The Blood of the Arena. Vicente Blasco Ibanez
with anger. "Whoever would have thought of bringing a funeral along the road to the plaza? Damn it! I say something's going to happen to-day!"
Nacional smiled, shrugging his shoulders.
"Superstitions and fanaticisms! Neither God nor Nature bothers over these things."
These words, which irritated Gallardo still more, caused the grave preoccupation of the other bull-fighters to vanish, and they began to joke about their companion as they did on all occasions when he dragged in his favorite expression of "God or Nature."
When the road was clear the carriage began to move at the full speed of the mules, crowding along with the other vehicles that flowed to the plaza. Arrived there it turned to the left toward the gate of the stables that led to the enclosures and stalls, obliged to move now at slower pace among the dense crowd. Another ovation to Gallardo when he descended from the coach followed by his banderilleros; blows and pushes to keep his dress from unclean contact; smiles of greeting; concealment of the right hand which all wished to press.
"Make way, gentlemen! many thanks!"
The large enclosure between the body of the plaza and the walls of the outbuildings was full of the curious who wished to see the bull-fighters at close range before taking their seats. Above the heads of the crowd emerged the picadores and guards on horseback in their seventeenth century dress. At one side of the enclosure rose one-story brick buildings with vines over the doors and pots of flowers in the windows, a small community of offices, shops, stables, and houses in which lived the stable boys, the carpenters, and other employees of the bull-ring.
The matador pressed forward laboriously among the assemblage. His name passed from mouth to mouth with exclamations of enthusiasm.
"Gallardo! Here is Gallardo! Hurrah! Viva España!"
And he, wholly preoccupied by the adoration of the public, advanced swaggering, serene as a god, happy and satisfied, as if he were assisting at a feast in his honor.
Suddenly two arms encircled his neck, and a strong stench of wine assailed his nostrils.
"You smasher of women's hearts! You glorious one! Hurrah for Gallardo!"
It was a man of decent appearance; he rested his head on the swordsman's shoulder and thus remained as though falling asleep in spite of his enthusiasm. Gallardo's pushing, and the pulling of his friends, freed the bull-fighter from this interminable embrace. The drunken man, finding himself separated from his idol, broke out in shouts of enthusiasm. "Hurrah! Let all the nations of the world come to admire bull-fighters like this one and die of envy! They may have ships, they may have money, but that's trivial! They have neither bulls nor youths like this—no one to outstrip him in bravery. Hurrah, my boy! Viva mi tierra!"
Gallardo crossed a great white washed hall bare of furniture where his professional companions stood surrounded by enthusiastic groups. Way was immediately made among the crowd which obstructed a door, and he passed through it into a narrow, dark room, at the end of which shone the lights of the chapel. An ancient painting representing the Virgin of the Dove hung over the back of the altar. Four candles were burning before it and branches of moth-eaten cloth flowers in vases of common earthenware were falling to dust.
The chapel was full of people. The devotees of the humbler classes crowded in to see the great men close by. They remained in the dimness with uncovered head; some crowded into the foremost ranks, others stood on chairs and benches, the majority of them with their backs to the Virgin and looking greedily toward the door, ready to shout a name the instant they discerned the glitter of a spangled costume.
The banderilleros and picadores, poor devils who were going to expose their lives as much as were the maestros, scarcely raised the slightest murmur by their presence. Only the most fervent enthusiasts recognized their nicknames.
Suddenly a prolonged buzzing, a name repeated from mouth to mouth:
"Fuentes!—That is Fuentes!"
And this elegant bull-fighter with his air of gentility and his cape over his shoulder advanced to the altar and bent one knee with theatrical arrogance, his gypsy-like eyes reflecting the lights and his graceful and agile body thrown back as he looked upward. As soon as his prayer was said and he had made the sign of the cross he rose, walking backwards toward the door without losing sight of the image, like a singer who retires bowing to the audience.
Gallardo was more simple in his devotions. He entered swaggering with no less arrogance, cap in hand and his cape folded, but on finding himself in the presence of the image he fell on both knees and gave himself up to prayer, unconscious of the hundreds of eyes fixed on him. His simple Christian soul trembled with fear and remorse. He asked protection with the fervor of ingenuous men who live in continual danger and believe in all kinds of adverse influences and in supernatural protection.
For the first time during the whole exciting day he thought of his wife and mother. Poor Carmen, there in Seville awaiting the telegram! Señora Angustias, happy with her chickens at the farm of La Rinconada, without knowing for a certainty in what place her son fought the bulls to-day! And he with the terrible presentiment that this afternoon something was going to happen! Virgin of the Dove! Some little protection! He would be good, he would forget the other one, he would live as God commands.
And with his superstitious spirit strengthened with this vain repentance, he left the chapel with troubled eyes, still deeply stirred and heedless of the people who obstructed the way.
Outside in the room where the bull-fighters were waiting, a shaven-faced man, dressed in a black habit which he seemed to wear with a certain slovenliness, greeted him.
"Bad sign!" murmured the bull-fighter, continuing on his way. "When I say that something is going to happen to-day—"
The black-robed man was the chaplain of the plaza, an enthusiast in the art of bull-fighting, who had come with the Holy Oils beneath his habit. He was accompanied by a neighbor who served him as sacristan in exchange for a seat to see the bull-fight. On bull-fight days he hired a carriage, which the management paid for, and he chose by turns among his friends and protégés one on whom to confer the favor of the seat destined for the sacristan, beside his own in the front row near the doors of the bull-pen.
The priest entered the chapel with a proprietary air, scandalized at the behavior of the congregation; all had their hats off, but were talking in a loud voice and some were even smoking.
"Gentlemen, this is not a café. Be so kind as to go out. The bull-fight is going to begin."
This news caused a dispersion, while the priest took out the hidden Holy Oils and placed them in a box of painted wood. Then he too, as soon as he had secreted the sacred articles, ran out to take his place in the plaza before the appearance of the cuadrilla.
The crowd had disappeared. No one was to be seen in the enclosure but men dressed in silk and embroidery, yellow horsemen with great beaver hats, guards on horseback, and the assistants in their suits of gold and blue.
The bull-fighters formed with customary promptness before the horses' gate beneath an arch that gave exit to the plaza, the maestros at the front, then the banderilleros keeping far apart, and behind them, in the enclosure itself, stamped the sturdy rough squadron of the picadores, smelling of burnt hide and dung, mounted on skeleton-like horses with one eye bandaged. As rearguard of this army the teams of mules intended for dragging out the slaughtered bulls fretted behind them; they were restless, vigorous animals with shining coats, covered with trappings of tassels and bells, and wore on their collars the waving national flag.
Beyond the arch, above the wooden gates which half obstructed it, opened a narrow space, leaving visible a portion of the sky, the tiled roof of the plaza, and a section of seats with the compact multitude swarming like ants, amid which fans and papers seemed to flutter like gayly colored mosquitoes. Through this gallery entered a strong breeze—the respiration of an immense lung. An harmonious humming was borne on the undulations of the air, making certain distant music felt, rather divined than heard.