Blood and Sand

CHAPTER VIII

In the middle of spring the temperature suddenly fell, with the violent extremes of the uncertain and fickle Madrid climate.

It was very cold. A grey sky poured down torrents of rain, mingled with flakes of snow, and people who were already dressed in their light clothes, opened boxes and cupboards in search of cloaks and wraps.

For two weeks there had been no function in the Plaza de Toros. The Sunday corrida had been fixed for the first weekday on which it should be fine. The manager, the employés of the Plaza and the innumerable amateurs whom this enforced inaction put out of temper, watched the sky with the anxiety of peasants who are fearing for their harvest. A slight rent in the sky or the appearance of a few stars as they left their cafés at midnight raised their spirits.

"The weather is lifting.... We shall have a corrida the day after to-morrow."

But the clouds rolled together again, and the leaden sky continued to pour down its torrents. The aficionados were furious with the weather, which seemed to have set itself against the national sport. Horrid climate! which made even corridas impossible.

Gallardo had, therefore, a fortnight of enforced rest. His cuadrilla complained bitterly of the inaction. In any other town in Spain the men would have resigned themselves to the detention, because the espada paid all their hotel expenses in every place but Madrid. It was a bad custom initiated by former maestros living near the capital. It was supposed that the proper domicile of every real torero was in la Corte,[102] and the poor peons and picadors, who lodged in a boarding-house kept by the widow of a banderillero, eked out their existence by all sorts of petty economies, smoking but little, and standing outside the café doors. They thought of their families with the avarice of men who only receive a few coins in exchange for their blood. By the time these two corridas had come off they would already have devoured their earnings in anticipation.

The espada was equally ill-humoured in the solitude of his hotel, not on account of the weather, but on account of his ill luck.

He had fought his first corrida in Madrid with deplorable results, and the public were quite different to him. He still had many partizans of unquenchable faith, who rose in arms for his defence, but even those enthusiasts, so noisy and aggressive the previous year, now showed a certain reserve, and when they found occasion to applaud him they did so timidly. On the other hand, his enemies and the great mass of the populace always anxious for danger and death, how unjust they were in their judgments!... How ready to insult him!... What was tolerated in other matadors seemed vetoed for him.

They had seen him full of courage, throwing himself blindly into danger, and so they wished him to be always, till death should cut short his career. He had played almost suicidally with fate, when he was anxious to make a name for himself, and now people could not reconcile themselves to his prudence. Insults were always hurled at any attempt at self preservation. As certainly as he spread the muleta at a certain distance from the bull, so certainly the protests broke forth. He did not throw himself on the bull! He was afraid! And it was sufficient for him to throw himself one step back for the people to greet this precaution with filthy insults.

The news of what had happened in Seville at the Easter corrida seemed to have circulated throughout Spain. His enemies were taking their revenge for long years of envy and jealousy. His professional companions whom he had often forced into danger from a feeling of emulation now babbled with hypocritical expressions of pity about Gallardo's decadence. His courage had given out! His last cogida had made him over prudent. And the audience, influenced by these rumours, now fixed their eyes on the torero as soon as he entered the Plaza, predisposed to find anything he did bad, just as previously they had applauded even his faults.

The fickleness so characteristic of mobs had much to say to this change of opinion. The people were tired of watching Gallardo's courage, and now they enjoyed watching his fear—or his prudence—as if it made themselves the braver.

The public never thought he was close enough to his bull. He must throw himself better on it! And when he, overcoming by sheer strength of will that nervousness which longed to fly from danger, had succeeded in killing a bull as in former days, the ovation was neither so prolonged nor so vehement. He seemed to have broken the current of enthusiasm which had formerly existed between himself and the populace. His scanty triumphs only served to make the people worry him with lectures and advice. That was the way to kill! You ought always to kill like that! Great cheat!

His faithful partizans recognized his failures, but they excused them, speaking of the former exploits performed by the espada on his lucky afternoons.

"He is somewhat over careful," they said. "He seems tired. But when he wishes!"...

Ay! but Gallardo always wished. Why could he not do well and gain the applause of the populace? But his successes, that the aficionados thought a caprice of his will, were really the work of chance or of a happy conjunction of circumstances, of that heart-throb of the olden days which now he so very seldom felt.

In many of the provincial Plazas he had been whistled, the people on the sunny side insulted him by the tooting of horns and the ringing of cow bells whenever he delayed in killing a bull, by giving it half-hearted estocades which did not make it bend its knees.

In Madrid the people waited for him "with their claws," as he said. As soon as the spectators of the first corrida saw him pass the bull with the muleta, and enter to kill, the row broke out. That lad from Seville had been changed! That was not Gallardo; it was some one else. He shortened his arm, he turned away his face; he ran with the quickness of a squirrel, putting himself out of reach of the bull's horns, without the calmness to stand quietly and wait for him. They noted a deplorable loss of courage and strength.

That corrida was a fiasco for Gallardo, and in the evening assemblies of the aficionados the affair was much canvassed. The old people who thought everything in the present day was bad spoke of the cowardice of modern toreros. They presented themselves with mad daring, but as soon as they felt the touch of a horn on their flesh ... they were done for!

Gallardo, obliged to rest in consequence of the bad weather, waited impatiently for the second corrida, with the fullest intention of performing great exploits. He was much pained at the wound inflicted on his amour-propre by the ridicule of his enemies; if he returned to the provinces with the bad reputation of a fiasco in Madrid he was a lost man. He would master his nervousness, vanquish that dread which made him shrink and fancy the bulls larger and more formidable. He considered his strength quite equal to accomplish the same deeds as before. It was true there still remained a slight weakness in his arm and in his leg, but that would soon pass off.

His manager suggested his accepting a very advantageous contract for certain Plazas in America, but he refused. No, he could not cross the seas at present. He must first show Spain that he was the same espada as heretofore. Afterwards he would consider the propriety of undertaking that journey.

With the anxiety of a popular man who feels his prestige broken, Gallardo frequented the places where all the aficionados assembled. He went often to the Café Ingles, which the partisans of the Andalusian toreros frequented, thinking his presence would silence all unpleasant remarks. He himself, modest and smiling, began the conversation, with a humility that disarmed even the most irreconcilable.

"It is quite certain I did not do well, I quite recognize it. But you will see at the next corrida, when the weather clears.... I will do what I can."

He did not dare to enter certain cafés in the Puerta del Sol, where aficionados of a lower class assembled. They were thorough-going Madrileños, inimical to Andalusian bull-fighting, and resentful that all the matadors came from Seville and Cordoba, while the capital seemed unable to produce a glorious representative. The remembrance of Frascuelo, whom they considered a son of Madrid, lived everlastingly in those assemblies. Many of them had not been to the Plaza for years, not in fact since the retirement of "El Negro." Why should they? They were quite content to read the reports in the papers, being convinced that since Frascuelo's death there were neither bulls nor toreros, Andalusian lads and nothing more, dancers who made grimaces with their capes and their bodies, but did not know how to stand and "receive" a bull with dignity.

Now and again a slight breath of hope revived them. Madrid was soon going to have its own great matador. They had discovered in the suburbs a "novillero," who had already done good work in the Plazas of Vallecas and Tetuan, and had fought in the Madrid Plaza at the cheap Sunday afternoon corridas.

His name was becoming popular. In all the barbers' shops the greatest triumphs were predicted for him, but somehow or other those prophecies were never fulfilled, either the aspirant fell a victim to a mortal "cogida" or dropped into being one of the loafers in the Plaza del Sol, who aired their pigtails while they waited for imaginary contracts, and the aficionados were free to turn their attention to other rising stars.

Gallardo did not dare to approach the tauromachic demagogy, whom he knew had always hated him and were rejoicing at his decadence. Most of them would not go to see him in the circus, nor admire any torero of the present day. Their expected Messiah must arrive before they returned to the Plaza.

In order to distract his mind Gallardo would wander in the evenings through the Puerta del Sol, and allow himself to be accosted by those bull-fighting vagabonds who assembled there, boasting of their exploits; they were all smart, well dressed, with a marvellous display of imitation jewellery. They all saluted him respectfully as "Maestro" or "Seño Juan"; some were honest fellows enough, who hoped to make a name for themselves, and maintain their families by something more than workmen's wages, others were less scrupulous, but all ended by borrowing a few pesetas from him.

In addition to the amusement offered by those would-be toreros, he was much diverted by the importunity of an admirer who pestered him with his projects. This man was a tavern-keeper at Las Ventas, a rough Galician of powerful build, short-necked and high-coloured, who had made a little fortune in his shop where soldiers and servants went to dance on Sundays.

He had only one son, small of stature, and feeble in constitution, whom his father destined to be one of the great lights of tauromachia. The tavern-keeper, a great admirer of Gallardo and of all celebrated espadas, had quite made up his mind to this.

"The lad is worth something," he said. "You know, Señor Juan, that I understand something about these matters, and I am quite willing to spend a bit of money to give him a profession ... but he wants a 'padrino'[103] if he is to be pushed, and there could be no one better than yourself. If you would only arrange a novillada in which the youngster could kill! Crowds of people would go, and I would bear all the expenses."

This readiness to "bear all the expenses" to help the lad on in his career had already caused the tavern-keeper heavy losses. But he still persisted, being supported by that commercial spirit which made him overlook the failures, in the hope of the enormous gains his son would make when he was a full-fledged matador.

The poor boy, who in his early years had shown a passion for bull-fighting, like most boys of his class, now found himself a prisoner to his father's tyrannical will. The latter had thoroughly believed in his vocation, thinking the boy's want of dash, laziness; and his fear, want of enterprise. A cloud of parasites, low class amateurs, obscure toreros whose only remembrances of the past were their pigtails, who drank gratuitously at the tavern-keeper's expense, and begged small loans in return for their advice, formed a kind of deliberative assembly, whose object was to make known to the world this bull-fighting star, now lying hidden in Las Ventas.

The tavern-keeper, without consulting his son, had organized corridas in Tetuan and Vallecas, always "bearing all the expenses." These outlying Plazas were open to all those who wished to be gored or trampled by bulls, under the eyes of a few hundred spectators. But those amusements were not to be had for nothing. To enjoy the pleasure of being rolled over in the sand, to have his breeches torn to rags, and his body covered with blood and dirt, it was necessary to pay for all the seats in the Plaza, the diestro or his representative undertaking to distribute the tickets.

The enthusiastic father filled all the places with his friends, distributing the entrances amongst comrades of the guild, or poor amateurs of the sport. Moreover, he paid those who formed his son's cuadrilla lavishly, all vagabonds, peons and banderilleros, recruited from among the loafers in the Puerta del Sol, who fought in their everyday clothes, whereas the youngster was resplendent in his gala costume. Anything for the lad's career!

"He has a new gala dress made by the best tailor, who dresses Gallardo and the other matadors. Seven thousand reals it cost me. I think he ought to be fine in that!... But I would spend my last peseta to get him on. Ah! if others had a father like me!..."

The tavern-keeper stood between the barriers during the corrida, encouraging the espada by his presence, and by the flourishing of a big stick. Whenever the youngster came to rest by the wall the fat red face of his father and the big knob of that terrible stick would appear like terrifying phantoms.

"Do you think I am spending my money for this? Why are you here giving yourself airs and graces like a young lady? Have some dash and enterprise, rascal. Go out into the middle and distinguish yourself. Ay! if I were only your age and not so stout...."

When the poor lad stood opposite the novillo, the muleta and rapier in his hands, with pale face and trembling legs, his father followed all his evolutions from behind the barrier. He was always before the boy's eyes like a threatening master, ready to chastise the slightest fault in the lesson.

What the poor diestro, dressed in his suit of gold and red silk, most feared, was his return home on the evenings when his father was frowning and dissatisfied.

He would enter the tavern wrapping himself in his rich and glittering cape, to hide the rags of shirt protruding through rents in his breeches, all his bones aching with tosses the young bulls had given him. His mother, a rough, coarse-faced woman, upset by her afternoon's anxious wait, would run to meet him open armed.

"Here's this coward!" roared the tavern-keeper. "He is worse than a 'maleta.' And it is for this that I have spent money!"

The terrible stick was raised furiously, and the golden suited lad, who just before had murdered two poor little bulls, endeavoured to run away, shielding his face with his arm, while his mother interposed between the two.

"Don't you see he is wounded?"

"Wounded!" exclaimed the father bitterly, regretting it was not the case. "That is for 'true' toreros. Put a few stitches in his rags, and see they are washed.... Just see how they have served the cheat!"

But in a few days the tavern-keeper had recovered his equanimity. Anybody might have a bad day. He had seen famous matadors in just as bad case before the public as his boy. And he forthwith arranged fresh corridas in Toledo and Guadalajara, he, as before, "paying all the expenses."

His novillada in the Madrid Plaza was, according to the tavern-keeper, one of the most splendid on record. The espada, by a lucky accident, had killed two young bulls moderately well, and the public, who for the most part had entered free, applauded the tavern-keeper's son.

As he came out of the Plaza his father appeared at the head of a noisy troup of loafers, whom he had collected from all round the neighbourhood. The tavern-keeper was an honest man in his dealings, and he had promised to pay them fifty centimes a head if they would shout "Vive El Manitas"! till they were hoarse, and carry the glorious novillero on their shoulders as soon as he came out of the circus.

"El Manitas," still trembling from his recent perils, found himself surrounded, seized and lifted on to the shoulders of the noisy loafers, and carried in triumph from the Plaza to Las Ventas, through the Calle de Alcala, followed by the inquisitive looks of the people on the tramways, which remorselessly cut through the glorious manifestation. The father walked along with his stick under his arm, pretending to have nothing to do with it, but whenever the shouting slackened he forgot himself and ran to the head of the crowd, like a man who does not think he is getting his money's worth, himself giving the signal, "Viva Manitas," when the ovation would recommence with tremendous shouting.

Many months had passed, and the tavern-keeper was still excited as he remembered the affair.

"They brought him back to the house on their shoulders, Señor Juan, just the same as they have often carried you; forgive me the comparison. You will see if the youngster is not worth something.... He only wants a push, for you to give him a helping hand."...

So Gallardo, to free himself, answered, promising vaguely; possibly he might manage to direct the novillada, but they could settle that later on, there was still plenty of time before winter.

One evening at dusk, as the torero was entering the Calle de Alcala through the Puerta del Sol he gave a start of surprise. A fair-haired lady was getting out of a carriage at the door of the Hotel de Paris.... Doña Sol! A man who looked like a foreigner gave her his hand to descend, and after speaking a few words walked away, while she entered the hotel.

It was Doña Sol. The torero could have no doubt on that point; neither could he have any doubt as to the relations subsisting between her and the stranger. So she had looked at him, so she had smiled on him in those happy days when they rode together over the lonely country in the crimson light of the setting sun. Curse him!

He spent an uncomfortable evening with some friends, and afterwards slept badly; his dreams reproducing many scenes of the past. When he awoke the dull grey light was coming in through the window, rain mingled with snow was pouring down in torrents, everything looked black, the sky, the opposite walls, the muddy pavement, the umbrellas, even the smart carriages rattling along.

Eleven o'clock. Suppose he went to see Doña Sol? Why not! The night before he had angrily rejected this thought. It would be lowering himself. She had gone away without any explanation, and afterwards, knowing him to be in danger of death, she had scarcely enquired after him. Only a telegram just at first, not even a short letter, not even a line. She who was so fond of writing to her friends. No, he would not go to see her.

But his strength of will seemed to have evaporated during the night. Why not? he asked himself once again. He must see her again. Among all the women he had known she stood first, attracting him with a strength quite different from anything he felt for the others. Ay! how much he had felt that sudden separation!

His cruel "cogida" in the Plaza of Seville had cut short his amorous pique. Afterwards his illness, and his tender approximation to Carmen during his convalescence, had resigned him to his misfortune; but to forget her ... that—never. He had done his best to forget the past, but any slight circumstance, a lady on horseback galloping past—a fair-haired Englishwoman in the street, the constant intercourse with all those young men who were her relations, everything recalled the image of Doña Sol! Ay! that woman!... Never should he meet her like again. Losing her, Gallardo seemed to have gone back in his life, he was no longer the same. He even attributed to her desertion his fiascos in his art. When he had her he was braver, but when the fair-haired gachi left him his ill luck began. He firmly believed that if she returned his glorious days would also come back. His superstitious heart believed this most firmly.

Possibly his longing to see her was a happy inspiration, like those heart-throbs which had so often carried him on to glory in the circus. Again, why not? Possibly Doña Sol seeing him again after a long absence ... who could tell!... The first time they had seen each other alone together it had been so.

And so Gallardo, trusting in his lucky star, took his way towards the Hotel de Paris, situated at a short distance from his own.

He had to wait nearly half an hour on a divan in the hall, under the curious eyes of the hotel employés and guests, who turned to look at him as they heard his name.

Finally a servant showed him into the lift, and took him up to a small sitting-room on the first floor, from whose windows he could see all the restless life of the Puerta del Sol.

At last a little door opened and Doña Sol appeared amid a rustling of silks, and the delicate perfume which seemed to belong to her fresh pink skin; radiant in the beautiful summer time of her life.

Gallardo devoured her with his eyes, looking her up and down as one who had not forgotten the smallest detail. She was just the same as in Seville!... No, even more beautiful in his eyes, with the added temptation of her long absence.

She was dressed in much the same elegant negligé, with the same strange jewels as on the night when he had first seen her, with gold embroidered papouches on her pretty feet. She stretched out her hand with cold amiability.

"How are you, Gallardo?... I knew you were in Madrid, for I had seen you."

She no longer used the familiar "tu," to which he had responded with the respectful address of a lover of inferior class. That "usted," which seemed to make them equals, drove the torero to despair. He had wished to be as a servant raised by love to the arms of the great lady, and now he found himself treated with the cold but courteous consideration of an ordinary friend.

She explained that she had seen Gallardo, having been at the only corrida given in Madrid. She had been there with a foreign gentleman, who wished to know Spanish things: a friend who was accompanying her on her journey, but who was living at another hotel.

Gallardo replied by a nod. He knew that foreigner—he had seen him with her.

There was a long silence between the two, neither knowing what to say. Doña Sol was the first to break it.

She thought the torero looking very well: she remembered vaguely having heard something about an accident, indeed she was almost sure that she had sent a telegram to enquire. But, really, with the life she led, with constant changes of country and new friendships, her memory was in such a state of confusion!... She thought he looked just the same as ever, and at the corrida he had seemed proud and strong, although rather unfortunate. But she did not understand much about bulls.

"That 'cogida' was not really much?"

Gallardo felt irritated at the indifferent tone in which that woman made the enquiry. And he! all the time he was hovering between life and death he had thought only of her!... With a roughness born of indignation he told her about his "cogida" and his long convalescence, which had lasted the whole winter.

She listened with feigned interest, while her eyes betrayed utter indifference. What did the misfortune of that bull-fighter signify to her.... They were accidents of his profession, and as such could be interesting to himself only.

As Gallardo spoke of his convalescence at the Grange, his memory recalled the image of the man who had seen Doña Sol and himself there together.

"And Plumitas? Do you remember the poor fellow? They killed him. I do not know if you heard of it."

Doña Sol also remembered this vaguely. She had probably read about it in one of the Parisian papers, which spoke of the bandit as a most interesting type of picturesque Spain.

"A poor man," said Doña Sol indifferently. "I scarcely remember him except as a rough uninteresting peasant. From a distance one judges things at their true value. What I do remember is the day on which he breakfasted with us at the farm."

Gallardo also remembered that day. Poor Plumitas! With what emotion he took a flower offered by Doña Sol ... because she had given the bandit a flower as she took leave of him. Did she not remember?...

Doña Sol's eyes expressed absolute wonder.

"Are you quite sure?" she asked. "Is that really so? I swear to you I remember nothing about it.... Ay! that sunny land! Ay! the intoxication of the picturesque! Ay! the follies they make one commit!..."

Her exclamations betrayed a kind of repentance, but she burst out laughing.

"Very possibly that poor peasant kept that flower till his last moment. Don't you think so, Gallardo? Don't say 'No.' Probably no one had ever given him a flower in all his life.... It is quite possible that that withered flower may have been found on his body, a mysterious remembrance that no one could explain.... Did you know nothing of this, Gallardo? Did the papers say nothing?... Be silent, don't say 'No'; do not dispel my illusions. So it ought to be—I wish it to be so. Poor Plumitas! How interesting! And I who had forgotten all about the flower!... I must tell that to my friend, who is thinking of writing a book about Spanish things."

The remembrance of that friend, who for the second time in a few moments came up in the conversation, saddened the torero.

He looked fixedly for some time at the beautiful woman, with his melancholy Moorish eyes, which seemed to beg for pity.

"Doña Sol!... Doña Sol!" murmured he in despairing accents, as if wishing to reproach her with her cruelty.

"What is the matter, my friend?" she asked smiling, "what is happening to you?"

Gallardo sat with his head bent, half intimidated by the ironical flash in those clear eyes, shimmering like gold dust.

Suddenly he sat up like one who has taken a resolution.

"Where have you been all this time, Doña Sol?"

"All over the world," she answered simply. "I am a bird of passage. In numberless towns of which you would not even know the names."

"And that foreigner who accompanies you is ... is?"...

"Is a friend," she answered coldly. "A friend who has been kind enough to accompany me, taking advantage of the opportunity to know Spain; a clever man who bears an illustrious name. From here we shall go to Andalusia, when he has done seeing the museums. What more do you wish to know?"

This question, so haughtily asked, showed her imperious will to keep the torero at a distance, and to re-establish social distinctions between them. Gallardo felt disconcerted.

"Doña Sol," he moaned ingenuously. "What you have done to me is unpardonable. You have acted very badly towards me, very badly indeed.... Why did you fly without saying a single word?"

"Don't vex yourself like that, Gallardo. What I did was a very good thing for you. Do you not even yet know me well enough? Could one not get tired of that time?... If I were a man I would fly from women of my character. It is suicidal for a man to fall in love with me."

"But why did you leave?" persisted Gallardo.

"Because I was bored.... Do I speak clearly?... And when a person is bored, I think they have every right to escape in search of fresh distraction. But I am bored to death everywhere; pity me."

"But I love you with all my heart!" exclaimed the torero with a dramatic earnestness which in another man would have made him laugh.

"I love you with all my heart!" repeated Doña Sol, mimicking his voice and gesture. "And what then? Ay! these egotistical men that are applauded by every one, and who think that everything was created for them!... 'I love you with all my heart,' and that is sufficient reason for you to love me in return.... But no, Señor. I do not love you, Gallardo. You are a friend and nothing more. All the rest, all that down in Seville, was a dream, a mad caprice, which I hardly remember, and which you ought to forget."

The torero got up, going towards her with outstretched arms. In his ignorance he knew not what to say, guessing that his halting words would be quite inefficacious in convincing such a woman. He trusted in action, with the impulsive vehemence of his hopes and his desires, he intended to seize that woman, to draw her to him, and dispel with his warm embrace the coldness which separated them.

But she, with a simple turn of her right hand, pushed away the torero's arms. A flash of pride and anger shone in her eyes, and she drew herself up aggressively, as if she had been insulted.

"Be quiet, Gallardo!... If you go on like this you will no longer be my friend, and I shall have you turned out of the house."

The torero stood humiliated and ashamed; some time passed in silence, until at last Doña Sol seemed to pity him.

"Do not be a child," she said. "What is the use of remembering what is no longer possible. Why think of me? You have your wife, who I am told is both pretty and good, a kind companion. If not her, then others. There are plenty of girls down in Seville who would think it happiness to be loved by Gallardo. My love is ended. As a famous man accustomed to success your pride is hurt; but it is so; mine is ended. You are a friend and nothing more. I am quite different. I am bored, and I never retrace my steps. Illusions only last with me a short time, and pass, leaving no trace. I am to be pitied, believe me."

She looked at the torero with commiserating eyes, as if she suddenly saw all his defects and roughness.

"I think things that you could not understand," she went on. "You seem to me different. The Gallardo in Seville was not the same as the one here. Are you the same?... I cannot doubt it, but to me you are different.... How can this be explained?..."

She looked through the window at the dull rainy sky, at the wet Plaza, at the flakes of snow, and then she turned her eyes on the espada, looking with astonishment at the long lock of hair plastered on his head, at his clothes, his hat, at all the details which betrayed his profession, which contrasted so strongly with his smart and modern dress.

To Doña Sol the torero seemed out of his element. Down in Seville Gallardo was a hero, the spontaneous product of a cattle-breeding country; here he seemed like an actor. How had she been able for many months to feel love for that rough, coarse man. Ay! the surrounding atmosphere! To what follies it drove one!

She remembered the danger in which she found herself, so nearly perishing beneath the bull's horns; she thought of that breakfast with the bandit, to whom she had listened stupefied with admiration, ending by giving him a flower. What follies! And how far off it all now seemed!

Of that past nothing remained but that man, standing motionless before her, with his imploring eyes, and his childish desire to revive those days.... Poor man! As if follies could be repeated when one's thoughts were cold and the illusion wanting. The blind enchantment of life!

"It is all over," said the lady. "We must forget the past, for when we see it a second time it does not present itself in the same colours. What would I give to have my former eyes?... When I returned to Spain it seemed to me changed. You also are different from what I knew you. It even seemed to me, seeing you in the Plaza, that you were less daring ... that the people were less enthusiastic."

She said this quite simply, without a trace of malice, but Gallardo thought there was mocking in her voice, and bent his head, while his cheeks coloured.

Curse it! All his professional anxieties arose again in his mind. All the evil which was happening to him was because he did not now throw himself on the bulls. That is what she so clearly said, she saw him "as if he were another." If he could only be the Gallardo of former days, perhaps she would receive him better. Women only love brave man.

But he was mistaken, taking what was a caprice dead for ever, to be a momentary straying, that he could recall by strength and prowess.

Doña Sol got up. The visit had been a long one, and the torero showed no disposition to leave, content with being near her, and trusting to some lucky chance to bring them together again.

Gallardo was obliged to imitate her. She excused herself under pretext of going out, she was expecting her friend, and they were going together to the Museum of the Prado.

Then she invited him to breakfast another day, an unceremonious breakfast in her rooms. Her friend would come. No doubt he would be delighted to meet a torero; he scarcely spoke any Spanish, but all the same he would be pleased to know Gallardo.

The espada pressed her hand, murmuring some incoherent words, and left the room. Anger dimmed his sight, and his ears were buzzing.

So she dismissed him—coldly, like an importunate friend! Could that woman be the same as the one in Seville!... And she invited him to breakfast with her friend, so that the man could amuse himself by examining him closely like a rare insect!...

Curse her!... He would prove himself a man.... It was over. He would never see her again.

CHAPTER IX

About this time Gallardo received several letters from Don José and from Carmen.

The manager evidently wished to encourage his matador, advising him as usual to go straight at his bull.... "Zas! a thrust, and you put him in your pocket!" But through his warm-hearted enthusiasm could be traced a slight discouragement, as if his perfect faith was a little staggered, and he had begun to doubt if Gallardo were still "the first man in the world."

He had received accounts of the discontent and hostility with which the public received him, and the last corrida in Madrid had fairly disheartened poor Don José. No, Gallardo was not like other espadas, who could go straight on through all the whistling of the audience, satisfied as long as they earned their money. His matador had genius and professional pride and could show himself off in a circus only if he were received with great applause. A mediocre result was equivalent to a defeat. The people were accustomed to admire him for his reckless, audacious courage, and anything that did not come up to that meant a fiasco.

Don José pretended to know what was wrong with his espada. Want of courage?... Never. He would die sooner than admit that fault in his hero. It was that he felt wearied, that he had not yet entirely recovered from the tremendous shock of his "cogida." "And for this reason," he advised in all his letters, "it would be better for you to retire and rest for a season. Afterwards you can come back and fight, and be the same as ever." And he offered himself to make all necessary arrangements. A medical certificate would be sufficient to explain his momentary inaction, and he would come to some agreement as to all pending contracts with the managers of the different Plazas, by which Gallardo would supply a rising torero to fill his place at a moderate salary. So by this means he would still be making money.

Carmen was the most earnest in her persuasions, using none of the manager's circumlocutions. He ought to retire at once, he ought to "cut off his pigtail," as they said in his profession, and spend his life quietly at La Rinconada or in his house in Seville with his family, she could bear it no longer. Her heart told her with that feminine instinct which seldom erred that something serious would occur. She could scarcely sleep, and she dreaded the night hours peopled with bloody visions.

Then she wrote furiously against the public, an ungrateful crowd, who had already forgotten what the torero had done when he was in his full strength. Bad hearted people, who wished to see him die for their own amusement, as if he had neither wife nor mother. "Juan, the little mother and I both beg of you to retire. Why go on bull-fighting? We have enough to live on, and it pains me to hear these people insulting you who are not worthy of you. Suppose another accident happened to you? Jesus! I think I should go mad."

Gallardo was very thoughtful for some time after reading these letters. To retire!... What nonsense! Women's worries! Affection might easily dictate this, but it was impossible to carry it out. Cut off his pigtail before he was thirty! How his enemies would laugh! He had no right to retire as long as his limbs were sound and he was able to fight. Such an absurdity had never been heard of. Money was not everything. How about his fame? And his professional pride? What would his thousands and thousands of admiring partisans say? What could they reply to his enemies if those latter threw it in their teeth that Gallardo had retired through fear?

Besides, the matador paused to consider if his fortune would admit of this solution. He was rich, and yet he was not. His social position was not yet consolidated. What he possessed was the result of his first few years of married life, when one of his greatest pleasures had been to surprise his mother and Carmen with fresh acquisitions. After that he had made money in even larger quantities, but it had run away and vanished in a hundred channels, opened out by his new life. He had played high, had led an expensive and ostentatious life. Many farms, added to the extensive estate of La Rinconada, to round it off, had been bought by loans furnished by Don José or other friends. He was rich, but if he retired and lost the splendid income from the corridas, often two or three hundred thousand pesetas a year, he would have to curtail his expenses, pay his debts, and live like a country gentleman on the income from La Rinconada, looking after things himself, for at present the estate, managed by hirelings, produced very little.

Formerly he would have been contented with a very small portion of what he possessed now, but if he retired he would have to curtail those Havanna cigars which he now distributed so lavishly, and those Andalusian wines of fine vintage. He would have to restrain his lordly generosity, and no longer cry "I pay for everything," as he entered a café or a tavern.

So he had lived, and so he must go on living. He was a torero of the old-fashioned style, lavish, arrogant, astonishing every one with scandalous extravagances, but always ready to help misfortune with princely generosity. He did not in the least regret his ostentatious life, and yet they wished him to give it up.

Furthermore, he thought of the expenses of his own household. All of them were accustomed to the easy, careless life of families with little regard for money, as they saw it constantly flowing in, in streams. Besides his mother and his wife he provided for his sister, his loquacious brother-in-law, and the tribe of children now growing up and becoming daily more expensive. He would have to bring into ways of order and economy all these people who had hitherto lived at his expense with happy carelessness and open-handedness. Every one, even poor Garabato, would have to go to the Grange, and work like niggers under the burning sun. His mother, too, would no longer be able to make her last days happy by her kindly generosity to the poor in the suburb. And Carmen also, who although she was economical and tried to limit expenses, would be the first to deprive herself of many little frivolities which beautified life.

Curse it all!... All this represented degradation to the family, and Gallardo felt ashamed that such a thing could possibly happen. It would be a crime to deprive them of what they enjoyed, now they had become accustomed to ease and comfort. And what ought he to do to prevent this?... Simply to throw himself on the bulls, fight as he had fought in former days ... and he would throw himself!...

He replied to his manager's and to Carmen's letters by short and laboriously written epistles, expressing to both his firm intention not to retire—most certainly not.

He was determined to be what he had always been, that he swore to Don José. He would follow his advice. "Zas! a sword thrust, and the bull in his pocket." He felt his courage rising, and with it the capacity of facing all bulls, however big they might be.

He wrote gaily to his wife, though his amour-propre was rather wounded by her doubting his strength. She would soon have news of the next corrida. He intended to astonish the public so that they might be ashamed of their injustice. If the bulls were good ones, he would surpass even Roger de Flor himself!...

Good bulls! This was one of Gallardo's anxieties. Formerly one of his vanities had been never to concern himself with the brutes, never to go and see them at the Plaza before the corrida.

"I kill anything that is sent to me," he said arrogantly.

And he saw his bulls for the first time when they were turned into the circus.

Now he wished to examine them closely, to choose them, to prepare for his success by a careful study of their dispositions.

The weather had cleared at last, and the sun was shining. Consequently the second corrida would take place on the following day.

That evening Gallardo went alone to the Plaza. The huge red brick circus, with its Moorish windows, stood out against a background of low green hillocks. On the furthest slope of this wide but monotonous landscape something lay white in the distance which might be a herd of cattle. It was the cemetery.

As the matador came near the building a troup of squalid beggars, vagabonds who were allowed to sleep in the stables from charity, wretches who lived on the alms of the aficionados or the scraps from neighbouring taverns, gathered round him cap in hand. Many had come from Andalusia with a consignment of bulls, and had remained hanging about the precincts of the Plaza.

Gallardo distributed a few coins among these beggars, and then entered the circus through the Puerta de Caballerizas.

In the courtyard he saw a group of aficionados watching the picadors trying their horses. Potaje, armed with his spear and huge cowherd's spurs, was just going to mount. The stable boys accompanied the contractor who furnished the horses, a stout man, slow of speech, wearing a large Andalusian felt sombrero, who answered with imperturbable calm the aggressive and insulting loquacity of the picadors.

The "monos sabios," with their sleeves rolled up, brought out the miserable crocks for the riders to try. For several days they had been riding and training those wretched mounts, who still bore on their flanks crimson spur marks. They took them out to trot on the open ground round the Plaza, giving them a fictitious energy beneath their iron heels, and teaching them to turn quickly so as to become used to their work in the arena. They returned to the Plaza with their sides stained with blood, and before entering the stables were refreshed with three or four pails-full of water. Close to the drinking-trough the water running in between the cobble-stones was dyed red, like poured out wine.

These unfortunate animals destined for to-morrow's corrida were almost dragged out of the stables to be examined by the picadors.

As they came out of the stables, depressed remnants of equine misery, they betrayed in their trembling legs, their heaving flanks, their starved and miserable appearance, sad signs of human ingratitude, of the forgetfulness of past services. There were hacks of frightful thinness, real skeletons, whose sharp and pointed bones seemed ready to pierce the covering of long and tangled hair. Others holding themselves proudly, with raised heads and bright eyes, pawing restlessly, with sounder legs and shining coats, animals of good stamp, who seemed out of place among their wretched companions, looking as though they had only just been unharnessed from sumptuous carriages, were in reality more dangerous to ride, as they were probably afflicted with vertigo or staggers, and might fall to the ground at any moment, pitching their riders over their heads; and among these sad examples of misery and decrepitude were also invalided workers from mills and factories, agricultural horses, cab horses, all weary with long years of hard work dragging ploughs and carts, unhappy outcasts who were to be sweated up to the last moment of their lives, diverting the spectators by their kicks and bounds of agony when they felt the bull's horns pierce their belly.

It was an interminable defile of bleared and yellow eyes, of galled necks on which were battening bright green flies gorged with blood, of bony heads whose skin was swarming with vermin, of narrow chests and feeble legs, covered down to the hoofs with hair so long and shaggy it looked almost as though they were wearing trousers. To mount these decrepit brutes, shaking with fright and almost ready to drop with weakness, required almost as much courage as to face the bull.

Potaje was very high and mighty in his discussions with the horse contractor, speaking in his own name and that of his comrades as well, making even the "monos sabios" laugh with his gipsy oaths. The other picadors had far better leave him to manage the horse-dealers. No one knew better than he did how to bring those sort of people to terms.

A groom came out leading a horse with hanging head, tangled coat, and staring ribs.

"What are you bringing me out there?" shouted Potaje, facing the contractor. "A crock that no one would dream of mounting."

The phlegmatic contractor replied with calm gravity. "If Potaje did not dare to mount it, it was because picadors now-a-days seemed afraid of everything. With a horse like this, so good and docile, Señor Calderon, or El Trigo, or any fine rider of the good old times would have been able to fight for two successive afternoons without getting a fall, and without the animal receiving a scratch. But now-a-days!... There seemed to him to be plenty of fear and very little dash."

The contractor and the picador abused one another in a friendly fashion, as if the grossest insults had ceased to have the slightest meaning.

"You are an old cheat," roared Potaje, "a bigger rascal than José Maria el Tempraniyo. Get out! Hoist your grandmother up on the old brute; a far better mount for her than the broomstick she rides every Saturday at midnight."

Every one present roared with laughter, while the contractor shrugged his shoulders.

"What's the matter with the horse?" he asked quietly. "Look him over well, old grumbler. He is far better than those that have glanders, or staggers, who have before now pitched you over their heads and planted you up to your ears in the sand, before you could face the bull. He is as sound as an apple. For the five and twenty years he has been in an ærated water factory, doing his work conscientiously, no one has ever found fault with him, and now you come along shouting and abusing him, taking away his character as if he were a bad Christian."

"I won't have him, that's all!... If he is so good keep him yourself!"

As he spoke the contractor came slowly towards Potaje, and with the sang-froid of a man accustomed to such transactions, whispered something in his ear. The picador, pretending to be very angry, finally went up to the horse. He did not wish to be thought an intractable man who wanted to do a bad turn to a comrade.

So putting one foot in the stirrup he let the whole weight of his heavy body fall on the poor brute. Then, steadying his garrocha under his arm, he pushed the point against a large post built into the wall, striking it several times with all his strength, as if a large and heavy bull were at the lance's point. The poor horse shook all over and doubled up its legs after each concussion.

"He does not behave so badly," ... said Potaje in a conciliatory voice.... "The beast is better than I thought. He has a tender mouth and good legs.... You are quite right. Put him on one side."

And the picador dismounted, disposed to accept anything the contractor offered after his mysterious whisper.

Gallardo left the group of aficionados who were watching this scene with amusement. A porter belonging to the Plaza took him to the yard in which the bulls were enclosed.

The espada went through a little wicket giving access to the enclosure, which was surrounded on three sides by a wall of masonry, up to the height of a man's shoulders. This wall was strengthened at intervals by strong posts which supported a balcony above. Here and there opened little passages, so narrow that a man could only slip through them sideways. In this courtyard were eight bulls, some quietly lying down, others turning over the piles of grass lying in front of them.

Gallardo walked along in the passage behind the wall examining the animals. Now and then he slipped into the yard, through one of the narrow passages. He waved his arms, giving savage yells which roused the bulls from their quiescence. Some leapt up nervously, rushing with lowered heads at the man who ventured to disturb the peace of their enclosure, others stood firmly on their feet, with raised heads and savage look, waiting to see if the intruder would dare to approach them.

Gallardo slipped away quickly behind the wall, considering the looks and disposition of the fierce creatures, without coming to a decision as to which he should choose.

The head shepherd of the Plaza accompanied him, a big athletic man in leather gaiters and huge spurs, dressed in a thick cloth suit, his wide sombrero fastened under his chin by a strap. He was nicknamed Lobato,[104] and was a roughrider who spent the greater part of the year in the open country, behaving when he came into Madrid like a savage, having no wish to see the streets, and in fact never leaving the purlieus of the Plaza.

For him the capital of Spain was nothing more than a Plaza in a clearing, with desert lands surrounding it, while in the distance lay an agglomeration of houses which he had never had the curiosity to explore. The most important establishment in Madrid, from his point of view, was Gallina's tavern, situated close to the Plaza, a place of delight, an enchanted palace where he supped and dined at the expense of the management before returning to his pastures mounted on his horse, his dark blanket on the saddle bow, his saddle-bags on the crupper and his lance over his shoulder. He delighted in terrorising the servants as he entered the tavern by his friendly greetings, terrible hand grips which crushed their bones and drew forth screams of pain; he smiled, delighted with his strength and being called a brute, and then sat down to his pittance, which was served him in a dish as deep as a basin, accompanied by more than one jar of wine.

He herded the bulls bought by the management, sometimes in the pastures of Munoza, at others during the excessive heat on the grazing uplands of the Sierra de Guadarrama. He brought them in to the enclosure two days before the corrida at midnight, driving them across the Abronigal stream and through the outskirts of Madrid, accompanied by amateur rough-riders and cowherds. He was rampant when bad weather prevented a corrida taking place, which kept the herd in the Plaza, and prevented his immediate return to the peaceful solitudes where the other bulls were still grazing.

Slow of speech, dull of thought, this centaur, who smelt of leather and manure, could still speak eloquently, even poetically of his pastoral life herding the wild bulls. The sky of Madrid seemed to him lower and with fewer stars. He could describe with picturesque laconicism the nights on the pastures, with his bulls sleeping beneath the soft light of the stars, the dense silence only broken by the mysterious noises of the forest. In this silence the mountain vipers sang with strange song, yes, Señor, certainly they sang. It was a thing that could not be discussed with Lobato: he had heard them a thousand times, and to doubt it was to call him a cheat and a liar, and to expose oneself to the weight of his fists. As the reptiles sang, so also did the bulls speak, only he had not yet succeeded in mastering all the mysteries of their idiom. They were really just like Christians, except that they went on four legs and had horns. You should see them wake when the sun rose, bounding about as happy as children, pretending in fun to cross their horns and fight each other, chasing each other with noisy enjoyment, as if they were saluting the coming of the sun, which is the glory of God. Then he spoke of his toilsome excursions through the Sierra de Guadarrama, following the course of the crystal-clear rivulets, which brought the melted snow from the mountains to feed the rivers; of the meadows, with their verdure enamelled by flowers; of the birds who came fluttering to settle between the horns of the sleeping bulls; of the wolves who howled afar off in the night, always far off, for they feared the long procession of wild bulls following the bells of the cabestros, come to dispute with them their terrible solitudes. Don't let any one speak to him of Madrid, where one suffocated! The only good thing in that forest of houses was Gallina's good wine and his savoury stews.

Lobato assisted the espada with his advice in choosing his two bulls. The overseer showed neither respect nor astonishment at these celebrated men, so admired by the populace. The shepherd of the bulls almost despised the toreros. To kill such noble animals, with every sort of trickery and deceit! He was the really brave man, who lived among them, passing daily between their horns in the solitudes, with no other defence than his own arm, and no thought of applause.

As Gallardo left the enclosure another man joined them, who saluted the maestro with great respect. It was the old man charged with the cleaning of the Plaza. He had been a great many years in this employment, and had known all the most celebrated toreros of his day. He was very poorly dressed, but he often wore beautiful rings, and to blow his nose would draw from the depths of his blouse a small cambric handkerchief trimmed with fine lace and having a large monogram, still exhaling a delicate scent.

He undertook by himself during the week the sweeping of the immense Plaza, its rows of seats and boxes, without ever complaining of the overwhelming work. If the manager was displeased with him and wished to punish him he would open the doors to all the riffraff wandering round the Plaza. The poor man would be in despair, promising amendment, in order that this swarm of people should not take over his work.

Now and then he allowed half a dozen lads to help him; these were generally toreros' apprentices, and were faithful to him in exchange for his allowing them to watch the corrida from the "dogs box," that is, a door with an iron grating situated near the bulls' boxes, which was used for taking out wounded men. These helpers, holding on to the iron bars, fought like monkeys in a cage to obtain first place.

The old man distributed their weekly cleansing work cleverly enough. All these boys worked on the seats of the sunny side,[105] those occupied by a poor and dirty crowd, who left as evidence of their presence a rubbish heap of orange peel, scraps of paper, and cigar ends.

"Look out for the tobacco," he would order his troup. "Whoever filches a single cigar end will not see the corrida on Sunday."

He himself worked patiently on the shady side, crouching down in the shadow of the boxes to slip any finds into his pockets—such as ladies' fans, rings, pocket-handkerchiefs, coins, feminine ornaments, anything that an invasion of fourteen thousand people might have left behind them. He collected the scraps of cigar ends, chopping them up after exposing them to the sun, and selling them as fine tobacco. The more valuable finds passed into the hands of a dealer, willing to buy these spoils of a public, either forgetful, or oblivious from excitement.

Gallardo responded to the old man's obsequious bows by giving him a cigar, and then took leave of Lobato. He had agreed with the overseer which two bulls should be specially boxed for him. The other toreros would not object. They were good natured young fellows, full of youthful ardour, who would kill anything that was put before them.

As he came out again into the courtyard, where the selection of horses was still in progress, Gallardo saw a tall spare man, with olive complexion, dressed as a torero, leave the group and come towards him. Tufts of iron-grey hair appeared from beneath his black felt hat, and his mouth was surrounded by many wrinkles.

"Pescadero! How are you?" said Gallardo, clasping his hand with sincere warmth.

He was an old espada, who had had his youthful days of triumph, but very few now even remembered his name. Other matadors coming after him had eclipsed this fleeting reputation, so Pescadero, after fighting in America, and sustaining several cogidas, had retired with a little capital of savings. Gallardo knew that he owned a small tavern in the neighbourhood of the circus, but too far off for him to have many customers among the aficionados and toreros.

"I cannot often come to the corridas," said Pescadero, sadly. "Still, you see, the sport draws me, and I drop in as a neighbour to see these things. Now-a-days I am nothing but a tavern-keeper."

Gallardo looked at his shabby appearance, and remembered the brilliant Pescadero he had known in his childhood, one of his most admired heroes, gallant and proud, favoured by women, among the smartest in La Campana whenever he came to Seville, dressed in his velvet hat, his wine coloured jacket and brightly coloured sash, leaning on an ivory stick with gold handle. And so would he also be; shabby and forgotten if he retired from bull-fighting!

They talked a long time about things appertaining to the art. El Pescadero, like all elderly men embittered by bad luck, was pessimistic. There were very few good toreros, there were no longer men of "corazon."[106] Only Gallardo and one or two others killed bulls "truly," even the animals seemed less powerful than formerly. As he had met the matador he insisted on his going with him to his house, indeed as an old friend he could do no less. So Gallardo turned with him into one of the small streets surrounding the Plaza, and entered the tavern, which was much like any other, its façade painted red, windows with curtains of the same colour, a larger show window, in which were displayed, on dusty plates, cooked cutlets, fried birds, bottles of pickles, and inside, a zinc counter, barrels and bottles, round tables with wooden stools by them, and several coloured prints representing celebrated toreros or remarkable episodes in corridas.

"We will have a glass of Montilla," said El Pescadero to a young man standing behind the counter, who smiled as he saw Gallardo.

The latter looked at his face, and then at his right sleeve, which was empty and pinned to his breast.

"It seems to me I know you," said the matador.

"I should think you did know him!" cried Pescadero. "It is Pipi."

The nickname made Gallardo remember his history at once. A plucky youngster who stuck in his banderillas in most masterly fashion, he also had been named by the aficionados as "the torero of the future." Unluckily one day in the Plaza in Madrid his right arm had been so badly gored as to make amputation necessary, and he had been rendered useless for further bull-fighting.

"I took him in, Juan," continued El Pescadero. "I have no family and my wife died, so I look upon him as a son. Do not think that Pipi and I live in plenty. We live as we can, but whatever I have is for him. We get on, thanks to old friends who come sometimes to breakfast or to play a game of cards, and above all thanks to the school."

Gallardo smiled. He had heard something about the school of Tauromachia established by El Pescadero close to his tavern.

"What can I do now?" said the latter, excusing himself. "One must help oneself on, and the school consumes more than all the customers in the tavern. A great many people come, young gentlemen who wish to distinguish themselves at the 'becerras,'[107] foreigners who become bewitched by the corridas, and who wish to become toreros in their old age. I have got one now who comes every afternoon. You shall see him."

They crossed the street towards a plot of ground surrounded by a wall. Across the joined planks which served as a door was a large placard on which was written in tar "School of Tauromachia."

They went in. The first thing that attracted Gallardo's attention was the bull—an animal made of wood and bamboos, mounted on wheels, with a tail of tow, a head of plaited straw, and pieces of cork for a neck, to which were attached a pair of real and enormous horns which struck terror into the pupils' hearts.

A bare-breasted lad, in a cap with two curls of hair above his ears, was the creature who communicated its intelligence to the beast, pushing it forward when the pupils stood opposite to it with their capes in their hands.

In the middle of the plot stood a gentleman, elderly, round shouldered, and stout, red faced, with large stiff grey moustache, in his shirt sleeves, with a banderilla in either hand. Close to the wall seated on a chair, and leaning on another, was a lady of about the same age, and not less stout and rubicund, in a hat covered with flowers. Each time her husband executed some good stroke the piles of flowers and false curls shook and waved wildly as she threw herself back in her chair laughing and applauding loudly.

El Pescadero explained to Gallardo that most probably those people were French or possibly from some other country, he was not certain, and it mattered nothing to him. The couple seemed to have travelled all over the world and to have lived everywhere; to judge from his stories, he had been a miner in America, colonist in some distant island, hunter of wild horses with a lasso in America, and now he wished to earn some money as torero, and came every afternoon to the school like an obstinate child, but he paid generously for his lessons.

"Just imagine! a torero with that figure!... And at fifty years of age well struck!"...

As he saw the two men enter, the pupil dropped his arms holding the banderillas, and the lady arranged her skirts and her flowery hat. "Ah! dear master!..."

"Good evening, mosiu!" "Your servant, madame," said the master raising his hand to his hat.... "Let me see, mosiu, how this lesson is getting on. You remember what I told you. Stand quiet on your ground. Invite the 'bicho,' let him come, and when he is by your side just bend your hips and stick the darts in his neck. You need not be anxious to do anything, the bull will do everything for you. Attention.... Are you ready?"

And the professor standing a little aside made a sign to the terrible bull, or more properly to the urchin, who with his hands on the hind quarters was pushing him to the attack.

"Eeeeh!... Enter, Morito!"

Pescadero gave a fearful bellow to induce the bull to "enter," exciting by those shouts and furious stamping on the ground this terrible beast with inside of air and reeds and head of straw. Monto attacked like a furious wild beast with a tremulous rattle of wheels, staggering and butting on account of the inequalities of the ground. How could any bull from the most famous herd compare in intelligence with this Morito, immortal beast; who had been pierced with banderillas and rapier thrusts a thousand times, only suffering insignificant wounds that the carpenter had been able to cure. He seemed cleverer than any man! As he came near to the pupil, he slightly changed his course in order not to touch him with his horns, going off with a pair of darts well stuck into his cork neck.

A perfect ovation greeted this exploit, the banderillero remaining firm in his place, arranging his braces and his shirt cuffs. His wife, wildly delighted, threw herself back in her chair laughing and clapping.

"Quite masterly, mosiu," shouted El Pescadero. "A stroke of the first quality!"

The foreigner, delighted by the professor's applause, replied modestly, beating his breast: