The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER IX 58
"I've come to talk about the business which you committed to my care."
"Ah! What about it?"
"Pish!" answered the young man disgustedly, as he seated himself and turned away his face with a
contemptuous expression, "They've been telling us fairy tales. Young Ibarra is a youth of discernment; he
doesn't seem to be a fool, but I believe that he is a good lad."
"You believe so?"
"Hostilities began last night."
"Already? How?"
Fray Sibyla then recounted briefly what had taken place between Padre Damaso and Ibarra. "Besides," he said
in conclusion, "the young man is going to marry Capitan Tiago's daughter, who was educated in the college of
our Sisterhood. He's rich, and won't care to make enemies and to run the risk of ruining his fortune and his
happiness."
The sick man nodded in agreement. "Yes, I think as you do. With a wife like that and such a father-in-law,
we'll own him body and soul. If not, so much the better for him to declare himself an enemy of ours."
Fray Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.
"For the good of our holy Order, I mean, of course," he added, breathing heavily. "I prefer open attacks to the
silly praises and flatteries of friends, which are really paid for."
"Does your Reverence think--"
The old man regarded him sadly. "Keep it clearly before you," he answered, gasping for breath. "Our power
will last as long as it is believed in. If they attack us, the government will say, 'They attack them because they
see in them an obstacle to their liberty, so then let us preserve them.'"
"But if it should listen to them? Sometimes the government--"
"It will not listen!"
"Nevertheless, if, led on by cupidity, it should come to wish for itself what we are taking in--if there should be
some bold and daring one--"
"Then woe unto that one!"
Both remained silent for a time, then the sick man continued: "Besides, we need their attacks, to keep us
awake; that makes us see our weaknesses so that we may remedy them. Exaggerated flattery will deceive us
and put us to sleep, while outside our walls we shall be laughed at, and the day in which we become an object
of ridicule, we shall fall as we fell in Europe. Money will not flow into our churches, no one will buy our
scapularies or girdles or anything else, and when we cease to be rich we shall no longer be able to control
consciences."
"But we shall always have our estates, our property."
"All will be lost as we lost them in Europe! And the worst of it is that we are working toward our own ruin.