Her house was sad because other people were merry, as Sinang put it. There neither lanterns nor flags could be seen. In fact, if the sentry were not walking up and down in front of the gate, you would have said that the house was unoccupied. A feeble light illumined the disarranged sala, and made transparent the oyster-shell windows filled with spider-webs and covered with dust. The Señora, according to her custom, her hands folded, sat in a wide arm-chair. She was dressed the same as every day, that is to say, outrageously out of taste. In detail, she had a handkerchief tied around her head, while short, slender locks of tangled hair hung down on either side; a blue flannel shirt over another shirt which should have been white; and a faded-out skirt which moulded itself to her slender thighs as she sat with her legs crossed and nervously wiggled her foot. From her mouth, came big puffs of smoke, which she fastidiously blew up in the space toward which she looked when her eyes were open. That morning the Señora had not heard mass, not because she had not cared to hear it, for on the contrary she wanted to show herself to the multitude and to hear the sermon, but because her husband had not permitted her to do so. As was usually the case, his prohibition was accompanied by two or three insults, oaths and threats of kicking. The alferez understood that his "female" dressed herself in a ridiculous manner, and that it was not fitting to expose her to the eyes of the people from the capital nor even the country districts. But she did not understand it that way. She knew that she was beautiful, attractive, that she had the manners of a queen and that she dressed much better and more gorgeously than Maria Clara herself, though to be sure the latter wore a tapis over her skirt while she wore only the skirt. The alferez had to say to her: "Oh, shut your mouth or I'll kick you till you do!" Doña Consolacion did not care to be kicked, but she planned revenge. The dark face of the Señora never had inspired confidence in anybody, not even when she painted it. That morning she was exceptionally uneasy, and as she walked from one end of the sala to the other, in silence and as if meditating something terrible, her eyes shone like those of a serpent about to be crushed. Her look was cold, luminous, and penetrating and had something vicious, loathsome and cruel in it. The slightest defect in anything, the most insignificant or unusual noise brought forth an obscene and infamous expression; but no one responded. To offer an excuse was a crime. So the day passed. Encountering no obstacle in her way--her husband had been invited out--she became saturated with bile. Everything around bent itself before her. She met no resistance, there was nothing upon which she could discharge the vials of her wrath. Soldiers and servants crawled before her.