The Reign of Greed - 22

abuse the confidence he has placed in me. I owe him, _him_ more than
I do _them_: he dug my mother's grave, they killed her! What have
I to do with them? I did everything possible to be good and useful,
I tried to forgive and forget, I suffered every imposition, and only
asked that they leave me in peace. I got in no one's way. What have
they done to me? Let their mangled limbs fly through the air! We've
suffered enough."
Then he saw Simoun alight with the terrible lamp in his hands, saw him
cross the entrance with bowed head, as though deep in thought. Basilio
felt his heart beat fainter, his feet and hands turn cold, while the
black silhouette of the jeweler assumed fantastic shapes enveloped in
flames. There at the foot of the stairway Simoun checked his steps,
as if in doubt, and Basilio held his breath. But the hesitation was
transient--Simoun raised his head, resolutely ascended the stairway,
and disappeared.
It then seemed to the student that the house was going to blow up at
any moment, and that walls, lamps, guests, roof, windows, orchestra,
would be hurtling through the air like a handful of coals in the midst
of an infernal explosion. He gazed about him and fancied that he saw
corpses in place of idle spectators, he saw them torn to shreds, it
seemed to him that the air was filled with flames, but his calmer self
triumphed over this transient hallucination, which was due somewhat
to his hunger.
"Until he comes out, there's no danger," he said to himself. "The
Captain-General hasn't arrived yet."
He tried to appear calm and control the convulsive trembling in his
limbs, endeavoring to divert his thoughts to other things. Something
within was ridiculing him, saying, "If you tremble now, before the
supreme moment, how will you conduct yourself when you see blood
flowing, houses burning, and bullets whistling?"
His Excellency arrived, but the young man paid no attention to
him. He was watching the face of Simoun, who was among those that
descended to receive him, and he read in that implacable countenance
the sentence of death for all those men, so that fresh terror seized
upon him. He felt cold, he leaned against the wall, and, with his
eyes fixed on the windows and his ears cocked, tried to guess what
might be happening. In the sala he saw the crowd surround Simoun
to look at the lamp, he heard congratulations and exclamations of
admiration--the words "dining-room," "novelty," were repeated many
times--he saw the General smile and conjectured that the novelty
was to be exhibited that very night, by the jeweler's arrangement,
on the table whereat his Excellency was to dine. Simoun disappeared,
followed by a crowd of admirers.
At that supreme moment his good angel triumphed, he forgot his hatreds,
he forgot Juli, he wanted to save the innocent. Come what might, he
would cross the street and try to enter. But Basilio had forgotten
that he was miserably dressed. The porter stopped him and accosted
him roughly, and finally, upon his insisting, threatened to call
the police.
Just then Simoun came down, slightly pale, and the porter turned
from Basilio to salute the jeweler as though he had been a saint
passing. Basilio realized from the expression of Simoun's face that he
was leaving the fated house forever, that the lamp was lighted. _Alea
jacta est!_ Seized by the instinct of self-preservation, he thought
then of saving himself. It might occur to any of the guests through
curiosity to tamper with the wick and then would come the explosion
to overwhelm them all. Still he heard Simoun say to the cochero,
"The Escolta, hurry!"
Terrified, dreading that he might at any moment hear the awful
explosion, Basilio hurried as fast as his legs would carry him to get
away from the accursed spot, but his legs seemed to lack the necessary
agility, his feet slipped on the sidewalk as though they were moving
but not advancing. The people he met blocked the way, and before he had
gone twenty steps he thought that at least five minutes had elapsed.
Some distance away he stumbled against a young man who was standing
with his head thrown back, gazing fixedly at the house, and in him
he recognized Isagani. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Come
away!"
Isagani stared at him vaguely, smiled sadly, and again turned his gaze
toward the open balconies, across which was revealed the ethereal
silhouette of the bride clinging to the groom's arm as they moved
slowly out of sight.
"Come, Isagani, let's get away from that house. Come!" Basilio urged
in a hoarse voice, catching his friend by the arm.
Isagani gently shook himself free and continued to stare with the
same sad smile upon his lips.
"For God's sake, let's get away from here!"
"Why should I go away? Tomorrow it will not be she."
There was so much sorrow in those words that Basilio for a moment
forgot his own terror. "Do you want to die?" he demanded.
Isagani shrugged his shoulders and continued to gaze toward the house.
Basilio again tried to drag him away. "Isagani, Isagani, listen
to me! Let's not waste any time! That house is mined, it's going
to blow up at any moment, by the least imprudent act, the least
curiosity! Isagani, all will perish in its ruins."
"In its ruins?" echoed Isagani, as if trying to understand, but
without removing his gaze from the window.
"Yes, in its ruins, yes, Isagani! For God's sake, come! I'll explain
afterwards. Come! One who has been more unfortunate than either you
or I has doomed them all. Do you see that white, clear light, like an
electric lamp, shining from the azotea? It's the light of death! A
lamp charged with dynamite, in a mined dining-room, will burst and
not a rat will escape alive. Come!"
"No," answered Isagani, shaking his head sadly. "I want to stay here,
I want to see her for the last time. Tomorrow, you see, she will be
something different."
"Let fate have its way!" Basilio then exclaimed, hurrying away.
Isagani watched his friend rush away with a precipitation that
indicated real terror, but continued to stare toward the charmed
window, like the cavalier of Toggenburg waiting for his sweetheart
to appear, as Schiller tells. Now the sala was deserted, all having
repaired to the dining-rooms, and it occurred to Isagani that Basilio's
fears may have been well-founded. He recalled the terrified countenance
of him who was always so calm and composed, and it set him to thinking.
Suddenly an idea appeared clear in his imagination--the house was
going to blow up and Paulita was there, Paulita was going to die a
frightful death. In the presence of this idea everything was forgotten:
jealousy, suffering, mental torture, and the generous youth thought
only of his love. Without reflecting, without hesitation, he ran
toward the house, and thanks to his stylish clothes and determined
mien, easily secured admittance.
While these short scenes were occurring in the street, in the
dining-kiosk of the greater gods there was passed from hand to hand
a piece of parchment on which were written in red ink these fateful
words:

_Mene, Tekel, Phares_ [72]
_Juan Crisostomo Ibarra_

"Juan Crisostomo Ibarra? Who is he?" asked his Excellency, handing
the paper to his neighbor.
"A joke in very bad taste!" exclaimed Don Custodio. "To sign the name
of a filibuster dead more than ten years!"
"A filibuster!"
"It's a seditious joke!"
"There being ladies present--"
Padre Irene looked around for the joker and saw Padre Salvi, who was
seated at the right of the Countess, turn as white as his napkin,
while he stared at the mysterious words with bulging eyes. The scene
of the sphinx recurred to him.
"What's the matter, Padre Salvi?" he asked. "Do you recognize your
friend's signature?"
Padre Salvi did not reply. He made an effort to speak and without being
conscious of what he was doing wiped his forehead with his napkin.
"What has happened to your Reverence?"
"It is his very handwriting!" was the whispered reply in a scarcely
perceptible voice. "It's the very handwriting of Ibarra." Leaning
against the back of his chair, he let his arms fall as though all
strength had deserted him.
Uneasiness became converted into fright, they all stared at one another
without uttering a single word. His Excellency started to rise, but
apprehending that such a move would be ascribed to fear, controlled
himself and looked about him. There were no soldiers present, even
the waiters were unknown to him.
"Let's go on eating, gentlemen," he exclaimed, "and pay no attention
to the joke." But his voice, instead of reassuring, increased the
general uneasiness, for it trembled.
"I don't suppose that that _Mene, Tekel, Phares_, means that we're
to be assassinated tonight?" speculated Don Custodio.
All remained motionless, but when he added, "Yet they might poison us,"
they leaped up from their chairs.
The light, meanwhile, had begun slowly to fade. "The lamp is going
out," observed the General uneasily. "Will you turn up the wick,
Padre Irene?"
But at that instant, with the swiftness of a flash of lightning,
a figure rushed in, overturning a chair and knocking a servant down,
and in the midst of the general surprise seized the lamp, rushed to
the azotea, and threw it into the river. The whole thing happened in
a second and the dining-kiosk was left in darkness.
The lamp had already struck the water before the servants could cry
out, "Thief, thief!" and rush toward the azotea. "A revolver!" cried
one of them. "A revolver, quick! After the thief!"
But the figure, more agile than they, had already mounted the
balustrade and before a light could be brought, precipitated itself
into the river, striking the water with a loud splash.


CHAPTER XXXVI
BEN-ZAYB'S AFFLICTIONS

Immediately upon hearing of the incident, after lights had been brought
and the scarcely dignified attitudes of the startled gods revealed,
Ben-Zayb, filled with holy indignation, and with the approval of the
press-censor secured beforehand, hastened home--an entresol where
he lived in a mess with others--to write an article that would be
the sublimest ever penned under the skies of the Philippines. The
Captain-General would leave disconsolate if he did not first enjoy
his dithyrambs, and this Ben-Zayb, in his kindness of heart, could
not allow. Hence he sacrificed the dinner and ball, nor did he sleep
that night.
Sonorous exclamations of horror, of indignation, to fancy that
the world was smashing to pieces and the stars, the eternal stars,
were clashing together! Then a mysterious introduction, filled with
allusions, veiled hints, then an account of the affair, and the
final peroration. He multiplied the flourishes and exhausted all his
euphemisms in describing the drooping shoulders and the tardy baptism
of salad his Excellency had received on his Olympian brow, he eulogized
the agility with which the General had recovered a vertical position,
placing his head where his legs had been, and vice versa, then intoned
a hymn to Providence for having so solicitously guarded those sacred
bones. The paragraph turned out to be so perfect that his Excellency
appeared as a hero, and fell higher, as Victor Hugo said.
He wrote, erased, added, and polished, so that, without wanting
in veracity--this was his special merit as a journalist--the whole
would be an epic, grand for the seven gods, cowardly and base for
the unknown thief, "who had executed himself, terror-stricken, and
in the very act convinced of the enormity of his crime."
He explained Padre Irene's act of plunging under the table as
"an impulse of innate valor, which the habit of a God of peace
and gentleness, worn throughout a whole life, had been unable to
extinguish," for Padre Irene had tried to hurl himself upon the
thief and had taken a straight course along the submensal route. In
passing, he spoke of submarine passages, mentioned a project of Don
Custodio's, called attention to the liberal education and wide travels
of the priest. Padre Salvi's swoon was the excessive sorrow that took
possession of the virtuous Franciscan to see the little fruit borne
among the Indians by his pious sermons, while the immobility and
fright of the other guests, among them the Countess, who "sustained"
Padre Salvi (she grabbed him), were the serenity and sang-froid of
heroes, inured to danger in the performance of their duties, beside
whom the Roman senators surprised by the Gallic invaders were nervous
schoolgirls frightened at painted cockroaches.
Afterwards, to form a contrast, the picture of the thief: fear,
madness, confusion, the fierce look, the distorted features,
and--force of moral superiority in the race--his religious awe to
see assembled there such august personages! Here came in opportunely
a long imprecation, a harangue, a diatribe against the perversion of
good customs, hence the necessity of a permanent military tribunal,
"a declaration of martial law within the limits already so declared,
special legislation, energetic and repressive, because it is in
every way needful, it is of imperative importance to impress upon the
malefactors and criminals that if the heart is generous and paternal
for those who are submissive and obedient to the law, the hand is
strong, firm, inexorable, hard, and severe for those who against all
reason fail to respect it and who insult the sacred institutions of the
fatherland. Yes, gentlemen, this is demanded not only for the welfare
of these islands, not only for the welfare of all mankind, but also
in the name of Spain, the honor of the Spanish name, the prestige of
the Iberian people, because before all things else Spaniards we are,
and the flag of Spain," etc.
He terminated the article with this farewell: "Go in peace, gallant
warrior, you who with expert hand have guided the destinies of
this country in such calamitous times! Go in peace to breathe the
balmy breezes of Manzanares! [73] We shall remain here like faithful
sentinels to venerate your memory, to admire your wise dispositions,
to avenge the infamous attempt upon your splendid gift, which we
will recover even if we have to dry up the seas! Such a precious
relic will be for this country an eternal monument to your splendor,
your presence of mind, your gallantry!"
In this rather confused way he concluded the article and before
dawn sent it to the printing-office, of course with the censor's
permit. Then he went to sleep like Napoleon, after he had arranged
the plan for the battle of Jena.
But at dawn he was awakened to have the sheets of copy returned with
a note from the editor saying that his Excellency had positively
and severely forbidden any mention of the affair, and had further
ordered the denial of any versions and comments that might get abroad,
discrediting them as exaggerated rumors.
To Ben-Zayb this blow was the murder of a beautiful and sturdy child,
born and nurtured with such great pain and fatigue. Where now hurl the
Catilinarian pride, the splendid exhibition of warlike crime-avenging
materials? And to think that within a month or two he was going to
leave the Philippines, and the article could not be published in Spain,
since how could he say those things about the criminals of Madrid,
where other ideas prevailed, where extenuating circumstances were
sought, where facts were weighed, where there were juries, and so
on? Articles such as his were like certain poisonous rums that are
manufactured in Europe, good enough to be sold among the negroes,
_good for negroes_, [74] with the difference that if the negroes did
not drink them they would not be destroyed, while Ben-Zayb's articles,
whether the Filipinos read them or not, had their effect.
"If only some other crime might be committed today or tomorrow,"
he mused.
With the thought of that child dead before seeing the light, those
frozen buds, and feeling his eyes fill with tears, he dressed himself
to call upon the editor. But the editor shrugged his shoulders; his
Excellency had forbidden it because if it should be divulged that seven
of the greater gods had let themselves be surprised and robbed by a
nobody, while they brandished knives and forks, that would endanger
the integrity of the fatherland! So he had ordered that no search be
made for the lamp or the thief, and had recommended to his successors
that they should not run the risk of dining in any private house,
without being surrounded by halberdiers and guards. As those who knew
anything about the events that night in Don Timoteo's house were for
the most part military officials and government employees, it was
not difficult to suppress the affair in public, for it concerned the
integrity of the fatherland. Before this name Ben-Zayb bowed his head
heroically, thinking about Abraham, Guzman El Bueno, [75] or at least,
Brutus and other heroes of antiquity.
Such a sacrifice could not remain unrewarded, the gods of journalism
being pleased with Abraham Ben-Zayb. Almost upon the hour came
the reporting angel bearing the sacrificial lamb in the shape of
an assault committed at a country-house on the Pasig, where certain
friars were spending the heated season. Here was his opportunity and
Ben-Zayb praised his gods.
"The robbers got over two thousand pesos, leaving badly wounded one
friar and two servants. The curate defended himself as well as he
could behind a chair, which was smashed in his hands."
"Wait, wait!" said Ben-Zayb, taking notes. "Forty or fifty
outlaws traitorously--revolvers, bolos, shotguns, pistols--lion at
bay--chair--splinters flying--barbarously wounded--ten thousand pesos!"
So great was his enthusiasm that he was not content with mere reports,
but proceeded in person to the scene of the crime, composing on the
road a Homeric description of the fight. A harangue in the mouth of
the leader? A scornful defiance on the part of the priest? All the
metaphors and similes applied to his Excellency, Padre Irene, and
Padre Salvi would exactly fit the wounded friar and the description
of the thief would serve for each of the outlaws. The imprecation
could be expanded, since he could talk of religion, of the faith,
of charity, of the ringing of bells, of what the Indians owed to
the friars, he could get sentimental and melt into Castelarian [76]
epigrams and lyric periods. The señoritas of the city would read the
article and murmur, "Ben-Zayb, bold as a lion and tender as a lamb!"
But when he reached the scene, to his great astonishment he learned
that the wounded friar was no other than Padre Camorra, sentenced by
his Provincial to expiate in the pleasant country-house on the banks
of the Pasig his pranks in Tiani. He had a slight scratch on his hand
and a bruise on his head received from flattening himself out on the
floor. The robbers numbered three or four, armed only with bolos,
the sum stolen fifty pesos!
"It won't do!" exclaimed Ben-Zayb. "Shut up! You don't know what
you're talking about."
"How don't I know, _puñales?_"
"Don't be a fool--the robbers must have numbered more."
"You ink-slinger--"
So they had quite an altercation. What chiefly concerned Ben-Zayb
was not to throw away the article, to give importance to the affair,
so that he could use the peroration.
But a fearful rumor cut short their dispute. The robbers caught
had made some important revelations. One of the outlaws under
_Matanglawin_ (Cabesang Tales) had made an appointment with them to
join his band in Santa Mesa, thence to sack the conventos and houses
of the wealthy. They would be guided by a Spaniard, tall and sunburnt,
with white hair, who said that he was acting under the orders of the
General, whose great friend he was, and they had been further assured
that the artillery and various regiments would join them, wherefore
they were to entertain no fear at all. The tulisanes would be pardoned
and have a third part of the booty assigned to them. The signal was
to have been a cannon-shot, but having waited for it in vain the
tulisanes, thinking themselves deceived, separated, some going back
to their homes, some returning to the mountains vowing vengeance on
the Spaniard, who had thus failed twice to keep his word. Then they,
the robbers caught, had decided to do something on their own account,
attacking the country-house that they found closest at hand, resolving
religiously to give two-thirds of the booty to the Spaniard with
white hair, if perchance he should call upon them for it.
The description being recognized as that of Simoun, the declaration
was received as an absurdity and the robber subjected to all kinds
of tortures, including the electric machine, for his impious
blasphemy. But news of the disappearance of the jeweler having
attracted the attention of the whole Escolta, and the sacks of powder
and great quantities of cartridges having been discovered in his
house, the story began to wear an appearance of truth. Mystery began
to enwrap the affair, enveloping it in clouds; there were whispered
conversations, coughs, suspicious looks, suggestive comments, and
trite second-hand remarks. Those who were on the inside were unable
to get over their astonishment, they put on long faces, turned pale,
and but little was wanting for many persons to lose their minds in
realizing certain things that had before passed unnoticed.
"We've had a narrow escape! Who would have said--"
In the afternoon Ben-Zayb, his pockets filled with revolvers and
cartridges, went to see Don Custodio, whom he found hard at work over
a project against American jewelers. In a hushed voice he whispered
between the palms of his hands into the journalist's ear mysterious
words.
"Really?" questioned Ben-Zayb, slapping his hand on his pocket and
paling visibly.
"Wherever he may be found--" The sentence was completed with an
expressive pantomime. Don Custodio raised both arms to the height of
his face, with the right more bent than the left, turned the palms
of his hands toward the floor, closed one eye, and made two movements
in advance. "Ssh! Ssh!" he hissed.
"And the diamonds?" inquired Ben-Zayb.
"If they find him--" He went through another pantomime with the
fingers of his right hand, spreading them out and clenching them
together like the closing of a fan, clutching out with them somewhat
in the manner of the wings of a wind-mill sweeping imaginary objects
toward itself with practised skill. Ben-Zayb responded with another
pantomime, opening his eyes wide, arching his eyebrows and sucking in
his breath eagerly as though nutritious air had just been discovered.
"Sssh!"


CHAPTER XXXVII
THE MYSTERY

Todo se sabe

Notwithstanding so many precautions, rumors reached the public,
even though quite changed and mutilated. On the following night
they were the theme of comment in the house of Orenda, a rich jewel
merchant in the industrious district of Santa Cruz, and the numerous
friends of the family gave attention to nothing else. They were not
indulging in cards, or playing the piano, while little Tinay, the
youngest of the girls, became bored playing _chongka_ by herself,
without being able to understand the interest awakened by assaults,
conspiracies, and sacks of powder, when there were in the seven holes
so many beautiful cowries that seemed to be winking at her in unison
and smiled with their tiny mouths half-opened, begging to be carried
up to the _home_. Even Isagani, who, when he came, always used to
play with her and allow himself to be beautifully cheated, did not
come at her call, for Isagani was gloomily and silently listening to
something Chichoy the silversmith was relating. Momoy, the betrothed
of Sensia, the eldest of the daughters--a pretty and vivacious girl,
rather given to joking--had left the window where he was accustomed
to spend his evenings in amorous discourse, and this action seemed to
be very annoying to the lory whose cage hung from the eaves there,
the lory endeared to the house from its ability to greet everybody
in the morning with marvelous phrases of love. Capitana Loleng,
the energetic and intelligent Capitana Loleng, had her account-book
open before her, but she neither read nor wrote in it, nor was her
attention fixed on the trays of loose pearls, nor on the diamonds--she
had completely forgotten herself and was all ears. Her husband himself,
the great Capitan Toringoy,--a transformation of the name Domingo,--the
happiest man in the district, without other occupation than to dress
well, eat, loaf, and gossip, while his whole family worked and toiled,
had not gone to join his coterie, but was listening between fear and
emotion to the hair-raising news of the lank Chichoy.
Nor was reason for all this lacking. Chichoy had gone to deliver some
work for Don Timoteo Pelaez, a pair of earrings for the bride, at the
very time when they were tearing down the kiosk that on the previous
night had served as a dining-room for the foremost officials. Here
Chichoy turned pale and his hair stood on end.
"_Nakú_!" he exclaimed, "sacks and sacks of powder, sacks of powder
under the floor, in the roof, under the table, under the chairs,
everywhere! It's lucky none of the workmen were smoking."
"Who put those sacks of powder there?" asked Capitana Loleng, who was
brave and did not turn pale, as did the enamored Momoy. But Momoy had
attended the wedding, so his posthumous emotion can be appreciated:
he had been near the kiosk.
"That's what no one can explain," replied Chichoy. "Who would have any
interest in breaking up the fiesta? There couldn't have been more than
one, as the celebrated lawyer Señor Pasta who was there on a visit
declared--either an enemy of Don Timoteo's or a rival of Juanito's."
The Orenda girls turned instinctively toward Isagani, who smiled
silently.
"Hide yourself," Capitana Loleng advised him. "They may accuse
you. Hide!"
Again Isagani smiled but said nothing.
"Don Timoteo," continued Chichoy, "did not know to whom to attribute
the deed. He himself superintended the work, he and his friend Simoun,
and nobody else. The house was thrown into an uproar, the lieutenant
of the guard came, and after enjoining secrecy upon everybody, they
sent me away. But--"
"But--but--" stammered the trembling Momoy.
"_Nakú!_" ejaculated Sensia, gazing at her fiancé and trembling
sympathetically to remember that he had been at the fiesta. "This
young man--If the house had blown up--" She stared at her sweetheart
passionately and admired his courage.
"If it had blown up--"
"No one in the whole of Calle Anloague would have been left alive,"
concluded Capitan Toringoy, feigning valor and indifference in the
presence of his family.
"I left in consternation," resumed Chichoy, "thinking about how, if a
mere spark, a cigarette had fallen, if a lamp had been overturned, at
the present moment we should have neither a General, nor an Archbishop,
nor any one, not even a government clerk! All who were at the fiesta
last night--annihilated!"
"_Vírgen Santísima!_ This young man--"
"_'Susmariosep!_" exclaimed Capitana Loleng. "All our debtors were
there, _'Susmariosep!_ And we have a house near there! Who could it
have been?"
"Now you may know about it," added Chichoy in a whisper, "but you
must keep it a secret. This afternoon I met a friend, a clerk in an
office, and in talking about the affair, he gave me the clue to the
mystery--he had it from some government employees. Who do you suppose
put the sacks of powder there?"
Many shrugged their shoulders, while Capitan Toringoy merely looked
askance at Isagani.
"The friars?"
"Quiroga the Chinaman?"
"Some student?"
"Makaraig?"
Capitan Toringoy coughed and glanced at Isagani, while Chichoy shook
his head and smiled.
"The jeweler Simoun."
"Simoun!!"