The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

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