ACTIVITY FOR RIZAL (Class of Mr.

Estudillo)

Direction: Read the Memoirs of a Student in Manila and fill up the necessary questions
at the end in an A4 sized Bond Paper. To be submitted next meeting.

MEMOIRS OF A STUDENT IN MANILA

I was born in Calamba on 19 June 1861, between eleven and midnight, a few days
before full moon. It was a Wednesday and my coming out in this vale of tears would have
cost my mother her life had she not vowed to the Virgin of Antipolo to take me to her
sanctuary by way of pilgrimage.02 All I remember of my early days is I don’t know how I
found myself in a town with some scanty notions of the morning sun, of my parents, etc.
The education that I received since my earliest infancy was perhaps what has shaped
my habits, like a jar that retains the odor of the body that it first held.

I still remember the first melancholy nights that I spent on the azotea of our house as if
they happened only yesterday -- nights full of the saddest poem that made impression
of my mind, the stronger the more tempestuous my present situation is. I had a yaya who
loved me very much and who, in order to make me take supper (which I had on the
azotea on moonlit nights), frightened me with the sudden apparition of some formidable
asuang, of a frightful nuno, or parce-nobis, as she used to call an imaginary being similar
to the Bu of the Europeans. They used to take me for a stroll to the gloomiest places and
at night near the flowing river, in the shade of some tree, in the brightness of the chaste
Diana. . . . . Thus was my heart nourished with somber and melancholic thoughts, which
even when I was a child already wandered on the wings of fantasy in the lofty regions of
the unknown. I had nine sisters and one brother. My father, a model of fathers, had given
us an educational commensurate with our small fortune, and through thrift he was able
to build a stone house, buy another, and to erect a little nipa house in the middle of our
orchard under the shade of banana trees and others. There the tasty atis displays its
delicate fruits and bends its branches to save me the effort of reaching for them; the
sweet santol, the fragrant and honeyedtampooy, the reddish macupa, here contend for
supremacy; farther ay are the plum tree, the casuy, harsh and piquant, the beautiful
tamarind, equally gratifying to the eyes and delightful to the palate, here the papaya
tree spreads its broad leaves and attracts the birds with its enormous fruits, yonder at the
nangca, the coffee tree, the orange tree, which perfumes the air with the aroma 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 found elegant and majestic
palm trees loaded with enormous nuts, rocking its proud crown and beautiful fronds, the
mistresses of the forests. Ah! It would be endless if I were to enumerate all our trees and
entertain myself in naming them! At the close of the day numerous birds came from all
parts, and I, still a child of three years at the most, entertained myself by looking at them
with unbelievable joy. The yellow caliauan, the maya of different varieties, the culae, the
maria capra, the martin, all the species of pipit, joined in a pleasant concert and intoned
in varied chorus a hymn of farewell to the sun that was disappearing behind the tall
mountains of my town. Then the clouds, through a whim of nature, formed a thousand
figures that soon dispersed, as such beautiful days passed away also, leaving behind
them only the flimsiest remembrances. Alas! Even now when I look out the window of our
house to the beautiful panorama at twilight, my past impressions come back to my mind
with painful eagerness! Afterwards comes night; it extends its mantle, sometimes gloomy
through starred, when the chaste Delia 03 does not scour the sky in pursuit of her brother
Apollo. But if she appears in the clouds, a vague brightness is delineated. Afterwards, as
the clouds break up, so to speak, little by little, she is seen beautiful, sad, and hushed,
rising like an immense globe, as if an omnipotent and invisible hand is pulling her through
the spaces. Then my mother would make us recite the rosary all together. Afterward we
would go to the terrace or to some window from which the moon can be seen and my
nurse would tell us stories, sometimes mournful, sometimes gay, in which the dead, gold
plants that bloomed diamonds were in confused mixtures, all of them born of an entirely
oriental imagination. Sometimes she would tell us that men lived in the moon and the
specks that we observed on it were nothing else but a woman who was continuously
spinning. When I was four years old I lost my little sister (Concha) and then for the first time
I shed tears caused by love and grief, for until then I had shed them only because of my
stubbornness that my loving proving mother so well knew how to correct. Ah! Without her
what would have become of my education and what would have been my fate? Oh,
yes! After God the mother is everything to man. She taught me how to read, she taught
me how to stammer the humble prayers that I addressed fervently to God, and now that
I’m a young man, ah, where is that simplicity, that innocence of my early days?

In my own town I learned how to write, and my father, who looked after my education,
paid an old man (who had been his classmate) to give me the first lessons in Latin and
he stayed at our house. After some five months he died, having almost foretold his death
when he was still in good health. I remember that I came to Manila with my father after
the birth of the third girl (Trinidad) who followed me, and it was on 6 June 1868. We
boarded a casco, 04 a very heavy craft. I had never yet gone through the lake of La
Laguna consciously and the first time. I did, I spent the whole night near the catig, 04
admiring the grandeur of the liquid element, the quietness of the night, while at the same
time a superstitious fear took hold of me when I saw a water snake twine itself on the
bamboo canes of the outriggers. With what joy I saw the sunrise; for the first time I saw
how the luminous rays shone, producing a brilliant effort on the ruffled surface of the wide
lake. With what joy I spoke to my father for I had not uttered a single word during the
night. Afterward we went to Antipolo. I’m going to stop to relate the sweetest emotions
that I felt at every step on the banks of the Pasig (that a few years later would be the
witness of my grief), in Cainta, Taytay, Antipolo, Manila, Santa Ana, where we visited my
eldest sister (Saturnina) who was at that time a boarding student at La Concordia. 05 I
returned to my town and I stayed in it until 1870, the first year that marked my separation
from my family. This is what I remember of those times that figure in the forefront of my life
like the dawn of the day. Alas, when shall the night come to shelter me so that I may rest
in deep slumber? God knows it! In the meantime, now that I’m in the spring of life,
separated from the beings whom I love and most in the world, now that sad, I write these
pages. . . let us leave Providence to act, and let us give time to time, awaiting from the
will of God the future, good or bad, so that with this I may succeed to expiate my sins. 8
Dulambayan, 06 Sta. Cruz, Manila, 11 September 1878.

(1) P. Jacinto was the first pen name used by Rizal in his writings. His other pen names
were Laong-Laan and Dimas Alang.

(2) Filipinos, Spaniards, and Chinese venerated the Virgin of Antipolo since Spanish
colonial days. The month of May is the time of pilgrimage to her shrine. She is also called
Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage, the patron saint of travelers. One legend says her
image saved from shipwreck the crew of a ship that bore her from Acapulco to Manila
many years ago.

(3) The name of Diana, goddess of the moon and of hunting.

Casco is a Philippine river craft, made of wood, used for passengers and freight. The catig
is the vessel’s outriggers made of bamboo canes.

(4)

(5) A well-known boarding school for girls, the Sisters of Charity administered La
Concordia College. It was founded in 1868 by Margarita Roxas de Ayala, a wealthy
Filipino woman, who gave her country home called La Concordia in Sta Ana, Manila to
the school and hence its popular designation. Its official name is Colegio de la
Immaculada Concepcion.

(6) Rizal Avenue, named for the national hero, absorbed this old street. At that point its
name was dropped.