"My aunt's the one who is in love with him," she said with a merry
laugh.

Then they both laughed, for the marriage of Pelaez with Doña Victorina
made them really happy, and they saw it already an accomplished
fact, until Isagani remembered that Don Tiburcio was still living and
confided the secret to his sweetheart, after exacting her promise that
she would tell no one. Paulita promised, with the mental reservation
of relating it to her friend.

This led the conversation to Isagani's town, surrounded by forests,
situated on the shore of the sea which roared at the base of the
high cliffs. Isagani's gaze lighted up when he spoke of that obscure
spot, a flush of pride overspread his cheeks, his voice trembled,
his poetic imagination glowed, his words poured forth burning,
charged with enthusiasm, as if he were talking of love to his love,
and he could not but exclaim:

"Oh, in the solitude of my mountains I feel free, free as the air,
as the light that shoots unbridled through space! A thousand cities, a
thousand palaces, would I give for that spot in the Philippines, where,
far from men, I could feel myself to have genuine liberty. There,
face to face with nature, in the presence of the mysterious and the
infinite, the forest and the sea, I think, speak, and work like a
man who knows not tyrants."

In the presence of such enthusiasm for his native place, an enthusiasm
that she did not comprehend, for she was accustomed to hear her country
spoken ill of, and sometimes joined in the chorus herself, Paulita