One street was marvelous in the energy and variety of its human service. In a single square one could have one’s teeth pulled by an experienced Japanese, one’s voice trained, through heaven knows what agency of the East; one’s toe nails pared, or one’s self completely mesmerized by a thrillingly bearded Hindoo, whose placarded likeness gave forth sparks in every direction and guaranteed, in large print to all patrons absolute irresistibility in love.
Agipito, from environs of violently stained glass, announced a “brokerage,” and advertised pearls from the Sulu. The riches of the East passed across this pawn broker’s palms. Perfecto Abbas was a lawyer. Access to his conference room was gained through a small swinging door, such as is characteristic of places of alcoholic refreshment, and which possibly was here employed to stimulate trade. Zee Woo, a lavendero of the first class with his mouth as a sprinkler, was to be seen blowing water over the clothes he was ironing. There were Chinamen everywhere, like djinn in goblin depths, fingering abacuses, as if searching for the mystic equation of wealth.
The Street! The Street! Bartering and bargaining, following its oriental, alien and inconjecturable way. Birth is accidental, death inevitable, but the exchange of things that are mine and the things that are thine will go on to eternity.
The native of the East takes his entrance into the universe philosophically. He attaches to himself no importance and definitely expects little, except death. He has even a graceful way of meeting that. The native of the West refuses to allude to this common human casualty, of which he has a horror. The Filipino, on the other hand, nonchalantly displays and even takes pleasure in his colorful coffins, and when the time comes acquiescently sinks into them; for he knows that he is a poor creature with little to cling to, and he is humbly grateful for his day in the sun.
His intransitoriness of soul extends throughout his whole existence. He erects houses that the winds of the sea sweep away; he stores no treasure on earth; he lives from day to day. To-morrow is so inconceivable a mystery that he relegates to it everything that he cannot comfortably compass to-day. By to-morrow he may have dropped gracefully, unresistingly out of the problems of the world. As a race he appears to cherish no ambition of permanency on the globe. Idling in his shops, he wonderingly watches the gnarled Chinese water-carrier go by, bowed under his load. It does not occur to him that the Chinaman bites the dust, that his sons and his sons’ sons may survive.
It was into this existence that Julie was coming to dwell.
The long street thinned out, fields intervened. Finally Julie saw a house sitting back isolated among a great deal of foliage near a bridge. It was of the old Spanish type and had once, probably, harbored fine foreigners. All but buried under the great palms, it looked remote, shaded, and cool after the dust of the sun-swept street. She got out of her carromata, and finding the iron gate in the stone wall that surrounded the estate open, walked in. The rhythmic click of wooden slippers across a stone floor and the soft drip of water caught Julie’s ear.
A muchacho appeared in response to her knocks and led her upstairs to a sala furnished with a piano, a marble-topped table, a heterogeneous array of conch shells, and some startling looking portraits of persons of extraordinarily blended race. Señora Reredo entered the room, a tall woman with a slight stoop and a passive gentleness of face. She was in native costume, all black. Genteel native women are almost always dressed in mourning. She led Julie to a large airy room, well furnished and over-looking the garden. She mentioned a sum which, while not extravagant, was not completely gratifying.
When they returned to the sala the children came trooping in, quietly sparkling little folk in European clothes. The Señora said that next year they would sell the old house which she had inherited and go back to Spain where the children could be educated. Her husband had an apothecary business, which he would sell out.
The Señora said that she was going back to the land of her father’s people. His blood had sojourned afar long enough. Julie glanced up at the human array on the wall, and wondered.