CHAPTER XXI
DOÑA CONSOLACION.
Why were the windows in the alferez's house closed? Where was
the masculine face and the flannel shirt of the Medusa or Muse of
the Civil Guard while the procession was passing? Could she have
understood how unpleasant was the sight of the swelling veins of
her forehead, filled, it seemed, not with blood but with vinegar
and bile; of her large cigar, that worthy ornament of her red lips;
and of her envious look; could she have understood all of that, and,
giving way to a generous impulse, have refrained from disturbing the
gayety of the crowd by her sinister apparition?
Alas! Her generous impulses lived only in the golden age.
Her house was sad because other people were merry, as Sinang put
it. There neither lanterns nor flags could be seen. In fact, if the
sentry were not walking up and down in front of the gate, you would
have said that the house was unoccupied.
A feeble light illumined the disarranged sala, and made transparent
the oyster-shell windows filled with spider-webs and covered with
dust. The Señora, according to her custom, her hands folded, sat in
a wide arm-chair. She was dressed the same as every day, that is to
say, outrageously out of taste. In detail, she had a handkerchief
tied around her head, while short, slender locks of tangled hair
hung down on either side; a blue flannel shirt over another shirt
which should have been white; and a faded-out skirt which moulded
itself to her slender thighs as she sat with her legs crossed and
nervously wiggled her foot. From her mouth, came big puffs of smoke,
which she fastidiously blew up in the space toward which she looked
when her eyes were open.
That morning the Señora had not heard mass, not because she had not
cared to hear it, for on the contrary she wanted to show herself to
the multitude and to hear the sermon, but because her husband had not
permitted her to do so. As was usually the case, his prohibition was
accompanied by two or three insults, oaths and threats of kicking. The
alferez understood that his "female" dressed herself in a ridiculous
manner, and that it was not fitting to expose her to the eyes of the
people from the capital nor even the country districts.
But she did not understand it that way. She knew that she was
beautiful, attractive, that she had the manners of a queen and that
she dressed much better and more gorgeously than Maria Clara herself,
though to be sure the latter wore a tapis over her skirt while she
