28 May 1886

Madrid

Madrid, 28 May 1886

Mr. Jose Rizal

Dear Pepe,

I read your urgent letter with the greatest pleasure and it made me very happy to know that you are very well and in good health.

I no longer remember if I have given you my new address. I believe that I indicated in my last letter my transfer to this house where Antonio and our late countryman Manalo had lived and lately Cortez also, who not so long ago left for Valencia to take the examination.

I am informed of your request to send you the ring in a sealed and registered letter, the only way it can reach you. That is all right and I would have done it at once with pleasure if it were in my possession at present, but with my regret it has been at the Palacio for two months now. I was obliged to pawn it to get out of a difficulty when in the past months I did not have a cent. You know already the things that happen in life. However, I have hopes of being able to redeem it next month as I am waiting for a sum of money my family will send me for my traveling expenses abroad this summer.

As there is no danger that it will be lost and considering the short time that remains before my forthcoming trip to Paris this summer, I should like you to let me keep it until I go there. Then if you do not want me to buy it from you, without failure I shall send it to you through the safest way.

I do not know if you remember the amount you owed me; I believe, if I’m not mistaken, it was 37 plus two or three duros that I advanced, besides the five duros that Mino deducted. In addition, the fee of the pawnshop perhaps. On the other hand, you sent me from Barcelona 50. With this you can make the computation.

God willing and having no obstacle whatever, it is possible that about the middle of next July I shall go to Paris, and I will write you before undertaking the trip. You may be sure of this as I have promised my family to see Paris this summer.

Neither is Acevedo here. He went to Leon to see his relatives and it is more than half a month ago that he left this place. I will put your letter inside mine as soon as I write him.

We are all well. Now we see each other less than ever and withal there is no change in the colony. One has just arrived, a fellow townsman of Jugo, by the way. Another, recently arrived from London, one Yangco.[1] I have not met him yet. Jugo will marry very soon to confirm his union with his wife in the church.

Ever yours,

Ceferino

01-155 [Reformists]