A Child of Sorrow

Zolio Galang

• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781513298542
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Asiatische Literatur

A Child of Sorrow (1921) is a novel by Zoilo Galang. The novel, Galang's debut, has been recognized as the first work of published Filipino fiction written in English. Modeled after popular nineteenth century romances written in Spanish and Tagalog, A Child of Sorrow is a classic coming of age tale engaged with themes of friendship, desire, and the loss of innocence. Simple and heartfelt, A Child of Sorrow remains a groundbreaking work of literature from an author who dedicated his career to education and the arts.

"In one of the rural and sequestered plains of Central Luzon, called the Fertile Valley, where the rice fields yielded the cup of joy to the industrious farmers, and where the harvest filled aplenty the barns of the poor, there lived simple, homely people, free from the rush and stir of city life." In this idyllic setting, Lucio and Camilo discuss their plans for summer vacation. While Lucio, a dreamer "who painted brilliant lives on the nice canvas of memory, " wants to immerse himself in his collection of books, Camilo wants his friend to join him in the world beyond words. Together, they take a trip into town, hoping for adventure and camaraderie—and, if possible, to meet a young woman to fall in love with. Despite Camilo's encouragement, however, Lucio longs to write poetry, to commune with the natural world with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company. One bright morning, he runs into Rosa returning home with a pitcher of water. Before he can collect himself, Lucio confesses his undying love.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Zoilo Galang's A Child of Sorrow is a classic work of Filipino literature reimagined for modern readers.

VII

BLASTED DREAMS OF HAPPINESS

As the Carnival ended, so did the joys and merriments of the people cease, and everybody went into the daily grind of office routine and set the wheels of labor running.

So did Lucio, too. And all—Rosa, Camilo, Ismael, and their train went home, except Juan de la Cruz, who remained in town, to have a peep and bird’s-eye view of how things slided on, as he fondly put it.

Happiness had now appeared somewhat as an absolute ideal, a living impossibility only to Lucio, for all the sanguine dream of happiness he expected from this world was lost—lost beyond his darkest reckonings.

Sorrow was all his—and after turning his situation all over, reviewing his past life, he hopelessly wrote at the bottom, as if summing it all up, the words: “Born of sorrow I am, and a man of sorrow I shall be…”

For it was the current saying in Fertile Valley that as soon as Lucio was born, his mother met her eternal doom.

However, because of his strength of will and integrity of character, he did not take note of his sadness. That written line was only the capricious result of subtle deductions, he told Juan. And he drew a heavy line over it, and wrote, “I will hope.”

Now even with a wandering mind, still he kept pegging on to his daily work and sticking to his plan of self-improvement in order to be able to escape the cruel ordeal of the criticism of the people.

The gossip of the people, while it worried him so much before, now did not affect him any longer; his conscience shielded it with work; for all people make mistakes, and all are born imperfect—nothing new under the sun, except that one must do yet a lot of things—to shape conditions and bring peace out of chaos, and build master arts out of the commonest objects, from the materials of nature, and so benefit the world and mankind.

He was not altogether a pessimist nor an egoist. He was rather an optimist and an idealist in soul. And he was loving at heart. He suited the thought to the deed by his own life. When he was down and out, he put more pep into his mind, and thus recovered his equilibrium.

But somehow and somewhere, somebody told him,—yes, he did not remember who—somebody told him and not only that somebody but people said actually—that someone was at the eve of marrying. But when he came to know it, the act was already consummated. Shall you let Lucio know it? Not, of course, if we could help it. It would certainly break his heart. Why not tell it, if it is at all to be told sometime? … Let us, therefore, spare him the keen and awful pain of it.

Rosa was married to Oscar. People did not know why—forced, traitored, or what?

Had he used means fair or foul?

The answer was blank.

And this misery must ever remain a secret and an enigma. Let Time throw light upon it some other day. But we cannot do it now. We are not the mortals to divulge it. It is sacrilegious to attempt to do so. We cannot suffer the consequences.

But the news travelled far and wide—fast—faster than the wings of the light of the sunrays, just like Mercury. For you cannot keep or hide idle news of truth secretly long. You surely cannot shut the mouth—though you can dam water. Such shall stagnate, and there is always a friend, a good Juan de la Cruz, who shall tell it to the people, for the love and betterment of humanity.

Juan de la Cruz was not so bad as that, but he was the bearer of the news. After investigating the whole matter in his own way, he briefly wrote to Lucio as follows:

My dear Lucio,

“All the town is now in utter askance and wild uproar, suspecting why did Rosa marry Oscar? Was she not engaged to you—or was the engagement broken? Why, what has been the matter? We cannot tell—even I—I cannot understand. We are at a loss—all—everybody, and nobody knows who’s who… I can not fathom at the root of things. It is all darkness like Erebus. All night, dead night—no daylight gleaming at all. No ray of sunshine. Goodness… I am in deep waters. All is Greek. Let me know it truly, please. Yes, I must know it. By God! You are the only one who can throw light on this delicate subject.

“But before I close I hear, and I only hear, mark you, that she married partly to obey her parents, and really to save her honor. Or did you only forsake her? I hope not. Oh, but the people are busy in discovering how the marriage was brought about one horrible night! The ball is now rolling… They know, if I am not mistaken, for gossip is not always so, that you are truly engaged, and unless something extraordinarily grave and serious had happened, it was broken. May it not be so! But, oh, the people, for the voice of the people is said to be the voice of God,—O the people—they blamed her, simply they blamed her, the poor girl! Yes, everybody’s eye is turned against her in scorn—even I—“we do blame her,” condemned woman! The people simply cannot stop blaming and pitying her. They wished you were her husband! But, after all, I think, she had done wisely, as she could not do otherwise.

Am yours in sympathy,

Juan de la Cruz

“What shall I do?” he madly mused. “Kill or sacrifice?”

He brought his fist down with a bang, and stood up erect—contemplating the best and simplest course to pursue.

He wanted to revenge. He wanted to kill: O blackest of all hours!

But at last he decided to forgive, which was more divine. His heart was big, and his better self prevailed, and he forgave; but he too wanted to know before forgiving.

All that day and all that night, Lucio was unable to sleep. He simply could not rest. That went on for sometime.

Had he allowed himself to brood over that darkest spot of his life, a raging tempest might have continually taken place in his mind.

So he became a wandering Jew of a lad—but not at all broken-hearted. For he had such a complete mastery over his passions.

But at times he succumbed to a collapse. So he fell sick and was ill for many days and months.

The public said he had been a spoilt child, a spoilt child of nature.

But Juan de la Cruz heard by chance that Lucio sent a telegram to her or rather to both husband and wife, wishing them the best of conjugal life and every happiness. “Wishing them,” said Juan, “a joyous honeymoon—happiness and long life ‘ever after,’ just as the Arabian fairy tales were so fondly ended.”

Juan thought that to be a burlesque. But Lucio meant it literally.

When the message was received, Rosa turned pale and white, and cried, and nothing could renew her blighted hopes.

Sorrows caused by disappointments and affliction work a great deal on man’s physique, and are long felt, and remain uncured. When Lucio dwelt on the darker side of life for having gleamed no ray of hope, he became such a pale, haggard, thin man. What a transformation, from a robust, rosy health to a wornout, old and wrinkled man! What an unbearable weight of sorrows Rosa’s marriage had caused him!

What a wreck sorrow had made of him, poor soul!

No more that handsome face; no more that winning smile; no more that agile step and contented movement; no more that poetical touch of his nature;—no more, no more, were his joys—no more his happiness; no more his ideals, ay, all is no more! … Now all was gloom, melancholiness, and sadness,—ay, sorrows played their part in the sad linings of his countenance, ay, sorrows and nothing but sorrows, only sorrows and nothing more!

He simply found no happiness in this world, as he colored according to his moods the objects he surveyed in his sombre vision.

While his enemies rejoiced in his misfortunes, his true friends looked upon him with great pity and compassion.

Lucio endured all injury done against him with a certain proud patience that disdained to complain.

Wornout with grief, he went often to the Pasay Beach, and sometimes Juan saw him there, pensive and a broken-looking man, alone, gazing and watching the dying sunset which left golden shadows with purple mists behind, and reading, anything that came his way—newspapers, novels, anything,—wearily watching the ships sailing and passing by—going to a world more brilliant and joyous than the world wherein he lived and where he seemed to breathe foul air, and felt uneasy, as every nook connected itself with a lost link of memories dear and forever gone into dead oblivion—a place he knew not where.

Once he was seen in swaddling clothes. People did not laugh but felt and divined the cause of it.

He was now dreamy, for the poems he read were such, and he indulged again in the habit of devouring romances, such as the works of the great French and English Romanticists, and he imbibed their darker sides.

Little by little his sorrows vanished, and little by little he recovered from the shock.

In his work and studies, his friends slightly noticed the return of his normal senses, and he frankly told them he had come out from the chrysalis of sadness and despair. They saw much change and he became busy as usual. Why he felt so, he said, was because of his love to Rosa that made him sick for years.

Time healed his wounds at last, but the scars of sorrow left their footprints upon his heart in mournful disillusionment.

He wanted to forget, and he summoned all his will and energy, and, such not yet having entirely departed from him, gained recuperation and poise, and was strong and healthy again, and perceptibly rejuvenated. That’s the notion of Juan. His robustness was enough to carry him on his mental and physical activities.

Pale, thin and forlorn as he was, still his mind or intellect was bright and remained fresh, and perhaps keener than ever for his unnumbered days and nights of sorrows brought him experience and wisdom, the dearest things man could possess. He learned from the “School of Life” things never to be found in textbooks, how to suffer humbly, suffer like a man, as Jesus did, and as his father told him. Thus he graduated with honors from the world’s University of Hard Times, the greatest institution ever built.

A man may be ruined, but his soul remains unimpaired.

For Lucio had now resumed his former work. He worked with the local newspapers besides his regular office duties, and became a man of letters; and, what is more, he continued writing his book of English and vernacular poems and stories and essays.

Juan, who gained insight into the work, remarked that all that Lucio read and all that he knew and experienced was all there in that single book—“The Novel of Life”—for it was written with his blood; it contained the philosophy of life, as he saw and felt and lived it.

His letters breathed with lofty ideals, and pulsated ardent patriotism...