El Filibusterismo. English

  CHAPTER IV

  CABESANG TALES

  Those who have read the first part of this story will perhaps rememberan old wood-cutter who lived in the depths of the forest. [12] TandangSelo is still alive, and though his hair has turned completely white,he yet preserves his good health. He no longer hunts or cuts firewood,for his fortunes have improved and he works only at making brooms.

  His son Tales (abbreviation of Telesforo) had worked at first on shareson the lands of a capitalist, but later, having become the owner oftwo carabaos and several hundred pesos, determined to work on his ownaccount, aided by his father, his wife, and his three children. Sothey cut down and cleared away some thick woods which were situatedon the borders of the town and which they believed belonged to noone. During the labors of cleaning and cultivating the new land,the whole family fell ill with malaria and the mother died, alongwith the eldest daughter, Lucia, in the flower of her age. This,which was the natural consequence of breaking up new soil infestedwith various kinds of bacteria, they attributed to the anger of thewoodland spirit, so they were resigned and went on with their labor,believing him pacified.

  But when they began to harvest their first crop a religiouscorporation, which owned land in the neighboring town, laid claim tothe fields, alleging that they fell within their boundaries, and toprove it they at once started to set up their marks. However, theadministrator of the religious order left to them, for humanity'ssake, the usufruct of the land on condition that they pay a smallsum annually--a mere bagatelle, twenty or thirty pesos. Tales, aspeaceful a man as could be found, was as much opposed to lawsuitsas any one and more submissive to the friars than most people; so,in order not to smash a _palyok_ against a _kawali_ (as he said,for to him the friars were iron pots and he a clay jar), he had theweakness to yield to their claim, remembering that he did not knowSpanish and had no money to pay lawyers.

  Besides, Tandang Selo said to him, "Patience! You would spend morein one year of litigation than in ten years of paying what the whitepadres demand. And perhaps they'll pay you back in masses! Pretendthat those thirty pesos had been lost in gambling or had fallen intothe water and been swallowed by a cayman."

  The harvest was abundant and sold well, so Tales planned to build awooden house in the barrio of Sagpang, of the town of Tiani, whichadjoined San Diego.

  Another year passed, bringing another good crop, and for this reasonthe friars raised the rent to fifty pesos, which Tales paid in ordernot to quarrel and because he expected to sell his sugar at a goodprice.

  "Patience! Pretend that the cayman has grown some," old Selo consoledhim.

  That year he at last saw his dream realized: to live in the barrio ofSagpang in a wooden house. The father and grandfather then thought ofproviding some education for the two children, especially the daughterJuliana, or Juli, as they called her, for she gave promise of beingaccomplished and beautiful. A boy who was a friend of the family,Basilio, was studying in Manila, and he was of as lowly origin as they.

  But this dream seemed destined not to be realized. The first care thecommunity took when they saw the family prospering was to appoint ascabeza de barangay its most industrious member, which left only Tano,the son, who was only fourteen years old. The father was thereforecalled _Cabesang_ Tales and had to order a sack coat, buy a felt hat,and prepare to spend his money. In order to avoid any quarrel withthe curate or the government, he settled from his own pocket theshortages in the tax-lists, paying for those who had died or movedaway, and he lost considerable time in making the collections and onhis trips to the capital.

  "Patience! Pretend that the cayman's relatives have joined him,"advised Tandang Selo, smiling placidly.

  "Next year you'll put on a long skirt and go to Manila to study likethe young ladies of the town," Cabesang Tales told his daughter everytime he heard her talking of Basilio's progress.

  But that next year did not come, and in its stead there was anotherincrease in the rent. Cabesang Tales became serious and scratchedhis head. The clay jar was giving up all its rice to the iron pot.

  When the rent had risen to two hundred pesos, Tales was not contentwith scratching his head and sighing; he murmured and protested. Thefriar-administrator then told him that if he could not pay, some oneelse would be assigned to cultivate that land--many who desired ithad offered themselves.

  He thought at first that the friar was joking, but the friar wastalking seriously, and indicated a servant of his to take possessionof the land. Poor Tales turned pale, he felt a buzzing in his ears, hesaw in the red mist that rose before his eyes his wife and daughter,pallid, emaciated, dying, victims of the intermittent fevers--thenhe saw the thick forest converted into productive fields, he saw thestream of sweat watering its furrows, he saw himself plowing underthe hot sun, bruising his feet against the stones and roots, whilethis friar had been driving about in his carriage with the wretch whowas to get the land following like a slave behind his master. No, athousand times, no! First let the fields sink into the depths of theearth and bury them all! Who was this intruder that he should haveany right to his land? Had he brought from his own country a singlehandful of that soil? Had he crooked a single one of his fingers topull up the roots that ran through it?

  Exasperated by the threats of the friar, who tried to uphold hisauthority at any cost in the presence of the other tenants, CabesangTales rebelled and refused to pay a single cuarto, having ever beforehimself that red mist, saying that he would give up his fields to thefirst man who could irrigate it with blood drawn from his own veins.

  Old Selo, on looking at his son's face, did not dare to mention thecayman, but tried to calm him by talking of clay jars, reminding himthat the winner in a lawsuit was left without a shirt to his back.

  "We shall all be turned to clay, father, and without shirts we wereborn," was the reply.

  So he resolutely refused to pay or to give up a single span of hisland unless the friars should first prove the legality of their claimby exhibiting a title-deed of some kind. As they had none, a lawsuitfollowed, and Cabesang Tales entered into it, confiding that some atleast, if not all, were lovers of justice and respecters of the law.

  "I serve and have been serving the King with my money and my services,"he said to those who remonstrated with him. "I'm asking for justiceand he is obliged to give it to me."

  Drawn on by fatality, and as if he had put into play in the lawsuitthe whole future of himself and his children, he went on spending hissavings to pay lawyers, notaries, and solicitors, not to mention theofficials and clerks who exploited his ignorance and his needs. Hemoved to and fro between the village and the capital, passed hisdays without eating and his nights without sleeping, while his talkwas always about briefs, exhibits, and appeals. There was then seena struggle such as was never before carried on under the skies of thePhilippines: that of a poor Indian, ignorant and friendless, confidingin the justness and righteousness of his cause, fighting against apowerful corporation before which Justice bowed her head, while thejudges let fall the scales and surrendered the sword. He fought astenaciously as the ant which bites when it knows that it is goingto be crushed, as does the fly which looks into space only througha pane of glass. Yet the clay jar defying the iron pot and smashingitself into a thousand pieces bad in it something impressive--it hadthe sublimeness of desperation!

  On the days when his journeys left him free he patrolled his fieldsarmed with a shotgun, saying that the tulisanes were hovering aroundand he had need of defending himself in order not to fall into theirhands and thus lose his lawsuit. As if to improve his marksmanship,he shot at birds and fruits, even the butterflies, with such accurateaim that the friar-administrator did not dare to go to Sagpang withoutan escort of civil-guards, while the friar's hireling, who gazed fromafar at the threatening figure of Tales wandering over the fieldslike a sentinel upon the walls, was terror stricken and refused totake the property away from him.

  But the local judges and those at the capital, warned by the experienceof one of th
eir number who had been summarily dismissed, dared notgive him the decision, fearing their own dismissal. Yet they were notreally bad men, those judges, they were upright and conscientious,good citizens, excellent fathers, dutiful sons--and they wereable to appreciate poor Tales' situation better than Tales himselfcould. Many of them were versed in the scientific and historicalbasis of property, they knew that the friars by their own statutescould not own property, but they also knew that to come from faracross the sea with an appointment secured with great difficulty,to undertake the duties of the position with the best intentions,and now to lose it because an Indian fancied that justice had tobe done on earth as in heaven--that surely was an idea! They hadtheir families and greater needs surely than that Indian: one hada mother to provide for, and what duty is more sacred than that ofcaring for a mother? Another had sisters, all of marriageable age;that other there had many little children who expected their dailybread and who, like fledglings in a nest, would surely die of hungerthe day he was out of a job; even the very least of them had there,far away, a wife who would be in distress if the monthly remittancefailed. All these moral and conscientious judges tried everything intheir power in the way of counsel, advising Cabesang Tales to paythe rent demanded. But Tales, like all simple souls, once he hadseen what was just, went straight toward it. He demanded proofs,documents, papers, title-deeds, but the friars had none of these,resting their case on his concessions in the past.

  Cabesang Tales' constant reply was: "If every day I give alms to abeggar to escape annoyance, who will oblige me to continue my giftsif he abuses my generosity?"

  From this stand no one could draw him, nor were there any threats thatcould intimidate him. In vain Governor M---- made a trip expresslyto talk to him and frighten him. His reply to it all was: "You maydo what you like, Mr. Governor, I'm ignorant and powerless. But I'vecultivated those fields, my wife and daughter died while helping meclear them, and I won't give them up to any one but him who can domore with them than I've done. Let him first irrigate them with hisblood and bury in them his wife and daughter!"

  The upshot of this obstinacy was that the honorable judges gave thedecision to the friars, and everybody laughed at him, saying thatlawsuits are not won by justice. But Cabesang Tales appealed, loadedhis shotgun, and patrolled his fields with deliberation.

  During this period his life seemed to be a wild dream. His son,Tano, a youth as tall as his father and as good as his sister, wasconscripted, but he let the boy go rather than purchase a substitute.

  "I have to pay the lawyers," he told his weeping daughter. "If I winthe case I'll find a way to get him back, and if I lose it I won'thave any need for sons."

  So the son went away and nothing more was heard of him except that hishair had been cropped and that he slept under a cart. Six months laterit was rumored that he had been seen embarking for the Carolines;another report was that he had been seen in the uniform of theCivil Guard.

  "Tano in the Civil Guard! _'Susmariosep_!" exclaimed several, claspingtheir hands. "Tano, who was so good and so honest! _Requimternam!_"

  The grandfather went many days without speaking to the father, Julifell sick, but Cabesang Tales did not shed a single tear, although fortwo days he never left the house, as if he feared the looks of reproachfrom the whole village or that he would be called the executioner ofhis son. But on the third day he again sallied forth with his shotgun.

  Murderous intentions were attributed to him, and there werewell-meaning persons who whispered about that he had been heard tothreaten that he would bury the friar-administrator in the furrows ofhis fields, whereat the friar was frightened at him in earnest. As aresult of this, there came a decree from the Captain-General forbiddingthe use of firearms and ordering that they be taken up. Cabesang Taleshad to hand over his shotgun but he continued his rounds armed witha long bolo.

  "What are you going to do with that bolo when the tulisanes havefirearms?" old Selo asked him.

  "I must watch my crops," was the answer. "Every stalk of cane growingthere is one of my wife's bones."

  The bolo was taken up on the pretext that it was too long. He thentook his father's old ax and with it on his shoulder continued hissullen rounds.

  Every time he left the house Tandang Selo and Juli trembled for hislife. The latter would get up from her loom, go to the window, pray,make vows to the saints, and recite novenas. The grandfather was attimes unable to finish the handle of a broom and talked of returningto the forest--life in that house was unbearable.

  At last their fears were realized. As the fields were some distancefrom the village, Cabesang Tales, in spite of his ax, fell into thehands of tulisanes who had revolvers and rifles. They told him thatsince he had money to pay judges and lawyers he must have some alsofor the outcasts and the hunted. They therefore demanded a ransom offive hundred pesos through the medium of a rustic, with the warningthat if anything happened to their messenger, the captive would payfor it with his life. Two days of grace were allowed.

  This news threw the poor family into the wildest terror, which wasaugmented when they learned that the Civil Guard was going out inpursuit of the bandits. In case of an encounter, the first victimwould be the captive--this they all knew. The old man was paralyzed,while the pale and frightened daughter tried often to talk but couldnot. Still, another thought more terrible, an idea more cruel, rousedthem from their stupor. The rustic sent by the tulisanes said thatthe band would probably have to move on, and if they were slow insending the ransom the two days would elapse and Cabesang Tales wouldhave his throat cut.

  This drove those two beings to madness, weak and powerless as theywere. Tandang Selo got up, sat down, went outside, came back again,knowing not where to go, where to seek aid. Juli appealed to herimages, counted and recounted her money, but her two hundred pesosdid not increase or multiply. Soon she dressed herself, gatheredtogether all her jewels, and asked the advice of her grandfather,if she should go to see the gobernadorcillo, the judge, the notary,the lieutenant of the Civil Guard. The old man said yes to everything,or when she said no, he too said no. At length came the neighbors,their relatives and friends, some poorer than others, in theirsimplicity magnifying the fears. The most active of all was SisterBali, a great _panguinguera,_ who had been to Manila to practisereligious exercises in the nunnery of the Sodality.

  Juli was willing to sell all her jewels, except a locket set withdiamonds and emeralds which Basilio had given her, for this lockethad a history: a nun, the daughter of Capitan Tiago, had given it to aleper, who, in return for professional treatment, had made a present ofit to Basilio. So she could not sell it without first consulting him.

  Quickly the shell-combs and earrings were sold, as well as Juli'srosary, to their richest neighbor, and thus fifty pesos were added,but two hundred and fifty were still lacking. The locket might bepawned, but Juli shook her head. A neighbor suggested that the housebe sold and Tandang Selo approved the idea, satisfied to return tothe forest and cut firewood as of old, but Sister Bali observed thatthis could not be done because the owner was not present.

  "The judge's wife once sold me her _tapis_ for a peso, but herhusband said that the sale did not hold because it hadn't receivedhis approval. _Aba!_ He took back the _tapis_ and she hasn't returnedthe peso yet, but I don't pay her when she wins at _panguingui, aba!_In that way I've collected twelve cuartos, and for that alone I'mgoing to play with her. I can't bear to have people fail to pay whatthey owe me, _aba!_"

  Another neighbor was going to ask Sister Bali why then did notshe settle a little account with her, but the quick _panguinguera_suspected this and added at once: "Do you know, Juli, what you cando? Borrow two hundred and fifty pesos on the house, payable whenthe lawsuit is won."

  This seemed to be the best proposition, so they decided to act uponit that same day. Sister Bali offered to accompany her, and togetherthey visited the houses of all the rich folks in Tiani, but no onewould accept the proposal. The case, they said, was already lost,and to show favors to an enemy of
the friars was to expose themselvesto their vengeance. At last a pious woman took pity on the girl andlent the money on condition that Juli should remain with her as aservant until the debt was paid. Juli would not have so very muchto do: sew, pray, accompany her to mass, and fast for her now andthen. The girl accepted with tears in her eyes, received the money,and promised to enter her service on the following day, Christmas.

  When the grandfather heard of that sale he fell to weeping like achild. What, that granddaughter whom he had not allowed to walk in thesun lest her skin should be burned, Juli, she of the delicate fingersand rosy feet! What, that girl, the prettiest in the village andperhaps in the whole town, before whose window many gallants had vainlypassed the night playing and singing! What, his only granddaughter,the sole joy of his fading eyes, she whom he had dreamed of seeingdressed in a long skirt, talking Spanish, and holding herself erectwaving a painted fan like the daughters of the wealthy--she to becomea servant, to be scolded and reprimanded, to ruin her fingers, tosleep anywhere, to rise in any manner whatsoever!

  So the old grandfather wept and talked of hanging or starving himselfto death. "If you go," he declared, "I'm going back to the forestand will never set foot in the town."

  Juli soothed him by saying that it was necessary for her father toreturn, that the suit would be won, and they could then ransom herfrom her servitude.

  The night was a sad one. Neither of the two could taste a bite andthe old man refused to lie down, passing the whole night seated ina corner, silent and motionless. Juli on her part tried to sleep,but for a long time could not close her eyes. Somewhat relieved abouther father's fate, she now thought of herself and fell to weeping,but stifled her sobs so that the old man might not hear them. Thenext day she would be a servant, and it was the very day Basilio wasaccustomed to come from Manila with presents for her. Henceforwardshe would have to give up that love; Basilio, who was going to be adoctor, couldn't marry a pauper. In fancy she saw him going to thechurch in company with the prettiest and richest girl in the town,both well-dressed, happy and smiling, while she, Juli, followed hermistress, carrying novenas, buyos, and the cuspidor. Here the girlfelt a lump rise in her throat, a sinking at her heart, and beggedthe Virgin to let her die first.

  But--said her conscience--he will at least know that I preferred topawn myself rather than the locket he gave me.

  This thought consoled her a little and brought on empty dreams. Whoknows but that a miracle might happen? She might find the two hundredand fifty pesos under the image of the Virgin--she had read ofmany similar miracles. The sun might not rise nor morning come, andmeanwhile the suit would be won. Her father might return, or Basilioput in his appearance, she might find a bag of gold in the garden,the tulisanes would send the bag of gold, the curate, Padre Camorra,who was always teasing her, would come with the tulisanes. So herideas became more and more confused, until at length, worn out byfatigue and sorrow, she went to sleep with dreams of her childhoodin the depths of the forest: she was bathing in the torrent alongwith her two brothers, there were little fishes of all colors thatlet themselves be caught like fools, and she became impatient becauseshe found no pleasure in catchnig such foolish little fishes! Basiliowas under the water, but Basilio for some reason had the face of herbrother Tano. Her new mistress was watching them from the bank.