The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere
the image of St. Anthony. Another cousin was of the same opinion,
differing only in the choice of the smut, as for her it was either
the Virgin herself or St. Michael. A famous philosopher, who was
the cousin of Capitan Tinong and who had memorized the "Amat," [42]
sought for the true explanation in planetary influences.
The idol of all, Maria Clara grew up amidst smiles and love. The
very friars showered her with attentions when she appeared in the
processions dressed in white, her abundant hair interwoven with
tuberoses and sampaguitas, with two diminutive wings of silver and
gold fastened on the back of her gown, and carrying in her hands a
pair of white doves tied with blue ribbons. Afterwards, she would
be so merry and talk so sweetly in her childish simplicity that the
enraptured Capitan Tiago could do nothing but bless the saints of
Obando and advise every one to purchase beautiful works of sculpture.
In southern countries the girl of thirteen or fourteen years
changes into a woman as the bud of the night becomes a flower in the
morning. At this period of change, so full of mystery and romance,
Maria Clara was placed, by the advice of the curate of Binondo, in
the nunnery of St. Catherine [43] in order to receive strict religious
training from the Sisters. With tears she took leave of Padre Damaso
and of the only lad who had been a friend of her childhood, Crisostomo
Ibarra, who himself shortly afterward went away to Europe. There in
that convent, which communicates with the world through double bars,
even under the watchful eyes of the nuns, she spent seven years.
Each having his own particular ends in view and knowing the mutual
inclinations of the two young persons, Don Rafael and Capitan Tiago
agreed upon the marriage of their children and the formation of a
business partnership. This agreement, which was concluded some years
after the younger Ibarra's departure, was celebrated with equal joy
by two hearts in widely separated parts of the world and under very
different circumstances.
CHAPTER VII
An Idyl on an Azotea
The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.
That morning Aunt Isabel and Maria Clara went early to mass,
the latter elegantly dressed and wearing a rosary of blue beads,
which partly served as a bracelet for her, and the former with her
spectacles in order to read her _Anchor of Salvation_ during the holy
communion. Scarcely had the priest disappeared from the altar when the
maiden expressed a desire for returning home, to the great surprise and
displeasure of her good aunt, who believed her niece to be as pious
and devoted to praying as a nun, at least. Grumbling and crossing
herself, the good old lady rose. "The good Lord will forgive me, Aunt
Isabel, since He must know the hearts of girls better than you do,"
Maria Clara might have said to check the severe yet maternal chidings.
After they had breakfasted, Maria Clara consumed her impatience in
working at a silk purse while her aunt was trying to clean up the
traces of the former night's revelry by swinging a feather duster
about. Capitan Tiago was busy looking over some papers. Every noise in
the street, every carriage that passed, caused the maiden to tremble
and quickened the beatings of her heart. Now she wished that she were
back in the quiet convent among her friends; there she could have seen
him without emotion and agitation! But was he not the companion of her
infancy, had they not played together and even quarreled at times? The
reason for all this I need not explain; if you, O reader, have ever
loved, you will understand; and if you have not, it is useless for
me to tell you, as the uninitiated do not comprehend these mysteries.
"I believe, Maria, that the doctor is right," said Capitan Tiago. "You
ought to go into the country, for you are pale and need fresh air. What
do you think of Malabon or San Diego?" At the mention of the latter
place Maria Clara blushed like a poppy and was unable to answer.
"You and Isabel can go at once to the convent to get your clothes
and to say good-by to your friends," he continued, without raising
his head. "You will not stay there any longer."
The girl felt the vague sadness that possesses the mind when we leave
forever a place where we have been happy, but another thought softened
this sorrow.
"In four or five days, after you get some new clothes made, we'll
go to Malabon. Your godfather is no longer in San Diego. The priest
that you may have noticed here last night, that young padre, is the
new curate whom we have there, and he is a saint."
"I think that San Diego would be better, cousin," observed Aunt
Isabel. "Besides, our house there is better and the time for the
fiesta draws near."
Maria Clara wanted to embrace her aunt for this speech, but hearing
a carriage stop, she turned pale.
"Ah, very true," answered Capitan Tiago, and then in a different tone
he exclaimed, "Don Crisostomo!"
The maiden let her sewing fall from her hands and wished to move but
could not--a violent tremor ran through her body. Steps were heard
on the stairway and then a fresh, manly voice. As if that voice had
some magic power, the maiden controlled her emotion and ran to hide
in the oratory among the saints. The two cousins laughed, and Ibarra
even heard the noise of the door closing. Pale and breathing rapidly,
the maiden pressed her beating heart and tried to listen. She heard
his voice, that beloved voice that for so long a time she had heard
only in her dreams he was asking for her! Overcome with joy, she
kissed the nearest saint, which happened to be St. Anthony the Abbot,
a saint happy in flesh and in wood, ever the object of pleasing
temptations! Afterwards she sought the keyhole in order to see and
examine him. She smiled, and when her aunt snatched her from that
position she unconsciously threw her arms around the old lady's neck
and rained kisses upon her.
"Foolish child, what's the matter with you?" the old lady was at last
able to say as she wiped a tear from her faded eyes. Maria Clara felt
ashamed and covered her eyes with her plump arm.
"Come on, get ready, come!" added the old aunt fondly. "While he is
talking to your father about you. Come, don't make him wait." Like
a child the maiden obediently followed her and they shut themselves
up in her chamber.
Capitan Tiago and Ibarra were conversing in a lively manner when Aunt
Isabel appeared half dragging her niece, who was looking in every
direction except toward the persons in the room.
What said those two souls communicating through the language of the
eyes, more perfect than that of the lips, the language given to the
soul in order that sound may not mar the ecstasy of feeling? In such
moments, when the thoughts of two happy beings penetrate into each
other's souls through the eyes, the spoken word is halting, rude, and
weak--it is as the harsh, slow roar of the thunder compared with the
rapidity of the dazzling lightning flash, expressing feelings already
recognized, ideas already understood, and if words are made use of
it is only because the heart's desire, dominating all the being and
flooding it with happiness, wills that the whole human organism with
all its physical and psychical powers give expression to the song of
joy that rolls through the soul. To the questioning glance of love,
as it flashes out and then conceals itself, speech has no reply;
the smile, the kiss, the sigh answer.
Soon the two lovers, fleeing from the dust raised by Aunt Isabel's
broom, found themselves on the azotea where they could commune in
liberty among the little arbors. What did they tell each other in
murmurs that you nod your heads, O little red cypress flowers? Tell
it, you who have fragrance in your breath and color on your lips. And
thou, O zephyr, who learnest rare harmonies in the stillness of the
dark night amid the hidden depths of our virgin forests! Tell it,
O sunbeams, brilliant manifestation upon earth of the Eternal, sole
immaterial essence in a material world, you tell it, for I only know
how to relate prosaic commonplaces. But since you seem unwilling to
do so, I am going to try myself.
The sky was blue and a fresh breeze, not yet laden with the fragrance
of roses, stirred the leaves and flowers of the vines; that is why
the cypresses, the orchids, the dried fishes, and the Chinese lanterns
were trembling. The splash of paddles in the muddy waters of the river
and the rattle of carriages and carts passing over the Binondo bridge
came up to them distinctly, although they did not hear what the old
aunt murmured as she saw where they were: "That's better, there you'll
be watched by the whole neighborhood." At first they talked nonsense,
giving utterance only to those sweet inanities which are so much like
the boastings of the nations of Europe--pleasing and honey-sweet at
home, but causing foreigners to laugh or frown.
She, like a sister of Cain, was of course jealous and asked her
sweetheart, "Have you always thought of me? Have you never forgotten me
on all your travels in the great cities among so many beautiful women?"
He, too, was a brother of Cain, and sought to evade such questions,
making use of a little fiction. "Could I forget you?" he answered
as he gazed enraptured into her dark eyes. "Could I be faithless
to my oath, my sacred oath? Do you remember that stormy night when
you saw me weeping alone by the side of my dead mother and, drawing
near to me, you put your hand on my shoulder, that hand which for so
long a time you had not allowed me to touch, saying to me, 'You have
lost your mother while I never had one,' and you wept with me? You
loved her and she looked upon you as a daughter. Outside it rained
and the lightning flashed, but within I seemed to hear music and to
see a smile on the pallid face of the dead. Oh, that my parents were
alive and might behold you now! I then caught your hand along with
the hand of my mother and swore to love you and to make you happy,
whatever fortune Heaven might have in store for me; and that oath,
which has never weighed upon me as a burden, I now renew!
"Could I forget you? The thought of you has ever been with me,
strengthening me amid the dangers of travel, and has been a comfort
to my soul's loneliness in foreign lands. The thoughts of you
have neutralized the lotus-effect of Europe, which erases from the
memories of so many of our countrymen the hopes and misfortunes of our
fatherland. In dreams I saw you standing on the shore at Manila, gazing
at the far horizon wrapped in the warm light of the early dawn. I heard
the slow, sad song that awoke in me sleeping affections and called
back to the memory of my heart the first years of our childhood, our
joys, our pleasures, and all that happy past which you gave life to
while you were in our town. It seemed to me that you were the fairy,
the spirit, the poetic incarnation of my fatherland, beautiful,
unaffected, lovable, frank, a true daughter of the Philippines,
that beautiful land which unites with the imposing virtues of the
mother country, Spain, the admirable qualities of a young people,
as you unite in your being all that is beautiful and lovely, the
inheritance of both races" so indeed the love of you and that of my
fatherland have become fused into one.
"Could I forget you? Many times have I thought that I heard the
sound of your piano and the accents of your voice. When in Germany,
as I wandered at twilight in the woods, peopled with the fantastic
creations of its poets and the mysterious legends of past generations,
always I called upon your name, imagining that I saw you in the mists
that rose from the depths of the valley, or I fancied that I heard
your voice in the rustling of the leaves. When from afar I heard the