The Blood of the Arena by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (miss read books .txt) 📖

with eager signs for him to come in. "I'll return soon." But he did not. He entered an aristocratic club on the same street, with servants in knee breeches, with imposing Gothic decorations and silver service on its tables. The son of Señora Angustias felt a glow of vanity whenever he passed among the servants standing so erect, with a military air, in their black coats, and a lackey, imposing as a magistrate, with a silver chain around his neck, offered to take his hat and stick. It pleased him to mix with so many distinguished people. The young men, sunk down in high chairs like those seen in romantic dramas, talked of horses and women, and kept account of all the duels that took place in Spain, for they were men of fastidious honor and unquestioned valor. In an inside room they shot at targets; in another they gambled from the early evening hours until after sunrise. They tolerated Gallardo as an "original" of the club, because he was a reputable bull-fighter, who dressed well, spent money, and had good connections.

"He is very celebrated," said the members, with great tact, realizing that he knew as much as they did.

The character of Don José, who was charming and well-born, served the bull-fighter as a guarantee in this new existence. Moreover, Gallardo, with his cleverness as an old-time street gamin, knew how to make himself popular with this assemblage of gay youths in which he met acquaintances by the dozens.

He gambled much. It was the best means of coming into contact with his "new family" and strengthening the relationship. He gambled and lost with the bad luck of a man fortunate in other undertakings. He spent his nights in the "hall of crime," as the gambling room was called, and he seldom managed to gain. His ill-luck was a cause of pride to the club.

"Last night Gallardo took a good laying out," said the members. "He lost at least eleven thousand pesetas."

And this prestige as a strong "bank," as well as the serenity with which he gave up his money, made his new friends respect him, finding in him a firm upholder of society's game. The new passion rapidly took possession of him. The excitement of the game dominated him even to the point of sometimes making him forget the great lady who was to him the most interesting object in the world. To gamble with the best in Seville! To be treated as an equal by the young gentlemen, with the fraternal feeling that the loaning of money and common emotions creates!

Suddenly one night a great cluster of electric globes that stood on the green table and illuminated the room went out. There was darkness and disorder, but Gallardo's imperious voice rose above the confusion.

"Silence, gentlemen! Nothing has happened. On with the game! Let them bring candles!"

And the game went on, his companions admiring him for his energetic oratory even more than for the bulls he killed. The manager's friends asked him about Gallardo's losses. He would be ruined; what he earned by the bulls was being eaten up by gaming. But Don José smiled disdainfully, doubling the glory of his matador.

"We have more bull-fights for this year than any one else. We're going to get tired of killing bulls and earning money. Let the boy amuse himself. That's what he works for, and that's why he is what he is—the greatest man in the world!"

Don José considered that the people's admiration for the serenity with which he lost added glory to his idol. A matador could not be like other men who keep chasing after a cent. He did not earn his money for nothing. Besides, it pleased him as a personal triumph, as something that was an accomplishment of his own, to see him established in a social set which not everybody could join.

"He is the man of the day," he said with an aggressive air to those who criticised Gallardo's new habits. "He doesn't go with nobodies, nor does he sit around taverns like other bull-fighters. And what does that prove? He is the bull-fighter of the aristocracy, because he wants to be, and can be. The others are jealous."

In his new existence, Gallardo not only frequented the club, but some afternoons he mingled with the Society of the Forty-five. It was a kind of senate of tauromachy. Bull-fighters did not find easy access to its salons, thus leaving the respectable nobility of the connoisseurs free to voice their opinions.

During the spring and summer the Forty-five gathered in the vestibule and on the sidewalk, seated in willow arm-chairs, to await the telegrams from the bull-fights. They had little faith in the opinions of the press; moreover they must get the news before it came out in the papers. Telegrams from all parts of the Peninsula where bull-fights were held came at nightfall, and the members, after listening with religious gravity to their reading, argued and built suppositions upon these telegraphic brevities. It was a function that filled them with pride, elevating them above common mortals, this of remaining quietly seated at the door of the Society, enjoying the cool air and hearing in a certain manner, without prejudiced exaggerations, what had occurred that afternoon in the bull plaza of Bilbao, or of Coruña or Barcelona, or Valencia, of the ears one matador had received or the hisses that had greeted another, while their fellow-citizens remained in the saddest depths of ignorance and walked the streets obliged to wait till night for the coming out of the newspapers. When there was an accident, and a telegram arrived announcing the terrible goring of a native bull-fighter, emotion and patriotic sentiment softened the respectable senators to the point of communicating the important secret to some passing friend. The news instantly circulated through the cafés on Sierpes Street, and no one doubted it at all. It was a telegram received at the Forty-five.

Gallardo's manager, with his aggressive and noisy enthusiasm, disturbed the social gravity; but they tolerated him on account of his being an old friend and they ended by laughing at his ways. It was impossible for such critical persons to discuss the merits of the bull-fighters tranquilly with Don José. Often, on speaking of Gallardo as "a brave boy, but with little art," they looked timorously toward the door.

"Pepe is coming," they said, and the conversation was suddenly broken off.

Don José entered waving the blue paper of a telegram above his head.

"Have you got news from Santander? Here it is: Gallardo, two strokes, two bulls, and with the second, the ear. Now, didn't I tell you? The greatest man in the world!"

The telegram for the Forty-five was often different, but the manager scarcely conceded it a scornful glance, bursting out in noisy protest.

"Lies! All jealousy! My message is the one that's worth something. That one shows pique because my boy gets all the favors."

And the members in the end laughed at Don José, touching their foreheads with a finger to indicate his madness, joking about "the greatest man in the world" and his funny manager.

Little by little, as an unheard of privilege, he managed to introduce Gallardo into the Society. The bull-fighter came under the pretext of looking for his manager and finally seated himself among the gentlemen, many of whom were not his friends and had chosen their matador among the rival swordsmen.

The decorations of this club-house had distinction, as Don José said; high wainscotings of Moorish tiles, and on the immaculately white walls, gay posters recalling past bull-fights; mounted heads of bulls famous for the number of horses they had killed or for having wounded some celebrated matador; glittering capes and swords presented by certain bull-fighters on "cutting the queue" and retiring from the profession.

Servants in frock coats waited on gentlemen in country dress or in negligee during the hot summer afternoons. In Holy Week and during other great feasts of Seville, when illustrious connoisseurs from all over Spain called to greet the Forty-five, the servants dressed in knee breeches and wore white wigs with red and yellow livery. In this guise, like lackeys of a royal house, they served trays of manzanilla to the wealthy gentlemen, some of whom had even taken off their cravats.

In the afternoons, when the dean of the Club, the illustrious Marquis of Moraima, presented himself, the members formed in a circle in deep arm-chairs and the famous cattle-breeder occupied a seat higher than the others like a throne, from which he presided over the conversation. They always began by talking about the weather. They were mostly breeders and rich farmers who lived on the products of the earth when favored by the variable heavens. The Marquis expounded the observations drawn from the knowledge acquired on interminable horseback rides over the Andalusian plain. Upon this immense desert, with a boundless horizon like a sea of land, the bulls resembled drowsy sharks moving slowly among the waves of herbage. The drought, that cruel calamity of the Andalusian plains, led to discussions lasting whole afternoons, and when, after long weeks of expectation, the lowering sky let fall a few drops, big and hot, the great country gentlemen smiled joyfully, rubbing their hands, and the Marquis said impressively, looking at the broad circles that wet the pavement:

"The glory of God! Every drop of these is a five dollar gold piece!"

When they were not busying themselves talking about the weather, cattle became the subject of their conversation, and especially bulls, as though they were united to them by a blood relationship. The breeders listened with respect to the Marquis' opinions, recognizing the prestige of his superior fortune. The mere amateurs, who never went out of the city, admired his skill as a raiser of noble animals. What that man knew! He showed himself convinced of the greatness of his occupation when he talked of the care the bulls needed. Out of every ten calves eight or nine were only good for meat, after being tested for their temper. Only one or two which proved themselves ferocious and aggressive before the point of the spear came to be considered animals suitable for combat, living apart, with all manner of care—and such care!

"A herd of fierce bulls," said the Marquis, "should not be treated as a business. It is a luxury. They give, for a fighting bull, four or five times more than for an ox for the butcher-shop—but what they cost!"

They must be cared for at all hours, heed must be taken in regard to their pasture and water, they must be moved from one place to another with changes of temperature. Each bull costs more to maintain than a family. And when he is ready he must be watched till the last minute so that he may not disgrace himself in the ring but do honor to the emblem of the breeder which he wears on his neck.

The Marquis had been compelled to quarrel with the managers and authorities of certain plazas, and had refused to furnish his animals because the band of music was placed over the bull-pens. The noise of the instruments upset the animals, taking away their courage and serenity when they entered the arena.

"They are just like ourselves," he said with tenderness. "They lack only speech. What do I say? Like us? There are some that are better than some people."

And he told about Lobito, an old bull, a leader, which he declared he would not sell even if they would give him the whole of Seville with its Giralda. He no sooner galloped in sight of the drove in which this jewel lived on the vast pastures, than a shout was enough to call his attention. "Lobito!" And Lobito, abandoning his companions, came to meet the Marquis, moistening the horseman's boots with his gentle muzzle; yet he was an animal of immense power and the rest of the herd lived in fear of him.

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