her instantly. Something like a smile wandered over her dry lips.

When Sisa was brought in she came calmly, showing neither wonder nor fear. She seemed to see no lady or mistress, and this wounded the vanity of the Muse, who endeavored to inspire respect and fear. She coughed, made a sign to the soldiers to leave her, and taking down her husband's whip, said to the crazy woman in a sinister tone, "Come on, magcantar icau!" [108]

Naturally, Sisa did not understand such Tagalog, and this ignorance calmed the Medusa's wrath, for one of the beautiful qualities of this lady was to try not to know Tagalog, or at least to appear not to know it. Speaking it the worst possible, she would thus give herself the air of a genuine orofea,[109] as she was accustomed to say. But she did well, for if she martyrized Tagalog, Spanish fared no better with her, either in regard to grammar or pronunciation, in spite of her husband, the chairs and the shoes, all of which had done what they could to teach her.

One of the words that had cost her more effort than the hieroglyphics cost Champollion was the name Filipinas. The story goes that on the day after her wedding, when she was talking with her husband, who was then a corporal, she had said Pilipinas. The corporal thought it his duty to correct her, so he said, slapping her on the head, "Say Felipinas, woman! Don't be stupid! Don't you know that's what your damned country is called, from Felipe?"

The woman, dreaming through her honeymoon, wished to obey and said Felepinas. To the corporal it seemed that she was getting nearer to it, so he increased the slaps and reprimanded her thus: "But, woman, can't you pronounce Felipe? Don't forget it; you know the king, Don Felipe --the fifth--. Say Felipe, and add to it nas, which in Latin means 'islands of Indians,' and you have the name of your damned country!"

Consolacion, at that time a washerwoman, patted her bruises and repeated with symptoms of losing her patience, "Fe-li-pe, Felipe-- nas, Fe-li-pe-nas, Felipinas, so?"

The corporal saw visions. How could it be Felipenas instead of Felipinas? One of two things: either it was Felipenas or it was necessary to say Felipi! So that day he very prudently dropped the subject. Leaving his wife, he went to consult the books. Here his astonishment reached a climax: he rubbed his eyes--let's see-- slowly, now! F-i-l-i-p-i-n-a-s, Filipinas! So all the well-printed books gave it--neither he nor his wife was right!

"How's this?" he murmured. "Can history lie? Doesn't this book say that Alonso Saavedra gave the country that name in honor of the prince, Don Felipe? How was that name corrupted? Can it be that this Alonso Saavedra was an Indian?" [110]

With these doubts he went to consult the sergeant Gomez, who, as a youth, had wanted to be a curate. Without deigning to look at the corporal the sergeant blew out a mouthful of smoke and answered with great pompousness, "In ancient times it was pronounced Filipi instead of Felipe. But since we moderns have become Frenchified we can't endure two i's in succession, so cultured people, especially in Madrid--you've never been in Madrid?--cultured people, as I say, have begun to change the first i to e in many words. This is called modernizing yourself."

The poor corporal had never been in Madrid--here was the cause of his failure to understand the riddle: what things are learned in Madrid! "So now it's proper to say--"

"In the ancient style, man! This country's not yet cultured! In the ancient style, Filipinas!" exclaimed Gomez disdainfully.

The corporal, even if he was a bad philologist, was yet a good husband. What he had just learned his spouse must also know, so he proceeded with her education: "Consola, what do you call your damned country?"

"What should I call it? Just what you taught me: Felifinas!"

"I'll throw a chair at you, you ----! Yesterday you pronounced it even better in the modern style, but now it's proper to pronounce it like an ancient: Feli, I mean, Filipinas!"

"Remember that I'm no ancient! What are you thinking about?"

"Never mind! Say Filipinas!"

"I don't want to. I'm no ancient baggage, scarcely thirty years old!" she replied, rolling up her sleeves and preparing herself for the fray.

"Say it, you ----, or I'll throw this chair at you!"

Consolacion saw the movement, reflected, then began to stammer with heavy breaths, "Feli-, Fele-, File--"

Pum! Crack! The chair finished the word. So the lesson ended in fisticuffs, scratchings, slaps. The corporal caught her by the hair; she grabbed his goatee, but was unable to bite because of her loose teeth. He let out a yell, released her and begged her pardon. Blood began to flow, one eye got redder than the other, a camisa was torn into shreds, many things came to light, but not Filipinas.

Similar incidents occurred every time the question of language came up. The corporal, watching her linguistic progress, sorrowfully calculated that in ten years his mate would have completely forgotten how to talk, and this was about what really came to pass. When they were married she still knew Tagalog and could make herself understood in Spanish, but now, at the time of our story, she no longer spoke any language. She had become so addicted to expressing herself by means of signs--and of these she chose the loudest and most impressive-- that she could have given odds to the inventor of Volapuk.

Sisa, therefore, had the good fortune not to understand her, so the Medusa smoothed out her eyebrows a little, while a smile of satisfaction lighted up her face; undoubtedly she did not know Tagalog, she was an orofea!

"Boy, tell her in Tagalog to sing! She doesn't understand me, she doesn't understand Spanish!"

The madwoman understood the boy and began to sing the Song of the Night. Doña Consolacion listened at first with a sneer, which disappeared little by little from her lips. She became attentive, then serious, and even somewhat thoughtful. The voice, the sentiment in the lines, and the song itself affected her--that dry and withered heart was perhaps thirsting for rain. She understood it well: "The sadness, the cold, and the moisture that descend from the sky when wrapped in the mantle of night," so ran the kundíman, seemed to be descending also on her heart. "The withered and faded flower which during the day flaunted her finery, seeking applause and full of vanity, at eventide, repentant and disenchanted, makes an effort to raise her drooping petals to the sky, seeking a little shade to hide herself and die without the mocking of the light that saw her in her splendor, without seeing the vanity of her pride, begging also that a little dew should weep upon her. The nightbird leaves his solitary retreat, the hollow of an ancient trunk, and disturbs the sad loneliness of the open places--"

"No, don't sing!" she exclaimed in perfect Tagalog, as she rose with agitation. "Don't sing! Those verses hurt me."

The crazy woman became silent. The boy ejaculated, "Abá! She talks Tagalog!" and stood staring with admiration at his mistress, who, realizing that she had given herself away, was ashamed of it, and as her nature was not that of a woman, the shame took the aspect of rage and hate; so she showed the door to the imprudent boy and closed it behind him with a kick.

Twisting the whip in her nervous hands, she took a few turns around the room, then stopping suddenly in front of the crazy woman, said to her in Spanish, "Dance!" But Sisa did not move.

"Dance, dance!" she repeated in a sinister tone.

The madwoman looked at her with wandering, expressionless eyes, while the alfereza lifted one of her arms, then the other, and shook them, but to no purpose, for Sisa did not understand. Then she began to jump about and shake herself, encouraging Sisa to imitate her. In the distance was to be heard the music of the procession playing a grave and majestic march, but Doña Consolacion danced furiously, keeping other time to other music resounding within her. Sisa gazed at her without moving, while her eyes expressed curiosity and something like a weak smile hovered around her pallid lips: the lady's dancing amused her. The latter stopped as if ashamed, raised the whip,-- that terrible whip known to thieves and soldiers, made in Ulango[111] and perfected by the alferez with twisted wires,--and said, "Now it's your turn to dance--dance!"

She began to strike the madwoman's bare feet gently with the whip. Sisa's face drew up with pain and she was forced to protect herself with her hands.

"Aha, now you're starting!" she exclaimed with savage joy, passing from lento to allegro vivace.

The afflicted Sisa gave a cry of pain and quickly raised her foot.

"You've got to dance, you Indian--!" The whip swung and whistled.

Sisa let herself fall to the floor and placed both hands on her knees while she gazed at her tormentor with wildly-staring eyes. Two sharp cuts of the whip on her shoulder made her stand up, and it was not merely a cry but a howl that the unfortunate woman uttered. Her thin camisa was torn, her skin broken, and the blood was flowing.

The sight of blood arouses the tiger; the blood of her victim aroused Doña Consolacion. "Dance, damn you, dance! Evil to the mother who bore you!" she cried. "Dance, or I'll flog you to death!" She then caught Sisa with one hand and, whipping her with the other, began to dance about.

The crazy woman at last understood and followed the example by swinging her arms about awkwardly. A smile of satisfaction curled the lips of her teacher, the smile of a female Mephistopheles who succeeds in getting a great pupil. There were in it hate, disdain, jest, and cruelty; with a burst of demoniacal laughter she could not have expressed more.

Thus, absorbed in the joy of the sight, she was not aware of the arrival of her husband until he opened the door with a loud kick. The alferez appeared pale and gloomy, and when he saw what was going on he threw a terrible glance at his wife, who did not move from her place but stood smiling at him cynically.