El Filibusterismo. English

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  CONCLUSION

  In his solitary retreat on the shore of the sea, whose mobile surfacewas visible through the open, windows, extending outward until itmingled with the horizon, Padre Florentino was relieving the monotonyby playing on his harmonium sad and melancholy tunes, to which thesonorous roar of the surf and the sighing of the treetops of theneighboring wood served as accompaniments. Notes long, full, mournfulas a prayer, yet still vigorous, escaped from the old instrument. PadreFlorentino, who was an accomplished musician, was improvising, and,as he was alone, gave free rein to the sadness in his heart.

  For the truth was that the old man was very sad. His good friend, DonTiburcio de Espadana, had just left him, fleeing from the persecutionof his wife. That morning he had received a note from the lieutenantof the Civil Guard, which ran thus:

  MY DEAR CHAPLAIN,--I have just received from the commandant a telegram that says, "Spaniard hidden house Padre Florentino capture forward alive dead." As the telegram is quite explicit, warn your friend not to be there when I come to arrest him at eight tonight.

  Affectionately,

  PEREZ

  Burn this note.

  "T-that V-victorina!" Don Tiburcio had stammered. "S-she's c-capableof having me s-shot!"

  Padre Florentino was unable to reassure him. Vainly he pointedout to him that the word _cojera_ should have read _cogera_,[77] and that the hidden Spaniard could not be Don Tiburcio,but the jeweler Simoun, who two days before had arrived, woundedand a fugitive, begging for shelter. But Don Tiburcio would not beconvinced--_cojera_ was his own lameness, his personal description,and it was an intrigue of Victorina's to get him back alive or dead,as Isagani had written from Manila. So the poor Ulysses had left thepriest's house to conceal himself in the hut of a woodcutter.

  No doubt was entertained by Padre Florentino that the Spaniard wantedwas the jeweler Simoun, who had arrived mysteriously, himself carryingthe jewel-chest, bleeding, morose, and exhausted. With the free andcordial Filipino hospitality, the priest had taken him in, withoutasking indiscreet questions, and as news of the events in Manila hadnot yet reached his ears he was unable to understand the situationclearly. The only conjecture that occurred to him was that the General,the jeweler's friend and protector, being gone, probably his enemies,the victims of wrong and abuse, were now rising and calling forvengeance, and that the acting Governor was pursuing him to make himdisgorge the wealth he had accumulated--hence his flight. But whencecame his wounds? Had he tried to commit suicide? Were they the resultof personal revenge? Or were they merely caused by an accident, asSimoun claimed? Had they been received in escaping from the forcethat was pursuing him?

  This last conjecture was the one that seemed to have the greatestappearance of probability, being further strengthened by the telegramreceived and Simoun's decided unwillingness from the start to betreated by the doctor from the capital. The jeweler submitted onlyto the ministrations of Don Tiburcio, and even to them with markeddistrust. In this situation Padre Florentino was asking himself whatline of conduct he should pursue when the Civil Guard came to arrestSimoun. His condition would not permit his removal, much less a longjourney--but the telegram said alive or dead.

  Padre Florentine ceased playing and approached the window to gazeout at the sea, whose desolate surface was without a ship, withouta sail--it gave him no suggestion. A solitary islet outlinedin the distance spoke only of solitude and made the space morelonely. Infinity is at times despairingly mute.

  The old man was trying to analyze the sad and ironical smile withwhich Simoun had received the news that he was to be arrested. What didthat smile mean? And that other smile, still sadder and more ironical,with which he received the news that they would not come before eightat night? What did all this mystery signify? Why did Simoun refuseto hide? There came into his mind the celebrated saying of St. JohnChrysostom when he was defending the eunuch Eutropius: "Never was abetter time than this to say--Vanity of vanities and all is vanity!"

  Yes, that Simoun, so rich, so powerful, so feared a week ago, andnow more unfortunate than Eutropius, was seeking refuge, not at thealtars of a church, but in the miserable house of a poor native priest,hidden in the forest, on the solitary seashore! Vanity of vanitiesand all is vanity! That man would within a few hours be a prisoner,dragged from the bed where he lay, without respect for his condition,without consideration for his wounds--dead or alive his enemiesdemanded him! How could he save him? Where could he find the movingaccents of the bishop of Constantinople? What weight would his weakwords have, the words of a native priest, whose own humiliation thissame Simoun had in his better days seemed to applaud and encourage?

  But Padre Florentine no longer recalled the indifferent reception thattwo months before the jeweler had accorded to him when he had triedto interest him in favor of Isagani, then a prisoner on account ofhis imprudent chivalry; he forgot the activity Simoun had displayed inurging Paulita's marriage, which had plunged Isagani into the fearfulmisanthropy that was worrying his uncle. He forgot all these thingsand thought only of the sick man's plight and his own obligations asa host, until his senses reeled. Where must he hide him to avoid hisfalling into the clutches of the authorities? But the person chieflyconcerned was not worrying, he was smiling.

  While he was pondering over these things, the old man was approached bya servant who said that the sick man wished to speak with him, so hewent into the next room, a clean and well-ventilated apartment with afloor of wide boards smoothed and polished, and simply furnished withbig, heavy armchairs of ancient design, without varnish or paint. Atone end there was a large kamagon bed with its four posts to supportthe canopy, and beside it a table covered with bottles, lint, andbandages. A praying-desk at the feet of a Christ and a scanty libraryled to the suspicion that it was the priest's own bedroom, given up tohis guest according to the Filipino custom of offering to the strangerthe best table, the best room, and the best bed in the house. Uponseeing the windows opened wide to admit freely the healthful sea-breezeand the echoes of its eternal lament, no one in the Philippines wouldhave said that a sick person was to be found there, since it is thecustom to close all the windows and stop up all the cracks just assoon as any one catches a cold or gets an insignificant headache.

  Padre Florentine looked toward the bed and was astonished tosee that the sick man's face had lost its tranquil and ironicalexpression. Hidden grief seemed to knit his brows, anxiety was depictedin his looks, his lips were curled in a smile of pain.

  "Are you suffering, Senor Simoun?" asked the priest solicitously,going to his side.

  "Some! But in a little while I shall cease to suffer," he repliedwith a shake of his head.

  Padre Florentine clasped his hands in fright, suspecting that heunderstood the terrible truth. "My God, what have you done? What haveyou taken?" He reached toward the bottles.

  "It's useless now! There's no remedy at all!" answered Simoun with apained smile. "What did you expect me to do? Before the clock strikeseight--alive or dead--dead, yes, but alive, no!"

  "My God, what have you done?"

  "Be calm!" urged the sick man with a wave of his hand. "What's doneis done. I must not fall into anybody's hands--my secret wouldbe torn from me. Don't get excited, don't lose your head, it'suseless! Listen--the night is coming on and there's no time to belost. I must tell you my secret, and intrust to you my last request,I must lay my life open before you. At the supreme moment I want tolighten myself of a load, I want to clear up a doubt of mine. Youwho believe so firmly in God--I want you to tell me if there is a God!"

  "But an antidote, Senor Simoun! I have ether, chloroform--"

  The priest began to search for a flask, until Simoun cried impatiently,"Useless, it's useless! Don't waste time! I'll go away with my secret!"

  The bewildered priest fell down at his desk and prayed at the feetof the Christ, hiding his face in his hands. Then he arose seriousand grave, as if he had received from his God all the force, a
llthe dignity, all the authority of the Judge of consciences. Movinga chair to the head of the bed he prepared to listen.

  At the first words Simoun murmured, when he told his real name,the old priest started back and gazed at him in terror, whereatthe sick man smiled bitterly. Taken by surprise, the priest was notmaster of himself, but he soon recovered, and covering his face witha handkerchief again bent over to listen.

  Simoun related his sorrowful story: how, thirteen years before, hehad returned from Europe filled with hopes and smiling illusions,having come back to marry a girl whom he loved, disposed to do goodand forgive all who had wronged him, just so they would let him livein peace. But it was not so. A mysterious hand involved him in theconfusion of an uprising planned by his enemies. Name, fortune, love,future, liberty, all were lost, and he escaped only through the heroismof a friend. Then he swore vengeance. With the wealth of his family,which had been buried in a wood, he had fled, had gone to foreignlands and engaged in trade. He took part in the war in Cuba, aidingfirst one side and then another, but always profiting. There he madethe acquaintance of the General, then a major, whose good-will he wonfirst by loans of money, and afterwards he made a friend of him bythe knowledge of criminal secrets. With his money he had been able tosecure the General's appointment and, once in the Philippines, he hadused him as a blind tool and incited him to all kinds of injustice,availing himself of his insatiable lust for gold.

  The confession was long and tedious, but during the whole of it theconfessor made no further sign of surprise and rarely interrupted thesick man. It was night when Padre Florentino, wiping the perspirationfrom his face, arose and began to meditate. Mysterious darknessflooded the room, so that the moonbeams entering through the windowfilled it with vague lights and vaporous reflections.

  Into the midst of the silence the priest's voice broke sad anddeliberate, but consoling: "God will forgive you, Senor--Simoun,"he said. "He knows that we are fallible, He has seen that you havesuffered, and in ordaining that the chastisement for your faultsshould come as death from the very ones you have instigated to crime,we can see His infinite mercy. He has frustrated your plans one byone, the best conceived, first by the death of Maria Clara, then bya lack of preparation, then in some mysterious way. Let us bow toHis will and render Him thanks!"

  "According to you, then," feebly responded the sick man, "His willis that these islands--"

  "Should continue in the condition in which they suffer?" finishedthe priest, seeing that the other hesitated. "I don't know, sir,I can't read the thought of the Inscrutable. I know that He has notabandoned those peoples who in their supreme moments have trusted inHim and made Him the Judge of their cause, I know that His arm hasnever failed when, justice long trampled upon and every recourse gone,the oppressed have taken up the sword to fight for home and wife andchildren, for their inalienable rights, which, as the German poet says,shine ever there above, unextinguished and inextinguishable, likethe eternal stars themselves. No, God is justice, He cannot abandonHis cause, the cause of liberty, without which no justice is possible."

  "Why then has He denied me His aid?" asked the sick man in a voicecharged with bitter complaint.

  "Because you chose means that He could not sanction," was thesevere reply. "The glory of saving a country is not for him who hascontributed to its ruin. You have believed that what crime and iniquityhave defiled and deformed, another crime and another iniquity canpurify and redeem. Wrong! Hate never produces anything but monstersand crime criminals! Love alone realizes wonderful works, virtuealone can save! No, if our country has ever to be free, it will notbe through vice and crime, it will not be so by corrupting its sons,deceiving some and bribing others, no! Redemption presupposes virtue,virtue sacrifice, and sacrifice love!"

  "Well, I accept your explanation," rejoined the sick man, aftera pause. "I have been mistaken, but, because I have been mistaken,will that God deny liberty to a people and yet save many who are muchworse criminals than I am? What is my mistake compared to the crimesof our rulers? Why has that God to give more heed to my iniquity thanto the cries of so many innocents? Why has He not stricken me downand then made the people triumph? Why does He let so many worthy andjust ones suffer and look complacently upon their tortures?"

  "The just and the worthy must suffer in order that their ideas may beknown and extended! You must shake or shatter the vase to spread itsperfume, you must smite the rock to get the spark! There is somethingprovidential in the persecutions of tyrants, Senor Simoun!"

  "I knew it," murmured the sick man, "and therefore I encouragedthe tyranny."

  "Yes, my friend, but more corrupt influences than anything elsewere spread. You fostered the social rottenness without sowing anidea. From this fermentation of vices loathing alone could spring,and if anything were born overnight it would be at best a mushroom,for mushrooms only can spring spontaneously from filth. True itis that the vices of the government are fatal to it, they causeits death, but they kill also the society in whose bosom they aredeveloped. An immoral government presupposes a demoralized people,a conscienceless administration, greedy and servile citizens in thesettled parts, outlaws and brigands in the mountains. Like master,like slave! Like government, like country!"

  A brief pause ensued, broken at length by the sick man's voice. "Then,what can be done?"

  "Suffer and work!"

  "Suffer--work!" echoed the sick man bitterly. "Ah, it's easy to saythat, when you are not suffering, when the work is rewarded. If yourGod demands such great sacrifices from man, man who can scarcelycount upon the present and doubts the future, if you had seen whatI have, the miserable, the wretched, suffering unspeakable torturesfor crimes they have not committed, murdered to cover up the faultsand incapacity of others, poor fathers of families torn from theirhomes to work to no purpose upon highways that are destroyed each dayand seem only to serve for sinking families into want. Ah, to suffer,to work, is the will of God! Convince them that their murder is theirsalvation, that their work is the prosperity of the home! To suffer,to work! What God is that?"

  "A very just God, Senor Simoun," replied the priest. "A God whochastises our lack of faith, our vices, the little esteem in whichwe hold dignity and the civic virtues. We tolerate vice, we makeourselves its accomplices, at times we applaud it, and it is just,very just that we suffer the consequences, that our children sufferthem. It is the God of liberty, Senor Simoun, who obliges us tolove it, by making the yoke heavy for us--a God of mercy, of equity,who while He chastises us, betters us and only grants prosperity tohim who has merited it through his efforts. The school of sufferingtempers, the arena of combat strengthens the soul.

  "I do not mean to say that our liberty will be secured at the sword'spoint, for the sword plays but little part in modern affairs, but thatwe must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it, by exalting theintelligence and the dignity of the individual, by loving justice,right, and greatness, even to the extent of dying for them,--and whena people reaches that height God will provide a weapon, the idolswill be shattered, the tyranny will crumble like a house of cardsand liberty will shine out like the first dawn.

  "Our ills we owe to ourselves alone, so let us blame no one. If Spainshould see that we were less complaisant with tyranny and more disposedto struggle and suffer for our rights, Spain would be the first togrant us liberty, because when the fruit of the womb reaches maturitywoe unto the mother who would stifle it! So, while the Filipino peoplehas not sufficient energy to proclaim, with head erect and bosom bared,its rights to social life, and to guarantee it with its sacrifices,with its own blood; while we see our countrymen in private life ashamedwithin themselves, hear the voice of conscience roar in rebellion andprotest, yet in public life keep silence or even echo the words ofhim who abuses them in order to mock the abused; while we see themwrap themselves up in their egotism and with a forced smile praisethe most iniquitous actions, begging with their eyes a portion ofthe booty--why grant them liberty? With Spain or without Spain theywould always be the same, and
perhaps worse! Why independence, if theslaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And that they willbe such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.

  "Senor Simoun, when our people is unprepared, when it enters the fightthrough fraud and force, without a clear understanding of what it isdoing, the wisest attempts will fail, and better that they do fail,since why commit the wife to the husband if he does not sufficientlylove her, if he is not ready to die for her?"

  Padre Florentino felt the sick man catch and press his hand, so hebecame silent, hoping that the other might speak, but he merely felta stronger pressure of the hand, heard a sigh, and then profoundsilence reigned in the room. Only the sea, whose waves were rippledby the night breeze, as though awaking from the heat of the day,sent its hoarse roar, its eternal chant, as it rolled against thejagged rocks. The moon, now free from the sun's rivalry, peacefullycommanded the sky, and the trees of the forest bent down toward oneanother, telling their ancient legends in mysterious murmurs borneon the wings of the wind.

  The sick man said nothing, so Padre Florentino, deeply thoughtful,murmured: "Where are the youth who will consecrate their golden hours,their illusions, and their enthusiasm to the welfare of their nativeland? Where are the youth who will generously pour out their blood towash away so much shame, so much crime, so much abomination? Pure andspotless must the victim be that the sacrifice may be acceptable! Whereare you, youth, who will embody in yourselves the vigor of life thathas left our veins, the purity of ideas that has been contaminatedin our brains, the fire of enthusiasm that has been quenched in ourhearts? We await you, O youth! Come, for we await you!"

  Feeling his eyes moisten he withdrew his hand from that of the sickman, arose, and went to the window to gaze out upon the wide surfaceof the sea. He was drawn from his meditation by gentle raps at thedoor. It was the servant asking if he should bring a light.

  When the priest returned to the sick man and looked at him in thelight of the lamp, motionless, his eyes closed, the hand that hadpressed his lying open and extended along the edge of the bed,he thought for a moment that he was sleeping, but noticing that hewas not breathing touched him gently, and then realized that he wasdead. His body had already commenced to turn cold. The priest fellupon his knees and prayed.

  When he arose and contemplated the corpse, in whose features weredepicted the deepest grief, the tragedy of a whole wasted life whichhe was carrying over there beyond death, the old man shuddered andmurmured, "God have mercy on those who turned him from the straightpath!"

  While the servants summoned by him fell upon their knees and prayedfor the dead man, curious and bewildered as they gazed toward thebed, reciting requiem after requiem, Padre Florentino took from acabinet the celebrated steel chest that contained Simoun's fabulouswealth. He hesitated for a moment, then resolutely descended thestairs and made his way to the cliff where Isagani was accustomed tosit and gaze into the depths of the sea.

  Padre Florentino looked down at his feet. There below he saw the darkbillows of the Pacific beating into the hollows of the cliff, producingsonorous thunder, at the same time that, smitten by the moonbeams,the waves and foam glittered like sparks of fire, like handfuls ofdiamonds hurled into the air by some jinnee of the abyss. He gazedabout him. He was alone. The solitary coast was lost in the distanceamid the dim cloud that the moonbeams played through, until it mingledwith the horizon. The forest murmured unintelligible sounds.

  Then the old man, with an effort of his herculean arms, hurled thechest into space, throwing it toward the sea. It whirled over and overseveral times and descended rapidly in a slight curve, reflecting themoonlight on its polished surface. The old man saw the drops of waterfly and heard a loud splash as the abyss closed over and swallowed upthe treasure. He waited for a few moments to see if the depths wouldrestore anything, but the wave rolled on as mysteriously as before,without adding a fold to its rippling surface, as though into theimmensity of the sea a pebble only had been dropped.

  "May Nature guard you in her deep abysses among the pearls and coralsof her eternal seas," then said the priest, solemnly extending hishands. "When for some holy and sublime purpose man may need you, Godwill in his wisdom draw you from the bosom of the waves. Meanwhile,there you will not work woe, you will not distort justice, you willnot foment avarice!"