El Filibusterismo (El Fili) – Chapter 10
Chapter Title: Wealth and Misery
Setting: Sagpang (San Diego)
Characters:
- Simoun
- Cabesang Tales
- Capitan Basilio
- Capitana Tika
- Sinang
- Sister Penchang
- Capitan General (mentioned)
- Juli (mentioned)
- Chinaman Quiroga (mentioned)
- Alferez (mentioned)
- Padre Cura (mentioned)
- Maria Clara (mentioned)
- Padre Salvi (mentioned)
Plot:
Simoun sells his jewels in Cabesang Tales’ house.
Chapter Summary:
Simoun goes to Cabesang Tales’ house with two servants. He wants to spend the night there because of the barrio’s prime location. Cabesang Tales is ashamed that he has nothing to give to show his hospitality. Simoun asks if Cabesang Tales’ revolver is good enough against the tulisanes. Cabesang Tales says their guns shoot far. Simoun shoots a bonga palm, saying his own gun shoots the same distance.
Families come over because they want to be on good terms with Simoun, because he is known for being Capitan General’s friend and adviser.
Capitan Basilio comes with 3,000 pesos. He has his wife (Capitana Tika), daughter (Sinang) and son in law with him. Sister Penchang wants a diamond ring to give to the Virgin of Antipolo. She left Juli a booklet to read (it was sold by priests). Sister Penchang tells Capitana Tika that nothing sticks to Juli’s memory.
Simoun shows the guests his jewelry.
Cabesang Tales is curious but feels angry hat Simoun is showing off his wealth, compared to Cabesang Tales who is going to lose his house. Simoun says Chinaman Quiroga offered 6,000 pesos for a green diamond (mistaken for an emerald) as a gift for a matron.
Simoun shows 3 blue diamonds. The smallest he bought for 20,000 pesos, and will sell for 30,000 pesos. The other one is from Golconda mines and is worth more than 70,000 pesos. The Viceroy of India is offering to buy it (by mail) for 12,000 pounds sterling.
Cabesang Tales thinks that even the smallest diamond would get him back everything he lost. Simoun says that one of those small stones allowed a man to exile his enemy, and with a red stone, gave the enemy his liberty and the man was restored.
Simoun shows the bottom of the tray, which holds Cleopatra’s necklace. Sinang and Capitan Basilio are disappointed but Capitan Basilio defends its value. Sinang says she prefers the modern jewels.
Capitan Tika buys a reliquary with a chip of stone where Jesus rested after his third fall. Sinang buys a pair of earrings. Capitan Basilio buys a watch chain for the alferez, lady earrings for the priest and more.
Simoun buys old jewelry from mothers who are selling to him. He sees Cabesang Tales watching and asks if he is selling anything. Sinang suggests the locket of Maria Clara. Simoun offers to buy it for 500 pesos. All women encourage Cabesang Tales to sell it but Sister Penchang wants him to keep it so she can keep Juli as her maid. Sister Penchang says that Maria Clara, at the convent, is very thin and does not speak, but Padre Salvi says she is well, and that is why Juli did not want to give up the locket.
Cabesang Tales says he will talk with his daughter and will be back before night. He leaves and comes across the friar-hacandero and the man who took his lands. They point and laugh at his house. Simoun wakes up the next day and finds his revolver missing, but the gold locket of Maria Clara is there, beside a letter.
In the letter, Cabesang Tales apologizes for taking Simoun’s things even though Simoun is a guest in his house. Cabesang Tales says he needs the revolver so he can join the tulisanes, and advises Simoun to stay out of their way, because they will demand a ransom if they catch him.
Simoun tells his servant to go to Los Banos with the larger suitcase and wait for him. Guardia civiles arrive to arrest Cabesang Tales but take Tandang Selo instead since Cabesang Tales is no longer there.
The friar-hacandero and new tenant are found dead from head shots, and there is soil in their mouths. The tenant’s wife is also dead, her throat slashed, next to a paper with ‘Tales’ written on it with blood.
The novel tells the reader to not be alarmed, telling them they are “peaceful citizens of Calamba” since they are not called Tales and therefore not guilty. The reader is told that they worked hard for their fields and says “They (the Spaniards) were not content with violating justice; they stepped on the sacred traditions of your country.” The reader is told they have suffered more than Cabesang Tales with no justice served.
But the reader is told that Spain watches over them and that sooner or later, they will obtain justice.
Trivia:
- List of jewelry Simoun shows his buyers:
- Necklaces of Cleopatra that were found in pyramids
- Rings of Roman senators found in the ruins of Carthage
- Earrings of Roman matrons in villa of Annius Mucius Papilinus in Pompeii
- Rings, lockets, crucifixes, pins
- Tray of stones and pearls shaped into animals
- Combs in shapes of diadems, necklaces, chokers of pearls and diamonds
- Ring of Princess of Lamballe
- Pendants of lady-in-waiting of Marie Antoinette
- Third compartment: watches, purses, match-holders and reliquaries with diamonds
- Fourth compartment: loose stones
- Diamonds, emeralds from Peru, rubies from India, sapphires from Ceylon, turquoises from Persia, oriental mother-of-pearl
- 2 black diamonds
- Green diamond
- 3 blue diamonds
- Bottom of tray (holy of holies): with Russian leather cases, containing necklace of Cleopatra and ring that may have belonged to Sulla
Quotes:
The good Senor [Capitan Basilio], although he had read much about the ancients, had never seen anything of those times because of the lack of museums in the Philippines.
God! That one of those stones should be worth more than a man’s home, a young woman’s freedom, the peace of an old man in his last days!
Simoun: (in bad tagalog) Within this box I have, as does the doctor’s bag, life and death; poison and its antidote; and with this handful I can drown in tears all the inhabitants of the Philippines!
Weep or laugh in the lonely islands where you roam useless and uncertain of the future! Spain, generous Spain, watches over you and sooner or later you shall obtain justice!
