The Reign of Greed
overlooking the lake, with wide ricefields beyond, then red roofs amid
the deep green of the trees,—the town of Kalamba,—and beyond the
shore-line fading into the distance, with the horizon at the back
closing down over the water, giving the lake the appearance of a sea
and justifying the name the Indians give it of dagat na tabang, or
fresh-water sea.
At the end of the sala, seated before a table covered with documents,
was the secretary. His Excellency was a great worker and did not like
to lose time, so he attended to business in the intervals of the game
or while dealing the cards. Meanwhile, the bored secretary yawned and
despaired. That morning he had worked, as usual, over transfers,
suspensions of employees, deportations, pardons, and the like, but had
not yet touched the great question that had stirred so much
interest—the petition of the students requesting permission to
establish an academy of Castilian. Pacing from one end of the room to
the other and conversing animatedly but in low tones were to be seen
Don Custodio, a high official, and a friar named Padre Fernandez, who
hung his head with an air either of meditation or annoyance. From an
adjoining room issued the click of balls striking together and bursts
of laughter, amid which might be heard the sharp, dry voice of Simoun,
who was playing billiards with Ben-Zayb.
Suddenly Padre Camorra arose. “The devil with this game, puñales!” he
exclaimed, throwing his cards at Padre Irene’s head. “Puñales, that
trick, if not all the others, was assured and we lost by default!
Puñales! The devil with this game!”
He explained the situation angrily to all the occupants of the sala,
addressing himself especially to the three walking about, as if he had
selected them for judges. The general played thus, he replied with such
a card, Padre Irene had a certain card; he led, and then that fool of a
Padre Irene didn’t play his card! Padre Irene was giving the game away!
It was a devil of a way to play! His mother’s son had not come here to
rack his brains for nothing and lose his money!
Then he added, turning very red, “If the booby thinks my money grows on
every bush!... On top of the fact that my Indians are beginning to
haggle over payments!” Fuming, and disregarding the excuses of Padre
Irene, who tried to explain while he rubbed the tip of his beak in
order to conceal his sly smile, he went into the billiardroom.
“Padre Fernandez, would you like to take a hand?” asked Fray Sibyla.
“I’m a very poor player,” replied the friar with a grimace.
“Then get Simoun,” said the General. “Eh, Simoun! Eh, Mister, won’t you
try a hand?”
“What is your disposition concerning the arms for sporting purposes?”
asked the secretary, taking advantage of the pause.
Simoun thrust his head through the doorway.
“Don’t you want to take Padre Camorra’s place, Señor Sindbad?” inquired
Padre Irene. “You can bet diamonds instead of chips.”
“I don’t care if I do,” replied Simoun, advancing while he brushed the
chalk from his hands. “What will you bet?”
“What should we bet?” returned Padre Sibyla. “The General can bet what
he likes, but we priests, clerics—”
“Bah!” interrupted Simoun ironically. “You and Padre Irene can pay with
deeds of charity, prayers, and virtues, eh?”
“You know that the virtues a person may possess,” gravely argued Padre
Sibyla, “are not like the diamonds that may pass from hand to hand, to
be sold and resold. They are inherent in the being, they are essential
attributes of the subject—”
“I’ll be satisfied then if you pay me with promises,” replied Simoun
jestingly. “You, Padre Sibyla, instead of paying me five something or
other in money, will say, for example: for five days I renounce
poverty, humility, and obedience. You, Padre Irene: I renounce
chastity, liberality, and so on. Those are small matters, and I’m
putting up my diamonds.”
“What a peculiar man this Simoun is, what notions he has!” exclaimed
Padre Irene with a smile.
“And he,” continued Simoun, slapping his Excellency familiarly on the
shoulder, “he will pay me with an order for five days in prison, or
five months, or an order of deportation made out in blank, or let us
say a summary execution by the Civil Guard while my man is being
conducted from one town to another.”
This was a strange proposition, so the three who had been pacing about
gathered around.
“But, Señor Simoun,” asked the high official, “what good will you get
out of winning promises of virtues, or lives and deportations and
summary executions?”
“A great deal! I’m tired of hearing virtues talked about and would like
to have the whole of them, all there are in the world, tied up in a
sack, in order to throw them into the sea, even though I had to use my
diamonds for sinkers.”
“What an idea!” exclaimed Padre Irene with another smile. “And the
deportations and executions, what of them?”
“Well, to clean the country and destroy every evil seed.”
“Get out! You’re still sore at the tulisanes. But you were lucky that
they didn’t demand a larger ransom or keep all your jewels. Man, don’t
be ungrateful!”
Simoun proceeded to relate how he had been intercepted by a band of
tulisanes, who, after entertaining him for a day, had let him go on his
way without exacting other ransom than his two fine revolvers and the
two boxes of cartridges he carried with him. He added that the
tulisanes had charged him with many kind regards for his Excellency,
the Captain-General.
As a result of this, and as Simoun reported that the tulisanes were
well provided with shotguns, rifles, and revolvers, and against such
persons one man alone, no matter how well armed, could not defend
himself, his Excellency, to prevent the tulisanes from getting weapons
in the future, was about to dictate a new decree forbidding the
introduction of sporting arms.
“On the contrary, on the contrary!” protested Simoun, “for me the
tulisanes are the most respectable men in the country, they’re the only
ones who earn their living honestly. Suppose I had fallen into the
hands—well, of you yourselves, for example, would you have let me
escape without taking half of my jewels, at least?”
Don Custodio was on the point of protesting; that Simoun was really a
rude American mulatto taking advantage of his friendship with the
Captain-General to insult Padre Irene, although it may be true also
that Padre Irene would hardly have set him free for so little.
“The evil is not,” went on Simoun, “in that there are tulisanes in the
mountains and uninhabited parts—the evil lies in the tulisanes in the
towns and cities.”
“Like yourself,” put in the Canon with a smile.
“Yes, like myself, like all of us! Let’s be frank, for no Indian is
listening to us here,” continued the jeweler. “The evil is that we’re
not all openly declared tulisanes. When that happens and we all take to
the woods, on that day the country will be saved, on that day will rise
a new social order which will take care of itself, and his Excellency
will be able to play his game in peace, without the necessity of having
his attention diverted by his secretary.”
The person mentioned at that moment yawned, extending his folded arms
above his head and stretching his crossed legs under the table as far
as possible, upon noticing which all laughed. His Excellency wished to
change the course of the conversation, so, throwing down the cards he
had been shuffling, he said half seriously: “Come, come, enough of
jokes and cards! Let’s get to work, to work in earnest, since we still
have a half-hour before breakfast. Are there many matters to be got
through with?”
All now gave their attention. That was the day for joining battle over
the question of instruction in Castilian, for which purpose Padre
Sibyla and Padre Irene had been there several days. It was known that
the former, as Vice-Rector, was opposed to the project and that the
latter supported it, and his activity was in turn supported by the
Countess.
“What is there, what is there?” asked his Excellency impatiently.
“The petition about sporting arms,” replied the secretary with a
stifled yawn.
“Forbidden!”
“Pardon, General,” said the high official gravely, “your Excellency
will permit me to invite your attention to the fact that the use of
sporting arms is permitted in all the countries of the world.”
The General shrugged his shoulders and remarked dryly, “We are not
imitating any nation in the world.”
Between his Excellency and the high official there was always a
difference of opinion, so it was sufficient that the latter offer any
suggestion whatsoever to have the former remain stubborn.
The high official tried another tack. “Sporting arms can harm only rats
and chickens. They’ll say—”
“But are we chickens?” interrupted the General, again shrugging his
shoulders. “Am I? I’ve demonstrated that I’m not.”
“But there’s another thing,” observed the secretary. “Four months ago,
when the possession of arms was prohibited, the foreign importers were
assured that sporting arms would be admitted.”
His Excellency knitted his brows.
“That can be arranged,” suggested Simoun.
“How?”
“Very simply. Sporting arms nearly all have a caliber of six
millimeters, at least those now in the market. Authorize only the sale
of those that haven’t these six millimeters.”
All approved this idea of Simoun’s, except the high official, who
muttered into Padre Fernandez’s ear that this was not dignified, nor
was it the way to govern.
“The schoolmaster of Tiani,” proceeded the secretary, shuffling some
papers about, “asks for a better location for—”
“What better location can he want than the storehouse that he has all
to himself?” interrupted Padre Camorra, who had returned, having
forgotten about the card-game.
“He says that it’s roofless,” replied the secretary, “and that having
purchased out of his own pocket some maps and pictures, he doesn’t want
to expose them to the weather.”
“But I haven’t anything to do with that,” muttered his Excellency. “He
should address the head secretary, [22] the governor of the province,
or the nuncio.”
“I want to tell you,” declared Padre Camorra, “that this little
schoolmaster is a discontented filibuster. Just imagine—the heretic
teaches that corpses rot just the same, whether buried with great pomp
or without any! Some day I’m going to punch him!” Here he doubled up
his fists.
“To tell the truth,” observed Padre Sibyla, as if speaking only to
Padre Irene, “he who wishes to teach, teaches everywhere, in the open
air. Socrates taught in the public streets, Plato in the gardens of the
Academy, even Christ among the mountains and lakes.”
“I’ve heard several complaints against this schoolmaster,” said his
Excellency, exchanging a glance with Simoun. “I think the best thing
would be to suspend him.”
“Suspended!” repeated the secretary.
The luck of that unfortunate, who had asked for help and received his
dismissal, pained the high official and he tried to do something for
him.
“It’s certain,” he insinuated rather timidly, “that education is not at
all well provided for—”
“I’ve already decreed large sums for the purchase of supplies,”
exclaimed his Excellency haughtily, as if to say, “I’ve done more than
I ought to have done.”
“But since suitable locations are lacking, the supplies purchased get
ruined.”
“Everything can’t be done at once,” said his Excellency dryly. “The
schoolmasters here are doing wrong in asking for buildings when those
in Spain starve to death. It’s great presumption to be better off here
than in the mother country itself!”
“Filibusterism—”
“Before everything the fatherland! Before everything else we are
Spaniards!” added Ben-Zayb, his eyes glowing with patriotism, but he