CHAPTER VIII
DIAMONDS IN THE RING
GALLARDO'S family returned to the city for the fiestas of Holy Week. He was to fight in the Easter corrida. It was the first time he would kill in the presence of Doña Sol since his acquaintance with her, and this troubled him and made him doubt his strength.
Besides he could not fight in Seville without a certain emotion. He would be resigned to a calamity in any other town of Spain, knowing he would not return there for a long while; but in his own city, where were his greatest enemies!
"We shall see if thou dost shine," said the manager. "Think of those who will see thee. I want thee to be the greatest man in the world."
On Holy Saturday the penning in of the bulls destined for the corrida took place in the small hours of the night, and Doña Sol wished to assist in this operation as piquero. The bulls must be conducted from the pasture ground of Tablada to the enclosures in the plaza.
Gallardo did not assist, in spite of his desire to accompany Doña Sol. The manager opposed it, alleging the necessity of his resting to be fresh and vigorous on the following afternoon. At midnight the road that leads from the pasture to the plaza was animated like a fair. The windows of the taverns were illuminated, and before them passed linked shadows moving with the steps of the dance to the sound of the pianos. From the inns, the red doorways flashed rectangles of light over the dark ground, and in their interiors arose shouts, laughter, twanging of guitars, and clinking of glasses, a sign that wine circulated in abundance.
About one in the morning a horseman passed up the road at a short trot. He was the herald, a rough herder who stopped before the inns and illuminated houses, announcing that the bulls for the penning-in were to pass in a quarter of an hour, and asking that the lights be put out and all remain in silence.
This command in the name of the national fiesta was obeyed with more celerity than an order from high authority. The houses were darkened and their whiteness was blended with the sombre mass of the trees; the people became quiet, hiding themselves behind window-grilles, palisades, and wire-fences, in the silence of those who await an extraordinary event. On the walks near the river, one by one the gas lights were extinguished as the herder advanced announcing the penning-in.
All was silent. In the sky, above the masses of trees, the stars sparkled in the dense calm of space; below, along the ground, a slight movement was heard, as if countless insects swarmed thick in the darkness. The wait seemed long until the solemn tinkling of far away bells rang out in the cool stillness. They are coming! There they are!
Louder rose the clash and clamor of the copper bells, accompanied by a confused galloping that made the earth tremble. First passed a body of horsemen at full speed, with lances held low, gigantic in the obscure light. These were the herders. Then a troop of amateur lancers, among whom was Doña Sol, panting from this mad race through the shadows in which one false step of the horse, a fall, meant death by being trampled beneath the hard feet of the ferocious herd that came behind, blind in their disorderly race.
The bells rang furiously; the open mouths of the spectators hidden in the darkness swallowed clouds of dust, and the fierce herd passed like a nightmare—shapeless monsters of the night that trotted heavily and swiftly, shaking their masses of flesh, emitting hideous bellowings, goring at the shadows, but frightened and irritated by the shouts of the under-herder who followed on foot, and by the galloping of the horsemen that brought up the rear, harassing them with goads.
The passage of this heavy and noisy troop lasted but an instant. Now there was nothing more to be seen. The crowd, satisfied at this fleeting spectacle after the long wait, came out of their hiding-places, and many enthusiasts started to run after the herd with the hope of seeing it enter the enclosures.
The amateur lancers congratulated themselves on the great success of the penning-in. The herd had come well flanked without a single bull straying or getting away or making trouble for lancers and peones. They were fine-blooded animals; the very best of the Marquis' herd. On the morrow, if the maestros showed bull-fighter pride, they were going to see great things. And in the hope of a grand fiesta riders and peones departed. One hour afterward the environs of the plaza were dark and deserted, holding in their bowels the ferocious beasts which fell quietly into the last sleep of their lives in this prison.
The following morning Juan Gallardo rose early. He had slept badly, with a restlessness that filled his dreams with nightmare.
He wished they would not give him corridas in Seville! In other towns he lived like a bachelor, forgetting his family momentarily, in a strange room in a hotel that did not suggest anything, as it contained nothing personal. But to dress himself in his glittering costume in his own bed-chamber, seeing on chairs and tables objects that reminded him of Carmen; to go out to meet danger from that house which he had built and which held the most intimate belongings of his existence, disconcerted him and produced as great uneasiness as if he were going to kill his first bull. Ah! the terrible moment of leaving, when, dressed by Garabato in the shining costume, he descended to the silent courtyard! His nephews approached him awed by the brilliant ornaments of his apparel, touching them with admiration, not daring to speak; his be-whiskered sister gave him a kiss with an expression of terror, as if he were going to his death; his mamita hid herself in the darkest rooms. No, she could not see him; she felt sick. Carmen was animated but very pale, her lips, purple from emotion, were compressed, her eye-lashes moved nervously in the effort to keep herself calm and when she at last saw him in the vestibule, she suddenly raised her handkerchief to her eyes, her body was shaken by tremendous sobs, and his sister and other women had to support her that she might not fall to the floor.
It was enough to daunt even the very Roger de Flor of whom his brother-in-law talked.
"Damn it! Man alive!" said Gallardo. "Not for all the gold in the world would I fight in Seville, if it were not to give pleasure to my countrymen and so that the shameless brutes cannot say that I'm afraid of the home audiences."
He walked through the house with a cigarette in his mouth, stretching himself to see if his muscular arms kept their agility. He took a cup of Cazalla in the kitchen and watched his mamita, ever industrious in spite of her years and her flesh, moving about near the fireplaces, treating the servants with maternal vigilance, managing everything for the good government of the house.
Garabato came to announce that friends were waiting for him in the courtyard. They were enthusiastic connoisseurs, the admirers who called on him on bull-fight days. The matador instantly forgot all his anxieties and went out smiling, his head thrown back, his bearing arrogant, as if the bulls that awaited him in the plaza were personal enemies whom he desired to face as soon as possible and make them bite the dust with his unerring sword.
The farewell was, as on other occasions, disconcerting and disturbing to Gallardo. The women fled so as not to see him go, all except Carmen, who forced herself to keep serene, and accompanied him to the door; the astonishment and curiosity of his little nephews annoyed the bull-fighter, arrogant and manful now that the hour of danger had come.
"I should think they were taking me to the gallows! Well, see you later! Don't worry, nothing is going to happen."
And he stepped into his carriage, forcing his way among the neighbors and the curious grouped before his house, who wished good luck to Señor Juan.
The afternoons when the bull-fighter fought in Seville were agonizing for his family as well as for himself. They had not the same resignation as on other occasions when they had to wait patiently for nightfall and the arrival of the telegram. Here the danger was near at hand and this aroused anxiety for news and the desire to know the progress of the corrida every quarter of an hour.
The leather-worker, dressed like a gentleman, in a fine light woollen suit and a silky white felt hat, offered his services to the women in sending messages, although he was furious at the neglect of his illustrious brother-in-law who had not even offered him a seat in the coach! At the termination of each bull that Juan killed, he would send news of the event by one of the boys who swarmed around the plaza.
The corrida was a noisy success for Gallardo. As he entered the ring and heard the applause of the multitude, he felt that he had grown several inches taller. He knew the soil he trod; it was familiar; he felt it his own. The sand of the various arenas exercised a certain influence on his superstitious soul. He recollected the great plazas of Valencia and Barcelona with their whitish ground, the dark sand of the plazas of the north, and the reddish earth of the great ring of Madrid. The arena of Seville was different from the others—sand from the Guadalquivir, a deep yellow, as if it were pulverized paint. When the disembowelled horses shed their blood upon it, Gallardo thought of the colors of the national flag, that floated over the roof around the ring.
The diverse architecture of the plazas also influenced the bull-fighter's imagination, which was readily agitated by the phantasmagoria of uneasiness. There were rings of more or less recent construction, some in Roman style, others Moorish, which had the banality of new churches where all seems empty and colorless. The plaza of Seville was a taurine cathedral of memories familiar to many generations, with its façade recalling a past century—a time when the men wore the powdered wig—and its ochre ring, which the most stupendous heroes had trod. It had known the glorious inventors of difficult feats, the perfecters of the art, the heavy champions of the round school with its correct and dignified bull-fighting system, the agile, gay maestros of the Sevillian school with their plays and mobility that set the audiences wild—and there he, too, on that afternoon, intoxicated by the applause, by the sun, by the clamor, and by the sight of a white mantilla and a blue-clad figure leaning over the railing of a box, felt equal to the most heroic deeds.
Gallardo seemed to fill the ring with his agility and daring, anxious to outshine his companions, and eager that the applause should be for him alone. His admirers had never seen him so great. The manager, after each one of his brave deeds, arose and shouted, defying invisible enemies hidden in the masses on the seats: "Let's see who dares say a word! The greatest man in the world!"
The second bull Gallardo was to kill Nacional drew, with skilful cape-work, to the foot of the box where sat Doña Sol in blue gown and white mantilla, with the Marquis and his two daughters. Gallardo walked close to the barrier with sword and muleta in one hand, followed by the eyes of the multitude, and when he stood before the box, he looked up, taking off his cap. He was going to tender his bull to the niece of the Marquis of Moraima! Many smiled with a malicious expression. "Hurrah for the lucky boys!" He gave a half turn, throwing down his cap to end his speech, and awaited the bull which the peones were drawing over by the play of the cape. In a short time, managing so that the bull did not get away from this place, the matador accomplished his feat. He wished to kill under the very eyes of Doña Sol so that, at close range, she should see him defying danger. Each pass of his muleta was accompanied by acclamations of enthusiasm and shouts of fear. The horns passed close to his breast; it seemed impossible for him to escape the attacks of the bull without losing blood. Suddenly he squared himself, with the sword raised for attack, and before the audience could voice their opinions with shouts and counsel, he swiftly threw himself upon the brute and man and animal formed but a single body.
When the matador drew away and stood motionless, the bull ran with halting step, bellowing, with distended nostrils, his tongue hanging between his lips and the red hilt of the sword visible in his blood-stained neck. He fell a few steps away and the audience rose to its feet en masse as though it were a single body moved by a powerful spring; the outburst of applause and the fury of the acclamations broke out in a violent storm. There was not another brave man in the world equal to Gallardo! Could that youth ever once have felt fear?
The swordsman saluted before the box, extending his arms holding the sword and muleta, while Doña Sol's white-gloved hands beat together in a fever of applause.
Then something flew past spectator after spectator, from the box to the barrier. It was a lady's handkerchief, the one she carried in her hand, a fragrant tiny square of batiste and lace drawn through a ring of brilliants that she presented to the bull-fighter in exchange for this honor.
Applause broke out again at this gift, and the attention of the audience, fixed until then on the matador, was distracted, many turning their backs to the ring, to look at Doña Sol, praising her beauty in loud voices with the familiarity of Andalusian gallantry. A small, hairy triangle, still warm, was passed from hand to hand from the barrier to the box. It was the bull's ear, which the matador sent in testimony of his brindis.
At the close of the bull-fight, news of Gallardo's great success spread throughout the city. When he arrived at his house the neighbors awaited him at the door, applauding him as if they had actually witnessed the corrida.
The leather-worker, forgetting his anger at the swordsman, candidly admired him, though more for his valuable friendship than for his success as a bull-fighter. He had long kept his eye on a certain position which he no longer doubted his ability to get, now that his brother-in-law had friends among the best in Seville.
"Show them the ring. See, Encarnación, what a fine gift! Not even Roger de Flor himself—!"
And the ring was passed around among the women, who admired it with exclamations of enthusiasm. Only Carmen made a wry face when she saw it. "Yes, very pretty," and she passed it to her sister-in-law, as though it burned her hands.
After this bull-fight, the season of travel began for Gallardo. He had more contracts than in any previous year. Following the corrida in Madrid he had to fight in all the rings in Spain. His manager studied train schedules and made interminable calculations for the guidance of his matador.
Gallardo passed from success to success. He had never felt in better spirits. It seemed as though he carried a new force within him. Before the bull-fights cruel doubts assailed him, anxieties he had never felt in the hard times when he was just beginning to make a name for himself; but the moment he entered the ring these fears vanished and he displayed a fierce courage accompanied ever by great success.
After his work, in whatever plaza of the provinces, he returned to his hotel followed by his cuadrilla, for they all lived together. He seated himself, glowing with the pleasant fatigue of triumph, without removing his glittering costume, and the connoisseurs of the community came to congratulate him. He had been colossal! He was the greatest bull-fighter in the world. That stab when he killed the fourth bull!
"Is it really so?" asked Gallardo with infantile pride. "That wasn't bad, sure."
And with the interminable verbosity of all conversation about bulls, time passed unheeded by the bull-fighter and his admirers, who never tired of talking of the corrida of the afternoon and of others that had taken place some years before. Night closed in, lights were brought, yet the devotees did not go. The cuadrilla, obedient to the discipline of the profession, silently listened to their gossip at one end of the room. Until the maestro gave them permission, the boys could not go to dress and eat. The picadores, fatigued by the heavy iron armor on their legs and by the terrific falls from their horses, shifted their beaver hats from knee to knee; the banderilleros, prisoners in their garments of silk, wet with sweat, were hungry after an afternoon of violent exercise. All had but a single thought and cast terrible glances at the enthusiasts.
"But when will these tiresome old uncles go? Damn their souls!"
Finally the matador remembered them. "You may retire." And the cuadrilla went out crowding each other like a school set free, while the maestro continued listening to the praises of the "intelligent," without thinking of Garabato who silently awaited the moment of undressing him.
During his days of rest, the maestro, free from the excitement and danger of glory, turned his thoughts to Seville. Now and then he received one of those brief, perfumed little notes. Ah! if he had Doña Sol with him!
In this continual travel from one audience to another, adored by the enthusiasts, who desired to have him spend a pleasant time in their town, he met women and attended entertainments gotten up in his honor. He always went away from these feasts with his brain clouded by wine and in a fit of ferocious sadness that made him intractable. He felt a cruel desire to ill-treat the women. It was an irresistible impulse to revenge himself for the aggressiveness and caprices of that other woman on those of her own sex.
There were moments when it was necessary to confide his sorrows to Nacional with that irresistible impulse to confession felt by those who carry a great weight on their minds. Moreover the banderillero awoke in him, when far from Seville, a greater affection, a reflected tenderness. Sebastián knew of his love affair with Doña Sol. He had seen it, although from afar, and she had often laughed on hearing Gallardo tell of the banderillero's eccentricities.
Nacional received the maestro's confidences with an expression of severity.
"The thing thou shouldst do, Juan, is to forget that lady. Remember that peace in the family is worth more than anything else for us who go about the world exposed to the danger of coming home useless forever. Remember that Carmen knows more than thou dost think. She knows everything. She has asked indirect questions even of me about thy affairs with the Marquis' niece. Poor girl! It is a sin that thou shouldst make her suffer. She has her temper, and if she lets it loose she'll give thee trouble."
But Gallardo, far from his family, his thought dominated by the memory of Doña Sol, seemed not to understand the dangers of which Nacional discoursed, and he shrugged his shoulders at such sentimental scruples.
He needed to speak his thoughts, to make his friend participate in his past joys, with the pride of a satisfied lover who wishes to be admired in his happiness.
"But thou dost not know that woman! Thou, Sebastián, art an unfortunate fellow that knowest not the best in life. Imagine all the women of Seville put together! Nothing! Imagine all those of all the towns where we have been! Nothing, either! There is only Doña Sol. When one knows a lady like that one has no mind for any other. If thou didst know her as I do, boy! The woman of our kind smell of clean flesh, of white clothing. But this one, Sebastián, this one! Imagine all the roses of the gardens of the Alcázar together. No, it is something better; imagine jasmine, honeysuckle, and perfume of vines like those that must grow in the garden of Paradise. But her sweet odors come from within, as if she did not put them on, as if they came from her very blood. And besides, she is not one of those who, once seen, are forever the same. With her there is always something yet to be desired; something one longs for and that doesn't come. In fine, Sebastián, I cannot explain myself well—but thou knowest not what a lady is; so preach not to me and shut thy beak."
Gallardo no longer received letters from Seville. Doña Sol was travelling in foreign lands. He saw her once when he fought at San Sebastián. The beautiful lady was at Biarritz and she came in company with some French women who wished to meet the bull-fighter. He saw her one afternoon. She went away and he had only vague knowledge of her during the summer through the few letters he received and through the news his manager communicated from chance words dropped by the Marquis of Moraima.
She was at elegant watering-places whose very names Gallardo heard for the first time, and they were of impossible pronunciation for him; then he heard that she was travelling in England; afterward that she had gone on to Germany to hear some operas sung in a wonderful theatre that only opened its doors a few weeks each year. Gallardo lost faith in ever seeing her again. She was a bird of passage, venturesome and restless, and he dared not hope that she would seek her nest in Seville again when winter returned. This possibility saddened him and revealed the power this woman had exercised over his body and his mind. Never to see her again? Why then expose his life and be celebrated? Of what use was the applause of the multitude?
His manager tried to soothe him. She would return; he was sure. She would return, if only for a year. Doña Sol, with all her mad caprices, was a practical woman, who knew how to look out for her property. She needed the Marquis' help to unravel the business tangles of her own fortune and that which her husband had left her, both diminished by a long and luxurious sojourn far from home.
Gallardo returned to Seville at the end of the summer. He still had a goodly number of autumn bull-fights, but he wished to take advantage of nearly a month of rest. His family was at the seashore at Sanlúcar, for the health of the little nephews, who needed the salt-water cure.
Gallardo was overcome with emotion when his manager announced one day that Doña Sol had just arrived, unexpected by any one. He went to see her immediately, but after a few words he felt intimidated by her frigid amiability and the expression of her eyes.
She gazed at him as if he were a stranger. He divined in her manner a certain surprise at the bull-fighter's rough exterior, at the difference between herself and this youth, a mere killer of beasts. He also divined the gulf that had opened between the two. She seemed to him a different woman; a great dame of another land and race.
They chatted pleasantly. She seemed to have forgotten the past, and Gallardo lacked the courage to remind her of it, nor did he dare to make the slightest advance, fearing one of her outbursts of anger.
"Seville!" said Doña Sol. "Very pretty—very agreeable. But there are other places in the world. I tell you, Gallardo, that some day I am going to take my flight forever. I foresee that I am going to be very much bored here. It seems to me my Seville has changed."
She no longer thou-ed him. Several days passed before the bull-fighter dared to remind her of other times during his calls. He limited himself to contemplating her in silence, with his moist, adoring Moorish eyes.
"I am bored. I may leave any day," exclaimed the lady at every one of their interviews.
Once again the servant with the imposing air met the bull-fighter at the inner gate and told him the Señora had gone out when he knew for a certainty she was in the house.
Gallardo told her one afternoon about a short excursion he must take to his plantation at La Rinconada. He must look at some olive orchards his manager had bought during his absence to add to his estate; he must also acquaint himself with the progress of the work on the plantation.
The idea of accompanying the matador on this excursion occurred to Doña Sol and made her smile at its absurdity and daring. To go to that hacienda where Gallardo's family spent a part of the year! To invade with the scandalous audacity of irregularity and sin that tranquil atmosphere of domestic life where the poor youth lived with those of his own home! The very absurdity of the idea decided her. She would go; it would interest her to see La Rinconada.
Gallardo was afraid. He thought of the people on the plantation, of the gossips who would tell his family about this trip. But the look in Doña Sol's eyes overthrew his scruples. Who could tell! Maybe this trip would bring back the old situation.
He wished, however, to offer a final obstacle to this desire.
"And Plumitas? Remember about him; they say that he is around La Rinconada."
"Ah! Plumitas!" Doña Sol's countenance, clouded by ennui, seemed to clear by a sudden flash from within. "How charming! I would be delighted if you could present him."
Gallardo arranged the trip. He had expected to go alone, but Doña Sol's company obliged him to take an escort for fear of an unhappy adventure on the road. He sought Potaje, the picador. He was a rough fellow, and feared nothing in the world but his gypsy wife, who, when she grew tired of taking beatings, tried to bite him. No need to give explanations to him—only wine in abundance. Alcohol and the atrocious falls in the ring kept him in a perpetual state of stupidity, as if his head buzzed and prevented him from saying more than a few words and permitted him but a clouded vision of things in general.
Gallardo also ordered Nacional to go with them; one more, and that was discretion beyond all doubt.
The banderillero obeyed from force of habit but grumbled when he heard that Doña Sol was going with them.
"By the life of the blue dove! Must a father of a family see himself mixed up in these ugly affairs! What will Carmen and Seña' Angustias say about me if they find it out?"
When he found himself in the open country, placed beside Potaje on the seat of an automobile, in front of the matador and the great lady, his anger little by little vanished. He could not see her well, hidden as she was in a great blue veil that fell from her travelling cap and floated over her yellow silk coat; but she was very beautiful. And such conversation! And such knowledge of things!
Before half the journey was over, Nacional, with his twenty-five years of marital fidelity, excused the weakness of the matador, and made vain efforts to explain his enthusiasm to himself.
"Whoever found himself in the same situation would do the same.
"Education! A fine thing, capable of giving respectability to even the greatest sins."