The joy of combat had taken possession of the whole portico. Idlers had gathered in throngs at the doors. The fish-women were leaning far forward over their counters with the eager appetites of furies, clacking their tongues as though they were sicking two dogs upon each other and banging on their scales to applaud each cutting thrust. It was time for Dolores to fall back on the ultima ratio of a fish-woman's contempt.
"Look, Rosario! Don't talk to me! Talk to this!"
And she turned squarely around and, bending slightly, registered a resonant slap on the pair of spacious hips that trembled under her calico skirt with all the elasticity of her firm flesh.
This trovata had immense success with the audience. Women fell from their chairs in the contortions of laughter. The tunny-men in the near section doubled up in the gripes of joy, while the hilarity found its outer boundaries in the meat-market, stalls and stalls away. Staid gentlemen from town set their baskets down to do full justice with their clapping hands to the beauty and the wit of the inimitable Dolores.
But the triumph of the Rector's wife was of short duration. As she looked around to see the effect her blow had had, a handful of sardines struck her full in the face. Rosario was blind with fury. "Come out of that stall! Show your face out here where I can get at you, you low-lived street-walker!" And Dolores did show her face. Rolling her sleeves up still higher, as though clearing for action, she strode forth from her stall, her eyes aglow with the enthusiasm of combat. Toward her Rosario came running, brushing aside the arms that tried to restrain her, aquiver with rage from head to foot and shrieking curse on curse.
They met in the wet, slippery passageway between the two lines of counters. Head down, the smaller woman rushed full tilt into her taller and sturdier antagonist. It was a shock of nerve on muscle. Dolores was scarcely stirred, and the blows Rosario rained on her did not seem even to ruffle her temper. Answering in kind, she began to deliver the most merciless slaps upon the pale, bony cheeks of her assailant, which grew red under the punishment.
But suddenly Dolores shrieked in agony and raised both hands to one ear. "The dog! The dog!" she cried.
Rosario's fingers had closed over one of those pearl earrings that had been the admiration of the Fishmarket. She had torn it out. The pretty girl began to sob, pressing her torn ear under both her hands, while blood streamed through her fingers. "Was that the way to fight fairly?" she moaned. That showed the kind of woman she had to deal with. People had gone to jail for life for less than that! Then, whipped to a violent rage by the pain she felt, she started once more for her enemy. But the fish-women had gathered round her, petting and consoling her, and they held her back. Tia Picores, meanwhile, was spitting oaths and insults into the face of Rosario, who stood there pale, fainting, in fright and horror at what she had done.
Above the crowd outside the portico the top-knots of several policemen had appeared. The forces of law and order were trying to elbow their way into the throng. Sh ... h ... h! Tia Picores assumed command. "Back to your stalls, everybody! And mum's the word! Those pretty boys will be in here with their summonses and their papers! Nothing's the matter, remember, everybody, nothing happened at all!" Some one threw a big handkerchief over the bleeding ear of the wounded girl. The women were all in their places looking straight ahead as solemnly as in church, and calling off their prices with laughable mechanicalness. As the officers passed from counter to counter the market was again in turmoil, but of a different kind. "What are those dudes doing in here? Some people never know where they belong. What's the idea? Just butting in, eh, lolly-pop!" And the police marched out as wise as they had entered, chased away by the drawling voice of tia Picores—who could never understand how people allowed such a government of thugs and grafters to exist among honest people—and marking time to the banging of metal scales, which all began to clatter as a parting salutation.
The market returned to its usual routine. The vendors were busy with their custom. Rosario, like a sphinx in dudgeon, stood upright and stiff behind her counter, indifferent to the passing trade, spots on her cheeks and temples turning black-and-blue from the buffets they had received. Dolores kept her back turned toward her enemy, but she was doing her best to stifle the cries that her pain was almost tearing from her. Tia Picores seemed to be in a thoughtful mood, as she talked aloud and in monologue to the fish lying about in front of her. And those spit-fires would keep at it for the rest of their lives, eh! I kill you or you kill me! Fine! And all over a man! Men! Men! As though there weren't enough hogs in the world to go round! But she would put a stop to it, she would. Any more of their nonsense and she would thrash them, thrash them both, by God! And perhaps they didn't think she could! Well, she would see!