The Reign of Greed - 06

On the following day, to the great surprise of the village, the jeweler
Simoun, followed by two servants, each carrying a canvas-covered chest,
requested the hospitality of Cabesang Tales, who even in the midst
of his wretchedness did not forget the good Filipino customs--rather,
he was troubled to think that he had no way of properly entertaining
the stranger. But Simoun brought everything with him, servants and
provisions, and merely wished to spend the day and night in the house
because it was the largest in the village and was situated between
San Diego and Tiani, towns where he hoped to find many customers.
Simoun secured information about the condition of the roads and asked
Cabesang Tales if his revolver was a sufficient protection against
the tulisanes.
"They have rifles that shoot a long way," was the rather absent-minded
reply.
"This revolver does no less," remarked Simoun, firing at an areca-palm
some two hundred paces away.
Cabesang Tales noticed that some nuts fell, but remained silent
and thoughtful.
Gradually the families, drawn by the fame of the jeweler's wares,
began to collect. They wished one another merry Christmas, they
talked of masses, saints, poor crops, but still were there to spend
their savings for jewels and trinkets brought from Europe. It was
known that the jeweler was the friend of the Captain-General, so it
wasn't lost labor to get on good terms with him, and thus be prepared
for contingencies.
Capitan Basilio came with his wife, daughter, and son-in-law, prepared
to spend at least three thousand pesos. Sister Penchang was there to
buy a diamond ring she had promised to the Virgin of Antipolo. She
had left Juli at home memorizing a booklet the curate had sold her for
four cuartos, with forty days of indulgence granted by the Archbishop
to every one who read it or listened to it read.
"_Jesús!_" said the pious woman to Capitana Tika, "that poor girl has
grown up like a mushroom planted by the _tikbalang._ I've made her read
the book at the top of her voice at least fifty times and she doesn't
remember a single word of it. She has a head like a sieve--full when
it's in the water. All of us hearing her, even the dogs and cats,
have won at least twenty years of indulgence."
Simoun arranged his two chests on the table, one being somewhat larger
than the other. "You don't want plated jewelry or imitation gems. This
lady," turning to Sinang, "wants real diamonds."
"That's it, yes, sir, diamonds, old diamonds, antique stones, you
know," she responded. "Papa will pay for them, because he likes antique
things, antique stones." Sinang was accustomed to joke about the great
deal of Latin her father understood and the little her husband knew.
"It just happens that I have some antique jewels," replied Simoun,
taking the canvas cover from the smaller chest, a polished steel
case with bronze trimmings and stout locks. "I have necklaces of
Cleopatra's, real and genuine, discovered in the Pyramids; rings of
Roman senators and knights, found in the ruins of Carthage."
"Probably those that Hannibal sent back after the battle of
Cannae!" exclaimed Capitan Basilio seriously, while he trembled with
pleasure. The good man, thought he had read much about the ancients,
had never, by reason of the lack of museums in Filipinas, seen any
of the objects of those times.
"I have brought besides costly earrings of Roman ladies, discovered
in the villa of Annius Mucius Papilinus in Pompeii."
Capitan Easilio nodded to show that he understood and was eager to
see such precious relics. The women remarked that they also wanted
things from Rome, such as rosaries blessed by the Pope, holy relics
that would take away sins without the need of confessions, and so on.
When the chest was opened and the cotton packing removed, there was
exposed a tray filled with rings, reliquaries, lockets, crucifixes,
brooches, and such like. The diamonds set in among variously colored
stones flashed out brightly and shimmered among golden flowers of
varied hues, with petals of enamel, all of peculiar designs and rare
Arabesque workmanship.
Simoun lifted the tray and exhibited another filled with quaint jewels
that would have satisfied the imaginations of seven débutantes on the
eves of the balls in their honor. Designs, one more fantastic than
the other, combinations of precious stones and pearls worked into
the figures of insects with azure backs and transparent forewings,
sapphires, emeralds, rubies, turquoises, diamonds, joined to form
dragon-flies, wasps, bees, butterflies, beetles, serpents, lizards,
fishes, sprays of flowers. There were diadems, necklaces of pearls
and diamonds, so that some of the girls could not withhold a _nakú_
of admiration, and Sinang gave a cluck with her tongue, whereupon
her mother pinched her to prevent her from encouraging the jeweler
to raise his prices, for Capitana Tika still pinched her daughter
even after the latter was married.
"Here you have some old diamonds," explained the jeweler. "This ring
belonged to the Princess Lamballe and those earrings to one of Marie
Antoinette's ladies." They consisted of some beautiful solitaire
diamonds, as large as grains of corn, with somewhat bluish lights,
and pervaded with a severe elegance, as though they still reflected
in their sparkles the shuddering of the Reign of Terror.
"Those two earrings!" exclaimed Sinang, looking at her father and
instinctively covering the arm next to her mother.
"Something more ancient yet, something Roman," said Capitan Basilio
with a wink.
The pious Sister Penchang thought that with such a gift the Virgin of
Antipolo would be softened and grant her her most vehement desire:
for some time she had begged for a wonderful miracle to which her
name would be attached, so that her name might be immortalized on
earth and she then ascend into heaven, like the Capitana Ines of the
curates. She inquired the price and Simoun asked three thousand pesos,
which made the good woman cross herself--_'Susmariosep!_
Simoun now exposed the third tray, which was filled with watches,
cigar- and match-cases decorated with the rarest enamels, reliquaries
set with diamonds and containing the most elegant miniatures.
The fourth tray, containing loose gems, stirred a murmur of
admiration. Sinang again clucked with her tongue, her mother again
pinched her, although at the same time herself emitting a _'Susmaría_
of wonder.
No one there had ever before seen so much wealth. In that chest lined
with dark-blue velvet, arranged in trays, were the wonders of the
_Arabian Nights,_ the dreams of Oriental fantasies. Diamonds as large
as peas glittered there, throwing out attractive rays as if they were
about to melt or burn with all the hues of the spectrum; emeralds from
Peru, of varied forms and shapes; rubies from India, red as drops of
blood; sapphires from Ceylon, blue and white; turquoises from Persia;
Oriental pearls, some rosy, some lead-colored, others black. Those
who have at night seen a great rocket burst in the azure darkness of
the sky into thousands of colored lights, so bright that they make
the eternal stars look dim, can imagine the aspect the tray presented.
As if to increase the admiration of the beholders, Simoun took the
stones out with his tapering brown fingers, gloating over their
crystalline hardness, their luminous stream, as they poured from his
hands like drops of water reflecting the tints of the rainbow. The
reflections from so many facets, the thought of their great value,
fascinated the gaze of every one.
Cabesang Tales, who had approached out of curiosity, closed his eyes
and drew back hurriedly, as if to drive away an evil thought. Such
great riches were an insult to his misfortunes; that man had come there
to make an exhibition of his immense wealth on the very day that he,
Tales, for lack of money, for lack of protectors, had to abandon the
house raised by his own hands.
"Here you have two black diamonds, among the largest in existence,"
explained the jeweler. "They're very difficult to cut because they're
the very hardest. This somewhat rosy stone is also a diamond, as is
this green one that many take for an emerald. Quiroga the Chinaman
offered me six thousand pesos for it in order to present it to a very
influential lady, and yet it is not the green ones that are the most
valuable, but these blue ones."
He selected three stones of no great size, but thick and well-cut,
of a delicate azure tint.
"For all that they are smaller than the green," he continued,
"they cost twice as much. Look at this one, the smallest of all,
weighing not more than two carats, which cost me twenty thousand
pesos and which I won't sell for less than thirty. I had to make a
special trip to buy it. This other one, from the mines of Golconda,
weighs three and a half carats and is worth over seventy thousand. The
Viceroy of India, in a letter I received the day before yesterday,
offers me twelve thousand pounds sterling for it."
Before such great wealth, all under the power of that man who talked
so unaffectedly, the spectators felt a kind of awe mingled with
dread. Sinang clucked several times and her mother did not pinch
her, perhaps because she too was overcome, or perhaps because she
reflected that a jeweler like Simoun was not going to try to gain
five pesos more or less as a result of an exclamation more or less
indiscreet. All gazed at the gems, but no one showed any desire to
handle them, they were so awe-inspiring. Curiosity was blunted by
wonder. Cabesang Tales stared out into the field, thinking that with
a single diamond, perhaps the very smallest there, he could recover
his daughter, keep his house, and perhaps rent another farm. Could
it be that those gems were worth more than a man's home, the safety
of a maiden, the peace of an old man in his declining days?
As if he guessed the thought, Simoun remarked to those about him: "Look
here--with one of these little blue stones, which appear so innocent
and inoffensive, pure as sparks scattered over the arch of heaven,
with one of these, seasonably presented, a man was able to have his
enemy deported, the father of a family, as a disturber of the peace;
and with this other little one like it, red as one's heart-blood,
as the feeling of revenge, and bright as an orphan's tears, he was
restored to liberty, the man was returned to his home, the father to
his children, the husband to the wife, and a whole family saved from
a wretched future."
He slapped the chest and went on in a loud tone in bad Tagalog: "Here
I have, as in a medicine-chest, life and death, poison and balm,
and with this handful I can drive to tears all the inhabitants of
the Philippines!"
The listeners gazed at him awe-struck, knowing him to be right. In
his voice there could be detected a strange ring, while sinister
flashes seemed to issue from behind the blue goggles.
Then as if to relieve the strain of the impression made by the gems on
such simple folk, he lifted up the tray and exposed at the bottom the
_sanctum sanctorum_. Cases of Russian leather, separated by layers of
cotton, covered a bottom lined with gray velvet. All expected wonders,
and Sinang's husband thought he saw carbuncles, gems that flashed
fire and shone in the midst of the shadows. Capitan Basilio was on
the threshold of immortality: he was going to behold something real,
something beyond his dreams.
"This was a necklace of Cleopatra's," said Simoun, taking out carefully
a flat case in the shape of a half-moon. "It's a jewel that can't be
appraised, an object for a museum, only for a rich government."
It was a necklace fashioned of bits of gold representing little idols
among green and blue beetles, with a vulture's head made from a single
piece of rare jasper at the center between two extended wings--the
symbol and decoration of Egyptian queens.
Sinang turned up her nose and made a grimace of childish depreciation,
while Capitan Basilio, with all his love for antiquity, could not
restrain an exclamation of disappointment.
"It's a magnificent jewel, well-preserved, almost two thousand
years old."
"Pshaw!" Sinang made haste to exclaim, to prevent her father's falling
into temptation.
"Fool!" he chided her, after overcoming his first disappointment. "How
do you know but that to this necklace is due the present condition
of the world? With this Cleopatra may have captivated Caesar, Mark
Antony! This has heard the burning declarations of love from the
greatest warriors of their time, it has listened to speeches in the
purest and most elegant Latin, and yet you would want to wear it!"
"I? I wouldn't give three pesos for it."
"You could give twenty, silly," said Capitana Tika in a judicial
tone. "The gold is good and melted down would serve for other jewelry."
"This is a ring that must have belonged to Sulla," continued Simoun,
exhibiting a heavy ring of solid gold with a seal on it.
"With that he must have signed the death-wrarrants during his
dictatorship!" exclaimed Capitan Basilio, pale with emotion. He
examined it and tried to decipher the seal, but though he turned
it over and over he did not understand paleography, so he could not
read it.
"What a finger Sulla had!" he observed finally. "This would fit two
of ours--as I've said, we're degenerating!"
"I still have many other jewels--"
"If they're all that kind, never mind!" interrupted Sinang. "I think
I prefer the modern."
Each one selected some piece of jewelry, one a ring, another a watch,
another a locket. Capitana Tika bought a reliquary that contained a
fragment of the stone on which Our Saviour rested at his third fall;
Sinang a pair of earrings; and Capitan Basilio the watch-chain for
the alferez, the lady's earrings for the curate, and other gifts. The
families from the town of Tiani, not to be outdone by those of San
Diego, in like manner emptied their purses.
Simoun bought or exchanged old jewelry, brought there by economical
mothers, to whom it was no longer of use.
"You, haven't you something to sell?" he asked Cabesang Tales,
noticing the latter watching the sales and exchanges with covetous
eyes, but the reply was that all his daughter's jewels had been sold,
nothing of value remained.
"What about Maria Clara's locket?" inquired Sinang.
"True!" the man exclaimed, and his eyes blazed for a moment.
"It's a locket set with diamonds and emeralds," Sinang told the
jeweler. "My old friend wore it before she became a nun."
Simoun said nothing, but anxiously watched Cabesang Tales, who, after
opening several boxes, found the locket. He examined it carefully,
opening and shutting it repeatedly. It was the same locket that Maria
Clara had worn during the fiesta in San Diego and which she had in
a moment of compassion given to a leper.
"I like the design," said Simoun. "How much do you want for it?"
Cabesang Tales scratched his head in perplexity, then his ear, then
looked at the women.
"I've taken a fancy to this locket," Simoun went on. "Will you take a
hundred, five hundred pesos? Do you want to exchange it for something
else? Take your choice here!"
Tales stared foolishly at Simoun, as if in doubt of what he
heard. "Five hundred pesos?" he murmured.
"Five hundred," repeated the jeweler in a voice shaking with emotion.
Cabesang Tales took the locket and made several turns about the room,
with his heart beating violently and his hands trembling. Dared he ask
more? That locket could save him, this was an excellent opportunity,
such as might not again present itself.
The women winked at him to encourage him to make the sale, excepting
Penchang, who, fearing that Juli would be ransomed, observed piously:
"I would keep it as a relic. Those who have seen Maria Clara in the
nunnery say she has got so thin and weak that she can scarcely talk
and it's thought that she'll die a saint. Padre Salvi speaks very
highly of her and he's her confessor. That's why Juli didn't want
ito give it up, but rather preferred to pawn herself."
This speech had its effect--the thought of his daughter restrained
Tales. "If you will allow me," he said, "I'll go to the town to
consult my daughter. I'll be back before night."
This was agreed upon and Tales set out at once. But when he found
himself outside of the village, he made out at a distance, on a path,
that entered the woods, the friar-administrator and a man whom he
recognized as the usurper of his land. A husband seeing his wife
enter a private room with another man could not feel more wrath or
jealousy than Cabesang Tales experienced when he saw them moving
over his fields, the fields cleared by him, which he had thought to
leave to his children. It seemed to him that they were mocking him,
laughing at his powerlessness. There flashed into his memory what he
had said about never giving up his fields except to him who irrigated
them with his own blood and buried in them his wife and daughter.
He stopped, rubbed his hand over his forehead, and shut his eyes. When
he again opened them, he saw that the man had turned to laugh and
that the friar had caught his sides as though to save himself from
bursting with merriment, then he saw them point toward his house and
laugh again.
A buzz sounded in his ears, he felt the crack of a whip around his
chest, the red mist reappeared before his eyes, he again saw the
corpses of his wife and daughter, and beside them the usurper with
the friar laughing and holding his sides. Forgetting everything else,
he turned aside into the path they had taken, the one leading to
his fields.
Simoun waited in vain for Cabesang Tales to return that night. But
the next morning when he arose he noticed that the leather holster of
his revolver was empty. Opening it he found inside a scrap of paper
wrapped around the locket set with emeralds and diamonds, with these
few lines written on it in Tagalog:

"Pardon, sir, that in my own house I relieve you of what
belongs to you, but necessity drives me to it. In exchange
for your revolver I leave the locket you desired so much. I
need the weapon, for I am going out to join the tulisanes.
"I advise you not to keep on your present road, because if
you fall into our power, not then being my guest, we will
require of you a large ransom.
Telesforo Juan de Dios."

"At last I've found my man!" muttered Simoun with a deep breath. "He's
somewhat scrupulous, but so much the better--he'll keep his promises."
He then ordered a servant to go by boat over the lake to Los Baños with
the larger chest and await him there. He would go on overland, taking
the smaller chest, the one containing his famous jewels. The arrival
of four civil-guards completed his good humor. They came to arrest
Cabesang Tales and not finding him took Tandang Selo away instead.
Three murders had been committed during the night. The
friar-administrator and the new tenant of Cabesang Tales' land had
been found dead, with their heads split open and their mouths full
of earth, on the border of the fields. In the town the wife of the
usurper was found dead at dawn, her mouth also filled with earth and
her throat cut, with a fragment of paper beside her, on which was
the name _Tales_, written in blood as though traced by a finger.
Calm yourselves, peaceful inhabitants of Kalamba! None of you are
named Tales, none of you have committed any crime! You are called
Luis Habaña, Matías Belarmino, Nicasio Eigasani, Cayetano de Jesús,
Mateo Elejorde, Leandro Lopez, Antonino Lopez, Silvestre Ubaldo,
Manuel Hidalgo, Paciano Mercado, your name is the whole village of
Kalamba. [19] You cleared your fields, on them you have spent the
labor of your whole lives, your savings, your vigils and privations,
and you have been despoiled of them, driven from your homes, with the
rest forbidden to show you hospitality! Not content with outraging
justice, they [20] have trampled upon the sacred traditions of your
country! You have served Spain and the King, and when in their name
you have asked for justice, you were banished without trial, torn
from your wives' arms and your children's caresses! Any one of you has
suffered more than Cabesang Tales, and yet none, not one of you, has
received justice! Neither pity nor humanity has been shown you--you
have been persecuted beyond the tomb, as was Mariano Herbosa! [21]
Weep or laugh, there in those lonely isles where you wander vaguely,
uncertain of the future! Spain, the generous Spain, is watching over
you, and sooner or later you will have justice!


CHAPTER XI
LOS BAÑOS

His Excellency, the Captain-General and Governor of the Philippine
Islands, had been hunting in Bosoboso. But as he had to be
accompanied by a band of music,--since such an exalted personage
was not to be esteemed less than the wooden images carried in the
processions,--and as devotion to the divine art of St. Cecilia has
not yet been popularized among the deer and wild boars of Bosoboso,
his Excellency, with the band of music and train of friars, soldiers,
and clerks, had not been able to catch a single rat or a solitary bird.
The provincial authorities foresaw dismissals and transfers, the poor
gobernadorcillos and cabezas de barangay were restless and sleepless,
fearing that the mighty hunter in his wrath might have a notion to make
up with their persons for the lack of submissiveness on the part of the
beasts of the forest, as had been done years before by an alcalde who
had traveled on the shoulders of impressed porters because he found no
horses gentle enough to guarantee his safety. There was not lacking
an evil rumor that his Excellency had decided to take some action,
since in this he saw the first symptoms of a rebellion which should be
strangled in its infancy, that a fruitless hunt hurt the prestige of
the Spanish name, that he already had his eye on a wretch to be dressed
up as a deer, when his Excellency, with clemency that Ben-Zayb lacked
words to extol sufficiently, dispelled all the fears by declaring that
it pained him to sacrifice to his pleasure the beasts of the forest.
But to tell the truth, his Excellency was secretly very well satisfied,
for what would have happened had he missed a shot at a deer, one of
those not familiar with political etiquette? What would the prestige
of the sovereign power have come to then? A Captain-General of the
Philippines missing a shot, like a raw hunter? What would have been
said by the Indians, among whom there were some fair huntsmen? The
integrity of the fatherland would have been endangered.
So it was that his Excellency, with a sheepish smile, and posing as a
disappointed hunter, ordered an immediate return to Los Baños. During
the journey he related with an indifferent air his hunting exploits
in this or that forest of the Peninsula, adopting a tone somewhat
depreciative, as suited the case, toward hunting in Filipinas. The bath
in Dampalit, the hot springs on the shore of the lake, card-games in
the palace, with an occasional excursion to some neighboring waterfall,
or the lake infested with caymans, offered more attractions and fewer
risks to the integrity of the fatherland.
Thus on one of the last days of December, his Excellency found himself
in the sala, taking a hand at cards while he awaited the breakfast
hour. He had come from the bath, with the usual glass of coconut-milk
and its soft meat, so he was in the best of humors for granting favors
and privileges. His good humor was increased by his winning a good many
hands, for Padre Irene and Padre Sibyla, with whom he was playing,
were exercising all their skill in secretly trying to lose, to the
great irritation of Padre Camorra, who on account of his late arrival
only that morning was not informed as to the game they were playing
on the General. The friar-artilleryman was playing in good faith and
with great care, so he turned red and bit his lip every time Padre
Sibyla seemed inattentive or blundered, but he dared not say a word
by reason of the respect he felt for the Dominican. In exchange he
took his revenge out on Padre Irene, whom he looked upon as a base
fawner and despised for his coarseness. Padre Sibyla let him scold,
while the humbler Padre Irene tried to excuse himself by rubbing his
long nose. His Excellency was enjoying it and took advantage, like
the good tactician that the Canon hinted he was, of all the mistakes
of his opponents. Padre Camorra was ignorant of the fact that across
the table they were playing for the intellectual development of the
Filipinos, the instruction in Castilian, but had he known it he would
doubtless have joyfully entered into that _game_.
The open balcony admitted the fresh, pure breeze and revealed the lake,
whose waters murmured sweetly around the base of the edifice, as if
rendering homage. On the right, at a distance, appeared Talim Island,
a deep blue in the midst of the lake, while almost in front lay the
green and deserted islet of Kalamba, in the shape of a half-moon. To
the left the picturesque shores were fringed with clumps of bamboo,
then a hill overlooking the lake, with wide ricefields beyond, then
red roofs amid the deep green of the trees,--the town of Kalamba,--and
beyond the shore-line fading into the distance, with the horizon at
the back closing down over the water, giving the lake the appearance
of a sea and justifying the name the Indians give it of _dagat na
tabang_, or fresh-water sea.
At the end of the sala, seated before a table covered with documents,
was the secretary. His Excellency was a great worker and did not
like to lose time, so he attended to business in the intervals of
the game or while dealing the cards. Meanwhile, the bored secretary
yawned and despaired. That morning he had worked, as usual, over
transfers, suspensions of employees, deportations, pardons, and the
like, but had not yet touched the great question that had stirred so
much interest--the petition of the students requesting permission to
establish an academy of Castilian. Pacing from one end of the room to
the other and conversing animatedly but in low tones were to be seen
Don Custodio, a high official, and a friar named Padre Fernandez, who
hung his head with an air either of meditation or annoyance. From an
adjoining room issued the click of balls striking together and bursts
of laughter, amid which might be heard the sharp, dry voice of Simoun,
who was playing billiards with Ben-Zayb.
Suddenly Padre Camorra arose. "The devil with this game, _puñales!_"
he exclaimed, throwing his cards at Padre Irene's head. "_Puñales_,
that trick, if not all the others, was assured and we lost by
default! _Puñales!_ The devil with this game!"
He explained the situation angrily to all the occupants of the sala,
addressing himself especially to the three walking about, as if he had
selected them for judges. The general played thus, he replied with
such a card, Padre Irene had a certain card; he led, and then that
fool of a Padre Irene didn't play his card! Padre Irene was giving
the game away! It was a devil of a way to play! His mother's son had
not come here to rack his brains for nothing and lose his money!
Then he added, turning very red, "If the booby thinks my money grows
on every bush!... On top of the fact that my Indians are beginning to
haggle over payments!" Fuming, and disregarding the excuses of Padre
Irene, who tried to explain while he rubbed the tip of his beak in
order to conceal his sly smile, he went into the billiardroom.
"Padre Fernandez, would you like to take a hand?" asked Fray Sibyla.
"I'm a very poor player," replied the friar with a grimace.
"Then get Simoun," said the General. "Eh, Simoun! Eh, Mister, won't
you try a hand?"
"What is your disposition concerning the arms for sporting
purposes?" asked the secretary, taking advantage of the pause.