The Reign of Greed - 14

were practising, brushing the dust off their French, and calling to
one another _oui, monsieur, s'il vous plait_, and _pardon_! at every
turn, so that it was a pleasure to see and hear them.
But the place where the excitement reached its climax was the newspaper
office. Ben-Zayb, having been appointed critic and translator of the
synopsis, trembled like a poor woman accused of witchcraft, as he saw
his enemies picking out his blunders and throwing up to his face his
deficient knowledge of French. When the Italian opera was on, he had
very nearly received a challenge for having mistranslated a tenor's
name, while an envious rival had immediately published an article
referring to him as an ignoramus--him, the foremost thinking head in
the Philippines! All the trouble he had had to defend himself! He
had had to write at least seventeen articles and consult fifteen
dictionaries, so with these salutary recollections, the wretched
Ben-Zayb moved about with leaden hands, to say nothing of his feet,
for that would be plagiarizing Padre Camorra, who had once intimated
that the journalist wrote with them.
"You see, Quico?" said Camaroncocido. "One half of the people have
come because the friars told them not to, making it a kind of public
protest, and the other half because they say to themselves, 'Do the
friars object to it? Then it must be instructive!' Believe me, Quico,
your advertisements are a good thing but the pastoral was better,
even taking into consideration the fact that it was read by no one."
"Friend, do you believe," asked Tio Quico uneasily, "that on account
of the competition with Padre Salvi my business will in the future
be prohibited?"
"Maybe so, Quico, maybe so," replied the other, gazing at the
sky. "Money's getting scarce."
Tio Quico muttered some incoherent words: if the friars were going to
turn theatrical advertisers, he would become a friar. After bidding his
friend good-by, he moved away coughing and rattling his silver coins.
With his eternal indifference Camaroncocido continued to wander about
here and there with his crippled leg and sleepy looks. The arrival
of unfamiliar faces caught his attention, coming as they did from
different parts and signaling to one another with a wink or a cough. It
was the first time that he had ever seen these individuals on such
an occasion, he who knew all the faces and features in the city. Men
with dark faces, humped shoulders, uneasy and uncertain movements,
poorly disguised, as though they had for the first time put on sack
coats, slipped about among the shadows, shunning attention, instead
of getting in the front rows where they could see well.
"Detectives or thieves?" Camaroncocido asked himself and immediately
shrugged his shoulders. "But what is it to me?"
The lamp of a carriage that drove up lighted in passing a group of
four or five of these individuals talking with a man who appeared to
be an army officer.
"Detectives! It must be a new corps," he muttered with his shrug
of indifference. Soon, however, he noticed that the officer, after
speaking to two or three more groups, approached a carriage and seemed
to be talking vigorously with some person inside. Camaroncocido took
a few steps forward and without surprise thought that he recognized
the jeweler Simoun, while his sharp ears caught this short dialogue.
"The signal will be a gunshot!"
"Yes, sir."
"Don't worry--it's the General who is ordering it, but be careful about
saying so. If you follow my instructions, you'll get a promotion."
"Yes, sir."
"So, be ready!"
The voice ceased and a second later the carriage drove away. In spite
of his indifference Camaroncocido could not but mutter, "Something's
afoot--hands on pockets!"
But feeling his own to be empty, he again shrugged his shoulders. What
did it matter to him, even though the heavens should fall?
So he continued his pacing about. On passing near two persons engaged
in conversation, he caught what one of them, who had rosaries and
scapularies around his neck, was saying in Tagalog: "The friars are
more powerful than the General, don't be a fool! He'll go away and
they'll stay here. So, if we do well, we'll get rich. The signal is
a gunshot."
"Hold hard, hold hard," murmured Camaroncocido, tightening his
fingers. "On that side the General, on this Padre Salvi. Poor
country! But what is it to me?"
Again shrugging his shoulders and expectorating at the same time,
two actions that with him were indications of supreme indifference,
he continued his observations.
Meanwhile, the carriages were arriving in dizzy streams, stopping
directly before the door to set down the members of the select
society. Although the weather was scarcely even cool, the ladies
sported magnificent shawls, silk neckerchiefs, and even light
cloaks. Among the escorts, some who were in frock coats with white
ties wore overcoats, while others carried them on their arms to
display the rich silk linings.
In a group of spectators, Tadeo, he who was always taken ill the
moment the professor appeared, was accompanied by a fellow townsman
of his, the novice whom we saw suffer evil consequences from reading
wrongly the Cartesian principle. This novice was very inquisitive and
addicted to tiresome questions, and Tadeo was taking advantage of his
ingenuousness and inexperience to relate to him the most stupendous
lies. Every Spaniard that spoke to him, whether clerkling or underling,
was presented as a leading merchant, a marquis, or a count, while on
the other hand any one who passed him by was a greenhorn, a petty
official, a nobody! When pedestrians failed him in keeping up the
novice's astonishment, he resorted to the resplendent carriages that
came up. Tadeo would bow politely, wave his hand in a friendly manner,
and call out a familiar greeting.
"Who's he?"
"Bah!" was the negligent reply. "The Civil Governor, the Vice-Governor,
Judge ----, Señora ----, all friends of mine!"
The novice marveled and listened in fascination, taking care to keep
on the left. Tadeo the friend of judges and governors!
Tadeo named all the persons who arrived, when he did not know them
inventing titles, biographies, and interesting sketches.
"You see that tall gentleman with dark whiskers, somewhat squint-eyed,
dressed in black--he's Judge A ----, an intimate friend of the wife of
Colonel B ----. One day if it hadn't been for me they would have come
to blows. Hello, here comes that Colonel! What if they should fight?"
The novice held his breath, but the colonel and the judge shook hands
cordially, the soldier, an old bachelor, inquiring about the health
of the judge's family.
"Ah, thank heaven!" breathed Tadeo. "I'm the one who made them
friends."
"What if they should invite us to go in?" asked the novice timidly.
"Get out, boy! I never accept favors!" retorted Tadeo majestically. "I
confer them, but disinterestedly."
The novice bit his lip and felt smaller than ever, while he placed
a respectful distance between himself and his fellow townsman.
Tadeo resumed: "That is the musician H----; that one, the lawyer
J----, who delivered as his own a speech printed in all the books and
was congratulated and admired for it; Doctor K----, that man just
getting out of a hansom, is a specialist in diseases of children,
so he's called Herod; that's the banker L----, who can talk only of
his money and his hoards; the poet M----, who is always dealing with
the stars and _the beyond_. There goes the beautiful wife of N----,
whom Padre Q----is accustomed to meet when he calls upon the absent
husband; the Jewish merchant P----, who came to the islands with a
thousand pesos and is now a millionaire. That fellow with the long
beard is the physician R----, who has become rich by making invalids
more than by curing them."
"Making invalids?"
"Yes, boy, in the examination of the conscripts. Attention! That
finely dressed gentleman is not a physician but a homeopathist _sui
generis_--he professes completely the _similis similibus_. The young
cavalry captain with him is his chosen disciple. That man in a light
suit with his hat tilted back is the government clerk whose maxim
is never to be polite and who rages like a demon when he sees a hat
on any one else's head--they say that he does it to ruin the German
hatters. The man just arriving with his family is the wealthy merchant
C----, who has an income of over a hundred thousand pesos. But what
would you say if I should tell you that he still owes me four pesos,
five reales, and twelve cuartos? But who would collect from a rich
man like him?"
"That gentleman in debt to you?"
"Sure! One day I got him out of a bad fix. It was on a Friday at
half-past six in the morning, I still remember, because I hadn't
breakfasted. That lady who is followed by a duenna is the celebrated
Pepay, the dancing girl, but she doesn't dance any more now that a
very Catholic gentleman and a great friend of mine has--forbidden
it. There's the death's-head Z----, who's surely following her to get
her to dance again. He's a good fellow, and a great friend of mine,
but has one defect--he's a Chinese mestizo and yet calls himself a
Peninsular Spaniard. Sssh! Look at Ben-Zayb, him with the face of a
friar, who's carrying a pencil and a roll of paper in his hand. He's
the great writer, Ben-Zayb, a good friend of mine--he has talent!"
"You don't say! And that little man with white whiskers?"
"He's the official who has appointed his daughters, those three little
girls, assistants in his department, so as to get their names on the
pay-roll. He's a clever man, very clever! When he makes a mistake he
blames it on somebody else, he buys things and pays for them out of
the treasury. He's clever, very, very clever!"
Tadeo was about to say more, but suddenly checked himself.
"And that gentleman who has a fierce air and gazes at everybody over
his shoulders?" inquired the novice, pointing to a man who nodded
haughtily.
But Tadeo did not answer. He was craning his neck to see Paulita
Gomez, who was approaching with a friend, Doña Victorina, and Juanito
Pelaez. The latter had presented her with a box and was more humped
than ever.
Carriage after carriage drove up; the actors and actresses arrived
and entered by a separate door, followed by their friends and admirers.
After Paulita had gone in, Tadeo resumed: "Those are the nieces of
the rich Captain D----, those coming up in a landau; you see how
pretty and healthy they are? Well, in a few years they'll be dead or
crazy. Captain D---- is opposed to their marrying, and the insanity
of the uncle is appearing in the nieces. That's the Señorita E----,
the rich heiress whom the world and the conventos are disputing
over. Hello, I know that fellow! It's Padre Irene, in disguise, with
a false mustache. I recognize him by his nose. And he was so greatly
opposed to this!"
The scandalized novice watched a neatly cut coat disappear behind a
group of ladies.
"The Three Fates!" went on Tadeo, watching the arrival of three
withered, bony, hollow-eyed, wide-mouthed, and shabbily dressed
women. "They're called--"
"Atropos?" ventured the novice, who wished to show that he also knew
somebody, at least in mythology.
"No, boy, they're called the Weary Waiters--old, censorious, and
dull. They pretend to hate everybody--men, women, and children. But
look how the Lord always places beside the evil a remedy, only that
sometimes it comes late. There behind the Fates, the frights of
the city, come those three girls, the pride of their friends, among
whom I count myself. That thin young man with goggle-eyes, somewhat
stooped, who is wildly gesticulating because he can't get tickets,
is the chemist S----, author of many essays and scientific treatises,
some of which are notable and have captured prizes. The Spaniards say
of him, 'There's some hope for him, some hope for him.' The fellow who
is soothing him with his Voltairian smile is the poet T----, a young
man of talent, a great friend of mine, and, for the very reason that
he has talent, he has thrown away his pen. That fellow who is trying to
get in with the actors by the other door is the young physician U----,
who has effected some remarkable cures--it's also said of him that he
promises well. He's not such a scoundrel as Pelaez but he's cleverer
and slyer still. I believe that he'd shake dice with death and win."
"And that brown gentleman with a mustache like hog-bristles?"
"Ah, that's the merchant F----, who forges everything, even his
baptismal certificate. He wants to be a Spanish mestizo at any cost,
and is making heroic efforts to forget his native language."
"But his daughters are very white."
"Yes, that's the reason rice has gone up in price, and yet they eat
nothing but bread."
The novice did not understand the connection between the price of
rice and the whiteness of those girls, but he held his peace.
"There goes the fellow that's engaged to one of them, that thin brown
youth who is following them with a lingering movement and speaking with
a protecting air to the three friends who are laughing at him. He's
a martyr to his beliefs, to his consistency."
The novice was filled with admiration and respect for the young man.
"He has the look of a fool, and he is one," continued Tadeo. "He
was born in San Pedro Makati and has inflicted many privations upon
himself. He scarcely ever bathes or eats pork, because, according to
him, the Spaniards don't do those things, and for the same reason he
doesn't eat rice and dried fish, although he may be watering at the
mouth and dying of hunger. Anything that comes from Europe, rotten
or preserved, he considers divine--a month ago Basilio cured him of
a severe attack of gastritis, for he had eaten a jar of mustard to
prove that he's a European."
At that moment the orchestra struck up a waltz.
"You see that gentleman--that hypochondriac who goes along turning
his head from side to side, seeking salutes? That's the celebrated
governor of Pangasinan, a good man who loses his appetite whenever any
Indian fails to salute him. He would have died if he hadn't issued the
proclamation about salutes to which he owes his celebrity. Poor fellow,
it's only been three days since he came from the province and look how
thin he has become! Oh, here's the great man, the illustrious--open
your eyes!"
"Who? That man with knitted brows?"
"Yes, that's Don Custodio, the liberal, Don Custodio. His brows are
knit because he's meditating over some important project. If the
ideas he has in his head were carried out, this would be a different
world! Ah, here comes Makaraig, your housemate."
It was in fact Makaraig, with Pecson, Sandoval, and Isagani. Upon
seeing them, Tadeo advanced and spoke to them.
"Aren't you coming in?" Makaraig asked him.
"We haven't been able to get tickets."
"Fortunately, we have a box," replied Makaraig. "Basilio couldn't
come. Both of you, come in with us."
Tadeo did not wait for the invitation to be repeated, but the novice,
fearing that he would intrude, with the timidity natural to the
provincial Indian, excused himself, nor could he be persuaded to enter.


CHAPTER XXII
THE PERFORMANCE

The interior of the theater presented a lively aspect. It was filled
from top to bottom, with people standing in the corridors and in
the aisles, fighting to withdraw a head from some hole where they
had inserted it, or to shove an eye between a collar and an ear. The
open boxes, occupied for the most part by ladies, looked like baskets
of flowers, whose petals--the fans--shook in a light breeze, wherein
hummed a thousand bees. However, just as there are flowers of strong
or delicate fragrance, flowers that kill and flowers that console,
so from our baskets were exhaled like emanations: there were to be
heard dialogues, conversations, remarks that bit and stung. Three
or four boxes, however, were still vacant, in spite of the lateness
of the hour. The performance had been advertised for half-past eight
and it was already a quarter to nine, but the curtain did not go up,
as his Excellency had not yet arrived. The gallery-gods, impatient
and uncomfortable in their seats, started a racket, clapping their
hands and pounding the floor with their canes.
"Boom--boom--boom! Ring up the curtain! Boom--boom--boom!"
The artillerymen were not the least noisy. Emulators of Mars, as
Ben-Zayb called them, they were not satisfied with this music; thinking
themselves perhaps at a bullfight, they made remarks at the ladies who
passed before them in words that are euphemistically called flowers
in Madrid, although at times they seem more like foul weeds. Without
heeding the furious looks of the husbands, they bandied from one to
another the sentiments and longings inspired by so many beauties.
In the reserved seats, where the ladies seemed to be afraid to venture,
as few were to be seen there, a murmur of voices prevailed amid
suppressed laughter and clouds of tobacco smoke. They discussed the
merits of the players and talked scandal, wondering if his Excellency
had quarreled with the friars, if his presence at such a show was
a defiance or mere curiosity. Others gave no heed to these matters,
but were engaged in attracting the attention of the ladies, throwing
themselves into attitudes more or less interesting and statuesque,
flashing diamond rings, especially when they thought themselves the
foci of insistent opera-glasses, while yet another would address a
respectful salute to this or that señora or señorita, at the same time
lowering his head gravely to whisper to a neighbor, "How ridiculous
she is! And such a bore!"
The lady would respond with one of her most gracious smiles and an
enchanting nod of her head, while murmuring to a friend sitting near,
amid lazy flourishes of her fan, "How impudent he is! He's madly in
love, my dear."
Meanwhile, the noise increased. There remained only two vacant
boxes, besides that of his Excellency, which was distinguished by
its curtains of red velvet. The orchestra played another waltz, the
audience protested, when fortunately there arose a charitable hero to
distract their attention and relieve the manager, in the person of
a man who had occupied a reserved seat and refused to give it up to
its owner, the philosopher Don Primitivo. Finding his own arguments
useless, Don Primitivo had appealed to an usher. "I don't care to,"
the hero responded to the latter's protests, placidly puffing at his
cigarette. The usher appealed to the manager. "I don't care to," was
the response, as he settled back in the seat. The manager went away,
while the artillerymen in the gallery began to sing out encouragement
to the usurper.
Our hero, now that he had attracted general attention, thought that
to yield would be to lower himself, so he held on to the seat, while
he repeated his answer to a pair of guards the manager had called
in. These, in consideration of the rebel's rank, went in search of
their corporal, while the whole house broke out into applause at the
firmness of the hero, who remained seated like a Roman senator.
Hisses were heard, and the inflexible gentleman turned angrily to see
if they were meant for him, but the galloping of horses resounded
and the stir increased. One might have said that a revolution had
broken out, or at least a riot, but no, the orchestra had suspended
the waltz and was playing the royal march: it was his Excellency, the
Captain-General and Governor of the islands, who was entering. All
eyes sought and followed him, then lost sight of him, until he
finally appeared in his box. After looking all about him and making
some persons happy with a lordly salute, he sat down, as though he
were indeed the man for whom the chair was waiting. The artillerymen
then became silent and the orchestra tore into the prelude.
Our students occupied a box directly facing that of Pepay, the
dancing girl. Her box was a present from Makaraig, who had already
got on good terms with her in order to propitiate Don Custodio. Pepay
had that very afternoon written a note to the illustrious arbiter,
asking for an answer and appointing an interview in the theater. For
this reason, Don Custodio, in spite of the active opposition he
had manifested toward the French operetta, had gone to the theater,
which action won him some caustic remarks on the part of Don Manuel,
his ancient adversary in the sessions of the Ayuntamiento.
"I've come to judge the operetta," he had replied in the tone of a
Cato whose conscience was clear.
So Makaraig was exchanging looks of intelligence with Pepay, who was
giving him to understand that she had something to tell him. As the
dancing girl's face wore a happy expression, the students augured
that a favorable outcome was assured. Sandoval, who had just returned
from making calls in other boxes, also assured them that the decision
had been favorable, that that very afternoon the Superior Commission
had considered and approved it. Every one was jubilant, even Pecson
having laid aside his pessimism when he saw the smiling Pepay display
a note. Sandoval and Makaraig congratulated one another, Isagani alone
remaining cold and unsmiling. What had happened to this young man?
Upon entering the theater, Isagani had caught sight of Paulita in a
box, with Juanito Pelaez talking to her. He had turned pale, thinking
that he must be mistaken. But no, it was she herself, she who greeted
him with a gracious smile, while her beautiful eyes seemed to be
asking pardon and promising explanations. The fact was that they had
agreed upon Isagani's going first to the theater to see if the show
contained anything improper for a young woman, but now he found her
there, and in no other company than that of his rival. What passed in
his mind is indescribable: wrath, jealousy, humiliation, resentment
raged within him, and there were moments even when he wished that
the theater would fall in; he had a violent desire to laugh aloud,
to insult his sweetheart, to challenge his rival, to make a scene, but
finally contented himself with sitting quiet and not looking at her at
all. He was conscious of the beautiful plans Makaraig and Sandoval were
making, but they sounded like distant echoes, while the notes of the
waltz seemed sad and lugubrious, the whole audience stupid and foolish,
and several times he had to make an effort to keep back the tears. Of
the trouble stirred up by the hero who refused to give up the seat,
of the arrival of the Captain-General, he was scarcely conscious. He
stared toward the drop-curtain, on which was depicted a kind of
gallery with sumptuous red hangings, affording a view of a garden in
which a fountain played, yet how sad the gallery looked to him and how
melancholy the painted landscape! A thousand vague recollections surged
into his memory like distant echoes of music heard in the night, like
songs of infancy, the murmur of lonely forests and gloomy rivulets,
moonlit nights on the shore of the sea spread wide before his eyes. So
the enamored youth considered himself very wretched and stared fixedly
at the ceiling so that the tears should not fall from his eyes.
A burst of applause drew him from these meditations. The curtain
had just risen, and the merry chorus of peasants of Corneville was
presented, all dressed in cotton caps, with heavy wooden sabots on
their feet. Some six or seven girls, well-rouged on the lips and
cheeks, with large black circles around their eyes to increase their
brilliance, displayed white arms, fingers covered with diamonds,
round and shapely limbs. While they were chanting the Norman phrase
"_Allez, marchez! Allez, marchez!_" they smiled at their different
admirers in the reserved seats with such openness that Don Custodio,
after looking toward Pepay's box to assure himself that she was
not doing the same thing with some other admirer, set down in his
note-book this indecency, and to make sure of it lowered his head a
little to see if the actresses were not showing their knees.
"Oh, these Frenchwomen!" he muttered, while his imagination lost
itself in considerations somewhat more elevated, as he made comparisons
and projects.
"_Quoi v'la tous les cancans d'la s'maine!_" sang Gertrude, a proud
damsel, who was looking roguishly askance at the Captain-General.
"We're going to have the cancan!" exclaimed Tadeo, the winner of the
first prize in the French class, who had managed to make out this
word. "Makaraig, they're going to dance the cancan!"
He rubbed his hands gleefully. From the moment the curtain rose,
Tadeo had been heedless of the music. He was looking only for the
prurient, the indecent, the immoral in actions and dress, and with
his scanty French was sharpening his ears to catch the obscenities
that the austere guardians of the fatherland had foretold.
Sandoval, pretending to know French, had converted himself into a
kind of interpreter for his friends. He knew as much about it as
Tadeo, but the published synopsis helped him and his fancy supplied
the rest. "Yes," he said, "they're going to dance the cancan--she's
going to lead it."
Makaraig and Pecson redoubled their attention, smiling in anticipation,
while Isagani looked away, mortified to think that Paulita should
be present at such a show and reflecting that it was his duty to
challenge Juanito Pelaez the next day.
But the young men waited in vain. Serpolette came on, a charming girl,
in her cotton cap, provoking and challenging. "_Hein, qui parle de
Serpolette?_" she demanded of the gossips, with her arms akimbo in
a combative attitude. Some one applauded, and after him all those in
the reserved seats. Without changing her girlish attitude, Serpolette
gazed at the person who had started the applause and paid him with a
smile, displaying rows of little teeth that looked like a string of
pearls in a case of red velvet.
Tadeo followed her gaze and saw a man in a false mustache with an
extraordinarily large nose. "By the monk's cowl!" he exclaimed. "It's
Irene!"
"Yes," corroborated Sandoval, "I saw him behind the scenes talking
with the actresses."
The truth was that Padre Irene, who was a melomaniac of the first
degree and knew French well, had been sent to the theater by Padre
Salvi as a sort of religious detective, or so at least he told
the persons who recognized him. As a faithful critic, who should
not be satisfied with viewing the piece from a distance, he wished
to examine the actresses at first hand, so he had mingled in the
groups of admirers and gallants, had penetrated into the greenroom,
where was whispered and talked a French required by the situation,
a _market French_, a language that is readily comprehensible for the
vender when the buyer seems disposed to pay well.
Serpolette was surrounded by two gallant officers, a sailor, and a
lawyer, when she caught sight of him moving about, sticking the tip
of his long nose into all the nooks and corners, as though with it
he were ferreting out all the mysteries of the stage. She ceased her
chatter, knitted her eyebrows, then raised them, opened her lips and
with the vivacity of a _Parisienne_ left her admirers to hurl herself
like a torpedo upon our critic.
"_Tiens, tiens, Toutou! Mon lapin!_" she cried, catching Padre Irene's
arm and shaking it merrily, while the air rang with her silvery laugh.
"Tut, tut!" objected Padre Irene, endeavoring to conceal himself.
"_Mais, comment! Toi ici, grosse bête! Et moi qui t'croyais--_"
"_'Tais pas d'tapage, Lily! Il faut m'respecter! 'Suis ici l'Pape!_"
With great difficulty Padre Irene made her listen to reason, for Lily
was _enchanteé_ to meet in Manila an old friend who reminded her of
the _coulisses_ of the Grand Opera House. So it was that Padre Irene,
fulfilling at the same time his duties as a friend and a critic, had