The Social Cancer, José Rizal [read a book .txt] 📗
- Author: José Rizal
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Doña Consolacion straightened up furiously; the remark about washing hurt her. “Do you think that we don’t know who you are and what class of people you belong with? Get out, my husband has already told me! Señora, I at least have never belonged to more than one, but you? One must be dying of hunger to take the leavings, the mop of the whole world!”
This shot found its mark with Doña Victorina. She rolled up her sleeves, clenched her fists, and gritted her teeth. “Come down, old sow!” she cried. “I’m going to smash that dirty mouth of yours! Querida of a battalion, filthy hag!”
The Muse immediately disappeared from the window and was soon seen running down the stairs flourishing her husband’s whip.
Don Tiburcio interposed himself supplicatingly, but they would have come to blows had not the alferez arrived on the scene.
“Ladies! Don Tiburcio!”
“Train your woman better, buy her some decent clothes, and if you haven’t any money left, rob the people—that’s what you’ve got soldiers for!” yelled Doña Victorina.
“Here I am, señora! Why doesn’t your Excellency smash my mouth? You’re only tongue and spittle, Doña Excelencia!”
“Señora!” cried the alferez furiously to Doña Victorina, “be thankful that I remember that you’re a woman or else I’d kick you to pieces—frizzes, ribbons, and all!”
“S-señor Alferez!”
“Get out, you quack! You don’t wear the pants!”
The women brought into play words and gestures, insults and abuse, dragging out all the evil that was stored in the recesses of their minds. Since all four talked at once and said so many things that might hurt the prestige of certain classes by the truths that were brought to light, we forbear from recording what they said. The curious spectators, while they may not have understood all that was said, got not a little entertainment out of the scene and hoped that the affair would come to blows. Unfortunately for them, the curate came along and restored order.
“Señores! Señoras! What a shame! Señor Alferez!”
“What are you doing here, you hypocrite, Carlist!”
“Don Tiburcio, take your wife away! Señora, hold your tongue!”
“Say that to these robbers of the poor!”
Little by little the lexicon of epithets was exhausted, the review of shamelessness of the two couples completed, and with threats and insults they gradually drew away from one another. Fray Salvi moved from one group to the other, giving animation to the scene. Would that our friend the correspondent had been present!
“This very day we’ll go to Manila and see the Captain-General!” declared the raging Doña Victorina to her husband. “You’re not a man! It’s a waste of money to buy trousers for you!”
“B-but, woman, the g-guards? I’m l-lame!”
“You must challenge him for pistol or sword, or—or—” Doña Victorina stared fixedly at his false teeth.
“My d-dear, I’ve never had hold of a—”
But she did not let him finish. With a majestic sweep of her hand she snatched out his false teeth and trampled them in the street.
Thus, he half-crying and she breathing fire, they reached the house. Linares was talking with Maria Clara, Sinang, and Victoria, and as he had heard nothing of the quarrel, became rather uneasy at sight of his cousins. Maria Clara, lying in an easy-chair among pillows and wraps, was greatly surprised to see the new physiognomy of her doctor.
“Cousin,” began Doña Victorina, “you must challenge the alferez right away, or—”
“Why?” asked the startled Linares.
“You challenge him right now or else I’ll tell everybody here who you are.”
“But, Doña Victorina!”
The three girls exchanged glances.
“You’ll see! The alferez has insulted us and said that you are what you are! His old hag came down with a whip and he, this thing here, permitted the insult—a man!”
“Abá!” exclaimed Sinang, “they’re had a fight and we didn’t see it!”
“The alferez smashed the doctor’s teeth,” observed Victoria.
“This very day we go to Manila. You, you stay here to challenge him or else I’ll tell Don Santiago that all we’re told him is a lie, I’ll tell him—”
“But, Doña Victorina, Doña Victorina,” interrupted the now pallid Linares, going up to her, “be calm, don’t call up—” Then he added in a whisper, “Don’t be imprudent, especially just now.”
At that moment Capitan Tiago came in from the cockpit, sad and sighing; he had lost his lásak. But Doña Victorina left him no time to grieve. In a few words but with no lack of strong language she related what had happened, trying of course to put herself in the best light possible.
“Linares is going to challenge him, do you hear? If he doesn’t, don’t let him marry your daughter, don’t you permit it! If he hasn’t any courage, he doesn’t deserve Clarita!”
“So you’re going to marry this gentleman?” asked Sinang, but her merry eyes filled with tears. “I knew that you were prudent but not that you were fickle.”
Pale as wax, Maria Clara partly rose and stared with frightened eyes at her father, at Doña Victorina, at Linares. The latter blushed, Capitan Tiago dropped his eyes, while the señora went on:
“Clarita, bear this in mind: never marry a man that doesn’t wear trousers. You expose yourself to insults, even from the dogs!”
The girl did not answer her, but turned to her friends and said, “Help me to my room, I can’t walk alone.”
By their aid she rose, and with her waist encircled by the round arms of her friends, resting her marble-like head on the shoulder of the beautiful Victoria, she went to her chamber.
That same night the married couple gathered their effects together and presented Capitan Tiago with a bill which amounted to several thousand pesos. Very early the following day they left for Manila in his carriage, committing to the bashful Linares the office of avenger.
Volverán las oscuras golondrinas. [130]
BECQUER.
As Lucas had foretold, Ibarra arrived on the following day. His first visit was to the family of Capitan Tiago for the purpose of seeing Maria Clara and informing her that his Grace had reconciled him with religion, and that he brought to the curate a letter of recommendation in the handwriting of the Archbishop himself. Aunt Isabel was not a little rejoiced at this, for she liked the young man and did not look favorably on the marriage of her niece with Linares. Capitan Tiago was not at home.
“Come in,” said the aunt in her broken Spanish. “Maria, Don Crisostomo is once more in the favor of God. The Archbishop has discommunicated him.”
But the youth was unable to advance, the smile froze on his lips, words failed him. Standing on the balcony at the side of Maria Clara was Linares, arranging bouquets of flowers and leaves. Roses and sampaguitas were scattered about on the floor. Reclining in a big chair, pale, with a sad and pensive air, Maria Clara toyed with an ivory fan which was not whiter than her shapely fingers.
At the appearance of Ibarra, Linares turned pale and Maria Clara’s cheeks flushed crimson. She tried to rise, but strength failed her, so she dropped her eyes and let the fan fall. An embarrassed silence prevailed for a few moments. Ibarra was then able to move forward and murmur tremblingly, “I’ve just got back and have come immediately to see you. I find you better than I had thought I should.”
The girl seemed to have been stricken dumb; she neither said anything nor raised her eyes.
Ibarra looked Linares over from head to foot with a stare which the bashful youth bore haughtily.
“Well, I see that my arrival was unexpected,” said Ibarra slowly. “Maria, pardon me that I didn’t have myself announced. At some other time I’ll be able to make explanations to you about my conduct. We’ll still see one another surely.”
These last words were accompanied by a look at Linares. The girl raised toward him her lovely eyes, full of purity and sadness. They were so beseeching and eloquent that Ibarra stopped in confusion.
“May I come tomorrow?”
“You know that for my part you are always welcome,” she answered faintly.
Ibarra withdrew in apparent calm, but with a tempest in his head and ice in his heart. What he had just seen and felt was incomprehensible to him: was it doubt, dislike, or faithlessness?
“Oh, only a woman after all!” he murmured.
Taking no note of where he was going, he reached the spot where the schoolhouse was under construction. The work was well advanced, Ñor Juan with his mile and plumb-bob coming and going among the numerous laborers. Upon catching sight of Ibarra he ran to meet him.
“Don Crisostomo, at last you’ve come! We’ve all been waiting for you. Look at the walls, they’re already more than a meter high and within two days they’ll be up to the height of a man. I’ve put in only the strongest and most durable woods—molave, dungon, ipil, langil—and sent for the finest—tindalo, malatapay, pino, and narra—for the finishings. Do you want to look at the foundations?”
The workmen saluted Ibarra respectfully, while Ñor Juan made voluble explanations. “Here is the piping that I have taken the liberty to add,” he said. “These subterranean conduits lead to a sort of cesspool, thirty yards away. It will help fertilize the garden. There was nothing of that in the plan. Does it displease you?”
“Quite the contrary, I approve what you’ve done and congratulate you. You are a real architect. From whom did you learn the business?”
“From myself, sir,” replied the old man modestly.
“Oh, before I forget about it—tell those who may have scruples, if perhaps there is any one who fears to speak to me, that I’m no longer excommunicated. The Archbishop invited me to dinner.”
“Abá, sir, we don’t pay any attention to excommunications! All of us are excommunicated. Padre Damaso himself is and yet he stays fat.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s true, sir, for a year ago he caned the coadjutor, who is just as much a sacred person as he is. Who pays any attention to excommunications, sir?”
Among the laborers Ibarra caught sight of Elias, who, as he saluted him along with the others, gave him to understand by a look that he had something to say to him.
“Ñor Juan,” said Ibarra, “will you bring me your list of the laborers?”
Ñor Juan disappeared, and Ibarra approached Elias, who was by himself, lifting a heavy stone into a cart.
“If you can grant me a few hours’ conversation, sir, walk down to the shore of the lake this evening and get into my banka.” The youth nodded, and Elias moved away.
Ñor Juan now brought the list, but Ibarra scanned it in vain; the name of Elias did not appear on it!
As the sun was sinking below the horizon Ibarra stepped into Elias’s banka at the shore of the lake. The youth looked out of humor.
“Pardon me, sir,” said Elias sadly, on seeing him, “that I have been so bold as to make this appointment. I wanted to talk to you freely and so I chose this means, for here we won’t have any listeners. We can return within an hour.”
“You’re wrong, friend,” answered Ibarra with a forced smile. “You’ll have to take me to that town whose belfry we see from here. A mischance forces me to this.”
“A mischance?”
“Yes. On my way here I met the alferez and he forced his company on me. I thought of you and remembered that he knows you, so to get away from
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