The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
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CHAPTER XVI 79<br />
CHAPTER XVI<br />
Sisa<br />
Through the dark night the villagers slept. <strong>The</strong> families who had remembered their dead gave themselves up<br />
to quiet and satisfied sleep, for they had recited their requiems, the novena of the souls, and had burned many<br />
wax tapers before the sacred images. <strong>The</strong> rich and powerful had discharged the duties their positions imposed<br />
upon them. On the following day they would hear three masses said <strong>by</strong> each priest and would give two pesos<br />
for another, besides buying a bull of indulgences for the dead. Truly, divine justice is not nearly so exacting as<br />
human.<br />
But the poor and indigent who earn scarcely enough to keep themselves alive and who also have to pay tribute<br />
to the petty officials, clerks, and soldiers, that they may be allowed to live in peace, sleep not so tranquilly as<br />
gentle poets who have perhaps not felt the pinches of want would have us believe. <strong>The</strong> poor are sad and<br />
thoughtful, for on that night, if they have not recited many prayers, yet they have prayed much--with pain in<br />
their eyes and tears in their hearts. <strong>The</strong>y have not the novenas, nor do they know the responsories, versicles,<br />
and prayers which the friars have composed for those who lack original ideas and feelings, nor do they<br />
understand them. <strong>The</strong>y pray in the language of their misery: their souls weep for them and for those dead<br />
beings whose love was their wealth. <strong>The</strong>ir lips may proffer the salutations, but their minds cry out complaints,<br />
charged with lamentations. Wilt Thou be satisfied, O Thou who blessedst poverty, and you, O suffering souls,<br />
with the simple prayers of the poor, offered before a rude picture in the light of a dim wick, or do you perhaps<br />
desire wax tapers before bleeding Christs and Virgins with small mouths and crystal eyes, and masses in Latin<br />
recited mechanically <strong>by</strong> priests? And thou, Religion preached for suffering humanity, hast thou forgotten thy<br />
mission of consoling the oppressed in their misery and of humiliating the powerful in their pride? Hast thou<br />
now promises only for the rich, for those who, can pay thee?<br />
<strong>The</strong> poor widow watches among the children who sleep at her side. She is thinking of the indulgences that she<br />
ought to buy for the repose of the souls of her parents and of her dead husband. "A peso," she says, "a peso is<br />
a week of happiness for my children, a week of laughter and joy, my savings for a month, a dress for my<br />
daughter who is becoming a woman." "But it is necessary that you put aside these worldly desires," says the<br />
voice that she heard in the pulpit, "it is necessary that you make sacrifices." Yes, it is necessary. <strong>The</strong> Church<br />
does not gratuitously save the beloved souls for you nor does it distribute indulgences without payment. You<br />
must buy them, so tonight instead of sleeping you should work. Think of your daughter, so poorly clothed!<br />
Fast, for heaven is dear! Decidedly, it seems that the poor enter not into heaven. Such thoughts wander<br />
through the space enclosed between the rough mats spread out on the bamboo floor and the ridge of the roof,<br />
from which hangs the hammock wherein the ba<strong>by</strong> swings. <strong>The</strong> infant's breathing is easy and peaceful, but<br />
from time to time he swallows and smacks his lips; his hungry stomach, which is not satisfied with what his<br />
older brothers have given him, dreams of eating.<br />
<strong>The</strong> cicadas chant monotonously, mingling their ceaseless notes with the trills of the cricket hidden in the<br />
grass, or the chirp of the little lizard which has come out in search of food, while the big gekko, no longer<br />
fearing the water, disturbs the concert with its ill-omened voice as it shows its head from out the hollow of the<br />
decayed tree-trunk.<br />
<strong>The</strong> dogs howl mournfully in the streets and superstitious folk, hearing them, are convinced that they see<br />
spirits and ghosts. But neither the dogs nor the other animals see the sorrows of men--yet how many of these<br />
exist!<br />
Distant from the town an hour's walk lives the mother of Basilio and Crispin. <strong>The</strong> wife of a heartless man, she<br />
struggles to live for her sons, while her husband is a vagrant gamester with whom her interviews are rare but<br />
always painful. He has gradually stripped her of her few jewels to pay the cost of his vices, and when the<br />
suffering Sisa no longer had anything that he might take to satisfy his whims, he had begun to maltreat her.