The Reign of Greed - 04

Messiah. The little animals, fat and round as eggs, seemed to be so
pleased that at times they would take a leap, lose their balance, fall,
and catch fire. The owner would then hasten to extinguish such burning
enthusiasm, puffing and blowing until he finally beat out the fire,
and then, seeing his toy destroyed, would fall to weeping. The cochero
observed with sadness that the race of little paper animals disappeared
each year, as if they had been attacked by the pest like the living
animals. He, the abused Sinong, remembered his two magnificent horses,
which, at the advice of the curate, he had caused to be blessed to
save them from plague, spending therefor ten pesos--for neither
the government nor the curates have found any better remedy for
the epizootic--and they had died after all. Yet he consoled himself
by remembering also that after the shower of holy water, the Latin
phrases of the padre, and the ceremonies, the horses had become so
vain and self-important that they would not even allow him, Sinong,
a good Christian, to put them in harness, and he had not dared to whip
them, because a tertiary sister had said that they were _sanctified_.
The procession was closed by the Virgin dressed as the Divine Shepherd,
with a pilgrim's hat of wide brim and long plumes to indicate the
journey to Jerusalem. That the birth might be made more explicable, the
curate had ordered her figure to be stuffed with rags and cotton under
her skirt, so that no one could be in any doubt as to her condition. It
was a very beautiful image, with the same sad expression of all the
images that the Filipinos make, and a mien somewhat ashamed, doubtless
at the way in which the curate had arranged her. In front came several
singers and behind, some musicians with the usual civil-guards. The
curate, as was to be expected after what he had done, was not in his
place, for that year he was greatly displeased at having to use all
his diplomacy and shrewdness to convince the townspeople that they
should pay thirty pesos for each Christmas mass instead of the usual
twenty. "You're turning filibusters!" he had said to them.
The cochero must have been greatly preoccupied with the sights of the
procession, for when it had passed and Basilio ordered him to go on, he
did not notice that the lamp on his carromata had gone out. Neither did
Basilio notice it, his attention being devoted to gazing at the houses,
which were illuminated inside and out with little paper lanterns
of fantastic shapes and colors, stars surrounded by hoops with long
streamers which produced a pleasant murmur when shaken by the wind,
and fishes of movable heads and tails, having a glass of oil inside,
suspended from the eaves of the windows in the delightful fashion of
a happy and homelike fiesta. But he also noticed that the lights were
flickering, that the stars were being eclipsed, that this year had
fewer ornaments and hangings than the former, which in turn had had
even fewer than the year preceding it. There was scarcely any music
in the streets, while the agreeable noises of the kitchen were not to
be heard in all the houses, which the youth ascribed to the fact that
for some time things had been going badly, the sugar did not bring a
good price, the rice crops had failed, over half the live stock had
died, but the taxes rose and increased for some inexplicable reason,
while the abuses of the Civil Guard became more frequent to kill off
the happiness of the people in the towns.
He was just pondering over this when an energetic
"Halt!" resounded. They were passing in front of the barracks and one
of the guards had noticed the extinguished lamp of the carromata,
which could not go on without it. A hail of insults fell about the
poor cochero, who vainly excused himself with the length of the
procession. He would be arrested for violating the ordinances and
afterwards advertised in the newspapers, so the peaceful and prudent
Basilio left the carromata and went his way on foot, carrying his
valise. This was San Diego, his native town, where he had not a
single relative.
The only, house wherein there seemed to be any mirth was Capitan
Basilio's. Hens and chickens cackled their death chant to the
accompaniment of dry and repeated strokes, as of meat pounded on a
chopping-block, and the sizzling of grease in the frying-pans. A feast
was going on in the house, and even into the street there passed a
certain draught of air, saturated with the succulent odors of stews
and confections. In the entresol Basilio saw Sinang, as small as
when our readers knew her before, [14] although a little rounder and
plumper since her marriage. Then to his great surprise he made out,
further in at the back of the room, chatting with Capitan Basilio,
the curate, and the alferez of the Civil Guard, no less than the
jeweler Simoun, as ever with his blue goggles and his nonchalant air.
"It's understood, Señor Simoun," Capitan Basilio was saying, "that
we'll go to Tiani to see your jewels."
"I would also go," remarked the alferez, "because I need a watch-chain,
but I'm so busy--if Capitan Basilio would undertake--"
Capitan Basilio would do so with the greatest pleasure, and as
he wished to propitiate the soldier in order that he might not be
molested in the persons of his laborers, he refused to accept the
money which the alferez was trying to get out of his pocket.
"It's my Christmas gift!"
"I can't allow you, Capitan, I can't permit it!"
"All right! We'll settle up afterwards," replied Capitan Basilio with
a lordly gesture.
Also, the curate wanted a pair of lady's earrings and requested the
capitan to buy them for him. "I want them first class. Later we'll
fix up the account."
"Don't worry about that, Padre," said the good man, who wished to be
at peace with the Church also. An unfavorable report on the curate's
part could do him great damage and cause him double the expense,
for those earrings were a forced present. Simoun in the meantime was
praising his jewels.
"That fellow is fierce!" mused the student. "He does business
everywhere. And if I can believe _a certain person,_ he buys from some
gentlemen for a half of their value the same jewels that he himself
has sold for presents. Everybody in this country prospers but us!"
He made his way to his house, or rather Capitan Tiago's, now occupied
by a trustworthy man who had held him in great esteem since the
day when he had seen him perform a surgical operation with the same
coolness that he would cut up a chicken. This man was now waiting to
give him the news. Two of the laborers were prisoners, one was to be
deported, and a number of carabaos had died.
"The same old story," exclaimed Basilio, in a bad humor. "You always
receive me with the same complaints." The youth was not overbearing,
but as he was at times scolded by Capitan Tiago, he liked in his turn
to chide those under his orders.
The old man cast about for something new. "One of our tenants has died,
the old fellow who took care of the woods, and the curate refused to
bury him as a pauper, saying that his master is a rich man."
"What did he die of?"
"Of old age."
"Get out! To die of old age! It must at least have been some
disease." Basilio in his zeal for making autopsies wanted diseases.
"Haven't you anything new to tell me? You take away my appetite
relating the same old things. Do you know anything of Sagpang?"
The old man then told him about the kidnapping of Cabesang
Tales. Basilio became thoughtful and said nothing more--his appetite
had completely left him.


CHAPTER VI
BASILIO

When the bells began their chimes for the midnight mass and those who
preferred a good sleep to fiestas and ceremonies arose grumbling at
the noise and movement, Basilio cautiously left the house, took two
or three turns through the streets to see that he was not watched
or followed, and then made his way by unfrequented paths to the road
that led to the ancient wood of the Ibarras, which had been acquired
by Capitan Tiago when their property was confiscated and sold. As
Christmas fell under the waning moon that year, the place was wrapped
in darkness. The chimes had ceased, and only the tolling sounded
through the darkness of the night amid the murmur of the breeze-stirred
branches and the measured roar of the waves on the neighboring lake,
like the deep respiration of nature sunk in profound sleep.
Awed by the time and place, the youth moved along with his head down,
as if endeavoring to see through the darkness. But from time to time
he raised it to gaze at the stars through the open spaces between the
treetops and went forward parting the bushes or tearing away the lianas
that obstructed his path. At times he retraced his steps, his foot
would get caught among the plants, he stumbled over a projecting root
or a fallen log. At the end of a half-hour he reached a small brook on
the opposite side of which arose a hillock, a black and shapeless mass
that in the darkness took on the proportions of a mountain. Basilio
crossed the brook on the stones that showed black against the shining
surface of the water, ascended the hill, and made his way to a small
space enclosed by old and crumbling walls. He approached the balete
tree that rose in the center, huge, mysterious, venerable, formed of
roots that extended up and down among the confusedly-interlaced trunks.
Pausing before a heap of stones he took off his hat and seemed to be
praying. There his mother was buried, and every time he came to the
town his first visit was to that neglected and unknown grave. Since he
must visit Cabesang Tales' family the next day, he had taken advantage
of the night to perform this duty. Seated on a stone, he seemed to fall
into deep thought. His past rose before him like a long black film,
rosy at first, then shadowy with spots of blood, then black, black,
gray, and then light, ever lighter. The end could not be seen, hidden
as it was by a cloud through which shone lights and the hues of dawn.
Thirteen years before to the day, almost to the hour, his mother
had died there in the deepest distress, on a glorious night when the
moon shone brightly and the Christians of the world were engaged in
rejoicing. Wounded and limping, he had reached there in pursuit of
her--she mad and terrified, fleeing from her son as from a ghost. There
she had died, and there had come a stranger who had commanded him to
build a funeral pyre. He had obeyed mechanically and when he returned
he found a second stranger by the side of the other's corpse. What
a night and what a morning those were! The stranger helped him raise
the pyre, whereon they burned the corpse of the first, dug the grave
in which they buried his mother, and then after giving him some pieces
of money told him to leave the place. It was the first time that he had
seen that man--tall, with blood-shot eyes, pale lips, and a sharp nose.
Entirely alone in the world, without parents or brothers and sisters,
he left the town whose authorities inspired in him such great fear and
went to Manila to work in some rich house and study at the same time,
as many do. His journey was an Odyssey of sleeplessness and startling
surprises, in which hunger counted for little, for he ate the fruits
in the woods, whither he retreated whenever he made out from afar the
uniform of the Civil Guard, a sight that recalled the origin of all
his misfortunes. Once in Manila, ragged and sick, he went from door
to door offering his services. A boy from the provinces who knew not
a single word of Spanish, and sickly besides! Discouraged, hungry, and
miserable, he wandered about the streets, attracting attention by the
wretchedness of his clothing. How often was he tempted to throw himself
under the feet of the horses that flashed by, drawing carriages shining
with silver and varnish, thus to end his misery at once! Fortunately,
he saw Capitan Tiago, accompanied by Aunt Isabel. He had known them
since the days in San Diego, and in his joy believed that in them he
saw almost fellow-townsfolk. He followed the carriage until he lost
sight of it, and then made inquiries for the house. As it was the
very day that Maria Clara entered the nunnery and Capitan Tiago was
accordingly depressed, he was admitted as a servant, without pay,
but instead with leave to study, if he so wished, in San Juan de
Letran. [15]
Dirty, poorly dressed, with only a pair of clogs for footwear, at
the end of several months' stay in Manila, he entered the first year
of Latin. On seeing his clothes, his classmates drew away from him,
and the professor, a handsome Dominican, never asked him a question,
but frowned every time he looked at him. In the eight months that
the class continued, the only words that passed between them were
his name read from the roll and the daily _adsum_ with which the
student responded. With what bitterness he left the class each
day, and, guessing the reason for the treatment accorded him, what
tears sprang into his eyes and what complaints were stifled in his
heart! How he had wept and sobbed over the grave of his mother,
relating to her his hidden sorrows, humiliations, and affronts,
when at the approach of Christmas Capitan Tiago had taken him back
to San Diego! Yet he memorized the lessons without omitting a comma,
although he understood scarcely any part of them. But at length he
became resigned, noticing that among the three or four hundred in his
class only about forty merited the honor of being questioned, because
they attracted the professor's attention by their appearance, some
prank, comicality, or other cause. The greater part of the students
congratulated themselves that they thus escaped the work of thinking
and understanding the subject. "One goes to college, not to learn
and study, but to gain credit for the course, so if the book can be
memorized, what more can be asked--the year is thus gained." [16]
Basilio passed the examinations by answering the solitary question
asked him, like a machine, without stopping or breathing, and in the
amusement of the examiners won the passing certificate. His nine
companions--they were examined in batches of ten in order to save
time--did not have such good luck, but were condemned to repeat the
year of brutalization.
In the second year the game-cock that he tended won a large sum and he
received from Capitan Tiago a big tip, which he immediately invested
in the purchase of shoes and a felt hat. With these and the clothes
given him by his employer, which he made over to fit his person,
his appearance became more decent, but did not get beyond that. In
such a large class a great deal was needed to attract the professor's
attention, and the student who in the first year did not make himself
known by some special quality, or did not capture the good-will of the
professors, could with difficulty make himself known in the rest of his
school-days. But Basilio kept on, for perseverance was his chief trait.
His fortune seemed to change somewhat when he entered the third
year. His professor happened to be a very jolly fellow, fond of
jokes and of making the students laugh, complacent enough in that
he almost always had his favorites recite the lessons--in fact,
he was satisfied with anything. At this time Basilio now wore shoes
and a clean and well-ironed camisa. As his professor noticed that
he laughed very little at the jokes and that his large eyes seemed
to be asking something like an eternal question, he took him for
a fool, and one day decided to make him conspicuous by calling
on him for the lesson. Basilio recited it from beginning to end,
without hesitating over a single letter, so the professor called him
a parrot and told a story to make the class laugh. Then to increase
the hilarity and justify the epithet he asked several questions,
at the same time winking to his favorites, as if to say to them,
"You'll see how we're going to amuse ourselves."
Basilio now understood Spanish and answered the questions with the
plain intention of making no one laugh. This disgusted everybody,
the expected absurdity did not materialize, no one could laugh, and
the good friar never pardoned him for having defrauded the hopes of
the class and disappointed his own prophecies. But who would expect
anything worth while to come from a head so badly combed and placed on
an Indian poorly shod, classified until recently among the arboreal
animals? As in other centers of learning, where the teachers are
honestly desirous that the students should learn, such discoveries
usually delight the instructors, so in a college managed by men
convinced that for the most part knowledge is an evil, at least for
the students, the episode of Basilio produced a bad impression and
he was not questioned again during the year. Why should he be, when
he made no one laugh?
Quite discouraged and thinking of abandoning his studies, he passed
to the fourth year of Latin. Why study at all, why not sleep like
the others and trust to luck?
One of the two professors was very popular, beloved by all, passing
for a sage, a great poet, and a man of advanced ideas. One day when
he accompanied the collegians on their walk, he had a dispute with
some cadets, which resulted in a skirmish and a challenge. No doubt
recalling his brilliant youth, the professor preached a crusade and
promised good marks to all who during the promenade on the following
Sunday would take part in the fray. The week was a lively one--there
were occasional encounters in which canes and sabers were crossed,
and in one of these Basilio distinguished himself. Borne in triumph
by the students and presented to the professor, he thus became known
to him and came to be his favorite. Partly for this reason and partly
from his diligence, that year he received the highest marks, medals
included, in view of which Capitan Tiago, who, since his daughter
had become a nun, exhibited some aversion to the friars, in a fit of
good humor induced him to transfer to the Ateneo Municipal, the fame
of which was then in its apogee.
Here a new world opened before his eyes--a system of instruction
that he had never dreamed of. Except for a few superfluities and some
childish things, he was filled with admiration for the methods there
used and with gratitude for the zeal of the instructors. His eyes at
times filled with tears when he thought of the four previous years
during which, from lack of means, he had been unable to study at that
center. He had to make extraordinary efforts to get himself to the
level of those who had had a good preparatory course, and it might be
said that in that one year he learned the whole five of the secondary
curricula. He received his bachelor's degree, to the great satisfaction
of his instructors, who in the examinations showed themselves to be
proud of him before the Dominican examiners sent there to inspect the
school. One of these, as if to dampen such great enthusiasm a little,
asked him where he had studied the first years of Latin.
"In San Juan de Letran, Padre," answered Basilio.
"Aha! Of course! He's not bad,--in Latin," the Dominican then remarked
with a slight smile.
From choice and temperament he selected the course in medicine. Capitan
Tiago preferred the law, in order that he might have a lawyer free,
but knowledge of the laws is not sufficient to secure clientage
in the Philippines--it is necessary to win the cases, and for this
friendships are required, influence in certain spheres, a good deal of
astuteness. Capitan Tiago finally gave in, remembering that medical
students get on intimate terms with corpses, and for some time he
had been seeking a poison to put on the gaffs of his game-cocks,
the best he had been able to secure thus far being the blood of a
Chinaman who had died of syphilis.
With equal diligence, or more if possible, the young man continued
this course, and after the third year began to render medical services
with such great success that he was not only preparing a brilliant
future for himself but also earning enough to dress well and save
some money. This was the last year of the course and in two months he
would be a physician; he would come back to the town, he would marry
Juliana, and they would be happy. The granting of his licentiateship
was not only assured, but he expected it to be the crowning act of
his school-days, for he had been designated to deliver the valedictory
at the graduation, and already he saw himself in the rostrum, before
the whole faculty, the object of public attention. All those heads,
leaders of Manila science, half-hidden in their colored capes; all
the women who came there out of curiosity and who years before had
gazed at him, if not with disdain, at least with indifference; all
those men whose carriages had once been about to crush him down in the
mud like a dog: they would listen attentively, and he was going to
say something to them that would not be trivial, something that had
never before resounded in that place, he was going to forget himself
in order to aid the poor students of the future--and he would make
his entrance on his work in the world with that speech.


CHAPTER VII
SIMOUN

Over these matters Basilio was pondering as he visited his mother's
grave. He was about to start back to the town when he thought he saw
a light flickering among the trees and heard the snapping of twigs,
the sound of feet, and rustling of leaves. The light disappeared
but the noises became more distinct, coming directly toward where he
was. Basilio was not naturally superstitious, especially after having
carved up so many corpses and watched beside so many death-beds,
but the old legends about that ghostly spot, the hour, the darkness,
the melancholy sighing of the wind, and certain tales heard in his
childhood, asserted their influence over his mind and made his heart
beat violently.
The figure stopped on the other side of the balete, but the youth
could see it through an open space between two roots that had grown
in the course of time to the proportions of tree-trunks. It produced
from under its coat a lantern with a powerful reflecting lens, which
it placed on the ground, thereby lighting up a pair of riding-boots,
the rest of the figure remaining concealed in the darkness. The figure
seemed to search its pockets and then bent over to fix a shovel-blade
on the end of a stout cane. To his great surprise Basilio thought he
could make out some of the features of the jeweler Simoun, who indeed
it was.
The jeweler dug in the ground and from time to time the lantern
illuminated his face, on which were not now the blue goggles that so
completely disguised him. Basilio shuddered: that was the same stranger
who thirteen years before had dug his mother's grave there, only now
he had aged somewhat, his hair had turned white, he wore a beard and
a mustache, but yet his look was the same, the bitter expression,
the same cloud on his brow, the same muscular arms, though somewhat
thinner now, the same violent energy. Old impressions were stirred
in the boy: he seemed to feel the heat of the fire, the hunger, the
weariness of that time, the smell of freshly turned earth. Yet his
discovery terrified him--that jeweler Simoun, who passed for a British
Indian, a Portuguese, an American, a mulatto, the Brown Cardinal, his
Black Eminence, the evil genius of the Captain-General as many called
him, was no other than the mysterious stranger whose appearance and
disappearance coincided with the death of the heir to that land! But
of the two strangers who had appeared, which was Ibarra, the living
or the dead?
This question, which he had often asked himself whenever Ibarra's death
was mentioned, again came into his mind in the presence of the human
enigma he now saw before him. The dead man had had two wounds, which
must have been made by firearms, as he knew from what he had since
studied, and which would be the result of the chase on the lake. Then
the dead man must have been Ibarra, who had come to die at the tomb
of his forefathers, his desire to be cremated being explained by his
residence in Europe, where cremation is practised. Then who was the
other, the living, this jeweler Simoun, at that time with such an
appearance of poverty and wretchedness, but who had now returned
loaded with gold and a friend of the authorities? There was the
mystery, and the student, with his characteristic cold-bloodedness,
determined to clear it up at the first opportunity.
Simoun dug away for some time, but Basilio noticed that his old vigor
had declined--he panted and had to rest every few moments. Fearing
that he might be discovered, the boy made a sudden resolution. Rising
from his seat and issuing from his hiding-place, he asked in the most
matter-of-fact tone, "Can I help you, sir?"
Simoun straightened up with the spring of a tiger attacked at his
prey, thrust his hand in his coat pocket, and stared at the student
with a pale and lowering gaze.
"Thirteen years ago you rendered me a great service, sir," went on
Basilio unmoved, "in this very place, by burying my mother, and I
should consider myself happy if I could serve you now."
Without taking his eyes off the youth Simoun drew a revolver from
his pocket and the click of a hammer being cocked was heard. "For
whom do you take me?" he asked, retreating a few paces.
"For a person who is sacred to me," replied Basilio with some emotion,
for he thought his last moment had come. "For a person whom all, except
me, believe to be dead, and whose misfortunes I have always lamented."
An impressive silence followed these words, a silence that to the
youth seemed to suggest eternity. But Simoun, after some hesitation,
approached him and placing a hand on his shoulder said in a moving
tone: "Basilio, you possess a secret that can ruin me and now you have
just surprised me in another, which puts me completely in your hands,
the divulging of which would upset all my plans. For my own security
and for the good of the cause in which I labor, I ought to seal your
lips forever, for what is the life of one man compared to the end I
seek? The occasion is fitting; no one knows that I have come here;
I am armed; you are defenceless; your death would be attributed to
the outlaws, if not to more supernatural causes--yet I'll let you
live and trust that I shall not regret it. You have toiled, you have
struggled with energetic perseverance, and like myself, you have your
scores to settle with society. Your brother was murdered, your mother
driven to insanity, and society has prosecuted neither the assassin
nor the executioner. You and I are the dregs of justice and instead
of destroying we ought to aid each other."
Simoun paused with a repressed sigh, and then slowly resumed, while
his gaze wandered about: "Yes, I am he who came here thirteen years
ago, sick and wretched, to pay the last tribute to a great and noble
soul that was willing to die for me. The victim of a vicious system, I
have wandered over the world, working night and day to amass a fortune
and carry out my plan. Now I have returned to destroy that system,
to precipitate its downfall, to hurl it into the abyss toward which
it is senselessly rushing, even though I may have to shed oceans
of tears and blood. It has condemned itself, it stands condemned,
and I don't want to die before I have seen it in fragments at the
foot of the precipice!"
Simoun extended both his arms toward the earth, as if with that gesture
he would like to hold there the broken remains. His voice took on a
sinister, even lugubrious tone, which made the student shudder.
"Called by the vices of the rulers, I have returned to these islands,
and under the cloak of a merchant have visited the towns. My gold
has opened a way for me and wheresoever I have beheld greed in the
most execrable forms, sometimes hypocritical, sometimes shameless,
sometimes cruel, fatten on the dead organism, like a vulture on a
corpse, I have asked myself--why was there not, festering in its