Part 55

"You are right," said Don Tiburcio, not minded to dispute.

They passed the barracks. Doña 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 Doña 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 alféreza's window. Doña 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, doña?" she asked.

"Could you tell me, señora, why you stare at me in this fashion? Are you jealous?" Doña Victorina was at last able to say.

"I jealous? And of you?" replied the alféreza 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 Doña Consolacion. "Don't think I am a provincial or a woman of your class. With us, at Manila, the alférezas are not received; they wait at the door."

"Ho! ho! most worshipful señora, the alférezas wait at the door! But you receive such paralytics as this gentleman! Ha! ha! ha!"

Had she been less powdered Doña 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?"

Doña 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! Señora, I, at least----"

But she could not be heard. Doña 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 alférez arrived.

"Well, well, señoras!--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 Doña Victorina.

"Señora," said the alférez, 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--señor alférez!"

"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.

"Señoras! señoras! what a scandal! Señor alférez!"

"What are you doing here, hypocrite, carlist!"

"Don Tiburcio, take away your wife! Señora, 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 Doña Victorina to her husband. "You are no man!"

"But--but, wife, the guards, and I am lame."