by José Rizal
When they were well settled in Manila, Rodoreda received orders toengrave on a plate of black marble:
"Dr. De Espadana,Specialist in All Kinds of Diseases."
"Do you wish me to be put in prison?" asked Don Tiburcio in terror.
"I wish people to call you doctor and me doctora," said Dona Victorina,"but it must be understood that you treat only very rare cases."
The senora signed her own name, Victorina de los Reyes de deEspadana. Neither the engraver of her visiting cards nor her husbandcould make her renounce that second "de."
"If I use only one 'de,' people will think you haven't any,imbecile!" she said to Don Tiburcio.
Then the number of gewgaws grew, the layer of rice powder wasthickened, the ribbons and laces were piled higher, and Dona Victorinaregarded with more and more disdain her poor compatriots who had nothad the fortune to marry husbands of so high estate as her own.
All this sublimity, however, did not prevent her being each dayolder and more ridiculous. Every time Captain Tiago was with her, andremembered that she had once really inspired him with love, he sent apeso to the church for a mass of thanksgiving. But he had much respectfor Don Tiburcio, because of his title of specialist, and listenedattentively to the rare sentences the doctor's impediment of speechlet him pronounce. For this reason and because the doctor did notlavish his visits on people at large he had chosen him to treat Maria.
As to young Linares, Dona Victorina, wishing a steward from thepeninsula, her husband remembered a cousin of his, a law student atMadrid, who was considered the most astute of the family. They sentfor him, and the young man had just arrived.
Father Salvi entered while Don Santiago and his guests were at thesecond breakfast. They talked of Maria Clara, who was sleeping;they talked of the journey, and Dona Victorina exclaimed loudlyat the costumes of the provincials, their houses of nipa, andtheir bamboo bridges. She did not omit to inform the curate ofher friendly relations with the "Segundo Cabo," with this alcalde,with that councillor, all people of distinction, who had for her thegreatest consideration.
"If you had come two days earlier, Dona Victorina," said CaptainTiago, profiting by a slight pause in the lady's brilliant loquacity,"you would have found His Excellency the governor general seated inthis very place."
"What! His Excellency was here? And at your house? Impossible!"
"I repeat that he was seated exactly here. If you had come two daysago----"
"Ah! What a pity Clarita did not fall ill sooner!" she cried. "Youhear, cousin! His Excellency was here! You know, Don Santiago, thatat Madrid our cousin was the friend of ministers and dukes, and thathe dined with the Count del Campanario."
"The Duke de la Torre, Victorina," suggested her husband.
"It is the same thing!"
"Shall I find Father Damaso at his pueblo to-day?" Linares askedBrother Salvi.
"Father Damaso is here, and may be with us at any moment."
"I'm very glad! I have a letter for him, and if a happy chance hadnot brought me here, I should have come expressly to see him."
Meanwhile the "happy chance," that is to say, poor Maria Clara,had awakened.
"Come, de Espadana, come, see Clarita," said Dona Victorina. "Itis for you he does this," she went on, turning to Captain Tiago;"my husband attends only people of quality."
The sick-room was almost in obscurity, the windows closed, for fearof draughts; two candles, burning before an image of the Virgin ofAntipolo, sent out feeble glimmers.
Enveloped in multiple folds of white, the lovely figure of Maria layon her bed of kamagon, behind curtains of jusi and pina. Her abundanthair about her face increased its transparent pallor, as did theradiance of her great, sad eyes. Beside her were her two friends,and Andeng holding a lily branch.
De Espadana felt her pulse, examined her tongue, asked a question ortwo, and nodded his head.
"Sh--she is s--sick, but she can be c--cured."
Dona Victorina looked proudly at their audience.
"Lichen with m--m--milk, for the m--m--morning, syrup ofm--m--marshmallow, and two tablets of cynoglossum."
"Take courage, Clarita," said Dona Victorina, approaching the bed,"we have come to cure you. I'm going to present to you our cousin."
Linares, absorbed, was gazing at those eloquent eyes, which seemedto be searching for some one; he did not hear Dona Victorina.
"Senor Linares," said the curate, drawing him out of his abstraction,"here is Father Damaso."
It was indeed he; but it was not the Father Damaso of heretofore,so vigorous and alert. He walked uncertainly, and he was pale and sad.
XXXVI.
PROJECTS.
With no word for any one else, Father Damaso went straight to Maria'sbed and took her hand.
"Maria," he said with great tenderness, and tears gushed from his eyes,"Maria, my child, you must not die!"
Maria Clara looked at him with some astonishment. No one of those whoknew the Franciscan would have believed him capable of such displayof feeling.
He could not say another word, but moved aside the draperies and wentout among the plants of Maria's balcony, crying like a child.
"How he loves his god-daughter!" every one thought.
Father Salvi, motionless and silent, watched him intently.
When the father's grief seemed more controlled, Dona Victorinopresented young Linares. Father Damaso, saying nothing, looked himover from head to foot, took the letter, read it without appearingto comprehend, and asked:
"Well, who are you?"
"Alfonso Linares, the godson of your brother-in-law----" stammered theyoung fellow. Father Damaso threw back his head and examined him anew,his face clearing.
"What! It's the godson of Carlicos!" he cried, clasping him in hisarms. "I had a letter from him some days ago. And it is you? You werenot born when I left the country. I did not know you!" And FatherDamaso still held in his strong arms the young man, whose face beganto color, perhaps from embarrassment, perhaps from suffocation. FatherDamaso appeared to have completely forgotten his grief.
After the first moments of effusion and questions about Carlicos andPepa, Father Damaso asked:
"Let's see, what is it Carlicos wishes me to do for you?"
"I think he says something about it in the letter," stammered Linaresagain.
"In the letter? Yes, that's so! He wishes me to find you employmentand a wife. Ah, the employment is easy enough, but as for thewife!--hem!--a wife----"
"Father, that is not so urgent," said Linares, with confusion.
But Father Damaso was walking back and forth murmuring: "A wife! Awife!" His face was no longer sad or joyful, but serious andpreoccupied. From a distance Father Salvi watched the scene.
"I did not think the thing could cause me so much pain," FatherDamaso murmured plaintively; "but of two evils choose the least!" Thenapproaching Linares:
"Come with me, my boy," he said, "we will talk with DonSantiago." Linares paled and followed the priest.
XXXVII.
SCRUTINY OF CONSCIENCE.
Long days followed by weary nights were passed by the pillow of thesick girl. After a confession to Father Salvi, Maria Clara had had arelapse, and in her delirium she pronounced no name but that of hermother, whom she had never known. Her friends, her father, her aunt,watched her, and heaped with gifts and with silver for masses thealtars of miraculous images. At last, slowly and regularly, the feverbegan to abate.
The Doctor de Espadana was stupefied at the virtues of the syrup ofmarshmallow and the decoction of lichen, prescriptions he had nevervaried. Dona Victorina was so satisfied with her husband that oneday when he stepped on her train, in a rare state of clemency shedid not apply to him the usual penal code by pulling out his teeth.
One afternoon, Sinang and Victorina were with Maria; the curate,Captain Tiago, and the Espadanas were talking in the dining-room.
"I'm distressed to hear it," the doctor was saying; "and Father Damasomust be greatly disturbed."
/> "Where did you say he is to be sent?" asked Linares.
"Into the province of Tabayas," replied the curate carelessly.
"Maria Clara will be very sorry too," said Captain Tiago; "she loveshim like a father."
Father Salvi looked at him from the corner of his eye.
"Father," continued Captain Tiago, "I believe her sickness came fromnothing but that trouble the day of the fete."
"I am of the same opinion, so you have done well in not permittingSenor Ibarra to talk with her; that would only have aggravated hercondition."
"And it is thanks to us alone," interrupted Dona Victorina, "thatClarita is not already in heaven singing praises with the angels."
"Amen!" Captain Tiago felt moved to say.
"I think I know whereof I speak," said the curate, "when I say thatthe confession of Maria Clara brought about the favorable crisisthat saved her life. I do not deny the power of science, but a pureconscience----"
"Pardon," objected Dona Victorina, piqued; "then cure the wife ofthe alferez with a confession!"
"A hurt, senora, is not a malady, to be influenced by the conscience,"replied Father Salvi severely; "but a good confession would preserveher in future from such blows as she got this morning."
"She deserved them!" said Dona Victorina. "She is an insolent woman. Inchurch she did nothing but look at me. I had a mind to ask her whatthere was curious about my face; but who would soil her lips speakingto these people of no standing?"
The curate, as if he had not heard this tirade, continued: "To finishthe cure of your daughter, she should receive the communion to-morrow,Don Santiago. I think she does not need to confess, and yet, if shewill once more, this evening----"
"I don't know," said Dona Victorina, profiting by the pause tocontinue her reflections, "I don't understand how men can marry suchfrights. One easily sees where that woman came from. She is dying ofenvy, that shows in her eyes. What does an alferez get?"
"So prepare Maria for confession," the curate continued, turning toAunt Isabel.
The good aunt left the group and went to her niece's room. Maria Clarawas still in bed, and pale, very pale; beside her were her two friends.
Sinang was giving her her medicine.
"He has not written to you again?" asked Maria, softly.
"No."
"He gave you no message for me?"
"No; he only said he was going to make every effort to have thearchbishop raise the ban of excommunication----"
The arrival of Aunt Isabel interrupted the conversation.
"The father says you are to prepare yourself for confession, my child,"said she. "Sinang, leave her to examine her conscience. Shall I bringyou the 'Anchor,' the 'Bouquet,' or the 'Straight Road to Heaven,'Maria?"
Maria Clara did not reply.
"Well, we mustn't fatigue you," said the good aunt consolingly;"I will read you the examination myself, and you will only have toremember your sins."
"Write him to think of me no more," murmured the sick girl inSinang's ear.
"What!"
But Aunt Isabel came back with her book, and Sinang had to go.
The good aunt drew her chair up to the light, settled her glasses onthe tip of her nose, and opened a little book.
"Give good attention, my child: I will begin with the commandments ofGod; I shall go slowly, so that you may meditate: if you don't hearwell, you must tell me, and I will repeat; you know I'm never wearyof working for your good."
In a voice monotonous and nasal, she began to read. Maria Claragazed vaguely into space. The first commandment finished, Aunt Isabelobserved her listener over her glasses, and appeared satisfied withher sad and meditative air. She coughed piously, and after a longpause began the second. The good old woman read with unction. Theterms of the second commandment finished, she again looked at herniece, who slowly turned away her head.
"Bah!" said Aunt Isabel within herself, "as to taking His holy namein vain, the poor thing has nothing to question: pass on to the third."
And the third commandment sifted and commentated, all the causes ofsin against it droned out, she again looked toward the bed. This timeshe lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes; she had seen her nieceraise her handkerchief, as if to wipe away tears.
"Hm!" said she; "hm! the poor child must have fallen asleep duringthe sermon." And putting back her glasses on the tip of her nose,she reflected:
"We shall see if besides not keeping the holy feast days, she hasnot honored her father and her mother." And slowly, in a voice morenasal than ever, she read the fourth commandment.
"What a pure soul!" thought the old lady; "she who is so obedient,so submissive! I've sinned much more deeply than that, and I've neverbeen able to really cry!" And she began the fifth commandment with suchenthusiasm that she did not hear the stifled sobs of her niece. Itwas only when she stopped after the commentaries on wilful homicide,that she perceived the groanings of the sinner. Then in a voice thatpassed description, and a manner she strove to make menacing, shefinished the commentary, and seeing that Maria had not ceased to weep:
"Cry, my child, cry!" she said, going to her bedside; "the moreyou cry the more quickly will God pardon you. Cry, my child, cry;and beat your breast, but not too hard, for you are ill yet, you know."
But as if grief had need of mystery and solitude, Maria Clara,finding herself surprised, stopped sobbing little by little and driedher eyes. Aunt Isabel returned to her reading, but the plaint of heraudience having ceased, she lost her enthusiasm; the second table ofthe law made her sleepy, and a yawn broke the nasal monotony.
"No one would have believed it without seeing it," thought thegood woman; "the child sins like a soldier against the first fivecommandments, and from the sixth to the tenth not so much as apeccadillo. That is contrary to the custom of the rest of us. One seesqueer things in these days!" And she lighted a great candle for theVirgin of Antipolo, and two smaller ones for Our Lady of the Rosaryand Our Lady of the Pillar. The Virgin of Delaroche was excluded fromthis illumination: she was to Aunt Isabel an unknown foreigner.
We may not know what passed during the confession in the evening. Itwas long, and Aunt Isabel, who at a distance was watching over herniece, could see that instead of offering his ear to the sick girl,the curate had his face turned toward her. He went out, pale, withcompressed lips. At the sight of his brow, darkened and moist withsweat, one would have said it was he who had confessed, and absolutionhad been denied him.
"Maria! Joseph!" said the good aunt, crossing herself, "who cancomprehend the girls of to-day!"
XXXVIII.
THE TWO WOMEN.
Dona Victorina was taking a walk through the pueblo, to see ofwhat sort were the dwellings and the advancement of the indolentIndians. She had put on her most elegant adornments, to impress theprovincials, and to show what distance separated them from her sacredperson. Giving her arm to her limping husband, she paraded the streetsof the pueblo, to the profound amazement of its inhabitants.
"What ugly houses these Indians have!" she began, with a grimace. "Onemust needs be an Indian to live in them! And how ill-bred the peopleare! They pass us without uncovering. Knock off their hats, as thecurates do, and the lieutenants of the Civil Guard."
"And if they attack me?" stammered the doctor.
"Are you not a man?"
"Yes, but--but--I am lame."
Dona Victorina grew cross. There were no sidewalks in these streets,and the dust was soiling the train of her dress. Some young girls whopassed dropped their eyes, and did not admire at all as they shouldher luxurious attire. Sinang's coachman, who was driving Sinang andher cousin in an elegant tres-por-ciento, had the effrontery to cry outto her "Tabi!" in so audacious a voice that she moved out of the way.
"What a brute of a coachman!" she protested; "I shall tell his masterhe had better train his servants. Come along, Tiburcio!"
Her husband, fearing a tempest, turned on his heels, and they foundthemselves face to face with the alferez. Greetings were e
xchanged,but Dona Victorina's discontent grew. Not only had the officer saidnothing complimentary of her costume, but she believed she detectedmockery in his look.
"You ought not to give your hand to a simple alferez," she said toher husband, when the officer had passed. "You don't know how topreserve your rank."
"H--here he is the chief."
"What does that mean to us? Do we happen to be Indians?"
"You are right," said Don Tiburcio, not minded to dispute.
They passed the barracks. Dona Consolacion was at the window, asusual dressed in flannel, and puffing her puro. As the house was low,the two women faced each other. The muse examined Dona Victorina fromhead to foot, protruded her lip, ejected tobacco juice, and turnedaway her head. This affectation of contempt brought the patience ofthe doctora to an end. Leaving her husband without support, she went,trembling with rage, powerless to utter a word, and placed herselfin front of the alfereza's window. Dona Consolacion turned her headslowly back, regarded her antagonist with the utmost calm, and spatagain with the same cool contempt.