The Reign of Greed Part 16

Cries and blows were heard. Two boys were fighting in the adjoining room--a lame student who was very sensitive about his infirmity and an unhappy newcomer from the provinces who was just commencing his studies. He was working over a treatise on philosophy and reading innocently in a loud voice, with a wrong accent, the Cartesian principle: "_Cogito, ergo sum!_"

The little lame boy (_el cojito_) took this as an insult and the others intervened to restore peace, but in reality only to sow discord and come to blows themselves.

In the dining-room a young man with a can of sardines, a bottle of wine, and the provisions that he had just brought from his town, was making heroic efforts to the end that his friends might partic.i.p.ate in his lunch, while they were offering in their turn heroic resistance to his invitation. Others were bathing on the azotea, playing firemen with the water from the well, and joining in combats with pails of water, to the great delight of the spectators.

But the noise and shouts gradually died away with the coming of leading students, summoned by Makaraig to report to them the progress of the academy of Castilian. Isagani was cordially greeted, as was also the Peninsular, Sandoval, who had come to Manila as a government employee and was finis.h.i.+ng his studies, and who had completely identified himself with the cause of the Filipino students. The barriers that politics had established between the races had disappeared in the schoolroom as though dissolved by the zeal of science and youth.

From lack of lyceums and scientific, literary, or political centers, Sandoval took advantage of all the meetings to cultivate his great oratorical gifts, delivering speeches and arguing on any subject, to draw forth applause from his friends and listeners. At that moment the subject of conversation was the instruction in Castilian, but as Makaraig had not yet arrived conjecture was still the order of the day.

"What can have happened?"

"What has the General decided?"

"Has he refused the permit?"

"Has Padre Irene or Padre Sibyla won?"

Such were the questions they asked one another, questions that could be answered only by Makaraig.

Among the young men gathered together there were optimists like Isagani and Sandoval, who saw the thing already accomplished and talked of congratulations and praise from the government for the patriotism of the students--outbursts of optimism that led Juanito Pelaez to claim for himself a large part of the glory of founding the society.

All this was answered by the pessimist Pecson, a chubby youth with a wide, clownish grin, who spoke of outside influences, whether the Bishop A., the Padre B., or the Provincial C., had been consulted or not, whether or not they had advised that the whole a.s.sociation should be put in jail--a suggestion that made Juanito Pelaez so uneasy that he stammered out, "_Carambas_, don't you drag me into--"

Sandoval, as a Peninsular and a liberal, became furious at this. "But pshaw!" he exclaimed, "that is holding a bad opinion of his Excellency! I know that he's quite a friar-lover, but in such a matter as this he won't let the friars interfere. Will you tell me, Pecson, on what you base your belief that the General has no judgment of his own?"

"I didn't say that, Sandoval," replied Pecson, grinning until he exposed his wisdom-tooth. "For me the General has _his own_ judgment, that is, the judgment of all those within his reach. That's plain!"

"You're dodging--cite me a fact, cite me a fact!" cried Sandoval. "Let's get away from hollow arguments, from empty phrases, and get on the solid ground of facts,"--this with an elegant gesture. "Facts, gentlemen, facts! The rest is prejudice--I won't call it filibusterism."

Pecson smiled like one of the blessed as he retorted, "There comes the filibusterism. But can't we enter into a discussion without resorting to accusations?"

Sandoval protested in a little extemporaneous speech, again demanding facts.

"Well, not long ago there was a dispute between some private persons and certain friars, and the acting Governor rendered a decision that it should be settled by the Provincial of the Order concerned,"

replied Pecson, again breaking out into a laugh, as though he were dealing with an insignificant matter, he cited names and dates, and promised doc.u.ments that would prove how justice was dispensed.

"But, on what ground, tell me this, on what ground can they refuse permission for what plainly appears to be extremely useful and necessary?" asked Sandoval.

Pecson shrugged his shoulders. "It's that it endangers the integrity of the fatherland," he replied in the tone of a notary reading an allegation.

"That's pretty good! What has the integrity of the fatherland to do with the rules of syntax?"

"The Holy Mother Church has learned doctors--what do I know? Perhaps it is feared that we may come to understand the laws so that we can obey them. What will become of the Philippines on the day when we understand one another?"

Sandoval did not relish the dialectic and jesting turn of the conversation; along that path could rise no speech worth the while. "Don't make a joke of things!" he exclaimed. "This is a serious matter."

"The Lord deliver me from joking when there are friars concerned!"

"But, on what do you base--"

"On the fact that, the hours for the cla.s.ses having to come at night," continued Pecson in the same tone, as if he were quoting known and recognized formulas, "there may be invoked as an obstacle the immorality of the thing, as was done in the case of the school at Malolos."

"Another! But don't the cla.s.ses of the Academy of Drawing, and the novenaries and the processions, cover themselves with the mantle of night?"

"The scheme affects the dignity of the University," went on the chubby youth, taking no notice of the question.

"Affects nothing! The University has to accommodate itself to the needs of the students. And granting that, what is a university then? Is it an inst.i.tution to discourage study? Have a few men banded themselves together in the name of learning and instruction in order to prevent others from becoming enlightened?"

"The fact is that movements initiated from below are regarded as discontent--"

"What about projects that come from above?" interpolated one of the students. "There's the School of Arts and Trades!"

"Slowly, slowly, gentlemen," protested Sandoval. "I'm not a friar-lover, my liberal views being well known, but render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. Of that School of Arts and Trades, of which I have been the most enthusiastic supporter and the realization of which I shall greet as the first streak of dawn for these fortunate islands, of that School of Arts and Trades the friars have taken charge--"

"Or the cat of the canary, which amounts to the same thing," added Pecson, in his turn interrupting the speech.

"Get out!" cried Sandoval, enraged at the interruption, which had caused him to lose the thread of his long, well-rounded sentence. "As long as we hear nothing bad, let's not be pessimists, let's not be unjust, doubting the liberty and independence of the government."

Here he entered upon a defense in beautiful phraseology of the government and its good intentions, a subject that Pecson dared not break in upon.

"The Spanish government," he said among other things, "has given you everything, it has denied you nothing! We had absolutism in Spain and you had absolutism here; the friars covered our soil with conventos, and conventos occupy a third part of Manila; in Spain the garrote prevails and here the garrote is the extreme punishment; we are Catholics and we have made you Catholics; we were scholastics and scholasticism sheds its light in your college halls; in short, gentlemen, we weep when you weep, we suffer when you suffer, we have the same altars, the same courts, the same punishments, and it is only just that we should give you our rights and our joys."

As no one interrupted him, he became more and more enthusiastic, until he came to speak of the future of the Philippines.

"As I have said, gentlemen, the dawn is not far distant. Spain is now breaking the eastern sky for her beloved Philippines, and the times are changing, as I positively know, faster than we imagine. This government, which, according to you, is vacillating and weak, should be strengthened by our confidence, that we may make it see that it is the custodian of our hopes. Let us remind it by our conduct (should it ever forget itself, which I do not believe can happen) that we have faith in its good intentions and that it should be guided by no other standard than justice and the welfare of all the governed. No, gentlemen," he went on in a tone more and more declamatory, "we must not admit at all in this matter the possibility of a consultation with other more or less hostile ent.i.ties, as such a supposition would imply our resignation to the fact. Your conduct up to the present has been frank, loyal, without vacillation, above suspicion; you have addressed it simply and directly; the reasons you have presented could not be more sound; your aim is to lighten the labor of the teachers in the first years and to facilitate study among the hundreds of students who fill the college halls and for whom one solitary professor cannot suffice. If up to the present the pet.i.tion has not been granted, it has been for the reason, as I feel sure, that there has been a great deal of material acc.u.mulated, but I predict that the campaign is won, that the summons of Makaraig is to announce to us the victory, and tomorrow we shall see our efforts crowned with the applause and appreciation of the country, and who knows, gentlemen, but that the government may confer upon you some handsome decoration of merit, benefactors as you are of the fatherland!"

Enthusiastic applause resounded. All immediately believed in the triumph, and many in the decoration.

"Let it be remembered, gentlemen," observed Juanito, "that I was one of the first to propose it."

The pessimist Pecson was not so enthusiastic. "Just so we don't get that decoration on our ankles," he remarked, but fortunately for Pelaez this comment was not heard in the midst of the applause.

When they had quieted down a little, Pecson replied, "Good, good, very good, but one supposition: if in spite of all that, the General consults and consults and consults, and afterwards refuses the permit?"

This question fell like a dash of cold water. All turned to Sandoval, who was taken aback. "Then--" he stammered.

"Then?"

"Then," he exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm, still excited by the applause, "seeing that in writing and in printing it boasts of desiring your enlightenment, and yet hinders and denies it when called upon to make it a reality--then, gentlemen, your efforts will not have been in vain, you will have accomplished what no one else has been able to do. Make them drop the mask and fling down the gauntlet to you!"

"Bravo, bravo!" cried several enthusiastically.

"Good for Sandoval! Hurrah for the gauntlet!" added others.

"Let them fling down the gauntlet to us!" repeated Pecson disdainfully. "But afterwards?"

Sandoval seemed to be cut short in his triumph, but with the vivacity peculiar to his race and his oratorical temperament he had an immediate reply.