The Reign of Greed Part 25

Tio Quico threw back his head in his usual lively manner. "To the friars?"

"Because you surely know," continued Camaroncocido, "that all this crowd was secured for them by the conventos."

The fact was that the friars, headed by Padre Salvi, and some lay brethren captained by Don Custodio, had opposed such shows. Padre Camorra, who could not attend, watered at the eyes and mouth, but argued with Ben-Zayb, who defended them feebly, thinking of the free tickets they would send his newspaper. Don Custodio spoke of morality, religion, good manners, and the like.

"But," stammered the writer, "if our own farces with their plays on words and phrases of double meaning--"

"But at least they're in Castilian!" the virtuous councilor interrupted with a roar, inflamed to righteous wrath. "Obscenities in French, man, Ben-Zayb, for G.o.d's sake, in French! Never!"

He uttered this _never_ with the energy of three Guzmans threatened with being killed like fleas if they did not surrender twenty Tarifas. Padre Irene naturally agreed with Don Custodio and execrated French operetta. Whew, he had been in Paris, but had never set foot in a theater, the Lord deliver him!

Yet the French operetta also counted numerous partizans. The officers of the army and navy, among them the General's aides, the clerks, and many society people were anxious to enjoy the delicacies of the French language from the mouths of genuine _Parisiennes_, and with them were affiliated those who had traveled by the M.M. [48] and had jabbered a little French during the voyage, those who had visited Paris, and all those who wished to appear learned.

Hence, Manila society was divided into two factions, operettists and anti-operettists. The latter were supported by the elderly ladies, wives jealous and careful of their husbands' love, and by those who were engaged, while those who were free and those who were beautiful declared themselves enthusiastic operettists. Notes and then more notes were exchanged, there were goings and comings, mutual recriminations, meetings, lobbyings, arguments, even talk of an insurrection of the natives, of their indolence, of inferior and superior races, of prestige and other humbugs, so that after much gossip and more recrimination, the permit was granted, Padre Salvi at the same time publishing a pastoral that was read by no one but the proof-reader. There were questionings whether the General had quarreled with the Countess, whether she spent her time in the halls of pleasure, whether His Excellency was greatly annoyed, whether there had been presents exchanged, whether the French consul--, and so on and on. Many names were bandied about: Quiroga the Chinaman's, Simoun's, and even those of many actresses.

Thanks to these scandalous preliminaries, the people's impatience had been aroused, and since the evening before, when the troupe arrived, there was talk of nothing but attending the first performance. From the hour when the red posters announced _Les Cloches de Corneville_ the victors prepared to celebrate their triumph. In some offices, instead of the time being spent in reading newspapers and gossiping, it was devoted to devouring the synopsis and spelling out French novels, while many feigned business outside to consult their pocket-dictionaries on the sly. So no business was transacted, callers were told to come back the next day, but the public could not take offense, for they encountered some very polite and affable clerks, who received and dismissed them with grand salutations in the French style. The clerks were practising, brushing the dust off their French, and calling to one another _oui, monsieur, s'il vous plait_, and _pardon_! at every turn, so that it was a pleasure to see and hear them.

But the place where the excitement reached its climax was the newspaper office. Ben-Zayb, having been appointed critic and translator of the synopsis, trembled like a poor woman accused of witchcraft, as he saw his enemies picking out his blunders and throwing up to his face his deficient knowledge of French. When the Italian opera was on, he had very nearly received a challenge for having mistranslated a tenor's name, while an envious rival had immediately published an article referring to him as an ignoramus--him, the foremost thinking head in the Philippines! All the trouble he had had to defend himself! He had had to write at least seventeen articles and consult fifteen dictionaries, so with these salutary recollections, the wretched Ben-Zayb moved about with leaden hands, to say nothing of his feet, for that would be plagiarizing Padre Camorra, who had once intimated that the journalist wrote with them.

"You see, Quico?" said Camaroncocido. "One half of the people have come because the friars told them not to, making it a kind of public protest, and the other half because they say to themselves, 'Do the friars object to it? Then it must be instructive!' Believe me, Quico, your advertis.e.m.e.nts are a good thing but the pastoral was better, even taking into consideration the fact that it was read by no one."

"Friend, do you believe," asked Tio Quico uneasily, "that on account of the compet.i.tion with Padre Salvi my business will in the future be prohibited?"

"Maybe so, Quico, maybe so," replied the other, gazing at the sky. "Money's getting scarce."

Tio Quico muttered some incoherent words: if the friars were going to turn theatrical advertisers, he would become a friar. After bidding his friend good-by, he moved away coughing and rattling his silver coins.

With his eternal indifference Camaroncocido continued to wander about here and there with his crippled leg and sleepy looks. The arrival of unfamiliar faces caught his attention, coming as they did from different parts and signaling to one another with a wink or a cough. It was the first time that he had ever seen these individuals on such an occasion, he who knew all the faces and features in the city. Men with dark faces, humped shoulders, uneasy and uncertain movements, poorly disguised, as though they had for the first time put on sack coats, slipped about among the shadows, shunning attention, instead of getting in the front rows where they could see well.

"Detectives or thieves?" Camaroncocido asked himself and immediately shrugged his shoulders. "But what is it to me?"

The lamp of a carriage that drove up lighted in pa.s.sing a group of four or five of these individuals talking with a man who appeared to be an army officer.

"Detectives! It must be a new corps," he muttered with his shrug of indifference. Soon, however, he noticed that the officer, after speaking to two or three more groups, approached a carriage and seemed to be talking vigorously with some person inside. Camaroncocido took a few steps forward and without surprise thought that he recognized the jeweler Simoun, while his sharp ears caught this short dialogue.

"The signal will be a gunshot!"

"Yes, sir."

"Don't worry--it's the General who is ordering it, but be careful about saying so. If you follow my instructions, you'll get a promotion."

"Yes, sir."

"So, be ready!"

The voice ceased and a second later the carriage drove away. In spite of his indifference Camaroncocido could not but mutter, "Something's afoot--hands on pockets!"

But feeling his own to be empty, he again shrugged his shoulders. What did it matter to him, even though the heavens should fall?

So he continued his pacing about. On pa.s.sing near two persons engaged in conversation, he caught what one of them, who had rosaries and scapularies around his neck, was saying in Tagalog: "The friars are more powerful than the General, don't be a fool! He'll go away and they'll stay here. So, if we do well, we'll get rich. The signal is a gunshot."

"Hold hard, hold hard," murmured Camaroncocido, tightening his fingers. "On that side the General, on this Padre Salvi. Poor country! But what is it to me?"

Again shrugging his shoulders and expectorating at the same time, two actions that with him were indications of supreme indifference, he continued his observations.

Meanwhile, the carriages were arriving in dizzy streams, stopping directly before the door to set down the members of the select society. Although the weather was scarcely even cool, the ladies sported magnificent shawls, silk neckerchiefs, and even light cloaks. Among the escorts, some who were in frock coats with white ties wore overcoats, while others carried them on their arms to display the rich silk linings.

In a group of spectators, Tadeo, he who was always taken ill the moment the professor appeared, was accompanied by a fellow townsman of his, the novice whom we saw suffer evil consequences from reading wrongly the Cartesian principle. This novice was very inquisitive and addicted to tiresome questions, and Tadeo was taking advantage of his ingenuousness and inexperience to relate to him the most stupendous lies. Every Spaniard that spoke to him, whether clerkling or underling, was presented as a leading merchant, a marquis, or a count, while on the other hand any one who pa.s.sed him by was a greenhorn, a petty official, a n.o.body! When pedestrians failed him in keeping up the novice's astonishment, he resorted to the resplendent carriages that came up. Tadeo would bow politely, wave his hand in a friendly manner, and call out a familiar greeting.

"Who's he?"

"Bah!" was the negligent reply. "The Civil Governor, the Vice-Governor, Judge ----, Senora ----, all friends of mine!"

The novice marveled and listened in fascination, taking care to keep on the left. Tadeo the friend of judges and governors!

Tadeo named all the persons who arrived, when he did not know them inventing t.i.tles, biographies, and interesting sketches.

"You see that tall gentleman with dark whiskers, somewhat squint-eyed, dressed in black--he's Judge A ----, an intimate friend of the wife of Colonel B ----. One day if it hadn't been for me they would have come to blows. h.e.l.lo, here comes that Colonel! What if they should fight?"

The novice held his breath, but the colonel and the judge shook hands cordially, the soldier, an old bachelor, inquiring about the health of the judge's family.

"Ah, thank heaven!" breathed Tadeo. "I'm the one who made them friends."

"What if they should invite us to go in?" asked the novice timidly.

"Get out, boy! I never accept favors!" retorted Tadeo majestically. "I confer them, but disinterestedly."

The novice bit his lip and felt smaller than ever, while he placed a respectful distance between himself and his fellow townsman.

Tadeo resumed: "That is the musician H----; that one, the lawyer J----, who delivered as his own a speech printed in all the books and was congratulated and admired for it; Doctor K----, that man just getting out of a hansom, is a specialist in diseases of children, so he's called Herod; that's the banker L----, who can talk only of his money and his h.o.a.rds; the poet M----, who is always dealing with the stars and _the beyond_. There goes the beautiful wife of N----, whom Padre Q----is accustomed to meet when he calls upon the absent husband; the Jewish merchant P----, who came to the islands with a thousand pesos and is now a millionaire. That fellow with the long beard is the physician R----, who has become rich by making invalids more than by curing them."

"Making invalids?"

"Yes, boy, in the examination of the conscripts. Attention! That finely dressed gentleman is not a physician but a homeopathist _sui generis_--he professes completely the _similis similibus_. The young cavalry captain with him is his chosen disciple. That man in a light suit with his hat tilted back is the government clerk whose maxim is never to be polite and who rages like a demon when he sees a hat on any one else's head--they say that he does it to ruin the German hatters. The man just arriving with his family is the wealthy merchant C----, who has an income of over a hundred thousand pesos. But what would you say if I should tell you that he still owes me four pesos, five reales, and twelve cuartos? But who would collect from a rich man like him?"

"That gentleman in debt to you?"

"Sure! One day I got him out of a bad fix. It was on a Friday at half-past six in the morning, I still remember, because I hadn't breakfasted. That lady who is followed by a duenna is the celebrated Pepay, the dancing girl, but she doesn't dance any more now that a very Catholic gentleman and a great friend of mine has--forbidden it. There's the death's-head Z----, who's surely following her to get her to dance again. He's a good fellow, and a great friend of mine, but has one defect--he's a Chinese mestizo and yet calls himself a Peninsular Spaniard. Sssh! Look at Ben-Zayb, him with the face of a friar, who's carrying a pencil and a roll of paper in his hand. He's the great writer, Ben-Zayb, a good friend of mine--he has talent!"

"You don't say! And that little man with white whiskers?"

"He's the official who has appointed his daughters, those three little girls, a.s.sistants in his department, so as to get their names on the pay-roll. He's a clever man, very clever! When he makes a mistake he blames it on somebody else, he buys things and pays for them out of the treasury. He's clever, very, very clever!"

Tadeo was about to say more, but suddenly checked himself.

"And that gentleman who has a fierce air and gazes at everybody over his shoulders?" inquired the novice, pointing to a man who nodded haughtily.

But Tadeo did not answer. He was craning his neck to see Paulita Gomez, who was approaching with a friend, Dona Victorina, and Juanito Pelaez. The latter had presented her with a box and was more humped than ever.