"You're not going to treat any one, but I want people to call you _Doctor_ and me _Doctora_, see ?" So on the following day Rodoreda [120] received an order to engrave on a slab of black marble: DR.

DE ESPADANA, SPECIALIST IN ALL KINDS OF DISEASES.

All the servants had to address them by their new titles, and as a result she increased the number of frizzes, the layers of rice-powder, the ribbons and laces, and gazed with more disdain than ever on her poor and unfortunate countrywomen whose husbands belonged to a lower grade of society than hers did.

Day by day she felt more dignified and exalted and, by continuing in this way, at the end of a year she would have believed herself to be of divine origin.
These sublime thoughts, however, did not keep her from becoming older and more ridiculous every day.

Every time Capitan Tiago saw her and recalled having made love to her in vain he forthwith sent a peso to the church for a mass of thanksgiving.