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