The Social Cancer - José Rizal (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📗
- Author: José Rizal
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“Yes, sir,” went on the trembling servant; “I was going to pick peas—I looked into our neighbor’s garden to see if it was—I saw a man swinging—I thought it was Teo, the servant who always gives me—I went nearer to—pick the peas, and I saw that it wasn’t Teo, but a dead man. I ran and I ran and—”
“Let’s go see him,” said the old man, rising. “Show us the way.”
“Don’t you go!” cried Sister Puté, catching hold of his camisa. “Something will happen to you! Is he hanged? Then the worse for him!”
“Let me see him, woman. You, Juan, go to the barracks and report it. Perhaps he’s not dead yet.”
So he proceeded to the garden with the servant, who kept behind him. The women, including even Sister Puté herself, followed after, filled with fear and curiosity.
“There he is, sir,” said the servant, as she stopped and pointed with her finger.
The committee paused at a respectful distance and allowed the old man to go forward alone.
A human body hanging from the branch of a santol tree swung about gently in the breeze. The old man stared at it for a time and saw that the legs and arms were stiff, the clothing soiled, and the head doubled over.
“We mustn’t touch him until some officer of the law arrives,” he said aloud. “He’s already stiff, he’s been dead for some time.”
The women gradually moved closer.
“He’s the fellow who lived in that little house there. He came here two weeks ago. Look at the scar on his face.”
“Ave Maria!” exclaimed some of the women.
“Shall we pray for his soul?” asked a young woman, after she had finished staring and examining the body.
“Fool, heretic!” scolded Sister Puté. “Don’t you know what Padre Damaso said? It’s tempting God to pray for one of the damned. Whoever commits suicide is irrevocably damned and therefore he isn’t buried in holy ground.”
Then she added, “I knew that this man was coming to a bad end; I never could find out how he lived.”
“I saw him twice talking with the senior sacristan,” observed a young woman.
“It wouldn’t be to confess himself or to order a mass!”
Other neighbors came up until a large group surrounded the corpse, which was still swinging about. After half an hour, an alguazil and the directorcillo arrived with two cuadrilleros, who took the body down and placed it on a stretcher.
“People are getting in a hurry to die,” remarked the directorcillo with a smile, as he took a pen from behind his ear.
He made captious inquiries, and took down the statement of the maidservant, whom he tried to confuse, now looking at her fiercely, now threatening her, now attributing to her things that she had not said, so much so that she, thinking that she would have to go to jail, began to cry and wound up by declaring that she wasn’t looking for peas but and she called Teo as a witness.
While this was taking place, a rustic in a wide salakot with a big bandage on his neck was examining the corpse and the rope. The face was not more livid than the rest of the body, two scratches and two red spots were to be seen above the noose, the strands of the rope were white and had no blood on them. The curious rustic carefully examined the camisa and pantaloons, and noticed that they were very dusty and freshly torn in some parts. But what most caught his attention were the seeds of amores-secos that were sticking on the camisa even up to the collar.
“What are you looking at?” the directorcillo asked him. “I was looking, sir, to see if I could recognize him,” stammered the rustic, partly uncovering, but in such a way that his salakot fell lower.
“But haven’t you heard that it’s a certain Lucas? Were you asleep?”
The crowd laughed, while the abashed rustic muttered a few words and moved away slowly with his head down.
“Here, where you going?” cried the old man after him.
“That’s not the way out. That’s the way to the dead man’s house.”
“The fellow’s still asleep,” remarked the directorcillo facetiously. “Better pour some water over him.”
Amid the laughter of the bystanders the rustic left the place where he had played such a ridiculous part and went toward the church. In the sacristy he asked for the senior sacristan.
“He’s still asleep,” was the rough answer. “Don’t you know that the convento was assaulted last night?”
“Then I’ll wait till he wakes up.” This with a stupid stare at the sacristans, such as is common to persons who are used to rough treatment.
In a corner which was still in shadow the one-eyed senior sacristan lay asleep in a big chair. His spectacles were placed on his forehead amid long locks of hair, while his thin, squalid chest, which was bare, rose and fell regularly.
The rustic took a seat near by, as if to wait patiently, but he dropped a piece of money and started to look for it with the aid of a candle under the senior sacristan’s chair. He noticed seeds of amores-secos on the pantaloons and on the cuffs of the sleeper’s camisa. The latter awoke, rubbed his one good eye, and began to scold the rustic with great ill-humor.
“I wanted to order a mass, sir,” was the reply in a tone of excuse.
“The masses are already over,” said the sacristan, sweetening his tone a little at this. “If you want it for tomorrow—is it for the souls in purgatory?”
“No, sir,” answered the rustic, handing him a peso.
Then gazing fixedly at the single eye, he added, “It’s for a person who’s going to die soon.”
Hereupon he left the sacristy. “I could have caught him last night!” he sighed, as he took off the bandage and stood erect to recover the face and form of Elias.
Mi gozo en un pozo.
Guards with forbidding mien paced to and fro in front of the door of the town hall, threatening with their rifle-butts the bold urchins who rose on tiptoe or climbed up on one another to see through the bars.
The hall itself did not present that agreeable aspect it wore when the program of the fiesta was under discussion—now it was gloomy and rather ominous. The civil-guards and cuadrilleros who occupied it scarcely spoke and then with few words in low tones. At the table the directorcillo, two clerks, and several soldiers were rustling papers, while the alferez strode from one side to the other, at times gazing fiercely toward the door: prouder Themistocles could not have appeared in the Olympic games after the battle of Salamis. Doña Consolacion yawned in a corner, exhibiting a dirty mouth and jagged teeth, while she fixed her cold, sinister gaze on the door of the jail, which was covered with indecent drawings. She had succeeded in persuading her husband, whose victory had made him amiable, to let her witness the inquiry and perhaps the accompanying tortures. The hyena smelt the carrion and licked herself, wearied by the delay.
The gobernadorcillo was very compunctious. His seat, that large chair placed under his Majesty’s portrait, was vacant, being apparently intended for some one else. About nine o’clock the curate arrived, pale and scowling.
“Well, you haven’t kept yourself waiting!” the alferez greeted him.
“I should prefer not to be present,” replied Padre Salvi in a low voice, paying no heed to the bitter tone of the alferez. “I’m very nervous.”
“As no one else has come to fill the place, I judged that your presence—You know that they leave this afternoon.”
“Young Ibarra and the teniente-mayor?”
The alferez pointed toward the jail. “There are eight there,” he said. “Bruno died at midnight, but his statement is on record.”
The curate saluted Doña Consolacion, who responded with a yawn, and took his seat in the big chair under his Majesty’s portrait. “Let us begin,” he announced.
“Bring out those two who are in the stocks,” ordered the alferez in a tone that he tried to make as terrible as possible. Then turning to the curate he added with a change of tone, “They are fastened in by skipping two holes.”
For the benefit of those who are not informed about these instruments of torture, we will say that the stocks are one of the most harmless. The holes in which the offender’s legs are placed are a little more or less than a foot apart; by skipping two holes, the prisoner finds himself in a rather forced position with peculiar inconvenience to his ankles and a distance of about a yard between his lower extremities. It does not kill instantaneously, as may well be imagined.
The jailer, followed by four soldiers, pushed back the bolt and opened the door. A nauseating odor and currents of thick, damp air escaped from the darkness within at the same time that laments and sighs were heard. A soldier struck a match, but the flame was choked in such a foul atmosphere, and they had to wait until the air became fresher.
In the dim light of the candle several human forms became vaguely outlined: men hugging their knees or hiding their heads between them, some lying face downward, some standing, and some turned toward the wall. A blow and a creak were heard, accompanied by curses—the stocks were opened, Doña Consolacion bent forward with the muscles of her neck swelling and her bulging eyes fixed on the half-opened door.
A wretched figure, Tarsilo, Bruno’s brother, came out between two soldiers. On his wrists were handcuffs and his clothing was in shreds, revealing quite a muscular body. He turned his eyes insolently on the alferez’s woman.
“This is the one who defended himself with the most courage and told his companions to run,” said the alferez to Padre Salvi.
Behind him came another of miserable aspect, moaning and weeping like a child. He limped along exposing pantaloons spotted with blood. “Mercy, sir, mercy! I’ll not go back into the yard,” he whimpered.
“He’s a rogue,” observed the alferez to the curate. “He tried to run, but he was wounded in the thigh. These are the only two that we took alive.”
“What’s your name?” the alferez asked Tarsilo.
“Tarsilo Alasigan.”
“What did Don Crisostomo promise you for attacking the barracks?”
“Don Crisostomo never had anything to do with us.”
“Don’t deny it! That’s why you tried to surprise us.”
“You’re mistaken. You beat our father to death and we were avenging him, nothing more. Look for your two associates.”
The alferez gazed at the sergeant in surprise.
“They’re over there in the gully where we threw them yesterday and where they’ll rot. Now kill me, you’ll not learn anything more.”
General surprise and silence, broken by the alferez. “You are going to tell who your other accomplices are,” he threatened, flourishing a rattan whip.
A smile of disdain curled the prisoner’s lips. The alferez consulted with the curate in a low tone for a few moments, then turned to the soldiers. “Take him out where the corpses are,” he commanded.
On a cart in a corner of the yard were heaped five corpses, partly covered with a filthy piece of torn matting. A soldier walked about near them, spitting at every moment.
“Do you know them?” asked the alferez, lifting up the matting.
Tarsilo did not answer. He saw the corpse of the madwoman’s husband with two others: that of his brother, slashed with bayonet-thrusts, and that of Lucas with the halter still around his neck. His look became somber and a sigh seemed to escape from his breast.
“Do you know them?” he was again asked, but he still
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