The Woman who had Two Navels

The Woman Who Had Two Navels

It is a 1961 historical novel and it is also considered a classic in Philippine literature.It was the recipient of the first Harry Stonehill award. It tells the story of a Filipino elite woman who is hallucinating, and is preoccupied with the notion the she has two navels or belly buttons in order to be treated as an extraordinary person. This novel by Joaquin is a literary assessment of the influence of the past to the time encompassing events in the Philippines after World War II an examination of an assortment of legacy and heritage and the questions of how can an individual exercise free will and how to deal with the “shock” after experiencing “epiphanic recognition” 

Main Characters  

Among the characters conjured by Joaquin are the Manolo Vidal and his family, Connie Escobar, Esteban and Concha Borromeo, Father Tony, Paco Texeira, and Doctor Monson, a former rebel hiding in Hong Kong to avoid postwar trials. Connie Escobar, the lead female character, was described by literary critic Epifanio San Juan as a sufferer of her mother’s estrangement from a world where unconfident malestake advantage of women by violating them or by venerating them. Connie is married to Macho Escobar, a man who had an affair with Connie’s mother, a past incident that serves as an “umbilical cord” or "umbilicus", a remnant connected to her present and future because of her refusal to leave the issue in the past.

According to Epifanio San Juan, the character of Manolo Vidal is the embodiment of the Filipino nationalistic bourgeois who were once critical of the theocracy of the Spaniards but became transformed puppets and servants of these colonialists. While, on the other hand, Macho Escobar is not a revolutionary but a member of the dehumanized clan of hacenderos or landlords of sugar plantations. Paco Texeira was a survivor between the behaviors of the Monson and Vidal families, and also acted as Nick Joaquin’s “conscience”, an observer who could have penetrated the existing rituals and ruses. Texeira had the capacity to apprehend and break the class barrier depicted in the novel’s society, but refused to do so.


SHORT SUMMARY:

In the of the story, it started when Connie went to Pepe’s place for consultation. The problem of Connie is how to remove her other navel. Because if she (if ever) give birth, where would the other umbilical cord be connected. Connie told Pepe the story about her child hood times. Pepe talked to Señiora de Vidal, and verything that Señiora de Vidal told Pepe exactly the opposite of what Connie told Pepe. Some things that Señiora de Vidal told Pepe, was that Connie only have a navel, her navel was not really two. Also the age, which Señiora de Vidal said that Connie was just 18 years old. And she was not just got married that day, but she was married almost a year already. Pepe know that Connie hide from her after hearing that Señiora de Vidal ordinary that her father was in news and that controversies often comes when her father is in the government. Connie’s mom told her not to be affected with the controversies. After that, Señiora de Vidal also told Pepe that her daughter likes Paco. Pepe knows Paco because they were classmates during they are in Grade School.

After talking with Señiora de Vidal, Pepe went to Texeria's after. They talked and Pepe discovered that Paco was in Manila, he writes Mary alot of letters about Connie's Mother. Paco was in manila with his band to play and sing in two different clubs, they had already signed contracts. Paco became interested with Manila, while Señiora de Vidal became interested with Hong Kong. The even talked an said, they would meet often and know each others countries. One time, Connie's mom was not around their house, and Paco met Connie. Starting that time, connie started watching Paco and his band playing for the club. Until one they, there were few people fighting and one of them got shot. Connie was there and she was shocked. Paco with Connie went together to a Chinese Temple. Connie told Paco that she can talk to somebody else, Connie left him. After some weeks past by, Paco exited the club that he was playing for, and suddenly saw Connie's car in dark. They drove till they reach Paco's hotel. Paco went out of his hotel room and go away. After that happening, 2 days to be exact, Paco left Manila alone and went back to Hong Kong.

Mary, Pepe, Paco went to the park and talked. After few hours, Mary went home ahead with her children. The two gentlemans talk about Connie's two navel. They where wondering if it is true or not. After talking about it, Pepe went home while Paco was left in the park. When we came home, he saw his father who was supposed to be in Manila. His father was very unusal that time and cannot answer most of Paco's questions. Tony his brother and Rita, who he is engagage to, went to Paco's house becuase their father was their. They ate together and his father went to his room earlier that other. They were all thinking what happened to their father when he was still in Manila. He wasn't able to answer their questions and he went to Hongkong earlier than what is expected. The only this he saw in the room was the dirty run that was full of dust. Pepe gave up of figuring up things and went away.

in In the next chapter, Rita Lopez and Hellen Silva’s painting shop. The phone rang and the person on the phone was Pepe and ask Rita to go to a dinner with Mary and Paco. Hellen told Rita it was sweet but Rita said, it was all Mary’s idea. Rita wanted to go home and change clothes but Pepe told him that they will be going straight to Rita’s shop. So Rita has to just stay in her shop and not to change clothes. So they went to ride a ferry going to a Disco club in Tovarich. They went there to see one good band playing in Tovarich. Pete Alfonso went near them in the bar and talk to them. And ask a drink with them, Paco ask Pete Alfonso why there where no singer and pianist. So he answer and said they ran away and need a replacement. So Paco applied and was accepted to start the next day.

Next, Rita asked Pepe to dance with her but Pepe told him he was too full to dance. Pepe ask someone who was siting across them awhile ago and said it was Vidal. After talking, Pepe ask permission to Rita if she can go to the balcony, Pepe went to the balcony to talk with Connie Escobar. Pepe went back to Rita and told them to go home first because he is going to talk to someone. So Connie Escobar drive Pepe very fast but Pepe said stop and went away. But after minutes pass by, Pepe went back to the car. Then Connie told Pepe stories and atlast, the arrived at the hotel. Connie kissed Pepe on his cheeks and go to her room. But, Connie went back to Pepe and ask him to bring her to other places. Pepe ask her why and she said, because his husband is up their. Pepe told her, why should you get worried. Connie told him that Macho has other girls, the worst thing about it was, her own mother Concha De Vidal was the girl of his husband. Connie saw the letters of her mother to Macho. So Pepe help her and brought her to his wife’s place. Connie ask Pepe to tell Macho that she was just sick, she don’t like to go there.

Pepe told that to Macho, Macho ask Pepe if Connie is alright, and ask him if he is a doctor, Pepe told him he was not a doctor. So Macho ask him to get Connie one, Macho was asking and asking Pepe where Connie is but Pepe didn’t tell him because it was what Connie ask him to do. When Pepe was to leave Macho’s room, Macho stop him and told the story of how he and Connie got married. Macho became emotional, while the story was on going. Macho’s father was stroke and after a few days, Macho’s father died. So Macho has to take care of their business and their “hacienda”.

As Pepe went home, just daylight before Rita awoke. Rita didn’t saw Connie in the sofa.

The next chapter started when it was New Year in Hong Kong. Paco and his band perform in Tovarich. Everybody there was having a lot of fun. In the convent of St Andrew, Father Tony was planning to teach novices different languages. But he had a visitor, it was Seniora de Vidal. She told Father Tony that Connie was starting to invent stories. She knows that Connie hated her because she as Father Tony to convince her to go back to his husband Macho. After hearing the story, Father Tony was confused and felt very uncomfortable. After that, Father Tony when to the club to talk to Pepe, Rita, Paco & Mary. He told them everything that Seniora de Vidal told him, there Paco hated them more.

Later that night, Concha remembers when she first met his husband Esteban Borromeo. A Handsome boy, a good painter, and an activist she fell in love with and who she married. After Esteban died, she met and married her latest husband, Mr. Vidal.

That night, Concha ask Father Tony to go to her car. They talk everything about Concha’s past and about Connie. Then Tony and Pepe went home and they saw Connie standing infront of their door. They try to talk with her, to forgive whatever her mother did to her. And try to start a new life, and told her she only have one navel. And it was just her imagination. Then Connie started to tease Father Tony and Pepe to look if she really has two navels.

The next chapter is about what happen to the Connie’s life. How she want to destroy her parents. How she hated her husband Macho and can’t forgive him. How she sees the world as an evil world, trying to live in a make believe world. Connie can’t accept to accept the really world.
While Connie was on the top of the peak. She recalled everything that happened and felt hated that is inside her heart, her mothers and his fathers. She remember the times when she always says that her father and mother are bad, and not her. She felt soared but still, cannot accept the truth. After a while, she went to the Monastery.

When she was in the Monastery and got inside, she wanted to talk to Father Tony but is was an older father who approach her. They had confrontation of what Connie really felt. The father showed her that she was bad. But whatever the Father told her, she always believe that she is not bad.   

Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Summary_of_the_woman_who_had_two_navels_by_chapters

May Day Eve

"May Day Eve"

Written after World War II, it became one of Joaquin's “signiture stories” that became a classic in Philippine literature in English.  It was published in 1947, it is a story originally intended for adult readers, but has later become a required and important reading material for Filipino students.

May Day Eve utilized the theme of "magic realism" long before the genre was made a trend in Latin American novels.

Character Description

The major characters in May Day Eve are Badoy, Agueda, Anastasia,Agueda's daughter, and Voltaire (Badoy's grandson). Agueda and Badoy have different personalities. Agueda was described to be a bold, liberated, and a non-conformist young woman who was “ahead of her time”. While Badoy was characterized in the beginning as a promiscuous young man who wanted to prove his machismo, he realized that he was “deliriously in love” with Agueda.

Plot summary

As Don Badoy Montoya visited his old home at Intramuros, Manila, memories of his youth came back. He recalled how he fell in love with Agueda, a young woman who resisted his advances. Agueda learned that she would be able to know her future husband by reciting an incantation in front of a mirror. As she recited the words: “Mirror, mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be,” Agueda saw Badoy. Badoy and Agueda got married. However, Don Badoy learned from his grandson that he was described by Doña Agueda (through their daughter) as a "devil". In return, Don Badoy told his grandson that every time he looks at the mirror, he only sees a "witch" (Agueda). Don Badoy ponders on love that had dissipated. The truth was revealed, Badoy and Agueda had a “bitter marriage”, which began in the past, during one evening in the month of May in 1847. The tragedy of the story is Badoy’s heart forgot how he loved Agueda in the past. They were not able to mend their broken marriage because their love was a “raging passion and nothing more”

STORY:

May Day Eve

By Nick Joaquin

The old people had ordered that the dancing should stop at ten o’clock but it was almost midnight before the carriages came filing up the departing guests, while the girls who were staying were promptly herded upstairs to the bedrooms, the young men gathering around to wish them a good night and lamenting their ascent with mock signs and moaning, proclaiming themselves disconsolate but straightway going off to finish the punch and the brandy though they were quite drunk already and simply bursting with wild spirits, merriment, arrogance and audacity, for they were young bucks newly arrived from Europe; the ball had been in their honor; and they had waltzed and polka-ed and bragged and swaggered and flirted all night and where in no mood to sleep yet--no, caramba, not on this moist tropic eve! not on this mystic May eve! --with the night still young and so seductive that it was madness not to go out, not to go forth---and serenade the neighbors! cried one; and swim in the Pasid! cried another; and gather fireflies! cried a third—whereupon there arose a great clamor for coats and capes, for hats and canes, and they were a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage rattled away upon the cobbles while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tile roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wile sky murky with clouds, save where an evil young moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable childhood fragrances or ripe guavas to the young men trooping so uproariously down the street that the girls who were desiring upstairs in the bedrooms catered screaming to the windows, crowded giggling at the windows, but were soon sighing amorously over those young men bawling below; over those wicked young men and their handsome apparel, their proud flashing eyes, and their elegant mustaches so black and vivid in the moonlight that the girls were quite ravished with love, and began crying to one another how carefree were men but how awful to be a girl and what a horrid, horrid world it was, till old Anastasia plucked them off by the ear or the pigtail and chases them off to bed---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobble and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his great voice booming through the night, "Guardia serno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o.

And it was May again, said the old Anastasia. It was the first day of May and witches were abroad in the night, she said--for it was a night of divination, and night of lovers, and those who cared might peer into a mirror and would there behold the face of whoever it was they were fated to marry, said the old Anastasia as she hobble about picking up the piled crinolines and folding up shawls and raking slippers in corner while the girls climbing into four great poster-beds that overwhelmed the room began shrieking with terror, scrambling over each other and imploring the old woman not to frighten them.

"Enough, enough, Anastasia! We want to sleep!"

"Go scare the boys instead, you old witch!"

"She is not a witch, she is a maga. She is a maga. She was born of Christmas Eve!"

"St. Anastasia, virgin and martyr."

"Huh? Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin, Anastasia?"

"No, but I am seven times a martyr because of you girls!"

"Let her prophesy, let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, old gypsy? Come, tell me."

"You may learn in a mirror if you are not afraid."

"I am not afraid, I will go," cried the young cousin Agueda, jumping up in bed.

"Girls, girls---we are making too much noise! My mother will hear and will come and pinch us all. Agueda, lie down! And you Anastasia, I command you to shut your mouth and go away!""Your mother told me to stay here all night, my grand lady!"

"And I will not lie down!" cried the rebellious Agueda, leaping to the floor. "Stay, old woman. Tell me what I have to do."

"Tell her! Tell her!" chimed the other girls.

The old woman dropped the clothes she had gathered and approached and fixed her eyes on the girl. "You must take a candle," she instructed, "and go into a room that is dark and that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in the room. Go up to the mirror and close your eyes and shy:

Mirror, mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be. If all goes right, just above your left shoulder will appear the face of the man you will marry." A silence. Then: "And hat if all does not go right?" asked Agueda. "Ah, then the Lord have mercy on you!" "Why." "Because you may see--the Devil!"

The girls screamed and clutched one another, shivering. "But what nonsense!" cried Agueda. "This is the year 1847. There are no devil anymore!" Nevertheless she had turned pale. "But where could I go, hugh? Yes, I know! Down to the sala. It has that big mirror and no one is there now." "No, Agueda, no! It is a mortal sin! You will see the devil!" "I do not care! I am not afraid! I will go!" "Oh, you wicked girl! Oh, you mad girl!" "If you do not come to bed, Agueda, I will call my mother." "And if you do I will tell her who came to visit you at the convent last March. Come, old woman---give me that candle. I go." "Oh girls---give me that candle, I go."

But Agueda had already slipped outside; was already tiptoeing across the hall; her feet bare and her dark hair falling down her shoulders and streaming in the wind as she fled down the stairs, the lighted candle sputtering in one hand while with the other she pulled up her white gown from her ankles. She paused breathless in the doorway to the sala and her heart failed her. She tried to imagine the room filled again with lights, laughter, whirling couples, and the jolly jerky music of the fiddlers. But, oh, it was a dark den, a weird cavern for the windows had been closed and the furniture stacked up against the walls. She crossed herself and stepped inside.

The mirror hung on the wall before her; a big antique mirror with a gold frame carved into leaves and flowers and mysterious curlicues. She saw herself approaching fearfully in it: a small while ghost that the darkness bodied forth---but not willingly, not completely, for her eyes and hair were so dark that the face approaching in the mirror seemed only a mask that floated forward; a bright mask with two holes gaping in it, blown forward by the white cloud of her gown. But when she stood before the mirror she lifted the candle level with her chin and the dead mask bloomed into her living face.

She closed her eyes and whispered the incantation. When she had finished such a terror took hold of her that she felt unable to move, unable to open her eyes and thought she would stand there forever, enchanted. But she heard a step behind her, and a smothered giggle, and instantly opened her eyes. 

"And what did you see, Mama? Oh, what was it?" But Dona Agueda had forgotten the little girl on her lap: she was staring pass the curly head nestling at her breast and seeing herself in the big mirror hanging in the room. It was the same room and the same mirror out the face she now saw in it was an old face---a hard, bitter, vengeful face, framed in graying hair, and so sadly altered, so sadly different from that other face like a white mask, that fresh young face like a pure mask than she had brought before this mirror one wild May Day midnight years and years ago.... "But what was it Mama? Oh please go on! What did you see?" Dona Agueda looked down at her daughter but her face did not soften though her eyes filled with tears. "I saw the devil." she said bitterly. The child blanched. "The devil, Mama? Oh... Oh..." "Yes, my love. I opened my eyes and there in the mirror, smiling at me over my left shoulder, was the face of the devil." "Oh, my poor little Mama! And were you very frightened?" "You can imagine. And that is why good little girls do not look into mirrors except when their mothers tell them. You must stop this naughty habit, darling, of admiring yourself in every mirror you pass- or you may see something frightful some day." "But the devil, Mama---what did he look like?" "Well, let me see... he has curly hair and a scar on his cheek---" "Like the scar of Papa?" "Well, yes. But this of the devil was a scar of sin, while that of your Papa is a scar of honor. Or so he says." "Go on about the devil." "Well, he had mustaches." "Like those of Papa?" "Oh, no. Those of your Papa are dirty and graying and smell horribly of tobacco, while these of the devil were very black and elegant--oh, how elegant!" "And did he speak to you, Mama?" "Yes… Yes, he spoke to me," said Dona Agueda. And bowing her graying head; she wept.

"Charms like yours have no need for a candle, fair one," he had said, smiling at her in the mirror and stepping back to give her a low mocking bow. She had whirled around and glared at him and he had burst into laughter. "But I remember you!" he cried. "You are Agueda, whom I left a mere infant and came home to find a tremendous beauty, and I danced a waltz with you but you would not give me the polka." "Let me pass," she muttered fiercely, for he was barring the way. "But I want to dance the polka with you, fair one," he said. So they stood before the mirror; their panting breath the only sound in the dark room; the candle shining between them and flinging their shadows to the wall. And young Badoy Montiya (who had crept home very drunk to pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself cold sober and very much awake and ready for anything. His eyes sparkled and the scar on his face gleamed scarlet. "Let me pass!" she cried again, in a voice of fury, but he grasped her by the wrist. "No," he smiled. "Not until we have danced." "Go to the devil!" "What a temper has my serrana!" "I am not your serrana!" "Whose, then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended grievously? Because you treat me, you treat all my friends like your mortal enemies." "And why not?" she demanded, jerking her wrist away and flashing her teeth in his face. "Oh, how I detest you, you pompous young men! You go to Europe and you come back elegant lords and we poor girls are too tame to please you. We have no grace like the Parisiennes, we have no fire like the Sevillians, and we have no salt, no salt, no salt! Aie, how you weary me, how you bore me, you fastidious men!" "Come, come---how do you know about us?"

"I was not admiring myself, sir!" "You were admiring the moon perhaps?" "Oh!" she gasped, and burst into tears. The candle dropped from her hand and she covered her face and sobbed piteously. The candle had gone out and they stood in darkness, and young Badoy was conscience-stricken. "Oh, do not cry, little one!" Oh, please forgive me! Please do not cry! But what a brute I am! I was drunk, little one, I was drunk and knew not what I said." He groped and found her hand and touched it to his lips. She shuddered in her white gown. "Let me go," she moaned, and tugged feebly. "No. Say you forgive me first. Say you forgive me, Agueda." But instead she pulled his hand to her mouth and bit it - bit so sharply in the knuckles that he cried with pain and lashed cut with his other hand--lashed out and hit the air, for she was gone, she had fled, and he heard the rustling of her skirts up the stairs as he furiously sucked his bleeding fingers. Cruel thoughts raced through his head: he would go and tell his mother and make her turn the savage girl out of the house--or he would go himself to the girl’s room and drag her out of bed and slap, slap, slap her silly face! But at the same time he was thinking that they were all going to Antipolo in the morning and was already planning how he would maneuver himself into the same boat with her. Oh, he would have his revenge, he would make her pay, that little harlot! She should suffer for this, he thought greedily, licking his bleeding knuckles. But---Judas! He remembered her bare shoulders: gold in her candlelight and delicately furred. He saw the mobile insolence of her neck, and her taut breasts steady in the fluid gown. Son of a Turk, but she was quite enchanting! How could she think she had no fire or grace? And no salt? An arroba she had of it!

"... No lack of salt in the chrism At the moment of thy baptism!" He sang aloud in the dark room and suddenly realized that he had fallen madly in love with her. He ached intensely to see her again---at once! ---to touch her hands and her hair; to hear her harsh voice. He ran to the window and flung open the casements and the beauty of the night struck him back like a blow. It was May, it was summer, and he was young---young! ---and deliriously in love. Such a happiness welled up within him that the tears spurted from his eyes. But he did not forgive her--no! He would still make her pay, he would still have his revenge, he thought viciously, and kissed his wounded fingers. But what a night it had been! "I will never forge this night! he thought aloud in an awed voice, standing by the window in the dark room, the tears in his eyes and the wind in his hair and his bleeding knuckles pressed to his mouth.

But, alas, the heart forgets; the heart is distracted; and May time passes; summer lends; the storms break over the rot-tipe orchards and the heart grows old; while the hours, the days, the months, and the years pile up and pile up, till the mind becomes too crowded, too confused: dust gathers in it; cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin and decay; the memory perished...and there came a time when Don Badoy Montiya walked home through a May Day midnight without remembering, without even caring to remember; being merely concerned in feeling his way across the street with his cane; his eyes having grown quite dim and his legs uncertain--for he was old; he was over sixty; he was a very stopped and shivered old man with white hair and mustaches coming home from a secret meeting of conspirators; his mind still resounding with the speeches and his patriot heart still exultant as he picked his way up the steps to the front door and inside into the slumbering darkness of the house; wholly unconscious of the May night, till on his way down the hall, chancing to glance into the sala, he shuddered, he stopped, his blood ran cold-- for he had seen a face in the mirror there---a ghostly candlelight face with the eyes closed and the lips moving, a face that he suddenly felt he had been there before though it was a full minutes before the lost memory came flowing, came tiding back, so overflooding the actual moment and so swiftly washing away the piled hours and days and months and years that he was left suddenly young again; he was a gay young buck again, lately came from Europe; he had been dancing all night; he was very drunk; he s stepped in the doorway; he saw a face in the dark; he called out...and the lad standing before the mirror (for it was a lad in a night go jumped with fright and almost dropped his candle, but looking around and seeing the old man, laughed out with relief and came running.

"Oh Grandpa, how you frightened me. Don Badoy had turned very pale. "So it was you, you young bandit! And what is all this, hey? What are you doing down here at this hour?" "Nothing, Grandpa. I was only... I am only ..." "Yes, you are the great Señor only and how delighted I am to make your acquaintance, Señor Only! But if I break this cane on your head you maga wish you were someone else, Sir!" "It was just foolishness, Grandpa. They told me I would see my wife."

"Wife? What wife?" "Mine. The boys at school said I would see her if I looked in a mirror tonight and said: Mirror, mirror show to me her whose lover I will be.

Don Badoy cackled ruefully. He took the boy by the hair, pulled him along into the room, sat down on a chair, and drew the boy between his knees. "Now, put your cane down the floor, son, and let us talk this over. So you want your wife already, hey? You want to see her in advance, hey? But so you know that these are wicked games and that wicked boys who play them are in danger of seeing horrors?"

"Well, the boys did warn me I might see a witch instead."

"Exactly! A witch so horrible you may die of fright. And she will be witch you, she will torture you, she will eat

your heart and drink your blood!"

"Oh, come now Grandpa. This is 1890. There are no witches anymore."

"Oh-ho, my young Voltaire! And what if I tell you that I myself have seen a witch.

"You? Where?

"Right in this room land right in that mirror," said the old man, and his playful voice had turned savage.

"When, Grandpa?"

"Not so long ago. When I was a bit older than you. Oh, I was a vain fellow and though I was feeling very sick that night and merely wanted to lie down somewhere and die I could not pass that doorway of course without stopping to see in the mirror what I looked like when dying. But when I poked my head in what should I see in the mirror but...but..."

"The witch?"

"Exactly!"

"And then she bewitch you, Grandpa!"

"She bewitched me and she tortured me. l She ate my heart and drank my blood." said the old man bitterly.

"Oh, my poor little Grandpa! Why have you never told me! And she very horrible?

"Horrible? God, no--- she was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen! Her eyes were somewhat like yours but her hair was like black waters and her golden shoulders were bare. My God, she was enchanting! But I should have known---I should have known even then---the dark and fatal creature she was!"

A silence. Then: "What a horrid mirror this is, Grandpa," whispered the boy.

"What makes you slay that, hey?"

"Well, you saw this witch in it. And Mama once told me that Grandma once told her that Grandma once saw the devil in this mirror. Was it of the scare that Grandma died?"

Don Badoy started. For a moment he had forgotten that she was dead, that she had perished---the poor Agueda; that they were at peace at last, the two of them, her tired body at rest; her broken body set free at last from the brutal pranks of the earth---from the trap of a May night; from the snare of summer; from the terrible silver nets of the moon. She had been a mere heap of white hair and bones in the end: a whimpering withered consumptive, lashing out with her cruel tongue; her eye like live coals; her face like ashes... Now, nothing--- nothing save a name on a stone; save a stone in a graveyard---nothing! was left of the young girl who had flamed so vividly in a mirror one wild May Day midnight, long, long ago.

And remembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she had bitten his hand and fled and how he had sung aloud in the dark room and surprised his heart in the instant of falling in love: such a grief tore up his throat and eyes that he felt ashamed before the boy; pushed the boy away; stood up and looked out----looked out upon the medieval shadows of the foul street where a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage was rattling away upon the cobbles, while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky with clouds, save where an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable the window; the bowed old man sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tears streaming down his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to his mouth---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobbles, and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his voice booming through the night: 

"Guardia sereno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o!"

soucrce: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Tagalog/Literature/Short%20Stories/May%20Day%20Eve.htm