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 XXVII 136<br />
"Sinang!" scolded Victoria.<br />
"I haven't been able to endure him since he tore up the Wheel of Fortune. I don't go to confession to him any<br />
more."<br />
Of all the houses one only was to be noticed without lights and with all the windows closed--that of the<br />
alferez. Maria Clara expressed surprise at this.<br />
"<strong>The</strong> witch! <strong>The</strong> Muse of the Civil Guard, as the old man says," exclaimed the irrepressible Sinang. "What has<br />
she to do with our merrymakings? I imagine she's raging! But just let the cholera come and you'd see her give<br />
a banquet."<br />
"But, Sinang!" again her cousin scolded.<br />
"I never was able to endure her and especially since she disturbed our picnic with her civil-guards. If I were<br />
the Archbishop I'd marry Her to Padre Salvi--then think what children! Look how she tried to arrest the poor<br />
pilot, who threw himself into the water simply to please--"<br />
She was not allowed to finish, for in the corner of the plaza where a blind man was singing to the<br />
accompaniment of a guitar, a curious spectacle was presented. It was a man miserably dressed, wearing a<br />
broad salakot of palm leaves. His clothing consisted of a ragged coat and wide pantaloons, like those worn <strong>by</strong><br />
the Chinese, torn in many places. Wretched sandals covered his feet. His countenance remained hidden in the<br />
shadow of his wide hat, but from this shadow there flashed intermittently two burning rays. Placing a flat<br />
basket on the ground, he would withdraw a few paces and utter strange, incomprehensible sounds, remaining<br />
the while standing entirely alone as if he and the crowd were mutually avoiding each other. <strong>The</strong>n some<br />
women would approach the basket and put into it fruit, fish, or rice. When no one any longer approached,<br />
from the shadows would issue sadder but less pitiful sounds, cries of gratitude perhaps. <strong>The</strong>n he would take up<br />
the basket and make his way to another place to repeat the same performance.<br />
Maria Clara divined that there must be some misfortune there, and full of interest she asked concerning the<br />
strange creature.<br />
"He's a leper," Iday told her. "Four years ago he contracted the disease, some say from taking care of his<br />
mother, others from lying in a damp prison. He lives in the fields near the Chinese cemetery, having<br />
intercourse with no one, because all flee from him for fear of contagion. If you might only see his home! It's a<br />
tumbledown shack, through which the wind and rain pass like a needle through cloth. He has been forbidden<br />
to touch anything belonging to the people. One day when a little child fell into a shallow ditch as he was<br />
passing, he helped to get it out. <strong>The</strong> child's father complained to the gobernadorcillo, who ordered that the<br />
leper be flogged through the streets and that the rattan be burned afterwards. It was horrible! <strong>The</strong> leper fled<br />
with his flogger in pursuit, while the gobernadorcillo cried, 'Catch him! Better be drowned than get the disease<br />
you have!'"<br />
"Can it be true!" murmured Maria Clara, then, without saying what she was about to do, went up to the<br />
wretch's basket and dropped into it the locket her father had given her.<br />
"What have you done?" her friends asked.<br />
"I hadn't anything else," she answered, trying to conceal her tears with a smile.<br />
"What is he going to do with your locket?" Victoria asked her. "One day they gave him some money, but he<br />
pushed it away with a stick; why should he want it when no one accepts anything that comes from him? As if<br />
the locket could be eaten!"