第 十九 章 · THE FUSE

Placido Penitente left the class with his heart overflowing with

bitterness and sullen gloom in his looks. He was worthy of his name

when not driven from his usual course, but once irritated he was a

veritable torrent, a wild beast that could only be stopped by the death

of himself or his foe. So many affronts, so many pinpricks, day after

day, had made his heart quiver, lodging in it to sleep the sleep of

lethargic vipers, and they now were awaking to shake and hiss with

fury. The hisses resounded in his ears with the jesting epithets of the

professor, the phrases in the slang of the markets, and he seemed to

hear blows and laughter. A thousand schemes for revenge rushed into his

brain, crowding one another, only to fade immediately like phantoms in

a dream. His vanity cried out to him with desperate tenacity that he

must do something.

“Placido Penitente,” said the voice, “show these youths that you have

dignity, that you are the son of a valiant and noble province, where

wrongs are washed out with blood. You’re a Batangan, Placido Penitente!

Avenge yourself, Placido Penitente!”

The youth groaned and gnashed his teeth, stumbling against every one in

the street and on the Bridge of Spain, as if he were seeking a quarrel.

In the latter place he saw a carriage in which was the Vice-Rector,

Padre Sibyla, accompanied by Don Custodio, and he had a great mind to

seize the friar and throw him into the river.

He proceeded along the Escolta and was tempted to assault two

Augustinians who were seated in the doorway of Quiroga’s bazaar,

laughing and joking with other friars who must have been inside in

joyous conversation, for their merry voices and sonorous laughter could

be heard. Somewhat farther on, two cadets blocked up the sidewalk,

talking with the clerk of a warehouse, who was in his shirtsleeves.

Penitents moved toward them to force a passage and they, perceiving his

dark intention, good-humoredly made way for him. Placido was by this

time under the influence of the amok, as the Malayists say.

As he approached his home—the house of a silversmith where he lived as

a boarder—he tried to collect his thoughts and make a plan—to return to

his town and avenge himself by showing the friars that they could not

with impunity insult a youth or make a joke of him. He decided to write

a letter immediately to his mother, Cabesang Andang, to inform her of

what had happened and to tell her that the schoolroom had closed

forever for him. Although there was the Ateneo of the Jesuits, where he

might study that year, yet it was not very likely that the Dominicans

would grant him the transfer, and, even though he should secure it, in

the following year he would have to return to the University.

“They say that we don’t know how to avenge ourselves!” he muttered.

“Let the lightning strike and we’ll see!”

But Placido was not reckoning upon what awaited him in the house of the

silversmith. Cabesang Andang had just arrived from Batangas, having

come to do some shopping, to visit her son, and to bring him money,

jerked venison, and silk handkerchiefs.

The first greetings over, the poor woman, who had at once noticed her

son’s gloomy look, could no longer restrain her curiosity and began to

ask questions. His first explanations Cabesang Andang regarded as some

subterfuge, so she smiled and soothed her son, reminding him of their

sacrifices and privations. She spoke of Capitana Simona’s son, who,

having entered the seminary, now carried himself in the town like a

bishop, and Capitana Simona already considered herself a Mother of God,

clearly so, for her son was going to be another Christ.

“If the son becomes a priest,” said she, “the mother won’t have to pay

us what she owes us. Who will collect from her then?”

But on seeing that Placido was speaking seriously and reading in his

eyes the storm that raged within him, she realized that what he was

telling her was unfortunately the strict truth. She remained silent for

a while and then broke out into lamentations.

“Ay!” she exclaimed. “I promised your father that I would care for you,

educate you, and make a lawyer of you! I’ve deprived myself of

everything so that you might go to school! Instead of joining the

panguingui where the stake is a half peso, I Ve gone only where it’s a

half real, enduring the bad smells and the dirty cards. Look at my

patched camisa; for instead of buying new ones I’ve spent the money in

masses and presents to St. Sebastian, even though I don’t have great

confidence in his power, because the curate recites the masses fast and

hurriedly, he’s an entirely new saint and doesn’t yet know how to

perform miracles, and isn’t made of batikulin but of lanete. Ay, what

will your father say to me when I die and see him again!”

So the poor woman lamented and wept, while Placido became gloomier and

let stifled sighs escape from his breast.

“What would I get out of being a lawyer?” was his response.

“What will become of you?” asked his mother, clasping her hands.

“They’ll call you a filibuster and garrote you. I’ve told you that you

must have patience, that you must be humble. I don’t tell you that you

must kiss the hands of the curates, for I know that you have a delicate

sense of smell, like your father, who couldn’t endure European cheese.

[41] But we have to suffer, to be silent, to say yes to everything.

What are we going to do? The friars own everything, and if they are

unwilling, no one will become a lawyer or a doctor. Have patience, my

son, have patience!”

“But I’ve had a great deal, mother, I’ve suffered for months and

months.”

Cabesang Andang then resumed her lamentations. She did not ask that he

declare himself a partizan of the friars, she was not one herself—it

was enough to know that for one good friar there were ten bad, who took

the money from the poor and deported the rich. But one must be silent,

suffer, and endure—there was no other course. She cited this man and

that one, who by being patient and humble, even though in the bottom of

his heart he hated his masters, had risen from servant of the friars to

high office; and such another who was rich and could commit abuses,

secure of having patrons who would protect him from the law, yet who

had been nothing more than a poor sacristan, humble and obedient, and

who had married a pretty girl whose son had the curate for a godfather.

So Cabesang Andang continued her litany of humble and patient

Filipinos, as she called them, and was about to cite others who by not

being so had found themselves persecuted and exiled, when Placido on

some trifling pretext left the house to wander about the streets.

He passed through Sibakong, [42] Tondo, San Nicolas, and Santo Cristo,

absorbed in his ill-humor, without taking note of the sun or the hour,

and only when he began to feel hungry and discovered that he had no

money, having given it all for celebrations and contributions, did he

return to the house. He had expected that he would not meet his mother

there, as she was in the habit, when in Manila, of going out at that

hour to a neighboring house where panguingui was played, but Cabesang

Andang was waiting to propose her plan. She would avail herself of the

procurator of the Augustinians to restore her son to the good graces of

the Dominicans.

Placido stopped her with a gesture. “I’ll throw myself into the sea

first,” he declared. “I’ll become a tulisan before I’ll go back to the

University.”

Again his mother began her preachment about patience and humility, so

he went away again without having eaten anything, directing his steps

toward the quay where the steamers tied up. The sight of a steamer

weighing anchor for Hongkong inspired him with an idea—to go to

Hongkong, to run away, get rich there, and make war on the friars.

The thought of Hongkong awoke in his mind the recollection of a story

about frontals, cirials, and candelabra of pure silver, which the piety

of the faithful had led them to present to a certain church. The

friars, so the silversmith told, had sent to Hongkong to have duplicate

frontals, cirials, and candelabra made of German silver, which they

substituted for the genuine ones, these being melted down and coined

into Mexican pesos. Such was the story he had heard, and though it was

no more than a rumor or a story, his resentment gave it the color of

truth and reminded him of other tricks of theirs in that same style.

The desire to live free, and certain half-formed plans, led him to

decide upon Hongkong. If the corporations sent all their money there,

commerce must be flourishing and he could enrich himself.

“I want to be free, to live free!”

Night surprised him wandering along San Fernando, but not meeting any

sailor he knew, he decided to return home. As the night was beautiful,

with a brilliant moon transforming the squalid city into a fantastic

fairy kingdom, he went to the fair. There he wandered back and forth,

passing booths without taking any notice of the articles in them, ever

with the thought of Hongkong, of living free, of enriching himself.

He was about to leave the fair when he thought he recognized the

jeweler Simoun bidding good-by to a foreigner, both of them speaking in

English. To Placido every language spoken in the Philippines by

Europeans, when not Spanish, had to be English, and besides, he caught

the name Hongkong. If only the jeweler would recommend him to that

foreigner, who must be setting out for Hongkong!

Placido paused. He was acquainted with the jeweler, as the latter had

been in his town peddling his wares, and he had accompanied him on one

of his trips, when Simoun had made himself very amiable indeed, telling

him of the life in the universities of the free countries—what a

difference!

So he followed the jeweler. “Señor Simoun, Señor Simoun!” he called.

The jeweler was at that moment entering his carriage. Recognizing

Placido, he checked himself.

“I want to ask a favor of you, to say a few words to you.”

Simoun made a sign of impatience which Placido in his perturbation did

not observe. In a few words the youth related what had happened and

made known his desire to go to Hongkong.

“Why?” asked Simoun, staring fixedly at Placido through his blue

goggles.

Placido did not answer, so Simoun threw back his head, smiled his cold,

silent smile and said, “All right! Come with me. To Calle Iris!” he

directed the cochero.

Simoun remained silent throughout the whole drive, apparently absorbed

in meditation of a very important nature. Placido kept quiet, waiting

for him to speak first, and entertained himself in watching the

promenaders who were enjoying the clear moonlight: pairs of infatuated

lovers, followed by watchful mammas or aunts; groups of students in

white clothes that the moonlight made whiter still; half-drunken

soldiers in a carriage, six together, on their way to visit some nipa

temple dedicated to Cytherea; children playing their games and Chinese

selling sugar-cane. All these filled the streets, taking on in the

brilliant moonlight fantastic forms and ideal outlines. In one house an

orchestra was playing waltzes, and couples might be seen dancing under

the bright lamps and chandeliers—what a sordid spectacle they presented

in comparison with the sight the streets afforded! Thinking of

Hongkong, he asked himself if the moonlit nights in that island were so

poetical and sweetly melancholy as those of the Philippines, and a deep

sadness settled down over his heart.

Simoun ordered the carriage to stop and both alighted, just at the

moment when Isagani and Paulita Gomez passed them murmuring sweet

inanities. Behind them came Doña Victorina with Juanito Pelaez, who was

talking in a loud voice, busily gesticulating, and appearing to have a

larger hump than ever. In his preoccupation Pelaez did not notice his

former schoolmate.

“There’s a fellow who’s happy!” muttered Placido with a sigh, as he

gazed toward the group, which became converted into vaporous

silhouettes, with Juanito’s arms plainly visible, rising and falling

like the arms of a windmill.

“That’s all he’s good for,” observed Simoun. “It’s fine to be young!”

To whom did Placido and Simoun each allude?

The jeweler made a sign to the young man, and they left the street to

pick their way through a labyrinth of paths and passageways among

various houses, at times leaping upon stones to avoid the mudholes or

stepping aside from the sidewalks that were badly constructed and still

more badly tended. Placido was surprised to see the rich jeweler move

through such places as if he were familiar with them. They at length

reached an open lot where a wretched hut stood off by itself surrounded

by banana-plants and areca-palms. Some bamboo frames and sections of

the same material led Placido to suspect that they were approaching the

house of a pyrotechnist.

Simoun rapped on the window and a man’s face appeared.

“Ah, sir!” he exclaimed, and immediately came outside.

“Is the powder here?” asked Simoun.

“In sacks. I’m waiting for the shells.”

“And the bombs?”

“Are all ready.”

“All right, then. This very night you must go and inform the lieutenant

and the corporal. Then keep on your way, and in Lamayan you will find a

man in a banka. You will say Cabesa and he will answer Tales. It’s

necessary that he be here tomorrow. There’s no time to be lost.”

Saying this, he gave him some gold coins.

“How’s this, sir?” the man inquired in very good Spanish. “Is there any

news?”

“Yes, it’ll be done within the coming week.”

“The coming week!” exclaimed the unknown, stepping backward. “The

suburbs are not yet ready, they hope that the General will withdraw the

decree. I thought it was postponed until the beginning of Lent.”

Simoun shook his head. “We won’t need the suburbs,” he said. “With

Cabesang Tales’ people, the ex-carbineers, and a regiment, we’ll have

enough. Later, Maria Clara may be dead. Start at once!”

The man disappeared. Placido, who had stood by and heard all of this

brief interview, felt his hair rise and stared with startled eyes at

Simoun, who smiled.

“You’re surprised,” he said with his icy smile, “that this Indian, so

poorly dressed, speaks Spanish well? He was a schoolmaster who

persisted in teaching Spanish to the children and did not stop until he

had lost his position and had been deported as a disturber of the

public peace, and for having been a friend of the unfortunate Ibarra. I

got him back from his deportation, where he had been working as a

pruner of coconut-palms, and have made him a pyrotechnist.”

They returned to the street and set out for Trozo. Before a wooden

house of pleasant and well-kept appearance was a Spaniard on crutches,

enjoying the moonlight. When Simoun accosted him, his attempt to rise

was accompanied by a stifled groan.

“You’re ready?” Simoun inquired of him.

“I always am!”

“The coming week?”

“So soon?”

“At the first cannon-shot!”

He moved away, followed by Placido, who was beginning to ask himself if

he were not dreaming.

“Does it surprise you,” Simoun asked him, “to see a Spaniard so young

and so afflicted with disease? Two years ago he was as robust as you

are, but his enemies succeeded in sending him to Balabak to work in a

penal settlement, and there he caught the rheumatism and fever that are

dragging him into the grave. The poor devil had married a very

beautiful woman.”

As an empty carriage was passing, Simoun hailed it and with Placido

directed it to his house in the Escolta, just at the moment when the

clocks were striking half-past ten.

Two hours later Placido left the jeweler’s house and walked gravely and

thoughtfully along the Escolta, then almost deserted, in spite of the

fact that the cafés were still quite animated. Now and then a carriage

passed rapidly, clattering noisily over the worn pavement.

From a room in his house that overlooked the Pasig, Simoun turned his

gaze toward the Walled City, which could be seen through the open

windows, with its roofs of galvanized iron gleaming in the moonlight

and its somber towers showing dull and gloomy in the midst of the

serene night. He laid aside his blue goggles, and his white hair, like

a frame of silver, surrounded his energetic bronzed features, dimly

lighted by a lamp whose flame was dying out from lack of oil.

Apparently wrapped in thought, he took no notice of the fading light

and impending darkness.

“Within a few days,” he murmured, “when on all sides that accursed city

is burning, den of presumptuous nothingness and impious exploitation of

the ignorant and the distressed, when the tumults break out in the

suburbs and there rush into the terrorized streets my avenging hordes,

engendered by rapacity and wrongs, then will I burst the walls of your

prison, I will tear you from the clutches of fanaticism, and my white

dove, you will be the Phoenix that will rise from the glowing embers! A

revolution plotted by men in darkness tore me from your side—another

revolution will sweep me into your arms and revive me! That moon,

before reaching the apogee of its brilliance, will light the

Philippines cleansed of loathsome filth!”

Simoun, stopped suddenly, as though interrupted. A voice in his inner

consciousness was asking if he, Simoun, were not also a part of the

filth of that accursed city, perhaps its most poisonous ferment. Like

the dead who are to rise at the sound of the last trumpet, a thousand

bloody specters—desperate shades of murdered men, women violated,

fathers torn from their families, vices stimulated and encouraged,

virtues mocked, now rose in answer to the mysterious question. For the

first time in his criminal career, since in Havana he had by means of

corruption and bribery set out to fashion an instrument for the

execution of his plans—a man without faith, patriotism, or

conscience—for the first time in that life, something within rose up

and protested against his actions. He closed his eyes and remained for

some time motionless, then rubbed his hand over his forehead, tried to

be deaf to his conscience, and felt fear creeping over him. No, he must

not analyze himself, he lacked the courage to turn his gaze toward his

past. The idea of his courage, his conviction, his self-confidence

failing him at the very moment when his work was set before him! As the

ghosts of the wretches in whose misfortunes he had taken a hand

continued to hover before his eyes, as if issuing from the shining

surface of the river to invade the room with appeals and hands extended

toward him, as reproaches and laments seemed to fill the air with

threats and cries for vengeance, he turned his gaze from the window and

for the first time began to tremble.

“No, I must be ill, I can’t be feeling well,” he muttered. “There are

many who hate me, who ascribe their misfortunes to me, but—”

He felt his forehead begin to burn, so he arose to approach the window

and inhale the fresh night breeze. Below him the Pasig dragged along

its silvered stream, on whose bright surface the foam glittered,

winding slowly about, receding and advancing, following the course of

the little eddies. The city loomed up on the opposite bank, and its

black walls looked fateful, mysterious, losing their sordidness in the

moonlight that idealizes and embellishes everything. But again Simoun

shivered; he seemed to see before him the severe countenance of his

father, dying in prison, but dying for having done good; then the face

of another man, severer still, who had given his life for him because

he believed that he was going to bring about the regeneration of his

country.

“No, I can’t turn back,” he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from his

forehead. “The work is at hand and its success will justify me! If I

had conducted myself as you did, I should have succumbed. Nothing of

idealism, nothing of fallacious theories! Fire and steel to the cancer,

chastisement to vice, and afterwards destroy the instrument, if it be

bad! No, I have planned well, but now I feel feverish, my reason

wavers, it is natural—If I have done ill, it has been that I may do

good, and the end justifies the means. What I will do is not to expose

myself—”

With his thoughts thus confused he lay down, and tried to fall asleep.

On the following morning Placido listened submissively, with a smile on

his lips, to his mother’s preachment. When she spoke of her plan of

interesting the Augustinian procurator he did not protest or object,

but on the contrary offered himself to carry it out, in order to save

trouble for his mother, whom he begged to return at once to the

province, that very day, if possible. Cabesang Andang asked him the

reason for such haste.

“Because—because if the procurator learns that you are here he won’t do

anything until you send him a present and order some masses.”