The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER LX 274
CHAPTER LX
Maria Clara Weds
Capitan Tiago was very happy, for in all this terrible storm no one had taken any notice of him. He had not
been arrested, nor had he been subjected to solitary confinement, investigations, electric machines, continuous
foot-baths in underground cells, or other pleasantries that are well-known to certain folk who call themselves
civilized. His friends, that is, those who had been his friends--for the good man had denied all his Filipino
friends from the instant when they were suspected by the government--had also returned to their homes after a
few days' vacation in the state edifices. The Captain-General himself had ordered that they be cast out from
his precincts, not considering them worthy of remaining therein, to the great disgust of the one-armed
individual, who had hoped to celebrate the approaching Christmas in their abundant and opulent company.
Capitan Tinong had returned to his home sick, pale, and swollen; the excursion had not done him good. He
was so changed that he said not a word, nor even greeted his family, who wept, laughed, chattered, and almost
went mad with joy. The poor man no longer ventured out of his house for fear of running the risk of saying
good-day to a filibuster. Not even Don Primitivo himself, with all the wisdom of the ancients, could draw him
out of his silence.
"Crede, prime," the Latinist told him, "if I hadn't got here to burn all your papers, they would have squeezed
your neck; and if I had burned the whole house they wouldn't have touched a hair of your head. But quod
eventum, eventum; gratias agamus Domino Deo quia non in Marianis Insulis es, camotes seminando." [167]
Stories similar to Capitan Tinong's were not unknown to Capitan Tiago, so he bubbled over with gratitude,
without knowing exactly to whom he owed such signal favors. Aunt Isabel attributed the miracle to the Virgin
of Antipolo, to the Virgin of the Rosary, or at least to the Virgin of Carmen, and at the very, very least that she
was willing to concede, to Our Lady of the Girdle; according to her the miracle could not get beyond that.
Capitan Tiago did not deny the miracle, but added: "I think so, Isabel, but the Virgin of Antipolo couldn't have
done it alone. My friends have helped, my future son-in-law, Señor Linares, who, as you know, joked with
Señor Antonio Canovas himself, the premier whose portrait appears in the Ilustración, he who doesn't
condescend to show more than half his face to the people."
So the good man could not repress a smile of satisfaction every time that he heard any important news. And
there was plenty of news: it was whispered about in secret that Ibarra would be hanged; that, while many
proofs of his guilt had been lacking, at last some one had appeared to sustain the accusation; that experts had
declared that in fact the work on the schoolhouse could pass for a bulwark of fortification, although somewhat
defective, as was only to be expected of ignorant Indians. These rumors calmed him and made him smile.
In the same way that Capitan Tiago and his cousin diverged in their opinions, the friends of the family were
also divided into two parties,--one miraculous, the other governmental, although this latter was insignificant.
The miraculous party was again subdivided: the senior sacristan of Binondo, the candle-woman, and the
leader of the Brotherhood saw the hand of God directed by the Virgin of the Rosary; while the Chinese
wax-chandler, his caterer on his visits to Antipolo, said, as he fanned himself and shook his leg:
"Don't fool yourself--it's the Virgin of Antipolo! She can do more than all the rest--don't fool yourself!" [168]
Capitan Tiago had great respect for this Chinese, who passed himself off as a prophet and a physician.
Examining the palm of the deceased lady just before her daughter was born, he had prognosticated: "If it's not
a boy and doesn't die, it'll be a fine girl!" [169] and Maria Clara had come into the world to fulfill the infidel's
prophecy.