July 27th, 2005
dying wanton
Alas, he has posed for the last time. Here at the ends of the earth, alone under the skies, he had been stripped naked to the bone and cracked open to the marrow, that the act of dying, at least, he might do honestly: knowing himself evil; knowing himself doomed to hell; and knowing the judgment just.
The paragraph above is my most treasured line, based from Nick Joaquin's "The Legend of the Dying Wanton", a sad story about Francisco "Currito" Lopez who is a sinful guy, anomalous, commits every crime in the city but has lived a very prayerful life. The story opened with introducing a certain Dona Ana de Vera who loved in Manila in the year 1613, one of the principal ladies of the country and a woman of great piety. Because of her deep devotion to God, he met Currito and they became friends until the time came where Currito has to go with his troops to Ternate (a place where Dona Ana knew as a perpetual battlefield, many who went there never returned); they (Currito and his troops) are leaving for Cavite and from Cavite will take ship. But a typhoon startles and flooded the streets, unroofing half of the city; soon Currito and all the poor soldiers caught by the storm at sea.The ship has caught the ship near the Mindoro isalnd after being hurled against the rocks and has shattered into pieces; and there is nothing left alive, all of them dies except Currito who lay on the flooded ground, unable to move; all his bone being broken and his whole body crushed to a pulp. Miraculously, Currito remains alive yet only within 13 days which at that fleeting moment gives him the opportunity to be humble, to seek God's love and forgiveness, and to live life at its fullest before it lasts. Before the dying of the wanton (Currito) which ends the story, manifold miracles (which I will later discuss) are vividly told. The story ended with Dona Ana, noticing, planning to inform the other lady who she thinks carelessly hang the robes and boots of Virgin Mary and young Jesus in some muddy yard and has fallen and being soiled; or more probably the other lady in charge has left them lying around the house and children has come and play with them, stamping the Child's boots and soaking the Virgin's skirts through the mud of some juvenile pageantry.
The dying "wanton" in the title (and as defined at: www.dictionary.com) is somebody (Currito) who is "gratuitously cruel, merciless, undisciplined, spoiled".
The story is set in Manila in the year 1613 but the highlight of the story where the cruel Currito suffered is in the shore of Mindoro: For the troops had sailed on the seventh day of October but it was now the twentieth day of the month wherefore Currito had lain on the shore (of Mindoro) for thirteen days.
It can be noted that the characters portrayed by Dona Ana has contributed so much to oppose the wickedness of Currito (though Currito is shown as a religious man). Dona Ana as presented is high-spirited (So acroos two oceans and half the world she had come, one of the many spirited women who, hard on the heels of conquistadores...), highly-spiritual (---approached him and took him by the hand and led led him to the altar. And pointing to the Sacrament and to the Virgin, she reminded him that no man was so sinful he could not, by sincere contrition, make God his friend and the Virgin his mother), benevolent (But if he wanted her blessing, she would gladly give it to him and would pray for him while he was gone and he must not think himself friendless on earth for ahe was his friend/Dona Ana found herself trembling for Currito and for all the soldiers caught by the storm at sea/ As she dipensed dry clothes among the families who had sought refuge in her house), has a power to foresee (---and as she looked at his bowed head the sudden knowledge filled her that this man would soon die), a true friend (Then another voice rose tremulous---for Dona Ana de Vera was kneeling before the altar in her bedroom and begging the Virgin not to let him persih unshriven), and somebody who believes that dreams have meanings (For she had a fearful dream, aterrifying dream of Currito... And she was sure the dream meant that Currito had died indeed).
On the other hand, Currito is presented as the opposite of Dona Ana whose spiritual values can be obviously seen. Currito is portrayed as somebody who has a lost soul (his every action being so public a scandal even decent people knew who he was and shunned him like a leper/ swaggering insolently in sober, reeling and hgowling if drunk), proud and vain even in dying (So our poor Currito, instead of attending to his soul, set to posing himslef in his mind, being unable to move, seeing himself as a sort of stoic, reclining gracefully in the mud, and defying the Fates and the rain with a smile), pretends to be as fearful as a devil (But he had loved to be talked about, thought Currito. He had loved to swagger and to be held in horror by the public and to be considered quite a devil), ignores heaven's existence (He had dared to take heaven for granted), a pretender (It was his piety, rather, that was a mask, that was only a pose assumed to impress the Virgin and innocent old women like his mother and Senora de Vera./ He had even dramatized himself as a weary wanton, a mystic Tenorio, torn between vice and piety; and weeping for heaven while laughing among whores), deceives people (His mother and Dona Ana, perhaps he had deceived but not the Mother of God), egoistic (It was he, rather, who had set himself against the human community of which he was part but had always rejoiced to play the outlaw and outside which he now desired to place himself eternally, by dying unrepentant, by dying in despair---the last gesture of utter egoism), but very pious (and at such times she (Dona Ana) always found the notorious Currito there, kneeling in an obscure corner, his head bowed and his rosary dangling from his clasped hands).
Nick Joaquin used significant terms to compare Dona Ana and Currito, showing some instances where the two characters are extremely similar or extremely different with one another (Now there was stationed in Manila at that time a wild young soldier named Currito Lopez, who was as evil as Dona Ana was good./ She never disturbed him; he never disturbed her. She was Spanish enough not to be shocked at this commingling in a single nature of vice and piety./ From the blue dusk of her altar, the radiant Madonna smiled as lovingly on the wanton as on the saint.)
If examined closely at every detail of the story's entirety, there are lots of lessons and reality depicted in the story. The story showed how mothers love and care for their children which can be observed with Dona Ana (towards his son, Senor Vera): (Senor Vera had tried to dissuade his mother from coming along---she was over fifty and rather fragile of health but Dona Ana had mockingly feared he would degenerate into a savage in three days if she were not there to keep house for him)and with Currito's mother (towards Currito): Currito shivered. It was his mother's voice: she was kneeling at the window of her shack by the wharves, looking out on a bay, and asking God to take care of her son.)
What I admired most of Joaquin's work is his presentation of popular human principles or belief which we usually turn to in cases of despair and failures. In the story, it can be noticed that he showed an instance where you can treat death or dying as a bliss or a blessing when somebody is already tired of suffering: (He had always carelessly accepted whatever Fates had given him: he would accept this death as carelessly. Sooner or later, anyway, one died. And the sooner, the better.).
Joaquin also presented laughter as something one can use to escape through hardships and endless sacrifices: (He was sensible enough, however to perceive in a moment the comedy of this pose and to find it so hugely amusing that, in spite of the pain and the flowing blood, he began laughing aloud at himslef and had soon laughed away all the bitterness inside him; laughter being the best purgative.).
Excessive love of money and power is also presented as the root of all evil (of Currito) and the only thing to be blamed: (So easy to blame the world, or one's poverty, or your neighbour's wealth! The root of all eveil was always in money, or the lack of it, in power, or position, or the laws, or in the lack of them---but never in onself.).
The thought of ang masamang damo ay matagal mamatay can also be applied in the story: (But though he held it, though he relaxed his will, though he surrendered himself completely to dying, he could not die. Something seemed to stop him, to hold him back.).
Human acts or human weaknesses which dominate even at present times are also depicted by the story: the ability to seek time for Revenge (A few men had saved themselves by swimming ashore, Currito among them and some other Spaniards, but the rest were natives who had been impressed to the service and who now turned against to their cruel masters, pushing the Spaniards of the cliffs and hurling great rocks at them until they were all dead or dying, whereupon the natives fled to the wilderness.) and Selfishness (The world was always going to be remade by people who were too busy to remake themselves first and who left the world twice as miserable as before.).
Miracles and mysteries have also vast places in the story and have given much importance by Joaquin (Through stunned eyes, he saw towering a woman above him robed in sunlight and crowned with the stars... Silent she gazed at him stern and beautiful. When he dared look again she was gone and the rain had ceased) with the appearance of Virgin Mary and Jesus, and the unexplainable existence of Currito, wounded and dying within 13 days ashore.
True, "The Legend of the Dying Wanton" will always be a great reminder for all of us: live life with God, rejoice---and forgive.