Noli Me Tangere quotes

… and even in the Walled City, for at that time Capitan Tiago was considered one of the most hospitable of men, and it was well known that his house, like his country, shut its doors against nothing except commerce and all new or bold ideas.

Like an electric shock the announcement ran through the world of parasites, bores, and hangers-on, whom God in His infinite bounty creates and so kindly multiplies in Manila.

Some looked at once for shoe-polish, others for buttons and cravats, but all were especially concerned about how to greet the master of the house in the most familiar tone, in order to create an atmosphere of ancient friendship or, if occasion should arise, to …

Fray Dámaso, for the first time that evening, seemed to be very thoughtful. Suddenly he brought his fist down on the arm of his chair and with a heavy breath exclaimed: “

Either Religion is a fact or it is not!

That is, either the curates are free or they are not! The country is going to ruin, it is lost!” And again he struck the arm of his chair.

“The reason? Because one does not seek inspiration in order to debase himself and lie. One writer has been imprisoned for having put a very obvious truth into verse.

They may have called me a poet but they shan’t call me a fool.

”

“

He said that the lion’s son is also a lion.

He came very near to being exiled for it,” replied the strange youth, moving away from the group.

But all the seats were occupied;

Lucullus was not to sup in the house of Lucullus.

“Sit still, don’t get up!” said Capitan Tiago, placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “This fiesta is for the special purpose of giving thanks to the Virgin for your safe arrival. Oy! Bring on the tinola!

“Frankly, I like everything in those people, setting aside the national pride of each one. But before visiting a country, I tried to familiarize myself with its history, its Exodus, if I may so speak, and afterwards I found everything quite natural.

I have observed that the prosperity or misery of each people is in direct proportion to its liberties or its prejudices and, accordingly, to the sacrifices or the selfishness of its forefathers.

”

“Concerning the manner in which the neck and wing of a chicken in a friar’s plate of soup may disturb the merriment of a feast.” Among his notes there appeared these observations: “

In the Philippines the most unnecessary person at a dinner is he who gives it, for they are quite capable of beginning by throwing the host into the street and then everything will go on smoothly.

Under present conditions it would perhaps be a good thing not to allow the Filipinos to leave the country, and even not to teach them to read.”

“Well, I thought you knew about it,” muttered the soldier in a tone of compassion as he saw what was passing in Ibarra’s mind. “I supposed that you—but be brave!

Here one cannot be honest and keep out of jail.

”

She was white, perhaps too much so, and whenever she raised her downcast eyes there shone forth a spotless soul.

When she smiled so as to show her small white teeth the beholder realized that the rose is only a flower and ivory but the elephant’s tusk.

From out the filmy piña draperies around her white and shapely neck there blinked, as the Tagalogs say, the bright eyes of a collar of diamonds.

This was what the wretched young man saw before him. The lights in the house opposite were extinguished, the music and the noises ceased, but Ibarra still heard the anguished cry of his father calling upon his son in the hour of his death.

Silence had now blown its hollow breath over the city, and all things seemed to sleep in the embrace of nothingness.

The cockcrow alternated with the strokes of the clocks in the church towers and the mournful cries of the weary sentinels. A waning moon began to appear, and everything seemed to be at rest;

There is no need to be on bad terms with the good God when one is prosperous on earth, when one has never had any direct dealings with Him and has never lent Him any money.

Capitan Tiago himself had never offered any prayers to Him, even in his greatest difficulties, for he was rich and his gold prayed for him.

For masses and supplications high and powerful priests had been created;

That he was at peace with God was beyond doubt—almost like religion itself.

There is no need to be on bad terms with the good God when one is prosperous on earth, when one has never had any direct dealings with Him and has never lent Him any money.

Capitan Tiago himself had never offered any prayers to Him, even in his greatest difficulties, for he was rich and his gold prayed for him. For masses and supplications high and powerful priests had been created;

So Capitan Tiago, even though he was a prudent and pious individual, took care not to approach the kris of St. Michael.

“Let’s take no chances,” he would say to himself, “I know that he’s an archangel, but I don’t trust him, no, I don’t trust him.”

Not a year passed without his joining with an orchestra in the pilgrimage to the wealthy shrine of Antipolo.

even though we shall see further along that it is not sufficient for men to have goodwill in order to live in peace.

The irreverent considered him a fool, the poor regarded him as a heartless and cruel exploiter of misery and want, and his inferiors saw in him a despot and a tyrant.

As to the women, ah, the women! Accusing rumors buzzed through the wretched nipa huts, and it was said that wails and sobs might be heard mingled with the weak cries of an infant.

Afterwards, she would be so merry and talk so sweetly in her childish simplicity that the enraptured Capitan Tiago could do nothing but bless the saints of Obando and advise everyone to purchase beautiful works of sculpture.

In southern countries the girl of thirteen or fourteen years changes into a woman as the bud of the night becomes a flower in the morning.

At this period of change, so full of mystery and romance, María Clara was placed, by the advice of the curate of Binondo, in the nunnery of St. Catherine in order to receive strict religious training from the Sisters.

he recalled those of the colonies, where they are well supplied and tended, and all open to the public.

Ibarra turned away his gaze toward the old Manila surrounded still by its walls and moats like a sickly girl wrapped in the garments of her grandmother’s better days.

Then the sight of the sea losing itself in the distance!

You will now do the same for those who come after you, and you can treble it, since you are going to rich countries.” Then he had added with a smile, “

They come here seeking wealth, go you to their country to seek also that other wealth which we lack! But remember that all that glitters is not gold.

” The old man had died on that spot.

That man was an old priest whose words of farewell still resounded in his ears: “

Do not forget that if knowledge is the heritage of mankind, it is only the courageous who inherit it,

” he had reminded him. “I have tried to pass on to you what I got from my teachers, the sum of which I have endeavored to increase and transmit to the coming generation as far as in me lay.

The old man regarded him sadly. “Keep it clearly before you,” he answered, gasping for breath. “

Our power will last as long as it is believed in.

If they attack us, the government will say, ‘They attack them because they see in them an obstacle to their liberty, so then let us preserve them.’ ”

But when his Excellency found himself alone he stopped smiling. “Ah, if this people were not so stupid, I would put a curb on their Reverences,” he sighed to himself. “

But every people deserves its fate, so let’s do as everybody else does.

”

To the good Lord they paid little attention, as the saints gave them enough to do.

For those poor folk God had come to be like those unfortunate monarchs who are surrounded by courtiers to whom alone the people render homage.

San Diego was a kind of Rome:

She could not endure the young people, so from there she would scrutinize and mock the passing girls, who, being afraid of her, would hurry by in confusion, holding their breath the while, and not daring to raise their eyes.

One great virtue Doña Consolation possessed, and this was that she had evidently never looked in a mirror.

These were the rulers of the town of San Diego.

We ourselves differ from all the rest. In spite of the inscriptions on the tombs, hardly anyone believes that the dead rest, and much less, that they rest in peace.

The most optimistic fancies his forefathers still roasting in purgatory and, if it turns out that he himself be not completely damned, he will yet be able to associate with them for many years.

If anyone would contradict let him visit the churches and cemeteries of the country on All Saints’ day and he will be convinced.

The sun was setting, and over the eastern sky was flung a heavy curtain of clouds. A dry wind shook the treetops and made the bamboo clumps creak. Ibarra went bareheaded, but no tear wet his eyes nor did any sigh escape from his breast.

He moved as if fleeing from something, perhaps the shade of his father, perhaps the approaching storm.

He crossed through the town to the outskirts on the opposite side and turned toward the old house which he had not entered for so many years.

Inside, the sacristans were preparing a catafalque, bordered with candles placed in wooden sockets. Two large tables had been placed one above the other and covered with black cloth across which ran white stripes, with here and there a skull painted on it.

“Is that for the souls or for the candles?”

inquired the old man, but noticing two boys, one about ten and the other seven, he turned to them without awaiting an answer from the sacristans.

“But, madam, I am not a believer in hereditary monarchy. By reason of the Chinese blood which I have received from my mother I believe a little like the Chinese:

I honor the father on account of the son and not the son on account of the father.

I believe that each one should receive the reward or punishment for his own deeds, not for those of another.”

The Sage Tasio, watching the young woman leave, continued: “Now that she is not here, we can consider this matter more rationally. Doray, even though a little superstitious, is a good Catholic, and I don’t care to root out the faith from her heart.

A pure and simple faith is as distinct from fanaticism as the flame from smoke or music from discords: only the fools and the deaf confuse them.

Between ourselves we can say that the idea of purgatory is good, holy, and rational. It perpetuates the union of those who were and those who are, leading thus to greater purity of life. The evil is in its abuse.

A lurid flash, followed by frightful thunder and filling the air with deadly currents, lighted the old man as he stretched his hand toward the sky and cried out:

“Thou protestest! I know that Thou art not cruel, I know that I must only name Thee Good!”

The flashes of lightning became more frequent and the storm increased in violence.

The rich and powerful had discharged the duties their positions imposed upon them. On the following day they would hear three masses said by each priest and would give two pesos for another, besides buying a bull of indulgences for the dead.

Truly, divine justice is not nearly so exacting as human.

But the poor and indigent who earn scarcely enough to keep themselves alive and who also have to pay tribute to the petty officials, clerks, and soldiers, that they may be allowed to live in peace, sleep not so tranquilly as gentle poets who have …

The Church does not gratuitously save the beloved souls for you nor does it distribute indulgences without payment. You must buy them, so tonight instead of sleeping you should work. Think of your daughter, so poorly clothed! Fast, for heaven is dear!

Decidedly, it seems that the poor enter not into heaven.

Such thoughts wander through the space enclosed between the rough mats spread out on the bamboo floor and the ridge of the roof, from which hangs the hammock wherein the baby swings.

He has gradually stripped her of her few jewels to pay the cost of his vices, and when the suffering Sisa no longer had anything that he might take to satisfy his whims, he had begun to maltreat her.

Weak in character, with more heart than intellect, she knew only how to love and to weep.

Her husband was a god and her sons were his angels, so he, knowing to what point he was loved and feared, conducted himself like all false gods: daily he became more cruel, more inhuman, more wilful.

His hunger at length appeased, he remembered to ask for the boys. Then Sisa smiled happily and resolved that she would not eat that night, because what remained was not enough for three.

The father had asked for their sons and that for her was better than eating.

Soon he picked up his gamecock and started away.

She was not superstitious, but she had heard so much about presentiments and black dogs that terror seized her. She shut the door hastily and sat down by the light.

Night favors credulity and the imagination peoples the air with specters.

She tried to pray, to call upon the Virgin and upon God to watch over her sons, especially her little Crispín.

“What can I say but yes?” said Sisa as she embraced her son. She noted, however, that in their future the boy took no account of his father, and shed silent tears.

Basilio went on talking of his plans with the confidence of the years that see only what they wish for.

To everything Sisa said yes—everything appeared good.

Nor would the cause of education gain anything, but the opposite, for everybody would take the curate’s side, they would curse me and call me presumptuous, proud, vain, a bad Christian, uncultured, and if not those things, then anti-Spanish and a filibuster.

Of a schoolmaster neither learning nor zeal is expected; resignation, humility, and inaction only are asked.

May God pardon me if I have gone against my conscience and my judgement, but I was born in this country, I have to live, I have a mother, so I have abandoned myself to my fate like a corpse tossed about by the waves.”

… the mysteries and the canticles, but I fear that my efforts will come to grief with the Catechism of Padre Astete, since the greater part of the pupils do not distinguish between the questions and the answers, nor do they understand what either may mean.

Thus we shall die, thus those unborn will do, while in Europe they will talk of progress.

”

On the way home, when Don Filipo was cursing his bad luck, old Tasio said to him: “The blame is ours!

You didn’t protest when they gave you a slave for a chief, and I, fool that I am, had forgotten it!

”

she forgot everything. She was not ignorant of the boldness of those men, who did not lower their gaze before even the richest people of the town. What would they do now to her and to her sons, accused of theft!

The civil-guards are not men, they are civil-guards; they do not listen to supplications and they are accustomed to see tears.

Sisa instinctively raised her eyes toward the sky, that sky which smiled with brilliance indescribable, and in whose transparent blue floated some little fleecy clouds. She stopped to control the trembling that had seized her whole body.

Upon finding herself between them she felt as if she would die of shame. No one indeed was coming along the road, but how about the air and the light of day?

True shame encounters eyes everywhere.

She covered her face with her pañuelo and walked along blindly, weeping in silence at her disgrace. She had felt misery and knew what it was to be abandoned by everyone, even her own husband, but until now she had considered herself honored and respected:

… on the afternoon of All Saints, but the comments reached a climax when, on the evening of the third day, they saw him alight before the home of his fiancée and extend a polite greeting to the priest, who was just entering the same house.

Sisa and her sons were forgotten by all.

If we should now go into the home of María Clara, a beautiful nest set among trees of orange and ilang-ilang, we should surprise the two young people at a window overlooking the lake, shadowed by flowers and climbing vines which exhaled a delicate perfume.

“It is said, señora,” answered the strange youth, “that the nests of those birds are invisible and that they have the power of rendering invisible anyone who possesses one of them.

Just as the soul can only be seen in the pure mirror of the eyes, so also in the mirror of the water alone can their nests be looked upon.

”

A cry of horror broke from the lips of all. But like a flash of lightning another body shot into the water so quickly that there was hardly time to realize that it was Ibarra.

María Clara did not swoon only for the reason that the Filipino women do not yet know how to do so.

The anxious watchers saw the water become colored and dyed with blood.

Afterwards, the merry talk was resumed in a lively manner, full of warmth, beneath those branches so little accustomed to hear so many voices.

The trees seemed sad, while the vines swung back and forth as if to say, “Farewell, youth! Farewell, dream of a day!”

Now in the light of the great red torches of bamboo and with the sound of the guitars let us leave them on the road to the town.

The groups grow smaller, the lights are extinguished, the songs die away, and the guitar becomes silent as they approach the abodes of men.

Put on the mask now that you are once more amongst your kind!

“

Because I’m not writing for this generation, but for other ages.

If this generation could read, it would burn my books, the labor of my whole life. But the generation that deciphers these characters will be an intelligent generation, it will understand and say, ‘Not all were asleep in the night of our ancestors!’

Be careful! Eve was a good woman, sprung from the hands of God—they say that Doña Consolacion is evil and it’s not known whose hands she came from!

In order to be good, a woman needs to have been, at least sometime, either a maid or a mother.

”

“Because the sensible people,” he continued with bitter irony, “would take you for a madman also.

The people consider madmen those who do not think as they do, so they hold me as such, which I appreciate, because the day in which they think me returned to sanity, they will deprive me of the little liberty that I’ve purchased at the expense of the reputation of being a sane individual.

And who knows but they are right? I do not live according to their rules, my principles and ideals are different.

“

Nobody loves the naked truth!

” answered the old man. “That is good in theory and practicable in the world of which youth dreams. Here is the schoolmaster, who has struggled in a vacuum;

“

This people does not complain because it has no voice, it does not move because it is lethargic, and you say that it does not suffer because you haven’t seen how its heart bleeds.

But some day you will see this, you will hear its complaints, and then woe unto those who found their strength on ignorance and fanaticism! Woe unto those who rejoice in deceit and labor during the night, believing that all are asleep!

You are among evil conditions, alone, elevated, the ground shakes, the sky presages a storm, and the top of your family tree has shown that it draws the thunderbolt.

It is not courage, but foolhardiness, to fight alone against all that exists.

No one censures the pilot who makes for a port at the first gust of the whirlwind. To stoop as the bullet passes is not cowardly—it is worse to defy it only to fall, never to rise again.”

In less than a fortnight she had succeeded in recovering that frank confidence, that childish prattle, which seemed to have been benumbed between the narrow walls of the nunnery.

It might be said that on leaving the cocoon the butterfly recognized all the flowers, for it seemed to be enough for her to spread her wings for a moment and warm herself in the sun’s rays to lose all the stiffness of the chrysalis.

This new life manifested itself in her whole nature. Everything she found good and beautiful, and she showed her love with that maiden modesty which, having never been conscious of any but pure thoughts, knows not the meaning of false blushes.

In consequence, the orator employed all his eloquence to the end that other litigants should give up their extravagant claims, saying to them, “

Believe me, in a lawsuit the winner is left without a camisa.

” But he had succeeded in convincing no one, even though he cited the Romans.

Pray, let us pray for the soul of the curate! I took him the finest fruits, for my garden was full of flowers and I had two sons!

I had a garden, I used to take care of my flowers, and I had two sons!

”

“

I believe it, since you understand one about as well as you do the other!

” And the impious old man moved away without paying any attention to the insults and the direful prophecies that the irritated leader offered concerning his future existence.

A school is being founded, and the school is the basis of society, the school is the book in which is written the future of the nations!

Show us the schools of a people and We will show you what that people is.

“People of San Diego! Thank God, who has given you holy priests, and the government of the mother country, which untiringly spreads civilization through these fertile isles, protected beneath her glorious mantle!

“All of us have them, sir, from the smallest insect up to man, from the poorest and humblest to the richest and most powerful!

Enmity is the law of life!

”

“You have enemies in high and low places,” continued Elías, without heeding the young man’s words. “You are planning a great undertaking, you have a past.

Your father and your grandfather had enemies because they had passions, and in life it is not the criminal who provokes the most hate but the honest man.

”

“

Believing in accidents is like believing in miracles; both presuppose that God does not know the future.

What is an accident? An event that no one has at all foreseen. What is a miracle? A contradiction, an overturning of natural laws. Lack of foresight and contradiction in the Intelligence that rules the machinery of the world indicate two great defects.”

“

I have had to believe greatly in God, because I have lost faith in men

,” answered the pilot, avoiding the question.

“I can’t help it,” said the alcalde as he wiped his lips. “

Opportunity, while it doesn’t always make the thief, makes the poet.

In my youth I composed verses which were really not bad.”

It would be well for him to be able to sell hats and cigar-cases so that he wouldn’t have to beg alms, as the curate does here every year in the name of the Pope.

It always fills me with compassion to see a saint poor, so I give all my savings.

”

“You’re wrong,” replied another. “

Nero was a great artist, while Padre Dámaso is only a tiresome preacher.

”

“

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.”

“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!”

“

A father’s memory is more sacred!

” replied Capitana María. “No one, not even the Pope himself, much less Padre Dámaso, may profane such a holy memory.”

“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.”

“

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.

“

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.

but suddenly its bed becomes narrower, sharp stones block the way, hoary logs fall across it forming a barrier—then the stream rises and roars with its waves boiling and scattering clouds of foam, it beats against the rocks and rushes into the abyss!

She wanted to pray, but who in despair can pray?

Prayers are for the hours of hope, and when in the absence of this we turn to God it is only with complaints. “My God,” cried her heart, “why dost Thou thus cut a man off, why dost Thou deny him the love of others?

She wanted to pray, but who in despair can pray?

Prayers are for the hours of hope, and when in the absence of this we turn to God it is only with complaints.

“My God,” cried her heart, “why dost Thou thus cut a man off, why dost Thou deny him the love of others? Thou dost not deny him thy sunlight and thy air nor hide from him the sight of thy heaven!

Your great faith and your austerity avail you nothing, nor the fact that you died for the truth and your convictions, all of which men forget when they consider nothing more than their own merits.

It avails more to preach badly in the churches than to be the eloquent voice crying in the desert, this is what the Philippines teaches you!

If you had eaten turkey instead of locusts and had worn garments of silk rather than hides, if you had joined a Corporation—”

“Huh, in the sacristy they leave him in a corner among the cobwebs!”

So St. John, once on the ground, became one of the townsfolk.

As the Magdalene set out the women joined the procession, only that instead of beginning with the children, as among the men, the old women came first and the girls filled up the lines to the car of the Virgin, behind which came the curate …

Two sharp cuts of the whip on her shoulder made her stand up, and it was not merely a cry but a howl that the unfortunate woman uttered. Her thin camisa was torn, her skin broken, and the blood was flowing.

The sight of blood arouses the tiger; the blood of her victim aroused Doña Consolacion.

“Dance, damn you, dance! Evil to the mother who bore you!” she cried. “Dance, or I’ll flog you to death!” She then caught Sisa with one hand and, whipping her with the other, began to dance about.

Aunt Isabel reflects, shakes her head, and murmurs, “

To grow, to grow is a greater miracle than to sweat. All of us sweat, but not all of us grow.

”

“Silly!” retorts Sinang. “Everyone who charges high is not learned. Look at Dr. Guevara; after performing a bungling operation that cost the life of both mother and child, he charged the widower fifty pesos.

The thing to know is how to charge!

”

Her eyes, too, had suffered considerably, so that she squinted frequently in looking any distance.

Her disposition was the only part of her that remained intact.

At the end of a half-hour’s conversation they understood and accepted each other.

He was lame, toothless, and bald! Don Tiburcio preferred to take charge of her rather than to become a public charge from hunger. When some friends joked with him about it, he answered, “

Give me bread and call me a fool.

”

When he was threatened with prosecution for passing himself off as a physician he was not resentful nor did he complain. Recognizing the justness of the charge against him, he merely answered, “

But it’s necessary to live!

”

After that she would say on every possible occasion, “

I’m the only ammonia in this tiresome country, speaking figuratively.

So Señor N. de N., a Peninsular gentleman of quality, told me.”

… was so pleased with her husband that one day when he stepped on the train of her gown she did not apply her penal code to the extent of taking his set of false teeth away from him, but contented herself with merely exclaiming, “

If you weren’t lame you’d even step on my corset!

”—an article of apparel she did not wear.

“Just as I was saying,” the curate in turn interrupted, “I think that the confession that María Clara made brought on the favorable crisis which has saved her life.

A clean conscience is worth more than a lot of medicine.

Don’t think that I deny the power of science, above all, that of surgery, but a clean conscience! Read the pious books and you’ll see how many cures are effected merely by a clean confession.”

On one side is the gateway, generally tended by an old woman whose business it is to collect the sa pintu, or admission fee. Of this contribution, which everyone pays, the government receives a part, amounting to some hundreds of thousands of pesos a year.

It is said that with this money, with which vice pays its license, magnificent schoolhouses are erected, bridges and roads are constructed, prizes for encouraging agriculture and commerce are distributed: blessed be the vice that produces such good results!

In this first enclosure are the vendors of buyos, cigars, sweetmeats, and foodstuffs. There swarm the boys in company with their fathers or uncles, who carefully initiate them into the secrets of life.

Sic transit gloria mundi! The loser returns to the home where his anxious wife and ragged children await him, without his money or his chicken.

Of all that golden dream, of all those vigils during months from the dawn of day to the setting of the sun, of all those fatigues and labors, there results only a peseta, the ashes left from so much smoke.

In this foyer even the least intelligent takes part in the discussion, while the man of most hasty judgment conscientiously investigates the matter, weighs, examines, extends the wings, feels the muscles of the cocks.

He who hears this from afar then knows that the winner is the one against which the odds were placed, or the joy would not be so lasting.

The same happens with the nations: when a small one gains a victory over a large one, it is sung and recounted from age to age.

“You see now!” said Bruno dejectedly to his brother, “if you had listened to me we should now have a hundred pesos. You’re the cause of our being penniless.”

“

Clarita, bear this in mind: never marry a man that doesn’t wear trousers. You expose yourself to insults, even from the dogs!

”

“

He is a bad doctor, sir, who seeks only to destroy or stifle the symptoms without an effort to examine into the origin of the malady, or, when knowing it, fears to attack it.

The Civil Guard has only this purpose: the repression of crime by means of terror and force, a purpose that it does not fulfil or accomplishes only incidentally.

Is this the law of Jesus Christ? For this it was hardly necessary that a God should allow Himself to be crucified or that we should be obliged to show eternal gratitude.

Superstition existed long before⁠—it was only necessary to systematize it and raise the price of its merchandise!

“You will tell me that however imperfect our religion may be at present, it is preferable to what we had before.

For it we have given over to its priests our best towns, our fields, and still give up our savings by the purchase of religious objects.

An article of foreign manufacture has been introduced among us, we have paid well for it, and we are even.

“If you mean the protection that they afforded us against the encomenderos, I might answer that through them we fell under the power of the encomenderos.

“

Wait! To wait means to suffer!

”

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!

”

“What can we do?

Gambling hasn’t yet been made compulsory among the dead.

”

“I will answer you like an old scholastic,” replied the Sage, lying down again and resuming his jesting expression. “

There are three ways in which one may accompany the course of progress: in front of, beside, or behind it.

The first guide it, the second suffer themselves to be carried along with it, and the last are dragged after it—and to these last the Jesuits belong.

“

The dying need no medicines; you who remain need them.

Tell Don Crisóstomo to come and see me tomorrow, for I have some important things to say to him. In a few days I am going away. The Philippines is in darkness!”

it was the same Sister Puté who had raised such a disturbance while Padre Dámaso was preaching.

Children and old women are the representatives of curiosity in this world: the former from a wish to know things and the latter from a desire to recollect them.

Apparently there was no one to apply a slipper to Sister Puté, for she remained gazing out into the distance with wrinkled eyebrows. Then she rinsed out her mouth, spat noisily, and crossed herself.

“

Pity for the excommunicated? It’s a sin to take pity on the enemies of God, the curates say.

Don’t you remember? In the cemetery he walked about as if he was in a corral.”

She had succeeded in persuading her husband, whose victory had made him amiable, to let her witness the inquiry and perhaps the accompanying tortures.

The hyena smelt the carrion and licked herself, wearied by the delay.

The gobernadorcillo was very compunctious. His seat, that large chair placed under his Majesty’s portrait, was vacant, being apparently intended for someone else. About nine o’clock the curate arrived, pale and scowling.

The Filipinos know what this means: in Tagalog they call it timbaín. We do not know who invented this procedure, but we judge that it must be quite ancient.

Truth at the bottom of a well may perhaps be a sarcastic interpretation.

In the center of the yard rose the picturesque curb of a well, roughly fashioned from living rock. A rude apparatus of bamboo in the form of a well-sweep served for drawing up the thick, slimy, foul-smelling water.

Tears long repressed started into his eyes, and he bowed his head and wept without having the consolation of being able to hide his grief, tied as he was, nor of having anyone in whom his sorrow awoke compassion.

Now he had neither country, nor home, nor love, nor friends, nor future!

From a slight elevation a man gazed upon the sad procession. He was an old man, pale and emaciated, wrapped in a woolen blanket, supporting himself with difficulty on a staff.

In the air there seemed to be heard investigations, condemnations, and the cries from the torture chamber; Marianas and Bagumbayan presented themselves wrapped in a torn and bloody veil, fishers and fished confused.

Fate pictured the event to the imaginations of the Manilans like certain Chinese fans⁠—one side painted black, the other gilded with bright-colored birds and flowers.

In the convents the greatest excitement prevailed. Carriages were harnessed, the Provincials exchanged visits and held secret conferences; they presented themselves in the palaces to offer their aid to the government in its perilous crisis. Again there was talk of comets and omens.

Whew! “Ite, maledicti, in ignem kalanis!” he exclaimed, hurling it into the flames. “Revolutions and Copernicus! Crimes on crimes! If I hadn’t come in time! Liberty in the Philippines! Ta, ta, ta! What books! Into the fire!”

Harmless books, written by simple authors, were burned; not even the most innocent work escaped.

Cousin Primitivo was right: the righteous suffer for the sinners.

De Espadaña, who looked at the alferez with respect and fear, and avoided his gaze; and Doña Victorina, swelling with indignation. Linares had not yet come; as a personage of importance, he had to arrive later than the others.

There are creatures so simple that by being an hour behind time they transform themselves into great men.

In the group of women María Clara was the subject of a murmured conversation. The maiden had welcomed them all ceremoniously, without losing her air of sadness.

“To live out in peace the days of life that remain to you. You have friends in Spain, you are rich, you can get yourself pardoned.

In every way a foreign country is for us a better fatherland than our own.

”

Elías shook his head sadly and answered: “Impossible! It’s true that

I cannot love or be happy in my country, but I can suffer and die in it, and perhaps for it⁠—that is always something.

May the misfortunes of my native land be my own misfortunes and, although no noble sentiment unites us, although our hearts do not beat to a single name, at least may the common calamity bind me to my countrymen, at least may I weep over …

“

Because in some other country you could be happy while I could not, because you are not made to suffer

, and because you would hate your country if some day you should see yourself ruined in its cause, and to hate one’s native land is the greatest of calamities.”

We, during three centuries, have extended them our hands, we have asked love of them, we have yearned to call them brothers, and how do they answer us? With insults and jests, denying us even the chance character of human beings.

There is no God, there is no hope, there is no humanity; there is nothing but the right of might!

” Ibarra was nervous, his whole body trembled.

it only asks for a little freedom, justice, and affection. You will be supported by the malcontents, the criminals, the desperate, but the people will hold aloof. You are mistaken if, seeing all dark, you think that the country is desperate.

The country suffers, yes, but it still hopes and trusts and will only rebel when it has lost its patience, that is, when those who govern it wish it to do so, and that time is yet distant.

I myself will not follow you, never will I resort to such extreme measures while I see hope in men.”

“You won’t get to the town alive, boy! Tonight we’re going to have chicken and wild boar’s meat. My sons will ask for you when they come from the field.”

“You have many sons while my mother has only us two. Perhaps she already believes that I’m dead! Tonight I want to give her a pleasant surprise, a Christmas gift, a son.”

The old man felt the tears springing up into his eyes, so, placing his hands on the boy’s head, he said with emotion: “You’re like an old man! Go, look for your mother, give her the Christmas gift—from God, as you say.

“

I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land! You, who have it to see, welcome it⁠—and forget not those who have fallen during the night!

”

For the satisfaction of the groundlings we should gladly kill off all of them, beginning with Padre Salví and ending with Doña Victorina, but this is not possible.

Let them live! Anyhow, the country, not ourselves, has to support them.

After María Clara entered the nunnery, Padre Dámaso left his town to live in Manila, as did also Padre Salví, who, while he awaits a vacant miter, preaches sometimes in the church of St.

The tempest raged furiously nearly the whole night, nor did a single star shine through the darkness. The despairing plaints continued to mingle with the soughing of the wind, but they found Nature and man alike deaf;

God had hidden himself and heard not.

On the following day, after the dark clouds had cleared away and the sun shone again brightly in the limpid sky, there stopped at the door of the nunnery of St.