Read Ebook: Rizal's own story of his life by Rizal Jos Craig Austin Editor

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Ebook has 282 lines and 16175 words, and 6 pages

I again went alone to visit my mother in prison. Like another Joseph, I prophesied to her from a dream that her release would take place within three months. This prediction happened to come true.

I gained much by reading them. In spite of my only half applying myself and of my indifferent Spanish, I was able to win prizes in the quarterly examinations. I should have gained the medal if I had not made some slips in Spanish, which I spoke very poorly. This gave the place to a Spanish lad who spoke his mother tongue better than I could. Thus, then, I finished my third year.

When I next returned to Manila, I found my former landlady's house full. I had to take a room in the house with my brother, Paciano Mercado, in company with a boy from my town named Quintero. My life was not so free as formerly, for I was under close supervision. The regular hours, however, were better for me. I prayed and played with my landlord's children.

A portrait of General Paciano Rizal-Mercado should appear here, but he has never had his picture taken. In September, 1896, he was cruelly tortured in an unsuccessful endeavor to get him to sign a statement that his brother was the leader of the rebellion. Rizal's last letter, from the Fort Santiago death-cell, tells how much the younger brother owed to the elder:

"My dear brother: Now that I am about to die, it is to you that I write my last letter. I am thinking of how you worked to give me my career....

... I believe that I have tried not to lose my time ... I know how much you have suffered for my sake. ... I assure you, brother, that I die innocent of this crime of rebellion."

A little later my mother was proved innocent and she was set free. She came to embrace me as soon as she was free. After the vacation, in that memorable year of my mother's release, I again had my lodgings in the Walled City. The house was in Calle Solana and belonged to a priest. My mother had not wanted me to return to Manila, saying that I already had sufficient education. Did she have a presentiment of what was going to happen to me? Can it be that a mother's heart gives her double vision?

My future profession was still unsettled. My father wanted me to study metaphysics, so I enrolled in that course. But my interest was so slight that I did not even buy a copy of the textbook. A former schoolmate, who had finished his course three months before, was my only intimate friend. He lived in the same street as I did. My companions in the house were from Batangas and had only recently arrived in Manila.

On Sundays and other holidays, this friend used to call for me and we would spend the day at my great-aunt's house in Trozo. My aunt knew his father. When my youngest sister entered La Concordia College, I used to visit her, too, on the holidays. Another friend had a sister in the same school, so we could go together. I made a pencil sketch of his sister from a photograph which she lent me. On December 8th, the festival of La Concordia, some other students and I went to the college. It was a fine day and the building was gay with decorations of banners, lanterns and flowers.

Shortly after that, I went home for the Christmas holidays. On the same steamer, was a Kalamba girl who had been a pupil in Santa Catalina College for nearly five years. Her father was with her. We were well acquainted but her schooling had made her bashful. She kept her back to me while we talked. To help her pass the time, I asked about her school and studies but I got hardly more than "yes" and "no" in answer. She seemed to have almost, if not entirely, forgotten her Tagalog. When I walked into our house in Kalamba, my mother at first did not recognize me. The sad cause was that she had almost lost her sight. My sisters greeted me joyfully and I could read their welcome in their smiling faces. But my father, who seemed to be the most pleased of all, said least.

The next day we were expecting friends from Manila to arrive, on their way to Lipa. But the steamer landed its passengers at Bi?an because of a storm. So I saddled a pony and rode over there to meet them. My horse proved to be a good traveler and when I got back to Kalamba I rode on, by the Los Ba?os road, to our sugar mill. There I tied the horse by the roadside and for a time watched the water flowing through the irrigation ditch. Its swiftness reminded me of how rapidly my days were going by. I am now twenty years old and have the satisfaction of remembering that in the crises of my life I have not followed my own pleasure. I have always tried to live by my principles and to do the heavy duties which I have undertaken.

MY FIRST READING LESSON

I remember the time when I had not seen any other river than the one near my town. It was as clear as crystal, and joyous, too, as it ran on its course. But it was shaded by bamboos whose boughs bent to every breeze as if always complaining. That was my only world. It was bounded at the back by the blue mountains of my province. It was bounded in front by the white surface of the lake. The lake was as smooth as a mirror. Graceful sails were to be seen everywhere on it.

At that age, stories pleased me greatly and, with all my soul, I believed whatever was in the books. There were good reasons why I should. My parents told me to be very careful of my books. They urged me to read and understand them. But they punished me for the least lie.

My first recollection of reciting my letters reaches back to my babyhood. I must have been very little then, for when they rubbed the floor of our house with banana leaves I almost fell down. I slipped on the polished surface as beginners in skating do on ice. It took great effort for me to climb into a chair. I went downstairs step by step. I clung to each round of the baluster.

In our house, as in all others in the town, kerosene oil was unknown. I had never seen a lamp in our town, nor a carriage on our streets. Yet I thought Kalamba was a very gay and lively town. One night, all the family, except my mother and myself, went to bed early. Why, I do not know, but we two remained sitting alone. The candles had already been put out. They had been blown out in their globes by means of a curved tube of tin. That tube seemed to me the finest and most wonderful plaything in the world. The room was dimly lighted by a single light of coconut oil. In all Filipino homes such a light burns through the night. It goes out just at day-break to awaken people by its spluttering.

My mother was teaching me to read in a Spanish reader called "The Children's Friend." This was quite a rare book and an old copy. It had lost its cover and my sister had cleverly made a new one. She had fastened a sheet of thick blue paper over the back and then covered it with a piece of cloth.

This night my mother became impatient with hearing me read so poorly. I did not understand Spanish and so I could not read with expression. She took the book from me. First she scolded me for drawing funny pictures on its pages. Then she told me to listen and she began to read. When her sight was good, she read very well. She could recite well, and she understood verse-making, too. Many times during Christmas vacations, my mother corrected my poetical compositions, and she always made valuable criticisms.

On hearing the word "story" I at once opened my eyes wide. The word "story" promised something new and wonderful. I watched my mother while she turned the leaves of the book, as if she were looking for something. Then I settled down to listen. I was full of curiosity and wonder. I had never even dreamed that there were stories in the old book which I read without understanding. My mother began to read me the fable of the young moth and the old one. She translated it into Tagalog a little at a time.

My attention increased from the first sentence. I looked toward the light and fixed my gaze on the moths which were circling around it. The story could not have been better timed. My mother repeated the warning of the old moth. She dwelt upon it and directed it to me. I heard her, but it is a curious thing that the light seemed to me each time more beautiful, the flame more attractive. I really envied the fortune of the insects. They frolicked so joyously in its enchanting splendor that the ones which had fallen and been drowned in the oil did not cause me any dread.

My mother kept on reading and I listened breathlessly. The fate of the two insects interested me greatly. The flame rolled its golden tongue to one side and a moth which this movement had singed fell into the oil, fluttered for a time and then became quiet. That became for me a great event. A curious change came over me which I have always noticed in myself whenever anything has stirred my feelings. The flame and the moth seemed to go farther away and my mother's voice sounded strange and uncanny. I did not notice when she ended the fable. All my attention was fixed on the fate of the insect. I watched it with my whole soul. I gave to it my every thought. It had died a martyr to its illusions.

As she put me to bed, my mother said: "See that you do not behave like the young moth. Don't become disobedient, or you may get burnt as it did." I do not know whether I answered or not. I don't know whether I promised anything or whether I cried. But I do remember that it was a long time before I fell asleep. The story revealed to me things until then unknown. Moths no longer were, for me, insignificant insects. Moths talked; they knew how to warn. They advised, just like my mother. The light seemed to me more beautiful. It had grown more dazzling and more attractive. I knew why the moths circled the flame.

The advice and warnings sounded feebly in my ears. What I thought of most was the death of the heedless moth. But in the depth of my heart I did not blame it. My mother's care had not had quite the result she intended.

Years have passed since then. The child has become a man. He has crossed the most famous rivers of other countries. He has studied beside their broad streams. He has crossed seas and oceans. He has climbed mountains much higher than the Makiling of his native province, up to perpetual snow. He has received from experience bitter lessons, much more bitter than that sweet teaching which his mother gave him. Yet, in spite of all, the man still keeps the heart of a child. He still thinks that light is the most beautiful thing in creation, and that to sacrifice one's life for it is worth while.

MY CHILDHOOD IMPRESSIONS

One of numerous rough drafts evidently written for practice. Published as "Mi Primer Recuerdo," in El Renacimiento, Manila, February 2, 1908.

I spent many, many hours of my childhood down on the shore of the lake, Laguna de Bay. I was thinking of what was beyond. I was dreaming of what might be over on the other side of the waves. Almost every day, in our town, we saw the Guardia Civil lieutenant caning and injuring some unarmed and inoffensive villager. The villager's only fault was that while at a distance he had not taken off his hat and made his bow. The alcalde treated the poor villagers in the same way whenever he visited us.

We saw no restraint put upon brutality. Acts of violence and other excesses were committed daily. The officers whose duty it was to protect the people and keep the public peace were the real outlaws. Against such lawbreakers, our authorities were powerless. I asked myself if, in the lands which lay across the lake, the people lived in this same way. I wondered if there they tortured any countryman with hard and cruel whips merely on suspicion. Did they there respect the home? Or over yonder also, in order to live in peace, would one have to bribe tyrants?

THE SPANISH SCHOOLS OF MY BOYHOOD

From the introduction which Doctor Rizal put to his Spanish version of an article on "The Transliteration of Tagalog". His advocacy of the English style used in other Malay countries as more akin to the genius of Filipino dialects was considered extremely unpatriotic by most Spaniards.

You perhaps attended a village Spanish school to learn your letters. Possibly, you have had to teach the letters in Spanish to others smaller than yourself. In either case, you must have noticed what I have, that children find great difficulty in mastering certain syllables. These are ca, ce, ci, co, ga, ge, gua, gui, etc. It is because Filipino children do not understand the reasons for such irregularities. Nor do they know the cause for the changes in value of the sounds of certain consonants.

In the old times, blows fell like rain. Many pupils were whipped every day. Sometimes the schoolmaster broke the ferule and sometimes he broke the children's hands. The first pages of their primers fell to pieces from long and hard use. The children cried. Even the monitors had to suffer at times. Yet those syllables which cost the children so many tears are of no use to them.

Those syllables are necessary only in the learning of Spanish, which language in my time only three boys in a thousand ever really learned. These three learned it in Manila, by hearing Spanish spoken, and by committing to memory book after book. I often wondered what was the use of learning it at all when in the end one spoke only Tagalog. But I kept my wonder to myself. I felt that to try to make reforms in the Philippines at that time would be to embark on a stormy voyage.

After I grew up, I had to write letters in Tagalog. I was shocked at my ignorance of its spelling. I was surprised, too, to find the same word spelled differently in the different works which I consulted. This proved to me how foolish it was to try to write Tagalog in the Spanish way. The spelling in use today by all Filipino scholars is a great improvement over the old style. I want to place the credit for this change where it belongs. These improvements are due to the studies in Tagalog of Dr. T. H. Pardo de Tavera alone. I have only been one of the most zealous champions of the change from the Spanish style.

THE TURKEY THAT CAUSED THE KALAMBA LAND TROUBLE

This account was given Captain Carnicero, the Spanish commander of the Dapitan district where Rizal was in exile, in 1892.

My father was a friend of the owners of the Kalamba estate. He was intimate, too, with the manager in charge of the plantation. Frequently, important visitors came to the plantation house. Then the manager asked my father for whatever he needed. He very often asked for a turkey, and my father gladly gave it to him. The poultry yard at our house was always full of turkeys because my father was a fancier of these fowls.

But one season there came some epidemic and almost all the turkeys died. Only a few pairs, which were being kept for breeding, were left. Just at this time the manager one day sent for the customary turkey. Naturally my father had to tell the messenger that he had no turkeys to spare, because the greater part of them had died. This reply made the manager furiously angry. He wound up his abuse by saying, "You will pay for this in the end!" A few days later my father received a note from the manager, saying that he was going to raise the rent on the land which my father occupied. He said the rent would be one-third more than father was then paying.

The reason for this decision was clear. It was because my father had refused to give the manager the turkey. The proof of this was that no other tenant received any such notice.

Father paid this increase on the day set, without a single word of protest, being among the first to pay. But after a few months, there came another note. In it the manager gave notice that the rent would be doubled. This, he said, was because my father was growing rich from the rented land where he had installed machinery for making sugar.

My father could not pay this price. Then he was summoned to appear in court; and finally the alcalde ordered him to leave the land. So he lost his houses and machinery, all because of a turkey.

FROM JAPAN TO ENGLAND ACROSS AMERICA

From letters written en route to his friend Mariano Ponce and first published in Manuel Artigas' Biblioteca Nacional Filipina, Manila, June, 1910.

On February 28th, 1888, I arrived in Yokohama. A few moments after reaching the hotel, I received the card of the official in charge at the Spanish legation. I had not even had a chance to brush up when he called. He was very pleasant and offered to assist me in my work. He even invited me to live at the legation, and I accepted. If, at the bottom, there was a desire to watch me, I was not afraid to let them know all about myself. I lived at the legation a little over a month, and traveled in some of the nearby provinces of Japan. At times, I was alone; at others, with the Spanish official himself, or with the interpreter. While there, I learned to speak Japanese, and made a slight study of the Japanese theatre. After many offers of employment, which I refused, I sailed at last for America, about April 13th.

On the steamer, I met a half-Filipino family, the wife being a mestiza, the daughter of an Englishman named Jackson. They had with them a servant from Pangasinan. The son asked me if I knew "Richal," the author of Noli Me Tangere. Smiling, I answered that I did; and, as he began to speak well of me, I had to make myself known and say that I was the author. The mother paid me compliments, too. I made the acquaintance of a Japanese who was going to Europe. He had been a prisoner for being a radical and editor of an independent newspaper. As the Japanese spoke only Japanese, I acted as interpreter for him until we arrived in London.

During this voyage I was not seasick.

I visited the larger cities of America, where I saw splendid buildings. The Americans have magnificent ideals. America is a homeland for the poor who are willing to work.

I traveled across America, and saw the majestic cascade of Niagara. I was in New York, the great city, but there everything is new. I went to see some relics of Washington, that great man whom I fear has not his equal in this century.

I embarked for Europe on the "City of Rome", said to be the second largest steamer in the world. On board, a newspaper was published up to the end of the voyage.

I made the acquaintance of many people. They wondered at my taking about with me a foreigner who could not make himself understood. The Europeans and Americans were astonished to see how I got along with him. I could speak to every one in his own language and understand what he said.

MY DEPORTATION TO DAPITAN

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