The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere
not to avenge myself would be a crime, it would be encouraging them
to new acts of injustice! No, it would be cowardice, pusillanimity,
to groan and weep when there is blood and life left, when to insult
and menace is added mockery. I will call out these ignorant people,
I will make them see their misery. I will teach them to think not of
brotherhood but only that they are wolves for devouring, I will urge
them to rise against this oppression and proclaim the eternal right
of man to win his freedom!"
"But innocent people will suffer!"
"So much the better! Can you take me to the mountains?"
"Until you are in safety," replied Elias.
Again they moved out into the Pasig, talking from time to time of
indifferent matters.
"Santa Ana!" murmured Ibarra. "Do you recognize this building?" They
were passing in front of the country-house of the Jesuits.
"There I spent many pleasant and happy days!" sighed Elias. "In my
time we came every month. Then I was like others, I had a fortune,
family, I dreamed, I looked forward to a future. In those days I saw
my sister in the near-by college, she presented me with a piece of
her own embroidery-work. A friend used to accompany her, a beautiful
girl. All that has passed like a dream."
They remained silent until they reached Malapad-na-bato. [171] Those
who have ever made their way by night up the Pasig, on one of those
magical nights that the Philippines offers, when the moon pours out
from the limpid blue her melancholy light, when the shadows hide the
miseries of man and the silence is unbroken by the sordid accents of
his voice, when only Nature speaks--they will understand the thoughts
of both these youths.
At Malapad-na-bato the carbineer was sleepy and, seeing that the banka
was empty and offered no booty which he might seize, according to the
traditional usage of his corps and the custom of that post, he easily
let them pass on. Nor did the civil-guard at Pasig suspect anything,
so they were not molested.
Day was beginning to break when they reached the lake, still and calm
like a gigantic mirror. The moon paled and the east was dyed in rosy
tints. Some distance away they perceived a gray mass advancing slowly
toward them.
"The police boat is coming," murmured Elias. "Lie down and I'll cover
you with these sacks."
The outlines of the boat became clearer and plainer.
"It's getting between us and the shore," observed Elias uneasily.
Gradually he changed the course of his banka, rowing toward
Binangonan. To his great surprise he noticed that the boat also
changed its course, while a voice called to him.
Elias stopped rowing and reflected. The shore was still far away and
they would soon be within range of the rifles on the police boat. He
thought of returning to Pasig, for his banka was the swifter of the
two boats, but unluckily he saw another boat coming from the river
and made out the gleam of caps and bayonets of the Civil Guard.
"We're caught!" he muttered, turning pale.
He gazed at his robust arms and, adopting the only course left,
began to row with all his might toward Talim Island, just as the sun
was rising.
The banka slipped rapidly along. Elias saw standing on the boat,
which had veered about, some men making signals to him.
"Do you know how to manage a banka?" he asked Ibarra.
"Yes, why?"
"Because we are lost if I don't jump into the water and throw them
off the track. They will pursue me, but I swim and dive well. I'll
draw them away from you and then you can save yourself."
"No, stay here, and we'll sell our lives dearly!"
"That would be useless. We have no arms and with their rifles they
would shoot us down like birds."
At that instant the water gave forth a hiss such as is caused by
the falling of hot metal into it, followed instantaneously by a
loud report.
"You see!" said Elias, placing the paddle in the boat. "We'll see each
other on Christmas Eve at the tomb of your grandfather. Save yourself."
"And you?"
"God has carried me safely through greater perils."
As Elias took off his camisa a bullet tore it from his hands and
two loud reports were heard. Calmly he clasped the hand of Ibarra,
who was still stretched out in the bottom of the banka. Then he arose
and leaped into the water, at the same time pushing the little craft
away from him with his foot.
Cries resounded, and soon some distance away the youth's head appeared,
as if for breathing, then instantly disappeared.
"There, there he is!" cried several voices, and again the bullets
whistled.
The police boat and the boat from the Pasig now started in pursuit of
him. A light track indicated his passage through the water as he drew
farther and farther away from Ibarra's banka, which floated about as
if abandoned. Every time the swimmer lifted his head above the water
to breathe, the guards in both boats shot at him.
So the chase continued. Ibarra's little banka was now far away
and the swimmer was approaching the shore, distant some thirty
yards. The rowers were tired, but Elias was in the same condition,
for he showed his head oftener, and each time in a different direction,
as if to disconcert his pursuers. No longer did the treacherous track
indicate the position of the diver. They saw him for the last time
when he was some ten yards from the shore, and fired. Then minute
after minute passed, but nothing again appeared above the still and
solitary surface of the lake.
Half an hour afterwards one of the rowers claimed that he could
distinguish in the water near the shore traces of blood, but his
companions shook their heads dubiously.
CHAPTER LXII
Padre Damaso Explains
Vainly were the rich wedding presents heaped upon a table; neither
the diamonds in their cases of blue velvet, nor the piña embroideries,
nor the rolls of silk, drew the gaze of Maria Clara. Without reading
or even seeing it the maiden sat staring at the newspaper which gave
an account of the death of Ibarra, drowned in the lake.
Suddenly she felt two hands placed over her eyes to hold her fast
and heard Padre Damaso's voice ask merrily, "Who am I? Who am I?"
Maria Clara sprang from her seat and gazed at him in terror.
"Foolish little girl, you're not afraid, are you? You weren't expecting
me, eh? Well, I've come in from the provinces to attend your wedding."
He smiled with satisfaction as he drew nearer to her and held out
his hand for her to kiss. Maria Clara approached him tremblingly and
touched his hand respectfully to her lips.
"What's the matter with you, Maria?" asked the Franciscan, losing his
merry smile and becoming uneasy. "Your hand is cold, you're pale. Are
you ill, little girl?"
Padre Damaso drew her toward himself with a tenderness that one would
hardly have thought him capable of, and catching both her hands in
his questioned her with his gaze.
"Don't you have confidence in your godfather any more?" he asked
reproachfully. "Come, sit down and tell me your little troubles as
you used to do when you were a child, when you wanted tapers to make
wax dolls, You know that I've always loved you, I've never been cross
with you."
His voice was now no longer brusque, and even became tenderly
modulated. Maria Clara began to weep.
"You're crying, little girl? Why do you cry? Have you quarreled
with Linares?"
Maria Clara covered her ears. "Don't speak of him not now!" she cried.
Padre Damaso gazed at her in startled wonder.
"Won't you trust me with your secrets? Haven't I always tried to
satisfy your lightest whim?"
The maiden raised eyes filled with tears and stared at him for a long
time, then again fell to weeping bitterly.
"Don't cry so, little girl. Your tears hurt me. Tell me your troubles,
and you'll see how your godfather loves you!"
Maria Clara approached him slowly, fell upon her knees, and raising
her tear-stained face toward his asked in a low, scarcely audible tone,
"Do you still love me?"
"Child!"
"Then, protect my father and break off my marriage!" Here the
maiden told of her last interview with Ibarra, concealing only her
knowledge of the secret of her birth. Padre Damaso could scarcely
credit his ears.
"While he lived," the girl continued, "I thought of struggling, I
was hoping, trusting! I wanted to live so that I might hear of him,
but now that they have killed him, now there is no reason why I should
live and suffer." She spoke in low, measured tones, calmly, tearlessly.
"But, foolish girl, isn't Linares a thousand times better than--"
"While he lived, I could have married--I thought of running away
afterwards--my father wants only the relationship! But now that he
is dead, no other man shall call me wife! While he was alive I could
debase myself, for there would have remained the consolation that he
lived and perhaps thought of me, but now that he is dead--the nunnery
or the tomb!"
The girl's voice had a ring of firmness in it such that Padre Damaso
lost his merry air and became very thoughtful.
"Did you love him as much as that?" he stammered.
Maria Clara did not answer. Padre Damaso dropped his head on his
chest and remained silent for a long time.
"Daughter in God," he exclaimed at length in a broken voice, "forgive
me for having made you unhappy without knowing it. I was thinking
of your future, I desired your happiness. How could I permit you
to marry a native of the country, to see you an unhappy wife and
a wretched mother? I couldn't get that love out of your head even
though I opposed it with all my might. I committed wrongs, for you,
solely for you. If you had become his wife you would have mourned
afterwards over the condition of your husband, exposed to all kinds
of vexations without means of defense. As a mother you would have
mourned the fate of your sons: if you had educated them, you would have
prepared for them a sad future, for they would have become enemies
of Religion and you would have seen them garroted or exiled; if you
had kept them ignorant, you would have seen them tyrannized over and
degraded. I could not consent to it! For this reason I sought for
you a husband that could make you the happy mother of sons who would
command and not obey, who would punish and not suffer. I knew that
the friend of your childhood was good, I liked him as well as his
father, but I have hated them both since I saw that they were going
to bring about your unhappiness, because I love you, I adore you,
I love you as one loves his own daughter! Yours is my only affection;
I have seen you grow--not an hour has passed that I have not thought
of you--I dreamed of you--you have been my only joy!"
Here Padre Damaso himself broke out into tears like a child.
"Then, as you love me, don't make me eternally wretched. He no longer
lives, so I want to be a nun!"
The old priest rested his forehead on his hand. "To be a nun, a
nun!" he repeated. "You don't know, child, what the life is, the
mystery that is hidden behind the walls of the nunnery, you don't
know! A thousand times would I prefer to see you unhappy in the
world rather than in the cloister. Here your complaints can be heard,
there you will have only the walls. You are beautiful, very beautiful,
and you were not born for that--to be a bride of Christ! Believe me,
little girl, time will wipe away everything. Later on you will forget,
you will love, you will love your husband--Linares."
"The nunnery or--death!"
"The nunnery, the nunnery, or death!" exclaimed Padre Damaso. "Maria,
I am now an old man, I shall not be able much longer to watch over
you and your welfare. Choose something else, seek another love,
some other man, whoever he may be--anything but the nunnery."
"The nunnery or death!"
"My God, my God!" cried the priest, covering his head with his hands,