The Reign of Greed
from under the flap, as though the envelope were sticking out its
tongue. This he drew out and unfolded: it was the famous project for
the School of Arts and Trades!
“What the devil!” he exclaimed. “If the Augustinian padres took charge
of it—”
Suddenly he slapped his forehead and arched his eyebrows, while a look
of triumph overspread his face. “I have reached a decision!” he cried
with an oath that was not exactly eureka. “My decision is made!”
Repeating his peculiar eureka five or six times, which struck the air
like so many gleeful lashes, he sat down at his desk, radiant with joy,
and began to write furiously.
CHAPTER XXI
MANILA TYPES
That night there was a grand function at the Teatro de Variedades. Mr.
Jouay’s French operetta company was giving its initial performance, Les
Cloches de Corneville. To the eyes of the public was to be exhibited
his select troupe, whose fame the newspapers had for days been
proclaiming. It was reported that among the actresses was a very
beautiful voice, with a figure even more beautiful, and if credit could
be given to rumor, her amiability surpassed even her voice and figure.
At half-past seven in the evening there were no more tickets to be had,
not even though they had been for Padre Salvi himself in his direct
need, and the persons waiting to enter the general admission already
formed a long queue. In the ticket-office there were scuffles and
fights, talk of filibusterism and races, but this did not produce any
tickets, so that by a quarter before eight fabulous prices were being
offered for them. The appearance of the building, profusely
illuminated, with flowers and plants in all the doors and windows,
enchanted the new arrivals to such an extent that they burst out into
exclamations and applause. A large crowd surged about the entrance,
gazing enviously at those going in, those who came early from fear of
missing their seats. Laughter, whispering, expectation greeted the
later arrivals, who disconsolately joined the curious crowd, and now
that they could not get in contented themselves with watching those who
did.
Yet there was one person who seemed out of place amid such great
eagerness and curiosity. He was a tall, meager man, who dragged one leg
stiffly when he walked, dressed in a wretched brown coat and dirty
checkered trousers that fitted his lean, bony limbs tightly. A straw
sombrero, artistic in spite of being broken, covered an enormous head
and allowed his dirty gray, almost red, hair to straggle out long and
kinky at the end like a poet’s curls. But the most notable thing about
this man was not his clothing or his European features, guiltless of
beard or mustache, but his fiery red face, from which he got the
nickname by which he was known, Camaroncocido. [46] He was a curious
character belonging to a prominent Spanish family, but he lived like a
vagabond and a beggar, scoffing at the prestige which he flouted
indifferently with his rags. He was reputed to be a kind of reporter,
and in fact his gray goggle-eyes, so cold and thoughtful, always showed
up where anything publishable was happening. His manner of living was a
mystery to all, as no one seemed to know where he ate and slept.
Perhaps he had an empty hogshead somewhere.
But at that moment Camaroncocido lacked his usual hard and indifferent
expression, something like mirthful pity being reflected in his looks.
A funny little man accosted him merrily.
“Friend!” exclaimed the latter, in a raucous voice, as hoarse as a
frog’s, while he displayed several Mexican pesos, which Camaroncocido
merely glanced at and then shrugged his shoulders. What did they matter
to him?
The little old man was a fitting contrast to him. Small, very small, he
wore on his head a high hat, which presented the appearance of a huge
hairy worm, and lost himself in an enormous frock coat, too wide and
too long for him, to reappear in trousers too short, not reaching below
his calves. His body seemed to be the grandfather and his legs the
grandchildren, while as for his shoes he appeared to be floating on the
land, for they were of an enormous sailor type, apparently protesting
against the hairy worm worn on his head with all the energy of a
convento beside a World’s Exposition. If Camaroncocido was red, he was
brown; while the former, although of Spanish extraction, had not a
single hair on his face, yet he, an Indian, had a goatee and mustache,
both long, white, and sparse. His expression was lively. He was known
as Tio Quico, [47] and like his friend lived on publicity, advertising
the shows and posting the theatrical announcements, being perhaps the
only Filipino who could appear with impunity in a silk hat and frock
coat, just as his friend was the first Spaniard who laughed at the
prestige of his race.
“The Frenchman has paid me well,” he said smiling and showing his
picturesque gums, which looked like a street after a conflagration. “I
did a good job in posting the bills.”
Camaroncocido shrugged his shoulders again. “Quico,” he rejoined in a
cavernous voice, “if they’ve given you six pesos for your work, how
much will they give the friars?”
Tio Quico threw back his head in his usual lively manner. “To the
friars?”
“Because you surely know,” continued Camaroncocido, “that all this
crowd was secured for them by the conventos.”
The fact was that the friars, headed by Padre Salvi, and some lay
brethren captained by Don Custodio, had opposed such shows. Padre
Camorra, who could not attend, watered at the eyes and mouth, but
argued with Ben-Zayb, who defended them feebly, thinking of the free
tickets they would send his newspaper. Don Custodio spoke of morality,
religion, good manners, and the like.
“But,” stammered the writer, “if our own farces with their plays on
words and phrases of double meaning—”
“But at least they’re in Castilian!” the virtuous councilor interrupted
with a roar, inflamed to righteous wrath. “Obscenities in French, man,
Ben-Zayb, for God’s sake, in French! Never!”
He uttered this never with the energy of three Guzmans threatened with
being killed like fleas if they did not surrender twenty Tarifas. Padre
Irene naturally agreed with Don Custodio and execrated French operetta.
Whew, he had been in Paris, but had never set foot in a theater, the
Lord deliver him!
Yet the French operetta also counted numerous partizans. The officers
of the army and navy, among them the General’s aides, the clerks, and
many society people were anxious to enjoy the delicacies of the French
language from the mouths of genuine Parisiennes, and with them were
affiliated those who had traveled by the M.M. [48] and had jabbered a
little French during the voyage, those who had visited Paris, and all
those who wished to appear learned.
Hence, Manila society was divided into two factions, operettists and
anti-operettists. The latter were supported by the elderly ladies,
wives jealous and careful of their husbands’ love, and by those who
were engaged, while those who were free and those who were beautiful
declared themselves enthusiastic operettists. Notes and then more notes
were exchanged, there were goings and comings, mutual recriminations,
meetings, lobbyings, arguments, even talk of an insurrection of the
natives, of their indolence, of inferior and superior races, of
prestige and other humbugs, so that after much gossip and more
recrimination, the permit was granted, Padre Salvi at the same time
publishing a pastoral that was read by no one but the proof-reader.
There were questionings whether the General had quarreled with the
Countess, whether she spent her time in the halls of pleasure, whether
His Excellency was greatly annoyed, whether there had been presents
exchanged, whether the French consul—, and so on and on. Many names
were bandied about: Quiroga the Chinaman’s, Simoun’s, and even those of
many actresses.
Thanks to these scandalous preliminaries, the people’s impatience had
been aroused, and since the evening before, when the troupe arrived,
there was talk of nothing but attending the first performance. From the
hour when the red posters announced Les Cloches de Corneville the
victors prepared to celebrate their triumph. In some offices, instead
of the time being spent in reading newspapers and gossiping, it was
devoted to devouring the synopsis and spelling out French novels, while
many feigned business outside to consult their pocket-dictionaries on
the sly. So no business was transacted, callers were told to come back
the next day, but the public could not take offense, for they
encountered some very polite and affable clerks, who received and
dismissed them with grand salutations in the French style. The clerks
were practising, brushing the dust off their French, and calling to one
another oui, monsieur, s’il vous plait, and pardon! at every turn, so
that it was a pleasure to see and hear them.
But the place where the excitement reached its climax was the newspaper
office. Ben-Zayb, having been appointed critic and translator of the
synopsis, trembled like a poor woman accused of witchcraft, as he saw
his enemies picking out his blunders and throwing up to his face his
deficient knowledge of French. When the Italian opera was on, he had
very nearly received a challenge for having mistranslated a tenor’s
name, while an envious rival had immediately published an article
referring to him as an ignoramus—him, the foremost thinking head in the
Philippines! All the trouble he had had to defend himself! He had had
to write at least seventeen articles and consult fifteen dictionaries,
so with these salutary recollections, the wretched Ben-Zayb moved about
with leaden hands, to say nothing of his feet, for that would be
plagiarizing Padre Camorra, who had once intimated that the journalist
wrote with them.
“You see, Quico?” said Camaroncocido. “One half of the people have come
because the friars told them not to, making it a kind of public
protest, and the other half because they say to themselves, ‘Do the
friars object to it? Then it must be instructive!’ Believe me, Quico,
your advertisements are a good thing but the pastoral was better, even
taking into consideration the fact that it was read by no one.”
“Friend, do you believe,” asked Tio Quico uneasily, “that on account of
the competition with Padre Salvi my business will in the future be
prohibited?”
“Maybe so, Quico, maybe so,” replied the other, gazing at the sky.
“Money’s getting scarce.”
Tio Quico muttered some incoherent words: if the friars were going to
turn theatrical advertisers, he would become a friar. After bidding his
friend good-by, he moved away coughing and rattling his silver coins.
With his eternal indifference Camaroncocido continued to wander about
here and there with his crippled leg and sleepy looks. The arrival of
unfamiliar faces caught his attention, coming as they did from
different parts and signaling to one another with a wink or a cough. It
was the first time that he had ever seen these individuals on such an
occasion, he who knew all the faces and features in the city. Men with
dark faces, humped shoulders, uneasy and uncertain movements, poorly
disguised, as though they had for the first time put on sack coats,
slipped about among the shadows, shunning attention, instead of getting
in the front rows where they could see well.
“Detectives or thieves?” Camaroncocido asked himself and immediately
shrugged his shoulders. “But what is it to me?”
The lamp of a carriage that drove up lighted in passing a group of four
or five of these individuals talking with a man who appeared to be an
army officer.
“Detectives! It must be a new corps,” he muttered with his shrug of
indifference. Soon, however, he noticed that the officer, after