El Filibusterismo (El Fili) – Chapter 34
Chapter Title: The Wedding
Setting: Evening of April, Manila
Characters:
- Basilio
- Juanito Pelaez
- Paulita Gomez
- Simoun
- Cochero / Sinong
- Don Timoteo Pelaez
- Isagani (mentioned)
- Capitan Tiago (mentioned)
- Juli (mentioned)
- Capitan General (mentioned)
- Don Custodio (mentioned)
Plot:
Basilio watches people attend the wedding reception of Juanito Pelaez and Paulita Gomez at Captain Tiago’s house.
Chapter Summary:
Basilio walks on the streets, waiting for time to pass. The students have all gone home for vacation. Isagani did not want to go home but Basilio found out that he disappeared in the morning, when Basilio tried to visit him to ask for a place to stay. Basilio has no money, but tries to feel better by thinking that he is going to be feared and obeyed in Manila when Simoun’s plan succeeds.
Basilio goes to Capitan Tiago’s old house to get his stuff and saw that it was prepared for the wedding reception. As he is leaving the street, Basilio sees many carriages pass him containing well-dressed people. They go in the direction of Rosario Street. He sees a carriage with Juanito Pelaez inside, beside a girl dressed in white. Basilio recognizes Paulita Gomez.
Basilio feels sorry for Isagani and wonders if it would be bad to tell him the plan. He thinks that Isagani would not join them because he did not go through what Basilio went through. Basilio thinks about how if not for his arrest he would be married, and practicing medicine in the province. He thinks of Juli being dead and feels angry.
Basilio sees Simoun leave the house with the lamp and enter a carriage. He recognizes the cochero, Sinong, and is surprised. Basilio sees all the people in Capitan Tiago’s house joining the party and a lot of veteran guards are on duty.
Capitan General was godfather at the wedding but did not attend the wedding reception. Instead, Don Custodio is representing him instead. Capitan General’s wedding gift is a lamp that was brought to the wedding reception by Simoun.
Capitan Tiago’s house had been transformed, with no more smell of opium. There are carpets, mirrors and chandeliers. The floor is polished. The furniture has been replaced by other pieces of Louis XC style, with red curtains and vases from Japan. Don Timoteo Pelaez has replaced Capitan Tiago’s engravings and saints with oil paintings done by Spaniards.
Trivia:
- It is revealed that Don Timoteo Pelaez had bought Capitan Tiago’s house at half price and borrowed money from Simoun to buy furniture and decorations.
Quotes:
[Basilio] had a feeling of fierce pleasure in saying to himself that, hungry and all, that night he was going to be dreaded; that from a poor student and servant, even the sun would see him as terrible and sinister, standing upon pyramids of corpses, dictating laws to all those who passed before him in their magnificent coaches.
The ghosts of Juli, mangled in her fall, crossed [Basilio’s] imagination; dark flames of hatred lighted his eyes, and again he caressed the butt of the revolver, hurting that the terrible hour had not yet come.
Don Timoteo had sought the rarest and most expensive, and would not have hesitated at crime had he been told that the Capitan General would like to eat human flesh.
