The Reign of Greed
in Manila as very clever. That one farther on, he of the frowning look
and unkempt mustache, is a government official who passes for a most
meritorious fellow because he has the courage to speak ill of the
business in lottery tickets carried on between Quiroga and an exalted
dame in Manila society. The fact is that two thirds of the tickets go
to China and the few that are left in Manila are sold at a premium of a
half-real. The honorable gentleman entertains the conviction that some
day he will draw the first prize, and is in a rage at finding himself
confronted with such tricks.
The dinner, meanwhile, was drawing to an end. From the dining-room
floated into the sala snatches of toasts, interruptions, bursts and
ripples of laughter. The name of Quiroga was often heard mingled with
the words “consul,” “equality,” “justice.” The amphitryon himself did
not eat European dishes, so he contented himself with drinking a glass
of wine with his guests from time to time, promising to dine with those
who were not seated at the first table.
Simoun, who was present, having already dined, was in the sala talking
with some merchants, who were complaining of business conditions:
everything was going wrong, trade was paralyzed, the European exchanges
were exorbitantly high. They sought information from the jeweler or
insinuated to him a few ideas, with the hope that these would be
communicated to the Captain-General. To all the remedies suggested
Simoun responded with a sarcastic and unfeeling exclamation about
nonsense, until one of them in exasperation asked him for his opinion.
“My opinion?” he retorted. “Study how other nations prosper, and then
do as they do.”
“And why do they prosper, Señor Simoun?”
Simoun replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“The port works, which weigh so heavily upon commerce, and the port not
yet completed!” sighed Don Timoteo Pelaez. “A Penelope’s web, as my son
says, that is spun and unspun. The taxes—”
“You complaining!” exclaimed another. “Just as the General has decreed
the destruction of houses of light materials! [35] And you with a
shipment of galvanized iron!”
“Yes,” rejoined Don Timoteo, “but look what that decree cost me! Then,
the destruction will not be carried out for a month, not until Lent
begins, and other shipments may arrive. I would have wished them
destroyed right away, but—Besides, what are the owners of those houses
going to buy from me if they are all poor, all equally beggars?”
“You can always buy up their shacks for a trifle.”
“And afterwards have the decree revoked and sell them back at double
the price—that’s business!”
Simoun smiled his frigid smile. Seeing Quiroga approach, he left the
querulous merchants to greet the future consul, who on catching sight
of him lost his satisfied expression and assigned a countenance like
those of the merchants, while he bent almost double.
Quiroga respected the jeweler greatly, not only because he knew him to
be very wealthy, but also on account of his rumored influence with the
Captain-General. It was reported that Simoun favored Quiroga’s
ambitions, that he was an advocate for the consulate, and a certain
newspaper hostile to the Chinese had alluded to him in many
paraphrases, veiled allusions, and suspension points, in the celebrated
controversy with another sheet that was favorable to the queued folk.
Some prudent persons added with winks and half-uttered words that his
Black Eminence was advising the General to avail himself of the Chinese
in order to humble the tenacious pride of the natives.
“To hold the people in subjection,” he was reported to have said,
“there’s nothing like humiliating them and humbling them in their own
eyes.”
To this end an opportunity had soon presented itself. The guilds of
mestizos and natives were continually watching one another, venting
their bellicose spirits and their activities in jealousy and distrust.
At mass one day the gobernadorcillo of the natives was seated on a
bench to the right, and, being extremely thin, happened to cross one of
his legs over the other, thus adopting a nonchalant attitude, in order
to expose his thighs more and display his pretty shoes. The
gobernadorcillo of the guild of mestizos, who was seated on the
opposite bench, as he had bunions, and could not cross his legs on
account of his obesity, spread his legs wide apart to expose a plain
waistcoat adorned with a beautiful gold chain set with diamonds. The
two cliques comprehended these maneuvers and joined battle. On the
following Sunday all the mestizos, even the thinnest, had large
paunches and spread their legs wide apart as though on horseback, while
the natives placed one leg over the other, even the fattest, there
being one cabeza de barangay who turned a somersault. Seeing these
movements, the Chinese all adopted their own peculiar attitude, that of
sitting as they do in their shops, with one leg drawn back and upward,
the other swinging loose. There resulted protests and petitions, the
police rushed to arms ready to start a civil war, the curates rejoiced,
the Spaniards were amused and made money out of everybody, until the
General settled the quarrel by ordering that every one should sit as
the Chinese did, since they were the heaviest contributors, even though
they were not the best Catholics. The difficulty for the mestizos and
natives then was that their trousers were too tight to permit of their
imitating the Chinese. But to make the intention of humiliating them
the more evident, the measure was carried out with great pomp and
ceremony, the church being surrounded by a troop of cavalry, while all
those within were sweating. The matter was carried to the Cortes, but
it was repeated that the Chinese, as the ones who paid, should have
their way in the religious ceremonies, even though they apostatized and
laughed at Christianity immediately after. The natives and the mestizos
had to be content, learning thus not to waste time over such fatuity.
[36]
Quiroga, with his smooth tongue and humble smile, was lavishly and
flatteringly attentive to Simoun. His voice was caressing and his bows
numerous, but the jeweler cut his blandishments short by asking
brusquely:
“Did the bracelets suit her?”
At this question all Quiroga’s liveliness vanished like a dream. His
caressing voice became plaintive; he bowed lower, gave the Chinese
salutation of raising his clasped hands to the height of his face, and
groaned: “Ah, Señor Simoun! I’m lost, I’m ruined!” [37]
“How, Quiroga, lost and ruined when you have so many bottles of
champagne and so many guests?”
Quiroga closed his eyes and made a grimace. Yes, the affair of that
afternoon, that affair of the bracelets, had ruined him. Simoun smiled,
for when a Chinese merchant complains it is because all is going well,
and when he makes a show that things are booming it is quite certain
that he is planning an assignment or flight to his own country.
“You didn’t know that I’m lost, I’m ruined? Ah, Señor Simoun, I’m
busted!” To make his condition plainer, he illustrated the word by
making a movement as though he were falling in collapse.
Simoun wanted to laugh, but restrained himself and said that he knew
nothing, nothing at all, as Quiroga led him to a room and closed the
door. He then explained the cause of his misfortune.
Three diamond bracelets that he had secured from Simoun on pretense of
showing them to his wife were not for her, a poor native shut up in her
room like a Chinese woman, but for a beautiful and charming lady, the
friend of a powerful man, whose influence was needed by him in a
certain deal in which he could clear some six thousand pesos. As he did
not understand feminine tastes and wished to be gallant, the Chinese
had asked for the three finest bracelets the jeweler had, each priced
at three to four thousand pesos. With affected simplicity and his most
caressing smile, Quiroga had begged the lady to select the one she
liked best, and the lady, more simple and caressing still, had declared
that she liked all three, and had kept them.
Simoun burst out into laughter.
“Ah, sir, I’m lost, I’m ruined!” cried the Chinese, slapping himself
lightly with his delicate hands; but the jeweler continued his
laughter.
“Ugh, bad people, surely not a real lady,” went on the Chinaman,
shaking his head in disgust. “What! She has no decency, while me, a
Chinaman, me always polite! Ah, surely she not a real lady—a cigarrera
has more decency!”
“They’ve caught you, they’ve caught you!” exclaimed Simoun, poking him
in the chest.
“And everybody’s asking for loans and never pays—what about that?
Clerks, officials, lieutenants, soldiers—” he checked them off on his
long-nailed fingers—“ah, Señor Simoun, I’m lost, I’m busted!”
“Get out with your complaints,” said Simoun. “I’ve saved you from many
officials that wanted money from you. I’ve lent it to them so that they
wouldn’t bother you, even when I knew that they couldn’t pay.”
“But, Señor Simoun, you lend to officials; I lend to women, sailors,
everybody.”
“I bet you get your money back.”
“Me, money back? Ah, surely you don’t understand! When it’s lost in
gambling they never pay. Besides, you have a consul, you can force
them, but I haven’t.”
Simoun became thoughtful. “Listen, Quiroga,” he said, somewhat
abstractedly, “I’ll undertake to collect what the officers and sailors
owe you. Give me their notes.”
Quiroga again fell to whining: they had never given him any notes.
“When they come to you asking for money, send them to me. I want to
help you.”
The grateful Quiroga thanked him, but soon fell to lamenting again
about the bracelets. “A cigarrera wouldn’t be so shameless!” he
repeated.
“The devil!” exclaimed Simoun, looking askance at the Chinese, as
though studying him. “Exactly when I need the money and thought that
you could pay me! But it can all be arranged, as I don’t want you to
fail for such a small amount. Come, a favor, and I’ll reduce to seven
the nine thousand pesos you owe me. You can get anything you wish
through the Customs—boxes of lamps, iron, copper, glassware, Mexican
pesos—you furnish arms to the conventos, don’t you?”
The Chinese nodded affirmation, but remarked that he had to do a good
deal of bribing. “I furnish the padres everything!”
“Well, then,” added Simoun in a low voice, “I need you to get in for me
some boxes of rifles that arrived this evening. I want you to keep them
in your warehouse; there isn’t room for all of them in my house.”
Quiroga began to show symptoms of fright.
“Don’t get scared, you don’t run any risk. These rifles are to be
concealed, a few at a time, in various dwellings, then a search will be
instituted, and many people will be sent to prison. You and I can make
a haul getting them set free. Understand me?”
Quiroga wavered, for he was afraid of firearms. In his desk he had an
empty revolver that he never touched without turning his head away and
closing his eyes.
“If you can’t do it, I’ll have to apply to some one else, but then I’ll
need the nine thousand pesos to cross their palms and shut their eyes.”
“All right, all right!” Quiroga finally agreed. “But many people will
be arrested? There’ll be a search, eh?”
When Quiroga and Simoun returned to the sala they found there, in
animated conversation, those who had finished their dinner, for the
champagne had loosened their tongues and stirred their brains. They
were talking rather freely.
In a group where there were a number of government clerks, some ladies,
and Don Custodio, the topic was a commission sent to India to make
certain investigations about footwear for the soldiers.
“Who compose it?” asked an elderly lady.
“A colonel, two other officers, and his Excellency’s nephew.”