The Reign of Greed
Thus he delivered a magnificent review of the nations, with his
poetical characterizations and most resounding epithets. Isagani nodded
assent, with his thoughts fixed on Paulita, whom he had surprised
gazing at him with an expressive look which contained a wealth of
meaning. He tried to divine what those eyes were expressing—those eyes
that were so eloquent and not at all deceptive.
“Now you who are a poet, a slave to rhyme and meter, a son of the
Muses,” continued Sandoval, with an elegant wave of his hand, as though
he were saluting, on the horizon, the Nine Sisters, “do you comprehend,
can you conceive, how a language so harsh and unmusical as French can
give birth to poets of such gigantic stature as our Garcilasos, our
Herreras, our Esproncedas, our Calderons?”
“Nevertheless,” objected Pecson, “Victor Hugo—”
“Victor Hugo, my friend Pecson, if Victor Hugo is a poet, it is because
he owes it to Spain, because it is an established fact, it is a matter
beyond all doubt, a thing admitted even by the Frenchmen themselves, so
envious of Spain, that if Victor Hugo has genius, if he really is a
poet, it is because his childhood was spent in Madrid; there he drank
in his first impressions, there his brain was molded, there his
imagination was colored, his heart modeled, and the most beautiful
concepts of his mind born. And after all, who is Victor Hugo? Is he to
be compared at all with our modern—”
This peroration was cut short by the return of Makaraig with a
despondent air and a bitter smile on his lips, carrying in his hand a
note, which he offered silently to Sandoval, who read:
“MY DOVE: Your letter has reached me late, for I have already
handed in my decision, and it has been approved. However, as if I
had guessed your wish, I have decided the matter according to the
desires of your protégés. I’ll be at the theater and wait for you
after the performance.
“Your duckling,
“CUSTODINING.”
“How tender the man is!” exclaimed Tadeo with emotion.
“Well?” said Sandoval. “I don’t see anything wrong about this—quite the
reverse!”
“Yes,” rejoined Makaraig with his bitter smile, “decided favorably!
I’ve just seen Padre Irene.”
“What does Padre Irene say?” inquired Pecson.
“The same as Don Custodio, and the rascal still had the audacity to
congratulate me. The Commission, which has taken as its own the
decision of the arbiter, approves the idea and felicitates the students
on their patriotism and their thirst for knowledge—”
“Well?”
“Only that, considering our duties—in short, it says that in order that
the idea may not be lost, it concludes that the direction and execution
of the plan should be placed in charge of one of the religious
corporations, in case the Dominicans do not wish to incorporate the
academy with the University.”
Exclamations of disappointment greeted the announcement. Isagani rose,
but said nothing.
“And in order that we may participate in the management of the
academy,” Makaraig went on, “we are intrusted with the collection of
contributions and dues, with the obligation of turning them over to the
treasurer whom the corporation may designate, which treasurer will
issue us receipts.”
“Then we’re tax-collectors!” remarked Tadeo.
“Sandoval,” said Pecson, “there’s the gauntlet—take it up!”
“Huh! That’s not a gauntlet—from its odor it seems more like a sock.”
“The funniest, part of it,” Makaraig added, “is that Padre Irene has
advised us to celebrate the event with a banquet or a torchlight
procession—a public demonstration of the students en masse to render
thanks to all the persons who have intervened in the affair.”
“Yes, after the blow, let’s sing and give thanks. Super flumina
Babylonis sedimus!”
“Yes, a banquet like that of the convicts,” said Tadeo.
“A banquet at which we all wear mourning and deliver funeral orations,”
added Sandoval.
“A serenade with the Marseillaise and funeral marches,” proposed
Isagani.
“No, gentlemen,” observed Pecson with his clownish grin, “to celebrate
the event there’s nothing like a banquet in a pansitería, served by the
Chinamen without camisas. I insist, without camisas!”
The sarcasm and grotesqueness of this idea won it ready acceptance,
Sandoval being the first to applaud it, for he had long wished to see
the interior of one of those establishments which at night appeared to
be so merry and cheerful.
Just as the orchestra struck up for the second act, the young men arose
and left the theater, to the scandal of the whole house.
CHAPTER XXIII
A CORPSE
Simoun had not, in fact, gone to the theater. Already, at seven o’clock
in the evening, he had left his house looking worried and gloomy. His
servants saw him return twice, accompanied by different individuals,
and at eight o’clock Makaraig encountered him pacing along Calle
Hospital near the nunnery of St. Clara, just when the bells of its
church were ringing a funeral knell. At nine Camaroncocido saw him
again, in the neighborhood of the theater, speak with a person who
seemed to be a student, pay the latter’s admission to the show, and
again disappear among the shadows of the trees.
“What is it to me?” again muttered Camaroncocido. “What do I get out of
watching over the populace?”
Basilio, as Makaraig said, had not gone to the show. The poor student,
after returning from San Diego, whither he had gone to ransom Juli, his
future bride, from her servitude, had turned again to his studies,
spending his time in the hospital, in studying, or in nursing Capitan
Tiago, whose affliction he was trying to cure.
The invalid had become an intolerable character. During his bad spells,
when he felt depressed from lack of opium, the doses of which Basilio
was trying to reduce, he would scold, mistreat, and abuse the boy, who
bore it resignedly, conscious that he was doing good to one to whom he
owed so much, and yielded only in the last extremity. His vicious
appetite satisfied, Capitan Tiago would fall into a good humor, become
tender, and call him his son, tearfully recalling the youth’s services,
how well he administered the estates, and would even talk of making him
his heir. Basilio would smile bitterly and reflect that in this world
complaisance with vice is rewarded better than fulfilment of duty. Not
a few times did he feel tempted to give free rein to the craving and
conduct his benefactor to the grave by a path of flowers and smiling
illusions rather than lengthen his life along a road of sacrifice.
“What a fool I am!” he often said to himself. “People are stupid and
then pay for it.”
But he would shake his head as he thought of Juli, of the wide future
before him. He counted upon living without a stain on his conscience,
so he continued the treatment prescribed, and bore everything
patiently.
Yet with all his care the sick man, except for short periods of
improvement, grew worse. Basilio had planned gradually to reduce the
amount of the dose, or at least not to let him injure himself by
increasing it, but on returning from the hospital or some visit he
would find his patient in the heavy slumber produced by the opium,
driveling, pale as a corpse. The young man could not explain whence the
drug came: the only two persons who visited the house were Simoun and
Padre Irene, the former rarely, while the latter never ceased exhorting
him to be severe and inexorable with the treatment, to take no notice
of the invalid’s ravings, for the main object was to save him.
“Do your duty, young man,” was Padre Irene’s constant admonition. “Do
your duty.” Then he would deliver a sermon on this topic with such
great conviction and enthusiasm that Basilio would begin to feel kindly
toward the preacher. Besides, Padre Irene promised to get him a fine
assignment, a good province, and even hinted at the possibility of
having him appointed a professor. Without being carried away by
illusions, Basilio pretended to believe in them and went on obeying the
dictates of his own conscience.
That night, while Les Cloches de Corneville was being presented,
Basilio was studying at an old table by the light of an oil-lamp, whose
thick glass globe partly illuminated his melancholy features. An old
skull, some human bones, and a few books carefully arranged covered the
table, whereon there was also a pan of water with a sponge. The smell
of opium that proceeded from the adjoining bedroom made the air heavy
and inclined him to sleep, but he overcame the desire by bathing his
temples and eyes from time to time, determined not to go to sleep until
he had finished the book, which he had borrowed and must return as soon
as possible. It was a volume of the Medicina Legal y Toxicología of Dr.
Friata, the only book that the professor would use, and Basilio lacked
money to buy a copy, since, under the pretext of its being forbidden by
the censor in Manila and the necessity for bribing many government
employees to get it in, the booksellers charged a high price for it.
So absorbed was the youth in his studies that he had not given any
attention at all to some pamphlets that had been sent to him from some
unknown source, pamphlets that treated of the Philippines, among which
figured those that were attracting the greatest notice at the time
because of their harsh and insulting manner of referring to the natives
of the country. Basilio had no time to open them, and he was perhaps
restrained also by the thought that there is nothing pleasant about
receiving an insult or a provocation without having any means of
replying or defending oneself. The censorship, in fact, permitted
insults to the Filipinos but prohibited replies on their part.
In the midst of the silence that reigned in the house, broken only by a
feeble snore that issued now and then from the adjoining bedroom,
Basilio heard light footfalls on the stairs, footfalls that soon
crossed the hallway and approached the room where he was. Raising his
head, he saw the door open and to his great surprise appeared the
sinister figure of the jeweler Simoun, who since the scene in San Diego
had not come to visit either himself or Capitan Tiago.
“How is the sick man?” he inquired, throwing a rapid glance about the
room and fixing his attention on the pamphlets, the leaves of which
were still uncut.
“The beating of his heart is scarcely perceptible, his pulse is very
weak, his appetite entirely gone,” replied Basilio in a low voice with
a sad smile. “He sweats profusely in the early morning.”
Noticing that Simoun kept his face turned toward the pamphlets and
fearing that he might reopen the subject of their conversation in the
wood, he went on: “His system is saturated with poison. He may die any
day, as though struck by lightning. The least irritation, any
excitement may kill him.”
“Like the Philippines!” observed Simoun lugubriously.
Basilio was unable to refrain from a gesture of impatience, but he was
determined not to recur to the old subject, so he proceeded as if he
had heard nothing: “What weakens him the most is the nightmares, his
terrors—”
“Like the government!” again interrupted Simoun.
“Several nights ago he awoke in the dark and thought that he had gone
blind. He raised a disturbance, lamenting and scolding me, saying that
I had put his eyes out. When I entered his room with a light he mistook
me for Padre Irene and called me his saviour.”
“Like the government, exactly!”
“Last night,” continued Basilio, paying no attention, “he got up
begging for his favorite game-cock, the one that died three years ago,
and I had to give him a chicken. Then he heaped blessings upon me and
promised me many thousands—”
At that instant a clock struck half-past ten. Simoun shuddered and
stopped the youth with a gesture.