Language, yes, language!  A sarcastic smile curled his lips.  That very night they would hold a banquet in the pansiteria to celebrate the demise of the academy of Castilian.

“Ay!” he sighed, “provided the liberals in Spain are like those we have here, in a little while the mother country will be able to count the number of the faithful!”

Slowly the night descended, and with it melancholy settled more heavily upon the heart of the young man, who had almost lost hope of seeing Paulita.  The promenaders one by one left the Malecon for the Luneta, the music from which was borne to him in snatches of melodies on the fresh evening breeze; the sailors on a warship anchored in the river performed their evening drill, skipping about among the slender ropes like spiders; the boats one by one lighted their lamps, thus giving signs of life; while the beach,

    Do el viento riza las calladas olas
    Que con blando murmullo en la ribera
    Se deslizan veloces por si solas. [51]

as Alaejos says, exhaled in the distance thin, vapors that the moon, now at its full, gradually converted into mysterious transparent gauze.

A distant sound became audible, a noise that rapidly approached.  Isagani turned his head and his heart began to beat violently.  A carriage was coming, drawn by white horses, the white horses that he would know among a hundred thousand.  In the carriage rode Paulita and her friend of the night before, with Dona Victorina.

Before the young man could take a step, Paulita had leaped to the ground with sylph-like agility and smiled at him with a smile full of conciliation.  He smiled in return, and it seemed to him that all the clouds, all the black thoughts that before had beset him, vanished like smoke, the sky lighted up, the breeze sang, flowers covered the grass by the roadside.  But unfortunately Dona Victorina was there and she pounced upon the young man to ask him for news of Don Tiburcio, since Isagani had undertaken to discover his hiding-place by inquiry among the students he knew.

“No one has been able to tell me up to now,” he answered, and he was telling the truth, for Don Tiburcio was really hidden in the house of the youth’s own uncle, Padre Florentino.

“Let him know,” declared Dona Victorina furiously, “that I’ll call in the Civil Guard.  Alive or dead, I want to know where he is—­because one has to wait ten years before marrying again.”

Isagani gazed at her in fright—­Dona Victorina was thinking of remarrying!  Who could the unfortunate be?

“What do you think of Juanito Pelaez?” she asked him suddenly.