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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.
Isagani was cordially greeted, as was also the Peninsular, Sandoval, who had come to Manila as a government employee and was finishing his studies, and who had completely identified himself with the cause of the Filipino students. The barriers that politics had established between the races had disappeared in the schoolroom as though dissolved by the zeal of science and youth.
In the whole course of the drive, along the beach and down the length of La Sabana, across the Bridge of Spain, Isagani saw nothing but a sweet profile, gracefully set off by beautiful hair, ending in an arching neck that lost itself amid the gauzy piña. A diamond winked at him from the lobe of the little ear, like a star among silvery clouds.
To his gaze Isagani appeared gigantic, invincible, convincing, and for the first time in his life he felt beaten by a Filipino student. He repented of having provoked the argument, but it was too late to turn back. In this quandary, finding himself confronted with such a formidable adversary, he sought a strong shield and laid hold of the government.
They were approaching a dazzling señorita who was attracting the attention of the whole plaza, and Padre Camorra, unable to restrain his delight, had taken Ben-Zayb's arm as a substitute for the girl's. It was Paulita Gomez, the prettiest of the pretty, in company with Isagani, followed by Doña Victorina.
Ah, if Capitan Tiago had only devoted himself to Cicero " Here the most classical disgust painted itself on his carefully-shaven Epicurean face. Isagani regarded him with attention: that gentleman was suffering from nostalgia for antiquity. "But to get back to this academy of Castilian," Capitan Basilio continued, "I assure you, gentlemen, that you won't materialize it."
He arose as Isagani entered, shook hands with him, and closed the door. Then he began to pace from one end of the room to the other. Isagani stood waiting for him to speak. "Señor Isagani," he began at length with some emotion, "from the window I've heard you speaking, for though I am a consumptive I have good ears, and I want to talk with you.
I'm a friar and you are a Filipino student, nothing more nor less! Now I ask you what do the Filipino students want of us?" The question came as a surprise; Isagani was not prepared for it. It was a thrust made suddenly while they were preparing their defense, as they say in fencing. Thus startled, Isagani responded with a violent stand, like a beginner defending himself.
"No one forces them to study the fields are uncultivated," he observed dryly. "Yes, there is something that impels them to study," replied Isagani in the same tone, looking the Dominican full in the face. "Besides the duty of every one to seek his own perfection, there is the desire innate in man to cultivate his intellect, a desire the more powerful here in that it is repressed.
"The other way is to apply to his attorney and adviser, Señor Pasta, the oracle before whom Don Custodio bows." "I prefer that," said Isagani. "Señor Pasta is a Filipino, and was a schoolmate of my uncle's. But how can we interest him?" "There's the quid," replied Makaraig, looking earnestly at Isagani. "Señor Pasta has a dancing girl I mean, a seamstress." Isagani again shook his head.
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