Chapter 1 Introduction to the Study of Philippine Literature
Chapter 2 Ilocos
Chapter 3 Cagayan Valley
Chapter 4 Central Luzon
Chapter 5 Southern Tagalog
Chapter 6 Bicol
Chapter 7 Western Visayas
Chapter 8 Central Visayas
Chapter 9 Eastern Visayas
Chapter 10 Western Mindanao
Chapter 11 Northern Mindanao
Chapter 12 Southern Mindanao
Chapter 13 Central Mindanao
Chapter 14 Caraga
Chapter 15 CAR
Chapter 16 ARMM
Chapter 17 NCR
Lunes, Hunyo 4, 2012
NCR
Are you that Someone
by: Lori Ungacta
Are you that someone
who will love me so deep,
Are you that someone
who won't make me weep......
Are you that someone
who will hold my hand,
Are you that someone
who would be my man......
Are you that someone
who would hold me in your arms,
Are you that someone
who would protect me from harm.....
Are you that someone
who will make me smile,
Are you that someone
who would go the extra mile......
Are you that someone
who will grow old with me,
Are you that someone
who sees my true beauty......
Are you that someone
who will make my life complete,
Are you that someone
who no other can compete......
Are you that someone
who will share good times and bad,
Are you that someone
who with me is always glad......
Are you that someone
who I will love for life,
Are you that someone
willing to have me as your wife.....
"Our Heaven Above"
by: Tina R. Lizama
I never thought I'd find the one,
then again I never met you Until now.
And I thank the Lord each day and each night too
For leading my heart to yours and yours to mine.
then again I never met you Until now.
And I thank the Lord each day and each night too
For leading my heart to yours and yours to mine.
Traveling across the distance and throughout all of time
To bring us closer together, as lovers and as friends
As separate hearts once before, as a single heart in the end
To bring us closer together, as lovers and as friends
As separate hearts once before, as a single heart in the end
You touched my life and made me whole
Deep within and throughout my lonely soul
Showing me loneliness never more
By turning the key to unlock my heart's door
Deep within and throughout my lonely soul
Showing me loneliness never more
By turning the key to unlock my heart's door
You walked into my life and into my heart
Making me feel we're not worlds apart
And etching a symbol of your love
Showing me Our Heaven Above
Making me feel we're not worlds apart
And etching a symbol of your love
Showing me Our Heaven Above
I dreamt with you and you dreamt with me
Together we became the best we could be
You brightened my days and filled my nights
You forgave my wrongs and commended my rights
Together we became the best we could be
You brightened my days and filled my nights
You forgave my wrongs and commended my rights
And when I stumbled you took my hand
With your strength, you helped me stand
You taught me to strive, you taught me to live
But most importantly, I learned how to give
With your strength, you helped me stand
You taught me to strive, you taught me to live
But most importantly, I learned how to give
Of my love, of my life, and of myself because of you
I learned how to feel and say what is true
So I say to you now, my true love
Thank you for showing me Our Heaven Above!
I learned how to feel and say what is true
So I say to you now, my true love
Thank you for showing me Our Heaven Above!
Voice of Reason
By: Nanie
By: Nanie
Mere words could not adequately
express how I feel for you .
You are the light in my life.
You are the Voice of Reason in my life.
express how I feel for you .
You are the light in my life.
You are the Voice of Reason in my life.
You are the cure to all my fears and tears.
It's all because of YOU.
I sometimes wonder how something
so special could happen to me.
It's all because of YOU.
I sometimes wonder how something
so special could happen to me.
I sometimes wonder if my love for you is real.
I sometimes wonder if this is fate, destiny and or karma.
Then, I realize all these feelings deep inside of me is TRUE.
It's all because of YOU.
I sometimes wonder if this is fate, destiny and or karma.
Then, I realize all these feelings deep inside of me is TRUE.
It's all because of YOU.
You taught me to smile often
You taught me to be strong
You taught me how to love
You taught me togetherness
It's all because of YOU.
You taught me to be strong
You taught me how to love
You taught me togetherness
It's all because of YOU.
Because of YOU, I believe in YOU.
I believe in our LOVE.
I believe we can move mountains.
I believe nothing is impossible
It's all because of YOU.
I believe in our LOVE.
I believe we can move mountains.
I believe nothing is impossible
It's all because of YOU.
I thank God each day for all the blessings he has bestowed to ME.
I thank my lucky stars for guiding you to me.
I believe my destiny is being fulfilled
It's all because of YOU.
I thank my lucky stars for guiding you to me.
I believe my destiny is being fulfilled
It's all because of YOU.
You are my morning dew when I wake up
You are my malakis when i am feeling down
You are my voice of reason when in doubt
You are the my sunshine when it is gloomy.
It's all because of YOU.
You are my malakis when i am feeling down
You are my voice of reason when in doubt
You are the my sunshine when it is gloomy.
It's all because of YOU.
Forever Love
By: Joseph S. Santos
By: Joseph S. Santos
Sweet Thoughts Of You
Are In My Mind
You'll Be Remembered
Till The End Of Time
So When You're Feeling
Down And Blue
Remember These Feelings
I Have For You
Although We're Not Together
And It Seems We're Far Apart
You'll Be With Me For Eternity
Always In My Heart
MY DREAM
Mary Lou Rogers 6/19/98
Mary Lou Rogers 6/19/98
A poem I recently read was meant for me
Yes, my dream will soon be my reality
I'd never want to be naked on any beach
But my lifetime goal is now within my reach.
I dreamed of filling the educational gap
And the videos to do it will soon lie in my lap
People of every nationality, age, color and creed
Will soon have my videos to fulfill their need.
No longer will ignorance be thought of as bliss
Because what I'm producing simply cannot miss
First I'll teach math, and prove that it's fun
Then I'll teach reading and writing to everyone.
Yes, the dream that I have is a special one, no need to sob**
My dream is a dream that no one can rob
I can feel that God is with me, right by my side
I can see how my life He is trying to guide.
ARMM
A LESSON FOR THE SULTAN
Long ago in Agamaniyog, the best-known, wealthy couple were Solotan sa Agamaniyog and his wife, Ba’i sa Agamaniyog. They were so wealthy that they owned almost half of the land in Agamaniyog. They had large herds of cows, carabaos, and horses. One morning, when the couple went down to the lakeshore to pray, they happened to pass by the small hut of a poor couple, Lokes a Mama and Lokes a Babay, who were quarreling and shouting at each other.
The quarreling couple blamed each other for their misfortune in life. Lokes a Babay blamed Lokes a Mama for being lazy and not knowing how to raise a family and to make a good living. On the other hand, Lokes a Mama put the blame on his wife who, he said, did not know how to be thrifty.
Overhearing the quarrel, the Sultan and Ba’i of Agamaniyog stepped in and admonished Lokes a Mama and Lokes a Babay. When they got home, the Sultan and Ba’i of Agamaniyog talked about the quarrel between the poor couple until they themselves began to argue. Solotan sa Agamaniyog blamed Lokes a Mama for being incapable of making life prosperous for his family. Ba’i sa Agamaniyog put the blame on Lokes a Babay. She said, “If Lokes a Mama were well managed by a good wife, he could be a good husband who could make a good living.”
The Sultan and Ba’i could not keep from arguing, each one insisting at being right, until their argument resulted in a serious quarrel. Each swore that he/she could reform the poor couple by managing one of them. In the heat of their argument, the Sultan and the Ba’i of Agamaniyog agreed to part ways.
The Sultan brought Lokes a Babay to live with him and Ba’i sa Agamaniyog in turn went to live with Lokes a Mama. Before she left the torogan (royal house), she said, “Someday Solotan sa Agamaniyog will pick up the leftovers of Lokes a Mama.” The sultan smiled and swore that, as long as he had the strength and the means, such an event would not happen.
The Sultan offered his new companion everything she wanted. Lokes a Babay demanded to have livers of a cow and carabao to eat every day at every meal, and these were given her.
One day the Sultan of Balantankairan came to visit. Solotan sa Agamaniyog was very embarrassed at the dry welcome that Lokes a Babay showed his royal visitor. She served neither his visitor nor him. It was at this time that he became convinced that Lokes a Babay was lazy and capricious. He also realized that his wealth had gradually vanished.
Meanwhile, Ba’i sa Agamaniyog could not even climb up the small hut of Lokes a Mama because it had no ladder. When she told him to make one, Lokes a Mama answered that he had no tools. She said, “You’re really silly. Why don’t you have any?” She gave him her knife and told him to use twigs if that were what it would take to make a ladder. Once inside the hut, Ba’i sa Agamaniyog told Lokes a Mama not to come near her, because in reality she was not yet divorced from her husband but had only a temporary arrangement with him. She asked him for food, but Lokes a Mama could not offer any. She told him to gather ferns from the forest for dinner.
Ba’i sa Agamaniyog would often send Lokes a Mama to the forest to gather plenty of firewood. Sitting by the window one day, she saw a huge tree that stood out from the others. She asked Lokes a Mama about it and learned that it was kaya-o sandana (sandalwood), a very useful tree. She told him to cut down the tree, chop it to pieces, separate the branches from the trunk, and store all the pieces under their hut.
The Sultan of Balantankairan was looking for sandalwood. Lokes sa Mama told him about the sandana stored in his hut. He said that in Agamaniyog no one would find such a tree except the one he had. The Sultan, very much interested, said he was willing to pay any price provided there was enough sandalwood to fill his boat. He said he was willing to leave behind all that he had in the boat, including his seven maids and seven servants. Lokes a Mama immediately led the Sultan to his stored sandalwood and the Sultan took all aboard his boat, paid Lokes a Mama generously and left.
Ba’i sa Agamaniyog and Lokes a Mama became rich. A beautiful torogan was soon erected, and Ba’i sa Agamaniyog ordered two kanter (beds). She bought a sultan’s tobao (headdress) for Lokes a Mama and changed his name to Maradiya Dinda. She was always surrounded by her seven maids, and Lokes a Mama, now Maradiya Dinda, was always escorted by his seven male servants.
One morning Solotan sa Agamaniyog found a tobao and was told that it was Maradiya Dinda’s. Taking it with him, he went up the torogan of Maradiya and saw him lying in bed like a sultan, while on the side was his former wife, whose demeanor teasingly reminded him of the good fortune they had before they were separated. Upon seeing him she said, “My dear Solotan, do you remember when I said that someday you will pick up leftovers from Lokes sa Mama?”
Blinded with tears, the Sultan hardly found his way out and went home. He then became sickly and nearly died from all his heartaches.
CAR
1.ULLALIM
Ang kwento ay nagsimula sa nakatakdang kasal nina Ya-u at Dulaw nang makapulot ng nganga o ua (na tawag ng taga-Kalinga). Ang magkasintahan ay naanyayahan sa isang pistahan sa Madogyaya. Nang sila ay nasa Madogyaya, naakit ang pansin ni Dulliyaw si Dulaw hanggang si Dulaw ay magkagusto sa kanya. Sa pagplano na ligawan ni Dulaw si Dulliyaw ay naisip nitong painumin ng alak si Ya-u hanggang sa malasing. Habang si Ya-u ay natutulog sa ibang bahay ay saka niligawan ni Dulaw si Dulliyaw. Pinakain nito ang babae ng nganga at sinabi niya sa babae na sa pamamagitan ng pagtanggap niya ng nganga ang ibig sabihin ay tinanggap na niya ang pag-ibig na kanyang iniaalay. Bago siya umalis ay sinabi niya sa babae na siya ay babalik kinabukasan. Naiwan na nag-iisip ang dalaga.
Kinabukasan sa kalagitnaan ng gabi ay dumating si Dulaw sa bahay nina Dulliyaw.
Habang sila’y kumakain ng nganga, sinabi nito sa babae na siya ay nagpunta roon upang isama nang umuwi ang dalaga sa kanilang bahay. Nagulat si Dulliyaw sa winika ng lalaki. Iyon lamang at nagkagulo na ang mga tao sa nayon. Sa pagtakas nila ay nakasalubong sila ng isang lalaki na may dala-dalang palakol at balak silang patayin. Bago sila maabutan ng lalaki
ay nakaakyat na si Dulaw sa isang puno upang tumakas. Samantala wala namang mangahas
na siya ay lusubin kaya naipasiya ni Ya-u na tawagin ang mga sundalong Español ng
Sakbawan.
ay nakaakyat na si Dulaw sa isang puno upang tumakas. Samantala wala namang mangahas
na siya ay lusubin kaya naipasiya ni Ya-u na tawagin ang mga sundalong Español ng
Sakbawan.
At noon nga si Guwela na kumander ng Garison ay umakyat sa kaitaasan ng
Kalinga na kasama ang mga sundalo. Iniutos niya na dakpin si Dulaw na nakaupo pa rin sa
puno. Napag-alaman niya na marami ang tutol sa ginawa niya kaya wala na siyang lakas na
lumaban nang siya ay lagyan ng posas. Sa utos pa rin ni Guwela siya ay dinakip at nakulong
sa Sakbawan.
Kalinga na kasama ang mga sundalo. Iniutos niya na dakpin si Dulaw na nakaupo pa rin sa
puno. Napag-alaman niya na marami ang tutol sa ginawa niya kaya wala na siyang lakas na
lumaban nang siya ay lagyan ng posas. Sa utos pa rin ni Guwela siya ay dinakip at nakulong
sa Sakbawan.
Makalipas ang tatlong taon na pagkakabilanggo, naging payat na siya. Humingi si
Dulliyaw ng nganga kay Dulaw. Kinuha ni Dulaw ang huling nganga sa bahay at ito’y pinagpirapiraso.
Bago niya ito maibigay kay Dulliyaw bigla na lamang itong nawala.
Dulliyaw ng nganga kay Dulaw. Kinuha ni Dulaw ang huling nganga sa bahay at ito’y pinagpirapiraso.
Bago niya ito maibigay kay Dulliyaw bigla na lamang itong nawala.
Samantala, sa pook na Magobya naliligo si Duranaw. Sa paliligo niya sa ilog ay
nakapulot siya ng nganga. Kinain niya ito nang walang alinlangan.
nakapulot siya ng nganga. Kinain niya ito nang walang alinlangan.
Matapos nguyain ang nganga ay bigla na lamang itong nagbuntis hanggang sa siya ay
magsilang ng isang malusog na lalaki at pinangalanan niya itong Banna. Tatlong taon ang
lumipas. Si Banna ay mahilig makipaglaro sa mga Agta, subalit siya’y madalas na tinutukso ng
kanyang mga kalaro. Sinasabi na kung siya raw ang tunay na Banna ang ibig sabihin ay siya
ang anak ni Dulaw na nakulong sa Sakbawan. Sinumbong niya ito sa kanyang ina ngunit
pinabulaanan ito ng kanyang ina.
magsilang ng isang malusog na lalaki at pinangalanan niya itong Banna. Tatlong taon ang
lumipas. Si Banna ay mahilig makipaglaro sa mga Agta, subalit siya’y madalas na tinutukso ng
kanyang mga kalaro. Sinasabi na kung siya raw ang tunay na Banna ang ibig sabihin ay siya
ang anak ni Dulaw na nakulong sa Sakbawan. Sinumbong niya ito sa kanyang ina ngunit
pinabulaanan ito ng kanyang ina.
Sa isang iglap, si Banna ay naging malakas at naghangad ng paghihiganti. Isang
mahiwagang pangyayari ang nagdala kay Banna pati ng kanyang mga kasama sa Sakbawan.
At doon ay kanyang piñatay si Dulliyaw. Sinabi ng isang kasama ni Banna kay Dulaw na si
Banna ay kanyang anak, iyon lang at sila ay dali-daling sumakay sa isang bangka at sa isang
iglap ay nakarating sila sa pook ng Magobya. Mula noon ay nauso na ang kasalan sa kanilang
pook.
mahiwagang pangyayari ang nagdala kay Banna pati ng kanyang mga kasama sa Sakbawan.
At doon ay kanyang piñatay si Dulliyaw. Sinabi ng isang kasama ni Banna kay Dulaw na si
Banna ay kanyang anak, iyon lang at sila ay dali-daling sumakay sa isang bangka at sa isang
iglap ay nakarating sila sa pook ng Magobya. Mula noon ay nauso na ang kasalan sa kanilang
pook.
2.The Boy Who Became a Stone
One day a little boy named Elonen sat out in the yard making a bird snare, and as he worked, a little bird called to him:
“Tik-tik-lo-den” (come and catch me).
“I am making a snare for you,” said the boy; but the bird continued to call until the snare was finished.
Then Elonen ran and threw the snare over the bird and caught it, and he put it other boys to swim.
While he was away, his grandmother grew hungry, so she ate the bird, and when Elonen returned and found that his bird was gone, he was so sad that he wished he might go away and never come back.
He went out into the forest and walked a long distance, until finally he came to a big stone and said:
While he was away, his grandmother grew hungry, so she ate the bird, and when Elonen returned and found that his bird was gone, he was so sad that he wished he might go away and never come back.
He went out into the forest and walked a long distance, until finally he came to a big stone and said:
“Stone, open your mouth and eat me.” And the stone opened its mouth and boy.
When his grandmother missed the boy, she went out and looked everywhere, hoping to find him. Finally she passed near the stone and it cried out:
“Here he is.”
Then the old woman tried to open the stone but she could not, so she called the horses to come and help her. They came and kicked it, but it would not break.
Then she called the carabao and they hooked it, but they only broke their horns. She called the chickens, which pecked it, and the thunder, which shook it, but nothing could open it, and she had to go home without the boy.
A Tinguian Folktale
One day a man who had been to gather his coconuts loaded his horse heavily with the fruit. On the way home he met a boy whom he asked how long it would take to reach the house.
“If you go slowly,” said the boy, looking at the load on the horse, “you will arrive very soon; but if you go fast, it will take you all day.”
The man could not believe this strange speech, so he hurried his horse. But the coconuts fell off and he had to stop to pick them up. Then he hurried his horse all the more to make up for lost time, but the again. Many time he did this, and it was night when he reached home.
4.) Wedding Dance
By Amador Daguio
Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the headhigh threshold. Clinging to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to the narrow door. He slid back the cover, stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place. After some moments during which he seemed to wait, he talked to the listening darkness.
"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it."
The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house like muffled roars of falling waters. The woman who had moved with a start when the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did not know how long. There was a sudden rush of fire in her. She gave no sign that she heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.
But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the room; he knew exactly where the stove was. With bare fingers he stirred the covered smoldering embers, and blew into the stove. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine on them, then full round logs as his arms. The room brightened.
"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing women?" He felt a pang inside him, because what he said was really not the right thing to say and because the woman did not stir. "You should join the dancers," he said, "as if--as if nothing had happened." He looked at the woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with strange moving shadows and lights
upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of anger or hate.
"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One of the men will see you dance well; he will like your dancing, he will marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you will be luckier than you were with me."
"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want any other man."
He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very well that I won't want any other woman either. You know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?"
She did not answer him.
"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated.
"Yes, I know," she said weakly.
"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you."
"Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to cry.
"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say against you." He set some of the burning wood in place. "It's only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long to wait. Yes, we have waited too long. We should have another chance before it is too late for both of us."
This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket more snugly around herself.
"You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many chickens in my prayers."
"Yes, I know."
"You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your work in the terrace because I butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan, because, like you, I wanted to have a child. But what could I do?"
"Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up the ceiling.
Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this the split bamboo went up and came down with a slight rattle. The gong of the dancers clamorously called in her care through the walls.
Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy face, then turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain creek early that evening.
"I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to come, if you don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am marrying her, can never become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast in cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house clean. You are one of the best wives in the
whole village."
"That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to smile.
He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her face between his hands and looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Never again would he hold her face. The next day she would not be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let go of her face, and she bent to the floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged softly at the split bamboo floor.
"This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build another house for Madulimay."
"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my own house. My parents are old. They will need help in the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice."
"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year of our marriage," he said. "You know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us."
"I have no use for any field," she said.
He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a time.
"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for you to be here. They will wonder where you are, and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance."
"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for the last time. The gangsas are playing."
"You know that I cannot."
"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for a child. You know that life is not worth living without a child. The man have mocked me behind my back. You know that."
"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay."
She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed.
She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high hopes they had in the beginning of their new life, the day he took her away from her parents across the roaring river, on the other side of the mountain, the trip up the trail which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they had to cross. The waters boiled in her mind in forms of white and jade and roaring silver; the waters tolled and growled,
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the stiff cliffs; they were far away now from somewhere on the tops of the other ranges, and they had looked carefully at the buttresses of rocks they had to step on---a slip would have meant death.
They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank before they made the final climb to the other side of the mountain.
She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features---hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense of lightness in his way of saying things which often made her and the village people laugh. How proud she had been of his humor. The muscles where taut and firm, bronze and compact in their hold upon his skull---how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at his body the carved out of the mountains
five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms and legs flowed down in fluent muscles--he was strong and for that she had lost him.
She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them. "Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried. "I did everything to have a child," she said passionately in a hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she cried. "Look at my body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it could work fast in the fields; it could climb the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I am useless. I must die."
"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his arms. Her whole warm naked naked breast quivered against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down in cascades of gleaming darkness.
"I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about the house. I don't care for anything but you. I'll have no other man."
"Then you'll always be fruitless."
"I'll go back to my father, I'll die."
"Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You do not want my name to live on in our tribe."
She was silent.
"If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved out of the mountains; nobody will come after me."
"If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--no, I don't want you to fail."
"If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will die together. Both of us will vanish from the life of our tribe."
The gongs thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and faraway.
"I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my beads," she half-whispered.
"You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times. My grandmother said they come from up North, from the slant-eyed people across the sea. You keep them, Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields."
"I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me," she said. "I love you. I love you and have nothing to give."
She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance!"
"I am not in hurry."
"The elders will scold you. You had better go."
"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."
"It is all right with me."
He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," he said.
"I know," she said.
He went to the door.
"Awiyao!"
He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face was in agony. It pained him to leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it that made a man wish for a child? What was it in life, in the work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in the silence of the night, in the communing with husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself that made man wish for the laughter and speech of a child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless--but he loved Lumnay. It was like taking away of his life to leave her like this.
"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked to the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their worldly possession---his battle-ax and his spear points, her betel nut box and her beads. He dug out from the darkness the beads which had been given to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck as if she would never let him go.
"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she closed her eyes and huried her face in his neck.
The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he buried out into the night.
Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and opened it. The moonlight struck her face; the moonlight spilled itself on the whole village.
She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the caverns of the other houses. She knew that all the houses were empty that the whole tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet was she not the best dancer of the village? Did she not have the most lightness and grace? Could she not, alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping for grains on the ground, beautifully
timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, and the women envy the way she stretched her hands like the wings of the mountain eagle now and then as she danced? How long ago did she dance at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who once danced in her honor, were dancing now in honor of another whose only claim was that perhaps she could give her
husband a child.
"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she know? How can anybody know? It is not right," she said.
Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another woman. She would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent. Was not their love as strong as the
river?
She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the whole place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they were calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now. The man leaped lightly with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in feast garments and beads, tripping on the ground like graceful birds, following their men. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the dance; strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to run. But the gleaming brightness of the bonfire commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her approach?
She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless sparks which spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her like a spreading radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the wedding feast.
Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from the village. She thought of the new clearing of beans which Awiyao and she had started to make only four moons before. She followed the trail above the village.
When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the stream water was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs. Slowly she climbed the mountain.
When Lumnay reached the clearing, she cold see from where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of the village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far-off clamor of the gongs, still rich in their sonorousness, echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed to call far to her, to speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their gratitude for her
sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas.
Lumnay though of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known long ago-- a strong, muscular boy carrying his heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. She had met him one day as she was on her way to fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and she had made him drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it did not take him long to decide to throw his spear on the stairs of her father's house in token on his desire to marry her.
The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to stir the leaves of the bean plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and she was lost among them.
A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests---what did it matter? She would be holding the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at, silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on.
Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods.
"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it."
The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house like muffled roars of falling waters. The woman who had moved with a start when the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did not know how long. There was a sudden rush of fire in her. She gave no sign that she heard Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.
But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the room; he knew exactly where the stove was. With bare fingers he stirred the covered smoldering embers, and blew into the stove. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine on them, then full round logs as his arms. The room brightened.
"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing women?" He felt a pang inside him, because what he said was really not the right thing to say and because the woman did not stir. "You should join the dancers," he said, "as if--as if nothing had happened." He looked at the woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with strange moving shadows and lights
upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of anger or hate.
"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One of the men will see you dance well; he will like your dancing, he will marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you will be luckier than you were with me."
"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want any other man."
He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very well that I won't want any other woman either. You know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?"
She did not answer him.
"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated.
"Yes, I know," she said weakly.
"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you."
"Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to cry.
"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say against you." He set some of the burning wood in place. "It's only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long to wait. Yes, we have waited too long. We should have another chance before it is too late for both of us."
This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket more snugly around herself.
"You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many chickens in my prayers."
"Yes, I know."
"You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your work in the terrace because I butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan, because, like you, I wanted to have a child. But what could I do?"
"Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up the ceiling.
Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this the split bamboo went up and came down with a slight rattle. The gong of the dancers clamorously called in her care through the walls.
Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy face, then turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain creek early that evening.
"I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to come, if you don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am marrying her, can never become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast in cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house clean. You are one of the best wives in the
whole village."
"That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to smile.
He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her face between his hands and looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Never again would he hold her face. The next day she would not be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let go of her face, and she bent to the floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged softly at the split bamboo floor.
"This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build another house for Madulimay."
"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my own house. My parents are old. They will need help in the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice."
"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year of our marriage," he said. "You know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us."
"I have no use for any field," she said.
He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a time.
"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for you to be here. They will wonder where you are, and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance."
"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for the last time. The gangsas are playing."
"You know that I cannot."
"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for a child. You know that life is not worth living without a child. The man have mocked me behind my back. You know that."
"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay."
She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed.
She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high hopes they had in the beginning of their new life, the day he took her away from her parents across the roaring river, on the other side of the mountain, the trip up the trail which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they had to cross. The waters boiled in her mind in forms of white and jade and roaring silver; the waters tolled and growled,
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the stiff cliffs; they were far away now from somewhere on the tops of the other ranges, and they had looked carefully at the buttresses of rocks they had to step on---a slip would have meant death.
They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank before they made the final climb to the other side of the mountain.
She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features---hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense of lightness in his way of saying things which often made her and the village people laugh. How proud she had been of his humor. The muscles where taut and firm, bronze and compact in their hold upon his skull---how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at his body the carved out of the mountains
five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms and legs flowed down in fluent muscles--he was strong and for that she had lost him.
She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them. "Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried. "I did everything to have a child," she said passionately in a hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she cried. "Look at my body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it could work fast in the fields; it could climb the mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I am useless. I must die."
"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his arms. Her whole warm naked naked breast quivered against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down in cascades of gleaming darkness.
"I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about the house. I don't care for anything but you. I'll have no other man."
"Then you'll always be fruitless."
"I'll go back to my father, I'll die."
"Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You do not want my name to live on in our tribe."
She was silent.
"If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved out of the mountains; nobody will come after me."
"If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--no, I don't want you to fail."
"If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will die together. Both of us will vanish from the life of our tribe."
The gongs thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and faraway.
"I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my beads," she half-whispered.
"You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times. My grandmother said they come from up North, from the slant-eyed people across the sea. You keep them, Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields."
"I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me," she said. "I love you. I love you and have nothing to give."
She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance!"
"I am not in hurry."
"The elders will scold you. You had better go."
"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."
"It is all right with me."
He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," he said.
"I know," she said.
He went to the door.
"Awiyao!"
He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face was in agony. It pained him to leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it that made a man wish for a child? What was it in life, in the work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in the silence of the night, in the communing with husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself that made man wish for the laughter and speech of a child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless--but he loved Lumnay. It was like taking away of his life to leave her like this.
"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked to the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their worldly possession---his battle-ax and his spear points, her betel nut box and her beads. He dug out from the darkness the beads which had been given to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck as if she would never let him go.
"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she closed her eyes and huried her face in his neck.
The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he buried out into the night.
Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and opened it. The moonlight struck her face; the moonlight spilled itself on the whole village.
She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the caverns of the other houses. She knew that all the houses were empty that the whole tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet was she not the best dancer of the village? Did she not have the most lightness and grace? Could she not, alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping for grains on the ground, beautifully
timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, and the women envy the way she stretched her hands like the wings of the mountain eagle now and then as she danced? How long ago did she dance at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who once danced in her honor, were dancing now in honor of another whose only claim was that perhaps she could give her
husband a child.
"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she know? How can anybody know? It is not right," she said.
Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another woman. She would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent. Was not their love as strong as the
river?
She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the whole place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they were calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now. The man leaped lightly with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in feast garments and beads, tripping on the ground like graceful birds, following their men. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the dance; strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to run. But the gleaming brightness of the bonfire commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her approach?
She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless sparks which spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her like a spreading radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the wedding feast.
Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from the village. She thought of the new clearing of beans which Awiyao and she had started to make only four moons before. She followed the trail above the village.
When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the stream water was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs. Slowly she climbed the mountain.
When Lumnay reached the clearing, she cold see from where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of the village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far-off clamor of the gongs, still rich in their sonorousness, echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed to call far to her, to speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their gratitude for her
sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas.
Lumnay though of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known long ago-- a strong, muscular boy carrying his heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. She had met him one day as she was on her way to fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and she had made him drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it did not take him long to decide to throw his spear on the stairs of her father's house in token on his desire to marry her.
The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to stir the leaves of the bean plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and she was lost among them.
A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests---what did it matter? She would be holding the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at, silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on.
Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods.
THE little church stood in the shadow of acacia trees. A narrow gravel path lined with cucharita hedges led from the street into its cool, quiet yard with the moss on the dim boles of the trees and the dew on the grasses. The roar of the dusty, blindingly white city surged and broke like a sea along the concrete pavements that skirted the churchyard, but went no farther.
At the whitewashed wooden gate, the young man stood diffidently. Nervously fingering his battered felt hat, he pushed in the gate, stepped inside, allowed it to swing back, and then slowly walked down the path.
The chilly dampness of the place rested like a cool hand upon his fevered brow, and he expelled a breath of relief. He walked as slowly as he could, savoring through all the pores of his lean young frame the balm of this sudden reprieve from the heat and brutal impersonality of the big city.
Three concrete steps led up into the vestibule. At the top step he saw the congregation inside the heavy hardwood doors, and hesitated.
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that , and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
The voice was long and sonorous, and it struck a responsive chord in the young man's heart, but he could not see the speaker. The last pew hid the altar from him. Over the pew he could see the fluted row of organ pipes, the massive rivet-studded rafters, light that streamed down at a deep angle from a tall window of colored glass.
"For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."
For perhaps an hour the young man stood at the door, feeling deeply unhappy, frightened, and lost. He dared not enter. He looked down at his torn, dusty shoes, his stained clothes, felt the growth of beard on his chin, and already he could feel the cold eyes of the people in the church examining him. He retired quietly to one side of the vestibule, where he could not be seen from the inside, and leaned against the wall to rest his trembling limbs.
And then the people began streaming out, and he felt relieved that they did not even glance his way. After a while, he looked into the door. There was no one in. He crossed himself quickly and entered.
For a long time he sat there staring dully at the sounding emptiness before him, for breaking against the wall still was the reverberation of bells tolled a long time ago.
Through all this he could hear his heart beating in a weak slow measure, and again the beatific sense of completeness and of being filled his soul like mellow wine. The seat was deep and restful. The wood was firm and cool. He sank back and fell asleep.
When he woke up, he saw that his hat had fallen to the floor. The five-centavo pancit mami that he had eaten last night had already evaporated, and he felt a shot of pain in his middle as he stooped down to recover his hat. After the pain, a weakness and trembling seized his limbs, and cold sweat beaded his forehead. The church swam before his eyes.
Sunlight streamed through the west windows. From its angle he knew it must be late in the afternoon. He had been asleep in the church for the greater part of the day, and now he felt again vaguely forsaken, and the chill and the solitude were no longer very soothing but were almost terrifying.
Rocking from one foot to the other, he got up hastily and made for the door, and it was then that he saw the girl standing at his back.
"I've been watching you," she said, smiling gently, and her hair looked like a halo for the sunlight crowned it with gold. "You've been asleep," she continued.
"I'm sorry," he began weakly. "I didn't mean to--"
"Yes? But let's take a seat, please."
He licked his dry lips. "I didn't mean to sleep here. I just fell asleep, that's all."
"There's no harm in that, I'm sure," she said reassuringly taking her seat beside him and pulling him down. "You're a stranger here?"
"I came to the city about a week ago."
"Staying with relatives?" Her voice was direct and cool.
"No relatives, ma'am. I thought I could get a job here. I had heard so much about opportunities here, and I wanted to work myself through college…"
She listened quietly. The quick responsive look in her eyes brought his confidence back and made him give details about his life and his recent misadventures he would not have revealed otherwise.
"We are from the same province as you," she said. "My father works in the city hall. He got transferred here because my mother wants to see us through school. Come home with me, ha? We want you to tell us about the province. It was five years ago when we were there last. Yes, they will like to see you. Don't be ashamed. You can't blame people for not knowing any one in the city."
She was only sixteen, or thereabouts, he could see in the calesa which they took; she was dressed in white, simply and cleanly, almost to the point of the anaesthetic severity of the nurse, but there was a subtle perfume about her like that of rosal and then again like that of sampaguita, and the lines of her face were clean and young and sweet.
"Why, I'd be ashamed--" he began again, looking at himself with horror.
"No more of that, ha?" She flashed a smile at him, her lips a light rose like her cheeks, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
The horses' hoofs beat a tattoo on the street cobbles, round this corner, round that corner, ancient Spanish houses under acacia trees, rows of tenements, sounding walls of old Intramuros, a tangle of horse-drawn and motor traffic.
Everything went suddenly white at once.
The first thing that he knew was the mildly pungent smell of rubbing alcohol and liniment. The place he was in was dark, except for a street light that came in through the billowing curtain in the window. He was in a bed, a deep wide bed, with mattress and cool covers fragrant with soap and starch and ironing. From beyond the darkness to one side came to him the faint sound of voices and the tinkle of a piano.
He jerked up with a great consciousness of guilt, but he sank back again, dizziness swamping him back and overpowering him. Lying back there, accusing himself of imposing on a stranger's hospitality, he began to cry, but he wiped away his tears quickly when he saw the door slowly open and a head showed in the opening.
"Oh, you're awake now."
It was the girl, and she ran softly in. He felt greatly disturbed within. She was looking down now and her hand was upon his brow and he could feel the warmth of her and get the smell of her.
"Good!" she exclaimed and ran lightly out, closing the door behind her. In a minute, she was back with two other persons. A switch clicked and the room sprang into light, and he could see there was an elderly woman whom she resembled closely, and an elderly man in pajamas.
"Well!" said the man heartily. He had a pipe gripped by the bowl in one of his hands. "So this is the cababayan. Well!"
The woman came over and laid her hand on his forehead. A wedding ring shone on one finger. He looked up into her eyes, and all at once he knew he need not be afraid…
The girl's parents, it later developed, were among the more influential of the parishioners, and he was able to get a job through them as church janitor, with bed and board provided free in the servants' quarters of the rectory. Besides sprucing up the church, he had charge of the lawn which he mowed and the hedges which he trimmed. Out of his pay of twenty pesos a month he managed to send home ten pesos to his mother in the month's-end mail.
"Good morning," he would say humbly to the girl, Lita, when Sundays came and she was in the church. Then he would hurry before her to dust the pew she always took with her parents.
"How do you do?" Lita would ask, and sometimes she would say, "Pedro, you must come and get your Sunday dinner with us. You don't do it so regularly, now."
From the back of the congregation, dressed in his best white-cotton suit, his eighty-centavo necktie, his tan-and-white Gandara shoes, he would listen raptly to her sing in the choir. He could always tell her voice, and he could always see her lovely radiant face magnified among the rows of others.
Three afternoons a week, a calesa would halt at the church gate, and Lita would alight in her plain white dress. She would come down the cucharita-lined path, and she would enter the church where for an hour she would sit or kneel, just looking at the altar, and her lips would move silently. Then would Pedro hush his steps, and he would put aside his lawnmower and his shears and look at Lita longingly through the window, at her profile outlined against the lighted side of the church.
On her seventeenth birthday, Lita gave Pedro a picture. It showed her with eyelashes swept up and lips half-parted in a smile. A stray lock fell against one cheek. One dainty end of a lace bow curled against the straight line of her throat, while the other reclined against the swell of her bosom.
"I can keep this?" asked Pedro wonderingly, and Lita said with a thrill of laughter. "Why yes, it's yours. Why do you have to ask?"
He had enrolled in a night collegiate course prepared especially for working students, but out of the money for school fees and books he managed to save as much as fifty centavos at a time. He spent his savings for a neat little picture frame, painted black and silver, and put Lita's picture before him as he pored over his textbooks at home.
"How are you getting along in school?" said Lita one afternoon, after she came out of the church.
"At least I passed in all my subjects last semester."
"That's fine. I'm sure you'll make an engineer yet." She hesitated at the gate, and turned back to him slowly. "Don't let anything distract you from your work," she said. "put your mind on it and keep it there."
He thought, she looks very young, but too deadly serious. That frown on her face. That mature cast of her mouth. But he only said, "Thank you, Miss Miel."
"Miss, still?" She laughed again, and the world was shining once more, no longer full of problems and dark and weighty hues, but full of the silvery ringing of bells and the light patter of dancing feet.
"I think I can help you," she went on. "About trigonometry now. It's my favorite subject."
"I cannot understand the cosine of--"
"You mean Thomas' theory? It's easy. Like this." And thereupon she knelt on the path and with a twig traced figures in the light fluff.
"You should make a good engineer, there are such things as women engineers, you know," he ventured.
"My father said I should," Lita confided. "But my greatest interest does not lie in that way, Pedro. It lies somewhere else. Should I tell you?" She crinkled her nose at him, but again she was suddenly grave. After a pause: "I've never wanted to grow up," she suddenly shot at him and hurriedly picked herself up, ran out of the gate, hailed a calesa and drove away.
Pedro's perplexity was solved the following afternoon when Lita came again to the church to pray. It was Saturday afternoon and Pedro was dusting. This time she had on a black veil that fell to the tip of her nose. She was a tiny figure kneeling at the far end of the church. Her head was bowed low, but he thought he could see her lips moving. He moved about on tiptoe, used his mop gently.
He was on the floor reaching under a remote corner when he heard her light "H'lo" behind him. He rose up hastily and nodded his greeting, "Good afternoon, Miss Miel."
"Good afternoon, Mister Deño."
"Er, Lita"
"That's better. Did I startle you yesterday afternoon?"
"You did."
Then Lita was telling him she was going to be a nun.
"But why?" asked Pedro incredulously.
"Does it sound foolish to you?" Her lashes swept down on her cheek, and for the first time he noticed that she had the pallid look as of one in cloistered, moss-grown nunneries.
"I don't know," he said, "I don't know." And then he went on, feeling foolish, "But you can't want to give up all this for life imprisonment."
"It is not life imprisonment," she said gravely, "but the essence of what I've always wanted. All my life I've wanted complete communion with God."
He shook his head to clear it of the cobweb of pain and dizziness, and her hand crept to his. The touch of it sent an electric shock through his whole frame.
"Even as a child," she went on, "I had always wanted to have a room that looked much like a church, with a hard, bare floor, and hard, bare seats, and an altar, and an image of Mother and Child."
She was looking down kindly at him, red spots in her white cheeks. "Now, as I live from day to day, it seems as if I'm being swept farther and farther away from that childhood dream. I want my childhood back. I hunger for its simplicity and its faith. It seems as if deep inside me I'm parched and thirsty, and I need the coolness and dampness of seclusion. You understand, don't you?"
Again it seemed as if the church rustled with the prayer and devoutness of a congregation, and there was again, that sonorous voice saying, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God."
"Good-bye," said Lita, her long, white, shapely fingers tightening on his rough, dark ones.
"I'll not see you again?"
She shook her head slowly. Suddenly she bent down and kissed him on the cheek, and as suddenly she ran down the aisle and out of the door.
As he sat in a pew, the bells were silent, but still they seemed to be tolling from far away, the air vibrating with their ringing. He sat in the pew and stared dully in front of him. Light streamed in from an eastern window. The ghostly congregation still rustled with its faith and sacrifice. On his cheek her lips were still warm.
But suppose, he thought, it had been some other way. Suppose:
"I'VE been watching you," she said, smiling gently, and her hair looked like a halo with the sunlight crowning it with gold. "You've been asleep," she continued.
"I'm sorry," he began weakly. "I didn't mean to--"
And then they were walking down to the whitewashed gate, and he was vaguely surprised that there was no calesa waiting there. But he went on to cross the street nevertheless, keeping in his eyes the slim, white figure, with the clean, young lines of face.
Outside the churchyard, the traffic was heavy as usual, and the lorry drivers swore mightily at the broken-down old man, with that vague half-smile on his face, who was crossing the street and breaking all rules of pedestrian traffic and all the laws of self-preservation.
"That engineer, Pedro Deño, you know," said one of a couple driving a car near the scene. "Dirty rich, but damned absent-minded, too."
"That's the matter with these successful people," said the other. "They put their mind on a thing and keep it there, to the exclusion of all others, even motor traffic."
"Yeh, Deño, for instance. Must be thinking of house plans and bridges."
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