THE LEGEND OF THE VIRGINS JEWEL Nick joaquin Ales first time Brother Fernando noticed the bowl of milk he had been too busy to wonder. He was new to the country, having but lately arrived from Spain in this year of our Lord 1620, and too engrossed in his duties as brother-sacristan of the convent of Santo Domingo of Manila to worry about a bow! of milk left at the foot of a tree. "The next day, in the evening, while tidying up in the sacristy, he heard voices anda flute. Those would be the goatherds coming home. The convent depended for milk on a flock of goats, which was pastured daily outside the city, in a cluster of groves known as La Ermita, Brother Fernando smiled to hear the flute and the tramping of the goats along the cobbled street; he was reminded of childhood evenings at Alcala de Henares. *He crossed to a window—but the sacristy was separated from the street by a small patio enclosed by a high wall. The patio was paved, except for a space in the center where, ancient and horrible, a massive Laocoon of a tree (a balete, he had heard it called) silently wrestled, savagely grappled with itself, overspreading the whole courtyard, its tormented coils movelessly writhing. “Meanwhile, out in the street, the goatherds seemed to have paused, Then a door in the wall opened and an old Man, a native, stepped into the dusk of the patio. He carried a bowl of milk anda handful of flowers. Through the door the man left ajar, Brother Fernando could see the goats waiting outside, milling around the legs of a little boy. *The old man walked straight to the tree, He bowed low, set down the bowl of milk, and scattered the flowers around it. Then he pulled out a bamboo flute and, tripping around and around the tree, softly piped a little ghost of a tune, very sad and monotonous, yet somehow frightening. From the doorway, the boy and the goats watched him gravely. The tune finished, the old man bowed low again, then walked out of the patio, closing the door behind him. “The night was warm but Brother Fernando found himself shivering, and unable to stir from the window or to take his eyes off the more and more faintly gleaming bowl on the ground. He had, before heeding a call to the religious life, followed the turbulent fortunes of his country all over the globe. A Spaniard ofhis time, he had suddenly turned friar in his middle age, not (as he thought) because he was sated with adventure but because he was insatiable and, having exhausted the secular, now turned to the spiritual domain for newer sensations and profounder adventures. Wherever he had found himself, as soldier or as friar, he had set his foot down withthe confidence of a native: Spain was Mistress of the World, and all the earth was Spanish earth. *But as he stood beside the sacristy window and stared into the now total darkness of the patio, he felt terrified— lost and terrified. And an alien. Spain, Europe, the world of Christian usage was far away. For the first time in his life, he felt desperately homesick for the chimneys of old Alcala de Henares. *But when he awoke the next day and felt the dawn on his face, the terror that had oppressed him all night vanished He chuckled to himselfas he dressed. He ‘was getting old, he thought, and hurried down to the sacristy. He must be in the patio when the goatherd came for his bowl. He meant to have a little talk with that old man. Look, he would say, the milk you left last night, here it still is in the lhowl. See how no one has touched it. And why? Because you offered it to something that is not there, that does not exist, that is iothing. *Smiling, Brother Fernando opened the door to the patio but as he stepped out the smile split open on his lips. Under the tree stood the bowl: it was empty. The next moment he heard footsteps in the street. The door in the wall opened and the old man came in, walked straight to the tree and picked up the bowl. Only as he straightened up did he notice the friar standing at the sacristy door. He hesitated, then smiled disarmingly and bowed. Brother Fernando, very pale, bowed in answer. "That night our friar kept vigil in the sacristy. Pacing the stone floor, he said his beads, clinging to them as to something. familiar and benevolent, a part of the known world, and a weapon against the nameless, ageless, meaningless horror outside, He had witnessed again the little ceremony around the tree, Pausing at the window, he looked into a now silent patio. A slip of moon was abroad; the dense tree let fall its light in slivers. Upon the pavement, the bowl shone luminous and mocking, “Terror tightened at the roots of his hair. He fled to the chapel. By the sanctuary light he could barely make out the Virgin on the altar. But her face soared out of the dusk, her fingers curved out of it—the elusiveness of her smile steadied him. This was before the days of her great miracles, before the sonorous victories of 1646. Popular devotion had not yet covered her with precious stones. A poor Queen, she reigned over a poor colony, clad in simple robes and wearing a simple crown, Brother Fernando had looked upon the splendid, storied Virgins of Spain—upon the Pilar of Zaragoza, patroness of Columbus, symbol of the race (in Bonaparte’s time she would refuse “to become a Frenchwoman’), cloaked and crowned with Spanish geography; and upon the Monserrat of the Catalonians, the Virgin of mystics, glowing in her black vault in the mountains. Fragrant with all the legends of the Grail; and upon the vivid Sevillian Macarena, the Virgin of the toreros, bowed beneath her grief and jewels, and borne amidst wailing through white noons and green oranges of the Holy Week in Seville. But tonight the world of Christendom, the world of his childhood and of his fathers, was represented by this poor Virgin, this colonial Virgin, clad in simple robes and wearing a simple crown, She was history and tradition. She was familiar, Primeval terrors dissolved before her smile. So, he returned to the sacristy.“The clocks tolled midnight as he stood again at the window to watch the patio, But his eyes were misied with tears; it was his home town that he saw: Alcala in autumn, and the storks croaking overhead. It was some time before he noticed that the patio was not quite still, A moonbeam that lay on the ground had moved. ‘Brother Fernando became instantly alert, He strained forward, gripping the window bars in his hands, pressing his face against the bars. The moonbeam continued to move, to advance towards the tree, lifting itself from the ground and falling again. But no moonbeam was ever so brilliant or moved so rhythmically. No moonbeam turned prismatic, flaming abruptly into colors, its white heart burning now red, now blue. And the sparkling flames seemed to gather together, to crystallize, to take form. The wild fire hardened into a star, and the star pulsed along the ground, trailing a coiled shadow behind it ‘*The shadow uncoiled, oozed longer and longer, took shape, lightened in color, and glittered green and gold in the moonlight. Gripping the window bars, his face pressed against the bars, the sweat cold on his brow, the breath blocked in his chest, Brother Fernando watched an enormous jeweled serpent slide nearer and nearer the bow! of milk. "It moved with haste, with evident greed, and its eyes glistened with evil, like peep-holes into hell. The squat head rose radiant, as if aureoled, for between its dripping jaws the monster carried its jewel. Arrived at the bowl, it poised its head high, swaying slightly, as if listening. Then it ducked swiftly and spat the fewel on the ground. Coiling its tremendous length around and around the bow, it began to sip the milk. Brother Fernando watched in horror and fascination, unconsciously working his tongue in rhythm to the suck of the serpent, On the pavement, the jewel slumbered, violet at the core, a small rainbow arching above it An eternity after, the monster reared its head again; the jaws yawned open, the fangs shot out, hissed and withdrew; the evil eyes glistened. The head swung round and round, searching. Suddenly it swooped down, with open jaws, at the jewel. Now, it was gliding away. The jewel burned aloft, blazed brighter and brighter, seemed to dilate, to burst into flames, and to transfigure, to drench the faint moonlight with its hundred magical hues. But suddenly it dulled, dimmed, faded away—and Brother Fernando was presently staring, at a bleak, black patio, an empty bowl, a tree, and some shabby patches of moonlight. He awoke from tortured dreams of old men, old trees, and serpents to find blurred faces hovering above him. He was in his bed, in his cell. It smelled of noon. His bones ached, his head whirled, his flesh burned. The blurred faces spoke in blurred voices. The fever, they said. He had the tropic fever, they said. He had had the fever for three days, they said, *'How his body flamed in the mist! He felt hands lifting him up and a coolness enveloping his neck and arms. He inquired what it was. It was the Virgin's veil, they told him. This was the Virgin’s veil around him and he must pray to her to assist him, they said. He struggled to recall the words of the prayer but the whirling had slowed in his head and he sank into sleep. Sleeping, he heard her enter, was flooded with fragrance, looked up andBe saw her standing at his side, clad in her simple robes and bearing her simple crown. Ah, but her face was not blurred, though her smile was as elusive as ever. She spoke, and music filled the room. She asked how he felt, and why he had not called on her. But presently they were talking about his town of Alcala, about the deep woods there, and the river, and the blue snows on the hills. And he grinned and chattered and laughed and grew breathless and was suddenly silent. Then he said, with much formality, how it pained him to the heart, Sefiora, to see her thus, clad so simply, who had seen her most nobly crowned and arrayed in her shrine at Zaragoza. But she smiled and shook her head and murmured that great souls were her jewels. He remained grave, however, and his eyes scanned her brow. He would find her a jewel, he said. She would wear a diadem here as she did at Zaragoza, he said. But she laughed and called him child and, leaning, laid ahand ~ om his eyes. When he opened them again it was night; the fever had left him; his body felt young and cool and for a moment he thought himself in Cadiz, a young soldier, waiting to ship to the Indies, But remembering what he had to do, he sprang up and ran to the window to gauge the time. It was not yet midnight, he saw the moon was scarcely risen. He dressed quickly. From a chest he drew a sword—the old sword of his soldier- days. He had surrendered it on joining the Dominicans but had begged to take it along to the Orient. 23Downstairs in the chapel, on his knees, the sword offered upon his palms, he prayed the Virgin to bless him and to bless the sword. When midnight struck he was standing in the shadow of the doorway, the moonlit patio before him. His foe was equally punctual. impatience devoured him as he watched the arduous journey of the jewel The serpent moved more slowly, cautiously pausing again and again, the dappled coat lustrous in the moonlight. When it reached the bowl, it reared aloft and listened a long time; the haloed head circled, the evil eyes peered and peered. Brother Fernando held his breath and stood rigid, his eyes shut tight lest they betray him. When he dared to look again the serpent had disgorged the jewel, had coiled around the bowl, and was burying its jaws in the milk. He breathed a rapid prayer, crossed himself, and tiptoed forth. The pavement stung his bare feet and seemed to widen and widen. When he stood at last behind the bowed beast, the beauty of the serpent astonished him. ‘The embroidered coat, bright-hued-and burnished, was luxurious enough for a king. In that instant, the beast smelled danger: the head shot up, swung around, swayed backward, and sprang, hissing, at the friar. Down flashed the gleaming sword—and the serpent’s head, severed, flew off, still hissing. But the tangled coils darted alive, spilled loose at his feet and sought to wind themselves around his legs. Down flashed the sword again, slicing through the dense ‘mass, the wildly writhing mass. Blindly and with both hands and with all his might, sweating and grimacing with horror, a huge rock weighing the pit of his belly, Brother Fernando hacked and hacked until the thick mass lay strewn in chopped coils around him, the murderedal lengths still writhing in the spilled milk, among the fragments of the bowl. *He staggered to the doorway and leaned his brow against the wall. His throat worked, desiring and yet unable to vomit. But the jewel! He had forgotten about the jewel! He turned around with a cry, ran, and picked up the stone. It blazed, cupped in his palm, lighting up his dripping face. He sped through the sacristy and into the chapel. There, his strength failed him and he clung to a pillar, panting. Here it is! he gasped, gazing up at the altar. Here it is, Mary! he panted, and waved the jewel aloft. And her face soared out of the dusk, her fingers curved out of it—the elusiveness of her smile steadied him. ft is for you, my Lady! he whispered, and laughed joyously. It is for you, my Mother! he sang, and tried to move and could not. *But she was coming down herself! She had emerged from the dusk of her altar. Very carefully, very softly (for the Child slept in her arms), she descended, step by step, treading invisible stairs. “He cried out and hurried towards her. But suddenly he realized before whom he stood. He dropped to his knees, bowed low, and laid the jewel at her feet. Then, he swooned away.