.

To ride in the same carriage, to have her at his side, to breathe
her perfume, to rub against the silk of her dress, to see her pensive
with folded arms, lighted by the moon of the Philippines that lends to
the meanest things idealism and enchantment, were all dreams beyond
Isagani's hopes! What wretches they who were returning alone on foot
and had to give way to the swift carriage! In the whole course of the
drive, along the beach and down the length of La Sabana, across the
Bridge of Spain, Isagani saw nothing but a sweet profile, gracefully
set off by beautiful hair, ending in an arching neck that lost itself
amid the gauzy pina. A diamond winked at him from the lobe of the
little ear, like a star among silvery clouds. He heard faint echoes
inquiring for Don Tiburcio de Espadana, the name of Juanito Pelaez,
but they sounded to him like distant bells, the confused noises heard
in a dream. It was necessary to tell him that they had reached Plaza
Santa Cruz.

CHAPTER XXV

SMILES AND TEARS

The sala of the _Pansiteria Macanista de Buen Gusto_ [54] that
night presented an extraordinary aspect. Fourteen young men of the
principal islands of the archipelago, from the pure Indian (if there
be pure ones) to the Peninsular Spaniard, were met to hold the banquet
advised by Padre Irene in view of the happy solution of the affair
about instruction in Castilian. They had engaged all the tables for
themselves, ordered the lights to be increased, and had posted on the
wall beside the landscapes and Chinese kakemonos this strange versicle:

"GLORY TO CUSTODIO FOR HIS CLEVERNESS AND PANSIT ON EABTH TO THE
YOUTHS OF GOOD WILL."

In a country where everything grotesque is covered with a mantle
of seriousness, where many rise by the force of wind and hot air,
in a country where the deeply serious and sincere may do damage on
issuing from the heart and may cause trouble, probably this was the
best way to celebrate the ingenious inspiration of the illustrious
Don Custodio. The mocked replied to the mockery with a laugh, to the
governmental joke with a plate of _pansit_, and yet--!

They laughed and jested, but it could be seen that the merriment
was forced. The laughter had a certain nervous ring, eyes flashed,
and in more than one of these a tear glistened. Nevertheless, these
young men were cruel, they were unreasonable! It was not the first
time that their most beautiful ideas had been so treated, that their
hope