Part 3 (1/2)

”Utopia, Utopia!” responded Simoun dryly. ”The engine is about to meet--in the meantime, I'll drink my beer.” So, without any word of excuse, he left the two friends.

”But what's the matter with you today that you're so quarrelsome?” asked Basilio.

”Nothing. I don't know why, but that man fills me with horror, fear almost.”

”I was nudging you with my elbow. Don't you know that he's called the Brown Cardinal?”

”The Brown Cardinal?”

”Or Black Eminence, as you wish.”

”I don't understand.”

”Richelieu had a Capuchin adviser who was called the Gray Eminence; well, that's what this man is to the General.”

”Really?”

”That's what I've heard from _a certain person,_--who always speaks ill of him behind his back and flatters him to his face.”

”Does he also visit Capitan Tiago?”

”From the first day after his arrival, and I'm sure that _a certain person_ looks upon him as a rival--in the inheritance. I believe that he's going to see the General about the question of instruction in Castilian.”

At that moment Isagani was called away by a servant to his uncle.

On one of the benches at the stern, huddled in among the other pa.s.sengers, sat a native priest gazing at the landscapes that were successively unfolded to his view. His neighbors made room for him, the men on pa.s.sing taking off their hats, and the gamblers not daring to set their table near where he was. He said little, but neither smoked nor a.s.sumed arrogant airs, nor did he disdain to mingle with the other men, returning the salutes with courtesy and affability as if he felt much honored and very grateful. Although advanced in years, with hair almost completely gray, he appeared to be in vigorous health, and even when seated held his body straight and his head erect, but without pride or arrogance. He differed from the ordinary native priests, few enough indeed, who at that period served merely as coadjutors or administered some curacies temporarily, in a certain self-possession and gravity, like one who was conscious of his personal dignity and the sacredness of his office. A superficial examination of his appearance, if not his white hair, revealed at once that he belonged to another epoch, another generation, when the better young men were not afraid to risk their dignity by becoming priests, when the native clergy looked any friar at all in the face, and when their cla.s.s, not yet degraded and vilified, called for free men and not slaves, superior intelligences and not servile wills. In his sad and serious features was to be read the serenity of a soul fortified by study and meditation, perhaps tried out by deep moral suffering. This priest was Padre Florentino, Isagani's uncle, and his story is easily told.

Scion of a wealthy and influential family of Manila, of agreeable appearance and cheerful disposition, suited to s.h.i.+ne in the world, he had never felt any call to the sacerdotal profession, but by reason of some promises or vows, his mother, after not a few struggles and violent disputes, compelled him to enter the seminary. She was a great friend of the Archbishop, had a will of iron, and was as inexorable as is every devout woman who believes that she is interpreting the will of G.o.d. Vainly the young Florentine offered resistance, vainly he begged, vainly he pleaded his love affairs, even provoking scandals: priest he had to become at twenty-five years of age, and priest he became. The Archbishop ordained him, his first ma.s.s was celebrated with great pomp, three days were given over to feasting, and his mother died happy and content, leaving him all her fortune.

But in that struggle Florentine received a wound from which he never recovered. Weeks before his first ma.s.s the woman he loved, in desperation, married a n.o.body--a blow the rudest he had ever experienced. He lost his moral energy, life became dull and insupportable. If not his virtue and the respect for his office, that unfortunate love affair saved him from the depths into which the regular orders and secular clergymen both fall in the Philippines. He devoted himself to his paris.h.i.+oners as a duty, and by inclination to the natural sciences.

When the events of seventy-two occurred, [9] he feared that the large income his curacy yielded him would attract attention to him, so, desiring peace above everything, he sought and secured his release, living thereafter as a private individual on his patrimonial estate situated on the Pacific coast. He there adopted his nephew, Isagani, who was reported by the malicious to be his own son by his old sweetheart when she became a widow, and by the more serious and better informed, the natural child of a cousin, a lady in Manila.

The captain of the steamer caught sight of the old priest and insisted that he go to the upper deck, saying, ”If you don't do so, the friars will think that you don't want to a.s.sociate with them.”

Padre Florentino had no recourse but to accept, so he summoned his nephew in order to let him know where he was going, and to charge him not to come near the upper deck while he was there. ”If the captain notices you, he'll invite you also, and we should then be abusing his kindness.”

”My uncle's way!” thought Isagani. ”All so that I won't have any reason for talking with Dona Victorina.”

CHAPTER III

LEGENDS

Ich weiss nicht was soil es bedeuten Da.s.s ich so traurig bin!

When Padre Florentino joined the group above, the bad humor provoked by the previous discussion had entirely disappeared. Perhaps their spirits had been raised by the attractive houses of the town of Pasig, or the gla.s.ses of sherry they had drunk in preparation for the coming meal, or the prospect of a good breakfast. Whatever the cause, the fact was that they were all laughing and joking, even including the lean Franciscan, although he made little noise and his smiles looked like death-grins.