The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER XIII 69
"Because the fat curate ordered me to do so."
"Who is the fat curate?" asked Ibarra.
"Who? Why, the one that beats people with a big cane."
Ibarra drew his hand across his forehead. "But at least you can tell us where the grave is. You must remember
that."
The grave-digger smiled as he answered quietly, "But the corpse is no longer there."
"What's that you're saying?"
"Yes," continued the grave-digger in a half-jesting tone. "I buried a woman in that place a week ago."
"Are you crazy?" cried the servant. "It hasn't been a year since we buried him."
"That's very true, but a good many months ago I dug the body up. The fat curate ordered me to do so and to
take it to the cemetery of the Chinamen. But as it was heavy and there was rain that night--"
He was stopped by the threatening attitude of Ibarra, who had caught him by the arm and was shaking him.
"Did you do that?" demanded the youth in an indescribable tone.
"Don't be angry, sir," stammered the pale and trembling grave-digger. "I didn't bury him among the
Chinamen. Better be drowned than lie among Chinamen, I said to myself, so I threw the body into the lake."
Ibarra placed both his hands on the grave-digger's shoulders and stared at him for a long time with an
indefinable expression. Then, with the ejaculation, "You are only a miserable slave!" he turned away
hurriedly, stepping upon bones, graves, and crosses, like one beside himself.
The grave-digger patted his arm and muttered, "All the trouble dead men cause! The fat padre caned me for
allowing it to be buried while I was sick, and this fellow almost tore my arm off for having dug it up. That's
what these Spaniards are! I'll lose my job yet!"
Ibarra walked rapidly with a far-away look in his eyes, while the aged servant followed him weeping. The sun
was setting, and over the eastern sky was flung a heavy curtain of clouds. A dry wind shook the tree-tops and
made the bamboo clumps creak. Ibarra went bareheaded, but no tear wet his eyes nor did any sigh escape
from his breast. He moved as if fleeing from something, perhaps the shade of his father, perhaps the
approaching storm. He crossed through the town to the outskirts on the opposite side and turned toward the
old house which he had not entered for so many years. Surrounded by a cactus-covered wall it seemed to
beckon to him with its open windows, while the ilang-ilang waved its flower-laden branches joyfully and the
doves circled about the conical roof of their cote in the middle of the garden.
But the youth gave no heed to these signs of welcome back to his old home, his eyes being fixed on the figure
of a priest approaching from the opposite direction. It was the curate of San Diego, the pensive Franciscan
whom we have seen before, the rival of the alferez. The breeze folded back the brim of his wide hat and blew
his guingón habit closely about him, revealing the outlines of his body and his thin, curved thighs. In his right
hand he carried an ivory-headed palasan cane.
This was the first time that he and Ibarra had met. When they drew near each other Ibarra stopped and gazed
at him from head to foot; Fray Salvi avoided the look and tried to appear unconcerned. After a moment of
hesitation Ibarra went up to him quickly and dropping a heavy hand on his shoulder, asked in a husky voice,