Gallardo laughed at the old professors of tauromachy who consider a mishap impossible as long as the bull-fighter sticks to the rules of the art. Rules! He knew them not and did not trouble himself to learn them. Valor and audacity were all that were necessary to win. And, almost blindly, without other guide than his temerity, or other support than that of his physical faculties, he had risen rapidly, astonishing the public into paroxysms, stupefying it with wonder by his mad daring.
He had not climbed up, step by step, as had other matadores, serving long years first as peón and banderillero at the side of the maestros. He had never known fear of a bull's horns. "Hunger stabs worse." He had risen suddenly and the public had seen him begin as espada, achieving immense popularity in a few years.
They admired him for the reason that they held his misfortune a certainty. He fired the public with devilish enthusiasm for the blind way in which he defied Death. They gave him the same attention and care that they would give a criminal preparing for eternity. This bull-fighter was not one of those who held power in reserve; he gave everything, his life included. It was worth the money it cost. And the multitude, with the bestiality of those who witness danger from a point of safety, admired and urged the hero on. The prudent made wry faces at his deeds; they thought him a predestined suicide, shielded by luck, and murmured, "While he lasts!"
Drums and trumpets sounded and the first bull entered. Gallardo, with his plain working-cape over one arm, remained near the barrier close to the ranks of his partisans, in disdainful immobility, believing that the whole plaza had their eyes glued on him. That bull was for some one else. He would show signs of existence when his arrived. But the applause for the skilful cape-work of his companions brought him out of his quiet, and in spite of his intention he went at the bull, achieving several feats due more to audacity than to skill. The whole plaza applauded him, moved by predisposition in his favor because of his daring.
When Fuentes killed the first bull and walked toward the president's box, bowing to the multitude, Gallardo turned paler, as though all show of favor that was not for him was equivalent to ignominious oblivion. Now his turn was coming; great things were going to be seen. He did not know for a certainty what they might be but he was going to astound the public.
Scarcely had the second bull appeared when Gallardo, by his activity and his desire to shine, seemed to fill the whole plaza. His cape was ever near the bull's nose. A picador of his cuadrilla, the one called Potaje, was thrown from his horse and lay unprotected near the horns, but the maestro, grabbing the beast's tail, pulled with herculean strength and made him turn till the horseman was safe. The public applauded, wild with enthusiasm.
When the time for placing the banderillas arrived, Gallardo stood between the inner and outer barrier awaiting the bugle signal to kill. Nacional, with the banderilla in his hand, attracted the bull to the centre of the plaza. No grace nor audacity was in his bearing; it was merely a question of earning bread. Away in Seville were four small children who, if he were to die, would not find another father. To fulfil his duty and nothing more; only to throw his banderillas like a journeyman of tauromachy, without desire for ovations and merely well enough to avoid being hissed!
When he had placed the first pair, some of the spectators in the vast circle applauded, and others bantered the banderillero in a waggish tone, alluding to his hobbies.
"Less politics, and get closer!"
And Nacional, deceived by the distance, on hearing these shouts answered smiling, like his master:
"Many thanks; many thanks."
When Gallardo leaped anew into the arena at the sound of the trumpets and drums which announced the last play, the multitude stirred with a buzzing of emotion. This matador was its own. Now they were going to see something great.
He took the muleta from the hands of Garabato, who offered it folded as he came inside the walls; he grasped the sword which his servant also presented to him, and with short steps walked over and stood in front of the president's box carrying his cap in his hand. All craned their necks, devouring the idol with their eyes, but no one heard his speech. The arrogant, slender figure, the body thrown back to give greater force to his words, produced on the multitude the same effect as the most eloquent address. As he ended his peroration with a half turn, throwing his cap on the ground, enthusiasm broke out long and loud. Hurrah for the boy from Seville! Now they were to see the real thing! And the spectators looked at each other mutely, anticipating stupendous events. A tremor ran along the rows of seats as though they were in the presence of something sublime.
The profound silence produced by great emotions fell suddenly upon the multitude as though the plaza had been emptied. The life of so many thousands of persons was condensed into their eyes. No one seemed to breathe.
Gallardo advanced slowly toward the bull holding the muleta across his body like a banner, and waving his sword in his other hand with a pendulum-like movement that kept time with his step.
Turning his head an instant he saw that Nacional with another member of his cuadrilla was following to assist him, his cape over his arm.
"Stand aside, everybody!"
A voice rang out in the silence of the plaza making itself heard even to the farthest seats, and a burst of admiration answered it. "Stand aside, everybody!" He had said, "Stand aside, everybody!" What a man!
He walked up to the beast absolutely alone, and instantly silence fell again. He calmly readjusted the red flag on the stick, extended it, and advanced thus a few steps until he almost touched the nose of the bull, which stood stupefied and terrified by the audacity of the man.
The public dared not speak nor even breathe but admiration shone in their eyes. What a youth! He walked in between the very horns! He stamped the ground impatiently with one foot, inciting the beast to attack, and that enormous mass of flesh, defended by sharp horns fell bellowing upon him. The muleta passed over his horns, which grazed the tassels and fringes of the dress of the bull-fighter standing firm in his place, with no other movement than a backward bending of his body. A shout from the crowd answered this whirl of the muleta. Hurrah!
The infuriated beast returned; he re-attacked the man with the "rag," who repeated the pass, with the same roar from the public. The bull, made more and more furious by the deception, attacked the athlete who continued whirling the red flag within a short distance, fired by the proximity of danger and the wondering exclamations of the crowd that seemed to intoxicate him.
Gallardo felt the animal snort upon him; the moist vapor from its muzzle wet his right hand and his face. Grown familiar by contact he looked upon the brute as a good friend who was going to let himself be killed to contribute to his glory.
The bull stood motionless for some seconds as if tired of this play, gazing with hazy eyes at the man and at the red scarf, suspecting in his obscure mind the existence of a trick which with attack after attack was drawing him toward death.
Gallardo felt the presentiment of his happiest successes. Now! He rolled the flag with a circular movement of his left hand around the staff and he raised his right hand to the height of his eyes, standing with the sword pointing towards the neck of the beast.
The crowd was stirred by a movement of protest and horror.
"Don't strike yet," shouted thousands of voices. "No, no!"
It was too soon. The bull was not in good position; he would make a lunge and catch him. But Gallardo moved regardless of all rules of the art. What did either rules or life matter to that desperate man?
Suddenly he threw himself forward with his sword held before him, at the same time that the wild beast fell upon him. It was a brutal, savage encounter. For an instant man and beast formed a single mass and thus moved together several paces, no one knowing which was the conqueror, the man with an arm and part of his body lying between the two horns, or the beast lowering his head and trying to seize with his defences the puppet of gold and colors which seemed to be slipping away from him.
At last the group parted, the muleta lay on the ground like a rag, and the bull-fighter, his hands free, went staggering back from the impulse of the shock until he recovered his equilibrium a few steps away. His clothing was in disorder; his cravat floated outside his vest, gored and torn by one of the horns.
The bull raced on impelled by the momentum of his start. Above his broad neck the red hilt of the sword embedded to the cross scarcely protruded. Suddenly the animal paused, shuddering with a painful movement of obeisance, doubled his fore legs, inclined his head till his bellowing muzzle touched the sand, and finished by lying down with shudders of agony.
It seemed as if the very building would fall, as if the bricks dashed against one another, as if the multitude was about to fly panic-stricken, by the way it rose to its feet, pale, tremulous, gesticulating and throwing its arms. Dead! What a stroke! Every one had believed for a second that the matador was caught on the horns. All had felt sure they would see him fall upon the sand stained with blood and, as they beheld him standing up still giddy from the shock but smiling, surprise and amazement augmented the enthusiasm.
"How fierce!" they shouted from the tiers of seats, not finding a more fitting word to express their astonishment—" How rash!"
Hats flew into the arena and a deafening roar of applause, like a shower of hail, ran from row to row of seats as the matador advanced around the ring until he stood in front of the president's box.
The ovation burst out clamorously when Gallardo, extending his arms, saluted the president. All shouted, demanding for the swordsman the honors due to mastery. They must give him the ear. Never was this distinction so merited; few sword-thrusts like that had ever been seen; and the enthusiasm increased when a mozo of the plaza handed him a dark triangle, hairy and blood-stained—the point of one of the beast's ears.
The third bull was now in the ring, but the ovation to Gallardo continued as though the public had not yet recovered from its amazement; as though all that might occur during the rest of the bull-fight would be tame in comparison.
The other bull-fighters, pale with professional envy, strove valiantly to attract the attention of the public. Applause was given, but it was weak and faint after the former ovations. The public was exhausted by the delirium of its enthusiasm and heeded absent-mindedly the events that took place in the ring. Fiery discussions broke out and ran from tier to tier. The adherents of other bull-fighters, serene and unmoved by the transports that had overcome the people, took advantage of the spontaneous movement, to turn the discussion upon Gallardo. Very valiant, very daring, a suicide, they said, but that was not art. And the vehement adherents of the idol, proud of his audacity and carried away by their own feelings, became indignant like the believer who sees the miracles of his favorite saint held in doubt.
The attention of the public was diverted by incidents that disturbed the people on some of the tiers of seats. Suddenly those in one section moved; the spectators rose to their feet, turning their backs to the ring; arms and canes whirled above their heads. The rest of the crowd ceased looking at the arena, directing their attention to the seat of trouble and to the large numbers, painted on the inner wall, that marked the different sections of the amphitheatre.
"Fight in the third!" they yelled joyfully. "Now there's a row in the fifth!"
Following the contagious impulse of the crowd, all became excited and rose to their feet to see over their neighbors' heads but were unable to distinguish anything except the slow ascent of the police who, opening a passage from step to step, reached the group where the dispute had begun.
"Sit down!" exclaimed the more prudent, deprived of their view of the ring where the bull-fighters continued the game.
Little by little the waves of the multitude calmed, the rows of heads assumed their former regularity on the circular lines of the benches, and the bull-fight went on. But the nerves of the audience were shaken and their state of mind manifested itself in unjust animosity toward certain fighters or by profound silence.
The public, exhausted by the recent intense emotion, found all the events tame. They sought to allay their ennui by eating and drinking. The venders in the plaza went about between barreras, throwing with marvellous skill the articles bought. Oranges flew like red balls to the highest row, going from the hand of the seller to those of the buyer in a straight line, as if pulled by a thread. Bottles of carbonated drinks were uncorked. The liquid gold of Andalusian wines shone in little glasses.
A movement of curiosity circulated along the benches. Fuentes was about to fix the banderillas in his bull and every one expected some extraordinary show of skill and grace. He advanced alone to the centre of the plaza with the banderillas in one hand, serene, tranquil, walking slowly, as though he were to begin a game. The bull followed his movements with curious eyes, amazed to see the man alone before him after the former hurly-burly of fluttering and extended capes, of cruel barbs thrust into his neck, of horses that came and stood within reach of his horns, as if offering themselves to his attack.
The man hypnotized the beast. He drew near until he could touch his poll with the point of the banderillas, then he ran slowly away, with short steps, the bull after him, as though persuaded into obedience and drawn against his will to the extreme opposite side of the plaza. The animal seemed to be mastered by the bull-fighter; he obeyed him in all his movements until the man, calling the game ended, extended his arms with a banderilla in each hand, raised his small, slender body upon his toes, advanced toward the bull with majestic ease, and thrust the gayly colored darts into its neck.
Three times he performed the same feat, applauded by the public. Those who considered themselves connoisseurs retaliated now for the explosion of enthusiasm provoked by Gallardo. This was a bull-fighter! This was pure art.
Gallardo, standing near the barrier, wiped the sweat off his face with a towel which Garabato handed him. Then he turned his back on the ring to avoid seeing the prowess of his companion. Outside of the plaza he esteemed his rivals with that feeling of fraternity established by danger; but as soon as they stepped into the arena all were enemies and their triumphs pained him as if they were offences. Now the enthusiasm of the public seemed to him a robbery that diminished his own great triumph.
When the fifth bull came out, it was for him, and he sprang into the arena anxious to again startle the public by his daring.
When a picador fell he threw his cape and enticed the bull to the other side of the ring, confusing him with a series of movements until the beast became stupefied and stood motionless. Then Gallardo touched his nose with one foot, and took his cap and put it between the horns. Again, he took advantage of the animal's stupefaction and thrust his body forward as an audacious challenge, and knelt at a short distance, all but lying down under the brute's nose.
The old aficionados protested loudly. Monkey-shines! Clown-tricks, that would not have been tolerated in olden days! But they had to subside, wearied by the tumult of the public.
When the signal for the banderillas was given the people were thrown into suspense by seeing that Gallardo took the darts from Nacional and walked towards the beast with them. There was an exclamation of protest. He to throw the banderillas! All knew his inexperience in that direction. This ought to be left to those who had risen in their career step by step, for those who had been banderilleros many years at the side of their maestros before becoming bull-fighters; and Gallardo had begun at the top, killing bulls ever since he stepped into the plaza.
"No! No!" clamored the multitude.
Doctor Ruiz shouted and gesticulated from the contrabarrera.
"Leave off that, boy! Thou knowest but the great act—to kill!"
But Gallardo scorned the public and was deaf to its protests when he felt the impulse of audacity. Amidst the outcries he went directly towards the bull, which never moved and, zas! he stuck in the banderillas. The pair lodged out of place, and only skin deep, and one of the sticks fell at the beast's movement of surprise. But this mattered not. With that lenity the multitude ever feels for its idols, excusing and justifying their defects, the entire public commended this piece of daring by smiling. He, growing more rash, took other banderillas and lodged them, heedless of the protests of the people who feared for his life. Then he repeated the act a third time, each time doing it crudely but with such fearlessness that what in another would have provoked hisses was received with great explosions of admiration. What a man! How luck aided this daring youth!
The bull stood with only four of the banderillas in his neck, and those so lightly embedded that he did not seem to feel them.
"He is perfectly sound," yelled the devotees on the rows of seats, alluding to the bull, while Gallardo, grasping sword and muleta, marched up to him, with his cap on, arrogant and calm, trusting in his lucky star.
"Aside, all!" he shouted again.
Divining that some one was near him giving no heed to his orders he turned his head. Fuentes was a few steps away. He had followed him, his cape over his arm, feigning inattention but ready to come to his aid as though he felt a premonition of an accident.
"Leave me alone, Antonio," said Gallardo, with an expression that was at once angry and respectful, as though he were talking to an elder brother, at which Fuentes shrugged his shoulders as if he thus threw off all responsibility, and turned his back and walked away slowly, but feeling certain of being needed at any moment.
Gallardo waved his flag in the beast's very face and the latter attacked. "A pass! Hurrah!" the enthusiasts roared. But the animal suddenly returned, falling upon the matador again and giving him such a violent blow with his head that the muleta was knocked from his hands. Finding himself unarmed and hard-pressed he had to make for the barrera, but at the same instant Fuentes' cape distracted the animal. Gallardo, who divined during his flight the beast's sudden halt, did not jump over the barrera; he sat on the vaulting wall an instant, contemplating his enemy a few paces away. The rout ended in applause for this show of serenity.
Gallardo recovered the muleta and sword, carefully arranged the red flag, and again stood in front of the beast's head, less calmly, but dominated instead by a murderous fury, by a desire to kill instantly the animal that had made him run in sight of thousands of admirers.
He had scarcely made a pass with the flag when he thought the decisive moment had arrived and he squared himself, the muleta held low, the hilt of the sword raised close to his eyes.
The public protested again, fearing for his life.
"He'll throw thee! No! Aaay!"
It was an exclamation of horror that moved the whole plaza; a spasm that caused the multitude to rise to its feet with eyes staring while the women covered their faces or grasped the nearest arm in terror.
At the bull-fighter's thrust the sword struck bone, and, delayed in the movement of stepping aside on account of this difficulty, Gallardo had been caught by one of the horns and now hung upon it by the middle of his body. The brave youth, so strong and wiry, found himself tossed about on the end of the horn like a miserable manikin until the powerful beast, with a shake of his head, flung him some yards away, where he fell heavily on the sand with arms and legs extended, like a frog dressed in silk and gold.
"He is killed! A horn-stab in the belly!" They shouted from the rows of seats.
But Gallardo got up amidst the capes and the men who rushed to cover and save him. He smiled; he tested his body; then he raised his shoulders to indicate to the public that it was nothing. A jar—no more, and the belt torn to shreds. The horn had only penetrated the wrapping of strong silk.
Again he grasped the instruments of death, but now nobody would remain seated, divining that the encounter would be short and terrible. Gallardo marched towards the beast with a blind impulse determined to kill or die immediately, without delay or precaution. The bull or he! He saw red, as if blood had been injected into his eyes. He heard, as something distant that came from another world, the outcry of the multitude counselling calmness.
He made only two passes, aided by a cape that he held at his side, then suddenly, with the swiftness of a dream, like a spring that is loosed from its fastening, he threw himself upon the bull, giving him a stab that his admirers said was swift as a lightning stroke. He thrust his arm so far over that on escaping from between the horns he received a blow from one of them which sent him staggering away; but he kept on his feet, and the beast, after a mad run, fell at the extreme opposite side of the plaza and lay with his legs bent under him and the top of his head touching the sand until the puntillero came to finish him. The public seemed to go mad with enthusiasm. A glorious bull-fight! It was surfeited with excitement. That fellow Gallardo did not rob one of his money; he responded with excess to the price of entrance. The devotees would have material to talk about for three days at their meetings at the café. How brave! how fierce! And the most enthusiastic, with warlike fervor, looked in every direction as if searching for enemies.
"The greatest matador in the world! And here am I to face whoever dare say to the contrary!"
The remainder of the bull-fight scarcely claimed attention. It all seemed tasteless and colorless after Gallardo's daring.
When the last bull fell upon the sand a surging crowd of boys, of popular devotees, of apprentices of the art of bull-fighting, invaded the ring. They surrounded Gallardo, following him on his way from the president's box to the door of exit. They crowded against him, all wishing to press his hand or touch his dress, and at last, the most vehement, paying no attention to the gesticulations of Nacional and the other banderilleros, caught the master by the legs and raised him to their shoulders, carrying him around the ring and through the galleries to the outer edge of the plaza.
Gallardo, taking off his cap, bowed to the groups that applauded his triumph. Wrapped in his glittering cape, he allowed himself to be carried like a divinity, motionless and erect above the current of Cordovan hats and Madrid caps, amidst acclamations of enthusiasm.
As he stepped into his carriage at the lower end of Alcalá Street, hailed by the crowd that had not seen the bull-fight, but which already knew of his triumphs, a smile of pride, of satisfaction in his own strength, illuminated his sweaty countenance over which the pallor of emotion still spread.
Nacional, anxious about the master's having been caught and about his violent fall, wished to know if he felt any pain, and if he should call Doctor Ruiz.
"It's nothing; a petting, nothing more. No bull alive can kill me."
But as though in the midst of his pride arose the recollection of his past weaknesses, and as though he thought he saw in Nacional's eyes an ironic expression, he added:
"Those are things that affect me before going to the plaza; something like hysteria in women. But thou art right, Sebastián. How sayest thou? God or Nature, that's it; neither God nor Nature should meddle in affairs of bull-fighting. Every one gets through as he can, by his skill or by his courage, and recommendations from earth or from heaven are of no use to him. Thou hast talent, Sebastián; thou shouldst have studied for a career."
In the optimism of his joy he looked upon the banderillero as a sage, forgetting the jests with which he had always received the latter's topsy-turvy reasoning.
When he reached his lodging he found many admirers in the vestibule anxious to embrace him. They talked of his deeds with such hyperbole that they seemed altered, exaggerated, and transfigured by the comments made in the short distance from the plaza to the hotel.
Upstairs his room was full of friends, gentlemen who thoued him, and, imitating the rustic speech of the country people, shepherds and cattle-breeders, said to him, slapping his shoulders:
"Thou hast done very well; but really, very well!"
Gallardo freed himself from this enthusiastic reception and went out into the corridor with Garabato.
"Go and send a telegram home. Thou knowest what to say: 'As usual.'"
Garabato protested. He must help the maestro undress. The servants of the hotel would take charge of sending the despatch.
"No, I wish it to be thou. I will wait. Thou must send another telegram. Thou already knowest who to—to that lady; to Doña Sol. Also 'As usual.'"
WHEN Señora Angustias was bereft of her husband, Señor Juan Gallardo, the well known cobbler established in a portal in the ward of the Feria, she wept with the disconsolateness due the event, but at the same time, in the depths of her soul, she felt the satisfaction of one who rests after a long journey, freed from an overwhelming burden.
"Poor fellow, joy of my heart! May God keep him in His glory. So good! So industrious!"
During twenty years of life together, he had not caused her greater sorrows than those the rest of the women of the ward had to bear. Of the three pesetas he averaged as a result of his labor he handed over one to Señora Angustias for the support of the house and family, using the other two for personal entertainment and for keeping up appearances among his friends. He was obliged to respond to the attentions of his companions when they invited him to a convivial glass, and the famous Andalusian wine, since it is the glory of God, costs dear. Also it was inevitable that he should go to see the bulls, because a man who does not drink nor attend bull-fights—why is he in the world?
Señora Angustias with her two children, Encarnación and little Juan, had to sharpen her wits and develop numerous talents in order to keep the family together. She worked as a servant in the houses nearest her ward, sewed for the women of the neighborhood, sold clothing and trinkets for a certain brokeress, a friend of hers, and made cigarettes for the gentlemen, recalling her youthful aptitude when Señor Juan, an enthusiastic and favored lover, used to come and wait for her at the door of the Tobacco Factory.
Never could she complain of infidelity or ill-treatment on the part of her husband. On Saturdays when the cobbler used to come home drunk in the late hours of the night supported by his friends, joy and tenderness came with him. Señora Angustias had to drag him into the house, for he was determined to remain outside the door clapping his hands and intoning, with slobbery voice, tender love songs dedicated to his corpulent companion. And when the door was at last closed behind him, depriving the neighbors of a source of entertainment, Señor Juan, in a state of sentimental drunkenness, insisted on seeing the sleeping children; he kissed them, wetting their little faces with great tear-drops, and repeated his verses in honor of Señora Angustias (Hurrah! the greatest woman in the world!) till finally the good wife was compelled to cease frowning and to laugh while she undressed him and managed him as if he were a sick child.
This was his only vice. Poor fellow! There was not a sign of women or of gambling. His self-esteem which made him go well dressed while the family went in rags, and his unequal division of the products of his labor, were both compensated by generous incentives. Señora Angustias recollected with pride the great feast days when Juan had her put on her Manila shawl, her wedding mantilla, and, with the children walking in advance, he strode at her side with white Cordovan hat and silver handled cane, taking a walk along Delicias with the same air as any shopkeeper's family from Sierpes Street. On cheap bull-fight days he courted her pompously before going to the plaza, offering her glasses of wine at La Campana or at a café in the New Plaza. This happy time was now but a faint and pleasant memory in the recollection of the poor woman.
Señor Juan fell ill of phthisis and for two years the wife had to care for him, making still greater exertions in her industries to compensate for the lack of the peseta her husband used to turn over to her. At last he died in the hospital, resigned to his fate, convinced that existence was of no value without Andalusian wine and without bulls, and his last look of love and gratitude was for his wife, as if he would call out with his eyes: "Hurrah! the greatest woman in the world!"
When Señora Angustias was left alone her position did not change for the worse,—rather for the better. She enjoyed greater liberty in her movements, freed from the man who for the last two years had weighed more heavily upon her than the rest of the family. Being an energetic woman and of prompt decision, she immediately marked out a career for her children. Encarnación, who was now sixteen, went to the Tobacco Factory, where her mother was able to introduce her, thanks to her relations with certain friends of her youth who had become overseers. Juanillo, who as a lad had passed his days in the portal of the Feria watching his father work, should be a shoemaker, according to the will of Señora Angustias. She took him out of school, where he had learned to read but poorly, and at twelve he became an apprentice to one of the best shoemakers in Seville.
And now the martyrdom of the poor woman began.
Ah, that boy! Son of such honorable parents! Almost every day, instead of going to his master's shop he went to the slaughter-house with certain rascals who had their meeting place on a bench in the Alameda of Hercules and who delighted to flaunt a cape under the nose of young bullocks for the entertainment of herders and butchers, generally getting upset and trampled upon. Señora Angustias, who often toiled far into the night, needle in hand, so that the boy might go to the shop neat, with his clothing clean and mended, met him at the door when he came home with his pantaloons torn, his jacket dirty, and his face covered with lumps and scratches, afraid to enter yet without courage to flee owing to his hunger.
The welts made by his mother's blows and the marks of the broom-handle were added to the bruises of the treacherous bullocks, but the hero of the slaughter-house suffered them all, provided he did not lack his daily rations. "Beat me, but give me something to eat." And with his appetite awakened by violent exercise, he devoured the hard bread, the spoiled beans, the stale cod-fish, all the cheap food the diligent woman sought in the shops in the effort to maintain the family on her scanty earnings.
Toiling all day scrubbing floors, only now and then did she have an afternoon in which she could concern herself with her son's welfare and go to the cobbler's to learn of the progress of the apprentice. When she returned from the shoe-maker's shop she was puffing and blowing with anger and resolved upon terrible punishments to correct the vagabond.
Most of the time he failed to present himself at the shop at all. He spent the morning at the slaughter-house and in the afternoons he formed one of the group of vagabonds collected at the entrance of Sierpes Street, admiring at close range the bull-fighters out of work who gathered in Campana Street, dressed in new clothes, with resplendent hats but with no more than a peseta in their pockets, though each one was bragging of his exploits.
Little Juan contemplated them as if they were beings of marvellous superiority, envying their fine carriage and the boldness with which they flattered the women. The idea that each of these had at home a suit of silk embroidered with gold, and that with it on he strode before the multitude to the sound of music, produced a thrill of respect.
The son of Señora Angustias was known as the Little Cobbler among his ragged friends, and he showed satisfaction at having a nickname, as have nearly all the great men who appear in the ring. A foundation must be laid somewhere. He wore around his neck a red handkerchief which he had pilfered from his sister, and from beneath his cap his hair fell over his ears in thick locks which he carefully plastered down. He wore his plaited blouses of drill tucked into his trousers, which were ancient relics of his father's wardrobe made over by Señora Angustias; he insisted these must be high in the waist with the legs wide and the hips well tightened, and wept with humiliation when his mother would not yield to these exactions.
A cape! If only he might possess a fighting cape and not have to beg from other more fortunate boys the loan of the coveted "rag" for a few minutes! In a poor little room at home lay an old forgotten empty mattress case. Señora Angustias had sold the wool in days of stress. The Little Cobbler spent a morning locked in the room, taking advantage of the absence of his mother who was working as a servant in a priest's house.
With the ingenuity of a shipwrecked mariner on a desert isle who, thrown upon his own resources, must construct everything necessary to his existence, he cut a fighting cape from the damp and half-frayed cloth. Then he boiled in a pot a handful of red aniline bought at a druggist's, and dipped the ancient cotton in this dye. Little Juan admired his work—a cape of the most vivid scarlet that would arouse the greatest envy at the bull-baiting in the surrounding towns! Nothing remained but to dry it and he hung it in the sun beside the neighbor women's white clothes. The wind blew the dripping cloth about, bespattering the nearest pieces, until a chorus of curses and threats, clenched fists, and mouths that pronounced the ugliest of words against him and his mother, obliged the Little Cobbler to grasp his mantle of glory and take to his heels, his hands and face dyed red as though he had just committed a murder.
Señora Angustias, a strong, corpulent, be-whiskered woman who was not afraid of men, and inspired the respect of women for her energetic resolutions, was disheartened and weak in the presence of her son. What could she do? Her hands had pummelled every part of the boy's body; brooms were broken on him without beneficial results. That little imp had, according to her, the flesh of a dog. Accustomed outside of the house to the tremendous butting of the steers, to the cruel trampling of the cows, to the clubs of herders and butchers who beat the band of vagabond bull-fighters without compassion, his mother's blows seemed to him a natural event, a continuation of his life outside prolonged inside the home, and he accepted them without the least intention of mending his ways, as a fee which he must pay in exchange for his sustenance, chewing the hard bread with hungry enjoyment, while the maternal maledictions and blows rained on his back.
Scarcely was his hunger appeased when he fled from the house, taking advantage of the freedom in which Señora Angustias left him when she absented herself on her round of duties.
In Campana Street, that venerable haunt of the bull-fighters where the gossip of the great doings of the profession circulated, he received information about his companions that gave him tremors of enthusiasm.
"Little Cobbler, a bull-fight to-morrow."
The towns in the province celebrated the feasts of their patron saints with cape-teasing of bulls which had been rejected from the great plazas, and to these the young bull-fighters went in the hope of being able to say on their return that they had held the cape in the glorious plazas of Aznalcollar, Bollullos, or Mairena. They started on the journey at night with the cape over the shoulder if it were summer, or wrapped in it if winter, their stomachs empty, their heads full of visions of bulls and glory.
If the trip were of several days' journey they camped in the open, or they were admitted through charity to the hayloft of an inn. Alas for the grapes, melons, and figs they found by the way in those happy times! Their only fear was that another band, another cuadrilla, possessed of the same idea, would present itself in the pueblo and set up an opposition.
When they reached the end of their journey, with their eyebrows and mouths full of dust, tired and foot-sore from the march, they presented themselves to the alcalde and the boldest among them who performed the functions of director talked of the merits of his men. All considered themselves happy if the municipal generosity sheltered them in a stable of the hostelry and regaled them with a pot of stew in addition, which they would clean up instantly. In the village plaza enclosed by wagons and boards, they let loose aged bulls, regular forts of flesh covered with scabs and scars, with enormous saw-edged horns; cattle which had been fought many years in all the feasts of the province; venerable animals that "understood the game," such was their malice. Accustomed to one continual bull-fight they were in the secret of the tricks of the contest.
The youths of the pueblo pricked on the beasts from their place of safety and the people longed for an object of diversion greater than the bull—in the bull-fighters from Seville. These waved their capes, their legs trembling, their courage borne down by the weight of their stomachs. A tumble, and then great clamor from the public! When one in sudden terror took refuge behind the palisades, rural barbarity received him with insults, beating the hands clutching at the wood, pounding him on the legs to make him jump back into the ring. "Get back there, poltroon! Fraud, to turn your face from the bull."
At times one of the young swordsmen was borne out of the ring by four companions, pale as a sheet of white paper, his eyes glassy, his head fallen, his breast like a broken bellows. The veterinary came, quieting them all on seeing no blood. The boy was suffering from the shock of being thrown some yards and falling on the ground like a rag torn from a piece of clothing. Again it was the agony of having been stepped on by a beast of enormous weight. A bucket of water was thrown on his head and then, when he recovered his senses, they treated him to a long drink of brandy. A prince could not be better cared for!
To the ring again! And when the herder had no more bulls to let out and night was drawing near, two of the cuadrilla grasped the best cape belonging to the society and holding it by its edges went from one viewing stand to another soliciting a contribution. Copper coins fell upon the red cloth in proportion to the pleasure the strangers had given the country people; and, the bull-baiting ended, they started on their return to the city, knowing that they had exhausted their credit at the inn. Often they fought on the way over the distribution of the pieces of copper which they carried in a knotted handkerchief. Then the rest of the week, they recounted their deeds before the fascinated eyes of their companions who had not been members of the expedition.
Once Señora Angustias spent an entire week without hearing from her son. At last she heard vague rumors of his having been wounded in a bull-scrimmage in the town of Tocina. Dios mío! Where might that town be? How reach it? She gave up her son for dead, she wept for him, she longed to go; and then as she was getting ready to start on her journey, she saw little Juan coming home, pale, weak, but talking with manly joy of his accident.
It was nothing—a horn-stab in one thigh; a wound a fraction of an inch deep. And in the shamelessness of triumph he wanted to show it to the neighbors, affirming that a finger could be thrust into it without reaching its end. He was proud of the stench of iodoform that he shed as he walked, and he talked of the attention they had shown him in that town, which he considered the finest in Spain. The wealthiest citizens, one might say the aristocracy, interested themselves in his case, the alcalde had been to see him and later paid his way home. He still had three duros in his pocket, which he handed to his mother with the generosity of a great man. So much glory at fourteen! His satisfaction was yet greater when some genuine bull-fighters in Campana Street fixed their attention on the boy and asked him how his wound was getting along.
His companion in poverty was Chiripa, a boy of the same age, with a small body and malicious eyes, without father or mother, who had tramped about Seville ever since he had attained the use of his faculties. Chiripa was a master of the roving life and had travelled over the world. The two boys started on a journey empty of pocket, without other equipment than their capes, miserable cast-offs acquired for a few reales from a second-hand clothing store.
They clambered cautiously into trains and hid under seats. Often they were surprised by a trainman and, to the accompaniment of kicks and blows, were left by him on the platform of some solitary station while the train vanished like a lost hope. They awaited the arrival of another, spending the night in the open, employing the cunning of primitive man to satisfy their necessities, crawling round about country houses to steal some solitary chicken, which, after wringing the fowl's neck, they would broil over a fire of dry wood and devour scorched and half raw, with the voracity of young savages.
Often when they slept in the open air near a station awaiting the passing of a train, a couple of guards would come up to them. On seeing the red bundles that served as pillows for these vagabonds, their suspicions were quieted. They gently removed the boys' caps, and on finding the hairy appendage they went away laughing without further investigation. These were not young thieves; they were apprentices who were going to the capeas. And in this tolerance there was a mixture of sympathy for the national sport and of respect for the obscure possibilities of the future. Who could tell if one of these ragged youths, despite his present appearance of poverty, might not in the future be a "star of the art," a great man who would kill bulls for the entertainment of kings, and live like a prince, and whose deeds and sayings would be exploited in the newspapers?
One afternoon, the Little Cobbler was left alone in a town of Extremadura. For the admiration of the rustic audience which applauded the famous bull-fighters "come purposely from Seville," the two boys threw banderillas at a fierce and ancient bull. Little Juan stuck his pair into the beast and was posing near a view-stand, proudly receiving the popular ovation of tremendous hand-clappings and proffers of cups of wine, when an exclamation of horror sobered him in his intoxication of glory. Chiripa was no longer on the ground of the plaza; only the banderillas rolling in the dust, one slipper and a cap were there. The bull was moving about as if irritated by some obstacle, carrying hooked on one of his horns a bundle of clothing resembling a puppet. With the violent tossing of his head the shapeless roll was loosened from the horn, ejecting a red stream, but before touching the ground it was caught by the opposite horn which in its turn tossed it about during what seemed an interminable time. At last, the sorry bulk fell to the dust and there it stayed, flabby and inert, like a punctured wine-skin expelling its contents.
The herder with his leaders took the bull into the corral, for no one else dared go near him, and poor Chiripa was carried upon a stretcher to a wretched little room in the town-house that served as a jail. His companion looked at him with a face as white as if made of plaster. Chiripa's eyes were glazed and his body was red with the blood which could not be stopped by the cloths wet with water and vinegar, which were applied in lieu of anything better.
"Adio', Little Cobbler!" he moaned. "Adio', Juanito!"
And he said no more. The companion of the dead youth, terrified, started on his return to Seville still seeing his glassy eyes, hearing his mournful good-bye. He was filled with fear. A gentle cow appearing in his path would have made him run. He thought of his mother and of the prudence of her counsel. Would it not be better to dedicate himself to shoemaking and live tranquilly? But these resolutions only lasted while he was alone. When he reached Seville he felt the return of exhilaration. Friends rushed to him to hear about the death of poor Chiripa in every detail. Professional bull-fighters questioned him in Campana Street, remembering with pity the little vagabond with the pock-marked face who had often run errands for them. Juan, fired by such signs of consideration, gave rein to his powerful imagination, describing how he had thrown himself upon the bull when he had seen his poor companion hooked, how he had grabbed the beast by the tail and achieved even more wonderful feats, in spite of which the other boy had left this world.
The impulse of fear vanished. Bull-fighter—nothing but a bull-fighter! Since others were, why should he not be one? He recollected his mother's spoiled beans and hard bread; the deprivation each pair of new pantaloons had cost him; the hunger, that inseparable companion of many of his expeditions. Moreover he had a vehement desire for all the joys and displays of life; he gazed with envy at the coaches and the horses; he stood transfixed before the doors of the great houses through whose iron grilles he saw courtyards of Oriental sumptuousness and arcades of colored tiles, pavements with marble and chattering fountains casting a stream of pearls day and night into a basin surrounded by foliage. His fate was sealed. To kill bulls or die! To be rich, to have the newspapers talk of him, and to have the people bow to him, even though it were at the price of his life. He despised the lower grades of the art. He saw the banderilleros expose their lives equally with the swordsmen in exchange for thirty duros for each bull-fight; and, after a round of toil and horn-stabs, become old, with no other future than some wretched business bought with paltry savings, or else a position at the slaughter-house. Some died in the hospital; others begged alms from their youthful companions. He would have nothing to do with banderilleros nor with spending long years in a cuadrilla in submission to the despotism of a maestro. He would begin with killing bulls; he would tread the sand of the plazas as a swordsman!
The misfortune of poor Chiripa gave him a certain ascendency over his companions, and he formed a cuadrilla of ragged youths who marched behind him to the capeas of the pueblos. They respected him because he was braver and better dressed. Some young girls of the street, attracted by the manly beauty of the Little Cobbler, who was now in his eighteenth year, and predisposed by his coleta, disputed in noisy competition the honor of taking care of his comely person. Moreover he counted on a patron, an old magistrate who had a weakness for the courage of young bull-fighters and whose friendship infuriated Señora Angustias and caused her to let loose some most indecent expressions which she had learned at the Tobacco Factory in her younger days.
The Little Cobbler dressed himself in suits of English cloth well fitted to the elegance of his figure, and his hat was always resplendent. His friends took scrupulous care of the whiteness of his collars and furbelows, and on certain days he proudly wore on his waistcoat a heavy gold chain, a loan from his respectable friend, that had already figured around the necks of other "boys who were starting out."
He mingled with broken-down bull-fighters; he could pay for the drinks of the old peones who recalled the deeds of famous swordsmen. It was believed for a certainty that some protectors were exerting themselves in favor of this "boy," awaiting a propitious occasion for him to make his début in a fight of young bullocks in the plaza of Seville.
The Little Cobbler was now a matador. One day, at Lebrija, when a lively little young bull came into the plaza, his companions had urged him on to the greatest luck. "Dost thou dare to kill him?" And he killed him! Henceforward, fired by the ease with which he had escaped danger, he went to all the capeas in which they announced that a bull was to be killed, and to all the granges where bulls were to be fought to the death.
The proprietor of La Rinconada, a rich farmer with a small bull-ring, was an enthusiast who kept his table set and his hayloft open for all the hungry who wished to divert him by fighting his cattle. Juan went there in days of poverty with other companions, to eat and drink to the health of the rural hidalgo, although it might be at the price of some rough tumbling. They arrived afoot after a two days' tramp and the proprietor, seeing the dusty troop with their bundles of capes, said solemnly:
"Whoever does the best work, I'll buy him a ticket that he may return to Seville on the train."
Two days the lord of the farm spent smoking on the balcony of his plaza while the boys from Seville fought young bulls, being frequently caught and trampled.
He sharply reproved a poorly executed cape-play, and called out, "Get up off the ground, you big coward! Come, give him wine to get him over his fright," when a boy persisted in remaining stretched on the ground after a bull had passed over his body.
The Little Cobbler killed a bull in a manner so much to the liking of the owner that the latter seated him at his table while his comrades stayed in the kitchen with the herders and farm laborers, dipping their horn spoons into the steaming broth.
"Thou hast earned the return by railroad, my brave youth. Thou wilt travel far if thou dost not lose heart. Thou hast promise."
The Little Cobbler, starting on his return to Seville second class while the cuadrilla tramped afoot, thought that a new life was beginning for him, and he cast a look of covetousness at the enormous plantation with its extensive olive orchards, its fields of grain, its mills, its meadows stretching out of sight in which were pasturing thousands of goats, while bulls and cows lay quietly chewing the cud. What wealth! If only he might some day come to possess something like that!
GALLARDO'S prowess in fighting young bulls in the pueblos, heralded in Seville, caused the restless and insatiable amateurs, ever seeking a new luminary to eclipse those already discovered, to fix their attention upon him.
"He certainly is a boy of wonderful promise," they used to say, on seeing him pass along Sierpes Street with short step, swinging his arms arrogantly. "He must be seen on classic ground." This ground for them and for the Little Cobbler was the ring of the plaza at Seville. The boy was soon to find himself face to face with the real thing. His protector had acquired for him a spangled costume, somewhat worn, a cast-off of some bull-fighter who had failed to win a name. A corrida of young bulls was arranged for a benefit, and influential devotees, eager for novelty, managed to include him in the programme gratuitously, as matador.
The son of Señora Angustias declined to appear in the announcements under his nickname of Little Cobbler, which he desired to forget. He would have nothing to do with stage names, and less with menial offices. He wished to be known by the names of his father, he desired to be Juan Gallardo; no nickname should recall his origin to the great people who undoubtedly would become his friends of the future.
The whole ward of the Feria flocked en masse to the corrida with a noisy and patriotic fervor. The dwellers in the ward of Macarena also showed their interest and the other popular wards allowed themselves to be carried away with equal enthusiasm. A new matador for Seville! There was not room for all and thousands were left outside the plaza anxiously awaiting the news of the corrida.
Gallardo fought, killed, was knocked down by a bull without being hurt, and kept the public in constant anxiety by his daring, which generally resulted fortunately and provoked colossal bellowings of enthusiasm. Certain devotees, esteemed for their opinions, smiled complacently. He had much to learn but he had courage and ambition, which is the important thing.
"Above all, he goes in to really kill 'in classic style,' and he keeps inside the field of reality."
At the opposite side of the plaza the old magistrate smiled compassionately beneath his white beard, admiring the boy's bravery and the fine appearance he made in the spangled costume. When he saw him knocked down by the bull he fell back into his seat as if he were going to faint. That was too much for him.
In one section proudly strutted the husband of Encarnación, Gallardo's sister, a leather-worker by trade, a prudent man, an enemy of vagrancy, who had married the cigarette girl, captured by her charms, but under the express condition of having nothing to do with her scamp of a brother.
Gallardo, offended by his brother-in-law's distrust, had never ventured into his shop, which was situated in the outskirts of Macarena, nor descended from the ceremonious you when now and then of an afternoon he met him at his mother's house.
"I am going to see how that shameless brother of thine dodges the oranges," he had said to his wife as he set out for the plaza.
And now, from his seat, he bowed to the swordsman, calling him Juaniyo, saying thou, playing the peacock, content when the young bull-fighter, attracted by the many shouts, saw him at last and returned the greeting with a salute of his sword.
"He is my brother-in-law," said the leather-worker so that those near him might admire him. "I have always known the boy would amount to something at bull-fighting. My wife and I have helped him much."
The finale was triumphal. The multitude rushed impetuously upon Juanillo, as if they were about to devour him by their outbursts of enthusiasm. Fortunately the brother-in-law was present to impose order, to shield him with his body, and to conduct him to the hired coach in which he seated himself at the bull-fighter's side.
When they arrived at the house in the ward of the Feria an immense crowd was following the carriage with shouts of joy and acclamations of praise that brought the people crowding to the doors. The news of the triumph had reached there ahead of the swordsman and the neighbors ran out to see him and to press his hand.
Señora Angustias and her daughter were at the door. The leather-worker stepped out almost arm in arm with his brother-in-law, monopolizing him, shouting and gesticulating in the name of the family that nobody should touch him, as if he were a sick man.
"Here he is, Encarnación," he said, shoving him toward his wife, "Not even Roger de Flor himself—"
And Encarnación had no need to ask more, for she knew that her husband vaguely considered this historic individual the personification of all greatness and that he only ventured to connect his name with portentous circumstances.
Certain enthusiastic neighbors who came from the corrida flattered Señora Angustias, crying, "Blessed be the mother that has given birth to such a valiant youth!"
Her friends overwhelmed her with their exclamations. What luck! And what sums of money he soon was going to earn!
The poor woman wore in her eyes an expression of astonishment and doubt. And was it really her little Juan that had made the people run with such enthusiasm? Had they gone mad?
But she suddenly fell upon him as if all the past had vanished; as if her worry and fretting were a dream; as if she confessed a shameful error. Her great flabby arms wound around the bull-fighter's neck and her tears wetted his cheeks.
"My son! Little Juan! If thy poor father could only see thee!"
"Don't cry, mother—for this is a day of joy. You shall see. If God gives me luck I will build you a house and your friends shall see you in a carriage and you shall wear all the Manila shawls you want."
The leather-worker received these promises of greatness with signs of affirmation in the presence of his astonished wife, who had not yet recovered from her surprise at this radical change.
"Yes, Encarnación; this youth will do it all if he undertakes it. It was extraordinary. Not even Roger de Flor himself—!"
That night in the taverns and cafés of the popular wards they talked only of Gallardo. The bull-fighter of the future! He has flourished like the very roses. This boy is going to get away the favors from all the Cordovan caliphs.
In these assertions was revealed Sevillian pride in constant rivalry with the people of Córdova, which was also a land of good bull-fighters.
Gallardo's existence changed completely from this day. The young gentlemen greeted him and made him sit among them around the doors of the cafés. The pretty girls who formerly satisfied his hunger and took care of his adornment, found themselves little by little repelled with smiling disregard. Even the old protector prudently withdrew in view of a certain indifference and bestowed his tender friendship on other boys who were just beginning.
The management of the bull-plaza sought out Gallardo, humoring him as if he were already a celebrity. By announcing his name on the programmes success was assured, the plaza filled. The masses applauded wildly the "boy of Señora Angustias," giving tongue to tales of his valor. Gallardo's fame extended through Andalusia, and the leather-worker, without being solicited, mixed in everything and played the part of defender of his brother-in-law's interests. A thoughtful and expert man in business, according to himself, he saw the course of his life marked out.
"Thy brother," he would say to his wife at night as they went to bed, "needs a practical man at his side to manage his interests. Dost thou suppose he would think well of naming me his manager? A great thing for him! Not even Roger de Flor himself! And for us—?"
The leather-worker contemplated in imagination the great riches Gallardo was going to gain, and he thought also of his own five sons and those that were still to come. Who could tell if what the swordsman earned should fall to his nephews?
For a year and a half Juan killed bullocks in the best plazas of Spain. His fame had reached Madrid. The devotees at the capital felt a curiosity to see the "Sevillian boy" of whom the newspapers talked so much and of whom the "intelligent" Andalusians boasted.
Gallardo, escorted by a group of friends from his native city who were residing in Madrid, strutted along the sidewalk of Seville Street near the Café Inglés. The pretty girls smiled at his compliments and their eyes followed the toreador's heavy gold chain and his big diamond ornaments acquired with his first earnings and on credit—discounting the future. A matador must show that he has an overplus of money by decorating his person and treating everybody generously. How far away were those days when he, with poor Chiripa, tramped along that same pavement, afraid of the police, contemplating the bull-fighters with admiration and picking up the stubs of their cigars!
His work in Madrid was lucky. He made friends and formed around him a group of enthusiasts hungry for novelty who also proclaimed him the "bull-fighter of the future" and complained because he had not yet received the "alternative."
"He's going to earn money by basketfuls, Encarnación," said the brother-in-law. "He is going to have millions, if he doesn't have some bad luck."
The life of the family changed completely. Gallardo, mingling with the young gentlemen of Seville, did not wish his mother to continue living in the house where she had passed her days of poverty. On his account they had moved to a better street in the city, but Señora Angustias inclined to remain faithful to the ward of the Feria, with the love which simple people feel as they grow old for the places where their youth was spent.
They lived in a much better house. The mother did not work and the neighbors paid her homage, finding in her a generous lender in their days of stress. Juan possessed, besides the loud and showy jewels with which he adorned his person, that supreme luxury of every bull-fighter, a powerful sorrel mare, with a cowboy saddle and a fine blanket bordered with multicolored fringe across the pommel. Mounted on her he trotted along the streets with no other object than to receive the homage of his friends, who greeted his elegance with noisy "Olés!" This satisfied his desire for popularity for the moment. On other occasions he rode with the young bloods, forming a sightly troop of horsemen, to the pasture of Tablada, on the eve of a great corrida, to see the herd that others had to kill.
"When I take the 'alternative,'" he was saying at every step, making all his plans for the future depend on that.
He deferred until then a series of projects that would surprise his mother, poor woman, overcome by the good fortune fallen suddenly upon her house, and which, she thought, could not be surpassed.
The day of the "alternative" came at last, the day of Gallardo's recognition as a killer of bulls. A celebrated maestro ceded to him his sword and muleta in the open ring of Seville and the crowd went mad with enthusiasm, seeing how he felled with a single sword-thrust the first "formal" bull that appeared before him. The following month, this tauromachic degree was bestowed again in the plaza of Madrid where another maestro, not less celebrated, again gave him the "alternative" in a corrida of Miura bulls.
He was no longer a novillero; he was a matador, and his name figured beside those of old swordsmen whom he had worshipped as unapproachable gods when he was going about among the little towns taking part in the bull-baitings. He remembered having lain in wait for one of them at a station near Córdova to ask aid from him when he passed through on the train with his cuadrilla. That night he had something to eat, thanks to the generous fraternity that exists among the people of the queue which impels a swordsman of princely luxury to hand out a duro and a cigar to the unfortunate little vagabond on the road to his first capeas.
Contracts began to shower upon the new swordsman. In all the plazas of the Peninsula they desired to see him, moved by curiosity. The newspapers devoted to the profession popularized his picture and his life, distorting the latter with novel episodes. No other matador had so many engagements. He was going to make money abundantly.
Antonio, his brother-in-law, told of this success with clouded brow and loud protestations to his wife and her mother. The swordsman was an ungrateful fellow—the history of all who rise suddenly. And he had worked so hard for Juan! With what firmness had he argued with the managers when the bullock-fight was arranged for him. And now that he was a maestro he had as a manager a gentleman he had met only a short time ago; one Don José who was not one of the family but one for whom Gallardo showed esteem on account of his prestige as an old connoisseur.
"And he will be sorry for it," he ended, adding, "A man has only one family and where will he find such loving care as we have given him ever since he was little? He is the loser. With me he would flourish like Roger de—"
He interrupted himself, swallowing the famous name for fear of the jokes of the banderilleros and amateurs who frequented the house and who had no respect for the historical object of the leather-worker's adoration.
Gallardo, with the generosity of a victor, gave some satisfaction to his brother-in-law by putting him in charge of the house he was having built, with carte blanche as to expenses. The swordsman, overcome by the ease with which money came into his hands, was willing to let his brother-in-law rob him, thus compensating him for not having been chosen as manager.
The torero was to realize his desire of building a house for his mother. She, poor woman, who had spent her life scrubbing floors for the rich, should have her beautiful courtyard with marble pavements, with tiled wainscot, and rooms with furniture like those of the gentry, with servants, yes, many servants to wait upon her. He also felt united by a traditional affection to the ward where his childish poverty had slipped from him. He rejoiced to outshine the very people who had employed his mother as a servant and to give a handful of pesetas, in moments of need, to those who had taken shoes to his father or who had given him a crumb in those sorrowful days. He bought several old houses, one of them the same in whose portal the cobbler had worked. He had them torn down and began to build an edifice that was to have white walls with green painted grilles, a vestibule lined with tiles, and a barred gate of delicately wrought iron through which should be seen the courtyard with its fountain in the centre and its marble columns, between which should hang gilded cages with chattering birds.
Antonio's satisfaction at having full license in the direction and profit of the works was diminished somewhat by terrible news,—Gallardo had a sweetheart! He was travelling now in mid-summer, running over Spain from one plaza to another, making famous sword-thrusts and receiving applause; but almost daily he sent a letter to a certain girl in the ward and in the short respites between wandering from one corrida to another abandoned his companions and took the train to spend the night in Seville, courting her.
"Have you seen?" shouted the leather-worker, scandalized at what was taking place "in the bosom of the home" before the very eyes of his wife and mother-in-law. "A sweetheart! without saying a word to the family, which is the only thing worth while in the whole world! The Señor wants to marry. Without doubt he is tired of us. What a shameless fellow!"
Encarnación approved these assertions with rude grimaces of her strong, fierce face, content to be able to express herself thus against the brother who filled her with envy by his good fortune. Yes, he had ever been a shameless fellow.
But the mother protested. "No, indeed! I know the girl and her poor mother was a chum of mine in the Factory. She is as pure as nuggets of gold, trim, good, fine-looking. I have already told Juan that it would please me and the sooner the better."
She was an orphan, living with an aunt and uncle who kept a little grocery store in the ward. Her father, an old-time dealer in brandies, had left her two houses on the outskirts of Macarena.
"A little thing," said Señora Angustias, "but the girl doesn't come empty-handed. She brings something of her own. And as for clothes—Josú! you ought to see her little hands of gold; how she embroiders the clothes, how she is preparing her trousseau."
Gallardo vaguely recollected having played with her when they were children near the portal where the cobbler worked while the two mothers chatted. She was a sprightly creature, thin and dark, with eyes of a gypsy—the pupils black and sharply rounded like drops of ink, the corneas bluish white and the corners a pallid rose-hue. In their races she was as agile as a boy and her legs looked like reeds; her hair hung about her head in thick rebellious locks twisting like black snakes. Then she had dropped out of his sight and he did not meet her until many years afterward when he was a novillero, and had begun to make a name.
It was one Corpus Christi day—one of the few feasts when the women, shut up in the house through Oriental laziness, go out upon the streets like Moorish women at liberty, wearing mantillas of silk lace and carnations on their breasts. Gallardo saw a young girl, tall, slender, and at the same time strongly built, the waist confined in handsome firm curves with all the vigor of youth. Her face, of a rice-like pallor, colored on seeing the bull-fighter; her great luminous eyes hid themselves beneath their long lashes.
"That girl knows me," said Gallardo to himself. "She must have seen me in the ring."
And when, after having followed her and her aunt, he heard that it was Carmen, the companion of his infancy, he was astonished and confused by the marvellous transformation from the dark thin girl of the past. They became sweethearts and all the neighbors discussed their affair, seeing in them a new honor for the neighborhood.
"This is how it is with me," said Gallardo to his enthusiasts, adopting a princely air. "I don't want to imitate other bull-fighters who marry señoritas that are all hats and feathers and flounces. For me, those of my own class; a rich mantilla, a fine carriage, grace; that's what I want—Olé!"
His friends, enraptured, spoke highly of the girl,—a splendid lass, with curves to her body that would set any one wild, and what an air! But the bull-fighter only made a wry face. The less they talked of Carmen the better.
In the evening, as he conversed with her through a grated window, contemplating her Moorish face framed in the flowering vines, the servant of a nearby tavern presented himself, carrying glasses of Andalusian wine on a painted tray. He was the envoy who came to collect the toll, the traditional custom of Seville, which demanded pay from sweethearts who talk through the grille.
The bull-fighter drank a glass, offering another to the girl, and said to the boy:
"Give the gentlemen my thanks, and say I'll come along by the shop after a while. Also tell Montañés to allow no one else to pay, that Juan Gallardo will pay for everybody."
And when he had finished his talk with his betrothed he went into the tavern where he was awaited by the tipplers, some enthusiastic friends, others unknown admirers anxious to toast the health of the bull-fighter in tall glasses of wine.
On returning from his first trip as a full-fledged matador he spent the winter evenings close by Carmen's grated window, wrapped in his cape of greenish cloth, which had a narrow collar and was made generously ample, with vines and arabesques embroidered in black silk.
"They say that thou dost drink much," sighed Carmen, pressing her face against the bars.
"Nonsense! Courtesies of friends that one has to return and nothing more. Thou knowest that a bull-fighter is—a bull-fighter, and he is not going to live like a begging friar."