CHAPTER XVII
THE ATONEMENT OF BLOOD
THE cuadrillas had just entered the ring when loud blows were heard on the door of the Caballerizas.
A plaza employee approached it shouting with ill-humor. Nobody entered there; they must go to another door. But an insistent voice answered him from without, and he opened it.
A man and a woman entered; he wearing a white Cordovan hat, she dressed in black and with a mantilla over her head.
The man grasped the employee's hand, leaving something in it that humanized his fierce aspect.
"You know me, don't you?" said the newcomer. "Really, don't you know me? I am Gallardo's brother-in-law and this lady is his wife."
Carmen gazed all around the abandoned courtyard. In the distance, behind the thick brick walls, sounded music, and the respiration of the multitude could be felt, broken by shouts of enthusiasm and murmurs of curiosity. The cuadrillas were defiling before the president.
"Where is he?" anxiously inquired Carmen.
"Where should he be, woman?" replied the brother-in-law brusquely. "In the plaza, doing his duty. It is madness to have come; nonsense. Oh, this weak character of mine!"
Carmen continued gazing about her, but with a certain indecision, as if repentant for having come there. What was she to do?
The employee moved by Antonio's hand pressure, or by the relationship of those two persons to the matador of fame, became obsequious. If the lady wished to await the termination of the bull-fight, she might rest at the concièrge's house. If they chose to see the corrida, he could get them a good place, although they had no tickets.
Carmen shuddered at this proposition. See the bull-fight? No. She had come to the plaza by an effort of her will, and she regretted it. It was impossible for her to endure the sight of her husband in the ring. She had never seen him fighting bulls. She would wait there until she could bear it no longer.
"God help me!" said the leather-worker with resignation. "We will stay, though I don't know what we shall do here in front of the stables."
Encarnación's husband had been following after his sister-in-law since the day before, putting up with her hysteria and tears of nervousness excited by fear.
Saturday at mid-day Carmen had talked to him in her husband's office. She was going to Madrid! She was determined on taking this journey. She could not live in Seville. She had spent a week of insomnia, seeing horrible visions. Her feminine instinct warned her of some great danger. She must rush to Juan's side. She did not know why, nor what she could accomplish by the journey, but she longed to be near Gallardo, with that affectionate desire that believes it can minimize danger by being close to the person beloved.
This was not living! She had learned through the daily papers about Juan's bad luck the Sunday before in the Plaza of Madrid. She understood bull-fighter professional pride. She guessed that he would not tolerate this misfortune with resignation. He would do mad deeds to reconquer the applause of the public. The last letter she had received from him gave her to understand it vaguely.
"Yes, yes!" she said energetically to her brother-in-law, "I am going to Madrid this very afternoon. If thou wishest, thou mayest accompany me; if thou dost not wish to come, I will go alone. Above all—not a word to Don José; he would prevent the trip. No one knows about it but Mamita."
The leather-worker accepted. A free trip to Madrid, although in such sad company! On the way, Carmen gave expression to her fears. She would talk to her husband forcefully. Why continue fighting bulls? Had they not enough to live on? He must retire, and immediately; if not, she would die. This corrida must be the last. Even this one seemed more than she could bear. She would arrive in Madrid in time to prevent her husband working that afternoon. Her heart told her that by her presence she would prevent a great calamity. But her brother-in-law protested in consternation on hearing this.
"What barbarity! What women are! They get an idea in the head, and things must be so. Dost thou believe, then, that there is no authority, nor laws, nor rules of the plaza, and that it is enough for a woman to take a notion to embrace her husband when she gets frightened, to suspend a corrida and leave the public with its thumb on its nose? Thou mayest say what thou wilt to Juan, but it must be after the bull-fight. Authority can't be played with; we would all go to jail."
The leather-worker imagined the most dramatic consequences if Carmen persisted in her absurd idea of presenting herself to her husband in order to prevent his bull-fighting. They would all be locked up. He already saw himself in prison as an accomplice to this act which in his simplicity he considered a crime.
When they reached Madrid he had to make renewed efforts to prevent his companion from rushing to the hotel where her husband was. What good would that do?
"Thou wilt confuse him by thy presence and he will go to the plaza in a bad humor, excited, and if anything happens to him the fault will be thine."
This idea subdued Carmen and caused her to follow her brother-in-law's advice. She allowed herself to be taken to a hotel of his selection, and she remained there all the morning lying on a sofa in her room, weeping as if she were sure of coming adversity. The leather-worker, happy to be in Madrid, well housed, waxed indignant against this despair which seemed to him absurd.
"Man alive! What women are! Any one would think thou art a widow, while thy husband is at this very moment getting ready for the corrida hale and hearty as Roger de Flor himself. What nonsense!"
Carmen scarcely ate any breakfast, deaf to the praises her brother-in-law rendered the cook of the establishment. In the afternoon her resignation vanished again.
The hotel was situated near the Puerta del Sol and the noise and stir of the people going to the bull-fight reached her. No, she could not stay in that strange room while her husband risked his life. She must see him. She lacked courage to witness the spectacle, but she longed to be near him; she must go to the plaza. Where was the plaza? She had never seen it. If she could not enter, she would wander around its environs. The important thing was to feel herself near, believing that by this proximity she could influence Gallardo's luck.
The leather-worker protested. By the life of—! He intended to see the bull-fight; he had gone out and bought a ticket and now Carmen spoiled his pleasure by her determination to go to the plaza.
"But what wilt thou do there, girl? What wilt thou better by thy presence? Imagine if Juaniyo should chance to see thee."
They argued long, but the woman answered all his reasoning with the same firm reply:
"Thou needst not accompany me; I will go alone."
The brother-in-law at last surrendered and they rode to the plaza in a hired coach. The leather-worker remembered a great deal about the amphitheatre and its dependencies from having accompanied Gallardo on one of his trips to Madrid for the spring bull-fights.
He and the employee were undecided and ill humored in the presence of this woman with reddened eyes and sunken cheeks who stood planted in the courtyard uncertain what to do. The two men felt themselves drawn by the murmur of the crowd and the music that rose from the plaza. Must they stand there the whole afternoon and not see the bull-fight?
The employee had a brilliant inspiration.
If the lady wished to pass into the chapel—
The defiling of the cuadrillas was over. Some horsemen came trotting out of the door that gave access to the ring. They were picadores who were not on duty and were retiring from the arena to substitute their companions when their turn came. Hitched to some rings in the wall stood a row of six saddled horses, the first that must enter the plaza to supply those fallen. Behind them the lancers passed the time making evolutions with their steeds. A stable boy mounted a skittish wild mare and galloped her along the corral to tire her, and then turned her over to the piqueros.
The hacks, tortured by the flies, stamped their feet, pulling on the rings as if they divined the coming danger. The other horses trotted, urged on by the riders' spurs.
Carmen and her brother-in-law had to take refuge under the arcades, and finally the bull-fighter's wife accepted the invitation to pass into the chapel. It was a safe and tranquil place and there she could do something useful for her husband.
When she entered the sacred room with its atmosphere made dense by the respiration of the public that had witnessed the bull-fighters' prayers, Carmen gazed upon the poverty of the altar. Four lights were burning before the Virgin of the Dove, but this tribute seemed niggardly to her.
She opened her purse to give a duro to an employee. Could he not bring more tapers? The man scratched his head. Tapers? Tapers? He did not believe he could find any among the chattels belonging to the plaza. But he suddenly recalled to mind the sisters of a matador who brought candles whenever he fought bulls. Maybe they were not all gone, and there might be a few in some corner of the chapel. After a long search he found them. There were no candlesticks, but the employee, a man of resources, brought a couple of empty bottles, and sticking the candles into their necks, he lit them and placed them near the other lights.
Carmen had knelt and the two men took advantage of her immobility to rush to the plaza, eager to witness the first events of the corrida.
The woman remained lost in contemplation of the crude image reddened by the lights. She was not familiar with this Virgin, but she must be sweet and kind like the one in Seville to whom she had so often made supplication. Moreover, she was the Virgin of the bull-fighters, she heard their last prayers when danger near at hand gave sincere piety to those rough men. On that floor her husband had knelt many times. And this thought was enough to cause her to feel attracted to the image and to contemplate her with religious trust, as if she had known her since childhood.
Her lips moved, repeating the supplications with automatic haste, but her thoughts fled away from prayer, as if drawn by the noises of the multitude that reached her.
Ah! that intermittent volcano-like bellowing, that roar of distant waves, broken from time to time by pauses of tragic silence! Carmen imagined herself witnessing the invisible bull-fight. She divined by the variations in the sounds from the plaza the progress of the tragedy that was taking place within the ring. Sometimes there was an explosion of angry shouts with accompaniment of hisses; again thousands and thousands of voices uttered unintelligible words. Suddenly rose a shriek of terror, prolonged, shrill, that seemed to rise to heaven; a fearful and halting exclamation that brought to mind thousands of heads in a row, blanched by emotion, following the swift race of a bull in pursuit of a man—until it was suddenly broken by a shout, re-establishing calm. The danger had passed.
There were long intervals of silence; a silence absolute; the silence of the void, in which the buzzing of the flies hovering around the horses was magnified, as though the immense amphitheatre were deserted, as though the fourteen thousand persons seated on its surrounding seats had become motionless and breathless, and Carmen were the only living being that existed within its heart.
Suddenly this silence was animated by a loud and indescribable shock as though every brick in the plaza were loosened from its place and all were dashing against one another. It was the prolonged applause that made the ring tremble. In the nearby courtyard sounded blows of the rod on the hide of the wretched horses, blasphemy, clatter of hoofs, and voices. "Whose turn?" New lancers were called into the plaza.
To these noises others nearer were added. Footsteps sounded in the adjoining rooms, doors opened suddenly, voices and labored breathing of several men were heard, as if they walked burdened by great weight.
"It is nothing—a bruise. Thou'rt not bleeding. Before the corrida is over thou'lt be lancing again."
A hoarse voice, weakened by pain, groaned between gasps with an accent that reminded Carmen of home:
"Virgin of Solitude! I must have broken something. Look well, doctor. Alas, my children!"
Carmen shuddered with horror. She raised her eyes that had wandered in fear to the Virgin. Her nose seemed drawn out by her emotion to a sharp point between sunken and pallid cheeks. She felt sick; she feared that she would fall to the floor in a faint from terror. She tried to pray again, to isolate herself in prayer; to not hear the noises from without, transmitted through the walls with a tone of despair. But in spite of her a dismal sound reached her ear of sponges being wet in water and voices of men who must be doctors and nurses stimulating the picador, who complained with the energy of a mountaineer, at the same time striving to hide the pain of his broken bones through manly pride.
"Virgin of Solitude! My children! What will the poor babes have to eat if their father cannot use the lance?"
Carmen arose. Ah, she could bear no more! She would fall fainting if she remained in that gloomy place trembling at the echoes of pain. She thought she felt in her own bones the same torture that caused that unknown man to groan.
She went out into the courtyard. Blood on all sides; blood on the floor and around some casks where water mingled with the red fluid.
The picadores were retiring from the ring. The sign for the display of the banderillas had been given, and the riders came out on their bleeding horses. They dismounted, talking with animation of the incidents of the bull-fight. Carmen saw Potaje let his vigorous person down off his horse hurling a string of curses at the mono sabio who stupidly assisted him in his descent. He seemed benumbed by his hidden iron greaves and from the pain of several violent falls. He raised one hand to his back to ease himself with painful stretches, but he smiled, showing his yellow horse-like teeth.
"Have ye seen how well Juan does to-day?" he said to those who surrounded him. "To-day he surely is all right."
Seeing a solitary woman in the courtyard, and recognizing her, he showed no surprise.
"You here, Seña' Carmen? How good!"
He spoke tranquilly, as if he, in the stupor which wine and his own bestiality kept him, could not be surprised by anything in the world.
"Have you seen Juan?" he continued. "He laid down on the ground before the bull, under his very nose. Nobody else can do what that fellow does. Peep in and see him, for he is very fine to-day."
Some one called him from the door of the infirmary. His companion, the picador, wanted to speak to him before being taken to the hospital.
"Adio', Seña' Carmen. I must see what that poor fellow wants. A fall with a fracture, they say. He won't use the lance again this whole season."
Carmen took refuge under the arcades and closed her eyes to the repugnant spectacle in the courtyard, yet at the same time fascinated by the sickening sight of the blood.
The monos sabios led in the wounded horses by the bridle reins. A stable boy, seeing them, began to bestir himself, in a fever of activity.
"Courage, brave boys!" he shouted, addressing the youths with the horses. "Firm! Firm there!"
A stable-boy carefully approached a horse that was struggling in pain, took off his saddle, fastened leather straps around his legs, binding the four extremities, and threw the animal to the ground.
"There, there! Firm! Firm with him!" the one in charge of the horses continued shouting, without ceasing his activity.
Another held the reins of the fallen animal and pressed his poor head against the ground by placing his foot on it. The nose contracted with distortions of pain, the long yellow teeth gritted with a chill of martyrdom, his stifled whinnies lost in the dust from the pressure of the foot. The gory hands of the others worked to return the flaccid entrails to the open cavity of the abdomen or stuffed it with handfuls of tow while still others, with a skill acquired by practice, sewed up the hide.
When the horse was "fixed" with barbaric promptness, they threw a bucket of water over his head, loosed his feet from the straps and gave him several blows with a rod to make him stand up. Some, after walking barely two steps, fell flat, shedding a stream of blood from the wound stitched with pack-thread. It was instantaneous death. Others were kept alive by some marvellous resource of animal vigor, and the lackeys, after this "fixing," took them to the "varnishing," inundating their feet and bellies with strong ablutions from casks of water. The white or chestnut color of the animals became glossy and the hair dripped a rose-colored liquid, a mixture of water and blood. The horses were patched up as if they were old shoes; their waning strength was exploited to the last breath, prolonging their agony and death. The important thing was to keep these animals on their feet a few minutes longer, until the picadores could get into the plaza again; the bull would take charge of finishing the work.
Carmen wished to go. Virgin of Hope! What was she doing there? She did not know the order the matadores were to follow in their work. Maybe that last trumpet-blast signalled the moment in which her husband would stand before the wild beast. And she there, a few steps from him, and not seeing him! She wished to escape, to free herself from this torment.
Moreover, the blood that ran through the courtyard, and the torment of those poor beasts, caused her the greatest anguish. Her womanly delicacy rebelled against these tortures, while she held her handkerchief to her nostrils to stifle the slaughter-house odors.
She had never been to a bull-fight. A great part of her existence had been spent hearing conversation about bulls, but in the tales of these sports she saw only the external, what all the world saw, the events in the ring, in the light of the sun, with glitter of silks and embroideries and the ostentatious spectacle, without realizing the odious preparations that took place in the mystery of the wings. And they lived off this "sport," with its repugnant martyrdom of guiltless animals; and their fortune had been made at the cost of such spectacles!
A loud applause broke out within the ring. Orders were issued in the courtyard with imperious voice. The first bull had just died. The barricade at the end of the passage that communicated with the ring was opened and the noises of the multitude and the echoes of the music were borne in with more intensity.
The mules were in the plaza; one team to collect the dead horses, another to drag out the bull's carcass.
Carmen saw her brother-in-law coming along the arcades. He was still tremulous with enthusiasm over what he had seen.
"Juan—colossal! This afternoon as he never was before! Fear not. Why, that boy eats the bulls up alive!"
Then he glanced at her uneasily, fearful that she would make him lose so interesting an afternoon. What did she decide? Did she think she had the courage to peep into the plaza?
"Take me away!" she said with an agonized accent. "Get me out of here quickly. I am sick. Leave me in the first church we can find."
The leather-worker made a wry face. By the life of Roger—! Leave such a magnificent bull-fight! And as they walked toward the door he was calculating where he could abandon Carmen so as to immediately return to the plaza.
When the second bull came in, Gallardo, still leaning against the barrier, was receiving felicitations from his admirers. What courage that boy had—"when he wished." The whole plaza had applauded the first bull, forgetting their anger at the former corridas. When a picador fell and lay senseless from the terrible shock, Gallardo had rushed up with his cape, drawing the wild beast into the centre of the ring. He made some bold verónicas that at last held the bull motionless and exhausted, after turning from the lure of the red rag. The bull-fighter, taking advantage of the animal's stupefaction, stood erect within a few steps of his muzzle, thrusting his body forward as if in challenge. He felt the heart-throbbing, that happy precursor of his great daring. He must conquer the public with a dash of audacity, and he knelt before the horns with a certain precaution, ready to arise at the slightest sign of charging.
The bull stood quiet. Gallardo reached out a hand until he touched the drivelling muzzle and the animal made no movement whatever. Then he dared something that held the public in palpitating silence. Slowly he laid himself down on the sand, with the cape between his arms serving as a pillow, and thus he remained some seconds lying beneath the nose of the bull who sniffed him with a kind of fear, as if he suspected danger in this body that audaciously placed itself beneath his horns.
When the bull, recovering his aggressive fierceness, lowered his horns, the bull-fighter rolled toward his feet, in this way putting himself out of his reach, and the animal passed over him, vainly seeking in his ferocious blindness the bulk that attacked him.
Gallardo rose brushing off the dust, and the public, which adored feats of daring, applauded him with the old-time enthusiasm. It hailed not alone his audacity, it applauded itself, admiring its own majesty, guessing that the bull-fighter's daring was to reconcile himself with it, to regain its affection. Gallardo came to the corrida disposed to the most daring deeds to reconquer applause.
"He is careless," they said on the tiers of seats, "often he is slack; but he has bull-fighter pride and he is going to redeem his name."
But the enthusiasm of the public, their gay excitement over Gallardo's achievement, and the true sword-thrust with which the other matador had killed the first bull, turned to ill-humor and protest as they saw the second in the ring. He was enormous and of beautiful build, but he ran through the centre of the arena looking with surprise at the noisy multitude on the bleachers, frightened at the voices and hisses that were meant to excite him, fleeing from his own shadow, as if he divined all kinds of intrigue. The peones ran, waving the cape at him. He charged at the red rag, following it some instants, but suddenly he gave a snort of surprise and, turning his hind quarters, fled in the opposite direction with violent springs. His eagerness for flight infuriated the public.
"That's no bull—it's a monkey."
The swordsmen's capes finally managed to attract it toward the barrier, where the picadores waited motionless on their mounts, with lance under arm. He approached a rider with lowered head and with fierce snorts as if to charge. But before the iron could be lodged in his neck, he gave a spring and ran, passing through the capes the peones waved at him. In his flight he met another lancer and repeated the springing, the snorting and the flight. Then he met the third horseman, who, thrusting forward his lance, speared him in the neck, by this punishment only augmenting his fear and his speed.
The public had risen to its feet en masse, gesticulating and shouting. A tame bull! What an abomination! Every one turned toward the president roaring his protest. "Señor Presidente!" That could not be allowed.
A chorus of voices that repeated the same words with monotonous intonation began to rise from some sections.
"Fire! Fi-i-ire!"
The president seemed to hesitate. The bull was running, followed by the combatants, who chased after him, their capes over their arms. When any of these managed to head him off, or to stop him, he smelt the cloth with the usual snort and ran in a different direction, jumping and kicking.
The noisy protest against these flights increased. "Señor Presidente!" Was his lordship deaf? Bottles, oranges, and seat cushions began to fall into the ring around the fugitive animal. The public hated it for its cowardice. One bottle struck on one of the horns and the people applauded this true shot though not knowing who it was. Many of the audience leaned forward as if about to throw themselves into the ring to destroy the bad beast with their hands. What a scandal! To see in the plaza of Madrid oxen that were only fit for meat! "Fire! Fire!"
At last the president waved a red handkerchief and a salvo of applause greeted this signal.
The fire banderillas were an extraordinary sight; something unexpected, that augmented the interest of the corrida. Many who had protested until they were hoarse felt inward satisfaction at this incident. They were going to see the bull roasted alive, running mad with terror at the fire-streams that would be hanging from his neck.
Nacional advanced carrying, hanging from his hands, with the points downward, two thick banderillas that seemed to be encased in black paper. He went toward the bull without great precaution, as if his cowardice merited no art whatever, and he lodged the infernal barbs to the accompaniment of the vengeful applause of the multitude.
There was a crackling sound as if something broke and two spirals of white smoke began to blaze on the animal's neck. In the light of the sun the fire could not be seen, but the hair singed and disappeared and a black mark extended around the neck. The bull ran, surprised at the attack, accelerating his flight as though thus to free himself from torment, until suddenly detonations like gunshots began to burst on his neck, the burning embers of paper flying around his eyes. The animal sprang aloft, filled with terror, his four feet in the air at once, vainly twisting his horned head to pull out with his mouth those demons clutched upon his neck. The people laughed and applauded, thinking his springs and contortions funny. It seemed as if, with his strong heavy body, he were executing a trained animal's dance.
"How they sting him," they exclaimed, with ferocious laughter.
The banderillas ceased crackling and bursting. His carbonized neck was covered with blisters of fat. The bull, no longer feeling the burning of the fire, stood motionless, breathing hard, his head lowered, thrusting out his dry dark-red tongue.
Another banderillero approached him and put in a second pair. The smoke spirals rose again above the charred flesh, the shots resounded and the bull ran madly, trying to reach his neck with his mouth by twisting his massive body; but now his movements were less violent, as though the vigorous animal began to habituate itself to martyrdom.
Still a third pair was lodged, and his neck became carbonized, shedding through the ring a nauseating odor of melted grease, burnt hide, and hair consumed by fire.
The public continued applauding with vengeful frenzy, as though the gentle animal were an adversary of their beliefs and they did a pious deed in burning him. They laughed when they saw him tremulous on his legs, moving his flanks like the sides of a bellows, lowing with a shrieking howl of pain, his eyes reddened, and dragging his tongue over the sand, greedy for a sensation of coolness.
Gallardo, leaning against the barrier, near the president's box, awaited the sign to kill. Garabato had the sword and muleta ready on the edge of the wall.
"Curse it!" The bull-fight had begun so well, and for bad luck to reserve this bull for him, the one he himself had chosen on account of its fine appearance, but which now that it trod the arena turned out to be tame!
He excused himself in advance for defective work, talking with the "intelligent" who occupied seats near the barrier.
"What can be done will be done—and no more," he said, shrugging his shoulders.
Then he turned toward the boxes, gazing at Doña Sol's. She had applauded him before, when he achieved his stupendous feat of lying down before the bull. Her gloved hands clapped with enthusiasm when he turned toward the barrier, bowing to the public. When Doña Sol saw that the bull-fighter was looking at her, she bowed to him with an affectionate manner, and even her companion, despicable fool! had joined this salutation with a stiff inclination of the body as if he were going to break off at the waist. Afterward he had several times surprised her glasses directed persistently at him, seeking him out in his retirement between barriers. That gachí! Perhaps she felt re-attracted to him. Gallardo decided to call on her next day, to see if the wind had changed.
The signal to kill was given and the swordsman, after a short speech, strode up to the animal.
His admirers shouted advice.
"Despatch him quick! He is an ox that deserves nothing."
The bull-fighter held his muleta before the animal, which charged, but with a slow step made cautious by torture, with a manifest intention of crushing, of wounding, as if martyrdom had awakened all his ferocity. That man was the first object which had placed itself before his horns since the torture.
The multitude felt its vengeful animosity against the bull vanish. He did not recover himself badly; he charged. Olé! And all hailed the pases de muleta with enthusiasm, including combatant and wild beast in common approbation.
The bull stood motionless, lowering his head, with his tongue protruding. Silence, the forerunner of the mortal thrust, fell; a silence greater than that of absolute solitude, product of many thousands of bated breaths; silence so intense that the faintest sound in the ring carried to the most distant seats. All heard a slight clashing of sticks striking against each other. It was the sound made when Gallardo with the point of his sword laid back over the bull's neck the charred shafts of the banderillas that rested between the horns. After this arrangement to facilitate the blow, the multitude thrust their heads still farther forward, responsive to the mysterious correspondence that had just been established between its will and that of the matador. "Now!" He was going to fell the bull with a masterful stroke. All divined the swordsman's resolution.
Gallardo threw himself upon the bull and the whole audience breathed hard in unison after the nerve-straining pause. The animal drew away from the encounter, running, bellowing with fury, while the rows of seats burst out into hisses and protests. As usual! Gallardo had turned away his face and bent his arm at the moment of killing. The animal bore in his neck the loose and wavering sword, and after taking a few steps the steel blade sprang out of the flesh and rolled on the sand.
Part of the public rebuked Gallardo. The charm that had united the swordsman to the multitude at the beginning of the feast was broken. Lack of confidence reappeared; criticism of the bull-fighter spread. All seemed to have forgotten the enthusiasm of a short time before.
Gallardo recovered his sword and with bowed head, lacking spirit to protest at the ingratitude of a multitude tolerant to others, inflexible with him, strode up to the bull again.
In his confusion he thought he saw a bull-fighter place himself at his side. It must be Nacional.
"Be calm, Juan! Don't get rattled."
"Damn it!" Must the same thing always happen to him? Could he no longer thrust his arm between the horns, as in other times, burying the sword to the hilt? Was he to spend the rest of his life making audiences laugh? An ox which they had had to set on fire!
He placed himself before the animal, which seemed to await him, his legs motionless as if he wished to put an end immediately to his long torture. He would not make more passes with the muleta. He squared himself, the red rag held near the ground, the sword horizontal at the height of his eyes. Now for the stroke!
The audience rose to its feet with a sudden impulse. For some seconds man and beast formed but a single mass and thus moved a few steps. The most intelligent raised their hands ready to applaud. He had thrown himself to kill as in his better days. A master stroke!
But suddenly the man emerged from between the horns hurled like a projectile by a powerful toss of the bull's head, and rolled along the sand. The bull lowered his head and his horns hooked up the body, raising it from the ground an instant and letting it fall, to continue on his race, bearing in his neck the blade of the sword, embedded to the cross!
Gallardo slowly raised himself and the plaza burst forth into a deafening applause, eager to repair its injustice. Hurrah! Good for the bull-fighter of Seville! He had done well!
But the bull-fighter did not respond to these exclamations of enthusiasm. He put his hands on his abdomen, bent over in an attitude of pain, and took a few hesitating steps with lowered head. Twice he raised it and looked toward the door of exit—as if he feared he could not find it, staggering blindly as though intoxicated.
Suddenly he fell upon the sand—contracted like an enormous worm of silk and gold. Four mozos of the plaza slowly lifted him up until they raised him on their shoulders. Nacional joined the group holding the swordsman's ghastly head with its glassy eyes showing through their half-closed lashes.
The public made a movement of surprise, ceasing their applause. Every one gazed about, undecided as to the gravity of the event. But suddenly optimistic news circulated, coming from no one knew where; that anonymous opinion, which all heed and which at certain moments fires a multitude or causes it to remain motionless. It was nothing. A wound in the abdomen that deprived him of his senses. No one had seen blood.
The crowd, suddenly tranquillized, began to be seated again, turning its attention from the wounded bull-fighter to the wild beast, which was still on its feet, resisting the agonies of death.
Nacional helped to place his maestro on a bed in the infirmary. He fell on it like a sack, inanimate, his arms hanging outside the couch.
Sebastián, though he had often seen his maestro wounded and bleeding, and had kept his serenity in spite of it, now felt an agony of fear, seeing him inert and of a greenish white color, as if he were dead.
"By the life of the blue dove!" he moaned. "Are there no doctors? Is there nobody here?"
The man in charge of the hospital, after sending away the mangled picador, had rushed back to his box in the plaza.
The banderillero was in despair; the seconds seemed hours; he screamed to Garabato and to Potaje who had followed after him, not sure what he was trying to tell them.
Two doctors came and after closing the door so that no one could disturb them, they stood undecided before the swordsman's inanimate body. He must be undressed. Garabato began to unbutton, rip, and tear the bull-fighter's clothing, by the light that entered through a window in the ceiling.
Nacional could hardly see the body. The doctors stood around the wounded man, consulting each other with significant glances. It must be a collapse that had apparently deprived him of life. No blood was seen. The rents in his clothing were the effect, no doubt, of the tumbling the bull had given him.
Doctor Ruiz entered hastily and his colleagues made way for him, respecting his skill. He swore in his nervous precipitation while he began to assist Garabato to open the bull-fighter's clothing.
There was a movement of astonishment, of painful surprise, around the bed. The banderillero dared not inquire. He looked between the heads of the doctors and saw Gallardo's body with the shirt raised above his breast. The naked abdomen was gashed by a tortuous aperture like bleeding lips, through which appeared patches of bright blue.
Doctor Ruiz sadly shook his head. Besides the atrocious and incurable wound, the bull-fighter had received a tremendous shock from the bull's tossing. He did not breathe.
"Doctor—doctor!" cried the banderillero, begging to know the truth.
Doctor Ruiz, after a long silence, shook his head again.
"It is all over, Sebastián. Thou must seek another matador."
Nacional raised his eyes aloft. Thus to end a man like that, unable to press the hand of his friends, without a word, suddenly, like a miserable rabbit struck in the neck!
In despair he left the infirmary. Ah, he could not see that! He was not like Potaje who stood quiet and frowning at the foot of the bed, contemplating the body as though he did not see it, while he twirled his beaver hat in his fingers.
He was about to cry like a child. His breast heaved with anguish, and his eyes filled with tears.
He had to make way through the courtyard to give passage to the picadores who were entering the ring again.
The terrible news began to circulate through the plaza. Gallardo was dead! Some doubted the truth of the information; others accepted it; still no one moved from his seat. The third bull was soon to come in. The corrida had not yet reached its first half, and there was no reason for abandoning it.
Through the door of the ring came the murmur of the multitude and the sound of music.
The banderillero felt a fierce hatred born within him for all that surrounded him; an aversion to his profession and to the public that supported it. In his memory danced the sonorous words with which he had made the people laugh, finding in them now a new expression of justice.
He thought of the bull which was at that moment being dragged out of the arena, its neck burned and blood-stained, its legs rigid, and its glassy eyes staring at blue space as do those of the dead.
Then in imagination he saw the friend who lay but a few steps away from him on the other side of a brick wall, also motionless and stiff, his breast bare, his abdomen torn open, a glazed and mysterious brilliancy between his half-closed lashes.
Poor bull! Poor matador!
Suddenly the murmuring amphitheatre burst forth into a bellowing, hailing the continuation of the spectacle. Nacional closed his eyes and clenched his fists.
It was the bellowing of the wild beast, the real and only one!
THE END