5 November 1884

Calamba

Local comments on Rizal’s speech at the Luna and Resurreccion Hidalgo banquet — Their effect on his mother — Low price of sugar — Bad times — Rizal’s family homestead almost burnt down — Rizal asks permission to study in Germany – Paciano’s approval but inability to increase allowance — The new parish priest and his sense of humor.

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Calamba, 5 November 1884

DEAR BROTHER,

I suppose you must be querulous of us for not receiving letters from here and for the irregularity of the remittance of your pension. You have reason to be so, inasmuch as you don’t know what is happening to us. Imagine that on account of the low price of sugar, we lost more than three thousand and we are in debt for four thousand for the new machine; since the month of June until now, we are without a peseta. Add to this our Mother’s sickness, which at first I thought was nothing more than indigestion, so much so that I gave her a purgative, hoping that it would cure her; but it did not turn out that way, and she remained in bed all the time, weak, unable to eat or sleep, and after one meek, I was already very much worried about her health, when I observed now and then she was sighing. Then I supposed that it was more of a moral rather than physical ailment, and so I told Sra. Neneng to take her to her house and amuse her in panguingue[1] as in fact she did, and she got well. You are the cause of her sickness and I’ll tell you why. About that time the talk here was the speech you delivered at the banquet in honor of the Filipino painters and condemning on it, there was one asserted that you would not be able to come back, some that it would be desirable for you to remain there; others that you have made enemies; in short there was not even wanting one asserted that you have lost friends; but all are unanimous in saying that it was not convenient for you to return here. These gratuitous superstitions were the ones that afflicted very much our mother and made her sick. For this, like the sugar business, they blame me also, as if I could stop your going abroad from the mountain where I was then at the time, working to improve other people’s lands. All this vexed me and at the same time explains the delay in the remittance of your allowance and my little inclination to write. But now the sugar has been sold, though at a very low price, our obligations have been paid, and the spirits are more gay, because there is less tenseness. I hope you will not complain any more about your allowance, though not altogether about the letters.

Don’t believe that these things happen only at our house, for there are many complaining also about their financial situation and others about other things; like Capitán Juan, who walks dejected after the death of his only heir; Eusebio, son of Capitán Quico, who is losing his sight, according to the examination of the oculist Gonzáles; Narcisa who has lost Isabel and Lucía, José; many who are facing bankruptcy; you, suffering privations and I, this year’s crop, best hope, cheated in its price. There is nothing it seems that can do but throw a ring into the [sea] as Pulverates did, in order to avoid greater misfortunes, with the only difference that that ancient figure had enjoyed the blessings of fortune while we are just the opposite.

At midnight in the month of September, our mother woke us up saying that there was fire in the pantry. I rose up and saw in fact that the fire from the hanging setee was already licking the roof. It was not difficult for us to put it out, so much so that the neighbors did not know about it. The fire came from the Bengal light that could not be lighted on the day of St. John and was stored there, and it seems that it burnt spontaneously as the pyrotechnics here affirm, because at that time everybody was sleeping. If the house had been burnt and also the warehouse nearby, the fiesta could not be more complete.

In your letter you say that you want to take graduate work in medicine in German schools. I’m very agreeable to this, but our critical situation will not permit an increase in your allowance. If we were not going through these bad times, the initiative would come from here.

The curate here is a clergyman, but until now his status is that of a trustee. He is as good, or perhaps better, than his predecessor, though not so learned. One day the members of the Third Order of St. Francis, on the occasion of a religious festival, asked him what dress they should wear, whether the brown habit of St. Francis or that of St. Dominic. He replied that, as he did not understand a word of what they were asking him, they could wear what they wished, except that of Eve.

Olimpia gave birth to a boy as robust and developed as her older son. Perhaps for this reason, she did not have as easy a delivery as they wanted.

We are all in good health.

Your brother,

PACIANO

P.S.

Now they tell me that the son-in-law of Sra. Basilia died during the voyage.

01-109 [Family]