by José Rizal
CHAPTER XXXIII
LA ULTIMA RAZON [69]
At last the great day arrived. During the morning Simoun had not lefthis house, busied as he was in packing his arms and his jewels. Hisfabulous wealth was already locked up in the big steel chest with itscanvas cover, there remaining only a few cases containing braceletsand pins, doubtless gifts that he meant to make. He was going to leavewith the Captain-General, who cared in no way to lengthen his stay,fearful of what people would say. Malicious ones insinuated that Simoundid not dare remain alone, since without the General's support he didnot care to expose himself to the vengeance of the many wretches hehad exploited, all the more reason for which was the fact that theGeneral who was coming was reported to be a model of rectitude andmight make him disgorge his gains. The superstitious Indians, on theother hand, believed that Simoun was the devil who did not wish toseparate himself from his prey. The pessimists winked maliciously andsaid, "The field laid waste, the locust leaves for other parts!" Onlya few, a very few, smiled and said nothing.
In the afternoon Simoun had given orders to his servant that if thereappeared a young man calling himself Basilio he should be admittedat once. Then he shut himself up in his room and seemed to becomelost in deep thought. Since his illness the jeweler's countenance hadbecome harder and gloomier, while the wrinkles between his eyebrowshad deepened greatly. He did not hold himself so erect as formerly,and his head was bowed.
So absorbed was he in his meditations that he did not hear a knockat the door, and it had to be repeated. He shuddered and called out,"Come in!"
It was Basilio, but how altered! If the change that had taken placein Simoun during those two months was great, in the young student itwas frightful. His cheeks were hollow, his hair unkempt, his clothingdisordered. The tender melancholy had disappeared from his eyes,and in its place glittered a dark light, so that it might be saidthat he had died and his corpse had revived, horrified with what ithad seen in eternity. If not crime, then the shadow of crime, hadfixed itself upon his whole appearance. Simoun himself was startledand felt pity for the wretch.
Without any greeting Basilio slowly advanced into the room, and ina voice that made the jeweler shudder said to him, "Senor Simoun,I've been a wicked son and a bad brother--I've overlooked the murderof one and the tortures of the other, and God has chastised me! Nowthere remains to me only one desire, and it is to return evil for evil,crime for crime, violence for violence!"
Simoun listened in silence, while Basilio continued; "Four months agoyou talked to me about your plans. I refused to take part in them,but I did wrong, you have been right. Three months and a half agothe revolution was on the point of breaking out, but I did not thencare to participate in it, and the movement failed. In payment formy conduct I've been arrested and owe my liberty to your effortsonly. You are right and now I've come to say to you: put a weaponin my hand and let the revolution come! I am ready to serve you,along with all the rest of the unfortunates."
The cloud that had darkened Simoun's brow suddenly disappeared, a rayof triumph darted from his eyes, and like one who has found what hesought he exclaimed: "I'm right, yes, I'm right! Right and Justiceare on my side, because my cause is that of the persecuted. Thanks,young man, thanks! You've come to clear away my doubts, to end myhesitation."
He had risen and his face was beaming. The zeal that had animated himwhen four months before he had explained his plans to Basilio in thewood of his ancestors reappeared in his countenance like a red sunsetafter a cloudy day.
"Yes," he resumed, "the movement failed and many have deserted mebecause they saw me disheartened and wavering at the supreme moment. Istill cherished something in my heart, I was not the master of allmy feelings, I still loved! Now everything is dead in me, no longeris there even a corpse sacred enough for me to respect its sleep. Nolonger will there be any vacillation, for you yourself, an idealisticyouth, a gentle dove, understand the necessity and come to spur me toaction. Somewhat late you have opened your eyes, for between you andme together we might have executed marvelous plans, I above in thehigher circles spreading death amid perfume and gold, brutalizing thevicious and corrupting or paralyzing the few good, and you below amongthe people, among the young men, stirring them to life amid blood andtears. Our task, instead of being bloody and barbarous, would havebeen holy, perfect, artistic, and surely success would have crownedour efforts. But no intelligence would support me, I encountered fearor effeminacy among the enlightened classes, selfishness among therich, simplicity among the youth, and only in the mountains, in thewaste places, among the outcasts, have I found my men. But no matternow! If we can't get a finished statue, rounded out in all its details,of the rough block we work upon let those to come take charge!"
Seizing the arm of Basilio, who was listening without comprehendingall he said, he led him to the laboratory where he kept his chemicalmixtures. Upon the table was placed a large case made of dark shagreen,similar to those that hold the silver plate exchanged as gifts amongthe rich and powerful. Opening this, Simoun revealed to sight, upona bottom of red satin, a lamp of very peculiar shape, Its body was inthe form of a pomegranate as large as a man's head, with fissures init exposing to view the seeds inside, which were fashioned of enormouscarnelians. The covering was of oxidized gold in exact imitation ofthe wrinkles on the fruit.
Simoun took it out with great care and, removing the burner,exposed to view the interior of the tank, which was lined withsteel two centimeters in thickness and which had a capacity of over aliter. Basilio questioned him with his eyes, for as yet he comprehendednothing. Without entering upon explanations, Simoun carefully took froma cabinet a flask and showed the young man the formula written upon it.
"Nitro-glycerin!" murmured Basilio, stepping backward and instinctivelythrusting his hands behind him. "Nitro-glycerin! Dynamite!" Beginningnow to understand, he felt his hair stand on end.
"Yes, nitro-glycerin!" repeated Simoun slowly, with his cold smile anda look of delight at the glass flask. "It's also something more thannitro-glycerin--it's concentrated tears, repressed hatred, wrongs,injustice, outrage. It's the last resort of the weak, force againstforce, violence against violence. A moment ago I was hesitating,but you have come and decided me. This night the most dangeroustyrants will be blown to pieces, the irresponsible rulers that hidethemselves behind God and the State, whose abuses remain unpunishedbecause no one can bring them to justice. This night the Philippineswill hear the explosion that will convert into rubbish the formlessmonument whose decay I have fostered."
Basilio was so terrified that his lips worked without producing anysound, his tongue was paralyzed, his throat parched. For the firsttime he was looking at the powerful liquid which he had heard talkedof as a thing distilled in gloom by gloomy men, in open war againstsociety. Now he had it before him, transparent and slightly yellowish,poured with great caution into the artistic pomegranate. Simoun lookedto him like the jinnee of the _Arabian Nights_ that sprang from thesea, he took on gigantic proportions, his head touched the sky, hemade the house tremble and shook the whole city with a shrug of hisshoulders. The pomegranate assumed the form of a colossal sphere,the fissures became hellish grins whence escaped names and glowingcinders. For the first time in his life Basilio was overcome withfright and completely lost his composure.
Simoun, meanwhile, screwed on solidly a curious and complicatedmechanism, put in place a glass chimney, then the bomb, and crownedthe whole with an elegant shade. Then he moved away some distance tocontemplate the effect, inclining his head now to one side, now tothe other, thus better to appreciate its magnificent appearance.
Noticing that Basilio was watching him with questioning and suspiciouseyes, he said, "Tonight there will be a fiesta and this lamp willbe placed in a little dining-kiosk that I've had constructed forthe purpose. The lamp will give a brilliant light, bright enough tosuffice for the illumination of the whole place by itself, but atthe end of twenty minutes the light will fade, and then when someone tries to turn up the wick a
cap of fulminate of mercury willexplode, the pomegranate will blow up and with it the dining-room,in the roof and floor of which I have concealed sacks of powder,so that no one shall escape."
There wras a moment's silence, while Simoun stared at his mechanismand Basilio scarcely breathed.
"So my assistance is not needed," observed the young man.
"No, you have another mission to fulfill," replied Simounthoughtfully. "At nine the mechanism will have exploded and the reportwill have been heard in the country round, in the mountains, in thecaves. The uprising that I had arranged with the artillerymen wasa failure from lack of plan and timeliness, but this time it won'tbe so. Upon hearing the explosion, the wretched and the oppressed,those who wander about pursued by force, will sally forth armed tojoin Cabesang Tales in Santa Mesa, whence they will fall upon the city,[70] while the soldiers, whom I have made to believe that the Generalis shamming an insurrection in order to remain, will issue from theirbarracks ready to fire upon whomsoever I may designate. Meanwhile,the cowed populace, thinking that the hour of massacre has come,will rush out prepared to kill or be killed, and as they have neitherarms nor organization, you with some others will put yourself attheir head and direct them to the warehouses of Quiroga, where Ikeep my rifles. Cabesang Tales and I will join one another in thecity and take possession of it, while you in the suburbs will seizethe bridges and throw up barricades, and then be ready to come toour aid to butcher not only those opposing the revolution but alsoevery man who refuses to take up arms and join us."
"All?" stammered Basilio in a choking voice.
"All!" repeated Simoun in a sinister tone. "All--Indians, mestizos,Chinese, Spaniards, all who are found to be without courage, withoutenergy. The race must be renewed! Cowardly fathers will only breedslavish sons, and it wouldn't be worth while to destroy and then try torebuild with rotten materials. What, do you shudder? Do you tremble,do you fear to scatter death? What is death? What does a hecatomb oftwenty thousand wretches signify? Twenty thousand miseries less, andmillions of wretches saved from birth! The most timid ruler does nothesitate to dictate a law that produces misery and lingering deathfor thousands and thousands of prosperous and industrious subjects,happy perchance, merely to satisfy a caprice, a whim, his pride,and yet you shudder because in one night are to be ended forever themental tortures of many helots, because a vitiated and paralytic peoplehas to die to give place to another, young, active, full of energy!
"What is death? Nothingness, or a dream? Can its specters be comparedto the reality of the agonies of a whole miserable generation? Theneedful thing is to destroy the evil, to kill the dragon andbathe the new people in the blood, in order to make it strong andinvulnerable. What else is the inexorable law of Nature, the law ofstrife in which the weak has to succumb so that the vitiated speciesbe not perpetuated and creation thus travel backwards? Away then witheffeminate scruples! Fulfill the eternal laws, foster them, and thenthe earth will be so much the more fecund the more it is fertilizedwith blood, and the thrones the more solid the more they rest uponcrimes and corpses. Let there be no hesitation, no doubtings! What isthe pain of death? A momentary sensation, perhaps confused, perhapsagreeable, like the transition from waking to sleep. What is it thatis being destroyed? Evil, suffering--feeble weeds, in order to set intheir place luxuriant plants. Do you call that destruction? I shouldcall it creating, producing, nourishing, vivifying!"
Such bloody sophisms, uttered with conviction and coolness, overwhelmedthe youth, weakened as he was by more than three months in prisonand blinded by his passion for revenge, so he was not in a mood toanalyze the moral basis of the matter. Instead of replying that theworst and cowardliest of men is always something more than a plant,because he has a soul and an intelligence, which, however vitiatedand brutalized they may be, can be redeemed; instead of replying thatman has no right to dispose of one life for the benefit of another,that the right to life is inherent in every individual like the rightto liberty and to light; instead of replying that if it is an abuse onthe part of governments to punish in a culprit the faults and crimesto which they have driven him by their own negligence or stupidity,how much more so would it be in a man, however great and howeverunfortunate he might be, to punish in a wretched people the faults ofits governments and its ancestors; instead of declaring that God alonecan use such methods, that God can destroy because He can create,God who holds in His hands recompense, eternity, and the future,to justify His acts, and man never; instead of these reflections,Basilio merely interposed a cant reflection.
"What will the world say at the sight of such butchery?"
"The world will applaud, as usual, conceding the right ofthe strongest, the most violent!" replied Simoun with his cruelsmile. "Europe applauded when the western nations sacrificed millionsof Indians in America, and not by any means to found nations much moremoral or more pacific: there is the North with its egotistic liberty,its lynch-law, its political frauds--the South with its turbulentrepublics, its barbarous revolutions, civil wars, pronunciamientos,as in its mother Spain! Europe applauded when the powerful Portugaldespoiled the Moluccas, it applauds while England is destroying theprimitive races in the Pacific to make room for its emigrants. Europewill applaud as the end of a drama, the close of a tragedy, isapplauded, for the vulgar do not fix their attention on principles,they look only at results. Commit the crime well, and you will beadmired and have more partizans than if you had carried out virtuousactions with modesty and timidity."
"Exactly," rejoined the youth, "what does it matter to me, after all,whether they praise or censure, when this world takes no care of theoppressed, of the poor, and of weak womankind? What obligations haveI to recognize toward society when it has recognized none toward me?"
"That's what I like to hear," declared the tempter triumphantly. Hetook a revolver from a case and gave it to Basilio, saying, "Atten o'clock wait for me in front of the church of St. Sebastian toreceive my final instructions. Ah, at nine you must be far, very farfrom Calle Anloague."
Basilio examined the weapon, loaded it, and placed it in the insidepocket of his coat, then took his leave with a curt, "I'll seeyou later."