“You, here! You have been silent, now it is my turn! I have tried to avoid this, but God brings me to it—let God be the judge!” The youth was breathing laboriously, but with a hand of iron he held down the Franciscan, who was struggling vainly to free himself.
“My heart beats tranquilly, my hand is sure,” he began, looking around him.
“First, is there one among you, one who has not loved his father, who was born in such shame and humiliation that he hates his memory? You see? You understand this silence? Priest of a God of peace, with your mouth full of sanctity and religion and your heart full of evil, you cannot know what a father is, or you might have thought of your own! In all this crowd which you despise there is not one like you! You are condemned!”
The persons surrounding him, thinking that he was about to commit murder, made a movement.
“Away!” he cried again in a threatening voice. “What, do you fear that I shall stain my hands with impure blood? Have I not told you that my heart beats tranquilly? Away from us! Listen, priests and judges, you who think yourselves other men and attribute to yourselves other rights: my father was an honorable
man,—ask these people here, who venerate his memory. My father was a good citizen and he sacrificed himself for me and for the good of his country. His house was open and his table was set for the stranger and the outcast who came to him in distress! He was a Christian who always did good and who never oppressed the unprotected or afflicted those in trouble. To this man here he opened his doors, he made him sit at his table and called him his friend. And how has this man repaid him? He calumniated him, persecuted him, raised up against him all the ignorant by availing himself of the sanctity of his position; he outraged his tomb, dishonored his memory, and persecuted him even in the sleep of death! Not satisfied with this, he persecutes the son now! I have fled from him, I have avoided his presence. You this morning heard him profane the pulpit, pointing me out to popular fanaticism, and I held my peace! Now he comes here to seek a quarrel with me. To your surprise, I have suffered in silence, but he again insults the most sacred memory that there is for a son. You who are here, priests and judges, have you seen your aged father wear himself out working for you, separating himself from you for your welfare, have you seen him die of sorrow in a prison sighing for your embrace, seeking some one to comfort him, alone, sick, when you were in a foreign land? Have you afterwards heard his name dishonored, have you found his tomb empty when you went to pray beside it? No? You are silent, you condemn him!”
He raised his hand, but with the swiftness of light a girlish form put itself between them and delicate fingers restrained the avenging arm. It was Maria Clara. Ibarra stared at her with a look that seemed to reflect madness. Slowly his clenched fingers relaxed, letting fall the body of the Franciscan and the knife.
Covering his face, he fled through the crowd.
1 Cumare and cumpare are corruptions of the Spanish comadre and compadre, which have an origin analogous to the English “gossip” in its original meaning of “sponsor in baptism.” In the Philippines these words are used among the simpler folk as familiar forms of address, “friend,” “neighbor.”—TR.
2 Dominus vobiscum.
Chapter XXXV
Comments
News of the incident soon spread throughout the town. At first all were incredulous, but, having to yield to the fact, they broke out into exclamations of surprise. Each one, according to his moral lights, made his comments.
“Padre Damaso is dead,” said some. “When they picked him up his face was covered with blood and he wasn’t breathing.”
“May he rest in peace! But he hasn’t any more than settled his debts!” exclaimed a young man. “Look what he did this morning in the convento—there isn’t any name for it.”
“What did he do? Did he beat up the coadjutor again?”
“What did he do? Tell us about it!”
“You saw that Spanish mestizo go out through the sacristy in the midst of the sermon?”
“Yes, we saw him. Padre Damaso took note of him.”
“Well, after the sermon he sent for the young man and asked him why he had gone out. ‘I don’t understand Tagalog, Padre,’ was the reply. ‘And why did you joke about it, saying that it was Greek?’ yelled Padre Damaso, slapping the young man in the face. The latter retorted and the two came to blows until they were separated.”
“If that had happened to me—” hissed a student between his teeth.
“I don’t approve of the action of the Franciscan,” said another, “since Religion ought not to be imposed on any one as a punishment or a penance. But I am
almost glad of it, for I know that young man, I know that he’s from San Pedro Makati and that he talks Tagalog well. Now he wants to be taken for a recent arrival from Russia and prides himself on appearing not to know the language of his fathers.”
“Then God makes them and they rush together! ”1
“Still we must protest against such actions,” exclaimed another student. “To remain silent would be to assent to the abuse, and what has happened may be repeated with any one of us. We’re going back to the times of Nero!”
“You’re wrong,” replied another. “Nero was a great artist, while Padre Damaso is only a tiresome preacher.”
The comments of the older persons were of a different kind. While they were waiting for the arrival of the Captain-General in a hut outside the town, the gobernadorcillo was saying, “To tell who was right and who was wrong, is not an easy matter. Yet if Señor Ibarra had used more prudence—”
“If Padre Damaso had used half the prudence of Señor Ibarra, you mean to say, perhaps!” interrupted Don Filipo. “The bad thing about it is that they exchanged parts—the youth conducted himself like an old man and the old man like a youth.”
“Did you say that no one moved, no one went near to separate them, except Capitan Tiago’s daughter?” asked Capitan Martin. “None of the friars, nor the alcalde? Ahem! Worse and worse! I shouldn’t like to be in that young man’s skin. No one will forgive him for having been afraid of him. Worse and worse, ahem!”
“Do you think so?” asked Capitan Basilio curiously.
“I hope,” said Don Filipo, exchanging a look with the latter, “that the people won’t desert him. We must keep in mind what his family has done and what he is trying to do now. And if, as may happen, the people, being intimidated, are silent, his friends—”
“But, gentlemen,” interrupted the gobernadorcillo, “what can we do? What can
the people do? Happen what will, the friars are always right!”
“They are always right because we always allow them to be,” answered Don Filipo impatiently, putting double stress on the italicized word. “Let us be right once and then we’ll talk.”
The gobernadorcillo scratched his head and stared at the roof while he replied in a sour tone, “Ay! the heat of the blood! You don’t seem to realize yet what country we’re in, you don’t know your countrymen. The friars are rich and united, while we are divided and poor. Yes, try to defend yourself and you’ll see how the people will leave you in the lurch.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Don Filipo bitterly. “That will happen as long as you think that way, as long as fear and prudence are synonyms. More attention is paid to a possible evil than to a necessary good. At once fear, and not confidence, presents itself; each one thinks only of himself, no one thinks of the rest, and therefore we are all weak!”
“Well then, think of others before yourself and you’ll see how they’ll leave you in the lurch. Don’t you know the proverb, ‘Charity begins at home’?”
“You had better say,” replied the exasperated teniente-mayor, “that cowardice begins in selfishness and ends in shame! This very day I’m going to hand in my resignation to the alcalde. I’m tired of passing for a joke without being useful to anybody. Good-by!”
The women had opinions of still another kind.
“Ay ! ” sighed one woman of kindly expression. “The young men are always so!
