Reluctantly, and almost with tearful eyes, Placido Penitente was going
along the Escolta on his way to the University of Santo Tomas. It
had hardly been a week since he had come from his town, yet he had
already written to his mother twice, reiterating his desire to abandon
his studies and go back there to work. His mother answered that he
should have patience, that at the least he must be graduated as a
bachelor of arts, since it would be unwise to desert his books after
four years of expense and sacrifices on both their parts.

Whence came to Penitente this aversion to study, when he had been
one of the most diligent in the famous college conducted by Padre
Valerio in Tanawan? There Penitente had been considered one of the
best Latinists and the subtlest disputants, one who could tangle or
untangle the simplest as well as the most abstruse questions. His
townspeople considered him very clever, and his curate, influenced by
that opinion, already classified him as a filibuster--a sure proof that
he was neither foolish nor incapable. His friends could not explain
those desires for abandoning his studies and returning: he had no
sweethearts, was not a gambler, hardly knew anything about _hunkían_
and rarely tried his luck at the more familiar _revesino_. He did
not believe in the advice of the curates, laughed at _Tandang Basio
Macunat_, had plenty of money and good clothes, yet he went to school
reluctantly and looked with repugnance on his books.

On the Bridge of Spain, a bridge whose name alone came from Spain,
since even its ironwork came from foreign countries, he fell in with
the long procession of young men on their way to the Walled City to
their respective schools. Some were dressed in the European fashion and
walked rapidly, carrying books and notes, absorbed in thoughts of their