That morning Dona Victorina was more irritated than usual because the members of the group took very little notice of her, reason for which was not lacking; for just consider--there could be found three friars, convinced that the world would move backwards the very day they should take a single step to the right; an indefatigable Don Custodio who was sleeping peacefully, satisfied with his projects; a prolific writer like Ben-Zayb (anagram of Ibanez), who believed that the people of Manila thought because he, Ben-Zayb, was a thinker; a canon like Padre Irene, who added luster to the clergy with his rubicund face, carefully shaven, from which towered a beautiful Jewish nose, and his silken cassock of neat cut and small buttons; and a wealthy jeweler like Simoun, who was reputed to be the adviser and inspirer of all the acts of his Excellency, the Captain-General--just consider the presence there of these pillars _sine quibus non_ of the country, seated there in agreeable discourse, showing little sympathy for a renegade Filipina who dyed her hair red! Now wasn't this enough to exhaust the patience of a female Job--a sobriquet Dona Victorina always applied to herself when put out with any one! The ill-humor of the senora increased every time the captain shouted "Port," "Starboard" to the sailors, who then hastily seized their poles and thrust them against the banks, thus with the strength of their legs and shoulders preventing the steamer from shoving its hull ashore at that particular point.

Seen under these circumstances the Ship of State might be said to have been converted from a tortoise into a crab every time any danger threatened.
"But, captain, why don't your stupid steersmen go in that direction ?" asked the lady with great indignation.
"Because it's very shallow in the other, senora," answered the captain, deliberately, slowly winking one eye, a little habit which he had cultivated as if to say to his words on their way out, "Slowly, slowly!" "Half speed! Botheration, half speed!" protested Dona Victorina disdainfully.

"Why not full ?" "Because we should then be traveling over those ricefields, senora," replied the imperturbable captain, pursing his lips to indicate the cultivated fields and indulging in two circumspect winks.
This Dona Victorina was well known in the country for her caprices and extravagances.

She was often seen in society, where she was tolerated whenever she appeared in the company of her niece, Paulita Gomez, a very beautiful and wealthy orphan, to whom she was a kind of guardian.

At a rather advanced age she had married a poor wretch named Don Tiburcio de Espadana, and at the time we now see her, carried upon herself fifteen years of wedded life, false frizzes, and a half-European costume--for her whole ambition had been to Europeanize herself, with the result that from the ill-omened day of her wedding she had gradually, thanks to her criminal attempts, succeeded in so transforming herself that at the present time Quatrefages and Virchow together could not have told where to classify her among the known races.
Her husband, who had borne all her impositions with the resignation of a fakir through so many years of married life, at last on one luckless day had had his bad half-hour and administered to her a superb whack with his crutch.