The Reign of Greed - 02

any confidence in the discretion of the others.
"The fact is that this man, being an American, thinks no doubt
that we are dealing with the redskins. To talk of these matters on
a steamer! Compel, force the people! And he's the very person who
advised the expedition to the Carolines and the campaign in Mindanao,
which is going to bring us to disgraceful ruin. He's the one who
has offered to superintend the building of the cruiser, and I say,
what does a jeweler, no matter how rich and learned he may be, know
about naval construction?"
All this was spoken by Don Custodio in a guttural tone to his neighbor
Ben-Zayb, while he gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and from time
to time with his looks consulted the others, who were nodding their
heads ambiguously. The Canon Irene indulged in a rather equivocal
smile, which he half hid with his hand as he rubbed his nose.
"I tell you, Ben-Zayb," continued Don Custodio, slapping the journalist
on the arm, "all the trouble comes from not consulting the old-timers
here. A project in fine words, and especially with a big appropriation,
with an appropriation in round numbers, dazzles, meets with acceptance
at once, for this!" Here, in further explanation, he rubbed the tip
of his thumb against his middle and forefinger. [4]
"There's something in that, there's something in that," Ben-Zayb
thought it his duty to remark, since in his capacity of journalist
he had to be informed about everything.
"Now look here, before the port works I presented a project, original,
simple, useful, economical, and practicable, for clearing away the bar
in the lake, and it hasn't been accepted because there wasn't any of
that in it." He repeated the movement of his fingers, shrugged his
shoulders, and gazed at the others as though to say, "Have you ever
heard of such a misfortune?"
"May we know what it was?" asked several, drawing nearer and giving
him their attention. The projects of Don Custodio were as renowned
as quacks' specifics.
Don Custodio was on the point of refusing to explain it from
resentment at not having found any supporters in his diatribe against
Simoun. "When there's no danger, you want me to talk, eh? And when
there is, you keep quiet!" he was going to say, but that would cause
the loss of a good opportunity, and his project, now that it could
not be carried out, might at least be known and admired.
After blowing out two or three puffs of smoke, coughing, and spitting
through a scupper, he slapped Ben-Zayb on the thigh and asked,
"You've seen ducks?"
"I rather think so--we've hunted them on the lake," answered the
surprised journalist.
"No, I'm not talking about wild ducks, I'm talking of the domestic
ones, of those that are raised in Pateros and Pasig. Do you know what
they feed on?"
Ben-Zayb, the only thinking head, did not know--he was not engaged
in that business.
"On snails, man, on snails!" exclaimed Padre Camorra. "One doesn't
have to be an Indian to know that; it's sufficient to have eyes!"
"Exactly so, on snails!" repeated Don Custodio, flourishing his
forefinger. "And do you know where they get them?"
Again the thinking head did not know.
"Well, if you had been in the country as many years as I have, you
would know that they fish them out of the bar itself, where they
abound, mixed with the sand."
"Then your project?"
"Well, I'm coming to that. My idea was to compel all the towns round
about, near the bar, to raise ducks, and you'll see how they, all
by themselves, will deepen the channel by fishing for the snails--no
more and no less, no more and no less!"
Here Don Custodio extended his arms and gazed triumphantly at the
stupefaction of his hearers--to none of them had occurred such an
original idea.
"Will you allow me to write an article about that?" asked Ben-Zayb. "In
this country there is so little thinking done--"
"But, Don Custodio," exclaimed Doña Victorina with smirks and grimaces,
"if everybody takes to raising ducks the _balot_ [5] eggs will become
abundant. Ugh, how nasty! Rather, let the bar close up entirely!"


CHAPTER II
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."


CHAPTER III
LEGENDS

Ich weiss nicht was soil es bedeuten
Dass ich so traurig bin!

When Padre Florentino joined the group above, the bad humor provoked by
the previous discussion had entirely disappeared. Perhaps their spirits
had been raised by the attractive houses of the town of Pasig, or the
glasses of sherry they had drunk in preparation for the coming meal, or
the prospect of a good breakfast. Whatever the cause, the fact was that
they were all laughing and joking, even including the lean Franciscan,
although he made little noise and his smiles looked like death-grins.
"Evil times, evil times!" said Padre Sibyla with a laugh.
"Get out, don't say that, Vice-Rector!" responded the Canon Irene,
giving the other's chair a shove. "In Hongkong you're doing a fine
business, putting up every building that--ha, ha!"
"Tut, tut!" was the reply; "you don't see our expenses, and the
tenants on our estates are beginning to complain--"
"Here, enough of complaints, _puñales,_ else I'll fall to
weeping!" cried Padre Camorra gleefully. "We're not complaining,
and we haven't either estates or banking-houses. You know that my
Indians are beginning to haggle over the fees and to flash schedules on
me! Just look how they cite schedules to me now, and none other than
those of the Archbishop Basilio Sancho, [10] as if from his time up
to now prices had not risen. Ha, ha, ha! Why should a baptism cost
less than a chicken? But I play the deaf man, collect what I can,
and never complain. We're not avaricious, are we, Padre Salvi?"
At that moment Simoun's head appeared above the hatchway.
"Well, where've you been keeping yourself?" Don Custodio called to
him, having forgotten all about their dispute. "You're missing the
prettiest part of the trip!"
"Pshaw!" retorted Simoun, as he ascended, "I've seen so many rivers
and landscapes that I'm only interested in those that call up legends."
"As for legends, the Pasig has a few," observed the captain, who did
not relish any depreciation of the river where he navigated and earned
his livelihood. "Here you have that of _Malapad-na-bato,_ a rock sacred
before the coming of the Spaniards as the abode of spirits. Afterwards,
when the superstition had been dissipated and the rock profaned, it was
converted into a nest of tulisanes, since from its crest they easily
captured the luckless bankas, which had to contend against both the
currents and men. Later, in our time, in spite of human interference,
there are still told stories about wrecked bankas, and if on rounding
it I didn't steer with my six senses, I'd be smashed against its
sides. Then you have another legend, that of Doña Jeronima's cave,
which Padre Florentino can relate to you."
"Everybody knows that," remarked Padre Sibyla disdainfully.
But neither Simoun, nor Ben-Zayb, nor Padre Irene, nor Padre Camorra
knew it, so they begged for the story, some in jest and others from
genuine curiosity. The priest, adopting the tone of burlesque with
which some had made their request, began like an old tutor relating
a story to children.
"Once upon a time there was a student who had made a promise of
marriage to a young woman in his country, but it seems that he failed
to remember her. She waited for him faithfully year after year, her
youth passed, she grew into middle age, and then one day she heard a
report that her old sweetheart was the Archbishop of Manila. Disguising
herself as a man, she came round the Cape and presented herself before
his grace, demanding the fulfilment of his promise. What she asked
was of course impossible, so the Archbishop ordered the preparation
of the cave that you may have noticed with its entrance covered and
decorated with a curtain of vines. There she lived and died and there
she is buried. The legend states that Doña Jeronima was so fat that
she had to turn sidewise to get into it. Her fame as an enchantress
sprung from her custom of throwing into the river the silver dishes
which she used in the sumptuous banquets that were attended by crowds
of gentlemen. A net was spread under the water to hold the dishes
and thus they were cleaned. It hasn't been twenty years since the
river washed the very entrance of the cave, but it has gradually been
receding, just as the memory of her is dying out among the people."
"A beautiful legend!" exclaimed Ben-Zayb. "I'm going to write an
article about it. It's sentimental!"
Doña Victorina thought of dwelling in such a cave and was about to
say so, when Simoun took the floor instead.
"But what's your opinion about that, Padre Salvi?" he asked the
Franciscan, who seemed to be absorbed in thought. "Doesn't it seem to
you as though his Grace, instead of giving her a cave, ought to have
placed her in a nunnery--in St. Clara's, for example? What do you say?"
There was a start of surprise on Padre Sibyla's part to notice that
Padre Salvi shuddered and looked askance at Simoun.
"Because it's not a very gallant act," continued Simoun quite
naturally, "to give a rocky cliff as a home to one with whose
hopes we have trifled. It's hardly religious to expose her thus to
temptation, in a cave on the banks of a river--it smacks of nymphs and
dryads. It would have been more gallant, more pious, more romantic,
more in keeping with the customs of this country, to shut her up in
St. Clara's, like a new Eloise, in order to visit and console her
from time to time."
"I neither can nor should pass judgment upon the conduct of
archbishops," replied the Franciscan sourly.
"But you, who are the ecclesiastical governor, acting in the place
of our Archbishop, what would you do if such a case should arise?"
Padre Salvi shrugged his shoulders and calmly responded, "It's not
worth while thinking about what can't happen. But speaking of legends,
don't overlook the most beautiful, since it is the truest: that of
the miracle of St. Nicholas, the ruins of whose church you may have
noticed. I'm going to relate it to Señor Simoun, as he probably hasn't
heard it. It seems that formerly the river, as well as the lake,
was infested with caymans, so huge and voracious that they attacked
bankas and upset them with a slap of the tail. Our chronicles relate
that one day an infidel Chinaman, who up to that time had refused to be
converted, was passing in front of the church, when suddenly the devil
presented himself to him in the form of a cayman and upset the banka,
in order to devour him and carry him off to hell. Inspired by God,
the Chinaman at that moment called upon St. Nicholas and instantly
the cayman was changed into a stone. The old people say that in
their time the monster could easily be recognized in the pieces of
stone that were left, and, for my part, I can assure you that I have
clearly made out the head, to judge from which the monster must have
been enormously large."
"Marvelous, a marvelous legend!" exclaimed Ben-Zayb. "It's good for an
article--the description of the monster, the terror of the Chinaman,
the waters of the river, the bamboo brakes. Also, it'll do for a study
of comparative religions; because, look you, an infidel Chinaman in
great distress invoked exactly the saint that he must know only by
hearsay and in whom he did not believe. Here there's no room for the
proverb that 'a known evil is preferable to an unknown good.' If I
should find myself in China and get caught in such a difficulty, I
would invoke the obscurest saint in the calendar before Confucius or
Buddha. Whether this is due to the manifest superiority of Catholicism
or to the inconsequential and illogical inconsistency in the brains
of the yellow race, a profound study of anthropology alone will be
able to elucidate."
Ben-Zayb had adopted the tone of a lecturer and was describing
circles in the air with his forefinger, priding himself on his
imagination, which from the most insignificant facts could deduce
so many applications and inferences. But noticing that Simoun was
preoccupied and thinking that he was pondering over what he, Ben-Zayb,
had just said, he inquired what the jeweler was meditating about.
"About two very important questions," answered Simoun; "two questions
that you might add to your article. First, what may have become of
the devil on seeing himself suddenly confined within a stone? Did he
escape? Did he stay there? Was he crushed? Second, if the petrified
animals that I have seen in various European museums may not have
been the victims of some antediluvian saint?"
The tone in which the jeweler spoke was so serious, while he rested
his forehead on the tip of his forefinger in an attitude of deep
meditation, that Padre Camorra responded very gravely, "Who knows,
who knows?"
"Since we're busy with legends and are now entering the lake,"
remarked Padre Sibyla, "the captain must know many--"
At that moment the steamer crossed the bar and the panorama spread out