Noli Me Tángere

omments

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!" [97]

"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! If his good mother were alive, what would she say? When I
think that the like may happen to my son, who has a violent temper,
I almost envy his dead mother. I should die of grief!"

"Well, I shouldn't," replied another. "It wouldn't cause me any shame
if such a thing should happen to my two sons."

"What are you saying, Capitana Maria!" exclaimed the first, clasping
her hands.

"It pleases me to see a son defend the memory of his parents, Capitana
Tinay. What would you say if some day when you were a widow you heard
your husband spoken ill of and your son Antonio should hang his head
and remain silent?"

"I would deny him my blessing!" exclaimed a third, Sister Rufa, "but--"

"Deny him my blessing, never!" interrupted the kind Capitana Tinay. "A
mother ought not to say that! But I don't know what I should do--I
don't know--I believe I'd die--but I shouldn't want to see him
again. But what do you think about it, Capitana Maria?"

"After all," added Sister Rufa, "it must not be forgotten that it's
a great sin to place your hand on a sacred person."

"A father's memory is more sacred!" replied Capitana Maria. "No one,
not even the Pope himself, much less Padre Damaso, may profane such
a holy memory."

"That's true!" murmured Capitana Tinay, admiring the wisdom of
both. "Where did you get such good ideas?"

"But the excommunication and the condemnation?" exclaimed Sister
Rufa. "What are honor and a good name in this life if in the other we
are damned? Everything passes away quickly--but the excommunication--to
outrage a minister of Christ! No one less than the Pope can pardon
that!"

"God, who commands honor for father and mother, will pardon it,
God will not excommunicate him! And I tell you that if that young
man comes to my house I will receive him and talk with him, and if
I had a daughter I would want him for a son-in-law; he who is a good
son will be a good husband and a good father--believe it, Sister Rufa!"

"Well, I don't think so. Say what you like, and even though you may
appear to be right, I'll always rather believe the curate. Before
everything else, I'll save my soul. What do you say, Capitana Tinny?"

"Oh, what do you want me to say? You're both right the curate is
right, but God must also be right. I don't know, I'm only a foolish
woman. What I'm going to do is to tell my son not to study any more,
for they say that persons who know anything die on the gallows. María
Santísima, my son wants to go to Europe!"

"What are you thinking of doing?"

"Tell him to stay with me--why should he know more? Tomorrow or the
next day we shall die, the learned and the ignorant alike must die,
and the only question is to live in peace." The good old woman sighed
and raised her eyes toward the sky.

"For my part," said Capitana Maria gravely, "if I were rich like
you I would let my sons travel; they are young and will some day be
men. I have only a little while to live, we should see one another in
the other life, so sons should aspire to be more than their fathers,
but at our sides we only teach them to be children."

"Ay, what rare thoughts you have!" exclaimed the astonished Capitana
Tinay, clasping her hands. "It must be that you didn't suffer in
bearing your twin boys."

"For the very reason that I did bear them with suffering, that I have
nurtured and reared them in spite of our poverty, I do not wish that,
after the trouble they're cost me, they be only half-men."

"It seems to me that you don't love your children as God commands,"
said Sister Rufa in a rather severe tone.

"Pardon me, every mother loves her sons in her own way. One mother
loves them for her own sake and another loves them for their sake. I
am one of the latter, for my husband has so taught me."

"All your ideas, Capitana Maria," said Sister Rufa, as if preaching,
"are but little religious. Become a sister of the Holy Rosary or of
St. Francis or of St. Rita or of St. Clara."

"Sister Rufa, when I am a worthy sister of men then I'll try to be
a sister of the saints," she answered with a smile.

To put an end to this chapter of comments and that the reader
may learn in passing what the simple country folk thought of the
incident, we will now go to the plaza, where under the large awning
some rustics are conversing, one of them--he who dreamed about doctors
of medicine--being an acquaintance of ours.

"What I regret most," said he, "is that the schoolhouse won't be
finished."

"What's that?" asked the bystanders with interest.

"My son won't be a doctor but a carter, nothing more! Now there won't
be any school!"

"Who says there won't be any school?" asked a rough and robust
countryman with wide cheeks and a narrow head.

"I do! The white padres have called Don Crisostomo plibastiero. [98]
Now there won't be any school."

All stood looking questioningly at each other; that was a new term
to them.

"And is that a bad name?" the rough countryman made bold to ask.

"The worst thing that one Christian can say to another!"

"Worse than tarantado and sarayate?" [99]

"If it were only that! I've been called those names several times
and they didn't even give me a bellyache."

"Well, it can't be worse than 'indio,' as the alferez says."

The man who was to have a carter for a son became gloomier, while
the other scratched his head in thought.

"Then it must be like the betelapora [100] that the alferez's old
woman says. Worse than that is to spit on the Host."

"Well, it's worse than to spit on the Host on Good Friday," was the
grave reply. "You remember the word ispichoso [101] which when
applied to a man is enough to have the civil-guards take him into
exile or put him in jail well, plibustiero is much worse. According
to what the telegrapher and the directorcillo said, plibustiero,
said by a Christian, a curate, or a Spaniard to another Christian like
us is a santusdeus with requimiternam, [102] for if they ever call
you a plibustiero then you'd better get yourself shriven and pay
your debts, since nothing remains for you but to be hanged. You know
whether the telegrapher and the directorcillo ought to be informed;
one talks with wires and the other knows Spanish and works only with
a pen." All were appalled.

"May they force me to wear shoes and in all my life to drink nothing
but that vile stuff they call beer, if I ever let myself be called
pelbistero!" swore the countryman, clenching his fists. "What,
rich as Don Crisostomo is, knowing Spanish as he does, and able to
eat fast with a knife and spoon, I'd laugh at five curates!"

"The next civil-guard I catch stealing my chickens I'm going to call
palabistiero, then I'll go to confession at once," murmured one of
the rustics in a low voice as he withdrew from the group.