“My dear brother: Now that I am about to die, it is to you that I write my last letter. I am thinking of how you worked to give me my career....
... I believe that I have tried not to lose my time ... I know how much you have suffered for my sake. ... I assure you, brother, that I die innocent of this crime of rebellion.”
Carving of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, made by Rizal while in the Ateneo. Even then he was the hero of his schoolmates and the little image was long kept, as here shown, on the door of the students’ dormitory. In 1896 his former teachers removed it and took it to him in the death cell at Fort Santiago
A little later my mother was proved innocent and she was set free. She came to embrace me as soon as she was free. After the vacation, in that memorable year of my mother’s release, I again had my lodgings in the Walled City. The house was in Calle Solana and belonged to a priest. My mother had not wanted me to return to Manila, saying that I already had sufficient education. Did she have a presentiment of what was going to happen to me? Can it be that a mother’s heart gives her double vision?
Bust of his father, made by Rizal when 14
My future profession was still unsettled. My father wanted me to study metaphysics, so I enrolled in that course. But my interest was so slight that I did not even buy a copy of the textbook. A former schoolmate, who had finished his course three months before, was my only intimate friend. He lived in the same street as I did. My companions in the house were from Batangas and had only recently arrived in Manila.
On Sundays and other holidays, this friend used to call for me and we would spend the day at my great-aunt’s house in Trozo. My aunt knew his father. When my youngest sister entered La Concordia College, I used to visit her, too, on the holidays. Another friend had a sister in the same school, so we could go together. I made a pencil sketch of his sister from a photograph which she lent me. On December 8th, the festival of La Concordia, some other students and I went to the college. It was a fine day and the building was gay with decorations of banners, lanterns and flowers.