XXXVIII.
THE TWO WOMEN.
Dona Victorina was taking a walk through the pueblo, to see of what sort were the dwellings and the advancement of the indolent Indians. She had put on her most elegant adornments, to impress the provincials, and to show what distance separated them from her sacred person. Giving her arm to her limping husband, she paraded the streets of the pueblo, to the profound amazement of its inhabitants.
"What ugly houses these Indians have!" she began, with a grimace. "One must needs be an Indian to live in them! And how ill-bred the people are! They pass us without uncovering. Knock off their hats, as the curates do, and the lieutenants of the Civil Guard."
"And if they attack me?" stammered the doctor.
"Are you not a man?"
"Yes, but--but--I am lame."
Dona Victorina grew cross. There were no sidewalks in these streets, and the dust was soiling the train of her dress. Some young girls who passed dropped their eyes, and did not admire at all as they should her luxurious attire. Sinang's coachman, who was driving Sinang and her cousin in an elegant tres-por-ciento, had the effrontery to cry out to her "Tabi!" in so audacious a voice that she moved out of the way.
"What a brute of a coachman!" she protested; "I shall tell his master he had better train his servants. Come along, Tiburcio!"
Her husband, fearing a tempest, turned on his heels, and they found themselves face to face with the alferez. Greetings were exchanged, but Dona Victorina's discontent grew. Not only had the officer said nothing complimentary of her costume, but she believed she detected mockery in his look.
"You ought not to give your hand to a simple alferez," she said to her husband, when the officer had passed. "You don't know how to preserve your rank."
"H--here he is the chief."
"What does that mean to us? Do we happen to be Indians?"
"You are right," said Don Tiburcio, not minded to dispute.
They passed the barracks. Dona Consolacion was at the window, as usual dressed in flannel, and puffing her puro. As the house was low, the two women faced each other. The muse examined Dona Victorina from head to foot, protruded her lip, ejected tobacco juice, and turned away her head. This affectation of contempt brought the patience of the doctora to an end. Leaving her husband without support, she went, trembling with rage, powerless to utter a word, and placed herself in front of the alfereza's window. Dona Consolacion turned her head slowly back, regarded her antagonist with the utmost calm, and spat again with the same cool contempt.
"What's the matter with you, dona?" she asked.
"Could you tell me, senora, why you stare at me in this fashion? Are you jealous?" Dona Victorina was at last able to say.
"I jealous? And of you?" replied the alfereza calmly. "Yes, I'm jealous of your frizzes."
"Come away there!" broke in the doctor; "d--d--don't pay at--t--t--tention to these f--f--follies!"
"Let me alone! I have to give a lesson to this brazenface!" replied the doctora, joggling her husband, who just missed sprawling in the dust.
"Consider to whom you are speaking!" she said haughtily, turning back to Dona Consolacion. "Don't think I am a provincial or a woman of your class. With us, at Manila, the alferezas are not received; they wait at the door."
"Ho! ho! most worshipful senora, the alferezas wait at the door! But you receive such paralytics as this gentleman! Ha! ha! ha!"
Had she been less powdered Dona Victorina might have been seen to blush. She started to rush on her enemy, but the sentinel stood in the way. The street was filling with a curious crowd.
"Know that I demean myself in speaking to you; persons of position like me ought not! Will you wash my clothes? I will pay you well. Do you suppose I do not know you are a washerwoman?"
Dona Consolacion sat erect. To be called a washerwoman had wounded her.
"And do you think we don't know who you are?" she retorted. "My husband has told me! Senora, I, at least----"
But she could not be heard. Dona Victorina, wildly shaking her fists, screamed out:
"Come down, you old hussy, come down and let me tear your beautiful eyes out!"
Rapidly the medusa disappeared from the window; more rapidly yet she came running down the steps, brandishing her husband's terrible whip. Don Tiburcio, supplicating both, threw himself between, but he could not have prevented the combat, had not the alferez arrived.
"Well, well, senoras!--Don Tiburcio!"
"Give your wife a little more breeding, buy her more beautiful clothes, and if you haven't the money, steal it from the people of the pueblo; you have soldiers for that!" cried Dona Victorina.
"Senora," said the alferez, furious, "it is fortunate that I remember you are a woman; if I didn't, I should trample you down, with all your curls and ribbons!"
"Se--senor alferez!"
"Move on, charlatan! It's not you who wear the breeches!"
Armed with words and gestures, with cries, insults, and injuries, the two women hurled at each other all there was in them of soil and shame. All four talked at once, and in the multitude of words numerous verities were paraded in the light. If they did not hear all, the crowd of the curious did not fail to be diverted. They were looking forward to battle, but, unhappily for these amateurs of sport, the curate came by and established peace.
"Senoras! senoras! what a scandal! Senor alferez!"
"What are you doing here, hypocrite, carlist!"
"Don Tiburcio, take away your wife! Senora, restrain your tongue!"
Little by little the dictionary of sounding epithets became exhausted. The shameless shrews found nothing left to say to each other, and still threatening, the two couples drew slowly apart, the curate going from one to the other, lavishing himself on both.
"We shall leave for Manila this very day and present ourselves to the captain-general!" said the infuriated Dona Victorina to her husband. "You are no man!"
"But--but, wife, the guards, and I am lame."
"You are to challenge him, with swords or pistols, or else--or else----" And she looked at his teeth.
"Woman, I've never handled----"
Dona Victorina let him go no farther; with a sublime movement she snatched out his teeth, threw them in the dust, and trampled them under her feet. The doctor almost crying, the doctora pelting him with sarcasms, they arrived at the house of Captain Tiago. Linares, who was talking with Maria Clara, was no little disquieted by the abrupt arrival of his cousins. Maria, amid the pillows of her fauteuil, was not less surprised at the new physiognomy of her doctor.
"Cousin," said Dona Victorina, "you are to go and challenge the alferez this instant; if not----"
"Why?" demanded the astonished Linares.
"You are to go and challenge him this instant; if not, I shall say here, and to everybody, who you are."
"Dona Victorina!"
The three friends looked at each other.
"The alferez has insulted us. The old sorceress came down with a whip to assault us, and this creature did nothing to prevent it! A man!"
"Hear that!" said Sinang regretfully. "There was a fight, and we didn't see it!"
"The alferez broke the doctor's teeth!" added Dona Victorina.
Captain Tiago entered, but he wasn't given time to get his breath. In few words, with an intermingling of spicy language, Dona Victorina narrated what had passed, naturally trying to put herself in a good light.
"Linares is going to challenge him, do you hear? Or don't let him marry your daughter. If he isn't courageous, he doesn't merit Clarita."
"What! you are going to marry this gentleman?" Sinang asked Maria, her laughing eyes filling with tears. "I know you are discreet, but I didn't think you inconstant."
Maria Clara, white as alabaster, looked with great, frightened eyes from her father to Dona Victorina, from Dona Victorina to Linares. The young man reddened; Captain Tiago dropped his head.
"Help me to my room," Maria said to her friends, and steadied by their round arms, her head on the shoulder of Victorina, she went out.
That night the husband and wife packed their trunks, and presented their account--no trifle--to Captain Tiago. The next morning they set out for Manila, leaving to the pacific Linares the role of avenger.