The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER LXIII 295
a single word, not even the talkative devotees who receive the famous fried chicken-livers and the even more
famous sauce known as that "of the nuns," prepared by the intelligent cook of the Virgins of the Lord.
Nevertheless: On a night in September the hurricane raged over Manila, lashing the buildings with its gigantic
wings. The thunder crashed continuously. Lightning flashes momentarily revealed the havoc wrought by the
blast and threw the inhabitants into wild terror. The rain fell in torrents. Each flash of the forked lightning
showed a piece of roofing or a window-blind flying through the air to fall with a horrible crash. Not a person
or a carriage moved through the streets. When the hoarse reverberations of the thunder, a hundred times
re-echoed, lost themselves in the distance, there was heard the soughing of the wind as it drove the raindrops
with a continuous tick-tack against the concha-panes of the closed windows.
Two patrolmen sheltered themselves under the eaves of a building near the nunnery, one a private and the
other a distinguido.
"What's the use of our staying here?" said the private.
"No one is moving about the streets. We ought to get into a house. My querida lives in Calle Arzobispo."
"From here over there is quite a distance and we'll get wet," answered the distinguido.
"What does that matter just so the lightning doesn't strike us?"
"Bah, don't worry! The nuns surely have a lightningrod to protect them."
"Yes," observed the private, "but of what use is it when the night is so dark?"
As he said this he looked upward to stare into the darkness. At that moment a prolonged streak of lightning
flashed, followed by a terrific roar.
"Nakú! Susmariosep!" exclaimed the private, crossing himself and catching hold of his companion. "Let's get
away from here."
"What's happened?"
"Come, come away from here," he repeated with his teeth rattling from fear.
"What have you seen?"
"A specter!" he murmured, trembling with fright.
"A specter?"
"On the roof there. It must be the nun who practises magic during the night."
The distinguido thrust his head out to look, just as a flash of lightning furrowed the heavens with a vein of fire
and sent a horrible crash earthwards. "Jesús!" he exclaimed, also crossing himself.
In the brilliant glare of the celestial light he had seen a white figure standing almost on the ridge of the roof
with arms and face raised toward the sky as if praying to it. The heavens responded with lightning and
thunderbolts!
As the sound of the thunder rolled away a sad plaint was heard.