The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere
to start from their sockets as she peered into his face. Those pale
features stirred the sleeping cells of her brain, so that something
like a spark of intelligence flashed up in her mind and she recognized
her son. With a terrible cry she fell upon the insensible body of
the boy, embracing and kissing him. Mother and son remained motionless.
When Basilio recovered consciousness he found his mother lifeless. He
called to her with the tenderest names, but she did not awake. Noticing
that she was not even breathing, he arose and went to the neighboring
brook to get some water in a banana leaf, with which to rub the pallid
face of his mother, but the madwoman made not the least movement and
her eyes remained closed.
Basilio gazed at her in terror. He placed his ear over her heart,
but the thin, faded breast was cold, and her heart no longer beat. He
put his lips to hers, but felt no breathing. The miserable boy threw
his arms about the corpse and wept bitterly.
The moon gleamed majestically in the sky, the wandering breezes sighed,
and down in the grass the crickets chirped. The night of light and joy
for so many children, who in the warm bosom of the family celebrate
this feast of sweetest memories--the feast which commemorates the
first look of love that Heaven sent to earth--this night when in all
Christian families they eat, drink, dance, sing, laugh, play, caress,
and kiss one another--this night, which in cold countries holds such
magic for childhood with its traditional pine-tree covered with lights,
dolls, candies, and tinsel, whereon gaze the round, staring eyes in
which innocence alone is reflected--this night brought to Basilio
only orphanhood. Who knows but that perhaps in the home whence came
the taciturn Padre Salvi children also played, perhaps they sang
"La Nochebuena se viene,
La Nochebuena se va." [172]
For a long time the boy wept and moaned. When at last he raised his
head he saw a man standing over him, gazing at the scene in silence.
"Are you her son?" asked the unknown in a low voice.
The boy nodded.
"What do you expect to do?"
"Bury her!"
"In the cemetery?"
"I haven't any money and, besides, the curate wouldn't allow it."
"Then?"
"If you would help me--"
"I'm very weak," answered the unknown as he sank slowly to the ground,
supporting himself with both hands. "I'm wounded. For two days I
haven't eaten or slept. Has no one come here tonight?"
The man thoughtfully contemplated the attractive features of the boy,
then went on in a still weaker voice, "Listen! I, too, shall be dead
before the day comes. Twenty paces from here, on the other side of
the brook, there is a big pile of firewood. Bring it here, make a
pyre, put our bodies upon it, cover them over, and set fire to the
whole--fire, until we are reduced to ashes!"
Basilio listened attentively.
"Afterwards, if no one comes, dig here. You will find a lot of gold
and it will all be yours. Take it and go to school."
The voice of the unknown was becoming every moment more
unintelligible. "Go, get the firewood. I want to help you."
As Basilio moved away, the unknown turned his face toward the east
and murmured, as though praying:
"I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land! You,
who have it to see, welcome it--and forget not those who have fallen
during the night!"
He raised his eyes to the sky and his lips continued to move, as if
uttering a prayer. Then he bowed his head and sank slowly to the earth.
Two hours later Sister Rufa was on the back veranda of her house
making her morning ablutions in order to attend mass. The pious woman
gazed at the adjacent wood and saw a thick column of smoke rising
from it. Filled with holy indignation, she knitted her eyebrows
and exclaimed:
"What heretic is making a clearing on a holy day? That's why so many
calamities come! You ought to go to purgatory and see if you could
get out of there, savage!"
EPILOGUE
Since some of our characters are still living and others have been lost
sight of, a real epilogue is impossible. For the satisfaction of the
groundlings we should gladly kill off all of them, beginning with Padre
Salvi and ending with Doña Victorina, but this is not possible. Let
them live! Anyhow, the country, not ourselves, has to support them.
After Maria Clara entered the nunnery, Padre Damaso left his town
to live in Manila, as did also Padre Salvi, who, while he awaits a
vacant miter, preaches sometimes in the church of St. Clara, in whose
nunnery he discharges the duties of an important office. Not many
months had passed when Padre Damaso received an order from the Very
Reverend Father Provincial to occupy a curacy in a remote province. It
is related that he was so grievously affected by this that on the
following day he was found dead in his bedchamber. Some said that
he had died of an apoplectic stroke, others of a nightmare, but his
physician dissipated all doubts by declaring that he had died suddenly.
None of our readers would now recognize Capitan Tiago. Weeks before
Maria Clara took the vows he fell into a state of depression so great
that he grew sad and thin, and became pensive and distrustful, like
his former friend, Capitan Tinong. As soon as the doors of the nunnery
closed he ordered his disconsolate cousin, Aunt Isabel, to collect
whatever had belonged to his daughter and his dead wife and to go to
make her home in Malabon or San Diego, since he wished to live alone
thenceforward, tie then devoted himself passionately to _liam-pó_ and
the cockpit, and began to smoke opium. He no longer goes to Antipolo
nor does he order any more masses, so Doña Patrocinia, his old rival,
celebrates her triumph piously by snoring during the sermons. If at
any time during the late afternoon you should walk along Calle Santo
Cristo, you would see seated in a Chinese shop a small man, yellow,
thin, and bent, with stained and dirty finger nails, gazing through
dreamy, sunken eyes at the passers-by as if he did not see them. At
nightfall you would see him rise with difficulty and, supporting
himself on his cane, make his way to a narrow little by-street to
enter a grimy building over the door of which may be seen in large
red letters: FUMADERO PUBLICO DE ANFION. [173] This is that Capitan
Tiago who was so celebrated, but who is now completely forgotten,
even by the very senior sacristan himself.
Doña Victorina has added to her false frizzes and to her
_Andalusization_, if we may be permitted the term, the new custom
of driving the carriage horses herself, obliging Don Tiburcio to
remain quiet. Since many unfortunate accidents occurred on account
of the weakness of her eyes, she has taken to wearing spectacles,
which give her a marvelous appearance. The doctor has never been
called upon again to attend any one and the servants see him many
days in the week without teeth, which, as our readers know, is a
very bad sign. Linares, the only defender of the hapless doctor,
has long been at rest in Paco cemetery, the victim of dysentery and
the harsh treatment of his cousin-in-law.
The victorious alferez returned to Spain a major, leaving his
amiable spouse in her flannel camisa, the color of which is now
indescribable. The poor Ariadne, finding herself thus abandoned,
also devoted herself, as did the daughter of Minos, to the cult of
Bacchus and the cultivation of tobacco; she drinks and smokes with
such fury that now not only the girls but even the old women and
little children fear her.
Probably our acquaintances of the town of San Diego are still alive,
if they did not perish in the explosion of the steamer "_Lipa_," which
was making a trip to the province. Since no one bothered himself to
learn who the unfortunates were that perished in that catastrophe or to
whom belonged the legs and arms left neglected on Convalescence Island
and the banks of the river, we have no idea whether any acquaintance
of our readers was among them or not. Along with the government and
the press at the time, we are satisfied with the information that
the only friar who was on the steamer was saved, and we do not ask
for more. The principal thing for us is the existence of the virtuous
priests, whose reign in the Philippines may God conserve for the good
of our souls. [174]
Of Maria Clara nothing more is known except that the sepulcher seems
to guard her in its bosom. We have asked several persons of great
influence in the holy nunnery of St. Clara, but no one has been
willing to tell us a single word, not even the talkative devotees
who receive the famous fried chicken-livers and the even more famous
sauce known as that "of the nuns," prepared by the intelligent cook
of the Virgins of the Lord.
Nevertheless: On a night in September the hurricane raged over
Manila, lashing the buildings with its gigantic wings. The thunder
crashed continuously. Lightning flashes momentarily revealed the havoc
wrought by the blast and threw the inhabitants into wild terror. The
rain fell in torrents. Each flash of the forked lightning showed a
piece of roofing or a window-blind flying through the air to fall
with a horrible crash. Not a person or a carriage moved through the
streets. When the hoarse reverberations of the thunder, a hundred
times re-echoed, lost themselves in the distance, there was heard
the soughing of the wind as it drove the raindrops with a continuous
tick-tack against the concha-panes of the closed windows.
Two patrolmen sheltered themselves under the eaves of a building near
the nunnery, one a private and the other a _distinguido_.
"What's the use of our staying here?" said the private.
"No one is moving about the streets. We ought to get into a house. My
_querida_ lives in Calle Arzobispo."
"From here over there is quite a distance and we'll get wet," answered
the _distinguido_.
"What does that matter just so the lightning doesn't strike us?"
"Bah, don't worry! The nuns surely have a lightningrod to protect
them."
"Yes," observed the private, "but of what use is it when the night
is so dark?"
As he said this he looked upward to stare into the darkness. At
that moment a prolonged streak of lightning flashed, followed by a
terrific roar.
"_Nakú! Susmariosep!_" exclaimed the private, crossing himself and
catching hold of his companion. "Let's get away from here."
"What's happened?"
"Come, come away from here," he repeated with his teeth rattling
from fear.
"What have you seen?"
"A specter!" he murmured, trembling with fright.
"A specter?"
"On the roof there. It must be the nun who practises magic during
the night."
The _distinguido_ thrust his head out to look, just as a flash of
lightning furrowed the heavens with a vein of fire and sent a horrible
crash earthwards. "_Jesús!_" he exclaimed, also crossing himself.
In the brilliant glare of the celestial light he had seen a white
figure standing almost on the ridge of the roof with arms and face
raised toward the sky as if praying to it. The heavens responded with
lightning and thunderbolts!
As the sound of the thunder rolled away a sad plaint was heard.
"That's not the wind, it's the specter," murmured the private, as if
in response to the pressure of his companion's hand.
"Ay! Ay!" came through the air, rising above the noise of the rain,
nor could the whistling wind drown that sweet and mournful voice
charged with affliction.
Again the lightning flashed with dazzling intensity.
"No, it's not a specter!" exclaimed the _distinguido_.
"I've seen her before. She's beautiful, like the Virgin! Let's get
away from here and report it."
The private did not wait for him to repeat the invitation, and both
disappeared.
Who was moaning in the middle of the night in spite of the wind and