The Reign of Greed
ancient kings. How are we carrying out their sacred legacy? They
promised to these islands protection and justice, and we are playing
with the lives and liberties of the inhabitants; they promised
civilization, and we are curtailing it, fearful that they may aspire to
a nobler existence; they promised them light, and we cover their eyes
that they may not witness our orgies; they promised to teach them
virtue and we are encouraging their vice. Instead of peace, wealth, and
justice, confusion reigns, commerce languishes, and skepticism is
fostered among the masses.
“Let us put ourselves in the place of the Filipinos and ask ourselves
what we would do in their place. Ah, in your silence I read their right
to rebel, and if matters do not mend they will rebel some day, and
justice will be on their side, with them will go the sympathy of all
honest men, of every patriot in the world! When a people is denied
light, home, liberty, and justice—things that are essential to life,
and therefore man’s patrimony—that people has the right to treat him
who so despoils it as we would the robber who intercepts us on the
highway. There are no distinctions, there are no exceptions, nothing
but a fact, a right, an aggression, and every honest man who does not
place himself on the side of the wronged makes himself an accomplice
and stains his conscience.
“True, I am not a soldier, and the years are cooling the little fire in
my blood, but just as I would risk being torn to pieces to defend the
integrity of Spain against any foreign invader or against an
unjustified disloyalty in her provinces, so I also assure you that I
would place myself beside the oppressed Filipinos, because I would
prefer to fall in the cause of the outraged rights of humanity to
triumphing with the selfish interests of a nation, even when that
nation be called as it is called—Spain!”
“Do you know when the mail-boat leaves?” inquired his Excellency
coldly, when the high official had finished speaking.
The latter stared at him fixedly, then dropped his head and silently
left the palace.
Outside he found his carriage awaiting him. “Some day when you declare
yourselves independent,” he said somewhat abstractedly to the native
lackey who opened the carriage-door for him, “remember that there were
not lacking in Spain hearts that beat for you and struggled for your
rights!”
“Where, sir?” asked the lackey, who had understood nothing of this and
was inquiring whither they should go.
Two hours later the high official handed in his resignation and
announced his intention of returning to Spain by the next mail-steamer.
CHAPTER XXXII
EFFECT OF THE PASQUINADES
As a result of the events narrated, many mothers ordered their sons
immediately to leave off their studies and devote themselves to
idleness or to agriculture. When the examinations came, suspensions
were plentiful, and he was a rare exception who finished the course, if
he had belonged to the famous association, to which no one paid any
more attention. Pecson, Tadeo, and Juanito Pelaez were all alike
suspended—the first receiving his dismissal with his foolish grin and
declaring his intention of becoming an officer in some court, while
Tadeo, with his eternal holiday realized at last, paid for an
illumination and made a bonfire of his books. Nor did the others get
off much better, and at length they too had to abandon their studies,
to the great satisfaction of their mothers, who always fancy their sons
hanged if they should come to understand what the books teach. Juanito
Pelaez alone took the blow ill, since it forced him to leave school for
his father’s store, with whom he was thenceforward to be associated in
the business: the rascal found the store much less entertaining, but
after some time his friends again noticed his hump appear, a symptom
that his good humor was returning. The rich Makaraig, in view of the
catastrophe, took good care not to expose himself, and having secured a
passport by means of money set out in haste for Europe. It was said
that his Excellency, the Captain-General, in his desire to do good by
good means, and careful of the interests of the Filipinos, hindered the
departure of every one who could not first prove substantially that he
had the money to spend and could live in idleness in European cities.
Among our acquaintances those who got off best were Isagani and
Sandoval: the former passed in the subject he studied under Padre
Fernandez and was suspended in the others, while the latter was able to
confuse the examining-board with his oratory.
Basilio was the only one who did not pass in any subject, who was not
suspended, and who did not go to Europe, for he remained in Bilibid
prison, subjected every three days to examinations, almost always the
same in principle, without other variation than a change of
inquisitors, since it seemed that in the presence of such great guilt
all gave up or fell away in horror. And while the documents moldered or
were shifted about, while the stamped papers increased like the
plasters of an ignorant physician on the body of a hypochondriac,
Basilio became informed of all the details of what had happened in
Tiani, of the death of Juli and the disappearance of Tandang Selo.
Sinong, the abused cochero, who had driven him to San Diego, happened
to be in Manila at that time and called to give him all the news.
Meanwhile, Simoun had recovered his health, or so at least the
newspapers said. Ben-Zayb rendered thanks to “the Omnipotent who
watches over such a precious life,” and manifested the hope that the
Highest would some day reveal the malefactor, whose crime remained
unpunished, thanks to the charity of the victim, who was too closely
following the words of the Great Martyr: Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do. These and other things Ben-Zayb said in print,
while by mouth he was inquiring whether there was any truth in the
rumor that the opulent jeweler was going to give a grand fiesta, a
banquet such as had never before been seen, in part to celebrate his
recovery and in part as a farewell to the country in which he had
increased his fortune. It was whispered as certain that Simoun, who
would have to leave with the Captain-General, whose command expired in
May, was making every effort to secure from Madrid an extension, and
that he was advising his Excellency to start a campaign in order to
have an excuse for remaining, but it was further reported that for the
first time his Excellency had disregarded the advice of his favorite,
making it a point of honor not to retain for a single additional day
the power that had been conferred upon him, a rumor which encouraged
belief that the fiesta announced would take place; very soon. For the
rest, Simoun remained unfathomable, since he had become very
uncommunicative, showed himself seldom, and smiled mysteriously when
the rumored fiesta was mentioned.
“Come, Señor Sindbad,” Ben-Zayb had once rallied him, “dazzle us with
something Yankee! You owe something to this country.”
“Doubtless!” was Simoun’s response, with a dry smile.
“You’ll throw the house wide open, eh?”
“Maybe, but as I have no house—”
“You ought to have secured Capitan Tiago’s, which Señor Pelaez got for
nothing.”
Simoun became silent, and from that time on he was often seen in the
store of Don Timoteo Pelaez, with whom it was said he had entered into
partnership. Some weeks afterward, in the month of April, it was
rumored that Juanito Pelaez, Don Timoteo’s son, was going to marry
Paulita Gomez, the girl coveted by Spaniards and foreigners.
“Some men are lucky!” exclaimed other envious merchants. “To buy a
house for nothing, sell his consignment of galvanized iron well, get
into partnership with a Simoun, and marry his son to a rich
heiress—just say if those aren’t strokes of luck that all honorable men
don’t have!”
“If you only knew whence came that luck of Señor Pelaez’s!” another
responded, in a tone which indicated that the speaker did know. “It’s
also assured that there’ll be a fiesta and on a grand scale,” was added
with mystery.
It was really true that Paulita was going to marry Juanito Pelaez. Her
love for Isagani had gradually waned, like all first loves based on
poetry and sentiment. The events of the pasquinades and the
imprisonment of the youth had shorn him of all his charms. To whom
would it have occurred to seek danger, to desire to share the fate of
his comrades, to surrender himself, when every one was hiding and
denying any complicity in the affair? It was quixotic, it was madness
that no sensible person in Manila could pardon, and Juanito was quite
right in ridiculing him, representing what a sorry figure he cut when
he went to the Civil Government. Naturally, the brilliant Paulita could
no longer love a young man who so erroneously understood social matters
and whom all condemned. Then she began to reflect. Juanito was clever,
capable, gay, shrewd, the son of a rich merchant of Manila, and a
Spanish mestizo besides—if Don Timoteo was to be believed, a
full-blooded Spaniard. On the other hand, Isagani was a provincial
native who dreamed of forests infested with leeches, he was of doubtful
family, with a priest for an uncle, who would perhaps be an enemy to
luxury and balls, of which she was very fond. One beautiful morning
therefore it occurred to her that she had been a downright fool to
prefer him to his rival, and from that time on Pelaez’s hump steadily
increased. Unconsciously, yet rigorously, Paulita was obeying the law
discovered by Darwin, that the female surrenders herself to the fittest
male, to him who knows how to adapt himself to the medium in which he
lives, and to live in Manila there was no other like Pelaez, who from
his infancy had had chicanery at his finger-tips. Lent passed with its
Holy Week, its array of processions and pompous displays, without other
novelty than a mysterious mutiny among the artillerymen, the cause of
which was never disclosed. The houses of light materials were torn down
in the presence of a troop of cavalry, ready to fall upon the owners in
case they should offer resistance. There was a great deal of weeping
and many lamentations, but the affair did not get beyond that. The
curious, among them Simoun, went to see those who were left homeless,
walking about indifferently and assuring each other that thenceforward
they could sleep in peace.
Towards the end of April, all the fears being now forgotten, Manila was
engrossed with one topic: the fiesta that Don Timoteo Pelaez was going
to celebrate at the wedding of his son, for which the General had
graciously and condescendingly agreed to be the patron. Simoun was
reported to have arranged the matter. The ceremony would be solemnized
two days before the departure of the General, who would honor the house
and make a present to the bridegroom. It was whispered that the jeweler
would pour out cascades of diamonds and throw away handfuls of pearls
in honor of his partner’s son, thus, since he could hold no fiesta of
his own, as he was a bachelor and had no house, improving the
opportunity to dazzle the Filipino people with a memorable farewell.
All Manila prepared to be invited, and never did uneasiness take
stronger hold of the mind than in view of the thought of not being
among those bidden. Friendship with Simoun became a matter of dispute,
and many husbands were forced by their wives to purchase bars of steel
and sheets of galvanized iron in order to make friends with Don Timoteo
Pelaez.
CHAPTER XXXIII
LA ULTIMA RAZÓN [69]
At last the great day arrived. During the morning Simoun had not left
his house, busied as he was in packing his arms and his jewels. His