Noli Me Tángere

lias's Story

"Some sixty years ago my grandfather dwelt in Manila, being employed
as a bookkeeper in a Spanish commercial house. He was then very young,
was married, and had a son. One night from some unknown cause the
warehouse burned down. The fire was communicated to the dwelling of his
employer and from there to many other buildings. The losses were great,
a scapegoat was sought, and the merchant accused my grandfather. In
vain he protested his innocence, but he was poor and unable to pay the
great lawyers, so he was condemned to be flogged publicly and paraded
through the streets of Manila. Not so very long since they still used
the infamous method of punishment which the people call the 'caballo
y vaca,' [133] and which is a thousand times more dreadful than death
itself. Abandoned by all except his young wife, my grandfather saw
himself tied to a horse, followed by an unfeeling crowd, and whipped
on every street-corner in the sight of men, his brothers, and in the
neighborhood of numerous temples of a God of peace. When the wretch,
now forever disgraced, had satisfied the vengeance of man with his
blood, his tortures, and his cries, he had to be taken off the horse,
for he had become unconscious. Would to God that he had died! But
by one of those refinements of cruelty he was given his liberty. His
wife, pregnant at the time, vainly begged from door to door for work or
alms in order to care for her sick husband and their poor son, but who
would trust the wife of an incendiary and a disgraced man? The wife,
then, had to become a prostitute!"

Ibarra rose in his seat.

"Oh, don't get excited! Prostitution was not now a dishonor for her
or a disgrace to her husband; for them honor and shame no longer
existed. The husband recovered from his wounds and came with his wife
and child to hide himself in the mountains of this province. Here they
lived several months, miserable, alone, hated and shunned by all. The
wife gave birth to a sickly child, which fortunately died. Unable
to endure such misery and being less courageous than his wife, my
grandfather, in despair at seeing his sick wife deprived of all care
and assistance, hanged himself. His corpse rotted in sight of the son,
who was scarcely able to care for his sick mother, and the stench
from it led to their discovery. Her husband's death was attributed
to her, for of what is the wife of a wretch, a woman who has been
a prostitute besides, not believed to be capable? If she swears,
they call her a perjurer; if she weeps, they say that she is acting;
and that she blasphemes when she calls on God. Nevertheless, they
had pity on her condition and waited for the birth of another child
before they flogged her. You know how the friars spread the belief
that the Indians can only be managed by blows: read what Padre Gaspar
de San Agustin says! [134]

"A woman thus condemned will curse the day on which her child is born,
and this, besides prolonging her torture, violates every maternal
sentiment. Unfortunately, she brought forth a healthy child. Two months
afterwards, the sentence was executed to the great satisfaction of
the men who thought that thus they were performing their duty. Not
being at peace in these mountains, she then fled with her two sons
to a neighboring province, where they lived like wild beasts, hating
and hated. The elder of the two boys still remembered, even amid so
much misery, the happiness of his infancy, so he became a tulisan as
soon as he found himself strong enough. Before long the bloody name
of Balat spread from province to province, a terror to the people,
because in his revenge he did everything with blood and fire. The
younger, who was by nature kind-hearted, resigned himself to his
shameful fate along with his mother, and they lived on what the woods
afforded, clothing themselves in the cast-off rags of travelers. She
had lost her name, being known only as the convict, the prostitute,
the scourged. He was known as the son of his mother only, because
the gentleness of his disposition led every one to believe that he
was not the son of the incendiary and because any doubt as to the
morality of the Indians can be held reasonable.

"At last, one day the notorious Balat fell into the clutches of the
authorities, who exacted of him a strict accounting for his crimes,
and of his mother for having done nothing to rear him properly. One
morning the younger brother went to look for his mother, who had
gone into the woods to gather mushrooms and had not returned. He
found her stretched out on the ground under a cotton-tree beside the
highway, her face turned toward the sky, her eyes fixed and staring,
her clenched hands buried in the blood-stained earth. Some impulse
moved him to look up in the direction toward which the eyes of the
dead woman were staring, and he saw hanging from a branch a basket
and in the basket the gory head of his brother!"

"My God!" ejaculated Ibarra.

"That might have been the exclamation of my father," continued Elias
coldly. "The body of the brigand had been cut up and the trunk buried,
but his limbs were distributed and hung up in different towns. If
ever you go from Kalamba to Santo Tomas you will still see a withered
lomboy-tree where one of my uncle's legs hung rotting--nature has
blasted the tree so that it no longer grows or bears fruit. The same
was done with the other limbs, but the head, as the best part of the
person and the portion most easily recognizable, was hung up in front
of his mother's hut!"

Ibarra bowed his head.

"The boy fled like one accursed," Elias went on. "He fled from town
to town by mountain and valley. When he thought that he had reached
a place where he was not known, he hired himself out as a laborer in
the house of a rich man in the province of Tayabas. His activity and
the gentleness of his character gained him the good-will of all who
did not know his past, and by his thrift and economy he succeeded in
accumulating a little capital. He was still young, he thought his
sorrows buried in the past, and he dreamed of a happy future. His
pleasant appearance, his youth, and his somewhat unfortunate condition
won him the love of a young woman of the town, but he dared not ask
for her hand from fear that his past might become known. But love
is stronger than anything else and they wandered from the straight
path, so, to save the woman's honor, he risked everything by asking
for her in marriage. The records were sought and his whole past
became known. The girl's father was rich and succeeded in having him
prosecuted. He did not try to defend himself but admitted everything,
and so was sent to prison. The woman gave birth to twins, a boy and a
girl, who were nurtured in secret and made to believe that their father
was dead no difficult matter, since at a tender age they saw their
mother die, and they gave little thought to tracing genealogies. As our
maternal grandfather was rich our childhood passed happily. My sister
and I were brought up together, loving one another as only twins can
love when they have no other affections. When quite young I was sent
to study in the Jesuit College, and my sister, in order that we might
not be completely separated, entered the Concordia College. [135] After
our brief education was finished, since we desired only to be farmers,
we returned to the town to take possession of the inheritance left
us by our grandfather. We lived happily for a time, the future smiled
on us, we had many servants, our' fields produced abundant harvests,
and my sister was about to be married to a young man whom she adored
and who responded equally to her affection.

"But in a dispute over money and by reason of my haughty disposition
at that time, I alienated the good will of a distant relative, and
one day he east in my face my doubtful birth and shameful descent. I
thought it all a slander and demanded satisfaction. The tomb which
covered so much rottenness was again opened and to my consternation
the whole truth came out to overwhelm me. To add to our sorrow, we
had had for many years an old servant who had endured all my whims
without ever leaving us, contenting himself merely with weeping and
groaning at the rough jests of the other servants. I don't know how my
relative had found it out, but the fact is that he had this old man
summoned into court and made him tell the truth: that old servant,
who had clung to his beloved children, and whom I had abused many
times, was my father! Our happiness faded away, I gave up our fortune,
my sister lost her betrothed, and with our father we left the town
to seek refuge elsewhere. The thought that he had contributed to
our misfortunes shortened the old man's days, but before he died I
learned from his lips the whole story of the sorrowful past.

"My sister and I were left alone. She wept a great deal, but even
in the midst of such great sorrows as heaped themselves upon us,
she could not forget her love. Without complaining, without uttering
a word, she saw her former sweetheart married to another girl, but I
watched her gradually sicken without being able to console her. One
day she disappeared, and it was in vain that I sought everywhere,
in vain I made inquiries about her. About six months afterwards I
learned that about that time, after a flood on the lake, there had
been found in some rice fields bordering on the beach at Kalamba,
the corpse of a young woman who had been either drowned or murdered,
for she had had, so they said, a knife sticking in her breast. The
officials of that town published the fact in the country round about,
but no one came to claim the body, no young woman apparently had
disappeared. From the description they gave me afterward of her dress,
her ornaments, the beauty of her countenance, and her abundant hair,
I recognized in her my poor sister.

"Since then I have wandered from province to province. My reputation
and my history are in the mouths of many. They attribute great deeds
to me, sometimes calumniating me, but I pay little attention to men,
keeping ever on my way. Such in brief is my story, a story of one of
the judgments of men."

Elias fell silent as he rowed along.

"I still believe that you are not wrong," murmured Crisostomo in a low
voice, "when you say that justice should seek to do good by rewarding
virtue and educating the criminals. Only, it's impossible, Utopian! And
where could be secured so much money, so many new employees?"

"For what, then, are the priests who proclaim their mission of peace
and charity? Is it more meritorious to moisten the head of a child
with water, to give it salt to eat, than to awake in the benighted
conscience of a criminal that spark which God has granted to every
man to light him to his welfare? Is it more humane to accompany
a criminal to the scaffold than to lead him along the difficult
path from vice to virtue? Don't they also pay spies, executioners,
civil-guards? These things, besides being dirty, also cost money."

"My friend, neither you nor I, although we may wish it, can accomplish
this."

"Alone, it is true, we are nothing, but take up the cause of the
people, unite yourself with the people, be not heedless of their
cries, set an example to the rest, spread the idea of what is called
a fatherland!"

"What the people ask for is impossible. We must wait."

"Wait! To wait means to suffer!"

"If I should ask for it, the powers that be would laugh at me."

"But if the people supported you?"

"Never! I will never be the one to lead the multitude to get by force
what the government does not think proper to grant, no! If I should
ever see that multitude armed I would place myself on the side of the
government, for in such a mob I should not see my countrymen. I desire
the country's welfare, therefore I would build a schoolhouse. I seek
it by means of instruction, by progressive advancement; without light
there is no road."

"Neither is there liberty without strife!" answered Elias.

"The fact is that I don't want that liberty!"

"The fact is that without liberty there is no light," replied the
pilot with warmth. "You say that you are only slightly acquainted
with your country, and I believe you. You don't see the struggle that
is preparing, you don't see the cloud on the horizon. The fight is
beginning in the sphere of ideas, to descend later into the arena,
which will be dyed with blood. I hear the voice of God--woe unto them
who would oppose it! For them History has not been written!"

Elias was transfigured; standing uncovered, with his manly face
illuminated by the moon, there was something extraordinary about
him. He shook his long hair, and went on:

"Don't you see how everything is awakening? The sleep has lasted for
centuries, but one day the thunderbolt [136] struck, and in striking,
infused life. Since then new tendencies are stirring our spirits,
and these tendencies, today scattered, will some day be united, guided
by the God who has not failed other peoples and who will not fail us,
for His cause is the cause of liberty!"

A solemn silence followed these words, while the banka, carried along
insensibly by the waves, neared the shore.

Elias was the first to break the silence. "What shall I tell those
who sent me?" he asked with a change from his former tone.

"I've already told you: I greatly deplore their condition, but
they should wait. Evils are not remedied by other evils, and in our
misfortunes each of us has his share of blame."

Elias did not again reply, but dropped his head and rowed along until
they reached the shore, where he took leave of Ibarra: "I thank you,
sir, for the condescension you have shown me. Now, for your own good,
I beg of you that in the future you forget me and that you do not
recognize me again, no matter in what situation you may find me."

So saying, he drew away in the banka, rowing toward a thicket on the
shore. As he covered the long distance he remained silent, apparently
intent upon nothing but the thousands of phosphorescent diamonds
that the oar caught up and dropped back into the lake, where they
disappeared mysteriously into the blue waves.

When he had reached the shadow of the thicket a man came out of it
and approached the banka. "What shall I tell the capitan?" he asked.

"Tell him that Elias, if he lives, will keep his word," was the
sad answer.

"When will you join us, then?"

"When your capitan thinks that the hour of danger has come."

"Very well. Good-by!"

"If I don't die first," added Elias in a low voice.