images that the Filipinos make, and a mien somewhat ashamed, doubtless
at the way in which the curate had arranged her. In front came several
singers and behind, some musicians with the usual civil-guards. The
curate, as was to be expected after what he had done, was not in his
place, for that year he was greatly displeased at having to use all
his diplomacy and shrewdness to convince the townspeople that they
should pay thirty pesos for each Christmas mass instead of the usual
twenty. "You're turning filibusters!" he had said to them.

The cochero must have been greatly preoccupied with the sights of the
procession, for when it had passed and Basilio ordered him to go on, he
did not notice that the lamp on his carromata had gone out. Neither did
Basilio notice it, his attention being devoted to gazing at the houses,
which were illuminated inside and out with little paper lanterns
of fantastic shapes and colors, stars surrounded by hoops with long
streamers which produced a pleasant murmur when shaken by the wind,
and fishes of movable heads and tails, having a glass of oil inside,
suspended from the eaves of the windows in the delightful fashion of
a happy and homelike fiesta. But he also noticed that the lights were
flickering, that the stars were being eclipsed, that this year had
fewer ornaments and hangings than the former, which in turn had had
even fewer than the year preceding it. There was scarcely any music
in the streets, while the agreeable noises of the kitchen were not to
be heard in all the houses, which the youth ascribed to the fact that
for some time things had been going badly, the sugar did not bring a
good price, the rice crops had failed, over half the live stock had
died, but the taxes rose and increased for some inexplicable reason,
while the abuses of the Civil Guard became more frequent to kill off
the happiness of the people in the towns.