17 April 1884

Manila

Sta. Cruz, Manila, 17 April 1884

MR. JOSE RIZAL Y MERCADO

MY ESTEEMED FRIEND AND DISTINGUISHED NAMESAKE,

The bearer of this letter, Mr. Ceferino de Leon, is the young man I recommended to you in my preceding letter dated 10 of last month, if my memory does not fail me. He is a friend who has a very intense desire to live with you on account of the favorable information that he has about your esteemed person and for being one of many who are enthusiastic about your literary productions. This young man and I were at the house of the landlord to ask for a letter of recommendation to you and to get the things to be sent to you. There we saw the little landlady, fairly improved in health for having spent a vacation at the house of the Ulberzua in San Marcelino.

On Palm Sunday O… and I had a very long conversation which began at 5:00 in the afternoon and lasted until 10:00 at night whose constant theme was your boasted amorous relations with her. She insisted that it was not she who will be my friend but her namesake and therefore I am very wrong. I replied I stood firm that she will be your future consort as you yourself told me so and in proof of it I am appointed your proxy in this case. I proved to her that I fulfill my mission well by telling her that Mr. Ceferino de Leon wanted to court her and I stopped him, making him understand that the road to her is closed and I will say the same thing to all if I should know that they want to take the same road already taken by you. On account of this she became a little furious telling me to write you that she is already married so that you will think no more of her winsome beauty.

She requests me to tell you that for learning too many foreign languages you may forget your own, and you ought to know that she speaks no other language but her own. I promised her that you will not forget our dialect and I shall make you write her a letter in poetic Tagalog.

Among those who attended the procession on Good Friday in Sta. Cruz she and her sister C… were the most elegant. Orang was also at the procession of the salubong[1] accompanied by her cousins Mentang and Oñang.

The landlady, the little landlady,[2] and the Ulberzua girls were at my house to view the Easter procession and the little landlady was insisting on seeing Orang, but as Orang was covered with a white veil when the procession passed by the house, we did not recognize her. O… told me to tell the little landlady that she is not rivalling her over you. What trouble are we stirring up among these young women, Namesake!

M… our elegant young woman, I believe now lives high. She has changed her way of living since the abrogation of her contract with J…

Mentang, Tentay, and Oñang are still single.

This afternoon the only daughter remaining to our friend Mr. Felipe Zamora was buried and he asked me to transmit to you this sad news as his letters were already sealed and in the possession of Ceferino.

Have you met your friend Pilar?

You are very good-looking in your picture in winter garb. I saw it in the house of the landlord last night.

This year nearly two thirds of the students of medicine are suspended. I do not know if this is due to the famous student orchestra we had during the days of the carnival. Your cousin G… got the sad grade of suspended. These brothers are at present in their hometown…

I advance to you my enthusiastic congratulations on your forthcoming graduation. Are you going to graduate as doctor? According to the landlord, after your graduation, you are going to London. Very good idea, afterwards, Italy, Rome, Switzerland, Germany, America, a great country,

There is a little Spaniard named Fernandez who is hovering about the house of Orang in the afternoons, but I believe that it is P… who is the most tormented for almost every afternoon he walks back and forth in front of the house of… We did not hear about this when you were still here.

M… continues with her love affairs with my cousin Miciano.

At Miciano’s house I saw the melodrama written by you, Junto al Pasig and he told me that he had to enlarge a certain scene for being too short for staging afterwards. I do not know where, at the request of Masaguer who will put the music. My cousin says that he trembles when he thinks of having to enlarge or add something to a work by you. As I do not understand poetry, I could not defend you against my cousin who told me that you have left out one syllable in one of the décimas which says, “Espiritu sublime!” and my cousin asks if the word opimas is pronounced opimas as it rhymes with simas in the verses that Satan speaks, it seems.

I tell you these literary things with my usual frankness so that you can defend yourself, though there is nothing unusual for you to commit this lapsus as celebrated poets have incurred in greater errors.

Ceferino bears so many embraces for you from the landlord, your kind family, and your affectionate friend who writes you…

Dadivas asks about your condition in that city and requests me to give you his regards. It seems that he is going to write you one of these days.

Compliments from Valentin Bautista, Compadre Rosauro, Gella, Teong, your Comadre, and others and receive the regards of my parents and brother and the tender affection of your true friend,

JOSE M. CECILIO

I accompanied Orang, Mentang, and Oñang on the night of Maundy Thursday to see the procession in Quiapo. Behind walked the lad Fernandez, enthusiastic admirer of O…, so that I said to her that if my namesake would see him, he would break his vertebral column.

04-101 [Misc.]