El Filibusterismo (El Fili) – Chapter 39
Chapter Title: The Final Chapter
Setting: Padre Florentino’s Retreat
Characters:
- Padre Florentino
- Simoun
- Padre Florentino’s servant
- Don Tiburcio de Espadana (mentioned)
- Teniente of the Guardia Civil (mentioned)
- Dona Victorina (mentioned)
- Isagani (mentioned)
- Capitan General (mentioned)
Plot:
Padre Florentino talks to a dying Simoun.
Chapter Summary:
Padre Florentino is playing the reed organ. His friend Don Tiburcio de Espadana, who was hiding there, just left, after getting a note from the teniente of the guardia civil.
The note said the following:
My dear Chaplain: I have just received from the commandant a telegram which says: Spaniard hidden house Padre Florentino lame capture dead alive. As the telegram is expressive enough, warn the friend so that he will not be there when I go to arrest him at eight o’clock tonight.
Yours ever, PEREZ
Burn this letter.
Don Tiburcio de Espadana was shocked, thinking that Dona Victorina wanted him to be shot.
Padre Florentino explained to him the misspelling: cojera (which means ‘lameness’ in Spanish) is supposed to be spelled as cogera (‘will catch’) and the hidden Spaniard refers to Simoun, who came two days ago, injured. But Don Tiburcio de Espadana did not listen, because Isagani had written to him saying Dona Victorina wanted him dead or alive. Don Tiburcio de Espadana left to hide in a woodcutter’s hut.
Simoun had arrived with a chest. He was bleeding and depressed. Padre Florentino took in Simoun because he didn’t know yet about what happened in Manila. He thought that because Capitan General left, enemies were trying to get revenge on Simoun. Padre Florentino wondered if the wounds were from Simon trying to get away, or from a fight or a suicide attempt. Simoun refused to be treated by the doctor.
Padre Florentino looks out at the sea. When he told Simoun that the police were coming at 8:00 pm to arrest him, Simoun only smiled. Padre Florentino wonders why Simoun doesn’t hide, and thinks it is because Simoun is too proud. Padre Florentino compares Simoun’s situation from before (rich and powerful) to now (being in hiding).
Padre Florentino does not care that two months ago Simoun ignored him when he tried to ask for help in freeing Isagani from prison, or that Simoun helped plan Paulita Gomez’s wedding, which depressed Isagani. Padre Florentino cares only about fixing Simoun’s injuries. He wonders if he should hide Simoun. A servant says Simoun wants to speak to him.
Simoun is in Padre Florentino’s bedroom, in a camagong bed. Padre Florentino sees that Simoun is in pain. Padre Florentino asks if Simoun is suffering, and Simoun says that soon his suffering will end. Padre Florentino asks what Simoun took, pointing to a bottle. Simoun says it does not matter.
Simoun says he wants to tell Padre Florentino his secret and his last will. Simoun asks if there is a god. Padre Florentino says he can give Simoun an antidote, like apomorphine, ether or chloroform. Padre Florentino kneels to pray, and then sits beside the bed to hear Simoun’s story. Simoun tells Padre Florentino his real name and Florentino is shocked.
Simoun tells his story:
Thirteen years ago, he came back from Europe to marry the woman he loved, and promised to do good and forgive those who wronged him. But he was involved in an uprising plotted by his enemies and was only able to escape death due to the help of a friend. He swore to avenge himself.
He dug up the family wealth in a forest and went abroad. He got involved in the war of Cuba and met Capitan General (who was a comandante then). He lent Capitan General money, and eventually became his friend, keeping Capitan General’s crimes a secret. He manipulated Capitan General and encouraged him to commit injustices since he knew Capitan General was greedy.
The story continues until night, and Padre Florentino meditates. He says God will forgive Simoun because everyone makes mistakes and Simoun has suffered. Padre Florentino says God ruined Simoun’s plans one by one and that everyone should be thankful.
Simoun says that means God wants the islands to remain in their current state. Padre Florentino says he cannot read God’s thoughts but he believes that God has not abandoned the people. He says that God is there when the oppressed fight for their rights and family.
Simoun asks why God did not support him. Padre Florentino says it is because God cannot approve of his ways because Simoun also helped ruin the country by committing wrongs to fix wrongs. Hate only creates monsters, crime and criminals and only love can create good things. Padre Florentino tells Simoun that the country will be free one day due to virtue, sacrifice and love instead of vice and crime.
Simoun asks then why God has to deny liberty to people and save those who are worse than Simoun, and why does he allow so many good people to suffer? Padre Florentino answers that people must suffer so their ideas will become known. Simoun says “I knew it” and realizes he made the tyranny worse.
Padre Florentino says that Simoun only helped the country decay instead of producing a single idea. An immoral government produces immoral people. Simoun asks then what are they supposed to do. Padre Florentino answers: “To suffer and to work”. Simoun says that is easy to say if one doesn’t suffer and when work is rewarded.
Simoun asks what kind of God would consider that just? Too many people suffer for no reason. Padre Florentino says that only a just God does, because he punishes lack of faith and vices. People suffer the consequences and their children suffer them too. Padre Florentino says God makes people suffer so they can become better.
Padre Florentino says people must deserve liberty, fighting and dying for it, and when people do that, God will help make the tyrants fall to allow liberty to win. Padre Florentino says Filipinos must blame themselves, because Spain will only give them liberty when they become competent. There is no point of independence if the slaves become tyrants as well.
Padre Florentino says that until Filipinos can stop abusing when they themselves are abused, they are not prepared to have liberty because they do not understand it. He compares it to a husband not getting to marry the wife until he loves her enough and is willing to die for her.
Simoun takes Padre Florentino’s hand but is quiet. Padre Florentino wonders where the youth are who will fight for ideas and are willing to die for the country. He thinks to himself that everyone is waiting for them. Padre Florentino cries and releases Simoun’s hand. He goes to the window. The servant knocks and asks if he should light the lamp.
The lamp is lit. Padre Florentino realizes that Simoun is dead. Padre Florentino asks God to have mercy and those like Simoun, who have turned away from the right path. The servants kneel and pray for Simoun’s body. Padre Florentino gets Simoun’s chest of iron from the cabinet. He goes to the cliff where Isagani usually watches the sea. Padre Florentino throws the chest into the sea.
Padre Florentino addresses the chest, saying it will do no evil by being at the bottom of the sea.
Trivia:
Quotes:
Simoun: What is done is done. I should not fall alive into anyone’s hand….
Simoun: (to Padre Florentino) You who believe so much in God… I want you to tell me if there is a God!
Padre Florentino: God will forgive you, Senor… Simoun.
Padre Florentino: I know that He has not abandoned the people who in the supreme moments have trusted in Him and made Him Judge of their oppression.
Padre Florentino: No, God who is justice, cannot abandon His own cause, the cause of freedom without which no justice is possible!
Padre Florentino: The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to cause its ruin.
Padre Florentino: You believed that what crime and iniquity have debauched and deformed, another rcrime and another iniquity could purify and redeem! Fallacy! Hate does not create anything but monsters, crime, criminals. Only love brings in the end marvelous works; only virtue can save!
Padre Florentino: No, if our country is to be free one day it would not be through vice and crime; it will not be by corrupting its sons, deceiving some, buying others, no! Redemption implies virtue, virtue, sacrifice, and sacrifice, love!
Simoun: What are my wrongs beside the crime of those governing?
Padre Florentino: The just and the deserving must suffer so that their ideas may be known and spread out! The vase must be shaken or broken to spread its perfume; the rock has to be struck to bring out the spark!
Padre Florentino: You fomented social decay without sowing a single idea. From that ferment of vices could only surge revulsion, and if anything was born from night to morning, it would be at best a mushroom, because spontaneously only mushrooms can rise from garbage.
Padre Florentino: An immoral government assumes a demoralized people, an administration without conscience, rapacious and servile citizens in the towns; bandits and brigands in the mountains! Like master, like slave; like Government, like country!
Simoun: Then what can be done?
Padre Florentino: To suffer and to work!
Simoun: It is easy to say that when one does not suffer… When the work is rewarded!
Padre Florentino: He is the God of liberty, Senor Simoun, who obliges us to love Him by making the yoke heavy for us; a God of mercy, of equity who, while He punishes us improves us, and only concedes well-being to him who has deserved it with his efforts.
Padre Florentino: The school of suffering tempers; the arena of combat strengthens the soul.
Padre Florentino: If Spain sees us less complacent with tyranny and more disposed to fight and suffer for our rights, Spain would be the first to give us liberty, because when the fruit of conception reaches maturity, woe unto the mother who would wish to stifle it!
Padre Florentino: Why independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?
Padre Florentino: Where are the youth who will consecrate their golden hours, their illusions, and enthusiasm for the welfare of their country?
Padre Florentino: God have mercy on those who have turned away from the path!
Padre Florentino: May Nature guard you in her deep abysses among the corals and pearls of her eternal seas! When for a holy sublime end men should need you, God will draw you from the breast of the waves… Meanwhile there you will do no evil, you will not distort right, you will not foment avarice…!
