One afternoon early in the spring, when the buds in the lemon trees
had begun to burst and had spread their little sweet-sour blossoms
all over the place, Jose, the bullfighter, a lad who had already won
his first spurs in the bull-ring of Seville--Jose who had been one of
her neighbors while they were living in Triana, stopped on his way
to the ring to see Don Hermanos. He had been attracted by tales of
the beauty of Maria del Alcazar, and had for a long time tried to see
her without succeeding. But dressed in the costume of the matador,
with a gold-laced black cap on his head, and a colored, spangled coat
over the narrow, red-velvet breeches, tightened at the knees over the
white stockings with green tassels, Don Jose felt he could dare make
the attempt to see her. He braved bulls; why should he step back from
meeting a woman?
While the hundred and one urchins cried, “There goes Don Jose!” he
crossed into the vaulted entrance of the Alcazar and was received at
the gate by Don Hermanos, who had been attracted by the outside noise.
“What great honor!” bowed Maria’s father, shaking the decoration
dangling on his breast.
“The honor indeed is mine,” answered Don Jose, bowing profoundly. “For,
if you recall, we have been neighbors in Triana. And my mother has
repeatedly spoken of Doña Hermanos, your wife, and of Señorita Maria.”
“May I lead you through the Alcazar, if you want to see it?” Don
Hermanos asked, while the other keepers had gathered about him and were
looking at the handsome young matador with great admiration.
“I shall follow you with pleasure,” Jose answered.
And throwing a handful of copper and silver to the urchins following
him, he walked rhythmically behind Don Hermanos, while the other
keepers were complimenting upon his recent exploits.
Jose was just a little over twenty, with the brown young eyes matured
from facing danger and death, although only a thin down covered his
long upper lip. He was not very tall, but so well proportioned that he
looked taller than he really was. He was even then only a short hour
from one of the battles in the great bull-ring.
“It is curious,” he said wistfully to Don Hermanos, catching up with
him and putting an arm familiarly on his shoulder, much to the envy of
the other keepers who followed behind, “but I have never been in the
Alcazar, and had thought of coming only after an Englishman with whom
I had become acquainted had spoken to me so enthusiastically about its
beauties. To live near such beauty and never see it!”
Don Hermanos was now showing him the oak-beamed and mosaic ceiling of
the reception hall.
“Beautiful!” exclaimed the bull-fighter, with ecstasy.
From the other end of the hall Maria was coming from the garden. She
had been dreaming by herself when she heard the approaching noise
of the heavily shod feet of the keepers coming in her direction,
and wondered what it could be, since it was not yet the season for
tourists. Shy, like a curious young doe, she glided noiselessly into
the presence of the group. She was wrapped in an old green shawl, and
her bare feet were in white, soft-soled slippers. Her hair, which she
had just washed in the sultana’s fountain, was hanging loosely over her
ivory-white neck and shoulders. She made as if to retrace her steps
when she saw Don Jose, but Jose was much too quick, the very instant of
her appearance he had called out:
“There goes Señorita Maria. How beautiful she has grown! There goes
Señorita Maria! How wonderful she has grown! Of course she does not
remember me any more,” he added petulantly and uncovered his head,
bowing elegantly.
“Come over, Maria,” her father called. “It is Jose. You certainly do
remember him, although you have never seen him in this garb.”
Maria slowly approached the group and curtsied ceremoniously before the
young man.
“What beauty!” exclaimed the bull-fighter, brutally and frankly looking
the girl in the face, as only a Spaniard would.
It made Maria tremble from head to foot to be looked at in that way.
But she answered promptly:
“Of course I do remember Doña Gloria’s son. And I recollect having been
told that he was occasionally fighting bulls in the small _pueblos_.”
“He is fighting in the rings of Seville and Madrid now,” Don Hermanos
corrected her. “See his matador costume.”
Maria looked at the young man, and then with a loud laugh she suddenly
rushed past him and disappeared, faun-like, before he had had time to
turn, for he was looking at Don Hermanos while he was spoken of.
Don Hermanos showed the bull-fighter the other great halls of the
Alcazar, but Jose was not half as interested as before. He was
continually looking elsewhere through the open portals and gates,
through the openings of the narrow alleys and subterranean halls.
“This used to be the great dancing hall of the sultan. This is the dais
upon which the _bayaderes_ danced. And, further, on the other side,
upon this black-veined marble block, many a beautiful slave has lost
her head if she had been unfaithful to the sultan, or if such was his
pleasure.”
But the bull-fighter was not much interested. He suddenly pulled out
his heavy gold watch from his pocket, and announced that he had to be
on his way to the ring, but that he would return frequently and see at
his leisure the wonders and the beauties of the Alcazar, adding, “Of
which your daughter Maria is the most beautiful.”
Don Hermanos bowed profoundly. True, he had known Jose when he was the
ragged scamp of the Triana, but a bull-fighter is a high personage, and
what such a man said about his daughter was not to be disdained.
On the way out, Don Jose asked whether he could not get a drink of
water, of which he was in need. Don Hermanos knew that it was a pretext
to stop at the house for a few moments. Don Hermanos’s wife received
the young bull-fighter, bowing profoundly, patting him, admiring him,
wishing him good luck, asking him how his mother was and how his
sisters were. But the beautiful Maria was not around.
Jose listened carefully, while the old woman spoke to him and while the
men stood about him in admiration, to hear some one breathing behind
the curtain that separated the room in two. He listened for a sound
behind the door at the top of the stairs that led to the upper rooms
from the middle of the lower one. And then his eyes saddened, and he
was ready to go, when the Doña Hermanos told him:
“But the water you have asked for, Don Jose? The glass of water is on
the table. Have you forgotten you were thirsty?”
He laughed loudly as he stood up and drank the glass.
“Indeed, I have forgotten,” he said.
And then the keepers looked at one another and smiled as they preceded
Jose outside, each one patting him familiarly on the shoulder.
“Are they good bulls, the ones you are fighting today, big and fierce?”
“Wonderful animals,” Don Jose answered, “Miuras.”
“Miuras!” they all repeated aloud, with eyes wide open, saying to one
another: “Do you hear? Miuras today in the bull-ring of Seville!”
And in the glances they exchanged with one another was all the lore
of the bull-ring; for the bulls bred by Count Miura were reputed to
be the fiercest of all, having killed many a great matador who had
appeared with them in the ring. And it seemed to Don Jose that at that
moment he heard from behind the latticed window overhead a deep gasp.
His chest broadened, and his heart rose higher as he walked out of the
gate, marching with the same rhythm he used coming out from the big
door that led into the arena, while music played the matador tune.