Reference no: EM133210229

1. "But, gentlemen," the mayor interrupted. "What can we do? What can the town do? Whatever happens, the friars are always right!" "They are always right because we always let them be right," Don Filipo answered with impatience, emphasizing the word "always." "Let us be in the right for a change and then let's talk!"The mayor scratched his head and, looking at the ceiling, replied sourly, "Ay, the heat of blood! It seems like we don't even know what country we're in; we don't even know our own countrymen. The friars are rich and united, and we are divided and poor. Sure, try to defend him and you'll see how everyone will abandon you to your task.""Sure," Don Filipo exclaimed bitterly, "it will always happen if you think that way, while fear and restraint are synonymous. Everyone pays more attention to something bad rather than to a needed good thing. Suddenly it's all fear and lack of trust. Everyone thinks about himself, and no one about other people. That's why we're so weak!"

2. You're right, Elías, but man is a creature of circumstance. I was blind then, disgusted, what did I know! Now misfortune has ripped off my blinders. Solitude and the misery of prison have shown me. Now I see the horrible cancer gnawing at this society, rotting its flesh, almost begging for a violent extirpation. They opened my eyes, they made me see the sores and forced me to become a criminal! And so, just what they wanted, I will be a subversive, but a true subversive. I will call together all the downtrodden people, everyone who feels a heart beating in his breast, those who sent you to me...No, I won't be a criminal, you aren't a criminal when you fight for your country, just the opposite!

3. "Because sane people," he went on with a bitter irony, "will think you are crazy, too. People believe that madness is when you don't think as they do, which is why they take me for a madman. And I'm grateful for that, because, well, the day on which they restore my reason is the day they deprive me of the small bit of freedom I've purchased at the price of a reputation as a sane person. And who knows if they are right? I neither think nor live according to their laws. My principles, my ideals, are different. Among them the mayor enjoys a reputation as a sane individual, since he has not learned anything more than how to serve chocolate and suffer Father Dámaso's ill humor."

4. "You write in hieroglyphics? But why?" the young man asked, finding it hard to believe his eyes and ears."So that no one will understand what I'm writing."Ibarra looked him up and down, wondering if indeed the old man was crazy. He gave the book a quick examination to see if he was lying and saw well-drawn animals, circles, semicircles, flowers, feet, hands, arms, and other things."But why are you writing if you don't want anyone to read it?""Because I'm not writing for this generation, I'm writing for the ages. If they could read these, I would burn my books, my life's work. On the other hand, the generation that can decipher these characters will be an educated generation. It will understand me and say, 'In the nights of our grandparents, not everyone was asleep.' Mystery and these curious characters will save my work from the ignorance of men, just as mystery and strange rites have saved many truths from the destructive priest class."