The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER LIX 269
him up and talk to him at that reception! You can't deny that!"
"Did I know that he was to be there, perhaps?"
"But you ought to have known it!"
"How so, if I didn't even know him?"
"But you ought to have known him!"
"But, Tinchang, it was the first time that I ever saw him, that I ever heard him spoken of!"
"Well then, you ought to have known him before and heard him spoken of. That's what you're a man for and
wear trousers and read El Diario de Manila," [150] answered his unterrified spouse, casting on him a terrible
look.
To this Capitan Tinong did not know what to reply. Capitana Tinchang, however, was not satisfied with this
victory, but wished to silence him completely. So she approached him with clenched fists. "Is this what I've
worked for, year after year, toiling and saving, that you by your stupidity may throw away the fruits of my
labor?" she scolded. "Now they'll come to deport you, they'll take away all our property, just as they did from
the wife of--Oh, if I were a man, if I were a man!"
Seeing that her husband bowed his head, she again fell to sobbing, but still repeating, "Ay, if I were a man, if I
were a man!"
"Well, if you were a man," the provoked husband at length asked, "what would you do?"
"What would I do? Well--well--well, this very minute I'd go to the Captain-General and offer to fight against
the rebels, this very minute!"
"But haven't you seen what the Diario says? Read it: 'The vile and infamous treason has been suppressed with
energy, strength, and vigor, and soon the rebellious enemies of the Fatherland and their accomplices will feel
all the weight and severity of the law.' Don't you see it? There isn't any more rebellion."
"That doesn't matter! You ought to offer yourself as they did in '72; [151] they saved themselves."
"Yes, that's what was done by Padre Burg--"
But he was unable to finish this name, for his wife ran to him and slapped her hand over his mouth. "Shut up!
Are you saying that name so that they may garrote you tomorrow on Bagumbayan? Don't you know that to
pronounce it is enough to get yourself condemned without trial? Keep quiet!"
However Capitan Tinong may have felt about obeying her, he could hardly have done otherwise, for she had
his mouth covered with both her hands, pressing his little head against the back of the chair, so that the poor
fellow might have been smothered to death had not a new personage appeared on the scene. This was their
cousin, Don Primitivo, who had memorized the "Amat," a man of some forty years, plump, big-paunched, and
elegantly dressed.
"Quid video?" he exclaimed as he entered. "What's happening? Quare?" [152]
"Ay, cousin!" cried the woman, running toward him in tears, "I've sent for you because I don't know what's
going to become of us. What do you advise? Speak, you've studied Latin and know how to argue."