“But that only goes to show—”
“Wait, wait! Don’t be so hasty! My successor remained a shorter time, and when he left he had more attendance, more tears, and more music. Yet he had been more given to whipping and had raised the fees in the parish to almost double.”
“But you will allow me—”
“But that isn’t all. I stayed in the town of San Diego twenty years and it has been only a few months since I—left it.”
Here he showed signs of chagrin.
“Twenty years, no one can deny, are more than sufficient to get acquainted with a town. San Diego has a population of six thousand souls and I knew every inhabitant as well as if I had been his mother and wet-nurse. I knew in which foot this one was lame, where the shoe pinched that one, who was courting that girl, what affairs she had had and with whom, who was the real father of the child, and so on—for I was the confessor of every last one, and they took care not to fail in their duty. Our host, Santiago, will tell you whether I am speaking the truth, for he has a lot of land there and that was where we first became friends. Well then, you may see what the Indian is: when I left I was escorted by only a few old women and some of the tertiary brethren—and that after I had been there twenty years!”
“But I don’t see what that has to do with the abolition of the tobacco monopoly,”21 ventured the rubicund youth, taking advantage of the Franciscan’s pausing to drink a glass of sherry.
Fray Dámaso was so greatly surprised that he nearly let his glass fall. He remained for a moment staring fixedly at the young man.
“What? How’s that?” he was finally able to exclaim in great wonderment. “Is it possible that you don’t see it as clear as day? Don’t you see, my son, that all this proves plainly that the reforms of the ministers are irrational?”
It was now the youth’s turn to look perplexed. The lieutenant wrinkled his eyebrows a little more and the small man nodded toward Fray Dámaso equivocally. The Dominican contented himself with almost turning his back on the whole group.
“Do you really believe so?” the young man at length asked with great seriousness, as he looked at the friar with curiosity.
“Do I believe so? As I believe the Gospel! The Indian is so indolent!”
“Ah, pardon me for interrupting you,” said the young man, lowering his voice and drawing his chair a little closer, “but you have said something that awakens all my interest. Does this indolence actually, naturally, exist among the natives or is there some truth in what a foreign traveler says: that with this indolence we excuse our own, as well as our backwardness and our colonial system. He referred to other colonies whose inhabitants belong to the same race—”
“Bah, jealousy! Ask Señor Laruja, who also knows this country. Ask him if there is any equal to the ignorance and indolence of the Indian.”
“It’s true,” affirmed the little man, who was referred to as Señor Laruja. “In no part of the world can you find anyone more indolent than the Indian, in no part of the world.”
“Nor more vicious, nor more ungrateful!”
“Nor more unmannerly!”
The rubicund youth began to glance about nervously. “Gentlemen,” he whispered, “I believe that we are in the house of an Indian. Those young ladies—”
“Bah, don’t be so apprehensive! Santiago doesn’t consider himself an Indian—and besides, he’s not here. And what if he were! These are the nonsensical ideas of the newcomers. Let a few months pass and you will change your opinion, after you have attended a lot of fiestas and bailúhan, slept on cots, and eaten your fill of tinola.”
“Ah, is this thing that you call tinola a variety of lotus which makes people—er—forgetful?”
“Nothing of the kind!” exclaimed Fray Dámaso with a smile. “You’re getting absurd. Tinola is a stew of chicken and squash. How long has it been since you got here?”
“Four days,” responded the youth, rather offended.
“Have you come as a government employee?”
“No, sir, I’ve come at my own expense to study the country.”
“Man, what a rare bird!” exclaimed Fray Dámaso, staring at him with curiosity. “To come at one’s own expense and for such foolishness! What a wonder! When there are so many books! And with two fingerbreadths of forehead! Many have written books as big as that! With two fingerbreadths of forehead!”
The Dominican here brusquely broke in upon the conversation. “Did your Reverence, Fray Dámaso, say that you had been twenty years in the town of San Diego and that you had left it? Wasn’t your Reverence satisfied with the town?”
At this question, which was put in a very natural and almost negligent tone, Fray Dámaso suddenly lost all his merriment and stopped laughing. “No!” he grunted dryly, and let himself back heavily against the back of his chair.
The Dominican went on in a still more indifferent tone. “It must be painful to leave a town where one has been for twenty years and which he knows as well as the clothes he wears. I certainly was sorry to leave Kamiling and that after I had been there only a few months. But my superiors did it for the good of the Order—for my own good.”
Fray Dámaso, for the first time that evening, seemed to be very thoughtful. Suddenly he brought his fist down on the arm of his chair and with a heavy breath exclaimed: “Either Religion is a fact or it is not! That is, either the curates are free or they are not! The country is going to ruin, it is lost!” And again he struck the arm of his chair.
Everybody in the sala turned toward the group with astonished looks. The Dominican raised his head to stare
