CHAPTER X
A LOOK INTO THE FACE OF DEATH
IT seems a lie, Sebastián. A man like thee, with a wife and children, lending thyself to such wickedness. And I thought better of thee and had confidence in thee when thou wert travelling with Juaniyo! I worried not because he went with a person of character. Where are all those fine things, the honorable ideas and thy religion? Is this what is commanded in those Jew meetings that gather at the house of Don Joselito, the teacher?"
Nacional, alarmed at the indignation of Gallardo's mother, and moved by Carmen's tears as she wept in silence, her face hidden in her kerchief, defended himself stupidly. But as he heard the last words he sat erect with priestly gravity.
"Seña' Angustia', touch not my ideas and leave Don Joselito in peace, an it please you, for he has nothing to do with all this. By the life of the blue dove! I went to La Rincona' because my matador ordered me. Do you know what a cuadrilla is? Just the same as an army: discipline and servility! The matador commands and one must obey. For these bull-fight customs descend from the times of the Inquisition and there is no more conservative trade."
"Clown!" screamed Señora Angustias. "Fine thou art with all thy fables about the Inquisition and Conservatives! Among you all you are killing that poor girl, who spends the whole day shedding tears like the Dolorosa. What thou art anxious about is to cover up my son's rascalities because he feeds thee."
"You have said it, Seña' Angustia'. Juaniyo feeds me, that's it. And since he feeds me, I have to obey him. But look here, Señora; put yourself in my place. My matador tells me I must go to La Rincona'. Good! And at the hour of leaving I find myself in the automobile with a very fine great lady. What can I do? My matador commands. Moreover, I didn't go alone. Potaje went along and he is a person of years and respect."
The bull-fighter's mother was more indignant at this excuse.
"Potaje! A bad man, that Juaniyo would not keep in his cuadrilla if he had any pride! Don't talk to me about that drunkard that beats his wife and keeps his children starving."
"Well, Potaje aside. I say I saw that great lady and what was I to do? She was not a wanton; she is the niece of the marquis who is patron of the maestro—and you well know that bull-fighters have to be on good terms with people of power. They have to live off the public. Then, at the hacienda, nothing! I swear it to you by my own dear ones—nothing! I would be a fine fellow to stand such bad business, even though my matador ordered me to! I am a decent man, Seña' Angustia'. By the life of the dove! When one is on the committee and is consulted on election-day, and counsellors and deputies clasp this hand you see here, can one do certain things? I repeat, nothing! They said you in talking to one another, the same as you and I do; each one spent the night in his proper place; not a wicked look, not an ugly word. Decency at all hours. And if you would like to have Potaje come, he will tell you—"
But Carmen interrupted him with a plaintive voice, broken by sighs.
"In my house!" she groaned with an expression of agony. "At the hacienda! And she slept in my bed! I knew all about it before and I kept still, I kept still! But this! Josú! This—there's not another man in all Seville would dare do as much!"
Nacional intervened kindly.
"Be calm, Señora Carmen. Why, that was of no importance! Merely the visit of a female admirer of the maestro's to the plantation, one who desired to see at close range how he lived in the country. These half foreign ladies are always capricious and queer. You ought to have seen the French women when the cuadrilla went to fight at Nîmes and Arles! The whole thing is nothing! the whole thing, liquid! Man alive! by the blue dove! I would like to see the tattler that brought such news!"
Carmen continued weeping without listening to the banderillero's indignant protestations, while Seña' Angustias, seated in an arm-chair against which her super-abundant obesity rose and fell, frowned and compressed her hairy, wrinkled lips.
"Shut up, Sebastián, and don't lie," said the old woman. "I know it all. That trip to the hacienda was an indecent carousal, a gypsy's revel. They even say you had Plumitas, the robber, with you."
Here Nacional gave a start of surprise and anxiety. He imagined he saw an ill-appearing horseman with a greasy hat entering the courtyard, treading the marble flags and, dismounting from his mare, pointing a carbine at him for being a babbler and a coward. Then he seemed to see cocked hats, many cocked hats of shining rubber, moustached mouths questioning, hands scribbling, and the whole cuadrilla, in their spangled costumes, bound elbow to elbow on the road to prison. Here truly he must make energetic denial.
"Liquid! All liquid! What say you about Plumitas? Everything was decent there. Man alive! Nothing was lacking but that a citizen like myself, who carries to the voting boxes more than a hundred votes from my ward, should be accused of being a friend of Plumitas!"
Señora Angustias, overcome by Nacional's protests, and a little uncertain about this last report, ceased insisting on it. Good; nothing about Plumitas! But the other thing! The trip to the hacienda with that—woman! And firm in the blindness of motherhood, which would put all the responsibility for her son's misdeeds upon his companions, she went on scolding Nacional.
"I shall tell thy wife what thou art. The poor thing killing herself in her shop from daybreak till nightfall, and thou going off on revels like a lad. Thou shouldst be ashamed. At thy years! With such a troop of children—"
The banderillero departed, fleeing from Señora Angustias, who in the storm of her indignation displayed the same nimble tongue as in the days when she worked in the Tobacco Factory. He resolved not to return to his master's house.
He met Gallardo on the street. The latter seemed ill-humored, but on seeing his banderillero he feigned smiles and animation, as if the domestic troubles made no impression upon him.
"Things are going bad, Juaniyo. I shall never go to thy house again, even though they try to drag me there. Thy mother insults me as though I were a gypsy of Triana. Thy wife weeps and looks at me, as though it was all my fault. Man, do me the favor to not remember me again. Take another associate when thou goest with women."
Gallardo smiled amiably. That was nothing. That would soon pass. He had faced worse trials.
"What thou must do is to keep on coming. With many people there is no riot."
"I?" exclaimed Nacional. "To a priest's house first!"
The matador knew it was useless to insist after that. He spent most of the day out of the house, away from the women's silent and tearful reproaches, and when he returned it was with an escort, shielding himself by his manager and other friends.
One day Carmen sent for the banderillero to come to see her. She received Nacional in her husband's office, where they could be alone, instead of in the busy courtyard or the dining-room. Gallardo was at his club on Sierpes Street. He fled from the house, and to avoid meeting his wife, he dined outside many days, going with companions to the Eritaña inn.
Nacional seated himself on a divan, his head bowed and his hat in his hands, not wishing to look at his master's wife. How she had failed! Her eyes were red and encircled by deep, dark hollows. Her cheeks were sallow and the end of her nose shone with a rosy color that told of much rubbing with the handkerchief.
"Sebastián, you must tell me the whole truth. You are good, you are Juan's best friend. Never mind what Mamita said the other day. You know how good she is. She speaks her mind hastily, and then it is all over."
The banderillero assented with a nod while awaiting her question. What did the Señora Carmen wish to know?
"Tell me what happened at La Rincona', what you saw, and what you think."
Ah! good Nacional! With what noble pride he held his head high, happy to be able to do good and to comfort the forlorn soul. See? He had seen nothing wrong!
"I swear it by my father, I swear it—by my ideas."
And without fear he took his oath on the most holy testimony of his ideas, for in reality he had seen nothing and not seeing it, he logically thought, in the pride of his perspicacity and wisdom, that nothing wrong could have happened.
"I think they are no more than friends—now—if there has been anything between them before—I don't know. The people say—they talk—they invent so many lies! Pay no attention, Seña' Carmen. To be happy and to be alive, that is reality!"
She insisted again. But what had happened at the hacienda? The hacienda was her home, and it angered her to see, in addition to infidelity, something that seemed a sacrilege, a direct insult to her person.
"Do you think I am a fool, Sebastián? I have seen everything since he first began to notice that lady, or whatever she may be; I even knew Juan's thoughts. The day he dedicated a bull to her and brought home that diamond ring I guessed what was between the two and I felt like grabbing the ring and stamping on it. From that time I have known everything, everything! There are always people who take it upon themselves to carry tales because they can hurt one. And besides, they haven't been cautious, they have gone everywhere together, just like gypsies that travel from fair to fair. When I was at the plantation I heard about all that Juan was doing and afterward at Sanlúcar, too."
Nacional thought it necessary to interrupt, seeing that Carmen was moved by these memories and was beginning to cry.
"And do you believe lies, child? Don't you see they are the inventions of people that want to hurt him? Envy, nothing more."
"No; I know Juan. Do you think this is the first one? He is what he is. And he can't be different. Cursed trade, that seems to turn men mad! After we had been married only two years he had a love affair with a girl from the market, a butcher girl. What I suffered when I found it out! But I never said a word. He still thinks I don't know it. After that, how many he has had! Girls that dance on the stage in cafés, women of the street, and even lost creatures that live in public houses. I don't know how many there have been—dozens! And I was silent, because I wished to keep peace in my home. But this woman he has now is not like the others. Juan is crazy for her; he is foolish; I know he has done thousands of humiliating things so that she, recollecting that she is a lady of high birth, will not throw him out into the street in sudden shame from having relations with a bull-fighter. She has gone now. Didn't you know it? I found out she had gone because she is bored in Seville. She left without saying good-bye to Juan, and when he went to see her the other day, he found the door closed. And there he is, sad as a sick horse; he goes around among his friends with a funereal face and drinks to cheer himself up; and when he comes home he acts as if he had had a beating. No; he can't forget that woman. The señor was proud of having a woman of that class care for him and his pride is hurt at being left. Ah, how disgusted I am with him! He is no longer my husband. He seems to me a different person. We hardly ever speak to one another—just as if we were strangers, except when quarrelling. I am alone upstairs and he sleeps downstairs in a room off the courtyard. We shall never be united again, I swear it! Long ago I could overlook everything; they were bad habits belonging to the profession; the bull-fighters' mania. They believe themselves irresistible to women—but now I don't want to see him any more; he has become repugnant to me."
She spoke with energy, her eyes shining with the glow of hatred.
"Ah, that woman! How she has changed him! He is another man! He only cares to go with rich young fellows, and now the people of our ward and all the poor in Seville who were his friends, and helped him in the beginning, complain of him and some fine day they will raise a riot in the plaza because he is ungrateful. Money comes in here by the basketful, and it isn't easy to count it. Not even he himself ever knows what he has, but I see it all. He gambles a great deal to make his new friends like him, he loses much; the money comes in one door and goes out the other. I say nothing to him. It is he that earns it. But he has had to ask a loan from Don José for things needed at the hacienda and some olive orchards he bought this year to add to the property were purchased with other people's money. Nearly everything he earns during the coming season will go to pay debts.
"And if he should have an accident, and have to retire as others do!
"He has even wanted to change me, just as he is changed. The señor shows, when he comes home after visiting his Doña Sol, or Doña Devil, that his mamita and I seem to him very out of date in our shawls and our loose gowns such as are worn by all the daughters of the land. He it is who has made me wear those hats brought from Madrid in which I look so hideous, just like one of those monkeys that dance to the hand-organs. The mantilla is so rich! And he has bought that hell-wagon, that automobile, that I am always afraid to ride in and which smells to heaven. If we would let him he would even put a hat with rooster's tails on poor Mamita. He is a vain fellow who thinks only of that other woman and wants to make us like her so that he won't be ashamed of us."
The banderillero broke forth in protests. Not so! Juan was good-hearted and he did all this because he loved his family and wanted them to have luxuries.
"What you say about Juaniyo may be true, Seña' Carmen, but he must be forgiven some things. Come! How many there are who die with envy at sight of you! Is it nothing to be the wife of the bravest of all the bull-fighters, with handfuls of money and a marvel of a house, of which you are absolute mistress?—for the master gives you charge of everything!"
Carmen's eyes grew moist and she raised her handkerchief to her eyes.
"I would rather be a shoe-maker's wife! How often I have thought it! If only Juan had followed his trade instead of catching this bull-fighting mania! I would be happier in a poor shawl going to carry him his dinner in the portal where he worked as did his father. There wouldn't be any smart girls to take him away from me; he would be mine; we might know want, but on Sundays, dressed in our best, we would go to dine at an inn. Besides, the agonies of fear those accursed bulls cause me! This is not living. Plenty of money, plenty! But believe me, Sebastián, it is like poison to me, and the more that comes into the house the more my blood chills. What are hats and all this luxury to me? People think I am happy and they envy me, while my eyes follow the poor women that have less, but who carry their babies in their arms and when they are in trouble forget it in looking into the child's eyes and laughing with it. Ah, children! I know how great is my misfortune. If only we had children! If Juan could see a child in the house that was his own, all his own, something nearer than his little nephews!"
Carmen poured forth a continuous flow of tears that escaped through the folds of her handkerchief and bathed her reddened cheeks. It was the sorrow of the childless woman, ever envying the happy fate of mothers; the desperation of the wife who, on seeing her husband growing distant to her, pretends to think it due to divers causes, but in the depths of her soul attributes the misfortune to her barrenness. Ah! for a son to unite them! And Carmen, convinced by the passing years of the futility of this desire, was in despair and gazed enviously at her silent listener, to whom Nature had prodigally given that for which she longed in vain.
The banderillero departed from this interview with his head bent low and went in search of the maestro, meeting him at the door of the Forty-five.
"Juan, I have seen thy wife. The affair grows worse and worse. Try to make up with her, to straighten things out."
"Damn it! May sickness end her, thee, and me! This is not living. God permit that Sunday a bull may catch me and so it will all be ended! What is life worth!"
He was partially drunk. He was desperate over the sullen frown he met in his house and still more (though he confessed it to none), over the flight of Doña Sol without leaving a word for him, not even a paper with four lines of farewell. They had put him out of the door; had treated him worse than if he had been a servant. He did not even know where the woman was. The Marquis had interested himself but little in his niece's journey. The maddest girl! She had not told him, either, about her going, but not on that account would he think her lost in the world. She would soon give signs of existence from some strange country where her caprices had carried her.
Gallardo did not conceal his desperation in his own house. At the silence of his wife, who kept her eyes lowered, or looked at him frowning and refusing to converse, the matador burst forth into deadly curses.
"Damn my fate! I hope a Miura will hook me Sunday and shake me like a bell, and that they will bring me home on a stretcher!"
"Don't say that, malaje!" wailed Señora Angustias. "Don't tempt God. See if that don't bring bad luck."
But the brother-in-law intervened with his sententious air, taking advantage of the opportunity to flatter the swordsman.
"Never mind, Mamita. There isn't a bull alive that can touch him!"
Sunday was the last bull-fight of the year in which Gallardo was to work. He spent the morning without the vague fears and superstitious preoccupations of other occasions. He dressed himself joyfully, with a nervous excitement that seemed to augment the vigor of his arms and legs. What joy that he would be able to rush out upon the yellow sand and astound twelve thousand spectators by his gallantry and daring! His art was the only reality—something which awakened the enthusiasm of the multitudes and brought in money without measure. All the rest, family and love, but served to complicate existence and cause unhappiness. Ah! What sword-thrusts he was going to make! He felt the strength of a giant within himself. He was a different man, he had neither fear nor dread. He even showed impatience that it was not yet the hour for going to the plaza, contrary to other times when he had put off the dreaded moment. His fury at his domestic unhappiness and at that flight which wounded his vanity, made him long to throw himself upon the bulls.
When the carriage arrived, Gallardo crossed the courtyard, on this occasion, paying no attention to the women's emotion. Carmen did not appear. Bah! Women! They only serve to embitter life. Only in men did one find lasting affection and joyful companionship. There was his brother-in-law admiring himself before going to the plaza, happy in a street suit of the master's which had been made over to his measure even before the owner had worn it. In spite of being a ridiculous charlatan he was worth more than all the rest of the family. He never abandoned him.
"Thou art finer than Roger de Flor himself," Gallardo told him gayly. "Get into the coach—and I'll take thee to the plaza."
His brother-in-law seated himself near the great man, trembling with pride as he rode along the streets of Seville, that all should see him seated among the silken capes and the heavy gold embroideries of the bull-fighters.
The plaza was full. This important corrida at the end of autumn had attracted a great audience, not only from the city but from the country as well. Upon the "bleachers" in the sun were seated many people from the surrounding country towns.
From the first instant Gallardo showed the nervous activity that possessed him. He was to be seen far from the barrera advancing to meet the bull, distracting him with his cape-work, while the picadores awaited the moment in which the bull would attack their miserable horses.
A certain antagonism of the public against the bull-fighter could be felt. They applauded him as usual, but the demonstrations of enthusiasm were more hearty and warm on the shady side than on the rows of seats in the sun, where many sat in their shirt-sleeves in the burning rays.
Gallardo divined the danger, foresaw that he would have bad luck, and that half the ring would rise shouting against him, denouncing him as thankless and ungrateful to those who had elevated him.
He killed his first bull with middling luck. He threw himself as bravely as ever between the horns, but the sword struck bone. His admirers applauded him. The thrust was well aimed and he was not to be blamed for the futility of his effort. But the second time he went in to kill, the bull, on chasing after the muleta, shook the blade out of the wound, sending it flying away. Then, taking a new sword from Garabato's hands, he turned toward the wild beast, which awaited him, with fore-feet planted forward, his neck streaming blood and his dripping mouth almost touching the sand. The maestro holding his muleta before the bull's eyes was tranquilly laying back with the point of his sword the shafts of the banderillas that hung over his head. He was going to kill him by a stab in the spinal cord. He placed the steel point on the top of the bull's head, searching between the horns for the sensitive spot. With an effort he thrust in the sword and the animal shuddered painfully, but still kept his feet, resisting the steel with a violent tossing of his head.
"One!" clamored the audience on the bleachers in mocking tones.
"Damn it!" Why did those people attack him with such injustice?
He raised the sword again and thrust, managing this time to reach the vulnerable spot. The bull fell instantly, as if struck by a lightning flash in the very nerve-centre of his life, and he lay with his horns dug into the ground, his legs rigid in the air.
The people in the shade applauded with class enthusiasm, while the audience in the sun broke into hisses and jibes.
"Niño litri! Aristocrat!"
Gallardo turned his back to these protests and saluted the enthusiasts with his muleta and sword. The insults of the populace which had always been friendly to him hurt him and caused him to clench his fists.
"But what do those people want? The bull gave no better account of himself. Damn it! This is the work of enemies."
He passed a great part of the corrida close to the barrera gazing disdainfully at what his companions were doing, accusing them mentally of having prepared these marks of displeasure against him in advance.
He also broke into curses against the bull and the herder that raised him. He had come so well prepared to do great deeds and he had encountered a beast which would not permit him to shine! The breeders that turned out such animals ought to be shot.
When he again took up the instruments of death, he ordered Nacional and another of his peones to draw the bull with the cape toward the part of the plaza where the populace was seated.
He knew the public. He must humor the citizens in the sun, those tumultuous and terrible demagogues who carried class hatred into the plaza but easily changed hisses into applause when a slight show of consideration flattered their pride.
The peones, waving their capes at the bull, began a race to attract him to the sunny side of the ring. A movement of joyful surprise from the populace welcomed this manœuvre. The supreme moment, the bull's death, was to take place before their eyes—and not, as almost always happened, at a great distance for the convenience of the rich who were seated in the shade.
The fierce beast, as he stood alone on that side of the plaza, began to attack the dead body of a horse. He thrust his head into the open belly and raised the miserable carcass on his horns like a limp rag. It fell to the ground, lying almost doubled, and the bull backed away with indecisive step. He returned again to sniff it with deep bellowings, while the audience laughed at his stupid tenacity, at this search for life in the inanimate body.
"Jam him hard there! Thou hast lots of strength, boy! Keep it up, or he'll turn on thee!"
But every one's attention was withdrawn from this venting of the bull's fury to Gallardo who was crossing the plaza with a short swinging step, in one hand the rolled muleta, in the other flourishing his sword as though it were a cane.
The entire audience in the sun applauded, grateful to have the swordsman come over to them.
"Thou hast put them into thy pocket," said Nacional, who stood near the bull with the cape ready.
The multitude gesticulated, calling to the bull-fighter—"Here, here!"
Each one wished him to kill the bull before his seat that he might not lose the slightest detail, and the swordsman hesitated between the contradictory calls of thousands of mouths. With one foot on the vaulting wall of the barrier he calculated where best to end the bull. He must be drawn farther away. The dead horse seemed to fill that whole side of the plaza and disturbed the bull-fighter.
He was about to order Nacional to attract the beast away, when he heard a familiar voice behind him, a voice he did not recognize but which caused him to turn quickly.
"Good-afternoon, Señor Juan. We are going to applaud reality!"
He saw in the first row, under the panel of the inner barrier, a folded jacket on the edge of the wall, a pair of arms in shirt sleeves crossed over it, and a broad face recently shaved resting in the hands, with a hat drawn down to the ears. He looked like a good-natured rustic, come from a country town to witness the bull-fight.
Gallardo recognized him. It was Plumitas.
He had fulfilled his promise and there he was among twelve thousand people who did not know him, greeting the matador, who felt a certain gratitude for this display of confidence. Gallardo marvelled at his temerity. To come down to Seville, to enter the plaza, far from the hills and the deserts where defence was easy for him, without the aid of his two companions, his mare and his carbine, and all—to see him kill bulls! Of the two, that man was the brave one. He thought of his plantation which was at Plumitas' mercy, of the country life which was only possible by maintaining good relations with this extraordinary personage. The bull must be for him.
He smiled at the bandit, who continued contemplating him with placid countenance; he took off his cap and shouted, turning toward the boisterous multitude, but with his eyes on Plumitas.
"Vaya! In honor of you!"
He threw his cap into the bleachers and many hands were stretched out in rivalry, struggling to grasp the sacred trust. Gallardo gave signs to Nacional to bring the bull near him with his skilful cape-work. He extended his muleta and the beast attacked with sonorous bellowing, passing beneath the red rag. "Olé!" roared the crowd, acknowledging its old idol again and disposed to admire all that he did.
He continued making pases at the bull, accompanied by the exclamations of the people a few feet away. Seeing him near they gave him advice. "Take care, Gallardo!" The bull was perfectly sound. He must not let himself get between him and the barrier. He must keep his retreat clear.
Others more enthusiastic excited him to deeds of daring with audacious counsel.
"Let him have one of thy best! Zas! A sword-thrust and thou hast him in thy pocket!"
The animal was too big and too cautious to be put in the pocket. He was excited by the proximity of the dead horse, and kept returning to it as if the odor intoxicated him.
In one of his evolutions, the bull, tired by the muleta, stood motionless. Gallardo had the dead horse behind him. It was a bad situation, but out of worse he had come victorious. He wished to take advantage of the horse's position. The public excited him to it. Among the men on the bleachers who had risen to their feet, and were leaning forward to lose no detail of the decisive moment, he recognized many popular devotees who had begun to cool toward him but were now applauding him again, moved by consideration for the populace.
"Score a point, there! Good boy! Now we'll see the real thing! Strike true!"
Gallardo turned his head slightly to salute Plumitas, who sat smiling, his moon face peeping above his arms and the jacket.
"For you, comrade!"
He squared himself with the sword presented ready to kill—but at that instant the earth seemed to shake and he felt himself hurled to a great distance; then the plaza fell, everything turned black, and a fierce hurricane of voices seemed to blow in from off the sea. His body vibrated painfully, his head buzzed as if it would burst; a mortal anguish contracted his breast—and he fell into a dark and limitless void, as into the unconsciousness of death.
The bull, at the very instant in which Gallardo made ready to thrust, had suddenly thrown himself upon him, attracted by the horse behind him. It was a brutal encounter, in which the body of the bull-fighter with its silk and gold trappings rolled away and disappeared beneath his feet. He did not gore him with his horns, but the blow was horrible, staggering. With head and horns the wild beast felled the man as though he had been struck by a sledge hammer.
The bull, which saw only the horse, felt an obstacle near his feet, and scorning the dead body, turned to attack again the brilliant puppet that lay motionless on the sand. He raised it with one horn, tossed it some feet away after giving it a brief shaking, and then started to return to a third attack.
The multitude, stupefied by the swiftness with which all this had occurred, remained silent, appalled. The bull was going to kill him! Perhaps he had already done so! Suddenly a shriek from the entire audience broke this agonizing silence. A cape was held between the wild beast and his victim, a rag almost thrust over its head by vigorous arms which tried to blind the brute. It was Nacional, who, in desperation, threw himself upon the bull, willing to be caught by him to save his master. The beast, stupefied by this new obstacle, charged against it, turning tail to the man lying on the sand. The banderillero, in between the horns, ran backward, waving the cape, not knowing how to free himself from this perilous situation, but happy to see that he was drawing the bull away from the wounded man.
The audience almost forgot the swordsman, so impressed was it by this new incident. Nacional was going to fall also; he could not get out from between the horns; the wild beast already had him almost hooked. Men shouted as if their cries could aid him; women wailed with anguish, turning away their faces and clutching one another convulsively, until the banderillero, taking advantage of the moment in which the wild beast lowered his head to charge, rushed from between the horns, stepping to one side, while the animal ran on blindly, the torn cape hanging before his eyes.
Then there broke forth deafening applause. The fickle multitude, impressed only by the danger of the moment, applauded Nacional. It was one of the happiest moments of his life. The audience, taken up with him, scarcely noticed Gallardo's inanimate body as it was carried out of the ring, the head hanging limp, by bull-fighters and employees of the plaza.
At nightfall the only subject of conversation in the city was Gallardo's injury, the most terrible of his life. Extras were being published in many cities and newspapers all over Spain gave accounts of the events with lengthy comment. The telegraph worked as if a political personage had just been the victim of an assassin.
Terrifying news circulated along Sierpes Street exaggerated by Southern hyperbolic commentary. Poor Gallardo had just died. He who gave the sad news had seen him in a bed in the infirmary of the plaza, white as paper, a cross in his hands. Another presented himself with less lugubrious news. He was not dead yet, but he would die any moment.
"He has lost everything! Everything! Disembowelled! The brute has left the poor fellow punctured like a sieve."
Guards had been placed at the entrances to the plaza so that the people, anxious for news, should not invade the infirmary. The multitude surged outside the ring asking news of the master's condition from those who came and went.
Nacional, still dressed in his fighting costume, peered out several times, ill-humored and frowning, blustering and angry, because arrangements for moving the maestro to his house had not been made. The people seeing the banderillero forgot the injured man and congratulated him.
"Señor Sebastián, you have done very well. If it hadn't been for you—!"
But what mattered it to him what he had done? All—liquid. The only thing of importance was poor Juan who lay in the infirmary fighting death.
"And how is he, Señor Sebastián?"
"Very bad. He has just regained his senses. He has one leg ground to dust; a horn-stab under the arm; and what more I know not! The poor boy is as dear to me as my patron-saint. We are going to carry him home."
When night fell Gallardo was taken from the ring on a stretcher. The multitude marched silently after him. The journey was long. Every moment Nacional, who walked with his cape hanging over his arm, mingling in his glittering bull-fighter's dress with the vulgar crowd, bent over the rubber cover of the litter and ordered the bearers to halt.
The doctors from the plaza walked behind and with them the Marquis of Moraima and Don José, who seemed ready to faint and fall into the arms of companions from the Forty-five, who were all jumbled together and mixed in with the ragged mob that followed the bull-fighter.
The crowd was in a state of consternation. It was a gloomy procession, as if one of those national disasters that overcome differences of class and level all men by general misfortune had taken place.
"What a calamity, Señor Marqués," said a chubby-cheeked, blonde rustic, his jacket hanging over one shoulder.
Twice he had rudely shoved away one of the stretcher bearers in his desire to help carry it. The Marquis looked at him sympathetically. He must be one of those country men who were accustomed to greet him on the high-road.
"Yes; a great calamity, boy."
"Do you think he will die, Señor Marqués?"
"They fear so—unless a miracle saves him. He is ground to dust."
The Marquis, laying his right hand on the stranger's shoulder, seemed to be grateful for the sadness reflected in his countenance.
The arrival at Gallardo's house was painful. Cries of despair arose in the courtyard. On the street, the women, neighbors, and friends of the family, screamed and tore their hair, believing Juan already dead. Potaje and some comrades were obliged to stand in the doorway scattering blows and cuffs so that the multitude following the stretcher should not besiege the house. The street was filled with a crowd that surged about commenting on the event. All stared at the house anxious to divine something through the walls.
The stretcher was carried into a room off the courtyard and the matador was moved to a bed with great care. He was enwrapped in cloths and blood-stained bandages that smelled of strong antiseptics. A pink stocking was all that remained of his fighting costume. His underclothing was torn in some places and cut by scissors in others.
His coleta hung about his neck disordered and tangled; his face had the pallor of death. He opened his eyes as he felt a hand pressed into one of his and smiled slightly on seeing Carmen, a Carmen as white as himself, with dry eyes, livid lips, and an expression of dread, as if this were her husband's last moment.
Gallardo's grave gentlemen friends prudently intervened. That could not continue; Carmen must retire. As yet, only preliminary treatment had been given the wound, and there was still much work for the doctors, so the wife was taken out of the room. The wounded man made a sign with his eyes to Nacional, who bent over him straining to catch his faint whisper.
"Juan says," he murmured, going out into the courtyard, "to telegraph to Doctor Ruiz."
The manager answered, happy at his foresight that he had done so in the middle of the afternoon, as soon as he became convinced of the seriousness of the calamity. He was sure the doctor must already be on the way and would arrive the next morning.
After this, Don José continued questioning the doctors who had treated him in the plaza. Their first, perturbation over, they grew more optimistic. It was possible he might not die. His constitution was so strong! The greatest thing to fear was the shock he had suffered, the shaking which was enough to kill another instantly; but he had already come out of the first collapse and had recovered his senses, although his weakness was great. As for the wounds, they did not consider them dangerous. That on the arm was a slight thing; perhaps it would be less agile than before. As for the leg, there was less hope. The bone was fractured; Gallardo might be left lame.
Don José, who had made every effort to be impassive when, hours before, the swordsman's death was considered inevitable, shuddered on hearing this. His matador lame? Then he could never again fight bulls! He was indignant at the calmness with which the doctors talked of the possibility of Gallardo's being left useless for bull-fighting.
"That cannot be. Do you think it logical that Juan will live and not fight bulls? Who would take his place? It cannot be, I say! The greatest man in the world, and they want him to retire!"
He spent the night watching with the men of the cuadrilla and Gallardo's brother-in-law. The next morning he rushed to the station. The express from Madrid arrived and on it Doctor Ruiz. He came without baggage, dressed with his usual carelessness, smiling beneath his yellowish white beard, his big abdomen shaking like a Buddha, in his loose waistcoat, with the movements of his short legs. He had received the news in Madrid as he was coming away from a fight of young bullocks arranged to introduce a certain boy from Las Ventas. It was a clownish exhibition which had greatly amused him and he laughed after a night of weariness in the train, remembering this grotesque corrida, as if he had forgotten the object of his journey.
As he entered the sick room the bull-fighter, who seemed overcome with weakness, opened his eyes and recognized him, and his face lighted with a smile of confidence. Ruiz, after listening in a corner to the whispers of the doctors who had given first aid, approached the invalid with a resolute air.
"Courage, my good fellow, thou are not going to die of this! Thou hast ever such rare luck!"
And then he added, turning to his colleagues: "But what a magnificent animal this Juanillo is! Any other, by this time, would not have left us anything to do."
He examined him with care. A bad horn-wound; but he had seen many worse! In cases of sickness that he called ordinary, he vacillated undecided, not venturing to express an opinion. But the goring of a bull was his speciality and he always expected the most remarkable recoveries, as if the horns gave the wound and the remedy at once.
"The man that doesn't die in the ring itself," he said, "can almost say he is saved. The cure is just a question of time."
For three days Gallardo was subjected to atrocious operations and groaned with pain, for his weak state did not permit of the use of anæsthetics. Doctor Ruiz extracted various splinters from one leg, fragments of the fractured shin-bone.
"Who said thou wouldst be left useless for fighting?" exclaimed the doctor, happy in his skill. "Thou wilt fight bulls again, son; the public will still be obliged to applaud thee much."
The manager assented to these words. He had thought the same. Could that youth, who was the greatest man in the world, die thus?
By Doctor Ruiz' order, the bull-fighter's family had moved to Don José's house. The women bothered him; their proximity was intolerable during operating hours. A moan from the bull-fighter was enough to awaken instant response from all parts of the house; the mother's and sister's screams were like painful echoes. Carmen had to be held by force, and she fought like a mad woman in her desire to go to her husband's side.
Grief had changed the wife, making her forget her animosity. Often her tears were caused by remorse, for she believed herself the unconscious author of the calamity.
"The fault is mine; I know it," she said in despair to Nacional. "He said over and over again he wished a bull would gore him to finish it all! I have been very wicked. I have embittered his life."
In vain the banderillero recounted the event in all its details to convince her that the calamity had been accidental. No; Gallardo, according to her, had wanted to end his life, and had it not been for the banderillero, he would have been carried out of the ring dead.
When the operations were over, the family returned to the house. Carmen entered the wounded man's room with a light step and lowered eyes, as if ashamed of her former hostility.
"How art thou?" she asked, clasping one of Juan's hands between both her own. She remained thus, silent and timid in the presence of Dr. Ruiz and other friends who stayed by the sick man's bedside. Had she been left alone perhaps she would have knelt beside her husband asking his forgiveness. Poor fellow! She had made him desperate by her cruelty, sending him to his death. She wished to forget it all. And her simple soul looked out of her eyes with self-abnegation, her humility mingled with wifely love and tenderness.
Gallardo seemed to have grown smaller with so much suffering; he was thin, pale, and shrunken. Nothing was left of the arrogant youth who fired the public with his daring. He complained of his inactivity and of his useless leg, heavy as lead. The terrible operations he had undergone in full consciousness seemed to have made him a coward. His fortitude in bearing pain had disappeared and he groaned at the slightest molestation.
His room was like a place of reunion through which the most celebrated connoisseurs of the city passed. The smoke of their cigars was mingled with the stench of iodoform and strong liniments. Bottles of wine that had been presented by the callers stood on the tables among medicine flasks and packages of cotton and bandages.
"That is nothing," shouted his friends, wishing to encourage the bull-fighter with their noisy optimism. "Inside of a couple of months thou wilt be fighting bulls again. Thou hast fallen into good hands. Doctor Ruiz works miracles."
The doctor was equally encouraging.
"We have a man on our hands again. Look at him; he is smoking. And a sick man that smokes—"