Rue de Champagne, Brussels
Distressing news from home – The parents and sisters of Rizal are victims of persecution – The fear of banishment eclipses reason in some of the persecuted – Progress in the study of French – Rizal, according to Chapusset, has much spirit and imagination – With a Buddhistic spirit he thinks differently from the Europeans – A Tseng-Ki-Tong in miniature – Blumentritt should not have to pay for a copy of Rizal’s Morga – Just write and Rizal will send one.
* * *
38 Rue de Philippe de Champagne, Brussels
28 June 1890
Jose Rizal
My Brother,
Certainly a long time has already elapsed since I wrote you my last letter and you will know the cause of my silence as I keep no secrets from you.
First of all I ought to be grateful to you for your attention. Then, I tell you that I have received bad news from home because my brother writes me that the persecution which my parents and sisters have been suffering has been intensified. Worse still, one of my sisters – the most sensitive of them all – has lost her mind, though there is hope of her recovery. They say that it is a kind of epidemic which has already attacked many persons in Calamba.
This and the lack of news together with my work did not inspire me to write my friends. Nobody wants sad and bad news. Before the lapse of much time you will know what kind of work I am doing because it is related to you.
I am also studying French with diligence. The Brussels folk say that here I have the best professor when it comes to style. His name is Chapusset. At the beginning we could not understand each other. Now we are doing better and my compositions hardly have any mistakes. The professor says that I have much spirit and too much imagination I should get rid of, if I wish to write well. I believe he is slightly wrong, for my imagination has become very weak. I am becoming a pessimist. He says also that I think differently from the Europeans, that I have a Buddhistic spirit, etc. Thus, if my hopes are realized, after three or four months, I shall be able to write good French, like a Tseng-Ki-Tong in miniature.
Now, I go to this: The last bound copy of Morga that I had here and which I sold to the bookseller Lamertin for not having any other bound one, turned out to be reserved for you. Lamertin did not want to tell me whom he was going to send the Morga. I suspected later that you had ordered it. He gave me 9.50 for it. Please, if you wish something for yourself, do not ask the bookseller, but me, because it is not good that we two Philippinists – two men who fight for the poor without being awarded for it – still have to give money to the booksellers. I am sorry for what you have done. When you wrote me that no copy was obtainable at Brockhaus’ bookshop I had then only one copy. Now, if you still want a copy, please write me. I should like to return your money to you, but I don’t know how much you paid. In the meantime, I am sorry. I should have given you at once ten copies!
Certainly I am not in good humor. Everything unpleasant strikes me. Therefore I close this letter.
Yours,
Rizal
P.S.
Pardo de Tavera has a new son
02-548 [Blumentritt V.2]