Yasotarō Mōri
Two days later (August 28), his beloved Leonor (now Mrs. Kipping) died in Manila shortly after giving birth to her first son. Because of social custom and her marriage, the two never had the chance to meet again, yet neither custom nor marriage nor anything else could cool the ardor of their mutual love.
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The newly appointed guardian, Juan Sitges, arrived with secret orders to keep an extremely strict watch over Rizal. No sooner had he taken up his post than he issued Rizal a set of restrictive orders: he was to live apart from the guardian, to report to him in person three times a day, was forbidden to go out on boats for pleasure, forbidden to leave the town, and forbidden to exchange correspondence without permission. Rizal complied with these orders exactly. Yet this new guardian, like his predecessor, was soon won over by Rizal’s noble character, and the restrictions became a dead letter as he came to quietly tolerate Rizal’s complete freedom of movement. The guardian then reported to the Governor-General: “Rizal’s character is even-tempered, his conduct modest, his speech courteous — in every respect beyond reproach.”
▲ The Bright Moon over His Place of Exile
By tradition, the moon over a place of exile is said to stir an exile’s melancholy, yet for Rizal that moon always shone brilliantly. As long as he lived, he never lost hope. By this time he had already built three houses on his own land. Each had bamboo posts and a roof thatched with nipa palm leaves; in one he lived together with the mother, sister, and nephews he had by then summoned to join him, another served as a dormitory and classroom for his students, and the third he used as a poultry house. As for his daily routine at the time:
Rose at five in the morning and made his rounds of the fields and poultry house.
At half past seven, breakfast; afterward he went into town and treated patients as an ophthalmologist until noon.
After lunch, taught the young until four o’clock; after four, farm work; after dinner, reading and research.
— such was his regular routine. His work as an ophthalmologist had already grown extremely busy, and his income accordingly considerable, so he built a clinic in town and practiced there. His school, in scale, appears to have been no more than a modest village academy, but the spirit of its instruction was truly admirable.
That Rizal begrudged no spare moment and never neglected research in every field was said to be beyond the reach of any other man’s efforts. While in Dapitan, delighted at the opportunity to be close to the nature he loved most, he collected, studied, and classified the local plant life, and his discovery of plants that could serve as raw material for varnish and for perfume is regarded as a particularly notable contribution. He also extended his research to fish and shellfish, working to improve local fisheries. Insects, too, he collected, studied, and classified just as he had plants, donating specimens to museums in Dresden, Frankfurt am Main, and Manila; among the insects thereby first made known to Europe are some species named after Rizal in commemoration of his achievement. In gratitude for these specimen donations, he received shipments of the medical instruments he needed as an ophthalmologist.
This home was his only place of rest and his laboratory alike, and at his mother’s urging he composed a poem celebrating his life in this exile (October 22, 1895), titled “My Retreat.” Those who revere Rizal say it is a poem excellent and well-formed both in sentiment and in structure. Reading it through, one is filled with the sense of a man living at ease, neither hurried nor idle, delighting in life in accordance with his destiny.
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