The Reign of Greed
servants of Manila, who endured all his peevishness, and who now seemed
to be far preferable; when a winter kept him between a fireplace and an
attack of pneumonia, he sighed for the Manila winter during which a
single quilt is sufficient, while in summer he missed the easy-chair
and the boy to fan him. In short, in Madrid he was only one among many,
and in spite of his diamonds he was once taken for a rustic who did not
know how to comport himself and at another time for an Indiano. His
scruples were scoffed at, and he was shamelessly flouted by some
borrowers whom he offended. Disgusted with the conservatives, who took
no great notice of his advice, as well as with the sponges who rifled
his pockets, he declared himself to be of the liberal party and
returned within a year to the Philippines, if not sound in his liver,
yet completely changed in his beliefs.
The eleven months spent at the capital among café politicians, nearly
all retired half-pay office-holders, the various speeches caught here
and there, this or that article of the opposition, all the political
life that permeates the air, from the barber-shop where amid the
scissors-clips the Figaro announces his program to the banquets where
in harmonious periods and telling phrases the different shades of
political opinion, the divergences and disagreements, are adjusted—all
these things awoke in him the farther he got from Europe, like the
life-giving sap within the sown seed prevented from bursting out by the
thick husk, in such a way that when he reached Manila he believed that
he was going to regenerate it and actually had the holiest plans and
the purest ideals.
During the first months after his return he was continually talking
about the capital, about his good friends, about Minister So-and-So,
ex-Minister Such-a-One, the delegate C., the author B., and there was
not a political event, a court scandal, of which he was not informed to
the last detail, nor was there a public man the secrets of whose
private life were unknown to him, nor could anything occur that he had
not foreseen, nor any reform be ordered but he had first been
consulted. All this was seasoned with attacks on the conservatives in
righteous indignation, with apologies of the liberal party, with a
little anecdote here, a phrase there from some great man, dropped in as
one who did not wish offices and employments, which same he had refused
in order not to be beholden to the conservatives. Such was his
enthusiasm in these first days that various cronies in the
grocery-store which he visited from time to time affiliated themselves
with the liberal party and began to style themselves liberals: Don
Eulogio Badana, a retired sergeant of carbineers; the honest Armendia,
by profession a pilot, and a rampant Carlist; Don Eusebio Picote,
customs inspector; and Don Bonifacio Tacon, shoe- and harness-maker.
[45]
But nevertheless, from lack of encouragement and of opposition, his
enthusiasm gradually waned. He did not read the newspapers that came
from Spain, because they arrived in packages, the sight of which made
him yawn. The ideas that he had caught having been all expended, he
needed reinforcement, and his orators were not there, and although in
the casinos of Manila there was enough gambling, and money was borrowed
as in Madrid, no speech that would nourish his political ideas was
permitted in them. But Don Custodio was not lazy, he did more than
wish—he worked. Foreseeing that he was going to leave his bones in the
Philippines, he began to consider that country his proper sphere and to
devote his efforts to its welfare. Thinking to liberalize it, he
commenced to draw up a series of reforms or projects, which were
ingenious, to say the least. It was he who, having heard in Madrid
mention of the wooden street pavements of Paris, not yet adopted in
Spain, proposed the introduction of them in Manila by covering the
streets with boards nailed down as they are on the sides of houses; it
was he who, deploring the accidents to two-wheeled vehicles, planned to
avoid them by putting on at least three wheels; it was also he who,
while acting as vice-president of the Board of Health, ordered
everything fumigated, even the telegrams that came from infected
places; it was also he who, in compassion for the convicts that worked
in the sun and with a desire of saving to the government the cost of
their equipment, suggested that they be clothed in a simple
breech-clout and set to work not by day but at night. He marveled, he
stormed, that his projects should encounter objectors, but consoled
himself with the reflection that the man who is worth enemies has them,
and revenged himself by attacking and tearing to pieces any project,
good or bad, presented by others.
As he prided himself on being a liberal, upon being asked what he
thought of the Indians he would answer, like one conferring a great
favor, that they were fitted for manual labor and the imitative arts
(meaning thereby music, painting, and sculpture), adding his old
postscript that to know them one must have resided many, many years in
the country. Yet when he heard of any one of them excelling in
something that was not manual labor or an imitative art—in chemistry,
medicine, or philosophy, for example—he would exclaim: “Ah, he promises
fairly, fairly well, he’s not a fool!” and feel sure that a great deal
of Spanish blood must flow in the veins of such an Indian. If unable to
discover any in spite of his good intentions, he then sought a Japanese
origin, for it was at that time the fashion began of attributing to the
Japanese or the Arabs whatever good the Filipinos might have in them.
For him the native songs were Arabic music, as was also the alphabet of
the ancient Filipinos—he was certain of this, although he did not know
Arabic nor had he ever seen that alphabet.
“Arabic, the purest Arabic,” he said to Ben-Zayb in a tone that
admitted no reply. “At best, Chinese!”
Then he would add, with a significant wink: “Nothing can be, nothing
ought to be, original with the Indians, you understand! I like them
greatly, but they mustn’t be allowed to pride themselves upon anything,
for then they would take heart and turn into a lot of wretches.”
At other times he would say: “I love the Indians fondly, I’ve
constituted myself their father and defender, but it’s necessary to
keep everything in its proper place. Some were born to command and
others to serve—plainly, that is a truism which can’t be uttered very
loudly, but it can be put into practise without many words. For look,
the trick depends upon trifles. When you wish to reduce a people to
subjection, assure it that it is in subjection. The first day it will
laugh, the second protest, the third doubt, and the fourth be
convinced. To keep the Filipino docile, he must have repeated to him
day after day what he is, to convince him that he is incompetent. What
good would it do, besides, to have him believe in something else that
would make him wretched? Believe me, it’s an act of charity to hold
every creature in his place—that is order, harmony. That constitutes
the science of government.”
In referring to his policies, Don Custodio was not satisfied with the
word art, and upon pronouncing the word government, he would extend his
hand downwards to the height of a man bent over on his knees.
In regard to his religious ideas, he prided himself on being a
Catholic, very much a Catholic—ah, Catholic Spain, the land of María
Santísima! A liberal could be and ought to be a Catholic, when the
reactionaries were setting themselves up as gods or saints, just as a
mulatto passes for a white man in Kaffirland. But with all that, he ate
meat during Lent, except on Good Friday, never went to confession,
believed neither in miracles nor the infallibility of the Pope, and
when he attended mass, went to the one at ten o’clock, or to the
shortest, the military mass. Although in Madrid he had spoken ill of
the religious orders, so as not to be out of harmony with his
surroundings, considering them anachronisms, and had hurled curses
against the Inquisition, while relating this or that lurid or droll
story wherein the habits danced, or rather friars without habits, yet
in speaking of the Philippines, which should be ruled by special laws,
he would cough, look wise, and again extend his hand downwards to that
mysterious altitude.
“The friars are necessary, they’re a necessary evil,” he would declare.
But how he would rage when any Indian dared to doubt the miracles or
did not acknowledge the Pope! All the tortures of the Inquisition were
insufficient to punish such temerity.
When it was objected that to rule or to live at the expense of
ignorance has another and somewhat ugly name and is punished by law
when the culprit is a single person, he would justify his position by
referring to other colonies. “We,” he would announce in his official
tone, “can speak out plainly! We’re not like the British and the Dutch
who, in order to hold people in subjection, make use of the lash. We
avail ourselves of other means, milder and surer. The salutary
influence of the friars is superior to the British lash.”
This last remark made his fortune. For a long time Ben-Zayb continued
to use adaptations of it, and with him all Manila. The thinking part of
Manila applauded it, and it even got to Madrid, where it was quoted in
the Parliament as from a liberal of long residence there. The friars,
flattered by the comparison and seeing their prestige enhanced, sent
him sacks of chocolate, presents which the incorruptible Don Custodio
returned, so that Ben-Zayb immediately compared him to Epaminondas.
Nevertheless, this modern Epaminondas made use of the rattan in his
choleric moments, and advised its use!
At that time the conventos, fearful that he would render a decision
favorable to the petition of the students, increased their gifts, so
that on the afternoon when we see him he was more perplexed than ever,
his reputation for energy was being compromised. It had been more than
a fortnight since he had had the petition in his hands, and only that
morning the high official, after praising his zeal, had asked for a
decision. Don Custodio had replied with mysterious gravity, giving him
to understand that it was not yet completed. The high official had
smiled a smile that still worried and haunted him.
As we were saying, he yawned and yawned. In one of these movements, at
the moment when he opened his eyes and closed his mouth, his attention
was caught by a file of red envelopes, arranged in regular order on a
magnificent kamagon desk. On the back of each could be read in large
letters: PROJECTS.
For a moment he forgot his troubles and Pepay’s pirouettes, to reflect
upon all that those files contained, which had issued from his prolific
brain in his hours of inspiration. How many original ideas, how many
sublime thoughts, how many means of ameliorating the woes of the
Philippines! Immortality and the gratitude of the country were surely
his!
Like an old lover who discovers a moldy package of amorous epistles,
Don Custodio arose and approached the desk. The first envelope, thick,
swollen, and plethoric, bore the title: PROJECTS IN PROJECT.
“No,” he murmured, “they’re excellent things, but it would take a year
to read them over.”
The second, also quite voluminous, was entitled: PROJECTS UNDER
CONSIDERATION. “No, not those either.”
Then came the PROJECTS NEARING COMPLETION, PROJECTS PRESENTED, PROJECTS
REJECTED, PROJECTS APPROVED, PROJECTS POSTPONED. These last envelopes
held little, but the least of all was that of the PROJECTS EXECUTED.
Don Custodio wrinkled up his nose—what did it contain? He had
completely forgotten what was in it. A sheet of yellowish paper showed