The Reign of Greed
Then followed a rustling in the bushes, indicating that those within
were scattering in all directions, so the soldiers boldly advanced, now
that there was no more resistance. Another man appeared upon the rock,
waving a spear, and they fired at him. He sank down slowly, catching at
the branch of a tree, but with another volley fell face downwards on
the rock.
The guards climbed on nimbly, with bayonets fixed ready for a
hand-to-hand fight. Carolino alone moved forward reluctantly, with a
wandering, gloomy look, the cry of the man struck by his bullet still
ringing in his ears. The first to reach the spot found an old man
dying, stretched out on the rock. He plunged his bayonet into the body,
but the old man did not even wink, his eyes being fixed on Carolino
with an indescribable gaze, while with his bony hand he pointed to
something behind the rock.
The soldiers turned to see Caroline frightfully pale, his mouth hanging
open, with a look in which glimmered the last spark of reason, for
Carolino, who was no other than Tano, Cabesang Tales’ son, and who had
just returned from the Carolines, recognized in the dying man his
grandfather, Tandang Selo. No longer able to speak, the old man’s dying
eyes uttered a whole poem of grief—and then a corpse, he still
continued to point to something behind the rock.
CHAPTER XXXIX
CONCLUSION
In his solitary retreat on the shore of the sea, whose mobile surface
was visible through the open, windows, extending outward until it
mingled with the horizon, Padre Florentino was relieving the monotony
by playing on his harmonium sad and melancholy tunes, to which the
sonorous roar of the surf and the sighing of the treetops of the
neighboring wood served as accompaniments. Notes long, full, mournful
as a prayer, yet still vigorous, escaped from the old instrument. Padre
Florentino, who was an accomplished musician, was improvising, and, as
he was alone, gave free rein to the sadness in his heart.
For the truth was that the old man was very sad. His good friend, Don
Tiburcio de Espadaña, had just left him, fleeing from the persecution
of his wife. That morning he had received a note from the lieutenant of
the Civil Guard, which ran thus:
MY DEAR CHAPLAIN,—I have just received from the commandant a
telegram that says, “Spaniard hidden house Padre Florentino capture
forward alive dead.” As the telegram is quite explicit, warn your
friend not to be there when I come to arrest him at eight tonight.
Affectionately,
PEREZ
Burn this note.
“T-that V-victorina!” Don Tiburcio had stammered. “S-she’s c-capable of
having me s-shot!”
Padre Florentino was unable to reassure him. Vainly he pointed out to
him that the word cojera should have read cogerá, [77] and that the
hidden Spaniard could not be Don Tiburcio, but the jeweler Simoun, who
two days before had arrived, wounded and a fugitive, begging for
shelter. But Don Tiburcio would not be convinced—cojera was his own
lameness, his personal description, and it was an intrigue of
Victorina’s to get him back alive or dead, as Isagani had written from
Manila. So the poor Ulysses had left the priest’s house to conceal
himself in the hut of a woodcutter.
No doubt was entertained by Padre Florentino that the Spaniard wanted
was the jeweler Simoun, who had arrived mysteriously, himself carrying
the jewel-chest, bleeding, morose, and exhausted. With the free and
cordial Filipino hospitality, the priest had taken him in, without
asking indiscreet questions, and as news of the events in Manila had
not yet reached his ears he was unable to understand the situation
clearly. The only conjecture that occurred to him was that the General,
the jeweler’s friend and protector, being gone, probably his enemies,
the victims of wrong and abuse, were now rising and calling for
vengeance, and that the acting Governor was pursuing him to make him
disgorge the wealth he had accumulated—hence his flight. But whence
came his wounds? Had he tried to commit suicide? Were they the result
of personal revenge? Or were they merely caused by an accident, as
Simoun claimed? Had they been received in escaping from the force that
was pursuing him?
This last conjecture was the one that seemed to have the greatest
appearance of probability, being further strengthened by the telegram
received and Simoun’s decided unwillingness from the start to be
treated by the doctor from the capital. The jeweler submitted only to
the ministrations of Don Tiburcio, and even to them with marked
distrust. In this situation Padre Florentino was asking himself what
line of conduct he should pursue when the Civil Guard came to arrest
Simoun. His condition would not permit his removal, much less a long
journey—but the telegram said alive or dead.
Padre Florentine ceased playing and approached the window to gaze out
at the sea, whose desolate surface was without a ship, without a
sail—it gave him no suggestion. A solitary islet outlined in the
distance spoke only of solitude and made the space more lonely.
Infinity is at times despairingly mute.
The old man was trying to analyze the sad and ironical smile with which
Simoun had received the news that he was to be arrested. What did that
smile mean? And that other smile, still sadder and more ironical, with
which he received the news that they would not come before eight at
night? What did all this mystery signify? Why did Simoun refuse to
hide? There came into his mind the celebrated saying of St. John
Chrysostom when he was defending the eunuch Eutropius: “Never was a
better time than this to say—Vanity of vanities and all is vanity!”
Yes, that Simoun, so rich, so powerful, so feared a week ago, and now
more unfortunate than Eutropius, was seeking refuge, not at the altars
of a church, but in the miserable house of a poor native priest, hidden
in the forest, on the solitary seashore! Vanity of vanities and all is
vanity! That man would within a few hours be a prisoner, dragged from
the bed where he lay, without respect for his condition, without
consideration for his wounds—dead or alive his enemies demanded him!
How could he save him? Where could he find the moving accents of the
bishop of Constantinople? What weight would his weak words have, the
words of a native priest, whose own humiliation this same Simoun had in
his better days seemed to applaud and encourage?
But Padre Florentine no longer recalled the indifferent reception that
two months before the jeweler had accorded to him when he had tried to
interest him in favor of Isagani, then a prisoner on account of his
imprudent chivalry; he forgot the activity Simoun had displayed in
urging Paulita’s marriage, which had plunged Isagani into the fearful
misanthropy that was worrying his uncle. He forgot all these things and
thought only of the sick man’s plight and his own obligations as a
host, until his senses reeled. Where must he hide him to avoid his
falling into the clutches of the authorities? But the person chiefly
concerned was not worrying, he was smiling.
While he was pondering over these things, the old man was approached by
a servant who said that the sick man wished to speak with him, so he
went into the next room, a clean and well-ventilated apartment with a
floor of wide boards smoothed and polished, and simply furnished with
big, heavy armchairs of ancient design, without varnish or paint. At
one end there was a large kamagon bed with its four posts to support
the canopy, and beside it a table covered with bottles, lint, and
bandages. A praying-desk at the feet of a Christ and a scanty library
led to the suspicion that it was the priest’s own bedroom, given up to
his guest according to the Filipino custom of offering to the stranger
the best table, the best room, and the best bed in the house. Upon
seeing the windows opened wide to admit freely the healthful sea-breeze
and the echoes of its eternal lament, no one in the Philippines would
have said that a sick person was to be found there, since it is the
custom to close all the windows and stop up all the cracks just as soon
as any one catches a cold or gets an insignificant headache.
Padre Florentine looked toward the bed and was astonished to see that
the sick man’s face had lost its tranquil and ironical expression.
Hidden grief seemed to knit his brows, anxiety was depicted in his
looks, his lips were curled in a smile of pain.
“Are you suffering, Señor Simoun?” asked the priest solicitously, going
to his side.
“Some! But in a little while I shall cease to suffer,” he replied with
a shake of his head.
Padre Florentine clasped his hands in fright, suspecting that he
understood the terrible truth. “My God, what have you done? What have
you taken?” He reached toward the bottles.
“It’s useless now! There’s no remedy at all!” answered Simoun with a
pained smile. “What did you expect me to do? Before the clock strikes
eight—alive or dead—dead, yes, but alive, no!”
“My God, what have you done?”
“Be calm!” urged the sick man with a wave of his hand. “What’s done is
done. I must not fall into anybody’s hands—my secret would be torn from
me. Don’t get excited, don’t lose your head, it’s useless! Listen—the
night is coming on and there’s no time to be lost. I must tell you my
secret, and intrust to you my last request, I must lay my life open
before you. At the supreme moment I want to lighten myself of a load, I
want to clear up a doubt of mine. You who believe so firmly in God—I
want you to tell me if there is a God!”
“But an antidote, Señor Simoun! I have ether, chloroform—”
The priest began to search for a flask, until Simoun cried impatiently,
“Useless, it’s useless! Don’t waste time! I’ll go away with my secret!”
The bewildered priest fell down at his desk and prayed at the feet of
the Christ, hiding his face in his hands. Then he arose serious and
grave, as if he had received from his God all the force, all the
dignity, all the authority of the Judge of consciences. Moving a chair
to the head of the bed he prepared to listen.
At the first words Simoun murmured, when he told his real name, the old
priest started back and gazed at him in terror, whereat the sick man
smiled bitterly. Taken by surprise, the priest was not master of
himself, but he soon recovered, and covering his face with a
handkerchief again bent over to listen.
Simoun related his sorrowful story: how, thirteen years before, he had
returned from Europe filled with hopes and smiling illusions, having
come back to marry a girl whom he loved, disposed to do good and
forgive all who had wronged him, just so they would let him live in
peace. But it was not so. A mysterious hand involved him in the
confusion of an uprising planned by his enemies. Name, fortune, love,
future, liberty, all were lost, and he escaped only through the heroism
of a friend. Then he swore vengeance. With the wealth of his family,
which had been buried in a wood, he had fled, had gone to foreign lands
and engaged in trade. He took part in the war in Cuba, aiding first one
side and then another, but always profiting. There he made the
acquaintance of the General, then a major, whose good-will he won first
by loans of money, and afterwards he made a friend of him by the
knowledge of criminal secrets. With his money he had been able to
secure the General’s appointment and, once in the Philippines, he had
used him as a blind tool and incited him to all kinds of injustice,
availing himself of his insatiable lust for gold.
The confession was long and tedious, but during the whole of it the
confessor made no further sign of surprise and rarely interrupted the
sick man. It was night when Padre Florentino, wiping the perspiration