Chapter 47: - Page 4 of 5

Señores! Señoras! What a shame! Señor Alferez!

What are you doing here, you hypocrite, Carlist!

Don Tiburcio, take your wife away! Señora, hold your tongue!

Say that to these robbers of the poor!

Little by little the lexicon of epithets was exhausted, the review of shamelessness of the two couples completed, and with threats and insults they gradually drew away from one another.  Fray Salvi moved from one group to the other, giving animation to the scene.  Would that our friend the correspondent had been present!

This very day we’ll go to Manila and see the Captain-General! declared the raging Doña Victorina to her husband.  You’re not a man! It’s a waste of money to buy trousers for you!

B-but, woman, the g-guards? I’m l-lame!

You must challenge him for pistol or sword, or—or— Doña Victorina stared fixedly at his false teeth.  

My d-dear, I’ve never had hold of a—

But she did not let him finish.  With a majestic sweep of her hand she snatched out his false teeth and trampled them in the street.

Thus, he half-crying and she breathing fire, they reached the house. Linares was talking with Maria Clara, Sinang, and Victoria, and as he had heard nothing of the quarrel, became rather uneasy at sight of his cousins.  Maria Clara, lying in an easy-chair among pillows and wraps, was greatly surprised to see the new physiognomy of her doctor.

Cousin, began Doña Victorina, you must challenge the alferez right away, or—

Why? asked the startled Linares.

You challenge him right now or else I’ll tell everybody here who you are.

But, Doña Victorina!