The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER XXXIX 183
Sisa, as we saw, had been arrested as a disturber of the peace and taken to the barracks. The alferez was not
then present, so the unfortunate woman had had to spend the night there seated on a bench in an abandoned
attitude. The next day the alferez saw her, and fearing for her in those days of confusion nor caring to risk a
disagreeable scene, he had charged the soldiers to look after her, to treat her kindly, and to give her something
to eat. Thus the madwoman spent two days.
Tonight, whether the nearness to the house of Capitan Tiago had brought to her Maria Clara's sad song or
whether other recollections awoke in her old melodies, whatever the cause, Sisa also began to sing in a sweet
and melancholy voice the kundíman of her youth. The soldiers heard her and fell silent; those airs awoke old
memories of the days before they had been corrupted. Doña Consolacion also heard them in her tedium, and
on learning who it was that sang, after a few moments of meditation, ordered that Sisa be brought to her
instantly. Something like a smile wandered over her dry lips.
When Sisa was brought in she came calmly, showing neither wonder nor fear. She seemed to see no lady or
mistress, and this wounded the vanity of the Muse, who endeavored to inspire respect and fear. She coughed,
made a sign to the soldiers to leave her, and taking down her husband's whip, said to the crazy woman in a
sinister tone, "Come on, magcantar icau!" [108]
Naturally, Sisa did not understand such Tagalog, and this ignorance calmed the Medusa's wrath, for one of the
beautiful qualities of this lady was to try not to know Tagalog, or at least to appear not to know it. Speaking it
the worst possible, she would thus give herself the air of a genuine orofea, [109] as she was accustomed to
say. But she did well, for if she martyrized Tagalog, Spanish fared no better with her, either in regard to
grammar or pronunciation, in spite of her husband, the chairs and the shoes, all of which had done what they
could to teach her.
One of the words that had cost her more effort than the hieroglyphics cost Champollion was the name
Filipinas. The story goes that on the day after her wedding, when she was talking with her husband, who was
then a corporal, she had said Pilipinas. The corporal thought it his duty to correct her, so he said, slapping her
on the head, "Say Felipinas, woman! Don't be stupid! Don't you know that's what your damned country is
called, from Felipe?"
The woman, dreaming through her honeymoon, wished to obey and said Felepinas. To the corporal it seemed
that she was getting nearer to it, so he increased the slaps and reprimanded her thus: "But, woman, can't you
pronounce Felipe? Don't forget it; you know the king, Don Felipe--the fifth--. Say Felipe, and add to it nas,
which in Latin means 'islands of Indians,' and you have the name of your damned country!"
Consolacion, at that time a washerwoman, patted her bruises and repeated with symptoms of losing her
patience, "Fe-li-pe, Felipe--nas, Fe-li-pe-nas, Felipinas, so?"
The corporal saw visions. How could it be Felipenas instead of Felipinas? One of two things: either it was
Felipenas or it was necessary to say Felipi! So that day he very prudently dropped the subject. Leaving his
wife, he went to consult the books. Here his astonishment reached a climax: he rubbed his eyes--let's
see--slowly, now! F-i-l-i-p-i-n-a-s, Filipinas! So all the well-printed books gave it--neither he nor his wife was
right!
"How's this?" he murmured. "Can history lie? Doesn't this book say that Alonso Saavedra gave the country
that name in honor of the prince, Don Felipe? How was that name corrupted? Can it be that this Alonso
Saavedra was an Indian?" [110]
With these doubts he went to consult the sergeant Gomez, who, as a youth, had wanted to be a curate. Without
deigning to look at the corporal the sergeant blew out a mouthful of smoke and answered with great
pompousness, "In ancient times it was pronounced Filipi instead of Felipe. But since we moderns have