The lively conversations and the repartee of the crowds from the cigar factories carried him back to the district of Lavapies in Madrid, with its riots of cigar-makers, so fatal for the unfortunate policemen.
The Botanical Garden drove away these agreeable recollections; the demon of comparison brought before his mind the Botanical Gardens of Europe, in countries where great, labor and much money are needed to make a single leaf grow or one flower open its calyx; he recalled those of the colonies, where they are well supplied and tended, and all open to the public.

Ibarra turned away his gaze toward the old Manila surrounded still by its walls and moats like a sickly girl wrapped in the garments of her grandmother's better days.
Then the sight of the sea losing itself in the distance! "On the other shore lies Europe," thought the young man,--"Europe, with its attractive peoples in constant movement in the search for happiness, weaving their dreams in the morning and disillusioning themselves at the setting of the sun, happy even in the midst of their calamities.

Yes, on the farther shore of the boundless sea are the really spiritual nations, those who, even though they put no restraints on material development, are still more spiritual than those who pride themselves on adoring only the spirit!" But these musings were in turn banished from his mind as he came in sight of the little mound in Bagumbayan Field.

[48] This isolated knoll at the side of the Luneta now caught his attention and made him reminiscent.

He thought of the man who had awakened his intellect and made him understand goodness and justice.