Part 2 (2/2)
”They talk of past times. But listen--speaking of uncles, what does yours say about Paulita?”
Isagani blushed. ”He preached me a sermon about the choosing of a wife. I answered him that there wasn't in Manila another like her--beautiful, well-bred, an orphan--”
”Very wealthy, elegant, charming, with no defect other than a ridiculous aunt,” added Basilio, at which both smiled.
”In regard to the aunt, do you know that she has charged me to look for her husband?”
”Dona Victorina? And you've promised, in order to keep your sweetheart.”
”Naturally! But the fact is that her husband is actually hidden--in my uncle's house!”
Both burst into a laugh at this, while Isagani continued: ”That's why my uncle, being a conscientious man, won't go on the upper deck, fearful that Dona Victorina will ask him about Don Tiburcio. Just imagine, when Dona Victorina learned that I was a steerage pa.s.senger she gazed at me with a disdain that--”
At that moment Simoun came down and, catching sight of the two young men, greeted Basilio in a patronizing tone: ”h.e.l.lo, Don Basilio, you're off for the vacation? Is the gentleman a townsman of yours?”
Basilio introduced Isagani with the remark that he was not a townsman, but that their homes were not very far apart. Isagani lived on the seash.o.r.e of the opposite coast. Simoun examined him with such marked attention that he was annoyed, turned squarely around, and faced the jeweler with a provoking stare.
”Well, what is the province like?” the latter asked, turning again to Basilio.
”Why, aren't you familiar with it?”
”How the devil am I to know it when I've never set foot in it? I've been told that it's very poor and doesn't buy jewels.”
”We don't buy jewels, because we don't need them,” rejoined Isagani dryly, piqued in his provincial pride.
A smile played over Simoun's pallid lips. ”Don't be offended, young man,” he replied. ”I had no bad intentions, but as I've been a.s.sured that nearly all the money is in the hands of the native priests, I said to myself: the friars are dying for curacies and the Franciscans are satisfied with the poorest, so when they give them up to the native priests the truth must be that the king's profile is unknown there. But enough of that! Come and have a beer with me and we'll drink to the prosperity of your province.”
The youths thanked him, but declined the offer.
”You do wrong,” Simoun said to them, visibly taken aback. ”Beer is a good thing, and I heard Padre Camorra say this morning that the lack of energy noticeable in this country is due to the great amount of water the inhabitants drink.”
Isagani was almost as tall as the jeweler, and at this he drew himself up.
”Then tell Padre Camorra,” Basilio hastened to say, while he nudged Isagani slyly, ”tell him that if he would drink water instead of wine or beer, perhaps we might all be the gainers and he would not give rise to so much talk.”
”And tell him, also,” added Isagani, paying no attention to his friend's nudges, ”that water is very mild and can be drunk, but that it drowns out the wine and beer and puts out the fire, that heated it becomes steam, and that ruffled it is the ocean, that it once destroyed mankind and made the earth tremble to its foundations!” [8]
Simoun raised his head. Although his looks could not be read through the blue goggles, on the rest of his face surprise might be seen. ”Rather a good answer,” he said. ”But I fear that he might get facetious and ask me when the water will be converted into steam and when into an ocean. Padre Camorra is rather incredulous and is a great wag.”
”When the fire heats it, when the rivulets that are now scattered through the steep valleys, forced by fatality, rush together in the abyss that men are digging,” replied Isagani.
”No, Senor Simoun,” interposed Basilio, changing to a jesting tone, ”rather keep in mind the verses of my friend Isagani himself:
'Fire you, you say, and water we, Then as you wish, so let it be; But let us live in peace and right, Nor shall the fire e'er see us fight; So joined by wisdom's glowing flame, That without anger, hate, or blame, We form the steam, the fifth element, Progress and light, life and movement.'”
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