"The Story of An Hour"

Kate Chopin (1894)

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently
as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.
Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when
intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only
taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less
tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its
significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had
spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a
physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new
spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of
a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one
above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came
up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now
there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was
not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it
was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds,
the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching
to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would
have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and
over under hte breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her
eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of
her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception
enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender
hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw
beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened
and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no
powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose
a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she
looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the
unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the
strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise,
open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open
the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of
days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had
thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her
eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they
descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
 Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-
stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not
even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him
from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

Footnote To Youth
by Jose Garcia Villa-full story
 The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father about Teang
when he got home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and let it to its shed and fed it. He was
hesitant about saying it, but he wanted his father to know. What he had to say was of serious import as it would
mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to
consider it. His father was silent hard-working farmer who chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his
mother, Dodong's grandmother. I will tell it to him. I will tell it to him. The ground was broken up into many fresh
wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy smell. Many slender soft worms emerged from the furrows and then
burrowed again his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not young any more. Dodong unhitched the
carabao leisurely and gave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast turned its head to look at him with dumb faithful
eyes. Dodong gave it a slight push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles of grass
before it land the carabao began to eat. Dodong looked at it without interests. Dodong started homeward, thinking
how he would break his news to his father. He wanted to marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on
his face, the down on his upper lip already was dark-these meant he was no longer a boy. He was growing into a
man--he was a man. Dodong felt insolent and big at the thought of it although he was by nature low in statue.
Thinking himself a man grown Dodong felt he could do anything. He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his
virility. A small angled stone bled his foot, but he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the hurt toe
and then went on walking. In the cool sundown he thought wild you dreams of himself and Teang.
Teang, his girl. She had a small brown face and small black eyes and straightglossy hair. How desirable she
was to him. She made him dream even during the day. Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his
arms. Dirty. This field work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the
way he had come, then marched obliquely to a creek. Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray undershirt
and red kundiman shorts, on the grass. The he went into the water, wet his body over, and rubbed at it vigorously.
He was not long in bathing, then he marched homeward again. The bath made him feel cool. It was dusk when he
reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling already was lighted and the low unvarnished square table was set
for supper. His parents and he sat down on the floor around the table to eat. They had fried fresh-water fish, rice,
bananas, and caked sugar. Dodong ate fish and rice, but didnot partake of the fruit. The bananas were overripe and
when one held them they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong broke off a piece of the cakes sugar, dipped it in his
glass of water and ate it. He got another piece and wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder for
his parents. Dodong's mother removed the dishes when they were through and went out to the batalan to wash
them. She walked with slow careful steps and Dodong wanted to help her carry the dishes out, but he was tired and
now felt lazy. He wished as he looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the housework. He
pitied her, doing all the housework alone. His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining
him again, Dodong knew. Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist pull it out, but he was afraid,
his father was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but Dodong guessed it. Afterward Dodong himself thought that if he
had a decayed tooth he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would not be any bolder than his father. Dodong
said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out, what he had to say, and over
which he had done so much thinking. He had said it without any effort at all and without self-consciousness. Dodong
felt relieved and looked at his father expectantly. A decrescent moon outside shed its feeble light into the window,
graying the still black temples of his father. His father looked old now. "I am going to marry Teang," Dodong said.His
father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth. The silence became intense and cruel, and
Dodong wished his father would suck that troublous tooth again. Dodong was uncomfortable and then became
angry because his father kept looking at him without uttering anything.

"I will marry Teang," Dodong repeated. "I will marry Teang." His father kept gazing at him in inflexible silence
and Dodong fidgeted on his seat. "I asked her last night to marry me and she said...yes. I want your permission. I...
want... it...." There was impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest at this coldness, this indifference. Dodong
looked at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles one by one, and the little sounds it made broke dully the night
stillness. "Must you marry, Dodong?" Dodong resented his father's questions; his father himself had married.
Dodong made a quick impassioned easy in his mind about selfishness, but later he got confused. "You are very
young, Dodong." "I'm... seventeen." "That's very young to get married at." "I... I want to marry...Teang's good girl."
"Tell your mother," his father said. "You tell her, tatay." "Dodong, you tell your inay." "You tell her." "All right,
Dodong." "You will let me marry Teang?"

"Son, if that is your wish... of course..." There was a strange helpless light in his father's eyes. Dodong did not
read it, too absorbed was he in himself. Dodong was immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment
for his father. For a while he even felt sorry for him about the diseased tooth. Then he confined his mind to
dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young dream.... Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating
profusely, so that his camiseta was damp. He was still like a tree and his thoughts were confused. His mother had
told him not to leave the house, but he had left. He had wanted to get out of it without clear reason at all. He was
afraid, he felt. Afraid of the house. It had seemed to cage him, to compares his thoughts with severe tyranny. Afraid
also of Teang. Teang was giving birth in the house; she gave screams that chilled his blood. He did not want her to
scream like that, he seemed to be rebuking him. He began to wonder madly if the process of childbirth was really
painful. Some women, when they gave birth, did not cry. In a few moments he would be a father. "Father, father,"
he whispered the word with awe, with strangeness. He was young, he realized now, contradicting himself of nine
months comfortable... "Your son," people would soon be telling him. "Your son, Dodong." Dodong felt tired standing.
He sat down on a saw horse with his feet close together. He looked at his callused toes. Suppose he had ten
children... What made him think that? What was the matter with him? God! He heard his mother's voice from the
house: "Come up, Dodong. It is over." Of a sudden he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow he was
ashamed to his mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he had taken something no properly
his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust dirt off his kundiman shorts. "Dodong," his mother called again.
"Dodong." He turned to look again and this time saw his father beside his mother. "It is a boy," his father said. He
beckoned Dodong to come up.

Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. What a moment for him. His parents' eyes seemed to
pierce him through and he felt limp. He wanted to hide from them, to run away. "Dodong, you come up. You come
up," he mother said. Dodong did not want to come up and stayed in the sun. "Dodong. Dodong." "I'll... come up."
Dodong traced tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps slowly. His heart pounded
mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parents eyes. He walked ahead of them so that they should not see his
face. He felt guilty and untrue. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his chest wanted to burst. He wanted to turn
back, to go back to the yard. He wanted somebody to punish him. His father thrust his hand in his and gripped it
gently. "Son," his father said. And his mother: "Dodong..." How kind were their voices. They flowed into him, making
him strong. "Teang?" Dodong said. "She's sleeping. But you go in..." His father led him into the small sawali room.
Dodong saw Teang, his girl wife, asleep on the papag with her black hair soft around her face. He did not want her to
look that pale... Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her lips, but again
that feeling of embarrassment came over him and before his parents he did not want to be demonstrative. The hilot
was wrapping the child, Dodong heart it cry. The thin voice pierced him queerly. He could not control the swelling of
happiness in him. You give him to me. You give him to me," Dodong said. * * * Blas was not Dodong's child. Many
more children came. For six successive years a new child came along. Dodong did not want any more children, but
they came. It seemed the coming of children could not be helped. Dodong got angry with himself sometimes. Teang
did not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was shapeless and thin now, even if she was young.
There was interminable work to be done. Cooking. Laundering. The house. The children. She cried sometimes,
wishing she had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her. Yet she wished she had not
married. Not even Dodong, whom she loved. There has been another suitor, Lucio, older than Dodong by nine years,
and that was why she had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had married another after her marriage
to Dodong, but he was childless until now. She wondered if she had married Lucio, would she have borne him
children. Maybe not either. That was a better lot. But she loved Dodong... Dodong whom life had made ugly. One
night, as he lay beside his wife, he roe and went out of the house. He stood in the moonlight, tired and querulous.
He wanted to ask questions and somebody to answer him. He w anted to be wise about many things. One of them
was why life did not fulfill all of Youth's dreams. Why it must be so.

Why one was forsaken... after Love. Dodong would not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be
answered. It must be so to make Youth. Youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong returned
to the house humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know a little wisdom but was denied it. * * * When Blas was
eighteen he came home one night very flustered and happy. It was late at night and Teang and the other children
were asleep. Dodong heard Blas's steps, for he could not sleep well of nights. He watched Blas undress in the dark
and lie down softly. Blas was restless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong called him name and asked why he did
not sleep. Blas said he could not sleep. "You better go to sleep. It is late," Dodong said. Blas raised himself on his
elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering voice. Dodong did not answer and tried to sleep. "Itay ...," Blas
called softly. Dodong stirred and asked him what was it. "I am going to marry Tena.

She accepted me tonight." Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving. "Itay, you think it over." Dodong
lay silent. "I love Tena and... I want her." Dodong rose f rom his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to
the yard, where everything was still and quiet. The moonlight was cold and white. "You want to marry Tena,"
Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet. Blas was very young. The life that would follow marriage would be
heard... "Yes." "Must you marry?" Blas's voice stilled with resentment. "I will marry Tena." Dodong kept silent, hurt.
"You have objections, Itay?" Blas asked acridly. "Son... n-none..." (But truly, God, I don't want Blas to marry yet... not
yet. I don't want Blas to marry yet....) But he was helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph... now.
Love must triumph... now. Afterwards... it will be life. As long ago Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong... and then
Life. Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and sorry for him.

The Mats
By: Francisco Arcellano
 For the Angeles family, Mr. Angeles’s homecoming from his periodic inspection trips was always an occasion
for celebration. But this homecoming—from a trip to the south—was fated to be more memorable than any of the
others.
He had written from Mariveles: “I have just met a marvelous matweaver—a real artist—and I shall have a
surprise for you. I asked him to weave a sleeping mat for every one of the family. He is using many different colors
and for each mat the dominant color is that of our respective birthstones. I am sure that the children will be very
pleased. I know you will be. I can hardly wait to show them to you.”
Nana Emilia read the letter that morning, and again and again every time she had a chance to leave the
kitchen. In the evening when all the children were home from school she asked her oldest son, Jose, to read it at the
dinner table. The children became very much excited about the mats, and talked about them until late into the night.
This she wrote her husband when she labored over a reply to him. For days after that, mats continued to be the chief
topic of conversation among the children.
Finally, from Lopez, Mr. Angeles wrote again: “I am taking the Bicol Express tomorrow. I have the mats
with me, and they are beautiful. God willing, I shall be home to join you at dinner.”
The letter was read aloud during the noon meal. Talk about the mats flared up again like wildfire.
“I like the feel of mats,” Antonio, the third child, said. “I like the smell of new mats.”
“Oh, but these mats are different,” interposed Susanna, the fifth child. “They have our names woven into
them, and in our ascribed colors, too.”
The children knew what they were talking about: they knew just what a decorative mat was like; it was not
anything new or strange in their experience. That was why they were so excited about the matter. They had such a
mat in the house, one they seldom used, a mat older than any one of them.
This mat had been given to Nana Emilia by her mother when she and Mr. Angeles were married, and it had
been with them ever since. It had served on the wedding night, and had not since been used except on special
occasions.
It was a very beautiful mat, not really meant to be ordinarily used. It had green leaf borders, and a lot of
gigantic red roses woven into it. In the middle, running the whole length of the mat, was the lettering: Emilia y Jaime
Recuerdo
The letters were in gold.
Nana Emilia always kept that mat in her trunk. When any one of the family was taken ill, the mat was
brought out and the patient slept on it, had it all to himself. Every one of the children had some time in their lives
slept on it; not a few had slept on it more than once.
Most of the time the mat was kept in Nana Emilia’s trunk, and when it was taken out and spread on the
floor the children were always around to watch. At first there had been only Nana Emilia to see the mat spread. Then
a child—a girl—watched with them. The number of watchers increased as more children came.
The mat did not seem to age. It seemed to Nana Emilia always as new as when it had been laid on the
nuptial bed. To the children it seemed as new as the first time it was spread before them. The folds and creases
always new and fresh. The smell was always the smell of a new mat. Watching the intricate design was an endless
joy. The children’s pleasure at the golden letters even before they could work out the meaning was boundless.
Somehow they were always pleasantly shocked by the sight of the mat: so delicate and so consummate the artistry
of its weave.
Now, taking out that mat to spread had become a kind of ritual. The process had become associated with
illness in the family. Illness, even serious illness, had not been infrequent. There had been deaths…
In the evening Mr. Angeles was with his family. He had brought the usual things home with him. There was
a lot of fruit, as always (his itinerary carried him through the fruit-growing provinces): pineapples, lanzones, chicos,
atis, santol, sandia, guyabano, avocado, according to the season. He had also brought home a jar of preserved
sweets from Lopez.
Putting away the fruits, sampling them, was as usual accomplished with animation and lively talk. Dinner
was a long affair. Mr. Angeles was full of stories about his trip but would interrupt his tales with: “I could not sleep
nights thinking of the young ones. They should never be allowed to play in the streets. And you older ones should
not stay out too late at night.”
The stories petered out and dinner was over. Putting away the dishes and wiping the dishes and wiping
the table clean did not at all seem tedious. Yet Nana and the children, although they did not show it, were all on
edge about the mats.
Finally, after a long time over his cigar, Mr. Angeles rose from his seat at the head of the table and crossed
the room to the corner where his luggage had been piled. From the heap he disengaged a ponderous bundle.
 Taking it under one arm, he walked to the middle of the room where the light was brightest. He dropped
the bundle and, bending over and balancing himself on his toes, he strained at the cord that bound it. It was strong,
it would not break, it would not give way. He tried working at the knots. His fingers were clumsy, they had begun
shaking.
He raised his head, breathing heavily, to ask for the scissors. Alfonso, his youngest boy, was to one side of
him with scissors ready.
Nana Emilia and her eldest girl who had long returned from the kitchen were watching the proceedings
quietly.
One swift movement with the scissors, snip! and the bundle was loose.
Turning to Nana Emilia, Mr. Angeles joyfully cried: “These are the mats, Miling.” Mr. Angeles picked up the
topmost mat in the bundle.
“This, I believe, is yours, Miling.”
Nana Emilia stepped forward to the light, wiping her still moist hands against the folds of her skirt, and
with a strange young shyness received the mat. The children watched the spectacle silently and then broke into
delighted, though a little self-conscious, laughter. Nana Emilia unfolded the mat without a word. It was a beautiful
mat: to her mind, even more beautiful than the one she received from her mother on her wedding. There was a
name in the very center of it: Emilia. The letters were large, done in green. Flowers—cadena-de-amor—were woven
in and out among the letters. The border was a long winding twig of cadena-de-amor.
The children stood about the spreading mat. The air was punctuated by their breathless exclamations of
delight.
“It is beautiful, Jaime; it is beautiful!” Nana Emilia’s voice broke, and she could not say any more.
“And this, I know, is my own,” said Mr. Angeles of the next mat in the bundle. The mat was rather simply
decorated, the design almost austere, and the only colors used were purple and gold. The letters of the name, Jaime,
were in purple.
“And this, for you, Marcelina.”
Marcelina was the oldest child. She had always thought her name too long; it had been one of her worries
with regard to the mat. “How on earth are they going to weave all of the letters of my name into my mat?” she had
asked of almost everyone in the family. Now it delighted her to see her whole name spelled out on the mat, even if
the letters were a little small. Besides, there was a device above her name which pleased Marcelina very much. It
was in the form of a lyre, finely done in three colors. Marcelina was a student of music and was quite a proficient
pianist.
“And this is for you, José.”
José was the second child. He was a medical student already in the third year of medical school. Over his
name the symbol of Aesculapius was woven into the mat.
“You are not to use this mat until the year of your internship,” Mr. Angeles was saying.
‘This is yours, Antonio.’
‘And this is yours, Juan.’
‘And this is yours, Jesus.’
Mat after mat was unfolded. On each of the children’s mats there was somehow an appropriate device.
At least all the children had been shown their individual mats. The air was filled with their excited talk, and
through it all Mr. Angeles was saying over and over again in his deep voice
“You are not to use these mats until you go to the university.”
Then Nana Emilia noticed bewilderingly that there were some more mats remaining to be unfolded.
“But Jaime,” Nana Emilia said, wonderingly, with evident trepidation. “there are some more mats.”
Only Mr. Angeles seemed to have heard Nana Emilia’s words. He suddenly stopped talking, as if he had
been jerked away from a pleasant phantasy. A puzzled, reminiscent look came into his eyes, superseding the deep
and quiet delight that had been briefly there, and when he spoke his voice was different.
“Yes, Emilia,” said Mr. Angeles, “There are three more mats to unfold. The others who aren’t here…”
Nana Emilia caught her breath; there was a swift constriction in her throat; her face paled and she could
not say anything.
The self-centered talk of the children also died. There was a silence as Mr. Angeles picked up the first of
the remaining mats and began slowly unfolding it.
The mat was almost as austere in design as Mr. Angeles’ own, and it had a name. There was no symbol or
device above the name; only a blank space, emptiness.
The children knew the name. But somehow the name, the letters spelling the name, seemed strange to
them.
Then Nana Emilia found her voice.
 “You know, Jaime, you didn’t have to,” Nana Emilia said, her voice hurt and sorely frightened.
Mr. Angeles jerked his head back; there was something swift and savage in the movement.

“Do you think I’d forgotten? Do you think I had forgotten them? Do you think I could forget them?
“This is for you, Josefina!
“And this is for you, Victoria!
“And this is for you, Concepcion.”
Mr. Angeles called the names rather than uttered them.
“Don’t, Jaime, please don’t,” was all that Nana Emilia managed to say.
“Is it fair to forget them? Would it be just to disregard them?” Mr. Angeles demanded rather than asked.
His voice had risen shrill, almost hysterical; it was also stern and sad, and somehow vindictive. Mr. Angeles
had spoken almost as if he were a stranger.
Also, he had spoken as if from a deep, grudgingly silent, long, bewildered sorrow.
The children heard the words exploding in the silence. They wanted to turn away and not see the face of
their father. But they could neither move nor look away; his eyes held them, his voice held them where they were.
They seemed rooted to the spot.
Nana Emilia shivered once or twice, bowed her head, gripped her clasped hands between her thighs.
There was a terrible hush. The remaining mats were unfolded in silence. The names which were with infinite
slowness revealed, seemed strange and stranger still; the colors not bright but deathly dull; the separate letters,
spelling out the names of the dead among them, did not seem to glow or shine with a festive sheen
 My Father Goes To Court
(Carlos Bulusan)

When I was four, I lived with my mother and brothers and sisters in a small town on the island of Luzon.
Father’s farm had been destroyed in 1918 by one of our sudden Philippine floods, so several years afterwards we all
lived in the town though he preferred living in the country. We had as a next door neighbour a very rich man, whose
sons and daughters seldom came out of the house. While we boys and girls played and sang in the sun, his children
stayed inside and kept the windows closed. His house was so tall that his children could look in the window of our
house and watched us played, or slept, or ate, when there was any food in the house to eat.
Now, this rich man’s servants were always frying and cooking something good, and the aroma of the food
was wafted down to us form the windows of the big house. We hung about and took all the wonderful smells of the
food into our beings. Sometimes, in the morning, our whole family stood outside the windows of the rich man’s
house and listened to the musical sizzling of thick strips of bacon or ham. I can remember one afternoon when our
neighbour’s servants roasted three chickens. The chickens were young and tender and the fat that dripped into the
burning coals gave off an enchanting odour. We watched the servants turn the beautiful birds and inhaled the
heavenly spirit that drifted out to us.
Some days the rich man appeared at a window and glowered down at us. He looked at us one by one, as
though he were condemning us. We were all healthy because we went out in the sun and bathed in the cool water
of the river that flowed from the mountains into the sea. Sometimes we wrestled with one another in the house
before we went to play. We were always in the best of spirits and our laughter was contagious. Other neighbours
who passed by our house often stopped in our yard and joined us in laughter.
As time went on, the rich man’s children became thin and anaemic, while we grew even more robust and full
of life. Our faces were bright and rosy, but theirs were pale and sad. The rich man started to cough at night; then he
coughed day and night. His wife began coughing too. Then the children started to cough, one after the other. At
night their coughing sounded like the barking of a herd of seals. We hung outside their windows and listened to
them. We wondered what happened. We knew that they were not sick from the lack of nourishment because they
were still always frying something delicious to eat.
One day the rich man appeared at a window and stood there a long time. He looked at my sisters, who had
grown fat in laughing, then at my brothers, whose arms and legs were like the molave, which is the sturdiest tree in
the Philippines. He banged down the window and ran through his house, shutting all the windows.
From that day on, the windows of our neighbour’s house were always closed. The children did not come out
anymore. We could still hear the servants cooking in the kitchen, and no matter how tight the windows were shut,
the aroma of the food came to us in the wind and drifted gratuitously into our house.
One morning a policeman from the presidencia came to our house with a sealed paper. The rich man had
filed a complaint against us. Father took me with him when he went to the town clerk and asked him what it was
about. He told Father the man claimed that for years we had been stealing the spirit of his wealth and food.
When the day came for us to appear in court, father brushed his old Army uniform and borrowed a pair of
shoes from one of my brothers. We were the first to arrive. Father sat on a chair in the centre of the courtroom.
Mother occupied a chair by the door. We children sat on a long bench by the wall. Father kept jumping up from his
chair and stabbing the air with his arms, as though we were defending himself before an imaginary jury.
The rich man arrived. He had grown old and feeble; his face was scarred with deep lines. With him was his
young lawyer. Spectators came in and almost filled the chairs. The judge entered the room and sat on a high chair.
We stood in a hurry and then sat down again.
After the courtroom preliminaries, the judge looked at the Father. “Do you have a lawyer?” he asked.
“I don’t need any lawyer, Judge,” he said.
“Proceed,” said the judge.
The rich man’s lawyer jumped up and pointed his finger at Father. “Do you or you do not agree that you
have been stealing the spirit of the complaint’s wealth and food?”
“I do not!” Father said.
“Do you or do you not agree that while the complaint’s servants cooked and fried fat legs of lamb or young
chicken breast you and your family hung outside his windows and inhaled the heavenly spirit of the food?”
“I agree.” Father said.
“Do you or do you not agree that while the complaint and his children grew sickly and tubercular you and
your family became strong of limb and fair in complexion?”
 “I agree.” Father said.

“How do you account for that?”

Father got up and paced around, scratching his head thoughtfully. Then he said, “I would like to see the
children of complaint, Judge.”
“Bring in the children of the complaint.”
They came in shyly. The spectators covered their mouths with their hands, they were so amazed to see the
children so thin and pale. The children walked silently to a bench and sat down without looking up. They stared at
the floor and moved their hands uneasily.
Father could not say anything at first. He just stood by his chair and looked at them. Finally he said, “I should
like to cross – examine the complaint.”
“Proceed.”
“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your wealth and became a laughing family while yours became
morose and sad?” Father said.
“Yes.”
“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your food by hanging outside your windows when your servants
cooked it?” Father said.
“Yes.”
“Then we are going to pay you right now,” Father said. He walked over to where we children were sitting on
the bench and took my straw hat off my lap and began filling it up with centavo pieces that he took out of his
pockets. He went to Mother, who added a fistful of silver coins. My brothers threw in their small change.
“May I walk to the room across the hall and stay there for a few minutes, Judge?” Father said.
“As you wish.”
“Thank you,” father said. He strode into the other room with the hat in his hands. It was almost full of coins.
The doors of both rooms were wide open.
“Are you ready?” Father called.
“Proceed.” The judge said.
The sweet tinkle of the coins carried beautifully in the courtroom. The spectators turned their faces toward
the sound with wonder. Father came back and stood before the complaint.
“Did you hear it?” he asked.
“Hear what?” the man asked.
“The spirit of the money when I shook this hat?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you are paid,” Father said.
The rich man opened his mouth to speak and fell to the floor without a sound. The lawyer rushed to his aid.
The judge pounded his gravel.
“Case dismissed.” He said.
Father strutted around the courtroom the judge even came down from his high chair to shake hands with
him. “By the way,” he whispered, “I had an uncle who died laughing.”
“You like to hear my family laugh, Judge?” Father asked?
“Why not?”
“Did you hear that children?” father said.
My sisters started it. The rest of us followed them soon the spectators were laughing with us, holding their
bellies and bending over the chairs. And the laughter of the judge was the loudest of all.
 Magnificence
by Estrella Alfon

There was nothing to fear, for the man was always so gentle, so kind. At night when the little girl and her
brother were bathed in the light of the big shaded bulb that hung over the big study table in the downstairs hall, the
man would knock gently on the door, and come in. he would stand for a while just beyond the pool of light, his feet
in the circle of illumination, the rest of him in shadow. The little girl and her brother would look up at him where
they sat at the big table, their eyes bright in the bright light, and watch him come fully into the light, but his voice
soft, his manner slow. He would smell very faintly of sweat and pomade, but the children didn’t mind although they
did notice, for they waited for him every evening as they sat at their lessons like this. He’d throw his visored cap on
the table, and it would fall down with a soft plop, then he’d nod his head to say one was right, or shake it to say one
was wrong.
It was not always that he came. They could remember perhaps two weeks when he remarked to their
mother that he had never seen two children looking so smart. The praise had made their mother look over them as
they stood around listening to the goings-on at the meeting of the neighborhood association, of which their mother
was president. Two children, one a girl of seven, and a boy of eight. They were both very tall for their age, and their
legs were the long gangly legs of fine-spirited colts. Their mother saw them with eyes that held pride, and then to
partly gloss over the maternal gloating she exhibited, she said to the man, in answer to his praise, But their
homework. They’re so lazy with them. And the man said, I have nothing to do in the evenings, let me help them.
Mother nodded her head and said if you want to bother yourself. And the thing rested there, and the man came in
the evenings, therefore, and he helped solve fractions for the boy and write correct phrases in language for the little
girl.
In those days, the rage was for pencils. School children always have rages going at one time or another.
Sometimes paper butterflies are held on sticks, and whirr in the wind. The Japanese bazaars promoted a rage for
those. Sometimes it is for little lead toys found in the folded waffles that Japanese confection-makers had such light
hands with. At this particular time, it was for pencils. Pencils big but light in circumference not smaller than a man’s
thumb. They were unwieldy in a child’s hands, but in all schools then, where Japanese bazaars clustered there were
all colors of these pencils selling for very low, but unattainable to a child budgeted at a baon of a centavo a day. They
were all of five centavos each, and one pencil was not at all what one had ambitions for. In rages, one kept a
collection. Four or five pencils, of different colors, to tie with strings near the eraser end, to dangle from one’s book-
basket, to arouse the envy of the other children who probably possessed less.
Add to the man’s gentleness and his kindness in knowing a child’s desires, his promise that he would give
each of them not one pencil but two. And for the little girl who he said was very bright and deserved more, he would
get the biggest pencil he could find.
One evening he did bring them. The evenings of waiting had made them look forward to this final giving, and
when they got the pencils they whooped with joy. The little boy had two pencils, one green, one blue. And the little
girl had three pencils, two of the same circumference as the little boy’s but colored red and yellow. And the third
pencil, a jumbo size pencil really, was white and had been sharpened, and the little girl jumped up and down and
shouted with glee. Until their mother called from down the stairs. What are you shouting about? And they told her,
shouting gladly, Vicente, for that was his name. Vicente had brought the pencils he had promised them.
Thank him, their mother called. The little boy smiled and said, Thank you. And the little girl smiled, and said,
Thank you, too. But the man said, Are you not going to kiss me for those pencils? They both came forward, the little
girl and the little boy, and they both made to kiss him but Vicente slapped the boy smartly on his lean hips, and said,
Boys, do not kiss boys. And the little boy laughed and scampered away, and then ran back and kissed him anyway.
The little girl went up to the man shyly, put her arms about his neck as he crouched to receive her embrace,
and kissed him on the cheeks.
The man’s arms tightened suddenly about the little girl until the little girl squirmed out of his arms, and
laughed a little breathlessly, disturbed but innocent, looking at the man with a smiling little question of puzzlement.
The next evening, he came around again. All through that day, they had been very proud in school showing
off their brand new pencils. All the little girls and boys had been envying them. And their mother had finally to tell
them to stop talking about the pencils, and pencils, for now, that they had, the boy two, and the girl three, they were
asking their mother to buy more, so they could each have five, and three at least in the jumbo size that the little girl’s
third pencil was. Their mother said, Oh stop it, what will you do with so many pencils, you can only write with one at
a time.
And the little girl muttered under her breath, I’ll ask Vicente for some more.
 Their mother replied, He’s only a bus conductor, don’t ask him for too many things. It’s a pity. And this
observation their mother said to their father, who was eating his evening meal between paragraphs of the book on
masonry rites that he was reading. It is a pity, said their mother, People like those, they make friends with people
like us, and they feel it is nice to give us gifts, or the children toys and things. You’d think they wouldn’t be able to
afford it.
The father grunted, and said, the man probably needed a new job, and was softening his way through to him
by going at the children like that. And the mother said, No, I don’t think so, he’s a rather queer young man, I think he
doesn’t have many friends, but I have watched him with the children, and he seems to dote on them.
The father grunted again, and did not pay any further attention.
Vicente was earlier than usual that evening. The children immediately put their lessons down, telling him of
the envy of their schoolmates, and would he buy them more please? Vicente said to the little boy, Go and ask if you
can let me have a glass of water. And the little boy ran away to comply, saying behind him, But buy us some more
pencils, huh, buy us more pencils, and then went up to stairs to their mother.
Vicente held the little girl by the arm, and said gently, Of course I will buy you more pencils, as many as you
want.
And the little girl giggled and said, Oh, then I will tell my friends, and they will envy me, for they don’t have
as many or as pretty.
Vicente took the girl up lightly in his arms, holding her under the armpits, and held her to sit down on his lap
and he said, still gently, What are your lessons for tomorrow? And the little girl turned to the paper on the table
where she had been writing with the jumbo pencil, and she told him that that was her lesson but it was easy.
Then go ahead and write, and I will watch you.
Don’t hold me on your lap, said the little girl, I am very heavy, you will get very tired.
The man shook his head, and said nothing, but held her on his lap just the same.
The little girl kept squirming, for somehow she felt uncomfortable to be held thus, her mother and father
always treated her like a big girl, she was always told never to act like a baby. She looked around at Vicente,
interrupting her careful writing to twist around.
His face was all in sweat, and his eyes looked very strange, and he indicated to her that she must turn
around, attend to the homework she was writing.
But the little girl felt very queer, she didn’t know why, all of a sudden she was immensely frightened, and she
jumped up away from Vicente’s lap.
She stood looking at him, feeling that queer frightened feeling, not knowing what to do. By and by, in a very
short while her mother came down the stairs, holding in her hand a glass of sarsaparilla, Vicente.
But Vicente had jumped up too soon as the little girl had jumped from his lap. He snatched at the papers that
lay on the table and held them to his stomach, turning away from the mother’s coming.
The mother looked at him, stopped in her tracks, and advanced into the light. She had been in the shadow.
Her voice had been like a bell of safety to the little girl. But now she advanced into glare of the light that held like a
tableau the figures of Vicente holding the little girl’s papers to him, and the little girl looking up at him frightenedly,
in her eyes dark pools of wonder and fear and question.
The little girl looked at her mother, and saw the beloved face transfigured by some sort of glow. The mother
kept coming into the light, and when Vicente made as if to move away into the shadow, she said, very low, but very
heavily, Do not move.
She put the glass of soft drink down on the table, where in the light one could watch the little bubbles go up
and down in the dark liquid. The mother said to the boy, Oscar, finish your lessons. And turning to the little girl, she
said, Come here. The little girl went to her, and the mother knelt down, for she was a tall woman and she said, Turn
around. Obediently the little girl turned around, and her mother passed her hands over the little girl’s back.
Go upstairs, she said.
The mother’s voice was of such a heavy quality and of such awful timbre that the girl could only nod her
head, and without looking at Vicente again, she raced up the stairs. The mother went to the cowering man, and
marched him with a glance out of the circle of light that held the little boy. Once in the shadow, she extended her
hand, and without any opposition took away the papers that Vicente was holding to himself. She stood there saying
nothing as the man fumbled with his hands and with his fingers, and she waited until he had finished. She was going
to open her mouth but she glanced at the boy and closed it, and with a look and an inclination of the head, she bade
Vicente go up the stairs.
The man said nothing, for she said nothing either. Up the stairs went the man, and the mother followed
behind. When they had reached the upper landing, the woman called down to her son, Son, come up and go to your
room.
The little boy did as he was told, asking no questions, for indeed he was feeling sleepy already.
 As soon as the boy was gone, the mother turned on Vicente. There was a pause.
Finally, the woman raised her hand and slapped him full hard in the face. He retreated down one tread of
the stairs with the force of the blow, but the mother followed him. With her other hand, she slapped him on the
other side of the face again. And so down the stairs they went, the man backward, his face continually open to the
force of the woman’s slapping. Alternately she lifted her right hand and made him retreat before her until they
reached the bottom landing.
He made no resistance, offered no defense. Before the silence and the grimness of her attack he cowered,
retreating, until out of his mouth issued something like a whimper.
The mother thus shut his mouth, and with those hard forceful slaps she escorted him right to the other door.
As soon as the cool air of the free night touched him, he recovered enough to turn away and run, into the shadows
that ate him up. The woman looked after him, and closed the door. She turned off the blazing light over the study
table, and went slowly up the stairs and out into the dark night.
When her mother reached her, the woman, held her hand out to the child. Always also, with the terrible
indelibility that one associated with terror, the girl was to remember the touch of that hand on her shoulder, heavy,
kneading at her flesh, the woman herself stricken almost dumb, but her eyes eloquent with that angered fire. She
knelt, She felt the little girl’s dress and took it off with haste that was almost frantic, tearing at the buttons and
imparting a terror to the little girl that almost made her sob. Hush, the mother said. Take a bath quickly.
Her mother presided over the bath the little girl took, scrubbed her, and soaped her, and then wiped her
gently all over and changed her into new clothes that smelt of the clean fresh smell of clothes that had hung in the
light of the sun. The clothes that she had taken off the little girl, she bundled into a tight wrenched bunch, which she
threw into the kitchen range.
Take also the pencils, said the mother to the watching newly bathed, newly changed child. Take them and
throw them into the fire. But when the girl turned to comply, the mother said, No, tomorrow will do. And taking the
little girl by the hand, she led her to her little girl’s bed, made her lie down and tucked the covers gently about her as
the girl dropped off into quick slumber.
 Wedding Dance
by Amador Daguio
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 d oor.