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Updated: May 24, 2025
Come, the best thing will be to make poor-offerings to both crosses, so neither will resent it, and Maria will get better sooner. Are the rooms ready? You know that with the doctors is coming a new gentleman, a distant relative of Padre Damaso's. Nothing should be lacking." At the other end of the dining-room are the two cousins, Sinang and Victoria, who have come to keep the sick girl company.
To show his good intentions, he seeks to establish, at his own expense, a public school in his native town. He meets with ostensible support from all, especially Padre Damaso's successor, a young and gloomy Franciscan named Padre Salvi, for whom Maria Clara confesses to an instinctive dread.
Suddenly she felt two hands placed over her eyes to hold her fast and heard Padre Damaso's voice ask merrily, "Who am I? Who am I?" Maria Clara sprang from her seat and gazed at him in terror. "Foolish little girl, you're not afraid, are you? You weren't expecting me, eh? Well, I've come in from the provinces to attend your wedding."
Father Dámaso's voice ceased to be brusque; its modulations were even caressing. Maria Clara began to weep. "Are you weeping, my child? Why are you weeping? Have you quarrelled with Linares?" Maria Clara covered her eyes with her hands. "No! It is not he now!" cried the maiden. Father Dámaso looked at her full of surprise. "Do you not want to entrust your secrets to me?
Now that he is dead, no other man will call me his wife.... While he lived, I could have debased myself and still had the consolation of knowing that he existed and perhaps was thinking of me. Now that he is dead ... the convent or the tomb." Her voice had a firmness in its accent which took away Father Dámaso's joy and set him to thinking.
But why record here what he said in Latin, Tagalog, and Spanish, all in verse this poor victim of the gobernadorcillo? Our readers have enjoyed Padre Damaso's sermon of the morning and we do not wish to spoil them by too many wonders.
Padre Damaso's smile became nervous when he saw Maria Clara seated at Crisostomo's right. He took a seat beside the alcalde and said in the midst of a significant silence, "Were you discussing something, gentlemen? Go ahead!" "We were at the toasts," answered the alcalde.
The gobernadorcillo enjoys among them the reputation of being a wise man because he learned nothing more than to serve chocolate and to put up with Padre Damaso's bad humor, so now he is wealthy, he disturbs the petty destinies of his fellow-townsmen, and at times he even talks of justice.
"I have the pleasure of introducing to you our cousin, Don Alfonso Linares de Espadaña," said Doña Victorina, indicating their young companion. "The gentleman is a godson of a relative of Padre Damaso's and has been private secretary to all the ministers." The young man bowed politely and Capitan Tiago came very near to kissing his hand.
They held her fast while a joyous voice, Father Dámaso's, said to her: "Who am I? Who am I?" Maria Clara jumped from her seat and looked at him with terror in her eyes. "You little goose, were you frightened, eh? You were not expecting me? Well, I have come from the provinces to attend your wedding." And coming up to her again with a smile of satisfaction, he stretched out his hand to her.
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