Chapter IV (2)

He breakfasted alone and ate little as was his habit on the days of a corrida, and by the time he went up to dress the women had disappeared. Ay! how they hated that brilliant costume, kept so carefully wrapped up in linen. Splendid tools which had built up the luxury of the family!

The farewells were, as usual, disconcerting and troubling for Gallardo. The flight of the women not to see him come down, Carmen's attempts at fortitude, accompanying him as far as the door, the wondering curiosity of the little nephews, everything irritated the torero, grown arrogant and hectoring as he saw the danger approaching.

"One would think I was being taken to the gibbet! Good-bye for the present. Calm yourselves. Nothing will happen."

And he got into the carriage, making way for himself through the friends and neighbours assembled in front of the house to wish "Señor Juan" good luck.

The afternoons when the espada fought in Seville were the most agonizing for the family. When he fought away from home they were obliged to resign themselves patiently to wait for the evening telegram. Here, the danger being close at hand, a desperate anxiety for news awoke, and the necessity of hearing every few minutes how the corrida was going on.

The saddler, dressed as a gentleman, in a suit of light flannel and a silky white felt hat, offered to let the women know what was happening. After every bull that Juan killed he would send some urchin with news. All the same he was furious at the incivility of his illustrious brother-in-law, who had not even offered him a seat in the carriage with the cuadrilla to drive to the Plaza!

Gallardo knew the soil he was treading: it was familiar to him and was in a sense his own. The sand of the different Plazas exercised an influence on his superstitious temperament. He recalled the large Plazas of Valencia and Barcelona, with their white sand, the dark sand of the northern Plazas, and the red sand of the huge circus in Madrid. But the sand in Seville was different from any other; drawn from the Guadalquivir it was a bright yellow, like pulverized ochre. The architecture of the buildings, too, had a certain influence over him, some built in Roman style, others again Moorish, but the Plaza of Seville was like a cathedral full of memories. There the glorious inventors of different strokes had brought their art to perfection; the school of Ronda with its steady and dignified fighting, and the school of Seville with its light play and mobility which caught the public fancy; and it was there that he, too, this afternoon would be intoxicated by the applause, by the sun, by the roar of the crowd, possibly by the sight of a blue bodice and a white mantilla leaning over the edge of a box, and he felt capable of the most reckless hardihood.

Anxious to outshine his companions, and monopolize all the applause, Gallardo seemed to fill the circus with his agility and boldness. Never had he been in such form. Don José, after each one of his splendid strokes, stood up shouting, challenging invisible enemies hidden among the benches. "Who dares to say anything against him! The first man in the world!"

At Gallardo's order, El Nacional, by clever cloak-play brought his master's second bull in front of the box, where the blue bodice with the white mantilla was seated. It was Doña Sol, accompanied by the Marquis and his two daughters.

Followed by the eyes of the audience Gallardo approached the barrier holding his rapier and the muleta in one hand. When he arrived opposite the box he stopped, took off his montera, and offered the bull as homage to the Marquis' niece. Many people smiled maliciously. "Olé! the lad has good luck." He gave a half turn, threw his montera behind him when he had ended the "Brindis," and waited for the bull which the peons were bringing up to him by dexterous cloak-play.

Keeping the animal in a very limited space, he prevented it moving away from that spot, and successfully accomplished his task. He wanted to kill under Doña Sol's eyes, so that she should see him close at the moment when he defied danger. Every pass from his muleta drew forth exclamations of enthusiasm and cries of anxiety. The horn seemed to graze his chest; it seemed impossible that blood should not flow after the bull's attacks. Suddenly he squared himself, the rapier well in line forward, and before the public could give its advice, by shouts or counsels, he had thrown himself swiftly on the bull and for a few instants man and bull looked as one body.

When the man disengaged himself, the bull rushed forward with uncertain step bellowing, its tongue hanging from its mouth, and the red pommel of the rapier scarcely visible on the crest of its bloody neck. After a few steps it fell, the spectators rose to their feet as one man and a hail of applause and furious shouting burst from all parts of the amphitheatre. There was no one in the world as brave as Gallardo! Had that man ever felt fear?

The espada saluted before the box, opening his arms with the rapier and muleta in either hand, while the white-gloved hands of Doña Sol clapped feverish applause.

Then something small was passed down from spectator to spectator, from the box down to the barrier. It was the lady's handkerchief, the one which she had held in her hand, a small scented square of lawn and lace, passed through a diamond ring, which she presented to the torero in acknowledgment of his "brindis."

The applause broke out afresh on seeing this recognition, and the attention of the public, hitherto fixed on the matador, was now turned on Doña Sol, many turning their backs on the circus to look at her, and extolling her beauty with the familiarity of Andalusian gallantry. Then a small hairy and still warm triangle was passed up from hand to hand to the box. It was the bull's ear, sent by the matador in witness of his "brindis."

Before the fiesta was ended the news of Gallardo's great triumph had spread all over the town, and when the espada returned to his house half the neighbourhood had assembled to applaud him, as though they had all been at the corrida.

The saddler, forgetting his annoyance with the espada, admired him even more for his friendly relations with the nobility than for his exploits in the bull-ring. He had his eyes fixed on a certain appointment, and he made very little doubt about getting it, seeing his brother-in-law's intimacy with the best people in Seville.

"Show them the ring. My goodness, Encarnacion, what a present! It is worthy of Roger de Flor!"

The ring passed from hand to hand, with cries of admiration from the women. Carmen only pursed up her lips on seeing it. "Yes, it is very pretty," and she passed it on hurriedly to her brother-in-law, as if it burnt her fingers.

After this corrida, the travelling season began. Gallardo had more engagements than in any previous year. After the corridas in Madrid, he was to fight in every Plaza in Spain. His manager was nearly distracted over the railway time tables, making endless calculations for the future guidance of his matador.

Gallardo went from triumph to triumph. Never had he been in such good form! He seemed to have gained fresh strength. Before the corridas, cruel doubts overwhelmed him, tremors nearly akin to fear, such as he had never known in his early days, when he was only beginning to make his name; but as soon as he found himself in the arena, these fears vanished and an almost savage bravery possessed him, which was always accompanied by fresh laurels.

When his work was over in some provincial town, and he returned to the hotel with his cuadrilla, for they all lived together, he would sit down perspiring, wearied with the pleasant fatigue of triumph, and before he could change his gala dress, all the wiseacres in the locality would come to congratulate him. He had been "colossal." He was the first torero in the world! That estocada of the fourth bull!...

"Yes, indeed," said Gallardo, with almost childish pride. "Really I was not bad in that."

With the interminable verbosity of all conversations about bulls, the time passed without either the espada or his friends wearying of talking about the afternoon's corridas, or about those of previous years. Night fell, the lights were lit, but still the aficionados did not go. The cuadrilla, according to bull-fighting discipline, listened silently to all this babel of talk at the further end of the room. As long as the master had not given his permission, his "lads" could neither undress nor sup. The picadors, fatigued by the iron armour on their legs and the terrible bruises resulting from their falls from horseback, held their coarse beaver hats between their knees: the banderilleros, their skintight silk garments, wet with perspiration, were all hungry after their afternoon's violent exercise; all were thinking the same thing and casting furious looks at these enthusiasts.

"When on earth will those tiresome idiots leave? Curse their hearts!"

At last the matador noticed them. "You may go," he said. And the cuadrilla escaped, pushing each other like school boys let loose, while the maestro continued listening to the praises of the connoisseurs, and Garabato waited silently to undress him.

On his days of rest, the maestro, free from the excitements of danger and glory, turned his thoughts towards Seville. Now and then one of those short little perfumed notes came for him, congratulating him on his triumphs. Ay! If only Doña Sol were with him!

There were moments in which he felt compelled to confide his sadness to El Nacional with that irresistible impulse of confession which all feel who carry a heavy weight in their hearts.

Besides, now he was away from Seville, he felt a greater affection for the banderillero, a kind of reflected tenderness. Sebastian knew of his loves with Doña Sol; he had seen her, though from afar, and she had often laughed when Gallardo told her of the picador's originalities.

Sebastian received his master's confidences with severe looks.

"What you have got to do, Juan, is to forget this lady. Family peace is worth more than anything to us who knock about the world, constantly exposed to danger and liable to be brought home any day feet foremost. See! Carmen knows a great deal more than you think. She is perfectly acquainted with everything, and she has even questioned me indirectly as to your relations with the Marquis' niece. Poor little thing! It is a shame to make her suffer!... She has a temper, and if you arouse it, it may give you some trouble."

But Gallardo, away from his family, and with his thoughts dominated by the remembrance of Doña Sol, did not seem to understand the dangers of which El Nacional spoke, and shrugged his shoulders at these sentimental scruples. He felt the need of speaking of his remembrances, of making his friend the confidant of his past happiness.

"You do not know what that woman is! You are an unlucky man, Sebastian, who does not know what is good. Take all the beautiful women in Seville together--they are as nothing. See all those we meet on our travels--neither are they anything. There is only one--Doña Sol, and when you know a woman like that, you do not want to know any others. If you only knew her as I do, gacho! Women of our class reek of health and clean linen, but this one!... Sebastian, this one!... Picture to yourself all the roses in the gardens of the Alcazar--No, something better still--jasmine, honeysuckle, all the bewildering perfumes of the gardens of Paradise, and those sweet scents seem to belong to her, not as if she put them on, but as if they were flowering in her veins. Besides, she is not one of those who once seen are always the same. With her there is always something still to desire, something to hope for, something which is never attained. I cannot, Sebastian, express myself better.... But you do not know what a great lady is; so don't preach any more, and shut your beak."

Gallardo no longer received any letters from Seville. Doña Sol was abroad. He saw her once when he was fighting in San Sebastian. The beautiful woman was staying in Biarritz and she came over with some French ladies who wished to know the torero. After that he heard very little of her; only from the few letters he got, and from the news his manager collected from the Marquis de Moraima.

She was at the seaside, then he heard she had gone to England, then to Germany, and Gallardo despaired of ever seeing her again.

This possibility saddened the torero, and revealed the ascendancy this woman had gained both over himself and his will. Never to see her again! Why then should he expose his life and become famous? Of what use was the applause of the populace?

His manager reassured him. She would return: he was quite certain. Even if it were only for a year, for Doña Sol, with all her mad caprices, was a very practical woman, and knew how to look after what belonged to her. She needed her uncle's assistance to disentangle the most involved affairs, both of her own and her late husband's fortune, produced by their long and expensive stay abroad.

The espada returned to Seville towards the end of the summer. He had still a good many corridas for the autumn, but he wanted to take advantage of a month's rest, during the absence of his family at the Baths of San Lucar.

Gallardo shivered with emotion when one day his manager announced the unexpected return of Doña Sol.

He went to see her at once, but after the first few words felt intimidated by her cold amiability and the expression of her eyes.

She looked at him as if he were different. In her glance a certain surprise at his rough exterior, at the difference between herself and this man, the matador of bulls, could be guessed.

He also felt this gulf which seemed opening between them. He looked at her as though she were another woman; a great lady of a different race and country.

They talked quietly. She seemed to have forgotten the past, and Gallardo did not dare to remind her of it, nor to make the slightest advance, fearing one of her outbursts of anger.

"Seville!" said Doña Sol. "It is very beautiful ... very pleasant. But there is more in the world! I warn you. Gallardo, that some day I shall take flight for ever. I guess that I shall be bored to death. My Seville seems quite changed."

She no longer "tutoyed" him, and it was many days before the torero dared during his visits to make the slightest allusion to the past. He confined himself to gazing at her in silence, with his moist and adoring Moorish eyes.

"I am bored. Some day I shall go away," she exclaimed at all these interviews.

Other times the imposing servant would receive the torero at the wicket and tell him the Señora was out, when he knew quite certainly that she was at home.

Gallardo told her one evening of a short excursion he was obliged to make to his farm of La Rinconada. He wanted to see some olive yards his manager had bought for him during his absence, and added to the property. He wanted also to look after the general work.

The idea of accompanying the espada on this expedition delighted Doña Sol. To go to that grange where Gallardo's family spent the greater part of the year! To enter with the startling scandal of irregularity and sin into the quiet atmosphere of that country house, where the poor fellow lived with his belongings!...

The absurdity of the wish decided her. She also would go. The idea of seeing La Rinconada interested her.

Gallardo felt afraid. He thought of all the farm people, of the gossips who would probably tell his family of this trip, but Doña Sol's glance beat down all his scruples. Who could tell? ... possibly this trip might bring on a return of their former intimacy.

All the same he wished to oppose one obstacle to this wish.

"How about El Plumitas?... According to what I hear, he is wandering round La Rinconada."

"Ah! El Plumitas!" Doña Sol's face, darkened by boredom, seemed to light up with an inward flame.

"How curious! I should be so delighted if you could present him to me."

Gallardo arranged the journey. He had thought of going alone, but Doña Sol's company obliged him to seek an escort, fearing some evil encounter on the road.

He looked up Potaje, the picador. He was extremely rough, fearing nothing in the world but his gipsy wife, who when she was tired of being beaten would turn and bite him. There would be no need to give him any explanations, only wine in abundance. Alcohol and his atrocious falls in the arena seemed to keep him in a perpetual muddle, as if his head were buzzing, and only permitted his few slow words and a cloudy vision of everything.

He ordered also El Nacional to accompany them, he would be one more, and was of tried discretion.

The banderillero obeyed from subordination, but he grumbled when he knew Doña Sol was going with them.

"By the life of the blue dove! To think of the father of a family mixing himself up in such ugly doings!... What will Carmen and the Señora Angustias say of me when they come to hear of it?"

But when he found himself in the open country, seated by the side of Potaje, in front of the espada and the great lady, his annoyance gradually vanished.

He could not see her well, wrapped up as she was in a large blue veil which covered her travelling cap, and falling over her yellow silk coat; but she was very beautiful.... And to hear them talk! What things she knew!

Before the journey was half over, El Nacional, in spite of his twenty-five years of conjugal fidelity, forgave his master's weakness, and quite understood his infatuation.

If ever he found himself in a like situation he would do exactly the same!

Education!... It was a great thing, capable of infusing respectability even into the most heinous sins.

FOOTNOTES:

[85] Diminutive of José.

[86] Little wolf.

[87] Branding of young bulls on the thighs with a hot iron. An operation which is not conducted without some commotion.

[88] Holy Saturday, so called from a religious ceremony in the Cathedral during which the "Gloria" is sung.

[89] The warner.

[90] The sleeve.

[91] This is looked upon as "hitting below the belt."