Friars and Filipinos Part 48

Ibarra tried to leave, but the maiden stopped him.

"Crisostomo!" she said. "G.o.d has sent you to save me from desperation.... Hear me and judge me!"

Ibarra wished to withdraw gently from her.

"I have not come," said he, "to call you to account.... I have come to give you peace."

"I do not want the peace which you give me. I will give myself peace. You despise me, and your contempt will make my life bitter till death."

Ibarra saw the poor girl's desperation, and asked her what she desired.

"That you may believe that I have always loved you."

Crisostomo smiled bitterly.

"Ah! You doubt me, you doubt the friend of your infancy, who has never hidden a single thought from you," exclaimed she in grief. "I understand you. When you know my history, the history which they revealed to me during my illness, you will pity me and you will no longer answer my grief with that bitter smile. Why did you not let me die in the hands of my ignorant doctor? You and I would have been happier then."

Maria Clara rested a moment and then continued:

"You have doubted me; you have wished my mother to pardon me. During one of those nights of suffering, a man revealed to me the name of my true father, and forbade me to love you ... unless my true father should pardon you for the offense you committed against him."

Ibarra recoiled and looked in terror at the maiden.

"Yes," she continued. "This man told me that he could not permit our marriage, since his conscience would not allow it, and he would find himself compelled to publish the truth at the risk of causing a great scandal, because my father is ..."

And she whispered a name in the young man's ear in a scarcely audible voice.

"What was I to do? Ought I to sacrifice to my love the memory of my mother, the honor of the man who innocently supposes himself my father, and the good name of my real father? Could I do that without you despising me for it?"

"But the proof? Have you proof? You need proof!" exclaimed Crisostomo, deeply agitated.

The maiden drew two letters from her bosom.

"Two of my mother's letters: two letters written in remorse before I was born. Take them, read them and you will see how she cursed me and desired my death, which my father in vain tried to cause by drugs. These letters were forgotten in the house where he lived; a man found them and kept them. They would only give them to me in exchange for your letter ... to make certain, as they said, that I would not marry you without the consent of my father. From the time that I began to carry them in my bosom instead of your letter, my heart was chilled. I sacrificed you, I sacrificed my love.... What would not a person do for a dead mother and two living fathers? Did I suspect the use to which they were going to put your letter?"

Ibarra was prostrated. Maria Clara went on:

"What was there left for me? Could I tell you who was my father? Could I ask you to seek the pardon of him who had so much desired my death, and who made your father suffer? There was nothing left for me but to keep the secret to myself, and to die suffering.... Now, my friend, you know the sad history of your poor Maria. Will you still have that contemptuous smile for her?"

"Maria, you are a saint."

"I am happy now that you believe me."

"However," added the young man, changing his tone. "I have heard that you are about to marry."

"Yes," sobbed the maiden. "My father asked this sacrifice of me. He has fed me and loved me, and it was not his duty. I pay him this debt of grat.i.tude which I owe him by a.s.suring him peace through this new relative, but ..."

"But?"

"I shall not forget the oaths of fidelity which I made to you."

"What do you think of doing?" asked Ibarra, trying to read her eyes.

"The future is obscure and Destiny is hidden in darkness. I do not know what I am to do; but I know that I can love only once, and that without love I never will belong to any one. And you, what is to become of you?"

"I am nothing but a fugitive.... I am fleeing. In a very short time, they will discover my escape, Maria...."

Maria Clara clasped her arms about her lover's neck, kissed his lips repeatedly, hugged him, and then, abruptly breaking away from him, said:

"Flee! flee! Adios!"

Ibarra looked at her, his eyes sparkling, but she motioned and he went away, staggering like a drunken man. Again he leaped over the wall and entered the banca. Maria Clara, leaning on the door casing, watched him depart.

Elias took off his hat and bowed profoundly.

CHAPTER XL

THE PURSUIT ON THE LAKE.

"Listen, Senor, to my plan," said Elias, as they directed the banca toward San Miguel. "I will for the present hide you in the house of my friend in Mandaluyong. I will bring you all your money, which I have saved and kept for you at the foot of the old baliti tree, in the mysterious tomb of your grandfather. You shall leave the country."

"To go to a strange land?" interrupted Ibarra.

"To live in peace the remaining days of your life. You have friends in Spain, you are rich, you can get yourself pardoned. By all means, a foreign land is better for you than your own country."

Crisostomo did not reply. He meditated in silence.

Just then they reached the Pasig and the banca was headed up the stream. Over the Bridge of Spain a horse-man was galloping at high speed, and a prolonged, sharp whistle was heard.

"Elias," replied Ibarra, "you owe your misfortunes to my family; you have saved my life twice; I owe you not only grat.i.tude, but also rest.i.tution of your fortune. You advise me to go to a foreign land and live; then come with me and we will live like brothers. Here, you, too, are miserable."

Elias sadly replied:

"Impossible! It is true that I can neither love nor be happy in my country; but I can suffer and die in it, and perhaps die for it; that would be something. Let my country's misfortune be my own misfortune. Since no n.o.ble thought unites us, and since our hearts do not beat in harmony at the mention of a single word, at least, let a common misery unite me to my fellow countrymen; at least, let me weep with them over our grief; let the same misery oppress all our hearts."

"Then why do you advise me to leave?"

"Because in other lands you can be happy, and I cannot; because you are not made to suffer, and because you would hate your country, if some day you should see the cause of your misfortune: and to hate one's own country is the greatest misery."

"You are unjust to me," exclaimed Ibarra, with bitter reproach. "You forget that I have scarcely arrived here, and that I have already sought its welfare."

"Do not be offended, Senor. I am not reproaching you. Would to G.o.d that all might imitate you. But I do not ask for the impossible and you should not be offended if I tell you that your heart deceives you. You love your country because your father has taught you to love it; you love it because you had in it your love, your fortune, your youth; because it smiled on you, and because it has not until now done you an injustice. 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."