[3] The capital of Laguna Province, not to be confused with the Santa Cruz mentioned before, which is a populous and important district in the city of Manila. Tanawan, Lipa, and Batangas are towns in Batangas Province, the latter being its capital.—TR.
[4] “If on your return you are met with a smile, beware! for it means that you have a secret enemy.”—From the Florante, being the advice given to the hero by his old teacher when he set out to return to his home.
Francisco Baltazar was a Tagalog poet, native of the province of Bulacan, born about 1788, and died in 1862. The greater part of his life was spent in Manila,—in Tondo and in Pandakan, a quaint little village on the south bank of the Pasig, now included in the city, where he appears to have shared the fate largely of poets of other lands, from suffering “the pangs of disprized love” and persecution by the religious authorities, to seeing himself considered by the people about him as a crack-brained dreamer. He was educated in the Dominican school of San Juan de Letran, one of his teachers being Fray Mariano Pilapil, about whose services to humanity there may be some difference of opinion on the part of those who have ever resided in Philippine towns, since he was the author of the “Passion Song” which enlivens the Lenten evenings. This “Passion Song,” however, seems to have furnished the model for Baltazar’s Florante, with the pupil surpassing the master, for while it has the subject and characters of a medieval European romance, the spirit and settings are entirely Malay. It is written in the peculiar Tagalog verse, in the form of a corrido or metrical romance, and has been declared by Fray Toribio Menguella, Rizal himself, and others familiar with Tagalog, to be a work of no mean order, by far the finest and most characteristic composition in that, the richest of the Malay dialects.—TR.
Chapter XXVII
In the Twilight
In Capitan Tiago’s house also great preparations had been made. We know its owner, whose love of ostentation and whose pride as a Manilan imposed the necessity of humiliating the provincials with his splendor. Another reason, too, made it his duty to eclipse all others: he had his daughter Maria Clara with him, and there was present his future son-in-law, who was attracting universal attention.
In fact one of the most serious newspapers in Manila had devoted to Ibarra an article on its front page, entitled, “Imitate him!” heaping him with praise and giving him some advice. It had called him, “The cultivated young gentleman and rich capitalist;” two lines further on, “The distinguished philanthropist;” in the following paragraph, “The disciple of Minerva who had gone to the mother country to pay his respects to the true home of the arts and sciences;” and a little further on, “The Filipino Spaniard.” Capitan Tiago burned with generous zeal to imitate him and wondered whether he ought not to erect a convento at his own expense.
Some days before there had arrived at the house where Maria Clara and Aunt Isabel were staying a profusion of eases of European wines and food-stuffs, colossal mirrors, paintings, and Maria Clara’s piano. Capitan Tiago had arrived on the day before the fiesta and as his daughter kissed his hand, had presented her with a beautiful locket set with diamonds and emeralds, containing a sliver from St. Peter’s boat, in which Our Savior sat during the fishing. His first interview with his future son-in-law could not have been more cordial. Naturally, they talked about the school, and Capitan Tiago wanted it named “School of St. Francis.” “Believe me,” he said, “St. Francis is a good patron. If you call it ‘School of Primary Instruction,’ you will gain nothing. Who is Primary Instruction, anyhow?”
Some friends of Maria Clara came and asked her to go for a walk. “But come back quickly,” said Capitan Tiago to his daughter, when she asked his permission, “for you know that Padre Damaso, who has just arrived, will dine with us.”