Chapter 5: Two Years in College

Soon to become eighteen years old and disillusioned, scarcely have I stepped on life's
threshold, I direct my glance toward the first time the breath of the tempest, already
engulfed, turns his glance toward the shore and reminds him of his peaceful hours. Ah, I
weep for you, placid hours that disappeared from the scene of my life more rapidly and
fugaciously than lightning that shines on the dark road of the traveler. So sad is my
situation that I doubt if I had ever been happy at all for I doubt if those days had ever
existed.

During vacation my sisters made clothes for me and during that time also my sister
made clothes for me and during that time also my sister Narcisa married... I cannot
portray here what I felt on seeing the separation of a sister whom I loved so much... and
notwithstanding it had to be thus.

I entered college then on 16 June 1875. My classmates received me well. The brother
wardrobe- keeper assigned to me an alcove located in the corner of the dormitory
looking out to the sea and the embankment. It consisted of a space of about two square
varas, (25) an iron bedstead on which they placed my bedding, a small table with a
basin, which a servant filled with water, a chair and a clothes rack. I forgot to say that in
the little table I had a drawer with soap, comb, brushes for the hair and for the teeth,
powder, etc. My little money that amounted to some eight pesos, I kept under my pillow.
We didn't go to the alcove but twice a day regularly, once at siesta to wash and again at
night to sleep. On holidays in the afternoons, we dressed and we went out for a stroll.
The rest of the time we spent in the study hall, at recess, in the classes, in the dining
room, and in the chapel.

In spite of my thirteen years to fourteen, I was still very small, and as it is known that
new students, especially the small ones, are received by the big ones with jokes, so it
was on my first day, my pranks having attracted their attention. In a chorus they teased
me and when they calmed down I told them in a tranquil voice: "Gentlemen, thanks."
Since then they respected me and they didn't tease me maliciously. Excepting a few, all
my companions were good, simple, pious, just, and amiable. There was no one among
us who would want to control the rest by force, for power is achieved through skill. I had
the luck to win if not the love at last the esteem of all of them. The names of some of my
classmates shall never be eased from my memory: among them that of one Jovellanos,
of one Lete (Enrique) and of others whose enumeration would be very pleasant for me
but I foresee will be vexing to the reader.

Our Professor was a model of uprightness, earnestness, and love of the advancement
of his pupils; and so much was his zeal that I, who scarcely spoke very ordinary
Spanish, at the end of a short time, succeeded already to write it moderately well. His
name was Francisco de Paula Sanchez. With his aid I studied mathematics, rhetoric,
and Greek with some advantage. Often 1 got sick with fever despite the gymnastic
exercises that we had, in which I was very much behind, though not so in drawing under
a teacher worthy of his name and under whose guidance I still continue to study. I'm
proud to tell you, reader, that I spent this year better than anybody else as a student, as
a man, and as a Christian. Ten months passed that I haven't ritten anything in my diary
because I don't want to relate to you inspired occurrences, and thank God I won five
medals with an immense pleasure for with them I could somewhat repay my father for
his sacrifices. What sentiments of gratitude stid not then spring from my heart and wit
what sad delight I kept them still! After having bidden farewell to my superiors. teachers,
and companions, I left... Who has not feit the vague melancholy that seizes the heart
upon separating from s companions? Who, at the age of fourteen years, it he has
enjoyed the favor of the Muses, does not shed tears on the transition from childhood to
young manhood?

My arrival at my hometown in the company of a father who idolized me mitigated

I retained to college after three months and I began to study again, though the subject
that I took was different. I was in the fifth year and already I was a philosopher. I had
other professors, called Fathers Vilaclara and Minoves, the first one of whom liked me
very much and to whom I was somewhat ungrateful. Although I was studying
philosophy, physics, chemistry, and natural history and in spite of the fact that Father
Vilaclara had told me to give up the society of the Muses and give them a last goodbye
(which made me cry), in my leisure hours, I continued speaking and cultivating the
beautiful language of Olympus under the direction of Father Sanchez. So sweet is their
society that after having tasted it, I cannot conceive how a young heart can abandon it.
What matters, I said to myself, the poverty that is the eternal companion of the Muses?
Is there anything sweeter than poetry and sadder than the prosaic positivism of metallic
hearts? Thus I dreamed then!

I studied the fifth year course with the same success as the previous one, though under
other circumstances. Upright, severe philosophy, inquiring into the why of things
attracted also my attention as did poetry, beautiful as she alone can be, playing with the
charms of nature and leaving traces that breathe sublimity and tenderness. Physics,
lifting up the veil that covers many things, showed me a wide stage where the divine
drama of nature was performed. The movement, sound, warmth, light, electricity, a
thousand varied phenomena, the most beautiful colors and delicate beauties
entertained me during my free hours. Polarization plunged me into a world of mysteries
from which I have not yet emerged. Ah, how beautiful is science when the one teaching
it knows how to embellish it! Natural history seemed to me somewhat antipathetic. Why,
I asked myself, if the perusal of history and the description of the birds and flowers, of
animals and of crystals captivate me so much, why do I loathe seeing them reduced to
a harsh order and wild animals mixed with tame ones? Shells pleased me very much for
their beauty and because I knew that they inhabited the beaches of which my innocent
imagination dreamed and treading on them I imagined the most beautiful waters of the
seas and lakes lapping my feet. Sometimes I seemed to see a goddess with a shell that
I saw in the shelf.
At last the end of the term came and the same thing happened to me. I carried away
another five medals due to the indulgence with which my superiors treated me and to
my no little luck in winning them. The day before the distribution of prizes, a feeling
tormented me, the saddest and most melancholy that I had ever felt. On thinking that I
had to leave that asylum of peace in which was somewhat opened my mind and my
heart began to have better sentiments, I fell into a profound sadness. The last night on
going to my dormitory and considering that night would be the last I would spend in my
peaceful alcove, because, according to what they said, the world was waiting for me, I
had a cruel presentiment which unfortunately was realized. The moon shone mournfully,
illuminating the lighthouse and the sea, presenting a silent and grand spectacle that
seemed to tell me that the next day another life awaited me. I was unable to sleep until
one o'clock in the morning. It dawned and I dressed. I prayed fervently in the chapel and
commended my life to the Virgin so that when I should step into that world which
inspired me with so much terror, she would protect me. The prizes were distributed,
they gave me the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and I believe that any young man who
was fifteen years old, loved by his companions and professors, with five medals and the
degree of Bachelor of Arts, the dream of the student of the secondary course, should be
very much contented. (26) But, alas, it did not turn out that way! I was sad, cold, and
pensive. Two or three tears rolled down my cheeks, tears offered as in farewell to the
time past, to my good luck that would never come back, to my peace that soared to
heaven leaving me alone on earth. Imagine it and you will feel if, if you have a heart.

Now it remains for me to evaluate the two years that I consider the happiest of my life, if
happiness consists in living without vexatious cares. In what way have I advanced, that
is, what had I learned during the first year of my residence in college? What did I get
from what I had learned?

I entered college still a child with very little knowledge of Spanish, with a moderately
developed mind, and almost without refined sentiments. By force of study, of analyzing
myself, of aspiring higher, of a thousand corrections, I was little by little transformed
thanks to the beneficent influence of a zealous professor. My mortality of that time
makes me now sigh on remembering that state of sweetest tranquility of my spirit. By
cultivating poetry and rhetoric, my sentiments were further elevated and Virgil, Horace,
Cicero, and other authors showed me another road through which I could walk to attain
one of my aspirations. I don't know if my present state makes me see the beauty of the
past and the sadness of the present, but the truth is that when I was a college student, I
never wanted to leave college and that now I would give anything to get over this
terrible age of youth. Had I been perchance like the brook that, while following its
delightful way amidst willows and dense flowers smiles and frolics and upon being
converted into a torrent angrily and turbulently flings itself until it is buried in the sea?
My second year in college resembled the first with the difference that patriotic
sentiments as an exquisite sensibility had been greatly developed in me. It passed like
the first among principles of logic, physics, and poetical compositions. I had advanced
somewhat in the cultivation of the Muses so much that I had composed a legend that
suffered very slight correction by my professor and a dialogue that was staged for the
first time at the end of the school term, alluding to the students' farewell.
Goodbye then, beautiful, unforgettable period of my life, brief twilight that will not shine
again! If my eyes no longer shed tears upon recalling you, my heart melts and seems to
be oppressed! I have your memory here in my heart, in my mind, in my whole being.
Farewell fortunate hours of my lost childhood, fly to the bosom of pure Innocence that
created you to sweeten the moments of tender hearts

Manila, 1 December 1879.