The Social Cancer - 34

"Then I'll go on without you!" responded Ibarra resolutely.
"Is your decision final?"
"Final and firm; let the memory of my mother bear witness! I will
not let peace and happiness be torn away from me with impunity,
I who desired only what was good, I who have respected everything
and endured everything out of love for a hypocritical religion
and out of love of country. How have they answered me? By burying
me in an infamous dungeon and robbing me of my intended wife! No,
not to avenge myself would be a crime, it would be encouraging them
to new acts of injustice! No, it would be cowardice, pusillanimity,
to groan and weep when there is blood and life left, when to insult
and menace is added mockery. I will call out these ignorant people,
I will make them see their misery. I will teach them to think not of
brotherhood but only that they are wolves for devouring, I will urge
them to rise against this oppression and proclaim the eternal right
of man to win his freedom!"
"But innocent people will suffer!"
"So much the better! Can you take me to the mountains?"
"Until you are in safety," replied Elias.
Again they moved out into the Pasig, talking from time to time of
indifferent matters.
"Santa Ana!" murmured Ibarra. "Do you recognize this building?" They
were passing in front of the country-house of the Jesuits.
"There I spent many pleasant and happy days!" sighed Elias. "In my
time we came every month. Then I was like others, I had a fortune,
family, I dreamed, I looked forward to a future. In those days I saw
my sister in the near-by college, she presented me with a piece of
her own embroidery-work. A friend used to accompany her, a beautiful
girl. All that has passed like a dream."
They remained silent until they reached Malapad-na-bato. [171] Those
who have ever made their way by night up the Pasig, on one of those
magical nights that the Philippines offers, when the moon pours out
from the limpid blue her melancholy light, when the shadows hide the
miseries of man and the silence is unbroken by the sordid accents of
his voice, when only Nature speaks--they will understand the thoughts
of both these youths.
At Malapad-na-bato the carbineer was sleepy and, seeing that the banka
was empty and offered no booty which he might seize, according to the
traditional usage of his corps and the custom of that post, he easily
let them pass on. Nor did the civil-guard at Pasig suspect anything,
so they were not molested.
Day was beginning to break when they reached the lake, still and calm
like a gigantic mirror. The moon paled and the east was dyed in rosy
tints. Some distance away they perceived a gray mass advancing slowly
toward them.
"The police boat is coming," murmured Elias. "Lie down and I'll cover
you with these sacks."
The outlines of the boat became clearer and plainer.
"It's getting between us and the shore," observed Elias uneasily.
Gradually he changed the course of his banka, rowing toward
Binangonan. To his great surprise he noticed that the boat also
changed its course, while a voice called to him.
Elias stopped rowing and reflected. The shore was still far away and
they would soon be within range of the rifles on the police boat. He
thought of returning to Pasig, for his banka was the swifter of the
two boats, but unluckily he saw another boat coming from the river
and made out the gleam of caps and bayonets of the Civil Guard.
"We're caught!" he muttered, turning pale.
He gazed at his robust arms and, adopting the only course left,
began to row with all his might toward Talim Island, just as the sun
was rising.
The banka slipped rapidly along. Elias saw standing on the boat,
which had veered about, some men making signals to him.
"Do you know how to manage a banka?" he asked Ibarra.
"Yes, why?"
"Because we are lost if I don't jump into the water and throw them
off the track. They will pursue me, but I swim and dive well. I'll
draw them away from you and then you can save yourself."
"No, stay here, and we'll sell our lives dearly!"
"That would be useless. We have no arms and with their rifles they
would shoot us down like birds."
At that instant the water gave forth a hiss such as is caused by
the falling of hot metal into it, followed instantaneously by a
loud report.
"You see!" said Elias, placing the paddle in the boat. "We'll see each
other on Christmas Eve at the tomb of your grandfather. Save yourself."
"And you?"
"God has carried me safely through greater perils."
As Elias took off his camisa a bullet tore it from his hands and
two loud reports were heard. Calmly he clasped the hand of Ibarra,
who was still stretched out in the bottom of the banka. Then he arose
and leaped into the water, at the same time pushing the little craft
away from him with his foot.
Cries resounded, and soon some distance away the youth's head appeared,
as if for breathing, then instantly disappeared.
"There, there he is!" cried several voices, and again the bullets
whistled.
The police boat and the boat from the Pasig now started in pursuit of
him. A light track indicated his passage through the water as he drew
farther and farther away from Ibarra's banka, which floated about as
if abandoned. Every time the swimmer lifted his head above the water
to breathe, the guards in both boats shot at him.
So the chase continued. Ibarra's little banka was now far away
and the swimmer was approaching the shore, distant some thirty
yards. The rowers were tired, but Elias was in the same condition,
for he showed his head oftener, and each time in a different direction,
as if to disconcert his pursuers. No longer did the treacherous track
indicate the position of the diver. They saw him for the last time
when he was some ten yards from the shore, and fired. Then minute
after minute passed, but nothing again appeared above the still and
solitary surface of the lake.
Half an hour afterwards one of the rowers claimed that he could
distinguish in the water near the shore traces of blood, but his
companions shook their heads dubiously.


CHAPTER LXII
Padre Damaso Explains

Vainly were the rich wedding presents heaped upon a table; neither
the diamonds in their cases of blue velvet, nor the piña embroideries,
nor the rolls of silk, drew the gaze of Maria Clara. Without reading
or even seeing it the maiden sat staring at the newspaper which gave
an account of the death of Ibarra, drowned in the lake.
Suddenly she felt two hands placed over her eyes to hold her fast
and heard Padre Damaso's voice ask merrily, "Who am I? Who am I?"
Maria Clara sprang from her seat and gazed at him in terror.
"Foolish little girl, you're not afraid, are you? You weren't expecting
me, eh? Well, I've come in from the provinces to attend your wedding."
He smiled with satisfaction as he drew nearer to her and held out
his hand for her to kiss. Maria Clara approached him tremblingly and
touched his hand respectfully to her lips.
"What's the matter with you, Maria?" asked the Franciscan, losing his
merry smile and becoming uneasy. "Your hand is cold, you're pale. Are
you ill, little girl?"
Padre Damaso drew her toward himself with a tenderness that one would
hardly have thought him capable of, and catching both her hands in
his questioned her with his gaze.
"Don't you have confidence in your godfather any more?" he asked
reproachfully. "Come, sit down and tell me your little troubles as
you used to do when you were a child, when you wanted tapers to make
wax dolls, You know that I've always loved you, I've never been cross
with you."
His voice was now no longer brusque, and even became tenderly
modulated. Maria Clara began to weep.
"You're crying, little girl? Why do you cry? Have you quarreled
with Linares?"
Maria Clara covered her ears. "Don't speak of him not now!" she cried.
Padre Damaso gazed at her in startled wonder.
"Won't you trust me with your secrets? Haven't I always tried to
satisfy your lightest whim?"
The maiden raised eyes filled with tears and stared at him for a long
time, then again fell to weeping bitterly.
"Don't cry so, little girl. Your tears hurt me. Tell me your troubles,
and you'll see how your godfather loves you!"
Maria Clara approached him slowly, fell upon her knees, and raising
her tear-stained face toward his asked in a low, scarcely audible tone,
"Do you still love me?"
"Child!"
"Then, protect my father and break off my marriage!" Here the
maiden told of her last interview with Ibarra, concealing only her
knowledge of the secret of her birth. Padre Damaso could scarcely
credit his ears.
"While he lived," the girl continued, "I thought of struggling, I
was hoping, trusting! I wanted to live so that I might hear of him,
but now that they have killed him, now there is no reason why I should
live and suffer." She spoke in low, measured tones, calmly, tearlessly.
"But, foolish girl, isn't Linares a thousand times better than--"
"While he lived, I could have married--I thought of running away
afterwards--my father wants only the relationship! But now that he
is dead, no other man shall call me wife! While he was alive I could
debase myself, for there would have remained the consolation that he
lived and perhaps thought of me, but now that he is dead--the nunnery
or the tomb!"
The girl's voice had a ring of firmness in it such that Padre Damaso
lost his merry air and became very thoughtful.
"Did you love him as much as that?" he stammered.
Maria Clara did not answer. Padre Damaso dropped his head on his
chest and remained silent for a long time.
"Daughter in God," he exclaimed at length in a broken voice, "forgive
me for having made you unhappy without knowing it. I was thinking
of your future, I desired your happiness. How could I permit you
to marry a native of the country, to see you an unhappy wife and
a wretched mother? I couldn't get that love out of your head even
though I opposed it with all my might. I committed wrongs, for you,
solely for you. If you had become his wife you would have mourned
afterwards over the condition of your husband, exposed to all kinds
of vexations without means of defense. As a mother you would have
mourned the fate of your sons: if you had educated them, you would have
prepared for them a sad future, for they would have become enemies
of Religion and you would have seen them garroted or exiled; if you
had kept them ignorant, you would have seen them tyrannized over and
degraded. I could not consent to it! For this reason I sought for
you a husband that could make you the happy mother of sons who would
command and not obey, who would punish and not suffer. I knew that
the friend of your childhood was good, I liked him as well as his
father, but I have hated them both since I saw that they were going
to bring about your unhappiness, because I love you, I adore you,
I love you as one loves his own daughter! Yours is my only affection;
I have seen you grow--not an hour has passed that I have not thought
of you--I dreamed of you--you have been my only joy!"
Here Padre Damaso himself broke out into tears like a child.
"Then, as you love me, don't make me eternally wretched. He no longer
lives, so I want to be a nun!"
The old priest rested his forehead on his hand. "To be a nun, a
nun!" he repeated. "You don't know, child, what the life is, the
mystery that is hidden behind the walls of the nunnery, you don't
know! A thousand times would I prefer to see you unhappy in the
world rather than in the cloister. Here your complaints can be heard,
there you will have only the walls. You are beautiful, very beautiful,
and you were not born for that--to be a bride of Christ! Believe me,
little girl, time will wipe away everything. Later on you will forget,
you will love, you will love your husband--Linares."
"The nunnery or--death!"
"The nunnery, the nunnery, or death!" exclaimed Padre Damaso. "Maria,
I am now an old man, I shall not be able much longer to watch over
you and your welfare. Choose something else, seek another love,
some other man, whoever he may be--anything but the nunnery."
"The nunnery or death!"
"My God, my God!" cried the priest, covering his head with his hands,
"Thou chastisest me, so let it be! But watch over my daughter!"
Then, turning again to the young woman, he said, "You wish to be a nun,
and it shall be so. I don't want you to die."
Maria Clara caught both his hands in hers, clasping and kissing them
as she fell upon her knees, repeating over and over, "My godfather,
I thank you, my godfather!"
With bowed head Fray Damaso went away, sad and sighing. "God, Thou
dost exist, since Thou chastisest! But let Thy vengeance fall on me,
harm not the innocent. Save Thou my daughter!"


CHAPTER LXIII
Christmas Eve

High up on the slope of the mountain near a roaring stream a hut built
on the gnarled logs hides itself among the trees. Over its kogon
thatch clambers the branching gourd-vine, laden with flowers and
fruit. Deer antlers and skulls of wild boar, some with long tusks,
adorn this mountain home, where lives a Tagalog family engaged in
hunting and cutting firewood.
In the shade of a tree the grandsire was making brooms from the fibers
of palm leaves, while a young woman was placing eggs, limes, and some
vegetables in a wide basket. Two children, a boy and a girl, were
playing by the side of another, who, pale and sad, with large eyes
and a deep gaze, was seated on a fallen tree-trunk. In his thinned
features we recognize Sisa's son, Basilio, the brother of Crispin.
"When your foot gets well," the little girl was saying to him,
"we'll play hide-and-seek. I'll be the leader."
"You'll go up to the top of the mountain with us," added the little
boy, "and drink deer blood with lime-juice and you'll get fat, and
then I'll teach you how to jump from rock to rock above the torrent."
Basilio smiled sadly, stared at the sore on his foot, and then turned
his gaze toward the sun, which shone resplendently.
"Sell these brooms," said the grandfather to the young woman, "and
buy something for the children, for tomorrow is Christmas."
"Firecrackers, I want some firecrackers!" exclaimed the boy.
"I want a head for my doll," cried the little girl, catching hold of
her sister's tapis.
"And you, what do you want?" the grandfather asked Basilio, who at
the question arose laboriously and approached the old man.
"Sir," he said, "I've been sick more than a month now, haven't I?"
"Since we found you lifeless and covered with wounds, two moons have
come and gone. We thought you were going to die."
"May God reward you, for we are very poor," replied Basilio. "But now
that tomorrow is Christmas I want to go to the town to see my mother
and my little brother. They will be seeking for me."
"But, my son, you're not yet well, and your town is far away. You
won't get there by midnight."
"That doesn't matter, sir. My mother and my little brother must be
very sad. Every year we spend this holiday together. Last year the
three of us had a whole fish to eat. My mother will have been mourning
and looking for me."
"You won't get to the town alive, boy! Tonight we're going to have
chicken and wild boar's meat. My sons will ask for you when they come
from the field."
"You have many sons while my mother has only us two. Perhaps she
already believes that I'm dead! Tonight I want to give her a pleasant
surprise, a Christmas gift, a son."
The old man felt the tears springing up into his eyes, so, placing
his hands on the boy's head, he said with emotion: "You're like an
old man! Go, look for your mother, give her the Christmas gift--from
God, as you say. If I had known the name of your town I would have
gone there when you were sick. Go, my son, and may God and the Lord
Jesus go with you. Lucia, my granddaughter, will go with you to the
nearest town."
"What! You're going away?" the little boy asked him. "Down there are
soldiers and many robbers. Don't you want to see my firecrackers? Boom,
boom, boom!"
"Don't you want to play hide-and-seek?" asked the little girl. "Have
you ever played it? Surely there's nothing any more fun than to be
chased and hide yourself?"
Basilio smiled, but with tears in his eyes, and caught up his
staff. "I'll come back soon," he answered. "I'll bring my little
brother, you'll see him and play with him. He's just about as big as
you are."
"Does he walk lame, too?" asked the little girl. "Then we'll make him
'it' when we play hide-and-seek."
"Don't forget us," the old man said to him. "Take this dried meat as
a present to your mother."
The children accompanied him to the bamboo bridge swung over the
noisy course of the stream. Lucia made him support himself on her arm,
and thus they disappeared from the children's sight, Basilio walking
along nimbly in spite of his bandaged leg.
The north wind whistled by, making the inhabitants of San Diego
shiver with cold. It was Christmas Eve and yet the town was wrapped
in gloom. Not a paper lantern hung from the windows nor did a single
sound in the houses indicate the rejoicing of other years.
In the house of Capitan Basilio, he and Don Filipo--for the misfortunes
of the latter had made them friendly--were standing by a window-grating
and talking, while at another were Sinang, her cousin Victoria,
and the beautiful Iday, looking toward the street.
The waning moon began to shine over the horizon, illumining the clouds
and making the trees and houses east long, fantastic shadows.
"Yours is not a little good fortune, to get off free in these
times!" said Capitan Basilio to Don Filipo. "They've burned your books,
yes, but others have lost more."
A woman approached the grating and gazed into the interior. Her
eyes glittered, her features were emaciated, her hair loose and
dishevelled. The moonlight gave her a weird aspect.
"Sisal" exclaimed Don Filipo in surprise. Then turning to Capitan
Basilio, as the madwoman ran away, he asked, "Wasn't she in the house
of a physician? Has she been cured?"
Capitan Basilio smiled bitterly. "The physician was afraid they
would accuse him of being a friend of Don Crisostomo's, so he drove
her from his house. Now she wanders about again as crazy as ever,
singing, harming no one, and living in the woods."
"What else has happened in the town since we left it? I know that we
have a new curate and another alferez."
"These are terrible times, humanity is retrograding," murmured Capitan
Basilio, thinking of the past. "The day after you left they found the
senior sacristan dead, hanging from a rafter in his own house. Padre
Salvi was greatly affected by his death and took possession of all
his papers. Ah, yes, the old Sage, Tasio, also died and was buried
in the Chinese cemetery."
"Poor old man!" sighed Don Filipo. "What became of his books?"
"They were burned by the pious, who thought thus to please God. I was
unable to save anything, not even Cicero's works. The gobernadorcillo
did nothing to prevent it."
Both became silent. At that moment the sad and melancholy song of
the madwoman was heard.
"Do you know when Maria Clara is to be married?" Iday asked Sinang.
"I don't know," answered the latter. "I received a letter from her
but haven't opened it for fear of finding out. Poor Crisostomo!"
"They say that if it were not for Linares, they would hang Capitan
Tiago, so what was Maria Clara going to do?" observed Victoria.
A boy limped by, running toward the plaza, whence came the notes of
Sisa's song. It was Basilio, who had found his home deserted and in
ruins. After many inquiries he had only learned that his mother was
insane and wandering about the town--of Crispin not a word.
Basilio choked back his tears, stifled any expression of his sorrow,
and without resting had started in search of his mother. On reaching
the town he was just asking about her when her song struck his
ears. The unhappy boy overcame the trembling in his limbs and ran to
throw himself into his mother's arms.
The madwoman left the plaza and stopped in front of the house of
the new alferez. Now, as formerly, there was a sentinel before the
door, and a woman's head appeared at the window, only it was not the
Medusa's but that of a comely young woman: alferez and unfortunate
are not synonymous terms.
Sisa began to sing before the house with her gaze fixed on the
moon, which soared majestically in the blue heavens among golden
clouds. Basilio saw her, but did not dare to approach' her. Walking
back and forth, but taking care not to get near the barracks, he
waited for the time when she would leave that place.
The young woman who was at the window listening attentively to the
madwoman's song ordered the sentinel to bring her inside, but when
Sisa saw the soldier approach her and heard his voice she was filled
with terror and took to flight at a speed of which only a demented
person is capable. Basilio, fearing to lose her, ran after her,
forgetful of the pains in his feet.
"Look how that boy's chasing the madwoman!" indignantly exclaimed
a woman in the street. Seeing that he continued to pursue her, she
picked up a stone and threw it at him, saying, "Take that! It's a
pity that the dog is tied up!"
Basilio felt a blow on his head, but paid no attention to it as he
continued running. Dogs barked, geese cackled, several windows opened
to let out curious faces but quickly closed again from fear of another
night of terror.
Soon they were outside of the town. Sisa began to moderate her flight,
but still a great distance separated her from her pursuer.
"Mother!" he called to her when he caught sight of her. Scarcely had
the madwoman heard his voice when she again took to flight.
"Mother, it's I!" cried the boy in desperation, but the madwoman
did not heed him, so he followed panting. They had now passed the
cultivated fields and were near the wood; Basilio saw his mother enter
it and he also went in. The bushes and shrubs, the thorny vines and
projecting roots of trees, hindered the movements of both. The son
followed his mother's shadowy form as it was revealed from time to
time by the moonlight that penetrated through the foliage and into
the open spaces. They were in the mysterious wood of the Ibarra family.
The boy stumbled and fell several times, but rose again, each time
without feeling pain. All his soul was centered in his eyes, following
the beloved figure. They crossed the sweetly murmuring brook where
sharp thorns of bamboo that had fallen on the sand at its margin
pierced his bare feet, but he did not stop to pull them out.
To his great surprise he saw that his mother had plunged into the
thick undergrowth and was going through the wooden gateway that opened
into the tomb of the old Spaniard at the foot of the balete. Basilio
tried to follow her in, but found the gate fastened. The madwoman
defended the entrance with her emaciated arms and disheveled head,
holding the gate shut with all her might.
"Mother, it's I, it's I! I'm Basilio, your son!" cried the boy as he
let himself fall weakly.
But the madwoman did not yield. Bracing herself with her feet on
the ground, she offered an energetic resistance. Basilio beat the
gate with his fists, with his Mood-stained head, he wept, but in
vain. Painfully he arose and examined the wall, thinking to scale it,
but found no way to do so. He then walked around it and noticed that
a branch of the fateful balete was crossed with one from another
tree. This he climbed and, his filial love working miracles, made
his way from branch to branch to the balete, from which he saw his
mother still holding the gate shut with her head.
The noise made by him among the branches attracted Sisa's
attention. She turned and tried to run, but her son, letting himself
fall from the tree, caught her in his arms and covered her with kisses,
losing consciousness as he did so.
Sisa saw his blood-stained forehead and bent over him. Her eyes seemed
to start from their sockets as she peered into his face. Those pale
features stirred the sleeping cells of her brain, so that something
like a spark of intelligence flashed up in her mind and she recognized
her son. With a terrible cry she fell upon the insensible body of
the boy, embracing and kissing him. Mother and son remained motionless.
When Basilio recovered consciousness he found his mother lifeless. He
called to her with the tenderest names, but she did not awake. Noticing
that she was not even breathing, he arose and went to the neighboring
brook to get some water in a banana leaf, with which to rub the pallid
face of his mother, but the madwoman made not the least movement and
her eyes remained closed.
Basilio gazed at her in terror. He placed his ear over her heart,
but the thin, faded breast was cold, and her heart no longer beat. He
put his lips to hers, but felt no breathing. The miserable boy threw
his arms about the corpse and wept bitterly.
The moon gleamed majestically in the sky, the wandering breezes sighed,
and down in the grass the crickets chirped. The night of light and joy
for so many children, who in the warm bosom of the family celebrate
this feast of sweetest memories--the feast which commemorates the
first look of love that Heaven sent to earth--this night when in all
Christian families they eat, drink, dance, sing, laugh, play, caress,
and kiss one another--this night, which in cold countries holds such
magic for childhood with its traditional pine-tree covered with lights,
dolls, candies, and tinsel, whereon gaze the round, staring eyes in
which innocence alone is reflected--this night brought to Basilio
only orphanhood. Who knows but that perhaps in the home whence came
the taciturn Padre Salvi children also played, perhaps they sang

"La Nochebuena se viene,
La Nochebuena se va." [172]

For a long time the boy wept and moaned. When at last he raised his
head he saw a man standing over him, gazing at the scene in silence.
"Are you her son?" asked the unknown in a low voice.
The boy nodded.
"What do you expect to do?"
"Bury her!"
"In the cemetery?"
"I haven't any money and, besides, the curate wouldn't allow it."
"Then?"
"If you would help me--"
"I'm very weak," answered the unknown as he sank slowly to the ground,
supporting himself with both hands. "I'm wounded. For two days I
haven't eaten or slept. Has no one come here tonight?"
The man thoughtfully contemplated the attractive features of the boy,
then went on in a still weaker voice, "Listen! I, too, shall be dead
before the day comes. Twenty paces from here, on the other side of
the brook, there is a big pile of firewood. Bring it here, make a
pyre, put our bodies upon it, cover them over, and set fire to the
whole--fire, until we are reduced to ashes!"
Basilio listened attentively.
"Afterwards, if no one comes, dig here. You will find a lot of gold
and it will all be yours. Take it and go to school."
The voice of the unknown was becoming every moment more
unintelligible. "Go, get the firewood. I want to help you."
As Basilio moved away, the unknown turned his face toward the east
and murmured, as though praying:
"I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land! You,
who have it to see, welcome it--and forget not those who have fallen
during the night!"
He raised his eyes to the sky and his lips continued to move, as if
uttering a prayer. Then he bowed his head and sank slowly to the earth.
Two hours later Sister Rufa was on the back veranda of her house
making her morning ablutions in order to attend mass. The pious woman