The Reign of Greed Part 39

"Poor Padre Camorra!" exclaimed Ben-Zayb in a fit of generosity. "He was so jolly and had such a good heart!"

It was true that the students had recovered their liberty, thanks to the exertions of their relatives, who did not hesitate at expense, gifts, or any sacrifice whatsoever. The first to see himself free, as was to be expected, was Makaraig, and the last Isagani, because Padre Florentine did not reach Manila until a week after the events. So many acts of clemency secured for the General the t.i.tle of clement and merciful, which Ben-Zayb hastened to add to his long list of adjectives.

The only one who did not obtain his liberty was Basilio, since he was also accused of having in his possession prohibited books. We don't know whether this referred to his text-book on legal medicine or to the pamphlets that were found, dealing with the Philippines, or both together--the fact is that it was said that prohibited literature was being secretly sold, and upon the unfortunate boy fell all the weight of the rod of justice.

It was reported that his Excellency had been thus advised: "It's necessary that there be some one, so that the prestige of authority may be sustained and that it may not be said that we made a great fuss over nothing. Authority before everything. It's necessary that some one be made an example of. Let there be just one, one who, according to Padre Irene, was the servant of Capitan Tiago--there'll be no one to enter a complaint--"

"Servant and student?" asked his Excellency. "That fellow, then! Let it be he!"

"Your Excellency will pardon me," observed the high official, who happened to be present, "but I've been told that this boy is a medical student and his teachers speak well of him. If he remains a prisoner he'll lose a year, and as this year he finishes--"

The high official's interference in behalf of Basilio, instead of helping, harmed him. For some time there had been between this official and his Excellency strained relations and bad feelings, augmented by frequent clashes.

"Yes? So much the greater reason that he should be kept prisoner; a year longer in his studies, instead of injuring him, will do good, not only to himself but to all who afterwards fall into his hands. One doesn't become a bad physician by extensive practise. So much the more reason that he should remain! Soon the filibustering reformers will say that we are not looking out for the country!" concluded his Excellency with a sarcastic laugh.

The high official realized that he had made a false move and took Basilio's case to heart. "But it seems to me that this young man is the most innocent of all," he rejoined rather timidly.

"Books have been seized in his possession," observed the secretary.

"Yes, works on medicine and pamphlets written by Peninsulars, with the leaves uncut, and besides, what does that signify? Moreover, this young man was not present at the banquet in the _pansiteria_, he hasn't mixed up in anything. As I've said, he's the most innocent--"

"So much the better!" exclaimed his Excellency jocosely. "In that way the punishment will prove more salutary and exemplary, since it inspires greater terror. To govern is to act in this way, my dear sir, as it is often expedient to sacrifice the welfare of one to the welfare of many. But I'm doing more--from the welfare of one will result the welfare of all, the principle of endangered authority is preserved, prestige is respected and maintained. By this act of mine I'm correcting my own and other people's faults."

The high official restrained himself with an effort and, disregarding the allusion, decided to take another tack. "But doesn't your Excellency fear the--responsibility?"

"What have I to fear?" rejoined the General impatiently. "Haven't I discretionary powers? Can't I do what I please for the better government of these islands? What have I to fear? Can some menial perhaps arraign me before the tribunals and exact from me responsibility? Even though he had the means, he would have to consult the Ministry first, and the Minister--"

He waved his hand and burst out into laughter.

"The Minister who appointed me, the devil knows where he is, and he will feel honored in being able to welcome me when I return. The present one, I don't even think of him, and the devil take him too! The one that relieves him will find himself in so many difficulties with his new duties that he won't be able to fool with trifles. I, my dear sir, have nothing over me but my conscience, I act according to my conscience, and my conscience is satisfied, so I don't care a straw for the opinions of this one and that. My conscience, my dear sir, my conscience!"

"Yes, General, but the country--"

"Tut, tut, tut, tut! The country--what have I to do Avith the country? Have I perhaps contracted any obligations to it? Do I owe my office to it? Was it the country that elected me?"

A brief pause ensued, during which the high official stood with bowed head. Then, as if reaching a decision, he raised it to stare fixedly at the General. Pale and trembling, he said with repressed energy: "That doesn't matter, General, that doesn't matter at all! Your Excellency has not been chosen by the Filipino people, but by Spain, all the more reason why you should treat the Filipinos well so that they may not be able to reproach Spain. The greater reason, General, the greater reason! Your Excellency, by coming here, has contracted the obligation to govern justly, to seek the welfare--"

"Am I not doing it?" interrupted his Excellency in exasperation, taking a step forward. "Haven't I told you that I am getting from the good of one the good of all? Are you now going to give me lessons? If you don't understand my actions, how am I to blame? Do I compel you to share my responsibility?"

"Certainly not," replied the high official, drawing himself up proudly. "Your Excellency does not compel me, your Excellency cannot compel me, _me,_ to share _your_ responsibility. I understand mine in quite another way, and because I have it, I'm going to speak--I've held my peace a long time. Oh, your Excellency needn't make those gestures, because the fact that I've come here in this or that capacity doesn't mean that I have given up my rights, that I have been reduced to the part of a slave, without voice or dignity.

"I don't want Spain to lose this beautiful empire, these eight millions of patient and submissive subjects, who live on hopes and delusions, but neither do I wish to soil my hands in their barbarous exploitation. I don't wish it ever to be said that, the slave-trade abolished, Spain has continued to cloak it with her banner and perfect it under a wealth of specious inst.i.tutions. No, to be great Spain does not have to be a tyrant, Spain is sufficient unto herself, Spain was greater when she had only her own territory, wrested from the clutches of the Moor. I too am a Spaniard, but before being a Spaniard I am a man, and before Spain and above Spain is her honor, the lofty principles of morality, the eternal principles of immutable justice! Ah, you are surprised that I think thus, because you have no idea of the grandeur of the Spanish name, no, you haven't any idea of it, you identify it with persons and interests. To you the Spaniard may be a pirate, he may be a murderer, a hypocrite, a cheat, anything, just so he keep what he has--but to me the Spaniard should lose everything, empire, power, wealth, everything, before his honor! Ah, my dear sir, we protest when we read that might is placed before right, yet we applaud when in practise we see might play the hypocrite in not only perverting right but even in using it as a tool in order to gain control. For the very reason that I love Spain, I'm speaking now, and I defy your frown!

"I don't wish that the coming ages accuse Spain of being the stepmother of the nations, the vampire of races, the tyrant of small islands, since it would be a horrible mockery of the n.o.ble principles of our ancient kings. How are we carrying out their sacred legacy? They promised to these islands protection and justice, and we are playing with the lives and liberties of the inhabitants; they promised civilization, and^we are curtailing it, fearful that they may aspire to a n.o.bler existence; they promised them light, and we cover their eyes that they may not witness our orgies; they promised to teach them virtue and we are encouraging their vice. Instead of peace, wealth, and justice, confusion reigns, commerce languishes, and skepticism is fostered among the ma.s.ses.

"Let us put ourselves in the place of the Filipinos and ask ourselves what we would do in their place. Ah, in your silence I read their right to rebel, and if matters do not mend they will rebel some day, and justice will be on their side, with them will go the sympathy of all honest men, of every patriot in the world! When a people is denied light, home, liberty, and justice--things that are essential to life, and therefore man's patrimony--that people has the right to treat him who so despoils it as we would the robber who intercepts us on the highway. There are no distinctions, there are no exceptions, nothing but a fact, a right, an aggression, and every honest man who does not place himself on the side of the wronged makes himself an accomplice and stains his conscience.

"True, I am not a soldier, and the years are cooling the little fire in my blood, but just as I would risk being torn to pieces to defend the integrity of Spain against any foreign invader or against an unjustified disloyalty in her provinces, so I also a.s.sure you that I would place myself beside the oppressed Filipinos, because I would prefer to fall in the cause of the outraged rights of humanity to triumphing with the selfish interests of a nation, even when that nation be called as it is called--Spain!"

"Do you know when the mail-boat leaves?" inquired his Excellency coldly, when the high official had finished speaking.

The latter stared at him fixedly, then dropped his head and silently left the palace.

Outside he found his carriage awaiting him. "Some day when you declare yourselves independent," he said somewhat abstractedly to the native lackey who opened the carriage-door for him, "remember that there were not lacking in Spain hearts that beat for you and struggled for your rights!"

"Where, sir?" asked the lackey, who had understood nothing of this and was inquiring whither they should go.

Two hours later the high official handed in his resignation and announced his intention of returning to Spain by the next mail-steamer.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

EFFECT OF THE PASQUINADES

As a result of the events narrated, many mothers ordered their sons immediately to leave off their studies and devote themselves to idleness or to agriculture. When the examinations came, suspensions were plentiful, and he was a rare exception who finished the course, if he had belonged to the famous a.s.sociation, to which no one paid any more attention. Pecson, Tadeo, and Juanito Pelaez were all alike suspended--the first receiving his dismissal with his foolish grin and declaring his intention of becoming an officer in some court, while Tadeo, with his eternal holiday realized at last, paid for an illumination and made a bonfire of his books. Nor did the others get off much better, and at length they too had to abandon their studies, to the great satisfaction of their mothers, who always fancy their sons hanged if they should come to understand what the books teach. Juanito Pelaez alone took the blow ill, since it forced him to leave school for his father's store, with whom he was thenceforward to be a.s.sociated in the business: the rascal found the store much less entertaining, but after some time his friends again noticed his hump appear, a symptom that his good humor was returning. The rich Makaraig, in view of the catastrophe, took good care not to expose himself, and having secured a pa.s.sport by means of money set out in haste for Europe. It was said that his Excellency, the Captain-General, in his desire to do good by good means, and careful of the interests of the Filipinos, hindered the departure of every one who could not first prove substantially that he had the money to spend and could live in idleness in European cities. Among our acquaintances those who got off best were Isagani and Sandoval: the former pa.s.sed in the subject he studied under Padre Fernandez and was suspended in the others, while the latter was able to confuse the examining-board with his oratory.

Basilio was the only one who did not pa.s.s in any subject, who was not suspended, and who did not go to Europe, for he remained in Bilibid prison, subjected every three days to examinations, almost always the same in principle, without other variation than a change of inquisitors, since it seemed that in the presence of such great guilt all gave up or fell away in horror. And while the doc.u.ments moldered or were s.h.i.+fted about, while the stamped papers increased like the plasters of an ignorant physician on the body of a hypochondriac, Basilio became informed of all the details of what had happened in Tiani, of the death of Juli and the disappearance of Tandang Selo. Sinong, the abused cochero, who had driven him to San Diego, happened to be in Manila at that time and called to give him all the news.

Meanwhile, Simoun had recovered his health, or so at least the newspapers said. Ben-Zayb rendered thanks to "the Omnipotent who watches over such a precious life," and manifested the hope that the Highest would some day reveal the malefactor, whose crime remained unpunished, thanks to the charity of the victim, who was too closely following the words of the Great Martyr: _Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do._ These and other things Ben-Zayb said in print, while by mouth he was inquiring whether there was any truth in the rumor that the opulent jeweler was going to give a grand fiesta, a banquet such as had never before been seen, in part to celebrate his recovery and in part as a farewell to the country in which he had increased his fortune. It was whispered as certain that Simoun, who would have to leave with the Captain-General, whose command expired in May, was making every effort to secure from Madrid an extension, and that he was advising his Excellency to start a campaign in order to have an excuse for remaining, but it was further reported that for the first time his Excellency had disregarded the advice of his favorite, making it a point of honor not to retain for a single additional day the power that had been conferred upon him, a rumor which encouraged belief that the fiesta announced would take place; very soon. For the rest, Simoun remained unfathomable, since he had become very uncommunicative, showed himself seldom, and smiled mysteriously when the rumored fiesta was mentioned.

"Come, Senor Sindbad," Ben-Zayb had once rallied him, "dazzle us with something Yankee! You owe something to this country."

"Doubtless!" was Simoun's response, with a dry smile.

"You'll throw the house wide open, eh?"

"Maybe, but as I have no house--"

"You ought to have secured Capitan Tiago's, which Senor Pelaez got for nothing."

Simoun became silent, and from that time on he was often seen in the store of Don Timoteo Pelaez, with whom it was said he had entered into partners.h.i.+p. Some weeks afterward, in the month of April, it was rumored that Juanito Pelaez, Don Timoteo's son, was going to marry Paulita Gomez, the girl coveted by Spaniards and foreigners.

"Some men are lucky!" exclaimed other envious merchants. "To buy a house for nothing, sell his consignment of galvanized iron well, get into partners.h.i.+p with a Simoun, and marry his son to a rich heiress--just say if those aren't strokes of luck that all honorable men don't have!"

"If you only knew whence came that luck of Senor Pelaez's!" another responded, in a tone which indicated that the speaker did know. "It's also a.s.sured that there'll be a fiesta and on a grand scale," was added with mystery.

It was really true that Paulita was going to marry Juanito Pelaez. Her love for Isagani had gradually waned, like all first loves based on poetry and sentiment. The events of the pasquinades and the imprisonment of the youth had shorn him of all his charms. To whom would it have occurred to seek danger, to desire to share the fate of his comrades, to surrender himself, when every one was hiding and denying any complicity in the affair? It was quixotic, it was madness that no sensible person in Manila could pardon, and Juanito was quite right in ridiculing him, representing what a sorry figure he cut when he went to the Civil Government. Naturally, the brilliant Paulita could no longer love a young man who so erroneously understood social matters and whom all condemned. Then she began to reflect. Juanito was clever, capable, gay, shrewd, the son of a rich merchant of Manila, and a Spanish mestizo besides--if Don Timoteo was to be believed, a full-blooded Spaniard. On the other hand, Isagani was a provincial native who dreamed of forests infested with leeches, he was of doubtful family, with a priest for an uncle, who would perhaps be an enemy to luxury and b.a.l.l.s, of which she was very fond. One beautiful morning therefore it occurred to her that she had been a downright fool to prefer him to his rival, and from that time on Pelaez's hump steadily increased. Unconsciously, yet rigorously, Paulita was obeying the law discovered by Darwin, that the female surrenders herself to the fittest male, to him who knows how to adapt himself to the medium in which he lives, and to live in Manila there was no other like Pelaez, who from his infancy had had chicanery at his finger-tips. Lent pa.s.sed with its Holy Week, its array of processions and pompous displays, without other novelty than a mysterious mutiny among the artillerymen, the cause of which was never disclosed. The houses of light materials were torn down in the presence of a troop of cavalry, ready to fall upon the owners in case they should offer resistance. There was a great deal of weeping and many lamentations, but the affair did not get beyond that. The curious, among them Simoun, went to see those who were left homeless, walking about indifferently and a.s.suring each other that thenceforward they could sleep in peace.

Towards the end of April, all the fears being now forgotten, Manila was engrossed with one topic: the fiesta that Don Timoteo Pelaez was going to celebrate at the wedding of his son, for which the General had graciously and condescendingly agreed to be the patron. Simoun was reported to have arranged the matter. The ceremony would be solemnized two days before the departure of the General, who would honor the house and make a present to the bridegroom. It was whispered that the jeweler would pour out cascades of diamonds and throw away handfuls of pearls in honor of his partner's son, thus, since he could hold no fiesta of his own, as he was a bachelor and had no house, improving the opportunity to dazzle the Filipino people with a memorable farewell. All Manila prepared to be invited, and never did uneasiness take stronger hold of the mind than in view of the thought of not being among those bidden. Friends.h.i.+p with Simoun became a matter of dispute, and many husbands were forced by their wives to purchase bars of steel and sheets of galvanized iron in order to make friends with Don Timoteo Pelaez.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII