Part 27

"No; but his face is very sad," said Maria. "I did not see him smile all the morning."

The day was ending, and in the last rays of the setting sun everybody left the wood, passing in silence the tomb of Ibarra's ancestor. Farther on conversation again became animated, gay, full of warmth, under these branches little used to merry-making. But the trees appeared sad, and the swaying bindweed seemed to say: "Adieu, youth! Adieu, dream of a day!"

XXI.

WITH THE PHILOSOPHER.

The next morning, Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra, after visiting his land, turned his horse toward old Tasio's.

Complete quiet reigned in the old man's garden; scarcely did the swallows make a sound as they flew round the roof. The old walls of the house were mossy, and ivy framed the windows. It seemed the abode of silence.

Ibarra tied his horse, crossed the neat garden, almost on tiptoe, and entered the open door. He found the old man in his study, surrounded by his collections of insects and leaves, his maps, manuscript, and books. He was writing, and so absorbed in his work that he did not notice the entrance of Ibarra until the young man, loath to disturb him, was leaving as quietly as he had come.

"What! you were there?" he cried, looking at Crisóstomo with a certain astonishment.

"Don't disturb yourself; I see you are busy----"

"I was writing a little, but it is not at all pressing. Can I be of service to you?"

"Of great service," said Ibarra, approaching; "but--you are deciphering hieroglyphics!" he exclaimed in surprise, catching sight of the old man's work.

"No, I'm writing in hieroglyphics."

"Writing in hieroglyphics? And why?" demanded the young man, doubting his senses.

"So that no one can read me."

Ibarra looked at him attentively, wondering if he were not a little mad after all.

"And why do you write if you do not wish to be read?"

"I write not for this generation, but for future ages. If the men of to-day could read my books, they would burn them; the generation that deciphers these characters will understand, and will say: 'Our ancestors did not all sleep.' But you have something to ask of me, and we are talking of other things."

Ibarra drew out some papers.

"I know," he said, "that my father greatly valued your advice, and I have come to ask it for myself."

And he briefly explained his project for the school, unrolling before the stupefied philosopher plans sent from Manila. "Whom shall I consult first, in the pueblo, whose support will avail me most? You know them all, I am almost a stranger."

Old Tasio examined with tearful eyes the drawings before him.

"You are going to realize my dream," he said, greatly moved; "the dream of a poor fool. And now the first advice I give you is never to ask advice of me."

Ibarra looked at him in surprise.

"Because, if you do," he continued with bitter irony, "all sensible people will take you for a fool, too. For all sensible people think those who differ with them fools; they think me one, and I am grateful for it, because the day they see in me a reasonable being woe is me! That day I shall lose the little liberty I now enjoy at the expense of my reputation. The gobernadorcillo passes with them for a wise man because having learned nothing but to serve chocolate and to suffer the caprices of Brother Dámaso, he is now rich and has the right to trouble the life of his fellow-citizens. 'There is a man of talent!' says the crowd. 'He has sprung from nothing to greatness.' But perhaps I am really the fool and they are the wise men. Who can say?"

And the old man shook his head as though to dismiss an unwelcome thought.

"The second thing I advise is to consult the curate, the gobernadorcillo, all the people of position in the pueblo. They will give you bad advice, unintelligible, useless. But to ask advice is not to follow it. All you need is to make it understood that you are working in accordance with their ideas."

Ibarra reflected, then replied:

"No doubt your counsel is good, but it is very hard to take. May I not offer my own ideas to the light of day? Cannot the good make its way anywhere? Has truth need of the dross of error?"