The Reign of Greed
French, a language that is readily comprehensible for the vender when
the buyer seems disposed to pay well.
Serpolette was surrounded by two gallant officers, a sailor, and a
lawyer, when she caught sight of him moving about, sticking the tip of
his long nose into all the nooks and corners, as though with it he were
ferreting out all the mysteries of the stage. She ceased her chatter,
knitted her eyebrows, then raised them, opened her lips and with the
vivacity of a Parisienne left her admirers to hurl herself like a
torpedo upon our critic.
“Tiens, tiens, Toutou! Mon lapin!” she cried, catching Padre Irene’s
arm and shaking it merrily, while the air rang with her silvery laugh.
“Tut, tut!” objected Padre Irene, endeavoring to conceal himself.
“Mais, comment! Toi ici, grosse bête! Et moi qui t’croyais—”
“’Tais pas d’tapage, Lily! Il faut m’respecter! ’Suis ici l’Pape!”
With great difficulty Padre Irene made her listen to reason, for Lily
was enchanteé to meet in Manila an old friend who reminded her of the
coulisses of the Grand Opera House. So it was that Padre Irene,
fulfilling at the same time his duties as a friend and a critic, had
initiated the applause to encourage her, for Serpolette deserved it.
Meanwhile, the young men were waiting for the cancan. Pecson became all
eyes, but there was everything except cancan. There was presented the
scene in which, but for the timely arrival of the representatives of
the law, the women would have come to blows and torn one another’s hair
out, incited thereto by the mischievous peasants, who, like our
students, hoped to see something more than the cancan.
Scit, scit, scit, scit, scit, scit,
Disputez-vous, battez-vous,
Scit, scit, scit, scit, scit, scit,
Nous allons compter les coups.
The music ceased, the men went away, the women returned, a few at a
time, and started a conversation among themselves, of which our friends
understood nothing. They were slandering some absent person.
“They look like the Chinamen of the pansiteria!” whispered Pecson.
“But, the cancan?” asked Makaraig.
“They’re talking about the most suitable place to dance it,” gravely
responded Sandoval.
“They look like the Chinamen of the pansiteria,” repeated Pecson in
disgust.
A lady accompanied by her husband entered at that moment and took her
place in one of the two vacant boxes. She had the air of a queen and
gazed disdainfully at the whole house, as if to say, “I’ve come later
than all of you, you crowd of upstarts and provincials, I’ve come later
than you!” There are persons who go to the theater like the contestants
in a mule-race: the last one in, wins, and we know very sensible men
who would ascend the scaffold rather than enter a theater before the
first act. But the lady’s triumph was of short duration—she caught
sight of the other box that was still empty, and began to scold her
better half, thus starting such a disturbance that many were annoyed.
“Ssh! Ssh!”
“The blockheads! As if they understood French!” remarked the lady,
gazing with supreme disdain in all directions, finally fixing her
attention on Juanito’s box, whence she thought she had heard an
impudent hiss.
Juanito was in fact guilty, for he had been pretending to understand
everything, holding himself up proudly and applauding at times as
though nothing that was said escaped him, and this too without guiding
himself by the actors’ pantomime, because he scarcely looked toward the
stage. The rogue had intentionally remarked to Paulita that, as there
was so much more beautiful a woman close at hand, he did not care to
strain his eyes looking beyond her. Paulita had blushed, covered her
face with her fan, and glanced stealthily toward where Isagani, silent
and morose, was abstractedly watching the show.
Paulita felt nettled and jealous. Would Isagani fall in love with any
of those alluring actresses? The thought put her in a bad humor, so she
scarcely heard the praises that Doña Victorina was heaping upon her own
favorite.
Juanito was playing his part well: he shook his head at times in sign
of disapproval, and then there could be heard coughs and murmurs in
some parts, at other times he smiled in approbation, and a second later
applause resounded. Doña Victorina was charmed, even conceiving some
vague ideas of marrying the young man the day Don Tiburcio should
die—Juanito knew French and De Espadaña didn’t! Then she began to
flatter him, nor did he perceive the change in the drift of her talk,
so occupied was he in watching a Catalan merchant who was sitting next
to the Swiss consul. Having observed that they were conversing in
French, Juanito was getting his inspiration from their countenances,
and thus grandly giving the cue to those about him.
Scene followed scene, character succeeded character, comic and
ridiculous like the bailiff and Grenicheux, imposing and winsome like
the marquis and Germaine. The audience laughed heartily at the slap
delivered by Gaspard and intended for the coward Grenicheux, which was
received by the grave bailiff, whose wig went flying through the air,
producing disorder and confusion as the curtain dropped.
“Where’s the cancan?” inquired Tadeo.
But the curtain rose again immediately, revealing a scene in a servant
market, with three posts on which were affixed signs bearing the
announcements: servantes, cochers, and domestiques. Juanito, to improve
the opportunity, turned to Doña Victorina and said in a loud voice, so
that Paulita might hear and be convinced of his learning:
“Servantes means servants, domestiques domestics.”
“And in what way do the servantes differ from the domestiques?” asked
Paulita.
Juanito was not found wanting. “Domestiques are those that are
domesticated—haven’t you noticed that some of them have the air of
savages? Those are the servantes.”
“That’s right,” added Doña Victorina, “some have very bad manners—and
yet I thought that in Europe everybody was cultivated. But as it
happens in France,—well, I see!”
“Ssh! Ssh!”
But what was Juanito’s predicament when the time came for the opening
of the market and the beginning of the sale, and the servants who were
to be hired placed themselves beside the signs that indicated their
class! The men, some ten or twelve rough characters in livery, carrying
branches in their hands, took their place under the sign domestiques!
“Those are the domestics,” explained Juanito.
“Really, they have the appearance of being only recently domesticated,”
observed Doña Victorina. “Now let’s have a look at the savages.”
Then the dozen girls headed by the lively and merry Serpolette, decked
out in their best clothes, each wearing a big bouquet of flowers at the
waist, laughing, smiling, fresh and attractive, placed themselves, to
Juanito’s great desperation, beside the post of the servantes.
“How’s this?” asked Paulita guilelessly. “Are those the savages that
you spoke of?”
“No,” replied the imperturbable Juanito, “there’s a mistake—they’ve got
their places mixed—those coming behind—”
“Those with the whips?”
Juanito nodded assent, but he was rather perplexed and uneasy.
“So those girls are the cochers?”
Here Juanito was attacked by such a violent fit of coughing that some
of the spectators became annoyed.
“Put him out! Put the consumptive out!” called a voice.
Consumptive! To be called a consumptive before Paulita! Juanito wanted
to find the blackguard and make him swallow that “consumptive.”
Observing that the women were trying to hold him back, his bravado
increased, and he became more conspicuously ferocious. But fortunately
it was Don Custodio who had made the diagnosis, and he, fearful of
attracting attention to himself, pretended to hear nothing, apparently
busy with his criticism of the play.
“If it weren’t that I am with you,” remarked Juanito, rolling his eyes
like some dolls that are moved by clockwork, and to make the
resemblance more real he stuck out his tongue occasionally.
Thus that night he acquired in Doña Victorina’s eyes the reputation of
being brave and punctilious, so she decided in her heart that she would
marry him just as soon as Don Tiburcio was out of the way. Paulita
became sadder and sadder in thinking about how the girls called cochers
could occupy Isagani’s attention, for the name had certain disagreeable
associations that came from the slang of her convent school-days.
At length the first act was concluded, the marquis taking away as
servants Serpolette and Germaine, the representative of timid beauty in
the troupe, and for coachman the stupid Grenicheux. A burst of applause
brought them out again holding hands, those who five seconds before had
been tormenting one another and were about to come to blows, bowing and
smiling here and there to the gallant Manila public and exchanging
knowing looks with various spectators.
While there prevailed the passing tumult occasioned by those who
crowded one another to get into the greenroom and felicitate the
actresses and by those who were going to make calls on the ladies in
the boxes, some expressed their opinions of the play and the players.
“Undoubtedly, Serpolette is the best,” said one with a knowing air.
“I prefer Germaine, she’s an ideal blonde.”
“But she hasn’t any voice.”
“What do I care about the voice?”
“Well, for shape, the tall one.”
“Pshaw,” said Ben-Zayb, “not a one is worth a straw, not a one is an
artist!”
Ben-Zayb was the critic for El Grito de la Integridad, and his
disdainful air gave him great importance in the eyes of those who were
satisfied with so little.
“Serpolette hasn’t any voice, nor Germaine grace, nor is that music,
nor is it art, nor is it anything!” he concluded with marked contempt.
To set oneself up as a great critic there is nothing like appearing to
be discontented with everything. Besides, the management had sent only
two seats for the newspaper staff.
In the boxes curiosity was aroused as to who could be the possessor of
the empty one, for that person, would surpass every one in chic, since
he would be the last to arrive. The rumor started somewhere that it
belonged to Simoun, and was confirmed: no one had seen the jeweler in
the reserved seats, the greenroom, or anywhere else.
“Yet I saw him this afternoon with Mr. Jouay,” some one said. “He
presented a necklace to one of the actresses.”
“To which one?” asked some of the inquisitive ladies.
“To the finest of all, the one who made eyes at his Excellency.”
This information was received with looks of intelligence, winks,
exclamations of doubt, of confirmation, and half-uttered commentaries.
“He’s trying to play the Monte Cristo,” remarked a lady who prided
herself on being literary.
“Or purveyor to the Palace!” added her escort, jealous of Simoun.
In the students’ box, Pecson, Sandoval, and Isagani had remained, while
Tadeo had gone to engage Don Custodio in conversation about his
projects, and Makaraig to hold an interview with Pepay.
“In no way, as I have observed to you before, friend Isagani,” declared
Sandoval with violent gestures and a sonorous voice, so that the ladies
near the box, the daughters of the rich man who was in debt to Tadeo,
might hear him, “in no way does the French language possess the rich
sonorousness or the varied and elegant cadence of the Castilian tongue.
I cannot conceive, I cannot imagine, I cannot form any idea of French
orators, and I doubt that they have ever had any or can have any now in
the strict construction of the term orator, because we must not confuse
the name orator with the words babbler and charlatan, for these can
exist in any country, in all the regions of the inhabited world, among
the cold and curt Englishmen as among the lively and impressionable
Frenchmen.”