The Social Cancer - 11

hands and two fingers over and each finger a peso!" he murmured
thoughtfully. "And each peso, how many cuartos?"
"A hundred and sixty."
"A hundred and sixty cuartos? A hundred and sixty times a
cuarto? Goodness! And how many are a hundred and sixty?"
"Thirty-two hands," answered the older.
Crispin looked hard at his little hands. "Thirty-two hands," he
repeated, "six hands and two fingers over and each finger thirty-two
hands and each finger a cuarto--goodness, what a lot of cuartos! I
could hardly count them in three days; and with them could be bought
shoes for our feet, a hat for my head when the sun shines hot, a
big umbrella for the rain, and food, and clothes for you and mother,
and--" He became silent and thoughtful again.
"Now I'm sorry that I didn't steal!" he soon exclaimed.
"Crispin!" reproached his brother.
"Don't get angry! The curate has said that he'll beat me to death
if the money doesn't appear, and if I had stolen it I could make
it appear. Anyhow, if I died you and mother would at least have
clothes. Oh, if I had only stolen it!"
The elder pulled on the rope in silence. After a time he replied with
a sigh: "What I'm afraid of is that mother will scold you when she
knows about it."
"Do you think so?" asked the younger with astonishment. "You will
tell her that they're whipped me and I'll show the welts on my back
and my torn pocket. I had only one cuarto, which was given to me last
Easter, but the curate took that away from me yesterday. I never saw
a prettier cuarto! No, mother won't believe it."
"If the curate says so--"
Crispin began to cry, murmuring between his sobs, "Then go home
alone! I don't want to go. Tell mother that I'm sick. I don't want
to go."
"Crispin, don't cry!" pleaded the elder. "Mother won't believe
it--don't cry! Old Tasio told us that a fine supper is waiting for us."
"A fine supper! And I haven't eaten for a long time. They won't give
me anything to eat until the two gold pieces appear. But, if mother
believes it? You must tell her that the senior sacristan is a liar
but that the curate believes him and that all of them are liars, that
they say that we're thieves because our father is a vagabond who--"
At that instant a head appeared at the top of the stairway leading
down to the floor below, and that head, like Medusa's, froze the
words on the child's lips. It was a long, narrow head covered with
black hair, with blue glasses concealing the fact that one eye was
sightless. The senior sacristan was accustomed to appear thus without
noise or warning of any kind. The two brothers turned cold with fear.
"On you, Basilio, I impose a fine of two reals for not ringing the
bells in time," he said in a voice so hollow that his throat seemed
to lack vocal chords. "You, Crispin, must stay tonight, until what
you stole reappears."
Crispin looked at his brother as if pleading for protection.
"But we already have permission--mother expects us at eight o'clock,"
objected Basilio timidly.
"Neither shall you go home at eight, you'll stay until ten."
"But, sir, after nine o'clock no one is allowed to be out and our
house is far from here."
"Are you trying to give me orders?" growled the man irritably, as he
caught Crispin by the arm and started to drag him away.
"Oh, sir, it's been a week now since we're seen our mother," begged
Basilio, catching hold of his brother as if to defend him.
The senior sacristan struck his hand away and jerked at Crispin,
who began to weep as he fell to the floor, crying out to his brother,
"Don't leave me, they're going to kill me!"
The sacristan gave no heed to this and dragged him on to the
stairway. As they disappeared among the shadows below Basilio stood
speechless, listening to the sounds of his brother's body striking
against the steps. Then followed the sound of a blow and heartrending
cries that died away in the distance.
The boy stood on tiptoe, hardly breathing and listening fixedly,
with his eyes unnaturally wide and his fists clenched. "When shall I
be strong enough to plow a field?" he muttered between his teeth as
he started below hastily. Upon reaching the organ-loft he paused to
listen; the voice of his brother was fast dying away in the distance
and the cries of "Mother! Brother!" were at last completely cut
off by the sound of a closing door. Trembling and perspiring, he
paused for a moment with his fist in his mouth to keep down a cry of
anguish. He let his gaze wander about the dimly lighted church where
an oil-lamp gave a ghostly light, revealing the catafalque in the
center. The doors were closed and fastened, and the windows had iron
bars on them. Suddenly he reascended the stairway to the place where
the candle was burning and then climbed up into the third floor of
the belfry. After untying the ropes from the bell-clappers he again
descended. He was pale and his eyes glistened, but not with tears.
Meanwhile, the rain was gradually ceasing and the sky was
clearing. Basilio knotted the ropes together, tied one end to a rail
of the balustrade, and without even remembering to put out the light
let himself down into the darkness outside. A few moments later voices
were heard on one of the streets of the town, two shots resounded,
but no one seemed to be alarmed and silence again reigned.


CHAPTER XVI
Sisa

Through the dark night the villagers slept. The families who had
remembered their dead gave themselves up to quiet and satisfied sleep,
for they had recited their requiems, the novena of the souls, and had
burned many wax tapers before the sacred images. The rich and powerful
had discharged the duties their positions imposed upon them. On the
following day they would hear three masses said by each priest and
would give two pesos for another, besides buying a bull of indulgences
for the dead. Truly, divine justice is not nearly so exacting as human.
But the poor and indigent who earn scarcely enough to keep themselves
alive and who also have to pay tribute to the petty officials, clerks,
and soldiers, that they may be allowed to live in peace, sleep not
so tranquilly as gentle poets who have perhaps not felt the pinches
of want would have us believe. The poor are sad and thoughtful, for
on that night, if they have not recited many prayers, yet they have
prayed much--with pain in their eyes and tears in their hearts. They
have not the novenas, nor do they know the responsories, versicles,
and prayers which the friars have composed for those who lack original
ideas and feelings, nor do they understand them. They pray in the
language of their misery: their souls weep for them and for those
dead beings whose love was their wealth. Their lips may proffer
the salutations, but their minds cry out complaints, charged with
lamentations. Wilt Thou be satisfied, O Thou who blessedst poverty,
and you, O suffering souls, with the simple prayers of the poor,
offered before a rude picture in the light of a dim wick, or do
you perhaps desire wax tapers before bleeding Christs and Virgins
with small mouths and crystal eyes, and masses in Latin recited
mechanically by priests? And thou, Religion preached for suffering
humanity, hast thou forgotten thy mission of consoling the oppressed
in their misery and of humiliating the powerful in their pride? Hast
thou now promises only for the rich, for those who, can pay thee?
The poor widow watches among the children who sleep at her side. She
is thinking of the indulgences that she ought to buy for the repose
of the souls of her parents and of her dead husband. "A peso,"
she says, "a peso is a week of happiness for my children, a week of
laughter and joy, my savings for a month, a dress for my daughter
who is becoming a woman." "But it is necessary that you put aside
these worldly desires," says the voice that she heard in the pulpit,
"it is necessary that you make sacrifices." Yes, it is necessary. The
Church does not gratuitously save the beloved souls for you nor does
it distribute indulgences without payment. You must buy them, so
tonight instead of sleeping you should work. Think of your daughter,
so poorly clothed! Fast, for heaven is dear! Decidedly, it seems
that the poor enter not into heaven. Such thoughts wander through the
space enclosed between the rough mats spread out on the bamboo floor
and the ridge of the roof, from which hangs the hammock wherein the
baby swings. The infant's breathing is easy and peaceful, but from
time to time he swallows and smacks his lips; his hungry stomach,
which is not satisfied with what his older brothers have given him,
dreams of eating.
The cicadas chant monotonously, mingling their ceaseless notes with
the trills of the cricket hidden in the grass, or the chirp of the
little lizard which has come out in search of food, while the big
gekko, no longer fearing the water, disturbs the concert with its
ill-omened voice as it shows its head from out the hollow of the
decayed tree-trunk.
The dogs howl mournfully in the streets and superstitious folk,
hearing them, are convinced that they see spirits and ghosts. But
neither the dogs nor the other animals see the sorrows of men--yet
how many of these exist!
Distant from the town an hour's walk lives the mother of Basilio and
Crispin. The wife of a heartless man, she struggles to live for her
sons, while her husband is a vagrant gamester with whom her interviews
are rare but always painful. He has gradually stripped her of her
few jewels to pay the cost of his vices, and when the suffering Sisa
no longer had anything that he might take to satisfy his whims, he
had begun to maltreat her. Weak in character, with more heart than
intellect, she knew only how to love and to weep. Her husband was
a god and her sons were his angels, so he, knowing to what point he
was loved and feared, conducted himself like all false gods: daily
he became more cruel, more inhuman, more wilful. Once when he had
appeared with his countenance gloomier than ever before, Sisa had
consulted him about the plan of making a sacristan of Basilio, and
he had merely continued to stroke his game-cock, saying neither yes
nor no, only asking whether the boy would earn much money. She had
not dared to insist, but her needy situation and her desire that the
boys should learn to read and write in the town school forced her to
carry out the plan. Still her husband had said nothing.
That night, between ten and eleven o'clock, when the stars were
glittering in a sky now cleared of all signs of the storm of the
early evening, Sisa sat on a wooden bench watching some fagots that
smouldered upon the fireplace fashioned of rough pieces of natural
rock. Upon a tripod, or _tunko_, was a small pot of boiling rice
and upon the red coals lay three little dried fishes such as are
sold at three for two cuartos. Her chin rested in the palm of her
hand while she gazed at the weak yellow glow peculiar to the cane,
which burns rapidly and leaves embers that quickly grow pale. A sad
smile lighted up her face as she recalled a funny riddle about the pot
and the fire which Crispin had once propounded to her. The boy said:
"The black man sat down and the red man looked at him, a moment passed,
and cock-a-doodle-doo rang forth."
Sisa was still young, and it was plain that at one time she had been
pretty and attractive. Her eyes, which, like her disposition, she
had given to her sons, were beautiful, with long lashes and a deep
look. Her nose was regular and her pale lips curved pleasantly. She
was what the Tagalogs call _kayumanguing-kaligátan_; that is, her
color was a clear, pure brown. In spite of her youthfulness, pain
and perhaps even hunger had begun to make hollow her pallid cheeks,
and if her abundant hair, in other times the delight and adornment of
her person, was even yet simply and neatly arranged, though without
pins or combs, it was not from coquetry but from habit.
Sisa had been for several days confined to the house sewing upon
some work which had been ordered for the earliest possible time. In
order to earn the money, she had not attended mass that morning, as
it would have taken two hours at least to go to the town and return:
poverty obliges one to sin! She had finished the work and delivered
it but had received only a promise of payment. All that day she had
been anticipating the pleasures of the evening, for she knew that her
sons were coming and she had intended to make them some presents. She
had bought some small fishes, picked the most beautiful tomatoes in
her little garden, as she knew that Crispin was very fond of them, and
begged from a neighbor, old Tasio the Sage, who lived half a mile away,
some slices of dried wild boar's meat and a leg of wild duck, which
Basilio especially liked. Full of hope, she had cooked the whitest
of rice, which she herself had gleaned from the threshing-floors. It
was indeed a curate's meal for the poor boys.
But by an unfortunate chance her husband came and ate the rice,
the slices of wild boar's meat, the duck leg, five of the little
fishes, and the tomatoes. Sisa said nothing, although she felt as
if she herself were being eaten. His hunger at length appeased,
he remembered to ask for the boys. Then Sisa smiled happily and
resolved that she would not eat that night, because what remained
was not enough for three. The father had asked for their sons and
that for her was better than eating.
Soon he picked up his game-cock and started away.
"Don't you want to see them?" she asked tremulously. "Old Tasio told
me that they would be a little late. Crispin now knows how to read
and perhaps Basilio will bring his wages."
This last reason caused the husband to pause and waver, but his good
angel triumphed. "In that case keep a peso for me," he said as he
went away.
Sisa wept bitterly, but the thought of her sons soon dried her
tears. She cooked some more rice and prepared the only three fishes
that were left: each would have one and a half. "They'll have good
appetites," she mused, "the way is long and hungry stomachs have
no heart."
So she sat, he ear strained to catch every sound, listening to the
lightest footfalls: strong and clear, Basilio; light and irregular,
Crispin--thus she mused. The _kalao_ called in the woods several times
after the rain had ceased, but still her sons did not come. She put the
fishes inside the pot to keep them warm and went to the threshold of
the hut to look toward the road. To keep herself company, she began
to sing in a low voice, a voice usually so sweet and tender that when
her sons listened to her singing the _kundíman_ they wept without
knowing why, but tonight it trembled and the notes were halting. She
stopped singing and gazed earnestly into the darkness, but no one
was coming from the town--that noise was only the wind shaking the
raindrops from the wide banana leaves.
Suddenly a black dog appeared before her dragging something along the
path. Sisa was frightened but caught up a stone and threw it at the
dog, which ran away howling mournfully. She was not superstitious,
but she had heard so much about presentiments and black dogs that
terror seized her. She shut the door hastily and sat down by the
light. Night favors credulity and the imagination peoples the air
with specters. She tried to pray, to call upon the Virgin and upon
God to watch over her sons, especially her little Crispin. Then she
forgot her prayers as her thoughts wandered to think about them, to
recall the features of each, those features that always wore a smile
for her both asleep and awake. Suddenly she felt her hair rise on her
head and her eyes stared wildly; illusion or reality, she saw Crispin
standing by the fireplace, there where he was wont to sit and prattle
to her, but now he said nothing as he gazed at her with those large,
thoughtful eyes, and smiled.
"Mother, open the door! Open, mother!" cried the voice of Basilio
from without.
Sisa shuddered violently and the vision disappeared.


CHAPTER XVII
Basilio

La vida es sueño.

Basilio was scarcely inside when he staggered and fell into his
mother's arms. An inexplicable chill seized Sisa as she saw him enter
alone. She wanted to speak but could make no sound; she wanted to
embrace her son but lacked the strength; to weep was impossible. At
sight of the blood which covered the boy's forehead she cried in a
tone that seemed to come from a breaking heart, "My sons!"
"Don't be afraid, mother," Basilio reassured her. "Crispin stayed at
the convento."
"At the convento? He stayed at the convento? Is he alive?"
The boy raised his eyes to her. "Ah!" she sighed, passing from the
depths of sorrow to the heights of joy. She wept and embraced her son,
covering his bloody forehead with kisses.
"Crispin is alive! You left him at the convento! But why are you
wounded, my son? Have you had a fall?" she inquired, as she examined
him anxiously.
"The senior sacristan took Crispin away and told me that I could not
leave until ten o'clock, but it was already late and so I ran away. In
the town the soldiers challenged me, I started to run, they fired,
and a bullet grazed my forehead. I was afraid they would arrest me and
beat me and make me scrub out the barracks, as they did with Pablo,
who is still sick from it."
"My God, my God!" murmured his mother, shuddering. "Thou hast saved
him!" Then while she sought for bandages, water, vinegar, and a
feather, she went on, "A finger's breadth more and they would have
killed you, they would have killed my boy! The civil-guards do not
think of the mothers."
"You must say that I fell from a tree so that no one will know they
chased me," Basilio cautioned her.
"Why did Crispin stay?" asked Sisa, after dressing her son's wound.
Basilio hesitated a few moments, then with his arms about her and
their tears mingling, he related little by little the story of the
gold pieces, without speaking, however, of the tortures they were
inflicting upon his young brother.
"My good Crispin! To accuse my good Crispin! It's because we're poor
and we poor people have to endure everything!" murmured Sisa, staring
through her tears at the light of the lamp, which was now dying out
from lack of oil. So they remained silent for a while.
"Haven't you had any supper yet? Here are rice and fish."
"I don't want anything, only a little water."
"Yes," answered his mother sadly, "I know that you don't like dried
fish. I had prepared something else, but your father came."
"Father came?" asked Basilio, instinctively examining the face and
hands of his mother.
The son's questioning gaze pained Sisa's heart, for she understood it
only too well, so she added hastily: "He came and asked a lot about
you and wanted to see you, and he was very hungry. He said that if
you continued to be so good he would come back to stay with us."
An exclamation of disgust from Basilio's contracted lips interrupted
her. "Son!" she reproached him.
"Forgive me, mother," he answered seriously. "But aren't we three
better off--you, Crispin, and I? You're crying--I haven't said
anything."
Sisa sighed and asked, "Aren't you going to eat? Then let's go to
sleep, for it's now very late." She then closed up the hut and covered
the few coals with ashes so that the fire would not die out entirely,
just as a man does with his inner feelings; he covers them with the
ashes of his life, which he calls indifference, so that they may not
be deadened by daily contact with his fellows.
Basilio murmured his prayers and lay down near his mother, who was
upon her knees praying. He felt hot and cold, he tried to close his
eyes as he thought of his little brother who that night had expected
to sleep in his mother's lap and who now was probably trembling with
terror and weeping in some dark corner of the convento. His ears were
again pierced with those cries he had heard in the church tower. But
wearied nature soon began to confuse his ideas and the veil of sleep
descended upon his eyes.
He saw a bedroom where two dim tapers burned. The curate, with
a rattan whip in his hand, was listening gloomily to something
that the senior sacristan was telling him in a strange tongue with
horrible gestures. Crispin quailed and turned his tearful eyes in
every direction as if seeking some one or some hiding-place. The
curate turned toward him and called to him irritably, the rattan
whistled. The child ran to hide himself behind the sacristan, who
caught and held him, thus exposing him to the curate's fury. The
unfortunate boy fought, kicked, screamed, threw himself on the floor
and rolled about. He picked himself up, ran, slipped, fell, and parried
the blows with his hands, which, wounded, he hid quickly, all the time
shrieking with pain. Basilio saw him twist himself, strike the floor
with his head, he saw and heard the rattan whistle. In desperation
his little brother rose. Mad with pain he threw himself upon his
tormentor and bit him on the hand. The curate gave a cry and dropped
the rattan--the sacristan caught up a heavy cane and struck the boy a
blow on the head so that he fell stunned--the curate, seeing him down,
trampled him with his feet. But the child no longer defended himself
nor did he cry out; he rolled along the floor, a lifeless mass that
left a damp track. [60]
Sisa's voice brought him back to reality. "What's the matter? Why
are you crying?"
"I dreamed--O God!" exclaimed Basilio, sitting up, covered with
perspiration. "It was a dream! Tell me, mother, that it was only a
dream! Only a dream!"
"What did you dream?"
The boy did not answer, but sat drying his tears and wiping away the
perspiration. The hut was in total darkness.
"A dream, a dream!" repeated Basilio in subdued tones.
"Tell me what you dreamed. I can't sleep," said his mother when he
lay down again.
"Well," he said in a low voice, "I dreamed that we had gone to
glean the rice-stalks--in a field where there were many flowers--the
women had baskets full of rice-stalks the men too had baskets full of
rice-stalks--and the children too--I don't remember any more, mother,
I don't remember the rest."
Sisa had no faith in dreams, so she did not insist.
"Mother, I've thought of a plan tonight," said Basilio after a few
moments' silence.
"What is your plan?" she asked. Sisa was humble in everything, even
with her own sons, trusting their judgment more than her own.
"I don't want to be a sacristan any longer."
"What?"
"Listen, mother, to what I've been thinking about. Today there arrived
from Spain the son of the dead Don Rafael, and he will be a good
man like his father. Well now, mother, tomorrow you will get Crispin,
collect my wages, and say that I will not be a sacristan any longer. As
soon as I get well I'll go to see Don Crisostomo and ask him to hire me
as a herdsman of his cattle and carabaos--I'm now big enough. Crispin
can study with old Tasio, who does not whip and who is a good man,
even if the curate does not believe so. What have we to fear now from
the padre? Can he make us any poorer than we are? You may believe it,
mother, the old man is good. I've seen him often in the church when
no one else was about, kneeling and praying, believe it. So, mother,
I'll stop being a sacristan. I earn but little and that little is taken
away from me in fines. Every one complains of the same thing. I'll
be a herdsman and by performing my tasks carefully I'll make my
employer like me. Perhaps he'll let us milk a cow so that we can drink
milk--Crispin likes milk so much. Who can tell! Maybe they'll give us
a little calf if they see that I behave well and we'll take care of
it and fatten it like our hen. I'll pick fruits in the woods and sell
them in the town along with the vegetables from our garden, so we'll
have money. I'll set snares and traps to catch birds and wild cats,
[61] I'll fish in the river, and when I'm bigger, I'll hunt. I'll be
able also to cut firewood to sell or to present to the owner of the
cows, and so he'll be satisfied with us. When I'm able to plow, I'll
ask him to let me have a piece of land to plant in sugar-cane or corn
and you won't have to sew until midnight. We'll have new clothes for
every fiesta, we'll eat meat and big fish, we'll live free, seeing each
other every day and eating together. Old Tasio says that Crispin has a
good head and so we'll send him to Manila to study. I'll support him
by working hard. Isn't that fine, mother? Perhaps he'll be a doctor,
what do you say?"
"What can I say but yes?" said Sisa as she embraced her son. She noted,
however, that in their future the boy took no account of his father,
and shed silent tears.
Basilio went on talking of his plans with the confidence of the
years that see only what they wish for. To everything Sisa said
yes--everything appeared good.
Sleep again began to weigh down upon the tired eyelids of the boy,
and this time Ole-Luk-Oie, of whom Andersen tells us, spread over
him his beautiful umbrella with its pleasing pictures. Now he saw
himself with his little brother as they picked guavas, alpay, and
other fruits in the woods; they clambered from branch to branch, light
as butterflies; they penetrated into the caves and saw the shining
rocks; they bathed in the springs where the sand was gold-dust and
the stones like the jewels in the Virgin's crown. The little fishes
sang and laughed, the plants bent their branches toward them laden
with golden fruit. Then he saw a bell hanging in a tree with a long
rope for ringing it; to the rope was tied a cow with a bird's nest
between her horns and Crispin was inside the bell.
Thus he went on dreaming, while his mother, who was not of his age
and who had not run for an hour, slept not.


CHAPTER XVIII
Souls in Torment

It was about seven o'clock in the morning when Fray Salvi finished
celebrating his last mass, having offered up three in the space of
an hour. "The padre is ill," commented the pious women. "He doesn't
move about with his usual slowness and elegance of manner."
He took off his vestments without the least comment, without saying
a word or looking at any one. "Attention!" whispered the sacristans
among themselves. "The devil's to pay! It's going to rain fines,
and all on account of those two brothers."
He left the sacristy to go up into the rectory, in the hallway of
which there awaited him some seven or eight women seated upon benches
and a man who was pacing back and forth. Upon seeing him approach,
the women arose and one of them pressed forward to kiss his hand,
but the holy man made a sign of impatience that stopped her short.
"Can it be that you've lost a real, _kuriput?_" exclaimed the woman
with a jesting laugh, offended at such a reception. "Not to give
his hand to me, Matron of the Sisterhood, Sister Rufa!" It was an
unheard-of proceeding.
"He didn't go into the confessional this morning," added Sister Sipa,
a toothless old woman. "I wanted to confess myself so as to receive
communion and get the indulgences."
"Well, I'm sorry for you," commented a young woman with a frank
face. "This week I earned three plenary indulgences and dedicated
them to the soul of my husband."
"Badly done, Sister Juana," said the offended Rufa. "One plenary
indulgence was enough to get him out of purgatory. You ought not to
squander the holy indulgences. Do as I do."
"I thought, so many more the better," answered the simple Sister Juana,
smiling. "But tell me what you do."
Sister Rufa did not answer at once. First, she asked for a buyo and
chewed at it, gazed at her audience, which was listening attentively,
then spat to one side and commenced, chewing at the buyo meanwhile: "I
don't misspend one holy day! Since I've belonged to the Sisterhood I've
earned four hundred and fifty-seven plenary indulgences, seven hundred