The Blood of the Arena Part 27

Generally the doctor was the only one who talked, followed in his pompous argument by Nacional's grave and admiring eyes. "Bull-fighting is an evolution," said he. "Dost thou understand, Sebastian? A development from the customs of our country, a modification of the popular diversions which Spaniards of olden times were given to; those times of which Don Joselito must often have talked of to thee."

Dr. Ruiz, with a gla.s.s in one hand, talked and talked, only stopping to take a sip.

The idea that bull-fighting as we know it is an ancient sport is nothing but a tremendous lie. They killed wild beasts in Spain for the diversion of the people but bull-fighting did not then exist as it is known to-day. The Cid speared bulls skilfully and Christian and Moorish gentlemen diverted themselves in the bull-ring, but bull-fighting as a profession did not exist nor did they send the animals to a n.o.ble death according to rules.

The doctor related the history of the national sport for centuries past.

Only on rare occasions, when kings married, when a treaty of peace was signed, or a chapel in a cathedral was dedicated, were such events as bull-fights celebrated. There was no regularity in the repet.i.tion of these feasts, nor were there any professional fighters. t.i.tled gentlemen dressed in costumes of silks went into the bull-ring mounted on their chargers to spear the beast, or to fight it with lances before the eyes of the ladies. If the bull managed to throw them off their horses they drew their swords, and with the a.s.sistance of their lackeys put it to death, wounding it wherever they could, without conforming to any rules.

When the _corrida_ was for the people the mult.i.tude descended into the arena, attacking the bull _en ma.s.se_ until they succeeded in routing it, killing it by dagger thrusts.

"Bull-fights did not exist," continued the doctor. "That was hunting wild cattle. In fact, the people had other occupations, and reckoned on other sports peculiar to their epoch, and did not need to perfect this diversion."

The warlike Spaniard had a sure means of making his career in his incessant wars in divers parts of Europe, and the exploration of the Americas always called for valiant men. Moreover, religion afforded frequent emotional spectacles, full of the thrill provided by the sight of suffering in others by which indulgences for the soul could be obtained. The sentences p.r.o.nounced by the Inquisition and the burning of human beings at the stake were spectacles that took away interest in games with mere wild animals. The Inquisition became the great national festival.

"But there came a day," continued Doctor Ruiz with a fine smile, "in which the Inquisition began to lose ground. Everything comes to an end in this world. It finally died of old age, long before the reform statutes suppressed it. It wore itself out; the world had changed and such diversions became something like what a bull-fight in Norway would be among the snows and beneath the gloomy sky. They lacked atmosphere.

They began to be ashamed of burning men, with all the pomp of sermons, ridiculous vestures, and recantations. They no longer dared pa.s.s Inquisition sentences. When it was necessary to show that it still existed they contented themselves with beatings given behind closed doors. At the same time we Spaniards, weary of roving over the world in search of adventure, began to stay at home. There were no longer wars in Flanders or in Italy; the conquest of America, with its continual embarkation of adventurers, terminated, and then it was that the art of bull-fighting began, that permanent plazas were constructed and _cuadrillas_ of professional bull-fighters were formed; the game was adjusted to rules, and the feats of _banderillas_ and of killing, as we know them to-day, were recognized. The mult.i.tude found the sport much to its liking. Bull-fighting became democratic when it was converted into a profession. Gentlemen were subst.i.tuted by plebians who demanded pay for exposing their lives, and the people flocked to the bull-rings of their own free will, and dared to insult from their seats in the plaza the very authority which inspired their terror in the streets. The sons of those who had frequented with religious and intense enthusiasm the burning of heretics and the baiting of Jews gave themselves up to witnessing, with noisy shouts, the struggle between the man and the bull, in which only occasionally death comes to the man. Is this not progress?"

Ruiz insisted on his idea. In the middle of the eighteenth century when Spain retired within herself, renouncing distant wars, and new colonizations, and when religious cruelty languished for lack of atmosphere, then was the time when bull-fighting flourished forth.

Popular heroism needed new heights to scale for notoriety and fortune.

The ferocity of the mult.i.tude, accustomed to orgies of death, needed a safety valve to give expansion to its soul, educated for centuries to the contemplation of torture. The Order of the Inquisition was replaced by the bull-fight. He who a century before would have been a soldier in Flanders, or a military colonizer in the solitudes of the New World, became a bull-fighter. The people, finding their avenues of expansion closed, saw in the new national sport a glorious opening for all the ambitious ones who had valor and courage.

"It was progress!" continued the doctor. "That seems clear to me. So I, who am revolutionary in everything, am not ashamed to say I like the bulls. Man needs a spice of wickedness to enliven the monotony of existence. Alcohol is bad also and we know it does us harm, but nearly all of us drink it. A little savagery now and then gives one new energy to go on living. We all like to take a look into the past once in a while and live the life of our remote ancestors. Brutality renews those mysterious inner forces that it is not well to let die. You say bull-fights are barbarous? So they are; but they are not the only barbarous sport in the world. The turning to violent and savage joys is a human ailment that all people suffer equally. For that reason I am indignant when I see foreigners turn contemptuous eyes on Spain, as if such things only existed here."

And the doctor railed against horse-races, in which many more men are killed than in bull-fights; against fox hunting with trained dogs, witnessed by civilized spectators; against many modern games out of which the champions come with broken legs, fractured skulls, or flattened noses; against the duel, fought in the majority of cases without other cause than an unhealthy desire for publicity.

"The bull and the horse," railed Ruiz, "bring to tears the very people that don't raise the slightest outcry in their own countries when they see a racing animal fall in the hippodrome, ruptured, or with broken legs, the very people who think the establishment of a zoological garden the complement to the beauty of every great city."

Doctor Ruiz was indignant because, in the name of civilization, bull-fights were anathematized as barbarous and sanguinary, while in the name of the same civilization the most useless as well as harmful animals on earth were lodged and fed and warmed in princely luxury. Why is that? Science knows them perfectly and has them catalogued. If their extermination is objected to, one must still protest against the dark tragedies that take place every day in the cages in the zoological parks, the goat bleating piteously as he is thrust defenceless into the panther's den, to be crushed to death by the wild beast burying his claws in the victim's entrails, and his chops in his steaming blood; timid rabbits, torn from the mountain's fragrant peace, trembling at the breath of the boa which hypnotizes them with its eyes and winds the coils of its grotesque rings about them. Hundreds of poor animals which should be protected because of their weakness die to sustain absolutely useless ferocious wild beasts that are kept and feasted in cities which boast of belonging to the higher civilization; and from these same cities insults are hurled against Spanish cruelty, because brave and expert men, following rules of undisputed wisdom, kill a proud and fearful wild beast face to face, in broad day, beneath the blue heavens, in the presence of a noisy, gay-colored mult.i.tude, adding the charm of picturesque beauty to the emotion of danger. _Vive Dios!_

"They insult us because we have become weak," said Ruiz, waxing indignant over what he considered universal injustice. "Our world is like a monkey that imitates the gestures and joys of the one he respects as a master. Just now England leads, and both hemispheres approve horse-racing; crowds stupidly gather to watch lank nags run around a race-track, a spectacle that could not be surpa.s.sed in insipidity. If in the days of Spain's supremacy bull-fighting had been as popular as to-day, there would now be bull-rings in many European countries. Don't talk to me about the superior foreigners! I admire them because they have made revolutions, and we owe much of our thought to them; but regarding bulls, heavens, man, they talk nothing but nonsense!"

And the vehement doctor, with the blindness of fanaticism, condemned in his execration everybody on the planet who abominated the Spanish sport while at the same time they upheld other sanguinary diversions which cannot even justify themselves with the pretext of beauty.

After a stay of ten days in Seville the doctor had to return to Madrid.

"Well, young fellow," he said to the sick man, "thou dost not need me now and I have a great deal to do. Don't be imprudent. After two months thou wilt be well and strong. It is possible thou mayest be a little stiff in the leg, but thou hast a const.i.tution of iron and thou wilt mend."

Gallardo's recovery took place within the time set by Ruiz. When at the end of a month his leg was freed from its enforced quiet, the bull-fighter, weak and limping slightly, could go out and sit in an arm-chair in the courtyard, where he received his friends.

During his illness, when the fever was high and he was lost in delirium, one thought, ever the same, held firm in the midst of his imaginative wanderings. Dona Sol--did that woman know of his misfortune?

While he was still in bed he ventured to ask his manager about her one day when they were alone.

"Yes, man," said Don Jose, "she has thought of thee. She sent me a telegram from Nice, asking about thy health three days after the accident. Doubtless she heard of it through the newspapers. They have talked about thee everywhere, as if thou wert a king."

The manager had answered the telegram but had heard nothing from her since.

Gallardo was satisfied with this news for some days but then he began to ask again, with the insistence of a sick man who thinks the whole world interested in the state of his health. Had she not written? Had she not asked for more news of him? The manager tried to excuse Dona Sol's silence and thus console his _matador_. He must remember that the lady was always travelling. How could any one know where she might be at that moment?

But the bull-fighter's sorrow at thinking himself forgotten obliged Don Jose to lie out of pity. Days before he had received a short note from Italy in which Dona Sol asked for news of the wounded man.

"Let me see it," said Gallardo eagerly.

When he pretended to have forgotten it at home, Gallardo implored him, "Bring it to me. I so long to see her writing, to convince myself that she remembers me."

To avoid new complications, Don Jose invented a correspondence which never reached his hands because it was directed to some one else. Dona Sol wrote, according to him, to the marquis in regard to business connected with her fortune, and at the end of every letter she asked about Gallardo's health. Again, the letters were to a cousin of hers and in them was the same thought of the bull-fighter.

Gallardo heard this news joyfully but at the same time shook his head with a doubtful expression. When would he see her again! Would he ever see her? Ah, that erratic woman, who had flown without reason at the caprice of her strange disposition!

"What thou shouldst do," said the manager, "is to forget women and think about business a little. Thou art no longer in bed. How dost thou feel in regard to strength? Tell me, shall we fight bulls or not? Thou hast the rest of the winter in which to grow strong. Shall we accept contracts to fight this year, or shall we refuse?"

Gallardo raised his head proudly, as if something dishonorable had been proposed to him. Give up bull-fighting? Pa.s.s a year without being seen in the ring? Was it possible the public could be resigned to such an absence?

"Accept, Don Jose. From now till spring there is time to get strong. I will fight whatever they put before me. You can make a contract for the Easter bull-fight. It seems to me this leg is going to give me a good deal of trouble, but by then, G.o.d willing, I'll be as if made of iron."

It was two months before the bull-fighter grew strong. He limped slightly and felt less agility in his arms; but he made light of these troubles as insignificant when he began to feel the power of health reanimating his vigorous body.

Finding himself alone in his wife's room (for he had returned to it when he abandoned the sick chamber), he stood before a mirror and squared himself as though facing a bull, placing one arm above the other in the form of a cross as though holding the sword and _muleta_ in his hands.

_Zas!_ A sword-thrust at the invisible bull. To the very hilt! He smiled proudly thinking how his enemies were going to be deceived, those who prophesied his immediate decadence whenever he was gored.

It would be a long time yet before he could enter the ring. He longed for the glory of applause and the acclamation of the mult.i.tudes with the eagerness of a beginner,--as though the recent injury had closed a past existence; as if the former Gallardo were another man while now he had to begin his career anew.

He decided to pa.s.s the rest of the winter at La Rinconada with his family, to gain strength. Hunting and long trips would improve his broken leg. Besides, he would ride on horseback overseeing the work, he would visit the flocks of goats, the herds of swine, the droves of cattle and horses pastured in the meadows. The administration of the plantation was not getting on well. Everything cost him more than other proprietors and the profits were less. It was the estate of a bull-fighter of generous habits accustomed to earning great quant.i.ties of money without knowing the restriction of economy. His travels during a part of the year, and his accident, which had brought stupefaction and disorder into his house, caused business to go awry.

Antonio, his brother-in-law, who had established himself at the plantation for a season with the airs of a dictator intending to set everything in order, had only impeded the progress of the work and provoked the ire of the laborers. Fortunately Gallardo counted on certain returns from the bull-fights, an inexhaustible source of wealth for repairing his prodigality.

Before leaving for La Rinconada Senora Angustias begged her son to go and kneel before the Virgin of Hope. It was to fulfil a promise she had made in that dismal twilight when she had seen him brought home upon a stretcher, pale and motionless as a dead man. How often had she wept before the Macarena, the beautiful Queen of Heaven with her long lashes and olive cheeks, asking her not to forget her poor Juanillo!

The occasion was a popular event. The gardeners of the Macarena ward were called upon by the master's mother, and the Church of San Gil was filled with flowers arranged in tall heaps like pyramids on the altars, or hanging in garlands between the arches and suspended from the lamps in great cl.u.s.ters.

The sacred ceremony took place one bright morning. In spite of its being a week-day the church was filled with the best families of the nearby wards; stout women with black eyes and short necks, with waists and hips outlined in coa.r.s.e curves, wearing black silk gowns with lace _mantillas_ over their pale faces; workmen recently shaven, in new suits, round hats, and with great gold chains on their waistcoats.

Beggars came in bands as if a wedding were to be celebrated and stood at the doors of the temple in double file. The good wives of the ward, unkempt and with babies in their arms, formed groups, impatiently awaiting the arrival of Gallardo and his family.

A ma.s.s was to be sung with accompaniment of orchestra and voices, something extraordinary, like the opera in the theatre of San Fernando at Christmas time. Then the priests would sing the _Te Deum_ as a thanksgiving for the recovery of Senor Juan Gallardo, just as when the king entered Seville.

The _cortege_ appeared making its way through the crowd. The bull-fighter's mother and wife, with relatives and friends, walked in advance, while the heavy silk of their skirts rustled as they pa.s.sed, smiling sweetly beneath their _mantillas_.

Behind came Gallardo, followed by an interminable escort of bull-fighters and friends, all dressed in light colors, with chains and rings of amazing splendor, wearing on their heads white felt hats which contrasted with the blackness of the feminine headgear.

Gallardo was grave. He was a sincere believer. He thought little about G.o.d and blasphemed Him in difficult moments with the automatism of custom; but this was a different thing; he was going to give thanks to the Most Holy Macarena, and he entered the temple with an air of pious compunction.

All went in except Nacional, who abandoned his wife and offspring and remained outside in the churchyard.

"I am a free-thinker," he believed the time opportune to declare before a group of friends. "I respect all beliefs; but what is going on inside, for me is--_liquid!_ I don't want to be lacking in respect to the Macarena, nor to rob her of her due, but, comrade, if I had not arrived in time to attract the bull away when Juaniyo was stretched on the ground--!"

The sound of the instruments was borne out to the churchyard, with the voices of the singers, a sweet, voluptuous harmony, accompanied by breaths of perfume from the flowers and the odor of wax candles.

The bull-fighters and devotees of Gallardo who were gathered outside the temple smoked cigarette after cigarette. From time to time some of them strayed off to while away the time in the nearest tavern.