The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER XLII 196
Doña Victorina was attired in a loose silk gown embroidered with flowers and a hat with a huge parrot
half-crushed between blue and red ribbons. The dust of the road mingled with the rice-powder on her cheeks
seemed to accentuate her wrinkles. As at the time we saw her in Manila, she now supported her lame husband
on her arm.
"I have the pleasure of introducing to you our cousin, Don Alfonso Linares de Espadaña," said Doña
Victorina, indicating their young companion. "The gentleman is a godson of a relative of Padre Damaso's and
has been private secretary to all the ministers."
The young man bowed politely and Capitan Tiago came very near to kissing his hand.
While their numerous trunks and traveling-bags are being carried in and Capitan Tiago is conducting them to
their rooms, let us talk a little of this couple whose acquaintance we made slightly in the first chapters.
Doña Victorina was a lady of forty and five winters, which were equivalent to thirty and two summers
according to her arithmetical calculations. She had been beautiful in her youth, having had, as she used to say,
'good flesh,' but in the ecstasies of contemplating herself she had looked with disdain on her many Filipino
admirers, since her aspirations were toward another race. She had refused to bestow on any one her little white
hand, not indeed from distrust, for not a few times had she given jewelry and gems of great value to various
foreign and Spanish adventurers. Six months before the time of our story she had seen realized her most
beautiful dream,--the dream of her whole life,--for which she might scorn the fond illusions of her youth and
even the promises of love that Capitan Tiago had in other days whispered in her ear or sung in some serenade.
Late, it is true, had the dream been realized, but Doña Victorina, who, although she spoke the language badly,
was more Spanish than Augustina of Saragossa, [115] understood the proverb, "Better late than never," and
found consolation in repeating it to herself. "Absolute happiness does not exist on earth," was another favorite
proverb of hers, but she never used both together before other persons.
Having passed her first, second, third, and fourth youth in casting her nets in the sea of the world for the
object of her vigils, she had been compelled at last to content herself with what fate was willing to apportion
her. Had the poor woman been only thirty and one instead of thirty and two summers--the difference
according to her mode of reckoning was great--she would have restored to Destiny the award it offered her to
wait for another more suited to her taste, but since man proposes and necessity disposes, she saw herself
obliged in her great need for a husband to content herself with a poor fellow who had been cast out from
Estremadura [116] and who, after wandering about the world for six or seven years like a modern Ulysses,
had at last found on the island of Luzon hospitality and a withered Calypso for his better half. This unhappy
mortal, by name Tiburcio Espadaña, was only thirty-five years of age and looked like an old man, yet he was,
nevertheless, younger than Doña Victorina, who was only thirty-two. The reason for this is easy to understand
but dangerous to state.
Don Tiburcio had come to the Philippines as a petty official in the Customs, but such had been his bad luck
that, besides suffering severely from seasickness and breaking a leg during the voyage, he had been dismissed
within a fortnight, just at the time when he found himself without a cuarto. After his rough experience on the
sea he did not care to return to Spain without having made his fortune, so he decided to devote himself to
something. Spanish pride forbade him to engage in manual labor, although the poor fellow would gladly have
done any kind of work in order to earn an honest living. But the prestige of the Spaniards would not have
allowed it, even though this prestige did not protect him from want.
At first he had lived at the expense of some of his countrymen, but in his honesty the bread tasted bitter, so
instead of getting fat he grew thin. Since he had neither learning nor money nor recommendations he was
advised by his countrymen, who wished to get rid of him, to go to the provinces and pass himself off as a
doctor of medicine. He refused at first, for he had learned nothing during the short period that he had spent as
an attendant in a hospital, his duties there having been to dust off the benches and light the fires. But as his