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

at the bull-fights and get a crazy notion to become bull-fighters in their old age. I have one taking a lesson now. He comes every afternoon. Thou shalt see."

After taking a glass of wine at the tavern they crossed the street and entered a place surrounded by a high wall. On the boards nailed together, that served as a door, was posted a great bill which announced, "School of Tauromachy."

They entered. The first thing that claimed Gallardo's attention was the bull, an animal made of wood and rushes, mounted on wheels, with a tail of tow, head of braided straw, a section of cork in place of a neck, and a pair of genuine and enormous horns which inspired the pupils with terror.

A bare-breasted youth, wearing a cap and two hanks of hair over his ears, communicated activity to the beast by pushing it when the students stood before it cape in hand.

In the centre of the enclosure a round, corpulent old man with a red face stood in his shirt-sleeves holding an armful of banderillas. Near the wall, slouching in one chair and resting her arms on another, was a lady of about the same age and not less voluminous, wearing a beflowered hat. Her florid face, with spots as yellow as chaff, dilated with enthusiasm every time her companion performed a good feat. The roses on her hat, and her false curls of a ridiculous blonde hue, shook with laughter as she applauded.

Standing in the doorway Pescadero explained these people to Gallardo. They must be French, or natives of some other foreign country—he was not sure where they were from nor did it matter to him. They were a married couple who travelled about the world and seemed to have lived everywhere. He had had a thousand trades, to judge from his tales; miner in Africa; colonist in distant isles; hunter of horses with a lasso in the solitudes of America. Now he wished to fight bulls—to earn money as did the Spaniards; and he attended the school every afternoon, with the determination of a stubborn child, paying generously for his lessons.

"Imagine it; a bull-fighter with that shape and well past fifty years of age!"

When the pupil saw the two men enter, he lowered his arms laden with banderillas, and the lady arranged her skirt and flowery hat. Oh, cher maître!—

"Good-afternoon Mosiú; greetings, Madame," said the master, raising his hand to his hat. "Let us see, Mosiú, how the lesson is getting on. You know what I have told you. Firm on your ground, you stir up the beast, you let him come on, and when you have him beside you, aim, and put the barbs in his neck. You don't have to worry yourself about anything; the bull will do everything for you. Attention! Are we ready?"

The master moved away, and the pupil faced the terrible bull, or rather the gamin who was behind it, his hands on its hind quarters to push it.

"A-a-a-a! Come on, Morito!"

Pescadero gave a frightful bellow to cause the animal to charge, exciting, with yells and with furious stamping on the ground, this animal with entrails of air and rushes, and a head of straw. Morito charged like a wild beast, with great clatter of wheels, bobbing his head up and down as he moved, the page who pushed him bringing up the rear. Never could bull of famous breed compare in intelligence with this Morito, immortal beast, stuck full of barbs and sword-thrusts thousands of times, suffering no other wounds than such insignificant ones as a carpenter cures. He seemed as wise as man. On drawing near the pupil, he changed his course so as not to touch him with his horns, moving away with the barbs lodged in his cork neck.

An ovation greeted this heroic feat, the banderillero remaining firm in his place, arranging the suspenders of his trousers and the cuffs of his shirt.

"Masterful, Mosiú!" shouted Pescadero. "That pair is first class!"

The foreigner, moved by the professor's applause, responded with modesty, beating his breast:

"Me got the most important. Courage, mucho courage."

Then, to celebrate his deed, he turned to Morito's page, who seemed to lick his lips in anticipation of the order. Let a bottle of wine be fetched. Three empty ones lay on the ground near the lady, who was constantly growing more purple in the face, wriggling in her clothing, greeting her companion's tauromachic exploits with great shouts of laughter.

On learning that he who had just arrived with the teacher was the famous Gallardo, and on recognizing his countenance so often admired by her in the newspapers and on match-boxes, the foreign woman lost color and her eyes grew tender. Oh, cher maître! She smiled at him, she rubbed against him, desiring to fall into his arms with all the weight of her voluminous and flabby person.

Glasses were clinked to the glory of the new bull-fighter. Even Morito took part in the feast, the steward who acted as nurse drinking in his name.

"Before two months, Mosiú," said Pescadero, with his Andalusian gravity, "you will be sticking banderillas in the plaza of Madrid like the very God himself, and you will have all the applause, all the money, and all the women—with your lady's permission."

The lady, without ceasing to gaze upon Gallardo with tender eyes, was moved with joy, and a noisy laugh shook her waves of fat.

Pescadero accompanied Gallardo down the street.

"Adios, Juan," he said gravely. "Maybe we'll see each other in the plaza to-morrow. Thou seest what I have come to—to earn my bread by these frauds and clown-tricks."

Gallardo walked away, thoughtful. Ah! that man whom he had seen throw money around in his good times with the arrogance of a prince, sure of his future! He had lost his savings in bad speculations. A bull-fighter's life was not one in which to learn the management of a fortune. And yet they proposed that he retire from his profession! Never.

He must get close to the bulls!

CHAPTER XVI

"THE GREATEST MAN IN THE WORLD"

DURING the whole night one dominant thought floated over the dark lake of Gallardo's dreams. He must get close! And the next morning the resolution was firmly rooted in his mind. He would get close, and astound the public by his brave deeds. Such was his mettle that he went to the plaza free from the superstitious fears of former times. He felt the certainty of triumph, the presentiment of his glorious afternoons.

The corrida was unlucky from the start. The first bull "came in fighting," furiously attacking the men on horseback. In an instant he had thrown the three picadores who awaited him lance in socket, and two of the hacks, lay dying, streams of dark blood gushing from their perforated chests. The other horse ran across the plaza, mad with pain and surprise. The bull, attracted by this race, ran after him, and lowering his powerful head beneath his belly, raised him on his horns and threw him on the ground, venting his rage on the poor broken and punctured hulk. As the wild beast left it kicking and dying, a mono sabio approached to finish it, burying his dagger blade in the crown of his head. The wretched hack showed the fury of a lion in his death struggles and bit the man, who gave a scream and shook his bleeding right hand, pressing on the dagger until the horse ceased kicking and lay with rigid limbs. Other plaza employees came running from all directions with great baskets of sand to throw in heaps over the pools of blood and the dead bodies of the horses.

The public was on its feet, gesticulating and vociferating. It was filled with enthusiasm by the bull's fierceness and protested because there was not a picador in the ring, shouting in chorus: "Horses, horses!"

Everybody knew they would come in immediately, but it infuriated them to have an interval pass without new carnage. The bull stood alone in the centre of the ring proud and bellowing, raising his blood-stained horns, the ribbons of the emblem on his lacerated neck fluttering in the breeze.

New horsemen appeared and the repugnant spectacle was repeated. The picador had barely approached with spear held in advance, reining his horse to one side so that the bandaged eye would prevent his seeing the bull, when the shock and fall were instantaneous. Javelins broke with the cracking sound of dry wood; the gored horse was raised on the powerful horns; blood spouted; bits of hide and flesh fell after the shock of mortal combat; the picador rolled along the sand like a yellow-legged puppet and was immediately covered by the attendants' capes.

The public hailed the riders' noisy falls with shouting and laughter. The arena resounded with the shock of their heavy bodies and their iron-covered legs. Some fell backwards like stuffed sacks, and their heads, as they encountered the boards of the barricade, awoke a dismal echo.

"He'll never get up again," shouted the people. "He must have busted his melon."

But he did get up again; he extended his arms, scratched his head, recovered his heavy beaver hat lost in the fall, and remounted the same horse which the monos sabios forced upon its feet with pushes and blows. The gay horseman urged his steed into a trot, and astride the agonized wreck rode to meet the wild beast again.

"Good for you!" he shouted, throwing his hat at a group of friends.

No sooner did he stand before the bull, thrusting his lance into the neck, than man and horse rose on high, the two immediately falling apart from the violence of the shock, and rolling in different directions. Again, before the bull attacked, the monos sabios and some of the audience warned the horseman. "Dismount!" But before his rigid legs would allow him to do so, the horse fell flat, instantly dead, and the picador was hurled over his ears his head striking the arena with a resounding thud.

The bull's horns never managed to gore the riders, but those lying on the ground apparently lifeless were carried by the peones to the infirmary to have their broken bones set or to be resuscitated from deathlike unconsciousness.

Gallardo, eager to attract the sympathy of the audience, hurried from place to place; he received great applause at one time for pulling a bull's tail to save a picador who lay on the ground at the point of being gored.

While the banderillas were being placed, Gallardo leaned against the barrier and gazed along the boxes. Doña Sol must be in one of them. At last he saw her, but without her white mantilla, without anything to remind him of that Sevillian lady dressed like one of Goya's majas. One might think her, with her blonde hair and her novel and elegant hat, one of those foreign women attending a bull-fight for the first time. At her side was the friend, that man of whom she talked with admiration and to whom she was showing the interesting features of the country. Ah, Doña Sol! Soon she should see of what mettle was the brave youth she had abandoned! She would have to applaud him in the presence of the hated stranger; she would be transported and moved against her will by the enthusiasm of the audience.

When the moment arrived for Gallardo to kill his first bull, the second on the programme, the public received him kindly as if it had forgotten its anger at the previous bull-fight. The two weeks of suspension on account of the rain seemed to have produced great tolerance in the multitude. They were willing to find everything acceptable in a corrida so long awaited. Besides, the fierceness of the bulls and the great mortality of horses had put the public in a good humor.

Gallardo strode up to the bull, his head uncovered after his salutation, with the muleta held before him, and swinging his sword like