The Social Cancer
Copyright© 2024 by José Rizal
Chapter 59: Patriotism and Private Interests
Secretly the telegraph transmitted the report to Manila, and thirty-six hours later the newspapers commented on it with great mystery and not a few dark hints—augmented, corrected, or mutilated by the censor. In the meantime, private reports, emanating from the convents, were the first to gain secret currency from mouth to mouth, to the great terror of those who heard them. The fact, distorted in a thousand ways, was believed with greater or less ease according to whether it was flattering or worked contrary to the passions and ways of thinking of each hearer.
Without public tranquillity seeming disturbed, at least outwardly, yet the peace of mind of each home was whirled about like the water in a pond: while the surface appears smooth and clear, in the depths the silent fishes swarm, dive about, and chase one another. For one part of the population crosses, decorations, epaulets, offices, prestige, power, importance, dignities began to whirl about like butterflies in a golden atmosphere. For the other part a dark cloud arose on the horizon, projecting from its gray depths, like black silhouettes, bars, chains, and even the fateful gibbet. In the air there seemed to be heard investigations, condemnations, and the cries from the torture chamber; Marianas1 and Bagumbayan presented themselves wrapped in a torn and bloody veil, fishers and fished confused. Fate pictured the event to the imaginations of the Manilans like certain Chinese fans—one side painted black, the other gilded with bright-colored birds and flowers.
In the convents the greatest excitement prevailed. Carriages were harnessed, the Provincials exchanged visits and held secret conferences; they presented themselves in the palaces to offer their aid to the government in its perilous crisis. Again there was talk of comets and omens.
“A Te Deum! A Te Deum!” cried a friar in one convent. “This time let no one be absent from the chorus! It’s no small mercy from God to make it clear just now, especially in these hopeless times, how much we are worth!”
“The little general Mal-Aguero2 can gnaw his lips over this lesson,” responded another.
“What would have become of him if not for the religious corporations?”
“And to celebrate the fiesta better, serve notice on the cook and the refectioner. Gaudeamus for three days!”
“Amen!” “Viva Salvi!” “Amen!”
In another convent they talked differently.
“You see, now, that fellow is a pupil of the Jesuits. The filibusters come from the Ateneo.”
“And the anti-friars.”
“I told you so. The Jesuits are ruining the country, they’re corrupting the youth, but they are tolerated because they trace a few scrawls on a piece of paper when there is an earthquake.”
“And God knows how they are made!”
“Yes, but don’t contradict them. When everything is shaking and moving about, who draws diagrams? Nothing, Padre Secchi—”3
And they smiled with sovereign disdain.
“But what about the weather forecasts and the typhoons?” asked another ironically. “Aren’t they divine?”
“Any fisherman foretells them!”
“When he who governs is a fool—tell me how your head is and I’ll tell you how your foot is! But you’ll see if the friends favor one another. The newspapers very nearly ask a miter for Padre Salvi.”
“He’s going to get it! He’ll lick it right up!”
“Do you think so?”
“Why not! Nowadays they grant one for anything whatsoever. I know of a fellow who got one for less. He wrote a cheap little work demonstrating that the Indians are not capable of being anything but mechanics. Pshaw, old-fogyisms!”
“That’s right! So much favoritism injures Religion!” exclaimed another. “If the miters only had eyes and could see what heads they were upon—”
“If the miters were natural objects,” added another in a nasal tone, “Natura abhorrer vacuum.”
“That’s why they grab for them, their emptiness attracts!” responded another.
These and many more things were said in the convents, but we will spare our reader other comments of a political, metaphysical, or piquant nature and conduct him to a private house. As we have few acquaintances in Manila, let us enter the home of Capitan Tinong, the polite individual whom we saw so profusely inviting Ibarra to honor him with a visit.
In the rich and spacious sala of his Tondo house, Capitan Tinong was seated in a wide armchair, rubbing his hands in a gesture of despair over his face and the nape of his neck, while his wife, Capitana Tinchang, was weeping and preaching to him. From the corner their two daughters listened silently and stupidly, yet greatly affected.
“Ay, Virgin of Antipolo!” cried the woman. “Ay, Virgin of the Rosary and of the Girdle!4 Ay, ay! Our Lady of Novaliches!”
“Mother!” responded the elder of the daughters.
“I told you so!” continued the wife in an accusing tone. “I told you so! Ay, Virgin of Carmen,5 ay!”
“But you didn’t tell me anything,” Capitan Tinong dared to answer tearfully. “On the contrary, you told me that I was doing well to frequent Capitan Tiago’s house and cultivate friendship with him, because he’s rich—and you told me—”
“What! What did I tell you? I didn’t tell you that, I didn’t tell you anything! Ay, if you had only listened to me!”
“Now you’re throwing the blame on me,” he replied bitterly, slapping the arm of his chair. “Didn’t you tell me that I had done well to invite him to dine with us, because he was wealthy? Didn’t you say that we ought to have friends only among the wealthy? Abá!”
“It’s true that I told you so, because—because there wasn’t anything else for me to do. You did nothing but sing his praises: Don Ibarra here, Don Ibarra there, Don Ibarra everywhere. Abaá! But I didn’t advise you to hunt him up and talk to him at that reception! You can’t deny that!”
“Did I know that he was to be there, perhaps?”
“But you ought to have known it!”
“How so, if I didn’t even know him?”
“But you ought to have known him!”
“But, Tinchang, it was the first time that I ever saw him, that I ever heard him spoken of!”
“Well then, you ought to have known him before and heard him spoken of. That’s what you’re a man for and wear trousers and read El Diario de Manila,”6 answered his unterrified spouse, casting on him a terrible look.
To this Capitan Tinong did not know what to reply. Capitana Tinchang, however, was not satisfied with this victory, but wished to silence him completely. So she approached him with clenched fists. “Is this what I’ve worked for, year after year, toiling and saving, that you by your stupidity may throw away the fruits of my labor?” she scolded. “Now they’ll come to deport you, they’ll take away all our property, just as they did from the wife of—Oh, if I were a man, if I were a man!”
Seeing that her husband bowed his head, she again fell to sobbing, but still repeating, “Ay, if I were a man, if I were a man!”
“Well, if you were a man,” the provoked husband at length asked, “what would you do?”
“What would I do? Well—well—well, this very minute I’d go to the Captain-General and offer to fight against the rebels, this very minute!”
“But haven’t you seen what the Diario says? Read it: ‘The vile and infamous treason has been suppressed with energy, strength, and vigor, and soon the rebellious enemies of the Fatherland and their accomplices will feel all the weight and severity of the law.’ Don’t you see it? There isn’t any more rebellion.”
“That doesn’t matter! You ought to offer yourself as they did in ‘72;7 they saved themselves.”
“Yes, that’s what was done by Padre Burg—”
But he was unable to finish this name, for his wife ran to him and slapped her hand over his mouth. “Shut up! Are you saying that name so that they may garrote you tomorrow on Bagumbayan? Don’t you know that to pronounce it is enough to get yourself condemned without trial? Keep quiet!”
However Capitan Tinong may have felt about obeying her, he could hardly have done otherwise, for she had his mouth covered with both her hands, pressing his little head against the back of the chair, so that the poor fellow might have been smothered to death had not a new personage appeared on the scene. This was their cousin, Don Primitivo, who had memorized the “Amat,” a man of some forty years, plump, big-paunched, and elegantly dressed.
“Quid video?” he exclaimed as he entered. “What’s happening? Quare?”8
“Ay, cousin!” cried the woman, running toward him in tears, “I’ve sent for you because I don’t know what’s going to become of us. What do you advise? Speak, you’ve studied Latin and know how to argue.”
“But first, quid quaeritis? Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu; nihil volitum quin praecognitum.”9
He sat down gravely and, just as if the Latin phrases had possessed a soothing virtue, the couple ceased weeping and drew nearer to him to hang upon the advice from his lips, as at one time the Greeks did before the words of salvation from the oracle that was to free them from the Persian invaders.
“Why do you weep? Ubinam gentium sumus?”10
“You’ve already heard of the uprising?”
“Alzamentum Ibarrae ab alferesio Guardiae Civilis destructum? Et nunc?11 What! Does Don Crisostomo owe you anything?”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.