The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere
L Elias's Story
LI Exchanges
LII The Cards of the Dead and the Shadows
LIII Il Buon Dí Si Conosce Da Mattina
LIV Revelations
LV The Catastrophe
LVI Rumors and Belief
LVII Vae Victis!
LVIII The Accursed
LIX Patriotism and Private Interests
LX Maria Clara Weds
LXI The Chase on the Lake
LXII Padre Damaso Explains
LXIII Christmas Eve
Epilogue
Glossary
AUTHOR'S DEDICATION
To My Fatherland:
Recorded in the history of human sufferings is a cancer of so malignant
a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in it the
sharpest pains. Thus, how many times, when in the midst of modern
civilizations I have wished to call thee before me, now to accompany
me in memories, now to compare thee with other countries, hath thy
dear image presented itself showing a social cancer like to that other!
Desiring thy welfare, which is our own, and seeking the best treatment,
I will do with thee what the ancients did with their sick, exposing
them on the steps of the temple so that every one who came to invoke
the Divinity might offer them a remedy.
And to this end, I will strive to reproduce thy condition faithfully,
without discriminations; I will raise a part of the veil that covers
the evil, sacrificing to truth everything, even vanity itself, since,
as thy son, I am conscious that I also suffer from thy defects and
weaknesses.
THE AUTHOR
EUROPE, 1886
THE SOCIAL CANCER
CHAPTER I
A Social Gathering
On the last of October Don Santiago de los Santos, popularly known as
Capitan Tiago, gave a dinner. In spite of the fact that, contrary to
his usual custom, he had made the announcement only that afternoon,
it was already the sole topic of conversation in Binondo and adjacent
districts, and even in the Walled City, for at that time Capitan
Tiago was considered one of the most hospitable of men, and it was
well known that his house, like his country, shut its doors against
nothing except commerce and all new or bold ideas. Like an electric
shock the announcement ran through the world of parasites, bores,
and hangers-on, whom God in His infinite bounty creates and so kindly
multiplies in Manila. Some looked at once for shoe-polish, others
for buttons and cravats, but all were especially concerned about how
to greet the master of the house in the most familiar tone, in order
to create an atmosphere of ancient friendship or, if occasion should
arise, to excuse a late arrival.
This dinner was given in a house on Calle Anloague, and although we do
not remember the number we will describe it in such a way that it may
still be recognized, provided the earthquakes have not destroyed it. We
do not believe that its owner has had it torn down, for such labors are
generally entrusted to God or nature--which Powers hold the contracts
also for many of the projects of our government. It is a rather large
building, in the style of many in the country, and fronts upon the arm
of the Pasig which is known to some as the Binondo River, and which,
like all the streams in Manila, plays the varied rôles of bath, sewer,
laundry, fishery, means of transportation and communication, and even
drinking water if the Chinese water-carrier finds it convenient. It
is worthy of note that in the distance of nearly a mile this important
artery of the district, where traffic is most dense and movement most
deafening, can boast of only one wooden bridge, which is out of repair
on one side for six months and impassable on the other for the rest of
the year, so that during the hot season the ponies take advantage of
this permanent _status quo_ to jump off the bridge into the water,
to the great surprise of the abstracted mortal who may be dozing
inside the carriage or philosophizing upon the progress of the age.
The house of which we are speaking is somewhat low and not exactly
correct in all its lines: whether the architect who built it was
afflicted with poor eyesight or whether the earthquakes and typhoons
have twisted it out of shape, no one can say with certainty. A wide
staircase with green newels and carpeted steps leads from the tiled
entrance up to the main floor between rows of flower-pots set upon
pedestals of motley-colored and fantastically decorated Chinese
porcelain. Since there are neither porters nor servants who demand
invitation cards, we will go in, O you who read this, whether friend or
foe, if you are attracted by the strains of the orchestra, the lights,
or the suggestive rattling of dishes, knives, and forks, and if you
wish to see what such a gathering is like in the distant Pearl of
the Orient. Gladly, and for my own comfort, I should spare you this
description of the house, were it not of great importance, since we
mortals in general are very much like tortoises: we are esteemed and
classified according to our shells; in this and still other respects
the mortals of the Philippines in particular also resemble tortoises.
If we go up the stairs, we immediately find ourselves in a spacious
hallway, called there, for some unknown reason, the _caida_, which
tonight serves as the dining-room and at the same time affords a
place for the orchestra. In the center a large table profusely and
expensively decorated seems to beckon to the hanger-on with sweet
promises, while it threatens the bashful maiden, the simple _dalaga_,
with two mortal hours in the company of strangers whose language and
conversation usually have a very restricted and special character.
Contrasted with these terrestrial preparations are the motley paintings
on the walls representing religious matters, such as "Purgatory,"
"Hell," "The Last Judgment," "The Death of the Just," and "The Death
of the Sinner."
At the back of the room, fastened in a splendid and elegant framework,
in the Renaissance style, possibly by Arévalo, is a glass case in
which are seen the figures of two old women. The inscription on this
reads: "Our Lady of Peace and Prosperous Voyages, who is worshiped in
Antipolo, visiting in the disguise of a beggar the holy and renowned
Capitana Inez during her sickness." [15] While the work reveals little
taste or art, yet it possesses in compensation an extreme realism,
for to judge from the yellow and bluish tints of her face the sick
woman seems to be already a decaying corpse, and the glasses and other
objects, accompaniments of long illness, are so minutely reproduced
that even their contents may be distinguished. In looking at these
pictures, which excite the appetite and inspire gay bucolic ideas, one
may perhaps be led to think that the malicious host is well acquainted
with the characters of the majority of those who are to sit at his
table and that, in order to conceal his own way of thinking, he has
hung from the ceiling costly Chinese lanterns; bird-cages without
birds; red, green, and blue globes of frosted glass; faded air-plants;
and dried and inflated fishes, which they call _botetes_. The view is
closed on the side of the river by curious wooden arches, half Chinese
and half European, affording glimpses of a terrace with arbors and
bowers faintly lighted by paper lanterns of many colors.
In the sala, among massive mirrors and gleaming chandeliers, the
guests are assembled. Here, on a raised platform, stands a grand
piano of great price, which tonight has the additional virtue of not
being played upon. Here, hanging on the wall, is an oil-painting of a
handsome man in full dress, rigid, erect, straight as the tasseled cane
he holds in his stiff, ring-covered fingers--the whole seeming to say,
"Ahem! See how well dressed and how dignified I am!" The furnishings
of the room are elegant and perhaps uncomfortable and unhealthful,
since the master of the house would consider not so much the comfort
and health of his guests as his own ostentation, "A terrible thing
is dysentery," he would say to them, "but you are sitting in European
chairs and that is something you don't find every day."
This room is almost filled with people, the men being separated from
the women as in synagogues and Catholic churches. The women consist of
a number of Filipino and Spanish maidens, who, when they open their
mouths to yawn, instantly cover them with their fans and who murmur
only a few words to each other, any conversation ventured upon dying
out in monosyllables like the sounds heard in a house at night, sounds
made by the rats and lizards. Is it perhaps the different likenesses
of Our Lady hanging on the walls that force them to silence and a
religious demeanor or is it that the women here are an exception?
A cousin of Capitan Tiago, a sweet-faced old woman, who speaks Spanish
quite badly, is the only one receiving the ladies. To offer to the
Spanish ladies a plate of cigars and _buyos_, to extend her hand to
her countrywomen to be kissed, exactly as the friars do,--this is
the sum of her courtesy, her policy. The poor old lady soon became
bored, and taking advantage of the noise of a plate breaking, rushed
precipitately away, muttering, "_Jesús!_ Just wait, you rascals!" and
failed to reappear.
The men, for their part, are making more of a stir. Some cadets
in one corner are conversing in a lively manner but in low tones,
looking around now and then to point out different persons in the room
while they laugh more or less openly among themselves. In contrast,
two foreigners dressed in white are promenading silently from one end
of the room to the other with their hands crossed behind their backs,
like the bored passengers on the deck of a ship. All the interest and
the greatest animation proceed from a group composed of two priests,
two civilians, and a soldier who are seated around a small table on
which are seen bottles of wine and English biscuits.
The soldier, a tall, elderly lieutenant with an austere countenance--a
Duke of Alva straggling behind in the roster of the Civil Guard--talks
little, but in a harsh, curt way. One of the priests, a youthful
Dominican friar, handsome, graceful, polished as the gold-mounted
eyeglasses he wears, maintains a premature gravity. He is the curate
of Binondo and has been in former years a professor in the college of
San Juan de Letran, [16] where he enjoyed the reputation of being a
consummate dialectician, so much so that in the days when the sons
of Guzman [17] still dared to match themselves in subtleties with
laymen, the able disputant B. de Luna had never been able either to
catch or to confuse him, the distinctions made by Fray Sibyla leaving
his opponent in the situation of a fisherman who tries to catch eels
with a lasso. The Dominican says little, appearing to weigh his words.
Quite in contrast, the other priest, a Franciscan, talks much and
gesticulates more. In spite of the fact that his hair is beginning to
turn gray, he seems to be preserving well his robust constitution,
while his regular features, his rather disquieting glance, his wide
jaws and herculean frame give him the appearance of a Roman noble in
disguise and make us involuntarily recall one of those three monks of
whom Heine tells in his "Gods in Exile," who at the September equinox
in the Tyrol used to cross a lake at midnight and each time place in
the hand of the poor boatman a silver piece, cold as ice, which left
him full of terror. [18] But Fray Damaso is not so mysterious as they
were. He is full of merriment, and if the tone of his voice is rough
like that of a man who has never had occasion to correct himself and
who believes that whatever he says is holy and above improvement, still
his frank, merry laugh wipes out this disagreeable impression and even