d her features were
distorted. She must be operated upon; her entrails must be opened and
the green, slippery demon that was eating her alive must be expelled.

"The doctor proceeded upon his task, without paying any attention to the
advice showered upon him, and before I could reach his side his voice
resounded through the sudden silence, with ill-humored brusqueness:

"'But good Lord, the only trouble with this girl is that she's going
to...!'

"Before he could finish, all could guess from the harshness of his voice
what he was about to say. The group of women yielded before _la
Soberana's_ thrusts even as the waves of the sea under the belly of a
whale. She stuck out her big hands and her threatening nails, mumbling
insults and looking at the doctor with murder in her eyes. Bandit!
Drunkard! Out of her house!...It was the people's fault, for supporting
such an infidel. She'd eat him up! Let them make way for her!... And she
struggled violently with her friends, fighting to free herself and
scratch out the doctor's eyes. To her vindictive cries were joined the
weak bleating of Visanteta, protesting with the breath that was left her
between her groans of pain. It was a lie! Let that wicked man be gone!
What a nasty mouth he had! It was all a lie!...

"But the doctor went hither and thither, asking for water, for bandages,
snappy and imperious in his commands, paying no attention whatsoever to
the threats of the mother or the cries of the daughter, which were
becoming louder and more heart-rending than ever. Suddenly she roared as
if she were being slaughtered, and there was a bustle of curiosity
around the physician, whom I couldn't see. 'It's a lie! A lie!
Evil-tongued wretch! Slanderer!'... But the protestations of Visanteta
were no longer unaccompanied. To her voice of an innocent victim begging
justice from heaven was added the cry of a pair of lungs that were
breathing the air for the first time.

"And now the friends of _la Soberana_ had to restrain her from falling
upon her daughter. She would kill her! The bitch! Whose child was
that?... And terrified by the threats of her mother, the sick woman, who
was still sobbing 'It's a lie! A lie!' at last spoke. It was a young
fellow of the _huerta_ whom she had never seen again... an indiscretion
committed one evening... she no longer remembered. No, she could not
remember!... And she insisted upon this forgetfulness as if it were an
incontrovertible excuse.

"T