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Ah, yes, the old Sage, Tasio, also died and was buried in the Chinese cemetery." "Poor old man!" sighed Don Filipo. "What became of his books?" "They were burned by the pious, who thought thus to please God. I was unable to save anything, not even Cicero's works. The gobernadorcillo did nothing to prevent it." Both became silent.
"Unfortunate saint!" muttered the Sage Tasio, who was watching the procession from the street, "it avails you nothing to have been the forerunner of the Good Tidings or that Jesus bowed before you! Your great faith and your austerity avail you nothing, nor the fact that you died for the truth and your convictions, all of which men forget when they consider nothing more than their own merits.
The Sage Tasio, watching the young woman leave, continued: "Now that she is not here, we can consider this matter more rationally. Doray, even though a little superstitious, is a good Catholic, and I don't care to root out the faith from her heart. A pure and simple faith is as distinct from fanaticism as the flame from smoke or music from discords: only the fools and the deaf confuse them.
And a little later, by the light of glowing torches of bamboo and with the music of guitars, we leave them on the road toward the town. On the morning of the following day, Juan Crisostomo Ibarra, after visiting his estates, went to the house of Tasio, the philosopher, his father's friend. Quiet reigned in the old man's garden.
He was talking with old Tasio. "What can I do? The alcalde was unwilling to accept my resignation. 'Don't you feel strong enough to attend to your duties? he asked me." "How did you answer him?" "'Señor Alcalde, I answered, 'the strength of a teniente-mayor, however insignificant it may be, is like all other authority it emanates from higher spheres.
"Won't you come in?" invited a voice in Spanish from a window. The Sage raised his head and saw a man of thirty or thirty-five years of age smiling at him. "What are you reading there?" asked Tasio, pointing to a book the man held in his hand. "A work just published: 'The Torments Suffered by the Blessed Souls in Purgatory," the other answered with a smile.
Are you thinking of taking a bath?" asked the gobernadorcillo in a jesting way as he stared at the simple attire of the old man. "A bath? That's not a bad idea, especially when one has just stumbled over some trash!" answered Tasio in a similar, though somewhat more offensive tone, staring at the other's face. "But I hope for something better." "What, then?"
"It may be blessed and everything you may wish," some young woman doubtless thought, "but it has such a color!" It was difficult to breathe in the heat amid the smells of the human animal, but the preacher was worth all these inconveniences, as the sermon was costing the town two hundred and fifty pesos. Old Tasio had said: "Two hundred and fifty pesos for a sermon! One man on one occasion!
Tasio then left the church, not without first bestowing a look of pity on the two boys, who were climbing the stairway into the organ-loft. He passed his hand over his eyes, looked at the sky again, and murmured, "Now I should be sorry if thunderbolts should fall." With his head bowed in thought he started toward the outskirts of the town.
Bad beginning," said Old Tasio as he left the place. Ibarra had just finished dressing when a servant announced that a countryman was asking for him. Supposing that it was one of his laborers, the young man ordered that they show him into his study, which also served as a library and a chemical laboratory. But, to his great surprise, he met the muscular figure of the mysterious Elias.
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