January 1886

Paris

Christmas in Paris — A pair of Grecian vases painted by Rizal — Good behavior of French children — The mansion of Dr. Wecker — Rizal is going to Germany where there are very good professors — Already writes all French as he does Spanish —He already can perform all kinds of eye operations — Winter in Paris — Eye operations by Dr. Wecker — Pardo de Tavera family at Paris — Rizal wrote the illustrated story of the monkey and the turtle in Paz Pardo de Tavera’s album.

* * *

65 Boulevard Arago, Paris

1 January 1886

MY DEAR PARENTS,

Today, the 1st day of the year, the mail leaves and I take advantage of the few minutes that my work at the clinic, courtesy calls, etc., leave me free to tell you something of how I spend these days.

For the sake of the truth I’ll tell you that here Christmas and the New Year are holidays for children and employees only and the children receive toys and the latter presents. However, it must be added that the New Year is the feast of the young people who receive gifts from their friends and acquaintances on this day. I presented to Miss Pardo[1] a pair of Grecian vases painted by me — one representing the Filipinos at their pastime (cockfighting) and the other portraying Filipinos at work (milk vendors, prisoners, etc.). I spent Christmas at the house of this family at the invitation of the brother and where I will spend this evening also. As I already told you, there we always talk about the Philippines. Doña Juliana is a genuine Filipino through and through, nor sus cuatro costados, [nor its four sides] as it is commonly said.

Beginning with the 24th [of] December all the sidewalks of the boulevards are filled with baraques, or little stalls, of toys, fruits etc., like the Quiapo fair (Baraque is pronounced “barac” whence barraca). A multitude of people stroll there—children young and old people. The government organizes entertainments for children only. Actors, actresses, and artists play gratis for the entertainment of the children who know how to reciprocate well this solicitude by behaving very considerately. I don’t get tired admiring the education of French children. It seems like a story when they are compared with the children there of whether Spaniards or Filipinos. On the street, on the omnibus, in the carriages, on the promenades, at home, everywhere, they are well-behaved. They don’t shout or cry, they don’t bother. This very morning, on the omnibus, there was a boy of about five seated on the knees of his mother and he was very quiet and very formal, saying not a single word. After a while another woman with another child almost of the same age came and they sat in front. The two boys looked at each other in silence without saying a word, but as the trip was long they didn’t remain silent. One started smiling and the other one also. One extended his hand smiling and half closing his eyes; the other took it and they started talking in their childish language and in a low voice. Later, one took out from under his coat a top and showed it to the other who examined it closely smiling and returned it with signs of satisfaction. They don’t fight or shout. In the big bazaars where families go to do all kinds of shopping, there are immense halls full of vyingly beautiful toys. Well, children go there, look and bear the tricks of wonderfully made dolls, mechanical toys, horses, and many others, and you’ll not hear either a cry or a shout or a plea to their parents to buy them those toys. They think that if they have behaved well during the whole year, on the morning of the 25th December they would come upon them and if not, all is well. The children of the poor go there to look at them only and they don’t touch them or say a word in a loud voice, but those who see those little eyes can read what they feel in their hearts. This education seems to me a conclusive evidence in favor of the new system of educating a man in the love for the good and his fellowmen.

The mansion of Professor de Wecker is located on the Avenue d’Antin, number 31. It [is] a magnificent building with a most elegant appearance even in that district where sumptuous palaces abound, In Spain I didn’t see a similar thing. At the entrance one comes upon a mottled marble of all colors, very well arranged, a magnificent chimney – which conditions the air when one has to take off his overcoat — standing in the middle of hall, which presents an extraordinary sight. Upon one’s arrival he is met by lackeys who take his cane, umbrella, and overcoat and conduct him to the first floor through a carpeted stairway and with ancient Spanish tapestry. The waiting room, where one stays while he is announced to the owner of the house, is full of magnificent paintings of the Dutch, French, Spanish, and Italian schools. Among these were one by Ruisdael and one by Julio Romano, believed to be Rosa Bonheur, a very precious Raphael. Inside are sculptures in marble and bronze, a boy fisherman, a gift of the queen of Italy, very old altar pieces, and in an alcove a magnificent Portuguese bedstead which some believe costs from two to three thousand pesos. The second floor of the house is destined for receptions and the dining room is there with its big chimney and two tables of malachite and gilded bronze, paintings of flowers and fruits to gladden the eye. The rooms and apartments whose walls are all covered with white silk have a delicate, elegant aspect with their tiny gray, blue, and violet designs and the matching furniture. Through a small stairway, all carpeted also, one goes up to the third floor occupied by the sister with two daughters. This part of the house is also decorated but in another style, although it is equally excellent. The walls are red or pink and gilt very well combined. Gay furniture and smiling pictures indicate that a lady with young children live there. The sewing room and room for piano study were all appropriate and adequate. We find the toys and dolls of the children seated in chairs as on a reception day. Those who have seen this mansion agree that it is one of the best in Paris and one cannot help but admire the good taste and the exquisite tact of the owner who knew how to combine and harmonize the elegant and the serious, the old and the modern. Wecker speaks German, French, English, and Spanish. Luna, introduced by me on Christmas Day, was seized with admiration and enchanted. He couldn’t help but admit that what Pardo told him as well as what I had related to him were exact and even pallid.

If by chance you’ll send me money, do it through the Shanghai Banking Corporation, because through Spanish firms, much is lost, while through this bank I gain a few pesetas per 100 when I cash it, for English money is worth more than the Spanish. 15 — January —. I wasn’t able to send this letter through the previous mail for lack of time. I will continue it now.

Day before yesterday I received a draft of 200 pesos which upon being cashed yielded only 192 pesos because of the 45% discount. With more reason than ever I’ll repeat to you now what I have told you: If you’re going to send me money do it through Bank of India, Australia, and China, which is very much better. If those 200 pesos had been sent through that bank, they would have given me some 204 or 205 francs, as it happens to Resurrección,[2] who always collects more than what they send him.

The money couldn’t have arrived more timely because I was already somewhat hard pressed. Fortunately Luna collected one thousand pesos[3] from the Senate and so we two had something to spend these days. You say that you’ll send me money in February. You need not send me until the 4th of April or towards the end of March, for with what I have I’m going to Germany where the cost of living, they say, is very low, and I’ll try to make this money last until the beginning of May. There’s no need to sell either watch or horse. At Paris, though there is much to study, on the other hand the cost of living is very high. In Germany one can study fairly well and by staying in a provincial capital I can wait for the crisis to pass away. In the meantime I shall study German and a few other things besides eye diseases. There are very good professors in Germany. In the meanwhile you may continue sending me your letters here at Paris, 65 Boulevard Arago. Until July or August I shall be in Germany and later in England and afterwards go home. If the news have not been misleading or exaggerated, don’t worry about sending me money for I have enough to live on until the 1st of May. As to the rest, I shall write you about this from Germany where I expect to be on the first of February. I want to make the most of this year and go home at once. I already write French with the same facility as Spanish, at least as the municipal secretaries there write the latter. It is a very precious language but indeed very difficult. I already understand perfectly everything said to me, except when they speak argot. The Parisians speak very fast.

With regard to the study of eye diseases, I’m doing very well: I know already how to perform all kinds of operations.

I only need to be trained in the study of what is going on at the bottom of the eye which requires much practice. In Germany, I have been told, this is taught very well but one must register and pay 10 pesos a month. I’m going to Germany with about 100 pesos, which will probably be reduced to 75 after deducting traveling expenses. If I find out that the cost of living is really cheap, I’ll register and if it is not too much, I have more than enough time with two or three months. In six months I expect to learn German, study a trade, continue my specialization. In five months, though living with Filipinos, I learned French.

It was terribly cold this week. For four or five days it snowed and we had ice more than five fingers thick… the second a tiny red point without brilliance. One must cock up the ear in order not to be run over by the vehicles, for, as there are streets paved with wood on which a vehicle hardly makes a noise, one can easily be run over in crossing the street or boulevard. In foggy nights thieves abound. They rob you and then run away, and they can’t be seen within five paces. It is like as if they have entered your house. When there is too much fog, sometimes traffic is suspended. A foggy night at Paris is like a night in our town. The difference is that this night, instead of being dark, is white and there are no civil guards who trample on you. They say that, as to fog, London leaves Paris far behind.

From 50 to 100 patients go daily to the clinic of Wecker. There are days when they perform as many as ten major operations. Many cross-eyes are set alright. Yesterday we fixed a woman-cook who is more cross-eyed than Emilio and Mr. Mariano put together; in two minutes her eyes were put in their proper places. Yesterday also Wecker removed the eye of a young man whom a baron had shot … lives on the Avenue de l’Emperatrice. The baron paid 18,000 francs as indemnity. The lad, who is not more than 13 years old, lost his eye, but Wecker put in another of crystal which will not be detected because it will move like a real one. During the operation he shouted only once and it was painful at that. Cross-eyed children of four or five months and old men of sixty and seventy and even a woman of 85 also go there to be operated on. I remember an old man who had been blind for 65 years; since he was eight years old he couldn’t see; he was very much satisfied. In the past days there went there a young tall woman, very tall—at least a handbreadth taller than I—very elegant, beautiful, with a bad eye which couldn’t see and it was white. Wecker had to blacken her eye, which was not difficult and which needs only time. As it was a cosmetic operation, she couldn’t complain and she smiled. It is true that the eye is rendered insensitive so that the patients stand up and say that they have felt absolutely nothing. There are those who don’t feel the operation and they only find it out when they already begin to see.

If I receive enough money, then I shall pay 12 pesos a month and I shall have the right to attend everything, all the treatments, and to operate from time to time which is very advantageous. You can’t imagine [what] can be learned at this clinic. The doctors there are one Italian, one Greek, one Austrian, one North American, three South Americans, two Spaniards, four French, one German, one Pole, and I. All of us understand each other in French; now and then I speak with the Italian and the North American in their native tongues. The Greek has nothing of the Greek, such as those who have studied Greek history imagine. He is a little short with [a] thin beard, very dark complexion, ill-formed, etc. A Greek of the Age of Pericles would have taken him for a barbarian.

My mode of life doesn’t change. Luna and I eat here at the studio and as he has many friends at Paris, he is often invited by families who hold soirées at their homes. For this reason he eats outside often. The Pardo family who live here also invite me to eat at their home from time to time. Then Luna, Resurrección, and I go there. On such days we do nothing else but talk about our country — its likes, food, customs, etc. The family is very amiable. The mother (widow) is a sister of Gorricho and remains very Filipino in everything. Her sons Trinidad and Felix Pardo are both physicians; her daughter Paz speaks French and English and she is very amiable, and also very Filipino. She dresses with much elegance, and in her movements and manner of looking she resembles Sra. Itching. She is beautiful and svelte and it is said she is going to marry Luna. She asked me to write something in her album and I wrote the story of the monkey and the turtle with illustrations. The young women in Europe usually have the custom of keeping an album (not of pictures) in which they ask their friends to put there drawings, dedications verses, etc. etc. and they keep them as souvenirs.

In the Filipino colony here there is a man about whom always something silly is told. Everything stupid, curious, or unusual must be his. If he were there, even if he were of Manila, they would certainly take him for one from Parañaque.3[4] I believe the man has been in Paris for seven or ten years and he has not learned French, as to the rest, he is a good man.

I believe that by the end of next year or the beginning of’ ’87, I should leave Europe and return there. That is the most time I should stay in these countries. If I prolong my stay, I shall spend much. I owe…

[The rest of the letter is missing]

03-138 [Reformists]