The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER XLVII 219
"Can you tell me, señora, why you look at me so? Are you envious?" Doña Victorina was at length able to
articulate.
"I, envious of you, I, of you?" drawled the Muse. "Yes, I envy you those frizzes!"
"Come, woman!" pleaded the doctor. "D-don't t-take any n-notice!"
"Let me teach this shameless slattern a lesson," replied his wife, giving him such a shove that he nearly kissed
the ground. Then she again turned to Doña Consolacion.
"Remember who you're dealing with!" she exclaimed. "Don't think that I'm a provincial or a soldier's querida!
In my house in Manila the alfereces don't eater, they wait at the door."
"Oho, Excelentísima Señora! Alfereces don't enter, but cripples do--like that one--ha, ha, ha!"
Had it not been for the rouge, Doña Victorian would have been seen to blush. She tried to get to her
antagonist, but the sentinel stopped her. In the meantime the street was filling up with a curious crowd.
"Listen, I lower myself talking to you--people of quality--Don't you want to wash my clothes? I'll pay you
well! Do you think that I don't know that you were a washerwoman?"
Doña Consolacion straightened up furiously; the remark about washing hurt her. "Do you think that we don't
know who you are and what class of people you belong with? Get out, my husband has already told me!
Señora, I at least have never belonged to more than one, but you? One must be dying of hunger to take the
leavings, the mop of the whole world!"
This shot found its mark with Doña Victorina. She rolled up her sleeves, clenched her fists, and gritted her
teeth. "Come down, old sow!" she cried. "I'm going to smash that dirty mouth of yours! Querida of a
battalion, filthy hag!"
The Muse immediately disappeared from the window and was soon seen running down the stairs flourishing
her husband's whip.
Don Tiburcio interposed himself supplicatingly, but they would have come to blows had not the alferez
arrived on the scene.
"Ladies! Don Tiburcio!"
"Train your woman better, buy her some decent clothes, and if you haven't any money left, rob the
people--that's what you've got soldiers for!" yelled Doña Victorina.
"Here I am, señora! Why doesn't your Excellency smash my mouth? You're only tongue and spittle, Doña
Excelencia!"
"Señora!" cried the alferez furiously to Doña Victorina, "be thankful that I remember that you're a woman or
else I'd kick you to pieces--frizzes, ribbons, and all!"
"S-señor Alferez!"
"Get out, you quack! You don't wear the pants!"
The women brought into play words and gestures, insults and abuse, dragging out all the evil that was stored