Blood and Sand

The winter was passing by, Gallardo rode and hunted over the country estates of several wealthy gentlemen, who used the familiar "thou" with a patronizing air. It was necessary for him to preserve his bodily agility by continual exercise, till the time of the corridas came round again. He was afraid of losing his great advantages of strength and lightness.

The most indefatigable advertiser of his fame was Don José, the gentleman who acted as his agent, and who called him "his own matador." He had a hand in every act of Gallardo's, not even yielding any prior claims to "the family." He lived on his own income, and had no other employment than that of talking perpetually of bulls and toreros. For him there was nothing interesting in the world beyond corridas, and he divided the nations into two classes, the elect who had bull-rings, and the numberless others who had neither sun, gaiety, nor good Manzanilla, and yet thought themselves powerful and happy, although they had never seen even the worst run of novillos.

He carried to his love of "the sport" the energy of a champion of the faith, or of an inquisitor. Although he was young he was stout and slightly bald with a light beard; but this sociable man, so jovial and laughter-loving in ordinary life, was fierce and unbending on the benches of a Plaza, if his neighbours expressed opinions differing from his own. He felt himself capable of fighting the whole audience for a torero he liked, and he disturbed the plaudits of the public by unexpected objections, when those plaudits were given to any torero who had not been lucky enough to gain his affection.

He had been a cavalry officer, more on account of his love of horses than of his love of war. His stoutness and his enthusiasm for bulls had made him retire from the service.... Oh! to be the guide, the mentor, the agent of an espada!

When he became possessed of this vehement desire, all the "maestros" were already provided, so the advent of Gallardo was a God-send to him. The slightest doubt cast on his hero's merits made him crimson with rage, and he generally ended by turning a bull-fighting discussion into a personal quarrel. He considered it a glorious heroic act to have come to blows with two evil minded amateurs who censured "his own matador" for being too bold.

The press seemed to him quite insufficient to proclaim Gallardo's fame, so on winter mornings he would go and sit at a sunny corner at the entrance of the Calle de las Sierpes, through which most of his friends passed.

"No. There is only one man!" he would say in a loud voice as if talking to himself, pretending not to see the people who were approaching. "The first man in the world! If anyone thinks the contrary let him speak.... Yes, the only man!"

"Who?" enquired his friends chuckling, pretending not to understand.

"Who should it be?" ... "Juan."

"What Juan?"

A gesture of indignation and surprise.

"What Juan is it? As if there were many Juans!... Juan Gallardo."

"Bless the man!" said some of them, "one would think it was you who were going to marry him!"

Seeing other friends approaching he ignored their chaff, and began again:

"No, there is only one man!... The first man in the world! If anyone doesn't believe it, let him open his beak! ... here am I to answer!"

Gallardo's wedding was a great event. At the same time the new house was inaugurated, of which the saddler was so proud, that he showed the patio, the columns, and the Moorish tiles, as if they were all the work of his own hands.

They were married in San Gil, before the "Virgin of Hope," also called la Macarena. As they came out of the church the sun shone on the tropical flowers and painted birds on hundreds of shawls of Chinese design, worn by the bride's friends. A deputy was best man, among the black or white felt hats, shone the tall silk ones of his agent and other gentlemen, enthusiastic supporters of Gallardo, who smiled, well pleased with the increase of popularity they gained by being seen at the torero's side.

At the house door during the day there was a distribution of alms; many poor people had come even from distant villages, attracted by the reports of this splendid wedding.

There was a grand repast in the patio and several photographers took snapshots for the Madrid papers, for Gallardo's wedding was a national event. Well on in the night the melancholy tinkling of the guitars was still going on, accompanied by the rhythmic clapping of hands and the rattle of castanets. The girls, their arms raised, danced with dainty feet on the marble pavement, and skirts and shawls waved round the pretty figures in the rhythm of Sevillanas. Bottle of rich Andalusian wine were opened by the dozen, glasses of hot Jerez, of heady Montilla, and Manzanilla of San Lucar, pale and perfumed, passed from hand to hand. They were all tipsy, but their drunkenness was gentle, quiet, and melancholy, and only betrayed itself in their sighs and songs; often several would start at once singing melancholy airs, which spoke of prisons, murders and the "poor mother," that eternal theme of Andalusian popular songs.

At midnight the last of the guests departed, and the newly-married couple were left alone in their house with Señora Angustias. The saddler on leaving made a gesture of despair; tipsy, he was besides furious, for no one had taken any notice of him during the day. Just as if he were a nobody! As if he did not belong to the family!

"They are turning us out, Encarnacion. That girl with her face like the 'Virgin of Hope,' will be mistress of everything, and there will not even be that for us! You will see the house full of children!..."

And the prolific husband became furious at the idea of the posterity that would come to the espada, a posterity sent into the world with the sole object of damaging his own children.

Time went by and a year passed without Señor Antonio's prognostications being verified. Gallardo and Carmen went to all the fêtes, with the ostentation and show suitable to a rich and popular couple. Carmen with Manila shawls which drew cries of admiration from poorer women; Gallardo displaying all his diamonds, ever ready to take out his purse to treat friends, or to help the beggars who came in swarms. The gitanas, loquacious and copper coloured as witches, besieged Carmen with their good auguries.... Might God bless her! She would soon have a child, a "churumbel" more beautiful than the sun. They knew it by the whites of her eyes. It was already half way on....

But in vain Carmen dropped her eyes and blushed with modesty and pleasure; in vain the espada drew himself up, proud of his work, and hoped the prediction would come true. But still the child did not come.

So another year passed, and still the hopes of the couple were not realized. Señora Angustias became sad as she spoke of their disappointment. She certainly had other grandchildren, the children of Encarnacion, whom the saddler was careful should spend most of their time in their grandmother's house, doing their best to please their Señor tio.[66] But she, who wished to compensate for her former unkindness by the warm affection she now showed Juan, wished to have a son of his to bring up in her own way, giving it all the love she had been unable to give its father during his miserable childhood.

"I know what it is," said the old woman sadly, "poor Carmen has too many anxieties, you should see the poor thing when Juan is wandering about the world!..."

During the winter, the season of rest when the torero was for the most part at home, or only went into the country for the "trials" of young bulls or for hunting parties, all went well. Carmen was happy, knowing her husband ran no risks; she laughed at anything, ate, and her face was bright with the hues of health. But as soon as the spring time came round, and Juan left home to fight in the different Plazas in Spain, the poor girl became pale and weak, and fell into a painful languor, her eyes, dilated by terror, ready to shed tears on the slightest occasion.

"He has seventy-two corridas this year," said the intimates of the house, speaking of the espada's engagements. "No one is so sought after as he is."

Carmen smiled with a sorrowful face. Seventy-two afternoons of anguish, in the chapel like a criminal condemned to death, longing for the arrival of the telegram in the evening, and yet dreading to open it. Seventy-two days of terror, of vague superstitions, thinking that one word forgotten in a prayer might influence the fate of the absent one; seventy-two days of pained surprise at living in a great house, seeing the same people, and finding life go on in its usual way; as though nothing extraordinary was going on in the world, hearing her husband's nephews playing in the patio, and the flower sellers crying their wares outside while down there far away, in unknown towns, her beloved Juan was fighting those fierce beasts before thousands of eyes, and seeing death lightly pass by his breast with every wave of the red rag that he carried in his hand.

Ay! Those days of a corrida, those holidays, when the sky seemed bluer, and the usually solitary street echoed beneath the holiday maker's footsteps, when guitars tinkled, accompanied by hand clappings and songs in the tavern at the corner!... Then Carmen, plainly dressed, with her mantilla over her eyes, flying from those evil dreams, would leave her house to take refuge in a church.

Her simple faith, which anxiety peopled with vague superstitions, made her go from altar to altar, weighing in her mind the merits and miracles of each image. Some days she would go to San Gil, the popular church which had witnessed the happiest day of her life, to kneel before the Virgin de la Macarena. By the light of the numerous tapers she ordered to be lighted, she would gaze at the dark face of that statue with its black eyes and long lashes, which many said so singularly resembled her own. In her she trusted, she was not "the Lady of Hope" for nothing, surely at that time she was protecting Juan with her divine power.

But suddenly uncertainty and fear crept through her beliefs, rending them. The Virgin was only a woman, and women can do so little! Their fate is to suffer and to weep, as she was weeping for her husband, as that other had wept for her Son. She must confide in stronger powers, so with the egoism of pain, she abandoned la Macarena without scruple, like a useless friend, and went to the church of San Lorenzo in search of "Our Father, Jesus of Great Power." The Man-God with His crown of thorns, and His cross by His side, perspiring, and tearful, an image that the sculptor Montañes had known how to make terrifying.

The dramatic sadness of the Nazarene, stumbling over the stones, borne down by the weight of His cross, seemed to console the poor wife. The Lord of Great Power! ... this vague but grandiose title tranquilised her. If that God dressed in purple velvet with gold embroideries would only listen to her sighs and prayers, repeated hurriedly, with dizzy rapidity, so that the greatest possible number of words should be said in the shortest possible time, she was sure that Juan would come safe and sound out of the arena, where he was at that moment fighting. At other times she would give money to a sacristan to light some wax tapers and would spend hours watching the rosy reflection of the red tongues on the image, fancying she saw on its varnished face in the changing light and shadow, smiles of consolation, which augured happiness.

The Lord of Great Power did not deceive her. When she returned to her house the little blue paper arrived, which she opened with trembling hands. "Nothing new." She could breathe again, and sleep, like the criminal who is freed for the moment from the fear of instant death, but in two or three days the torment of uncertainty, the terrible fear of the unknown, would begin afresh.

In spite of the love Carmen professed for her husband, there were times when her heart rose in rebellion. If she had only known what this life was before her marriage!... Now and then, impelled by the community of suffering she would go and see the wives of the men who composed Juan's cuadrilla, as if those women could give her news.

The wife of El Nacional, who had a tavern in the same quarter, received the chief's wife tranquilly, and seemed surprised at her fears. She was used to the life, and her husband must be quite well as he sent no news. Telegrams were dear, and a banderillero earned little enough. When the newspaper sellers did not shout an accident, it meant that nothing untoward had happened, and she went on attending to the affairs of her tavern, as if anxiety could not penetrate the hard rind of her susceptibilities.

Other times she would cross the bridge and penetrate into the suburb of Triana, in search of the wife of Potaje the picador, a kind of gitana, who lived in a hovel like a fowl house, surrounded by dirty copper coloured brats, whom she ordered about and terrified by her stentorian shouts. The visit of the chief's wife filled her with pride, but her anxieties made her laugh. She ought not to be afraid, the men on foot nearly always got clear of the bull, and the Señor Juan was very lucky in throwing himself on the beast. Bulls killed few people, the terrible things were the falls from horse-back. It was well known what was the end of nearly all picadors after a life of horrible tosses: he who did not end his life in an unforeseen and sudden accident, generally died mad. No doubt poor Potaje would die in this way, he would have endured all these hardships for a handful of duros, whereas others....

She did not conclude her sentence, but her eyes expressed a mute protest against the injustice of fate, against those fine fellows who directly they handled a sword, appropriated all the plaudits, the popularity, and the money, running no more risk than their humble colleagues.

Little by little Carmen became accustomed to the existence. The cruel waits on the days of a corrida, the visits to the saints, the superstitions, doubts, were all accepted as forming part and parcel of her life. Besides her husband's usual good luck, and the constant conversation in the house on the chances of the fight, ended by familiarizing her with the danger. And at last the bull came to be for her a fairly good-natured and noble animal, who had come into the world for the express purpose of enriching and giving fame to their matadors.

She had never been to a corrida of bulls. Since the afternoon when she had seen her future husband at his first novillada, she had never been near the Plaza. She felt she should not have the courage to see a corrida, even though Gallardo were taking no part in it. She should faint with terror seeing other men face the danger, dressed in the same costume as Juan.

After they had been married three years, the espada was wounded in Valencia. Carmen did not hear of it at once. The telegram came at the usual hour, bearing the habitual "nothing new," and it was through the kindness of Don José, who visited Carmen daily and performed clever sleight of hand tricks to prevent her seeing the papers, that the news was kept from her for over a week.

When through the indiscretion of some neighbours Carmen at last heard of the accident, she wished at once to take the train to join her husband, and nurse him, feeling sure he was neglected. But there was no need, the espada arrived before she could leave, pale from loss of blood, and obliged to keep one leg quiet for some time, but gay and jaunty in order to reassure his family.

The house became at once a kind of sanctuary, all sorts of people passed through the patio, in order to salute Gallardo "the first man in the world," who, sitting in a cane arm-chair, with his leg on a footstool, smoked quietly, as though his flesh had not been torn by a horrible wound.

Doctor Ruiz, who had brought him back to Seville, declaring he would be cured in a month, was astonished at the vigour of his constitution. The facility with which toreros were cured was a mystery for him, in spite of his long practice as a surgeon. The horn, filthy with blood and excrement, very often broken at the ends by blows into small splinters, broke the flesh, lacerated it, perforated it, so that it was at the same time a deep penetrating wound, and a crushing bruise, but all the same these awful wounds were cured far more easily than those of daily life.

"How it can be I know not—it is a mystery"—said the old surgeon, much perplexed. "Either these lads have flesh like a dog, or the horn in spite of its filth has some curative property unknown to us."

Shortly afterwards Gallardo recommenced fighting, his wound, in spite of his enemies' predictions, having in no way abated his fighting ardour.

After they had been married about four years, the espada gave his wife and mother a great surprise. They were going to become landed proprietors—proprietors on a large scale—with lands of which they could not see the end, olive yards, mills, herds innumerable, an estate as fine as that of the richest men in Seville.

Gallardo was like all toreros who only dream of being owners of the soil, and to be horse and cattle breeders. Town property, stocks and shares in no way tempt them, and they understand nothing whatever about them. But bulls make them think of the broad plains, and horses remind them of the country; besides, the necessity of constant movement and exercise by hunting and walking during the winter months adds to their desire to possess the soil.

According to Gallardo's ideas, no one could be rich unless he owned a large farm, and immense herds of cattle. Ever since the years of his poverty, when he had wandered on foot, through the cultivated lands and pastures, he had always nourished the fervent desire of possessing leagues and leagues of land, that should be his very own, and that should be enclosed by strong palings from the trespass of other people.

Don José knew of this wish. He it was who ran Gallardo's affairs, receiving the money due to him from the different managers, and keeping accounts which he endeavoured in vain to explain to the matador.

"I don't understand that music," said Gallardo, rather pleased at his own ignorance. "I only understand how to kill bulls. Do whatever you like, Don José. I am quite confident that whatever you do will be for the best."

And Don José, who never looked after his own affairs, leaving them to his wife's rather ineffectual management, thought day and night of the matador's fortune, investing the money at good interest, with the keenness of a money-lender.

One day he came gaily to his protegé.

"I have got what you longed for—an estate as big as the world, and very cheap—a splendid bargain. Next week we shall sign all the papers."

Gallardo enquired the name and situation of the domain.

"It is called La Rinconada."

His dearest wishes were fulfilled.

When Gallardo went with his wife and mother to take possession of the Grange, he showed them the hay-loft where he had slept with his companions in misery, the room where he had dined with the former owner, the little Plaza where he had killed the yearling, thereby earning for the first time the right to travel by train without being obliged to hide himself under the seats.

CHAPTER III

During the winter months, when Gallardo was not at La Rinconada, a party of his friends gathered every evening in his dining-room after supper.

The first to arrive were always the saddler and his wife, two of whose children lived in the espada's house. Carmen, as though she wished to forget her own sterility, and felt the silence of the big house oppress her, kept her sister-in-law's two youngest children with her. These children, from natural affection and also probably by their parents' express orders, were perpetually petting their beautiful aunt and their generous and popular uncle, kissing them and purring on their knees like kittens.

Encarnacion, now almost as stout and heavy as her mother, her figure deformed by the birth of her numerous children, while advancing years were bringing a slight moustache to her upper lip, smiled cringingly at her sister-in-law, apologizing for the trouble her children gave.

But before Carmen could reply the saddler broke in:

"Leave them alone, wife! They are so fond of their uncle and aunt! The little girl especially, she cannot live without her 'titita'[67] Carmen."

So the two children lived there as if it were their own house, guessing, with their infantile cunning, what was expected of them by their parents, exaggerating their caresses and pettings of those rich relations, of whom they heard everyone speak with respect.

As soon as supper was ended, they kissed the hands of Señora Angustias and of their father and mother, threw their arms round the necks of Gallardo and his wife, and then left the room to go to bed.

The grandmother occupied an armchair at the head of the table. But when the espada had guests—and they were all people of a certain social position—she refused to take the place of honour, but Gallardo insisted.

"No," protested Gallardo, "the little mother must preside. Sit you down there, mother, or we won't have any supper."

Offering her his arm, he would conduct her to her chair, lavishing on her the most affectionate caresses, as if he wished to make up for the torments his vagabond youth had caused her.

When El Nacional looked in during the evening for an hour, rather with the feeling of fulfilling a duty towards his chief, the party became more lively. Gallardo, wearing a rich zamorra,[68] like a wealthy landowner, his head bare, and the pig-tail smoothed forward almost to his forehead, welcomed his banderillero with loquacious amiability. What were the amateurs of "the sport" saying? What lies were they spreading? How were the affairs of the Republic getting on?

"Garabato, give Sebastian a glass of wine."

But El Nacional refused the preferred civility. No wine, thanks, he never drank. Wine was the cause of all the working classes being so hopelessly behindhand. All the assembly burst out laughing, as if something amusing had been said which they were expecting, and the banderillero began at once to air his opinions.

The only one who remained silent, with hostile eyes, was the saddler. He hated El Nacional, seeing in him an enemy. He also, like a good and faithful husband, was prolific, and a swarm of brats tumbled about the tavern, hanging on to their mother's skirts. The two youngest were godchildren of Gallardo and his wife, so that in this way there was a sort of connection between the two. Hypocrite! Every Sunday he brought the two children, dressed in their best to kiss the hands of their godparents, and the saddler grew pale with anger whenever El Nacional's children received any present. "He came to rob their own children. Possibly the banderillero even dreamed that part of Gallardo's fortune might come to those godchildren. Thief! A man who did not even belong to the family!"...

When the saddler did not receive El Nacional's discourses in sulky silence or with looks of hatred, he endeavoured to mortify him by saying that in his opinion every one who propagated revolutionary ideas among the people was a danger to honest people and ought to be shot at once.

El Nacional was ten years older than his chief. When the latter was beginning to bait at the capeas, Sebastian was already banderillero in recognized cuadrillas,[69] and had lately returned from America, where he had killed bulls in the Plaza at Lima. At the commencement of his career he had enjoyed a certain amount of popularity because he was young and agile. He also for some little time had figured as "the torero of the future," and the amateurs of Seville, fixing their eyes on him, hoped that he would have eclipsed the matadors from other towns. But this lasted only a short time. On his return from his American journey with the prestige of distant and possibly nebulous feats, all the populace of Seville rushed to the Plaza to see him kill. Thousands of people could not obtain admittance. But at this moment of decisive proof "his heart failed him," as the amateurs said. He planted the banderillas steadily as a serious and conscientious worker fulfilling his duty, but when it was a case of killing, the instinct of self-preservation, stronger than his will, kept him at a distance from the bull, and he was unable to take advantage of his great stature and his strong arm.

El Nacional therefore renounced the higher glories of tauromachia, he would be a banderillero and nothing more. He must resign himself to being, as it were, a day labourer of his art, serving others younger than himself, in order to earn the poor wages of peon, with which to maintain his family, and save sufficient to start some small business. His kindness and his honourable habits were proverbial among his colleagues of the pig-tail, consequently his chief's wife was much attached to him, seeing in him a kind of guardian angel of her husband's fidelity. When in summer Gallardo, with all his men, went to a café chantant in some provincial town, anxious to enjoy himself and have a fling, El Nacional would stand silent and grave among the singers in diaphanous dresses, with painted mouths, like some ancient Father of the desert amid the Alexandrian courtezans.

It was not that he felt shocked, but he thought of his wife and little ones down in Seville. According to him all the defects and vices in the world were the result of want of education, and most certainly those poor women knew neither how to read nor write. It was also the case with himself, and as he attributed his own insignificance and poverty of brain to this deficiency, he attributed to the same cause all the misery and degradation which exists in the world.

In his early youth he had worked as a founder, and had been an active member of the "International of Workmen." He had been an assiduous listener to those of his fellow workmen, who, happier than himself, could read aloud what was said in the papers devoted to the welfare of the people. During the time of the National Militia, he had played at being a soldier, figuring in those battalions who wore a red cap in sign of their federal "intransigeance." He had spent whole days in front of those platforms erected in public places, or in those clubs which had declared themselves in permanent sitting, where the orators succeeded each other day and night, ranting with Andalusian facility on the divinity of Jesus, or the rise in price of articles of the first necessity, till the time for repression came, when a strike left him in the trying position of being a workman marked for his revolutionary opinions, and excluded from every workshop.

Then as he was fond of bull-runs, he became torero at twenty-four, just as he might have chosen any other line of life. Besides, he knew a great deal and spoke with contempt of the absurdities of existing society. He had not spent many years listening to papers being read in vain. However bad a torero he might be, he would earn more, and would lead an easier life than ever so skilled a workman. His friends, remembering the days when he shouldered the musket of the National Militia, nicknamed him El Nacional.

He always spoke of the taurine profession with a kind of remorse, apologising for belonging to it in spite of his many years' service. The committee of his district who had decreed the expulsion from the party of all their co-religionists who attended corridas, as being barbarous and retrograde, had made an exception in his favour, keeping him on the list of voters.

"I am well aware," he would say in Gallardo's dining-room, "that bull-fights are reactionary ... something akin to the days of the Inquisition.... I do not know if I am explaining myself clearly. But to read and write is quite as necessary to the people as to have bread, and it is wrong that money should be spent on us, while schools are so sadly wanted. That is what the papers that come from Madrid say. But my co-religionists esteem me, and the committee after a lecture from Don Joselito, kept me on the register of the party."

His great gravity, that not even the jokes or the comic exaggerations of fury on the part of the espada and his friends could shake, expressed an honourable pride in this exceptional favour with which his co-religionists had honoured him.

Don Joselito, master of a primary school, verbose and enthusiastic, who presided over the district committee, was a young man of Jewish origin, who brought into political strife all the ardour of the Maccabees, and was proud of his swarthy ugliness, pitted with smallpox, because he thought it made him resemble Danton; El Nacional always listened to him open-mouthed.

When Don José and the maestro's other friends, after dinner, ironically attacked El National's doctrines with all sorts of extravagant arguments, the poor man would look confused, and scratching his head would say:

"You are gentlemen, and you have been educated, I know neither how to read nor write, and that is why we of the lower orders are such simpletons. Oh! if only Don Joselito were here!... By the life of the blue dove! If only you could hear him when he starts speaking like an angel!"...

And in order to strengthen his faith, perhaps a little shaken by these attacks of ridicule, he would go next day to see his idol, who seemed to take a bitter pleasure, as a descendant of the great persecuted nation, in showing him what he called his museum of horrors. This Jew, returned to the natal country of his ancestors, had collected in a room attached to the school souvenirs of the Inquisition, and with the meticulous vindictiveness of a fugitive prisoner endeavoured to reconstruct hour by hour the skeleton of his jailor. There on the shelves of a cupboard were rows of books and parchments, accounts of autos da fe and lists of questions wherewith to interrogate the criminals during their torture. On one wall was hung a white banner with the dreaded green cross, and in the corner were piles of torturing irons, fearful scourges, every instrument that Don Joselito could pick up on the hucksters' stalls that had been used to split, to tear with pincers, or to shred, which was catalogued immediately as an ancient possession of the Holy Office.

El Nacional's good-heartedness, and his simple soul, quick to feel indignation, rose up against those rusty irons and those green crosses.

"Good heavens!... And there are people who say.... By the life of the dove!... I wish I had some of them here."

The desire of proselytism made him air his convictions on every occasion, regardless of his companion's jests, but even in this he showed himself kind-hearted, as he was never personally bitter. According to him, those who remained indifferent to the fate of the country and did not figure on the party register, were "poor victims of the national ignorance." The salvation of the people depended on their learning to read and write. For his own part he was obliged modestly to renounce this regeneration, as he felt himself too thick skulled; but he made the whole world responsible for his ignorance.

Very often in summer, when the cuadrilla was travelling from one province to another, and Gallardo changed into the second-class carriage where "his lads" were travelling, the door would open and some country priest or a couple of friars would enter.

The banderilleros would nudge each others' elbows and wink as they looked at El Nacional, become even more grave and solemn than usual in presence of the enemy. The picadors, Potaje and Tragabuches, rough and aggressive fellows, fond of quarrels and practical jokes, who besides had an instinctive dislike to the cassocks, egged him on in a low voice.

"Now you have got him!... Go in at him straight!... Give him one in the eye in your own fashion."...

But the maestro, with his authority as chief of the cuadrilla, which no one dare to contest or discuss, rolled his eyes fiercely as he looked at El Nacional, who was obliged to observe a silent obedience. But the zeal of proselytism was stronger in this simple soul than his subordination, and one insignificant word was sufficient to start him on a discussion with his fellow travellers, trying to convince them of the truth. But indeed the truth, according to him, seemed an inextricable and tangled skein of ranting that he had gathered from Don Joselito.

His companions looked on with astonishment, delighted that one of their own set could make head against educated men, and even put them in a corner, which by the way might not be very difficult, as the Spanish clergy, as a rule, are not highly educated.

The priests, bewildered by El Nacional's fiery arguments and the laughter of the other toreros, ended by appealing to their final argument. How could men who exposed their lives so frequently not think of God, and believe such things! Did they not think that at that very time their wives and their mothers were most probably praying for them?

The cuadrilla became suddenly silent, a silence of fear, as they thought of the holy medals and scapularies that their women's hands had sewn into their fighting clothes before they left Seville. The espada, wounded in his slumbering superstitions, was furious with El Nacional, as if the banderillero's impiety would place his own life in danger.

"Shut up, and stop your blasphemies!... Your pardon, Sirs, I pray you. He is a good fellow, but his head has been turned by all these lies.... Shut up, and don't answer me! Curse you!... I will fill your mouth with...."

And Gallardo, to appease those gentlemen whom he considered as depositaries of the future, overwhelmed the banderillero with threats and curses.

El Nacional took refuge in a contemptuous silence. "It was all ignorance and superstition, all from not knowing how to read and write." And strong in his faith, with the obstinacy of a simple man who only possesses two or three ideas and clutches hold of them in the face of the roughest shocks, he would shortly afterwards renew the discussion regardless of the matador's anger.

His anti-clericalism did not leave him even in the circus among those peons and picadors, who having said their prayer in the chapel, entered the arena, in the hope that the sacred scapularies sewn into their clothes would guard them from danger.

When an enormous bull, "of many pounds,"[70] as it is called, with a powerful neck and a black coat arrived at the "turn" of the banderilleros, El Nacional, with his arms open and the darts in his hand, would stand a short distance from the animal, shouting insultingly,—

"Come along, priest!"

The "priest" threw himself furiously on El Nacional, who fixed the darts firmly in his neck as he rushed past, shouting loudly as if he were proclaiming a victory.

One for the clergy!

Gallardo ended by laughing at El Nacional's extravagances.

"You are making me ridiculous. People will notice my cuadrilla, and say we are nothing but a band of heretics. You know there are some audiences whom this might not please. A torero ought to be nothing but a torero."

All the same he was greatly attached to his banderillero, remembering his devotion, which more than once had reached the point of self-sacrifice. It signified nothing to El Nacional that he should be hissed, when he stuck the banderillos into a dangerous bull anyhow, so as to end the matter more quickly. He did not care for glory, and he only fought to earn his livelihood. But once Gallardo advanced rapier in hand towards a savage animal, his banderillero remained close by his side, ready to assist him with his heavy cloak and his strong arm which obliged the brute to lower his poll. On two occasions, when Gallardo had been rolled over in the arena, and was in danger of being gored by the horns, El Nacional had thrown himself on the beast, forgetful of his children, his wife, the tavern, everything, intending to die himself in order to save his master.

On his entry into Gallardo's dining-room in the evenings he was received like a member of the family. The Señora Angustias felt that affection for him so often existing between people of a lower class, when they find themselves in a higher atmosphere, and which draws them together.

"Come and sit by me, Sebastian. Won't you really take anything? ... tell me how the establishment is getting on. Teresa and the children well, I hope?"

Then El Nacional would enumerate the sales of the previous day; so many glasses of wine over the counter, so many bottles of country wine delivered at houses, and the old woman listened with the attention of one used to poverty and who knows the value of money to the very last farthing.

Sebastian spoke of the possibility of increasing his trade. A "bureau de tabac"[71] in his tavern would suit him down to the ground. The espada could get him this, through his friendship with great people, but Sebastian felt scruples at asking such a favour.

"You see, Seña Angustias, the bureau is a thing that depends on the Government, and I have my principles. I figure on the register of my party and am also on the committee. What would my co-religionists say?"

The old woman was indignant at these scruples. What he had to do was to bring as much bread into the family as he could. That poor Teresa! with such a lot of children!

"Don't be foolish, Sebastian, get all these cobwebs out of your brain.... Now don't answer me. Don't start telling me all sorts of impieties like the other night; remember I am going to hear Mass at La Macarena to-morrow morning."

But Gallardo and Don José, who were smoking the other side of the table, with a glass of cognac within reach of their hands, and who delighted in making El Nacional talk so that they could laugh at his ideas, egged him on by depreciating Don Joselito: an imposter who upset ignorant men like him.

The banderillero received his master's jokes meekly enough. To doubt Don Joselito! Such a patent absurdity could not make him angry. It was as though some one was hitting at his other idol Gallardo, by saying he did not know how to kill a bull.

But when he heard the saddler, who inspired him with an unconquerable aversion, take part in these jests, he lost his calm. Who was that scamp, living by hanging on to his master, that he should dare to argue with him? With him!... And then losing all restraint, taking no notice of the espada's wife and mother, or of Encarnacion, who, imitating her husband, pursed up her mustachioed lip, looking contemptuously at the banderillero, the latter launched himself full sail on the exposition of his ideas, with the same ardour as when he discussed in committee.

For want of better arguments he overwhelmed the beliefs of others with insults.

"The Bible?... Rubbish![72] The creation of the world in six days.... Rubbish!... The story of Adam and Eve? Rubbish!... The whole of it lies and superstition."

And this word rubbish, that he employed, in order not to use one even more disrespectful, and that he applied to everything which seemed to him false and ridiculous, took on his lips an astonishing intensity of contempt.

The history of Adam and Eve was for him the subject of never-ending sarcasm; he had reflected much on this point during the hours of quiet drowsiness, when he was travelling with the cuadrilla, during which time he had discovered an irrefutable argument, drawn entirely from his own inner consciousness. "How could it be thought that all human beings were descended from one only pair?"

"I call myself Sebastian Venegas, and so it is; and you, Juaniyo, you call yourself Gallardo; and you, Don José, have also your own name; every one has his own, and when the names are the same people must be relations. If then we were all grandchildren of Adam, and Adam's name was—we will suppose—Perez, we should all be named Perez. That is quite clear?... Well then if we all have our family names, there must have been a great many Adams, and so what the priests tell us is all ... rubbish—retrograde superstition! It is education we want, and the clergy take advantage of our ignorance.... I think I am explaining myself!"

Gallardo, throwing himself back in his chair, screaming with laughter, greeted the orator with a hurrah, which imitated the bellowing of a bull—while the manager, with Andalusian gravity, stretched out his hand congratulating him,—

"Here, shake it! You have been very good! as good as Castelar!"

The Señora Angustias was extremely angry at hearing such things in her house, feeling that as an old woman she must be drawing near to the end of her life.

"Shut up, Sebastian. Shut up your infernal mouth, cursed one! or I shall turn you out of doors. If I did not know that you are an honest man!"

However, she soon forgave the banderillero, when she thought of his affection for Juan, and remembered how he had acted in moments of danger. Besides, it was a great comfort to her and to Carmen, that so serious and right-minded a man should belong to the cuadrilla with the other "lads," for the espada, left to himself, was extremely light of character, and easily drawn away by his desire for admiration from women.

The enemy of Adam and Eve held a secret of his master's, which made him reserved and grave, when he saw him in his own house, between his mother and Carmen. If those women only knew what he knew!

In spite of the respect that every banderillero ought to pay his master, El Nacional had one day ventured to speak to Gallardo, taking advantage of his seniority in years, and of their very old friendship.

"Listen to me, Juaniyo. All Seville knows about it! Nothing else is spoken of, and the news will get to your house and cause a ruction that will singe the good God's hair!... Just think—the Señora Angustias will put on a face like the Mater Dolorosa, and poor Carmen will get in a rage. Remember the row about that singer, and that was nothing to this.... This bicho[73] is far more dangerous, so beware."

Gallardo pretended not to understand, feeling annoyed but flattered at the same time that all Seville should be aware of the secret of his amours.

"But who is this 'bicho?' What are these rows you speak of?"

"Who should it be! Doña Sol; that great lady who gives every one so much cause for gossip. The niece of the Marquis de Moraima, the breeder."

And as the espada remained silent but smiling, delighted to find El Nacional so well informed, the latter went on like a preacher, disillusioned of the vanities of life.

"A married man ought to seek, before everything else, the peace of his household.... All women are just the same.... Rubbish. One is worth just as much as the other, and it is a folly to embitter your life by flying from one to another.... Your servant, for the twenty-five years he has lived with his Teresa, has never deceived her once even in thought, and yet I, too, am a torero, and have had my good times and many a girl has cast sheep's eyes at me."

Gallardo laughed outright at the banderillero's lecture. He really spoke like the prior of a convent. And yet it was he who wished to gobble up all the friars alive!... "Nacional, don't be an idiot! Every one is as he is, and if the women come to us, well then, let them come. One lives so short a time! And possibly some day I may be carried out of the circus feet foremost.... Besides, you do not know what a great lady is! If only you could see that woman!"...

Presently he added ingenuously as though he wished to disperse the sad and shocked look on El Nacional's face:

"I love Carmen dearly, you know it; I love her as much as ever. But I love the other one too. It is quite another thing.... I cannot explain it. It is quite another thing, and that is all."

And the banderillero could get no more out of his interview with Gallardo.

Months before, as the end of the bull-fighting season was approaching with the autumn, Gallardo had had an accidental encounter in the church of San Lorenzo.

He rested a few days in Seville before going to La Rinconada with his family. When this quiet time came round, nothing pleased him better than to live quietly in his own house, free from those perpetual journeys in the train. Killing more than a hundred bulls a year, with all the dangers and exertions of the fight, did not fatigue him half so much as those journeys lasting so many months from one Plaza to another all over Spain.

Those long journeys in full summer, under a burning sun, over scorched plains, in old carriages of which the roofs seemed on fire were most exhausting. The large water jar belonging to the cuadrilla which was filled at every station, utterly failed to quench their thirst. Besides, the trains were crowded with passengers, country people going to the towns to enjoy the fairs and see the corridas. Many a time Gallardo, after killing his last bull in a Plaza, fearing to lose his train, and still dressed in his gala costume, had rushed down to the station like a flash of gold and colours, through the crowds of travellers and piles of luggage. Often he had changed his clothes in the carriage under the eyes of his fellow passengers, pleased at travelling with such a celebrity, and had spent a restless night on the cushions, while the others squeezed themselves together to give him as much room as possible. These people respected his fatigue, thinking that on the morrow this man would give them the pleasure of a perhaps tragic emotion, without the slightest danger to themselves.

When he arrived wearied out at a town en fête, the streets decorated with flags and triumphal arches, he had to endure all the torment of enthusiastic admiration. The amateurs, bewitched by his name, met him at the station and accompanied him to the hotel. These light-hearted people who had slept well, and who mobbed him, expected to find him expansive and loquacious, as if the very fact alone of seeing them, must cause him the greatest of pleasures.

Many times there was not only one bull-run. He had to fight on three or four successive days, and the espada, when night came, exhausted by fatigue, by want of sleep, and recent emotions, would throw conventionalities overboard, and sit in his shirt sleeves in front of his hotel, to enjoy the cool. The "lads" of the cuadrilla who were lodged in the same hotel remained near their master like schoolboys in durance vile. Sometimes the boldest spirit would beg leave to take a turn through the illuminated streets and the fair.

"To-morrow there are Muira bulls," said the espada. "I know what these turns mean. You will come back at dawn to-morrow, having taken a few glasses too much, or done something else which will impair your vigour. No, no one goes out; you shall have your fill when we have done."

When their work was ended, if they had a free day before going on to the next corrida in another town, the cuadrilla would postpone their journey, then they would indulge in dissolute merriment away from their families, in company of the enthusiastic amateurs who imagined that this was the usual way of life of their idols.

The ill-arranged dates of the corridas obliged the espada to take ridiculous journeys. He would go from one town to fight at the other end of Spain, three or four days afterwards he would retrace his steps to fight in a town close to the first, so that as the summer months were most abundant in corridas, he virtually spent the whole of them in the train, travelling in zigzags over every railway in the Peninsula, killing bulls by day and sleeping in the trains.

"If all my journeys in the summer were set in a straight line," said Gallardo, "they would assuredly reach to the North Pole."

At the beginning of the season he undertook those journeys gaily enough, thinking of the audiences who had talked of him the whole year, and who were impatiently expecting his arrival. He thought of the unexpected acquaintances he might make, of the adventures that feminine curiosity might bring him, of the life in different hotels, in which the disturbances, the annoyances, and the diversity of meals made such a contrast to his placid existence in Seville, or the mountainous solitude of La Rinconada.

But after a few weeks of this dizzy life, during which he earned five thousand pesetas for each afternoon's work, Gallardo began to fret, like a child away from his family.

"Ay! for my house in Seville, so cool, and kept like a silver cup by poor Carmen! Ay! for the mother's good stews! so delicious."...

On his return home, to rest for the remainder of the year, Gallardo experienced the satisfaction of a celebrated man, who, forgetful of his honours, can give himself over to the enjoyment of everyday life.

He would sleep late, free from the worry of railway time-tables, and the anxiety of thinking about bulls. Nothing to do that day, nor the next, nor the next! None of his journeys need be further than the Calle de las Sierpes or the Plaza de San Fernando. The family, too, seemed quite different, gayer and in better health, now they knew he was safe at home for several months. He would go out with his felt hat well back, swinging his gold-headed cane, and admiring the big diamonds on his fingers.

In the vestibule several men would be standing waiting for him close to the wicket, through the ironwork of which could be seen the white and luminous patio, so beautifully clean. Many of them were sun-burnt men, reeking of perspiration, in dirty blouses and wide sombreros with ragged edges. Some were agricultural labourers, moving or on a journey, who on passing through Seville thought it the most natural thing to come and ask for help from the famous matador, whom they called Don Juan. Some were fellow townsmen who addressed him as "thou," and called him Juaniyo.

Gallardo, with his wonderful memory for faces, gained by constantly mixing with crowds, would recognise them; they were school-fellows, or companions of his vagabond childhood.

"So, affairs are not going on well, eh? Times are hard for every one."

And before this familiarity could tempt them to further intimacies, he would turn to Garabato, who held the wicket open.

"Go and tell the Señora to give each of them a couple of pesetas."

And he went out into the street, pleased with his own generosity and the beauty of life.

At the tavern close by Montañe's children and his customers would come to the door smiling with their eyes full of curiosity.

"Good-day, gentlemen!... I thank you for your civility, but I do not drink."

And freeing himself from the enthusiast who came towards him glass in hand, he walked on, being stopped in the next street by two old women, friends of his mother's. They begged him to stand godfather to the grandchild of one of them; her poor daughter might be confined at any moment; but her son-in-law, a furious Gallardist, who had often come to blows to defend his idol as he came out of the Plaza, had not dared to ask him.

"But, confound you! do you take me for a child's nurse? I have already more godchildren than there are foundlings in the Hospital!"

In order to get rid of the good ladies he advised them to go and talk it over with his mother, "hear what she had to say about it"; and he walked on, never stopping till he got to the Calle de las Sierpes, saluting some, and allowing others to enjoy the honour of walking by his side, in proud friendship, under the eyes of the passers-by.

He looked in for a moment at the Club of the "Forty-Five," to see if his manager were there; this was a very aristocratic club, and, as its name indicated, limited as to numbers, in which nothing was talked of save horses and bulls. It was composed of rich amateurs and breeders, among whom figured as an oracle in the first rank, the Marquis de Moraima.

During one of these walks on a Friday afternoon, Gallardo, who was going towards the Calle de las Sierpes, felt a wish to enter the church of San Lorenzo.

In the little square were drawn up several sumptuous carriages. All the best people in the town were going on that day to pray to the miraculous image of our Father Jesus of Great Power. The ladies descended from their carriages dressed in black, with rich mantillas, and several men also went into the church, attracted by the feminine concourse.

Gallardo also entered. For a torero ought to take advantage of every opportunity to rub shoulders with people of high position. The son of Señora Angustias felt a triumphant pride when wealthy men saluted him, and elegant ladies murmured his name, indicating him with their eyes.

Besides, he was a devotee of the Lord of Great Power. If he tolerated El Nacional's opinions about God or Nature without being very much shocked, it was because for him divinity was something vague and undecided, something like the existence of a great lord against whom one may hear every sort of evil-speaking calmly, because one only knows of him by hearsay. But it was quite another affair with the "Virgin of Hope" and "Jesus of Great Power"—he had known them since his childhood, and these, no one should touch.

His feelings as a rough fellow were touched by the theatrical agony of Christ, with His cross on His back; the perspiring, agonized and livid face, reminded him of some of his comrades whom he had seen lying in the bull-ring infirmary. One must stand well with that powerful Lord; and he recited fervently several paternosters, as he stood before the image, the lights of whose wax tapers were reflected like stars on the whites of his Moorish eyes.

A rustle among the women kneeling before him, distracted his attention, greedy of supernatural interventions in his dangerous life.

A lady was passing through the kneeling devotees and attracting their attention; she was tall, slight, and of startling beauty, dressed in light colours, with a dark hat covered with feathers, beneath which flamed the shining gold of her hair.

Gallardo recognized her. It was Doña Sol, the niece of the Marquis de Moraima, the Ambassadress, as she was called in Seville. She passed through the women, taking no notice of their curiosity, but pleased at their glances and their murmured words, as if these were a natural homage due to her wherever she appeared. The foreign elegance of her dress and the enormous hat, stood out from among the dark mass of mantillas. She knelt and bent her head for an instant in prayer, and then her clear eyes of a greenish blue with golden lights wandered tranquilly through the church as though she were in a theatre seeking for friends among the audience. Her eyes seemed to smile when they lighted on a friend, and pursuing their wanderings, they at last met those of Gallardo fixed on her.

The espada was not modest. Accustomed to see himself the object of contemplation by thousands and thousands of eyes on the afternoon of a corrida, he thought frankly that wherever he was all looks must necessarily be directed towards himself. Many women, in confidential hours, had told him of the emotion, the curiosity, and the desire, that had seized them the first time they had seen him in the circus. Doña Sol's eyes did not fall as they met those of the torero; on the contrary, she continued to stare at him with the coldness of a great lady, and it was the matador, always respectful to the rich, who at last turned his eyes away.

What a woman! thought he, with his vanity as a popular idol. Will that gachi[74] be for me?

Outside the church, he felt it impossible to go away, and so as to see her again he waited by the door. His heart told him something was happening, as on the afternoons of his greatest successes. It was the same mysterious heart-throb which made him disregard the protests of the public, throwing himself daringly into the greatest risks, and always with splendid results.

When she in her turn came out, she looked at him again without surprise, as if she had guessed he would be waiting for her at the door. She mounted into her carriage, accompanied by two friends, and as the coachman started the horses, she again turned her head to look at him, and a slight smile passed over her lips.

Gallardo felt preoccupied all the afternoon. He thought of his previous amours, of the triumphs his proud bearing as a torero had given him, conquests that had filled him with pride, making him think himself invincible, but that now inspired him with shame. But a woman like this, a great lady, who after travelling throughout Europe, now lived in Seville like a queen! That would indeed be a conquest!... To his wonder at Doña Sol's beauty, he added the instinctive respect of the former vagabond, who in a country where birth and wealth have such great prestige, had learned to worship the great from his cradle. If only he could succeed in attracting the attention of such a woman! What greater triumph could he have!

His manager, a great friend of the Marquis de Moraima and well in with all the best sets in Seville, had sometimes spoken to him of Doña Sol.

After an absence of some years, she had returned to Seville a few months previously. After her long stay abroad she was enamoured of all the habits and popular customs of the country, pronouncing them all very interesting and very ... artistic. She went to the bull-fights in the ancient maja costume, imitating the manners and dress of the graceful ladies painted by Goya. She was a strong woman accustomed to all sports and a great rider, and the people saw her galloping in the outskirts of Seville in a dark riding habit, a red cravat, and a white felt hat poised on the golden glory of her hair. Often too she carried the garrocha[75] across her saddle, and with a party of friends as picadors, would ride out to the pastures to spear and overthrow bulls, delighting in this rough sport, so full of danger.

She was not a girl. Gallardo remembered dimly having seen her in her childhood, in the gardens of Las Delicias, seated by the side of her mother, a mass of white frills, while he, poor little wretch, ran underneath the carriage wheels to pick up cigar ends. No doubt she was the same age as himself, nearing the thirties; but how magnificent! How different from all other women!

Don José was well acquainted with her history.... A little off her head that Doña Sol!... And her romantic name agreed well with the originality of her character and the independence of her habits.

On the death of her mother, she became possessed of a very good fortune. She had married in Madrid a personage much older than herself who had as Ambassador, represented Spain at the principal Courts of Europe, a prospect which could not fail to be attractive to a woman anxious for splendour and novelty.

"How that woman has amused herself, Juan!" said the manager. "How many heads she has turned during the ten years she has travelled about Europe. She must be really a book on geography, with secret notes on every page. Certainly she must have a fine crop of memories about every capital in Europe.... And the poor Ambassador! He died, no doubt, from vexation, as there was nowhere left for him to go to. She flew very high, too. The good gentleman would be sent to represent us at some court or other, and before the year was out, the Queen or the Empress would be writing home to beg for the removal of the Ambassador and his seductive wife.... Oh! the crowned heads that gachi has turned!... Queens trembled at her arrival. Finally, the poor Ambassador, finding no place open to him except the American Republics—and as he was of good principles and a friend of kings—died. And don't imagine for a moment that she contented herself only with people living in royal palaces! if all that is told of her be true!... Everything she does is most extreme, everything or nothing. Sometimes fixing on the highest, sometimes on the lowest in the land. I have been told that in Russia she ran after one of those shaggy-haired fellows who throw bombs, who did not care much for her because she disturbed his plots, because she followed him everywhere, till at last his secret society strangled him. Afterwards she appears to have taken up with a painter in Paris, but possibly these may be exaggerations. However, it seems quite certain that she was great friends with some musician in Germany who writes operas. If you could only hear her play the piano! And when she sings! it is like one of the sopranos who come to San Fernando's theatre at Eastertide. And she not only sings in Italian, but in French, German, and English. Her uncle, the Marquis de Moraima, who, between ourselves, is just a little rough, says he even suspects she knows Latin!... What a woman, eh, Juanillo? What an interesting woman!"

Don José spoke of Doña Sol with admiration, thinking every act of her life extraordinary and original, those that were certain as well as those that were hazy.

"In Seville," continued he, "she leads an exemplary life, for which reason I think a great deal that has been said about her is untrue—the calumnies of certain people who found the grapes were sour. She appears to have fallen in love with Sevillian life, as though she had never seen it before! with our warm sunny climate, with our picturesque customs.... She has been made a member of the charitable brotherhood of the Cristo de Triana and spends a fortune on Manzanilla for the brothers. Some nights she fills her house with singers and dancers, who bring their families and even their most distant relations; they all fill themselves with olives, sausages and wine, and Doña Sol, seated in an arm-chair like a queen, spends hours asking for dance after dance. Her servants who have come with her, dressed in their liveries and as stiff and grave as lords, hand round trays of wine and sweets to these dancers, who pull their whiskers and throw the olive stones in their faces!... A most proper and amusing diversion!... Now, Doña Sol receives every morning an old gipsy called Lechuzo, who gives her lessons on the guitar...." and so Don José rambled on, explaining to the matador all Doña Sol's originalities.

Four days after Gallardo had seen her in the church of San Lorenzo, the manager came up to him in a café in the Calle de las Sierpes and said mysteriously: