الفصل الفصل 39 · 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, [77] and that the
hidden Spaniard could not be Don 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
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, 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.
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, it’s useless! Listen—the
night is coming on and there’s no time to be lost. I must tell you my
secret, and intrust 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 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!”
“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 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 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 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 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 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!”
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.
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.
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.
NOTES
[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.
[6] The Jesuit College in Manila, established in 1859.—Tr.
[7] Natives of Spain; to distinguish them from the Filipinos, i.e.,
descendants of Spaniards born in the Philippines. See Glossary:
“Indian.”—Tr.
[8] It was a common saying among the old Filipinos that the Spaniards
(white men) were fire (activity), while they themselves were water
(passivity).—Tr.
[9] 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.
[10] Archbishop of Manila from 1767 to 1787.—Tr.
[11] “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).
[12] 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.
[13] 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.
[14] The reference is to Noli Me Tangere, in which Sinang appears.
[15] The Dominican school of secondary instruction in Manila.—Tr.
[16] “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.
[17] 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.
[18] The rectory or parish house.
[19] Friends of the author, who suffered in Weyler’s expedition,
mentioned below.—Tr.
[20] 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.
[21] 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.
[22] 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.
[23] The cockpits are farmed out annually by the local governments, the
terms “contract,” and “contractor,” having now been softened into
“license” and “licensee.”—Tr.
[24] 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.
[25] Now known as Plaza España.—Tr.
[26] Patroness of the Dominican Order. She was formally and sumptuously
recrowned a queen of the skies in 1907.—Tr.
[27] 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.
[28] “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.
[29] “To lie about the stars is a safe kind of lying.”—Tr.
[30] Throughout this chapter the professor uses the familiar tu in
addressing the students, thus giving his remarks a contemptuous
tone.—Tr.
[31] The professor speaks these words in vulgar dialect.
[32] To confuse the letters p and f in speaking Spanish was a common
error among uneducated Filipinos.—Tr.
[33] No cristianos, not Christians, i.e., savages.—Tr.
[34] The patron saint of Spain, St. James.—Tr.
[35] Houses of bamboo and nipa, such as form the homes of the masses of
the natives.—Tr.
[36] “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 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.
[37] 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.
[38] 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.
[39] 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.
[40] 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.
[41] 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 without actually touching the object, being more of a
sniff than a kiss.—Tr.
[42] Now Calle Tetuan, Santa Cruz. The other names are still in
use.—Tr.
[43] The Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País for the encouragement of
agricultural and industrial development, was established by Basco de
Vargas in 1780.—Tr.
[44] Funds managed by the government for making loans and supporting
charitable enterprises.—Tr.
[45] The names are fictitious burlesques.—Tr.
[46] “Boiled Shrimp”—Tr.
[47] “Uncle Frank.”—Tr.
[48] Messageries Maritimes, a French line of steamers in the Oriental
trade.—Tr.
[49] 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.
[50] 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.
[51] “Where the wind wrinkles the silent waves, that rapidly break,
of their own movement, with a gentle murmur on the shore.”—Tr.
[52] “Where rapid and winged engines will rush in flight.”—Tr.
[53] 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.
[54] 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.
[55] 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.
[56] “The manager of this restaurant warns the public to leave
absolutely nothing on any table or chair.”—Tr.
[57] “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 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.
[58] Quite suggestive of, and perhaps inspired by, the author’s own
experience.—Tr.
[59] 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.
[60] Nearly all the dialogue in this chapter is in the mongrel
Spanish-Tagalog “market language,” which cannot be reproduced in
English.—Tr.
[61] Doubtless a reference to the author’s first work, Noli Me Tangere,
which was tabooed by the authorities.—Tr.
[62] Such inanities as these are still a feature of Manila
journalism.—Tr.
[63] “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.
[64] This is Quiroga’s pronunciation of Christo.—Tr.
[65] The native priests Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, charged with
complicity in the uprising of 1872, and executed.—Tr.
[66] 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.
[67] 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.
[68] “Hawk-Eye.”—Tr.
[69] Ultima Razón de Reyes: the last argument of kings—force.
(Expression attributed to Calderon de la Barca, the great Spanish
dramatist.)—Tr.
[70] 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.
[71] Spanish etiquette requires a host to welcome his guest with the
conventional phrase: “The house belongs to you.”—Tr.
[72] The handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, foretelling the
destruction of Babylon. Daniel, v, 25–28.—Tr.
[73] A town in Ciudad Real province, Spain.—Tr.
[74] The italicized words are in English in the original.—Tr.
[75] A Spanish hero, whose chief exploit was the capture of Gibraltar
from the Moors in 1308.—Tr.
[76] Emilio Castelar (1832–1899), generally regarded as the greatest of
Spanish orators.—Tr.
[77] In the original the message reads: “Español escondido casa Padre
Florentino cojera remitirá vivo muerto.” Don Tiburcio understands
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.