Placido Penitente storms out of class with bitterness the text compares to waking vipers: insults from the professor replay in his ears, dignity demands revenge, and on the Bridge of Spain he nearly hurls Padre Sibyla into the Pasig. He wanders the Escolta under amok, fantasising flight to Batangas or assault on laughing Augustinians, yet hunger and his mother Cabesang Andang, newly arrived from the province with money and jerked venison, pull him home. She laments patched camisas, masses to St. Sebastian, and the lawyer dream she sacrificed for; he asks what law would give him when friars own every path to a profession.
Andang preaches patience, silence, and even suffering without defending the curates, citing neighbours who rose by bowing and warning that protest means filibuster and garrote. Placido rejects her plan to use the Augustinian procurator, swears he will become a tulisan before returning to the University, and walks the quay dreaming Hongkong freedom and rumours of friars swapping silver altar ware for pesos. At the Quiapo fair he spots Simoun bidding a foreigner good night, remembers the jeweler's tales of free universities abroad, and begs passage east.
Simoun orders his carriage to Calle Iris, leads Placido through mud alleys to a pyrotechnist's hut, and confirms powder in sacks, bombs ready, and orders for the lieutenant within the coming week despite the agent's fear that suburbs are unprepared. Placido overhears Cabesa and Tales, learns the helper was a deported schoolmaster, and watches Simoun rally a crippled Spaniard ruined at Balabak for action at the first cannon-shot. Two hours later Placido walks the Escolta while Simoun, white-haired without his goggles, murmurs over the Walled City that fire will burst Maria Clara free, then shivers as conscience names him part of the filth he hates.
Next morning Placido smiles and offers to carry out the procurator plan while urging Andang back to Batangas before gifts and masses become mandatory. Rizal pairs a mother's survival logic with a son drafted into timed revolt. When patience and powder both arrive in one house, which voice is still asking you to wait one more year?
Coming Up in Chapter 20
Don Custodio, the most active arbiter in Manila, reads the Castilian academy petition, dozes over Pepay's pirouettes, and hunts a decision that can please friars, officials, and his own liberal pose at once.
