Chapter Chapter 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.