Part 54

"What!"

But Aunt Isabel came back with her book, and Sinang had to go.

The good aunt drew her chair up to the light, settled her glasses on the tip of her nose, and opened a little book.

"Give good attention, my child: I will begin with the commandments of God; I shall go slowly, so that you may meditate: if you don't hear well, you must tell me, and I will repeat; you know I'm never weary of working for your good."

In a voice monotonous and nasal, she began to read. Maria Clara gazed vaguely into space. The first commandment finished, Aunt Isabel observed her listener over her glasses, 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: pass 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 glasses 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 glasses 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 passed 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 God 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 passed 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!"

XXXVIII.

THE TWO WOMEN.

Doña 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."

Doña 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 alférez. Greetings were exchanged, but Doña 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 alférez," 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?"