Chương Chương 2 · ON THE LOWER DECK

There, below, other scenes were being enacted. Seated on benches or

small wooden stools among valises, boxes, and baskets, a few feet from

the engines, in the heat of the boilers, amid the human smells and the

pestilential odor of oil, were to be seen the great majority of the

passengers. Some were silently gazing at the changing scenes along the

banks, others were playing cards or conversing in the midst of the

scraping of shovels, the roar of the engine, the hiss of escaping

steam, the swash of disturbed waters, and the shrieks of the whistle.

In one corner, heaped up like corpses, slept, or tried to sleep, a

number of Chinese pedlers, seasick, pale, frothing through half-opened

lips, and bathed in their copious perspiration. Only a few youths,

students for the most part, easily recognizable from their white

garments and their confident bearing, made bold to move about from

stern to bow, leaping over baskets and boxes, happy in the prospect of

the approaching vacation. Now they commented on the movements of the

engines, endeavoring to recall forgotten notions of physics, now they

surrounded the young schoolgirl or the red-lipped buyera with her

collar of sampaguitas, whispering into their ears words that made them

smile and cover their faces with their fans.

Nevertheless, two of them, instead of engaging in these fleeting

gallantries, stood in the bow talking with a man, advanced in years,

but still vigorous and erect. Both these youths seemed to be well known

and respected, to judge from the deference shown them by their fellow

passengers. The elder, who was dressed in complete black, was the

medical student, Basilio, famous for his successful cures and

extraordinary treatments, while the other, taller and more robust,

although much younger, was Isagani, one of the poets, or at least

rimesters, who that year came from the Ateneo, [6] a curious character,

ordinarily quite taciturn and uncommunicative. The man talking with

them was the rich Capitan Basilio, who was returning from a business

trip to Manila.

“Capitan Tiago is getting along about the same as usual, yes, sir,”

said the student Basilio, shaking his head. “He won’t submit to any

treatment. At the advice of a certain person he is sending me to San

Diego under the pretext of looking after his property, but in reality

so that he may be left to smoke his opium with complete liberty.”

When the student said a certain person, he really meant Padre Irene, a

great friend and adviser of Capitan Tiago in his last days.

“Opium is one of the plagues of modern times,” replied the capitan with

the disdain and indignation of a Roman senator. “The ancients knew

about it but never abused it. While the addiction to classical studies

lasted—mark this well, young men—opium was used solely as a medicine;

and besides, tell me who smoke it the most?—Chinamen, Chinamen who

don’t understand a word of Latin! Ah, if Capitan Tiago had only devoted

himself to Cicero—” Here the most classical disgust painted itself on

his carefully-shaven Epicurean face. Isagani regarded him with

attention: that gentleman was suffering from nostalgia for antiquity.

“But to get back to this academy of Castilian,” Capitan Basilio

continued, “I assure you, gentlemen, that you won’t materialize it.”

“Yes, sir, from day to day we’re expecting the permit,” replied

Isagani. “Padre Irene, whom you may have noticed above, and to whom

we’ve presented a team of bays, has promised it to us. He’s on his way

now to confer with the General.”

“That doesn’t matter. Padre Sibyla is opposed to it.”

“Let him oppose it! That’s why he’s here on the steamer, in order to—at

Los Baños before the General.”

And the student Basilio filled out his meaning by going through the

pantomime of striking his fists together.

“That’s understood,” observed Capitan Basilio, smiling. “But even

though you get the permit, where’ll you get the funds?”

“We have them, sir. Each student has contributed a real.”

“But what about the professors?”

“We have them: half Filipinos and half Peninsulars.” [7]

“And the house?”

“Makaraig, the wealthy Makaraig, has offered one of his.”

Capitan Basilio had to give in; these young men had everything

arranged.

“For the rest,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “it’s not

altogether bad, it’s not a bad idea, and now that you can’t know Latin

at least you may know Castilian. Here you have another instance,

namesake, of how we are going backwards. In our times we learned Latin

because our books were in Latin; now you study Latin a little but have

no Latin books. On the other hand, your books are in Castilian and that

language is not taught—aetas parentum pejor avis tulit nos nequiores!

as Horace said.” With this quotation he moved away majestically, like a

Roman emperor.

The youths smiled at each other. “These men of the past,” remarked

Isagani, “find obstacles for everything. Propose a thing to them and

instead of seeing its advantages they only fix their attention on the

difficulties. They want everything to come smooth and round as a

billiard ball.”

“He’s right at home with your uncle,” observed Basilio.

“They talk of past times. But listen—speaking of uncles, what does

yours say about Paulita?”

Isagani blushed. “He preached me a sermon about the choosing of a wife.

I answered him that there wasn’t in Manila another like her—beautiful,

well-bred, an orphan—”

“Very wealthy, elegant, charming, with no defect other than a

ridiculous aunt,” added Basilio, at which both smiled.

“In regard to the aunt, do you know that she has charged me to look for

her husband?”

“Doña Victorina? And you’ve promised, in order to keep your

sweetheart.”

“Naturally! But the fact is that her husband is actually hidden—in my

uncle’s house!”

Both burst into a laugh at this, while Isagani continued: “That’s why

my uncle, being a conscientious man, won’t go on the upper deck,

fearful that Doña Victorina will ask him about Don Tiburcio. Just

imagine, when Doña Victorina learned that I was a steerage passenger

she gazed at me with a disdain that—”

At that moment Simoun came down and, catching sight of the two young

men, greeted Basilio in a patronizing tone: “Hello, Don Basilio, you’re

off for the vacation? Is the gentleman a townsman of yours?”

Basilio introduced Isagani with the remark that he was not a townsman,

but that their homes were not very far apart. Isagani lived on the

seashore of the opposite coast. Simoun examined him with such marked

attention that he was annoyed, turned squarely around, and faced the

jeweler with a provoking stare.

“Well, what is the province like?” the latter asked, turning again to

Basilio.

“Why, aren’t you familiar with it?”

“How the devil am I to know it when I’ve never set foot in it? I’ve

been told that it’s very poor and doesn’t buy jewels.”

“We don’t buy jewels, because we don’t need them,” rejoined Isagani

dryly, piqued in his provincial pride.

A smile played over Simoun’s pallid lips. “Don’t be offended, young

man,” he replied. “I had no bad intentions, but as I’ve been assured

that nearly all the money is in the hands of the native priests, I said

to myself: the friars are dying for curacies and the Franciscans are

satisfied with the poorest, so when they give them up to the native

priests the truth must be that the king’s profile is unknown there. But

enough of that! Come and have a beer with me and we’ll drink to the

prosperity of your province.”

The youths thanked him, but declined the offer.

“You do wrong,” Simoun said to them, visibly taken aback. “Beer is a

good thing, and I heard Padre Camorra say this morning that the lack of

energy noticeable in this country is due to the great amount of water

the inhabitants drink.”

Isagani was almost as tall as the jeweler, and at this he drew himself

up.

“Then tell Padre Camorra,” Basilio hastened to say, while he nudged

Isagani slyly, “tell him that if he would drink water instead of wine

or beer, perhaps we might all be the gainers and he would not give rise

to so much talk.”

“And tell him, also,” added Isagani, paying no attention to his

friend’s nudges, “that water is very mild and can be drunk, but that it

drowns out the wine and beer and puts out the fire, that heated it

becomes steam, and that ruffled it is the ocean, that it once destroyed

mankind and made the earth tremble to its foundations!” [8]

Simoun raised his head. Although his looks could not be read through

the blue goggles, on the rest of his face surprise might be seen.

“Rather a good answer,” he said. “But I fear that he might get

facetious and ask me when the water will be converted into steam and

when into an ocean. Padre Camorra is rather incredulous and is a great

wag.”

“When the fire heats it, when the rivulets that are now scattered

through the steep valleys, forced by fatality, rush together in the

abyss that men are digging,” replied Isagani.

“No, Señor Simoun,” interposed Basilio, changing to a jesting tone,

“rather keep in mind the verses of my friend Isagani himself:

‘Fire you, you say, and water we,

Then as you wish, so let it be;

But let us live in peace and right,

Nor shall the fire e’er see us fight;

So joined by wisdom’s glowing flame,

That without anger, hate, or blame,

We form the steam, the fifth element,

Progress and light, life and movement.’”

“Utopia, Utopia!” responded Simoun dryly. “The engine is about to

meet—in the meantime, I’ll drink my beer.” So, without any word of

excuse, he left the two friends.

“But what’s the matter with you today that you’re so quarrelsome?”

asked Basilio.

“Nothing. I don’t know why, but that man fills me with horror, fear

almost.”

“I was nudging you with my elbow. Don’t you know that he’s called the

Brown Cardinal?”

“The Brown Cardinal?”

“Or Black Eminence, as you wish.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Richelieu had a Capuchin adviser who was called the Gray Eminence;

well, that’s what this man is to the General.”

“Really?”

“That’s what I’ve heard from a certain person,—who always speaks ill of

him behind his back and flatters him to his face.”

“Does he also visit Capitan Tiago?”

“From the first day after his arrival, and I’m sure that a certain

person looks upon him as a rival—in the inheritance. I believe that

he’s going to see the General about the question of instruction in

Castilian.”

At that moment Isagani was called away by a servant to his uncle.

On one of the benches at the stern, huddled in among the other

passengers, sat a native priest gazing at the landscapes that were

successively unfolded to his view. His neighbors made room for him, the

men on passing taking off their hats, and the gamblers not daring to

set their table near where he was. He said little, but neither smoked

nor assumed arrogant airs, nor did he disdain to mingle with the other

men, returning the salutes with courtesy and affability as if he felt

much honored and very grateful. Although advanced in years, with hair

almost completely gray, he appeared to be in vigorous health, and even

when seated held his body straight and his head erect, but without

pride or arrogance. He differed from the ordinary native priests, few

enough indeed, who at that period served merely as coadjutors or

administered some curacies temporarily, in a certain self-possession

and gravity, like one who was conscious of his personal dignity and the

sacredness of his office. A superficial examination of his appearance,

if not his white hair, revealed at once that he belonged to another

epoch, another generation, when the better young men were not afraid to

risk their dignity by becoming priests, when the native clergy looked

any friar at all in the face, and when their class, not yet degraded

and vilified, called for free men and not slaves, superior

intelligences and not servile wills. In his sad and serious features

was to be read the serenity of a soul fortified by study and

meditation, perhaps tried out by deep moral suffering. This priest was

Padre Florentino, Isagani’s uncle, and his story is easily told.

Scion of a wealthy and influential family of Manila, of agreeable

appearance and cheerful disposition, suited to shine in the world, he

had never felt any call to the sacerdotal profession, but by reason of

some promises or vows, his mother, after not a few struggles and

violent disputes, compelled him to enter the seminary. She was a great

friend of the Archbishop, had a will of iron, and was as inexorable as

is every devout woman who believes that she is interpreting the will of

God. Vainly the young Florentine offered resistance, vainly he begged,

vainly he pleaded his love affairs, even provoking scandals: priest he

had to become at twenty-five years of age, and priest he became. The

Archbishop ordained him, his first mass was celebrated with great pomp,

three days were given over to feasting, and his mother died happy and

content, leaving him all her fortune.

But in that struggle Florentine received a wound from which he never

recovered. Weeks before his first mass the woman he loved, in

desperation, married a nobody—a blow the rudest he had ever

experienced. He lost his moral energy, life became dull and

insupportable. If not his virtue and the respect for his office, that

unfortunate love affair saved him from the depths into which the

regular orders and secular clergymen both fall in the Philippines. He

devoted himself to his parishioners as a duty, and by inclination to

the natural sciences.

When the events of seventy-two occurred, [9] he feared that the large

income his curacy yielded him would attract attention to him, so,

desiring peace above everything, he sought and secured his release,

living thereafter as a private individual on his patrimonial estate

situated on the Pacific coast. He there adopted his nephew, Isagani,

who was reported by the malicious to be his own son by his old

sweetheart when she became a widow, and by the more serious and better

informed, the natural child of a cousin, a lady in Manila.

The captain of the steamer caught sight of the old priest and insisted

that he go to the upper deck, saying, “If you don’t do so, the friars

will think that you don’t want to associate with them.”

Padre Florentino had no recourse but to accept, so he summoned his

nephew in order to let him know where he was going, and to charge him

not to come near the upper deck while he was there. “If the captain

notices you, he’ll invite you also, and we should then be abusing his

kindness.”

“My uncle’s way!” thought Isagani. “All so that I won’t have any reason

for talking with Doña Victorina.”