After the pasquinade scare, mothers order sons to quit studies for idleness or farming, and examinations become a purge: association members rarely finish, Pecson grins toward a court job, Tadeo buys lights and burns his books, and Juanito Pelaez sulks in his father's store until his hump returns. Makaraig buys a passport and races to Europe while the General blocks departures without proof of idle wealth abroad. Isagani passes under Padre Fernandez and Sandoval talks through his board; everyone else stumbles except Basilio, who fails no subject because he is not suspended at all, only rotting in Bilibid under repeating interrogations while stamped papers pile like quack plasters.
Sinong the cochero brings Basilio news from Tiani: Juli's death and Tandang Selo's disappearance. Newspapers declare Simoun recovered; Ben-Zayb thanks the Omnipotent and hints at a farewell fiesta while whispering Simoun wants an extended command and the General refuses one extra day of power. Ben-Zayb taunts Simoun to dazzle with something Yankee; Simoun answers dryly and soon partners with Don Timoteo Pelaez, who bought Capitan Tiago's house for nothing. Paulita Gomez drops Isagani after his surrender to the Civil Government, which Manila calls quixotic madness, and embraces Juanito as the fittest male for city life under Darwin's law of adaptation.
Holy Week passes with processions while artillery mutiny stays unexplained and cavalry tear down light houses so the homeless may sleep in peace, Simoun among the curious. By late April fear fades into gossip about Don Timoteo's wedding fiesta: the General will patron it, Simoun will shower diamonds for his partner's son, and wives nag husbands to buy steel from Pelaez just to secure invitations. Envious merchants marvel that Pelaez got house, iron sales, Simoun, and a rich bride for Juanito, luck honorable men lack.
Rizal measures the pasquinades' effect as social sorting: education halted, prison for the orphan, Europe for the rich, romance for the adaptable, spectacle for the rest. While Basilio hears Juli is dead, the capital rehearses a wedding. When a city forgets arrests in one month and fights for guest lists the next, who still counts as collateral?
