Two or three days later Civil Guards come to Sisa’s house and arrest her for Crispin’s alleged theft. She [[100]]is paraded through the streets as a common malefactor and locked in the common jail. Basilio has crept to the woods. Sisa begins to learn of Crispin’s fate. When she is released from jail she has become insane.
She wanders about the country, living on alms and sleeping in the woods. Basilio comes home to find her gone and starts in search of her. When at last he comes in sight of her, she in her madness believes him to be another enemy and flees. He runs after her and overtakes her in time to hold her in his arms as she dies.
The story of Sisa is interwoven with the development of the story of Ibarra.
Gradually the truth is unfolded to him, the legalized murder of his father, the dishonor to his father’s ashes; for, buried in a cemetery, the body of the elder Ibarra has been, at the friar’s orders, disinterred[2] and cast into the lake. Still he does not quite perceive what part Damaso has played in this nor understand that he himself is pricked next upon the roll of death. Soon or late, he must learn all. Then will devolve upon him the duty of vengeance. For safety’s sake the friar plans to silence him betimes.
Meanwhile, the youth, in whom Rizal has typified the large generous notions he himself once entertained of Utopia under the rule of Spain, gives himself to projects for the elevation of his countrymen. He is impressed with the darkness of ignorance around him, [[101]]with the almost comic futility of the educational system, which is no system at all. Meeting an old schoolmaster, he discusses these conditions, and thus is laid bare to us the means by which the native mind is kept in its prison-house.
“How many pupils have you now?” asked Ibarra, with interest, after a pause.
“More than two hundred on the roll, but only about twenty-five in actual attendance.”
“How does that happen?”
… The schoolmaster shook his head sadly. “A poor teacher struggles against not only prejudice but also against certain influences. First, it would be necessary to have a suitable place and not to do as I must do at present—hold the classes under the convento by the side of the padre’s carriage. There the children, who like to read aloud, very naturally disturb the padre, and he often comes down, nervous, especially when he has his attacks, yells at them, and even insults me. You know that one can neither teach nor learn under such conditions.…”
The curate is the same Father Damaso, the friar with whom Ibarra’s father had quarreled. In his overbearing arrogance he has wantonly insulted the poor schoolmaster, who goes on thus with his narrative:
“What was I to do with only my meager salary, to collect which I have to get the curate’s approval and make a trip to the capital of the province—what could I do against him, the foremost religious and political power in the town, backed up by his order, feared by the Government, rich, powerful, sought after and listened to, always believed and heeded by everybody? [[102]]Although he insulted me, I had to remain silent, for if I had replied he would have had me removed from my position, by which I should lose all hope in my chosen profession. Nor would the cause of education gain anything, but all to the contrary; for everybody would take the curate’s side, they would curse me and call me presumptuous, proud, vain, a bad Christian, uncultivated; and if not those things, then ‘anti-Spanish’ and ‘a filibuster.’ Of a schoolmaster neither learning nor zeal is expected; only resignation, humility, and inaction are demanded. May God pardon me if I have gone against my conscience and my judgment, but I was born in this country, I have to live, I have a mother; so I have abandoned myself to my fate like a corpse tossed about by the waves.”
He has tried to abolish whipping in his school. “I endeavored to make study a thing of love and joy, I wished to make the primer not a black book bathed in the tears of childhood but a friend that was going to reveal wonderful secrets; of the school-room not a place of sorrows but a scene of intellectual refreshment. So, little by little, I abolished corporal punishment, taking the instruments of it entirely away from the school and replacing their stimulus with emulation and personal pride.”
The innovation was regarded as sacrilege and heresy.