stic
that it serves as an excellent portrait, and it has been preserved
among the Rizal relics which Doctor Blumentritt had treasured of the
friend for whom he had so much respect and affection.

With a letter of introduction to a friend of Doctor Blumentritt in
Vienna, Nordenfels, the greatest of Austrian novelists, Doctor Viola
and Doctor Rizal went on to the capital, where they were entertained
by the Concordia Club. So favorable was the impression that Rizal
made upon Mr. Nordenfels that an answer was written to the note of
introduction, thanking the professor for having brought to his notice
a person whom he had found so companionable and whose genius he so
much admired. Nordenfels had been interested in Spanish subjects,
and was able to discuss intelligently the peculiar development of
Castilian civilization and the politics of the Spanish metropolis as
they affected the overseas possessions.

After having seen Rome and a little more of Italy, they embarked for
the Philippines, again on the French mail, from Marseilles, coming
by way of Saigon, where a rice steamer was taken for Manila.

CHAPTER VII

The Period of Propaganda

The city had not altered much during Rizal's seven years of
absence. The condition of the Binondo pavement, with the same holes
in the road which Rizal claimed he remembered as a schoolboy, was
unchanged, and this recalls the experience of Ybarra in "Noli Me
Tangere" on his homecoming after a like period of absence.

Doctor Rizal at once went to his home in Kalamba. His first operation
in the Philippines relieved the blindness of his mother, by the removal
of a double cataract, and thus the object of his special study in
Paris was accomplished. This and other like successes gave the young
oculist a fame which brought patients from all parts of Luzon; and,
though his charges were moderate, during his seven months' stay
in the Islands Doctor Rizal accumulated over five thousand pesos,
besides a number of diamonds which he had bought as a secure way of
carrying funds, mindful of the help that the ring had been with which
he had first started from the Philippines.

Shortly after his arrival, Governor-General Terrero summoned Rizal by
telegraph to Malacanan from Kalamba. The interview proved to be due
to the interest in the author of "Noli Me Tangere" and a curiosity
to read the novel, arising from the copious extracts with which the
Manila censors had submitted an unfavorable opinion