The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
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CHAPTER XXVI 132<br />
"Sure, we're sure! Carlos the Chinaman will loosen up also." Here the chub<strong>by</strong> individual works his fingers as<br />
though counting out pieces of money.<br />
Outside the town the hill-folk, the kasamá, are putting on their best clothes to carry to the houses of their<br />
landlords well-fattened chickens, wild pigs, deer, and birds. Some load firewood on the heavy carts, others<br />
fruits, ferns, and orchids, the rarest that grow in the forests, others bring broad-leafed caladiums and<br />
flame-colored tikas-tikas blossoms to decorate the doors of the houses.<br />
But the place where the greatest activity reigns, where it is converted into a tumult, is there on a little plot of<br />
raised ground, a few steps from Ibarra's house. Pulleys screech and yells are heard amid the metallic sound of<br />
iron striking upon stone, hammers upon nails, of axes chopping out posts. A crowd of laborers is digging in<br />
the earth to open a wide, deep trench, while others place in line the stones taken from the town quarries. Carts<br />
are unloaded, piles of sand are heaped up, windlasses and derricks are set in place.<br />
"Hey, you there! Hurry up!" cries a little old man with lively and intelligent features, who has for a cane a<br />
copper-bound rule around which is wound the cord of a plumb-bob. This is the foreman of the work, Ñor<br />
Juan, architect, mason, carpenter, painter, locksmith, stonecutter, and, on occasions, sculptor. "It must be<br />
finished right now! Tomorrow there'll be no work and the day after tomorrow is the ceremony. Hurry!"<br />
"Cut that hole so that this cylinder will fit it exactly," he says to some masons who are shaping a large square<br />
block of stone. "Within that our names will be preserved."<br />
He repeats to every newcomer who approaches the place what he has already said a thousand times: "You<br />
know what we're going to build? Well, it's a schoolhouse, a model of its kind, like those in Germany, and even<br />
better. A great architect has drawn the plans, and I--I am bossing the job! Yes, sir, look at it, it's going to be a<br />
palace with two wings, one for the boys and the other for the girls. Here in the middle a big garden with three<br />
fountains, there on the sides shaded walks with little plots for the children to sow and cultivate plants in<br />
during their recess-time, that they may improve the hours and not waste them. Look how deep the foundations<br />
are, three meters and seventy-five centimeters! This building is going to have storerooms, cellars, and for<br />
those who are not diligent students dungeons near the playgrounds so that the culprits may hear how the<br />
studious children are enjoying themselves. Do you see that big space? That will be a lawn for running and<br />
exercising in the open air. <strong>The</strong> little girls will have a garden with benches, swings, walks where they can jump<br />
the rope, fountains, bird-cages, and so on. It's going to be magnificent!"<br />
<strong>The</strong>n Ñor Juan would rub his hands together as he thought of the fame that he was going to acquire. Strangers<br />
would come to see it and would ask, "Who was the great artisan that built this?" and all would answer, "Don't<br />
you know? Can it be that you've never heard of Ñor Juan? Undoubtedly you've come from a great distance!"<br />
With these thoughts he moved from one part to the other, examining and reexamining everything.<br />
"It seems to me that there's too much timber for one derrick," he remarked to a yellowish man who was<br />
overseeing some laborers. "I should have enough with three large beams for the tripod and three more for the<br />
braces."<br />
"Never mind!" answered the yellowish man, smiling in a peculiar way. "<strong>The</strong> more apparatus we use in the<br />
work, so much the greater effect we'll get. <strong>The</strong> whole thing will look better and of more importance, so they'll<br />
say, 'How hard they've worked!' You'll see, you'll see what a derrick I'll put up! <strong>The</strong>n I'll decorate it with<br />
banners, and garlands of leaves and flowers. You'll say afterwards that you were right in hiring me as one of<br />
your laborers, and Señor Ibarra couldn't ask for more!" As he said this the man laughed and smiled. Ñor Juan<br />
also smiled, but shook his head.<br />
Some distance away were seen two kiosks united <strong>by</strong> a kind of arbor covered with banana leaves. <strong>The</strong><br />
schoolmaster and some thirty boys were weaving crowns and fastening banners upon the frail bamboo posts,