The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
CHAPTER LXIII 292<br />
went in. <strong>The</strong> bushes and shrubs, the thorny vines and projecting roots of trees, hindered the movements of<br />
both. <strong>The</strong> son followed his mother's shadowy form as it was revealed from time to time <strong>by</strong> the moonlight that<br />
penetrated through the foliage and into the open spaces. <strong>The</strong>y were in the mysterious wood of the Ibarra<br />
family.<br />
<strong>The</strong> boy stumbled and fell several times, but rose again, each time without feeling pain. All his soul was<br />
centered in his eyes, following the beloved figure. <strong>The</strong>y crossed the sweetly murmuring brook where sharp<br />
thorns of bamboo that had fallen on the sand at its margin pierced his bare feet, but he did not stop to pull<br />
them out.<br />
To his great surprise he saw that his mother had plunged into the thick undergrowth and was going through<br />
the wooden gateway that opened into the tomb of the old Spaniard at the foot of the balete. Basilio tried to<br />
follow her in, but found the gate fastened. <strong>The</strong> madwoman defended the entrance with her emaciated arms and<br />
disheveled head, holding the gate shut with all her might.<br />
"Mother, it's I, it's I! I'm Basilio, your son!" cried the boy as he let himself fall weakly.<br />
But the madwoman did not yield. Bracing herself with her feet on the ground, she offered an energetic<br />
resistance. Basilio beat the gate with his fists, with his Mood-stained head, he wept, but in vain. Painfully he<br />
arose and examined the wall, thinking to scale it, but found no way to do so. He then walked around it and<br />
noticed that a branch of the fateful balete was crossed with one from another tree. This he climbed and, his<br />
filial love working miracles, made his way from branch to branch to the balete, from which he saw his mother<br />
still holding the gate shut with her head.<br />
<strong>The</strong> noise made <strong>by</strong> him among the branches attracted Sisa's attention. She turned and tried to run, but her son,<br />
letting himself fall from the tree, caught her in his arms and covered her with kisses, losing consciousness as<br />
he did so.<br />
Sisa saw his blood-stained forehead and bent over him. Her eyes seemed to start from their sockets as she<br />
peered into his face. Those pale features stirred the sleeping cells of her brain, so that something like a spark<br />
of intelligence flashed up in her mind and she recognized her son. With a terrible cry she fell upon the<br />
insensible body of the boy, embracing and kissing him. Mother and son remained motionless.<br />
When Basilio recovered consciousness he found his mother lifeless. He called to her with the tenderest names,<br />
but she did not awake. Noticing that she was not even breathing, he arose and went to the neighboring brook<br />
to get some water in a banana leaf, with which to rub the pallid face of his mother, but the madwoman made<br />
not the least movement and her eyes remained closed.<br />
Basilio gazed at her in terror. He placed his ear over her heart, but the thin, faded breast was cold, and her<br />
heart no longer beat. He put his lips to hers, but felt no breathing. <strong>The</strong> miserable boy threw his arms about the<br />
corpse and wept bitterly.<br />
<strong>The</strong> moon gleamed majestically in the sky, the wandering breezes sighed, and down in the grass the crickets<br />
chirped. <strong>The</strong> night of light and joy for so many children, who in the warm bosom of the family celebrate this<br />
feast of sweetest memories--the feast which commemorates the first look of love that Heaven sent to<br />
earth--this night when in all Christian families they eat, drink, dance, sing, laugh, play, caress, and kiss one<br />
another--this night, which in cold countries holds such magic for childhood with its traditional pine-tree<br />
covered with lights, dolls, candies, and tinsel, whereon gaze the round, staring eyes in which innocence alone<br />
is reflected--this night brought to Basilio only orphanhood. Who knows but that perhaps in the home whence<br />
came the taciturn Padre Salvi children also played, perhaps they sang<br />
"La Nochebuena se viene, La Nochebuena se va." [172]