Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot

While through the still night it watches and prays, As here in my exile in my lone hut it stays, To strengthen my faith when doubts o'er me roll. That faith I keep and I hope to see shine The day when the Idea prevails over might; When after the fray and death's slow decline, Some other voice sounds, far happier than mine, To raise the glad song of the triumph of right. I see the sky glow, refulgent and clear, As when it forced on me my first dear illusion; I feel the same wind kiss my forehead sere, And the fire is the same that is burning here To stir up youth's blood in boiling confusion. I breathe here the winds that perchance have pass'd O'er the fields and the rivers of my own natal shore; And mayhap they will bring on the returning blast The sighs that lov'd being upon them has cast-- Messages sweet from the love I first bore. To see the same moon, all silver'd as of yore, I feel the sad thoughts within me arise; The fond recollections of the troth we swore, Of the field and the bower and the wide seashore, The blushes of joy, with the silence and sighs. A butterfly seeking the flowers and the light, Of other lands dreaming, of vaster extent; Scarce a youth, from home and love I took flight, To wander unheeding, free from doubt or affright-- So in foreign lands were my brightest days spent. And when like a languishing bird I was fain To the home of my fathers and my love to return, Of a sudden the fierce tempest roar'd amain; So I saw my wings shatter'd and no home remain, My trust sold to others and wrecks round me burn. Hurl'd out into exile from the land I adore, My future all dark and no refuge to seek; My roseate dreams hover round me once more, Sole treasures of all that life to me bore; The faiths of youth that with sincerity speak. But not as of old, full of life and of grace, Do you hold out hopes of undying reward; Sadder I find you; on your lov'd face, Though still sincere, the pale lines trace The marks of the faith it is yours to guard. You offer now, dreams, my gloom to appease, And the years of my youth again to disclose; So I thank you, O storm, and heaven-born breeze, That you knew of the hour my wild flight to ease, To cast me back down to the soil whence I rose. By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine, At the foot of the mount in its mantle of green; I have found a home in the pleasant grove's confine, In the shady woods, that peace and calmness divine, Rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow keen. The Church benefited by the presence of the exile, for he drew the design for an elaborate curtain to adorn the sanctuary at Easter time, and an artist Sister of Charity of the school there did the oil painting under his direction. In this line he must have been proficient, for once in Spain, where he traveled out of his way to Saragossa to visit one of his former teachers of the Ateneo, who he had heard was there, Rizal offered his assistance in making some altar paintings, and the Jesuit says that his skill and taste were much appreciated. The home of the Sisters had a private chapel, for which the teachers were preparing an image of the Virgin. For the sake of economy the head only was procured from abroad, the vestments concealing all the rest of the figure except the feet, which rested upon a globe encircled by a snake in whose mouth is an apple. The beauty of the countenance, a real work of art, appealed to Rizal, and he modeled the more prominent right foot, the apple and the serpent's head, while the artist Sister assisted by doing the minor work. Both curtain and image, twenty years after their making, are still in use. On Sundays, Father Sanchez and Rizal conducted a school for the people after mass. As part of this education it was intended to make raised maps in the plaza of the chief city of the eight principal islands of the Philippines, but on account of Father Sanchez's being called away, only one. Mindanao, was completed; it has been restored with a concrete sidewalk and balustrade about it, while the plaza is a national park. Among Rizal's patients was a blind American named Taufer, fairly well to do, who had been engineer of the pumping plant of the Hongkong Fire Department. He was a man of bravery, for he held a diploma for helping to rescue five Spaniards from a shipwreck in Hongkong harbor. And he was not less kind-hearted, for he and his wife, a Portuguese, had adopted and brought up as their own the infant daughter of a poor Irish woman who had died in Hongkong, leaving a considerable family to her husband, a corporal in the British Army on service there. The little girl had been educated in the Italian convent after the first Mrs. Taufer died, and upon Mr. Taufer's remarriage, to another Portuguese, the adopted daughter and Mr. Taufer's own child were equally sharers of his home. This girl had known Rizal, "the Spanish doctor," as he was called there, in Hongkong, and persuaded her adopted father that possibly the Dapitan exile might restore his lost eyesight. So with the two girls and his wife, Mr. Taufer set out for Mindanao. At Manila his own daughter fell in love with a Filipino engineer, a Mr. Sunico, now owner of a foundry in Manila, and, marrying, remained there. But the party reached Dapitan with its original number, for they were joined by a good-looking mestiza from the South who was unofficially connected with one of the canons of the Manila cathedral. Josefina Bracken, the Irish girl, was lively, capable and of congenial temperament, and as there no longer existed any reason against his marriage, for Rizal considered his political days over, they agreed to become husband and wife. The priest was asked to perform the ceremony, but said the Bishop of Cebu must give his consent, and offered to write him. Rizal at first feared that some political retraction would be asked, but when assured that only his religious beliefs would be investigated, promptly submitted a statement which Father Obach says covered about the same ground as the earliest published of the retractions said to have been made on the eve of Rizal's death. This document, inclosed with the priest's letter, was ready for the mail when Rizal came hurrying in to reclaim it. The marriage was off, for Mr. Taufer had taken his family and gone to Manila. The explanation of this sudden departure was that, after the blind man had been told of the impossibility of anything being done for his eyes, he was informed of the proposed marriage. The trip had already cost him one daughter, he had found that his blindness was incurable, and now his only remaining daughter, who had for seventeen years been like his own child, was planning to leave him. He would have to return to Hongkong hopeless and accompanied only by a wife he had never seen, one who really was merely a servant. In his despair he said he had nothing to live for, and, seizing his razor, would have ended his life had not Rizal seized him just in time and held him, with the firm grasp his athletic training had given him, till the commandant came and calmed the excited blind man. It resulted in Josefina returning to Manila with him, but after a while Mr Taufer listened to reason and she went back to Dapitan, after a short stay in Manila with Rizal's family, to whom she had carried his letter of introduction, taking considerable housekeeping furniture with her. Further consideration changed Rizal's opinion as to marriage, possibly because the second time the priest may not have been so liberal in his requirements. The mother, too, seems to have suggested that as Spanish law had established civil marriage in the Philippines, and as the local government had not provided any way for people to avail themselves of the right, because the governor-general had pigeon-holed the royal decree, it would be less sinful for the two to consider themselves civilly married than for Rizal to do violence to his conscience by making any sort of political retraction. Any marriage so bought would be just as little a sacrament as an absolutely civil marriage, and the latter was free from hypocrisy. So as man and wife Rizal and Josefina lived together in Talisay. Father Obach sought to prejudice public feeling in the town against the exile for the "scandal," though other scandals happenings with less reason were going on unrebuked. The pages of "Dapitan", which some have considered to be the first chapter of an unfinished novel, may reasonably be considered no more than Rizal's rejoinder to Father Obach, written in sarcastic vein and primarily for Carnicero's amusement, unless some date of writing earlier than this should hereafter be found for them. Josefina was bright, vivacious, and a welcome addition to the little colony at Talisay, but at times Rizal had misgivings as to how it came that this foreigner should be permitted by a suspicious and absolute government to join him, when Filipinos, over whom the authorities could have exercised complete control, were kept away. Josefina's frequent visits to the convento once brought this suspicion to an open declaration of his misgivings by Rizal, but two days of weeping upon her part caused him to avoid the subiect thereafter. Could the exile have seen the confidential correspondence in the secret archives the plan would have been plain to him, for there it is suggested that his impressionable character could best be reached through the sufferings of his family, and that only his mother and sisters should be allowed to visit him. Steps in this plot were the gradual pardoning and returning of the members of his family to their homes. Josefina must remain a mystery to us as she was to Rizal. While she was in a delicate condition Rizal played a prank on her, harmless in itself, which startled her so that she sprang forward and struck against an iron stand. Though it was pure accident and Rizal was scarcely at fault, he blamed himself for it, and his later devotion seems largely to have been trying to make amends. The "burial of the son of Rizal," sometimes referred to as occurring at Dapitan, has for its foundation the consequences of this accident. A sketch hastily penciled in one of his medical books depicts an unusual condition apparent in the infant which, had it regularly made its appearance in the world some months later, would have been cherished by both parents; this loss was a great and common grief which banished thereafter all distrust upon his part and all occasion for it upon hers. Rizal's mother and several of his sisters, the latter changing from time to time, had been present during this critical period. Another operation had been performed upon Mrs. Rizal's eyes, but she was restive and disregarded the ordinary precautions, and the son was in despair. A letter to his brother-in-law, Manuel Hidalgo, who was inclined toward medical studies, says, "I now realize the reason why physicians are directed not to practice in their own families." A story of his mother and Rizal, necessary to understand his peculiar attitude toward her, may serve as the transition from the hero's sad (later) married experience to the real romance of his life. Mrs. Rizal's talents commanded her son's admiration, as her care for him demanded his gratitude, but, despite the common opinion, he never had that sense of companionship with her that he enjoyed with his father. Mrs. Rizal was a strict disciplinarian and a woman of unexceptionable character, but she arrogated to herself an infallibility which at times was trying to those about her, and she foretold bitter fates for those who dared dispute her.