Barcelona
Rizal calls for unity – Serrano cautions that unity may bring misfortune down on all instead of a few – A coded letter full of satire – Rizal and Serrano both agree the friars are “our only salvation” – The Jesuits founded Academia Pedagogica for Serrano to desist from going to Europe.
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Barcelona
1 February 1889
Pedro Serrano Laktaw
[Mr. Jose Rizal]
My dear Laong Laan,
My heart rejoiced greatly upon receiving your valued letter. I read it again and again and now I am going to answer it skippingly.
You are right in saying that trees standing close together are stronger and are not easily thrown down by a strong wind; but I reply that when fire reaches houses that are close together, it devours them all easily. In loose ground, rather than in a tight one, roots easily take and there plants are robust and fertilizers readily sink. By pruning plants their branches multiply, their growth is hastened, and their trunks become strong.
If what you tell me about Rizal is true, as I suppose it is, you are more than right. Serrano is of the same opinion that this very day the friar is our only salvation, that to think otherwise is folly. He expects much from the Dominicans and the Jesuits, he serves the latter and pleases or tires to please the other. He adds that without pains delivery would be difficult if not impossible, and everybody wishes to pin his hope on the government and the friars. Let us see if he shall be disappointed soon, one who, like him, has for his favorite phrase the saying of a celebrated writer of our century, which is: “God knows the good of the evil done by man.” Jesuit-like, lad, Jesuit-like.
Serrano is an unfortunate man, you rightly say, for not only is he deceived by those who pose as his friends, but he allows himself to be deceived in order to satisfy everybody and not to embarrass anyone, boldly advising me to follow his behavior, adding that that is the formula for being in good terms with everybody and get what one desires, and in this way our lad picks a friend at every corner but what friends, sir, three for a penny.
And so you can see until what point the blessed one goes. He still hopes much of those who promised to help him print his book, though he has seen that they only promised him to put him in danger rather than to fulfill their promise at any time. Notwithstanding, he continues to be their friend and of everybody and thus he lives happily, because for him bread and cake are the same. On the other hand he does not save even a cigarette for his future, because of his probity.
The most shocking [of] this is that the friars whom he tries to please still talk ill of him and have even vowed to knock him down some day, on the day least expected. The Jesuits….. these will be in good terms with him so long as they believe that the person of Serrano will be useful to them, afterwards he shall see how they will treat him. Well, upon knowing that he has obtained permission to go to the Peninsula, they called him and convinced him that without leaving this country he could get an education and for that purpose they founded an Academia Pedagogica, without prejudice of speaking to other teachers and priests in order to make him desist from going to Europe, fearing that there Serrano may lose his faith in religion and the many bad lay teachers in the Peninsula pervert him and he would return very wide awake, a heretic, and a mason like Rizal.
My regards and embraces to all and remembrances to the dear mistress of your thoughts.
P. Dore
02-355 [Blumentritt V.1]