“RIZAL AND I TRAVELLED TO EUROPE”

Since the Mercado’s brothers let Jose to leave alone I decided to join him to his journey to
Europe. On the day of our departure, I saw how Paciano woke Jose Rizal before daybreak and he
gave him 365 pesos for the trip. Jose and I then caught a carriage for Manila, where our passports
were waiting with his uncle Antonio Rivera. So that our departure would remain a secret, his
passport bore the surname Mercado. Only in Europe he did revert to the name Rizal.
On May 3, 1882, after the hearing Mass at Santo Domingo Church, Rizal and I boarded the
steamer SS Salvadora. I saw how he felt so depressed at the thought of having left his parents
without bidding them goodbye. As our ship sailed away, I saw how his eyes fixed tearfully on
the small send-off party waving from the pier.
When Rizal and I arrived at Singapore. I saw how Rizal marveled at the churches, temples,
factories, a Siamese prince’s palace, a hanging bridge, and the botanical gardens. In Singapore,
Rizal and I transferred to a French luxury liner, the SS D’jennah, for the main part of our
journey. Here Rizal found a world much grander and more cosmopolitan than the narrow world
of Spaniards and Indios. Whenever the ship dropped anchor, Rizal and I went ashore for
sightseeing tours with friendly Spaniards and our Dutch roommates.
On June 13, 1882, our ship steamed into Marseilles, France. Touring the city, Rizal and I were
enchanted by the tall and lovely houses, the flower girls, and the newspaper peddlers. Two days
later, I saw how Rizal exhilarated to find himself on a night train speeding to Spain.
We arrived in Barcelona and were immediately shocked to see that the Spaniards were rude
compared to the French. Rizal and I had difficulty finding decent lodgings, especially since we
had only 15 pesos in our wallets, after our sightseeing and shopping sprees.
After our three months in Barcelona, Rizal and I proceeded to Madrid. I saw how Rizal got
disappointed to see that in both cities , most of the Filipino students devoted more time to coffee-
houses and billiards than to their studies. So he then wrote a nationalistic article entitled “ El
Amor Patrio” (“Love of Country”) for Diariong Tagalog, a Manila newspaper.
I saw how Rizal immediately set out to improve the sorry image of the Filipino in Spain. I
was with him when he enrolled in medicine as well as in philosophy and letters at the
Universidad Central de Madrid. He studied French, English, and German at the Madrid Ateneo.
In January 1883, we wrote a letter for our family, in his letter he told his family that he was
learning Italian. He even made a bet with our friend that he would be able to speak the language
in two months. His European classmates must have envied Rizal, who was a brown-skinned man
who surpassed them in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Spain literature. His professor in Greek once
remarked that he had never met a student like Jose Rizal.
Between language lessons and medical subjects, Rizal took painting and sculpture at the
Academia de San Fernando, and fencing at two well-known schools. At one point he even
considered taking the examination in Roman law in order to qualify for the seven-year law
course. Rizal spent more money on his studies and extracurricular activities than on his personal
needs. He was neither a smoker nor drinker, he preferred water, but when we were at restaurants
he drank beer only so as not to attract attention. At one time, we did not take a bath from August
to December because it cost us too much. We endured cold and rain in winter, and our feet
swelled because we walked great distances to save on streetcar fare.
In June 1884, Rizal received his licentiate in medicine. He called it “the greatest event of my
student life”. He wrote it right away to his family that at last he is a physician at that time. In the
liberal climate of Spain, he had no trouble writing letters to the editor exposing the hypocrisy of
the friars in the Philippines. He was not alone in this campaign, for many Spanish intellectuals
freely expressed their anti-clerical views in the press. Rizal directed his attacks, not against
Spain or against the men who used God and the Catholic Church to promote their own political
ends. He believed that the friars were blocking the Philippines effort to be represented in the
Spanish Cortes, or parliament. The Filipino expatriates in Madrid soon recognized Rizal’s
potential for leadership. He was destined to be their cabeza pensante, or brain, as he had been to
his classmates during his adolescent school days.
On the evening of June 25, 1884, Rizal was not feeling too well on that day, despite this he
won first prize in a Greek competition. In his diary he wrote, “. I was hungry and I had nothing
to eat, and no money”. I felt bad when I saw what he wrote to his diary on that time I wish I had
enough money to help him with his problem but I also have nothing. Luckily, we were invited to
a dinner hosted by Filipino students in honor of the painters Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion
Hidalgo, who had just won the two major prizes in a national art competition. The honor of
toasting the winners was given to Doctor Don Jose Rizal. His discurso brindis, or toasting
speech,galvanized the audience. He said that the victory of the two artists was a sign of equality
and mutual esteem between Spaniards and Filipinos.
Liberal Spanish newspapers gave Rizal’s speech wide publicity Spain’s Filipino community,
afire with instant patriotism, stopped frittering their lives away at the gambling tables. They
vowed that, henceforth they would give their all to the motherland. Back home, the indios were
all agog over Rizal’s display of courage, if not recklessness. Teodora Alonso, however reacted
with fear and trembling. She took her bed and in a week lost a great deal of weight due to lack of
food and sleep. Paciano blamed her illness on Rizal’s toasting speech. He wrote his brother a
letter containing all his anger with what happened to their mother. Paciano have been correct in
diagnosing his mother’s ailment as emotional rather than physical. When she recovered, she told
Rizal in a letter how upset she was to hear about what people were saying about him. She begged
him not to meddle in things that bring grief to her heart. What most important to her was that he
fulfill his duties as a real Christian.
Rizal of course, remained unafraid. He planned to take advanced studies in ophthalmology and
then return home to marry Leonor. Which according to the reports, she was suffering from
insomnia and weight loss because she believed he had abandoned her.
Meanwhile, he continued working on a novel he had begun early that year. He had often
secluded himself instead of socializing. One day his friends, finding his door unlocked, sneaked
inside his room to see what he had been doing in secret. To their surprise, they discovered a pile
of papers. It was the draft to his first novel, Noli Me Tangere. His friends left with a feeling of
admiration mingled with guilt. They wished they had employed their leisure hours as profitably.
Even then, they did not foresee the dramatic impact Rizal’s first novel would make on
Philippines history.