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 XXXV 170<br />
"After all," added Sister Rufa, "it must not be forgotten that it's a great sin to place your hand on a sacred<br />
person."<br />
"A father's memory is more sacred!" replied Capitana Maria. "No one, not even the Pope himself, much less<br />
Padre Damaso, may profane such a holy memory."<br />
"That's true!" murmured Capitana Tinay, admiring the wisdom of both. "Where did you get such good ideas?"<br />
"But the excommunication and the condemnation?" exclaimed Sister Rufa. "What are honor and a good name<br />
in this life if in the other we are damned? Everything passes away quickly--but the excommunication--to<br />
outrage a minister of Christ! No one less than the Pope can pardon that!"<br />
"God, who commands honor for father and mother, will pardon it, God will not excommunicate him! And I<br />
tell you that if that young man comes to my house I will receive him and talk with him, and if I had a daughter<br />
I would want him for a son-in-law; he who is a good son will be a good husband and a good father--believe it,<br />
Sister Rufa!"<br />
"Well, I don't think so. Say what you like, and even though you may appear to be right, I'll always rather<br />
believe the curate. Before everything else, I'll save my soul. What do you say, Capitana Tinny?"<br />
"Oh, what do you want me to say? You're both right the curate is right, but God must also be right. I don't<br />
know, I'm only a foolish woman. What I'm going to do is to tell my son not to study any more, for they say<br />
that persons who know anything die on the gallows. María Santísima, my son wants to go to Europe!"<br />
"What are you thinking of doing?"<br />
"Tell him to stay with me--why should he know more? Tomorrow or the next day we shall die, the learned<br />
and the ignorant alike must die, and the only question is to live in peace." <strong>The</strong> good old woman sighed and<br />
raised her eyes toward the sky.<br />
"For my part," said Capitana Maria gravely, "if I were rich like you I would let my sons travel; they are young<br />
and will some day be men. I have only a little while to live, we should see one another in the other life, so<br />
sons should aspire to be more than their fathers, but at our sides we only teach them to be children."<br />
"Ay, what rare thoughts you have!" exclaimed the astonished Capitana Tinay, clasping her hands. "It must be<br />
that you didn't suffer in bearing your twin boys."<br />
"For the very reason that I did bear them with suffering, that I have nurtured and reared them in spite of our<br />
poverty, I do not wish that, after the trouble they're cost me, they be only half-men."<br />
"It seems to me that you don't love your children as God commands," said Sister Rufa in a rather severe tone.<br />
"Pardon me, every mother loves her sons in her own way. One mother loves them for her own sake and<br />
another loves them for their sake. I am one of the latter, for my husband has so taught me."<br />
"All your ideas, Capitana Maria," said Sister Rufa, as if preaching, "are but little religious. Become a sister of<br />
the Holy Rosary or of St. Francis or of St. Rita or of St. Clara."<br />
"Sister Rufa, when I am a worthy sister of men then I'll try to be a sister of the saints," she answered with a<br />
smile.<br />
To put an end to this chapter of comments and that the reader may learn in passing what the simple country