RIZAL IN EUROPE: PART 1

The Journey

May 1, 1882 - from Calamba to Manila P 356 - allowance " I do not know why every time I pick up your letters, I cannot keep the tears from my eyes, especially the first letter you wrote after you had left where you said that you had passed by the house on Monday morning, on your way off, and I was sleeping and so could not see you any more.Mother also tells me you took very little money with you so that I am always worrying how you are. That is why I want to send you the diamond ring; tell me to whom would be best to send it so that it may get to you safely...." Saturnina Hidalgo to Jose Rizal, 26 September 1882 Requoted from The First Filipino

"....Poor girl, what tears has she not shed from the first days when she arrived from her hometown and did not find you in the house but instead five thousand leagues from Manila! Your sister Maria can tell you about it, because she was in tears before her. One day she told me that she was not in the mood for anythingm not even for her intimate friendsm and that she wanted to dye all her clothes. I replied that she should not despair because the years pass by quickly.... and that one of your greatest sorrows, if not the only onem when you left was that you had to be separated from her. We have to console her some way!" Jose M. Cecilio to Jose Rizal, 16 September 1882 Requoted from The First Filipino

On the ship with 37 other passengers

" Tonight Messrs. Barco, Morlan, Pardo, Buil, and others were talking. A lot was said about the government in the Philippines. Criticisms flowed as never before. I discovered that everyone in my poor country lives in hopes of sucking the blood of the Filipino, friars as well as administrators. There may be exceptions, they claim, but few and far between. This is the source of great evils and enmities among those who quarrel over the booty....." Requoted from The First Filipino

El Amor Patrio, Diaryong Tagalog, June 1882 "...The love of country can never be expunged once it has entered the heart because it bears a divine mark that makes it eternal and imperishable... ...Beautiful and great is the country when her sons, at the call of battle, make ready to defend the ancient land of their ancestors; fierce and proud, when from her high throne sees the stranger flee in panic before the invincible phalanx of her sons; but when, divided in opposing camps, they destroy one another, when anger and rancor devastate the fields, the towns and the cities, then shem in shame, tears her garments and, throwing away her scepter, puts on mourning for her dead. Whatever, then, be our situation, let us love her always and let us desire nothing but her good.....

.... You who have lost your heart's ideals....you who wish to love but find no one worthy, look to your country, love her! Love her, yes, but no longer as she was loved in other times, with the practice of ferocious virtues, denied and condemned by true morality and the natural law, nt by the display of fanaticism, destruction and cruelty, no; a brighter dawn is on the horizon, softer and more peaceful, the messanger of life and peace, the true dawn, in brief, of Christianity, the harbinger of happy and tranquil days. It will be our duty to follow the arid but peaceful and productive paths of Science which lead to progress, and thence to the union desired and called for by Jesus Christ in His night of sorrow..." Written in Barcelona, Spain

Rizal in Madrid Universidad Central - course leading to licentiate in Medicine, Philosophy and letters Academia de San Fernando - painting and sculpture Madrid Ateneo - French, English and German School of Sanz and Carbonell - fencing January 1883 - Italian September 1883 - took an examination in Roman Law leading to Law

Sample of Rizal's monthly expenditures Source: Ambeth Ocampo, Rizal Without the Overcoat

Jan 4 For the barber and the cursed Christmas present

1.10

Jan 5 Los Cuatro Reynos de la Naturaleza subscription

14.20

Jan 6 Wandering Jew Works of Horace and Dumas Supper with a friend

10.00 2.50 32.00

Jan 9 without spending a cent

Jan 12 Bath Teatro de la Comedia A dish newspaper and refreshment

2.00 2.10 0.30 0.35

Jan 15 One pen knife

0.30

Jan 16 Postage stamps Ball of yarn

1.30 0.50

Jan 20 1/10 of a lottery ticket Laundrywoman Domestic postage stamp

3.00 3.00 0.10

Jan 27 Today I had my picture taken at Otero Half dozen postcards with cover 1/10 of lottery ticket A box of matches

10.00 3.00 3.00 0.10

Jan 29 Candles (one pound, 6) Tickets for the dance Coffee, refreshments, and tip

1.25 1.00 1.70

Jan 30 Review for the degree Postage stamps for letters and periodicals A handkerchief Streetcar Excelsior Ball

30.00 2.80 0.45 0.30 2.50

Jan 31 One book Arte de Estudiar

1.00 2.50

" Money spent 257.88. Food for this month 71.75. Total 329.63. This exense, which for me is large, is due to the review and the dinner which I gave. The books I bought also contributed to it." Rizal

Paciano Mercado's letter to Rizal, 26 May 1883 " As soon as his death was known, the Vicar Fray Villafranca came to collect the money of the Church recorded in the books, but as it happened that the safe was closed and the key was in Manila, by virtue of the apostolic power of the Church, he summoned our father to the hacienda: there he commanded him to pay the amount that was inside the safe, intimidating him with threats revealing to the Archbishops the secrets of the dead man, that in a way concern a member of our family; as a result of the pressure; father had to pay the money in gold and it was returned to him in silver three weeks later. Intimidating an old man with threats of unearthing secrets that he might have is a truly repulsive behavior."

Rizal's Reply to Paciano, 20 July 1883 " I have sincerely regretted the death of the parish priest, not precisely because of our friendship, but because he was a good priest, rara avis, something not easy to find. My blood boils every time I read what you say of Fr. Villafranca, but I am glad that his behavior confirms and justifies my dislike for him: if he had acted otherwise, perhaps I would be obliged to recognize my mistake. A bonzo or a brahman could not do worse than that: if they, the priests, the virtuous ministers of God, demand secrecy and avoid scandal with big words; if they who believe in being simple like doves and wise as serpents, they who speak about respect for old people and the dead, they who always talk about fasting, prayer and Mass, they who have God on their lips while stealing the coins of poor man to enrich themselves; while threatening to reveal the faults

committed during youth, dishonoring the way the illustrious memory of a wise old man, who has probably cried his faults and has been less hypocritical than his would be judges....No less than that should be expected from a follower ("adepto" of the friars, and this fact shows that I am fair in my opinions. If I had been there I would have challenged him to expose the faults of the dead priest and would have shown him to be like a dung beetle that devotes its days on earth to unearth dirt and rubbish. Let us see who would dare cast the first stone at the dead Fr. Leoncio, and I am sure that everyone from the Archbishop to Fr. Ambrosio would not feel invested with authority to do it. Woe to those who can only confront knowledge and virtue with stupid dogmatism to do it. I believe I can perceive the petty hatred of those miserable individuals".

"Well, let's see if they get to enjoy the profits of those thanksgiving masses, I don't know if heaven will close its ears when these requests, motivated by ignorance and greed, reach it. When I see so much fanaticism, mixed with all those vile passions, when I see so much misery in those....."

JUAN LUNA SPOLIARIUM

FELIX RESURRECCION HIDALGO

LAS VIRGENES CRISTIANAS EXPUESTAS AL POPULACHO

Excerpt from the Speech Delivered at the Banquet " Just as a mother teaches her child to speak so as to understand his joys, his needs, his sorrow, so also Spain, as a mother, teaches her language to the Philippines, despite the opposition of those who are so short-sighted and small-minded that, making sure of the present, they cannot foresee the future and will not weigh the consequences, soured nurses, corrupt and corrupting, who habitually choke every legitimate sentiment and perverting the hearts of the people, sow in them the seeds of discord whose fruit, a very wolf's bane, a very death, will be gathered by the future generations..." Requoted from The First Filipino

MIGUEL DE MORAYTA

•  Liberal •  33rd degree freemason •  Head of the Spanish Gran

Oriente •  Rizal's History Professor

GIORDANO BRUNO •  Dominican priest who was

condemned to death by the Roman inquisition because of his public defense of atheism

Source: Javier de Pedro, Rizal through a Glass Darkly

Letter of Professor Miguel Morayta to Rizal, 23 January 1883 "On the last days of February, the group will celebrate the birthday of Giordano Bruno with a literary soiree. Only students' papers will be read. As I am aware of your remarkable worth, I beg you to send me one of your writings.... The evening will be dedicated to the defense of freethinking, and there is plenty of room for other issues, besides Giordano Bruno.."

Requoted from Rizal: Looking through a Glass Darkly

" I will not get my degree's certificate while Creus is still rector of the university. I do not want my most glorious personal document to be signed by a man that everyone detests....(a man) without dignity, although learned, very learned. Where he to sign it, I would tear it up."

Rizal, 26 November 1884

Rizal to Ricardo Carcinero Dapitan, Zamboanga

“ In Madrid they know perfectly well what the friars do here (in the Philippines), so much so that in the first talks I had with Pi and (Aureliano) Linares Rivas, when the latter belonged to the Liberal Party, they made me realize things which I, born in that country, did not know. Like them I could mention to you many who were equally informed of the lives and miracles of the friars in the Philippines.”

Paris, 1885 Mastered technique of eye operations

Dr. Louis de Wecker Dr. de Wecker’s Clinic

Germany, 1886 Mastered the technique of diagnosis

DR. OTTO BECKER DR. BECKER’S CLINIC

“It is a pity that here in the Philippines, the principal adornment of women almost always consists of clothes and finery rather than knowledge…..if these qualities that nature gives the women there were exalted by intellectual qualities, as it happens in Europe, the Filipino family has nothing to envy the Europeans for. For this reason, now that you are still young and you have time to learn, it is necessary that you study by reading and reading attentively. It is a pity that you allow yourself to be dominated by laziness when it takes so little effort to shake it off. It is enough to form only the habit of study and later everything will go by itself.”

Letter of Rizal to his sister Trinidad

Maximo Viola

To my country:

In the catalogue of human ills there is to be found a cancer so malignant that the least touch inflames it and causes agonizing pains; afflicted with such cancer, a social cancer, has your dear image appeared to me, when, for my own heart’s ease or to compare you with others, I have sought, in the centers of modern civilization, to call you to mind.

Now, desirous of your welfare, which is also ours, and seeking the best cure for your ills, I shall do with you what was done in ages past with sick, who were exposed on the steps of the temple so that the worshippers, having invoked the god, should each propose a remedy.

To this end, I shall endeavor to show your condition, faithfully and ruthlessly. I shall lift a corner of the veil which shrouds the disease, sacrificing to the truth everything, even self-love, for, as your son, your defects and weaknesses are also mine.

The Author

Europe, 1886