At nightfall, my mother had us all say our prayers together. Then we would go to the azotea, or to a window from which we could see the moon. There my nurse would tell us stories. Sometimes sad and sometimes gay, they were always oriental in their imagination. Dead people, gold and plants on which diamonds grew were all mixed together.
When I was four years of age, I lost my little sister, Concha, and for the first time my tears fell because of love and sorrow. Till then I had shed them only for my own faults. These my loving, prudent mother well knew how to correct.
The environment would seem nevertheless to be more propitious for the breeding of an agitator than of either a moralist or an artist. “Almost every day in our town,” he says, “we saw the Guardia Civil lieutenant caning or injuring some unarmed and inoffensive villager. The only fault would be that while at a distance he had not taken off his hat and made his bow. The alcalde did the same thing whenever he visited us.”
We saw no restraint put upon brutality. Those whose duty it was to look out for the public peace committed acts of violence and other excesses. They were the real outlaws, [[35]]and against such lawbreakers our authorities were powerless.
His father looked carefully to the beginnings of José’s education. There was daily drilling in all the elementary studies; an old man came and lived in the house to teach the boy Latin.
When he was nine years old he was sent to the boys’ school at Biñan, where his uncle José Alberto lived, and where he acquired knowledge in the traditional manner and under a liberal application of the rod. Dr. Justiniano Cruz, his teacher, seems to have had no modern illusions about the sparing of this implement; to have it hang by the side of the Bible and be more frequently used was his notion of thorough instruction.
José wrote of his experiences there:
My brother left me after he had presented me to the schoolmaster, who, it seemed, had been his own teacher. He was a tall, thin man, with a long neck and a sharp nose. His body leaned slightly forward. His shirt was of sinamay,[10] woven by the deft fingers of Batangas women. He knew Latin and Spanish grammar by heart. And his severity, I believe now, was too great. This is all I can remember of him. His class-room was in his own house and only some thirty meters away from my aunt’s house [where José was lodged].
When I entered the class-room for the first time, he said to me:
“You, do you speak Spanish?”
“A little, sir,” I answered. [[36]]
“Do you know Latin?”
“A little, sir,” I again answered.
Because of these answers, the teacher’s son, who was the worst boy in the class, began to make fun of me. He was some years my elder and had an advantage in height, yet we had a tussle. Somehow or other, I don’t know how, I got the better of him. I bent him down over the class benches. Then I let him loose, having hurt only his pride.
From this feat, the other boys thought he was a clever wrestler. One of them challenged him. His pride had an early fall. The challenger threw him and came near to break his head on the sidewalk.
I do not wish to take up the time with telling of the beatings I got, nor shall I attempt to say how it hurt when I received the first ruler-blow on my hand. I used to win in the competitions, for no one happened to be better than I. Of these successes I made the most. In spite of the reputation I had of being a good boy, rare were the days in which my teacher did not call me up to receive five or six blows on the hand.
There was near-by an aged painter. José used to haunt his studio and learned much there about the secrets of pictorial art. He continues: