Chương Chương 20 · THE ARBITER

True it was that Padre Irene had said: the question of the academy of

Castilian, so long before broached, was on the road to a solution. Don

Custodio, the active Don Custodio, the most active of all the arbiters

in the world, according to Ben-Zayb, was occupied with it, spending his

days reading the petition and falling asleep without reaching any

decision, waking on the following day to repeat the same performance,

dropping off to sleep again, and so on continuously.

How the good man labored, the most active of all the arbiters in the

world! He wished to get out of the predicament by pleasing

everybody—the friars, the high official, the Countess, Padre Irene, and

his own liberal principles. He had consulted with Señor Pasta, and

Señor Pasta had left him stupefied and confused, after advising him to

do a million contradictory and impossible things. He had consulted with

Pepay the dancing girl, and Pepay, who had no idea what he was talking

about, executed a pirouette and asked him for twenty-five pesos to bury

an aunt of hers who had suddenly died for the fifth time, or the fifth

aunt who had suddenly died, according to fuller explanations, at the

same time requesting that he get a cousin of hers who could read,

write, and play the violin, a job as assistant on the public works—all

things that were far from inspiring Don Custodio with any saving idea.

Two days after the events in the Quiapo fair, Don Custodio was as usual

busily studying the petition, without hitting upon the happy solution.

While he yawns, coughs, smokes, and thinks about Pepay’s legs and her

pirouettes, let us give some account of this exalted personage, in

order to understand Padre Sibyla’s reason for proposing him as the

arbiter of such a vexatious matter and why the other clique accepted

him.

Don Custodio de Salazar y Sanchez de Monteredondo, often referred to as

Good Authority, belonged to that class of Manila society which cannot

take a step without having the newspapers heap titles upon them,

calling each indedefatigable, distinguished, zealous, active, profound,

intelligent, well-informed, influential, and so on, as if they feared

that he might be confused with some idle and ignorant possessor of the

same name. Besides, no harm resulted from it, and the watchful censor

was not disturbed. The Good Authority resulted from his friendship with

Ben-Zayb, when the latter, in his two noisiest controversies, which he

carried on for weeks and months in the columns of the newspapers about

whether it was proper to wear a high hat, a derby, or a salakot, and

whether the plural of carácter should be carácteres or caractéres, in

order to strengthen his argument always came out with, “We have this on

good authority,” “We learn this from good authority,” later letting it

be known, for in Manila everything becomes known, that this Good

Authority was no other than Don Custodio de Salazar y Sanchez de

Monteredondo.

He had come to Manila very young, with a good position that had enabled

him to marry a pretty mestiza belonging to one of the wealthiest

families of the city. As he had natural talent, boldness, and great

self-possession, and knew how to make use of the society in which he

found himself, he launched into business with his wife’s money, filling

contracts for the government, by reason of which he was made alderman,

afterwards alcalde, member of the Economic Society, [43] councilor of

the administration, president of the directory of the Obras Pias, [44]

member of the Society of Mercy, director of the Spanish-Filipino Bank,

etc., etc. Nor are these etceteras to be taken like those ordinarily

placed after a long enumeration of titles: Don Custodio, although never

having seen a treatise on hygiene, came to be vice-chairman of the

Board of Health, for the truth was that of the eight who composed this

board only one had to be a physician and he could not be that one. So

also he was a member of the Vaccination Board, which was composed of

three physicians and seven laymen, among these being the Archbishop and

three Provincials. He was a brother in all the confraternities of the

common and of the most exalted dignity, and, as we have seen, director

of the Superior Commission of Primary Instruction, which usually did

not do anything—all these being quite sufficient reason for the

newspapers to heap adjectives upon him no less when he traveled than

when he sneezed.

In spite of so many offices, Don Custodio was not among those who slept

through the sessions, contenting themselves, like lazy and timid

delegates, in voting with the majority. The opposite of the numerous

kings of Europe who bear the title of King of Jerusalem, Don Custodio

made his dignity felt and got from it all the benefit possible, often

frowning, making his voice impressive, coughing out his words, often

taking up the whole session telling a story, presenting a project, or

disputing with a colleague who had placed himself in open opposition to

him. Although not past forty, he already talked of acting with

circumspection, of letting the figs ripen (adding under his breath

“pumpkins”), of pondering deeply and of stepping with careful tread, of

the necessity for understanding the country, because the nature of the

Indians, because the prestige of the Spanish name, because they were

first of all Spaniards, because religion—and so on. Remembered yet in

Manila is a speech of his when for the first time it was proposed to

light the city with kerosene in place of the old coconut oil: in such

an innovation, far from seeing the extinction of the coconut-oil

industry, he merely discerned the interests of a certain

alderman—because Don Custodio saw a long way—and opposed it with all

the resonance of his bucal cavity, considering the project too

premature and predicting great social cataclysms. No less celebrated

was his opposition to a sentimental serenade that some wished to tender

a certain governor on the eve of his departure. Don Custodio, who felt

a little resentment over some slight or other, succeeded in insinuating

the idea that the rising star was the mortal enemy of the setting one,

whereat the frightened promoters of the serenade gave it up.

One day he was advised to return to Spain to be cured of a liver

complaint, and the newspapers spoke of him as an Antaeus who had to set

foot in the mother country to gain new strength. But the Manila Antaeus

found himself a small and insignificant person at the capital. There he

was nobody, and he missed his beloved adjectives. He did not mingle

with the upper set, and his lack of education prevented him from

amounting to much in the academies and scientific centers, while his

backwardness and his parish-house politics drove him from the clubs

disgusted, vexed, seeing nothing clearly but that there they were

forever borrowing money and gambling heavily. He missed the submissive

servants of Manila, who endured all his peevishness, and who now seemed

to be far preferable; when a winter kept him between a fireplace and an

attack of pneumonia, he sighed for the Manila winter during which a

single quilt is sufficient, while in summer he missed the easy-chair

and the boy to fan him. In short, in Madrid he was only one among many,

and in spite of his diamonds he was once taken for a rustic who did not

know how to comport himself and at another time for an Indiano. His

scruples were scoffed at, and he was shamelessly flouted by some

borrowers whom he offended. Disgusted with the conservatives, who took

no great notice of his advice, as well as with the sponges who rifled

his pockets, he declared himself to be of the liberal party and

returned within a year to the Philippines, if not sound in his liver,

yet completely changed in his beliefs.

The eleven months spent at the capital among café politicians, nearly

all retired half-pay office-holders, the various speeches caught here

and there, this or that article of the opposition, all the political

life that permeates the air, from the barber-shop where amid the

scissors-clips the Figaro announces his program to the banquets where

in harmonious periods and telling phrases the different shades of

political opinion, the divergences and disagreements, are adjusted—all

these things awoke in him the farther he got from Europe, like the

life-giving sap within the sown seed prevented from bursting out by the

thick husk, in such a way that when he reached Manila he believed that

he was going to regenerate it and actually had the holiest plans and

the purest ideals.

During the first months after his return he was continually talking

about the capital, about his good friends, about Minister So-and-So,

ex-Minister Such-a-One, the delegate C., the author B., and there was

not a political event, a court scandal, of which he was not informed to

the last detail, nor was there a public man the secrets of whose

private life were unknown to him, nor could anything occur that he had

not foreseen, nor any reform be ordered but he had first been

consulted. All this was seasoned with attacks on the conservatives in

righteous indignation, with apologies of the liberal party, with a

little anecdote here, a phrase there from some great man, dropped in as

one who did not wish offices and employments, which same he had refused

in order not to be beholden to the conservatives. Such was his

enthusiasm in these first days that various cronies in the

grocery-store which he visited from time to time affiliated themselves

with the liberal party and began to style themselves liberals: Don

Eulogio Badana, a retired sergeant of carbineers; the honest Armendia,

by profession a pilot, and a rampant Carlist; Don Eusebio Picote,

customs inspector; and Don Bonifacio Tacon, shoe- and harness-maker.

[45]

But nevertheless, from lack of encouragement and of opposition, his

enthusiasm gradually waned. He did not read the newspapers that came

from Spain, because they arrived in packages, the sight of which made

him yawn. The ideas that he had caught having been all expended, he

needed reinforcement, and his orators were not there, and although in

the casinos of Manila there was enough gambling, and money was borrowed

as in Madrid, no speech that would nourish his political ideas was

permitted in them. But Don Custodio was not lazy, he did more than

wish—he worked. Foreseeing that he was going to leave his bones in the

Philippines, he began to consider that country his proper sphere and to

devote his efforts to its welfare. Thinking to liberalize it, he

commenced to draw up a series of reforms or projects, which were

ingenious, to say the least. It was he who, having heard in Madrid

mention of the wooden street pavements of Paris, not yet adopted in

Spain, proposed the introduction of them in Manila by covering the

streets with boards nailed down as they are on the sides of houses; it

was he who, deploring the accidents to two-wheeled vehicles, planned to

avoid them by putting on at least three wheels; it was also he who,

while acting as vice-president of the Board of Health, ordered

everything fumigated, even the telegrams that came from infected

places; it was also he who, in compassion for the convicts that worked

in the sun and with a desire of saving to the government the cost of

their equipment, suggested that they be clothed in a simple

breech-clout and set to work not by day but at night. He marveled, he

stormed, that his projects should encounter objectors, but consoled

himself with the reflection that the man who is worth enemies has them,

and revenged himself by attacking and tearing to pieces any project,

good or bad, presented by others.

As he prided himself on being a liberal, upon being asked what he

thought of the Indians he would answer, like one conferring a great

favor, that they were fitted for manual labor and the imitative arts

(meaning thereby music, painting, and sculpture), adding his old

postscript that to know them one must have resided many, many years in

the country. Yet when he heard of any one of them excelling in

something that was not manual labor or an imitative art—in chemistry,

medicine, or philosophy, for example—he would exclaim: “Ah, he promises

fairly, fairly well, he’s not a fool!” and feel sure that a great deal

of Spanish blood must flow in the veins of such an Indian. If unable to

discover any in spite of his good intentions, he then sought a Japanese

origin, for it was at that time the fashion began of attributing to the

Japanese or the Arabs whatever good the Filipinos might have in them.

For him the native songs were Arabic music, as was also the alphabet of

the ancient Filipinos—he was certain of this, although he did not know

Arabic nor had he ever seen that alphabet.

“Arabic, the purest Arabic,” he said to Ben-Zayb in a tone that

admitted no reply. “At best, Chinese!”

Then he would add, with a significant wink: “Nothing can be, nothing

ought to be, original with the Indians, you understand! I like them

greatly, but they mustn’t be allowed to pride themselves upon anything,

for then they would take heart and turn into a lot of wretches.”

At other times he would say: “I love the Indians fondly, I’ve

constituted myself their father and defender, but it’s necessary to

keep everything in its proper place. Some were born to command and

others to serve—plainly, that is a truism which can’t be uttered very

loudly, but it can be put into practise without many words. For look,

the trick depends upon trifles. When you wish to reduce a people to

subjection, assure it that it is in subjection. The first day it will

laugh, the second protest, the third doubt, and the fourth be

convinced. To keep the Filipino docile, he must have repeated to him

day after day what he is, to convince him that he is incompetent. What

good would it do, besides, to have him believe in something else that

would make him wretched? Believe me, it’s an act of charity to hold

every creature in his place—that is order, harmony. That constitutes

the science of government.”

In referring to his policies, Don Custodio was not satisfied with the

word art, and upon pronouncing the word government, he would extend his

hand downwards to the height of a man bent over on his knees.

In regard to his religious ideas, he prided himself on being a

Catholic, very much a Catholic—ah, Catholic Spain, the land of María

Santísima! A liberal could be and ought to be a Catholic, when the

reactionaries were setting themselves up as gods or saints, just as a

mulatto passes for a white man in Kaffirland. But with all that, he ate

meat during Lent, except on Good Friday, never went to confession,

believed neither in miracles nor the infallibility of the Pope, and

when he attended mass, went to the one at ten o’clock, or to the

shortest, the military mass. Although in Madrid he had spoken ill of

the religious orders, so as not to be out of harmony with his

surroundings, considering them anachronisms, and had hurled curses

against the Inquisition, while relating this or that lurid or droll

story wherein the habits danced, or rather friars without habits, yet

in speaking of the Philippines, which should be ruled by special laws,

he would cough, look wise, and again extend his hand downwards to that

mysterious altitude.

“The friars are necessary, they’re a necessary evil,” he would declare.

But how he would rage when any Indian dared to doubt the miracles or

did not acknowledge the Pope! All the tortures of the Inquisition were

insufficient to punish such temerity.

When it was objected that to rule or to live at the expense of

ignorance has another and somewhat ugly name and is punished by law

when the culprit is a single person, he would justify his position by

referring to other colonies. “We,” he would announce in his official

tone, “can speak out plainly! We’re not like the British and the Dutch

who, in order to hold people in subjection, make use of the lash. We

avail ourselves of other means, milder and surer. The salutary

influence of the friars is superior to the British lash.”

This last remark made his fortune. For a long time Ben-Zayb continued

to use adaptations of it, and with him all Manila. The thinking part of

Manila applauded it, and it even got to Madrid, where it was quoted in

the Parliament as from a liberal of long residence there. The friars,

flattered by the comparison and seeing their prestige enhanced, sent

him sacks of chocolate, presents which the incorruptible Don Custodio

returned, so that Ben-Zayb immediately compared him to Epaminondas.

Nevertheless, this modern Epaminondas made use of the rattan in his

choleric moments, and advised its use!

At that time the conventos, fearful that he would render a decision

favorable to the petition of the students, increased their gifts, so

that on the afternoon when we see him he was more perplexed than ever,

his reputation for energy was being compromised. It had been more than

a fortnight since he had had the petition in his hands, and only that

morning the high official, after praising his zeal, had asked for a

decision. Don Custodio had replied with mysterious gravity, giving him

to understand that it was not yet completed. The high official had

smiled a smile that still worried and haunted him.

As we were saying, he yawned and yawned. In one of these movements, at

the moment when he opened his eyes and closed his mouth, his attention

was caught by a file of red envelopes, arranged in regular order on a

magnificent kamagon desk. On the back of each could be read in large

letters: PROJECTS.

For a moment he forgot his troubles and Pepay’s pirouettes, to reflect

upon all that those files contained, which had issued from his prolific

brain in his hours of inspiration. How many original ideas, how many

sublime thoughts, how many means of ameliorating the woes of the

Philippines! Immortality and the gratitude of the country were surely

his!

Like an old lover who discovers a moldy package of amorous epistles,

Don Custodio arose and approached the desk. The first envelope, thick,

swollen, and plethoric, bore the title: PROJECTS IN PROJECT.

“No,” he murmured, “they’re excellent things, but it would take a year

to read them over.”

The second, also quite voluminous, was entitled: PROJECTS UNDER

CONSIDERATION. “No, not those either.”

Then came the PROJECTS NEARING COMPLETION, PROJECTS PRESENTED, PROJECTS

REJECTED, PROJECTS APPROVED, PROJECTS POSTPONED. These last envelopes

held little, but the least of all was that of the PROJECTS EXECUTED.

Don Custodio wrinkled up his nose—what did it contain? He had

completely forgotten what was in it. A sheet of yellowish paper showed

from under the flap, as though the envelope were sticking out its

tongue. This he drew out and unfolded: it was the famous project for

the School of Arts and Trades!

“What the devil!” he exclaimed. “If the Augustinian padres took charge

of it—”

Suddenly he slapped his forehead and arched his eyebrows, while a look

of triumph overspread his face. “I have reached a decision!” he cried

with an oath that was not exactly eureka. “My decision is made!”

Repeating his peculiar eureka five or six times, which struck the air

like so many gleeful lashes, he sat down at his desk, radiant with joy,

and began to write furiously.