Noli me tángere. English
Page 12
CHAPTER V
A Star in a Dark Night
Ibarra went to his room, which overlooked the river, and droppinginto a chair gazed out into the vast expanse of the heavens spreadbefore him through the open window. The house on the opposite bankwas profusely lighted, and gay strains of music, largely from stringedinstruments, were borne across the river even to his room.
If the young man had been less preoccupied, if he had had morecuriosity and had cared to see with his opera glasses what was goingon in that atmosphere of light, he would have been charmed with one ofthose magical and fantastic spectacles, the like of which is sometimesseen in the great theaters of Europe. To the subdued strains of theorchestra there seems to appear in the midst of a shower of light, acascade of gold and diamonds in an Oriental setting, a deity wrappedin misty gauze, a sylph enveloped in a luminous halo, who movesforward apparently without touching the floor. In her presence theflowers bloom, the dance awakens, the music bursts forth, and troopsof devils, nymphs, satyrs, demons, angels, shepherds and shepherdesses,dance, shake their tambourines, and whirl about in rhythmic evolutions,each one placing some tribute at the feet of the goddess. Ibarra wouldhave seen a beautiful and graceful maiden, clothed in the picturesquegarments of the daughters of the Philippines, standing in the centerOf a semicircle made up of every class of people, Chinese, Spaniards,Filipinos, soldiers, curates, old men and young, all gesticulatingand moving about in a lively manner. Padre Damaso stood at the sideof the beauty, smiling like one especially blessed. Fray Sibyla--yes,Fray Sibyla himself--was talking to her. Dona Victorina was arrangingin the magnificent hair of the maiden a string of pearls and diamondswhich threw out all the beautiful tints of the rainbow. She was white,perhaps too much so, and whenever she raised her downcast eyes thereshone forth a spotless soul. When she smiled so as to show her smallwhite teeth the beholder realized that the rose is only a flowerand ivory but the elephant's tusk. From out the filmy pina draperiesaround her white and shapely neck there blinked, as the Tagalogs say,the bright eyes of a collar of diamonds. One man only in all the crowdseemed insensible to her radiant influence--a young Franciscan, thin,wasted, and pale, who watched her from a distance, motionless as astatue and scarcely breathing.
But Ibarra saw nothing of all this--his eyes were fixed on otherthings. A small space was enclosed by four bare and grimy walls, inone of which was an iron grating. On the filthy and loathsome floorwas a mat upon which an old man lay alone in the throes of death,an old man breathing with difficulty and turning his head from sideto side as amid his tears he uttered a name. The old man was alone,but from time to time a groan or the rattle of a chain was heard onthe other side of the wall. Far away there was a merry feast, almostan orgy; a youth was laughing, shouting, and pouring wine upon theflowers amid the applause and drunken laughter of his companions. Theold man had the features of _his_ father, the youth was himself, andthe name that the old man uttered with tears was _his own_ name! Thiswas what the wretched young man saw before him. The lights in thehouse opposite were extinguished, the music and the noises ceased,but Ibarra still heard the anguished cry of his father calling uponhis son in the hour of his death.
Silence had now blown its hollow breath over the city, and allthings seemed to sleep in the embrace of nothingness. The cock-crowalternated with the strokes of the clocks in the church towers andthe mournful cries of the weary sentinels. A waning moon began toappear, and everything seemed to be at rest; even Ibarra himself,worn out by his sad thoughts or by his journey, now slept.
Only the young Franciscan whom we saw not so long ago standingmotionless and silent in the midst of the gaiety of the ballroom sleptnot, but kept vigil. In his cell, with his elbow upon the windowsill and his pale, worn cheek resting on the palm of his hand, hewas gazing silently into the distance where a bright star glitteredin the dark sky. The star paled and disappeared, the dim light of thewaning moon faded, but the friar did not move from his place--he wasgazing out over the field of Bagumbayan and the sleeping sea at thefar horizon wrapped in the morning mist.