The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) by F. Sionil Jose Read Free Book Online

quickly pushed aside by his sister’s insistent, “The Villas are rich … rich …”
    “I just want to show them that we don’t need their money,” Tony said. “We have to keep a little of what face we have.”
    “Face? Face?” Betty was grim. “Do the poor have any face or the right to it? It’s too late now to think of that. A hundred years ago maybe—then it would have been different. There were opportunities then for people to succeed with industry, honesty, and pride. Not anymore, Tony. In school I repeat all these things, but I know I’m lying to those children, and they themselves see what’s happening. The poor cannot be proud.”
    “They can at least have self-respect. They don’t have to be so ingratiating,” Tony said faintly. He saw how useless it was to argue. His nephews, too, had lost all interest in the squabble, and they now tackled their food with happy noises.
    “It would be different,” Betty continued, “if we didn’t lose everything—and most of it went to you.”
    “It’s not for you to say that,” Bert came to Tony’s defense.
    “It’s true,” Betty glared at her husband. “When he was in college he never had to worry about his fees. I helped.”
    Betty turned to Tony. “I’m not saying that you didn’t deserve to be helped. You have always been bright. That’s why it’s up to you to help us.” The edge was gone from her voice, but she impressed upon him now the fact that he was no longer a part of the family, that he had grown far beyond their conception of him. Now he was salvation, a symbol of the elusive dream they never could attain.
    “Do not forget,” Betty measured her words. “The land—it was precious, but your career was more important.”
    “You went to college, too, Manang,” he said sullenly. “And Mother slaved for you, too.”
    “But I’m a woman, Tony, and I’m not as bright as you. Don’t think of repaying me. Think of Mother. Think of how we all came to Manila because there was nothing left in the province for us. Nothing but old people and tenant relatives who couldn’t help us.”
    “I know, I know,” he said dully. “But it’s still wrong.”
    “Go ahead then,” Betty said, “be righteous, because you have never suffered. Can’t you see that you are our only hope?”
    Tony shook his head. “What you are trying to tell me is probably the same thing that bothers Carmen’s parents. Where’s your pride?”
    “Talk to me about pride,” Betty raised her voice again. “You didn’t talk to me about it when I was giving you my pay.”
    “That’s not the way to talk,” Bert said.
    “Now you accuse me of ingratitude,” Tony said bitterly. “You know I’m aware of my debts and that I’ll pay—not all of them, but I’ll pay.”
    He could have said more, but he was the younger. A silence laden with remonstrances descended upon them, broken only by the boys slurping their food. There was no sense in staying at the table longer. “I’m full,” Tony said, not turning to his sister, and rose.
    He went up to his room. It was stuffy. Its wooden sidings were bare but for a calendar with the picture of a man happily guzzling a bottle of beer. His iron cot was on one side along with the writing table, which was piled with books and his old typewriter.
    Tony went to the only window that opened on the railroad tracks, four bands shining in the afterglow.
    Now loneliness welled within him and magnified the words he had just heard. Pride, poverty—they trashed at the chest and emptied it of other feelings; they dulled the mind after one had heard them over and over again. Yet in this ugly room they seemed to belong like beckonings he could not ignore. It was as if the words evoked an ancient world where he had gotten lost, and now he must go and find the place where he had started, the small town, the rain-washed field, and the muddied river; find the locusts on the wing, the farmer boy calling the stray calf home, the brass