An Eagle Flight: A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere Read online

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  AN EAGLE FLIGHT

  I have in this rough work shaped out a man Whom this beneath-world doth embrace and hug With amplest entertainment: my free drift Halts not particularly, but moves itself In a wide sea of wax; no levell'd malice Infects one comma in the course I hold; But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no track behind.

  Timon of Athens--Act 1, Scene 1.

  An Eagle Flight

  A Filipino Novel

  Adapted from

  "NOLI ME TANGERE"

  By

  DR. JOSE RIZAL

  NEW YORK

  McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

  MCMI

  Copyright, 1900, By McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

  CONTENTS.

  Chapter Page

  I.--The House on the Pasig 1 II.--Crisostomo Ibarra 7 III.--The Dinner 9 IV.--Heretic and Filibuster 12 V.--A Star in the Dark Night 15 VI.--Captain Tiago and Maria 17 VII.--Idylle 20 VIII.--Reminiscences 23 IX.--Affairs of the Country 25 X.--The Pueblo 30 XI.--The Sovereigns 32 XII.--All Saints' Day 35 XIII.--The Little Sacristans 40 XIV.--Sisa 44 XV.--Basilio 47 XVI.--At the Manse 50 XVII.--Story of a Schoolmaster 53 XVIII.--The Story of a Mother 57 XIX.--The Fishing Party 63 XX.--In the Woods 71 XXI.--With the Philosopher 79 XXII.--The Meeting at the Town Hall 87 XXIII.--The Eve of the Fete 94 XXIV.--In the Church 102 XXV.--The Sermon 105 XXVI.--The Crane 109 XXVII.--Free Thought 116 XXVIII.--The Banquet 119 XXIX.--Opinions 126 XXX.--The First Cloud 130 XXXI.--His Excellency 134 XXXII.--The Procession 142 XXXIII.--Dona Consolacion 145 XXXIV.--Right and Might 150 XXXV.--Husband and Wife 156 XXXVI.--Projects 163 XXXVII.--Scrutiny and Conscience 165 XXXVIII.--The Two Women 170 XXXIX.--The Outlawed 176 XL.--The Enigma 181 XLI.--The Voice of the Persecuted 183 XLII.--The Family of Elias 187 XLIII.--Il Buon di si Conosce da Mattina 193 XLIV.--La Gallera 196 XLV.--A Call 201 XLVI.--A Conspiracy 204 XLVII.--The Catastrophe 208 XLVIII.--Gossip 212 XLIX.--Vae Victis 217 L.--Accurst 221 LI.--Patriotism and Interest 224 LII.--Marie Clara Marries 232 LIII.--The Chase on the Lake 242 LIV.--Father Damaso Explains Himself 247 LV.--The Nochebuena 251

  INTRODUCTION

  JOSE RIZAL

  In that horrible drama, the Philippine revolution, one man ofthe purest and noblest character stands out pre-eminently--JoseRizal--poet, artist, philologue, novelist, above all, patriot; hisinfluence might have changed the whole course of events in the islands,had not a blind and stupid policy brought about the crime of his death.

  This man, of almost pure Tagalo race, was born in 1861, at Calamba,in the island of Luzon, on the southern shore of the Laguna de Bay,where he grew up in his father's home, under the tutorage of a wiseand learned native priest, Leontio.

  The child's fine nature, expanding in the troublous latter daysof a long race bondage, was touched early with the fire of genuinepatriotism. He was eleven when the tragic consequences of the Caviteinsurrection destroyed any lingering illusions of his people, andstirred in them a spirit that has not yet been allayed.

  The rising at Cavite, like many others in the islands, was a protestagainst the holding of benefices by friars--a thing forbidden by adecree of the Council of Trent, but authorized in the Philippines, bypapal bulls, until such time as there should be a sufficiency of nativepriests. This time never came. As the friars held the best agriculturallands, and had a voice--and that the most authoritative--in civilaffairs, there developed in the rural districts a veritable feudalsystem, bringing in its train the arrogance and tyranny that likeconditions develop. It became impossible for the civil authoritiesto carry out measures in opposition to the friars. "The Governmentis an arm, the head is the convent," says the old philosopher ofRizal's story.

  The rising at Cavite miscarried, and vengeance fell. Dr. Joseph Burgos,a saintly old priest, was put to death, and three other native priestswith him, while many prominent native families were banished. Neverhad the better class of Filipinos been so outraged and aroused, andfrom this time on their purpose was fixed, not to free themselvesfrom Spain, not to secede from the church they loved, but to agitateceaselessly for reforms which none of them longer believed could berealized without the expulsion of the friars. In the school of thispurpose, and with the belief on the part of his father and Leontio thathe was destined to use his life and talents in its behalf, Jose wastrained, until he left his home to study in Manila. At the College ofthe Jesuits he carried off all the honors, with special distinctionin literary work. He wrote a number of odes; and a melodrama inverse, the work of his thirteenth year, was successfully played atManila. But he had to wear his honors as an Indian among white men,and they made life hard for him. He specially aroused the dislike ofhis Spanish college mates by an ode in which he spoke of his patria. ATagalo had no native land, they contended--only a country.

  At twenty Rizal finished his course at Manila, and a few months laterwent to Madrid, where he speedily won the degrees of Ph.D. and M.D.;then to Germany--taking here another degree, doing his work in thenew language, which he mastered as he went along; to Austria, where hegained great skill as an oculist; to France, Italy, England--absorbingthe languages and literature of these countries, doing some finesculpture by way of diversion. But in all this he was single-minded;he never lost the voice of his call; he felt more and more keenlythe contrast between the hard lot of his country and the freedom ofthese lands, and he bore it ill that no one of them even knew abouther, and the cancer eating away her beauty and strength. At the endof this period of study he settled in Berlin, and began his activework for his country.

  Four years of the socialism and license of the universities had notdistorted Rizal's political vision; he remained, as he had grown up,an opportunist. Not then, nor at any time, did he think his countryready for self-government. He saw as her best present good hercontinued union to Spain, "through a stable policy based upon justiceand community of interests." He asked only for the reforms promisedagain and again by the ministry, and as often frustrated. To plead forthe lifting of the hand of oppression from the necks of his people,he now wrote his first novel, "Noli Me Tangere."
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  The next year he returned to the Philippines to find himself theidol of the natives and a thorn in the flesh of friars and greedyofficials. The reading of his book was proscribed. He stayed longenough to concern himself in a dispute of his townspeople with theDominicans over titles to lands; then finding his efforts vain and hissafety doubtful, he left for Japan. Here he pursued for some time hisusual studies; came thence to America, and then crossed to England,where he made researches in the British Museum, and edited in Spanish,"Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas," by Dr. Antonio de Morga, an importantwork, neglected by the Spaniards, but already edited in English byDean Stanley.

  After publishing this work, in Paris, Rizal returned to Spain, where,in 1890, he began a series of brilliant pleas for the Philippines,in the Solidaridad, a liberal journal published at Barcelona andafterward at Madrid. But he roused little sympathy or interest inSpain, and his articles, repeated in pamphlets in the Philippines,served to make his position more dangerous at home.

  Disheartened but steadfast, he retired to Belgium, to write his secondnovel, "El Filibusterismo." "Noli Me Tangere" is a poet's story of hispeople's loves, faults, aspirations, and wrongs; "El Filibusterismo"is the work of a student of statecraft, pointing out the way topolitical justice and the development of national life. Inspired,it would seem, by his own creation of a future for his country, hereturned to the Solidaridad, where, in a series of remarkable articles,he forecast the ultimate downfall of Spain in the Philippines andthe rise of his people. This was his crime against the Government:for the spirit which in a Spanish boy would not permit a Tagalo tohave a patria, in a Spaniard grown could not brook the suggestion ofcolonial independence, even in the far future.

  And now having poured out these passionate pleas and splendidforecasts, Rizal was homesick for this land of his. He went toHong-Kong. Calamba was in revolt. His many friends at the English portdid everything to keep him; but the call was too persistent. December23d, 1891, he wrote to Despujols, then governor-general of thePhilippines: "If Your Excellency thinks my slight services could beof use in pointing out the evils of my country and helping heal thewounds reopened by the recent injustices, you need but to say so, andtrusting in your honor as a gentleman, I will immediately put myselfat your disposal. If you decline my offer, ... I shall at least beconscious of having done all in my power, while seeking the good ofmy country, to preserve her union to Spain through a stable policybased upon justice and community of interests."

  The governor expressed his gratitude, promised protection, andRizal sailed for Manila. But immediately after his landing he wasarrested on a charge of sedition, whose source made the governor'spromise impotent. Nothing could be proved against Rizal; but it wasnot the purpose of his enemies to have him acquitted. A half-waysentence was imposed, and he was banished to Dapidan, on the islandof Mindanao. Despujols was recalled to Spain.

  In this exile Rizal spent four years, beloved by the natives, teachingthem agriculture, treating their sick (the poor without charge),improving their schools, and visited from time to time by patients fromabroad, drawn here by his fame as an oculist. Among these last camea Mr. Taufer, a resident of Hong-Kong, and with him his foster-child,Josephine Bracken, the daughter of an Irish sergeant. The pretty andadventurous girl and the banished patriot fell in love with each other.

  These may well have been among the happiest years of Rizal'slife. He had always been an exile in fact: now that he was one inname, strangely enough he was able for the first time to live inpeace among his brothers under the skies he loved. He sang, in hispathetic content:

  "Thou dear illusion with thy soothing cup! I taste, and think I am a child again.

  Oh! kindly tempest, favoring winds of heaven, That knew the hour to check my shifting flight, And beat me down upon my native soil,..."

  Always about his philological studies, he began here a work thatshould be of peculiar interest to us: a treatise on Tagalog verbs, inthe English language. Did his knowledge of America's growing feelingtoward Cuba lead him to foresee--as no one else seems to have done--herappearance in the Philippines, or was he thinking of England?

  At Hong-Kong, and in his brief stays at Manila, Rizal had establishedthe Liga Filipina, a society of educated and progressive islanders,whose ideas of needed reforms and methods of attaining them were atone with his own. His banishment was a warning of danger and checkedthe society's activity.

  The Liga was succeeded, in the sense only of followed, by theKatipunan,--a native word also meaning league. The makers of this"league," though avowing the same purpose as the members of the other,were men of very different stamp. Their initiation was a blood-rite:they sought immediate independence; they preached a campaign of force,if not of violence. That a recent reviewer should have connectedDr. Rizal's name with the Katipunan is difficult to understand. Notalone are his writings, acts, and character against such a possibility,but so also is the testimony of the Spanish archives: for not onlywas it admitted at his final trial that he was not suspected of anyconnection with the Katipunan, but his well-known disapproval of thatsociety's premature and violent action was even made a point againsthim. He was so much the more dangerous to the state because he had thesagacity to know that the times were not yet ripe for independence,and the honesty and purity of purpose to make only demands which thestate herself well knew to be just.

  When the rebellion of 1896 broke out, Rizal, still at Dapidan,knew that his life would not long be worth a breath of his belovedPhilippine air. He asked, therefore, of the Government permission togo to Cuba as an army surgeon. It was granted, and he was taken toManila--ovations all along his route--and embarked on the Isla dePanay for Barcelona. He carried with him the following letter fromGeneral Blanco, then governor-general of the Philippines, to theMinister of War at Madrid:

  Manila, August 30th, 1896.

  Esteemed General and Distinguished Friend:

  I recommend to you with genuine interest, Dr. Jose Rizal, who is leaving for the Peninsula, to place himself at the disposal of the Government as volunteer army surgeon to Cuba. During the four years of his exile at Dapidan, he has conducted himself in the most exemplary manner, and he is in my opinion the more worthy of pardon and consideration, in that he is in no way connected with the extravagant attempts we are now deploring, neither those of conspirators nor of the secret societies that have been formed.

  I have the pleasure to reassure you of my high esteem, and remain,

  Your affectionate friend and comrade,

  Ramon Blanco.

  But as soon as the Isla was on the seas, despatches began to passbetween Manila and Madrid, and before she reached her port thepromises, acceptances, and recommendations of the Government officialswere void. Upon landing, Rizal was immediately arrested and confinedin the infamous Montjuich prison. Despujols was now military governorof Barcelona. The interview of hours which he is said to have hadwith his Filipino prisoner must have been dramatic. Rizal was atonce re-embarked, on the Colon, and returned to Manila, a stateprisoner. Blanco was recalled, and Poliavieja, a sworn friend of theclericals, was sent out.

  Rizal was tried by court-martial, on a charge of sedition andrebellion. His guilt was manifestly impossible. Except as a prisonerof the state, he had spent only a few weeks in the Philippines sincehis boyhood. His life abroad had been perfectly open, as were all hiswritings. The facts stated in General Blanco's letter to the Ministerof War were well known to all Rizal's accusers. The best they coulddo was to aver that he had written "depreciative words" against theGovernment and the Church. Some testimony was given against him by menwho, since the American occupation, have made affidavit that it wasfalse and forced from them by torture. Rizal made a splendid defence,but he was condemned, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. On thatday Jose Rizal y Mercado and Josephine Bracken were married. Thenthe sweetness and strength of his character and his singleness ofpurpose made a beautiful showing. In the night, which his bride spenton h
er knees outside his prison, he wrote a long poem of farewellto his patria adorado, fine in its abnegation and exquisite in thewanderings of its fancy. He received the ministrations of a Jesuitpriest. He was perfectly calm. "What is death to me?" he said;"I have sown, others are left to reap." At dawn he was shot.

  The poem in which he left a record of his last thoughts was thefollowing:

  MY LAST THOUGHT.

  Land I adore, farewell! thou land of the southern sun's choosing! Pearl of the Orient seas! our forfeited Garden of Eden! Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far brighter, Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would I give it. Far afield, in the din and rush of maddening battle, Others have laid down their lives, nor wavered nor paused in the giving. What matters way or place--the cyprus, the lily, the laurel, Gibbet or open field, the sword or inglorious torture, When 'tis the hearth and the country that call for the life's immolation?

  Dawn's faint lights bar the east, she smiles through the cowl of the darkness, Just as I die. Hast thou need of purple to garnish her pathway? Here is my blood, on the hour! pour it out, and the sun in his rising Mayhap will touch it with gold, will lend it the sheen of his glory.

  Dreams of my childhood and youth, and dreams of my strong young manhood, What were they all but to see, thou gem of the Orient ocean! Tearless thine eyes so deep, unbent, unmarred thy sweet forehead.

  Vision I followed from far, desire that spurred on and consumed me! Greeting! my parting soul cries, and greeting again!... O my country! Beautiful is it to fall, that the vision may rise to fulfilment, Giving my life for thy life, and breathing thine air in the death-throe; Sweet to eternally sleep in thy lap, O land of enchantment!