A Mother's Vigil — Noli Me Tángere

On All Souls' Night Rizal contrasts sleeping rich and poor. Wealthy families buy masses, bulls of indulgence, and wax tapers, for divine justice is less exacting than human. The poor pray without novenas, in the language of misery, choosing between a peso for their children's food and indulgences for dead parents who cannot eat.

The chapter turns to Sisa, wife of a gambler who strips her home, mother of Basilio and Crispin. She cooks a feast for their return from church service, but her husband eats the rice, meat, and fish, then leaves demanding a peso for the cockpit. She recooks three small fishes, refuses to eat herself, and waits in the dark, hearing only wind and a black dog that seems to mock her hope.

A vision of Crispin at the hearth shatters when Basilio's real voice cries outside. Rizal binds economic theology to domestic cruelty: the church sells heaven by the candle while fathers devour their sons' supper and mothers starve between altar fees and empty plates. All Souls becomes a ledger of who can afford to mourn and who must choose between the living and the dead each November night. The night ends with one son at the door and another still missing.