Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
"It can be said that the life of the illustrious traveler in this city
had nothing notable about it. He visited without pomp and
ceremony... During the day I couldn't accompany him in his
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excursions as much as I wished, for I was preparing for my final
examinations. At night, I sometimes accompanied him to the
Café Pelayo -- gathering place of the Filipino expatriates -- and
sometimes to other amusement centers, including casas de
polomas de bajo vuelo (in Pilipino, kasa ng mga kalapating
mababa ang lapid); in English brothels whose ways, luxury or
poverty, and other customs of refinement of vice were unknown
to him in Madrid. In as much as he was eager to know
everything, because the day when, as a writer, he would have to
combat such a vice in its diverse manifestations for being
unnatural an anti-psycological, according to him, he would be
informed of its cause the better to correct it. It must be noted
that in these excursions, rather of a character more inquisitorial
than voluptious, he always hinted to me thathe had never been
in favor of obeying blindly the whims of nature when theeir call
was not duly justified by a natural and spontaneous impulse."
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the semidarkness) who lie in wait; the ugly ones are aggressive
out of despair, so they pull men off the street into their sleazy
little rooms. I wonder where these kalapati [doves] were in
Rizal's time. From Rizal's letter it is obvious he know what he's
talking about.
Now, tell me, how can Viola say with a straight face that these
"amusements" were unknown to Rizal?
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