In a voice monotonous and nasal, she began to read. Maria Clara gazed vaguely into s.p.a.ce. The first commandment finished, Aunt Isabel observed her listener over her gla.s.ses, and appeared satisfied with her sad and meditative air. She coughed piously, and after a long pause began the second. The good old woman read with unction. The terms of the second commandment finished, she again looked at her niece, who slowly turned away her head.

"Bah!" said Aunt Isabel within herself, "as to taking His holy name in vain, the poor thing has nothing to question: pa.s.s on to the third."

And the third commandment sifted and commentated, all the causes of sin against it droned out, she again looked toward the bed. This time she lifted her gla.s.ses and rubbed her eyes; she had seen her niece raise her handkerchief, as if to wipe away tears.

"Hm!" said she; "hm! the poor child must have fallen asleep during the sermon." And putting back her gla.s.ses on the tip of her nose, she reflected:

"We shall see if besides not keeping the holy feast days, she has not honored her father and her mother." And slowly, in a voice more nasal than ever, she read the fourth commandment.

"What a pure soul!" thought the old lady; "she who is so obedient, so submissive! I've sinned much more deeply than that, and I've never been able to really cry!" And she began the fifth commandment with such enthusiasm that she did not hear the stifled sobs of her niece. It was only when she stopped after the commentaries on wilful homicide, that she perceived the groanings of the sinner. Then in a voice that pa.s.sed description, and a manner she strove to make menacing, she finished the commentary, and seeing that Maria had not ceased to weep:

"Cry, my child, cry!" she said, going to her bedside; "the more you cry the more quickly will G.o.d pardon you. Cry, my child, cry; and beat your breast, but not too hard, for you are ill yet, you know."

But as if grief had need of mystery and solitude, Maria Clara, finding herself surprised, stopped sobbing little by little and dried her eyes. Aunt Isabel returned to her reading, but the plaint of her audience having ceased, she lost her enthusiasm; the second table of the law made her sleepy, and a yawn broke the nasal monotony.

"No one would have believed it without seeing it," thought the good woman; "the child sins like a soldier against the first five commandments, and from the sixth to the tenth not so much as a peccadillo. That is contrary to the custom of the rest of us. One sees queer things in these days!" And she lighted a great candle for the Virgin of Antipolo, and two smaller ones for Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of the Pillar. The Virgin of Delaroche was excluded from this illumination: she was to Aunt Isabel an unknown foreigner.

We may not know what pa.s.sed during the confession in the evening. It was long, and Aunt Isabel, who at a distance was watching over her niece, could see that instead of offering his ear to the sick girl, the curate had his face turned toward her. He went out, pale, with compressed lips. At the sight of his brow, darkened and moist with sweat, one would have said it was he who had confessed, and absolution had been denied him.

"Maria! Joseph!" said the good aunt, crossing herself, "who can comprehend the girls of to-day!"

x.x.xVIII.

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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed. "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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.s. 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 mult.i.tude 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!"