The Reign of Greed | Page 9

hands of the native priests, I said to myself: the friars are dying for curacies and the Franciscans are satisfied with the poorest, so when they give them up to the native priests the truth must be that the king's profile is unknown there. But enough of that! Come and have a beer with me and we'll drink to the prosperity of your province."
The youths thanked him, but declined the offer.
"You do wrong," Simoun said to them, visibly taken aback. "Beer is a good thing, and I heard Padre Camorra say this morning that the lack of energy noticeable in this country is due to the great amount of water the inhabitants drink."
Isagani was almost as tall as the jeweler, and at this he drew himself up.
"Then tell Padre Camorra," Basilio hastened to say, while he nudged Isagani slyly, "tell him that if he would drink water instead of wine or beer, perhaps we might all be the gainers and he would not give rise to so much talk."
"And tell him, also," added Isagani, paying no attention to his friend's nudges, "that water is very mild and can be drunk, but that it drowns out the wine and beer and puts out the fire, that heated it becomes steam, and that ruffled it is the ocean, that it once destroyed mankind and made the earth tremble to its foundations!" [8]
Simoun raised his head. Although his looks could not be read through the blue goggles, on the rest of his face surprise might be seen. "Rather a good answer," he said. "But I fear that he might get facetious and ask me when the water will be converted into steam and when into an ocean. Padre Camorra is rather incredulous and is a great wag."
"When the fire heats it, when the rivulets that are now scattered through the steep valleys, forced by fatality, rush together in the abyss that men are digging," replied Isagani.
"No, Se?or Simoun," interposed Basilio, changing to a jesting tone, "rather keep in mind the verses of my friend Isagani himself:
'Fire you, you say, and water we, Then as you wish, so let it be; But let us live in peace and right, Nor shall the fire e'er see us fight; So joined by wisdom's glowing flame, That without anger, hate, or blame, We form the steam, the fifth element, Progress and light, life and movement.'"
"Utopia, Utopia!" responded Simoun dryly. "The engine is about to meet--in the meantime, I'll drink my beer." So, without any word of excuse, he left the two friends.
"But what's the matter with you today that you're so quarrelsome?" asked Basilio.
"Nothing. I don't know why, but that man fills me with horror, fear almost."
"I was nudging you with my elbow. Don't you know that he's called the Brown Cardinal?"
"The Brown Cardinal?"
"Or Black Eminence, as you wish."
"I don't understand."
"Richelieu had a Capuchin adviser who was called the Gray Eminence; well, that's what this man is to the General."
"Really?"
"That's what I've heard from a certain person,--who always speaks ill of him behind his back and flatters him to his face."
"Does he also visit Capitan Tiago?"
"From the first day after his arrival, and I'm sure that a certain person looks upon him as a rival--in the inheritance. I believe that he's going to see the General about the question of instruction in Castilian."
At that moment Isagani was called away by a servant to his uncle.
On one of the benches at the stern, huddled in among the other passengers, sat a native priest gazing at the landscapes that were successively unfolded to his view. His neighbors made room for him, the men on passing taking off their hats, and the gamblers not daring to set their table near where he was. He said little, but neither smoked nor assumed arrogant airs, nor did he disdain to mingle with the other men, returning the salutes with courtesy and affability as if he felt much honored and very grateful. Although advanced in years, with hair almost completely gray, he appeared to be in vigorous health, and even when seated held his body straight and his head erect, but without pride or arrogance. He differed from the ordinary native priests, few enough indeed, who at that period served merely as coadjutors or administered some curacies temporarily, in a certain self-possession and gravity, like one who was conscious of his personal dignity and the sacredness of his office. A superficial examination of his appearance, if not his white hair, revealed at once that he belonged to another epoch, another generation, when the better young men were not afraid to risk their dignity by becoming priests, when the native clergy looked any friar at all in the face, and when their class, not yet degraded and vilified, called for free men and not