Bab Bab 14 · IN THE HOUSE OF THE STUDENTS

The house where Makaraig lived was worth visiting. Large and spacious,

with two entresols provided with elegant gratings, it seemed to be a

school during the first hours of the morning and pandemonium from ten

o’clock on. During the boarders’ recreation hours, from the lower

hallway of the spacious entrance up to the main floor, there was a

bubbling of laughter, shouts, and movement. Boys in scanty clothing

played sipa or practised gymnastic exercises on improvised trapezes,

while on the staircase a fight was in progress between eight or nine

armed with canes, sticks, and ropes, but neither attackers nor attacked

did any great damage, their blows generally falling sidewise upon the

shoulders of the Chinese pedler who was there selling his outlandish

mixtures and indigestible pastries. Crowds of boys surrounded him,

pulled at his already disordered queue, snatched pies from him, haggled

over the prices, and committed a thousand deviltries. The Chinese

yelled, swore, forswore, in all the languages he could jabber, not

omitting his own; he whimpered, laughed, pleaded, put on a smiling face

when an ugly one would not serve, or the reverse.

He cursed them as devils, savages, no kilistanos [33] but that mattered

nothing. A whack would bring his face around smiling, and if the blow

fell only upon his shoulders he would calmly continue his business

transactions, contenting himself with crying out to them that he was

not in the game, but if it struck the flat basket on which were placed

his wares, then he would swear never to come again, as he poured out

upon them all the imprecations and anathemas imaginable. Then the boys

would redouble their efforts to make him rage the more, and when at

last his vocabulary was exhausted and they were satiated with his

fearful mixtures, they paid him religiously, and sent him away happy,

winking, chuckling to himself, and receiving as caresses the light

blows from their canes that the students gave him as tokens of

farewell.

Concerts on the piano and violin, the guitar, and the accordion,

alternated with the continual clashing of blades from the fencing

lessons. Around a long, wide table the students of the Ateneo prepared

their compositions or solved their problems by the side of others

writing to their sweethearts on pink perforated note-paper covered with

drawings. Here one was composing a melodrama at the side of another

practising on the flute, from which he drew wheezy notes. Over there,

the older boys, students in professional courses, who affected silk

socks and embroidered slippers, amused themselves in teasing the

smaller boys by pulling their ears, already red from repeated fillips,

while two or three held down a little fellow who yelled and cried,

defending himself with his feet against being reduced to the condition

in which he was born, kicking and howling. In one room, around a small

table, four were playing revesino with laughter and jokes, to the great

annoyance of another who pretended to be studying his lesson but who

was in reality waiting his turn to play.

Still another came in with exaggerated wonder, scandalized as he

approached the table. “How wicked you are! So early in the morning and

already gambling! Let’s see, let’s see! You fool, take it with the

three of spades!” Closing his book, he too joined in the game.

Cries and blows were heard. Two boys were fighting in the adjoining

room—a lame student who was very sensitive about his infirmity and an

unhappy newcomer from the provinces who was just commencing his

studies. He was working over a treatise on philosophy and reading

innocently in a loud voice, with a wrong accent, the Cartesian

principle: “Cogito, ergo sum!”

The little lame boy (el cojito) took this as an insult and the others

intervened to restore peace, but in reality only to sow discord and

come to blows themselves.

In the dining-room a young man with a can of sardines, a bottle of

wine, and the provisions that he had just brought from his town, was

making heroic efforts to the end that his friends might participate in

his lunch, while they were offering in their turn heroic resistance to

his invitation. Others were bathing on the azotea, playing firemen with

the water from the well, and joining in combats with pails of water, to

the great delight of the spectators.

But the noise and shouts gradually died away with the coming of leading

students, summoned by Makaraig to report to them the progress of the

academy of Castilian. Isagani was cordially greeted, as was also the

Peninsular, Sandoval, who had come to Manila as a government employee

and was finishing his studies, and who had completely identified

himself with the cause of the Filipino students. The barriers that

politics had established between the races had disappeared in the

schoolroom as though dissolved by the zeal of science and youth.

From lack of lyceums and scientific, literary, or political centers,

Sandoval took advantage of all the meetings to cultivate his great

oratorical gifts, delivering speeches and arguing on any subject, to

draw forth applause from his friends and listeners. At that moment the

subject of conversation was the instruction in Castilian, but as

Makaraig had not yet arrived conjecture was still the order of the day.

“What can have happened?”

“What has the General decided?”

“Has he refused the permit?”

“Has Padre Irene or Padre Sibyla won?”

Such were the questions they asked one another, questions that could be

answered only by Makaraig.

Among the young men gathered together there were optimists like Isagani

and Sandoval, who saw the thing already accomplished and talked of

congratulations and praise from the government for the patriotism of

the students—outbursts of optimism that led Juanito Pelaez to claim for

himself a large part of the glory of founding the society.

All this was answered by the pessimist Pecson, a chubby youth with a

wide, clownish grin, who spoke of outside influences, whether the

Bishop A., the Padre B., or the Provincial C., had been consulted or

not, whether or not they had advised that the whole association should

be put in jail—a suggestion that made Juanito Pelaez so uneasy that he

stammered out, “Carambas, don’t you drag me into—”

Sandoval, as a Peninsular and a liberal, became furious at this. “But

pshaw!” he exclaimed, “that is holding a bad opinion of his Excellency!

I know that he’s quite a friar-lover, but in such a matter as this he

won’t let the friars interfere. Will you tell me, Pecson, on what you

base your belief that the General has no judgment of his own?”

“I didn’t say that, Sandoval,” replied Pecson, grinning until he

exposed his wisdom-tooth. “For me the General has his own judgment,

that is, the judgment of all those within his reach. That’s plain!”

“You’re dodging—cite me a fact, cite me a fact!” cried Sandoval. “Let’s

get away from hollow arguments, from empty phrases, and get on the

solid ground of facts,”—this with an elegant gesture. “Facts,

gentlemen, facts! The rest is prejudice—I won’t call it filibusterism.”

Pecson smiled like one of the blessed as he retorted, “There comes the

filibusterism. But can’t we enter into a discussion without resorting

to accusations?”

Sandoval protested in a little extemporaneous speech, again demanding

facts.

“Well, not long ago there was a dispute between some private persons

and certain friars, and the acting Governor rendered a decision that it

should be settled by the Provincial of the Order concerned,” replied

Pecson, again breaking out into a laugh, as though he were dealing with

an insignificant matter, he cited names and dates, and promised

documents that would prove how justice was dispensed.

“But, on what ground, tell me this, on what ground can they refuse

permission for what plainly appears to be extremely useful and

necessary?” asked Sandoval.

Pecson shrugged his shoulders. “It’s that it endangers the integrity of

the fatherland,” he replied in the tone of a notary reading an

allegation.

“That’s pretty good! What has the integrity of the fatherland to do

with the rules of syntax?”

“The Holy Mother Church has learned doctors—what do I know? Perhaps it

is feared that we may come to understand the laws so that we can obey

them. What will become of the Philippines on the day when we understand

one another?”

Sandoval did not relish the dialectic and jesting turn of the

conversation; along that path could rise no speech worth the while.

“Don’t make a joke of things!” he exclaimed. “This is a serious

matter.”

“The Lord deliver me from joking when there are friars concerned!”

“But, on what do you base—”

“On the fact that, the hours for the classes having to come at night,”

continued Pecson in the same tone, as if he were quoting known and

recognized formulas, “there may be invoked as an obstacle the

immorality of the thing, as was done in the case of the school at

Malolos.”

“Another! But don’t the classes of the Academy of Drawing, and the

novenaries and the processions, cover themselves with the mantle of

night?”

“The scheme affects the dignity of the University,” went on the chubby

youth, taking no notice of the question.

“Affects nothing! The University has to accommodate itself to the needs

of the students. And granting that, what is a university then? Is it an

institution to discourage study? Have a few men banded themselves

together in the name of learning and instruction in order to prevent

others from becoming enlightened?”

“The fact is that movements initiated from below are regarded as

discontent—”

“What about projects that come from above?” interpolated one of the

students. “There’s the School of Arts and Trades!”

“Slowly, slowly, gentlemen,” protested Sandoval. “I’m not a

friar-lover, my liberal views being well known, but render unto Caesar

that which is Caesar’s. Of that School of Arts and Trades, of which I

have been the most enthusiastic supporter and the realization of which

I shall greet as the first streak of dawn for these fortunate islands,

of that School of Arts and Trades the friars have taken charge—”

“Or the cat of the canary, which amounts to the same thing,” added

Pecson, in his turn interrupting the speech.

“Get out!” cried Sandoval, enraged at the interruption, which had

caused him to lose the thread of his long, well-rounded sentence. “As

long as we hear nothing bad, let’s not be pessimists, let’s not be

unjust, doubting the liberty and independence of the government.”

Here he entered upon a defense in beautiful phraseology of the

government and its good intentions, a subject that Pecson dared not

break in upon.

“The Spanish government,” he said among other things, “has given you

everything, it has denied you nothing! We had absolutism in Spain and

you had absolutism here; the friars covered our soil with conventos,

and conventos occupy a third part of Manila; in Spain the garrote

prevails and here the garrote is the extreme punishment; we are

Catholics and we have made you Catholics; we were scholastics and

scholasticism sheds its light in your college halls; in short,

gentlemen, we weep when you weep, we suffer when you suffer, we have

the same altars, the same courts, the same punishments, and it is only

just that we should give you our rights and our joys.”

As no one interrupted him, he became more and more enthusiastic, until

he came to speak of the future of the Philippines.

“As I have said, gentlemen, the dawn is not far distant. Spain is now

breaking the eastern sky for her beloved Philippines, and the times are

changing, as I positively know, faster than we imagine. This

government, which, according to you, is vacillating and weak, should be

strengthened by our confidence, that we may make it see that it is the

custodian of our hopes. Let us remind it by our conduct (should it ever

forget itself, which I do not believe can happen) that we have faith in

its good intentions and that it should be guided by no other standard

than justice and the welfare of all the governed. No, gentlemen,” he

went on in a tone more and more declamatory, “we must not admit at all

in this matter the possibility of a consultation with other more or

less hostile entities, as such a supposition would imply our

resignation to the fact. Your conduct up to the present has been frank,

loyal, without vacillation, above suspicion; you have addressed it

simply and directly; the reasons you have presented could not be more

sound; your aim is to lighten the labor of the teachers in the first

years and to facilitate study among the hundreds of students who fill

the college halls and for whom one solitary professor cannot suffice.

If up to the present the petition has not been granted, it has been for

the reason, as I feel sure, that there has been a great deal of

material accumulated, but I predict that the campaign is won, that the

summons of Makaraig is to announce to us the victory, and tomorrow we

shall see our efforts crowned with the applause and appreciation of the

country, and who knows, gentlemen, but that the government may confer

upon you some handsome decoration of merit, benefactors as you are of

the fatherland!”

Enthusiastic applause resounded. All immediately believed in the

triumph, and many in the decoration.

“Let it be remembered, gentlemen,” observed Juanito, “that I was one of

the first to propose it.”

The pessimist Pecson was not so enthusiastic. “Just so we don’t get

that decoration on our ankles,” he remarked, but fortunately for Pelaez

this comment was not heard in the midst of the applause.

When they had quieted down a little, Pecson replied, “Good, good, very

good, but one supposition: if in spite of all that, the General

consults and consults and consults, and afterwards refuses the permit?”

This question fell like a dash of cold water. All turned to Sandoval,

who was taken aback. “Then—” he stammered.

“Then?”

“Then,” he exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm, still excited by the

applause, “seeing that in writing and in printing it boasts of desiring

your enlightenment, and yet hinders and denies it when called upon to

make it a reality—then, gentlemen, your efforts will not have been in

vain, you will have accomplished what no one else has been able to do.

Make them drop the mask and fling down the gauntlet to you!”

“Bravo, bravo!” cried several enthusiastically.

“Good for Sandoval! Hurrah for the gauntlet!” added others.

“Let them fling down the gauntlet to us!” repeated Pecson disdainfully.

“But afterwards?”

Sandoval seemed to be cut short in his triumph, but with the vivacity

peculiar to his race and his oratorical temperament he had an immediate

reply.

“Afterwards?” he asked. “Afterwards, if none of the Filipinos dare to

accept the challenge, then I, Sandoval, in the name of Spain, will take

up the gauntlet, because such a policy would give the lie to the good

intentions that she has always cherished toward her provinces, and

because he who is thus faithless to the trust reposed in him and abuses

his unlimited authority deserves neither the protection of the

fatherland nor the support of any Spanish citizen!”

The enthusiasm of his hearers broke all bounds. Isagani embraced him,

the others following his example. They talked of the fatherland, of

union, of fraternity, of fidelity. The Filipinos declared that if there

were only Sandovals in Spain all would be Sandovals in the Philippines.

His eyes glistened, and it might well be believed that if at that

moment any kind of gauntlet had been flung at him he would have leaped

upon any kind of horse to ride to death for the Philippines.

The “cold water” alone replied: “Good, that’s very good, Sandoval. I

could also say the same if I were a Peninsular, but not being one, if I

should say one half of what you have, you yourself would take me for a

filibuster.”

Sandoval began a speech in protest, but was interrupted.

“Rejoice, friends, rejoice! Victory!” cried a youth who entered at that

moment and began to embrace everybody.

“Rejoice, friends! Long live the Castilian tongue!”

An outburst of applause greeted this announcement. They fell to

embracing one another and their eyes filled with tears. Pecson alone

preserved his skeptical smile.

The bearer of such good news was Makaraig, the young man at the head of

the movement. This student occupied in that house, by himself, two

rooms, luxuriously furnished, and had his servant and a cochero to look

after his carriage and horses. He was of robust carriage, of refined

manners, fastidiously dressed, and very rich. Although studying law

only that he might have an academic degree, he enjoyed a reputation for

diligence, and as a logician in the scholastic way had no cause to envy

the most frenzied quibblers of the University faculty. Nevertheless he

was not very far behind in regard to modern ideas and progress, for his

fortune enabled him to have all the books and magazines that a watchful

censor was unable to keep out. With these qualifications and his

reputation for courage, his fortunate associations in his earlier

years, and his refined and delicate courtesy, it was not strange that

he should exercise such great influence over his associates and that he

should have been chosen to carry out such a difficult undertaking as

that of the instruction in Castilian.

After the first outburst of enthusiasm, which in youth always takes

hold in such exaggerated forms, since youth finds everything beautiful,

they wanted to be informed how the affair had been managed.

“I saw Padre Irene this morning,” said Makaraig with a certain air of

mystery.

“Hurrah for Padre Irene!” cried an enthusiastic student.

“Padre Irene,” continued Makaraig, “has told me about everything that

took place at Los Baños. It seems that they disputed for at least a

week, he supporting and defending our case against all of them, against

Padre Sibyla, Padre Fernandez, Padre Salvi, the General, the jeweler

Simoun—”

“The jeweler Simoun!” interrupted one of his listeners. “What has that

Jew to do with the affairs of our country? We enrich him by buying—”

“Keep quiet!” admonished another impatiently, anxious to learn how

Padre Irene had been able to overcome such formidable opponents.

“There were even high officials who were opposed to our project, the

Head Secretary, the Civil Governor, Quiroga the Chinaman—”

“Quiroga the Chinaman! The pimp of the—”

“Shut up!”

“At last,” resumed Makaraig, “they were going to pigeonhole the

petition and let it sleep for months and months, when Padre Irene

remembered the Superior Commission of Primary Instruction and proposed,

since the matter concerned the teaching of the Castilian tongue, that

the petition be referred to that body for a report upon it.”

“But that Commission hasn’t been in operation for a long time,”

observed Pecson.

“That’s exactly what they replied to Padre Irene, and he answered that

this was a good opportunity to revive it, and availing himself of the

presence of Don Custodio, one of its members, he proposed on the spot

that a committee should be appointed. Don Custodio’s activity being

known and recognized, he was named as arbiter and the petition is now

in his hands. He promised that he would settle it this month.”

“Hurrah for Don Custodio!”

“But suppose Don Custodio should report unfavorably upon it?” inquired

the pessimist Pecson.

Upon this they had not reckoned, being intoxicated with the thought

that the matter would not be pigeonholed, so they all turned to

Makaraig to learn how it could be arranged.

“The same objection I presented to Padre Irene, but with his sly smile

he said to me: ‘We’ve won a great deal, we have succeeded in getting

the matter on the road to a decision, the opposition sees itself forced

to join battle.’ If we can bring some influence to bear upon Don

Custodio so that he, in accordance with his liberal tendencies, may

report favorably, all is won, for the General showed himself to be

absolutely neutral.”

Makaraig paused, and an impatient listener asked, “How can we influence

him?”

“Padre Irene pointed out to me two ways—”

“Quiroga,” some one suggested.

“Pshaw, great use Quiroga—”

“A fine present.”

“No, that won’t do, for he prides himself upon being incorruptible.”

“Ah, yes, I know!” exclaimed Pecson with a laugh. “Pepay the dancing

girl.”

“Ah, yes, Pepay the dancing girl,” echoed several.

This Pepay was a showy girl, supposed to be a great friend of Don

Custodio. To her resorted the contractors, the employees, the

intriguers, when they wanted to get something from the celebrated

councilor. Juanito Pelaez, who was also a great friend of the dancing

girl, offered to look after the matter, but Isagani shook his head,

saying that it was sufficient that they had made use of Padre Irene and

that it would be going too far to avail themselves of Pepay in such an

affair.

“Show us the other way.”

“The other way is to apply to his attorney and adviser, Señor Pasta,

the oracle before whom Don Custodio bows.”

“I prefer that,” said Isagani. “Señor Pasta is a Filipino, and was a

schoolmate of my uncle’s. But how can we interest him?”

“There’s the quid,” replied Makaraig, looking earnestly at Isagani.

“Señor Pasta has a dancing girl—I mean, a seamstress.”

Isagani again shook his head.

“Don’t be such a puritan,” Juanito Pelaez said to him. “The end

justifies the means! I know the seamstress, Matea, for she has a shop

where a lot of girls work.”

“No, gentlemen,” declared Isagani, “let’s first employ decent methods.

I’ll go to Señor Pasta and, if I don’t accomplish anything, then you

can do what you wish with the dancing girls and seamstresses.”

They had to accept this proposition, agreeing that Isagani should talk

to Señor Pasta that very day, and in the afternoon report to his

associates at the University the result of the interview.