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+Project Gutenberg's The Blood of the Arena, by Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Blood of the Arena
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+Illustrator: Troy Kinney
+             Margaret West Kinney
+
+Translator: Frances Douglas
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2010 [EBook #33799]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: When the swordsman clasped her hand she looked into his
+eyes. "Don't go--come; come!"
+[Chapter III]]
+
+
+
+
+THE BLOOD OF
+THE ARENA
+
+BY
+
+VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ
+
+FROM THE SPANISH, BY FRANCES DOUGLAS
+
+ILLUSTRATED IN COLOR BY TROY
+AND MARGARET WEST KINNEY
+
+[Illustration: colophon]
+
+CHICAGO
+
+A. C. McCLURG & CO.
+
+1911
+
+Copyright
+
+A. C. McCLURG & CO.
+
+1911
+
+Published November, 1911
+
+Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
+
+W. F. Gall Printing Company
+
+Chicago
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Chapter                                   Page
+
+   I The Hero and the Public                 9
+
+  II The Matador and the Lady               33
+
+ III Born for the Bull-ring                 64
+
+  IV At Carmen's Window-grille              80
+
+   V The Lure of Golden Hair               106
+
+  VI The Voice of the Siren                126
+
+ VII The Spanish Wild Beast                153
+
+VIII Diamonds in the Ring                  178
+
+  IX Breakfast with the Bandit             195
+
+   X A Look into the Face of Death         228
+
+  XI Doctor Ruiz on Tauromachy             256
+
+ XII Airing the Saints                     269
+
+XIII The Mastery of Self-preservation      288
+
+ XIV The Spanish Lilith                    307
+
+  XV Behind the Scenes                     328
+
+ XVI "The Greatest Man in the World"       348
+
+XVII The Atonement of Blood                362
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                                    Page
+
+When the swordsman clasped her hand she looked
+into his eyes. "Don't go--come; come!"                      Frontispiece
+
+Gallardo's wedding was a national event. Far into
+the night guitars strummed with melancholy plaint....
+Girls, their arms held high, beat the marble
+floor with their little feet                                          96
+
+"For me?" asked the bandit in tones of surprise
+and wonder. "For me, Senora Marquesa?"                               224
+
+The animal moved in confusion between the red
+cloths, drawing him far away from the swordsman                      294
+
+
+
+
+THE BLOOD OF THE ARENA
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE HERO AND THE PUBLIC
+
+
+JUAN GALLARDO breakfasted early, as he did whenever there was to be a
+bull-fight. A slice of roast meat was his only dish. Wine he did not
+even touch; the bottle remained unopened before him. He must keep
+himself calm. He drank two cups of thick, black coffee, and lighted an
+enormous cigar, sitting with his elbows on the table and his chin in his
+hands, looking with dreamy eyes at the guests who one by one filled the
+dining-room.
+
+It was a number of years ago, not long after he had been given "the
+alternative" in the bull-ring of Madrid, that he came to lodge at a
+certain hotel on Alcala Street where his hosts treated him as if he were
+one of the family, and the dining-room servants, porters, scullions, and
+old waiters adored him as the glory of the establishment. There, too, he
+had spent many days wrapped in bandages, in a dense atmosphere heavy
+with the smell of iodoform, in consequence of two gorings, but the
+unhappy recollection did not weigh upon him.
+
+In his Southern superstitious mind, exposed to continual danger, he
+regarded this hotel as a charmed shelter, and thought that nothing ill
+would happen to him while living in it; accidents common to the
+profession, rents in his clothing, scratches in his flesh perhaps, but
+no last and final fall after the manner of other comrades, the
+recollection of whom haunted even his happier hours.
+
+On the days of the great bull-fights, after the early breakfast, he
+enjoyed sitting in the dining-room contemplating the movement of
+travellers. They were foreigners, or people from distant provinces, who
+passed near with indifferent countenances, and without looking at him;
+and then became curious on learning from the servants that the fine
+youth with shaven face and black eyes, dressed like a young gentleman,
+was Juan Gallardo, by all familiarly called Gallardo, the famous
+bull-fighter. Thus were whiled away the long and painful hours before
+going to the plaza.
+
+These moments of uncertainty, in which vague fears emerged from the
+depths of his soul, making him doubt himself, were the bitterest in his
+professional experience. He would not go out on the street thinking of
+the strain of the contest, and of the need of keeping himself rested and
+agile; and he could not entertain himself at the table on account of the
+necessity of eating a light meal, in order to reach the ring without
+disturbance of his digestion.
+
+He remained at the head of the table, his face between his hands and a
+cloud of perfumed smoke before his eyes, turning his gaze from time to
+time with a certain fatuousness to look at some ladies who were
+contemplating the famous bull-fighter with interest.
+
+His pride as the idol of the masses made him feel that he could divine
+eulogy and flattery in these looks. They thought him smart and elegant.
+And, with the instinct of all men accustomed to pose before the public,
+forgetting his preoccupation, he sat erect, knocked off with his finger
+nails the cigar ashes fallen on his sleeves, and arranged his ring,
+which covered the whole joint of one of his fingers with an enormous
+diamond surrounded by a nimbus of colors as if its clear liquid depths
+burned with magic fire.
+
+His eyes roved with satisfaction over his person, admiring the suit of
+elegant cut, the cap which he wore around the hotel lying on a nearby
+chair, the fine gold chain that crossed the upper part of his vest from
+pocket to pocket, the pearl in his cravat that seemed to illuminate the
+brown tone of his countenance with milky light, and the shoes of Russia
+leather showing between their tops and the edge of the rolled-up
+trousers socks of open-work silk embroidered like the stockings of a
+cocotte.
+
+An atmosphere of English perfumes, mild and vague, but used with
+profusion, arose from his clothing and from his black and brilliant
+hair. This he brushed carefully down over his temples, adopting a style
+certain to attract feminine curiosity. For a bull-fighter the ensemble
+was not bad; he felt satisfied with his appearance. Where was there
+another more distinguished, or one who had a better way with women?
+
+But suddenly his preoccupation returned, the brilliancy of his eyes
+clouded, and he rested his chin in his hands again, puffing at his cigar
+tenaciously, his gaze lost in the cloud of smoke. He thought wistfully
+of the hour of nightfall, wishing it already here; of the return from
+the bull-ring, sweaty and tired, but with the joy of danger conquered,
+the appetites awakened, a mad desire for sport, and the certainty of a
+few days of safety and rest.
+
+If God would protect him as heretofore he was going to feast with the
+appetite of his days of poverty and starvation, get a little drunk, and
+go in search of a certain girl who sang in a music-hall, whom he had
+seen on his last trip without having a chance to cultivate her
+acquaintance. Leading this life of continual change from one end of the
+Peninsula to the other he did not have time for much in the way of
+pleasure.
+
+Enthusiastic friends who wished to see the swordsman before going to
+breakfast at their homes began entering the dining-room. They were old
+admirers anxious to figure in a _banderia_ and to have an idol; they had
+made the young Gallardo the _matador_ of their choice, and they gave him
+sage counsel, frequently recalling their old-time adoration for
+Lagartijo or Frascuelo.
+
+In addressing Gallardo they called him _thou_, with gracious
+familiarity, while he put _don_ before their names with the traditional
+class distinction that still exists between the bull-fighter risen from
+the social subsoil and his admirers. These men linked their enthusiasm
+with memories of the past to make the young _matador_ feel their
+superiority of years and experience. They talked of the old plaza of
+Madrid where only bulls that _were_ bulls and bull-fighters that _were_
+bull-fighters were recognized. Coming down to the present, they trembled
+with emotion on mentioning the Negro, Frascuelo.
+
+"If thou hadst seen him! But thou and those of thy time were at the
+breast then, or were not even born."
+
+Other enthusiasts began entering the dining-room, poorly clad and
+hungry-looking; obscure newspaper reporters; and men of problematical
+profession who appeared as soon as the news of Gallardo's arrival was
+circulated, besieging him with praises and petitions for tickets. Common
+enthusiasm jostled them against great merchants or public functionaries,
+who discussed bull-fighting affairs with them warmly, regardless of
+their beggarly aspect.
+
+All, on seeing the swordsman, embraced him or shook his hand with an
+accompaniment of questions and exclamations.
+
+"Juanillo--how goes it with Carmen?"
+
+"Well, thanks."
+
+"And how is your mother, Senora Angustias?"
+
+"Fine, thanks. She's at La Rincona'."
+
+"And your sister and your little nephews?"
+
+"As usual, thanks."
+
+"And that good-for-nothing brother-in-law of yours, how is he?"
+
+"He's all right--as much of a gabbler as ever."
+
+"Are there any additions to the family? Any expectations?"
+
+"No--not even that."
+
+He made a fingernail crackle between his teeth with a strong negative
+expression and then began returning the questions to the new arrivals,
+of whose life he knew nothing beyond their inclination for the art of
+bull-fighting.
+
+"And how is your family--all right? Well, glad to hear it. Sit down and
+have something."
+
+Then he inquired about the condition of the bulls that were to be fought
+within a few hours, for all these friends had come from the plaza and
+from seeing the separation and penning in of the animals; and, with
+professional curiosity, he asked news of the Cafe Ingles, a favorite
+gathering place of bull-fight fans.
+
+It was the first bull-fight of the spring season, and Gallardo's
+enthusiasts showed great hopes, remembering the glowing accounts in the
+newspapers of his recent triumphs in other towns of Spain. He was the
+bull-fighter who had the most contracts. Since the Easter _corrida_ in
+Seville (the first important one of the taurine year) Gallardo had gone
+from plaza to plaza killing bulls.
+
+When August and September came, he would have to spend his nights on the
+train and his afternoons in the rings, without time to rest. His agent
+at Seville was almost crazy, so besieged was he by letters and
+telegrams, not knowing how to harmonize so many petitions for contracts
+with the exigencies of time. The afternoon before he had fought at
+Ciudad Real and, still dressed in his spangled costume, he had boarded
+the train to reach Madrid by morning. He had spent a wakeful night, only
+napping occasionally, crouched in the portion of a seat left him by the
+other passengers who crowded close together to give some chance for rest
+to this man who was to expose his life on the morrow, and was to afford
+them the joy of a tragic emotion without danger to themselves.
+
+The enthusiasts admired his physical endurance, and the rash daring with
+which he threw himself upon the bulls at the moment of killing.
+
+"We will see what thou art going to do this afternoon," they said with
+the fervor of true believers. "The devotees expect a great deal of thee.
+Thou wilt win many favors, surely. We shall see if thou dost as well as
+at Seville."
+
+His admirers now began to disperse to go home to breakfast so as to be
+able to reach the bull-fight at an early hour. Gallardo, finding himself
+alone, was preparing to retire to his room, impelled by the nervous
+restlessness that dominated him. A man, leading two children by the
+hand, passed through the doorway of the dining-room, paying no attention
+to the questions of the servants. He smiled seraphically on seeing the
+bull-fighter, and advanced, dragging the little boys, his eyes glued
+upon him, taking no thought as to his feet. Gallardo recognized him.
+
+"How are you, Godfather?"
+
+And then followed the customary questions regarding the health of the
+family. The man turned to his sons, saying gravely:
+
+"There he is! Are ye not continually asking me about him? Just like he
+is in the pictures."
+
+The two little fellows reverently contemplated the hero whom they had so
+often seen in the prints that adorned the rooms of their poor home; he
+seemed to them a supernatural being whose heroic deeds and riches were
+their greatest marvel as they began to take notice of the things of this
+world.
+
+"Juanillo, kiss thy godfather's hand."
+
+The smaller of the two boys dashed his red face, freshly scrubbed by his
+mother in preparation for this visit, against the swordsman's right
+hand. Gallardo patted his head absent-mindedly. It was one of the many
+god-children he had throughout Spain. His enthusiastic friends obliged
+him to be godfather in baptism to their children, believing thus to
+assure them a future.
+
+To exhibit himself at baptism after baptism was one of the consequences
+of his glory. This godchild recalled to his memory the hard times when
+he was at the beginning of his career, and he felt a certain gratitude
+to the father for the faith he had shown in him in spite of the lack of
+it in every one else.
+
+"And how is business, _compadre_?" asked Gallardo. "Are things going
+better?"
+
+The _aficionado_ made a wry face. He was living, thanks to his
+commissions in the barley market, barely living, no more. Gallardo
+looked compassionately at his mean dress--a poor man's Sunday best.
+
+"You want to see the bull-fight, don't you, _compadre_? Go up to my room
+and let Garabato give you a ticket. Good-bye, my good fellow. Here, take
+this to buy yourselves something."
+
+As his godson kissed his right hand again, the bull-fighter handed the
+boys a couple of _duros_ with his left. The father dragged away his
+offspring with expressions of gratitude, not making it clear in his
+confusion whether his enthusiasm were for the gift to the children or
+for the ticket for the _corrida_ which the swordsman's servant was about
+to give him.
+
+Gallardo allowed a few moments to elapse, so that he would not meet the
+enthusiast and his children again in his room. Then he looked at his
+watch. One o'clock! How long it was yet before the hour for the
+bull-fight!
+
+As Gallardo walked out of the dining-room and started toward the
+stairway a crowd of curiosity-seekers and starvelings hanging around the
+street door, attracted by the presence of the bull-fighter, rushed in.
+Pushing the servants aside, an irruption of beggars, vagabonds, and
+newsboys filed into the vestibule.
+
+The imps with their bundles of papers under one arm took off their caps,
+cheering with lusty familiarity.
+
+"Gallardo! Hurrah for Gallardo!"
+
+The most audacious among them grasped his hand and pressed it firmly and
+shook it in all directions, anxious to prolong as much as possible this
+contact with the great man of the people whose picture they had seen in
+the newspapers. Then they rudely invited their companions to participate
+in this glory.
+
+"Shake hands with him! He won't get mad. Why, he's all right."
+
+They almost knelt before the bull-fighter, so great was their respect
+for him. Other curious ones, with unkempt beards, dressed in old clothes
+that had once been elegant, moved about the idol in their worn shoes and
+held their grimy hats out to him, talking to him in low tones, calling
+him _Don_ Juan to differentiate themselves from the enthusiastic and
+irreverent mob. As they told him of their misery they solicited alms, or
+more audacious, they begged him, in the name of their devotion to the
+game, for a ticket for the bull-fight,--with the intention of selling it
+immediately.
+
+Gallardo defended himself, laughing at this avalanche that pushed and
+shoved him, the hotel clerks being quite unable to defend him, so awed
+were they by the respect that popularity inspires. He searched in all
+his pockets till they were empty, distributing silver-pieces blindly
+among the greedy, outstretched hands.
+
+"There's none left now. The coal's all burnt up! Let me alone,
+pesterers."
+
+Pretending to be annoyed by this popularity which really flattered him,
+he opened a passage for himself by a push with his strong arms and
+escaped by the stairway, running up the steps with the agility of an
+athlete, while the servants, no longer restrained by his presence, swept
+and pushed the crowd toward the street.
+
+Gallardo passed the room occupied by Garabato and saw his servant
+through the half-opened door bending over valises and boxes getting his
+costume ready for the bull-fight.
+
+Finding himself alone in his room the pleasant excitement caused by the
+avalanche of his admirers instantly vanished. The unhappy moments of
+these bull-fighting days had come, the trepidation of the last hours
+before going to the plaza. Miura bulls and the public of Madrid! The
+danger which, when he faced it, seemed to intoxicate him and increase
+his boldness, caused him bitter anguish now in his solitude, and seemed
+to him something supernatural, awful, on account of its uncertainty.
+
+He felt crushed, as if suddenly the fatigue of the hideous night before
+had fallen upon him. He had a desire to lie down and rest on the bed at
+the other end of the room, when again anxiety over what awaited him,
+doubtful and mysterious, drove away his drowsiness.
+
+He strode restlessly up and down the room and lighted another Havana by
+the end of the one he had just consumed.
+
+How would this season which he was about to open in Madrid end for him?
+What would his enemies say? How would his professional rivals succeed?
+He had killed many Miuras--well, they were bulls like all the others;
+but he thought of his comrades who had fallen in the ring, almost all of
+them victims of the animals of that stock. Accursed Miuras! It was for a
+good reason that he and other swordsmen made out their contracts for a
+thousand _pesetas_ more when they had to fight animals of this herd.
+
+He continued wandering about the room with nervous step. He stopped to
+contemplate stupidly well-known objects that were a part of his
+equipment; then he let himself fall into an easy chair as if attacked by
+sudden weakness. He looked at his watch repeatedly. It was not yet two
+o'clock. How the time crept!
+
+He wished that, as a stimulant for his nerves, the hour for dressing and
+going to the ring would come. The people, the noise, the popular
+curiosity, the desire to show himself calm and happy in the presence of
+the enthusiastic populace, and above all the very nearness of danger,
+actual and personal, instantly effaced this anguish of isolation in
+which the swordsman, without the aid of external excitement, felt
+something akin to fear.
+
+The need of diverting himself caused him to search in the inside pocket
+of his waistcoat. He drew out with his pocket-book a little envelope
+which emitted a mild, sweet perfume. Standing by a window through which
+the obscure light of an inner courtyard entered, he contemplated the
+envelope which had been handed him when he arrived at the hotel,
+admiring the fine and genteel elegance of the characters in which the
+address was written.
+
+He drew out the sheet of paper, breathing in its indefinable perfume
+with delight. Ah! people of high birth who have travelled widely,--how
+they reveal their inimitable superiority, even in the smallest details!
+
+Gallardo, as though he felt that his person preserved the keen stench of
+the misery of his earlier years, perfumed himself with offensive
+profusion. His enemies joked about the athletic youth who, by his
+excessive use of perfumes, gave the lie to his sex. His admirers smiled
+at this weakness, but very often had to turn away their faces, nauseated
+by the heavy odors he carried with him.
+
+A whole perfumery shop accompanied him on his travels, and the most
+effeminate essences anointed his body when he descended into the arena
+among the dead horses, and foul _debris_ characteristic of the place.
+Certain enthusiastic _cocottes_, whom he had met on a trip to the towns
+in the south of France, had given him the secret of mixtures and
+combinations of strange perfumes; but the fragrance of the
+letter--_that_ was like the person of her who had written it--a
+mysterious odor, delicate and indefinable, that could not be imitated,
+that seemed to emanate from her aristocratic body; it was what he called
+"the odor of a lady"!
+
+He read and re-read the letter with a beaming smile of delight and
+pride. It was not a great matter; half a dozen lines--a greeting from
+Seville, wishing him good luck in Madrid; anticipated congratulations
+for his triumphs. That letter could have gone astray without in the
+least compromising the woman who wrote it. "Friend Gallardo" at the
+beginning, in elegant lettering that seemed to tickle the bull-fighter's
+eyes, and at the end, "Your friend, Sol"; all in a coldly friendly
+style, addressing him as _you_, with an amiable tone of superiority as
+though the words were not from equal to equal but had descended
+mercifully from on high.
+
+The bull-fighter, gazing at the letter with the adoration which a man of
+the people has for caste, though little versed in reading, could not
+escape a certain feeling of annoyance, as if he beheld himself
+patronized.
+
+"That baggage," he murmured. "That woman! No one living can break her
+pride. Look how she talks to me--_you! you!_--and to me!"
+
+But happy memories brought a satisfied smile to his lips. This frigid
+style was for letters; these were the customs of a great lady; the
+precautions of a woman who had travelled over the world. His annoyance
+changed to admiration.
+
+"What that woman doesn't know! And such a cautious creature!"
+
+And in his smile appeared a professional satisfaction, the pride of the
+tamer who, appreciating the strength of the conquered wild beast, extols
+his own deed.
+
+While Gallardo was admiring this letter his servant Garabato came and
+went, bringing clothing and boxes which he left on the bed.
+
+He was a fellow of quiet movements and agile hands, and seemed to take
+no notice of the presence of the bull-fighter. For some years he had
+accompanied the _diestro_ on all his travels as sword-bearer. He had
+commenced in Seville at the same time as Gallardo, serving first as
+_capeador_, but the hard blows were reserved for him, while advancement
+and glory were for his companion. He was little, dark, and of weak
+muscles, and a tortuous and poorly united gash scarred with a whitish
+pot-hook his wrinkled, flaccid oldish face. It was from a thrust of a
+bull's horn which had left him almost dead in the plaza of a certain
+town, and to this atrocious wound others were added that disfigured the
+hidden parts of his body.
+
+By a miracle he escaped with his life from his apprenticeship as a
+bull-fighter, and the cruellest part of it all was that the people
+laughed at his misfortunes, taking pleasure in seeing him stamped on and
+routed by the bulls. Finally his total eclipse took place, and he agreed
+to be the attendant, the confidential servant, of his old comrade. He
+was Gallardo's most fervent admirer, although he abused the confidence
+of intimacy by allowing himself to give advice and to criticise. Had
+_he_ been in his master's skin, _he_ would have done better at certain
+moments. Gallardo's friends found cause for laughter in the frustrated
+ambitions of the sword-bearer, but he paid no attention to their jokes.
+Renounce the bulls? Never! And so that the memory of his past should not
+be wholly obliterated he combed his coarse hair in shining locks over
+his ears and wore on the back of his head the long and sacred great lock
+of hair, the _coleta_ of his youthful days, the professional emblem that
+distinguished him from common mortals.
+
+When Gallardo was angry with him his fierce passion always threatened
+this capillary adornment.
+
+"And thou dost wear a _coleta_, shameless one? I'm going to cut that
+rat's tail off for thee--brazen-face! _Maleta!_"
+
+Garabato received these threats with resignation, but he took his
+revenge by shutting himself up in the silence of a superior man,
+answering the joy of the master with shrugs of his shoulders when the
+latter, on returning from the plaza of an afternoon in a happy mood,
+asked him with infantile satisfaction:
+
+"What didst thou think of it? Did I do well, sure?"
+
+On account of their juvenile comradeship he retained the privilege of
+saying _thou_ to his master. He could not talk to the _maestro_ in any
+other way, but the _thou_ was accompanied by a grave gesture and an
+expression of ingenuous respect. His familiarity was like that of the
+ancient shield-bearers to the knights of adventure.
+
+From his collar up, including the tail on the back of his head, he was a
+bull-fighter; the rest of his person resembled a tailor and a valet at
+the same time. He dressed in a suit of English cloth, a present from the
+_Senor_, wearing the lapels stuck full of pins, and with several
+threaded needles on one sleeve. His dry, dark hands possessed a feminine
+delicacy for handling and arranging things.
+
+When he had placed in order all that was necessary for the master's
+dressing, he looked over the numerous objects to assure himself that
+nothing was lacking. Then he planted himself in the middle of the room
+and without looking at Gallardo, as if he were speaking to himself, he
+said in a hoarse voice and with a stubborn accent:
+
+"Two o'clock!"
+
+Gallardo lifted his head nervously, as if he had not noticed the
+presence of his servant until then. He put the letter in his pocket and
+went to the lower end of the room with a certain hesitancy, as if he
+wished to delay the moment of dressing.
+
+"Is everything ready?"
+
+But suddenly his pale face colored with violent emotion. His eyes
+opened immeasurably wide as if they had just suffered the shock of a
+frightful surprise.
+
+"What clothes hast thou laid out?"
+
+Garabato pointed to the bed, but before he could speak the anger of the
+_maestro_ fell upon him, loud and terrible.
+
+"Curses on thee! Dost thou know nothing of the affairs of the
+profession? Thou has just come from hay-making, maybe? Bull-fight in
+Madrid, with Miura bulls, and thou dost get me out a green costume, the
+same that poor Manuel el Espartero wore! My bitterest enemy couldn't do
+worse, thou more than shameless one! It seems as if thou wishes to see
+me killed, _malaje!_"
+
+His anger increased as he considered the enormity of this carelessness,
+which was like a challenge to ill fortune. To fight in Madrid in a green
+costume after what had happened! His eyes flashed with hostile fire as
+if he had just received a traitorous attack; the whites of his eyes grew
+red, and he seemed about to fall upon poor Garabato with his rough
+bull-fighter hands.
+
+A discreet knock on the door of the room ended this scene.
+
+"Come in!"
+
+A young man entered, dressed in light clothes, with a red cravat, and
+carrying a Cordovan _sombrero_ in a hand beringed with great brilliants.
+Gallardo recognized him instantly, with that gift for remembering faces
+possessed by all who live before the public.
+
+He changed suddenly from anger to smiling amiability as if the visit
+were a sweet surprise. It was a friend from Bilbao, an enthusiastic
+admirer, a champion of his glory. That was all he could remember. But
+his name? He met so many! What could his name be? The only thing he
+knew for certain was that he must address him by _thou_, for an old
+friendship existed between the two.
+
+"Sit down! What a surprise! When didst thou come? The family well?"
+
+And the admirer sat down with the satisfaction of a devotee who enters
+the sanctuary of the idol determined not to move until the last instant,
+gratifying himself by the attention of the bull-fighter's _thou_, and
+calling him _Juan_ at every two words so that furniture, walls, and
+whoever might pass along the corridor should know of his intimacy with
+the great man. He had arrived from Bilbao this morning and would return
+on the following day. He took the trip for no other purpose than to see
+Gallardo. He had read of his great exploits; the season was beginning
+well; this afternoon would be fine! He had been at the sorting of the
+bulls where he had especially noticed a dark beast that would
+undoubtedly yield great sport in Gallardo's hands.
+
+"What costume shall I get out?" interrupted Garabato, with a voice that
+seemed even more hoarse with the desire to show himself submissive.
+
+"The red one, the tobacco-colored, the blue--any one thou wishest."
+
+Another knock sounded on the door and a new visitor appeared. It was
+Doctor Ruiz, the popular physician who for thirty years had been signing
+the medical certificates of all the injured and treating every
+bull-fighter that fell wounded in the plaza of Madrid.
+
+Gallardo admired him and regarded him as the highest representative of
+universal science, although he indulged in good-natured jokes about his
+kindly disposition and his lack of care in his dress. His admiration was
+like that of the populace which only recognizes wisdom in a man of ill
+appearance and oddity of character that makes him different from
+ordinary mortals.
+
+"He is a saint," Gallardo used to say, "a wise fellow, with wheels in
+his head, but as good as good bread, and he never has a _peseta_. He
+gives away all he has and he accepts whatever they choose to give him."
+
+Two grand passions animated the doctor's life, revolution and bulls. A
+vague and tremendous revolution was to come that would leave in Europe
+nothing now existing; an anarchistic republic which he did not take the
+trouble to explain, and as to which he was only clear in his
+exterminating negations. The bull-fighters talked to him as to a father.
+He spoke as a familiar to all of them, and no more was needed than to
+get a telegram from a distant part of the Peninsula, for the good doctor
+to take the train on the instant to go to treat the horn-wound received
+by one of his _boys_ with no other hope of recompense than whatever they
+might freely wish to give him.
+
+On seeing Gallardo after a long absence he embraced him, pressing his
+flabby abdomen against the other's body which seemed made of bronze.
+Bravo! He thought the _espada_ looking better than ever.
+
+"And how is the Republic getting on, doctor? When is it going to
+happen?" asked Gallardo with an Andalusian drawl. "Nacional says it's
+going to come off soon; that it will be here one of these days."
+
+"And what does that matter to thee, rogue? Let poor Nacional alone. The
+best thing for him to do is to stick in his _banderillas_ better. As for
+thee, the only thing that should interest thee is to keep on killing
+bulls, like the very God himself. A fine afternoon this is going to be.
+They tell me that the bulls--"
+
+But here the young man who had seen the sorting of the animals and
+wished to talk about it, interrupted the doctor to tell of a dark bull
+that had caught his eye, and from which he expected the greatest
+prowess. The two men, who had remained silent after bowing to one
+another, were face to face, and Gallardo thought an introduction
+necessary. But what was the name of that friend whom he addressed as
+_thou_? He scratched his head, knitting his eyebrows with an effort at
+recollection, but his indecision was short.
+
+"Listen! What is thy name? Pardon, thou seest--with meeting so many
+people--"
+
+The young man concealed beneath a smile of approbation his
+disenchantment at seeing himself forgotten by the master, and gave his
+name. Gallardo on hearing it felt the past come back suddenly to his
+memory, and made reparation for his forgetfulness by adding after the
+name, "wealthy miner from Bilbao." Then he presented the "famous Doctor
+Ruiz" and both men, as if they had known one another all their lives,
+united by the enthusiasm of a common devotion, began to gossip about the
+bulls of the afternoon.
+
+"Sit down." Gallardo motioned to a sofa at the end of the room. "You'll
+not be in the way there. Talk and don't notice me. I am going to dress.
+I think that, as we're all men--"
+
+And he took off his clothes, remaining in his under-garments.
+
+Seated on a chair in the centre of the archway that divided the little
+reception room from the sleeping alcove, he gave himself up to the
+hands of Garabato, who had opened a bag of Russia-leather and was taking
+out of it an almost feminine _necessaire_ for the swordsman's toilet.
+
+In spite of the fact that the latter was carefully shaved he lathered
+his face again and passed the razor over his cheeks with the skill of
+one daily accustomed to the task. After washing himself Gallardo
+returned to his seat. The servant deluged his hair with brilliantine and
+other perfumes, combing it in curls over his forehead and temples; then
+he undertook the arrangement of the professional emblem, the sacred
+_coleta_.
+
+With a certain respect he combed the long lock that crowned the occiput
+of the _maestro_, braided it and, postponing the completion of the
+operation, fixed it on the top of his head with two hairpins, leaving
+its final arrangement until later. Now he must occupy himself with the
+feet, and he stripped the athlete of his socks, leaving him dressed only
+in an undershirt and drawers of silk mesh.
+
+Gallardo's strong muscles were outlined beneath this clothing in
+vigorous protuberances. A hollow in one thigh showed a deep scar where
+the flesh had disappeared on account of a horn-stab. Signs of old wounds
+were marked by white spots on the brown skin of his arms. His breast,
+dark and free from hair, was crossed by two irregular purplish lines,
+with a round depression, as if it had served as a mould for a coin. But
+his gladiatorial person exhaled an odor of clean brave flesh, mingled
+with strong but effeminate perfumes.
+
+Garabato, with an armful of cotton and white bandages, knelt at the
+swordsman's feet.
+
+"Like the ancient gladiators," said Dr. Ruiz, interrupting his
+conversation with the man from Bilbao; "thou hast become a Roman, Juan."
+
+"Age, doctor," answered Gallardo with a certain melancholy. "We all have
+to grow old. When I used to fight bulls and hunger too, I didn't need
+this--and I had feet of iron in doing the cape-work."
+
+Garabato introduced little tufts of cotton between his master's toes;
+then he covered the soles and upper part with a layer of this soft
+material and, putting on the bandages, began to bind them in tight
+spirals, as the ancient mummies are enwrapped. To fasten this
+arrangement he took the threaded needles he wore on one sleeve and
+carefully sewed the ends of the bandages.
+
+Gallardo stamped on the floor with his compressed feet, which seemed
+firmer inside their soft swathing. Thus encased they felt strong and
+agile. The servant then drew on long stockings which reached half way up
+his leg; they were thick and flexible like leggings--the only defence of
+the legs under the silk of the fighting dress.
+
+"Be careful about wrinkles. Look out, Garabato, I don't like to wear
+pockets!"
+
+And he stood up to look at himself in the two panels of the mirror,
+stooping to pass his hands over his legs and smooth out the wrinkles.
+Over the white stockings Garabato drew on others of rose-colored silk.
+Then Gallardo thrust his feet into his low shoes, choosing them from
+among several pairs that Garabato had put on a trunk, all with white
+soles and perfectly new.
+
+Now the real task of dressing began. The servant handed him his fighting
+trousers held by the legs,--tobacco-colored silk with heavy embroideries
+of gold on their seams. Gallardo put them on and the thick cords with
+gold tassels that closed the knees, congesting the leg with artificial
+fulness, hung to his feet.
+
+Gallardo told his servant to tighten them as much as he could, at the
+same time swelling up the muscles of his legs. This operation was one of
+the most important. A bull-fighter must wear the _machos_ well
+tightened. And Garabato, with deft speed, converted the dangling cords
+into little bows.
+
+The master put on the fine batiste shirt which the servant offered him,
+with gatherings on the bosom, soft and transparent as a feminine
+garment. Garabato after buttoning it tied the knot of the long cravat
+that fell in a red line, dividing the bosom until it was lost in the
+waistband of the trousers.
+
+The most complicated part of the dressing still remained, the _faja_, a
+band of silk nearly five yards long, that seemed to fill the whole
+apartment, Garabato managing it with the skill of long practice.
+
+The swordsman walked to the other extreme of the room where his friends
+were and put one of the ends around his waist.
+
+"Come, be very careful!" he said to his servant. "Make the most of thy
+little skill."
+
+Slowly turning on his heels he drew near his servant who held one end of
+the belt, thus winding it around his body in regular curves, giving
+greater elegance to his waist. Garabato, with rapid movements of his
+hands, changed the folds of the band of silk. With some turns the belt
+rolled double, with others wide open, and it all adjusted itself to the
+bull-fighter's form, smooth as if it were a single piece, without
+wrinkles or puffs. Gallardo, scrupulous and fastidious in the
+arrangement of his person, stopped his progress in the course of the
+rotatory journey to go back two or three times and improve upon the
+work.
+
+"It isn't good," he said with ill-humor. "Damn it all! Be careful
+Garabato."
+
+After many halts Gallardo reached the end with the entire piece of silk
+wound around his waist. The skilful servant had sewed and put pins and
+safety pins all over his master's body, converting his clothes into one
+single piece. To get out of them the bull-fighter would have to resort
+to scissors and to others' hands. He could not divest himself of a
+single garment until his return to the hotel, unless the bull should
+accomplish it for him in the open plaza and they should finish
+undressing him in the hospital.
+
+Gallardo seated himself again and Garabato went about the business of
+arranging the queue, taking out the hairpins and adding the _mona_, the
+black rosette with streamers which recalled the ancient head-dress of
+early bull-fighting times.
+
+The master, as if he wished to put off the moment of final encasement in
+the costume, stretched himself, asked Garabato for the cigar that he had
+left on the little night-table, and demanded the time, thinking that all
+the clocks were fast.
+
+"It's early yet. The boys haven't come. I don't like to go to the plaza
+early. It makes a fellow tired to be there waiting!"
+
+A servant of the hotel announced that the carriage with the _cuadrilla_
+had arrived.
+
+It was time to go. There was no excuse for delaying the moment of
+setting forth. He put over his belt the gold-embroidered vest and
+outside of this the jacket, a shining garment with enormous embossments,
+heavy as armor and resplendent with light as a glowing coal. The silk,
+color of tobacco, was only visible on the under side of the arms and in
+two triangles on the back. Almost the entire garment disappeared under
+the heavy layer of trimmings and gold-embroidered designs forming
+flowers with colored stones in their corollas. The shoulder pieces were
+heavy masses of gold embroidery from which fell a fringe of the same
+metal. The garment was edged with a close fringe that moved at every
+step. From the golden opening of the pockets the points of two
+handkerchiefs peeped forth, red like the cravat and the tie.
+
+The cap!
+
+Garabato took out of an oval box with great care the fighting cap, black
+and shining, with two pendent tassels, like ears of passementerie.
+Gallardo put it on, taking care that the _coleta_ should remain
+unhidden, hanging symmetrically down his back.
+
+The cape!
+
+Garabato caught up the cape from off a chair, the _capa de gala_, a
+princely mantle of silk of the same shade as the dress and equally
+burdened with gold embroidery. Gallardo hung it over one shoulder and
+looked at himself in the glass, satisfied with his preparations. It was
+not bad.
+
+"To the plaza!"
+
+His two friends took their farewells hastily and called a cab to follow
+him. Garabato put under one arm a great bundle of red cloths, from the
+ends of which peeped the hilts and guards of many swords.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MATADOR AND THE LADY
+
+
+As Gallardo descended to the vestibule of the hotel he saw the street
+filled with a dense and noisy crowd as though some great event had taken
+place. The buzzing of the multitude outside the door reached his ears.
+The proprietor and all his family appeared with extended hands as if
+they would bid him farewell for a long journey.
+
+"Good luck! May all go well with you!"
+
+The servants, forgetting distance at the impulse of enthusiasm and
+emotion, also held their right hands out to him.
+
+"Good luck, Don Juan!"
+
+And he turned in all directions smiling, regardless of the frightened
+faces of the ladies of the hotel.
+
+"Thanks, many thanks! See you later."
+
+He was a different man. From the moment he had hung the glittering cape
+over one shoulder a persistent smile illuminated his countenance. He was
+pale, with a sweaty pallor like that of the sick; but he smiled,
+satisfied to live and to show himself in public, adopting his new pose
+with the instinctive freedom of one who but needs an incentive to parade
+before the people.
+
+He swaggered with arrogance, puffing occasionally at the cigar he
+carried in his left hand. He moved his hips haughtily under his handsome
+cape and strode with a firm step and with the flippancy of a gay youth.
+
+"Come, gentlemen, make way! Many thanks; many thanks."
+
+And he tried to preserve his dress from unclean contact as way was made
+among an ill-clad, enthusiastic crowd which surged against the doors of
+the hotel. They had no money with which to go to the bull-fight but they
+took advantage of the opportunity of pressing the hand of the famous
+Gallardo, or of at least touching his garments.
+
+A coach drawn by four richly caparisoned mules with tassels and bells
+stood waiting at the door. Garabato had already seated himself on the
+box with his bundle of _muletas_ and swords. Three bull-fighters were
+inside with their capes over their knees, dressed in gayly colored
+clothes embroidered with as great profusion as the master's, but in
+silver.
+
+Pressed onward by the popular ovation, and having to defend himself with
+his elbows from greedy hands, Gallardo reached the carriage-step.
+
+"Good-afternoon, gentlemen," he said shortly to the men of his
+_cuadrilla_.
+
+He seated himself at the back so that all could see him, and smiled with
+responsive nods to the shouts of some ragged women and to the short
+applause begun by some newsboys.
+
+The carriage started with all the impetus of the spirited mules, filling
+the street with gay ringing. The mob parted to give passage but many
+rushed at the carriage as though they would fall under its wheels. Hats
+and canes were waved; an explosion of enthusiasm burst from the crowd,
+one of those contagions that agitate and madden the masses at certain
+times--making every one shout without knowing why.
+
+"Hurrah for the brave! _Viva Espana!_"
+
+Gallardo, ever pale and smiling, saluted, repeating "many thanks," moved
+by the contagion of popular enthusiasm and proud of his standing which
+united his name to that of his native land.
+
+A troop of dishevelled youngsters ran after the coach at full speed, as
+though convinced that, at the end of the mad race, something
+extraordinary surely awaited them.
+
+For at least an hour Alcala Street had been like a river of carriages
+that flowed toward the outskirts of the city between two banks of
+close-packed foot passengers. All kinds of vehicles, ancient and modern,
+figured in this tumultuous and noisy emigration, from the ancient
+diligence, brought to light like an anachronism, to the automobile.
+Crowded tramways passed with groups of people overflowing on their
+steps. Omnibuses carried people to the corner of Seville Street, while
+the conductor shouted "To the plaza! To the plaza!" Tasselled mules with
+jingling bells trotted ahead of open carriages in which rode women in
+white _mantillas_ with bright flowers in their hair; every instant
+exclamations of alarm were heard at the escape, by apelike agility, of
+some boy beneath the wheels of a carriage as he crossed by leaps from
+one sidewalk to the other defying the current of vehicles. Automobile
+horns tooted; coachmen yelled; newsboys shouted the page with the
+picture and history of the bulls that were to be fought, or the likeness
+and biography of the famous _matadores_, and from time to time an
+explosion of curiosity swelled the deafening roar of the crowd.
+
+Among the dark steeds of the mounted police rode gayly dressed
+_caballeros_ with their legs rigidly encased in yellow leggings,
+wearing gilded jackets and beaver hats with heavy tassels in lieu of a
+cockade, mounted on thin and miserable hacks. They were the _picadores_.
+Aft on the crupper, behind the high Moorish saddle, rode an impish
+figure dressed in red, the _mono sabio_, or servant who had brought the
+troop of horses to their hostelry.
+
+The _cuadrillas_ passed in open coaches, and the embroidery of the
+bull-fighters, reflecting the afternoon light, seemed to dazzle the
+crowd and excite its enthusiasm. "That is Fuentes!" "That is Bomba!" And
+the people, pleased with the identification, followed the retreating
+carriages with greedy stare as if something startling were going to
+happen and they feared to be too late.
+
+From the top of the hill on Alcala Street the broad straight road shone
+white in the sun, with its rows of trees turning green at the breath of
+spring, the balconies black with people, and the highway only visible at
+intervals beneath the ant-like movement of the crowd and the rolling of
+the coaches descending to the Fountain of Cibeles. Here the hill rose
+again amid groves and tall buildings and the Puerta de Alcala closed the
+perspective like a triumphal arch, rearing its perforated white mass
+against the blue space in which flecks of clouds floated like solitary
+swans.
+
+Gallardo rode in silence, responding to the multitude with a fixed
+smile. Since his greeting to the _banderilleros_ he had not spoken a
+word. They were also silent and pale with anxiety over the unknown.
+Being all bull-fighters together, they put aside as useless the
+gallantries necessary before the public.
+
+A mysterious influence seemed to tell the crowd of the passing of the
+last _cuadrilla_ that wound its way to the plaza. The vagabonds that ran
+behind the coach shouting after Gallardo had been outstripped and the
+group scattered among the carriages, but in spite of this the people
+turned their heads as if they divined the proximity of the celebrated
+bull-fighter behind them and they stopped, lining up against the edge of
+the sidewalk to see him better.
+
+The women in the coaches in advance turned their heads, attracted by the
+jingling bells of the trotting mules. An indescribable roar rose from
+certain groups that barred the passage along the sidewalks. There were
+enthusiastic exclamations. Some waved their hats; others lifted canes
+and swung them in salutation.
+
+Gallardo responded to all with grinning smile but in his preoccupation
+he seemed to take small account of these greetings. At his side rode
+Nacional, his confidential servant, a _banderillero_, older than himself
+by ten years, a rugged, strong man with brows grown together and a grave
+visage. He was famous among the men of the profession for his good
+nature, his manliness, and his political enthusiasms.
+
+"Juan--don't complain of Madri'," said Nacional; "thou art made with the
+public."
+
+But Gallardo, as if he did not hear him and as if he wished to get away
+from the thoughts that occupied him, answered:
+
+"I feel it in my heart that something's going to happen this afternoon."
+
+When they arrived at Cibeles the coach stopped. A great funeral was
+coming along the Prado from the Castellana, cutting through the
+avalanche of carriages from Alcala Street.
+
+Gallardo turned paler, contemplating with angry eyes the passing of the
+cross and the defile of the priests who broke into a grave chant as they
+gazed, some with aversion, others with envy, at that God-forgotten
+multitude running after amusement.
+
+Gallardo made haste to take off his cap, in which he was imitated by all
+his _banderilleros_ except Nacional.
+
+"But damn it!" yelled Gallardo, "uncover, _condenao_!"
+
+He looked furious, as though he would strike him, convinced by some
+confused intuition that this rebellion would cause the most terrible
+misfortune to befall him.
+
+"Well, I take it off," said Nacional with the ill grace of a thwarted
+child, as he saw the cross pass on, "I take it off, but it is to the
+dead."
+
+They were detained some time to let the long _cortege_ pass.
+
+"Bad sign!" muttered Gallardo in a voice trembling with anger. "Whoever
+would have thought of bringing a funeral along the road to the plaza?
+Damn it! I say something's going to happen to-day!"
+
+Nacional smiled, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"Superstitions and fanaticisms! Neither God nor Nature bothers over
+these things."
+
+These words, which irritated Gallardo still more, caused the grave
+preoccupation of the other bull-fighters to vanish, and they began to
+joke about their companion as they did on all occasions when he dragged
+in his favorite expression of "God or Nature."
+
+When the road was clear the carriage began to move at the full speed of
+the mules, crowding along with the other vehicles that flowed to the
+plaza. Arrived there it turned to the left toward the gate of the
+stables that led to the enclosures and stalls, obliged to move now at
+slower pace among the dense crowd. Another ovation to Gallardo when he
+descended from the coach followed by his _banderilleros_; blows and
+pushes to keep his dress from unclean contact; smiles of greeting;
+concealment of the right hand which all wished to press.
+
+"Make way, gentlemen! many thanks!"
+
+The large enclosure between the body of the plaza and the walls of the
+outbuildings was full of the curious who wished to see the bull-fighters
+at close range before taking their seats. Above the heads of the crowd
+emerged the _picadores_ and guards on horseback in their seventeenth
+century dress. At one side of the enclosure rose one-story brick
+buildings with vines over the doors and pots of flowers in the windows,
+a small community of offices, shops, stables, and houses in which lived
+the stable boys, the carpenters, and other employees of the bull-ring.
+
+The _matador_ pressed forward laboriously among the assemblage. His name
+passed from mouth to mouth with exclamations of enthusiasm.
+
+"Gallardo! Here is Gallardo! Hurrah! _Viva Espana_!"
+
+And he, wholly preoccupied by the adoration of the public, advanced
+swaggering, serene as a god, happy and satisfied, as if he were
+assisting at a feast in his honor.
+
+Suddenly two arms encircled his neck, and a strong stench of wine
+assailed his nostrils.
+
+"You smasher of women's hearts! You glorious one! Hurrah for Gallardo!"
+
+It was a man of decent appearance; he rested his head on the
+swordsman's shoulder and thus remained as though falling asleep in spite
+of his enthusiasm. Gallardo's pushing, and the pulling of his friends,
+freed the bull-fighter from this interminable embrace. The drunken man,
+finding himself separated from his idol, broke out in shouts of
+enthusiasm. "Hurrah! Let all the nations of the world come to admire
+bull-fighters like this one and die of envy! They may have ships, they
+may have money, but that's trivial! They have neither bulls nor youths
+like this--no one to outstrip him in bravery. Hurrah, my boy! _Viva mi
+tierra_!"
+
+Gallardo crossed a great white washed hall bare of furniture where his
+professional companions stood surrounded by enthusiastic groups. Way was
+immediately made among the crowd which obstructed a door, and he passed
+through it into a narrow, dark room, at the end of which shone the
+lights of the chapel. An ancient painting representing the Virgin of the
+Dove hung over the back of the altar. Four candles were burning before
+it and branches of moth-eaten cloth flowers in vases of common
+earthenware were falling to dust.
+
+The chapel was full of people. The devotees of the humbler classes
+crowded in to see the great men close by. They remained in the dimness
+with uncovered head; some crowded into the foremost ranks, others stood
+on chairs and benches, the majority of them with their backs to the
+Virgin and looking greedily toward the door, ready to shout a name the
+instant they discerned the glitter of a spangled costume.
+
+The _banderilleros_ and _picadores_, poor devils who were going to
+expose their lives as much as were the _maestros_, scarcely raised the
+slightest murmur by their presence. Only the most fervent enthusiasts
+recognized their nicknames.
+
+Suddenly a prolonged buzzing, a name repeated from mouth to mouth:
+
+"Fuentes!--That is Fuentes!"
+
+And this elegant bull-fighter with his air of gentility and his cape
+over his shoulder advanced to the altar and bent one knee with
+theatrical arrogance, his gypsy-like eyes reflecting the lights and his
+graceful and agile body thrown back as he looked upward. As soon as his
+prayer was said and he had made the sign of the cross he rose, walking
+backwards toward the door without losing sight of the image, like a
+singer who retires bowing to the audience.
+
+Gallardo was more simple in his devotions. He entered swaggering with no
+less arrogance, cap in hand and his cape folded, but on finding himself
+in the presence of the image he fell on both knees and gave himself up
+to prayer, unconscious of the hundreds of eyes fixed on him. His simple
+Christian soul trembled with fear and remorse. He asked protection with
+the fervor of ingenuous men who live in continual danger and believe in
+all kinds of adverse influences and in supernatural protection.
+
+For the first time during the whole exciting day he thought of his wife
+and mother. Poor Carmen, there in Seville awaiting the telegram! Senora
+Angustias, happy with her chickens at the farm of La Rinconada, without
+knowing for a certainty in what place her son fought the bulls to-day!
+And he with the terrible presentiment that this afternoon something was
+going to happen! Virgin of the Dove! Some little protection! He would
+be good, he would forget the _other one_, he would live as God commands.
+
+And with his superstitious spirit strengthened with this vain
+repentance, he left the chapel with troubled eyes, still deeply stirred
+and heedless of the people who obstructed the way.
+
+Outside in the room where the bull-fighters were waiting, a shaven-faced
+man, dressed in a black habit which he seemed to wear with a certain
+slovenliness, greeted him.
+
+"Bad sign!" murmured the bull-fighter, continuing on his way. "When I
+say that something is going to happen to-day--"
+
+The black-robed man was the chaplain of the plaza, an enthusiast in the
+art of bull-fighting, who had come with the Holy Oils beneath his habit.
+He was accompanied by a neighbor who served him as sacristan in exchange
+for a seat to see the bull-fight. On bull-fight days he hired a
+carriage, which the management paid for, and he chose by turns among his
+friends and _proteges_ one on whom to confer the favor of the seat
+destined for the sacristan, beside his own in the front row near the
+doors of the bull-pen.
+
+The priest entered the chapel with a proprietary air, scandalized at the
+behavior of the congregation; all had their hats off, but were talking
+in a loud voice and some were even smoking.
+
+"Gentlemen, this is not a _cafe_. Be so kind as to go out. The
+bull-fight is going to begin."
+
+This news caused a dispersion, while the priest took out the hidden Holy
+Oils and placed them in a box of painted wood. Then he too, as soon as
+he had secreted the sacred articles, ran out to take his place in the
+plaza before the appearance of the _cuadrilla_.
+
+The crowd had disappeared. No one was to be seen in the enclosure but
+men dressed in silk and embroidery, yellow horsemen with great beaver
+hats, guards on horseback, and the assistants in their suits of gold and
+blue.
+
+The bull-fighters formed with customary promptness before the horses'
+gate beneath an arch that gave exit to the plaza, the _maestros_ at the
+front, then the _banderilleros_ keeping far apart, and behind them, in
+the enclosure itself, stamped the sturdy rough squadron of the
+_picadores_, smelling of burnt hide and dung, mounted on skeleton-like
+horses with one eye bandaged. As rearguard of this army the teams of
+mules intended for dragging out the slaughtered bulls fretted behind
+them; they were restless, vigorous animals with shining coats, covered
+with trappings of tassels and bells, and wore on their collars the
+waving national flag.
+
+Beyond the arch, above the wooden gates which half obstructed it, opened
+a narrow space, leaving visible a portion of the sky, the tiled roof of
+the plaza, and a section of seats with the compact multitude swarming
+like ants, amid which fans and papers seemed to flutter like gayly
+colored mosquitoes. Through this gallery entered a strong breeze--the
+respiration of an immense lung. An harmonious humming was borne on the
+undulations of the air, making certain distant music felt, rather
+divined than heard.
+
+About the archway peeped heads, many heads; those of the spectators on
+the nearby benches were thrust forward, curious to see the heroes
+without delay.
+
+Gallardo arranged himself in line with the other bull-fighters, who
+exchanged among themselves grave inclinations of the head. They did not
+speak; they did not smile. Each one thought of himself, letting his
+imagination fly far away; or he thought of nothing, lost in that
+intellectual void produced by emotion. They occupied themselves with a
+ceaseless arranging of the cape, throwing it loosely over the shoulder,
+rolling its ends about the waist, and trying to make their legs, encased
+in silk and gold, show agile and brave under this gorgeous funnel. Every
+face was pale, not with a deathly pallor, but brilliant and livid, with
+the sweaty gloss of emotion. They thought of the arena, still unseen,
+experiencing that irresistible terror of events that take place on the
+other side of a wall, that fear of the hidden, the unknown danger that
+makes itself felt though invisible. How would the afternoon end?
+
+Behind the _cuadrillas_ sounded the trotting of the horses that entered
+through the outer arcades of the plaza. They bore the constables with
+their long black cloaks and bell-shaped hats decorated with red and
+yellow feathers. They had just cleared the ring, emptying it of the
+curious, and they came to put themselves at the head of the
+_cuadrillas_, serving them as advance guards.
+
+The doors of the archway and those of the barrier wall opposite opened
+wide. The great ring appeared, the real plaza, the circular space of
+sand where the tragedy of the afternoon was to be enacted for the
+excitement and entertainment of fourteen thousand souls. The harmonious
+and confused buzzing increased, developing into gay and bizarre music, a
+triumphal march of sounding brass that caused arms to swing martially
+and hips to swagger. Forward, ye brave!
+
+And the bull-fighters, winking at the violent transition, passed from
+the shadow to the light, from the silence of the quiet gallery to the
+roar of the ring on whose surrounding seats surged the crowd in waves of
+curiosity, rising to their feet to see to better advantage.
+
+The _toreros_ advanced, seeming suddenly to diminish in size in
+comparison to the length of the perspective as they trod the arena. They
+resembled brilliant little puppets, whose embroideries caught rainbow
+reflections from the sun. Their graceful movements fired the people with
+an enthusiasm like to that of the child in the presence of a wonderful
+toy. The mad gust that stirred the crowds, causing their nerves to
+tingle and their flesh to creep, they knew not why, moved the whole
+plaza.
+
+The people applauded, the more enthusiastic and nervous yelled, the
+music rumbled and, in the midst of this outburst which spread in every
+direction, from the door of the exit to the president's box, the
+_cuadrillas_ advanced with solemn pace, the graceful movements of arms
+and bodies compensating for the shortness of step. In the ring of blue
+ether overhanging above the plaza white doves were winging as if
+frightened by the roar that escaped from this crater of brick.
+
+The athletes felt themselves different men as they advanced across the
+arena. They exposed their lives for something more than money. Their
+uncertainty and terror in the presence of the unknown were left behind
+those barriers; now they were before the public; they faced reality. And
+the thirst for glory in their barbarous and simple souls, the desire to
+outstrip their comrades, their pride of strength and skill, blinded
+them, made them forget fear and filled them with a brutal courage.
+
+Gallardo had become transfigured. He walked erect, aspiring to be
+taller; he moved with the arrogance of a conqueror. He gazed in all
+directions with a triumphant air, as though his two companions did not
+exist. Everything was his; the plaza and the public. He felt himself
+capable of killing every bull that roamed the pastures of Andalusia and
+Castile. All the applause was for him, he was sure of it. The thousands
+of feminine eyes shaded by white _mantillas_ in boxes and benches, dwelt
+only on his person. He had no doubt of it. The public adored him and, as
+he advanced, smiling flippantly, as though the entire ovation were
+directed to his person, he looked along the rows of seats on the rising
+tiers knowing where the greater number of his partisans were grouped and
+seeming to ignore those sections where his rivals' friends were
+assembled.
+
+They saluted the president, cap in hand, and the brilliant defile broke
+up, lackeys and horsemen scattering about the arena. Then, while a guard
+caught in his hat the key thrown by the president, Gallardo turned
+toward the rows of seats where sat his greatest admirers and handed them
+his glittering cape to keep for him. The handsome garment, grasped by
+many hands, was spread over the wall as though it were a banner, a
+sacred symbol of loyalty.
+
+The most enthusiastic partisans stood waving hands and canes, greeting
+the _matador_ with shouts manifesting their expectations. "Let the boy
+from Seville show what he can do!"
+
+And he, leaning against the barrier, smiling, sure of his strength,
+answered, "Many thanks. What can be done will be done."
+
+Not only were his admirers hopeful of him, but all the people fixed
+their attention upon him in a state of great excitement. He was a
+bull-fighter who seemed likely to meet with a catastrophe some day, and
+the sort of catastrophe which called for a bed in the hospital.
+
+Every one believed he was destined to die in the plaza as the result of
+a horn-stab, and this very belief caused them to applaud him with
+homicidal enthusiasm, with barbaric interest like that of the
+misanthrope who follows an animal tamer from place to place, expecting
+every moment to see him devoured by his wild beasts.
+
+Gallardo laughed at the old professors of tauromachy who consider a
+mishap impossible as long as the bull-fighter sticks to the rules of the
+art. Rules! He knew them not and did not trouble himself to learn them.
+Valor and audacity were all that were necessary to win. And, almost
+blindly, without other guide than his temerity, or other support than
+that of his physical faculties, he had risen rapidly, astonishing the
+public into paroxysms, stupefying it with wonder by his mad daring.
+
+He had not climbed up, step by step, as had other _matadores_, serving
+long years first as _peon_ and _banderillero_ at the side of the
+_maestros_. He had never known fear of a bull's horns. "Hunger stabs
+worse." He had risen suddenly and the public had seen him begin as
+_espada_, achieving immense popularity in a few years.
+
+They admired him for the reason that they held his misfortune a
+certainty. He fired the public with devilish enthusiasm for the blind
+way in which he defied Death. They gave him the same attention and care
+that they would give a criminal preparing for eternity. This
+bull-fighter was not one of those who held power in reserve; he gave
+everything, his life included. It was worth the money it cost. And the
+multitude, with the bestiality of those who witness danger from a point
+of safety, admired and urged the hero on. The prudent made wry faces at
+his deeds; they thought him a predestined suicide, shielded by luck, and
+murmured, "While he lasts!"
+
+Drums and trumpets sounded and the first bull entered. Gallardo, with
+his plain working-cape over one arm, remained near the barrier close to
+the ranks of his partisans, in disdainful immobility, believing that the
+whole plaza had their eyes glued on him. That bull was for some one
+else. He would show signs of existence when his arrived. But the
+applause for the skilful cape-work of his companions brought him out of
+his quiet, and in spite of his intention he went at the bull, achieving
+several feats due more to audacity than to skill. The whole plaza
+applauded him, moved by predisposition in his favor because of his
+daring.
+
+When Fuentes killed the first bull and walked toward the president's
+box, bowing to the multitude, Gallardo turned paler, as though all show
+of favor that was not for him was equivalent to ignominious oblivion.
+Now his turn was coming; great things were going to be seen. He did not
+know for a certainty what they might be but he was going to astound the
+public.
+
+Scarcely had the second bull appeared when Gallardo, by his activity and
+his desire to shine, seemed to fill the whole plaza. His cape was ever
+near the bull's nose. A picador of his cuadrilla, the one called Potaje,
+was thrown from his horse and lay unprotected near the horns, but the
+maestro, grabbing the beast's tail, pulled with herculean strength and
+made him turn till the horseman was safe. The public applauded, wild
+with enthusiasm.
+
+When the time for placing the _banderillas_ arrived, Gallardo stood
+between the inner and outer barrier awaiting the bugle signal to kill.
+Nacional, with the _banderilla_ in his hand, attracted the bull to the
+centre of the plaza. No grace nor audacity was in his bearing; it was
+merely a question of earning bread. Away in Seville were four small
+children who, if he were to die, would not find another father. To
+fulfil his duty and nothing more; only to throw his _banderillas_ like a
+journeyman of tauromachy, without desire for ovations and merely well
+enough to avoid being hissed!
+
+When he had placed the first pair, some of the spectators in the vast
+circle applauded, and others bantered the _banderillero_ in a waggish
+tone, alluding to his hobbies.
+
+"Less politics, and get closer!"
+
+And Nacional, deceived by the distance, on hearing these shouts answered
+smiling, like his master:
+
+"Many thanks; many thanks."
+
+When Gallardo leaped anew into the arena at the sound of the trumpets
+and drums which announced the last play, the multitude stirred with a
+buzzing of emotion. This _matador_ was its own. Now they were going to
+see something great.
+
+He took the _muleta_ from the hands of Garabato, who offered it folded
+as he came inside the walls; he grasped the sword which his servant also
+presented to him, and with short steps walked over and stood in front of
+the president's box carrying his cap in his hand. All craned their
+necks, devouring the idol with their eyes, but no one heard his speech.
+The arrogant, slender figure, the body thrown back to give greater force
+to his words, produced on the multitude the same effect as the most
+eloquent address. As he ended his peroration with a half turn, throwing
+his cap on the ground, enthusiasm broke out long and loud. Hurrah for
+the boy from Seville! Now they were to see the real thing! And the
+spectators looked at each other mutely, anticipating stupendous events.
+A tremor ran along the rows of seats as though they were in the presence
+of something sublime.
+
+The profound silence produced by great emotions fell suddenly upon the
+multitude as though the plaza had been emptied. The life of so many
+thousands of persons was condensed into their eyes. No one seemed to
+breathe.
+
+Gallardo advanced slowly toward the bull holding the _muleta_ across his
+body like a banner, and waving his sword in his other hand with a
+pendulum-like movement that kept time with his step.
+
+Turning his head an instant he saw that Nacional with another member of
+his _cuadrilla_ was following to assist him, his cape over his arm.
+
+"Stand aside, everybody!"
+
+A voice rang out in the silence of the plaza making itself heard even to
+the farthest seats, and a burst of admiration answered it. "Stand aside,
+everybody!" He had said, "Stand aside, everybody!" What a man!
+
+He walked up to the beast absolutely alone, and instantly silence fell
+again. He calmly readjusted the red flag on the stick, extended it, and
+advanced thus a few steps until he almost touched the nose of the bull,
+which stood stupefied and terrified by the audacity of the man.
+
+The public dared not speak nor even breathe but admiration shone in
+their eyes. What a youth! He walked in between the very horns! He
+stamped the ground impatiently with one foot, inciting the beast to
+attack, and that enormous mass of flesh, defended by sharp horns fell
+bellowing upon him. The _muleta_ passed over his horns, which grazed the
+tassels and fringes of the dress of the bull-fighter standing firm in
+his place, with no other movement than a backward bending of his body. A
+shout from the crowd answered this whirl of the _muleta_. Hurrah!
+
+The infuriated beast returned; he re-attacked the man with the "rag,"
+who repeated the pass, with the same roar from the public. The bull,
+made more and more furious by the deception, attacked the athlete who
+continued whirling the red flag within a short distance, fired by the
+proximity of danger and the wondering exclamations of the crowd that
+seemed to intoxicate him.
+
+Gallardo felt the animal snort upon him; the moist vapor from its muzzle
+wet his right hand and his face. Grown familiar by contact he looked
+upon the brute as a good friend who was going to let himself be killed
+to contribute to his glory.
+
+The bull stood motionless for some seconds as if tired of this play,
+gazing with hazy eyes at the man and at the red scarf, suspecting in his
+obscure mind the existence of a trick which with attack after attack was
+drawing him toward death.
+
+Gallardo felt the presentiment of his happiest successes. Now! He rolled
+the flag with a circular movement of his left hand around the staff and
+he raised his right hand to the height of his eyes, standing with the
+sword pointing towards the neck of the beast.
+
+The crowd was stirred by a movement of protest and horror.
+
+"Don't strike yet," shouted thousands of voices. "No, no!"
+
+It was too soon. The bull was not in good position; he would make a
+lunge and catch him. But Gallardo moved regardless of all rules of the
+art. What did either rules or life matter to that desperate man?
+
+Suddenly he threw himself forward with his sword held before him, at the
+same time that the wild beast fell upon him. It was a brutal, savage
+encounter. For an instant man and beast formed a single mass and thus
+moved together several paces, no one knowing which was the conqueror,
+the man with an arm and part of his body lying between the two horns, or
+the beast lowering his head and trying to seize with his defences the
+puppet of gold and colors which seemed to be slipping away from him.
+
+At last the group parted, the _muleta_ lay on the ground like a rag, and
+the bull-fighter, his hands free, went staggering back from the impulse
+of the shock until he recovered his equilibrium a few steps away. His
+clothing was in disorder; his cravat floated outside his vest, gored and
+torn by one of the horns.
+
+The bull raced on impelled by the momentum of his start. Above his broad
+neck the red hilt of the sword embedded to the cross scarcely protruded.
+Suddenly the animal paused, shuddering with a painful movement of
+obeisance, doubled his fore legs, inclined his head till his bellowing
+muzzle touched the sand, and finished by lying down with shudders of
+agony.
+
+It seemed as if the very building would fall, as if the bricks dashed
+against one another, as if the multitude was about to fly
+panic-stricken, by the way it rose to its feet, pale, tremulous,
+gesticulating and throwing its arms. Dead! What a stroke! Every one had
+believed for a second that the _matador_ was caught on the horns. All
+had felt sure they would see him fall upon the sand stained with blood
+and, as they beheld him standing up still giddy from the shock but
+smiling, surprise and amazement augmented the enthusiasm.
+
+"How fierce!" they shouted from the tiers of seats, not finding a more
+fitting word to express their astonishment--" How rash!"
+
+Hats flew into the arena and a deafening roar of applause, like a shower
+of hail, ran from row to row of seats as the _matador_ advanced around
+the ring until he stood in front of the president's box.
+
+The ovation burst out clamorously when Gallardo, extending his arms,
+saluted the president. All shouted, demanding for the swordsman the
+honors due to mastery. They must give him the ear. Never was this
+distinction so merited; few sword-thrusts like that had ever been seen;
+and the enthusiasm increased when a _mozo_ of the plaza handed him a
+dark triangle, hairy and blood-stained--the point of one of the beast's
+ears.
+
+The third bull was now in the ring, but the ovation to Gallardo
+continued as though the public had not yet recovered from its amazement;
+as though all that might occur during the rest of the bull-fight would
+be tame in comparison.
+
+The other bull-fighters, pale with professional envy, strove valiantly
+to attract the attention of the public. Applause was given, but it was
+weak and faint after the former ovations. The public was exhausted by
+the delirium of its enthusiasm and heeded absent-mindedly the events
+that took place in the ring. Fiery discussions broke out and ran from
+tier to tier. The adherents of other bull-fighters, serene and unmoved
+by the transports that had overcome the people, took advantage of the
+spontaneous movement, to turn the discussion upon Gallardo. Very
+valiant, very daring, a suicide, they said, but that was not art. And
+the vehement adherents of the idol, proud of his audacity and carried
+away by their own feelings, became indignant like the believer who sees
+the miracles of his favorite saint held in doubt.
+
+The attention of the public was diverted by incidents that disturbed the
+people on some of the tiers of seats. Suddenly those in one section
+moved; the spectators rose to their feet, turning their backs to the
+ring; arms and canes whirled above their heads. The rest of the crowd
+ceased looking at the arena, directing their attention to the seat of
+trouble and to the large numbers, painted on the inner wall, that marked
+the different sections of the amphitheatre.
+
+"Fight in the third!" they yelled joyfully. "Now there's a row in the
+fifth!"
+
+Following the contagious impulse of the crowd, all became excited and
+rose to their feet to see over their neighbors' heads but were unable to
+distinguish anything except the slow ascent of the police who, opening a
+passage from step to step, reached the group where the dispute had
+begun.
+
+"Sit down!" exclaimed the more prudent, deprived of their view of the
+ring where the bull-fighters continued the game.
+
+Little by little the waves of the multitude calmed, the rows of heads
+assumed their former regularity on the circular lines of the benches,
+and the bull-fight went on. But the nerves of the audience were shaken
+and their state of mind manifested itself in unjust animosity toward
+certain fighters or by profound silence.
+
+The public, exhausted by the recent intense emotion, found all the
+events tame. They sought to allay their ennui by eating and drinking.
+The venders in the plaza went about between _barreras_, throwing with
+marvellous skill the articles bought. Oranges flew like red balls to the
+highest row, going from the hand of the seller to those of the buyer in
+a straight line, as if pulled by a thread. Bottles of carbonated drinks
+were uncorked. The liquid gold of Andalusian wines shone in little
+glasses.
+
+A movement of curiosity circulated along the benches. Fuentes was about
+to fix the _banderillas_ in his bull and every one expected some
+extraordinary show of skill and grace. He advanced alone to the centre
+of the plaza with the _banderillas_ in one hand, serene, tranquil,
+walking slowly, as though he were to begin a game. The bull followed his
+movements with curious eyes, amazed to see the man alone before him
+after the former hurly-burly of fluttering and extended capes, of cruel
+barbs thrust into his neck, of horses that came and stood within reach
+of his horns, as if offering themselves to his attack.
+
+The man hypnotized the beast. He drew near until he could touch his poll
+with the point of the _banderillas_, then he ran slowly away, with short
+steps, the bull after him, as though persuaded into obedience and drawn
+against his will to the extreme opposite side of the plaza. The animal
+seemed to be mastered by the bull-fighter; he obeyed him in all his
+movements until the man, calling the game ended, extended his arms with
+a _banderilla_ in each hand, raised his small, slender body upon his
+toes, advanced toward the bull with majestic ease, and thrust the gayly
+colored darts into its neck.
+
+Three times he performed the same feat, applauded by the public. Those
+who considered themselves connoisseurs retaliated now for the explosion
+of enthusiasm provoked by Gallardo. This was a bull-fighter! This was
+pure art.
+
+Gallardo, standing near the barrier, wiped the sweat off his face with a
+towel which Garabato handed him. Then he turned his back on the ring to
+avoid seeing the prowess of his companion. Outside of the plaza he
+esteemed his rivals with that feeling of fraternity established by
+danger; but as soon as they stepped into the arena all were enemies and
+their triumphs pained him as if they were offences. Now the enthusiasm
+of the public seemed to him a robbery that diminished his own great
+triumph.
+
+When the fifth bull came out, it was for him, and he sprang into the
+arena anxious to again startle the public by his daring.
+
+When a _picador_ fell he threw his cape and enticed the bull to the
+other side of the ring, confusing him with a series of movements until
+the beast became stupefied and stood motionless. Then Gallardo touched
+his nose with one foot, and took his cap and put it between the horns.
+Again, he took advantage of the animal's stupefaction and thrust his
+body forward as an audacious challenge, and knelt at a short distance,
+all but lying down under the brute's nose.
+
+The old _aficionados_ protested loudly. Monkey-shines! Clown-tricks,
+that would not have been tolerated in olden days! But they had to
+subside, wearied by the tumult of the public.
+
+When the signal for the _banderillas_ was given the people were thrown
+into suspense by seeing that Gallardo took the darts from Nacional and
+walked towards the beast with them. There was an exclamation of protest.
+_He_ to throw the _banderillas_! All knew his inexperience in that
+direction. This ought to be left to those who had risen in their career
+step by step, for those who had been _banderilleros_ many years at the
+side of their _maestros_ before becoming bull-fighters; and Gallardo had
+begun at the top, killing bulls ever since he stepped into the plaza.
+
+"No! No!" clamored the multitude.
+
+Doctor Ruiz shouted and gesticulated from the _contrabarrera_.
+
+"Leave off that, boy! Thou knowest but the great act--to kill!"
+
+But Gallardo scorned the public and was deaf to its protests when he
+felt the impulse of audacity. Amidst the outcries he went directly
+towards the bull, which never moved and, _zas!_ he stuck in the
+_banderillas_. The pair lodged out of place, and only skin deep, and one
+of the sticks fell at the beast's movement of surprise. But this
+mattered not. With that lenity the multitude ever feels for its idols,
+excusing and justifying their defects, the entire public commended this
+piece of daring by smiling. He, growing more rash, took other
+_banderillas_ and lodged them, heedless of the protests of the people
+who feared for his life. Then he repeated the act a third time, each
+time doing it crudely but with such fearlessness that what in another
+would have provoked hisses was received with great explosions of
+admiration. What a man! How luck aided this daring youth!
+
+The bull stood with only four of the _banderillas_ in his neck, and
+those so lightly embedded that he did not seem to feel them.
+
+"He is perfectly sound," yelled the devotees on the rows of seats,
+alluding to the bull, while Gallardo, grasping sword and _muleta_,
+marched up to him, with his cap on, arrogant and calm, trusting in his
+lucky star.
+
+"Aside, all!" he shouted again.
+
+Divining that some one was near him giving no heed to his orders he
+turned his head. Fuentes was a few steps away. He had followed him, his
+cape over his arm, feigning inattention but ready to come to his aid as
+though he felt a premonition of an accident.
+
+"Leave me alone, Antonio," said Gallardo, with an expression that was at
+once angry and respectful, as though he were talking to an elder
+brother, at which Fuentes shrugged his shoulders as if he thus threw off
+all responsibility, and turned his back and walked away slowly, but
+feeling certain of being needed at any moment.
+
+Gallardo waved his flag in the beast's very face and the latter
+attacked. "A pass! Hurrah!" the enthusiasts roared. But the animal
+suddenly returned, falling upon the _matador_ again and giving him such
+a violent blow with his head that the _muleta_ was knocked from his
+hands. Finding himself unarmed and hard-pressed he had to make for the
+_barrera_, but at the same instant Fuentes' cape distracted the animal.
+Gallardo, who divined during his flight the beast's sudden halt, did
+not jump over the _barrera_; he sat on the vaulting wall an instant,
+contemplating his enemy a few paces away. The rout ended in applause for
+this show of serenity.
+
+Gallardo recovered the _muleta_ and sword, carefully arranged the red
+flag, and again stood in front of the beast's head, less calmly, but
+dominated instead by a murderous fury, by a desire to kill instantly the
+animal that had made him run in sight of thousands of admirers.
+
+He had scarcely made a pass with the flag when he thought the decisive
+moment had arrived and he squared himself, the _muleta_ held low, the
+hilt of the sword raised close to his eyes.
+
+The public protested again, fearing for his life.
+
+"He'll throw thee! No! _Aaay!_"
+
+It was an exclamation of horror that moved the whole plaza; a spasm that
+caused the multitude to rise to its feet with eyes staring while the
+women covered their faces or grasped the nearest arm in terror.
+
+At the bull-fighter's thrust the sword struck bone, and, delayed in the
+movement of stepping aside on account of this difficulty, Gallardo had
+been caught by one of the horns and now hung upon it by the middle of
+his body. The brave youth, so strong and wiry, found himself tossed
+about on the end of the horn like a miserable manikin until the powerful
+beast, with a shake of his head, flung him some yards away, where he
+fell heavily on the sand with arms and legs extended, like a frog
+dressed in silk and gold.
+
+"He is killed! A horn-stab in the belly!" They shouted from the rows of
+seats.
+
+But Gallardo got up amidst the capes and the men who rushed to cover
+and save him. He smiled; he tested his body; then he raised his
+shoulders to indicate to the public that it was nothing. A jar--no more,
+and the belt torn to shreds. The horn had only penetrated the wrapping
+of strong silk.
+
+Again he grasped the instruments of death, but now nobody would remain
+seated, divining that the encounter would be short and terrible.
+Gallardo marched towards the beast with a blind impulse determined to
+kill or die immediately, without delay or precaution. The bull or he! He
+saw red, as if blood had been injected into his eyes. He heard, as
+something distant that came from another world, the outcry of the
+multitude counselling calmness.
+
+He made only two passes, aided by a cape that he held at his side, then
+suddenly, with the swiftness of a dream, like a spring that is loosed
+from its fastening, he threw himself upon the bull, giving him a stab
+that his admirers said was swift as a lightning stroke. He thrust his
+arm so far over that on escaping from between the horns he received a
+blow from one of them which sent him staggering away; but he kept on his
+feet, and the beast, after a mad run, fell at the extreme opposite side
+of the plaza and lay with his legs bent under him and the top of his
+head touching the sand until the _puntillero_ came to finish him. The
+public seemed to go mad with enthusiasm. A glorious bull-fight! It was
+surfeited with excitement. That fellow Gallardo did not rob one of his
+money; he responded with excess to the price of entrance. The devotees
+would have material to talk about for three days at their meetings at
+the _cafe_. How brave! how fierce! And the most enthusiastic, with
+warlike fervor, looked in every direction as if searching for enemies.
+
+"The greatest _matador_ in the world! And here am I to face whoever dare
+say to the contrary!"
+
+The remainder of the bull-fight scarcely claimed attention. It all
+seemed tasteless and colorless after Gallardo's daring.
+
+When the last bull fell upon the sand a surging crowd of boys, of
+popular devotees, of apprentices of the art of bull-fighting, invaded
+the ring. They surrounded Gallardo, following him on his way from the
+president's box to the door of exit. They crowded against him, all
+wishing to press his hand or touch his dress, and at last, the most
+vehement, paying no attention to the gesticulations of Nacional and the
+other _banderilleros_, caught the master by the legs and raised him to
+their shoulders, carrying him around the ring and through the galleries
+to the outer edge of the plaza.
+
+Gallardo, taking off his cap, bowed to the groups that applauded his
+triumph. Wrapped in his glittering cape, he allowed himself to be
+carried like a divinity, motionless and erect above the current of
+Cordovan hats and Madrid caps, amidst acclamations of enthusiasm.
+
+As he stepped into his carriage at the lower end of Alcala Street,
+hailed by the crowd that had not seen the bull-fight, but which already
+knew of his triumphs, a smile of pride, of satisfaction in his own
+strength, illuminated his sweaty countenance over which the pallor of
+emotion still spread.
+
+Nacional, anxious about the master's having been caught and about his
+violent fall, wished to know if he felt any pain, and if he should call
+Doctor Ruiz.
+
+"It's nothing; a petting, nothing more. No bull alive can kill me."
+
+But as though in the midst of his pride arose the recollection of his
+past weaknesses, and as though he thought he saw in Nacional's eyes an
+ironic expression, he added:
+
+"Those are things that affect me before going to the plaza; something
+like hysteria in women. But thou art right, Sebastian. How sayest thou?
+God or Nature, that's it; neither God nor Nature should meddle in
+affairs of bull-fighting. Every one gets through as he can, by his skill
+or by his courage, and recommendations from earth or from heaven are of
+no use to him. Thou hast talent, Sebastian; thou shouldst have studied
+for a career."
+
+In the optimism of his joy he looked upon the _banderillero_ as a sage,
+forgetting the jests with which he had always received the latter's
+topsy-turvy reasoning.
+
+When he reached his lodging he found many admirers in the vestibule
+anxious to embrace him. They talked of his deeds with such hyperbole
+that they seemed altered, exaggerated, and transfigured by the comments
+made in the short distance from the plaza to the hotel.
+
+Upstairs his room was full of friends, gentlemen who _thoued_ him, and,
+imitating the rustic speech of the country people, shepherds and
+cattle-breeders, said to him, slapping his shoulders:
+
+"Thou hast done very well; but really, very well!"
+
+Gallardo freed himself from this enthusiastic reception and went out
+into the corridor with Garabato.
+
+"Go and send a telegram home. Thou knowest what to say: '_As usual_.'"
+
+Garabato protested. He must help the _maestro_ undress. The servants of
+the hotel would take charge of sending the despatch.
+
+"No, I wish it to be thou. I will wait. Thou must send another telegram.
+Thou already knowest who to--to that lady; to Dona Sol. Also '_As
+usual_.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BORN FOR THE BULL-RING
+
+
+When Senora Angustias was bereft of her husband, Senor Juan Gallardo,
+the well known cobbler established in a _portal_ in the ward of the
+Feria, she wept with the disconsolateness due the event, but at the same
+time, in the depths of her soul, she felt the satisfaction of one who
+rests after a long journey, freed from an overwhelming burden.
+
+"Poor fellow, joy of my heart! May God keep him in His glory. So good!
+So industrious!"
+
+During twenty years of life together, he had not caused her greater
+sorrows than those the rest of the women of the ward had to bear. Of the
+three _pesetas_ he averaged as a result of his labor he handed over one
+to Senora Angustias for the support of the house and family, using the
+other two for personal entertainment and for keeping up appearances
+among his friends. He was obliged to respond to the attentions of his
+companions when they invited him to a convivial glass, and the famous
+Andalusian wine, since it is the glory of God, costs dear. Also it was
+inevitable that he should go to see the bulls, because a man who does
+not drink nor attend bull-fights--why is he in the world?
+
+Senora Angustias with her two children, Encarnacion and little Juan, had
+to sharpen her wits and develop numerous talents in order to keep the
+family together. She worked as a servant in the houses nearest her
+ward, sewed for the women of the neighborhood, sold clothing and
+trinkets for a certain brokeress, a friend of hers, and made cigarettes
+for the gentlemen, recalling her youthful aptitude when Senor Juan, an
+enthusiastic and favored lover, used to come and wait for her at the
+door of the Tobacco Factory.
+
+Never could she complain of infidelity or ill-treatment on the part of
+her husband. On Saturdays when the cobbler used to come home drunk in
+the late hours of the night supported by his friends, joy and tenderness
+came with him. Senora Angustias had to drag him into the house, for he
+was determined to remain outside the door clapping his hands and
+intoning, with slobbery voice, tender love songs dedicated to his
+corpulent companion. And when the door was at last closed behind him,
+depriving the neighbors of a source of entertainment, Senor Juan, in a
+state of sentimental drunkenness, insisted on seeing the sleeping
+children; he kissed them, wetting their little faces with great
+tear-drops, and repeated his verses in honor of Senora Angustias
+(Hurrah! the greatest woman in the world!) till finally the good wife
+was compelled to cease frowning and to laugh while she undressed him and
+managed him as if he were a sick child.
+
+This was his only vice. Poor fellow! There was not a sign of women or of
+gambling. His self-esteem which made him go well dressed while the
+family went in rags, and his unequal division of the products of his
+labor, were both compensated by generous incentives. Senora Angustias
+recollected with pride the great feast days when Juan had her put on her
+Manila shawl, her wedding _mantilla_, and, with the children walking in
+advance, he strode at her side with white Cordovan hat and silver
+handled cane, taking a walk along Delicias with the same air as any
+shopkeeper's family from Sierpes Street. On cheap bull-fight days he
+courted her pompously before going to the plaza, offering her glasses of
+wine at La Campana or at a _cafe_ in the New Plaza. This happy time was
+now but a faint and pleasant memory in the recollection of the poor
+woman.
+
+Senor Juan fell ill of phthisis and for two years the wife had to care
+for him, making still greater exertions in her industries to compensate
+for the lack of the _peseta_ her husband used to turn over to her. At
+last he died in the hospital, resigned to his fate, convinced that
+existence was of no value without Andalusian wine and without bulls, and
+his last look of love and gratitude was for his wife, as if he would
+call out with his eyes: "Hurrah! the greatest woman in the world!"
+
+When Senora Angustias was left alone her position did not change for the
+worse,--rather for the better. She enjoyed greater liberty in her
+movements, freed from the man who for the last two years had weighed
+more heavily upon her than the rest of the family. Being an energetic
+woman and of prompt decision, she immediately marked out a career for
+her children. Encarnacion, who was now sixteen, went to the Tobacco
+Factory, where her mother was able to introduce her, thanks to her
+relations with certain friends of her youth who had become overseers.
+Juanillo, who as a lad had passed his days in the _portal_ of the Feria
+watching his father work, should be a shoemaker, according to the will
+of Senora Angustias. She took him out of school, where he had learned
+to read but poorly, and at twelve he became an apprentice to one of the
+best shoemakers in Seville.
+
+And now the martyrdom of the poor woman began.
+
+Ah, that boy! Son of such honorable parents! Almost every day, instead
+of going to his master's shop he went to the slaughter-house with
+certain rascals who had their meeting place on a bench in the Alameda of
+Hercules and who delighted to flaunt a cape under the nose of young
+bullocks for the entertainment of herders and butchers, generally
+getting upset and trampled upon. Senora Angustias, who often toiled far
+into the night, needle in hand, so that the boy might go to the shop
+neat, with his clothing clean and mended, met him at the door when he
+came home with his pantaloons torn, his jacket dirty, and his face
+covered with lumps and scratches, afraid to enter yet without courage to
+flee owing to his hunger.
+
+The welts made by his mother's blows and the marks of the broom-handle
+were added to the bruises of the treacherous bullocks, but the hero of
+the slaughter-house suffered them all, provided he did not lack his
+daily rations. "Beat me, but give me something to eat." And with his
+appetite awakened by violent exercise, he devoured the hard bread, the
+spoiled beans, the stale cod-fish, all the cheap food the diligent woman
+sought in the shops in the effort to maintain the family on her scanty
+earnings.
+
+Toiling all day scrubbing floors, only now and then did she have an
+afternoon in which she could concern herself with her son's welfare and
+go to the cobbler's to learn of the progress of the apprentice. When she
+returned from the shoe-maker's shop she was puffing and blowing with
+anger and resolved upon terrible punishments to correct the vagabond.
+
+Most of the time he failed to present himself at the shop at all. He
+spent the morning at the slaughter-house and in the afternoons he formed
+one of the group of vagabonds collected at the entrance of Sierpes
+Street, admiring at close range the bull-fighters out of work who
+gathered in Campana Street, dressed in new clothes, with resplendent
+hats but with no more than a _peseta_ in their pockets, though each one
+was bragging of his exploits.
+
+Little Juan contemplated them as if they were beings of marvellous
+superiority, envying their fine carriage and the boldness with which
+they flattered the women. The idea that each of these had at home a suit
+of silk embroidered with gold, and that with it on he strode before the
+multitude to the sound of music, produced a thrill of respect.
+
+The son of Senora Angustias was known as the Little Cobbler among his
+ragged friends, and he showed satisfaction at having a nickname, as have
+nearly all the great men who appear in the ring. A foundation must be
+laid somewhere. He wore around his neck a red handkerchief which he had
+pilfered from his sister, and from beneath his cap his hair fell over
+his ears in thick locks which he carefully plastered down. He wore his
+plaited blouses of drill tucked into his trousers, which were ancient
+relics of his father's wardrobe made over by Senora Angustias; he
+insisted these must be high in the waist with the legs wide and the hips
+well tightened, and wept with humiliation when his mother would not
+yield to these exactions.
+
+A cape! If only he might possess a fighting cape and not have to beg
+from other more fortunate boys the loan of the coveted "rag" for a few
+minutes! In a poor little room at home lay an old forgotten empty
+mattress case. Senora Angustias had sold the wool in days of stress. The
+Little Cobbler spent a morning locked in the room, taking advantage of
+the absence of his mother who was working as a servant in a priest's
+house.
+
+With the ingenuity of a shipwrecked mariner on a desert isle who, thrown
+upon his own resources, must construct everything necessary to his
+existence, he cut a fighting cape from the damp and half-frayed cloth.
+Then he boiled in a pot a handful of red aniline bought at a druggist's,
+and dipped the ancient cotton in this dye. Little Juan admired his
+work--a cape of the most vivid scarlet that would arouse the greatest
+envy at the bull-baiting in the surrounding towns! Nothing remained but
+to dry it and he hung it in the sun beside the neighbor women's white
+clothes. The wind blew the dripping cloth about, bespattering the
+nearest pieces, until a chorus of curses and threats, clenched fists,
+and mouths that pronounced the ugliest of words against him and his
+mother, obliged the Little Cobbler to grasp his mantle of glory and take
+to his heels, his hands and face dyed red as though he had just
+committed a murder.
+
+Senora Angustias, a strong, corpulent, be-whiskered woman who was not
+afraid of men, and inspired the respect of women for her energetic
+resolutions, was disheartened and weak in the presence of her son. What
+could she do? Her hands had pummelled every part of the boy's body;
+brooms were broken on him without beneficial results. That little imp
+had, according to her, the flesh of a dog. Accustomed outside of the
+house to the tremendous butting of the steers, to the cruel trampling
+of the cows, to the clubs of herders and butchers who beat the band of
+vagabond bull-fighters without compassion, his mother's blows seemed to
+him a natural event, a continuation of his life outside prolonged inside
+the home, and he accepted them without the least intention of mending
+his ways, as a fee which he must pay in exchange for his sustenance,
+chewing the hard bread with hungry enjoyment, while the maternal
+maledictions and blows rained on his back.
+
+Scarcely was his hunger appeased when he fled from the house, taking
+advantage of the freedom in which Senora Angustias left him when she
+absented herself on her round of duties.
+
+In Campana Street, that venerable haunt of the bull-fighters where the
+gossip of the great doings of the profession circulated, he received
+information about his companions that gave him tremors of enthusiasm.
+
+"Little Cobbler, a bull-fight to-morrow."
+
+The towns in the province celebrated the feasts of their patron saints
+with cape-teasing of bulls which had been rejected from the great
+plazas, and to these the young bull-fighters went in the hope of being
+able to say on their return that they had held the cape in the glorious
+plazas of Aznalcollar, Bollullos, or Mairena. They started on the
+journey at night with the cape over the shoulder if it were summer, or
+wrapped in it if winter, their stomachs empty, their heads full of
+visions of bulls and glory.
+
+If the trip were of several days' journey they camped in the open, or
+they were admitted through charity to the hayloft of an inn. Alas for
+the grapes, melons, and figs they found by the way in those happy
+times! Their only fear was that another band, another _cuadrilla_,
+possessed of the same idea, would present itself in the _pueblo_ and set
+up an opposition.
+
+When they reached the end of their journey, with their eyebrows and
+mouths full of dust, tired and foot-sore from the march, they presented
+themselves to the alcalde and the boldest among them who performed the
+functions of director talked of the merits of his men. All considered
+themselves happy if the municipal generosity sheltered them in a stable
+of the hostelry and regaled them with a pot of stew in addition, which
+they would clean up instantly. In the village plaza enclosed by wagons
+and boards, they let loose aged bulls, regular forts of flesh covered
+with scabs and scars, with enormous saw-edged horns; cattle which had
+been fought many years in all the feasts of the province; venerable
+animals that "understood the game," such was their malice. Accustomed to
+one continual bull-fight they were in the secret of the tricks of the
+contest.
+
+The youths of the _pueblo_ pricked on the beasts from their place of
+safety and the people longed for an object of diversion greater than the
+bull--in the bull-fighters from Seville. These waved their capes, their
+legs trembling, their courage borne down by the weight of their
+stomachs. A tumble, and then great clamor from the public! When one in
+sudden terror took refuge behind the palisades, rural barbarity received
+him with insults, beating the hands clutching at the wood, pounding him
+on the legs to make him jump back into the ring. "Get back there,
+poltroon! Fraud, to turn your face from the bull."
+
+At times one of the young swordsmen was borne out of the ring by four
+companions, pale as a sheet of white paper, his eyes glassy, his head
+fallen, his breast like a broken bellows. The veterinary came, quieting
+them all on seeing no blood. The boy was suffering from the shock of
+being thrown some yards and falling on the ground like a rag torn from a
+piece of clothing. Again it was the agony of having been stepped on by a
+beast of enormous weight. A bucket of water was thrown on his head and
+then, when he recovered his senses, they treated him to a long drink of
+brandy. A prince could not be better cared for!
+
+To the ring again! And when the herder had no more bulls to let out and
+night was drawing near, two of the _cuadrilla_ grasped the best cape
+belonging to the society and holding it by its edges went from one
+viewing stand to another soliciting a contribution. Copper coins fell
+upon the red cloth in proportion to the pleasure the strangers had given
+the country people; and, the bull-baiting ended, they started on their
+return to the city, knowing that they had exhausted their credit at the
+inn. Often they fought on the way over the distribution of the pieces of
+copper which they carried in a knotted handkerchief. Then the rest of
+the week, they recounted their deeds before the fascinated eyes of their
+companions who had not been members of the expedition.
+
+Once Senora Angustias spent an entire week without hearing from her son.
+At last she heard vague rumors of his having been wounded in a
+bull-scrimmage in the town of Tocina. _Dios mio_! Where might that town
+be? How reach it? She gave up her son for dead, she wept for him, she
+longed to go; and then as she was getting ready to start on her
+journey, she saw little Juan coming home, pale, weak, but talking with
+manly joy of his accident.
+
+It was nothing--a horn-stab in one thigh; a wound a fraction of an inch
+deep. And in the shamelessness of triumph he wanted to show it to the
+neighbors, affirming that a finger could be thrust into it without
+reaching its end. He was proud of the stench of iodoform that he shed as
+he walked, and he talked of the attention they had shown him in that
+town, which he considered the finest in Spain. The wealthiest citizens,
+one might say the aristocracy, interested themselves in his case, the
+alcalde had been to see him and later paid his way home. He still had
+three _duros_ in his pocket, which he handed to his mother with the
+generosity of a great man. So much glory at fourteen! His satisfaction
+was yet greater when some genuine bull-fighters in Campana Street fixed
+their attention on the boy and asked him how his wound was getting
+along.
+
+His companion in poverty was Chiripa, a boy of the same age, with a
+small body and malicious eyes, without father or mother, who had tramped
+about Seville ever since he had attained the use of his faculties.
+Chiripa was a master of the roving life and had travelled over the
+world. The two boys started on a journey empty of pocket, without other
+equipment than their capes, miserable cast-offs acquired for a few
+_reales_ from a second-hand clothing store.
+
+They clambered cautiously into trains and hid under seats. Often they
+were surprised by a trainman and, to the accompaniment of kicks and
+blows, were left by him on the platform of some solitary station while
+the train vanished like a lost hope. They awaited the arrival of
+another, spending the night in the open, employing the cunning of
+primitive man to satisfy their necessities, crawling round about country
+houses to steal some solitary chicken, which, after wringing the fowl's
+neck, they would broil over a fire of dry wood and devour scorched and
+half raw, with the voracity of young savages.
+
+Often when they slept in the open air near a station awaiting the
+passing of a train, a couple of guards would come up to them. On seeing
+the red bundles that served as pillows for these vagabonds, their
+suspicions were quieted. They gently removed the boys' caps, and on
+finding the hairy appendage they went away laughing without further
+investigation. These were not young thieves; they were apprentices who
+were going to the _capeas_. And in this tolerance there was a mixture of
+sympathy for the national sport and of respect for the obscure
+possibilities of the future. Who could tell if one of these ragged
+youths, despite his present appearance of poverty, might not in the
+future be a "star of the art," a great man who would kill bulls for the
+entertainment of kings, and live like a prince, and whose deeds and
+sayings would be exploited in the newspapers?
+
+One afternoon, the Little Cobbler was left alone in a town of
+Extremadura. For the admiration of the rustic audience which applauded
+the famous bull-fighters "come purposely from Seville," the two boys
+threw _banderillas_ at a fierce and ancient bull. Little Juan stuck his
+pair into the beast and was posing near a view-stand, proudly receiving
+the popular ovation of tremendous hand-clappings and proffers of cups of
+wine, when an exclamation of horror sobered him in his intoxication of
+glory. Chiripa was no longer on the ground of the plaza; only the
+_banderillas_ rolling in the dust, one slipper and a cap were there. The
+bull was moving about as if irritated by some obstacle, carrying hooked
+on one of his horns a bundle of clothing resembling a puppet. With the
+violent tossing of his head the shapeless roll was loosened from the
+horn, ejecting a red stream, but before touching the ground it was
+caught by the opposite horn which in its turn tossed it about during
+what seemed an interminable time. At last, the sorry bulk fell to the
+dust and there it stayed, flabby and inert, like a punctured wine-skin
+expelling its contents.
+
+The herder with his leaders took the bull into the corral, for no one
+else dared go near him, and poor Chiripa was carried upon a stretcher to
+a wretched little room in the town-house that served as a jail. His
+companion looked at him with a face as white as if made of plaster.
+Chiripa's eyes were glazed and his body was red with the blood which
+could not be stopped by the cloths wet with water and vinegar, which
+were applied in lieu of anything better.
+
+"Adio', Little Cobbler!" he moaned. "Adio', Juanito!"
+
+And he said no more. The companion of the dead youth, terrified, started
+on his return to Seville still seeing his glassy eyes, hearing his
+mournful good-bye. He was filled with fear. A gentle cow appearing in
+his path would have made him run. He thought of his mother and of the
+prudence of her counsel. Would it not be better to dedicate himself to
+shoemaking and live tranquilly? But these resolutions only lasted while
+he was alone. When he reached Seville he felt the return of
+exhilaration. Friends rushed to him to hear about the death of poor
+Chiripa in every detail. Professional bull-fighters questioned him in
+Campana Street, remembering with pity the little vagabond with the
+pock-marked face who had often run errands for them. Juan, fired by such
+signs of consideration, gave rein to his powerful imagination,
+describing how he had thrown himself upon the bull when he had seen his
+poor companion hooked, how he had grabbed the beast by the tail and
+achieved even more wonderful feats, in spite of which the other boy had
+left this world.
+
+The impulse of fear vanished. Bull-fighter--nothing but a bull-fighter!
+Since others were, why should he not be one? He recollected his mother's
+spoiled beans and hard bread; the deprivation each pair of new
+pantaloons had cost him; the hunger, that inseparable companion of many
+of his expeditions. Moreover he had a vehement desire for all the joys
+and displays of life; he gazed with envy at the coaches and the horses;
+he stood transfixed before the doors of the great houses through whose
+iron grilles he saw courtyards of Oriental sumptuousness and arcades of
+colored tiles, pavements with marble and chattering fountains casting a
+stream of pearls day and night into a basin surrounded by foliage. His
+fate was sealed. To kill bulls or die! To be rich, to have the
+newspapers talk of him, and to have the people bow to him, even though
+it were at the price of his life. He despised the lower grades of the
+art. He saw the _banderilleros_ expose their lives equally with the
+swordsmen in exchange for thirty _duros_ for each bull-fight; and, after
+a round of toil and horn-stabs, become old, with no other future than
+some wretched business bought with paltry savings, or else a position at
+the slaughter-house. Some died in the hospital; others begged alms from
+their youthful companions. He would have nothing to do with
+_banderilleros_ nor with spending long years in a _cuadrilla_ in
+submission to the despotism of a _maestro_. He would begin with killing
+bulls; he would tread the sand of the plazas as a swordsman!
+
+The misfortune of poor Chiripa gave him a certain ascendency over his
+companions, and he formed a _cuadrilla_ of ragged youths who marched
+behind him to the _capeas_ of the _pueblos_. They respected him because
+he was braver and better dressed. Some young girls of the street,
+attracted by the manly beauty of the Little Cobbler, who was now in his
+eighteenth year, and predisposed by his _coleta_, disputed in noisy
+competition the honor of taking care of his comely person. Moreover he
+counted on a patron, an old magistrate who had a weakness for the
+courage of young bull-fighters and whose friendship infuriated Senora
+Angustias and caused her to let loose some most indecent expressions
+which she had learned at the Tobacco Factory in her younger days.
+
+The Little Cobbler dressed himself in suits of English cloth well fitted
+to the elegance of his figure, and his hat was always resplendent. His
+friends took scrupulous care of the whiteness of his collars and
+furbelows, and on certain days he proudly wore on his waistcoat a heavy
+gold chain, a loan from his respectable friend, that had already figured
+around the necks of other "boys who were starting out."
+
+He mingled with broken-down bull-fighters; he could pay for the drinks
+of the old _peones_ who recalled the deeds of famous swordsmen. It was
+believed for a certainty that some protectors were exerting themselves
+in favor of this "boy," awaiting a propitious occasion for him to make
+his _debut_ in a fight of young bullocks in the plaza of Seville.
+
+The Little Cobbler was now a _matador_. One day, at Lebrija, when a
+lively little young bull came into the plaza, his companions had urged
+him on to the greatest luck. "Dost thou dare to kill him?" And he killed
+him! Henceforward, fired by the ease with which he had escaped danger,
+he went to all the _capeas_ in which they announced that a bull was to
+be killed, and to all the granges where bulls were to be fought to the
+death.
+
+The proprietor of La Rinconada, a rich farmer with a small bull-ring,
+was an enthusiast who kept his table set and his hayloft open for all
+the hungry who wished to divert him by fighting his cattle. Juan went
+there in days of poverty with other companions, to eat and drink to the
+health of the rural hidalgo, although it might be at the price of some
+rough tumbling. They arrived afoot after a two days' tramp and the
+proprietor, seeing the dusty troop with their bundles of capes, said
+solemnly:
+
+"Whoever does the best work, I'll buy him a ticket that he may return to
+Seville on the train."
+
+Two days the lord of the farm spent smoking on the balcony of his plaza
+while the boys from Seville fought young bulls, being frequently caught
+and trampled.
+
+He sharply reproved a poorly executed cape-play, and called out, "Get up
+off the ground, you big coward! Come, give him wine to get him over his
+fright," when a boy persisted in remaining stretched on the ground after
+a bull had passed over his body.
+
+The Little Cobbler killed a bull in a manner so much to the liking of
+the owner that the latter seated him at his table while his comrades
+stayed in the kitchen with the herders and farm laborers, dipping their
+horn spoons into the steaming broth.
+
+"Thou hast earned the return by railroad, my brave youth. Thou wilt
+travel far if thou dost not lose heart. Thou hast promise."
+
+The Little Cobbler, starting on his return to Seville second class while
+the _cuadrilla_ tramped afoot, thought that a new life was beginning for
+him, and he cast a look of covetousness at the enormous plantation with
+its extensive olive orchards, its fields of grain, its mills, its
+meadows stretching out of sight in which were pasturing thousands of
+goats, while bulls and cows lay quietly chewing the cud. What wealth! If
+only he might some day come to possess something like that!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AT CARMEN'S WINDOW-GRILLE
+
+
+Gallardo's prowess in fighting young bulls in the _pueblos_, heralded in
+Seville, caused the restless and insatiable amateurs, ever seeking a new
+luminary to eclipse those already discovered, to fix their attention
+upon him.
+
+"He certainly is a boy of wonderful promise," they used to say, on
+seeing him pass along Sierpes Street with short step, swinging his arms
+arrogantly. "He must be seen on classic ground." This ground for them
+and for the Little Cobbler was the ring of the plaza at Seville. The boy
+was soon to find himself face to face with the real thing. His protector
+had acquired for him a spangled costume, somewhat worn, a cast-off of
+some bull-fighter who had failed to win a name. A _corrida_ of young
+bulls was arranged for a benefit, and influential devotees, eager for
+novelty, managed to include him in the programme gratuitously, as
+_matador_.
+
+The son of Senora Angustias declined to appear in the announcements
+under his nickname of Little Cobbler, which he desired to forget. He
+would have nothing to do with stage names, and less with menial offices.
+He wished to be known by the names of his father, he desired to be Juan
+Gallardo; no nickname should recall his origin to the great people who
+undoubtedly would become his friends of the future.
+
+The whole ward of the Feria flocked _en masse_ to the _corrida_ with a
+noisy and patriotic fervor. The dwellers in the ward of Macarena also
+showed their interest and the other popular wards allowed themselves to
+be carried away with equal enthusiasm. A new _matador_ for Seville!
+There was not room for all and thousands were left outside the plaza
+anxiously awaiting the news of the _corrida_.
+
+Gallardo fought, killed, was knocked down by a bull without being hurt,
+and kept the public in constant anxiety by his daring, which generally
+resulted fortunately and provoked colossal bellowings of enthusiasm.
+Certain devotees, esteemed for their opinions, smiled complacently. He
+had much to learn but he had courage and ambition, which is the
+important thing.
+
+"Above all, he goes in to really kill 'in classic style,' and he keeps
+inside the field of reality."
+
+At the opposite side of the plaza the old magistrate smiled
+compassionately beneath his white beard, admiring the boy's bravery and
+the fine appearance he made in the spangled costume. When he saw him
+knocked down by the bull he fell back into his seat as if he were going
+to faint. That was too much for him.
+
+In one section proudly strutted the husband of Encarnacion, Gallardo's
+sister, a leather-worker by trade, a prudent man, an enemy of vagrancy,
+who had married the cigarette girl, captured by her charms, but under
+the express condition of having nothing to do with her scamp of a
+brother.
+
+Gallardo, offended by his brother-in-law's distrust, had never ventured
+into his shop, which was situated in the outskirts of Macarena, nor
+descended from the ceremonious you when now and then of an afternoon he
+met him at his mother's house.
+
+"I am going to see how that shameless brother of thine dodges the
+oranges," he had said to his wife as he set out for the plaza.
+
+And now, from his seat, he bowed to the swordsman, calling him Juaniyo,
+saying _thou_, playing the peacock, content when the young bull-fighter,
+attracted by the many shouts, saw him at last and returned the greeting
+with a salute of his sword.
+
+"He is my brother-in-law," said the leather-worker so that those near
+him might admire him. "I have always known the boy would amount to
+something at bull-fighting. My wife and I have helped him much."
+
+The finale was triumphal. The multitude rushed impetuously upon
+Juanillo, as if they were about to devour him by their outbursts of
+enthusiasm. Fortunately the brother-in-law was present to impose order,
+to shield him with his body, and to conduct him to the hired coach in
+which he seated himself at the bull-fighter's side.
+
+When they arrived at the house in the ward of the Feria an immense crowd
+was following the carriage with shouts of joy and acclamations of praise
+that brought the people crowding to the doors. The news of the triumph
+had reached there ahead of the swordsman and the neighbors ran out to
+see him and to press his hand.
+
+Senora Angustias and her daughter were at the door. The leather-worker
+stepped out almost arm in arm with his brother-in-law, monopolizing him,
+shouting and gesticulating in the name of the family that nobody should
+touch him, as if he were a sick man.
+
+"Here he is, Encarnacion," he said, shoving him toward his wife, "Not
+even Roger de Flor himself--"
+
+And Encarnacion had no need to ask more, for she knew that her husband
+vaguely considered this historic individual the personification of all
+greatness and that he only ventured to connect his name with portentous
+circumstances.
+
+Certain enthusiastic neighbors who came from the _corrida_ flattered
+Senora Angustias, crying, "Blessed be the mother that has given birth to
+such a valiant youth!"
+
+Her friends overwhelmed her with their exclamations. What luck! And what
+sums of money he soon was going to earn!
+
+The poor woman wore in her eyes an expression of astonishment and doubt.
+And was it really her little Juan that had made the people run with such
+enthusiasm? Had they gone mad?
+
+But she suddenly fell upon him as if all the past had vanished; as if
+her worry and fretting were a dream; as if she confessed a shameful
+error. Her great flabby arms wound around the bull-fighter's neck and
+her tears wetted his cheeks.
+
+"My son! Little Juan! If thy poor father could only see thee!"
+
+"Don't cry, mother--for this is a day of joy. You shall see. If God
+gives me luck I will build you a house and your friends shall see you in
+a carriage and you shall wear all the Manila shawls you want."
+
+The leather-worker received these promises of greatness with signs of
+affirmation in the presence of his astonished wife, who had not yet
+recovered from her surprise at this radical change.
+
+"Yes, Encarnacion; this youth will do it all if he undertakes it. It was
+extraordinary. Not even Roger de Flor himself--!"
+
+That night in the taverns and _cafes_ of the popular wards they talked
+only of Gallardo. The bull-fighter of the future! He has flourished like
+the very roses. This boy is going to get away the favors from all the
+Cordovan caliphs.
+
+In these assertions was revealed Sevillian pride in constant rivalry
+with the people of Cordova, which was also a land of good bull-fighters.
+
+Gallardo's existence changed completely from this day. The young
+gentlemen greeted him and made him sit among them around the doors of
+the _cafes_. The pretty girls who formerly satisfied his hunger and took
+care of his adornment, found themselves little by little repelled with
+smiling disregard. Even the old protector prudently withdrew in view of
+a certain indifference and bestowed his tender friendship on other boys
+who were just beginning.
+
+The management of the bull-plaza sought out Gallardo, humoring him as if
+he were already a celebrity. By announcing his name on the programmes
+success was assured, the plaza filled. The masses applauded wildly the
+"boy of Senora Angustias," giving tongue to tales of his valor.
+Gallardo's fame extended through Andalusia, and the leather-worker,
+without being solicited, mixed in everything and played the part of
+defender of his brother-in-law's interests. A thoughtful and expert man
+in business, according to himself, he saw the course of his life marked
+out.
+
+"Thy brother," he would say to his wife at night as they went to bed,
+"needs a practical man at his side to manage his interests. Dost thou
+suppose he would think well of naming me his manager? A great thing for
+him! Not even Roger de Flor himself! And for us--?"
+
+The leather-worker contemplated in imagination the great riches Gallardo
+was going to gain, and he thought also of his own five sons and those
+that were still to come. Who could tell if what the swordsman earned
+should fall to his nephews?
+
+For a year and a half Juan killed bullocks in the best plazas of Spain.
+His fame had reached Madrid. The devotees at the capital felt a
+curiosity to see the "Sevillian boy" of whom the newspapers talked so
+much and of whom the "intelligent" Andalusians boasted.
+
+Gallardo, escorted by a group of friends from his native city who were
+residing in Madrid, strutted along the sidewalk of Seville Street near
+the Cafe Ingles. The pretty girls smiled at his compliments and their
+eyes followed the toreador's heavy gold chain and his big diamond
+ornaments acquired with his first earnings and on credit--discounting
+the future. A _matador_ must show that he has an overplus of money by
+decorating his person and treating everybody generously. How far away
+were those days when he, with poor Chiripa, tramped along that same
+pavement, afraid of the police, contemplating the bull-fighters with
+admiration and picking up the stubs of their cigars!
+
+His work in Madrid was lucky. He made friends and formed around him a
+group of enthusiasts hungry for novelty who also proclaimed him the
+"bull-fighter of the future" and complained because he had not yet
+received the "alternative."
+
+"He's going to earn money by basketfuls, Encarnacion," said the
+brother-in-law. "He is going to have millions, if he doesn't have some
+bad luck."
+
+The life of the family changed completely. Gallardo, mingling with the
+young gentlemen of Seville, did not wish his mother to continue living
+in the house where she had passed her days of poverty. On his account
+they had moved to a better street in the city, but Senora Angustias
+inclined to remain faithful to the ward of the Feria, with the love
+which simple people feel as they grow old for the places where their
+youth was spent.
+
+They lived in a much better house. The mother did not work and the
+neighbors paid her homage, finding in her a generous lender in their
+days of stress. Juan possessed, besides the loud and showy jewels with
+which he adorned his person, that supreme luxury of every bull-fighter,
+a powerful sorrel mare, with a cowboy saddle and a fine blanket bordered
+with multicolored fringe across the pommel. Mounted on her he trotted
+along the streets with no other object than to receive the homage of his
+friends, who greeted his elegance with noisy _"Oles!"_ This satisfied
+his desire for popularity for the moment. On other occasions he rode
+with the young bloods, forming a sightly troop of horsemen, to the
+pasture of Tablada, on the eve of a great _corrida_, to see the herd
+that others had to kill.
+
+"When I take the 'alternative,'" he was saying at every step, making all
+his plans for the future depend on that.
+
+He deferred until then a series of projects that would surprise his
+mother, poor woman, overcome by the good fortune fallen suddenly upon
+her house, and which, she thought, could not be surpassed.
+
+The day of the "alternative" came at last, the day of Gallardo's
+recognition as a killer of bulls. A celebrated _maestro_ ceded to him
+his sword and _muleta_ in the open ring of Seville and the crowd went
+mad with enthusiasm, seeing how he felled with a single sword-thrust the
+first "formal" bull that appeared before him. The following month, this
+tauromachic degree was bestowed again in the plaza of Madrid where
+another _maestro_, not less celebrated, again gave him the "alternative"
+in a _corrida_ of Miura bulls.
+
+He was no longer a _novillero_; he was a _matador_, and his name figured
+beside those of old swordsmen whom he had worshipped as unapproachable
+gods when he was going about among the little towns taking part in the
+bull-baitings. He remembered having lain in wait for one of them at a
+station near Cordova to ask aid from him when he passed through on the
+train with his _cuadrilla_. That night he had something to eat, thanks
+to the generous fraternity that exists among the people of the queue
+which impels a swordsman of princely luxury to hand out a _duro_ and a
+cigar to the unfortunate little vagabond on the road to his first
+_capeas_.
+
+Contracts began to shower upon the new swordsman. In all the plazas of
+the Peninsula they desired to see him, moved by curiosity. The
+newspapers devoted to the profession popularized his picture and his
+life, distorting the latter with novel episodes. No other _matador_ had
+so many engagements. He was going to make money abundantly.
+
+Antonio, his brother-in-law, told of this success with clouded brow and
+loud protestations to his wife and her mother. The swordsman was an
+ungrateful fellow--the history of all who rise suddenly. And he had
+worked so hard for Juan! With what firmness had he argued with the
+managers when the bullock-fight was arranged for him. And now that he
+was a _maestro_ he had as a manager a gentleman he had met only a short
+time ago; one Don Jose who was not one of the family but one for whom
+Gallardo showed esteem on account of his prestige as an old connoisseur.
+
+"And he will be sorry for it," he ended, adding, "A man has only one
+family and where will he find such loving care as we have given him ever
+since he was little? He is the loser. With me he would flourish like
+Roger de--"
+
+He interrupted himself, swallowing the famous name for fear of the jokes
+of the _banderilleros_ and amateurs who frequented the house and who had
+no respect for the historical object of the leather-worker's adoration.
+
+Gallardo, with the generosity of a victor, gave some satisfaction to his
+brother-in-law by putting him in charge of the house he was having
+built, with _carte blanche_ as to expenses. The swordsman, overcome by
+the ease with which money came into his hands, was willing to let his
+brother-in-law rob him, thus compensating him for not having been chosen
+as manager.
+
+The _torero_ was to realize his desire of building a house for his
+mother. She, poor woman, who had spent her life scrubbing floors for the
+rich, should have her beautiful courtyard with marble pavements, with
+tiled wainscot, and rooms with furniture like those of the gentry, with
+servants, yes, many servants to wait upon her. He also felt united by a
+traditional affection to the ward where his childish poverty had slipped
+from him. He rejoiced to outshine the very people who had employed his
+mother as a servant and to give a handful of _pesetas_, in moments of
+need, to those who had taken shoes to his father or who had given him a
+crumb in those sorrowful days. He bought several old houses, one of them
+the same in whose _portal_ the cobbler had worked. He had them torn down
+and began to build an edifice that was to have white walls with green
+painted grilles, a vestibule lined with tiles, and a barred gate of
+delicately wrought iron through which should be seen the courtyard with
+its fountain in the centre and its marble columns, between which should
+hang gilded cages with chattering birds.
+
+Antonio's satisfaction at having full license in the direction and
+profit of the works was diminished somewhat by terrible news,--Gallardo
+had a sweetheart! He was travelling now in mid-summer, running over
+Spain from one plaza to another, making famous sword-thrusts and
+receiving applause; but almost daily he sent a letter to a certain girl
+in the ward and in the short respites between wandering from one
+_corrida_ to another abandoned his companions and took the train to
+spend the night in Seville, courting her.
+
+"Have you seen?" shouted the leather-worker, scandalized at what was
+taking place "in the bosom of the home" before the very eyes of his wife
+and mother-in-law. "A sweetheart! without saying a word to the family,
+which is the only thing worth while in the whole world! The Senor wants
+to marry. Without doubt he is tired of us. What a shameless fellow!"
+
+Encarnacion approved these assertions with rude grimaces of her strong,
+fierce face, content to be able to express herself thus against the
+brother who filled her with envy by his good fortune. Yes, he had ever
+been a shameless fellow.
+
+But the mother protested. "No, indeed! I know the girl and her poor
+mother was a chum of mine in the Factory. She is as pure as nuggets of
+gold, trim, good, fine-looking. I have already told Juan that it would
+please me and the sooner the better."
+
+She was an orphan, living with an aunt and uncle who kept a little
+grocery store in the ward. Her father, an old-time dealer in brandies,
+had left her two houses on the outskirts of Macarena.
+
+"A little thing," said Senora Angustias, "but the girl doesn't come
+empty-handed. She brings something of her own. And as for
+clothes--_Josu!_ you ought to see her little hands of gold; how she
+embroiders the clothes, how she is preparing her trousseau."
+
+Gallardo vaguely recollected having played with her when they were
+children near the _portal_ where the cobbler worked while the two
+mothers chatted. She was a sprightly creature, thin and dark, with eyes
+of a gypsy--the pupils black and sharply rounded like drops of ink, the
+corneas bluish white and the corners a pallid rose-hue. In their races
+she was as agile as a boy and her legs looked like reeds; her hair hung
+about her head in thick rebellious locks twisting like black snakes.
+Then she had dropped out of his sight and he did not meet her until many
+years afterward when he was a _novillero_, and had begun to make a name.
+
+It was one Corpus Christi day--one of the few feasts when the women,
+shut up in the house through Oriental laziness, go out upon the streets
+like Moorish women at liberty, wearing _mantillas_ of silk lace and
+carnations on their breasts. Gallardo saw a young girl, tall, slender,
+and at the same time strongly built, the waist confined in handsome firm
+curves with all the vigor of youth. Her face, of a rice-like pallor,
+colored on seeing the bull-fighter; her great luminous eyes hid
+themselves beneath their long lashes.
+
+"That girl knows me," said Gallardo to himself. "She must have seen me
+in the ring."
+
+And when, after having followed her and her aunt, he heard that it was
+Carmen, the companion of his infancy, he was astonished and confused by
+the marvellous transformation from the dark thin girl of the past. They
+became sweethearts and all the neighbors discussed their affair, seeing
+in them a new honor for the neighborhood.
+
+"This is how it is with me," said Gallardo to his enthusiasts, adopting
+a princely air. "I don't want to imitate other bull-fighters who marry
+_senoritas_ that are all hats and feathers and flounces. For me, those
+of my own class; a rich _mantilla_, a fine carriage, grace; that's what
+I want--_Ole!_"
+
+His friends, enraptured, spoke highly of the girl,--a splendid lass,
+with curves to her body that would set any one wild, and what an air!
+But the bull-fighter only made a wry face. The less they talked of
+Carmen the better.
+
+In the evening, as he conversed with her through a grated window,
+contemplating her Moorish face framed in the flowering vines, the
+servant of a nearby tavern presented himself, carrying glasses of
+Andalusian wine on a painted tray. He was the envoy who came to collect
+the toll, the traditional custom of Seville, which demanded pay from
+sweethearts who talk through the grille.
+
+The bull-fighter drank a glass, offering another to the girl, and said
+to the boy:
+
+"Give the gentlemen my thanks, and say I'll come along by the shop after
+a while. Also tell Montanes to allow no one else to pay, that Juan
+Gallardo will pay for everybody."
+
+And when he had finished his talk with his betrothed he went into the
+tavern where he was awaited by the tipplers, some enthusiastic friends,
+others unknown admirers anxious to toast the health of the bull-fighter
+in tall glasses of wine.
+
+On returning from his first trip as a full-fledged matador he spent the
+winter evenings close by Carmen's grated window, wrapped in his cape of
+greenish cloth, which had a narrow collar and was made generously ample,
+with vines and arabesques embroidered in black silk.
+
+"They say that thou dost drink much," sighed Carmen, pressing her face
+against the bars.
+
+"Nonsense! Courtesies of friends that one has to return and nothing
+more. Thou knowest that a bull-fighter is--a bull-fighter, and he is not
+going to live like a begging friar."
+
+"They say that thou goest with bad women."
+
+"That's a lie! That was in other days, before I met thee. Man alive! I
+would like to meet the son of a goat that carries thee such tales."
+
+"And when shall we get married?" she continued, cutting off her
+sweetheart's indignant remarks by a question.
+
+"As soon as the house is finished, and would to God it were to-morrow!
+That worthless brother-in-law of mine will never get it done. He knows
+that it's a good thing for him and he is sleeping on his luck."
+
+"I'll set things to rights, Juaniyo, after we are married. Thou shalt
+see how well everything will run along. Thou shalt see how thy mother
+loves me."
+
+And so their dialogues continued while waiting for the hour of the
+wedding which was being talked about all over Seville. Carmen's aunt and
+uncle and Senora Angustias discussed it whenever they met, but in spite
+of this the bull-fighter scarcely ever entered the home of his
+betrothed. They preferred to see one another through the grille,
+according to custom.
+
+The winter passed. Gallardo mounted his horse and went hunting in the
+pasture lands of some gentlemen who _thou_-ed him with a protecting air.
+He must preserve the agility of his body by continual exercise, in
+preparation for the next bull-fight season. He feared losing his
+strength and nimbleness.
+
+The most tireless propagandist of his glory was Don Jose, a gentleman
+who performed the office of his manager, and always called him _his
+matador_. He intervened in all Gallardo's affairs, not admitting a
+better right even to his own family. He lived on his rents with no other
+occupation than talking about bulls and bull-fighters. For him
+bull-fights were the only interesting thing in the world and he divided
+the human race into two classes, the elect nations who had bull-rings,
+and the dull ones for whom there is no sun, nor joy, nor good
+Andalusian wine--in spite of which they think themselves powerful and
+happy though they have never seen even a single ill-fought _corrida_ of
+bullocks.
+
+He brought to his enthusiasm the energy of a warrior and the faith of an
+inquisitor. Fat, still young, bald, and with a light beard, this father
+of a family, happy and gay in everyday life, was fierce and stubborn on
+the benches of a ring when his neighbors expressed opinions contrary to
+his. He felt himself capable of fighting the whole audience in defence
+of a bull-fighter friend, and he disturbed the ovations with
+extemporaneous protests when they were offered to an athlete who failed
+to enjoy his affection.
+
+He had been a cavalry officer, more from love of horses than of war. His
+corpulence and his enthusiasm for the bulls had caused him to retire
+from the service. He spent the summer witnessing bull-fights and the
+winter talking about them. He was eager to be the guide, the mentor, the
+manager of a bull-fighter, but all the _maestros_ had their own and so
+the advent of Gallardo was a stroke of fortune for him. The slightest
+aspersion cast upon the merits of his favorite turned him red with fury
+and converted the tauromachic dispute into a personal question. He
+counted it as a glorious act of war to have come to blows in a _cafe_
+with a couple of contemptuous amateurs who criticised _his matador_ as
+being too boastful.
+
+He felt as though there were not enough papers printed to publish
+Gallardo's glory, and on winter mornings he would go and place himself
+on a corner touched by a ray of sunlight at the entrance of Sierpes
+Street, and as his friends passed, he would say in a loud voice, "No!
+there is only one man!" as if he were talking to himself, affecting to
+not see those who were drawing near. "The greatest man in the world! And
+let him that thinks to the contrary speak out. The only one!"
+
+"Who?" asked his friends, jestingly, pretending not to understand him.
+
+"Who can it be? Juan!"
+
+"What Juan?"
+
+With a gesture of indignation and surprise he would answer, "What Juan
+could it be? As if there were many Juans! Juan Gallardo."
+
+"But, man alive," some of them would say to him, "one might think you
+two lie down together! It is thou, may be, that is going to get married
+to him?"
+
+"Only because he don't want it so," Don Jose would stoutly answer, with
+the fervor of idolatry.
+
+And on seeing other friends approach, he forgot their jibes and
+continued repeating:
+
+"No! there is only one man. The greatest in the world. And he that
+doesn't believe it let him open his beak, for here am I!"
+
+Gallardo's wedding was a great event. The new house was opened with
+it--the house of which the leather-worker was so proud, where he showed
+the courtyard, the columns, the tiles, as if all were the work of his
+hands.
+
+They were married in San Gil, before the Virgin of Hope, called the
+Virgin of Macarena. At the church door the hundreds of Chinese shawls
+embroidered with exotic flowers and birds, in which the bride's friends
+were draped, glistened in the sunshine.
+
+A deputy to the Cortes stood as best man.
+
+Above the black and white felts of the majority of the guests rose the
+shining tall hats of the manager and other gentlemen, Gallardo's
+devotees. All of them smiled with satisfaction at the deference of
+popularity that was shown them on going about with the bull-fighter.
+
+Alms were given at the door of the house during the day. The poor came
+even from the distant towns, attracted by the fame of this gorgeous
+wedding.
+
+There was a great feast in the courtyard. Photographers took
+instantaneous views for the Madrid newspapers. Gallardo's wedding was a
+national event. Far into the night guitars strummed with melancholy
+plaint, accompanied by hand-clapping and the click of castanets. The
+girls, their arms held high, beat the marble floor with their little
+feet, whirling their skirts and _mantillas_ around their slender bodies,
+moving with the rhythm characteristic of the _Sevillanas_. Bottles of
+rich Andalusian wines were uncorked by the dozen; from hand to hand
+passed cups of ardent sherry, of strong _montilla_, and of the wine of
+San Lucar, pale and perfumed. Every one was drunk but their intoxication
+left them sweet, subdued, and sad, with no other manifestation than
+sighs and songs, many starting at once to intone melancholy chants that
+told of prisons, of deaths, and of the poor mother, the eternal theme of
+the popular songs of Andalusia.
+
+The last guests took their leave at midnight and the bride and groom
+were left in the house with Senora Angustias. The leather-worker, going
+out with his wife, made a gesture of desperation. He was drunk and
+furious because no one had paid him any attention during the entire
+day. As if he were nobody! As if the family did not exist!
+
+[Illustration: Gallardo's wedding was a national event. Far into the
+night guitars strummed with melancholy plaint.... Girls, their arms held
+high, beat the marble floor with their little feet]
+
+"They cast us out, Encarnacion. That girl, with her little face like the
+Virgin of Hope, is going to be mistress of everything and there won't be
+even a crumb left for us. Thou shalt see how they will fill the place
+with children."
+
+And the prolific man grew indignant thinking of Gallardo's future
+offspring being brought into the world with no other purpose than to
+harm his own.
+
+Time went on. A year passed without Senor Antonio's prediction being
+fulfilled. Gallardo and his wife appeared at all the functions with the
+pomp and show of a rich and popular bridal pair; she with _mantillas_
+that drew forth screams of admiration from the poor women; he, wearing
+his brilliants and ever ready to draw out his pocket-book to treat the
+people and to succor the beggars that came in bands. The gypsies,
+coppery of skin and chattering like witches, besieged Carmen with happy
+prophesies. Might God bless her! She was going to have a boy, a little
+prattling babe, more beautiful than the sun itself. They read it in the
+white of her eyes.
+
+But in vain Carmen flushed with joy and modesty, lowering her eyes; in
+vain the _espada_ walked erect, proud of his achievements, believing
+that the coveted fruit would soon appear.
+
+And then another year passed without the realization of their hopes.
+Senora Angustias was sad when they spoke to her about it. She had other
+grandchildren, Encarnacion's little ones, who by order of the
+leather-worker spent the day in their grandmother's house trying in
+every way to please their uncle. But she, wishing to compensate
+Gallardo for the hardships of the past, prayed with fervent affection
+for a child of his to care for, yearning to shower upon him all the love
+she could not give the father in his infancy because of her poverty.
+
+"I know what is the matter," said the old woman sadly, "poor Carmen has
+no peace of mind. Thou shouldst see that unhappy creature when Juan is
+travelling about the world."
+
+During the winter, in the season of rest when the bull-fighter was at
+home or went to the country testing bullocks and joining in the hunt,
+all was well. Carmen was then content knowing that her husband was in no
+danger. She laughed on the slightest pretext; she ate heartily; her face
+was animated by the color of health; but as soon as the spring came and
+Juan left home to fight bulls in the rings of Spain the poor girl, pale
+and weak, would fall into a painful stupefaction, her eyes enlarged by
+fear and ready to shed tears.
+
+"Seventy-two bull-fights this year," said the friends of the house,
+commenting on the swordsman's contracts. "No one is so sought after as
+he."
+
+And Carmen smiled with a grimace of pain. Seventy-two afternoons of
+agony like a criminal doomed to death, awaiting the arrival of the
+telegram at nightfall and at the same time dreading it! Seventy-two days
+of terror, of vague superstitions, thinking that a word forgotten in a
+prayer might influence the luck of the absent one! Seventy-two days of
+painful paradox, living in a tranquil house, seeing the same people, her
+accustomed existence running on, calm and peaceful as though nothing
+extraordinary were happening in the world, hearing the play of her
+husband's nephews in the courtyard and the flower-seller's song on the
+street, while far, very far away, in unknown cities, her Juan, in the
+presence of thousands of eyes, fought with wild beasts, seeing death
+pass close to his breast at each movement of the red rag he held in his
+hands!
+
+Ah! those days of bull-fights, feast-days, on which the sky seemed more
+beautiful and the once solitary street resounded beneath the feet of the
+holiday crowd, when guitars strummed with accompaniment of hand-clapping
+and song in the tavern at the corner. Carmen, plainly dressed, with her
+_mantilla_ over her eyes, left the house as if fleeing from evil dreams,
+going to take refuge in the churches. Her simple faith, which
+uncertainty burdened with superstitions, made her go from altar to altar
+as she recalled to mind the merits and miracles of each image. She went
+to San Gil, the church that had seen the happiest day of her existence,
+she knelt before the Virgin of Macarena, provided candles, many candles,
+and by their ruddy glow contemplated the brown face of the image with
+its black eyes and long lashes, which, it was said, resembled her own.
+In her she trusted. For a good reason was she Our Lady of Hope. Surely
+at this very hour she was protecting Juan by her divine power.
+
+But suddenly indecision and fear rudely burst through her beliefs,
+tearing them asunder. The Virgin was a woman and women are so weak! Her
+destiny was to suffer and weep, as she wept for her husband, as the
+other had wept for her Son. She must confide in stronger powers; she
+must implore the aid of a more vigorous protection. And, in the stress
+of her agony, abandoning the Macarena without scruple as a useless
+friendship is forgotten, she went at other times to the church of San
+Lorenzo in search of Jesus, He of the Great Power, the Man-God crowned
+with thorns with the cross on his back, sweaty and tearful, the work of
+the sculptor Montanes, an awe-inspiring image.
+
+The dramatic sadness of the Nazarene stumbling against the stones and
+bent beneath the weight of the cross seemed to console the poor wife.
+Lord of the Great Power! This vague and grandiose title tranquillized
+her. If the god dressed in brown velvet and gold would but deign to
+listen to her sighs, to her prayers repeated in eager haste, with dizzy
+rapidity, she was sure that Juan would walk unscathed out of the ring
+where he was at that moment. Again she would give money to a sacristan
+to light candles, and she passed hours contemplating the vacillating
+reflection of the red tongues on the image, believing she saw in the
+varnished face, by these alternations of shade and light, smiles of
+consolation, kind expressions that promised felicity.
+
+The Lord of Great Power did not deceive her. On her return to the house
+she was presented with the little blue paper which she opened with a
+trembling hand: "_As usual_." She could breathe again, she could sleep
+like the criminal that is freed for the instant from immediate death;
+but in two or three days again came the agony of uncertainty, the
+terrible torture of doubt.
+
+Carmen, in spite of the love she professed for her husband, had hours of
+rebellion. If she had known what this existence was before she married!
+At certain moments, craving the sisterhood of pain, she went in search
+of the wives of the bull-fighters who figured in Juan's _cuadrilla_,
+hoping they could give her news.
+
+Nacional's good woman, who kept a tavern in the same ward, received the
+master's wife with tranquillity, wondering at her fears. She was
+accustomed to such an existence. Her husband must be all right since he
+sent no word. Telegrams cost dear and a _banderillero_ earns little. If
+the newsboys did not shout an accident it was because none had happened.
+And she continued attentive to the service of her establishment as if no
+trace of worry could make its way into her blunted sensibility.
+
+Again, crossing the bridge, Carmen went to the ward of Triana in search
+of the wife of Potaje, the _picador_, a kind of gypsy that lived in a
+hut like a hen-house surrounded by coppery, dirty youngsters whom she
+threatened and terrified with stentorian yells. The visit of the
+master's wife filled her with pride, but the latter's anxiety almost
+made her laugh. She ought not to be afraid. Those on foot always escaped
+the bull and Senor Juan Gallardo's good angel watched over him when he
+threw himself upon the beasts. The bulls killed but few. The terrible
+thing was being thrown from the horse. It was known to be the end of all
+_picadores_ after a life of horrible falls; those who did not die
+suddenly from an unforeseen and thundering accident finished their days
+in madness. Thus poor Potaje would die--and so many hard struggles in
+exchange for a handful of _duros_,--while others--
+
+This last she did not say but her eyes revealed the protest against the
+favoritism of Fate for those fine youths who, by a thrust of the sword,
+took the applause, the popularity, and the money, with no greater risks
+than those faced by their humbler associates.
+
+Little by little Carmen grew accustomed to this new life. The cruel
+suspense on bull-fight days, the visits to the saints, the
+superstitious fears, she accepted them all as incidents necessary to her
+existence. Moreover, her husband's good luck and the continual
+conversation in the house on the events of the contest finally
+familiarized her with the danger. The fierce bull became for her as for
+Gallardo a generous and noble beast come into the world with no other
+purpose than to enrich and give fame to those who kill him.
+
+She never attended a bull-fight. Since that afternoon on which she saw
+him who was to be her husband in his first _novillada_, she had not
+returned to the plaza. She lacked courage to witness a bull-fight, even
+one in which Gallardo did not take part. She would faint with terror on
+seeing other men face the danger dressed in the same costume as her
+Juan.
+
+In the third year of their marriage Gallardo was wounded at Valencia.
+Carmen did not know it at once. The telegram arrived on time with the
+customary, "_As usual_." It was a merciful act of Don Jose, the manager,
+who, visiting Carmen every day and resorting to skilful jugglery to
+prevent her reading the papers, put off her knowledge of the misfortune
+for a week.
+
+When Carmen heard of it through the indiscretion of some neighbor women
+she wished to take the train immediately to go to her husband, to take
+care of him, for she imagined him abandoned. It was not necessary.
+Before she could start the swordsman arrived, pale from the loss of
+blood, and with one leg doomed to a long season of immobility, but happy
+and anxious to tranquillize his family. The house was from that time a
+kind of sanctuary, hundreds passing through the courtyard to greet
+Gallardo, "the greatest man in the world," seated there in a big willow
+chair with his leg on a tabourette and smoking as tranquilly as though
+his body were not torn by an atrocious wound.
+
+Doctor Ruiz, who came with him to Seville, prophesied that he would be
+well before a month, marvelling at the energy of his constitution. The
+facility with which bull-fighters were cured was a mystery to him in
+spite of his long practice of surgery. The horn, dirty with blood and
+animal excrement, often breaking into splinters at the blow, tore the
+flesh, scratched it, perforated it, making at once a deep penetrating
+injury and a bruised contusion, and yet these atrocious wounds healed
+with greater ease than those in ordinary life.
+
+"I don't know what it is, this mystery," said the old surgeon with an
+air of doubt. "Either those boys have got the flesh of a dog, or else
+the horn, with all its filth, carries a curative virtue that is unknown
+to us."
+
+A short time afterward, Gallardo went back to bull-fighting, his ardor
+uncooled by the accident, contrary to the prediction of his enemies.
+
+Four years after his marriage the swordsman gave his wife and mother a
+great surprise. They were becoming landed proprietors, yea, proprietors
+on a great scale, with lands "stretching beyond view," with olive
+orchards, mills, great flocks and herds, and a plantation like those of
+the rich gentlemen of Seville.
+
+Gallardo experienced the desire of all bull-fighters, who long to be
+lords over lands, breeders of horses, and owners of herds of cattle.
+Urban wealth? No. Values in paper do not tempt them nor do they
+understand them. The bull makes them think of the green meadow; the
+horse recalls the country to their minds. The continual necessity of
+movement and exercise, the hunt, and constant travel during the winter
+months, cause them to desire the possession of land. According to
+Gallardo the only rich man was he who owned a plantation and great herds
+of animals. Since his days of poverty, when he had tramped along the
+roads through olive orchards and pasture grounds, he had nursed his
+fervent desire to possess leagues and leagues of land, enclosed with
+barbed-wire fences against the depredation of other men.
+
+His manager knew these desires. Don Jose it was who took charge of his
+affairs, collecting the money from the ring-managers and carrying an
+account that he tried in vain to explain to his _matador_.
+
+"I don't understand that music," said Gallardo, content in his
+ignorance, "I only know how to despatch bulls. Do whatever you wish, Don
+Jose; I have confidence in you and I know that you do everything for my
+good." So Don Jose, who scarcely ever thought about his own property,
+leaving it to the weak administration of his wife, occupied himself at
+all hours with the bull-fighter's fortune, placing his money at interest
+with the heart of a usurer to make it fruitful. One day he fell upon his
+client joyfully.
+
+"I have what thou desirest, a plantation like a world, and besides, it
+is very cheap; a regular bargain. Next week we will get it into
+writing."
+
+Gallardo was eager to know the name and situation of the plantation.
+
+"It is called La Rinconada."
+
+His desires were fulfilled! When Gallardo went with his wife and mother
+to take possession of the plantation he showed them the hayloft where
+he had slept with the companions of his wandering misery, the room in
+which he had dined with the master, and the little plaza where he had
+stabbed a calf, earning for the first time the right to travel by train
+without having to hide beneath the seats.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LURE OF GOLDEN HAIR
+
+
+On winter evenings when Gallardo was not at La Rinconada, a company of
+friends gathered in the dining-room of his house after supper. Among the
+first arrivals were the leather-worker and his wife, who always had two
+of their children in the swordsman's home. Carmen, wishing to forget her
+barrenness and oppressed by the silence of the great dwelling, kept her
+sister-in-law's youngest children with her most of the time. They,
+partly from spontaneous affection and partly by command of their
+parents, affectionately caressed with kissings and cat-like purrings
+their handsome aunt and their generous and popular uncle.
+
+When Nacional came to spend an hour with them, although the visit was
+rather a matter of duty, the circle was always enlivened. Gallardo,
+dressed in a rich jacket like a country gentleman, his head uncovered,
+and his coleta smooth and shiny, received his _banderillero_ with
+waggish amiability. What were the devotees saying? What lies were they
+circulating? How was the republic coming along?
+
+"Garabato, give Sebastian a glass of wine."
+
+But Nacional refused this courtesy. No wine for him! He did not drink.
+Wine was to blame for the failures of the laboring class; and the whole
+party on hearing this broke out into a laugh, as though he had made
+some witty remark which they had been expecting. Then the
+_banderillero_ began to be entertaining.
+
+The only one who remained silent, with hostile eyes, was the
+leather-worker. He hated Nacional, regarding him as an enemy. He also
+was prolific in his fidelity, as befits a man of good principles, so
+that a swarm of young children buzzed about the little tavern clinging
+to the mother's skirts. Gallardo and his wife had been god-parents to
+the two youngest, thus uniting the swordsman and the _banderillero_ in
+the relationship of _compadres_. Hypocrite! Every Sunday he brought the
+two god-children, dressed in their best, to kiss the hand of their
+sponsors in baptism, and the leather-worker paled with indignation
+whenever he saw Nacional's children receive a present. They came to rob
+his own. Maybe the _banderillero_ even dreamt that a part of the
+swordsman's fortune might fall into the hands of these god-children.
+Thief! A man who was not of the family!
+
+When he did not receive Nacional's words in silence and with looks of
+hatred he tried to censure him, showing himself in favor of the
+immediate shooting of all who stir up rebellion and are in consequence a
+danger to good citizens.
+
+Nacional was ten years older than the _maestro_. When Gallardo began to
+fight in the capeas he was already a _banderillero_ in professional
+_cuadrillas_ and he had been to America where he had killed bulls in the
+plaza at Lima. At the beginning of his career he enjoyed a certain
+popularity on account of being young and agile. He had also shone for a
+few days as "the bull-fighter of the future," and the Sevillian
+connoisseurs, their eyes upon him, expected him to eclipse the
+bull-fighters from other lands. But this lasted only a short while. On
+his return from his travels with the prestige of hazy and distant
+exploits, the populace rushed to the bull-plaza of Seville to see him
+kill. Thousands were unable to get in; but at the moment of final trial
+"he lacked heart," as the amateurs said. He lodged the _banderillas_
+with skill, like a conscientious and serious workman who fulfils his
+duty, but when he went in to kill the instinct of self-preservation,
+stronger than his will, kept him at a distance from the bull and
+prevented his taking advantage of his stature and his strong arm.
+Nacional renounced the highest glories of tauromachy. _Banderillero_,
+nothing more! He resigned himself to be a journeyman of his art, serving
+others younger than himself and earning a meagre salary as a _peon_ to
+support his family and lay by some scanty savings to establish a small
+industry by and by. His kindness and his honest habits were proverbial
+among the people of the _coleta_. The wife of his _matador_ was fond of
+him, believing him a kind of guardian angel of her husband's fidelity.
+
+When, in summer, Gallardo with all his people went to a music hall in
+some provincial capital, eager for gambling and sport after having
+despatched the bulls in several _corridas_, Nacional remained silent and
+grave among the singing girls with their gauzy dress and their painted
+lips, like an anchorite from the desert in the midst of the courtesans
+of Alexandria. He was not scandalized but he grew sad thinking of the
+wife and children that waited for him in Seville. All defects and
+corruptions in the world were, in his opinion, the result of lack of
+education. Of course those poor women did not know how to read and
+write. The same was true of himself and, as he attributed his
+insignificance and poverty of intellect to that, he laid all misery and
+degradation in the world to the same cause. In his early youth he had
+been an iron-founder and an active member of the International Workmen's
+Union, an assiduous listener to his more fortunate fellow-workmen who
+could read in a loud voice what the newspapers said of the welfare of
+the people. He played at soldiering in the days of the national militia,
+figuring in the battalions which wore the red cap as the sign of being
+implacable federalist propagandists. He spent whole days before the
+platforms raised in the public squares, where various societies declared
+themselves in permanent session and orators succeeded one another day
+and night, haranguing with Andalusian fluency about the divinity of
+Jesus and the increase in the price of articles of prime necessity,
+until, when hard times came, a strike left him in the trying situation
+of the workman black-listed on account of his ideas, finding himself
+turned away from every shop.
+
+He liked bull-fighting and he became a _torero_ at twenty-four, just as
+he might have chosen any other trade. He, moreover, knew a great deal
+and talked with contempt of the absurdities of the present state of
+society. Not for nothing does one spend years hearing the papers read!
+However ill he might fare at bull-fighting he would surely earn more and
+have an easier life than if he were a skilled workman. The people,
+remembering the time when he shouldered the musket of the popular
+militia, nicknamed him Nacional.
+
+He spoke of the taurine profession with a certain regret, in spite of
+the years he had spent therein, and he apologized for belonging to it.
+The committee of his district, who had decreed the expulsion of all who
+attended bull-fights on account of their barbarous and retrograding
+influence, had made an exception in his favor, retaining him as an
+active member in good standing.
+
+"I know," he said in Gallardo's dining-room, "that this business of the
+bulls is a reactionary thing--something belonging to the times of the
+Inquisition; I don't know whether I explain myself. The people need to
+learn to read and write as much as they need bread and it is not well
+for them to spend their money on us while they so greatly lack
+schooling. That is what the papers that come from Madri' say. But the
+club members appreciate me, and the committee, after a long preachment
+from Don Joselito, have agreed to keep me on the roll of membership."
+
+Don Joselito, the school teacher and chairman of the committee of the
+district, was a learned young man of Israelitish extraction who brought
+to the political struggle the ardor of the Maccabees and was
+undistressed by his brown ugliness and his small-pox scars because they
+gave him a certain likeness to Danton. Nacional always listened to him
+open-mouthed.
+
+When Don Jose, Gallardo's business manager, and other friends of the
+master, jokingly disputed his doctrines at those after-dinner
+gatherings, making extravagant objections, poor Nacional was in
+suspense, scratching his forehead from perplexity.
+
+"You are gentlemen and have studied and I don't know how to read or
+write. That is why we of the lower class are like sheep. But if only Don
+Joselito were here! By the life of the blue dove! If you could hear him
+when he lets loose and talks like an angel!"
+
+To fortify his faith, somewhat weakened by the assaults of the jokers,
+he would go the following day to see Don Joselito, who seemed to
+luxuriate in bitterness, as a descendant of the persecuted chosen
+people, and look over what Joselito called his museum of horrors. The
+Hebrew, returned to the native land of his forefathers, was collecting
+relics of the Inquisition in a room of the school, with the vengeful
+accuracy of a prisoner who might reconstruct bone by bone the skeleton
+of his jailor. In a bookcase stood rows of parchment tomes--decrees of
+sentences pronounced by the Inquisition and catechisms for interrogating
+the offender undergoing torture. On one wall hung a white banner with
+the dreaded green cross. In the corners were heaped instruments of
+torture--frightful scourges and fiendish devices for cleaving, for
+stripping and tearing human flesh, that Don Joselito found in the shops
+of the curio-dealers and catalogued as ancient belongings of the Holy
+Office. Nacional's kind and simple soul, easily roused to anger, rose in
+rebellion at the sight of these rusty irons and green crosses.
+
+"Man alive! And yet there are those that say--! By the life of the dove!
+I would like to see some folks here!"
+
+Often in summer, when the _cuadrilla_ was going from one province to
+another and Gallardo went into the second class carriage in which "the
+boys" were travelling, some rural priest or pair of friars would get on
+board. The _banderilleros_ would nudge each other with their elbows and
+wink one eye looking at Nacional, who seemed even more grave and solemn
+in the presence of the enemy. The _picadores_, Potaje and Tragabuches,
+lusty aggressive fellows, lovers of riots and fights who felt a decided
+aversion to the ecclesiastical dress, urged him on in a loud voice.
+
+"There's thy chance! Go at him for the good cause! Lodge one of thy
+yarns in the nape of his neck."
+
+The _maestro_, with all his authority as chief of _cuadrilla_, against
+which none may parley nor argue, rolled his eyes, and looked at
+Nacional, who maintained a silent obedience. But stronger than duty was
+the impulse of his simple soul to convert, and an insignificant word was
+enough to open a discussion with the travellers, to try to convince them
+of the truth; and the truth was for him a kind of confused and
+disordered remnant of arguments learned from Don Joselito.
+
+His comrades looked at each other astonished at the wisdom of their
+companion, well pleased that one of them should face professional people
+and put them in a tight place, for they were almost invariably priests
+of little learning. And the holy men, astounded at Nacional's confused
+reasoning and the smiles of the other bull-fighters, finally resorted to
+an extreme measure. Did men who continually exposed their lives to peril
+take no thought of God and believe in such things as he said? At this
+very moment how their wives and mothers must be praying for them!
+
+The men of the _cuadrilla_ grew serious, thinking with timorous gravity
+of the scapularies and medallions feminine hands had sewed to their
+fighting garments before they left Seville. The _matador_, his sleeping
+superstition aroused, was angry with Nacional, as though in this lack of
+piety he foresaw danger to his life.
+
+"Keep still and don't talk any more of your crudities. Pardon, Senores!
+He is a good man but his head has been turned by so many lies. Shut up
+and don't give me any impertinence. Damn it all!"
+
+And Gallardo, to tranquillize these gentlemen whom he believed to be
+trustees of the future, overwhelmed the _banderillero_ with threats and
+curses.
+
+Nacional took refuge in disdainful silence. All ignorance and
+superstition! All from lack of knowing how to read and write! And firm
+in his beliefs, with the simplicity of a man who possesses only two or
+three ideas and will not let go of them, he took up the discussion again
+in a few hours--paying no heed to the anger of the _matador_.
+
+He carried his impiety even into the midst of the ring, among _peones_
+and pikemen who, after having said a prayer in the chapel of the plaza,
+went into the arena with the hope that the sacred emblems sewed to their
+clothing would deliver them from danger.
+
+When the time came to stick the barbs into some enormous bull of great
+weight, thick neck, and deep black color, Nacional stood up before him
+with his arms extended and the barbs in his hands, shouting insults at
+him:
+
+"Come on, you old priest!"
+
+The "priest" dashed forward furiously, and as he approached, Nacional
+lodged the _banderillas_ in the nape of his neck with all his strength,
+saying in a loud voice, as if he had gained a victory:
+
+"For the clergy!"
+
+Gallardo ended by laughing at Nacional's extravagances.
+
+"Thou makest me ridiculous. Our _cuadrilla_ will be branded as a herd of
+heretics. Thou knowest that some audiences don't like that. The
+bull-fighter should only fight bulls."
+
+Nevertheless, he loved his _banderillero_, mindful of his attachment
+which had sometimes risen to the point of sacrifice. Nacional cared not
+if he were hissed when he lodged the _banderillas_ carelessly in
+dangerous bulls as a result of his desire to get through quickly. He
+cared nothing for glory and only fought bulls for his wage. But the
+moment Gallardo walked sword in hand toward a treacherous bull the
+_banderillero_ kept near him, ready to aid him with his heavy cape and
+his strong arm which had humbled the necks of so many wild beasts. Twice
+when Gallardo rolled on the sand, nearly caught by the dagger-like
+horns, Nacional threw himself upon the animal forgetting his wife, his
+children, his little tavern, everything, ready to die to save his
+_maestro_. He was received in Gallardo's dining-room in the evenings,
+therefore, as though he were a member of the family.
+
+Gallardo and Don Jose, who sat across the table smoking, the glass of
+cognac within reach of the hand, liked to start Nacional to talking so
+as to laugh at his ideas, and they teased him by insulting Don
+Joselito--a liar who turned the heads of the ignorant!
+
+The _banderillero_ took the jokes of the swordsman and his manager
+calmly. Doubt Don Joselito? Such an absurdity could not move him--no
+more than if they should attack his other idol, Gallardo, telling him he
+did not know how to kill a bull.
+
+But when the leather-worker, who inspired him with an irresistible
+aversion, began to joke him he lost composure. Who was that hungry
+fellow who lived by hanging onto his master, to dare to dispute him!
+And losing self-command, forgetting the presence of the master's wife
+and mother and of Encarnacion, who, imitating her husband, curled her
+be-whiskered lip and looked scornfully at the _banderillero_, he rushed
+down grade into an exposition of his views with the same fervor with
+which he discoursed in the committee. For lack of better arguments he
+overwhelmed the ideas of the jokers with insults.
+
+"The Bible? _Liquid!_ That nonsense about creation of the world in six
+days? _Liquid!_ That about Adam and Eve? _Liquid_, also! All lies and
+superstition."
+
+And the word _liquid_, applied to whatever he believed false or
+insignificant, fell from his lips as a strong expression of scorn. "That
+about Adam and Eve" was for him a subject of sarcasm. How could all
+human beings be descendants from one pair only?
+
+"My name is Sebastian Venegas; and thou, Juaniyo, thy name is Gallardo;
+and you, Don Jose, have your surname; and every one has his own, only
+those of the parents being alike. If we were all grandchildren of Adam,
+and Adam, for example, was named Perez, we would all have Perez for a
+surname. Is that clear? But every one of us has his own because there
+were many Adams and what the priests tell is all _liquid!_ Superstition
+and ignorance! We lack education and they deceive us; I think I explain
+myself."
+
+Gallardo, throwing himself back with laughter, saluted his
+_banderillero_, imitating the bellowing of a bull. The business manager,
+with Andalusian gravity, offered him his hand, congratulating him.
+
+"Shake, old boy! Thou hast done well! Not even Castelar could have done
+better!"
+
+Senora Angustias was indignant at hearing such things in her house,
+horrified with the terror of an old woman who sees the end of her
+existence drawing near.
+
+"Shut up, Sebastian; shut thy big, wicked mouth, lost soul, or into the
+street thou goest! Thou shalt not say those things here, thou devil! If
+I did not know thee--If I did not know that thou art a good man--"
+
+Finally she became reconciled to the _banderillero_, remembering how
+much he loved her Juan and what he had done for him in moments of
+danger. Moreover, it gave her and Carmen great ease of mind to know that
+this serious man of decent habits worked in the _cuadrilla_ by the side
+of the other "boys" and of the _matador_ himself, who, when he was
+alone, was excessively gay in disposition and let himself be carried
+away by the desire to be admired by women.
+
+The enemy of the clergy and of Adam and Eve guarded a secret of his
+_maestro_, however, that made him reserved and grave when he saw him at
+home with his mother and Senora Carmen. If these women knew what _he_
+knew!
+
+In spite of the respect which every _banderillero_ should show his
+_matador_ Nacional had dared one day to talk to Gallardo with rough
+frankness, relying on his years and on their old friendship.
+
+"Be careful, Juaniyo, for everybody in Seville knows the whole story!
+They talk of nothing else and the news is going to reach your house and
+there'll be such a riot it'll set fire to the hair of God himself--Don't
+forget about that affair with the singing girl; and that was nothing!
+This creature is more forceful and more dangerous."
+
+"But what creature is that? And what riots are those thou art talking
+about?"
+
+"Who can it be? Dona Sol; that great lady who makes so much talk. The
+niece of the Marquis of Moraima, the cattle-breeder."
+
+And as the swordsman was smiling and silent, flattered by Nacional's
+exact information, the latter continued with the air of a preacher
+proclaiming the vanities of this world, "The married man should above
+all things seek the tranquillity of his house. Women! _Liquid!_ They are
+all alike and it is nonsense to embitter one's life jumping from one to
+another. I am a married man and in the twenty-four years I have lived
+with my Teresa I have never been faithless to her even in thought,
+although I am a bull-fighter; and I had my day and more than one lass
+has cast tender eyes at me."
+
+Gallardo burst out laughing at his _banderillero_. He talked like a
+father-superior. And was this the same man that wanted to eat the
+priests up raw?
+
+"Nacional, don't be hard on me. Every one is what he is and since the
+women come, let them come. What does one live for? Any day he may go out
+of the ring foot foremost. Besides, thou knowest nothing of the affair,
+nor what a lady is. If thou couldst _see_ that woman!"
+
+Then he ingenuously added, as if he wished to counter-act the expression
+of scandal and sadness engraved on Nacional's countenance:
+
+"I love Carmen very much, dost thou understand? I love her as well as
+ever; but the other I love too. That is different. I don't know how to
+explain it to thee. That's another matter. Drop it!"
+
+And the _banderillero_ could make no further headway in his
+expostulation with Gallardo.
+
+Months before, when with the autumn came the end of the bull-fighting
+season, the swordsman had had an adventure at the Church of San Lorenzo.
+He was resting in Seville a few days before going to La Rinconada with
+his family. To kill more than a hundred bulls a year with all the danger
+and strain of the contest did not weary him so much as the ceaseless
+travel from one end of Spain to the other during a period of several
+months. These journeys were made in mid-summer, under a blistering sun,
+over parched plains and in old cars whose roofs seemed to be on fire.
+The water-jar belonging to the _cuadrilla_, filled at every station, was
+not enough to quench the thirst. Moreover, the trains ran crowded with
+passengers--people going to the fairs in the cities to see the
+bull-fights. Often Gallardo, for fear of missing the train, killed his
+last bull in one plaza, and, still dressed in his fighting costume,
+rushed to the train, passing like a meteor of light and color among the
+groups of travellers and baggage trucks, and changed his clothes in a
+first-class compartment under the gaze of the passengers, who were glad
+to travel with a celebrity.
+
+When he arrived, worn-out, at some city where the streets were in festal
+array, decorated with banners and arches, he had to endure the torment
+of enthusiastic adoration. The connoisseurs and his personal adherents
+met him at the station and accompanied him to his hotel. They were
+well-rested and happy folk who grasped him by the hand and expected to
+find him expansive and loquacious, as though on meeting them he must
+perforce experience the greatest pleasure.
+
+Frequently a single _corrida_ was not all. He had to fight bulls three
+or four days in succession, and when night came, exhausted from
+weariness and lack of sleep on account of his recent excitement, he gave
+up all social affairs and sat at the door of the hotel in his
+shirt-sleeves, enjoying the fresh air of the street. The "boys" of the
+_cuadrilla_ lodged at the same inn and kept near the _maestro_, like a
+brotherhood in a cloister. Some of the most audacious would ask
+permission to take a walk along the illuminated streets and out to the
+fair grounds.
+
+"Miuras to-morrow!" said the _matador_. "I know what those walks are.
+Thou wilt return at daybreak with two glasses too many and thou'lt not
+fail to have some kind of an affair to take thy strength. No; thou canst
+not go. When we get through thou mayest play."
+
+And the work over, if there were a few days of liberty before the next
+_corrida_ in some other city, the _cuadrilla_ would put off the trip,
+and then the gay time would begin, far from the restraint of their
+families, with abundance of wine and women in company with enthusiastic
+devotees, who imagined this to be the everyday life of their idols.
+
+The divers dates of the _fiestas_ obliged the swordsman to take absurd
+journeys. He would leave one city to work in the other extreme of Spain,
+and four days later he would return, fighting bulls in a town near the
+first one. He almost spent the summer months, when _corridas_ were most
+frequent, in the train, making a continual zigzag over all the railroads
+of the Peninsula, killing bulls in the plazas, and sleeping on the
+cars.
+
+"If all my summer travel were arranged in a straight line," said
+Gallardo, "it would sure reach to the North Pole."
+
+At the beginning of the season he started on his travels with
+enthusiasm, thinking of the multitude that talked of him throughout the
+whole year, impatiently awaiting his coming; he thought of the
+unforeseen events; of the adventures that feminine curiosity would
+frequently yield him; of the life from hotel to hotel, with its changes,
+its annoyances, its varied meals, that contrasted strongly with the
+placid existence in Seville and the days of mountain solitude at La
+Rinconada. But after a few weeks of this giddy life, in which he earned
+five thousand pesetas for each afternoon of work, Gallardo began to
+lament, like a child far from its family.
+
+"Ah! My cool house in Seville! Poor Carmen who keeps it shining like a
+little silver cup! Ah! _Mamita's_ cooking! So rich!"
+
+He only forgot Seville on holiday nights, when he did not have to fight
+bulls the following day; when all the _cuadrilla_, surrounded by
+devotees anxious to give them a good impression of the city, gathered at
+a _cafe flamenco_ where women and songs were all for the _maestro_.
+
+When Gallardo went home to recuperate during the remainder of the year
+he felt the satisfaction of the mighty who, forgetting honors, give
+themselves up to the comforts of ordinary life.
+
+He slept late, free from the tyranny of train schedules and unstirred by
+any emotion when he thought of bulls. Nothing to do this day, nor the
+next, nor the next! His travel ended at Sierpes Street, or the plaza of
+San Fernando. The family seemed changed, happier and in better health,
+having him safe at home for a few months. He went out with his hat on
+the back of his head, twirling his gold-headed cane and admiring the big
+brilliants on his fingers. In the vestibule some men were waiting for
+him,--sun-browned men with a sour, sweaty, stench, wearing dirty blouses
+and broad hats with ragged rims. Some were field laborers out on a
+tramp, who thought it quite natural on passing through Seville to obtain
+help from the famous _matador_ whom they called Senor Juan. Others lived
+in the city, and _thou_-ed the bull-fighter, calling him Juaniyo.
+
+Gallardo, with a memory for faces characteristic of a public man,
+recognized them and permitted their familiarity. They were comrades of
+his few school days or his youthful vagabondage.
+
+"Business not going well, eh? Times are hard for everybody."
+
+And before this friendliness could encourage them to greater intimacy he
+turned to Garabato who stood holding the gate open.
+
+"Tell the _senora_ to give thee a couple of _pesetas_ for each one."
+
+Then he went out into the street whistling, pleased with his generosity
+and the beauty of his life. He was detained on the next block by a
+couple of old women, friends of his mother, who asked him to stand as
+godfather to the grandchild of one of them. Her poor daughter was about
+to become a mother at any moment; her son-in-law, an ardent Gallardist,
+had come to blows several times going out of the plaza in defence of his
+idol but dared not speak to him.
+
+"But, damn it! Do you take me for the director of an orphan asylum?
+I've got more god-children than there are in the poor-house."
+
+To rid himself of them he told them to see his _mamita_. Whatever she
+said should stand! And he went on, not stopping until he reached Sierpes
+Street, bowing to some and giving others the honor of walking at his
+side in glorious intimacy before the gaze of the passersby.
+
+He looked in at the Forty-five Club, to see if his manager were there.
+This was an aristocratic society of a limited membership, as its title
+indicated, in which the talk was only of bulls and horses. It was
+composed of gentlemen-amateurs and cattle-breeders, the Marquis of
+Moraima figuring preeminently, like an oracle.
+
+On one of these walks, one afternoon, Gallardo found himself sauntering
+along Sierpes Street, and took a notion to enter the parish chapel of
+San Lorenzo. In the little square before it stood luxurious carriages.
+On this day the best families were wont to pray to the miraculous image
+of Our Lord Jesus of the Great Power. Ladies stepped out of the coaches,
+dressed in black, with rich _mantillas_; and men went into the church
+attracted by the feminine assemblage.
+
+Gallardo entered also. A bull-fighter must take advantage of
+opportunities to rub elbows with persons of high position. The son of
+Senora Angustias felt the pride of a conqueror when rich gentlemen bowed
+to him and elegant ladies murmured his name, turning their eyes upon
+him. Moreover, he was a devotee of the Lord of the Great Power. He
+tolerated in Nacional his opinions on "God or Nature" without being much
+shocked, for the Divinity meant for him something vague and indefinite,
+like the existence of a great lord about whom one might listen calmly
+to all kinds of blasphemy, because he is only known by hearsay. But the
+Virgin of Hope and Jesus of the Great Power he had been accustomed to
+seeing since his earliest years, and these must not be maligned. The
+susceptibilities of the lusty youth were touched by the theatrical agony
+of the Christ with the cross on his back, the sweaty countenance,
+painful and livid like that of comrades he had seen stretched out in the
+infirmaries of the bull-plazas. He must be on good terms with this
+powerful lord and he fervently uttered several _pater-nosters_, standing
+before the image, with the candles like red stars reflected in the
+corneas of his Moorish eyes.
+
+A movement among the women kneeling before him distracted his attention,
+which had been absorbed in a plea for supernatural intervention whenever
+his life should be in danger.
+
+A lady passed among the worshippers, attracting their notice; she was a
+tall, slender woman, of astounding beauty, dressed in light colors and
+wearing a great hat with plumes beneath which shone the luminous gold of
+her abundant hair.
+
+Gallardo knew her. It was Dona Sol, the Marquis of Moraima's niece, the
+"Ambassadress," as they called her in Seville. She passed among the
+women paying no attention to their movements of curiosity, satisfied to
+win their glances and to hear the murmur of their words as though this
+were a natural homage that should follow her appearance in any public
+place. The foreign elegance of her dress and her enormous hat were
+outlined in their showy splendor against the dark mass of feminine
+toilettes. She knelt, inclined her head as if in prayer for a few
+moments, and then her light eyes of greenish blue, with their
+reflections of gold, roved about the temple tranquilly as though she
+were in a theatre examining the audience, searching for familiar faces.
+Those eyes seemed to smile when they encountered the face of a friend
+and persisted in their roving until they met Gallardo's, which were
+fixed upon her. The _matador_ was not modest. Accustomed to being
+himself the object of contemplation of thousands and thousands of
+persons on bull-fight afternoons, he might well believe that, wherever
+he was, the looks of all must of course be meant for him. Many women, in
+hours of confidence, had revealed to him their emotion, the curiosity
+and desire they felt on seeing him for the first time in the ring. Dona
+Sol's gaze did not fall as it met the bull-fighter's; instead it
+remained fixed, with the frigidity of a great lady, obliging the
+_matador_, ever respectful to the rich, to turn his eyes away.
+
+"What a woman!" thought Gallardo, with the petulance of a popular idol.
+"Can that _gachi_ be for me?"
+
+Outside of the church he felt a desire to wait, and he remained near the
+door. His heart warned him of something extraordinary, as on afternoons
+when good fortune was coming. It was that mysterious presentiment which
+in the ring made him deaf to the protests of the public, throwing
+himself headlong into the greatest dangers, and always with excellent
+results. When she came out of the church she again looked at him
+strangely, as if she had guessed that he would be waiting for her. She
+stepped into an open carriage accompanied by two friends, and when the
+coachman drove away she still turned her head to see the bull-fighter, a
+faint smile on her lips.
+
+Gallardo was distracted the remainder of the afternoon--thinking of his
+former love affairs, of the triumphs of admiration and curiosity that
+his bull-fighter's arrogance had won for him; conquests that filled him
+with pride and made him think himself irresistible, but which now
+inspired him with a kind of shame. A woman like that, a great lady, who
+had travelled about the world and lived in Seville like an unthroned
+queen! That would be a conquest! To his admiration of beauty was united
+a certain reverence derived from ancient servitude, of respect for the
+rich in a country where birth and fortune possess great importance. If
+he should manage to claim the attention of that woman, what a tremendous
+triumph!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE VOICE OF THE SIREN
+
+
+Don Jose, firm friend of the Marquis of Moraima, and related to the best
+families of Seville, had often talked to Gallardo concerning Dona Sol.
+
+She had returned to Seville only a few months before, arousing the
+enthusiasm of the young people. She came, after a long absence in
+foreign lands, eager for everything pertaining to _la tierra_, enjoying
+the popular customs and finding it all very interesting, "very
+artistic." She went to the bull-fights arrayed in the ancient costume of
+a _maja_, imitating the dress and pose of the beautiful women painted by
+Goya. Strong, accustomed to sports, and a great horsewoman, the people
+saw her galloping around the outskirts of Seville, wearing with her
+black riding skirt a man's jacket, a red cravat, and a white beaver hat
+perched on top of her golden hair. Sometimes she carried a spear across
+the pommel of the saddle and with a party of friends converted into
+_piqueros_, she went to the pasture grounds to tease and upset bulls,
+enjoying this wild festivity, abounding as it did in danger. She was not
+a child. Gallardo had a confused recollection of having seen her in his
+youth on the _paseo_ of Delicias, seated beside her mother and covered
+with white frills, like a luxurious doll in a show-case, while he, a
+miserable vagabond, dashed under the wheels of the carriage in search of
+cigar stubs. They were undoubtedly the same age,--she must be at the
+end of the twenties; but how magnificent! So different from other women!
+She seemed like an exotic bird, a bird of paradise, fallen into a
+farmyard among mere shiny, well fed hens.
+
+Don Jose knew her history. An eccentric mind had Dona Sol! Her mother
+was dead and she had a considerable fortune. She had married in Madrid a
+certain man older than herself, who offered to a woman eager for
+splendor and novelty the advantages of travelling about the world as the
+wife of an ambassador who represented Spain at the principal courts.
+
+"The way that girl has amused herself, Juan!" said the manager. "The
+heads she has turned in ten years from one end of Europe to the other!
+She must be a regular geography with secret notes at the foot of each
+page. Surely she cannot look at the map without making a little cross of
+memory near all the great capitals. And the poor ambassador! He died, of
+despondency, no doubt, because there was no longer any place to which he
+could be sent. The good gentleman, accredited to represent our country,
+would go to a court and inside of a year, behold! the queen or the
+empress of that land was writing to Spain asking the minister to retire
+the ambassador and his dreaded consort, whom the newspapers called 'the
+irresistible Spanish woman.' The crowned heads that _gachi_ has turned!
+Queens trembled when they saw her come, as if she were the Asiatic
+cholera. At last the poor ambassador saw no other place for his talents
+but the republics of America, but as he was a gentleman of good
+principles and the friend of kings, he preferred to die. And don't think
+that the girl contented herself only with personages who eat and dance
+in royal palaces. Not if what they say be true! That child is all
+extremes; it is all or nothing! She will as soon go after one that digs
+in the ground as the highest above it. I have heard that there in Russia
+she was running after one of those bushy-haired fellows that throw
+bombs, a youth with a woman's face, who paid no attention to her because
+she disturbed him in his business. But the girl kept chasing and chasing
+after him until finally they hung him. They say, too, that she had an
+affair with a painter in Paris, and they even say he painted her in the
+nude, with one arm over her face so as not to be recognized, and that
+the picture travels around that way on match-boxes. That must be false;
+an exaggeration! What seems more certain is that she was the great
+friend of a German, a musician--one of those who write operas. If thou
+couldst hear her play the piano! And when she sings! Just like one of
+those singers that come to the theatre of San Fernando in the Easter
+season. And think not that she sings in Italian only; she talks
+anything--French, German, English. Her uncle, the Marquis of Moraima,
+when he talks about her at the Forty-five says he has his suspicions
+that she speaks Latin. What a woman! Eh, Juanillo? What an interesting
+creature!
+
+"In Seville," he went on, "she leads an exemplary life. On that account
+I think what they tell of her foreign affairs may be false; lies of
+certain young cocks that go for grapes and find them sour."
+
+And laughing at the spirit of this woman, who at times was as bold and
+as aggressive as a man, he repeated the rumors that had circulated in
+certain clubs on Sierpes Street. When the "Ambassadress" came to live in
+Seville, all the young people had formed a court around her.
+
+"Imagine, Juanillo, an elegant woman, different from those around here,
+bringing her clothes and hats from Paris, her perfume from London;
+besides being a friend of kings, branded with the brand of the finest
+stock in Europe, so to speak. They followed in her wake like mad men,
+and the girl permitted them certain liberties, wanting to live among
+them like a man. But some of them transgressed the bounds, mistaking
+familiarity for something else, and, at a loss for words, they made too
+free with their hands. Then there were blows, Juan, and something worse.
+That young lady is dangerous. It seems that she shoots at a mark, that
+she knows how to box like an English sailor, and knows besides, that
+Japanese way of fighting that they call _jitsu_. To sum it all up, if a
+Christian dares to give her a pinch, she, with her dainty little fists,
+without even getting angry, will grasp thee and leave thee torn to
+shreds. Now they attack her less, but she has enemies who go about
+talking evil of her; some praising what is a lie, others even denying
+that she is clever."
+
+Dona Sol, according to the manager, was enthusiastic over life in
+Seville. After a long sojourn in cold, foggy lands she admired the
+intensely blue sky and the winter sun of soft gold, and she discoursed
+on the sweetness of life in this country--_so picturesque!_
+
+"The simplicity of our customs fills her with enthusiasm. She is like
+one of those English women that come in Holy Week--as if she had not
+been born in Seville; as if she saw it for the first time! They say she
+spends her summers in foreign cities and her winters here. She is tired
+of her life in palaces and courts, and if thou didst but see the people
+she goes with! She has made them receive her like a sister in the
+convent of Cristo de Triana and that of the Most Holy Cachorro, and she
+has spent a pot of money on wine for the brotherhood. Some nights she
+fills her house with guitarists and dancers, for so many girls in
+Seville are good singers and dancers. With them go their teachers and
+their families, even to their most distant relatives; they all stuff
+themselves with olives, sausages, and wine, and Dona Sol, seated in a
+big chair like a queen, spends the hours demanding dance after dance,
+all which must be native to the country. They say this is a diversion
+equal to that which was given to I don't know what king, who had operas
+sung for himself alone. Her servants, foreign fellows that have come
+with her, long-faced and serious as parrots, go about in their evening
+dress with great trays, passing glasses to the dancers who in plain
+sight box their ears and snap olive stones in their eyes. Most honest
+and diverting games! Now, Dona Sol receives Lechuzo in the mornings, an
+old gypsy who gives guitar lessons, master of the purest style; and when
+her visitors don't find her with the instrument on her lap, she is with
+an orange in her hand. The oranges that creature has eaten since she
+came! And still she isn't satisfied!"
+
+Thus continued Don Jose, explaining to his _matador_ the eccentricities
+of Dona Sol.
+
+Four days after Gallardo had seen her in the parish church of San
+Lorenzo, the manager approached the _matador_ in a _cafe_ on Sierpes
+Street with an air of mystery.
+
+"_Gacho_, thou art a child of good fortune. Knowest who has been talking
+to me about thee?"
+
+And putting his mouth close to the bull-fighter's ear he whispered,
+"Dona Sol!"
+
+She had asked him about his _matador_, and expressed a desire to meet
+him. She was such an original type! So Spanish!
+
+"She says she has seen thee kill several times, once in Madrid and
+again, I know not where. She has applauded thee. She recognizes that
+thou are very brave. What if she should take up with thee! Imagine it!
+What an honor! Thou wouldst be a brother-in-law, or something like that,
+of all the high-toned fellows on the European calendar of swells."
+
+Gallardo smiled modestly, lowering his eyes, but at the same time he
+twisted his handsome person proudly as if he did not consider his
+manager's hypothesis either difficult or extraordinary.
+
+"But do not form illusions, Juanillo," continued he; "Dona Sol wishes to
+study a bull-fighter at close range, with the same interest that she
+takes lessons from the master Lechuzo. Local color and nothing more!
+'Bring him day after to-morrow to Tablada,' she told me. Thou knowest
+what that will be--a baiting of the cattle of the Moraima herd; an
+entertainment the Marquis has gotten up to divert his niece. We will go;
+she has invited me also."
+
+Two days later, in the afternoon, the _maestro_ and his manager started
+from the ward of the Feria like gentlemen _picadores_, eagerly watched
+by the people who peeped out of the doors and stood in groups on the
+sidewalks.
+
+"They are going to Tablada," they said. "There is to be a bull-baiting."
+
+The manager, mounted on a large-boned mare, was in the dress of the
+country, short jacket, cloth trousers with yellow gaiters, and leather
+leggings. The swordsman had arrayed himself for the event in his usual
+bizarre dress of the ancient bull-fighters, before modern fashion had
+levelled their apparel to that of other mortals. A crush hat of velvet
+with a plaited band was held on by a chin-strap; the collar of the
+shirt, innocent of cravat, was fastened with a pair of brilliants and
+two larger ones sparkled on the undulating bosom; the jacket and
+waistcoat were of wine-colored velvet with black loops and hangings;
+lastly there was a red silk belt and tight knee-breeches of dark mixed
+weave bound at the knees with garters of black braid. His leggings were
+amber-colored, with leather fringes along the side, and boots of the
+same color, half hidden in the wide Moorish stirrups, exposed to view
+great silver spurs. Over the saddle-horn, on top of the gay Jerez
+blanket whose tassels hung on both sides of the horse, lay a gray jacket
+with black trimmings and red lining.
+
+The two horsemen rode at a gallop, carrying on their shoulders javelins
+made of fine elastic wood, with balls on the end to guard the tip. Their
+passage through the populous ward aroused an ovation. Hurrah! The women
+waved their hands.
+
+"God be with you, Senores! Amuse yourself, Senor Juan!"
+
+They spurred their horses to escape from the crowd of youngsters that
+ran after them, and the narrow lanes with their blue pavements and white
+walls rang with the rhythmic beat of the horseshoes.
+
+On the quiet street of manorial houses with massive grilled gates and
+great balconies, where Dona Sol lived, they met other riders before the
+door, sitting on their horses, leaning on their lances. They were young
+gentlemen, relatives or friends of the lady, who greeted the
+bull-fighter with amiable familiarity, happy to have him in the party.
+The Marquis of Moraima came out of the house and immediately mounted his
+horse.
+
+"The child will be down immediately. Everybody knows the women--how long
+they take to get ready."
+
+He said this with the sententious gravity that he gave to all his words,
+as if he were uttering oracles. He was a tall, big-boned old man, with
+long white whiskers in the midst of which his mouth and eyes preserved
+an infantile ingenuousness. Courteous and measured in his speech,
+genteel in manner, moderate in his smile, the Marquis of Moraima was a
+fine gentleman of the type of by-gone days. He was dressed almost always
+in riding clothes, hating the city life, bored by the social demands of
+his family when detained by them in Seville, and eager to fly to the
+country among shepherd-foremen and cattlemen, whom he treated with the
+familiarity of comrades. He had almost forgotten how to write, from lack
+of practice, but as soon as the talk turned to cattle, to the raising of
+bulls and horses, or to agriculture, his eyes shone and he expressed
+himself with the skill of one deeply learned.
+
+The sunlight clouded. The golden glow on the white walls on one side of
+the street grew pale. People looked aloft. Along the blue belt between
+the two rows of eaves, a dark cloud passed.
+
+"There is no danger," said the Marquis gravely. "As I came out of the
+house I saw a bit of paper which the wind blew in a direction I
+understand. It will not rain."
+
+All were convinced. It could not rain since the Marquis of Moraima so
+declared. He was as weather-wise as an old shepherd; there was no fear
+of his being mistaken.
+
+Then he faced Gallardo.
+
+"This year I am going to provide for thee some magnificent _corridas_.
+What bulls! We shall see if thou sendest them to death like good
+Christians. Thou knowest that this year I have not been quite satisfied.
+The poor things deserved better."
+
+Dona Sol appeared, holding up her black riding-skirt in one hand and
+showing beneath it the tops of her high gray leather boots. She wore a
+man's shirt with a red tie, a jacket and waistcoat of violet velvet, a
+velvet three-cornered hat gracefully tipped to one side over her curls.
+She mounted her horse with ease, in spite of the abundant plumpness of
+her well-developed form, and took her javelin from a servant's hands.
+She greeted her friends, excusing her tardiness, while her eyes
+travelled toward Gallardo. The manager spurred his mare closer to make
+the presentation, but Dona Sol, drawing near, rode up to the
+bull-fighter.
+
+Gallardo was disturbed at her presence. What a woman! What should he say
+to her?
+
+He saw that she extended him her hand, a fine hand that was gloriously
+fragrant, and in his perturbation he could only press it with his great
+fingers that better knew how to throw wild beasts. But the delicate and
+rosy palm, instead of cringing under the involuntary and brutal pressure
+that would have drawn from another a shriek of pain, tightened its
+muscles with vigorous force, freeing itself easily from his clasp.
+
+"I am most grateful to you for having come, and I am charmed to meet
+you."
+
+And Gallardo, feeling in his confusion the necessity of answering
+something, stammered, as if he were greeting a devotee:
+
+"Thanks. The family well?"
+
+Dona Sol's discreet laugh was lost in the noise of the horseshoes that
+resounded on the stones with the first movement of the cavalcade. The
+lady put her horse to a trot and the whole troop followed, forming an
+escort around her. Gallardo, abashed, travelled in the rear, not
+recovering from his stupefaction, and vaguely guessing that he had said
+something foolish.
+
+They galloped along the outskirts of Seville beside the river; they left
+behind them the Tower of Gold; they followed shady avenues of yellow
+sand and then a high-road beside which stood inns and lunch-booths.
+
+As they drew near Tablada they saw, on the green expanse of plain, a
+dark mass of people and carriages near the palisade that separated the
+pasture from the enclosure containing the cattle.
+
+The Guadalquivir swept its current through the length of the
+pasture-grounds. On the opposite bank rose the hill called San Juan de
+Aznalfarache, crowned by a ruined castle. The country houses loomed
+white against the silver gray masses of the olive groves. On the
+opposite wing of the extended horizon, against a blue background on
+which floated fleecy clouds, was Seville, its houses dominated by the
+imposing mass of the cathedral and the marvellous Giralda, a tender
+rose-color in the afternoon light.
+
+The riders advanced with much care through the dense crowd. The
+curiosity which Dona Sol's eccentricities inspired had attracted nearly
+all the ladies of Seville. Her friends bowed to her from their
+carriages, thinking her most beautiful in her mannish costume. Her
+relatives, the daughters of the Marquis, some unmarried, others
+accompanied by their husbands, cautioned her to prudence. "For mercy's
+sake, Sol! Don't do crazy things!"
+
+The bull-baiters entered the enclosure, welcomed as they passed through
+the palisade by the applause of the common people who had come to the
+festivity. The horses, scenting the enemy, and seeing them in the
+distance, rose on their hind legs and began to prance and neigh, held in
+by the firm hand of the riders.
+
+The bulls were grouped in the centre of the enclosure. Some were quietly
+feeding, some were lying on the reddish green winter field. Others, more
+rebellious, trotted toward the river, and the older bulls, the trained
+leaders, ran after them, ringing the bells that hung around their necks,
+while the cowboys helped them in this rounding up, slinging well-aimed
+stones that struck the horns of the fugitives. The horsemen remained
+motionless a long time, as if holding council before the eager gaze of
+the public awaiting something extraordinary.
+
+The first to start was the Marquis, accompanied by one of his friends.
+The two riders galloped toward the group of bulls and reined in their
+horses when near them, standing in their stirrups, waving their javelins
+in the air, and making loud outcries to frighten them. A black bull with
+strong legs separated from the band, running toward the end of the
+enclosure.
+
+The Marquis was justly proud of his herd, which was composed of fine
+selected animals. They were not oxen destined to the production of meat,
+with filthy, loose, and wrinkled hide, nor with broad hoofs, nor
+drooping head, nor with big ill-placed horns. These were animals of
+nervous vigor, strong and heavy enough to make the earth tremble,
+raising a cloud of dust beneath their feet; their hide was fine and
+glossy like that of a thoroughbred horse, their eyes flashed, their neck
+was thick and proud, and they had short legs, fine delicate tails,
+slender horns, sharp and clean, as if polished by hand, and round and
+small hoofs, so hard that they cut the grass as though made of steel.
+
+The two horsemen rode behind the black bull, attacking him on both
+sides, barring his way when he tried to make for the river, until the
+Marquis, setting spur to his mare, gained distance and rode up to the
+bull, with the javelin held before him and, lodging it under his tail,
+managed, with the combined strength of his arm and horse, to make the
+beast lose his equilibrium, rolling him on the ground, with his belly
+up, his horns driven into the earth and his four feet in the air. The
+rapidity and ease with which the breeder accomplished this trick
+provoked an explosion of enthusiasm from behind the palisade. Hurrah for
+the old man! No one understood bulls like the Marquis. He managed them
+as if they were his own children, following them from the time of their
+birth in the cow-herd until they went to their death in the plazas like
+heroes worthy a better fate.
+
+Other horsemen wished to start at once to win the applause of the crowd
+but Moraima held them back, giving preference to his niece. If she were
+determined to try her luck it would be better for her to begin now
+before the herd grew ugly with continued attacks. Dona Sol spurred on
+her horse which was pawing the ground with his fore feet, excited by
+the presence of the bulls. The Marquis desired to accompany her in her
+race, but she objected. No; she would rather have Gallardo, who was a
+bull-fighter. Where was Gallardo? The _matador_, still ashamed of his
+stupidity, placed himself at the lady's side without a word. The two set
+out on a gallop toward the centre of the drove of bulls. Dona Sol's
+horse reared several times, standing almost upright, as if resisting,
+but the strong Amazon forced him to advance. Gallardo waved his javelin,
+uttering shouts that were more like bellows, just as he did in the ring
+when he incited the beasts to show their mettle.
+
+It took but little urging to make an animal separate from the drove. A
+white creature with cinnamon-colored spots, an enormous sloping neck,
+and horns of the finest point, started out. He ran toward the end of the
+enclosure as if it were his customary haunt, to which he was
+irresistibly drawn by instinct, and Dona Sol galloped after him,
+followed by the _matador_.
+
+"Look out, Senora," called Gallardo. "That bull is old and knows the
+game! Be careful that he doesn't turn on you!"
+
+When Dona Sol prepared to achieve the same feat as her uncle, reining
+her horse alongside to thrust her javelin under the animal's tail and
+upset him, he turned as if he suspected the danger, planting himself in
+a threatening attitude before his pursuers. The horse passed in front of
+the bull, Dona Sol being unable to rein him in on account of his speed,
+and the beast plunged after him, converting the besieger into the
+besieged. The lady did not think of flight. Many thousands of people
+were watching her from a distance. She feared her friends' laughter and
+the commiseration of the men, so she reined in her horse, making him
+face the bull. She sat with the javelin under her arm like a _picador_,
+and she thrust it into the bull's neck as he came on bellowing, his head
+down. The great cervix reddened with a stream of blood, but the beast
+continued to advance from mere momentum, not feeling that he enlarged
+the wound, till he thrust his horns beneath the horse, shaking him and
+lifting his fore feet off the ground. The Amazon was thrown from her
+saddle while a shout of horror from hundreds of throats arose in the
+distance. The horse, freeing himself from the horns, began to run like
+mad, his belly stained with blood, the girths broken, the saddle hanging
+over his back. The bull started to follow him, when at that instant
+something nearer attracted his attention. It was Dona Sol, who, instead
+of lying motionless on the ground, had just arisen, and picking up her
+javelin, placed it bravely under her arm to hold off the bull again. It
+was mad arrogance, due to her consciousness of the many who watched her.
+It was a challenge to death rather than yield to cowardice and ridicule.
+
+They no longer shouted behind the palisade. The crowd was motionless
+with the silence of terror. The whole troop of bull-baiters rode up on a
+mad gallop in a cloud of dust, the riders seeming to gain in size at
+every bound. Aid would come too late. The bull pawed the ground with his
+fore feet and lowered his head to attack the audacious little figure
+that stood threatening him with the lance. One little horn-stab would
+make an end of it! But at the same instant, a fierce bellowing
+distracted the bull's attention and something red passed before his
+vision like a flame of fire. It was Gallardo, who had thrown himself
+off his mare, abandoning the javelin to grasp the jacket which he
+carried on the pommel of his saddle.
+
+"Aaaa! Come on!"
+
+The bull came on, running past the red-lined jacket, attracted by an
+adversary worthy of him, and turned his hind quarters toward the figure
+in the black skirt and violet bodice, that, in the stupefaction of
+danger, still stood with the lance under her arm.
+
+"Have no fear, Dona Sol; he is mine now!" cried the bull-fighter, still
+pale with emotion but smiling, sure of his skill. Without other defence
+than the jacket, he fought the beast, drawing him away from the lady and
+escaping from its furious attacks with graceful movements.
+
+The crowd, forgetting the recent fright, commenced to applaud,
+enraptured. What joy! To go to a simple baiting and to find themselves
+at an almost formal _corrida_, seeing Gallardo work gratis.
+
+The bull-fighter, fired by the violence with which the brute attacked
+him, forgot Dona Sol and every one else, intent only on evading his
+attacks. The bull became furious, seeing that the man slipped unharmed
+from between his horns, and fell upon him again, never encountering
+anything but the brilliant red lining of the jacket.
+
+At last he wearied and stood still, his mouth frothing, his head low,
+his legs trembling; then Gallardo took advantage of the brute's
+stupefaction and taking off his hat touched his head with it. An immense
+shout arose behind the palisade, greeting this heroic exploit. Then
+yells and ringing of bells sounded at Gallardo's back, cattlemen with
+lead-bulls appeared and, surrounding the animal, drove it slowly toward
+the thick of the herd.
+
+Gallardo went in search of his mare, which stood motionless, accustomed
+to being near the bulls. He picked up his javelin, mounted, and rode
+back toward the palisade at a gentle gallop, prolonging the noisy
+applause of the crowd by this slow riding. The horsemen who had taken
+Dona Sol away greeted him with wild enthusiasm. The manager winked one
+eye at him, saying mysteriously, "_Gacho_, thou hast not been slow. Very
+good, but very good! Now I tell thee that thou'lt get her."
+
+Dona Sol was in the landau of the Marquis' daughters, outside the
+palisade. Her cousins surrounded her, anxious, feeling her over, almost
+expecting to find some bone broken by her fall. They gave her glasses of
+_manzanilla_ to help her recover from her fright but she smiled with an
+air of superiority, passively receiving these feminine demonstrations.
+
+As she saw Gallardo breaking through the lines of people on his horse,
+amidst waving hats and extended hands, the lady smiled yet more
+brightly.
+
+"Come here, Cid Campeador. Give me your hand!"
+
+And again their hands clasped, with a pressure that lasted long.
+
+In the evening, in the house of the _matador_, this event, which was
+talked about throughout the whole city, was commented upon. Senora
+Angustias displayed satisfaction, just as after a _corrida_. Her son
+saving one of those _senoras_ on whom she gazed with admiration,
+habituated to reverence by long years of servitude! Carmen remained
+silent, scarcely knowing what to think.
+
+Several days passed without Gallardo's receiving news from Dona Sol.
+The manager was out of the city hunting with some friends of the
+Forty-five. One afternoon, near nightfall, Don Jose sought him in a
+_cafe_ on Sierpes Street where the connoisseurs met. He had returned
+from the hunt two hours before and had had to go immediately to Dona
+Sol's house in response to a certain note that awaited him at his
+domicile.
+
+"But, man alive, thou art worse than a wolf!" said the manager, drawing
+his _matador_ out of the _cafe_. "This lady expected thee to go to her
+house. She has spent most of her afternoons at home, thinking thou
+wouldst come any moment. This shouldn't be. After my having introduced
+thee, and after all that happened, thou owest her a call; a question of
+asking for her health."
+
+The _matador_ stopped in his walk and scratched his head beneath his
+hat.
+
+"Well, but," he murmured with indecision, "well, but I am embarrassed.
+Yes, that is it; yes, sir, embarrassed. You know that I have my affairs
+with women and that I know how to say a half dozen words to any common
+_gachi_; but to this one, no. This is a lady, and when I see her I
+realize that I am rough and coarse, and I keep my mouth shut, for I
+can't speak without putting my foot in it. No, Don Jose, I am not going.
+I ought not to go."
+
+But the manager, sure of convincing him, conducted him toward Dona Sol's
+house, talking of his recent interview with the lady. She showed herself
+somewhat offended by Gallardo's forgetfulness. The best in Seville had
+gone to see her since her accident at Tablada, but not he.
+
+"Thou knowest that a bull-fighter should stand well with the people who
+are worth while. One must have education and show that he is not a
+herder raised in the branding-pen. A lady of so much importance who
+honors thee and expects thee! Come! I will go with thee."
+
+"Ah! If you accompany me!" And Gallardo drew a deep breath on hearing
+this, as if he were freed from the weight of a great danger.
+
+They entered Dona Sol's house. The courtyard was in Moorish style, its
+many colored arcades of beautiful designs recalling the horseshoe arches
+of the Alhambra. The fountain flowing into a basin where gold-fish were
+swimming sang with sweet monotony in the afternoon stillness. In the
+four surrounding passages with carved ceilings separated from the
+courtyard by the marble columns of the arcades, the bull-fighter saw
+ancient mosaics, time-darkened paintings, images of saints with livid
+countenances, and wood-work worm-eaten as though it had been fusilladed
+with small shot.
+
+A servant conducted them up the broad marble stairway, and there again
+the bull-fighter was surprised to see paintings on wood of rude figures
+with a gilded background; voluptuous virgins that seemed to be hewn out
+with an axe, with delicate colors and faded gold, looted from ancient
+altars; tapestries of the soft tone of dry leaves, bordered with flowers
+and fruits, some representing scenes from Calvary, others full of hairy
+satyrs with hoofs and horns with whom nude girls seemed to play as men
+play with bulls in the ring.
+
+"How vast is ignorance," he said to his manager. "And I had thought that
+all this was only good for convents. How much these people seem to value
+it."
+
+Gallardo received new surprises. He was proud of his own furniture
+brought from Madrid, all of gaudy silk and complicated design, heavy and
+rich, seeming to proclaim, as it were by shouts, the money it had cost,
+but here he was dazzled at the sight of delicate and fragile chairs,
+white or green, tables and cupboards of simple lines, walls of a single
+tint with no other ornament than small paintings separated by great
+distances, and hanging by heavy cords, the whole giving a tone of
+subdued and quiet elegance that seemed the handiwork of artists. He was
+ashamed of his own stupefaction and of what he had admired in his house
+as the supreme of luxury. "How vast is ignorance!" And as he seated
+himself he did so with care, fearing lest the chair would crumble
+beneath his weight.
+
+Dona Sol's presence banished these thoughts. He saw her, as he had never
+before seen her, without _mantilla_ or hat, her glossy hair hanging, and
+seeming to justify her romantic name. Her arms, of superlative
+whiteness, escaped from the silken funnels of a Japanese tunic crossed
+over the breast, which left uncovered a space of adorable neck, slightly
+amber-colored, with the lines that suggest the neck of the mother Venus.
+Stones of all colors set in rings of strange design covered her fingers
+and scintillated with magic splendor as she moved her hands. On her
+youthful wrists glistened bracelets of gold, some of Oriental filigree
+with mysterious inscriptions, others massive, from which hung amulets
+and little foreign figures, mementoes of distant travels. She had
+crossed one leg over the other with manlike freedom, and on the point of
+one of her feet dangled a red slipper with a high, gilded heel, tiny as
+a toy, and covered with heavy embroidery.
+
+Gallardo's ears buzzed, his vision was clouded, he only managed to
+distinguish a pair of blue eyes fixed on him with an expression half
+caressing, half ironic. To hide his emotion, he smiled, showing his
+teeth,--the expressionless smile of a child who wishes to be amiable.
+
+"No, Senora--many thanks. That amounted to nothing."
+
+Thus he received Dona Sol's expressions of gratitude for his heroic feat
+of the other afternoon. Little by little Gallardo began to acquire a
+certain composure. The lady and the manager talked of bulls, and this
+gave the swordsman a sudden confidence. She had seen him kill several
+times, and she remembered exactly the principal incidents. Gallardo felt
+pride that this woman had gazed upon him at such moments and had even
+kept fresh the memory of his deeds. She opened a lacquer box, decorated
+with weird flowers, and offered the men cigarettes with golden
+mouthpieces which exhaled a strange and pungent perfume.
+
+"They contain opium; they are very agreeable."
+
+And she lighted one, following the smoke spirals with her greenish eyes
+which acquired a tremor of liquid gold as they refracted the light. The
+bull-fighter, accustomed to the strong Havana tobacco, smoked the
+cigarette with curiosity. Pure straw; a mere treat for ladies. But the
+strange perfume of the smoke slowly overcame his timidity.
+
+Dona Sol, looking at him fixedly, asked questions about his life. She
+wished to get a glimpse behind the scenes of glory, of the subterranean
+ways of celebrity, of the miserable wandering life of the bull-fighter
+before he gained public acclamation; and Gallardo, with sudden
+confidence, talked and talked, telling of his youthful days, dwelling
+with proud delectation on the lowliness of his origin, although omitting
+all that he considered questionable in his eventful adolescence.
+
+"Very interesting, very original!" said the handsome lady, and
+withdrawing her eyes from the bull-fighter they became lost in wandering
+contemplation, as if fixed on something invisible.
+
+"The greatest man in the world!" exclaimed Don Jose in frank enthusiasm.
+"Believe me, Sol; there are no two youths like this. And the way he
+recuperates from horn-stabs--!"
+
+Happy in Gallardo's fortitude, as if he were his progenitor, he
+enumerated the wounds he had received, describing them as if they could
+be seen through his clothing. The lady's eyes followed him in this
+anatomical journey with sincere admiration. A true hero; timid, shy, and
+simple, like all strong men. The manager spoke of taking his leave. It
+was after seven and he was expected at home. But Dona Sol rose to her
+feet with smiling determination as if to oppose his going. He must
+remain; they must dine with her; a friendly invitation. That night she
+expected no one else. The Marquis and his family had gone to the
+country.
+
+"I am alone--not another word. I command. You will stay and take
+pot-luck with me."
+
+And as if her orders admitted of no question, she left the room.
+
+The manager protested. No, he could not remain; he had come from outside
+the city that very afternoon, and his family had scarcely seen him.
+Besides, he had invited two friends. As for his _matador_, it seemed to
+him natural and proper that he should stay. Really, the invitation was
+meant for him.
+
+"But stay a while at least!" said the swordsman, distressed. "Damn it!
+Don't leave me alone. I shall not know what to do; I shall not know what
+to say."
+
+A quarter of an hour afterward Dona Sol appeared again, dressed in one
+of her Paris gowns, a Paquin model, the desperation and wonder of
+relatives and friends.
+
+Don Jose insisted again. He must go, but his _matador_ should stay. He
+would take care to let them know at home so that they would not wait for
+him. Again Gallardo made a gesture of agony, but he grew calm at a look
+from the manager.
+
+"Don't worry," he whispered, going toward the door, "dost thou think I
+am a child? I will say thou art dining with some connoisseurs from
+Madrid."
+
+What torment Gallardo suffered during the first moments of the dinner!
+He was intimidated by the grave and lordly luxury of the dining-room in
+which he and the lady seemed to be lost, seated face to face at the
+centre of a great table, under enormous silver candelabras with electric
+lights and rose-colored shades. The imposing servants inspired awe; they
+were ceremonious and impassive as if habituated to the most
+extraordinary actions; as if nothing this lady did could surprise them.
+He was ashamed of his dress and manners, feeling the strong contrast
+between the environment and his appearance. But this first impression of
+fear and shyness vanished little by little. Dona Sol laughed at his
+moderation, at the fear with which he touched the plates and cups.
+Gallardo ended by admiring her. What an appetite the blonde woman had!
+Accustomed to the squeamishness and abstinence of the _senoritas_ he
+had known, who thought it bad taste to eat much, he marvelled at Dona
+Sol's voracity and at the naturalness with which she disposed of the
+viands. Mouthfuls disappeared between her rosy lips without leaving the
+slightest trace of their passage; her jaws worked without in the least
+diminishing the beautiful serenity of her countenance; she carried the
+glass to her mouth without the slightest drop of liquor spilling a
+colored pearl upon her clothing. Surely thus must goddesses eat!
+
+Gallardo, fired by her example, ate, and above all, drank much, seeking
+in the varied and heavy wines a remedy for that stupidity that made him
+silent as if abashed in the lady's presence, and unable to do more than
+to smile and repeat, "Many thanks."
+
+The conversation grew animated; the _matador_ became loquacious and
+talked of funny incidents in the tauromachic life, ending by telling
+about Nacional's original propaganda, and the feats of his _picador_
+Potaje, a wild fellow who swallowed hard-boiled eggs whole; how he was
+minus half an ear on account of one of his _compadres_ having bitten it
+off, and how, on being carried injured into the infirmaries of the ring,
+he would fall on the bed with such a weight of armor and muscle that he
+would cut through the mattresses with his enormous spurs, and then had
+to be unriveted.
+
+"Very original! Very interesting!"
+
+Dona Sol listened, smiling at the details of the existence of these
+rough men, ever close to death, whom she had until then admired only at
+a distance.
+
+The champagne completed the work of upsetting Gallardo, and when he
+rose from the table he gave his arm to the lady, surprised at his own
+audacity. Did not they do so in the great world? He was not so ignorant
+as he seemed at first sight!
+
+In the drawing-room where coffee was served he saw a guitar. Dona Sol
+offered it to him, asking him to play.
+
+"But I don't know how! I am the most unskilled fellow in the world,
+aside from killing bulls!"
+
+He regretted that the _puntillero_ of his _cuadrilla_ was not there, a
+boy who set the women crazy with his "hands of gold" for plucking the
+strings of a guitar.
+
+Gallardo was leaning back on a sofa smoking the magnificent Havana a
+servant had offered him. Dona Sol was smoking one of the cigarettes
+whose perfume created such a vague drowsiness. The heaviness of
+digestion weighed upon the bull-fighter, closing his mouth and
+permitting him no other sign of life than a fixed smile of stupidity.
+The lady, wearied, doubtless, at the silence in which her words were
+lost, seated herself before a grand piano, and striking the keys with
+virile force, drew forth the gay rhythm of _Malaguenas_ followed by
+_Sevillanas_, and then all the old Andalusian songs, melancholy and of
+Oriental dreaminess, which Dona Sol had stored in her memory as an
+enthusiastic admirer of _la tierra_.
+
+Gallardo interrupted the music with his exclamations, just as he did
+when seated near the stage of a music-hall.
+
+"Good for those little hands of gold! Let's hear another."
+
+"Do you enjoy music?" asked the lady.
+
+"Oh, very much!" Gallardo had never been asked this question until now,
+but undoubtedly he enjoyed it.
+
+Dona Sol passed slowly from the lively rhythm of the popular songs to
+other music more slow, more solemn, which the _matador_, in his
+philharmonic wisdom, recognized as "church music." He no longer shouted
+exclamations of enthusiasm. He was overcome by a delicious quiet, trying
+to keep awake by contemplating the handsome lady whose back was turned
+toward him. What a figure--Mother of God! His Moorish eyes fastened
+themselves on the nape of her neck, round and white, crowned by an
+aureole of wild, rebellious, golden hair. An absurd idea danced through
+his blunted mind, keeping him awake with the tickling of temptation.
+
+"What would that _gachi_ do if I should rise and creep up behind her
+step by step and give her a kiss on that rich little neck of hers?"
+
+But his design did not venture beyond a tempting thought. That woman
+inspired an irresistible respect. Moreover, he remembered his manager's
+talk of the arrogance with which she could frighten away troublesome
+bores; of that little game learned in foreign lands which taught her how
+to manage a strong man as if he were a rag. He continued gazing at the
+white neck, like a moon surrounded by a nimbus of gold seen through the
+clouds which drowsiness hung before his eyes. He was going to fall
+asleep! He feared that suddenly a loud snore would interrupt the music,
+a music incomprehensible to him, and which, consequently, must be
+magnificent. He pinched his legs to keep awake; stretched out his arms;
+covered his mouth with one hand to stifle his yawns.
+
+A long time passed. Gallardo was not sure whether he had slept or not.
+Suddenly Dona Sol's voice woke him from this painful somnolence. She had
+laid down her cigarette with its blue spirals of smoke, and in a low
+voice that accentuated the words, giving them impassioned trembling, she
+sang, accompanying herself by the melody of the piano.
+
+The bull-fighter cocked his ears to try to understand something. Not a
+word. They were foreign songs. "Damn it! Why not a _tango_ or a _solea_?
+And yet a Christian is expected to keep awake."
+
+Dona Sol ran her fingers over the keys, casting her eyes upward,
+throwing her head back, her firm breast trembling with musical sighs. It
+was Elsa's prayer, the lament of the blonde virgin thinking of the
+strong man, the brave warrior, invincible before men, and sweet and
+timid with women. She dreamed awake in her song, throwing into her words
+tremors of passion, the moisture rising to her eyes. The simple strong
+man! The warrior! Maybe he was behind her! Why not?
+
+He did not have the legendary aspect of the other; he was rough and
+unpolished, but she could yet see, with the clarity of a vivid
+recollection, the grace with which days before he had rushed to her
+rescue; the smiling confidence with which he had fought a bellowing,
+infuriated beast, just as the Wagnerian heroes fought frightful dragons.
+Yes; he was _her_ warrior. And shaken from her heels to the roots of her
+hair by a voluptuous fear, giving herself up for conquered in advance,
+she thought she could divine the sweet danger that was approaching
+behind her. She saw the hero, the knight, rise slowly from the sofa, his
+Moorish eyes fixed upon her; she heard his cautious steps; she felt his
+hands on her shoulders; then a kiss of fire on her neck, a brand of
+passion that marked her his slave for all time--But suddenly the romance
+ended, and nothing had happened; she had experienced no other impression
+than her own thrills of timid desire.
+
+Disappointed, she turned around on the piano stool; the music ceased.
+The warrior was there, buried in the sofa, with a match in his hand,
+trying to light his cigar for the fourth time, and opening his eyes
+immeasurably wide to drive the torpor from his senses.
+
+Seeing her eyes fastened upon him, Gallardo rose to his feet. Ah, the
+supreme moment was coming! The hero strode toward her, to press her with
+manly passion, to conquer her, to make her his.
+
+"Good-night, Dona Sol. I must go, it is late. You will want to rest."
+
+Impelled by surprise and dismay, she extended her hand, not knowing what
+she did. Strong and simple like a hero!
+
+All the feminine conventionalisms went rushing in confusion through her
+mind, the traditional expressions a woman never forgets, not even in the
+moments of her greatest abandon. Her desire was impossible. The first
+time he entered her house? Without the slightest pretence of resistance?
+Could she go to him? But when the swordsman clasped her hand she looked
+into his eyes, eyes that could only gaze with impassioned steadiness,
+that in their mute tenacity expressed his timid hopes, his silent
+desires.
+
+"Don't go--come; come!"
+
+And she said no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE SPANISH WILD BEAST
+
+
+A great satisfaction was added to the numerous conceits which served to
+flatter Gallardo's vanity. When he talked with the Marquis of Moraima,
+he contemplated him now with an almost filial affection. That _senor_
+dressed like a country gentleman, a rude centaur in chaps, with a strong
+lance, was an illustrious personage who could cover his breast with
+official sashes and wear in the palace of kings a coat covered with
+embroidery, with a golden key sewed to one lapel. His most remote
+ancestors had come to Seville with the monarch that expelled the Moors,
+receiving as a reward for their deeds immense territories taken from the
+enemy, of which the great plains where the Marquis' bulls now pastured
+were the remains. His nearest forefathers had been friends and
+councillors of monarchs, spending a large part of their patrimony in the
+pageantry of court life. And this great lord, kind and frank, who
+maintained in the simplicity of his country life the distinction of his
+illustrious ancestry, was almost like a near relative of Gallardo. The
+cobbler's son was as haughty as if he had become a member and formed a
+part of a noble family. The Marquis of Moraima was his uncle, although
+he could not confess it publicly and, though the relationship was not
+legitimate, he consoled himself thinking of the dominion he exercised
+over a woman of that family, thanks to a love that seemed to laugh at
+all law and class prejudice. His cousins also, and relatives in greater
+or less degree of proximity, were all those young gentlemen who used to
+receive him with that somewhat disdainful familiarity which connoisseurs
+of rank bestow upon bull-fighters; these now began to treat him as
+equals. Accustomed to hear Dona Sol speak of them with the familiarity
+of kinship, Gallardo thought it disadvantageous to him not to treat them
+with equal freedom.
+
+His life and habits had changed. He seldom entered the _cafes_ on
+Sierpes Street where his old admirers gathered. They were good fellows,
+simple and earnest, but of little importance; small merchants, workmen
+who had risen to be employers; modest employees; vagabonds of no
+profession who lived miraculously by unknown expedients, with no other
+visible occupation than talking of bulls.
+
+Gallardo passed the windows of the _cafes_ and bowed to these devotees,
+who responded with eager signs for him to come in. "I'll return soon."
+But he did not. He entered an aristocratic club on the same street, with
+servants in knee breeches, with imposing Gothic decorations and silver
+service on its tables. The son of Senora Angustias felt a glow of vanity
+whenever he passed among the servants standing so erect, with a military
+air, in their black coats, and a lackey, imposing as a magistrate, with
+a silver chain around his neck, offered to take his hat and stick. It
+pleased him to mix with so many distinguished people. The young men,
+sunk down in high chairs like those seen in romantic dramas, talked of
+horses and women, and kept account of all the duels that took place in
+Spain, for they were men of fastidious honor and unquestioned valor. In
+an inside room they shot at targets; in another they gambled from the
+early evening hours until after sunrise. They tolerated Gallardo as an
+"original" of the club, because he was a reputable bull-fighter, who
+dressed well, spent money, and had good connections.
+
+"He is very celebrated," said the members, with great tact, realizing
+that he knew as much as they did.
+
+The character of Don Jose, who was charming and well-born, served the
+bull-fighter as a guarantee in this new existence. Moreover, Gallardo,
+with his cleverness as an old-time street gamin, knew how to make
+himself popular with this assemblage of gay youths in which he met
+acquaintances by the dozens.
+
+He gambled much. It was the best means of coming into contact with his
+"new family" and strengthening the relationship. He gambled and lost
+with the bad luck of a man fortunate in other undertakings. He spent his
+nights in the "hall of crime," as the gambling room was called, and he
+seldom managed to gain. His ill-luck was a cause of pride to the club.
+
+"Last night Gallardo took a good laying out," said the members. "He lost
+at least eleven thousand _pesetas_."
+
+And this prestige as a strong "bank," as well as the serenity with which
+he gave up his money, made his new friends respect him, finding in him a
+firm upholder of society's game. The new passion rapidly took possession
+of him. The excitement of the game dominated him even to the point of
+sometimes making him forget the great lady who was to him the most
+interesting object in the world. To gamble with the best in Seville! To
+be treated as an equal by the young gentlemen, with the fraternal
+feeling that the loaning of money and common emotions creates!
+
+Suddenly one night a great cluster of electric globes that stood on the
+green table and illuminated the room went out. There was darkness and
+disorder, but Gallardo's imperious voice rose above the confusion.
+
+"Silence, gentlemen! Nothing has happened. On with the game! Let them
+bring candles!"
+
+And the game went on, his companions admiring him for his energetic
+oratory even more than for the bulls he killed. The manager's friends
+asked him about Gallardo's losses. He would be ruined; what he earned by
+the bulls was being eaten up by gaming. But Don Jose smiled
+disdainfully, doubling the glory of his _matador_.
+
+"We have more bull-fights for this year than any one else. We're going
+to get tired of killing bulls and earning money. Let the boy amuse
+himself. That's what he works for, and that's why he is what he is--the
+greatest man in the world!"
+
+Don Jose considered that the people's admiration for the serenity with
+which he lost added glory to his idol. A _matador_ could not be like
+other men who keep chasing after a cent. He did not earn his money for
+nothing. Besides, it pleased him as a personal triumph, as something
+that was an accomplishment of his own, to see him established in a
+social set which not everybody could join.
+
+"He is the man of the day," he said with an aggressive air to those who
+criticised Gallardo's new habits. "He doesn't go with nobodies, nor does
+he sit around taverns like other bull-fighters. And what does that
+prove? He is the bull-fighter of the aristocracy, because he wants to
+be, and can be. The others are jealous."
+
+In his new existence, Gallardo not only frequented the club, but some
+afternoons he mingled with the Society of the Forty-five. It was a kind
+of senate of tauromachy. Bull-fighters did not find easy access to its
+_salons_, thus leaving the respectable nobility of the connoisseurs free
+to voice their opinions.
+
+During the spring and summer the Forty-five gathered in the vestibule
+and on the sidewalk, seated in willow arm-chairs, to await the telegrams
+from the bull-fights. They had little faith in the opinions of the
+press; moreover they must get the news before it came out in the papers.
+Telegrams from all parts of the Peninsula where bull-fights were held
+came at nightfall, and the members, after listening with religious
+gravity to their reading, argued and built suppositions upon these
+telegraphic brevities. It was a function that filled them with pride,
+elevating them above common mortals, this of remaining quietly seated at
+the door of the Society, enjoying the cool air and hearing in a certain
+manner, without prejudiced exaggerations, what had occurred that
+afternoon in the bull plaza of Bilbao, or of Coruna or Barcelona, or
+Valencia, of the ears one _matador_ had received or the hisses that had
+greeted another, while their fellow-citizens remained in the saddest
+depths of ignorance and walked the streets obliged to wait till night
+for the coming out of the newspapers. When there was an accident, and a
+telegram arrived announcing the terrible goring of a native
+bull-fighter, emotion and patriotic sentiment softened the respectable
+senators to the point of communicating the important secret to some
+passing friend. The news instantly circulated through the _cafes_ on
+Sierpes Street, and no one doubted it at all. It was a telegram received
+at the Forty-five.
+
+Gallardo's manager, with his aggressive and noisy enthusiasm, disturbed
+the social gravity; but they tolerated him on account of his being an
+old friend and they ended by laughing at his ways. It was impossible for
+such critical persons to discuss the merits of the bull-fighters
+tranquilly with Don Jose. Often, on speaking of Gallardo as "a brave
+boy, but with little art," they looked timorously toward the door.
+
+"Pepe is coming," they said, and the conversation was suddenly broken
+off.
+
+Don Jose entered waving the blue paper of a telegram above his head.
+
+"Have you got news from Santander? Here it is: Gallardo, two strokes,
+two bulls, and with the second, the ear. Now, didn't I tell you? The
+greatest man in the world!"
+
+The telegram for the Forty-five was often different, but the manager
+scarcely conceded it a scornful glance, bursting out in noisy protest.
+
+"Lies! All jealousy! My message is the one that's worth something. That
+one shows pique because my boy gets all the favors."
+
+And the members in the end laughed at Don Jose, touching their foreheads
+with a finger to indicate his madness, joking about "the greatest man in
+the world" and his funny manager.
+
+Little by little, as an unheard of privilege, he managed to introduce
+Gallardo into the Society. The bull-fighter came under the pretext of
+looking for his manager and finally seated himself among the gentlemen,
+many of whom were not his friends and had chosen _their matador_ among
+the rival swordsmen.
+
+The decorations of this club-house had distinction, as Don Jose said;
+high wainscotings of Moorish tiles, and on the immaculately white walls,
+gay posters recalling past bull-fights; mounted heads of bulls famous
+for the number of horses they had killed or for having wounded some
+celebrated _matador_; glittering capes and swords presented by certain
+bull-fighters on "cutting the queue" and retiring from the profession.
+
+Servants in frock coats waited on gentlemen in country dress or in
+negligee during the hot summer afternoons. In Holy Week and during other
+great feasts of Seville, when illustrious connoisseurs from all over
+Spain called to greet the Forty-five, the servants dressed in knee
+breeches and wore white wigs with red and yellow livery. In this guise,
+like lackeys of a royal house, they served trays of _manzanilla_ to the
+wealthy gentlemen, some of whom had even taken off their cravats.
+
+In the afternoons, when the dean of the Club, the illustrious Marquis of
+Moraima, presented himself, the members formed in a circle in deep
+arm-chairs and the famous cattle-breeder occupied a seat higher than the
+others like a throne, from which he presided over the conversation. They
+always began by talking about the weather. They were mostly breeders and
+rich farmers who lived on the products of the earth when favored by the
+variable heavens. The Marquis expounded the observations drawn from the
+knowledge acquired on interminable horseback rides over the Andalusian
+plain. Upon this immense desert, with a boundless horizon like a sea of
+land, the bulls resembled drowsy sharks moving slowly among the waves
+of herbage. The drought, that cruel calamity of the Andalusian plains,
+led to discussions lasting whole afternoons, and when, after long weeks
+of expectation, the lowering sky let fall a few drops, big and hot, the
+great country gentlemen smiled joyfully, rubbing their hands, and the
+Marquis said impressively, looking at the broad circles that wet the
+pavement:
+
+"The glory of God! Every drop of these is a five dollar gold piece!"
+
+When they were not busying themselves talking about the weather, cattle
+became the subject of their conversation, and especially bulls, as
+though they were united to them by a blood relationship. The breeders
+listened with respect to the Marquis' opinions, recognizing the prestige
+of his superior fortune. The mere amateurs, who never went out of the
+city, admired his skill as a raiser of noble animals. What that man
+knew! He showed himself convinced of the greatness of his occupation
+when he talked of the care the bulls needed. Out of every ten calves
+eight or nine were only good for meat, after being tested for their
+temper. Only one or two which proved themselves ferocious and aggressive
+before the point of the spear came to be considered animals suitable for
+combat, living apart, with all manner of care--and such care!
+
+"A herd of fierce bulls," said the Marquis, "should not be treated as a
+business. It is a luxury. They give, for a fighting bull, four or five
+times more than for an ox for the butcher-shop--but what they cost!"
+
+They must be cared for at all hours, heed must be taken in regard to
+their pasture and water, they must be moved from one place to another
+with changes of temperature. Each bull costs more to maintain than a
+family. And when he is ready he must be watched till the last minute so
+that he may not disgrace himself in the ring but do honor to the emblem
+of the breeder which he wears on his neck.
+
+The Marquis had been compelled to quarrel with the managers and
+authorities of certain plazas, and had refused to furnish his animals
+because the band of music was placed over the bull-pens. The noise of
+the instruments upset the animals, taking away their courage and
+serenity when they entered the arena.
+
+"They are just like ourselves," he said with tenderness. "They lack only
+speech. What do I say? Like us? There are some that are better than some
+people."
+
+And he told about Lobito, an old bull, a leader, which he declared he
+would not sell even if they would give him the whole of Seville with its
+Giralda. He no sooner galloped in sight of the drove in which this jewel
+lived on the vast pastures, than a shout was enough to call his
+attention. "Lobito!" And Lobito, abandoning his companions, came to meet
+the Marquis, moistening the horseman's boots with his gentle muzzle; yet
+he was an animal of immense power and the rest of the herd lived in fear
+of him.
+
+The breeder dismounted, and taking a piece of chocolate out of his
+saddle bags, he gave it to Lobito, who gratefully bowed his head armed
+with its gigantic horns. The Marquis advanced with an arm resting over
+the leader's neck, walking quietly through the drove of bulls, which
+grew restless and ferocious at the presence of the man. There was no
+danger. Lobito marched like a dog, covering the master with his body,
+looking in all directions, compelling respect among his companions with
+his flashing eyes. If one more audacious drew near to nose the Marquis
+he encountered the threatening horns of the leader. If several united
+with dull stupidity to bar his passage, Lobito thrust his armed head
+among them and opened the way.
+
+An expression of enthusiasm and tenderness moved the Marquis' beardless
+lips and his white side-whiskers as he recalled the great deeds of some
+of the animals produced in his pastures.
+
+"The bull! The noblest animal in the world! If men were more like them
+the world would be better off. There was Coronel. Do you remember that
+treasure?"
+
+And he showed an immense photograph with a handsome mounting, that
+represented himself in mountaineer dress, much younger and surrounded by
+several girls dressed in white, all seated in the centre of a meadow on
+a dark mass at one end of which was a pair of horns. This mass was
+Coronel. Immense and fierce toward his companions in the herd, he showed
+affectionate submission to the master and his family. He was like a
+mastiff, fierce to strangers, but letting the children pull him about by
+the tail and ears and put up with all their deviltry with growls of
+kindness. The Marquis had with him his young daughters, and the animal
+smelt of the little girls' white skirts as they timidly clung to their
+father's legs, until, with the sudden audacity of childhood, they ended
+by rubbing his nose. "Down, Coronel!" Coronel went down on his knees and
+the family seated themselves on his side, which moved up and down like a
+bellows with the _ru-ru_ of his powerful respiration.
+
+One day, after much hesitation, the Marquis sold him to the plaza of
+Pamplona and attended the bull-fight. Moraima was moved by the
+recollection of this event; his eyes filled with emotion. He had never
+in all his life seen a bull like that. He came courageously into the
+arena and stood planted in the middle of it, surprised at the light
+after the darkness of the bull-pen, and at the clamor of thousands of
+persons after the silence of the stables. But the moment a _picador_
+pricked him he seemed to fill the whole plaza with his tremendous
+fierceness.
+
+Before him, men, horses, nothing could stand. In one minute he threw the
+horses and tossed the _picadores_ into the air. The _peones_ ran. The
+plaza was like a regular branding-pen. The public shouted for more
+horses, and Coronel, in the meantime, stood waiting for some one to
+stand up and face him. Nothing like that for nobility and power will
+ever be seen again.
+
+As soon as they incited him to come on, he rushed up with a courage and
+speed that set the public wild. When they gave the sign to kill, with
+the fourteen stabs he had in his body, and the complete set of
+_banderillas_, he was as brave and valiant as though he had never gone
+out of the pasture. Then--
+
+The breeder, when he arrived at this point, always stopped, to
+strengthen his voice, which grew tremulous.
+
+Then--the Marquis of Moraima, who had been in a box, found himself, he
+knew not how, behind the barrier among attendants who were running about
+with the excitement of the eventful contest, and near to the _matador_,
+who was making ready his _muleta_ with a certain deliberation, as if
+wishing to put off the moment for standing face to face with an animal
+of such power. "Coronel!" shouted the Marquis, leaning his body half
+over the barrier and beating the boards with his hands.
+
+The animal stood still but raised his head at these cries--distant calls
+from a country he would never see again. "Coronel!" Turning his head the
+bull saw a man calling to him from the wall and he started in a direct
+line to attack him. But in the midst of his advance he slackened his
+pace and slowly approached until he touched with his horns the arms held
+out to him. His throat was varnished red with little streams of blood
+which escaped from the barbs buried in his neck and from the wounds in
+his hide, in which the blue muscle could be seen. "Coronel! My son!" And
+the bull, as if he understood these outbursts of tenderness, raised his
+dripping muzzle and dampened the Marquis' white beard. "Why hast thou
+brought me here?" those wild and blood-shot eyes seemed to say. And the
+Marquis, unheeding what he did, pressed kisses upon the animal's nose
+that was wet with his furious bellowings.
+
+"Don't let him be killed!" shouted a good soul in the galleries; and as
+if these words reflected the mind of the public, an explosion of voices
+filled the plaza, while thousands of handkerchiefs fluttered above the
+tiers of seats like flocks of doves. "Don't let him be killed!" For a
+moment the multitude, moved by a vague tenderness, despised its own
+diversion, hated the bull-fighter with his glittering dress and his
+useless heroism, admired the valor of the animal, and felt inferior to
+it, recognizing that among so many thousands of reasoning beings the
+greater nobility and sensibility were represented by the poor brute.
+
+"I took him back," said the Marquis, with emotion. "I returned the
+management their two thousand _pesetas_. I would have given my whole
+hacienda. After he had been pastured in the meadow a month he didn't
+even have the scars on his neck. It was my intention to let that brave
+beast die of old age, but the good do not prosper in this world. A
+tricky bull that was not fit to look him in the face treacherously gored
+him to death."
+
+The Marquis and his fellow cattle-breeders passed suddenly from this
+tenderness toward the animals, to the pride they felt in their ferocity.
+One should see the scorn with which they talked of the enemies of
+bull-fights, of those who protested against this art in the name of
+prevention of cruelty to animals. Foreigners' nonsense! Errors of
+ignoramuses, who only distinguish animals by their horns and think a
+slaughter-house ox the same as a fighting-bull! The Spanish bull was a
+wild-beast; the most heroic wild beast in the world. And they recounted
+the numerous combats between bulls and terrible felines, always followed
+by the noisy triumph of the national wild beast.
+
+The Marquis laughed as he recollected another of his animals. A combat
+was arranged in a plaza between a bull, and a lion, and a tiger
+belonging to a certain famous tamer, and the breeder sent Barrabas, a
+wicked animal he had always kept by himself in the pasture because he
+was ever goring his companions, and had killed many cattle.
+
+"I saw that, also," said Moraima. "A great iron cage in the centre of
+the ring, and in it was Barrabas. First they let the lion loose at him
+and the damned beast, taking advantage of the bull's lack of cunning,
+jumped onto his hind quarters and began to tear him with his claws and
+teeth. Barrabas jumped with fury to unfasten him and get him in front of
+his horns where his defences lay. At last, in one of his turns, he
+managed to toss the lion in front of him and gored him, and then,
+gentlemen, just like a ball, he smelled him from tip to tip a long
+while, shook him about like a figure stuffed with straw, till finally,
+as if he despised him, he tossed him to one side and there lay what they
+call the 'king of beasts' rolled up into a heap, mewing like a cat that
+has had a beating. Then they let the tiger at him and the affair was
+shorter yet. He had scarcely stuck his nose in before Barrabas hooked
+him and tossed him up, and after getting a good shaking, he went into
+the corner like the other, curling himself up and playing baby."
+
+These recollections always provoked great laughter at the Forty-five.
+The Spanish bull! Little wild beasts to face him! And in their joyful
+exclamations there was an expression of national pride, as if the
+arrogant courage of the Spanish wild beast signified equally the
+superiority of the land and race over the rest of the world.
+
+At the time Gallardo began to frequent the Society, a new subject of
+conversation interrupted the endless discussions about bulls and the
+country's crops.
+
+At the Forty-five, as well as all over Seville, they talked about
+"Plumitas," a bandit celebrated for his audacity, who each day acquired
+fresh fame by the fruitless efforts of his pursuers. The newspapers
+related his deeds as if he were a national personage; the Government was
+interpellated in the Cortes and promised an immediate capture which
+never took place; the civil guard concentrated and a regular army was
+mobilized for pursuing him while Plumitas, always alone, with no other
+auxiliary than his carbine and his restless steed, slipped in and out
+among them like a phantom. When their numbers were not great he faced
+them and dropped some one of them lifeless, and he was revered and
+assisted by the poor country people, miserable slaves on enormous
+estates, who saw in the bandit an avenger of the hungry, a quick and
+cruel justice, like that exercised by the ancient mail-clad knight
+errant. Plumitas demanded money from the rich and, with the air of an
+actor who sees himself watched by an immense audience, from time to time
+he succored some poor old woman or a laborer burdened with a family.
+These acts of generosity were enlarged upon by the gossips of the rural
+multitude, who at all hours had the name of Plumitas on their lips but
+who were blind and dumb when questioned by the military or the police.
+
+He passed from one province to another with the ease of one who knew the
+country well, and the land-owners of Seville and Cordova contributed
+equally to his sustenance. Whole weeks would pass without talk of the
+bandit, when he would suddenly present himself on a plantation, or make
+his entrance into a town, scornful of danger.
+
+At the Forty-five they had direct news of him, the same as if he were a
+killer of bulls.
+
+"Plumitas was at my place yesterday," said a rich farmer. "The overseer
+gave him thirty _duros_ and he went away after breakfast."
+
+They patiently tolerated this contribution and did not communicate the
+news to any but their friends. A denunciation meant declarations and all
+kinds of turmoil. Of what use? The civil guard pursued the bandit
+fruitlessly and when he became angry with the informers their property
+was at the mercy of his vengeance, utterly unprotected.
+
+The Marquis talked about Plumitas and his deeds without dismay, smiling
+as if he were discussing a natural and inevitable calamity.
+
+"They are poor boys that have been unlucky and have taken to the woods.
+My father (may he rest in peace!) knew the famous Jose Maria and
+breakfasted with him twice. I have come across many of less fame who
+went around doing mischief. They are like bulls; courageous, simple
+people. They only attack when they are pressed, growing hotter under
+persecution."
+
+"He had left orders at his farmhouses and at all the herders' huts on
+his vast territories for them to give Plumitas whatever he asked for.
+According to tales of the overseers and cowboys, the bandit, with the
+old time respect of the peasant for good and generous masters, spoke in
+greatest praise of him, offering to kill any one who might offend the
+Senor Marques in the least. Poor fellow! For a pittance, which was what
+he asked when he presented himself, tired and hungry, it was not worth
+while to irritate him and attract his vengeance."
+
+"The breeder, who galloped alone over the plains where his bulls
+pastured, had a suspicion of having several times crossed Plumitas' path
+without recognizing him. He must be one of those gaunt-looking horsemen
+he met in the country solitudes with no town in sight and who raised his
+hand to his grimy hat, saying with respectful simplicity:
+
+"God be with you, Senor Marques!"
+
+Moraima, when he talked of Plumitas, sometimes glanced at Gallardo,
+who, with the vehemence of the neophyte, railed against the authorities
+because they did not protect property.
+
+"Some fine day he'll present himself to thee at La Rincona', boy," said
+the Marquis with his grave drawl.
+
+"Damn it! Well, that will not please me, Senor Marques. Man alive! And
+must one pay such heavy taxes for that?"
+
+No; it would not please him to run against that bandit on his excursions
+at La Rinconada. He was a brave man when killing bulls, and he forgot
+his life in the ring; but these professional man-killers inspired him
+with the terrors of the unknown.
+
+His family was at his plantation. Senora Angustias loved country life
+after years spent in poverty in city houses. Carmen also enjoyed the
+peace of the country. Her industrious disposition inclined her to see to
+the work of the farm, enjoying the sweetness of ownership as she
+realized the extent of her property. Moreover, the leather-worker's
+children, those nephews and nieces who consoled her for her barrenness,
+needed the country air for the good of their health.
+
+Gallardo had promised to join them, but put off his trip with all manner
+of pretexts. He lived in his city house without other companionship than
+that of Garabato, like a bachelor, and this permitted him complete
+liberty in his relations with Dona Sol. He thought this the happiest
+time of his life. Sometimes he even forgot the existence of La Rinconada
+and its inhabitants.
+
+Mounted on fiery steeds he and Dona Sol rode out in the same costumes as
+on that day when they first met, sometimes alone, sometimes in the
+company of Don Jose, who by his presence seemed to mollify the scandal
+of the people at this exhibition. They were going to see bulls on the
+pastures near Seville, to test calves in the Marquis' herds, and Dona
+Sol, eager for danger, was enraptured when a young bull, instead of
+running away, turned against her at the prick of her javelin and
+attacked her so that Gallardo had to rush to her rescue.
+
+Again they went to the station at Empalme, if a shipment of bulls had
+been announced for the plazas which gave extra bull-fights late in the
+winter.
+
+Dona Sol curiously examined this place, the most important centre of
+exportation for the taurine industry. Near the railroad there were
+extensive enclosures in which enormous boxes of gray wood, mounted on
+wheels, and with two lift-doors, stood by the dozens, awaiting the busy
+times of exhibitions, or the summer bull-fights. These boxes had
+travelled all over the Peninsula, carrying noble bulls to distant plazas
+and returning empty to be occupied by another, and yet another.
+
+Human fraud and cunning succeeded in managing as easily as merchandise
+these wild beasts habituated to the freedom of the country. The bulls
+that were to be sent off on the train came galloping along a broad dusty
+road between two barbed wire fences. They came from far away pastures,
+and as they drew near Empalme their drivers started them on a disorderly
+race, so as to deceive them more completely by their scurrying speed. In
+advance, at full gallop, rode the overseers and herders, with pikes over
+their shoulders, followed by the prudent leaders covering the others
+with enormous horns, showing them to be old cattle. After them trotted
+the fierce bulls, the wild beasts destined for death, marching well
+flanked by tame bulls, who prevented their getting out of the road, and
+by strong cowboys who ran, sling in hand, ready to check with an
+unerring stone the pair of horns that separated from the group.
+
+When they reached the enclosures the advance riders separated, remaining
+outside the gate, and the whole troop of bulls, an avalanche of dust,
+kicking, bellowing, and bell ringing, rushed impetuously into the place,
+the barricade suddenly closing behind the tail of the last animal.
+People astride the walls or peering through the galleries excited them
+with shouts or by waving hats. They crossed the first enclosure, not
+noticing that they were shut in, but as though they still ran in the
+open country. The leaders, taught by experience and obedient to the
+herders, stood to one side as soon as they went through the door,
+letting the whirlwind of bulls that ran snorting after them, pass
+quietly through. They only stopped, with surprise and uncertainty, in
+the second enclosure, seeing the wall ahead of them, and as they turned,
+they found the gate closed in the rear.
+
+Then the boxing up began. One by one the bulls were urged, by the waving
+of rags, by shouts and blows, toward a little lane in the centre of
+which was placed the travelling box with its lift-doors. It was like a
+little tunnel at the end of which could be seen the open space of other
+grassy enclosures and leaders that walked peacefully about; a fiction of
+a far-away pasture which attracted the wild beast.
+
+He advanced slowly along the lane, now suspicious of danger and fearing
+to set his feet on the gently sloping gangway that led to the box
+mounted on wheels. The bull divined peril in this little tunnel which
+presented itself before him as an inevitable passage. He felt on his
+hind quarters the goad that urged him along the lane, obliging him to
+advance; he saw above him two rows of people looking over the barriers
+and exciting him with gesticulations and whistles. From the roof of the
+box, where the carpenters were hidden ready to let the doors fall, hung
+a red rag, waving in the rectangle of light framed by the other exit.
+The pricks, the shouts, the shapeless mass that danced before his eyes
+as if defying him, and the sight of his tranquil companions pastured on
+the other side of the passage, finally decided him. He began to run
+through the little tunnel; he made the wooden inclined plane tremble
+with his weight, but he had scarcely entered the box when the door in
+front fell, and before he could turn back the one behind him slid down.
+
+The loud grating of the locks was heard and the animal was swallowed up
+in darkness and silence, a prisoner in a little space wherein he could
+only lie down with his legs doubled up. Through a trap in the roof
+armfuls of forage fell upon him; men pushed the perambulating dungeon on
+its little wheels toward the nearby railroad, and immediately another
+box was placed in the passage, repeating the deception, until all the
+animals for the _corrida_ were ready to start on their journey.
+
+Dona Sol admired these proceedings in the great national industry with
+all her enthusiasm for "color," and longed to imitate the overseers and
+cowboys. She loved life in the open, the gallop over the immense plains
+followed by sharp horns and bony foreheads that could give death with
+the slightest movement. Her soul overflowed with strong love for the
+pastoral life which we all feel sometimes within us, as an inheritance
+from remote ancestors in that epoch in which man, not yet knowing how to
+extract riches from the womb of the earth, lived by gathering the beasts
+together and depending on their products for his sustenance. To be a
+herder, and a herder of wild beasts, seemed to Dona Sol the most
+interesting and heroic of professions.
+
+Gallardo, when he had overcome the first intoxication of his good luck,
+contemplated the lady in wonder in the hours when they were alone,
+asking himself if all women of the great world were like her. Her
+caprices, her versatility, astounded him. He dared not _thou_ her; no,
+not that. She had never encouraged him to such familiarity, and once
+when he tried it, with hesitating tongue and trembling voice, he saw in
+her eyes of gilded splendor such an expression of aloofness that he drew
+back ashamed, returning to his old form of address.
+
+She on the other hand used _thou_ in her speech to him, as did the great
+gentlemen friends of the bull-fighter, but this was only in hours of
+intimacy. Whenever she had to write him a short note, telling him not to
+come because she was obliged to go out with her relatives, she used
+_you_, and in her letters were no other expressions of affection than
+the coldly courteous ones which she might employ when writing to a
+friend of the lower class.
+
+"That _gachi!_" murmured Gallardo disheartened. "It seems as if she has
+always lived with scrubs who might show her letters to everybody and she
+is afraid. Anybody would say she doesn't think me a gentleman because I
+am a _matador!_"
+
+Other peculiarities of the great lady made the bull-fighter sulky and
+sad. Sometimes, when he presented himself at her house, one of those
+servants who looked like fine gentlemen in reduced circumstances coldly
+barred the way. "The Senora is not in. The Senora has gone out." And he
+guessed it was a lie, feeling Dona Sol's presence a short distance away
+on the other side of door and curtains. No doubt she was getting tired,
+was feeling a sudden aversion to him, and just at the moment of the call
+gave orders to her servants not to receive him.
+
+"Well; the coal is burned up!" said he as he walked away. "I'll never
+come back again. That _gachi_ is amusing herself with me."
+
+But when he returned he was ashamed of having believed in the
+possibility of not seeing Dona Sol again. She received him holding out
+to him white firm arms like those of an Amazon, her eyes wide and
+wandering, with a strange light that seemed to reflect mental disorder.
+
+"Why dost thou perfume thyself?" she complained, as though she perceived
+the most repugnant odors. "It is something unworthy of thee. I wish thee
+to smell of bulls, of horses. What rich odors! Dost thou not love them?
+Tell me yes, Juanin; beast of God, my animal!"
+
+One afternoon the bull-fighter, seeing her inclined to confidences, felt
+curiosity regarding her past and asked about the kings and great
+personages who, according to gossip, had crossed Dona Sol's life.
+
+She responded with a cold look in her light eyes.
+
+"And what does that matter to thee? Thou art jealous, maybe? And even if
+it were true, what then?"
+
+She remained silent a long while, her gaze wandering, her look of
+madness accompanied always by fantastic thoughts.
+
+"Thou must have beaten women," she said, looking at him with curiosity.
+"Deny it not. That would greatly interest me! Not thy wife; I know that
+she is good. I mean other women, all those that bull-fighters meet; the
+women that love with more fury the more they are beaten. No? Truly hast
+thou never beaten one?"
+
+Gallardo protested with the dignity of a brave man, incapable of
+ill-treating those who were not so strong as he. Dona Sol showed a
+certain disappointment on hearing his explanations.
+
+"Some day thou must beat me. I want to know what that is." She spoke
+with resolution, and then her face clouded, her brows met, a blue
+effulgence animated the gold dust of her pupils.
+
+"No, my strong man; mind me not; risk it not. Thou wouldst come out the
+loser."
+
+The advice was valid and Gallardo had occasion to remember it. One day,
+in a moment of intimacy, a somewhat rude caress from his bull-fighter
+hands awoke the fury of this woman who was attracted to the fellow--and
+hated him at the same time. "Take that!" And her right hand, clenched
+and hard as a club, gave a blow up and down the swordsman's jaw, with an
+accuracy that seemed to follow fixed rules of defence.
+
+Gallardo was stupefied with pain and shame, while the lady, as if she
+understood the suddenness of her aggression, tried to justify it with a
+cold hostility.
+
+"That is to teach thee a lesson. I know what you are, you bull-fighters.
+If I should let myself be trampled on once thou wouldst end by flogging
+me every day like a gypsy of Triana. That was well done. Distances must
+be preserved."
+
+One afternoon, in the early spring, they were returning from a testing
+of calves in the Marquis' pasture. He, with a troop of horsemen, rode
+along the highway. Dona Sol, followed by the swordsman, turned her horse
+through the fields, enjoying the elasticity of the sod under the horses'
+feet. The setting sun dyed the verdure of the plain a soft purple, the
+wild flowers dotted it with white and yellow. Across this expanse, on
+which the colors took the ruddy tone of distant fire, the shadows of the
+riders were outlined, long and slender. The spears they carried on their
+shoulders were so gigantic in the shadow that their dark lines were lost
+on the horizon. On one side shone the course of the river like a sheet
+of reddish steel--half hidden in the grass. Dona Sol looked at Gallardo
+with imperious eyes.
+
+"Put thy arm around my waist!"
+
+The swordsman obeyed and thus they rode, the two horses close together,
+the riders united from the waist up. The lady contemplated their blended
+shadows through the magic light of the meadow moving ahead of their slow
+march.
+
+"It seems as though we were living in another world," she murmured, "a
+world of legend; something like the scenes one sees on tapestries or
+reads of in books of knight errantry; the knight and the Amazon
+travelling together with the lance over the shoulder, enamoured and
+seeking adventure and danger. But thou dost not understand that, beast
+of my soul. Isn't it true that thou dost not comprehend me?"
+
+The bull-fighter smiled, showing his wholesome, strong teeth of
+gleaming whiteness. She, as if charmed by his rude ignorance, pressed
+her body against his, letting her head fall on his shoulder and
+trembling at the caress of Gallardo's breath upon her neck. Thus they
+rode in silence. Dona Sol seemed to be sleeping. Suddenly she opened her
+eyes and in them shone that strange expression that was a forerunner of
+the most extravagant questions.
+
+"Tell me, hast thou ever killed a man?"
+
+Gallardo was agitated, and in his astonishment drew away from Dona Sol.
+Who? He? Never! He was a good fellow who had made his way without doing
+harm to anybody. He had scarcely ever quarrelled with his companions in
+the _capeas_, not even when they kept the copper coins because they were
+stronger. A few fisticuffs in some disputes with his comrades in the
+profession; a blow with a flask in a _cafe_; these were the sum of his
+deeds. He was inspired with an invincible respect for the life of man.
+Bulls were another thing!
+
+"So thou hast never had a desire to kill a man? And I thought that
+bull-fighters--!"
+
+The sun hid itself, the meadow lost its fantastic illumination, the
+light on the river went out, and the lady saw the tapestry scene she had
+admired so much become dark and commonplace. The other horsemen rode far
+in advance and she spurred her steed to join the group, without a word
+to Gallardo, as if she took no heed of his following her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DIAMONDS IN THE RING
+
+
+Gallardo's family returned to the city for the _fiestas_ of Holy Week.
+He was to fight in the Easter _corrida_. It was the first time he would
+kill in the presence of Dona Sol since his acquaintance with her, and
+this troubled him and made him doubt his strength.
+
+Besides he could not fight in Seville without a certain emotion. He
+would be resigned to a calamity in any other town of Spain, knowing he
+would not return there for a long while; but in his own city, where were
+his greatest enemies!
+
+"We shall see if thou dost shine," said the manager. "Think of those who
+will see thee. I want thee to be the greatest man in the world."
+
+On Holy Saturday the penning in of the bulls destined for the _corrida_
+took place in the small hours of the night, and Dona Sol wished to
+assist in this operation as _piquero_. The bulls must be conducted from
+the pasture ground of Tablada to the enclosures in the plaza.
+
+Gallardo did not assist, in spite of his desire to accompany Dona Sol.
+The manager opposed it, alleging the necessity of his resting to be
+fresh and vigorous on the following afternoon. At midnight the road that
+leads from the pasture to the plaza was animated like a fair. The
+windows of the taverns were illuminated, and before them passed linked
+shadows moving with the steps of the dance to the sound of the pianos.
+From the inns, the red doorways flashed rectangles of light over the
+dark ground, and in their interiors arose shouts, laughter, twanging of
+guitars, and clinking of glasses, a sign that wine circulated in
+abundance.
+
+About one in the morning a horseman passed up the road at a short trot.
+He was the herald, a rough herder who stopped before the inns and
+illuminated houses, announcing that the bulls for the penning-in were to
+pass in a quarter of an hour, and asking that the lights be put out and
+all remain in silence.
+
+This command in the name of the national fiesta was obeyed with more
+celerity than an order from high authority. The houses were darkened and
+their whiteness was blended with the sombre mass of the trees; the
+people became quiet, hiding themselves behind window-grilles, palisades,
+and wire-fences, in the silence of those who await an extraordinary
+event. On the walks near the river, one by one the gas lights were
+extinguished as the herder advanced announcing the penning-in.
+
+All was silent. In the sky, above the masses of trees, the stars
+sparkled in the dense calm of space; below, along the ground, a slight
+movement was heard, as if countless insects swarmed thick in the
+darkness. The wait seemed long until the solemn tinkling of far away
+bells rang out in the cool stillness. They are coming! There they are!
+
+Louder rose the clash and clamor of the copper bells, accompanied by a
+confused galloping that made the earth tremble. First passed a body of
+horsemen at full speed, with lances held low, gigantic in the obscure
+light. These were the herders. Then a troop of amateur lancers, among
+whom was Dona Sol, panting from this mad race through the shadows in
+which one false step of the horse, a fall, meant death by being trampled
+beneath the hard feet of the ferocious herd that came behind, blind in
+their disorderly race.
+
+The bells rang furiously; the open mouths of the spectators hidden in
+the darkness swallowed clouds of dust, and the fierce herd passed like a
+nightmare--shapeless monsters of the night that trotted heavily and
+swiftly, shaking their masses of flesh, emitting hideous bellowings,
+goring at the shadows, but frightened and irritated by the shouts of the
+under-herder who followed on foot, and by the galloping of the horsemen
+that brought up the rear, harassing them with goads.
+
+The passage of this heavy and noisy troop lasted but an instant. Now
+there was nothing more to be seen. The crowd, satisfied at this fleeting
+spectacle after the long wait, came out of their hiding-places, and many
+enthusiasts started to run after the herd with the hope of seeing it
+enter the enclosures.
+
+The amateur lancers congratulated themselves on the great success of the
+penning-in. The herd had come well flanked without a single bull
+straying or getting away or making trouble for lancers and _peones_.
+They were fine-blooded animals; the very best of the Marquis' herd. On
+the morrow, if the _maestros_ showed bull-fighter pride, they were going
+to see great things. And in the hope of a grand _fiesta_ riders and
+_peones_ departed. One hour afterward the environs of the plaza were
+dark and deserted, holding in their bowels the ferocious beasts which
+fell quietly into the last sleep of their lives in this prison.
+
+The following morning Juan Gallardo rose early. He had slept badly, with
+a restlessness that filled his dreams with nightmare.
+
+He wished they would not give him _corridas_ in Seville! In other towns
+he lived like a bachelor, forgetting his family momentarily, in a
+strange room in a hotel that did not suggest anything, as it contained
+nothing personal. But to dress himself in his glittering costume in his
+own bed-chamber, seeing on chairs and tables objects that reminded him
+of Carmen; to go out to meet danger from that house which he had built
+and which held the most intimate belongings of his existence,
+disconcerted him and produced as great uneasiness as if he were going to
+kill his first bull. Ah! the terrible moment of leaving, when, dressed
+by Garabato in the shining costume, he descended to the silent
+courtyard! His nephews approached him awed by the brilliant ornaments of
+his apparel, touching them with admiration, not daring to speak; his
+be-whiskered sister gave him a kiss with an expression of terror, as if
+he were going to his death; his _mamita_ hid herself in the darkest
+rooms. No, she could not see him; she felt sick. Carmen was animated but
+very pale, her lips, purple from emotion, were compressed, her
+eye-lashes moved nervously in the effort to keep herself calm and when
+she at last saw him in the vestibule, she suddenly raised her
+handkerchief to her eyes, her body was shaken by tremendous sobs, and
+his sister and other women had to support her that she might not fall to
+the floor.
+
+It was enough to daunt even the very Roger de Flor of whom his
+brother-in-law talked.
+
+"Damn it! Man alive!" said Gallardo. "Not for all the gold in the world
+would I fight in Seville, if it were not to give pleasure to my
+countrymen and so that the shameless brutes cannot say that I'm afraid
+of the home audiences."
+
+He walked through the house with a cigarette in his mouth, stretching
+himself to see if his muscular arms kept their agility. He took a cup of
+Cazalla in the kitchen and watched his _mamita_, ever industrious in
+spite of her years and her flesh, moving about near the fireplaces,
+treating the servants with maternal vigilance, managing everything for
+the good government of the house.
+
+Garabato came to announce that friends were waiting for him in the
+courtyard. They were enthusiastic connoisseurs, the admirers who called
+on him on bull-fight days. The _matador_ instantly forgot all his
+anxieties and went out smiling, his head thrown back, his bearing
+arrogant, as if the bulls that awaited him in the plaza were personal
+enemies whom he desired to face as soon as possible and make them bite
+the dust with his unerring sword.
+
+The farewell was, as on other occasions, disconcerting and disturbing to
+Gallardo. The women fled so as not to see him go, all except Carmen, who
+forced herself to keep serene, and accompanied him to the door; the
+astonishment and curiosity of his little nephews annoyed the
+bull-fighter, arrogant and manful now that the hour of danger had come.
+
+"I should think they were taking me to the gallows! Well, see you later!
+Don't worry, nothing is going to happen."
+
+And he stepped into his carriage, forcing his way among the neighbors
+and the curious grouped before his house, who wished good luck to Senor
+Juan.
+
+The afternoons when the bull-fighter fought in Seville were agonizing
+for his family as well as for himself. They had not the same resignation
+as on other occasions when they had to wait patiently for nightfall and
+the arrival of the telegram. Here the danger was near at hand and this
+aroused anxiety for news and the desire to know the progress of the
+_corrida_ every quarter of an hour.
+
+The leather-worker, dressed like a gentleman, in a fine light woollen
+suit and a silky white felt hat, offered his services to the women in
+sending messages, although he was furious at the neglect of his
+illustrious brother-in-law who had not even offered him a seat in the
+coach! At the termination of each bull that Juan killed, he would send
+news of the event by one of the boys who swarmed around the plaza.
+
+The _corrida_ was a noisy success for Gallardo. As he entered the ring
+and heard the applause of the multitude, he felt that he had grown
+several inches taller. He knew the soil he trod; it was familiar; he
+felt it his own. The sand of the various arenas exercised a certain
+influence on his superstitious soul. He recollected the great plazas of
+Valencia and Barcelona with their whitish ground, the dark sand of the
+plazas of the north, and the reddish earth of the great ring of Madrid.
+The arena of Seville was different from the others--sand from the
+Guadalquivir, a deep yellow, as if it were pulverized paint. When the
+disembowelled horses shed their blood upon it, Gallardo thought of the
+colors of the national flag, that floated over the roof around the
+ring.
+
+The diverse architecture of the plazas also influenced the
+bull-fighter's imagination, which was readily agitated by the
+phantasmagoria of uneasiness. There were rings of more or less recent
+construction, some in Roman style, others Moorish, which had the
+banality of new churches where all seems empty and colorless. The plaza
+of Seville was a taurine cathedral of memories familiar to many
+generations, with its facade recalling a past century--a time when the
+men wore the powdered wig--and its ochre ring, which the most stupendous
+heroes had trod. It had known the glorious inventors of difficult feats,
+the perfecters of the art, the heavy champions of the _round school_
+with its correct and dignified bull-fighting system, the agile, gay
+_maestros_ of the Sevillian school with their plays and mobility that
+set the audiences wild--and there he, too, on that afternoon,
+intoxicated by the applause, by the sun, by the clamor, and by the sight
+of a white _mantilla_ and a blue-clad figure leaning over the railing of
+a box, felt equal to the most heroic deeds.
+
+Gallardo seemed to fill the ring with his agility and daring, anxious to
+outshine his companions, and eager that the applause should be for him
+alone. His admirers had never seen him so great. The manager, after each
+one of his brave deeds, arose and shouted, defying invisible enemies
+hidden in the masses on the seats: "Let's see who dares say a word! The
+greatest man in the world!"
+
+The second bull Gallardo was to kill Nacional drew, with skilful
+cape-work, to the foot of the box where sat Dona Sol in blue gown and
+white _mantilla_, with the Marquis and his two daughters. Gallardo
+walked close to the barrier with sword and _muleta_ in one hand,
+followed by the eyes of the multitude, and when he stood before the box,
+he looked up, taking off his cap. He was going to tender his bull to the
+niece of the Marquis of Moraima! Many smiled with a malicious
+expression. "Hurrah for the lucky boys!" He gave a half turn, throwing
+down his cap to end his speech, and awaited the bull which the _peones_
+were drawing over by the play of the cape. In a short time, managing so
+that the bull did not get away from this place, the _matador_
+accomplished his feat. He wished to kill under the very eyes of Dona Sol
+so that, at close range, she should see him defying danger. Each pass of
+his _muleta_ was accompanied by acclamations of enthusiasm and shouts of
+fear. The horns passed close to his breast; it seemed impossible for him
+to escape the attacks of the bull without losing blood. Suddenly he
+squared himself, with the sword raised for attack, and before the
+audience could voice their opinions with shouts and counsel, he swiftly
+threw himself upon the brute and man and animal formed but a single
+body.
+
+When the _matador_ drew away and stood motionless, the bull ran with
+halting step, bellowing, with distended nostrils, his tongue hanging
+between his lips and the red hilt of the sword visible in his
+blood-stained neck. He fell a few steps away and the audience rose to
+its feet _en masse_ as though it were a single body moved by a powerful
+spring; the outburst of applause and the fury of the acclamations broke
+out in a violent storm. There was not another brave man in the world
+equal to Gallardo! Could that youth ever once have felt fear?
+
+The swordsman saluted before the box, extending his arms holding the
+sword and _muleta_, while Dona Sol's white-gloved hands beat together in
+a fever of applause.
+
+Then something flew past spectator after spectator, from the box to the
+barrier. It was a lady's handkerchief, the one she carried in her hand,
+a fragrant tiny square of batiste and lace drawn through a ring of
+brilliants that she presented to the bull-fighter in exchange for this
+honor.
+
+Applause broke out again at this gift, and the attention of the
+audience, fixed until then on the _matador_, was distracted, many
+turning their backs to the ring, to look at Dona Sol, praising her
+beauty in loud voices with the familiarity of Andalusian gallantry. A
+small, hairy triangle, still warm, was passed from hand to hand from the
+barrier to the box. It was the bull's ear, which the _matador_ sent in
+testimony of his _brindis_.
+
+At the close of the bull-fight, news of Gallardo's great success spread
+throughout the city. When he arrived at his house the neighbors awaited
+him at the door, applauding him as if they had actually witnessed the
+_corrida_.
+
+The leather-worker, forgetting his anger at the swordsman, candidly
+admired him, though more for his valuable friendship than for his
+success as a bull-fighter. He had long kept his eye on a certain
+position which he no longer doubted his ability to get, now that his
+brother-in-law had friends among the best in Seville.
+
+"Show them the ring. See, Encarnacion, what a fine gift! Not even Roger
+de Flor himself--!"
+
+And the ring was passed around among the women, who admired it with
+exclamations of enthusiasm. Only Carmen made a wry face when she saw it.
+"Yes, very pretty," and she passed it to her sister-in-law, as though
+it burned her hands.
+
+After this bull-fight, the season of travel began for Gallardo. He had
+more contracts than in any previous year. Following the _corrida_ in
+Madrid he had to fight in all the rings in Spain. His manager studied
+train schedules and made interminable calculations for the guidance of
+his _matador_.
+
+Gallardo passed from success to success. He had never felt in better
+spirits. It seemed as though he carried a new force within him. Before
+the bull-fights cruel doubts assailed him, anxieties he had never felt
+in the hard times when he was just beginning to make a name for himself;
+but the moment he entered the ring these fears vanished and he displayed
+a fierce courage accompanied ever by great success.
+
+After his work, in whatever plaza of the provinces, he returned to his
+hotel followed by his _cuadrilla_, for they all lived together. He
+seated himself, glowing with the pleasant fatigue of triumph, without
+removing his glittering costume, and the connoisseurs of the community
+came to congratulate him. He had been colossal! He was the greatest
+bull-fighter in the world. That stab when he killed the fourth bull!
+
+"Is it really so?" asked Gallardo with infantile pride. "That wasn't
+bad, sure."
+
+And with the interminable verbosity of all conversation about bulls,
+time passed unheeded by the bull-fighter and his admirers, who never
+tired of talking of the _corrida_ of the afternoon and of others that
+had taken place some years before. Night closed in, lights were brought,
+yet the devotees did not go. The _cuadrilla_, obedient to the
+discipline of the profession, silently listened to their gossip at one
+end of the room. Until the _maestro_ gave them permission, the boys
+could not go to dress and eat. The _picadores_, fatigued by the heavy
+iron armor on their legs and by the terrific falls from their horses,
+shifted their beaver hats from knee to knee; the _banderilleros_,
+prisoners in their garments of silk, wet with sweat, were hungry after
+an afternoon of violent exercise. All had but a single thought and cast
+terrible glances at the enthusiasts.
+
+"But when will these tiresome old uncles go? Damn their souls!"
+
+Finally the _matador_ remembered them. "You may retire." And the
+_cuadrilla_ went out crowding each other like a school set free, while
+the _maestro_ continued listening to the praises of the "intelligent,"
+without thinking of Garabato who silently awaited the moment of
+undressing him.
+
+During his days of rest, the _maestro_, free from the excitement and
+danger of glory, turned his thoughts to Seville. Now and then he
+received one of those brief, perfumed little notes. Ah! if he had Dona
+Sol with him!
+
+In this continual travel from one audience to another, adored by the
+enthusiasts, who desired to have him spend a pleasant time in their
+town, he met women and attended entertainments gotten up in his honor.
+He always went away from these feasts with his brain clouded by wine and
+in a fit of ferocious sadness that made him intractable. He felt a cruel
+desire to ill-treat the women. It was an irresistible impulse to revenge
+himself for the aggressiveness and caprices of that other woman on those
+of her own sex.
+
+There were moments when it was necessary to confide his sorrows to
+Nacional with that irresistible impulse to confession felt by those who
+carry a great weight on their minds. Moreover the _banderillero_ awoke
+in him, when far from Seville, a greater affection, a reflected
+tenderness. Sebastian knew of his love affair with Dona Sol. He had seen
+it, although from afar, and she had often laughed on hearing Gallardo
+tell of the _banderillero's_ eccentricities.
+
+Nacional received the _maestro's_ confidences with an expression of
+severity.
+
+"The thing thou shouldst do, Juan, is to forget that lady. Remember that
+peace in the family is worth more than anything else for us who go about
+the world exposed to the danger of coming home useless forever. Remember
+that Carmen knows more than thou dost think. She knows everything. She
+has asked indirect questions even of me about thy affairs with the
+Marquis' niece. Poor girl! It is a sin that thou shouldst make her
+suffer. She has her temper, and if she lets it loose she'll give thee
+trouble."
+
+But Gallardo, far from his family, his thought dominated by the memory
+of Dona Sol, seemed not to understand the dangers of which Nacional
+discoursed, and he shrugged his shoulders at such sentimental scruples.
+
+He needed to speak his thoughts, to make his friend participate in his
+past joys, with the pride of a satisfied lover who wishes to be admired
+in his happiness.
+
+"But thou dost not know that woman! Thou, Sebastian, art an unfortunate
+fellow that knowest not the best in life. Imagine all the women of
+Seville put together! Nothing! Imagine all those of all the towns where
+we have been! Nothing, either! There is only Dona Sol. When one knows a
+lady like that one has no mind for any other. If thou didst know her as
+I do, boy! The woman of our kind smell of clean flesh, of white
+clothing. But this one, Sebastian, this one! Imagine all the roses of
+the gardens of the Alcazar together. No, it is something better; imagine
+jasmine, honeysuckle, and perfume of vines like those that must grow in
+the garden of Paradise. But her sweet odors come from within, as if she
+did not put them on, as if they came from her very blood. And besides,
+she is not one of those who, once seen, are forever the same. With her
+there is always something yet to be desired; something one longs for and
+that doesn't come. In fine, Sebastian, I cannot explain myself well--but
+thou knowest not what a lady is; so preach not to me and shut thy beak."
+
+Gallardo no longer received letters from Seville. Dona Sol was
+travelling in foreign lands. He saw her once when he fought at San
+Sebastian. The beautiful lady was at Biarritz and she came in company
+with some French women who wished to meet the bull-fighter. He saw her
+one afternoon. She went away and he had only vague knowledge of her
+during the summer through the few letters he received and through the
+news his manager communicated from chance words dropped by the Marquis
+of Moraima.
+
+She was at elegant watering-places whose very names Gallardo heard for
+the first time, and they were of impossible pronunciation for him; then
+he heard that she was travelling in England; afterward that she had gone
+on to Germany to hear some operas sung in a wonderful theatre that only
+opened its doors a few weeks each year. Gallardo lost faith in ever
+seeing her again. She was a bird of passage, venturesome and restless,
+and he dared not hope that she would seek her nest in Seville again when
+winter returned. This possibility saddened him and revealed the power
+this woman had exercised over his body and his mind. Never to see her
+again? Why then expose his life and be celebrated? Of what use was the
+applause of the multitude?
+
+His manager tried to soothe him. She would return; he was sure. She
+would return, if only for a year. Dona Sol, with all her mad caprices,
+was a practical woman, who knew how to look out for her property. She
+needed the Marquis' help to unravel the business tangles of her own
+fortune and that which her husband had left her, both diminished by a
+long and luxurious sojourn far from home.
+
+Gallardo returned to Seville at the end of the summer. He still had a
+goodly number of autumn bull-fights, but he wished to take advantage of
+nearly a month of rest. His family was at the seashore at Sanlucar, for
+the health of the little nephews, who needed the salt-water cure.
+
+Gallardo was overcome with emotion when his manager announced one day
+that Dona Sol had just arrived, unexpected by any one. He went to see
+her immediately, but after a few words he felt intimidated by her frigid
+amiability and the expression of her eyes.
+
+She gazed at him as if he were a stranger. He divined in her manner a
+certain surprise at the bull-fighter's rough exterior, at the difference
+between herself and this youth, a mere killer of beasts. He also divined
+the gulf that had opened between the two. She seemed to him a different
+woman; a great dame of another land and race.
+
+They chatted pleasantly. She seemed to have forgotten the past, and
+Gallardo lacked the courage to remind her of it, nor did he dare to make
+the slightest advance, fearing one of her outbursts of anger.
+
+"Seville!" said Dona Sol. "Very pretty--very agreeable. But there are
+other places in the world. I tell you, Gallardo, that some day I am
+going to take my flight forever. I foresee that I am going to be very
+much bored here. It seems to me my Seville has changed."
+
+She no longer _thou_-ed him. Several days passed before the bull-fighter
+dared to remind her of other times during his calls. He limited himself
+to contemplating her in silence, with his moist, adoring Moorish eyes.
+
+"I am bored. I may leave any day," exclaimed the lady at every one of
+their interviews.
+
+Once again the servant with the imposing air met the bull-fighter at the
+inner gate and told him the Senora had gone out when he knew for a
+certainty she was in the house.
+
+Gallardo told her one afternoon about a short excursion he must take to
+his plantation at La Rinconada. He must look at some olive orchards his
+manager had bought during his absence to add to his estate; he must also
+acquaint himself with the progress of the work on the plantation.
+
+The idea of accompanying the _matador_ on this excursion occurred to
+Dona Sol and made her smile at its absurdity and daring. To go to that
+hacienda where Gallardo's family spent a part of the year! To invade
+with the scandalous audacity of irregularity and sin that tranquil
+atmosphere of domestic life where the poor youth lived with those of his
+own home! The very absurdity of the idea decided her. She would go; it
+would interest her to see La Rinconada.
+
+Gallardo was afraid. He thought of the people on the plantation, of the
+gossips who would tell his family about this trip. But the look in Dona
+Sol's eyes overthrew his scruples. Who could tell! Maybe this trip would
+bring back the old situation.
+
+He wished, however, to offer a final obstacle to this desire.
+
+"And Plumitas? Remember about him; they say that he is around La
+Rinconada."
+
+"Ah! Plumitas!" Dona Sol's countenance, clouded by _ennui_, seemed to
+clear by a sudden flash from within. "How charming! I would be delighted
+if you could present him."
+
+Gallardo arranged the trip. He had expected to go alone, but Dona Sol's
+company obliged him to take an escort for fear of an unhappy adventure
+on the road. He sought Potaje, the _picador_. He was a rough fellow, and
+feared nothing in the world but his gypsy wife, who, when she grew tired
+of taking beatings, tried to bite him. No need to give explanations to
+him--only wine in abundance. Alcohol and the atrocious falls in the ring
+kept him in a perpetual state of stupidity, as if his head buzzed and
+prevented him from saying more than a few words and permitted him but a
+clouded vision of things in general.
+
+Gallardo also ordered Nacional to go with them; one more, and that was
+discretion beyond all doubt.
+
+The _banderillero_ obeyed from force of habit but grumbled when he heard
+that Dona Sol was going with them.
+
+"By the life of the blue dove! Must a father of a family see himself
+mixed up in these ugly affairs! What will Carmen and Sena' Angustias say
+about me if they find it out?"
+
+When he found himself in the open country, placed beside Potaje on the
+seat of an automobile, in front of the _matador_ and the great lady, his
+anger little by little vanished. He could not see her well, hidden as
+she was in a great blue veil that fell from her travelling cap and
+floated over her yellow silk coat; but she was very beautiful. And such
+conversation! And such knowledge of things!
+
+Before half the journey was over, Nacional, with his twenty-five years
+of marital fidelity, excused the weakness of the _matador_, and made
+vain efforts to explain his enthusiasm to himself.
+
+"Whoever found himself in the same situation would do the same.
+
+"Education! A fine thing, capable of giving respectability to even the
+greatest sins."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BREAKFAST WITH THE BANDIT
+
+
+"Let him tell thee who he is--or else let the devil take him. Damn the
+luck! Can't a man sleep?"
+
+Nacional heard this answer through the door of his master's room, and
+transmitted it to a _peon_ belonging to the hacienda who stood waiting
+on the stairs.
+
+"Let him tell thee who he is! Unless he does, the master won't get up."
+
+It was eight o'clock. The _banderillero_ peeped out of the window,
+following with his gaze the _peon_ who ran along the road in front of
+the plantation until he came to the farther end of the wire fence that
+surrounded the estate. Near the entrance to this enclosure he saw a man
+on horseback,--so small in the distance, both man and horse seemed to
+have stepped out of a box of toys.
+
+The laborer soon returned, after having talked with the horseman.
+Nacional, interested in these goings and comings, received him at the
+foot of the stairs.
+
+"He says he must see the master," faltered the _peon_. "He looks like an
+ill-tempered fellow. He says he wants the master to come down at once
+because he's got news for him."
+
+The _banderillero_ hastened upstairs to pound on the master's door
+again, paying no attention to his protests. He must get up; it was late
+for the country and that man might bring an important message.
+
+"I'm coming!" said Gallardo, gruffly, without rising from his bed.
+
+Nacional peeped out again and saw that the horseman was advancing along
+the road toward the farmhouse.
+
+The _peon_ ran out with the answer. He, poor man, seemed nervous, and in
+his two dialogues with the _banderillero_ stammered with an expression
+of fear and doubt as though not daring to reveal his thoughts. When he
+joined the man on horseback, he listened to him a few moments and then
+returned on a run toward the house, this time with even more
+precipitation. Nacional heard him come up the stairs with no abatement
+of speed, till he stood before him, trembling and pale.
+
+"It's Plumitas, Senor Sebastian! He says he's Plumitas and that he must
+talk to the master. My heart told me that the minute I saw him."
+
+Plumitas! The voice of the _peon_, in spite of his stammering and his
+panting with fatigue, seemed to pierce the walls and scatter through
+every room as he pronounced this name. The _banderillero_ was struck
+dumb with surprise. The sound of oaths accompanied by the swish of
+clothing and the thud of a body that hastily flung itself out of bed
+were heard in the master's room. In the one Dona Sol occupied there was
+a sudden activity that seemed to respond to the tremendous news.
+
+"But, damn him! What does that man want with me? Why does he intrude
+himself at La Rinconada? And especially just now!"
+
+It was Gallardo who rushed madly out of his room, with only his trousers
+and jacket hurriedly thrown on over his underclothing. He ran past the
+_banderillero_, and threw himself down the stairs, followed by
+Nacional.
+
+The rider was dismounting before the door. A herder was holding the
+reins of the mare and the other workmen formed a group a short distance
+away, contemplating the newcomer with curiosity and respect.
+
+He was a man of medium stature, stocky rather than tall, full-faced,
+blonde, and with short strong limbs. He was dressed in a gray blouse
+trimmed with black braid, dark, well-worn breeches with a double
+thickness of cloth on the inside of the leg, and leathern leggings
+cracked by sun, rain, and mud. Under his blouse his girth was enlarged
+by the addition of a heavy girdle and a cartridge-belt, to which were
+added the bulkiness of a heavy revolver and a formidable knife. In his
+right hand he carried a repeating carbine. A hat which had once been
+white covered his head, its brim flapping and worn ragged by the
+inclement weather. A red handkerchief knotted around his neck was the
+gayest adornment of his person.
+
+His countenance, broad and chub-cheeked, had the placidity of a full
+moon. His cheeks still revealed the fair skin through their heavy tan;
+the sharp points of a blonde beard, not shaven for many days, protruded,
+gleaming like old gold in the sunlight. His eyes were the only
+disquieting feature of his kindly face, which looked like that of a
+village sacristan; eyes small and triangular, sunken in bubbles of
+fat--narrow eyes, that reminded one of the eyes of pigs, with a wicked
+pupil of dark blue.
+
+When Gallardo appeared at the door of the farmhouse the bandit
+recognized him instantly and lifted his hat from his round head.
+
+"God give you good-day, Senor Juan," he said with the grave courtesy of
+the Andalusian country people.
+
+"Good-day."
+
+"The family well, Senor Juan?"
+
+"Well, thanks, and yours?" asked the matador with the automatism of
+custom.
+
+"Well, also, I believe. I haven't seen them for some time."
+
+The two men had drawn near together, examining one another at close
+range with simple frankness as though they were two travellers met in
+the open country. The bull-fighter was pale and his lips were compressed
+to hide his emotion. Did the bandit think he was going to scare him? On
+another occasion perhaps this visit would have frightened him; but now,
+having upstairs whom he had, he felt equal to fighting him as though he
+were a bull, should he announce any evil intentions.
+
+Some seconds passed in silence. All the men of the plantation who had
+not gone to their labors in the field, obsessed by the dark fame of his
+name, contemplated this terrible personage with an amazement that had in
+it something infantile.
+
+"Can they take the mare to the stable to rest a little?" asked the
+bandit.
+
+Gallardo made a sign and a boy tugged at the animal's reins, leading her
+away.
+
+"Care for her well," said Plumitas. "Remember that she's the best thing
+I've got in the world and that I love her more than my wife and
+children."
+
+Potaje now came out with his shirt unbuttoned, stretching himself with
+all the brutal bigness of his athletic body. He rubbed his eyes, always
+blood-shot and inflamed from abuse of drink, and striding up to the
+bandit he let a great rough hand fall on one of his shoulders with
+studied familiarity, as if he enjoyed making him wince beneath his fist,
+but expressing to him at the same time a rude sympathy.
+
+"How art thou, Plumitas?"
+
+He had not seen him before. The bandit shrank back as though to spring
+from this rude caress, and his right hand raised his rifle, but the blue
+eyes, fastened on the _picador_, seemed to recognize him.
+
+"Thou art Potaje, if I don't deceive myself. I have seen thee stir up
+the bulls at Seville and in other plazas. Comrade, what terrible falls
+thou hast suffered! How strong thou art! As though made of iron."
+
+And to return his greeting, he grasped one of Potaje's arms with his
+callous hand, feeling his muscle with a smile of admiration. The two
+stood gazing at one another with affectionate eyes. The _picador_
+laughed sonorously.
+
+"Ho! Ho! I imagined thee a bigger man, Plumitas. But it matters not;
+take thee altogether, thou art a fine fellow."
+
+The bandit turned to Gallardo:
+
+"Can I breakfast here?"
+
+Gallardo made a gesture of the _gran senor_.
+
+"Nobody who comes to La Rincona' goes without breakfasting."
+
+They all entered the kitchen of the farmhouse, a vast room with a
+bell-shaped chimney, the habitual place of these gatherings.
+
+The _matador_ seated himself in an arm-chair; the farmer's daughter
+busied herself putting on his shoes, for he had rushed down in his
+slippers.
+
+Nacional, wishing to show signs of existence and tranquillized now by
+the courteous aspect of the visitor, appeared with a bottle of native
+wine and glasses.
+
+"I know thee, also," said the bandit with as much politeness as to the
+_picador_. "I have seen thee lodge the _banderillas_. When thou wishest
+thou dost it well; but thou shouldst get closer."
+
+Potaje and the _maestro_ laughed at this counsel. When he went to raise
+his glass, Plumitas was embarrassed by his carbine, which he held
+between his knees.
+
+"Say, man, put that down," said the _picador_. "Must thou keep on guard
+even when thou goest on a visit?"
+
+The bandit grew serious. It was all right where it was; it was his
+custom. The rifle accompanied him always, even when he slept. And this
+allusion to the weapon, which was like an additional member, ever united
+to his body, turned him grave again. He looked in all directions with a
+nervous restlessness. Anxiety showed in his face the habit of living
+alert, of trusting nobody, with no other reliance than his own strength,
+having a presentiment of danger near him every hour.
+
+A herder walked through the kitchen in the direction of the door.
+
+"Where's that man going?"
+
+As he said this he rose in his seat, drawing the rifle towards his
+breast with his knees.
+
+He was bound for a large field nearby where the farm laborers were
+working. Plumitas settled himself peacefully again.
+
+"Listen, Senor Juan. I have come for the pleasure of seeing you and
+because I know you are a gentleman, incapable of breathing a whisper
+against me. Besides, you must have heard talk of Plumitas. 'Tis not
+easy to catch him and whoever does it shall pay for it."
+
+The _picador_ intervened before his _maestro_ could speak.
+
+"Plumitas, don't be silly. Here thou art among comrades while thou dost
+behave and carry thyself decently."
+
+And the bandit, becoming suddenly relieved, began to talk to the
+_picador_ about his mare, boasting of her merits. The two men met on a
+common ground of enthusiasm as fearless riders, which caused them to
+regard horses with more affection than people.
+
+Gallardo, still somewhat restless, walked about the kitchen, while the
+brown, broad-shouldered women of the farm stirred the fire and prepared
+breakfast, looking out of the corners of their eyes at the celebrated
+Plumitas. In one of his evolutions he drew near Nacional. He must go to
+Dona Sol's room and beg her not to come down. The bandit would surely go
+after breakfast. Why let herself be seen by this annoying personage?
+
+The _banderillero_ disappeared, and Plumitas noticing that the _maestro_
+was taking no part in the conversation, turned to him, asking him with
+interest about the rest of the season's bull-fights.
+
+"I am a Gallardist, you know. I have applauded you more times than you
+can imagine. I have seen you in Seville, in Jaen, in Cordova, in many
+places."
+
+Gallardo was surprised at this. How could he, who had a veritable army
+of persecutors at his heels, quietly attend bull-fights? Plumitas smiled
+with an expression of superiority.
+
+"Bah! I go where I wish. I am everywhere."
+
+Then he told of the occasions when he had seen the _matador_ on the way
+to the plantation, sometimes accompanied, sometimes alone, passing him
+close in the road without being noticed, as though he were a humble
+herder riding on his nag to carry a message to some nearby hut.
+
+"When you came from Seville to buy the two mills you have below, I met
+you on the road. You were carrying five thousand _duros_. Were you not?
+Tell the truth. You see I know all about it. Again I saw you in one of
+those 'animals' they call automobiles, with another gentleman from
+Seville, your manager, I think. You were going to sign the papers for
+the Priests' olive orchard and you were carrying a still larger bag of
+money."
+
+Gallardo little by little recalled the exactness of these facts, and
+looked with astonishment at this man who was informed of everything. And
+the bandit went on to tell how little respect he had for obstacles.
+
+"You see those things they call automobiles? Mere trifles! Such vermin I
+stop with nothing but this." And he touched his rifle. "In Cordova I had
+accounts to settle with a rich _senor_ who was my enemy. I planted my
+mare on one side of the road and when the beast came along, raising dust
+and stinking of petroleum, I shouted 'Halt!' It wouldn't stop, and I let
+the thing that goes around the wheel have a ball. To abbreviate: the
+auto stopped a little farther on and I set out at a gallop to join the
+_senor_ and settle accounts. A man that can send a ball where he wants
+to can stop anything on the road."
+
+Gallardo listened in astonishment to Plumitas' calm professional talk of
+his deeds on the highway.
+
+"There was no reason for stopping you. You do not belong to the rich.
+You spring from the poor as I do, but with better luck, with more of
+fortune in your work than I, and if you have made money you have well
+earned it. I have great respect for you, Senor Juan. I like you because
+you are a brave _matador_ and I have a weakness for valiant men. We two
+are almost comrades; we both live by exposing our lives. So, although
+you did not know me, I was there, watching you pass, without even asking
+for a cigarette, to see that nobody dared so much as touch one of your
+finger nails; to see that no shameless fellow took advantage of you by
+riding out into the road and saying he was Plumitas, for stranger things
+have happened."
+
+An unexpected apparition ended the bandit's speech and moved the
+bull-fighter's countenance to anger. "Damn it! Dona Sol!" But hadn't
+Nacional given her his message? The _banderillero_ followed the lady,
+and as he stood in the kitchen door he made gestures of despair to
+indicate to the _maestro_ that his prayers and counsel had been useless.
+
+Dona Sol came in wearing her travelling cloak, her golden hair loosely
+combed and knotted in all haste. Plumitas at the plantation! What joy!
+She had been thinking of him half the night with sweet thrills of
+terror, proposing to herself to ride over all the lonely places near La
+Rinconada, hoping good luck would cause her to fall in with the
+interesting bandit. And, as if her thoughts had exercised a power of
+attraction, the highwayman had obeyed her desires and presented himself
+at the plantation early in the morning!
+
+Plumitas! That name brought to her mind the typical figure of a bandit.
+She hardly needed to meet him; she would scarcely experience surprise.
+She imagined him tall, well-formed, well-browned, with a three-cornered
+hat above a red handkerchief, from beneath which fell jet black curls;
+his agile body dressed in black velvet; his tapering waist bound by a
+belt of purple silk; his legs encased in date-colored leather
+leggings--a knight errant of the Andalusian steppes, almost like those
+elegant tenors she had seen in "Carmen" who discard the soldiers'
+uniform and become contrabandists for the sake of love.
+
+Her eyes, wide with curiosity, wandered over the kitchen without finding
+a three-cornered hat or an ancient fire-lock. She saw an unknown man who
+rose to his feet; a kind of a country guard with a carbine, like those
+she had often met on the family estates.
+
+"Good-day, Senora Marquesa. And your uncle, the Marquis, does he keep
+well?"
+
+The gaze of all, converging upon this man, told her the truth. Ah! this
+was Plumitas!
+
+He had removed his hat with rough courtesy, embarrassed by the lady's
+presence; he continued standing, the carbine in one hand and the old
+felt hat in the other.
+
+Gallardo wondered at the bandit's words. The man knew everybody. He knew
+who Dona Sol was and with a respectful impulse he gave her the family
+title.
+
+The lady, recovering from her surprise, made a sign for him to be seated
+and to cover himself, but, although he obeyed the former, he put his hat
+on a nearby chair. As if divining a question in Dona Sol's eyes, which
+were fixed on him, he added:
+
+"Let the Senora Marquesa not be surprised that I know her; I have seen
+her many times with the Marquis and other gentlemen when they were
+going to test calves. I have also seen from a distance how the lady
+attacked the beasts. The Senora is very brave and the finest girl I have
+seen in this, God's own country! It is perfect joy to see her on
+horseback, with her three-cornered hat, her cravat, and her belt. The
+men must follow in crowds after her heavenly little eyes!"
+
+The bandit allowed himself to be drawn by his Southern enthusiasm into
+the greatest frankness, seeking new expressions of praise for the lady.
+
+She turned pale, her eyes grew large with happy terror, and she began to
+find the bandit interesting. Could he have come to the plantation solely
+on her account? Did he intend to kidnap her and carry her away to his
+hiding-place in the mountains with the hungry rapacity of a bird of prey
+who returns from the plain to his nest on the heights?
+
+The bull-fighter also grew alarmed on hearing these expressions of rude
+admiration. Damn it! In his own house and in his very face! If this kept
+up he was going upstairs after his gun, and even though this were
+Plumitas, they should see who would have her!
+
+The bandit suddenly seemed to understand the annoyance his words caused
+and he adopted a respectful attitude.
+
+"Pardon, Senora Marquesa. It is only banter. I have a wife and four
+children. The poor girl weeps more on my account than ever wept the
+Virgin of Agonies. I am a peaceful Moor; an unfortunate fellow that is
+what he is because an evil shadow follows him."
+
+And as though he took pains to be agreeable to Dona Sol, he broke out
+into enthusiastic praises of her family. The Marquis of Moraima was one
+of the men he most respected in all the world.
+
+"If all the rich were like that! My father worked for him, and told us
+about his charity. I had the fever in a herder's hut in a pasture of
+his. He knew it but he said nothing. At his farmhouses he leaves an
+order for them to give me what I ask and to leave me in peace. Such
+things are never forgotten. When I least expect it I meet him alone,
+mounted on his horse like a young fellow, as if he did not feel the
+passing of the years. 'God be with you, Senor Marques.' 'Greeting, boy.'
+He does not guess who I am because I carry my companion"--and he
+motioned to his carbine--"under my blanket. I long to stop him and ask
+his hand, not to clasp it, no, not that; how could such a good man clasp
+hands with me, who have so many killed and maimed to my account? No, to
+kiss it, as though he were my father, to kneel before him and give him
+thanks for what he does for me."
+
+The earnestness with which he spoke of his gratitude did not move Dona
+Sol. So that was the famous Plumitas! A poor man; a mild rabbit of the
+plains whom all thought a wolf, deceived by his fame.
+
+"There are also bad rich men," continued the bandit. "How some of them
+make the poor suffer! Near my town there is one that lends money and is
+meaner than Judas. I sent him word not to grind the poor so, and the
+vile thief, instead of paying attention to me, told the civil guard to
+catch me. Well, I burned a barnful of straw for him and I did other
+little things to him and it has been over half a year since he has dared
+go to Seville, or even out of the town for fear of meeting Plumitas.
+Another one was going to turn out a poor little old woman because for a
+year she hadn't paid the rent of the miserable hut she had held ever
+since her father's time. I went to see the _senor_, just at nightfall,
+when he was going to sit down to supper with his family. 'My master, I
+am Plumitas, and I need a hundred _duros_.' He gave them to me and I
+went to the old woman with them. 'Grandmother, take this; pay that Jew;
+what is left over is for you and may it serve your good health.'"
+
+Dona Sol contemplated the bandit with more interest.
+
+"And killed?" she asked. "How many have you killed?"
+
+"Senora, let us not speak of that," said the bandit gravely. "You would
+feel repugnance for me and I am only a poor, unfortunate, persecuted
+fellow who must defend himself as he can."
+
+A long silence fell.
+
+"You know not how I live, Senora Marquesa," he continued. "The wild
+beasts fare better than I. I sleep where I can, or I do not sleep at
+all. I get up in one end of the province to lie down in the other. One
+must keep his eye well open and his hand firm so they will respect and
+not betray one. The poor are good, but poverty is an ugly thing and
+turns the best bad. If they hadn't been afraid of me they would have
+handed me over to the guards many times. I have no true friends but my
+mare and this"--holding up his carbine. "Suddenly I feel a longing to
+see my wife and babies, and I enter my town at night while all the
+people who recognize me open their eyes wide. But some day it will end
+wrong. There are days when I get tired of being by myself and I need to
+see people. Long have I wanted to come to La Rincona'. Why should I not
+see at close range the Senor Juan Gallardo, I who appreciate him and
+have often applauded him? But I always saw you with many friends, or
+else your wife and your mother and the children were here. I understand
+that; they would have been scared to death at the mere sight of
+Plumitas. Now it is different. This time you came with the Senora
+Marquesa, and I said to myself: 'Let's go and greet those fine people
+and chat with them a while.'"
+
+The peculiar smile that accompanied these words seemed to recognize a
+difference between the bull-fighter's family and the lady, and made it
+clear that Gallardo's relations with Dona Sol were no secret to him.
+Respect for the legitimacy of matrimony dwelt in the soul of this poor
+countryman, and he felt that he was authorized in taking greater
+liberties with the bull-fighter's aristocratic friend than with the poor
+women who composed his family.
+
+Dona Sol paid no attention to these words and besieged the highwayman
+with questions, wishing to know how he had come to his present state.
+
+"Nothing, Senora Marquesa; an injustice; one of those misfortunes that
+fall on us poor people. I was one of the cleverest in my town and the
+workmen always chose me as spokesman when there was anything to be asked
+of the rich. I know how to read and write. As a boy I was a sacristan
+and they gave me the nickname of Plumitas because I was always after the
+chickens to pull out their feathers for my writings."
+
+A rough caress from Potaje's strong hand interrupted him.
+
+"_Compadre_, the minute I saw thee I guessed that thou wert a church rat
+or something like that."
+
+Nacional held his peace, respecting these confidences, but he smiled
+slightly. A sacristan converted into a bandit! What things Don Joselito
+would say when he told him that!
+
+"I married my wife and we had our first baby. One night a couple of
+guards came to the house and took me outside the town to the
+threshing-floor. Some shots had been fired into a rich man's door, and
+those good gentlemen were determined that it was I who did it. I denied
+it and they beat me with their guns. I denied it again and they beat me
+more. To abbreviate, they kept me till daybreak, beating me all over,
+sometimes with the barrel, sometimes with the butt-end, until they were
+worn out and I lay on the ground senseless. They had me tied hand and
+foot, and beat me as if I were a bale of goods. And all the while they
+kept saying to me, 'Art thou not the bravest man in the town? Come on,
+defend thyself; let's see how far thy brags can carry thee.' This was
+what hurt most, their jibes. My poor little wife cured me as best she
+could, but I never rested, I could not endure the remembrance of those
+blows and jibes. To abbreviate again, one day one of the guards was
+found dead on that same threshing-floor and I, to avoid trouble, took to
+the mountains--and I have lived there to this day."
+
+"Boy, thou hast a good hand," said Potaje with admiration. "And the
+other?"
+
+"I don't know; he must be somewhere in the world. He left the town; he
+asked for transfer in spite of his bravery, but I don't forget him. I
+have a message for him. I get sudden news that he is on the other side
+of Spain and I go there; I would follow him even into the very Hell
+itself. I leave the mare and the carbine with some friend to keep for
+me, and I take the train like a gentleman. I have been in Barcelona, in
+Valladolid, in many cities. I take my place near the jail and I look
+over the guards that go and come. 'This is not my man, nor this either.'
+They have given me wrong information, but it doesn't matter. It is years
+since I began looking for him, but I shall find him--unless he is dead,
+which would be a pity."
+
+Dona Sol followed this tale with interest. An original creature was this
+Plumitas! She had made a mistake in thinking him a rabbit. The bandit
+became silent, knitting his brows as if he feared he had said too much,
+and meant to avoid a new outburst of confidence.
+
+"With your permission," he said to the swordsman, "I'll go to the stable
+and see how the mare has been treated. Wilt thou come along, comrade?
+Thou shalt see something worth while."
+
+Potaje, accepting the invitation, went out of the kitchen with him.
+
+When the two were left alone, the bull-fighter and the lady, he showed
+his ill-humor. Why had she come down? It was foolhardy to present
+herself before a man like that; a bandit whose name was the terror of
+the people.
+
+But Dona Sol, pleased with the excellent success of her encounter,
+laughed at the bull-fighter's fears. The bandit seemed to her a decent
+man, a poor fellow whose mischievousness was exaggerated by popular
+fancy. He was almost a servant in her family.
+
+"I imagined him different, but anyway I am glad I have seen him. We will
+give him an alms when he goes. What an original land this is! What
+types! And how interesting his pursuit of that civil guard all over
+Spain! What a thrilling article one could write about that!"
+
+The women of the ranch lifted off the flames of the fireplace two great
+frying-pans that shed an agreeable odor of sausage.
+
+"Come to breakfast, gentlemen," shouted Nacional, who assumed the
+functions of _mayordomo_ at his master's farmhouse.
+
+In the centre of the kitchen stood a great table covered with a cloth,
+on which were placed round loaves of bread and numerous bottles of wine.
+Plumitas and Potaje and several farm hands answered the call, the
+overseer, the farmer, and all those who filled places of greater trust.
+They began seating themselves on two benches placed along the length of
+the table, while Gallardo glanced undecided at Dona Sol. She ought to
+eat upstairs in the rooms set apart for the family. But the lady,
+smiling at this suggestion, seated herself at the head of the table. She
+enjoyed rustic life and thought it interesting to eat with these people.
+She was born to be a soldier. And with a manly air she invited the
+_matador_ to be seated, dilating her nostrils with a voluptuous
+enjoyment of the savory odor of the sausages. A very rich dish! How
+hungry she was!
+
+"This is right," sententiously remarked Plumitas, looking over the
+table; "the masters and servants eating together, as they say was the
+custom in olden times. I have never seen it before." And he seated
+himself near the _picador_, without letting go of his carbine, which he
+held between his knees.
+
+"Move over, _guason_," he said, shoving Potaje with his body.
+
+The _picador_, who treated him with rude _camaraderie_, answered with
+another shove and the two strong fellows laughed as they pushed back and
+forth, amusing every one at the table by their horse-play.
+
+"But, damn it!" said the _picador_. "Get that blunder-bus out from
+between thy knees. Dost thou not see that it is aiming straight at me?
+An accident may happen."
+
+The bandit's carbine, resting between his knees, was pointing its black
+muzzle at the _picador_.
+
+"Hang that up, _malaje!_" he insisted. "Dost thou need it to eat with?"
+
+"It's all right where it is. Never fear," answered the bandit shortly,
+frowning as if he did not like to hear any comments upon his
+precautions.
+
+He grasped his spoon, scooped up a great piece of bread, and impelled by
+rural courtesy, glanced at the others to make sure that the moment for
+eating had arrived.
+
+"Good health, gentlemen!"
+
+He attacked the enormous dish that had been placed in the centre of the
+table for him and the two bull-fighters. Another like it steamed farther
+down for the farm hands. Suddenly he seemed ashamed of his voracity, and
+after a few spoonfuls he stopped, thinking an explanation necessary.
+
+"Since yesterday morning I have tasted nothing but a crumb and a little
+milk they gave me in a herder's hut. A good appetite!"
+
+He attacked the plate again, winking his eyes and working his jaws
+steadily. The _picador_ invited him to drink. Intimidated in the
+master's presence, he gazed wistfully at the bottles of wine placed
+within reach of his hand.
+
+"Drink, Plumitas. Dry grazing is bad. It should be moistened."
+
+Before the bandit accepted his invitation the _picador_ drank, and drank
+deeply. Plumitas only occasionally touched his glass after much
+vacillation. He was afraid of wine; he had lost the habit of drinking
+it. He did not always get it on the plains. Besides, wine was the worst
+enemy of a man like him, who must live wide awake and on guard.
+
+"But here thou art among friends," said the _picador_. "Consider,
+Plumitas, that thou art in Seville, beneath the very mantle of the
+Virgin of Macarena. There is no one to touch thee. And if by chance the
+civil guards should come, I would put myself at thy side, I would grasp
+a spear, and we wouldn't leave one of those lazy devils alive. A little
+more and I would be willing to become a free-lance of the mountains!
+That has always attracted me."
+
+"Potaje!" admonished the _maestro_ from the end of the table, fearing
+the loquacity of the _picador_ and his proximity to the bottles.
+
+The bandit, in spite of drinking little, was red in the face and his
+eyes shone with a happy light. He had chosen his place facing the
+kitchen door, from which the entrance to the plantation could be seen,
+showing a portion of the solitary road. From time to time, a cow, a hog,
+a goat, passed along this belt of land, and the shadow of their bodies,
+outlined by the sun on the yellow ground, was enough to make Plumitas
+jump, ready to drop his spoon and grasp his rifle. He talked with his
+companions at the table, but without withdrawing his attention from what
+might be outside the door. It was his habit to live at all hours ready
+for resistance or for flight, making it a point of honor never to be
+taken by surprise.
+
+After he had done eating he accepted one more glass from Potaje, his
+last, and he sat with a hand beneath his jaw, gazing out of the door,
+dulled and silent by his heavy meal. His was the digestion of a boa, or
+a stomach accustomed to irregular nourishment by his prodigious
+gorgings, and to long periods of fast. Gallardo offered him an Havana.
+
+"Thanks, Senor Juan. I don't smoke, but I will save it for a companion
+of mine who is in the mountains, and the poor boy will value something
+to smoke more than a meal itself. He is a young fellow who has had bad
+luck and he helps me when there is work for two."
+
+He put the cigar in his blouse, and the recollection of this companion,
+who at this very hour wandered in safety far away, caused him to smile
+with a ferocious joy. The wine had animated Plumitas. His countenance
+was changed. His eyes had metallic gleams of shifting light. His puffy
+face contracted with a grin that seemed to dispel his habitual kindly
+aspect. He evinced a desire to talk, to boast of his deeds, to pay for
+the hospitality by astonishing his benefactors.
+
+"You must have heard about what I did last month on the Fregenal
+highway. Have you really heard nothing about that? I planted myself in
+the road with my young companion--for we had to stop a diligence and
+give a message to a rich man, who has had me on his mind for a while. A
+domineering fellow was this man, accustomed to ordering _alcaldes_,
+important persons, and even civil guards at his will--what they call in
+the papers a _cacique_. I sent him a message asking him for a hundred
+_duros_ for a pressing need and what he did was to write to the
+governor of Seville, raise a row up there in Madrid, and make them chase
+me worse than ever. It was his fault that I had a gun-fight with the
+civil guards, and I came out of it shot in the leg; and still not
+satisfied, he asked them to imprison my wife, as if the poor thing could
+know where her husband was plundering. That Judas dared not stir out of
+his town for fear of Plumitas; but about then I disappeared. I went on a
+trip, one of those trips I've told you about, and my man took courage
+and went to Seville one day on business and to set the authorities
+against me."
+
+"We lay in ambush for the coach on its return trip from Seville. My
+young companion, who has hands of gold for stopping anything on the
+road, ordered the driver to halt. I stuck my head and my carbine in at
+the door. Screams of women, cries of children, men who said nothing but
+seemed made of wax! I said to the travellers: 'Nothing is going to
+happen to you. Calm yourselves, ladies; greeting, gentlemen, and a good
+journey. But come, let that fat man step out.' And my man, cringing as
+if he were going to hide under the women's skirts, got down, as white as
+if his blood had left him, and lisping as if he were drunk. The coach
+drove on and we stood in the middle of the road alone. 'Listen; I am
+Plumitas, and I am going to give thee something that thou shalt not
+forget.' And I gave it to him. But I didn't kill him right off. I hit
+him in a place I know, so that he would live twenty-four hours, and so
+that when the guards gathered him up he could say it was Plumitas that
+had killed him. Thus there could be no mistake nor could others air
+themselves with importance."
+
+Dona Sol listened, intensely pale, her lips compressed in terror, and in
+her eyes the strange glitter that accompanied her mysterious thoughts.
+Gallardo made a wry face, disturbed at this ferocious tale.
+
+"Every one knows his trade, Senor Juan," said Plumitas, as if he divined
+his thoughts. "We both live by killing; you kill bulls, and I people.
+Only you are rich and get the applause and the fine women, while I often
+go hungry and if I don't take care I will end riddled like a sieve in
+the open plains for the crows to eat. But you don't beat me in knowing
+your trade, Senor Juan! You know where to strike the bull so he will
+fall at once. I know where to hit a Christian so that he will fall
+doubled up and last a while, or else spend a few weeks remembering
+Plumitas, who wishes not to mix with anybody, but who knows how to
+settle with those who meddle with him."
+
+Again Dona Sol felt curiosity to know the number of his crimes.
+
+"And killed? How many people have you killed?"
+
+"You will take a dislike to me, Senora Marquesa; but since you
+persist.... Understand that I cannot recollect them all, no matter how
+much I want to remember. They probably amount to thirty or thirty-five;
+I don't know for sure. In this wandering life, who thinks of keeping
+accounts? But I am a luckless fellow, Senora Marquesa; an unfortunate
+fellow. The fault belongs to them that made me bad. That matter of
+killing is like eating cherries. You pull one and the others come after,
+by dozens. One must kill to go on living and if one feels pity he is
+eaten for his pains."
+
+There was a long silence. The lady contemplated the bandit's short
+thick hands with his uneven finger nails. But Plumitas was not looking
+at the Senora Marquesa. All his attention was given to the _matador_ in
+his desire to show him gratitude for having received him at his table
+and to dispel the bad effect his words seemed to have upon him.
+
+"I respect you, Senor Juan," he said. "The first time I saw you fight
+bulls, I said to myself, 'That's a brave fellow.' You have many devotees
+who admire you, but not the way I do! Believe me, that to see you, I
+have many times disguised myself, and gone into the towns where you were
+fighting the bulls with the risk of being captured. Is that devotion?"
+
+Gallardo smiled with an affirmative nodding of his head, flattered now
+in his artistic pride.
+
+"Besides," continued the bandit, "nobody can say I came to La Rincona'
+to ask even a piece of bread. Many times I have gone hungry or have
+lacked five _duros_, riding around near here, and never till to-day has
+it occurred to me to pass through the wire fence of the plantation.
+'Senor Juan is sacred to me,' I said to myself always. 'He earns his
+money the same as I do, exposing his life. Comradeship must be
+respected.' For you will not deny, Senor Juan, that although you are a
+great personage, and I one of the most unfortunate of men, we are alike,
+we both live by playing with death. We are quietly eating here, but some
+day, if God tires of us and deserts us, they'll gather me up from the
+roadside like a mad dog shot to pieces, and you with all your capital
+will be carried out of a ring foot foremost; and although the papers may
+talk of your misfortune four weeks or so, damned little you will thank
+them over there in the other world."
+
+"It is true--it is true," said Gallardo, with sudden pallor at the
+bandit's words.
+
+The superstitious fear he felt when moments of danger drew near was
+reflected in his countenance. His destiny seemed similar to that of this
+terrible vagabond who must necessarily fall some day or other in his
+unequal struggle.
+
+"But do you believe I think of death?" continued Plumitas. "I repent of
+nothing and I go on my way. I also have my desires and my little pride,
+the same as you, when you read in the papers that you did good work on
+such a bull and that they gave you the ear. Remember that they talk of
+Plumitas all over Spain, that the newspapers tell the greatest lies
+about me, and, according to what they say, they are going to bring me
+out in the theatres. Even in Madrid, in that palace where the deputies
+meet to hold parley, they talk of me nearly every week.
+
+"On top of all this, the pride of having an army following my steps, of
+being able, a lone man, to stir the wrath of thousands who live off of
+the government and wield a sword! The other day, on Sunday, I entered a
+town at mass time and I stopped my mare in the square near some blind
+men who were playing the guitar and singing. The people were staring at
+a picture the singers had, representing a fine fellow with a
+three-cornered hat, whiskers, dressed in the finest style, mounted on a
+magnificent horse, with his blunderbuss on the horn of his saddle and a
+plump lass on the crupper. I stopped when I saw that the fine fellow in
+the picture was Plumitas! That gives pleasure. When one is condemned
+like Adam to work or starve, it is well to have the people imagine his
+existence different. I bought the paper from the blind singers and I
+carry it here; the complete life of Plumitas, with many lies, but all
+set to verse. A fine thing! When I lie down on the mountain I read it to
+learn it by heart. Some _senor_ who knows much must have written it."
+
+The dreaded Plumitas showed an infantile pride as he talked of his
+glory. The silent modesty with which he entered the plantation was gone;
+the desire that they should forget his fame and look upon him as nothing
+but a poor traveller pressed by hunger had vanished. He glowed when he
+remembered that his name was famous and that his deeds received the
+honors of publicity.
+
+"Who would have known me," he went on, "if I had kept on living in my
+village? I have thought much about that. We downtrodden fellows have no
+other recourse than to toil for others, or to follow the only career
+that gives money and name--killing! I was no good at killing bulls. My
+village is in the mountains and has no fierce cattle. Besides, I am
+heavy and unskilled. So I kill people. It is the best thing a poor man
+can do to be respected and make his way."
+
+Nacional, who had listened to the bandit's words with silent gravity,
+thought it necessary to intervene.
+
+"What the poor man needs is education: to know how to read and write."
+
+Nacional's words provoked the laughter of all who knew his hobby.
+
+"There thou hast let loose one of thy ideas, comrade," said Potaje. "Let
+Plumitas go on explaining himself, for what he says is very good."
+
+The bandit received the _banderillero's_ interruption with scorn; he had
+little respect for him on account of his timidity in the ring.
+
+"I know how to read and write. And of what use is that? When I lived in
+the village it only brought me into notice and made my fate seem harder.
+What the poor man needs is justice; let them give him what belongs to
+him and if they won't give it to him, let him take it. One must be a
+wolf and cause terror. The other wolves will then respect him, and the
+cattle even let him eat gratefully. If they find thee a coward and
+without strength, even the sheep will despise thee."
+
+Potaje, who was now drunk, assented with enthusiasm to all Plumitas
+said. He did not understand his words well, but through the dark mist of
+his intoxication he thought he could distinguish a glow of supreme
+wisdom.
+
+"That's right, comrade. A club to all the world. Go on, for thou art
+very clever."
+
+"I know people," continued the bandit. "The world is divided into two
+families, the shearers and the shorn. I don't want to be shorn; I was
+born to shear, because I am very brave and am afraid of nobody. The same
+thing has happened to you, Senor Juan. By being of good kidney you have
+lifted yourself up from the common herd, but your way is better than
+mine."
+
+He sat contemplating the _maestro_ a while and then added with an accent
+of conviction: "I think, Senor Juan, that we have come into the world
+rather late. What deeds of valor and glory young fellows like ourselves
+would have done in other times! You would not kill bulls and I would not
+roam over the plains hunted like a wild beast. We would be viceroys,
+grand moguls! Some great thing across the seas! You have not heard of
+one Pizarro, Senor Juan?"
+
+Senor Juan made an ambiguous gesture, not wishing to reveal his
+ignorance of this mysterious name which he heard for the first time.
+
+"The Senora Marquesa knows who he is better than I and she will pardon
+me if I say wild things. I learned that history when I was a sacristan
+and turned myself loose on old romances belonging to the priest. Well,
+Pizarro was a poor fellow like us, who crossed the sea with twelve or
+thirteen youths as ragged as himself, and entered a country finer than
+Paradise--a kingdom where lies Potosi--I need say no more. They had I
+don't know how many battles with the natives of the Americas who wear
+feathers and carry bows and arrows, and finally they became their
+masters, appropriated the treasures of the kings of the country, and the
+least of them filled his house to the roof all with gold coins, and
+there wasn't one that wasn't made a marquis, a general, or a personage
+of power. Many others are like them. Imagine, Senor Juan, if we had only
+lived then! What would it have cost us for you and me and some of these
+stout fellows who are listening to me to do as much or more than that
+Pizarro?"
+
+And the men of the plantation, ever silent, but with eyes glowing with
+emotion at this marvellous history, assented to the bandit's theories,
+nodding their heads.
+
+"I repeat that we are born too late, Senor Juan. Great careers are
+closed to the poor. The Spaniard knows not what to do. There is no
+longer any place left for him to go. What there used to be in the world
+to be divided up, now the English and other foreigners have
+appropriated. The door is closed and we brave men have to rot inside
+this barn-yard listening to hard words because we don't surrender
+ourselves to our fate. I, who like enough would have become a king in
+the Americas, or some other place, go along the roads branded as an
+outcast, and they even call me a thief! You, who are a valiant man, kill
+bulls and get applause, but I know that many gentlemen look upon
+bull-fighting as a low-down trade."
+
+Dona Sol intervened to give the highwayman counsel. Why did he not
+become a soldier? He could go to distant lands where there were wars and
+utilize his powers nobly.
+
+"Yes, I would be good for that, Senora Marquesa. I have often thought of
+it. When I sleep at some plantation or hide myself in my house a few
+days, the first time I get into bed like a Christian and eat a hot meal
+on a table like this, my body is grateful for it, but I soon tire, and
+it seems to me the mountain calls me with all its poverty, and I long to
+sleep in the open wrapped in my blanket with a stone for a pillow. Yes;
+I would make a good soldier. But where could I go? There are no longer
+any real wars, where each one with a handful of comrades does whatever
+seems wisest to him. To-day there are only herds of men all wearing the
+same color and the same brand, who live and die like clowns. The same
+thing happens as in the world: shearers and shorn. You do a great deed
+and the colonel appropriates it; you fight a wild beast and they give
+the reward to the general. No, I was also born too late to be a
+soldier."
+
+Plumitas lowered his eyes, remaining a long time as if absorbed in
+inward contemplation of his misfortune, realizing that he had no place
+in the present epoch.
+
+Suddenly he grasped his carbine, about to rise.
+
+"I must go--many thanks, Senor Juan, for your attentions. Farewell,
+Senora Marquesa."
+
+"But where art thou going?" said Potaje pulling him back. "Sit down,
+_malaje_. In no place art thou better off than here."
+
+The _picador_ desired to prolong the highwayman's stay, pleased to be
+able to talk with him as with a life-long friend, to be able to tell
+afterward in the city about his interesting adventure.
+
+"I have spent three hours here and I must go. I never stay so long in an
+open, level place like La Rincona'. It may be that some one has already
+gone with a whisper that I am here."
+
+"Art thou afraid of the guards?" asked Potaje. "They won't come, and if
+they do, I am with thee."
+
+Plumitas made a deprecatory gesture. The guards! They were men like
+others; there might be brave ones, but they were all fathers of families
+who tried not to see him, and when they heard he was at a certain place,
+they came too late. They only went against him when chance threw them
+face to face, without means of evasion.
+
+"Last month I was at the Five Chimneys plantation breakfasting as I am
+here, though not in such good company, when I saw six guards coming
+afoot. I am sure that they did not know I was there, and that they came
+only for refreshment. Bad luck, but neither they nor I could fly in
+plain sight of all the people on the plantation. That would cause talk,
+and evil tongues make one lose respect, and they will say we are all
+cowards. The owner of the hacienda shut the gate, and the guards began
+to beat on it with their muskets to make him open up. I ordered him and
+a herder to stand behind the doors. 'When I say _now_, open wide.' I
+mounted the mare and held my revolver in my hand. '_Now_!' The gate
+opened and I rode off flinging demons! You don't know what my poor
+little mare can do. They sent I know not how many shots after me, but
+nothing! I, too, let loose as I rode away, and according to what they
+say, I hit two guards. To abbreviate: I went leaning along my mare's
+neck so they couldn't hit me and the guards took their revenge by giving
+the men of the hacienda a beating. That's why it is better to say
+nothing about my visits, Senor Juan. Along will come those fellows with
+their cocked hats and they'll make you dizzy with questions and
+declarations, as though they were going to catch me with that."
+
+The men of La Rinconada assented dumbly. They already knew it. They must
+keep quiet about the visit to avoid trouble, as was done in all the
+plantations and herders' ranches. This general silence was the bandit's
+most powerful aid. Moreover, all these countrymen were Plumitas'
+admirers. In their rude enthusiasm they looked upon him as an avenging
+hero. They had nothing to fear from him. His threats only weighed
+against the rich.
+
+"I am not afraid of the guards," continued the bandit. "It's the poor I
+fear. They are all good, but what an ugly thing is poverty! I know those
+of the cocked hats will not kill me; they have no balls for me. If
+anybody kills me, it will be some poor fellow. One lets them come near
+without fear, because they are one's own kind, and then they take
+advantage of one's carelessness. I have enemies; people sworn against
+me. Sometimes there are rascals who carry the whisper in the hope of a
+few _pesetas_, or renegades who are sent to do a thing and don't do it,
+and one must keep a firm hand to have the respect of all. If one
+really harms them the family is left to avenge him. If one is good and
+contents himself with giving them a caress with a handful of nettles and
+thistles, they remember that joke all their lives--the poor, my own
+kind, are those I fear."
+
+[Illustration: "For me?" asked the bandit in tones of surprise and
+wonder. "For me, Senora Marquesa?"]
+
+Plumitas stopped, and gazing at Gallardo added:
+
+"Besides, there are the admirers, the pupils, the young fellows that
+come chasing along behind. Senor Juan, tell the truth, which tire you
+more, the bulls, or all those hungry young bull-fighters who are always
+wanting favors of the _maestro_? The same thing happens to me. Didn't I
+tell you that we are equals! In every town there's some fine young
+fellow who dreams of being my heir and hopes to catch me some day
+sleeping in the shade of a tree and-blow my head off. A fine
+advertisement it will be for him who catches Plumitas!"
+
+After this he got up and went to the stable followed by Potaje, and a
+quarter of an hour afterward he led out into the courtyard his strong
+mare, the inseparable companion of his wanderings. The big-boned animal
+seemed larger and handsomer after the brief hours of feasting in the
+mangers at La Rinconada. Plumitas stopped arranging his blanket over the
+horn to caress her flanks. She might indeed be content. Seldom would she
+be so well treated as at this hacienda of Senor Juan Gallardo. Now she
+must behave, for the journey would be long.
+
+"And where art thou going, comrade?" said Potaje.
+
+"You shouldn't ask that. Abroad through the land! I myself know not. To
+meet whatever comes along."
+
+And putting the toe of his boot in one of the blackened and
+mud-bespattered stirrups, he gave a spring and rose into the saddle.
+Gallardo moved away from Dona Sol, who contemplated the bandit's
+preparation for his journey with her mysterious eyes, her lips pale and
+compressed by emotion. The bull-fighter searched in the inside of his
+jacket and walked toward the rider offering him without ostentation some
+papers crushed in his hand.
+
+"What is that?" said the bandit. "Money? Thanks, Senor Juan. You have
+heard that it is best to give me something when I leave an hacienda, but
+that is for others, for the rich who earn their money in flowery ease.
+You earn it by exposing your life. We are companions. Keep it, Senor
+Juan."
+
+Senor Juan put the bills back, somewhat annoyed by the bandit's refusal
+and by his determination to treat him as a comrade.
+
+"You may tender me a bull if we ever meet in the ring," added Plumitas.
+"That is worth more than all the gold in the world."
+
+Dona Sol advanced till she stood close to one of the horseman's legs,
+and unfastening an autumn rose she wore on her breast she offered it
+silently, gazing at him with her gold-green eyes.
+
+"For me?" asked the bandit in tones of surprise and wonder. "For me,
+Senora Marquesa?"
+
+Seeing the lady's nod of affirmation he accepted the flower with
+embarrassment, handling it stupidly as if it were of astonishing weight,
+not knowing where to put it, till at last he thrust it into a buttonhole
+of his blouse, between the two ends of the red handkerchief he wore
+around his neck.
+
+"This surely is good!" he exclaimed, his round face broadening into a
+smile. "Nothing to equal this ever happened to me before in all my
+life."
+
+The rough horseman seemed touched and disturbed at the same time by the
+feminine character of the gift. Roses for him--!
+
+He pulled at his mare's reins.
+
+"Health to all, gentlemen! Until we meet again! Health, brave fellow!
+Sometime I'll throw thee a cigar if thou dost stick thy lance in well."
+
+He bade the _picador_ farewell, giving him a blow with his hand, and the
+centaur answered him with a slap on the thigh that made the bandit's
+vigorous muscles tremble. What a fine fellow, that Plumitas! Potaje, in
+his mellow state of intoxication, wished to take to the mountains in
+company with him.
+
+"_Adios_! _Adios_!"
+
+And setting spurs to his steed he rode away from the hacienda at a swift
+trot.
+
+Gallardo manifested satisfaction on seeing him go. Then he looked at
+Dona Sol, who stood motionless, following the horseman with her eyes as
+he vanished in the distance.
+
+"What a woman!" murmured the swordsman with dismay. "What a mad lady!"
+
+It was good luck that Plumitas was ugly, and went ragged and dirty like
+a vagabond. If not, verily she would have gone with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH
+
+
+"It seems a lie, Sebastian. A man like thee, with a wife and children,
+lending thyself to such wickedness. And I thought better of thee and had
+confidence in thee when thou wert travelling with Juaniyo! I worried not
+because he went with a person of character. Where are all those fine
+things, the honorable ideas and thy religion? Is this what is commanded
+in those Jew meetings that gather at the house of Don Joselito, the
+teacher?"
+
+Nacional, alarmed at the indignation of Gallardo's mother, and moved by
+Carmen's tears as she wept in silence, her face hidden in her kerchief,
+defended himself stupidly. But as he heard the last words he sat erect
+with priestly gravity.
+
+"Sena' Angustia', touch not my ideas and leave Don Joselito in peace, an
+it please you, for he has nothing to do with all this. By the life of
+the blue dove! I went to La Rincona' because my _matador_ ordered me. Do
+you know what a _cuadrilla_ is? Just the same as an army: discipline and
+servility! The _matador_ commands and one must obey. For these
+bull-fight customs descend from the times of the Inquisition and there
+is no more conservative trade."
+
+"Clown!" screamed Senora Angustias. "Fine thou art with all thy fables
+about the Inquisition and Conservatives! Among you all you are killing
+that poor girl, who spends the whole day shedding tears like the
+Dolorosa. What thou art anxious about is to cover up my son's
+rascalities because he feeds thee."
+
+"You have said it, Sena' Angustia'. Juaniyo feeds me, that's it. And
+since he feeds me, I have to obey him. But look here, Senora; put
+yourself in my place. My _matador_ tells me I must go to La Rincona'.
+Good! And at the hour of leaving I find myself in the automobile with a
+very fine great lady. What can I do? My _matador_ commands. Moreover, I
+didn't go alone. Potaje went along and he is a person of years and
+respect."
+
+The bull-fighter's mother was more indignant at this excuse.
+
+"Potaje! A bad man, that Juaniyo would not keep in his _cuadrilla_ if he
+had any pride! Don't talk to me about that drunkard that beats his wife
+and keeps his children starving."
+
+"Well, Potaje aside. I say I saw that great lady and what was I to do?
+She was not a wanton; she is the niece of the marquis who is patron of
+the _maestro_--and you well know that bull-fighters have to be on good
+terms with people of power. They have to live off the public. Then, at
+the hacienda, nothing! I swear it to you by my own dear ones--nothing! I
+would be a fine fellow to stand such bad business, even though my
+_matador_ ordered me to! I am a decent man, Sena' Angustia'. By the life
+of the dove! When one is on the committee and is consulted on
+election-day, and counsellors and deputies clasp this hand you see here,
+can one do certain things? I repeat, nothing! They said _you_ in talking
+to one another, the same as you and I do; each one spent the night in
+his proper place; not a wicked look, not an ugly word. Decency at all
+hours. And if you would like to have Potaje come, he will tell you--"
+
+But Carmen interrupted him with a plaintive voice, broken by sighs.
+
+"In my house!" she groaned with an expression of agony. "At the
+hacienda! And she slept in my bed! I knew all about it before and I kept
+still, I kept still! But this! _Josu_! This--there's not another man in
+all Seville would dare do as much!"
+
+Nacional intervened kindly.
+
+"Be calm, Senora Carmen. Why, that was of no importance! Merely the
+visit of a female admirer of the _maestro's_ to the plantation, one who
+desired to see at close range how he lived in the country. These half
+foreign ladies are always capricious and queer. You ought to have seen
+the French women when the _cuadrilla_ went to fight at Nimes and Arles!
+The whole thing is nothing! the whole thing, _liquid_! Man alive! by the
+blue dove! I would like to see the tattler that brought such news!"
+
+Carmen continued weeping without listening to the _banderillero's_
+indignant protestations, while Sena' Angustias, seated in an arm-chair
+against which her super-abundant obesity rose and fell, frowned and
+compressed her hairy, wrinkled lips.
+
+"Shut up, Sebastian, and don't lie," said the old woman. "I know it all.
+That trip to the hacienda was an indecent carousal, a gypsy's revel.
+They even say you had Plumitas, the robber, with you."
+
+Here Nacional gave a start of surprise and anxiety. He imagined he saw
+an ill-appearing horseman with a greasy hat entering the courtyard,
+treading the marble flags and, dismounting from his mare, pointing a
+carbine at him for being a babbler and a coward. Then he seemed to see
+cocked hats, many cocked hats of shining rubber, moustached mouths
+questioning, hands scribbling, and the whole _cuadrilla_, in their
+spangled costumes, bound elbow to elbow on the road to prison. Here
+truly he must make energetic denial.
+
+"_Liquid!_ All _liquid!_ What say you about Plumitas? Everything was
+decent there. Man alive! Nothing was lacking but that a citizen like
+myself, who carries to the voting boxes more than a hundred votes from
+my ward, should be accused of being a friend of Plumitas!"
+
+Senora Angustias, overcome by Nacional's protests, and a little
+uncertain about this last report, ceased insisting on it. Good; nothing
+about Plumitas! But the other thing! The trip to the hacienda with
+that--woman! And firm in the blindness of motherhood, which would put
+all the responsibility for her son's misdeeds upon his companions, she
+went on scolding Nacional.
+
+"I shall tell thy wife what thou art. The poor thing killing herself in
+her shop from daybreak till nightfall, and thou going off on revels like
+a lad. Thou shouldst be ashamed. At thy years! With such a troop of
+children--"
+
+The _banderillero_ departed, fleeing from Senora Angustias, who in the
+storm of her indignation displayed the same nimble tongue as in the days
+when she worked in the Tobacco Factory. He resolved not to return to his
+master's house.
+
+He met Gallardo on the street. The latter seemed ill-humored, but on
+seeing his _banderillero_ he feigned smiles and animation, as if the
+domestic troubles made no impression upon him.
+
+"Things are going bad, Juaniyo. I shall never go to thy house again,
+even though they try to drag me there. Thy mother insults me as though I
+were a gypsy of Triana. Thy wife weeps and looks at me, as though it was
+all my fault. Man, do me the favor to not remember me again. Take
+another associate when thou goest with women."
+
+Gallardo smiled amiably. That was nothing. That would soon pass. He had
+faced worse trials.
+
+"What thou must do is to keep on coming. With many people there is no
+riot."
+
+"I?" exclaimed Nacional. "To a priest's house first!"
+
+The _matador_ knew it was useless to insist after that. He spent most of
+the day out of the house, away from the women's silent and tearful
+reproaches, and when he returned it was with an escort, shielding
+himself by his manager and other friends.
+
+One day Carmen sent for the _banderillero_ to come to see her. She
+received Nacional in her husband's office, where they could be alone,
+instead of in the busy courtyard or the dining-room. Gallardo was at his
+club on Sierpes Street. He fled from the house, and to avoid meeting his
+wife, he dined outside many days, going with companions to the Eritana
+inn.
+
+Nacional seated himself on a divan, his head bowed and his hat in his
+hands, not wishing to look at his master's wife. How she had failed! Her
+eyes were red and encircled by deep, dark hollows. Her cheeks were
+sallow and the end of her nose shone with a rosy color that told of much
+rubbing with the handkerchief.
+
+"Sebastian, you must tell me the whole truth. You are good, you are
+Juan's best friend. Never mind what _Mamita_ said the other day. You
+know how good she is. She speaks her mind hastily, and then it is all
+over."
+
+The _banderillero_ assented with a nod while awaiting her question. What
+did the Senora Carmen wish to know?
+
+"Tell me what happened at La Rincona', what you saw, and what you
+think."
+
+Ah! good Nacional! With what noble pride he held his head high, happy to
+be able to do good and to comfort the forlorn soul. See? He had seen
+nothing wrong!
+
+"I swear it by my father, I swear it--by my ideas."
+
+And without fear he took his oath on the most holy testimony of his
+ideas, for in reality he had seen nothing and not seeing it, he
+logically thought, in the pride of his perspicacity and wisdom, that
+nothing wrong could have happened.
+
+"I think they are no more than friends--now--if there has been anything
+between them before--I don't know. The people say--they talk--they
+invent so many lies! Pay no attention, Sena' Carmen. To be happy and to
+be alive, that is reality!"
+
+She insisted again. But what had happened at the hacienda? The hacienda
+was her home, and it angered her to see, in addition to infidelity,
+something that seemed a sacrilege, a direct insult to her person.
+
+"Do you think I am a fool, Sebastian? I have seen everything since he
+first began to notice that lady, or whatever she may be; I even knew
+Juan's thoughts. The day he dedicated a bull to her and brought home
+that diamond ring I guessed what was between the two and I felt like
+grabbing the ring and stamping on it. From that time I have known
+everything, everything! There are always people who take it upon
+themselves to carry tales because they can hurt one. And besides, they
+haven't been cautious, they have gone everywhere together, just like
+gypsies that travel from fair to fair. When I was at the plantation I
+heard about all that Juan was doing and afterward at Sanlucar, too."
+
+Nacional thought it necessary to interrupt, seeing that Carmen was moved
+by these memories and was beginning to cry.
+
+"And do you believe lies, child? Don't you see they are the inventions
+of people that want to hurt him? Envy, nothing more."
+
+"No; I know Juan. Do you think this is the first one? He is what he is.
+And he can't be different. Cursed trade, that seems to turn men mad!
+After we had been married only two years he had a love affair with a
+girl from the market, a butcher girl. What I suffered when I found it
+out! But I never said a word. He still thinks I don't know it. After
+that, how many he has had! Girls that dance on the stage in _cafes_,
+women of the street, and even lost creatures that live in public houses.
+I don't know how many there have been--dozens! And I was silent, because
+I wished to keep peace in my home. But this woman he has now is not like
+the others. Juan is crazy for her; he is foolish; I know he has done
+thousands of humiliating things so that she, recollecting that she is a
+lady of high birth, will not throw him out into the street in sudden
+shame from having relations with a bull-fighter. She has gone now.
+Didn't you know it? I found out she had gone because she is bored in
+Seville. She left without saying good-bye to Juan, and when he went to
+see her the other day, he found the door closed. And there he is, sad as
+a sick horse; he goes around among his friends with a funereal face and
+drinks to cheer himself up; and when he comes home he acts as if he had
+had a beating. No; he can't forget that woman. The senor was proud of
+having a woman of that class care for him and his pride is hurt at being
+left. Ah, how disgusted I am with him! He is no longer my husband. He
+seems to me a different person. We hardly ever speak to one
+another--just as if we were strangers, except when quarrelling. I am
+alone upstairs and he sleeps downstairs in a room off the courtyard. We
+shall never be united again, I swear it! Long ago I could overlook
+everything; they were bad habits belonging to the profession; the
+bull-fighters' mania. They believe themselves irresistible to women--but
+now I don't want to see him any more; he has become repugnant to me."
+
+She spoke with energy, her eyes shining with the glow of hatred.
+
+"Ah, that woman! How she has changed him! He is another man! He only
+cares to go with rich young fellows, and now the people of our ward and
+all the poor in Seville who were his friends, and helped him in the
+beginning, complain of him and some fine day they will raise a riot in
+the plaza because he is ungrateful. Money comes in here by the
+basketful, and it isn't easy to count it. Not even he himself ever knows
+what he has, but I see it all. He gambles a great deal to make his new
+friends like him, he loses much; the money comes in one door and goes
+out the other. I say nothing to him. It is he that earns it. But he has
+had to ask a loan from Don Jose for things needed at the hacienda and
+some olive orchards he bought this year to add to the property were
+purchased with other people's money. Nearly everything he earns during
+the coming season will go to pay debts.
+
+"And if he should have an accident, and have to retire as others do!
+
+"He has even wanted to change me, just as he is changed. The _senor_
+shows, when he comes home after visiting his Dona Sol, or Dona Devil,
+that his _mamita_ and I seem to him very out of date in our shawls and
+our loose gowns such as are worn by all the daughters of the land. He it
+is who has made me wear those hats brought from Madrid in which I look
+so hideous, just like one of those monkeys that dance to the
+hand-organs. The _mantilla_ is so rich! And he has bought that
+hell-wagon, that automobile, that I am always afraid to ride in and
+which smells to heaven. If we would let him he would even put a hat with
+rooster's tails on poor _Mamita_. He is a vain fellow who thinks only of
+that other woman and wants to make us like her so that he won't be
+ashamed of us."
+
+The _banderillero_ broke forth in protests. Not so! Juan was
+good-hearted and he did all this because he loved his family and wanted
+them to have luxuries.
+
+"What you say about Juaniyo may be true, Sena' Carmen, but he must be
+forgiven some things. Come! How many there are who die with envy at
+sight of you! Is it nothing to be the wife of the bravest of all the
+bull-fighters, with handfuls of money and a marvel of a house, of which
+you are absolute mistress?--for the master gives you charge of
+everything!"
+
+Carmen's eyes grew moist and she raised her handkerchief to her eyes.
+
+"I would rather be a shoe-maker's wife! How often I have thought it! If
+only Juan had followed his trade instead of catching this bull-fighting
+mania! I would be happier in a poor shawl going to carry him his dinner
+in the _portal_ where he worked as did his father. There wouldn't be any
+smart girls to take him away from me; he would be mine; we might know
+want, but on Sundays, dressed in our best, we would go to dine at an
+inn. Besides, the agonies of fear those accursed bulls cause me! This is
+not living. Plenty of money, plenty! But believe me, Sebastian, it is
+like poison to me, and the more that comes into the house the more my
+blood chills. What are hats and all this luxury to me? People think I am
+happy and they envy me, while my eyes follow the poor women that have
+less, but who carry their babies in their arms and when they are in
+trouble forget it in looking into the child's eyes and laughing with it.
+Ah, children! I know how great is my misfortune. If only we had
+children! If Juan could see a child in the house that was his own, all
+his own, something nearer than his little nephews!"
+
+Carmen poured forth a continuous flow of tears that escaped through the
+folds of her handkerchief and bathed her reddened cheeks. It was the
+sorrow of the childless woman, ever envying the happy fate of mothers;
+the desperation of the wife who, on seeing her husband growing distant
+to her, pretends to think it due to divers causes, but in the depths of
+her soul attributes the misfortune to her barrenness. Ah! for a son to
+unite them! And Carmen, convinced by the passing years of the futility
+of this desire, was in despair and gazed enviously at her silent
+listener, to whom Nature had prodigally given that for which she longed
+in vain.
+
+The _banderillero_ departed from this interview with his head bent low
+and went in search of the _maestro_, meeting him at the door of the
+Forty-five.
+
+"Juan, I have seen thy wife. The affair grows worse and worse. Try to
+make up with her, to straighten things out."
+
+"Damn it! May sickness end her, thee, and me! This is not living. God
+permit that Sunday a bull may catch me and so it will all be ended! What
+is life worth!"
+
+He was partially drunk. He was desperate over the sullen frown he met in
+his house and still more (though he confessed it to none), over the
+flight of Dona Sol without leaving a word for him, not even a paper with
+four lines of farewell. They had put him out of the door; had treated
+him worse than if he had been a servant. He did not even know where the
+woman was. The Marquis had interested himself but little in his niece's
+journey. The maddest girl! She had not told him, either, about her
+going, but not on that account would he think her lost in the world. She
+would soon give signs of existence from some strange country where her
+caprices had carried her.
+
+Gallardo did not conceal his desperation in his own house. At the
+silence of his wife, who kept her eyes lowered, or looked at him
+frowning and refusing to converse, the _matador_ burst forth into deadly
+curses.
+
+"Damn my fate! I hope a Miura will hook me Sunday and shake me like a
+bell, and that they will bring me home on a stretcher!"
+
+"Don't say that, _malaje!_" wailed Senora Angustias. "Don't tempt God.
+See if that don't bring bad luck."
+
+But the brother-in-law intervened with his sententious air, taking
+advantage of the opportunity to flatter the swordsman.
+
+"Never mind, _Mamita_. There isn't a bull alive that can touch him!"
+
+Sunday was the last bull-fight of the year in which Gallardo was to
+work. He spent the morning without the vague fears and superstitious
+preoccupations of other occasions. He dressed himself joyfully, with a
+nervous excitement that seemed to augment the vigor of his arms and
+legs. What joy that he would be able to rush out upon the yellow sand
+and astound twelve thousand spectators by his gallantry and daring! His
+art was the only reality--something which awakened the enthusiasm of the
+multitudes and brought in money without measure. All the rest, family
+and love, but served to complicate existence and cause unhappiness. Ah!
+What sword-thrusts he was going to make! He felt the strength of a giant
+within himself. He was a different man, he had neither fear nor dread.
+He even showed impatience that it was not yet the hour for going to the
+plaza, contrary to other times when he had put off the dreaded moment.
+His fury at his domestic unhappiness and at that flight which wounded
+his vanity, made him long to throw himself upon the bulls.
+
+When the carriage arrived, Gallardo crossed the courtyard, on this
+occasion, paying no attention to the women's emotion. Carmen did not
+appear. Bah! Women! They only serve to embitter life. Only in men did
+one find lasting affection and joyful companionship. There was his
+brother-in-law admiring himself before going to the plaza, happy in a
+street suit of the master's which had been made over to his measure even
+before the owner had worn it. In spite of being a ridiculous charlatan
+he was worth more than all the rest of the family. He never abandoned
+him.
+
+"Thou art finer than Roger de Flor himself," Gallardo told him gayly.
+"Get into the coach--and I'll take thee to the plaza."
+
+His brother-in-law seated himself near the great man, trembling with
+pride as he rode along the streets of Seville, that all should see him
+seated among the silken capes and the heavy gold embroideries of the
+bull-fighters.
+
+The plaza was full. This important _corrida_ at the end of autumn had
+attracted a great audience, not only from the city but from the country
+as well. Upon the "bleachers" in the sun were seated many people from
+the surrounding country towns.
+
+From the first instant Gallardo showed the nervous activity that
+possessed him. He was to be seen far from the _barrera_ advancing to
+meet the bull, distracting him with his cape-work, while the _picadores_
+awaited the moment in which the bull would attack their miserable
+horses.
+
+A certain antagonism of the public against the bull-fighter could be
+felt. They applauded him as usual, but the demonstrations of enthusiasm
+were more hearty and warm on the shady side than on the rows of seats in
+the sun, where many sat in their shirt-sleeves in the burning rays.
+
+Gallardo divined the danger, foresaw that he would have bad luck, and
+that half the ring would rise shouting against him, denouncing him as
+thankless and ungrateful to those who had elevated him.
+
+He killed his first bull with middling luck. He threw himself as bravely
+as ever between the horns, but the sword struck bone. His admirers
+applauded him. The thrust was well aimed and he was not to be blamed for
+the futility of his effort. But the second time he went in to kill, the
+bull, on chasing after the _muleta_, shook the blade out of the wound,
+sending it flying away. Then, taking a new sword from Garabato's hands,
+he turned toward the wild beast, which awaited him, with fore-feet
+planted forward, his neck streaming blood and his dripping mouth almost
+touching the sand. The _maestro_ holding his _muleta_ before the bull's
+eyes was tranquilly laying back with the point of his sword the shafts
+of the _banderillas_ that hung over his head. He was going to kill him
+by a stab in the spinal cord. He placed the steel point on the top of
+the bull's head, searching between the horns for the sensitive spot.
+With an effort he thrust in the sword and the animal shuddered
+painfully, but still kept his feet, resisting the steel with a violent
+tossing of his head.
+
+"One!" clamored the audience on the bleachers in mocking tones.
+
+"Damn it!" Why did those people attack him with such injustice?
+
+He raised the sword again and thrust, managing this time to reach the
+vulnerable spot. The bull fell instantly, as if struck by a lightning
+flash in the very nerve-centre of his life, and he lay with his horns
+dug into the ground, his legs rigid in the air.
+
+The people in the shade applauded with class enthusiasm, while the
+audience in the sun broke into hisses and jibes.
+
+"_Nino litri!_ Aristocrat!"
+
+Gallardo turned his back to these protests and saluted the enthusiasts
+with his _muleta_ and sword. The insults of the populace which had
+always been friendly to him hurt him and caused him to clench his fists.
+
+"But what do those people want? The bull gave no better account of
+himself. Damn it! This is the work of enemies."
+
+He passed a great part of the _corrida_ close to the _barrera_ gazing
+disdainfully at what his companions were doing, accusing them mentally
+of having prepared these marks of displeasure against him in advance.
+
+He also broke into curses against the bull and the herder that raised
+him. He had come so well prepared to do great deeds and he had
+encountered a beast which would not permit him to shine! The breeders
+that turned out such animals ought to be shot.
+
+When he again took up the instruments of death, he ordered Nacional and
+another of his _peones_ to draw the bull with the cape toward the part
+of the plaza where the populace was seated.
+
+He knew the public. He must humor the citizens in the sun, those
+tumultuous and terrible demagogues who carried class hatred into the
+plaza but easily changed hisses into applause when a slight show of
+consideration flattered their pride.
+
+The _peones_, waving their capes at the bull, began a race to attract
+him to the sunny side of the ring. A movement of joyful surprise from
+the populace welcomed this manoeuvre. The supreme moment, the bull's
+death, was to take place before their eyes--and not, as almost always
+happened, at a great distance for the convenience of the rich who were
+seated in the shade.
+
+The fierce beast, as he stood alone on that side of the plaza, began to
+attack the dead body of a horse. He thrust his head into the open belly
+and raised the miserable carcass on his horns like a limp rag. It fell
+to the ground, lying almost doubled, and the bull backed away with
+indecisive step. He returned again to sniff it with deep bellowings,
+while the audience laughed at his stupid tenacity, at this search for
+life in the inanimate body.
+
+"Jam him hard there! Thou hast lots of strength, boy! Keep it up, or
+he'll turn on thee!"
+
+But every one's attention was withdrawn from this venting of the bull's
+fury to Gallardo who was crossing the plaza with a short swinging step,
+in one hand the rolled _muleta_, in the other flourishing his sword as
+though it were a cane.
+
+The entire audience in the sun applauded, grateful to have the swordsman
+come over to them.
+
+"Thou hast put them into thy pocket," said Nacional, who stood near the
+bull with the cape ready.
+
+The multitude gesticulated, calling to the bull-fighter--"Here, here!"
+
+Each one wished him to kill the bull before his seat that he might not
+lose the slightest detail, and the swordsman hesitated between the
+contradictory calls of thousands of mouths. With one foot on the
+vaulting wall of the barrier he calculated where best to end the bull.
+He must be drawn farther away. The dead horse seemed to fill that whole
+side of the plaza and disturbed the bull-fighter.
+
+He was about to order Nacional to attract the beast away, when he heard
+a familiar voice behind him, a voice he did not recognize but which
+caused him to turn quickly.
+
+"Good-afternoon, Senor Juan. We are going to applaud reality!"
+
+He saw in the first row, under the panel of the inner barrier, a folded
+jacket on the edge of the wall, a pair of arms in shirt sleeves crossed
+over it, and a broad face recently shaved resting in the hands, with a
+hat drawn down to the ears. He looked like a good-natured rustic, come
+from a country town to witness the bull-fight.
+
+Gallardo recognized him. It was Plumitas.
+
+He had fulfilled his promise and there he was among twelve thousand
+people who did not know him, greeting the _matador_, who felt a certain
+gratitude for this display of confidence. Gallardo marvelled at his
+temerity. To come down to Seville, to enter the plaza, far from the
+hills and the deserts where defence was easy for him, without the aid of
+his two companions, his mare and his carbine, and all--to see him kill
+bulls! Of the two, that man was the brave one. He thought of his
+plantation which was at Plumitas' mercy, of the country life which was
+only possible by maintaining good relations with this extraordinary
+personage. The bull must be for him.
+
+He smiled at the bandit, who continued contemplating him with placid
+countenance; he took off his cap and shouted, turning toward the
+boisterous multitude, but with his eyes on Plumitas.
+
+"_Vaya!_ In honor of you!"
+
+He threw his cap into the bleachers and many hands were stretched out in
+rivalry, struggling to grasp the sacred trust. Gallardo gave signs to
+Nacional to bring the bull near him with his skilful cape-work. He
+extended his _muleta_ and the beast attacked with sonorous bellowing,
+passing beneath the red rag. "_Ole!_" roared the crowd, acknowledging
+its old idol again and disposed to admire all that he did.
+
+He continued making _pases_ at the bull, accompanied by the exclamations
+of the people a few feet away. Seeing him near they gave him advice.
+"Take care, Gallardo!" The bull was perfectly sound. He must not let
+himself get between him and the barrier. He must keep his retreat clear.
+
+Others more enthusiastic excited him to deeds of daring with audacious
+counsel.
+
+"Let him have one of thy best! _Zas!_ A sword-thrust and thou hast him
+in thy pocket!"
+
+The animal was too big and too cautious to be put in the pocket. He was
+excited by the proximity of the dead horse, and kept returning to it as
+if the odor intoxicated him.
+
+In one of his evolutions, the bull, tired by the _muleta_, stood
+motionless. Gallardo had the dead horse behind him. It was a bad
+situation, but out of worse he had come victorious. He wished to take
+advantage of the horse's position. The public excited him to it. Among
+the men on the bleachers who had risen to their feet, and were leaning
+forward to lose no detail of the decisive moment, he recognized many
+popular devotees who had begun to cool toward him but were now
+applauding him again, moved by consideration for the populace.
+
+"Score a point, there! Good boy! Now we'll see the real thing! Strike
+true!"
+
+Gallardo turned his head slightly to salute Plumitas, who sat smiling,
+his moon face peeping above his arms and the jacket.
+
+"For you, comrade!"
+
+He squared himself with the sword presented ready to kill--but at that
+instant the earth seemed to shake and he felt himself hurled to a great
+distance; then the plaza fell, everything turned black, and a fierce
+hurricane of voices seemed to blow in from off the sea. His body
+vibrated painfully, his head buzzed as if it would burst; a mortal
+anguish contracted his breast--and he fell into a dark and limitless
+void, as into the unconsciousness of death.
+
+The bull, at the very instant in which Gallardo made ready to thrust,
+had suddenly thrown himself upon him, attracted by the horse behind him.
+It was a brutal encounter, in which the body of the bull-fighter with
+its silk and gold trappings rolled away and disappeared beneath his
+feet. He did not gore him with his horns, but the blow was horrible,
+staggering. With head and horns the wild beast felled the man as though
+he had been struck by a sledge hammer.
+
+The bull, which saw only the horse, felt an obstacle near his feet, and
+scorning the dead body, turned to attack again the brilliant puppet that
+lay motionless on the sand. He raised it with one horn, tossed it some
+feet away after giving it a brief shaking, and then started to return to
+a third attack.
+
+The multitude, stupefied by the swiftness with which all this had
+occurred, remained silent, appalled. The bull was going to kill him!
+Perhaps he had already done so! Suddenly a shriek from the entire
+audience broke this agonizing silence. A cape was held between the wild
+beast and his victim, a rag almost thrust over its head by vigorous arms
+which tried to blind the brute. It was Nacional, who, in desperation,
+threw himself upon the bull, willing to be caught by him to save his
+master. The beast, stupefied by this new obstacle, charged against it,
+turning tail to the man lying on the sand. The _banderillero_, in
+between the horns, ran backward, waving the cape, not knowing how to
+free himself from this perilous situation, but happy to see that he was
+drawing the bull away from the wounded man.
+
+The audience almost forgot the swordsman, so impressed was it by this
+new incident. Nacional was going to fall also; he could not get out from
+between the horns; the wild beast already had him almost hooked. Men
+shouted as if their cries could aid him; women wailed with anguish,
+turning away their faces and clutching one another convulsively, until
+the _banderillero_, taking advantage of the moment in which the wild
+beast lowered his head to charge, rushed from between the horns,
+stepping to one side, while the animal ran on blindly, the torn cape
+hanging before his eyes.
+
+Then there broke forth deafening applause. The fickle multitude,
+impressed only by the danger of the moment, applauded Nacional. It was
+one of the happiest moments of his life. The audience, taken up with
+him, scarcely noticed Gallardo's inanimate body as it was carried out of
+the ring, the head hanging limp, by bull-fighters and employees of the
+plaza.
+
+At nightfall the only subject of conversation in the city was Gallardo's
+injury, the most terrible of his life. Extras were being published in
+many cities and newspapers all over Spain gave accounts of the events
+with lengthy comment. The telegraph worked as if a political personage
+had just been the victim of an assassin.
+
+Terrifying news circulated along Sierpes Street exaggerated by Southern
+hyperbolic commentary. Poor Gallardo had just died. He who gave the sad
+news had seen him in a bed in the infirmary of the plaza, white as
+paper, a cross in his hands. Another presented himself with less
+lugubrious news. He was not dead yet, but he would die any moment.
+
+"He has lost everything! Everything! Disembowelled! The brute has left
+the poor fellow punctured like a sieve."
+
+Guards had been placed at the entrances to the plaza so that the people,
+anxious for news, should not invade the infirmary. The multitude surged
+outside the ring asking news of the master's condition from those who
+came and went.
+
+Nacional, still dressed in his fighting costume, peered out several
+times, ill-humored and frowning, blustering and angry, because
+arrangements for moving the _maestro_ to his house had not been made.
+The people seeing the _banderillero_ forgot the injured man and
+congratulated him.
+
+"Senor Sebastian, you have done very well. If it hadn't been for you--!"
+
+But what mattered it to him what he had done? All--_liquid_. The only
+thing of importance was poor Juan who lay in the infirmary fighting
+death.
+
+"And how is he, Senor Sebastian?"
+
+"Very bad. He has just regained his senses. He has one leg ground to
+dust; a horn-stab under the arm; and what more I know not! The poor boy
+is as dear to me as my patron-saint. We are going to carry him home."
+
+When night fell Gallardo was taken from the ring on a stretcher. The
+multitude marched silently after him. The journey was long. Every moment
+Nacional, who walked with his cape hanging over his arm, mingling in his
+glittering bull-fighter's dress with the vulgar crowd, bent over the
+rubber cover of the litter and ordered the bearers to halt.
+
+The doctors from the plaza walked behind and with them the Marquis of
+Moraima and Don Jose, who seemed ready to faint and fall into the arms
+of companions from the Forty-five, who were all jumbled together and
+mixed in with the ragged mob that followed the bull-fighter.
+
+The crowd was in a state of consternation. It was a gloomy procession,
+as if one of those national disasters that overcome differences of class
+and level all men by general misfortune had taken place.
+
+"What a calamity, Senor Marques," said a chubby-cheeked, blonde rustic,
+his jacket hanging over one shoulder.
+
+Twice he had rudely shoved away one of the stretcher bearers in his
+desire to help carry it. The Marquis looked at him sympathetically. He
+must be one of those country men who were accustomed to greet him on the
+high-road.
+
+"Yes; a great calamity, boy."
+
+"Do you think he will die, Senor Marques?"
+
+"They fear so--unless a miracle saves him. He is ground to dust."
+
+The Marquis, laying his right hand on the stranger's shoulder, seemed to
+be grateful for the sadness reflected in his countenance.
+
+The arrival at Gallardo's house was painful. Cries of despair arose in
+the courtyard. On the street, the women, neighbors, and friends of the
+family, screamed and tore their hair, believing Juan already dead.
+Potaje and some comrades were obliged to stand in the doorway scattering
+blows and cuffs so that the multitude following the stretcher should not
+besiege the house. The street was filled with a crowd that surged about
+commenting on the event. All stared at the house anxious to divine
+something through the walls.
+
+The stretcher was carried into a room off the courtyard and the
+_matador_ was moved to a bed with great care. He was enwrapped in cloths
+and blood-stained bandages that smelled of strong antiseptics. A pink
+stocking was all that remained of his fighting costume. His
+underclothing was torn in some places and cut by scissors in others.
+
+His _coleta_ hung about his neck disordered and tangled; his face had
+the pallor of death. He opened his eyes as he felt a hand pressed into
+one of his and smiled slightly on seeing Carmen, a Carmen as white as
+himself, with dry eyes, livid lips, and an expression of dread, as if
+this were her husband's last moment.
+
+Gallardo's grave gentlemen friends prudently intervened. That could not
+continue; Carmen must retire. As yet, only preliminary treatment had
+been given the wound, and there was still much work for the doctors, so
+the wife was taken out of the room. The wounded man made a sign with his
+eyes to Nacional, who bent over him straining to catch his faint
+whisper.
+
+"Juan says," he murmured, going out into the courtyard, "to telegraph to
+Doctor Ruiz."
+
+The manager answered, happy at his foresight that he had done so in the
+middle of the afternoon, as soon as he became convinced of the
+seriousness of the calamity. He was sure the doctor must already be on
+the way and would arrive the next morning.
+
+After this, Don Jose continued questioning the doctors who had treated
+him in the plaza. Their first, perturbation over, they grew more
+optimistic. It was possible he might not die. His constitution was so
+strong! The greatest thing to fear was the shock he had suffered, the
+shaking which was enough to kill another instantly; but he had already
+come out of the first collapse and had recovered his senses, although
+his weakness was great. As for the wounds, they did not consider them
+dangerous. That on the arm was a slight thing; perhaps it would be less
+agile than before. As for the leg, there was less hope. The bone was
+fractured; Gallardo might be left lame.
+
+Don Jose, who had made every effort to be impassive when, hours before,
+the swordsman's death was considered inevitable, shuddered on hearing
+this. His _matador_ lame? Then he could never again fight bulls! He was
+indignant at the calmness with which the doctors talked of the
+possibility of Gallardo's being left useless for bull-fighting.
+
+"That cannot be. Do you think it logical that Juan will live and not
+fight bulls? Who would take his place? It cannot be, I say! The greatest
+man in the world, and they want him to retire!"
+
+He spent the night watching with the men of the _cuadrilla_ and
+Gallardo's brother-in-law. The next morning he rushed to the station.
+The express from Madrid arrived and on it Doctor Ruiz. He came without
+baggage, dressed with his usual carelessness, smiling beneath his
+yellowish white beard, his big abdomen shaking like a Buddha, in his
+loose waistcoat, with the movements of his short legs. He had received
+the news in Madrid as he was coming away from a fight of young bullocks
+arranged to introduce a certain boy from Las Ventas. It was a clownish
+exhibition which had greatly amused him and he laughed after a night of
+weariness in the train, remembering this grotesque _corrida_, as if he
+had forgotten the object of his journey.
+
+As he entered the sick room the bull-fighter, who seemed overcome with
+weakness, opened his eyes and recognized him, and his face lighted with
+a smile of confidence. Ruiz, after listening in a corner to the whispers
+of the doctors who had given first aid, approached the invalid with a
+resolute air.
+
+"Courage, my good fellow, thou are not going to die of this! Thou hast
+ever such rare luck!"
+
+And then he added, turning to his colleagues: "But what a magnificent
+animal this Juanillo is! Any other, by this time, would not have left us
+anything to do."
+
+He examined him with care. A bad horn-wound; but he had seen many worse!
+In cases of sickness that he called _ordinary_, he vacillated undecided,
+not venturing to express an opinion. But the goring of a bull was his
+speciality and he always expected the most remarkable recoveries, as if
+the horns gave the wound and the remedy at once.
+
+"The man that doesn't die in the ring itself," he said, "can almost say
+he is saved. The cure is just a question of time."
+
+For three days Gallardo was subjected to atrocious operations and
+groaned with pain, for his weak state did not permit of the use of
+anaesthetics. Doctor Ruiz extracted various splinters from one leg,
+fragments of the fractured shin-bone.
+
+"Who said thou wouldst be left useless for fighting?" exclaimed the
+doctor, happy in his skill. "Thou wilt fight bulls again, son; the
+public will still be obliged to applaud thee much."
+
+The manager assented to these words. He had thought the same. Could that
+youth, who was the greatest man in the world, die thus?
+
+By Doctor Ruiz' order, the bull-fighter's family had moved to Don Jose's
+house. The women bothered him; their proximity was intolerable during
+operating hours. A moan from the bull-fighter was enough to awaken
+instant response from all parts of the house; the mother's and sister's
+screams were like painful echoes. Carmen had to be held by force, and
+she fought like a mad woman in her desire to go to her husband's side.
+
+Grief had changed the wife, making her forget her animosity. Often her
+tears were caused by remorse, for she believed herself the unconscious
+author of the calamity.
+
+"The fault is mine; I know it," she said in despair to Nacional. "He
+said over and over again he wished a bull would gore him to finish it
+all! I have been very wicked. I have embittered his life."
+
+In vain the _banderillero_ recounted the event in all its details to
+convince her that the calamity had been accidental. No; Gallardo,
+according to her, had wanted to end his life, and had it not been for
+the _banderillero_, he would have been carried out of the ring dead.
+
+When the operations were over, the family returned to the house. Carmen
+entered the wounded man's room with a light step and lowered eyes, as if
+ashamed of her former hostility.
+
+"How art thou?" she asked, clasping one of Juan's hands between both her
+own. She remained thus, silent and timid in the presence of Dr. Ruiz and
+other friends who stayed by the sick man's bedside. Had she been left
+alone perhaps she would have knelt beside her husband asking his
+forgiveness. Poor fellow! She had made him desperate by her cruelty,
+sending him to his death. She wished to forget it all. And her simple
+soul looked out of her eyes with self-abnegation, her humility mingled
+with wifely love and tenderness.
+
+Gallardo seemed to have grown smaller with so much suffering; he was
+thin, pale, and shrunken. Nothing was left of the arrogant youth who
+fired the public with his daring. He complained of his inactivity and of
+his useless leg, heavy as lead. The terrible operations he had undergone
+in full consciousness seemed to have made him a coward. His fortitude in
+bearing pain had disappeared and he groaned at the slightest
+molestation.
+
+His room was like a place of reunion through which the most celebrated
+connoisseurs of the city passed. The smoke of their cigars was mingled
+with the stench of iodoform and strong liniments. Bottles of wine that
+had been presented by the callers stood on the tables among medicine
+flasks and packages of cotton and bandages.
+
+"That is nothing," shouted his friends, wishing to encourage the
+bull-fighter with their noisy optimism. "Inside of a couple of months
+thou wilt be fighting bulls again. Thou hast fallen into good hands.
+Doctor Ruiz works miracles."
+
+The doctor was equally encouraging.
+
+"We have a man on our hands again. Look at him; he is smoking. And a
+sick man that smokes--"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+DOCTOR RUIZ ON TAUROMACHY
+
+
+Far into the night the doctor, the manager, and members of the
+_cuadrilla_ kept the wounded man company. When Potaje came he sat near
+the table trying to keep the bottles within reach of his hand. The
+conversation between Ruiz, the manager, and Nacional was always about
+bulls. It was impossible to be with Don Jose and talk of anything else.
+They commented on all bull-fighters' defects, discussed their merits and
+the money they earned, while the convalescent listened in forced
+inactivity or fell into a drowsy torpor stupefied by the murmur of
+conversation.
+
+Generally the doctor was the only one who talked, followed in his
+pompous argument by Nacional's grave and admiring eyes. "Bull-fighting
+is an evolution," said he. "Dost thou understand, Sebastian? A
+development from the customs of our country, a modification of the
+popular diversions which Spaniards of olden times were given to; those
+times of which Don Joselito must often have talked of to thee."
+
+Dr. Ruiz, with a glass in one hand, talked and talked, only stopping to
+take a sip.
+
+The idea that bull-fighting as we know it is an ancient sport is nothing
+but a tremendous lie. They killed wild beasts in Spain for the diversion
+of the people but bull-fighting did not then exist as it is known
+to-day. The Cid speared bulls skilfully and Christian and Moorish
+gentlemen diverted themselves in the bull-ring, but bull-fighting as a
+profession did not exist nor did they send the animals to a noble death
+according to rules.
+
+The doctor related the history of the national sport for centuries past.
+Only on rare occasions, when kings married, when a treaty of peace was
+signed, or a chapel in a cathedral was dedicated, were such events as
+bull-fights celebrated. There was no regularity in the repetition of
+these feasts, nor were there any professional fighters. Titled gentlemen
+dressed in costumes of silks went into the bull-ring mounted on their
+chargers to spear the beast, or to fight it with lances before the eyes
+of the ladies. If the bull managed to throw them off their horses they
+drew their swords, and with the assistance of their lackeys put it to
+death, wounding it wherever they could, without conforming to any rules.
+When the _corrida_ was for the people the multitude descended into the
+arena, attacking the bull _en masse_ until they succeeded in routing it,
+killing it by dagger thrusts.
+
+"Bull-fights did not exist," continued the doctor. "That was hunting
+wild cattle. In fact, the people had other occupations, and reckoned on
+other sports peculiar to their epoch, and did not need to perfect this
+diversion."
+
+The warlike Spaniard had a sure means of making his career in his
+incessant wars in divers parts of Europe, and the exploration of the
+Americas always called for valiant men. Moreover, religion afforded
+frequent emotional spectacles, full of the thrill provided by the sight
+of suffering in others by which indulgences for the soul could be
+obtained. The sentences pronounced by the Inquisition and the burning
+of human beings at the stake were spectacles that took away interest in
+games with mere wild animals. The Inquisition became the great national
+festival.
+
+"But there came a day," continued Doctor Ruiz with a fine smile, "in
+which the Inquisition began to lose ground. Everything comes to an end
+in this world. It finally died of old age, long before the reform
+statutes suppressed it. It wore itself out; the world had changed and
+such diversions became something like what a bull-fight in Norway would
+be among the snows and beneath the gloomy sky. They lacked atmosphere.
+They began to be ashamed of burning men, with all the pomp of sermons,
+ridiculous vestures, and recantations. They no longer dared pass
+Inquisition sentences. When it was necessary to show that it still
+existed they contented themselves with beatings given behind closed
+doors. At the same time we Spaniards, weary of roving over the world in
+search of adventure, began to stay at home. There were no longer wars in
+Flanders or in Italy; the conquest of America, with its continual
+embarkation of adventurers, terminated, and then it was that the art of
+bull-fighting began, that permanent plazas were constructed and
+_cuadrillas_ of professional bull-fighters were formed; the game was
+adjusted to rules, and the feats of _banderillas_ and of killing, as we
+know them to-day, were recognized. The multitude found the sport much to
+its liking. Bull-fighting became democratic when it was converted into a
+profession. Gentlemen were substituted by plebians who demanded pay for
+exposing their lives, and the people flocked to the bull-rings of their
+own free will, and dared to insult from their seats in the plaza the
+very authority which inspired their terror in the streets. The sons of
+those who had frequented with religious and intense enthusiasm the
+burning of heretics and the baiting of Jews gave themselves up to
+witnessing, with noisy shouts, the struggle between the man and the
+bull, in which only occasionally death comes to the man. Is this not
+progress?"
+
+Ruiz insisted on his idea. In the middle of the eighteenth century when
+Spain retired within herself, renouncing distant wars, and new
+colonizations, and when religious cruelty languished for lack of
+atmosphere, then was the time when bull-fighting flourished forth.
+Popular heroism needed new heights to scale for notoriety and fortune.
+The ferocity of the multitude, accustomed to orgies of death, needed a
+safety valve to give expansion to its soul, educated for centuries to
+the contemplation of torture. The Order of the Inquisition was replaced
+by the bull-fight. He who a century before would have been a soldier in
+Flanders, or a military colonizer in the solitudes of the New World,
+became a bull-fighter. The people, finding their avenues of expansion
+closed, saw in the new national sport a glorious opening for all the
+ambitious ones who had valor and courage.
+
+"It was progress!" continued the doctor. "That seems clear to me. So I,
+who am revolutionary in everything, am not ashamed to say I like the
+bulls. Man needs a spice of wickedness to enliven the monotony of
+existence. Alcohol is bad also and we know it does us harm, but nearly
+all of us drink it. A little savagery now and then gives one new energy
+to go on living. We all like to take a look into the past once in a
+while and live the life of our remote ancestors. Brutality renews those
+mysterious inner forces that it is not well to let die. You say
+bull-fights are barbarous? So they are; but they are not the only
+barbarous sport in the world. The turning to violent and savage joys is
+a human ailment that all people suffer equally. For that reason I am
+indignant when I see foreigners turn contemptuous eyes on Spain, as if
+such things only existed here."
+
+And the doctor railed against horse-races, in which many more men are
+killed than in bull-fights; against fox hunting with trained dogs,
+witnessed by civilized spectators; against many modern games out of
+which the champions come with broken legs, fractured skulls, or
+flattened noses; against the duel, fought in the majority of cases
+without other cause than an unhealthy desire for publicity.
+
+"The bull and the horse," railed Ruiz, "bring to tears the very people
+that don't raise the slightest outcry in their own countries when they
+see a racing animal fall in the hippodrome, ruptured, or with broken
+legs, the very people who think the establishment of a zoological garden
+the complement to the beauty of every great city."
+
+Doctor Ruiz was indignant because, in the name of civilization,
+bull-fights were anathematized as barbarous and sanguinary, while in the
+name of the same civilization the most useless as well as harmful
+animals on earth were lodged and fed and warmed in princely luxury. Why
+is that? Science knows them perfectly and has them catalogued. If their
+extermination is objected to, one must still protest against the dark
+tragedies that take place every day in the cages in the zoological
+parks, the goat bleating piteously as he is thrust defenceless into the
+panther's den, to be crushed to death by the wild beast burying his
+claws in the victim's entrails, and his chops in his steaming blood;
+timid rabbits, torn from the mountain's fragrant peace, trembling at the
+breath of the boa which hypnotizes them with its eyes and winds the
+coils of its grotesque rings about them. Hundreds of poor animals which
+should be protected because of their weakness die to sustain absolutely
+useless ferocious wild beasts that are kept and feasted in cities which
+boast of belonging to the higher civilization; and from these same
+cities insults are hurled against Spanish cruelty, because brave and
+expert men, following rules of undisputed wisdom, kill a proud and
+fearful wild beast face to face, in broad day, beneath the blue heavens,
+in the presence of a noisy, gay-colored multitude, adding the charm of
+picturesque beauty to the emotion of danger. _Vive Dios!_
+
+"They insult us because we have become weak," said Ruiz, waxing
+indignant over what he considered universal injustice. "Our world is
+like a monkey that imitates the gestures and joys of the one he respects
+as a master. Just now England leads, and both hemispheres approve
+horse-racing; crowds stupidly gather to watch lank nags run around a
+race-track, a spectacle that could not be surpassed in insipidity. If in
+the days of Spain's supremacy bull-fighting had been as popular as
+to-day, there would now be bull-rings in many European countries. Don't
+talk to me about the superior foreigners! I admire them because they
+have made revolutions, and we owe much of our thought to them; but
+regarding bulls, heavens, man, they talk nothing but nonsense!"
+
+And the vehement doctor, with the blindness of fanaticism, condemned in
+his execration everybody on the planet who abominated the Spanish sport
+while at the same time they upheld other sanguinary diversions which
+cannot even justify themselves with the pretext of beauty.
+
+After a stay of ten days in Seville the doctor had to return to Madrid.
+
+"Well, young fellow," he said to the sick man, "thou dost not need me
+now and I have a great deal to do. Don't be imprudent. After two months
+thou wilt be well and strong. It is possible thou mayest be a little
+stiff in the leg, but thou hast a constitution of iron and thou wilt
+mend."
+
+Gallardo's recovery took place within the time set by Ruiz. When at the
+end of a month his leg was freed from its enforced quiet, the
+bull-fighter, weak and limping slightly, could go out and sit in an
+arm-chair in the courtyard, where he received his friends.
+
+During his illness, when the fever was high and he was lost in delirium,
+one thought, ever the same, held firm in the midst of his imaginative
+wanderings. Dona Sol--did that woman know of his misfortune?
+
+While he was still in bed he ventured to ask his manager about her one
+day when they were alone.
+
+"Yes, man," said Don Jose, "she has thought of thee. She sent me a
+telegram from Nice, asking about thy health three days after the
+accident. Doubtless she heard of it through the newspapers. They have
+talked about thee everywhere, as if thou wert a king."
+
+The manager had answered the telegram but had heard nothing from her
+since.
+
+Gallardo was satisfied with this news for some days but then he began
+to ask again, with the insistence of a sick man who thinks the whole
+world interested in the state of his health. Had she not written? Had
+she not asked for more news of him? The manager tried to excuse Dona
+Sol's silence and thus console his _matador_. He must remember that the
+lady was always travelling. How could any one know where she might be at
+that moment?
+
+But the bull-fighter's sorrow at thinking himself forgotten obliged Don
+Jose to lie out of pity. Days before he had received a short note from
+Italy in which Dona Sol asked for news of the wounded man.
+
+"Let me see it," said Gallardo eagerly.
+
+When he pretended to have forgotten it at home, Gallardo implored him,
+"Bring it to me. I so long to see her writing, to convince myself that
+she remembers me."
+
+To avoid new complications, Don Jose invented a correspondence which
+never reached his hands because it was directed to some one else. Dona
+Sol wrote, according to him, to the marquis in regard to business
+connected with her fortune, and at the end of every letter she asked
+about Gallardo's health. Again, the letters were to a cousin of hers and
+in them was the same thought of the bull-fighter.
+
+Gallardo heard this news joyfully but at the same time shook his head
+with a doubtful expression. When would he see her again! Would he ever
+see her? Ah, that erratic woman, who had flown without reason at the
+caprice of her strange disposition!
+
+"What thou shouldst do," said the manager, "is to forget women and think
+about business a little. Thou art no longer in bed. How dost thou feel
+in regard to strength? Tell me, shall we fight bulls or not? Thou hast
+the rest of the winter in which to grow strong. Shall we accept
+contracts to fight this year, or shall we refuse?"
+
+Gallardo raised his head proudly, as if something dishonorable had been
+proposed to him. Give up bull-fighting? Pass a year without being seen
+in the ring? Was it possible the public could be resigned to such an
+absence?
+
+"Accept, Don Jose. From now till spring there is time to get strong. I
+will fight whatever they put before me. You can make a contract for the
+Easter bull-fight. It seems to me this leg is going to give me a good
+deal of trouble, but by then, God willing, I'll be as if made of iron."
+
+It was two months before the bull-fighter grew strong. He limped
+slightly and felt less agility in his arms; but he made light of these
+troubles as insignificant when he began to feel the power of health
+reanimating his vigorous body.
+
+Finding himself alone in his wife's room (for he had returned to it when
+he abandoned the sick chamber), he stood before a mirror and squared
+himself as though facing a bull, placing one arm above the other in the
+form of a cross as though holding the sword and _muleta_ in his hands.
+_Zas!_ A sword-thrust at the invisible bull. To the very hilt! He smiled
+proudly thinking how his enemies were going to be deceived, those who
+prophesied his immediate decadence whenever he was gored.
+
+It would be a long time yet before he could enter the ring. He longed
+for the glory of applause and the acclamation of the multitudes with the
+eagerness of a beginner,--as though the recent injury had closed a past
+existence; as if the former Gallardo were another man while now he had
+to begin his career anew.
+
+He decided to pass the rest of the winter at La Rinconada with his
+family, to gain strength. Hunting and long trips would improve his
+broken leg. Besides, he would ride on horseback overseeing the work, he
+would visit the flocks of goats, the herds of swine, the droves of
+cattle and horses pastured in the meadows. The administration of the
+plantation was not getting on well. Everything cost him more than other
+proprietors and the profits were less. It was the estate of a
+bull-fighter of generous habits accustomed to earning great quantities
+of money without knowing the restriction of economy. His travels during
+a part of the year, and his accident, which had brought stupefaction and
+disorder into his house, caused business to go awry.
+
+Antonio, his brother-in-law, who had established himself at the
+plantation for a season with the airs of a dictator intending to set
+everything in order, had only impeded the progress of the work and
+provoked the ire of the laborers. Fortunately Gallardo counted on
+certain returns from the bull-fights, an inexhaustible source of wealth
+for repairing his prodigality.
+
+Before leaving for La Rinconada Senora Angustias begged her son to go
+and kneel before the Virgin of Hope. It was to fulfil a promise she had
+made in that dismal twilight when she had seen him brought home upon a
+stretcher, pale and motionless as a dead man. How often had she wept
+before the Macarena, the beautiful Queen of Heaven with her long lashes
+and olive cheeks, asking her not to forget her poor Juanillo!
+
+The occasion was a popular event. The gardeners of the Macarena ward
+were called upon by the master's mother, and the Church of San Gil was
+filled with flowers arranged in tall heaps like pyramids on the altars,
+or hanging in garlands between the arches and suspended from the lamps
+in great clusters.
+
+The sacred ceremony took place one bright morning. In spite of its being
+a week-day the church was filled with the best families of the nearby
+wards; stout women with black eyes and short necks, with waists and hips
+outlined in coarse curves, wearing black silk gowns with lace
+_mantillas_ over their pale faces; workmen recently shaven, in new
+suits, round hats, and with great gold chains on their waistcoats.
+Beggars came in bands as if a wedding were to be celebrated and stood at
+the doors of the temple in double file. The good wives of the ward,
+unkempt and with babies in their arms, formed groups, impatiently
+awaiting the arrival of Gallardo and his family.
+
+A mass was to be sung with accompaniment of orchestra and voices,
+something extraordinary, like the opera in the theatre of San Fernando
+at Christmas time. Then the priests would sing the _Te Deum_ as a
+thanksgiving for the recovery of Senor Juan Gallardo, just as when the
+king entered Seville.
+
+The _cortege_ appeared making its way through the crowd. The
+bull-fighter's mother and wife, with relatives and friends, walked in
+advance, while the heavy silk of their skirts rustled as they passed,
+smiling sweetly beneath their _mantillas_.
+
+Behind came Gallardo, followed by an interminable escort of
+bull-fighters and friends, all dressed in light colors, with chains and
+rings of amazing splendor, wearing on their heads white felt hats which
+contrasted with the blackness of the feminine headgear.
+
+Gallardo was grave. He was a sincere believer. He thought little about
+God and blasphemed Him in difficult moments with the automatism of
+custom; but this was a different thing; he was going to give thanks to
+the Most Holy Macarena, and he entered the temple with an air of pious
+compunction.
+
+All went in except Nacional, who abandoned his wife and offspring and
+remained outside in the churchyard.
+
+"I am a free-thinker," he believed the time opportune to declare before
+a group of friends. "I respect all beliefs; but what is going on inside,
+for me is--_liquid!_ I don't want to be lacking in respect to the
+Macarena, nor to rob her of her due, but, comrade, if I had not arrived
+in time to attract the bull away when Juaniyo was stretched on the
+ground--!"
+
+The sound of the instruments was borne out to the churchyard, with the
+voices of the singers, a sweet, voluptuous harmony, accompanied by
+breaths of perfume from the flowers and the odor of wax candles.
+
+The bull-fighters and devotees of Gallardo who were gathered outside the
+temple smoked cigarette after cigarette. From time to time some of them
+strayed off to while away the time in the nearest tavern.
+
+When the company came forth again the poor appeared smiling and
+gesticulating, their hands full of coin. There was money for all. The
+_maestro_ Gallardo was liberal.
+
+Senora Angustias wept, with her head reclining on a friend's shoulder.
+
+At the door of the church the _matador_, smiling and magnificent, gave
+his arm to his wife, who walked tremulous with emotion and with lowered
+eyes, a tear quivering on her lashes.
+
+Carmen felt as if she had just been married a second time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+AIRING THE SAINTS
+
+
+As Holy Week drew near, Gallardo gave his mother a great joy. In former
+years the swordsman used to join the procession of the San Lorenzo
+parish as a devotee of Our Lord Jesus of the Great Power, dressed in a
+black tunic with a tall hood and a mask that left only his eyes visible.
+It was a gentleman's fraternity, and the bull-fighter, finding himself
+on the road to fortune, had joined it, forsaking popular brotherhoods in
+which devotion was accompanied by drunkenness and scandal.
+
+Gallardo talked with pride of the seriousness of this religious
+association. Everything was orderly and well disciplined, as in the
+army. On the night of Holy Thursday, when the clock on San Lorenzo was
+striking the second stroke of two at break of day, the doors opened
+instantaneously and the whole interior of the temple, full of lights and
+with the fraternity in line, appeared before the eyes of the multitude
+which was crowded together in the darkness of the churchyard.
+
+The black-cowled figures, silent and gloomy, with no other expression of
+life than the glitter of their eyes behind the dark mask, advanced two
+by two with slow step, keeping a wide space between pair and pair,
+grasping their torches of livid flame and trailing their long tunics on
+the floor.
+
+The multitude, with that impressionability inherent in Southern peoples,
+contemplated intently the passing of the hooded brethren whom they
+called Nazarenes, mysterious maskers who perhaps were great gentlemen,
+moved by traditional devotion to figure in this nocturnal procession
+which ended immediately at sunrise.
+
+It was a silent fraternity. The Nazarenes must not speak, and they
+marched escorted by municipal guards who took care that the importunate
+should not molest them. Drunkards abounded in the multitude. There
+wandered through the streets tireless devotees who, in memory of the
+Passion of Our Lord, began on Holy Wednesday to demonstrate their piety
+by walking from tavern to tavern, and did not reach the last station
+until Saturday, in which they took final refuge after innumerable falls
+by the way which had been for them likewise a sort of Via Dolorosa.
+
+As the members of the fraternity, sentenced to silence under heavy
+penalty, marched along in procession, the drunken concourse drew near
+and murmured in their ears the most atrocious insults against the
+maskers and their families, whom perhaps they did not know. The Nazarene
+held his peace and suffered in silence, swallowing the outrages and
+offering them as a sacrifice to the Lord of Great Power. But these
+troublesome fellows, like flies that would not be driven away, incited
+to further activity by this meekness, redoubled their offensive buzzing
+until at last some pious masker thought that, although silence was
+obligatory, inaction was not, and without speaking a word, raised the
+torch and struck a drunkard who had disturbed the sacred order of the
+ceremony.
+
+During the course of the procession, when the bearers of the statues
+halted for rest and the heavy platforms of the images hung about with
+lanterns stood still, at a light hiss the hooded brethren stopped, the
+couples standing face to face, with the flambeau resting on one foot,
+gazing at the crowd through the masks with their mysterious eyes. They
+were like gloomy apparitions escaped from an Inquisition sentence,
+grotesque beings seeming to shed perfumes of incense and stench of
+burning flesh.
+
+The mournful blast of the copper trumpets sounded, breaking the silence
+of the night. Above the points of the hoods the pennants of the
+fraternity, squares of black velvet edged with gold fringe, moved in the
+breeze; the Roman anagram, S. P. Q. R., recalled the intervention of the
+Prefect of Judea in the death of the Saviour.
+
+The image of Our Father Jesus of the Great Power advanced on a heavy
+platform of wrought metal with black velvet hangings that grazed the
+ground, hiding the feet of the twenty sweaty, half-naked men who walked
+beneath carrying it. Four groups of lanterns with golden angels shone at
+the corners; in the centre was Jesus, a Jesus tragic, painful, bleeding,
+crowned with thorns, bent beneath the weight of the cross, his face
+cadaverous and his eyes tearful, dressed in an ample velvet tunic so
+covered with golden flowers that the rich cloth could scarcely be
+distinguished beneath the delicate arabesque in the complicated design
+of the embroidery.
+
+The presence of the Lord of the Great Power called forth sighs from
+hundreds. "Father Josu!" murmured the old women, their eyes fixed on the
+image with hypnotic stare. "Lord of the Great Power! Remember us!"
+
+The image rested in the centre of a plaza with its escort of hooded
+inquisitionists, and the devotion of the Andalusian people, which
+confides all conditions of its soul to song, greeted the float with
+bird-like trills and interminable lamentations.
+
+An infantile voice of tremulous sweetness broke the silence. It was a
+young woman who, advancing through the crowd until she stood in the
+first row, broke into a _saeta_ to Jesus. The three verses of the song
+were for the Lord of Great Power, for the most divine statue, and for
+the sculptor Montanes, one of the great Spanish artists of the golden
+age.
+
+This _saeta_ was like the first shot of a battle that starts an
+interminable outburst of explosions. Hers was not yet ended when another
+was heard from a different quarter, and another and another, as if the
+plaza were a great cage of mad birds which, on being awakened by the
+voice of a companion, all joined in song at once in bewildering
+confusion. Masculine voices, grave and hoarse, united their sombre tones
+to the feminine trilling. All sang with their eyes fixed on the image,
+as if they stood alone before it, forgetting the crowd that surrounded
+them, deaf to the other voices, without losing place or hesitating in
+the complicated trills of the _saeta_, which made discord and mingled
+inharmoniously with the chanting of the others. The hooded brethren
+listened motionless, gazing at the Jesus, who received these warblings
+without ceasing to shed tears beneath the weight of the cross and the
+stinging pain of the thorns, until the conductor of the image, deciding
+that the halt be over, rang a silver bell on the fore-end of the
+platform. "Arise!" The Lord of Great Power, after several vibrations,
+rose higher and the feet of the invisible bearers began to move along
+the ground like tentacles.
+
+Next came the Virgin, "Our Lady of the Greater Sorrow," for every parish
+paraded two images--one of the Son of God and the other of His Holy
+Mother. Beneath a velvet canopy the golden crown of the Lady of Greater
+Sorrow trembled, surrounded by lights. The train of her mantle, many
+yards long, fell behind the image, held out by a kind of wooden
+hoop-skirt, showing the splendor of its heavy embroideries, glittering
+and costly, on which the skill and patience of an entire generation had
+been spent.
+
+The hooded brethren, with sputtering torches, escorted the Virgin, the
+reflection of their lights trembling on this regal mantle which filled
+the scene with glittering splendor. To the sound of the double beat of
+drums marched a group of women, their bodies in shadow and their faces
+reddened by the flame of the candles they carried in their hands; old
+women in _mantillas_, with bare feet; young women dressed in white gowns
+originally intended as winding-sheets; women who walked with difficulty
+as though suffering from painful maladies--a whole battalion of
+suffering humanity, delivered from death through the mercy of the Lord
+of Great Power and His Most Holy Mother, walking behind their images to
+fulfil a vow.
+
+The procession, after marching slowly through the streets, with long
+halts accompanied by songs, entered the cathedral, which remained open
+all night. The defile of lights on entering the enormous naves of this
+temple brought out from obscurity the gigantic columns wrapped in
+purple hangings edged with lines of gold, without dissipating the thick
+darkness of the vaulted roof. The hooded men marched like black insects
+in the ruddy light of the torches below, while night was still massed
+above. They went out into the starlight again, leaving this crypt-like
+obscurity, and the sun surprised the procession in the open street,
+extinguishing the brilliancy of their torches, causing the gold of the
+holy vestments and the tears and sweat of agony on the images to glisten
+in the light of dawn.
+
+Gallardo was devoted to the Lord of the Great Power and to the majestic
+silence of his fraternity, but this year he decided to parade with those
+of the Macarena who escorted the miraculous Virgin of Hope.
+
+Senora Angustias was overjoyed when she heard his decision. Well did he
+owe it to this Virgin for having saved him from his last goring.
+Besides, this flattered her sentiments of plebian simplicity.
+
+"Every one with his kind, Juaniyo. Thou goest with the upper class, but
+remember that the poor always loved thee and that they had begun to talk
+against thee, thinking that thou didst despise them."
+
+The bull-fighter knew it too well. The tumultuous populace which
+occupied the bleachers in the plaza had begun to show a certain
+animosity toward him, thinking themselves forgotten. They criticised his
+intercourse with the rich and his drawing away from those who had been
+his first admirers. To overcome this animosity, Gallardo took advantage
+of every opportunity, flattering the rabble with the unscrupulous
+servility of those who must live by public applause. He had sent for the
+most influential brethren of the Macarena to explain to them that he
+would be in the procession. The people must not know of it. He did it as
+a devotee and wished his act to remain a secret. But in a few days,
+nothing else was discussed in the whole ward. The Macarena would be
+carried this year in great beauty! They scorned the rich devotees of the
+Great Power with its orderly, insipid procession, and they gave
+attention only to their rivals of the boisterous Triana on the other
+side of the river, who were so arrogant over their objects of devotion,
+Our Lady of Protection and Christ of the Expiration, whom they called
+the Most Holy _Cachorro_.
+
+Gallardo collected all his own and his wife's jewels to contribute to
+the Macarena's splendor. In her ears he would put some pendants of
+Carmen's which he had bought in Madrid, investing in them the profits of
+several bull-fights. On her breast she should wear his chain of rolled
+gold, and hanging from it all his rings and the great diamond buttons
+which he put in his shirt bosom when he went out dressed in courtly
+style.
+
+"_Josu!_ How fine our brunette will be," said the women of the
+neighborhood speaking of the Virgin. "Senor Juan is running everything.
+Half Seville will go mad with enthusiasm."
+
+The _matador_ believed in the Virgin and with devout egoism he wished to
+enter into her favor in view of future dangers, but he trembled as he
+thought of the jokes of his friends when they gathered in the _cafes_
+and societies on Sierpes Street.
+
+"They will cut off my _coleta_ if they recognize me. But one has to get
+along with everybody."
+
+On Holy Thursday he went to the cathedral at night with his wife to hear
+the _Miserere_. The temple, with its stupendously high vaulted arches,
+was without other light than that of the ruddy glow from the candles on
+the columns. The people of the better class were caged behind the
+grilles of the chapels on the sides, avoiding contact with the sweaty
+crowd that surged in the naves. The lights destined for the musicians
+and singers shone from out the obscurity of the choir like a
+constellation of red stars. Eslava's _Miserere_ sent forth its sweet
+Italian melodies into this awesome atmosphere of shade and mystery. It
+was an Andalusian _Miserere_, somewhat playful and gay, like the
+flapping of bird wings, with romances like love serenades and choruses
+like revellers' roundelays, the joy of living in a fair land that causes
+forgetfulness of death and protests against the sorrow of the Passion.
+
+When the tenor's voice ended the last romance and his lamentations were
+lost in the vaulted ceiling, apostrophizing the deicide city,
+"Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" the crowd scattered, desiring to return as soon
+as possible to the streets, which had the aspect of a theatre, with the
+electric lights, their rows of chairs on the sidewalks, and their boxes
+in the plazas.
+
+Gallardo returned home to dress himself as a Nazarene. Senora Angustias
+had given much care to his costume, which took her back to the days of
+her youth. Ah! her poor husband, who on this night had put on his
+warlike trappings and, throwing his lance over his shoulder, had gone
+out into the streets not to return till the following day, when he came
+back with his helmet dented and his armour covered with filth, after
+having camped with his brothers-in-arms in all the taverns in Seville!
+
+The swordsman cared for his underwear with feminine scrupulousness. He
+paid the Nazarene costume the same attentions he gave a fighting dress
+on a bull-fight afternoon. He put on silk stockings and patent leather
+shoes, and the white sateen gown prepared by his mother's hands, and
+over this the pointed cape of green velvet that fell from his shoulders
+to his knees, like a chasuble. The coat of arms of the fraternity was
+richly and carefully embroidered with a profusion of colors on one side
+of the breast. Then he drew on white gloves and grasped a tall cane,
+emblem of dignity in the fraternity; a staff covered with green velvet
+and tipped with silver.
+
+In a narrow street Gallardo met the procession of the Company of the
+Jews, a troop of men in coats of mail, who, eager to show their warlike
+discipline, kept step as they marched in time to a drum that beat
+ceaselessly. They were young men and old, with their countenances framed
+by the metallic chin-straps of the helmet, wearing wine-colored habits,
+flesh-colored cotton hose, and high sandals. They wore the Roman sword
+at the belt, and, to imitate modern soldiers, the cord that held their
+lances hung from one shoulder, like a gun-case. At the head of the
+company floated the Roman banner with its senatorial inscription.
+
+The procession marched with traditional slowness, stopping whole hours
+at the crossways. They did not value time. It was twelve o'clock at
+night and the Macarena would not return to her abode until twelve on the
+following morning, taking more time to travel about the city than is
+needed to go from Seville to Madrid.
+
+First came the _paso_ of the "Sentence of Our Lord Jesus Christ," a
+float filled with figures representing Pilate seated on a golden throne
+surrounded by soldiers in colored skirts and plumed helmets, watching
+the sad Jesus soon to march to the place of execution in a tunic of
+brown velvet covered with embroideries, and three golden plumes that
+signified rays of divinity above his crown of thorns. This _paso_
+proceeded without attracting attention, as if humbled by the proximity
+of the one that came after, the Queen of the popular wards, the
+miraculous Virgin of Hope, the Macarena. When the Virgin with the rosy
+cheeks and long lashes left San Gil beneath a trembling canopy of
+velvet, bowing with the movement of the hidden bearers, a deafening
+acclamation arose from the multitude that surged through the small
+plaza. But how pretty the great Senora! She never grew older!
+
+The mantle, splendid, immense, with heavy gold embroidery that resembled
+the meshes of a net, hung behind the float, like the wide-spread tail of
+a gigantic peacock. Her glass eyes shone as if filled with tears of
+emotion in response to the acclamations of the faithful, and to this
+glitter was added the scintillation of the jewels that covered her body,
+forming an armor of gold and precious stones over the embroidered
+velvet. She seemed sprinkled with a shower of luminous drops, in which
+flamed all the colors of the rainbow. From her neck hung strings of
+pearls, chains of gold with dozens of rings linked together that
+scattered magic splendors as she moved. The tunic and the front of the
+mantle were hung with gold watches fastened on with pins, pendants of
+emeralds and diamonds, rings with enormous stones like luminous pebbles.
+All the devotees sent their jewels that they might light the most Holy
+Macarena on her journey. The women exhibited their hands divested of
+ornaments on this night of religious sacrifice, happy to have the Mother
+of God display jewels that were their pride. The public knew them from
+having seen them every year. That one which the Virgin displayed on her
+breast, hanging from a chain, belonged to Gallardo, the bull-fighter.
+But others shared the popular honors along with him. Feminine glances
+devoured rapturously two enormous pearls and a strand of rings. They
+belonged to a girl of the ward who had gone to Madrid two years before,
+and being a devotee of the Macarena, returned to see the feast with an
+old gentleman. The luck of that girl--!
+
+Gallardo, with his face covered, and leaning on a staff, the emblem of
+authority, marched before the _paso_ with the dignitaries of the
+brotherhood. Other hooded brothers carried long trumpets adorned with
+green bannerets with fringes of gold. They raised the mouthpiece to an
+aperture in the masks, and an ear-splitting blast, an agonizing sound,
+rent the silence. But this hair-raising roar awoke no echo of death in
+the hearts that beat around them.
+
+Along the dark and solitary cross-streets came whiffs of springtime
+breezes laden with garden perfumes, the fragrance of orange blossoms,
+and the aroma of flowers in pots ranged behind grilles and balconies.
+The blue of the sky paled at the caress of the moon which rested on a
+downy bed of clouds, thrusting its face between two gables. The
+melancholy defile seemed to march against the current of Nature, losing
+its funereal gravity at each step. In vain the trumpets sounded
+lamentations of death, in vain the minstrels wept as they intoned the
+sacred verses, and in vain the grim executioners kept step with
+hangman's frown. The vernal night laughed, scattering its breath of
+perfumed life. No one dwelt on death.
+
+Enthusiastic _Macarenos_ surrounded the Virgin like a troop of
+revellers. Gardeners came from the suburbs with their dishevelled women
+who dragged a string of children by the hand, taking them on an
+excursion lasting until the dawn. Young fellows of the ward with new
+hats and with curls smoothed down over their ears flourished clubs with
+warlike fervor, as though some one were likely to display lack of
+respect for the beautiful Lady, so that the support of their arm would
+be necessary. All jostled together, crowding into the narrow streets
+between the enormous _paso_ and the walls, but with their eyes fixed on
+those of the image, talking to her, hurling compliments to her beauty
+and miraculous power with the inconsistency produced by wine and their
+frivolous bird-like minds.
+
+"_Ole, la Macarena!_ The greatest Virgin in the world! She who excels
+all other Virgins!"
+
+Every fifty steps the sacred platform was halted. There was no hurry.
+The journey was long. At many houses they demanded that the Virgin stop
+so that they could gaze on her at leisure. Every tavern keeper also
+asked for a pause at the door of his establishment, alleging his rights
+as a citizen of the ward. A man crossed the street directing his steps
+toward the hooded brethren with the staffs who walked in advance of the
+float.
+
+"Hold! Let them stop! For here is the greatest singer in the world who
+wishes to sing a couplet to the Virgin."
+
+"The greatest singer in the world," leaning against one friend, and
+handing his glass to another, advanced toward the image with shaking
+legs, and after clearing his throat delivered a torrent of hoarse sounds
+in which trills obliterated the clarity of the words. It could only be
+understood that he sang to the "Mother," the Mother of God, and as he
+uttered this word, his voice acquired additional tremors of emotion with
+that sensibility to popular poesy that finds its most sincere
+inspiration in maternal love.
+
+Another and then another voice was heard, as if the minstrel had started
+a musical contest; as if the street were filled with invisible birds,
+some hoarse and rasping, others shrill, with a penetrating screech that
+suggested a red and swollen throat, ready to burst. Most of the singers
+kept hidden in the crowd, with the simplicity of devotion that does not
+crave to be seen in its manifestations; others were eager to exhibit
+themselves, planting themselves in the midst of the crowd before the
+holy Macarena.
+
+When the songs ended the public burst into vulgar exclamations of
+enthusiasm, and again the Macarena, the beautiful, the only, was
+glorified, and wine circulated in glasses around the feet of the image;
+the most vehement threw their hats at her as if she were a real girl, a
+pretty girl, and it was not clear now whether it was the fervor of the
+faithful who sang to the Virgin, or a pagan orgy that accompanied her
+transit through the streets.
+
+In advance of the float went a youth dressed in a violet tunic and
+crowned with thorns. He trod the bluish paving stones with bare feet and
+marched with his body bowed beneath the weight of a cross twice as big
+as himself, and when after a long wait he rejoined the float, good
+souls aided him to drag his burden.
+
+The women wept with tender compassion as they saw him. Poor boy! With
+what holy fervor he performed his penance. Every one in the ward
+remembered his sacrilegious crime. Accursed wine, that turns men mad!
+Three years before, on the morning of Holy Friday, when the Macarena was
+about to retire to her church after having wandered all night through
+the streets of Seville, this sinner, who was really a good boy and had
+been revelling with his friends overnight, had compelled the float to
+stop at a tavern on the plaza of the marketplace. He sang to the Virgin,
+and then, possessed of a holy enthusiasm, burst into endearing
+expressions, _Ole!_ Pretty Macarena! He loved her more than his
+sweetheart! To better express his faith, he threw at her feet what he
+had in his hand, thinking it was his hat, and a wine glass burst on the
+handsome face of the great Lady. They took him weeping to the police
+station. But he loved the Macarena as if she were his mother! It was the
+accursed wine that made men do they knew not what! He trembled with fear
+at the years of imprisonment awaiting him for disrespect to religion; he
+shed tears of repentance for his sacrilege; until finally, even the most
+indignant interceded in his favor and the matter was settled by his
+promise to give an example to sinners by performing an extraordinary
+penance. Sweaty and panting he dragged the cross, changing the position
+of the burden when one of his shoulders became numbed by the painful
+weight. His comrades pitied him; they dared not laugh at his penance,
+and they compassionately offered him glasses of wine. But he turned his
+eyes away from the offering, fixing them on the Virgin to make her a
+witness to his martyrdom. He would drink the next day without fear, when
+the Macarena was left safe in her church.
+
+The float halted in a street of the ward of the Feria, and now the head
+of the procession had reached the centre of Seville. The green-hooded
+brethren and the company wearing the coats of mail advanced with warlike
+mien like an army marching to attack. They wished to reach Campana
+Street and take possession of the entrance to Sierpes Street before
+another fraternity should present itself. The vanguard once in control
+of this position could tranquilly await the Virgin's arrival. The
+_Macarenos_ each year made themselves masters of the famous street and
+took whole hours to pass through it, enjoying the impatient protests of
+the fraternities of other wards.
+
+Sierpes Street was converted into a sort of reception hall with the
+balconies thronged with people, electric globes hanging from wires
+strung from wall to wall, and all the _cafes_ and stores illuminated;
+the windows were filled with heads, and rows of chairs along the walls,
+with crowds, rising in their seats each time the distant trumpeting and
+beating of the drums announced the proximity of a float.
+
+It was three in the morning and nothing indicated the lateness of the
+hour. People were eating in _cafes_ and taverns. The thick odor of oil
+escaped through the doors of the places where fish was frying. Itinerant
+venders stationed themselves in the centre of the street crying sweets
+and drinks. Whole families who only came to light on occasions of great
+festivity, had been there from two o'clock in the afternoon watching
+the passing of processions and more processions. There were Virgins with
+mantles of overwhelming sumptuousness which drew shouts of admiration by
+their display of velvet; Redeemers, crowned with gold and wearing
+vestments of brocade, and a whole world of absurd images whose tragic,
+bleeding, or tearful faces contrasted with the theatrical luxury and
+richness of their clothing. Foreigners, attracted by the strangeness of
+this Christian ceremony, joyous as a pagan feast in which there were no
+faces of woe and sadness but those of the images, heard their names
+called out by Sevillians seated near them. The floats started off--those
+of the Sacred Decree of the Holy Christ of Silence; of Our Lady of
+Sorrows; of Jesus with the Cross on His Shoulder; of Our Lady of the
+Valley; of Our Father Jesus of the Three Falls; of Our Lady of Tears; of
+the Lord of Good Death; and of Our Lady of the Three Necessities,
+accompanied by Nazarenes black and white, red, green, blue and violet,
+all masked, hiding their mysterious personality beneath their pointed
+hoods.
+
+The heavy platforms advanced slowly and with great difficulty because of
+the narrowness of the street. On reaching the plaza of San Francisco,
+opposite the viewing stand built in front of the Government palace, the
+floats made a half-turn until they stood facing the images and by a
+genuflexion of their bearers they saluted the illustrious strangers and
+royal personages gathered to witness the feast.
+
+Near the floats marched boys with pitchers of water. The catafalque had
+scarcely stopped when a fold of the velvet hangings which hid its
+interior was raised and twenty or thirty men appeared, sweaty, purple
+from fatigue, half naked, with handkerchiefs bound around their heads,
+and looking like tired savages. They were the so-called "Galicians," in
+which geographic appellative are confounded all lusty workmen whatever
+may be their origin, as though the other sons of the country were not
+capable of constant or fatiguing labor. They greedily drank the water,
+or, if there were a tavern near, they rebelled against the director of
+the float and demanded wine. Thus the festivities were prolonged through
+the whole night, frivolous, gay, and theatrical. In vain the brass horns
+sent forth their death-laments proclaiming the greatest of crimes, the
+unjust death of a God. Nature did not respond to this traditional
+sorrow. The river went purling on beneath the bridges, spreading its
+luminous sheet through the silent fields; the orange trees,
+incense-givers of the night, opened their thousand white mouths and shed
+the fragrance of voluptuous fruit upon the air; the palms waved their
+clusters of plumes over the Moorish ramparts of the Alcazar; the
+Giralda, a blue phantom, vanished in the heavens, eclipsing stars and
+hiding a portion of the sky behind its shapely mass; and the moon,
+intoxicated by nocturnal perfumes, seemed to smile at the earth swollen
+with the nutrient sap of spring, at the luminous furrow-like streets of
+the city in whose ruddy depths swarmed a multitude content just to be
+alive, which drank and sang and found a pretext for interminable
+feasting in a tragic death of long ago.
+
+At the door of a _cafe_ stood Nacional with all his family watching the
+passing of the brotherhood. "Superstition and ignorance!" But he
+followed the custom, coming every year to witness the invasion of
+Sierpes Street by the noisy Macarenes.
+
+He immediately recognized Gallardo by his genteel bearing and the
+athletic jauntiness with which he wore the inquisitorial vestment.
+
+"Juanillo; have the procession stop. There are some foreign ladies in
+the _cafe_ who want to get a good look at the Macarena."
+
+The sacred platform came to a halt; the band played a gay march, one of
+those that enlivens the audience at the bull-ring, and immediately the
+hidden conductors of the float commenced to raise one leg in unison,
+then the other, executing a dance that made the catafalque move with
+violent undulations, crowding the people against the walls. The Virgin,
+with the burden of her heavy mantle, jewels, flowers, and lanterns,
+danced to the music. This exhibition was the result of practice and one
+which was the pride of the _Macarenos_. The good youths of the ward,
+holding both sides of the float, supported it during this violent
+commotion and shouted with enthusiasm at this exhibition of strength and
+skill.
+
+"Let all Seville come to see this! It is great! This only the
+_Macarenos_ do!"
+
+And when the music and the undulations ceased and the float again stood
+still there was thunderous applause mingled with impious and vulgar
+compliments to the Most Holy Macarena. They shouted _vivas_ to the Most
+Holy Macarena, the sainted, the only.
+
+The brotherhood continued on its triumphal march, leaving stragglers in
+every tavern and fallen on every street. The sun, as it rose, surprised
+it far from the parish at the extreme opposite side of Seville, made
+the jewelled armor on the image scintillate with its first rays, and
+lighted up the livid countenances of the Nazarenes who had taken off
+their masks. The image and her attendants, overtaken by the dawn,
+resembled a dissolute troop returning from an orgy. The two floats were
+abandoned in the middle of the street near the market, while the whole
+procession took an eye-opener in the nearby taverns, substituting great
+glasses of Cazalla and Rute brandy for native wine. The hooded
+brethren's white garments were now filthy rags; nothing but miserable
+relics remained of the brilliant "Jewish" army which looked as though
+returning from a defeat. The captain walked with unsteady step, the
+melancholy plumes fallen over his livid countenance, his only thought to
+defend his glorious raiment from being rubbed and pulled to pieces.
+Respect the uniform!
+
+Gallardo left the procession soon after sunrise. He had done enough in
+accompanying the Virgin all night and surely she would take it into
+account. Besides, this last part of the feast, until the Macarena
+entered San Gil, now nearly mid-day, was the most disagreeable. The
+people who arose fresh and tranquil from sleep jested at the hooded
+brethren so ridiculous in the sunlight, dragging along in their
+drunkenness and filth. It was not prudent for a matador to be seen with
+them.
+
+Senora Angustias kept watch for him in the courtyard and helped the
+Nazarene take off his vestments. He must rest after having fulfilled his
+duty to the Virgin. Easter Sunday he was to have a bull-fight; the first
+after his accident. Accursed trade! For him rest was impossible, and the
+poor women, after a period of tranquillity, saw their old fears and
+anguish renewed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE MASTERY OF SELF-PRESERVATION
+
+
+Saturday and Sunday morning Gallardo received calls from enthusiastic
+connoisseurs from outside Seville who had come for the _fiestas_ of Holy
+Week and to the Feria. All were smiling, confident of his future
+heroism.
+
+"We'll see how thou'lt stand up! The devotees have their eyes fixed on
+thee. How is thy strength?"
+
+Gallardo did not doubt his vigor. The months spent in the country had
+strengthened him. He was now as strong as before he had been gored. The
+only thing that made him recall his accident when hunting on the
+plantation was a certain weakness in the wounded leg. But this he only
+noticed after long trips.
+
+"I'll do all I know how to do," murmured Gallardo. "I don't think I'll
+be altogether bad."
+
+The manager put in a word with the mad blindness of his faith.
+
+"Thou'lt flourish like the roses themselves--like an angel."
+
+Then, forgetting the bull-fight for a moment, they commented on a piece
+of news that had just circulated through the city.
+
+On a mountain in the province of Cordova the civil guard had found a
+decomposed body with a head mutilated and almost blown off by a
+gun-shot. It was impossible to recognize it, but the clothing, the
+carbine, all made them believe it was Plumitas. Gallardo listened in
+silence. He had not seen the bandit since his accident, but he
+remembered him well. His plantation hands had told him that while he was
+in danger Plumitas twice presented himself at La Rinconada to inquire
+for his health. Afterward, while living there with his family, herders
+and laborers spoke to him several times mysteriously about Plumitas,
+who, when he met them on the highway and learned that they were from La
+Rinconada, gave them greetings for Senor Juan. Poor man! Gallardo pitied
+him, recalling his predictions. The civil guard had not killed him. He
+had been assassinated while asleep. He had perished at the hands of one
+of his kind, of one of his followers, seeking notoriety.
+
+Sunday his departure for the plaza was more trying than ever. Carmen
+made strong efforts to be calm and was even present while Garabato
+dressed the _maestro_. She smiled, with a sad smile; she feigned gayety,
+thinking she noticed in her husband an equal anxiety which he also tried
+to hide under a forced exhilaration. Senora Angustias paced up and down
+outside the room to see her Juan once more, as though she were about to
+lose him. When Gallardo went out into the courtyard with his cap on and
+his cape over his shoulder the mother threw her arms around his neck,
+shedding tears. She did not utter a word, but her heavy sobs revealed
+her thoughts. To fight for the first time after his accident, in the
+same plaza where he had been gored! The superstition of the woman of the
+people rebelled against this foolhardiness. Ah! When would he retire
+from the accursed trade? Had he not enough money yet?
+
+But the brother-in-law intervened with authority as the grave family
+counsellor. "Come, _Mamita_, this does not amount to so much--a
+bull-fight like all the others! Juan must be left in peace and his
+serenity must not be upset by this continual crying just as he is to
+start for the plaza."
+
+Carmen accompanied her husband to the door; she wished to encourage him.
+Besides, since her love had been reawakened by the accident and she and
+Juan had again been living happily together, she would not believe that
+a new misfortune would come to disturb her joy. That goring was an act
+of God, who often brings good out of ill, and He wished to draw them
+together again by this means. Juan would fight bulls as before and would
+come home well and sound.
+
+"Good luck to thee!"
+
+With loving eyes she watched the carriage that drove away followed by a
+troop of ragamuffins. When the poor woman was left alone she went up to
+her room and lighted candles before an image of the Virgin of Hope.
+
+Nacional rode in the coach at his master's side, frowning and gloomy.
+That Sunday was election day, but his companions in the _cuadrilla_ had
+not heard of it. The people only talked of Plumitas' death and of the
+bull-fight. The _banderillero_ had remained with his fellow committeemen
+until past mid-day, "working for the idea." Accursed _corrida_ that came
+to interrupt his duties as a good citizen, preventing him from taking to
+the polls several friends who would not vote if he did not go for them.
+Only "those of the idea" went to the voting places; the city seemed to
+ignore the existence of the elections. There were great groups in the
+streets arguing passionately; but they only talked of bulls. What
+people! Nacional recollected with indignation the schemes and outrages
+of the opposition to bring about this neglect of civic duty. Don
+Joselito, who had protested with all his forensic eloquence, was in
+prison with other companions. The _banderillero_, who would gladly have
+shared their martyrdom, had been obliged to abandon them, to put on his
+glittering costume and follow his master. Was this outrage to good
+citizens to go unrebuked? Would not the people rise in retaliation?
+
+As the coach passed the vicinity of Campana Street the bull-fighters saw
+a great crowd flourishing clubs and heard them shouting. The police,
+sabres in hand, were charging upon them, receiving blows and returning
+them two for one.
+
+Ah, at last! The moment had arrived!
+
+"The revolution! The fight is on!"
+
+But the _maestro_, half smiling, half angry, pushed him back into his
+seat.
+
+"Don't be a fool, Sebastian; thou seest nothing but revolutions and
+hobgoblins everywhere."
+
+The members of the _cuadrilla_ smiled, divining the fact that it was
+only the noble people, angered at not being able to get tickets for the
+bull-fight at the office on Campana Street, and who now wanted to attack
+and burn it, but were held in check by the police. Nacional sadly hung
+his head.
+
+"Reaction and ignorance! The lack of knowing how to read and write."
+
+They arrived at the plaza. A noisy ovation, an interminable outburst of
+hand-clapping, greeted the appearance of the _cuadrillas_ in the ring.
+All the applause was for Gallardo. The public hailed his first
+appearance in the arena after the terrible injury that had caused so
+much talk all over the Peninsula.
+
+When the moment came for Gallardo to kill his first bull the explosion
+of enthusiasm was repeated. The women in white _mantillas_ watched him
+from the boxes with their glasses. On the "bleachers" they applauded and
+acclaimed him, as did those in the shade. Even his enemies were won by
+this sympathetic impulse. Poor boy! He had suffered so much! The plaza
+was all his own. Gallardo had never seen an audience so completely given
+over to himself.
+
+He took off his cap before the president's box to offer his bull. _Ole!
+Ole!_ No one heard a word, but all were wild with enthusiasm. He must
+have said very fine things. The applause accompanied him when he turned
+toward the bull, and hushed in expectant silence when he stood near the
+wild beast. He extended the _muleta_, standing planted before the
+creature, but at some distance, not as on former occasions, when he had
+fired the audience by thrusting the red rag almost into the animal's
+eyes. In the silence of the plaza there was a movement of surprise--but
+no one spoke. Gallardo stamped the ground several times to incite the
+animal, and at last the bull attacked mildly, barely passing beneath the
+_muleta_, for the bull-fighter hurriedly moved aside with shameless
+precipitation. The people looked at one another in surprise. What was
+that?
+
+The _matador_ saw Nacional at his side and not far off another _peon_ of
+the _cuadrilla_, but he did not shout, "Stand aside, everybody!" On the
+great tiers of seats a murmur arose, the noise of vehement conversation.
+Gallardo's friends thought it well to explain in the name of their
+idol.
+
+"He is not wholly recovered yet. He ought not to fight. That leg--don't
+you see it?"
+
+The two lackeys' capes assisted the swordsman in his _pases_. The animal
+moved in confusion between the red cloths and no sooner had he attacked
+the _muleta_ than he noticed the cape-work of another bull-fighter,
+distracting his attention from the swordsman. Gallardo, as if eager to
+get out of the situation quickly, squared himself with his sword held
+high, and threw himself upon the bull.
+
+A murmur of stupefaction followed the stroke. The sword was plunged in
+less than a third of its length, and hung vibrating, ready to fall out
+of the neck. Gallardo had jumped back from the horns, without burying
+his sword down to the hilt as he used to do.
+
+"But it is well placed!" shouted his partisans, pointing to the sword,
+and they applauded clamorously to make up in noise for lack of numbers.
+
+The "intelligent" smiled with pity. That boy was going to lose the only
+notable thing he had--valor, daring. They had seen him bend his arm
+instinctively at the moment of walking up to the bull with the sword;
+they had seen him turn away his face with that movement of terror that
+impels men to close their eyes to hide a danger.
+
+The sword rolled along the ground and Gallardo, taking another, turned
+upon the bull again accompanied by his _peones_. Nacional's cape was
+ever ready to be spread out before him, to distract the wild beast;
+besides, the bellowing of the _banderillero_ confused the bull and made
+him turn whenever he drew near to Gallardo.
+
+Another thrust of the same kind, more than half of the steel blade
+remaining in sight.
+
+"He doesn't get close!" they began to protest on the tiers of seats.
+"He's afraid of the horns!"
+
+Gallardo extended his arms before the bull, his body making the figure
+of the cross, as if giving the audience behind him to understand that
+the animal already had enough with that thrust and would fall at any
+moment. But the wild beast remained standing, shaking his head from side
+to side.
+
+Nacional, exciting him with the rag, made him run, taking advantage of
+every opportunity to beat him on the neck lustily, with all the force of
+his arm. The audience, divining his intentions, began to protest. He was
+making the animal run so that the motion would work the sword in deeper.
+His heavy blows with his cape were to drive in the sword. They called
+him a thief; they alluded to his mother with ugly words, impugning the
+legitimacy of his birth; menacing clubs waved above the "bleachers" in
+the sun; oranges and bottles began to fly into the arena, but he acted
+as if deaf and blind to this shower of insults and projectiles, and kept
+on chasing the bull with the satisfaction of one who fulfils his duty
+and saves a friend.
+
+Suddenly a stream of blood gushed from the beast's mouth, and he doubled
+up his forelegs and knelt motionless but with his head high, ready to
+get up and attack. The _puntillero_ came up eager to finish him and get
+the _maestro_ out of his embarrassing position. Nacional helped him,
+leaning cunningly against the sword and driving it in up to the hilt.
+The people in the sun, who saw this manoeuvre, rose to their feet with
+angry protest.
+
+[Illustration: The animal moved in confusion between the red cloths
+drawing him far away from the swordsman.]
+
+"Thief! Assassin!"
+
+They protested in the name of the poor bull, as though he were not
+destined to die at all hazards; they threatened Nacional with their
+fists, as though they had witnessed a crime, and the _banderillero_,
+with bowed head, finally took refuge behind the barrier. Gallardo,
+meanwhile, walked toward the president's box to salute him, and his
+undaunted admirers accompanied him with a din of applause.
+
+"He's had bad luck," they said with ardent faith, refusing to be
+undeceived. "But the sword-thrusts, how well aimed! No one can dispute
+that."
+
+Gallardo went and stood an instant before the seats where sat his most
+fervent partisans, and leaned against the barrier, making his
+explanations. The bull was bad; it was impossible to make a good job of
+him. His enthusiasts, Don Jose at their head, assented to these excuses,
+which were the same that they themselves had invented.
+
+During a great part of the bull-fight Gallardo remained on the vaulting
+wall of the _barrera_. Such explanations might suffice for his
+partisans, but he felt a cruel doubt, a lack of self-confidence, the
+like of which he had never known before. The bulls seemed bigger, as if
+possessed of _double life_, giving them greater resistance against
+death. They used to fall beneath his sword with such miraculous ease.
+No, they had let the worst of the herd out for him to disconcert him. An
+intrigue of his enemies! Another suspicion dwelt confusedly in the
+obscure depths of his mind, but he did not wish to consider it close; he
+had no interest in extracting it from its mysterious shade. His arm
+seemed shorter the moment he held it before him with the sword. It used
+to reach the wild beast's neck with the swiftness of a lightning flash;
+now the distance seemed interminable, a terrifying void which he knew
+not how to bridge. His legs also seemed to be other and different, to
+live apart, with a will of their own, independent of the rest of his
+body. In vain he ordered them to remain quiet and firm as before. They
+did not obey. They seemed to have eyes, to see the danger, to spring
+with unwonted lightness, without the self-control to stand still when
+they felt the vibrations of the air stirred by the rush of the wild
+beast.
+
+In the blindness of his rage at his own sudden weakness Gallardo blamed
+the public for his mortification. What did these people want?--that he
+should let himself be killed to give them pleasure? Signs enough of mad
+audacity he bore on his body. He did not need to prove his courage. That
+he was alive was due to a miracle, thanks to celestial intervention, to
+God's goodness, and to his mother's and his poor little wife's prayers.
+He had seen the dry face of Death as few see it, and he knew the worth
+of life better than any other.
+
+"Perhaps you think you're going to take my scalp!" he thought, while he
+contemplated the multitude.
+
+He would fight bulls in future as did many of his friends, some days he
+would do it well, others ill. Bull-fighting was nothing but a trade, and
+once the highest places were gained the important thing was to live and
+keep oneself out of danger as best one could. He was not going to let
+himself be caught merely for the pleasure of having the people give
+tongue to his courage.
+
+When the moment came for killing his second bull, these thoughts
+inspired a quiet courage within him. No animal should finish him! He
+would do all he could without placing himself within reach of the horns.
+As he strode up to the wild beast he wore the same arrogant mien as on
+his great afternoons. "Stand aside, everybody!"
+
+The crowd stirred with a murmur of satisfaction. He had said, "Stand
+aside, everybody!" He was going to do some of his greatest feats. But
+what the public expected did not take place, nor did Nacional cease
+walking behind him, his cape over his arm, divining, with the cunning of
+an old _peon_ accustomed to bull-fighters' artful tricks, the theatrical
+falseness of his master's command. Gallardo held the rag some distance
+away from the bull and began to make _pases_ with visible caution, each
+time remaining at a good distance from the wild beast and aided always
+by Sebastian's cape.
+
+As he stood an instant with his _muleta_ held low the bull made a
+movement as if to charge, but did not stir. The swordsman, excessively
+alert, was deceived by this movement and sprang backward, fleeing from
+the animal that had not attacked him. This needless retreat placed him
+in a ridiculous position and part of the audience laughed, while others
+uttered exclamations of surprise. Some hisses were heard.
+
+"Ouch, he'll catch thee!" shouted an ironic voice.
+
+"_Sarasa!_" groaned another with effeminate intonation.
+
+Gallardo reddened with fury. This to him! And in the plaza of Seville!
+He felt the bold heart-throb of earlier days and a mad desire to fall
+blindly upon the bull and to let happen whatever God willed. But his
+body refused to obey him! His arm seemed to think; his legs saw the
+danger, mocking the demands of his will with their rebellion! Yet the
+audience, resenting the insult, came to his aid and imposed silence.
+Treat a man thus who was convalescing from a serious injury! This was
+unworthy the plaza of Seville! Let it be seen if there were such a thing
+as decency!
+
+Gallardo made the most of this sympathetic compassion, to extricate
+himself from the difficulty. Walking sideways beside the bull, he
+stabbed him with a sidelong treacherous plunge. The animal fell like a
+slaughter-house beast, a stream of blood gushing out of his mouth. Some
+applauded without knowing why, others hissed, and the great mass
+remained silent.
+
+"They have let insidious dogs out to him!" clamored the manager from his
+seat, although the _corrida_ was supplied with bulls from the Marquis'
+own herd. "Why, those are not bulls! We shall see what he will do the
+next time, when he has truly noble beasts."
+
+Gallardo noted the silence of the crowd as he left the plaza. The groups
+near him passed without a greeting, without one of those acclamations
+with which they used to receive him on happier afternoons. The miserable
+gang that stays outside the plaza awaiting news, and before the finish
+of the _corrida_ knows all its incidents, did not even follow the
+carriage.
+
+Gallardo tasted the bitterness of defeat for the first time. Even his
+_banderilleros_ rode frowning and silent like soldiers in retreat. But
+when he reached home and felt around his neck his mother's arms,
+Carmen's, and even his sister's, and his little nephews' caresses as
+they hugged his legs, he felt his dejection vanish. Curse it! The
+important thing was to live; to keep his family happy; to earn the
+public's money as other bull-fighters did without those daring deeds
+which sooner or later would cause his death.
+
+The next few days he felt that he ought to exhibit himself and talk with
+his friends in the popular _cafes_ and clubs on Sierpes Street. He
+thought he could impose a courteous silence upon his detractors and
+prevent comment on his ill success. He spent whole afternoons in the
+gatherings of humble admirers he had abandoned long before when seeking
+the friendship of the rich. And finally he entered the Forty-five where
+the manager imposed his opinions by loud talking and gesticulation,
+upholding Gallardo's glory as of old.
+
+Great Don Jose! His enthusiasm was immovable, bomb-proof! It never
+occurred to him that his _matador_ could cease to be all that he had
+believed. Not one criticism, not one reproach for his downfall! Instead
+he took it upon himself to excuse him, adding to this the consolation of
+his good advice.
+
+"Thou still dost feel thy wound. What I say is, 'You shall see, when he
+is quite well, and you will talk differently then.' Thou wilt do as
+before--thou wilt walk straight up to the bull, with that courage God
+has given thee, and, _zas!_ a stab up to the cross--and thou wilt put
+him in thy pocket."
+
+Gallardo approved with an enigmatical smile. "Put the bulls in his
+pocket!" He desired nothing else. But, alas! they had become so big and
+unmanageable! They had grown during the time of his absence from the
+arena!
+
+Gambling consoled him and made him forget his troubles. He went back
+with fresh passion to losing money over the green table, impelled by
+that spirit of youth which was undaunted by lack of luck. One night
+they took him to dine at the Eritana Inn where there was a great revel
+in honor of three foreign women of the gay life whom some of the young
+men had met in Paris. They had come to Seville to see the feasts of Holy
+Week and the Feria, and they were eager for the picturesque features of
+the country. Their beauty was somewhat faded, but was retouched by the
+arts of the toilet. The rich young fellows pursued them, attracted by
+their exotic charm, soliciting generous favors which were seldom
+refused. They expressed a wish to know a celebrated bull-fighter, one of
+the smartest _matadores_, that fine Gallardo whose picture they had so
+often looked at in the papers and on match-boxes. After having seen him
+in the plaza they had asked their friends to present him.
+
+The gathering took place in the great dining-room of the Eritana, a
+_salon_ opening on the garden with tawdry Moorish decorations, a poor
+imitation of the splendors of the Alhambra. Here balls and political
+banquets were held. Here they toasted the regeneration of the country
+with fervent oratory, and here the charms of the fair sex were displayed
+to the rhythm of the _tango_, and the twang-twang of the guitars, while
+kisses and screams were heard in the corners, and bottles were uncorked
+lavishly. Gallardo was received like a demi-god by the three women who,
+ignoring their friends, stared only at him, and disputed for the honor
+of sitting beside him, caressing him with the eyes of she-wolves in the
+mating season. They reminded him of another--of the absent, the almost
+forgotten one--with their golden hair, their elegant gowns, and the
+atmosphere of perfumed and tempting flesh which seemed to envelope him
+in a swirl of intoxication.
+
+His comrades' presence further contributed to making this memory more
+vivid. They were all Dona Sol's friends; some of them even belonged to
+her family and he had looked upon them as relatives.
+
+They ate and drank with that savage voracity of nocturnal feasts, to
+which people go with the fixed intention of excess in everything, taking
+refuge in drunkenness as soon as possible to acquire the happiness of
+stupidity.
+
+In one end of the _salon_ some gypsies strummed their guitars, intoning
+melancholy songs. One of the foreign women, with the enthusiasm of the
+neophyte, sprang upon a table and began to slowly move her well rounded
+hips, seeking to imitate the native dances, showing off her progress
+after a few days of instruction by a Sevillian teacher.
+
+"_Asaura! Malaje! Sosa!_" the friends shouted ironically, encouraging
+her with rhythmic hand-clappings.
+
+They jested at her heaviness, but with devouring eyes they admired the
+beauty of her body. And she, proud of her art, taking these
+incomprehensible calls for enthusiastic praise, went on moving her hips
+and raised her arms above her head like the handles of a jar, with her
+gaze aloft.
+
+After midnight they were all drunk. The women, lost to shame, besieged
+the swordsman with their admiring glances. He impassively let himself be
+managed by the hands that disputed for him, while lips surprised him
+with burning kisses on his cheeks and neck. He was drunk, but his
+drunkenness was sad. Ah! the other woman! The true blonde! The gold of
+these unbound locks that floated around him was artificial, gilded by
+chemicals applied to coarse strong hair. The lips had a flavor of
+perfumed ointment. Through the aroma his imagination detected an odor
+of vulgarity. Ah! the other one! the other one!
+
+Gallardo, without knowing how, found himself in the gardens, beneath the
+solemn silence that seemed to fall from the stars, among arbors of
+luxurious vegetation, following a tortuous path, seeing the dining-room
+windows through the foliage illuminated like mouths of Hell before which
+passed and repassed shadows like black demons. A woman was dragging him
+by the arm, and he let himself be taken, without even seeing her, with
+his thoughts far, far away.
+
+An hour afterwards he returned to the dining-room. His companion, her
+hair disordered, her eyes brilliant and hostile, was talking with her
+friends. They laughed and pointed him out with a deprecatory gesture to
+the other men, who laughed also--Ah! Spain! Land of disillusion, where
+all was but legend, even to the prowess of her heroes!
+
+Gallardo drank more and more. The women who had quarrelled over him,
+besieging him with their caresses, turned their backs on him, falling
+into the arms of the other men. The guitarists scarcely played;
+surfeited with wine, they leaned over their instruments in pleasant
+drowsiness.
+
+The bull-fighter also was going to sleep on a bench when one of his
+friends, who was obliged to retire before his mother, the countess,
+arose, as she did every day to attend mass at daybreak, offered to take
+him home in his carriage. The night wind did not dissipate the
+bull-fighter's intoxication. When the friend left him at the corner of
+his street Gallardo walked with vacillating step in the direction of his
+home. Near the door he stopped, grasping the wall with both hands and
+resting his head on his arms as if he could not bear the weight of his
+thoughts.
+
+He had completely forgotten his friends, the supper at Eritana, and the
+three painted foreign women who had quarrelled for him and then insulted
+him. Something remained in his memory of the other one, ever there, but
+indefinite and vague! Now his mind, by one of those capricious bounds of
+intoxication, reverted wholly to bull-fighting. He was the greatest
+_matador_ in the world. _Ole!_ So his manager and his friends declared,
+and it was true. His adversaries should see something when he went back
+to the plaza. What happened the other day was simple carelessness; Bad
+Luck that had played one of her tricks on him.
+
+Proud of the omnipotent strength that intoxication communicated to him
+at the moment, he saw all the Andalusian and Castilian bulls transformed
+into weak goats that he could overthrow with but a blow from his hand.
+What occurred the other day was nothing--_liquid!_ as Nacional said. The
+best singer lets slip a false note now and then.
+
+And this aphorism, learned from the mouths of venerable patriarchs of
+the bull-fighting profession on afternoons of misfortune, stimulated him
+with an irresistible desire to sing, and he filled the silence of the
+solitary street with his voice. With his head resting on his arms he
+began to hum a strophe of his own composition which was an extravagant
+hymn of praise to his own merits. "I am Juaniyo Gallardo--with more
+c--c--courage than God." Not being able to improvise more in his own
+honor, he repeated the same words over and over in a hoarse and
+monotonous voice that broke the silence and set an invisible dog down
+the street to barking.
+
+It was the paternal heritage revived in him; the singing mania that
+accompanied Senor Juan the cobbler on his weekly drunken rounds.
+
+The house door opened and Garabato, still half asleep, thrust out his
+head to see the drunken man, whose voice he thought he recognized.
+
+"Ah! Is it thou?" said the _matador_. "Wait till I sing the last one."
+
+He repeated the incomplete song in honor of his valor several times,
+until he finally decided to enter the house. He felt no desire to go to
+bed. Divining his condition, he put off the moment of going up to his
+room where Carmen awaited him, perhaps awake.
+
+"Go to sleep, Garabato. I have a great deal to do."
+
+He did not know what, but his office, with its decoration of
+vainglorious pictures, favors won in the bull-ring, and posters that
+proclaimed his fame, attracted him.
+
+When the globes of electric light illuminated the room and the servant
+went out, Gallardo stood in the centre of the office, vacillating on his
+legs, casting a glance of admiration around the walls, as if he
+contemplated this museum of glory for the first time.
+
+"Very good, but very good!" he murmured. "That fine fellow is me; and
+that one too, and all! And yet there are some people that talk against
+me! Curse it! I'm the greatest man in the world! Don Jose says so, and
+he tells the truth."
+
+He threw his hat upon the divan as if he were taking off a crown of
+glory that oppressed his forehead, and staggered over to the desk,
+leaning against it, his gaze fixed on an enormous bull's head that
+adorned the wall at the lower end of the office.
+
+"Hello! Good-evening, my good boy! What art thou pretending to do there?
+Moo! Moo!"
+
+He greeted him with bellowings, childishly imitating the lowing of the
+bulls in the pasture and in the plaza. He did not recognize him; he
+could not remember why the hairy head with its threatening horns was
+there. Gradually he began to recollect.
+
+"I know thee, boy! I remember how thou madest me rage that afternoon.
+The people hissed, they threw bottles at me, they even insulted my poor
+mother, and thou, so gay, what fun thou hadst!--eh?--shameless beast!"
+
+In his intoxicated state he thought he saw the varnished muzzle and the
+light in the glass eyes tremble with laughter. He even imagined that the
+horns moved the head, assenting to this question, with an undulation of
+the hanging neck.
+
+The drunken man, until then smiling and good natured, felt his anger
+rise with the recollection of that afternoon of misfortune. And even
+that evil beast smiled? Those wicked, crafty, scheming bulls, which
+seemed to jest at the combatant, were to blame when a man was ridiculed.
+Ah! how Gallardo detested them! What a look of hatred he fastened on the
+glass eyes of the horned head!
+
+"Still laughing? Damn thee, _guason!_ Cursed be the cow that bore thee
+and thy thief of a master that gave thee grass in his pasture! I hope
+he's in prison. Still laughing? Still making faces at me?"
+
+In his fury he leaned his body on the table stretching out his arms and
+opening the drawers. Then he stood erect, raising one hand toward the
+horned head.
+
+Bang! bang! Two shots from a revolver.
+
+A glass globe in the hollow of one eye burst into tiny fragments and a
+round black hole, circled by singed hair, opened in the forehead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE SPANISH LILITH
+
+
+With the extreme violence characteristic of the changeable and erratic
+climate of Madrid in the midspring the temperature gave a jump
+backwards.
+
+It was cold. The gray sky was lavish of terrific rains, accompanied
+sometimes by flakes of snow. The people, already dressed in light
+clothing, opened wardrobes and chests to get out wraps and overcoats.
+The rain blackened and ruined the white spring hats.
+
+No functions had been given in the bull plaza for two weeks. The Sunday
+_corrida_ was postponed until a week-day when the weather should be
+fine. The management, the employees of the plaza, and the innumerable
+devotees whom this forced suspension cast into an ill humor, watched the
+firmament with the anxiety of the peasant who fears for his crops. A
+clearing in the sky, or the appearance of a few stars at midnight when
+they left the _cafes_, made them cheerful again.
+
+"It's going to clear up--bull-fight day after to-morrow."
+
+But the clouds gathered again, the dark gloomy weather with its
+continual rain persisted, and the devotees of the game grew indignant at
+a climate that seemed to have declared war on the national sport.
+Unhappy country! Even bull-fights were becoming impossible in it!
+
+Gallardo had spent two weeks in enforced rest. His _cuadrilla_
+complained of the inactivity. In any other town in Spain the
+bull-fighters would have endured this lack of work resignedly. The
+_matador_ paid their board in the hotels everywhere except in Madrid. It
+was a bad rule established long ago by the _maestros_ who lived in the
+capital. It was assumed that all bull-fighters must have their own home
+in the court city. And the poor lackeys and _picadores_, who lived at a
+miserable boarding-house kept by the widow of a _banderillero_, cut down
+their living by all manner of economies, smoking little and standing in
+the doors of _cafes_. They thought of their families with the longing of
+men who in exchange for their blood receive but a handful of _pesetas_.
+When the two bull-fights were over the proceeds from them would already
+be eaten up.
+
+The _matador_ was equally ill-humored in the solitude of his hotel, not
+because of the weather, but rather on account of his poor luck. He had
+fought his first _corrida_ in Madrid with a deplorable result. The
+public had changed toward him. He still had partisans of dauntless faith
+who were strong in his defence; but these enthusiasts, noisy and
+aggressive a year ago, now showed a certain indifference, and when they
+found occasion to applaud him they did so with timidity. On the other
+hand, his enemies and that great mass of the public that look for
+dangers and deaths,--how unjust in their condemnations! How bold in
+insulting him! What they tolerated in other _matadores_ they prohibited
+in him.
+
+With the eagerness of a celebrity who feels that he is losing prestige,
+Gallardo exhibited himself prodigally in the places frequented by the
+devotees of the game. He went into the Cafe Ingles, where the partisans
+of the Andalusian bull-fighters gather, and by his presence prevented
+implacable commentaries being heaped upon his name. He himself, smiling
+and modest, started the conversation with a humility that disarmed the
+most hostile.
+
+"It's true I didn't do well; I know it. But you will see at the next
+bull-fight, when the weather clears up. What can be done will be done."
+
+He dared not enter certain _cafes_ near the Puerta del Sol, where other
+devotees of a more modest class gathered. They were the enemies of
+Andalusian bull-fighting, genuine _Madrilenos_, embittered by the unfair
+prevalence of _matadores_ from Cordova and Seville, while the capital
+had not a single glorious representative. The memory of Frascuelo, whom
+they considered a son of Madrid, was perpetuated in these gatherings
+like the veneration of a miraculous saint. There were among them some
+who for many years had not gone to the plaza, not since the Negro
+retired. Why go? They contented themselves by reading the reviews in the
+newspapers, convinced that there were no bulls, nor even bull-fighters,
+since Frascuelo's death--Andalusian boys, nothing else; dancers who made
+monkey-shines with their capes and bodies without knowing what it was to
+_receive_ a bull.
+
+Occasionally a breath of hope circulated among them. Madrid was going to
+have a great _matador_. They had just discovered a bullock fighter, a
+son of the suburbs, who, after covering himself with glory in the plazas
+of Vallecas and Tetuan, worked in the great plaza Sundays in cheap
+bull-fights.
+
+His name became popular. In the barber-shops in the lesser wards they
+talked of him with enthusiasm, prophesying great triumphs. The hero went
+from tavern to tavern drinking and increasing the nucleus of his
+partisans.
+
+But time passed and their prophecies remained unfulfilled. Either this
+hero fell with a mortal horn wound, with no other recognition of his
+glory than four lines in the newspapers, or another subsided after a
+goring, becoming one of the many tramps who exhibit the _coleta_ at the
+Puerta del Sol, waiting for imaginary contracts. Then the devotees
+turned their eyes on other beginners, expecting with an Hebraic faith
+the coming of the _matador_ glory to Madrid.
+
+Gallardo dared not go near these tauromachic demagogues who had always
+hated him and hailed his decadence. The majority of them did not go to
+see him in the ring, nor did they admire the present-day bull-fighters.
+They were waiting for their Messiah before deciding to return to the
+plaza.
+
+When he wandered at nightfall through the centre of Madrid near the
+Puerta del Sol and Seville Street, he allowed himself to be accosted by
+the vagabonds of the profession who form groups at these places,
+boasting of their achievements. They were youths who greeted him as
+"_maestro_," or "Senor Juan"; many with a hungry air, leading up to a
+petition for a few _pesetas_, but well dressed, clean, spick and span,
+adopting gallant airs, as if they were surfeited with the pleasures of
+existence, and wearing a scandalous display of brass in rings and
+imitation chains. Some were honorable fellows who were trying to make
+their way in tauromachy to maintain their families on something more
+than the workman's daily wage. Others, less scrupulous, had female
+friends who worked at unmentionable occupations, willing to sacrifice
+their bodies to support and keep decent some fine fellow, who, to
+believe his words, would sometime be a celebrity.
+
+Without other belongings than the clothes they wore they strutted from
+morning till night in the centre of Madrid, talking about the contracts
+they had not cared to make, and spying on one another to find out who
+had money and could treat his comrades. When one, by a capricious turn
+of luck, managed to get a fight of young bullocks in some place in the
+province, he first had to redeem his glittering costume from a pawn
+shop--venerable and tarnished garments that had belonged to various
+heroes of the past.
+
+Among this tauromachic crowd, embittered by misfortune, and kept in
+obscurity through stupidity or fear, there were men who commanded
+general respect. One who fled before the bulls was feared for the skill
+with which he used his knife. Another had been in prison for killing a
+man with his fist. The famous _Swallow-hats_ enjoyed the honors of
+celebrity since one afternoon when, in a tavern at Vallecas, he ate a
+Cordovan felt hat torn into pieces and fried, with wine at discretion to
+make the mouthfuls go down.
+
+Some, suave mannered, always well dressed and freshly shaved, fastened
+themselves upon Gallardo, accompanying him on his walks in the hope that
+he would invite them to dine. Others with an arrogant look in their bold
+eyes entertained the swordsman gayly with the relation of their
+adventures.
+
+On sunny mornings they went to the Castellana in search of game, when
+the governesses of the great houses take the children out for an airing.
+These were English misses or German _frauleins_, who had just come to
+Madrid with their heads filled with picturesque ideas about this land of
+legend, and when they saw a young fellow with shaven face and broad hat,
+they immediately imagined him to be a bull-fighter--a bull-fighter
+lover--how fine!
+
+"They are girls as insipid as bread without salt, you know, _maestro_.
+Big feet and hempen hair, but they have their good points, you bet they
+have! As they scarcely catch on to what one says to them, they're all
+smiles, showing their teeth, which are very white. And they open their
+big eyes wide. They don't talk Christian but they understand when one
+makes signs of asking a tip, and as one is a gentleman and is always
+lucky, they give money for tobacco and other things--and one manages to
+live. I have three on hand now."
+
+The speaker boasted of his indefatigable cleverness which absorbed the
+savings of the governesses.
+
+Others devoted themselves to the foreign women of the music-halls,
+dancers and singers who came to Spain with the desire of immediately
+experiencing the joys of having a bull-fighter lover. They were lively
+French women, with snub noses and straight corsets, so spiritually
+slender there seemed to be nothing tangible under their perfumed and
+rustling, cabbage-like, crimpled skirts; German girls with solid flesh,
+heavy, imposing, and blonde as Valkyries; Italians with black, oily
+hair, with a greenish brown complexion and a tragic air.
+
+The young bull-fighters laughed, recollecting their first private
+interviews with these devout enthusiasts. The foreign woman was always
+afraid of being deceived, dreading to find that her legendary hero was
+but an ordinary man. Really, was he a bull-fighter? And they looked for
+his queue, smiling complacently at their wit when they felt the hairy
+appendage in their fingers, which was equivalent to a certificate of
+identification.
+
+"You know what these women are, _maestro_. They spend the whole evening
+kissing and caressing the _coleta_. To entertain them one has to jump up
+and perform in the middle of the room and explain how bulls are fought,
+turning over a chair, doing cape-work with a sheet, and lodging
+_banderillas_ with the fingers. Holy Sea! And then, as they are girls
+who go about the world dragging money out of every Christian that comes
+near them, they begin their begging in their broken Spanish that even
+God himself couldn't understand: 'Bull-fighter sweetheart, wilt thou
+give me one of thy capes, all embroidered in gold, to wear when I come
+on to dance?' You see, _maestro_, how greedy these girls are. As if one
+bought capes as freely as newspapers. As if one had oceans of them--!"
+
+The young bull-fighter promised the cape with generous arrogance. All
+bull-fighters are rich. And while the gorgeous gift was on the way, they
+became more intimate, and the lover asked loans of his friend, who, if
+she did not have money, pawned a jewel; and he, growing bolder, began
+helping himself to anything that lay within reach of his hand. When she
+happened to awaken from her amorous dream, protesting at such liberties,
+the fine fellow demonstrated the vehemence of his passion and returned
+the loans to her legendary hero in the form of a beating.
+
+Gallardo enjoyed this tale, particularly when he heard the last part.
+
+"Aha! thou doest well!" he said with savage joy. "Be firm with those
+girls. Thou knowest them. Thus they love thee more! The worst thing a
+Christian can do is to humble himself before certain women. Man must
+make himself respected."
+
+He ingenuously admired the lack of scruple in these youths who lived by
+levying a contribution on the illusions of passing foreign women, and he
+pitied himself thinking of his weakness before a certain one.
+
+At sunset, one afternoon, the swordsman on entering Alcala Street from
+the Puerta del Sol, stopped, struck by surprise. A blonde lady was
+getting out of a carriage at the door of the Hotel de Paris. A man who
+looked like a foreigner gave her his hand, assisting her to alight, and
+after speaking a few words he drove away while she went into the hotel.
+
+It was Dona Sol. The bull-fighter did not doubt her identity. Neither
+did he doubt the relations that united her to the foreigner after seeing
+her glances and the smile with which they said farewell. Thus she used
+to look at him, thus she used to smile at him in those happy days when
+they rode together in the deserted fields illuminated by the soft
+rose-color of the setting sun--"Curse it!"
+
+He spent the evening in ill-humor in the company of some friends; then
+he slept badly, many scenes of the past being reproduced in his dreams.
+When he rose the dark and livid light of a gloomy day entered through
+the balconies. It was raining, the water drops mingled with flakes of
+snow. Everything was black; the sky, the walls opposite, a dripping
+gable within view, the muddy pavement, the roofs of the coaches shining
+like mirrors, the movable cupolas of the umbrellas.
+
+Eleven o'clock! Should he go to see Dona Sol? Why not! The night before
+he had put aside this thought with a rush of anger. That would be to
+humble himself. She had run away from him without any explanation
+whatever, and later, when she heard of his being wounded unto death, she
+had scarcely interested herself in his health. A simple telegram at
+first and nothing more, not even a poor letter of a few lines; she, who
+with such ease wrote to her friends. No; he would not go to see her. He
+was very proud.
+
+But the next morning his determination seemed to have softened during
+the night. "Why not?" he asked himself. He must see her again. For him
+she was first among all the women he had ever known; she attracted him
+with a force different from the affection he felt for others. "I have a
+right to her," the bull-fighter said to himself, realizing his weakness.
+Ah! how he had felt the violent separation!
+
+The atrocious goring in the plaza of Seville, with the rigor of physical
+pain, had softened the force of his amorous torment. Illness, and then
+his tender reinstatement in the good graces of Carmen during
+convalescence, had made him resigned to his fate. But forget? Never! He
+had made every effort not to think of the past, but the most
+insignificant circumstance--passing along a road on which he had
+galloped with the beautiful Amazon; meeting on the street an English
+blonde; contact with those young Sevillian gentlemen who were her
+relatives, all resurrected the image of Dona Sol. Ah, this woman! He
+would never find another like her. When he lost her, Gallardo believed
+the decadence of his life had begun. He was no longer the same. He
+deemed himself many steps lower in social consideration. He even
+attributed his downfall in his art to this abandonment. When he had her
+he was more valiant. When the blonde girl fled bad luck had begun for
+the bull-fighter. If she would return to him, surely the sun of his
+glory would rise again. His spirit, at times sustained, at others
+weakened by the mirage of superstition, believed this firmly.
+
+Perhaps his desire to see her might stir again a joyful heart-throb,
+like that which had often saved him in the ring. Why not? He had great
+confidence in himself. His easy triumphs with women dazzled by his
+success made him believe in the irresistible charm of his person. It
+might be that Dona Sol, seeing him after a long absence--who could tell!
+The first time they were alone it happened so.
+
+And Gallardo, trusting in his lucky star, with the arrogant tranquillity
+of a man of fortune, who necessarily must awaken desire wherever his
+gaze falls, marched over to the Hotel de Paris, which was situated a
+short distance from his own.
+
+He had to wait more than half an hour subjected to the curious gaze of
+employees and guests who turned their faces on hearing his name.
+
+A servant invited him to enter the elevator and conducted him to a
+little _salon_ on the next floor from which the Puerta del Sol could be
+seen with the black roofs of the houses opposite, the pavements
+concealed beneath the meeting streams of umbrellas, and the shining
+asphalt of the plaza furrowed by swift coaches, which seemed to whip
+the rain, or by tram cars that crossed in every direction and rang an
+incessant warning to the foot passengers.
+
+A little door concealed by hangings opened and Dona Sol appeared, amid a
+rustling of silk, and a sweet perfume of fresh pink flesh, in all the
+splendor of the summer of her existence.
+
+Gallardo devoured her with his eyes, inspecting her with the exactitude
+of one who knew her well and did not forget details.
+
+Just as she was in Seville! No--more beautiful, if possible, with the
+added temptation of a long absence.
+
+She presented herself in elegant abandon, wearing an odd costume with
+strange jewels, as he first saw her in her house in Seville. Her feet
+were thrust into slippers covered with heavy gold embroideries which,
+when she sat down and crossed her limbs, hung loose, ready to fall off
+her pointed toes. She extended him her hand, smiling with amiable
+frigidity.
+
+"How are you, Gallardo? I knew you were in Madrid. I have seen you."
+
+You! She no longer used the _thou_ of the great lady, to which he had
+responded with respectful courtesy as her lover in a class beneath. This
+_you_ that seemed to put them on a level drove the swordsman to despair.
+He wished to be a kind of serf, elevated by love to the great lady's
+arms, and he found himself treated with the cold and courteous
+consideration which an ordinary friend inspires.
+
+She explained that she had attended the only bull-fight Gallardo had
+given in Madrid and had seen him there. She had gone to see the bulls
+with a foreigner who desired a glimpse of things Spanish; a friend who
+accompanied her on her travels but who lived in another hotel.
+
+Gallardo responded to this with an affirmative movement of the head. He
+remembered the foreigner; he had seen him with her.
+
+The two fell into a long silence, not knowing what to say. Dona Sol was
+the first to break the pause.
+
+She found the bull-fighter looking well; she vaguely recollected about a
+great wound he had received; she was almost certain of having
+telegraphed to Seville, asking for news of him. With the life she lived,
+with continual change of country and new friendships, her thoughts were
+in such confusion! But he appeared now as usual, and in the _corrida_ he
+had seemed to her arrogant and strong, although rather unlucky. She did
+not understand much about bulls. "Was it nothing, that goring?"
+
+Gallardo was irritated by the accent of indifference with which the
+woman asked the question. And he, when he considered himself between
+life and death, had thought only of her!
+
+With the gloom of dismay he told her about his being caught, and of his
+convalescence which had lasted all winter.
+
+She listened to him with feigned interest, while her eyes revealed
+indifference. The misfortunes of the gladiator were of no importance to
+her. They were accidents of his trade which could only be of interest to
+him.
+
+Gallardo, as he spoke of his convalescence at the plantation, thought of
+the man he and Dona Sol had met together there. "And Plumitas? Do you
+remember that poor fellow? He was killed. I don't know whether you
+heard about it."
+
+Dona Sol also vaguely remembered this. Possibly she had read it in the
+Paris newspapers, which printed a great deal about the bandit as an
+interesting type of picturesque Spain.
+
+"Poor man," said Dona Sol with indifference. "I barely recall him as a
+clownish and uninteresting rustic. At a distance things are seen at
+their true values. What I do remember is the day he breakfasted with us
+at the farmhouse."
+
+Gallardo had not forgotten this event. Poor Plumitas! With what emotion
+he took the flower offered by Dona Sol! Did she not remember?
+
+Dona Sol's eyes showed sincere astonishment.
+
+"Are you sure?" she asked. "Is that so? I swear I remember nothing about
+it. Ah! that land of the sun! The intoxication of the picturesque! The
+follies one commits!"
+
+Her exclamations, revealed a vague repentance. Then she began to laugh.
+
+"And maybe that poor rustic kept the flower until his last moment; no,
+Gallardo? Don't tell me he did not. Perhaps no one ever gave him a
+flower before in all his life. And it is possible also they found that
+dried flower on his dead body, a mysterious token no one could explain.
+Don't you know anything about it, Gallardo? Didn't the newspapers
+mention it? Hush; don't tell me no; don't dispel my illusions. It must
+have been so; I want it to be so. Poor Plumitas! How interesting! And I
+had forgotten all about the flower! I will tell my friend, who thinks he
+will write on things Spanish."
+
+The recollection of this friend, who within a few minutes was brought
+into the conversation for a second time, depressed the bull-fighter.
+
+He sat gazing steadily at the beautiful lady with a tearful melancholy
+in his Moorish eyes which seemed to implore compassion.
+
+"Dona Sol! Dona Sol!" he murmured with an accent of despair, as if he
+would reproach her for her cruelty.
+
+"What is it, my friend?" she asked smiling. "What is the matter with
+you?"
+
+Gallardo kept silence and bowed his head, intimidated by the ironic
+reflection in those blue eyes, sparkling with their tiny flakes of gold.
+
+After a moment he sat erect as does one who adopts a resolution.
+
+"Where have you been all this time, Dona Sol?"
+
+"Travelling about the world," she answered simply. "I am a bird of
+passage. In innumerable cities whose very names you do not know."
+
+"And that foreigner who accompanies you now--is--?"
+
+"He is a friend," she said coldly. "A friend who has had the kindness to
+accompany me, taking advantage of the opportunity to see Spain; a fine
+man who bears an illustrious name. From here we go to Andalusia when he
+gets through seeing the museums. What more do you desire to know?"
+
+In that question, asked with hauteur, an imperious intention of keeping
+the bull-fighter at a distance was apparent, of establishing social
+differences between the two. Gallardo was disconcerted.
+
+"Dona Sol!" he moaned with ingenuousness. "God cannot forgive what you
+have done to me! You have been unkind to me, very unkind. Why did you
+run away without a word?"
+
+His eyes moistened, he clenched his fists in desperation.
+
+"Don't act so, Gallardo. What I did was a great favor to you. Don't you
+know me well enough yet? Did you not weary of that affair? If I were a
+man I would run away from women of my character. The unhappy man who
+falls in love with me is a suicide."
+
+"But why did you go?" insisted Gallardo.
+
+"I went because I was bored. Do I speak clearly? And when a woman is
+bored, I believe she has a right to escape in search of new diversions.
+I am bored to death everywhere; pity me."
+
+"But I love you with all my soul!" exclaimed the bull-fighter with a
+dramatic and ingenuous expression that would have been ridiculous in
+another man.
+
+"I love you with all my soul!" repeated Dona Sol imitating his accent
+and gesture. "And what of that? Ah, these egotistical men, who are
+applauded by the people and imagine that everything has been created for
+them. 'I love thee with all my soul and therefore thou must love me
+also'--But no, _senor_. I do not love you, Gallardo. You are my friend
+and nothing more. That affair in Seville was a dream, a mad caprice,
+which I barely recollect and which you should forget."
+
+The bull-fighter rose, drawing near Dona Sol with extended hands. In his
+ignorance he did not know what to say, divining that his rude words were
+inefficient to convince that woman. He trusted his desires and hopes to
+action, with the vehemence of an impulsive man, intending to overpower
+the woman, to attract her and dispel by contact the chill which
+separated them.
+
+"Dona Sol!" he supplicated, grasping her hands.
+
+But she, with a simple turn of her agile right hand, disengaged herself
+from the bull-fighter. A flash of pride and anger darted from her eyes
+and she bent forward aggressively, as if she had suffered an insult.
+
+"Silence, Gallardo! If you go on thus you will not be my friend and I
+will show you the door."
+
+The bull-fighter's attitude changed to one of despair; he was humbled
+and ashamed.
+
+"Don't be a baby," she said. "Why remember what is no longer possible?
+Why think of me? You have your wife, who, I hear, is pretty and simple;
+a good companion. And if not she, there are others. Think how many
+clever girls you can find there in Seville, those who wear the
+_mantilla_, with flowers in their hair, those that used to please me so
+much, who would think it a joy to be loved by Gallardo. My infatuation
+is over. It hurts your pride, being a famous man accustomed to success;
+but so it is; it's over; friend and nothing more. I am changed. I have
+become bored and I never retrace my steps. My illusions last but a short
+time and pass, leaving no trace. I deserve pity, believe me."
+
+She gazed at the bull-fighter with eyes of commiseration, with pitying
+curiosity, as if she suddenly saw him in all his defects and crudeness.
+
+"I think things that you could not understand," she continued. "You seem
+to me changed. The Gallardo of Seville was different from the one here.
+Are you really the same person? I do not doubt it, yet to me you are a
+different man. How can I explain it to you? Once I met a rajah in
+London. Do you know what a rajah is?"
+
+Gallardo negatively shook his head blushing at his ignorance.
+
+"It is an Indian prince."
+
+The old-time ambassadress recalled the Hindoo magnate, his coppery face
+shaded by a black beard, his enormous white turban with a great dazzling
+diamond above his forehead and the rest of his body enwrapped in white
+vestments of thin and innumerable veils, like the petals of a flower.
+
+"He was handsome, he was young, he adored me with the mysterious eyes of
+an animal of the forest, but he seemed to me ridiculous, and I jested at
+him every time he stammered one of his Oriental compliments in English.
+He shook with cold, the fogs made him cough, he moved around like a bird
+in the rain, waving his veils as if they were wet wings. When he talked
+to me of love, gazing at me with his moist gazelle-like eyes, I longed
+to buy him an overcoat and a cap, so that he would not shake any longer.
+However, I realized that he was handsome and could have been the joy,
+for quite a few months, of a woman desirous of something extraordinary.
+It was a question of atmosphere, of scene. You, Gallardo, do you know
+what that is?"
+
+And Dona Sol remained pensive, recalling the poor rajah always shaking
+with cold in his absurd vestments amid the foggy light of London. In her
+imagination she beheld him there in his own country transfigured by the
+majesty of power and by the light of the sun, his coppery complexion,
+with the greenish reflexions of the tropical vegetation, taking on a
+tone of artistic bronze. She saw him mounted on his elephant on parade,
+with long golden hangings that swept the ground, escorted by warlike
+horsemen and slaves bearing censers with perfumes, his great turban
+crowned with white feathers set with precious stones, his bosom covered
+with breast-plates of diamonds, his waist bound by a belt of emeralds,
+from which hung a golden scimitar; she saw him surrounded by bayaderes
+with painted eyes and firm breasts, forests of lances, and, in the
+background, pagodas with multiple roofs one above another, with little
+bells that chimed mysterious symphonies at the slightest whisper of the
+breeze; palaces of more mystery; dense thickets in whose shadows leaped
+and growled ferocious multicolored animals. Ah, atmosphere! Seeing the
+poor rajah thus, proud as a god, beneath an arid sky of intense blue,
+and in the splendor of an ardent sun, it would never have occurred to
+her to present him with an overcoat. It was almost certain that she
+herself might have fallen into his arms giving herself up as a serf of
+love.
+
+"You remind me of the rajah, friend Gallardo. There in Seville, in your
+native costume, with the lance over your shoulder, you were all right.
+You were a complement to the landscape. But here! Madrid has become very
+much Europeanized; it is a city like others. Native costumes are no
+longer worn. Manila shawls are seldom seen off the stage. Don't be
+offended, Gallardo; but I don't know why you remind me of the rajah."
+
+She looked through the windows at the wet ground and the rainy sky, at
+the scattering flakes of snow, and the crowd that moved with accelerated
+step under the dripping umbrellas. Then she turned her gaze on the
+swordsman, stared strangely at the braid hanging from his head, at the
+way his hair was combed, at his hat, at all the details that revealed
+his profession, which contrasted with his elegant and modern costume.
+
+The bull-fighter was--in Dona Sol's opinion--out of his element. Ah,
+this Madrid; rainy and dismal! Her friend who had come with the illusion
+of a Spain of eternal blue sky, was disappointed. She herself, seeing on
+the walk near the hotel the groups of young bull-fighters in gallant
+attitudes, inevitably thought of exotic animals brought from sunny
+countries to zoological gardens beneath a rainy sky in a gray light.
+There in Andalusia Gallardo was the hero, the spontaneous product of a
+cattle country. Here he seemed to her a comedian, with his shaven face
+and the stage manners of one accustomed to public homage; a comedian who
+instead of speaking dialogues with his equals awoke the tragic thrill in
+combat with wild beasts.
+
+Ah! The seductive mirage of the lands of the sun! The deceitful
+intoxication of light and color! And she had been able to love that
+rough, uncouth fellow a few months, she had extolled the crudities of
+his ignorance, and she had even demanded that he should not abandon his
+habits, that he should smell of bulls and horses, so as not to dispel
+with perfumes the odors of wild animals that enveloped his person! Ah,
+atmosphere! To what mad deeds it drives one!
+
+She remembered the danger in which she had stood of being killed by a
+bull's horns; then the breakfast with a bandit, to whom she had listened
+speechless with admiration and in the end had given a flower. What
+nonsense! And how far away it seemed now!
+
+Nothing remained of this past which caused her to feel repentance for
+its absurdity except that lusty youth motionless before her with his
+supplicating eyes and his infantile effort to resurrect those days. Poor
+man! As if the madness could be repeated when one thinks calmly, and
+illusion, blind enchantress of life, has vanished!
+
+"It is all over," said the lady. "The past must be forgotten, now that
+looking back it does not appear in the same colors. What would I not
+give to have the eyes I used to have! On returning to Spain I find it
+changed. You also are different. It even seemed to me the other day,
+seeing you in the plaza, that you were less daring--that the people were
+less enthusiastic."
+
+She said this simply, without malice, but Gallardo imagined he divined
+in her voice a trace of mockery; he bowed his head and his cheeks
+reddened.
+
+"Curse it!" Professional worries surged through his mind. Everything
+that happened was because he no longer got _close_ to the bulls. She had
+said it plainly. He seemed to her a different man. If he became the
+Gallardo of former times perhaps she would receive him better. Women
+love none but the brave.
+
+The bull-fighter deceived himself with these illusions, taking what was
+a caprice, dead forever, for a momentary aversion that he could conquer
+by force of prowess.
+
+Dona Sol arose. The call had been long and the bull-fighter did not seem
+disposed to go; he was content to be near her, vaguely trusting to
+circumstance to draw them together. But he was obliged to imitate her.
+She excused herself, pleading an engagement. She was expecting her
+friend; they were going together to the Prado Gallery.
+
+Then she invited him to breakfast the next morning; a quiet breakfast in
+her apartments. Her friend would also come. Undoubtedly it would be a
+pleasure to him to see a bull-fighter at close range. He scarcely spoke
+Spanish but he would be pleased to meet Gallardo.
+
+The swordsman pressed her hand, answering with incoherent words, and
+left the room. Fury clouded his vision; his ears buzzed.
+
+Thus she bade him good-bye--coldly, as she would an occasional friend.
+And that was the same woman he had known in Seville! And she invited him
+to breakfast with her friend who would amuse himself by examining him
+close at hand, as if he were a rare beast.
+
+Curse it! He was a brave man. He was done. He would never go to see her
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+BEHIND THE SCENES
+
+
+Just at that time Gallardo received several letters from Don Jose and
+from Carmen. The manager tried to encourage his _matador_, counselling
+him to walk straight up to the bulls--"_Zas!_ a thrust and thou wilt put
+him in thy pocket." But underlying his enthusiasm a certain depression
+might be detected, as if his faith were dwindling and he had begun to
+doubt that Gallardo was "the greatest man in the world." He knew of the
+discontent and hostility with which the public received him. The last
+bull-fight in Madrid disheartened Don Jose completely. No; Gallardo was
+not like other swordsmen who went on in spite of public derision,
+satisfied with earning money. His _matador_ had bull-fighter pride and
+could only show himself in the ring to advantage when received with
+great enthusiasm.
+
+Don Jose pretended to understand what ailed his swordsman. Want of
+courage? Never. He would suffer death before he would recognize this
+defect in his hero. It was because he was tired, because he was not yet
+recovered from his goring. "And so," he advised in all his letters, "it
+would be better for thee to retire and rest a season. Afterward thou
+wilt fight again like thine old self." He offered to arrange everything.
+A doctor's certificate was enough to certify his temporary weakness,
+and the manager would settle with the plaza impresarios to arrange the
+pending contracts by sending a _matador_ from the beginners' ranks, who
+would substitute Gallardo for a modest sum. They would still make money
+by this arrangement.
+
+Carmen was more vehement in her petitions. He must retire immediately;
+he must "cut his queue." She was more afraid now than in the first years
+of her married life, when the bull-fights and the fearful suspense
+seemed to her conditions of existence that destroyed her peace of mind.
+Her heart told her, with that feminine instinct seldom mistaken in its
+forebodings, that something grave was going to happen. She scarcely
+slept; she dreaded the night hours, broken as they were by sanguinary
+visions. She waxed furious at the public in her letters--a crowd of
+ingrates who forgot what the bull-fighter had done when he was himself;
+evil-minded people who wished to see him die for their diversion, as
+though she did not exist, as though he had no mother. "Juan, _Mamita_
+and I ask it of thee. Retire. Why go on bull-fighting? We have enough to
+live on and it pains me to have to see thee insulted by people who are
+beneath thee. And if another accident should happen--Heavens!--I believe
+I should go mad."
+
+Gallardo remained thoughtful after reading these letters. Retire! What
+nonsense! Women's notions! They could say this easily on the impulse of
+affection, but it was impossible. "Cut his queue" at thirty! How his
+enemies would laugh! He had no right to retire while his members were
+sound and he could fight. Such an absurd thing had never happened. Money
+was not all. How about glory? And professional pride? What would the
+thousands and thousands of enthusiastic partisans who admired him say of
+him? What answer would they make to the enemies who threw it in their
+faces that Gallardo had retired through cowardice?
+
+Moreover, the _matador_ stopped to consider whether his fortune would
+permit this solution. He was rich, and yet he was not. His social
+position was not established. What he possessed was the work of the
+early years of his married life, when one of his greatest joys consisted
+in saving, and in surprising Carmen and the _mamita_ with news of fresh
+acquisitions. Later he had gone on earning money, maybe in greater
+quantity, but it was wasted and had disappeared through various leaks in
+his new existence. He had gambled a great deal and had lived a life of
+splendor. His gambling had caused him to ask loans of various devotees
+in the provinces. He was rich, but if he retired, thus losing the income
+of the _corridas_ (some years two hundred thousand _pesetas_, others
+three hundred thousand) he would have to retrench, after paying his
+debts, by living like a country gentleman off the product of La
+Rinconada, practising economies and overseeing the estate himself, for
+up to that time the plantation, abandoned to mercenary hands, had
+produced almost nothing.
+
+In former times he would have considered himself extremely wealthy with
+a small part of what he actually possessed. Now he seemed almost a poor
+man if he gave up bull-fighting. He would have to forego the Havana
+cigars which he distributed prodigally, and the high-priced Andalusian
+wines; he would have to curtail the impulses of a _gran senor_ and no
+longer shout in _cafes_ and taverns, "It's all paid for!" with the
+generous impulse of a man accustomed to defy death, which led him to
+conduct his life with mad extravagance. He would have to dismiss the
+troop of parasites and flatterers that swarmed around him, making him
+laugh with their whining petitions; and when a smart woman of equivocal
+class came to him (if any would come, after he had retired), he could no
+longer make her turn pale with emotion by putting into her ears hoops of
+gold and pearls, nor could he amuse himself by spotting her rich Chinese
+shawl with wine to surprise her afterwards with a finer one.
+
+So had he lived, and so must he continue to live. He was a bull-fighter
+of the good old times, such as the people represent a _matador_ of bulls
+to be, liberal, proud, a reveller in scandalous extravagances and quick
+to succor the unfortunate with princely alms whenever they touched his
+rude sentiments.
+
+Gallardo jested at many of his companions, bull-fighters of a new kind,
+vulgar members of the guild of the industry of killing bulls, who
+journeyed from plaza to plaza like commercial travellers, and were
+careful and mean in all their expenditures. Some of them, who were
+almost boys, carried in their pocket an account book of income and
+expenses, marking down even the five centimes for a glass of water at a
+station. They only mingled with the rich to accept their attentions and
+it never occurred to them to treat anybody. Others boiled great pots of
+coffee at home when the travelling season came on and carried the black
+liquid with them in bottles, having it reheated, to avoid this expense
+in hotels. The members of certain _cuadrillas_ endured hunger and
+growled in public about the avarice of their _maestros_.
+
+Gallardo was not tired of his life of splendor. And they wanted him to
+renounce it!
+
+Moreover, he thought of the necessities of his own house, where all were
+accustomed to an easy existence; the full and unembarrassed life of a
+family which does not count money or worry about its coming in, seeing
+it drip ceaselessly as from a faucet. Besides his wife and mother, he
+had taken upon himself another family, his sister, his chattering
+brother-in-law as idle as though his relationship to a celebrated man
+gave him the right to vagrancy, and all the troop of little nephews who
+were growing up and becoming constantly more expensive. He would have to
+call to an order of economy and parsimony all these people accustomed to
+live at his cost in merry and open-handed carelessness! And everybody,
+even poor Garabato, would have to go to the plantation, to parch in the
+sun and become brutish as rustics! Poor _Mamita_ could no longer gladden
+her last days with pious generosity dispensing money among the needy
+women in the ward, shrinking like a bashful girl when her son pretended
+to be angry at finding she had nothing left of the hundred _duros_ he
+had given her two weeks before! Carmen naturally would try to cut down
+expenses, sacrificing herself first, depriving her existence of many
+frivolities that made it bright.
+
+"Curse it!" All this meant the degradation of his family--on his
+account. Gallardo felt ashamed that such a thing might happen. It would
+be a crime to deprive them after having accustomed them to luxury. And
+what must he do to avoid it? Simply get _closer_ to the bulls; to go on
+fighting as in former times.
+
+He would get _closer_!
+
+He answered his manager's and Carmen's letters with brief and labored
+lines that revealed his firm intention. Retire? Never!
+
+He was resolved to be the same as ever, he swore it to Don Jose. He
+would follow his advice. "Zas! A thrust, and the beast in his pocket."
+His courage rose, and he felt equal to taking care of all the bulls in
+the universe no matter how big they might be.
+
+He was gay toward his wife, although his pride was rather hurt because
+she doubted his strength. She should hear news after the next _corrida_!
+He meant to astonish the public to shame it for its injustice. If the
+bulls were good, he would be like the very Roger de Flor himself!
+
+Good bulls! This was Gallardo's worry. It used to be one of his vanities
+that he never gave them a thought, and he never went to see them in the
+plaza before the _corrida_.
+
+"I kill everything they let out to me," he used to say arrogantly. And
+he beheld the bulls for the first time when he saw them enter the ring.
+
+Now he wished to examine them, to choose them, to prepare for success by
+a careful study of their condition.
+
+The weather had cleared, the sun shone; the following day the second
+bull-fight was to take place.
+
+In the afternoon Gallardo went alone to the plaza. The amphitheatre of
+red brick, with its Moorish windows, stood by itself at the base of
+green hills. In the background of this broad and monotonous landscape
+something resembling a distant flock of sheep shone white on the slope
+of a hill. It was a cemetery.
+
+Seeing the bull-fighter in the vicinity of the plaza some slovenly
+individuals, parasites of the ring, vagabonds who slept in the stables
+through charity, living at the cost of devotees and on the leavings of
+patrons of the nearby taverns, approached him. Some of them had come
+from Andalusia with a shipment of bulls and hung about in the vicinity
+of the plaza. Gallardo distributed some coins among these beggars, who
+followed him cap in hand, and entered the ring through the door of the
+_Caballerizas_.
+
+In the _corral_ he saw a group of devotees watching the _picadores_
+testing horses. Potaje, with great cowboy spurs on his heels, was
+grasping a spear, preparing to mount. Those in charge of the stables
+escorted the manager of the horses, an obese man in a great Andalusian
+hat, slow of speech, who responded calmly to the insulting and abusive
+wrangling of the _picadores_.
+
+The "wise monkeys," with arms bared were pulling the hacks by the bridle
+reins for the riders to try them. For several days they had been riding
+and training these miserable horses which still bore on their flanks the
+red gashes of the spurs. They brought them out to trot over the
+clearings adjacent to the plaza, making them acquire an artificial
+energy with the iron on their heels and obliging them to make turns to
+accustom them to running in the ring. They came back to the plaza with
+their sides dyed with blood, and before entering the stables they
+received a baptism of several bucketfuls of water. Near the trough not
+far away the water standing between the stones was dark red, like
+spilled wine.
+
+The horses destined for the bull-fight the following day were almost
+dragged out of the stables to be examined and passed upon by the
+_picadores_. These worn-out remnants of wretched horse-flesh advanced,
+with tremulous flanks drooping with old age and sickness, a reproach to
+human ingratitude so forgetful of past service. Some were mere
+skeletons with sharp protruding ribs that seemed about to break through
+their hairy hide. Others walked proudly, stamping their strong hoofs,
+their coats shining and their eyes bright; beautiful animals that it was
+hard to imagine among outcasts destined to death, magnificent beasts
+that seemed to have been recently unharnessed from a luxurious carriage.
+These were the most dreaded, for they were horses afflicted with vertigo
+and other maladies, and behind these specimens of misery and infirmity,
+rang the sad hoof-beats of steeds past work, mill and factory horses,
+farm horses, public cab nags, all dulled by years of pulling the plough
+or the cart, unhappy pariahs who were going to be exploited until the
+last instant, forced to provide diversion to men with their pawing and
+springing when the bull's horns gored their shrinking bodies. To mount
+this miserable horse-herd, tremulous with madness or ready to drop with
+misery, as much courage was needed as to stand before the bull. Heavy
+Moorish saddles with high pommel, yellow seat, and cowboy stirrups were
+thrown upon them, and as they received this weight their legs almost
+gave way.
+
+Potaje wore a haughty mien in his discussions with the overseer of the
+horses, speaking for himself and for his comrades, making even the "wise
+monkeys" laugh with his gypsy-like maledictions. Let the other
+_picadores_ leave it to him to come to an understanding with the
+horse-traders. Nobody knew better than he how to make these people stand
+around.
+
+A servant approached him, dragging after him a dejected hack with long
+hair and ribs in painful relief.
+
+"What art thou bringing there?" said Potaje facing the man. "That can't
+be received. That's an animal no man alive could mount. Take it to thy
+mother!"
+
+The phlegmatic contractor answered with grave calmness. If Potaje dared
+not mount him it was because the _piqueros_ now-a-days were afraid of
+everything. With a horse like this, kind and gentle, Senor Calderon,
+Trigo, or any of the good-old-time horsemen could have fought bulls two
+consecutive afternoons without getting a fall and without the animal
+receiving a scratch. But now! Now there was much fear and very little
+shame.
+
+The _picador_ and the contractor insulted one another with friendly
+calmness, for among them abusive language lost significance from force
+of habit.
+
+"What thou art," answered Potaje, "is a freshy, a bigger thief than Jose
+Maria the _Earlybird_. Get out, and let thy bald-headed grandmother that
+rode on a broom every Saturday at the stroke of twelve get on that
+raw-boned, hard-gaited beast."
+
+Those present laughed and the contractor merely shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"But what's the matter with that horse?" he said coolly. "Look at him,
+thou evil soul. Better is he than others that have glanders, or get
+dizzy and that have thrown thee off over their ears before thou wast
+even near the bull. He is sounder than an apple, for he has been
+twenty-eight years in a gas factory doing his duty like a decent person,
+without ever being found fault with. And now along comest thou, thou
+street-crier, abusing him with thy 'buts' and thy fault finding, as if
+he were a bad Christian."
+
+"But I don't want him! Get out! Keep him!"
+
+The contractor slowly approached Potaje, and with the ease of a man
+expert in these transactions whispered in his ear. The _picador_,
+pretending to be offended, finally walked up to the hack. He shouldn't
+miss the sale on his account! He didn't want to be taken for an
+intractable man, capable of injuring a comrade.
+
+Putting a foot in the stirrup he swung the weight of his body upon the
+poor horse. Then, holding the spear under his arm, he thrust it into a
+great post embedded in the wall, spearing it several times with
+tremendous force, as if he had a stout bull at the end of his lance. The
+poor hack trembled and bent his legs under these shocks.
+
+"He don't turn badly," said Potaje with conciliating tone. "The _penco_
+is better than I thought. He's got a good mouth, good legs. Thou hast
+won. Let him be kept."
+
+The _picador_ dismounted, disposed to accept anything the contractor
+offered him after his mysterious "aside."
+
+Gallardo left the group of devotees who had laughingly witnessed this
+performance. A porter of the plaza went with him to where the bulls were
+kept. He passed through a little door entering the _corrales_.
+
+A rubble wall that reached the height of a man's neck surrounded the
+_corral_ on three sides, strengthened by heavy posts united to the
+little upper balcony. Passages so narrow that a man could only go
+through them side-wise opened at certain distances. Eight bulls were in
+the spacious _corral_, some lying down, others standing with lowered
+heads sniffing at the pile of hay before them. The bull-fighter walked
+the length of these galleries examining the animals. At times he would
+come outside the barricade, his body looming up through the narrow
+openings. He waved his arms, giving savage whoops of challenge that
+stirred the bulls out of their immobility. Some sprang nervously,
+attacking with lowered head this man who came to disturb the peace of
+their enclosure. Others stood firm on their legs, waiting with raised
+heads and threatening mien for the rash being to approach them.
+
+Gallardo, who quickly hid himself again behind the barricades, examined
+the appearance and character of the wild beasts, without deciding which
+two he desired to choose.
+
+The plaza overseer was near him; a big athletic man, with leggings and
+spurs, dressed in coarse cloth and wearing a broad hat held by a chin
+strap. They had nicknamed him Young Wolf; he was a rough rider who spent
+the greater part of the year in the open country, coming to Madrid like
+a savage, with no curiosity to see its streets nor desire to pass beyond
+the vicinity of the plaza.
+
+To his mind the capital of Spain was a ring with clearings and waste
+lands in its environs, and beyond these a mysterious series of houses
+with which he had felt no desire to become acquainted. The most
+important establishment in Madrid was, in his opinion, Gallina's tavern,
+situated near the plaza, a pleasant realm of joy; an enchanting palace
+where he supped and ate at the manager's cost, before returning to the
+pastures mounted on his steed, with his dark blanket over the pommel,
+his saddle bags on the croup, and his spear over his shoulder. He
+rejoiced in terrifying the servants of the tavern with his friendly
+greetings; terrible hand-clasps that made the bones crack and drew
+shrieks of terror. He smiled, proud of his strength and proud to be
+called "brute," and seated himself before his meal, a plate the size of
+a dishpan, full of meat and potatoes, besides a jug of wine.
+
+He tended the bulls acquired by the manager, sometimes in the pasture
+grounds of Munoza, or, when the heat was excessive, in the meadows among
+the Guadarramas. He brought them to the enclosure two days before the
+_corrida_, at midnight, crossing the arroyo Abronigal, at the outskirts
+of Madrid, accompanied by horsemen and cowboys. He was in despair when
+bad weather prevented the bull-fight and the herd had to remain in the
+plaza, and he could not return immediately to the tranquil solitudes
+where he pastured the other bulls.
+
+Slow of speech, dull of thought, this centaur who smelled of hide and
+hay expressed himself with warmth when he talked of his pastoral life
+herding wild beasts. The sky of Madrid seemed to him narrow and to have
+fewer stars. He described with picturesque loquacity the nights in the
+pasture with his bulls sleeping in the diffused light of the firmament
+and in the dense silence broken only by the mysterious noises from the
+thickets. The mountain snakes sang with a strange voice in this
+stillness. They sang, _si, senor_! No one cared to dispute Young Wolf;
+he had heard it a thousand times, and to doubt this were to call him a
+liar, exposing oneself to feel the weight of his heavy hands. And as the
+reptiles sang, so the bulls talked, only that he had not managed to
+penetrate all the mysteries of their tongue. They were Christians
+although they walked on four legs and had horns. It was a fine sight to
+see them awaken when the morning light appeared. They sprang up
+joyfully like children; they played, pretending to attack, locking
+horns; they tried to ride one another with a noisy joy, as if they
+greeted the presence of the sun which is God's glory. Then he told of
+his long excursions through the Guadarramas, following the course of the
+stream of liquid snow that flowed down from the mountain peaks, like
+transparent crystal, feeding the rivers and the meadows with their
+herbage dotted with tiny flowers; of the flapping of the wings of the
+birds that came and perched on the sleeping bulls' horns; of the wolves
+that howled through the night, ever far away, very far away, as if
+frightened by the procession of primeval beasts that followed the
+leader's bell to dispute with them the wild solitude. Let them not talk
+to him of Madrid, where the people were suffocated! The only acceptable
+things in this forest of houses were Gallina's wine and his savory
+stews.
+
+Young Wolf talked to the swordsman and helped him by his advice to
+choose two animals. The overseer showed neither respect nor wonder in
+the presence of this famous man, so admired by the people. The
+bull-herder almost hated the bull-fighter. Kill one of those noble
+animals, with all kinds of deceptions! A braver man was he who lived
+among them, passing before their horns in the solitude, without other
+defence than his arm, and with no applause whatever.
+
+As Gallardo left the _corral_ another joined the group, greeting the
+_maestro_ with great respect. He was an old man, charged with the
+cleanliness of the plaza. He had spent many years in this employment and
+had known all the famous bull-fighters of his time. He went poorly clad,
+but frequently women's rings glistened on his fingers, and he blew his
+nose upon a dainty lace-edged linen handkerchief, which he drew out of
+the depths of his blouse.
+
+Alone during the week he swept the immense ring, the tiers of seats and
+the boxes, without complaint as to the magnitude of this task. Whenever
+the manager found fault and threatened to punish him by opening the door
+to the vagabonds who idled around outside the plaza, the poor man in
+desperation promised to mend, so that this unwelcome irruption of
+scavengers might not cheat him of his spoil. At the most, he admitted
+half a dozen rogues, bull-fight apprentices, who were faithful to him in
+exchange for his permitting them on festal days to see the _corrida_
+from "the dogs' box," a door with a grille situated near the bull-pens,
+through which the wounded combatants were carried out. These assistants,
+clutching the iron bars, witnessed the _corrida_, struggling and
+fighting like monkeys in a cage to occupy the front row.
+
+The old man distributed them skilfully during the week as the cleaning
+of the plaza progressed. The youngsters worked in the seats in the sun
+occupied by the poor and dirty public, which leaves in its wake a
+scrap-heap of orange skins, papers, and cigar stubs.
+
+"Look out for the tobacco," he ordered his troop. "Any one that holds on
+to a single cigar stub won't see the bull-fight Sunday."
+
+He patiently cleaned the shady side, bending over like a treasure-seeker
+in the mystery of the boxes to put the findings in his pockets; ladies'
+fans, rings, handkerchiefs, lost coins, all that an invasion of fourteen
+thousand persons leaves in its wake. He heaped up the smokers'
+leavings, mincing the stubs and selling them for pulverized tobacco
+after exposing them to the sun. The valuables were for a pawnbrokeress
+who bought these spoils of a public forgetful or overcome by emotion.
+
+Gallardo answered the old man's pleasant greetings by giving him a
+cigar, and he took leave of Young Wolf. It was agreed with the overseer
+that he should shut up the two chosen bulls for him. The other swordsmen
+would not protest. They were boys in good luck, in the flower of their
+youthful bravery, who killed whatever was put before them.
+
+Going out into the courtyard again where the horse-testing was going on
+Gallardo saw a man move away from the group of spectators; he was tall,
+spare, and of a coppery complexion, dressed like a bull-fighter. Beneath
+his black hat locks of grayish hair fell over his ears, and he was
+wrinkled around the mouth.
+
+"Pescadero! How art thou?" said Gallardo, pressing his hand with sincere
+effusion.
+
+He was an old-time swordsman who had had hours of glory in his youth,
+but whose name few remembered. Other _matadores_ coming after had
+obscured his poor fame, and Pescadero, after fighting bulls in America
+and suffering various wounds, had retired with a small capital of
+savings. Gallardo knew that he was the owner of a tavern in the vicinity
+of the ring where he vegetated far from the devotees and bull-fighters'
+trade. He did not expect to see him in the plaza, but Pescadero said
+with a melancholy expression: "What brings me here? Devotion to the
+game. I seldom come to the bull-fights, but affairs of the trade still
+attract me, and I come in a neighborly fashion to see these things. Now
+I am nothing but a tavern keeper."
+
+Gallardo, contemplating his forlorn appearance, thought of the Pescadero
+he had known in his youth, one of his most admired heroes, arrogant,
+favored by the women, a notable figure in Campana Street when he went to
+Seville, with his velvet hat, his wine-colored jacket, and his silken
+girdle, leaning on a gold-headed cane. And thus would _he_ become,
+common and forgotten if he retired from bull-fighting.
+
+They discussed professional matters a long time. Pescadero, like all old
+men embittered by bad luck, was a pessimist. There were no good
+bull-fighters any more. Only Gallardo and a few others killed bulls in
+classic style. Even the beasts seemed less powerful. And after these
+lamentations he insisted on his friend accompanying him to his house.
+Since they had met, and the _matador_ had nothing to do, he must visit
+his establishment.
+
+Gallardo smiled, and asked about the school of tauromachy established by
+Pescadero near his tavern.
+
+"What wouldst thou, son!" said the latter apologetically. "One has to
+help oneself, and the school yields more than all the customers of the
+tavern. Very good people come, young gentlemen who want to learn so as
+to shine in bullock-fights, foreigners that grow enthusiastic at the
+bull-fights and get a crazy notion to become bull-fighters in their old
+age. I have one taking a lesson now. He comes every afternoon. Thou
+shalt see."
+
+After taking a glass of wine at the tavern they crossed the street and
+entered a place surrounded by a high wall. On the boards nailed
+together, that served as a door, was posted a great bill which
+announced, "School of Tauromachy."
+
+They entered. The first thing that claimed Gallardo's attention was the
+bull, an animal made of wood and rushes, mounted on wheels, with a tail
+of tow, head of braided straw, a section of cork in place of a neck, and
+a pair of genuine and enormous horns which inspired the pupils with
+terror.
+
+A bare-breasted youth, wearing a cap and two hanks of hair over his
+ears, communicated activity to the beast by pushing it when the students
+stood before it cape in hand.
+
+In the centre of the enclosure a round, corpulent old man with a red
+face stood in his shirt-sleeves holding an armful of _banderillas_. Near
+the wall, slouching in one chair and resting her arms on another, was a
+lady of about the same age and not less voluminous, wearing a beflowered
+hat. Her florid face, with spots as yellow as chaff, dilated with
+enthusiasm every time her companion performed a good feat. The roses on
+her hat, and her false curls of a ridiculous blonde hue, shook with
+laughter as she applauded.
+
+Standing in the doorway Pescadero explained these people to Gallardo.
+They must be French, or natives of some other foreign country--he was
+not sure where they were from nor did it matter to him. They were a
+married couple who travelled about the world and seemed to have lived
+everywhere. He had had a thousand trades, to judge from his tales; miner
+in Africa; colonist in distant isles; hunter of horses with a lasso in
+the solitudes of America. Now he wished to fight bulls--to earn money
+as did the Spaniards; and he attended the school every afternoon, with
+the determination of a stubborn child, paying generously for his
+lessons.
+
+"Imagine it; a bull-fighter with that shape and well past fifty years of
+age!"
+
+When the pupil saw the two men enter, he lowered his arms laden with
+_banderillas_, and the lady arranged her skirt and flowery hat. Oh,
+_cher maitre_!--
+
+"Good-afternoon _Mosiu_; greetings, _Madame_," said the master, raising
+his hand to his hat. "Let us see, _Mosiu_, how the lesson is getting on.
+You know what I have told you. Firm on your ground, you stir up the
+beast, you let him come on, and when you have him beside you, aim, and
+put the barbs in his neck. You don't have to worry yourself about
+anything; the bull will do everything for you. Attention! Are we ready?"
+
+The master moved away, and the pupil faced the terrible bull, or rather
+the gamin who was behind it, his hands on its hind quarters to push it.
+
+"A-a-a-a! Come on, Morito!"
+
+Pescadero gave a frightful bellow to cause the animal to charge,
+exciting, with yells and with furious stamping on the ground, this
+animal with entrails of air and rushes, and a head of straw. Morito
+charged like a wild beast, with great clatter of wheels, bobbing his
+head up and down as he moved, the page who pushed him bringing up the
+rear. Never could bull of famous breed compare in intelligence with this
+Morito, immortal beast, stuck full of barbs and sword-thrusts thousands
+of times, suffering no other wounds than such insignificant ones as a
+carpenter cures. He seemed as wise as man. On drawing near the pupil, he
+changed his course so as not to touch him with his horns, moving away
+with the barbs lodged in his cork neck.
+
+An ovation greeted this heroic feat, the _banderillero_ remaining firm
+in his place, arranging the suspenders of his trousers and the cuffs of
+his shirt.
+
+"Masterful, _Mosiu_!" shouted Pescadero. "That pair is first class!"
+
+The foreigner, moved by the professor's applause, responded with
+modesty, beating his breast:
+
+"Me got the most important. Courage, _mucho_ courage."
+
+Then, to celebrate his deed, he turned to Morito's page, who seemed to
+lick his lips in anticipation of the order. Let a bottle of wine be
+fetched. Three empty ones lay on the ground near the lady, who was
+constantly growing more purple in the face, wriggling in her clothing,
+greeting her companion's tauromachic exploits with great shouts of
+laughter.
+
+On learning that he who had just arrived with the teacher was the famous
+Gallardo, and on recognizing his countenance so often admired by her in
+the newspapers and on match-boxes, the foreign woman lost color and her
+eyes grew tender. Oh, _cher maitre_! She smiled at him, she rubbed
+against him, desiring to fall into his arms with all the weight of her
+voluminous and flabby person.
+
+Glasses were clinked to the glory of the new bull-fighter. Even Morito
+took part in the feast, the steward who acted as nurse drinking in his
+name.
+
+"Before two months, _Mosiu_," said Pescadero, with his Andalusian
+gravity, "you will be sticking _banderillas_ in the plaza of Madrid like
+the very God himself, and you will have all the applause, all the money,
+and all the women--with your lady's permission."
+
+The lady, without ceasing to gaze upon Gallardo with tender eyes, was
+moved with joy, and a noisy laugh shook her waves of fat.
+
+Pescadero accompanied Gallardo down the street.
+
+"_Adios_, Juan," he said gravely. "Maybe we'll see each other in the
+plaza to-morrow. Thou seest what I have come to--to earn my bread by
+these frauds and clown-tricks."
+
+Gallardo walked away, thoughtful. Ah! that man whom he had seen throw
+money around in his good times with the arrogance of a prince, sure of
+his future! He had lost his savings in bad speculations. A
+bull-fighter's life was not one in which to learn the management of a
+fortune. And yet they proposed that _he_ retire from his profession!
+Never.
+
+He must get _close_ to the bulls!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"THE GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD"
+
+
+During the whole night one dominant thought floated over the dark lake
+of Gallardo's dreams. He must get _close_! And the next morning the
+resolution was firmly rooted in his mind. He _would_ get close, and
+astound the public by his brave deeds. Such was his mettle that he went
+to the plaza free from the superstitious fears of former times. He felt
+the certainty of triumph, the presentiment of his glorious afternoons.
+
+The _corrida_ was unlucky from the start. The first bull "came in
+fighting," furiously attacking the men on horseback. In an instant he
+had thrown the three _picadores_ who awaited him lance in socket, and
+two of the hacks, lay dying, streams of dark blood gushing from their
+perforated chests. The other horse ran across the plaza, mad with pain
+and surprise. The bull, attracted by this race, ran after him, and
+lowering his powerful head beneath his belly, raised him on his horns
+and threw him on the ground, venting his rage on the poor broken and
+punctured hulk. As the wild beast left it kicking and dying, a _mono
+sabio_ approached to finish it, burying his dagger blade in the crown of
+his head. The wretched hack showed the fury of a lion in his death
+struggles and bit the man, who gave a scream and shook his bleeding
+right hand, pressing on the dagger until the horse ceased kicking and
+lay with rigid limbs. Other plaza employees came running from all
+directions with great baskets of sand to throw in heaps over the pools
+of blood and the dead bodies of the horses.
+
+The public was on its feet, gesticulating and vociferating. It was
+filled with enthusiasm by the bull's fierceness and protested because
+there was not a _picador_ in the ring, shouting in chorus: "Horses,
+horses!"
+
+Everybody knew they would come in immediately, but it infuriated them to
+have an interval pass without new carnage. The bull stood alone in the
+centre of the ring proud and bellowing, raising his blood-stained horns,
+the ribbons of the emblem on his lacerated neck fluttering in the
+breeze.
+
+New horsemen appeared and the repugnant spectacle was repeated. The
+_picador_ had barely approached with spear held in advance, reining his
+horse to one side so that the bandaged eye would prevent his seeing the
+bull, when the shock and fall were instantaneous. Javelins broke with
+the cracking sound of dry wood; the gored horse was raised on the
+powerful horns; blood spouted; bits of hide and flesh fell after the
+shock of mortal combat; the _picador_ rolled along the sand like a
+yellow-legged puppet and was immediately covered by the attendants'
+capes.
+
+The public hailed the riders' noisy falls with shouting and laughter.
+The arena resounded with the shock of their heavy bodies and their
+iron-covered legs. Some fell backwards like stuffed sacks, and their
+heads, as they encountered the boards of the barricade, awoke a dismal
+echo.
+
+"He'll never get up again," shouted the people. "He must have busted his
+melon."
+
+But he did get up again; he extended his arms, scratched his head,
+recovered his heavy beaver hat lost in the fall, and remounted the same
+horse which the _monos sabios_ forced upon its feet with pushes and
+blows. The gay horseman urged his steed into a trot, and astride the
+agonized wreck rode to meet the wild beast again.
+
+"Good for you!" he shouted, throwing his hat at a group of friends.
+
+No sooner did he stand before the bull, thrusting his lance into the
+neck, than man and horse rose on high, the two immediately falling apart
+from the violence of the shock, and rolling in different directions.
+Again, before the bull attacked, the _monos sabios_ and some of the
+audience warned the horseman. "Dismount!" But before his rigid legs
+would allow him to do so, the horse fell flat, instantly dead, and the
+_picador_ was hurled over his ears his head striking the arena with a
+resounding thud.
+
+The bull's horns never managed to gore the riders, but those lying on
+the ground apparently lifeless were carried by the _peones_ to the
+infirmary to have their broken bones set or to be resuscitated from
+deathlike unconsciousness.
+
+Gallardo, eager to attract the sympathy of the audience, hurried from
+place to place; he received great applause at one time for pulling a
+bull's tail to save a _picador_ who lay on the ground at the point of
+being gored.
+
+While the _banderillas_ were being placed, Gallardo leaned against the
+barrier and gazed along the boxes. Dona Sol must be in one of them. At
+last he saw her, but without her white _mantilla_, without anything to
+remind him of that Sevillian lady dressed like one of Goya's _majas_.
+One might think her, with her blonde hair and her novel and elegant hat,
+one of those foreign women attending a bull-fight for the first time.
+At her side was the friend, that man of whom she talked with admiration
+and to whom she was showing the interesting features of the country. Ah,
+Dona Sol! Soon she should see of what mettle was the brave youth she had
+abandoned! She would have to applaud him in the presence of the hated
+stranger; she would be transported and moved against her will by the
+enthusiasm of the audience.
+
+When the moment arrived for Gallardo to kill his first bull, the second
+on the programme, the public received him kindly as if it had forgotten
+its anger at the previous bull-fight. The two weeks of suspension on
+account of the rain seemed to have produced great tolerance in the
+multitude. They were willing to find everything acceptable in a
+_corrida_ so long awaited. Besides, the fierceness of the bulls and the
+great mortality of horses had put the public in a good humor.
+
+Gallardo strode up to the bull, his head uncovered after his salutation,
+with the _muleta_ held before him, and swinging his sword like a cane.
+Behind him, although at a prudent distance, followed Nacional and
+another bull-fighter. A few voices from the rows of seats protested.
+"How many acolytes!" It resembled a parish priest going to a funeral.
+
+"Stand aside, everybody!" shouted Gallardo.
+
+The two _peones_ paused, because he said it as if he meant it, with an
+accent that left no room for doubt.
+
+He strode ahead until near the wild beast, and there he unrolled his
+_muleta_, making a few passes more like those of his old times, until he
+thrust the rag near the drivelling muzzle. "A good play! Hurrah!" A
+murmur of satisfaction ran along the tiers of seats. The bull-fighter
+of Seville had redeemed his name; he had bull-fighter pride! He was
+going to do some of his own feats, as in his better days. His _pases de
+muleta_ were accompanied by noisy exclamations of enthusiasm, while his
+partisans became reanimated and rebuked their enemies. What did they
+think of that? Gallardo was careless sometimes--they knew that--but any
+afternoon when he wished--!
+
+That was one of the good afternoons. When he saw the bull standing with
+motionless fore-feet, the public itself fired him with its advice. "Now!
+Thrust!"
+
+Gallardo threw himself against the wild beast with the sword presented,
+but rapidly moved away from the danger of the horns.
+
+Applause arose, but it was short; a threatening murmur cut by strident
+hisses followed. The enthusiasts ceased looking at the bull to face the
+rest of the public with indignation. What injustice! What lack of
+knowledge! He had started in at the killing well enough--
+
+But the enemies pointed to the bull derisively persisting in their
+protests, and the whole plaza joined in a deafening explosion of hisses.
+The sword had penetrated obliquely--passing through the bull's body, its
+point appearing through one side, near his fore-leg. The people
+gesticulated and waved their arms with roars of indignation. What a
+scandal! Even a bad bullock-fighter would not make such a stroke as
+that!
+
+The animal, with the hilt of the sword in his neck, and the point
+protruding through the joint of his fore-leg, began to limp, his
+enormous mass quivering with the movement of his unsteady tread. This
+spectacle seemed to move the audience with generous indignation. Poor
+bull! So good; so noble. Some leaned forward, raging with fury, as if
+they would throw themselves head foremost into the ring. Thief--son of a
+thief! To thus martyrize an animal that was better than he. And all
+shouted with impetuous sympathy for the animal's suffering, as if they
+had not paid their money to witness his death.
+
+Gallardo, astounded at his act, bowed his head beneath the storm of
+insults and threats. "Cursed be the luck." He had started in to kill
+just as in his better epoch, dominating the nervous feeling that forced
+him to turn away his face as if he could not bear the sight of the wild
+beast that charged him. But desire to avoid danger, to immediately
+escape from between the horns, had caused him to lose his luck again
+with that stupid and scandalous thrust.
+
+The people on the tiers of seats stirred restlessly with the fervor of
+numerous disputes. "He doesn't understand. He turns away his face. He
+has made a fool of himself." Gallardo's partisans excused their idol,
+but with less fervency. "That might happen to anybody. It is a
+misfortune. The important thing is to start in to kill with spirit as he
+does."
+
+The bull, after running and limping with painful steps which made the
+crowd howl with indignation, stood motionless, so as not to prolong his
+martyrdom.
+
+Gallardo grasped another sword, walked up and faced the bull.
+
+The public divined his task. He must finish him by pricking him in the
+base of the brain; the only thing he could do after his crime.
+
+He held the point of the sword between the two horns, while with the
+other hand he shook the _muleta_ so that the animal, attracted by the
+rag, would lower his head to the ground. He pressed on the sword, and
+the bull, feeling himself wounded, tossed his head throwing out the
+instrument.
+
+"One!" shouted the multitude with mocking unanimity.
+
+The _matador_ repeated his play and again drove in the sword, making the
+wild beast shudder.
+
+"Two!" they sang mockingly from the bleachers.
+
+He tried again to touch the vulnerable spot with no other result than a
+bellow of pain from the animal, tortured by this martyrdom.
+
+"Three!"
+
+Hisses and shouts of protest were united to this ironic chorus on the
+part of the public. When was that fool going to get through?
+
+Finally he succeeded in touching with the point of his sword the
+beginning of the spinal cord, the centre of life, and the bull fell
+instantly, lying on his side with rigid legs.
+
+The swordsman wiped the sweat off his brow and began his return to the
+president's box with slow step, breathing heavily. At last he was free
+of that animal. He had thought he would never finish. The public
+received him with sarcasms as he passed, or with disdainful silence.
+None applauded. He saluted the president in the midst of general
+indifference, and took refuge behind the barrier, like a pupil shamed by
+his faults. While Garabato offered him a glass of water, the _matador_
+looked at the boxes, meeting the eyes of Dona Sol which had followed him
+into his retreat. What must that woman think of him! How she and her
+friend would laugh on seeing him insulted by the public! What a damnable
+idea of that lady to come to the bull-fight!
+
+He remained between barriers avoiding all fatigue until the next bull he
+was to kill should be let out. His wounded leg pained him on account of
+his having run so much. He was no longer himself; he knew it now. His
+arrogance and his resolve to get closer resulted in nothing. His legs
+were no longer swift and sure as in former times, nor had his right arm
+that daring that made him extend it fearlessly, eager to reach the
+bull's neck without delay. Now it bent disobedient to his will, with the
+blind instinct of certain animals that shrink and hide their faces,
+thinking thus to avoid danger.
+
+His old-time superstitions suddenly awoke, terrifying and obsessing him.
+
+"I feel that something is going to happen," thought Gallardo. "My heart
+tells me that the fifth bull will catch me--he'll catch me--there is no
+escape."
+
+However, when the fifth bull came out, the first thing he met was
+Gallardo's cape. What an animal! He seemed different from the one he had
+chosen in the _corral_ the day before. Surely they had changed the order
+in regard to letting out the bulls. Fear kept ringing in the
+bull-fighter's ears. "Bad sign! He'll catch me; I'll go out of the ring
+to-day foot foremost."
+
+In spite of this he kept on fighting the wild beast and drawing it away
+from _picadores_ in danger. At first his feats were received in silence.
+Then the public, softening, applauded him mildly. When it came time for
+the death-stroke and Gallardo squared himself before the wild beast,
+every one seemed to divine the confusion of his mind. He moved as if
+disconcerted; the bull no sooner tossed his head than, taking the
+attitude for an advance, he stepped back, receding by great springs,
+while the public greeted these attempts at flight with a chorus of
+jests.
+
+"Ouch! Ouch! He'll catch thee!"
+
+Suddenly, as if he wished to end it by any means, he threw himself upon
+the animal with the sword, but obliquely, so as to escape from danger as
+soon as possible. An explosion of hisses and voices! The sword was
+embedded but a few inches, and after vibrating in the wild beast's neck,
+was shaken out and hurled far away.
+
+Gallardo took his sword again and approached the bull. He squared
+himself to go in to kill and the wild beast charged at the same instant.
+He longed to flee but his legs no longer had the agility of other times.
+He was struck and rolled over from the shock. Aid came, and Gallardo
+arose covered with dirt, with a great rent in the seat of his trousers
+through which his white underclothing escaped, and minus a slipper and
+the _mona_ which adorned his queue.
+
+The arrogant youth whom the public had so much admired for his elegance,
+presented a pitiful and absurd appearance with his clothes awry, his
+hair disarranged, his _coleta_ fallen and undone like a limp tail.
+
+Several capes were mercifully extended around him to aid and shield him.
+The other bull-fighters, with generous comradeship, even prepared the
+bull so that he could finish with it quickly. But Gallardo seemed blind
+and deaf; no sooner did he see the animal than he stepped back at his
+lightest charges, as if the recent upsetting had maddened him with
+fear. He did not understand what his comrades said to him, but, with his
+face intensely pale, and frowning as though to concentrate his mind, he
+stammered, not knowing what he said:
+
+"Stand aside, everybody! Leave me alone!"
+
+Meanwhile fear kept singing through his brain: "To-day thou diest.
+To-day is thy last goring."
+
+The public divined the swordsman's thought from his confused movements.
+
+"The bull makes him sick. He has become afraid!"
+
+Even Gallardo's most fervent partisans kept silent through shame, unable
+to explain this occurrence never before seen.
+
+The people seemed to revel in his terror, with the undaunted courage of
+those who are in a place of safety. Others, thinking of their money,
+shouted against this man who let himself be ruled by the instinct of
+self-preservation, defrauding them of their joy. A robbery! Vile people
+insulted the swordsman, expressing doubt as to his sex. Odium had
+brought to light and spread abroad, after many years of adulation,
+certain memories of the bull-fighter's youth, forgotten even by himself.
+They recalled his nocturnal life with the vagabonds on the Alameda of
+Hercules. They laughed at his torn breeches and at the white clothing
+that escaped through the rent.
+
+"If thou couldst see thyself!" shouted shrill voices, with feminine
+accent.
+
+Gallardo, protected by his companions' capes, took advantage of all the
+bull's distractions to wound him with his sword, deaf to the mocking of
+the public.
+
+He dealt thrusts that the animal barely felt. His terror at being
+caught lengthened his arm and caused him to stand at a distance,
+wounding only with the point of the sword.
+
+Some blades were scarcely embedded in the flesh, and fell; others
+remained lodged in bone but were uncovered in their greater length,
+vibrating with the movements of the bull which walked with lowered head,
+following the contour of the wall, bellowing as if with weariness at the
+useless torment. The swordsman followed him, _muleta_ in hand, eager to
+finish him, yet fearful of exposing himself, and behind came the whole
+troop of assistants moving their capes as if they wished to induce the
+animal by the waving of their rags to bend his legs and lie down.
+
+The bull's journey about the ring close to the barrier, his muzzle
+drivelling, his neck bristling with swords, provoked an explosion of
+mockery and insult.
+
+"It is the Via Dolorosa," they said.
+
+Others compared the animal to a cushion full of pins. Thief! Miserable
+bull-puncher!
+
+Some, more vile, persisted in their insults to Gallardo's sex, changing
+his name.
+
+"Juanita, don't get lost!"
+
+A long time passed and a part of the public, wishing to discharge its
+fury against something higher than the bull-fighter, turned towards the
+presidential box. "_Senor Presidente!_" How long was this scandal going
+to last?
+
+The president made a sign that quieted the protestants and gave an
+order. A minor official with his plumed shovel-hat and floating cape was
+seen to run along behind the barrier until he stood near the bull.
+There, turning to Gallardo, he held out his hand, with his index finger
+raised. The public applauded. It was the first notice. If the bull was
+not killed before the third, he would be returned to the _corral_,
+leaving the swordsman under the stain of the greatest dishonor.
+
+Gallardo, as if awakening from his dream, terrified at this threat,
+raised his sword and threw himself upon the bull. Another thrust that
+barely penetrated the bull's body.
+
+The swordsman let fall his arms in dejection. Surely the beast was
+immortal. Sword-thrusts made no impression on him. It seemed as if he
+would never fall.
+
+The inefficiency of the last stroke infuriated the public. Every one
+rose to his feet. The hisses were deafening, obliging the women to cover
+their ears. Many waved their arms, bending forward, as if they wished to
+hurl themselves into the plaza. Oranges, bread crusts, seat cushions,
+flew into the ring like swift projectiles aimed at the _matador_.
+Stentorian voices rose from the seats in the sun, roars like those of a
+steam siren, which it seemed incredible should be produced by the human
+throat. From time to time a deafening clamor of bells pealed forth with
+furious strokes. A derisive chorus near the bull pens chanted the
+_gorigori_ of the dead.
+
+Many turned towards the president. When would the second notice be
+given? Gallardo wiped off the sweat with his handkerchief, gazing in all
+directions as if surprised at the injustice of the public, and making
+the bull responsible for all that occurred. At that moment his eyes
+rested on Dona Sol's box. She turned her back so as not to see the ring;
+perhaps she felt pity for him; perhaps she was ashamed of her
+condescensions in the past.
+
+Again he threw himself upon the animal to kill, but few could see what
+he did, for he was hidden by the open capes hung continually about him.
+The bull fell, a stream of blood gushing out of his mouth.
+
+At last! The public became less restless, ceasing to gesticulate, but
+the shouts and hisses continued. The beast was finished by the
+_puntillero_; the swords were drawn out, he was harnessed by the head to
+a team of mules and dragged from the ring, leaving a broad belt of
+smoothed earth and pools of blood which the attendants obliterated with
+the rake and baskets of sand.
+
+Gallardo hid himself between barriers, fleeing from the insulting
+protests which his presence raised. There he remained, tired and panting
+for breath, with his leg aching, but in the midst of his dejection
+feeling satisfaction at being free from danger. He had not died on the
+wild beast's horns, but he owed his safety to his prudence. Ah, the
+public! A multitude of assassins that hankers for a man's death as if
+they alone made good use of life and had a family.
+
+His departure from the plaza was sad, behind the crowd that filled the
+environs of the ring, the carriages, the automobiles, the long rows of
+tram-cars.
+
+His coach rolled along slowly to avoid driving over the groups of
+spectators coming out of the plaza. These separated to let the mules
+pass, but as they recognized the swordsman they seemed to repent their
+amiability. In the movement of their lips Gallardo read tremendous
+insults. Other carriages in which rode handsome women in white
+_mantillas_ passed near his. Some turned their heads so as not to see
+the bull-fighter; others looked on him with eyes of pitying
+commiseration.
+
+The _matador_ shrank as if he wished to pass unnoticed. He hid behind
+the corpulence of Nacional who rode silent and frowning.
+
+A crowd of boys following the carriage broke out into hisses. Many who
+were standing on the sidewalks imitated them, thinking thus to avenge
+themselves for their poverty, which had compelled them to remain outside
+the plaza the whole afternoon in a vain hope of seeing something.
+
+The news of Gallardo's failure had circulated among them and they
+insulted him, glad to humiliate a man who earned enormous riches.
+
+This outburst aroused the swordsman from the mute resignation into which
+he had fallen.
+
+"Curse it! But why do they hiss? Have they been at the bull-fight? Have
+they paid out their money?"
+
+A stone struck against a wheel of the coach. The vagabonds were shouting
+at the very steps, but two guards rode up on horseback and quelled the
+disturbance, afterward escorting all the way up Alcala Street the famous
+Juan Gallardo--"the greatest man in the world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD
+
+
+The _cuadrillas_ had just entered the ring when loud blows were heard on
+the door of the _Caballerizas_.
+
+A plaza employee approached it shouting with ill-humor. Nobody entered
+there; they must go to another door. But an insistent voice answered him
+from without, and he opened it.
+
+A man and a woman entered; he wearing a white Cordovan hat, she dressed
+in black and with a _mantilla_ over her head.
+
+The man grasped the employee's hand, leaving something in it that
+humanized his fierce aspect.
+
+"You know me, don't you?" said the newcomer. "Really, don't you know me?
+I am Gallardo's brother-in-law and this lady is his wife."
+
+Carmen gazed all around the abandoned courtyard. In the distance, behind
+the thick brick walls, sounded music, and the respiration of the
+multitude could be felt, broken by shouts of enthusiasm and murmurs of
+curiosity. The _cuadrillas_ were defiling before the president.
+
+"Where is he?" anxiously inquired Carmen.
+
+"Where should he be, woman?" replied the brother-in-law brusquely. "In
+the plaza, doing his duty. It is madness to have come; nonsense. Oh,
+this weak character of mine!"
+
+Carmen continued gazing about her, but with a certain indecision, as if
+repentant for having come there. What was she to do?
+
+The employee moved by Antonio's hand pressure, or by the relationship of
+those two persons to the _matador_ of fame, became obsequious. If the
+lady wished to await the termination of the bull-fight, she might rest
+at the _concierge's_ house. If they chose to see the _corrida_, he could
+get them a good place, although they had no tickets.
+
+Carmen shuddered at this proposition. See the bull-fight? No. She had
+come to the plaza by an effort of her will, and she regretted it. It was
+impossible for her to endure the sight of her husband in the ring. She
+had never seen him fighting bulls. She would wait there until she could
+bear it no longer.
+
+"God help me!" said the leather-worker with resignation. "We will stay,
+though I don't know what we shall do here in front of the stables."
+
+Encarnacion's husband had been following after his sister-in-law since
+the day before, putting up with her hysteria and tears of nervousness
+excited by fear.
+
+Saturday at mid-day Carmen had talked to him in her husband's office.
+She was going to Madrid! She was determined on taking this journey. She
+could not live in Seville. She had spent a week of insomnia, seeing
+horrible visions. Her feminine instinct warned her of some great danger.
+She must rush to Juan's side. She did not know why, nor what she could
+accomplish by the journey, but she longed to be near Gallardo, with that
+affectionate desire that believes it can minimize danger by being close
+to the person beloved.
+
+This was not living! She had learned through the daily papers about
+Juan's bad luck the Sunday before in the Plaza of Madrid. She understood
+bull-fighter professional pride. She guessed that he would not tolerate
+this misfortune with resignation. He would do mad deeds to reconquer the
+applause of the public. The last letter she had received from him gave
+her to understand it vaguely.
+
+"Yes, yes!" she said energetically to her brother-in-law, "I am going to
+Madrid this very afternoon. If thou wishest, thou mayest accompany me;
+if thou dost not wish to come, I will go alone. Above all--not a word to
+Don Jose; he would prevent the trip. No one knows about it but
+_Mamita_."
+
+The leather-worker accepted. A free trip to Madrid, although in such sad
+company! On the way, Carmen gave expression to her fears. She would talk
+to her husband forcefully. Why continue fighting bulls? Had they not
+enough to live on? He must retire, and immediately; if not, she would
+die. This _corrida_ must be the last. Even this one seemed more than she
+could bear. She would arrive in Madrid in time to prevent her husband
+working that afternoon. Her heart told her that by her presence she
+would prevent a great calamity. But her brother-in-law protested in
+consternation on hearing this.
+
+"What barbarity! What women are! They get an idea in the head, and
+things must be so. Dost thou believe, then, that there is no authority,
+nor laws, nor rules of the plaza, and that it is enough for a woman to
+take a notion to embrace her husband when she gets frightened, to
+suspend a _corrida_ and leave the public with its thumb on its nose?
+Thou mayest say what thou wilt to Juan, but it must be after the
+bull-fight. Authority can't be played with; we would all go to jail."
+
+The leather-worker imagined the most dramatic consequences if Carmen
+persisted in her absurd idea of presenting herself to her husband in
+order to prevent his bull-fighting. They would all be locked up. He
+already saw himself in prison as an accomplice to this act which in his
+simplicity he considered a crime.
+
+When they reached Madrid he had to make renewed efforts to prevent his
+companion from rushing to the hotel where her husband was. What good
+would that do?
+
+"Thou wilt confuse him by thy presence and he will go to the plaza in a
+bad humor, excited, and if anything happens to him the fault will be
+thine."
+
+This idea subdued Carmen and caused her to follow her brother-in-law's
+advice. She allowed herself to be taken to a hotel of his selection, and
+she remained there all the morning lying on a sofa in her room, weeping
+as if she were sure of coming adversity. The leather-worker, happy to be
+in Madrid, well housed, waxed indignant against this despair which
+seemed to him absurd.
+
+"Man alive! What women are! Any one would think thou art a widow, while
+thy husband is at this very moment getting ready for the _corrida_ hale
+and hearty as Roger de Flor himself. What nonsense!"
+
+Carmen scarcely ate any breakfast, deaf to the praises her
+brother-in-law rendered the cook of the establishment. In the afternoon
+her resignation vanished again.
+
+The hotel was situated near the Puerta del Sol and the noise and stir of
+the people going to the bull-fight reached her. No, she could not stay
+in that strange room while her husband risked his life. She must see
+him. She lacked courage to witness the spectacle, but she longed to be
+near him; she must go to the plaza. Where was the plaza? She had never
+seen it. If she could not enter, she would wander around its environs.
+The important thing was to feel herself near, believing that by this
+proximity she could influence Gallardo's luck.
+
+The leather-worker protested. By the life of--! He intended to see the
+bull-fight; he had gone out and bought a ticket and now Carmen spoiled
+his pleasure by her determination to go to the plaza.
+
+"But what wilt thou do there, girl? What wilt thou better by thy
+presence? Imagine if Juaniyo should chance to see thee."
+
+They argued long, but the woman answered all his reasoning with the same
+firm reply:
+
+"Thou needst not accompany me; I will go alone."
+
+The brother-in-law at last surrendered and they rode to the plaza in a
+hired coach. The leather-worker remembered a great deal about the
+amphitheatre and its dependencies from having accompanied Gallardo on
+one of his trips to Madrid for the spring bull-fights.
+
+He and the employee were undecided and ill humored in the presence of
+this woman with reddened eyes and sunken cheeks who stood planted in the
+courtyard uncertain what to do. The two men felt themselves drawn by the
+murmur of the crowd and the music that rose from the plaza. Must they
+stand there the whole afternoon and not see the bull-fight?
+
+The employee had a brilliant inspiration.
+
+If the lady wished to pass into the chapel--
+
+The defiling of the _cuadrillas_ was over. Some horsemen came trotting
+out of the door that gave access to the ring. They were _picadores_ who
+were not on duty and were retiring from the arena to substitute their
+companions when their turn came. Hitched to some rings in the wall stood
+a row of six saddled horses, the first that must enter the plaza to
+supply those fallen. Behind them the lancers passed the time making
+evolutions with their steeds. A stable boy mounted a skittish wild mare
+and galloped her along the _corral_ to tire her, and then turned her
+over to the _piqueros_.
+
+The hacks, tortured by the flies, stamped their feet, pulling on the
+rings as if they divined the coming danger. The other horses trotted,
+urged on by the riders' spurs.
+
+Carmen and her brother-in-law had to take refuge under the arcades, and
+finally the bull-fighter's wife accepted the invitation to pass into the
+chapel. It was a safe and tranquil place and there she could do
+something useful for her husband.
+
+When she entered the sacred room with its atmosphere made dense by the
+respiration of the public that had witnessed the bull-fighters' prayers,
+Carmen gazed upon the poverty of the altar. Four lights were burning
+before the Virgin of the Dove, but this tribute seemed niggardly to her.
+
+She opened her purse to give a _duro_ to an employee. Could he not bring
+more tapers? The man scratched his head. Tapers? Tapers? He did not
+believe he could find any among the chattels belonging to the plaza. But
+he suddenly recalled to mind the sisters of a _matador_ who brought
+candles whenever he fought bulls. Maybe they were not all gone, and
+there might be a few in some corner of the chapel. After a long search
+he found them. There were no candlesticks, but the employee, a man of
+resources, brought a couple of empty bottles, and sticking the candles
+into their necks, he lit them and placed them near the other lights.
+
+Carmen had knelt and the two men took advantage of her immobility to
+rush to the plaza, eager to witness the first events of the _corrida_.
+
+The woman remained lost in contemplation of the crude image reddened by
+the lights. She was not familiar with this Virgin, but she must be sweet
+and kind like the one in Seville to whom she had so often made
+supplication. Moreover, she was the Virgin of the bull-fighters, she
+heard their last prayers when danger near at hand gave sincere piety to
+those rough men. On that floor her husband had knelt many times. And
+this thought was enough to cause her to feel attracted to the image and
+to contemplate her with religious trust, as if she had known her since
+childhood.
+
+Her lips moved, repeating the supplications with automatic haste, but
+her thoughts fled away from prayer, as if drawn by the noises of the
+multitude that reached her.
+
+Ah! that intermittent volcano-like bellowing, that roar of distant
+waves, broken from time to time by pauses of tragic silence! Carmen
+imagined herself witnessing the invisible bull-fight. She divined by the
+variations in the sounds from the plaza the progress of the tragedy that
+was taking place within the ring. Sometimes there was an explosion of
+angry shouts with accompaniment of hisses; again thousands and thousands
+of voices uttered unintelligible words. Suddenly rose a shriek of
+terror, prolonged, shrill, that seemed to rise to heaven; a fearful and
+halting exclamation that brought to mind thousands of heads in a row,
+blanched by emotion, following the swift race of a bull in pursuit of a
+man--until it was suddenly broken by a shout, re-establishing calm. The
+danger had passed.
+
+There were long intervals of silence; a silence absolute; the silence of
+the void, in which the buzzing of the flies hovering around the horses
+was magnified, as though the immense amphitheatre were deserted, as
+though the fourteen thousand persons seated on its surrounding seats had
+become motionless and breathless, and Carmen were the only living being
+that existed within its heart.
+
+Suddenly this silence was animated by a loud and indescribable shock as
+though every brick in the plaza were loosened from its place and all
+were dashing against one another. It was the prolonged applause that
+made the ring tremble. In the nearby courtyard sounded blows of the rod
+on the hide of the wretched horses, blasphemy, clatter of hoofs, and
+voices. "Whose turn?" New lancers were called into the plaza.
+
+To these noises others nearer were added. Footsteps sounded in the
+adjoining rooms, doors opened suddenly, voices and labored breathing of
+several men were heard, as if they walked burdened by great weight.
+
+"It is nothing--a bruise. Thou'rt not bleeding. Before the _corrida_ is
+over thou'lt be lancing again."
+
+A hoarse voice, weakened by pain, groaned between gasps with an accent
+that reminded Carmen of home:
+
+"Virgin of Solitude! I must have broken something. Look well, doctor.
+Alas, my children!"
+
+Carmen shuddered with horror. She raised her eyes that had wandered in
+fear to the Virgin. Her nose seemed drawn out by her emotion to a sharp
+point between sunken and pallid cheeks. She felt sick; she feared that
+she would fall to the floor in a faint from terror. She tried to pray
+again, to isolate herself in prayer; to not hear the noises from
+without, transmitted through the walls with a tone of despair. But in
+spite of her a dismal sound reached her ear of sponges being wet in
+water and voices of men who must be doctors and nurses stimulating the
+_picador_, who complained with the energy of a mountaineer, at the same
+time striving to hide the pain of his broken bones through manly pride.
+
+"Virgin of Solitude! My children! What will the poor babes have to eat
+if their father cannot use the lance?"
+
+Carmen arose. Ah, she could bear no more! She would fall fainting if she
+remained in that gloomy place trembling at the echoes of pain. She
+thought she felt in her own bones the same torture that caused that
+unknown man to groan.
+
+She went out into the courtyard. Blood on all sides; blood on the floor
+and around some casks where water mingled with the red fluid.
+
+The _picadores_ were retiring from the ring. The sign for the display of
+the _banderillas_ had been given, and the riders came out on their
+bleeding horses. They dismounted, talking with animation of the
+incidents of the bull-fight. Carmen saw Potaje let his vigorous person
+down off his horse hurling a string of curses at the _mono sabio_ who
+stupidly assisted him in his descent. He seemed benumbed by his hidden
+iron greaves and from the pain of several violent falls. He raised one
+hand to his back to ease himself with painful stretches, but he smiled,
+showing his yellow horse-like teeth.
+
+"Have ye seen how well Juan does to-day?" he said to those who
+surrounded him. "To-day he surely is all right."
+
+Seeing a solitary woman in the courtyard, and recognizing her, he showed
+no surprise.
+
+"You here, Sena' Carmen? How good!"
+
+He spoke tranquilly, as if he, in the stupor which wine and his own
+bestiality kept him, could not be surprised by anything in the world.
+
+"Have you seen Juan?" he continued. "He laid down on the ground before
+the bull, under his very nose. Nobody else can do what that fellow does.
+Peep in and see him, for he is very fine to-day."
+
+Some one called him from the door of the infirmary. His companion, the
+_picador_, wanted to speak to him before being taken to the hospital.
+
+"Adio', Sena' Carmen. I must see what that poor fellow wants. A fall
+with a fracture, they say. He won't use the lance again this whole
+season."
+
+Carmen took refuge under the arcades and closed her eyes to the
+repugnant spectacle in the courtyard, yet at the same time fascinated by
+the sickening sight of the blood.
+
+The _monos sabios_ led in the wounded horses by the bridle reins. A
+stable boy, seeing them, began to bestir himself, in a fever of
+activity.
+
+"Courage, brave boys!" he shouted, addressing the youths with the
+horses. "Firm! Firm there!"
+
+A stable-boy carefully approached a horse that was struggling in pain,
+took off his saddle, fastened leather straps around his legs, binding
+the four extremities, and threw the animal to the ground.
+
+"There, there! Firm! Firm with him!" the one in charge of the horses
+continued shouting, without ceasing his activity.
+
+Another held the reins of the fallen animal and pressed his poor head
+against the ground by placing his foot on it. The nose contracted with
+distortions of pain, the long yellow teeth gritted with a chill of
+martyrdom, his stifled whinnies lost in the dust from the pressure of
+the foot. The gory hands of the others worked to return the flaccid
+entrails to the open cavity of the abdomen or stuffed it with handfuls
+of tow while still others, with a skill acquired by practice, sewed up
+the hide.
+
+When the horse was "fixed" with barbaric promptness, they threw a bucket
+of water over his head, loosed his feet from the straps and gave him
+several blows with a rod to make him stand up. Some, after walking
+barely two steps, fell flat, shedding a stream of blood from the wound
+stitched with pack-thread. It was instantaneous death. Others were kept
+alive by some marvellous resource of animal vigor, and the lackeys,
+after this "fixing," took them to the "varnishing," inundating their
+feet and bellies with strong ablutions from casks of water. The white or
+chestnut color of the animals became glossy and the hair dripped a
+rose-colored liquid, a mixture of water and blood. The horses were
+patched up as if they were old shoes; their waning strength was
+exploited to the last breath, prolonging their agony and death. The
+important thing was to keep these animals on their feet a few minutes
+longer, until the _picadores_ could get into the plaza again; the bull
+would take charge of finishing the work.
+
+Carmen wished to go. Virgin of Hope! What was she doing there? She did
+not know the order the _matadores_ were to follow in their work. Maybe
+that last trumpet-blast signalled the moment in which her husband would
+stand before the wild beast. And she there, a few steps from him, and
+not seeing him! She wished to escape, to free herself from this torment.
+
+Moreover, the blood that ran through the courtyard, and the torment of
+those poor beasts, caused her the greatest anguish. Her womanly delicacy
+rebelled against these tortures, while she held her handkerchief to her
+nostrils to stifle the slaughter-house odors.
+
+She had never been to a bull-fight. A great part of her existence had
+been spent hearing conversation about bulls, but in the tales of these
+sports she saw only the external, what all the world saw, the events in
+the ring, in the light of the sun, with glitter of silks and
+embroideries and the ostentatious spectacle, without realizing the
+odious preparations that took place in the mystery of the wings. And
+they lived off this "sport," with its repugnant martyrdom of guiltless
+animals; and their fortune had been made at the cost of such spectacles!
+
+A loud applause broke out within the ring. Orders were issued in the
+courtyard with imperious voice. The first bull had just died. The
+barricade at the end of the passage that communicated with the ring was
+opened and the noises of the multitude and the echoes of the music were
+borne in with more intensity.
+
+The mules were in the plaza; one team to collect the dead horses,
+another to drag out the bull's carcass.
+
+Carmen saw her brother-in-law coming along the arcades. He was still
+tremulous with enthusiasm over what he had seen.
+
+"Juan--colossal! This afternoon as he never was before! Fear not. Why,
+that boy eats the bulls up alive!"
+
+Then he glanced at her uneasily, fearful that she would make him lose so
+interesting an afternoon. What did she decide? Did she think she had the
+courage to peep into the plaza?
+
+"Take me away!" she said with an agonized accent. "Get me out of here
+quickly. I am sick. Leave me in the first church we can find."
+
+The leather-worker made a wry face. By the life of Roger--! Leave such a
+magnificent bull-fight! And as they walked toward the door he was
+calculating where he could abandon Carmen so as to immediately return to
+the plaza.
+
+
+When the second bull came in, Gallardo, still leaning against the
+barrier, was receiving felicitations from his admirers. What courage
+that boy had--"when he wished." The whole plaza had applauded the first
+bull, forgetting their anger at the former _corridas_. When a _picador_
+fell and lay senseless from the terrible shock, Gallardo had rushed up
+with his cape, drawing the wild beast into the centre of the ring. He
+made some bold _veronicas_ that at last held the bull motionless and
+exhausted, after turning from the lure of the red rag. The bull-fighter,
+taking advantage of the animal's stupefaction, stood erect within a few
+steps of his muzzle, thrusting his body forward as if in challenge. He
+felt the heart-throbbing, that happy precursor of his great daring. He
+must conquer the public with a dash of audacity, and he knelt before
+the horns with a certain precaution, ready to arise at the slightest
+sign of charging.
+
+The bull stood quiet. Gallardo reached out a hand until he touched the
+drivelling muzzle and the animal made no movement whatever. Then he
+dared something that held the public in palpitating silence. Slowly he
+laid himself down on the sand, with the cape between his arms serving as
+a pillow, and thus he remained some seconds lying beneath the nose of
+the bull who sniffed him with a kind of fear, as if he suspected danger
+in this body that audaciously placed itself beneath his horns.
+
+When the bull, recovering his aggressive fierceness, lowered his horns,
+the bull-fighter rolled toward his feet, in this way putting himself out
+of his reach, and the animal passed over him, vainly seeking in his
+ferocious blindness the bulk that attacked him.
+
+Gallardo rose brushing off the dust, and the public, which adored feats
+of daring, applauded him with the old-time enthusiasm. It hailed not
+alone his audacity, it applauded itself, admiring its own majesty,
+guessing that the bull-fighter's daring was to reconcile himself with
+it, to regain its affection. Gallardo came to the _corrida_ disposed to
+the most daring deeds to reconquer applause.
+
+"He is careless," they said on the tiers of seats, "often he is slack;
+but he has bull-fighter pride and he is going to redeem his name."
+
+But the enthusiasm of the public, their gay excitement over Gallardo's
+achievement, and the true sword-thrust with which the other _matador_
+had killed the first bull, turned to ill-humor and protest as they saw
+the second in the ring. He was enormous and of beautiful build, but he
+ran through the centre of the arena looking with surprise at the noisy
+multitude on the bleachers, frightened at the voices and hisses that
+were meant to excite him, fleeing from his own shadow, as if he divined
+all kinds of intrigue. The _peones_ ran, waving the cape at him. He
+charged at the red rag, following it some instants, but suddenly he gave
+a snort of surprise and, turning his hind quarters, fled in the opposite
+direction with violent springs. His eagerness for flight infuriated the
+public.
+
+"That's no bull--it's a monkey."
+
+The swordsmen's capes finally managed to attract it toward the barrier,
+where the _picadores_ waited motionless on their mounts, with lance
+under arm. He approached a rider with lowered head and with fierce
+snorts as if to charge. But before the iron could be lodged in his neck,
+he gave a spring and ran, passing through the capes the _peones_ waved
+at him. In his flight he met another lancer and repeated the springing,
+the snorting and the flight. Then he met the third horseman, who,
+thrusting forward his lance, speared him in the neck, by this punishment
+only augmenting his fear and his speed.
+
+The public had risen to its feet _en masse_, gesticulating and shouting.
+A tame bull! What an abomination! Every one turned toward the president
+roaring his protest. "_Senor Presidente!_" That could not be allowed.
+
+A chorus of voices that repeated the same words with monotonous
+intonation began to rise from some sections.
+
+"Fire! Fi-i-ire!"
+
+The president seemed to hesitate. The bull was running, followed by the
+combatants, who chased after him, their capes over their arms. When any
+of these managed to head him off, or to stop him, he smelt the cloth
+with the usual snort and ran in a different direction, jumping and
+kicking.
+
+The noisy protest against these flights increased. "_Senor Presidente_!"
+Was his lordship deaf? Bottles, oranges, and seat cushions began to fall
+into the ring around the fugitive animal. The public hated it for its
+cowardice. One bottle struck on one of the horns and the people
+applauded this true shot though not knowing who it was. Many of the
+audience leaned forward as if about to throw themselves into the ring to
+destroy the bad beast with their hands. What a scandal! To see in the
+plaza of Madrid oxen that were only fit for meat! "Fire! Fire!"
+
+At last the president waved a red handkerchief and a salvo of applause
+greeted this signal.
+
+The fire _banderillas_ were an extraordinary sight; something
+unexpected, that augmented the interest of the _corrida_. Many who had
+protested until they were hoarse felt inward satisfaction at this
+incident. They were going to see the bull roasted alive, running mad
+with terror at the fire-streams that would be hanging from his neck.
+
+Nacional advanced carrying, hanging from his hands, with the points
+downward, two thick _banderillas_ that seemed to be encased in black
+paper. He went toward the bull without great precaution, as if his
+cowardice merited no art whatever, and he lodged the infernal barbs to
+the accompaniment of the vengeful applause of the multitude.
+
+There was a crackling sound as if something broke and two spirals of
+white smoke began to blaze on the animal's neck. In the light of the sun
+the fire could not be seen, but the hair singed and disappeared and a
+black mark extended around the neck. The bull ran, surprised at the
+attack, accelerating his flight as though thus to free himself from
+torment, until suddenly detonations like gunshots began to burst on his
+neck, the burning embers of paper flying around his eyes. The animal
+sprang aloft, filled with terror, his four feet in the air at once,
+vainly twisting his horned head to pull out with his mouth those demons
+clutched upon his neck. The people laughed and applauded, thinking his
+springs and contortions funny. It seemed as if, with his strong heavy
+body, he were executing a trained animal's dance.
+
+"How they sting him," they exclaimed, with ferocious laughter.
+
+The _banderillas_ ceased crackling and bursting. His carbonized neck was
+covered with blisters of fat. The bull, no longer feeling the burning of
+the fire, stood motionless, breathing hard, his head lowered, thrusting
+out his dry dark-red tongue.
+
+Another _banderillero_ approached him and put in a second pair. The
+smoke spirals rose again above the charred flesh, the shots resounded
+and the bull ran madly, trying to reach his neck with his mouth by
+twisting his massive body; but now his movements were less violent, as
+though the vigorous animal began to habituate itself to martyrdom.
+
+Still a third pair was lodged, and his neck became carbonized, shedding
+through the ring a nauseating odor of melted grease, burnt hide, and
+hair consumed by fire.
+
+The public continued applauding with vengeful frenzy, as though the
+gentle animal were an adversary of their beliefs and they did a pious
+deed in burning him. They laughed when they saw him tremulous on his
+legs, moving his flanks like the sides of a bellows, lowing with a
+shrieking howl of pain, his eyes reddened, and dragging his tongue over
+the sand, greedy for a sensation of coolness.
+
+Gallardo, leaning against the barrier, near the president's box, awaited
+the sign to kill. Garabato had the sword and _muleta_ ready on the edge
+of the wall.
+
+"Curse it!" The bull-fight had begun so well, and for bad luck to
+reserve this bull for him, the one he himself had chosen on account of
+its fine appearance, but which now that it trod the arena turned out to
+be tame!
+
+He excused himself in advance for defective work, talking with the
+"intelligent" who occupied seats near the barrier.
+
+"What can be done will be done--and no more," he said, shrugging his
+shoulders.
+
+Then he turned toward the boxes, gazing at Dona Sol's. She had applauded
+him before, when he achieved his stupendous feat of lying down before
+the bull. Her gloved hands clapped with enthusiasm when he turned toward
+the barrier, bowing to the public. When Dona Sol saw that the
+bull-fighter was looking at her, she bowed to him with an affectionate
+manner, and even her companion, despicable fool! had joined this
+salutation with a stiff inclination of the body as if he were going to
+break off at the waist. Afterward he had several times surprised her
+glasses directed persistently at him, seeking him out in his retirement
+between barriers. That _gachi_! Perhaps she felt re-attracted to him.
+Gallardo decided to call on her next day, to see if the wind had
+changed.
+
+The signal to kill was given and the swordsman, after a short speech,
+strode up to the animal.
+
+His admirers shouted advice.
+
+"Despatch him quick! He is an ox that deserves nothing."
+
+The bull-fighter held his _muleta_ before the animal, which charged, but
+with a slow step made cautious by torture, with a manifest intention of
+crushing, of wounding, as if martyrdom had awakened all his ferocity.
+That man was the first object which had placed itself before his horns
+since the torture.
+
+The multitude felt its vengeful animosity against the bull vanish. He
+did not recover himself badly; he charged. _Ole!_ And all hailed the
+_pases de muleta_ with enthusiasm, including combatant and wild beast in
+common approbation.
+
+The bull stood motionless, lowering his head, with his tongue
+protruding. Silence, the forerunner of the mortal thrust, fell; a
+silence greater than that of absolute solitude, product of many
+thousands of bated breaths; silence so intense that the faintest sound
+in the ring carried to the most distant seats. All heard a slight
+clashing of sticks striking against each other. It was the sound made
+when Gallardo with the point of his sword laid back over the bull's neck
+the charred shafts of the _banderillas_ that rested between the horns.
+After this arrangement to facilitate the blow, the multitude thrust
+their heads still farther forward, responsive to the mysterious
+correspondence that had just been established between its will and that
+of the _matador_. "Now!" He was going to fell the bull with a masterful
+stroke. All divined the swordsman's resolution.
+
+Gallardo threw himself upon the bull and the whole audience breathed
+hard in unison after the nerve-straining pause. The animal drew away
+from the encounter, running, bellowing with fury, while the rows of
+seats burst out into hisses and protests. As usual! Gallardo had turned
+away his face and bent his arm at the moment of killing. The animal bore
+in his neck the loose and wavering sword, and after taking a few steps
+the steel blade sprang out of the flesh and rolled on the sand.
+
+Part of the public rebuked Gallardo. The charm that had united the
+swordsman to the multitude at the beginning of the feast was broken.
+Lack of confidence reappeared; criticism of the bull-fighter spread. All
+seemed to have forgotten the enthusiasm of a short time before.
+
+Gallardo recovered his sword and with bowed head, lacking spirit to
+protest at the ingratitude of a multitude tolerant to others, inflexible
+with him, strode up to the bull again.
+
+In his confusion he thought he saw a bull-fighter place himself at his
+side. It must be Nacional.
+
+"Be calm, Juan! Don't get rattled."
+
+"Damn it!" Must the same thing always happen to him? Could he no longer
+thrust his arm between the horns, as in other times, burying the sword
+to the hilt? Was he to spend the rest of his life making audiences
+laugh? An ox which they had had to set on fire!
+
+He placed himself before the animal, which seemed to await him, his legs
+motionless as if he wished to put an end immediately to his long
+torture. He would not make more passes with the _muleta_. He squared
+himself, the red rag held near the ground, the sword horizontal at the
+height of his eyes. Now for the stroke!
+
+The audience rose to its feet with a sudden impulse. For some seconds
+man and beast formed but a single mass and thus moved a few steps. The
+most intelligent raised their hands ready to applaud. He had thrown
+himself to kill as in his better days. A master stroke!
+
+But suddenly the man emerged from between the horns hurled like a
+projectile by a powerful toss of the bull's head, and rolled along the
+sand. The bull lowered his head and his horns hooked up the body,
+raising it from the ground an instant and letting it fall, to continue
+on his race, bearing in his neck the blade of the sword, embedded to the
+cross!
+
+Gallardo slowly raised himself and the plaza burst forth into a
+deafening applause, eager to repair its injustice. Hurrah! Good for the
+bull-fighter of Seville! He had done well!
+
+But the bull-fighter did not respond to these exclamations of
+enthusiasm. He put his hands on his abdomen, bent over in an attitude of
+pain, and took a few hesitating steps with lowered head. Twice he raised
+it and looked toward the door of exit--as if he feared he could not find
+it, staggering blindly as though intoxicated.
+
+Suddenly he fell upon the sand--contracted like an enormous worm of silk
+and gold. Four _mozos_ of the plaza slowly lifted him up until they
+raised him on their shoulders. Nacional joined the group holding the
+swordsman's ghastly head with its glassy eyes showing through their
+half-closed lashes.
+
+The public made a movement of surprise, ceasing their applause. Every
+one gazed about, undecided as to the gravity of the event. But suddenly
+optimistic news circulated, coming from no one knew where; that
+anonymous opinion, which all heed and which at certain moments fires a
+multitude or causes it to remain motionless. It was nothing. A wound in
+the abdomen that deprived him of his senses. No one had seen blood.
+
+The crowd, suddenly tranquillized, began to be seated again, turning its
+attention from the wounded bull-fighter to the wild beast, which was
+still on its feet, resisting the agonies of death.
+
+Nacional helped to place his _maestro_ on a bed in the infirmary. He
+fell on it like a sack, inanimate, his arms hanging outside the couch.
+
+Sebastian, though he had often seen his _maestro_ wounded and bleeding,
+and had kept his serenity in spite of it, now felt an agony of fear,
+seeing him inert and of a greenish white color, as if he were dead.
+
+"By the life of the blue dove!" he moaned. "Are there no doctors? Is
+there nobody here?"
+
+The man in charge of the hospital, after sending away the mangled
+_picador_, had rushed back to his box in the plaza.
+
+The _banderillero_ was in despair; the seconds seemed hours; he screamed
+to Garabato and to Potaje who had followed after him, not sure what he
+was trying to tell them.
+
+Two doctors came and after closing the door so that no one could disturb
+them, they stood undecided before the swordsman's inanimate body. He
+must be undressed. Garabato began to unbutton, rip, and tear the
+bull-fighter's clothing, by the light that entered through a window in
+the ceiling.
+
+Nacional could hardly see the body. The doctors stood around the wounded
+man, consulting each other with significant glances. It must be a
+collapse that had apparently deprived him of life. No blood was seen.
+The rents in his clothing were the effect, no doubt, of the tumbling the
+bull had given him.
+
+Doctor Ruiz entered hastily and his colleagues made way for him,
+respecting his skill. He swore in his nervous precipitation while he
+began to assist Garabato to open the bull-fighter's clothing.
+
+There was a movement of astonishment, of painful surprise, around the
+bed. The _banderillero_ dared not inquire. He looked between the heads
+of the doctors and saw Gallardo's body with the shirt raised above his
+breast. The naked abdomen was gashed by a tortuous aperture like
+bleeding lips, through which appeared patches of bright blue.
+
+Doctor Ruiz sadly shook his head. Besides the atrocious and incurable
+wound, the bull-fighter had received a tremendous shock from the bull's
+tossing. He did not breathe.
+
+"Doctor--doctor!" cried the _banderillero_, begging to know the truth.
+
+Doctor Ruiz, after a long silence, shook his head again.
+
+"It is all over, Sebastian. Thou must seek another _matador_."
+
+Nacional raised his eyes aloft. Thus to end a man like that, unable to
+press the hand of his friends, without a word, suddenly, like a
+miserable rabbit struck in the neck!
+
+In despair he left the infirmary. Ah, he could not see that! He was not
+like Potaje who stood quiet and frowning at the foot of the bed,
+contemplating the body as though he did not see it, while he twirled his
+beaver hat in his fingers.
+
+He was about to cry like a child. His breast heaved with anguish, and
+his eyes filled with tears.
+
+He had to make way through the courtyard to give passage to the
+_picadores_ who were entering the ring again.
+
+The terrible news began to circulate through the plaza. Gallardo was
+dead! Some doubted the truth of the information; others accepted it;
+still no one moved from his seat. The third bull was soon to come in.
+The _corrida_ had not yet reached its first half, and there was no
+reason for abandoning it.
+
+Through the door of the ring came the murmur of the multitude and the
+sound of music.
+
+The _banderillero_ felt a fierce hatred born within him for all that
+surrounded him; an aversion to his profession and to the public that
+supported it. In his memory danced the sonorous words with which he had
+made the people laugh, finding in them now a new expression of justice.
+
+He thought of the bull which was at that moment being dragged out of the
+arena, its neck burned and blood-stained, its legs rigid, and its glassy
+eyes staring at blue space as do those of the dead.
+
+Then in imagination he saw the friend who lay but a few steps away from
+him on the other side of a brick wall, also motionless and stiff, his
+breast bare, his abdomen torn open, a glazed and mysterious brilliancy
+between his half-closed lashes.
+
+Poor bull! Poor _matador_!
+
+Suddenly the murmuring amphitheatre burst forth into a bellowing,
+hailing the continuation of the spectacle. Nacional closed his eyes and
+clenched his fists.
+
+It was the bellowing of the wild beast, the real and only one!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Blood of the Arena, by Vicente Blasco Ibanez
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