CHAPTER XXXIX.
Dona Consolacion Why were the windows closed in the house of the alferez?
Where were the masculine features and the flannel camisa of the Medusa or Muse of the Civil Guard while the procession was passing?
Had Dona Consolacion realized how disagreeable were her forehead seamed with thick veins that appeared to conduct not blood but vinegar and gall, and the thick cigar that made a fit ornament for her purple lips, and her envious leer, and yielding to a generous impulse had she wished not to disturb the pleasure of the populace by her sinister appearance?
Ah, for her generous impulses existed in the Golden Age! The house, showed neither lanterns nor banners and was gloomy precisely because the town was making merry, as Sinang said, and but for the sentinel walking before the door appeared to be uninhabited.
A dim light shone in the disordered sala, rendering transparent the dirty concha-panes on which the cobwebs had fastened and the dust had become incrusted.

The lady of the house, according to her indolent custom, was dozing on a wide sofa.

She was dressed as usual, that is, badly and horribly: tied round her head a panuelo, from beneath which escaped thin locks of tangled hair, a camisa of blue flannel over another which must once have been white, and a faded skirt which showed the outlines of her thin, flat thighs, placed one over the other and shaking feverishly.

From her mouth issued little clouds of smoke which she puffed wearily in whatever direction she happened to be looking when she opened her eyes.

If at that moment Don Francisco de Canamaque [107] could have seen her, he would have taken her for a cacique of the town or the _mankukulam_, and then decorated his discovery with commentaries in the vernacular of the markets, invented by him for her particular use.
That morning she had not attended mass, not because she had not so desired, for on the contrary she had wished to show herself to the multitude and to hear the sermon, but her spouse had not permitted her to do so, his refusal being accompanied as usual by two or three insults, oaths, and threats of kicking.