After the vacation, in that memorable year of my mother’s release, I again had my lodgings in the Walled City.... My mother had not wanted me to return to Manila, saying that I already had a sufficient education. Did she have a presentiment of what was going to happen to me? Can it be that a mother’s heart gives her double vision? My future profession was still unsettled. My father wanted me to study metaphysics, so I enrolled in that course. But my interest was so slight that I did not even buy a copy of the text-book. A former schoolmate, who had finished his course three months before, was my only intimate friend. He lived in the same street that I lived in. On Sundays and other holidays, this friend used to call for me and we would spend the day at my great-aunt’s house in Trozo. My aunt knew his father. When my youngest sister entered La Concordia College, I used to visit her, too, on the holidays. Another friend had a sister in the same school, so we could go together. I made a pencil sketch of his sister from a photograph she lent me. On December 8, the festival of La Concordia, some other students and I went to the college. It was a fine day, and the building was gay with decorations of banners, lanterns, and flowers. Shortly after that I went home for the Christmas holidays. On the same steamer was a Calamba girl that had been a pupil in Santa Catalina College for nearly five years. Her father was with her. We were well acquainted, but her schooling had made her bashful. She kept her back to me while we talked. To help her pass the time, I asked about her school and studies, but I got hardly more than “yes” and “no” answers. She seemed to have almost, if not entirely, forgotten her Tagalog. When I walked into our house in Calamba, my mother at first did not recognize me. The sad cause was that she had almost lost her sight. My sisters greeted me joyfully, and I could read their welcome in their smiling faces. But my father, who seemed to be the most pleased of all, said least.... There I tied the horse by the roadside and for a time watched the water flowing through the irrigation ditch. Its swiftness reminded me how rapidly my days were going by. I am now twenty years old and have the satisfaction of remembering that in the crises of my life I have not followed my own pleasure. I have always tried to live by my principles and to do the heavy duties I have undertaken. [42]