The Reign of Greed
“Four?” rejoined a clerk. “What a commission! Suppose they disagree—are
they competent?”
“That’s what I asked,” replied a clerk. “It’s said that one civilian
ought to go, one who has no military prejudices—a shoemaker, for
instance.”
“That’s right,” added an importer of shoes, “but it wouldn’t do to send
an Indian or a Chinaman, and the only Peninsular shoemaker demanded
such large fees—”
“But why do they have to make any investigations about footwear?”
inquired the elderly lady. “It isn’t for the Peninsular artillerymen.
The Indian soldiers can go barefoot, as they do in their towns.” [38]
“Exactly so, and the treasury would save more,” corroborated another
lady, a widow who was not satisfied with her pension.
“But you must remember,” remarked another in the group, a friend of the
officers on the commission, “that while it’s true they go barefoot in
the towns, it’s not the same as moving about under orders in the
service. They can’t choose the hour, nor the road, nor rest when they
wish. Remember, madam, that, with the noonday sun overhead and the
earth below baking like an oven, they have to march over sandy
stretches, where there are stones, the sun above and fire below,
bullets in front—”
“It’s only a question of getting used to it!”
“Like the donkey that got used to not eating! In our present campaign
the greater part of our losses have been due to wounds on the soles of
the feet. Remember the donkey, madam, remember the donkey!”
“But, my dear sir,” retorted the lady, “look how much money is wasted
on shoe-leather. There’s enough to pension many widows and orphans in
order to maintain our prestige. Don’t smile, for I’m not talking about
myself, and I have my pension, even though a very small one,
insignificant considering the services my husband rendered, but I’m
talking of others who are dragging out miserable lives! It’s not right
that after so much persuasion to come and so many hardships in crossing
the sea they should end here by dying of hunger. What you say about the
soldiers may be true, but the fact is that I’ve been in the country
more than three years, and I haven’t seen any soldier limping.”
“In that I agree with the lady,” said her neighbor. “Why issue them
shoes when they were born without them?”
“And why shirts?”
“And why trousers?”
“Just calculate what we should economize on soldiers clothed only in
their skins!” concluded he who was defending the army.
In another group the conversation was more heated. Ben-Zayb was talking
and declaiming, while Padre Camorra, as usual, was constantly
interrupting him. The friar-journalist, in spite of his respect for the
cowled gentry, was always at loggerheads with Padre Camorra, whom he
regarded as a silly half-friar, thus giving himself the appearance of
being independent and refuting the accusations of those who called him
Fray Ibañez. Padre Camorra liked his adversary, as the latter was the
only person who would take seriously what he styled his arguments. They
were discussing magnetism, spiritualism, magic, and the like. Their
words flew through the air like the knives and balls of jugglers,
tossed back and forth from one to the other.
That year great attention had been attracted in the Quiapo fair by a
head, wrongly called a sphinx, exhibited by Mr. Leeds, an American.
Glaring advertisements covered the walls of the houses, mysterious and
funereal, to excite the curiosity of the public. Neither Ben-Zayb nor
any of the padres had yet seen it; Juanito Pelaez was the only one who
had, and he was describing his wonderment to the party.
Ben-Zayb, as a journalist, looked for a natural explanation. Padre
Camorra talked of the devil, Padre Irene smiled, Padre Salvi remained
grave.
“But, Padre, the devil doesn’t need to come—we are sufficient to damn
ourselves—”
“It can’t be explained any other way.”
“If science—”
“Get out with science, puñales!”
“But, listen to me and I’ll convince you. It’s all a question of
optics. I haven’t yet seen the head nor do I know how it looks, but
this gentleman”—indicating Juanito Pelaez—“tells us that it does not
look like the talking heads that are usually exhibited. So be it! But
the principle is the same—it’s all a question of optics. Wait! A mirror
is placed thus, another mirror behind it, the image is reflected—I say,
it is purely a problem in physics.”
Taking down from the walls several mirrors, he arranged them, turned
them round and round, but, not getting the desired result, concluded:
“As I say, it’s nothing more or less than a question of optics.”
“But what do you want mirrors for, if Juanito tells us that the head is
inside a box placed on the table? I see in it spiritualism, because the
spiritualists always make use of tables, and I think that Padre Salvi,
as the ecclesiastical governor, ought to prohibit the exhibition.”
Padre Salvi remained silent, saying neither yes nor no.
“In order to learn if there are devils or mirrors inside it,” suggested
Simoun, “the best thing would be for you to go and see the famous
sphinx.”
The proposal was a good one, so it was accepted, although Padre Salvi
and Don Custodio showed some repugnance. They at a fair, to rub
shoulders with the public, to see sphinxes and talking heads! What
would the natives say? These might take them for mere men, endowed with
the same passions and weaknesses as others. But Ben-Zayb, with his
journalistic ingenuity, promised to request Mr. Leeds not to admit the
public while they were inside. They would be honoring him sufficiently
by the visit not to admit of his refusal, and besides he would not
charge any admission fee. To give a show of probability to this, he
concluded: “Because, remember, if I should expose the trick of the
mirrors to the public, it would ruin the poor American’s business.”
Ben-Zayb was a conscientious individual.
About a dozen set out, among them our acquaintances, Padres Salvi,
Camorra, and Irene, Don Custodio, Ben-Zayb, and Juanito Pelaez. Their
carriages set them down at the entrance to the Quiapo Plaza.
CHAPTER XVII
THE QUIAPO FAIR
It was a beautiful night and the plaza presented a most animated
aspect. Taking advantage of the freshness of the breeze and the
splendor of the January moon, the people filled the fair to see, be
seen, and amuse themselves. The music of the cosmoramas and the lights
of the lanterns gave life and merriment to every one. Long rows of
booths, brilliant with tinsel and gauds, exposed to view clusters of
balls, masks strung by the eyes, tin toys, trains, carts, mechanical
horses, carriages, steam-engines with diminutive boilers, Lilliputian
tableware of porcelain, pine Nativities, dolls both foreign and
domestic, the former red and smiling, the latter sad and pensive like
little ladies beside gigantic children. The beating of drums, the roar
of tin horns, the wheezy music of the accordions and the hand-organs,
all mingled in a carnival concert, amid the coming and going of the
crowd, pushing, stumbling over one another, with their faces turned
toward the booths, so that the collisions were frequent and often
amusing. The carriages were forced to move slowly, with the tabí of the
cocheros repeated every moment. Met and mingled government clerks,
soldiers, friars, students, Chinese, girls with their mammas or aunts,
all greeting, signaling, calling to one another merrily.
Padre Camorra was in the seventh heaven at the sight of so many pretty
girls. He stopped, looked back, nudged Ben-Zayb, chuckled and swore,
saying, “And that one, and that one, my ink-slinger? And that one over
there, what say you?” In his contentment he even fell to using the
familiar tu toward his friend and adversary. Padre Salvi stared at him
from time to time, but he took little note of Padre Salvi. On the
contrary, he pretended to stumble so that he might brush against the
girls, he winked and made eyes at them.
“Puñales!” he kept saying to himself. “When shall I be the curate of
Quiapo?”
Suddenly Ben-Zayb let go an oath, jumped aside, and slapped his hand on
his arm; Padre Camorra in his excess of enthusiasm had pinched him.
They were approaching a dazzling señorita who was attracting the
attention of the whole plaza, and Padre Camorra, unable to restrain his
delight, had taken Ben-Zayb’s arm as a substitute for the girl’s.
It was Paulita Gomez, the prettiest of the pretty, in company with
Isagani, followed by Doña Victorina. The young woman was resplendent in
her beauty: all stopped and craned their necks, while they ceased their
conversation and followed her with their eyes—even Doña Victorina was
respectfully saluted.
Paulita was arrayed in a rich camisa and pañuelo of embroidered piña,
different from those she had worn that morning to the church. The gauzy
texture of the piña set off her shapely head, and the Indians who saw
her compared her to the moon surrounded by fleecy clouds. A silk
rose-colored skirt, caught up in rich and graceful folds by her little
hand, gave majesty to her erect figure, the movement of which,
harmonizing with her curving neck, displayed all the triumphs of vanity
and satisfied coquetry. Isagani appeared to be rather disgusted, for so
many curious eyes fixed upon the beauty of his sweetheart annoyed him.
The stares seemed to him robbery and the girl’s smiles faithlessness.
Juanito saw her and his hump increased when he spoke to her. Paulita
replied negligently, while Doña Victorina called to him, for Juanito
was her favorite, she preferring him to Isagani.
“What a girl, what a girl!” muttered the entranced Padre Camorra.
“Come, Padre, pinch yourself and let me alone,” said Ben-Zayb
fretfully.
“What a girl, what a girl!” repeated the friar. “And she has for a
sweetheart a pupil of mine, the boy I had the quarrel with.”
“Just my luck that she’s not of my town,” he added, after turning his
head several times to follow her with his looks. He was even tempted to
leave his companions to follow the girl, and Ben-Zayb had difficulty in
dissuading him. Paulita’s beautiful figure moved on, her graceful
little head nodding with inborn coquetry.
Our promenaders kept on their way, not without sighs on the part of the
friar-artilleryman, until they reached a booth surrounded by
sightseers, who quickly made way for them. It was a shop of little
wooden figures, of local manufacture, representing in all shapes and
sizes the costumes, races, and occupations of the country: Indians,
Spaniards, Chinese, mestizos, friars, clergymen, government clerks,
gobernadorcillos, students, soldiers, and so on.
Whether the artists had more affection for the priests, the folds of
whose habits were better suited to their esthetic purposes, or whether
the friars, holding such an important place in Philippine life, engaged
the attention of the sculptor more, the fact was that, for one cause or
another, images of them abounded, well-turned and finished,
representing them in the sublimest moments of their lives—the opposite
of what is done in Europe, where they are pictured as sleeping on casks
of wine, playing cards, emptying tankards, rousing themselves to
gaiety, or patting the cheeks of a buxom girl. No, the friars of the
Philippines were different: elegant, handsome, well-dressed, their
tonsures neatly shaven, their features symmetrical and serene, their
gaze meditative, their expression saintly, somewhat rosy-cheeked, cane
in hand and patent-leather shoes on their feet, inviting adoration and
a place in a glass case. Instead of the symbols of gluttony and
incontinence of their brethren in Europe, those of Manila carried the
book, the crucifix, and the palm of martyrdom; instead of kissing the
simple country lasses, those of Manila gravely extended the hand to be