Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer)

Chapter 49 - The Voice of the Hunted

As the sun was sinking below the horizon Ibarra stepped into Elias's banka at the shore of the lake. The youth looked out of humor.

“Pardon me, sir,” said Elias sadly, on seeing him, “that I have been so bold as to make this appointment. I wanted to talk to you freely and so I chose this means, for here we won’t have any listeners. We can return within an hour.”

“You’re wrong, friend,” answered Ibarra with a forced smile. “You’ll have to take me to that town whose belfry we see from here. A mischance forces me to this.”

“A mischance?”

“Yes. On my way here I met the alferez and he forced his company on me. I thought of you and remembered that he knows you, so to get away from him I told him that I was going to that town. I’ll have to stay there all day, since he will look for me tomorrow afternoon.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but you might simply have invited him to accompany you,” answered Elias naturally.

“What about you?”

“He wouldn’t have recognized me, since the only time he ever saw me he wasn’t in a position to take careful note of my appearance.”

“I’m in bad luck,” sighed Ibarra, thinking of Maria Clara. “What did you have to tell me?”

Elias looked about him. They were already at a distance from the shore, the sun had set, and as in these latitudes there is scarcely any twilight, the shades were lengthening, bringing into view the bright disk of the full moon.

“Sir,” replied Elias gravely, “I am the bearer of the wishes of many unfortunates.”

“Unfortunates? What do you mean?”

In a few words Elias recounted his conversation with the leader of the tulisanes, omitting the latter's doubts and threats. Ibarra listened attentively and was the first to break the long silence that reigned after he had finished his story.

“So they want—”

“Radical reforms in the armed forces, in the priesthood, and in the administration of justice; that is to say, they ask for paternal treatment from the government.”

“Reforms? In what sense?”

“For example, more respect for a man’s dignity, more security for the individual, less force in the armed forces, fewer privileges for that corps which so easily abuses what it has.”

“Elias,” answered the youth, “I don’t know who you are, but I suspect that you are not a man of the people; you think and act so differently from others. You will understand me if I tell you that, however imperfect the condition of affairs may be now, it would be more so if it were changed. I might be able to get the friends that I have in Madrid to talk, by paying them; I might even be able to see the Captain-General; but neither would the former accomplish anything nor has the latter sufficient power to introduce so many novelties. Nor would I ever take a single step in that direction, for the reason that, while I fully understand that it is true that these corporations have their faults, they are necessary at this time. They are what is known as a necessary evil.”

Greatly surprised, Elias raised his head and looked at him in astonishment. “Do you, then, also believe in a necessary evil, sir?” he asked in a voice that trembled slightly. “Do you believe that in order to do good it is necessary to do evil?”

“No, I believe in it as in a violent remedy that we make use of when we wish to cure a disease. Now then, the country is an organism suffering from a chronic malady, and in order to cure it, the government sees the necessity of employing such means, harsh and violent if you wish, but useful and necessary.”