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"Count on me, count on me, and to the festivities celebrating our graduation we'll invite these gentlemen," he said, indicating the corporal and the warrant officer. Vox populi, vox Dei We left Isagani haranguing his friends. In the midst of his enthusiasm an usher approached him to say that Padre Fernandez, one of the higher professors, wished to talk with him. Isagani's face fell.
Paulita became sadder and sadder in thinking about how the girls called cochers could occupy Isagani's attention, for the name had certain disagreeable associations that came from the slang of her convent school-days.
This led the conversation to Isagani's town, surrounded by forests, situated on the shore of the sea which roared at the base of the high cliffs.
To ride in the same carriage, to have her at his side, to breathe her perfume, to rub against the silk of her dress, to see her pensive with folded arms, lighted by the moon of the Philippines that lends to the meanest things idealism and enchantment, were all dreams beyond Isagani's hopes! What wretches they who were returning alone on foot and had to give way to the swift carriage!
In his sad and serious features was to be read the serenity of a soul fortified by study and meditation, perhaps tried out by deep moral suffering. This priest was Padre Florentino, Isagani's uncle, and his story is easily told.
Stratagem or accident, the fact is that this mischance gave an excuse for the friend to remain with the old woman, while Isagani might talk with Paulita. Moreover, it was a matter of rejoicing to Doña Victorina, since to get Juanito for herself she was favoring Isagani's love. Paulita had her plan ready.
But Paulita had heard that to reach Isagani's home it was necessary to cross mountains where little leeches abounded, and at the mere thought of them the little coward shivered convulsively. Humored and petted, she declared that she would travel only in a carriage or a railway train.
But no, it was she herself, she who greeted him with a gracious smile, while her beautiful eyes seemed to be asking pardon and promising explanations. The fact was that they had agreed upon Isagani's going first to the theater to see if the show contained anything improper for a young woman, but now he found her there, and in no other company than that of his rival.
Isagani's gaze lighted up when he spoke of that obscure spot, a flush of pride overspread his cheeks, his voice trembled, his poetic imagination glowed, his words poured forth burning, charged with enthusiasm, as if he were talking of love to his love, and he could not but exclaim: "Oh, in the solitude of my mountains I feel free, free as the air, as the light that shoots unbridled through space!
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