Part 17 (1/2)
”But, gentlemen, I do not understand how you can be talking about gains and losses,” intervened the Alcalde. ”What will these amiable and discreet young women, who honor us with their presence, think of us? To my mind, the young women are like aeolian harps in the night. It is only necessary to lend an attentive ear to hear them, for their unspeakable harmonies elevate the soul to the celestial spheres of the infinite and of the ideal....”
”Your Excellency is a poet,” said the Notary gayly; and both drained their wine gla.s.ses.
”I cannot help it,” said the Alcalde, wiping his lips. ”The occasion, if it does not always make the thief, makes the poet. In my youth I composed verses, and they certainly were not bad ones.”
”So Your Excellency has been unfaithful to the Muses, deserting them for Themis.”
”Ps.h.!.+” What would you do? It has always been my dream to run through the whole social scale. Yesterday I was gathering flowers, and singing songs; to-day I hold the wand of Justice and serve Humanity. To-morrow....”
”To-morrow Your Excellency will throw the wand into the fire to warm yourself with it in the winter of life, and will then take a portfolio in the Ministry,” added Father Sibyla.
”Ps.h.!.+ Yes ... no.... To be a Minister is not precisely my ideal. The unexpected always happens, though. A little villa in the north of Spain to pa.s.s the summer in, a mansion in Madrid, and some possessions in Andalusia for the winter.... We will live remembering our dear Philippines.... Of me Voltaire will not say: 'Nous n'avons jamais ete chez ces peuples que pour nous y enrichir et pour les calomnier.'”
The Government employees thought that His Excellency intended a joke and they began to laugh to make a show of appreciating it. The friars imitated them since they did not know that Voltaire was the Volta-i-re whom they had so often cursed and condemned to Hades. Father Sibyla, however, recognized the name and a.s.sumed a serious air, supposing that the Alcalde had uttered some heresy.
Father Damaso was waddling down the road. He was half smiling, but in such a malignant manner, that on seeing him, Ibarra, who was in the act of speaking, lost the thread of his remarks. All were surprised to see Father Damaso, but, excepting Ibarra, they greeted him with marks of pleasure. They had already reached the last course of the dinner, and the champagne was foaming in the gla.s.ses.
Father Damaso showed a little nervousness in his smile when he saw Maria Clara seated on the right of Crisostomo. But, taking a chair by the side of the Alcalde, he asked in the midst of a significant silence: ”Were you not talking about something, senores? Continue!”
”We were drinking a toast,” replied the Alcalde. ”Senor Ibarra was mentioning those who had aided him in his philanthropic enterprise and was speaking of the architect when Your Reverence....”
”Well, I don't understand architecture,” interrupted Father Damaso, ”but architects and the dunces who go to them make me laugh! You have an example right here. I drew the plan for a church and it has been constructed perfectly: so an English jeweler who was one day a guest at the convent told me. To draught a plan, one need have but a small degree of intelligence.”
”However,” replied the Alcalde, seeing that Ibarra was silent, ”when we are dealing with certain edifices, for example a school, we need a skilled man (perito).”
”He who needs a perito is a perrito (little dog)!” exclaimed Father Damaso, with a scoff. ”One would have to be more of a brute than the natives, who erect their own houses, if he did not know how to build four walls and put a covering over them. That's all that a school house is.”
All looked toward Ibarra. But the young man, even if he did look pale, kept on conversing with Maria Clara.
”But Your Reverence should consider....”
”Just look you,” continued the Franciscan without allowing the Alcalde to speak. ”See how one of our lay brothers, the most stupid one we have, has built a good hospital, handsome and cheap. It is well built and he did not pay more than eight cuartos a day to those whom he employed even those who came from other towns. That fellow knows how to treat them. He does not do like many fools and mesticillos [13]
who spoil them by paying them three or four reales.”
”Does Your Reverence say that he only paid eight cuartos? Impossible!” said the Alcalde, trying to change the course of the conversation.
”Yes, Senor; and those who brag of being good Spaniards ought to imitate him. You can see very well now, since the Suez Ca.n.a.l was opened, corruption has come here. Before, when we had to double the Cape, there were not so many worthless people coming out here, nor did Filipinos go abroad to be corrupted and spoiled.”
”But, Father Damaso!”
”You know very well what the native is. As quickly as he learns anything, he goes and becomes a doctor. All these ignoramuses who go to Europe....”
”But listen, Your Reverence ...” interrupted the Alcalde, becoming uneasy at such harsh words.
”They are all going to end as they merit,” he continued. ”The hand of G.o.d is upon them and one must be blind not to see it. Even in this life, the fathers of such vipers receive their punishment.... They die in prison, eh?”
But he did not finish his remarks. Ibarra, his face flus.h.i.+ng, had been following him with his eyes. On hearing the allusion to his father, he rose and, with a single bound, brought down his strong hand on the head of the priest. Stunned with the blow, the friar fell on his back.