01-083 [Family]
1883.07.20 Rue de Rennes, Paris
From: José Rizal
To: Paciano Rizal
Studying French at Paris — Cost of living — Regrets the passing of Fr. Leoncio López — The pro-friar Fr. Villafranca
* * *
124 Rue de Rennes, Paris
20 July 1883
MY DEAR BROTHER,
I received your letter, I have read it, and I thank you for what you tell me for various reasons. I was going to give you in this letter my little descriptions of Paris but as I have no time and I have to answer first your letter, I’ll do everything possible now, leaving the rest for the second mail in case I can’t finish. I don’t know if the success of your harvest satisfies you and you consider it worthy of your efforts and toil, but I believe that you ought not to get discouraged because of this as I seem to understand from what you call [an] “average result.” I’m hurrying to finish my studies, go home, and be useful to the family and to others. Don’t think that I say this to excuse my expenses; frankly it is what I wish. As you must have seen, I’ve anticipated our family’s permission and it was because I had no time to wait for it; but as I imagined that you would always guess the basis of my good intentions, I was sure that you first of all and our parents would approve my plan. Here I’m in Paris studying French, which is very difficult, since a month ago, and I’m planning to stay here until September. One more year in Madrid and perhaps I may realize your wish. With 50 pesos one can live in Paris, without smoking, without drinking coffee, or going to the theater, or ordering clothes. The house in which I’m staying, which is in the Latin Quarter, costs me ten pesos, light four pesos, food thirty-two and some centimes, the laundry the rest and at that I’m on the fourth floor. Paris is the most expensive capital city in Europe; I can live in this city when I already have a profession and I can devote myself to some work that will earn me a livelihood; otherwise with 50 pesos it is impossible for me to live here. Inquire from foreigners who come from Europe these days and they will tell you the same. One can live cheaper if he eats horse-meat, cat instead of rabbit, goes to the taverns where one can eat for one peseta and 50 cents. I’m keeping up this bravado that brought me here out of self-respect, so that they may not say that I’m killing myself for 50 pesos. God knows how many months at Madrid I shall need to recover the advanced expenses I’m incurring here. I’ve borrowed from Zamora – when I still had money and didn’t need it – 100 pesos if by any chance I would lack money here. I hope that you will pay him all at once my two monthly allowance instead of sending them to me. It’s all a matter of paying me one month in advance. He was, going to send home that money because he didn’t need it and I told him then that he could give it to me and he could collect at home to which he agreed, for in that way he wouldn’t spend one cent more.
I felt deeply the death of the parish priest[1] not precisely for being a friend but for being a good curate, which is a very rare thing, a rara avis. My blood boils every time I read what you say about Father Villafranca, but I’m satisfied because he supports and justifies all my prepossessions against him. Had I acted otherwise, perhaps I would have to say that I have been deceived. A bonze or a Brahman couldn’t have done more. If the clergymen themselves, the virtuous ministers of God, who demand secrets and avoid scandals, who use good, big words; they who believe themselves as guileless as doves and prudent as the serpent; they who speak of respect for elders and respect for the grave; they who always talk of fasting, prayers, and the Mass, who have God on their lips while they rob the poor of their money to enrich themselves, threaten to disclose the faults committed in youth in order to insult the illustrious memory of a learned old man, who perhaps had wept over his misdeeds and had been a lesser hypocrite than those who pretend to judge him. Less couldn’t be expected from a pro-friar and that shows me that I’m fair in my judgment. Had I been there I would have challenged him to divulge the offenses of the deceased curate and let me see if he isn’t the dung beetle who spends his time in unearthing filth and dirt. Let me see who’ll pick up the first stone to throw it at the late Father Leoncio and I’m sure that everyone from the archbishop to Father Ambrosio[2] will consider himself without the right to do it. Ah, those who contribute to knowledge and virtue nothing but stupid dogmatism and vulgar hypocrisy! I believe I can guess the mean hatreds of the wretched. Well, may the Thanksgiving Masses do much good to those curates, but I don’t know if the ears in heaven will be closed when they go up there carried by their avarice and ignorance. When I see so much fanaticism mixed with such vulgar passions; when I see so much wretchedness among those…
[The rest of the letter is missing]
[1] Father Leoncio López. See letter dated 26 May 1883.
[2] The local vicar, Father Ambrosio Villafranca, mentioned in Paciano’s letter dated 26 May 1883.