The Social Cancer - 06

highest secular official is inferior to a friar-cook: _cedant arma
togae_, said Cicero in the Senate--_cedant arma cottae_, say the
friars in the Philippines. [28]
But Fray Sibyla was a well-bred person, so he said, "Lieutenant, here
we are in the world and not in the church. The seat of honor belongs
to you." To judge from the tone of his voice, however, even in the
world it really did belong to him, and the lieutenant, either to keep
out of trouble or to avoid sitting between two friars, curtly declined.
None of the claimants had given a thought to their host. Ibarra
noticed him watching the scene with a smile of satisfaction.
"How's this, Don Santiago, aren't you going to sit down with us?"
But all the seats were occupied; Lucullus was not to sup in the house
of Lucullus.
"Sit still, don't get up!" said Capitan Tiago, placing his hand on
the young man's shoulder. "This fiesta is for the special purpose
of giving thanks to the Virgin for your safe arrival. _Oy!_ Bring
on the _tinola!_ I ordered _tinola_ as you doubtless have not tasted
any for so long a time."
A large steaming tureen was brought in. The Dominican, after muttering
the benedicite, to which scarcely any one knew how to respond, began
to serve the contents. But whether from carelessness or other cause,
Padre Damaso received a plate in which a bare neck and a tough wing
of chicken floated about in a large quantity of soup amid lumps of
squash, while the others were eating legs and breasts, especially
Ibarra, to whose lot fell the second joints. Observing all this, the
Franciscan mashed up some pieces of squash, barely tasted the soup,
dropped his spoon noisily, and roughly pushed his plate away. The
Dominican was very busy talking to the rubicund youth.
"How long have you been away from the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra.
"Almost seven years."
"Then you have probably forgotten all about it."
"Quite the contrary. Even if my country does seem to have forgotten
me, I have always thought about it."
"How do you mean that it has forgotten you?" inquired the rubicund
youth.
"I mean that it has been a year since I have received any news from
here, so that I find myself a stranger who does not yet know how and
when his father died."
This statement drew a sudden exclamation from the lieutenant.
"And where were you that you didn't telegraph?" asked Doña
Victorina. "When we were married we telegraphed to the Peñinsula." [29]
"Señora, for the past two years I have been in the northern part of
Europe, in Germany and Russian Poland."
Doctor De Espadaña, who until now had not ventured upon any
conversation, thought this a good opportunity to say something. "I--I
knew in S-spain a P-pole from W-warsaw, c-called S-stadtnitzki, if
I r-remember c-correctly. P-perhaps you s-saw him?" he asked timidly
and almost blushingly.
"It's very likely," answered Ibarra in a friendly manner, "but just
at this moment I don't recall him."
"B-but you c-couldn't have c-confused him with any one else," went
on the Doctor, taking courage. "He was r-ruddy as gold and t-talked
Spanish very b-badly."
"Those are good clues, but unfortunately while there I talked Spanish
only in a few consulates."
"How then did you get along?" asked the wondering Doña Victorina.
"The language of the country served my needs, madam."
"Do you also speak English?" inquired the Dominican, who had been in
Hongkong, and who was a master of pidgin-English, that adulteration
of Shakespeare's tongue used by the sons of the Celestial Empire.
"I stayed in England a year among people who talked nothing but
English."
"Which country of Europe pleased you the most?" asked the rubicund
youth.
"After Spain, my second fatherland, any country of free Europe."
"And you who seem to have traveled so much, tell us what do you
consider the most notable thing that you have seen?" inquired Laruja.
Ibarra appeared to reflect. "Notable--in what way?"
"For example, in regard to the life of the people--the social,
political, religious life--in general, in its essential features--as
a whole."
Ibarra paused thoughtfully before replying. "Frankly, I like everything
in those people, setting aside the national pride of each one. But
before visiting a country, I tried to familiarize myself with its
history, its Exodus, if I may so speak, and afterwards I found
everything quite natural. I have observed that the prosperity or
misery of each people is in direct proportion to its liberties or its
prejudices and, accordingly, to the sacrifices or the selfishness of
its forefathers."
"And haven't you observed anything more than that?" broke in the
Franciscan with a sneer. Since the beginning of the dinner he had not
uttered a single word, his whole attention having been taking up,
no doubt, with the food. "It wasn't worth while to squander your
fortune to learn so trifling a thing. Any schoolboy knows that."
Ibarra was placed in an embarrassing position, and the rest looked
from one to the other as if fearing a disagreeable scene. He was
about to say, "The dinner is nearly over and his Reverence is now
satiated," but restrained himself and merely remarked to the others,
"Gentlemen, don't be surprised at the familiarity with which our former
curate treats me. He treated me so when I was a child, and the years
seem to make no difference in his Reverence. I appreciate it, too,
because it recalls the days when his Reverence visited our home and
honored my father's table."
The Dominican glanced furtively at the Franciscan, who was trembling
visibly. Ibarra continued as he rose from the table: "You will now
permit me to retire, since, as I have just arrived and must go away
tomorrow morning, there remain some important business matters for me
to attend to. The principal part of the dinner is over and I drink
but little wine and seldom touch cordials. Gentlemen, all for Spain
and the Philippines!" Saying this, he drained his glass, which he had
not before touched. The old lieutenant silently followed his example.
"Don't go!" whispered Capitan Tiago. "Maria Clara will be here. Isabel
has gone to get her. The new curate of your town, who is a saint,
is also coming."
"I'll call tomorrow before starting. I've a very important visit to
make now." With this he went away.
Meanwhile the Franciscan had recovered himself. "Do you see?" he
said to the rubicund youth, at the same time flourishing his dessert
spoon. "That comes from pride. They can't stand to have the curate
correct them. They even think that they are respectable persons. It's
the evil result of sending young men to Europe. The government ought
to prohibit it."
"And how about the lieutenant?" Doña Victorina chimed in upon the
Franciscan, "he didn't get the frown off his face the whole evening. He
did well to leave us so old and still only a lieutenant!" The lady
could not forget the allusion to her frizzes and the trampled ruffles
of her gown.
That night the rubicund youth wrote down, among other things, the
following title for a chapter in his _Colonial Studies_: "Concerning
the manner in which the neck and wing of a chicken in a friar's plate
of soup may disturb the merriment of a feast." Among his notes there
appeared these observations: "In the Philippines the most unnecessary
person at a dinner is he who gives it, for they are quite capable of
beginning by throwing the host into the street and then everything
will go on smoothly. Under present conditions it would perhaps be a
good thing not to allow the Filipinos to leave the country, and even
not to teach them to read."


CHAPTER IV
Heretic and Filibuster

Ibarra stood undecided for a moment. The night breeze, which during
those months blows cool enough in Manila, seemed to drive from his
forehead the light cloud that had darkened it. He took off his hat and
drew a deep breath. Carriages flashed by, public rigs moved along at a
sleepy pace, pedestrians of many nationalities were passing. He walked
along at that irregular pace which indicates thoughtful abstraction
or freedom from care, directing his steps toward Binondo Plaza and
looking about him as if to recall the place. There were the same
streets and the identical houses with their white and blue walls,
whitewashed, or frescoed in bad imitation of granite; the church
continued to show its illuminated clock face; there were the same
Chinese shops with their soiled curtains and their iron gratings, in
one of which was a bar that he, in imitation of the street urchins of
Manila, had twisted one night; it was still unstraightened. "How slowly
everything moves," he murmured as he turned into Calle Sacristia. The
ice-cream venders were repeating the same shrill cry, "_Sorbeteee!_"
while the smoky lamps still lighted the identical Chinese stands and
those of the old women who sold candy and fruit.
"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "There's the same Chinese who was here
seven years ago, and that old woman--the very same! It might be said
that tonight I've dreamed of a seven years' journey in Europe. Good
heavens, that pavement is still in the same unrepaired condition
as when I left!" True it was that the stones of the sidewalk on the
corner of San Jacinto and Sacristia were still loose.
While he was meditating upon this marvel of the city's stability in
a country where everything is so unstable, a hand was placed lightly
on his shoulder. He raised his head to see the old lieutenant gazing
at him with something like a smile in place of the hard expression
and the frown which usually characterized him.
"Young man, be careful! Learn from your father!" was the abrupt
greeting of the old soldier.
"Pardon me, but you seem to have thought a great deal of my father. Can
you tell me how he died?" asked Ibarra, staring at him.
"What! Don't you know about it?" asked the officer.
"I asked Don Santiago about it, but he wouldn't promise to tell me
until tomorrow. Perhaps you know?"
"I should say I do, as does everybody else. He died in prison!"
The young man stepped backward a pace and gazed searchingly at the
lieutenant. "In prison? Who died in prison?"
"Your father, man, since he was in confinement," was the somewhat
surprised answer.
"My father--in prison--confined in a prison? What are you talking
about? Do you know who my father was? Are you--?" demanded the young
man, seizing the officer's arm.
"I rather think that I'm not mistaken. He was Don Rafael Ibarra."
"Yes, Don Rafael Ibarra," echoed the youth weakly.
"Well, I thought you knew about it," muttered the soldier in a
tone of compassion as he saw what was passing in Ibarra's mind. "I
supposed that you--but be brave! Here one cannot be honest and keep
out of jail."
"I must believe that you are not joking with me," replied Ibarra in
a weak voice, after a few moments' silence. "Can you tell me why he
was in prison?"
The old man seemed to be perplexed. "It's strange to me that your
family affairs were not made known to you."
"His last letter, a year ago, said that I should not be uneasy if
he did not write, as he was very busy. He charged me to continue my
studies and--sent me his blessing."
"Then he wrote that letter to you just before he died. It will soon
be a year since we buried him."
"But why was my father a prisoner?"
"For a very honorable reason. But come with me to the barracks and
I'll tell you as we go along. Take my arm."
They moved along for some time in silence. The elder seemed to be in
deep thought and to be seeking inspiration from his goatee, which he
stroked continually.
"As you well know," he began, "your father was the richest man in
the province, and while many loved and respected him, there were
also some who envied and hated him. We Spaniards who come to the
Philippines are unfortunately not all we ought to be. I say this as
much on account of one of your ancestors as on account of your father's
enemies. The continual changes, the corruption in the higher circles,
the favoritism, the low cost and the shortness of the journey, are to
blame for it all. The worst characters of the Peninsula come here,
and even if a good man does come, the country soon ruins him. So it
was that your father had a number of enemies among the curates and
other Spaniards."
Here he hesitated for a while. "Some months after your departure the
troubles with Padre Damaso began, but I am unable to explain the real
cause of them. Fray Damaso accused him of not coming to confession,
although he had not done so formerly and they had nevertheless been
good friends, as you may still remember. Moreover, Don Rafael was a
very upright man, more so than many of those who regularly attend
confession and than the confessors themselves. He had framed for
himself a rigid morality and often said to me, when he talked of
these troubles, 'Señor Guevara, do you believe that God will pardon
any crime, a murder for instance, solely by a man's telling it to a
priest--a man after all and one whose duty it is to keep quiet about
it--by his fearing that he will roast in hell as a penance--by being
cowardly and certainly shameless into the bargain? I have another
conception of God,' he used to say, 'for in my opinion one evil does
not correct another, nor is a crime to be expiated by vain lamentings
or by giving alms to the Church. Take this example: if I have killed
the father of a family, if I have made of a woman a sorrowing widow
and destitute orphans of some happy children, have I satisfied eternal
Justice by letting myself be hanged, or by entrusting my secret to one
who is obliged to guard it for me, or by giving alms to priests who
are least in need of them, or by buying indulgences and lamenting
night and day? What of the widow and the orphans? My conscience
tells me that I should try to take the place of him whom I killed,
that I should dedicate my whole life to the welfare of the family
whose misfortunes I caused. But even so, who can replace the love of
a husband and a father?' Thus your father reasoned and by this strict
standard of conduct regulated all his actions, so that it can be said
that he never injured anybody. On the contrary, he endeavored by his
good deeds to wipe out some injustices which he said your ancestors
had committed. But to get back to his troubles with the curate--these
took on a serious aspect. Padre Damaso denounced him from the pulpit,
and that he did not expressly name him was a miracle, since anything
might have been expected of such a character. I foresaw that sooner
or later the affair would have serious results."
Again the old lieutenant paused. "There happened to be wandering about
the province an ex-artilleryman who has been discharged from the army
on account of his stupidity and ignorance. As the man had to live and
he was not permitted to engage in manual labor, which would injure
our prestige, he somehow or other obtained a position as collector of
the tax on vehicles. The poor devil had no education at all, a fact of
which the natives soon became aware, as it was a marvel for them to see
a Spaniard who didn't know how to read and write. Every one ridiculed
him and the payment of the tax was the occasion of broad smiles. He
knew that he was an object of ridicule and this tended to sour his
disposition even more, rough and bad as it had formerly been. They
would purposely hand him the papers upside down to see his efforts
to read them, and wherever he found a blank space he would scribble
a lot of pothooks which rather fitly passed for his signature. The
natives mocked while they paid him. He swallowed his pride and made
the collections, but was in such a state of mind that he had no respect
for any one. He even came to have some hard words with your father.
"One day it happened that he was in a shop turning a document over and
over in the effort to get it straight when a schoolboy began to make
signs to his companions and to point laughingly at the collector with
his finger. The fellow heard the laughter and saw the joke reflected
in the solemn faces of the bystanders. He lost his patience and,
turning quickly, started to chase the boys, who ran away shouting _ba,
be, bi, bo, bu_. [30] Blind with rage and unable to catch them, he
threw his cane and struck one of the boys on the head, knocking him
down. He ran up and began to kick the fallen boy, and none of those
who had been laughing had the courage to interfere. Unfortunately,
your father happened to come along just at that time. He ran forward
indignantly, caught the collector by the arm, and reprimanded him
severely. The artilleryman, who was no doubt beside himself with rage,
raised his hand, but your father was too quick for him, and with the
strength of a descendant of the Basques--some say that he struck him,
others that he merely pushed him, but at any rate the man staggered
and fell a little way off, striking his head against a stone. Don
Rafael quietly picked the wounded boy up and carried him to the town
hall. The artilleryman bled freely from the mouth and died a few
moments later without recovering consciousness.
"As was to be expected, the authorities intervened and arrested
your father. All his hidden enemies at once rose up and false
accusations came from all sides. He was accused of being a heretic
and a filibuster. To be a heretic is a great danger anywhere,
but especially so at that time when the province was governed by an
alcalde who made a great show of his piety, who with his servants used
to recite his rosary in the church in a loud voice, perhaps that all
might hear and pray with him. But to be a filibuster is worse than
to be a heretic and to kill three or four tax-collectors who know
how to read, write, and attend to business. Every one abandoned him,
and his books and papers were seized. He was accused of subscribing to
_El Correo de Ultramar_, and to newspapers from Madrid, of having sent
you to Germany, of having in his possession letters and a photograph
of a priest who had been legally executed, and I don't know what
not. Everything served as an accusation, even the fact that he, a
descendant of Peninsulars, wore a camisa. Had it been any one but
your father, it is likely that he would soon have been set free,
as there was a physician who ascribed the death of the unfortunate
collector to a hemorrhage. But his wealth, his confidence in the law,
and his hatred of everything that was not legal and just, wrought his
undoing. In spite of my repugnance to asking for mercy from any one,
I applied personally to the Captain-General--the predecessor of our
present one--and urged upon him that there could not be anything of
the filibuster about a man who took up with all the Spaniards, even
the poor emigrants, and gave them food and shelter, and in whose
veins yet flowed the generous blood of Spain. It was in vain that
I pledged my life and swore by my poverty and my military honor. I
succeeded only in being coldly listened to and roughly sent away with
the epithet of _chiflado_." [31]
The old man paused to take a deep breath, and after noticing the
silence of his companion, who was listening with averted face,
continued: "At your father's request I prepared the defense in the
case. I went first to the celebrated Filipino lawyer, young A----,
but he refused to take the case. 'I should lose it,' he told me,
'and my defending him would furnish the motive for another charge
against him and perhaps one against me. Go to Señor M----, who is a
forceful and fluent speaker and a Peninsular of great influence.' I
did so, and the noted lawyer took charge of the case, and conducted it
with mastery and brilliance. But your father's enemies were numerous,
some of them hidden and unknown. False witnesses abounded, and their
calumnies, which under other circumstances would have melted away
before a sarcastic phrase from the defense, here assumed shape and
substance. If the lawyer succeeded in destroying the force of their
testimony by making them contradict each other and even perjure
themselves, new charges were at once preferred. They accused him of
having illegally taken possession of a great deal of land and demanded
damages. They said that he maintained relations with the tulisanes in
order that his crops and animals might not be molested by them. At
last the case became so confused that at the end of a year no one
understood it. The alcalde had to leave and there came in his place
one who had the reputation of being honest, but unfortunately he stayed
only a few months, and his successor was too fond of good horses.
"The sufferings, the worries, the hard life in the prison, or the pain
of seeing so much ingratitude, broke your father's iron constitution
and he fell ill with that malady which only the tomb can cure. When
the case was almost finished and he was about to be acquitted of the
charge of being an enemy of the fatherland and of being the murderer
of the tax-collector, he died in the prison with no one at his side. I
arrived just in time to see him breathe his last."
The old lieutenant became silent, but still Ibarra said nothing. They
had arrived meanwhile at the door of the barracks, so the soldier
stopped and said, as he grasped the youth's hand, "Young man, for
details ask Capitan Tiago. Now, good night, as I must return to duty
and see that all's well."
Silently, but with great feeling, Ibarra shook the lieutenant's bony
hand and followed him with his eyes until he disappeared. Then he
turned slowly and signaled to a passing carriage. "To Lala's Hotel,"
was the direction he gave in a scarcely audible voice.
"This fellow must have just got out of jail," thought the cochero as
he whipped up his horses.


CHAPTER V
A Star in a Dark Night

Ibarra went to his room, which overlooked the river, and dropping
into a chair gazed out into the vast expanse of the heavens spread
before him through the open window. The house on the opposite bank
was profusely lighted, and gay strains of music, largely from stringed
instruments, were borne across the river even to his room.
If the young man had been less preoccupied, if he had had more
curiosity and had cared to see with his opera glasses what was going
on in that atmosphere of light, he would have been charmed with one of
those magical and fantastic spectacles, the like of which is sometimes
seen in the great theaters of Europe. To the subdued strains of the
orchestra there seems to appear in the midst of a shower of light, a
cascade of gold and diamonds in an Oriental setting, a deity wrapped
in misty gauze, a sylph enveloped in a luminous halo, who moves
forward apparently without touching the floor. In her presence the
flowers bloom, the dance awakens, the music bursts forth, and troops
of devils, nymphs, satyrs, demons, angels, shepherds and shepherdesses,
dance, shake their tambourines, and whirl about in rhythmic evolutions,
each one placing some tribute at the feet of the goddess. Ibarra would
have seen a beautiful and graceful maiden, clothed in the picturesque
garments of the daughters of the Philippines, standing in the center
Of a semicircle made up of every class of people, Chinese, Spaniards,
Filipinos, soldiers, curates, old men and young, all gesticulating
and moving about in a lively manner. Padre Damaso stood at the side
of the beauty, smiling like one especially blessed. Fray Sibyla--yes,
Fray Sibyla himself--was talking to her. Doña Victorina was arranging
in the magnificent hair of the maiden a string of pearls and diamonds
which threw out all the beautiful tints of the rainbow. She was white,
perhaps too much so, and whenever she raised her downcast eyes there
shone forth a spotless soul. When she smiled so as to show her small
white teeth the beholder realized that the rose is only a flower
and ivory but the elephant's tusk. From out the filmy piña draperies
around her white and shapely neck there blinked, as the Tagalogs say,
the bright eyes of a collar of diamonds. One man only in all the crowd
seemed insensible to her radiant influence--a young Franciscan, thin,
wasted, and pale, who watched her from a distance, motionless as a
statue and scarcely breathing.
But Ibarra saw nothing of all this--his eyes were fixed on other
things. A small space was enclosed by four bare and grimy walls, in
one of which was an iron grating. On the filthy and loathsome floor
was a mat upon which an old man lay alone in the throes of death,
an old man breathing with difficulty and turning his head from side
to side as amid his tears he uttered a name. The old man was alone,
but from time to time a groan or the rattle of a chain was heard on
the other side of the wall. Far away there was a merry feast, almost
an orgy; a youth was laughing, shouting, and pouring wine upon the
flowers amid the applause and drunken laughter of his companions. The
old man had the features of _his_ father, the youth was himself, and
the name that the old man uttered with tears was _his own_ name! This
was what the wretched young man saw before him. The lights in the
house opposite were extinguished, the music and the noises ceased,
but Ibarra still heard the anguished cry of his father calling upon
his son in the hour of his death.
Silence had now blown its hollow breath over the city, and all
things seemed to sleep in the embrace of nothingness. The cock-crow
alternated with the strokes of the clocks in the church towers and
the mournful cries of the weary sentinels. A waning moon began to
appear, and everything seemed to be at rest; even Ibarra himself,
worn out by his sad thoughts or by his journey, now slept.
Only the young Franciscan whom we saw not so long ago standing
motionless and silent in the midst of the gaiety of the ballroom slept
not, but kept vigil. In his cell, with his elbow upon the window
sill and his pale, worn cheek resting on the palm of his hand, he
was gazing silently into the distance where a bright star glittered
in the dark sky. The star paled and disappeared, the dim light of the
waning moon faded, but the friar did not move from his place--he was
gazing out over the field of Bagumbayan and the sleeping sea at the
far horizon wrapped in the morning mist.


CHAPTER VI
Capitan Tiago

Thy will be done on earth.

While our characters are deep in slumber or busy with their breakfasts,
let us turn our attention to Capitan Tiago. We have never had the
honor of being his guest, so it is neither our right nor our duty to
pass him by slightingly, even under the stress of important events.
Low in stature, with a clear complexion, a corpulent figure and a
full face, thanks to the liberal supply of fat which according to his
admirers was the gift of Heaven and which his enemies averred was the
blood of the poor, Capitan Tiago appeared to be younger than he really
was; he might have been thought between thirty and thirty-five years of
age. At the time of our story his countenance always wore a sanctified
look; his little round head, covered with ebony-black hair cut long in
front and short behind, was reputed to contain many things of weight;
his eyes, small but with no Chinese slant, never varied in expression;
his nose was slender and not at all inclined to flatness; and if his
mouth had not been disfigured by the immoderate use of tobacco and
buyo, which, when chewed and gathered in one cheek, marred the symmetry
of his features, we would say that he might properly have considered
himself a handsome man and have passed for such. Yet in spite of this
bad habit he kept marvelously white both his natural teeth and also
the two which the dentist furnished him at twelve pesos each.
He was considered one of the richest landlords in Binondo and a
planter of some importance by reason of his estates in Pampanga and
Laguna, principally in the town of San Diego, the income from which