Ibarra

“ The surrounding country is mountainous, the valleys being very fertile. Ibarra itself has a mild, humid climate, and is set in the midst of orchards and gardens. It is the see of a bishop and has a large number of churches and convents, and many substantial residences. Ibarra has manufactures of cotton and woollen fabrics, hats, sandals (alpargates) , sacks and rope from cabulla fibre, laces, sugar and various kinds of distilled spirits and cordials made from the sugar-cane grown in the vicinity. Mules are bred for the Colombian markets of Pasto and Popayan. ”

“ Ibarra, with staring eyes, and hands holding his head, seemed not to hear him.
“The blow cannot be thwarted,” continued Elias. “I have arrived too late. I do not know their leaders ... save yourself, Señor, save yourself for the sake of your country.”
“Where shall I flee? They are expecting me this evening,” exclaimed Ibarra, thinking of Maria Clara.
“To any other town, to Manila, to the house of some official; only flee somewhere so that they will not say that you are directing the movement.” ”

“ Against the ills of the flesh and the chances of loss in the cockpit, he has recourse to the same arcana: so many candles burned before this shrine or that, so many bombs to be exploded at a fiesta, or so many masses bought at current rates. In all things, to cultivate the favor of the friars is the boundary of his more earthly philosophy. Ibarra, rich and eminent, newly returned from Spain with the gloss of a European education fresh upon him, is in his eyes a delectable son-in-law. Ibarra under the ban of the friars is an object of horror. ”

“ You love your country as we all love that which makes us happy. But, on that day when you see yourself poor, ragged, hungry, persecuted, denounced and betrayed by your very countrymen, on that day you will curse yourself, your country and all.”
“Your words grieve me,” said Ibarra, resentfully.
Elias bowed his head, meditated and replied:
“I wish to set you right, Señor, and to avoid a miserable future for you. You remember the time when I was talking to you in this same banca and under the light of the same moon. It was a month ago, a few days more or less. Then you were happy. ”

“ The good and honorable pontoon bridge, so characteristically Filipino, doing its best to be useful in spite of natural faults, and rising or falling with the caprices of the Pasig,—that brave bridge was no more. The new Spanish bridge drew Ibarra’s attention. Carriages passed continuously, drawn by groups of dwarf horses, in splendid harness. In these sat at ease government clerks going to their bureaus, officers, Chinese, self-satisfied and ridiculously grave monks, canons. In an elegant victoria, Ibarra thought he recognized Father Dámaso, deep in thought. ”

“ Juan Crisostomo Ibarra is a young Filipino, who, after studying for seven years in Europe, returns to his native land to find that his father, a wealthy landowner, has died in prison as the result of a quarrel with the parish curate, a Franciscan friar named Padre Damaso. Ibarra is engaged to a beautiful and accomplished girl, Maria Clara, the supposed daughter and only child of the rich Don Santiago de los Santos, commonly known as "Capitan Tiago," a typical Filipino cacique, the predominant character fostered by the friar régime. ”

“ Still the strange woman kept on her way to the table where the curate was seated. As he turned his face and recognized her, his knife dropped from his hand.
“Give this woman something to eat,” ordered Ibarra.
“The night is dark and the boys disappear,” murmured the wandering woman, but at sight of the alferez, who spoke to her, she became frightened and ran away among the trees.
“Who is she?” he asked.
“An unfortunate woman who has become insane from fear and sorrow,” answered Don Filipo. “For four days now she has been so.”
“Is her name Sisa?” asked Ibarra with interest. ”

“ But Ibarra was already at a distance informing himself as to Maria Clara’s condition.
“Don’t let this stop the fiesta, Señor Ibarra,” said the alcalde. “Praise God, the dead man is neither a priest nor a Spaniard! We must rejoice over your escape! Think if the stone had caught you!”
“There are presentiments, there are presentiments!” exclaimed the escribano. “I’ve said so before! Señor Ibarra didn’t go down willingly. I saw it!”
“The dead man is only an Indian!”
“Let the fiesta go on! Music! Sadness will never resuscitate the dead!” ”

“ Father Dámaso, you know, is to dine with us. You, too, Crisóstomo, must join us.”
“With the greatest pleasure,” stammered Ibarra, avoiding Maria Clara’s eyes, “if I did not feel that I must be at home to receive whoever may come.”
“Bring your friends here; there is always room at my table,” said Captain Tiago, somewhat coldly. “I wish Father Dámaso and you to come to an understanding.”
“There is yet time,” said Ibarra, forcing a smile.
As they descended to the street, Aunt Isabel following, people moved aside to let them pass. ”

“ Ibarra grew surprised. This manner of speaking was new, and did not comport with the state or fortunes of the helmsman.
“Explain yourself!” he demanded.
“I am not speaking enigmas. To insure your safety, it [134] is necessary that your enemies believe you blind and confiding.”
“To insure my safety?” said Ibarra, thoroughly aroused.
“You undertake a great enterprise,” Elias went on. “You have a past. Your grandfather and your father had enemies. It is not criminals who provoke the most hatred; it is honorable men.” ”

“ The students who had come from Manila for the fête were full of admiration for Ibarra, and ready to take him for their model. But, as almost always when we try to imitate a man who towers above the crowd, we ape his weaknesses, if not his faults, many of these admirers of Crisóstomo’s held rigorously to the tie of his cravat, or the shape of his collar; almost all to the number of buttons on his vest. Even Captain Tiago burned with generous emulation, and asked himself if he ought not to build a convent. ”

“ When she smiled so as to show her small white teeth the beholder realized that the rose is only a flower and ivory but the elephant's tusk. From out the filmy piña draperies around her white and shapely neck there blinked, as the Tagalogs say, the bright eyes of a collar of diamonds. One man only in all the crowd seemed insensible to her radiant influence—a young Franciscan, thin, wasted, and pale, who watched her from a distance, motionless as a statue and scarcely breathing.
But Ibarra saw nothing of all this—his eyes were fixed on other things. ”

“ The old philosopher lowered his eyes.
“Señor Ibarra,” he said slowly, “if you are going to keep the remembrance of these things, things I cannot counsel you to forget, abandon this enterprise and find some other means of benefiting your compatriots. This work demands another man.”
Ibarra saw the force of these words, but he could not give up his project. The remembrance of Maria Clara was in his heart; he must make good his offering to her. ”

“ He raised his head to see the old lieutenant gazing at him with something like a smile in place of the hard expression and the frown which usually characterized him.
"Young man, be careful! Learn from your father!" was the abrupt greeting of the old soldier.
"Pardon me, but you seem to have thought a great deal of my father. Can you tell me how he died?" asked Ibarra, staring at him. ”

“ Señor Ibarra is one of the chief contributors to the fête, and has a perfect right to be here so long as he creates no disturbance.”
“But is it not creating a disturbance to scandalize all good Christians?”
“Father,” replied Don Filipo, “my slight authority does not permit me to interfere in religious matters. Let those who fear Señor Ibarra’s contact avoid him: he forces himself upon no one; the señor alcalde and the captain-general have been in his company all the afternoon; it hardly becomes me to give them a lesson.” ”

“ I cannot look after everybody nor can everybody come to me. Can I be of service to you in any way? Have you no request to make?”
Ibarra reflected a moment before he answered. “Sir, my dearest wish is the happiness of my country, a happiness which I desire to see owed to the mother country and to the efforts of my fellow-citizens, the two united by the eternal bonds of common aspirations and common interests. What I would request can only be given by the government after years of unceasing toil and after the introduction of definite reforms.” ”

“ It is not courage, but foolhardiness, to fight alone against all that exists. No one censures the pilot who makes for a port at the first gust of the whirlwind. To stoop as the bullet passes is not cowardly—it is worse to defy it only to fall, never to rise again.”
“But could this sacrifice produce the fruit that I hope for?” asked Ibarra. “Would the priest believe in me and forget the affront? Would they aid me frankly in behalf of the education that contests with the conventos the wealth of the country? ”

“ Ibarra hitched his horse carefully to a post and walking almost on tiptoe crossed the clean and well-kept garden to the stairway, which he ascended, and as the door was open, he entered. The first sight that met his gaze was the old man bent over a book in which he seemed to be writing. On the walls were collections of insects and plants arranged among maps and stands filled with books and manuscripts. The old man was so absorbed in his work that he did not notice the presence of the youth until the latter, not wishing to disturb him, tried to retire. ”

“ Something will have been gained. Your example will embolden others, who fear only to commence.”
Ibarra weighed these reasonings, examined the situation, and saw that with all his pessimism the old man was right.
“I believe you,” he said, grasping his hand. “It was not in vain that I came to you for counsel. I will go straight to the curate, who, after all, may be a fair-minded man. They are not all like the persecutor of my father. I go with faith in God and man.” ”

“ At the laying of the corner-stone for the new schoolhouse a suspicious accident, apparently aimed at Ibarra’s life, occurs, but the festivities proceed until the dinner, where Ibarra is grossly and wantonly insulted over the memory of his father by Fray Damaso. The young man loses control of himself and is about to kill the friar, who is saved by the intervention of Maria Clara.
Ibarra is excommunicated, and Capitan Tiago, through his fear of the friars, is forced to break the engagement and agree to the marriage of Maria Clara with a young and inoffensive Spaniard provided by Padre Damaso. ”

“ Ibarra reflected a moment before he replied: “The advice is good, but difficult to follow. Couldn’t I go ahead with my idea without a shadow being thrown upon it? Couldn’t a worthy enterprise make its way over everything, since truth doesn’t need to borrow garments from error?” ”

“ European goods, and the trade carried on is very considerable. The climate is warmer than that of Quito, and the market is supplied with meat, pulse, fruit, and vegetables. Ibarra, being the capital of the district of the same name, is the residence of the Corregidor.
In the district of Ibarra are many very fruitful valleys, in which there are extensive plantations of sugar cane, from which the best sugar in the kingdom is manufactured. The wheat grown in this district is also of the finest quality. ”

“ Each of the prisoners had there in the crowd his family praying for him, weeping for him, and calling him by the most affectionate names. Ibarra was the only exception. Even Ñor Juan himself and the school-teacher had disappeared.
“What have you done to my husband and my son?” said Doray to Ibarra, crying. “See my poor boy! You have deprived him of a father!”
The grief of the people was changed to wrath against the young man, accused of having provoked the riot. The alferez gave orders to depart.
“You are a coward!” cried the mother-in-law of Andong to Ibarra. ”

“ All the impression of a strong personal relation one has throughout the reading of “Noli Me Tangere” is well founded. Into it Rizal was writing himself. Ibarra was a prefiguration, in some respects marvelously accurate, of himself in the days at hand when he should return to his native country. ”

“ It is through him that Rizal voices his protests. As the plot unfolds, Ibarra wins Elias’ story. We shall repeat it here, but with a preface of warning. In these times, the average reader, the more if he is an American, will look upon the tale as a wild extravagance, so [108] easily are the conditions of one generation obliterated in the next, and so difficult is it to believe the life of one country is not like the life of all countries. Yet what Elias is fabled here to have told Ibarra might have been taken with changes of names from veritable records. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My friend Sinang, and Andeng, my foster sister, say that he is a little out of his head, for he neither eats nor bathes, and he lives entirely in the darkness. Don’t have him come!”
“We cannot but invite him,” replied Ibarra. “The customs of the country require it. He is the priest of your house and, besides, he has conducted himself nobly toward me. When the Alcalde consulted him on the business of which I have spoken to you, he had nothing but praises for me and did not pretend to offer the slightest obstacle. But I see that you are serious. ”