Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer)

Chapter 54 - Revelations

Quidquid latet, adparebit,

Nil inultum remanebit.

The vesper bells are ringing, and at the holy sound all pause, drop their tasks, and uncover. The laborer returning from the fields ceases the song with which he was pacing his carabao and murmurs a prayer, the women in the street cross themselves and move their lips affectedly so that none may doubt their piety, a man stops caressing his game-cock and recites the angelus to bring better luck, while inside the houses they pray aloud. Every sound but that of the Ave Maria dies away, becomes hushed.

Nevertheless, the curate, without his hat, rushes across the street, to the scandalizing of many old women, and, greater scandal still, directs his steps toward the house of the alferez. The devout women then think it time to cease the movement of their lips in order to kiss the curate's hand, but Padre Salvi takes no notice of them. This evening he finds no pleasure in placing his bony hand on his Christian nose that he may slip it down dissemblingly (as Doña Consolacion has observed) over the bosom of the attractive young woman who may have bent over to receive his blessing. Some important matter must be engaging his attention when he thus forgets his own interests and those of the Church!

In fact, he rushes headlong up the stairway and knocks impatiently at the alferez's door. The latter puts in his appearance, scowling, followed by his better half, who smiles like one of the damned.

“Ah, Padre, I was just going over to see you. That old goat of yours—”

“I have a very important matter—”

“I can’t stand for his running about and breaking down the fence. I’ll shoot him if he comes back!”

“That is, if you are alive tomorrow!” exclaimed the panting curate as he made his way toward the sala.

“What, do you think that puny doll will kill me? I’ll bust him with a kick!”

Padre Salvi stepped backward with an involuntary glance toward the alferez’s feet. “Whom are you talking about?” he asked tremblingly.

“About whom would I talk but that simpleton who has challenged me to a duel with revolvers at a hundred paces?”

“Ah!” sighed the curate, then he added, “I’ve come to talk to you about a very urgent matter.”

“Enough of urgent matters! It’ll be like that affair of the two boys.”

Had the light been other than from coconut oil and the lamp globe not so dirty, the alferez would have noticed the curate's pallor.

“Now this is a serious matter, which concerns the lives of all of us,” declared Padre Salvi in a low voice.

“A serious matter?” echoed the alferez, turning pale. “Can that boy shoot straight?”

“I’m not talking about him.”

“Then, what?”

The friar made a sign toward the door, which the alferez closed in his own way—with a kick, for he had found his hands superfluous and had lost nothing by ceasing to be bimanous.

A curse and a roar sounded outside. “Brute, you’ve split my forehead open!” yelled his wife.

“Now, unburden yourself,” he said calmly to the curate.

The latter stared at him for a space, then asked in the nasal, droning voice of the preacher, “Didn’t you see me come—running?”

“Sure! I thought you’d lost something.”

“Well, now,” continued the curate, without heeding the alferez’s rudeness, “when I fail thus in my duty, it’s because there are grave reasons.”