Chapter 1: My Birth - Early Years

I was born in Calamba on June 19, 1861, between eleven o'clock and midnight,
a few days before the full moon. It was a Wednesday and my coming to this
valley of tears will have cost my mother life if she had not promised the Virgin
of Antipolo to take me to her shrine as a pilgrimage. 1
All that I remember from my first days and that I do not know how I found
myself in a city, plus some vague memories on the morning sun, on my parents,
etc.
The education I received from my early childhood was perhaps what shaped my
habits, like a jar that retains the smell of what it contained in the first place. I
still remember the first melancholy nights I spent on the terrace of our house, as
if it were yesterday - those nights full of sad poems that made more effect on my
mind, as my present situation was stormy . I had a nurse who loved me very
much and who, in order to make me take supper (which I took on the terrace on
moonlit nights), frightened me by claiming the sudden appearance of some
terrible ghosts , of a hideous Nuno, or because-nobis, as she used to call an
imaginary being similar to the Bu of the Europeans. They would go for a walk
in the darkest places,
I had nine sisters and one brother. My father, a model for the fathers, had given
us an educative proportional to our small fortune, and thanks to his savings, he
was able to build a stone house, to buy another, and to erect a house. Little nipa
house in the middle of our orchard in the shade of banana trees and other
trees. There, the tasty atis shows its delicate fruits and bends its branches to
spare me the effort of having to reach them; the sweet santol, the perfumed and
sweet tampoy, the reddish macupa, which wrestles here for its
supremacy; further on there is a plum tree, a casuy, sharp and pungent, a
beautiful tamarind, just as gratifying for the eyes as delicious for the palate, then
here a papaya tree spreads its broad leaves and attracts the birds with its huge
fruits, there a jackfruit, a coffee tree, an orange tree, which perfumes the air with
the perfume of its flowers; on this side are the iba, the balimbing, the
pomegranate with its thick foliage and beautiful flowers that enchant the
senses; Here and there are elegant and majestic palms loaded with enormous
nuts, swaying with its proud crowns and beautiful fronds, the mistresses of the
forests. Ah! It would be endless if I had to list all our trees and entertain myself
by naming them! At the end of the day, many birds came from all over, and I,
still a child of three years old at most, entertained myself by watching them with
incredible joy. The yellow caliauan, the maya of different varieties, the culae,
the maria capra, the martin, all the species of pitpit, joined in a pleasant concert
and sang in a varied chorus a hymn of farewell to the sun which disappeared
behind the high mountains of my city. Then the clouds, by a whim of nature,
formed thousands of figures that soon dispersed, while the beautiful days passed
too, leaving behind only memories of the most futile. Alas! Even now, when I
look out of the window of our house this beautiful panorama at dusk, my past
impressions come back to my mind with a painful eagerness!
Then comes the night; she stretches out her coat, sometimes sad though starred,
when the chaste Delia 2do not go through the sky looking for his brother
Apollo. But if it appears in the clouds, a vague brightness is delimited. Then, as
the clouds broke, so to speak, little by little, she appeared beautiful, sad and
silent, rising like a huge globe, as if an all-powerful, invisible hand was pulling
her through the spaces. Then my mother would make us recite the rosary
together. Later, we went to the terrace or a window from which the moon could
be seen and my nanny would tell us stories, sometimes sad, sometimes cheerful,
in which the dead, the golden plants that bloomed in diamonds were mixed
confusedly, each of them born of an entirely oriental imagination. Sometimes,
When I was four years old I lost my little sister (Concha), then for the first time
I shed tears caused by love and pain, because until then, I had poured them only
because of my stubbornness that my trying loving mother knew so well how to
correct. Ah! Without it, what would become of my education and what would
have been my fate? Oh yes ! After God, a mother is everything for a man. She
taught me to read, she taught me to stammer out the humble prayers that I
addressed ardently to God, and now that I am a young man, ah, where is this
simplicity, this innocence of my first days?
In my own city, I learned to write, and my father, who was paying attention to
my education, was paying an old man (who had been his classmate) to give me
my first Latin lessons and he was staying at home. After about five months, he
died, having almost predicted his death when he was still healthy. I remember
that I came to Manila with my father after the birth of his third daughter
(Trinidad) who came after me, and that was June 6, 1868. We went up to a
casco, 3a very heavy machine. I had never before passed Lake Laguna
consciously and the first time I did it, I spent all night near the catig, admiring
the grandeur of the liquid element, the calm of the night while at the same time
a superstitious fear took hold of me when I saw a water snake wrap around the
bamboo canes of the catig.
With what joy have I seen the sun rise; for the first time I saw how the rays of
light sparkle, producing a brilliant effect on the ruffled surface of the great
lake. And with what joy I spoke to my father because I had not said a word to
him during the night. Then we went to Antipolo. I will stop telling the sweetest
emotions that I felt at each step on the banks of the Pasig (which will be a few
years later the witness of my pain), in Cainta, Taytay, Antipolo, Manila, Santa
Ana, where we I visited my older sister (Saturnina), who at that time was a
resident at Concordia. 4 I returned to my city and stayed there until 1870, the
first year that marked my separation from my family.
That's what I remember from those moments that are at the forefront of my life
like dawn to day. Alas, when will the night cover me so that I can rest in a deep
sleep? Only god knows ! Meanwhile, now that I am in the spring of my life,
separated from the beings I love the most in the world, now sad, I write these
pages to you ... Let Providence act, and give time time, waiting for God's will
for the future, good or bad, so that I can succeed in expiating my sins.
8 Dulambayan, 5 Sta. Cruz, Manila, September 11, 1878

Notes
1. ↑ Filipinos, Spaniards, and Chinese venerated the Virgin of Antipolo since
the Spanish colonial era. May is the time of pilgrimage to his
sanctuary. She is also called Our Lady of Peace and Bon Voyage, the
patron saint of travelers. A legend says that his image saved the crew of a
ship that rented it from Acapulco to Manila several years ago from sinking.
2. ↑ The name of Diane, goddess of the moon and hunting.
3. ↑ A casco is a Philippine riverboat, made of wood, used for passengers and
freight. The catig is the basic support of the ship made of bamboo canes.
4. ↑ A famous boarding school for girls, the Sisters of Charity administered La
Concordia College. It was founded in 1868 by Margarita Roxas de Ayala, a
wealthy Filipina woman, who donated her country house from Santa Ana,
Manila, whose name was La Concordia to school, hence its popular
denomination. His official name is College of the Immaculate Conception.
5. ↑ Rizal Avenue, named after the national hero, has absorbed this old
street. At that time his name was abandoned.