religious demeanor or is it that the women here are an exception?

A cousin of Capitan Tiago, a sweet-faced old woman, who speaks Spanish quite badly, is the only one receiving the ladies. To offer to the Spanish ladies a plate of cigars and buyos, to extend her hand to her countrywomen to be kissed, exactly as the friars do,--this is the sum of her courtesy, her policy. The poor old lady soon became bored, and taking advantage of the noise of a plate breaking, rushed precipitately away, muttering, "Jesús! Just wait, you rascals!" and failed to reappear.

The men, for their part, are making more of a stir. Some cadets in one corner are conversing in a lively manner but in low tones, looking around now and then to point out different persons in the room while they laugh more or less openly among themselves. In contrast, two foreigners dressed in white are promenading silently from one end of the room to the other with their hands crossed behind their backs, like the bored passengers on the deck of a ship. All the interest and the greatest animation proceed from a group composed of two priests, two civilians, and a soldier who are seated around a small table on which are seen bottles of wine and English biscuits.

The soldier, a tall, elderly lieutenant with an austere countenance-- a Duke of Alva straggling behind in the roster of the Civil Guard-- talks little, but in a harsh, curt way. One of the priests, a youthful Dominican friar, handsome, graceful, polished as the gold-mounted eyeglasses he wears, maintains a premature gravity. He is the curate of Binondo and has been in former years a professor in the college of San Juan de Letran,[16] where he enjoyed the reputation of being a consummate dialectician, so much so that in the days when the sons of Guzman[17] still dared to match themselves in subtleties with laymen, the able disputant B. de Luna had never been able either to catch or to confuse him, the distinctions made by Fray Sibyla leaving his opponent in the situation of a fisherman who tries to catch eels with a lasso. The Dominican says little, appearing to weigh his words.

Quite in contrast, the other priest, a Franciscan, talks much and gesticulates more. In spite of the fact that his hair is beginning to turn gray, he seems to be preserving well his robust constitution, while his regular features, his rather disquieting glance, his wide jaws and herculean frame give him the appearance of a Roman noble in disguise and make us involuntarily recall one of those three monks of whom Heine tells in his "Gods in Exile," who at the September equinox in the Tyrol used to cross a lake at midnight and each time place in the hand of the poor boatman a silver piece, cold as ice, which left him full of terror.[18] But Fray Damaso is not so mysterious as they were. He is full of merriment, and if the tone of his voice is rough like that of a man who has never had occasion to correct himself and who believes that whatever he says is holy and above improvement, still his frank, merry laugh wipes out this disagreeable impression and even obliges us to pardon his showing to the room bare feet and hairy legs that would make the fortune of a Mendieta in the Quiapo fairs.[19]

One of the civilians is a very small man with a black beard, the only thing notable about him being his nose, which, to judge from its size, ought not to belong to him. The other is a rubicund youth, who seems to have arrived but recently in the country. With him the Franciscan is carrying on a lively discussion.

"You'll see," the friar was saying, "when you've been here a few months you'll be convinced of what I say. It's one thing to govern in Madrid and another to live in the Philippines."

"But--"

"I, for example," continued Fray Damaso, raising his voice still higher to prevent the other from speaking, "I, for example, who can look back over twenty-three years of bananas and morisqueta, know whereof I speak. Don't come at me with theories and fine speeches, for I know the Indian.[20] Mark well that the moment I arrived in the country I was assigned to a toxin, small it is true, but especially devoted to agriculture. I didn't understand Tagalog very well then, but I was, soon confessing the women, and we understood one another and they came to like me so well that three years later, when I was transferred to another and larger town, made vacant by the death of the native curate, all fell to weeping, they heaped gifts upon me, they escorted me with music--"

"But that only goes to show--"

"Wait, wait! Don't be so hasty! My successor remained a shorter time, and when he left he had more attendance, more tears, and more music. Yet he had been more given to whipping and had raised the fees in the parish to almost double."

"But you will allow me--"

"But that isn't all. I stayed in the town of San Diego twenty years and it has been only a few months since I left it."

Here he showed signs of chagrin.

"Twenty years, no one can deny, are more than sufficient to get acquainted with a town. San Diego has a population of six thousand souls and I knew every inhabitant as well as if I had been his mother and wet-nurse. I knew in which foot this one was lame, where the shoe pinched that one, who was courting that girl, what affairs she had had and with whom, who was the real father of the child, and so on--for I was the confessor of every last one, and they took care not to fail in their duty. Our host, Santiago, will tell you whether I am speaking the truth, for he has a lot of land there and that was where we first became friends. Well then, you may see what the Indian is: when I left I was escorted by only a few old women and some of the tertiary brethren--and that after I had been there twenty years!"

"But I don't see what that has to do with the abolition of the tobacco monopoly," [21] ventured the rubicund youth, taking advantage of the Franciscan's pausing to drink a glass of sherry.

Fray Damaso was so greatly surprised that he nearly let his glass fall. He remained for a moment staring fixedly at the young man.

"What? How's that?" he was finally able to exclaim in great wonderment. "Is it possible that you don't see it as clear as day? Don't you see, my son, that all this proves plainly that the reforms of the ministers are irrational?"

It was now the youth's turn to look perplexed. The lieutenant wrinkled his eyebrows a little more and the small man nodded toward Fray Damaso equivocally. The Dominican contented himself with almost turning his back on the whole group.

"Do you really believe so?" the young man at length asked with great seriousness, as he looked at the friar with curiosity.

"Do I believe so? As I believe the Gospel! The Indian is so indolent!"

"Ah, pardon me for interrupting you," said the young man, lowering his voice and drawing his chair a little closer, "but you have said something that awakens all my interest. Does this indolence actually, naturally, exist among the natives or is there some truth in what a foreign traveler says: that with this indolence we excuse our own, as well as our backwardness and our colonial system. He referred to other colonies whose inhabitants belong to the same race--"

"Bah, jealousy! Ask Señor Laruja, who also knows this country. Ask him if there is any equal to the ignorance and indolence of the Indian."

"It's true," affirmed the little man, who was referred to as Señor Laruja. "In no part of the world can you find any one more indolent than the Indian, in no part of the world."

"Nor more vicious, nor more ungrateful!"

"Nor more unmannerly!"

The rubicund youth began to glance about nervously. "Gentlemen," he whispered, "I believe that we are in the house of an Indian. Those young ladies--"

"Bah, don't be so apprehensive! Santiago doesn't consider himself an Indian--and besides, he's not here. And what if he were! These are the nonsensical ideas of the newcomers. Let a few months pass and you will change your opinion, after you have attended a lot of fiestas and bailúhan, slept on cots, and eaten your fill of tinola."

"Ah, is this thing that you call tinola a variety of lotus which makes people--er--forgetful?"

"Nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Fray Damaso with a smile. "You're getting absurd. Tinola is a stew of chicken and squash. How long has it been since you got here?"

"Four days," responded the youth, rather offended.

"Have you come as a government employee?"

"No, sir, I've come at my own expense to study the country."

"Man, what a rare bird!" exclaimed Fray Damaso, staring at him with curiosity. "To come at one's own expense and for such foolishness! What a wonder! When there are so many books! And with two fingerbreadths of forehead! Many have written books as big as that! With two fingerbreadths of forehead!"

The Dominican here brusquely broke in upon the conversation. "Did your Reverence, Fray Damaso, say that you had been twenty years in the town of San Diego and that you had left it? Wasn't your Reverence satisfied with the town?"

At this question, which was put in a very natural and almost negligent tone, Fray Damaso suddenly lost all his merriment and stopped laughing. "No!" he grunted dryly, and let himself back heavily against the back of his chair.

The Dominican went on in a still more indifferent tone. "It must be painful to leave a town where one has been for twenty years and which he knows as well as the clothes he wears. I certainly was sorry to leave Kamiling and that after I had been there only a few months. But my superiors did it for the good of the Orders for my own good."

Fray Damaso, for the first time that evening, seemed to be very thoughtful. Suddenly he brought his fist down on the arm of his chair and with a heavy breath exclaimed: "Either Religion is a fact or it is not! That is, either the curates are free or they are not! The country is going to ruin, it is lost!" And again he struck the arm of his chair.

Everybody in the sala turned toward the group with astonished