El Filibusterismo (El Fili) – Chapter 24
Chapter Title: Dreams
Setting: Thursday sunset, the Malecon
Characters:
- Isagani
- Paulita Gomez
- Ben Zayb
- Dona Victorina
- Simoun (mentioned)
- Don Tiburcio (mentioned)
- Juanito Pelaez (mentioned)
- Padre Florentino (mentioned)
Plot:
Isagani and Paulita Gomez discuss the night they saw each other at the performance.
Chapter Summary:
The chapter begins with the quote:
Amor, astros eres?
(Love, what heavenly body are you?)
Isagani goes to the Malecon to meet up with Paulita Gomez. He thinks she is going to break up with him. He brings two love letters Paulita had written him. He remembers his dates with her and swears revenge on Juanito Pelaez, while blaming the French Operetta for ruining his relationship.
Isagani is angry at anyone passing by. He greets two Jesuits (his old professors). Near the Anda monument, he overhears Ben Zayb talking to someone about Simoun getting sick the night before. Isagani is angry at Simoun for getting visitors while soldiers get none. Isagani is also angry at the insulares for taking his country, and he has the urge to die for his motherland’s cause.
Isagani waits for Paulita until night, watching people manage boats. He thinks of the verse from a poem:
Do el viento riza las calladas olas
Que con blando murmullo en la ribera
Se deslizan veloces por si solas…
(Where the wind with gentle moan
Sends the billows swiftly on
In the silence and alone…)
-Alaejos
Isagani sees a familiar carriage pulled by white horses. Inside it are Paulita Gomez, Dona Victorina and Paulita Gomez’s friend.
Paulita Gomez smiles at him and Isagani feels better. Dona Victorina asks for news on Don Tiburcio and Isagani says he doesn’t know. Dona Victorina is angry and says she shouldn’t have to wait ten years to marry. Isagani is surprised. She asks him about Juanito Pelaez. Isagani praises Juanito Pelaez and that makes Dona Victorina happy. Paulita Gomez’s friend says she dropped her fan among the rocks on the beach, so they separate and Isagani and Paulita Gomez are left alone.
Paulita Gomez says she is surprised he is here because the French actresses were at Luneta. She is jealous and accuses him of staring at the cochers and not looking at her. She explains that Dona Victorina forced her to go watch the play, and she tells Isagani that she does not care about Juanito Pelaez, and jokes that Dona Victorina is in love with him. Paulita Gomez and Isagani laugh. Isagani explains that Don Tiburcio is still alive. He asks Paulita Gomez to keep that a secret and she promises, but reminds herself that she will tell her friend later.
They talk about Isagani’s hometown and how it is surrounded by forests and the sea. Isagani says that he felt truly free there, away from mankind. Paulita Gomez becomes angry, saying that Isagani seemed happier in his hometown. Isagani explains that he used to sleep in the forest or look out the cliffs. His uncle (Padre Florentino) used to preach sermons against Isagani cloud-watching and said he’d bring him to a physician because Isagani might become a hypochondriac.
Isagani says that if Paulita Gomez went there, the forest would be like Eden. Paulita Gomez wants to go but only if she gets to travel by carriage or train, because she is disgusted by leeches found in the mountains. Isagani says that soon all islands will be connected by machines. Paulita Gomez asks if it will happen when she’s already old. Isagani says that they are making progress, and that’s why people are studying in Spain to help the country.
Isagani is excited for industrialization and technology to progress in the Philippines. He says someday the the Spaniard and Filipino will work together as equals, with no more slaves. Paulita says that according to her Tia Torina (Dona Victorina), the country will always be enslaved. Isagani says Dona Victorina thinks that because she cannot live without slaves.
Isagani says they will overcome their struggles. Paulita Gomez asks what happens if they don’t accomplish anything. Isagani answers that he would die happy knowing she is proud of him dying for his country.
Dona Victorina returns and they invite Isagani into their carriage. Isagani sits beside Paulita Gomez, feeling happy. They tell him they arrived at Plaza Santa Cruz.
Trivia:
Quotes:
Strange destiny, that of some nations. Because a traveler comes to their shores, they lose their freedom and become the subjects and slaves, not only of the traveler, not only of his heirs, but even of all his compatriots, and not for one generation, but for always! Strange concept of justice!
Isagani: Ah! I would like to die, be reduced to nothingness, leave my motherland a glorious name, die for her cause, defending her from foreign invasion, and that the sun afterwards illumine my corpse as an immobile sentinel on the rocks of the sea!
Isagani remembered that Don Tiburcio still lived, and confided the secret to his beloved, after making her promise that she would tell no one. Paulita promised, but with the mental reservation of revealing it to her girlfriend.
Isagani: A thousand cities, a thousand places I would give up for a remote place of the Philippines, where far from mankind I feel free with true liberty!
Isagani: (to Paulita Gomez) Before knowing you, that sea was for me my world,my enchantment, my love, my illusions.
But Paulita had heard it said that to reach Isagani’s home it was necessary to cross mountains where little leeches abounded, and with this thought alone, the coward shuddered convulsively. Comfort-loving and spoiled, she said that she would travel only in a carriage or a railway train.
Isagani: In a little while all the islands are going to be crossed by a net of iron: ‘Where rapid and winged engines will rush in flight,’ as someone has said; then, the most beautiful places of the archipelago will be open to all.
Isagani: Tomorrow we will be citizens of the Philippines, whose destiny will be beautiful because it will be in loving hands.
Isagani: This air so pure and these stones so clean will be covered with coal, with boxes and barrels, products of human industry, but it matters not, for we shall move on rapidly in comfortable coaches…
Isagani: It is true we have enemies, that there will be a struggle, but we shall overcome.
Isagani: If we accomplish nothing, I would dream of another look of yours, and I would die happy because a flash of pride could shine in your eyes and you would one day say to the world pointing at my corpse: ‘My love died fighting for the rights of my Motherland!’
