An eagle flight; a Filipino novel

Front matter

A Filipino Nof^el

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IVIicrosoft Corporation

Contents

CHAPTER PAGH

I. — The House on the Pasig i

II. — Cris6stomo Ibarra 7

Introduction

JOSE RIZAL

In that horrible drama, the Philippine revolution, one man of the purest and noblest character stands out pre-eminently— Josd Rizal — poet, artist, philologue, novelist, above all, patriot; his influence might have changed the whole course of events in the islands, had not a blind and stupid policy brought about the crime of his death.

This man, of almost pure Tagalo race, was born in 1861, at Calamba, in the island of Luzon, on the southern shore of the Laguna de Bay, where he grew up in his father's home, under the tutorage of a wise and learned native priest, Leontio.

The child's fine nature, expanding in the troublous latter days of a long race bondage, was touched early with the fire of genuine patriotism. He was eleven when the tragic consequences of the Cavitd insurrection destroyed any lingering illusions of his people, and stirred in them a spirit that has not yet been allayed.

The rising at Cavit^, like many others in the islands, was a protest against the holding of benefices by friars — a thing forbidden by a decree of the Council of Trent, but authorized in the Philippines, by papal bulls, until such time as there should be a sufficiency of native priests. This time never came. As the friars held the best agricultural lands, and had a voice — and that the most authoritative — in civil affairs, there developed in the rural districts a veritable feudal system, bringing in its train the arrogance and vi Introduction

tyranny that like conditions develop. It became impossible for the civil authorities to carry out measures in opposition to the friars. " The Government is an arm, the head is the convent," says the old philosopher of Rizal's story.

The rising at Cavite miscarried, and vengeance fell. Dr. Joseph Burgos, a saintly old priest, was put to death, and three other native priests with him, while many prominent native families were banished. Never had the better class of Filipinos been so outraged and araused, and from this time on their purpose was fixed, not to free themselves from Spain, not to secede from the church they loved, but to agitate ceaselessly for reforms which none of them longer believed could be realized without the expulsion of the friars. In the school of this purpose, and with the belief on the part of his father and Leontio that he was destined to use his life and talents in its behalf, Jose was trained, until he left his home to study in Manila. At the College of the Jesuits he carried off all the honors, with special distinction in literary work. He wrote a number of odes; and a melodrama in verse, the work of his thirteenth year, was successfully played at Manila. But he had to wear his honors as an Indian among white men, and they made life hard for him. He specially aroused the dislike of his Spanish college mates by an ode in which he spoke of his patria. A Tagalo had no native land, they contended — only a country.

At twenty Rizal finished his course at Manila, and a few months later went to Madrid, where he speedily won the degrees of Ph.D. and M.D. ; then to Germany — taking here another degree, doing his work in the new language, which he mastered as he went along ; to Austria, where he gained great skill as an oculist; to France, Italy, England — absorbing the languages and literature of these countries, doing some fine sculpture by way of diversion. But in all this he was single-minded ; he never lost the voice of his call ; he felt more and more keenly the contrast between the hard lot of his country and the freedom of these lands, and

Introduction vii

he bore it ill that no one of them even knew about her, and the cancer eating away her beauty and strength. At the end of this period of study he settled in Berlin, and began his active work for his country.

Four years of the socialism and license of the universities had not distorted Rizal's political vision; he remained, as he had grown up, an opportunist. Not then, nor at any time, did he think his country ready for self-government. He saw as her best present good her continued union to Spain, "through a stable policy based upon justice and community of interests." He asked only for the reforms promised again and again by the ministry, and as often frustrated. To plead for the lifting of the hand of oppression from the necks of his people, he now wrote his first novel, " Noli Me Tangere."

The next year he returned to the Philippines to find himself the idol of the natives and a thorn in the flesh of friars and greedy officials. The reading of his book was proscribed. He stayed long enough to concern himself in a dispute of his townspeople with the Dominicans over titles to lands; then finding his efforts vain and his safety doubtful, he left for Japan. Here he pursued for some time his usual studies; came thence to America, and then crossed to England, where he made researches in the British Museum, and edited in Spanish, " Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas," by Dr. Antonio de Morga, an important work, neglected by the Spaniards, but already edited in English by Dean Stanley.

After publishing this work, in Paris, Rizal returned to Spain, where, in 1890, he began a series of brilliant pleas for the Philippines, in the Solidaridad, a liberal journal published at Barcelona and afterward at Madrid. But he roused little sympathy or interest in Spain, and his articles, repeated in pamphlets in the Philippines, served to make his position more dangerous at home.

Disheartened but steadfast, he retired to Belgium, to write his second novel, "El Filibusterismo." "Noli Me viii Introduction

Tangere " is a poet's story of his people's loves, faults, aspirations, and wrongs; "El Filibusterismo " is the work of a student of statecraft, pointing out the way to political justice and the development of national life. Inspired, it would seem, by his own creation of a future for his country, he returned to the Solidaridad^ where, in a series of remarkable articles, he forecast the ultimate downfall of Spain in the Philippines and the rise of his people. This was his crime against the Government: for the spirit which in a Spanish boy would not permit a Tagalo to have a patria, in a Spaniard grown could not brook the suggestion of colonial independence, even in the far future.

And now having poured out these passionate pleas and splendid forecasts, Rizal was homesick for this land of his. He went to Hong-Kong. Calamba was in revolt. His many friends at the English port did everything to keep him; but the call was too persistent. December 23d, 1891, he wrote to Despujols, then governor-general of the Philippines : " If Your Excellency thinks my slight services could be of use in pointing out the evils of my country and helping heal the wounds reopened by the recent injustices, you need but to say so, and trusting in your honor as a gentleman, I will immediately put myself at your disposal. If you decline my offer, ... I shall at least be conscious of having done all in my power, while seeking the good of my country, to preserve her union to Spain through a stable policy based upon justice and community of interests."

The governor expressed his gratitude, promised protection, and Rizal sailed for Manila. But immediately after his landing he was arrested on a charge of sedition, whose source made the governor's promise impotent. Nothing could be proved against Rizal ; but it was not the purpose of his enemies to have him acquitted. A half-way sentence was imposed, and he was banished to Dapidan, on the island of Mindanao. Despujols was recalled to Spain.

In this exile Rizal spent four years, beloved by the na-

Introduction ix

tives, teaching them agriculture, treating their sick (the poor without charge), improving their schools, and visited from time to time by patients from abroad, drawn here by his fame as an oculist. Among these last came a Mr. Taufer, a resident of Hong-Kong, and with him his foster-child, Josephine Bracken, the daughter of an Irish sergeant. The pretty and adventurous girl and the banished patriot fell in love with each other.

These may well have been among the happiest years of Rizal's life. He had always been an exile in fact: now that he was one in name, strangely enough he was able for the first time to live in peace among his brothers under the skies he loved. He sang, in his pathetic content:

** Thou dear illusion with thy soothing cup ! I taste, and think I am a child again.

Oh! kindly tempest, favoring winds of heaven. That knew the hour to check my shifting flight, And beat me down upon my native soil, ..."

Always about his philological studies, he began here a work that should be of peculiar interest to us : a treatise on Tagalog verbs, in the English language. Did his knowledge of America's growing feeling toward Cuba lead him to foresee — as no one else seems to have done — her appearance in the Philippines, or was he thinking of England?

At Hong-Kong, and in his brief stays at Manila, Rizal had established the Liga Filipina, a society of educated and progressive islanders, whose ideas of needed reforms and methods of attaining them were at one with his own. His banishment was a warning of danger and checked the society's activity.

The Liga was succeeded, in the sense only of followed, by the Katipunan, — a native word also meaning league. The makers of this "league," though avowing the same

X Introduction

purpose as the members of the other, were men of very different stamp. Their initiation was a blood-rite: they sought immediate independence; they preached a campaign of force, if not of violence. That a recent reviewer should have connected Dr. Rizal's name with the Katipunan is difficult to understand. Not alone are his writings, acts, and character against such a possibility, but so also is the testimony of the Spanish archives : for not only was it admitted at his final trial that he was not suspected of any connection with the Katipunan, but his well-known disapproval of that society's premature and violent action was even made a point against him. He was so much the more dangerous to the state because he had the sagacity to know that the times were not yet ripe for independence, and the honesty and purity of purpose to make only demands which the state herself well knew to be just.

When the rebellion of 1896 broke out, Rizal, still at Dapidan, knew that his life would not long be worth a breath of his beloved Philippine air. He asked, therefore, of the Government permission to go to Cuba as an army surgeon. It was granted, and he was taken to Manila — ovations all along his route — and embarked on the Isla de Panay for Barcelona. He carried with him the following letter from General Blanco, then governor-general of the Philippines, to the Minister of War at Madrid:

Manila, August 30th, 1896.

Esteemed General and Distinguished Friend:

I recommend to you with genuine interest, Dr. Josd Rizal, who is leaving for the Peninsula, to place himself at the disposal of the Government as volunteer army surgeon to Cuba. During the four years of his exile at Dapidan, he has conducted himself in the most exemplary manner, and he is in my opinion the more worthy of pardon and consideration, in that he is in no way connected with the extravagant attempts we are now deploring, neither those of conspii:ators nor of the secret societies that have been formed.

Introduction xi

I have the pleasure to reassure you of my high esteem, and remain,

Your affectionate friend and comrade,

Ramon Blanco.

But as soon as the Isla was on the seas, despatches began to pass between Manila and Madrid, and before she reached her port the promises, acceptances, and recommendations of the Government officials were void. Upon landing, Rizal was immediately arrested and confined in the infamous Montjuich prison. Despujols was now military governor of Barcelona. The interview of hours which he is said to have had with his Filipino prisoner must have been dramatic. Rizal was at once re-embarked, on the Colon, and returned to Manila, a state prisoner. Blanco was recalled, and Poliavieja, a sworn friend of the clericals, was sent out.

Rizal was tried by court-martial, on a charge of sedition and rebellion. His guilt was manifestly impossible. Except as a prisoner of the state, he had spent only a few weeks in the Philippines since his boyhood. His life abroad had been perfectly open, as were all his writings. The facts stated in General Blanco's letter to the Minister of War were well known to all Rizal's accusers. The best they could do was to aver that he had written " depreciative words" against the Government and the Church. Some testimony was given against him by men who, since the American occupation, have made affidavit that it was false and forced from them by torture. Rizal made a splendid defence, but he was condemned, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. On that day Josd Rizal y Mercado and Josephine Bracken were married. Then the sweetness and strength of his character and his singleness of purpose made a beautiful showing. In the night, which his bride spent on her knees outside his prison, he wrote a long poem of farewell to his patria adorado, fine in its abnegation and exquisite in the wanderings of its fancy. He received the xii Introduction

ministrations of a Jesuit priest. He was perfectly calm. " What is death to me? " he said; "I have sown, others are left to reap." At dawn he was shot.

The poem in which he left a record of his last thoughts was the following:

MY LAST THOUGHT.

Land I adore, farewell ! thou land of the southern sun's choosing !

Pearl of the Orient seas ! our forfeited Garden of Eden !

Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far brighter,

Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would I give it.

Far aBeld, in the din and rush of maddening battle.

Others have laid down their lives, nor wavered nor paused in the giving.

What matters way or place — the Cyprus, the lily, the laurel,

Gibbet or open field, the sword or inglorious torture.

When 'tis the hearth and the country that call for the life's immolation?

Dawn's faint lights bar the east, she smiles through the cowl of the

darkness, Just as I die. Hast thou need of purple to garnish her pathway ? Here is my blood, on the hour ! pour it out, and the sun in his rising Mayhap will touch it with gold, will lend it the sheen of his glory.

Dreams of my childhood -and youth, and dreams of my strong young

manhood.

What were they all but to see, thou gem of the Orient ocean ! Tearless thine eyes so deep, unbent, unmarred thy sweet forehead.

Vision I followed from far, desire that spurred on and consumed me ! Greeting ! my parting soul cries, and greeting again ! . . . O my country !

Beautiful is it to fall, that the vision may rise to fulfilment. Giving my life for thy life, and breathing thine air in the death-throe ; Sweet to eternally sleep in thy lap, O land of enchantment !

H in the deep, rich grass that covers my rest in thy bosom,

Lay there thy lips, 'tis my soul ; may I feel on my forehead descending,

Deep in the chilly tomb, the soft, warm breath of thy kisses.

Introduction xiii

Let the calm light of the moon fall around me, and dawn's fleeting

splendor ; Let the winds murmur and sigh, on my cross let some bird tell its

message ; Loosed from the rain by the brazen sun. let clouds of soft vapor Bear to the skies, as they mount again, the chant of my spirit. There may some friendly heart lament my parting untimely, And if at eventide a soul for my tranquil sleep prayeth, Pray thou too, O my fatherland ! for my peaceful reposing. Pray for those who go down to death through unspeakable torments ; Pray for those who remain to suffer such torture in prisons ; Pray for the bitter grief of our mothers, our widows, our orphans ; Oh, pray too for thyself, on the way to thy final redemption.

When our still dwelling-place wraps night's dusky mantle about her. Leaving the dead alone with the dead, to watch till the morning. Break not our rest, and seek not to lay death's mystery open. If now and then thou shouldst hear the string of a lute or a zithem. Mine is the hand, dear country, and mine is the voice that is singing.

When my tomb, that all have forgot, no cross nor stone marketh, There let the laborer guide his plough, there cleave the earth open. So shall my ashes at last be one with thy hills and thy valleys. Little 'twill matter then, my country, that thou shouldst forget me ! I shall be air in thy streets, and I shall be space in thy meadows. I shall be vibrant speech in thine ears, shall be fragrance and color. Light and shout, and loved song forever repeating my message.

Rizal's own explanation of the lofty purpose of his searching story of his Tagalog fatherland was in these words of his dedicatory preface :

TO MY COUNTRY

The records of human suffering make known to us the existence of ailments of such nature that the slightest touch irritates and causes tormenting pains. Whenever, in the midst of modern civilizations, I have tried to call up thy dear image, O my country! either for the comradeship of remembrance or to compare thy life with that about me, I have seen thy fair face disfigured and distorted by a hideous social cancer.

xiv Introduction

Eager for thy health, which is our happiness, and seeking the best remedy for thy pain, I am about to do with thee what the ancients did with their sick : they exposed them on the steps of their temples, that every one who came to adore the divinity within might offer a remedy.

So I shall strive to describe faithfully thy state without extenuation ; to lift a corner of the covering that hides thy sore ; sacrificing everything to truth, even the love of thy glory, while loying, as thy son, even thy frailties and sins.

• 3{..i: . J THE HOUSE ON THE PASIG.

■It; • o

It was toward the end of October. Don 'Santiago de los Santos, better known as Captain Tiago, was giving a dinner; and though, contrary to custom, he had not announced it until that very afternoon, it had become before evening the sole topic of conversation, not only at Binondo, but in the other suburbs of Manila, and even in the city itself. Captain Tiago passed for the most lavish of entertainers, and it was well known that the doors of his home, like those of his country, were closed to nobody and nothing save commerce and all new or audacious ideas. The news spread, therefore, with lightning rapidity in the world of the syce phants, the unemployed and idle, whom heaven has multiplied so generously at Manila.

The dinner was given in a house of the Calle de Anloague, which may yet be recognized, if an earthquake has not demolished it. This house, rather large and of a style common to the country, stood near an arm of the Pasig, called the Boco de Binondo, a rio which, like all others of Manila, washing along the multiple output of baths, sewers, and fishing grounds serves as a means of transport, and even furnishes drinking-water, if such be the humor of the Chinese carrier. Scarcely at intervals of a half-mile is I this powerful artery of the quarter where the traffic is most important, the movement most active, dotted with bridges; and these, in ruins at one end six months of the year and inapproachable the remaining six at the other, give horses a pretext for plunging into the water, to the great surprise of preoccupied mortals in carriages dozing tranquilly or philosophizing on the progress of the century.

The house of Captain Tiago was rather low and on lines sufficiently incorrect. A grand staircase with green balustrades, carpeted at intervals, led from the vestibule, with its squares of colored faience, to the main floor, between Chinese pedestals ornamented with fantastic designs, sup> porting vases and jardinibres of flowers.

At the top of the staircase was a large apartment, called here caida, which for this night served at once as diningand music-room. In the centre, a long table, luxuriously set, seemed to promise to diners-out the most soothing satisfaction, at the same time threatening the timid girl — the dalaga — who for six mortal hours must submit to the companionship of strange and diverse people.

In contrast to these mundane preparations, richly colored pictures of religious subjects hung about the walls, and at the end of the apartment, imprisoned in ornate and splendid Renaissance carving, was a curious canvas of vast dimensions, bearing the inscription, " Our Lady of Peace and of Safe Journeys, Venerated at Antipolo." The ceiling was prettily decorated with jewelled Chinese lamps, cages without birds, spheres of crystal faced with colored foil, faded air plants, botetes, etc. On the river side, through fantastic arches, half Chinese, half European, were glimpses of a terrace, with trellises and arbors, illuminated by little colored lanterns. Brilliant chandeliers, reflected in great mirrors, lighted the apartment. On a platform of pine was a superb grand piano. In a panel of the wall, a large portrait in oil

The House on the Pasig 3

represented a man of agreeable face, in frock coat, robust, straight, symmetrical as the gavel between his jewelled fingers.

The crowd of guests almost filled the room; the men separated from the women, as in Catholic churches and synagogues. An old cousin of Captain Tiago's was receiving alone. Her appearance was kindly, but her tongue not very flexible to the Castilian. She filled her role by offering to the Spaniards trays of cigarettes and buyos^ and giving the Filipinos her hand to kiss. The poor old lady, wearied at last, profited by the sound of breaking china to go out hurriedly, grumbling at maladroits. She did not reappear.

Whether the pictures roused a spirit of devotion, whether the women of the Philippines are exceptional, the feminine part of the assembly remained silent. Scarcely was heard even a yawn, stifled behind a fan. The men made more stir. The most interesting and animated group was formed by two monks, two Spanish provincials, and an officer, seated round a little table, on which were wine and English biscuits.

The officer, an old lieutenant, tall and morose, looked a Duke of Alba, retired into the Municipal Guard. He spoke little and dryly. One of the monks was a young Dominican, handsome, brilliant, precociously grave; it was the curate of Binondo. Consummate dialectician, he could escape from a distinguo like an eel from a fisherman's nets. He spoke seldom, and seemed to weigh his words.

The other monk talked much and gestured more. Though his hair was turning gray, he seemed to have preserved all his vigor. His carriage, his glance, his large jaws, his herculean frame, gave him the air of a Roman patrician in disguise. Yet he seemed genial, and if the timbre of his voice was autocratic, his frank and merry laugh removed any disagreeable impression, so far even that one pardoned his appearing in the salon with unshod feet.

One of the provincials, a little man with a black beard, had nothing remarkable about him but his nose, which, to judge from its size, ought not to have belonged to him entire. The other, young and blond, seemed newly arrived in the country. The Franciscan was conversing with him somewhat warmly.

" You will see," said he, " when you have been here several months; you will be convinced that to legislate at Madrid and to execute in the Philippines is not one and the same thing."

" But "

" I; for example," continued Brother Damaso, raising his voice to cut off the words of his objector, " I, who count twenty-three years of plane and palm, can speak with authority. I spent twenty years in one pueblo. In twenty years one gets acquainted with a town. San Diego had six thousand souls. I knew each inhabitant as if I'd borne and reared him — with which foot this one limped, how that one's pot boiled — and I tell you the reforms proposed by the Ministers are absurd. The Indian is too indolent! "

"Ah, pardon me," said the young man, speaking low and drawing nearer; "that word rouses all my interest. Does it really exist from birth, this indolence of the native, or is it, as some travellers say, only an excuse of our own for the lack of advancement in our colonial policy? "

" Bah ! ask Senor Laruja, who also knows the country well ; ask him if the ignorance and idleness of the Indians are not unparalleled? "

"In truth!" the little dark man made haste to affirm; "nowhere will you find men more careless."

" Nor more corrupt, nor more ungrateful."

"Nor more ill-bred." ,

The House on the Pasig 5

The young man looked about uneasily. "Gentlemen," said he, still speaking low, " it seems to me we are the guests of Indians, and that these young ladies "

"Bah, you are too timid: Santiago does not consider himself an Indian, besides, he isn't here. These are the scruples of a newcomer. Wait a little. When you have slept in our strapped beds, eaten the tinola, and seen our balls and fetes, you'll change your tone. And more, you will find that the country is going to ruin; she is ruined already ! "

"What does your reverence mean?" cried the lieutenant and Dominican together.

" The evil all comes from the fact that the Government sustains wrong-doers in the face of the ministers of God," continued the Franciscan, raising his voice and facing about. " When a curate rids his cemetery of a malefactor, no one, not even the king, has the right to interfere ; and a wretched general, a petty general from nowhere "

"Father, His Excellency is viceroy," said the officer, rising. " His Excellency represents His Majesty the king."

"What Excellency?" retorted the Franciscan, rising in turn. "Who is this king? For us there is but one King, the legitimate "

" If you do not retract that, Father, I shall make it known to the governor-general," cried the lieutenant.

"Go to him now, go!" retorted Father Damaso; "I'll loan you my carriage."

The Dominican interposed.

" Senores," said he in a tone of authority, " you should not confuse things, nor seek offence where there is none intended. We must distinguish in the words of Father Damaso those of the man from those of the priest. The latter per se can never offend, because they are infallible. In the words of the man, a sub-distinction must be made, into those said ab irato, those said ex ore, but not in corde, and those said in corde. It is these last only that can offend, and even then everything depends. If they were not premeditated in mente, but simply arose per accidens in the heat of the conversation "

At this interesting point there joined the group an old Spaniard, gentle and inoffensive of aspect. He was lame, and leaned on the arm of an old native woman, smothered in curls and frizzes, preposterously powdered, and in European dress. With relief every one turned to salute them. It was Doctor de Espadana and his wife, the Doctora Dona Victorina. The atmosphere cleared.

"Which, Senor Laruja, is the master of the house?" asked the young provincial. " I haven't been presented."

" They say he has gone out."

"No presentations are necessary here," said Brother Damaso; "Santiago is a good fellow."

"What, you too, Senor de Laruja? " said Dona Victorina over her fan. "How could the poor man have invented gunpowder when, if what they say is true, the Chinese made it centuries ago ? "

"The Chinese? 'Twas a Franciscan who invented it," said Brother Damaso.

"A Franciscan, no doubt; he must have been a missionary to China," said the Senora, not disposed to abandon her idea.

"Who is this with Santiago?" asked the lieutenant. Every one looked toward the door, where two men had just entered. They came up to the group around the table.

II. Crisostomo Ibarra

One was the original of the portrait in oil, and he led by the hand a young man in deep black. "Good evening, senores; good evening, fathers," said Captain Tiago, kissing the hands of the priests, " I have the honor of presenting to you Don Crisostomo Ibarra."

At the name of Ibarra there were smothered exclamations. The lieutenant, forgetting to salute the master of the house, surveyed the young man from head to foot. Brother Damaso seemed petrified. The arrival was evidently unexpected. Senor Ibarra exchanged the usual phrases with members of the group. Nothing marked him from other guests save his black attire. His fine height, his manner, his movements, denoted sane and vigorous youth. His face, frank and engaging, of a rich brown, and lightly furrowed — trace of Spanish blood — was rosy from a sojourn in the north.