Excerpt from Jose Rizal, Noli Me Tangere Chapter LXIII “Christmas Eve” (Charles

Derbyshire translation)

When Basilio recovered consciousness he found his mother lifeless. He called to her
with the tenderest names, but she did not awake. Noticing that she was not even
breathing, he arose and went to the neighboring brook to get some water in a banana leaf,
with which to rub the pallid face of his mother, but the madwoman made not the least
movement and her eyes remained closed.

Basilio gazed at her in terror. He placed his ear over her heart, but the thin, faded
breast was cold, and her heart no longer beat. He put his lips to hers, but felt no breathing.
The miserable boy threw his arms about the corpse and wept bitterly.

The moon gleamed majestically in the sky, the wandering breezes sighed, and down
in the grass the crickets chirped. The night of light and joy for so many children, who in
the warm bosom of the family celebrate this feast of sweetest memories -- the feast which
commemorates the first look of love that Heaven sent to earth -- this night when in all
Christian families they eat, drink, dance, sing, laugh, play, caress, and kiss one another --
this night, which in cold countries holds such magic for childhood with its traditional
pine-tree covered with lights, dolls, candies, and tinsel, whereon gaze the round, staring
eyes in which innocence alone is reflected -- this night brought to Basilio only
orphanhood. Who knows but that perhaps in the home whence came the taciturn Padre
Salvi children also played, perhaps they sang

"La Nochebuena se viene,

La Nochebuena se va."

For a long time the boy wept and moaned. When at last he raised his head he saw a
man standing over him, gazing at the scene in silence.

"Are you her son?" asked the unknown in a low voice.

The boy nodded.

"What do you expect to do?"

"Bury her!"

"In the cemetery?"

"I haven't any money and, besides, the curate wouldn't allow it."

"Then?"
 "If you would help me --"

"I'm very weak," answered the unknown as he sank slowly to the ground, supporting
himself with both hands. "I'm wounded. For two days I haven't eaten or slept. Has no one
come here tonight?"

The man thoughtfully contemplated the attractive features of the boy, then went on
in a still weaker voice, "Listen! I, too, shall be dead before the day comes. Twenty paces
from here, on the other side of the brook, there is a big pile of firewood. Bring it here,
make a pyre, put our bodies upon it, cover them over, and set fire to the whole -- fire,
until we are reduced to ashes!"

Basilio listened attentively.

"Afterwards, if no one comes, dig here. You will find a lot of gold and it will all be
yours. Take it and go to school."

The voice of the unknown was becoming every moment more unintelligible. "Go,
get the firewood. I want to help you."

As Basilio moved away, the unknown turned his face toward the east and murmured,
as though praying:

"I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land! You, who have it to
see, welcome it -- and forget not those who have fallen during the night!"

He raised his eyes to the sky and his lips continued to move, as if uttering a prayer.
Then he bowed his head and sank slowly to the earth.

Two hours later Sister Rufa was on the back veranda of her house making her
morning ablutions in order to attend mass. The pious woman gazed at the adjacent wood
and saw a thick column of smoke rising from it. Filled with holy indignation, she knitted
her eyebrows and exclaimed:

"What heretic is making a clearing on a holy day? That's why so many calamities
come! You ought to go to purgatory and see if you could get out of there, savage!"

###