’ve found my man!” muttered Simoun with a deep breath. “He’s somewhat scrupulous, but so
much the better—he’ll keep his promises.”
He then ordered a servant to go by boat over the lake to Los Baños with the larger chest and await him
there. He would go on overland, taking the smaller chest, the one [86]containing his famous jewels. The arrival
of four civil-guards completed his good humor. They came to arrest Cabesang Tales and not finding him took
Tandang Selo away instead.
Three murders had been committed during the night. The friar-administrator and the new tenant of
Cabesang Tales’ land had been found dead, with their heads split open and their mouths full of earth, on the border
of the fields. In the town the wife of the usurper was found dead at dawn, her mouth also filled with earth and her
throat cut, with a fragment of paper beside her, on which was the name Tales, written in blood as though traced
by a finger.
Calm yourselves, peaceful inhabitants of Kalamba! None of you are named Tales, none of you have
committed any crime! You are called Luis Habaña, Matías Belarmino, Nicasio Eigasani, Cayetano de Jesús, Mateo
Elejorde, Leandro Lopez, Antonino Lopez, Silvestre Ubaldo, Manuel Hidalgo, Paciano Mercado, your name is
the whole village of Kalamba.1 You cleared your fields, on them you have spent the labor of your whole lives,
your savings, your vigils and privations, and you have been despoiled of them, driven from your homes, with the
rest forbidden to show you hospitality! Not content with outraging justice, they2 have trampled upon the sacred
traditions of your country! You have served Spain and the King, and when in their name you have asked for
justice, you were banished without trial, torn from your wives’ arms and your children’s caresses! Any one of you
has suffered more than Cabesang Tales, and yet none, not one of you, has received justice! Neither pity nor
humanity has been shown you—you have been persecuted beyond [87]the tomb, as was Mariano Herbosa!3 Weep
or laugh, there in those lonely isles where you wander vaguely, uncertain of the future! Spain, the generous Spain,
is watching over you, and sooner or later you will have justice![88]
1
Friends of the author, who suffered in Weyler’s expedition, mentioned below.—Tr.
2
The Dominican corporation, at whose instigation Captain-General Valeriano Weyler sent a battery of artillery to Kalamba to destroy the
property of tenants who were contesting in the courts the friars’ titles to land there. The author’s family were the largest sufferers.—Tr.
3
A relative of the author, whose body was dragged from the tomb and thrown to the dogs, on the pretext that he had died without receiving
final absolution.—Tr.

Los Baños

His Excellency, the Captain-General and Governor of the Philippine Islands, had been hunting in
Bosoboso. But as he had to be accompanied by a band of music,—since such an exalted personage was not to be
esteemed less than the wooden images carried in the processions,—and as devotion to the divine art of St. Cecilia
has not yet been popularized among the deer and wild boars of Bosoboso, his Excellency, with the band of music
and train of friars, soldiers, and clerks, had not been able to catch a single rat or a solitary bird.
The provincial authorities foresaw dismissals and transfers, the poor gobernadorcillos and cabezas de
barangay were restless and sleepless, fearing that the mighty hunter in his wrath might have a notion to make up
with their persons for the lack of submissiveness on the part of the beasts of the forest, as had been done years
before by an alcalde who had traveled on the shoulders of impressed porters because he found no horses gentle
enough to guarantee his safety. There was not lacking an evil rumor that his Excellency had decided to take some
action, since in this he saw the first symptoms of a rebellion which should be strangled in its infancy, that a
fruitless hunt hurt the prestige of the Spanish name, that he already had his eye on a wretch to be dressed up as a
deer, when his Excellency, with clemency that Ben-Zayb lacked words to extol sufficiently, dispelled all the fears
by declaring that it pained him to sacrifice to his pleasure the beasts of the forest.
But to tell the truth, his Excellency was secretly very well satisfied, for what would have happened had
he missed [89]a shot at a deer, one of those not familiar with political etiquette? What would the prestige of the
sovereign power have come to then? A Captain-General of the Philippines missing a shot, like a raw hunter? What
would have been said by the Indians, among whom there were some fair huntsmen? The integrity of the fatherland
would have been endangered.
So it was that his Excellency, with a sheepish smile, and posing as a disappointed hunter, ordered an
immediate return to Los Baños. During the journey he related with an indifferent air his hunting exploits in this
or that forest of the Peninsula, adopting a tone somewhat depreciative, as suited the case, toward hunting in
Filipinas. The bath in Dampalit, the hot springs on the shore of the lake, card-games in the palace, with an
occasional excursion to some neighboring waterfall, or the lake infested with caymans, offered more attractions
and fewer risks to the integrity of the fatherland.
 Thus on one of the last days of December, his Excellency found himself in the sala, taking a hand at
cards while he awaited the breakfast hour. He had come from the bath, with the usual glass of coconut-milk and
its soft meat, so he was in the best of humors for granting favors and privileges. His good humor was increased
by his winning a good many hands, for Padre Irene and Padre Sibyla, with whom he was playing, were exercising
all their skill in secretly trying to lose, to the great irritation of Padre Camorra, who on account of his late arrival
only that morning was not informed as to the game they were playing on the General. The friar-artilleryman was
playing in good faith and with great care, so he turned red and bit his lip every time Padre Sibyla seemed inattentive
or blundered, but he dared not say a word by reason of the respect he felt for the Dominican. In exchange he took
his revenge out on Padre Irene, whom he looked upon as a base fawner and despised for his coarseness. Padre
Sibyla let him scold, while the humbler Padre Irene tried to excuse himself [90]by rubbing his long nose. His
Excellency was enjoying it and took advantage, like the good tactician that the Canon hinted he was, of all the
mistakes of his opponents. Padre Camorra was ignorant of the fact that across the table they were playing for the
intellectual development of the Filipinos, the instruction in Castilian, but had he known it he would doubtless have
joyfully entered into that game.
The open balcony admitted the fresh, pure breeze and revealed the lake, whose waters murmured sweetly
around the base of the edifice, as if rendering homage. On the right, at a distance, appeared Talim Island, a deep
blue in the midst of the lake, while almost in front lay the green and deserted islet of Kalamba, in the shape of a
half-moon. To the left the picturesque shores were fringed with clumps of bamboo, then a hill overlooking the
lake, with wide ricefields beyond, then red roofs amid the deep green of the trees,—the town of Kalamba,—and
beyond the shore-line fading into the distance, with the horizon at the back closing down over the water, giving
the lake the appearance of a sea and justifying the name the Indians give it of dagat na tabang, or fresh-water sea.
At the end of the sala, seated before a table covered with documents, was the secretary. His Excellency
was a great worker and did not like to lose time, so he attended to business in the intervals of the game or while
dealing the cards. Meanwhile, the bored secretary yawned and despaired. That morning he had worked, as usual,
over transfers, suspensions of employees, deportations, pardons, and the like, but had not yet touched the great
question that had stirred so much interest—the petition of the students requesting permission to establish an
academy of Castilian. Pacing from one end of the room to the other and conversing animatedly but in low tones
were to be seen Don Custodio, a high official, and a friar named Padre Fernandez, who hung his head with an air
either of meditation or annoyance. From an adjoining room issued the [91]click of balls striking together and
bursts of laughter, amid which might be heard the sharp, dry voice of Simoun, who was playing billiards with
Ben-Zayb.
Suddenly Padre Camorra arose. “The devil with this game, puñales!” he exclaimed, throwing his cards
at Padre Irene’s head. “Puñales, that trick, if not all the others, was assured and we lost by default! Puñales! The
devil with this game!”
He explained the situation angrily to all the occupants of the sala, addressing himself especially to the
three walking about, as if he had selected them for judges. The general played thus, he replied with such a card,
Padre Irene had a certain card; he led, and then that fool of a Padre Irene didn’t play his card! Padre Irene was
giving the game away! It was a devil of a way to play! His mother’s son had not come here to rack his brains for
nothing and lose his money!
Then he added, turning very red, “If the booby thinks my money grows on every bush!... On top of the
fact that my Indians are beginning to haggle over payments!” Fuming, and disregarding the excuses of Padre
Irene, who tried to explain while he rubbed the tip of his beak in order to conceal his sly smile, he went into the
billiardroom.
“Padre Fernandez, would you like to take a hand?” asked Fray Sibyla.
“I’m a very poor player,” replied the friar with a grimace.
“Then get Simoun,” said the General. “Eh, Simoun! Eh, Mister, won’t you try a hand?”
“What is your disposition concerning the arms for sporting purposes?” asked the secretary, taking
advantage of the pause.
Simoun thrust his head through the doorway.
“Don’t you want to take Padre Camorra’s place, Señor Sindbad?” inquired Padre Irene. “You can bet
diamonds instead of chips.”[92]
“I don’t care if I do,” replied Simoun, advancing while he brushed the chalk from his hands. “What will
you bet?”
“What should we bet?” returned Padre Sibyla. “The General can bet what he likes, but we priests,
clerics—”
“Bah!” interrupted Simoun ironically. “You and Padre Irene can pay with deeds of charity, prayers, and
virtues, eh?”
“You know that the virtues a person may possess,” gravely argued Padre Sibyla, “are not like the
diamonds that may pass from hand to hand, to be sold and resold. They are inherent in the being, they are essential
attributes of the subject—”
 “I’ll be satisfied then if you pay me with promises,” replied Simoun jestingly. “You, Padre Sibyla, instead
of paying me five something or other in money, will say, for example: for five days I renounce poverty, humility,
and obedience. You, Padre Irene: I renounce chastity, liberality, and so on. Those are small matters, and I’m
putting up my diamonds.”
“What a peculiar man this Simoun is, what notions he has!” exclaimed Padre Irene with a smile.
“And he,” continued Simoun, slapping his Excellency familiarly on the shoulder, “he will pay me with
an order for five days in prison, or five months, or an order of deportation made out in blank, or let us say a
summary execution by the Civil Guard while my man is being conducted from one town to another.”
This was a strange proposition, so the three who had been pacing about gathered around.
“But, Señor Simoun,” asked the high official, “what good will you get out of winning promises of virtues,
or lives and deportations and summary executions?”
“A great deal! I’m tired of hearing virtues talked about and would like to have the whole of them, all
there are in the world, tied up in a sack, in order to throw them into the sea, even though I had to use my diamonds
for sinkers.”[93]
“What an idea!” exclaimed Padre Irene with another smile. “And the deportations and executions, what
of them?”
“Well, to clean the country and destroy every evil seed.”
“Get out! You’re still sore at the tulisanes. But you were lucky that they didn’t demand a larger ransom
or keep all your jewels. Man, don’t be ungrateful!”
Simoun proceeded to relate how he had been intercepted by a band of tulisanes, who, after entertaining
him for a day, had let him go on his way without exacting other ransom than his two fine revolvers and the two
boxes of cartridges he carried with him. He added that the tulisanes had charged him with many kind regards for
his Excellency, the Captain-General.
As a result of this, and as Simoun reported that the tulisanes were well provided with shotguns, rifles,
and revolvers, and against such persons one man alone, no matter how well armed, could not defend himself, his
Excellency, to prevent the tulisanes from getting weapons in the future, was about to dictate a new decree
forbidding the introduction of sporting arms.
“On the contrary, on the contrary!” protested Simoun, “for me the tulisanes are the most respectable men
in the country, they’re the only ones who earn their living honestly. Suppose I had fallen into the hands—well, of
you yourselves, for example, would you have let me escape without taking half of my jewels, at least?”
Don Custodio was on the point of protesting; that Simoun was really a rude American mulatto taking
advantage of his friendship with the Captain-General to insult Padre Irene, although it may be true also that Padre
Irene would hardly have set him free for so little.
“The evil is not,” went on Simoun, “in that there are tulisanes in the mountains and uninhabited parts—
the evil lies in the tulisanes in the towns and cities.”
“Like yourself,” put in the Canon with a smile.[94]
“Yes, like myself, like all of us! Let’s be frank, for no Indian is listening to us here,” continued the
jeweler. “The evil is that we’re not all openly declared tulisanes. When that happens and we all take to the woods,
on that day the country will be saved, on that day will rise a new social order which will take care of itself, and
his Excellency will be able to play his game in peace, without the necessity of having his attention diverted by his
secretary.”
The person mentioned at that moment yawned, extending his folded arms above his head and stretching
his crossed legs under the table as far as possible, upon noticing which all laughed. His Excellency wished to
change the course of the conversation, so, throwing down the cards he had been shuffling, he said half seriously:
“Come, come, enough of jokes and cards! Let’s get to work, to work in earnest, since we still have a half-hour
before breakfast. Are there many matters to be got through with?”
All now gave their attention. That was the day for joining battle over the question of instruction in
Castilian, for which purpose Padre Sibyla and Padre Irene had been there several days. It was known that the
former, as Vice-Rector, was opposed to the project and that the latter supported it, and his activity was in turn
supported by the Countess.
“What is there, what is there?” asked his Excellency impatiently.
“The petition about sporting arms,” replied the secretary with a stifled yawn.
“Forbidden!”
“Pardon, General,” said the high official gravely, “your Excellency will permit me to invite your attention
to the fact that the use of sporting arms is permitted in all the countries of the world.”
The General shrugged his shoulders and remarked dryly, “We are not imitating any nation in the world.”
Between his Excellency and the high official there was always a difference of opinion, so it was sufficient
that [95]the latter offer any suggestion whatsoever to have the former remain stubborn.
The high official tried another tack. “Sporting arms can harm only rats and chickens. They’ll say—”
 “But are we chickens?” interrupted the General, again shrugging his shoulders. “Am I? I’ve demonstrated
that I’m not.”
“But there’s another thing,” observed the secretary. “Four months ago, when the possession of arms was
prohibited, the foreign importers were assured that sporting arms would be admitted.”
His Excellency knitted his brows.
“That can be arranged,” suggested Simoun.
“How?”
“Very simply. Sporting arms nearly all have a caliber of six millimeters, at least those now in the market.
Authorize only the sale of those that haven’t these six millimeters.”
All approved this idea of Simoun’s, except the high official, who muttered into Padre Fernandez’s ear
that this was not dignified, nor was it the way to govern.
“The schoolmaster of Tiani,” proceeded the secretary, shuffling some papers about, “asks for a better
location for—”
“What better location can he want than the storehouse that he has all to himself?” interrupted Padre
Camorra, who had returned, having forgotten about the card-game.
“He says that it’s roofless,” replied the secretary, “and that having purchased out of his own pocket some
maps and pictures, he doesn’t want to expose them to the weather.”
“But I haven’t anything to do with that,” muttered his Excellency. “He should address the head
secretary,1 the governor of the province, or the nuncio.”[96]
“I want to tell you,” declared Padre Camorra, “that this little schoolmaster is a discontented filibuster.
Just imagine—the heretic teaches that corpses rot just the same, whether buried with great pomp or without any!
Some day I’m going to punch him!” Here he doubled up his fists.
“To tell the truth,” observed Padre Sibyla, as if speaking only to Padre Irene, “he who wishes to teach,
teaches everywhere, in the open air. Socrates taught in the public streets, Plato in the gardens of the Academy,
even Christ among the mountains and lakes.”
“I’ve heard several complaints against this schoolmaster,” said his Excellency, exchanging a glance with
Simoun. “I think the best thing would be to suspend him.”
“Suspended!” repeated the secretary.
The luck of that unfortunate, who had asked for help and received his dismissal, pained the high official
and he tried to do something for him.
“It’s certain,” he insinuated rather timidly, “that education is not at all well provided for—”
“I’ve already decreed large sums for the purchase of supplies,” exclaimed his Excellency haughtily, as
if to say, “I’ve done more than I ought to have done.”
“But since suitable locations are lacking, the supplies purchased get ruined.”
“Everything can’t be done at once,” said his Excellency dryly. “The schoolmasters here are doing wrong
in asking for buildings when those in Spain starve to death. It’s great presumption to be better off here than in the
mother country itself!”
“Filibusterism—”
“Before everything the fatherland! Before everything else we are Spaniards!” added Ben-Zayb, his eyes
glowing with patriotism, but he blushed somewhat when he noticed that he was speaking alone.
“In the future,” decided the General, “all who complain will be suspended.”[97]
“If my project were accepted—” Don Custodio ventured to remark, as if talking to himself.
“For the construction of schoolhouses?”
“It’s simple, practical, economical, and, like all my projects, derived from long experience and
knowledge of the country. The towns would have schools without costing the government a cuarto.”
“That’s easy,” observed the secretary sarcastically. “Compel the towns to construct them at their own
expense,” whereupon all laughed.
“No, sir! No, sir!” cried the exasperated Don Custodio, turning very red. “The buildings are already
constructed and only wait to be utilized. Hygienic, unsurpassable, spacious—”
The friars looked at one another uneasily. Would Don Custodio propose that the churches and conventos
be converted into schoolhouses?
“Let’s hear it,” said the General with a frown.
“Well, General, it’s very simple,” replied Don Custodio, drawing himself up and assuming his hollow
voice of ceremony. “The schools are open only on week-days and the cockpits on holidays. Then convert these
into schoolhouses, at least during the week.”
“Man, man, man!”
“What a lovely idea!”
“What’s the matter with you, Don Custodio?”
“That’s a grand suggestion!”
“That beats them all!”
 “But, gentlemen,” cried Don Custodio, in answer to so many exclamations, “let’s be practical—what
places are more suitable than the cockpits? They’re large, well constructed, and under a curse for the use to which
they are put during the week-days. From a moral standpoint my project would be acceptable, by serving as a kind
of expiation and weekly purification of the temple of chance, as we might say.”
“But the fact remains that sometimes there are cockfights [98]during the week,” objected Padre Camorra,
“and it wouldn’t be right when the contractors of the cockpits pay the government—”2
“Well, on those days close the school!”
“Man, man!” exclaimed the scandalized Captain-General. “Such an outrage shall never be perpetrated
while I govern! To close the schools in order to gamble! Man, man, I’ll resign first!” His Excellency was really
horrified.
“But, General, it’s better to close them for a few days than for months.”
“It would be immoral,” observed Padre Irene, more indignant even than his Excellency.
“It’s more immoral that vice has good buildings and learning none. Let’s be practical, gentlemen, and
not be carried away by sentiment. In politics there’s nothing worse than sentiment. While from humane
considerations we forbid the cultivation of opium in our colonies, we tolerate the smoking of it, and the result is
that we do not combat the vice but impoverish ourselves.”
“But remember that it yields to the government, without any effort, more than four hundred and fifty
thousand pesos,” objected Padre Irene, who was getting more and more on the governmental side.
“Enough, enough, enough!” exclaimed his Excellency, to end the discussion. “I have my own plans in
this regard and will devote special attention to the matter of public instruction. Is there anything else?”
The secretary looked uneasily toward Padre Sibyla and Padre Irene. The cat was about to come out of
the bag. Both prepared themselves.
“The petition of the students requesting authorization to open an academy of Castilian,” answered the
secretary.
A general movement was noted among those in the room. After glancing at one another they fixed their
eyes on the [99]General to learn what his disposition would be. For six months the petition had lain there awaiting
a decision and had become converted into a kind of casus belli in certain circles. His Excellency had lowered his
eyes, as if to keep his thoughts from being read.
The silence became embarrassing, as the General understood, so he asked the high official, “What do
you think?”
“What should I think, General?” responded the person addressed, with a shrug of his shoulders and a
bitter smile. “What should I think but that the petition is just, very just, and that I am surprised that six months
should have been taken to consider it.”
“The fact is that it involves other considerations,” said Padre Sibyla coldly, as he half closed his eyes.
The high official again shrugged his shoulders, like one who did not comprehend what those
considerations could be.
“Besides the intemperateness of the demand,” went on the Dominican, “besides the fact that it is in the
nature of an infringement on our prerogatives—”
Padre Sibyla dared not go on, but looked at Simoun.
“The petition has a somewhat suspicious character,” corroborated that individual, exchanging a look with
the Dominican, who winked several times.
Padre Irene noticed these things and realized that his cause was almost lost—Simoun was against him.
“It’s a peaceful rebellion, a revolution on stamped paper,” added Padre Sibyla.
“Revolution? Rebellion?” inquired the high official, staring from one to the other as if he did not
understand what they could mean.
“It’s headed by some young men charged with being too radical and too much interested in reforms, not
to use stronger terms,” remarked the secretary, with a look at the Dominican. “Among them is a certain Isagani,
a poorly balanced head, nephew of a native priest—”
“He’s a pupil of mine,” put in Padre Fernandez, “and I’m much pleased with him.”[100]
“Puñales, I like your taste!” exclaimed Padre Camorra. “On the steamer we nearly had a fight. He’s so
insolent that when I gave him a shove aside he returned it.”
“There’s also one Makaragui or Makarai—”
“Makaraig,” Padre Irene joined in. “A very pleasant and agreeable young man.”
Then he murmured into the General’s ear, “He’s the one I’ve talked to you about, he’s very rich. The
Countess recommends him strongly.”
“Ah!”
“A medical student, one Basilio—”
“Of that Basilio, I’ll say nothing,” observed Padre Irene, raising his hands and opening them, as if to
say Dominus vobiscum. “He’s too deep for me. I’ve never succeeded in fathoming what he wants or what he is
thinking about. It’s a pity that Padre Salvi isn’t present to tell us something about his antecedents. I believe that
I’ve heard that when a boy he got into trouble with the Civil Guard. His father was killed in—I don’t remember
what disturbance.”
Simoun smiled faintly, silently, showing his sharp white teeth.
“Aha! Aha!” said his Excellency nodding. “That’s the kind we have! Make a note of that name.”
“But, General,” objected the high official, seeing that the matter was taking a bad turn, “up to now nothing
positive is known against these young men. Their position is a very just one, and we have no right to deny it on
the ground of mere conjectures. My opinion is that the government, by exhibiting confidence in the people and in
its own stability, should grant what is asked, then it could freely revoke the permission when it saw that its kindness
was being abused—reasons and pretexts would not be wanting, we can watch them. Why cause disaffection
among some young men, who later on may feel resentment, when what they ask is commanded by royal
decrees?”[101]
Padre Irene, Don Custodio, and Padre Fernandez nodded in agreement.
“But the Indians must not understand Castilian, you know,” cried Padre Camorra. “They mustn’t learn
it, for then they’ll enter into arguments with us, and the Indians must not argue, but obey and pay. They mustn’t
try to interpret the meaning of the laws and the books, they’re so tricky and pettifogish! Just as soon as they learn
Castilian they become enemies of God and of Spain. Just read the Tandang Basio Macunat—that’s a book! It tells
truths like this!” And he held up his clenched fists.
Padre Sibyla rubbed his hand over his tonsure in sign of impatience. “One word,” he began in the most
conciliatory tone, though fuming with irritation, “here we’re not dealing with the instruction in Castilian alone.
Here there is an underhand fight between the students and the University of Santo Tomas. If the students win this,
our prestige will be trampled in the dirt, they will say that they’ve beaten us and will exult accordingly. Then,
good-by to moral strength, good-by to everything! The first dike broken down, who will restrain this youth? With
our fall we do no more than signal your own. After us, the government!”
“Puñales, that’s not so!” exclaimed Padre Camorra. “We’ll see first who has the biggest fists!”
At this point Padre Fernandez, who thus far in the discussion had merely contented himself with smiling,
began to talk. All gave him their attention, for they knew him to be a thoughtful man.
“Don’t take it ill of me, Padre Sibyla, if I differ from your view of the affair, but it’s my peculiar fate to
be almost always in opposition to my brethren. I say, then, that we ought not to be so pessimistic. The instruction
in Castilian can be allowed without any risk whatever, and in order that it may not appear to be a defeat of the
University, we Dominicans ought to put forth our efforts and [102]be the first to rejoice over it—that should be
our policy. To what end are we to be engaged in an everlasting struggle with the people, when after all we are the
few and they are the many, when we need them and they do not need us? Wait, Padre Camorra, wait! Admit that
now the people may be weak and ignorant—I also believe that—but it will not be true tomorrow or the day after.
Tomorrow and the next day they will be the stronger, they will know what is good for them, and we cannot keep
it from them, just as it is not possible to keep from children the knowledge of many things when they reach a
certain age. I say, then, why should we not take advantage of this condition of ignorance to change our policy
completely, to place it upon a basis solid and enduring—on the basis of justice, for example, instead of on the
basis of ignorance? There’s nothing like being just; that I’ve always said to my brethren, but they won’t believe
me. The Indian idolizes justice, like every race in its youth; he asks for punishment when he has done wrong, just
as he is exasperated when he has not deserved it. Is theirs a just desire? Then grant it! Let’s give them all the
schools they want, until they are tired of them. Youth is lazy, and what urges them to activity is our opposition.
Our bond of prestige, Padre Sibyla, is about worn out, so let’s prepare another, the bond of gratitude, for example.
Let’s not be fools, let’s do as the crafty Jesuits—”
“Padre Fernandez!” Anything could be tolerated by Padre Sibyla except to propose the Jesuits to him as
a model. Pale and trembling, he broke out into bitter recrimination. “A Franciscan first! Anything before a Jesuit!”
He was beside himself.
“Oh, oh!”
“Eh, Padre—”
A general discussion broke out, regardless of the Captain-General. All talked at once, they yelled, they
misunderstood and contradicted one another. Ben-Zayb and Padre Camorra shook their fists in each other’s faces,
one talking [103]of simpletons and the other of ink-slingers, Padre Sibyla kept harping on the Capitulum, and
Padre Fernandez on the Summa of St. Thomas, until the curate of Los Baños entered to announce that breakfast
was served.
His Excellency arose and so ended the discussion. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “we’ve worked like
niggers and yet we’re on a vacation. Some one has said that grave matters should he considered at dessert. I’m
entirely of that opinion.”
“We might get indigestion,” remarked the secretary, alluding to the heat of the discussion.
“Then we’ll lay it aside until tomorrow.”
As they rose the high official whispered to the General, “Your Excellency, the daughter of Cabesang
Tales has been here again begging for the release of her sick grandfather, who was arrested in place of her father.”
 His Excellency looked at him with an expression of impatience and rubbed his hand across his broad
forehead. “Carambas! Can’t one be left to eat his breakfast in peace?”
“This is the third day she has come. She’s a poor girl—”
“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Padre Camorra. “I’ve just thought of it. I have something to say to the General
about that—that’s what I came over for—to support that girl’s petition.”
The General scratched the back of his ear and said, “Oh, go along! Have the secretary make out an order
to the lieutenant of the Civil Guard for the old man’s release. They sha’n’t say that we’re not clement and
merciful.”
He looked at Ben-Zayb. The journalist winked.[104]
1
Under the Spanish régime the government paid no attention to education, the schools (!) being under the control of the religious orders and
the friar-curates of the towns.—Tr.
2
The cockpits are farmed out annually by the local governments, the terms “contract,” and “contractor,” having now been softened into
“license” and “licensee.”—Tr.

Placido Penitente

Reluctantly, and almost with tearful eyes, Placido Penitente was going along the Escolta on his way to
the University of Santo Tomas. It had hardly been a week since he had come from his town, yet he had already
written to his mother twice, reiterating his desire to abandon his studies and go back there to work. His mother
answered that he should have patience, that at the least he must be graduated as a bachelor of arts, since it would
be unwise to desert his books after four years of expense and sacrifices on both their parts.
Whence came to Penitente this aversion to study, when he had been one of the most diligent in the famous
college conducted by Padre Valerio in Tanawan? There Penitente had been considered one of the best Latinists
and the subtlest disputants, one who could tangle or untangle the simplest as well as the most abstruse questions.
His townspeople considered him very clever, and his curate, influenced by that opinion, already classified him as
a filibuster—a sure proof that he was neither foolish nor incapable. His friends could not explain those desires for
abandoning his studies and returning: he had no sweethearts, was not a gambler, hardly knew anything
about hunkían and rarely tried his luck at the more familiar revesino. He did not believe in the advice of the
curates, laughed at Tandang Basio Macunat, had plenty of money and good clothes, yet he went to school
reluctantly and looked with repugnance on his books.
On the Bridge of Spain, a bridge whose name alone came from Spain, since even its ironwork came from
foreign [105]countries, he fell in with the long procession of young men on their way to the Walled City to their
respective schools. Some were dressed in the European fashion and walked rapidly, carrying books and notes,
absorbed in thoughts of their lessons and essays—these were the students of the Ateneo. Those from San Juan de
Letran were nearly all dressed in the Filipino costume, but were more numerous and carried fewer books. Those
from the University are dressed more carefully and elegantly and saunter along carrying canes instead of books.
The collegians of the Philippines are not very noisy or turbulent. They move along in a preoccupied manner, such
that upon seeing them one would say that before their eyes shone no hope, no smiling future. Even though here
and there the line is brightened by the attractive appearance of the schoolgirls of the Escuela Municipal,1 with
their sashes across their shoulders and their books in their hands, followed by their servants, yet scarcely a laugh
resounds or a joke can be heard—nothing of song or jest, at best a few heavy jokes or scuffles among the smaller
boys. The older ones nearly always proceed seriously and composedly, like the German students.
Placido was proceeding along the Paseo de Magallanes toward the breach—formerly the gate—of Santo
Domingo, when he suddenly felt a slap on the shoulder, which made him turn quickly in ill humor.
“Hello, Penitente! Hello, Penitente!”
It was his schoolmate Juanito Pelaez, the barbero or pet of the professors, as big a rascal as he could be,
with a roguish look and a clownish smile. The son of a Spanish mestizo—a rich merchant in one of the suburbs,
who based all his hopes and joys on the boy’s talent—he promised well with his roguery, and, thanks to his custom
of playing tricks on every one and then hiding behind his companions, [106]he had acquired a peculiar hump,
which grew larger whenever he was laughing over his deviltry.
“What kind of time did you have, Penitente?” was his question as he again slapped him on the shoulder.
“So, so,” answered Placido, rather bored. “And you?”
“Well, it was great! Just imagine—the curate of Tiani invited me to spend the vacation in his town, and
I went. Old man, you know Padre Camorra, I suppose? Well, he’s a liberal curate, very jolly, frank, very frank,
one of those like Padre Paco. As there were pretty girls, we serenaded them all, he with his guitar and songs and
I with my violin. I tell you, old man, we had a great time—there wasn’t a house we didn’t try!”
He whispered a few words in Placido’s ear and then broke out into laughter. As the latter exhibited some
surprise, he resumed: “I’ll swear to it! They can’t help themselves, because with a governmental order you get rid
of the father, husband, or brother, and then—merry Christmas! However, we did run up against a little fool, the
sweetheart, I believe, of Basilio, you know? Look, what a fool this Basilio is! To have a sweetheart who doesn’t
know a word of Spanish, who hasn’t any money, and who has been a servant! She’s as shy as she can be, but
pretty. Padre Camorra one night started to club two fellows who were serenading her and I don’t know how it was
he didn’t kill them, yet with all that she was just as shy as ever. But it’ll result for her as it does with all the women,
all of them!”
Juanito Pelaez laughed with a full mouth, as though he thought this a glorious thing, while Placido stared
at him in disgust.
“Listen, what did the professor explain yesterday?” asked Juanito, changing the conversation.
“Yesterday there was no class.”
“Oho, and the day before yesterday?”
“Man, it was Thursday!”
“Right! What an ass I am! Don’t you know, Placido, [107]that I’m getting to be a regular ass? What
about Wednesday?”
“Wednesday? Wait—Wednesday, it was a little wet.”
“Fine! What about Tuesday, old man?”
“Tuesday was the professor’s nameday and we went to entertain him with an orchestra, present him
flowers and some gifts.”
“Ah, carambas!” exclaimed Juanito, “that I should have forgotten about it! What an ass I am! Listen, did
he ask for me?”
Penitente shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, but they gave him a list of his entertainers.”
“Carambas! Listen—Monday, what happened?”
“As it was the first school-day, he called the roll and assigned the lesson—about mirrors. Look, from
here to here, by memory, word for word. We jump all this section, we take that.” He was pointing out with his
finger in the “Physics” the portions that were to be learned, when suddenly the book flew through the air, as a
result of the slap Juanito gave it from below.
“Thunder, let the lessons go! Let’s have a dia pichido!”
The students in Manila call dia pichido a school-day that falls between two holidays and is consequently
suppressed, as though forced out by their wish.
“Do you know that you really are an ass?” exclaimed Placido, picking up his book and papers.
“Let’s have a dia pichido!” repeated Juanito.
Placido was unwilling, since for only two the authorities were hardly going to suspend a class of more
than a hundred and fifty. He recalled the struggles and privations his mother was suffering in order to keep him
in Manila, while she went without even the necessities of life.
They were just passing through the breach of Santo Domingo, and Juanito, gazing across the little
plaza2 in [108]front of the old Customs building, exclaimed, “Now I think of it, I’m appointed to take up the
collection.”
“What collection?”
“For the monument.”
“What monument?”
“Get out! For Padre Balthazar, you know.”
“And who was Padre Balthazar?”
“Fool! A Dominican, of course—that’s why the padres call on the students. Come on now, loosen up
with three or four pesos, so that they may see we are sports. Don’t let them say afterwards that in order to erect a
statue they had to dig down into their own pockets. Do, Placido, it’s not money thrown away.”
He accompanied these words with a significant wink. Placido recalled the case of a student who had
passed through the entire course by presenting canary-birds, so he subscribed three pesos.
“Look now, I’ll write your name plainly so that the professor will read it, you see—Placido Penitente,
three pesos. Ah, listen! In a couple of weeks comes the nameday of the professor of natural history. You know
that he’s a good fellow, never marks absences or asks about the lesson. Man, we must show our appreciation!”
“That’s right!”
“Then don’t you think that we ought to give him a celebration? The orchestra must not be smaller than
the one you had for the professor of physics.”
“That’s right!”
“What do you think about making the contribution two pesos? Come, Placido, you start it, so you’ll be
at the head of the list.”
Then, seeing that Placido gave the two pesos without hesitation, he added, “Listen, put up four, and
afterwards I’ll return you two. They’ll serve as a decoy.”
“Well, if you’re going to return them to me, why give them to you? It’ll be sufficient, for you to write
four.”
“Ah, that’s right! What an ass I am! Do you know, [109]I’m getting to be a regular ass! But let me have
them anyhow, so that I can show them.”
 Placido, in order not to give the lie to the priest who christened him, gave what was asked, just as they
reached the University.
In the entrance and along the walks on each side of it were gathered the students, awaiting the appearance
of the professors. Students of the preparatory year of law, of the fifth of the secondary course, of the preparatory
in medicine, formed lively groups. The latter were easily distinguished by their clothing and by a certain air that
was lacking in the others, since the greater part of them came from the Ateneo Municipal. Among them could be
seen the poet Isagani, explaining to a companion the theory of the refraction of light. In another group they were
talking, disputing, citing the statements of the professor, the text-books, and scholastic principles; in yet another
they were gesticulating and waving their books in the air or making demonstrations with their canes by drawing
diagrams on the ground; farther on, they were entertaining themselves in watching the pious women go into the
neighboring church, all the students making facetious remarks. An old woman leaning on a young girl limped
piously, while the girl moved along writh downcast eyes, timid and abashed to pass before so many curious eyes.
The old lady, catching up her coffee-colored skirt, of the Sisterhood of St. Rita, to reveal her big feet and white
stockings, scolded her companion and shot furious glances at the staring bystanders.
“The rascals!” she grunted. “Don’t look at them, keep your eyes down.”
Everything was noticed; everything called forth jokes and comments. Now it was a magnificent victoria
which stopped at the door to set down a family of votaries on their way to visit the Virgin of the Rosary3 on her
favorite [110]day, while the inquisitive sharpened their eyes to get a glimpse of the shape and size of the young
ladies’ feet as they got out of the carriages; now it was a student who came out of the door with devotion still
shining in his eyes, for he had passed through the church to beg the Virgin’s help in understanding his lesson and
to see if his sweetheart was there, to exchange a few glances with her and go on to his class with the recollection
of her loving eyes.
Soon there was noticed some movement in the groups, a certain air of expectancy, while Isagani paused
and turned pale. A carriage drawn by a pair of well-known white horses had stopped at the door. It was that of
Paulita Gomez, and she had already jumped down, light as a bird, without giving the rascals time to see her foot.
With a bewitching whirl of her body and a sweep of her hand she arranged the folds of her skirt, shot a rapid and
apparently careless glance toward Isagani, spoke to him and smiled. Doña Victorina descended in her turn, gazed
over her spectacles, saw Juanito Pelaez, smiled, and bowed to him affably.
Isagani, flushed with excitement, returned a timid salute, while Juanito bowed profoundly, took off his
hat, and made the same gesture as the celebrated clown and caricaturist Panza when he received applause.
“Heavens, what a girl!” exclaimed one of the students, starting forward. “Tell the professor that I’m
seriously ill.” So Tadeo, as this invalid youth was known, entered the church to follow the girl.
Tadeo went to the University every day to ask if the classes would be held and each time seemed to be
more and more astonished that they would. He had a fixed idea of a latent and eternal holiday, and expected it to
come any day. So each morning, after vainly proposing that they play truant, he would go away alleging important
business, an appointment, or illness, just at the very moment when his companions were going to their classes.
But by some occult, thaumaturgic art Tadeo passed the examinations, was beloved [111]by the professors, and
had before him a promising future.
Meanwhile, the groups began to move inside, for the professor of physics and chemistry had put in his
appearance. The students appeared to be cheated in their hopes and went toward the interior of the building with
exclamations of discontent. Placido went along with the crowd.
“Penitente, Penitente!” called a student with a certain mysterious air. “Sign this!”
“What is it?”
“Never mind—sign it!”
It seemed to Placido that some one was twitching his ears. He recalled the story of a cabeza de barangay
in his town who, for having signed a document that he did not understand, was kept a prisoner for months and
months, and came near to deportation. An uncle of Placido’s, in order to fix the lesson in his memory, had given
him a severe ear-pulling, so that always whenever he heard signatures spoken of, his ears reproduced the sensation.
“Excuse me, but I can’t sign anything without first understanding what it’s about.”
“What a fool you are! If two celestial carbineers have signed it, what have you to fear?”
The name of celestial carbineers inspired confidence, being, as it was, a sacred company created to aid
God in the warfare against the evil spirit and to prevent the smuggling of heretical contraband into the markets of
the New Zion.4
Placido was about to sign to make an end of it, because he was in a hurry,—already his classmates were
reciting the O Thoma,—but again his ears twitched, so he said, “After the class! I want to read it first.”
“It’s very long, don’t you see? It concerns the presentation of a counter-petition, or rather, a protest.
Don’t [112]you understand? Makaraig and some others have asked that an academy of Castilian be opened, which
is a piece of genuine foolishness—”
“All right, all right, after awhile. They’re already beginning,” answered Placido, trying to get away.
“But your professor may not call the roll—”
 “Yes, yes; but he calls it sometimes. Later on, later on! Besides, I don’t want to put myself in opposition
to Makaraig.”
“But it’s not putting yourself in opposition, it’s only—”
Placido heard no more, for he was already far away, hurrying to his class. He heard the different voices—
adsum, adsum—the roll was being called! Hastening his steps he got to the door just as the letter Q was reached.
“Tinamáan ñg—!”5 he muttered, biting his lips.
He hesitated about entering, for the mark was already down against him and was not to be erased. One
did not go to the class to learn but in order not to get this absence mark, for the class was reduced to reciting the
lesson from memory, reading the book, and at the most answering a few abstract, profound, captious, enigmatic
questions. True, the usual preachment was never lacking—the same as ever, about humility, submission, and
respect to the clerics, and he, Placido, was humble, submissive, and respectful. So he was about to turn away when
he remembered that the examinations were approaching and his professor had not yet asked him a question nor
appeared to notice him—this would be a good opportunity to attract his attention and become known! To be
known was to gain a year, for if it cost nothing to suspend one who was not known, it required a hard heart not to
be touched by the sight of a youth who by his daily presence was a reproach over a year of his life wasted.[113]
So Placido went in, not on tiptoe as was his custom, but noisily on his heels, and only too well did he
succeed in his intent! The professor stared at him, knitted his brows, and shook his head, as though to say, “Ah,
little impudence, you’ll pay for that!”[114]
1
The “Municipal School for Girls” was founded by the municipality of Manila in 1864.... The institution was in charge of the Sisters of
Charity.—Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. III, p. 615.
2
Now known as Plaza España.—Tr.
3
Patroness of the Dominican Order. She was formally and sumptuously recrowned a queen of the skies in 1907.—Tr.
4
A burlesque on an association of students known as the Milicia Angelica, organized by the Dominicans to strengthen their hold on the people.
The name used is significant, “carbineers” being the local revenue officers, notorious in their later days for graft and abuse.—Tr.
5
“Tinamáan ñg lintik!”—a Tagalog exclamation of anger, disappointment, or dismay, regarded as a very strong expression, equivalent to
profanity. Literally, “May the lightning strike you!”—Tr.

The Class in Physics

The classroom was a spacious rectangular hall with large grated windows that admitted an abundance of
light and air. Along the two sides extended three wide tiers of stone covered with wood, filled with students
arranged in alphabetical order. At the end opposite the entrance, under a print of St. Thomas Aquinas, rose the
professor’s chair on an elevated platform with a little stairway on each side. With the exception of a beautiful
blackboard in a narra frame, scarcely ever used, since there was still written on it the viva that had appeared on
the opening day, no furniture, either useful or useless, was to be seen. The walls, painted white and covered with
glazed tiles to prevent scratches, were entirely bare, having neither a drawing nor a picture, nor even an outline of
any physical apparatus. The students had no need of any, no one missed the practical instruction in an extremely
experimental science; for years and years it has been so taught and the country has not been upset, but continues
just as ever. Now and then some little instrument descended from heaven and was exhibited to the class from a
distance, like the monstrance to the prostrate worshipers—look, but touch not! From time to time, when some
complacent professor appeared, one day in the year was set aside for visiting the mysterious laboratory and gazing
from without at the puzzling apparatus arranged in glass cases. No one could complain, for on that day there were
to be seen quantities of brass and glassware, tubes, disks, wheels, bells, and the like—the exhibition did not get
beyond that, and the country was not upset.[115]
Besides, the students were convinced that those instruments had not been purchased for them—the friars
would be fools! The laboratory was intended to be shown to the visitors and the high officials who came from the
Peninsula, so that upon seeing it they would nod their heads with satisfaction, while their guide would smile, as
if to say, “Eh, you thought you were going to find some backward monks! Well, we’re right up with the times—
we have a laboratory!”
The visitors and high officials, after being handsomely entertained, would then write in
their Travels or Memoirs: “The Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas of Manila, in charge of the
enlightened Dominican Order, possesses a magnificent physical laboratory for the instruction of youth. Some two
hundred and fifty students annually study this subject, but whether from apathy, indolence, the limited capacity
of the Indian, or some other ethnological or incomprehensible reason, up to now there has not developed a
Lavoisier, a Secchi, or a Tyndall, not even in miniature, in the Malay-Filipino race.”
Yet, to be exact, we will say that in this laboratory are held the classes of thirty or forty advanced students,
under the direction of an instructor who performs his duties well enough, but as the greater part of these students
come from the Ateneo of the Jesuits, where science is taught practically in the laboratory itself, its utility does not
come to be so great as it would be if it could be utilized by the two hundred and fifty who pay their matriculation
fees, buy their books, memorize them, and waste a year to know nothing afterwards. As a result, with the exception
of some rare usher or janitor who has had charge of the museum for years, no one has ever been known to get any
advantage from the lessons memorized with so great effort.
But let us return to the class. The professor was a young Dominican, who had filled several chairs in San
Juan de Letran with zeal and good repute. He had the reputation of being a great logician as well as a
profound [116]philosopher, and was one of the most promising in his clique. His elders treated him with
consideration, while the younger men envied him, for there were also cliques among them. This was the third year
of his professorship and, although the first in which he had taught physics and chemistry, he already passed for a
sage, not only with the complaisant students but also among the other nomadic professors. Padre Millon did not
belong to the common crowd who each year change their subject in order to acquire scientific knowledge, students
among other students, with the difference only that they follow a single course, that they quiz instead of being
quizzed, that they have a better knowledge of Castilian, and that they are not examined at the completion of the
course. Padre Millon went deeply into science, knew the physics of Aristotle and Padre Amat, read carefully his
“Ramos,” and sometimes glanced at “Ganot.” With all that, he would often shake his head with an air of doubt,
as he smiled and murmured: “transeat.” In regard to chemistry, no common knowledge was attributed to him after
he had taken as a premise the statement of St. Thomas that water is a mixture and proved plainly that the Angelic
Doctor had long forestalled Berzelius, Gay-Lussac, Bunsen, and other more or less presumptuous materialists.
Moreover, in spite of having been an instructor in geography, he still entertained certain doubts as to the rotundity
of the earth and smiled maliciously when its rotation and revolution around the sun were mentioned, as he recited
the verses
“El mentir de las estrellas
Es un cómodo mentir.”1

He also smiled maliciously in the presence of certain physical theories and considered visionary, if not
actually insane, the Jesuit Secchi, to whom he imputed the making of triangulations on the host as a result of his
astronomical mania, for which reason it was said that he had been forbidden [117]to celebrate mass. Many persons
also noticed in him some aversion to the sciences that he taught, but these vagaries were trifles, scholarly and
religious prejudices that were easily explained, not only by the fact that the physical sciences were eminently
practical, of pure observation and deduction, while his forte was philosophy, purely speculative, of abstraction
and induction, but also because, like any good Dominican, jealous of the fame of his order, he could hardly feel
any affection for a science in which none of his brethren had excelled—he was the first who did not accept the
chemistry of St. Thomas Aquinas—and in which so much renown had been acquired by hostile, or rather, let us
say, rival orders.
This was the professor who that morning called the roll and directed many of the students to recite the
lesson from memory, word for word. The phonographs got into operation, some well, some ill, some stammering,
and received their grades. He who recited without an error earned a good mark and he who made more than three
mistakes a bad mark.
A fat boy with a sleepy face and hair as stiff and hard as the bristles of a brush yawned until he seemed
to be about to dislocate his jaws, and stretched himself with his arms extended as though he were in his bed. The
professor saw this and wished to startle him.
“Eh, there, sleepy-head! What’s this? Lazy, too, so it’s sure you2 don’t know the lesson, ha?”
Padre Millon not only used the depreciative tu with the students, like a good friar, but he also addressed
them in the slang of the markets, a practise that he had acquired from the professor of canonical law: whether that
reverend gentleman wished to humble the students or the sacred decrees of the councils is a question not yet
settled, in spite of the great attention that has been given to it.[118]
This question, instead of offending the class, amused them, and many laughed—it was a daily occurrence.
But the sleeper did not laugh; he arose with a bound, rubbed his eyes, and, as though a steam-engine were turning
the phonograph, began to recite.
“The name of mirror is applied to all polished surfaces intended to produce by the reflection of light the
images of the objects placed before said surfaces. From the substances that form these surfaces, they are divided
into metallic mirrors and glass mirrors—”
“Stop, stop, stop!” interrupted the professor. “Heavens, what a rattle! We are at the point where the
mirrors are divided into metallic and glass, eh? Now if I should present to you a block of wood, a piece of kamagon
for instance, well polished and varnished, or a slab of black marble well burnished, or a square of jet, which would
reflect the images of objects placed before them, how would you classify those mirrors?”
Whether he did not know what to answer or did not understand the question, the student tried to get out
of the difficulty by demonstrating that he knew the lesson, so he rushed on like a torrent.
“The first are composed of brass or an alloy of different metals and the second of a sheet of glass, with
its two sides well-polished, one of which has an amalgam of tin adhering to it.”
“Tut, tut, tut! That’s not it! I say to you ‘Dominus vobiscum,’ and you answer me with ‘Requiescat in
pace!’ ”
 The worthy professor then repeated the question in the vernacular of the markets, interspersed
with cosas and abás at every moment.
The poor youth did not know how to get out of the quandary: he doubted whether to include the kamagon
with the metals, or the marble with glasses, and leave the jet as a neutral substance, until Juanito Pelaez maliciously
prompted him:
“The mirror of kamagon among the wooden mirrors.”[119]
The incautious youth repeated this aloud and half the class was convulsed with laughter.
“A good sample of wood you are yourself!” exclaimed the professor, laughing in spite of himself. “Let’s
see from what you would define a mirror—from a surface per se, in quantum est superficies, or from a substance
that forms the surface, or from the substance upon which the surface rests, the raw material, modified by the
attribute ‘surface,’ since it is clear that, surface being an accidental property of bodies, it cannot exist without
substance. Let’s see now—what do you say?”
“I? Nothing!” the wretched boy was about to reply, for he did not understand what it was all about,
confused as he was by so many surfaces and so many accidents that smote cruelly on his ears, but a sense of shame
restrained him. Filled with anguish and breaking into a cold perspiration, he began to repeat between his teeth:
“The name of mirror is applied to all polished surfaces—”
“Ergo, per te, the mirror is the surface,” angled the professor. “Well, then, clear up this difficulty. If the
surface is the mirror, it must be of no consequence to the ‘essence’ of the mirror what may be found behind this
surface, since what is behind it does not affect the ‘essence’ that is before it, id est, the surface, quae super faciem
est, quia vocatur superficies, facies ea quae supra videtur. Do you admit that or do you not admit it?”
The poor youth’s hair stood up straighter than ever, as though acted upon by some magnetic force.
“Do you admit it or do you not admit it?”
“Anything! Whatever you wish, Padre,” was his thought, but he did not dare to express it from fear of
ridicule. That was a dilemma indeed, and he had never been in a worse one. He had a vague idea that the most
innocent thing could not be admitted to the friars but that they, or rather their estates and curacies, would get out
of it all the results and advantages imaginable. So his good angel prompted him to deny everything with all the
energy [120]of his soul and refractoriness of his hair, and he was about to shout a proud nego, for the reason that
he who denies everything does not compromise himself in anything, as a certain lawyer had once told him; but
the evil habit of disregarding the dictates of one’s own conscience, of having little faith in legal folk, and of
seeking aid from others where one is sufficient unto himself, was his undoing. His companions, especially Juanito
Pelaez, were making signs to him to admit it, so he let himself be carried away by his evil destiny and exclaimed,
“Concedo, Padre,” in a voice as faltering as though he were saying, “In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.”
“Concedo antecedentum,” echoed the professor, smiling maliciously. “Ergo, I can scratch the mercury
off a looking-glass, put in its place a piece of bibinka, and we shall still have a mirror, eh? Now what shall we
have?”
The youth gazed at his prompters, but seeing them surprised and speechless, contracted his features into
an expression of bitterest reproach. “Deus meus, Deus meus, quare dereliquiste me,” said his troubled eyes, while
his lips muttered “Linintikan!” Vainly he coughed, fumbled at his shirt-bosom, stood first on one foot and then on
the other, but found no answer.
“Come now, what have we?” urged the professor, enjoying the effect of his reasoning.
“Bibinka!” whispered Juanito Pelaez. “Bibinka!”
“Shut up, you fool!” cried the desperate youth, hoping to get out of the difficulty by turning it into a
complaint.
“Let’s see, Juanito, if you can answer the question for me,” the professor then said to Pelaez, who was
one of his pets.
The latter rose slowly, not without first giving Penitente, who followed him on the roll, a nudge that
meant, “Don’t forget to prompt me.”
“Nego consequentiam, Padre,” he replied resolutely.
“Aha, then probo consequentiam! Per te, the polished surface constitutes the ‘essence’ of the mirror—
”[121]
“Nego suppositum!” interrupted Juanito, as he felt Placido pulling at his coat.
“How? Per te—”
“Nego!”
“Ergo, you believe that what is behind affects what is in front?”
“Nego!” the student cried with still more ardor, feeling another jerk at his coat.
Juanito, or rather Placido, who was prompting him, was unconsciously adopting Chinese tactics: not to
admit the most inoffensive foreigner in order not to be invaded.
“Then where are we?” asked the professor, somewhat disconcerted, and looking uneasily at the refractory
student. “Does the substance behind affect, or does it not affect, the surface?”
 To this precise and categorical question, a kind of ultimatum, Juanito did not know what to reply and his
coat offered no suggestions. In vain he made signs to Placido, but Placido himself was in doubt. Juanito then took
advantage of a moment in which the professor was staring at a student who was cautiously and secretly taking off
the shoes that hurt his feet, to step heavily on Placido’s toes and whisper, “Tell me, hurry up, tell me!”
“I distinguish—Get out! What an ass you are!” yelled Placido unreservedly, as he stared with angry eyes
and rubbed his hand over his patent-leather shoe.
The professor heard the cry, stared at the pair, and guessed what had happened.
“Listen, you meddler,” he addressed Placido, “I wasn’t questioning you, but since you think you can save
others, let’s see if you can save yourself, salva te ipsum, and decide this question.”
Juanito sat down in content, and as a mark of gratitude stuck out his tongue at his prompter, who had
arisen blushing with shame and muttering incoherent excuses.
For a moment Padre Millon regarded him as one gloating over a favorite dish. What a good thing it would
be [122]to humiliate and hold up to ridicule that dudish boy, always smartly dressed, with head erect and serene
look! It would be a deed of charity, so the charitable professor applied himself to it with all his heart, slowly
repeating the question.
“The book says that the metallic mirrors are made of brass and an alloy of different metals—is that true
or is it not true?”
“So the book says, Padre.”
“Liber dixit, ergo ita est. Don’t pretend that you know more than the book does. It then adds that the
glass mirrors are made of a sheet of glass whose two surfaces are well polished, one of them having applied to it
an amalgam of tin, nota bene, an amalgam of tin! Is that true?”
“If the book says so, Padre.”
“Is tin a metal?”
“It seems so, Padre. The book says so.”
“It is, it is, and the word amalgam means that it is compounded with mercury, which is also a metal. Ergo,
a glass mirror is a metallic mirror; ergo, the terms of the distinction are confused; ergo, the classification is
imperfect—how do you explain that, meddler?”
He emphasized the ergos and the familiar “you’s” with indescribable relish, at the same time winking,
as though to say, “You’re done for.”
“It means that, it means that—” stammered Placido.
“It means that you haven’t learned the lesson, you petty meddler, you don’t understand it yourself, and
yet you prompt your neighbor!”
The class took no offense, but on the contrary many thought the epithet funny and laughed. Placido bit
his lips.
“What’s your name?” the professor asked him.
“Placido,” was the curt reply.
“Aha! Placido Penitente, although you look more like Placido the Prompter—or the Prompted.
But, Penitent, I’m going to impose some penance on you for your promptings.”[123]
Pleased with his play on words, he ordered the youth to recite the lesson, and the latter, in the state of
mind to which he was reduced, made more than three mistakes. Shaking his head up and down, the professor
slowly opened the register and slowly scanned it while he called off the names in a low voice.
“Palencia—Palomo—Panganiban—Pedraza—Pelado—Pelaez—Penitents, aha! Placido Penitente,
fifteen unexcused absences—”
Placido started up. “Fifteen absences, Padre?”
“Fifteen unexcused absences,” continued the professor, “so that you only lack one to be dropped from
the roll.”
“Fifteen absences, fifteen absences,” repeated Placido in amazement. “I’ve never been absent more than
four times, and with today, perhaps five.”
“Jesso, jesso, monseer,”3 replied the professor, examining the youth over his gold eye-glasses. “You
confess that you have missed five times, and God knows if you may have missed oftener. Atqui, as I rarely call
the roll, every time I catch any one I put five marks against him; ergo, how many are five times five? Have you
forgotten the multiplication table? Five times five?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Correct, correct! Thus you’ve still got away with ten, because I have caught you only three times. Huh,
if I had caught you every time—Now, how many are three times five?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen, right you are!” concluded the professor, closing the register. “If you miss once more—out of
doors with you, get out! Ah, now a mark for the failure in the daily lesson.”
He again opened the register, sought out the name, and entered the mark. “Come, only one mark,” he
said, “since you hadn’t any before.”[124]
 “But, Padre,” exclaimed Placido, restraining himself, “if your Reverence puts a mark against me for
failing in the lesson, your Reverence owes it to me to erase the one for absence that you have put against me for
today.”
His Reverence made no answer. First he slowly entered the mark, then contemplated it with his head on
one side,—the mark must be artistic,—closed the register, and asked with great sarcasm, “Abá, and why so, sir?”
“Because I can’t conceive, Padre, how one can be absent from the class and at the same time recite the
lesson in it. Your Reverence is saying that to be is not to be.”
“Nakú, a metaphysician, but a rather premature one! So you can’t conceive of it, eh? Sed patet
experientia and contra experientiam negantem, fusilibus est arguendum, do you understand? And can’t you
conceive, with your philosophical head, that one can be absent from the class and not know the lesson at the same
time? Is it a fact that absence necessarily implies knowledge? What do you say to that, philosophaster?”
This last epithet was the drop of water that made the full cup overflow. Placido enjoyed among his friends
the reputation of being a philosopher, so he lost his patience, threw down his book, arose, and faced the professor.
“Enough, Padre, enough! Your Reverence can put all the marks against me that you wish, but you haven’t
the right to insult me. Your Reverence may stay with the class, I can’t stand any more.” Without further farewell,
he stalked away.
The class was astounded; such an assumption of dignity had scarcely ever been seen, and who would
have thought it of Placido Penitente? The surprised professor bit his lips and shook his head threateningly as he
watched him depart. Then in a trembling voice he began his preachment on the same old theme, delivered however
with more energy and more eloquence. It dealt with the growing arrogance, the innate ingratitude, the
presumption, the lack of respect for superiors, the pride that the spirit of darkness infused in the [125]young, the
lack of manners, the absence of courtesy, and so on. From this he passed to coarse jests and sarcasm over the
presumption which some good-for-nothing “prompters” had of teaching their teachers by establishing an academy
for instruction in Castilian.
“Aha, aha!” he moralized, “those who the day before yesterday scarcely knew how to say, ‘Yes, Padre,’
‘No, Padre,’ now want to know more than those who have grown gray teaching them. He who wishes to learn,
will learn, academies or no academies! Undoubtedly that fellow who has just gone out is one of those in the
project. Castilian is in good hands with such guardians! When are you going to get the time to attend the academy
if you have scarcely enough to fulfill your duties in the regular classes? We wish that you may all know Spanish
and that you pronounce it well, so that you won’t split our ear-drums with your twist of expression and your
‘p’s’;4 but first business and then pleasure: finish your studies first, and afterwards learn Castilian, and all become
clerks, if you so wish.”
So he went on with his harangue until the bell rang and the class was over. The two hundred and thirty-
four students, after reciting their prayers, went out as ignorant as when they went in, but breathing more freely, as
if a great weight had been lifted from them. Each youth had lost another hour of his life and with it a portion of
his dignity and self-respect, and in exchange there was an increase of discontent, of aversion to study, of
resentment in their hearts. After all this ask for knowledge, dignity, gratitude!
De nobis, post haec, tristis sententia fertur!
Just as the two hundred and thirty-four spent their class hours, so the thousands of students who preceded
them have spent theirs, and, if matters do not mend, so will those yet to come spend theirs, and be brutalized,
while wounded dignity and youthful enthusiasm will be converted into [126]hatred and sloth, like the waves that
become polluted along one part of the shore and roll on one after another, each in succession depositing a larger
sediment of filth. But yet He who from eternity watches the consequences of a deed develop like a thread through
the loom of the centuries, He who weighs the value of a second and has ordained for His creatures as an elemental
law progress and development, He, if He is just, will demand a strict accounting from those who must render it,
of the millions of intelligences darkened and blinded, of human dignity trampled upon in millions of His creatures,
and of the incalculable time lost and effort wasted! And if the teachings of the Gospel are based on truth, so also
will these have to answer—the millions and millions who do not know how to preserve the light of their
intelligences and their dignity of mind, as the master demanded an accounting from the cowardly servant for the
talent that he let be taken from him.[127]
1
“To lie about the stars is a safe kind of lying.”—Tr.
2
Throughout this chapter the professor uses the familiar tu in addressing the students, thus giving his remarks a contemptuous tone.—Tr.
3
The professor speaks these words in vulgar dialect.
4
To confuse the letters p and f in speaking Spanish was a common error among uneducated Filipinos.—Tr.

In the House of the Students

The house where Makaraig lived was worth visiting. Large and spacious, with two entresols provided
with elegant gratings, it seemed to be a school during the first hours of the morning and pandemonium from ten
o’clock on. During the boarders’ recreation hours, from the lower hallway of the spacious entrance up to the main
floor, there was a bubbling of laughter, shouts, and movement. Boys in scanty clothing played sipa or practised
gymnastic exercises on improvised trapezes, while on the staircase a fight was in progress between eight or nine
armed with canes, sticks, and ropes, but neither attackers nor attacked did any great damage, their blows generally
falling sidewise upon the shoulders of the Chinese pedler who was there selling his outlandish mixtures and
indigestible pastries. Crowds of boys surrounded him, pulled at his already disordered queue, snatched pies from
him, haggled over the prices, and committed a thousand deviltries. The Chinese yelled, swore, forswore, in all the
languages he could jabber, not omitting his own; he whimpered, laughed, pleaded, put on a smiling face when an
ugly one would not serve, or the reverse.
He cursed them as devils, savages, no kilistanos1 but that mattered nothing. A whack would bring his
face around smiling, and if the blow fell only upon his shoulders he would calmly continue his business
transactions, contenting himself with crying out to them that he was not in the game, but if it struck the flat basket
on which were placed his wares, then he would swear never to come again, as he [128]poured out upon them all
the imprecations and anathemas imaginable. Then the boys would redouble their efforts to make him rage the
more, and when at last his vocabulary was exhausted and they were satiated with his fearful mixtures, they paid
him religiously, and sent him away happy, winking, chuckling to himself, and receiving as caresses the light blows
from their canes that the students gave him as tokens of farewell.
Concerts on the piano and violin, the guitar, and the accordion, alternated with the continual clashing of
blades from the fencing lessons. Around a long, wide table the students of the Ateneo prepared their compositions
or solved their problems by the side of others writing to their sweethearts on pink perforated note-paper covered
with drawings. Here one was composing a melodrama at the side of another practising on the flute, from which
he drew wheezy notes. Over there, the older boys, students in professional courses, who affected silk socks and
embroidered slippers, amused themselves in teasing the smaller boys by pulling their ears, already red from
repeated fillips, while two or three held down a little fellow who yelled and cried, defending himself with his feet
against being reduced to the condition in which he was born, kicking and howling. In one room, around a small
table, four were playing revesino with laughter and jokes, to the great annoyance of another who pretended to be
studying his lesson but who was in reality waiting his turn to play.
Still another came in with exaggerated wonder, scandalized as he approached the table. “How wicked
you are! So early in the morning and already gambling! Let’s see, let’s see! You fool, take it with the three of
spades!” Closing his book, he too joined in the game.
Cries and blows were heard. Two boys were fighting in the adjoining room—a lame student who was
very sensitive about his infirmity and an unhappy newcomer from the provinces who was just commencing his
studies. He was working over a treatise on philosophy and reading innocently [129]in a loud voice, with a wrong
accent, the Cartesian principle: “Cogito, ergo sum!”
The little lame boy (el cojito) took this as an insult and the others intervened to restore peace, but in
reality only to sow discord and come to blows themselves.
In the dining-room a young man with a can of sardines, a bottle of wine, and the provisions that he had
just brought from his town, was making heroic efforts to the end that his friends might participate in his lunch,
while they were offering in their turn heroic resistance to his invitation. Others were bathing on the azotea, playing
firemen with the water from the well, and joining in combats with pails of water, to the great delight of the
spectators.
But the noise and shouts gradually died away with the coming of leading students, summoned by
Makaraig to report to them the progress of the academy of Castilian. Isagani was cordially greeted, as was also
the Peninsular, Sandoval, who had come to Manila as a government employee and was finishing his studies, and
who had completely identified himself with the cause of the Filipino students. The barriers that politics had
established between the races had disappeared in the schoolroom as though dissolved by the zeal of science and
youth.
From lack of lyceums and scientific, literary, or political centers, Sandoval took advantage of all the
meetings to cultivate his great oratorical gifts, delivering speeches and arguing on any subject, to draw forth
applause from his friends and listeners. At that moment the subject of conversation was the instruction in Castilian,
but as Makaraig had not yet arrived conjecture was still the order of the day.
“What can have happened?”
“What has the General decided?”
“Has he refused the permit?”
“Has Padre Irene or Padre Sibyla won?”
Such were the questions they asked one another, questions that could be answered only by
Makaraig.[130]
Among the young men gathered together there were optimists like Isagani and Sandoval, who saw the
thing already accomplished and talked of congratulations and praise from the government for the patriotism of
the students—outbursts of optimism that led Juanito Pelaez to claim for himself a large part of the glory of
founding the society.
All this was answered by the pessimist Pecson, a chubby youth with a wide, clownish grin, who spoke
of outside influences, whether the Bishop A., the Padre B., or the Provincial C., had been consulted or not, whether
or not they had advised that the whole association should be put in jail—a suggestion that made Juanito Pelaez so
uneasy that he stammered out, “Carambas, don’t you drag me into—”
Sandoval, as a Peninsular and a liberal, became furious at this. “But pshaw!” he exclaimed, “that is
holding a bad opinion of his Excellency! I know that he’s quite a friar-lover, but in such a matter as this he won’t
let the friars interfere. Will you tell me, Pecson, on what you base your belief that the General has no judgment of
his own?”
“I didn’t say that, Sandoval,” replied Pecson, grinning until he exposed his wisdom-tooth. “For me the
General has his own judgment, that is, the judgment of all those within his reach. That’s plain!”
“You’re dodging—cite me a fact, cite me a fact!” cried Sandoval. “Let’s get away from hollow
arguments, from empty phrases, and get on the solid ground of facts,”—this with an elegant gesture. “Facts,
gentlemen, facts! The rest is prejudice—I won’t call it filibusterism.”
Pecson smiled like one of the blessed as he retorted, “There comes the filibusterism. But can’t we enter
into a discussion without resorting to accusations?”
Sandoval protested in a little extemporaneous speech, again demanding facts.
“Well, not long ago there was a dispute between some private persons and certain friars, and the acting
Governor [131]rendered a decision that it should be settled by the Provincial of the Order concerned,” replied
Pecson, again breaking out into a laugh, as though he were dealing with an insignificant matter, he cited names
and dates, and promised documents that would prove how justice was dispensed.
“But, on what ground, tell me this, on what ground can they refuse permission for what plainly appears
to be extremely useful and necessary?” asked Sandoval.
Pecson shrugged his shoulders. “It’s that it endangers the integrity of the fatherland,” he replied in the
tone of a notary reading an allegation.
“That’s pretty good! What has the integrity of the fatherland to do with the rules of syntax?”
“The Holy Mother Church has learned doctors—what do I know? Perhaps it is feared that we may come
to understand the laws so that we can obey them. What will become of the Philippines on the day when we
understand one another?”
Sandoval did not relish the dialectic and jesting turn of the conversation; along that path could rise no
speech worth the while. “Don’t make a joke of things!” he exclaimed. “This is a serious matter.”
“The Lord deliver me from joking when there are friars concerned!”
“But, on what do you base—”
“On the fact that, the hours for the classes having to come at night,” continued Pecson in the same tone,
as if he were quoting known and recognized formulas, “there may be invoked as an obstacle the immorality of the
thing, as was done in the case of the school at Malolos.”
“Another! But don’t the classes of the Academy of Drawing, and the novenaries and the processions,
cover themselves with the mantle of night?”
“The scheme affects the dignity of the University,” went on the chubby youth, taking no notice of the
question.
“Affects nothing! The University has to accommodate [132]itself to the needs of the students. And
granting that, what is a university then? Is it an institution to discourage study? Have a few men banded themselves
together in the name of learning and instruction in order to prevent others from becoming enlightened?”
“The fact is that movements initiated from below are regarded as discontent—”
“What about projects that come from above?” interpolated one of the students. “There’s the School of
Arts and Trades!”
“Slowly, slowly, gentlemen,” protested Sandoval. “I’m not a friar-lover, my liberal views being well
known, but render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Of that School of Arts and Trades, of which I have been
the most enthusiastic supporter and the realization of which I shall greet as the first streak of dawn for these
fortunate islands, of that School of Arts and Trades the friars have taken charge—”
“Or the cat of the canary, which amounts to the same thing,” added Pecson, in his turn interrupting the
speech.
“Get out!” cried Sandoval, enraged at the interruption, which had caused him to lose the thread of his
long, well-rounded sentence. “As long as we hear nothing bad, let’s not be pessimists, let’s not be unjust, doubting
the liberty and independence of the government.”
Here he entered upon a defense in beautiful phraseology of the government and its good intentions, a
subject that Pecson dared not break in upon.
“The Spanish government,” he said among other things, “has given you everything, it has denied you
nothing! We had absolutism in Spain and you had absolutism here; the friars covered our soil with conventos, and
conventos occupy a third part of Manila; in Spain the garrote prevails and here the garrote is the extreme
punishment; we are Catholics and we have made you Catholics; we were scholastics and scholasticism sheds its
light in your college halls; in short, gentlemen, we weep when you weep, we suffer when [133]you suffer, we
have the same altars, the same courts, the same punishments, and it is only just that we should give you our rights
and our joys.”
As no one interrupted him, he became more and more enthusiastic, until he came to speak of the future
of the Philippines.
“As I have said, gentlemen, the dawn is not far distant. Spain is now breaking the eastern sky for her
beloved Philippines, and the times are changing, as I positively know, faster than we imagine. This government,
which, according to you, is vacillating and weak, should be strengthened by our confidence, that we may make it
see that it is the custodian of our hopes. Let us remind it by our conduct (should it ever forget itself, which I do
not believe can happen) that we have faith in its good intentions and that it should be guided by no other standard
than justice and the welfare of all the governed. No, gentlemen,” he went on in a tone more and more declamatory,
“we must not admit at all in this matter the possibility of a consultation with other more or less hostile entities, as
such a supposition would imply our resignation to the fact. Your conduct up to the present has been frank, loyal,
without vacillation, above suspicion; you have addressed it simply and directly; the reasons you have presented
could not be more sound; your aim is to lighten the labor of the teachers in the first years and to facilitate study
among the hundreds of students who fill the college halls and for whom one solitary professor cannot suffice. If
up to the present the petition has not been granted, it has been for the reason, as I feel sure, that there has been a
great deal of material accumulated, but I predict that the campaign is won, that the summons of Makaraig is to
announce to us the victory, and tomorrow we shall see our efforts crowned with the applause and appreciation of
the country, and who knows, gentlemen, but that the government may confer upon you some handsome decoration
of merit, benefactors as you are of the fatherland!”[134]
Enthusiastic applause resounded. All immediately believed in the triumph, and many in the decoration.
“Let it be remembered, gentlemen,” observed Juanito, “that I was one of the first to propose it.”
The pessimist Pecson was not so enthusiastic. “Just so we don’t get that decoration on our ankles,” he
remarked, but fortunately for Pelaez this comment was not heard in the midst of the applause.
When they had quieted down a little, Pecson replied, “Good, good, very good, but one supposition: if in
spite of all that, the General consults and consults and consults, and afterwards refuses the permit?”
This question fell like a dash of cold water. All turned to Sandoval, who was taken aback. “Then—” he
stammered.
“Then?”
“Then,” he exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm, still excited by the applause, “seeing that in writing and
in printing it boasts of desiring your enlightenment, and yet hinders and denies it when called upon to make it a
reality—then, gentlemen, your efforts will not have been in vain, you will have accomplished what no one else
has been able to do. Make them drop the mask and fling down the gauntlet to you!”
“Bravo, bravo!” cried several enthusiastically.
“Good for Sandoval! Hurrah for the gauntlet!” added others.
“Let them fling down the gauntlet to us!” repeated Pecson disdainfully. “But afterwards?”
Sandoval seemed to be cut short in his triumph, but with the vivacity peculiar to his race and his oratorical
temperament he had an immediate reply.
“Afterwards?” he asked. “Afterwards, if none of the Filipinos dare to accept the challenge, then I,
Sandoval, in the name of Spain, will take up the gauntlet, because such a policy would give the lie to the good
intentions that she has always cherished toward her provinces, and because [135]he who is thus faithless to the
trust reposed in him and abuses his unlimited authority deserves neither the protection of the fatherland nor the
support of any Spanish citizen!”
The enthusiasm of his hearers broke all bounds. Isagani embraced him, the others following his example.
They talked of the fatherland, of union, of fraternity, of fidelity. The Filipinos declared that if there were only
Sandovals in Spain all would be Sandovals in the Philippines. His eyes glistened, and it might well be believed
that if at that moment any kind of gauntlet had been flung at him he would have leaped upon any kind of horse to
ride to death for the Philippines.
The “cold water” alone replied: “Good, that’s very good, Sandoval. I could also say the same if I were a
Peninsular, but not being one, if I should say one half of what you have, you yourself would take me for a
filibuster.”
Sandoval began a speech in protest, but was interrupted.
“Rejoice, friends, rejoice! Victory!” cried a youth who entered at that moment and began to embrace
everybody.
“Rejoice, friends! Long live the Castilian tongue!”
An outburst of applause greeted this announcement. They fell to embracing one another and their eyes
filled with tears. Pecson alone preserved his skeptical smile.
 The bearer of such good news was Makaraig, the young man at the head of the movement. This student
occupied in that house, by himself, two rooms, luxuriously furnished, and had his servant and a cochero to look
after his carriage and horses. He was of robust carriage, of refined manners, fastidiously dressed, and very rich.
Although studying law only that he might have an academic degree, he enjoyed a reputation for diligence, and as
a logician in the scholastic way had no cause to envy the most frenzied quibblers of the University faculty.
Nevertheless he was not very far behind in regard to modern ideas and progress, for his fortune enabled him to
have all the books and magazines that [136]a watchful censor was unable to keep out. With these qualifications
and his reputation for courage, his fortunate associations in his earlier years, and his refined and delicate courtesy,
it was not strange that he should exercise such great influence over his associates and that he should have been
chosen to carry out such a difficult undertaking as that of the instruction in Castilian.
After the first outburst of enthusiasm, which in youth always takes hold in such exaggerated forms, since
youth finds everything beautiful, they wanted to be informed how the affair had been managed.
“I saw Padre Irene this morning,” said Makaraig with a certain air of mystery.
“Hurrah for Padre Irene!” cried an enthusiastic student.
“Padre Irene,” continued Makaraig, “has told me about everything that took place at Los Baños. It seems
that they disputed for at least a week, he supporting and defending our case against all of them, against Padre
Sibyla, Padre Fernandez, Padre Salvi, the General, the jeweler Simoun—”
“The jeweler Simoun!” interrupted one of his listeners. “What has that Jew to do with the affairs of our
country? We enrich him by buying—”
“Keep quiet!” admonished another impatiently, anxious to learn how Padre Irene had been able to
overcome such formidable opponents.
“There were even high officials who were opposed to our project, the Head Secretary, the Civil Governor,
Quiroga the Chinaman—”
“Quiroga the Chinaman! The pimp of the—”
“Shut up!”
“At last,” resumed Makaraig, “they were going to pigeonhole the petition and let it sleep for months and
months, when Padre Irene remembered the Superior Commission of Primary Instruction and proposed, since the
matter concerned the teaching of the Castilian tongue, that [137]the petition be referred to that body for a report
upon it.”
“But that Commission hasn’t been in operation for a long time,” observed Pecson.
“That’s exactly what they replied to Padre Irene, and he answered that this was a good opportunity to
revive it, and availing himself of the presence of Don Custodio, one of its members, he proposed on the spot that
a committee should be appointed. Don Custodio’s activity being known and recognized, he was named as arbiter
and the petition is now in his hands. He promised that he would settle it this month.”
“Hurrah for Don Custodio!”
“But suppose Don Custodio should report unfavorably upon it?” inquired the pessimist Pecson.
Upon this they had not reckoned, being intoxicated with the thought that the matter would not be
pigeonholed, so they all turned to Makaraig to learn how it could be arranged.
“The same objection I presented to Padre Irene, but with his sly smile he said to me: ‘We’ve won a great
deal, we have succeeded in getting the matter on the road to a decision, the opposition sees itself forced to join
battle.’ If we can bring some influence to bear upon Don Custodio so that he, in accordance with his liberal
tendencies, may report favorably, all is won, for the General showed himself to be absolutely neutral.”
Makaraig paused, and an impatient listener asked, “How can we influence him?”
“Padre Irene pointed out to me two ways—”
“Quiroga,” some one suggested.
“Pshaw, great use Quiroga—”
“A fine present.”
“No, that won’t do, for he prides himself upon being incorruptible.”
“Ah, yes, I know!” exclaimed Pecson with a laugh. “Pepay the dancing girl.” [138]“Ah, yes, Pepay the
dancing girl,” echoed several.
This Pepay was a showy girl, supposed to be a great friend of Don Custodio. To her resorted the
contractors, the employees, the intriguers, when they wanted to get something from the celebrated councilor.
Juanito Pelaez, who was also a great friend of the dancing girl, offered to look after the matter, but Isagani shook
his head, saying that it was sufficient that they had made use of Padre Irene and that it would be going too far to
avail themselves of Pepay in such an affair.
“Show us the other way.”
“The other way is to apply to his attorney and adviser, Señor Pasta, the oracle before whom Don Custodio
bows.”
“I prefer that,” said Isagani. “Señor Pasta is a Filipino, and was a schoolmate of my uncle’s. But how can
we interest him?”
 “There’s the quid,” replied Makaraig, looking earnestly at Isagani. “Señor Pasta has a dancing girl—I
mean, a seamstress.”
Isagani again shook his head.
“Don’t be such a puritan,” Juanito Pelaez said to him. “The end justifies the means! I know the
seamstress, Matea, for she has a shop where a lot of girls work.”
“No, gentlemen,” declared Isagani, “let’s first employ decent methods. I’ll go to Señor Pasta and, if I
don’t accomplish anything, then you can do what you wish with the dancing girls and seamstresses.”
They had to accept this proposition, agreeing that Isagani should talk to Señor Pasta that very day, and
in the afternoon report to his associates at the University the result of the interview.[139]
1
No cristianos, not Christians, i.e., savages.—Tr.

Señor Pasta

Isagani presented himself in the house of the lawyer, one of the most talented minds in Manila, whom
the friars consulted in their great difficulties. The youth had to wait some time on account of the numerous clients,
but at last his turn came and he entered the office, or bufete, as it is generally called in the Philippines. The lawyer
received him with a slight cough, looking down furtively at his feet, but he did not rise or offer a seat, as he went
on writing. This gave Isagani an opportunity for observation and careful study of the lawyer, who had aged greatly.
His hair was gray and his baldness extended over nearly the whole crown of his head. His countenance was sour
and austere.
There was complete silence in the study, except for the whispers of the clerks and understudies who were
at work in an adjoining room. Their pens scratched as though quarreling with the paper.
At length the lawyer finished what he was writing, laid down his pen, raised his head, and, recognizing
the youth, let his face light up with a smile as he extended his hand affectionately.
“Welcome, young man! But sit down, and excuse me, for I didn’t know that it was you. How is your
uncle?”
Isagani took courage, believing that his case would get on well. He related briefly what had been done,
the while studying the effect of his words. Señor Pasta listened impassively at first and, although he was informed
of the efforts of the students, pretended ignorance, as if to show that he had nothing to do with such childish
matters, but when he began to suspect what was wanted of him and [140]heard mention of the Vice-Rector, friars,
the Captain-General, a project, and so on, his face slowly darkened and he finally exclaimed, “This is the land of
projects! But go on, go on!”
Isagani was not yet discouraged. He spoke of the manner in which a decision was to be reached and
concluded with an expression of the confidence which the young men entertained that he, Señor Pasta,
would intercede in their behalf in case Don Custodio should consult him, as was to be expected. He did not dare
to say would advise, deterred by the wry face the lawyer put on.
But Señor Pasta had already formed his resolution, and it was not to mix at all in the affair, either as
consulter or consulted. He was familiar with what had occurred at Los Baños, he knew that there existed two
factions, and that Padre Irene was not the only champion on the side of the students, nor had he been the one who
proposed submitting the petition to the Commission of Primary Instruction, but quite the contrary. Padre Irene,
Padre Fernandez, the Countess, a merchant who expected to sell the materials for the new academy, and the high
official who had been citing royal decree after royal decree, were about to triumph, when Padre Sibyla, wishing
to gain time, had thought of the Commission. All these facts the great lawyer had present in his mind, so that when
Isagani had finished speaking, he determined to confuse him with evasions, tangle the matter up, and lead the
conversation to other subjects.
“Yes,” he said, pursing his lips and scratching his head, “there is no one who surpasses me in love for
the country and in aspirations toward progress, but—I can’t compromise myself, I don’t know whether you clearly
understand my position, a position that is very delicate, I have so many interests, I have to labor within the limits
of strict prudence, it’s a risk—”
The lawyer sought to bewilder the youth with an exuberance of words, so he went on speaking of laws
and [141]decrees, and talked so much that instead of confusing the youth, he came very near to entangling himself
in a labyrinth of citations.
“In no way do we wish to compromise you,” replied Isagani with great calmness. “God deliver us from
injuring in the least the persons whose lives are so useful to the rest of the Filipinos! But, as little versed as I may
be in the laws, royal decrees, writs, and resolutions that obtain in this country, I can’t believe that there can be any
harm in furthering the high purposes of the government, in trying to secure a proper interpretation of these
purposes. We are seeking the same end and differ only about the means.”
 The lawyer smiled, for the youth had allowed himself to wander away from the subject, and there where
the former was going to entangle him he had already entangled himself.
“That’s exactly the quid, as is vulgarly said. It’s clear that it is laudable to aid the government, when one
aids it submissively, following out its desires and the true spirit of the laws in agreement with the just beliefs of
the governing powers, and when not in contradiction to the fundamental and general way of thinking of the persons
to whom is intrusted the common welfare of the individuals that form a social organism. Therefore, it is criminal,
it is punishable, because it is offensive to the high principle of authority, to attempt any action contrary to its
initiative, even supposing it to be better than the governmental proposition, because such action would injure its
prestige, which is the elementary basis upon which all colonial edifices rest.”
Confident that this broadside had at least stunned Isagani, the old lawyer fell back in his armchair,
outwardly very serious, but laughing to himself.
Isagani, however, ventured to reply. “I should think that governments, the more they are threatened,
would be all the more careful to seek bases that are impregnable. The basis of prestige for colonial governments
is the weakest [142]of all, since it does not depend upon themselves but upon the consent of the governed, while
the latter are willing to recognize it. The basis of justice or reason would seem to be the most durable.”
The lawyer raised his head. How was this—did that youth dare to reply and argue with him, him, Señor
Pasta? Was he not yet bewildered with his big words?
“Young man, you must put those considerations aside, for they are dangerous,” he declared with a wave
of his hand. “What I advise is that you let the government attend to its own business.”
“Governments are established for the welfare of the peoples, and in order to accomplish this purpose
properly they have to follow the suggestions of the citizens, who are the ones best qualified to understand their
own needs.”
“Those who constitute the government are also citizens, and among the most enlightened.”
“But, being men, they are fallible, and ought not to disregard the opinions of others.”
“They must be trusted, they have to attend to everything.”
“There is a Spanish proverb which says, ‘No tears, no milk,’ in other words, ‘To him who does not ask,
nothing is given.’ ”
“Quite the reverse,” replied the lawyer with a sarcastic smile; “with the government exactly the reverse
occurs—”
But he suddenly checked himself, as if he had said too much and wished to correct his imprudence. “The
government has given us things that we have not asked for, and that we could not ask for, because to ask—to ask,
presupposes that it is in some way incompetent and consequently is not performing its functions. To suggest to it
a course of action, to try to guide it, when not really antagonizing it, is to presuppose that it is capable of erring,
and as I have already said to you such suppositions are menaces to the existence of colonial governments. The
common crowd overlooks this and the young men who set to work thoughtlessly [143]do not know, do not
comprehend, do not try to comprehend the counter-effect of asking, the menace to order there is in that idea—”
“Pardon me,” interrupted Isagani, offended by the arguments the jurist was using with him, “but when
by legal methods people ask a government for something, it is because they think it good and disposed to grant a
blessing, and such action, instead of irritating it, should flatter it —to the mother one appeals, never to the
stepmother. The government, in my humble opinion, is not an omniscient being that can see and anticipate
everything, and even if it could, it ought not to feel offended, for here you have the church itself doing nothing
but asking and begging of God, who sees and knows everything, and you yourself ask and demand many things
in the courts of this same government, yet neither God nor the courts have yet taken offense. Every one realizes
that the government, being the human institution that it is, needs the support of all the people, it needs to be made
to see and feel the reality of things. You yourself are not convinced of the truth of your objection, you yourself
know that it is a tyrannical and despotic government which, in order to make a display of force and independence,
denies everything through fear or distrust, and that the tyrannized and enslaved peoples are the only ones whose
duty it is never to ask for anything. A people that hates its government ought to ask for nothing but that it abdicate
its power.”
The old lawyer grimaced and shook his head from side to side, in sign of discontent, while he rubbed his
hand over his bald pate and said in a tone of condescending pity: “Ahem! those are bad doctrines, bad theories,
ahem! How plain it is that you are young and inexperienced in life. Look what is happening with the inexperienced
young men who in Madrid are asking for so many reforms. They are accused of filibusterism, many of them don’t
dare return here, and yet, what are they asking for? Things holy, ancient, and recognized as quite harmless. But
there [144]are matters that can’t be explained, they’re so delicate. Let’s see—I confess to you that there are other
reasons besides those expressed that might lead a sensible government to deny systematically the wishes of the
people—no—but it may happen that we find ourselves under rulers so fatuous and ridiculous—but there are
always other reasons, even though what is asked be quite just—different governments encounter different
conditions—”
 The old man hesitated, stared fixedly at Isagani, and then with a sudden resolution made a sign with his
hand as though he would dispel some idea.
“I can guess what you mean,” said Isagani, smiling sadly. “You mean that a colonial government, for the
very reason that it is imperfectly constituted and that it is based on premises—”
“No, no, not that, no!” quickly interrupted the old lawyer, as he sought for something among his papers.
“No, I meant—but where are my spectacles?”
“There they are,” replied Isagani.
The old man put them on and pretended to look over some papers, but seeing that the youth was waiting,
he mumbled, “I wanted to tell you something, I wanted to say—but it has slipped from my mind. You interrupted
me in your eagerness—but it was an insignificant matter. If you only knew what a whirl my head is in, I have so
much to do!”
Isagani understood that he was being dismissed. “So,” he said, rising, “we—”
“Ah, you will do well to leave the matter in the hands of the government, which will settle it as it sees
fit. You say that the Vice-Rector is opposed to the teaching of Castilian. Perhaps he may be, not as to the fact but
as to the form. It is said that the Rector who is on his way will bring a project for reform in education. Wait a
while, give time a chance, apply yourself to your studies as the examinations are near, and—carambas!—you
who already speak Castilian and express yourself easily, what [145]are you bothering yourself about? What
interest have you in seeing it specially taught? Surely Padre Florentino thinks as I do! Give him my regards.”
“My uncle,” replied Isagani, “has always admonished me to think of others as much as of myself. I didn’t
come for myself, I came in the name of those who are in worse condition.”
“What the devil! Let them do as you have done, let them singe their eyebrows studying and come to be
bald like myself, stuffing whole paragraphs into their memories! I believe that if you talk Spanish it is because
you have studied it—you’re not of Manila or of Spanish parents! Then let them learn it as you have, and do as I
have done: I’ve been a servant to all the friars, I’ve prepared their chocolate, and while with my right hand I stirred
it, with the left I held a grammar, I learned, and, thank God! have never needed other teachers or academies or
permits from the government. Believe me, he who wishes to learn, learns and becomes wise!”
“But how many among those who wish to learn come to be what you are? One in ten thousand, and
more!”
“Pish! Why any more?” retorted the old man, shrugging his shoulders. “There are too many lawyers now,
many of them become mere clerks. Doctors? They insult and abuse one another, and even kill each other in
competition for a patient. Laborers, sir, laborers, are what we need, for agriculture!”
Isagani realized that he was losing time, but still could not forbear replying: “Undoubtedly, there are
many doctors and lawyers, but I won’t say there are too many, since we have towns that lack them entirely, and
if they do abound in quantity, perhaps they are deficient in quality. Since the young men can’t be prevented from
studying, and no other professions are open to us, why let them waste their time and effort? And if the instruction,
deficient as it is, does not keep many from becoming lawyers and doctors, if we must finally have them, why not
have good [146]ones? After all, even if the sole wish is to make the country a country of farmers and laborers,
and condemn in it all intellectual activity, I don’t see any evil in enlightening those same farmers and laborers, in
giving them at least an education that will aid them in perfecting themselves and in perfecting their work, in
placing them in a condition to understand many things of which they are at present ignorant.”
“Bah, bah, bah!” exclaimed the lawyer, drawing circles in the air with his hand to dispel the ideas
suggested. “To be a good farmer no great amount of rhetoric is needed. Dreams, illusions, fancies! Eh, will you
take a piece of advice?”
He arose and placed his hand affectionately on the youth’s shoulder, as he continued: “I’m going to give
you one, and a very good one, because I see that you are intelligent and the advice will not be wasted. You’re
going to study medicine? Well, confine yourself to learning how to put on plasters and apply leeches, and don’t
ever try to improve or impair the condition of your kind. When you become a licentiate, marry a rich and devout
girl, try to make cures and charge well, shun everything that has any relation to the general state of the country,
attend mass, confession, and communion when the rest do, and you will see afterwards how you will thank me,
and I shall see it, if I am still alive. Always remember that charity begins at home, for man ought not to seek on
earth more than the greatest amount of happiness for himself, as Bentham says. If you involve yourself in
quixotisms you will have no career, nor will you get married, nor will you ever amount to anything. All will
abandon you, your own countrymen will be the first to laugh at your simplicity. Believe me, you will remember
me and see that I am right, when you have gray hairs like myself, gray hairs such as these!”
Here the old lawyer stroked his scanty white hair, as he smiled sadly and shook his head.
“When I have gray hairs like those, sir,” replied Isagani [147]with equal sadness, “and turn my gaze back
over my past and see that I have worked only for myself, without having done what I plainly could and should
have done for the country that has given me everything, for the citizens that have helped me to live—then, sir,
every gray hair will be a thorn, and instead of rejoicing, they will shame me!”
 So saying, he took his leave with a profound bow. The lawyer remained motionless in his place, with an
amazed look on his face. He listened to the footfalls that gradually died away, then resumed his seat.
“Poor boy!” he murmured, “similar thoughts also crossed my mind once! What more could any one
desire than to be able to say: ‘I have done this for the good of the fatherland, I have consecrated my life to the
welfare of others!’ A crown of laurel, steeped in aloes, dry leaves that cover thorns and worms! That is not life,
that does not get us our daily bread, nor does it bring us honors— the laurel would hardly serve for a salad, nor
produce ease, nor aid us in winning lawsuits, but quite the reverse! Every country has its code of ethics, as it has
its climate and its diseases, different from the climate and the diseases of other countries.”
After a pause, he added: “Poor boy! If all should think and act as he does, I don’t say but that—Poor boy!
Poor Florentino!”[148]

The Tribulations of a Chinese

In the evening of that same Saturday, Quiroga, the Chinese, who aspired to the creation of a consulate
for his nation, gave a dinner in the rooms over his bazaar, located in the Escolta. His feast was well attended:
friars, government employees, soldiers, merchants, all of them his customers, partners or patrons, were to be seen
there, for his store supplied the curates and the conventos with all their necessities, he accepted the chits of all the
employees, and he had servants who were discreet, prompt, and complaisant. The friars themselves did not disdain
to pass whole hours in his store, sometimes in view of the public, sometimes in the chambers with agreeable
company.
That night, then, the sala presented a curious aspect, being filled with friars and clerks seated on Vienna
chairs, stools of black wood, and marble benches of Cantonese origin, before little square tables, playing cards or
conversing among themselves, under the brilliant glare of the gilt chandeliers or the subdued light of the Chinese
lanterns, which were brilliantly decorated with long silken tassels. On the walls there was a lamentable medley of
landscapes in dim and gaudy colors, painted in Canton or Hongkong, mingled with tawdry chromos of odalisks,
half-nude women, effeminate lithographs of Christ, the deaths of the just and of the sinners—made by Jewish
houses in Germany to be sold in the Catholic countries. Nor were there lacking the Chinese prints on red paper
representing a man seated, of venerable aspect, with a calm, smiling face, behind whom stood a servant, ugly,
horrible, diabolical, threatening, armed with a lance having a wide, [149]keen blade. Among the Indians some
call this figure Mohammed, others Santiago,1 we do not know why, nor do the Chinese themselves give a very
clear explanation of this popular pair. The pop of champagne corks, the rattle of glasses, laughter, cigar smoke,
and that odor peculiar to a Chinese habitation—a mixture of punk, opium, and dried fruits—completed the
collection.
Dressed as a Chinese mandarin in a blue-tasseled cap, Quiroga moved from room to room, stiff and
straight, but casting watchful glances here and there as though to assure himself that nothing was being stolen.
Yet in spite of this natural distrust, he exchanged handshakes with each guest, greeted some with a smile sagacious
and humble, others with a patronizing air, and still others with a certain shrewd look that seemed to say, “I know!
You didn’t come on my account, you came for the dinner!”
And Quiroga was right! That fat gentleman who is now praising him and speaking of the advisability of
a Chinese consulate in Manila, intimating that to manage it there could be no one but Quiroga, is the Señor
Gonzalez who hides behind the pseudonym Pitilí when he attacks Chinese immigration through the columns of
the newspapers. That other, an elderly man who closely examines the lamps, pictures, and other furnishings with
grimaces and ejaculations of disdain, is Don Timoteo Pelaez, Juanito’s father, a merchant who inveighs against
the Chinese competition that is ruining his business. The one over there, that thin, brown individual with a sharp
look and a pale smile, is the celebrated originator of the dispute over Mexican pesos, which so troubled one of
Quiroga’s protéges: that government clerk is regarded in Manila as very clever. That one farther on, he of the
frowning look and unkempt mustache, is a government official who passes for a most meritorious fellow because
he has the courage to speak ill of the business in lottery tickets carried on between Quiroga [150]and an exalted
dame in Manila society. The fact is that two thirds of the tickets go to China and the few that are left in Manila
are sold at a premium of a half-real. The honorable gentleman entertains the conviction that some day he will
draw the first prize, and is in a rage at finding himself confronted with such tricks.
The dinner, meanwhile, was drawing to an end. From the dining-room floated into the sala snatches of
toasts, interruptions, bursts and ripples of laughter. The name of Quiroga was often heard mingled with the words
“consul,” “equality,” “justice.” The amphitryon himself did not eat European dishes, so he contented himself with
drinking a glass of wine with his guests from time to time, promising to dine with those who were not seated at
the first table.
Simoun, who was present, having already dined, was in the sala talking with some merchants, who were
complaining of business conditions: everything was going wrong, trade was paralyzed, the European exchanges
were exorbitantly high. They sought information from the jeweler or insinuated to him a few ideas, with the hope
that these would be communicated to the Captain-General. To all the remedies suggested Simoun responded with
a sarcastic and unfeeling exclamation about nonsense, until one of them in exasperation asked him for his opinion.
“My opinion?” he retorted. “Study how other nations prosper, and then do as they do.”
“And why do they prosper, Señor Simoun?”
Simoun replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“The port works, which weigh so heavily upon commerce, and the port not yet completed!” sighed Don
Timoteo Pelaez. “A Penelope’s web, as my son says, that is spun and unspun. The taxes—”
“You complaining!” exclaimed another. “Just as the General has decreed the destruction of houses of
light materials!2 And you with a shipment of galvanized iron!”[151]
“Yes,” rejoined Don Timoteo, “but look what that decree cost me! Then, the destruction will not be
carried out for a month, not until Lent begins, and other shipments may arrive. I would have wished them destroyed
right away, but—Besides, what are the owners of those houses going to buy from me if they are all poor, all
equally beggars?”
“You can always buy up their shacks for a trifle.”
“And afterwards have the decree revoked and sell them back at double the price—that’s business!”
Simoun smiled his frigid smile. Seeing Quiroga approach, he left the querulous merchants to greet the
future consul, who on catching sight of him lost his satisfied expression and assigned a countenance like those of
the merchants, while he bent almost double.
Quiroga respected the jeweler greatly, not only because he knew him to be very wealthy, but also on
account of his rumored influence with the Captain-General. It was reported that Simoun favored Quiroga’s
ambitions, that he was an advocate for the consulate, and a certain newspaper hostile to the Chinese had alluded
to him in many paraphrases, veiled allusions, and suspension points, in the celebrated controversy with another
sheet that was favorable to the queued folk. Some prudent persons added with winks and half-uttered words that
his Black Eminence was advising the General to avail himself of the Chinese in order to humble the tenacious
pride of the natives.
“To hold the people in subjection,” he was reported to have said, “there’s nothing like humiliating them
and humbling them in their own eyes.”
To this end an opportunity had soon presented itself. The guilds of mestizos and natives were continually
watching one another, venting their bellicose spirits and their activities in jealousy and distrust. At mass one day
the gobernadorcillo of the natives was seated on a bench to the right, and, being extremely thin, happened to cross
one of his legs over the other, thus adopting a nonchalant [152]attitude, in order to expose his thighs more and
display his pretty shoes. The gobernadorcillo of the guild of mestizos, who was seated on the opposite bench, as
he had bunions, and could not cross his legs on account of his obesity, spread his legs wide apart to expose a plain
waistcoat adorned with a beautiful gold chain set with diamonds. The two cliques comprehended these maneuvers
and joined battle. On the following Sunday all the mestizos, even the thinnest, had large paunches and spread their
legs wide apart as though on horseback, while the natives placed one leg over the other, even the fattest, there
being one cabeza de barangay who turned a somersault. Seeing these movements, the Chinese all adopted their
own peculiar attitude, that of sitting as they do in their shops, with one leg drawn back and upward, the other
swinging loose. There resulted protests and petitions, the police rushed to arms ready to start a civil war, the
curates rejoiced, the Spaniards were amused and made money out of everybody, until the General settled the
quarrel by ordering that every one should sit as the Chinese did, since they were the heaviest contributors, even
though they were not the best Catholics. The difficulty for the mestizos and natives then was that their trousers
were too tight to permit of their imitating the Chinese. But to make the intention of humiliating them the more
evident, the measure was carried out with great pomp and ceremony, the church being surrounded by a troop of
cavalry, while all those within were sweating. The matter was carried to the Cortes, but it was repeated that the
Chinese, as the ones who paid, should have their way in the religious ceremonies, even though they apostatized
and laughed at Christianity immediately after. The natives and the mestizos had to be content, learning thus not
to waste time over such fatuity.3[153]
Quiroga, with his smooth tongue and humble smile, was lavishly and flatteringly attentive to Simoun.
His voice was caressing and his bows numerous, but the jeweler cut his blandishments short by asking brusquely:
“Did the bracelets suit her?”
At this question all Quiroga’s liveliness vanished like a dream. His caressing voice became plaintive; he
bowed lower, gave the Chinese salutation of raising his clasped hands to the height of his face, and groaned: “Ah,
Señor Simoun! I’m lost, I’m ruined!”4
“How, Quiroga, lost and ruined when you have so many bottles of champagne and so many guests?”
Quiroga closed his eyes and made a grimace. Yes, the affair of that afternoon, that affair of the bracelets,
had ruined him. Simoun smiled, for when a Chinese merchant complains it is because all is going well, and when
he makes a show that things are booming it is quite certain that he is planning an assignment or flight to his own
country.
 “You didn’t know that I’m lost, I’m ruined? Ah, Señor Simoun, I’m busted!” To make his
condition [154]plainer, he illustrated the word by making a movement as though he were falling in collapse.
Simoun wanted to laugh, but restrained himself and said that he knew nothing, nothing at all, as Quiroga
led him to a room and closed the door. He then explained the cause of his misfortune.
Three diamond bracelets that he had secured from Simoun on pretense of showing them to his wife were
not for her, a poor native shut up in her room like a Chinese woman, but for a beautiful and charming lady, the
friend of a powerful man, whose influence was needed by him in a certain deal in which he could clear some six
thousand pesos. As he did not understand feminine tastes and wished to be gallant, the Chinese had asked for the
three finest bracelets the jeweler had, each priced at three to four thousand pesos. With affected simplicity and his
most caressing smile, Quiroga had begged the lady to select the one she liked best, and the lady, more simple and
caressing still, had declared that she liked all three, and had kept them.
Simoun burst out into laughter.
“Ah, sir, I’m lost, I’m ruined!” cried the Chinese, slapping himself lightly with his delicate hands; but
the jeweler continued his laughter.
“Ugh, bad people, surely not a real lady,” went on the Chinaman, shaking his head in disgust. “What!
She has no decency, while me, a Chinaman, me always polite! Ah, surely she not a real lady—a cigarrera has
more decency!”
“They’ve caught you, they’ve caught you!” exclaimed Simoun, poking him in the chest.
“And everybody’s asking for loans and never pays—what about that? Clerks, officials, lieutenants,
soldiers—” he checked them off on his long-nailed fingers—“ah, Señor Simoun, I’m lost, I’m busted!”
“Get out with your complaints,” said Simoun. “I’ve saved you from many officials that wanted money
from you. I’ve lent it to them so that they wouldn’t bother you, even when I knew that they couldn’t pay.”[155]
“But, Señor Simoun, you lend to officials; I lend to women, sailors, everybody.”
“I bet you get your money back.”
“Me, money back? Ah, surely you don’t understand! When it’s lost in gambling they never pay. Besides,
you have a consul, you can force them, but I haven’t.”
Simoun became thoughtful. “Listen, Quiroga,” he said, somewhat abstractedly, “I’ll undertake to collect
what the officers and sailors owe you. Give me their notes.”
Quiroga again fell to whining: they had never given him any notes.
“When they come to you asking for money, send them to me. I want to help you.”
The grateful Quiroga thanked him, but soon fell to lamenting again about the bracelets.
“A cigarrera wouldn’t be so shameless!” he repeated.
“The devil!” exclaimed Simoun, looking askance at the Chinese, as though studying him. “Exactly when
I need the money and thought that you could pay me! But it can all be arranged, as I don’t want you to fail for
such a small amount. Come, a favor, and I’ll reduce to seven the nine thousand pesos you owe me. You can get
anything you wish through the Customs—boxes of lamps, iron, copper, glassware, Mexican pesos—you furnish
arms to the conventos, don’t you?”
The Chinese nodded affirmation, but remarked that he had to do a good deal of bribing. “I furnish the
padres everything!”
“Well, then,” added Simoun in a low voice, “I need you to get in for me some boxes of rifles that arrived
this evening. I want you to keep them in your warehouse; there isn’t room for all of them in my house.”
Quiroga began to show symptoms of fright.
“Don’t get scared, you don’t run any risk. These rifles are to be concealed, a few at a time, in various
dwellings, then a search will be instituted, and many people will be [156]sent to prison. You and I can make a
haul getting them set free. Understand me?”
Quiroga wavered, for he was afraid of firearms. In his desk he had an empty revolver that he never
touched without turning his head away and closing his eyes.
“If you can’t do it, I’ll have to apply to some one else, but then I’ll need the nine thousand pesos to cross
their palms and shut their eyes.”
“All right, all right!” Quiroga finally agreed. “But many people will be arrested? There’ll be a search,
eh?”
When Quiroga and Simoun returned to the sala they found there, in animated conversation, those who
had finished their dinner, for the champagne had loosened their tongues and stirred their brains. They were talking
rather freely.
In a group where there were a number of government clerks, some ladies, and Don Custodio, the topic
was a commission sent to India to make certain investigations about footwear for the soldiers.
“Who compose it?” asked an elderly lady.
“A colonel, two other officers, and his Excellency’s nephew.”
“Four?” rejoined a clerk. “What a commission! Suppose they disagree—are they competent?”
 “That’s what I asked,” replied a clerk. “It’s said that one civilian ought to go, one who has no military
prejudices—a shoemaker, for instance.”
“That’s right,” added an importer of shoes, “but it wouldn’t do to send an Indian or a Chinaman, and the
only Peninsular shoemaker demanded such large fees—”
“But why do they have to make any investigations about footwear?” inquired the elderly lady. “It isn’t
for the Peninsular artillerymen. The Indian soldiers can go barefoot, as they do in their towns.”5[157]
“Exactly so, and the treasury would save more,” corroborated another lady, a widow who was not
satisfied with her pension.
“But you must remember,” remarked another in the group, a friend of the officers on the commission,
“that while it’s true they go barefoot in the towns, it’s not the same as moving about under orders in the service.
They can’t choose the hour, nor the road, nor rest when they wish. Remember, madam, that, with the noonday sun
overhead and the earth below baking like an oven, they have to march over sandy stretches, where there are stones,
the sun above and fire below, bullets in front—”
“It’s only a question of getting used to it!”
“Like the donkey that got used to not eating! In our present campaign the greater part of our losses have
been due to wounds on the soles of the feet. Remember the donkey, madam, remember the donkey!”
“But, my dear sir,” retorted the lady, “look how much money is wasted on shoe-leather. There’s enough
to pension many widows and orphans in order to maintain our prestige. Don’t smile, for I’m not talking about
myself, and I have my pension, even though a very small one, insignificant considering the services my husband
rendered, but I’m talking of others who are dragging out miserable lives! It’s not right that after so much
persuasion to come and so many hardships in crossing the sea they should end here by dying of hunger. What you
say about the soldiers may be true, but the fact is that I’ve been in the country more than three years, and I haven’t
seen any soldier limping.”
“In that I agree with the lady,” said her neighbor. “Why issue them shoes when they were born without
them?”
“And why shirts?”
“And why trousers?”
“Just calculate what we should economize on soldiers clothed only in their skins!” concluded he who
was defending the army.[158]
In another group the conversation was more heated. Ben-Zayb was talking and declaiming, while Padre
Camorra, as usual, was constantly interrupting him. The friar-journalist, in spite of his respect for the cowled
gentry, was always at loggerheads with Padre Camorra, whom he regarded as a silly half-friar, thus giving himself
the appearance of being independent and refuting the accusations of those who called him Fray Ibañez. Padre
Camorra liked his adversary, as the latter was the only person who would take seriously what he styled his
arguments. They were discussing magnetism, spiritualism, magic, and the like. Their words flew through the air
like the knives and balls of jugglers, tossed back and forth from one to the other.
That year great attention had been attracted in the Quiapo fair by a head, wrongly called a sphinx,
exhibited by Mr. Leeds, an American. Glaring advertisements covered the walls of the houses, mysterious and
funereal, to excite the curiosity of the public. Neither Ben-Zayb nor any of the padres had yet seen it; Juanito
Pelaez was the only one who had, and he was describing his wonderment to the party.
Ben-Zayb, as a journalist, looked for a natural explanation. Padre Camorra talked of the devil, Padre
Irene smiled, Padre Salvi remained grave.
“But, Padre, the devil doesn’t need to come—we are sufficient to damn ourselves—”
“It can’t be explained any other way.”
“If science—”
“Get out with science, puñales!”
“But, listen to me and I’ll convince you. It’s all a question of optics. I haven’t yet seen the head nor do I
know how it looks, but this gentleman”—indicating Juanito Pelaez—“tells us that it does not look like the talking
heads that are usually exhibited. So be it! But the principle is the same—it’s all a question of optics. Wait! A
mirror is placed thus, another mirror behind it, [159]the image is reflected—I say, it is purely a problem in
physics.”
Taking down from the walls several mirrors, he arranged them, turned them round and round, but, not
getting the desired result, concluded: “As I say, it’s nothing more or less than a question of optics.”
“But what do you want mirrors for, if Juanito tells us that the head is inside a box placed on the table? I
see in it spiritualism, because the spiritualists always make use of tables, and I think that Padre Salvi, as the
ecclesiastical governor, ought to prohibit the exhibition.”
Padre Salvi remained silent, saying neither yes nor no.
“In order to learn if there are devils or mirrors inside it,” suggested Simoun, “the best thing would be for
you to go and see the famous sphinx.”
 The proposal was a good one, so it was accepted, although Padre Salvi and Don Custodio showed some
repugnance. They at a fair, to rub shoulders with the public, to see sphinxes and talking heads! What would the
natives say? These might take them for mere men, endowed with the same passions and weaknesses as others.
But Ben-Zayb, with his journalistic ingenuity, promised to request Mr. Leeds not to admit the public while they
were inside. They would be honoring him sufficiently by the visit not to admit of his refusal, and besides he would
not charge any admission fee. To give a show of probability to this, he concluded: “Because, remember, if I should
expose the trick of the mirrors to the public, it would ruin the poor American’s business.” Ben-Zayb was a
conscientious individual.
About a dozen set out, among them our acquaintances, Padres Salvi, Camorra, and Irene, Don Custodio,
Ben-Zayb, and Juanito Pelaez. Their carriages set them down at the entrance to the Quiapo Plaza.[160]
1
The patron saint of Spain, St. James.—Tr.
2
Houses of bamboo and nipa, such as form the homes of the masses of the natives.—Tr.
3
“In this paragraph Rizal alludes to an incident that had very serious results. There was annually celebrated in Binondo a certain religious
festival, principally at the expense of the Chinese mestizos. The latter finally petitioned that their gobernadorcillo be given the
presidency [153n]of it, and this was granted, thanks to the fact that the parish priest (the Dominican, Fray José Hevia Campomanes) held
to the opinion that the presidency belonged to those who paid the most. The Tagalogs protested, alleging their better right to it, as the
genuine sons of the country, not to mention the historical precedent, but the friar, who was looking after his own interests, did not yield.
General Terrero (Governor, 1885–1888), at the advice of his liberal councilors, finally had the parish priest removed and for the time
being decided the affair in favor of the Tagalogs. The matter reached the Colonial Office (Ministerio de Ultramar) and the Minister was
not even content merely to settle it in the way the friars desired, but made amends to Padre Hevia by appointing him a bishop.”—W. E.
Retana, who was a journalist in Manila at the time, in a note to this chapter.
Childish and ridiculous as this may appear now, it was far from being so at the time, especially in view of the supreme contempt with which
the pugnacious Tagalog looks down upon the meek and complaisant Chinese and the mortal antipathy that exists between the two races.—
Tr.
4
It is regrettable that Quiroga’s picturesque butchery of Spanish and Tagalog—the dialect of the Manila Chinese—cannot be reproduced here.
Only the thought can be given. There is the same difficulty with r’s, d’s, and l’s that the Chinese show in English.—Tr.
5
Up to the outbreak of the insurrection in 1896, the only genuinely Spanish troops in the islands were a few hundred artillerymen, the rest
being natives, with Spanish officers.—Tr.

The Quiapo Fair

It was a beautiful night and the plaza presented a most animated aspect. Taking advantage of the freshness
of the breeze and the splendor of the January moon, the people filled the fair to see, be seen, and amuse themselves.
The music of the cosmoramas and the lights of the lanterns gave life and merriment to everyone. Long rows of
booths, brilliant with tinsel and gauds, exposed to view clusters of balls, masks strung by the eyes, tin toys, trains,
carts, mechanical horses, carriages, steam-engines with diminutive boilers, Lilliputian tableware of porcelain, pine
Nativities, dolls both foreign and domestic, the former red and smiling, the latter sad and pensive like little ladies
beside gigantic children. The beating of drums, the roar of tin horns, the wheezy music of the accordions and the
hand-organs, all mingled in a carnival concert, amid the coming and going of the crowd, pushing, stumbling over
one another, with their faces turned toward the booths, so that the collisions were frequent and often amusing. The
carriages were forced to move slowly, with the tabí of the cocheros repeated every moment. Met and mingled
government clerks, soldiers, friars, students, Chinese, girls with their mammas or aunts, all greeting, signaling,
calling to one another merrily.
Padre Camorra was in the seventh heaven at the sight of so many pretty girls. He stopped, looked back,
nudged Ben-Zayb, chuckled and swore, saying, “And that one, and that one, my ink-slinger? And that one over
there, what say you?” In his contentment he even fell to using the familiar tu toward his friend and adversary.
Padre [161]Salvi stared at him from time to time, but he took little note of Padre Salvi. On the contrary, he
pretended to stumble so that he might brush against the girls, he winked and made eyes at them.
“Puñales!” he kept saying to himself. “When shall I be the curate of Quiapo?”
Suddenly Ben-Zayb let go an oath, jumped aside, and slapped his hand on his arm; Padre Camorra in his
excess of enthusiasm had pinched him. They were approaching a dazzling señorita who was attracting the attention
of the whole plaza, and Padre Camorra, unable to restrain his delight, had taken Ben-Zayb’s arm as a substitute
for the girl’s.
It was Paulita Gomez, the prettiest of the pretty, in company with Isagani, followed by Doña Victorina.
The young woman was resplendent in her beauty: all stopped and craned their necks, while they ceased their
conversation and followed her with their eyes—even Doña Victorina was respectfully saluted.
Paulita was arrayed in a rich camisa and pañuelo of embroidered piña, different from those she had worn
that morning to the church. The gauzy texture of the piña set off her shapely head, and the Indians who saw her
compared her to the moon surrounded by fleecy clouds. A silk rose-colored skirt, caught up in rich and graceful
folds by her little hand, gave majesty to her erect figure, the movement of which, harmonizing with her curving
neck, displayed all the triumphs of vanity and satisfied coquetry. Isagani appeared to be rather disgusted, for so
many curious eyes fixed upon the beauty of his sweetheart annoyed him. The stares seemed to him robbery and
the girl’s smiles faithlessness.
 Juanito saw her and his hump increased when he spoke to her. Paulita replied negligently, while Doña
Victorina called to him, for Juanito was her favorite, she preferring him to Isagani.
“What a girl, what a girl!” muttered the entranced Padre Camorra.[162]
“Come, Padre, pinch yourself and let me alone,” said Ben-Zayb fretfully.
“What a girl, what a girl!” repeated the friar. “And she has for a sweetheart a pupil of mine, the boy I
had the quarrel with.”
“Just my luck that she’s not of my town,” he added, after turning his head several times to follow her
with his looks. He was even tempted to leave his companions to follow the girl, and Ben-Zayb had difficulty in
dissuading him. Paulita’s beautiful figure moved on, her graceful little head nodding with inborn coquetry.
Our promenaders kept on their way, not without sighs on the part of the friar-artilleryman, until they
reached a booth surrounded by sightseers, who quickly made way for them. It was a shop of little wooden figures,
of local manufacture, representing in all shapes and sizes the costumes, races, and occupations of the country:
Indians, Spaniards, Chinese, mestizos, friars, clergymen, government clerks, gobernadorcillos, students, soldiers,
and so on.
Whether the artists had more affection for the priests, the folds of whose habits were better suited to their
esthetic purposes, or whether the friars, holding such an important place in Philippine life, engaged the attention
of the sculptor more, the fact was that, for one cause or another, images of them abounded, well-turned and
finished, representing them in the sublimest moments of their lives—the opposite of what is done in Europe,
where they are pictured as sleeping on casks of wine, playing cards, emptying tankards, rousing themselves to
gaiety, or patting the cheeks of a buxom girl. No, the friars of the Philippines were different: elegant, handsome,
well-dressed, their tonsures neatly shaven, their features symmetrical and serene, their gaze meditative, their
expression saintly, somewhat rosy-cheeked, cane in hand and patent-leather shoes on their feet, inviting adoration
and a place in a glass case. Instead of the symbols of gluttony and incontinence of their brethren in [163]Europe,
those of Manila carried the book, the crucifix, and the palm of martyrdom; instead of kissing the simple country
lasses, those of Manila gravely extended the hand to be kissed by children and grown men doubled over almost
to kneeling; instead of the full refectory and dining-hall, their stage in Europe, in Manila they had the oratory, the
study-table; instead of the mendicant friar who goes from door to door with his donkey and sack, begging alms,
the friars of the Philippines scattered gold from full hands among the miserable Indians.
“Look, here’s Padre Camorra!” exclaimed Ben-Zayb, upon whom the effect of the champagne still
lingered. He pointed to a picture of a lean friar of thoughtful mien who was seated at a table with his head resting
on the palm of his hand, apparently writing a sermon by the light of a lamp. The contrast suggested drew laughter
from the crowd.
Padre Camorra, who had already forgotten about Paulita, saw what was meant and laughing his clownish
laugh, asked in turn, “Whom does this other figure resemble, Ben-Zayb?”
It was an old woman with one eye, with disheveled hair, seated on the ground like an Indian idol, ironing
clothes. The sad-iron was carefully imitated, being of copper with coals of red tinsel and smoke-wreaths of dirty
twisted cotton.
“Eh, Ben-Zayb, it wasn’t a fool who designed that” asked Padre Camorra with a laugh.
“Well, I don’t see the point,” replied the journalist.
“But, puñales, don’t you see the title, The Philippine Press? That utensil with which the old woman is
ironing is here called the press!”
All laughed at this, Ben-Zayb himself joining in good-naturedly.
Two soldiers of the Civil Guard, appropriately labeled, were placed behind a man who was tightly bound
and had his face covered by his hat. It was entitled The Country of [164]Abaka,1 and from appearances they were
going to shoot him.
Many of our visitors were displeased with the exhibition. They talked of rules of art, they sought
proportion—one said that this figure did not have seven heads, that the face lacked a nose, having only three, all
of which made Padre Camorra somewhat thoughtful, for he did not comprehend how a figure, to be correct, need
have four noses and seven heads. Others said, if they were muscular, that they could not be Indians; still others
remarked that it was not sculpture, but mere carpentry. Each added his spoonful of criticism, until Padre Camorra,
not to be outdone, ventured to ask for at least thirty legs for each doll, because, if the others wanted noses, couldn’t
he require feet? So they fell to discussing whether the Indian had or had not any aptitude for sculpture, and whether
it would be advisable to encourage that art, until there arose a general dispute, which was cut short by Don
Custodio’s declaration that the Indians had the aptitude, but that they should devote themselves exclusively to the
manufacture of saints.
“One would say,” observed Ben-Zayb, who was full of bright ideas that night, “that this Chinaman is
Quiroga, but on close examination it looks like Padre Irene. And what do you say about that British Indian? He
looks like Simoun!”
Fresh peals of laughter resounded, while Padre Irene rubbed his nose.
“That’s right!”
 “It’s the very image of him!”
“But where is Simoun? Simoun should buy it.”
But the jeweler had disappeared, unnoticed by any one.
“Puñales!” exclaimed Padre Camorra, “how stingy the American is! He’s afraid we would make him
pay the admission for all of us into Mr. Leeds’ show.”[165]
“No!” rejoined Ben-Zayb, “what he’s afraid of is that he’ll compromise himself. He may have foreseen
the joke in store for his friend Mr. Leeds and has got out of the way.”
Thus, without purchasing the least trifle, they continued on their way to see the famous sphinx. Ben-
Zayb offered to manage the affair, for the American would not rebuff a journalist who could take revenge in an
unfavorable article. “You’ll see that it’s all a question of mirrors,” he said, “because, you see—” Again he plunged
into a long demonstration, and as he had no mirrors at hand to discredit his theory he tangled himself up in all
kinds of blunders and wound up by not knowing himself what he was saying. “In short, you’ll see how it’s all a
question of optics.”[166]
1
Abaka is the fiber obtained from the leaves of the Musa textilis and is known commercially as Manila hemp. As it is exclusively a product
of the Philippines, it may be taken here to symbolize the country.—Tr.

Legerdemain

Mr. Leeds, a genuine Yankee, dressed completely in black, received his visitors with great deference. He
spoke Spanish well, from having been for many years in South America, and offered no objection to their request,
saying that they might examine everything, both before and after the exhibition, but begged that they remain quiet
while it was in progress. Ben-Zayb smiled in pleasant anticipation of the vexation he had prepared for the
American.
The room, hung entirely in black, was lighted by ancient lamps burning alcohol. A rail wrapped in black
velvet divided it into two almost equal parts, one of which was filled with seats for the spectators and the other
occupied by a platform covered with a checkered carpet. In the center of this platform was placed a table, over
which was spread a piece of black cloth adorned with skulls and cabalistic signs. The mise en scène was therefore
lugubrious and had its effect upon the merry visitors. The jokes died away, they spoke in whispers, and however
much some tried to appear indifferent, their lips framed no smiles. All felt as if they had entered a house where
there was a corpse, an illusion accentuated by an odor of wax and incense. Don Custodio and Padre Salvi consulted
in whispers over the expediency of prohibiting such shows.
Ben-Zayb, in order to cheer the dispirited group and embarrass Mr. Leeds, said to him in a familiar tone:
“Eh, Mister, since there are none but ourselves here and we aren’t Indians who can be fooled, won’t you let us
see [167]the trick? We know of course that it’s purely a question of optics, but as Padre Camorra won’t be
convinced—”
Here he started to jump over the rail, instead of going through the proper opening, while Padre Camorra
broke out into protests, fearing that Ben-Zayb might be right.
“And why not, sir?” rejoined the American. “But don’t break anything, will you?”
The journalist was already on the platform. “You will allow me, then?” he asked, and without waiting
for the permission, fearing that it might not be granted, raised the cloth to look for the mirrors that he expected
should be between the legs of the table. Ben-Zayb uttered an exclamation and stepped back, again placed both
hands under the table and waved them about; he encountered only empty space. The table had three thin iron legs,
sunk into the floor.
The journalist looked all about as though seeking something.
“Where are the mirrors?” asked Padre Camorra.
Ben-Zayb looked and looked, felt the table with his fingers, raised the cloth again, and rubbed his hand
over his forehead from time to time, as if trying to remember something.
“Have you lost anything?” inquired Mr. Leeds.
“The mirrors, Mister, where are the mirrors?”
“I don’t know where yours are—mine are at the hotel. Do you want to look at yourself? You’re somewhat
pale and excited.”
Many laughed, in spite of their weird impressions, on seeing the jesting coolness of the American, while
Ben-Zayb retired, quite abashed, to his seat, muttering, “It can’t be. You’ll see that he doesn’t do it without mirrors.
The table will have to be changed later.”
Mr. Leeds placed the cloth on the table again and turning toward his illustrious audience, asked them,
“Are you satisfied? May we begin?”
“Hurry up! How cold-blooded he is!” said the widow.[168]
“Then, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats and get your questions ready.”
 Mr. Leeds disappeared through a doorway and in a few moments returned with a black box of worm-
eaten wood, covered with inscriptions in the form of birds, beasts, and human heads.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began solemnly, “once having had occasion to visit the great pyramid of
Khufu, a Pharaoh of the fourth dynasty, I chanced upon a sarcophagus of red granite in a forgotten chamber. My
joy was great, for I thought that I had found a royal mummy, but what was my disappointment on opening the
coffin, at the cost of infinite labor, to find nothing more than this box, which you may examine.”
He handed the box to those in the front row. Padre Camorra drew back in loathing, Padre Salvi looked
at it closely as if he enjoyed sepulchral things, Padre Irene smiled a knowing smile, Don Custodio affected gravity
and disdain, while Ben-Zayb hunted for his mirrors—there they must be, for it was a question of mirrors.
“It smells like a corpse,” observed one lady, fanning herself furiously. “Ugh!”
“It smells of forty centuries,” remarked some one with emphasis.
Ben-Zayb forgot about his mirrors to discover who had made this remark. It was a military official who
had read the history of Napoleon.
Ben-Zayb felt jealous and to utter another epigram that might annoy Padre Camorra a little said, “It
smells of the Church.”
“This box, ladies and gentlemen,” continued the American, “contained a handful of ashes and a piece of
papyrus on which were written some words. Examine them yourselves, but I beg of you not to breathe heavily,
because if any of the dust is lost my sphinx will appear in a mutilated condition.”
The humbug, described with such seriousness and conviction, [169]was gradually having its effect, so
much so that when the box was passed around, no one dared to breathe. Padre Camorra, who had so often depicted
from the pulpit of Tiani the torments and sufferings of hell, while he laughed in his sleeves at the terrified looks
of the sinners, held his nose, and Padre Salvi—the same Padre Salvi who had on All Souls’ Day prepared a
phantasmagoria of the souls in purgatory with flames and transparencies illuminated with alcohol lamps and
covered with tinsel, on the high altar of the church in a suburb, in order to get alms and orders for masses—the
lean and taciturn Padre Salvi held his breath and gazed suspiciously at that handful of ashes.
“Memento, homo, quia pulvis es!” muttered Padre Irene with a smile.
“Pish!” sneered Ben-Zayb—the same thought had occurred to him, and the Canon had taken the words
out of his mouth.
“Not knowing what to do,” resumed Mr. Leeds, closing the box carefully, “I examined the papyrus and
discovered two words whose meaning was unknown to me. I deciphered them, and tried to pronounce them aloud.
Scarcely had I uttered the first word when I felt the box slipping from my hands, as if pressed down by an
enormous weight, and it glided along the floor, whence I vainly endeavored to remove it. But my surprise was
converted into terror when it opened and I found within a human head that stared at me fixedly. Paralyzed with
fright and uncertain what to do in the presence of such a phenomenon, I remained for a time stupefied, trembling
like a person poisoned with mercury, but after a while recovered myself and, thinking that it was a vain illusion,
tried to divert my attention by reading the second word. Hardly had I pronounced it when the box closed, the head
disappeared, and in its place I again found the handful of ashes. Without suspecting it I had discovered the two
most potent words in nature, the words of creation and destruction, of life and of death!”[170]
He paused for a few moments to note the effect of his story, then with grave and measured steps
approached the table and placed the mysterious box upon it.
“The cloth, Mister!” exclaimed the incorrigible Ben-Zayb.
“Why not?” rejoined Mr. Leeds, very complaisantly.
Lifting the box with his right hand, he caught up the cloth with his left, completely exposing the table
sustained by its three legs. Again he placed the box upon the center and with great gravity turned to his audience.
“Here’s what I want to see,” said Ben-Zayb to his neighbor. “You notice how he makes some excuse.”
Great attention was depicted on all countenances and silence reigned. The noise and roar of the street
could be distinctly heard, but all were so affected that a snatch of dialogue which reached them produced no effect.
“Why can’t we go in?” asked a woman’s voice.
“Abá, there’s a lot of friars and clerks in there,” answered a man. “The sphinx is for them only.”
“The friars are inquisitive too,” said the woman’s voice, drawing away. “They don’t want us to know
how they’re being fooled. Why, is the head a friar’s querida?”
In the midst of a profound silence the American announced in a tone of emotion: “Ladies and gentlemen,
with a word I am now going to reanimate the handful of ashes, and you will talk with a being that knows the past,
the present, and much of the future!”
Here the prestidigitator uttered a soft cry, first mournful, then lively, a medley of sharp sounds like
imprecations and hoarse notes like threats, which made Ben-Zayb’s hair stand on end.
“Deremof!” cried the American.
The curtains on the wall rustled, the lamps burned low, the table creaked. A feeble groan responded from
the interior of the box. Pale and uneasy, all stared at one another, while one terrified señora caught hold of Padre
Salvi.[171]
 The box then opened of its own accord and presented to the eyes of the audience a head of cadaverous
aspect, surrounded by long and abundant black hair. It slowly opened its eyes and looked around the whole
audience. Those eyes had a vivid radiance, accentuated by their cavernous sockets, and, as if deep were calling
unto deep, fixed themselves upon the profound, sunken eyes of the trembling Padre Salvi, who was staring
unnaturally, as though he saw a ghost.
“Sphinx,” commanded Mr. Leeds, “tell the audience who you are.”
A deep silence prevailed, while a chill wind blew through the room and made the blue flames of the
sepulchral lamps flicker. The most skeptical shivered.
“I am Imuthis,” declared the head in a funereal, but strangely menacing, voice. “I was born in the time
of Amasis and died under the Persian domination, when Cambyses was returning from his disastrous expedition
into the interior of Libya. I had come to complete my education after extensive travels through Greece, Assyria,
and Persia, and had returned to my native laud to dwell in it until Thoth should call me before his terrible tribunal.
But to my undoing, on passing through Babylonia, I discovered an awful secret—the secret of the false Smerdis
who usurped the throne, the bold Magian Gaumata who governed as an impostor. Fearing that I would betray him
to Cambyses, he determined upon my ruin through the instrumentality of the Egyptian priests, who at that time
ruled my native country. They were the owners of two-thirds of the land, the monopolizers of learning, they held
the people down in ignorance and tyranny, they brutalized them, thus making them fit to pass without resistance
from one domination to another. The invaders availed themselves of them, and knowing their usefulness, protected
and enriched them. The rulers not only depended on their will, but some were reduced to mere instruments of
theirs. The Egyptian priests hastened to execute Gaumata’s orders, with greater [172]zeal from their fear of me,
because they were afraid that I would reveal their impostures to the people. To accomplish their purpose, they
made use of a young priest of Abydos, who passed for a saint.”
A painful silence followed these words. That head was talking of priestly intrigues and impostures, and
although referring to another age and other creeds, all the friars present were annoyed, possibly because they could
see in the general trend of the speech some analogy to the existing situation. Padre Salvi was in the grip of
convulsive shivering; he worked his lips and with bulging eyes followed the gaze of the head as though fascinated.
Beads of sweat began to break out on his emaciated face, but no one noticed this, so deeply absorbed and affected
were they.
“What was the plot concocted by the priests of your country against you?” asked Mr. Leeds.
The head uttered a sorrowful groan, which seemed to come from the bottom of the heart, and the
spectators saw its eyes, those fiery eyes, clouded and filled with tears. Many shuddered and felt their hair rise. No,
that was not an illusion, it was not a trick: the head was the victim and what it told was its own story.
“Ay!” it moaned, shaking with affliction, “I loved a maiden, the daughter of a priest, pure as light, like
the freshly opened lotus! The young priest of Abydos also desired her and planned a rebellion, using my name
and some papyri that he had secured from my beloved. The rebellion broke out at the time when Cambyses was
returning in rage over the disasters of his unfortunate campaign. I was accused of being a rebel, was made a
prisoner, and having effected my escape was killed in the chase on Lake Moeris. From out of eternity I saw the
imposture triumph. I saw the priest of Abydos night and day persecuting the maiden, who had taken refuge in a
temple of Isis on the island of Philae. I saw him persecute and harass her, even in the subterranean chambers, I
saw him drive her mad with terror and suffering, like a huge bat pursuing a white dove. [173]Ah, priest, priest of
Abydos, I have returned to life to expose your infamy, and after so many years of silence, I name thee murderer,
hypocrite, liar!”
A dry, hollow laugh accompanied these words, while a choked voice responded, “No! Mercy!”
It was Padre Salvi, who had been overcome with terror and with arms extended was slipping in collapse
to the floor.
“What’s the matter with your Reverence? Are you ill?” asked Padre Irene.
“The heat of the room—”
“This odor of corpses we’re breathing here—”
“Murderer, slanderer, hypocrite!” repeated the head. “I accuse you—murderer, murderer, murderer!”
Again the dry laugh, sepulchral and menacing, resounded, as though that head were so absorbed in
contemplation of its wrongs that it did not see the tumult that prevailed in the room.
“Mercy! She still lives!” groaned Padre Salvi, and then lost consciousness. He was as pallid as a corpse.
Some of the ladies thought it their duty to faint also, and proceeded to do so.
“He is out of his head! Padre Salvi!”
“I told him not to eat that bird’s-nest soup,” said Padre Irene. “It has made him sick.”
“But he didn’t eat anything,” rejoined Don Custodio shivering. “As the head has been staring at him
fixedly, it has mesmerized him.”
So disorder prevailed, the room seemed to be a hospital or a battlefield. Padre Salvi looked like a corpse,
and the ladies, seeing that no one was paying them any attention, made the best of it by recovering.
 Meanwhile, the head had been reduced to ashes, and Mr. Leeds, having replaced the cloth on the table,
bowed his audience out.
“This show must be prohibited,” said Don Custodio on leaving. “It’s wicked and highly immoral.”[174]
“And above all, because it doesn’t use mirrors,” added Ben-Zayb, who before going out of the room tried
to assure himself finally, so he leaped over the rail, went up to the table, and raised the cloth: nothing, absolutely
nothing!1 On the following day he wrote an article in which he spoke of occult sciences, spiritualism, and the like.
An order came immediately from the ecclesiastical governor prohibiting the show, but Mr. Leeds had
already disappeared, carrying his secret with him to Hongkong.[175]
1
Yet Ben-Zayb was not very much mistaken. The three legs of the table have grooves in them in which slide the mirrors hidden below the
platform and covered by the squares of the carpet. By placing the box upon the table a spring is pressed and the mirrors rise gently. The
cloth is then removed, with care to raise it instead of letting it slide off, and then there is the ordinary table of the talking heads. The table
is connected with the bottom of the box. The exhibition ended, the prestidigitator again covers the table, presses another spring, and the
mirrors descend.—Author’s note.

The Fuse

Placido Penitente left the class with his heart overflowing with bitterness and sullen gloom in his looks.
He was worthy of his name when not driven from his usual course, but once irritated he was a veritable torrent, a
wild beast that could only be stopped by the death of himself or his foe. So many affronts, so many pinpricks, day
after day, had made his heart quiver, lodging in it to sleep the sleep of lethargic vipers, and they now were awaking
to shake and hiss with fury. The hisses resounded in his ears with the jesting epithets of the professor, the phrases
in the slang of the markets, and he seemed to hear blows and laughter. A thousand schemes for revenge rushed
into his brain, crowding one another, only to fade immediately like phantoms in a dream. His vanity cried out to
him with desperate tenacity that he must do something.
“Placido Penitente,” said the voice, “show these youths that you have dignity, that you are the son of a
valiant and noble province, where wrongs are washed out with blood. You’re a Batangan, Placido Penitente!
Avenge yourself, Placido Penitente!”
The youth groaned and gnashed his teeth, stumbling against every one in the street and on the Bridge of
Spain, as if he were seeking a quarrel. In the latter place he saw a carriage in which was the Vice-Rector, Padre
Sibyla, accompanied by Don Custodio, and he had a great mind to seize the friar and throw him into the river.
He proceeded along the Escolta and was tempted to assault two Augustinians who were seated in the
doorway [176]of Quiroga’s bazaar, laughing and joking with other friars who must have been inside in joyous
conversation, for their merry voices and sonorous laughter could be heard. Somewhat farther on, two cadets
blocked up the sidewalk, talking with the clerk of a warehouse, who was in his shirtsleeves. Penitents moved
toward them to force a passage and they, perceiving his dark intention, good-humoredly made way for him.
Placido was by this time under the influence of the amok, as the Malayists say.
As he approached his home—the house of a silversmith where he lived as a boarder—he tried to collect
his thoughts and make a plan—to return to his town and avenge himself by showing the friars that they could not
with impunity insult a youth or make a joke of him. He decided to write a letter immediately to his mother,
Cabesang Andang, to inform her of what had happened and to tell her that the schoolroom had closed forever for
him. Although there was the Ateneo of the Jesuits, where he might study that year, yet it was not very likely that
the Dominicans would grant him the transfer, and, even though he should secure it, in the following year he would
have to return to the University.
“They say that we don’t know how to avenge ourselves!” he muttered. “Let the lightning strike and we’ll
see!”
But Placido was not reckoning upon what awaited him in the house of the silversmith. Cabesang Andang
had just arrived from Batangas, having come to do some shopping, to visit her son, and to bring him money, jerked
venison, and silk handkerchiefs.
The first greetings over, the poor woman, who had at once noticed her son’s gloomy look, could no
longer restrain her curiosity and began to ask questions. His first explanations Cabesang Andang regarded as some
subterfuge, so she smiled and soothed her son, reminding him of their sacrifices and privations. She spoke of
Capitana Simona’s son, who, having entered the seminary, now carried himself in the town like a bishop, and
Capitana Simona already [177]considered herself a Mother of God, clearly so, for her son was going to be another
Christ.
“If the son becomes a priest,” said she, “the mother won’t have to pay us what she owes us. Who will
collect from her then?”
But on seeing that Placido was speaking seriously and reading in his eyes the storm that raged within
him, she realized that what he was telling her was unfortunately the strict truth. She remained silent for a while
and then broke out into lamentations.
 “Ay!” she exclaimed. “I promised your father that I would care for you, educate you, and make a lawyer
of you! I’ve deprived myself of everything so that you might go to school! Instead of joining the panguingui where
the stake is a half peso, I Ve gone only where it’s a half real, enduring the bad smells and the dirty cards. Look at
my patched camisa; for instead of buying new ones I’ve spent the money in masses and presents to St. Sebastian,
even though I don’t have great confidence in his power, because the curate recites the masses fast and hurriedly,
he’s an entirely new saint and doesn’t yet know how to perform miracles, and isn’t made of batikulin but
of lanete. Ay, what will your father say to me when I die and see him again!”
So the poor woman lamented and wept, while Placido became gloomier and let stifled sighs escape from
his breast.
“What would I get out of being a lawyer?” was his response.
“What will become of you?” asked his mother, clasping her hands. “They’ll call you a filibuster and
garrote you. I’ve told you that you must have patience, that you must be humble. I don’t tell you that you must
kiss the hands of the curates, for I know that you have a delicate sense of smell, like your father, who couldn’t
endure European cheese.1 But we have to suffer, to be silent, to say yes [178]to everything. What are we going to
do? The friars own everything, and if they are unwilling, no one will become a lawyer or a doctor. Have patience,
my son, have patience!”
“But I’ve had a great deal, mother, I’ve suffered for months and months.”
Cabesang Andang then resumed her lamentations. She did not ask that he declare himself a partizan of
the friars, she was not one herself—it was enough to know that for one good friar there were ten bad, who took
the money from the poor and deported the rich. But one must be silent, suffer, and endure—there was no other
course. She cited this man and that one, who by being patient and humble, even though in the bottom of his heart
he hated his masters, had risen from servant of the friars to high office; and such another who was rich and could
commit abuses, secure of having patrons who would protect him from the law, yet who had been nothing more
than a poor sacristan, humble and obedient, and who had married a pretty girl whose son had the curate for a
godfather. So Cabesang Andang continued her litany of humble and patient Filipinos, as she called them, and was
about to cite others who by not being so had found themselves persecuted and exiled, when Placido on some
trifling pretext left the house to wander about the streets.
He passed through Sibakong,2 Tondo, San Nicolas, and Santo Cristo, absorbed in his ill-humor, without
taking note of the sun or the hour, and only when he began to feel hungry and discovered that he had no money,
having given it all for celebrations and contributions, did he return to the house. He had expected that he would
not meet his mother there, as she was in the habit, when in Manila, of going out at that hour to a neighboring
house where [179]panguingui was played, but Cabesang Andang was waiting to propose her plan. She would
avail herself of the procurator of the Augustinians to restore her son to the good graces of the Dominicans.
Placido stopped her with a gesture. “I’ll throw myself into the sea first,” he declared. “I’ll become a
tulisan before I’ll go back to the University.”
Again his mother began her preachment about patience and humility, so he went away again without
having eaten anything, directing his steps toward the quay where the steamers tied up. The sight of a steamer
weighing anchor for Hongkong inspired him with an idea—to go to Hongkong, to run away, get rich there, and
make war on the friars.
The thought of Hongkong awoke in his mind the recollection of a story about frontals, cirials, and
candelabra of pure silver, which the piety of the faithful had led them to present to a certain church. The friars, so
the silversmith told, had sent to Hongkong to have duplicate frontals, cirials, and candelabra made of German
silver, which they substituted for the genuine ones, these being melted down and coined into Mexican pesos. Such
was the story he had heard, and though it was no more than a rumor or a story, his resentment gave it the color of
truth and reminded him of other tricks of theirs in that same style. The desire to live free, and certain half-formed
plans, led him to decide upon Hongkong. If the corporations sent all their money there, commerce must be
flourishing and he could enrich himself.
“I want to be free, to live free!”
Night surprised him wandering along San Fernando, but not meeting any sailor he knew, he decided to
return home. As the night was beautiful, with a brilliant moon transforming the squalid city into a fantastic fairy
kingdom, he went to the fair. There he wandered back and forth, passing booths without taking any notice of the
articles in them, ever with the thought of Hongkong, of living free, of enriching himself.[180]
He was about to leave the fair when he thought he recognized the jeweler Simoun bidding good-by to a
foreigner, both of them speaking in English. To Placido every language spoken in the Philippines by Europeans,
when not Spanish, had to be English, and besides, he caught the name Hongkong. If only the jeweler would
recommend him to that foreigner, who must be setting out for Hongkong!
Placido paused. He was acquainted with the jeweler, as the latter had been in his town peddling his wares,
and he had accompanied him on one of his trips, when Simoun had made himself very amiable indeed, telling him
of the life in the universities of the free countries—what a difference!
So he followed the jeweler. “Señor Simoun, Señor Simoun!” he called.
 The jeweler was at that moment entering his carriage. Recognizing Placido, he checked himself.
“I want to ask a favor of you, to say a few words to you.”
Simoun made a sign of impatience which Placido in his perturbation did not observe. In a few words the
youth related what had happened and made known his desire to go to Hongkong.
“Why?” asked Simoun, staring fixedly at Placido through his blue goggles.
Placido did not answer, so Simoun threw back his head, smiled his cold, silent smile and said, “All right!
Come with me. To Calle Iris!” he directed the cochero.
Simoun remained silent throughout the whole drive, apparently absorbed in meditation of a very
important nature. Placido kept quiet, waiting for him to speak first, and entertained himself in watching the
promenaders who were enjoying the clear moonlight: pairs of infatuated lovers, followed by watchful mammas
or aunts; groups of students in white clothes that the moonlight made whiter still; half-drunken soldiers in a
carriage, six together, on their way to visit some nipa temple dedicated to Cytherea; [181]children playing their
games and Chinese selling sugar-cane. All these filled the streets, taking on in the brilliant moonlight fantastic
forms and ideal outlines. In one house an orchestra was playing waltzes, and couples might be seen dancing under
the bright lamps and chandeliers—what a sordid spectacle they presented in comparison with the sight the streets
afforded! Thinking of Hongkong, he asked himself if the moonlit nights in that island were so poetical and sweetly
melancholy as those of the Philippines, and a deep sadness settled down over his heart.
Simoun ordered the carriage to stop and both alighted, just at the moment when Isagani and Paulita
Gomez passed them murmuring sweet inanities. Behind them came Doña Victorina with Juanito Pelaez, who was
talking in a loud voice, busily gesticulating, and appearing to have a larger hump than ever. In his preoccupation
Pelaez did not notice his former schoolmate.
“There’s a fellow who’s happy!” muttered Placido with a sigh, as he gazed toward the group, which
became converted into vaporous silhouettes, with Juanito’s arms plainly visible, rising and falling like the arms
of a windmill.
“That’s all he’s good for,” observed Simoun. “It’s fine to be young!”
To whom did Placido and Simoun each allude?
The jeweler made a sign to the young man, and they left the street to pick their way through a labyrinth
of paths and passageways among various houses, at times leaping upon stones to avoid the mudholes or stepping
aside from the sidewalks that were badly constructed and still more badly tended. Placido was surprised to see the
rich jeweler move through such places as if he were familiar with them. They at length reached an open lot where
a wretched hut stood off by itself surrounded by banana-plants and areca-palms. Some bamboo frames and
sections of the same material led Placido to suspect that they were approaching the house of a pyrotechnist.[182]
Simoun rapped on the window and a man’s face appeared.
“Ah, sir!” he exclaimed, and immediately came outside.
“Is the powder here?” asked Simoun.
“In sacks. I’m waiting for the shells.”
“And the bombs?”
“Are all ready.”
“All right, then. This very night you must go and inform the lieutenant and the corporal. Then keep on
your way, and in Lamayan you will find a man in a banka. You will say Cabesa and he will answer Tales. It’s
necessary that he be here tomorrow. There’s no time to be lost.”
Saying this, he gave him some gold coins.
“How’s this, sir?” the man inquired in very good Spanish. “Is there any news?”
“Yes, it’ll be done within the coming week.”
“The coming week!” exclaimed the unknown, stepping backward. “The suburbs are not yet ready, they
hope that the General will withdraw the decree. I thought it was postponed until the beginning of Lent.”
Simoun shook his head. “We won’t need the suburbs,” he said. “With Cabesang Tales’ people, the ex-
carbineers, and a regiment, we’ll have enough. Later, Maria Clara may be dead. Start at once!”
The man disappeared. Placido, who had stood by and heard all of this brief interview, felt his hair rise
and stared with startled eyes at Simoun, who smiled.
“You’re surprised,” he said with his icy smile, “that this Indian, so poorly dressed, speaks Spanish well?
He was a schoolmaster who persisted in teaching Spanish to the children and did not stop until he had lost his
position and had been deported as a disturber of the public peace, and for having been a friend of the unfortunate
Ibarra. I got him back from his deportation, where he had been working as a pruner of coconut-palms, and have
made him a pyrotechnist.”
They returned to the street and set out for Trozo. Before [183]a wooden house of pleasant and well-kept
appearance was a Spaniard on crutches, enjoying the moonlight. When Simoun accosted him, his attempt to rise
was accompanied by a stifled groan.
“You’re ready?” Simoun inquired of him.
“I always am!”
 “The coming week?”
“So soon?”
“At the first cannon-shot!”
He moved away, followed by Placido, who was beginning to ask himself if he were not dreaming.
“Does it surprise you,” Simoun asked him, “to see a Spaniard so young and so afflicted with disease?
Two years ago he was as robust as you are, but his enemies succeeded in sending him to Balabak to work in a
penal settlement, and there he caught the rheumatism and fever that are dragging him into the grave. The poor
devil had married a very beautiful woman.”
As an empty carriage was passing, Simoun hailed it and with Placido directed it to his house in the
Escolta, just at the moment when the clocks were striking half-past ten.
Two hours later Placido left the jeweler’s house and walked gravely and thoughtfully along the Escolta,
then almost deserted, in spite of the fact that the cafés were still quite animated. Now and then a carriage passed
rapidly, clattering noisily over the worn pavement.
From a room in his house that overlooked the Pasig, Simoun turned his gaze toward the Walled City,
which could be seen through the open windows, with its roofs of galvanized iron gleaming in the moonlight and
its somber towers showing dull and gloomy in the midst of the serene night. He laid aside his blue goggles, and
his white hair, like a frame of silver, surrounded his energetic bronzed features, dimly lighted by a lamp whose
flame was dying out from lack of oil. Apparently wrapped in thought, he took no notice of the fading light and
impending darkness.[184]
“Within a few days,” he murmured, “when on all sides that accursed city is burning, den of presumptuous
nothingness and impious exploitation of the ignorant and the distressed, when the tumults break out in the suburbs
and there rush into the terrorized streets my avenging hordes, engendered by rapacity and wrongs, then will I burst
the walls of your prison, I will tear you from the clutches of fanaticism, and my white dove, you will be the
Phoenix that will rise from the glowing embers! A revolution plotted by men in darkness tore me from your side—
another revolution will sweep me into your arms and revive me! That moon, before reaching the apogee of its
brilliance, will light the Philippines cleansed of loathsome filth!”
Simoun, stopped suddenly, as though interrupted. A voice in his inner consciousness was asking if he,
Simoun, were not also a part of the filth of that accursed city, perhaps its most poisonous ferment. Like the dead
who are to rise at the sound of the last trumpet, a thousand bloody specters—desperate shades of murdered men,
women violated, fathers torn from their families, vices stimulated and encouraged, virtues mocked, now rose in
answer to the mysterious question. For the first time in his criminal career, since in Havana he had by means of
corruption and bribery set out to fashion an instrument for the execution of his plans—a man without faith,
patriotism, or conscience—for the first time in that life, something within rose up and protested against his actions.
He closed his eyes and remained for some time motionless, then rubbed his hand over his forehead, tried to be
deaf to his conscience, and felt fear creeping over him. No, he must not analyze himself, he lacked the courage to
turn his gaze toward his past. The idea of his courage, his conviction, his self-confidence failing him at the very
moment when his work was set before him! As the ghosts of the wretches in whose misfortunes he had taken a
hand continued to hover before his eyes, as if issuing from the shining surface of the river to invade the room with
appeals and hands extended toward [185]him, as reproaches and laments seemed to fill the air with threats and
cries for vengeance, he turned his gaze from the window and for the first time began to tremble.
“No, I must be ill, I can’t be feeling well,” he muttered. “There are many who hate me, who ascribe their
misfortunes to me, but—”
He felt his forehead begin to burn, so he arose to approach the window and inhale the fresh night breeze.
Below him the Pasig dragged along its silvered stream, on whose bright surface the foam glittered, winding slowly
about, receding and advancing, following the course of the little eddies. The city loomed up on the opposite bank,
and its black walls looked fateful, mysterious, losing their sordidness in the moonlight that idealizes and
embellishes everything. But again Simoun shivered; he seemed to see before him the severe countenance of his
father, dying in prison, but dying for having done good; then the face of another man, severer still, who had given
his life for him because he believed that he was going to bring about the regeneration of his country.
“No, I can’t turn back,” he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “The work is at hand
and its success will justify me! If I had conducted myself as you did, I should have succumbed. Nothing of
idealism, nothing of fallacious theories! Fire and steel to the cancer, chastisement to vice, and afterwards destroy
the instrument, if it be bad! No, I have planned well, but now I feel feverish, my reason wavers, it is natural—If I
have done ill, it has been that I may do good, and the end justifies the means. What I will do is not to expose
myself—”
With his thoughts thus confused he lay down, and tried to fall asleep.
On the following morning Placido listened submissively, with a smile on his lips, to his mother’s
preachment. When she spoke of her plan of interesting the Augustinian procurator he did not protest or object, but
on the contrary offered himself to carry it out, in order to save trouble for [186]his mother, whom he begged to
return at once to the province, that very day, if possible. Cabesang Andang asked him the reason for such haste.
 “Because—because if the procurator learns that you are here he won’t do anything until you send him a
present and order some masses.”[187]
1
The Malay method of kissing is quite different from the Occidental. The mouth is placed close to the object and a deep breath taken,
often [178n]without actually touching the object, being more of a sniff than a kiss.—Tr.
2
Now Calle Tetuan, Santa Cruz. The other names are still in use.—Tr.

The Arbiter

True it was that Padre Irene had said: the question of the academy of Castilian, so long before broached,
was on the road to a solution. Don Custodio, the active Don Custodio, the most active of all the arbiters in the
world, according to Ben-Zayb, was occupied with it, spending his days reading the petition and falling asleep
without reaching any decision, waking on the following day to repeat the same performance, dropping off to sleep
again, and so on continuously.
How the good man labored, the most active of all the arbiters in the world! He wished to get out of the
predicament by pleasing everybody—the friars, the high official, the Countess, Padre Irene, and his own liberal
principles. He had consulted with Señor Pasta, and Señor Pasta had left him stupefied and confused, after advising
him to do a million contradictory and impossible things. He had consulted with Pepay the dancing girl, and Pepay,
who had no idea what he was talking about, executed a pirouette and asked him for twenty-five pesos to bury an
aunt of hers who had suddenly died for the fifth time, or the fifth aunt who had suddenly died, according to fuller
explanations, at the same time requesting that he get a cousin of hers who could read, write, and play the violin, a
job as assistant on the public works—all things that were far from inspiring Don Custodio with any saving idea.
Two days after the events in the Quiapo fair, Don Custodio was as usual busily studying the petition,
without hitting upon the happy solution. While he yawns, coughs, smokes, and thinks about Pepay’s legs and her
pirouettes, [188]let us give some account of this exalted personage, in order to understand Padre Sibyla’s reason
for proposing him as the arbiter of such a vexatious matter and why the other clique accepted him.
Don Custodio de Salazar y Sanchez de Monteredondo, often referred to as Good Authority, belonged to
that class of Manila society which cannot take a step without having the newspapers heap titles upon them, calling
each indedefatigable, distinguished, zealous, active, profound, intelligent, well-informed, influential, and so on,
as if they feared that he might be confused with some idle and ignorant possessor of the same name. Besides, no
harm resulted from it, and the watchful censor was not disturbed. The Good Authority resulted from his friendship
with Ben-Zayb, when the latter, in his two noisiest controversies, which he carried on for weeks and months in
the columns of the newspapers about whether it was proper to wear a high hat, a derby, or a salakot, and whether
the plural of carácter should be carácteres or caractéres, in order to strengthen his argument always came out
with, “We have this on good authority,” “We learn this from good authority,” later letting it be known, for in
Manila everything becomes known, that this Good Authority was no other than Don Custodio de Salazar y Sanchez
de Monteredondo.
He had come to Manila very young, with a good position that had enabled him to marry a pretty mestiza
belonging to one of the wealthiest families of the city. As he had natural talent, boldness, and great self-possession,
and knew how to make use of the society in which he found himself, he launched into business with his wife’s
money, filling contracts for the government, by reason of which he was made alderman, afterwards alcalde,
member of the Economic Society,1 councilor of the administration, president [189]of the directory of the Obras
Pias,2 member of the Society of Mercy, director of the Spanish-Filipino Bank, etc., etc. Nor are these etceteras to
be taken like those ordinarily placed after a long enumeration of titles: Don Custodio, although never having seen
a treatise on hygiene, came to be vice-chairman of the Board of Health, for the truth was that of the eight who
composed this board only one had to be a physician and he could not be that one. So also he was a member of the
Vaccination Board, which was composed of three physicians and seven laymen, among these being the
Archbishop and three Provincials. He was a brother in all the confraternities of the common and of the most
exalted dignity, and, as we have seen, director of the Superior Commission of Primary Instruction, which usually
did not do anything—all these being quite sufficient reason for the newspapers to heap adjectives upon him no
less when he traveled than when he sneezed.
In spite of so many offices, Don Custodio was not among those who slept through the sessions, contenting
themselves, like lazy and timid delegates, in voting with the majority. The opposite of the numerous kings of
Europe who bear the title of King of Jerusalem, Don Custodio made his dignity felt and got from it all the benefit
possible, often frowning, making his voice impressive, coughing out his words, often taking up the whole session
telling a story, presenting a project, or disputing with a colleague who had placed himself in open opposition to
him. Although not past forty, he already talked of acting with circumspection, of letting the figs ripen (adding
under his breath “pumpkins”), of pondering deeply and of stepping with careful tread, of the necessity for
understanding the country, because the nature of the Indians, because the prestige of the Spanish name, because
they were first of all Spaniards, because religion—and so on. Remembered yet in Manila is a speech of his when
for the first time it was proposed to [190]light the city with kerosene in place of the old coconut oil: in such an
innovation, far from seeing the extinction of the coconut-oil industry, he merely discerned the interests of a certain
alderman—because Don Custodio saw a long way—and opposed it with all the resonance of his bucal cavity,
considering the project too premature and predicting great social cataclysms. No less celebrated was his opposition
to a sentimental serenade that some wished to tender a certain governor on the eve of his departure. Don Custodio,
who felt a little resentment over some slight or other, succeeded in insinuating the idea that the rising star was the
mortal enemy of the setting one, whereat the frightened promoters of the serenade gave it up.
One day he was advised to return to Spain to be cured of a liver complaint, and the newspapers spoke of
him as an Antaeus who had to set foot in the mother country to gain new strength. But the Manila Antaeus found
himself a small and insignificant person at the capital. There he was nobody, and he missed his beloved adjectives.
He did not mingle with the upper set, and his lack of education prevented him from amounting to much in the
academies and scientific centers, while his backwardness and his parish-house politics drove him from the clubs
disgusted, vexed, seeing nothing clearly but that there they were forever borrowing money and gambling heavily.
He missed the submissive servants of Manila, who endured all his peevishness, and who now seemed to be far
preferable; when a winter kept him between a fireplace and an attack of pneumonia, he sighed for the Manila
winter during which a single quilt is sufficient, while in summer he missed the easy-chair and the boy to fan him.
In short, in Madrid he was only one among many, and in spite of his diamonds he was once taken for a rustic who
did not know how to comport himself and at another time for an Indiano. His scruples were scoffed at, and he was
shamelessly flouted by some borrowers whom he offended. Disgusted with the conservatives, who took no great
notice of his advice, as well as with the [191]sponges who rifled his pockets, he declared himself to be of the
liberal party and returned within a year to the Philippines, if not sound in his liver, yet completely changed in his
beliefs.
The eleven months spent at the capital among café politicians, nearly all retired half-pay office-holders,
the various speeches caught here and there, this or that article of the opposition, all the political life that permeates
the air, from the barber-shop where amid the scissors-clips the Figaro announces his program to the banquets
where in harmonious periods and telling phrases the different shades of political opinion, the divergences and
disagreements, are adjusted—all these things awoke in him the farther he got from Europe, like the life-giving sap
within the sown seed prevented from bursting out by the thick husk, in such a way that when he reached Manila
he believed that he was going to regenerate it and actually had the holiest plans and the purest ideals.
During the first months after his return he was continually talking about the capital, about his good
friends, about Minister So-and-So, ex-Minister Such-a-One, the delegate C., the author B., and there was not a
political event, a court scandal, of which he was not informed to the last detail, nor was there a public man the
secrets of whose private life were unknown to him, nor could anything occur that he had not foreseen, nor any
reform be ordered but he had first been consulted. All this was seasoned with attacks on the conservatives in
righteous indignation, with apologies of the liberal party, with a little anecdote here, a phrase there from some
great man, dropped in as one who did not wish offices and employments, which same he had refused in order not
to be beholden to the conservatives. Such was his enthusiasm in these first days that various cronies in the grocery-
store which he visited from time to time affiliated themselves with the liberal party and began to style themselves
liberals: Don Eulogio Badana, a retired sergeant of carbineers; the honest Armendia, by [192]profession a pilot,
and a rampant Carlist; Don Eusebio Picote, customs inspector; and Don Bonifacio Tacon, shoe- and harness-
maker.3
But nevertheless, from lack of encouragement and of opposition, his enthusiasm gradually waned. He
did not read the newspapers that came from Spain, because they arrived in packages, the sight of which made him
yawn. The ideas that he had caught having been all expended, he needed reinforcement, and his orators were not
there, and although in the casinos of Manila there was enough gambling, and money was borrowed as in Madrid,
no speech that would nourish his political ideas was permitted in them. But Don Custodio was not lazy, he did
more than wish—he worked. Foreseeing that he was going to leave his bones in the Philippines, he began to
consider that country his proper sphere and to devote his efforts to its welfare. Thinking to liberalize it, he
commenced to draw up a series of reforms or projects, which were ingenious, to say the least. It was he who,
having heard in Madrid mention of the wooden street pavements of Paris, not yet adopted in Spain, proposed the
introduction of them in Manila by covering the streets with boards nailed down as they are on the sides of houses;
it was he who, deploring the accidents to two-wheeled vehicles, planned to avoid them by putting on at least three
wheels; it was also he who, while acting as vice-president of the Board of Health, ordered everything fumigated,
even the telegrams that came from infected places; it was also he who, in compassion for the convicts that worked
in the sun and with a desire of saving to the government the cost of their equipment, suggested that they be clothed
in a simple breech-clout and set to work not by day but at night. He marveled, he stormed, that his projects should
encounter objectors, but consoled himself with the reflection that the man who is worth enemies has them, and
revenged himself by attacking and [193]tearing to pieces any project, good or bad, presented by others.
As he prided himself on being a liberal, upon being asked what he thought of the Indians he would
answer, like one conferring a great favor, that they were fitted for manual labor and the imitative arts (meaning
thereby music, painting, and sculpture), adding his old postscript that to know them one must have resided many,
many years in the country. Yet when he heard of any one of them excelling in something that was not manual
labor or an imitative art—in chemistry, medicine, or philosophy, for example—he would exclaim: “Ah, he
promises fairly, fairly well, he’s not a fool!” and feel sure that a great deal of Spanish blood must flow in the veins
of such an Indian. If unable to discover any in spite of his good intentions, he then sought a Japanese origin, for
it was at that time the fashion began of attributing to the Japanese or the Arabs whatever good the Filipinos might
have in them. For him the native songs were Arabic music, as was also the alphabet of the ancient Filipinos—he
was certain of this, although he did not know Arabic nor had he ever seen that alphabet.
“Arabic, the purest Arabic,” he said to Ben-Zayb in a tone that admitted no reply. “At best, Chinese!”
Then he would add, with a significant wink: “Nothing can be, nothing ought to be, original with the
Indians, you understand! I like them greatly, but they mustn’t be allowed to pride themselves upon anything, for
then they would take heart and turn into a lot of wretches.”
At other times he would say: “I love the Indians fondly, I’ve constituted myself their father and defender,
but it’s necessary to keep everything in its proper place. Some were born to command and others to serve—
plainly, that is a truism which can’t be uttered very loudly, but it can be put into practise without many words. For
look, the trick depends upon trifles. When you wish to reduce a people to subjection, assure it that it is in
subjection. The [194]first day it will laugh, the second protest, the third doubt, and the fourth be convinced. To
keep the Filipino docile, he must have repeated to him day after day what he is, to convince him that he is
incompetent. What good would it do, besides, to have him believe in something else that would make him
wretched? Believe me, it’s an act of charity to hold every creature in his place—that is order, harmony. That
constitutes the science of government.”
In referring to his policies, Don Custodio was not satisfied with the word art, and upon pronouncing the
word government, he would extend his hand downwards to the height of a man bent over on his knees.
In regard to his religious ideas, he prided himself on being a Catholic, very much a Catholic—ah,
Catholic Spain, the land of María Santísima! A liberal could be and ought to be a Catholic, when the reactionaries
were setting themselves up as gods or saints, just as a mulatto passes for a white man in Kaffirland. But with all
that, he ate meat during Lent, except on Good Friday, never went to confession, believed neither in miracles nor
the infallibility of the Pope, and when he attended mass, went to the one at ten o’clock, or to the shortest, the
military mass. Although in Madrid he had spoken ill of the religious orders, so as not to be out of harmony with
his surroundings, considering them anachronisms, and had hurled curses against the Inquisition, while relating
this or that lurid or droll story wherein the habits danced, or rather friars without habits, yet in speaking of the
Philippines, which should be ruled by special laws, he would cough, look wise, and again extend his hand
downwards to that mysterious altitude.
“The friars are necessary, they’re a necessary evil,” he would declare.
But how he would rage when any Indian dared to doubt the miracles or did not acknowledge the Pope!
All the tortures of the Inquisition were insufficient to punish such temerity.
When it was objected that to rule or to live at the expense [195]of ignorance has another and somewhat
ugly name and is punished by law when the culprit is a single person, he would justify his position by referring to
other colonies. “We,” he would announce in his official tone, “can speak out plainly! We’re not like the British
and the Dutch who, in order to hold people in subjection, make use of the lash. We avail ourselves of other means,
milder and surer. The salutary influence of the friars is superior to the British lash.”
This last remark made his fortune. For a long time Ben-Zayb continued to use adaptations of it, and with
him all Manila. The thinking part of Manila applauded it, and it even got to Madrid, where it was quoted in the
Parliament as from a liberal of long residence there. The friars, flattered by the comparison and seeing their
prestige enhanced, sent him sacks of chocolate, presents which the incorruptible Don Custodio returned, so that
Ben-Zayb immediately compared him to Epaminondas. Nevertheless, this modern Epaminondas made use of the
rattan in his choleric moments, and advised its use!
At that time the conventos, fearful that he would render a decision favorable to the petition of the students,
increased their gifts, so that on the afternoon when we see him he was more perplexed than ever, his reputation
for energy was being compromised. It had been more than a fortnight since he had had the petition in his hands,
and only that morning the high official, after praising his zeal, had asked for a decision. Don Custodio had replied
with mysterious gravity, giving him to understand that it was not yet completed. The high official had smiled a
smile that still worried and haunted him.
As we were saying, he yawned and yawned. In one of these movements, at the moment when he opened
his eyes and closed his mouth, his attention was caught by a file of red envelopes, arranged in regular order on a
magnificent kamagon desk. On the back of each could be read in large letters: PROJECTS.[196]
For a moment he forgot his troubles and Pepay’s pirouettes, to reflect upon all that those files contained,
which had issued from his prolific brain in his hours of inspiration. How many original ideas, how many sublime
thoughts, how many means of ameliorating the woes of the Philippines! Immortality and the gratitude of the
country were surely his!
 Like an old lover who discovers a moldy package of amorous epistles, Don Custodio arose and
approached the desk. The first envelope, thick, swollen, and plethoric, bore the title: PROJECTS IN PROJECT.
“No,” he murmured, “they’re excellent things, but it would take a year to read them over.”
The second, also quite voluminous, was entitled: PROJECTS UNDER CONSIDERATION. “No, not
those either.”
Then came the PROJECTS NEARING COMPLETION, PROJECTS PRESENTED, PROJECTS
REJECTED, PROJECTS APPROVED, PROJECTS POSTPONED. These last envelopes held little, but the least
of all was that of the PROJECTS EXECUTED.
Don Custodio wrinkled up his nose—what did it contain? He had completely forgotten what was in it. A
sheet of yellowish paper showed from under the flap, as though the envelope were sticking out its tongue. This he
drew out and unfolded: it was the famous project for the School of Arts and Trades!
“What the devil!” he exclaimed. “If the Augustinian padres took charge of it—”
Suddenly he slapped his forehead and arched his eyebrows, while a look of triumph overspread his face.
“I have reached a decision!” he cried with an oath that was not exactly eureka. “My decision is made!”
Repeating his peculiar eureka five or six times, which struck the air like so many gleeful lashes, he sat
down at his desk, radiant with joy, and began to write furiously.[197]
1
The Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País for the encouragement of agricultural and industrial development, was established by Basco
de Vargas in 1780.—Tr.
2
Funds managed by the government for making loans and supporting charitable enterprises.—Tr.
3
The names are fictitious burlesques.—Tr.

Manila Types

That night there was a grand function at the Teatro de Variedades. Mr. Jouay’s French operetta company
was giving its initial performance, Les Cloches de Corneville. To the eyes of the public was to be exhibited his
select troupe, whose fame the newspapers had for days been proclaiming. It was reported that among the actresses
was a very beautiful voice, with a figure even more beautiful, and if credit could be given to rumor, her amiability
surpassed even her voice and figure.
At half-past seven in the evening there were no more tickets to be had, not even though they had been
for Padre Salvi himself in his direct need, and the persons waiting to enter the general admission already formed
a long queue. In the ticket-office there were scuffles and fights, talk of filibusterism and races, but this did not
produce any tickets, so that by a quarter before eight fabulous prices were being offered for them. The appearance
of the building, profusely illuminated, with flowers and plants in all the doors and windows, enchanted the new
arrivals to such an extent that they burst out into exclamations and applause. A large crowd surged about the
entrance, gazing enviously at those going in, those who came early from fear of missing their seats. Laughter,
whispering, expectation greeted the later arrivals, who disconsolately joined the curious crowd, and now that they
could not get in contented themselves with watching those who did.
Yet there was one person who seemed out of place amid such great eagerness and curiosity. He was a
tall, meager man, who dragged one leg stiffly when he walked, dressed [198]in a wretched brown coat and dirty
checkered trousers that fitted his lean, bony limbs tightly. A straw sombrero, artistic in spite of being broken,
covered an enormous head and allowed his dirty gray, almost red, hair to straggle out long and kinky at the end
like a poet’s curls. But the most notable thing about this man was not his clothing or his European features,
guiltless of beard or mustache, but his fiery red face, from which he got the nickname by which he was
known, Camaroncocido.1 He was a curious character belonging to a prominent Spanish family, but he lived like
a vagabond and a beggar, scoffing at the prestige which he flouted indifferently with his rags. He was reputed to
be a kind of reporter, and in fact his gray goggle-eyes, so cold and thoughtful, always showed up where anything
publishable was happening. His manner of living was a mystery to all, as no one seemed to know where he ate
and slept. Perhaps he had an empty hogshead somewhere.
But at that moment Camaroncocido lacked his usual hard and indifferent expression, something like
mirthful pity being reflected in his looks. A funny little man accosted him merrily.
“Friend!” exclaimed the latter, in a raucous voice, as hoarse as a frog’s, while he displayed several
Mexican pesos, which Camaroncocido merely glanced at and then shrugged his shoulders. What did they matter
to him?
The little old man was a fitting contrast to him. Small, very small, he wore on his head a high hat, which
presented the appearance of a huge hairy worm, and lost himself in an enormous frock coat, too wide and too long
for him, to reappear in trousers too short, not reaching below his calves. His body seemed to be the grandfather
and his legs the grandchildren, while as for his shoes he appeared to be floating on the land, for they were of an
enormous sailor type, apparently protesting against the hairy worm [199]worn on his head with all the energy of
a convento beside a World’s Exposition. If Camaroncocido was red, he was brown; while the former, although of
Spanish extraction, had not a single hair on his face, yet he, an Indian, had a goatee and mustache, both long,
white, and sparse. His expression was lively. He was known as Tio Quico,2 and like his friend lived on publicity,
advertising the shows and posting the theatrical announcements, being perhaps the only Filipino who could appear
with impunity in a silk hat and frock coat, just as his friend was the first Spaniard who laughed at the prestige of
his race.
“The Frenchman has paid me well,” he said smiling and showing his picturesque gums, which looked
like a street after a conflagration. “I did a good job in posting the bills.”
Camaroncocido shrugged his shoulders again. “Quico,” he rejoined in a cavernous voice, “if they’ve
given you six pesos for your work, how much will they give the friars?”
Tio Quico threw back his head in his usual lively manner. “To the friars?”
“Because you surely know,” continued Camaroncocido, “that all this crowd was secured for them by the
conventos.”
The fact was that the friars, headed by Padre Salvi, and some lay brethren captained by Don Custodio,
had opposed such shows. Padre Camorra, who could not attend, watered at the eyes and mouth, but argued with
Ben-Zayb, who defended them feebly, thinking of the free tickets they would send his newspaper. Don Custodio
spoke of morality, religion, good manners, and the like.
“But,” stammered the writer, “if our own farces with their plays on words and phrases of double meaning-
”
“But at least they’re in Castilian!” the virtuous councilor interrupted with a roar, inflamed to righteous
wrath. “Obscenities in French, man, Ben-Zayb, for God’s sake, in French! Never!”[200]
He uttered this never with the energy of three Guzmans threatened with being killed like fleas if they did
not surrender twenty Tarifas. Padre Irene naturally agreed with Don Custodio and execrated French operetta.
Whew, he had been in Paris, but had never set foot in a theater, the Lord deliver him!
Yet the French operetta also counted numerous partizans. The officers of the army and navy, among
them the General’s aides, the clerks, and many society people were anxious to enjoy the delicacies of the French
language from the mouths of genuine Parisiennes, and with them were affiliated those who had traveled by the
M.M.3 and had jabbered a little French during the voyage, those who had visited Paris, and all those who wished
to appear learned.
Hence, Manila society was divided into two factions, operettists and anti-operettists. The latter were
supported by the elderly ladies, wives jealous and careful of their husbands’ love, and by those who were engaged,
while those who were free and those who were beautiful declared themselves enthusiastic operettists. Notes and
then more notes were exchanged, there were goings and comings, mutual recriminations, meetings, lobbyings,
arguments, even talk of an insurrection of the natives, of their indolence, of inferior and superior races, of prestige
and other humbugs, so that after much gossip and more recrimination, the permit was granted, Padre Salvi at the
same time publishing a pastoral that was read by no one but the proof-reader. There were questionings whether
the General had quarreled with the Countess, whether she spent her time in the halls of pleasure, whether His
Excellency was greatly annoyed, whether there had been presents exchanged, whether the French consul—, and
so on and on. Many names were bandied about: Quiroga the Chinaman’s, Simoun’s, and even those of many
actresses.
Thanks to these scandalous preliminaries, the people’s [201]impatience had been aroused, and since the
evening before, when the troupe arrived, there was talk of nothing but attending the first performance. From the
hour when the red posters announced Les Cloches de Corneville the victors prepared to celebrate their triumph.
In some offices, instead of the time being spent in reading newspapers and gossiping, it was devoted to devouring
the synopsis and spelling out French novels, while many feigned business outside to consult their pocket-
dictionaries on the sly. So no business was transacted, callers were told to come back the next day, but the public
could not take offense, for they encountered some very polite and affable clerks, who received and dismissed them
with grand salutations in the French style. The clerks were practising, brushing the dust off their French, and
calling to one another oui, monsieur, s’il vous plait, and pardon! at every turn, so that it was a pleasure to see and
hear them.
But the place where the excitement reached its climax was the newspaper office. Ben-Zayb, having been
appointed critic and translator of the synopsis, trembled like a poor woman accused of witchcraft, as he saw his
enemies picking out his blunders and throwing up to his face his deficient knowledge of French. When the Italian
opera was on, he had very nearly received a challenge for having mistranslated a tenor’s name, while an envious
rival had immediately published an article referring to him as an ignoramus—him, the foremost thinking head in
the Philippines! All the trouble he had had to defend himself! He had had to write at least seventeen articles and
consult fifteen dictionaries, so with these salutary recollections, the wretched Ben-Zayb moved about with leaden
hands, to say nothing of his feet, for that would be plagiarizing Padre Camorra, who had once intimated that the
journalist wrote with them.
“You see, Quico?” said Camaroncocido. “One half of the people have come because the friars told them
not to, making it a kind of public protest, and the other half because [202]they say to themselves, ‘Do the friars
object to it? Then it must be instructive!’ Believe me, Quico, your advertisements are a good thing but the pastoral
was better, even taking into consideration the fact that it was read by no one.”
“Friend, do you believe,” asked Tio Quico uneasily, “that on account of the competition with Padre Salvi
my business will in the future be prohibited?”
“Maybe so, Quico, maybe so,” replied the other, gazing at the sky. “Money’s getting scarce.”
Tio Quico muttered some incoherent words: if the friars were going to turn theatrical advertisers, he
would become a friar. After bidding his friend good-by, he moved away coughing and rattling his silver coins.
With his eternal indifference Camaroncocido continued to wander about here and there with his crippled
leg and sleepy looks. The arrival of unfamiliar faces caught his attention, coming as they did from different parts
and signaling to one another with a wink or a cough. It was the first time that he had ever seen these individuals
on such an occasion, he who knew all the faces and features in the city. Men with dark faces, humped shoulders,
uneasy and uncertain movements, poorly disguised, as though they had for the first time put on sack coats, slipped
about among the shadows, shunning attention, instead of getting in the front rows where they could see well.
“Detectives or thieves?” Camaroncocido asked himself and immediately shrugged his shoulders. “But
what is it to me?”
The lamp of a carriage that drove up lighted in passing a group of four or five of these individuals talking
with a man who appeared to be an army officer.
“Detectives! It must be a new corps,” he muttered with his shrug of indifference. Soon, however, he
noticed that the officer, after speaking to two or three more groups, approached a carriage and seemed to be talking
vigorously with some person inside. Camaroncocido took a few steps [203]forward and without surprise thought
that he recognized the jeweler Simoun, while his sharp ears caught this short dialogue.
“The signal will be a gunshot!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t worry—it’s the General who is ordering it, but be careful about saying so. If you follow my
instructions, you’ll get a promotion.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, be ready!”
The voice ceased and a second later the carriage drove away. In spite of his indifference Camaroncocido
could not but mutter, “Something’s afoot—hands on pockets!”
But feeling his own to be empty, he again shrugged his shoulders. What did it matter to him, even though
the heavens should fall?
So he continued his pacing about. On passing near two persons engaged in conversation, he caught what
one of them, who had rosaries and scapularies around his neck, was saying in Tagalog: “The friars are more
powerful than the General, don’t be a fool! He’ll go away and they’ll stay here. So, if we do well, we’ll get rich.
The signal is a gunshot.”
“Hold hard, hold hard,” murmured Camaroncocido, tightening his fingers. “On that side the General, on
this Padre Salvi. Poor country! But what is it to me?”
Again shrugging his shoulders and expectorating at the same time, two actions that with him were
indications of supreme indifference, he continued his observations.
Meanwhile, the carriages were arriving in dizzy streams, stopping directly before the door to set down
the members of the select society. Although the weather was scarcely even cool, the ladies sported magnificent
shawls, silk neckerchiefs, and even light cloaks. Among the escorts, some who were in frock coats with white ties
wore overcoats, while others carried them on their arms to display the rich silk linings.[204]
In a group of spectators, Tadeo, he who was always taken ill the moment the professor appeared, was
accompanied by a fellow townsman of his, the novice whom we saw suffer evil consequences from reading
wrongly the Cartesian principle. This novice was very inquisitive and addicted to tiresome questions, and Tadeo
was taking advantage of his ingenuousness and inexperience to relate to him the most stupendous lies. Every
Spaniard that spoke to him, whether clerkling or underling, was presented as a leading merchant, a marquis, or a
count, while on the other hand any one who passed him by was a greenhorn, a petty official, a nobody! When
pedestrians failed him in keeping up the novice’s astonishment, he resorted to the resplendent carriages that came
up. Tadeo would bow politely, wave his hand in a friendly manner, and call out a familiar greeting.
“Who’s he?”
“Bah!” was the negligent reply. “The Civil Governor, the Vice-Governor, Judge ——, Señora ——, all
friends of mine!”
The novice marveled and listened in fascination, taking care to keep on the left. Tadeo the friend of
judges and governors!
Tadeo named all the persons who arrived, when he did not know them inventing titles, biographies, and
interesting sketches.
 “You see that tall gentleman with dark whiskers, somewhat squint-eyed, dressed in black—he’s Judge
A ——, an intimate friend of the wife of Colonel B ——. One day if it hadn’t been for me they would have come
to blows. Hello, here comes that Colonel! What if they should fight?”
The novice held his breath, but the colonel and the judge shook hands cordially, the soldier, an old
bachelor, inquiring about the health of the judge’s family.
“Ah, thank heaven!” breathed Tadeo. “I’m the one who made them friends.”[205]
“What if they should invite us to go in?” asked the novice timidly.
“Get out, boy! I never accept favors!” retorted Tadeo majestically. “I confer them, but disinterestedly.”
The novice bit his lip and felt smaller than ever, while he placed a respectful distance between himself
and his fellow townsman.
Tadeo resumed: “That is the musician H——; that one, the lawyer J——, who delivered as his own a
speech printed in all the books and was congratulated and admired for it; Doctor K——, that man just getting out
of a hansom, is a specialist in diseases of children, so he’s called Herod; that’s the banker L——, who can talk
only of his money and his hoards; the poet M——, who is always dealing with the stars and the beyond. There
goes the beautiful wife of N——, whom Padre Q——is accustomed to meet when he calls upon the absent
husband; the Jewish merchant P——, who came to the islands with a thousand pesos and is now a millionaire.
That fellow with the long beard is the physician R——, who has become rich by making invalids more than by
curing them.”
“Making invalids?”
“Yes, boy, in the examination of the conscripts. Attention! That finely dressed gentleman is not a
physician but a homeopathist sui generis—he professes completely the similis similibus. The young cavalry
captain with him is his chosen disciple. That man in a light suit with his hat tilted back is the government clerk
whose maxim is never to be polite and who rages like a demon when he sees a hat on any one else’s head—they
say that he does it to ruin the German hatters. The man just arriving with his family is the wealthy merchant C—
—, who has an income of over a hundred thousand pesos. But what would you say if I should tell you that he still
owes me four pesos, five reales, and twelve cuartos? But who would collect from a rich man like him?”
“That gentleman in debt to you?”[206]
“Sure! One day I got him out of a bad fix. It was on a Friday at half-past six in the morning, I still
remember, because I hadn’t breakfasted. That lady who is followed by a duenna is the celebrated Pepay, the
dancing girl, but she doesn’t dance any more now that a very Catholic gentleman and a great friend of mine has—
forbidden it. There’s the death’s-head Z——, who’s surely following her to get her to dance again. He’s a good
fellow, and a great friend of mine, but has one defect—he’s a Chinese mestizo and yet calls himself a Peninsular
Spaniard. Sssh! Look at Ben-Zayb, him with the face of a friar, who’s carrying a pencil and a roll of paper in his
hand. He’s the great writer, Ben-Zayb, a good friend of mine—he has talent!”
“You don’t say! And that little man with white whiskers?”
“He’s the official who has appointed his daughters, those three little girls, assistants in his department,
so as to get their names on the pay-roll. He’s a clever man, very clever! When he makes a mistake he blames it
on somebody else, he buys things and pays for them out of the treasury. He’s clever, very, very clever!”
Tadeo was about to say more, but suddenly checked himself.
“And that gentleman who has a fierce air and gazes at everybody over his shoulders?” inquired the
novice, pointing to a man who nodded haughtily.
But Tadeo did not answer. He was craning his neck to see Paulita Gomez, who was approaching with a
friend, Doña Victorina, and Juanito Pelaez. The latter had presented her with a box and was more humped than
ever.
Carriage after carriage drove up; the actors and actresses arrived and entered by a separate door, followed
by their friends and admirers.
After Paulita had gone in, Tadeo resumed: “Those are the nieces of the rich Captain D——, those coming
up in a landau; you see how pretty and healthy they are? Well, [207]in a few years they’ll be dead or crazy. Captain
D—— is opposed to their marrying, and the insanity of the uncle is appearing in the nieces. That’s the Señorita
E——, the rich heiress whom the world and the conventos are disputing over. Hello, I know that fellow! It’s Padre
Irene, in disguise, with a false mustache. I recognize him by his nose. And he was so greatly opposed to this!”
The scandalized novice watched a neatly cut coat disappear behind a group of ladies.
“The Three Fates!” went on Tadeo, watching the arrival of three withered, bony, hollow-eyed, wide-
mouthed, and shabbily dressed women. “They’re called—”
“Atropos?” ventured the novice, who wished to show that he also knew somebody, at least in mythology.
“No, boy, they’re called the Weary Waiters—old, censorious, and dull. They pretend to hate everybody—
men, women, and children. But look how the Lord always places beside the evil a remedy, only that sometimes it
comes late. There behind the Fates, the frights of the city, come those three girls, the pride of their friends, among
whom I count myself. That thin young man with goggle-eyes, somewhat stooped, who is wildly gesticulating
because he can’t get tickets, is the chemist S——, author of many essays and scientific treatises, some of which
are notable and have captured prizes. The Spaniards say of him, ‘There’s some hope for him, some hope for him.’
The fellow who is soothing him with his Voltairian smile is the poet T——, a young man of talent, a great friend
of mine, and, for the very reason that he has talent, he has thrown away his pen. That fellow who is trying to get
in with the actors by the other door is the young physician U——, who has effected some remarkable cures—it’s
also said of him that he promises well. He’s not such a scoundrel as Pelaez but he’s cleverer and slyer still. I
believe that he’d shake dice with death and win.”
“And that brown gentleman with a mustache like hog-bristles?”[208]
“Ah, that’s the merchant F——, who forges everything, even his baptismal certificate. He wants to be a
Spanish mestizo at any cost, and is making heroic efforts to forget his native language.”
“But his daughters are very white.”
“Yes, that’s the reason rice has gone up in price, and yet they eat nothing but bread.”
The novice did not understand the connection between the price of rice and the whiteness of those girls,
but he held his peace.
“There goes the fellow that’s engaged to one of them, that thin brown youth who is following them with
a lingering movement and speaking with a protecting air to the three friends who are laughing at him. He’s a
martyr to his beliefs, to his consistency.”
The novice was filled with admiration and respect for the young man.
“He has the look of a fool, and he is one,” continued Tadeo. “He was born in San Pedro Makati and has
inflicted many privations upon himself. He scarcely ever bathes or eats pork, because, according to him, the
Spaniards don’t do those things, and for the same reason he doesn’t eat rice and dried fish, although he may be
watering at the mouth and dying of hunger. Anything that comes from Europe, rotten or preserved, he considers
divine—a month ago Basilio cured him of a severe attack of gastritis, for he had eaten a jar of mustard to prove
that he’s a European.”
At that moment the orchestra struck up a waltz.
“You see that gentleman—that hypochondriac who goes along turning his head from side to side, seeking
salutes? That’s the celebrated governor of Pangasinan, a good man who loses his appetite whenever any Indian
fails to salute him. He would have died if he hadn’t issued the proclamation about salutes to which he owes his
celebrity. Poor fellow, it’s only been three days since he came from the province and look how thin he has become!
Oh, here’s the great man, the illustrious—open your eyes!”[209]
“Who? That man with knitted brows?”
“Yes, that’s Don Custodio, the liberal, Don Custodio. His brows are knit because he’s meditating over
some important project. If the ideas he has in his head were carried out, this would be a different world! Ah, here
comes Makaraig, your housemate.”
It was in fact Makaraig, with Pecson, Sandoval, and Isagani. Upon seeing them, Tadeo advanced and
spoke to them.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Makaraig asked him.
“We haven’t been able to get tickets.”
“Fortunately, we have a box,” replied Makaraig. “Basilio couldn’t come. Both of you, come in with us.”
Tadeo did not wait for the invitation to be repeated, but the novice, fearing that he would intrude, with
the timidity natural to the provincial Indian, excused himself, nor could he be persuaded to enter.[210]
1
“Boiled Shrimp”—Tr.
2
“Uncle Frank.”—Tr.
3
Messageries Maritimes, a French line of steamers in the Oriental trade.—Tr.

The Performance

The interior of the theater presented a lively aspect. It was filled from top to bottom, with people standing
in the corridors and in the aisles, fighting to withdraw a head from some hole where they had inserted it, or to
shove an eye between a collar and an ear. The open boxes, occupied for the most part by ladies, looked like baskets
of flowers, whose petals—the fans—shook in a light breeze, wherein hummed a thousand bees. However, just as
there are flowers of strong or delicate fragrance, flowers that kill and flowers that console, so from our baskets
were exhaled like emanations: there were to be heard dialogues, conversations, remarks that bit and stung. Three
or four boxes, however, were still vacant, in spite of the lateness of the hour. The performance had been advertised
for half-past eight and it was already a quarter to nine, but the curtain did not go up, as his Excellency had not yet
arrived. The gallery-gods, impatient and uncomfortable in their seats, started a racket, clapping their hands and
pounding the floor with their canes.
“Boom—boom—boom! Ring up the curtain! Boom—boom—boom!”
The artillerymen were not the least noisy. Emulators of Mars, as Ben-Zayb called them, they were not
satisfied with this music; thinking themselves perhaps at a bullfight, they made remarks at the ladies who passed
before them in words that are euphemistically called flowers in Madrid, although at times they seem more like
foul weeds. Without heeding the furious looks of the husbands, they [211]bandied from one to another the
sentiments and longings inspired by so many beauties.
In the reserved seats, where the ladies seemed to be afraid to venture, as few were to be seen there, a
murmur of voices prevailed amid suppressed laughter and clouds of tobacco smoke. They discussed the merits of
the players and talked scandal, wondering if his Excellency had quarreled with the friars, if his presence at such a
show was a defiance or mere curiosity. Others gave no heed to these matters, but were engaged in attracting the
attention of the ladies, throwing themselves into attitudes more or less interesting and statuesque, flashing
diamond rings, especially when they thought themselves the foci of insistent opera-glasses, while yet another
would address a respectful salute to this or that señora or señorita, at the same time lowering his head gravely to
whisper to a neighbor, “How ridiculous she is! And such a bore!”
The lady would respond with one of her most gracious smiles and an enchanting nod of her head, while
murmuring to a friend sitting near, amid lazy flourishes of her fan, “How impudent he is! He’s madly in love, my
dear.”
Meanwhile, the noise increased. There remained only two vacant boxes, besides that of his Excellency,
which was distinguished by its curtains of red velvet. The orchestra played another waltz, the audience protested,
when fortunately there arose a charitable hero to distract their attention and relieve the manager, in the person of
a man who had occupied a reserved seat and refused to give it up to its owner, the philosopher Don Primitivo.
Finding his own arguments useless, Don Primitivo had appealed to an usher. “I don’t care to,” the hero responded
to the latter’s protests, placidly puffing at his cigarette. The usher appealed to the manager. “I don’t care to,” was
the response, as he settled back in the seat. The manager went away, while the artillerymen in the gallery began
to sing out encouragement to the usurper.
Our hero, now that he had attracted general attention, [212]thought that to yield would be to lower
himself, so he held on to the seat, while he repeated his answer to a pair of guards the manager had called in.
These, in consideration of the rebel’s rank, went in search of their corporal, while the whole house broke out into
applause at the firmness of the hero, who remained seated like a Roman senator.
Hisses were heard, and the inflexible gentleman turned angrily to see if they were meant for him, but the
galloping of horses resounded and the stir increased. One might have said that a revolution had broken out, or at
least a riot, but no, the orchestra had suspended the waltz and was playing the royal march: it was his Excellency,
the Captain-General and Governor of the islands, who was entering. All eyes sought and followed him, then lost
sight of him, until he finally appeared in his box. After looking all about him and making some persons happy
with a lordly salute, he sat down, as though he were indeed the man for whom the chair was waiting. The
artillerymen then became silent and the orchestra tore into the prelude.
Our students occupied a box directly facing that of Pepay, the dancing girl. Her box was a present from
Makaraig, who had already got on good terms with her in order to propitiate Don Custodio. Pepay had that very
afternoon written a note to the illustrious arbiter, asking for an answer and appointing an interview in the theater.
For this reason, Don Custodio, in spite of the active opposition he had manifested toward the French operetta, had
gone to the theater, which action won him some caustic remarks on the part of Don Manuel, his ancient adversary
in the sessions of the Ayuntamiento.
“I’ve come to judge the operetta,” he had replied in the tone of a Cato whose conscience was clear.
So Makaraig was exchanging looks of intelligence with Pepay, who was giving him to understand that
she had something to tell him. As the dancing girl’s face wore a happy expression, the students augured that a
favorable outcome was assured. Sandoval, who had just returned [213]from making calls in other boxes, also
assured them that the decision had been favorable, that that very afternoon the Superior Commission had
considered and approved it. Every one was jubilant, even Pecson having laid aside his pessimism when he saw
the smiling Pepay display a note. Sandoval and Makaraig congratulated one another, Isagani alone remaining cold
and unsmiling. What had happened to this young man?
Upon entering the theater, Isagani had caught sight of Paulita in a box, with Juanito Pelaez talking to her.
He had turned pale, thinking that he must be mistaken. But no, it was she herself, she who greeted him with a
gracious smile, while her beautiful eyes seemed to be asking pardon and promising explanations. The fact was
that they had agreed upon Isagani’s going first to the theater to see if the show contained anything improper for a
young woman, but now he found her there, and in no other company than that of his rival. What passed in his
mind is indescribable: wrath, jealousy, humiliation, resentment raged within him, and there were moments even
when he wished that the theater would fall in; he had a violent desire to laugh aloud, to insult his sweetheart, to
challenge his rival, to make a scene, but finally contented himself with sitting quiet and not looking at her at all.
He was conscious of the beautiful plans Makaraig and Sandoval were making, but they sounded like distant
echoes, while the notes of the waltz seemed sad and lugubrious, the whole audience stupid and foolish, and several
times he had to make an effort to keep back the tears. Of the trouble stirred up by the hero who refused to give up
the seat, of the arrival of the Captain-General, he was scarcely conscious. He stared toward the drop-curtain, on
which was depicted a kind of gallery with sumptuous red hangings, affording a view of a garden in which a
fountain played, yet how sad the gallery looked to him and how melancholy the painted landscape! A thousand
vague recollections surged into his memory like distant echoes of music heard in the night, [214]like songs of
infancy, the murmur of lonely forests and gloomy rivulets, moonlit nights on the shore of the sea spread wide
before his eyes. So the enamored youth considered himself very wretched and stared fixedly at the ceiling so that
the tears should not fall from his eyes.
A burst of applause drew him from these meditations. The curtain had just risen, and the merry chorus
of peasants of Corneville was presented, all dressed in cotton caps, with heavy wooden sabots on their feet. Some
six or seven girls, well-rouged on the lips and cheeks, with large black circles around their eyes to increase their
brilliance, displayed white arms, fingers covered with diamonds, round and shapely limbs. While they were
chanting the Norman phrase “Allez, marchez! Allez, marchez!” they smiled at their different admirers in the
reserved seats with such openness that Don Custodio, after looking toward Pepay’s box to assure himself that she
was not doing the same thing with some other admirer, set down in his note-book this indecency, and to make
sure of it lowered his head a little to see if the actresses were not showing their knees.
“Oh, these Frenchwomen!” he muttered, while his imagination lost itself in considerations somewhat
more elevated, as he made comparisons and projects.
“Quoi v’la tous les cancans d’la s’maine!” sang Gertrude, a proud damsel, who was looking roguishly
askance at the Captain-General.
“We’re going to have the cancan!” exclaimed Tadeo, the winner of the first prize in the French class,
who had managed to make out this word. “Makaraig, they’re going to dance the cancan!”
He rubbed his hands gleefully. From the moment the curtain rose, Tadeo had been heedless of the music.
He was looking only for the prurient, the indecent, the immoral in actions and dress, and with his scanty French
was sharpening his ears to catch the obscenities that the austere guardians of the fatherland had foretold.
Sandoval, pretending to know French, had converted himself [215]into a kind of interpreter for his
friends. He knew as much about it as Tadeo, but the published synopsis helped him and his fancy supplied the
rest. “Yes,” he said, “they’re going to dance the cancan—she’s going to lead it.”
Makaraig and Pecson redoubled their attention, smiling in anticipation, while Isagani looked away,
mortified to think that Paulita should be present at such a show and reflecting that it was his duty to challenge
Juanito Pelaez the next day.
But the young men waited in vain. Serpolette came on, a charming girl, in her cotton cap, provoking and
challenging. “Hein, qui parle de Serpolette?” she demanded of the gossips, with her arms akimbo in a combative
attitude. Some one applauded, and after him all those in the reserved seats. Without changing her girlish attitude,
Serpolette gazed at the person who had started the applause and paid him with a smile, displaying rows of little
teeth that looked like a string of pearls in a case of red velvet.
Tadeo followed her gaze and saw a man in a false mustache with an extraordinarily large nose. “By the
monk’s cowl!” he exclaimed. “It’s Irene!”
“Yes,” corroborated Sandoval, “I saw him behind the scenes talking with the actresses.”
The truth was that Padre Irene, who was a melomaniac of the first degree and knew French well, had
been sent to the theater by Padre Salvi as a sort of religious detective, or so at least he told the persons who
recognized him. As a faithful critic, who should not be satisfied with viewing the piece from a distance, he wished
to examine the actresses at first hand, so he had mingled in the groups of admirers and gallants, had penetrated
into the greenroom, where was whispered and talked a French required by the situation, a market French, a
language that is readily comprehensible for the vender when the buyer seems disposed to pay well.[216]
Serpolette was surrounded by two gallant officers, a sailor, and a lawyer, when she caught sight of him
moving about, sticking the tip of his long nose into all the nooks and corners, as though with it he were ferreting
out all the mysteries of the stage. She ceased her chatter, knitted her eyebrows, then raised them, opened her lips
and with the vivacity of a Parisienne left her admirers to hurl herself like a torpedo upon our critic.
“Tiens, tiens, Toutou! Mon lapin!” she cried, catching Padre Irene’s arm and shaking it merrily, while
the air rang with her silvery laugh.
“Tut, tut!” objected Padre Irene, endeavoring to conceal himself.
“Mais, comment! Toi ici, grosse bête! Et moi qui t’croyais—”
“’Tais pas d’tapage, Lily! Il faut m’respecter! ’Suis ici l’Pape!”
With great difficulty Padre Irene made her listen to reason, for Lily was enchanteé to meet in Manila an
old friend who reminded her of the coulisses of the Grand Opera House. So it was that Padre Irene, fulfilling at
the same time his duties as a friend and a critic, had initiated the applause to encourage her, for Serpolette deserved
it.
Meanwhile, the young men were waiting for the cancan. Pecson became all eyes, but there was
everything except cancan. There was presented the scene in which, but for the timely arrival of the representatives
of the law, the women would have come to blows and torn one another’s hair out, incited thereto by the
mischievous peasants, who, like our students, hoped to see something more than the cancan.
Scit, scit, scit, scit, scit, scit,
 Disputez-vous, battez-vous,
Scit, scit, scit, scit, scit, scit,
Nous allons compter les coups.
The music ceased, the men went away, the women returned, a few at a time, and started a conversation
among [217]themselves, of which our friends understood nothing. They were slandering some absent person.
“They look like the Chinamen of the pansiteria!” whispered Pecson.
“But, the cancan?” asked Makaraig.
“They’re talking about the most suitable place to dance it,” gravely responded Sandoval.
“They look like the Chinamen of the pansiteria,” repeated Pecson in disgust.
A lady accompanied by her husband entered at that moment and took her place in one of the two vacant
boxes. She had the air of a queen and gazed disdainfully at the whole house, as if to say, “I’ve come later than all
of you, you crowd of upstarts and provincials, I’ve come later than you!” There are persons who go to the theater
like the contestants in a mule-race: the last one in, wins, and we know very sensible men who would ascend the
scaffold rather than enter a theater before the first act. But the lady’s triumph was of short duration—she caught
sight of the other box that was still empty, and began to scold her better half, thus starting such a disturbance that
many were annoyed.
“Ssh! Ssh!”
“The blockheads! As if they understood French!” remarked the lady, gazing with supreme disdain in all
directions, finally fixing her attention on Juanito’s box, whence she thought she had heard an impudent hiss.
Juanito was in fact guilty, for he had been pretending to understand everything, holding himself up
proudly and applauding at times as though nothing that was said escaped him, and this too without guiding himself
by the actors’ pantomime, because he scarcely looked toward the stage. The rogue had intentionally remarked to
Paulita that, as there was so much more beautiful a woman close at hand, he did not care to strain his eyes looking
beyond her. Paulita had blushed, covered her face with her fan, and glanced stealthily toward where Isagani, silent
and morose, was abstractedly watching the show.[218]
Paulita felt nettled and jealous. Would Isagani fall in love with any of those alluring actresses? The
thought put her in a bad humor, so she scarcely heard the praises that Doña Victorina was heaping upon her own
favorite.
Juanito was playing his part well: he shook his head at times in sign of disapproval, and then there could
be heard coughs and murmurs in some parts, at other times he smiled in approbation, and a second later applause
resounded. Doña Victorina was charmed, even conceiving some vague ideas of marrying the young man the day
Don Tiburcio should die—Juanito knew French and De Espadaña didn’t! Then she began to flatter him, nor did
he perceive the change in the drift of her talk, so occupied was he in watching a Catalan merchant who was sitting
next to the Swiss consul. Having observed that they were conversing in French, Juanito was getting his inspiration
from their countenances, and thus grandly giving the cue to those about him.
Scene followed scene, character succeeded character, comic and ridiculous like the bailiff and
Grenicheux, imposing and winsome like the marquis and Germaine. The audience laughed heartily at the slap
delivered by Gaspard and intended for the coward Grenicheux, which was received by the grave bailiff, whose
wig went flying through the air, producing disorder and confusion as the curtain dropped.
“Where’s the cancan?” inquired Tadeo.
But the curtain rose again immediately, revealing a scene in a servant market, with three posts on which
were affixed signs bearing the announcements: servantes, cochers, and domestiques. Juanito, to improve the
opportunity, turned to Doña Victorina and said in a loud voice, so that Paulita might hear and he convinced of his
learning:
“Servantes means servants, domestiques domestics.”
“And in what way do the servantes differ from the domestiques?” asked Paulita.
Juanito was not found wanting. “Domestiques are those [219]that are domesticated—haven’t you noticed
that some of them have the air of savages? Those are the servantes.”
“That’s right,” added Doña Victorina, “some have very bad manners—and yet I thought that in Europe
everybody was cultivated. But as it happens in France,—well, I see!”
“Ssh! Ssh!”
But what was Juanito’s predicament when the time came for the opening of the market and the beginning
of the sale, and the servants who were to be hired placed themselves beside the signs that indicated their class!
The men, some ten or twelve rough characters in livery, carrying branches in their hands, took their place under
the sign domestiques!
“Those are the domestics,” explained Juanito.
“Really, they have the appearance of being only recently domesticated,” observed Doña Victorina. “Now
let’s have a look at the savages.”
 Then the dozen girls headed by the lively and merry Serpolette, decked out in their best clothes, each
wearing a big bouquet of flowers at the waist, laughing, smiling, fresh and attractive, placed themselves, to
Juanito’s great desperation, beside the post of the servantes.
“How’s this?” asked Paulita guilelessly. “Are those the savages that you spoke of?”
“No,” replied the imperturbable Juanito, “there’s a mistake—they’ve got their places mixed—those
coming behind—”
“Those with the whips?”
Juanito nodded assent, but he was rather perplexed and uneasy.
“So those girls are the cochers?”
Here Juanito was attacked by such a violent fit of coughing that some of the spectators became annoyed.
“Put him out! Put the consumptive out!” called a voice.
Consumptive! To be called a consumptive before Paulita! Juanito wanted to find the blackguard and
make [220]him swallow that “consumptive.” Observing that the women were trying to hold him back, his bravado
increased, and he became more conspicuously ferocious. But fortunately it was Don Custodio who had made the
diagnosis, and he, fearful of attracting attention to himself, pretended to hear nothing, apparently busy with his
criticism of the play.
“If it weren’t that I am with you,” remarked Juanito, rolling his eyes like some dolls that are moved by
clockwork, and to make the resemblance more real he stuck out his tongue occasionally.
Thus that night he acquired in Doña Victorina’s eyes the reputation of being brave and punctilious, so
she decided in her heart that she would marry him just as soon as Don Tiburcio was out of the way. Paulita became
sadder and sadder in thinking about how the girls called cochers could occupy Isagani’s attention, for the name
had certain disagreeable associations that came from the slang of her convent school-days.
At length the first act was concluded, the marquis taking away as servants Serpolette and Germaine, the
representative of timid beauty in the troupe, and for coachman the stupid Grenicheux. A burst of applause brought
them out again holding hands, those who five seconds before had been tormenting one another and were about to
come to blows, bowing and smiling here and there to the gallant Manila public and exchanging knowing looks
with various spectators.
While there prevailed the passing tumult occasioned by those who crowded one another to get into the
greenroom and felicitate the actresses and by those who were going to make calls on the ladies in the boxes, some
expressed their opinions of the play and the players.
“Undoubtedly, Serpolette is the best,” said one with a knowing air.
“I prefer Germaine, she’s an ideal blonde.”
“But she hasn’t any voice.”[221]
“What do I care about the voice?”
“Well, for shape, the tall one.”
“Pshaw,” said Ben-Zayb, “not a one is worth a straw, not a one is an artist!”
Ben-Zayb was the critic for El Grito de la Integridad, and his disdainful air gave him great importance
in the eyes of those who were satisfied with so little.
“Serpolette hasn’t any voice, nor Germaine grace, nor is that music, nor is it art, nor is it anything!” he
concluded with marked contempt. To set oneself up as a great critic there is nothing like appearing to be
discontented with everything. Besides, the management had sent only two seats for the newspaper staff.
In the boxes curiosity was aroused as to who could be the possessor of the empty one, for that person,
would surpass every one in chic, since he would be the last to arrive. The rumor started somewhere that it belonged
to Simoun, and was confirmed: no one had seen the jeweler in the reserved seats, the greenroom, or anywhere
else.
“Yet I saw him this afternoon with Mr. Jouay,” some one said. “He presented a necklace to one of the
actresses.”
“To which one?” asked some of the inquisitive ladies.
“To the finest of all, the one who made eyes at his Excellency.”
This information was received with looks of intelligence, winks, exclamations of doubt, of confirmation,
and half-uttered commentaries.
“He’s trying to play the Monte Cristo,” remarked a lady who prided herself on being literary.
“Or purveyor to the Palace!” added her escort, jealous of Simoun.
In the students’ box, Pecson, Sandoval, and Isagani had remained, while Tadeo had gone to engage Don
Custodio in conversation about his projects, and Makaraig to hold an interview with Pepay.
“In no way, as I have observed to you before, friend [222]Isagani,” declared Sandoval with violent
gestures and a sonorous voice, so that the ladies near the box, the daughters of the rich man who was in debt to
Tadeo, might hear him, “in no way does the French language possess the rich sonorousness or the varied and
elegant cadence of the Castilian tongue. I cannot conceive, I cannot imagine, I cannot form any idea of French
orators, and I doubt that they have ever had any or can have any now in the strict construction of the term orator,
because we must not confuse the name orator with the words babbler and charlatan, for these can exist in any
country, in all the regions of the inhabited world, among the cold and curt Englishmen as among the lively and
impressionable Frenchmen.”
Thus he delivered a magnificent review of the nations, with his poetical characterizations and most
resounding epithets. Isagani nodded assent, with his thoughts fixed on Paulita, whom he had surprised gazing at
him with an expressive look which contained a wealth of meaning. He tried to divine what those eyes were
expressing—those eyes that were so eloquent and not at all deceptive.
“Now you who are a poet, a slave to rhyme and meter, a son of the Muses,” continued Sandoval, with an
elegant wave of his hand, as though he were saluting, on the horizon, the Nine Sisters, “do you comprehend, can
you conceive, how a language so harsh and unmusical as French can give birth to poets of such gigantic stature
as our Garcilasos, our Herreras, our Esproncedas, our Calderons?”
“Nevertheless,” objected Pecson, “Victor Hugo—”
“Victor Hugo, my friend Pecson, if Victor Hugo is a poet, it is because he owes it to Spain, because it is
an established fact, it is a matter beyond all doubt, a thing admitted even by the Frenchmen themselves, so envious
of Spain, that if Victor Hugo has genius, if he really is a poet, it is because his childhood was spent in Madrid;
there he drank in his first impressions, there his brain was molded, there his imagination was colored, his heart
modeled, and the most beautiful concepts of his mind born. [223]And after all, who is Victor Hugo? Is he to be
compared at all with our modern—”
This peroration was cut short by the return of Makaraig with a despondent air and a bitter smile on his
lips, carrying in his hand a note, which he offered silently to Sandoval, who read:
“MY DOVE: Your letter has reached me late, for I have already handed in my decision, and it has been
approved. However, as if I had guessed your wish, I have decided the matter according to the desires of your
protégés. I’ll be at the theater and wait for you after the performance.
“Your duckling,
“CUSTODINING.”
“How tender the man is!” exclaimed Tadeo with emotion.
“Well?” said Sandoval. “I don’t see anything wrong about this—quite the reverse!”
“Yes,” rejoined Makaraig with his bitter smile, “decided favorably! I’ve just seen Padre Irene.”
“What does Padre Irene say?” inquired Pecson.
“The same as Don Custodio, and the rascal still had the audacity to congratulate me. The Commission,
which has taken as its own the decision of the arbiter, approves the idea and felicitates the students on their
patriotism and their thirst for knowledge—”
“Well?”
“Only that, considering our duties—in short, it says that in order that the idea may not be lost, it concludes
that the direction and execution of the plan should be placed in charge of one of the religious corporations, in case
the Dominicans do not wish to incorporate the academy with the University.”
Exclamations of disappointment greeted the announcement. Isagani rose, but said nothing.
“And in order that we may participate in the management of the academy,” Makaraig went on, “we are
intrusted with the collection of contributions and dues, with [224]the obligation of turning them over to the
treasurer whom the corporation may designate, which treasurer will issue us receipts.”
“Then we’re tax-collectors!” remarked Tadeo.
“Sandoval,” said Pecson, “there’s the gauntlet—take it up!”
“Huh! That’s not a gauntlet—from its odor it seems more like a sock.”
“The funniest, part of it,” Makaraig added, “is that Padre Irene has advised us to celebrate the event with
a banquet or a torchlight procession—a public demonstration of the students en masse to render thanks to all the
persons who have intervened in the affair.”
“Yes, after the blow, let’s sing and give thanks. Super flumina Babylonis sedimus!”
“Yes, a banquet like that of the convicts,” said Tadeo.
“A banquet at which we all wear mourning and deliver funeral orations,” added Sandoval.
“A serenade with the Marseillaise and funeral marches,” proposed Isagani.
“No, gentlemen,” observed Pecson with his clownish grin, “to celebrate the event there’s nothing like a
banquet in a pansitería, served by the Chinamen without camisas. I insist, without camisas!”
The sarcasm and grotesqueness of this idea won it ready acceptance, Sandoval being the first to applaud
it, for he had long wished to see the interior of one of those establishments which at night appeared to be so merry
and cheerful.
Just as the orchestra struck up for the second act, the young men arose and left the theater, to the scandal
of the whole house.[225]
 A Corpse

Simoun had not, in fact, gone to the theater. Already, at seven o’clock in the evening, he had left his
house looking worried and gloomy. His servants saw him return twice, accompanied by different individuals, and
at eight o’clock Makaraig encountered him pacing along Calle Hospital near the nunnery of St. Clara, just when
the bells of its church were ringing a funeral knell. At nine Camaroncocido saw him again, in the neighborhood
of the theater, speak with a person who seemed to be a student, pay the latter’s admission to the show, and again
disappear among the shadows of the trees.
“What is it to me?” again muttered Camaroncocido. “What do I get out of watching over the populace?”
Basilio, as Makaraig said, had not gone to the show. The poor student, after returning from San Diego,
whither he had gone to ransom Juli, his future bride, from her servitude, had turned again to his studies, spending
his time in the hospital, in studying, or in nursing Capitan Tiago, whose affliction he was trying to cure.
The invalid had become an intolerable character. During his bad spells, when he felt depressed from lack
of opium, the doses of which Basilio was trying to reduce, he would scold, mistreat, and abuse the boy, who bore
it resignedly, conscious that he was doing good to one to whom he owed so much, and yielded only in the last
extremity. His vicious appetite satisfied, Capitan Tiago would fall into a good humor, become tender, and call
him his son, tearfully recalling the youth’s services, how well he administered the estates, and would even talk of
making [226]him his heir. Basilio would smile bitterly and reflect that in this world complaisance with vice is
rewarded better than fulfilment of duty. Not a few times did he feel tempted to give free rein to the craving and
conduct his benefactor to the grave by a path of flowers and smiling illusions rather than lengthen his life along a
road of sacrifice.
“What a fool I am!” he often said to himself. “People are stupid and then pay for it.”
But he would shake his head as he thought of Juli, of the wide future before him. He counted upon living
without a stain on his conscience, so he continued the treatment prescribed, and bore everything patiently.
Yet with all his care the sick man, except for short periods of improvement, grew worse. Basilio had
planned gradually to reduce the amount of the dose, or at least not to let him injure himself by increasing it, but
on returning from the hospital or some visit he would find his patient in the heavy slumber produced by the opium,
driveling, pale as a corpse. The young man could not explain whence the drug came: the only two persons who
visited the house were Simoun and Padre Irene, the former rarely, while the latter never ceased exhorting him to
be severe and inexorable with the treatment, to take no notice of the invalid’s ravings, for the main object was to
save him.
“Do your duty, young man,” was Padre Irene’s constant admonition. “Do your duty.” Then he would
deliver a sermon on this topic with such great conviction and enthusiasm that Basilio would begin to feel kindly
toward the preacher. Besides, Padre Irene promised to get him a fine assignment, a good province, and even hinted
at the possibility of having him appointed a professor. Without being carried away by illusions, Basilio pretended
to believe in them and went on obeying the dictates of his own conscience.
That night, while Les Cloches de Corneville was being presented, Basilio was studying at an old table by
the light [227]of an oil-lamp, whose thick glass globe partly illuminated his melancholy features. An old skull,
some human bones, and a few books carefully arranged covered the table, whereon there was also a pan of water
with a sponge. The smell of opium that proceeded from the adjoining bedroom made the air heavy and inclined
him to sleep, but he overcame the desire by bathing his temples and eyes from time to time, determined not to go
to sleep until he had finished the book, which he had borrowed and must return as soon as possible. It was a
volume of the Medicina Legal y Toxicología of Dr. Friata, the only book that the professor would use, and Basilio
lacked money to buy a copy, since, under the pretext of its being forbidden by the censor in Manila and the
necessity for bribing many government employees to get it in, the booksellers charged a high price for it.
So absorbed wras the youth in his studies that he had not given any attention at all to some pamphlets
that had been sent to him from some unknown source, pamphlets that treated of the Philippines, among which
figured those that were attracting the greatest notice at the time because of their harsh and insulting manner of
referring to the natives of the country. Basilio had no time to open them, and he was perhaps restrained also by
the thought that there is nothing pleasant about receiving an insult or a provocation without having any means of
replying or defending oneself. The censorship, in fact, permitted insults to the Filipinos but prohibited replies on
their part.
In the midst of the silence that reigned in the house, broken only by a feeble snore that issued now and
then from the adjoining bedroom, Basilio heard light footfalls on the stairs, footfalls that soon crossed the hallway
and approached the room where he was. Raising his head, he saw the door open and to his great surprise appeared
the sinister figure of the jeweler Simoun, who since the scene in San Diego had not come to visit either himself
or Capitan Tiago.
“How is the sick man?” he inquired, throwing a rapid [228]glance about the room and fixing his attention
on the pamphlets, the leaves of which were still uncut.
 “The beating of his heart is scarcely perceptible, his pulse is very weak, his appetite entirely gone,”
replied Basilio in a low voice with a sad smile. “He sweats profusely in the early morning.”
Noticing that Simoun kept his face turned toward the pamphlets and fearing that he might reopen the
subject of their conversation in the wood, he went on: “His system is saturated with poison. He may die any day,
as though struck by lightning. The least irritation, any excitement may kill him.”
“Like the Philippines!” observed Simoun lugubriously.
Basilio was unable to refrain from a gesture of impatience, but he was determined not to recur to the old
subject, so he proceeded as if he had heard nothing: “What weakens him the most is the nightmares, his terrors—
”
“Like the government!” again interrupted Simoun.
“Several nights ago he awoke in the dark and thought that he had gone blind. He raised a disturbance,
lamenting and scolding me, saying that I had put his eyes out. When I entered his room with a light he mistook
me for Padre Irene and called me his saviour.”
“Like the government, exactly!”
“Last night,” continued Basilio, paying no attention, “he got up begging for his favorite game-cock, the
one that died three years ago, and I had to give him a chicken. Then he heaped blessings upon me and promised
me many thousands—”
At that instant a clock struck half-past ten. Simoun shuddered and stopped the youth with a gesture.
“Basilio,” he said in a low, tense voice, “listen to me carefully, for the moments are precious. I see that
you haven’t opened the pamphlets that I sent you. You’re not interested in your country.”
The youth started to protest.
“It’s useless,” went on Simoun dryly. “Within an [229]hour the revolution is going to break out at a
signal from me, and tomorrow there’ll be no studies, there’ll be no University, there’ll be nothing but fighting and
butchery. I have everything ready and my success is assured. When we triumph, all those who could have helped
us and did not do so will be treated as enemies. Basilio, I’ve come to offer you death or a future!”
“Death or a future!” the boy echoed, as though he did not understand.
“With us or with the government,” rejoined Simoun. “With your country or with your oppressors. Decide,
for time presses! I’ve come to save you because of the memories that unite us!”
“With my country or with the oppressors!” repeated Basilio in a low tone. The youth was stupefied. He
gazed at the jeweler with eyes in which terror was reflected, he felt his limbs turn cold, while a thousand confused
ideas whirled about in his mind. He saw the streets running blood, he heard the firing, he found himself among
the dead and wounded, and by the peculiar force of his inclinations fancied himself in an operator’s blouse, cutting
off legs and extracting bullets.
“The will of the government is in my hands,” said Simoun. “I’ve diverted and wasted its feeble strength
and resources on foolish expeditions, dazzling it with the plunder it might seize. Its heads are now in the theater,
calm and unsuspecting, thinking of a night of pleasure, but not one shall again repose upon a pillow. I have men
and regiments at my disposition: some I have led to believe that the uprising is ordered by the General; others that
the friars are bringing it about; some I have bought with promises, with employments, with money; many, very
many, are acting from revenge, because they are oppressed and see it as a matter of killing or being killed.
Cabesang Tales is below, he has come with me here! Again I ask you—will you come with us or do you prefer to
expose yourself to the resentment of my followers? In critical moments, [230]to declare oneself neutral is to be
exposed to the wrath of both the contending parties.”
Basilio rubbed his hand over his face several times, as if he were trying to wake from a nightmare. He
felt that his brow was cold.
“Decide!” repeated Simoun.
“And what—what would I have to do?” asked the youth in a weak and broken voice.
“A very simple thing,” replied Simoun, his face lighting up with a ray of hope. “As I have to direct the
movement, I cannot get away from the scene of action. I want you, while the attention of the whole city is directed
elsewhere, at the head of a company to force the doors of the nunnery of St. Clara and take from there a person
whom only you, besides myself and Capitan Tiago, can recognize. You’ll run no risk at all.”
“Maria Clara!” exclaimed Basilio.
“Yes, Maria Clara,” repeated Simoun, and for the first time his voice became human and compassionate.
“I want to save her; to save her I have wished to live, I have returned. I am starting the revolution, because only a
revolution can open the doors of the nunneries.”
“Ay!” sighed Basilio, clasping his hands. “You’ve come late, too late!”
“Why?” inquired Simoun with a frown.
“Maria Clara is dead!”
Simoun arose with a bound and stood over the youth. “She’s dead?” he demanded in a terrible voice.
“This afternoon, at six. By now she must be—”
 “It’s a lie!” roared Simoun, pale and beside himself. “It’s false! Maria Clara lives, Maria Clara must live!
It’s a cowardly excuse! She’s not dead, and this night I’ll free her or tomorrow you die!”
Basilio shrugged his shoulders. “Several days ago she was taken ill and I went to the nunnery for news
of her. Look, here is Padre Salvi’s letter, brought by Padre Irene. Capitan Tiago wept all the evening, kissing his
daughter’s [231]picture and begging her forgiveness, until at last he smoked an enormous quantity of opium. This
evening her knell was tolled.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Simoun, pressing his hands to his head and standing motionless. He remembered to
have actually heard the knell while he was pacing about in the vicinity of the nunnery.
“Dead!” he murmured in a voice so low that it seemed to be a ghost whispering. “Dead! Dead without
my having seen her, dead without knowing that I lived for her—dead!”
Feeling a terrible storm, a tempest of whirlwind and thunder without a drop of water, sobs without tears,
cries without words, rage in his breast and threaten to burst out like burning lava long repressed, he rushed
precipitately from the room. Basilio heard him descend the stairs with unsteady tread, stepping heavily, he heard
a stifled cry, a cry that seemed to presage death, so solemn, deep, and sad that he arose from his chair pale and
trembling, but he could hear the footsteps die away and the noisy closing of the door to the street.
“Poor fellow!” he murmured, while his eyes filled with tears. Heedless now of his studies, he let his gaze
wander into space as he pondered over the fate of those two beings: he—young, rich, educated, master of his
fortunes, with a brilliant future before him; she—fair as a dream, pure, full of faith and innocence, nurtured amid
love and laughter, destined to a happy existence, to be adored in the family and respected in the world; and yet of
those two beings, filled with love, with illusions and hopes, by a fatal destiny he wandered over the world, dragged
ceaselessly through a whirl of blood and tears, sowing evil instead of doing good, undoing virtue and encouraging
vice, while she was dying in the mysterious shadows of the cloister where she had sought peace and perhaps found
suffering, where she entered pure and stainless and expired like a crushed flower![232]
Sleep in peace, ill-starred daughter of my hapless fatherland! Bury in the grave the enchantments of
youth, faded in their prime! When a people cannot offer its daughters a tranquil home under the protection of
sacred liberty, when a man can only leave to his widow blushes, tears to his mother, and slavery to his children,
you do well to condemn yourself to perpetual chastity, stifling within you the germ of a future generation accursed!
Well for you that you have not to shudder in your grave, hearing the cries of those who groan in darkness, of those
who feel that they have wings and yet are fettered, of those who are stifled from lack of liberty! Go, go with your
poet’s dreams into the regions of the infinite, spirit of woman dim-shadowed in the moonlight’s beam, whispered
in the bending arches of the bamboo-brakes! Happy she who dies lamented, she who leaves in the heart that loves
her a pure picture, a sacred remembrance, unspotted by the base passions engendered by the years! Go, we shall
remember you! In the clear air of our native land, under its azure sky, above the billows of the lake set amid
sapphire hills and emerald shores, in the crystal streams shaded by the bamboos, bordered by flowers, enlivened
by the beetles and butterflies with their uncertain and wavering flight as though playing with the air, in the silence
of our forests, in the singing of our rivers, in the diamond showers of our waterfalls, in the resplendent light of
our moon, in the sighs of the night breeze, in all that may call up the vision of the beloved, we must eternally see
you as we dreamed of you, fair, beautiful, radiant with hope, pure as the light, yet still sad and melancholy in the
contemplation of our woes![233]

Dreams
Amor, qué astro eres?
On the following day, Thursday, at the hour of sunset, Isagani was walking along the beautiful promenade
of Maria Cristina in the direction of the Malecon to keep an appointment which Paulita had that morning given
him. The young man had no doubt that they were to talk about what had happened on the previous night, and as
he was determined to ask for an explanation, and knew how proud and haughty she was, he foresaw an
estrangement. In view of this eventuality he had brought with him the only two letters he had ever received from
Paulita, two scraps of paper, whereon were merely a few hurriedly written lines with various blots, but in an even
handwriting, things that did not prevent the enamored youth from preserving them with more solicitude than if
they had been the autographs of Sappho and the Muse Polyhymnia.
This decision to sacrifice his love on the altar of dignity, the consciousness of suffering in the discharge
of duty, did not prevent a profound melancholy from taking possession of Isagani and brought back into his mind
the beautiful days, and nights more beautiful still, when they had whispered sweet nothings through the flowered
gratings of the entresol, nothings that to the youth took on such a character of seriousness and importance that
they seemed to him the only matters worthy of meriting the attention of the most exalted human understanding.
He recalled the walks on moonlit nights, the fair, the dark December mornings after the mass of Nativity, the holy
water that he used to offer her, when she would thank him with a look charged [234]with a whole epic of love,
both of them trembling as their fingers touched. Heavy sighs, like small rockets, issued from his breast and brought
back to him all the verses, all the sayings of poets and writers about the inconstancy of woman. Inwardly he cursed
the creation of theaters, the French operetta, and vowed to get revenge on Pelaez at the first opportunity.
Everything about him appeared under the saddest and somberest colors: the bay, deserted and solitary, seemed
more solitary still on account of the few steamers that were anchored in it; the sun was dying behind Mariveles
without poetry or enchantment, without the capricious and richly tinted clouds of happier evenings; the Anda
monument, in bad taste, mean and squat, without style, without grandeur, looked like a lump of ice-cream or at
best a chunk of cake; the people who were promenading along the Malecon, in spite of their complacent and
contented air, appeared distant, haughty, and vain; mischievous and bad-mannered, the boys that played on the
beach, skipping flat stones over the surface of the water or searching in the sand for mollusks and crustaceans
which they caught for the mere fun of catching and killed without benefit to themselves; in short, even the eternal
port works to which he had dedicated more than three odes, looked to him absurd, ridiculous child’s play.
The port, ah, the port of Manila, a bastard that since its conception had brought tears of humiliation and
shame to all! If only after so many tears there were not being brought forth a useless abortion!
Abstractedly he saluted two Jesuits, former teachers of his, and scarcely noticed a tandem in which an
American rode and excited the envy of the gallants who were in calesas only. Near the Anda monument he heard
Ben-Zayb talking with another person about Simoun, learning that the latter had on the previous night been taken
suddenly ill, that he refused to see any one, even the very aides of the General. “Yes!” exclaimed Isagani with a
bitter smile, “for him attentions because he is rich. The soldiers return [235]from their expeditions sick and
wounded, but no one visits them.”
Musing over these expeditions, over the fate of the poor soldiers, over the resistance offered by the
islanders to the foreign yoke, he thought that, death for death, if that of the soldiers was glorious because they
were obeying orders, that of the islanders was sublime because they were defending their homes.1
“A strange destiny, that of some peoples!” he mused. “Because a traveler arrives at their shores, they
lose their liberty and become subjects and slaves, not only of the traveler, not only of his heirs, but even of all his
countrymen, and not for a generation, but for all time! A strange conception of justice! Such a state of affairs gives
ample right to exterminate every foreigner as the most ferocious monster that the sea can cast up!”
He reflected that those islanders, against whom his country was waging war, after all were guilty of no
crime other than that of weakness. The travelers also arrived at the shores of other peoples, but finding them strong
made no display of their strange pretension. With all their weakness the spectacle they presented seemed beautiful
to him, and the names of the enemies, whom the newspapers did not fail to call cowards and traitors, appeared
glorious to him, as they succumbed with glory amid the ruins of their crude fortifications, with greater glory even
than the ancient Trojan heroes, for those islanders had carried away no Philippine Helen! In his poetic enthusiasm
he thought of the young men of those islands who could cover themselves with glory in the eyes of their women,
and in his amorous desperation he envied them because they could find a brilliant suicide.[236]
“Ah, I should like to die,” he exclaimed, “be reduced to nothingness, leave to my native land a glorious
name, perish in its cause, defending it from foreign invasion, and then let the sun afterwards illumine my corpse,
like a motionless sentinel on the rocks of the sea!”
The conflict with the Germans2 came into his mind and he almost felt sorry that it had been adjusted: he
would gladly have died for the Spanish-Filipino banner before submitting to the foreigner.
“Because, after all,” he mused, “with Spain we are united by firm bonds—the past, history, religion,
language—”
Language, yes, language! A sarcastic smile curled his lips. That very night they would hold a banquet in
the pansitería to celebrate the demise of the academy of Castilian.
“Ay!” he sighed, “provided the liberals in Spain are like those we have here, in a little while the mother
country will be able to count the number of the faithful!”
Slowly the night descended, and with it melancholy settled more heavily upon the heart of the young
man, who had almost lost hope of seeing Paulita. The promenaders one by one left the Malecon for the Luneta,
the music from which was borne to him in snatches of melodies on the fresh evening breeze; the sailors on a
warship anchored in the river performed their evening drill, skipping about among the slender ropes like spiders;
the boats one by one lighted their lamps, thus giving signs of life; while the beach,
Do el viento riza las calladas olas
Que con blando murmullo en la ribera
Se deslizan veloces por sí solas.3[237]
as Alaejos says, exhaled in the distance thin, vapors that the moon, now at its full, gradually converted
into mysterious transparent gauze.
A distant sound became audible, a noise that rapidly approached. Isagani turned his head and his heart
began to beat violently. A carriage was coming, drawn by white horses, the white horses that he would know
among a hundred thousand. In the carriage rode Paulita and her friend of the night before, with Doña Victorina.
Before the young man could take a step, Paulita had leaped to the ground with sylph-like agility and
smiled at him with a smile full of conciliation. He smiled in return, and it seemed to him that all the clouds, all
the black thoughts that before had beset him, vanished like smoke, the sky lighted up, the breeze sang, flowers
covered the grass by the roadside. But unfortunately Doña Victorina was there and she pounced upon the young
man to ask him for news of Don Tiburcio, since Isagani had undertaken to discover his hiding-place by inquiry
among the students he knew.
“No one has been able to tell me up to now,” he answered, and he was telling the truth, for Don Tiburcio
was really hidden in the house of the youth’s own uncle, Padre Florentino.
“Let him know,” declared Doña Victorina furiously, “that I’ll call in the Civil Guard. Alive or dead, I
want to know where he is—because one has to wait ten years before marrying again.”
Isagani gazed at her in fright—Doña Victorina was thinking of remarrying! Who could the unfortunate
be?
“What do you think of Juanito Pelaez?” she asked him suddenly.
Juanito! Isagani knew not what to reply. He was tempted to tell all the evil he knew of Pelaez, but a
feeling of delicacy triumphed in his heart and he spoke well of his rival, for the very reason that he was such.
Doña Victorina, entirely satisfied and becoming enthusiastic, then [238]broke out into exaggerations of Pelaez’s
merits and was already going to make Isagani a confidant of her new passion when Paulita’s friend came running
to say that the former’s fan had fallen among the stones of the beach, near the Malecon. Stratagem or accident,
the fact is that this mischance gave an excuse for the friend to remain with the old woman, while Isagani might
talk with Paulita. Moreover, it was a matter of rejoicing to Doña Victorina, since to get Juanito for herself she was
favoring Isagani’s love.
Paulita had her plan ready. On thanking him she assumed the role of the offended party, showed
resentment, and gave him to understand that she was surprised to meet him there when everybody was on the
Luneta, even the French actresses.
“You made the appointment for me, how could I be elsewhere?”
“Yet last night you did not even notice that I was in the theater. I was watching you all the time and you
never took your eyes off those cochers.”
So they exchanged parts: Isagani, who had come to demand explanations, found himself compelled to
give them and considered himself very happy when Paulita said that she forgave him. In regard to her presence at
the theater, he even had to thank her for that: forced by her aunt, she had decided to go in the hope of seeing him
during the performance. Little she cared for Juanito Pelaez!
“My aunt’s the one who is in love with him,” she said with a merry laugh.
Then they both laughed, for the marriage of Pelaez with Doña Victorina made them really happy, and
they saw it already an accomplished fact, until Isagani remembered that Don Tiburcio was still living and confided
the secret to his sweetheart, after exacting her promise that she would tell no one. Paulita promised, with the
mental reservation of relating it to her friend.
This led the conversation to Isagani’s town, surrounded [239]by forests, situated on the shore of the sea
which roared at the base of the high cliffs. Isagani’s gaze lighted up when he spoke of that obscure spot, a flush
of pride overspread his cheeks, his voice trembled, his poetic imagination glowed, his words poured forth burning,
charged with enthusiasm, as if he were talking of love to his love, and he could not but exclaim:
“Oh, in the solitude of my mountains I feel free, free as the air, as the light that shoots unbridled through
space! A thousand cities, a thousand palaces, would I give for that spot in the Philippines, where, far from men, I
could feel myself to have genuine liberty. There, face to face with nature, in the presence of the mysterious and
the infinite, the forest and the sea, I think, speak, and work like a man who knows not tyrants.”
In the presence of such enthusiasm for his native place, an enthusiasm that she did not comprehend, for
she was accustomed to hear her country spoken ill of, and sometimes joined in the chorus herself, Paulita
manifested some jealousy, as usual making herself the offended party.
But Isagani very quickly pacified her. “Yes,” he said, “I loved it above all things before I knew you! It
was my delight to wander through the thickets, to sleep in the shade of the trees, to seat myself upon a cliff to take
in with my gaze the Pacific which rolled its blue waves before me, bringing to me echoes of songs learned on the
shores of free America. Before knowing you, that sea was for me my world, my delight, my love, my dream!
When it slept in calm with the sun shining overhead, it was my delight to gaze into the abyss hundreds of feet
below me, seeking monsters in the forests of madrepores and coral that were revealed through the limpid blue,
enormous serpents that the country folk say leave the forests to dwell in the sea, and there take on frightful forms.
Evening, they say, is the time when the sirens appear, and I saw them between the waves—so great was my
eagerness that once I thought I could discern them amid the foam, busy in their divine [240]sports, I distinctly
heard their songs, songs of liberty, and I made out the sounds of their silvery harps. Formerly I spent hours and
hours watching the transformations in the clouds, or gazing at a solitary tree in the plain or a high rock, without
knowing why, without being able to explain the vague feelings they awoke in me. My uncle used to preach long
sermons to me, and fearing that I would become a hypochondriac, talked of placing me under a doctor’s care. But
I met you, I loved you, and during the last vacation it seemed that something was lacking there, the forest was
gloomy, sad the river that glides through the shadows, dreary the sea, deserted the sky. Ah, if you should go there
once, if your feet should press those paths, if you should stir the waters of the rivulet with your fingers, if you
should gaze upon the sea, sit upon the cliff, or make the air ring with your melodious songs, my forest would be
transformed into an Eden, the ripples of the brook would sing, light would burst from the dark leaves, into
diamonds would be converted the dewdrops and into pearls the foam of the sea.”
But Paulita had heard that to reach Isagani’s home it was necessary to cross mountains where little
leeches abounded, and at the mere thought of them the little coward shivered convulsively. Humored and petted,
she declared that she would travel only in a carriage or a railway train.
Having now forgotten all his pessimism and seeing only thornless roses about him, Isagani answered,
“Within a short time all the islands are going to be crossed with networks of iron rails.
“‘Por donde rápidas
Y voladoras
Locomotoras
Corriendo irán,’4
as some one said. Then the most beautiful spots of the islands will be accessible to all.”[241]
“Then, but when? When I’m an old woman?”
“Ah, you don’t know what we can do in a few years,” replied the youth. “You don’t realize the energy
and enthusiasm that are awakening in the country after the sleep of centuries. Spain heeds us; our young men in
Madrid are working day and night, dedicating to the fatherland all their intelligence, all their time, all their
strength. Generous voices there are mingled with ours, statesmen who realize that there is no better bond than
community of thought and interest. Justice will be meted out to us, and everything points to a brilliant future for
all. It’s true that we’ve just met with a slight rebuff, we students, but victory is rolling along the whole line, it is
in the consciousness of all! The traitorous repulse that we have suffered indicates the last gasp, the final
convulsions of the dying. Tomorrow we shall be citizens of the Philippines, whose destiny will be a glorious one,
because it will be in loving hands. Ah, yes, the future is ours! I see it rose-tinted, I see the movement that stirs the
life of these regions so long dead, lethargic. I see towns arise along the railroads, and factories everywhere, edifices
like that of Mandaloyan! I hear the steam hiss, the trains roar, the engines rattle! I see the smoke rise—their heavy
breathing; I smell the oil—the sweat of monsters busy at incessant toil. This port, so slow and laborious of creation,
this river where commerce is in its death agony, we shall see covered with masts, giving us an idea of the forests
of Europe in winter. This pure air, and these stones, now so clean, will be crowded with coal, with boxes and
barrels, the products of human industry, but let it not matter, for we shall move about rapidly in comfortable
coaches to seek in the interior other air, other scenes on other shores, cooler temperatures on the slopes of the
mountains. The warships of our navy will guard our coasts, the Spaniard and the Filipino will rival each other in
zeal to repel all foreign invasion, to defend our homes, and let you bask in peace and smiles, loved and respected.
Free from the system of exploitation, [242]without hatred or distrust, the people will labor because then labor will
cease to be a despicable thing, it will no longer be servile, imposed upon a slave. Then the Spaniard will not
embitter his character with ridiculous pretensions of despotism, but with a frank look and a stout heart we shall
extend our hands to one another, and commerce, industry, agriculture, the sciences, will develop under the mantle
of liberty, with wise and just laws, as in prosperous England.”5
Paulita smiled dubiously and shook her head. “Dreams, dreams!” she sighed. “I’ve heard it said that
you have many enemies. Aunt says that this country must always be enslaved.”
“Because your aunt is a fool, because she can’t live without slaves! When she hasn’t them she dreams
of them in the future, and if they are not obtainable she forces them into her imagination. True it is that we have
enemies, that there will be a struggle, but we shall conquer. The old system may convert the ruins of its castle
into formless barricades, but we will take them singing hymns of liberty, in the light of the eyes of you women,
to the applause of your lovely hands. But do not be uneasy—the struggle will be a pacific one. Enough that you
spur us to zeal, that you awake in us noble and elevated thoughts and encourage us [243]to constancy, to
heroism, with your affection for our reward.”
Paulita preserved her enigmatic smile and seemed thoughtful, as she gazed toward the river, patting her
cheek lightly with her fan. “But if you accomplish nothing?” she asked abstractedly.
The question hurt Isagani. He fixed his eyes on his sweetheart, caught her lightly by the hand, and
began: “Listen, if we accomplish nothing—”
He paused in doubt, then resumed: “You know how I love you, how I adore you, you know that I feel
myself a different creature when your gaze enfolds me, when I surprise in it the flash of love, but yet if we
accomplish nothing, I would dream of another look of yours and would die happy, because the light of pride
could burn in your eyes when you pointed to my corpse and said to the world: ‘My love died fighting for the
rights of my fatherland!’ ”
“Come home, child, you’re going to catch cold,” screeched Doña Victorina at that instant, and the
voice brought them back to reality. It was time to return, and they kindly invited him to enter the carriage, an
invitation which the young man did not give them cause to repeat. As it was Paulita’s carriage, naturally Doña
Victorina and the friend occupied the back seat, while the two lovers sat on the smaller one in front.
To ride in the same carriage, to have her at his side, to breathe her perfume, to rub against the silk of
her dress, to see her pensive with folded arms, lighted by the moon of the Philippines that lends to the meanest
things idealism and enchantment, were all dreams beyond Isagani’s hopes! What wretches they who were
returning alone on foot and had to give way to the swift carriage! In the whole course of the drive, along the
beach and down the length of La Sabana, across the Bridge of Spain, Isagani saw nothing but a sweet profile,
gracefully set off by beautiful hair, ending in an arching neck that lost itself amid the gauzy piña. A diamond
winked at him from the lobe of the [244]little ear, like a star among silvery clouds. He heard faint echoes
inquiring for Don Tiburcio de Espadaña, the name of Juanito Pelaez, but they sounded to him like distant bells,
the confused noises heard in a dream. It was necessary to tell him that they had reached Plaza Santa Cruz.[245]
1
Referring to the expeditions—Misión Española Católica—to the Caroline and Pelew Islands from 1886 to 1895, headed by the Capuchin
Fathers, which brought misery and disaster upon the natives of those islands, unprofitable losses and sufferings to the Filipino soldiers
engaged in them, discredit to Spain, and decorations of merit to a number of Spanish officers.—Tr.
2
Over the possession of the Caroline and Pelew Islands. The expeditions referred to in the previous note were largely inspired by German
activity with regard to those islands, which had always been claimed by Spain, who sold her claim to them to Germany after the loss of
the Philippines.—Tr.
3
“Where the wind wrinkles the silent waves, that rapidly break, of their own movement, with a gentle murmur on the shore.”—Tr.
4
“Where rapid and winged engines will rush in flight.”—Tr.
5
There is something almost uncanny about the general accuracy of the prophecy in these lines, the economic part of which is now so well on
the way to realization, although the writer of them would doubtless have been a very much surprised individual had he also foreseen how
it would come about. But one of his own expressions was “fire and steel to the cancer,” and it surely got them.
On the very day that this passage was translated and this note written, the first commercial liner was tied up at the new docks, which have
destroyed the Malecon but raised Manila to the front rank of Oriental seaports, and the final revision is made at Baguio, Mountain Province,
amid the “cooler temperatures on the slopes of the mountains.” As for the political portion, it is difficult even now to contemplate calmly
the blundering fatuity of that bigoted medieval brand of “patriotism” which led the decrepit Philippine government to play the Ancient
Mariner and shoot the Albatross that brought this message.—Tr.

Smiles and Tears

The sala of the Pansiteria Macanista de Buen Gusto1 that night presented an extraordinary aspect.
Fourteen young men of the principal islands of the archipelago, from the pure Indian (if there be pure ones) to the
Peninsular Spaniard, were met to hold the banquet advised by Padre Irene in view of the happy solution of the
affair about instruction in Castilian. They had engaged all the tables for themselves, ordered the lights to be
increased, and had posted on the wall beside the landscapes and Chinese kakemonos this strange versicle:
“GLORY TO CUSTODIO FOR HIS CLEVERNESS AND PANSIT ON EABTH TO THE YOUTHS
OF GOOD WILL.”
In a country where everything grotesque is covered with a mantle of seriousness, where many rise by the
force of wind and hot air, in a country where the deeply serious and sincere may do damage on issuing from the
heart and may cause trouble, probably this was the best way to celebrate the ingenious inspiration of the illustrious
Don Custodio. The mocked replied to the mockery with a laugh, to the governmental joke with a plate of pansit,
and yet—!
They laughed and jested, but it could be seen that the merriment was forced. The laughter had a certain
nervous ring, eyes flashed, and in more than one of these a tear glistened. Nevertheless, these young men were
cruel, they were unreasonable! It was not the first time that their most [246]beautiful ideas had been so treated,
that their hopes had been defrauded with big words and small actions: before this Don Custodio there had been
many, very many others.
In the center of the room under the red lanterns were placed four round tables, systematically arranged
to form a square. Little wooden stools, equally round, served as seats. In the middle of each table, according to
the practise of the establishment, were arranged four small colored plates with four pies on each one and four cups
of tea, with the accompanying dishes, all of red porcelain. Before each seat was a bottle and two glittering wine-
glasses.
Sandoval was curious and gazed about scrutinizing everything, tasting the food, examining the pictures,
reading the bill of fare. The others conversed on the topics of the day: about the French actresses, about the
mysterious illness of Simoun, who, according to some, had been found wounded in the street, while others averred
that he had attempted to commit suicide. As was natural, all lost themselves in conjectures. Tadeo gave his
particular version, which according to him came from a reliable source: Simoun had been assaulted by some
unknown person in the old Plaza Vivac,2 the motive being revenge, in proof of which was the fact that Simoun
himself refused to make the least explanation. From this they proceeded to talk of mysterious revenges, and
naturally of monkish pranks, each one relating the exploits of the curate of his town.
A notice in large black letters crowned the frieze of the room with this warning:
De esta fonda el cabecilla
Al publico advierte
Que nada dejen absolutamente
Sobre alguna mesa ó silla.3 [247]
 “What a notice!” exclaimed Sandoval. “As if he might have confidence in the police, eh? And what
verses! Don Tiburcio converted into a quatrain—two feet, one longer than the other, between two crutches! If
Isagani sees them, he’ll present them to his future aunt.”
“Here’s Isagani!” called a voice from the stairway. The happy youth appeared radiant with joy, followed
by two Chinese, without camisas, who carried on enormous waiters tureens that gave out an appetizing odor.
Merry exclamations greeted them.
Juanito Pelaez was missing, but the hour fixed had already passed, so they sat down happily to the tables.
Juanito was always unconventional.
“If in his place we had invited Basilio,” said Tadeo, “we should have been better entertained. We might
have got him drunk and drawn some secrets from him.”
“What, does the prudent Basilio possess secrets?”
“I should say so!” replied Tadeo. “Of the most important kind. There are some enigmas to which he
alone has the key: the boy who disappeared, the nun—”
“Gentlemen, the pansit lang-lang is the soup par excellence!” cried Makaraig. “As you will observe,
Sandoval, it is composed of vermicelli, crabs or shrimps, egg paste, scraps of chicken, and I don’t know what else.
As first-fruits, let us offer the bones to Don Custodio, to see if he will project something with them.”
A burst of merry laughter greeted this sally.
“If he should learn—”
“He’d come a-running!” concluded Sandoval. “This is excellent soup—what is it called?”
“Pansit lang-lang, that is, Chinese pansit, to distinguish it from that which is peculiar to this country.”
“Bah! That’s a hard name to remember. In honor of Don Custodio, I christen it the soup project!”
“Gentlemen,” said Makaraig, who had prepared the menu, “there are three courses yet. Chinese stew
made of pork—”[248]
“Which should be dedicated to Padre Irene.”
“Get out! Padre Irene doesn’t eat pork, unless he turns his nose away,” whispered a young man from
Iloilo to his neighbor.
“Let him turn his nose away!”
“Down with Padre Irene’s nose,” cried several at once.
“Respect, gentlemen, more respect!” demanded Pecson with comic gravity.
“The third course is a lobster pie—”
“Which should be dedicated to the friars,” suggested he of the Visayas.
“For the lobsters’ sake,” added Sandoval.
“Right, and call it friar pie!”
The whole crowd took this up, repeating in concert, “Friar pie!”
“I protest in the name of one of them,” said Isagani.
“And I, in the name of the lobsters,” added Tadeo.
“Respect, gentlemen, more respect!” again demanded Pecson with a full mouth.
“The fourth is stewed pansit, which is dedicated—to the government and the country!”
All turned toward Makaraig, who went on: “Until recently, gentlemen, the pansit was believed to be
Chinese or Japanese, but the fact is that, being unknown in China or Japan, it would seem to be Filipino, yet those
who prepare it and get the benefit from it are the Chinese—the same, the very, very same that happens to the
government and to the Philippines: they seem to be Chinese, but whether they are or not, the Holy Mother has her
doctors—all eat and enjoy it, yet characterize it as disagreeable and loathsome, the same as with the country, the
same as with the government. All live at its cost, all share in its feast, and afterwards there is no worse country
than the Philippines, there is no government more imperfect. Let us then dedicate the pansit to the country and to
the government.”
“Agreed!” many exclaimed.
“I protest!” cried Isagani.[249]
“Respect for the weaker, respect for the victims,” called Pecson in a hollow voice, waving a chicken-
bone in the air.
“Let’s dedicate the pansit to Quiroga the Chinaman, one of the four powers of the Filipino world,”
proposed Isagani.
“No, to his Black Eminence.”
“Silence!” cautioned one mysteriously. “There are people in the plaza watching us, and walls have ears.”
True it was that curious groups were standing by the windows, while the talk and laughter in the adjoining
houses had ceased altogether, as if the people there were giving their attention to what was occurring at the
banquet. There was something extraordinary about the silence.
“Tadeo, deliver your speech,” Makaraig whispered to him.
It had been agreed that Sandoval, who possessed the most oratorical ability, should deliver the last toast
as a summing up.
 Tadeo, lazy as ever, had prepared nothing, so he found himself in a quandary. While disposing of a long
string of vermicelli, he meditated how to get out of the difficulty, until he recalled a speech learned in school and
decided to plagiarize it, with adulterations.
“Beloved brethren in project!” he began, gesticulating with two Chinese chop-sticks.
“Brute! Keep that chop-stick out of my hair!” cried his neighbor.
“Called by you to fill the void that has been left in—”
“Plagiarism!” Sandoval interrupted him. “That speech was delivered by the president of our lyceum.”
“Called by your election,” continued the imperturbable Tadeo, “to fill the void that has been left in my
mind”—pointing to his stomach—“by a man famous for his Christian principles and for his inspirations and
projects, worthy of some little remembrance, what can one like myself say of him, I who am very hungry, not
having breakfasted?”
“Have a neck, my friend!” called a neighbor, offering that portion of a chicken.[250]
“There is one course, gentlemen, the treasure of a people who are today a tale and a mockery in the world,
wherein have thrust their hands the greatest gluttons of the western regions of the earth—” Here he pointed with
his chopsticks to Sandoval, who was struggling with a refractory chicken-wing.
“And eastern!” retorted the latter, describing a circle in the air with his spoon, in order to include all the
banqueters.
“No interruptions!”
“I demand the floor!”
“I demand pickles!” added Isagani.
“Bring on the stew!”
All echoed this request, so Tadeo sat down, contented with having got out of his quandary.
The dish consecrated to Padre Irene did not appear to be extra good, as Sandoval cruelly demonstrated
thus: “Shining with grease outside and with pork inside! Bring on the third course, the friar pie!”
The pie was not yet ready, although the sizzling of the grease in the frying-pan could be heard. They took
advantage of the delay to drink, begging Pecson to talk.
Pecson crossed himself gravely and arose, restraining his clownish laugh with an effort, at the same time
mimicking a certain Augustinian preacher, then famous, and beginning in a murmur, as though he were reading a
text.
“Si tripa plena laudal Deum, tripa famelica laudabit fratres—if the full stomach praises God, the hungry
stomach will praise the friars. Words spoken by the Lord Custodio through the mouth of Ben-Zayb, in the
journal El Grito de la Integridad, the second article, absurdity the one hundred and fifty-seventh.
“Beloved brethren in Christ: Evil blows its foul breath over the verdant shores of Frailandia, commonly
called the Philippine Archipelago. No day passes but the attack is renewed, but there is heard some sarcasm against
the reverend, venerable, infallible corporations, defenseless and unsupported. [251]Allow me, brethren, on this
occasion to constitute myself a knight-errant to sally forth in defense of the unprotected, of the holy corporations
that have reared us, thus again confirming the saving idea of the adage—a full stomach praises God, which is to
say, a hungry stomach will praise the friars.”
“Bravo, bravo!”
“Listen,” said Isagani seriously, “I want you to understand that, speaking of friars, I respect one.”
Sandoval was getting merry, so he began to sing a shady couplet about the friars.
“Hear me, brethren!” continued Pecson. “Turn your gaze toward the happy days of your infancy,
endeavor to analyze the present and ask yourselves about the future. What do you find? Friars, friars, and friars!
A friar baptized you, confirmed you, visited you in school with loving zeal; a friar heard your first secret; he was
the first to bring you into communion with God, to set your feet upon the pathway of life; friars were your first
and friars will be your last teachers; a friar it is who opens the hearts of your sweethearts, disposing them to heed
your sighs; a friar marries you, makes you travel over different islands to afford you changes of climate and
diversion; he will attend your death-bed, and even though you mount the scaffold, there will the friar be to
accompany you with his prayers and tears, and you may rest assured that he will not desert you until he sees you
thoroughly dead. Nor does his charity end there—dead, he will then endeavor to bury you with all pomp, he will
fight that your corpse pass through the church to receive his supplications, and he will only rest satisfied when he
can deliver you into the hands of the Creator, purified here on earth, thanks to temporal punishments, tortures, and
humiliations. Learned in the doctrines of Christ, who closes heaven against the rich, they, our redeemers and
genuine ministers of the Saviour, seek every means to lift away our sins and bear them far, far off, there where
the accursed Chinese and Protestants [252]dwell, to leave us this air, limpid, pure, healthful, in such a way that
even should we so wish afterwards, we could not find a real to bring about our condemnation.
“If, then, their existence is necessary to our happiness, if wheresoever we turn we must encounter their
delicate hands, hungering for kisses, that every day smooth the marks of abuse from our countenances, why not
adore them and fatten them—why demand their impolitic expulsion? Consider for a moment the immense void
that their absence would leave in our social system. Tireless workers, they improve and propagate the races!
Divided as we are, thanks to our jealousies and our susceptibilities, the friars unite us in a common lot, in a firm
bond, so firm that many are unable to move their elbows. Take away the friar, gentlemen, and you will see how
the Philippine edifice will totter; lacking robust shoulders and hairy limbs to sustain it, Philippine life will again
become monotonous, without the merry note of the playful and gracious friar, without the booklets and sermons
that split our sides with laughter, without the amusing contrast between grand pretensions and small brains,
without the actual, daily representations of the tales of Boccaccio and La Fontaine! Without the girdles and
scapularies, what would you have our women do in the future—save that money and perhaps become miserly and
covetous? Without the masses, novenaries, and processions, where will you find games of panguingui to entertain
them in their hours of leisure? They would then have to devote themselves to their household duties and instead
of reading diverting stories of miracles, we should then have to get them works that are not extant.
“Take away the friar and heroism will disappear, the political virtues will fall under the control of the
vulgar. Take him away and the Indian will cease to exist, for the friar is the Father, the Indian is the Word! The
former is the sculptor, the latter the statue, because all that we are, think, or do, we owe to the friar—to his patience,
his toil, his perseverance of three centuries to modify the form [253]Nature gave us. The Philippines without the
friar and without the Indian—what then would become of the unfortunate government in the hands of the
Chinamen?”
“It will eat lobster pie,” suggested Isagani, whom Pecson’s speech bored.
“And that’s what we ought to be doing. Enough of speeches!”
As the Chinese who should have served the courses did not put in his appearance, one of the students
arose and went to the rear, toward the balcony that overlooked the river. But he returned at once, making
mysterious signs.
“We’re watched! I’ve seen Padre Sibyla’s pet!”
“Yes?” ejaculated Isagani, rising.
“It’s no use now. When he saw me he disappeared.”
Approaching the window he looked toward the plaza, then made signs to his companions to come nearer.
They saw a young man leave the door of the pansitería, gaze all about him, then with some unknown person enter
a carriage that waited at the curb. It was Simoun’s carriage.
“Ah!” exclaimed Makaraig. “The slave of the Vice-Rector attended by the Master of the General!”[254]
1
These establishments are still a notable feature of native life in Manila. Whether the author adopted a title already common or popularized
one of his own invention, the fact is that they are now invariably known by the name used here. The use of macanista was due to the presence
in Manila of a large number of Chinese from Macao.—Tr.
2
Originally, Plaza San Gabriel, from the Dominican mission for the Chinese established there; later, as it became a commercial center, Plaza
Vivac; and now known as Plaza Cervantes, being the financial center of Manila.—Tr.
3
“The manager of this restaurant warns the public to leave absolutely nothing on any table or chair.”—Tr.

Pasquinades

Very early the next morning Basilio arose to go to the hospital. He had his plans made: to visit his
patients, to go afterwards to the University to see about his licentiateship, and then have an interview with
Makaraig about the expense this would entail, for he had used up the greater part of his savings in ransoming Juli
and in securing a house where she and her grandfather might live, and he had not dared to apply to Capitan Tiago,
fearing that such a move would be construed as an advance on the legacy so often promised him.
Preoccupied with these thoughts, he paid no attention to the groups of students who were at such an early
hour returning from the Walled City, as though the classrooms had been closed, nor did he even note the abstracted
air of some of them, their whispered conversations, or the mysterious signals exchanged among them. So it was
that when he reached San Juan de Dios and his friends asked him about the conspiracy, he gave a start,
remembering what Simoun had planned, but which had miscarried, owing to the unexplained accident to the
jeweler. Terrified, he asked in a trembling voice, at the same time endeavoring to feign ignorance, “Ah, yes, what
conspiracy?”
“It’s been discovered,” replied one, “and it seems that many are implicated in it.”
With an effort Basilio controlled himself. “Many implicated?” he echoed, trying to learn something from
the looks of the others. “Who?”
“Students, a lot of students.”
Basilio did not think it prudent to ask more, fearing [255]that he would give himself away, so on the
pretext of visiting his patients he left the group. One of the clinical professors met him and placing his hand
mysteriously on the youth’s shoulder—the professor was a friend of his—asked him in a low voice, “Were you at
that supper last night?”
 In his excited frame of mind Basilio thought the professor had said night before last, which was the time
of his interview with Simoun. He tried to explain. “I assure you,” he stammered, “that as Capitan Tiago was
worse—and besides I had to finish that book—”
“You did well not to attend it,” said the professor. “But you’re a member of the students’ association?”
“I pay my dues.”
“Well then, a piece of advice: go home at once and destroy any papers you have that may compromise
you.”
Basilio shrugged his shoulders—he had no papers, nothing more than his clinical notes.
“Has Señor Simoun—”
“Simoun has nothing to do with the affair, thank God!” interrupted the physician. “He was opportunely
wounded by some unknown hand and is now confined to his bed. No, other hands are concerned in this, but hands
no less terrible.”
Basilio drew a breath of relief. Simoun was the only one who could compromise him, although he thought
of Cabesang Tales.
“Are there tulisanes—”
“No, man, nothing more than students.”
Basilio recovered his serenity. “What has happened then?” he made bold to ask.
“Seditious pasquinades have been found; didn’t you know about them?”
“Where?”
“In the University.”
“Nothing more than that?”
“Whew! What more do you want?” asked the professor, [256]almost in a rage. “The pasquinades are
attributed to the students of the association—but, keep quiet!”
The professor of pathology came along, a man who had more the look of a sacristan than of a physician.
Appointed by the powerful mandate of the Vice-Rector, without other merit than unconditional servility to the
corporation, he passed for a spy and an informer in the eyes of the rest of the faculty.
The first professor returned his greeting coldly, and winked to Basilio, as he said to him, “Now I know
that Capitan Tiago smells like a corpse—the crows and vultures have been gathering around him.” So saying, he
went inside.
Somewhat calmed, Basilio now ventured to inquire for more details, but all that he could learn was that
pasquinades had been found on the doors of the University, and that the Vice-Rector had ordered them to be taken
down and sent to the Civil Government. It was said that they were filled with threats of assassination, invasion,
and other braggadocio.
The students made their comments on the affair. Their information came from the janitor, who had it
from a servant in Santo Tomas, who had it from an usher. They prognosticated future suspensions and
imprisonments, even indicating who were to be the victims—naturally the members of the association.
Basilio then recalled Simoun’s words: “The day in which they can get rid of you, you will not complete
your course.”
“Could he have known anything?” he asked himself. “We’ll see who is the most powerful.”
Recovering his serenity, he went on toward the University, to learn what attitude it behooved him to take
and at the same time to see about his licentiateship. He passed along Calle Legazpi, then down through Beaterio,
and upon arriving at the corner of this street and Calle Solana saw that something important must indeed have
happened. Instead of the former lively, chattering groups on the sidewalks [257]were to be seen civil-guards
making the students move on, and these latter issuing from the University silent, some gloomy, some agitated, to
stand off at a distance or make their way home.
The first acquaintance he met was Sandoval, but Basilio called to him in vain. He seemed to have been
smitten deaf. “Effect of fear on the gastro-intestinal juices,” thought Basilio.
Later he met Tadeo, who wore a Christmas face—at last that eternal holiday seemed to be realized.
“What has happened, Tadeo?”
“We’ll have no school, at least for a week, old man! Sublime! Magnificent!” He rubbed his hands in
glee.
“But what has happened?”
“They’re going to arrest all of us in the association.”
“And are you glad of that?”
“There’ll be no school, there’ll be no school!” He moved away almost bursting with joy.
Basilio saw Juanito Pelaez approaching, pale and suspicious. This time his hump had reached its
maximum, so great was his haste to get away. He had been one of the most active promoters of the association
while things were running smoothly.
“Eh, Pelaez, what’s happened?”
 “Nothing, I know nothing. I didn’t have anything to do with it,” he responded nervously. “I was always
telling you that these things were quixotisms. It’s the truth, you know I’ve said so to you?”
Basilio did not remember whether he had said so or not, but to humor him replied, “Yes, man, but what’s
happened?”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it? Look, you’re a witness: I’ve always been opposed—you’re a witness, don’t forget
it!”
“Yes, man, but what’s going on?”
“Listen, you’re a witness! I’ve never had anything to do with the members of the association, except to
give them [258]advice. You’re not going to deny it now. Be careful, won’t you?”
“No, no, I won’t deny it, but for goodness’ sake, what has happened?”
But Juanito was already far away. He had caught a glimpse of a guard approaching and feared arrest.
Basilio then went on toward the University to see if perhaps the secretary’s office might be open and if
he could glean any further news. The office was closed, but there was an extraordinary commotion in the building.
Hurrying up and down the stairways were friars, army officers, private persons, old lawyers and doctors, there
doubtless to offer their services to the endangered cause.
At a distance he saw his friend Isagani, pale and agitated, but radiant with youthful ardor, haranguing
some fellow students with his voice raised as though he cared little that he be heard by everybody.
“It seems preposterous, gentlemen, it seems unreal, that an incident so insignificant should scatter us and
send us into flight like sparrows at whom a scarecrow has been shaken! But is this the first time that students have
gone to prison for the sake of liberty? Where are those who have died, those who have been shot? Would you
apostatize now?”
“But who can the fool be that wrote such pasquinades?” demanded an indignant listener.
“What does that matter to us?” rejoined Isagani. “We don’t have to find out, let them find out! Before
we know how they are drawn up, we have no need to make any show of agreement at a time like this. There where
the danger is, there must we hasten, because honor is there! If what the pasquinades say is compatible with our
dignity and our feelings, be he who he may that wrote them, he has done well, and we ought to be grateful to him
and hasten to add our signatures to his! If they are unworthy of us, our conduct and our consciences will in
themselves protest and defend us from every accusation!”[259]
Upon hearing such talk, Basilio, although he liked Isagani very much, turned and left. He had to go to
Makaraig’s house to see about the loan.
Near the house of the wealthy student he observed whisperings and mysterious signals among the
neighbors, but not comprehending what they meant, continued serenely on his way and entered the doorway. Two
guards advanced and asked him what he wanted. Basilio realized that he had made a bad move, but he could not
now retreat.
“I’ve come to see my friend Makaraig,” he replied calmly.
The guards looked at each other. “Wait here,” one of them said to him. “Wait till the corporal comes
down.”
Basilio bit his lips and Simoun’s words again recurred to him. Had they come to arrest Makaraig?—was
his thought, but he dared not give it utterance. He did not have to wait long, for in a few moments Makaraig came
down, talking pleasantly with the corporal. The two were preceded by a warrant officer.
“What, you too, Basilio?” he asked.
“I came to see you—”
“Noble conduct!” exclaimed Makaraig laughing. “In time of calm, you avoid us.”
The corporal asked Basilio his name, then scanned a list. “Medical student, Calle Anloague?” he asked.
Basilio bit his lip.
“You’ve saved us a trip,” added the corporal, placing his hand on the youth’s shoulder. “You’re under
arrest!”
“What, I also?”
Makaraig burst out into laughter.
“Don’t worry, friend. Let’s get into the carriage, while I tell you about the supper last night.”
With a graceful gesture, as though he were in his own house, he invited the warrant officer and the
corporal to enter the carriage that waited at the door.
“To the Civil Government!” he ordered the cochero.
Now that Basilio had again regained his composure, he [260]told Makaraig the object of his visit. The
rich student did not wait for him to finish, but seized his hand. “Count on me, count on me, and to the festivities
celebrating our graduation we’ll invite these gentlemen,” he said, indicating the corporal and the warrant
officer.[261]
 The Friar and the Filipino

Vox populi, vox Dei

We left Isagani haranguing his friends. In the midst of his enthusiasm an usher approached him to say
that Padre Fernandez, one of the higher professors, wished to talk with him.
Isagani’s face fell. Padre Fernandez was a person greatly respected by him, being the one always
excepted by him whenever the friars were attacked.
“What does Padre Fernandez want?” he inquired.
The usher shrugged his shoulders and Isagani reluctantly followed him.
Padre Fernandez, the friar whom we met in Los Baños, was waiting in his cell, grave and sad, with his
brows knitted as if he were in deep thought. He arose as Isagani entered, shook hands with him, and closed the
door. Then he began to pace from one end of the room to the other. Isagani stood waiting for him to speak.
“Señor Isagani,” he began at length with some emotion, “from the window I’ve heard you speaking, for
though I am a consumptive I have good ears, and I want to talk with you. I have always liked the young men who
express themselves clearly and have their own way of thinking and acting, no matter that their ideas may differ
from mine. You young men, from what I have heard, had a supper last night. Don’t excuse yourself—”
“I don’t intend to excuse myself!” interrupted Isagani.
“So much the better—it shows that you accept the consequences of your actions. Besides, you would do
ill in [262]retracting, and I don’t blame you, I take no notice of what may have been said there last night, I don’t
accuse you, because after all you’re free to say of the Dominicans what seems best to you, you are not a pupil of
ours—only this year have we had the pleasure of having you, and we shall probably not have you longer. Don’t
think that I’m going to invoke considerations of gratitude; no, I’m not going to waste my time in stupid vulgarisms.
I’ve had you summoned here because I believe that you are one of the few students who act from conviction, and,
as I like men of conviction, I’m going to explain myself to Señor Isagani.”
Padre Fernandez paused, then continued his walk with bowed head, his gaze riveted on the floor.
“You may sit down, if you wish,” he remarked. “It’s a habit of mine to walk about while talking, because
my ideas come better then.”
Isagani remained standing, with his head erect, waiting for the professor to get to the point of the matter.
“For more than eight years I have been a professor here,” resumed Padre Fernandez, still continuing to
pace back and forth, “and in that time I’ve known and dealt with more than twenty-five hundred students. I’ve
taught them, I’ve tried to educate them, I’ve tried to inculcate in them principles of justice and of dignity, and yet
in these days when there is so much murmuring against us I’ve not seen one who has the temerity to maintain his
accusations when he finds himself in the presence of a friar, not even aloud in the presence of any numbers. Young
men there are who behind our backs calumniate us and before us kiss our hands, with a base smile begging kind
looks from us! Bah! What do you wish that we should do with such creatures?”
“The fault is not all theirs, Padre,” replied Isagani. “The fault lies partly with those who have taught them
to be hypocrites, with those who have tyrannized over freedom of thought and freedom of speech. Here every
independent [263]thought, every word that is not an echo of the will of those in power, is characterized as
filibusterism, and you know well enough what that means. A fool would he be who to please himself would say
aloud what he thinks, who would lay himself liable to suffer persecution!”
“What persecution have you had to suffer?” asked Padre Fernandez, raising his head. “Haven’t I let you
express yourself freely in my class? Nevertheless, you are an exception that, if what you say is true, I must correct,
so as to make the rule as general as possible and thus avoid setting a bad example.”
Isagani smiled. “I thank you, but I will not discuss with you whether I am an exception. I will accept
your qualification so that you may accept mine: you also are an exception, and as here we are not going to talk
about exceptions, nor plead for ourselves, at least, I mean, I’m not, I beg of my professor to change the course of
the conversation.”
In spite of his liberal principles, Padre Fernandez raised his head and stared in surprise at Isagani. That
young man was more independent than he had thought—although he called him professor, in reality he was
dealing with him as an equal, since he allowed himself to offer suggestions. Like a wise diplomat, Padre Fernandez
not only recognized the fact but even took his stand upon it.
“Good enough!” he said. “But don’t look upon me as your professor. I’m a friar and you are a Filipino
student, nothing more nor less! Now I ask you—what do the Filipino students want of us?”
The question came as a surprise; Isagani was not prepared for it. It was a thrust made suddenly while
they were preparing their defense, as they say in fencing. Thus startled, Isagani responded with a violent stand,
like a beginner defending himself.
“That you do your duty!” he exclaimed.
Fray Fernandez straightened up—that reply sounded to him like a cannon-shot. “That we do our duty!”
he [264]repeated, holding himself erect. “Don’t we, then, do our duty? What duties do you ascribe to us?”
 “Those which you voluntarily placed upon yourselves on joining the order, and those which afterwards,
once in it, you have been willing to assume. But, as a Filipino student, I don’t think myself called upon to examine
your conduct with reference to your statutes, to Catholicism, to the government, to the Filipino people, and to
humanity in general—those are questions that you have to settle with your founders, with the Pope, with the
government, with the whole people, and with God. As a Filipino student, I will confine myself to your duties
toward us. The friars in general, being the local supervisors of education in the provinces, and the Dominicans in
particular, by monopolizing in their hands all the studies of the Filipino youth, have assumed the obligation to its
eight millions of inhabitants, to Spain, and to humanity, of which we form a part, of steadily bettering the young
plant, morally and physically, of training it toward its happiness, of creating a people honest, prosperous,
intelligent, virtuous, noble, and loyal. Now I ask you in my turn—have the friars fulfilled that obligation of theirs?”
“We’re fulfilling—”
“Ah, Padre Fernandez,” interrupted Isagani, “you with your hand on your heart can say that you are
fulfilling it, but with your hand on the heart of your order, on the heart of all the orders, you cannot say that without
deceiving yourself. Ah, Padre Fernandez, when I find myself in the presence of a person whom I esteem and
respect, I prefer to be the accused rather than the accuser, I prefer to defend myself rather than take the offensive.
But now that we have entered upon the discussion, let us carry it to the end! How do they fulfill their obligation,
those who look after education in the towns? By hindering it! And those who here monopolize education, those
who try to mold the mind of youth, to the exclusion of all others whomsoever, how do they carry out their mission?
By [265]curtailing knowledge as much as possible, by extinguishing all ardor and enthusiasm, by trampling on
all dignity, the soul’s only refuge, by inculcating in us worn-out ideas, rancid beliefs, false principles incompatible
with a life of progress! Ah, yes, when it is a question of feeding convicts, of providing for the maintenance of
criminals, the government calls for bids in order to find the purveyor who offers the best means of subsistence, he
who at least will not let them perish from hunger, but when it is a question of morally feeding a whole people, of
nourishing the intellect of youth, the healthiest part, that which is later to be the country and the all, the government
not only does not ask for any bid, but restricts the power to that very body which makes a boast of not desiring
education, of wishing no advancement. What should we say if the purveyor for the prisons, after securing the
contract by intrigue, should then leave the prisoners to languish in want, giving them only what is stale and rancid,
excusing himself afterwards by saying that it is not convenient for the prisoners to enjoy good health, because
good health brings merry thoughts, because merriment improves the man, and the man ought not to be improved,
because it is to the purveyor’s interest that there be many criminals? What should we say if afterwards the
government and the purveyor should agree between themselves that of the ten or twelve cuartos which one
received for each criminal, the other should receive five?”
Padre Fernandek bit his lip. “Those are grave charges,” he said, “and you are overstepping the limits of
our agreement.”
“No, Padre, not if I continue to deal with the student question. The friars—and I do not say, you friars,
since I do not confuse you with the common herd—the friars of all the orders have constituted themselves our
mental purveyors, yet they say and shamelessly proclaim that it is not expedient for us to become enlightened,
because some day we shall declare ourselves free! That is just the same [266]as not wishing the prisoner to be
well-fed so that he may improve and get out of prison. Liberty is to man what education is to the intelligence, and
the friars’ unwillingness that we have it is the origin of our discontent.”
“Instruction is given only to those who deserve it,” rejoined Padre Fernandez dryly. “To give it to men
without character and without morality is to prostitute it.”
“Why are there men without character and without morality?”
The Dominican shrugged his shoulders. “Defects that they imbibe with their mothers’ milk, that they
breathe in the bosom of the family—how do I know?”
“Ah, no, Padre Fernandez!” exclaimed the young man impetuously. “You have not dared to go into the
subject deeply, you have not wished to gaze into the depths from fear of finding yourself there in the darkness of
your brethren. What we are, you have made us. A people tyrannized over is forced to be hypocritical; a people
denied the truth must resort to lies; and he who makes himself a tyrant breeds slaves. There is no morality, you
say, so let it be—even though statistics can refute you in that here are not committed crimes like those among
other peoples, blinded by the fumes of their moralizers. But, without attempting now to analyze what it is that
forms the character and how far the education received determines morality, I will agree with you that we are
defective. Who is to blame for that? You who for three centuries and a half have had in your hands our education,
or we who submit to everything? If after three centuries and a half the artist has been able to produce only a
caricature, stupid indeed he must be!”
“Or bad enough the material he works upon.”
“Stupider still then, when, knowing it to be bad, he does not give it up, but goes on wasting time. Not
only is he stupid, but he is a cheat and a robber, because he knows that his work is useless, yet continues to draw
his salary. Not only is he stupid and a thief, he is a villain in that [267]he prevents any other workman from trying
his skill to see if he might not produce something worth while! The deadly jealousy of the incompetent!”
 The reply was sharp and Padre Fernandez felt himself caught. To his gaze Isagani appeared gigantic,
invincible, convincing, and for the first time in his life he felt beaten by a Filipino student. He repented of having
provoked the argument, but it was too late to turn back. In this quandary, finding himself confronted with such a
formidable adversary, he sought a strong shield and laid hold of the government.
“You impute all the faults to us, because you see only us, who are near,” he said in a less haughty tone.
“It’s natural and doesn’t surprise me. A person hates the soldier or policeman who arrests him and not the judge
who sends him to prison. You and we are both dancing to the same measure of music—if at the same note you
lift your foot in unison with us, don’t blame us for it, it’s the music that is directing our movements. Do you think
that we friars have no consciences and that we do not desire what is right? Do you believe that we do not think
about you, that we do not heed our duty, that we only eat to live, and live to rule? Would that it were so! But we,
like you, follow the cadence, finding ourselves between Scylla and Charybdis: either you reject us or the
government rejects us. The government commands, and he who commands, commands,—and must be obeyed!”
“From which it may be inferred,” remarked Isagani with a bitter smile, “that the government wishes our
demoralization.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that! What I meant to say is that there are beliefs, there are theories, there are
laws, which, dictated with the best intention, produce the most deplorable consequences. I’ll explain myself better
by citing an example. To stamp out a small evil, there are dictated many laws that cause greater evils still:
‘corruptissima in republica plurimae leges,’ said Tacitus. To prevent [268]one case of fraud, there are provided
a million and a half preventive or humiliating regulations, which produce the immediate effect of awakening in
the public the desire to elude and mock such regulations. To make a people criminal, there’s nothing more needed
than to doubt its virtue. Enact a law, not only here, but even in Spain, and you will see how the means of evading
it will be sought, and this is for the very reason that the legislators have overlooked the fact that the more an object
is hidden, the more a sight of it is desired. Why are rascality and astuteness regarded as great qualities in the
Spanish people, when there is no other so noble, so proud, so chivalrous as it? Because our legislators, with the
best intentions, have doubted its nobility, wounded its pride, challenged its chivalry! Do you wish to open in Spain
a road among the rocks? Then place there an imperative notice forbidding the passage, and the people, in order to
protest against the order, will leave the highway to clamber over the rocks. The day on which some legislator in
Spain forbids virtue and commands vice, then all will become virtuous!”
The Dominican paused for a brief space, then resumed: “But you may say that we are getting away from
the subject, so I’ll return to it. What I can say to you, to convince you, is that the vices from which you suffer
ought to be ascribed by you neither to us nor to the government. They are due to the imperfect organization of our
social system: qui multum probat, nihil probat, one loses himself through excessive caution, lacking what is
necessary and having too much of what is superfluous.”
“If you admit those defects in your social system,” replied Isagani, “why then do you undertake to
regulate alien societies, instead of first devoting your attention to yourselves?”
“We’re getting away from the subject, young man. The theory in accomplished facts must be accepted.”
“So let it be! I accept it because it is an accomplished [269]fact, but I will further ask: why, if your social
organization is defective, do you not change it or at least give heed to the cry of those who are injured by it?”
“We’re still far away. Let’s talk about what the students want from the friars.”
“From the moment when the friars hide themselves behind the government, the students have to turn to
it.”
This statement was true and there appeared no means of ignoring it.
“I’m not the government and I can’t answer for its acts. What do the students wish us to do for them
within the limits by which we are confined?”
“Not to oppose the emancipation of education but to favor it.”
The Dominican shook his head. “Without stating my own opinion, that is asking us to commit suicide,”
he said.
“On the contrary, it is asking you for room to pass in order not to trample upon and crush you.”
“Ahem!” coughed Padre Fernandez, stopping and remaining thoughtful. “Begin by asking something
that does not cost so much, something that any one of us can grant without abatement of dignity or privilege, for
if we can reach an understanding and dwell in peace, why this hatred, why this distrust?”
“Then let’s get down to details.”
“Yes, because if we disturb the foundation, we’ll bring down the whole edifice.”
“Then let’s get down to details, let’s leave the region of abstract principles,” rejoined Isagani with a
smile, “and also without stating my own opinion,”—the youth accented these words—“the students would desist
from their attitude and soften certain asperities if the professors would try to treat them better than they have up
to the present. That is in their hands.”
“What?” demanded the Dominican. “Have the students any complaint to make about my conduct?”
 “Padre, we agreed from the start not to talk of yourself [270]or of myself, we’re speaking generally. The
students, besides getting no great benefit out of the years spent in the classes, often leave there remnants of their
dignity, if not the whole of it.”
Padre Fernandez again bit his lip. “No one forces them to study—the fields are uncultivated,” he observed
dryly.
“Yes, there is something that impels them to study,” replied Isagani in the same tone, looking the
Dominican full in the face. “Besides the duty of every one to seek his own perfection, there is the desire innate in
man to cultivate his intellect, a desire the more powerful here in that it is repressed. He who gives his gold and his
life to the State has the right to require of it opporttmity better to get that gold and better to care for his life. Yes,
Padre, there is something that impels them, and that something is the government itself. It is you yourselves who
pitilessly ridicule the uncultured Indian and deny him his rights, on the ground that he is ignorant. You strip him
and then scoff at his nakedness.”
Padre Fernandez did not reply, but continued to pace about feverishly, as though very much agitated.
“You say that the fields are not cultivated,” resumed Isagani in a changed tone, after a brief pause. “Let’s
not enter upon an analysis of the reason for this, because we should get far away. But you, Padre Fernandez, you,
a teacher, you, a learned man, do you wish a people of peons and laborers? In your opinion, is the laborer the
perfect state at which man may arrive in his development? Or is it that you wish knowledge for yourself and labor
for the rest?”
“No, I want knowledge for him who deserves it, for him who knows how to use it,” was the reply. “When
the students demonstrate that they love it, when young men of conviction appear, young men who know how to
maintain their dignity and make it respected, then there will be knowledge, then there will be considerate
professors! If [271]there are now professors who resort to abuse, it is because there are pupils who submit to it.”
“When there are professors, there will be students!”
“Begin by reforming yourselves, you who have need of change, and we will follow.”
“Yes,” said Isagani with a bitter laugh, “let us begin it, because the difficulty is on our side. Well you
know what is expected of a pupil who stands before a professor—you yourself, with all your love of justice, with
all your kind sentiments, have been restraining yourself by a great effort while I have been telling you bitter truths,
you yourself, Padre Fernandez! What good has been secured by him among us who has tried to inculcate other
ideas? What evils have not fallen upon you because you have tried to be just and perform your duty?”
“Señor Isagani,” said the Dominican, extending his hand, “although it may seem that nothing practical
has resulted from this conversation, yet something has been gained. I’ll talk to my brethren about what you have
told me and I hope that something can be done. Only I fear that they won’t believe in your existence.”
“I fear the same,” returned Isagani, shaking the Dominican’s hand. “I fear that my friends will not believe
in your existence, as you have revealed yourself to me today.”1[272]
Considering the interview at an end, the young man took his leave.
Padre Fernandez opened the door and followed him with his gaze until he disappeared around a corner
in the corridor. For some time he listened to the retreating footsteps, then went back into his cell and waited for
the youth to appear in the street.
He saw him and actually heard him say to a friend who asked where he was going: “To the Civil
Government! I’m going to see the pasquinades and join the others!”
His startled friend stared at him as one would look at a person who is about to commit suicide, then
moved away from him hurriedly.
“Poor boy!” murmured Padre Fernandez, feeling his eyes moisten. “I grudge you to the Jesuits who
educated you.”
But Padre Fernandez was completely mistaken; the Jesuits repudiated Isagani2 when that afternoon they
learned that he had been arrested, saying that he would compromise them. “That young man has thrown himself
away, he’s going to do us harm! Let it be understood that he didn’t get those ideas here.”
Nor were the Jesuits wrong. No! Those ideas come only from God through the medium of Nature.[273]
1
“We do not believe in the verisimilitude of this dialogue, fabricated by the author in order to refute the arguments of the friars, whose pride
was so great that it would not permit any Isagani to tell them these truths face to face. The invention of Padre Fernandez as a Dominican
professor is a stroke of generosity on Rizal’s part, in conceding that there could have existed any friar capable of talking frankly with
an Indian.”—W. E. Retana, in note to this chapter in the edition published by him at Barcelona in 1908. Retana ought to know of what
he is writing, for he was in the employ of the friars for several years and later in Spain wrote extensively for the journal supported by them
to defend their position in the Philippines. He has also been charged with having strongly urged Rizal’s execution in 1896. Since 1898,
however, he has doubled about, or, perhaps more aptly, performed a journalistic somersault—having written a diffuse biography and other
works dealing with Rizal. He is strong in unassorted [272n]facts, but his comments, when not inane and wearisome, approach a maudlin
wail over “spilt milk,” so the above is given at its face value only.—Tr.
2
Quite suggestive of, and perhaps inspired by, the author’s own experience.—Tr.
 Tatakut

With prophetic inspiration Ben-Zayb had been for some days past maintaining in his newspaper that
education was disastrous, very disastrous for the Philippine Islands, and now in view of the events of that Friday
of pasquinades, the writer crowed and chanted his triumph, leaving belittled and overwhelmed his
adversary Horatius, who in the Pirotecnia had dared to ridicule him in the following manner:
From our contemporary, El Grito:
“Education is disastrous, very disastrous, for the Philippine Islands.”
Admitted.
For some time El Grito has pretended to represent the Filipino people—ergo, as Fray Ibañez would say,
if he knew Latin.
But Fray Ibañez turns Mussulman when he writes, and we know how the Mussulmans dealt with
education. In witness whereof, as a royal preacher said, the Alexandrian library!
Now he was right, he, Ben-Zayb! He was the only one in the islands who thought, the only one who
foresaw events!
Truly, the news that seditious pasquinades had been found on the doors of the University not only took
away the appetite from many and disturbed the digestion of others, but it even rendered the phlegmatic Chinese
uneasy, so that they no longer dared to sit in their shops with one leg drawn up as usual, from fear of losing time
in extending it in order to put themselves into flight. At eight o’clock in the morning, although the sun continued
on its course and his Excellency, the Captain-General, did not appear at the head of his victorious cohorts, still
the [274]excitement had increased. The friars who were accustomed to frequent Quiroga’s bazaar did not put in
their appearance, and this symptom presaged terrific cataclysms. If the sun had risen a square and the saints
appeared only in pantaloons, Quiroga would not have been so greatly alarmed, for he would have taken the sun
for a gaming-table and the sacred images for gamblers who had lost their camisas, but for the friars not to come,
precisely when some novelties had just arrived for them!
By means of a provincial friend of his, Quiroga forbade entrance into his gaming-houses to every Indian
who was not an old acquaintance, as the future Chinese consul feared that they might get possession of the sums
that the wretches lost there. After arranging his bazaar in such a way that he could close it quickly in case of need,
he had a policeman accompany him for the short distance that separated his house from Simoun’s. Quiroga thought
this occasion the most propitious for making use of the rifles and cartridges that he had in his warehouse, in the
way the jeweler had pointed out; so that on the following days there would be searches made, and then—how
many prisoners, how many terrified people would give up their savings! It was the game of the old carbineers, in
slipping contraband cigars and tobacco-leaves under a house, in order to pretend a search and force the unfortunate
owner to bribery or fines, only now the art had been perfected and, the tobacco monopoly abolished, resort was
had to the prohibited arms.
But Simoun refused to see any one and sent word to the Chinese that he should leave things as they were,
whereupon he went to see Don Custodio to inquire whether he should fortify his bazaar, but neither would Don
Custodio receive him, being at the time engaged in the study of a project for defense in case of a siege. He thought
of Ben-Zayb as a source of information, but finding the writer armed to the teeth and using two loaded revolvers
for paper-weights, took his leave in the shortest possible [275]time, to shut himself up in his house and take to his
bed under pretense of illness.
At four in the afternoon the talk was no longer of simple pasquinades. There were whispered rumors of
an understanding between the students and the outlaws of San Mateo, it was certain that in the pansitería they had
conspired to surprise the city, there was talk of German ships outside the bay to support the movement, of a band
of young men who under the pretext of protesting and demonstrating their Hispanism had gone to the Palace to
place themselves at the General’s orders but had been arrested because it was discovered that they were armed.
Providence had saved his Excellency, preventing him from receiving those precocious criminals, as he was at the
time in conference with the Provincials, the Vice-Rector, and with Padre Irene, Padre Salvi’s representative. There
was considerable truth in these rumors, if we have to believe Padre Irene, who in the afternoon went to visit
Capitan Tiago. According to him, certain persons had advised his Excellency to improve the opportunity in order
to inspire terror and administer a lasting lesson to the filibusters.
“A number shot,” one had advised, “some two dozen reformers deported at once, in the silence of the
night, would extinguish forever the flames of discontent.”
“No,” rejoined another, who had a kind heart, “sufficient that the soldiers parade through the streets, a
troop of cavalry, for example, with drawn sabers—sufficient to drag along some cannon, that’s enough! The
people are timid and will all retire into their houses.”
“No, no,” insinuated another. “This is the opportunity to get rid of the enemy. It’s not sufficient that they
retire into their houses, they should be made to come out, like evil humors by means of plasters. If they are inclined
to start riots, they should be stirred up by secret agitators. I am of the opinion that the troops should be resting on
their arms and appearing careless and indifferent, so the people may be emboldened, and then in case of any
disturbance—out on them, action!”[276]
“The end justifies the means,” remarked another. “Our end is our holy religion and the integrity of the
fatherland. Proclaim a state of siege, and in case of the least disturbance, arrest all the rich and educated, and—
clean up the country!”
“If I hadn’t got there in time to counsel moderation,” added Padre Irene, speaking to Capitan Tiago, “it’s
certain that blood would now be flowing through the streets. I thought of you, Capitan—The partizans of force
couldn’t do much with the General, and they missed Simoun. Ah, if Simoun had not been taken ill—”
With the arrest of Basilio and the search made later among his books and papers, Capitan Tiago had
become much worse. Now Padre Irene had come to augment his terror with hair-raising tales. Ineffable fear seized
upon the wretch, manifesting itself first by a light shiver, which was rapidly accentuated, until he was unable to
speak. With his eyes bulging and his brow covered with sweat, he caught Padre Irene’s arm and tried to rise, but
could not, and then, uttering two groans, fell heavily back upon the pillow. His eyes were wide open and he was
slavering—but he was dead. The terrified Padre Irene fled, and, as the dying man had caught hold of him, in his
flight he dragged the corpse from the bed, leaving it sprawling in the middle of the room.
By night the terror had reached a climax. Several incidents had occurred to make the timorous believe in
the presence of secret agitators.
During a baptism some cuartos were thrown to the boys and naturally there was a scramble at the door
of the church. It happened that at the time there was passing a bold soldier, who, somewhat preoccupied, mistook
the uproar for a gathering of filibusters and hurled himself, sword in hand, upon the boys. He went into the church,
and had he not become entangled in the curtains suspended from the choir he would not have left a single head
on shoulders. It was but the matter of a moment for the [277]timorous to witness this and take to flight, spreading
the news that the revolution had begun. The few shops that had been kept open were now hastily closed, there
being Chinese who even left bolts of cloth outside, and not a few women lost their slippers in their flight through
the streets. Fortunately, there was only one person wounded and a few bruised, among them the soldier himself,
who suffered a fall fighting with the curtain, which smelt to him of filibusterism. Such prowess gained him great
renown, and a renown so pure that it is to be wished all fame could be acquired in like manner—mothers would
then weep less and earth would be more populous!
In a suburb the inhabitants caught two unknown individuals burying arms under a house, whereupon a
tumult arose and the people pursued the strangers in order to kill them and turn their bodies over to the authorities,
but some one pacified the excited crowd by telling them that it would be sufficient to hand over the corpora
delictorum, which proved to be some old shotguns that would surely have killed the first person who tried to fire
them.
“All right,” exclaimed one braggart, “if they want us to rebel, let’s go ahead!” But he was cuffed and
kicked into silence, the women pinching him as though he had been the owner of the shotguns.
In Ermita the affair was more serious, even though there was less excitement, and that when there were
shots fired. A certain cautious government employee, armed to the teeth, saw at nightfall an object near his house,
and taking it for nothing less than a student, fired at it twice with a revolver. The object proved to be a policeman,
and they buried him—pax Christi! Mutis!
In Dulumbayan various shots also resounded, from which there resulted the death of a poor old deaf man,
who had not heard the sentinel’s quién vive, and of a hog that had heard it and had not answered España! The old
man was buried with difficulty, since there was no money to pay for the obsequies, but the hog was eaten.[278]
In Manila,1 in a confectionery near the University much frequented by the students, the arrests were thus
commented upon.
“And have they arrested Tadeo?”2 asked the proprietess.
“Abá!” answered a student who lived in Parian, “he’s already shot!”
“Shot! Nakú! He hasn’t paid what he owes me.”
“Ay, don’t mention that or you’ll be taken for an accomplice. I’ve already burnt the book3 you lent me.
There might be a search and it would be found. Be careful!”
“Did you say that Isagani is a prisoner?”
“Crazy fool, too, that Isagani,” replied the indignant student. “They didn’t try to catch him, but he went
and surrendered. Let him bust himself—he’ll surely be shot.”
The señora shrugged her shoulders. “He doesn’t owe me anything. And what about Paulita?”
“She won’t lack a husband. Sure, she’ll cry a little, and then marry a Spaniard.”
The night was one of the gloomiest. In the houses the rosary was recited and pious women dedicated
paternosters and requiems to each of the souls of their relatives and friends. By eight o’clock hardly a pedestrian
could be seen—only from time to time was heard the galloping of a horse against whose sides a saber clanked
noisily, then the whistles of the watchmen, and carriages that whirled along at full speed, as though pursued by
mobs of filibusters.
 Yet terror did not reign everywhere. In the house of the silversmith, where Placido Penitente boarded,
the events were commented upon and discussed with some freedom.[279]
“I don’t believe in the pasquinades,” declared a workman, lank and withered from operating the
blowpipe. “To me it looks like Padre Salvi’s doings.”
“Ahem, ahem!” coughed the silversmith, a very prudent man, who did not dare to stop the conversation
from fear that he would be considered a coward. The good man had to content himself with coughing, winking to
his helper, and gazing toward the street, as if to say, “They may be watching us!”
“On account of the operetta,” added another workman.
“Aha!” exclaimed one who had a foolish face, “I told you so!”
“Ahem!” rejoined a clerk, in a tone of compassion, “the affair of the pasquinades is true, Chichoy, and I
can give you the explanation.”
Then he added mysteriously, “It’s a trick of the Chinaman Quiroga’s!”
“Ahem, ahem!” again coughed the silversmith, shifting his quid of buyo from one cheek to the other.
“Believe me, Chichoy, of Quiroga the Chinaman! I heard it in the office.”
“Nakú, it’s certain then,” exclaimed the simpleton, believing it at once.
“Quiroga,” explained the clerk, “has a hundred thousand pesos in Mexican silver out in the bay. How is
he to get it in? Very easily. Fix up the pasquinades, availing himself of the question of the students, and, while
every-body is excited, grease the officials’ palms, and in the cases come!”
“Just it! Just it!” cried the credulous fool, striking the table with his fist. “Just it! That’s why Quiroga did
it! That’s why—” But he had to relapse into silence as he really did not know what to say about Quiroga.
“And we must pay the damages?” asked the indignant Chichoy.
“Ahem, ahem, a-h-hem!” coughed the silversmith, hearing steps in the street.[280]
The footsteps approached and all in the shop fell silent.
“St. Pascual Bailon is a great saint,” declared the silversmith hypocritically, in a loud voice, at the same
time winking to the others. “St. Pascual Bailon—”
At that moment there appeared the face of Placido Penitente, who was accompanied by the
pyrotechnician that we saw receiving orders from Simoun. The newcomers were surrounded and importuned for
news.
“I haven’t been able to talk with the prisoners,” explained Placido. “There are some thirty of them.”
“Be on your guard,” cautioned the pyrotechnician, exchanging a knowing look with Placido. “They say
that to-night there’s going to be a massacre.”
“Aha! Thunder!” exclaimed Chichoy, looking about for a weapon. Seeing none, he caught up his
blowpipe.
The silversmith sat down, trembling in every limb. The credulous simpleton already saw himself
beheaded and wept in anticipation over the fate of his family.
“No,” contradicted the clerk, “there’s not going to be any massacre. The adviser of”—he made a
mysterious gesture—“is fortunately sick.”
“Simoun!”
“Ahem, ahem, a-h-hem!”
Placido and the pyrotechnician exchanged another look.
“If he hadn’t got sick—”
“It would look like a revolution,” added the pyrotechnician negligently, as he lighted a cigarette in the
lamp chimney. “And what should we do then?”
“Then we’d start a real one, now that they’re going to massacre us anyhow—”
The violent fit of coughing that seized the silversmith prevented the rest of this speech from being heard,
but Chichoy must have been saying terrible things, to judge from his murderous gestures with the blowpipe and
the face of a Japanese tragedian that he put on.
“Rather say that he’s playing off sick because he’s afraid to go out. As may be seen—”[281]
The silversmith was attacked by another fit of coughing so severe that he finally asked all to retire.
“Nevertheless, get ready,” warned the pyrotechnician. “If they want to force us to kill or be killed—”
Another fit of coughing on the part of the poor silversmith prevented further conversation, so the
workmen and apprentices retired to their homes, carrying with them hammers and saws, and other implements,
more or less cutting, more or less bruising, disposed to sell their lives dearly. Placido and the pyrotechnician went
out again.
“Prudence, prudence!” cautioned the silversmith in a tearful voice.
“You’ll take care of my widow and orphans!” begged the credulous simpleton in a still more tearful
voice, for he already saw himself riddled with bullets and buried.
That night the guards at the city gates were replaced with Peninsular artillerymen, and on the following
morning as the sun rose, Ben-Zayb, who had ventured to take a morning stroll to examine the condition of the
fortifications, found on the glacis near the Luneta the corpse of a native girl, half-naked and abandoned. Ben-Zayb
was horrified, but after touching it with his cane and gazing toward the gates proceeded on his way, musing over
a sentimental tale he might base upon the incident.
However, no allusion to it appeared in the newspapers on the following days, engrossed as they were
with the falls and slippings caused by banana-peels. In the dearth of news Ben-Zayb had to comment at length on
a cyclone that had destroyed in America whole towns, causing the death of more than two thousand persons.
Among other beautiful things he said:
“The sentiment of charity, MORE PREVALENT IN CATHOLIC COUNTRIES THAN IN OTHERS,
and the thought of Him who, influenced by that same feeling, sacrificed himself for humanity, moves (sic) us to
compassion over the misfortunes of our kind and to render thanks that in this country, so scourged by cyclones,
there are not enacted scenes so desolating as that which the inhabitants of the United States mus have witnessed!”
[282]
Horatius did not miss the opportunity, and, also without mentioning the dead, or the murdered native
girl, or the assaults, answered him in his Pirotecnia:
“After such great charity and such great humanity, Fray Ibañez—I mean, Ben-Zayb—brings himself to
pray for the Philippines.
But he is understood.
Because he is not Catholic, and the sentiment of charity is most prevalent,” etc.4 [283]
1
The Walled City, the original Manila, is still known to the Spaniards and older natives exclusively as such, the other districts being referred
to by their distinctive names.—Tr.
2
Nearly all the dialogue in this chapter is in the mongrel Spanish-Tagalog “market language,” which cannot be reproduced in English.—Tr.
3
Doubtless a reference to the author’s first work, Noli Me Tangere, which was tabooed by the authorities.—Tr.
4
Such inanities as these are still a feature of Manila journalism.—Tr.

Exit Capitan Tiago

Talis vita, finis ita

Capitan Tiago had a good end—that is, a quite exceptional funeral. True it is that the curate of the parish
had ventured the observation to Padre Irene that Capitan Tiago had died without confession, but the good priest,
smiling sardonically, had rubbed the tip of his nose and answered:
“Why say that to me? If we had to deny the obsequies to all who die without confession, we should forget
the De profundis! These restrictions, as you well know, are enforced when the impenitent is also insolvent. But
Capitan Tiago—out on you! You’ve buried infidel Chinamen, and with a requiem mass!”
Capitan Tiago had named Padre Irene as his executor and willed his property in part to St. Clara, part to
the Pope, to the Archbishop, the religious corporations, leaving twenty pesos for the matriculation of poor
students. This last clause had been dictated at the suggestion of Padre Irene, in his capacity as protector of studious
youths. Capitan Tiago had annulled a legacy of twenty-five pesos that he had left to Basilio, in view of the
ungrateful conduct of the boy during the last few days, but Padre Irene had restored it and announced that he
would take it upon his own purse and conscience.
In the dead man’s house, where were assembled on the following day many old friends and
acquaintances, considerable comment was indulged in over a miracle. It was reported that, at the very moment
when he was dying, the [284]soul of Capitan Tiago had appeared to the nuns surrounded by a brilliant light. God
had saved him, thanks to the pious legacies, and to the numerous masses he had paid for. The story was commented
upon, it was recounted vividly, it took on particulars, and was doubted by no one. The appearance of Capitan
Tiago was minutely described—of course the frock coat, the cheek bulged out by the quid of buyo, without
omitting the game-cock and the opium-pipe. The senior sacristan, who was present, gravely affirmed these facts
with his head and reflected that, after death, he would appear with his cup of white tajú, for without that refreshing
breakfast he could not comprehend happiness either on earth or in heaven.
On this subject, because of their inability to discuss the events of the preceding day and because there
were gamblers present, many strange speculations were developed. They made conjectures as to whether Capitan
Tiago would invite St. Peter to a soltada, whether they would place bets, whether the game-cocks were immortal,
whether invulnerable, and in this case who would be the referee, who would win, and so on: discussions quite to
the taste of those who found sciences, theories, and systems, based on a text which they esteem infallible, revealed
or dogmatic. Moreover, there were cited passages from novenas, books of miracles, sayings of the curates,
descriptions of heaven, and other embroidery. Don Primitivo, the philosopher, was in his glory quoting opinions
of the theologians.
“Because no one can lose,” he stated with great authority. “To lose would cause hard feelings and in
heaven there can’t be any hard feelings.”
“But some one has to win,” rejoined the gambler Aristorenas. “The fun lies in winning!”
“Well, both win, that’s easy!”
 This idea of both winning could not be admitted by Aristorenas, for he had passed his life in the cockpit
and had always seen one cock lose and the other win—at best, there was a tie. Vainly Don Primitivo argued in
Latin. [285]Aristorenas shook his head, and that too when Don Primitivo’s Latin was easy to understand, for he
talked of an gallus talisainus, acuto tari armatus, an gallus beati Petri bulikus sasabung̃us sit,1 and so on, until at
length he decided to resort to the argument which many use to convince and silence their opponents.
“You’re going to be damned, friend Martin, you’re falling into heresy! Cave ne cadas! I’m not going to
play monte with you any more, and we’ll not set up a bank together. You deny the omnipotence of God, peccatum
mortale! You deny the existence of the Holy Trinity— three are one and one is three! Take care! You indirectly
deny that two natures, two understandings, and two wills can have only one memory! Be careful! Quicumque non
crederit anathema sit!”
Martin Aristorenas shrank away pale and trembling, while Quiroga, who had listened with great attention
to the argument, with marked deference offered the philosopher a magnificent cigar, at the same time asking in
his caressing voice: “Surely, one can make a contract for a cockpit with Kilisto, 2 ha? When I die, I’ll be the
contractor, ha?”
Among the others, they talked more of the deceased; at least they discussed what kind of clothing to put
on him. Capitan Tinong proposed a Franciscan habit—and fortunately, he had one, old, threadbare, and patched,
a precious object which, according to the friar who gave it to him as alms in exchange for thirty-six pesos, would
preserve the corpse from the flames of hell and which reckoned in its [286]support various pious anecdotes taken
from the books distributed by the curates. Although he held this relic in great esteem, Capitan Tinong was disposed
to part with it for the sake of his intimate friend, whom he had not been able to visit during his illness. But a tailor
objected, with good reason, that since the nuns had seen Capitan Tiago ascending to heaven in a frock coat, in a
frock coat he should be dressed here on earth, nor was there any necessity for preservatives and fire-proof
garments. The deceased had attended balls and fiestas in a frock coat, and nothing else would be expected of him
in the skies—and, wonderful to relate, the tailor accidentally happened to have one ready, which he would part
with for thirty-two pesos, four cheaper than the Franciscan habit, because he didn’t want to make any profit on
Capitan Tiago, who had been his customer in life and would now be his patron in heaven. But Padre Irene, trustee
and executor, rejected both proposals and ordered that the Capitan be dressed in one of his old suits of clothes,
remarking with holy unction that God paid no attention to clothing.
The obsequies were, therefore, of the very first class. There were responsories in the house, and in the
street three friars officiated, as though one were not sufficient for such a great soul. All the rites and ceremonies
possible were performed, and it is reported that there were even extras, as in the benefits for actors. It was indeed
a delight: loads of incense were burned, there were plenty of Latin chants, large quantities of holy water were
expended, and Padre Irene, out of regard for his old friend, sang the Dies Irae in a falsetto voice from the choir,
while the neighbors suffered real headaches from so much knell-ringing.
Doña Patrocinio, the ancient rival of Capitan Tiago in religiosity, actually wanted to die on the next day,
so that she might order even more sumptuous obsequies. The pious old lady could not bear the thought that he,
whom she had long considered vanquished forever, should in dying come [287]forward again with so much pomp.
Yes, she desired to die, and it seemed that she could hear the exclamations of the people at the funeral: “This
indeed is what you call a funeral! This indeed is to know how to die, Doña Patrocinio!”[288]
1
“Whether there would be a talisain cock, armed with a sharp gaff, whether the blessed Peter’s fighting-cock would be a bulik—”
Talisain and bulik are distinguishing terms in the vernacular for fighting-cocks, tari and sasabung̃in the Tagalog terms for “gaff” and “game-
cock,” respectively.
The Tagalog terminology of the cockpit and monkish Latin certainly make a fearful and wonderful mixture—nor did the author have to resort
to his imagination to get samples of it.—Tr.
2
This is Quiroga’s pronunciation of Christo.—Tr.

Juli

The death of Capitan Tiago and Basilio’s imprisonment were soon reported in the province, and to the
honor of the simple inhabitants of San Diego, let it be recorded that the latter was the incident more regretted and
almost the only one discussed. As was to be expected, the report took on different forms, sad and startling details
were given, what could not be understood was explained, the gaps being filled by conjectures, which soon passed
for accomplished facts, and the phantoms thus created terrified their own creators.
In the town of Tiani it was reported that at least, at the very least, the young man was going to be deported
and would very probably be murdered on the journey. The timorous and pessimistic were not satisfied with this
but even talked about executions and courts-martial—January was a fatal month; in January the Cavite affair had
occurred, and they1 even though curates, had been garroted, so a poor Basilio without protectors or friends—
“I told him so!” sighed the Justice of the Peace, as if he had at some time given advice to Basilio. “I told
him so.”
 “It was to be expected,” commented Sister Penchang. “He would go into the church and when he saw
that the holy water was somewhat dirty he wouldn’t cross himself with it. He talked about germs and disease, abá,
it’s the chastisement of God! He deserved it, and he got it! As [289]though the holy water could transmit diseases!
Quite the contrary, abá!”
She then related how she had cured herself of indigestion by moistening her stomach with holy water, at
the same time reciting the Sanctus Deus, and she recommended the remedy to those present when they should
suffer from dysentery, or an epidemic occurred, only that then they must pray in Spanish:
Santo Diós,
Santo fuerte,
Santo inmortal,
¡Libranos, Señor, de la peste
Y de todo mal!2
“It’s an infallible remedy, but you must apply the holy water to the part affected,” she concluded.
But there were many persons who did not believe in these things, nor did they attribute Basilio’s
imprisonment to the chastisement of God. Nor did they take any stock in insurrections and pasquinades, knowing
the prudent and ultra-pacific character of the boy, but preferred to ascribe it to revenge on the part of the friars,
because of his having rescued from servitude Juli, the daughter of a tulisan who was the mortal enemy of a certain
powerful corporation. As they had quite a poor idea of the morality of that same corporation and could recall cases
of petty revenge, their conjecture was believed to have more probability and justification.
“What a good thing I did when I drove her from my house!” said Sister Penchang. “I don’t want to have
any trouble with the friars, so I urged her to find the money.”
The truth was, however, that she regretted Juli’s liberty, for Juli prayed and fasted for her, and if she had
stayed a longer time, would also have done penance. Why, if the curates pray for us and Christ died for our sins,
couldn’t Juli do the same for Sister Penchang?[290]
When the news reached the hut where the poor Juli and her grandfather lived, the girl had to have it
repeated to her. She stared at Sister Bali, who was telling it, as though without comprehension, without ability to
collect her thoughts. Her ears buzzed, she felt a sinking at the heart and had a vague presentiment that this event
would have a disastrous influence on her own future. Yet she tried to seize upon a ray of hope, she smiled, thinking
that Sister Bali was joking with her, a rather strong joke, to be sure, but she forgave her beforehand if she would
acknowledge that it was such. But Sister Bali made a cross with one of her thumbs and a forefinger, and kissed it,
to prove that she was telling the truth. Then the smile faded forever from the girl’s lips, she turned pale, frightfully
pale, she felt her strength leave her and for the first time in her life she lost consciousness, falling into a swoon.
When by dint of blows, pinches, dashes of water, crosses, and the application of sacred palms, the girl
recovered and remembered the situation, silent tears sprang from her eyes, drop by drop, without sobs, without
laments, without complaints! She thought about Basilio, who had had no other protector than Capitan Tiago, and
who now, with the Capitan dead, was left completely unprotected and in prison. In the Philippines it is a well-
known fact that patrons are needed for everything, from the time one is christened until one dies, in order to get
justice, to secure a passport, or to develop an industry. As it was said that his imprisonment was due to revenge
on account of herself and her father, the girl’s sorrow turned to desperation. Now it was her duty to liberate him,
as he had done in rescuing her from servitude, and the inner voice which suggested the idea offered to her
imagination a horrible means.
“Padre Camorra, the curate,” whispered the voice. Juli gnawed at her lips and became lost in gloomy
meditation.
As a result of her father’s crime, her grandfather had been arrested in the hope that by such means the
son could be made to appear. The only one who could get him [291]his liberty was Padre Camorra, and Padre
Camorra had shown himself to be poorly satisfied with her words of gratitude, having with his usual frankness
asked for some sacrifices—since which time Juli had tried to avoid meeting him. But the curate made her kiss his
hand, he twitched her nose and patted her cheeks, he joked with her, winking and laughing, and laughing he
pinched her. Juli was also the cause of the beating the good curate had administered to some young men who were
going about the village serenading the girls. Malicious ones, seeing her pass sad and dejected, would remark so
that she might hear: “If she only wished it, Cabesang Tales would be pardoned.”
Juli reached her home, gloomy and with wandering looks. She had changed greatly, having lost her
merriment, and no one ever saw her smile again. She scarcely spoke and seemed to be afraid to look at her own
face. One day she was seen in the town with a big spot of soot on her forehead, she who used to go so trim and
neat. Once she asked Sister Bali if the people who committed suicide went to hell.
“Surely!” replied that woman, and proceeded to describe the place as though she had been there.
Upon Basilio’s imprisonment, the simple and grateful relatives had planned to make all kinds of
sacrifices to save the young man, but as they could collect among themselves no more than thirty pesos, Sister
Bali, as usual, thought of a better plan.
 “What we must do is to get some advice from the town clerk,” she said. To these poor people, the town
clerk was what the Delphic oracle was to the ancient Greeks.
“By giving him a real and a cigar,” she continued, “he’ll tell you all the laws so that your head bursts
listening to him. If you have a peso, he’ll save you, even though you may be at the foot of the scaffold. When my
friend Simon was put in jail and flogged for not being able to give evidence about a robbery perpetrated near his
house, abá, for two reales and a half and a string of garlics, the town clerk got him out. And I saw Simon myself
when [292]he could scarcely walk and he had to stay in bed at least a month. Ay, his flesh rotted as a result and
he died!”
Sister Bali’s advice was accepted and she herself volunteered to interview the town clerk. Juli gave her
four reales and added some strips of jerked venison her grand-father had got, for Tandang Selo had again devoted
himself to hunting.
But the town clerk could do nothing—the prisoner was in Manila, and his power did not extend that far.
“If at least he were at the capital, then—” he ventured, to make a show of his authority, which he knew very well
did not extend beyond the boundaries of Tiani, but he had to maintain his prestige and keep the jerked venison.
“But I can give you a good piece of advice, and it is that you go with Juli to see the Justice of the Peace. But it’s
very necessary that Juli go.”
The Justice of the Peace was a very rough fellow, but if he should see Juli he might conduct himself less
rudely—this is wherein lay the wisdom of the advice.
With great gravity the honorable Justice listened to Sister Bali, who did the talking, but not without
staring from time to time at the girl, who hung her head with shame. People would say that she was greatly
interested in Basilio, people who did not remember her debt of gratitude, nor that his imprisonment, according to
report, was on her account.
After belching three or four times, for his Honor had that ugly habit, he said that the only person who
could save Basilio was Padre Camorra, in case he should care to do so. Here he stared meaningly at the girl and
advised her to deal with the curate in person.
“You know what influence he has,—he got your grand-father out of jail. A report from him is enough to
deport a new-born babe or save from death a man with the noose about his neck.”
Juli said nothing, but Sister Bali took this advice as though she had read it in a novena, and was ready to
accompany the girl to the convento. It so happened that [293]she was just going there to get as alms a scapulary
in exchange for four full reales.
But Juli shook her head and was unwilling to go to the convento. Sister Bali thought she could guess the
reason—Padre Camorra was reputed to be very fond of the women and was very frolicsome—so she tried to
reassure her. “You’ve nothing to fear if I go with you. Haven’t you read in the booklet Tandang Basio, given you
by the curate, that the girls should go to the convento, even without the knowledge of their elders, to relate what
is going on at home? Abá, that book is printed with the permission of the Archbishop!”
Juli became impatient and wished to cut short such talk, so she begged the pious woman to go if she
wished, but his Honor observed with a belch that the supplications of a youthful face were more moving than
those of an old one, the sky poured its dew over the fresh flowers in greater abundance than over the withered
ones. The metaphor was fiendishly beautiful.
Juli did not reply and the two left the house. In the street the girl firmly refused to go to the convento and
they returned to their village. Sister Bali, who felt offended at this lack of confidence in herself, on the way home
relieved her feelings by administering a long preachment to the girl.
The truth was that the girl could not take that step without damning herself in her own eyes, besides being
cursed of men and cursed of God! It had been intimated to her several times, whether with reason or not, that if
she would make that sacrifice her father would be pardoned, and yet she had refused, in spite of the cries of her
conscience reminding her of her filial duty. Now must she make it for Basilio, her sweetheart? That would be to
fall to the sound of mockery and laughter from all creation. Basilio himself would despise her! No, never! She
would first hang herself or leap from some precipice. At any rate, she was already damned for being a wicked
daughter.
The poor girl had besides to endure all the reproaches [294]of her relatives, who, knowing nothing of
what had passed between her and Padre Camovra, laughed at her fears. Would Padre Camorra fix his attention
upon a country girl when there were so many others in the town? Hero the good women cited names of unmarried
girls, rich and beautiful, who had been more or less unfortunate. Meanwhile, if they should shoot Basilio?
Juli covered her ears and stared wildly about, as if seeking a voice that might plead for her, but she saw
only her grandfather, who was dumb and had his gaze fixed on his hunting-spear.
That night she scarcely slept at all. Dreams and nightmares, some funereal, some bloody, danced before
her sight and woke her often, bathed in cold perspiration. She fancied that she heard shots, she imagined that she
saw her father, that father who had done so much for her, fighting in the forests, hunted like a wild beast because
she had refused to save him. The figure of her father was transformed and she recognized Basilio, dying, with
looks of reproach at her. The wretched girl arose, prayed, wept, called upon her mother, upon death, and there
was even a moment when, overcome with terror, if it had not been night-time, she would have run straight to the
convento, let happen what would.
With the coming of day the sad presentiments and the terrors of darkness were partly dissipated. The
light inspired hopes in her. But the news of the afternoon was terrible, for there was talk of persons shot, so the
next night was for the girl frightful. In her desperation she decided to give herself up as soon as day dawned and
then kill herself afterwards—anything, rather than enditre such tortures! But the dawn brought new hope and she
would not go to church or even leave the house. She was afraid she would yield.
So passed several days in praying and cursing, in calling upon God and wishing for death. The day gave
her a slight respite and she trusted in some miracle. The reports that [295]came from Manila, although they reached
there magnified, said that of the prisoners some had secured their liberty, thanks to patrons and influence. Some
one had to be sacrificed—who would it be? Juli shuddered and returned home biting her finger-nails. Then came
the night with its terrors, which took on double proportions and seemed to be converted into realities. Juli feared
to fall asleep, for her slumbers were a continuous nightmare. Looks of reproach would flash across her eyelids
just as soon as they were closed, complaints and laments pierced her ears. She saw her father wandering about
hungry, without rest or repose; she saw Basilio dying in the road, pierced by two bullets, just as she had seen the
corpse of that neighbor who had been killed while in the charge of the Civil Guard. She saw the bonds that cut
into the flesh, she saw the blood pouring from the mouth, she heard Basilio calling to her, “Save me! Save me!
You alone can save me!” Then a burst of laughter would resound and she would turn her eyes to see her father
gazing at her with eyes full of reproach. Juli would wake up, sit up on her petate, and draw her hands across her
forehead to arrange her hair—cold sweat, like the sweat of death, moistened it!
“Mother, mother!” she sobbed.
Meanwhile, they who were so carelessly disposing of people’s fates, he who commanded the legal
murders, he who violated justice and made use of the law to maintain himself by force, slept in peace.
At last a traveler arrived from Manila and reported that all the prisoners had been set free, all except
Basilio, who had no protector. It was reported in Manila, added the traveler, that the young man would be deported
to the Carolines, having been forced to sign a petition beforehand, in which he declared that he asked it
voluntarily.3 The [296]traveler had seen the very steamer that was going to take him away.
This report put an end to all the girl’s hesitation. Besides, her mind was already quite weak from so many
nights of watching and horrible dreams. Pale and with unsteady eyes, she sought out Sister Bali and, in a voice
that was cause for alarm, told her that she was ready, asking her to accompany her. Sister Bali thereupon rejoiced
and tried to soothe her, but Juli paid no attention to her, apparently intent only upon hurrying to the convento. She
had decked herself out in her finest clothes, and even pretended to be quite gay, talking a great deal, although in
a rather incoherent way.
So they set out. Juli went ahead, becoming impatient that her companion lagged behind. But as they
neared the town, her nervous energy began gradually to abate, she fell silent and wavered in her resolution,
lessened her pace and soon dropped behind, so that Sister Bali had to encourage her.
“We’ll get there late,” she remonstrated.
Juli now followed, pale, with downcast eyes, which she was afraid to raise. She felt that the whole world
was staring at her and pointing its finger at her. A vile name whistled in her ears, but still she disregarded it and
continued on her way. Nevertheless, when they came in sight of the convento, she stopped and began to tremble.
“Let’s go home, let’s go home,” she begged, holding her companion back.
Sister Bali had to take her by the arm and half drag her along, reassuring her and telling her about the
books of the friars. She would not desert her, so there was nothing to fear. Padre Camorra had other things in
mind—Juli was only a poor country girl.
But upon arriving at the door of the convento, Juli firmly refused to go in, catching hold of the wall.
“No, no,” she pleaded in terror. “No, no, no! Have pity!”[297]
“But what a fool—”
Sister Bali pushed her gently along, Juli, pallid and with wild features, offering resistance. The expression
of her face said that she saw death before her.
“All right, let’s go back, if you don’t want to!” at length the good woman exclaimed in irritation, as she
did not believe there was any real danger. Padre Camorra, in spite of all his reputation, would dare do nothing
before her.
“Let them carry poor Basilio into exile, let them shoot him on the way, saying that he tried to escape,”
she added. “When he’s dead, then remorse will come. But as for myself, I owe him no favors, so he can’t reproach
me!”
That was the decisive stroke. In the face of that reproach, with wrath and desperation mingled, like one
who rushes to suicide, Juli closed her eyes in order not to see the abyss into which she was hurling herself and
resolutely entered the convento. A sigh that sounded like the rattle of death escaped from her lips. Sister Bali
followed, telling her how to act.
 That night comments were mysteriously whispered about certain events which had occurred that
afternoon. A girl had leaped from a window of the convento, falling upon some stones and killing herself. Almost
at the same time another woman had rushed out of the convento to run through the streets shouting and screaming
like a lunatic. The prudent townsfolk dared not utter any names and many mothers pinched their daughters for
letting slip expressions that might compromise them.
Later, very much later, at twilight, an old man came from a village and stood calling at the door of the
convento, which was closed and guarded by sacristans. The old man beat the door with his fists and with his head,
while he littered cries stifled and inarticulate, like those of a dumb person, until he was at length driven away by
blows and shoves. Then he made his way to the gobernadorcillo’s house, but was told that the gobernadorcillo
was not there, [298]he was at the convento; he went to the Justice of the Peace, but neither was the Justice of the
Peace at home—he had been summoned to the convento; he went to the teniente-mayor, but he too was at the
convento; he directed his steps to the barracks, but the lieutenant of the Civil Guard was at the convento. The old
man then returned to his village, weeping like a child. His wails were heard in the middle of the night, causing
men to bite their lips and women to clasp their hands, while the dogs slunk fearfully back into the houses with
their tails between their legs.
“Ah, God, God!” said a poor woman, lean from fasting, “in Thy presence there is no rich, no poor, no
white, no black—Thou wilt grant us justice!”
“Yes,” rejoined her husband, “just so that God they preach is not a pure invention, a fraud! They
themselves are the first not to believe in Him.”
At eight o’clock in the evening it was rumored that more than seven friars, proceeding from neighboring
towns, were assembled in the convento to hold a conference. On the following day, Tandang Selo disappeared
forever from the village, carrying with him his hunting-spear.[299]
1
The native priests Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, charged with complicity in the uprising of 1872, and executed.—Tr.
2
This versicle, found in the booklets of prayer, is common on the scapularies, which, during the late insurrection, were easily converted into
the anting-anting, or amulets, worn by the fanatics.—Tr.
3
This practise—secretly compelling suspects to sign a request to be transferred to some other island—was by no means a figment of the
author’s imagination, but was extensively practised to anticipate any legal difficulties that might arise.—Tr.

The High Official

L’Espagne et sa, vertu, l’Espagne et sa grandeur

Tout s’en va!—Victor Hugo

The newspapers of Manila were so engrossed in accounts of a notorious murder committed in Europe,
in panegyrics and puffs for various preachers in the city, in the constantly increasing success of the French
operetta, that they could scarcely devote space to the crimes perpetrated in the provinces by a band of tulisanes
headed by a fierce and terrible leader who was called Matanglawin.1 Only when the object of the attack was a
convento or a Spaniard there then appeared long articles giving frightful details and asking for martial law,
energetic measures, and so on. So it was that they could take no notice of what had occurred in the town of Tiani,
nor was there the slightest hint or allusion to it. In private circles something was whispered, but so confused, so
vague, and so little consistent, that not even the name of the victim was known, while those who showed the
greatest interest forgot it quickly, trusting that the affair had been settled in some way with the wronged family.
The only one who knew anything certain was Padre Camorra, who had to leave the town, to be transferred to
another or to remain for some time in the convento in Manila.
“Poor Padre Camorra!” exclaimed Ben-Zayb in a fit of generosity. “He was so jolly and had such a good
heart!”
It was true that the students had recovered their liberty, [300]thanks to the exertions of their relatives,
who did not hesitate at expense, gifts, or any sacrifice whatsoever. The first to see himself free, as was to be
expected, was Makaraig, and the last Isagani, because Padre Florentine did not reach Manila until a week after
the events. So many acts of clemency secured for the General the title of clement and merciful, which Ben-Zayb
hastened to add to his long list of adjectives.
The only one who did not obtain his liberty was Basilio, since he was also accused of having in his
possession prohibited books. We don’t know whether this referred to his text-book on legal medicine or to the
pamphlets that were found, dealing with the Philippines, or both together—the fact is that it was said that
prohibited literature was being secretly sold, and upon the unfortunate boy fell all the weight of the rod of justice.
It was reported that his Excellency had been thus advised: “It’s necessary that there be some one, so that
the prestige of authority may be sustained and that it may not be said that we made a great fuss over nothing.
Authority before everything. It’s necessary that some one be made an example of. Let there be just one, one who,
according to Padre Irene, was the servant of Capitan Tiago—there’ll be no one to enter a complaint—”
 “Servant and student?” asked his Excellency. “That fellow, then! Let it be he!”
“Your Excellency will pardon me,” observed the high official, who happened to be present, “but I’ve
been told that this boy is a medical student and his teachers speak well of him. If he remains a prisoner he’ll lose
a year, and as this year he finishes—”
The high official’s interference in behalf of Basilio, instead of helping, harmed him. For some time there
had been between this official and his Excellency strained relations and bad feelings, augmented by frequent
clashes.
“Yes? So much the greater reason that he should be kept prisoner; a year longer in his studies, instead of
injuring [301]him, will do good, not only to himself but to all who afterwards fall into his hands. One doesn’t
become a bad physician by extensive practise. So much the more reason that he should remain! Soon the
filibustering reformers will say that we are not looking out for the country!” concluded his Excellency with a
sarcastic laugh.
The high official realized that he had made a false move and took Basilio’s case to heart. “But it seems
to me that this young man is the most innocent of all,” he rejoined rather timidly.
“Books have been seized in his possession,” observed the secretary.
“Yes, works on medicine and pamphlets written by Peninsulars, with the leaves uncut, and besides, what
does that signify? Moreover, this young man was not present at the banquet in the pansitería, he hasn’t mixed up
in anything. As I’ve said, he’s the most innocent—”
“So much the better!” exclaimed his Excellency jocosely. “In that way the punishment will prove more
salutary and exemplary, since it inspires greater terror. To govern is to act in this way, my dear sir, as it is often
expedient to sacrifice the welfare of one to the welfare of many. But I’m doing more—from the welfare of one
will result the welfare of all, the principle of endangered authority is preserved, prestige is respected and
maintained. By this act of mine I’m correcting my own and other people’s faults.”
The high official restrained himself with an effort and, disregarding the allusion, decided to take another
tack. “But doesn’t your Excellency fear the—responsibility?”
“What have I to fear?” rejoined the General impatiently. “Haven’t I discretionary powers? Can’t I do
what I please for the better government of these islands? What have I to fear? Can some menial perhaps arraign
me before the tribunals and exact from me responsibility? Even though he had the means, he would have to consult
the Ministry first, and the Minister—”[302]
He waved his hand and burst out into laughter.
“The Minister who appointed me, the devil knows where he is, and he will feel honored in being able to
welcome me when I return. The present one, I don’t even think of him, and the devil take him too! The one that
relieves him will find himself in so many difficulties with his new duties that he won’t be able to fool with trifles.
I, my dear sir, have nothing over me but my conscience, I act according to my conscience, and my conscience is
satisfied, so I don’t care a straw for the opinions of this one and that. My conscience, my dear sir, my conscience!”
“Yes, General, but the country—”
“Tut, tut, tut, tut! The country—what have I to do Avith the country? Have I perhaps contracted any
obligations to it? Do I owe my office to it? Was it the country that elected me?”
A brief pause ensued, during which the high official stood with bowed head. Then, as if reaching a
decision, he raised it to stare fixedly at the General. Pale and trembling, he said with repressed energy: “That
doesn’t matter, General, that doesn’t matter at all! Your Excellency has not been chosen by the Filipino people,
but by Spain, all the more reason why you should treat the Filipinos well so that they may not be able to reproach
Spain. The greater reason, General, the greater reason! Your Excellency, by coming here, has contracted the
obligation to govern justly, to seek the welfare—”
“Am I not doing it?” interrupted his Excellency in exasperation, taking a step forward. “Haven’t I told
you that I am getting from the good of one the good of all? Are you now going to give me lessons? If you don’t
understand my actions, how am I to blame? Do I compel you to share my responsibility?”
“Certainly not,” replied the high official, drawing himself up proudly. “Your Excellency does not compel
me, your Excellency cannot compel me, me, to share your responsibility. I understand mine in quite another
way, [303]and because I have it, I’m going to speak—I’ve held my peace a long time. Oh, your Excellency needn’t
make those gestures, because the fact that I’ve come here in this or that capacity doesn’t mean that I have given
up my rights, that I have been reduced to the part of a slave, without voice or dignity.
“I don’t want Spain to lose this beautiful empire, these eight millions of patient and submissive subjects,
who live on hopes and delusions, but neither do I wish to soil my hands in their barbarous exploitation. I don’t
wish it ever to be said that, the slave-trade abolished, Spain has continued to cloak it with her banner and perfect
it under a wealth of specious institutions. No, to be great Spain does not have to be a tyrant, Spain is sufficient
unto herself, Spain was greater when she had only her own territory, wrested from the clutches of the Moor. I too
am a Spaniard, but before being a Spaniard I am a man, and before Spain and above Spain is her honor, the lofty
principles of morality, the eternal principles of immutable justice! Ah, you are surprised that I think thus, because
you have no idea of the grandeur of the Spanish name, no, you haven’t any idea of it, you identify it with persons
and interests. To you the Spaniard may be a pirate, he may be a murderer, a hypocrite, a cheat, anything, just so
he keep what he has—but to me the Spaniard should lose everything, empire, power, wealth, everything, before
his honor! Ah, my dear sir, we protest when we read that might is placed before right, yet we applaud when in
practise we see might play the hypocrite in not only perverting right but even in using it as a tool in order to gain
control. For the very reason that I love Spain, I’m speaking now, and I defy your frown!
“I don’t wish that the coming ages accuse Spain of being the stepmother of the nations, the vampire of
races, the tyrant of small islands, since it would be a horrible mockery of the noble principles of our ancient kings.
How are we carrying out their sacred legacy? They promised to these [304]islands protection and justice, and we
are playing with the lives and liberties of the inhabitants; they promised civilization, and^we are curtailing it,
fearful that they may aspire to a nobler existence; they promised them light, and we cover their eyes that they may
not witness our orgies; they promised to teach them virtue and we are encouraging their vice. Instead of peace,
wealth, and justice, confusion reigns, commerce languishes, and skepticism is fostered among the masses.
“Let us put ourselves in the place of the Filipinos and ask ourselves what we would do in their place. Ah,
in your silence I read their right to rebel, and if matters do not mend they will rebel some day, and justice will be
on their side, with them will go the sympathy of all honest men, of every patriot in the world! When a people is
denied light, home, liberty, and justice—things that are essential to life, and therefore man’s patrimony—that
people has the right to treat him who so despoils it as we would the robber who intercepts us on the highway.
There are no distinctions, there are no exceptions, nothing but a fact, a right, an aggression, and every honest man
who does not place himself on the side of the wronged makes himself an accomplice and stains his conscience.
“True, I am not a soldier, and the years are cooling the little fire in my blood, but just as I would risk
being torn to pieces to defend the integrity of Spain against any foreign invader or against an unjustified disloyalty
in her provinces, so I also assure you that I would place myself beside the oppressed Filipinos, because I would
prefer to fall in the cause of the outraged rights of humanity to triumphing with the selfish interests of a nation,
even when that nation be called as it is called—Spain!”
“Do you know when the mail-boat leaves?” inquired his Excellency coldly, when the high official had
finished speaking.
The latter stared at him fixedly, then dropped his head and silently left the palace.[305]
Outside he found his carriage awaiting him. “Some day when you declare yourselves independent,” he
said somewhat abstractedly to the native lackey who opened the carriage-door for him, “remember that there were
not lacking in Spain hearts that beat for you and struggled for your rights!”
“Where, sir?” asked the lackey, who had understood nothing of this and was inquiring whither they
should go.
Two hours later the high official handed in his resignation and announced his intention of returning to
Spain by the next mail-steamer.[306]
1
“Hawk-Eye.”—Tr.

Effect of the Pasquinades

As a result of the events narrated, many mothers ordered their sons immediately to leave off their studies
and devote themselves to idleness or to agriculture. When the examinations came, suspensions were plentiful, and
he was a rare exception who finished the course, if he had belonged to the famous association, to which no one
paid any more attention. Pecson, Tadeo, and Juanito Pelaez were all alike suspended—the first receiving his
dismissal with his foolish grin and declaring his intention of becoming an officer in some court, while Tadeo, with
his eternal holiday realized at last, paid for an illumination and made a bonfire of his books. Nor did the others
get off much better, and at length they too had to abandon their studies, to the great satisfaction of their mothers,
who always fancy their sons hanged if they should come to understand what the books teach. Juanito Pelaez alone
took the blow ill, since it forced him to leave school for his father’s store, with whom he was thenceforward to be
associated in the business: the rascal found the store much less entertaining, but after some time his friends again
noticed his hump appear, a symptom that his good humor was returning. The rich Makaraig, in view of the
catastrophe, took good care not to expose himself, and having secured a passport by means of money set out in
haste for Europe. It was said that his Excellency, the Captain-General, in his desire to do good by good means,
and careful of the interests of the Filipinos, hindered the departure of every one who could not first prove
substantially that he had the money to spend and could live in idleness in European cities. Among
our [307]acquaintances those who got off best were Isagani and Sandoval: the former passed in the subject he
studied under Padre Fernandez and was suspended in the others, while the latter was able to confuse the
examining-board with his oratory.
Basilio was the only one who did not pass in any subject, who was not suspended, and who did not go to
Europe, for he remained in Bilibid prison, subjected every three days to examinations, almost always the same in
principle, without other variation than a change of inquisitors, since it seemed that in the presence of such great
guilt all gave up or fell away in horror. And while the documents moldered or were shifted about, while the
stamped papers increased like the plasters of an ignorant physician on the body of a hypochondriac, Basilio
became informed of all the details of what had happened in Tiani, of the death of Juli and the disappearance of
Tandang Selo. Sinong, the abused cochero, who had driven him to San Diego, happened to be in Manila at that
time and called to give him all the news.
Meanwhile, Simoun had recovered his health, or so at least the newspapers said. Ben-Zayb rendered
thanks to “the Omnipotent who watches over such a precious life,” and manifested the hope that the Highest would
some day reveal the malefactor, whose crime remained unpunished, thanks to the charity of the victim, who was
too closely following the words of the Great Martyr: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. These
and other things Ben-Zayb said in print, while by mouth he was inquiring whether there was any truth in the rumor
that the opulent jeweler was going to give a grand fiesta, a banquet such as had never before been seen, in part to
celebrate his recovery and in part as a farewell to the country in which he had increased his fortune. It was
whispered as certain that Simoun, who would have to leave with the Captain-General, whose command expired
in May, was making every effort to secure from Madrid an extension, [308]and that he was advising his Excellency
to start a campaign in order to have an excuse for remaining, but it was further reported that for the first time his
Excellency had disregarded the advice of his favorite, making it a point of honor not to retain for a single additional
day the power that had been conferred upon him, a rumor which encouraged belief that the fiesta announced would
take place; very soon. For the rest, Simoun remained unfathomable, since he had become very uncommunicative,
showed himself seldom, and smiled mysteriously when the rumored fiesta was mentioned.
“Come, Señor Sindbad,” Ben-Zayb had once rallied him, “dazzle us with something Yankee! You owe
something to this country.”
“Doubtless!” was Simoun’s response, with a dry smile.
“You’ll throw the house wide open, eh?”
“Maybe, but as I have no house—”
“You ought to have secured Capitan Tiago’s, which Señor Pelaez got for nothing.”
Simoun became silent, and from that time on he was often seen in the store of Don Timoteo Pelaez, with
whom it was said he had entered into partnership. Some weeks afterward, in the month of April, it was rumored
that Juanito Pelaez, Don Timoteo’s son, was going to marry Paulita Gomez, the girl coveted by Spaniards and
foreigners.
“Some men are lucky!” exclaimed other envious merchants. “To buy a house for nothing, sell his
consignment of galvanized iron well, get into partnership with a Simoun, and marry his son to a rich heiress—just
say if those aren’t strokes of luck that all honorable men don’t have!”
“If you only knew whence came that luck of Señor Pelaez’s!” another responded, in a tone which
indicated that the speaker did know. “It’s also assured that there’ll be a fiesta and on a grand scale,” was added
with mystery.
It was really true that Paulita was going to marry [309]Juanito Pelaez. Her love for Isagani had gradually
waned, like all first loves based on poetry and sentiment. The events of the pasquinades and the imprisonment of
the youth had shorn him of all his charms. To whom would it have occurred to seek danger, to desire to share the
fate of his comrades, to surrender himself, when every one was hiding and denying any complicity in the affair?
It was quixotic, it was madness that no sensible person in Manila could pardon, and Juanito was quite right in
ridiculing him, representing what a sorry figure he cut when he went to the Civil Government. Naturally, the
brilliant Paulita could no longer love a young man who so erroneously understood social matters and whom all
condemned. Then she began to reflect. Juanito was clever, capable, gay, shrewd, the son of a rich merchant of
Manila, and a Spanish mestizo besides—if Don Timoteo was to be believed, a full-blooded Spaniard. On the other
hand, Isagani was a provincial native who dreamed of forests infested with leeches, he was of doubtful family,
with a priest for an uncle, who would perhaps be an enemy to luxury and balls, of which she was very fond. One
beautiful morning therefore it occurred to her that she had been a downright fool to prefer him to his rival, and
from that time on Pelaez’s hump steadily increased. Unconsciously, yet rigorously, Paulita was obeying the law
discovered by Darwin, that the female surrenders herself to the fittest male, to him who knows how to adapt
himself to the medium in which he lives, and to live in Manila there was no other like Pelaez, who from his infancy
had had chicanery at his finger-tips. Lent passed with its Holy Week, its array of processions and pompous
displays, without other novelty than a mysterious mutiny among the artillerymen, the cause of which was never
disclosed. The houses of light materials were torn down in the presence of a troop of cavalry, ready to fall upon
the owners in case they should offer resistance. There was a great deal of weeping and many lamentations, but the
affair did not get beyond that. The curious, among [310]them Simoun, went to see those who were left homeless,
walking about indifferently and assuring each other that thenceforward they could sleep in peace.
Towards the end of April, all the fears being now forgotten, Manila was engrossed with one topic: the
fiesta that Don Timoteo Pelaez was going to celebrate at the wedding of his son, for which the General had
graciously and condescendingly agreed to be the patron. Simoun was reported to have arranged the matter. The
ceremony would be solemnized two days before the departure of the General, who would honor the house and
make a present to the bridegroom. It was whispered that the jeweler would pour out cascades of diamonds and
throw away handfuls of pearls in honor of his partner’s son, thus, since he could hold no fiesta of his own, as he
was a bachelor and had no house, improving the opportunity to dazzle the Filipino people with a memorable
farewell. All Manila prepared to be invited, and never did uneasiness take stronger hold of the mind than in view
of the thought of not being among those bidden. Friendship with Simoun became a matter of dispute, and many
husbands were forced by their wives to purchase bars of steel and sheets of galvanized iron in order to make
friends with Don Timoteo Pelaez.[311]

La Ultima Razón1

At last the great day arrived. During the morning Simoun had not left his house, busied as he was in
packing his arms and his jewels. His fabulous wealth was already locked up in the big steel chest with its canvas
cover, there remaining only a few cases containing bracelets and pins, doubtless gifts that he meant to make. He
was going to leave with the Captain-General, who cared in no way to lengthen his stay, fearful of what people
would say. Malicious ones insinuated that Simoun did not dare remain alone, since without the General’s support
he did not care to expose himself to the vengeance of the many wretches he had exploited, all the more reason for
which was the fact that the General who was coming was reported to be a model of rectitude and might make him
disgorge his gains. The superstitious Indians, on the other hand, believed that Simoun was the devil who did not
wish to separate himself from his prey. The pessimists winked maliciously and said, “The field laid waste, the
locust leaves for other parts!” Only a few, a very few, smiled and said nothing.
In the afternoon Simoun had given orders to his servant that if there appeared a young man calling himself
Basilio he should be admitted at once. Then he shut himself up in his room and seemed to become lost in deep
thought. Since his illness the jeweler’s countenance had become harder and gloomier, while the wrinkles between
his eyebrows had [312]deepened greatly. He did not hold himself so erect as formerly, and his head was bowed.
So absorbed was he in his meditations that he did not hear a knock at the door, and it had to be repeated.
He shuddered and called out, “Come in!”
It was Basilio, but how altered! If the change that had taken place in Simoun during those two months
was great, in the young student it was frightful. His cheeks were hollow, his hair unkempt, his clothing disordered.
The tender melancholy had disappeared from his eyes, and in its place glittered a dark light, so that it might be
said that he had died and his corpse had revived, horrified with what it had seen in eternity. If not crime, then the
shadow of crime, had fixed itself upon his whole appearance. Simoun himself was startled and felt pity for the
wretch.
Without any greeting Basilio slowly advanced into the room, and in a voice that made the jeweler shudder
said to him, “Señor Simoun, I’ve been a wicked son and a bad brother—I’ve overlooked the murder of one and
the tortures of the other, and God has chastised me! Now there remains to me only one desire, and it is to return
evil for evil, crime for crime, violence for violence!”
Simoun listened in silence, while Basilio continued; “Four months ago you talked to me about your plans.
I refused to take part in them, but I did wrong, you have been right. Three months and a half ago the revolution
was on the point of breaking out, but I did not then care to participate in it, and the movement failed. In payment
for my conduct I’ve been arrested and owe my liberty to your efforts only. You are right and now I’ve come to
say to you: put a weapon in my hand and let the revolution come! I am ready to serve you, along with all the rest
of the unfortunates.”
The cloud that had darkened Simoun’s brow suddenly disappeared, a ray of triumph darted from his eyes,
and like one who has found what he sought he exclaimed: “I’m right, yes, I’m right! Right and Justice are on my
side, because [313]my cause is that of the persecuted. Thanks, young man, thanks! You’ve come to clear away
my doubts, to end my hesitation.”
He had risen and his face was beaming. The zeal that had animated him when four months before he had
explained his plans to Basilio in the wood of his ancestors reappeared in his countenance like a red sunset after a
cloudy day.
“Yes,” he resumed, “the movement failed and many have deserted me because they saw me disheartened
and wavering at the supreme moment. I still cherished something in my heart, I was not the master of all my
feelings, I still loved! Now everything is dead in me, no longer is there even a corpse sacred enough for me to
respect its sleep. No longer will there be any vacillation, for you yourself, an idealistic youth, a gentle dove,
understand the necessity and come to spur me to action. Somewhat late you have opened your eyes, for between
you and me together we might have executed marvelous plans, I above in the higher circles spreading death amid
perfume and gold, brutalizing the vicious and corrupting or paralyzing the few good, and you below among the
people, among the young men, stirring them to life amid blood and tears. Our task, instead of being bloody and
barbarous, would have been holy, perfect, artistic, and surely success would have crowned our efforts. But no
intelligence would support me, I encountered fear or effeminacy among the enlightened classes, selfishness among
the rich, simplicity among the youth, and only in the mountains, in the waste places, among the outcasts, have I
found my men. But no matter now! If we can’t get a finished statue, rounded out in all its details, of the rough
block we work upon let those to come take charge!”
Seizing the arm of Basilio, who was listening without comprehending all he said, he led him to the
laboratory where he kept his chemical mixtures. Upon the table was placed a large case made of dark shagreen,
similar to those [314]that hold the silver plate exchanged as gifts among the rich and powerful. Opening this,
Simoun revealed to sight, upon a bottom of red satin, a lamp of very peculiar shape, Its body was in the form of a
pomegranate as large as a man’s head, with fissures in it exposing to view the seeds inside, which were fashioned
of enormous carnelians. The covering was of oxidized gold in exact imitation of the wrinkles on the fruit.
Simoun took it out with great care and, removing the burner, exposed to view the interior of the tank,
which was lined with steel two centimeters in thickness and which had a capacity of over a liter. Basilio questioned
him with his eyes, for as yet he comprehended nothing. Without entering upon explanations, Simoun carefully
took from a cabinet a flask and showed the young man the formula written upon it.
“Nitro-glycerin!” murmured Basilio, stepping backward and instinctively thrusting his hands behind him.
“Nitro-glycerin! Dynamite!” Beginning now to understand, he felt his hair stand on end.
“Yes, nitro-glycerin!” repeated Simoun slowly, with his cold smile and a look of delight at the glass
flask. “It’s also something more than nitro-glycerin—it’s concentrated tears, repressed hatred, wrongs, injustice,
outrage. It’s the last resort of the weak, force against force, violence against violence. A moment ago I was
hesitating, but you have come and decided me. This night the most dangerous tyrants will be blown to pieces, the
irresponsible rulers that hide themselves behind God and the State, whose abuses remain unpunished because no
one can bring them to justice. This night the Philippines will hear the explosion that will convert into rubbish the
formless monument whose decay I have fostered.”
Basilio was so terrified that his lips worked without producing any sound, his tongue was paralyzed, his
throat parched. For the first time he was looking at the powerful liquid which he had heard talked of as a thing
distilled [315]in gloom by gloomy men, in open war against society. Now he had it before him, transparent and
slightly yellowish, poured with great caution into the artistic pomegranate. Simoun looked to him like the jinnee
of the Arabian Nights that sprang from the sea, he took on gigantic proportions, his head touched the sky, he made
the house tremble and shook the whole city with a shrug of his shoulders. The pomegranate assumed the form of
a colossal sphere, the fissures became hellish grins whence escaped names and glowing cinders. For the first time
in his life Basilio was overcome with fright and completely lost his composure.
Simoun, meanwhile, screwed on solidly a curious and complicated mechanism, put in place a glass
chimney, then the bomb, and crowned the whole with an elegant shade. Then he moved away some distance to
contemplate the effect, inclining his head now to one side, now to the other, thus better to appreciate its
magnificent appearance.
Noticing that Basilio was watching him with questioning and suspicious eyes, he said, “Tonight there
will be a fiesta and this lamp will be placed in a little dining-kiosk that I’ve had constructed for the purpose. The
lamp will give a brilliant light, bright enough to suffice for the illumination of the whole place by itself, but at the
end of twenty minutes the light will fade, and then when some one tries to turn up the wick a cap of fulminate of
mercury will explode, the pomegranate will blow up and with it the dining-room, in the roof and floor of which I
have concealed sacks of powder, so that no one shall escape.”
There wras a moment’s silence, while Simoun stared at his mechanism and Basilio scarcely breathed.
“So my assistance is not needed,” observed the young man.
“No, you have another mission to fulfill,” replied Simoun thoughtfully. “At nine the mechanism will
have exploded and the report will have been heard in the country round, in the mountains, in the caves. The
uprising that I had arranged with the artillerymen was a failure from lack [316]of plan and timeliness, but this
time it won’t be so. Upon hearing the explosion, the wretched and the oppressed, those who wander about pursued
by force, will sally forth armed to join Cabesang Tales in Santa Mesa, whence they will fall upon the city,2 while
the soldiers, whom I have made to believe that the General is shamming an insurrection in order to remain, will
issue from their barracks ready to fire upon whomsoever I may designate. Meanwhile, the cowed populace,
thinking that the hour of massacre has come, will rush out prepared to kill or be killed, and as they have neither
arms nor organization, you with some others will put yourself at their head and direct them to the warehouses of
Quiroga, where I keep my rifles. Cabesang Tales and I will join one another in the city and take possession of it,
while you in the suburbs will seize the bridges and throw up barricades, and then be ready to come to our aid to
butcher not only those opposing the revolution but also every man who refuses to take up arms and join us.”
“All?” stammered Basilio in a choking voice.
“All!” repeated Simoun in a sinister tone. “All—Indians, mestizos, Chinese, Spaniards, all who are found
to be without courage, without energy. The race must be renewed! Cowardly fathers will only breed slavish sons,
and it wouldn’t be worth while to destroy and then try to rebuild with rotten materials. What, do you shudder? Do
you tremble, do you fear to scatter death? What is death? What does a hecatomb of twenty thousand wretches
signify? Twenty thousand miseries less, and millions of wretches saved from birth! The most timid ruler does
not [317]hesitate to dictate a law that produces misery and lingering death for thousands and thousands of
prosperous and industrious subjects, happy perchance, merely to satisfy a caprice, a whim, his pride, and yet you
shudder because in one night are to be ended forever the mental tortures of many helots, because a vitiated and
paralytic people has to die to give place to another, young, active, full of energy!
“What is death? Nothingness, or a dream? Can its specters be compared to the reality of the agonies of a
whole miserable generation? The needful thing is to destroy the evil, to kill the dragon and bathe the new people
in the blood, in order to make it strong and invulnerable. What else is the inexorable law of Nature, the law of
strife in which the weak has to succumb so that the vitiated species be not perpetuated and creation thus travel
backwards? Away then with effeminate scruples! Fulfill the eternal laws, foster them, and then the earth will be
so much the more fecund the more it is fertilized with blood, and the thrones the more solid the more they rest
upon crimes and corpses. Let there be no hesitation, no doubtings! What is the pain of death? A momentary
sensation, perhaps confused, perhaps agreeable, like the transition from waking to sleep. What is it that is being
destroyed? Evil, suffering—feeble weeds, in order to set in their place luxuriant plants. Do you call that
destruction? I should call it creating, producing, nourishing, vivifying!”
Such bloody sophisms, uttered with conviction and coolness, overwhelmed the youth, weakened as he
was by more than three months in prison and blinded by his passion for revenge, so he was not in a mood to
analyze the moral basis of the matter. Instead of replying that the worst and cowardliest of men is always
something more than a plant, because he has a soul and an intelligence, which, however vitiated and brutalized
they may be, can be redeemed; instead of replying that man has no right to dispose of one life for the benefit of
another, that the right to life is inherent in every individual like the right to liberty and to [318]light; instead of
replying that if it is an abuse on the part of governments to punish in a culprit the faults and crimes to which they
have driven him by their own negligence or stupidity, how much more so would it be in a man, however great and
however unfortunate he might be, to punish in a wretched people the faults of its governments and its ancestors;
instead of declaring that God alone can use such methods, that God can destroy because He can create, God who
holds in His hands recompense, eternity, and the future, to justify His acts, and man never; instead of these
reflections, Basilio merely interposed a cant reflection.
“What will the world say at the sight of such butchery?”
“The world will applaud, as usual, conceding the right of the strongest, the most violent!” replied Simoun
with his cruel smile. “Europe applauded when the western nations sacrificed millions of Indians in America, and
not by any means to found nations much more moral or more pacific: there is the North with its egotistic liberty,
its lynch-law, its political frauds—the South with its turbulent republics, its barbarous revolutions, civil wars,
pronunciamientos, as in its mother Spain! Europe applauded when the powerful Portugal despoiled the Moluccas,
it applauds while England is destroying the primitive races in the Pacific to make room for its emigrants. Europe
will applaud as the end of a drama, the close of a tragedy, is applauded, for the vulgar do not fix their attention on
principles, they look only at results. Commit the crime well, and you will be admired and have more partizans
than if you had carried out virtuous actions with modesty and timidity.”
“Exactly,” rejoined the youth, “what does it matter to me, after all, whether they praise or censure, when
this world takes no care of the oppressed, of the poor, and of weak womankind? What obligations have I to
recognize toward society when it has recognized none toward me?”
“That’s what I like to hear,” declared the tempter triumphantly. [319]He took a revolver from a case and
gave it to Basilio, saying, “At ten o’clock wait for me in front of the church of St. Sebastian to receive my final
instructions. Ah, at nine you must be far, very far from Calle Anloague.”
Basilio examined the weapon, loaded it, and placed it in the inside pocket of his coat, then took his leave
with a curt, “I’ll see you later.”[320]
1
Ultima Razón de Reyes: the last argument of kings—force. (Expression attributed to Calderon de la Barca, the great Spanish dramatist.)—
Tr.
2
Curiously enough, and by what must have been more than a mere coincidence, this route through Santa Mesa from San Juan del Monte was
the one taken by an armed party in their attempt to enter the city at the outbreak of the Katipunan rebellion on the morning of August 30,
1896. (Foreman’s The Philippine Islands, Chap. XXVI.)
It was also on the bridge connecting these two places that the first shot in the insurrection against American sovereignty was fired on the night
of February 4, 1899.—Tr.

The Wedding

Once in the street, Basilio began to consider how he might spend the time until the fatal hour arrived, for
it was then not later than seven o’clock. It was the vacation period and all the students were back in their towns,
Isagani being the only one who had not cared to leave, but he had disappeared that morning and no one knew his
whereabouts—so Basilio had been informed when after leaving the prison he had gone to visit his friend and ask
him for lodging. The young man did not know where to go, for he had no money, nothing but the revolver. The
memory of the lamp filled his imagination, the great catastrophe that would occur within two hours. Pondering
over this, he seemed to see the men who passed before his eyes walking without heads, and he felt a thrill of
ferocious joy in telling himself that, hungry and destitute, he that night was going to be dreaded, that from a poor
student and servant, perhaps the sun would see him transformed into some one terrible and sinister, standing upon
pyramids of corpses, dictating laws to all those who were passing before his gaze now in magnificent carriages.
He laughed like one condemned to death and patted the butt of the revolver. The boxes of cartridges were also in
his pockets.
A question suddenly occurred to him—where would the drama begin? In his bewilderment he had not
thought of asking Simoun, but the latter had warned him to keep away from Calle Anloague. Then came a
suspicion: that afternoon, upon leaving the prison, he had proceeded to the former house of Capitan Tiago to get
his few personal effects and had found it transformed, prepared for a fiesta[321]—the wedding of Juanito Pelaez!
Simoun had spoken of a fiesta.
At this moment he noticed passing in front of him a long line of carriages filled with ladies and gentlemen,
conversing in a lively manner, and he even thought he could make out big bouquets of flowers, but he gave the
detail no thought. The carriages were going toward Calle Rosario and in meeting those that came down off the
Bridge of Spain had to move along slowly and stop frequently. In one he saw Juanito Pelaez at the side of a woman
dressed in white with a transparent veil, in whom he recognized Paulita Gomez.
“Paulita!” he ejaculated in surprise, realizing that it was indeed she, in a bridal gown, along with Juanito
Pelaez, as though they were just coming from the church. “Poor Isagani!” he murmured, “what can have become
of him?”
He thought for a while about his friend, a great and generous soul, and mentally asked himself if it would
not be well to tell him about the plan, then answered himself that Isagani would never take part in such a butchery.
They had not treated Isagani as they had him.
Then he thought that had there been no imprisonment, he would have been betrothed, or a husband, at
this time, a licentiate in medicine, living and working in some corner of his province. The ghost of Juli, crushed
in her fall, crossed his mind, and dark flames of hatred lighted his eyes; again he caressed the butt of the revolver,
regretting that the terrible hour had not yet come. Just then he saw Simoun come out of the door of his house,
carrying in his hands the case containing the lamp, carefully wrapped up, and enter a carriage, which then followed
those bearing the bridal party. In order not to lose track of Simoun, Basilio took a good look at the cochero and
with astonishment recognized in him the wretch who had driven him to San Diego, Sinong, the fellow maltreated
by the Civil Guard, the same who had come to the prison to tell him about the occurrences in Tiani.[322]
Conjecturing that Calle Anloague was to be the scene of action, thither the youth directed his steps,
hurrying forward and getting ahead of the carriages, which were, in fact, all moving toward the former house of
Capitan Tiago—there they were assembling in search of a ball, but actually to dance in the air! Basilio smiled
when he noticed the pairs of civil-guards who formed the escort, and from their number he could guess the
importance of the fiesta and the guests. The house overflowed with people and poured floods of light from its
windows, the entrance was carpeted and strewn with flowers. Upstairs there, perhaps in his former solitary room,
an orchestra was playing lively airs, which did not completely drown the confused tumult of talk and laughter.
Don Timoteo Pelaez was reaching the pinnacle of fortune, and the reality surpassed his dreams. He was,
at last, marrying his son to the rich Gomez heiress, and, thanks to the money Simoun had lent him, he had royally
furnished that big house, purchased for half its value, and was giving in it a splendid fiesta, with the foremost
divinities of the Manila Olympus for his guests, to gild him with the light of their prestige. Since that morning
there had been recurring to him, with the persistence of a popular song, some vague phrases that he had read in
the communion service. “Now has the fortunate hour come! Now draws nigh the happy moment! Soon there will
be fulfilled in you the admirable words of Simoun—‘I live, and yet not I alone, but the Captain-General liveth in
me.’” The Captain-General the patron of his son! True, he had not attended the ceremony, where Don Custodio
had represented him, but he would come to dine, he would bring a wedding-gift, a lamp which not even
Aladdin’s—between you and me, Simoun was presenting the lamp. Timoteo, what more could you desire?
The transformation that Capitan Tiago’s house had undergone was considerable—it had been richly
repapered, while the smoke and the smell of opium had been completely [323]eradicated. The immense sala,
widened still more by the colossal mirrors that infinitely multiplied the lights of the chandeliers, was carpeted
throughout, for the salons of Europe had carpets, and even though the floor was of wide boards brilliantly polished,
a carpet it must have too, since nothing should be lacking. The rich furniture of Capitan Tiago had disappeared
and in its place was to be seen another kind, in the style of Louis XV. Heavy curtains of red velvet, trimmed with
gold, with the initials of the bridal couple worked on them, and upheld by garlands of artificial orange-blossoms,
hung as portières and swept the floor with their wide fringes, likewise of gold. In the corners appeared enormous
Japanese vases, alternating with those of Sèvres of a clear dark-blue, placed upon square pedestals of carved wood.
The only decorations not in good taste were the screaming chromos which Don Timoteo had substituted
for the old drawings and pictures of saints of Capitan Tiago. Simoun had been unable to dissuade him, for the
merchant did not want oil-paintings—some one might ascribe them to Filipino artists! He, a patron of Filipino
artists, never! On that point depended his peace of mind and perhaps his life, and he knew how to get along in the
Philippines! It is true that he had heard foreign painters mentioned—Raphael, Murillo, Velasquez—but he did not
know their addresses, and then they might prove to be somewhat seditious. With the chromos he ran no risk, as
the Filipinos did not make them, they came cheaper, the effect was the same, if not better, the colors brighter and
the execution very fine. Don’t say that Don Timoteo did not know how to comport himself in the Philippines!
The large hallway was decorated with flowers, having been converted into a dining-room, with a long
table for thirty persons in the center, and around the sides, pushed against the walls, other smaller ones for two or
three persons each. Bouquets of flowers, pyramids of fruits among ribbons and lights, covered their centers. The
groom’s place was designated [324]by a bunch of roses and the bride’s by another of orange-blossoms and
tuberoses. In the presence of so much finery and flowers one could imagine that nymphs in gauzy garments and
Cupids with iridescent wings were going to serve nectar and ambrosia to aerial guests, to the sound of lyres and
Aeolian harps.
But the table for the greater gods was not there, being placed yonder in the middle of the wide azotea
within a magnificent kiosk constructed especially for the occasion. A lattice of gilded wood over which clambered
fragrant vines screened the interior from the eyes of the vulgar without impeding the free circulation of air to
preserve the coolness necessary at that season. A raised platform lifted the table above the level of the others at
which the ordinary mortals were going to dine and an arch decorated by the best artists would protect the august
heads from the jealous gaze of the stars.
On this table were laid only seven plates. The dishes were of solid silver, the cloth and napkins of the
finest linen, the wines the most costly and exquisite. Don Timoteo had sought the most rare and expensive in
everything, nor would he have hesitated at crime had he been assured that the Captain-General liked to eat human
flesh.[325]

The Fiesta
“Danzar sobre un volcán.”
By seven in the evening the guests had begun to arrive: first, the lesser divinities, petty government
officials, clerks, and merchants, with the most ceremonious greetings and the gravest airs at the start, as if they
were parvenus, for so much light, so many decorations, and so much glassware had some effect. Afterwards, they
began to be more at ease, shaking their fists playfully, with pats on the shoulders, and even familiar slaps on the
back. Some, it is true, adopted a rather disdainful air, to let it be seen that they were accustomed to better things—
of course they were! There was one goddess who yawned, for she found everything vulgar and even remarked
that she was ravenously hungry, while another quarreled with her god, threatening to box his ears.
Don Timoteo bowed here and bowed there, scattered his best smiles, tightened his belt, stepped
backward, turned halfway round, then completely around, and so on again and again, until one goddess could not
refrain from remarking to her neighbor, under cover of her fan: “My dear, how important the old man is! Doesn’t
he look like a jumping-jack?”
Later came the bridal couple, escorted by Doña Victorina and the rest of the party. Congratulations, hand-
shakings, patronizing pats for the groom: for the bride, insistent stares and anatomical observations on the part of
the men, with analyses of her gown, her toilette, speculations as to her health and strength on the part of the
women.[326]
“Cupid and Psyche appearing on Olympus,” thought Ben-Zayb, making a mental note of the comparison
to spring it at some better opportunity. The groom had in fact the mischievous features of the god of love, and
with a little good-will his hump, which the severity of his frock coat did not altogether conceal, could be taken for
a quiver.
Don Timoteo began to feel his belt squeezing him, the corns on his feet began to ache, his neck became
tired, but still the General had not come. The greater gods, among them Padre Irene and Padre Salvi, had already
arrived, it was true, but the chief thunderer was still lacking. The poor man became uneasy, nervous; his heart beat
violently, but still he had to bow and smile; he sat down, he arose, failed to hear what was said to him, did not say
what he meant. In the meantime, an amateur god made remarks to him about his chromos, criticizing them with
the statement that they spoiled the walls.
“Spoil the walls!” repeated Don Timoteo, with a smile and a desire to choke him. “But they were made
in Europe and are the most costly I could get in Manila! Spoil the walls!” Don Timoteo swore to himself that on
the very next day he would present for payment all the chits that the critic had signed in his store.
Whistles resounded, the galloping of horses was heard—at last! “The General! The Captain-General!”
Pale with emotion, Don Timoteo, dissembling the pain of his corns and accompanied by his son and
some of the greater gods, descended to receive the Mighty Jove. The pain at his belt vanished before the doubts
that now assailed him: should he frame a smile or affect gravity; should he extend his hand or wait for the General
to offer his? Carambas! Why had nothing of this occurred to him before, so that he might have consulted his good
friend Simoun?
To conceal his agitation, he whispered to his son in a low, shaky voice, “Have you a speech
prepared?”[327]
“Speeches are no longer in vogue, papa, especially on such an occasion as this.”
 Jupiter arrived in the company of Juno, who was converted into a tower of artificial lights—with
diamonds in her hair, diamonds around her neck, on her arms, on her shoulders, she was literally covered with
diamonds. She was arrayed in a magnificent silk gown having a long train decorated with embossed flowers.
His Excellency literally took possession of the house, as Don Timoteo stammeringly begged him to
do.1 The orchestra played the royal march while the divine couple majestically ascended the carpeted stairway.
Nor was his Excellency’s gravity altogether affected. Perhaps for the first time since his arrival in the
islands he felt sad, a strain of melancholy tinged his thoughts. This was the last triumph of his three years of
government, and within two days he would descend forever from such an exalted height. What was he leaving
behind? His Excellency did not care to turn his head backwards, but preferred to look ahead, to gaze into the
future. Although he was carrying away a fortune, large sums to his credit were awaiting him in European banks,
and he had residences, yet he had injured many, he had made enemies at the Court, the high official was waiting
for him there. Other Generals had enriched themselves as rapidly as he, and now they were ruined. Why not stay
longer, as Simoun had advised him to do? No, good taste before everything else. The bows, moreover, were not
now so profound as before, he noticed insistent stares and even looks of dislike, but still he replied affably and
even attempted to smile.
“It’s plain that the sun is setting,” observed Padre Irene in Ben-Zayb’s ear. “Many now stare him in the
face.”
The devil with the curate—that was just what he was going to remark![328]
“My dear,” murmured into the ear of a neighbor the lady who had referred to Don Timoteo as a jumping-
jack, “did you ever see such a skirt?”
“Ugh, the curtains from the Palace!”
“You don’t say! But it’s true! They’re carrying everything away. You’ll see how they make wraps out
of the carpets.”
“That only goes to show that she has talent and taste,” observed her husband, reproving her with a look.
“Women should be economical.” This poor god was still suffering from the dressmaker’s bill.
“My dear, give me curtains at twelve pesos a yard, and you’ll see if I put on these rags!” retorted the
goddess in pique. “Heavens! You can talk when you have done something fine like that to give you the right!”
Meanwhile, Basilio stood before the house, lost in the throng of curious spectators, counting those who
alighted from their carriages. When he looked upon so many persons, happy and confident, when he saw the bride
and groom followed by their train of fresh and innocent little girls, and reflected that they were going to meet
there a horrible death, he was sorry and felt his hatred waning within him. He wanted to save so many innocents,
he thought of notifying the police, but a carriage drove up to set down Padre Salvi and Padre Irene, both beaming
with content, and like a passing cloud his good intentions vanished. “What does it matter to me?” he asked himself.
“Let the righteous suffer with the sinners.”
Then he added, to silence his scruples: “I’m not an informer, I mustn’t abuse the confidence he has placed
in me. I owe him, him more than I do them: he dug my mother’s grave, they killed her! What have I to do with
them? I did everything possible to be good and useful, I tried to forgive and forget, I suffered every imposition,
and only asked that they leave me in peace. I got in no one’s way. What have they done to me? Let their mangled
limbs fly through the air! We’ve suffered enough.”[329]
Then he saw Simoun alight with the terrible lamp in his hands, saw him cross the entrance with bowed
head, as though deep in thought. Basilio felt his heart beat fainter, his feet and hands turn cold, while the black
silhouette of the jeweler assumed fantastic shapes enveloped in flames. There at the foot of the stairway Simoun
checked his steps, as if in doubt, and Basilio held his breath. But the hesitation was transient—Simoun raised his
head, resolutely ascended the stairway, and disappeared.
It then seemed to the student that the house was going to blow up at any moment, and that walls, lamps,
guests, roof, windows, orchestra, would be hurtling through the air like a handful of coals in the midst of an
infernal explosion. He gazed about him and fancied that he saw corpses in place of idle spectators, he saw them
torn to shreds, it seemed to him that the air was filled with flames, but his calmer self triumphed over this transient
hallucination, which was due somewhat to his hunger.
“Until he comes out, there’s no danger,” he said to himself. “The Captain-General hasn’t arrived yet.”
He tried to appear calm and control the convulsive trembling in his limbs, endeavoring to divert his
thoughts to other things. Something within was ridiculing him, saying, “If you tremble now, before the supreme
moment, how will you conduct yourself when you see blood flowing, houses burning, and bullets whistling?”
His Excellency arrived, but the young man paid no attention to him. He was watching the face of Simoun,
who was among those that descended to receive him, and he read in that implacable countenance the sentence of
death for all those men, so that fresh terror seized upon him. He felt cold, he leaned against the wall, and, with his
eyes fixed on the windows and his ears cocked, tried to guess what might be happening. In the sala he saw the
crowd surround Simoun to look at the lamp, he heard congratulations and exclamations of admiration—the words
“dining-room,” “novelty,” were repeated many times—he saw [330]the General smile and conjectured that the
novelty was to be exhibited that very night, by the jeweler’s arrangement, on the table whereat his Excellency was
to dine. Simoun disappeared, followed by a crowd of admirers.
At that supreme moment his good angel triumphed, he forgot his hatreds, he forgot Juli, he wanted to
save the innocent. Come what might, he would cross the street and try to enter. But Basilio had forgotten that he
was miserably dressed. The porter stopped him and accosted him roughly, and finally, upon his insisting,
threatened to call the police.
Just then Simoun came down, slightly pale, and the porter turned from Basilio to salute the jeweler as
though he had been a saint passing. Basilio realized from the expression of Simoun’s face that he was leaving the
fated house forever, that the lamp was lighted. Alea jacta est! Seized by the instinct of self-preservation, he thought
then of saving himself. It might occur to any of the guests through curiosity to tamper with the wick and then
would come the explosion to overwhelm them all. Still he heard Simoun say to the cochero, “The Escolta, hurry!”
Terrified, dreading that he might at any moment hear the awful explosion, Basilio hurried as fast as his
legs would carry him to get away from the accursed spot, but his legs seemed to lack the necessary agility, his feet
slipped on the sidewalk as though they were moving but not advancing. The people he met blocked the way, and
before he had gone twenty steps he thought that at least five minutes had elapsed.
Some distance away he stumbled against a young man who was standing with his head thrown back,
gazing fixedly at the house, and in him he recognized Isagani. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Come
away!”
Isagani stared at him vaguely, smiled sadly, and again turned his gaze toward the open balconies, across
which was revealed the ethereal silhouette of the bride clinging to the groom’s arm as they moved slowly out of
sight.[331]
“Come, Isagani, let’s get away from that house. Come!” Basilio urged in a hoarse voice, catching his
friend by the arm.
Isagani gently shook himself free and continued to stare with the same sad smile upon his lips.
“For God’s sake, let’s get away from here!”
“Why should I go away? Tomorrow it will not be she.”
There was so much sorrow in those words that Basilio for a moment forgot his own terror. “Do you want
to die?” he demanded.
Isagani shrugged his shoulders and continued to gaze toward the house.
Basilio again tried to drag him away. “Isagani, Isagani, listen to me! Let’s not waste any time! That house
is mined, it’s going to blow up at any moment, by the least imprudent act, the least curiosity! Isagani, all will
perish in its ruins.”
“In its ruins?” echoed Isagani, as if trying to understand, but without removing his gaze from the window.
“Yes, in its ruins, yes, Isagani! For God’s sake, come! I’ll explain afterwards. Come! One who has been
more unfortunate than either you or I has doomed them all. Do you see that white, clear light, like an electric
lamp, shining from the azotea? It’s the light of death! A lamp charged with dynamite, in a mined dining-room,
will burst and not a rat will escape alive. Come!”
“No,” answered Isagani, shaking his head sadly. “I want to stay here, I want to see her for the last time.
Tomorrow, you see, she will be something different.”
“Let fate have its way!” Basilio then exclaimed, hurrying away.
Isagani watched his friend rush away with a precipitation that indicated real terror, but continued to stare
toward the charmed window, like the cavalier of Toggenburg waiting for his sweetheart to appear, as Schiller
tells. Now the sala was deserted, all having repaired to the dining-rooms, [332]and it occurred to Isagani that
Basilio’s fears may have been well-founded. He recalled the terrified countenance of him who was always so calm
and composed, and it set him to thinking.
Suddenly an idea appeared clear in his imagination—the house was going to blow up and Paulita was
there, Paulita was going to die a frightful death. In the presence of this idea everything was forgotten: jealousy,
suffering, mental torture, and the generous youth thought only of his love. Without reflecting, without hesitation,
he ran toward the house, and thanks to his stylish clothes and determined mien, easily secured admittance.
While these short scenes were occurring in the street, in the dining-kiosk of the greater gods there was
passed from hand to hand a piece of parchment on which were written in red ink these fateful words:
Mene, Tekel, Phares2
Juan Crisostomo Ibarra
“Juan Crisostomo Ibarra? Who is he?” asked his Excellency, handing the paper to his neighbor.
“A joke in very bad taste!” exclaimed Don Custodio. “To sign the name of a filibuster dead more than
ten years!”
“A filibuster!”
“It’s a seditious joke!”
“There being ladies present—”
 Padre Irene looked around for the joker and saw Padre Salvi, who was seated at the right of the Countess,
turn as white as his napkin, while he stared at the mysterious words with bulging eyes. The scene of the sphinx
recurred to him.
“What’s the matter, Padre Salvi?” he asked. “Do you recognize your friend’s signature?”
Padre Salvi did not reply. He made an effort to speak [333]and without being conscious of what he was
doing wiped his forehead with his napkin.
“What has happened to your Reverence?”
“It is his very handwriting!” was the whispered reply in a scarcely perceptible voice. “It’s the very
handwriting of Ibarra.” Leaning against the back of his chair, he let his arms fall as though all strength had deserted
him.
Uneasiness became converted into fright, they all stared at one another without uttering a single word.
His Excellency started to rise, but apprehending that such a move would be ascribed to fear, controlled himself
and looked about him. There were no soldiers present, even the waiters were unknown to him.
“Let’s go on eating, gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “and pay no attention to the joke.” But his voice, instead
of reassuring, increased the general uneasiness, for it trembled.
“I don’t suppose that that Mene, Tekel, Phares, means that we’re to be assassinated tonight?” speculated
Don Custodio.
All remained motionless, but when he added, “Yet they might poison us,” they leaped up from their
chairs.
The light, meanwhile, had begun slowly to fade. “The lamp is going out,” observed the General uneasily.
“Will you turn up the wick, Padre Irene?”
But at that instant, with the swiftness of a flash of lightning, a figure rushed in, overturning a chair and
knocking a servant down, and in the midst of the general surprise seized the lamp, rushed to the azotea, and threw
it into the river. The whole thing happened in a second and the dining-kiosk was left in darkness.
The lamp had already struck the water before the servants could cry out, “Thief, thief!” and rush toward
the azotea. “A revolver!” cried one of them. “A revolver, quick! After the thief!”
But the figure, more agile than they, had already mounted the balustrade and before a light could be
brought, precipitated itself into the river, striking the water with a loud splash.[334]
1
Spanish etiquette requires a host to welcome his guest with the conventional phrase: “The house belongs to you.”—Tr.
2
The handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, foretelling the destruction of Babylon. Daniel, v, 25–28.—Tr.

Ben-Zayb’s Afflictions

Immediately upon hearing of the incident, after lights had been brought and the scarcely dignified
attitudes of the startled gods revealed, Ben-Zayb, filled with holy indignation, and with the approval of the press-
censor secured beforehand, hastened home—an entresol where he lived in a mess with others—to write an article
that would be the sublimest ever penned under the skies of the Philippines. The Captain-General would leave
disconsolate if he did not first enjoy his dithyrambs, and this Ben-Zayb, in his kindness of heart, could not allow.
Hence he sacrificed the dinner and ball, nor did he sleep that night.
Sonorous exclamations of horror, of indignation, to fancy that the world was smashing to pieces and the
stars, the eternal stars, were clashing together! Then a mysterious introduction, filled with allusions, veiled hints,
then an account of the affair, and the final peroration. He multiplied the flourishes and exhausted all his
euphemisms in describing the drooping shoulders and the tardy baptism of salad his Excellency had received on
his Olympian brow, he eulogized the agility with which the General had recovered a vertical position, placing his
head where his legs had been, and vice versa, then intoned a hymn to Providence for having so solicitously guarded
those sacred bones. The paragraph turned out to be so perfect that his Excellency appeared as a hero, and fell
higher, as Victor Hugo said.
He wrote, erased, added, and polished, so that, without wanting in veracity—this was his special merit
as a [335]journalist—the whole would be an epic, grand for the seven gods, cowardly and base for the unknown
thief, “who had executed himself, terror-stricken, and in the very act convinced of the enormity of his crime.”
He explained Padre Irene’s act of plunging under the table as “an impulse of innate valor, which the habit
of a God of peace and gentleness, worn throughout a whole life, had been unable to extinguish,” for Padre Irene
had tried to hurl himself upon the thief and had taken a straight course along the submensal route. In passing, he
spoke of submarine passages, mentioned a project of Don Custodio’s, called attention to the liberal education and
wide travels of the priest. Padre Salvi’s swoon was the excessive sorrow that took possession of the virtuous
Franciscan to see the little fruit borne among the Indians by his pious sermons, while the immobility and fright of
the other guests, among them the Countess, who “sustained” Padre Salvi (she grabbed him), were the serenity and
sang-froid of heroes, inured to danger in the performance of their duties, beside whom the Roman senators
surprised by the Gallic invaders were nervous schoolgirls frightened at painted cockroaches.
 Afterwards, to form a contrast, the picture of the thief: fear, madness, confusion, the fierce look, the
distorted features, and—force of moral superiority in the race—his religious awe to see assembled there such
august personages! Here came in opportunely a long imprecation, a harangue, a diatribe against the perversion of
good customs, hence the necessity of a permanent military tribunal, “a declaration of martial law within the limits
already so declared, special legislation, energetic and repressive, because it is in every way needful, it is of
imperative importance to impress upon the malefactors and criminals that if the heart is generous and paternal for
those who are submissive and obedient to the law, the hand is strong, firm, inexorable, hard, and severe for those
who against all reason fail to respect it and who insult the sacred institutions of the [336]fatherland. Yes,
gentlemen, this is demanded not only for the welfare of these islands, not only for the welfare of all mankind, but
also in the name of Spain, the honor of the Spanish name, the prestige of the Iberian people, because before all
things else Spaniards we are, and the flag of Spain,” etc.
He terminated the article with this farewell: “Go in peace, gallant warrior, you who with expert hand
have guided the destinies of this country in such calamitous times! Go in peace to breathe the balmy breezes of
Manzanares!1 We shall remain here like faithful sentinels to venerate your memory, to admire your wise
dispositions, to avenge the infamous attempt upon your splendid gift, which we will recover even if we have to
dry up the seas! Such a precious relic will be for this country an eternal monument to your splendor, your presence
of mind, your gallantry!”
In this rather confused way he concluded the article and before dawn sent it to the printing-office, of
course with the censor’s permit. Then he went to sleep like Napoleon, after he had arranged the plan for the battle
of Jena.
But at dawn he was awakened to have the sheets of copy returned with a note from the editor saying that
his Excellency had positively and severely forbidden any mention of the affair, and had further ordered the denial
of any versions and comments that might get abroad, discrediting them as exaggerated rumors.
To Ben-Zayb this blow was the murder of a beautiful and sturdy child, born and nurtured with such great
pain and fatigue. Where now hurl the Catilinarian pride, the splendid exhibition of warlike crime-avenging
materials? And to think that within a month or two he was going to leave the Philippines, and the article could not
be published in Spain, since how could he say those things about the criminals of Madrid, where other ideas
prevailed, where [337]extenuating circumstances were sought, where facts were weighed, where there were juries,
and so on? Articles such as his were like certain poisonous rums that are manufactured in Europe, good enough
to be sold among the negroes, good for negroes,2 with the difference that if the negroes did not drink them they
would not be destroyed, while Ben-Zayb’s articles, whether the Filipinos read them or not, had their effect.
“If only some other crime might be committed today or tomorrow,” he mused.
With the thought of that child dead before seeing the light, those frozen buds, and feeling his eyes fill
with tears, he dressed himself to call upon the editor. But the editor shrugged his shoulders; his Excellency had
forbidden it because if it should be divulged that seven of the greater gods had let themselves be surprised and
robbed by a nobody, while they brandished knives and forks, that would endanger the integrity of the fatherland!
So he had ordered that no search be made for the lamp or the thief, and had recommended to his successors that
they should not run the risk of dining in any private house, without being surrounded by halberdiers and guards.
As those who knew anything about the events that night in Don Timoteo’s house were for the most part military
officials and government employees, it was not difficult to suppress the affair in public, for it concerned the
integrity of the fatherland. Before this name Ben-Zayb bowed his head heroically, thinking about Abraham,
Guzman El Bueno,3 or at least, Brutus and other heroes of antiquity.
Such a sacrifice could not remain unrewarded, the gods of journalism being pleased with Abraham Ben-
Zayb. Almost upon the hour came the reporting angel bearing the sacrificial lamb in the shape of an assault
committed at a country-house on the Pasig, where certain friars were [338]spending the heated season. Here was
his opportunity and Ben-Zayb praised his gods.
“The robbers got over two thousand pesos, leaving badly wounded one friar and two servants. The curate
defended himself as well as he could behind a chair, which was smashed in his hands.”
“Wait, wait!” said Ben-Zayb, taking notes. “Forty or fifty outlaws traitorously—revolvers, bolos,
shotguns, pistols—lion at bay—chair—splinters flying—barbarously wounded—ten thousand pesos!”
So great was his enthusiasm that he was not content with mere reports, but proceeded in person to the
scene of the crime, composing on the road a Homeric description of the fight. A harangue in the mouth of the
leader? A scornful defiance on the part of the priest? All the metaphors and similes applied to his Excellency,
Padre Irene, and Padre Salvi would exactly fit the wounded friar and the description of the thief would serve for
each of the outlaws. The imprecation could be expanded, since he could talk of religion, of the faith, of charity,
of the ringing of bells, of what the Indians owed to the friars, he could get sentimental and melt into
Castelarian4 epigrams and lyric periods. The señoritas of the city would read the article and murmur, “Ben-Zayb,
bold as a lion and tender as a lamb!”
But when he reached the scene, to his great astonishment he learned that the wounded friar was no other
than Padre Camorra, sentenced by his Provincial to expiate in the pleasant country-house on the banks of the Pasig
his pranks in Tiani. He had a slight scratch on his hand and a bruise on his head received from flattening himself
out on the floor. The robbers numbered three or four, armed only with bolos, the sum stolen fifty pesos!
“It won’t do!” exclaimed Ben-Zayb. “Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How don’t I know, puñales?”[339]
“Don’t be a fool—the robbers must have numbered more.”
“You ink-slinger—”
So they had quite an altercation. What chiefly concerned Ben-Zayb was not to throw away the article, to
give importance to the affair, so that he could use the peroration.
But a fearful rumor cut short their dispute. The robbers caught had made some important revelations.
One of the outlaws under Matanglawin (Cabesang Tales) had made an appointment with them to join his band in
Santa Mesa, thence to sack the conventos and houses of the wealthy. They would be guided by a Spaniard, tall
and sunburnt, with white hair, who said that he was acting under the orders of the General, whose great friend he
was, and they had been further assured that the artillery and various regiments would join them, wherefore they
were to entertain no fear at all. The tulisanes would be pardoned and have a third part of the booty assigned to
them. The signal was to have been a cannon-shot, but having waited for it in vain the tulisanes, thinking themselves
deceived, separated, some going back to their homes, some returning to the mountains vowing vengeance on the
Spaniard, who had thus failed twice to keep his word. Then they, the robbers caught, had decided to do something
on their own account, attacking the country-house that they found closest at hand, resolving religiously to give
two-thirds of the booty to the Spaniard with white hair, if perchance he should call upon them for it.
The description being recognized as that of Simoun, the declaration was received as an absurdity and the
robber subjected to all kinds of tortures, including the electric machine, for his impious blasphemy. But news of
the disappearance of the jeweler having attracted the attention of the whole Escolta, and the sacks of powder and
great quantities of cartridges having been discovered in his house, the story began to wear an appearance of truth.
Mystery began to enwrap the affair, enveloping it in clouds; there [340]were whispered conversations, coughs,
suspicious looks, suggestive comments, and trite second-hand remarks. Those who were on the inside were unable
to get over their astonishment, they put on long faces, turned pale, and but little was wanting for many persons to
lose their minds in realizing certain things that had before passed unnoticed.
“We’ve had a narrow escape! Who would have said—”
In the afternoon Ben-Zayb, his pockets filled with revolvers and cartridges, went to see Don Custodio,
whom he found hard at work over a project against American jewelers. In a hushed voice he whispered between
the palms of his hands into the journalist’s ear mysterious words.
“Really?” questioned Ben-Zayb, slapping his hand on his pocket and paling visibly.
“Wherever he may be found—” The sentence was completed with an expressive pantomime. Don
Custodio raised both arms to the height of his face, with the right more bent than the left, turned the palms of his
hands toward the floor, closed one eye, and made two movements in advance. “Ssh! Ssh!” he hissed.
“And the diamonds?” inquired Ben-Zayb.
“If they find him—” He went through another pantomime with the fingers of his right hand, spreading
them out and clenching them together like the closing of a fan, clutching out with them somewhat in the manner
of the wings of a wind-mill sweeping imaginary objects toward itself with practised skill. Ben-Zayb responded
with another pantomime, opening his eyes wide, arching his eyebrows and sucking in his breath eagerly as though
nutritious air had just been discovered.
“Sssh!”[341]
1
A town in Ciudad Real province, Spain.—Tr.
2
The italicized words are in English in the original.—Tr.
3
A Spanish hero, whose chief exploit was the capture of Gibraltar from the Moors in 1308.—Tr.
4
Emilio Castelar (1832–1899), generally regarded as the greatest of Spanish orators.—Tr.

The Mystery

Todo se sabe
Notwithstanding so many precautions, rumors reached the public, even though quite changed and
mutilated. On the following night they were the theme of comment in the house of Orenda, a rich jewel merchant
in the industrious district of Santa Cruz, and the numerous friends of the family gave attention to nothing else.
They were not indulging in cards, or playing the piano, while little Tinay, the youngest of the girls, became bored
playing chongka by herself, without being able to understand the interest awakened by assaults, conspiracies, and
sacks of powder, when there were in the seven holes so many beautiful cowries that seemed to be winking at her
in unison and smiled with their tiny mouths half-opened, begging to be carried up to the home. Even Isagani, who,
when he came, always used to play with her and allow himself to be beautifully cheated, did not come at her call,
for Isagani was gloomily and silently listening to something Chichoy the silversmith was relating. Momoy, the
betrothed of Sensia, the eldest of the daughters—a pretty and vivacious girl, rather given to joking—had left the
window where he was accustomed to spend his evenings in amorous discourse, and this action seemed to be very
annoying to the lory whose cage hung from the eaves there, the lory endeared to the house from its ability to greet
everybody in the morning with marvelous phrases of love. Capitana Loleng, the energetic and intelligent Capitana
Loleng, had her account-book open before her, but she [342]neither read nor wrote in it, nor was her attention
fixed on the trays of loose pearls, nor on the diamonds—she had completely forgotten herself and was all ears.
Her husband himself, the great Capitan Toringoy,—a transformation of the name Domingo,—the happiest man
in the district, without other occupation than to dress well, eat, loaf, and gossip, while his whole family worked
and toiled, had not gone to join his coterie, but was listening between fear and emotion to the hair-raising news of
the lank Chichoy.
Nor was reason for all this lacking. Chichoy had gone to deliver some work for Don Timoteo Pelaez, a
pair of earrings for the bride, at the very time when they were tearing down the kiosk that on the previous night
had served as a dining-room for the foremost officials. Here Chichoy turned pale and his hair stood on end.
“Nakú!” he exclaimed, “sacks and sacks of powder, sacks of powder under the floor, in the roof, under
the table, under the chairs, everywhere! It’s lucky none of the workmen were smoking.”
“Who put those sacks of powder there?” asked Capitana Loleng, who was brave and did not turn pale,
as did the enamored Momoy. But Momoy had attended the wedding, so his posthumous emotion can be
appreciated: he had been near the kiosk.
“That’s what no one can explain,” replied Chichoy. “Who would have any interest in breaking up the
fiesta? There couldn’t have been more than one, as the celebrated lawyer Señor Pasta who was there on a visit
declared—either an enemy of Don Timoteo’s or a rival of Juanito’s.”
The Orenda girls turned instinctively toward Isagani, who smiled silently.
“Hide yourself,” Capitana Loleng advised him. “They may accuse you. Hide!”
Again Isagani smiled but said nothing.
“Don Timoteo,” continued Chichoy, “did not know to [343]whom to attribute the deed. He himself
superintended the work, he and his friend Simoun, and nobody else. The house was thrown into an uproar, the
lieutenant of the guard came, and after enjoining secrecy upon everybody, they sent me away. But—”
“But—but—” stammered the trembling Momoy.
“Nakú!” ejaculated Sensia, gazing at her fiancé and trembling sympathetically to remember that he had
been at the fiesta. “This young man—If the house had blown up—” She stared at her sweetheart passionately and
admired his courage.
“If it had blown up—”
“No one in the whole of Calle Anloague would have been left alive,” concluded Capitan Toringoy,
feigning valor and indifference in the presence of his family.
“I left in consternation,” resumed Chichoy, “thinking about how, if a mere spark, a cigarette had fallen,
if a lamp had been overturned, at the present moment we should have neither a General, nor an Archbishop, nor
any one, not even a government clerk! All who were at the fiesta last night—annihilated!”
“Vírgen Santísima! This young man—”
“’Susmariosep!” exclaimed Capitana Loleng. “All our debtors were there, ’Susmariosep! And we have
a house near there! Who could it have been?”
“Now you may know about it,” added Chichoy in a whisper, “but you must keep it a secret. This afternoon
I met a friend, a clerk in an office, and in talking about the affair, he gave me the clue to the mystery—he had it
from some government employees. Who do you suppose put the sacks of powder there?”
Many shrugged their shoulders, while Capitan Toringoy merely looked askance at Isagani.
“The friars?”
“Quiroga the Chinaman?”
“Some student?”
“Makaraig?”[344]
Capitan Toringoy coughed and glanced at Isagani, while Chichoy shook his head and smiled.
“The jeweler Simoun.”
“Simoun!!”
The profound silence of amazement followed these words. Simoun, the evil genius of the Captain-
General, the rich trader to whose house they had gone to buy unset gems, Simoun, who had received the Orenda
girls with great courtesy and had paid them fine compliments! For the very reason that the story seemed absurd it
was believed. “Credo quia absurdum,” said St. Augustine.
“But wasn’t Simoun at the fiesta last night?” asked Sensia.
“Yes,” said Momoy. “But now I remember! He left the house just as we were sitting down to the dinner.
He went to get his wedding-gift.”
“But wasn’t he a friend of the General’s? Wasn’t he a partner of Don Timoteo’s?”
“Yes, he made himself a partner in order to strike the blow and kill all the Spaniards.”
 “Aha!” cried Sensia. “Now I understand!”
“What?”
“You didn’t want to believe Aunt Tentay. Simoun is the devil and he has bought up the souls of all the
Spaniards. Aunt Tentay said so!”
Capitana Loleng crossed herself and looked uneasily toward the jewels, fearing to see them turn into live
coals, while Capitan Toringoy took off the ring which had come from Simoun.
“Simoun has disappeared without leaving any traces,” added Chichoy. “The Civil Guard is searching for
him.”
“Yes,” observed Sensia, crossing herself, “searching for the devil.”
Now many things were explained: Simoun’s fabulous wealth and the peculiar smell in his house, the
smell of sulphur. Binday, another of the daughters, a frank and lovely girl, remembered having seen blue flames
in the [345] jeweler’s house one afternoon when she and her mother had gone there to buy jewels. Isagani listened
attentively, but said nothing.
“So, last night—” ventured Momoy.
“Last night?” echoed Sensia, between curiosity and fear.
Momoy hesitated, but the face Sensia put on banished his fear. “Last night, while we were eating, there
was a disturbance, the light in the General’s dining-room went out. They say that some unknown person stole the
lamp that was presented by Simoun.”
“A thief? One of the Black Hand?”
Isagani arose to walk back and forth.
“Didn’t they catch him?”
“He jumped into the river before anybody recognized him. Some say he was a Spaniard, some a
Chinaman, and others an Indian.”
“It’s believed that with the lamp,” added Chichoy, “he was going to set fire to the house, then the
powder—”
Momoy again shuddered but noticing that Sensia was watching him tried to control himself. “What a
pity!” he exclaimed with an effort. “How wickedly the thief acted. Everybody would have been killed.”
Sensia stared at him in fright, the women crossed themselves, while Capitan Toringoy, who was afraid
of politics, made a move to go away.
Momoy turned to Isagani, who observed with an enigmatic smile: “It’s always wicked to take what
doesn’t belong to you. If that thief had known what it was all about and had been able to reflect, surely he wouldn’t
have done as he did.”
Then, after a pause, he added, “For nothing in the world would I want to be in his place!”
So they continued their comments and conjectures until an hour later, when Isagani bade the family
farewell, to return forever to his uncle’s side.[346]

Fatality

Matanglawin was the terror of Luzon. His band had as lief appear in one province where it was least
expected as make a descent upon another that was preparing to resist it. It burned a sugar-mill in Batangas and
destroyed the crops, on the following day it murdered the Justice of the Peace of Tiani, and on the next took
possession of the town of Cavite, carrying off the arms from the town hall. The central provinces, from Tayabas
to Pangasinan, suffered from his depredations, and his bloody name extended from Albay in the south to Kagayan
in the north. The towns, disarmed through mistrust on the part of a weak government, fell easy prey into his
hands—at his approach the fields were abandoned by the farmers, the herds were scattered, while a trail of blood
and fire marked his passage. Matanglawin laughed at the severe measures ordered by the government against the
tulisanes, since from them only the people in the outlying villages suffered, being captured and maltreated if they
resisted the band, and if they made peace with it being flogged and deported by the government, provided they
completed the journey and did not meet with a fatal accident on the way. Thanks to these terrible alternatives
many of the country folk decided to enlist under his command.
As a result of this reign of terror, trade among the towns, already languishing, died out completely. The
rich dared not travel, and the poor feared to be arrested by the Civil Guard, which, being under obligation to pursue
the tulisanes, often seized the first person encountered and subjected him to unspeakable tortures. In its impotence,
the [347]government put on a show of energy toward the persons whom it suspected, in order that by force of
cruelty the people should not realize its weakness—the fear that prompted such measures.
A string of these hapless suspects, some six or seven, with their arms tied behind them, bound together
like a bunch of human meat, was one afternoon marching through the excessive heat along a road that skirted a
mountain, escorted by ten or twelve guards armed with rifles. Their bayonets gleamed in the sun, the barrels of
their rifles became hot, and even the sage-leaves in their helmets scarcely served to temper the effect of the deadly
May sun.
Deprived of the use of their arms and pressed close against one another to save rope, the prisoners moved
along almost uncovered and unshod, he being the best off who had a handkerchief twisted around his head.
Panting, suffering, covered with dust which perspiration converted into mud, they felt their brains melting, they
saw lights dancing before them, red spots floating in the air. Exhaustion and dejection were pictured in their faces,
desperation, wrath, something indescribable, the look of one who dies cursing, of a man who is weary of life, who
hates himself, who blasphemes against God. The strongest lowered their heads to rub their faces against the dusky
backs of those in front of them and thus wipe away the sweat that was blinding them. Many were limping, but if
any one of them happened to fall and thus delay the march he would hear a curse as a soldier ran up brandishing
a branch torn from a tree and forced him to rise by striking about in all directions. The string then started to run,
dragging, rolling in the dust, the fallen one, who howled and begged to be killed; but perchance he succeeded in
getting on his feet and then went along crying like a child and cursing the hour he was born.
The human cluster halted at times while the guards drank, and then the prisoners continued on their way
with [348]parched mouths, darkened brains, and hearts full of curses. Thirst was for these wretches the least of
their troubles.
“Move on, you sons of ——!” cried a soldier, again refreshed, hurling the insult common among the
lower classes of Filipinos.
The branch whistled and fell on any shoulder whatsoever, the nearest one, or at times upon a face to leave
a welt at first white, then red, and later dirty with the dust of the road.
“Move on, you cowards!” at times a voice yelled in Spanish, deepening its tone.
“Cowards!” repeated the mountain echoes.
Then the cowards quickened their pace under a sky of red-hot iron, over a burning road, lashed by the
knotty branch which was worn into shreds on their livid skins. A Siberian winter would perhaps be tenderer than
the May sun of the Philippines.
Yet, among the soldiers there was one who looked with disapproving eyes upon so much wanton cruelty,
as he marched along silently with his brows knit in disgust. At length, seeing that the guard, not satisfied with the
branch, was kicking the prisoners that fell, he could no longer restrain himself but cried out impatiently, “Here,
Mautang, let them alone!”
Mautang turned toward him in surprise. “What’s it to you, Carolino?” he asked.
“To me, nothing, but it hurts me,” replied Carolino. “They’re men like ourselves.”
“It’s plain that you’re new to the business!” retorted Mautang with a compassionate smile. “How did you
treat the prisoners in the war?”
“With more consideration, surely!” answered Carolino.
Mautang remained silent for a moment and then, apparently having discovered the reason, calmly
rejoined, “Ah, it’s because they are enemies and fight us, while these—these are our own countrymen.”
Then drawing nearer to Carolino he whispered, “How [349] stupid you are! They’re treated so in order
that they may attempt to resist or to escape, and then—bang!”
Carolino made no reply.
One of the prisoners then begged that they let him stop for a moment.
“This is a dangerous place,” answered the corporal, gazing uneasily toward the mountain. “Move on!”
“Move on!” echoed Mautang and his lash whistled.
The prisoner twisted himself around to stare at him with reproachful eyes. “You are more cruel than the
Spaniard himself,” he said.
Mautang replied with more blows, when suddenly a bullet whistled, followed by a loud report. Mautang
dropped his rifle, uttered an oath, and clutching at his breast with both hands fell spinning into a heap. The prisoner
saw him writhing in the dust with blood spurting from his mouth.
“Halt!” called the corporal, suddenly turning pale.
The soldiers stopped and stared about them. A wisp of smoke rose from a thicket on the height above.
Another bullet sang to its accompanying report and the corporal, wounded in the thigh, doubled over vomiting
curses. The column was attacked by men hidden among the rocks above.
Sullen with rage the corporal motioned toward the string of prisoners and laconically ordered, “Fire!”
The wretches fell upon their knees, filled with consternation. As they could not lift their hands, they
begged for mercy by kissing the dust or bowing their heads—one talked of his children, another of his mother
who would be left unprotected, one promised money, another called upon God—but the muzzles were quickly
lowered and a hideous volley silenced them all.
Then began the sharpshooting against those who were behind the rocks above, over which a light cloud
of smoke began to hover. To judge from the scarcity of their shots, the invisible enemies could not have more
than three rifles. As they advanced firing, the guards sought cover behind [350] tree-trunks or crouched down as
they attempted to scale the height. Splintered rocks leaped up, broken twigs fell from trees, patches of earth were
torn up, and the first guard who attempted the ascent rolled back with a bullet through his shoulder.
The hidden enemy had the advantage of position, but the valiant guards, who did not know how to flee,
were on the point of retiring, for they had paused, unwilling to advance; that fight against the invisible unnerved
them. Smoke and rocks alone could be seen—not a voice was heard, not a shadow appeared; they seemed to be
fighting with the mountain.
“Shoot, Carolino! What are you aiming at?” called the corporal.
At that instant a man appeared upon a rock, making signs with his rifle.
“Shoot him!” ordered the corporal with a foul oath.
Three guards obeyed the order, but the man continued standing there, calling out at the top of his voice
something unintelligible.
Carolino paused, thinking that he recognized something familiar about that figure, which stood out
plainly in the sunlight. But the corporal threatened to tie him up if he did not fire, so Carolino took aim and the
report of his rifle was heard. The man on the rock spun around and disappeared with a cry that left Carolino horror-
stricken.
Then followed a rustling in the bushes, indicating that those within were scattering in all directions, so
the soldiers boldly advanced, now that there was no more resistance. Another man appeared upon the rock, waving
a spear, and they fired at him. He sank down slowly, catching at the branch of a tree, but with another volley fell
face downwards on the rock.
The guards climbed on nimbly, with bayonets fixed ready for a hand-to-hand fight. Carolino alone moved
forward reluctantly, with a wandering, gloomy look, the cry of the man struck by his bullet still ringing in his ears.
The [351] first to reach the spot found an old man dying, stretched out on the rock. He plunged his bayonet into
the body, but the old man did not even wink, his eyes being fixed on Carolino with an indescribable gaze, while
with his bony hand he pointed to something behind the rock.
The soldiers turned to see Caroline frightfully pale, his mouth hanging open, with a look in which
glimmered the last spark of reason, for Carolino, who was no other than Tano, Cabesang Tales’ son, and who had
just returned from the Carolines, recognized in the dying man his grandfather, Tandang Selo. No longer able to
speak, the old man’s dying eyes uttered a whole poem of grief—and then a corpse, he still continued to point to
something behind the rock.

Conclusion

In his solitary retreat on the shore of the sea, whose mobile surface was visible through the open,
windows, extending outward until it mingled with the horizon, Padre Florentino was relieving the monotony by
playing on his harmonium sad and melancholy tunes, to which the sonorous roar of the surf and the sighing of the
treetops of the neighboring wood served as accompaniments. Notes long, full, mournful as a prayer, yet still
vigorous, escaped from the old instrument. Padre Florentino, who was an accomplished musician, was
improvising, and, as he was alone, gave free rein to the sadness in his heart.
For the truth was that the old man was very sad. His good friend, Don Tiburcio de Espadaña, had just
left him, fleeing from the persecution of his wife. That morning he had received a note from the lieutenant of the
Civil Guard, which ran thus:
MY DEAR CHAPLAIN,—I have just received from the commandant a telegram that says, “Spaniard
hidden house Padre Florentino capture forward alive dead.” As the telegram is quite explicit, warn your friend not
to be there when I come to arrest him at eight tonight.
Affectionately,
PEREZ
Burn this note.
“T-that V-victorina!” Don Tiburcio had stammered. “S-she’s c-capable of having me s-shot!”
Padre Florentino was unable to reassure him. Vainly he pointed out to him that the word cojera should
have read cogerá,1 and that the hidden Spaniard could not be Don [353]Tiburcio, but the jeweler Simoun, who
two days before had arrived, wounded and a fugitive, begging for shelter. But Don Tiburcio would not be
convinced—cojera was his own lameness, his personal description, and it was an intrigue of Victorina’s to get
him back alive or dead, as Isagani had written from Manila. So the poor Ulysses had left the priest’s house to
conceal himself in the hut of a woodcutter.
No doubt was entertained by Padre Florentino that the Spaniard wanted was the jeweler Simoun, who
had arrived mysteriously, himself carrying the jewel-chest, bleeding, morose, and exhausted. With the free and
cordial Filipino hospitality, the priest had taken him in, without asking indiscreet questions, and as news of the
events in Manila had not yet reached his ears he was unable to understand the situation clearly. The only conjecture
that occurred to him was that the General, the jeweler’s friend and protector, being gone, probably his enemies,
the victims of wrong and abuse, were now rising and calling for vengeance, and that the acting Governor was
pursuing him to make him disgorge the wealth he had accumulated—hence his flight. But whence came his
wounds? Had he tried to commit suicide? Were they the result of personal revenge? Or were they merely caused
by an accident, as Simoun claimed? Had they been received in escaping from the force that was pursuing him?
This last conjecture was the one that seemed to have the greatest appearance of probability, being further
strengthened by the telegram received and Simoun’s decided unwillingness from the start to be treated by the
doctor from the capital. The jeweler submitted only to the ministrations of Don Tiburcio, and even to them with
marked distrust. In this situation Padre Florentino was asking himself what [354] line of conduct he should pursue
when the Civil Guard came to arrest Simoun. His condition would not permit his removal, much less a long
journey—but the telegram said alive or dead.
Padre Florentine ceased playing and approached the window to gaze out at the sea, whose desolate
surface was without a ship, without a sail—it gave him no suggestion. A solitary islet outlined in the distance
spoke only of solitude and made the space more lonely. Infinity is at times despairingly mute.
The old man was trying to analyze the sad and ironical smile with which Simoun had received the news
that he was to be arrested. What did that smile mean? And that other smile, still sadder and more ironical, with
which he received the news that they would not come before eight at night? What did all this mystery signify?
Why did Simoun refuse to hide? There came into his mind the celebrated saying of St. John Chrysostom when he
was defending the eunuch Eutropius: “Never was a better time than this to say—Vanity of vanities and all is
vanity!”
Yes, that Simoun, so rich, so powerful, so feared a week ago, and now more unfortunate than Eutropius,
was seeking refuge, not at the altars of a church, but in the miserable house of a poor native priest, hidden in the
forest, on the solitary seashore! Vanity of vanities and all is vanity! That man would within a few hours be a
prisoner, dragged from the bed where he lay, without respect for his condition, without consideration for his
wounds—dead or alive his enemies demanded him! How could he save him? Where could he find the moving
accents of the bishop of Constantinople? What weight would his weak words have, the words of a native priest,
whose own humiliation this same Simoun had in his better days seemed to applaud and encourage?
But Padre Florentine no longer recalled the indifferent reception that two months before the jeweler had
accorded to him when he had tried to interest him in favor of Isagani, [355] then a prisoner on account of his
imprudent chivalry; he forgot the activity Simoun had displayed in urging Paulita’s marriage, which had plunged
Isagani into the fearful misanthropy that was worrying his uncle. He forgot all these things and thought only of
the sick man’s plight and his own obligations as a host, until his senses reeled. Where must he hide him to avoid
his falling into the clutches of the authorities? But the person chiefly concerned was not worrying, he was smiling.
While he was pondering over these things, the old man was approached by a servant who said that the
sick man wished to speak with him, so he went into the next room, a clean and well-ventilated apartment with a
floor of wide boards smoothed and polished, and simply furnished with big, heavy armchairs of ancient design,
without varnish or paint. At one end there was a large kamagon bed with its four posts to support the canopy, and
beside it a table covered with bottles, lint, and bandages. A praying-desk at the feet of a Christ and a scanty library
led to the suspicion that it was the priest’s own bedroom, given up to his guest according to the Filipino custom
of offering to the stranger the best table, the best room, and the best bed in the house. Upon seeing the windows
opened wide to admit freely the healthful sea-breeze and the echoes of its eternal lament, no one in the Philippines
would have said that a sick person was to be found there, since it is the custom to close all the windows and stop
up all the cracks just as soon as any one catches a cold or gets an insignificant headache.
Padre Florentine looked toward the bed and was astonished to see that the sick man’s face had lost its
tranquil and ironical expression. Hidden grief seemed to knit his brows, anxiety was depicted in his looks, his lips
were curled in a smile of pain.
“Are you suffering, Señor Simoun?” asked the priest solicitously, going to his side.
“Some! But in a little while I shall cease to suffer,” he replied with a shake of his head.[356]
Padre Florentine clasped his hands in fright, suspecting that he understood the terrible truth. “My God,
what have you done? What have you taken?” He reached toward the bottles.
“It’s useless now! There’s no remedy at all!” answered Simoun with a pained smile. “What did you
expect me to do? Before the clock strikes eight—alive or dead—dead, yes, but alive, no!”
“My God, what have you done?”
“Be calm!” urged the sick man with a wave of his hand. “What’s done is done. I must not fall into
anybody’s hands—my secret would be torn from me. Don’t get excited, don’t lose your head, its useless! Listen—
the night is coming on and there’s no time to be lost. I must tell you my secret, and entrust to you my last request,
I must lay my life open before you. At the supreme moment I want to lighten myself of a load, I want to clear up
a doubt of mine. You who believe so firmly in God—I want you to tell me if there is a God!”
“But an antidote, Señor Simoun! I have ether, chloroform—”
The priest began to search for a flask, until Simoun cried impatiently, “Useless, it’s useless! Don’t waste
time! I’ll go away with my secret!”
 The bewildered priest fell down at his desk and prayed at the feet of the Christ, hiding his face in his
hands. Then he arose serious and grave, as if he had received from his God all the force, all the dignity, all the
authority of the Judge of consciences. Moving a chair to the head of the bed he prepared to listen.
At the first words Simoun murmured, when he told his real name, the old priest started back and gazed
at him in terror, whereat the sick man smiled bitterly. Taken by surprise, the priest was not master of himself, but
he soon recovered, and covering his face with a handkerchief again bent over to listen.
Simoun related his sorrowful story: how, thirteen years [357]before, he had returned from Europe filled
with hopes and smiling illusions, having come back to marry a girl whom he loved, disposed to do good and
forgive all who had wronged him, just so they would let him live in peace. But it was not so. A mysterious hand
involved him in the confusion of an uprising planned by his enemies. Name, fortune, love, future, liberty, all were
lost, and he escaped only through the heroism of a friend. Then he swore vengeance. With the wealth of his family,
which had been buried in a wood, he had fled, had gone to foreign lands and engaged in trade. He took part in the
war in Cuba, aiding first one side and then another, but always profiting. There he made the acquaintance of the
General, then a major, whose good-will he won first by loans of money, and afterwards he made a friend of him
by the knowledge of criminal secrets. With his money he had been able to secure the General’s appointment and,
once in the Philippines, he had used him as a blind tool and incited him to all kinds of injustice, availing himself
of his insatiable lust for gold.
The confession was long and tedious, but during the whole of it the confessor made no further sign of
surprise and rarely interrupted the sick man. It was night when Padre Florentino, wiping the perspiration from his
face, arose and began to meditate. Mysterious darkness flooded the room, so that the moonbeams entering through
the window filled it with vague lights and vaporous reflections.
Into the midst of the silence the priest’s voice broke sad and deliberate, but consoling: “God will forgive
you, Señor—Simoun,” he said. “He knows that we are fallible, He has seen that you have suffered, and in
ordaining that the chastisement for your faults should come as death from the very ones you have instigated to
crime, we can see His infinite mercy. He has frustrated your plans one by one, the best conceived, first by the
death of Maria Clara, then by a lack of preparation, then in some mysterious way. Let us bow to His will and
render Him thanks!”[358]
“According to you, then,” feebly responded the sick man, “His will is that these islands—”
“Should continue in the condition in which they suffer?” finished the priest, seeing that the other
hesitated. “I don’t know, sir, I can’t read the thought of the Inscrutable. I know that He has not abandoned those
peoples who in their supreme moments have trusted in Him and made Him the Judge of their cause, I know that
His arm has never failed when, justice long trampled upon and every recourse gone, the oppressed have taken up
the sword to fight for home and wife and children, for their inalienable rights, which, as the German poet says,
shine ever there above, unextinguished and inextinguishable, like the eternal stars themselves. No, God is justice,
He cannot abandon His cause, the cause of liberty, without which no justice is possible.”
“Why then has He denied me His aid?” asked the sick man in a voice charged with bitter complaint.
“Because you chose means that He could not sanction,” was the severe reply. “The glory of saving a
country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin. You have believed that what crime and iniquity have defiled
and deformed, another crime and another iniquity can purify and redeem. Wrong! Hate never produces anything
but monsters and crime criminals! Love alone realizes wonderful works, virtue alone can save! No, if our country
has ever to be free, it will not be through vice and crime, it will not be so by corrupting its sons, deceiving some
and bribing others, no! Redemption presupposes virtue, virtue sacrifice, and sacrifice love!”
“Well, I accept your explanation,” rejoined the sick man, after a pause. “I have been mistaken, but,
because I have been mistaken, will that God deny liberty to a people and yet save many who are much worse
criminals than I am? What is my mistake compared to the crimes of our rulers? Why has that God to give more
heed to my iniquity than to the cries of so many innocents? Why has He not stricken me down and then made the
people triumph? Why [359] does He let so many worthy and just ones suffer and look complacently upon their
tortures?”
“The just and the worthy must suffer in order that their ideas may be known and extended! You must
shake or shatter the vase to spread its perfume, you must smite the rock to get the spark! There is something
providential in the persecutions of tyrants, Señor Simoun!”
“I knew it,” murmured the sick man, “and therefore I encouraged the tyranny.”
“Yes, my friend, but more corrupt influences than anything else were spread. You fostered the social
rottenness without sowing an idea. From this fermentation of vices loathing alone could spring, and if anything
were born overnight it would be at best a mushroom, for mushrooms only can spring spontaneously from filth.
True it is that the vices of the government are fatal to it, they cause its death, but they kill also the society in whose
bosom they are developed. An immoral government presupposes a demoralized people, a conscienceless
administration, greedy and servile citizens in the settled parts, outlaws and brigands in the mountains. Like master,
like slave! Like government, like country!”
A brief pause ensued, broken at length by the sick man’s voice. “Then, what can be done?”
 “Suffer and work!”
“Suffer—work!” echoed the sick man bitterly. “Ah, it’s easy to say that, when you are not suffering,
when the work is rewarded. If your God demands such great sacrifices from man, man who can scarcely count
upon the present and doubts the future, if you had seen what I have, the miserable, the wretched, suffering
unspeakable tortures for crimes they have not committed, murdered to cover up the faults and incapacity of others,
poor fathers of families torn from their homes to work to no purpose upon highways that are destroyed each day
and seem only to serve for sinking families into want. Ah, to suffer, to work, is the will of God! Convince them
that their murder is their [360] salvation, that their work is the prosperity of the home! To suffer, to work! What
God is that?”
“A very just God, Señor Simoun,” replied the priest. “A God who chastises our lack of faith, our vices,
the little esteem in which we hold dignity and the civic virtues. We tolerate vice, we make ourselves its
accomplices, at times we applaud it, and it is just, very just that we suffer the consequences, that our children
suffer them. It is the God of liberty, Señor Simoun, who obliges us to love it, by making the yoke heavy for us—
a God of mercy, of equity, who while He chastises us, betters us and only grants prosperity to him who has merited
it through his efforts. The school of suffering tempers, the arena of combat strengthens the soul.
“I do not mean to say that our liberty will be secured at the sword’s point, for the sword plays but little
part in modern affairs, but that we must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it, by exalting the intelligence
and the dignity of the individual, by loving justice, right, and greatness, even to the extent of dying for them,—
and when a people reaches that height God will provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, the tyranny will
crumble like a house of cards and liberty will shine out like the first dawn.
“Our ills we owe to ourselves alone, so let us blame no one. If Spain should see that we were less
complaisant with tyranny and more disposed to struggle and suffer for our rights, Spain would be the first to grant
us liberty, because when the fruit of the womb reaches maturity woe unto the mother who would stifle it! So,
while the Filipino people has not sufficient energy to proclaim, with head erect and bosom bared, its rights to
social life, and to guarantee it with its sacrifices, with its own blood; while we see our countrymen in private life
ashamed within themselves, hear the voice of conscience roar in rebellion and protest, yet in public life keep
silence or even echo the words of him who abuses them in order to mock the abused; while we see them wrap
themselves up in their egotism and with a [361]forced smile praise the most iniquitous actions, begging with their
eyes a portion of the booty—why grant them liberty? With Spain or without Spain they would always be the same,
and perhaps worse! Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And that they will
be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.
“Señor Simoun, when our people is unprepared, when it enters the fight through fraud and force, without
a clear understanding of what it is doing, the wisest attempts will fail, and better that they do fail, since why
commit the wife to the husband if he does not sufficiently love her, if he is not ready to die for her?”
Padre Florentino felt the sick man catch and press his hand, so he became silent, hoping that the other
might speak, but he merely felt a stronger pressure of the hand, heard a sigh, and then profound silence reigned in
the room. Only the sea, whose waves were rippled by the night breeze, as though awaking from the heat of the
day, sent its hoarse roar, its eternal chant, as it rolled against the jagged rocks. The moon, now free from the sun’s
rivalry, peacefully commanded the sky, and the trees of the forest bent down toward one another, telling their
ancient legends in mysterious murmurs borne on the wings of the wind.
The sick man said nothing, so Padre Florentino, deeply thoughtful, murmured: “Where are the youth who
will consecrate their golden hours, their illusions, and their enthusiasm to the welfare of their native land? Where
are the youth who will generously pour out their blood to wash away so much shame, so much crime, so much
abomination? Pure and spotless must the victim be that the sacrifice may be acceptable! Where are you, youth,
who will embody in yourselves the vigor of life that has left our veins, the purity of ideas that has been
contaminated in our brains, the fire of enthusiasm that has been quenched in our hearts? We await you, O youth!
Come, for we await you!”
Feeling his eyes moisten he withdrew his hand from that [362]of the sick man, arose, and went to the
window to gaze out upon the wide surface of the sea. He was drawn from his meditation by gentle raps at the
door. It was the servant asking if he should bring a light.
When the priest returned to the sick man and looked at him in the light of the lamp, motionless, his eyes
closed, the hand that had pressed his lying open and extended along the edge of the bed, he thought for a moment
that he was sleeping, but noticing that he was not breathing touched him gently, and then realized that he was
dead. His body had already commenced to turn cold. The priest fell upon his knees and prayed.
When he arose and contemplated the corpse, in whose features were depicted the deepest grief, the
tragedy of a whole wasted life which he was carrying over there beyond death, the old man shuddered and
murmured, “God have mercy on those who turned him from the straight path!”
While the servants summoned by him fell upon their knees and prayed for the dead man, curious and
bewildered as they gazed toward the bed, reciting requiem after requiem, Padre Florentino took from a cabinet
the celebrated steel chest that contained Simoun’s fabulous wealth. He hesitated for a moment, then resolutely
descended the stairs and made his way to the cliff where Isagani was accustomed to sit and gaze into the depths
of the sea.
Padre Florentino looked down at his feet. There below he saw the dark billows of the Pacific beating into
the hollows of the cliff, producing sonorous thunder, at the same time that, smitten by the moonbeams, the waves
and foam glittered like sparks of fire, like handfuls of diamonds hurled into the air by some jinnee of the abyss.
He gazed about him. He was alone. The solitary coast was lost in the distance amid the dim cloud that the
moonbeams played through, until it mingled with the horizon. The forest murmured unintelligible sounds.
Then the old man, with an effort of his herculean arms, hurled the chest into space, throwing it toward
the sea. It [363]whirled over and over several times and descended rapidly in a slight curve, reflecting the
moonlight on its polished surface. The old man saw the drops of water fly and heard a loud splash as the abyss
closed over and swallowed up the treasure. He waited for a few moments to see if the depths would restore
anything, but the wave rolled on as mysteriously as before, without adding a fold to its rippling surface, as though
into the immensity of the sea a pebble only had been dropped.
“May Nature guard you in her deep abysses among the pearls and corals of her eternal seas,” then said
the priest, solemnly extending his hands. “When for some holy and sublime purpose man may need you, God will
in his wisdom draw you from the bosom of the waves. Meanwhile, there you will not work woe, you will not
distort justice, you will not foment avarice!”
1
In the original the message reads: “Español escondido casa Padre Florentino cojera remitirá vivo muerto.” Don Tiburcio
understands [353n]cojera as referring to himself; there is a play upon the Spanish words cojera, lameness, and cogerá, a form of the
verb coger, to seize or capture—j and g in these two words having the same sound, that of the English h.—Tr.

GLOSSARY

abá: A Tagalog exclamation of wonder, surprise, etc., often used to introduce or emphasize a contradictory statement.
alcalde: Governor of a province or district, with both executive and judicial authority.
Ayuntamiento: A city corporation or council, and by extension the building in which it has its offices; specifically, in Manila,
the capitol.
balete: The Philippine banyan, a tree sacred in Malay folk-lore.
banka: A dugout canoe with bamboo supports or outriggers.
batalan: The platform of split bamboo attached to a nipa house.
batikúlin: A variety of easily-turned wood, used in carving.
bibinka: A sweetmeat made of sugar or molasses and rice-flour, commonly sold in the small shops.
buyera: A woman who prepares and sells the buyo.
buyo: The masticatory prepared by wrapping a piece of areca-nut with a little shell-lime in a betel-leaf—the pan of British
India.
cabesang: Title of a cabeza de barangay; given by courtesy to his wife also.
cabeza de barangay: Headman and tax-collector for a group of about fifty families, for whose “tribute” he was personally
responsible.
calesa: A two-wheeled chaise with folding top.
calle: Street (Spanish).
camisa: 1. A loose, collarless shirt of transparent material worn by men outside the trousers. 2. A thin, transparent waist with
flowing sleeves, worn by women.
capitan: “Captain,” a title used in addressing or referring to a gobernadorcillo, or a former occupant of that office.
carambas: A Spanish exclamation denoting surprise or displeasure.
carbineer: Internal-revenue guard.
carromata: A small two-wheeled vehicle with a fixed top.
casco: A flat-bottomed freight barge.
cayman: The Philippine crocodile.
cedula: Certificate of registration and receipt for poll-tax.
chongka: A child’s game played with pebbles or cowry-shells.
cigarrera: A woman working in a cigar or cigarette factory.
Civil Guard: Internal quasi-military police force of Spanish officers and native soldiers.
cochero: Carriage driver, coachman.
cuarto: A copper coin, one hundred and sixty of which were equal in value to a silver peso.
filibuster: A native of the Philippines who was accused of advocating their separation from Spain.[366]
filibusterism: See filibuster.
gobernadorcillo: “Petty governor,” the principal municipal official—also, in Manila, the head of a commercial guild.
gumamela: The hibiscus, common as a garden shrub in the Philippines.
Indian: The Spanish designation for the Christianized Malay of the Philippines was indio (Indian), a term used rather
contemptuously, the name Filipino being generally applied in a restricted sense to the children of Spaniards born in
the Islands.
kalan: The small, portable, open, clay fireplace commonly used in cooking.
kalikut: A short section of bamboo for preparing the buyo; a primitive betel-box.
kamagon: A tree of the ebony family, from which fine cabinet-wood is obtained. Its fruit is the mabolo, or date-plum.
lanete: A variety of timber used in carving.
linintikan: A Tagalog exclamation of disgust or contempt—“thunder!”
Malacañang: The palace of the Captain-General: from the vernacular name of the place where it stands, “fishermen’s resort.”
Malecon: A drive along the bay shore of Manila, opposite the Walled City.
Mestizo: A person of mixed Filipino and Spanish blood; sometimes applied also to a person of mixed Filipino and Chinese
blood.
nakú: A Tagalog exclamation of surprise, wonder, etc.
narra: The Philippine mahogany.
nipa: Swamp palm, with the imbricated leaves of which the roofs and sides of the common native houses are constructed.
novena: A devotion consisting of prayers recited for nine consecutive days, asking for some special favor; also, a booklet of
these prayers.
panguingui: A complicated card-game, generally for small stakes, played with a monte deck.
panguinguera: A woman addicted to panguingui, this being chiefly a feminine diversion in the Philippines.
pansit: A soup made of Chinese vermicelli.
pansitería: A shop where pansit is prepared and sold.
pañuelo: A starched neckerchief folded stiffly over the shoulders, fastened in front and falling in a point behind: the most
distinctive portion of the customary dress of Filipino women.
peso: A silver coin, either the Spanish peso or the Mexican dollar, about the size of an American dollar and of approximately
half its value.
petate: Sleeping-mat woven from palm leaves.
piña: Fine cloth made from pineapple-leaf fibers.
Provincial: The head of a religious order in the Philippines.
puñales: “Daggers!”
querida: A paramour, mistress: from the Spanish “beloved.”
real: One-eighth of a peso, twenty cuartos.
sala: The principal room in the more pretentious Philippine houses.
salakot: Wide hat of palm or bamboo, distinctively Filipino.
sampaguita: The Arabian jasmine: a small, white, very fragrant flower, extensively cultivated, and worn in chaplets and
rosaries by women and girls—the typical Philippine flower.[367]
sipa: A game played with a hollow ball of plaited bamboo or rattan, by boys standing in a circle, who by kicking it with their
heels endeavor to keep it from striking the ground.
soltada: A bout between fighting-cocks.
’Susmariosep: A common exclamation: contraction of the Spanish, Jesús, María, y José, the Holy Family.
tabi: The cry used by carriage drivers to warn pedestrians.
tabú: A utensil fashioned from half of a coconut shell.
tajú: A thick beverage prepared from bean-meal and syrup.
tampipi: A telescopic basket of woven palm, bamboo, or rattan.
Tandang: A title of respect for an old man: from the Tagalog term for “old.”
tapis: A piece of dark cloth or lace, often richly worked or embroidered, worn at the waist somewhat in the fashion of an
apron; a distinctive portion of the native women’s attire, especially among the Tagalogs.
tatakut: The Tagalog term for “fear.”
teniente-mayor: “Senior lieutenant,” the senior member of the town council and substitute for the gobernadorcillo.
tertiary sister: A member of a lay society affiliated with a regular monastic order.
tienda: A shop or stall for the sale of merchandise.
tikbalang: An evil spirit, capable of assuming various forms, but said to appear usually as a tall black man with
disproportionately long legs: the “bogey man” of Tagalog children.
tulisan: Outlaw, bandit. Under the old régime in the Philippines the tulisanes were those who, on account of real or fancied
grievances against the authorities, or from fear of punishment for crime, or from an instinctive desire to return to
primitive simplicity, foreswore life in the towns “under the bell,” and made their homes in the mountains or other
remote places. Gathered in small bands with such arms as they could secure, they sustained themselves by highway
robbery and the levying of black-mail from the country folk.

Let’s Remember :

 The El Filibusterismo expresses the struggle of the Filipinos against the injustices
committed by the Spaniards. This relates the compiled stories of the Filipinos as they were
experienced personally by the author or was retold to him by people that influenced him
such as his parents, the Gomburza hanging and etc.
Let’s Do This :

O. Writing Exercise:

 What were the significant chapters discussing the role of youth in society?
 How does these points relate to you as a Filipino youth?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

P. Recitation Exercise:

 Are the actions of the youth committed in the novel still happening today?
 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Rizal Jose. El Filibusterismo. Trans. Virgilio Almario or Soledad Maximo Locsin

Anderson, Benedict. Why Counting Counts: A Study of Forms of Consciousness and
Problems of Language in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Quezon City: Ateneo
de Manila University Press, 2008

Module Post Test:

 Who is Simoun and what is his importance in the novel?

References/Sources:
 Almario. Virgitio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. Quezon City. University of the Philippines Press, 2008
 Caroline S. Hau, "Introduction" in Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, 1946-1980.
Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000
 Anderson, Benedict. Why Counting Counts: A Study of Forms of Consciousness and Problems of
Language in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press,
2008
 Reyes, Miguel Paolo. "El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as 'Science Fictionist'" in Humanities Diliman
vol. 10 no. 2 (2013).http://journals.upd.edu.ph/in dex.php/humanitiesdiliman/a rticle/view/4168/3774
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 10

Lesson Title : The Philippines: A Century Hence

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Assess Rizal's writings

 Appraise the value of understanding the past

 Frame arguments based on evidence

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Is history important to me?”

 Students are required to solicit ideas from their parents, elder siblings, friends
or classmates.

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate the appreciation
of the personal history.

 The students are tasked to read the "The Philippines: A Century Hence” and
research possible interpretations from other sources before forming their own
understanding of the book.
Let’s Read :
 A plant I am, that scarcely grown,
Was torn from out its Eastern bed,
Where all around perfume is shed,
And life but as a dream is known;
The land that I can call my own,
By me forgotten ne’er to be,
Where trilling birds their song taught me,
And cascades with their ceaseless roar,
And all along the spreading shore
The murmurs of the sounding sea.
While yet in childhood’s happy day,
I learned upon its sun to smile,
And in my breast there seemed the while
Seething volcanic fires to play;
A bard I was, and my wish alway
To call upon the fleeting wind,
With all the force of verse and mind:
“Go forth, and spread around its fame,
From zone to zone with glad acclaim,
And earth to heaven together bind!”

From “Mi Piden Versos” (1882),

verses from Madrid for his mother.

The Philippines
A Century Hence

“In the Philippine Islands the American government has tried, and is trying, to
carry out exactly what the greatest genius and most revered patriot ever known
in the Philippines, José Rizal, steadfastly advocated.”

—From a public address at Fargo, N.D., on

April 7th. 1903, by the President of the United States.
A sketch map, by Dr. Rizal, of spheres of influence in the Pacific at the time of writing
“The Philippines A Century Hence,” as they appeared to him.

Most of the French names will be easily recognized, though it may be noted that
“Etats Unis” is our own United States, “L’Angleterre” England, and “L’Espagne” Spain.
Noli Me Tangere Quarter-Centennial Series
Edited by Austin Craig
 The Philippines
A Century Hence
By José Rizal
Manila: 1912
Philippine Education Company
34 Escolta

Copyright 1912

BY AUSTIN CRAIG
Registered in the Philippine Islands.
Introduction

As “Filipinas dentro de Cien Años”, this article was originally published serially in the Filipino
fortnightly review “La Solidaridad”, of Madrid, running through the issues from September, 1889, to January,
1890.
It supplements Rizal’s great novel “Noli Me Tangere” and its sequel “El Filibusterismo”, and the
translation here given is fortunately by Mr. Charles Derbyshire who in his “The Social Cancer” and “The Reign
of Greed” has so happily rendered into English those masterpieces of Rizal.
The reference which Doctor Rizal makes to President Harrison had in mind the grandson-of-his-
grandfather’s blundering, wavering policy that, because of a groundless fear of infringing the natives’ natural
rights, put his country in the false light of wanting to share in Samoa’s exploitation, taking the leonine portion,
too, along with Germany and England.
Robert Louis Stevenson has told the story of the unhappy condition created by that disastrous
international agreement which was achieved by the dissembling diplomats of greedy Europe flattering
unsophisticated America into believing that two monarchies preponderating in an alliance with a republic would
be fairer than the republic acting unhampered.
In its day the scheme was acclaimed by irrational idealists as a triumph of American abnegation and an
example of modern altruism. It resulted that “the international agreement” became a constant cause of
international disagreements, as any student of history could have foretold, until, disgusted and disillusioned, the
United States tardily recalled Washington’s warning against entanglements with foreign powers and became a
party to a real partition, but this time playing the lamb’s part. England was compensated with concessions in other
parts of the world, the United States was “given” what it already held under a cession twenty-seven years old,—
and Germany took the rest as her emperor had planned from the start.
There is this Philippine bearing to the incident that the same stripe of unpractical philanthropists, not
discouraged at having forced the Samoans under the ungentle German rule—for their victims and not themselves
suffer by their mistakes, are seeking now the neutralization by international agreement of the Archipelago for
which Rizal gave his life. Their success would mean another “entangling alliance” for the United States, with six
allies, or nine including Holland, China and Spain, if the “great republic” should be allowed by the diplomats of
the “Great Powers” to invite these nonentities in world politics, with whom she would still be outvoted.
Rizal’s reference to America as a possible factor in the Philippines’ future is based upon the prediction
of the German traveller Feodor Jagor, who about 1860 spent a number of months in the Islands and later published
his observations, supplemented by ten years of further study in European libraries and museums, as “Travels in
the Philippines”, to use the title of the English translation,—a very poor one, by the way. Rizal read the much
better Spanish version while a student in the Ateneo de Manila, from a copy supplied by Paciano Rizal Mercado
who directed his younger brother’s political education and transferred to José the hopes which had been blighted
for himself by the execution of his beloved teacher, Father Burgos, in the Cavite alleged insurrection.
Jagor’s prophecy furnishes the explanation to Rizal’s public life. His policy of preparing his countrymen
for industrial and commercial competition seems to have had its inspiration in this reading done when he was a
youth in years but mature in fact through close contact with tragic public events as well as with sensational private
sorrows.
When in Berlin, Doctor Rizal met Professor Jagor, and the distinguished geographer and his youthful but
brilliant admirer became fast friends, often discussing how the progress of events was bringing true the fortune
for the Philippines which the knowledge of its history and the acquaintance with its then condition had enabled
the trained observer to foretell with that same certainty that the meteorologist foretells the morrow’s weather.
A like political acumen Rizal tried to develop in his countrymen. He republished Morga’s History (first
published in Mexico in 1609) to recall their past. Noli Me Tangere painted their present, and in El Filibusterismo
was sketched the future which continuance upon their then course must bring. “The Philippines A Century Hence”
suggests other possibilities, and seems to have been the initial issue in the series of ten which Rizal planned to
print, one a year, to correct the misunderstanding of his previous writings which had come from their being known
mainly by the extracts cited in the censors’ criticism.
José Rizal in life voiced the aspirations of his countrymen and as the different elements in his divided
native land recognized that these were the essentials upon which all were agreed and that their points of difference
among themselves were not vital, dissension disappeared and there came a united Philippines. Now, since his
death, the fact that both continental and insular Americans look to him as their hero makes possible the hope that
misunderstandings based on differences as to details may cease when Filipinos recognize that the American
Government in the Philippines, properly approached, is willing to grant all that Rizal considered important, and
when Americans understand that the people of the Philippines, unaccustomed to the frank discussions of
democracy, would be content with so little even as Rizal asked of Spain if only there were some salve for their
unwittingly wounded amor propio.
A better knowledge of the writings of José Rizal may accomplish this desirable consummation.
 “I do not write for this generation. I am writing for other ages. If this could read me,
they would burn my books, the work of my whole life. On the other hand, the generation which
interprets these writings will be an educated generation; they will understand me and say: ‘Not
all were asleep in the night-time of our grandparents’.”
—The Philosopher Tasio, in Noli Me Tangere.

Jagor’s Prophecy

The Prophecy Which Prompted Rizal’s Policy of Preparation for the Philippines
This extract is translated from Pages 287–289 of “Reisen in den Philippinen von F. Jagor: Berlin 1873”.
“The old situation is no longer possible of maintenance, with the changed conditions of the present time.
“The colony can no longer be kept secluded from the world. Every facility afforded for commercial
intercourse is a blow to the old system, and a great step made in the direction of broad and liberal reforms. The
more foreign capital and foreign ideas and customs are introduced, increasing the prosperity, enlightenment, and
self-respect of the population, the more impatiently will the existing evils be endured.
“England can and does open her possessions unconcernedly to the world. The British colonies are united
to the mother country by the bond of mutual advantage, viz., the production of raw material by means of English
capital, and the exchange of the same for English manufactures. The wealth of England is so great, the organization
of her commerce with the world so complete, that nearly all the foreigners even in the British possessions are for
the most part agents for English business houses, which would scarcely be affected, at least to any marked extent,
by a political dismemberment. It is entirely different with Spain, which possesses the colony as an inherited
property, and without the power of turning it to any useful account.
“Government monopolies rigorously maintained, insolent disregard and neglect of the half-castes and
powerful creoles, and the example of the United States, were the chief reasons of the downfall of the American
possessions. The same causes threaten ruin to the Philippines; but of the monopolies I have said enough.
“Half-castes and creoles, it is true, are not, as they formerly were in America, excluded from all official
appointments; but they feel deeply hurt and injured through the crowds of place-hunters which the frequent
changes of Ministers send to Manila.
“Also the influence of American elements is at least discernible on the horizon, and will come more to
the front as the relations of the two countries grow closer. At present these are still of little importance; in the
meantime commerce follows its old routes, which lead to England and the Atlantic ports of the Union.
Nevertheless, he who attempts to form a judgment as to the future destiny of the Philippines cannot fix his gaze
only on their relations to Spain; he must also consider the mighty changes which within a few decades are being
effected on that side of our planet. For the first time in the world’s history, the gigantic nations on both sides of a
gigantic ocean are beginning to come into direct intercourse: Russia, which alone is greater than two divisions of
the world together; China, which within her narrow bounds contains a third of the human race; America, with
cultivable soil enough to support almost three times the entire population of the earth. Russia’s future rôle in the
Pacific Ocean at present baffles all calculations. The intercourse of the two other powers will probably have all
the more important consequences when the adjustment between the immeasurable necessity for human labor-
power on the one hand, and a correspondingly great surplus of that power on the other, shall fall on it as a
problem.”
“The world of the ancients was confined to the shores of the Mediterranean; and the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans sufficed at one time for our traffic. When first the shores of the Pacific re-echoed with the sounds of active
commerce, the trade of the world and the history of the world may be really said to have begun. A start in that
direction has been made; whereas not so very long ago the immense ocean was one wide waste of waters, traversed
from both points only once a year. From 1603 to 1769 scarcely a ship had ever visited California, that wonderful
country which, twenty-five years ago, with the exception of a few places on the coast, was an unknown wilderness,
but which is now covered with flourishing and prosperous towns and cities, divided from sea to sea by a railway,
and its capital already ranking among the world’s greatest seaports.
“But in proportion as the commerce of the western coast of America extends the influence of the
American elements over the South Sea, the ensnaring spell which the great republic exercises over the Spanish
colonies will not fail to assert itself in the Philippines also. The Americans appear to be called upon to bring the
germ planted by the Spaniards to its full development. As conquerors of the New World, representatives of the
body of free citizens in contradistinction to the nobility, they follow with the axe and plow of the pioneer where
the Spaniards had opened the way with cross and sword. A considerable part of Spanish America already belongs
to the United States, and has, since that occurred, attained an importance which could not have been anticipated
either during Spanish rule or during the anarchy which ensued after and from it. In the long run, the Spanish
system cannot prevail over the American. While the former exhausts the colonies through direct appropriation of
them to the privileged classes, and the metropolis through the drain of its best forces (with, besides, a feeble
population), America draws to itself the most energetic element from all lands; and these on her soil, free from all
trammels, and restlessly pushing forward, are continually extending further her power and influence. The
Philippines will so much the less escape the influence of the two great neighboring empires, since neither the
islands nor their metropolis are in a condition of stable equilibrium. It seems desirable for the natives that the
opinions here expressed shall not too soon be realized as facts, for their training thus far has not sufficiently
prepared them for success in the contest with those restless, active, most inconsiderate peoples; they have dreamed
away their youth.”

The Philippines A Century Hence

I.
Following our usual custom of facing squarely the most difficult and delicate questions relating to the
Philippines, without weighing the consequences that our frankness may bring upon us, we shall in the present
article treat of their future.
In order to read the destiny of a people, it is necessary to open the book of its past, and this, for the
Philippines, may be reduced in general terms to what follows.
Scarcely had they been attached to the Spanish crown than they had to sustain with their blood and the
efforts of their sons the wars and ambitions of conquest of the Spanish people, and in these struggles, in that
terrible crisis when a people changes its form of government, its laws, usages, customs, religion and beliefs the
Philippines were depopulated, impoverished and retarded—caught in their metamorphosis, without confidence in
their past, without faith in their present and with no fond hope for the years to come. The former rulers who had
merely endeavored to secure the fear and submission of their subjects, habituated by them to servitude, fell like
leaves from a dead tree, and the people, who had no love for them nor knew what liberty was, easily changed
masters, perhaps hoping to gain something by the innovation.
Then began a new era for the Filipinos. They gradually lost their ancient traditions, their recollections—
they forgot their writings, their songs, their poetry, their laws, in order to learn by heart other doctrines, which
they did not understand, other ethics, other tastes, different from those inspired in their race by their climate and
their way of thinking. Then there was a falling-off, they were lowered in their own eyes, they became ashamed of
what was distinctively their own, in order to admire and praise what was foreign and incomprehensible: their spirit
was broken and they acquiesced.
Thus years and centuries rolled on. Religious shows, rites that caught the eye, songs, lights, images
arrayed with gold, worship in a strange language, legends, miracles and sermons, hypnotized the already naturally
superstitious spirit of the country, but did not succeed in destroying it altogether, in spite of the whole system
afterwards developed and operated with unyielding tenacity.
When the ethical abasement of the inhabitants had reached this stage, when they had become
disheartened and disgusted with themselves, an effort was made to add the final stroke for reducing so many
dormant wills and intellects to nothingness, in order to make of the individual a sort of toiler, a brute, a beast of
burden, and to develop a race without mind or heart. Then the end sought was revealed, it was taken for granted,
the race was insulted, an effort was made to deny it every virtue, every human characteristic, and there were even
writers and priests who pushed the movement still further by trying to deny to the natives of the country not only
capacity for virtue but also even the tendency to vice.
Then this which they had thought would be death was sure salvation. Some dying persons are restored
to health by a heroic remedy.
So great endurance reached its climax with the insults, and the lethargic spirit woke to life. His
sensitiveness, the chief trait of the native, was touched, and while he had had the forbearance to suffer and die
under a foreign flag, he had it not when they whom he served repaid his sacrifices with insults and jests. Then he
began to study himself and to realize his misfortune. Those who had not expected this result, like all despotic
masters, regarded as a wrong every complaint, every protest, and punished it with death, endeavoring thus to stifle
every cry of sorrow with blood, and they made mistake after mistake.
The spirit of the people was not thereby cowed, and even though it had been awakened in only a few
hearts, its flame nevertheless was surely and consumingly propagated, thanks to abuses and the stupid endeavors
of certain classes to stifle noble and generous sentiments. Thus when a flame catches a garment, fear and confusion
propagate it more and more, and each shake, each blow, is a blast from the bellows to fan it into life.
 Undoubtedly during all this time there were not lacking generous and noble spirits among the dominant
race that tried to struggle for the rights of humanity and justice, or sordid and cowardly ones among the dominated
that aided the debasement of their own country. But both were exceptions and we are speaking in general terms.
Such is an outline of their past. We know their present. Now, what will their future be?
Will the Philippine Islands continue to be a Spanish colony, and if so, what kind of colony? Will they
become a province of Spain, with or without autonomy? And to reach this stage, what kind of sacrifices will have
to be made?
Will they be separated from the mother country to live independently, to fall into the hands of other
nations, or to ally themselves with neighboring powers?
It is impossible to reply to these questions, for to all of them both yes and no may be answered, according
to the time desired to be covered. When there is in nature no fixed condition, how much less must there be in the
life of a people, beings endowed with mobility and movement! So it is that in order to deal with these questions,
it is necessary to presume an unlimited period of time, and in accordance therewith try to forecast future events.

II.
What will become of the Philippines within a century? Will they continue to be a Spanish colony?
Had this question been asked three centuries ago, when at Legazpi’s death the Malayan Filipinos began
to be gradually undeceived and, finding the yoke heavy, tried in vain to shake it off, without any doubt whatsoever
the reply would have been easy. To a spirit enthusiastic over the liberty of the country, to those unconquerable
Kagayanes who nourished within themselves the spirit of the Magalats, to the descendants of the heroic Gat
Pulintang and Gat Salakab of the Province of Batangas, independence was assured, it was merely a question of
getting together and making a determined effort. But for him who, disillusioned by sad experience, saw
everywhere discord and disorder, apathy and brutalization in the lower classes, discouragement and disunion in
the upper, only one answer presented itself, and it was: extend his hands to the chains, bow his neck beneath the
yoke and accept the future with the resignation of an invalid who watches the leaves fall and foresees a long winter
amid whose snows he discerns the outlines of his grave. At that time discord justified pessimism—but three
centuries passed, the neck had become accustomed to the yoke, and each new generation, begotten in chains, was
constantly better adapted to the new order of things.
Now, then, are the Philippines in the same condition they were three centuries ago?
For the liberal Spaniards the ethical condition of the people remains the same, that is, the native Filipinos
have not advanced; for the friars and their followers the people have been redeemed from savagery, that is, they
have progressed; for many Filipinos ethics, spirit and customs have decayed, as decay all the good qualities of a
people that falls into slavery that is, they have retrograded.
Laying aside these considerations, so as not to get away from our subject, let us draw a brief parallel
between the political situation then and the situation at present, in order to see if what was not possible at that time
can be so now, or vice versa.
Let us pass over the loyalty the Filipinos may feel for Spain; let us suppose for a moment, along with
Spanish writers, that there exist only motives for hatred and jealousy between the two races; let us admit the
assertions flaunted by many that three centuries of domination have not awakened in the sensitive heart of the
native a single spark of affection or gratitude; and we may see whether or not the Spanish cause has gained ground
in the Islands.
Formerly the Spanish authority was upheld among the natives by a handful of soldiers, three to five
hundred at most, many of whom were engaged in trade and were scattered about not only in the Islands but also
among the neighboring nations, occupied in long wars against the Mohammedans in the south, against the British
and Dutch, and ceaselessly harassed by Japanese, Chinese, or some tribe in the interior. Then communication with
Mexico and Spain was slow, rare and difficult; frequent and violent the disturbances among the ruling powers in
the Islands, the treasury nearly always empty, and the life of the colonists dependent upon one frail ship that
handled the Chinese trade. Then the seas in those regions were infested with pirates, all enemies of the Spanish
name, which was defended by an improvised fleet, generally manned by rude adventurers, when not by foreigners
and enemies, as happened in the expedition of Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas, which was checked and frustrated by
the mutiny of the Chinese rowers, who killed him and thwarted all his plans and schemes. Yet in spite of so many
adverse circumstances the Spanish authority has been upheld for more than three centuries and, though it has been
curtailed, still continues to rule the destinies of the Philippine group.
On the other hand, the present situation seems to be gilded and rosy—as we might say, a beautiful
morning compared to the vexed and stormy night of the past. The material forces at the disposal of the Spanish
sovereign have now been trebled; the fleet relatively improved; there is more organization in both civil and
military affairs; communication with the sovereign country is swifter and surer; she has no enemies abroad; her
possession is assured; and the country dominated seems to have less spirit, less aspiration for independence, a
word that is to it almost incomprehensible. Everything then at first glance presages another three centuries, at
least, of peaceful domination and tranquil suzerainty.
But above the material considerations are arising others, invisible, of an ethical nature, far more powerful
and transcendental.
Orientals, and the Malays in particular, are a sensitive people: delicacy of sentiment is predominant with
them. Even now, in spite of contact with the occidental nations, who have ideals different from his, we see the
Malayan Filipino sacrifice everything—liberty, ease, welfare, name, for the sake of an aspiration or a conceit,
sometimes scientific, or of some other nature, but at the least word which wounds his self-love he forgets all his
sacrifices, the labor expended, to treasure in his memory and never forget the slight he thinks he has received.
So the Philippine peoples have remained faithful during three centuries, giving up their liberty and their
independence, sometimes dazzled by the hope of the Paradise promised, sometimes cajoled by the friendship
offered them by a noble and generous people like the Spanish, sometimes also compelled by superiority of arms
of which they were ignorant and which timid spirits invested with a mysterious character, or sometimes because
the invading foreigner took advantage of intestine feuds to step in as the peacemaker in discord and thus later to
dominate both parties and subject them to his authority.
Spanish domination once established, it was firmly maintained, thanks to the attachment of the people,
to their mutual dissensions, and to the fact that the sensitive self-love of the native had not yet been wounded.
Then the people saw their own countrymen in the higher ranks of the army, their general officers fighting beside
the heroes of Spain and sharing their laurels, begrudged neither character, reputation nor consideration; then
fidelity and attachment to Spain, love of the fatherland, made of the native, encomendero and even general, as
during the English invasion; then there had not yet been invented the insulting and ridiculous epithets with which
recently the most laborious and painful achievements of the native leaders have been stigmatized; not then had it
become the fashion to insult and slander in stereotyped phrase, in newspapers and books published with
governmental and superior ecclesiastical approval, the people that paid, fought and poured out its blood for the
Spanish name, nor was it considered either noble or witty to offend a whole race, which was forbidden to reply or
defend itself; and if there were religious hypochondriacs who in the leisure of their cloisters dared to write against
it, as did the Augustinian Gaspar de San Agustin and the Jesuit Velarde, their loathsome abortions never saw the
light, and still less were they themselves rewarded with miters and raised to high offices. True it is that neither
were the natives of that time such as we are now: three centuries of brutalization and obscurantism have
necessarily had some influence upon us, the most beautiful work of divinity in the hands of certain artisans may
finally be converted into a caricature.
The priests of that epoch, wishing to establish their domination over the people, got in touch with it and
made common cause with it against the oppressive encomenderos. Naturally, the people saw in them greater
learning and some prestige and placed its confidence in them, followed their advice, and listened to them even in
the darkest hours. If they wrote, they did so in defense of the rights of the native and made his cry reach even to
the distant steps of the Throne. And not a few priests, both secular and regular, undertook dangerous journeys, as
representatives of the country, and this, along with the strict and public residencia then required of the governing
powers, from the captain-general to the most insignificant official, rather consoled and pacified the wounded
spirits, satisfying, even though it were only in form, all the malcontents.
All this has passed away. The derisive laughter penetrates like mortal poison into the heart of the native
who pays and suffers and it becomes more offensive the more immunity it enjoys. A common sore, the general
affront offered to a whole race, has wiped away the old feuds among different provinces. The people no longer
has confidence in its former protectors, now its exploiters and executioners. The masks have fallen. It has seen
that the love and piety of the past have come to resemble the devotion of a nurse who, unable to live elsewhere,
desires eternal infancy, eternal weakness, for the child in order to go on drawing her wages and existing at its
expense; it has seen not only that she does not nourish it to make it grow but that she poisons it to stunt its growth,
and at the slightest protest she flies into a rage! The ancient show of justice, the holy residencia, has disappeared;
confusion of ideas begins to prevail; the regard shown for a governor-general, like La Torre, becomes a crime in
the government of his successor, sufficient to cause the citizen to lose his liberty and his home; if he obey the
order of one official, as in the recent matter of admitting corpses into the church, it is enough to have the obedient
subject later harassed and persecuted in every possible way; obligations and taxes increase without thereby
increasing rights, privileges and liberties or assuring the few in existence; a régime of continual terror and
uncertainty disturbs the minds, a régime worse than a period of disorder, for the fears that the imagination conjures
up are generally greater than the reality; the country is poor; the financial crisis through which it is passing is
acute, and every one points out with the finger the persons who are causing the trouble, yet no one dares lay hands
upon them!
True it is that the Penal Code has come like a drop of balm to such bitterness. But of what use are all the
codes in the world, if by means of confidential reports, if for trifling reasons, if through anonymous traitors any
honest citizen may be exiled or banished without a hearing, without a trial? Of what use is that Penal Code, of
what use is life, if there is no security in the home, no faith in justice and confidence in tranquility of conscience?
Of what use is all that array of terms, all that collection of articles, when the cowardly accusation of a traitor has
more influence in the timorous ears of the supreme autocrat than all the cries for justice?
If this state of affairs should continue, what will become of the Philippines within a century?
The batteries are gradually becoming charged and if the prudence of the government does not provide an
outlet for the currents that are accumulating, someday the spark will be generated. This is not the place to speak
of what outcome such a deplorable conflict might have, for it depends upon chance, upon the weapons and upon
a thousand circumstances which man can not foresee. But even though all the advantage should be on the
government’s side and therefore the probability of success, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, and no government
ought to desire such.
If those who guide the destinies of the Philippines remain obstinate, and instead of introducing reforms
try to make the condition of the country retrograde, to push their severity and repression to extremes against the
classes that suffer and think, they are going to force the latter to venture and put into play the wretchedness of an
unquiet life, filled with privation and bitterness, against the hope of securing something indefinite. What would
be lost in the struggle? Almost nothing: the life of the numerous discontented classes has no such great attraction
that it should be preferred to a glorious death. It may indeed be a suicidal attempt—but then, what? Would not a
bloody chasm yawn between victors and vanquished, and might not the latter with time and experience become
equal in strength, since they are superior in numbers, to their dominators? Who disputes this? All the petty
insurrections that have occurred in the Philippines were the work of a few fanatics or discontented soldiers, who
had to deceive and humbug the people or avail themselves of their power over their subordinates to gain their
ends. So they all failed. No insurrection had a popular character or was based on a need of the whole race or fought
for human rights or justice, so it left no ineffaceable impressions, but rather when they saw that they had been
duped the people bound up their wounds and applauded the overthrow of the disturbers of their peace! But what
if the movement springs from the people themselves and bases its cause upon their woes?
So then, if the prudence and wise reforms of our ministers do not find capable and determined interpreters
among the colonial governors and faithful perpetuators among those whom the frequent political changes send to
fill such a delicate post; if met with the eternal it is out of order, proffered by the elements who see their livelihood
in the backwardness of their subjects; if just claims are to go unheeded, as being of a subversive tendency; if the
country is denied representation in the Cortes and an authorized voice to cry out against all kinds of abuses, which
escape through the complexity of the laws; if, in short, the system, prolific in results of alienating the good will
of the natives, is to continue, pricking his apathetic mind with insults and charges of ingratitude, we can assert
that in a few years the present state of affairs will have been modified completely—and inevitably. There now
exists a factor which was formerly lacking—the spirit of the nation has been aroused, and a common misfortune,
a common debasement, has united all the inhabitants of the Islands. A numerous enlightened class now exists
within and without the Islands, a class created and continually augmented by the stupidity of certain governing
powers, which forces the inhabitants to leave the country, to secure education abroad, and it is maintained and
struggles thanks to the provocations and the system of espionage in vogue. This class, whose number is
cumulatively increasing, is in constant communication with the rest of the Islands, and if today it constitutes only
the brain of the country in a few years it will form the whole nervous system and manifest its existence in all its
acts.
Now, statecraft has various means at its disposal for checking a people on the road to progress: the
brutalization of the masses through a caste addicted to the government, aristocratic, as in the Dutch colonies, or
theocratic, as in the Philippines; the impoverishment of the country; the gradual extermination of the inhabitants;
and the fostering of feuds among the races.
Brutalization of the Malayan Filipino has been demonstrated to be impossible. In spite of the dark horde
of friars, in whose hands rests the instruction of youth, which miserably wastes years and years in the colleges,
issuing therefrom tired, weary and disgusted with books; in spite of the censorship, which tries to close every
avenue to progress; in spite of all the pulpits, confessionals, books and missals that inculcate hatred toward not
only all scientific knowledge but even toward the Spanish language itself; in spite of this whole elaborate system
perfected and tenaciously operated by those who wish to keep the Islands in holy ignorance, there exist writers,
freethinkers, historians, philosophers, chemists, physicians, artists and jurists. Enlightenment is spreading and the
persecution it suffers quickens it. No, the divine flame of thought is inextinguishable in the Filipino people and
somehow or other it will shine forth and compel recognition. It is impossible to brutalize the inhabitants of the
Philippines!
May poverty arrest their development?
Perhaps, but it is a very dangerous means. Experience has everywhere shown us and especially in the
Philippines, that the classes which are better off have always been addicted to peace and order, because they live
comparatively better and may be the losers in civil disturbances. Wealth brings with it refinement, the spirit of
conservation, while poverty inspires adventurous ideas, the desire to change things, and has little care for life.
Machiavelli himself held this means of subjecting a people to be perilous, observing that loss of welfare stirs up
more obdurate enemies than loss of life. Moreover, when there are wealth and abundance, there is less discontent,
less complaint, and the government, itself wealthier, has more means for sustaining itself. On the other hand, there
occurs in a poor country what happens in a house where bread is wanting. And further, of what use to the mother
country would a poor and lean colony be?
Neither is it possible gradually to exterminate the inhabitants. The Philippine races, like all the Malays,
do not succumb before the foreigner, like the Australians, the Polynesians and the Indians of the New World. In
spite of the numerous wars the Filipinos have had to carry on, in spite of the epidemics that have periodically
visited them, their number has trebled, as has that of the Malays of Java and the Moluccas. The Filipino embraces
civilization and lives and thrives in every clime, in contact with every people. Rum, that poison which
exterminated the natives of the Pacific islands, has no power in the Philippines, but, rather, comparison of their
present condition with that described by the early historians, makes it appear that the Filipinos have grown soberer.
The petty wars with the inhabitants of the South consume only the soldiers, people who by their fidelity to the
Spanish flag, far from being a menace, are surely one of its solidest supports.
There remains the fostering of intestine feuds among the provinces.
This was formerly possible, when communication from one island to another was rare and difficult, when
there were no steamers or telegraph-lines, when the regiments were formed according to the various provinces,
when some provinces were cajoled by awards of privileges and honors and others were protected from the
strongest. But now that the privileges have disappeared, that through a spirit of distrust the regiments have been
reorganized, that the inhabitants move from one island to another, communication and exchange of impressions
naturally increase, and as all see themselves threatened by the same peril and wounded in the same feelings, they
clasp hands and make common cause. It is true that the union is not yet wholly perfected, but to this end tend the
measures of good government, the vexations to which the townspeople are subjected, the frequent changes of
officials, the scarcity of centers of learning, which forces the youth of all the Islands to come together and begin
to get acquainted. The journeys to Europe contribute not a little to tighten the bonds, for abroad the inhabitants of
the most widely separated provinces are impressed by their patriotic feelings, from sailors even to the wealthiest
merchants, and at the sight of modern liberty and the memory of the misfortunes of their country, they embrace
and call one another brothers.
In short, then, the advancement and ethical progress of the Philippines are inevitable, are decreed by fate.
The Islands cannot remain in the condition they are without requiring from the sovereign country more
liberty Mutatis mutandis. For new men, a new social order.
To wish that the alleged child remain in its swaddling-clothes is to risk that it may turn against its nurse
and flee, tearing away the old rags that bind it.
The Philippines, then, will remain under Spanish domination, but with more law and greater liberty, or
they will declare themselves independent, after steeping themselves and the mother country in blood.
As no one should desire or hope for such an unfortunate rupture, which would be an evil for all and only
the final argument in the most desperate predicament, let us see by what forms of peaceful evolution the Islands
may remain subjected to the Spanish authority with the very least detriment to the rights, interests and dignity of
both parties.

III.
If the Philippines must remain under the control of Spain, they will necessarily have to be transformed
in a political sense, for the course of their history and the needs of their inhabitants so require. This we
demonstrated in the preceding article.
We also said that this transformation will be violent and fatal if it proceeds from the ranks of the people,
but peaceful and fruitful if it emanate from the upper classes.
Some governors have realized this truth, and, impelled by their patriotism, have been trying to introduce
needed reforms in order to forestall events. But notwithstanding all that have been ordered up to the present time,
they have produced scanty results, for the government as well as for the country. Even those that promised only a
happy issue have at times caused injury, for the simple reason that they have been based upon unstable grounds.
We said, and once more we repeat, and will ever assert, that reforms which have a palliative character
are not only ineffectual but even prejudicial, when the government is confronted with evils that must be
cured radically. And were we not convinced of the honesty and rectitude of some governors, we would be tempted
to say that all the partial reforms are only plasters and salves of a physician who, not knowing how to cure the
cancer, and not daring to root it out, tries in this way to alleviate the patient’s sufferings or to temporize with the
cowardice of the timid and ignorant.
All the reforms of our liberal ministers were, have been, are, and will be good—when carried out.
When we think of them, we are reminded of the dieting of Sancho Panza in his Barataria Island. He took
his seat at a sumptuous and well-appointed table “covered with fruit and many varieties of food differently
prepared,” but between the wretch’s mouth and each dish the physician Pedro Rezio interposed his wand, saying,
“Take it away!” The dish removed, Sancho was as hungry as ever. True it is that the despotic Pedro Rezio gave
reasons, which seem to have been written by Cervantes especially for the colonial administrations: “You must not
eat, Mr. Governor, except according to the usage and custom of other islands where there are governors.”
Something was found to be wrong with each dish: one was too hot, another too moist, and so on, just like our
Pedro Rezios on both sides of the sea. Great good did his cook’s skill do Sancho!
In the case of our country, the reforms take the place of the dishes, the Philippines are Sancho, while the
part of the quack physician is played by many persons, interested in not having the dishes touched, perhaps that
they may themselves get the benefit of them.
The result is that the long-suffering Sancho, or the Philippines, misses his liberty, rejects all government
and ends up by rebelling against his quack physician.
In like manner, so long as the Philippines have no liberty of the press, have no voice in the Cortes to
make known to the government and to the nation whether or not their decrees have been duly obeyed, whether or
not these benefit the country, all the able efforts of the colonial ministers will meet the fate of the dishes in
Barataria island.
The minister, then, who wants his reforms to be reforms, must begin by declaring the press in the
Philippines free and by instituting Filipino delegates.
The press is free in the Philippines, because their complaints rarely ever reach the Peninsula, very rarely,
and if they do they are so secret, so mysterious, that no newspaper dares to publish them, or if it does reproduce
them, it does so tardily and badly.
A government that rules a country from a great distance is the one that has the most need for a free press,
more so even than the government of the home country, if it wishes to rule rightly and fitly. The government
that governs in a country may even dispense with the press (if it can), because it is on the ground, because it has
eyes and ears, and because it directly observes what it rules and administers. But the government that governs
from afar absolutely requires that the truth and the facts reach its knowledge by every possible channel, so that it
may weigh and estimate them better, and this need increases when a country like the Philippines is concerned,
where the inhabitants speak and complain in a language unknown to the authorities. To govern in any other way
may also be called governing, but it is to govern badly. It amounts to pronouncing judgment after hearing only
one of the parties; it is steering a ship without reckoning its conditions, the state of the sea, the reefs and shoals,
the direction of the winds and currents. It is managing a house by endeavoring merely to give it polish and a fine
appearance without watching the money-chest, without looking after the servants and the members of the family.
But routine is a declivity down which many governments slide, and routine says that freedom of the press
is dangerous. Let us see what History says: uprisings and revolutions have always occurred in countries tyrannized
over, in countries where human thought and the human heart have been forced to remain silent.
If the great Napoleon had not tyrannized over the press, perhaps it would have warned him of the peril
into which he was hurled and have made him understand that the people were weary and the earth wanted peace.
Perhaps his genius, instead of being dissipated in foreign aggrandizement, would have become intensive in
laboring to strengthen his position and thus have assured it. Spain herself records in her history more revolutions
when the press was gagged. What colonies have become independent while they have had a free press and enjoyed
liberty? Is it preferable to govern blindly or to govern with ample knowledge?
Someone will answer that in colonies with a free press, the prestige of the rulers, that prop of false
governments, will be greatly imperiled. We answer that the prestige of the nation is preferable to that of a few
individuals. A nation acquires respect, not by abetting and concealing abuses, but by rebuking and punishing them.
Moreover, to this prestige is applicable what Napoleon said about great men and their valets. We, who endure and
know all the false pretensions and petty persecutions of those sham gods, do not need a free press in order to
recognize them; they have long ago lost their prestige. The free press is needed by the government, the government
which still dreams of the prestige which it builds upon mined ground.
We say the same about the Filipino representatives.
What risks does the government see in them? One of three things: either that they will prove unruly,
become political trimmers, or act properly.
Supposing that we should yield to the most absurd pessimism and admit the insult, great for the
Philippines, but still greater for Spain, that all the representatives would be separatists and that in all their
contentions they would advocate separatist ideas: does not a patriotic Spanish majority exist there, is there not
present there the vigilance of the governing powers to combat and oppose such intentions? And would not this be
better than the discontent that ferments and expands in the secrecy of the home, in the huts and in the fields?
Certainly the Spanish people does not spare its blood where patriotism is concerned, but would not a struggle of
principles in parliament be preferable to the exchange of shot in swampy lands, three thousand leagues from home,
in impenetrable forests, under a burning sun or amid torrential rains? These pacific struggles of ideas, besides
being a thermometer for the government, have the advantage of being cheap and glorious, because the Spanish
parliament especially abounds in oratorical paladins, invincible in debate. Moreover, it is said that the Filipinos
are indolent and peaceful—then what need the government fear? Hasn’t it any influence in the elections? Frankly,
it is a great compliment to the separatists to fear them in the midst of the Cortes of the nation.
If they become political trimmers, as is to be expected and as they probably will be, so much the better
for the government and so much the worse for their constituents. They would be a few more favorable votes, and
the government could laugh openly at the separatists, if any there be.
If they become what they should be, worthy, honest and faithful to their trust, they will undoubtedly
annoy an ignorant or incapable minister with their questions, but they will help him to govern and will be some
more honorable figures among the representatives of the nation.
Now then, if the real objection to the Filipino delegates is that they smell like Igorots, which so disturbed
in open Senate the doughty General Salamanca, then Don Sinibaldo de Mas, who saw the Igorots in person and
wanted to live with them, can affirm that they will smell at worst like powder, and Señor Salamanca undoubtedly
has no fear of that odor. And if this were all, the Filipinos, who there in their own country are accustomed to bathe
every day, when they become representatives may give up such a dirty custom, at least during the legislative
session, so as not to offend the delicate nostrils of the Salamancas with the odor of the bath.
It is useless to answer certain objections of some fine writers regarding the rather brown skins and faces
with somewhat wide nostrils. Questions of taste are peculiar to each race. China, for example, which has four
hundred million inhabitants and a very ancient civilization, considers all Europeans ugly and calls them “fan-
kwai,” or red devils. Its taste has a hundred million more adherents than the European. Moreover, if this is the
question, we would have to admit the inferiority of the Latins, especially the Spaniards, to the Saxons, who are
much whiter.
And so long as it is not asserted that the Spanish parliament is an assemblage of Adonises, Antinouses,
pretty boys, and other like paragons; so long as the purpose of resorting thither is to legislate and not to
philosophize or to wander through imaginary spheres, we maintain that the government ought not to pause at these
objections. Law has no skin, nor reason nostrils.
So we see no serious reason why the Philippines may not have representatives. By their institution many
malcontents would be silenced, and instead of blaming its troubles upon the government, as now happens, the
country would bear them better, for it could at least complain and with its sons among its legislators would in a
way become responsible for their actions.
We are not sure that we serve the true interests of our country by asking for representatives. We know
that the lack of enlightenment, the indolence, the egotism of our fellow countrymen, and the boldness, the cunning
and the powerful methods of those who wish their obscurantism, may convert reform into a harmful instrument.
But we wish to be loyal to the government and we are pointing out to it the road that appears best to us so that its
efforts may not come to grief, so that discontent may disappear. If after so just, as well as necessary, a measure
has been introduced, the Filipino people are so stupid and weak that they are treacherous to their own interests,
then let the responsibility fall upon them, let them suffer all the consequences. Every country gets the fate it
deserves, and the government can say that it has done its duty.
These are the two fundamental reforms, which, properly interpreted and applied, will dissipate all clouds,
assure affection toward Spain, and make all succeeding reforms fruitful. These are the reforms sine quibus non.
It is puerile to fear that independence may come through them. The free press will keep the government
in touch with public opinion, and the representatives, if they are, as they ought to be, the best from among the
sons of the Philippines, will be their hostages. With no cause for discontent, how then attempt to stir up the masses
of the people?
Likewise inadmissible is the objection offered by some regarding the imperfect culture of the majority
of the inhabitants. Aside from the fact that it is not so imperfect as is averred, there is no plausible reason why the
ignorant and the defective (whether through their own or another’s fault) should be denied representation to look
after them and see that they are not abused. They are the very ones who most need it. No one ceases to be a man,
no one forfeits his rights to civilization merely by being more or less uncultured, and since the Filipino is regarded
as a fit citizen when he is asked to pay taxes or shed his blood to defend the fatherland, why must this fitness be
denied him when the question arises of granting him some right? Moreover, how is he to be held responsible for
his ignorance, when it is acknowledged by all, friends and enemies, that his zeal for learning is so great that even
before the coming of the Spaniards every one could read and write, and that we now see the humblest families
make enormous sacrifices in order that their children may become a little enlightened, even to the extent of
working as servants in order to learn Spanish? How can the country be expected to become enlightened under
present conditions when we see all the decrees issued by the government in favor of education meet with Pedro
Rezios who prevent execution thereof, because they have in their hands what they call education? If the Filipino,
then, is sufficiently intelligent to pay taxes, he must also be able to choose and retain the one who looks after him
and his interests, with the product whereof he serves the government of his nation. To reason otherwise is to
reason stupidly.
When the laws and the acts of officials are kept under surveillance, the word justice may cease to be a
colonial jest. The thing that makes the English most respected in their possessions is their strict and speedy justice,
so that the inhabitants repose entire confidence in the judges. Justice is the foremost virtue of the civilizing races.
It subdues the barbarous nations, while injustice arouses the weakest.
Offices and trusts should be awarded by competition, publishing the work and the judgment thereon, so
that there may be stimulus and that discontent may not be bred. Then, if the native does not shake off
his indolence he cannot complain when he sees all the offices filled by Castilas.
We presume that it will not be the Spaniard who fears to enter into this contest, for thus will he be able
to prove his superiority by the superiority of intelligence. Although this is not the custom in the sovereign country,
it should be practiced in the colonies, for the reason that genuine prestige should be sought by means of moral
qualities, because the colonizers ought to be, or at least to seem, upright, honest and intelligent, just as a man
simulates virtues when he deals with strangers. The offices and trusts so earned will do away with arbitrary
dismissal and develop employees and officials capable and cognizant of their duties. The offices held by natives,
instead of endangering the Spanish domination, will merely serve to assure it, for what interest would they have
in converting the sure and stable into the uncertain and problematical? The native is, moreover, very fond of peace
and prefers an humble present to a brilliant future. Let the various Filipinos still holding office speak in this matter;
they are the most unshaken conservatives.
We could add other minor reforms touching commerce, agriculture, security of the individual and of
property, education, and so on, but these are points with which we shall deal in other articles. For the present we
are satisfied with the outlines, and no one can say that we ask too much.
There will not be lacking critics to accuse us of Utopianism: but what is Utopia? Utopia was a country
imagined by Thomas Moore, wherein existed universal suffrage, religious toleration, almost complete abolition
of the death penalty, and so on. When the book was published these things were looked upon as dreams,
impossibilities, that is, Utopianism. Yet civilization has left the country of Utopia far behind, the human will and
conscience have worked greater miracles, have abolished slavery and the death penalty for adultery—things
impossible for even Utopia itself!
The French colonies have their representatives. The question has also been raised in the English
parliament of giving representation to the Crown colonies, for the others already enjoy some autonomy. The press
there also is free. Only Spain, which in the sixteenth century was the model nation in civilization, lags far
behind. Cuba and Porto Rico, whose inhabitants do not number a third of those of the Philippines, and who have
not made such sacrifices for Spain, have numerous representatives. The Philippines in the early days had theirs,
who conferred with the King and the Pope on the needs of the country. They had them in Spain’s critical moments,
when she groaned under the Napoleonic yoke, and they did not take advantage of the sovereign country’s
misfortune like other colonies, but tightened more firmly the bonds that united them to the nation, giving proofs
of their loyalty; and they continued until many years later. What crime have the Islands committed that they are
deprived of their rights?
To recapitulate: the Philippines will remain Spanish, if they enter upon the life of law and civilization, if
the rights of their inhabitants are respected, if the other rights due them are granted, if the liberal policy of the
government is carried out without trickery or meanness, without subterfuges or false interpretations.
Otherwise, if an attempt is made to see in the Islands a lode to be exploited, a resource to satisfy
ambitions, thus to relieve the sovereign country of taxes, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs and shutting
its ears to all cries of reason, then, however great may be the loyalty of the Filipinos, it will be impossible to hinder
the operations of the inexorable laws of history. Colonies established to subserve the policy and the commerce of
the sovereign country, all eventually become independent, said Bachelet, and before Bachelet all the Phœnecian,
Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, English, Portuguese and Spanish colonies had said it.
Close indeed are the bonds that unite us to Spain. Two peoples do not live for three centuries in continual
contact, sharing the same lot, shedding their blood on the same fields, holding the same beliefs, worshipping the
same God, interchanging the same ideas, but that ties are formed between them stronger than those fashioned by
arms or fear. Mutual sacrifices and benefits have engendered affection. Machiavelli, the great reader of the human
heart, said: la natura degli huomini, é cosi obligarsi per li beneficii che essi fanno, come per quelli che essi
ricevono (it is human nature to be bound as much by benefits conferred as by those received). All this, and more,
is true, but it is pure sentimentality, and in the arena of politics stern necessity and interests prevail. Howsoever
much the Filipinos owe Spain, they cannot be required to forego their redemption, to have their liberal and
enlightened sons wander about in exile from their native land, the rudest aspirations stifled in its atmosphere, the
peaceful inhabitant living in constant alarm, with the fortune of the two peoples dependent upon the whim of one
man. Spain cannot claim, not even in the name of God himself, that six millions of people should be brutalized,
exploited and oppressed, denied light and the rights inherent to a human being, and then heap upon them slights
and insults. There is no claim of gratitude that can excuse, there is not enough powder in the world to justify, the
offenses against the liberty of the individual, against the sanctity of the home, against the laws, against peace and
honor, offenses that are committed their daily. There is no divinity that can proclaim the sacrifice of our dearest
affections, the sacrifice of the family, the sacrileges and wrongs that are committed by persons who have the name
of God on their lips. No one can require an impossibility of the Filipino people. The noble Spanish people, so
jealous of its rights and liberties, cannot bid the Filipinos renounce theirs. A people that prides itself on the glories
of its past cannot ask another, trained by it, to accept abjection and dishonor its own name!
We who today are struggling by the legal and peaceful means of debate so understand it, and with our
gaze fixed upon our ideals, shall not cease to plead our cause, without going beyond the pale of the law, but if
violence first silences us or we have the misfortune to fall (which is possible, for we are mortal), then we do not
know what course will be taken by the numerous tendencies that will rush in to occupy the places that we leave
vacant.
If what we desire is not realized....
In contemplating such an unfortunate eventuality, we must not turn away in horror, and so instead of
closing our eyes we will face what the future may bring. For this purpose, after throwing the handful of dust due
to Cerberus, let us frankly descend into the abyss and sound its terrible mysteries.

IV.

History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised by one people over another, of
different race, of diverse usages and customs, of opposite and divergent ideals.
One of the two had to yield and succumb. Either the foreigner was driven out, as happened in the case of
the Carthaginians, the Moors and the French in Spain, or else these autochthons had to give way and perish, as
was the case with the inhabitants of the New World, Australia and New Zealand.
One of the longest dominations was that of the Moors in Spain, which lasted seven centuries. But, even
though the conquerors lived in the country conquered, even though the Peninsula was broken up into small states,
which gradually emerged like little islands in the midst of the great Saracen inundation, and in spite of the
chivalrous spirit, the gallantry and the religious toleration of the califs, they were finally driven out after bloody
and stubborn conflicts, which formed the Spanish nation and created the Spain of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries.
The existence of a foreign body within another endowed with strength and activity is contrary to all
natural and ethical laws. Science teaches us that it is either assimilated, destroys the organism, is eliminated or
becomes encysted.
Encystment of a conquering people is impossible, for it signifies complete isolation, absolute inertia,
debility in the conquering element. Encystment thus means the tomb of the foreign invader.
Now, applying these considerations to the Philippines, we must conclude, as a deduction from all we
have said, that if their population be not assimilated to the Spanish nation, if the dominators do not enter into the
spirit of their inhabitants, if equable laws and free and liberal reforms do not make each forget that they belong to
different races, or if both peoples be not amalgamated to constitute one mass, socially and politically
homogeneous, that is, not harassed by opposing tendencies and antagonistic ideas and interests, someday the
Philippines will fatally and infallibly declare themselves independent. To this law of destiny can be opposed
neither Spanish patriotism, nor the love of all the Filipinos for Spain, nor the doubtful future of dismemberment
and intestine strife in the Islands themselves. Necessity is the most powerful divinity the world knows, and
necessity is the resultant of physical forces set in operation by ethical forces.
We have said and statistics prove that it is impossible to exterminate the Filipino people. And even were
it possible, what interest would Spain have in the destruction of the inhabitants of a country she cannot populate
or cultivate, whose climate is to a certain extent disastrous to her? What good would the Philippines be without
the Filipinos? Quite otherwise, under her colonial system and the transitory character of the Spaniards who go to
the colonies, a colony is so much the more useful and productive to her as it possesses inhabitants and wealth.
Moreover, in order to destroy the six million Malays, even supposing them to be in their infancy and that they
have never learned to fight and defend themselves, Spain would have to sacrifice at least a fourth of her population.
This we commend to the notice of the partisans of colonial exploitation.
But nothing of this kind can happen. The menace is that when the education and liberty necessary to
human existence are denied by Spain to the Filipinos, then they will seek enlightenment abroad, behind the mother
country’s back, or they will secure by hook or by crook some advantages in their own country, with the result that
the opposition of purblind and paretic politicians will not only be futile but even prejudicial, because it will convert
motives for love and gratitude into resentment and hatred.
Hatred and resentment on one side, mistrust and anger on the other, will finally result in a violent and
terrible collision, especially when there exist elements interested in having disturbances, so that they may get
something in the excitement, demonstrate their mighty power, foster lamentations and recriminations, or employ
violent measures. It is to be expected that the government will triumph and be generally (as is the custom) severe
in punishment, either to teach a stern lesson in order to vaunt its strength or even to revenge upon the vanquished
the spells of excitement and terror that the danger caused it. An unavoidable concomitant of those catastrophes is
the accumulation of acts of injustice committed against the innocent and peaceful inhabitants. Private reprisals,
denunciations, despicable accusations, resentments, covetousness, the opportune moment for calumny, the haste
and hurried procedure of the courts martial, the pretext of the integrity of the fatherland and the safety of the state,
which cloaks and justifies everything, even for scrupulous minds, which unfortunately are still rare, and above all
the panic-stricken timidity, the cowardice that battens upon the conquered—all these things augment the severe
measures and the number of the victims. The result is that a chasm of blood is then opened between the two
peoples, that the wounded and the afflicted, instead of becoming fewer, are increased, for to the families and
friends of the guilty, who always think the punishment excessive and the judge unjust, must be added the families
and friends of the innocent, who see no advantage in living and working submissively and peacefully. Note, too,
that if severe measures are dangerous in a nation made up of a homogeneous population, the peril is increased a
hundred-fold when the government is formed of a race different from the governed. In the former an injustice may
still be ascribed to one man alone, to a governor actuated by personal malice, and with the death of the tyrant the
victim is reconciled to the government of his nation. But in a country dominated by a foreign race, even the justest
act of severity is construed as injustice and oppression, because it is ordered by a foreigner, who is unsympathetic
or is an enemy of the country, and the offense hurts not only the victim but his entire race, because it is not usually
regarded as personal, and so the resentment naturally spreads to the whole governing race and does not die out
with the offender.
Hence the great prudence and fine tact that should be exercised by colonizing countries, and the fact that
government regards the colonies in general, and our colonial office in particular, as training schools, contributes
notably to the fulfillment of the great law that the colonies sooner or later declare themselves independent.
Such is the descent down which the peoples are precipitated. In proportion as they are bathed in blood
and drenched in tears and gall, the colony, if it has any vitality, learns how to struggle and perfect itself in fighting,
while the mother country, whose colonial life depends upon peace and the submission of the subjects, is constantly
weakened, and, even though she make heroic efforts, as her number is less and she has only a fictitious existence,
she finally perishes. She is like the rich voluptuary accustomed to be waited upon by a crowd of servants toiling
and planting for him, and who, on the day his slaves refuse him obedience, as he does not live by his own efforts,
must die.
Reprisals, wrongs and suspicions on one part and on the other the sentiment of patriotism and liberty,
which is aroused in these incessant conflicts, insurrections and uprisings, operate to generalize the movement and
one of the two peoples must succumb. The struggle will be brief, for it will amount to a slavery much more cruel
than death for the people and to a dishonorable loss of prestige for the dominator. One of the peoples must
succumb.
Spain, from the number of her inhabitants, from the condition of her army and navy, from the distance
she is situated from the Islands, from her scanty knowledge of them, and from struggling against a people whose
love and good will she has alienated, will necessarily have to give way, if she does not wish to risk not only her
other possessions and her future in Africa, but also her very independence in Europe. All this at the cost of
bloodshed and crime, after mortal conflicts, murders, conflagrations, military executions, famine and misery.
The Spaniard is gallant and patriotic, and sacrifices everything, in favorable moments, for his country’s
good. He has the intrepidity of his bull. The Filipino loves his country no less, and although he is quieter, more
peaceful, and with difficulty stirred up, when he is once aroused he does not hesitate and for him the struggle
means death to one or the other combatant. He has all the meekness and all the tenacity and ferocity of his carabao.
Climate affects bipeds in the same way that it does quadrupeds.
The terrible lessons and the hard teachings that these conflicts will have afforded the Filipinos will
operate to improve and strengthen their ethical nature. The Spain of the fifteenth century was not the Spain of the
eighth. With their bitter experience, instead of intestine conflicts of some islands against others, as is generally
feared, they will extend mutual support, like shipwrecked persons when they reach an island after a fearful night
of storm. Nor may it be said that we shall partake of the fate of the small American republics. They achieved their
independence easily, and their inhabitants are animated by a different spirit from what the Filipinos are. Besides,
the danger of falling again into other hands, English or German, for example, will force the Filipinos to be sensible
and prudent. Absence of any great preponderance of one race over the others will free their imagination from all
mad ambitions of domination, and as the tendency of countries that have been tyrannized over, when they once
shake off the yoke, is to adopt the freest government, like a boy leaving school, like the beat of the pendulum, by
a law of reaction the Islands will probably declare themselves a federal republic.
If the Philippines secure their independence after heroic and stubborn conflicts, they can rest assured that
neither England, nor Germany, nor France, and still less Holland, will dare to take up what Spain has been unable
to hold. Within a few years Africa will completely absorb the attention of the Europeans, and there is no sensible
nation which, in order to secure a group of poor and hostile islands, will neglect the immense territory offered by
the Dark Continent, untouched, undeveloped and almost undefended. England has enough colonies in the Orient
and is not going to risk losing her balance. She is not going to sacrifice her Indian Empire for the poor Philippine
Islands—if she had entertained such an intention she would not have restored Manila in 1763, but would have
kept some point in the Philippines, whence she might gradually expand. Moreover, what need has John Bull the
trader to exhaust himself for the Philippines, when he is already lord of the Orient, when he has there Singapore,
Hong Kong and Shanghai? It is probable that England will look favorably upon the independence of the
Philippines, for it will open their ports to her and afford greater freedom to her commerce. Furthermore, there
exist in the United Kingdom tendencies and opinions to the effect that she already has too many colonies, that
they are harmful, that they greatly weaken the sovereign country.
For the same reasons Germany will not care to run any risk, and because a scattering of her forces and a
war in distant countries will endanger her existence on the continent. Thus we see her attitude, as much in the
Pacific as in Africa, is confined to conquering easy territory that belongs to nobody. Germany avoids any foreign
complications.
France has enough to do and sees more of a future in Tongking and China, besides the fact that the French
spirit does not shine in zeal for colonization. France loves glory, but the glory and laurels that grow on the
battlefields of Europe. The echo from battlefields in the Far East hardly satisfies her craving for renown, for it
reaches her quite faintly. She has also other obligations, both internally and on the continent.
Holland is sensible and will be content to keep the Moluccas and Java. Sumatra offers her a greater future
than the Philippines, whose seas and coasts have a sinister omen for Dutch expeditions. Holland proceeds with
great caution in Sumatra and Borneo, from fear of losing everything.
China will consider herself fortunate if she succeeds in keeping herself intact and is not dismembered or
partitioned among the European powers that are colonizing the continent of Asia.
The same is true of Japan. On the north she has Russia, who envies and watches her; on the south
England, with whom she is in accord even to her official language. She is, moreover, under such diplomatic
pressure from Europe that she cannot think of outside affairs until she is freed from it, which will not be an easy
matter. True it is that she has an excess of population, but Korea attracts her more than the Philippines and is, also,
easier to seize.
Perhaps the great American Republic, whose interests lie in the Pacific and who has no hand in the
spoliation of Africa, may some day dream of foreign possession. This is not impossible, for the example is
contagious, covetousness and ambition are among the strongest vices, and Harrison manifested something of this
sort in the Samoan question. But the Panama Canal is not opened nor the territory of the States congested with
inhabitants, and in case she should openly attempt it the European powers would not allow her to proceed, for
they know very well that the appetite is sharpened by the first bites. North America would be quite a troublesome
rival, if she should once get into the business. Furthermore, this is contrary to her traditions.
Very likely the Philippines will defend with inexpressible valor the liberty secured at the price of so
much blood and sacrifice. With the new men that will spring from their soil and with the recollection of their past,
they will perhaps strive to enter freely upon the wide road of progress, and all will labor together to strengthen
their fatherland, both internally and externally, with the same enthusiasm with which a youth falls again to tilling
the land of his ancestors, so long wasted and abandoned through the neglect of those who have withheld it from
him. Then the mines will be made to give up their gold for relieving distress, iron for weapons, copper, lead and
coal. Perhaps the country will revive the maritime and mercantile life for which the islanders are fitted by their
nature, ability and instincts, and once more free, like the bird that leaves its cage, like the flower that unfolds to
the air, will recover the pristine virtues that are gradually dying out and will again become addicted to peace—
cheerful, happy, joyous, hospitable and daring.
These and many other things may come to pass within something like a hundred years. But the most
logical prognostication, the prophecy based on the best probabilities, may err through remote and insignificant
causes. An octopus that seized Mark Antony’s ship altered the face of the world; a cross on Cavalry and a just
man nailed thereon changed the ethics of half the human race, and yet before Christ, how many just men
wrongfully perished and how many crosses were raised on that hill! The death of the just sanctified his work and
made his teaching unanswerable. A sunken road at the battle of Waterloo buried all the glories of two brilliant
decades, the whole Napoleonic world, and freed Europe. Upon what chance accidents will the destiny of the
Philippines depend?
Nevertheless, it is not well to trust to accident, for there is sometimes an imperceptible and
incomprehensible logic in the workings of history. Fortunately, peoples as well as governments are subject to it.
Therefore, we repeat, and we will ever repeat, while there is time, that it is better to keep pace with the
desires of a people than to give way before them: the former begets sympathy and love, the latter contempt and
anger. Since it is necessary to grant six million Filipinos their rights, so that they may be in fact Spaniards, let the
government grant these rights freely and spontaneously, without damaging reservations, without irritating
mistrust. We shall never tire of repeating this while a ray of hope is left us, for we prefer this unpleasant task to
the need of some day saying to the mother country: “Spain, we have spent our ]youth in serving thy interests in
the interests of our country; we have looked to thee, we have expended the whole light of our intellects, all the
fervor and enthusiasm of our hearts in working for the good of what was thine, to draw from thee a glance of love,
a liberal policy that would assure us the peace of our native land and thy sway over loyal but unfortunate islands!
Spain, thou hast remained deaf, and, wrapped up in thy pride, hast pursued thy fatal course and accused us of
being traitors, merely because we love our country, because we tell thee the truth and hate all kinds of injustice.
What dost thou wish us to tell our wretched country, when it asks about the result of our efforts? Must we say to
it that, since for it we have lost everything—youth, future, hope, peace, family; since in its service we have
exhausted all the resources of hope, all the disillusions of desire, it also takes the residue which we cannot use,
the blood from our veins and the strength left in our arms? Spain, must we someday tell Filipinas that thou hast
no ear for her woes and that if she wishes to be saved she must redeem herself?”

1An encomendero was a Spanish soldier who as a reward for faithful service was set over a district with power to collect tribute and the duty
of providing the people with legal protection and religious instruction. This arrangement is memorable in early Philippine annals chiefly
for the flagrant abuses that appear to have characterized it.
2No official was allowed to leave the Islands at the expiration of his term of office until his successor or a council appointed by the sovereign
inquired into all the acts of his administration and approved them. (This residencia was a fertile source of recrimination and retaliation,
so the author quite aptly refers to it a little further on as “the ancient show of justice.”
3The penal code was promulgated in the Islands by Royal Order of September 4, 1884.
4Cervantes’ “Don Quijote,” Part II, chapter 47.

Rizal’s Farewell Address

Address to Some Filipinos

“Countrymen: On my return from Spain I learned that my name had been in use, among some who were
in arms, as a war-cry. The news came as a painful surprise, but, believing it already closed, I kept silent over an
incident which I considered irremediable. Now I notice indications of the disturbances continuing, and if any still,
in good or bad faith, are availing themselves of my name, to stop this abuse and undeceive the unwary I hasten to
address you these lines that the truth may be known.
“From the very beginning, when I first had notice of what was being planned, I opposed it, and
demonstrated its absolute impossibility. This is the fact, and witnesses to my words are now living. I was
convinced that the scheme was utterly absurd, and, what was worse, would bring great suffering.
“I did even more. When later, against my advice, the movement materialized, of my own accord I offered
not alone my good offices, but my very life, and even my name, to be used in whatever way might seem best,
toward stifling the rebellion; for, convinced of the ills which it would bring, I considered myself fortunate, if, at
any sacrifice, I could prevent such useless misfortunes. This equally is of record. My countrymen, I have given
proofs that I am one most anxious for liberties for our country, and I am still desirous of them. But I place as a
prior condition the education of the people, that by means of instruction and industry our country may have an
individuality of its own and make itself worthy of these liberties. I have recommended in my writings the study
of civic virtues, without which there is no redemption. I have written likewise (and repeat my words) that reforms,
to be beneficial, must come from above, that those which come from below are irregularly gained and uncertain.
“Holding these ideas, I cannot do less than condemn, and I do condemn, this uprising,—as absurd,
savage, and plotted behind my back,—which dishonors us Filipinos and discredits those who could plead our
cause. I abhor its criminal methods and disclaim all part in it, pitying from the bottom of my heart the unwary
who have been deceived.
“Return, then, to your homes, and may God pardon those who have worked in bad faith.

JOSÉ RIZAL.
“Fort Santiago, December 15th, 1896.

The Spanish judge-advocate-general commented upon the address:

“The preceding address to his countrymen which Dr. Rizal proposes to direct to them, is not in substance
the patriotic protest against separatist manifestations and tendencies which ought to come from those who claim
to be loyal sons of Spain. According to his declarations, Don José Rizal limits himself to condemning the present
insurrectionary movement as premature and because he considers now its triumph impossible, but leaves it to be
inferred that the wished-for independence can be gained by procedures less dishonorable than those now being
followed by the rebels, when the culture of the people shall be a most valuable asset for the combat and guarantee
its successful issue.
“For Rizal the question is of opportuneness, not of principles nor of aims. His manifesto might be
summarized in these words: ‘Because of my proofs of the rebellion’s certainty to fail, lay down your arms, my
countrymen. Later I shall lead you to the Promised Land.’
 “So far from being conducive to peace, it could advance in the future the spirit of rebellion. For this
reason the publication of the proposed address seems impolitic, and I would recommend to Your Excellency to
forbid its being made public, but to order that all these papers be forwarded to the Judge Advocate therein and
added to the case against Rizal.”
“Manila, December 19th,
1896.”

Rizal’s Defence

These “Additions” were really Doctor Rizal’s defence before the court martial which condemned him
and pretended to have tried him, on the charge of having organized revolutionary societies and so being
responsible for the rebellion.
The only counsel permitted him, a young lieutenant selected from the junior Spanish army officers, risked
the displeasure of his superiors in the few words he did say, but his argument was pitiably weak. The court scene,
where Rizal sat for hours with his elbows corded back of him while the crowd, unrebuked by the court, clamored
for his death, recalls the stories of the bloody assizes of Judge Jeffreys and of the bloodthirsty tribunals of the
Reign of Terror. He was compelled to testify himself, was not permitted to hear the testimony given for the
prosecution, no witness dared favor him, much less appear in his behalf, and his own brother had been tortured,
with the thumbscrews as well as in other mediaeval and modern ways, in a vain endeavor to extort a confession
implicating the Doctor.

Additions to My Defence

Don José Rizal y Alonso respectfully requests the Court Martial to consider well the following
circumstances:

First.—Re the rebellion. From July 6th, 1892, I had absolutely no connection with politics until July 1st
of this year when, advised by Don Pio Valenzuela that an uprising was proposed, I counselled against it, trying to
convince him with arguments. Don Pio Valenzuela left me convinced apparently; so much so that instead of later
taking part in rebellion, he presented himself to the authorities for pardon.
Secondly.—A proof that I maintained no political relation with any one, and of the falsity of the statement
that I was in the habit of sending letters by my family, is the fact that it was necessary to send Don Pio Valenzuela
under an assumed name, at considerable cost, when in the same steamer were travelling five members of my
family besides two servants. If what has been charged were true, what occasion was there for Don Pio to attract
the attention of any one and incur large expenses? Besides, the mere fact of Sr. Valenzuela’s coming to inform
me of the rebellion proves that I was not in correspondence with its promoters for if I had been then I should have
known of it, for making an uprising is a sufficiently serious matter not to hide it from me. When they took the step
of sending Sr. Valenzuela, it proves that they were aware that I knew nothing, that is to say, that I was not
maintaining correspondence with them. Another negative proof is that not a single letter of mine can be shown.
Thirdly.—They cruelly abused my name and at the last hour wanted to surprise me. Why did they not
communicate with me before? They might say likewise that I was, if not content, at least resigned to my fate, for
I had refused various propositions which a number of people made me to rescue me from that place. Only in these
last months, in consequence of certain domestic affairs, having had differences with a missionary padre, I had
sought to go as a volunteer to Cuba. Don Pio Valenzuela came to warn me that I might put myself in security,
because, according to him, it was possible that they might compromise me. As I considered myself wholly
innocent and was not posted on the details of the movement (besides that I had convinced Sr. Valenzuela) I took
no precautions, but when His Excellency, the Governor General, wrote me announcing my departure for Cuba, I
embarked at once, leaving all my affairs unattended to. And yet I could have gone to another part or simply have
staid in Dapitan for His Excellency’s letter was conditional. It said—“If you persist in your idea of going to Cuba,
etc.” When the uprising occurred it found me on board the warship “Castilla”, and I offered myself unconditionally
to His Excellency. Twelve or fourteen days later I set out for Europe, and had I had an uneasy conscience I should
have tried to escape in some port en route, especially Singapore, where I went ashore and when other passengers
who had passports for Spain staid over. I had an easy conscience and hoped to go to Cuba.
Fourthly.—In Dapitan I had boats and I was permitted to make excursions along the coast and to the
settlements, absences which lasted as long as I wished, at times a week. If I had still had intentions of political
activity, I might have gotten away even in the vintas of the Moros whom I knew in the settlements. Neither would
I have built my small hospital nor bought land nor invited my family to live with me.
 Fifthly.—Someone has said that I was the chief. What kind of a chief is he who is ignored in the plotting
and who is notified only that he may escape? How is he chief who when he says no, they say yes?—As to the
“Liga”:
Sixthly.—It is true that I drafted its By-Laws whose aims were to promote commerce, industry, the arts,
etc., by means of united action, as have testified witnesses not at all prejudiced in my favor, rather the reverse.
Seventhly.—The “Liga” never came into real existence nor ever got to working, since after the first
meeting no one paid any attention to it, because I was exiled a few days later.
Eighthly.—If it was reorganized nine months afterwards by other persons, as now is said, I was ignorant
of the fact.
Ninthly.—The “Liga” was not a society with harmful tendencies and the proof is the fact that the radicals
had to leave it, organizing the Katipunan which was what answered their purposes. Had the “Liga” lacked only a
little of being adapted for rebellion, the radicals would not have left it but simply would have modified it; besides,
if, as some allege, I am the chief, out of consideration for me and for the prestige of my name, they would have
retained the name of “Liga”. Their having abandoned it, name and all, proves clearly that they neither counted on
me nor did the “Liga” serve their purposes, otherwise they would not have made another society when they had
one already organized.
Tenthly.—As to my letters, I beg of the court that, if there are any bitter criticisms in them, it will consider
the circumstances under which they were written. Then we had been deprived of our two dwellings, warehouses,
lands, and besides all my brothers-in-law and my brother were deported, in consequence of a suit arising from an
inquiry of the Administracion de Hacienda (tax-collecting branch of the government), a case in which, according
to our attorney (in Madrid), Sr. Linares Rivas, we had the right on our side.
Eleventhly.—That I have endured exile without complaint, not because of the charge alleged, for that
was not true, but for what I had been able to write. And ask the politico-military commanders of the district where
I resided of my conduct during these four years of exile, of the town, even of the very missionary parish priests
despite my personal differences with one of them.
Twelfthly.—All these facts and considerations destroy the little-founded accusation of those who have
testified against me, with whom I have asked the Judge to be confronted. Is it possible that in a single night I was
able to line up all the filibusterism, at a gathering which discussed commerce, etc., a gathering which went no
further for it died immediately afterwards? If the few who were present had been influenced by my words they
would not have let the “Liga” die. Is it that those who formed part of the “Liga” that night founded the Katipunan?
I think not. Who went to Dapitan to interview me? Persons entirely unknown to me. Why was not an acquaintance
sent, in whom I would have had more confidence? Because those acquainted with me knew very well that I had
forsaken politics or that, realizing my views on rebellion, they must have refused to undertake a mission useless
and unpromising.
I trust that by these considerations I have demonstrated that neither did I found a society for revolutionary
purposes, nor have I taken part since in others, nor have I been concerned in the rebellion, but that on the contrary
I have been opposed to it, as the making public of a private conversation has proven.
Fort Santiago, Dec. 26, 1896.
JOSE RIZAL

Respecting the Rebellion

The remarks about the rebellion are from a photographic copy of the pencil notes used by Rizal for his
brief speech. The manuscript is now in the possession of Sr. Eduardo Lete, of Saragossa, Spain.
I had no notice at all of what was being planned until the first or second of July, in 1896, when Pio
Valenzuela came to see me, saying that an uprising was being arranged. I told him that it was absurd, etc., etc.
and he answered me that they could bear no more. I advised him that they should have patience, etc., etc. He added
then that he had been sent because they had compassion of my life and that probably it would compromise me. I
replied that they should have patience and that if anything happened to me I would then prove my innocence.
“Besides, said I, don’t consider me but our country which is the one that will suffer.” I went on to show how
absurd was the movement.—This later Pio Valenzuela testified.—He did not tell me that my name was being
used, neither did he suggest that I was its chief, nor anything of that sort.
Those who testify that I am the chief (which I do not know nor do I know of having ever treated with
them), what proofs do they present of my having accepted this chiefship or that I was in relations with them or
with their society? Either they have made use of my name for their own purposes or they have been deceived by
others who have. Where is the chief who dictates no order nor makes any arrangement, who is not consulted in
any way about so important an enterprise until the last moment, and then, when he decides against it, is disobeyed?
Since the seventh of July of 1892 I have entirely ceased political activity. It seems some have wished to avail
themselves of my name for their own ends.
 One by one they have passed on,
All I loved and moved among;
Dead or married—from me gone,
For all I place my heart upon
By fate adverse are stung.
Go thou too, O Muse, depart;
Other regions fairer find;
For my land but offers art
For the laurel, chains that bind,
For a temple, prisons blind.
But before thou leavest me, speak;
Tell me with thy voice sublime,
Thou couldst ever from me seek
A song of sorrow for the weak,
Defiance to the tyrant’s crime.

From “A Mi Musa” (1884),

requested by a young lady of Madrid.

Let’s Remember :

 The Philippines: A Century Hence expresses the views of Rizal on the history of the
Philippines. He compiled a realistic rendering of the Filipino people in the view, knowledge
and experience of a Filipino. This relates the compiled stories of the Filipinos as they were
experienced personally by the author or was retold to him by people that influenced him
such as his parents.

Let’s Do This :

Q. Writing Exercise:

 What were the significant chapters in the book?

 How does these provide important views to the Philippines during the 19th century to you
as a Filipino?
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

R. Recitation Exercise:

 Cite an important event in your life and how it has changed your life.
 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Rizal, Jose. "The Philippines a century hence" Can be accessed through:

http://www.archive.org/strea m/philippinescentu00riza/phi lippinescentu00riza_djvu.txt
Module Post Test:

 Based on the reading provided, what was the inspiration of Rizal in writing the book?

References/Sources:
 Almario. Virgitio. Si Rizal: Nobelista. Quezon City. University of the Philippines Press, 2008
 Caroline S. Hau, "Introduction" in Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, 1946-1980.
Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000
 Anderson, Benedict. Why Counting Counts: A Study of Forms of Consciousness and Problems of
Language in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Quezon City Ateneo de Manila University Press,
2008
 Module 4

Module Title : Jose Rizal and Philippine Nationalism

Module Description : This module contains the lesson or topics as well as the
discussions on the impact of Rizal’s contribution to the
country. The module begins with the presentation and
discussion on the “Bayani and Kabayanihan” and end with the
discussion on National Symbol.

Purpose of the : This module let the students interpret views and opinions
Module about bayani and kabayanihan in the context of Philippine
history and society. This will serve to assess the concepts of
bayani and kabayanihan in the context of Philippine society.
The module will require the student to examine the values
highlighted by the various representations of Rizal as a
national symbol and advocate the values Rizal's life
encapsulates.

Module Guide : The module is designed so that students need not be online
in fulfilling the requirements of the module. To access other
readings, the student may opt to search online or go to the
library of the university if necessary. This module contains
three major topics that would serve as the introduction for
students on the discussions of Rizal’s life, works and writings.
Each lesson is provided their respective readings which will
serve as main readings for the particular topic. Each topic is
provided a set of activities for students to accomplish and
submitted to the instructor within the given timeframe. A
reference section for additional readings is also provided for
other online sources that could be used by students’ additional
information and learnings.

Module Outcomes : At the end of this module:

 Propose recommendations / solutions to present-day

problems based on their understanding of root causes
and their anticipation of future scenarios

 Display the ability to work in a team and contribute to

a group project

 Manifest interest in local history and concern in

promoting and preserving our country's national
patrimony and cultural heritage

Module Requirements : At the end of this module, the students will come up a:
  Compilation of activities conducted per lesson.

 Submission of recitations

Module Pretest :
___ 1 __ was the first novel of Rizal.
___ 2 __ was the Spaniard who wrote a history of the
Philippines.
___ 3 __ a book written by Rizal providing the first
Philippine history book written by a Filipino.
___ 4 __ is the primary character of Rizal’s first novel.
___ 5 __ is a monograph that provides arguments on
the errors of a history book for the Philippines
written by a Spaniard.
___ 6 __ was the paper where Rizal regularly
contributes articles.
___ 7 __ was the place where the novels of Rizal was
written.
___ 8 __ was the organization which was created by
Rizal when he went back to the Philippines.
___ 9 __ was the governor general when Rizal’s novels
was published and distributed in the country.
___ 10 __ is the continuation of Rizal’s first novel.

Key Terms : Bayani Kabayanihan

Nationalism Patriotism
 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 11

Lesson Title : Bayani & Kabayanihan

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Interpret views and opinions about bayani and kabayanihan in the context of
Philippine history and society

 Assess the concepts of bayani and kabayanihan in the context of Philippine

society

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “What is a hero for you?”

 Students are required to watch the film: "A Dangerous Life" (1989)

 Students are to reflect on the more recent hero of the Philippines, Senator Benigno S
Aquino Jr and his contributions to Philippine society under the Marcos Regime

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate their knowledge
of the concept of nationalism based on the values as advocated by Rizal.

 The students are tasked to read the Rizal and Filipino Nationalism: A New
Approach by Fr. John Schumacher.
Let’s Read :
 Let’s Remember :

 Nationalism in the context of Rizal pertains to fighting for one’s own right in a peaceful
manner. He shows that education is the key to level the playing field amongst nations and
races. He is an advocate of education as a means for the freedom of Filipinos. That by being
educated, the Filipinos can see the reality of the treatment of the Spaniards to them.

Let’s Do This :

S. Writing Exercise:

 Present a photo exhibit of different Rizal monuments in the Philippines and abroad.
 Write short descriptions about their background and interpretations on their imagery and
representations.
 (Answers to the questions above will be counted as quizzes. It should be written in
document file format with 8.5 x 11 dimensions. Submissions online will use the attach file
process. Soft copy can also be submitted directly to the instructor prior or during the
deadlines.)

T. Recitation Exercise:

 What is your unique experience of heroism in your place?

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the question
is posted in the online learning platform.)

Suggested Reading:

 Schumacher John N. Rizal and Filipino Nationalism: A New Approach in Quibuyen,

Floro. A Nation Aborted: Rizal, American Hegemony, and Philippine Nationalism.
Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999. Viii + 344 pages

Module Post Test:

 Make a short story of your experience as a hero in the everyday life. Think of a
situation where you were able to be the hero of the circumstance.

References/Sources:
 Eugenio, Damiana. Philippine Folk Literature: The Epics. QC: UP Press, 2001.
 Revel, Nicole, ed. Literature of voice: Epics in the Philippines. QC: ADMU Press, 2005.
 Nolasco, Ricardo Ma. D. Pinagmulan ng Salitang Bayani" sa Diliman Review, vol 45, no. 2-3, 1997, pp.
14-18.
 Salazar, Zeus A. "Ang Bayani bilang sakripisyo: pag-aanyo ng pagkabayani sa agos ng kasaysayang
Pilipino" in Kalamidad, Rebolusyon, Kabayanihan: Mga kahulugan nito sa kasalukuyang panahon. QC.
ADHIKA ng Pilipinas 1996.
 De Ocampo, Esteban. "Who Made Rizal our Foremost National Hero, and Why?" in Jose Rizal: Life,
Works, and Writings of a Geniust Writer, Scientist and National Hero, edited by Gregorio Zaide. 1984.

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 Learning Plan

Lesson No : 12

Lesson Title : National Symbol

Let’s Hit These :

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

 Examine the values highlighted by the various representations of Rizal as a

national symbol

 Advocate the values Rizal's life encapsulates

Let’s Get Started :

 Students before proceeding to the proper inputs of this lesson are required to
reflect and answer the question: “Why are Overseas Filipino Workers
considered new heroes?”

 Students are required to watch the film: "The Flor Contemplacion Story" (1989)

 Students are to reflect on the more recent heroes of the Philippines, the frontliners of
the Corona Virus Disease 2019 pandemic.

 (Comments will be counted as recitation. Please post the answer as soon as the
question is posted in the online learning platform or sent via available media.)

Let’s Find Out :

 The activity above will be useful as they proceed and learn this lesson. Students
are tasked to ask the instructor in whatever communication means available.
The activity will help in providing inputs that would facilitate their knowledge
of the concept of nationalism based on the values as advocated by Rizal.

 The students are tasked to read the A Closer Look on the More Human Side of
the National Hero By Chris Antonette Piedad-Pugay and Peter Jaynul V
Uckung

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 Let’s Read :

A Closer Look on the More Human Side of the National Hero

of the Philippines, Dr. Jose Rizal

By Chris Antonette Piedad-Pugay and Peter Jaynul V Uckung

April 21, 2020

Tatler Philippines revisits the life of the "Pride of the Malayan Race" and
discover his humanity. This feature story was originally titled as The Real
Rizal, and was published in the December 2006 issue of Tatler Philippines.

Besides being the national hero of the Philippines, Jose Rizal was also known through time as the First
Filipino, Pride of the Malayan Race, the Greatest Malayan, among others. Many considered him a genius, a master
of all trades, a patriot, a model brother and an ideal son. Active efforts to promote Rizalist culture and values are
being made by the government as well as Rizalist groups to encourage good moral character, personal discipline
and civic consciousness. In fact, Republic Act 1425, the Rizal law, requires schools, universities and colleges,
both private and public, to include in their curricula the study of Rizal’s life and works, particularly his two
novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, to instil into students the ideals of freedom and nationalism.

Perhaps because of these efforts to elevate him as a paradigm of a great Filipino, Rizal may have become
too difficult to emulate and his brand of nationalism left simply to be read in the pages of history books. This
distance from an image of a real person may even have made the other hero, Andres Bonifacio, more attractive,
more endearing to the ordinary Filipino.

What an unfair assessment of Rizal! For while he truly was a great man, there was also a more human,
more real side to this genius.

RE-INTRODUCING RIZAL

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 Rizal was born on June 19, 1861, in Calamba, Laguna, to Francisco
Mercado and Teodora Alonso. The seventh of 11 children, he grew up to be a
sickly and frail boy, which was probably why he engaged in the various sports at
that time to improve his physique.

Typical of Filipino families even at present, his mother was his first
teacher until he was sent to a nearby town, Biñan, to study under Maestro
Justiniano Aquino Cruz. Like his peers, and perhaps contrary to the general
perception that he was always a well-behaved boy, the young Pepe, as he was
also called, engaged in brawls with his classmates. One brawl ended with Rizal
being hit in the butt with the teacher’s bamboo stick.

For college he went to the Ateneo, where he was one of the high
achievers– but not the valedictorian of his class, as most teachers of a Rizal course
today usually overstate. The truth is, he was only one of nine in a class of 12 who
got sobresaliente, the highest grade.

While at the Ateneo, the teenage Pepe busied himself with his studies, extra-curricular activities
including sports like chess and fencing, making friends and wooing young girls of his age. He sometimes failed
in his pursuits but it was all part of growing up.

For his further education, Rizal enrolled at the University of Santo Tomás, where he at first took
Philosophy and Letters and then shifted to Medicine – just a normal young man with many interests and talents
but still in search of a direction in life.

At the UST however, he failed to stand out in his class. Biographers, interpreting Rizal’s words in the
chapter “The Physics Class” of the El Filibusterismo as his own personal experience, concluded that the hero
blamed the Dominican friars’ old-fashioned ways of teaching, as he was used to the more liberal Jesuit priests of
the Ateneo. In that chapter, the character of Placido Penitente protested that the physics students were not even
allowed to hold the microscope. Penitente also personified Rizal’s frustration over the indifference of his
classmates who did not support him in his protest. Such frustration and a growing awareness of the unjust social
conditions suffered by Filipinos from the colonizers drove Rizal to pursue his studies abroad.

At the Universidad Central de Madrid, he continued his course in Philosophy as well as in Medicine.
Rizal wanted to specialize in ophthalmology, primarily due to the failing condition of his mother’s eyes.
According to biographer Austin Coates, Rizal
tried his best to excel in his various subjects at the
university, especially in languages like Greek and
Hebrew, and in literature. Through hard work and
perseverance, he received both his Licentiate in
Philosophy and Licentiate in Medicine in 1884.
While abroad, Rizal involved himself with the
Circulo Hispano-Filipino. Most of the members
of this elite association
were peninsulares (Spaniards born in Spain)
and mestizos (mixed race), and a spattering
of indios (Filipinos born in the Philippines) like
Rizal and Tomas Arejola. He also participated in
the Propaganda Movement, which sought to gain
freedom for the Philippines, together with other
eminent ilustrados, or learned men, like the
satirical writer Graciano Lopez Jaena, the
political analyst Marcelo del Pilar, the painter
Juan Luna, the historian Mariano Ponce and others.

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 Following his academic triumph, Rizal went to Paris to specialise in ophthalmology and travelled to
various parts of Europe, where he met prominent figures who also influenced his thoughts and the course of his
actions. This is seen in his two novels, which were published at this time with the financial help of Maximo Viola
(for the Noli Me Tangere) and Valentin Ventura (for the El Filibustrismo), rich friends of Rizal who were also
studying abroad.

Spanish friars in the Philippines naturally took offence. They banned the books, believing they were
provocative enough to incite rebellion; and ordered those caught reading them to immediately be imprisoned.

RIZAL AND THE PROPAGANDA MOVEMENT

Rizal was looked upon as the leader of the Filipinos in Europe; but the Spanish clerics in the Philippines
did not consider him a more dangerous political agitator as they did Marcelo del Pilar, another member of the
Circulo. The two could have struck a potent partnership in the Propaganda Movement but due to a petty
misunderstanding, this did not happen, as recounted by Antonio Valeriano in his book Marcelo H del Pilar: Ang
Kanyang Buhay, Diwa, at Panulat published in 1984.

On December 31, 1890, a party was organized by the Filipinos in Spain to celebrate New Year. In the
revelry the Filipinos decided to elect the foremost leader of the movement. Only Rizal and del Pilar were
nominated. The rule was for the winner to garner two-thirds of the total votes. Rizal won most of the votes, but
not enough for two-thirds of the total. Another count was made, and another. After the second recount, Rizal
walked out of the party, saying, “Now I know I have only 19 friends in the
place.”

After his departure, he was unanimously elected; but because he had

already left, del Pilar was chosen instead as the leader of the Filipinos.

Later, del Pilar implored Rizal not to abandon La Solidaridad, the

official organ of the Propaganda Movement, for which he wrote. Del Pilar’s
efforts were futile. Rizal stuck to his decision of never writing again for the
newspaper, justifying his resignation by asking the paper to just give his
writing fee to budding writers. But in a letter to del Pilar, Rizal bared his
hurt, lamenting that the “scratches from a friend are more painful than the
wounds inflicted by the enemy.”

That one year later he was still smarting from the “loss” can be gleaned in the letter Rizal wrote to Jose
Maria Basa, a Filipino exile in Hong Kong who became a rich businessman, on January 21, 1891. Rizal told Basa
that there was a plot against him and that del Pilar was an unwitting accomplice.

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 The rift worsened when an article entitled “The Illusionist,” written by Eduardo de Lete, was published
in La Solidaridad on April 15, 1892. Rizal believed that Lete’s article was alluding to him and that it did not get
printed without del Pilar’s approval. So hurt was he that he wrote to Ponce of the Circulo, “I am deeply hurt by
del Pilar’s permission to print that article.” Lete’s article, however, was about the folly of a revolution without the
means of achieving success and not about Rizal.

RIZAL AND THE REVOLUTION

The Philippine Revolution of 1896 to 1901 is seen by many historians as a period when the Filipino
people were most united, most involved and most spirited to fight for a common cause—freedom. As to the actual
involvement of Rizal in the Revolution, however, they disagree, with the issue remaining, to date, controversial,
disputed and unresolved.

Historians do not deny that Rizal played a major part in the country’s struggle for reforms and
independence. His writings, particularly the Noli Me Tangere and the El Filibusterismo, were viewed as the
guiding force for other patriots to rally behind the country’s cause. But some of them do not credit the hero with
the leadership of the Revolution, even playing down his actual role in the fight for freedom.

One of these historians is the professor, Renato

Constantino. In his Rizal Day lecture in 1969 entitled
“Veneration Without Understanding,” Constantino said that
Rizal was not a leader, but a leading opponent, of the
Revolution. Constantino’s proof was the hero’s own
manifesto dated December 15, 1896. Here, Rizal declared
that when the plan of the Revolution came to his knowledge,
he opposed its absolute impossibility and stated his utmost
willingness to offer anything he could to stifle it. Rizal
thought of it as absurd, and abhorred its alleged criminal
methods.

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 In this manifesto Rizal also declared the necessity of education in the
achievement of liberties. Most important, he believed that reforms to be fruitful
must come from “above” and that those that come from “below” are shaky,
irregular and insecure. By “above” Rizal meant the educated Filipinos and by
“below,” the masses.

Rizal’s hesitation about the Revolution was, however, muddled by the

accounts of Dr Pio Valenzuela regarding his mission to seek the hero’s opinion
and approval in launching an armed rebellion against the Spanish administration.
The mission, ordered by Andres Bonifacio, sent Valenzuela to Dapitan, where
Rizal was in exile after he got into trouble with the Spaniards for writing his two
novels.

In September 1896 Valenzuela testified before a military court that

Rizal was resolutely opposed to the idea of a premature armed rebellion and
disparaged it. In October 1896 Valenzuela again made the same account but
changed the portion about foul language, saying it was Bonifacio, not Rizal, who
used foul words.

And yet, two decades later, Valenzuela reversed his story again by saying that Rizal was not actually
against the Revolution but merely advised the Katipuneros (members of the revolutionary movement called
Katipunan) to wait for the right time, secure the needed weapons and get the support of the rich and scholarly
class. Valenzuela recounted that his 1896 statements were embellished due to duress and torture and that in his
desire “not to implicate” or “to save” Rizal, testified that the latter was opposed to the Revolution.

Valenzuela’s contradicting statements put historians into a great confusion regarding Rizal’s stand on
the Revolution, making him both a hero and an anti-hero. In his lecture, he pointed out that even without Rizal,
the nationalistic movement would still advance with another leader because it was not Rizal who shaped the turn
of events but otherwise. The historical forces untied by social developments may have impelled and motivated
Rizal to rise up and articulate the people’s sentiments through his writings, but the Revolution ensued although
Rizal disagreed with it. Finally, Constantino argued that to better understand the hero, we should also take note
of his weaknesses and profit from them.

Rizal’s weakness, in Constantino’s view, lay in his failure to fully understand his people. He failed to
empathize with the true sentiments of the people in launching the armed rebellion that made him repudiate it,
perhaps due to his belief that violence should not prevail and that reforms must come from above. Following this
thought, Rizal in a way unconsciously underestimated the capacity of those from below to compel changes and
reforms.

CONTRADICTIONS AND INCONSISTENCIES

In the study of Rizal, certain inconsistencies have been brought forth. One is about the hero’s famed
quality of thrift.

After he published Noli Me Tangere, Rizal travelled to various places in Europe with his friend Maximo
Viola. Historical accounts talk of the hero allotting ample amount of money for lottery tickets, for expensive
studio photographs (that is why he is very much documented), for theatres, balls and, most of all, books. The book
collection of Rizal perhaps costs a fortune because Josephine Bracken once sued the Rizal family in an attempt to
get the collection, claiming she had rights over her “husband’s” estate.

So was he really a thrifty man? Many students conclude that he was just forced to be tight with money
because of the delay in the arrival of his allowance from the Philippines.

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 Then there was the matter of his portrayal as an ever faithful,
ever loyal and romantic lover.

It is a general impression that he was, in reality, the person

behind the character of Crisostomo Ibarra in his two novels. The story
goes that because of his everlasting love for Maria Clara, Ibarra
disguised himself so he could get inside the convent which she had
entered when she was told that Ibarra had died. In real life, it was said
that the woman Rizal almost married was Leonor Rivera, his fiancée
with whom he corresponded for six years while he was abroad.
Unfortunately, the marriage did not push through, due to circumstances
beyond the lovers’ control. But was Rizal a faithful lover?

In his book The First Filipino, Professor Leon Maria Guerrero discussed the presence of “the other
Leonor” in the confidential letters between Rizal and a friend named Jose M Cecilio. The letters revealed that
Rizal was engaged to two women both named “Leonor.” Meanwhile, Professor Ambeth Ocampo in his book Rizal
Without the Overcoat wrote that in 1884 a classmate of Rizal named Ceferino de Leon tried to pursue Leonor
Rivera but held off on learning that she was the hero’s fiancée. Later, de Leon met and fancied a lady named
Leonor Valenzuela, who told him, however, that she was already engaged to Rizal. In the Rizal-Cecilio
correspondence, Rivera was always referred to as the “little land lady” since her father, Don Antonio Rivera,
managed a boarding house in Intramuros; Valenzuela, on the other hand, was labelled “winsome Orang.”

Such anecdotes prove that Rizal, just like Ibarra, was no doubt a romantic; but with regard to faithfulness,
Rizal seems suspect.

And then there was the question of his skill as a doctor. During his first homecoming, Rizal built a clinic
in Calamba, where he treated his town mates. It was also common knowledge that he treated the failing eyesight
of his mother upon his return. In his short stint in Hong Kong, he was also able to create a good reputation as an
ophthalmologist that allowed him to establish a satisfactory clientele.

When he was exiled in Dapitan in 1892, Rizal won in the lottery and bought for himself hectares of an
estate identified as Talisay. There he built a school and a clinic. Since Dapitan was a remote island, and since
Rizal was a Europe-trained ophthalmologist, villagers trusted him to cure even diseases not related to his
specialization.

In his book, however, Ocampo wrote that when Valenzuela came to Dapitan on June 21, 1896, to talk to
Rizal about the Revolution, he arrived with a companion named Raymundo who was blind. Rizal examined the
eyes of Raymundo and declared that they were beyond cure. Nevertheless, he prescribed 3 grams of potassium
iodide in 100 grams of distilled water, one spoonful of it to be taken every morning. Ocampo, in trying to
determine the correctness of the prescription, consulted an eye-ear-nose-throat specialist who disclosed that the
prescription was a diuretic.

Could this be a case of medical malpractice or did Rizal think that the patient’s blindness had something
to do with a urinary problem?

OUR HUMAN HERO

Sometimes in our eagerness to find heroes, we tend to put them so high on a pedestal that one day we
wake up to find out they are too far to reach. In Rizal’s case, there was so much about him that really elevated
him to the level of an extraordinary man. He was a writer, a poet; he was a scientist, an ophthalmologist; a
philosopher, a lover. His exploits are what makes for interesting anecdotes and heroic tales.

The unfortunate result of this is a risk toward alienation. With Rizal in fact, many had fallen into this
danger, with some who have even daubed him with divinity, shooting him off to high heavens as a demigod. In
the end, Rizal has become too good to the common people as well as their ideals.

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 It is fortunate, though, that we have retained the capacity to go back in history and restudy Rizal. By
remembering his human side, we bring our national hero back to our midst and begin to share with him once more
the ideals of freedom for which he laid down his life.

Discussion

Jose Rizal is commonly known as the “Father of Filipino Nationalism” and the First Filipino”, not
because he helped establish an independent Philippine state (in fact, he specifically and explicitly
denounced the 1896 Revolution against Spain), but because he was instrumental in the creation of the
conceptualization of “Filipino” as an ethnopolitical collective – as “a people”, or, in the language of
nationalism “the people”.

In other words, Rizal is acclaimed the father “Philippine Nationalism” for his intellectual and
idealistic support for Philippine Independence. As an analysis of his works and speeches will show, Rizal
did not support violent uprisings or revolutions in calling for an independent state. He was not a war
monger but rather an academic seeking as much as possible a peaceful, logical, and political solution
for the independence of Filipinos from colonial rule over the political and social aspects of life in the
Philippines. He preached for and encouraged Filipinos to recognize their potential as Filipino citizens
and also their obligations and duty to their motherland.

First and foremost, Rizal was a strict critic of the Filipino people and how their demeanor
reflected upon the motherland. In his essay entitled, “The Indolence of the Filipino”, Rizal makes the
bold statement that, “Indolence in the Philippine is a chronic malady, but not a hereditary one. The
Filipinos have not always been what they are, witnesses whereto are all the historians of the first years
after the discovery of the Islands”. He is not afraid to point out idleness he notices within his fellow
countrymen. At the same time, he takes the position this flaw of laziness did not originate among the
native Malayan people who first inhabited the Philippine islands but rather rose out of the colonial
occupation of the Philippines over the past centuries. Forced labor, outlandish taxes, colonial
bureaucracies, etc present themselves as a few of the misfortunes that coincide with colonial rule. Rizal
ponders:

How it is strange, then, that discouragement may have been infused into
the spirit of the inhabitants of the Philippines, when in the midst of so many
calamities they did not know whether they would see sprout the seed they
were planting, whether their field was going to be their grave or their crop
would go to feed their executioner?

Working fervently for an unsatisfying or unreliable end can deter even the most persistent
laborer to theoretically decrease production or cease it entirely and this can have an adverse effect on
the economy. For example, examining the Agricultural Wage in the Philippines from 1962- 1986 reveals

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 that it “declined at 1.6 per cent per year. In real (1986) U.S. dollars, it fell from roughly $2.00/a day in
1962 to 1.40/day in 1986. This is detrimental to a nation dependent on agricultural laborers and in a
capitalist based world economy the standard of living does not adjust to drops in average wages. As a
result, Boyce shows that “nationwide the percentage of Filipino families living below the poverty lines
rises from 41% in 1965 to 59% in 1985”.

Regrettably, this economic data echoes Rizal’s warnings from more than a half a century earlier
that forcing an individual to labor for an unequal economic return will result in less production. There
has existed a stigma in Philippine society regarding the enormous gap of wealth between the elite and
the middle, working, and poor people of the Philippine islands. Rizal criticized the elite of the country
for depriving the general populations of the wealth that is generated from Philippine resources. He
attempted to cease the negative view of a stagnant and corrupt Philippine economy from stereotyping
the entire Filipino population as corrupt and incapable. Therefore, Rizal demonstrated:

The fact that the best plantations, the best tracts of land in some provinces,
those that from their easy access are more profitable than others, are in the hands of
the religious corporations, whose desideratum is ignorance and a condition of semi-
starvation for the native, so that they may continue to govern him and make
themselves necessary to his wretched existence, is one of the reasons why many towns
do not progress in spite of the efforts of their inhabitants.

The elite, colonial, and governmental bureaucracies are the ones who hold the vast majority of
wealth within the country. This was true during Rizal’s period, during President Marcos’s reign (as
outlined in the next chapter) and still resonates past Marcos’ tyrannical reign. For example, James K.
Boyce, a researcher specializing in the economic development of the Philippines over the last few
decades, reveals:

The failure of rising GNP (Gross National Product) per capita to ‘trickle down’
to the poor in the Philippines in 1962-1986 emerges most clearly from an examination
of trends in real wages and unemployment. In both rural and urban areas, the incomes
of Filipino wage laborers (middle and lower class) declined substantially. Agricultural
wages (mostly lower class laborers) fell by roughly one third in the [same] 25-year
period.

Rizal made it clear that citizens of the Philippines can advance themselves economically and
also raise the status of their nation. However, he recognized there are many obstacles in that exist that
harm the Philippine economy and society as a whole. Thus, the prime example would be the uneven
distribution of wealth between the few wealthy families and the general population that has been
established during colonial rule.

Particularly, one aspect of Jose Rizal’s life that stands out clearly was his extensive academic
background. At the end of his studies Rizal earned two doctorates, could converse in ten languages,
and produced the literature examined throughout this project. Advocates of Rizal commonly refer to
him as the first Filipino because of his “role in politicizing the term Filipino to denote those we now
recognize as Filipino citizens, thus defining the Filipino people”. Without a doubt, this presents itself as
a major accomplishment since the inhabitants of the Philippine Archipelago have a high degree of
diversity of cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. Rizal presented a common identity, Filipino,
for those residing in the Philippine islands who have had to endure Spanish colonial rule for centuries.
Nonetheless, Rizal’s role in Philippine history as a hero is not without criticism. Critics attack the sincerity
of his convictions due to the allegations that Rizal was merely a puppet of the American government
whose purpose was to antagonize Spain’s hold in the Philippines. For example, Sharon Delmendo, a
historian probing the effects of America on the Philippine’s perceived identity, points out:

A closer look at Jose Rizal’s engagement with the United States, both during
his lifetime and in terms of the U.S. posthumous promotion of Rizal as a national hero
during the U.S. colonial era will reveal the multivalence of the Philippine-American
entanglement, both in terms of its length (antedating 1898 as the conventional starting

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 point of Philippine American history) and in terms of its complexity (Rizal’s co-optation
of a particular version of U.S. nationalism as the basis for his own version of Filipino
nationalism during his lifetime, followed by the U.S. co-optation of Rizal’s legacy for its
own colonial purpose after his death).

Thus, Delmendo illustrates the argument of some Rizal’s critics who assert he was simply an
“American-Sponsored Hero”. Rizal was a well-educated individual and it is no surprise that his writings
reflected the ideals of nationalism similar to those expressed by American colonialists during their
Revolutionary War from England. This does not mean these nationalistic ideals were forced upon Rizal
or falsely attributed to his writings. In fact, Filipinos themselves canonized RIzal even before his death
and long before the critic’s arguments of the American installation of Rizal as the Philippine’s national
hero. Even half a century after the Philippines gained a complete autonomous government separate
from American control, his message for Filipinos to take pride in them and their motherland is one that
still resonates. Hence, this chapter focuses on literary works of Rizal, his messages for the Filipino
people, and how assisted in creating a guideline for nationhood.

Many of Rizal’s poems, letters and essays echo a sense of pride for all Filipinos to hold their
nation and themselves in high regards. He illustrates the sense of duty Philippine citizens should have
to their country and themselves. In his piece entitled “Love of Country”, Rizal presents to the reader
his convictions regarding love for one’s country:

The poorer and more wretched she is, the more one is willing to suffer for her,
the more she is adored, the more one finds pleasure in bearing up with her. It has
been observed that the people of the mountains and wild valleys and those born on
barren and dismal land are the very ones who remember more vividly their country,
finding in the cities a terrible boredom which compels them to return to their native
land. Is it because love of country is the purest, most heroic, and most sublime human
sentiment? It is gratitude; it is affection for everything that reminds us of something
of the first days of our life; it is the land where our ancestors are sleeping; it is the
temple where we have worshiped God with the candor of babbling childhood….

Rizal alludes to the national issues that affect the country such as colonial rule to the political
strife in the Mindanao islands. However, he makes it clear that the dire state of an individual’s country
should not discourage praise of their native soil. Instead, it should be a motivating factor to express
pride and joy in one’s homeland. Even those that are able to migrate from working in the fields to the
major cities or even from the Philippines to work abroad, Rizal feels they should hold their original home
in great reverence. Taken as a whole, Jose Rizal’s literature relays the message to all Filipinos in the
islands, those working abroad, and even second generation born overseas to always honor their
ancestral motherland and to uphold their civic duties to their nation of ethnic origin.

Furthermore, Rizal was an intellectual promoter for Philippine nationalism as opposed to taking
the violent extremist approach to opposing to foreign occupation. For example, Rizal wrote a “Letter to
His Countrymen” while held as a prisoner at Fort Santiago. He was captured and imprisoned because
he his name was labeled with the Katipunan revolutionaries without his consent. Even with his strong
advocacy for Philippine liberty, Rizal stated:

I have given proofs that I am one most anxious for liberties for our country,
and I am still desirous of them. But I place as a prior condition the education of the
people that by means of instruction and industry our country may have an individuality
of its own and make itself worthy of these liberties…holding these ideas, I cannot do
less than condemn, as I condemn this uprising – as absurd, savage, and plotted behind
my back – which dishonors us Filipinos and discredits who could plead our cause (331).

Rizal opposed this rebellion due to its rash methods and temporary goals achieved through
violence. Rizal’s desired liberation for the Philippines through diplomatically sound and socially practical
methods. Agreeably Philippine historian, H. de la Costa, writes:

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 On many different occasions and in many different ways [Rizal] tried to bring
home the point that “there would be no tyrants if there were no slaves”. If Filipinos
wanted to enjoy the privileges of freedom, they had to learn how to carry its
responsibilities. They had to learn how to work together; how to adopt a common plan
and carry it into effect.

Costa illustrates Rizal’s reference to the tyrants as the Spanish colonial powers during Rizal’s
time and the slaves as the subordinate Filipino colonists. In Rizal’s mind, complete independence from
unwanted colonial influence could not merely come from violent uprisings. He strongly felt Filipinos
needed to endure “a long period of self-training and self-discipline” in commitment to their country. 1
This coincided with the glorious vision he held of the Philippine archipelago.

Clearly, Rizal desired to depict to its inhabitants and the other nations of the world that Filipinos
are capable and deserving to have their independence and take pride in their nation.

Without a doubt, Jose Rizal’s writings left him with numerous enemies as well as supporters.
Yet, threats of arrest and death did not deter Rizal from delivering his controversial message during the
time. Some historians agree such as Vicente L. Rafael who maintains it was Rizal’s “concern to chart
the anatomy of power and its breakdown in Philippine society”. Rizal kept writing despite his
antagonistic message to church and state because “other Filipinos would recognize his death a kind of
counter discourse with which to oppose colonial rule”1. In other words, Rizal understood that his
perceptions of having the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands unite as Filipinos to ideally then politically
be able to form one nation was a bold concept that extended past himself. He was not afraid to die for
conveying his message for Philippine freedom because he understood he would need others to carry
on his mission and that it would carry on past his death. Accordingly, it was his strong faith in the
Filipino people that lead him to believe even after his death, Filipinos would continue to realize their
significance as a nation and work for their right to create their own autonomous state.

Overall, Jose Rizal presents a reoccurring theme of a sense of duty to his native country, the
Philippines, and its people, the Filipinos. He fervently calls for a need for Filipinos to be aware of their
unique heritage and to be conscious that Filipinos can succeed separate from the customs and
regulations implanted by the Spanish colonialists. In this regard, Costa discloses during Spanish colonial
rule:

More prominent and more profitable offices in the Philippines were filled by
Spaniards, many of the minor offices were filled by Filipinos. Therefore, when the
Filipino party assumed the government for those districts which the Spaniards
evacuated, the Filipinos had a system of government in which the Filipinos held most
of the positions, already established for their purposes. It was but necessary to change
its head and name…This fact simplified matters for Filipinos and gave them the ground
upon which they make their assertion of maintaining a successful administration.

The smooth transition of local and national government offices from Spanish to Filipino hands
exhibited the ability for a Philippine society and government to function efficiently without Spanish
influence. Also, the Philippines always consisted of a diverse group of people from the mainland of
Luzon to the southern Mindanao islands. Rizal viewed and preached about the thousands of Philippine
islands and the convictions of its culturally diverse people as one “imagined community” of a nation for
Filipinos to proudly belong to. Therefore, his messages for love of country, faith in fellow citizens, and
duty to one’s country are lessons Filipinos can still adhere to in order to improve their individual lives
and the Philippines as nation.

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 Let’s Remember :

 Nationalism as advocated by Rizal, points to the importance of loving the fatherland

even at the expense of one’s life. This means that all efforts and sacrifices of each
individual Filipino is focused towards the future of the country. Individual contributions
include monetary influx through dollar remittances or being prudent and environmental
consciousness amongst Filipinos.

Let’s Do This :

 Essay writing or speech about a particular value Rizal advocated.

 Students choose a key issue (e.g., heroism and the notion of sacrifice; literature and
national consciousness; ethics and our concepts of leadership; ethnicity and national
belonging) to be tackled in an integrating project assigned by the teacher (e.g., a
newspaper; an audio-visual project; composition of lyrics with musical arrangement; or
a painting /mural

Suggested Readings:

 Chris Antonette Piedad-Pugay and Peter Jaynul V Uckung. A Closer Look on the
More Human Side of the National Hero of the Philippines, Dr. Jose Rizal April 21,
2020. The Real Rizal, Tatler Philippines December 2006

Module Post Test:

 What is the most important value that Rizal advocated and hoped to be adapted by
Filipinos? Explain your answer

References/Sources:
 Joaquin, Nick. A Question of heroes. Pasig: Anvil, 2005. (Chapters on Rizal, Bonifacio and Aguinaldo.)
 Lahiri, Smitha. "Writer, hero, myth, and spirit: The changing image of Jose Rizal." Cornell University
papers on Southeast Asia. http://www.seasite.niu.edurr tagalog/Modules/Modules/Ph
ilippineReligions/article_rizal.htm

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 PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

1. To provide learning opportunities by enhancing proficiency in

general office administration amidst a technology-driven
environment.

2. To develop students’ analytical and critical thinking skills

through real works, simulation activities and researches to deepen
concerns for community development thru extension services

3. To produce graduates with high degree of professionalism and

values as effective providers of administrative support.

COLLEGE OBJECTIVES

To produce quality and competitive professionals who can cater the

needs of the local, national,

asia-pacific and global job market through advancing its programs in

business, management,

administration, marketing and business process outsourcing and

hospitality industry.

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