Noli me tángere. English

  CHAPTER VIII

  Recollections

  Ibarra's carriage was passing through a part of the busiest districtin Manila, the same which the night before had made him feel sad,but which by daylight caused him to smile in spite of himself. Themovement in every part, so many carriages coming and going at fullspeed, the carromatas and calesas, the Europeans, the Chinese,the natives, each in his own peculiar costume, the fruit-venders,the money-changers, the naked porters, the grocery stores, the lunchstands and restaurants, the shops, and even the carts drawn by theimpassive and indifferent carabao, who seems to amuse himself incarrying burdens while he patiently ruminates, all this noise andconfusion, the very sun itself, the distinctive odors and the motleycolors, awoke in the youth's mind a world of sleeping recollections.

  Those streets had not yet been paved, and two successive days ofsunshine filled them with dust which covered everything and made thepasser-by cough while it nearly blinded him. A day of rain formedpools of muddy water, which at night reflected the carriage lights andsplashed mud a distance of several yards away upon the pedestrians onthe narrow sidewalks. And how many women have left their embroideredslippers in those waves of mud!

  Then there might have been seen repairing those streets the lines ofconvicts with their shaven heads, dressed in short-sleeved camisasand pantaloons that reached only to their knees, each with his letterand number in blue. On their legs were chains partly wrapped in dirtyrags to ease the chafing or perhaps the chill of the iron. Joinedtwo by two, scorched in the sun, worn out by the heat and fatigue,they were lashed and goaded by a whip in the hands of one of their ownnumber, who perhaps consoled himself with this power of maltreatingothers. They were tall men with somber faces, which he had never seenbrightened with the light of a smile. Yet their eyes gleamed when thewhistling lash fell upon their shoulders or when a passer-by threwthem the chewed and broken stub of a cigar, which the nearest wouldsnatch up and hide in his salakot, while the rest remained gazing atthe passers-by with strange looks.

  The noise of the stones being crushed to fill the puddles and themerry clank of the heavy fetters on the swollen ankles seemed to remainwith Ibarra. He shuddered as he recalled a scene that had made a deepimpression on his childish imagination. It was a hot afternoon, and theburning rays of the sun fell perpendicularly upon a large cart by theside of which was stretched out one of those unfortunates, lifeless,yet with his eyes half opened. Two others were silently preparinga bamboo bier, showing no signs of anger or sorrow or impatience,for such is the character attributed to the natives: today it is you,tomorrow it will be I, they say to themselves. The people moved rapidlyabout without giving heed, women came up and after a look of curiositycontinued unconcerned on their way--it was such a common sight thattheir hearts had become callous. Carriages passed, flashing back fromtheir varnished sides the rays of the sun that burned in a cloudlesssky. Only he, a child of eleven years and fresh from the country, wasmoved, and to him alone it brought bad dreams on the following night.

  There no longer existed the useful and honored _Puente de Barcas_, thegood Filipino pontoon bridge that had done its best to be of servicein spite of its natural imperfections and its rising and fallingat the caprice of the Pasig, which had more than once abused it andfinally destroyed it. The almond trees in the plaza of San Gabriel[46] had not grown; they were still in the same feeble and stuntedcondition. The Escolta appeared less beautiful in spite of the factthat an imposing building with caryatids carved on its front nowoccupied the place of the old row of shops. The new Bridge of Spaincaught his attention, while the houses on the right bank of the riveramong the clumps of bamboo and trees where the Escolta ends and theIsla de Romero begins, reminded him of the cool mornings when he usedto pass there in a boat on his way to the baths of Uli-Uli.

  He met many carriages, drawn by beautiful pairs of dwarfish ponies,within which were government clerks who seemed yet half asleep as theymade their way to their offices, or military officers, or Chinese infoolish and ridiculous attitudes, or Gave friars and canons. In anelegant victoria he thought he recognized Padre Damaso, grave andfrowning, but he had already passed. Now he was pleasantly greetedby Capitan Tinong, who was passing in a carretela with his wife andtwo daughters.

  As they went down off the bridge the horses broke into a trot along theSabana Drive. [47] On the left the Arroceros Cigar Factory resoundedwith the noise of the cigar-makers pounding the tobacco leaves, andIbarra was unable to restrain a smile as he thought of the strong odorwhich about five o'clock in the afternoon used to float all over the_Puente de Barcas_ and which had made him sick when he was a child. Thelively conversations and the repartee of the crowds from the cigarfactories carried him back to the district of Lavapies in Madrid,with its riots of cigar-makers, so fatal for the unfortunate policemen.

  The Botanical Garden drove away these agreeable recollections; thedemon of comparison brought before his mind the Botanical Gardensof Europe, in countries where great, labor and much money are neededto make a single leaf grow or one flower open its calyx; he recalledthose of the colonies, where they are well supplied and tended, andall open to the public. Ibarra turned away his gaze toward the oldManila surrounded still by its walls and moats like a sickly girlwrapped in the garments of her grandmother's better days.

  Then the sight of the sea losing itself in the distance! "Onthe other shore lies Europe," thought the young man,--"Europe,with its attractive peoples in constant movement in the search forhappiness, weaving their dreams in the morning and disillusioningthemselves at the setting of the sun, happy even in the midst oftheir calamities. Yes, on the farther shore of the boundless seaare the really spiritual nations, those who, even though they putno restraints on material development, are still more spiritual thanthose who pride themselves on adoring only the spirit!"

  But these musings were in turn banished from his mind as he came insight of the little mound in Bagumbayan Field. [48] This isolatedknoll at the side of the Luneta now caught his attention and made himreminiscent. He thought of the man who had awakened his intellect andmade him understand goodness and justice. The ideas which that manhad impressed upon him were not many, to be sure, but they were notmeaningless repetitions, they were convictions which had not paledin the light of the most brilliant foci of progress. That man was anold priest whose words of farewell still resounded in his ears: "Donot forget that if knowledge is the heritage of mankind, it is onlythe courageous who inherit it," he had reminded him. "I have tried topass on to you what I got from my teachers, the sum of which I haveendeavored to increase and transmit to the coming generation as faras in me lay. 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 hehad added with a smile, "They come here seeking wealth, go you to theircountry to seek also that other wealth which we lack! But rememberthat all that glitters is not gold." The old man had died on that spot.

  At these recollections the youth murmured audibly: "No, in spite ofeverything, the fatherland first, first the Philippines, the childof Spain, first the Spanish fatherland! No, that which is decreed byfate does not tarnish the honor of the fatherland, no!"

  He gave little heed to Ermita, the phenix of nipa that had rearisenfrom its ashes under the form of blue and white houses with red-paintedroofs of corrugated iron. Nor was his attention caught by Malate,neither by the cavalry barracks with the spreading trees in front,nor by the inhabitants or their little nipa huts, pyramidal orprismatic in shape, hidden away among the banana plants and arecapalms, constructed like nests by each father of a family.

  The carriage continued on its way, meeting now and then carromatasdrawn by one or two ponies whose abaka harness indicated that theywere from the country. The drivers would try to catch a glimpse of theoccupant of the fine carriage, but would pass on without exchanging aword, without a single salute. At times a heavy cart drawn by a slowand indifferent carabao would appear on the dusty road over which beatthe brilliant sunlight of the tropics. The mournf
ul and monotonous songof the driver mounted on the back of the carabao would be mingled atone time with the screechings of a dry wheel on the huge axle of theheavy vehicle or at another time with the dull scraping of worn-outrunners on a sledge which was dragged heavily through the dust, andover the ruts in the road. In the fields and wide meadows the herdswere grazing, attended ever by the white buffalo-birds which roostedpeacefully on the backs of the animals while these chewed their cudsor browsed in lazy contentment upon the rich grass. In the distanceponies frisked, jumping and running about, pursued by the lively coltswith long tails and abundant manes who whinnied and pawed the groundwith their hard hoofs.

  Let us leave the youth dreaming or dozing, since neither the sadnor the animated poetry of the open country held his attention. Forhim there was no charm in the sun that gleamed upon the tops of thetrees and caused the rustics, with feet burned by the hot ground inspite of their callousness, to hurry along, or that made the villagerpause beneath the shade of an almond tree or a bamboo brake while hepondered upon vague and inexplicable things. While the youth's carriagesways along like a drunken thing on account of the inequalities inthe surface of the road when passing over a bamboo bridge or goingup an incline or descending a steep slope, let us return to Manila.